Danny listened open-mouthed to the story he was told, wondering how things had spiraled so far out of the ordinary without any apparent effort. When all three of them stopped talking, he sighed heavily, leaning back in the chair he'd slumped into and running his hands over his face. "God, and I thought you two meeting was a good thing," he mumbled. Lisa snickered, making him peer at her out of one eye having lifted a hand slightly. "Don't you start. You're as much to blame for all of this as they are."
"Hey! These lunatics were already doing this before I ever came along," the blonde protested.
"I'm sure they were. I'm equally sure you jumped right in with the same huge grin you have right now, Lisa. I know you better than you might think."
"I'm not grinning."
"You are on the inside, I can damn near feel it," he grouched. The internal smirk she had became an external smirk, making him point at her face for a moment. "There it is."
"We get bored easily, Dad," Taylor smiled. "Then we have to find something to do. Amy needed this, you know that."
He inspected her through his fingers, then the huge lizard-thing sitting next to her looking amused, before shaking his head. "Why me?"
"No idea, Boss."
Lowering his hands he glared at Lisa, who chuckled. "Boss of the madhouse," he replied in a sarcastic tone of voice. "Why don't I just get a sign on the gate saying 'Welcome to Arkham Asylum, proudly associated with Miskatonic University. Leave sanity at gate in container provided', hmm? It would at least warn people up front."
"Sanity is overrated," Taylor said in calm tones.
"How would you lot know, none of you have any," he sighed. "And I can feel mine slipping away day by day."
"Poor Dad," she sympathized, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder.
"Poor me, definitely. Poor Brockton Bay as well. Two of you?" He looked despairingly at them. "Life is too short to be able to deal with what that's going to be like." All three young women looked pleased with themselves. "Well, I guess I probably can't actually stop you. Just promise me you won't make the entire city into a nest of demonic lizards, at least until we manage to finish all the work we have scheduled?"
Taylor came over to him and hugged him. "We'll be good." He fixed her with a look, and she blushed a little. "Goodish, then. Mostly."
"Why do I have a sinking sensation in my stomach when you say that?" he asked rhetorically. "Between you, there's a demon, a half-demon, a… whatever the hell Amy is, and her." He nodded towards Lisa, who waved back grinning. "Not to mention Über and Leet somewhere in the mix, and I have no doubt the rest of the former Undersiders sooner or later. Which probably means a number of hell beasts that used to be dogs as well when Rachel gets to work." He thought about his words for a few seconds, paled a little, and groaned again, burying his head in his hands.
"Why me?"
Taylor hugged him again, giggling sympathetically.
"It won't be boring," she pointed out.
"No. No, it won't," Danny sighed. "Not even slightly. God, the worst of it is I'm picturing what would be happening about now if Annette was here. She'd already be bugging Amy for her own demon-suit. Then running around the city making everyone stare in horror at what happened to their nice normal lives." He looked up. "In Brockton Bay! This place wouldn't know normal if it bit it in the ass, but even in those terms you are all crazy."
They exchanged glances and laughed a little, while he shook his head yet again, before pushing everything away and deciding all he could do was roll with it. That pretty much summed up life these days. "OK. So, Amy, what can you do now?" Sitting up he watched as she frowned thoughtfully, wondering at the back of his mind about his ability to read reptilian expressions so easily these days. Apparently you really could get used to anything if you were exposed enough.
"Well, we tested my strength and it's even better than I expected. I can dead-lift about twelve or thirteen tons at the moment, although I think I can probably improve that quite a lot with some more work. Less than half what Taylor can do as Raptaur, but it's pretty high for a Brute. I'm much faster than a normal human as far as reflexes go, and speed of motion. Again, nowhere near what Taylor can do but way up there in Parahuman terms. My vision is far better than before and goes into ultraviolet and infrared a long way, as well as the same general type of thermal vision Taylor has. Which is really weird but fucking cool at the same time. Better hearing, smell, all the normal senses. I'm still trying to figure out the electrical and magnetic senses she has but I haven't quite got there yet."
"You obviously don't have her matter creation power, since as I understand it that's pure Varga magic?"
"No, nothing like that. I can do some pretty cool tricks even so, using my biomanipulation abilities." Amy held out her hand, in which a dark gray-black blade formed over a period of a few seconds, looking like it was growing from the bottom up. His eyes widened.
"How did you do that?" he asked curiously.
"It's made from a biologically generated organic matrix loaded with metallo-organic molecules, like boron compounds. I based it on stuff I read about graphene and carbon nanotubes, with some other things Taylor suggested, and recent research on biological supermaterials found in nature. The stuff is harder than diamond and tougher than cobalt steel, but pretty light. It makes a very good cutting edge. Nothing even close to EDM, of course, but then nothing is. Even so it's the hardest thing you can probably get from a biological source, and stronger than even the best spider silk by a huge amount. I'm pretty proud of it."
