Taylor looked up as the waiter delivered her new drink, smiling at him. The fixed smile she got back was a little odd and made her stare after him for a moment, then shrug. People could be weird.
The restaurant Amy had been heading for was the same one she and her father had been in just before the great Über and Leet VS Glory Girl battle, which still made her snicker when she thought about it. While she didn't wish the heroine any ill it had been excruciatingly funny to watch Über deal with her so effectively. Now she was sitting across from her sister, enjoying a very good meal, in a very nice restaurant.
Casually glancing around she noticed a number of people quickly hide cellphones and look away, making her smirk. Amy noticed the same thing, sighing a little and shaking her head. "I'll never get used to that," she mumbled in a low voice.
"It's a little annoying sometimes but I can live with it," Taylor replied calmly, before taking a sip of her drink. "We're capes, people are interested. As long as they're discreet and polite about it I don't mind. Mostly they are."
Amy giggled. "I'm not surprised people are polite to you. You give off a… distinctive… air of being unwise to annoy."
"Ah. My plan is working," Taylor laughed. She looked around again, then raised an eye ridge. "But how did they penetrate my cunning disguise?" Adjusting her fedora, she grinned. "Perhaps I should have worn glasses as well. Or a fake beard."
"Somehow I doubt that would actually work," Amy replied dryly, "not to mention the tiny fact that a giant bipedal lizard with a beard, glasses, and a hat is even more memorable than a giant bipedal lizard. In a hat."
Snickering, Taylor ate another mouthful of her food. "Possibly. I just find the reactions hilarious. You wouldn't believe the color some of the criminals I catch go when they turn around and see me there."
"Oddly enough, I would," her companion remarked, giving her a look that seemed darkly pleased.
They'd been eating and talking for nearly two and a half hours now, Amy seeming genuinely happy about the company. No really deep talk, since they were in public, just general chatting about life, various events that Amy had helped out with, and on Taylor's part, some of the more amusing methods she'd used to capture criminals. The restaurant staff had frozen when she walked in with the healer, but rallied in the end after some frantic whispering in the kitchen which she deliberately didn't listen to. They'd been shown to a table in the corner, Taylor moving the chair out of the way then propping herself up with her tail, which caused everyone to stare for a moment.
Amy had looked fascinated and Taylor could tell she really wanted to ask a lot of questions. The Varga had been very amused and suggested a number of things to ask her when the opportunity arose. Now, though, they were close to the end of the meal.
The healer proved to have a quirky and devious sense of humor which Taylor approved of, seeming to enjoy watching how people reacted to Saurial. She'd laughed quietly a number of times when new customers coming in had suddenly spotted her and stopped dead, most of them eventually entering the restaurant anyway although at least one had turned without a word and scuttled off. Taylor decided she'd leave a generous tip to make up for the problems her presence seemed to bring.
"Can you make any clothing or tool with that power?" Amy asked suddenly, looking at the leather jacket the Varga had produced, patterned on one she'd seen in a shop a couple of weeks ago. "And is that really leather?"
"Pretty much, yes," she replied. "It's not leather, as such, it's sort of a synthetic duplicate. I'd never peel a mammal just to make clothing out of it. Some of my best friends are mammals." She inspected Amy closely. "Although you all tend to look alike to me. The smell is different though, which is useful." She grinned when Amy stared, then laughed.
"People make leather from reptile skin as well, you know," the other girl snickered.
Taylor looked aghast at her.
"Really? Who are these people?"
"No idea."
"Hmm. I may have to look into that." She frowned, making Amy giggle.
"Weird, weird person."
"I try," she shrugged, grinning suddenly.
"I'm really jealous of that power, you know," the brunette commented. "Never having to buy clothes again would be damn useful." After a moment, she smirked widely. "Oh, god, my sister would go mad if she knew you could do that! She's so into her clothes it's ridiculous."
"Might be best not to mention it to her, then," Taylor smiled. "She seems to be a little worried about me already. Although she and your mother and aunt were very polite when they came to talk to me that time."
"I heard," Amy replied, looking like she found the memory funny. "Vicky was… slightly disturbed for some time after that. You impressed her. A lot."
