Ablation

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Amy returned home in a daze. Today did not go the way she expected it to. Mark and Vicky were on the first floor, in the living room. Vicky was tapping away on her phone while Mark was watching TV. But today he also had a phone in his hand. Amy knew why. He created a blog where he posted Amy’s pills daily. This way Amy knew he was taking them, and Mark had one more thing to look forward to. It kind of exploded in popularity, with many people also trying to copy it. It didn’t work for everyone. Heck, few depressed people had someone in their life motivated enough to help them. But soon Amy would fix that. She’ll cure everyone. Of depression, at least. And Amy knows not to sell the patent. The story with insulin left her with a special level of hatred towards big pharma. No, there is a better way.

She plops down on the sofa between Mark and Vicky and blows air through her mouth.

“What’s wrong, Ames? Did the date not go well?” Vicky asked her, concerned with Amy looking even more tired than usual. Even Mark turned the TV volume down.

“No, it was perfect. We went to a nice cafe with private booths that offered couples’ ice cream and milkshakes. Taylor spoonfed me while I talked about stuff that I like.”

“Then why the long face?” Vicky asked, but she looked much more relaxed. Right. The most horrible thing that could happen to Amy right now is a bad date.

“I just realized how much I hate big pharma.” She grumbles.

“Oh, and here I thought there was trouble in paradise.” Vicky gives Amy a side hug. “So when’s the wedding?” She teases.

“Uh, never? We broke up.” Amy says matter of factly. She sees in the corner of her vision as Vicky stares at her in a mix between “are you joking me?” and “why didn’t you begin with that?!”

“... Didn’t you say the date went well?!” Vicky finally asks.

“We had a very public breakup like half an hour ago. It’s probably online from several angles.” Amy shrugs.

“Why? What happened?” Vicky grabbed her by the shoulders and shook, Amy just flaccidly flopping in response. She was now Brute-rated for handling purposes and could take a bit of a tossing around.

“Just look it up?” She offered, exasperated.

“I wanna hear it from the source!” Vicky was floating slightly now, also lifting Amy up with her.

“Ugh, okay, fine! She’s seeing another girl!” Amy was crossing her arms, still refusing to acknowledge the air jail.

“Like… for good or like for a couple days?” Vicky asked, much more pacified. For her, it was normal. Denali and her did break up often, and sometimes over one of them cheating on another.

“I dunno. We could get back in a month or two.”

“Aw. Okay.” She sets Amy down right on time for Carol to enter the house.

She drops her bag on the coffee table and crashes on the sofa near Mark.

“I hate my job sometimes.” She grumbles. “Is the food ready?”

“It’s ready and done, and waiting inside the oven.” Mark kisses her on the cheek and stands up to set the table.

“I’ll go help!” Vicky uses that opportunity to jump after Mark and leave Amy alone with Carol.

“No flying in the house, Victoria.” Carol shouts after her, then turns to Amy. “How did your date go? Heard from Mark you’d be late today?”

“It was cut short. We broke up.”

“On your terms?”

“... Kind of?”

“I won’t accept a “kind of”, young lady.” Carol frowns.

“Not on my terms. She found another girl.” Amy grumbles. “But I was the one to uhh… choose to break up.”

“You could have kept the relationship then.” Carol scoffed when Amy looked up at her skeptically. “What? Throuples exist.”

“I… hm.” Amy frowns. The whole “Taylor is seeing someone else” was a ruse to begin with, but… what if? “Okay. I’ll figure something out.”

“That’s my girl.” Carol nods, much to Amy’s growing bewilderment. “Had a guy come in today. He was convinced that he was going to win this case. He gave me all the information, and I was like “Okay, okay. There is one glaring issue though. She was asleep! ” The consent was given by her seven little men uncles. And they did not hold under scrutiny. Just a simple google search proved that they are not even related to each other, let alone the girl. I washed my hands off the case immediately. Like, get out of my office? I don’t care how handsome you are, you can’t do that!”

“That’s wild, honey.” Mark agrees, calling everyone to the kitchen table. Carol and Amy moved to sit on their usual spots.

“Second client came, reporting that she was attacked by three bears. And I thought I was with it. I was like “Yeah, you thought you could be the only girl on Grindr. I get it.” She’s like “Grindr? Uh, I think they were gay.” I’m trying, okay? But then I realized she meant three. Actual. Bears. Her guts were spilling out because she was mauled by bears. Because she broke into their house and ate their porridge. You think I’m going to prosecute some people that would do that to a home intruder?” The table was conflicted between nodding and shaking their heads. “I’m not homophobic.”

