Termination 21.5

I was elbow deep in Shard when I got the call, really Taylor pinging me via our three shared powers, pulsing in time in a way that, somehow, said, ~Lee, your cousin's here, and she's causing problems.~

~Be there in a minute,~ I replied, holding the Hard Light Construct Shard in hundreds of metaphorical hands as I carefully shifted, realigned, and practically massaged the stubborn bit of sentient crystal into something a bit more useful.

It was one of my more recently Pathed vials, one that allowed the user to create, well, hard light constructs. Pathing it, I'd made the power as open as I could to use, and then fed it enough Essence to get it to accept my commands for some basic-bitch safety features, but it'd been a bit too open. Trevor, the Host who'd accepted it, had taken the minor physical mutations, namely square, glowing pupils and perpetually glowing white hair that was just a little prehensile, easily enough, but while he could create constructs, keeping them up was a bit of an issue, and keeping them in the same shape for more than a second was practically impossible.

So, in I went, shifting the Shard's alignment to create a bit of a 'save' system, where, once he'd made something, he could 'lock' its form in place, and could make more of them if needed. The Shard had pitched a bitch fit, naturally, insisting that, if its Host didn't need to make bespoke creations every single time, he'd just default to a handful of formations, denying it needed data, a need I couldn't convince the sentient crystal didn't exist because the Cycle was fucking broken. I was also coming to find that once the Shards were paired with a Host they got. . . stubborn, as opposed to ones still in their Vials, which were hoping to get a Host in the first place.

Talking with Trevor, I impressed upon him the need to constantly iterate and improve his designs, as while the perfect was the enemy of the good, there was no such thing as one tool that was good for every job. Pursuant to that I'd worked with the Shard to reformat its user-interface, streamlining and simplifying a lot of the design options, another thing it had hated, until I put in a toggle that was tied into an artificial strength limiter, meaning that the constructs that the Host created with 'light legos', the very simplest way of creating things out of blocks of hardened luminescence, would be a mere fifteen percent as strong as if he'd 'freehanded' it completely, thus creating an incentive for him to gain in skill as it would tangibly be an increase in power, functioning more as training wheels than a true crutch.

I was almost done creating the different layers of UI, but he had three of the six I'd negotiated his Shard into making, and it'd be easy to finish this up later, so I slowly and metaphysically pulled out of his head, noting that Trevor was actively using his power to make fractal patterns, like I'd asked him to, as it was far easier to fine-tune the Shard-Host interface when there was a Host to pair the Shard with.

"Done, sir?" he questioned, smiling. "This is way fuckin' easier!"

"Almost, but there's something that's come up. The easier interfaces are weaker, so think of them as training tools. Same time tomorrow work for you?" I questioned.

The man blinked, "I, uh, sure thing, boss! Even if it isn't as strong, I don't feel like I'm tryin' to sculpt farts, blind, in a wind tunnel! You. . . need help?" he asked, with a little trepidation. Given the level of bullshit I regularly dealt with, and that would require my personal touch, it was understandable, but the fact that he was still offering made me smile.

"No, it's a diplomatic thing, not a combat op. Hopefully," I added, knowing my luck. "See you then," I nodded to him, as the man gave a relieved sigh, and I teleported back to my office, looking to Taylor. "What's the situation?"

"Your cousin and Dragon tried to fly over our capitol armed to the teeth, and aren't happy being told to go through the checkpoint like everyone else," she informed me, directing my attention to a spot above the city walls where Grace and Dragon, both in battle-suits, were surrounded by a ring of my Penumbral Defenders.

Listening in, I could hear the girl disdainfully call out, "-telling you that I was invited, so get out of my way!"

"Did they say they were coming?" I questioned my teammate, who shook her head. "She probably thought she could just drop in."

"Clearly. Also, Voice," Taylor noted, tapping her own throat.

"What? Oh, right, thanks," I smiled, having talked it over with my 'lieutenants', and all three agreed that I should pull back on the Shard-Speak around people that weren't part of our. . . territory? Empire? Collective? That weren't under our purview. "Well, I'll be back."

