Missy listened until she was certain that both her parents had stopped arguing again and gone to bed. Her father was sleeping in the guest room as he did quite often these days, while her mother was snoring a little in the master bedroom, the sound letting her know that the older woman had decided that a little drink before bedtime was just what was called for. This wasn't unusual after an argument.
To settle her nerves, she said.
Missy sighed faintly. Her mother was 'settling her nerves' more and more these days.
Her father, on the other hand, seldom drank, but he did sleep like the dead once he was out. Nothing short of an air horn in the ear was going to wake him before morning, she knew for a fact. More than once she'd tried to get him out of bed early on Christmas or her birthday, utilizing techniques up to and including jumping up and down on him, to no avail.
Silently getting up from where she'd been lying on her bed reading and resting, she got her 'Cloak' cloak from her storage bracelet and threw it over herself, putting her backup mask on as well under it. Checking in the mirror over her dresser, she nodded to herself with satisfaction.
"Perfect," she hissed quietly to herself in her second alter-ego's voice, grinning in the darkness of her hood. "Cloak rides again. Beware evildoers, your time has come..."
Pulling on her gloves, she turned to the window and exerted a small part of her power, which oddly enough seemed to be coming to her more and more easily in recent weeks. The tiny gap under the closed window expanded to fill the opening, while she faded from view and dived through it. Moments later the room was empty and the window was soundlessly returning to its correct form.
"So what do I do?" Danny looked at Amy a little cautiously, as she walked around him studying him.
"Just stand there." She smiled at him, then reached out with one violet-scaled hand and poked him for a couple of seconds. "There we go. That's turned everything on."
He felt weird. Then he felt weirder. Then he fell over.
"Oops."
"You broke him, Amy," Lisa sighed.
"Nah, he's fine," the healer said, leaning over him and poking him again. He looked up at her glowing eyes and tried to glare. "More or less. Too much information all at once from the boosted senses, it looks like. I'll turn them off again for a moment."
"Grbl," he mumbled as the world went back to being more or less what passed for normal around this madhouse. Sitting up on the floor, he held his head in his hands, trying not to drop it.
"Sorry, Danny, it looks like without powers there are some minor, almost unnoticeable issues with the sense upgrades," Amy said, squatting down beside him and putting her hand on his head. "I'll need to make some adjustments, it won't take long. Just stay there for a minute."
"Ig." He licked his lips, then tried again, while Lisa watched with a smirk on her face. "You're a menace," he finally managed, making Amy snicker as she worked.
"Just a minor miscalculation, poor base level humans aren't put together very well," she giggled. "That should do it. All right, I'll turn it back on part by part this time."
Suddenly he could hear everything.
"Holy crap," he mumbled, putting his hands over his ears in reflex, then slowly lowering them when he realized with some surprise that while he could literally hear his heart beating, and theirs as well, it wasn't the painful assault on his mind it should have been. Somehow, this incredible girl had managed to make the entire crazy idea actually work.
Tipping his head from side to side, he looked around, trying to identify all the sounds. The influx of audio settled down in only thirty seconds to something he could handle, which he was pretty sure shouldn't have been possible. Looking at Amy, he listened carefully, then shook his head in wonder. He really could hear a deep, slow heartbeat which was obviously the one from her reptilian body. Lisa's was also audible, slightly slower and fainter. All the computer fans were individually distinguishable after only a few seconds, there were several high pitched whines which he'd never noticed before, along with a bass grumble that came and went every few seconds.
The whines seemed, after some thought, to be coming from various electronic devices, including his phone. He pulled it out and looked at it, then shook it. "Nothing wrong with it," Lisa said with a smile. "That's something to do with the power supply, I think. All sorts of electronics make faint noises that are normally much too high pitched for humans to hear. I noticed the same thing when Amy modded me. It's even more obvious when I'm in Metis, the frequency range of these ears is insane."
"It should be really annoying and hard to live with, but it's not," he noted wonderingly, putting his phone back in his pocket. "All those sounds… I had no idea you lot could do this."
Amy looked pleased. "When you were in Ianthe I turned the gains down on the senses quite a lot since I didn't want to overwhelm you with everything at once. It takes some time to get used to. Now, though, I'd feel half deaf and nearly blind without the boosts in my human body, never mind the scent sense, which is amazingly useful." She touched his head again, then nodded in satisfaction. "It's all integrating nicely. The neural mods sort out the information and pass it along to your brain in a way that it can handle. You'll find it gets easier and easier over the next day or so as everything settles down into the final configuration."