"That's nice," Taylor replied with a small smile, making the other girl grin again.
Motioning to the waiter, Amy ordered a dessert when he came over, then glanced at Taylor. "Can I have half a dozen eggs, please?" she asked politely. "Raw, in the shells."
"Um… Certainly, Miss Saurial," he replied a little uncertainly, giving her an odd look, then disappearing again. Amy shook her head a little with a small grin.
"That is becoming something of a meme, you know. You and eggs."
"I like them," Taylor protested mildly. "They're tasty."
"Have you tabascoed anyone else recently, other than Clockblocker?" the other girl asked, causing her to grin.
"No. I need to work out the next joke like that. His reaction was incredible."
"I'll say, I nearly died laughing when I saw it," Amy snickered, making them both break down and laugh.
"He was a good sport about it, I have to say," Taylor commented after she recovered.
"Clock's got a weird sense of humor at the best of times and appreciates a good joke, even if it is on him." Amy looked approving. "Not many people do."
"I like the guy, I have to admit," Taylor smiled.
"So do I."
Their orders arrived, both of them thanking the waiter, then she picked up an egg and tossed it into her mouth, crunching it up and swallowing. Amy watched, going slightly green for a moment. "I can't believe you can actually eat them like that," she remarked, looking mildly ill, then looking away to concentrate on her chocolate ice cream.
Taylor shrugged. "I do, that's all that matters," she replied, amused by the reaction.
"Do you always sneak up on your victims… I mean, the criminals you're after…," Amy smirked as Taylor chuckled, "in the dark and from behind?"
"Normally, yes," she admitted. "It seems to make them more likely to give up for some reason. A lot of people seem to panic when the lights go out." She looked thoughtfully at the other girl. "That seems to be happening more and more, recently. It's odd."
"Isn't it," Amy agreed with a grin. "I wonder why?"
"No idea. People are weird at the best of times."
Sharing a look of amusement they finished their meal. When they were done, Amy reached for her backpack, waving the waiter over for the bill. Taylor started to protest, but the brunette shook her head. "No, it's on me. I've really enjoyed the chance to talk like this. I don't seem to have managed to go out on my own and find something interesting to do for longer than I like to think about. It's always Vicky taking me somewhere."
"OK," Taylor replied. "Let me get the tip, though. I caused them a certain amount of problems tonight."
"People will get used to it sooner or later," Amy laughed. "You're not exactly shy about wandering around and just doing normal things."
"Why would I be?" Taylor asked. She looked down at herself. "Am I overdressed?"
"Not… exactly," the healer replied with a grin. "I can't work out if you genuinely have no clue or you're simply trolling the entire world."
Smirking, Taylor didn't respond, just tipped her head to the side and winked. Amy laughed as she paid the bill with a handful of cash. Both of them stood, Taylor dropping another few bills on the table then following the girl outside. On the way out, Taylor commented, just loudly enough for the staff and a few guests to hear, "This is a very good restaurant. I'll have to tell sis about it."
"Raptaur, you mean?" Amy asked, apparently instantly working it out.
"Yep. She loves Thai food as well, and they even have eggs for dessert! The entire family loves them, you know." The pair of them left a restaurant that had gone dead silent behind them as they exited the building, waiting until they were some distance away before the laughter started.
A quarter of a mile and a few minutes later, Amy looked at her watch. "This has been a lot more fun than I expected. Thanks. But I'm going to have to get home. Carol is probably going to give me a hard time already, I'm late as it is, and didn't call Vicky for a pickup." Checking her phone, which had buzzed several times during the meal until she set it on silent, she sighed. "And I've got six messages from Vicky and two from Carol. Great."
"You deserve some time to yourself, Amy," Saurial replied calmly.
With an internal snort, Amy said, "You'd think that, wouldn't you."
"I assume you have some problems with your family sometimes, then?"
"You could put it like that, yes," she sighed. "Long story."
They'd ended up walking through one of the parks, heading more or less back towards the hospital, with very few people in sight now as it was nearly ten on a dark and chilly February night. Amy looked around, seeing no one close enough to hear her. "Vicky is fine, she's a good sister and I like her very much. Mark is… well, he suffers from depression, you see, and that means half the time he's not really there even when he's in the room."
