Of Sisters and Shadows – Chapter 2

Master-Stranger confinement is bullshit.

Mostly because it’s boring, but also because, if I really set my mind to it, there wouldn’t be anything Piggot or her flunkies could do to keep me in here. Basically, the fact I haven’t busted through the walls or used a myriad thinner-than-hair tendrils of forcefield to whittle away the steel door into shavings should be enough indication that I’m playing by the rules and thus shouldn’t be confined, but then the whole Catch-22 starts: they need to make me go through something unpleasant just so I can prove to them I’m willing to go through something unpleasant.

I’m sure there are plenty of abusive boyfriends taking notes right now.

At least, I’ve gotten some time to get proper practice with my new powers…

I mean, they are quite straightforward: my shield is now malleable and responds at the speed of thought, I can layer it so it doesn’t go down all at once, and I can choose which emotions my aura broadcasts through it, even if I have to modulate them through my own emotions. It’s a serious upgrade, but… It still feels like there’s something missing.

And no, that’s not me just being jealous of Amy suddenly becoming serious competition for Titania. Like, really, how the Hell does she even know how hot she’s shapeshifted herself into being without a mirror? Is that some kind of boosted proprioception that comes with her new awareness of her biology? Did she already have blueprints of her ideal body filed away as some sort of hobby? Did she actually read my reactions while she changed herself just so—

No. That way lies madness.

Though it isn’t paranoia if your hot step-sister is out to get you.

… Damnit, why do I do this to myself?

A shrug of my shield gives me tactile feedback of the totality of my solitary confinement cell, which has a functional bathroom, a cot, and absolutely nothing else besides the unnerving light of the fluorescent tubes right above me. So the answer is pretty obvious: I do this to myself because I’m bored out of my mind, and my patience is running as thin as my bladed shield can now become.

“Do you realize solitary confinement was designed as an extraordinary punishment and has been proven to cause irreversible neurological damage in as little as one month?”

There’s a burst of static from the hidden speaker in the wall.

“You aren’t in solitary confinement, Miss Dallon. This, I repeat, is a preventive measure for your own good while we make sure no mentally-altering effects remain,” a female voice, maybe about forty years, tells me with the tone of someone who is on the verge of either screaming or crying.

Good. Hard work should bear some fruit.

“Semantics. Social isolation is the key factor for disruption of the circadian rhythm, depression, damage to the hippocampus, loss of neuron density—”

“Aren’t you in high school?”

“I take college classes. I’m told I’m very smart.”

“I’m sure you’re told something. Either way—hey. Hey! Hey, lady, you can’t just waltz in here—” The voice of the PRT drone whose mind I’ve put under assault over the last few hours cuts off as static blares through my cell, doing very little to improve my mood.

Let’s see… Female, over her thirties, willing to assault a PRT officer in their very building… Yep, not many parahumans in the city fit the profile.

So, it is with a wide smile that, as a glowing blade parts the door to my cell down the middle as if Star Wars managed to get a cool sequel, I can only say two words in response.

“Hi, mom!”

I catch the falling pieces of metal with my shield before they crash to the floor, and she’s standing there, in her power suit: a nice, black jacket and skirt combo with a very professional look that is nonetheless flattering to her body type (and took two shopping trips to put together with her sober, white blouse). Oh, she’s also wearing her leather briefcase. That means someone’s about to have a very unpleasant experience.

Really, the laser sword is quite superfluous at this point.

“Hello, Vicky. Let’s go grab your sister and ruin Piggot’s day.”

“Music to my ears.”

***

Piggot currently looks, in fact, as if her day has been ruined.

Which is a new record, as we have just entered her office.

“I could have you all arrested,” she says, conciliatory as ever.

“And I could sue you for unlawful detainment, false charges, conspiracy to commit a crime, high treason to the United States of America—” mom starts to enumerate. I feel like I should take notes, just in case she forgets one of these later on.

“How would that even—” Ah, from exasperated to bewildered. That almost makes up for the ‘unlawful detainment’ thing.

“My daughters just retrieved information that will be considered of strategic importance to the survival of this nation. And you locked them up without any means of communication.”

“You overestimate what a parahuman can—”

“Oh, no, not a parahuman. A lawyer. I have the best superpower to destroy you, Emily: the Power of Attorney.”

… I should never have gotten her those Harvey Birdman discs. Never.

Amy, stop giggling. It was a bad joke, and you should feel embarrassed mom just pulled that, like any sane teenager would be. Like I am. God, this is mortifying.

