Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Amelia, Ch 381- Zach


I couldn't help but stare, and I wasn't alone in that. Taylor's head was now linked to several spindly spider like legs that didn't seem to have much purpose beyond letting her ride on Riley's back. It was fucking creepy as hell. Okay, so time to break the ice. "Well, that's one way to get ahead in life." And now everyone is looking at me instead of her. Mission accomplished.


Taylor rolled her eyes while everyone else just cringed, then my armor's com system activated. "Not the time for stupid puns. Now we have to get out of here. I'm going to move some of the forcefields to give you and Theo a bit of space outside the ship. When you're outside, I'll drop the bubble and you'll make your way to the surface. We'll need to be quick about it, because once I start shifting the forcefields around, the ship's lifespan will be measured in seconds."


I gave one last switch to the emergency fuel cells, seeing to it that all of them were maxed, then 'dropped' them from my focus. I waded through the fucking cold ass water to where the three girls were waiting. I tapped Missy and Clarice on the shoulders, then reached over to Taylor, before feigning hesitation. "Promise not to bite me?"


It's amazing how many expressions of annoyance that a single face can show at once. "I promise not to bite you."


I patted her on the head. "Good girl."


"Ordering Atropos to castrate you, however, is still an option. Now go climb out into the near arctic waters and drown already."


I mock saluted then turned toward the door "Yes ma'am. You are the head of state after all. I'm heading out." I stepped up next to Theo. "So, race you to the top?"


He shook his head, but I could tell he found it as funny as I did. "I have no idea how you get away with half the shit you do."


The ship's door slid open, and water poured in, nearly knocking me off my feet. "Okay, you caught me. I'm not really a parahuman at all, the reason I keep coming back from the dead is because let's be honest, there's no way I'm getting into heaven." The door sealed behind us as Theo's reflective metal shell wrapped completely around him. "And I keep escaping from hell by seducing the guards. Last one was a real harpy. Seriously, took me an hour to get all the feathers out of my mouth."


His chuckle was distorted by speaking through his metal shell. "You sure those weren't grasshoppers?"


"Them, too." The shield popped and water slammed into us hard enough that my armor didn't even have time to blink damage alerts before I found myself floating at the top of the ocean. It wasn't all that much warmer than in the ship. I recalled the 'stored' memories my power let me hold, and moments later, the girls were next to me. They shrieked in surprise and discomfort.


"Uh, yeah, sorry about that. The water's a little cold for a skinny dip, ain't it?" Okay, buddy. Please get up here soon. I don't know what your girlfriends are going to do if you die on them now.


"F-f-fuck th-th c-c-old!" I had to guess that was Missy, since Clarice almost never used profanities and Taylor couldn't talk right now. I couldn't tell without looking, and I wasn't going to look.


"You ladies may want to get back a bit. I know I'm hot, but I'm not sure how Theo'd take it if he found both his girlfriends tubbing with me naked." I cycled through options and found the 'phoenix' setting on my armor. Normally meant to be a really impressive suicide bomb. Dialing it as low as possible, I activated it and the water started warming up instantly.


In seconds, the area within a foot or so of me had begun to bubble. The ladies drifted far enough back to find somewhere comfortably between arctic and boiling alive. I did my best not to look toward the girls as they huddled together for some protection from the cold. Or was Taylor, riding on Clarice's back like some weird pet. Luckily the steam quickly created a very thick fog bank around us.


"Okay, I know we're not that far north, why is it so damn cold?" Missy complained.


Taylor's voice came over my armor. "Okay, you're the only one I can communicate through right now. I need you to contact Atropos and tell her to continue the mission. Our dimensional barricade is only going to last a few more minutes. See if you can get ahold of Victoria as well. We're going to want her help out here."


Clarice, meanwhile, was explaining things to Missy. "Part of the treaty on acceptable colony worlds includes looking for comfortable climates at the portal's origin. I'm guessing this world never fully broke from the most recent ice age, likely leaving the Middle East a wet temperate zone. That's to our advantage if this lasts any length of time. Easy sources of large animals for food and clothing. If we're lucky we'll find out what Woolly Mammoth tastes like."