"Have fun," she offered sarcastically, going back to her other projects, though, as a Sensor Beetle ran up onto my desk, I accepted it, integrating it into my armor so she could watch my back.

"I'll try," I smiled, forming a flaming purple dagger, inscribed with a Mark, in the air near my cousin and the others, interrupting them. A moment later I Strode there, Seeing her power, which crossed Stranger off the list of potential problems. We'd never found that first infiltrator, but we'd had a dozen others, a couple able to replicate powers, but never to the extent that the first one could, and I had publicly invited her to my territory in front of dozens of others, so it was a distinct possibility this Grace had been someone else. "Grace, Dragon, I must've missed your call. Sorry 'bout this, but we do have security protocols."

"You said you told him you were coming," the Tinker chided her partner, quietly and over their integrated comms, but it was a sound that was made close to me, so I was included in the conversation as well.

"He said we could come! He should've been expected us!" my cousin argued, also talking in front of us while excluding us all from the conversation.

Dragon sighed, "That was three days ago, Khione." Toggling her speakers on, the Tinker apologized to us, "I'm sorry. I thought you knew we were going to arrive. I would've filed a flight plan otherwise."

Still with her comms internal, my cousin pointed out, "We've never had this problem before."

Shrugging, I told the ex-A.I., "It's fine. Everything's a little off right now. I still think a quarter of our employees are M.I.A. with all the celebrations going on from killing Behemoth."

~A sixth. Mostly secondary and tertiary jobs.~ Taylor informed me.

Finally toggling her comms to speaker mode, my cousin asked sarcastically, "You normally stop everyone that shows up?"

"Yes," I answered easily. "At least after the first dozen Villains tried smuggling in drugs, explosives, listening devices, and, when we stopped them, tried to murder us our way out."

While I couldn't see her expression, her tone of voice more than made up for it, as, outraged, she demanded, "You think we're Villains!?"

"Well, Charlie is, Herbert thinks he is, and you yourself got the taps out of Dragon's systems, so it's less of a 'You're Villains' and more of a 'You might be compromised, and we do it to everyone at least once to be fair,' thing."

"And that couldn't've waited until we met you?" she questioned, folding her power-suit's arms, a rocket-wing assembly, like Dragon's, keeping her afloat, though this armor's aesthetics tended more towards crystalline pieces painted blue, like ice, instead of Dragon's green reptile theme.

"You mean, let an unverified party fly over a heavily populated city with enough armaments to level a quarter of it?" I reframed the issue. "No, it couldn't. Now follow me and we can get your stuff checked out, which I would've warned you about, if you'd called ahead."

"I. . . right. Right, that makes sense," my cousin agreed, a little mulishly, but seeing the logic of it. "We've never had a problem before."

Shrugging, I nodded to the rest of the patrol that'd stopped the pair at the edge of New Brockton Bay, and they peeled off, flying back to their ready station. "That's because in most places they give zero shits what happens to the populace."

"That's not true!" the younger girl argued.

Flipping backwards, I gave Grace a skeptical look, making sure the sound didn't go past the two of us. "You've read Worm. You really think Alexandria and the others gave a shit if a couple dozen cities got nuked if they got what they wanted?"

"It is hard to believe," Dragon stated, and I frowned for a moment, before I realized that Grace's comm system was still open, including the other woman, and instead just sighed.

"Shouldn't be. 'The Ends Justify the Means' is practically Cauldron's catchphrase," I told her. "Just think of how many times you got mysteriously stymied from making the world a better place, and realize that a good number of them weren't Saint and his cronies."

"They're trying to save the world," Grace pointed out.

"And they failed," I countered. "Which is why it's up to us. Now, let's get some quick scans done, and we'll be good."

Landing at the front of the line, a couple people moved to complain, until they either recognized Dragon or myself, which shut them up. "This way," I instructed, walking through the thirty-foot square gate, motioning the others to follow.

They did, upon which point, in the enclosed monitoring room to the side, the alarms went nuts. The guards stiffened, both women realizing something was wrong from their body-language, as the alarm room was soundproofed, and I started to make layers of hardened air as I questioned, "Care to explain why you're both Mastered?"