Also, stop giggling. I don’t know what you’ve done to your vocal cords, but I’ll shave my head if that doesn’t get you a Master two.

See? Dad’s sane. He’s groaning and leaning against the wall while facepalming like the best Enterprise captain.

It may also be the chronic depression, though.

… It may be kind of bad to have one of those while the city is surrounded by a fog that drags parahumans in to confront their hidden self in a battle for survival. Yes, I’m forcing myself to keep joking just so I don’t freak out about how utterly screwed my parents are if the fog comes for them; how could you tell?

“… Are you about done?” Piggot finally asks after holding mom’s gaze for an uncomfortably long period of time.

“It depends. Are you going to try to imprison my daughters again?”

And then Armsmaster and Miss Militia enter the room.

Two of the most powerful and important heroes in the local Protectorate. Certainly far more imposing than a man who is not a literal streaker only because of PR regulations.

They, of course, walk up to Piggot and silently flank her, standing at parade rest by her side.

“And what if I am?” The Director asks, once again projecting power and menace.

“Then I’ll have you stripped of your position, thrown into jail, utterly disgraced, Emily—”

“Sounds like what someone mastered would say.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, enough!”

That last line isn’t from mom.

It also isn’t me from me, much as I would’ve wished it was.

No, that’s Amy throwing her hands in the air in a motion impossibly fluid that grabs everyone’s attention. It also kinda fills me with dread, because subtle? My sister isn’t.

“All this talk about being compromised by Master-Stranger? Fine, you want a Stranger?” She waves her hand over her face, and, when it passes, Piggot’s face is there with a mocking grimace. “I am a stranger. I can take anyone’s shape in here, or force it upon any unsuspecting moron. Every single person you ever meet from now on could be someone tailor-made by me to get past your stupid security measures. How’s that for ‘Stranger?’” Then she mercifully waves her hand, and her new face comes back.

Thank God. Sticking Piggot’s head on that body is the last thing my very confused libido needs right now. Though it may have been an effective deterrent.

But Amy isn’t done. Of course she isn’t.

And now she’s right in front of dad.

She’s looking into his eyes, either trying to get something across or to find something in there, in the man who so very often can’t even muster the effort to take the medicine he needs to not feel like he can’t take his medicine.

And then she reaches up with her hand and brushes his unkempt hair back, clearing it away from his blue eyes.

And the eyes widen.

“You want a Master?” Amy almost whispers, still looking at dad. “I just cured my father’s chronic depression because I’m tired of holding back and letting him suffer. I just rewired his brain. I could have done anything to him with just this light touch.”

And dad hugs her.

“Thank you. Thank you, Amy, so much…”

There’s a crackle I’m far too familiar with, and mom’s holding two swords of burning amber whose color uncomfortably reminds me of mocking eyes and warm lips. Miss Militia is aiming a gun straight at her, and Armsmaster’s halberd’s at the ready.

Right. It looks like it’s my turn.

My shield parts in a spiral of tendrils that tear apart the carpet beneath my feet as I slowly rise into the air. The whirring whine of tiled ceramic being ground into dust makes all the eyes in the room turn to me.

“I now channel emotions through my shield. And my shield can stretch a single, monofilament-thin tendril to every single person in this room faster than you can blink. I could have you drop down to your knees with the utter despair of watching my dead boyfriend taken away, his eyes missing. Or I could have you live vicariously through my trigger events. The two of them.” I also very carefully don’t say what else that tendril could do to any non-Brute. “I ama Master. I would argue the two most powerful Masters in this city are right here, in front of you. So, as I think my sister wanted to say with her overly dramatic display… When are you getting into your isolation cell, Emily?”

***

As it turns out, Piggot didn’t want to get into a cell.

I know, shocking.

“I’m just saying, throwing off a wave of prions that inhibit the formation of short-term memory is perfectly within my capabilities. You’ve no way to verify whether we already have had this conversation.”

Amy, as it turns out, is perfectly happy with trolling the stupid woman who has refused to have her kidneys restored for years.

I know, shocking.

“I have recordings in my armor, Miss Dallon.”

“Yeah, it’s just that you don’t remember wiping them out after I had Miss Militia’s libido skyrocket, and you both decided never to speak of the incident again.”

Oh? That unnatural stillness may be very interesting.

From both of them? Delicious. My gossip senses are tingling.

“As… Interestingas the speculation may be,” Piggot intrudes with her characteristic lack of humor, “I still don’t know what you two intended with your, as Glory Girl aptly put it, ‘overly dramatic display.’”

