Panacea Quest

[X] This is how the world ends.... interlude.

 

[X] This is how the world ends.... interlude.

 

So who exactly are they referring to in this sequence? And also, where did the Taylor clone get too?

[X]Interlude

 

A resounding meh on the Taylor interlude I'm glad there is some of her left in Annie but it's still super fucked up all the way around.

I was actually hoping it would be the Taylor(clone) and Lisa reunion interlude.

 

I was expecting Taylor, not Annie. Eh, not like I voted for any of the options.

With Cranial in coma, hyzmerca's plan of giving her back Taylor's memories after 6 months will probably not happen(admittedly, I don't think it has passed yet with Claire still so small). Kind of sad, still. And lot like Dinah, in a way, expect her power doesn't give answers. Teenagers can be quite 'edgy', even when going for goodness, so I wouldn't trust her to make best decisions.

For future,I guess there is the option of fighting super-plague, establishing new societal situation, colonization of other worlds and places and dealing with raising Claire. I'm surprised that there is school to visit while they're abolishing civilization.

While that's nice, it is not quite what PQ has been about. And honestly, I'd say a different writing style might be better for that.

That said, there have been plenty of quitters on this, and the quest hasn't stopped going because of them.

 

I have been having a lot of trouble with the next chapter, and it will take time I don't have tonight to finish it the way I want it to be finished. Thank you all very much for your patience.

 

More Mona?

 

Author's Note: Ended up having too much trouble with what I wanted to do. Sunk cost fallacy is difficult to overcome.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

You leave the funeral of a man you never met. You're thoughtful.

You made out good, all things considered. One of the 102 people they'll still be mass producing until Cranial's rise. You suspect how it will end, how it was always going to end. Aristocracy of the capes, a hundred clone families who will marry into wealth and power and each other. The Golden Morning merely accelerated it.

This is dawn of a new world, your world. As long as Strangers are still needed, they will want you. You imagine for a moment what it will be like in a hundred years, or two hundred years. No one will know, even the current threats are taken care of. The odds for everyone dying is tiny, the odds for extensive civilization are decent but small, not too different from the odds of Amy and Victoria marrying. Pretty much no matter what, you're in the top 0.1% of valuable people, and there will probably be a lot of Madison Clements in the future.

You follow Lisa and Emma for a while, and play with Emma's hair. The thrill of touching someone without them ever knowing, feeling, is new and glorious. You have the best of powers. Emma is talking with Lisa or Sarah of whoever she is now.

"Have you talked with the other Taylor?" Emma asks.

"Last I heard she was in suspended animation. They want her for if Annie dies again, but can't let her take over the world, so she's stuck there. I've talked to Dragon about it, but she can't help yet. She's working on a whole big thing with all of us, a way to put villains to use." Lisa shakes her head. "Without Mommy Cranial they don't have the juice to mass produce mindrape, so currently they're going for watching us 24/7." Lisa shrugs. "Better than before."

"Think they'll just use us all as base material once she's back?" Emma says thoughtfully. "Some want to, some don't. Got a guess for the decision?" Lisa grimaces.

"Not a real precog." Lisa sighs. "Too much information to work with. There's no destiny here, too many whys. Do you really want me to make vague, silly prophecies?" Emma laughs.

"It's what you do." Lisa rolls her eyes.

"The Yangban gets cut up for spare parts with One dead. Scion really did a number on the Thinkers after talking to Eden, and they didn't have many survivors at this point anyway. Two and Null get sucked up by the Protectorate, which is going to splinter as soon as Dragon gets unchained because she doesn't like being a slave. Absolute latest is when Cranial gets saved, as her maker is top of the list for the Brain Box now, and he'll be pissed at what's become of the Protectorate. The incestuous freaks and maybe a few others will form smaller organizations, and I expect Dragon's group and Alexandria's group will completely fail to beat each other for a few decades. That happens as long as the capes survive everything, which depends on what the Endbringers do against different arks. For the most part the Protectorate knockoffs are going to take over everything because nobody else has powers that can copy what Annie and Amy are doing, and even if they did they would lose because she's got started first. I don't think anyone will, or else I'd have noticed something. We'll collapse into a bunch of hostile groups of parahumans, either ones stuck in weird environments to be immune from the plagues or wandering around Annie's giant playground that's all the areas of the world where you won't freeze to death in winter." Lisa says.

