Emma Barnes was worried.
Her dad was never sitting at the table at nine in the morning on a Saturday. He normally only woke up at ten and was never fully dressed until eleven on weekends. Now he was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper in one hand and drinking coffee with the other. What made Emma especially suspicious was the white cake box that was on the table next to her dad.

Somehow, Emma felt that she wasn't going to be able to hang out with Sophia today.

Despite her inner turmoil, Emma took a deep breath and entered the kitchen like nothing was wrong. Her nerves were not worth delaying her Breakfast over.
As she opened the fridge, she finally heard her dad say something.
"Good Morning, Emma," Alan said, the early morning slur completely absent from his voice. "Are you ready to go?"
"Go where?" Emma asked, honestly confused.
Her dad put down his news paper and turned to face Emma, a single eyebrow raised.
"Your first therapy appointment that we discussed on Tuesday is today. Did you forget?"

Emma tried to suppress her grimace. Her dad was adamant on the fact that she should get therapy because she obviously did the right thing in showing her former friend, Taylor Hebert, her place in the world. Taylor was pathetic compared to her and got everything she deserved. Honestly, she had hoped that her Dad would have forgotten about the obviously unnecessary therapy.
"I don't need it Dad. Can't you cancel it?"
She knew how this would go. They would argue for a bit and he would get mad but eventually something more important would come up and he would put off the argument indefinately. It had worked so often that she was already internally arming herself for the inevitable argument.

Which was why she was surprised when all she heard from him was a sigh.
"I know what you are trying to do," He almost sighed. "You want to start an argument that I don't have time for and hope that I will for get about it. Well, If you don't believe that you need therapy then I guess you should open this box..."
He tapped on the box for emphasis.
She approached the box quickly and was just about to rip it open when she heard something.
It was so soft that she only barely heard it barely heard it.

A soft meep.

She froze instantly, hands quickly darting away from the monster in the box. She felt the blood leave her face after she fully realised what almost happened.
"Dad... Why?" She asked Alan, a plea in her voice.
Alan went back to his paper as he answered.
"You are going to therapy anyway. It's your choice if it's for two problems or one."

Emma stood back from her father. That was diabolical. It was practical. It was shameless...
It was something she would have done...

"Your eyes aren't the only things that you inherited from me." He answered the unspoken question.
"I'm not opening it." Emma said, determination filling her like the confidence that a model had on a catwalk.
"And I'm not going to force you to," Alan said, completely unbothered by her defiance. "It will be here, waiting for you and it would be such a shame of your little sister, Sarah opened it instead..."

Her confidence fled her like the calories off of a dieting model.
"You wouldn't..."
"You are right, I wouldn't. But the box would be just sitting here, and it would be amazingly available for inquisitive little girls to simply find it."
Emma was unsure. She didn't have a problem but she couldn't let her sister open that box either...
Maybe she could hide it...
"Hey, Dad! Is that a Present!?" Shouted the little member of the Barnes family as she sped into the kitchen.
"I'll DO IT!" She unintentionally screamed as she grabbed the box and ran out of the room to dispose of the monster inside.

She was in such a hurry that she didn't see the smiling faces of her dad and sister as they high-fived each other.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When Amy Dallon had woken up that morning, It had not been with the happy chirping of birds and a bright smile on her face, ready to help the needy and sick.
No, when Amy Dallon had woken up that morning, it had been with discontented mumbling about five more minutes and the slight craving for a cigarette.

When she had finally gotten the strength to get ready for the day, it had not been with a spring in her step and singing along with random animals that would have somehow found their way into the house.
No. When she had gotten out of bed, it had been more of a stumble that was punctuated by enthusiastic yawns.

When it was time to get dressed, it wasn't a beautiful white dress that flowed around a flawless form.
No. It was the same voluminous robes that she had worn yesterday that she placed on her tired frame.

