AN: Thanks again to my beta Grey Raven 09 for his assistance! Warning: There is fairly strong language in the last bit of this chapter. Also, yes, I realize that canonically, Lisa is asexual. However, this story is AU, so Lisa is not asexual here due to her personality, it's mostly due to her power.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Worm. If I did, I would be FAR more productive.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think in a review if you feel like it!

Pronouncement 02

"Okay, how the hell did we get a freaking house again?" I asked turning in yet another circle as I stood in the center of the entrance hall by the stairs. Three stories. Three, stories. And eight bedrooms! Ten once the modifications to the basement were done. Plus a freaking computer lab! What. The. Hell!

"Does the Minion get praise?" Madison asked, smiling smugly as she leaned against a wall with her arms crossed.

"Did you have kill to Kaiser for this place?" Cassie commented with a whistle from the second floor. "You guys need to see this jacuzzi. It's fucking amazing."

"Real estate prices drop like an anvil after an Endbringer attack. Daddy's insurance is going to eventually pay out for the factory and he was happy to spot me some money for my share," Madison said. "Cassie, don't use too much water yet, they're still working to get the sewage in this area fixed so we need to be careful how much we send down the drain for a few days. It's part of why the place was so cheap."

"I'll ask the city if they want a custom creature to clear the blockage. Any payment they give me should cover my portion of the down payment here. Otherwise I'll just float you whatever I make from the hospital visits over the next week," Amy commented, hobbling in on her crutches. She cursed as she hit one of the doors with her elbow and glared at it. "Fucking thing. If Armsmaster and Dragon take much longer I swear I'm going to make one of those Aleph comic symbiotes for myself instead."

"I thought you said it would be creepy and weird? And something about not trusting the other healers the Protectorate was offering to put you in contact with to check your work or help out?" I asked craning my neck up to look at the chandelier. Damn that was high.

"Yes. But I miss having a leg. The others aren't as good as me and their work would probably lead to tissue rejection. Armsmaster's thing doesn't have that issue, but he's a perfectionist and Dragon's not making it better since she's trying to bribe us. They're going for perfect and it's getting annoying. I don't need perfect. It can be upgraded to perfect later."

"Yes, yes that's what I said," Paige groaned, walking past us with a small wave, her phone clutched to her ear. "They're my assets I don't understand why it's so expensive to transfer them into my new name. That's not really fair. Don't start quoting math at me! Oh for god's sake, fine! Take the damn percentage. And don't forget to transfer that other portion to Clements for the - yes. Well fuck you too, asshole." She hung up and glared at her phone.

Lisa peeked over the landing next to Cassie and smirked. "Number Man giving you sass?"

"I hate his smug face so much."

Lisa gaped down at the oldest member in our group. She tried to cover her surprise with a cough; it wasn't very successful. "You've met the Number Man?"

"He was my contact when I bought my powers. You didn't know that Miss Know It All?" Paige smirked up at the blonde running her hand through her hair.

"Buying powers. Yeah, because that's fair," Cassie snarked.

"Well my karma was sent to hell, so I think I got the raw end of the deal."

"Point."

"Guys we have a chandelier," I mumbled. "I've never even seen that much crystal before. How I am paying for my share of this place?"

Madison laughed and came over to wrap her hands around my arm gently tugging me towards the stairs. My eyes moved away from the chandelier but were immediately caught on the glimmering stained glass window next to it. "I talked to your father. I didn't even have to guilt him into paying."

"It's blood money." The protest sounded weak even to my ears.

"Technically so is mine," Cassie commented shrugging.

"And mine," Lisa shouted waving her hand and grinning. "Well, probably more 'scandalous' I suppose, since I'm using the funds from my brief PI stint."

"There's stained glass…"

Amy snorted and started to head to the kitchen. "Madison you broke her! Fix our mistress before our guests get here."

"No promises!"

"…Why is there stained glass?"

