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Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

This is the question that improves the numbers. With the Riley/Theo/Missy love triangle safely resolved, it doesn't tear them apart at a critical moment, and thus more lives are saved.
Maybe, but I see them all as mature enough to not let that effect them whilst the whole world is being destroyed.
 
Needs some editing and cleaning up. But, yeah, this is pretty much exactly what happened.

Congrats, your first gets to be canon.
OMG YES BEST DAY EVER. Brb getting this tattooed on me.
I cleaned it up a bit, but I'm out the door for work in 5, so I'll have to take another look at it tonight.
 
While I know it's not as common, can't a threesome refer to a love-triangle instead of group sex? If so, "two or more people in this room will participate inathreesomewitheachother" is already true. Possibly twice over.

The question is not which meaning is "more common", but which meaning Dinah would understand more naturally. Her power is conceptual, it depends on her own assumptions and the way her conscious mind asks the question from her shard. If she were naive enough to be oblivious to the word's more... worldly meaning, then it would be possible.

OTOH, while Dinah can't lie about her numbers, it has never been made clear whether she can intentionally misinterpret their intent. Probably not.

The five and a bit percent of it not happening is just the chance that they all die or end up hating each other.

Or just all of them ending up with a preference for monogamy. While millionaire celebrities having threesomes is a stereotypical and likely possibility, it's also entirely imaginable that Trevor just never gets all that interested in sex at all, Missy sticks to a serial monogamy of committed vanilla relationships, Theo drops out of the team, Zach gets married to Emma and even if they are vaguely interested, neither of them volunteers to invite a third party of their own sex, while Dinah ends up using her power to find her single best possible partner.
 
I wonder if we could use our cloning tech to bring back Jack Slash. Being covered in acid and drowned in cockroaches was nowhere near a horrible enough death for that twisted bastard.
"What's the worst that could happen?" said Missy as she fired up the cloning tank.
seven point two four
There's a joke to be made there, but I'm above it. I'm not above making the metajoke, though.
"No," Trevor insisted. "You keep showing us these dumb ass movies from Aleph. That last one was utterly retarded. Alien invaders is cool and all, but why the fuck would anyone be dumb enough to terraform a planet that gives their entire species all the powers of Alexandria and Legend combined? Don't get me started on the parts that can be summed up as the single most poorly written Jesus allegory in the history of storytelling."
I wonder what he thought of Superman Returns?

"The whole point of watching Aleph movies is to laugh at how shitty they are," Zach argued. "That's what makes them fun. That and all those companies we've never heard of that pay for their businesses to be the ones that get blown up in the fighting. Truly, they are geniuses of product placement. Besides, this next movie's by a really good director. The guy who did Pan's Labyrinth. You all liked that one, didn't you?"
Aren't the Aleph movies better than Earth-Bet? Because of the whole... actual infrastructure and whatnot?
"Ninety four point seven seven three," the girl answered.


We all fell silent.
Dinah, thinking: Threesomes are when three or more people go out to eat, right?
 
It occurs to me that Dinah probably selected her adorable suit based on the numbers. Which means that the suit makes the numbers come out better than a nice dress or something comfy. And we probably saw exactly how:
Oh god, she is so adorable in her tiny little business suit trying to act all grown up! I paused for a second. Oh. Is this what everyone thinks when they look at me? No wonder the adults never take me seriously.
So Missy now knows the root cause of her respect issue and can start figuring out how to get around it. Which, given that she currently possesses one of the nastier superweapons in the world, is probably a good thing.
 
The question is not which meaning is "more common", but which meaning Dinah would understand more naturally. Her power is conceptual, it depends on her own assumptions and the way her conscious mind asks the question from her shard. If she were naive enough to be oblivious to the word's more... worldly meaning, then it would be possible.

OTOH, while Dinah can't lie about her numbers, it has never been made clear whether she can intentionally misinterpret their intent. Probably not.
She can definitely answer a question that isn't what the asker MEANT but is a valid interpretation of their words. See what happened with Tagg - he asked if the cafeteria showdown would bring Skitter in, Dinah gave very good odds. She just neglected to mention that she gave the numbers for the cafeteria showdown EVENTUALLY leading to Skitter's capture, not the numbers for her being captured there, and certainly not the numbers for her being captured there and Tagg surviving and breaking the Undersider's grip on BB.
 
OTOH, while Dinah can't lie about her numbers, it has never been made clear whether she can intentionally misinterpret their intent. Probably not.
Pretty sure she can. From when Taylor turned herself in, I think they called in Dinah and she threatened to lie.

Edit: Here we go:
"I do," Dinah replied. "But I'm not telling. And I'm charging ten times as much if you ask me for a number, and then I'll lie, and I won't be able to use my power for a while after. And your bosses don't want that. Not with an Endbringer coming soon."

