85

Chapter 85

A Darker Path

Part Eighty-Five: Adapting to Circumstances

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Relevant Side Story: Labyrinthine Thoughts, by Masterweaver

"Newter-"

"HAAAAAhaahaAAAhahAHhAAhAhAAAAhahaHAHhaahAhAHAhahaHAha-!"

Gregor crossed his arms, frowning at the orange figure flopping in glee on the ground. "...Newter."

"Haahaa, haaahaha, hahahahhahahahahahahhhaaaaaahahahahaha-!" The boy raised a finger. "I can't, haah, I can't, I can't, hahahahahaheehaahaha!"

"I don't see what's so funny," Elle said, tilting her head. "People have sex. It's normal."

Gregor turned to her, ignoring Newter's fresh bout of cackling, and quirked an eyebrow. "You know what sex is?"

"My mother was a labor and delivery nurse. I grew up with one of those books that explained pregnancy. Got the talk when I was... seven, I think. Yeah, seven years old." At Gregor's baffled look, she managed a rare snarky smile. "Not all of us were magiced into existence with powers and no memory."

"...I see. And you don't understand... the humor in this situation?"

Elle shrugged expansively. "Sex is sex. Roller coasters are roller coasters. Fishing is fishing. It's a thing some people like, and it can have life-changing results if you aren't careful, but... really, that's it."

"Oh my god," Newter wheezed gleefully, "you should tell Mel that!"

"I don't think she'll react well," Gregor replied flatly.

"I am SO bringing this up the next time she lectures me about responsibility!" Newter crowed.

Gregor sighed, rubbing his brow. "No, I don't think you should."

"It'll be hilarious!"

"It really won't be."

"Trust me, it will!"

"You sound a lot like my brother," Elle mused.

Gregor and Newter both froze for a moment, before turning to her slowly. "You, uh..." Newter swallowed. "You have a brother?"

"Had. And I had... four brothers. And a sister. Three older, two younger." Elle performed another expansive shrug. "They all died in the earthquake."

"The earthquake," Gregor repeated.

"The one I triggered in." Elle looked from one of them to the other. "You seriously didn't look at my files in the asylum when you got me?"

"...Mel might have," Newter allowed, "but... no. Not really. Uh. I'm sorry for your loss...?"

"It was years ago. I've mourned and moved on. Also I'm a mercenary cape now, and I spent a few years in the asylum, so it's not like anybody who knew me back then would recognize me."

"...Perhaps, if Melanie has negotiated with Atropos successfully, you might be able to look into your old home soon," Gregor offered.

"I might, sure. But..." Elle shook her head. "My power, I think it knows Atropos will kill it, so it's... backing off. It's still there, but I can feel it trying to slip away. So I'm more... lucid now? Not all there, but... there enough to think about what this team means to me." She smiled faintly. "And, well, even if we did some bad and stupid things... you always tried to understand me. Not like the doctors. They tried to understand my power, control it, but not the girl behind the power. You understand me."

"...It has been a great pleasure helping you with your life," Gregor assured her. "And... I am sure I will be proud of whatever you do in the future. What you become."

"Yeah, we got your back, Elle, no matter what!" Newter agreed.

"That's nice. So..." Elle looked at the screen. "Can you explain to me why Mel having sex is so funny?"

"Well you see-"

"Newter is being himself," Gregor interjected.

"Ah." Elle nodded. "That makes sense."

"Hey!"

We now return you to the randomly assigned chaos of the main narrative.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Glory Girl

"Hey, wait up!"

Some two hundred yards ahead, Crystal looked back over her shoulder. Vicky was too far back to tell if a look of exasperation had crossed her cousin's face, but Crystal slowed in her flight anyway. "What?" she asked as Vicky caught up.

"Nothing." Vicky grinned at the irritation that was definitely showing on her cousin's face now. "I just didn't want to have to trail behind you all the way, while you pretended not to be going where you're going, and I pretended not to be following you."

Crystal slowed to a hover and folded her arms. "So where do you think I'm going, smartass?"

