Termination 21.6

"I, what?" my cousin stuttered, looking at Taylor in confusion. "What are you?

Taylor strode inside, even as Grace started to pull powers, again, but my assistant's apparent fucks were non-existent as she, with a gesture, grew up a second metal chair for herself next to me and took it. "Oh, please, try," the teen almost sneered. "I'd love to have a reason to toss you out on your ass, even if you are Vejovis' cousin."

~Taylor,~ I mentally sighed, ~she's-~

"No, don't care," the arthropod controller informed me verbally. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were Mastered, Vejovis." Turning to face Grace, she continued, "We've got a clear policy on Human Masters here. Can you stop your Mastering of Dragon, who, yeah, counts, or is it a permanent thing?"

"Skitter?" my cousin asked, "But, where's your power?"

"No, my name's Lady Bug, or Taylor to my friends, which you aren't. And I'm out of range of the admitted Master because I'm not an idiot. Now, is it permanent?" Taylor pressed.

But Grace didn't say anything, looking confused, and a little upset. Dragon, however, nodded, toggling her own helmet to remove it, revealing her face, and an expression that looked a little pained, but also like she was trying to show that nothing was wrong. Looking at me, the incarnated A.I. announced, "It is permanent, Vejovis. However, to be a person, truly, it's what I wanted. She's never made me do anything I wouldn't want to do," Dragon reassured me.

Taylor, meanwhile, just snorted, "That's what the last four 'permanent' Master victims said. If you decide to not leave after we're done here, we're going to need to run some tests to see if that's true."

"But she hasn't made me do anyth-" the now pale-skinned, but ethically ambiguous woman started to object.

"And, if you weren't Mastered, I might believe you," my teammate interrupted.

"It might be permanent," I offered. "My Anti-Master beam bounced right off of her. The strength of the ability, it might be something straight from Abaddon itself."

Grace, finding her voice, glared at me. "I'm not lying!" Turning her look to my partner, she added, "And why are you backing him, Taylor?"

"Because he's my teammate?" the living armor beside me shot back. "Because when I needed him, he was there to help? Because he can actually try and answer questions instead of dodging them?" she buzzed angrily. "You said you knew how the original timeline would've gone. That means you know what happened to me, but didn't lift a finger to help. We really could've used you in the shit that was left over after Leviathan. Even at a fraction of the power of the original Hosts, that'd open a lot of options. But you didn't even bother to come say hi."

"I, I didn't know, Taylor," my cousin sputtered. "If Lee had-"

"Done what? Contacted you? The person he didn't know existed?" my teammate snapped. "But he did try and contact Dragon. And when he was in a coma from trying to save people, I tried to contact Dragon. Who wouldn't call me back. Was that your doing too? 'Cause if it was, then fuck you, and don't even try to push that on us!" Taylor accused, far angrier than I felt the situation called for. "It would've taken you, what, four hours to jump in one of Dragon's dropships to come check? But you didn't. You left us to rot. Just like all the others. And were you not listening, Khione? It's Lady Bug to you."

Reeling under the verbal assault, Grace tried apologizing, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

"And if you weren't trying to get out of getting scanned for Master effects, I might believe you," Taylor shot back.

What? "Isn't that a little harsh?" I questioned. "We don't know that's what she was doing." As, for the rest, well, she wasn't wrong.

Shaking her head, the living armor replied, "No, Vejovis, it isn't. We're known internationally for our Anti-Master tech. That's why we're probably getting Madison. And she knew she was Mastering both herself and Dragon. She just admitted it. I ran the footage of her arrival past Simpatico. Fear, Worry, then Anger. She knew what you'd find, then tried to find a way out of it by going after you when you did. And you let her."

I winced at the accusation, as that Thinker, one of the recipients of my more recently Pathed Vials, could determine someone's emotions by seeing them, even at a remove. It was a much less combat-oriented Shard that'd taken a lot of finagling to give up it's wanted Master power, accepting a high-end general physical tune-up and energy knives that'd turn someone's emotions up to eleven instead. We'd tested her powers, and, as it functioned as I'd designed it to, which meant being a Blindspot was no defense, as it worked through interior models instead of the kind of scanning that the -cog family of abilities utilized.

