"You're unbelievable lucky, you know," Doctor Jon Torres commented as he took the ECG leads off the chest of his patient, who was leaning back in a chair watching him closely, her shirt off. "Another five minutes and I can practically guarantee we wouldn't be having this conversation. I've been warning you for years about the state of your heart, but you never seem to pay much attention." Rolling up the cables he tucked them away into the side of the machine then closed it up.
Sitting down across from her he looked at the screen of his computer for a moment. "Panacea, once again, has done incredible work. Your heart is in perfect health, as is the rest of you. It's up to you to keep it that way. You're still about twenty pounds heavier than I'd like to see, so I've arranged to have the dietitian talk to you when you get back. Six months of exercise and good food and you'll be in excellent condition, though."
Emily Piggot sighed. "I don't like owing a parahuman my life," she started, making him stare at her then shake his head.
"Don't start, Emily, please. I know all the arguments, you've expressed them several times before. Learn to live with it. In fact, be very pleased that you can live with it. I told you, it's on me, I requested Panacea's help, and if there's any fallout I'll deal with it myself."
"If you can."
"If I can. But I think I can." He smiled for a moment. "I'm still here, I've been working for the PRT for nearly fifteen years, and I've seen directors come and go. Yet here I sit. Don't worry. Go home, have a decent meal, and relax." He slid a sheet of paper across the desk to her. "A suggested interim diet to make up for the stresses being healed put on your body. I'll see you here Wednesday morning, but I don't want to see or hear you until then, got it? You need to rest."
With ill grace she took the paper, looked briefly at it, then folded it up and put it in her pocket, before putting her shirt back on and doing it up. "You took a real chance, Jon," she commented as she stood.
"I did my job. Now go, rest, then come back and do yours."
He watched as she left the room, closing the door behind her, then smiled to himself. "You always were too stubborn for your own damn good, you annoying woman," he muttered, saving the ECG reading to her records before going to look for some lunch.
Waking from her nap and feeling remarkably good, Taylor smiled at the ceiling for a moment, remembering recent events with satisfaction, before flipping the covers aside and jumping out of bed. Going to the window she looked out to see the day had turned overcast, although it wasn't raining yet, just being very dull and dreary. Deciding she didn't care she went into the bathroom and took care of business, then headed downstairs.
"Hi, Dad," she said as she found her father in his study in front of his computer, typing rapidly on the keyboard without looking at it while reading a pile of handwritten notes beside the screen. "How's it going?"
He looked up at her, pushing his glasses up with a finger in a familiar gesture she knew of old, then smiled. "Very well, Taylor, I've nearly finished the proposal. I need to get some details from the teams who were checking the various parts of the rail infrastructure and a few things like that, but I'm going to call the Mayor's office tomorrow morning and make an appointment for Tuesday afternoon. This will be finished by then. I'd expect he'll be pleased with the results, it all looks very feasible. A couple of the costs are higher than I initially expected, but some other ones are actually lower, so it all balances out pretty close to what I was hoping."
Leaning back he put his hands behind his head and stretched, producing a cracking sound from his spine, then stood up. "But I need another cup of coffee right now."
Shortly they were in the living room, her on the sofa and him in his chair. Her father took a sip then smiled at her. "Have you recovered from your little expedition now?" he asked.
Taylor laughed briefly at the concept of a two thousand mile swim as 'a little expedition', making his smile widen. "Pretty much, yes," she replied, "I wasn't actually exhausted, just pleasantly tired. It's not as much work as you'd expect, really, I could probably go quite a lot further before I really needed to rest, but it's nice to relax after all that time. It was a lot of fun and well worth it, though."
"And you even brought me a souvenir," he chuckled, picking up the scrap of twisted metal from the coffee table where he'd left it that morning, looking at it again. "I wonder who that machine belonged to?"
"No idea, all it smelled of was mechanical things and electronics," she shrugged. "But it was getting annoying. Following someone around and throwing tiny submarines at them is rude."
