Monday, March 14th, 2011

Amy pulled her shirt on and buttoned it up, then started brushing her hair. A glance out the window next to her dresser showed her it was overcast and breezy but not too bad. The weather was certainly improving steadily, warming up quite fast, although it was still possible they might get more snow before spring really took hold. The previous year it had snowed like crazy right at the end of March in a sudden cold snap that had gone on for nearly two weeks, after all. Hopefully this year it wouldn't, she was looking forward to warm days as soon as possible. She'd had enough of cold, dark, and wet mornings.

Finishing up, she pushed herself to her feet with her tail, then headed for the closet to find some socks. She knelt down and looked at the clothes piled at the back of the closet, thinking she needed to tidy things up better. Since she'd had Taylor make new tail-friendly ones, she had something of an excess of garments at the moment and the overflow was starting to make her closet nearly as messy as Vicky's.

Speaking of her sister, in fact… She sniffed, then bent down and followed the scent. 'She's been rooting around in my clothes again,' she thought with a sigh. 'God, Vicky, you have more than enough of your own, stop thieving mine. Most of it won't even fit you!'

The blonde girl had always tended to borrow clothes she liked and when they were younger they'd been close enough in sizes that it worked, but these days only a few of her shirts would actually fit her sister without stretching, while the other way Vicky's shirts were more than a little baggy on her. Amy grabbed a pile of clothing and sorted through it, neatly refolding the various things where it looked like Vicky had rummaged around for some reason. The scent was strongest at the bottom, she noticed. Shaking her head she put everything back in a somewhat more logical order, did the same to the other three piles, then found the socks she'd originally aimed for and left the closet to sit on the bed and pull them onto her feet.

She was looking forward to school today. Last night in bed she'd been giggling for a couple of hours while reading PHO, and the rapidly multiplying and lengthening threads about Taylor's draconic form which seemed to have struck a definite nerve. Big lizards were one thing, but a literal dragon apparently was somewhat different, tickling something in the human psyche that brought up all manner of odd responses.

Mostly positive, it had to be said, which pleased her. There were some people who took it as a sign of the End Times, but then that type took almost everything like that. And they were always wrong. The majority of people seemed to think it was strange but interesting, and in some cases the best thing they'd heard of for years.

Lucy being definitely one of those, she grinned. There were a surprisingly large number of photos and quite a lot of video showing their friend riding 'Breksta' and clearly having the time of her life. The video that Taylor had showed them from her point of view was absolutely hilarious too and rather made her want to post it, but they all thought it was unwise to embarrass poor Max too much in public.

The expression on his face had been amazing…

Amy giggled again. They'd been laughing about that for ten minutes. She was very keen on publicly showing off 'Nike' now, but she needed to come up with something other than freaking out the Medhall CEO as a debut. Although… it was becoming a family tradition, wasn't it?

Amused, she put her shoes on and stood. She could hear Vicky singing to herself in the shower, apparently in a good mood which was a relief after her recent odd attitude, while their mother and father were talking quietly in the kitchen. The latter continued to improve which pleased and relieved her in equal measure. The one-shot seemed to have worked at least as well as she'd hoped it would on him, which made her even more determined to get them out into the medical system. Hopefully the PRT would go along with that, but even if they didn't, one way or another it was happening.

Leaving her room and heading downstairs, she wondered with a smile what would happen at school when people realized who the dragon rider had been.

Lucy was going to be in a very good mood, she suspected.

"Hello, Amy, did you sleep well?" her father said as she came into the kitchen. He was reading the newspaper and drinking coffee, as usual for first thing in the morning, but with far more animation visible in his face than she'd become unwillingly used to. Carol was working at the stove and also appeared to be in a good mood.

"I did, thanks, Dad," she replied, heading for the fridge. "How are you feeling?"

"Excellent, to tell the truth," he smiled. "Full of enthusiasm for the day and ready to take on the world."

She looked back over her shoulder at him with her head a little to the side. "Hmm. May have been a little too successful with the healing," she pondered out loud while examining him closely, which made him chuckle and even Carol smile for a moment.

"I can live with it, Amy," he said, sounding like he meant it. "I feel more myself than I have done for far too long. I'm going to have to thank Ianthe personally, she's given me my life back. I owe her more than I can really express."

"She said you're welcome," Amy smiled, resuming rooting around until she found the apples, then grabbing one and closing the appliance. Turning around she went over to the table and sat down next to him. "But I doubt she'd mind if you told her that." He held out his hand and she checked him as she did every morning. "Yeah, that's still settling down and getting closer and closer to correct," she reported moments later. "Great. I'm really pleased how well it's working."

