It Gets Worse Pt 18 (Patreon)

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Amy

Amy looked down at the city they were currently hovering over. Or rather, Eidolon was hovering and Amy was standing on some kind of force-field platform. This wasn't something totally out of her experience—Aunt Sarah did this sort of thing from time to time—but she wasn't absolutely used to it. Besides, they were higher up than she was comfortable with. Vicky always flew low and slow with her.

"Boston?" she asked. "What are we doing in Boston?"

"Before I answer that, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions and I need you to answer honestly." Eidolon's voice held a tone she'd never heard from the veteran hero. He sounded almost … uncertain. Which was ridiculous. Eidolon was about as likely to be uncertain as she was to start leading her own superhero team.

"Um, sure?" she ventured. She was way out of her depth now. Heroes didn't come to her for advice, they came to her for healing. But it was Eidolon asking. She didn't dare say no; not from fear but from respect.

He looked away over the city, apparently avoiding her gaze. "Do you think I do absolutely everything I can as a hero? Make the best use of my powers for the greatest good?"

"Well, y—" she began, then stopped herself. While the quick, facile answer was the one that came immediately to mind, she didn't want to just speak without thinking. So she paused, and thought about it. "Um. Is this a trick question? Because it feels like the answer you've got in mind isn't the one I'm thinking of."

"I know exactly how you feel," he said firmly. "Let me ask you another one. Do you think that right now, you're making the best possible use of your powers for the greatest good in the world? Is there something more, or something different, you could be doing with your powers that would reach more people than you're doing now?" Although she couldn't see his eyes, somehow she could feel his gaze as he looked back at her.

"I—" She paused again, uncertain. "I heal people," she said, trying not to sound defensive. "Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night and walk to the hospital so I can heal a few more. But it's never enough. It'll never be enough."

"No, it's not," he said flatly. "Someone I know asked me those questions not long ago, and I haven't been able to answer them to my satisfaction. Then she asked me another one."

He stopped talking then, and looked broodingly down over Boston. Amy waited for a few moments, until her patience ran out. "Well, what did she ask you?"

"Oh, sorry." He turned to face her once more, as if he'd forgotten her presence for a moment. "It was a hypothetical. What if Legend had decided that his power to create bright lights was good enough for him, and he chose to spend his superhero career walking people home from the supermarket after dark? He'd undoubtedly be good at it, but would he really be making the best use of his time?"

"Well, no, duh." This time, the response came out without Amy having to think about it. "He'd be wasting about ninety percent of his … wait a minute." A lightbulb had belatedly flashed on inside her head, changing her entire perspective of what Eidolon had just said. "Is that about me? Am I Legend in that?"

Eidolon chuckled lightly, but there wasn't much humour in it. "Actually, I think I'm the one it was aimed at, but you just proved my friend's point. That particular statement's a shotgun; it's got a very wide range of effect. There's a whole lot of capes it could apply to. That includes me. And, it seems, you."

"Let's say that it's not totally incorrect at the moment," Amy hedged. "You've asked some awkward questions and I've given you my best answers for the moment. So why are we in Boston? Or rather above Boston?"

"We're here because there are a couple of capes in this city I need to talk to," Eidolon said. "If we're going to graduate from walking people home at night, we need a little help."

"Yeah, I get that." Amy still had trouble fitting her head around the concept. However, as tempting as it was to dismiss it altogether, it was Eidolon who'd raised it in the first place. Sure, he wasn't the most charismatic of the Triumvirate—Legend held that title more or less by default—but there was still a sense of inevitability about what he said. "So who are we going to see?" She tried to remember who was in the Boston Protectorate. "Someone in the Protectorate? Or is it one of the Wards?"

"Neither." The force field extended around them, forming a sphere. "Brace yourself. This may get a little loud."

"Loud? What—?" Amy didn't get any farther, because they teleported again, and her ears were assaulted with the sound of thunder. Or rather, machine-gun fire. Slapping her hands over her ears, she stared at the sparks being struck from the exterior of the force-field, and the continuous muzzle-flashes from the machine-guns firing at them. Machine-guns protruding from the walls of what otherwise was quite a well-appointed office.

Eidolon gestured and the guns fell silent at the same time as all the lights went out. A desk which had been in the process of motoring down through a recess in the floor also stopped moving. The force-field bubble, now lighting the room with a soft green glow, wafted toward the desk where a heavy screen of what Amy presumed was bulletproof glass had already interposed itself between them and the person crouching behind the desk. That person, Amy finally saw, wore a mask of metal and wood as well as a white business suit.

"Accord?" she asked in disbelief. "We're here to talk to Accord?"

"We are," Eidolon said. He raised his voice. "We are not here to attack or even arrest you, Accord. I'm here to seek your assistance on a sensitive matter."

Accord stood up and brushed off his suit jacket. Amy realised the man was even shorter than her, by several inches. His expression as he stared up at the two capes was clearly replicated by the movement of the metal shards that made up his mask. "Most people have the good manners to make a prior appointment." His tone was stiffly offended.

Amy was still blinking at the sheer arrogance of the man when Eidolon replied. "I would have," he said blandly. "However, I was unsure if you would accept such an appointment at face value, and I would rather move things along. I apologise for my intrusion, but I need you to make a plan for me."

Behind his mask, Accord's eyes widened. Amy recognised the same expression she'd made when Eidolon had first approached her, and several times since then. "You are joking with me, I think." She was impressed with the way he almost managed to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

"Not in the slightest." Eidolon drifted to the floor, then stepped through the force-field bubble while leaving Amy inside. "I want to solve world hunger, and I need your advice on how to proceed."

