Entering the BBFO office behind his daughter, Danny looked around, then focused on the bedraggled blonde woman sitting at the table next to Lisa as Metis, eating what seemed to be her third helping of food from one of the cafeteria's takeout boxes. She looked very tired, not entirely well, far too thin to be healthy, and like she'd been dragged through a sewer by one ankle.

That said, she was also apparently relieved to be where she was, judging by her expression. When she saw him, she froze for a moment. "Danny, this is Sherrel. Sherrel, Danny Hebert, the go-to guy around these parts." Taylor made the introductions as she walked over to the table next to him. "Sherrel is the person who Metis had contact with yesterday."

"The Tinker formerly known as Squealer, I presume," he said with a smile, reaching her and holding out his hand. "I gather that you've had something of a falling-out with your previous group."

Sherrel looked at him, then his hand, a slightly befuddled expression on her face, before she carefully put her fork down, wiped her own hand on a cloth Taylor handed her without comment, then shook the offered appendage. "I don't want to go back to the Merchants, if that's what you mean." She shrugged heavily. "Had enough of that lifestyle. Nearly killed me. It was only blind luck and Metis here who kept me alive. Now I need to work out what to do next."

"That's what I'm here to help with," he replied, sitting down in one of the chairs, his daughter taking the next one. "We're pretty good at coming up with working solutions to weird problems around here."

She nodded, going back to eating, while eyeing him carefully.

"This is the situation, Danny," Lisa began, telling him the entire story, with Sherrel chiming in where required. After a while he took one of the packs of beef stew and started in on it, having missed lunch earlier. He listened carefully while he ate, until he knew the current situation.

"Hmm."

"Hmm?" Taylor looked at him.

"Definitely hmm. An awkward problem. Your own little hunting trip retrieved people who weren't as… criminally liable, as Sherrel is. The Merchants are not in general good people."

"Most of them are muggers, drug dealers, and petty thieves. Not exactly master criminals. But they've certainly caused a lot of trouble over the years," Amy mentioned.

"I'm more than aware of that, Ianthe," he sighed. "Believe me, we had a lot of issues with them here. Hiring Über and Leet to deal with one particularly serious rash of problems was the point we managed to turn it around, but it was hard work."

"Skids wasn't pleased about that," Sherrel said with a small vicious smile. "He wanted to go after them and you guys too. But they made an impression on the others, no one wanted to see what would happen if Leet really got pissed off. Tinkers are dangerous if pushed. Even him. Possibly especially him, he comes up with some fucking bizarre inventions before they blow up in his face. And Skids was a little less paranoid then, so we managed to talk him down. He eventually decided the DWU was too much trouble."

"Glad to hear it," Danny grinned. "I've always tried to make us too much trouble. We went to a lot of effort to reach that status. I assume things have changed now."

"Yeah. The Family really made him mad. Mostly because they don't seem to even care very much about him or the other Merchants." She indicated Taylor with her fork. "Saurial grabs his guys without even making it look hard, Raptaur scares them shitless so people started avoiding any area where she'd been seen, and when Kaiju turned up…" She smiled again, shaking her head. "You should have seen the color he went. When he recovered he was ranting for two days straight about how we were getting kicked out of our own territory by giant lizards and if we didn't do something we'd have nowhere to go. He really talked himself into it, no matter what everyone else said."

"What did you think?" he asked.

"That if we went against her, we were all toe jam. If we were lucky," the woman replied quietly. "I told him that, several times. In the end he lost it completely and kicked the shit out of me. That was when I knew he was too far gone to help. But I couldn't work out what to do."

She nodded at Lisa. "Without Metis, I'd be dead. Or dying, or something. She saved my life, which gave me time to think about things, and made me sober enough to be able to. I didn't like what I saw or thought. So I accepted the offer of help."

"And now we need to work out what to do next. She's got an impressive record, although more due to quantity than quality. Nothing really serious directly but a hell of a lot of contributory stuff, and of course she was a member of a criminal gang for four or five years," Lisa said.