"We all are, Amy," Carol told her, bringing a plate of toast over to the table. "While I still have reservations about your huge and mysterious scaly friends, Mark is right, we do owe them thanks." The older woman returned to the stove and started frying some eggs. "You weren't as late last night as you often are, I noticed. You should try to do that more often, you need your sleep."

"I'm fine, thanks, Mom," Amy smiled, reaching for some toast then the butter. "And they're not that mysterious."

Carol looked at her with an eyebrow up, making her giggle, then shook her head and went back to the eggs. "I can't help feeling you're not quite as aware of how odd this all is as I am," the woman sighed. "But I can't deny you seem happy, so I won't say any more about it."

"You know you will, love," Mark snickered, making his wife fix him with a mild glare and Amy try not to laugh too much. "You can't help it."

"Be quiet and get me some more eggs from the fridge," his wife said with dignity.

"Yes, dear," he replied, winking at Amy then moving to do as requested. The girl watched them, feeling that she could get used to this level of byplay as a vast improvement on what had been normal for far too long.

All in all, she was very happy with how things were working out right now.

And that idea Taylor had come up with last night was going to be very useful and add to the fun, she thought. It hadn't taken long to make the relevant hardware and biological interfaces and install them in 'Ianthe' and 'Metis'. The initial tests had worked perfectly so tonight they were going to do some proper field trials, then once Taylor had tweaked the math if required, she'd add them to their human bodies as well, and the two dragons too. Kevin and Randall, and Danny too, would also get one each, and it seemed like something Linda might also need.

They were going to have to bring her closer into the Family secrets at some point, that much was obvious, but it was probably best to start her on therapy first. No sense on piling too much on the poor woman when she was still mentally a little fragile, although she'd definitely improved even in the time since she'd been at the DWU. Hopefully that meant she'd find the therapy worked well for her.

She looked up from the toast as Vicky came into the kitchen. "Hey, stop stealing my clothes," she said mildly, and was very puzzled by the way her sister's face froze for a moment before going back to normal, although her scent turned extremely strange.

"Clothes?" the blonde said, apparently trying to be casual. "Why would I steal your clothes? I'm not a hobbit."

A little confused, Amy stared, then grinned. Oh, it was on. Moments later they were needling each other to Mark's amusement and Carol's resigned sigh.

"What did you think of the protective clothing?" Taylor asked as one aspect laid the table, the other identical one busy preparing food. Danny, who had just come into the kitchen while adjusting his collar, smiled at his daughter.

"It's very good," he replied. "Lisa and Zephron started sorting it out for the various shifts while you were upsetting poor Mr Anders again, and by the time I left about sixty people had collected theirs. Everyone seems very pleased with it. I tried some myself, it's comfortable and warm, and having a standardized set of gear like that will definitely help. Especially if something goes wrong."

"I was pretty pleased with how well it all came out," the copy of her at the stove smiled. "It took some research to get all the sizes right but I think I managed it. If there's anything missing just let me know and I'll make it. But Lisa seemed fairly sure that we shouldn't need anything much more for some times."

"There's enough equipment to support an organization five or six times the size, dear, don't worry about that. Considering it's not likely to wear out, we'll be set for years even if the Union expands a lot in the next few years." He shook his head in wonder. "I am amazed that you worked out how to make that much of it so fast."

"The new technique is really good," she laughed, opening the oven to check on the contents. "It worked even better than I hoped it would. I wasn't sure it would work at all to start with and I was relieved when it did. Making all the stuff we need for the police, fire department, the PRT, us, and so on would take a lot more effort if Varga and I had to do it the hard way. I mean, we could, but both of us would rather be doing something more interesting."

"I had a look in the store-room, there's a completely ridiculous amount of gear there as it is," he commented, standing with his hands on the back of one of the chairs watching both of her move around in a perfectly synced almost dance of cooking. "Lisa said there was a lot more in your enormous back room."

She nodded with a grin, this time using the one at the table which had just finished putting the coffee-pot on it. "Yep. We may have got a little carried away. We need to enlarge that room, and the armory too, I think, but for now we can easily keep it where it is and move stuff over as needed. When I get a spare moment I'll make them both bigger."

"We probably don't need them quite as large as the basement is," he pointed out with a grin, picking the coffee pot up and pouring himself a mugful of the contents.

She snickered. "No problem, we won't overdo it. No sense worrying the humans too much. That's one of the Family guidelines, after all."

Giving her a look of resigned amusement as she giggled, he shook his head. "The humans are probably rather grateful about that, or they would be if they knew."

The aspect wielding a spatula bowed slightly. "They are welcome." The other one sat near the table and smiled.

