Carol Dallon was livid.
No one had the right to do what they did to New Wave. Panacea was theirs! To top it off, she had been kidnapped by some freak from the Protectorate Wards, and turned into a whole damn set of bodysuits for her pleasure! This was an outrage!
"How can you let this monster roam free? She should be in the birdcage!" She yelled in the face of the director of the PRT stationed in Brockton Bay. She had them by the balls this time, she could demand anything she just knew it.
"Oh believe me. If I thought for one minute that I could keep her fox locked up, I would do so in a heartbeat." Piggot claimed with a nonplussed expression. "Unfortunately, that beast would just eat everyone inside and walk out with a smile on her face, ready to cause more trouble where I can't keep an eye on her." The bitch had the audacity to look at her like she was being stupid.
Her first instinct was to punch the arrogant woman in the kidneys, and send her back onto dialysis in the process. Sadly, she knew full well she wouldn't be able to so much as twitch without the woman knowing she was coming from what little information she had on her.
"If what you're doing now is considered keeping an eye on her, then you're complicit in her actions and I have grounds to sue you for compensation!" Carol ground out through gritted teeth. In truth, she was glad it happened to Amy and not to her daughter Victoria, but this was an opportunity she couldn't miss. It would give her entire movement exactly the kind of push it needed to finally get off the ground.
"If you think anyone on this earth is more capable of controlling the fox than the PRT and Protectorate teams at the moment, by all means, make a suggestion." The recently healed woman said with a tired sigh. "We don't want her with us any more than you do." She paused for a moment, running her hand through her hair as if she really was at her wits end with the fox. "To put it frankly, there are only two people who can successfully control the fox so far that we know of. One of them is a PRT's image consultant that bribes her to keep her busy, and the other is her master's mother."
The look she gave Carol was one of utter confusion, but one that helped calm her more than she thought it would when she continued. "Both of them seem to absolutely terrify her, even though one is simply a well dressed woman with a knack for baking, and the other is a mother with entirely too much power. I think there's is a common theme here, but we'll need Sara to confirm it for us once she's done talking to Ran over there."
Wait, what did that wench just say? There was no way she was hearing this right. Her gaze snapped to her sister's position near the rest of their kids, ready for a fight, only to see Sara threatening the fox with a sandal in an almost comical display of motherly rage.
"Cut the shit fox! I know you're not afraid of me in the slightest, but I'll be damned if you don't listen to what I have to say." Sara Pelham, her sister glaring at the fox with a furious snarl. Her bright blue eyes seemed to glow with enraged fury as her blonde bangs cast an eerie shadow on her face.
"Amy is a part of our family," Sara began, causing Carol to flinch at her tone. "What you did to her was immoral and wrong. You need to understand this!" If it wasn't for the need to get their healer back under her control, the lawyer probably would have been much more likely to just let the fox eat her and be done with it.
Unfortunately that was the problem. The absolute monster decided to take advantage of the healer rather than remove her entirely, and that was the problem. Panacea had become a horrifying monster, just like she'd always feared, and it was all that evil fox's fault.
"Ah, uh." Ran held one hand in the air, finger pointing up as her expression seemed to scream to the world that she might, in fact, have a small confession to make about the subject. "As much as I'd like to claim credit for it, this one actually wasn't my fault. Unfortunately."
Victoria, who had been standing by her cousins with a look of satisfied superiority at what she saw as the fox and her master about to be punished for their crimes, scoffed in anger. "As if. You're clearly a master with the ability to transform others into monsters, or a projection of one at least." She paused for a moment to think about her words more clearly. "There's no way it wasn't some scheme of yours to get your hands on my sister."
And now her own daughter was claiming Panacea as her sister. She really should have nipped that in the bud when they were little, but Sara was so insistent that she take her in. That her sister thought she was the best choice for her was irrelevant. Amy was the daughter of a Villain! Of course she would become a monster if given the chance. Just look at what she'd already become!
"Uh, no." Ran shook her head, her usual mysterious tone of voice swapped for a more casual tone as she looked over the group with the slightest hint of a frown tugging at her lips. "To be honest, I'm pretty sure she just snapped because of an odd power interaction, but she seemed to be having fun so I let her do what she wanted."