Amy pointed at the computers. "It turns out that our new status lets us look up criminal records and that sort of thing on the official systems, both the PRT ones and the BBPD and other law enforcement. The codes are in that information pack the Director brought over."

"I hope you didn't just look up hers," Danny said with mild alarm. "That would raise flags all over the place."

"No, Metis already thought of that. We requested records of most of the criminal capes in the bay, Sherrel being just one of the set. Skidmark was the first one, which is what the PRT would probably expect us to do."

"OK." He relaxed again. "We don't need them turning up yet, until we have a plan." Thinking about it, he asked, "Can I see the record, please?"

"Sure, I printed it out." The reptilian healer reached over and picked up a sheaf of papers that was lying on the table and handed it to him. He started reading carefully, finishing some ten minutes later.

There were a lot of entries.

"Interesting. Mostly vehicular crime, some theft although mainly of scrap, a few minor drugs charges, plus conspiracy to commit crimes, which as I understand it is a standard charge for gang members. But nothing directly violent. There are notes here from a number of people saying that Sherrel wasn't thought to be involved in the drugs trade except as Skidmark's girlfriend and a high ranking member of the gang." He smiled a little at one section. "And a comment from Armsmaster saying that a charge of offending efficient engineering practice should be put on file."

Taylor laughed at this, the others, even Sherrel herself, smiling.

"He doesn't like me," the woman said.

"I can understand why, you're almost his polar opposite," Danny chuckled. "Although I think the man is a decent guy under the robot act and the somewhat full of himself attitude."

"He doesn't understand people at all," Taylor smiled. "But he's a very smart person and a very good Tinker. His ego is a little large but mainly justifiably so, he is as good as he thinks he is. And he seems to be getting better recently, I think Dragon has been house-training him."

"She's certainly stuck around the city for a lot longer than I would have expected," Danny nodded. "Anyway, enough about that. Back to Sherrel. I can't see anything in her record that is… irretrievable. Murder, serious violence against people, manslaughter, any of that sort of thing would be difficult to deal with and present me with something of an ethical conundrum. A lot of charges such as driving unlicensed vehicles on public roads, mostly fairly minor theft, and drug offenses at the low end of the scale are much less worrying."

He scanned the papers he was holding again, then dropped them to the table. "Although there are an impressively large number of all those."

Sherrel looked rather embarrassed at his comment. "Sorry," she mumbled. She had finished her fourth helping and was now appearing full, but concerned again.

"Don't worry too much about it right now. There are people working here who have done much worse and come out the other side as very decent and hard workers I trust implicitly. A criminal background isn't necessarily a good indicator of who you are, or at least can become, in my experience. People change, often for the better. And you appear to genuinely want to change, which is a critical first step." He studied the blonde woman, who cheered up a little.

"All right. I need some honest answers to some questions. Will you do that?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Good." He paused, arranging his thoughts. "Do you intend to go straight, as far as is possible, and not commit further crimes, or aid anyone in committing crimes?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to give up the narcotics?"

"God, yes. Happily."

"Will you give me your word that you won't cause any trouble while you're here?"

The woman nodded again. "Yes."

"And will you also give me your word that you won't in any way pass on information you learn from anyone here?"

She looked directly at him. "Yes," she said quietly. "Saurial and I already talked about that. I won't tell anyone anything I find out from you guys, and I don't want to do what I was doing for so long. I never really wanted to do it in the first place but it all sort of built up to where I didn't have any choice."

Danny nodded, glancing at Lisa, then Taylor. Both of them made little signals that she was being truthful. Each of them had their own ways to tell, and between the pair he was pretty sure they'd spot any subterfuge or dissembling.

"All right. Thank you. Based on that, and since we seem to have established precedent some time ago about how we treat homeless villains, I'm prepared to let you stay here until we work out what to do. We'll deal with that in a while. As long as you're on DWU premises, you stay out of the way, don't ask questions about people's pasts, and respect their knowledge and privacy. In return, everyone else will do the same to you. As I've told quite a few people recently, we have all sorts here, and as long as their past doesn't come back to hurt other people, we don't particularly care what they used to be or do. Got me?"