Of course, we don't actually get proof that she can lie, but she says she can.
 
Pretty sure she can. From when Taylor turned herself in, I think they called in Dinah and she threatened to lie.

Edit: Here we go:
"I do," Dinah replied. "But I'm not telling. And I'm charging ten times as much if you ask me for a number, and then I'll lie, and I won't be able to use my power for a while after. And your bosses don't want that. Not with an Endbringer coming soon."

Of course, we don't actually get proof that she can lie, but she says she can.
But here she isn't really threatening to mislead them, just with gving herself a backlash by breaking her power's rules that explicitly forbid her to lie. For example, even if she is physically able to vocalize a false number, she couldn't ever really mislead Coil, if it was immediately obvious that her previous answer gave her brainfreeze.

She can definitely answer a question that isn't what the asker MEANT but is a valid interpretation of their words. See what happened with Tagg - he asked if the cafeteria showdown would bring Skitter in, Dinah gave very good odds. She just neglected to mention that she gave the numbers for the cafeteria showdown EVENTUALLY leading to Skitter's capture, not the numbers for her being captured there, and certainly not the numbers for her being captured there and Tagg surviving and breaking the Undersider's grip on BB.
Yeah, I get that, but this is still unlikely to be Dinah being manipulative. She normally doesn't get a conscious visual of her results, so she didn't just "neglect" to describe the circumstances, she didn't know them any more than Tagg did. If she could just pick between multiple "valid" interpretations of a question, then when Coil asks "Chances that I die before lunch", she could just give a reply based on telling herself that counting yesterday's lunch as the reference point is totally valid.
 
Ch 242- Emma
Amelia, Ch 242- Emma


Ninety five percent? Holy shit. Who? I ruled myself out immediately. Given the issues with my biology, it would make a lot more sense for me to just give Zach permission to cheat than it would for me to participate in anything. Dinah and Riley were thirteen and twelve, although developmentally Dinah was a year or so behind the curve thanks to her captivity, and Riley was setting up to be an early bloomer. Then again, Dinah's prediction didn't have a time stamp on it, for all I knew this wouldn't occur until we were all in our twenties.


There were a few uncomfortable glances exchanged, to say the least. Theo looked like he was about to apologize to Missy for something he didn't do. Riley looked a little... frightened? Zach, well, my lovable moron looked like he wanted to apologize, too. Only in his case he should.


Trevor coughed uncomfortably, then spoke up. "Well, I'm just going to say it's easier just to pretend no one asked that question. How's that sound? Whatever may or may not happen in the future, I'm sure it'll make more sense then. In the meantime, let's talk about something completely unrelated."


"Sounds like a plan," Zach agreed readily, and everyone else nodded their agreement. "Well, my monkey's paw has been properly high fived. Next time I'll ask boxers or briefs. So, who else wants to try their luck? You can't possibly top mine."


"Chances my sister, Aster, becomes a parahuman?" Theo asked. Of course he'd want to know that.


"I can't see that," Dinah replied. "My powers are still limited by the Taboo. I have been meaning to ask if you had a way to work around that. It would be extremely helpful for all of us."


"Not in the way you're hoping for," I admitted. "We can install memories of things that are Taboo, but that won't allow you to remember new Taboo information, nor will it allow retain new memories of Taboo information you might pick up in the future. We believe it's only possible to completely break the memory blocks if you have a trigger event after receiving the memories. And as of right now, we have absolutely no way to break the blocks on Thinker powers on Trigger Events, Endbringers and Scion. Believe me, we've tried everything we could think of. Which, admittedly, isn't much."


"A pity," Dinah replied. "Do we have any other questions?"


Trevor took a deep breath. "Chances my mother accepts me when I go public with my sexuality? She'll pretend she does, I'm sure. I just need to know if she'll ever actually mean it."


Dinah looked away. "Eleven point six three," she answered. "Sorry."


"Nothing I didn't already expect," he sighed. Oh, Trevor. "Well, that's her problem. Not my fault if she can't handle it, and no one will be able to say I haven't done my part to care for my family."


Theo reached over and put a hand on Trevor's shoulder. "Sorry, man. Believe me, I've been there."


"Woah, back up a second," Zach raised his hands and affected shock. "You're gay? That is such a relief. I thought all those magazines were Theo's and I was losing so much sleep trying to figure out how to tell Missy the bad news."


Trevor chuckled. "Fuck you, Zach."


"Ordinarily I'd turn that down," Zach replied. "But the precog has spoken. I'm gonna have to ask you to wear a wig, though."


Trevor gave me a smirk. "Would you?"


