Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

The meeting between Pantheon and the Triumverate was winding down. All of the important matters had been discussed and people began breaking down to individual conversations. Lisa and Alexandria were busy staring at each other, Taylor and Amelia were getting tips on having an enlightening discussion about having a relationship in the public eye from Legend and Eidolon was in the corner, sulking about being relegated to merely being Super Jesus, as opposed to Mega Ultra Kung-fu-Action Jesus.

Then Alexandria yelled in panic, "Not the face! I'll be good!" And the room went silent.

"What." Taylor could not quite get it out as a question. More of an accusation directed at Lisa, really.

"I don't know! I just suggested that we use our powers to get Eidolon a girlfriend or something!" Lisa protested. Legend and Eidolon burst out laughing. Alexandria hid her face in shame.

"Back when we first started out," Legend began, "Rebecca had this obsession with getting people hooked up. It got so bad that Hero created a dimensionally shunted water bottle that squirts her in the face with sea water whenever she triggers its 'meddling' sensor."

Alexandria grimaced. "Fucking Tinkers..."

"That's awful!" Taylor exclaimed. "Hilarious, but still awful."

"You know," Lisa said, speculatively, "We could probably get at that water bottle. We do have dimensional shunting tech..." Legend and Eidolon stopped dead.

"No, you fool!" Eidolon exclaimed. But it was too late. A giggle escaped Alexandria. A giggle became a chuckle and the chuckle became a mad laugh.

"Soon!" She cried. "Soon I shall be free from Pavlovian terror and my shipping will spread across the globe! Mwuhahahahaha!" Everyone stared.

"Ahem. I mean, yes. That would be very helpful indeed."

 

Amelia, Ch 194


"Now there's the next issue," Taylor added after Victoria left. "How are you planning to contain Seire and Lilith? They can't be held by anything resembling a conventional prison. In fact, it's likely they could escape even from the Birdcage."


The Director frowned. "We developed a method," he answered. "You'll have to speak to the Chief Director again, if you want the details."


"Say exactly what I say," Lisa spoke into my com. I knew through the link that she wasn't speaking to Taylor. I nodded slightly and started reciting.


"You've found a new master cape," I repeated. "One of Heartbreaker's kids."


ShockDisgust. "Fuck," Taylor muttered.


"Not someone like Cherish or Hijack," I kept on script. "Emotion control powers have limits, this is hard mind control that doesn't require the parahuman who inflicts it to be involved after the fact. Or much at all, past the control process."


Halo was the one who broke silence. "It's as ethical as we can possibly make it," he insisted.


ConfrontationAnger. "What, exactly, are you doing?" Taylor insisted.


The Director sighed. "One of the Vasil children has a power that forces a form of OCD behavior. The victims of the power must complete a ritual before being able to take a given action. Prior uses involved being forced to recite poems before crossing any doorway, and counting before taking a bite of food. Once inflicted, it can't be changed except by applying the anti-master drug to the victim."


WaryRelief. "That sounds fairly benign so far," Taylor admitted.


"The other half is somewhat worse," Halo admitted. "They'll be fitted with a device. A twenty digit code they must enter while speaking aloud thanks to the compulsion, in order to access their power. Every button press involves a progressively more painful reaction. If they can make it to the tenth, which is highly improbable, it then exposes them to a number of tinker derived drugs that renders them unconscious. The fifteenth button, if they make it that far, is lethal. It shouldn't be able to get that far, since activating any part of the code instantly alerts the guards."


"We've tested the effect on volunteers, both normal and parahuman," the Director offered. "The only thing that lets them bypass the command, even temporarily, is if they are under the influnce of yet another master's power."


"At which point, you have something far more serious to be concerned with," Taylor volunteered. "I must admit, I really don't like hearing about it this way, but it's as elegant a solution as one could hope for under the circumstances."


Our allies are going behind our backs, I thought to myself. I can't imagine why I'd be surprised by that. "Will this become a common type of punishment?" I asked.


"That you will need the Chief Director to answer," Director Lane replied. "After she gets done talking to the President, Congress, and the Surpreme Court. Frankly, I doubt it. Voter backlash. Too many 'slippery slope' arguments to be made against it."


I nodded. "I understand."


We were hesitant to reveal our knowledge implant tech for similar reasons. Our nerve damage regenerating technology even managed to ruffle the feathers of some groups. Not enough to stop us, of course, but I was surprised by the number of death threats we got for it. A lot of them from the Deaf community after finding out we could heal a number of them through this equipment. Pity it was still a few years away from legal approval to use. Even if Carol assured me that it was being heavily fast tracked compared to most experimental treatments.