"You were using a Thinker on me?" Grace demanded, offended.

Taking a moment to open the eyes on my costume to truly SEE her, her power was dense, but it was easy to pick out powers I was already familiar with, especially those ones. "Yes, like you are right now," I sighed. "Taylor, please tell Shambhala, Insight, and Gauge to get out of her range, please."

My teammate made her puppet nod, other 'versions' of her armor approaching the Thinkers in question, and I re-covered my eyes as my cousin shot me an aggrieved look. "Grace," sighed, "why not just tell me what was going on?"

"Because then this would've happened!" she argued. "I looked into you, and how you react to Masters. Not as hypocritical as I thought, but. . ." the girl trailed off.

"Because if you told me about this then I'd catch you trying not to tell me about this, and I'd get annoyed at you not telling me about this?" I questioned, frowning. "Grace, that makes no sense."

Dragon spoke up, "She meant you'd react badly."

The living armor sitting next to me folded her arms, "And when he did, you could throw him being a hypocrite in his face. Only he wasn't, and you're just a bitch."

"You don't know him, Skitter," Grace shot back.

"No, you don't. And are you dense on top of being an asshole? It's Lady Bug," Taylor corrected.

Grimacing, my cousin bit out in my direction, "I'm, I'm sorry, okay? I heard some stuff, about you, about everything, and it wasn't what I thought. I was wrong. The way they talk about you. . . I didn't know what to think, and then finding out that you were you. . ." Looking to my partner, she admitted, this time sorrowfully, "And I thought you were already dead. With what happened to Brockton Bay, and the fact that no one even knew who Skitter was, and the Undersiders disappearing, I thought this was some weird alternate universe thing. And then Dragon talked about how Arachne Assemblages were after her, and I, I overreacted. You happy?"

"Nope," my partner replied, though she couldn't quite make the p pop without proper lips. "If it were up to me, I'd kick you out right now. You're trouble. But I'm not in charge. He is," she said, jerking a thumb in my direction. "Not because I'm Mastered, I don't need that," she spat, shooting a significant look Dragon's way, the other woman having the decency to look chagrined, "but because I trust him, not some rando I've met once."

"That's not fair," Grace whined, her confidence breaking, and looking like the teenager she was.

Taylor, however, had no time for her. "That's literally how fairness works," she said, shutting down the older girl. "What wouldn't be fair is turning on my teammate just because you said so."

There was a moment of awkward silence, my cousin looking for a response, and not finding any.

"So. . . pulling that shit? That's something that Cauldron would do," I pointed out, and the girl flinched, glancing around. "Oh, don't worry about that summoning them. Being around a Blindspot, let alone two of them, screws up their precog something fierce."

"That's good to know," Dragon smiled, trying to salvage this shitshow. "We were using code to try and avoid their attention."

"Yeah, they're gonna be an issue," I shook my head, "but for now we've got a bit of an armistice going. Hopefully taking out Behemoth will help with that, but they're far too reliant on Contessa. Anyways, uh, Grace, you said you had an open. . . i"

"I, yes," she replied, a little awkwardly. "You really can't feel them?"

"Stop calling my friend a liar," Taylor flatly commanded.

"Sorry!" my cousin winced, this time sounding actually contrite. "They're, uh, just there? Like a mind envelope, but with no address on it?"

"An invitation, of sorts?" I guessed, and that got a nod from the girl.

"You got it?" she asked, smiling slightly, looking relieved.

I shook my head, "Not at all. Mind if I take a deeper look at your power? I might be able to trace the connection between you and Dragon back to the base ability," I offered.

"What do you mean?" my cousin questioned, a little warily.

Shrugging, I replied, "Exactly what it sounds like. I can See your power, on the surface, but it's a multidimensional intelligent crystal formation. There's a lot more to it than just the surface stuff, this would be me looking a little more in-depth."

