"OK. Here you go," Taylor replied, reverting her head to normal at the same time. She lifted her tail and draped it across her legs, the tip next to Amy, who looked surprised for a moment then shrugged.

"That works." Reaching out she put her hand on the appendage, a look of fascination appearing as she concentrated. "God, I still can't get over how… alien… you are under the surface," she mumbled. Falling silent she seemed to almost go into a trance, Taylor and the Varga both watching with interest, both from the outside and the inside. They could feel her ability trying to get a grip on Taylor's body, failing both due to the apparently utter lack of even a starting point, and the Varga's own careful efforts to keep it at a safe distance.

He was studying Amy just as closely via his own methods. "Now, that is very interesting," he commented curiously after a while.

'What is?' Taylor asked, still watching Amy, who seemed to be looking at the inside of her own head if her expression was anything to go by.

"I'm still not sure about where these parahuman abilities ultimately come from, although I have a few ideas, but one thing I'm becoming convinced about is that there is some form of external influence involved. A little like the linkage we have, but… different. Not a partnership, more… parasitical than that. Intriguing. And somewhat worrying."

'Parasitical?' Taylor echoed, confused.

"It's the best word I can come up with to describe it. Look, you see the neural activity there behind the frontal lobes? It's going frantic, it seems to be where Amy's ability is focused. But I can sense there is another connection to the same area, which doesn't go anywhere inside her brain, it goes… elsewhere. I'm not sure where."

Taylor concentrated her electrical vision on the other girl's brain, seeing the effect clearly. The Varga was right, while Amy's whole brain was alive with activity, that particular part was vastly more enthusiastic about it, the internal movement of signals not seeming to match up with the rest of her brain. The resolution of her electrical sense was steadily getting better with practice and she was now capable of seeing a lot of detail in someone's brain and neural system from close range if she concentrated on it, although actually understanding that detail was in general far beyond her current knowledge.

Even so, she could see the differences, and the brain she was looking at was more active than any she had so far examined.

'What do you think it is?' she asked, fascinated. There was the mental effect of a shrug.

"I don't know. But it's clearly not part of a normal human brain. You don't have the same structure, although admittedly your brain is no longer very human in many ways, and I haven't noticed it before in anyone else. That said it's true neither of us has actually been looking all that hard at people's brains. I can say for sure that I've never encountered such a thing before, none of Luna's people had it. I think it's related to her abilities even if not the ultimate source of them. It somehow gives me the impression of being more of a conduit for the parahuman power. I need more information."

'Like studying some more parahumans when they're using their powers?'

"That would certainly help." He sounded thoughtful. "We should take any opportunity to look into this, it might be important."

'Maybe Amy knows something about it?'

"It's worth asking, certainly. I don't recall any of your research showing anything much about this, only a vague reference to the parahuman brain being a little different. The data you found didn't go into any details of the subject."

About to ask another question of her partner, Taylor was distracted by Amy releasing her tail, then taking a deep breath and shaking her head. "Jesus, that's a rush," she muttered, staring at Taylor, then blinking a few times. "It's like living on bread and water all your life, then someone coming along one day with a fifteen course meal designed to stimulate every possible taste you can imagine. Totally overwhelming."

"So it was good for you too?" Taylor grinned.

The other girl sighed, giving her a look of dry amusement. "You really have got a weird sense of humor, haven't you?"

Nodding, she replied with a smile, "People keep telling me that."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Matching her smile, Amy leaned back and closed her eyes, going silent for a little while. Taylor waited patiently, reaching over and grabbing another bag of potato chips then grazing on them Eventually her guest began speaking. "I believe you." She opened her eyes and gave Taylor a resigned look. "All of it. I simply can't believe how complicated your body is, my power just goes and hides in a corner when I try to get it to find any real point of commonality between us. I still can't work out how the hell you can be compatible with human reproduction, I have to admit, by rights it should be like a donkey mating with a tree, but as far as I can see it would work."

"Oh, thanks," Taylor giggled. "Am I the donkey, or the tree?"

Grinning for a moment, Amy shrugged. "Pick one. Or a rock, or bacteria… Trust me, you're weird. Biologically speaking, anyway." She studied Taylor closely for a moment, then smirked. "And in other ways. But anyway, that's only part of it. I checked and you don't have a Corona Pollentia or Gemma."

Taylor looked blankly at her, making her chuckle.