I smiled. That's cute, I'll remember it. "Victoria's signal is gone." Please let her be alright. I didn't draw attention to it, but I still had a bit of a crush on the hyperactive blonde bombshell of neurosis that was Victoria. I was more than happy with Emma, but as a man I couldn't help but occasionally wonder. Naturally, I kept that little detail to myself. If Vicky or Emma's bullshit biosensing powers let them in on that secret, then neither felt the need to tell me they knew.


"Fuck. Well, she could easily be out of range. Can you reach Lily?"


I looked through the channels. "Yeah. Here she is." The armor responded to the focus of the eyes, so by the time I finished the sentence I was already on call with her. "Hey, Atropos. Just letting you know we're okay, but a lot of our equipment's been lost." Like, say, the ship and three uniforms and Taylor from the neck down. "Khepri wants to know how things are going on your end."


"I'm almost at the third target. Do you know if there are any more?"


That's a good question. I almost glanced over at the girls and ask, but Khepri was clearly listening in. "Not completely sure, we'll find out after you destroy this one. If we still can't contact Avalon, then there are more and we'll have to hunt them down. If we don't contact you immediately, assume there's more. You will circle back to the palace and see if you can make contact with Victoria. The two of you kick up as much carnage as possible then mount a fighting retreat and we'll all regroup at panel green black white gold."


"Understood."


I had no idea what that meant. Whatever, not my job to worry about. "Okay, so now what?"


"We try not to freeze or boil while waiting for Theo to make it to the surface."


You mean if he makes it to the surface. I switched my system back to external speaking mode. "So, isn't this where you give us a rousing speech to raise our spirits like they do in the movies? You can give a bunch of tired catch phrases like 'chin up' and 'we'll be back on our feet in no time'." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Missy trying to hide her smile. Whether Taylor saw it or not, I wasn't certain.


Taylor somehow hijacked the speaker system for my armor, letting her be heard by everyone "Why is it that I haven't fired you? Because I really think I should fire you. Out of a cannon. Into the sun."


The others chuckled at that comment. It was safe to laugh at Taylor's jokes. That wasn't much, but it lightened the mood a little. Distracted them from worrying about Theo for a little while longer. C'mon, man. I know you can make it.


And to top it all off, the batteries on my suit are running low. I smirked and affected a bad Asian accent. "I am a fairure, I have no honor. I shar take my own rife." I mimicked holding a knife it both hands and jabbing it into my chest, activating the armor's suicide switch at the same time. I appeared above the water and splashed right back into it. I should probably ask why my power never lets me appear inside water one of these days. The water was still painfully hot through my suit, but I was much better insulated against heat than cold, and the rest of the team had no insulation at all.


"Okay, Theo's in range now. I'm guiding him to us."


Fuck yes!


"I... I don't think he's conscious."


God damn it!


He wasn't using his power when he made it up. Fuck. At least he stopped flying at the water's surface. Either some kind of safety feature, or maybe Taylor just took direct control of the armor's features, they were designed for her to do that after all.


The girls swam over to him, while I swam further away. As much as I wanted to help, I couldn't. Theo's armor could take the heat, but the girls would be boiled alive. And I still had to keep the water warm so they didn't freeze. On top of that, they had medical knowledge, while powers meant the brain scans and knowledge uploads didn't work for me.


And even if they did work on me, and I took medicine instead of wasting space on silly stuff like video game programming and how to direct pornography, I still couldn't compete with the world's most powerful biotinker. I had to trust them to do what I could not. Come on, Theo. I don't have a lot of friends that I can just hang with. You have to be alright.


They had his suit open, with Riley sitting on his hips and doing whatever it was she needed to do. I couldn't help but look, in spite of the lack of modesty here. But the bruises covering Theo's upper body, and the ugly looking gash on Clarice's side ruined any eroticism that might have come from it.


"Minimal decompression, major crushing trauma," Riley stated. "He'll live, mostly because his suit protected him from the worst of it and is currently running life support. If he was any deeper when he lost control of his power, he'd be dead right now."


Now both my armor and Theo's spoke up. "So we're down to three able bodies. Missy, please get us to shore. I'm pretty sure Lily should be done by now, and I still don't have access to Avalon. We're still on our own out here."