Amy smiled, waving the blade in her hand around a little. "Glands in my hands form it in various shapes, and I can reabsorb the stuff for the raw materials. So I can make blades and things like batons, a lot like Taylor can do, but slower as well. It doesn't vanish after some time, although I'm working on a way to make it self-destruct by a sort of enzyme-triggered process. Still a work in progress."
Danny stared, impressed and a little appalled. "That's… somewhat horrifying," he said.
"Once you control biology, you have a hell of a lot of control over chemistry as well," Taylor commented. "There are all sorts of interesting possibilities."
"I decided against the ability to exhale nerve gas as being a little anti-social," Amy laughed, "although I can always add it if needed."
He paled a little again. "Please try not to need it," he begged her. "That may be going slightly too far."
"I thought so," she agreed. "But I did give myself the ability to do this." She put the biologically produced knife on the table, then turned, raising her right arm and sighting along it. He noticed that there was a stand on the far end of the large room with a three-foot-square target pattern on it, which she was pointing her hand at. A sharp pop sounded and the target rocked as something hit it at high velocity. He could see a new hole in the surface, joining a couple of dozen existing ones.
"What the fuck was that?" he asked in shock.
"One of these," Taylor replied, picking something up from the table and handing it to him. He inspected the small thing, finding it to be a dart-like object about an inch and a half long with three fins at the base and a razor-sharp tip. It seemed to be made of the same material Amy had produced the blade from, which was hard and smooth under his fingers.
"I've got a launching mechanism in my forearms for them," Amy explained, turning back to him and smiling, while he stared at the dart he was holding. "It works a bit like a gas-powered blowgun, using several chemicals that get mixed together and cause a burst of very hot high pressure gas and propel the dart down the barrel and out my palm through a small sphincter. The darts are made as needed although I also have half a dozen ready to go all the time. I can coat them in all sorts of interesting chemicals as well, sedatives, hallucinogens, toxins, you name it. Or just fire them bare, at speeds from slow enough to barely pierce the skin up to about two or three times the speed of sound."
"They'd go right through someone like that," Taylor commented approvingly, making him transfer his stare to her. "And a lot of body armor as well. We found out they'll penetrate about a quarter of an inch of armor steel." Amy whirled and leveled both hands, half a dozen loud cracks sounding in under two seconds and the target sprouting more holes, then toppling over. "They're pretty loud at full speed," his daughter added mildly.
"Fucking hell, you girls are… I don't really have the words, but terrifying barely covers it," he breathed, stunned.
"Set the target up again, will you, Taylor?" Amy asked, looking pleased with herself.
"Yep," the other girl replied as she jumped up and did as requested.
"I came up with another one that I didn't want to try until I got the aiming working right," Amy smiled. "Cover your ears."
They all did so, Taylor and Lisa quickly, while Danny looked at them all, then followed suit.
Taking aim again, Amy appeared to concentrate, then the popping sound came once more. It was immediately followed by a very loud bang as half the target disappeared in a shower of splinters. Danny nearly fell off his chair.
"Holy shit, what did you do?!" he shouted, his ears ringing.
"That would be the explosive dart," Amy replied with a wide grin. "Turns out that you can make something like pentaerythritol tetranitrate biologically and even sensitize it so it goes off on impact. Cool, right?"
"That being?" he asked, not recognizing the chemical name.
"PETN. Very powerful explosive, fairly stable, not too toxic, and oddly enough also a drug for certain heart conditions," she told him. "We looked up several different ones and that looked like a good choice. There are some really interesting possibilities that are more powerful but they're too dangerous for the most part. I just wanted something that was suitable for situations where an ordinary dart wouldn't work."
"Jesus Christ on a pogo stick," Danny sighed. "One of you can eat the world, the other one can blow holes in it. Or gas it. Or make it dissolve into goo. I weep for the future of mankind."
All three girls laughed, Amy walking over and putting her huge clawed hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Danny, I'm not going to go and do something silly. I just wanted to make sure that I could pull my weight if if comes to a fight. My abilities are very powerful, horrifically powerful in fact, but only if I touch someone. It's game over at that point for most people, but if I can't touch them, I can't affect them. At least, not without affecting everyone else in the area. It seemed like a decent way to extend my reach without going to crazy extremes."
"Tell him about the idea you had for the biological laser," Taylor smiled.
"Please do not tell me about that idea, Amy," Danny said quickly. "I don't want to know."
"There's the electric eel generation organ based stun-gun idea as well," Lisa snickered. "That one is great. Either touch them and zap or shoot a dart at them and zap."
"Oh, god." He put his head in his hands again.
When he'd recovered a little, he looked around at the room. "Changing the subject away from your horrifying hobby for a moment, I'm impressed with the computer setup," he said, getting up to check out the installation on the other side of the room. "Very neat indeed. Is the internet connection working properly?"
"It's pretty good, Dad," Taylor replied, following him. "These computers are really fast as well, a lot quicker than the ones at Arcadia. I love the monitors, they're fantastic. Lisa did a really good job on the entire order." He looked at her, then at the blonde girl, who seemed pleased with the praise.