Wait, he wants to do what? Amy's jaw dropped at the revelation. When Eidolon thought big, he thought big. It was definitely a step-up from being 'just' a superhero, even a world-renowned one. Solving world hunger was such a huge deal, she doubted anyone could get a grasp on the intricacies involved. Not even Accord could—

Accord's chin came up. "Well, it's about time."

"What?" blurted Amy, astonished almost beyond words.

Eidolon took a step forward. "So you'll help me? You'll make a plan?" The excitement was plain in his voice. "How long will it take?"

"No time at all." Accord's voice was scornful. "It's already done. I constructed that plan six years ago. And now you finally get around to doing something about it?"

"Six … years?" Eidolon sounded somewhat taken aback. "That's how long you've been a villain. Why would a villain make such a plan?"

Amy wondered if Accord had ever taken acting lessons. The sigh he let out was positively Shakespearean in its expressiveness. "I wasn't a villain when I made that plan." Dumbass, his tone said clearly. "I became a villain so that I could finance it. Because my superiors in the PRT were supremely uninterested in even looking at it, let alone passing it up the chain."

Amy's worldview was taking a few knocks today. "Wait, what now? The PRT had a plan to solve world hunger six years ago and didn't act on it?" He had to be lying.

Accord turned to face her. "Interrupting a conversation is rude, Panacea. Don't do it again. But to answer your question: yes. I presented the plan; they rejected it. They considered that meeting my work quotas and not 'wasting time'—" Somehow he managed to slot the quote marks into the sentence without using his hands. "—was more important than merely saving the starving children of the world."

Perhaps it was irritation about being spoken to so curtly, but Amy decided that Accord didn't even care about the starving kids. He probably just wants to be proven right.

Either Eidolon didn't share her low opinion of the man, or he was more concerned with results than motivations. "I need that plan," he said, his voice tight with emotion. "Is it up to date?"

"As of eight fifty-four this morning," the villain assured him. "Who are you going to be presenting it to? The President? Or the United Nations? Because I have strategies planned out for either presentation."

"Neither one." Eidolon gestured, and a series of force-field steps appeared next to the desk, allowing Accord to climb up from the lower level. "I'm going to implement it myself, and be damned with everyone who says it can't be done."

Accord climbed the steps and faced off against the Triumvirate hero, a foot shorter but not backing down in the slightest. "Then you are wasting my time. What you are proposing to do is impossible, without the money to set it in motion or the appropriate infrastructure to handle the collection and distribution. Or did you happen to have three point one trillion dollars at your disposal?"

Amy was pretty sure that nobody had that sort of loose change lying around, but Eidolon merely tightened his lips a little. "Why don't you let me see the plan first, and we'll see what's impossible and what's merely very difficult."

"Very well." Accord bit the words off as if they offended him. "Why don't we do just that." He gestured at the building around them. "You will, of course, restore the electricity first. My safe is set up so that loss of power locks it down."

As they walked off, not quite arguing in oh-so-polite tones, Amy began to wonder what she'd signed up for.

Taylor

The last time I'd laughed so hard was when Sophia had managed to tangle herself and four boys up with duct tape while chasing me. Of course, that incident was on a par with earlier the same day, when Emma and Madison got themselves stuck in the toilets. I hadn't known about my power then, but it didn't make Lisa's tale any less funny.

"So—so wait," I gasped, leaning against Lisa, my knees weak from the laughter. "You were trying to get Brian's number when you poured paint all over yourself?" Tears were streaming down my face, and I'd handed off Chick Norris to Rachel so I didn't have to worry about him.

Glory Girl nodded, her face probably redder than mine was right then. "Yeah, um, sorry," she mumbled. "I didn't mean to move in on—"

"Oh, you're not moving in on anything," I managed, in between giggles. "I only met him today." I took a deep breath and stood up straight. It was hard to say whether I was interested in him as a boy, or if I was just lost in aesthetic appreciation. But one thing was for sure: I certainly wasn't going to say anything to anyone about it.

"Pfft, hah," Lisa retorted, her eyes twinkling. "I've seen the way you look at him. If you're not interested, then I'm Legend in disguise."

Oh, god. She did not just say that. I blushed furiously. "Shut up!" I hissed. Vaguely, I wondered why my power wasn't taking revenge on her for my embarrassment. What if it's on her side about this? That was a kind of scary thought.

"But wait. What if I'm not—" Brian broke off, a worried look crossing his face. "Uh, I'm not saying I'm not interested, Taylor, but you know, we only met today. I mean, what if I get to know you, and the chemistry just isn't there?"

Which was actually a good point. Popular culture liked to portray teenaged boys as being interested, period. But they were people, too. They had likes and dislikes, just the same as everyone else. And it was entirely possible for a guy not to have feelings for me. In fact, it was downright plausible. I was certain he would do his best to let me down gently, but I had no idea how my power would take it. Would I end up being an accidental stalker if the rejection hurt me too much? Would I keep getting thrown into his path? Would he end up getting thrown into mine? I decided I didn't like that idea at all.

Unfortunately, I had no real idea how to handle the situation. I liked Brian well enough, for someone I'd known for less than a day. He was polite to me, and I couldn't get enough of checking out his abs through his t-shirt, but those weren't exactly a sound basis for building any sort of relationship on. Worse, this had the potential to cross the line from sweet to creepy real fast, especially if he got the idea he had to be nice to me or else. I wasn't quite sure what form the 'or else' might take (and I sincerely hoped it would never have to come up) but I couldn't help remembering what my power had done to other people who'd tried to hurt me. Even scarier was the fact that I'd never had a relationship. I had no idea how to do one, or even if I should be thinking about it right now.