"Your vagueness is amazing." Emma nods. "How imprecise and easy to misinterpret you are as a seer."

"It's a gift." Lisa agrees.

"No idea why we can't find what's causing the plagues?" Emma asks.

"It's the damn Amy clone that walked out of Noelle's prison. She released her own cells, which mass produced plagues across all the area of North America she walked. She cycled through several organizations, including the Elite and Cauldron, until Simurgh trashed their base and let her loose somewhere with a mindfuck on top of whatever went into her from being Noelle's baby. She's a shape shifter, so rounding up every cute brunette with freckles hasn't worked, and you can't identify capes by a blood test so Annie testing wouldn't work." Lisa shrugs. "Eidolon hasn't been able to cycle the right thinker powers, and she can look like anything about the right size and shape as a person. Annie's asked every single thing that could be her if they want to talk, and we've just got a lot of really confused deer. Does that help you at all? We don't have a voice for you to echo." Lisa sounds very tired.

"So, you knew I was here." You unveiled next to them. Emma makes a start of surprise.

"I knew I was being watched." Lisa sighs. "So, might as well talk about stupid bullshit. You're lucky I didn't chat about the weather. So, Glory Hole wants to know if two of her least favorite people are to be trusted?"

"Actually, she seriously wants you both dead." You give them a friendly smile. "But she can't just order your murders, so she wants you watched by someone who wasn't a friend in their past life. Her orders have gotten pretty bad lately. I think it's hard to think clearly when you're having slumber parties with someone who crushed a twelve year old girl to death against you. I'm listening to Tallahassee now. No one wants the Shepherds to fall because she went psycho."

"That poor little psycho." Lisa shakes her head mockingly. "I weep for her."

"You know, her pillow talk with Amy has involved turning you into a bug incubator." You say cheerfully. "She really got her rocks off with that cheerful little scenario. You know Amy's still missing an arm? They say it's because Best Girl is busy, but really I just think they're into it." Lisa looks sick.

"Why do all my slavers have to be perverts." She says. "Coil, Victoria's psychos, Dragon..."

"Well, I don't think I'll be able to collect anything useful if you know I'm here. So, I guess I'm off for now." You smile. "I've got a date. Annie, door me." Your pint sized BFF signals to Doormaker, and you step through the gate.

The other Harrier is wearing her Harrier suit. The newer versions are back to being ugly, but much more functional, padded against blunt force and covered in swarms of useful bugs Annie can direct. The mask peels back as you kiss.

"The super thinker knew she was being followed? What a surprise." The other Madison giggles.

"My girlfriend has such good deductive reasoning." You assure her.

"Well, my girlfriend is great at giving compliments." The other Madison laughs. "So, what are we going to eat?"

"I was thinking we'd share one of the world's last chickens." You nod. "Got a coin?" Your clone laughs, picks one out of her pocket, and flips it. Heads. "So, looks like I'm cooking dinner."
_______________________________________________________________________________________

"I have the very best job in the world, but why can't I be watching the clone twin lesbians?" Dispatch asks. You, the other you, and Dispatch are taking your turn guarding Amy and Mona.

"Well, it's not like you'd see us." The other you giggles. "It's hard to relax, keep control, without letting out veils pop up, so nobody else ever gets to see it."

"It's the whole reason I wanted another me. Well, most of it." You giggle. "Someone to hang with, but then I realized, hey, a twin clone. The rest is history."

"God, you exist." Dispatch's voice is filled with wonder. "The world is so good now."

"It is pretty perfect now." The other Madison agrees.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

[X] Write in: What do we see next?

 

[X] Alexandria Interlude

This must not have been what Cauldron had in mind, and Alexandria will have a busy schedule indeed.