"Where you told Aunt Sarah you were going. Palanquin." Vicky emulated Crystal's pose, because it was funny. "Aunt Sarah called Mom, and Mom told me to go along with you and make sure nothing weird happened this time." She smirked and waggled her eyebrows. "Because apparently I'm the responsible one of the family, these days."

"You?" An entire universe's worth of disbelief was packed into that one word. "Since when?"

Vicky unfolded her arms so she could buff her nails, then study them critically. "Since I'm not the one who managed to make PHO's list of top ten walks of shame so far this year."

"What—you—" Crystal gaped at her. "You—I—seriously, wow! That's so not fair! Would you like an annotated list of all the things you've managed to bust? Or should I just give you the link to the YouTube channel Collateral Damage Barbie's Greatest Hits?"

Just hearing the name of the last one made Vicky wince a little inside. Still, she managed to rally. "I'm doing better, these days. Ever since I got my wake-up call, I've been a lot more careful about not jumping in feet first. So yeah, I'm responsible."

"Wake-up call?" Crystal tilted her head to one side. "What wake-up call?"

"I'm shocked Ames hasn't already told you." Vicky had more or less assumed this would be the case.

"Let me fix that right now." Crystal pulled out her phone.

"No, no, don't." Vicky waved for her to put it away again. "She had an amazing date last night, and I don't want you bothering her with my mess." She sighed. "It was when I first met Atropos. I went for her, but she took me down like it was an afterthought. Then she collapsed my force field and held her shears this far from my eye while she explained the facts of life to me."

Crystal eyed the tiny gap between her finger and thumb and shuddered. "The facts of life?"

"Yeah, basically it boiled down to 'I can kill you any time I feel like it, so don't make me feel like it' and 'if someone tells you to back the fuck off, it's time to back the fuck off'." Vicky drew a long breath, the recollection of the fear she'd felt at the time still strong in her mind. "Then she killed off the Nine and posted the footage online. Any doubts I'd had went out the window after that. Ever since then, I've been a lot more careful."

"Yeah, no shit. That got everyone's attention." Crystal shook her head. "So, Miss Responsible Two Thousand Eleven, do Aunt Carol and Uncle Mark know about how you showed up at Damsel of Distress' place last night with drinks?"

Vicky stared at her, astonishment flushing through her system. "What … how the fuck did you know that?"

"Hah, so it was you." Crystal smirked. "Someone from her apartment building posted on PHO that they'd seen someone who looked a lot like you, carrying a shopping bag with what looked like booze inside it, getting all touchy-feely with Damsel before she let you inside." It was her turn to waggle her eyebrows. "So remind me again, how did you get to be the responsible one?"

"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me." Vicky gritted her teeth. "Okay, fine. Ashley and me both work for the Committee, sometimes on the same worksite. She had a big blowup with one of the site foremen on Thursday, so I decided to try to cheer her up last night by taking over a pack of cider as a housewarming gift." She glared at Crystal. "Non-alcoholic cider, just to make it absolutely clear. Unlike some people, I don't drink underage."

"Doesn't explain the touchy-feely bit," Crystal teased her.

Vicky shrugged, on firmer ground now. "It's the first time she's ever had a housewarming gift, so she hugged me then invited me in for dinner. Afterward, we watched that new cape comedy on TV, then I went home. The end."

"Oh, To Mask or Not to Mask? I've heard it's pretty funny." Crystal looked vaguely disappointed that she had nothing to tease Vicky over. "Well, it was nice of you to be so neighbourly for her."

"Oh, for sure. She's a lot of fun once she relaxes a bit." Vicky caught the look of disbelief on Crystal's face. "She is. She told me about how she didn't used to be, but Atropos pulled some bullshit on Thursday afternoon and helped her get rid of all her mental problems. And now she's learning how to be a person again. She's got an awesome sense of humour. We both nearly peed ourselves laughing when Hawkwing faceplanted that haystack."

"Whoa, whoa, spoilers!" Crystal scissored her hands together. "I wanna watch that sometime, too!"

"Okay, sorry, sorry." Vicky grinned. "So, did you want to go meet your girlfriend?"