"Yes," she said again. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, the next thing is, what do you actually want to do?"

She stared at him, then looked around at the others, all of whom were listening. "I… don't know. Not go back to Skids for sure, but other than that… I don't have a fucking clue. What can I do?"

He'd come up with a number of possible paths since he'd arrived, and was sure there were probably more. "Well, I can think of a few options. One is contact the Protectorate and ask whether they're in the market for a skilled vehicle Tinker. Based on what I know about the way they work, I suspect the answer would be a cautious yes. No doubt there would be a lot of evaluations, tests, questions, and so on, but in the end I think you'd find that a rebranded version of you would quietly appear somewhere else in the country. I know I've heard of similar things happening more than once. If you don't have any really serious crimes on your record, it would probably be a valid possibility."

The woman looked thoughtful, but worried at the same time. "I'm not sure I think that would really work but I guess it's better than nothing. I just don't want to end up in the Birdcage."

"That's not going to happen, it's reserved for really serious and dangerous Parahumans," Amy assured her. "Even Hookwolf hasn't seriously been threatened with that. Lung is about the only local one who would end up there and that's only if they could actually catch him, which the evidence would suggest isn't likely to happen."

"Option two is to surrender to the BBPD, who would end up calling in the PRT anyway," he went on when the girl stopped talking. "They'd arrest you, definitely, but with a good lawyer and some fast talking, you might be able to come to some deal. Turning over on your old gang would probably help a lot with a plea deal. I know a lawyer who might be amenable to representing you."

"I couldn't afford that," Sherrel said, sounding depressed. "I don't have more than about ten dollars on me. There's probably about half a mil in the safe back in the Merchant base, but I don't even know the combination for that. Only Skids does, he doesn't trust anyone else with it."

"Money isn't an issue," Taylor said, with a glance at Lisa, who smiled slightly. "We have ways around that problem."

Sherrel stared at her, then looked at the table. "I still can't figure you guys out."

"Don't bother trying for now," Danny advised with a good-natured laugh. "You'll just end up wondering what went wrong with the day. They're weird, put it down to that. But good people."

She nodded, still looking at the table in a depressed way.

"What about the idea of turning over on your old gang?" he asked. "Are you prepared to do that? The information might be worth quite a lot to the authorities."

The woman lifted her eyes to meet his, obviously wrestling with her thoughts. Eventually she nodded a little.

"I don't really care about most of them. I worked out this morning that practically everyone I used to think of as a friend there was gone for one reason or other. Mostly dead. I get on OK with some of them, hate the guts of more, and just don't give a shit about most of the people. But I guess I still don't want to see them hurt any more than they're doing to themselves." She shrugged. "I can't figure out why. Considering some of the shit that happened there..."

"You're not an evil person. Just someone who ended up making a lot of bad choices one after the other," Lisa said.

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"What's the next option, Danny?" Amy asked.

"She runs. Gets out of Brockton Bay, changes her name, her looks, everything she can, goes as far away as she can get and never comes back. That might well work. The Merchants are only a local problem. Get out of the state and keep your head down, it's entirely possible that the authorities wouldn't bother looking for you. But there is the issue that you'd have to start again, and being a Tinker on your own is, as I understand it, somewhat problematic."

"You could say that," Sherrel muttered. "Tinkers are a gang's wet dream. And you can't stop yourself, sooner or later you have to start making things. That's what gives you away."

"Which is what I've been told," he nodded. "It's a difficult problem, but not impossible to deal with."

"Any more ideas?" his daughter asked.

"She could officially hand herself over to the Family. I read that PRT affiliated group document Director Piggot brought over. With the status you now have, you have the authority to perform something rather more official than a citizen's arrest, although not quite to the level that the PRT or the cops have. You're basically a law enforcement organization in some specific ways. Heroic Parahumans already have quite a few legal options when dealing with criminals, the laws were put in place years ago when they first started turning up in large quantities. Mostly, I think, so that they wouldn't either get sued to hell, which wouldn't have worked out very well, or just not bother to help out. The authorities needed all the help they could get against the villains and still do."