Carol begins laughing quietly, now causing massive discomfort to the rest of the Dallons. What was going on? She never talked about cases she took OR refused.

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The rest of dinner goes on quietly as the Dallons finish up and go about their day in doubt. Vicky’s finger hovers over the PRT speed dial twice. Amy’s - four times. Mark, though, is familiar with when his wife has insomnia delirium. Those weren’t even real cases… or he hopes so. He wraps Carol in his arms and drags her away from her home office back to bed.

“Let’s get you properly rested before you go ruining your rank from diamond down to gold like that time half a year ago.” He whispers, which seems to convince Carol.

“K.” She flops onto the bed. “Have you noticed our girls got much happier?” She asks, groggily kicking her slacks off. “Being gay did fix them. I told you so.” She points at Mark.

“I think, maybe, there is a bit more nuance to the situation.” Mark offers, changing into his pajamas and throwing Carol her set.

“Hmm. Your argument is valid. The jury will consider it before announcing their verdict.” She climbs under the covers.

“The jury is still up when they should be sleeping right now.” Mark notes, also climbing under the covers.

“... Maybe I was too harsh on Amy.” Carol says, not quite a question, not quite a statement. “After all, her being Marquis’ daughter doesn’t mean she is guaranteed to follow in his footsteps. I shouldn’t- uh, wait for her to turn villain any day now.”

“That’s a good idea.” Mark agrees. “She’s been working on a cure for depression for a while now. Mumbled about it in her sleep that one time you complained about her sleeping on the sofa after coming home late.”

“The jury is wide awake and demands to know what the fff…hell?” Carol shoots up.

“Ah. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No. Too late! What was that?”

“She’s experimenting on her rat to make a workable cure that permanently balances the hormone regulation that causes most chronic depression. And- did you see how she painted my pills with food grade glitter?”

“I saw the blogs, they’re f-hecking adorable. We should sign her up to art school.” Carol takes out her phone and starts typing violently.

“Maybe tomorrow, honey?” Mark asks futilely. Signing Amy up for extracurriculars without discussing it with her first never turned out good.

“It needs to be done now while the idea is fresh!” She pauses. “I didn’t forget about the depression cure.” She squints at Mark. “But good try distracting me. Did she test it on people yet?”

“Why is that an inevitability?” Mark asks.

“Because she’s- why would she just want to cure rat depression? And at some point down the line, she’ll need to test it. Properly. I- This is no time to sleep. I need to- I need to research-” She yawns.

“Research that pillow. Go to sleep, Babybird.” Mark smacks her lightly with her pillow and she acquiesces.

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On Friday we received a response from Empire. They called in their biggest rally and came out in full force. That is, outside, not out of the closet. Lisa sent me info about their newest additions, almost handpicked to counter us. Or at least, not be affected by our powers. Trugbild und Gewicht. The former was a Breaker who could turn incorporeal and almost invisible. Almost like Shadow Stalker, if she could fly and didn't have vulnerability to electricity. Lisa insisted that she had a weakness, she just didn't know what. Yet. The latter was a cloning cape whose clones could possess people with a touch and puppet them until either the clones dematerialized or the victim died. The clones could jump from victim to victim, making every Empire grunt a potential carrier. But they had a time limit after which they disappeared. Then there was Aufspießen, which kinda sounded like auspicious but his powers were anything but. He had the ability to shoot tiny spikes that slowly grew and dug their way into any surface, but sped up to do it in only a split second. Yeah. Maybe not get shot by a Blaster whose name is Gore Impaler.

I tasked Lisa with finding the dirt on Trugbild and Gewicht, while we finished our preparations. What we're going to do next might be a bit extreme. It might end up with me getting a Birdcage sentence. But it will send a message. Today Kaiser will learn the lesson that you can’t hold all your eggs in one basket. While they’re rallying, we split off and raid three of their most valued assets. Anh's task today is to take a snaking route to the southern edge of the Docks, where the Empire’s biggest firearms storage was, also ruining the rest of the firearms storages they had on her way there. Chelsea, at the same time, is targeting their drug dens and warehouses, using gasoline when her powers aren't enough to ruin their merchandise. Me? I’m entering the Medhall tower lobby.

