Chapter 5

A/n: Warning, Body Horror

After Taylor and I were done with school on Tuesday, I dropped Taylor off at home and went out.

I told Taylor that I was heading into Sanctuary to talk to them about arranging stuff with Emma and my upcoming job there. Which, technically, was absolutely true. I just didn't go straight there.

Merchants had hurt Emma. Merchants were scum. Merchants were acceptable targets. These were all facts that stuck in my mind. What didn't, was where I could find them.

There were 3 gangs in the city and hundreds of two-bit thugs. As much I might want to grind the Empire and ABB into a bloody pulp with my own two hands, that just wasn't feasible. Not yet, anyway.

And I probably wouldn't be able to take the Merchants out in one fell swoop either. Which meant I needed information and a plan. Maybe the Merchants were worse than everyone thought, and the only thing holding the gang together was duct tape and glue. Maybe they were a front for some secret shady and far more powerful group trying to get roots in BB.

I didn't know, and I didn't even know how I could hurt them.

But, just because I didn't know where the Merchants were didn't mean that I was lost. As I left the house, I made a beeline for Winslow. If I didn't know where the Merchants were hiding out, I could always go where everyone knew the gangs

Arcadia ended the day at 2:30, while Winslow didn't get out until 3:15. Which meant, including transit and dropping Taylor off, I got there right as school was ending. The students were starting to pour out of the neglected high school. Most of them were going to the parking lot, the busses, or waiting for someone to pick them up. I could even see Emma and Charlotte making their way out.

Part of me was tempted to go over, say hi, and see what they knew about the gang situation around here. But something about that struck me as...rude, or at the very least awkward. They weren't my friends, really, and while I did sort of care about them reaching out like this seemed a bridge too far. Still, I could keep an eye on them.

Well hey there, Sasha, I thought to myself as I noticed that black girl who was with Emma the other day, Or was it Sophie?

I was still a little suspicious of her, but I couldn't see her doing anything particularly distressing in the crowd. She didn't look happy, but given she was a black girl at a school that had neo-nazi's-in-training, that wasn't too surprising. Hell, take away the literal nazis and Brockton Bay was still a shithole, there was probably any one of a thousand reasons she wasn't happy, so I didn't bother myself with it.

Moving on, I looked for any signs of Merchants. I didn't precisely know what I was looking for, which is why I was getting a nice bird's eye view. In fact, I didn't really expect to get much on my first day. I was planning on just doing a simple little flyby, seeing what I could see, and coming back the next day. If that didn't work, I could always check in with Emma and Charlotte to see if they knew anything.

Although...I considered, How would I do that without seeming suspicious?

A question for another day, I reasoned, and given what I was seeing so far, I'd have to leave it for another day. There wasn't much activity that looked overtly suspicious or gang related. Well, beyond the large masses of people in colors walking. But I couldn't just shake them down because they looked vaguely suspicious. I had to have a reason. Well, sort of a reason, anyways.

I was just about to leave when I spotted something from the corner of my eye. Something very interesting.

Well well well, I thought, What do we have here?

"Well don't you two look lovely?"

Two kids, a boy and a girl who I pegged as being around Taylor's age, had decided to take a shortcut hom through an alley. Maybe they were new to town, maybe they'd taken this shortcut many times, maybe they simply thought it could never happen to them. Whatever it was, it was a mistake they wouldn't soon forget.

The alley was in an area of dilapidated and partially abandoned housing. It was assumed that this was Merchant territory, but it's not like the Merchants had hard borderlines. They were like pests, they just festered in every niche they could find. Including this alley.

The woman who stepped out from one of the many side-paths in the alley was probably in her mid-twenties. Her basic features indicated some south American roots, lightly tanned skin, straight black hair, genome markers, etc. She could be considered attractive to most, her half-shaved long hair with pink highlights and tight crop-top certainly made her stand out in a crowd. The long black vest she was wearing looked like it could hide some small weapons or drugs, and her baggy pants could definitely stash a variety of implements.

She ambled up to the two teens, swaying her hips in what I assumed was a seductive manner.

"You two look like a cute couple," she said, "So adorable and young."

The boy held his arm out, in what I guess was some vain attempt to protect the girl. "Leave her out of this," he said in a shaky and completely confident voice. It sounded like he'd heard one too many lines of Protectorate Propaganda and was trying to act like a hero.

