Tapping on the door, Amy pushed it open, then stuck her head into the room on the other side. "Doctor Bowers? Do you have a moment?"

The sandy-haired middle aged man whose office this was turned around from where he'd been poking through a bookshelf, one book in hand, to regard her. A warm smile greeted the healer. "Panacea! Of course, come on in. What can I do for you?"

She stepped inside and closed the door, flipping her hood back with one hand then lowering her scarf, as he sat on the edge of his desk and put his book next to him. "A friend of mine needs someone to talk to," she began. "Professionally, I mean. She's had a very bad few years and could benefit from someone who knows how to deal with that sort of thing." She shrugged slightly. "I can fix the body, but all I can do to the mind is be sarcastic at it. That doesn't always help."

The psychologist grinned. "Yes, we know the famous Panacea snark rather well around here," he quipped, making her giggle. "I see. And does this friend of yours agree with your diagnosis? It's quite difficult to help people who don't want to be helped, after all."

"Yes, she's all too aware of her own problems," Amy nodded, taking a seat as he gestured, the man moving to another chair facing her. "And she's happy to go into therapy if I can find the right person. I thought you'd know if anyone would. Money isn't a problem."

"That certainly makes things easier," he noted while rubbing his ear thoughtfully, studying her. "Can I inquire as to her background and any other information you have?"

"She's a new hire at the DWU," Amy began. "A very talented mechanic. Mid twenties, from the Kansas area. She had a fairly hard life growing up from what I've found out, with parents that were… well, not good people, according to her. She ended up in the city a few years back and fell in with the wrong sort of people, got addicted to drugs, and pretty much can't remember a lot of the intervening time. Metis from the Family managed to pull her out of that and Ianthe healed her up, fixed her drug addiction, and even made it so she can't get high on anything at the moment."

Doctor Bowers looked surprised, then both impressed and thoughtful. "Ah. You have some interesting friends there. I've heard about that little healing thing you brought to the attention of the hospital. And they can physically block the effects of narcotics?"

"Yep. It's easy enough for them." Amy smiled briefly. "Ianthe showed me how it works, and it's pretty broad spectrum. Even alcohol won't have any real effect. My friend was sort of pleased about that, she was worried that she'd relapse, but this means that even if she did go that way, nothing would happen and the positive reinforcement of addiction won't occur. Hopefully in time they can relax the modification a little, Ianthe said she was fine doing that, but she wanted to be sure that there was no chance of backsliding first."

"I see. An interesting approach to the problem. I'll be fascinated to see how it works out."

Amy nodded. "So will I. Anyway, my friend had an abusive childhood, then an even more abusive adulthood, ending up with the man she ran away from home with turning into a physically violent bastard who nearly killed her. When Metis ran into her, she was just about dead from a drugs overdose, some new crap the Merchants were pushing. She's lucky to be alive." She sighed. "Poor woman had a shit time of it and very little of the whole thing is in any way her fault. A victim of circumstances."

"That's all too common, I'm afraid," he replied quietly. "Especially in this city, and these days. Although since the Merchants were rounded up and the gang disbanded, there's been a marked drop in that sort of case, which we can all thank those odd reptilian people for."

She grinned again. "They do seem to have some fairly obvious effects on certain things, don't they?"

He chuckled, nodding. "That they do. All right, I think I understand. Let me go out on a limb here and suggest that the poor woman has trust issues, is somewhat nervous among people she doesn't know, and is a little dependent on certain members of her in-group? Such as Metis, I would imagine."

With a nod, Amy replied, "Yeah. She seems to trust the Family implicitly, and a few other people in the DWU. Actually, most of the DWU, probably. But anyone outside either group she's definitely wary of, pretty much everyone has noticed that at one point or another. Even her, I think."

"That's as I would tend to expect under the circumstances." Doctor Bower thought for a moment. "Do you think she'd respond better to a male or a female therapist? Sometimes that's an important factor, sometimes it isn't."

