Current Energy: 9

Current Training: Divinity B (7/10)

Friday, February 18th, 2011

The Heap, Brockton Bay

[She's certainly focused.]

'What the hell did you spend your life doing?' She asked Ozma incredulously, still trying to decide exactly how she should react to this situation. Dealing with Mem was like dealing with Emmy all over again - only Mem had common sense, in so much as she understood society and people in general, and just seemed to choose to ignore the parts of it that weren't immediately helpful to her. Which was actually sort of worse than Emmy. At least with him she just had to explain why she wanted him to behave a certain way for him to get it. He essentially did what he did because he didn't have a reason not to. She acted the way she did because she felt she had a reason to.

[How long have you possessed Nemesis?] Ozma asked lightly.

'Month and a half. I don't see what-' Taylor tried to defend herself.

[And has she been this belligerent the entire time? I doubt she acquired that from years alongside you. It is simply her nature.] He continued, making use of one of the few benefits of speaking directly into her mind - that being, it was really hard to speak over him or cut him off.

'Yeah but Nemesis is a sword, she stabs things. Mem is a walking stick!' She griped. She knew he was correct but that didn't make it any less annoying to be thwarted in her argument.

[Wizards. Staff. I have fought more people with Long Memory that you have ever physically met.] Ozma corrected swiftly, with perhaps a touch of annoyance in his tone.

"Where the fuck are my arms?" The uncanny looking sort of raven on Mem's shoulder squawked in Dinah's voice, drawing her attention back to the problem at hand.

"You do not have arms. You are a bird." Mem explained gently, lifting a hand to stroke the things hand with a finger.

"That's the fucking problem!" It screeched loudly, flapping its wings in distress.

"You did not have arms before either. You were dead." Mem continued sanguinely. It was honestly strange to watch the girl interact with anyone. Despite looking like a thirteen year old at best, she had a distinctly grandmotherly nature with just about anyone who wasn't Nemesis. An infinite well of patience.

"Yeah but Betty Badass over there can totally fix that! Hey! Fix it!" The... Dinah clone still, she guessed, yelled, turning towards her.

"Um. I... don't know if I can?" Taylor offered carefully.

"Why!?" The clone returned to her.

"I just... don't know? Do you know how souls work? Because I basically just ask super nicely for them to stop being dead and pump a bunch of power into something to fake a body for them. I'll... look into it?" She tried, mind already racing through possible avenues of research on the topic. She never seemed to have the time for anything recreational anymore, at least not in regards to her pseudo wizardry. She had drafted half of the plans for her wizard tower - because if a girl can't have a wizard tower, then what's the point of wizardry? - and she had recently koshered to the concept of 'bounded fields' with regards to runes, but other than that she hadn't had time for much. Too many crises one after the other.

[If you were to teach more people to deal with those crises...] Ozma cajoled, obviously not expecting an answer, which she obliged.

"How long will that take!?" It asked her in clear dismay - an emotion she could actually see playing over its avian facial features, which was just plain uncanny looking.

"Could be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. I get distracted." She answered honestly.

"But... I'm a fucking bird." The clone repeated, as though the emphasis in any way helped.

"I-" She opened her mouth to start trying to explain that she wasn't going to drop everything to resurrect a clone that was - all things being equal - probably evil, but stopped when she realized Mem had closed the distance between them to tug gently on her sleeve.

"I will try to solve the problem." She answered with the same flat tone she used for pretty much everything.

"I'm not sure that's safe," Taylor answered immediately, expression turning uncomfortable. Was it hypocritical of her to be wary of leaving a teenager alone in her castle to experiment with unfathomable mystical might, when that description applied just as well to her as to Mem? Yes. Did she care? No.

"Master, I believe that if it is unfair to ask Mem to simply do nothing. Surely you can task someone to ensure she does not go too far? As long as she eats and sleeps normally..." Emmy chimed in, gesturing towards the smaller girl with a hint of amused affection on his face that she couldn't easily recall him directing at anyone but her or Nemesis in the past.

