Chapter 63: A Meeting CrystalLisas (Get it? Like Crystallizes?)
New
Phili
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2022
- Messages
- 549
- Likes received
- 15,786
Chapter 63: A Meeting CrystalLisas (Get it? Like Crystallizes?)
January 17, 2010, Sunday. Brockton Bay, Bella's Apartment.
Crystal Pelham
Crystal leaned back on her bed. Then decided to just give up on posture, and simply flopped onto the bed face-down.
She had just finished dealing with giving Amy the gay person in Brockton Bay talk. Which was awkward. So, so, incredibly awkward. Not that it was Amy's fault it was awkward, though Amy's innate awkwardness didn't help. It was just the nature of a talk involving telling your cousin you knew she was gay, but you understood because you were bi, but she had to be very careful who she told because the city was infested with Nazis and she was extremely high profile as of about a month ago when she became one of the strongest healers on the planet.
And of course, the talk they had had only two days ago was fresh in both of their minds.
She was not looking forward to giving Vicky that talk. The gay/bi talk, not the Amy power and parentage talk. At least Amy hadn't denied being a lesbian, and was even self-aware enough to be able to confirm she was a lesbian and not bisexual.
Crystal was more than a little worried that Vicky would deny being into women, likely out of a misplaced sense of what was normal appreciation and what was sexual interest or something. Given some of Vicky's past comments, it was obvious she was also interested in guys, probably more so than ladies, thus Crystal's anticipation of stubborn denials. Well, as long as she kept her expectations low, she can let her hopes be high.
On the bright side, as she told Amy, after all that absolute bullshit was finally dealt with, Vicky would at least pick girls when she tried to set up Amy with someone. Given Vicky herself was single as well, Crystal would have thought Vicky would be a little less confident in her matchmaking skills, but her zero percent success rate for both herself and Amy clearly hadn't resulted in any hits to her confidence in matchmaking.
Also on the bright side, eventually she might get to tease Amy over this. In a friendly way obviously. But Amy was simply adorable with the way she got all flustered, it made Crystal's mischievous side wonder if Amy would simply implode if Crystal introduced her to the other kind of Earth Aleph Anime. The kind involving things only remotely possible with powers like Amy's.
Crystal finally turned over from being face-down on her bed so she could actually breathe, and heard a notification on her phone.
Apparently, Bella wanted to introduce Crystal to that Thinker Dave had picked up to protect from kidnapping.
She giggled slightly at reading Bella's description of the Thinker, describing her needing socialization like she was a pet that needed to be adjusted to being around other animals, but didn't want to be around other animals.
Knowing Bella wouldn't risk her safety, she wasn't worried about introducing herself to a Thinker either. She wasn't sure how much she trusted Dave's judgement, though he admittedly had a 100% success rate of finding trustworthy individuals to trust as far as she knew, he just seemed like he was going to choose poorly eventually when deciding who to put his trust in.
Bella had great judgement though. Also, it wasn't like Crystal had anything in particular to hide. She was an open Cape after all. If she lived anywhere in the United States or Canada other than Brockton Bay, she wouldn't even be 'in the closet', to the extent one could even say she was. Her parents and best friend knew she liked girls as well as guys after all. Given Bella trusted this girl, and the girl had already been around Bella for a while, that clearly wasn't going to be a problem either.
So, she peeled herself off her bed, and began getting ready to go to Bella's apartment. She would need to take a car or walk in order to not draw too much attention to where Bella lived, but that just meant she could wear clothes she would normally need to worry about getting messed up by wind from flying.
Crystal had ended up jogging to Bella's apartment. It wasn't actually that far in the grand scheme of things, even with both of her new speed boosts disabled, and she needed a certain amount of exercise anyways if she wanted to continue looking as awesome as she did… and it was important to be fit as a superhero, she supposed.
Fixing her hairband after the jog, she went in, and took the stairs up to Bella's apartment. After knocking and being let in, she followed Bella to the couches in the living room, noticing the signs that Bella's apartment had another occupant.