Mulling it over, Amy finally replied, "I honestly can't say. She has an awful lot of female friends, as in all the Family and a few other people, such as me, but she also works with a lot of men and doesn't seem to have any problems with them at all."

He nodded, making some notes on a pad he retrieved from his desk. "Good, good. In cases of abuse, it's all too common for the patient, especially if they're a woman, to tend to see all people who resemble the abuser also as potential abusers. Very common in domestic violence cases, rape, that sort of thing, for fairly obvious and understandable reasons. If she's self-aware enough not to fall into that trap, all the better."

He made some more notes, thinking between sentences, while Amy waited and answered a few more questions. Eventually he looked up. "While I'd be interested in taking the case myself, I unfortunately have too many other patients currently to really be able to give my full attention to another one. Perhaps in a few weeks, if necessary. However, I think that Doctor Petersen would be a good fit, and I know she's got some spaces in her schedule. I can recommend her, she's excellent, and has a considerable body of experience in abuse cases."

"I know her vaguely," Amy replied, remembering a short dark haired woman, very calm and collected although also very personable. "About my height, nearly black straight hair?"

"That's her. Would you like me to call her and arrange a meeting?"

"If you would, that would be very helpful, thanks," Amy smiled. He got up and picked up the phone, dialing a two digit code.

"Hello, Holly, it's Sam. Listen, I have a case you might be interested in. A friend of Panacea's. Abusive relationship, recovering addict, low self esteem from what I'm told… Yes. Yes, I would think that's likely. All right. Ten minutes? Excellent, thank you." He put the phone down again and turned to Amy. "She's got a hole in her schedule right now and will come up for a quick chat about the case, if you can hold on for a few minutes."

"Great. Thanks, Doctor, it's something that's been worrying me for a while now." Amy smiled at him.

"It's no problem, trust me, Panacea. Considering the good you do here and elsewhere, never mind how your friends seem to be about to change the whole field, it's the least I can do." He retook his seat and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "While we're on the subject, how are you doing yourself? I can't help noticing that you seem a good deal happier in the last few weeks. I was beginning to wonder if I needed to have a word with you a while ago." His face showed honest concern, causing her to smile again.

"Thank you for the thought, but someone else beat you to it," she laughed. "Yes, I can see now that I was heading for burnout if not something worse, but when you're in that state… It's not easy to see it."

"No, it isn't. And it's taken its toll on more than a few in our line of work," he replied.

"Someone I met at school, and who's probably my best friend now, pointed it out to me in… let's say, a forceful and difficult to ignore manner," she grinned, making him chuckle. "Plus I got some good advice from several other people around the same time. One thing led to another and I cut back on the healing, found some other hobbies, and took time to relax." She shrugged as he nodded slowly. "Until I did that I didn't realize how bad it had got, but I'm glad I listened. I'm having a lot more fun these days. Meeting the Family helped a lot in that respect too, of course."

"I remember the video of you riding Raptaur around the city," he snickered. "I have to admit that did look like an interesting way to spend an evening."

"You have no idea," Amy laughed. "But, yeah, I'm in a very good place right now and I have a lot of friends who will help keep me there."

"I'm relieved to hear that," he smiled. "I can only say that I hope it continues. We need people like you, and I don't like to see anyone, never mind someone so young and gifted, fall victim to their own work ethic. If you ever feel you need to talk things through, even so, my door is always open to you."

"Thanks," she replied, touched, "hopefully that won't be needed, but it's nice to know."

"Now, on a totally different subject..." He smiled at her in a slightly conspiratorial manner. "Can you, by any chance, get me the autographs of any members of the Family?" He grinned widely as she started giggling. "My daughter is cape mad and collects autographs like you wouldn't believe. She's been bugging me about wanting Saurial's since about ten minutes after the first video hit PHO."

"I'm sure I can arrange something," Amy assured him, very amused. They spent the rest of the time until Doctor Petersen arrived with her telling him about some of the exploits of her friends, causing much hilarity.

"How?"

"How what, Lisa?"

The blonde sighed heavily. "You fucking well know exactly what."