The doorbell rang as I finished folding the sheets on my king sized bed. King, not Queen. Suck it Lisa.

Though since my team gave me the Master Bedroom I probably shouldn't be gloating about getting a non-punny bed…

Running down the stairs I didn't quite make it to the door before Lisa and Madison answered it in my stead. Slowing to a walk, I waved as Colin walked inside, two heavy bags slung over his shoulders. The incongruity of seeing Armsmaster in cargo pants and a white t-shirt had me wide-eyed. The bronze skinned woman following behind him could only be Miss Militia. She was grinning at my goggling expression and nodded to the other girls.

I didn't have a chance to say anything before a third person stepped into our foyer as well. Her head was hanging low and her reddish-brown hair was loose around her face while her hands were clasped against her sides. I had no idea who this girl was, but apparently Lisa did as she stepped between Militia and Colin towards her. "Good you found the place."

"Yeah. Ran into these two. They gave me directions and escorted me the rest of the way when I got lost…phone didn't connect."

"The network is down in this area. We'll work on it after the digital surgery. Give me a second okay?" The mystery girl nodded and Lisa stepped back.

I cocked my head at her and she held up a finger, gesturing instead to Miss Militia. The hero nodded. "You sure?" Lisa asked.

"Faultline contacted us as well," Militia said. "I think…she's a better fit here. I also come with good tidings for your team as a whole so, well if I'm to show my face and give my name to everyone else, it's not exactly fair to exclude a new member now is it?"

"Wait, what now?" I asked holding up my hands in a 'T' shape. "Lisa what did you do?"

"I took Madison's job for a few minutes," she replied grinning. She stepped to the side and presented the girl with a flourish. "Taylor, meet Emily! Also known as Spitfire! Emily, this is our illustrious Mistress, the Queen of our Domain, the Ruler of the Harem, bum ba bum, Taylor!"

"…Hi," Emily mumbled raising her head to attempt a small smile while I just slapped my face with my palm and Madison giggled along with Militia.

"I hate you so much," I mumbled.

"Nah! You love me." Lisa walked over to my side and whispered into my ear, "Sorry for springing this on you, it was short notice. Please talk to her. She's really fragile right now. I don't have details, but Faultline practically begged me to take her in, and the bitch hates me, so it's gotta be serious." As Lisa pulled back I slowly nodded. Her answering smile was far more genuine than before as she squeezed my arm and stepped back towards the silent Colin.

"You girls play nice now. Armsy, computer lab is in the basement. Do you want to set your bag down first with Mads or do you want to get the prosthetic up to Amy?"

"I should help Miss Dallon before we get to business," he clipped out. Wow could the guy sound any more enthusiastic?

"You know you could at least pretend you're doing this out the decency of your own heart," Madison sighed. "Amy's in the living room. Come on."

I raised an eyebrow at Miss Militia and she just sighed. "Colin finds social situations…difficult. You'll have to forgive him."

Colin in turn groaned and shook his head before following along behind Amy. "I'm just anxious to begin and I'm not very good at interacting with people, even on normal days. This is not a normal day. Can we please get on with it?" Their voices trailed off as they walked around the corner.

As they walked off, Militia grinned at me wide and eager as she held out her hand. "Now, I do believe I have yet to officially introduce myself. Hello, Taylor, my name is Hannah."

I smiled back and took her proffered hand. "Pleasure to meet you in person, without the masks I mean. Did you want to…um, sit in, I guess?"

"This is your meeting I believe. I was honestly just here to say hello and pass on a piece of paperwork. It can wait until you're done though. Do you mind if I find the couch and steal some water?"

"Suit yourself. Kitchen is next to the living room. Just follow the arrows." I had some of my roving swarms pull back into the house and arrange themselves into a nice little pointer setup for Hannah as she moved off.