"What's that deep rumbling sound?" he asked, listening some more. "The one that's coming and going."
"Waves," Lisa replied. He looked at her, puzzled.
"Waves?"
"Yep. Not in the bay, out on the coast. It's the sound of breakers on the shore, transmitted through the water and then the rock under us. It's more obvious outside, the EDM this place is made of blocks most of the sound." The black lizard looked amused. "Like I said, impressive frequency response, even in the base human form, once Amy's had a go at you. Right down into the infrasonic range at the low end, and up into a pretty high ultrasonic one at the high end."
"The best I can do without significant modifications which would be obvious on a normal human body," Amy explained, "is somewhat better than an elephant's low frequency response at one end, around two hertz or so, up to something above what a dog could manage at the high end. So about fifty-eight to sixty kilohertz. Linda goes considerably higher in her feline form, well over a hundred kilohertz, and these bodies extend both ends to a stupid level. Down to deep sub-hertz frequencies and up to a couple of megahertz or so at least. But we need to be underwater to hear those sorts of sounds properly, they don't carry through air very well."
"Which compared to what Taylor can manage is still more or less being disabled," Lisa added with a grin. "Varga senses are total bullshit. Even in her base form she's got better ones than I do as Metis, and in any of her other forms, it's simply unbelievable."
"Astounding," he mumbled, listening to the waves breaking miles away with an expression of amazement on his face. "You are very good at what you do."
"Thanks, Danny," she smiled. "You can turn it off if you want, or turn it up or down as well. Feel this?" She did something, a very odd sensation going through his mind. After a couple more times, he slowly nodded. "And this?"
Again he nodded.
"This one turns the audio boost on and off. This is off..." All the sounds vanished, making him feel abruptly dizzy for a moment, as he found himself with ordinary human senses again. "And back on like this. Then this one pretty much turns the volume up and down."
"I see," he replied. "I think. Let's..." A little experimentation and he smiled. "I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Astounding."
The reptile-like girl looked pleased. "Great. I'm glad it works without needing powers, that's really useful information. I was just a little worried about that. Hang on, I need to make a couple of tweaks." She concentrated for a while, then nodded. "OK, that's done. It's looking really good so far. Let's try the vision next."
Half an hour later he finally stood up, the girl in the lizard stepping back. "All right. All the sensory modifications are working perfectly, and I've got lots of data on how to improve this for the next normal person I work on," she said with a gratified nod. "You can turn the strength and speed boosts on and off too. Let's test how that works."
Lisa walked over holding a block of EDM, which had a handle coming out the top, in one hand, putting it down in front of him. "Taylor made a few of these last night. See if you can pick it up."
Danny looked at her, then the block, before shrugging and grabbing the T-handle sticking out of the lump of gray metal. Lifting, he found it heavy but manageable. "How much does this weight?" he asked curiously, hefting it a couple of times, then trying with one hand which was just possible.
"Two thousand pounds," Lisa replied with a grin. He nearly dropped it in shock.
"How much?" he squeaked, looking at the weight with wide eyes.
She repeated the figure.
"Good god." Putting the block down, he stared at it. "A solid ton. Unbelievable."
"Think you could manage more?" she asked.
He picked it up again, smiling widely, then nodded. "Yes, this isn't my limit, definitely."
"It should be quite high, I made some significant improvements to my mod package," Amy, who was watching with her arms folded and emoting satisfaction, commented. "I've gone up to nearly two tons, Lisa can manage about two and a half, and when I do Kevin and Randall I'm expecting over three for them. Linda can already do more than two."
Lisa retrieved another block. It was the same size as the first one, making him look between them with a raised eyebrow, which caused her to chuckle. "Taylor made them all the same size, but they're hollow, so the weights are different," she explained. "So no one realizes how much they're trying to lift until they succeed. The weight of the block is written on the bottom. She made ones from five hundred pounds to six thousand in five hundred increments, which is enough for our testing purposes."
"Oh, all right, I understand." He heaved on the new one, lifting it to his chest, then put it down again. "A lot heavier."
"But not your limit?"
"No."
"OK." She brought another one over, which he grabbed. This time he had to put his back into it, but got it up to his waist level without too much effort. "Great. That's the three ton one."
"Fuck." He put it down carefully, mindful of his feet, then gaped at it. "I can't believe that." Turning to Amy, he pointed at the weights. "You can basically make mid-level brutes to order?"