"I am uncertain of your precise problem, my friend."

"And you also know exactly what." Lisa glared at the mini-dragon that was sitting in her right hand grinning at her, then transferred the glare to the mini-dragon that was sitting in her left hand. Also grinning at her.

"You are both insane, annoying, and generally a threat to the mental well-being of everyone in range. Which I have a horrible feeling is the entire planet." She took a breath, trying to settle her mind and her power. The first was yet again finding the latest trick her vastly crazy friend had come up with this time rather irritating, mostly because of the apparent perverse desire to get her to fall over, while the latter was, more or less, giggling inanely and wondering what would happen next.

Both of these peeved her quite a lot.

"So, to make sure we're all on the same page, then, the question is… How the hell are you making two tiny little fucking dragons at the same time?"

She waved both of them wildly around. The one that seemed to the moment be being run by Taylor didn't help by spreading her wings and yelling "Wheeee!"

"STOP THAT!"

Lisa breathed heavily for a moment. Both dragons shared a glance, then cocked their heads inquisitively in opposite directions. "Do you want to sit down for a moment?" the other one asked calmly.

"On what?"

The demon-dragon pointed behind her. She looked. Then she sat in the chair that hadn't been there moments before and sighed.

"Oh, god. Why me?"

"Like you wouldn't do this if you could," Taylor snorted, smiling widely. Lisa gave her a filthy look, but had to eventually admit she had a good point.

"Yes, but the critical thing there is, and this is very important, I wouldn't be doing it to me!"

Breathing heavily, Lisa glared at both of them again. After a few seconds, the Varga-dragon started making muffled snickering sounds, although he was apparently trying to avoid grinning. Not very hard as it happens, but the thought was there. This ended up setting Taylor off, and after a moment Lisa couldn't help herself. All three of them laughed for a while, the two mini-dragons teleporting to the arms of the chair and leaning on her.

"Jesus. Every damn time. You two are determined to make me either blue-screen permanently or just give in and join the crazy crew, aren't you?" Lisa moaned when she finally ran down. Looking at each of them as they smirked, she shook her head. "Utterly nuts the pair of you. Come on, out with it. How did you manage this?"

Taylor smiled widely, her tiny draconic muzzle showing lots and lots of glittering teeth. "It's something we were working on for a while now, and helping Amy with the upgrades to the constructs gave us the last few clues we needed to figure out the math."

Lisa immediately realized what she should have done before, and slapped her forehead. The shock of seeing two identical mini dragons had made her miss it. "You're hiding the extra mass in one of your fractional dimensions. It's a modification of the teleport technique."

"Yep. Neat, right?" Taylor looked smug.

"It is very neat indeed," Lisa agreed, studying her friend's two aspects with yet again a degree of envy. "You really do have all the best tricks. I have to learn demon magic at some point, you're grabbing all the powers for yourself. Even the healer has better abilities than I do!" She smiled to show she didn't really mean it.

The Varga chuckled, shaking his head. "You do yourself and your own powers a disservice, Lisa," he said. "You are a highly intelligent and motivated person, and your abilities are formidable. They are just more subtle than most."

"And with Amy around you'll get all the cool tricks anyway as soon as she figures them out herself," Taylor added. "Which I suspect we've only seen the tip of the iceberg of so far."

"I have no doubt of that," Lisa nodded. "The things I know she can do are only beaten by the things I'm pretty certain she can work out how to do. She's nearly as stupidly overpowered as you are in some ways." She shook her head in respect. "How the hell she managed to persuade everyone all she could do is heal people all this time I don't know. And she's still hiding it. That girl has serious self-control considering how powers seem to make most people want to use them to the max."

"Yeah, I'd have to agree with that," Taylor nodded. "If I hadn't bumped into her at school, I hate to think what could have happened. She was incredibly stressed and unhappy."

"What a change three months and a demon makes, right?" Lisa laughed as did the others.

"Damn right." Taylor glanced at the other tiny dragon, then got a mischievous expression. The Varga aspect began snickering. "Hey, want to see something neat?"