"It's the part of the brain that is the apparent source of the parahuman abilities, or at least controls them."

"Oh." Curiously, Taylor looked at her for a moment, the Varga also listening very carefully. "Is it about there?" she asked, reaching out and poking Amy in the top of the head.

"Yes," the other girl replied slowly. "Why?"

"I was wondering what all the activity in that spot was for," Taylor told her, making her look shocked. "I can see it. Didn't I mention I can see electrical fields?"

"Not as such, no," Amy said with a long suffering expression. "You've left some important things out again. Spill."

"I can see electrical fields. And heat. And ultraviolet, infra red, probably x-rays as well..." Taylor smiled as Amy simply shook her head in despair. "I told you the other night that my senses were ridiculously good now. It was sort of overwhelming at first in human form although the other forms seemed to handle it better but I've got used to it now. I can turn it off when I'm in my base form, the extended sight modes at least although the night vision is on all the time, but I don't really bother much these days."

She shrugged slightly. "It's useful. Someone pointed out that I have a build in lie detector which is basically true. Although it's something I'm still working on, I can get a pretty good idea of what someone is thinking by watching and smelling all the little clues."

"You're going to drive Armsmaster nuts," Amy laughed. Taylor gave her an inquiring look. "He's got some sort of high-tech lie detector built into his armor and is always telling people whether he thinks they're telling the truth. He's right more often than not, but it's still really irritating. You should do that to him and see how he likes it."

Grinning, Taylor nodded, making a mental note to look into it.

"Oh, god, you're actually going to do it, aren't you?" Amy stared, then howled with laughter. "Promise me you'll wait until I'm there too. I really want to see his reaction."

"Don't you like him?" she asked.

"He's OK, I think he means well, but sometimes he's pretty annoying," Amy giggled, shaking her head. "Everyone thinks so. He needs a sense of humor transplant or something, The guy just doesn't understand it and can be a bit full of himself sometimes. He takes life too seriously."

"Funny coming from you," Taylor smiled.

"I wouldn't argue with that," her friend sighed, suddenly less amused. "There are reasons for it. Anyway, that's not what we were talking about. You aren't a parahuman. That's the important thing."

"What do you mean?" Taylor asked, puzzled.

"Exactly what I said. All parahumans have a Corona Pollentia and Gemma. You don't. So you're not a parahuman. Quod erat demonstratum."

"Nice Latin."

"Thanks." The girl gave her a small smile. "But what I mean is, all the tests for a parahuman ultimately end up revolving around those structures in the brain. No one I have ever heard of has not had them and still had parahuman powers. If they're damaged or destroyed, all sorts of weird things happen to the parahuman, from total loss of their ability to losing control of it completely. It's the key to the whole thing, although as far as I know no one has the slightest idea how or why, or why only some people have the structures in the first place. The Corona is present in a significant fraction of the population, twenty to thirty percent or so, and it seems to mark people who could Trigger as parahumans. The Gemma shows that they have Triggered."

"And I don't have either… Interesting."

"Exactly. Without them, you're not, technically, a parahuman at all. I don't know what you are, but according to the PRT tests, you wouldn't pass them."

"I told you, I'm a half demon. Or something." Taylor grinned at the healer, who rolled her eyes but smiled back.

"You'd confuse the fuck out of any DNA test," Amy laughed. "They would either not show anything at all if they were the traditional biochemical tests since whatever the hell you have in place of it doesn't use any of the same amino acids and none of the normal enzymes would have any effect, or just come up with bizarre results if they were done in a different way. I still can't believe how much information your equivalent of DNA must encode. Quad helix, at least twenty different amino acid equivalents that can combine in base quads… Not to mention that what seems to be chromosomes, or your version of them, are huge and you've got at least eighty of them compared to the normal human forty-six. The sheer amount of data storage capacity in the molecules makes normal DNA look like a toy."

She seemed awed.

"There's massive redundancy built into it as well, wildly more than normal DNA has. Transcription errors must be non-existent. But my power can't make anything more than that out of it. When I try I just get a headache. I guess it simply doesn't have the context for something from another universe or wherever your 'Varga' comes from." She sighed slightly. "It's kind of annoying. I can't do anything with it directly."

"Directly?" Taylor asked, curious about the wording.