"Taylor." Lisa's voice cut through my mounting worries. "Breathe."

"What?" I squeaked, looking over at her.

Her smile gave me some assurance. "It's okay. You don't hate Brian, do you?"

"No!" I said at once. "I just …" I trailed off. I wasn't quite sure what I did think about Brian, but I knew that I didn't hate him.

"Good." She beamed at the both of us. "How about you both just take it easy and see where it goes, then?"

That was easy for her to say. I was just about to give her a dirty look when Glory Girl said, "So wait. If he's not your boyfriend …" She looked from me to Brian. "I mean, if you two aren't dating, are you doing anything Saturday ni—what the fuck?"

I blinked as I realised that she now had a white splatter on her shoulder, where there hadn't been one before. She twisted her head around to stare at it, then up at the sky, as if searching for the offending bird.

"Well, well, well. Someone's power's got a problem with it," Lisa observed, giving me a broad wink. Her smirk should've been reclassified as a controlled substance; she was definitely riding a high.

"It's not like I can fucking control it," I told her through gritted teeth. Though it was kind of funny.

"Seriously, fucking birdshit?" Glory Girl tugged at her sleeve so she could get a better view of the damage. "I've been doing this for years, and I've never been shat on even once. Motherfucker."

I heard a weird wheezing, snorting sound and looked around to see Alec leaning against the wall, holding his sides and laughing so hard he could barely breathe. "That, right there," he managed. "That's what it feels like." Still laughing, he slid down the wall until he was sitting on the pavement.

I couldn't help but wonder whether he meant me or Glory Girl.

Amy

"So, did you get what you want?" asked Amy as Eidolon teleported them back into the open air.

He didn't answer, instead continuing to concentrate on a stack of three-ring binders several feet high. A flickering blue glow hovered over the folders, with a single insubstantial tendril disappearing into Eidolon's helmet around the centre of his forehead.

She gave him a count of ten, then cleared her throat loudly. Startled, he looked around as the blue glow cut off. "What?"

"Did you get what you want?" she repeated. "What is all that, anyway? Just the plans to end world hunger, or did you steal his plans for world domination as well?"

"Oddly enough, he didn't have any plans for world domination," Eidolon mused, sounding as though he didn't quite believe what he was saying. "But he did have plans for ending the energy problem as well as disease, overpopulation, government inefficiency, and several other issues. Including, and I have a hard time accepting this, crime."

Amy blinked. "Crime? The crime lord had a plan for ending the crime problem? Isn't that kind of … self-defeating?" She thought for a moment. "Or did he build in loopholes to make sure he wouldn't be affected?"

Eidolon rubbed his chin. "That's the strange thing. He didn't. He actually seemed sincere when he said he went into crime to finance his plans."

"Which include bringing crime under control." Amy shook her head. "I am never going to understand the supervillain mindset. Anyway, you say he had plans for all that other stuff as well?"

"Oh, yes." For the first time, the bemused tone dropped away and excitement emerged. "And they all look solid. Given the right resources, I can make every single one of these work."

"What, really? Wow." Amy stared at the binders. They looked remarkably innocuous for something that had the potential to turn the world on its ear.

"Exactly. I still can't believe that nobody has actually looked at them before." The frustration was evident in his voice.

"Well, you know, supervillain." Amy frowned as something occurred to her. "So what did you do with him?"

"Nothing." There was a note of suppressed excitement in his voice. "I told him what I intended to do, and I left him drawing up plans to make it easier."

"Which reminds me." Amy gave Eidolon a pointed stare. "You still haven't told me what part I play in your plans."

"I haven't?" He sounded honestly surprised. "You haven't figured it out?"

"Well, no." If he'd been dropping clues, Amy had missed them all.

"Huh. Well, I'll give you a hint. A little bird told me that your powers include biokinesis, not just healing. Hold tight."

And with that, they teleported again. Amy blinked, a little dazzled by the transition from bright light to dim. A furious barking and growling arose, and she looked around to see a monstrous creature assaulting the force-field bubble. It was about six feet long and had the massive shoulders and front limbs of a gorilla, and the head and teeth of an oversized dog.

Eidolon gestured and the gorilla-dog thing was tossed away from the bubble. Amy saw a flicker of movement at the far end of the room and pointed. "What's that?"

"The person we're here to see." By the time Eidolon had finished speaking, another one of his force fields was bringing the person toward them. Dressed in a dirty lab coat, the guy was lanky with a mess of uncombed blond hair. To Amy's critical eye, he didn't look like much. "Good afternoon, Blasto," Eidolon greeted him politely. "I apologise for the unconventional entry, but I'm not interested in wasting time."

Amy blinked and stared covertly. This was Blasto? This was one of the guys she was scared she might turn into one day?

"Let me go and I won't release a plague that'll turn your lungs inside out," grunted the guy, straining fruitlessly against the force-field holding him.

Eidolon sighed. "One, you don't do plagues. Two, we'll both survive it, and then you get a kill order. Wouldn't you rather get a Nobel Peace Prize?"

That line was almost guaranteed to make anyone stop struggling and stare. Blasto was no exception. "Excuse me, fuckin' what again?"

"I want to solve world hunger," Eidolon said patiently. "You're going to facilitate this by creating the exact organism that I want. Panacea is here to check your work and make any improvements you have trouble managing. If we succeed, and we will succeed, you will never have to do crime again. There will be people—legitimate businesses and concerns—lining up around the block to throw money at you."

Blasto fell silent while he appeared to think this over. "What do you want me to make?" he asked eventually.