Her father thought about it for a moment then nodded, grinning. "I can see where you might think that, yes." Rolling the metal fragment between his fingers, he added, "I thing I might get the boys to mount this on a nice piece of old reclaimed teak or something and put a little brass plate on it. 'Why you don't bother the sea monsters.' Or words along those lines. It would make a nice desk ornament."
Taylor giggled at the idea, shaking her head, while he looked pleased. "I suppose it would, Dad. Oh, while I think about it, I had a look at the silted channel on the way back, it's not too bad so I think I can clear it out. I poked around in the mud, it seems to be about fifty feet deep in the place it's been filling up since the tanker sank, with one small spot that might be about eighty feet or so. I was thinking that I'd go out again tonight and try moving some of it and see how well it works, as the tide is going out. I checked the tide times, it turns at half past eleven, so I'll have a few hours to work."
"How are you going to do it?" he asked curiously. "Make an enormous shovel and dig?"
She smiled at his suggestion. "I did think of that at first, but Varga suggested something more like a plow. We thought I could drop it into the silt, pay out a couple of hundred yards of cable, then pull it along the channel. It might take several passes but it should get most of it moving and the tide will do the rest, hopefully. Although neither of us is sure whether it will taken more than one nights work." She shrugged a little. "If it does, I'll just go back until it's finished."
Looking thoughtful, her father considered the suggestion, then ultimately nodded. "I can't see any major problems with that idea, so you may as well go ahead. In an ideal world the channel would be dredged and the silt dumped outside the bay but I guess redistributing it works as well."
"At the seaward end I can get it outside the bay easily, but it would be simpler to let it wash away and settle out at the shore end, at least until the tanker is gone," she agreed. "Once that happens I can do a better job, or even make the channel deeper or wider."
He nodded, saying, "I'll add that to the proposal as well. It could be a very useful selling point. If we can increase the depth and width of the deep water part of the bay to allow larger ships in it could make a huge difference to how much business the port could attract. I suspect the Mayor is going to find this all very interesting, although there are going to be a lot of people who get quite confused by the whole thing." He grinned to himself. "I still have an almost overwhelming urge to say nothing to the PRT and just let them find out when they see Kaiju's head break the surface as you're towing the ship." Both of them laughed at the idea. "What I'd give to see Director Piggot's face at that point. But it would be irresponsible, I suppose. We don't want the Endbringer sirens going off and everyone panicking."
"How are we going to avoid that anyway?" Taylor asked, momentarily worried. "When people see me in daylight as Kaiju they're going to freak! Maybe I should do it at night."
"I doubt that will help, dear, the length of time you'll need will make it certain that people will notice sooner or later and word will get around." He sighed slightly. "The Mayor and I will have to discuss how to manage the public relations side of things. That is in some ways the hardest part of the whole thing, people are… not comfortable… with very large creatures approaching from the water. Not with Leviathan out there killing people on a regular basis."
Taylor nodded a little uncertainly, but decided that it wasn't anything she could do much about right now. "OK. Let me know what you need me to do. I want to help as much as you want this to succeed." She smiled at him. "We'll see that ferry going again yet, Dad."
"I'm genuinely beginning to believe we will," he laughed. Moving to sit beside her, he put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her. "All thanks to you and your immense otherworldly companion." Leaning on him, she felt pleased, as did the Varga.
"We're both happy to help," she assured him. After a minute or so, she added, "I'm going to go back to the DWU yard and practice some more for a while, I think, then go and wander around as Saurial until later."
He checked his watch. "It's only just after noon now, so if you're going to go for an exploratory dredge around midnight, you have lots of time to kill."
"I'm sure something will come up, it usually does," she snickered, straightening up as he released her. "This has been a pretty good weekend so far, all things considered."
"Try not to terrify that poor fisherman again, dear," he suggested as she stood up and stretched. She grinned at him.
"I can't entirely promise I won't say hi if I see him," she giggled, making him sigh a little. "He seemed nice. But a little confused."
"I wonder why?" her father questioned in a wry tone, which made both her and the Varga laugh. She shrugged.
"No idea, I was very polite. Anyway, I'll see you later, Dad."