"Thanks, Lisa, you're definitely good at this sort of thing."
"My pleasure, Danny," she smiled.
"I see you've got some bookcases up as well. What books are you going to get for them?"
"I've ordered a whole set of chemistry, physics, electronics, mechanical engineering, mathematics, and biology textbooks," Taylor told him. "The library at school is sadly out of date on some of those subjects. I want to learn everything I can, and we'll need them for some of Amy's projects as well. The internet is a useful resource but some of the information we need is difficult to find a good source for. I've also set up a subscription to a couple of scientific magazines so we can see what's going on in the world."
"Sounds like you're really trying to keep abreast of things, dear," he remarked, impressed.
She shrugged. "I like to learn. And you never know when some of that information will come in handy. I need to find some good history books as well, I want to see if there are more like that one of Mom's you showed me on Roman engineering."
"You can bring that in if you'd like," he pointed out.
"I don't want to lose or damage it," she replied quietly. "It was Mom's."
He looked at her, then nodded, silently agreeing with her viewpoint.
"So what's the next task in your current plan to drag the city into a Lovecraftian horror of a world?" he asked with a grin, turning to look at Amy and Lisa, who were watching and listening. The healer in her huge reptilian body was lying stretched out on the floor with her head propped up in her hands, making him smile, it was a very teenaged-girl pose which looked very odd from something like that.
"Taylor and I were going to go for a swim," she replied, looking happy. "I need to test the aquatic adaptions and make any tweaks needed, and check how deep I can go. Should be several thousand feet at least."
"Can you handle the temperature and pressure?" he asked, surprised and concerned.
"Temperature is no problem, this body is good for at least minus sixty without any problems at all," she replied thoughtfully. "Taylor could probably wade in liquid helium, I'm not at that level, but no naturally occurring temperature anywhere on the planet except possibly in a volcano would cause problems. And I have no intention whatsoever of swimming in lava."
"That sounds cool," Taylor snickered. Amy sighed.
"Almost a pun. You'll have to try harder, though." Danny grinned at the long-suffering tone to her voice. He once again thought how neatly the two fitted together, almost like they were sisters or the cousins that Amy had joked about. They were certainly two of a kind in most ways, complementing each others talents remarkably well.
"The pressure is more complicated, but I should be good down to a pretty impressive depth. Definitely a couple of thousand feet with no issues, I've made all the relevant modifications to the life support systems to ensure nothing will cause problems. Below that I'll have to take it slowly and carefully and keep monitoring things, so I can adjust the whole design and tweak it until it works. Nothing like a live test to get proper data, unfortunately."
"Well, be careful, both of you. Taylor, don't let Amy hurt herself pushing her limits too hard." He gave his daughter a slightly worried look. She nodded, appearing fairly unconcerned.
"I'll keep an eye on her, don't worry, Dad," she said. "I don't want anything to happen to her any more than you do."
Going back to the table he rotated the chair he'd been in and sat down again, looking at all three girls, including the purple-hued scaly one on the floor. "When you've fine tuned your little construction project, what do you intend to do with it, Amy?" he asked after a few seconds of contemplation.
Lifting her head she shrugged slightly. "I don't have a specific goal in mind, it's more the trip than the destination," she replied after some thought. "This is amazingly fun, aside from anything else. Every thing I come up with seems to spark at least two other ideas. I could keep fiddling with it for years to be honest. But I guess I want to try to help, other than with the same healing I've been doing since I Triggered." She sighed a little. "True enough, cutting back on that and meeting all you guys has helped a hell of a lot, more than I could ever have imagined. But this opens up all sorts of other possibilities as well. I think being a Family member could be very amusing aside from anything else. Although there are all sorts of problems with actually doing it, of course."
"Yes, I can see a few myself," he noted thoughtfully. "You'll need to put your truck somewhere out of sight so no one knows Amy Dallon is here when… Ianthe… is running around, for one thing. Can you be identified by any specific Parahuman powers you know about?"
Taylor and Amy exchanged a glance while Lisa looked interested. "Um, possibly, yes," Amy said. "My human scent should be covered except for traces that could be argued away as just being in the same room as Amy at some point, but we know that there are some abilities which might be able to detect me in here. I've put in countermeasures for the ones I know about that I think will work, but without testing it I can't be completely sure. I don't think looking for body language, voice patterns, anything like that will give anything useful but there are other methods that might."
"I was going to ask about that, how did you manage to get the speech patterns so different?" he asked curiously. "And adapt to walking around like that so fast? I'd have thought, bearing in mind how it can take months of physiotherapy to get used to something like a badly broken leg, that an entirely new body would be very difficult. Never mind a completely non-human body with a new limb like a tail."