Amy couldn't see Eidolon's face, but his smile was plain to hear in his voice. "I thought you'd never ask."

Toronto

Dragonslayer Base

Saint

"This is interesting."

Geoff looked around from where he was tinkering with his suit. "Hmm?"

Mags pointed at the screen. "Remember that sub-program that Dragon had for picking up anomalous patterns of buying certain equipment? The one we shut down back in oh-nine so it wouldn't get a line on our operations?"

"Yeah," he said, though he didn't really recall the program she was referring to. "What about it?"

"It caught my eye and I opened it up again, to see what was going on with it. Turns out that just before we killed it, it got a hit. One she never got the chance to follow up on."

"Translation, please." But he put down the screwdriver and headed over to where she sat at the console, wiping his hands on a rag.

"Couple-three years ago, there was someone in this dinky little town just over the border in New York State, buying up stuff through proxies and getting them delivered to a certain address. The thing is, the town's been abandoned for ten years, ever since the Nine paid them a visit."

"You just found an abandoned Tinker base." Geoff's eyebrows rose.

She tilted her head. "That's what it looks like."

"Excellent." Leaning down, he gave her a quick kiss. "Get the vehicles ready. We're going on a road trip."

Amy

"Okay, so he's designing a food plant," Amy said carefully as they lifted off from Blasto's hideout. "One that gives you all the nutrition you need. It grows quickly and easily from the sub-Arctic to the dry tropics. In fact, it thrives in inhospitable surroundings." She looked at Eidolon, wondering if she'd missed anything important.

"But it doesn't do so well in fertile areas," Eidolon pointed out. "Where the locals are already planting wheat or corn or any other food crop, it doesn't compete. So it won't grow out of control and force other crops out."

"Which I never would have thought of," Amy conceded.

"Nor did I," admitted Eidolon. "Mouse Protector came up with the idea of the plant in the first place, and Accord specified the no-competition aspect. And the need to make them genetically robust, whatever that means."

"I think it's so a single disease or parasite can't just wipe them out?" ventured Amy. "That way you don't get a situation where they replace every other food plant in the area and then die of the plant equivalent of the common cold."

"That would be very bad indeed," Eidolon agreed gravely. "We'll be coming back tomorrow to see what he's come up with. In the meantime, is there anything you can think of that I've missed?"

"There's only one thing, but it's a really long shot." Amy hesitated. "In fact, I wouldn't even be considering it if you weren't working with villains already."

"You know another parahuman who could help model the food plant?" The excitement was plain in Eidolon's voice.

"Capable of it, I guess. Whether she's willing to help and can be trusted to do it?" Amy was beginning to have second thoughts about even bringing up the idea. "I really don't know."

Eidolon was no dummy. "Bonesaw," he said flatly. "You're thinking of Bonesaw."

Amy nodded. "Like I said, long shot."

"That's not just a 'long shot'." Eidolon obviously didn't like the idea any more than Amy did. "That's over the horizon."

"But she is a genius when working with biology." Amy felt it necessary to point this out, just for the sake of fairness. "She had diseases stored in her that don't exist in nature."

"Which she would've been perfectly happy to use on the city." Eidolon shook his head. "You're not improving her case."

"I'm not trying to." Amy grimaced. "I'm just making sure we've got all the facts before we make a decision here."

"Well, my decision is 'hell no'," Eidolon stated. "Not until we're absolutely certain we can't do it any other way. And maybe not even then." He shook his head. "Blasto, at least, knows to restrain himself from earning a kill order."

"That's fair," Amy said. "Do you really think we can pull this off? Solve things like world hunger using our powers?" It was an oddly exciting concept. She wasn't totally sure why she hadn't thought of it before.

"I think we can." Eidolon paused, then spoke again. "I hope we can. The last time someone tried this sort of thing was when Sphere was building his moonbase." He didn't have to elaborate on the fate of Sphere, or the moonbase. "Since then, punching villains has become the norm. I want to change that. If we can get a million of these food plants into famine-stricken areas around the world, we could feed tens of millions. Save literally millions of lives at a stroke."

Millions of lives. He wasn't wrong. Amy could really see it happening. Of course, it would require Blasto to get the food plant just right, but that was what her job was about. "Why haven't we done this before? Why haven't I done this before?" She wasn't sure if the question was rhetorical or not.

Eidolon answered it anyway. "Because we didn't know how. Because nobody asked the right question at the right time. And because nobody thought of working with villains."

Amy couldn't help herself. Abruptly, she flung her arms around Eidolon and hugged him tightly. There was hidden armour there, but she didn't care. He tensed for a moment, then gingerly patted her on the back. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, her voice muffled against his cloak. "I just … we're gonna do so much good, aren't we?"

This time, his back-patting was less awkward. Then he ruffled her hair and chuckled warmly. "That's certainly the idea, yes."

Glory Girl

Dallon Household

" … so then, there she is, standing next to the wreckage of the piano …" Vicky paused to watch the reaction of her audience.

"That's just fallen on Jack Slash," Crystal filled in, then shook her head. "I am so jealous I didn't get to see that."

Vicky grinned. "It was all kinds of amazing, yeah. When the piano hit, Jack Slash's knife bounced off her shoulder and ended up in her hand like she'd rehearsed it. Then she bowed. And then, all these butterflies came out of nowhere and landed on her. I mean, fuck, I got the shivers, right then."

"Iiii ssseeennnssse a giiiirrrlll cruuussshhh," Eric teased her in a sing-song voice.