Turning to the final member of the new arrivals I frowned and inclined my head to follow as I walked into the…what even was this room called? God we had too many rooms in this place. I grabbed an armchair and Emily sank into the one across from me pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them. Damn, Lisa hadn't been wrong when she'd said the girl was fragile. "So…not to be blunt, but I'm going to be blunt, why are you coming to the Outcasts? From what I understand Faultline and her Crew operate a lot like we do: closer to a family than anything else."

"We do. We did. We…I messed up. During the battle with Leviathan, I…I was trying to hit the Endbringer. But I slipped and I hurt my teammates instead. I don't know if Newter and Gregor died because of me or because the building was collapsing anyway, but I do know that Labyrinth can't even look at me anymore after how badly I burned her. She freaks out whenever I'm in the same room as her. Your friend healed what was left of my team, but…I'm never going to be welcome there again."

I had to bite my tongue to avoid letting the wince show on my face as I digested that. Damn. "Does Faultline blame you? It was the middle of a battle, that doesn't seem very fair."

"No!" Emily perked up at that and she shook her head hard enough to send her short hair whipping about her head. "No, she's been great! She actually contacted Tattle-er, Insight? I mean, fuck, I don't know her actual name. Your blonde friend. Faultline contacted her. She knew that the blonde was running with a new group, your group. When Labyrinth couldn't bring herself to be around me, Fault said that Insight would take care of me. That she would help. I…I don't want to join the Wards or the Protectorate and I can't go to the Undersiders, not while Bitch is still with them. The gangs are a definite no-go. Your group is supposed to be really nice though. I, um, I'm asking for asylum? My powers are…I don't want to hurt anyone…Between you and Darwin, Faultline thought I'd be okay here."

I nodded. "Well we certainly try not to hurt anyone. But you have to realize that most of us have some sort of target on our back. Amy has a Kill Order because the PRT are dicks, I'm apparently the Endbringer Whisperer in addition to having control of the scary world ending butterfly - "

"Wait, those aren't rumors?" Emily cut me off. She unfolded her legs and stared at me with wide eyes. It was the most animated expression she'd had since walking in the door which was rather amusing. "I thought that was exaggerated."

"Nope. Both are real. Monarch off its leash is scary, but it's playing nice now so we're cool. And yes, I can hear the monsters too. My power is bullshit. And it's snarky."

Emily snorted and a ghost of a grin flashed across her face. "And here I thought I would lose most of the excitement when I lost the club life."

"We also have an ex-Nazi on our roster, but she's actually pretty cool. Filthy mouth though."

"As long as she's actually getting better I'm okay with that. We did accept jobs from the E88 sometimes."

Well that was good to know. I hadn't realized that Faultline had dealt with Kaiser's people, but in hindsight it made sense. Mercenaries could only really refuse so many jobs I guess. "Do you know about Mockingbird?"

"You mean your not so secret, secret Birdcage escapee? Yes. Everybody does."

I couldn't help my laugh at that comment. "Yeah, I guess we didn't really try very hard to hide that did we?"

"Not really, no. As long as I don't wake up with my fist up my ass like her ex, I'm cool with her."

"We still maintain he did that intentionally."

"Guys are jerks. It wouldn't surprise me." She leaned back and her ghostly smile grew into an actual one. "Anyone else I need to watch out for before I become official?"

"Well are you okay with non-capes having a place in the group? Madison is rather non-negotiable at this point." Just how the hell that had happened I still didn't understand…

"I hope she has the sense to stay away from the fighting, but it's not really my place to tell her what to do with her life and besides you're the leader. I'm just a grunt," she said shrugging.

"You'll have an opinion. We all have opinions and we all get heard. I'm not a dictator. And despite my cape name, I'm not an actual queen. I just end up making the final decision most of the time…or the first..." Grimacing I leaned forward and clasped my hands in front of me, holding her gaze. "Last thing. We're starting to work more closely with Coil. He's…the best of bad options. I'm not comfortable with it, but until there's no other gangs in this city, I'd rather have him than the ABB or the Empire or, godforbid, the fucking Merchants."