He had balls now, but I had my doubts it would last too long.

"Oh, don't be like that, kiddo." She winked at the boy. "I just want to help you out."

"H-help us out?"

"Yeah." She shrugged. "you two look like you haven't even popped the cherry yet."

The pair blushed.

"I-I, well, er…" the boy stammered.

"Tommy!" The girl hissed, pulling his arm as she tried to walk back.

The boy tried to back away from the woman as well, but the woman match him step for step, gaining on him.

"Hey hey hey, now." The woman held up her hands in a placating gesture. "Calm down, guys. My name's Diane, and I've got a great offer for you."

"Free lessons." She smiled. "Your first time's always the roughest, but fortunately you got good ol' Diane to help you out."

Before Tommy could flinch back, Diane walked up and cupped his chin. "So what do you say? A fine night for you and your girl? I promise you'll be closer than ever before."

"Closer?" he said, flush rising as Diane got even closer.

"Hey!" the girl shouted, trying to get around Tommy. She took a swing at Diane, but the woman dances back with a giggle.

Diane pulled out a needle from her vest, filled with some kind of dark fluid. "Why do we have to fight about this, when we can have some fun instead?"

"I just need to give you some candy, and then the fun can-"

I punched her in the face.

Diane fell down, laid out by the force of the haymaker. I'd be lying if I said that seeing that...deviant forcing herself on a girl Taylor's age didn't raise my hackles. With that thought in my mind, laying this bitch out felt damn good.

"Where the fuck..?" She groaned, cupping her cheek.

I smirked. It was funny how many nooks and crannies you could hide yourself in when your body was whatever you wanted it to be.

"Oy!" I shouted in a deeper voice than normal, turning to the two stunned kids, "You shits get out of here."

"I-I-I" Tommy stammered.

"Yes, Sir, thank you, Sir," The girl nodded fervently, pulling Tommy to his feet and running away.

I smirked. I hadn't wanted to go around beating up merchants looking like Amelia Hebert. That was just asking for trouble. And when you could control every cell in your body, why on earth you settle for something as mundane as a simple change of clothes?

Instead of a tall, freckled, white girl with long frizzy brown hair, I looked more...androgynous. I had a masculine, yet somewhat boyish, face and frame. I wasn't quite as tall either, though I'd given myself very lean and defined muscles. My hair was a long and straight blond that reached down to my shoulders. Combined with my vibrant blue eyes and flawless pale skin, I looked a bit like a poster child for the Empire.

Given I was also wearing a bright red dress shirt under a black jacket, pants, and boots, it was an easy mistake to make. Which is exactly why I'd picked it. Much as I hate the Empire, this wasn't a direct attack at them. While I was intending to look like I could be Empire, that was more of a whim. If I was going to look like someone else while doing dirty deeds, why not someone who could stand to be punched in the face?

And if they didn't think I was Empire? Oh well. Didn't matter to me. There was nothing to connect me to Amelia Hebert either way.

"Good girl." I smiled at the young couple as they ran away.

Turning back around, I saw Diane picking herself up off the ground.

"Bob! Garette!" she called out, wiping a line of blood from her lips as she got back up shakily on her feet, "Where are you two?!"

No one answered.

"Looks like you've got some flakey friends." I smiled. "I bet they're sleep'n on the job right now."

Though that might have something to do with chemical soup currently swimming through their veins. I thought.

I'd taken so long to intervene in the first place because I'd been busy taking out her reinforcements. It wasn't hard to do it, by itself, but knocking them unconscious without alerting anyone as a lot easier said than done. Which is why I'd make the sedatives in the first place.

It'd taken a bit to come up with just the right chemical mixture to get a nice fast-acting sedative that I could make purely through biological processes, especially one that was completely safe. Melatonin was helpful, but it was far from the only component in the mix.

"Fine," she growled, "I don't need them to deal with a twink like you." She pulled out a knife from her vest and licked her lips.

I eyed the knife and snorted. "Oh no, knife," I taunted as I paced back and forth in front of her, "What are you going to do, stab me?"

Diane snarled, then jabbed the knife at me. I stepped backward to avoid it, but then she lunged forward. The blade of her knife plunged into my gut as she crashed into me.