"And you can't heal him?" The other girl looked curiously at her.
"I don't do brains," Amy replied.
"Don't, or can't?" was the immediate response. She glanced at the lizard-girl walking slowly alongside her for a moment.
"Don't."
"OK." There was no accusation in the tone, or request for clarification, which she found both unusual and welcome.
"And your mother? Carol?"
"She's… difficult," Amy finally replied heavily. "She's a very smart and decent woman, but..."
"But she doesn't trust you, or at least, what she thinks you are. Or could become," the other girl finished for her when she trailed off. Amy was only slightly surprised, as she'd become very aware that Taylor Hebert, whatever she looked like at the time, was very perceptive and appallingly quick on the uptake from a minimum of information. Briefly wondering whether on top of all the other things she had some form of Thinker ability, she nodded.
"Pretty much, yes, I think so. I'm not entirely sure why."
"Is it to do with being adopted?" Saurial asked quietly. Amy stared at her for a second, somewhat surprised.
"How did you know?" she asked curiously, not offended for some reason.
"There's no real family resemblance," the girl replied, "Although that doesn't necessarily prove anything. But your scents are different in a specific way as well, you don't smell related."
"You can actually tell that?" Amy was stunned. "By the smell?"
"You wouldn't believe how much information I can get from scents," Saurial smiled. "It was a shock to me at first as well and I'm still learning new things all the time, but yes, I can tell you're not related. I can work out all sorts of things about people from the scent. And track them from miles away. It comes in handy."
"I can imagine," she replied weakly, only barely able to. "I assume your other senses are enhanced as well?"
"Yes, very much. Eyesight more than hearing, but I can hear people talking all around us in the buildings." Saurial shrugged. "It's part of the whole package."
"So you know there's no one close enough to hear us," Amy said. The girl nodded.
"Why are you being so open with me about what you can do, considering that you're running a scam on the PRT and everyone else?"
"I think I can trust you not to say anything, and you can probably work most of it out yourself with some thought anyway." The reptilian girl glanced at her for a moment. "Like I said, I think I'd like to be your friend. I've been where you are right now, knowing people but not having any actual friends. Probably worse in some ways. What happened before..." She shrugged. "It was bad. Not as bad as some people have it, worse than others, but bad enough. You need a friend, I need more of them. That's happening faster than I expected, I have to admit, but so far very few of them are people I can actually tell any of this to." She waved at herself for a second. "Only the normal stuff."
"Does anyone outside your family know about you?" Amy asked curiously.
"A couple of people have worked it out, one I know about for sure and two others I'm pretty certain about," Saurial replied. After a moment she shook her head with a grin. "It's probably very wrong that they're all technically villains but I still trust them not to spill the beans."
Once again, Amy stared. "Villains?" she echoed in shock.
"Kind of. Not actually bad people, but certainly ones that do things which the PRT would find annoying at best." Saurial snickered. "But they're also very interesting people that I like. I'm not going to hold that against them, unless they do something to me or mine, or do it in front of me so I have no choice."
"You are a very weird sort of hero," Amy remarked after several seconds.
"Who said I was a hero?" Saurial asked, a smile on her muzzle. "I'm just a perfectly normal cute lizard girl who helps out when she sees something going wrong. The whole family is like that. Helpful."
"I'm sure they are," Amy laughed. "Lots of strange reptiles living in the water, coming ashore one at a time to look around, according to some people on PHO."
"That's the rumor," her companion agreed in a calm tone. "We don't like sending more than one at a time in case something happens at home."
"Which is why no one has ever seen you and Raptaur in the same place at the same time."
"Obviously. What other reason could there be?"
Trying not to laugh hysterically at the wonderfully insane practical joke Taylor was working on the entire world, Amy managed to only snort with amusement. She checked her watch again. "I guess I'll have to call Sis for a pickup," she sighed. "I'm not looking forward to that. She's going to be very… Vicky."
Saurial stopped walking and turned to her, studying her for a moment with a thoughtful look. "I have an idea, if you're up for it," she said with a devious grin. "It's a little weird but could be fun."