The fox had the audacity to sigh at them, like they were being unreasonable. Carol couldn't believe this bitch. "Besides, if I wanted a living tentacle beast suit, I would have just asked her to make me one. She was more than stressed enough from not using her power that she probably just would have said yes."
Blinking twice, the lawyer gaped at the fox. What the hell was she trying to say? Amy was stressed, so she would have just made abominations for people? That only proved that she was right. They should have murdered the child rather than let her live.
Ran let Panacea slide off her body to speak for herself while Carol was trying to recover, and what the slimy healer had to say nearly threw the lawyer into a fit. "If you wanted to have me back so much, you could have just asked. I am more than willing to remake my old self for you to play with, and she'd still have access to everything I have as well."
"That's not the point!" Sara growled through gritted teeth. Her face was red and the vein on her temple seemed to bulge just a little more than usual. "This is ridiculous! Can't you see what's wrong with this?"
Piggot looked like she was about to shoot someone as Amy Dallon was rebuilt from scratch in front of them by a slime girl. The sheer amount of horror on her face almost made Carol smile if it wasn't for the fact that she was going to have to deal with the girl again, in her own home, and there was likely no way she could get the PRT shut down if she proved to be the same as she was before.
It wasn't like she could just say she didn't want Panacea back either, because that would look suspicious as hell. Not to mention she had brought a pair of hidden cameras for Victoria and Mark to wear to make sure they had Piggot on camera when things went the way she expected. Which they both did and did not at the same time.
The brand new Amy Dallon shivered as she stood from the ground, looking around with an almost bored expression. "Well that was an experience and a half." Cloned Panacea said with a snarky drawl. "What's next, are you going to force Vicky into a magical girl costume or something equally stupid?"
Natura took that moment to stop by with a bag of McDonald's fries and a large soda in hand, taking one look around at the gathered mess before sighing. "I left for five minutes." She said with a huff. "I'd ask how you managed to fuck up so badly as to clone yourself for us in front of Piggot, who is known to have trauma over similar things, but we all know it's Ran's fault again."
Said fox looked at the newcomer with an expression of the utmost betrayal. Or maybe she just wanted food. "Hey! If you're gonna keep blaming me, I'll steal your fries!"
Definitely the food.
"Due to the fact that the Wards room is still unavailable, and because we have no idea what the hell the anomaly inside it is, we're going to be temporarily relocating the Wards to the Rig until we can set up a new headquarters." Armsmaster stated as he began the most recent team meeting. Dennis was really starting to feel bad for the poor guy, even if Dragon was able to actually help him much more than before, because there had been capital D Disasters every day since Izanami joined, and he was the one who had to deal with all that. It made him wonder if that was what was waiting for him if he graduated to the protectorate, because there was no way in hell that he was going to go through that.
"Unfortunately, while we were busy dealing with the fox again during a midnight snack run…" All of those present in the room shuddered, mostly from disgust. "A man in green power armor decided to walk through known Empire territory, and was shot at by high-caliber semi-automatic handguns by several gang members on his way through."
"Is he dead?" Izanami asked with a strange tilt of her head. That girl could be creepy as hell when she wanted to be.
"No, but a lot of Nazis are." Assault claimed from beside them with a smirk. "The guy mowed them all down in hand to hand combat, right up until Hookwolf came out to meet him." He let out a sadistic chuckle. "And you wanna know the best part?"
Dennis leaned in closer to hear what the man had to say. It was probably pretty good if assault was this happy about it. "The Murderblender dog got sawed in half not just once, but twice, and he was forced to run away with his tail between his legs on camera, to avoid being cut up a third time when the rest of the E88 refused to show up and give him a hand."
Assaults smile was positively sadistic. "You know where he decided to run off to?" He asked, clearly enjoying the conversation so far.
Vista was the one to speak up about it, after a moment of using her space fuckery to look back in time at the entirety of Brockton Bay at once. A neat trick of bending the space around light and viewing things from a distance that she had figured out from watching Ran mess with her portals. "The Merchants?"
"It is highly evident, given the available information, that Hookwolf was instructed to shake off what the public is now referring to as the Doom Slayer, by fleeing the battlefield and kiting him through both ABB and Merchant territory." Armsmaster did his best not to smile, as he knew exactly how much damage that caused. But Dragon must have been whispering some flirty tech secrets in his ears, considering his amazing mood, despite his current levels of stress.