It took me a moment to realize that he wasn't propositioning me. At least, not for the obvious result. It took Zach longer, so he wasn't remotely prepared when I dug a thumb up into the nerve under his armpit. Not too hard, or his corrective teleport would have undid my effort.


"Gah!" Zach jumped away from me. "Okay! I'll be good!"


"No you won't," I teased. He may be an idiot, but he's a good man, always there to lighten the tense situations with humor.


"Yeah, probably not," he replied.


"I have my question," Riley asked softly. "Will I ever be able to do enough good to make up for the bad things I did as Bonesaw?"


So much for lightening the mood. Missy was there first, pulling the girl into a hug. I could probably ask the same question, I thought. And everything I've ever done is nothing compared to what Bonesaw was guilty of on an average weekend.


"I can't answer that kind of question," Dinah replied. "My power follows numbers. Good or bad aren't able to be put into numbers. I don't know if our Passengers are capable of comprehending such ideas in the first place. I do know you've helped. A lot. The Nilbog mission alone improved the numbers by a full percentage point, and up to half a million extra lives. But... I've been trying to remind myself that there are people behind my numbers. Faces and names and lives, instead of just data. So, I want you to know how much you helped Sam and Rory."


"Sam?" Missy asked. I was drawing a blank as to who Dinah was talking about, too. For that matter, who's Rory?


"You'd know her better as Prism," Dinah replied. Oh, right, one of the ones we revived from Bakuda's glass bomb. "She came as my cousin's date for my uncle's Christmas gathering. She's the head of one of New York's Protectorate teams, and Rory's second in command of a different team. They wouldn't stop talking about it. Oh, and they're going to get married in a year. But don't tell them, they don't know about it yet. Or the baby."


"Wait, she didn't keep her powers when she was revived," I interrupted.


"She got a new set," Dinah replied.


"Her too?" I asked. Thank you distraction. "That's two of the five we restored, already. There has to be some kind of undetected bias, since none of them should be any more likely to get powers than any random person on the street. What abilities did she get?"


"She creates copies of other parahumans that are in her line of sight, now," Dinah answered. "She can generate a maximum of three clones per day, and they have duration limits that deplete faster as they use their abilities. Thinker and Tinker are especially bad for the duration. My power, for example, she can only ask one question to a clone, then it pops. More generic brute or blaster powers can last for potentially hours, depending on how powerful they are."


Zach let out an appreciative whistle. "Some people have all the luck. Even if the only thing you do with that is find out what powers an enemy cape has, you're golden."


"That's a lot stronger than her original ability," I added. "However, it is similar. Prism used to be able to create dupes of herself and then absorb them for temporary ability increases. Now she dupes others, complete with powers. Compare to Victoria, who in both cases got brute, mover and energy generation powers. Riley, do you think there could be a pattern?" Here we go, Tinker talk, think about that instead of self pity.


"Unknowable with such a small sample size," Riley replied. "It's an interesting theory, however. What's more significant is the potential for additional data from pre and post trigger brain mapping. Every piece of data we can pull together on how trigger events work, the better. With enough samples, I might even be able to build devices that let us modify powers."


That's right, that was one of her projects. As good as my powers were, they weren't nearly a match for Riley's in trying to understand how powers worked.


"I will make certain to let her know," Dinah replied. "This could be the reason the numbers get better."


She's uncertain. Not lying, but her power's not seeing benefits to the process. I blinked, realizing that my power switched into 'biotinker' state. The nature of these repeat triggers are still part of the Taboo, of course she couldn't know what would come of that research. It was something of a miracle that she could even see Scion's actions enough to know there was an apocalypse in the first place.


I glanced at my friends. Zach remained his usual baseline, with the slightly slower than average aging process. He was more alert than most of us, to his body he had just woken up refreshed and alert only a few minutes ago. Everyone else besides me had been up since this morning.


Missy was mainly concerned over Riley, as was Theo. Riley was torn between her Tinker nature and her foray into self pity. Something that was occurring more frequently than ever, of late. Tinker productivity loss alone could account for a number change.


Trevor was still caught up in his family issues. Sadly, there was very little I could do for him in that regard past being a sympathetic ear. He wasn't lacking in people who could understand what he was going through. None of us in this group had what could be called a good home life. One of the things I most envied Taylor for, her relationship with her father. I think mine would have disowned me if he thought he could get away with it. Going public with everything I'd done, well, unintended side effect was that it hurt my dad's reputation.


"I have my question," I finally spoke up. "You don't need a lot of details, do you? I could, say, ask you if a plan would work without you needing to know the details of the plan, right?"


"Yes," Dinah answered. "Minerva often uses questions of that nature."