 

[X] Brian Laborn

 

[X] Alexandria Interlude

 

[X] Florida Man
[X] Grue
[X] Fog

 

[X] Grue

 

Actually, Nazis sound interesting...

[X] Fog

 

Author's note: I deeply apologize for my lack of writing over the last several days. Panacea Quest does not feel finished, but I have had an immense amount of trouble getting down and writing an ending I felt worked. Thanks to hyzmarca for helping with the latest update.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

It hurts.

It isn't supposed to hurt. You tried to fix it. You can't fix it. No matter how much you change, no matter how much you cut out, it still hurts.

Your earliest, truest, memory is pain. You were born as a mass of raw nerves all firing all at once. If you had a mouth then, you would have screamed. Perhaps it's fortunate that you didn't. Your rudimentary organs somehow kept you alive for the precious minutes seconds hours centuries Eternity you spent repairing yourself.

It's snowing in Brockton Bay. Tiny water crystals fall onto your shoulders. You know that each one is unique under a microscope, though you can't tell the difference with your eyes. There's no point in changing them. Though you're sure that the snowflakes are beautiful, beauty not a concept you understand. It's just one of many things that are missing.

It is better that way.

Broken

Shell

Snow crunches beneath your bare feet, between your toes. Cold is just another form of pain. The ability to feel physical pain was the first thing you removed when you repaired yourself. If was pointless, redundant, inconvenient.

Agony.

It was nothing. Somehow, every nerve in your malformed body firing all at once didn't compare to the other sort of pain.

Emptiness

You tried to remove your ability to feel the other sort of pain, too. It never worked. Every bit of pain you removed from your mind just left a void that hurt even worse.

Despair

It was summer then. You knew who you were and that knowing hurt. There were places you could have gone for help, but thinking about them hurt. You didn't want to think about them so you stayed on the streets and tried to keep yourself busy. You ate garbage out of dumpsters. You hid from the world. You hid from yourself. When you couldn't hide anymore you reached into your brain and destroyed that knowledge. Then a door opened.

You don't know who you are anymore and you're glad that you don't. As painful as the emptiness is, knowing was worse. You don't think you could have borne the past year if you knew.

Your shape is comforting, and you don't know why. It is tall, strong, familiar. You don't remember why it is familiar. You may have cut it out.

The building is familiar. Tiny scraps of memories you couldn't destroy force their way into your consciousness. They're jumbled, incomplete, nonsensical. They feel numb and tired.

You were very thorough when you lashed out at your own mind. Very little makes sense to you anymore. You recognize part of a sign, the shape and the words but not the colors. You couldn't see color anymore. You removed that ability from your eyes long ago because a certain shade of yellow was too painful to look at no matter how hard you scrubbed the offending thoughts.

Doors open for you automatically. Like the door the woman opened to take you away.

You know nothing, but you know hospitals. You don't want to know hospitals. Hate wells up inside you and you force it back down. Your power severs connections between neurons, sequestering a problematic memory.

You know hospitals. You walk through the halls with confidence. No one questions your right to be there. You know you belong here. Your body screams it. They pick up on your cues, your body's language, and simply assume that your body is right.

A woman you don't know, dark, looks up at you and gives a sad, weary smile. She recognizes you. Your body. She joins you in the walk. Your nose picks up that she's been crying.

"I didn't expect you to show up. I'm fucking glad you did. I think it will mean a lot to her, though she'll be angry." You wonder who you are, your face. The girl is pleasing, though unfamiliar.

The comfort of being near her feels wrong.

Elevator. Third Floor.

You don't know how you know. You just do. Every buried instinct is screaming at you to go to a place you think you've been to before, in another life. Not your life.

PICU

It's a part of you. It has to be. Your power only works on yourself. That aching void inside you, that hole in your heart that hurts so much, it makes sense now. The Missing Piece. It's tiny. Its lung struggle to draw in air. You can fix that. Its hair is the color that hurts so much.

The missing piece

A woman tries to stop you. She shouts something and you ignore her. A sword appears in her hand then.