"Pretty much," she said with a pleased expression. "I could obviously do a lot more if I really tried, but it'll start needing a complete rebuild, and at that point it's probably easier to make a new body and move you into it like I did with Linda. Plus there are limits to what I can change without it starting to become obvious, or at least detectable without too much trouble. I'm trying to make these modifications discreet enough that without some serious tests someone can't find them."
"Still, it's remarkable work even so. Not needing powers to do this is incredible."
She shrugged slightly. "I can't, yet, duplicate some of the weird things powers can do. We have no idea where the energy for things like force-fields comes from, like with Vicky, or any of the weirder tricks like teleportation, flight, that sort of thing. The Varga says it's definitely not magic of any form, but even he can't tell us what it is. So I have to stick to more or less normal physics, chemistry, or biology, although I have a lot more knowledge about how to do that than anyone else I'm aware of at the moment. It lets me do things that should be impossible in practical terms." The girl indicated him with a finger. "Like you are now, and 'Ianthe' and 'Metis' too. Although in those last two cases, Taylor and her demon made a lot of it possible."
"So energy production is the biggest limiting factor," he mused. Amy nodded. "Which is why I'm really hungry right now?"
"Yes. With the boosts running flat out like that you're using up stored biological energy at several times the level of a normal human," she confirmed. "I told everyone else I've done this to, don't leave it turned on when you don't need it, or you'll eat like a starving man all the time. I'm working on better methods to provide the power but right now it's a massively more efficient but otherwise fairly normal biological digestive system." She indicated her present body. "These use a different system, which isn't really compatible with anything that would easily pass as human, at least on the inside."
"I wonder what powers do use?" he remarked, flipping the internal switch that turned off the strength boost, then experimentally trying to pick up any of the blocks, without success. They might as well have been welded to the floor. Lisa grinned, then went to bring another one over.
"I suspect that when we work that out, we'll learn an awful lot about powers themselves," Amy said as she watched her friend put the new block down next to him. "Assuming that we manage to work it out in the first place."
"Try that one," Lisa suggested. Squatting down he grabbed the handle then exerted himself, managing to get it off the floor by a foot. "Not bad. That's the five hundred pound one."
"You'll be a lot stronger than you were even without the boosting active," Amy noted as he put it down again. "Now that I've unlocked the limiters I put in place when I did the changes. It'll probably take a couple of days to sort of recalibrate yourself properly, but I didn't have too much trouble."
"How much of your human body is original issue these days, Amy?" he asked with a glance at her, his eyes narrowed a little. She snickered slightly, rubbing the side of her face.
"Um… not all that much," she admitted quietly. "I've improved a lot of things. If I wasn't trying to look completely normal I could do more, but on the inside I've experimented a fair bit."
"Be careful," he said with a slightly concerned sigh. "We don't want to lose you to some silly mistake."
"Don't worry, I have no intention of killing myself either," she assured him. Pointing at Lisa, she added, "I test them all on her first."
Danny started laughing as the other reptilian form gave the first one a hard stare. "Oh, very comforting," Lisa snapped.
"It is to me," Amy snickered. "Seriously, Danny, I'm not taking chances. Between us my power and I know what we're doing and it loves all this so much it's not going to let me make a mistake. As crazy as it sounds I trust it."
"And I trust you. Or I wouldn't have let you do all this to me," he smiled. "Just take care of yourself."
"I will. Now, let's try the speed." She made a couple of bioceramic batons and tossed him one, which he caught, then spun around his hand which made her stare and grin. He grinned back.
"I know a few things about these, although I'm not up to what Mark knows, never mind my daughter," he told her.
"So I see. Well, I'm still learning too, of course. Let's see how quick you are." She took a step closer and whipped the baton in her hand at him. He quickly parried with his own, the two dark gray rods clacking together, before striking back. She did the same thing as he'd done, grinning widely.
Enjoying himself he tried to remember all the things he'd been taught by a few people over the years, ducking as her baton whooshed over his head. The reptilian girl was obviously going much more slowly and gently than she could, he'd seen her train with Taylor several times, but she wasn't holding back to the point that a normal human would have much luck. She sped up a little and he responded, privately surprised he could.
After a couple more minutes of increasing speed, she looked surprised when he tried a trick he'd been taught years ago by someone who spent far more time in fights than he should have done, neatly disarming her with a twist of his baton. Hers leaped into the air and landed in his other hand.
Lisa clapped, smiling, while Amy stared first at him, then her empty hand. "Wow. Not bad, Danny. Not bad at all. How did you do that?"
He tossed her weapon back, then showed her. "Neat," she commented with admiration when she could do it too. Lisa was watching closely.