The receptionist is frozen like a deer in headlights, probably not expecting a supervillain in the building. Funny that. Nobody stops me when the metal detectors (HA!) blare their alarms at my passing, and nobody stops me when I enter the elevator. On the top floor, I enter Max Anders’ office and sit on his chair, putting my shoes on his expensive looking desk. I pull up my phone to check on the status of my friends. I don’t need direct messages from them. The PHO is keeping track of their movements for me. I don’t have to wait for my target for long though. He knows I know. And I made sure I know he knows. Max Anders aka Kaiser slams the doors of his office open and marches in, his twin secretaries hot on his heel.

“You will pay for your audacity today, Durasteal.” He declares, fist shaking.

“Usually, you reserve promises of revenge for after I beat the shit out of you.” I quip, twirling a pen in my hand, my other hand holding a pistol trained on Night. They went all out this time, bringing their little German brainwashed dream couple with them. Targeting Fog seems futile so I let him phase into his Breaker form.

“You are breaking the unwritten rules with your little stunt and that… joke of a threat message.” He spits the j-word like it’s a slur.

“That’s funny coming from you.” I say, flicking the cap from the pen and sending it flying towards Fenja’s abdomen. The pen itself gets thrown at Menja, or is it the other way around? The point is, it’s nice hearing the sound of glass breaking behind them and the screams of two giant women falling from… well I hope, not a lethal height for them. They get two-fold protection with their Breaker states, right? I hope that wasn’t another Empire propaganda. “Don’t tell me you didn’t command your resident Thinker to start sniffing around my secret identity? This?” I swipe my hand, pointing at his office. “Is a Tat for your tit.”

I can talk to him so relaxedly because I have nothing to fear from him. Any metal he creates to impale me, I dust. I’d also rather have Anh here to soften the blades up before I absorb them, but we can’t all have nice things. If I was a bit more evil, I would have suggested Amy to capture him and use him as a material battery.

“You have no evidence of that, but yet you’re standing in front of me, having threatened to reveal my secret identity to the world. Who would others believe in this situation?” He thinks he’s stalling. Letting Fog work his way into my lungs and making me not look behind me. Him talking, and Night just being there is reason enough not to look away, true. And disabling Night is also out of the question because she would recover the moment I break line of sight. And Kaiser could do that with creating blade covers.

“You can do that. If you get out of here in one piece, that is.” I say, as the floor beneath him crumbles. I didn’t want the twins to stand beside him because they would ruin the surprise. I made sure that the floor would fail under his weight the moment I dusted the crossbar that ran through the entire length of this room from the door to the window, supporting this wide wide floor. Night disappears from my sight and there is bright light behind me for a moment before it’s back to normal again. Night’s monstrous form slams into my back, her dozens of clawed hands scraping against my armor.

I hear a loud bang as a spray of pressurized water slams into my back, through Night’s Changer form. Another set of bangs and I am tumbling towards Kaiser and through Fog. The new faux-metal flesh mask that Amy made me filtering him out before letting me breathe properly. My skin lights up in high voltage sparkles and Fog… doesn’t react. Aw. It would have been so nice if all incorporeal Breakers had the same weakness. Instead, I take a deep breath and exhale, flipping a mental switch in the process. Fog recoils from the stream of fire that shoots out of my mouth. That’s more like it. Lining my throat with lead’s Toughness made it more feasible to breathe fire and not also give myself second degree burns. I had a feeling this would work. Otherwise, how did Lung deal with him when Purity was still part of Empire? You never hear about Lung running without also dealing heavy casualties to the other side. And Empire would never let Fog leave if he could beat Lung by suffocating him.

But do you know who would react to my high voltage sparkles? That’s right. The guy in full metal armor! I reach him before he regains his balance and grab onto his armor. I could dust it anytime, but I can’t resist giving him shock therapy first. Now holding one limp nazi cracker, and using my other hand to block the other - Night - I consider jumping down the building instead of taking the elevator or stairs. But the amount of whiplash it’d give Kaiser would be lethal. So I just boost him temporarily! Grabbing Night by her now very human wrist, I also enhance her Toughness and Durability and we drop. Sending a combined fifty tons of mass into free falling from a thirty seventh story sounds absurd. And it is. It is absurd. My landing pulverizes the asphalt under my feet, sending a significant explosion rolling out with me at its center. Thank god anyone sane has already left the neighborhood after seeing the rally happening, and anyone who remained is either stupid or a nazi or, most likely, a stupid nazi.