Amy looked more cheerful for a moment. "It's still given me some interesting ideas. Even if I can't use that system or affect it, the comparison between you and something sensible is interesting and helpful in understanding what I can affect. That might come in handy at some point. Thanks for letting me look."

"You're welcome, Amy," Taylor smiled. She cocked her head a little, then nodded. "Varga wants to know anything else you know about the parahuman powers and the structures in the brain."

Amy stared for a moment. "He does, does he?"

"Yep. He's really curious about it. In fact, hold on..." She let the demon take over.

"Hello, Amy Dallon. It's nice to talk to you. I have some questions I hope you might be able to answer."

The girl froze, staring in shock, then slowly shuffled away a little on the sofa. She seemed to have no trouble realizing that the change in speech pattern, intonation, and body language denoted that a completely different mind was now talking to her. "Varga?" she said tentatively. Taylor's body nodded, smiling a little, while inside Taylor herself was watching and listening with amused interest.

"Indeed it is. You seem surprised."

"It's one thing being told that someone who is becoming a friend has a demon living inside her. It's something entirely else to actually talk to that demon," Amy quavered, staring wide-eyed. "But for some reason I believe it. Even more than I did just now. Sorry, it took me by surprise."

She seemed to relax a little, while the Varga waited patiently until she was looking less like she wanted to hide under the sofa. "OK. Go on. You have some questions?"

"I do. Can you explain in as much detail as possible the actions of these structures in your brain, as you understand them, please? And if possible I'd like to see a demonstration of your ability while I watch what is happening to your brain."

Seeming somewhat confused, but now very interested, Amy nodded slowly, then began talking.

When Danny entered the house, putting his briefcase down on the floor then taking his coat off and hanging it up, he could hear laughter from the living room. Sticking his head around the door he grinned at the sight of his daughter, currently more or less human, although with a reptilian head that wasn't one he'd seen before, showing off a tall crest of bright red feathers like something from an outsize cockatoo. Amy was watching as she raised and lowered it, laughing like an idiot. Both of them turned to look at him as he cleared his throat.

"I'm home, Taylor," he said, somewhat unnecessarily.

"Are you?" she asked cheerily. "Yes… Yes, I can see you there. Great."

"You know you heard my car coming from the other end of the street at least," he chuckled. She shrugged, an expression he recognized as a smile as performed by a lizard of some sort crossing her face. Amused, he reflected on the odd way he could now read totally inhuman faces with ease, something that if someone had ever asked him about six weeks ago he'd have simply stared at them blankly.

"Why the feathers?" he asked curiously.

"I suggested this as a 'hairstyle' for Saurial during the first experiments, Danny," the Varga replied for her, making him shake his head a little. He noticed with interest that Amy didn't seem surprised at the change in demeanor of his daughter.

"And you thought it was hysterical, didn't you?" the girl said in her normal voice.

"It was, Brain. Very funny. It still is."

"Says you."

"Amy seems to think so too," the demon noted.

Bemused at the sight of his only daughter arguing with herself in two distinctly different speech styles, Danny sighed a little, meeting Amy's eyes. She shrugged, smiling.

"They've been doing this double act for over an hour," the Dallon girl explained as he came more fully into the room. "It's pretty weird, but funny. Both of them have very odd senses of humor."

"Tell me about it," he laughed. "How are you, Amy? Dealing with the Hebert insanity all right?"

"It sort of grows on you after a while," she giggled. "I'm fine, Mr Hebert."

"Call me Danny, no need to be formal here, Amy. I'm glad you're having fun. I assume from all this that you know more or less everything?" He waved a hand at his daughter who was now on four legs in the middle of the room, experimenting with a variant of the weird riding creature she'd shown him a while ago. They both watched as she cycled through different colors for her scales, ending up on something so psychedelically brilliant it made their eyes hurt.

"I think so, yes," the girl replied, shaking her head while shielding her eyes. "God, Taylor, that's horrible! Green and fluorescent pink on the same body? Never mind the bright purple. You look like a hippy threw up on you after taking some bad LSD."

Craning her head around on her long neck Taylor looked back at herself, then laughed. "OK, I may have got carried away, fair enough."

"Pick one and stick to it, don't mix them," their guest suggested, grinning a little. "If you ran through the middle of the city looking like that half the population would have an epileptic fit on the spot. The rest would puke."

"It's not that bad, is it?" she protested.