In the living room, was Dave, who was in his normal form, and the Thinker who Dave had called Foxy. She had thought it was a joke about the girl being sexy, but upon seeing her, she could see why Dave picked that as a temporary name. She really did have a sort-of vulpine look to her face; and of course, she was a Thinker, and foxes were associated with cleverness.
"Hi, I'm Crystal!" She said brightly, holding out her hand to the younger girl, who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen.
The girl visibly looked at her for a moment, before reaching her hand out to shake her hand. "I'm Lisa," the girl introduced herself.
Dave golf-clapped, earning a glare from both girls.
After a little more of the standard polite introductions, Crystal had just settled down onto a couch.
"So Lisa," Bella said, "Crystal isn't too bad is she?" She asked in a way that made Crystal suspect she was missing context.
"No," Lisa said grudgingly, "but that's not why I was reluctant." She added instantly.
"Of course not," Bella said soothingly, before jokingly adding, "you were reluctant because you are an antisocial stray cat that hasn't been properly socialized yet."
Lisa, seemingly unable to come up with a clever comeback, went with the truth. "I was worried, because my power means I learn things that people don't want me to know, even if I don't necessarily intend to learn them, and that makes things complicated when trying to be genuine with people, especially Capes."
Ah, Crystal thought. A genuine, understandable, and valid concern.
"It's okay," Crystal told Lisa. "I don't mind you using your power on me."
Lisa somewhat rudely rolled her eyes a little. "Do you even know what my power is?" She asked doubtfully.
Crystal realized she didn't, which was rather awkward.
"My power is deduction. Sherlock Holmes taken to the extreme." Lisa said. "You have less to worry about as an open Cape with a publicly known Trigger, but everyone has secrets and private thoughts they don't want other people to know about."
Lisa paused, then looked at Dave. "Well, almost everyone." She amended her earlier statement.
"That's fine," Crystal insisted. "You can use your power on me if you want, and I don't mind if you use it on me by accident either."
Crystal had just dealt with this sort of bullshit with Amy, and she was determined to get through it here too. It really seemed like a decent chunk of powers simply made the person who got them worse off in many ways. First Amy, and now Lisa had serious psychological burdens as a result of their powers.
"No, don't do that." Lisa said suddenly, looking at Crystal. "No pitying. You're not even pitying me for the kidnapping thing." Lisa said, her statement that started strong turned into a slight whine at the end.
"The worst part of my power by far was the migraines anyways, but Dave's healing aura, health stations, and burritos all work to heal those, so they aren't really a problem anymore." Lisa added.
"Sorry," Crystal said. She was familiar with the sort of people that hated being pitied, and it appeared that Lisa was that type.
"So, would you like to demonstrate your power?" Crystal offered. She knew that when she, Eric, and Vicky got their powers, they had all been happy to show them off. Even Amy had been happy to show off some of what she could do, albeit to a lesser extent.
"Oh, oh, tell me what you think I was doing earlier." Crystal said excitedly. She had never met a Thinker before, so she was excited to see if Lisa could figure out Crystal had been face-down on her bed then jogged.
"Fine." Lisa said, not acting nearly as reluctant as she seemed to want to portray herself as being. Clearly, she also wanted to show off what she could do, not that Crystal could blame her.
Lisa stared at Crystal for a moment, before she slowly began speaking. "You were talking… to Panacea… about… Brockton Bay? No, nazis? No, some group nazis target. You were talking to Panacea about her being a lesbian in Brockton Bay, and why she can't come out, with why she can't reveal her sexuality being said nazis." Lisa said.
On the one hand, that was very impressive, and reminded Crystal of seeing shows done by mentalists, that is, the mundane non-parahumans that use knowledge of cold-reading, micro-expressions, statistics, and probability to 'guess' things about people and what they are thinking.
On the other hand, "oops," Crystal said sheepishly. "I did not think through what I was asking you to figure out." She admitted, before looking to see how the others were reacting.
Dave simply golf clapped again, Bella was giving her an expression that suggested she had doubts regarding Crystal's intelligence… and that she was there when Eevee was present too and obviously saw Amy's interest at the time.