Pulling out his chair he also sat, accepting the plate one version of his daughter handed him. Two more quickly took their places then the second aspect also sat down. Shortly all three of them were eating. "I noticed that PHO seems to be going even more peculiar than normal," he commented after a few bites. Both Taylor's looked sidelong at each other, a small grin coming and going.

"I wonder why?" the one on the left said, now obviously being run by the demon as he put in an appearance.

"It's a strange place, PHO," the other one replied. "They get overexcited about the craziest things."

"Indeed."

"A large glowing dragon flying right down the center of the commercial area in the early evening two hundred feet up is somewhat noticeable even in Brockton Bay," he pointed out with a smile of his own. "Even after the last few months. And someone riding it is never going to make it less noticeable..."

Both of his daughter laughed. "Lucy was so happy about all that," Taylor replied contentedly. "I had a lot of fun too. I'm just glad we saw her in time. That idiot chasing her sure didn't have her good health in mind."

"Hopefully there aren't too many more ex-Merchants still wandering around the city," Danny noted.

"Probably not, Lisa thinks that it's mostly the ones who aren't smart enough or are desperate enough not to have worked out it's better to leave that are hanging around. She said it's not likely to be more than a dozen or so by now, maybe fifteen at most. They'll leave soon enough, or get caught by the cops. Or us, or Vicky..." She shrugged. "Street crime is a lot lower now than it was a while ago. Which seems to mean that the ones left are a lot more obvious and tend to get nabbed quickly."

"Hopefully a number of them will try to go straight." Danny considered the idea for a moment. "If they're not too far gone with the drugs they might see that it's the better option."

"That would be ideal, I don't want even a Merchant mugger really being hurt, but the ones that were actually in the gang instead of just being a random junkie were pretty far gone from what we saw," Taylor sighed.

The Varga nodded a little. "That's often the way with powerful narcotics, I'm afraid. By the time the user realized how far gone they are, if they ever do, it may well be too late. Linda very nearly went that way after all. If Lisa hadn't happened to discover her, I doubt she'd have made it. And as she said, a large number of her compatriots didn't make it over the years she was involved with them. Sad, but a fact of life. Even if we manage to completely eliminate the dealers I still doubt we can eliminate the problem itself without extreme measures we wouldn't be thanked for."

"Even if you got the narcotics off the street entirely, there's still always alcohol and tobacco," Danny pointed out. "Which as far as I know actually kill more people than the illegal ones do anyway. Just generally more quietly and in a more socially acceptable way."

"Yeah, I know," she sighed, reaching for the maple syrup. "We can't fix everything. You told me, Varga told me, Lisa told me… And I've told Amy the same thing. It doesn't stop me wishing we could."

"Just keep doing what you're doing and things will get better," he advised with a fond look. "As I told you yesterday, accept the fact you're not and never will be perfect and do what you can. That's all anyone can ask of you, including you. I've told Amy the same thing too." After a moment, he added, with a little concern, "You're not still upset by what you saw in Newfoundland, are you? If you need to talk about that any more, I'm always here for you."

She smiled back. "Thanks, Dad. No, I think I'm OK with that. It was horrible and I'll never forget it, but I can deal with it. Seeing it was hard, I admit, and I sort of wish I hadn't, but at the same time I'm kind of glad I did. It put a lot of things into perspective in a strange and unpleasant way."

Danny studied her for a few seconds, then nodded. "All right. I have to say that under normal circumstances the idea that three teenaged girls had been exposed to that sort of nightmarish scene would make me very worried, but I can't think of anyone who could handle it better than you and your friends. Especially with him along." He waved a fork at the Varga-controlled aspect, who grinned at him. "I'm proud of all of you."

"And of course normal isn't exactly what we seem to have around here these days," he added after a moment's thought, making both of them chuckle.

"That has been said by a number of people recently," the Varga replied. "For some reason."

"How completely unexpected," he said dryly. "Anyway, by tonight everyone should be properly equipped. Between that and the one-shots, I'm hoping that if we do have any accidents no one will end up getting hurt, and if they do we can probably fix it even without Lisa or Amy helping. That takes a large weight off my mind."

"Me too," she replied with a slight smile. "I worry about everyone at the DWU these days. The number of people I know there is steadily going up, everyone is really friendly, and I don't like seeing people get hurt. I want to make sure our people are safe."

"So do I, and you're doing a fine job, dear." He finished his breakfast and put the knife and fork across the plate, then refilled his coffee mug with the last of the dark fluid. "And trust me, they all know it and appreciate it. The Family and the DWU are very close."