"He'll sit there with his eyes closed for five minutes," Taylor added. "He could've stepped into the next room and done it without you knowing. He's just being nice." The emphasis on the word, and the tilt of the armor's head, implied the unsaid 'unlike you' pretty clearly, which, from the other girl's expression, was heard loud and clearly.

"Oh, sure," my cousin agreed. "Go ahead."

Nodding, I kept my eyes open, not that, with my seemingly opaque eyepieces, anyone could tell the difference. I'd already gotten a bead on Grace's Flames, and by making contact with her utilizing a single, nearly monomolecular strand of metal from Metal Projection from my boot to hers, I took a half-step Out, then followed the connection of that power, which still counted as 'me', to where it touched her armor, which, enveloped in at least one power as it was, counted as 'her'.

There was a slight moment of disorientation, this sub-ability of Power Sight not something even remotely feasible for use in combat, but, as the world shifted from my riding a path of Purple & Red to finding myself over a small star of R̷͍͒̂o̷̩̹̅͌y̸͈̟͋a̴̲̽l̵͙̖̄̋ ̷͇̈́B̶͉̒l̴̟̜̾͛ǘ̴͔̚e̷̬̿̌ & Ice White Flame, it was undoubtably useful.

Just as with Herb's power, there was a lot here, but the Flames below me were more akin to my brother's then the seemingly compacted supernova that my teammate's had become after Second Triggering. However, just like all the others I'd seen, it appeared somehow. . . lesser than my own, simpler. Its intensity was still a step above the Vial and Natural Triggers I'd observed, showing it to be an Abaddon Shard, though I had noticed that Taylor's had been slowly gaining in intensity, along with Karen, Victoria, Dean, and the handful of others I'd given extra powers to, if at a lesser rate than my assistant.

Looking at it this way, Grace's powers were clearly laid out, along with the 'non-power' powers, like Plot Convenience to integrate her into Precog plans of others and cover up her insertion, along with the same 'Ain't nobody got time for sleep' Noctis ability I possessed. Oh, and a Stranger power that'd make it impossible to uncover her identity. I technically had a low-level Master ability myself, one that'd let me 'make friends' with people from different walks of life, but all it did was make people not dismiss the possibility out of hand. It'd been a little distressing to find that buried in my own Flames, but it didn't force friendship, only cracked mental blocks, so I didn't lose much sleep over it.

Not that I'd gotten any use out of it, mind you.

Only. . . maybe I had, which had been part of the reason why Sheryl and Rune had switched sides, but that just reminded me of DekoTara's fate, and I didn't have time to dwell on my failures.

So, Grace had a Stranger ability, which, examining it a bit closer, outing herself as my cousin had 'whitelisted' me in on, and let me spread it, kind of like a gutted Fidelis from Harry Potter that'd push people away from making the obvious connection between her 'civilian' and 'super' identities. That also meant that, even had I met her as Khione before without Seeing her power to realize she had an Abaddon Shard, I wouldn't've known that she was Grace.

Regardless, I moved on, looking for anything unusual, and. . . there.

A single tongue of R̷͍͒̂o̷̩̹̅͌y̸͈̟͋a̴̲̽l̵͙̖̄̋ ̷͇̈́B̶͉̒l̴̟̜̾͛ǘ̴͔̚e̷̬̿̌ and Ice White Flame that flickered like a stable solar flare was nearly imperceptible, but, now that I'd caught sight of it, it was easy enough to approach, and catch sight of the long strand of Flame that stretched out into the void. Following that, I examined it closely as I sped along its length, and it was a conduit of power interwoven with a Master ability that would, as I'd feared, make the person it was attached to your loyal Follower.

Part of me wanted to sever it, here and now, as the concept was against everything I held dear, but I had no idea what that'd do to my cousin, so I stayed my hand, though I made a mental note to see if I could find a way to remove it at a later date. Yes, Dragon now said it was worth it, but, for the level of grief Grace had been giving me when she thought I'd done the same to Taylor, she'd have no leg to stand on if I found a way to disconnect the mental leash she had over the incarnated AI.