Crystal wrinkled her nose. "She's not my girlfriend. They're not my girlfriends."

"Methinks the lady doth protest overmuch." Now that she'd managed to steer the conversation back to Crystal's indiscretions, Vicky grinned. "Whatever you are to each other, it doesn't matter to me. But if Faultline's not your girlfriend, why were you going there, anyway?"

Crystal gave Vicky a brief, measured glance. "Because Atropos is going to be there, duh. One or more members of the Crew have problematic powers, so Melanie's asked if the powers can be killed. I've been invited to be there for it, basically as a witness, I guess."

Atropos. Vicky still held her in absolute respect, and she was of course aware that Atropos could kill powers. Like everyone else on PHO, she wasn't exactly certain how this was accomplished, except for a vague 'she wants the power gone, it's gone'. Because, as far as she could tell, that was exactly how it happened. And in all truth, she really didn't feel like pressing the issue, for several reasons; the main one being, 'what if she does it to me?'.

"Okay, then." She thought about it for a moment. "Do you think Faultline will have a problem with me coming along? Or will Atropos?"

Crystal chuckled and shook her head. "I'll ask Melanie. But with Atropos, you're on your own." She took out her phone and called up a number. "Hi, yeah, it's me. I'm only a few minutes away. Listen, uh, Glory Girl's been assigned as my chaperone, sort of thing, and I need to know if it's okay for her to come in with me." A few seconds later, she nodded. "Uh huh, okay, yeah. Thanks, I'll tell her."

From the tone of the last few words, Vicky thought she knew what had been said, but she still looked at her cousin curiously as Crystal put the phone away. "So, is that a yea or a nay?"

Crystal shrugged. "She said it's fine with her, but if Atropos has a problem with it …" The sentence trailed off meaningfully.

"Haha nope, if Atropos has a problem, I'm outta there." That was a no-brainer in every sense of the phrase. However, she didn't think it would turn out that way. Given how prescient Atropos had been during every encounter they'd had, the black-clad killer no doubt knew she was coming along and had accounted for it. And while Atropos was whimsical, snarky, brutal, and thoughtful by turns, she was never actually petty.

Except for her love of doing jump-scares. Which Vicky couldn't really blame her for, having done exactly the same thing herself more than once. She's just better at it.

"Good. Well, they're waiting on us." Turning in midair, Crystal set off again toward the distant bulk of the Palanquin building.

Vicky followed along, simultaneously aware that while she wasn't really sure that she wanted to be there, she also wouldn't miss it for the world.

Laserdream

They landed on the roof of the Palanquin building, just next to the roof entrance. The door was open, with a large bald man wearing pants and an open coat standing in the doorway. Crystal recognised him as Gregor the Snail; the translucent skin with the shell-like growths here and there were kind of a giveaway.

"Welcome to Palanquin," he said, in a kind of parody of formality. "Please come in, ladies." He had a slight accent, one that Crystal couldn't place. Maybe northern European?

"Hi," Crystal said, then stopped. There was nothing she could think of to say about Melanie that didn't hold the possibility of severe embarrassment if it came out wrong. "I'm, uh, I'm pleased to meet you." She held out her hand. "Crystal."

He shook it blandly, as though this sort of thing happened to him every day. To her relief, his skin didn't feel as weird as it looked, and he didn't go for the hyper-masculine hand-crunch. "It is good to meet you, Crystal. Call me Gregor." His expression was frankly curious, as though he was wondering exactly what his boss saw in her.

"And I'm Vicky, but you knew that." Stepping up alongside Crystal, Vicky stuck her hand out too.

This had the possibly-deliberate effect of defusing the awkward moment as Gregor shifted his attention to her cousin. "I did, yes. You are aware that we have been invited back in by Atropos and that we will no longer be working illegally?" As he asked the question, he took her hand and shook it as well.

"Yeah, I'd heard something like that." Vicky chuckled. "You guys are way too smart to come back uninvited, and nobody second-guesses Atropos. Between the ex-villains and the Eagletons working on the reconstruction, we're getting stuff done amazingly fast."

