"The hell is that?" Tabitha breathed as Jacob and I stared out the windshield at what he was being directed to detour away from. Half a block away, centered on a grassy median strip, tentacles of wine-dark flame slithered and writhed over the ground. Through my outer power, I could sense that where they touched pavement, they seared out shallow gouges, and where they passed through the grass, they left behind solid calcium. Bone. And it was very much dead. As was the mostly-calcified body near the center of it all.

"Bakuda," Jacob said with a scowl as he turned and I withdrew my outer power once more. "Or, well, one of the bombs she's made. She's been setting them off in the city for nearly a week now, and most of them have weird effects like that. It's why my bosses called me back from vacation; they need every EMT they can get."

So I got dropped here during Bakuda's bombing rampage, huh? I guess that means I'm too late to do anything to prevent, say, Leviathan's attack, in all likelihood. Assuming this was canon Worm, of course. Though if I could leverage my outer power so I could make a living helping with repairs to the city after… Wait, hold up.

I blinked. "You're an EMT?" Tabitha asked, unable to keep all of my surprise out of her voice.

He chuckled, his expression smoothing out. "AEMT, actually. Better pay than a regular EMT, and I can do more stuff, but it's not quite as much of a pain in the ass to get certified for as Paramedic is."

"Oh, I know!" Tabitha said, and this time it was Jacob's turn to blink in surprise. "I took classes to become an EMT a few years back. Got certified for Basic, even, but while I was doing the Advanced class…" She sighed. "Depression is a bitch."

Jacob grimaced in sympathy. "Sorry to hear that."

"Thanks," Tabitha replied with a tight smile. "So! Tell us about this Bakuda person. I assume they're one of those parahumans you mentioned?" Internally, I cringed a little at the act I was putting on, part of me certain I'd fuck it up and he'd get suspicious, but my inner power was quite helpful in keeping any of my worrying from appearing on my faces. "For that matter, what other parahumans are in this city? How many are there?"

"Well," he started as we came to a stop at a red light, "there are several different factions of parahumans here in the bay, along with a number of minor independents…"

.o.o.o.

Jacob actually knew quite a bit about the capes of Brockton Bay. Most of his knowledge was about the ones in the various gangs or groups; he didn't know much at all about the various independents, other than the fact that the city always had at least a few, and that they didn't tend to stay independent all that long. Most of it I already knew, save for stuff like the fact that the Merchants only popped up relatively recently, but one fact he mentioned stood out to me. Namely, a little before he'd left on his little vacation, the Undersiders had successfully robbed a bank, and one of their members was a bug controller the PRT had decided to call Skitter.

I guess it's almost certain that I'm in canon Worm, then, I thought to myself. Unless… well, hopefully I'm not in some shitty stations-of-canon fic or whatever instead.

But regardless of how bad the timing of my arrival here was, there were things I needed to focus on. "So, this PRT," Tabitha started. "If we went to them and told them what happened to us, do you think they'd be able to get us documentation? Like, IDs and all that?"

Jacob frowned thoughtfully. "You would need that, wouldn't you. I don't know if they'd be able to do it themselves, but they'd probably be able to arrange something. And given your situation, I bet they'd get involved anyway, one way or another."

Both of my bodies grimaced. "Better to meet them on our terms," said Acacia.

Jacob met Acacia's eyes in the mirror, his eyebrows raised in surprise. "I'm sorry, I almost forgot you were back there, you've been so quiet. Are you doing alright?"

"My sister doesn't do so well with cars," Tabitha supplied, using the lie I'd thought up just in case this happened.

Acacia nodded. "It's better now that we're not going so fast." And it was; at the speeds Jacob was going now, my outer power's field could keep up with the car, if only barely, so I didn't have to focus so much on compressing it to prevent the headache-causing shearing that'd happened on the freeway.

"Well, that's good." He nodded to himself. "Alright, we're just a few minutes away from my place."

I looked out the windows as we turned into what I assumed was his neighborhood. The houses I saw tended towards being older and small, not the newer, hulking monstrosities that'd replaced many of the houses back home. Most of the lawns I saw were a tad overgrown, and the gardens were a little less than perfect, but somehow that lent an air of authenticity to it all. And the trees! The road we were on was bordered by great, gnarled oaks that arched over us, nearly blotting out the sky with their reaching limbs.

"Oh, this is nice," Acacia murmured, and Tabitha nodded in agreement. Jacob just smiled.

A minute or two later, he pulled into the driveway of a dignified-looking house. It was two stories tall, but not excessively wide, such that I suspected it had an actual backyard beyond it. And the color was…

Even though it wasn't quite the right shade of blue, the sight of it reminded me of my own house and triggered a pang of what could only be homesickness within me. I was surprised, because I hadn't even been away for a full day yet, and I'd never really gotten homesick that I could recall any of the times I'd been away on vacation. Was it the knowledge that I had no way home, that even if I managed to return, there would be no place for me?

… No, that last thought rang false. If I managed to get home, all the oddness aside, I was certain my… my original would help me. If I managed to get home.

The sound of a throat being cleared startled me out of my introspection, and my bodies jumped a little and looked to its source to find Jacob with a slightly concerned expression. "We're here," he said. "Are you okay?"

Tabitha gave him a well-practiced fake smile. "Yeah. Just feeling a little homesick all of a sudden, is all." She glanced back at Acacia, who nodded.

"Ah." Jacob was silent for a moment, then opened his door and got out. "Well, come on, then."

I got out of the car as well and followed him to the front door, which he unlocked and opened, ushering both of me inside. "Hey, Paz!" he called out, as I felt with my power the telltale tremors of approaching footsteps leaving a room with a big, flat… ah, was that a computer monitor? "I'm home! And I've brought guests!"

The footsteps hesitated for a moment at his words, but soon enough, a woman stepped into the entry hall. She was tall, taller than I'd been before I'd changed my selves, and her appearance was rather striking. Her skin was slightly darker than Jacob's was, and her black hair was done up in a pixie cut. She hesitated for a moment, glancing between the two of me and Jacob, before padding over to give him a quick hug. Pulling back, she placed her hands on her hips and asked, "So, who're you two?"

"I'm Tabitha, Tabitha Blair, and-"

"And I'm Acacia," Acacia interrupted, giving Tabitha a brief look.

I had Tabitha twist her mouth a little, then turn back to Paz. "So, yeah. Jacob let us hitchhike with him, and when we told him about our little situation, well…"

"I offered to let them stay with us until things get sorted out for them," he supplied.

I held off on saying anything more as Paz gave me a considering glance. "Okay," she said slowly. "Well, let's get you sat down, and you can tell me all about your situation, alright?"