Lisa meanwhile… "I already knew Panacea was a lesbian." Lisa said upon seeing Crystal focus her attention on her. "That's exactly the sort of issue I try to avoid. People don't like it when that sort of thing is revealed without their permission. That's leaving aside the actually problematic things about people that I might find out. Anyone with a secret will have a grudge against me because I could find out about whatever it is." Lisa visibly restrained herself from continuing at this point, though Crystal wasn't exactly sure what she would have said next.
Regardless, that meant the poor girl was going to be in serious trouble socially, given her potential social circle requirements already included 'able to defend themselves' due to the whole kidnapping problem, this requirement of 'no high-level secrets' meant Crystal needed to befriend this girl more than ever! There weren't exactly many people Lisa could have a healthy social relationship with, so she saw more than ever why Bella had asked Crystal to socialize with Lisa.
They chatted a little more after that, and talked some about Pokemon, which drew Lisa out of her shell enough that Bella and Dave both began making smug faces at being correct that Lisa would enjoy it.
Crystal also gave Lisa a rundown on the Capes and Gangs of the Bay based on her own experience as a long-active Cape.
"Yeah, the Chorus gang are kind of nuts." She was saying. "They attacked a mall a while back, and that was what made Amy get her powers, because she was there."
"I hadn't found much about them, I didn't even realize they were still active." Dave said from the side.
"Yeah, we, as in New Wave, went pretty hard at them after that. They only had three Capes to start with, and they were all on the weaker side in terms of powers. They mostly got by from a reputation of being crazy, being small enough the Empire and ABB didn't care about them, and never provoking a large-scale response from the Protectorate. We captured one of the Capes and put a bunch of the grunts in prison, where they stayed because the Chorus gang doesn't have the Empire's resources. Then it seems like one of the remaining two Capes either died or left, because he hasn't been seen in a while, and the remaining one was spotted injured a couple weeks ago, but otherwise hasn't done much." Crystal explained.
"Huh," Dave pondered. "Is there a point to making an effort to specifically capture that one to eliminate the gang's last Cape?" Dave asked.
Crystal shrugged. "Yeah, they're unfortunately pretty crazy, so there isn't really any point in doing anything like letting them stay so that worse criminals don't come to fill in the void. Sadly, Brockton only has the kind of gangs that can't be worked with; Accord's Ambassadors or even some branches of the Elite would probably get support from the PRT if it meant kicking the Empire and ABB out of the city while avoiding a Boston Games scenario. So, if you encounter any Chorus Gang people, Cape or otherwise, just go ahead and arrest them."
After that, Lisa, who had seemingly warmed up to Crystal, told her about who had been trying to kidnap her.
"Coil, huh?" Crystal repeated. That made some sense she supposed. Thinkers, Strangers, and Masters were always going to be the categories that could successfully keep a low profile while amassing power, and in hindsight, the large number of consistently employed mercenaries with Tinkertech weapons was a pretty big red flag. Coil had probably gone unnoticed by everyone the same way she hadn't thought about him much: Brockton had bigger, more obvious problems.
Coil had clearly succeeded at keeping a low profile, given how many people on PHO thought he either didn't exist or wasn't even a Parahuman. Crystal didn't think she had ever even fought any of his mercenaries, or that anyone else in New Wave had for that matter.
"Well," Crystal began. "Whenever you want to fight him, call me and I'll help you kick his ass. If he has a few more holes in him afterwards than when he started, well he shouldn't have resisted." She said to Lisa, demonstrating by shooting a laser from a finger on one hand to a finger on her other hand, letting her forcefield absorb the beam.
Lisa gave a genuine smile, and the chatting after that was even more open and less guarded than before.
By the time Crystal left, Lisa had gotten a whole bunch of recommendations of Earth Aleph shows and movies, and Crystal was satisfied that Lisa was a good egg and that she had gained at least some of Lisa's trust. Even if Crystal felt a little bad about putting Lisa on the spot to demonstrate her power, and accidentally got Amy outed as a lesbian to Dave and Bella. Not that either cared, but Crystal felt quite bad that she didn't choose a better example than 'what was I doing earlier' to ask Lisa about.