Not entirely sure she was sane, Amy nodded, returning the grin. "I could go for weird, that's the sort of day I'm having."
Walking around her for a moment, the lizard-girl inspected her, then looked around, before motioning Amy to follow her. "We'll need somewhere private."
Now very curious indeed, the healer followed as Saurial led her to a dark alley which headed off from the street next to the park to a deserted loading dock. "I was always told not to follow strange people into dark alleys," she remarked.
"I'm not a strange person, though, am I?" the girl replied with a look back over her shoulder, a wide grin exposing dozens of sharp teeth that glittered in the dark.
Smirking, Amy said, "Opinion differs on that."
Saurial just shrugged, the grin widening. Checking carefully around, she sniffed a little, then nodded. "No one for some distance." She turned to Amy, who felt a sudden thrill of shock run through her when the familiar form changed with no warning into the much larger and wildly more dangerous one of Raptaur, looking exactly like the images she'd seen in PHO. Up close, mere feet away though, she was a hell of a lot more impressive. Despite herself, Amy took a step back.
"Fuck," she muttered. "That's… terrifying."
"Thanks," the deeper and completely different voice said with an amused tone. The huge reptile paced around Amy again, studying her with her wedge-shaped head cocked to the side, then nodded. "Yep, this should work."
"What should work?" Amy asked suspiciously. She stared in shock as the other cape dropped to all fours in a centaur-like pose, the back of her armor over her lower body changing.
"Have you ever ridden a horse?" Raptaur asked with a chuckle.
Amy gaped at the way the armor had formed a saddle like seat, obviously made to her measurements and complete with hand grips and restraints, then began to grin.
Hearing a yell of mixed terror and joy, Dennis turned around and looked up in time to see a horrifyingly large reptile zip past on the roof next to the road he and Kid Win were respectively walking and gliding down on their way back to the PRT building and the end of their shift. He stared at the sight as the creature, someone wearing a familiar white costume sitting on her back, charged across the rooftops then disappeared over the edge a block away, the rider holding on for dear life and apparently having a hell of a time.
He and his friend exchanged a glance.
"Was that… Panacea?" Chris finally asked, shock in his voice.
"Yes. Yes, it was," Dennis replied slowly.
"And she was riding Raptaur..."
"I believe so, yes," Clockblocker confirmed, a smile growing on his face under his mask.
"Riiight." His friend sounded confused. "I didn't know they knew each other."
"I didn't know Raptaur would let you ride her," Dennis snorted, trying to suppress wild laughter. "I wonder how much she charges?"
They watched as the distant forms made a reappearance, rapidly going up the face of the Medhall building that they could see, then vanishing again over the roof. A very faint yell of triumph came back on the wind.
"She needed to get out more," Chris eventually said. "But I think she might have overdone it a little."
They shared a look, then resumed walking. And gliding.
"PHO is going to go fucking insane about this," Dennis said a little later, then couldn't restrain himself any longer. He was still laughing like an idiot when they got back to the PRT building.
"Where the hell have you been, Amy?" Carol demanded as she opened the front door, having heard footsteps approaching up the path from the road as she was passing it on her way to the living room. Her other daughter was standing outside, caught in the process of removing her costume hood with one hand and reaching for the doorknob with the other. The girl stared at her, slight surprise in her eyes at the sudden appearance of her adoptive mother. "And why didn't you call Vicky for a ride? We've been worried about you for hours."
"I went to a restaurant with a friend," Amy replied after a moment. "Then her sister gave me a ride back." For some reason this comment made her grin, a look quite unlike the normal rather sullen one she so often wore.
Carol sighed. "Who was it?" she asked, not happy.
"Me," a voice came out of the dark to the side of the door, making her yelp and turn her head fast enough that she got a crick in her neck. She stared in shock at the huge dark-colored and armored reptilian figure that was standing a few feet away, almost merging with the night, the glowing eyes radiating amusement. "Amy had a meal with my sister and needed to get home, so I offered her a lift. I hope that's all right."
Nodding slowly without conscious intent, Carol looked up at the eyes and teeth smiling down at her from several feet over her head. "It's… It's fine. Thank you," she managed to say after a few seconds of blankness.
