Tag: chapter 14.3

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She had to have a reason for doing what she was doing.  I tried directing them to move, and they took off.

I mean, on the surface, the reason is “you asked her to”, but I guess you mean a reason for the more specific changes?

No problem on that front.

I couldn’t ask what she’d done, because we were moving fast enough that the wind in our ears would drown out my voice, and the run was jarring enough that I worried I would bite my tongue if I tried talking.

Whatever she did I’m sure it’s going to give the dragonflies a couple new abilities that will come in handy soon.

The bit about how Taylor “couldn’t grasp every process in their body” reminds me of Genesis, and how she has to picture the body processes responsible for any given power her forms are supposed to have.

Instead, I experimented.  I tried operating their bodies, engaged in the usual practices for injecting venom, nothing.  They weren’t weaponized, I was almost sure.

Hmm. Then what?

I even placed some aphids on them to get a feel for their exteriors.

It was only when I moved them out to either side of me that it dawned on me what the echo was.  Experimenting, I sent them to the limits of my range to confirm my suspicions.

All I know about aphids (under that name, anyway) is they’re small, live on plants and are eaten by ladybugs. This is because I only know about them from Miraculous Ladybug fanfics where “tendencies” are involved (i.e. where Chat Noir and Ladybug act vaguely like a cat and a ladybug). And that’s if I’m not mixing them up with something else that has a similar name.

So does the echo…

Fuck, are they repeaters, capable of transmitting Taylor’s signal onward to bugs outside her direct range? Did Amy give the bugs Taylor’s power to be used at Taylor’s command? That would be an awesome way to help Taylor with the range thing without actually changing her corona.

Whatever signal my power sent to my bugs, these bugs were there to intercept it and transmit it to their immediate area.

Hell yes!

Each extended my range by three hundred or so feet around them.

Does it stack? Like, can you daisy chain them?

I love this. It’s a lot more interesting than a straight range upgrade, since now Taylor has to control where her range is extended, things can happen to the repeater bugs, and she probably doesn’t have the ability to sense the bugs that rely on the repeaters to receive their orders in the same way. Unless of course the repeaters also repeat the incoming signals back to Taylor.

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I could feel the sensation of Amy doing something to interfere with my powers.  It began to get worse, reaching a peak, and then getting worse.

Amy, what are you doing? You’re not betraying them already, are you?

Are you actually trying to do the corona thing Taylor asked you for in spite of your reluctance to do stuff with brains?

Just when it had reached the point where I was going to tear her hands from around me and let her fall off Sirius’s back, it began to clear up.

Alright, if that is what she’s doing, she seems to either have given up or succeeded.

I could feel the bugs, but they weren’t anything like what I’d seen in Brockton Bay.  Superficially like dragonflies, with fatter bodies.

Oh, alright, she was doing the other thing Taylor asked for. Fair enough! That makes more sense to introduce narratively, anyway. If they got Amy boosting Taylor’s power, they could have her boost all of their powers, and at some point it’s just too much too quickly. Especially this soon after Grue’s second trigger.

I couldn’t grasp every process in their body, making them feel strangely hollow and artificial.  What I could feel was a kind of echo in my power.  It made control harder.

Interesting. It seems like Amy’s manipulation makes them different enough that Taylor’s power barely considers them valid arthropods for control anymore.

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Grue moved to follow, and I turned to Amy, “If I send my bugs to you, will you-”

“I’ll-  I’ll come.”

Fuck yes.

Undersider Amy is so close. At the very least, we’ve got Undersider-affiliated Amy, which is really good.

I blinked.

She stuck her hand in my direction, and I caught it, helping her up to a seat behind me.  Sirius shook slightly, as if he could shake us off.  Were we too heavy?

Maybe it’s some natural reaction to having the girl with the power to change his biology on his back, a reaction to her power even while she’s not doing anything with it.

Apparently not.  He bolted after Bentley, and we were off, Amy clinging to me like her life depended on it.  I suspected that had little to do with the fact that we were riding on one of Bitch’s dogs.

Yeeah, Tattletale just talked her into joining them in a direct assault on the Slaughterhouse Nine. There’s probably a part of her mind screaming “WHY AM I DOING THIS”.

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“Not yet?” Amy asked.

“Not yet.  You shouldn’t hate yourself for what you did in a moment of desperation.  Hate yourself for what you do after.  Hate yourself for your cowardice, your refusal to step up and help at this moment, right now, your refusal to participate in this world that you never even tried to understand.  That’s a conscious call you’re making, and you know it’s the wrong one.”

Perhaps it is, but I don’t think it’s one to hate herself over. It does tie in with the one part of Taylor’s philosophy that I’m certain Wildbow agrees with, though: the whole anti-bystanderism angle.

All of a sudden I want Amy to meet Charlotte.

Amy hugged her arms to her chest.  She shook her head a little, as if she was denying what Tattletale was saying.

“I won’t listen to her again! I won’t!”

Tattletale went on.  “You need to make the right calls, and you need to start now, because you’re approaching the point of no return.

No she isn’t.

You start making amends, you start doing your part, and you undo what you did, and you do it ASAP, because if you don’t, you’re going to hit the hard ground at the bottom of that slippery slope.”

But this is still good advice. Face her past, fix it rather than run away from it.

“But-”

Tattletale didn’t give Amy a chance to finish.  She kicked her heels and Bentley charged off.

Well, guess that’s the end of that, uh, conversation.

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“Don’t you dare-” Amy started.

“You fucked up.  You crossed one of the lines that’s reserved for the real monsters.  You know it, I know it.”

Amy’s face crumpled.  I didn’t have a better way of describing it, the way her expression twisted, going from plain to almost inhuman from emotion alone.

And that’s the way the Amy crumples!

I almost spoke up.  I wasn’t sure why I didn’t.

You probably should, unless Lisa is going somewhere constructive with this and is just expressing it in the worst way possible.

“You think you’re the lowest of the low, that you’re scum.  You despise yourself.”

Now deny that, Lisa. Please.

Amy couldn’t even mount a response.

“You’re wrong.  You’re not there.  Not yet.”

Thank you.

Amy looked up at Tattletale, wide-eyed.  The look was utterly defenseless.  I was put in mind, for just an instant, of just who Tattletale could have been.  I had a mental image of her as a cult leader, tearing people down with an almost surgical precision, then molding them into who she wanted them to be when they were emotionally and mentally unable to mount a defense.

Fuck, she would’ve been perfect for that.

You know who else did that? Kaiser.