He smiled for a moment. "As we can see just by looking around the city. But in any case, the new protocols extend that. You can't go around giving out traffic tickets, but you can definitely arrest a criminal if you catch them, and make it stick. Even more so if the criminal is a Parahuman. And it allows you to hold them in custody for a period of time. Of course, you're responsible for their well-being during that time, as you'd expect. There are some possibilities there that might be useful."

All three reptile-girls looked intrigued. "I read it but I haven't really sat down to think about all the ways to play the system yet," Lisa admitted. "Too many other things to do in the last couple of days."

"Well, that's a possibility, in any case," he said. "Taking official custody of her would allow you to make sure that she was treated fairly, since you could refuse to hand her over to the PRT if you thought that she would suffer unduly. In fact, a good lawyer could probably argue that you would be obliged to do so, under the well-being clause. And to be honest I doubt anyone would argue with you, since no one sane wants to piss off the Family. Hence the official status in the first place."

He grinned as Taylor looked amused.

"That's pretty much what the director said."

"Quite. Director Piggot is a realist, and no fool. I suspect Chief Director Costa-Brown is much the same. However, that is another path worth considering." Studying the faces around him he waited for a while as everyone considered his words.

Eventually he said, "There is one more option I can think of at the moment, which would normally be difficult to arrange, but with the talents of the Family, I think it's possible."

"What's that?" his daughter asked. Lisa was looking at him with a thoughtful look, seeming interested.

"She disappears. Totally and permanently. Sherrel ceases to exist. We avoid the authorities completely. I'm not entirely keen on the idea, but… there are some merits to it. Throwing yourself on the mercy of the courts or the Protectorate isn't certain to work. It probably would, but there's a chance it would merely be a quick route to twenty years in jail. Running is again pretty likely to work but not guaranteed, plus there's the whole problem with being outed as a Tinker eventually. You might get around that by joining an independent group, preferably a heroic one, but the risk there is you either tell them the truth and hope they're willing to overlook your past, or hide it and hope they never find out."

Danny watched Sherrel think about the concept. "It would be difficult, you'd give up everything. What there is left, anyway. Your name, your identity, any links to your family or past. But it's something that can be done, and is, in things like Federal Witness programs. I suspect a Family Witness program is rather more effective."

Amy smiled slowly and widely, making him look at her with cautious interest, and Sherrel stare with naked worry.

"I think I can say it would be..." she said in a pleased voice, the smile turning into a grin. "That plays into the idea I've been working on."

"Which is? And could you stop with the deranged grin, you're starting to put the wind up me, Ianthe."

"She dies."

"What!?" the blonde woman yipped, standing up so fast she nearly fell over. "Dies?"

Amy made a calming motion with both hands. "Don't worry, I don't mean I'm planning on killing you. Or, more accurately, I am, sort of. But not. Not you, precisely."

Everyone was now staring at her. Lisa narrowed her eyes, then also grinned madly. "Brilliant. Would that work?"

"Sure." They had a quick conversation in Famtalk, Taylor joining in with enthusiasm, while the other two watched in confusion. By the end of it his daughter was grinning too.

"Oh, god, you're thinking of something weird again, aren't you?" he sighed. "I recognize that look."

"It's… slightly unconventional, I admit, but it's entirely practical. We Life Shapers have some options most people don't, you see," the girl snickered. She turned to Sherrel, who had retaken her seat but at a safe distance, a somewhat suspicious look on her face.

"OK, this is the idea. If you decided to vanish, the problem is that someone might eventually work out where you went. Now, I can solve that, mostly, by using my own abilities to remake you. New face, new body, even new genetics. It would take a little time to work out the exact changes needed, but I can make you entirely unrecognizable even to advanced DNA tests."

