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Dammit, Bonesaw…

I shook my head.  “They disappeared.  Literally.  I’m not sure if they’re dead or if they found a hiding spot.”

Maybe it’s some bullshit Bonesaw did, like hiding them inside other people or something.

“That’s something we can work on,” Tattletale said.  “Siberian was heading to a destination, right?  Heading southeast?”

…did we know that?

I suppose maybe she didn’t know where exactly the others were when the Undertravelers said the rest of them were fighting them.

“Sure.”

“Did you see what direction Jack and Bonesaw were headed?”

I nodded.  “Northeast from a point a few blocks that way.”  I pointed.

So they might be getting back together somewhere to the east, then?

“Then I think I know where they went.  It’s quite obvious when you think about it.  A place they could have researched in advance, unoccupied by anyone of consequence, capable of withstanding hits from virtually anything, supplied with food and water…”

Oh! One of the Endbringer shelters?

Obvious?  Maybe only to Tattletale.  Still, with her hints, I could follow her line of thought to its conclusion.

“The emergency shelters for Endbringer attacks,”  I finished for her.

Bingo.

I nodded.  It was still better than nothing.

Sundancer was still clearing a path.  I climbed on top of Atlas and rose above the ground, swaying a little in midair as I tried to control his flight enough to hover.

I wonder if Brian accidentally changed something that would affect the flight stability.

“Go,” Grue said.

“What?”

“Scout, search.  Check on the fight.  You’re restless.”

He knows her well. 🙂

“Don’t like how that thing with Panacea ended.”

Grue shook his head, “Me either, but we should focus on what we can do in the here and now.”

“And I’m restless because I’m frustrated.  There’s nothing for me to do here.  I can’t handle the fire, can’t do anything if I’m with you guys.”

Guess there’s nothing for it but to go home.

Hey, maybe you could go looking for Jack and Bonesaw? Just keep Atlas and yourself out of Jack’s line of knife.

“Search for Jack and Bonesaw so we can put them down,” Regent said.

*finger guns towards Regent*

“I could try,” Grue said, “I’ve seen her power, but I don’t get the full picture, I might kill it.  Or fuck it up somehow.”

Hey, Brian, what were you using your power for earlier?

“Please,” I said.

He raised one hand and created a wave of darkness.  It passed over the two girls.

Amy: “What the… Grue!!”

I brought Atlas to Grue, and he laid one hand on the shell.  I could feel shifting in Atlas’ mandibles, head, thorax and abdomen.

I hope he can do this. I’m fine with the relay bugs being temporary, but Atlas is too cool to let go of.

The shifting stopped the same instant I saw Glory Girl spear straight out of the top of the cloud of darkness, flying high with Amy in her arms.

Damn it, she figured out what he was doing, didn’t she (does she know about Brian’s new power yet?). Or at least decided to get out of the dark.

“Did you finish?”  I asked.

“Couldn’t say,” he sighed.

Guess we’ll have to find out by trying to feed a giant beetle.

What do you feed it, anyway?

I searched Atlas with my power, trying to get a feel for his physiology.  As with all the other instances, everything about him was invisible if I wasn’t looking specifically for it, a black hole in the database of knowledge my power provided.  He was created, and there was no genetic blueprint that my power could decrypt and analyze to figure out what part served a given function.

Ahh, that makes sense. Normally the power just tells her what it can glean from the DNA.

When I reached the area Grue had affected, I found it even darker, untouchable.  The nervous system wasn’t something my power could interface with.

…maybe Regent can?

“I had to model it off of something, and I get the feeling I don’t have the same innate knowledge that Panacea does,” Grue told me.  “The only thing I have any knowledge about is myself.  I don’t know if it’s going to work, but he has a human digestive system.  Or something close to it, that worked with his body.  Near as I can figure, everything connects to what it’s supposed to.”

Better hope Grue knows his human biology.

I know I had trouble keeping my focus up when it came to the digestive system. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t take biology when the natural sciences class split up into more specific ones.

“Thank you,” I said.  “Really.”

Tattletale was still watching Glory Girl and Amy disappear.  She glanced down at Atlas, “You’ll have to figure out a diet that gives him every nutrient he needs, and pay a hell of a lot of attention to him.  If you give him something his body can’t process, it could poison him like that.”  She snapped her fingers.

Yeeah, makes sense. This isn’t going to be an easy pet to feed.

“No,” Amy said, as if that was that.

She glanced at me.  “Thank you for bringing her to me so I could help her.  Um.  I don’t want it to be a nasty surprise, so you should know I didn’t give the bugs I designed any proper digestive systems.  They’ll starve to death before the week’s over, but the Nine will be gone by then.  If they aren’t, we’re all fucked anyways, aren’t we?”

Well, shit.

Does that include Atlas?

It probably includes Atlas.

I looked down at Atlas, then back to her.  I clenched my fists.  “I’m using them to help people.”

“For now, sure.  In the future?  I couldn’t be sure.  So I put a time limit on them.  Let’s go, Victoria.”