Again, the moment of disorientation, though less, but I was brought up short, as this Emerald & Gold star was just as bright as Grace's had been, the long tendril of Flame from my cousin plunging deep into the heart of this Shard formation. Taking a moment to read this one, I had to whistle a little to myself, the structure a bit like Taylor's had come to resemble, but in reverse.

My implanted Shards had showed up in my partner's Sea of Flame, bits of Purple & Red Flame wrapped around the Iron & Steel and Bark Brown & White of Kaiser's and Brix's powers respectively, adding to the original Shard, but keeping it as its base. Here the Abaddon Shard I was looking at had. . . eaten the original Shard, in a way, and was wearing its skin, appearing to be one of Scion's, but, at its core, was not.

And, Seeing it, I realized I'd never be able to sever the connection the way I'd been thinking, as that Master-link back to Grace ran deep, written into the Shard's very foundation, to the point that the only way I'd be able to remove the mind-control, and it was mind-control, would be to, somehow, tear apart the very Shard itself and put it back together, replacing the 'Follower' bits with constructions of my own. Some part of me knew it was possible, but that very same part also knew I was nowhere near good enough to even attempt it.

As to the power itself, I had to whistle, despite technically not having lips.

Dragon wasn't a Blindspot, but had Plot Convenience to keep Contessa and Ziz from both instantly noticing something was wrong, the the Noctis configuration would let her pretend to keep being an AI, since she didn't need to sleep, but below that. . .

Oh, Grace, you didn't.

There, clear as day, were written the Drawbacks. Case-53 to give her lines of code instead of eyes, so what I saw were probably high-end contacts, but I could read, in hundred-foot-tall letters of Flame, the outstanding 'bounty' on her ass that would pit the woman against both an Endbringer and the Slaughterhouse 9, the Behemoth fight clearly not counting. A bit more was present, involving the Dragonslayers, but that was faded, indicating it'd already been taken care of.

As for powers?

Hoo boy.

This Dragon would be a lot harder to take on than the original one would've been, and that was saying something. On the surface was what was clearly Dragon's original Tinker ability sat, one that'd let her create 'derivative' Tinkertech based on what she'd seen from others, and an ability to understand some of the base concepts they used, making it a bit of a Tinker/Trump/Thinker combo, but below that were the additions she'd gotten from her upgrade. Standard Immunity was honestly expected, as it was stupid useful, and her new Armored Warfare Tinkertech ability would only add to her existing abilities, but the twin Second Triggered abilities of Technopathy and Quality Assurance meant she could insta-hack anything nearby, like Quinn could, but with ten times the range and be able to use it on Tinkertech, as well as make anything she touched indestructible for a few hours.

That's broken as fuck, I couldn't help but think, but, like my own powers, there was almost certainly issues, incompatibilities, and technicalities as to how it worked in practice, and I could spot a few right off the bat. QA required physical touch of the object, and there was a size and complexity limit, so she couldn't cheese it like Quinn could Technopathy and Machine Spirit, nor could she just tap one of her mechs and be done with it, while the 'unbreakable' aspect of QA had an odd feeling to it that suggested it wasn't as 'unbreakable' as it first felt.

~Lee?~ Taylor prompted. ~It's been half an hour, and she hasn't shut up. if you don't come back in the next few minutes, I'm going to hurt someone. And it won't be you.~

~Gimme a sec,~ I replied, skimming back to Grace's Flames, spotting the second, unconnected 'flare' of her other Follower Slot, before returning to my own Sea of Flame and looking around, spotting two more in my own core of power easily now that I knew what to look for. With how my Shard-copying worked, my Sea of Flame was full of odd voids, peaks, and the like. I'd just assumed these two were forming Power Slots, not really able to understand how my own powers worked before that point to spot them.