She gave him a dirty look. "It wasn't like that," she snapped. "I mean, I try to do the whole image thing so people won't mess with me, but she just pulled it off perfectly. Anyone watching one of those videos is gonna say 'fuck that' and run the other direction."

"Well, anyone with any sense," Crystal corrected her. "But you have to admit, there's a lot of capes out there who see a challenge and leap feet-first into it."

"A lot fewer in Brockton Bay, now," Vicky pointed out. "She took out the big hitters in the Empire by letting herself be kidnapped by them. I heard a rumour that Coil turned himself in to the PRT because of those anvils outside the Forsberg Gallery. Oni Lee got blown up and Lung got tarred and feathered. The Undersiders are now literally her best friends. The Merchants got themselves killed off by that other guy. The rest of the Empire helped take out the Nine, and are now asking if they can be heroes, pretty please. And Uber and L33t apparently trapped the Siberian in a Ghostbusters ghost trap, but nobody knows what the fuck's going on there." She paused for breath, and to savour the look of utter bogglement on the faces of her cousins.

" … well, fuck." Eric's statement was right on point.

"Yeah, I—" Crystal's words were cut off when the front door banged open and Amy came in. Her hair was a little messier than normal, and she had a slightly wild-eyed look about her. "Holy shit, Amy. Are you all right?"

"I'm better than all right." Amy's voice was positively lyrical. "I'm gonna help save the whole fucking world!" Darting over to Vicky, she grabbed her sister and spun her around before planting a firm kiss on her lips. "And I've always wanted to do that, so there." Releasing Vicky, whose brain had just locked up and skidded off the road, she headed toward the kitchen. "Mom? Dad? Anyone home? Wait till you hear what I've been doing!"

"Buh … buh … buh … wha?" Vicky's thoughts were scrabbling for traction, but they kept sliding in all directions. Amy had just kissed her. Amy had just kissed her. Amy had just kissed her. Absolutely nothing about that made any kind of sense.

"Well, fuck." Crystal's expression now held a level of secret glee. "That just happened."

"Iiii ssseeennnssse a giiiirrrlll cruuussshhh … "

Vicky was still incapable of speech, but Crystal stepped up. "Shut up, Eric." Unfortunately, her smirk told Vicky that this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

Amy

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

(The Next Day)

Vicky was still giving Amy the side-eye as they came down to breakfast, but Amy said nothing. She wanted her sister to be the one to crack first, because that way she'd be able to control what she said. She was already regretting that impulsive kiss, just a little, but not so much that she wished she hadn't done it. Done was done, and now Vicky knew how she felt.

From the attitudes of Carol and Mark, neither one knew of the kiss. Carol seemed a little wary around her, but that was probably due to the fact that she'd significantly participated in the capture of Bonesaw and the death of Jack Slash. The PRT had already called her up and asked where she wanted her share of the reward money to be banked. She knew her parents weren't reacting to the Eidolon situation, because she hadn't been stupid enough to give them chapter and verse on that one. 'Helping Eidolon work out a way to feed lots of people at once' seemed suitably benign. There was no way in hell she was going to let Carol know she was working with Blasto and (sort of) Accord.

"Morning, Amy girl," Mark greeted her. He seemed to be tracking well, so she figured he'd taken his meds today. "So, do you know this Butterfly at all, or did she just happen to be there at the same time that you were?" He turned the paper he was holding, to show her the picture on the front page; a blown-up image of Taylor straightening from the bow, with butterflies all over her.

"Actually, I've never met her before yesterday," Amy said truthfully. "She seemed nice, though. And if Tattletale was right, her power set the whole thing up. Including making sure that me and Vicky were in the right place at the right time."

"That power is fucking bullshit," muttered Vicky, reaching across to grab the cereal.

"Language," Carol said automatically. "Isn't that a little far-fetched? I mean, to arrange matters that finely?" She paused. "Wait, Tattletale? Isn't she a villain?"

Amy snickered. "Not any more, thanks to Butterfly. When I got home last night, I looked online. That piano that fell on Jack Slash? It was shipped in to the gallery days ago. She swears blind that nothing that happens around Butterfly is a coincidence. Nothing." Her grin widened to a smirk as she pretended to brush something off of her sleeve. "Isn't that right, Vicky?"

The spoon in Vicky's hand bent with a quiet creaking of overstressed metal. "Not. Fucking. Fair."

"Victoria Dallon!" Carol's brows pulled together. "If you can't refrain from using that sort of language, or using super-strength at the table, you are grounded."

"It's her fault, Mom!" Vicky pointed at Amy. "She started it!"

"How did she start it, Vicky?" asked Mark. He looked at Amy. "What's she talking about?"

Amy looked at Vicky, but her sister shut her mouth and stared down at the table. Well, if you want to play it that way … She cleared her throat. "Well, you know how she got paint in her hair? There was a guy there that she was kind of showing off for. Turns out that he's one of the Undersiders, who've basically attached themselves to Butterfly since she wrapped up Lung for the PRT. And Vicky was kind of interested in him. And when she went to ask him out yesterday, a bird crapped on her shoulder. Which is Butterfly's way of saying 'back off unless you want something worse to happen to you'."

There was silence at the table, except for a faint sound that Amy eventually identified as Vicky grinding her teeth together. "Wait," said Mark slowly. "If Vicky hadn't got paint in her hair, yesterday would've gone a lot differently, because Jack Slash would've recognised her."

"Uh huh," Amy confirmed. "I bet if someone started looking, they'd find a whole lot of coincidences coming together to make this all happen." She looked across at Vicky with a certain amount of compassion. "I'm not sure how to say this, Vicky, but everything that happened was because Butterfly made sure it would. Including your hair and your shoulder."

