I'd returned to the warehouse shortly after Brandish left and changed into a t-shirt and jeans. Which led me to the revelation that walking around the city without armor on was… strange. Between when I'd turned Lung and now, I think that I'd taken my armor off maybe twice, and one of those times was only to change into my new armor that the Simurgh had ended up trashing.
Amy was pensive, I'd blocked my mind from hers, figuring that she wanted some time to sort stuff out on her own. She, Victoria, and I had elected to go to a McDonalds. The occasional person stared, but Victoria's glare plus her aura was enough to deter them. Even though I couldn't read her emotions mentally, I could tell that whatever Brandish had done had shaken Amy.
The table creaked ominously, and I realized that I was gripping it pretty hard. With a soft exhale, I let go.
"You know," Amy spoke from her position resting on my shoulder. "When I first realized what you were, I was terrified. I'd thought about going to the Protectorate, to the PRT, anyone that would listen." A low, mirthless laugh echoed from her. "Not once did I ever consider going to Carol."
Victoria reached across the table to gently squeeze Amy's hand, which the healer reciprocated with a half-smile. "She disowned me." Amy said after a moment. "That's what we- why I-" She shook her head. "I always got the feeling that she didn't like me, even before I got my powers. Turns out that I'm the daughter of none other than Marquis: the same villain that the Brockton Bay Brigade smashed the Unwritten Rules into little pieces to put away. Then, they adopted me, like I was some kind of 'spoils of war'."
"They didn't mean it that way, I'm sure." I told her comfortingly. "But I could see how you'd think that."
Amy pressed a finger to her untouched burger. It began to melt and slowly morph into a small mouse. "A week ago I'd have cringed at the thought of doing something like this." The mouse crawled onto Amy's open palm and laid down, seemingly content to take a nap as its first act of existence. "Healing people was all I could do – all I allowed myself to do. I could have done anything to anyone. Swapped a person's gender, turned someone into an obedient slave." A heavy sigh escaped her. "Even render an entire human being into a thin soup."
As if to demonstrate, the mouse in her hand melted into a pinkish paste and after a moment, merged with her biomass. "I used to have a problem with fixing people's brains. Now though? Before I can even finish mentally saying what I was going to do, it would already be done. And I'm certain that I could get it right."
She snuggled further against me, her hand gripping mine with a considerable amount of force. It seemed that she'd done some modifications to her own body like I'd done to mine. "I told Carol that I could fix Mark now. Carol said… she said… said that I was never allowed to touch her or Mark again. That she'd rather die than be healed by her traitor of a daughter. She was afraid of me. Of my power."
"I don't think she was afraid of your power." Victoria spoke up. "I remember her telling me about her trigger event a few years back. She and Aunt Sarah had been kidnapped by a group of guys. One of them, the leader I think, apparently felt guilty that they had to take hostages, so he'd give them food and water and other stuff. He'd talk with them, tell them what was happening outside. Then a couple days later he apparently tried to kill them." Amy seemed enraptured by the story. "That was when they, both mom and aunt Sarah, triggered. Mom killed her captors."
"So she's comparing me to her trigger event? It's not my fault she developed Stockholm Syndrome." Amy huffed indignantly. I saw several connections to Amy suddenly appear within the gestalt and broken just as quickly. Amy scoffed. "Which I can totally fix now, apparently, according to the gestalt." She added with a deadpan tone.
I opened my mouth to say something, but the door suddenly opened. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but the blonde girl that walked in was staring at me. Not Panacea or Glory Girl; me. She locked eyes with me, and she knew she'd been spotted. Her eyes widened in alarm and she hurried over to our table.
"Hey what are-" Victoria started, but I shut her down with a mental slap. She growled angrily but acquiesced regardless.
"What are you?" The newcomer whispered softly. "All my power gave me was that your biology doesn't match your appearance. After it told me that, it shut off. My power never shuts off. Do you have some kind of anti-thinker aura?"
My connection with Amy opened and I mentally discussed with the two of them on what to do. Victoria and Amy both suggested we turn her into a puddle, but through very different methods. In the end, I decided to go with neither. I used my power alongside a very minor brush of the original Butcher's power. It froze the cape long enough for the three of us to surround her and disappear into a slipstream portal.
Just like that, we were back in the warehouse, I released my grip on the cape, causing her to collapse to the floor, breathing heavily and raggedly. "Start talking," I ordered her.
"Sh- shit- if you wanted to get me in the sack, all you had to do was a-" She was cut off by another scream as I tapped into Butcher's power again.
"Who are you? Why were you sent after me?" I demanded. The fact that what was probably a thinker cape randomly stumbling upon the restaurant I was eating at with my friends was absolutely not a coincidence. Not that I really care about getting outed to a bunch of burgers and midnight snackers. Half of them were probably stoned out of their gourd anyway.
"Would you believe that I found you on accident?" She asked hopefully, but upon meeting my flat stare, deflated considerably. This was of course the moment that Kenta walked in, trailing behind him was Monica. Her eyes darted from Kenta to me and widened in alarm. "That's- and you're-" The girl fainted before she could finish what she was saying. Amy had an amused smile on her face and Victoria was holding in laughter.
"Who's that?" Kenta asked dumbly, pointing at the unconscious girl.