She looked pleased with herself. "Actually, the human body has all the neurological wiring for a tail as it turns out, we used to have them way back in our evolutionary heritage, but you're right." She tapped her head. "Like I said, there's a lot of brain matter in here. It's an entirely standalone system that can run the body on its own if needed. Without me in here, it's got the capacity to be about as smart as a smart dog at the moment, and has a number of preprogrammed behavioral patterns. When I'm connected I'm driving it completely, but it's managing the really low-level stuff that's required to move the body around naturally. We merge on a very fundamental basis, it's an extension of me at this point. Like the symbiote, in a sense, but much more complicated."
"That's..." He stared, astounded. "...Incredible," he finally said in awe.
"It's pretty good," she agreed happily. "I didn't want to push it too far to start with, so I only went for the normal human complement of limbs plus a tail, instead of the extra arms like Taylor can manage. She could probably handle a lot more, her connection to the Varga makes all sorts of ridiculously weird things easy, but I wanted to start off with something I knew would work. But in some ways this is a little like her, which is what I based it on. In a very real sense there are two minds in here as well, although one of them is an extension of the other. Like a coprocessor in computer terms."
"So you're sort of filtering your speech through this secondary brain?" Danny asked, thinking it through. She nodded, smiling happily.
"Yes. It seems to work pretty well, I based it on Saurial so we sound similar. Body language is the same sort of thing, the brain running the body isn't and never has been human so it doesn't look like Amy in an Ianthe suit, while I'm in here I am Ianthe in a very real way. Amy is the mind behind it, but other than that, she's in biological stasis for the most part." She shrugged a little. "You wouldn't believe how much neurological interconnection is needed to make it work. I had to make some interesting modifications to my spine to allow everything to function correctly, that's what took the time during the initial connection." The girl glanced at Lisa and Taylor, who both nodded understanding. "It will connect much faster next time, only a couple of seconds or so."
"And none of this will cause problems for you when you're not Ianthe?" he asked, concerned.
She shook her head. "No, it's not a problem, although I expect missing the boosted senses will be a bit of a let-down. Taylor gets to keep them all the time. Until I can work out the right way to modify my human body without risk, I don't."
"Poor The Amy," Taylor snickered, grinning at her friend.
"Exactly," Amy laughed. "Anyway, it seems to be working perfectly so far. Not bad for a prototype. I can see half a dozen improvements I want to make already but I'll have to wait until I'm out of here for most of them, it'll be easier and probably safer."
"I am almost speechless at how much you've managed to do, Amy," he finally said. "Truly incredible. Please be careful, though, we wouldn't want to lose you through some silly mistake that you overlooked."
"I'll take it slowly and carefully, trust me, Danny," she assured him. "I have no more wish to end up dead than anyone else. But this is the most fun I've had in years. And my power is rolling over and giggling with joy, if it can actually do that." She grinned again. "I like healing people, sure, although compared to that, this is like it's what I was meant to do. I intend to enjoy it to the max."
"While making everyone else stare and go 'Um...' like Taylor does?" Lisa inquired, looking highly amused.
"Oh, sure, definitely that," the girl on the floor giggled.
Sighing a little, Danny inspected them all, then shrugged resignedly. "Don't get too carried away, but I'm glad you're having fun." He looked at his watch for a second. "I have to get back to the office. Lisa, when these two are off terrifying fishermen, I could do with some help and your insight for a while."
"OK, Danny, no problem, I'll head over in a few minutes," the blonde girl replied.
Standing, he headed for the door. Reaching it he unlocked it, then turned to look back at the three at the table, who were watching him, Taylor now Raptaur again. Shaking his head, he left without another word, hearing laughter behind him.
'I'm sorry, Brockton Bay,' he thought as he walked back to the office. 'Really I am. You have no idea what's going on and it's only going to get worse.'
Grinning to himself at the thought, he went into the Admin building and headed for the nearest cup of coffee before getting back to work.
Taylor looked at Amy, who looked back, then they turned to Lisa. "We'll be awhile, I expect," she told the blonde. "Don't wait up."
Laughing, Lisa stood, then walked over to Amy and poked her in the chest. "When you've worked the bugs out, we need to talk."
"You want one?" Amy asked, grinning.
"Oh, so much." Lisa looked at them again, before adding, "So very much. It looks like fun."
"It is so far."
"I'll move your truck in here, Danny's right, you need to think about that some more. If you come here and hide it, that'll keep anyone outside the DWU from knowing, but people around here aren't stupid, they'll work it out sooner or later. There are definitely some of them that already know about Taylor." Lisa looked up at her friends.
Taylor nodded. "I'm aware of that. Zephron knows about Saurial being Raptaur and vice versa, as do a few others. I doubt it took him all that long to work out who I probably really was with that information. But he'd never say."
"No, none of them will, I'm sure of that," Lisa agreed. "But even so you'll want to keep it discreet. Maybe park at Taylor's house and come in with her or Danny, or keep Ianthe somewhere else." She thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Not that anywhere else is as safe as here, though. No one is going to break into this place."
"Only Taylor and I have keys for the workroom, so even if they did get in here no one can enter that," Amy put in. "But you're right of course. We'll have to think that part out some more." She sighed slightly. "Managing multiple identities is complicated. I have no idea how you can do it with at least five of them so far, Taylor."