It was something that Quinn had cracked, using his Sensor Tinker specialization, and while I gave the machines fits, simultaneously reading as Mastered, not, and a Master-power created minion, it was consistent enough that I was whitelisted, while these two, from my insectile vantage point in the monitoring room were reading as completely Mastered.

From her body-language, Grace knew why that was, and winced. "I, uh, can we explain that somewhere else?"

Pulling on my copied Concussive Emotional Beams, and shifting them to their anti-Master form, I stated, "No, you cannot."

"I, shit." Something in her powers rippled, and, when she spoke again, she didn't sound nearly so sure. "Um, Lee? Try again."

Operating the controls in the other room remotely, I reset the scanner and tried again.

This time only Dragon was Mastered.

I motioned for my cousin to come closer, and instead of moving smoothly, she stumbled, almost toppling over, while frost started to leak from the edges of her power armor. "Lee, I need to put them back on," she informed me, a little embaressed, and I slowly nodded, her body language smoothing out as the mist that had started to form dissipated, and, Seeing her power, I could see her Protocols ability flickering with use.

She was Mastering herself.

"Need them for your suit?" I questioned, and she nodded.

"I'd like to see you do three dozen different things at once," she shot back, arrogantly once more, coming to stand next to me, which was. . . cute, but to someone that hadn't dealt with my level of bullshit, it probably seemed brag-worthy.

"Fine. Dragon?" I quietly prompted.

She was quiet for a moment, and I shrugged, firing off my Anti-Master beam at the woman, even as Grace lifted a hand, yelling, "Wait!"

The effect hit, not that hard, but I could feel it catch on something, before, instead of giving way like the last hundred times I'd used it, my attempts bounced off like rain hitting a windshield.

Dragon, for her part, stayed stock still, while Grace hit my arm, to disrupt my aim, and I let her, cutting off the flow of black energy, as she loudly entreated, "Stop! It's me! It's fine!"

". . . Okay, this is going to need an explanation. Overwatch, three to secure holding," I falsely-commanded, reaching out and grabbing both women with my powers. It took only a moment to firm my metaphysical grip on them and Stride them to the reinforced room, whereupon a table grew itself out of the floor, along with three chairs, all of them reinforced enough to hold their armored weight. "Now, what the hell do you mean, 'It's you?'"

Grace was silent, and still, and part of me wanted to make it a Suggestion, but I wasn't dealing with a Cauldron Agent, or a Villain, I was dealing with my family.

. . . why didn't that help?

Reaching up, she toggled the latches on her helmet, and put it down on the table, biting her lip, before, shooting a cross look my way, she informed me, "You can't say anything! I saw what you did to Taylor!"

Perhaps because of everything else I'd dealt with, not just these last few days, but my entire time here, or perhaps because of the fact that so many people had made that same accusation, that there was no way anyone could even be my friend unless they were mind controlled, or the fact that I was the only one in my family that apparently had morals, but my grip on my temper slipped, just a little, and blades of plasma, void, wind, and ice filled the room. "And what did I. . . do to Taylor, Grace?" I questioned slowly, voice the sliding of bared steel. "Because the one thing I have not done is enslave my people. Unlike you. So-"

"She didn't know!" Dragon interrupted, hands raised, even as Grace started to gather powers of her own. "She didn't know, and she was just trying to help me!"

"And you did too, you hypocrite!" Grace yelled, starting to make her own attacks, but Dragon put her hand on the girl's shoulder, causing the weaker power copier to hesitate. "I saw the extra powers she had!" my cousin spat instead.

Frowning, I demanded, "What the fuck does that have to do with Mastering people!?"

"You're a Hero, you had Follower slots too!" the girl argued. "You showed me your build, dumbass!" She hesitated, reading my expression, "You. . . you don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"No!" I shot back.

"I. . . oh. Damn. Uh, sorry?" she offered weakly, her hold on her powers loosening. "I thought you'd, uh."

"Thought I'd what?" I pressed, glaring.