Author's Note: Tada! A bit of Crystal point of view! She had The Talk: Gay-Person-in-Nazi-Town Edition ™ with Amy offscreen. Then, Crystal and Lisa finally meet! It goes perfectly well, as expected by literally everyone except Lisa.
I cut a small scene from this chapter that didn't really add anything, where Dave asked Lisa if Crystal was nice (while Crystal was right there), and Lisa said yes, and Dave said "That's what you would say if you thought she wasn't nice!". I ultimately cut it, because the reference to TTT was rather subtle and it sort of just distracted from the main thing, which was Crystal and Lisa meeting.
We get an update on the Chorus Gang, who sort of disappeared pre-Canon in the original story as far as I know. They don't even have their own Wiki page, despite being the ones to make Amy trigger. So, I gave them three Capes, and an explanation on how they disappeared before Canon started and why nobody pays attention to them anymore (that being, they only have a single injured Cape remaining at the moment).
Crystal finds out she is perfectly happy to leave a would-be-kidnapper of an underage girl with more holes in them than they started with. Nonlethal holes of course, but a kidnapper doesn't really need their legs to work right? Or arms. Or dick. She can cauterize wounds with her lasers to make sure they don't bleed out after all. Lisa approves.
Crystal accidentally outs Amy as a lesbian to Dave and Bella through a poorly worded question to Lisa. Dave, Bella, and Lisa, all don't care at all, (and Bella already knew because she was at the Eevee event and she has eyes and could clearly see Amy staring… although that does imply Vicky doesn't have eyes because Vicky did not notice Amy staring at all) though Lisa is interested now that New Wave seems to have changed a lot since she last checked on them based on what she got from Crystal.
My poor, poor stockpile is basically gone now due to how busy I've been. We'll see how much writing I get done over the weekend, but I'd give it a decent chance that next week I will have to announce that I'll have switched to a 3-chapter per week schedule of Monday-Wednesday-Fridays. It's sad, but there's not much I can do about my time constraints.
January 17, 2010, Sunday. Brockton Bay, Bella's Apartment.
Crystal Pelham
Crystal leaned back on her bed. Then decided to just give up on posture, and simply flopped onto the bed face-down.
She had just finished dealing with giving Amy the gay person in Brockton Bay talk. Which was awkward. So, so, incredibly awkward. Not that it was Amy's fault it was awkward, though Amy's innate awkwardness didn't help. It was just the nature of a talk involving telling your cousin you knew she was gay, but you understood because you were bi, but she had to be very careful who she told because the city was infested with Nazis and she was extremely high profile as of about a month ago when she became one of the strongest healers on the planet.
And of course, the talk they had had only two days ago was fresh in both of their minds.
She was not looking forward to giving Vicky that talk. The gay/bi talk, not the Amy power and parentage talk. At least Amy hadn't denied being a lesbian, and was even self-aware enough to be able to confirm she was a lesbian and not bisexual.
Crystal was more than a little worried that Vicky would deny being into women, likely out of a misplaced sense of what was normal appreciation and what was sexual interest or something. Given some of Vicky's past comments, it was obvious she was also interested in guys, probably more so than ladies, thus Crystal's anticipation of stubborn denials. Well, as long as she kept her expectations low, she can let her hopes be high.
On the bright side, as she told Amy, after all that absolute bullshit was finally dealt with, Vicky would at least pick girls when she tried to set up Amy with someone. Given Vicky herself was single as well, Crystal would have thought Vicky would be a little less confident in her matchmaking skills, but her zero percent success rate for both herself and Amy clearly hadn't resulted in any hits to her confidence in matchmaking.
Also on the bright side, eventually she might get to tease Amy over this. In a friendly way obviously. But Amy was simply adorable with the way she got all flustered, it made Crystal's mischievous side wonder if Amy would simply implode if Crystal introduced her to the other kind of Earth Aleph Anime. The kind involving things only remotely possible with powers like Amy's.