I let out a grunt that was more from my chest cavity being compressed than anything so base as pain or discomfort.

"It's a shame such a pretty boy like you has to die in a shitty alley like this," she said with a smug smirk, twisting the knife inside me, "But that's what you get for ruining my day." With her last words, she wrenched the knife free and left me to bleed out.

Or...she tried to.

"What?" she said, confused as the knife refused to come free.

"Oof, it's stuck in there real tight, isn't it?" I said, completely unphased by the blade buried where my intestines were supposed to be. A nasty, painful, and likely fatal injury if I was a normal person. "Here, let me give you a hand,"

I reached down, wrapping a hand around her hand at the hilt of the blade. The instant my skin brushed against her own, I saw a glimpse of her entire genetic map. When my hand enveloped hers, the scan got deeper. I could see every cell in her body, all moving and working together. I could see the signs of drug use, the way her brain lit up in fear. I could also see the very pointed lack of the familiar blank spot in her head.

Got ya I smirked.

I twisted it this way and that, before finally tearing the blade out of my gut sideways, ripping a much bloodier hole in me than she'd been aiming for. With the blade out, I slipped my hand out of her grip, letting her have the knife back. Not much she could do to me with it anyways.

Diane stumbled back in shock as the man she'd just tried to stab had actually made the wound exponentially worse without so much as flinching. She looked up at me with wide eyes and a slack jaw, her expression of shock so deep and profound I couldn't help but laugh.

"I really don't understand you people," I chuckled, fingering the gaping wound in my gut idly. Blood poured from the wound, but it was all still me. There'd been a few cell deaths, but it was barely a rounding error for me, most had just been pushed around. Bleeding out was about as dangerous for me as drooling all over the floor. Arguably even less than that, actually, since I could always just re-absorb the blood again.

"What the fuck?" Diane said, staring at the way the blood pooled at my feet, at the way skin and a few rolls of meat flopped out of the hole as I played with the wound.

"I mean, you know capes are a thing, right?" I continued, stepping towards her slowly as I pulled at the fake intestines I'd put in there. "I don't understand why you'd actually go around terrorizing people. What the fuck would you do if they triggered?"

"I-if they what?" She sputtered, backing away from me, holding up her knife like it could ward off evil.

"Ah," I said, removing my bloody hand from my chest. I pulled it up and snapped a wet finger at her in realization, flinging crimson specks into the air. "That's right, you don't know. You keep doing it because you don't realize that every single time you mug someone, they could turn into the next Lung and eat you alive."

I giggled at the thought. "Well, I guess this kind of a wake-up call for you, huh?"

"The fuck are you?!" Diane roared, reaching into her vest for something, "You some kind of new cape?"

"Well duh." I smiled, "Most people tend to die when they're stabbed."

"Shut up!" She barked, panicking as the situation spiraled out of her control. She pulled out a large revolver, waving it threateningly at me. "Shut up or I'll shoot you!"

"Awe." I pouted, holding my hands up to play along. "I thought we had a gentleman's agreement?"

"Here's a gentleman's agreement for you," She snarled, "You answer my questions, and I don't kill you."

"Am I supposed to shut up, or answer your questions?" I smirked.

I enjoyed toying with her like this. Playing along as I made a game of her hopes and expectations. Stringing her along was fun, in a way, giving just enough rope to hang herself was a careful balancing act. The fact that she slowly seemed to be slowly figuring it out herself was only icing on the cake. I could smell the pungent scent of fear radiating off her, slowly at first, but growing larger and larger. It was intoxicating.

"You speak when you're spoken too." She cocked the hammer of the gun, the metal loudly clicking as it turned into place.

"And if I don't…?" I asked, the bright smile on my face never leaving.

"Then I'll blast your brains out," she said coldly.

"Oh?" I cocked my head to the side. "Stabbing me hasn't worked out so well. What makes you think shooting me will end any better?"

"Because everyone knows that powers come from some kinda special brain tumor." she said, "It's all thanks to that thing in your brainpan. Evolution or something. I don't know. But I do know that I can hurt you."

"Can you?" I baited her, giving her my most devilish smirk.

BANG

My forearm exploded just above my wrist. My left hand fell to the ground, two bloody spikes of bone sticking out of the wrist. My own arm was a bloody stump that looked like a popped sausage in the microwave.

