With how volatile her temperament could be, I didn't try to make a point of checking in on Noelle. She spent more of her days sleeping than not, and when she was awake her mood swings were like a metronome. Still, I tried to check up on her between attempts to fix her, at the very least to inform her of when our next attempt would be. She had trouble keeping track of time under normal circumstances, let alone being stuck in an underground bunker. Even though our attempts did have a positive effect on her power induced dementia, it was marginal. She was having an easier time remembering new people and conversations, but she wasn't at a point that could be deemed "safe".

"She lucid?" I asked Oliver, who had been designated her primary caretaker.

"Uh, yeah," He nodded as I approached the window. "You should be able to talk to her for a few minutes as long as you don't bring up anything that might set her off."

"Got it."

Truthfully I was hoping for this to be a quick conversation. As nice as I tried to be to Noelle, the girl was about as easy to interact with as something out of a John Carpenter movie. It wasn't even just her appearance that was unnerving, but how alien she could be at times.

"Noelle, Sacrosanct is here to see you," Oliver said over the comm system.

"Sacrosanct?" She asked, getting up from her new bed and heading to the window. I'd wanted her to be more comfortable and not have to deal with all the shattered wood from her old set up, so we'd done some work to get her a more comfortable spread of mattresses. It had helped somewhat in getting her more stable.

"Hey Noelle," I said as she slowly moved into the light, her small human torso framed by writhing masses of flesh and bone. I was never more glad for my mask than when she shuffled out of the darkness of her room. It wasn't even her twisted lower half that managed to make me uncomfortable around her. I could handle the rough, angry red skin that made up the twisting tentacles and mouths of her lower half. What unnerved me was her human looking torso.

I hadn't noticed it the first time we'd met, but it was something I noticed in subsequent conversations. Her upper body was loose, skin and muscle sagging in a way that made it look like it could just slough off at any moment. It was subtle, but once you saw it you couldn't unsee it. It made her look like she was wearing a skin suit.

"Is it time for another try?" She asked, her quiet voice wavering slightly. "I don't see Nihilus with you." She didn't really like when we tried to treat her, something about it making her feel like more of a stranger in her body than she already did.

"No, that's still a few days away. I just wanted to check on you. See how you were hanging on."

"I appreciate that," her voice noticeably more upbeat. "I also appreciate the new bed. I didn't notice it until a few days ago."

"I want you to be as comfortable as possible while we try to get you back to normal."

"I still appreciate the effort. As for how I've been… I think I've been doing better. It's still hard to tell when I… Slip, but my lucid moments are clearer than ever."

"I'm glad to hear that." Genuinely I was. The clearer she could think the easier it made it to talk to her and get closer to actually fixing her. "Have you noticed any shifts in your powers? Anything being stronger or weaker?"

"No," She shook her head. "Everything's been the same as usual, unfortunately. But…" She trailed off, looking away for a moment. "I was talking to Francis… I don't remember when, but I remember talking to him. He said he wouldn't let anything happen to me."

That dumb bastard.

"Can you remember anything else?"

"Ah…" Her eyes glazed over and I'm worried we've lost her for a moment. Then, she looks right back up to the glass, sunken eyes glassy but not gone. "He said… something about killing me… Are you planning to?"

Trickster might be the one dying soon.

"Only as an absolute last resort. If we can't get you at least—,"

"I know… I know it's a lot to ask but if… I want you to do it. If you can't fix me." She moves forward, pressing her hands against the glass, and I try my best not to move back. "I don't like living like this. Francis… I know it will hurt him, but I can't do this for much longer. I'm starting to remember what going under feels like. How horrible it is to be stuck in a body I can't control. If you can't find a way to fix me permanently, please just put me out of my misery. I don't want to keep living like this. I can't live like this much longer."

I have to take a deep breath to steady myself. This wasn't what I was expecting to happen. All the worse, I can understand the desperation in her voice. That slowly fading will to live.

"I think we might have a way to fix you permanently. I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up, but I can call in a favor that might be able to do something about your body at least. It was the last resort because if it doesn't work we're out of options, but I promise if it doesn't work I won't let you suffer more."

"Thank you, Sacrosanct…" She trails off and I figure my time is up.

"I'll be back in a few days, alright?"

She grunts in response and I start to leave, nodding to Oliver on my way out. I was hoping I wouldn't have to spring it on her so soon, but it seemed I'd have to talk actual business when I visited Amy.

—

"Persephone's Garden" was unique in the fact it was the only greenhouse in Brockton Bay. There were a number of florists, but most of them got their flowers from farms outside the city limits. Amy had put her greenhouse basically right in the middle of the South Docks. It was actually rather large too, large enough that she could comfortably grow a wide variety of flowers without worrying about space. Add in the fact that she could always grow out of season flowers and I figured she'd end up being a major flower supplier in a few months.

That said, she didn't spend too much time at her new greenhouse. She was already struggling to balance her volunteering with her normal life, so adding on the extra responsibility of an actual business was too much to heap on her shoulders. As it stood she spent maybe twelve hours there a week spread across three or four days. I didn't blame her for being apprehensive about potential consequences both from things like the IRS and if her family found out. I couldn't help but think about how weird it was that Brandish was easily the worst outcome of the two.

"Hello!" I called as I entered, shifting the bag I was holding. "Anyone here?!"

The building was a big Victorian styled place that was easy to get lost in. There were a few trees near the door and stone paths that led deeper in. Vines ran up poles on some of the walls and colorful plants hung from the ceiling. It reminded me of the kind of place you'd find at a museum more than anything.