"Is that Amy, Mom?" Vicky said from the top of the stairs, rapidly floating down and coming outside to see her sister. "Where were you, sis? I was worried about you, you never… Eep." Her voice died in a squeak when she spotted who was standing next to the other girl, her face going pale in the dark. Amy only seemed amused.
"It was nice meeting you, Amy," Raptaur commented, holding out a huge taloned hand. Amy took it and shook it with no signs of fear.
"Likewise. Thank you very much for the ride, it was a hell of a lot of fun. Like the best roller coaster in the world."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it," the huge reptile laughed. "We can do it again sometime if you want."
"How fast were you going on the freeway?" the brunette asked, glancing at her sister for a second as she said it.
Raptaur shrugged. "We were going past all the cars, so I'd guess about eighty? I don't have a speedometer. Anyway, I have other things to do, so I'll see you around." She waved to the girl as she turned, then twisted her head back around to look directly behind her in a manner that made it clear her long neck wasn't even close to human in construction. "It was nice to meet you, Mrs Dallon, Victoria. Saurial told me all about you both." With another wave she suddenly accelerated to vehicular speeds, taking a turn onto the road and rapidly disappearing from sight.
Amy watched her go, then turned to the others, who were standing completely still staring at her. Carol couldn't think what to say, so in the end merely stepped aside and let her in. "Hi, Vicky, Carol, I'm back," the girl said with her normal somewhat sarcastic tone. "Nice to see you both. I had a fun evening, thanks. Now I'm off to bed. Good night."
They turned and watched as she went up the stairs, seeming pleased with herself, then turned back to look out into the night. Eventually both Dallons retreated into the house, Carol closing the door softly and leaning on it.
"Amy made some friends," Vicky finally said in a high-pitched voice. "That's nice."
Carol stared at her, sighed, then went to find a bottle of wine and a corkscrew.
Slipping easily through the dark waters of the bay as Kaiju, Taylor smiled internally. 'That was a lot of fun,' she remarked.
"Amy certainly seemed to enjoy it," the Varga agreed. "Both the meal and the aftermath. She seemed much happier than we've seen her before."
'I hope it cheered her up, she always looks so tired and depressed,' Taylor sighed. 'If she really is going to take time for herself I'm very pleased about it. I think I might invite her back to meet Dad and talk some more, about things we couldn't mention in public. She's obviously wanting to say something that she didn't want to talk about in the restaurant.'
"Are you going to tell her everything?" The demon sounded curious. She thought for a moment.
'Probably not, at least not at first. I want to see how she reacts. She's obviously worked out quite a lot of it already, though, like Lisa did.' Thinking back to the two hour conversation she'd had with the blonde villain, she smiled to herself again. 'I think dealing with Coil is going to be fun.'
"Not for him."
'No, not really,' she agreed with a dark chuckle. 'Poor guy may end up with a phobia.'
"From what she said about him, that's probably the nicest thing we could do. I still think just eating him would be the simplest solution." The Varga laughed a little. "It usually is. You'd be surprised how many problems that sorts out."
Amused, she shook her head a little, then slowed as they arrived over the most heavily silted up part of the deep channel to the docks. 'Well, we need to wait for Lisa to come through with the scent sample. She thought that wouldn't take more than a week or so. Finding him at that point will just take patience. When we know who he really is, we can decided on the best approach.' She smirked. 'We might find a use closer to the original intent for the Assassin's Cloak.'
"I told you it was a valid technique for dealing with certain classes of problem," her demonic friend chortled.
'Yes, you did,' she replied, shaking her head a little. 'But I want to try other options first. Anyway, how are we going to do this?'
She could feel the tide was close to turning, the currents brushing over her scales and steadily slowing while changing direction. Shortly the water in the bay would be flowing out, not in.
Studying the area, they decided on a suitable approach, then began creating the necessary tools. While she had an urge to try a huge shovel just for the amusement value she agreed that the Varga's plow idea was more practical. Shortly afterward she was inspecting the massive snow-plow-like construction which was sinking into the soft silt, over a hundred feet wide in the middle of the wedge-shaped blade. It was very thin to keep the weight low enough not to disappear from sight, with a shape that they thought would allow it to track through the mud at a constant height while pushing a lot of it off to the sides and spreading the rest into the water where hopefully it would quickly wash away.