She didn't know why but she had incredibly mixed feelings about that.

"Still..." She hedged, glancing down at Mem who - despite her expression not at all changing - looked positively adorable tugging slightly on her sleeve like that. Was this what being a parent felt like? Without all of the icky early stages of things?

"N-no raising the dead or messing with souls. And don't blow anything up. Or commit any war crimes. Or make things that could commit war crimes. Or things that make other things that could commit war crimes or blow things up." She eventually allowed, suddenly feeling as though she had made a grave mistake. Yes, she had created Mem in order to act as a magical assistant, but she had basically transitioned from that to 'How to be a Teenage Mom' within thirteen seconds of speaking to her.

And yes, she had considered or had ideas that fell under literally all of the categories she had just mentioned, which was why she had that handy list of restrictions on hand.

"Agreed. Will I have my own lab, or will I work in yours?" Mem stated with a cute nod, releasing her sleeve and stepping away from her again, then pausing.

"Also, what is a 'War Crime'?" She asked, tilting her head to one size.

[Well, Grimm don't exactly have human rights.] Ozma defended immediately.

Taylor sighed.

Friday, February 18th, 2011

The Dojo, Brockton Bay

[Children make for better students though.] Ozma argued ardently.

'I'm not training kids to fight crime with superpowers!' She countered immediately.

[Why not? It's their world. Shouldn't they be able to fight for its future?] Ozma countered.

'My world isn't literally ending. Apocalypse morality does not apply.' She pointed out as she stepped over the threshold of Aspirants Dojo. It had been a while since she had been in here and in that time a lot had apparently changed. For one, it wasn't just a large empty metal room. Parts of the building had been sectioned off by fresh walls, actual flooring had been laid down, and there were mats all over the place, along with a mirror covering the entirety of one wall. The front room of the building now looked like an actual dojo.

How many days had it been? She distinctly remembered her Dad complaining that it was basically impossible to get a single job site completed on time, how were the Dockworkers doing all of this so quickly? Sure half of them basically lived in her castle free of charge, and yeah she basically just handed them her pocketbook and told them to figure it out but-

Should she be checking her finances? She felt like she should be checking her finances.

[I respectfully disagree with the point.] Ozma replied to her dryly. She had left Emmy with Mem to help her set up her workshop. He knew about as much about Runes as she did, if not more, so he was just as suited to it as her, and he seemed to genuinely like the smaller girl so she was happy to leave him to it.

Mostly. She was mostly happy to leave him to it. There was still a minuscule part of her that felt like he should be invisibly shadowing her even right now - when she absolutely did not need it.

Grunting lightly in response to Ozma's point - he had listened to her explain what an Endbringer was once and promptly decreed them 'a problem' - she glanced around the room. It wasn't quite full - it was getting onto the early evening at this point, and so the only people present were the locals who were particularly dedicated to their training - but even still, the minute she entered everyone else stopped moving, immediately snapping out of spars and forms to come to attention.

"Just here for Aspirant guys, keep doing what you were doing. Uh, except you, you're doing that kick wrong." She called out to them, walking into the group and absently pushing and prodding a dark-skinned woman into a slightly different posture.

"Your center of gravity is too low for this stance. You should look into grappling." She noted after a second of watching the woman practice the motion.

"I do ballet. I don't think something like that would suit me." The woman replied stiffly, causing Taylor to lift an eyebrow at her then shrugged.

"It's not that important. It just suits you better." She replied, quickly moving on.

Being good at teaching people didn't mean they liked being taught.

Promptly putting the encounter out of her mind, Taylor walked to the back of the area and delved deeper into the guts of the building, until she came to what she could generously call Aspirant's office. He pretty much lived there so it was actually his bedroom - leaving only to patrol, eat, and interact with his teammates at need - but since she still held out hope for him to use his actual bedroom in the wing of the castle dedicated for such things, she chose not to refer to it as such.