Fear

"No." Another voice says, and the woman moves away. "He can see." It's a young voice, happy. "Whatever he is, he can see his granddaughter."

She hesitates. You're too close to fixing yourself. You can't back down. In the split second that she's afraid to swing her weapon your fingers find her bare wrist and she drops to the ground convulsing. Poison.

People crowd around her. Some issue orders, trying to help. If they notice you they don't try to stop you.

Escape

The piece of her you her you her you her you is cold. It doesn't have adaptations to keep its warmth in. You pull it into your body, cocooning it, keeping it warm and safe.

You feel the urge to sing, you don't know why.

Hush Little Baby Don't You Cry...
_______________________________________________________________________________________

A Nazi stood over a saint. It had been months, and he had not left the room. He slept for minutes triggered by a random number generator.

The Nazi would get his wife back. His eyes rarely moved from the woman who rested. The Nazi would be stressed to understand how she was different from a normal woman by anything other than rote memorization.

Fog guarded Cranial. He could have listened to music, read a newspaper, read a book, but none of that would have helped him.

Dragon had promised him he would get his wife back. The logic was sound. Use Night and Grue with a Null based switch, and you would be presented with two incredibly strong parahumans. Night would be number 345 in the line of the returned.

Geoff Schmidt looked up as he heard the commotion outside. A moment later his companion speals to him. Cranial was covered in a bed of bugs, monitoring Abigale Quintin constantly.

"The cape that is present is responsible for the plagues." Lady Bug announces.

Geoff gave a very rare smile.

"Do I kill her, ma'am?" He had not been allowed to kill for a very long time.

"She has a hostage." Annie tells her friend. The two pause for a moment. "That means we should be careful." Fog is quiet for a moment.

"I can harm Pandemic without hurting anyone else. It is one of the reasons I am here." Fog tries logic, because he really, really wants to kill someone.

"She could be very useful. She does not seem particularly sane." Annie says. She is rather resigned.

"Who is here?" Fog feels this will get to the crux of the matter.

"Glory Girl, Shadow Stalker, Flashbang, Armsmaster, me." Annie rolls out.

"I am best suited." Fog says. He pauses. "Anything else?

"Two hostages. Brandish and..." There's a pause.

Fog dissolves into mist and moves along the building.

Do not harm the hostages. If possible, do not harm the enemy, but that is lower priority. Even in his old life he had always understood that killing was rarely allowed. Now, Fog was on parole, guarding one of the most precious people in the world.

The screams are hysterical. Fog follows Annie's directions. He is blind, but can hear and smell in ways that more than make up for it.

Fog knows the Panacea and her Glory Girl. The disgusting pair sit on a bed stained with salty blood. Fog has known Flashbang's scent for far longer, and he is shouting, furious. He barely knows the other girl's scent, it has to be Shadow Stalker, Sophie Hess. Next to her, stroking her hair, is an intense and strangely smelling creature clad in insects, definitely Lady Bug.

The scent of the remaining individual is very, very normal. No obvious relationship to anyone else there.

"Changer eleven." Annie says out loud for Fog to here.

"She's my lungs." Pandemic says happily. "The brain is safe and sound. She's my lungs."

"How the fuck did you stay hidden this long?" Glory Girl asks.

Fog stops to his deep frustration. Harming the lungs is very problematic now.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Brian Laborn is not a happy man. Very few men are happy when a robotic suit of power armor sets down on his lawn.

"This is Dragon. We beg truce with the Adepts." The voice announces. "We need Epoch's assistance." Grue, Tier II of the Adepts, had risen extremely quickly through the ranks.

"This is some kind of Endbringer truce? We have already rejected your requests for early warning." Grue glares down the power armor, noting the fins of Panacea produced bio-weapon and once again cursing that the Adepts had lost their Panacea countermeasure to Scion. He hoped Dragon didn't know that.

"It is significantly greater than that, Grue." Dragon says. She sounds very worried. "We have found the source of the plagues, and she has taken Claire Dallon." Grue goes very still and remembers for a moment just how terrifying Panacea can be.