"Back here!" I heard her call. I moved in the direction of her voice, though I had no idea how deep in the place she was. I leaned around a bush with weird looking berries on it and found her fiddling with a big potted plant.

"Need some help?" I asked.

"No, just trying to make sure the roots in this don't dig too deep and damage the pot," She said without looking at me.

"I noticed you've been experimenting," I said, looking over head at the bright flowers, the colors completely unnatural for them.

"And it's surprisingly been helping," She said, dusting her hands and turning to me. The black fur on her shook as she moved and I was reminded about how grandiose it looked compared to her actual personality.

"That's good. I brought snacks," I pulled up the bag. I couldn't see her face, but she looked incredulous. She kinda had a right to be.

"This way." She led me deeper into her personal forest and we came upon a small flower garden. It was mostly purple flowers, but almost none of the plants were naturally purple. Magnolias, Peonies, Marigolds, and other flowers I couldn't identify circled the walkway to a gazebo that was surrounded by tall Sunflowers that were nearly black in color and shaded by a pair of Wisteria trees.

"You're really doing a lot on the purple," I said as we sat down, taking our masks off. Even with a lot of the glass of the building being partially frosted this was the only place we could take our masks off without worry.

"I've decided I'm going to be changing the color scheme of this area every so often. It's purple right now," She said as she opened the bag. It was a bag of donut holes I'd gotten from work and a small cake from a nearby store. "What do you need me to do?" She asked, taking a slice of the cake.

"Right to the point, huh Amy? I did mostly come here to see how you're handling all this," I gestured to the area.

"I've been adjusting surprisingly well, honestly," She said with a bite of cake. "Taking care of plants is actually surprisingly therapeutic and using my powers for something different has made some of the pressure I was feeling go away. I've still got some anxiety about Carol, or even Aunt Sarah, finding out, but I think this has been good for me. This is good by the way," She gestured to the food.

"Glad you like it. And I'm glad things have been going well. There are two things I want to bring up. The first is I've been thinking of using our powers to get people out of Gray Boy bubbles. I can move through them no problem, apparently time has issues with me, and you should be able to get rid of them completely."

"Doesn't sound too bad," She said, taking another bite of cake. "I think I'd need more practice before I can do that, but a lot of it has been sort of instinctual so far, so maybe I can do it. You have a date set up?"

"Not right now. Still a lot of people to contact and all that."

"Fair enough. So what's the other thing?"

I wait until she's safely swallowed her food before I start to speak.

"I need your help fixing a pseudo-Endbringer," I said quickly.

She blinked, looking at me like a deer in headlights before slowly putting her fork back on her plate.

"I appreciate you not dropping that on me while I had food in my mouth. Please explain." It was actually a little eerie how calm she sounded about it.

"Right, so, the Traveler's? One of their members got turned into a monstrous pseudo-Endbringer when she got her powers. Her upper body looks mostly normal but her lower body… You ever seen The Thing?"

"How bad are we talking?" She asked slowly.

"Writhing masses of angry red tentacles and animal heads."

"I don't think I'm hungry anymore," She sighed, pushing her half eaten slice of cake away. "What else is wrong with her? You wouldn't have asked if it wasn't an issue."

"The issue is that her powers make her a cannibal and fucks with her head so bad she slips into these fugues where she can't tell what's real and what's not. Her mental instability is only a real problem because of the fact she's basically a monster. Add in the fact that she makes copies of people that touch her on top of suppressing the powers of Parahumans that touch her and she's an S-Class threat waiting to happen."

"You know I don't do brains, right? And how do you expect me to do anything if I can't touch her?"

"I'm not asking you to do anything to her brain, though in this case she might actually benefit from you rewiring her. Nihilus can cut her off from her powers and you should be able to force her body back to human. At the very least we need her to be physically human. She's far less dangerous that way."

"That… might be doable. I can—,"

"Actually," I cut in, "Powers are based in the brain aren't they?"

"The Corona Pollentia and Gemma, yeah. Why?"

"I won't ask you to do it if you're not comfortable with it, but I think we might even be able to get a handle on her mental issues if you tweak whatever one of those handles powers. Make it… I don't know how it works, less active I guess? Is it a gland? Would making it smaller limit her powers?"

Amy frowned at the idea and I almost regret bringing it up.

"The thing is," She sighed, "I actually think that could work. I really want to try it, but I'm terrified of messing up. If she's as bad as you say, me doing anything to her Gemma, her brain at all, could potentially make her far, far worse than she is."

"And you don't have to touch if you think it'll make her worse. But I really need your help to at least make her physically human again. Whatever you want in exchange I'll see if I can do it."

"You're technically my boss, you can just order me to do it," She pointed out.

"I'd like to be your friend first and boss second," I shrug. "I'm not gonna force you to do anything you don't feel comfortable doing. You don't even have to help with this if you don't think you're up to it."

"I'll think about what I want," She said, sitting back in her chair. "When do you need me?"

"In about four or five days. This will technically be our last shot at trying to fix her, so I think I'll let her rest a bit longer than last time. The process kinda takes a toll on her, you know?"

"I guess. I'll try to keep my schedule open, but I want a concrete date in a couple days."

"Gotcha," I said standing up to leave.

"Wait, you're just gonna leave all this here?" She gestures to the cake and donut holes.

"They were a bribe, of course they're yours," I said, waving her off.

"This is too much stuff for me!"

"Give it to your cousins then," I said, taking off and ignoring her protests.

With that done, I headed back to my base. I still had other work I needed to do. Just the thought of it made me tired. I really, really needed to find a secretary or something.