"Pure skill, of course," Taylor giggled. "Plus Varga magic."
The demon spoke through her, sounding very thoughtful. "Speaking of that, I may be able to modify the Assassin's Cloak spell to help disguise your connection to Ianthe, Amy, but I'm going to have to think hard about it. The perceptual filter part of the spell might be amenable to enough change to allow it to be applied to this body in a way that makes it very difficult to associate with your true identity. Without the entire thing, it wouldn't be as impenetrable as the normal spell is, so there may be methods to defeat it, but it would most likely block any direct association even if the clues were present. It would most likely also confuse most Thinker abilities even more than normal reasoning."
Lisa and Amy stared at her. "Magic is so bullshit!" Lisa finally said with exasperation. "That's just not fair. Instant Stranger ability?"
"As I said, I can't at the moment guarantee it's possible, but I suspect it most likely is. How effective it would be remains to be seen. We already know it works very well as the full spell, but modifying something this complex in effect can sometimes cause unexpected problems. Given enough time I can probably come up with something entirely effective, and I could always throw enough power into it to solve the problem completely, but that would require you to be close to Taylor all the time, which clearly isn't ideal. This should do for the time being once I work out the details even so." He sounded like it was an interesting challenge he was looking forward to.
"It's certainly worth trying," Amy mused. "Although Lisa and Danny are also right, I need to practice good security right from the beginning."
"It is always best to maintain good habits, I agree," he laughed. "Allow me to ponder the matter."
"My keys are in my jacket over there," Amy told Lisa, pointing at the back of one of the chairs where she'd hung the garment when she'd arrived. The blonde girl went and fished around for a moment, coming up with a ring of car keys. Taylor moved to open the roller door, allowing her outside in the process. Shortly the blue truck was parked at the far end of the workshop. Thinking about it, she generated a large crate around it to disguise it just in case.
"That should do it," she said with satisfaction. "OK, let's go for a swim, then wander around town for a while. That should give PHO something to talk about."
Amy grinned at her. "See you later, Lisa," she said to the other girl who was watching and looking cheerful.
"Be careful and have fun," Lisa replied. Both of them nodded as they moved to the rear door, Taylor unlocking it and pulling it open.
"After you, dear cousin Ianthe," she said grandly, motioning to the sea a few yards away.
"Why, thank you, dear cousin Raptaur," Amy smiled. Running out the door she jumped, arching over into a near perfect dive, then disappeared into the chilly water with a small splash. Casting one last look over her shoulder at Lisa who was smirking, Taylor waved, then followed.
'This is incredible,' Amy thought as she slowly sank into the bay, looking around with interest. The transparent second eyelid she'd designed to correct vision underwater was currently across her eyes, allowing her to see clearly. Settling on the bottom she fiddled with the design for a little while, tweaking it for maximum clarity, until she was satisfied it was as good as it would get. Taylor was swimming lazy circles around her with slow sweeps of her tail, having changed the Raptaur form into a scaled down Kaiju one with the aquatic modifications.
Peering over her own shoulder Amy unfurled the fins hidden inside her own 'Ianthe' tail, converting it to a more efficient propulsion system, then pushed off, mimicking the motions her friend was using. It took a few minutes of practice to find the optimal movements but she was soon moving rapidly through the water with no real effort. It was certainly far easier than swimming as a human. 'I could really get used to this,' she smiled to herself.
Both of them swam along a few feet over the sea-floor, following it down as the water got deeper. Taylor led her to the shipping channel then descended into it, turning towards the open ocean. Only a few minutes later they'd left Brockton Bay behind. Looking up Amy tried to work out how deep they were. It was at least several hundred feet she thought. So far, the pressure was hardly noticeable and she felt fine. Her power was monitoring both her human body and the constructed one wrapped around it and keeping it safe. Both were working perfectly. Her energy reserves were more than sufficient to keep this level of exertion up for days, and she had weeks worth of oxygen in storage, leaving aside the amount her lungs, currently working as gills, were taking from the water around her.
'So cool,' she giggled. 'Meeting Taylor was the best thing ever in so many ways.' Even with the somewhat worrying start, she didn't regret a second of it.
By now a couple of miles out to sea, she slowed again, settling to the bottom. Taylor followed her down. Experimentally, she said, "This is amazing," wondering if the sound generation method she'd come up with that didn't rely on a lung-full of air would work properly.
"You sound weird," Taylor chuckled, her own voice sounding more or less normal. "But yes, it is."
Making some modifications, Amy tried again. "How's this?"
"Better," her friend replied. "Pretty close to what you sound like in air. How are you feeling?"
"Absolutely fine and totally stoked," Amy laughed. "This is the most incredible thing ever. I wish we were in tropical waters, though, there'd be more sea life." She looked around. "And less mud, maybe. A nice coral reef or two wouldn't go amiss."
"People just don't think about how their sea-bed looks," Taylor snickered. "All muddy and dark like this."