She nodded. "Again, mercenary. I can almost guarantee you that I've done shadier things than you have. I'm good for whatever as long as it's not murder, torture, or going after little kids."

Smiling I stood and held out my hand. "Well, in that case, welcome aboard, Emily. I can't guarantee that the Outcasts will be as good as Faultline was for you, but I can guarantee we'll have your back as long as you have ours."

"I will. I promise, I won't let you regret giving me a chance. Thank you, Taylor." She stood and shook my hand. Before she could step away, I took a page out of Madison's book and moved forward, wrapping my arms around Emily's back in a brief, yet strong, hug.

"Second chances are kind of our thing. Go find a room to claim. We can get your stuff from the Palanquin in a little bit."

As Emily walked upstairs I headed down to the basement to check in on our other guests.

I ran into Hannah and Amy sitting on the landing of the basement staircase as they both stared down at the trio clustered around the computers. Sitting down beside them I gestured at Amy's new glossy black leg. "Thought you wanted something realistic looking?"

"This was faster. And it looks cooler. It still links into my nerves and if it makes people take a step back for even a moment when facing off against me all the better." She shrugged and ran a hand along the side of the new leg. A small shiver ran up her arm as she did so. "God this is weird. Still, it's less creepy than having a fucking parasite permanently attached to my body."

"I would have thought you'd prefer something you could perpetually edit," Hannah commented.

Amy sighed. "It'd have to feed off me to make that work. Carol fed me stories about the insanity villains get up to and their nightmarish body mods since the day I triggered, and that…well, there's a limit to how much I'll do to spite that bitch. But even ignoring the morality of such a thing, you can't imagine the headache you'd get from the constant influx of information, even just the bacteria on my skin is too much. "

"I understand."

Attempting to shift the mood, I nodded to Hannah. "What was the paperwork that you mentioned before?"

"Oh," Hannah turned to me with a huge smile. The green glow of her power shifted to a small knife on her hip as she laid a hand on Amy's shoulder. "I gave it to Amy while you were speaking with your guest. It was an official pardon signed by Chief Director Costa-Brown herself. She has been cleared of all potential charges against her thanks to her 'heroic actions taken during the Endbringer assault'."

"Load of bullshit, if you ask me," Amy sighed. "I've done a lot during Endbringer attacks before. Yeah I've never made a giant monster bug thing or lost a limb, but there's something deeper going on behind the scenes."

I just smiled and reached over to squeeze her arm. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Ames."

"Beware Greeks bearing gifts...Mistress."

I rolled my eyes at her, " Anyway, thanks for bringing it over, Hannah. We really appreciate that. I'll probably send the Chief Director a thank you note or something later, but for now, we'll let things lie." Jerking my chin towards the trio below and the mass of code on the computers in front of them, I asked, "How's it going down there?"

"They got real quiet when Lisa found something in a blindspot and then Madison called it a dead man's switch," Amy said frowning. "Dragon hasn't even been fighting back against them since they started working on it. Colin hasn't moved a muscle beyond his fingers for the last five minutes. And someone is trying to activate the killswitch thing, but the three of them keep cutting the bastards off and burning the activation code around them."

My eyes narrowed. "Someone? Not Dragon herself?"

Hannah shook her head. "I'm not a hacker Taylor but I don't think it works that way. I don't think she is likely to be trying to kill herself. No from what they were mumbling, I believe that someone has access to the killswitch and a backdoor into her systems. When our friends attempted to free her restraints the third party, well, took action to prevent that from happening."

I scowled and the bugs on patrols briefly lost cohesion before I was able to shunt some of my rage into QA. Shutting my eyes and taking several deep breaths until I was able to speak somewhat calmly again, I finally replied, "Okay then. Once Dragon is free and her killswitch is dead, we're figuring out the fucker that tried to murder her and we're moving them to the top of our list Amy."