I stared at the sheared limb. "Huh," I was actually impressed.

"You're a regenerator," she continued, "Not a normal brute. You can just heal from wounds, but you're just as squishy as everyone else."

"And," she added, tapping the side of her head with her free hand, "I'm betting if I get you right between the eyes, you won't be able to regenerate from me painting this alley with your brain."

"Ooooh~, sounds like a gamble." I smiled invitingly. "Either it works, and you live, or it doesn't and you're helpless in front of a cape you can't hurt."

"Just tell me who sent you," Diane growled, thrusting the gun at me threateningly, "And why you're here."

"What if I said I sent myself?" I said rhetorically.

She laughed. "Really, new little cape boy?"

"Well, today is my trial run," I admitted with a smile, my arms spread out wide. As an arrant thought, I decided to taper off the bleeding of the stump on my arm and the hole in my gut. "Though, I'm willing to admit that I came here looking for information."

"Trial run, huh?" she said, "I'm betting that you're the newest little nazi. Got money, got looks, even got powers, so they decided to send you after the 'bottom of the barrel Merchants'. After all, they don't matter, right? They're just scum, right? How close am I?"

I snorted.

"Okay." I shrugged. "If that's what you want to think. But it sounds like you already have all your answers. Why ask me anything?"

"Who says I'm done?" Diane said with narrowed eyes, "Maybe I'm just getting warmed up?"

"Hmm." I entertained the idea for a moment, letting it show on my face, before shaking my head, "Nah, I think I'm about ready to wrap things up here."

I stepped forward.

"Hey!" she barked, shaking her gun again, "Don't you dare move! I'm not done with you yet!"

"Ah, but I'm just about done with you." I said, taking another step, "You see, I've got a few questions of my own."

"If you don't stop, I'll fucking kill you!" she growled, the gun shaking in her hands.

"If you have the balls." I smirked, walking steadily and purposefully. "But I don't really feel like that'll end well for you."

"If you keep walking, all you'll be feeling is hot lead putting your lights out."

"That, or mildly annoyed." I shrugged, taking another step. "But go ahead, flip that coin."

I stepped forward again.

The gun shook in her hand.

I smiled.

I took another ste-

A chunk of lead crashed into the top of my skull at around one and half times the speed of sound. It slammed into a pocket of gel where my brain was supposed to be. The gel caught the bullet, bleeding of its speed and power before it could leave my skull or tear it to pieces.

I stumbled back, put off balance by the force hitting my head for a moment, before re-adjusting and catching myself. I tilted back up, moving the misshapen hunk of lead inside my head as I recalibrated. I spat it back up into my hand, staring at it for a second before looking up at the woman who'd shot me in the face.

I whistled. "Nice shot."

Diane gaped. "What the fu-"

A spider jumped on her face.

A very pale spider with five legs and a bleeding stump of a thorax.

Her muffled screams filled the alley as my detached hand clamped down over her mouth.

I laughed, a deep throaty thing that came from somewhere inside my darkest thoughts.

"Ah, finally, sweet silence." I smiled, walking up to her.

Diane flailed, trying to rip my hand off her face, but it was useless, my grip far too tight. She tried cutting it off, but the blade just slipped through, flesh healing back together as soon as the blade left. She aimed her gun at the hand, ready to take the ultimate measure.

I kicked her legs out from under her. Her head slammed on the ground, the impact shaking her enough to drop the gun. I kicked it away before she could grab it.

He hands clawed over the detached limb attached to her face. She desperately cried and scrabbled at it, trying to get it off. I stood over her, a faint smile on my face as I saw her writhing on the ground.

"Now Diane," I said softly, "I'm going to need you to listen carefully."

She thrashed wildly, her face turning blue.

"I have some questions," I said, leaning over to meet her eyes as she panicked, "And I'd like to pick your brain on them."

She was about to curse out at me, I could tell, but I held up a hand to stop her. "Ah ah, you're not going to need to speak for this."

"You're not really going to need to speak ever again."

At first, she looked at me confused. When she tried to open her mouth again, she understood. She understood now, because now she had no lips to scream.