"Take care, and don't wreck the yard if you can help it. We're still repairing the fence as it is. There wasn't enough chain link in stock so we had to put up temporary walls until the new supplies arrive during the week." He grinned as she put her hands on her hips and looked at him.
"I won't break anything," she assured him with a look of amusement. "Or if I do, we'll fix it. Hey, do you want me to fix that fence? I could make one out of Vargastuff, that's never going to break."
Looking thoughtful, her father considered the suggestion for a while but eventually shook his head. "I think that an unbreakable fence might cause some problems if we ever needed to remove part of it, which happens sometimes to get very large things in and out."
"I can do it out of steel like the original, then. Or just make some more of the chain link stuff, Varga can copy what's there and we could make some rolls of it if you want."
"Now that would be very helpful, dear. If you want to, go right ahead. The normal stuff comes on rolls about two feet in diameter, anything bigger is too difficult to work with, so keep it to that, but if you want to make say, hmm, six rolls, that would be enough to fix the fence and give some left over. The new stuff we ordered we can put into stock, we'll need it later anyway."
"OK, I can do that." She smiled at him. "Once this goes ahead, we should talk about what work needs to be done on the docks. I'm happy to help out where I can without causing you and your people any problems. That could speed things up a lot, right?"
"It could do, yes," he admitted, then smiled back. "We'll need to get you and all the other yous on the books as DWU members at this rate. I don't think I can pay you much, the rules surrounding parahumans working at normal jobs are very restrictive, but we might be able to come to some arrangement."
Snickering, Taylor shook her head at him. "I don't need to be paid, Dad, I'm happy to help. It might be fun to have a DWU ID card, though. Kaiju will need a very big one."
Leaving the room as she heard him laugh behind her, she went out the back door, cloaked, and hopped the fence. Saurial landed on the other side and sprinted towards the docks, still smiling to herself.
Satisfied with her work, Taylor looked at the pile of large rolls of chain link fencing, stacked neatly to one side of the yard. She and the Varga had carefully examined the existing material then done their best to duplicate it exactly, the result being at least visually indistinguishable from the original. "That should do it," she commented happily. They'd checked the broken fence and duplicated some of the steel fence posts as well, since two of the existing ones were bent at the ground level where they were concreted in. She'd straightened them as much as she could but the steel was obviously weakened and made nasty little creaking sounds in the process, so she'd ended up leaving them at about a sixty degree angle.
"Idiot Hookwolf. Why did he have to wreck everything," she complained quietly to the Varga, who was listening and chuckling.
"The man seemed quite excitable and not exactly smart," he commented wryly. She sighed, nodding.
"He's never been known as the sharpest knife in the drawer."
Looking around the empty yard, she thought for a moment. "What should we try first? More swordwork, or something else?"
"You should practice the dual swords some more, I think, you still aren't reaching the level I know you can, but perhaps something else would also be a good idea. That book on historical weapons your father showed us had several interesting ideas, so maybe we should try some sort of net. Or a whip, perhaps. That might be amusing."
"Indiana Jones, here we come," she giggled. They'd watched the classic movie on DVD a few days ago. The Varga found it a lot of fun, but as he pointed out, ultimately futile, as the presence or absence of the titular character was actually irrelevant to the plot. She'd had to think about it for a while but in the end decided he was, as was often the case, right.
"OK," she agreed. "That could be fun. Let's have a whip, then." A moment later she was holding a Varga-stuff whip patterned on the movie one, making her grin. A slight weight on her head made her investigate, to find a fedora as well, completing the image. "Cool," she laughed.
Examining the whip she saw it was made of innumerable tiny segments, like the cables the Varga made to link restraints together. He'd explained that was because the substance was entirely rigid and unbendable, but by making a complex woven chain, he could overcome that limitation. It was a little like a necklace that her mother had owned, made of silver and from India, the result of a hell of a lot of delicate work by some unknown metalworker.