Taylor looked pleased while the Varga appeared satisfied. "I am very happy how well the Union has taken to our little group," he commented, smiling. "And for that matter how the city itself has handled what is undoubtedly something very strange from an outside perspective. It's an impressive example of the adaptability of humanity under the correct circumstances."

"Director Piggot, oddly enough, is probably a big part of that," Danny said thoughtfully. The other two looked curiously at him, so he went on, "She's a forceful and intelligent woman who is known to take her duties seriously. Having her favorably aligned with the Family is likely to have reassured the public that as weird as things are, it can't be all that bad if the local PRT isn't too worried. She respects you all, more so than I'd have expected based on things I've been told in the past, and it seems to have helped with accepting the new circumstances. And of course, Legend is obviously fine with things too, so is Dragon, and Armsmaster as well. All individuals that are considered authoritative by people in general. Add that to what we talked about yesterday and I'm not entirely surprised how smoothly it's working out. Very pleased and relieved, but not completely surprised."

"Hopefully that will remain the case," the demon said, making both Danny and Taylor nod.

"So do you have any other specific plans for today?" the elder Hebert said, leaning back and sipping his coffee. "Now that Breksta is out of the bag, so to speak, I imagine that she'll be seen around the place from time to time."

"Yep." Taylor snickered. "I've wanted to use her for weeks. I didn't exactly plan on last night, but it seemed a good point to introduce her. I've set up one of the IFF widgets Legend dropped off with an ID for her and I'll make sure it's active when I'm flying around in that form, just to keep the authorities happy. And it leaves an opening to bring Nike into play too, which will please Amy."

"And Lisa's one, I suppose. Has she come up with a name for it yet?"

"No, she's still thinking. We made some suggestions and now she says we're not allowed to help any more." Taylor looked sad, making him chuckle.

"You and Amy do seem to occasionally come up with names that are… less than ideal," he pointed out, her face taking on a grin.

"That's what Lisa said. Only with more… irritation?" She looked highly amused.

"Leave your friend alone, dear. You know she's a little fragile at times," he advised, trying not to laugh.

"Oh, she loves it as much as the rest of us do, she just has this bizarre need to pretend to be the responsible one," Taylor said with a wave of a hand. "No idea why. We're all as nuts as each other in our own ways."

"I can't disagree with that." His daughter laughed at the comment. Then she frowned a little.

"I still can't decide if the small dragon is a different person, or whether Breksta has a size changing power. I'm going to have to think about it some more. I can see some possibilities for either way, but it's not urgent."

"Have the boys decided on their Family forms yet?"

"Not by last night, no," she replied. "I know they're both thinking about it, Kevin was making pages of notes and looking through dozens of books the last time we talked. Mostly gaming novels and D&D manuals, I think. I have no idea what he'll come up with. Same with Randall. It'll probably be good, though."

"Oh, lord," he sighed. "I can feel more sanity slipping slowly away."

Taylor smiled at him. "Don't worry, we'll keep them sensible."

He looked narrowly at her, while she peered innocently back at him. "Yeees," he drawled. "Sensible. I'm not entirely certain you have the same understanding of that concept that most people do. However, so far it appears to work out, so I won't interfere." He looked at the demon who was obviously trying not to laugh. "I'd tell you to keep her from overdoing it, but I can't get the words to come out without feeling like an idiot."

"I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, Danny," Varga smiled.

"That fails to completely reassure me."

Both copies of Taylor shrugged with identical smiles.

"But no, we don't have any urgent plans for today," his daughter went on a moment later. "Lots of little things, I'm still trying to work out the best place and time to leave some little gifts for archaeology to find, that sort of thing. And we have a city under the waves to plan too. I really want to get on with that, I think it'll be fun."

"Future historians are going to look back on this period and wonder why someone didn't do something, aren't they?" he asked rhetorically, shaking his head.

"It'll be fine, Dad, don't worry." The girl grinned.

"Easy for you to say," he mumbled, but he was smiling a little.

"We also want to start the self defense training soon," she said thoughtfully. "Mark is really interested in it, of course, but it's sort of been pushed to the side with some of the things that came up recently. Now that those have mostly settled down I want to get on with it. And Amy has a decent number of bioguns for people to train with too, we ended up making another sixteen of them last night, so there are twenty ready. And four gun recharging plants too. I think it's probably time to introduce them."

"I see. All right, I'll warn Mark that you'll be talking to him shortly." He thought for a moment. "That should fit in with the plans he has for training more people on the special paintball markers too. I wouldn't think he'll have too much trouble finding enough people to try them out."

"We should probably set up one of the empty buildings as a proper training facility soon," the Varga suggested. "It would be fairly straightforward to do and would be a useful resource. An urban training course is simple enough, while I expect that between us, Amy, Taylor, and I could probably arrange a decent simulation of an outdoor environment but in a contained and controllable manner."

