AYAYAYAYAI!

I snatched my phone up from my desk and hit answer. "Hello?"

"Hey, Greg."

"Amy! Hey, what's up?"

I heard the faint crinkle of wrapping paper being shuffled aside and the even fainter creak of a new book being opened.

"Thank you for the present," Amy said, not sounding particularly thankful. She took a breath as if to say something, audibly closed her mouth, then inhaled again. "I don't think I was actively trying to help myself… to be happy. And I know you know, there was stuff you read off of me that we never talked about, but I," she paused as her voice shook. "I'd like to know."

I leant forward, resting my elbows on my desk, staring at the grain. "Everything?"

"Everything."

"It's not going to be nice, my power lays it all bare. It doesn't change anything though, you're still my gayest nigga."

I heard her exhale loudly through her nose.

"Ok," I said. "This is from memory, but here goes. Amelia Claire Lavere was born to Hamish Lavere and Sharon McTavish as part of a fling, and remained with her father for a number of years after Sharon got cancer. During her childhood her father concealed from her the true nature of his work until he was ambushed at home by the Brockton Bay Brigade, and, rather than have his daughter caught in the crossfire, surrendered. Amelia was then adopted by Carol Dallon, whom harbored a great resentment to her being assured she would turn out like her father, The Marquis. Amelia was treated unlovingly by her adoptive mother and unintentionally neglectfully by her adoptive father, with her only point of positive contact being her adoptive sister, Victoria Dallon, whom Amelia would develop a secret crush on that would later fester into an obsessive, romantic love. This was compounded by the circumstances of her trigger event, in which she saved Victoria's life, and gained the [Biological Shaper] power. From here, her life spiraled into stress and misery as she attempted to compensate for her adoptive mother's belief that she was as evil as her father by healing people for hours every day until the pressure and compassion fatigue left her a dry, bitter husk with no real care left for the people she saves. Amelia is steadily crumbling into despair, deathly afraid that she will break one of her rules and become the monster she knows she could be. Like I said, this doesn't change anything. You haven't done anything wrong and you're still, like, my best friend. Sins of the father is bullshit anyway, your mum is fucked."

Dial tone. She'd hung up.

I shouldn't have said that, I'd known she had the emotional fortitude of fairy floss when it came to this, had it spelled out to me every time I looked at her. I covered my mouth with one hand and placed my phone back down, laying my other hand over it, tapping my forefinger against the desk rapidly. I stared into my computer screen with glazed eyes, not seeing my coursework for the next unit in my long list comprised of every unit Harvard offered. I should call Victoria, tell her Amy was going to do something very stupid, make sure someone was there for her-

AYAYA-

"Hello?!"

"Sorry about that," said Amy, her voice cool, composed, with a depth I'd never heard before. "I'm good now. Great, even. Better than ever."

"What did you take?!" I asked. "I know you've been experimenting."

Amy hummed an amused note. "Something I should have taken a long time ago. I was blind, Greg, but now I see."

Oh boy. This was not epic. Amy was in many ways an incredibly strong person, moral and enduring in a way few could be, but she was also kind of a mean petty bitch and if she was playing around with cognitive and mood enhancers on my advice to circumvent her power restrictions there was a chance those negative traits would come to the fore. Especially with what seemed to be a snap decision in a moment of stress.

"What did you take, Amy?"

"You like to say you're twice as smart as everyone, what's that like?"

"It feels like I'm a normal person with a good memory but I don't think I've ever unironically said lines like 'blind but now I see'," I bit at my thumbnail. "How do you feel?"

"Like I was blind but now I see," Amy laughed, a warm rich chuckle. An affected chuckle. "All the fog has been wiped away. I had such a limited perspective, so little understanding, all wrapped up in my little teenager problems. I'm sure you must have thought I was a very silly girl."

I screwed my eyes shut and roughly scrubbed them with my knuckles. Why was she talking like a cliche villain? If the transformation of the east coast into a singular S-Class organism was my fault I might just cry.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I have to waste my life in hospitals. Who decided that? Carol's opinions matter to me. Who decided that? Vicky won't ever love me. Who decided that?," Amy's voice took on a manic hinge. "I'm going to break my rules one day? Who decided that!?"

"Do I need to come back to the bay?"

Amy was silent for a moment, her breath whistling harshly into the receiver. "I think Coil wants to kill you because of your Observe power."

"Look, yes," I said with an exasperated sigh. "But don't change the subject."

"I'm sorry if I worried you," she replied in the faux casual voice of someone with a lot of natural acting talent but absolutely no practice, which was worrying in and of itself. I'd heard her try to act, she was absolutely dogshit. "Everything really is fine, I'm not about to go out and do anything stupid. I'm going to read this book you got me and unfuck myself."

I wasn't buying it.

"I don't buy it," I said.

"I promise," said Amy.

"When you come down I think you should revise your formula, you sound like you've got that fake coke confidence. I bet if you heard yourself you'd cringe."

There was a slight catch to Amy's voice before she replied like she'd just remembered modelling part of the mechanism off a junkie OD-ing in Emergency. "Relax, Greg. Seriously, I did do some actual planning for this beforehand, I've had it ready for quite some time. It's not dangerous and it's not addictive, it's just one big eye-opener and I think the reason you're so worried is because you don't respect my intelligence."

"Blame shifting is a bitch tactic." She was right, twelve was not a good score, it was below average. I respected her for other things, but not that. "The reason I'm so worried is that outside of your very narrow value system you don't make good choices, or does helping Victoria maim thugs count as moral?"