Hefting the whip, she coiled it up carefully, then experimentally flicked it, only to nearly fall over as it went in entirely an unexpected direction and ended up winding around her. Her tail twitching in mild irritation, she patiently unwound it while the Varga laughed like an idiot.
"Do that again," he giggled. She did, to similar effect, making him laugh enough that if he'd been in charge of their body he'd be rolling around on the floor.
"This isn't as easy as it looks," she mumbled, coiling the thing up again, then trying once more.
It took nearly half an hour, but in the end she managed to make the whip do what she wanted, the tip snapping sharply. Pleased, she tried again a few times. Putting more effort into it produced a remarkably loud crack like a gunshot, and a perceptible shock wave from the end. Asking the Varga to produce a couple of wooden training dummies, she tried snapping the whip at one of them, then gaped as it was neatly cut in half at the waist. "Oops," she said quietly. "Too hard."
"Just a little," he commented. "I think that might be too much for most opponents."
"You think?" she asked sarcastically. Trying again on the other one she managed to wrap the whip around it, but even so it left deep gouges behind. "This is way too dangerous for normal humans," she decided, slightly depressed. "Pity. It looks so cool."
"It's a very heavy whip and you're strong enough to put a lot of force behind it," he pointed out. "We could try a leather one, or something close to that."
"No, not right now," she replied, coiling the whip up in one hand and walking over to poke the remains of the two dummies. "It's cool, but not particularly efficient. Or too efficient, maybe, assuming I want to cut someone in half. I have easier ways to do that anyway." She grinned a little. "Can't beat a thagomizer. It looks as lethal as it is, I think people would probably run without needing to be sliced into little bits."
"Most likely," he laughed.
An hour or so later she'd practiced with dual-wielding swords of a number of types until both of them were happy with the results, and was now engaged in inspecting a net that her companion had produced, a circular fine-meshed construction about seven feet in diameter with weights around the edge, patterned on one that had been in the book on Roman weapons. Trying to work out the best way to use it she briefly wished the book had contained a manual on the things rather than just a description of them and some pictures.
After quite a lot of experimentation, she worked out how to hold it and throw it with the right sort of spin so it opened out, the weights holding it in shape. It was surprisingly difficult. Nearly an hour of practice later, though, she could engulf a man-sized target with the net four out of five times, which allowed her to pull sharply on the line that was attached to it and reel the captive in neatly.
"Not bad," she commented to the demon, who made an approving sound, while she bent to untangle the latest captured dummy. The mesh of the net formed holes about two inches across while the fine segmented lines that made up the material of it were less than a sixteenth of an inch in diameter and very flexible. Even so, it was probably unbreakable for almost any definition of the word, knowing what she did about Vargastuff. Idly wondering if it would hold Alexandria, she carefully rolled it into the throwing shape she'd worked out and took aim at another dummy. Just before she threw, she paused, sniffing curiously.
'That's a familiar scent,' she remarked to the Varga, making the throw and taking the opportunity of recovering the net to look around casually. 'It's coming from that warehouse to the west about two hundred yards away.'
"What do you want to do about it?" he asked.
'Not sure. She's not doing anything hostile, I think she's only watching. Curious, maybe? From what we've found out about her, she's an information gatherer if nothing else.'
"True," her companion rumbled, sounding thoughtful. "There's probably no harm in it. But it might be a good idea to have a word with her if she's still there later."
'OK,' Taylor agreed, rolling the net up again.
Moving back to her starting point, she threw once more, wondering why Tattletale of the Undersiders was hiding in a warehouse watching her. The smell that was blowing towards her mixed the subtle scents of worry, curiosity, and fear in varying quantities over the top of the smell of the girl herself.
Lisa watched carefully as Saurial did whatever it was that produced mannequins, three more appearing to replace the two that had vanished silently a moment earlier. Her power was having no real luck working out what was going on, although she found that if she didn't aim it at the lizard-girl herself but at her activities it at least didn't curl up and whimper.