"Eagletons—oh, the robots." Gregor allowed the door to close, then turned and began to lead the way downstairs. "So they are working out, then?"

"Heck, yeah." Vicky sounded downright pleased. "There's enough work for everyone, and they've been slotted in where they can do the most good. According to them, they really appreciate the chance to show that they've been reformed without needing to be reformatted."

For a second, Crystal thought she was being serious, then she caught the sidelong grin and the way Vicky had emphasised the words, and she facepalmed. "Oh, God. Robot jokes? Really?"

"Hey, don't blame me." Vicky smirked. "Joe Eagleton told me that one himself."

Crystal shook her head. "Why does that not surprise me? Gregor, back me up here. That was a terrible joke, and Vicky's a terrible person for repeating it."

"It is not as bad as some I have heard from Newter." Although she couldn't see his face, he sounded like he was smiling.

She decided to roll with it. "Hey, wait," she protested with a faux scowl. "You're supposed to be on my side, not hers!"

"Where is that written down?" He definitely sounded like he was enjoying himself. "I am sure you would not wish me to be prejudiced toward your opinion simply because you are friends with Faultline."

"Hell, yes," she countered. "That's the first rule for dealing with friends of your boss, even before the Unwritten ones. Look it up."

"Ah, but Faultline disapproves strongly of nepotism." He glanced back over his shoulder slyly. "I doubt she would give the okay for you to be shown any kind of undue favouritism, especially as you are a member of a totally different team." He opened a door from the stairwell and led them down a corridor.

Crystal wasn't done yet. "It's not nepotism if you just agree with me. That's merely showing good judgement. Anyway, showing me favouritism isn't undue. It's totally my due. Just ask me."

"We shall see." Gregor stopped at a large office door, opened it, and made an ushering motion. "Here we are."

As she entered, Crystal saw that in the room was the entire lineup of Faultline's Crew, as well as Anne Barnes. Anne sat to one side, with Newter and Labyrinth on the other. Newter looked around Vicky's age, with orange skin, red-blond hair, and a five-foot-long tail; Labyrinth was in her early twenties, with platinum blonde hair and a dark green robe with a maze pattern on it. More oddly, a trellis with roses growing on it had erected itself over Labyrinth, and vines were climbing the wall. Melanie sat behind her desk, wearing her costume but with her welding-mask face covering lying in front of her.

"Crystal," she said warmly, standing up from behind her desk. "Good to see you again. Glory Girl, it's nice to see you too. I presume you know the score?"

"Yeah, Crystal and Gregor filled me in." Vicky looked around the room with undisguised curiosity, including the large window overlooking the currently-deserted main floor of the nightclub. "Wow, this is not a place I ever expected to find myself." She frowned as she looked at the other two ex-villains. "Newter, right? And … Labyrinth?" The last name was spoken uncertainly.

"That's correct." Melanie came around the desk and gave Crystal a hug and a kiss, and if both lingered a little longer than normal, that was their business and nobody else's. Then she turned to address Vicky. "I understand you've had dealings with Atropos before."

"Oh, yeah." Vicky nodded. "She's absolutely a hardass if you try to screw her around, but play it straight and you haven't got a worry in the world."

Crystal approached Anne. "When did you get here? I could've picked you up, you know."

Anne snorted with amusement. "What, and get everyone all excited over us two flying to Faultline's place? I drove my car here, and parked out back. Newter was nice enough to let me in, about two minutes before you got here." Anne gave Crystal another hug and kiss, which she returned.

"Well, the gang's all here," Vicky announced. "And Atropos is undoubtedly about to make her usual dramatic entrance, right, Atropos?"

The shadowy doorway appeared in the middle of the room, and Atropos stepped out of it. "What, were you expecting another jump scare? That's only funny a couple of times."

Vicky rolled her eyes. "You certainly seemed to enjoy making me jump."

"Some people are easier to startle than others." Atropos gestured toward Melanie. "Faultline, here? The first time I showed up in the passenger seat of her car, she jumped. But I bet she wouldn't twitch an eyelash if I popped up in front of her from now on." She tilted her head slightly, then went on in tones of fond recollection. "Ex-director Wilkins, on the other hand? I showed up in front of her and she literally fell out of her office chair."