Crystal finally turned over from being face-down on her bed so she could actually breathe, and heard a notification on her phone.
Apparently, Bella wanted to introduce Crystal to that Thinker Dave had picked up to protect from kidnapping.
She giggled slightly at reading Bella's description of the Thinker, describing her needing socialization like she was a pet that needed to be adjusted to being around other animals, but didn't want to be around other animals.
Knowing Bella wouldn't risk her safety, she wasn't worried about introducing herself to a Thinker either. She wasn't sure how much she trusted Dave's judgement, though he admittedly had a 100% success rate of finding trustworthy individuals to trust as far as she knew, he just seemed like he was going to choose poorly eventually when deciding who to put his trust in.
Bella had great judgement though. Also, it wasn't like Crystal had anything in particular to hide. She was an open Cape after all. If she lived anywhere in the United States or Canada other than Brockton Bay, she wouldn't even be 'in the closet', to the extent one could even say she was. Her parents and best friend knew she liked girls as well as guys after all. Given Bella trusted this girl, and the girl had already been around Bella for a while, that clearly wasn't going to be a problem either.
So, she peeled herself off her bed, and began getting ready to go to Bella's apartment. She would need to take a car or walk in order to not draw too much attention to where Bella lived, but that just meant she could wear clothes she would normally need to worry about getting messed up by wind from flying.
Crystal had ended up jogging to Bella's apartment. It wasn't actually that far in the grand scheme of things, even with both of her new speed boosts disabled, and she needed a certain amount of exercise anyways if she wanted to continue looking as awesome as she did… and it was important to be fit as a superhero, she supposed.
Fixing her hairband after the jog, she went in, and took the stairs up to Bella's apartment. After knocking and being let in, she followed Bella to the couches in the living room, noticing the signs that Bella's apartment had another occupant.
In the living room, was Dave, who was in his normal form, and the Thinker who Dave had called Foxy. She had thought it was a joke about the girl being sexy, but upon seeing her, she could see why Dave picked that as a temporary name. She really did have a sort-of vulpine look to her face; and of course, she was a Thinker, and foxes were associated with cleverness.
"Hi, I'm Crystal!" She said brightly, holding out her hand to the younger girl, who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen.
The girl visibly looked at her for a moment, before reaching her hand out to shake her hand. "I'm Lisa," the girl introduced herself.
Dave golf-clapped, earning a glare from both girls.
After a little more of the standard polite introductions, Crystal had just settled down onto a couch.
"So Lisa," Bella said, "Crystal isn't too bad is she?" She asked in a way that made Crystal suspect she was missing context.
"No," Lisa said grudgingly, "but that's not why I was reluctant." She added instantly.
"Of course not," Bella said soothingly, before jokingly adding, "you were reluctant because you are an antisocial stray cat that hasn't been properly socialized yet."
Lisa, seemingly unable to come up with a clever comeback, went with the truth. "I was worried, because my power means I learn things that people don't want me to know, even if I don't necessarily intend to learn them, and that makes things complicated when trying to be genuine with people, especially Capes."
Ah, Crystal thought. A genuine, understandable, and valid concern.
"It's okay," Crystal told Lisa. "I don't mind you using your power on me."
Lisa somewhat rudely rolled her eyes a little. "Do you even know what my power is?" She asked doubtfully.
Crystal realized she didn't, which was rather awkward.
"My power is deduction. Sherlock Holmes taken to the extreme." Lisa said. "You have less to worry about as an open Cape with a publicly known Trigger, but everyone has secrets and private thoughts they don't want other people to know about."
Lisa paused, then looked at Dave. "Well, almost everyone." She amended her earlier statement.
"That's fine," Crystal insisted. "You can use your power on me if you want, and I don't mind if you use it on me by accident either."
Crystal had just dealt with this sort of bullshit with Amy, and she was determined to get through it here too. It really seemed like a decent chunk of powers simply made the person who got them worse off in many ways. First Amy, and now Lisa had serious psychological burdens as a result of their powers.
