I have returned with a new chapter. A bit of a slow one this time around but hopefully you all will enjoy it. Nothing left to say so let's get into it.

Chapter 16: Planning Ahead

Monday, January 31st, 2011

It was around five in the afternoon when Taylor and her dad pulled up to Rosemary's house. It was in the same part of town that Taylor's house was, but much closer to Winslow than Taylor's was. Despite having just recently gotten out of the hospital, it had been Rose who insisted that the two girls and their respective families meet up to discuss the plan going forward. While Taylor was alright waiting a bit for Rose to recover more, the other girl wanted to get everything ironed out as soon as possible. Thus they were now here to discuss plans and have dinner. Not how I thought my first trip to a friend's house in years would go. Taylor thought as she got out of the truck, Danny following soon after.

'That's how life goes sometimes. Never know what kind of curveballs it'll throw you.'

You know that personally. I still can't get over how well you handled finding out you were actually a clone of the original Kiana. Kiana sent her a questioning feeling. Relatively speaking. The father daughter duo walked up to the front door and knocked on it. It wasn't long before it was opened.

Before them stood a handsome Japanese man with messy black shoulder length hair dressed in casual clothes. He had a stern looking disposition and look in his eyes that unnerved both Danny and Taylor. If Taylor had to describe it, she'd say he had something like a thousand yard stare.

"Ahh… you must be Danny and Taylor." He spoke in a thick Japanese accent.

"Yep, that'd be us. You must be Rosemary's father then?" Danny noted, holding out his hand to shake.

"Yes, Ryuji Sato, it is nice to meet you." Ryuji replied, shaking Danny's hand in a firm grip.

"Likewise," Danny returned.

"Please, come in." Ryuji stated, releasing Danny's hand, stepping to the side, and gesturing them in.

The duo entered inside.

"You can head straight ahead into the kitchen. Mary is preparing the food. It will be ready soon." Ryuji explained as he closed the door.

"Sounds good." Danny noted while Taylor merely nodded.

They made their way towards the Kitchen.

"ローズマリー！ここに降りてください！テイラーと彼女の父親がここにいます！(Rosemary! Get down here! Taylor and her father are here!)" Ryuji shouted as they did.

"ちょっと待ってください！私はまだクリカラを捕まえようとしています！(Give me a minute! I'm still trying to catch Kurikara!)" Rosemary shouted back.

'Hold on what!'

"さあ、もっと早く彼女を捕まえてみてください！ゲストが来ました！(Well try and catch her faster! Our guests are here!)" Ryuji demanded.

"できるだけ早く頑張っています！(I'm trying as fast as I can!)" Rosemary complained.

"I have no clue what they're yelling about." Danny muttered.

"Something about Rose needing to get down and her not being able to for some reason I can't discern but Kiana seems to have an idea given she seems to be in a state of shock." Taylor answered.

Danny's head snapped to look at Taylor.

"Since when can you understand Japanese?" Danny questioned.

"Kiana's been giving me a crash course on it and a few other languages. Said it might be useful." Taylor answered. "She's not the best teacher in that regard but I've picked up on a few things."

Taylor was confused as Kiana had no response to her. Instead her headmate seemed to be lost in her own thoughts.

'This doesn't make sense, how would something that big fit in this house let alone not draw ANY attention?'

Taylor felt her confusion grow as they entered the kitchen. What are you on about? Before Kiana could explain, the voice of Rose shouted out, "LOOK OUT!"

Taylor turned her head just in time to see something fly into her face.

"Gah!" She exclaimed, her head snapping back slightly from the hit.

She stumbled a bit as her father let out a shout of alarm. She grabbed whatever had barrelled into her and held it out in front.

"Kurrrrrrrrr…" An, admitably, adorable little dragon sounded.

The tiny dragon was more accurately described as a wyvern. It was primarily red and black with elements of gold mainly in its horns and claws. She merely stared at it in a state of incomprehension.

"Kurrrr… Kurrrrrrrrrrrrr…" It sounded again as it tried to happily reach for Taylor with its wings.

'Oh… that's how.'

CARE TO ELABORATE!

'Your friend got Mei's pet dragon, Kurikara, but miniaturized.'