Lisa looked at them suspiciously. "Neat?" she echoed. "Neat, how, exactly?"

Looking around, Taylor casually said, "This place is big enough now to show you something you asked about when we first met..."

The little dragon took off and flew across the room, while Lisa followed it with her eyes, then paled slightly as she worked out what her friend meant.

"Close the door, will you please, Lisa?" the other aspect added. "Just in case."

Then it disappeared.

She didn't move for a moment or two, then sighed, got up, and did as requested. When she turned around the chair was gone. "OK. This is going to make me fall over again, isn't it?"

"Might do. We can go in stages if you want," Taylor called from the middle of the room where she had retaken her base form. "OK, this is Raptaur." And lo, it was.

"Which is a scaled down version of my original combat form." 'Raptaur' grew about fifty percent in size, as Lisa watched. "Which I modified for aquatic operations, then scaled up to make Kaiju."

Despite herself, Lisa inhaled sharply when the enlarged Raptaur was replaced by the vastly larger form of Kaiju. In close quarters, not that two hundred yards away was really that close if you weren't an eighty-five foot tall five hundred ton mega-lizard, the larger variant of Taylor was a little bit of a shock. Despite being very familiar with the form by now, Lisa found the sight of 'Kaiju' indoors strange.

"Then we have Umihebi," her enormous friend rumbled. The huge form changed again, to a very very huge form, which wasn't as tall but was much longer. Lisa gaped, not having seen it with her own eyes before, while Taylor grinned and waved. "I have to admit I like this one," she added in an incredibly deep voice that was still recognizably hers.

Lisa's power was cataloging everything like a lunatic, apparently ecstatic about all the new data. She was mildly amused by the way it was slowly becoming less likely to overload, or orgasm, or whatever the hell it did when Taylor did something weird. The thing gave off the impression it was having a huge amount of fun and was looking forward now to what happened next, with wide eyes and an expression like a five year old staring at a shiny toy…

"This is maybe a thousand tons or so?" Taylor said. "As far as I can work out."

"My power says eleven hundred and eighteen tons, and some odd pounds," Lisa replied.

"OK. Eleven hundred tons and change, about twice Kaiju."

"And how much mass do you actually have to work with?"

Taylor grinned. "Our best estimate when we first tried this was about thirty-five thousand tons."

Lisa felt a bit weak around the knees.

"But we realized we made a small error a little while ago," her friend went on, shrugging her huge scaly shoulders. "Embarrassing considering we're both pretty good with math, but we slipped up and didn't really think about it again until we were considering this new technique."

"Dare I ask how much you miscalculated by?" Lisa sighed.

"Oh, it was a tiny little error," Taylor chuckled, the sound making the air in Lisa's lungs vibrate. "Hardly worth mentioning. Only about… um… roughly seventy seven percent?"

There was silence for a moment, then Lisa groaned. "So you actually have..."

"Sixty two thousand tons or so." Taylor smiled brightly, a mouth large enough to swallow a bus exposing hundreds of teeth six feet long. "Little error, we won't make it again. Sorry."

"Oh… god." Lisa was quite pale now, but was managing to hold it together. Her power rubbed non-existent hands together and watched avidly, causing her to aim a certain amount of annoyance at the damn thing.

Looking up, Taylor went on, "This is waaay too low a ceiling to stand up full Varga form, but I guess I can just lie down. So, let's first go to that form at this scale..." There was now a much larger figure lying on its side with its head propped on one hand grinning at her. Taylor's Umihebi-scale Varga variant looked remarkably similar to Ianthe or Metis, Lisa thought as she stared.

"Then, just for fun, let's embiggen to the full Varga size slowly."

Lisa gaped.

Ten seconds passed, as her eyes gradually rose. And rose. And rose.

Then she sat down on the floor, leaned back against the wall, and closed them firmly.

There was total silence for nearly a minute.

Eventually she started giggling a little wildly. "You know, I only just worked out why the Endbringers are shit scared of the both of you..."