My hand melted together with her face. My flesh becoming her flesh, and her flesh becoming mine. The surface of my hand invaded the cells of her body, infesting her skin with a virus. Unlike most viruses, this one infected cells not to merely produce more viral entities, but to make the cell mine.

And every single cell that was mine, was me.

I was in the hand detached from my body, there was no disconnect for me despite the distance, and now I was in her face. In fact, now there was no hand. There was only the smooth surface of her featureless face.

My face, now. "Now hush, my dear," I said, brushing a finger over the smooth surface where her lips once laid. I still let the skin of what was once her face send signals to her brain, so I knew she could feel it, "No more tears."

My skin melted over her eyes, sealing her world in a tomb of flesh. As her cries were muffled and tears sealed, I wormed my way through her skin. Penetrating deeper and deeper, diving under the layers of flesh and bone. Tendrils of meat wrapped around her skull, a few boring through to poke at her brain. Not corrupt it, not devour it, just..get a reading on it.

"Only dreams now."

"Hold up," Dad sighed, stopping me with a hand. His other went massage his brow.

"What?" I questioned, kind of annoyed that he'd interrupted my story.

"I can already tell I'm going to need scotch for this," He said, getting out of his chair.

I cringed. "it's not that bad...is it?"

"Jesus christ, Amy," Dad half laughed. "Let me put it like this,"

He moved to the back pantry of the kitchen. The pantry wasn't actually in the kitchen, per se, it was in a small room adjacent to the kitchen, and shared the space with our washer and dryer. While he passed out of my line of sight, I could still hear him just fine.

"You are definitely your mother's daughter."

"I am?" I blinked.

"Have I told you about The List?" he said, still out of view.

"No…?"

"Well, long story short, I made a list of things she wasn't allowed to do unless certain criteria were met."

"...Like?"

"Oh, you know, the basics." He said, coming back into the kitchen with a bottle in his hands. He placed it on the table with a weighty clack and moved over to the cupboards, "Don't torture people with bugs. Don't make people choke on bugs. Don't drink your own eyeball juice."

"I...what?" I had no idea what to do with that information.

"Yeah." He snorted, picking up two glasses and walking back to the table. "I loved Annette to death, but she could be really fucking horrifying. Not surprising considering she had her powers for what...20 years?"

Dad sat down and shook his head. "When you spend that long with powers like hers, especially in as shitty a world as the one we live in, sometimes you lose perspective. An "effective and legitimate strategy" for you would be considered cruel and sadistic torture that only the vilest and sick of villains would use for others."

"So the List was your way of reining her in?" I guessed.

"Yep." He nodded, placing the two glasses on the table and pouring the amber liquid into each. "So we should probably make a List for you. Or guidelines or what have you."

He pushed one glass my way and picked up the other for himself.

I gasped in exaggerated shock. "Alcohol! But dad, I couldn't possible-"

"Just drink the scotch, Amy," he said tiredly, giving me a flat and unimpressed stare, "We both know you're the only one who decides if you're going to be drunk or not."

I pouted. He was right, of course. We'd had this discussion a while ago and this was far from my first glass. Managing alcohol and the ethanol inside it was a bit tricky for me, and part of it was the simple chemistry of the issue fiddling with my brain. That said, mastering the art of not being drunk was far from impossible when every single cell was under my direct control, and the trick of doing it was something I'd long since mastered. Doing it these days didn't even take a second thought.

Didn't mean he had to ruin my fun, though.

"Party pooper," I said, sullenly grabbing my own glass. At this point drinking with Dad was more about the psychological benefits of sharing a meal, or drink, with someone else. That, at the very least, could still affect me.

"That's me," he said, a self-deprecating smile on his lips, "Pooper of parties, spoiler of fun. It's the second thing we learn in dad school."

"Oh?" I raised a brow, "What was the first?"

"Show no fear." He grinned, raising his glass to me.

I snorted, deciding to humor him and toasted back. "Sure dad."

I took a sip of the scotch. The wave of flavor, and the smooth texture was a familiar one that brought back many memories. I spent a moment just processing the information. I immersed myself in the old sensations, in all the chemical reactions happening inside me. They couldn't overwhelm me, and I still had an awareness of my surroundings, but it was nice to just...feel something. Not think, not plan, just feel.

"So…" he said, pulling me out of my ruminations.