Both Danny and Amy nodded simultaneously. "It is pretty awful, dear. It might be good for distracting an opponent if you really want to make them sick, but it's a bit much for normal day to day use."

Resuming her normal base form, Taylor laughed, then replied, "I'll get dinner started. It will be about an hour. Amy? Want to help me prepare the vegetables?"

"Sure," the brunette said, standing up and following her friend into the kitchen. Danny watched them go, smiled to himself, then went upstairs to clean up and change.

A little later, sitting at the table, he took the plate Taylor handed him with a nod of thanks. Amy accepted her own food as well, sniffing appreciatively. "It smells fantastic, Taylor."

"Thanks. Hopefully it tastes as good. It's a recipe from Varga's own world, modified for local ingredients. He says it's pretty close. Dad loves it."

"I still think you should do a recipe book, Varga has taught you at least a couple of dozen so far. All of them are very good and some of them are completely different from anything I've had before," Danny said, reaching for the bowl of vegetables and scooping out some spinach. He offered the two girls some as his daughter propped herself on her tail across from him, next to Amy, who accepted the offered bowl with a smile of thanks.

"When I have time, Dad," Taylor laughed. "We have enough projects for now."

Amy looked curious, but didn't ask, trying the food then nodding in satisfaction. "I have to learn how to make this, it's delicious."

They were silent for a little while, eating, until she suddenly got a look of realization on her face. Fork midway to her mouth, she stared at Taylor, then down at her tail where the end was braced on the floor, before she slapped her forehead with her other hand. "Invisible tail. Damn it. I'm an idiot!"

"What do you mean, Amy?" Taylor asked with a sly smile, still eating.

"It was your damn tail! That's what I tripped over in the cafeteria!" Amy seemed mildly outraged.

Taylor and Danny met each other's eyes and laughed.

"Sorry. It was an accident. School chairs aren't designed for tails, annoyingly enough, and I sort of let it stick out more than I meant to."

"It really hurt, you know," Amy grumbled, going back to eating. "And the nurse was making some very irritating jokes about healer, heal thyself. Thanks a lot."

"Hey, it all worked out in the end, didn't it?" Taylor asked brightly. "I'm pleased with the result anyway."

"You didn't nearly break your fucking nose," the Dallon girl snapped with asperity. Danny chuckled, making her look at him with slight embarrassment. "Sorry."

"Don't worry, we hear worse than that in this house, although I prefer to keep it to a minimum." He smiled at her. "Taylor grew up meeting dockworkers who aren't shy about profanity and often very imaginative. I suspect she's been taking notes for years."

Snickering, Amy glanced at her new friend, who met her eyes with an amused look but neither confirmed or denied the idea. "Somehow I could believe that," she said, grinning. "I get the impression that Taylor has a habit of remembering everything she hears. She seems to know a lot about all sorts of weird subjects."

"Varga has taught me a hell of a lot in a short time," Taylor smiled, "but I have a very good memory as well. Mom always told me to learn from anything I did, good or bad. Information is power as the saying goes. She was very smart and very patient."

"It obviously runs in the family," Amy giggled. After another few bites, she added quietly, "I'm glad we met even if you did nearly cripple me for life."

Smirking, Taylor replied, "I doubt a broken nose actually counts as a disability, but I'm glad we met as well."

Danny listened to the two girls talk about quite a few different subjects as the meal progressed, Amy explaining some of what she did in the hospital in general and something of what her abilities were capable of doing. He was quite surprised to realize that she was barely tapping a fraction of what she could really do, apparently out of fear of what might happen or what people would think. He was coming to the conclusion that Carol Dallon was the main reason the girl seemed almost scared of her own power.

Meeting Taylor's eyes at one point, he saw that she already knew this and was also worried for the girl. They had a small conversation via tiny expression changes and glances, until she nodded a little. Turning to the other young woman, he asked quietly, while helping himself to some more of Taylor's work, "Amy, you seem to me to be a very intelligent girl with a very great potential. May I ask why you're so worried about it?"

Amy looked startled, glancing at Taylor for a moment, then looking back to him. "I'm not sure I know what you mean, Danny," she replied after a few slightly uncomfortable seconds.

"Taylor has told me quite a lot about you, as you know she'd very perceptive even leaving the Varga abilities out of it. She's also been through a horrific set of events for nearly two years that came close to killing her, and destroying our family. To her huge credit she managed to overcome that, although again I know full well how much I owe both to Varga and to whoever or whatever sent him to her." He took a sip from his glass of water while the girl watched him warily.

