[X] "...The Toybox." Victoria announces. "Abigale's been so nice to us, maybe we can help them out?"
"Ooh, you're frisky today." Sophia giggles. The two of you are making out in the car before you head in to see Cranial. Victoria observes from the rear view mirror when you stop at traffic lights.
"I just feel better." You explain. "Everything with the testing. Just not having that." You head for Sophie's neck and she sighs happily.
"Mind control is some good shit." Sophie mutters.
"That's not all I can do. Hey, want something I only tried out once?" Sophie nods and you kiss her ear, sending a wave of pleasure up from her toes, as strong as you can make it.
"God." Sophie whispers when she regains the ability to speak.
"Amy is fine, dear." You assure her, and Victoria howls with laughter.
"That's, um, yeah." Sophie grins. "Um, if we ever break up, wow, my life is never going to be better than this, is it?" She looks kind of worried.
"What, being the beloved girlfriend of two people, apparently billionaires, with incomparable access to parahuman resources, personal tinker abilities, and all of
me would be hard to match?" You grin at Sophia Hess. "You'd best be a
really nice girlfriend, then."
"Hm, think she's ready for a collar?" Victoria asks. She sounds pretty happy.
"Hm." You trace Sophie's neck. She's cutely worried. "You have to admit, Shadow Stalker, it would be useful. We could put your name on it in case you get lost, a phone number with a reward on it."
"You know, given all the shit we're pulling, we probably could actually pull that kind of shit." Victoria suggests. "Like, if she ran away and you
really freaked out I bet the Protectorate would track her down for you."
"This isn't funny." Sophie says.
"No, but it is cute." You assure your girlfriend. "But you're right. It's not funny because it's true. I promise you I won't ever be that scary to you. You are perfectly free to go." You stroke her hair, making your way to her back, and let another rush of pleasure hit her. The black girl gasps. "I make no promises about making you
want to go."
_______________________________________________________________________________________
You walk into Cranial's building with a girlfriend on each side, enough parahuman power to defeat an infantry platoon in a fair fight, and enough money on your credit cards to buy a private island for every day of the year.
You owe a
lot of that to Cranial. You find her with a patient you don't recognize.
"Hello, Abigale." Victoria sweeps forward and hugs her gently. Sophie stays at your side. "We were thinking, we just want to give back to you. You've done so much for us. Really, you've done everything for us. Thank you."
"You haven't exactly failed to give back before now." Cranial sounds amused. "What exactly do you have in mind?" Victoria gives a wide smile.
"To be honest, we are a bit bored. Restless, I guess. So few villains left in Brockton Bay. I was wondering about a mission of some kind. Something with a bit more excitement."
"Well, we are allies. If you truly are volunteering, there is something you could do. The Toybox was founded because both sides, heroes and villains, are highly aggressive in their recruiting tactics towards tinkers."
"I never really got that." Sophie says. "Like, I heard about it, but why just tinkers? Why aren't they just as aggressive for everyone?"
"The truth is that a tinker adds value to an organization, while other capes are often competing over the same resources. The Protectorate is aggressive in recruiting in a more equitable way, but for villains, who need to earn their keep, another Stranger or Brute will want equal compensation to the current members of a gang while they rarely add the same percentage of revenue. There are exceptions to this, but parahuman gangs tend towards smaller organizations with mercenary groups. Note the major powers of Brockton Bay, only Empire 88 both held territory and worked for expanding cape numbers, and that was on ideological grounds. A tinker, however, is going to add value in any number of ways to the other capes in the organization and possibly to the foot soldiers as well."
"Hm, so like what Amy does, but on a much smaller scale." Sophie nods.
"Really, capes can almost be thought of in three overlapping categories, tinkers, thinkers, and everything else. Tinkers seem to have the same rules for trigger events and psychology as ordinary capes, but their powers, most effective uses, and countermeasures are so different that they need their own organizations." You can tell that Sophie is already bored.
"So, you're saying you want us to rescue tinkers who have been press ganged into service by villain gangs? I think." Victoria says.
"Yes, that is exactly what I would like you to do, if you truly need some adventure. I think this is a more productive use of your particular organization than supporting the Protectorate. You are a powerful, mobile, autonomous group."
"Huh, the more tinkers we help out, the weaker villains will be." Sophie says suddenly. "Let them be rogues and everyone benefits as they sell tinker tech. If people can buy tinker tech or tinker employees those benefits go to corporations, strengthen the economy against Endbringers, and increase funding for the Protectorate. This could be really big." Everyone just stares at Sophie.
"She's been reading a lot lately." Victoria explains. You get the impression she
might be feeling a bit inferior in general being one of the weakest members of the team, not really being involved in any of the management side, and not being really able to add value to anything else. Pretty much anyone might feel inferior to you now, come to think of it.
The idea that Victoria could feel inferior scares you.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
"Road trip?" You ask Victoria.
"Sixteen cities in three weeks. Abigale wrote up the plans last night." Victoria explains. "Check in with tinkers the Toybox suspects are being mistreated. See how many need help, need rescuing. If even a fourth of them come back that's a lot of tinkers to add to the Toybox, a lot of power. Maybe a recruit or two for us or the Protectorate."
"I can't go with you." You mutter.
"Don't worry about it." Victoria assures you, hitting you with a very strong hug. You sniff her hair and it smells really good. "I'll be back before you know it, maybe with goodies, tinkers for you to work with and steal ideas from. Come on, for me this is practically a safari. I get to just punch bad guys and blast my aura. I really need some excitement."
"Killing Jack Slash wasn't enough?" You mutter.
"That was months ago, Amy. I wouldn't want to ever do that again, but without some low level fighting, cops and robbers action, I'll go crazy. You don't want me crazy, do you?" Honestly, that's more of a question than you're willing to admit.