The fact that it did actually produce the same effect when aimed directly at working out what Saurial was as it had for Raptaur clinched the link between them in her mind, though. Somehow, and she was still hazy on the details, Raptaur and Saurial were either sisters, or actually the same person, most likely that curly-haired brunette she'd spotted weeks ago in the mall. Who that actually was remained a mystery, one she had no real interest in solving as she had a fairly shrewd idea that the person in question would take a very dim view of that violation of the Rules.
Moving to the side of the empty window frame on the fifth floor of the abandoned warehouse she was watching from, Lisa sat against the wall and thought hard.
It looked more than likely that there was the Changer to beat all Changers wandering around Brockton Bay stopping random crimes, when she wasn't swimming around in the bay trolling fishermen. And, based on the intercepted PRT briefing, probably hurtling about the Atlantic at preposterous speeds doing… something.
The PRT themselves were apparently convinced that Saurial, Raptaur, and the 'sea serpent' were all different individuals but Lisa doubted that very much.
Although, watching the six and a half foot lizard woman tightly wrap a dummy with a net in one smooth motion, she found it hard to believe that the same person could turn into something big enough to eat Leviathan like a snack. Or an eighty foot tall creature that could juggle trawlers. However, as far as she could work out from the little her ability could give her, that seemed the least unlikely scenario from a list of increasingly silly ones.
Where the mystery weapons tests that Dragon and Armsmaster had been reporting on figured into it she was currently drawing a blank on, but again, the girl down there was probably connected in some way. The link to the DWU was both clear and non obvious as well. How it all tied together was something she was having a lot of trouble with.
Still not sure whether her fascination with the other cape or capes was a good idea, but despite all the terror it produced unable to let it go, Lisa sighed quietly, then peeked out again to see what Saurial was doing now.
There was no sign of her.
"Oh, crap," the blonde whispered to herself, peering around in a fruitless attempt to find the reptilian girl. Without knowing where she was it would be very hard to sneak off without being discovered.
She'd noticed the girl stop and look around at one point fifteen minutes earlier and had tensed, preparing to make a break for it, but when she'd gone back to her activities, had relaxed. It didn't seem that she'd detected Lisa. Now, though, she was wondering if she had been played.
"Hi," a chirpy voice suddenly said from directly above her as she leaned a little further out the window to look to the side, making her emit a short scream of shock and whip her head up, to see Saurial clinging head down to the brickwork above the window watching her. "Tattletale, right? From the Undersiders?"
Breathing heavily, her heart pounding in her chest, Lisa stared in stunned befuddlement for a moment then slowly nodded. She'd had absolutely no warning of the approach of the other person, implying a level of stealth which was quite worrying, as her power was extremely good at picking up on small hints of movement. She didn't often get surprised like this.
"I just wanted to come over and say hello," Saurial continued, skittering down the wall like an overgrown garden lizard as she spoke, then flipping easily through the window and landing on the floor, before holding out her hand. "You seemed interested in my training, you've been watching for ages. There's no need to hide, you can come and watch from closer if you want."
Not entirely certain what was happening, Lisa weakly held out her hand, which was promptly shaken, the fine scales of the other girl's fingers feeling odd in her grip. "I…," she began, then swallowed. "You knew I was watching the whole time?"
"Yep," Saurial smiled, exposing a number of teeth which obviously belonged to a carnivore. Lisa tried not to react, mostly successfully. "I have a very good sense of smell. You're upwind." She shrugged. "Not hard, really."
"And you're OK with that?" Lisa asked, feeling somewhat less worried. There was something about the cheerfulness of the reptilian girl which was contagious. "I mean, a lot of capes don't like being watched without them knowing about it. And I'm a villain, more or less, while you're a hero."
Saurial grinned again. "Hero, Villain, they're just labels. Not always good ones. Sure, rob a bank, and if I'm passing I'll stop you, but I'm not going to jump you just because of something you might or might not have done in the past. There are much worse people than you wandering around. The world isn't black and white and people are all different anyway. Everyone has their own reasons for what they do. For all I know you're actually a decent person who fell into a life of crime because of some horrible thing in your past, or you might just be a terrible person who likes watching the world burn. But I don't know you, so I don't know. I'm willing to find out."