I looked back up at him. I saw the weight in his brown eyes, the way the humor had drained out of him, and straightened up. It wasn't all gone, there were still bits of it there, but I could instantly tell that we were turning back to the serious matter at hand.

"What happened with the Black Maggots?" he said, shooting me a look as he swirled his glass of liquid amber.

"Ah…" I said. I'd gotten off track from that, perhaps in shame, perhaps in fear, perhaps in simple empty-headedness. "I suppose I forgot to go over the part where it got a bit dark."

"So the part where you ate a woman's face wasn't dark?"

I winced. "I mean...technically I became her face."

"Oh, yes. My apologies, that's much much better."

I sucked in through my teeth. He had a point. At the time, it made sense. Seemed right, pragmatic, fun...though I suppose this is why he came up with the List in the first place.

"Okay," I began, "So it all started after I took what I wanted from Diane's mind."

"You ate her brain?"

"No!"

"Amelia..."

"Well...not most of it?"

"Goddammit, Amy."

"Look, I left all of her faculties intact. She can still do all the things normal people can, there are just some...holes...in her memory. Holes that I used to find, uh, vulnerabilities in the Merchant's operations."

"I think I just found some new things to add to The List," Dad quipped glumly as he raised his glass to take another drink.

"So," I continued, ignoring him, "I became Diane. Since I wasn't going to be staying long, I didn't need to immerse myself that much in the gang, but I did use her truck and some fancy containers they had laying around to set up a trap."

"A trap?"

"Yep." I nodded, equal parts nervous and excited. "A trap filled with me."

He looked at me for a long moment, his glass hovering inches from his lips. He gave me a flat stare over the glass. Then, ever so slowly, he slid his eyes to look at the nearly full bottle of scotch laying on the table. He placed his glass on the table and picked up the bottle. He raised it to his lips, paused, then gave me a pointed look.

"I just want you to know, you're doing this to me," he said, then proceeded to take a swig straight from the bottle.

"Well, at least you have a lot of experience with mom..." I offered with a helpless shrug.

"That's the only thing stopping me from doing shots," he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and putting the bottle back on the table, "Now go on."

"Right."" I pursed my lips. "So I filled some containers with, uh, well, me. Which I, uh, turned black for effect."

"Of course, of course," He nodded along, "You know, as one does."

"And then I went to a distributor's house, Jack's house. They called it a distribution center, but it was really just an abandoned garage. I went there, talked with him, convinced him to get his friends together to plan a party and try some new drugs-"

"And let me guess," Dad cut me off with a raised finger, "You were the drugs?"

"Yes," I nodded, "I was the drugs."

"So then they…"

"Then they all took shots of me. Just, uh, put some me in a vial, made the me in the vials all spooky and dark. Writhing and stuff. You know, to set the mood."

"Right, right. To set the mood."

"So once they drank me, I was inside them," I paused, stalling for time by taking another drink. There really wasn't a good way to phrase the next part, so I just tried to spit it all out as fast as possible.

"So from there, I dispersed myself inside them. I also released some hallucinogens that also induced paranoia, along with some other effects. Part of me wormed its way under their skin to give a kind of wriggling effect. But most of it just kind of hung around in their stomach waiting to be used.

"From there, they were all primed. Each of them was hallucinating and on the edge of rampant uncontrolled paranoia, they just needed something to fear. So I provided the trigger.

"As Diane, I imitated a freakout where there were worms or maggots writhing around inside my stomach. I cut it open, causing them to spill out all over the floor as a massive tide of black writhing parasites. That acted as the trigger which got them all thinking about Black Maggots inside them. From there, the cocktail I'd put inside them went off, causing them to imagine what I'd supplied.

I also prodded them here and there to help facilitate the illusion."

"Mhm," Dad nodded along, humming through the bottle as he took another sip. When he pulled it back, he smacked his lips and said, in an almost sardonic tone, "Is that it?"

"Uh...no?"

"No...no, of course not." He smiles in that empty way of his. "Alright, where else does this train wreck go?"

I winced. It hadn't been that bad, right?

"Well, most of them went crazy, as I expected. But the first guy who drank me, his name was Clank, he just passed out. Which was fine, because then I just used some of the, uh, spilled 'me' to make a simulacrum of him."