"I will do what I can." Brian promises and he opens his phone to call Epoch.

Panacea going insane is the one thing that could seriously make life in the remaining Earths more difficult.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

You look calmly at the girl who ate your daughter.

She's not dead, she's not dead, she's not dead...

Your hands itch for releasing something, but she's you.

"What do you want?" You ask her.

"She's mine." The voice is so young. "She's me, or else I couldn't do this." You shudder and feel like screaming. You have screamed a lot.

"Please, give her back." You whisper.

It's Claire. Your piece of Victoria. A screaming thing covered in blonde hair, still not really clean.

She's Amelia Claire Dallon, too. Victoria had named her daughter after you.

You wonder why your birth mother chose the name. Would Marquis know? You could ask him.

"She'll break if she's out." The clone whispers. "She was so cold." You nod.

"We can keep her warm. I promise you, if you just tell her what she needs..."

"You could take care of them." Victoria says. "My Amy, my Claire, my girls. They're, I get worried about them all the time. If you can touch them, use your power on them, keep them safe..."

"I was stolen." One of your oldest clones says. "She could be stolen. Need to stay with her. Need to keep her safe. She can't be stolen if she's inside me." You find the logic oddly compelling.

"Amy?" Victoria gives you a look of fear, despair. "What do we do?"

"Tell me what you want." You look at the girl. She looked like you earlier. She's shrinking, now. Why is she shrinking?

"I don't remember." The clone, Pandemic, looks at Victoria, and then she screams again. She's done this every several minutes since she first saw Victoria.

"Do you want Victoria?" You ask. "Just, come here if you do. If you're me..."

"Am I?" She sounds concerned, worried.

You wonder if you should have brought Scion as your bodyguard, but the useless thing is getting another touch up from Catholicon.

"Do you love her?" You feel sick again, a choked feeling.

"Who?" She asks.

You'd won.

Victoria is alive. Claire is alive. Three of your parents are alive...

"Either of them. Victoria or Claire. If you love them, you're me." She's silent again.

"I hurt her." She looks at Victoria. "I feel like Hell. What did you do to her?"

"Nothing she didn't offer and beg for." You say, trying to keep from screaming again.

"That's a lie." Your clone keeps shrinking. Can she banish mass, is she compressing it? Is Claire alright? Claire has to be alright, or else Annie would have acted. There are trackers inside Claire, Annie can sense if Claire was injured, if it became time to hit.

"She can be my heart, or my lungs. She needs to learn how to do it. She'll remember everything, grow up perfect." Pandemic announces. That feels wonderful.

She can heal you and Claire.

"She's right." Victoria says suddenly. You freeze. "Damn it, you hurt me, Amy. And I love you enough it doesn't matter." She looks at your clone, long ago spawned by Noelle in a deep prison.

"I hurt you. I'll hurt her." She whispers. "Need to..."

"Let her go." Victoria says. "Please.

"Can't keep her safe that way." She rocks back and forth again.

Fuck.

[X] "Yes. I. Can." You promise her. You can keep Claire safe.

[X] "I can't, she can." You touch Victoria. "She's done it her whole life."

[X] "There's someone else." She won't listen to you. She won't listen to Victoria. "Let's call Daddy."

Post-Update author's note:

There was some revision done after the initial update. If there's any confusion I can answer. I feel it works much better now.

 

[X] "There's someone else." She won't listen to you. She won't listen to Victoria. "Let's call Daddy."

Remember what the Thinkers told us when the world was ending.

 

[X] "There's someone else." She won't listen to you. She won't listen to Victoria. "Let's call Daddy."

 

[X] "I can't, she can." You touch Victoria. "She's done it her whole life."

 

So Pandemic is basically Alex Mercer.... Heh, fitting.


OO!!! That gives me an even better Idea!