"Did he get away, or did the junkyard dog dig his hole a bit too deep this time?" Dennis asked with a small smirk. The immediate face-palm from Izanami was definitely worth her usual punishment for him of having Ran pester him to play games later. Besides, the fox was fucking good at video games, and he needed help clearing Hyper-dimension Neptunia Re:Birth and Nekopara so that he could watch all the H-scenes in private.
"Hookwolf did his best, but between the army of gynoids from the new tinker codenamed Automata, and the veritable army of exploding Oni-Lee clones swarming him, Doom Slayer chasing him down and fighting with those, and the Merchants all being a nuisance, he was unprepared when Ran dropped on him from above, and decided to turn him into a shiny metal but plug." Dragon spoke up from Armsmaster's suit speakers with an audible grin and an air of absolute smugness. "Last I checked he's still there."
Before the Wards could process that beyond a general feeling of what the fuck, Denis' Wards phone rang, and he picked it up from his holster to check it. "Sorry, It's the hospital. I gotta take this real quick just in case."
"You can be excused from this meeting, but you'll need to read the reports on it later." Armsmaster said with a huff. That was going to be a pain, but he could deal with it.
Still Dennis nodded before heading off to accept the phone call. Once he was in the spare room, he swiped the call on, and began to talk. "Sorry about that, took me a while to get to my phone. How can I help you?" Dennis said smoothly. The only reason the hospital would call him on his wards phone is if it was an emergency and they needed him there within the hour for his father after all.
"Dennis! You wouldn't believe how good your friends have been to me."
His father called out to him with more energy than he had managed for years now. "If that silly fox friend of yours hadn't told Panacea and Natura what you told her about me, I wouldn't have woken up again today, but now I'm all healed up and ready to come home."
That was the problem. He hadn't told Ran about his father. He was much too embarrassed that he didn't have the necessary funds to hire Panacea to heal his father, even though she claimed to heal for free. The hospitals still charged for her services, but she didn't get any of it herself apparently.
The money did go to new wave, though, judging by Carol's fancy new pickup and motorcycle after Vicky crashed her mother's Audi into the house. Seriously, Amy shouldn't have to contribute so much to her family's fuckups, and he was getting off track.
"Dad, who's there with you right now?" He asked with slight trepidation in his voice. The dread began to creep up his spine as the conversation went on.
"Oh! Ran, Shogocia, Panacea, Natura, and surprisingly, a young girl they keep calling Rune is here, though Rune is vehemently rejecting the name and says she wants to be called Scathatch instead." The clueless man claimed as if there was no problem at all with this statement. He couldn't breath. His chest was so tight, because he knew was something was wrong with his father, and he couldn't tell if it was because he was fully healed, or because they had altered him in some way to make him different.
The man had been tired and dead for so long, that Dennis didn't know if this was how he was supposed to be, or if the fox had replaced his father with a replica wearing his body. A doll made in some sick twisted attempt to please him. He stumbled forwards and his power expanded, freezing time for all things around him as if they were a still frame in a holographic movie.
He moved through time-stopped space with ease, ghosting through walls and doors to make it back to his father. When he finally made it back to the hospital and right into the room to see his father, the smiles and teary faces of the time stopped occupants brought him to his senses.
And then time resumed, and everything he had walked through, every single wall, door, car, person, or random object disintegrated explosively along his path.
It was at that point that Ran came back in, two coffee cups crushed in her hands as she appeared, ready for battle. "Wha-Dennis? You okay!?where's the bombs!?"
Well he was most definitely fucked. That was extremely far off from what he expected to happen that day.
Kitsu: Yup. As a side note, I have a Kitsu's Club Discord for those of you who wish to join and chat about various story ideas, share your own stories, or get together with other authors and artists to potentially collaborate together and make some really cool shit!
Kitsu: Yup. *snipped the rest. If you wanna see it, go to Questionable Questing.*
Kitsu: Yup. *snipped the rest. If you wanna see it, go to Questionable Questing.*
Kitsu: Yup. *snipped the rest. If you wanna see it, go to Questionable Questing.*
Kitsu: Yup. *snipped the rest. If you wanna see it, go to Questionable Questing.*