"Holy fuck. Really?" The Tinker looked astounded.

"Oh, definitely, humans are easy. But… there is always a possibility a Thinker might pick up on something, or some other method I haven't thought of might give you away. We should be able to get around that by taking the process a little further." She looked at Danny for a moment, then returned her attention to Sherrel.

"We give them a body. Your body. I suspect that if Squealer turned up dead of an overdose, somewhere in the docks, having disappeared from the Merchant's base, no one would be wildly surprised. It's even possible that the PRT has already heard you've gone. A positively identified body would almost certainly mean no one would even be looking any more. No one looking plus a different body, as far as I can see, means you'd be safe."

"Where do we get a body?" the woman asked with an uneasy note in her voice.

"I make it. Actually, I make a new one for you, move your brain over to it, then give them that one, which is easier."

Gaping, the blonde woman stared at the large reptile, who was looking a little smug and pleased with herself. After several seconds, she managed to say, in a choked voice, "That's easier?"

"Yep."

"You're fucking with me."

"Nope."

There was a long silence again.

"You don't have to decide here and now. I promise I can do it, and if you want me to I will. It would be a safe process, you wouldn't feel a thing, and I give my word everything that makes you, you, would be totally intact. If you had any special requests I could do them at the same time. I'd throw in some minor boosts to your immune system, better healing, that sort of thing." Amy smiled again. "It would be an interesting project, actually. After that, if you wanted to leave and start a new life, you could. Or you could stay here."

"And do what?" Sherrel asked, still looking stunned.

"We always need mechanics and people who know their way around vehicles," Danny, who was feeling a little shocked himself, said. He wasn't as startled as Sherrel was, though, since he'd already seen what Amy was capable of. "And, for that matter, we're just starting a hiring process at the moment, we'll be interviewing over the next week or two. I'm certain we could find a place here where you'd fit in, if you wanted it. A Tinker of your abilities would be a very useful asset besides." He watched as she started looking more thoughtful than appalled.

"Although, that said, we'd need to figure out a solution to your, um, vehicular aesthetics. They're rather recognizable."

"A lot of that is because I never had the right shit to make what I wanted," the woman said absently, still apparently thinking hard. "Skids was always wanting it now, but never wanted to get the good stuff. So I had to improvise. I'm really good at that, the problem is that it usually looks like crap. He didn't care as long as it worked and I was too high to care either." She shrugged. "There's only so much you can do with half a dozen wrecked trucks welded together with a bulldozer on the front."

"Fair enough," Danny chuckled. "I think we could probably arrange more facilities than the Merchants could. We have some very well equipped workshops here, as well as a lot of space we're not using right now. This place used to have over a thousand people working in it, there's only about a third of that at the moment."

She was starting to look quite interested and a little excited. "Can you do things other than road-going vehicles?" Taylor asked with interest. "What's your specialty?"

"As far as I've ever been able to tell, transportation."

"That's it?"

"I think so," the woman shrugged. "Never had proper power testing."

Lisa and Amy exchanged a glance. "That's a very broad category," Lisa said, sounding impressed. "'Transportation' covers all sorts of things. And all sorts of spin-offs as well, some of which aren't particularly obvious."

"Guess so. It mainly meant building trucks and things, with various systems for them. My stealth tech is one of the better side effects of that. I've also got some interesting ideas for gravity nulling tech but I've never had time to do anything about it."

"Like Kid Win's flight board?"

Sherrel snorted. "That toy? It's cool and all, looks good, but it's way too small and low powered. No, I meant real tech. I kept having dreams about this sort of flying aircraft carrier all last year, but then I'd have to design all the aircraft as well, and I didn't have anywhere to put it in the first place." She grinned as Taylor looked impressed, Lisa started laughing, and Amy shook her head.

"We have to keep her, Danny, she'd fit right in around here," his daughter said jokingly.

He sighed. "That's becoming clear to me, and in a slightly worrying way."