It was Dragon who answered. "We thought, given her closeness, and her relevance to, let's say, future events, that you had Mastered Ms. Hebert, and that you were in a. . . sexual relationship with her."

"She's sixteen!" I snarled. Why did no one seem to get that fact? "And I'm in my twenties!"

With a half shrug, Grace offered, "Uh, well, your mom warned me that-"

"And you believed her?" I asked, incredulously. "The woman who advised you get a 'Practice Boyfriend' and thought that was perfectly okay?"

"Well. . . Charlie," she pointed out, which, as a comparison, hurt, but as an argument wasn't terrible. "And she'd know, right? She's your Mom."

"No. No she wouldn't!" I snarled, before, noticing the blades still around, got rid of them, feeding the ice into the plasma before letting the rest all fade. Taking a deep breath, I got a better grip on my emotions. "No, the difference between what that woman thinks is true, and what actually is could fill a book. A book the size of Worm. God, and I could see it, too. She thought me being polite to one of Chuckle's fourteen-year-old friends was me hitting on them, which, as far as psychological projection goes. . . hoo boy. So, you, what, thought I'd somehow taken Taylor as my mind-controlled sex slave?" I questioned, just. . . just so tired.

~I'm gonna kill the bitch,~ Taylor informed me coldly, over our shared network.

~Kinda hard, my mother's not even in this dimension, even if she's causing problems in it,~ I replied.

~Wasn't talking about her.~

"Well, Taylor had more powers," Grace lamely offered, as if that was an argument. "How else did she get them?"

~Grace didn't know, and was working off bad intel. This wouldn't be the first time my family's pulled this shit, and. . . actually this makes me feel better,~ I told my partner. Because Grace attacking me for no reason was out of character, but Grace jumping to conclusions based on bad intel, and trying to do the right thing? It's why I was sure she was a Hero.

"My Unlimited Shard Works?" I said to the two women in front of me, who apparently already knew my base power set. "It actually makes proto-Shards in my head. Didn't know about them until Herb and I got captured by the Slaughterhouse Nine. Bonesaw figured out how to. . . remove them, violently, and graft them into others. After Herb killed them, we figured out how to do the same thing without nearly killing me in the process. Also, they eventually grow back, thank God. That Drawback? Not worth it," I sighed, and my cousin paled. "Wait, you seriously took no powers, Endbringer target, and Slaughterhouse Nine recruitment?"

"It's worked out," she replied, trying for bravado, and failing as her voice shook a little. "And you said they're dead, so-"

Laughing, and not kindly, I shook my head. "Bonesaw escaped, so expect the Slaughterhouse Nine-Thousand in a few years. Damn, you and Chuckles both took the same setup, and are still both carrying targets on your backs. Have fun with that."

"But, you'll help me! We're family!" Grace argued. "Family doesn't leave each other behind!"

Like you did to me? Like Charlie did? Like my father? I thought, but, to be fair, she didn't know I even existed until a few days ago. And no one said family had to be nice to each other.

"I owe the bitch some brain damage," I agreed. "Golden rule, and all that jazz. But that's how I managed to give Taylor some of the powers that I had, but there's limits. Now, what the hell does that have to do with being a Hero?"

My cousin looked at me skeptically, asking instead of answering, "You really never even thought to use them?"

"Use what?" I questioned right back, getting annoyed again by the evasions. "I didn't make any 'Followers' because the 'will be your loyal friend and stand by your side' thing sounded a bit, well, Master-y, so I didn't do it. I didn't pick Hero to min-max, Grace, I did it because I wanted to be a Hero. If I wanted to get everything I could, I would've gone Villain, like Charlie, gotten another decent power or two, and another Cauldron Vial." Not that getting a Vial now would really be worth that much.

Dragon and Grace shared a look, before my cousin stated, "Uh, Lee? You should still have them. I do. I used one to get Dragon a body. It gave her another power set too, and I still have one slot left."

Taylor was on her way with one of her bug-bodies, and slammed open the door, appearing to be completely in armor, even though the real-her was still in my office, and, pinning my cousin with a glare, she demanded, voice buzzing with anger, "Explain."