"You made a clone?"

"Well...more of a puppet?" I said, unsure of myself, "I mean, it's all just me, so…"

Dad was silent. Instead he just gave me a pinched look with a cocked head that silently said, "At what point, did you think this was a good idea?"

I sucked through my teeth, "Yeah...and, uh...then I had the puppet of Clank pretend to be possessed by the black maggots. And, uh, trying to infect the others and make them hosts."

He laughed. Not the good kind of, "Oh this is so funny," laugh. It was the kind of laugh you had when you heard something so incredibly stupid and terrible that you couldn't help but laugh at how bad it was.

"Jesus Christ Amy." He wiped a hand over his face, "You've only been at it for a week."

"Ah...yeah…" I grimaced, "I've, uh, kinda been doing that a lot, in other places. And stuff. And there's more, and-"

I was rambling now, and we both knew it. I was sure I'd ruined something. I thought everything had been fine. That I was doing what needed to be done and having fun doing it. No one got hurt except for the pedophile, no one died, all was good. But now, sitting in front of my dad, having him weigh judgement on my actions? I couldn't help but doubt it all.

Where had it all gone wrong.

"Ok," Dad said, reaching out with one arm to hold my hand. He still had a small smile on his face. "You fucked up."

I nodded woodenly, trying to clamp my emotions up. I could read Dad's biology, and inside him was a whirlwind of emotions too. Unlike me, however, they were far less..intense. They were there, but they weren't ruling him. And above most of them was what I could only describe as resigned amusement.

"You fucked up bad," he continued, "but," He paused to look me in the eyes. I could feel the sincerity in every cell of his body. "Not too bad. We can and will make this better. Understand?"

"Yes dad," I said quickly, relief flooding me.

"Okay," he pulled his hand back, cutting off the connection. "Now it's…" He paused to look at his watch. "About 1:00 am. So I'm going to bed. First, though, I'm getting the List."

He moved to get out of his chair, but swayed a bit with his first step. Before he could blink I was beside him, steadying him. He braced against me with an outstretched arm and yawned loudly.

"God, I'm tired." He blinked, then chuckled. "And a little tipsy."

"Let me help you to bed," I said, trying to move his body around so he could lean on me.

He pushed me off him. "I'm tired and tipsy, not old and infirm. I can walk myself."

I frowned, but I could see he was going to be stubborn about this. Him and his damn pride.

"Now." He straightened out his shirt. "I'm gonna get your mother's old List, and I want you to look it over and come up with all the ways you fucked up, and how to not fuck up like that in the future while I'm asleep. When I'm awake, we can tackle the issue for real before you head out for, uh…" He rolled his hand as he searched for the word. "Saturday Service."

"That's not what it's called," I snorted, unwilling to keep the grin from my face.

"It is now," he said as he cracked his back. "Now you clean up while I get your homework."

I rolled my eyes, " Okay Dad,"

"Night Amy," he said, stumbling tiredly away as he spoke. He was already in next room when he muttered the next part.

I still heard him.

"Love you too, Dad."

A/n: Ok, so this took a bit longer to make than I thought it would.

It as also far longer than I thought it would be.

Like, it's my longest chapter. By accident.

I'd planned it out as a short couple things. Then when I was done it was fucking 6.2 K. Fucking how?

Ugh.

I'm glad this is just a hobby I do for fun, because I've little doubt that if this was actually supposed to be something published I'd be spending weeks and weeks trimming my own bullshit per chapter down to the most necessary bits.

But I'm also done going over what I'm calling the Black Maggot incident. It took two chapters longer than I'd originally expected, and all three chapters involved are the longest chapters in the fic so far. I don't think I need to spend more time on it.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised to find out I missed stuff in the numerous edits and rewrites I did for this thing before posting. It might even look a bit patchworky. I hope not, but who the fuck knows. I know what it's supposed to read and look like, so my opinion is biased and doesn't work an audience perspective.

I'm also quite sure that there have been formatting issues that came up when I transferred this from googledocs I haven't had time to correct. Sorry about that.

Anyways, I've got to get to work, which during peak season is a fucking bitch and a half. Good god. Hopefully, when I come back to the internet at the end of the night I'll be seeing good news.

Or, you know, I fucked something up again. That could happen too.