"I recognize something similar in you, I think. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but I want you to know that if there is anything any of us can do to help you, just ask. I think I speak for Taylor and Varga both when I say that we will help as much as we are able to. Which I think between us is quite a lot."

Amy looked at him with wide eyes, then Taylor, who nodded without saying anything. The girl rubbed her face with a hand, taking the opportunity to discreetly wipe her eyes as far as he could see. "Thank you," she said after a few seconds, her voice a little rough. "That… means a lot."

He just nodded, knowing the subject had been raised and she'd likely open up in her own time. Pushing would only be counter productive.

"Do you have any plans for more high speed riding sessions, then?" he asked lightly, turning to Taylor, who was eyeing the girl next to her with sympathy. His daughter grinned at him, then Amy, who seemed to be thinking.

"No actual plans yet, but I bet it happens again sooner or later," she laughed.

"Several people at work were watching the various videos on PHO," he grinned. "It was quite distracting. You're getting something of a reputation at the DWU in one identity or another."

"How is the project going?" she asked curiously. "Did Roy come through with the money?"

"Yes, I sent him the document he wanted and we had nearly half a million dollars in under two hours," he replied, satisfied. "So far about a third of it has been spent, but we've managed to buy almost all the equipment we need for the initial stages of the work. Luckily for us, there are a fair number of companies going under at the moment and we've been taking advantage of that mercilessly. Over the next few days there's going to be several container-loads of gear turning up, enough to keep us functional for years even if this doesn't come off to plan. But I doubt that will happen."

Danny leaned back, having finished his dinner. "Thank you, dear, that was wonderful as usual. You are a very good cook among all your other skills. Annette would, once again, have been very pleased."

"Thanks, Dad," she said quietly. Amy looked at her, then him, before also smiling a little, seeming to have perked up after the slightly depressed thoughtful appearance she'd fallen into a few minutes ago. He got the impression, both from what Taylor had told him, and the Varga as well, and from meeting the girl, that she was very bright but wasn't getting as much out of life as she needed to keep her mind active and healthy.

Hopefully a friendship between the two of them would help both. Although, he felt certain, Brockton Bay was going to have a slightly weird time of it.

"What is this project you keep talking about, if you don't mind me asking?" Amy said, looking very curious.

Danny studied her for a few seconds. "Taylor trusts you, so I will as well. But, and this is important, you can't tell anyone yet. The Mayor will make it public soon enough but up to that point we need to keep things quiet, OK?"

She nodded. "I can keep a secret, believe me. I won't tell anyone."

"All right." He explained the whole scheme, from Taylor's original idea, through the meetings with Roy, all the way up to the night-time meeting with Kaiju, while Taylor quietly moved around clearing the table and wiping down the stove. Amy listened intently, appearing very interested. When he finished, she stared at him for a little while then looked at Taylor who had sat down next to him.

"Fuck me," she finally said, shaking her head in amazement. "You two are practically single-handedly rebuilding the economy of the city."

"It's hardly single-handed, there are a lot of people involved in the project, and there will be a lot more by the time it's working to plan," he smiled, "but I will agree that without Taylor it wouldn't even have got started. Luckily it was a case of the right people in the right place at the right time, and we have a Mayor who is not only unusually smart and honest for a politician, but genuinely wants to do something for the city he's responsible for, rather than simply profit from it one way or another like so many people in his position do." He shrugged a little. "I have no doubt he will profit from it anyway, but that's not the primary motivation, so I don't mind. We'll profit as well, both the Hebert family personally and the DWU as a whole."

"It's going to totally change the way the city works," Amy thought out loud. "The gangs practically run large chunks of it, but if you give a lot of the poorer people jobs and something to lose..." Her eyes widened. "You'll remove a hell of a lot of the gang support from the bottom up. The Merchants more than the ABB or E88, but it will hurt them both as well."

Danny nodded. "Yes, that's actually one of the main points. Both Roy and I think that if we can reduce poverty in the city, the knock-on effects will be profound. Probably quite fast. A lot of the drug addicts in the city are in that state because of hopelessness. Even at a sensible minimum wage they'd be able to drag themselves out of the gutter, train for better jobs, earn more money..." He shrugged. "The problem eventually solves itself without anyone having to go round and beat sense into them."

