Ablation

Taylor

Chelsea offered to wind down today, have some fun testing our powers for something not combat related. We went out to the library and Chelsea asked if I could use my powers to speed read. I couldn't, the difference in toughness between inked parts and clean parts of the paper were too low for me to tell them apart. Then Chelsea offered to test the books in braille. It worked! I took a book that taught braille and a couple practice books with me. We checked on our stash - an abandoned warehouse where we hid the duffel bags in wooden crates, swapping them all to steel Toughness. We took a couple hundred in low bills to spend today and I texted Lisa if she wanted to hang out. Chelsea has asked if Lisa acted like she had powers, to which I couldn't really give a proper answer. She's grown vigilant since our outing last night. It didn't take long to get a response from Lisa. She was busy today, some emergency work from her boss. Even her text looked cranky about it. So we sat on the pier, feet dangling over waves, as Chelsea threw shards of ice she'd conjured up stealthily. I found myself squeezing a lump of metal like it was a stress toy again. My head bumped on the wooden handrails of the pier as I thought about what I wanted to say.

“We need more teammates.” Chelsea pauses her ice throwing and sets down her pile between us. I pick up a piece and flick it into the water. It does feel therapeutic. “Should I… uh, should we press gang Trainwreck? I'm still kinda upset at running away from him.” She ponders my question for a while, flipping a weirdly shaped piece of ice in her hand. I fight the urge to reach out and trim its sharp edges.

“That, right there, sounds like a real low hanging fruit. He's a monster cape, he's alone, isolated by villains and unwilling to join the Protectorate.” She draws a tiny map of Brockton Bay with frost on the pier boards, “He lives in a Trainyard… I mean, scrapyard, his biggest crimes are raiding grocery stores and drug stores around the place. Recruiting him shouldn’t be much harder than offering him money, companionship and maybe a place to stay. But again, there’s a reason he’s alone. And we’re guaranteed to face some complications and risks if we go through with this. If we recruit him, he’s either gotta stay in the scrapyard or relocate.” She points out the scrapyard. “Case one, he stays in the scrapyard. He’ll either have to stay there and we make a base elsewhere and, again, he becomes isolated from us and easy to entice. Any offer we give him, a more established villain can easily double and then we have a spy in our ranks. Or we have to build our base at that scrapyard, which means he’ll be the one who stays there the most. Again, if he turns on us while we’re unaware, he could turn our base into a death trap. He’s a Tinker, after all. And we should be able to trust any Tinker that joins us.” She then circles the docks and downtown, “Or we could relocate him into our new base, which we still haven’t decided on. He’s a big, loud guy and everyone knows where his stomping grounds are. If he suddenly changes the area where he’s active, everyone will catch on to the fact that our base is somewhere where he stays the most.” Chelsea looks at me then, “So, you decide if he’s worth it, really. Do we decide our entire gang’s base’s location on one cape and ALSO risk that same cape turning coat on us? Is the added muscle worth the risks and upkeep?”

I blow a raspberry into my coat. “Why is it so haaaard? Wish we could just,” I snap my fingers, “have a gang! I hate this middle point where we have to work for it.”

Chelsea barks out a laugh, “Well, we could always join an existing one?”

“Oh heck no! I wanna be the boss!” I say, shaking my fist. “Also, who would even take us? The choice is between nazis, racist sex traffickers and Coil. And I saw Coil yesterday, he’s a fucking clown!”

“Oh yeah? Maybe we could beat him and take his mercenaries for ourselves then?” Chelsea offers.

Hm. I raise my finger, then drop it. “Nah. He seemed like some kind of probability manipulator or Thinker.” I hear a soft fucking Thinkers from Chelsea, “Yeah, fucking Thinkers. There’s no way he escaped a PRT van for so long on a bicycle. Maybe we put that on the backburner, approach it again when we have more intel?” I hedge. That would be the safer option, “Besides, we don’t even know where his base is.”