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Amy was ready to debut as Brockton Bay’s newest villain, Malady. Thin ribbonlike armor plates covered her body, glinting dull gray under sunlight and shifting as if alive, breathing in unison with her. The armor hugs her entire body, giving it a slightly different shape than her own. Several of the ribbons jutted out sharply at her hips, shoulder blades, shoulders, elbows, calves and knees, and a pair acted like heels, something Amy would never wear or never wore before. 

She went for a streamlined design, aerodynamic and sleek, but not completely smooth. The helmet she made sported two bull-like horns and long straight hair, also made of the metallic ribbons. Her faceplate though remained smooth, with no holes for her eyes or mouth, polarized to let light pass from one side but not the other. Overall, it looked like a humanoid version of those metal torture chamber bulls from the board game Vicky played with her friends, a Gorgon. Which, to Amy, didn’t quite make sense as gorgons were actual mythological creatures that did not at all look like bulls. 

She might have overengineered it, but it was her first time participating in a cape fight. On the armor’s surface, she installed emergency mucus glands to escape grapple, chameleon skin for better camouflage, an array of sensors that connected to a luminescent 360 degree mini-map on her faceplate. One could do a lot with just one type of signal, and making a flesh computer was no problem for Amy once she learned how the first ever computers were made. She couldn’t quite reach the level of miniaturization real circuits could provide, but she compensated for it by shifting from binary code to amino acids, with proteins acting as function blocks.

The armor also enhanced her muscles, which she already spent quite some time strengthening with Taylor’s help. She couldn’t quite reach the level of strength to lift trucks yet, but all she needed to lift weighed only half a ton. That is, her new most favorite tinkering toy, right after Taylor and Lisa. So, her third most favorite Tinker toy. Six feet long, half a foot thick, this gargantuan cannon was her latest attempt at creating a super squirt gun slash gatling gun slash railgun slash- she did it again. She can’t just stay with one choice, she has to have it all. 

Being able to control every minute detail of it, she could fine tune the twenty miniature nuclear reactors to activate just at the right time to power the electromagnets just right, to launch a foot-long, one inch thick tungsten rod at Mach Fuck Everything In That Line. And then depower the entire thing to prevent it from spontaneously combusting. It also worked as a great tool to whack people with. With Taylor having strengthened it to the limits of what industrial steel can handle, and Anh providing very helpful sharpness modifications, Amy could confidently brag about owning the world’s second ever buster gun-sword, right after Chevalier.

And that was only two of its functions. She also had a diamond-toughened pressure chamber that mimics pistol shrimps, compressing water to the point it becomes plasma and shoots out of her gun at insane speeds. And of course, a retractable sail-like organ that gathers oxygen and hydrogen from air and turns it into water. Because she was not going to carry a giant water tank around. No siree.

All this was done for one specific purpose. To make herself seen, to be seen attacking both the Tough Crowd and the Empire, and to take out the one person Taylor was wary about - Purity. Amy didn’t even need to kill her, no. She set her cannon - which she’ll have to come up with a name for - to blowgun mode and started molding a short-term coma-inducing dart-tick into it. The tick was set to latch onto anything with blood in it and inject the coma-inducing serum into them. And since Purity was in flight most of the time, Amy also thought of making the tick inflate into a giant safety bag, and then turn into containment foam on landing. The sensors in her horns were set to detect any light intensity anomalies and ping Amy in case Purity appeared. But meanwhile, she gets to have some fun.

She was in charge of making upgrades for the Undersiders, which she took very seriously. Because, apparently, they were Lisa’s teammates. If Amy had a nickel each time her crush turned out to be a villain, she’d have two nickels. That’s not a lot of nickels, but it’s still strange that it happened twice.

“Are you sure it is wise to.. You know. Join the fray? Aren’t you pretending to be enemies with them?” She asked doubtfully, while giving Lisa her latest Tough Crowd™ upgrade. Taylor couldn’t just give Lisa the Toughness boost because that was a bit too on the nose. Lisa has already appeared once with a vastly different powerset. Her suddenly gaining another Brute rating? Suspicious.

“Aw, don’t worry about lil ol’ me. I promised Tay that I’ll deal with a certain someone and Chelse is already engaging the other. So what’s that?” Lisa points at the spider-like creature in Amy’s hands, if a spider was the size of a manhole cover. If the spider’s abdomen was the size of a manhole cover.

“Oh, this? Your new symbiote.” Amy says matter of factly, unfurling the spider to reveal that it’s shaped like a full body costume. “I set it up to connect to your spine and act as an extension of your body.”

“And that’s the thing you wanted Cutting Edge to… work a lot on.” Lisa guessed.