Lisa simply stared as the girl chattered, then finally shook her head a little. "You are… not at all what I expected," she said.
Saurial laughed. "I get that a lot," she snickered. Looking around she added, "This place is filthy. Why don't we go outside where it's cleaner and we can talk?"
Following the eyes of the other cape, Lisa couldn't help but agree. "OK, I guess," she said in the end, then followed as Saurial let the way out of the room and down several flights of bare cement stairs to the ground.
Heading to the gap in the fence which Lisa deduced had been made by Hookwolf when he'd attacked, the lizard-girl casually bent one of the poles out of the way to allow the blonde to go through, then bent it back afterwards. The creaking sound the stressed metal made as it bent made her sigh. "Those E88 idiots caused a lot of damage," she mumbled, fiddling with the fence until she was satisfied. Lisa watched, wondering why the girl was so annoyed about damage to the DWU property. Catching her eye Saurial shrugged.
"They're good people and it irritates me when someone just smashes up the place for no good reason. Especially since it was me he was after in the first place."
"Oh," Lisa replied, adding this to the list of peculiarities. Saurial clearly had a closer relationship to the DWU than she'd thought.
"Come on, there's a place in one of the storage sheds that's unlocked, we can sit down in there out of the cold," Saurial invited, waving towards the buildings, then leading her guest over. She opened a sliding door that was indeed unlocked, although heavy enough that it would take two normal people to move it at all, with one hand and making it look easy. Inside, she flicked on the lights and found a couple of old office chairs. "It's not exactly a conference room but it'll do," the girl said, sitting on one of the chairs having moved her long tail out of the way. Lisa watched curiously, then sat in the other one when Saurial motioned to it.
"So. Undersiders, hmm?" The lizard-girl looked at her, then removed her sunglasses, letting Lisa see her eyes for the first time, and confirming to her that they were in fact the same as those of Raptaur and the sea serpent or whatever it was. She nodded very slightly to herself, pleased that at least one of her deductions appeared to be correct. "Neighbors of the DWU as far as I know. Somewhere on the other side of Merchant territory."
"More or less, yes," Lisa replied after a moment, wondering how she knew. "You've done your research," she realized.
"Of course. I've spent a lot of time looking up everything I could find on every cape in Brockton Bay, the gangs, the PRT, and everything else I could find out about this lifestyle," Saurial confirmed, smiling. "It's only common sense and I had some good advice in the beginning, which I've been trying to follow. From what I could find out about you and your team, you're basically fairly low level thieves more than anything else, although you have a reputation for getting away with more than you should be able to. Pretty impressive."
"And that doesn't bother you?" Lisa asked with some disbelief.
Saurial shrugged. "I'd prefer it if people didn't steal things, sure, and if you steal anything from the DWU I'll bury you, but unless I catch you in the act I'm not going to go out of my way to track you guys down. I have better things to do with my time to be honest."
Lisa stared, not entirely certain what to feel about that. The casual threat was bloodcurdling because she was absolutely sure it was real, but at the same time the lack of real menace seemed equally real. She got the impression that Saurial really didn't care too much about whether she was technically on the other side of the law.
"That's… not a common attitude," she admitted.
"I know. Most capes take life way too seriously," Saurial replied. "It's odd. With all the abilities that they have, you'd think they could find better uses for them than fighting all the time, but..." She shrugged with a sigh. "It's kind of annoying. I just want to try to make life better for as many people as I can and wrecking the street isn't going to do that, is it? I'd rather build things than destroy them, in general. Or help other people build them, anyway." She indicated the building around them. "So I'm happy to help these guys. They're good people, friends of mine, and have some interesting possibilities."
"Connected to the rail lines?" Lisa asked, probing for details on something that she was curious about.
"In a manner of speaking, yes," Saurial nodded, "but it's a secret at the moment. It could be good for the Bay if it works out though." She inspected the other woman. "You've been watching them check the lines."
"How did you know?"