"I doubt Skidmark and his crew will sit idly by and allow that to happen, though," she said doubtfully.

"That is unfortunately a likely source of trouble," he noted, glancing at Taylor, who was now wearing a small evil grin. "But I expect we can talk a certain amount of sense into them. One way or another."

She looked at him for a long moment, then at Taylor, before grinning in a similar manner. "Oh, god, I bet that 'talk' will be something to see."

All three of them chuckled at the mental picture they each got.

"Why do I suddenly think I'm sitting at a table with the two currently most important people in Brockton Bay?" the healer asked with an amused look, studying them both.

Danny exchanged a glance with his daughter, then both of the simultaneously replied, "No idea."

"I see where she gets it from," Amy giggled.

The trio fell into a companionable silence for a little while. Eventually, she sighed slightly. "Thank you for a really nice time," she said. "I've enjoyed it more than I expected to. Meeting you, Taylor, despite the pain and sheer terror, was probably a good thing." She looked up at them from where she'd been studying her hands, clasped on the table in front of her. "I don't have a lot of fun most of the time. Especially at home."

"I suspected that was the case," he replied. "You're always welcome here if you want to get away from things."

"Thanks."

"You also need to stop working at the hospital so much," Taylor put in. "Even they say so. Find something else to do. Get a hobby. One that takes you out of the house, not just leaves you in your room reading a book. I've been there, it gets very tedious after a while, but it's the easy option so you can sort of get trapped into it and not realize for a long time what's going on."

Danny put his hand on his daughters head and patted it as he got up, moving to put the kettle on for some coffee. "She's right, Amy. When you're not doing so well, you tend to fall into bad habits, ones that can go on for years if you don't somehow get broken out of them. It eats away at you from the inside until something snaps, or someone or something manages to pull you out of it. My wife's death had that effect on me, I'm sorry to say. I missed a lot of what was going on with Taylor because of it, something I'm still guilty about. Luckily we managed to recover with some help from friends. I'd advise trying not to fall into that trap yourself if you can."

Having filled the kettle he turned it on, then turned around to see both girls listening to him. "I don't know your situation but I can easily recognize the symptoms. You lack something in your life. Figure out what that is and you're half-way to fixing the problem."

"I know what it is," Amy muttered, looking depressed again. Taylor glanced at him, then back at the other girl. Both Heberts waited.

"You know I'm adopted, right?" The Dallon girl met his eyes. He nodded.

"I thought that was likely, although I wasn't completely certain. You don't look anything like either Carol or Mark Dallon from the pictures I've seen of them, or Victoria."

"Taylor worked it out as well," Amy said. "I've known for a long time, although no one has ever really sat down with me and said as much. Vicky's aware of it, we've talked about it for years, but neither one of us really cares. She can be a pain and she's so headstrong sometimes it makes me want to scream, but she's my sister and I love her, blood relation or not." She seemed almost defiant about this fact.

"I understand. It speaks well of you."

"I don't know who my birth parents were for sure," the girl went on, "but I have a few ideas. I'm almost certain that my father was a villain. I think I'm a second generation cape. I also think that Carol is so worried I might take after him that she's convinced herself I'm only one bad day away from trying to take over the city. Some of the things she's said, especially when she doesn't know I can hear her..." She shrugged a little. "Let's say it left an impression on a young girl."

Danny felt a degree of anger. He had a pretty good idea of what she wasn't saying, having read a lot about New Wave and Carol Dallon in particular over the years. Her heroic attitude, and that of her family team, was laudable but he'd formed the opinion some time ago that she saw the world in a very us and them way. Annette had thought so as well and had been somewhat disapproving of the super-heroine as a result. He could well imagine the way someone like that might, probably without even consciously doing it, raise the adopted child of a villain, or indeed anyone who wasn't fully on the side of law and order. It didn't paint a very nice picture.

"I see," was all he actually said after thinking the situation over. Looking at Taylor, who he could see was having an internal conversation with her demonic companion as she listened, he thought she'd already worked all this out.

"The problem is really that the power I have isn't… well, it isn't a nice family friendly one like Vicky has, or the rest of the family. They're all proper superheros, Brutes and Blasters and things like that. Nice, PR friendly and flashy powers that run in the family. Me, I'm a messy biological Striker, who can do things that make people instantly think of that asshole Nilbog. Or Blasto, although he's so incompetent he's more of a threat to himself than anyone else. But I can heal like nobody's business, as a side effect, so I sort of got gently pushed in that direction." Amy sighed as he listened curiously. "I don't even know if anyone else actually realizes how little of my power I use for that. It's just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. But it's all I dare do, because of all the horrible things that I could do."