"I have one of those plans," I replied. "If it succeeds, how much do the odds change in the end?"


"Point five percent increased odds of the apocalypse occurring," Dinah replied, her eyes widening. "But if it does occur, the number of survivors increases by almost one hundred and fifty seven million people." Her eyes met mine. "What exactly are you planning?"


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

Bonus scene:

"What are the odds the author's going to be a dick and not tell the audience what's going on?"

"As if you even need to ask."
 
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That's a very good question Dinah...

But here she isn't really threatening to mislead them, just with gving herself a backlash by breaking her power's rules that explicitly forbid her to lie.
She says, outright, that she'll lie... That's pretty specifically really threatening to mislead them.

Her power doesn't stop her from telling lies, nor do we ever see the consequences of it, so for all we know it's just as if she'd asked a bunch of questions instead of one and her power goes 'fuck it, that's it for the day'.

Alternatively is the flip side. If her power does cause her pain or discomfort if she lies, how do the people she's dealing with know the difference between that and regular thinker headaches?

It really wouldn't be that hard for her.
 
I call Zach, Emma, and Crystal.
I might be remembering wrong, but wasn't it Zach, Emma, and Vicky that had the little love-triangle thing going? Where'd Crystal come in?
OTOH, while Dinah can't lie about her numbers, it has never been made clear whether she can intentionally misinterpret their intent. Probably not.
Who says she can't lie about her numbers? It was just lying to Coil was a Bad Idea.
"Not in the way you're hoping for," I admitted. "We can install memories of things that are Taboo, but that won't allow you to remember new Taboo information, nor will it allow retain new memories of Taboo information you might pick up in the future.

So, does that mean I'm right in my taboo relation to short-term/long-term memory theory?
 
No, that's pretty much the opposite of misleading.
Yeah, you're right. She can't mislead them, she can't lie.

I don't fucking care. Ignore my quote from canon. Ignore that I was responding you you asking if she could intentionally give them the wrong information.

You're right. You win. Yet another pointless Worm power conversation fucking over.
 
Who says she can't lie about her numbers? It was just lying to Coil was a Bad Idea.
She does, in Interlude 11f.
"I want you to look at a future where we survived, and I want you to tell us what happened."
"No. Please," she begged.
"Now, pet."
"Why is she so against this?" Trickster asked.
"Headaches," Dinah answered, pressing her hands to her head, "It breaks my power. It takes days, sometimes weeks before everything is sorted out and working again. Headaches the entire time, until everything is sorted out, worse headaches if I try to get numbers in the meantime. Have to be careful, can't muddle things up. Can't lie about the numbers, can't look at what happens, or it just becomes chaos. Safer to keep a distance, to make and follow rules. Safer to just ask the questions and let things fall into place."
So if she faked, she'd be out of it for days or weeks.

Yes, the child could have been lying to the psycho, assuming it wasn't something Coil was able to confirm before he grabbed her. But then, Dinah would have seen what happens to her when she lies.

Also, it's the author giving us information.
No, that's pretty much the opposite of misleading.
It's an old one.

You're tracking someone, and lose the trail. The only person who would see where they went is a known liar--he'll lie every single time. But hell, at least you know he's lying, right?

"What way did they go?" you ask.

"Oh, they went that way," he says, pointing to the South.

Which way do you go? You know they're not South, but did they go North? West? East, presumably doubling back around on you? What about more nuanced choices? Northeast? Southeast?

Now imagine how much more confusing it gets with the difference between numbers.

Just because you know someone's lying doesn't mean you know the truth.
 
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so those last two chapters really drop the s-bomb of twists.here's a song to go with whatever Emma is about to do,she's probably doing it out of love...for her friends and comrades.
this is Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" as covered by Jeff Buckley.because if there is any character that knows about love it's Emma,that it's a Hallelujah.


here's a song for Dinah,it's Ben Howard's "Oats in the Water" because people should be afraid of what she finds.
 
Missy was mainly concerned over Riley, as was Theo. Riley was torn between her Tinker nature and her f oray into self pity. Something that was occurring more frequently than ever, of late. Tinker productivity loss alone could account for a number change.


I think that the three-some will not happen for a while, but when it does it will be between Missy, Theo and Riley.
 
I think that the three-some will not happen for a while, but when it does it will be between Missy, Theo and Riley.
My money is on Theo,Riley and...Trevor. i call this ship Thermal Response Test OR TRT.i don't think it's much of a threesome and more of a Non-monogamous relationship.
 
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Emma/Zach/Vicky is probably more likely to happen first (ignoring Emma's "permission to cheat" comment and its implications about her biology), but Missy/Theo/Clarice will be more satisfying for all involved.
 

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