Chapter Text
Vicky wasn't sure why Amy was obsessed with Taylor Hebert.
Okay, no, she knew why. Taylor's mom had died in the same car crash that took Carol. And Amy had been desperate to find some reason, any reason, for the world to have done that. A plan, rather than random chance. It'd be comforting, in a way, if there was somebody they could blame, somebody they plot a vengeance against that would never see the light of day. Vicky dreamed about it herself, but she'd realized how much chaos the world was in. Amy, though... the conspiracy theories seemed to be her coping mechanism. And here was a person intimately related to the event. So Vicky could see it.
What bothered her was how deep into the woods Amy was going. How every casual conversation with Taylor seemed designed to wheedle out more information. And how Taylor, the poor girl, didn't seem to notice any of it. She thought Amy was being friendly.
What made it even worse was that they were all assigned to the same cabin. So she could see the oncoming collapse coming, an inexorable build in the tenseness of Amy's stance as Taylor opened up more and more. She tried to communicate her concerns to Amy, to suggest that maybe she shouldn't take it so far, but Amy only reassured her that she had no intent of physically harming the girl. Which was not at all what Vicky wanted. She loved her sister, but sometimes the girl could be so dang stubborn...
Vicky resigned herself to playing peacemaker, a not unfamiliar position, and desperately hoping the three of them could get through the whole summer camp without the situation exploding.
It took four and a half days for everything to come crumbling down, in the most unexpected way possible.
The conversation had turned to capes, as was somewhat inevitable on Earth Bet. A world with superheroes? Everybody would be talking about them. Newscasters. Teachers. And teenagers, of course. They were celebrities and political figures and world events all wrapped into one. And as the daughters of capes, Vicky and Amy had quite a lot of experience with it. There had been a few stories swapped, of various powered antics that had gone on in their home, and in their cousin's home, and Taylor had laughed at some of the best stories. It was all as it should have been.
"You know, my mom used to know a cape," Taylor said, casually.
"Really? Huh, small world." Vicky leaned forward. "Who was it?"
"Oh, she was part of Lustrum's early days, back when it was a genuine feminist thing. She left before things went crazy."
Vicky opened her mouth to reply--
"Oh she was, was she?"
Her eyes snapped to her sister, and on her face she saw a disturbingly familiar expression. One she had seen on her mother's many times before, when something about a case caught her attention. It was the expression of a predator, honing in on the weakness of their target. An expression of dawning, cruel victory.
"Yeah, she didn't... she didn't like to talk about it."
"Keeping secrets? How very surprising," Amy said, in a tone that was completely unsurprised. "But it does explain a lot."
"Amy," Vicky warned, rising from her bed.
"What do you mean?" Taylor asked curiously.
"Oh, I don't know," Amy growled sarcastically, "how about how she assassinated my mother?"
"AMY!"
"Wh--what?" Taylor flinched back at the accusing tone. "I don't--that's--"
"Oh stop pretending like you're so shocked! Brandish wouldn't just die in a random car accident, she's too much of a hero for that! But a Lustrum zealot giving her own life to take her out too--"
"Amy that's enough!" Vicky cried, already seeing she was too late.
"Carol couldn't just die in a car crash!" Amy insisted. "Her breaker form makes her immortal! She should have lived long enough for the first responders to get there, which means--"
"That's not how mom's power worked! And that's not the point!"
Amy looked at her in disbelief. "Don't you want justice for mom's murder?"
"Mom wasn't murdered!" Vicky shouted. "And this isn't justice! Just look at her!" she demanded, waving toward the girl who had curled up on her bed.
"I thought... I thought we were friends..."
"But that's not--" Amy looked from Taylor, to Vicky, her mouth gaping. "No, no no, that doesn't--she has to know! That's the entire reason we got put in this cabin together! Nothing happens by chance!"
"THE UNIVERSE IS LITERALLY CHAOS!" Vicky screamed grabbing her shoulders. "We have to actively work to make it make sense! Mom died in a fucking car accident because of literally nothing, alright? There's no big conspiracy, no heroic last stand, and right now the only villain in this whole situation is you!"
As soon as she said it, Vicky realized she'd gone too far. Horror and pain spread across Amy's face and she broke out of her grip--
"--wait Amy I didn't mean--"
--Vicky reached after her sister as she put her hand on the doorknob--
--Taylor whimpered, curling up even more--
--a sea of stars, and from them a grand crystalinne tendril descended, touching her mind with knowledge and power so far beyond her comprehension she forgot--
Vicky groaned in pain as she pushed herself up, putting her hand on her temple and wincing at the massive headache. Her eyes darted around the cabin with some confusion, which quickly melted into concern when she spotted both of her cabin-mates slumped unconscious on the floor. She reached out without thinking, bringing them closer with her spectral arms--
...what?
Vicky blinked, looking at the ghostly tendrils that were holding the other two girls. They extended out from her body, phantom limbs she didn't know she had until this very moment--no, phantom limbs she had gained just now. This, this had to be a trigger. She had triggered. And the other two had fallen unconscious when she did, which meant...
...oh god.
They were already beginning to stir in her grip, and Vicky didn't know how they'd react to this, much less how they'd react to having new powers. What were their powers even anyway?
[QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR HOST SYSTEM: GENERATE/ABSORB/CONTROL SYNTHBIOTIC LIFEFORMS {INCREASED AESTHETIC COMFORT RATIO STANDARDIZED} {ENHANCED PHYSICAL CAPABILITY STANDARDIZED} {PERSONALIZED GRAVITY MANIPULATION STANDARDIZED}]
[QUEEN SHAPER HOST SYSTEM: CONSTRUCT/OPERATE {MULTIPLE CONCENTRATION CHANNELS ACTIVE} ORGANIC-BASED BIOLOGICAL ALTERATION DEVICES {APPLICABILITY LIMITED: HOST SPECIES} | PERSONALIZED DEFENSE FIELD | ENHANCED PHYSICAL CAPABILITY]
Vicky winced as information flooded her mind, words almost without meaning--and yet there was enough for her to grasp that she had just learned what the other two's powers were. But what... how? Why? Was that part of her own powers--?
[FRAGILE ONE HOST SYSTEM: MULTIPLE SHAPED DEFENSIVE FIELDS {SHAPE: FLEXIBLE GRASPING/LOCOMOTION APPENDAGE} {DEFLECTION MAXIMUM STANDARDIZED} {DURABILITY MINIMUM STANDARDIZED} {ADDITIONAL FUNCTION BIOHORMONAL CONTROL STANDARDIZED} | ADMIN VIEWING PERMISSIONS {APPLICABILITY LIMITED: STATUS OF HOSTS}]
"Gah!" Vicky clutched her head as even more information flooded in, struggling to parse what she was getting.
"Vicky..." Amy shook her head blearily, looked down at the spectral tentacle holding her, then up at her sister. "...Vicky?"
"Just... hold on a moment." Vicky held up a finger. "We just triggered. All three of us. And..." She looked at her sister, then at Taylor, taking a deep breath. "That means... that means we need to have a serious talk before anything else."