“True,” Chelsea shrugs and moves back to throwing ice chunks in the water. “Let's just spend the rest of the day relaxing in your house then?”

“Yeah, sure. We’ve got nothing to do anyway.”

Lisa

She felt a disturbance in the force. She wasn’t sure what exactly, as her headache was killing her right now, but her gut was telling her something.

You missed an opportunity, and not just one but two opportunities, bitch! Lol! Lmao, even!

Amy

She knocked on the door to Vicky’s bedroom. It was a bit past noon, so Vicky has been awake for the past couple of hours. Her estimates were proven right when Vicky opened the door, her head not looking like a bird’s nest.

“Hey, Amy,” She greeted quietly

“Hey, Vicky. I, uh, wanted to apologize for yesterday. lt was shitty of me to drop that on you.”

“Aw, Amy, I should be the one apologizing to you,” Vicky says, wrapping Amy in a Brute-rated hug. Amy melts into the hug that doesn’t last as long as she’d like it to. That is, forever. But Vicky lets go of her quickly and ushers her into her room. “I talked to Dean about it while you were on your date, he said he'll be more careful with the kinds of friends he makes.” As if that's enough, that slimy bastard, Vicky hovers above her bed like she's lying on it, “And now that you're home~” oh no, “Sooooo, you and Taylor, huh? When did that happen?” Amy was not prepared for this question. Of course! When? They didn't have nearly enough time to form any romantic feelings for each other and then Dean the fucking lie detector boy will ask the same question and know that it's not true! Ugh!

“Well…” Amy hesitated for just a moment. The answer was obvious from the start! “I just started dating her for her body!” She blurts and decides to take a tactical retreat by lunging for the door! Alas, Vicky is adept at catching vile scum like her and Amy finds herself floating in Vicky’s iron grip.

“Aw come on, Ames! I know there's more to it than that!” She presses on.

“No, that's it. I think she's hot, okay? And- and she just found out she's gay, so she jumped at the first opportunity to get with someone! And it just turned out to be me, okay?!” Tears were streaming down Amy's cheeks at this point. Vicky has set her down on the bed in the middle of her rant. “I don't know. I- this whole thing kind of feels transactional and all… I don't really know if she even likes me. Like…” Amy chokes out a sob. She knows what she was about to say. She won't say it. If this gets out, her precious Vicky will 100%, absolutely surely hate her forever. “Like, she has a- a hot redhead living with her who's ‘just a friend’ but I've seen her body when they look at each other and it's like fireworks go off, and they don't go off for me!” And now I'm just projecting. There were no fireworks. Just a whole big soup of mixed feelings. But it's easier to talk about this than about what's actually going on. And they reallydon't go off for me either, be it Vicky or Taylor. She chokes out another series of sobs, “A-a-and I- I don't know if I actually like her either,” or if it's just your aura. And I could solve all of my problems, all of them. If only I could-

Vicky lays down on the bed next to Amy and wraps her in a softer hug, whispering quiet murmurs of sisterly affection. And Amy cries into Vicky’s shoulder. It's been so long since they had this. An honest conversation. As honest as it can be with all of Amy’s secrets. She was so afraid of opening up to Vicky about anything, big or small, because there was always the biggest secret looming over her, just waiting for the dam to break. But now she can pretend. Pretend that all her feelings for Vicky are really for Taylor. She even has someone else in her life that Amy can never be. And she also doesn't love Amy the way she wants to be loved. Oh joy!

Taking a couple deep breaths, Amy speaks up. “Hey, Vicky. Could you take me to the hospital?”

“Ames… uh- maybe you should take a break?” There is concern in Vicky’s voice. So gentle and caring. Just like Taylor’s. And nothing like Carol’s. Just… not enough.

“It’s Sunday. You know how it gets. It's the highest ER traffic of the week. I need to go, Vicky. Please?”

Vicky grabs her by the shoulders and pushes her away, gently, to look Amy in the eyes. “Are you sure about this, Amy?” There is concern in her voice still, but no hardness. She'll agree to it, of course she will.