Newter was still sitting in his chair, though he'd visibly started when Atropos appeared. "I never met the woman, but I knew her by reputation. I'd have paid money to see that."

"Check your emails. There's a link to the security footage in your inbox." Ignoring his sudden scrabbling for his phone, Atropos turned to Melanie. "So, is it just Labyrinth who wants to lose her powers, or do any other members of your Crew want to get rid of them as well? I can make it a package deal."

"Ah, good point. I will certainly be keeping my powers. Gregor, Newter?" Melanie looked at the two named subordinates. "What's your choice in this matter?"

"I believe I will be keeping mine," Gregor decided stolidly. "I am used to them. Also, I suspect they may be useful if I find work with the Committee."

"They absolutely will be," Atropos agreed. "I understand incoming capes get to talk to the Chairman, a Mr Hebert. He's apparently got a talent for placing people where their talents can shine."

Newter looked up from his phone and nodded. "Yeah, sure, I'll keep mine too. Not sure what use they'd be, except for keeping out of the way of trouble, but I'll join up if they'll have me."

"I suspect he might sub you onto the medical staff. Your sweat has no deleterious side effects, and would act as a potent painkiller if someone's been injured." Atropos nodded to him, then turned to Labyrinth. "Alright then. Let's do this. Elle, do you know who I am?"

For a long moment, Crystal thought the young woman wouldn't respond to the softly-voiced question. Labyrinth—Elle—had that disassociated air that she'd seen in people with autism and other neuro-divergent conditions. If they went off into their own little worlds—and from what she'd seen in this room, it wasn't just a turn of phrase for Labyrinth—they were often very hard to bring back.

But something about Atropos' tone or question triggered a response. Elle blinked, looking up at her. "Yes. You're the monster that hunts other monsters in the dark."

Atropos may have smiled; Crystal couldn't tell. "That's a fair description," she allowed. "Do you want me to End your powers for you, so you don't see all those other worlds?"

Long seconds ticked by while Elle considered that, or perhaps she was estimating the thread count in Atropos' morph mask. "I won't wake up in the jagged room anymore?" she asked eventually.

"Not even once." Atropos' voice was firm.

"There are many worlds, and some are very pretty." Elle's tone was contemplative. "But others are bad. And when I feel bad, I wake up in bad places." She gave Atropos a direct look. "Yes."

"Jeeesus," muttered Newter. "That's the most she's spoken to anyone who wasn't us in, like, ever."

"Alright then." Atropos gestured, and there was suddenly a small plastic capsule in her hand. "There's a grape in there. Eat it."

Elle took the capsule. It opened easily enough. "Like Alice?"

"Exactly like Alice. But don't expect a March Hare to come hopping through." Atropos seemed to be enjoying a private joke. Crystal suspected she knew what that was about, but she'd have to ask to be sure.

Taking the grape out—it was a green seedless type—Elle popped it into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. Crystal found herself holding her breath. Atropos raised her hand; one finger seemed to be tapping the air like a timer. "… and done," she declared, snapping her fingers for emphasis.

"What, that's it?" asked Newter. "No offense, but …"

"None taken." Atropos pointed at the wall, where the vines had started to creep across the ceiling. As Crystal watched, they retreated, pulling back down the wall to the trellis. The roses closed, the buds shrank into the vines, and the whole assemblage gradually deconstructed itself back into the wall.

"Elle?" asked Melanie, stepping closer and taking the young woman's hands in hers. "How do you feel?"

"Um, wow?" Elle said uncertainly. "I feel like I've just had the world's biggest jolt of caffeine. It's as if I've just woken up properly for the first time since I got powers."

"Do I want to know what the jagged room was?" Vicky asked of the room. Crystal had wanted to know that too, but hadn't been sure how to ask.

Gregor fielded that one. "Elle had many unpleasant memories of the asylum, seen through the filter of her powers. Sometimes she would wake up and her room had a solid metal door with spikes on it. Razor-edged rusty blades hanging from the ceiling. Any incautious movement would draw blood. The longer she stayed in that room, in that mental state, the farther the influence would spread through the building."