No, she didn't live a fabulous life with her sister like in those fanfictions thatshereadoutofpurecuriosityhonest.
Amy Dallon lived a life of work, stress and dealing with ungrateful idiots.
"Thank you for curing my terminal disease that I would most have certainly died from! Now I'm going to yell at you for not making me look like a supermodel." Was a reaction that she received too often every day.
It seemed to her that the sick and needy were the minority of the people that Amy healed these days. It seemed that the majority of the people that she healed these days were whiners or thought that they were entitled to be healed. Not to mention the sheer amount of healing that she did for the PRT.

Yes, she understood that they needed to recover from injuries quickly in order to protect the city better but it seemed that ever since they started calling on her that they had gotten a lot more careless.
They came to her with bullet wounds, burns and other serious injuries but they also came to her with sprains, cuts and once even a stomach ache.

It irritated her that grown PRT officers would bother her with the most inane problems when there were kids with horrible diseases that she could be saving instead. Not to mention the downright traumatic things that they showed her like the recent shishkebab incident. Just thinking about how mushy Mush was to the touch made her feel nauseous.

She felt like leaving a stomach ache or two in the people who waste her time and that only served to make her feel worse about herself. It would be so easy to do wrong with her powers.

She shook off her self-incrimination and checked her form in the bathroom mirror. Satisfied that no one could see just how sick of everyone she was, she moved to leave after grabbing her car keys. She had work to do after all. That was the problem with being part of a heroic parahuman family. There were "expectations".

Amy was thankful that the roads were quiet today, just like every Saturday. She didn't feel like dealing with traffic on her "day off".
The hospital had practically begged her to take weekends off and if she was honest with herself, she would have loved too.
Her family had encouraged it too but she had seen the looks that her mom gave her. It was that subtle look of disappointment, that look that told Amy that her mom wouldn't voice her disappointment but was disappointed all the same that she was spending her time away from helping people.

She would rather deal with exhaustion and ungrateful patients than to deal with that stare.

And so when she had finally made it to the hospital, she had already felt the exhaustion that had been her constant companion over the week. At least she still had Sunday, that was one day her mom couldn't take away from her.

As she entered the hospital, she had already begun to feel the exhaustion that had been her companion for the past week.
Ah, crippling exhaustion my old friend. She thought to herself as she took her first steps into the hospital lobby.
It was only a few steps into the lobby when she had stopped completely.
She didn't come to the Hospital this early on Saturdays but she practically lived Brockton Bay General Hospital and she knew one thing today.
Something was wrong.
She gazed upon the lobby counter, noting that the nurse behind it wasn't looking particularly stressed out and it seemed that she was actually trying to catch some sleep.
She focused on the waiting area, which had merely one teenager in ABB colours, sleeping, rather than the normal crowd of injured and slightly dying people.
She investigated the current waiting patient numbers. It didn't even reach double digits...

There was only one explanation...
For one day this week...
The hospital wasn't busy...

Beneath her feeling of complete exhaustion, she started to feel giddy. There were no annoying patients trying to crowd around her as she entered the door. There were no urgent messages on her cellphone from the ICU. There wasn't any overworked nurses that Amy would have to fight through to get around the hallways.
I should come on Saturdays more often. She thought to herself as she felt a genuine smile grow on her face.
And so, for the first time that she could remember, she entered the hospital with a spring in her step and a smile on her face.

Not as though people could see that smile past her hood.

Amy's mind raced with the possibilities of what she could do with a slow day at the hospital. She could catch up on her reading. She could actually sit down between patients! She could take a nap...
Oh my god... I can take a nap! She squeed internally at her realization.
Her smile grew so much that it hurt her face.

A more cynical part of Amy knew that this couldn't last so the first order of business was to secure a spot to lay down and sleep later. One place came to mind...
The third floor.