“Yep. Sharp as fuck, long, prehensile, flexible and adjustable. Also tough as nails, thanks to Taylor. I made smaller versions for everyone, and a one-tendril version for Taylor’s trio for conceal carry. Yours can cover your entire-” Lisa glares at Amy, “Well, not your entire body but enough-” Lisa glares harder. “Okay it’s kiiind of a bikini armor with full coverage shoulder-length gloves and hip-high boots.” Lisa keeps her glare trained on Amy while Amy tries to hide behind her youngest abomination against god that is also a super low-cut cleavage leotard with teeth. Unfortunately, she made the cleavage too wide and too deep to hide behind effectively. “But it’s hot as fuck! And practical! Everyone would target your abdomen but whoops! Super regeneration!”

“And you added inner thigh windows - why?” Lisa raises an eyebrow.

“... Fine. I’ll remove them.” Amy grumbles.

“And the navel-low cleavage?”

“... I’m keeping it. Take it or leave it!” Amy clutches the costume defensively.

“Make it a Power Girl boob window and I’ll think about it.” Lisa sets her ultimatum.

“I try not looking at her comics because she-”

“- looks like Brandish.”

“Yep.”

“Okay. Make it a small ab window and an eye on the chest then?” Lisa offers.

“I can work with that.” Amy agrees immediately. The costume-symbiote finished, Amy jumps away towards her main target. Finding a vantage point that faces the backside of Medhall building, she sets her armor into stealth mode and waits. Soon after, a blindingly bright blob of light arrives at the top floor and begins glowing even brighter, readying a full-power blast. Amy takes aim and KAPOW! The back end of her weapon inflates and compresses, sending the tic flying with a loud popping sound. The tic reorients itself mid-flight and impales Purity’s thigh. Amy overcompensated with its proboscis length and girth, expecting Purity’s light to vaporize the upper layer, and was proven right when instead of full coverage, the tick only inflated to half its intended size. She swore and reoriented the weapon to shoot her again, landing another tic on her other leg.

Just a moment later, a pair of giants flew out of the top floor and started falling. Amy wasted no time to also tag them with tics. They still crashed hard and fell unconscious even before the tics’ serum got to them. But once they fainted, their bodies shrank back, letting the tics envelop them in foam. Her marks caught, she shot a compressed water bullet at Taylor and jumped down to gather her spoils. Wrapping them in metallic cocoons, she sped away towards her next target. Amy made sure to enhance her speed the most, out of everything she could enhance. Flight was her most desired superpower before she triggered. Superspeed - her most desired power after. Just imagining how many more lives she could have saved if she had Velocity’s power on top of her own-

She dropped the cocoons off in a nondescript alley and climbed on a rooftop. The moment she was up, a bullet whizzed past her. Auspicious met her eyes… or her smooth faceplate, from another rooftop. He wore a green bodysuit with celtic designs, and went for the druid look. Wood patterned metal pauldrons and wristbands and weird shoes with toes. He was providing cover fire against one of her allies and was being a major ass in general. So the responsibility fell to Amy to get rid of him.

Dodging another of his seed bullets, Amy shifted her weapon to cover both of her hands in crab claws. Being so top-heavy looked ridiculous, but lugging it around one-handed was even more ridiculous in Amy’s opinion. Now transformed to their dual wield form, Amy set her right hand to the pistol shrimp mode, and the other to tick gatling. She fired both guns akimbo at Auspicious, but her first volley was blocked by a wall of vegetation. Before she could reorient herself, a vine pierced her armor and went straight through her left lung. She liquefied the plant and used it as biomass for her symbiote to fix her up. The next seed she blocked by shooting a tick on the ground, its inflated body absorbing the shot.

Auspicious was using his plants as terrain control, so Amy decided to do the same. Left arm raised up high, she shot hundreds of ticks into the air. The next moment, a vine pierced through her arm, which she also liquefied and used to heal herself and replenish her ammo. She had the upper hand in this battle, Auspicious providing her with biomass for free - the one thing she was truly worried about.

Ticks, upon landing, inflated to around the size of a fridge, filling up with sponge foam, and blocking lines of sight for Auspicious. Amy, unobstructed by anything organic, ran through the field of both tics and vines and tackled Auspicious to the ground. Her weighing like a lightweight car and running at fifty miles per hour, she didn’t leave many bones intact on the man. Shooting him with another coma tic, she cocooned him and brought him away to join her growing collection.