Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Amelia, Ch 261- Riley


By the time Chevalier stepped in through Doormaker's portal, we were all almost ready. This was our main lab on Avalon, about two miles away from the portal gateway. The key location for our future works. Wow, their teleporter is really scary good. I gathered as much data on the process as I possibly could from all the exotic power analyzing sensors in his room.


"I was told this was, quote, critically important," he asked our gathered group. Which totaled almost every member of the team. Including Clarice, although of course I was hidden elsewhere. Even Rey was here for this one. Well, Zach did save his life way back when we started Pantheon.


"Potentially," Lisa replied. "If not, we'll be certain to compensate you for your time, but if this works, your numbers are going to be upgraded. Potentially into one of the more powerful Trumps on the planet. So here's a question for you. Have you ever tried to use your power on people? Or the ghosts you see near them?"


He blinked. "I... no, I admit I never thought to do that."


"Then this is going to be all kinds of fun," she smiled broadly.


"I don't think that I can, the Manton Limit..."


"Is irrelevant in your case," Lisa replied. "You're capable of manipulating Endbringer tissue, and more than that, Endbringer tissue from the densest part of the monsters that isn't actually the core. Your power not only has no Manton Limit, it still works where almost every other power on the planet failed a long time ago. I can see where it might be like Amelia or Clockblocker and not work on yourself, but beyond that it should work on everything."


Gosh darn it, Lisa, stop showing off and get to the important stuff.


"First we're going to have you fold two people who are already biologically similar," she informed. "Victoria and Crystal are already prepped, so you just have to do your thing with them."


The cousins were actually very similar, varying less than a five percent baseline through any visual measure. They'd easily be mistaken as sisters. Crystal being recently restored from backup meant she had a perfect physical body, and Vicky's powers ensured she, too, had a perfect body. The more sensitive instruments built into their current 'testing' outfits registered all the not so obvious details, and outside of brain chemistry and power signatures, they were still extremely similar, ranging from three to eight percent variation. Short of actually awakening a second copy of one of us, it was the closest match we could find.


"We really don't know what will happen if I do this," Chevalier argued. "Shouldn't we start with something a little less... human? Like an animal or plant?"


"Won't teach us anything useful," Lisa countered. "We know how your power works from a base point. Testing it on other things won't teach us anything valuable in how impacts people. So when we get to this phase, we'll still be guessing what happens to people."


"Hey, don't worry about us," Vicky interjected. "Our backups were updated less than fifteen minutes ago. And it's not like either of us are the original to start with, so this isn't going to cost us much even if it does go wrong."


Crystal elbowed her in the side, and she pretty much ignore it. "Don't listen to her," she answered. "We understand the risks, and we're prepared. There's too much that we'll be able to do if this works, so it's worth the risk."


To help Zach, I added silently. That's what this ultimately boils down to.


"I want it on record that I think this is a bad idea, but I'm trusting your tinkers and thinkers to know what they're doing," Chevalier instructed. Clarice's instruments read that he wasn't quite as apprehensive as he was pretending. Lisa probably knows that already, no need to call it out.


The other sensors on the test subjects were spiking from apprehension. At least in Crystal's case. Vicky's absolute biological control meant her body was as calm as she pretended to be, although the brain scans showed she was at least a little on the nervous side as well.


"Of course," Lisa agreed. "Full credit, full blame, it's all on us. Wouldn't be a day in the life of Pantheon without us doing something crazy that pans out."


He reached out and touched both girls on the shoulder. "Sorry, I need contact when I do the initial connection," he informed them.


Vicky shrugged. "Hey, you're about to scramble our insides, so don't worry about it." Clarice's instruments registered several spikes of emotions from the others. With exception to Sabah, Chevalier, Taylor and Amelia, and myself. Must be some kind of joke.


And then the numbers went haywire on Vicky and Crystal. Blood pressure spiked, then smoothed at about 10% higher than normal. Nervous system sensitivity increased. Emotional state spiked, then dropped as Vicky's power started compensating. It was Crystal that showed the most oddities, of course. Vicky's power was doing what it did. And then it moved across and started making adjustments to Crystal's body.


"Break the link," I commanded through Clarice. Chevalier obeyed immediately, and both girls staggered. Vicky recovered in a heartbeat, then caught the collapsing Crystal. "It definitely worked," I informed them. Clarice was 'known' to have powers very similar to Vicky, which were themselves 'known' as a sort of ranged variation of Amelia's ability to sense bodies. I could speak what I learned through her, if I was careful not to talk 'Tinker'. "Vicky's power was starting to assert itself over Crystal's body, optimizing things. Nothing that Amelia couldn't do or undo, but it does show us we're on the right track."


"I... I think I can control that," Chevalier offered. "Can we try again?"


"Okay," Vicky answered. Crystal was standing on her feet.


"Yeah," Crystal agreed. "It was weird, but it didn't hurt or anything. I think it just doubled my vision or something, though."