Right. Because power-drunk teenagers showing off are very likely to have thought things through and were obviously aiming at some kind of master plan all along. Seriously, how can this woman be in charge of the Wards?

“Well, I guess my sister wanted to heal our father now that she’s more secure in her abilities. There’s also the matter of us being kinda tired about this whole Master-Stranger nonsense that doesn’t hold any kind of water regarding Leet’s invention—”

“An invention that, by your own report, creates duplicates of the original with their whole memories intact—” She starts to say, as if she believes she still has a point. Which just means I’ll have to disabuse her of the ridiculous notion.

“An apparently evil clone with glowing, amber eyes. Trust me, the detail is kind of hard to miss.” There, done. “Still, that leads us right around to the actual point we’ve been trying to make since yesterday: all capes need to evacuate Brockton Bay, or they will die.”

“Miss Dallon, you both survived; surely things aren’t—” Armsmaster interjects.

“Vicky saved me. I was about to die.”

I so want to hug her right now…

So I do.

My shield drags Amy to me in a multi-layered embrace as she lets out a small ‘eep,’ and I clutch her possessively to my chest. She’s blushing, something that I know she can do or suppress at will, but, as I flood my shield with the sheer relief I feel at having her alive and whole between my arms, I somehow doubt the reaction is anything but genuine.

“Vicky! Not the time!”

“Shut up, you bratty sister.”

… Oh God, I am certain that’s the name of a porn video somewhere, just with an added ‘step.’

Which… Ugh… You had to go and make things weird again, didn’t you, Ames?

Miss Militia clears her throat, and I turn to the Protectorate and PRT representatives, my sister still held between my arms, because it was only yesterday that I shared my blood with her as she came closer to dying than ever before, and…

Right. Breathing exercises. They are a thing.

“I almost died, and I only managed to ‘win’ because I remembered some obscure Jungian psychology trivia. Amy would have if I hadn’t pushed her after understanding what the whole thing was about. The average parahuman is a bundle of trauma and psychoses that will be absolutely unable to withstand being confronted by the personification of everything about them they try to deny even exists. The city needs to be evacuated.”

There. As simple and straightforward as I can put it, asides from just saying ‘you’re all too crazy to live.’

“Or you could help them,” Piggot suggests.

…

“What?” I say, my voice slightly unsteady as Amy’s eyes widen far more—oh. She’s widening her iris.

Cute.

Disturbing, but cute. Kinda like a cartoon character emoting in real life.

“The information, as your mother so kindly just pointed out, is of strategic importance for the survival of the nation. Second triggers are notoriously more powerful than base abilities, as you both have just clearly demonstrated, and one of them could hold the key to beat any given S-class threat. Including—”

“You’re going to turn this city into a breeding ground for Endbringer killers,” mom says, after remaining silent an uncharacteristically long time. Most of it has been dedicated to staring at dad and his no longer slouched posture.

I don’t know whether that’s adorable or worrying.

“Of course I am,” Piggot replies.

“That’s a spectacularly bad idea,” I manage to say.

“Is it? Let’s say, Miss Dallon, that I agree with your assessment and I have every cape under my command leave this city. That would just leave you two, who are allegedly no longer under threat of this… phenomenon, to defend us from the villains who will choose to remain and are suddenly given a chance to get a second trigger. Tell me, how sane do you think that idea is?”

… She has a point. I hate it, but she has a point.

“Fine. Let’ say every hero evacuates except for Amy and me. Then what? Do we organize guided tours? A Shadow hunting safari through the city’s fog? It’s a completely unpredictable phenomenon!”

“Yet your sister managed to follow you into it.”

And Amy burrows herself into my embrace, refusing to show her face as she remembers…

What? What does she remember? How did Amy follow me?

“I… Don’t think I could have done it if it was anybody else,” she mutters, her warm breath soaking through my costume.

“That affirmation is in the past tense,” Armsmaster comments with far more detached professionalism than I believe he’s actually feeling.

“… It is,” she, very reluctantly, agrees.

Damn it.

What is it with you and being unable to keep secrets lately, sis?

“I… I think we could learn to navigate the fog. There’s something about it that just clicks after you’re there for a while, like distance is related to emotion and connection or… something like that. I don’t know. But we would need to explore it on our own before we agreed to have anyone possibly getting lost and assaulted in there.”

“Of course. So, let’s talk salary,” Piggot says.

“What?” Amy and I reply.

“Your mother is a lawyer. I’m certain she will employ her ‘Power of Attorney’ to get you a good deal. That is, if you trust her with the negotiations?”