"No, don't do that." Lisa said suddenly, looking at Crystal. "No pitying. You're not even pitying me for the kidnapping thing." Lisa said, her statement that started strong turned into a slight whine at the end.
"The worst part of my power by far was the migraines anyways, but Dave's healing aura, health stations, and burritos all work to heal those, so they aren't really a problem anymore." Lisa added.
"Sorry," Crystal said. She was familiar with the sort of people that hated being pitied, and it appeared that Lisa was that type.
"So, would you like to demonstrate your power?" Crystal offered. She knew that when she, Eric, and Vicky got their powers, they had all been happy to show them off. Even Amy had been happy to show off some of what she could do, albeit to a lesser extent.
"Oh, oh, tell me what you think I was doing earlier." Crystal said excitedly. She had never met a Thinker before, so she was excited to see if Lisa could figure out Crystal had been face-down on her bed then jogged.
"Fine." Lisa said, not acting nearly as reluctant as she seemed to want to portray herself as being. Clearly, she also wanted to show off what she could do, not that Crystal could blame her.
Lisa stared at Crystal for a moment, before she slowly began speaking. "You were talking… to Panacea… about… Brockton Bay? No, nazis? No, some group nazis target. You were talking to Panacea about her being a lesbian in Brockton Bay, and why she can't come out, with why she can't reveal her sexuality being said nazis." Lisa said.
On the one hand, that was very impressive, and reminded Crystal of seeing shows done by mentalists, that is, the mundane non-parahumans that use knowledge of cold-reading, micro-expressions, statistics, and probability to 'guess' things about people and what they are thinking.
On the other hand, "oops," Crystal said sheepishly. "I did not think through what I was asking you to figure out." She admitted, before looking to see how the others were reacting.
Dave simply golf clapped again, Bella was giving her an expression that suggested she had doubts regarding Crystal's intelligence… and that she was there when Eevee was present too and obviously saw Amy's interest at the time.
Lisa meanwhile… "I already knew Panacea was a lesbian." Lisa said upon seeing Crystal focus her attention on her. "That's exactly the sort of issue I try to avoid. People don't like it when that sort of thing is revealed without their permission. That's leaving aside the actually problematic things about people that I might find out. Anyone with a secret will have a grudge against me because I could find out about whatever it is." Lisa visibly restrained herself from continuing at this point, though Crystal wasn't exactly sure what she would have said next.
Regardless, that meant the poor girl was going to be in serious trouble socially, given her potential social circle requirements already included 'able to defend themselves' due to the whole kidnapping problem, this requirement of 'no high-level secrets' meant Crystal needed to befriend this girl more than ever! There weren't exactly many people Lisa could have a healthy social relationship with, so she saw more than ever why Bella had asked Crystal to socialize with Lisa.
They chatted a little more after that, and talked some about Pokemon, which drew Lisa out of her shell enough that Bella and Dave both began making smug faces at being correct that Lisa would enjoy it.
Crystal also gave Lisa a rundown on the Capes and Gangs of the Bay based on her own experience as a long-active Cape.
"Yeah, the Chorus gang are kind of nuts." She was saying. "They attacked a mall a while back, and that was what made Amy get her powers, because she was there."
"I hadn't found much about them, I didn't even realize they were still active." Dave said from the side.
"Yeah, we, as in New Wave, went pretty hard at them after that. They only had three Capes to start with, and they were all on the weaker side in terms of powers. They mostly got by from a reputation of being crazy, being small enough the Empire and ABB didn't care about them, and never provoking a large-scale response from the Protectorate. We captured one of the Capes and put a bunch of the grunts in prison, where they stayed because the Chorus gang doesn't have the Empire's resources. Then it seems like one of the remaining two Capes either died or left, because he hasn't been seen in a while, and the remaining one was spotted injured a couple weeks ago, but otherwise hasn't done much." Crystal explained.
"Huh," Dave pondered. "Is there a point to making an effort to specifically capture that one to eliminate the gang's last Cape?" Dave asked.