"Everything?" Vicky raised her head and looked directly at Amy. "What about what happened when you came in last night? Was that something that Butterfly made happen?"

Amy couldn't meet her eyes. "Maybe? I'd just been helping Eidolon figure out how to save the world, so I was kind of on a high right then."

Mark looked at them curiously. "What happened when you came in last night, Amy?"

"Never mind that," Carol interrupted, her tone brisk. "Are you saying that Eidolon's efforts to save the world were put in motion by Butterfly? Because I have trouble believing that."

"I dunno." Amy shrugged. "But he was looking for me, and he did show up right when I needed him to, and Tattletale did say that Butterfly's power never did one thing when it could be doing three."

"But why the hell would Butterfly want you to do that?" Vicky looked unhappy. "It's not like she even knows us."

"I don't think it matters," Amy said. "Tattletale said something about her power having a mind of its own. She seemed very amused about it."

"Well, I'm not," Vicky groused. "I think—"

What she thought was not to be revealed, because at that moment, there was a knock on the door. "I'll get it," Amy said hastily. Getting up from the table, she headed for the door. Opening it revealed Eidolon standing on the doorstep.

"Good morning, Panacea," he said politely. "Are you ready to go?"

"Uh, no. Can you wait a few minutes?" she asked. "Oh, and come in." Stepping aside from the door, she ushered him inside. "I've just got to finish breakfast and get dressed."

"Certainly," he said, and followed her into the dining room. "Good morning, Brandish, Flashbang, Glory Girl," he greeted her family. "Don't bother getting up."

"Eidolon!" It secretly amused Amy that the ever-controlled Carol was more than a little flustered by a Triumvirate member showing up on the doorstep unannounced. "Uh, sit down, please. Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee?"

"I'm fine, thanks," he replied. "As soon as Panacea is ready, we'll be going."

"Going where?" asked Mark. "You understand, Amy didn't give us too many details about where she went yesterday."

"That's because I asked her not to." Eidolon's tone was polite, but the unspoken meaning was plain to all. You don't need to know. "There are details about what we're trying to achieve that don't need to be aired at the moment."

Amy was glad Eidolon had put it that way. She had no idea how Carol would react to the revelation that she and Eidolon were working with two supervillains to solve world hunger, but it wouldn't be good. There wasn't anything Carol could actually do to stop them going ahead with it, but she could certainly make it uncomfortable for Amy. God, imagine if we'd actually brought Bonesaw in on it, and she found out. She'd burst a blood vessel.

She finished her cereal and finished her orange juice in one long swallow, then jumped up from the table. "I'll be one minute," she promised. Dashing upstairs, she headed for her room. But as fast as she was, Vicky was faster; her sister caught up with her halfway down the corridor.

"Ames, what's going on?" Amy tried to ignore her sister, but Vicky grabbed her by the arm and spun her around. "Amy, talk to me! You've been acting all weird since you went off with Eidolon. You ..." She half-turned her head and lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. "Kissed me! What the hell was that about?"

Amy took a deep breath and turned to look at her sister. "That was nothing to do with Eidolon and everything to do with you and me," she stated flatly. "Now, if you don't mind, I want to get dressed."

"We're not done here!" insisted Vicky. "I want answers and I want them now."

That declaration was so cliché that Amy couldn't help rolling her eyes. "Fine," she said. "But I am gonna get dressed so if you want to keep talking, we're going into my room. And I'll be changing in front of you." Despite the fact that she was feeling more irritation than attraction to Vicky right then, she managed a passable leer. "Of course, if that's what floats your boat …"

Vicky visibly recoiled, which saddened Amy at the same time as it justified her decision to make that particular comment. "No!" she whispered harshly in a tone that was possibly more audible than normal speech. "I don't feel that way about you! And you shouldn't feel that way about me, either!"

"Don't care. I feel that way anyway." Amy made the half-truth sound light-hearted. It was a fact that she couldn't help how she felt. It was also a fact that she cared about Vicky's opinion of her. However, after finding out the utterly world-changing scope of the project she was embarking on with Eidolon, she'd decided that hiding her feelings had done her no good. It was time to declare herself, loud and proud. Of course, now she was coming down off that high a little, she was wondering if she could maybe have been a little quieter and more humble, but done was done. And if Vicky was ever to accept the way Amy felt, first she had to know about it. I'm adopted, and we're both sixteen, so it's not even illegal.

Unimpeded by Vicky this time, she turned to go into her room. Vicky didn't follow, which she'd both expected to happen and hoped that it wouldn't. A dozen night-time fantasies went down the drain as she closed her bedroom door.

Legend

Protectorate Base, New York

Legend covered his eyes with one hand, then took it away and looked again. The results hadn't changed. At the far end of the firing range, the animatronic target representing an enemy cape was utterly unmarked. "This was supposed to be a routine target practice," he said to the assembled Wards. "How is it that none of you managed to hit the perp?"

They immediately broke into a series of excuses, talking over each other. "Whoa, whoa," he interjected, holding up both hands. "One at a time. Flechette?"

The dark-haired girl scowled. "I should've hit it. I never miss, normally. But my hair blew across my eyes."

Legend looked sceptically at her hair, which was currently bound back. "Blew across your eyes?"

"I tied it back," she insisted. "But it got loose, just at the wrong moment."

"Understood," he said, while noting that there should've been no air movement to blow the hair in the first place. "Jouster?"

One by one, the other Wards gave their excuses for missing what should've been a gimme target. At the end of it, Legend wasn't sure if they were all trying to prank him, or if every single Ward under his care had come down with a case of pure bad luck. That phrase nudged something in the back of his mind, but he ignored it. The situation at hand needed to be dealt with first.