They'd probably need to fiddle with the design as they progressed but it looked plausible for a first attempt.
She was wearing a harness around her lower body that ended in a pair of enormous rings on each hip. Lying on the floor of the bay were two four hundred foot long cables which had clips on the ends, the other ends on a rig attached to the blade which hopefully would make it move properly. Picking the cables up she moved to the right position then attached them, before slowly walking towards the mouth of the bay. The cables tightened then the blade began moving, hundreds of tons of mud curling up along it to the sides. A surprisingly large amount mixed with the water and soon she could barely see anything, relying on her electrical sense and her hearing to let her know where she was going. As she practiced with it Taylor was becoming more and more able to work without vision underwater.
The blade made a faint rumble as it pushed through the mud, the noise hopefully not carrying too far above water. She was all too aware now after the robot sub incident that people were listening. Hopefully they could finish before some busybody turned up to investigate. She'd had a nice meal already, she didn't need to eat any more plastic and metal right now.
Finishing the first pass after fifteen minutes, leaving a mile long trail behind her, they waited for the silt to settle out and wash away, then dissipated the blade and returned to the beginning to inspect the result. 'That worked pretty well,' she said, satisfied. There was a twenty foot deep trench as wide as the blade in the silted up channel, a wide swath of silt spreading out to either side where some of the mud had settled. About half of it had washed away in the by-now quite strong current.
"It did, better than I expected," he replied, studying the scene. "I think half a dozen more passes and this part will be as clear as it's going to get without a lot more work."
'OK,' she replied happily. The blade was reformed and they started the next sweep, Taylor humming an old sea shanty to herself in a deep voice, enjoying the effort and pleased about the way she could help not only her father but the DWU and Brockton Bay as a whole.
"The passive sonar is picking up something very odd again, Colin," Dragon said suddenly, looking up at him from where she'd been working on checking his latest calculations. "It's close, too. Inside the bay I think."
Worried, he turned to her. "What is it?"
"I'm… not entire certain," she said with a strange tone to her voice. "There's something that suggests a continuous very low level seismic tremor, very faint, some odd metallic sounds… and this."
She activated a speaker on the console next to him. Both of them listened for thirty seconds or so, before he turned to stare at her.
"What the hell is that?" he asked plaintively.
"I think it's something humming 'Drunken Sailor' she said with a certain amount of shock. He stared some more, then looked at the speaker as if it had betrayed him. "Something very large."
"We don't have another one of your probes handy, I suppose?" he asked carefully. She shook her head.
"No, the next one is finished in my lab but it would take hours to get it here."
"I see," he said. They listened for a little longer. The deep notes changed.
"That's 'A Bottle of Rum'" Dragon noted idly. "Good tone."
"Is there any immediate threat to us or the city?" he eventually sighed. "From the apparently happy underwater pirate doing something out there?"
She shrugged helplessly. "We could go and look?"
They exchanged another glance, then very deliberately he reached out and turned the speaker off. Turning back to his work he tried to forget what they'd heard.
"I just want this day to end," he muttered. "And life to go back to what passed for normal in my world."
Dragon sighed a little, watching him, then nodded. "I understand, Colin. I'll keep monitoring it but I can't detect any actual threat at the moment."
With a nod of gratitude, he resumed work, trying to put the insanity of the day behind him and trying not to think about the concept of a sea serpent humming sea shanties, which was just disturbing on more levels than he wanted to consider.
Erwin lifted his head from where he'd pressed his ear to the deck of his dory, shaking his head. "This place is becoming more insane by the day," he mumbled. Standing up he climbed the ladder back to the dock, deciding he was just going to go home and sleep. Obviously going fishing was a bad idea tonight. He was actually beginning to wonder if he could ever risk it again.
Wandering slowly home, he started singing, for some reason almost happy. "What shall we do with a drunken sailor?" he yodeled, trying not to laugh.
Life was clearly totally nuts. He could only roll with it.
Wishing that he'd brought a bottle of rum with him, he headed home, while behind him a faint bass chorus came from deep underwater.