Amy trilled in amusement. "Shame on you, Greg. But yes, I admit I have made poor choices in the past, like creating the monster that almost killed you that one time."

A hot flush crept up my neck.

"Shut up. Fine. Whatever. I'm worried because this is my fault, and it's my fault because…" the words didn't want to leave my tongue, but when they did they spilled off in a rush. "Because my high INT doesn't compensate for my low WIS. It made things worse. Happy? Fuck you."

"I think you might be my best friend, Greg."

I let my head drop onto the desk with a heavy thud. "You've always had a higher wisdom score than me. Always have, and that I can respect. I just really don't want you to Evolution half of America on some molly fueled power trip because I told you drugs were cool."

"Greg," Amy snorted. "You narcissistic idiot. If I can resist a thousand suggestions to do requests then I can resist whatever half baked idea excited you at the time."

"Well, how do I know you never made a cat girl Victoria girlfriend?"

"Because that was your fantasy, not mine. It's prefect for a low confidence guy like you but I could never be satisfied with anything but the real thing."

"Yeah, like you were such a Chad," I scoffed into the desk. "Also, shut up, I'm not low confidence. I'm going to be Triumvirate one day and then you'll have to admit I'm the real Chad."

"Ok," she said. "You're so high confidence that you need to tell everyone all the time."

"I see what you're doing and it isn't cute. There's absolutely nothing wrong with verbally affirming my goals at appropriate times."

"I think we both need help with our lives, Greg. You helped give me the final push I needed, how can I help you?"

Do my brain. I bit my tongue and counted to ten, trying to still the anxious storm brewing in my head.

"I'm on track," I said. "I really am. For a long time I…"

I prepared to say something I hadn't even admitted to myself, that I in all my vast intelligence just couldn't stand the idea of.

"I had this constant sense of panic that my wisdom would increase because every time it did I could see more of how much of a stupid oblivious asshole I am, and that being that asshole was my fault. I kind of played up being an ignorant shit-head because doing wise things made me wiser, and if I could just avoid that I could stay in my comfort zone. And so I ignored everyone who tried to help me, as an asshole does, and I alienated people because I didn't want to know any better. Maybe I deserve the PTSD, could have just told Armsmaster no, it was obviously against the rules, and then Nazi's wouldn't have tried to kill me. But I'm talking to a PRT therapist again soon, so hopefully that helps."

"Greg, I," Amy stalled for a moment. "I didn't expect that WIS would actually do that. You'd always brag about your INT score but you never seemed that smart."

"I'm acing all my college courses at Harvard," I said mulishly.

Amy hmmed. "What's your wisdom at now?"

"Thirteen."

"And what was it the last time we spoke?"

"Nine."

"We should hang out," she said suddenly. "I'll come to Boston. I actually miss you, you know. I can remember all these times where I acted like I only talked to you because you knew my secret, but really, you can be fun sometimes. I'm sure I wasn't always a prize myself, so grouchy and snide."

"I did think that to myself a lot of times."

Amy chuckled. "Yeah, same."

"Do you think I deserve to suffer?" I asked after a few moments of silence.

"No," Amy said slowly. "You probably brought a lot of it on yourself, but I don't think you deserve it. And neither do I for that matter, fucking Carol. It's not our fault, Greg, it's theirs. The Carol's and Germans of the world."

"Gamers rise up."

"Well, yes. Anyway, I'm going to go start reading and I'll text you when I'm coming. Call me if you need anything."

"Yeah, seeya Amy," I said, and ended the call.

I still wasn't totally convinced that half the country wouldn't end up looking like a gigantic scale replica of Victoria's boobs by tomorrow morning but she seemed pretty sane, or she was trying really hard at pretending to be which had to do until I could check her. The world was safe, for now.

The high power PRT standard motorbike thrummed powerfully between my knees, the sound just different enough from the Hogs those Fallen goons rode to not trigger me too hard.

We'd been given a crash course in driving all the cars and bikes Protectorate members who weren't movers got to take out as the first activity of our joint training week, and so far the bikes were my favourite. The cars were cool, sure, nothing like a bit of multi-track drifting, but through the bike, I could channel my Grace.

R-Class Vehicle Operation has levelled up!

I took the corner at speed, moving at an almost right angle, the tires squealing briefly before I gunned the throttle and brought the bike back to full speed. It was almost meditative, the way the wind rushed against my body, in time with the loudness of the engine and the brief feelings of weightlessness of my physics-defying turns; I was in control.

I sped past the other Wards who were sitting around and chatting, having had their fill of riding and driving.

I made an effort to push all my worries away and focus on the bike. I was a void and the only thing that existed was my moving through space.

I sped past everyone again.

My fears didn't exist here, only the road on which I rode.

Another lap.

And another, until it started to grow dark.

A giant red stop sign suddenly blossomed into being in front of me. I jerked, hitting the breaks as hard as I could, burning rubber filling the air as I fishtailed to a stop. I looked over as Tyrone jogged toward me across the track.

"Everyone's gone to dinner, man. We're getting Chinese takeout, you better hurry up because I don't think anyone wants to wait any longer."

"Thanks," I said, swinging my leg off the bike and straightening my back with a wince. "I really appreciate you not leaving me out."

He gave a little shrug of a smile like he had no idea why anyone would do that. "Yeah, no probs."

"No, I really appreciate it. You're a good friend."

"Are you trying out strats from that friend book?" he said.

"Uh, I am but I really mean it."

"It's cool."

I killed the engine and started walking back to the bike shed with him. I was going to buy that nigga so many booster packs for his birthday.