"Hey, Elle," Newter offered. "Do you remember me?"

"Sure," she replied, far more animated than she had been before ingesting the grape. "I know who you all are, and I truly appreciate everything you've done for me." Standing up, she hugged a startled Melanie. "You took me in, and took care of me, and helped me get control of my powers so I didn't get lost in my own head so much. Thank you so much."

"Your vocabulary's impressive for someone who's been stuck with power complications for ten years," Melanie observed, but she didn't pull free of the hug.

"Well, duh." Elle chuckled. "While I've been hanging out with you guys, I've heard everything you said. My brain made sense of everything that came in, but outgoing communication was locked down hard. Until now, of course." She turned a beaming smile on Atropos. "And thank you, too."

"You're entirely welcome." Atropos nodded to Melanie, then to Crystal and Anne and Vicky. "My work here is done. Toodles." Raising her hand, she snapped her fingers and vanished.

"Um … okay, then." Crystal shook her head. "That definitely happened." And, if she was being honest with herself, it had been way more painless than she'd expected.

"So you're back with us for good, then." Newter grinned broadly. "Awesome."

"You are just saying that because it means no more babysitting duty," Gregor said, so blandly that Crystal was almost taken in by his words.

"Dude!" Newter had apparently fallen for it. "Not cool!"

Elle broke away from Melanie. "Gregor, that was mean. Newter, it's fine. You were a great babysitter."

Crystal, Vicky, and Anne approached Melanie. "So, uh, what are your plans now?" asked Crystal. "I thought you were selling this place."

"The sale still hasn't gone all the way through. It'll cost me a fee to reverse it, but I can eat that cost." Melanie gestured at the window, and the club beyond. "Assholes were lowballing me because I wanted to get out fast, so I wouldn't have got as much as I wanted. Anyway, I was thinking about rebranding. If we set up to cater for Committee workers, maybe put in pool tables and suchlike, we'd be good for as long as the reconstruction lasted. Beyond that, if most of them stayed."

Anne nodded. "In my non-expert opinion, I think that could work. Have a non-alcoholic section for the Committee workers who aren't twenty-one yet, and make sure never the twain shall meet, and you might have a winner there."

"Yeah." Vicky snorted in amusement. "I'm pretty sure you couldn't get away with that a second time, even on the campus."

Melanie grinned and flipped her off. "So, noted. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to cater to the Eagletons. I'm sure they'd come to the club along with their buddies, but how do you serve alcohol to a robot in a way that makes sense?" At that moment, her phone pinged audibly. "Hang on, this could be the real-estate guys now."

As Melanie pulled out her phone to check it, Crystal felt Anne's hand bump into hers, and she twined her fingers with the other girl's in a way that felt totally natural. She could tell that Vicky, on her other side, was pretending to ignore the surreptitious hand-holding, but she didn't care.

Melanie huffed out an exasperated sigh. "Okay, now she's just yanking my chain on purpose." She tapped the screen, then flicked it to swipe across.

"Who's yanking your chain, and how?" asked Anne. Crystal suspected she knew the who, if not the how.

Melanie cleared her throat. "I just got emailed a bunch of technical diagrams and specs. 'How to Safely Emulate the Effects of Alcohol in Robots'. Author name: A. Tropos."

Crystal found herself giggling uncontrollably, and Anne joined in a moment later. That was so totally Atropos. All four of them ended up laughing at the shared joke, while the other three stared at them oddly. This only made Crystal laugh harder.

It wasn't just the tongue-in-cheek author name, though that was part of it. Most of her mirth stemmed from the release of tension; she hadn't known what was going to happen at Palanquin, even with Vicky along, and the ease and smoothness of the whole process had left her on the back foot.

"Well, damn," Vicky observed after they'd sobered a little. "Looks like you're gonna be running the first robot nightclub in the world. How cool's that?"

Crystal nodded and squeezed Anne's hand. "Pretty damn cool."

End of Part Eighty-Five