"It could do with some more light," Amy agreed.
"Like so?" Taylor was suddenly projecting blue light from an organ between her eyes.
"Oh, cool!" Amy yelped in surprise. "Luciferin reaction?"
"Yes, we copied it from a glowing thing I ate on the way back from Canada," Taylor confirmed.
"Neat." Thinking about it, Amy let her power go to work, then smiled when she lit up like a Christmas tree, new light generation organs down her sides and along her tail producing a soft green glow that illuminated the area around them.
"Showoff," Taylor giggled. Amy shrugged, pleased with the result as she inspected herself.
"One does what one can," she replied.
Her friend smiled at her. "One does." After a moment, she added, "Now we're alone, I needed to ask you, do you think Dean will work you out?"
Sitting on the bottom in a cloud of sediment, which rapidly settled out around her, Amy sighed a little. "I'm not sure," she replied, as Taylor sat beside her, watching a small fish of some sort that came to investigate them, apparently attracted by their bioluminescence. "I'm pretty certain that to his emotional reading ability I'll show up a lot like he said you did. My 'Amy' emotional signature should be disguised fairly well both by the biostasis shutting down a lot of my human brain, and the secondary brain which I'm running from at the moment. But he's far from stupid, he knows there's only one of you. Which means that Ianthe can't possibly exist based on what he currently understands."
"Which is going to confuse the poor boy a lot," Taylor pointed out, smirking a little.
"Oh, so much. So even if he can't read me as Amy for sure, he might well work out who I am in the end. He'll know something's hinky right from the beginning. I suspect he'll want to talk again at some point."
"Are you OK with him knowing about your biomanipulation abilities?"
"I'd prefer him not to know, to be honest, but I can't see any good way to keep it hidden from him completely. I'm open to suggestions." Amy shrugged a little nervously. "But you know, Danny knows, Lisa knows, Über and Leet know as well. I guess one more probably won't hurt too much, since we know already that he can keep his mouth shut. If only because he's still terrified of you."
"He'll be terrified of you too, now," Taylor said.
"He already was," Amy replied with a dark grin. "For good reasons."
Laughing, Taylor nodded. "You didn't have to tell Über and Leet about what you could do the other night, you know," she said after a moment.
"I do know, but oddly enough, I actually trust them. More than I do a lot of Parahumans. Probably shows something badly wrong with me that I trust some of the villains more than I trust some of the heroes."
Amy reached out and put her hand near the fish, which was still swimming around them. It swam away, then came back and investigated this new strange thing, making her smile.
Taylor sighed a little. "I know what you mean, believe me. Dad told me early on not to blindly trust the PRT and their people and things since then have made me realize he was right. But there are some good people there, even so. Varga gave similar advice and he's right too. I decided in the end to evaluate people as individuals, not as cardboard cutouts based on their 'alignment' or something equally silly. People are all different. Some heroes are not good people. Some villains are. Law-abiding and good aren't entirely equivalent despite what our parents told us."
"I've begun to learn that," Amy admitted. "Mom would be very irritated about it, but she sees the world very much as us and them. Although to be fair, since our… disagreement… she's mellowed more than I expected. Aunt Sarah talked a lot of sense into her and she's genuinely trying hard to be less judgmental."
"I actually sort of like your Mom," Taylor smiled. "I certainly respect her, and her talents, both as a cape and as a very smart lawyer."
"And car dealer terrifier, don't forget that," Amy snickered.
"Who could forget? Right then, I guess we'll just have to see what happens when we run into Dean. In the meantime, come on, I want to show you some of the things I've found out here. There's a neat shipwreck a few miles that way. We've got a long swim to the continental shelf as well if we're going to test your depth handling ability, it's too shallow around here."
"Lead on, scaly horror from the deep."
Grinning, Taylor launched herself into the water again, Amy following and feeling very happy indeed.
Sighing, Hannah followed the fleeing gang members, their footsteps disappearing around the corner down the alleyway. Behind her, several more were groaning from the bean-bag rounds she'd knocked them down with. Robin was supervising as the PRT troopers he'd called collected the semi-conscious E88 people they'd almost literally tripped over in the process of breaking into a gun shop while on patrol. She could hear BBPD sirens approaching as well, the police responding to their call slightly more slowly than the PRT people had.
Although to be fair, the PRT van was only a few hundred yards away at the time they'd put the call in.
Slowing down as she reached the corner, Hannah hefted her power-generated weapon, bringing it to the firing position, then slowly approached the turn. She had no way to know if the gangers were waiting for her or not and was taking things very carefully.
She stopped dead when she heard a sharp phut! sound, which was slightly reminiscent of a suppressed pistol, only much quieter. It came twice more, then there was a faint thud like someone falling over. After several seconds, she resumed stalking the corner, much more slowly and with a heavy dose of paranoia.
"They stopped moving. Do we eat them now?" an unfamiliar voice said, with a slight accent that made her stop again, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest.