The third floor was filled with wards where the patients either stayed in the long term or the short term and on a day like this, there would be a lot of empty beds that wouldn't be occupied that she could easily claim for "medicinal" uses. With the daydream of how much she would enjoy actually dreaming, she almost floated into the hospital lobby. Amy's steps were light and quick as she sped past the lobby's counter, waking up the unalert nurse by the sheer motion of the young healer's robes.
"Miss Dallon?" the bleary-eyed nurse asked but Amy was moving too fast to pay attention to her. If you had asked Nurse Welby on what she saw, she would have described a teenager shaped bundle of cloth sprinting down the corridor. Amy would have described it as an enthusiastic stroll. Her sheer enthusiasm meant that the elevator never even occurred to her as she flew up the steps, unable to hear the nurse calling from below.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In terms of hospital beds, some were more comfortable than others. Some were rock hard, others deflated uncomfortably when laid upon and some felt just right.
The last category was the most important to Amy Dallon at the moment.

These comfortable beds were valuable commodities when it came to dealing with patients, making their recovery experience better and lessening their amount of complaints through the recovery. Considering this was extremely valuable for the overworked doctors and nurses, Amy hadn't understood why they only had a few of the beds instead of all the beds being comfortable when she had first come to the hospital. She knew now that it was because the hospital was extremely underfunded for the amount of violence that went on in Brockton Bay.

That, and there was a certain satisfaction in giving the injured gang members the worst beds.

From this scarcity of good beds, came a way for doctors and nurses to claim the best beds for themselves. How?
By making them seemingly the worst beds.
Thankfully for Amy, she learned that trick from a particularly inebriated nurse on the late shift. It made her feel bad that she had increased the woman's sensitivity to alcohol to get her to that point but she felt better when she had cleaned out her system when the nurse had fallen into a drunken sleep. That was technically a lot more heroic than what any villain would do...

So after modifying her chosen bed in the mostly empty ward with a few choice spoons, leaving it the most uncomfortable bed in the hospital, she decided to find out whether she could get a cup of tea before she fell into an appropriately deep sleep. Greatly hoping that she wouldn't find anyone, she left the hospital room. And immediately found kindly, old Dr West who was busy sharpening a large axe on a nearby desk.

Despite being advanced of age, Amy could see that Dr West wasn't as frail as you would expect a man of his age to be. She could clearly see the toned muscles beneath his doctors coat and she remembered the healthy body he had despite his age. He was exactly what someone would imagine an elderly football player to be. Amy had no idea why he was the way he was. Yes, she could do it but she knew that there was no other way for him to be so fit, especially with what she knew about his day to day activities.

There was no reason she could think of for him to be sharpening what seemed to be a two headed axe either.

In the end though, she didn't care enough to delay her additional sleep and she tried to unobtrusively walk past the focused man. Unfortunately, it was unsurprisingly hard to do in her large, white and red robes and he caught sight of her when she had just made it past him.
"Ahh," Dr West breathed out in that typical 'Grandfather voice' that he had became known for. "Hello, Panacea. I'm surprised you are here today. You normally come to help out on Sundays."
Silently cursing to herself, she put on her best polite smile, despite no one being able to see it, and turned towards the old doctor.
"Hello, Dr West. I needed to take Sunday off this week and so I decided to come today. How are you doing today?"
"If I had my way, you would take the whole weekend off," The doctor scoffed. "I'm doing fine, myself. Just preparing for the worst, that's all."

Amy couldn't help being curious.
"What do you mean?"
"Ahh. I forget. You don't know about Regenerator day."
Amy felt her eyebrow rise as she stared at the man, she had never heard of something like that during her entire stay at the hospital. Thankfully, Dr West managed to catch onto her unspoken question.
"Regenerator Day is the day where we use these handy regenerator machines, that we got from a very helpful fellow, on a certain day of the week, mainly Saturdays, but sometimes Sundays depending if the PRT come around on that Saturday."