…

“Vicky, Amy… Leave this to me. Just… go and rest.”

“Mom?” I ask, uncertain about the sudden turn in the conversation.

And she hugs us.

She’s barely showing it, but she’s trembling.

“Do you want this? To help heroes become stronger? To guard this city while we all run away?”

Amy raises her head from my bust—oh, that’s why you’re blushing, you little—and her eyes meet mine.

I don’t know how long the communication takes, but… I think we understand one another.

So we both nod.

“We do, mom,” at least one of us says.

And her arms tighten around us, something desperate in her strength.

Which is all the more reason I want her out of this city as soon as possible.

***

I don’t know what I’m doing here.

The spray of the waves crashing against the breakwater’s concrete blocks slides off my shield as Amy remains kneeling on the rocks, her robes completely drenched in a way it would make me worry they would get ruined if they weren’t already stained with our combined blood and completely torn around her stomach.

“Amy… What I’m doing here?”

“Well, hopefully not stare at my butt, you pervert.”

It is a nice butt. You know, from a purely aesthetical viewpoint. What little of it actually shows through the thick robes, I mean.

“Not much else to do. Also, if you don’t want me to stare, maybe make it less appealing.”

“Oh? Did that Piggot thing get your motor running?”

“Gah! Gross, Ames, absolutely gross!”

“That’s not a no.”

“It is! It most definitely is! God, I am tempted to ask you for those memory-erasing prions…”

And she stiffens.

“Amy?”

“Do you realize…” she starts to say, still kneeling, her face turned away from my mine as her hand brushes the rock. “You do realize I could do that, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah?”

She remains quiet long enough for me to realize she just melted a mussel, the black shell traveling up her arm in a vein-like rivulet.

And now she’s touching a limpet with a weird focus on her eyes…

“Then, why?” she finally says, just as I’m about to change the topic and inquire about her current fascination with shellfish.

“Why what?”

And now she’s looking at me.

“I just changed dad’s brain with a single touch.”

“Yeah. Thank you, once again, but stop bragging about that, or you won’t be getting my card. I was thinking, ‘It only took near-death and immense trauma, but you finally—‘”

“Vicky! This is serious!”

So I kneel next to her, my knees on wet concrete, the scent of salt drowning out the remnants of blood and grime Amy and I are both still carrying with us.

Then I grab her chin and force her to look at me.

“No. It’s stupid. You’re stupid. Can you do something about that, by the way? Now that you’re tampering with brains—”

“I’m not Flowers for Algernoning myself!”

“Oh, nice reference. Did you read it?”

And she blushes.

Seriously, I know she can spell out her name in red if she feels like it, but… It still catches me off-guard, the way it travels across the ridge of her sharp cheekbones, how her freckles melt into the red, how her breathing…

Fuck.

My sister is hot.

Fuck.

“I… I actually haven’t…” she almost stutters.

Is it worth it to pretend I’m calm? I’m touching her; she surely can read the rush of stupid, freaky hormones that make me so gross and—

Wait. This is her fault. Right, not only did she get me to have ideas, but she turned herself into something out of my wildest bi-panic dreams. Right. Her fault.

No need to feel ashamed about any of this.

My cheeks are burning. Fuck.

“Well, you should. It’s a classic, you know. It also has cruel, inhuman experiments that cross all sorts of ethical boundaries, so, you know, kinda your thing.”

And she snorts, her nose cutely scrunching—God damn it!

“Kinda the point, isn’t it? All the unethical stuff I could do with a single touch, and… you’re still touching me.”

Oh, is this what the current moodiness is about? How stupid.

So I grab her cheeks and kiss her forehead.

“I’ve been touching you for years, you adorable S-class threat. I’m not going to stop now.”

“… Phrasing.”

“Pervert.”

“Takes one to know one.”

And I stare into hazel eyes that aren’t that different from what I remember, the same jagged ring of almost honey right in the middle of both irises.

“You are my sister. Of course I know you.”

And so we remain there, the sound of crashing waves filling the silence between us, the spray of seawater layering a sprinkle of caked salt on her skin as we hug and kneel, both our bodies far too resilient to be bothered by the concrete beneath us.

And she keeps absorbing marine fauna.

I feel the Cronenberg touch kind of detracts from the whole scene, but… She’s Amy.

My Amy.

I wouldn’t have her any other way.

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There it is, the second chapter. Subject to change if Xalgeon is unsatisfied with it, but, otherwise, this should set the direction for the fic going forward, and the third chapter should be arriving next week.