Amy leaned forward. "You need sleep, a lot of it, and time to recover, before you can make any real decision. Why don't you let me change your looks a little so no one recognizes you, nothing I can't reverse if you decide against it, then you can rest and think about things for a while. There's no huge hurry after all. No one knows where you are, even if they know you've gone, and from what you said Skidmark won't be back for a week at least." She glanced at Danny, then her friends. "Seem like a plan?"

"It works for me," he said. "We can give her a room in the dorm block and sort out some clothes and things, that's not a problem."

"And we might think of other ways around the issues you have aside from the ones we've come up with so far once we've all had time to consider everything," Lisa added.

Sherrel looked around at them all, then sighed slightly, slumping in her chair and putting her hands over her face for a moment or two, rubbing her eyes tiredly.

"OK. You're right, I'm totally fucked right now and can't think straight." She lowered her hands. "Will it hurt?"

"No, promise, you'll just fall asleep for a couple of minutes," Amy smiled, getting up and moving to stand next to her. "Any preference for hair color?"

"Dark brown," Sherrel said quietly. "My mother had dark brown hair. Brown eyes as well."

"Sure, that's no problem. I'll keep the changes as small as I can, but you need to look different, so be prepared for that." She put her hand on the woman's head. "See you in a couple of minutes."

The blonde didn't even have time to nod before she was out like a light. Amy looked at the others, then got to work.

Danny watched with awed interest as the features of the woman in the chair flowed and changed, her face and underlying bone structure altering visibly and quickly, until she looked completely different. The changes were fairly small individually, her chin narrowing, her nose reshaping, but they added up to an impressive difference. She even looked a couple of years younger.

She got slightly taller as well, he noticed, her overall proportions changing as Amy worked. Eventually she nodded in satisfaction. "That should do it for now. Nothing serious, it's all cosmetic, but I don't think anyone will look at her and know who she is. I changed the pitch of her voice too, and her finger, iris, and retina prints. I've backed everything up in redundant DNA so I can easily revert it."

"Extremely and worryingly impressive," he commented.

"Thanks. It's actually really easy these days." She tapped herself on the chest with a grin. "Compared to this, humans are very simple."

"I hope we're doing the right thing," Danny sighed as he inspected the different appearance of the woman in the chair, who was snoring faintly. "She's still a criminal."

"So was I. So were Brian, and the others," Lisa said quietly. "You gave us all a second chance. I want to do the same, pay back the good fortune. Like you said, she hasn't done anything irretrievable yet. Nothing that can't be fixed with the right reparations. Money isn't actually a problem for us, after all. I don't mind finding all the places she stole her scrap from and sorting out any debts. She can make restitution for everything else by becoming a good citizen and contributing to society in a positive manner, which is what jail is supposed to be for in the first place."

The girl in the lizard looked at him. "I can't see that handing her over to the PRT, unless she wants that, is necessarily the right move. They're probably have another opinion, but..." She shrugged with a grin. "We're the Family. We do it differently."

"Apparently so. OK. As always, please don't do anything to damage the reputation of the DWU," he eventually replied.

"I'm sure dealing with the odd villain won't harm your reputation, Padrone," Lisa snickered. "Not that we'll mention it to anyone."

Feeling that there was some joke there he wasn't in on, he gave her a hard look, then turned to the other two, who shook their heads. "No idea, Danny," Amy said. "She's in a funny mood at the moment. Probably best to ignore it until it goes away."

Lisa merely seemed smug, in a manner that he knew her well enough to recognize was only going to lead to a headache if he probed, so he decided to take the girl's advice. "Wake her up, then, and we can work out a name to use for now," he replied.

Amy touched Sherrel on the head, the woman twitching immediately, then opening her eyes and looking around. Taylor handed her a mirror she made. "Fucking..."

She gaped at her reflection, feeling her face with the hand not holding the mirror. "Oh my god. That's as freaky as fuck."

"You look totally different, but not at all bad," Taylor smiled. "No one is going to recognize you now."

"My voice sounds weird," Sherrel remarked, clearing her throat a couple of times, experimentally.