"Kurikara, this is why I told you to not fly around like that. If Taylor wasn't as tough as she was, you could have seriously hurt her." Rose scolded as she marched up to the dragon in Taylor's hand.

The little dragon deflated at that, actually looking guilty, showing it had a good deal of intelligence.

"Now, I'll have Taylor let you go and when she does, I want you to fly to my shoulder and stay there. If you behave till dinner I'll let you have a bit of pork." Rose instructed.

Kurikara perked up at that and proceeded to make happy dragon noises as it moved around in excitement.

"Kurikara…" Rose expressed, raising her voice.

The little dragon calmed down and Rose nodded at Taylor which the latter took meant she could let the dragon go, so she did. Now free the dragon quickly flew around and perched itself on Rosemary's shoulder.

"Good girl." She praised the dragon.

She lightly scratched under the dragon's chin and it preened at the touch.

"Kurrrrrrrrrr… Kurrrrrrrrr…" Kurikara purred.

Rose smiled lightly.

"Soooo… ah…" Taylor began. "I'm guessing you got her when you got Mei as your head partner."

Rose nodded.

"Yep, I got lucky that she's such a smart girl. She knew I'd be in trouble if people found out about her so she hid wherever she could to avoid detection, which was normally in my hair." She explained.

"Kurrrrrrrrr…" Kurikara purred, puffing out her chest with pride.

Both Taylor and Rose giggled.

"Have to say I'm kind of jealous. Having a pet dragon of my own would be really cool."

'Technically she was mine originally, though given when I had her she ended up sacrificing herself to help save me from my own stupidity, it's probably for the best that Mei has her.'

Still doesn't help my lack of a pet dragon problem.

'I know, just felt like saying.'

"Well, I wouldn't be too jealous. According to Mei, Kurikara will grow as my power does. Eventually I won't be able to hide her at home. Especially when I'm at my full power." Rose explained.

"Yeaaaaah… I can see that being a problem, something we'll have to work out later." Taylor noted. "Even still, I'm a bit jealous. Ai-chan is nice and helps me a lot but like I said, having my own pet dragon would be really cool." Taylor admitted.

"Who's Ai-chan?" Rose questioned.

Rose's face scrunched up in confusion.

"What's the Hyperion?" Rose questioned.

"It's the main flying battleship Kiana and her allies used. Also we're gonna have to see about bringing you over to Old Man Jim. You have no ability to hide that Mei is talking to you in your head even without the fact that you're talking to nobody." Taylor pointed out.

Rose's face became flush with embarrassment before a look of confusion crossed her face.

"Wait… who's Old Man Jim?" She questioned.

"He's a good family friend who's been helping me with some stuff related to being a cape." Taylor answered. "He was able to figure out I had powers pretty quickly and has been helping me hide my visual tells so I don't give as much away with my expression and body language."

"Hmmm… I can see how that'd help. Especially with the way thinkers can pick up a lot of information on the tiniest of details." Rose noted.

"That's why I'm doing it." Taylor answered before mumbling, "Even if he pelts me with those stupid tennis balls."

"What was that last part?" Rose questioned.

"You'll find out when you meet him, assuming you want to go through with that." Taylor answered.

"Why does that make me nervous?" Rose questioned further.

"Well…" Taylor began.

"TAYLOR ONEE-CHAN!" A familiar childish voice exclaimed.

Taylor and Rose to see Mimi bounding down the steps with a bag that was large for her in her hands.

"I have my special hair brush and all my special hair stuff, can I do your hair now?" She pleaded.

"Uhmm… I don't really think…" Taylor began.

"Pretty please…" She pleaded with puppy eyes.

"I… ah…" Taylor began.

"If you're worried about her messing up your hair, don't. Mimi has an incredible innate talent for working with hair. I swear she's better than some professionals." Rose assured her.

"I see… but we'll be having dinner soon and then we'll… be having that talk about… stuff that she can't hear. So I don't know when we'll have time." Taylor pointed out.

"But I already know about you having powers." Mimi answered innocently.

Taylor's head snapped to Rose with an accusatory look. Rose met it with a questioning one.

"Oh come on, just because she's five doesn't mean she's stupid. She figured it out pretty easily even without seeing the videos." Rose returned.