"I had some good teachers, but I never kept it up, not being into the violent side of Union work," he said, handing her the other baton as well. She reabsorbed both weapons.
"Except where Taylor is concerned, of course," Lisa chuckled. He ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck, a little embarrassed about something that seemed to have been heard about by a lot more people than he'd realized.
"Ah. Yes, that's true," he laughed a little ruefully. "My temper got the better of me, I'm afraid. I try not to let it out, it's… somewhat overwhelming."
"So we've heard," Amy nodded. "But people also say it takes an awful lot of provocation."
"I'd like to think so," he sighed. "It's not something I'm proud of."
"Taylor is," she said with a gentle pat on the shoulder. "She's very proud about everything to do with her father."
"Nice to know," Danny replied quietly, feeling pleased despite himself. "Thank you."
"No problem. Well, speed checks out."
"Definitely," Lisa told them. "He was going about three times as fast as a decent trained martial artist could manage. Not quite past the limits of what a normal human can do, but getting up there. And it wasn't his top speed either, if he really tried."
Amy nodded thoughtfully while Danny stared at the black lizard in surprise. It hadn't felt all that fast to him at the time. "Really?" he asked.
Lisa nodded. "Yep. It was pretty impressive to watch. Not quite a blur but very fucking quick."
"Proper training will improve that, as will some practice," Amy said. "I could boost it even more, but if I do you'll end up with problems until you get used to it. That can wait until you have a chance to learn your new limits. Since you're going away tomorrow I didn't want to do anything that would cause issues for you."
"Fair enough. Thank you again."
"When you get back, you should get Taylor to train you the same way she's helping us," Lisa suggested. "I know you're not likely to go looking for trouble, but we'd all feel better about it if you knew as much about how to keep yourself safe as possible."
"I'll talk to her about it," he replied thoughtfully. "You're right, of course. No harm in learning new tricks."
"Nope." Amy looked pleased. "All right, the only things left are the electricity generation ability and the weapons extruder."
"You gave me that too?" he asked in surprise.
"Of course I did," she smiled. "I told you I was going to do everything I could to keep you safe. You've got the same package I gave Lisa and myself. Kevin and Randall have most of it too, I'll update them when I get a chance while you're away, and Linda will get an upgrade too. I want to make sure all my projects are kept up to date."
He couldn't help it, he laughed at the comment. "You sound like you're discussing making a birdhouse or something, not doing unnatural things to human beings," he chuckled.
She shrugged. "To me the latter is a lot easier than the former," she replied with equanimity. "OK, I'll show you how to electrocute someone with a handshake now."
"I can hardly wait," he said in dry tones, holding still while she put her hand on his head again.
Gliding along high above the city, Missy looked around, enjoying herself immensely. It was oddly liberating, running around like this, without the restrictions of being a Ward and Vista laid on her. No one knew who she was, no one really knew what she could do, and because of her association with the Family, no one was wildly keen on pushing her in case they found out. And they took her a lot more seriously than they did a thirteen-year-old short blonde girl in a dress.
"Fear me, for I am mysterious and bad-ass," she said under her breath, a hissing giggle following it.
"Cloak is everywhere and you'll never know it until it's too late," she added. "Oooh, doughnuts!" Sniffing, she looked down, realizing that she was over her favorite shop again, not having been paying all that much attention to where she was going while she was wandering around. With a smile she started hopping down her invisible staircase in large jumps, feeling that a box of the sweet treats would make this evening out perfect.
Just a small one this time, though, she remembered what happened last time. But she wanted to compare them to what Chris's latest invention produced.
In the name of proper experimentation, of course.
"It's back."
"What's back?"
"The cloak that eats like a… hungry cloak?"
There was a short pause as one of the clerks peered out of the back office into the main shop, which had gone weirdly quiet rather suddenly. "Oh. Her."
"That's the fifth time now. I think we might be getting a sort of a reputation. Some of the things people are saying on PHO are just strange."
"Is that why business is so good the last few days?"
"Might be. You know those nutcases. It can't be a coincidence that everyone in the shop had a camera ready."
Both of them watched the floating empty clothing as it consumed a doughnut, then made an eerie sound that seemed to convey appreciation. "Well, if she improves business, no harm done."
"Guess not."
"Hey, see if you can get her to pose for a photo with a box full," the first clerk said in the slow tones of someone with a sudden idea. "Sally at the print shop across the road owes me a favor."
"What fo… Oh. Right. Like the electronics place down town."