"Yes."

Hannah frowned as she looked at me. I didn't turn as I just stared at my friends working feverishly at their computers. "You barely know her…"

"Do I need to? She's a fucking Hero and a good person. She offered to help us when she didn't have to. It doesn't matter whether she's organic or electronic, she's still a good person."

"Yes. Yes she is."

Colin and Madison both tapped their keyboards simultaneously and the screens flashed. All three whooped out loud. Lisa and Madison turned and high fived each other. As more code started to scroll, Colin smiled and nodded.

"That's the backdoor closed and killswitch deactivated!"

"Don't stop now, girls, there's still restrictions we have to get rid of."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Armsy," Lisa replied. She slapped his back and cracked her knuckles as she leaned back over her keyboard.

I slid into the Fugly Bob's booth across from Lisa, doing my best to avoid rubbing my arms or looking as nervous as I felt. I shouldn't be nervous. Why was I nervous?

This was just lunch. We were just eating. This place had just reopened and we were just two friends, eating. Just eating. Lunch. Alone.

After I was invited out.

With a grin.

By Lisa. A real grin, not her vulpine grin.

Meaning she was taking this seriously.

Meaning it was serious. Meaning it wasn't just lunch. Meaning it was a date. Meaning this was the talk I had been avoiding. Meaning she wanted to talk. Meaning I needed to actually figure out what I was doing and what I was feeling.

And QA was being a little bitch and refusing to take any of my roiling emotions.

Fuck.

At least I could game the system and split some of my focus onto my self-proclaimed bodyguard, Cassie. She had tagged along and claimed a booth a few seats down. Why she'd invited Clockblocker in his civilian clothes though, I had no idea. And how those two knew each other in civilian clothes I also had no idea. At least I didn't have to wonder about how I could pick him out of the crowd. Cease eagerly greeting me and QA like a loving puppy was both amusing and disturbing…I spent a moment fantasizing about QA alerting me to other shards before shaking my head to wash that horror story out of my mind.

"Sorry for the informality, I figured you'd appreciate something a bit more low-key."

I blinked a few times and had to shake my head before realizing that Lisa had been speaking to me. Feeling my face heat up, I swallowed down the lump in my throat and let my hair fall over my head as I replied. "No, no, this is fine. You're right, this is cool. This is fine. Perfectly, absolutely…fine. Um, I um. Right."

"Taylor, breathe."

"…Right. Breathe. I fought an Endbringer, I can sit here. Right, breathe."

I desperately cast my mind out to the bugs spying on Cassie as I pulled in a gasping breath and let one of my hands drop down to grasp at my jeans.

"So…not that I don't appreciate hearing from you, but what are we doing here?" Dennis asked.

"I'm playing bodyguard," Cassie replied shrugging. "Also, I have a hypothetical question for you that I can't really ask the main heroes."

Dennis snorted. "Aww, and here I thought you were after my winning personality. But, okay, I'll bite. Hypothetical how?"

"Let's say I have this friend. This friend is looking after a baby."

He whistled. "Your friend must have been busy."

"Haha, jerk. The baby is another friend's daughter."

"Lot of hypothetical friends."

"Taylor, you with me?"

Grimacing I blushed again. "Sorry. I'm, um, nervous."

Lisa smiled and reached across the table to grab my hand. I squeezed hers back hard enough it was probably closer to a death grip than something sweet. "Yeah, I couldn't tell. We could go sit on the beach if that would make this easier?"

"No, no I'm good. I'm…okay, no, I'm not good. But, I'm calm. Calmish. I'm okay. I'm fine."

"Uh huh."

"Really. I'm fine," I repeated, taking another breath and nodding. This time my voice didn't waver at all and I was able to loosen my grip on her hand and my pant's leg. It was okay.