Chevalier made contact again, and this time the spikes were lower, and evened out more quickly.


The pair looked at each other. Or tried to, at least. Their necks jerked in the strangest fashion. They spent a couple minutes like that, woodenly trying to control their respective bodies. "Okay," they spoke in unison. "Turn it off."


They staggered again, but recovered on their own. "That is never happening again," Crystal gasped. Her biosigns spiked massively, after they were broken away from each other. "Seriously, Vicky, what the hell!"


"I'm sorry!" Vicky exclaimed. "We couldn't move, and I just started thinking and..."


"No!" Crystal interrupted. "We never speak of it again. Ever."


"Telepathy?" Lisa asked. "Is that what that was? Did you have access to memories?"


"No, just surface stuff," Crystal answered. "We figured out how to talk to each other, but that's about it. Or send mental pictures."


"Well, that's a start at least," Lisa replied. "So we know it won't be a simple power share, since there's too much automatic stuff getting between bodies. That's a disappointment. But it also means it'll work for healing Zach."


"Which was your goal all along," Chevalier accused.


"Pretty much," Lisa admitted. "But look at it this way. This just gave you access to pretty damn impressive healing powers. And even temporary power theft for your allies if you play your cards right."


"Pardon?" he asked.


"Think about it," Lisa replied. "If one of the two brains in the link is, say, drugged unconscious... then the other one will have full access to two power sets at the same time. Instant trump rating for you."


"Less practical than it sounds," he responded. "This takes a lot more concentration than my usual power use. I won't be able to take to the field if I'm holding together this gestalt effect."


"Well, fuck," she muttered. "Thought it'd be more useful, but I'm sure you can still get plenty of mileage out of that option. And it is still a high end healing effect."


"You suspect," he corrected.


"Yeah, but my suspicions usually pan out," Lisa replied. "Now let's do the next part. Do the numbers look like we can get away with wildly differing body types for this process?"


"No," I told Emma over her headset.


"Sorry," she replied. "We'll still need similar body types, at least for now. Maybe we can improve it in the future."


"Then I'm up," Theo spoke. "Zach and I are as close to identical to each other as we're likely to get without giving Vicky a couple weeks to shapeshift herself into a closer copy."


"I'd really rather not," Vicky responded. "No offense to the guys in the room, but I prefer the girl parts." She paused for a second, and Crystal snickered. "Okay, for the record I meant as part of my anatomy. I'm not romantically attracted to women. When we get Zach back, I will personally murder anyone who tells him I ever said anything that might imply otherwise."


Emma had already hurried over to Zach's chamber, pressing the button to open it. The gravity field removed him, and blood splattered, only to vanish and reappear. He's losing approximately twelve to thirteen full liters of blood a minute.


"This is probably going to kill you," I informed Theo.


"You'll bring me back," he answered, almost flippantly. He's so brave, I thought. And he trusts me. I did my best to ignore the flutters in my chest. I can worry about that after we heal Zach.


"It'd be a good idea for you to get on a table and have Amelia monitor you, start the healing in real time," I instructed. "We can't afford to disable his power by moving it to someone else. No idea what will happen if it activates in someone else's body. So we'll need Chevalier to swap your physical template and his. Trade off the injury, and then work from there. In your physical condition, you should have about seven seconds before it's fatal."


A table formed next to Zach. At this point, we lab workers had come to truly appreciate the Yggdrasil's self-cleaning nature, so most of the labs were built from it. Amelia's control over it was more of a convenient afterthought than anything.


Theo paused for a second and pulled his shirt off. Very nice. I smiled a little, not just at the view, but at how many of the other people in the room stopped to appreciate it. There was also a bit of jealousy from Rey. That's okay, they're allowed to look. Judging by Missy's patterns, she was having the exact same thought.


"Sorry," Theo said self consciously. "I don't really want to get blood stains all over my clothes, y'know."


"Not a problem," Vicky replied. Yeah, I'll bet. What was interesting was how Amelia and Taylor responded. Or didn't respond, as they case may be. Taylor barely made more than a minor note of it, and that seemed to please my Big Sister to no end. Plus one hundred points for Taylor.


Chevalier took his place between the two boys, and a happy Amelia was on the other side of Theo.


"I'm going to use my power to make you go to sleep," Amelia informed him. "Spare you some pain."


"I'd appreciate that," Theo smiled nervously. He leaned back and the instruments let me know he lost consciousness.


"I'm ready," Amelia informed Chevalier. Please let this work.


Blood sprayed from Theo's chest, hitting both Chevalier and Amelia.


============

A/N- Yes, I am that much of a dick.

The real question is, am I dick enough to make the plan fail for my own amusement and the hate of my readers?

... Actually, that's rhetorical. Of course I am. But I won't compromise the integrity of the story. So it's really just a question of which answer is true to the narrative.