"Hey, you free?" She asked, knocking carefully on the door.

"One Moment." Came the muffled voice from the other side, followed a few seconds later by the click of the door unlocking. It was a purely symbolic gesture, because really if she wanted to go through the door, she could.

Quickly opening the door and stepping through she was faced with-

"Aspirant, I love you to bits, but why is your office a rock garden with a desk in the middle of it." She asked frankly.

"...It helps me focus." Her pearlescent companion answered neutrally. An unfortunate fact of life was that when you had perfect control of your biology, you could erase verbal tics and emotional responses.

Which would matter a lot more if she didn't know Jamie.

"You just thought it looked cool to meditate in the middle of, didn't you." She asked dryly.

"My- my chi-" He tried again, dislodging himself from the rock he was sitting on and quickly leaping over the carefully organized sands beneath him to land next to her.

"Aspirant. Come on." She prodded him with a sly smile and a roll of the eyes.

She loved the guy but he was... how did she put this... he was a martial arts nerd. There wasn't a better way she could put it. Jamie was to Kung Fu what Vicky was to fashion, or Greg had been to capes. In a word - obsessed. He took to the entire thing like a man in the desert took to water. And if she was being honest, sometimes he took it just a bit too far.

"...It does look cool though." He finally admitted in a huff, which was about the limit of the emotions she could generally pull from him in casual conversation.

"Uh-huh. Real cool." She answered in amusement, before turning to him and opening a Gap to the kitchen that he stepped through without even asking where it went.

She quickly followed, bustling over to start the kettle boiling.

"How've things been?" She asked once they had both settled around the table.

"Fine." He answered immediately, shifting uncomfortably. She stared at him. She continued to do so in absolute silence until he eventually relented, because totally bodily control or not, she was pretty sure she could play the awkward silence game for way longer than any other person her age should be able to.

Courtesy of her Dad, of course.

"I am... somewhat anxious." He eventually said quietly, allowing his helmet to sort of peel away so she could see his actual face. He looked... tired. Not physically - even if he was he would easily be able to hide it - but emotionally. It was painfully recognizable to her. She'd spent a long time looking almost the exact same.

"I think you should talk to your parents Jamie. At least let them know your alive." She offered carefully, thinking of her own recent reconciliation with her Dad.

"I- I had planned to. Eventually. But I kept putting it off and things kept changing and - well now I'm afraid they'd make me give up on..." Jamie offered, waving his hands around them.

"...all this." He finished lamely.

"You know I do go to school still right? It's not that hard to manage both at once." She pointed out gently, causing the boy to flinch.

"I... would be significantly behind in my studies by this point." He said carefully.

"You're also really accustomed to talking like an ancient kung master, which might make a secret identity hard." She mused aloud.

"That- might also be true." He admitted, allowing himself to blush slightly.

Oh good. He could be teased. Huzzah.

"I could probably do... I don't know... time chamber? No too much work. I don't know if I can do charms for learning faster either..." She muttered, sinking into deep thought on the topic.

"It never ceases to amaze me how easily you will apply superhuman means to mundane problems." Jamie snarked at her. She blinked at him, her focus broken.

"I mean, I think half the reason the Bay sucks is that punching each other better is the only thing Capes seem to spend time on." She replied.

"...In my defence, it's very relaxing to do so." Jamie put forth sheepishly.

"Yeah, that's why I do it. I'm just saying is all." She said, before continuing. "Look, please just phone them or something? They don't have to know you're here, but I can see it's bugging you. They probably think you died back when the Nazi's attacked." She scolded.

"If I must." He eventually allowed.

"You must. Or I'll kick your ass." She stated flatly, then backpedalled at the sudden glint in Jamie's eyes.

"Or won't? I won't kick your ass?" She tried instead.

Jamie snorted.