"No, we tie them up," a more familiar voice with the same hissing accent responded, sounding mildly exasperated.
"Then eat them?" The first voice was hopeful.
"No. We don't eat humans, remember? We went through this. Not unless they're being very naughty."
"Why hunt them if we're not going to eat them?" the first voice said in a reasonable tone.
Hannah heard a sigh. She peeked around the corner, then froze in horror.
"I told you, we're not hunting humans, we're detaining humans. These ones are criminals, they were running from a crime and the police will want to talk to them."
"They look pretty tasty," the huge reptilian horror that was the source of the first voice said, bending down over the three E88 gangers who were lying on the ground, their eyes so wide they looked like it hurt. All three seemed unable to move, but Hannah could see they were sweating heavily even from fifty feet away. The thing inspecting them sniffed audibly, then poked one with a long finger tipped with a talon. "Not too much fat, nice and tender..."
Saurial sighed again and slapped her companion's hand away. "No poking the prisoners, Ianthe, you'll give the Family a bad reputation. Go and bring that one over here, please."
The nearly eight foot tall lizard nodded, blue-violet scales glinting in the light from the streetlamp near them. "OK," she replied cheerfully, walking over and picking the gang member in question up by one leg. She held him up and sniffed again. "Yuck. This one is stale, it smells of hallucinogenic chemicals. Where did those come from?"
"They use them for fun," Saurial muttered, engaged in forming her normal manacles on the two captives she was dealing with. When she finished, she looked over, then shook her head. "Don't hold him like that, humans are fragile, you'll break him. Bring him here."
"I can fix him, you know," Ianthe grumbled, doing as requested. Saurial quickly bound the last prisoner and put him next to the first two. "What an odd thing to do for fun."
"I know, but they're a bit weird sometimes," Saurial agreed. She leaned down and plucked what looked like a tiny dart from the neck of the last captive and handed it to her companion, who ate it. "How long will the paralytic last?"
"Another couple of minutes," Ianthe replied. She leaned closer to Saurial, lowering her voice. "What do we do about the one watching us from over there?" A finger made a gesture over her shoulder at Hannah, making the woman swallow a little.
"That's Miss Militia, she's one of the heroes around here," Saurial whispered. "I'll introduce you. Don't make any sudden moves, this one is sort of skittish, Raptaur told me." Both reptiles turned around and smiled identical smiles, making Hannah twitch.
"Hello, Miss Militia, it's nice to see you," Saurial said more loudly. "This is my cousin Ianthe, she's visiting the city at the moment. She wanted to see what humans were like."
Ianthe nodded, still smiling. Out of the side of her mouth, she asked in a quiet voice, "Why is she staring at us like that?"
"No idea," Saurial hissed back. "I told you she was skittish. Stand still."
Ianthe froze, staring motionlessly at Hannah with glowing green eyes. Oddly enough, it didn't make the woman any less unnerved.
"It's not working, she still smells worried," Ianthe muttered to her cousin.
"Humans are weird, I told you." Saurial looked mildly worried herself, inspecting Hannah closely.
"Your… cousin," Hannah finally managed.
"Yep. She wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Back home everyone is really interested, you see, but we're being careful not to let too many of us turn up at once. It might cause problems." She nudged Ianthe. "Stop grinning like that, your face will freeze in that position."
The fixed smile the larger lizard had on her face relaxed. "No it won't."
"It will."
"Nope. That would take some form of neurotoxin that paralyzed facial nerves specifically." Ianthe looked thoughtful. "I can design one if you want."
"No, I think we can do without that." Saurial sighed a little. "Please stop terrifying people."
Ianthe looked at her, then Hannah, who was wearing a similarly fixed grin while trying to work out how fast she could turn and run. "Hey, did she already get a dose? I haven't even designed it yet. That's a bit rude."
Sighing, Saurial shook her head and gave Hannah a look of sympathy. "Sorry, she has a weird sense of humor." The lizard-girl came over and held out her hand. "These are all the ones we spotted running from you. Did you get the others?"
After a long moment, Hannah nodded, taking the offered hand and shaking it for a moment. "Yes," she said, then cleared her throat. "Yes, we got the others." Looking at the three gangers who were still lying rigidly on the ground, she had to ask. "What did you do to them?"
"It's a nifty paralytic drug I designed that's specific for human physiology," Ianthe put in with a broad smile. "Completely safe, it targets voluntary muscles and temporarily shuts them down. They'll recover any time now."
Seconds later all three men twitched and shook, then started shouting.
"Told you."
Ianthe looked pleased. After a moment her smile faded, as she looked back at the prisoners, who seemed somewhat disturbed. "They're really noisy, though," she commented.
"They get like that sometimes." Saurial also looked at them. "Annoying, but what can you do? A lot of the time they won't stop shouting even if you ask politely."
"It's very irritating. We're trying to have a conversation here." Ianthe walked over and looked down at the three men, who all stared in horror at her. "Please stop yelling like that, it's rude."
"Monster!" the one in the middle screamed.