"Oh really… then how did she figure out I had powers?" Taylor questioned.

"Oh… that's easy. Taylor Onee-chan is a hero for saving Onee-chan. Most heroes have powers. So if Onee-chan has powers and Taylor Onee-chan is here to help Onee-chan and Onee-chan is gonna be a hero and Taylor Onee-chan is already a hero and heroes help each other, then Taylor Onee-chan has powers." Mimi explained as though it were obvious.

Taylor openly gawked at the simple childlike deduction. She could hardly believe such childish logic had led to her secret being exposed. Meanwhile Rose had a quizzical look on her face.

"You know, it says something about our society when a five year old is able to figure out something fairly obvious yet a few comments from us and some random dudes and now most everyone would probably not suspect a thing if they saw you out in public." Rose pointed out.

Taylor shook herself out of her stupor.

"On a related note I still can't believe that worked. Though said random dudes covering for us helped a lot. Also the fact that the PRT didn't bother to mask me probably helped sell the hair changing thing. Heck, now people are wondering if I can change more than my hair." Taylor added. "That was a really smart move on the PRT's part."

"Not unless the PRT just messed up and you got lucky." Rose brought up.

"Pfft… come on Rose this is the PRT we're talking about. They wouldn't mess something like this up." Taylor pointed out.

Rose thought about this for a few seconds before replying, "yeah you're probably right."

Meanwhile…

Vista slowly turned to the next page of the booklet she had in hand.

"Why do we have to do this, again?" Clockblocker grumbled, booklet in hand.

"Because we all messed up all basic procedures for protecting a parahuman's identity when dealing with Miss Hebert." Armsmaster pointed out without looking away from his booklet.

Vista nodded as her face flushed slightly red with embarrassment.

"We're lucky that it somehow worked out in her favor and convinced virtually everyone the girl is some kind of changer so she didn't need a mask." She added.

"Technically she is, just not in a way that would help hide her identity ironically enough." Armsmaster added.

"For once I am grateful for the incredible stupidity of my fellow man." Clockblocker stated.

"For once I am in agreement with you." Armsmaster replied.

At the Sato Household…

They probably messed up and they got lucky. Both Kiana and Mei thought to themselves simultaneously despite not being able to communicate with one another.

"Don't worry Taylor Onee-chan, I'm the bestest at keeping secrets. I won't tell anyone so no baddies will know about you." Mimi assured the older girl with an adorably serious look on her face.

Taylor chuckled at the little girl's declaration.

"Well I guess I've got nothing to worry about then." Taylor expressed with a light smile.

Mimi gave a beaming smile.

"So can I do your hair now?" She asked again.

Rose giggled as Taylor struggled to find a way to answer the girl.

"Well uhmm…" Taylor began.

"You'll have to wait till after dinner, Mimi, since it's just about ready." Mary spoke up as she walked up to the girls.

Taylor just then noticed that her dad was no longer behind her and was now helping Ryuji set up the table.

"Awwwwwwww…" Mimi whined, deflating slightly.

"Buuuuuuut if you promise to be good and quiet, I'm sure Taylor wouldn't mind letting you do her hair while we have our discussion, right?" She questioned, turning to look at Taylor.

"Oh… ah… I-I don't…" She began before she noticed the pleading puppy dog eyes Mimi was sending her.

Her resolve crumbled.

"Uhmm… I mean I don't think it'll be a problem. As long as she's quiet and doesn't interrupt too much it should be fine." Taylor answered.

A brilliant beaming smile spread across Mimi's face.

"Yahooooooooooooooooo!" She cheered before doing a happy little dance.

Mary giggled at her daughter's antics.

"Alright then, why don't you leave your things down here and go up and tell your brothers that dinner will be ready shortly." She directed.

Mimi went right to her task, placing her bag of hair care supplies on the sofa before bolting back up stairs. Both Rose and Taylor laughed lightly at Mimi's actions before taking their seat around the table. Not long after, a thought struck Taylor.

"Do your brothers know about me being a cape?" Taylor questioned.

"Duhhhh…"

"Yep."

"Obviously."

Roy, Roger, and Michael answered respectively as they each sat down. Mimi happily sat next to Rose. Taylor felt her eye twitch. Seriously, how do we trick the whole of the internet but a bunch of kids figure it out! HOW?!