Yeah… I kinda saw something like this coming, though I’m not sure how clear I’ve been about it. Amy’s just not the type to be willing to give villains permanent benefits.

“Hey!”  I shouted.  My swarm stirred around me as the pair turned to walk away.

What’cha gonna do? You can’t really attack them all that well if you were to go for that. You shouldn’t, anyway. That’d be rude.

“No,” Tattletale said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“But she-”

“She’s not thinking straight.  We’ve all been there.  You don’t want to start a fight.  We’ve got other enemies to focus on without making more.”

Lisa’s right. Besides, Amy’s done a lot to help them, even if it turns out it’s just temporary.

I was pissed off enough that I wanted to hit someone.  I couldn’t even articulate the entirety of why I was so angry.  I’d gone out of my way to be nice to her, to empathize, to save her sister, and save both of their lives.  And this was how she repaid me?  A slap in the face, a final gesture to make her distrust for me as blatant as possible?

Fair enough, but I honestly think she was telling the truth about saying that so it didn’t become a nasty surprise when it happened.

I also think some of Taylor’s anger is because she’s started bonding with Atlas and doesn’t want to lose him.

“I’m trying to fix this!”  Amy raised her voice.  “Why are you making this a thing?  Why do you even care?”

Tattletale shrugged.  “I talked about it with Grue, Bitch and Regent.  We were considering offering you a place on the team.”

I have reason to believe she won’t take it (either that or the askers have been sneaky in a way I approve of), but still: Hell yeah!

Also, did she not talk about it with Imp, or is Imp forgotten right now?

I looked at Tattletale in surprise.  I glanced at Bitch.  Even her?

Huh, yeah.

To be fair, Lisa never said the three of them all agreed. Even if Lisa was the kind of liar that stuck to technical truths (like I thought she might early on), what she said wouldn’t actually mean she successfully convinced any of the others.

Amy scowled, “As if.  You’re such hypocrites.  Regent mind controls people all the time!”

In before someone, most likely Regent, points out that technically, it’s body control.

“Regent mind controls the monsters, the bad guys,” I said.

“Taking advantage of bad people for selfish ends.”

Well, yeah…

Though, uh, does Taylor know about the people at Regent’s base?

“What you’re doing is selfish,” Tattletale cut in.  “You think you’re doing it for her, but you’re only doing it to soothe your own guilt.”

I suppose that would be the core of the “lying to yourself” Lisa mentioned earlier.

She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy expression.  “Burned that bridge.  But I’m sixteen now, I can get a job somewhere, start making a real difference with my power.”

I guess sixteen is the age limit on those rules and regulations, in spite of the Wards’ limit being eighteen.

Also apparently Amy’s birthday is in the latter half of the year. Marquis, when given the year but not a date, thought she’d be seventeen, which suggests she hasn’t had her birthday yet this year.

“And the last thing you’ll do for your family is this?  Hypnotizing your sister when she’s already mad at you for assaulting her and fucking with her head?”  Tattletale asked.

Right. Probably not the best parting gift.

“The last thing I’m going to do is fix her.”

Yes, good.

“A means to an end.”  I stepped forward a little. “Trust me when I say I’ve been down that road.  I don’t recommend it.”

Hm? I’m not sure what Taylor is talking about here.

“You don’t understand.”

“Wasn’t it only a little while ago that you admitted you couldn’t figure out what you needed to do to put things right?  You asked me to make the call.”

Oh yeah. Is that still standing?

“Because you had the experience in making calls on morality in dangerous situations, situations where I can’t even think straight,” Amy said.

…you know things have changed between them when Amy defers to Taylor for calls on morality.

Her voice hardened a little, “But I have the impression that you don’t have that same expertise when it comes to family.”

Oof. That’s gonna sting.

Hey, I wonder how Danny’s doing.

I thought of my dad, and it sat heavily enough in my mind’s eye that I couldn’t formulate a response.

Grue formulated one for me.  “You’re one to talk.”

Yeeah.

She hugged her arms against her body.  There were tears in her eyes.

“You need to fix her mind now.  For you, not for her.  Maybe she’ll forgive you at a later date, when she’s thinking clearly again,” Tattletale said.  “Maybe then she can approach you, you two can start interacting again, you rebuild that trust over months or years, and you can finish healing her body when she gives you her permission.”

Honestly, yeah. Yeah, I’m with Lisa here.

“Or I can fix her now, undo what I did and then walk away forever, because I don’t deserve forgiveness and she shouldn’t have to live like this because- because a wrong I committed fucked with her focus or made her too aggressive or-”

Lisa’s approach is way healthier on all fronts.

And this is not your fault, Amy. Seriously.

Hell, if the focus/aggression thing was as much of a problem as you seem to be making it in your head, she shouldn’t even have been allowed to fight in the first place.

“It wasn’t like that,” I said.  “She didn’t have time to react.  I was watching.  These injuries Crawler inflicted were not your fault.”

Thank you, Taylor. 🙂

Now tell yourself that about a couple of the things you’re blaming yourself for.

These two really do have a lot in common sometimes.