"Hmm. Yes, that's an interesting idea. Overkill, of course, but then we're used to that now from the Family, right?" Danny mulled it over. "All right. We need to sit down and work out what else we're going to use the currently empty buildings for but I don't see any reason not to set aside one for that purpose. With your insane fractal dimensional thing we could use a smaller one and still end up with acres of internal space."

"Yes, that's not difficult at all."

"Space really isn't a problem any more, Dad," Taylor assured him. "We've pretty much solved that technique so we can do some really cool stuff with it."

"All right. I've had some people surveying the buildings for a while now, so we can pick a suitable one and work out what we want to do with it. I'll get on that when I go in."

"OK, great, we can talk it over with Mark and Zephron and see what they think they'd need, then start making it. Just making a big room for training in Family style martial arts along with the things other people can teach would be a good start and won't take long. It'll be easy enough to add to it when needed."

Reaching into her pocket she pulled out a small box and opened it, then showed him the contents, which was a tiny and very disturbing to look at thing sitting on a bed of protective foam. "And we want to test these properly."

"What is it?" he asked curiously, trying not to wince as the little object did something awful to normal space.

His daughter explained, making him stare in wonder. "That is… impressive."

"It was a weird idea that just came to me out of the blue, but I think it's going to be really useful," she smiled, putting it away again. "When we know they work right, you can have one too if you want. I'd feel happier if you did. Just in case."

"I think that's fine, Taylor. I trust you, your demon, and Amy with this sort of thing. Even though I suspect many people wouldn't. It's somewhat… out of the normal comfort zone." He grinned as she nodded happily.

"A lot of people are slaves to tradition," his daughter laughed. "'Don't break reality' they say, which is just boring." She looked at the clock on the wall, then stood up, her other aspect doing the same. "I'd better finish getting ready for school, Dad. Have fun at work."

Smiling at her he also stood. "I'll wash the dishes, you get on with that. Thank you for cooking."

"No problem." One aspect gave him a quick hug then both blinked out of existence, footsteps upstairs sounding a moment later.

Thinking that he'd become very used to things that before Christmas would have left him gaping in shock, he started clearing the table and filling the sink.

Lucy found she couldn't remove the smile that seemed to be stuck on her face. Mandy stared at her again, making the smile widen.

"You rode a dragon."

"I did."

"Stop grinning like that."

"I can't."

Her friend had been repeating that sort of thing ever since she'd gotten into the car. It didn't make her less happy.

Eventually Mandy shook her head. "School is going to be insane."

"I don't care. I rode a dragon."

Both of them giggled. "Oh, god, I can't wait to see Dennis's face," the other girl chortled. "It'll be funnier than the time Amy was riding Raptaur around the place."

"You girls have some very strange friends," Mandy's mother commented, glancing at them in the rear view mirror.

"That's what Dad said," Lucy smiled. "He was sort of shocked."

"Everyone was shocked, Lucy," the older woman said with a smile of her own. "Your new friend is rather big, and with those blue lights, not particularly subtle. The entire neighborhood saw her."

Lucy shrugged, still feeling in a better mood than she'd been in since she rode Raptaur that time. "So? I don't care, I got to ride a dragon."

"Because you nearly got mugged again," Mandy pointed out with a smirk.

"Yeah, that part wasn't much fun," she grumbled. "Idiot Merchant. And I need to complain about that pepper spray, he got over it way too quick." She brightened up again. "But I got to ride a dragon."

Mandy laughed once more. "That trumps pretty much everything, right?"

Lucy nodded, her grin coming back. "That it does. And I even got a coat with magic pockets out of it." She proudly looked down at what was definitely her favorite garment ever, stroking it possessively.

"Only you could go out for groceries and come back with a magic coat on the back of a dragon," her best friend giggled, making her nod happily. "Don't make Newell jealous with your new friend, though."

"He's fine," she assured the other girl. "He likes the coat too."

"How can you tell?" Mandy asked, giving her a dubious look.

"You can always tell when a lizard is happy," Lucy assured her knowingly.

"From what I've seen with Saurial, lizards are always happy."

Lucy gave her friend a pitying look. "Of course they are," she said with great assurance. "They're lizards."

"You really are weird, girl."

They grinned at each other, then looked out the windows as the car pulled over at the school.

"This should be interesting," Mandy snickered as she opened the door, looking towards the school where quite a few people were looking back. Lucy took a deep breath, thought of dragons, and followed her friend, both of them waving to Mandy's mother who was watching with a look of bemusement.