"Have fun and stay safe." You kiss Victoria. "Keep Sophie safe as well."
"I'll do my best, Ames. Now I'm off to pack." Victoria moves an inch above the ground, out into another area of your current base.
After they leave, you walk around the construct. It's kind of massive, unplanned, a hundred rooms stretching over a large section of the old Boardwalk. You're not even sure why you did it after all the orphans left.
Now it's just you and Annie. Lady Bug to watch over the changing city, keep it safe, protect it. Panacea to provide the lifeblood of the city, the healing (you really should go back to twelve hours with Dispatch and no Cauldron), the clones, the suits, the bio-tech.
Panacea hardly seems to fit anymore. You have grown beyond the universal cure, become something else as much as Victoria is no longer truly Glory Girl. You never thought that would happen.
You can't remake the world without remaking yourself.
You call Cranial on the phone.
"I feel old." You admit. "I'm just eighteen but I feel
old. I feel like I've done so much, too much. Everything hit so fast."
"You have done a lot, dear. Most people don't really adventure. Adventures are tiring things. You are an adult, now. Adults just live, they raise their children, they go to work, they try to do something important, and they get old. What you need to do is just be an adult, work, love, have your children. Won't that be enough?" You think.
"It is for me. I'm not so sure about Victoria. She gets restless. I think a lot of capes are like that, they need strength, a vision. I just kind of want to curl up and start middle age, I think. I don't really know what she wants. I think she lies to me about that, a lot."
"I am sure she does. She wants you to be happy. She wants that more than anything. I don't think honesty enters the picture for her." Cranial admits. "You need to get better at reading her, playing her games. You probably have to force her to be happy." You smile.
"I actually like that idea."
_____________________________________________________________________________________
"Fish, trees, insects, and birds." Alexandria explains. "Diseases are going through all of these populations at a rate that only parahuman powers could account for."
"I can't replace the entire ecosystem." You tell Alexandria. "
Maybe with Annie I could put it on life support, but we'd lose more than I can imagine. Losing wet lands, agriculture, fishing, lumber, even if we can replace all of that with a lot of work, the Endbringers won't give us room for the transition." Alexandria looks grim.
"Whatever this is, this is bad. I am sorry to bring you into this after the earlier issues, but you are possibly the best solution for this. Agnes Court and Nilbog are the only real alternatives, as the Mannequin clone's closed systems couldn't be expanded to the world." You consider.
"Agnes Court is that powerful?"
"She seems to create small pieces of an alternative ecosystem with exponential growth. Nilbog was left alone, secretly, largely because of his ability to respond to global ecological catastrophe. The truth is, they're probably better at it than you, but both of them are much harder to work with."
"What's wrong with Agnes Court?" You ask.
"She's a parahuman supremacist, gangster with a large body count, and extremely proud. If we go to her, ask for her help, she will want power and respect. It would shatter the public trust. Nilbog, obviously, is completely insane and a mass murderer. I was hoping you might be able to produce a solution for this problem without resorting to having to deal with these creatures." You frown.
"We both know this is well outside of what I can do. Working with Sphere and parahumans would can bring in matter and energy I could make a very decent self contained ecosystem, but the sheer scale of this is unbelievable unless I am producing organisms that reproduce
extremely easily, like the algae."
"You know your powers better than we do. Are you sure you cannot keep the ecosystem functioning?" Alexandria looks at you weirdly intently.
"The atmosphere, yes. The
ecosystem, no." You feel extremely uncomfortable. You're not, well,
God.
"Very well. My preferred alternative would to use the Brain Box and Cranial on Agnes Court and Nilbog." Alexandria explains. You briefly consider all the ways that could go wrong.
"Um..."
"I understand your hesitation. Their moments of insanity could be absolutely devastating. However, I believe versions of the villains who are given highly cooperative personalities would be vastly more productive in the long term than dealing with the villains themselves." Alexandria explains. "Making deals with sufficiently powerful supervillains would, in my opinion, set a truly terrible precedent, and embolden many villains to further conflict with lawful authorities." You sigh.
"I do have another idea." You suggest.
"That would be?" She asks.
"Look at what has been going on, statistically, see if we can track this down to the source. If we can destroy or negotiate with whatever is doing this than there would be no need to do so."
"Would you be willing to help?" You pause. Alexandria seems really off today.
"Why?" You ask.
"You could analyze the afflicted creatures safely and give us extremely valuable hints." You frown. Something's not sitting right with you about this. Your phone rings.
"Sorry, I have to answer this." You get up and leave for a minute. "Hey, Victoria."
"Hey, Amy." She sounds excited. "Today was really fun. These giant techno-snakes are really awesome to fight. Thank you for letting me go."
"I'm glad you're having fun." You can't help but smile. "How's Sophie?"
"She seems a bit down. I think she misses you." Victoria says. She sounds fairly happy about this. "So, how are things going over there?"
"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I don't really feel that fine." You shrug. "Weird stuff with the ecosystem. Not sure what's going to happen."
"Troubling." Victoria says. "We'll talk more later. I'll check in again in another hour."
"I'm looking forward to it. Bye." You hang up and head back to Alexandria.
"Do you actually need to check in every hour of the day?" Alexandria asks. You stick out your tongue at her, an act of defiance that you have used to defend your relationship with Victoria for over a decade.
"Have to? No. Wish to? Yes."
"Alright, what do you think we should do?" Alexandria asks.
[X] "The real villains would be best. If we lose the Brain Box we might never get it back."
[X] "I will talk with Cranial. Nilbog Secundus and Agnes Court Secunda are probably good ideas anyway."
[X] "Both ideas are terrible. We should do our best to track down whatever is causing this and put a stop to it before we try to replace the world ecosystem."