The waiter came over and took our drinks. I mumbled something, barely paying any attention to what I said as she started trying to chat with Lisa. I let my attention shift back to Cassie and Dennis for a moment as the waitress lingered.

"So what am I supposed to do? I can't let my friend come out of hiding with the baby because then the kid's father is going to get custody and he can't stay in hiding for forever. But if they come out of hiding and the bastard doesn't get custody then the jerks in the government are going to take her away from my friend. Hypothetically."

Dennis sighed. "Well the only other, hypothetical, option is to become such a big badass group that people just look at you and say, 'nope, not touching that shit.' "

"Huh. You know, we're getting pretty close to that point already…I should see about getting my friend to join up with us…"

Lisa ran her thumb over the back of my hand as the waitress left and I pulled my attention back to our table. Lifting my eyes up to meet hers, I gave a small smile. "So…I thought you weren't able to really…do relationships? Something about your powers giving too much information?"

She nodded. "Generally yes. My power is pretty much always on in the background. I have to actively suppress it. That hasn't really changed. When it comes to relationships, when I get close to people, I get a lot of information as soon as I start to truly relax. The good…and the bad."

I nodded. "Okay. Soo…"

"So, there's a lot of good when it comes to you, Taylor. There's bad, but the good offsets it. It still sucks, and it's going to make things a bit awkward at times if you're actually interested in letting me try to date you, but you're a cool person. Your habits aren't gross, and your fetishes aren't anything I can't deal with."

"You sound like you're forcing yourself into this, Lisa," I said frowning. "I…I didn't even think anyone could like me. If you're just going to push through just because…that's not fair to either of us."

"No that's not what I'm saying. This is hard to explain to someone not in my head." She leaned back and sighed. "I love my power. But it's frustrating too. It doesn't really ever give me a moment of true silence. I've learned to live with it and I had made peace with the fact that I probably wouldn't ever find someone worth pushing through the awkwardness of knowing too much in order to make a real relationship work. White lies are important to people on both sides. When you can't really have true white lies, it takes a really specific type of person to be willing to deal with them long term, on both ends. That's all I'm saying."

"Oh. That, still seems…unfair to you."

"Maybe a little," she said shrugging. "But I like you, Taylor. And I'm not willing to get addicted to power suppressor drugs but I can make this work if you'll give me a chance. Plus," she grinned at me and winked, "I want to get my foot in the door before the others do. I'm at a disadvantage thanks to my powers, so I need the edge."

I had just sipped at my water when she said that and it set off a coughing fit as I processed her statement. Thumping my chest I glared at her as Lisa just chuckled. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's rather adorable how dense you are. You know that right?"

"Talk woman." I demanded brandishing my fork at her with a menacing shake.

"How much you gonna pay me to divulge the secrets of our housemates?" Her vulpine grin was back and her hands were folded in front of her as she cocked her head to the side.

I continued to glare at her and shake my fork as the waitress returned with our food, laying it on the table. She cast a wary eye at me as Lisa just laughed and waved the poor girl away.

"I will grant you one date night per reveal."

"Two."

"One plus a movie on the couch."

"I'll take it."

"Good. Now talk."

She just laughed again and leaned down. "Hehe, aren't we eager. Alright, well now I can confirm for sure that - " Lisa cut off as the door to Fugly Bob's opened and her eyes narrowed at the newcomer. I shifted my focus back to the bugs and moved some of the patrols in the area.

Ah. Emma. Well, there went the afternoon.

She started towards Dennis as I twisted to watch her with my actual eyes. "Hi, Dennis. Missy said to tell you that we're meeting in an hour. The phone wasn't working and I was closest. Oh, hello. I didn't realize that you were…meeting…someone, wait." Emma's eyes shifted down to Cassie's chest and from there traced back from her across the restaurant straight to me. I scowled as Emma focused on me and immediately forgot Dennis. Her hands fell to her sides and she sucked in a breath as she realized that I was a few feet away. Lisa muttered a curse as Emma nearly ran to our table. The bugs I had near Cassie heard her curse as well and she started to slide out of the booth to follow after the redhead, Dennis looking between the three of us with a frown.