"All right, I've heard enough." He cleared his throat. "I'm going to arrange for a live-fire exercise. Each of you is going to bring your A-game. Real targets that you're really allowed to destroy. We'll be looking at max damage and max range from each of you. Clear?"

Whoops of excitement arose, which pleased him. Wards worked better with good morale. He liked them all; they were good kids. If they could be shown with the live-fire exercise that they really could hit the targets they were aiming at, they wouldn't be second-guessing themselves at the wrong moment in the field.

He hoped.

Uber

fzt

"Ow!"

Uber looked up from perusing the online catalogue. He put down the pen he'd been using to note down the gaming equipment he was going to purchase once the reward money from the PRT came in—their apology note had been rather gracious, he had to admit—and looked over toward L33t's workshop with a frown.

"What are you up to now?" he called out, feeling mildly irritated. "I thought you were going to give Tinkering a rest for a little while, now that your good luck's all run out."

"I was going to," L33t protested. He leaned out through the doorway, shaking one hand vigorously. Uber knew the signs. Something he'd been working on had bitten him. "But then I got the idea to maybe cannibalise one luck storage pack to fix the other."

Uber stood up from the desk. "What part of 'you can't fix stuff any more' don't you understand? Bro, we're richer than our wildest dreams, here. We've even got a shot at going hero. Shit, the PRT's giving the Empire a chance to prove themselves. We don't have to do that stuff anymore." He didn't say what he was really thinking; it would be the height of irony for a Tinkering accident to kill off his best buddy just as they made it into the big time.

"No, you don't get it!" L33t looked more excited than he had since the packs had burned out. "It shocked me, so there's still charge in it, which means the circuitry isn't totally dead!"

"Well, okay, yeah, but it also means it can shock you," Uber pointed out as rationally as he could. "This is not a good thing."

"I'll be more careful," L33t promised. "But what if the luck storage coils weren't burned out? What if they've still got all that luck in them?"

Uber rolled his eyes. "Didn't you hear Tattletale? We only got to use the luck energy because her power felt like giving us something to do, instead of doing everything itself."

"Maybe there's still something we've got to do with it," L33t insisted. "If her power wanted those packs dead, they'd be dead, yeah?"

On the one hand, L33t had a point. On the other, Uber felt extremely dubious about trying to second-guess a power so capricious and powerful that it had tarred and feathered a cape who'd gone up against Leviathan. "... well, okay," he said eventually. "Just … try not to get us both killed, okay? I'd like to survive to spend my share of the reward money."

"Yeah, yeah, good point." L33t went back into his workshop. Moments later, Uber heard a zzzzzt followed by "Whaaarrrgh!"

This time, he broke into a run.

Amy

"You and your sister seemed to be ill at ease with each other."

Amy looked around at Eidolon as they rose into the air above Brockton Bay. "I'm not sure if I want to talk about it."

"That's fair." He clasped his hands behind his back. "I was just thinking, if there was anything you needed to talk about, I'm ready to listen."

This was not the Eidolon that Amy was used to. He was still intense, but in a different way. She'd never ever heard of him offering to help someone else with a personal problem before. "Um … I don't even know how to talk about it."

"Is it about what we're doing?" he asked reasonably. "I can understand if she's been pressing you for details you're unable to give her."

"No, actually," she replied honestly. "She's kind of impressed that I'm working with you, but I just told everyone that it involves feeding the hungry and saving the world in a vague sort of way, and they're all fine with that. It's something else. Something I did."

"That's fine," he assured her. "If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to. Teleporting now."

She braced herself; there was a green flash and an instant later they were over Boston. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that."

"I was a little sad when I realised that I was used to it," Eidolon confessed. "I went from 'Whoo! Look what I can do!' to 'Yeah, still doing this'. I mean, it's a huge responsibility to use all this power I have, but I wish I could still marvel at it."

Amy laughed without meaning to. "Wow, yeah. I know exactly how that feels. I wonder how many capes go through that and get depressed from it." She took a deep breath. "Uh, can I ask you something? About relationships?"

He turned to stare at her, or at least his helmet swivelled in her direction. "Go ahead, but I'm not exactly an expert."

Which didn't surprise Amy, but she ploughed ahead anyway. "So there's this person I'm really interested in, but, uh … is it better to let them know how you feel, or just hold off and hope it turns out okay?" She was pretty sure she knew where she'd fucked up, but it would be good to get an adult's perspective on the matter.

"Hmm." From the tone of Eidolon's voice, he hadn't actually considered this question much before. "That's a tough one. I think … on balance, it's better to let them know. If they don't feel the same way about you, you find out. But if they do, and you don't tell them, they might think you don't care and find someone else."

Amy nodded. "Right, thanks. That's what I wanted to know." If Eidolon was right—and he sounded right—it just meant that she and Vicky were never going to be a couple. Finding out now was a better situation than pining for her sister and never letting go. That could've ended badly.

"No, thank you." Eidolon's voice was positively enlightened. "I'd been wondering about that topic myself, without actually asking the question you did. It helps a lot, now that I've thought about it."

"Oh. Good." Now that was a weird mental image. Amy had never thought of Eidolon actually having someone in his life like that. It would be like seeing Scion going on a date.

"Teleporting."

Amy braced herself; an instant later, they were in Blasto's lab. The man himself was leaning over a complicated apparatus, still apparently wearing the same lab coat from yesterday. Amy was almost certain she saw a couple of the stains moving. The gorilla-dog creature barked a couple of times, then shut up.