"What do they do?" Amy had to ask.
Dr West just chuckled.
"I have no idea. it's something about using the ambient energy of cell death to restart dead cells but its over the top of my head. Unfortunately it's rather hard to learn things at seventy-five years old."
"Then why do you hide it from the PRT, surely they could figure the tinkertech out?"
Dr. West massaged his grey goatee with one hand, balancing the axe on the desk with the other.
"We did give them one, but they ended up breaking it because of one very important detail."
"What?" she asked, enthusiasim of something that could give her more free time overpowering her exhaustion.
West gave her his best impression of a grandfather smile.
"It's not tinker tech. It was given to us by the Evil Genius himself."

Amy was slightly surprised, she had heard rumors of the Evil Genius who lived in Brockton Bay around the time she was born and she heard of the possibility of him not being a tinker but surely that couldn't be true.
"Okay, even if it wasn't tinker tech, surely something so useful as a 'Regenerator' wouldn't need to be hidden from the PRT. It could save a lot of lives."
Dr West shook his head slowly.
"That's only if the PRT didn't take them for themselves and besides, they have a really big side effect... They make zombies occasionally."
Amy felt her brain stop.
"What?"

The doctor shrugged. "It's a side effect when a huge number of cells happen to die simultaneously. Sometimes the regenerator gets them stuck between life and death in a constant cycle and needs to be cut out of the patient. The problem happens is that some of these, 'clumps' start self-replicating and make zombies."
Amy stared blankly at the old doctor.
"Really?"
"Yes. And thanks to my expertise in surgery, I was offered a second job to help deal with them when they appear."
Dr West flashed a smile that had an energy Amy didn't expect on a man so old.
"One of the best ways to end the weekend."

Amy had no idea what to say to that. Frankly, she was starting to doubt Dr West's sanity. There was no way zombies were real right?
"Now," Dr West said as he hefted the axe off the table. "It was nice to see you again Ms Dallon, but I need to check on one of my patients. A one, Ms Hebert I believe."

Amy simply watched him walk away, her mind still reeling with the obviously ludicrous idea that he killed zombies as a side job.
He was athletic enough for it but zombies weren't real.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud, feminine scream as a nurse ran out of a nearby room and was followed by something that caused Amy's brain to attempt to fart.

It was a shambling humanoid creature that looked like a rotting human. Its eyes glowed red and its teeth were a dull white as it slowly chased the fleeing nurse, moving slow enough for the average toddler to out run it. It was also stark naked which made Amy glad that it rotted away to the point it was almost impossible to determine its gender.
All in all, it looked exactly like you would imagine a zombie to look like.
"RAAAAAAAR"
It even sounded like a zombie.

"Dr West to ward 3R. Repeat, Dr West to ward 3R. Code Z. Repeat Ward 3R, Code Z.
"HOW FORTUITOUS!" Dr West yelled as he passed Amy again, axe ready to be swung.
The only thing that Amy could do was watch as she saw Dr West tackle the zombie, axe first, and cutting it into pieces as even more zombies shambled out of the room of all shapes and sizes.
Dr West didn't seem to be unnerved as he threw himself into the miniature horde with reckless abandon as nearby nurses and Doctors tried to ignore the commotion and continue with their work. The only one's paying attention was the rare patients who nervously glanced between the melee and the calm staff members. Even the woman who had screamed was seemingly calming down now.

It was right then that Amy decided that she was going to have her nap without that cup of tea and as she walked away from the madness, she was happy that her bed was in the complete opposite direction of the zombies.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was not the first time that Jasmine of the Three Blasphemies had regretted having such an unfortunate name.
It was not the first time she did so in the countryside of France either.

Yes, it was cool and intimidating. It was also amusing to see people's faces pale and occasionally pray when the three women walked through the streets in full costume and under Chrysta's breaker power, making them look like uncanny monsters in human form. Personally being non-religious, Jasmine didn't have any attachment to the name but now she had to admit that it was more trouble that it was worth.

It had all began two and a half-decades ago when a man only known as The Crusader had come back from his one man crusade against the Evil Genius who tried to take over the world. His reasoning was that "Only God could rule the world and Man should not be the master of all".
It was the most stupid reason that Jasmine had ever heard, ever.