Opening her eyes, she met the absurdly larger ones of the reptilian form filling a very significant amount of the preposterously huge room, and even on its side not that far from the ceiling. There was a look of amusement in those glowing orbs.

"You see why I don't want to let the PRT and the public meet Big Brother out of the blue, right?" a basso profundo voice said, the floor vibrating a little at the sound.

"Oh, I think I can safely say that I have a fucking good idea, yes," Lisa nodded, inspecting the full Varga-scale form of her friend. It was the single most impressive thing she'd ever seen, and possibly the most terrifying despite knowing who it was. Her power was basically frozen in shock and awe, with a level of building excitement far at the back of her mind. She found it more than a little funny that as far as she could work out, this time it had pretty much fallen over and she was actually managing to deal with it.

After a long pause, she got to her feet and walked over to stand next to the immense reptilian shape, gazing up at it in awe and wonder.

She blinked rapidly when without warning it was replaced by Taylor in her base form with the Varga microdragon sitting on her shoulder. Both of them were grinning. Lisa stared, snickered, and said with considerable malice, "Personally I think that if and when your dear old school friend returns to the city, you should introduce your really large friend to her somehow. I bet that will make her stop and think very hard about her life choices."

Taylor sighed faintly, although she was still smiling. "You haven't met Sophia," she replied quietly. "I can't help thinking that you're wrong. It'll take something a little more… vigorous… to persuade her, I'm afraid."

"Than that fuck-off pants-shittingly terrifying thing?!" Lisa exclaimed, waving a hand at the space her friend had recently occupied. There was a lot of it to choose from. "How the hell can even you top that?"

Taylor exchanged a look with the tiny dragon, then both of them started laughing very quietly in the most disturbing manner that the blonde had ever heard in her life. Her friend tapped the side of her nose, grinned, and headed for the door to the office. "Still working on that, but trust me, Sophia comes back and fucks with my friends and family, she's going to remember what happens next..."

Shivering a little at the tone that had come into the normally cheerful Hebert girl's voice, Lisa watched them go, then followed. Her imagination was suddenly running on overdrive and some of the things her power was suggesting disturbed both of them.

In the end, she decided it was best not to worry about it until and unless it happened. Then, of course, all bets were off.

"Oh, the other part of the new technique is a much better range on the teleport," Taylor said happily as they went into the office and closed the door to the new room.

"How much better?" Lisa asked curiously. She looked at the baseball cap Taylor produced from nowhere for a moment, then stared at her friend. "You're kidding."

"Nope."

"Florida?"

"Yep."

She was silent for a moment, then shook her head. "Damn it, I have to learn demon magic!"

"You're being very quiet, Vicky," Crystal said, causing her cousin to glance at her after a mild twitch. They were four hundred feet in the air and heading for a landing in the general area of the Boardwalk, intending to do some shopping.

"Sorry, just got a lot on my mind at the moment," Vicky mumbled.

"Anything I can help with?" Crystal flew closer and prodded her in the shoulder. "You're my cousin, I want you to be smiling. Not all morose and thoughtful. It doesn't suit you." She grinned when Vicky humphed at her, but the other girl reluctantly smiled a little.

"I don't think you can, thanks," she finally said as they started to arc downwards. People on the ground were pointing, and several cameras were aimed their way.

"Is it important? Or are you just in a mood again?" Crystal inspected her. "You didn't have another fight with Dean, did you?"

"No! Why does everyone always ask that?" Vicky demanded with annoyance.

Crystal giggled. "You have to admit it's the usual reason you get all quiet and moody. And normally end up breaking something. Vases, windows, furniture… The occasional building..." She grinned again when Vicky glared at her.

"Very funny," the other blonde snapped. "I have only broken one building in two years, and haven't broken a window or a chair for months." Crystal raised a delicate eyebrow. "Weeks."

"And the vases?"

"Um..."

They landed amid laughter from her cousin. "Your mom told my mom that you smashed another one this morning. She was moaning about it for about two or three minutes. Was it that one on the upstairs hallway table?"