Ianthe whirled around, looking about her. "Where?" she yelped urgently.
"I think he means you, cousin," Saurial said with a smirk.
"Hey!" Turning back, Ianthe glared at the man, who flinched. "That's not very nice." He whimpered, while his friends tried to squirm away from him. Hannah watched with a feeling of disconnected unreality.
The man began crying, making the lizard looking at him sigh. "You really are a very odd person," she muttered. Raising her hand she pointed it at him, the same popping sound coming again. He relaxed, going silent. Glaring at his companions, she asked, "Are you two going to keep quiet?"
Both of them nodded frantically.
"Thanks." Turning back to Saurial and Hannah, she came over. "That was getting embarrassing."
"What did you do?" Hannah squeaked, ashamed of how she sounded.
"Just put him to sleep for a while. He'll wake up again in twenty minutes or so. Different drug, but also completely safe." Ianthe turned her long neck and looked back over her shoulder at the three captives, before looking back to them. "I should probably have used that the first time. I'll remember for the next hunt."
"Again, not actually hunting them," Saurial sighed, covering her eyes with a hand. "Stop saying that, you're going to make people get the wrong idea."
"Sorry, Cousin," Ianthe smiled. "I'll try to remember."
"We should probably be going," Saurial said, looking at Hannah. "I still have to show her some other things and I want to introduce her to some people at the DWU. I'll send a report to the BBPD same as usual." She looked over Hannah's shoulder and waved, making the woman turn to see Velocity, two PRT troopers, and a couple of cops all staring at them. "Hi, Officer Smith," she called, one of the cops raising a hand, although he was looking at Ianthe with a strange expression.
Turning back to the military cape, she smiled. "See you around. Come on, Ianthe, let's go."
"OK," the other lizard replied, looking away from inspecting the new arrivals with interest. Both of them walked off a few yards, then scrambled up the front of one of the buildings after a couple of impressive leaps that took them more than half way. "What about these 'burger' things? I still want to try one. Or two."
"We can stop there on the way," Saurial's voice came back as they vanished over the rooftops. "I'm a little hungry as well."
Hannah looked up, still not sure she was awake. If she was, the world had become a very strange place even for Brockton Bay. And a lot of her worries suddenly seemed much more plausible.
"What the hell was that?" Robin said as he came over to stand beside her.
She shook her head slowly, still looking upwards. "No fucking idea at all," she sighed. "Except for extremely peculiar."
"At least we now know for sure there are more of them," he commented. She nodded, shivering.
"Yes." Lowering her eyes to the three men on the ground, after a moment she walked over and knelt down on one knee, examining the unconscious one in the middle. Reaching out she carefully removed a small dark gray and extremely sharp dart that was protruding from his chest, dropping it into the evidence bag her colleague held out without being asked. Sealing it, she held it up to the light for a moment, before sighing again and putting it away.
"Yes, we do," she finished. "Why doesn't that make me very happy?"
"Because you're not quite as crazy as everyone else around here?" he shrugged, motioning to the PRT troopers and the cops.
Hannah looked up at the skyline, barely visible in the dark, then sighed again, unable to come up with anything useful to say. She wasn't entirely sure he was right, though. Sanity seemed to have left the building some time ago in her view.
About a mile away, on the roof of a warehouse, two reptilian figures were convulsed with laughter. "Hunting humans," Taylor giggled. "How the hell did you come up with that one?"
"Seemed appropriate at the time," Amy snickered. "Did you see her face?"
"She smelled extremely confused," her friend noted. "Poor woman, we really shouldn't do things like that. But it was fucking hysterically funny, I have to admit."
"The darts work very well," Amy said after they'd calmed down from a new bout of giggling, lying on her back staring at the sky. "So do the drugs. I was pleased how fast they acted."
"You're completely sure they really are safe?" Taylor asked. Amy nodded firmly.
"Definitely. They're also completely sterile, with another agent that will promote healing of the puncture mark and make sure that they can't spread any infection. And a really fast acting anesthetic in the mix, so they're practically painless. I don't want to hurt anyone."
"Impressive. Really, I mean it." She did, it was a lot of thought to go to for the apparently simple task. "I need to start teaching you the Family fighting style, though, because there are times you won't be able to drop someone from a distance."
"I'd like that," Amy smiled. "Right now, though, I really could do with something to eat. Not because I actually need it, but I want to see what eating is like when I'm like this."
"Let's go for a walk on the boardwalk, then," Taylor replied. "Give the tourists something to see." Sitting up, she stretched, then got to her feet. "Mission accomplished, though."
"Complete with a very weird DNA sample for them to analyze and get really confused about," Amy giggled. "So careless, to forget a dart like that."
"Silly girl." Taylor and Amy exchanged a look, then started running across the roof, jumping to the next one and speeding up.
She was very happy to have someone who could join in like this, and considered the entire day well spent. As well as very funny.
In the back of her mind the Varga agreed, his approval radiating out and giving her a warm feeling.