"Now we just confirm the final arrangements," Taylor added. "Pantheon will publically take credit, or blame if you prefer, for the attack on the Fallen's main compound, and the injuries resultant from it. It was my orders that turned this from a harassment and scout mission with a vague hope for an ambush opportunity into a full scale assault, after all. Haven and the PRT can take credit for the peripheral targets. We give the Railroad Bandits credit for their part as well, of course."


"We can accept that," Lane agreed. Of course he did. That was a lot more generous than our prior arrangement, and they knew it.


Where before it would have been called a joint operation across the board, which probably would have benefited us more than them, this made it look like they deserved full credit for the dozen other attacks that happened across the city, regardless of how much of that was handled by our team as well. Especially our thinkers and tinkers. Oh well, Baal was to Houston what Lung was to Brockton Bay and Heartbreaker was to Montreal. Everyone wanted him gone, but removing him would have caused more damage than ignoring him.


ShockSurpriseConfidence. "The last part, of course, is Haven's association with Pantheon," Taylor replied. "I believe it serves us both well to make our alliance official."


That's bold, I thought. What did Taylor just find out?


"Your conditions?" Halo asked.


"Same as all our core allies," Taylor responded. "We test your members' powers, allowing us to to discover potential power synergies. Much like what Gaea and I possess, and the combination we discovered between the Endslayers. We suspect a potential interaction between Rosary and one of the Adepts, known as Shaman. If it works coupled with one of the devices we've developed with Dragon, it's possible we could have another Endslayer combination. Beyond that, we ask you to contact us for any A or S class threat missions. Coordinate with us for such missions."


"In exchange," I continued. It had somehow become our pattern for Taylor to give the demands while I make the offers. I don't know how or when that happened, but it worked out that way. "We can provide the generic battle armor, plus advanced variants for certain powers. It's especially likely with energy generation and telekinetic or matter manipulating powers. Then there's access to our healing technology and powers," including the ones we don't share with the public, I added mentally. "And, of course, our support in any major conflict. I believe our ability to coordinate our allies is one of our finest advantages."


"I note none of your allies are here," the Director pointed out.


"Didn't need them here," Taylor replied dismissively. "The Adepts and Ambassadors, as well as most of our own team, were sent on a series of other missions. The Teeth are losing their holdings in Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina. Granted, we probably won't get everything, spread as thin as we are for this mission, but the Directors of those areas have authorized their respective Protectorate and PRT forces in joint operations not unlike this one."


"I didn't hear anything about this," Lane replied in shock.


Taylor shrugged. "I'm sure most of the other Directors would ask you why you didn't tell them you were working with us on this as well. As Gaea said, coordination. And being willing to commit the resources necessary for a decisive victory with a single encounter."


"You... you planned to kill Baal from the beginning!" he accused.


"Not to kill," Taylor corrected. "We had Dinah Alcott tell us the combinations we needed to guarantee victory against Baal. I guess we forgot to specify between capture and kill. Something to keep in mind for the future."


"You're attributing his death to such an obvious oversight?" the Director asked incredulously.



"If we'd planned to kill him, Lilith would have foreseen danger. It was always meant to be a scouting mission, but our own precog changed her mind. You know how precogs jam each other." Unless that precog is trying to jam Dinah, because she's stronger than them. "That's how we managed to turn that into a victory. Speaking of, the Savannah team's just finished the mop up."


"So late?" I asked. "Isn't that the Ambassadors? Accord's going to be annoyed."


"I think he'll be inclined to be forgiving here," Taylor replied. "Apparently they ran into a drug smuggling crew offshore. Three unexpected capes they think are from Haiti. I don't know how they caught a tinker tech submarine in the ocean. Especially one that had a water manipulator, a forcefield generator, and a tinker on board, but that's exactly what they just did."


I blinked. How the fuck? "Impressive," was the only word I could come up with that didn't involve profanities.


"And that is what you get when you ally yourself with Pantheon," Taylor said as she looked back toward Halo. "You don't have to, but I believe the opportunity to be part of operations like this one, to make a real difference instead of fighting a losing battle against entropy, is worth the extra effort. Don't you?"


"Rapture did say you girls were very good at getting what you wanted," he smiled and extended his hand.


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A/N- Because more than just Pantheon members deserve to be badasses in this story.