Crystal shrugged. "Yeah, they're unfortunately pretty crazy, so there isn't really any point in doing anything like letting them stay so that worse criminals don't come to fill in the void. Sadly, Brockton only has the kind of gangs that can't be worked with; Accord's Ambassadors or even some branches of the Elite would probably get support from the PRT if it meant kicking the Empire and ABB out of the city while avoiding a Boston Games scenario. So, if you encounter any Chorus Gang people, Cape or otherwise, just go ahead and arrest them."
After that, Lisa, who had seemingly warmed up to Crystal, told her about who had been trying to kidnap her.
"Coil, huh?" Crystal repeated. That made some sense she supposed. Thinkers, Strangers, and Masters were always going to be the categories that could successfully keep a low profile while amassing power, and in hindsight, the large number of consistently employed mercenaries with Tinkertech weapons was a pretty big red flag. Coil had probably gone unnoticed by everyone the same way she hadn't thought about him much: Brockton had bigger, more obvious problems.
Coil had clearly succeeded at keeping a low profile, given how many people on PHO thought he either didn't exist or wasn't even a Parahuman. Crystal didn't think she had ever even fought any of his mercenaries, or that anyone else in New Wave had for that matter.
"Well," Crystal began. "Whenever you want to fight him, call me and I'll help you kick his ass. If he has a few more holes in him afterwards than when he started, well he shouldn't have resisted." She said to Lisa, demonstrating by shooting a laser from a finger on one hand to a finger on her other hand, letting her forcefield absorb the beam.
Lisa gave a genuine smile, and the chatting after that was even more open and less guarded than before.
By the time Crystal left, Lisa had gotten a whole bunch of recommendations of Earth Aleph shows and movies, and Crystal was satisfied that Lisa was a good egg and that she had gained at least some of Lisa's trust. Even if Crystal felt a little bad about putting Lisa on the spot to demonstrate her power, and accidentally got Amy outed as a lesbian to Dave and Bella. Not that either cared, but Crystal felt quite bad that she didn't choose a better example than 'what was I doing earlier' to ask Lisa about.
Author's Note: Tada! A bit of Crystal point of view! She had The Talk: Gay-Person-in-Nazi-Town Edition ™ with Amy offscreen. Then, Crystal and Lisa finally meet! It goes perfectly well, as expected by literally everyone except Lisa.
I cut a small scene from this chapter that didn't really add anything, where Dave asked Lisa if Crystal was nice (while Crystal was right there), and Lisa said yes, and Dave said "That's what you would say if you thought she wasn't nice!". I ultimately cut it, because the reference to TTT was rather subtle and it sort of just distracted from the main thing, which was Crystal and Lisa meeting.
We get an update on the Chorus Gang, who sort of disappeared pre-Canon in the original story as far as I know. They don't even have their own Wiki page, despite being the ones to make Amy trigger. So, I gave them three Capes, and an explanation on how they disappeared before Canon started and why nobody pays attention to them anymore (that being, they only have a single injured Cape remaining at the moment).
Crystal finds out she is perfectly happy to leave a would-be-kidnapper of an underage girl with more holes in them than they started with. Nonlethal holes of course, but a kidnapper doesn't really need their legs to work right? Or arms. Or dick. She can cauterize wounds with her lasers to make sure they don't bleed out after all. Lisa approves.
Crystal accidentally outs Amy as a lesbian to Dave and Bella through a poorly worded question to Lisa. Dave, Bella, and Lisa, all don't care at all, (and Bella already knew because she was at the Eevee event and she has eyes and could clearly see Amy staring… although that does imply Vicky doesn't have eyes because Vicky did not notice Amy staring at all) though Lisa is interested now that New Wave seems to have changed a lot since she last checked on them based on what she got from Crystal.
My poor, poor stockpile is basically gone now due to how busy I've been. We'll see how much writing I get done over the weekend, but I'd give it a decent chance that next week I will have to announce that I'll have switched to a 3-chapter per week schedule of Monday-Wednesday-Fridays. It's sad, but there's not much I can do about my time constraints.