"Some deductive reasoning, a guess, and the fact that you've been seen by the security teams going in and out of the area with your friends," Saurial laughed. "Those huge dogs that your friend Bitch has are sort of obvious."
"I suppose they are," Lisa admitted, not entirely happy about how observant both Saurial and the DWU people apparently were.
"So, what's your power?" Saurial asked curiously. "Mine is obvious, I'm basically a Brute, with some interesting other abilities like this." She held out a hand in which a sword appeared, then vanished again. Lisa twitched. "But there isn't much information on you on the internet. I'd guess something like Thinker?"
Debating with herself, Lisa finally nodded. "Yes, more or less. I'm good with working things out from small clues." She didn't expand on that.
"Cool. That must help with breaking into places, right?" Saurial seemed fairly unconcerned about this. "Getting passwords, codes, that sort of thing?"
Somewhat shocked at how close this guess was, Lisa nodded. "Essentially."
"And I know your friend Grue makes that weird darkness smoke or whatever it is. Bitch makes those dogs?"
"Yes, they're normal dogs that she can grow when she wants to."
"Weird." Saurial looked interested. "I heard they were pretty quick, although from what I was told they don't look comfortable to ride."
Lisa laughed for a moment. "Not really, no, but they're fast and convenient. And almost indestructible when they're big like that."
"What about the other guy. Regent?"
Somewhat unsure about how she'd managed to get maneuvered into divulging so much information, Lisa replied, "He can make people's muscles twitch, which throws them off in a fight. It doesn't sound like much but you'd be amazed how often it helps."
"I can guess," the girl remarked, nodding. Lisa watched her, trying not to let her power activate, as every time it did she got a headache. Saurial watched her back, tilting her head to the side for a second.
"There's something else you're wondering, I can smell it," she finally said, her voice more serious. "You've taken a big risk coming to watch me like that. You're right, most capes, hell, most people, wouldn't like being spied on. Normally I wouldn't myself but I find you interesting. So what is it about me that's so fascinating you're prepared to go to all this effort?"
After a moment when Lisa didn't respond, she leaned forward a little. "I know you're both terrified and curious. A weird mix. I'm not going to hurt you, unless you become a threat to either my family or friends, and so far you're neither. You have a question. Ask it."
Lisa was growing worried. She glanced at the door, realizing consciously for the first time that Saurial had managed to end up between her and it. Wondering if that had been deliberate, she looked back at the girl, then mentally smacked herself. Of course it had been. The entire chirpy happy act was deliberate, to get her to lower her guard and answer some questions. It was masterfully done. There was no overt threat but she knew damn well she didn't stand a chance if the girl decided to do something hostile.
On the other hand, as far as she could tell Saurial was being honest about not particularly caring about her activities as long as they didn't impinge on her own life, or happen in front of her. It was an odd attitude for a hero, but the girl was a very odd hero whichever way you looked at it. Lisa had no intention of going up against her either, she knew how that would end. None of her team could really do much, the encounter with Raptaur had shown that beyond doubt.
Eventually, and with a certain amount of worry about whether this was in any way the right approach, Lisa sighed internally then said, "Thank you for returning my phone."
Saurial watched her for a moment, then smiled. "You're welcome. It looked expensive."
They stared at each other for some seconds.
"It really was you," Lisa sighed. "You're a Changer."
"I am," the girl confirmed.
"Why tell me?"
"You'd already worked it out, you're not a direct threat, and I know where you live." Saurial smirked at her as she gaped.
"Oh, shit. Good sense of smell, you said," she finally said, realizing the truth.
The lizard-girl tapped the end of her muzzle with a clawed finger. "Better than a bloodhound. I can track you across the city with my eyes shut. Finding your base was trivial, although it was actually mostly an accident. I wasn't looking for it, I ran across it when I was heading for the water."
"Fuck. The others are going to go nuts."
"You don't have to tell them," Saurial pointed out. "In fact, it's probably best if you don't. I have no intention of violating the Rules, and I'm not going to come looking for you unless I have no choice. Just make sure that doesn't happen."
Again, it wasn't a threat, just a suggestion, but one with teeth hiding under the surface.