Taking hold of them, they flickered, and, holding onto that feeling, I stepped back In to reality, Grace stopping whatever she was saying as I straightened, looking over the visiting pair of girls with a more knowledgeable eye, spotting the bits of Emerald & Gold Flame glimmering on the surfaces of their power armor.

~Dragon's as much of a threat as Grace is, and both of their suits are unbreakable. Dragon's immune to poisons, Grace isn't, but can shift to elemental form, so that won't work either,~ I quickly advised, while amending the ex-AI's threat assessment form in our systems, as I tried to convince the girl beside me not to be too antagonistic, since that was a thing I apparently needed to do.

"Okay," I said aloud, "Found the slots I have, and they are Master effects. Heavily so. Class Three, Taylor, maybe four."

"I'm not familiar with those designations," Dragon frowned.

"Means you're compromised," the bug-girl answered. "But you'll never be able to realize it. Might be that you're still you, just that you'll always be loyal to her," my teammate stated, pointing to Grace, "no matter what. Might mean that you're not you anymore, but whatever she needs you to be instead. That deep?" she checked, making sure.

"Active Shard bad, but not full replacement," I stated, remembering the abomination that had been ITERATION. Shivering, I shook my head, and looked at the concerned ex-AI. "You know about the Conflict Drive?" I questioned, and she nodded. "That, turned up to eleven, constantly pushing you to be to loyal to Grace, without caring a whit what that actually means."

~Can you affect it?~ Taylor silently questioned.

~I'm not that good yet, and won't be for a while,~ I replied, my teammate giving me a mental nod back.

"How can you know that?" Grace frowned, clearly unhappy with my revelation.

"Copying one fourth of a power isn't copying one-fourth of the user's knowledge," I replied easily, "or my skill. Herbert has the same issue with trying to copy my abilities."

I could practically feel the Arthropod Controller considering something through her presence n our shared power, before she made the living armor sitting next to me nod, turn to look at me, and command, "Do me."

"What!" Grace yelped, looking between the two of us. "But you said-"

"Taylor, if I refuse to date you because you're sixteen, what makes you think I'm going to one-way power-marry you before you're an adult," I shot back, a little exasperated.

"Wait, married?" my cousin sputtered, looking confused, and a little more worried, even as I felt a glimmer of amusement from my partner which told me she was doing this vocally just to fuck with Grace which. . . well, it was better than being angry at her.

"Yeah, that's how the Master power aspect of Follower effectively works," I informed the seventeen-year-old girl sitting across from me, while Dragon, in the body of a woman in her mid-twenties, started to look very uncomfortable. Grabbing a Computer Spider, it was easy enough to bring up the template, and read it aloud. "You're not bound at all, but for your Follower, they will be your Follower, to have and hold from that day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to support and cherish always. Mazel Tov, I guess. I'm sure George and Karen would understand, if we ever get home."

"I'm not gay!" the girl almost shouted, paling a little as she realized what she'd just said, "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

Dragon raised one gauntleted hand, "I'm heterosexual as well."

"Please, Dragon, you weren't even a human until a few months ago, and you could do better than Armsmaster," I scoffed, glad to be on a less contentious topic. "Hell, Bakuda could've done better than Armsmaster, before Herbert ate her. You might've been bootstrapped to adulthood, go you for skipping being a teenager, but tell me with a straight face that you're not still getting used to the entire 'having hormones' bit. And who knows, you might not be gay. . . yet. Shards aren't the best at respecting boundaries. Already had one that switched someone's sex, though thankfully he was okay being a woman, and we checked her thoroughly afterwards to make sure that wasn't the Shard's influence."

"Really?" Grace questioned, and I could feel Taylor's mood start to drop as, again, my cousin didn't believe me.