'Ahh… isn't that a good thing.'

YES! But it's hard not to get angry at such an insane level of stupidity no matter how much it's helping me! As Taylor was lost in her thoughts, the food was portioned out onto plates by Mary and handed to each person by Ryuji. Once everyone else got a portion, Mary got one for herself and her husband who took his to his set and she took her own to her seat. The Sato family clapped their hands together gently and bowed their heads slightly.

"Itadakimasu!" They exclaimed before digging in.

While initially confused by the declaration, Taylor and Danny didn't let it bother them and dug in as well. While Taylor and Danny were given knives and forks, the Sato family all used chopsticks. Praising of the cooking came from Taylor and Danny while small talk was engaged in while everyone ate and Kurikara got some morsels for behaving. Eventually the meal came to an end. The three boys went up to their rooms, not interested in "the boring part of cape stuff." Everyone else moved into the living room and took a seat, except for Mimi who stood behind Taylor so she could work on her hair. She first brought out a hair brush and began gently brushing it while swaying to a tune in her head.

"Alright so, what exactly did you want to talk about?" Taylor began, doing her best to ignore the actions of the little girl behind her.

"Well, the main reason I wanted to do this so early is because Mei mentioned missing some information on why she and, by proxy, Kiana were sent here." Rose explained.

Taylor's eyes widened slightly.

"So the same thing happened to Mei as well." Taylor noted in surprise.

"I'm guessing that means Kiana's missing information as well?" Rose replied.

Taylor nodded.

"Yeah, the most she knows is that there's a reason she was sent here and that the Honkai either won't be coming here or won't come here soon." She explained. "Oh… and that the honkai energy we have is modified in some way."

Rose sighed with a hint of disappointment.

"Then you don't know much more than Mei. She actually seems to have a bit more knowledge than Kiana." Rose noted.

"So we're no closer to figuring out why you two got the powers you did." Danny summed up.

"Pretty much." Rose sighed.

"Even still you should share it. Perhaps we'll be able to extrapolate something from it." Mary pointed out.

"Yes… many heads better than few." Ryuji added.

"Was already planning on it." Rose muttered. "Anyways, the thing Mei told me is that the Honkai energy we have can't exactly be quantified as the Honkai energy like in their world. It's more of a copy of it, kind of like how Mei and Kiana are mental copies of the original. Because of that it was somehow modified slightly."

"Modified how?" Danny asked.

Rose adopted a questioning look. Do you know how it was modified?

'Kind of, from what I can remember it's sort of like taking a copy of a program and modifying the code slightly so it does a bit more than intended. I don't know the exact details of what it does other than set some 'rules' to help protect the world. From what I'm not sure. I'm missing a lot of details, sorry.'

It's alright, it can't be helped and that's a lot more than I was expecting. She replied before repeating what Mei told her to everyone else.

"I see…" Taylor muttered. "And you're sure Mei doesn't remember anything else?"

Rose shook her head no.

"She doesn't, that's all I've got." Rose answered. "Not sure what to make of it. I'm assuming we're different from other parahumans given the whole we've been given these powers for a reason, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. From what I know powers aren't exactly well understood so who knows if ours are just some weird aberration. That or everyone's got a head partner and just isn't talking about it."

"Well… I can say our powers are different from normal parahumans. At my current stage in using the Authority of the Void I seem to be able to sense if someone is a parahuman if I'm close enough and even tell if they're using their powers or not." Taylor began.

"What?!/Really?" Danny and Rose questioned.

"When did this happen?" Danny questioned further.

"Around the time Shadow Stalker attacked us." Taylor admitted sheepishly.

"And why am I just hearing about this now?" He questioned.

Taylor blushed slightly.

"I forgot to mention it." She admitted with a hint of embarrassment.

"To get back on topic, I'm guessing you don't feel anything like that around me, correct?" Rose continued.

Taylor nodded before continuing, "yes, and given how similar our powers are and that our respective headmates know each other, it's safe to assume our powers come from different sources."

"A source that felt the need to send powers to you two with a modified energy meant to do something." Danny noted. "What could it all mean?"