"I lowered it about half an octave, which adds to the disguise," Amy told her. "You're also about two inches taller. You might find you stumble a little until you get used to the change. If you don't like it I can change it back, but I'd suggest sleeping on it whatever you decide tomorrow."

"Guess you're right," the woman said, yawning widely.

"The only thing left now is a name," Lisa commented. "Any preferences?"

"Name?" Sherrel considered the concept. "Yeah, guess I need a new one. Ah..." She thought for a while. "Linda. Call me Linda. I always sort of liked that name. It'll do."

"OK, 'Linda'," Danny smiled. "It's a nice name. Come with me, I can show you to a room you can use, and a shower." He glanced at his daughter. "Can you make some basic clothes for her?"

"Sure," Taylor said. She motioned to 'Linda' to stand up, which the new brunette did. Walking around her a couple of times, she produced a couple of t shirts and some pants with underwear, neatly folded, then handed it over. "This should fit all right, it's pretty stretchy. We can get you something better later."

"Thanks," Linda said, smiling. "For everything." She yawned again. "God, I'm falling asleep on my feet here."

"Go with Danny and get some sleep," Amy advised. "I checked you over while you were out, you're fine, but remember what I said about eating properly."

"I will," the woman said gratefully. Danny got up and headed for the door, waving her after him. Unlocking it, he exited into a chilly late afternoon, blinking a little at the sunlight, then looked to the side as he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. He smiled a little, before leaning back into the building.

"You have a visitor, girls," he called. Amy and Lisa wandered over and looked out, following his gaze to the small figure walking towards them some distance in the air. Several dock workers were pointing at it, taking photos with their phones and discussing the sighting with interest.

"See you both later," he said. "Follow me," he added to the Tinker, who was yawning again and now looked like she was almost in a daze. She staggered off after him as he left, wondering what the next surprise would be in a slightly bemused manner.

And why Lisa kept looking at him and seeming like she wanted to giggle.

The girl was weird sometimes.

{Ah. Looks like our newest associate is back for some more learnificating,} she grinned. {I think Taylor has a new follower.}

{And I'm sure she'll end up with a tail sooner or later,} Lisa commented with a smirk. {I'm still surprised I haven't.}

{Don't tempt me,} Amy giggled. {So much room for experimentation. That naga thing Taylor came up with…}

{I like my legs,} Lisa protested, both of them watching as Vista in her Cloak guise started descending towards them, waving happily. {Both my human ones and these ones. Leave them alone.}

{Maybe…} Amy snickered as her friend gave her a look, but shrugged innocently. Lisa sighed heavily, shaking her head.

{Ah, the old urges of the Family Life Shapers,} she commented. {We have to stomp them down hard sometimes back home.}

{So I hear.} Switching to English, she added, "Hello, Cloak," as the disguised Vista stopped a few feet away, still standing two feet in the air on nothing at all as if it was entirely natural. By now, judging by the reports she'd read on PHO, it probably was, she thought with amusement. The girl had been keeping herself busy.

"Hi, Ianthe, and Metis. I thought I'd stop by and see what was going on," Vista said in her eerie 'Cloak' voice, making both of them smile. "Is that OK?"

"Sure," Lisa said. Taylor walked up behind them, looking pleased to see the new arrival.

"My best student," she said happily. "I had a lot of fun teaching you the other day. You learn very fast."

"And I want to learn everything I can from you, Scaly Sensei," Vista giggled. She sniffed audibly. "Ooh, is that beef casserole?"

"Yep. Want some?" Amy replied, waving the girl into the office as they all went back inside.

"Um… yes, please," the girl said after a moment's reflection, following them. "I think the doughnuts have gone away now."

"Doughnuts?" Taylor and Lisa both asked at the same time.

"Don't ask," Vista sighed, the sound a drawn-out hiss. "I got a little carried away. Won't do that again for a while."

Everyone looked at her, then each other. Amy smiled to herself. That sounded like the voice of hard-won experience to her. She wondered how many the girl had eaten…