"Ah, you're back," Blasto said, turning to them. "I didn't expect you till later."

"Does that mean you don't have anything for us?" Eidolon didn't raise his voice, but he still managed to sound more than a little ominous.

"Oh, no, no." Blasto held up both hands. "I was just hoping I'd be more advanced with the hardiness of the plant before you showed up. I mean, I've got the fruit pretty well done. But the plant it's gonna be attached to is being a pain."

"How do you mean?" asked Eidolon. "Maybe Panacea can help improve it."

"I mean that adjusting the genome so it can handle the range of temperatures that you want it to is gonna be a total cast-iron bitch," Blasto said flatly. "Plants use various mechanisms to handle the temperature range that they're used to. It's hard to expand that range. The coping mechanisms are gonna get in each others' way." Turning back to the apparatus on the bench, he opened a hatch and pulled out a stunted-looking plant, its roots dripping with some kind of liquid solution. "Here, see for yourself."

Amy reached out and took the small plant, letting the biological information wash through her mind. "Yeah, I see what you mean," she said. "I can't see the genetics, but I can tell how it would react to hot and cold temperatures." She grimaced as she handed it back. "I don't think I can fix that."

"Are you certain?" Eidolon didn't sound at all happy.

"Well, there is something we could do." Amy raised her eyebrow at the veteran hero.

"We're not bringing Bonesaw into this!" snapped Eidolon.

"Bonesaw?" yelped Blasto. "Screw that."

Amy smirked, having gotten the reaction she was after. "Pfft, no," she told them. Gotcha. "I have a totally different solution. It might mean more work, that's all."

"More work is no problem." Eidolon was very firm about that.

"What he said." Blasto didn't look as though he could believe he was agreeing with Eidolon on anything.

"All right then." Amy let her smirk relax into a grin. "All we have to do is …"

Saint

A Deserted Town in Upstate New York

"Where did you say it was?" Geoff turned the wheel to avoid a pothole that would've wrecked the front suspension of the Jeep.

"Just up ahead a little." Mags consulted the tablet she was carrying. "The records were a little hard to unravel, but there was electricity running into this one building for months after everything else was shut down. And Dragon's program pinged deliveries being made of electronics and optical crystals. So, Tinker stuff. Which is why I thought you'd be interested."

She didn't have to say any more. Geoff was good at retro-engineering Tinkertech to suit his own needs. He grinned broadly as he picked his way down the street. If they could find the tech to upgrade their suits even more, Dragon would be caught even more off guard the next time they found it necessary to sequester one of her suits.

"Okay, stop right here." Mags held up her hand, and Geoff pulled the Jeep to a halt. Behind them, the flatbed truck driven by Mischa also rumbled to a stop. She pointed to the left. "That's the address there."

"Wait a minute." Geoff had an idea. "Cross-reference this area with arrests of criminal Tinkers from around two years ago. When the deliveries stopped."

"Okay, sure." Mags shrugged and complied. "Dunno why I didn't think of that myself."

That's why I'm the brains of the operation, darlin'. Geoff got out of the Jeep and stretched, feeling the vertebrae crack in his back. Moments later, Mischa joined him. The burly Russian carried a heavy pry-bar in one hand and a sledgehammer in the other, somehow making both items look like childrens' toys.

"Hah, got it!" Mags grinned at the two men. "String Theory was arrested in the next town over, two years ago. They tried and Birdcaged her without ever making the connection to this town."

"String Theory?" Geoff's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. "Now she's a powerful Tinker."

"Maybe too powerful, Geoff." Mischa sounded a little concerned. "Perhaps we should not be meddling with things we do not need to."

"Pfft, hah." Geoff rolled his eyes. "The more, the merrier. Let's see what goodies she's left in her workshop for us." He led the way toward the building in question, which appeared to be a shuttered convenience store. After a moment of hesitation, the other two followed.

The front door posed no barrier once Mischa applied the sledgehammer correctly, and Geoff squinted into the interior. It was dark, obviously, so he went back to the Jeep for the heavy-duty flashlight.

Inside, after some searching, they found a stairwell going down. At the bottom was a heavy door, securely locked. Fortunately, the foundations had settled—sometime recently, it seemed—and Mischa was able to get the pry-bar in behind the door and apply some pressure to the lock. It took some effort, but eventually the men were able to get the door open while Mags sat on the stairs and aimed the flashlight.

Sweaty, hungry and thirsty, Geoff was the first to step through into the room beyond. As the flashlight swept over what lay before him, he stopped. "Holy … shit."

Mags followed him in, then stopped in her turn. "Geoff … is that …?"

"Da." Mischa loomed into the room behind the pair of them. "That is the biggest goddamned gun I have ever seen."

He wasn't wrong. It was hard to get a sense of scale with just the flashlight, but it looked at least thirty feet long, almost filling the basement area. Gigantic leads were plugged into it, running into complicated-looking generators emplaced along the walls.

"What is that?" asked Mischa. He pointed at where the flashlight had just shone its beam. Geoff swung the light back, to show bold lettering on the side of the device. "'F-DRIVER'. What does that mean?"

"No idea," said Geoff. He put out his hand, incautiously leaning against the wall himself. A switch clicked under his hand. One by one, the lights came up. Along the barrel of the monster gun, LEDs sprang to life. Throughout the room, a rising hum could be heard. Directly before them, a panel lit up with scrolling letters.

"'Charging'?" asked Mags. "What does that mean, 'charging'?"

Geoff and Mischa spoke at the same time. "Nothing good."

Low Earth Orbit

Far above the surface of the Earth, the Simurgh began to giggle helplessly.

Part 19