Taylor adopted a pensive expression while Mimi adopted a thoughtful expression. With a nod each made their own decisions. Mimi put her brush away and began styling Taylor's hair while the older girl moved to speak.

"We'll worry about that later, the most we can do is prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Regardless of the reason we have the powers we do now, using them to try and sort out our city will only help us in the long run." Taylor pointed out.

"Right," Rose replied with a nod. "The last thing we need is having to worry about too many enemies on too many fronts when we least need them."

"My thoughts exactly. But we're still a ways from going out as a team. It took me a little less than a month to get to the level I'm at now and that's with a slightly accelerated course. Even then, I'm not fully ready." Taylor pointed out.

"There's also the problem of building my battlesuit. I'm with Mei and waiting until I can hold my own in a fight before going out and getting the parts I need." Rose added.

"As much as I'd prefer she didn't, we aren't in the financial situation to just buy what she needs, we have some spare stuff lying around but not enough for all she needs to build." Mary brought up.

"Also problem of drawing unwanted attention. None in our family have shown interest in such things nor have reason for why that might change. ABB always looking for new recruits." Ryuji pointed out.

"Yes, I could see that being a problem. I might be able to get around that for Taylor, using my work and the Dockworkers Association as a cover for why I've developed an interest for something like the materials she needs. However, covering for two people might raise suspicions and I'm not exactly willing to risk that." Danny explained.

"Well… we might not need to." Taylor spoke up.

All eyes turned to her.

"We'll have to see if your powers need you to build something different from what I made, but if not, you can just use my equipment when I'm done. That'll give you time to focus on training to catch up to me. It might delay the time we can go out together, but not by much I think. It'll take at most a month to finish my battlesuit. By then you should be at a decent level. Hel… Heck, if we want we can add another month of training for good measure and not only will both our battlesuits be done, we'll be in a good enough position to at least hold our own against most capes we'll run into." She explained.

Rose's eyes went wide.

"That's genius!" She exclaimed. "Given we're already friends, me going over won't raise suspicions, transporting the battlesuit back without anyone noticing might be difficult but we can figure something out."

Taylor nodded.

"That's pretty much what I was thinking." She stated.

"Well it seems like you two've got a good plan going forward." Danny noted. "It's good to see you two actually thinking things through instead of just rushing in without a plan."

"Yes, I can agree on that." Mary added.

"I know many a foolish young ones who did not prepare properly. They suffered the consequences of their folly." Ryuji added. "Glad I am to see you two not make the same mistake."

"Thanks…" Taylor muttered sheepishly. "But we've still got a lot to work on in terms of an actual plan for how to clean up the city. To be honest I don't even know where to start."

"There's also the situation with Kurikara and how she'll eventually grow too large to stay in the house." Rose brought up.

Said dragon nodded at that.

"I might be able to help with that." Danny spoke up. "There are a few warehouses the DWA still have, they're not in the best shape but hopefully they'll be big enough to hold a dragon."

Kurikara deflated a little, looking like she wasn't too keen on living in a dilapidated warehouse.

"That might work, but Kurikara doesn't seem too thrilled about it. But... I think we can save all of this for later. I don't know about you but I feel like we've covered enough for one night. I'd rather hang out and relax a bit before really diving into this hero thing." Rose added.

Taylor nodded.

"That's fair." She relented.

"All done!" Mimi suddenly cheered.

The little girl pranced around in front of Taylor with a mirror in her hand.

"What do you think?" The little girl asked.

Taylor's mouth was agape. Her eyes widened in shock. Mimi had styled her hair into twin long braids almost exactly like Kiana did. She heard Kiana snickering in her head but paid it no mind. The adults were confused by Taylor's response while Rose struggled to hold in a laugh when informed by Mei. Mimi beamed in pride.

"Stunned into silence I see. When I saw Taylor Onee-chan I knew this look would be perfect. Not only does it look pretty in the short term but it'll help guide your hair into a prettier look even when it's not in the braids." She declared.

Taylor just sat there gapping one thought going through her head. How did a frickin' five year old randomly guess Kiana's hair style?!

And that's a wrap, hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Till next time. If you want me to be able to produce more content, please consider supporting me on subscribe star. (search zmanxv and the link is on my deviantart page).