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A/N- Damn it's been too long since I've had a Zach chapter.

Also- shall be busy, don't expect a second chapter today.

 

Amelia, Ch 382- Clarice


Some days, I wish I kept my ability to not feel pain. We'd found a safe beach to make camp. It was as cold as the rest of this hell, but with plenty of pine trees. Cooking up medicine with pine sap wasn't exactly optimal conditions, but it's what we had to work with. In addition to the various upgrades in my body and the tech in Theo and Zach's suits, I managed to put together a more than reasonable hospital to care for our wounded and give Taylor the necessary long term upgrades to keep her alive for what was becoming a mission that might last days.


Zach tossed another branch into the fire. "So, here's a major existential question. How long do you think it'll be before we're assumed dead and they jumpstart your replacements? And what do you do when you meet your own doubles?"


"They won't." Taylor's voice came from the suits. "This was meant to be a clean mission, but it's far too important to allow to fail. Worst case scenario was always that we'd mount a true invasion and rescue force using the zerg and Dragon suits. Yes, that comes with a very real risk of starting an all out war with China. But that's far better than leaving them in control of a dimension of their own."


In the interest of metabolic stability, I'd put much of her brain to sleep. The lower parts of her brain that regulated her body were shut down, while the upper mental functions were working quite well. The functional opposite of being in a permanent coma. It would cause some degradation over time, but once we were out of here I could use her backup data to repair the damage. She let me do all that to her. I just... how could she trust me so much?


Missy reached out and touched my shoulder. "Is something wrong? Why are you crying?"


I smiled, looking at her green eyes. "I'm not sure."


She looked at me as if she wanted to press the issue, but just smiled back. "You're still adorably quirky."


Thank you for not prying too hard. "And that's still only worth five points. But I give you an extra ten because I think you're adorable, too."


....


"Hey, guys, can you hear me?" Wha? I immediately woke up from my nap near the fire. I tried to extract myself from Missy's arms, only to discover our cobbled together Yggdrasil outfits grown from scraps cloned off of Theo's suit had fused themselves together in our sleep. Well, drat. That's going to be inconvenient.


"Yeah, we're here," Zach responded. "What's the situation?"


"Atropos coming in for a landing. Got Victoria with me. I think we've scared the Yangban off, but Vicky's pretty hurt."


"Understood." Taylor's voice spoke through Zach's suit. "Fly low toward the suit identification. I'll take control when you're in range and guide you down."


I nudged Missy with my elbow, trying to prompt her to wake up. This is going to be embarrassing. "Muh?" Missy tried to push away from me.


"Clarice? What's going on?"


I pulled my arms into the shirt and twisted around to face her while ignoring the agony in my side. Having one working lung is inconvenient. I spoke quietly to avoid interrupting the more serious conversation. "The Yggdrasil wasn't as dormant as I thought it was. It fused together while we were asleep."


"Wait, you mean you still have overrides to my armor?"


"Well, of course. It's an emergency option to protect everyone. It probably saved Theo's life today, and if you're ever disabled by, say, an injury or some kind of Master/Stranger effect, you'll wish you had me backing you up."


Missy looked down at where our crudely designed shirts had melded, blushing slightly. I followed her eyes. Oh. "Well, at least it our pants were caught in it. What do we do now? I guess one of us can go without a shirt for a little while."


I focused on Missy's face. She was quite attractive, so much so that I was afraid my natural appearance would never quite compete with her looks. But up until now, I'd always run on the assumption that she and I were sisters. The idea that she'd find me attractive hadn't crossed my mind.


I shook my head. "No, shouldn't be necessary. Just put your hands on my shoulders and push away." I did the same, though I set my hands on her ribs and abdomen. I felt the heat of her skin and the behavior of her pulse, using my instincts to put together a good idea of her body and how it worked. Both overall and in the right now. This is something I'll have to think of in the future. I'll have to ask my Big Sister for advice.


"Why didn't you tell me about this?"