After the Evil Genius had retired however, The Crusader, who was simply an ordinary man with a family, returned to his native homeland of Italy where it was said that he was looking forward to seeing his family again.
A Gesellschaft ruled Italy.

Gesellschaft had been spreading through Europe like a neo-Nazi plague. Taking over entire Governments over mere months and securing their place in Europe by eliminating all the opposition that they could. By then, they were the dominant force in Europe and had almost secured Britain and infiltrated the Vatican. It had looked like that Gesellschaft was going to get their goal of a fourth shadow Reich and the Three Blasphemies where happy that they weren't on Gesellschaft's list of enemies.

Over one year, The Crusader had kicked Gesellschaft out of Italy entirely. It was unprecedented. Agents killed, assasins hanged and even a few parahumans were found dead. How did one man, not even a parahuman, manage to dislodge the most expansive neo-Nazi organisation in the height if its power?
The Crusader only had one response to that question.
"DEUS VULT!"

After kicking out the Nazi's in Italy, he became a symbol of hope for the parts of Europe that were oppressed by Gesellschaft and a savior to the eyes of the Italian people. Gesellschaft had prepared to deal with him, a single tragic accident to end a mystifying and powerful threat to their rule. Even Jasmine and her two friends had made their own plans to deal with The Crusader if he stood in their way.

And then the Pope made an announcement.

Many thought and were hoping that the pope would condemn the killings that The Crusader had done in the name of his religion.

Instead, the Pope called for a new crusade...
Against Gesellschaft.

Almost instantly, Europe's political sphere shifted. Corrupt politicians abandoned the neo-nazi ship and Gesellschaft found themselves prosecuted by every community, even other more religious neo-Nazi groups.

Within a year, there were hundreds of men and woman who had volunteered for the crusade and that number grew monthly. Gesellschaft doubled down on their influence in the governments they controlled and managed to get the European Union to place a blanket ban on the sale of firearms to civilians across Europe and considering that the new 'Crusaders' were still legally civilians, Gesellschaft was confident in their victory.

Jasmine quickly dodged a flying boulder as she felt the impacts of hundreds of crossbow bolts on her temporarily metal body.

Apparently, Trebuchets, Crossbows and swords weren't included in that ban.

It had come down to a conflict between a shadow organisation with guns and a warband of religious zealots that had them out-manned, out-sworded and out-catapulted. The conclusion was obvious and within a decade or so, Gesellschaft had been pushed all the way back into Eastern Europe by the new Crusade.

Why did this affect Jasmine and her two friends in the Three Blasphemies? It was because now over half of Europe was under the protection of people who didn't particularly like a name like the Three Blasphemies.
Also, with all they had done to increase their reputation, they couldn't exactly claim that it was just a name for the three women.

Jasmine's train of thought was interrupted as she spotted a crusader come into a view over a nearby hill, chain and plate mail shining with the iconic red and white heraldry of the crusaders. It's iconic helm turned towards the Three Blasphemies as dozens of similarly dressed crusaders came into view as well.

"Look! There are the Heretics, Get them!" The Crusader yelled in french as he drew his sword and lifted it into the air. "Deus Vult!"
"Deus Vult!" the army of crusaders continued to chorus as they charged the three parahuman women who had killed hundreds in the name of their country, spreading terror and destruction throughout Europe.

As she used her power to help her and her friends escape the Crusaders, Jasmine couldn't help but regret their group's choice of name.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

There you go guys. Hope you enjoy this interlude before the next Arc starts.
Comments and Criticisms are welcome!
DEUS VULT.
(Shout out to the We are Number One song and memes as it got me motivated to finish this)

Next time on TBoBaMF:
"Alright, I can see that I need to teach you how to be... Minions!"
Taylor didn't like the sound of that, even if she had to admit that she enjoy the saxophone music that the suspicious man in yellow overalls was playing.

(Warning: These specific sentantances will probably not make it into the actual update)