Vicky nodded glumly.

"Good, that thing was hideous," Crystal snickered. Despite herself, Vicky started laughing as well. "Come on, stop worrying about whatever it is for now and let's go look at shoes. That shop you like has some new stock in I haven't had a chance to see yet."

Deciding that her cousin was right, and that she could brood about what was going on with her sister later with a fresh mind, Vicky firmly thrust vanishing tail sleeves to the back of her mind, where the headache that followed thinking about the subject seemed to live, smiled, and followed the older girl down the Boardwalk, both of them signing the occasional autograph and posing for photos.

All in all, it was a pleasant way to spend a Saturday morning, she thought. Other things could wait until later.


Looking around the table at the various familiar faces, Amy listened to the man speaking as everyone else was doing. "...cellular division at an extraordinary rate. We are still unsure how it's done without there being so much waste heat that the cells cook themselves in the process. But there's no denying the evidence that multiple animal tests have shown." He pointed at the graphs on the projected image on the wall. "I have to agree with all my learned colleagues. The Family-produced synthetic lifeforms do indeed cure everything we have been able to come up with, from blunt force trauma to prion infections. So far nothing has done as much as slow them down. I would dearly love to know how long such a creation took to design, since it suggests a level of knowledge in a number of subjects that absolutely dwarfs anything we know."

The man, who was about fifty, shook his head in awe. "I feel totally inadequate to research something so groundbreaking, I have to admit. Yet unbelievably privileged at the same time. Studying these little creations will advance genetics and the field of medicine decades at least, leaving aside the incredible number of lives they'll save. Of that I have no doubt whatsoever."

He clicked the little remote he was holding and the slide blanked, then he sat down.

"Thank you, Doctor Benford." Doctor Phipps, who was ultimately in charge of most treatments in the hospital, nodded at his colleague, then turned to the other people in the room. It was a larger group than Amy's first meeting, now including a dozen researchers as well as most of the same heads of departments as before, plus a few other relevant parties. "Obviously we're only at the beginning of this process, but as you've all heard, every test we have so far been able to bring to this subject bears out what Panacea told us." Picking up a small bottle he shook it gently, the half-dozen quick healers in it rattling around as everyone stared at it.

"These things are the single greatest gift to medicine in history. And in some ways one of the potentially most problematic, considering the industry that has grown around healing in this country. However, ethically, despite the potential problems I can foresee, I personally have no qualms about saying I would like to see them introduced as fast as is realistically possible. The number of lives that will be saved is..." He fell silent for a moment as everyone else waited. "...Simply incalculable, essentially. We have a duty to our oaths as doctors to preserve life, and I'm holding in my hand the way to do that far better than any other method we have ever devised," he finally finished soberly and quietly, putting the bottle down with a faint click.

Doctor Phipps looked around at each face in turn. Amy did likewise. Some bore expressions of excitement, some of worry, some of deep thought. None looked upset or bored.

After a handful of seconds, Doctor Hernandez, her main ward contact and a friend, said, "I don't know how important it is, but I've heard that the PRT R&D department has been testing these things as well. You said that Saurial gave some of them to Director Piggot, correct, Panacea?" He glanced at Amy who nodded.

"Yes, the same day I brought it up."

"That would be Jon Torres and his team, I think?" Doctor Phipps looked thoughtful as the other doctor nodded. "He's a good man, an excellent doctor, and knows a lot more about research than many. Do you know what conclusions they've reached, Miguel?"

"From what I was told, more or less exactly what we have," Doctor Hernandez shrugged. "I don't have a lot of details, it was a casual conversation over drinks. They're impressed, I know that much. And reading between the lines, probably close to human tests on volunteers, I'd guess."

"Are we confident enough to begin that phase?" someone asked.

Doctor Eriksen, her friend from the trauma department, smiled. "I certainly am."

"We remember your experiment," someone else chuckled. "It was rather memorable."