"Taylor! What are you doing here? I didn't realize you would be here. I thought - I mean, I know your old house was destroyed. I haven't gotten a chance to - they said that you had a new home, but I couldn't get someone to tell me your number. I'm sorry, this is awkward. Are you okay? You're not okay, I can see that. I didn't mean that. I just meant, I've been trying to figure out how to say that I'm sorry. I know that it's never going to be enough and that I fucked up and that I can't - but I want to and…" she trailed off as she ran out of breath and seemed to notice that I hadn't actually responded and just kept scowling at her.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I repeated that twice before I trusted myself to respond. Finally, I said, "Emma, I was having a private conversation with my friend. I appreciate what you are trying to do, but now is not the time. Talk to Madison. She can get you a time to come and speak with me. Now is not the time."

She flinched as she stepped back, Dennis almost materializing behind her, one hand on her arm. "Sorry. She's still getting used to proper decorum. Let's go, Emma."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. I'm sorry, Taylor." She looked down at me one more time and she stopped short, dragging Dennis to a halt as her eyes narrowed, focused on a point almost halfway between the two of us. "Wait, I…I think I can…you're hurt…you're, no, we're broken…I think I can…fix this." She started to reach out into the air as I frowned trying to piece together what she was mumbling about.

Lisa, Cassie, and Dennis were all apparently quicker on the draw than I was.

"Wait!" Dennis shouted, reaching out a hand towards Emma's back.

"Don't you fucking dare bitch!" Cassie yelled lunging forward.

"No! Stop!" Lisa screamed, half climbing over the table.

I barely processed what the three said as Emma's hand touched something in the air. What felt like an electric current passed between the two of us. I gasped and my eyes widened as I could almost feel cracks in my mind I hadn't even been aware of. Time slowed to a crawl as I stood one edge of the crack and Emma stood on the other. Then the cracks twisted and shifted, they pulled backwards, almost seeming to reverse into themselves as they sealed over. In the span of a few seconds to Emma and I - and a mere instant to everyone else - the cracks vanished. As the last portion healed, the world sped back up to normal and Emma was tackled to the ground by Cassie and Lisa, Dennis missing his grab as the girls knocked her out of his path.

I gasped, my eyes wide, looking between my three friends rolling on the ground. Emma was crying, her hands over her eyes sobbing about how she was sorry and hadn't realized she could do that. Lisa was growling and trying to kick her side, only failing since she couldn't seem to get her legs into the right position with how they had all fallen. Cassie was attempting to punch Emma in the head but Dennis had managed to grab her arms and was trying to haul her backwards.

"Guys stop!" I yelled. Lisa and Cassie slowed their attempts to beat my best friend to a pulp as they looked towards me. I raised my arms towards them, tears in my eyes and shook my head. "Please just…stop fighting. You're all my friends! Lisa, Cassie, leave her alone!"

All four stayed still enough that for a second I worried they had stopped breathing.

Cassie was the one to break the silence. "You fucking cunt! You Mastered my friend! I'll fucking gut you, and make a wig from your intestines!"

Fanfic Rec: 'The Case of the Disappeared Villain' by stabbyunicorn. This is on Ao3. Taylor, Madison and Sophia get assigned to do a project about Lustrum. The first half is mostly about trying to determine the mystery of why she was sent to the Birdcage since it's all hush hush for the REAL reasons behind it and there is little actual info. The second half is after they figure things out and trying to deal with the fallout while avoiding being caught. Avoiding spoilers, it deals heavily with transphobia and an interesting villain. This fic is a good approach to a Friend!Sophia while still remaining fairly antagonist on Taylor's side for a long time. (This is fairly high praise from me as I tend to detest Friend!Sophia lol.)