"Worth a shot, isn't it? I heard their business doubled when they got half the Family endorsing their shop."
"You're not as stupid as you look."
"Hey!"
"Mind you, you couldn't be and still walk and talk at the same time."
"Hey!"
One of them glared while the other one grinned. "If you weren't my brother I'd fire you."
"We own the place together, you can't fire me."
"I meant out of a cannon. Get out there and talk to her. Politely."
"Sir, yes, sir." The second clerk saluted clumsily, still grinning, then turned around and went back into the main shop, where at least a dozen people were currently recording the possessed clothing with a sweet tooth, who was apparently ignoring them in favor of hoovering up an unhealthy amount of sugar.
"Fucking weird place, this city," the first clerk sighed, watching through the office doorway. He snapped his fingers. "Order more custard powder, right." Grabbing a pen he made some notes.
"Like this?"
"Yes, perfect. Hold it a little higher."
"Want me to say cheese?"
"..."
"With all due respect, miss, what good would that actually do…?"
Taylor looked around with satisfaction. "That's not bad," she said. "I think the boys will be happy here. We'll need to get all the facilities hooked up tomorrow morning, but the guys can do that in a couple of hours. I'll talk to Dad about it later."
"It does seem to meet the requirements quite well," the Varga agreed, dropping from the second story mezzanine floor. They'd converted the interior of the warehouse, which was somewhat larger than Linda's one by about twenty percent, into a lower workshop area with an upper floor stretching about three quarters of the way from the back to the front. It had walkways down either side that went the rest of the way, and they'd used some fractional dimensional shenanigans to expand the space available as well. The end result was a very large open room, with several smaller ones upstairs around a central area about eighty feet square, the lower room being nearly twenty feet high. The upper ones were closer to normal dimensions at around eight feet.
They'd decided that Kevin and Randall might want living quarters in their new workshop, so had set aside four rooms for that purpose, and given them a kitchen and a couple of other rooms for whatever purpose they wanted. At the rear of the lower workshop were a couple of substantial store rooms and another bathroom with a shower.
"We're getting pretty good at this," she laughed, joining her other aspect and slinging an arm around his shoulders. Both of them were using a Saurial form at the moment, but had taken the precaution of locking the door they'd made first. The new EDM walls, roof, and floor made it very private so there was no chance of anyone interrupting them. "By the time we finish repairing the rest of the buildings we can probably call ourselves interior designers with a straight face."
"It's surprisingly enjoyable," he chuckled, nodding. "I suggest that we should rework the office soon. We talked about a tunnel to the bay some time ago, and I think we could easily expand the place several times, which is bound to be useful sooner or later. Perhaps we should also do that to your house. I doubt Danny would mind having a larger basement or attic."
"It's a thought," she replied. "I'll ask him. And we do need to work on the office. But this will do for now." They wandered around for a while making notes on what needed to be done by the electricians and plumbers, making holes in the appropriate places as well as channels in the walls and ceilings for the cables and so on. When they were done, they exchanged a glance, smiled at each other, doused the bioluminescence they'd been using to see in the otherwise completely dark building, and teleported back to the BBFO office.
Which made Amy shriek in shock and then swear at them quite a lot for a while, not having expected it.
"...idiotic demons!" she finished some five minutes later, winding down. Lisa was grinning, while Taylor was writing down some of the better insults in a notebook she'd manifested. The Varga was rolling around on the table laughing his ass off in the small dragon form, finding the entire thing hilarious.
"And stop that!" Amy snatched the notebook from her friend, who smirked at her.
"Would saying sorry help?"
"No! Stopping appearing out of thin air without any warning would help!," Amy snapped, folding her arms. Her 'Ianthe' eyes were narrowed at Taylor. "Or maybe just appearing somewhere other than almost touching me! You crazy scaly mad woman."
"Hey, if you could teleport you'd be popping around all over the place," Taylor pointed out in reasonable tones, making Amy sigh heavily. "Come on, you know you would. So would she." She pointed at Lisa, who nodded happily.
"Gah!" The healer threw her arms in the air. "You're impossible."
Taylor bowed. "I do my best." Straightening up, she added, "Did you sort Dad out?"
"I did." Amy rubbed the scales between her eyes with a long-suffering look. "He is much saner than you are. I can only imagine you get it from your mother. And him of course." She fixed the still-giggling demon with a glare which entirely failed to have any useful effect.
"Probably," Taylor grinned. "Thanks, Amy." She hugged the much larger reptilian form of her friend's lizard suit.