"Really," I nodded. We'd found someone that wanted to transition, the Vial handling the nitty-gritty, but that could've gone really badly if I hadn't been able to Path it to know what it wanted. Using the same Computer Spider as I had before, I wrote up the forms to allow a Mastered person civilian-level access to the city, detailing Grace, her power, and that I certified that it wasn't conscious. She hadn't been the only person with a power like that to come here, and I'd had to kill two-thirds of the Masters who'd tried to enter New Avalon, sure they could get away with lying to us. Human Masters were a particularly arrogant breed of idiot, and my burgeoning kingdom was a particularly juicy target. We'd checked, and they hadn't been directly sent by Cauldron, Herb's part-time employers merely unable to watch them close enough to stop them before they entered the blanket Blindspot that was my territory.

Or at least that's what they're own reports on the incidents indicated, with notes to catalog the events for use if they went with their plan to try and declare us a 'Villain Nation', to establish such a thing in the people's mind so that, after Scion was dead and parahuman feudalism became the norm, they could attach that appellation to the people they wanted removed.

"I, I didn't know," my cousin admitted, looking to Dragon. "I'm sorry!"

The incarnated AI just shook her head. "It's fine, Grace. And, if your empowerment works the way he claims, it is likely nothing like that will happen to me, as doing so would not help you, and we'll merely remain good friends."

"Oh, okay," Grace sighed, visibly dismissing the possibility. "That makes sense. Lee, don't scare me like that."

"Dragon knows tech. Vejovis knows Shards," Taylor noted. "I know who I trust."

"He can be wrong," my cousin argued, but I could see she was just trying to downplay her own fears and guilt.

As they were having that conversation, I sped along the Insect Network, comming through a specialized insect to ask Overwatch, "Finish the scans of their tech?"

"I have. It's quite impressive, and thank you for identifying Dragon's powers. Gauge informed me that every attempt to hack her had failed, though he could not articulate as to why," my vizier replied.

"Anything I need to know about?" I questioned.

Quinn's answer was instant, "Your cousin's armor is a hodge-podge of technology, but it is likely what powers she can attach to them that is the real threat. I would suggest not allowing them within a mile of Eclipse. Or, if that is not possible, activating the Exclusion Fields."

I considered that, the tech one that our newer hires had devised. It created an artificial 'distance' through folding space, but not really. It didn't do anything to our dimension, but did weird things to any power that could invisibly act at a range beyond the user's own body. "Do it." I ordered, while simultaneously telling Taylor, ~Using the Exclusion Field on Eclipse, don't worry.~

~Good idea,~ she replied. ~Glad you're taking this seriously.~

~It was Quinn's.~

~. . . well, at least they'll be on,~ she amended.

There was a ripple in my senses, and Eclipse vanished from the Insect Network, the distance farther than the reach of our relay bugs, though my more 'unlimited' range powers, like Acoustokinesis, could still track what was going on there, sensing a distorted 'buffer' zone surrounding it, and my Marks were still in range.

"Well, misunderstandings aside, it is good to see you, Grace," I stated, smiling. She was a little more. . . difficult than I remembered her being, but she was worried, and lost, and had been lied to, and, well, I was less nice than I used to be, so was it really that much of a surprise that she was rougher around the edges as well? "What's the range on this 'Follower' thing, by the way?"

"Touch," she replied, smiling a little herself, relieved to be on safer conversational ground.

Nodding, I said, "Okay. In that case, would you two like a tour of my capital city? We've done a lot of work to improve things, and I think, seeing it for yourself, it'll help you realize that what you've heard about us isn't honest reporting, but jealousy."

For a second, my cousin hesitated, before nodding, smiling more broadly now. "I, Yeah Lee, I would! And, I'm sorry about. . . all that."

While Taylor snorted, her displeasure clear across our shared power, I told the one member of my family who wasn't shit, "Consider it forgiven. Everyone makes mistakes, Grace. Even me. Especially me. What's important is that you admit them and move on. Four to port, Frostwell building roof," I commanded no one in particular.

It took a moment to Stride us all, chairs and everything, to the tower we'd finished construction of last week, at the south end of New Brockton Bay, giving us all a wonderful view of the shining red and silver of my city, shining like a ruby in the early afternoon light.