"Didn't know I had to. It's standard in every suit of armor we've built, including all of your priors. Even mine has overrides that Amelia or our techs can access. We just thought it was understood that if we built a suit without the protocols, we'd let people know."


"I guess that makes sense." Lily didn't sound at all happy about the idea. "Let me know when I get in your range."


I gritted my teeth against the pain in my side as our arms managed to push out, the clothing making a slurping noise as it pulled apart. We were lucky I used the armor's underlayer as the raw material for this clothing. It wasn't designed with durability in mind, simply resiliency and a medium for the medical treatment tech and various other biointerfaces the armor needed to operate properly. Ours was even more fragile since the stuff was very much designed to not replicate outside the suits, so I had to cobble together a solution.


I glanced over at Zach, who was making a show of not watching as we pried ourselves apart. I pulled my shirt together at my stomach, making it stick back to itself while Missy did the same to hers. I pulled mine together extra tight. I didn't want anyone to realize I'd pulled the stitching in my side. The only reason I was still functional right now was all the modifications I'd made to my biology over the last few months.


I saw Victoria first, a shimmer of light in an overcast sky without any human interference. They landed and I was already up to get a closer look. Lily was carrying two people. Someone in a Yangban uniform, and Victoria. Her armor was a mess, barely held together in some areas. The damage done to her body through the armor was remarkable, her warform had to be the only reason she was still alive.


"It's rude to stare," she scolded. "You should see the other guys. Two hundred against two, and we won. By the w- holy fuck! Taylor, what happened to you? I can't sense anything from the neck down!"


"There isn't anything from the neck down." Taylor sounded tired. Hmm, the brain alterations must be interfering with her functions. I might have to make some more modifications. At this rate, I'll be forced to use her backup to repair damage. "It's a long story. Care to explain the prisoner?"


Lily tossed him forward casually. "Yeah, after I found out you wanted to rendezvous in Tokyo, I thought these guys know how to shunt through their barricade, it's gotta be in their armor somewhere. So, after saving Vicky's ass."


"Yeah, yeah, I know. You'll get your traditional rescued maiden makeout session after all my parts are back in working order."


Makeout session? Dammit, I thought I made sure that she wouldn't have any bicurious leanings during the proto- Oh, wait, no. She's just joking. I relaxed a little. Of course she's joking.


Although she could deliberately rework her neurochemistry just about any way she wanted. I still couldn't believe I made such an obvious miscalculation. I went out of my way to keep her from being a desirable target to any Passenger, much as I had with Noelle, and it turns out that obsession prompted my own to take interest in her. Sure, it worked out great in the end, but it was so stupid.


Lily laughed. "In what possible world do you count as a maiden?"


"Hey, I'll have you know these lips have never touched another human being. Granted, it's only because I had to grow this pair in the last ten minutes, but they're still complete maiden territory."


Taylor managed to make a good emulation of a sigh through Lily's armor. "I'm sure your respective significant others would love to hear all about this topic, but can we get back on track?"


Lily looked over at Taylor. "Yeah, sorry. Anyway, after saving Vicky by firing a full barrage of my empowered bolts down at the people who had managed to capture her, which I'm not too sorry to report killed a lot of them, she managed to disable a couple before I came in to rescue her, since her armor was destroyed. They appeared to be dragging her to a shunt vehicle."


"Third attempt, too," Vicky added. "Turns out, their ships are pretty fragile. Doesn't take a lot of electricity for me to short one out."


"So we grabbed one of the unconscious ones and took him back with us. Like I said, they have to have some kind of code, right? Like we do to get through our barricade device? We shunt this guy over with the right message and our people will be able to figure out their get reinforcements through in no time, right?"


I glanced over at the damage done to Victoria. She was in really really bad shape, even with her powers repairing the worst damage, I could make guesses at what they put her through. I looked over at the Yangban member, noting the various locations of his injuries. She did that while missing a leg and both of her hands and much of her face.


I won't be able to reverse engineer the tech, but I can reverse engineer its user. Right now, I really wanted to make the bastard suffer. "I'll take care of the details."


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A/N- Turns out I had a second chapter in me after all.

Spelled out in no uncertain terms all the stuff so few people seemed to get about Vicky's rebirth.

And other developments!