Amy sighed and returned it. "You're welcome. You weirdo. I really like your dad and I don't want anything to happen to him."
"None of us do, Amy," the Varga said quietly as he sat up on the table, Lisa reaching out and stroking his head with a small smile. "Danny is a very decent man and someone we will all do everything in our power to keep safe. As any of us would do for any of us." He looked around at the three girls, all of whom nodded silently.
"Damn right I would," Lisa said firmly. "I owe you all everything up to and including my life. You're family." She poked the mini-dragon. "Even this offense to the orderly running of the universe." The demon snickered at her, making her smile again.
"Nice to hear it. Both of us feel the same," Taylor said with complete sincerity. She dropped into a chair and put her feet up.
"Danny said he'd meet you at home later, apparently you have a DVD to watch?" Amy looked curious now.
"Yep, that one from the TV studio turned up. We're all interested in seeing it."
"I'd like to see it too," the healer said, Lisa nodding as well.
"Of course, I'll bring it to school tomorrow," Taylor told them. She looked over at Lisa, thought for a moment, and added, "With a little luck I might have a nice surprise for you and your old gang by then too."
"What surprise?" Lisa asked, looking slightly suspiciously at her.
Taylor grinned knowingly. "A nice one."
"And it's now driving her nuts that she can't read you to figure out what it is," Amy giggled, both of them watching the expression on their friend's face.
"I know," Taylor whispered loudly from behind a hand. "That's half the fun."
"You're horrible sometimes," Lisa grumped.
"Half demon."
"All pain in the ass."
"Yep."
The Varga, looking back and forth between them, appeared very amused. "She learned so well," he said with a contented smile. "My best work ever."
"Oh, shut up." Lisa poked him with a claw, making him rub his small head into her hand, which in turn made her start smiling.
They talked for a while, Amy explaining how her work on Taylor's father had gone, which made all of them pleased. Eventually, Taylor looked at the time on her phone and stood up. "I'd better go, I need to see Dad, talk about a few things, and then go for a wander around the city. We haven't worried the muggers for a while."
"I might go out and have a little fun like that myself later," Lisa put in. "Something relaxing."
"Me, I'm going for a swim, I haven't done that for days," Amy said firmly. "Then I need to get home, I've been out late several times in a row and Mom wants to talk about this Sophia issue."
"What did your family decide about it?" Taylor asked.
"They're still discussing it, Aunt Sarah will be over by now, but I think they're going to turn down PRT protection for the most part. I suspect that there will be a suspiciously large number of PRT patrols through our neighborhood for the foreseeable future even so," Amy replied, shrugging. "And I think that Mom will conveniently not notice or comment on that fact. Everyone gets what they want and no one loses face."
"Sounds plausible," Lisa said, nodding. "The Director doesn't like owing favors, but she also wants to keep the Family, New Wave, and the Mayor happy and knows this is at least partly their fault."
"It's entirely the PRTs fault in most ways," the Varga noted. "Although at the same time, not the fault of the local branch, or the Director. Or Armsmaster. I believe they were acting in good faith the entire time. If it wasn't for their superiors wanting the girl free for their own reasons, which I'd be quite interested in finding out, Director Piggot would have been able to get her dealt with appropriately months ago. She was completely truthful about not trusting or liking her."
"Well, the Shadow Stalker issue is something we'll all have to deal with now, one way or another," Taylor shrugged. "With luck she'll come to her senses and never head back this way. Not that I believe it for a moment, of course."
"No one does," Amy growled. "That girl was and is mental. She'll be back. Probably at the most inconvenient time."
"Probably." Taylor looked at her friends. "I'm going to fill Dad in on what we know, or suspect, about the powers thing and the Endbringers," she went on a little uncertainly. "He knows some of it but not all, and I don't want to keep it from him. Unless either of you have any problems with that?"
Amy and Lisa exchanged a look, then shook their heads. "Not from my point of view," the former said. "Maybe he can come up with something we've missed so far. I still can't work out what all the information we have now actually adds up to other than something that we're probably not going to like when we figure it out properly."
"I've got no problems either," Lisa added with a shrug. "Danny's a smart guy, he might have an insight. And a fresh set of eyes can't hurt."
"OK. Great. In that case I'll see you both tomorrow." Taylor smiled at her friends as the Varga disappeared from the table and reappeared on her shoulder. "Say hi to your family, Amy."
"Will do." The healer waved at her. "Have fun. And make sure you bring that DVD tomorrow."
"Definitely." Taylor waved back to both of them and vanished.