"Hmm." He turned back to the kettle as it boiled, quickly preparing some coffee for himself. After a moment's thought, he made two cups of hot chocolate as well, handing each girl one.

"Thanks, Dad," Taylor said softly, sipping hers, her heat insensitivity allowing her to drink the nearly boiling liquid with every sign of enjoyment. Amy stared for a moment then shook her head with a look of mild envy.

Sitting down again, he added some sugar, then stirred the coffee slowly, studying the Dallon girl.

"You're worried that your mother is right and you'll go bad and end up creating a plague that kills everyone, or something like that?" he finally asked.

She nodded.

"With all due respect that's ridiculous," he sighed. Testing his coffee, he put it down again to cool for a little longer. "Sure, some criminal behavior is sort of inherited. People can basically be born bad. I've known a few like that over the years, proper psychopaths who saw the world as merely something that was there for them to use. But that's rare. Most criminals end up being criminals because of bad upbringing, desperation, poverty, or stupidity and laziness from what I've seen. It's often a gradual thing as well, one bad decision after another until they're stuck. You have obviously had a good upbringing, your family is fairly well off and you're not hurting for money, and one thing I'm absolutely sure of is that you're the exact opposite of either lazy or stupid. There's no reason I can see for you to end up on the wrong side of the law except for either very bad luck or deliberate choice."

The girl watched him silently, taking a small sip of her own drink now it was cool enough.

"Your healing has benefited a very large number of people and got you a reputation that's known world-wide for good reasons, which is something that you can and should be proud of. But don't let it define you. You, Amy Dallon, are more than just Panacea the best healer in the world. You could stop healing tomorrow and you'd still be Amy. She seems like a nice girl to me, intelligent and with an interesting outlook on life. Don't get trapped into one role just out of fear. Respect your abilities, use them responsibly, but don't let other people's expectations drive you into a shell you might never come out of. That's not healthy and may not end well."

Danny smiled. "That's my take on it, anyway. You can ignore the crazy old man if you want, but I've seen some good people end up stuck because they were afraid to take a leap of faith and believe in their own abilities. People who had a lot less potential than you do."

"You're not scared of what I could do?" Amy asked after a moment.

"Not really. Sure, you could probably make something that would wipe out the city in minutes. Powers are terrifying like that. But Taylor could erase the entire place at least as fast, half a dozen militaries around the world including ours could do it in seconds, we could even get hit by an asteroid and wiped out. Or, more likely, an Endbringer, although I sure hope we never get one here. The key thing is, do I think you're likely to wipe out the city? To which the answer is obviously no." He grinned for a moment. "Except by accident, which is why I said use your abilities responsibly."

She smiled a little. "The PRT probably wouldn't see it that way if they really knew what I could do."

He sighed slightly, nodding. "I know, but they're basically professionally paranoid. It's their job to think of the worst case and plan for it. The problem with that outlook on life is that a lot of the time you start assuming the worst is inevitable and over-react to something before it even happens. From what I've heard, Director Piggot is prone to that for some reason, more than a lot of people would be. For all that I think at heart she's a person who means well. Even if she's hard to like."

"Oh, that much is true," Amy replied with a sudden grin. "I've met her quite a few times. She doesn't like parahumans at all."

"Not the best attitude for someone in her position," he noted.

"Not really. But I'm also told she's very smart and very competent. Even people who don't like her, which is most of them, at least respect her."

"Roy mentioned much the same thing the other day," Danny laughed. "He's looking forward to introducing Kaiju to her."

"An eighty-foot tall Godzilla light?" Amy burst out laughing as Taylor grinned. "She's going to freak out. Please let me be there to see it."

"Of course," his daughter snickered. "Several people I know want to watch her reaction."

"You could probably sell tickets for it," Amy replied, smiling widely. Danny noted she seemed to have cheered up quite a bit after the somewhat morose look while they were discussing her home life. He got the impression she blanked a lot of her personality off much of the time for various reasons and was very pleased to be able to let herself relax in present company. Wondering how many actual friends the girl really had he sat and listened as they talked again, smiling to himself.