Big ones.
"OK. I won't mention it." Lisa didn't see that she had a choice, and actually agreed anyway. "Why are you running around pretending to be at least two different people in the first place?"
"It's good camouflage and it's really funny," Saurial laughed. "The expressions people get are amazing. When they finally work it out, it's going to be hilarious."
Lisa gaped, then started laughing. "You are completely insane."
"Probably. But I'm having fun," the other girl snickered.
Shaking her head in admiration, Lisa just looked at her. After a moment, another rather nasty thought suddenly came to her. "Crap. Your hearing is as good as your nose, isn't it?"
"Yes, and my eyesight too. All my senses are far better than yours."
"You heard us talking when you were chasing us, then." Lisa was horrified by the implications. Saurial studied her for a moment.
"Like I said, I have no intention of giving away anyone's secrets." She paused, then added, "Lisa."
Closing her eyes, the blonde shook her head in despair. "I thought I was the sneaky one who always knew things no one else could find out. So this is what it's like to be on the other side of that."
When she opened her eyes Saurial was wearing a remarkably smug grin, one that reminded her of herself more than a little, but with a lot more teeth and orange eyes. "Sorry, I couldn't resist. Yes, I heard more than you'd think and I know your name and Grue's. Sorry, I can't really help it, my senses are that good. But I'm serious, I'm not going to spill anything about it and I doubt anyone can force me to."
She cocked her head, inspecting Lisa closely. "For that matter, if you're the level of Thinker that I suspect you are, I bet you know the IDs of a number of capes outside your own team." Rather worried, Lisa didn't react. It was true, of course, but she wasn't going to admit to it. Even so, Saurial looked pleased.
"I thought so. I wonder how many others can do the same thing."
"How the hell did you know?" Lisa exploded.
"You'd be appalled about how much I can pick up on people's thoughts if I concentrate on all the little cues," Saurial snickered. "Scent, tiny changes to expression, things like that."
"Your vision is not only better than human it goes outside normal wavelengths, doesn't it?" Lisa realized. Saurial merely smiled. "Probably thermal vision as well. Fuck. You have a built in lie detector."
"I'm still learning but I've worked out all sorts of interesting tricks," the girl laughed.
"I'm sure you have," Lisa sighed. "Remind me never to get into a poker game with you." Her companion seemed to find this very amusing.
"So where does this leave us?" Lisa asked.
Saurial was quiet for a moment. Eventually, she replied, "I'm serious about not really caring what you get up to as long as you stay away from the DWU, don't become a threat to my family, and don't do something excessive in front of me. Ideally I'd prefer you not to break the law at all but I'm not a cop, I'm not going to hunt you guys down unless you do something stupid. Kidnap someone, or kill someone, I'll find you, but steal from Kaiser or something like that, that's between you and him."
She shrugged a little. "It's the same with Über and Leet. I met them, they seem like decent enough people for relatively minor criminals, we talked, then I left. Leet even gave me some useful information so I sort of owe him one. But as I said I'm not the sort of person who sees the world as us and them. You are your own person, I'm not going to tell you how to live your life."
The girl looked seriously at her. "If you want to be friends, I'm fine with that. If you want to stay away and avoid me completely, I'm fine with that too. The fact that you're technically a criminal doesn't wildly bother me at the moment. I'd suggest you find something more honest to do, though."
Lisa sighed. "I wish it was that easy."
"Why isn't it? You're obviously smart, you have a very powerful ability, there must be some way to turn that to honest work even with all the rules about parahuman employment. Even join the Wards. I'm sure they'd be happy enough to take you, from what I've learned they've taken much more dangerous people in the past. You're not a violent person and as far as I know none of your friends really are either, except maybe for Bitch."
"There were extenuating circumstances in her case," Lisa replied, "Not that anyone listened. We all have good reasons for being where we are, though."
"What's yours?" Saurial asked curiously.
Staring at her for a long moment, Lisa shrugged. Maybe this crazy cape could actually help her. It was worth a try.
"What do you know about Coil?" she asked.