"If we get full informed consent," Caffon the bioethicist began, "I have no issues with limited trials." He glanced at the legal team and their lead lawyer shook her head. "Legally we're covered in several different ways. Having Panacea on hand to monitor the progress of the procedure and intervene is a condition, though."

Everyone looked at Amy, who smiled. "I'm fine with that. Just let me know when you want me around and I'll be here."

"Excellent," Phipps nodded. "In that case, while we still need to continue our research on the devices themselves, I believe we should begin to compile a list of potential volunteers and approach them with the offer. Despite Panacea's best efforts, we still have patients coming in constantly, and I have no doubt we can find a few she hasn't got to yet." He chuckled, as did several other people, while everyone glanced at Amy again. Amused, she smiled but said nothing.

The meeting went on for another half hour, but when she left the hospital, she was pleased that she'd already achieved several things and it was still well before noon. All in all, the day was going well so far.

"What are you looking so pensive about?"

Newter looked up at the sound of his friend and colleague's voice, as Gregor came into the common room and sat across from him. The orange boy had been staring blankly out the slightly darkened window, which allowed them to see out but more or less blocked anyone outside seeing in. From the top floor of the five story building he could see straight down one of the streets from there right out into the bay, and had been watching the ships moving around on the water, not really paying much attention. After a moment, he went back to looking out the window, his tail restlessly moving next to him on the sofa he was half-lying on.

"Dunno," he finally answered half-truthfully.

Gregor made a non-committal sound in his throat, then sipped from the bottle of beer he'd brought with him. They sat in silence for a while.

"You ever wonder who you are?" he finally asked, still peering out at the view.

"Sometimes," Gregor replied softly. "Or rather, I wonder who I was. I know who I am. Whether that's the same person now and then… That's a good question." Newter looked over at him, the older man smiling a little. He shrugged and took another drink from his bottle. "One without an answer at the moment. Despite Mel's best efforts."

Newter nodded, before going back to the window. For some reason he found the sight of the new ships gently puttering around oddly soothing. "I guess I'm the same," he admitted. "I'd like to know where I came from, and who I was. But I'm not really upset about who I am now." With a twist of his mouth, he laughed briefly. "Maybe I would be if I knew who I used to be." Lifting the end of his tail he looked at it. "Doubt I had this then."

"Most likely not," Gregor agreed with a chuckle.

They sat in silence for another few minutes, Gregor slowly drinking his beer.

"I wonder if I am somehow connected to the Family," Newter eventually mused.

"Ah." Gregor nodded. "We come to the truth. Ben's little joke has made you think, no?"

Turning around on the sofa, Newter sighed, then slumped back until he was staring at the ceiling. "Kinda, yes. I mean, I know it's a joke, but… He's also sort of right. I look a lot more like them, or Saurial at least, than I look like normal people. Maybe there is a connection or something. Probably not. But I can't help wondering."

"Easy solution," Gregor said. Newter looked at him, rolling his head to the side. "Go ask them."

"Think it's that easy?"

The man shrugged. "No idea. But if you don't try you won't know, right?"

"Your plan is so crazy it might just work," the reptilian-looking boy said with a smirk. "Talking. How novel."

"Worth a shot."

"Guess you're right." Newter nodded. "I should talk to Mel, see what she thinks."

"Do that." Gregor finished the last of his beer and stood up. Turning to leave, he stopped then turned back. "Newter." The boy looked at him. "Don't get upset if they don't know anything."

Newter nodded again with a sigh. "I know, I know. But like you said, worth a shot. Worst case I get to meet some of the scariest capes around. And maybe see if I can have a play with one of those stupidly cool light cycles." He grinned as Gregor snickered, then watched as his friend left. Looking to the ceiling again, he mulled their conversation over for a while, then got up to go find the woman who ran the place.


"What the hell did you do this time?" Amy asked with a quizzical tone, staring at the wall and the two doors, one large and one small, in it.

"Math," Lisa, 'Saurial', and Taylor chorused in perfect sync, making her roll her eyes and demand a more useful explanation.