[X] "You are me. And I am you. And She you too... but not quite as much as I am... we need to keep her safe... Will you help me keep her safe? Keep everyone safe?" You hate her... you are intrigued by her existence.
"You broke yourself didn't you? Because you couldn't be me? Couldn't have her... But what if we could have it all? To keep the most precious things safe and happy and loved... and be loved by them as well?" Dirty thing. But it holds what is precious to you... and even more than that, it ensures that what is precious to you can live and be perfected like nothing else in this world could... that made it the second most important thing in the world.
"You made yourself forget her, even though you still feel it... you don't want to remember cause you can't have her back... but What If you could?" My finger tremble and caress her face. "You were made to hurt me. But I have learned much... and you have forgotten it all... so why not fill in the blanks. You hurt me without hurting her. You keep them safe and me safe too..." A kiss lingers upon her forehead and trails down. There is an attraction... in affection between those who hate each other more than anything else in the world... between those who NEED to have the pain and give the pain.
"Take me into you. Two of us in one body, my memories become yours, yours mine and we take our two powers and become complete. The two of us as one, able to love Victoria completely... able to let her hurt us so much... so much." You pause in your butterfly kisses, forehead, cheeks, eyes, nose... till your forehead presses against hers, and your nose and lips mirror each others. "Together we can protect them... and make Claire perfect." I bite her lip, so hard it bleeds, so hard that I take a chunk of it right off and swallow... as she stares at me in surprise for a moment, then finally gets it... and our flesh becomes as one.

 

Don't powers require minds as well as bodies? I'm pretty sure Xicree's idea will at best result in split personality Panacea/Pandemic. That's pretty much the best case scenario, they get worse from there.

 

[X] "There's someone else." She won't listen to you. She won't listen to Victoria. "Let's call Daddy."

 

It feels like forever before the man walks in.

"I thought you'd be taller." Victoria says. So had you. Victoria and the Marquis stand eye to eye, and Victoria is slightly taller without heels or flight. Normally she'd do both.

The two eye each other warily. The Marquis than turns to the other you.

"Hello, Amelia." Your suit suggests he's nervous, though you'd never been able to get the social readings above 50/50 for subtle things. "I have been waiting for this for a very long time."

"What are you?" She has shrunk so much. She currently looks like a terribly pregnant child, perhaps six. Your eyes keep heading to the stomach.

Claire is still safe.

"I am your father." The Marquis's voice is smooth. "Do you remember that? Do you remember having a father, Amelia?" Amelia, that's probably her name if this works out into something where she needs one, is quiet, she doesn't respond.

You look at him, trying to remember. You should have memories, but it's all mixed up with Mark and Victoria. The clones are imperfect, and this one...

"I do." Victoria says suddenly. "She barely ate unless I fed her, slept unless I put her to bed, went to school without holding my hand. You missed him a lot, Amelia. Without that you wouldn't be you. I wouldn't have got my little sister." Marquis is silent for a moment.

"Amelia is several months older than you, Victoria." There's a tense moment.

"I believe Amelia is nearly eighteen years younger than I am, sir." You can't see the smile you know Victoria has. Sophie and Annie look very angry at her. Perhaps not the time, but...

"You're right. I apologize." Marquis gives Victoria an even smile. "Amelia is, properly speaking, a clone, like an identical twin, of Amy, born eighteen years after Amy, with significant but reduced portions of her memories. They are all my daughters, but Amelia is a new, independent girl."

"That's my name?" The voice from Amelia is small.

"Do you want it?" Your father has a smile in his voice. "I believe your big sister was given another name by her wife." The smile is a bit sad. "It is one of the things I didn't expect, but I believe I can give the gift of that name to you." Marquis steps forward purposefully.

"I've hurt people." Amelia whispers. "Hurt people bad."

"There's not a single person in this room who has not." Daddy says. "Well, except for your niece." There's a moment of silence.

"She's mine." Pandemic hisses.

"She is your niece. She is yours to spoil rotten, protect, heal, and love. There is no need for selfishness when it comes to love." Daddy puts a hand on Amelia's shoulder. She looks so young, so small, so pretty.

You notice how Victoria is reacting to the new Amelia.

<She looks just like you did when Mark and Carol brought you home.> The communication is private.

<She could have ended the world.> You remind Victoria as you and your wife watch your father and new sister engage in a staring contest.

<See! The family resemblance is uncanny.> You laugh in a burst, and everyone stares at you.

"It's nothing." You manage, feeling completely disturbed by the situation.

"Amelia, I know you don't want to think about your life before." Marquis says. "You're in so much pain. You're so afraid. I have spent months since I left where I was, heard about you, thinking about what your life was like, learning what I could about it. You don't have to hurt anymore. We're all here for you."

"She hated me. She didn't talk to me." The voice is young, choked. "She, she ran."

"She ran for three weeks before she was ready to accept things. Then she accepted Amy back with open arms, taking her back into bed with her like they were when they were younger, doing everything in her power to prove to Amy that she loved her. That grew into a powerful romance, one that I was grateful to hear about. They married, and you are holding their baby." Amelia is silent for time that stretches out.

Why Earth Aleph had made a deal for you and Victoria's heavily ghost written autobiography at a time like this you are really, really unsure about, but things are bouncing back surprisingly well with civilization dismantled, and Earth Aleph is only experiencing early stages of the plagues so far. He is practically quoting from it.

"She's hers!" The sound in Amelia's lips is full of wonder. "But she's mind. She's hers, but she's mine."

"Claire is their daughter, Amelia." The Marquis smiles down at her warmly. "Now, may I see my granddaughter?"
_______________________________________________________________________________________

It was hours before anyone left the room. Victoria and your father did most of the talking, Victoria's aura blazing like the sun.

You are so glad you chose to forgo pain medicine. It would have rendered you completely loopy. It hurt, um, more than you'd expected, but Victoria was there. Victoria had wanted it, too.

You think you should probably start building churches to make up for your invocations to God about how stupid that decision was.

Eighteen hours after you went into the hospital you are wheeled out by Victoria, holding Claire, and arrive home. Marquis is still with Amelia.

"Sixteen percent chance the plagues continue wiping out Earth's ecosystem." Annie whispers to you.

"How?" You mutter sleepily as Victoria examines you carefully, gives up, and mutters for a door straight to your bed.

"We did just give a superweapon to a murderous supervillain, Ames." Victoria kisses the back of your head.

"Are you happy?" You ask her carefully. Victoria pauses and sighs.

"Amy..."

"You've been distant lately." You feel it's stupid, but you go on. "Like, sure, the world's ending, but..."

"It's creepy." Victoria admits."When it got real, that a blob of spit was our kid, it got weird. Not that I didn't want her. Don't want her." Victoria is silent for a moment and lifts Claire up, examining her carefully for the first time. "Admittedly, she is ugly, but I think most babies are." You give her a weak smile, just wanting to curl up with her and sleep.

"Imagine how ugly she'd be if we were blood siblings." Victoria laughs merrily.

"Claire, you won't have an easy life." Victoria pauses. "Your parents are completely crazy. You will get far more attention in every possible way than is probably healthy. You're going to be the heiress of people who are likely to live for a couple hundred years. On the plus side, you'll be wealthy beyond the dreams of humanity and you're going to get superpowers. I wish you luck, my daughter, my niece, my Claire." Victoria pulls out the necklace to suppress her aura. "Also, if I'm not carefully, you'll probably think you should join me harem. But we'll be very careful." Victoria sets her child, your child, in the middle of the bed, and positions you and herself on either side of Claire.

"Annie, is she safe?" Victoria asks.

"As safe as I can imagine." The former Taylor Hebert assures you.

That will have to be enough.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

[X] End

[X] Time skip.

[X] Interlude.

 

[X] Time skip.

 

[X] End

 

[X] Interlude: The Custodian

 

[X] End

 

[X] End

I think this is a good stopping point. At this point we would be having to invent threats whole cloth in order to keep up the quest, most of the main villains are done, Claire is born, things are looking up. Maybe a final epilogue, seeing how things turn out involving Cranial, Taylor, Sophie and the others who were kind of a big part of things?