Crystalized Munchkinry - Act IV - Chapter 51 (Patreon)

Amy peered up from her facepalm to look at Taylor's face.

She had to give it to the girl. Her poker face was excellent, though it didn't really help when her face was frozen into a very polite smile. It just looked creepy, and if Amy was honest with herself, a little threatening.

Which she could understand, because they had just barged in and broken the Unwritten Rules like it was nothing.

Yes, she knew it was Vicky who had done it, but she was sure Taylor wouldn't accept that as an excuse.

After a few seconds of a pregnant pause, Taylor finally replied to Vicky's inappropriate greeting.

"Excuse me?" she said while tilting her head to the side and adopting a confused look. "Why are you calling me that?"

She glanced at Vicky, wondering how she would react. Because that would give them the chance to play it off as a joke, though, knowing Vicky, it had either gone over her head, or she had realized it and then promptly ignored it.

"Because you are Magnet Girl!" answered Vicky with laughter in her voice.

And Amy had to agree with her because it really was a ridiculous codename that the news had come up with.

"Come on, Taylor, no need to hide! You saved my sister; I won't tell anyone!"

Taylor grimaced in response while gesturing toward the living room. "Let's not talk about this at the door. I prepared some snacks.”

Vicky cheered briefly, then flew toward the promised food while hovering only a few inches above the floor.

"And I'm not Magnet Girl!" added Taylor with a slightly raised voice.

"Sure!" came the answer from the cheerful Vicky.

Amy looked at the still-grimacing Taylor and gave her a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry about that…"

"I'm just glad she didn't do that in the open. It would be a pain in the ass explaining that I'm not a parahuman," said Taylor, and Amy was rather impressed that she could say that with a straight face.

"Of course, Taylor. Whatever you say," she replied in her most knowing voice.

In response, Taylor fixed her with an annoyed stare, then did an about-face and began walking toward the living room. Amy smirked and followed the taller girl.

This promised to be grand entertainment.

A few minutes later, after they had sampled a few tasty sandwiches, they were sitting in the living room. The sisters sat next to each other on the sofa, while Taylor sat alone in the armchair with a severe look on her face.

She had spent the time they were munching glaring at Vicky, and Amy suspected the other girl was devising ways to kill or at least silence her sister.

She wished her luck…

"Don't be so glum, Taylor!" Vicky spoke up finally after finishing her sandwich. "By the way, excellent sandwich!"

"Thank you," answered Taylor in a clipped tone. "I'm not glum. I'm just… annoyed. Yes, annoyed that you think I'm some kind of parahuman."

Amy decided she would let those two hash it out and reached for another sandwich while wishing for popcorn.

Vicky looked at the black-haired girl and gave her a smile that could melt butter. "But you didn't really hide it, so it's not my fault I figured it out."

Taylor blinked in surprise. "What?"

Vicky sat up properly, raised her hand, and started counting. "One, you weren't affected by my aura. Two, one of my… friends couldn't see anything from you. Three, Amy couldn't see anything interesting. Four, when we were attacked, you were the only one nearby who would know we needed help. And finally, when I pushed you out of the way, I hit you a little hard, and I'm really sorry about that, but nobody said anything about you getting any wounds."

Taylor looked at the grinning blonde, and Amy could see she was thinking furiously.

And your conclusion from all of that was that I'm a parahuman?"

"Yup!"

"And then you decided that confronting me about it was the best decision?" she asked with an arched eyebrow. "Not that I'm saying you're correct."

"I mean… I get where you're coming from… but I just wanted to thank you for saving Amy. So no confronting!" replied Vicky, her smile withering slightly.

"And then?"

"What do you mean?" Vicky replied, puzzled, while Amy shot a knowing look at Taylor, still munching on her sandwich.

"Now that you think you know I'm a parahuman, what do you intend to do with that information?" asked Taylor with a severe expression.

"Nothing. Why would I do anything with it?" said Vicky with her most honest face.

"Hmmm."

Vicky stood up, took a step toward Taylor, and grabbed her hand. "Taylor, believe me! I just wanted to thank you! I don't want to unmask you to anybody or anything like that!"

Their host looked up at the blonde and gave a small (and, to Amy, rather vulnerable-looking) smile. "And how do I know I can trust you?"

Vicky, still holding Taylor's hand, looked down at her. "We are New Wave. That's our basic mandate! Plus, we are friends!"

Amy hid a quick grimace upon hearing that. While yes, their group was built around trust, internally things were different. At least, that was how it felt with Carol treating her as if she was only seconds away from going crazy and annihilating the city.

Hopefully, now that her power had changed on the surface (Shaper assured her that, if there was a need, she could allow Amy to use her previous power), Carol would calm down a little. Though based on the argument they had before they left, it didn't seem likely.

Taylor looked up at Vicky and her placid sister, who was eating one of her sandwiches and obviously letting them talk it out. While keeping up a façade of nonchalance on the outside, she was raging and despairing on the inside.

Was she really that obvious?

Could anybody else know about her?

She glanced at Admin floating invisibly nearby, unseen by the others, looking for an answer or at least some kind of advice.

"Just go along with it. They are trustworthy, and they can help you blend in better."

"Why didn't you tell me I was showing signs of being a parahuman?" she asked in her mind.

"I'm here to help you and teach you, not to tell you everything. I felt it was an excellent learning experience. Now go and make friends!" With that, he vanished amidst a shower of illusory glitter.

Taylor shot a brief glare at where her power's avatar had been, then turned her eyes and thoughts back to the blonde standing in front of her. She contemplated what Vicky had said and what she knew about the girl.

It was clear that Vicky wouldn't let this go unless Taylor went into full defensive mode, but that would also sever their friendship. And she didn't really have enough friends to casually get rid of one.

The only real question was whether she could trust the girl.

Because the last time she trusted somebody, it had ended horribly for her.

However, she was aware that she couldn't really live her life alone and isolated from everyone. Yes, there was Tess, but their relationship was based on Taylor helping Tess, and the fact that she was still holding the key to her cage made it a little lopsided.

Whereas Vicky and Amy had become her friends by chance, and nothing was stopping them from taking her secrets and spreading them around. Not even the Unwritten Rules would stop them…

Admin's assertion about their trustworthiness helped a little, but it didn't fully assuage her fears.

In the end, it came down to a simple decision.

Trust them for now and prepare herself to be burned.

Or chase them away and keep living in an isolated bubble.

She stared into Vicky's eyes, looking for a hint of deception, but the only thing she could see was the earnest need for her acceptance and, based on her glances toward the food, hunger.

"Fine," she finally said. "But if you call me Magnet Girl again, I will punt you across the ocean."

Vicky's face lit up with joy, and she hugged her, while Amy just nodded to herself as if she had expected nothing less.

"Yes! I knew I was right! Tell me everything about your power, Taylor! I saw you fly; how fast can you go? What else can you do?" came from the exuberant superhero.

Taylor took a step back from Vicky, grabbed her shoulders, and stared seriously into her eyes. "First, you have to promise you won't tell anyone about me. My dad can't protect himself, so I need to be careful!"

"Of course! I promise!" replied Vicky with the same seriousness. "I won't even tell my… friend."

Taylor gave her a knowing look. After all, it wasn't really hard to figure out who that "friend" was. Still, as long as Vicky didn't say it out loud, she was keeping with the Unwritten Rules.

Vicky flushed in embarrassment, but before she could speak, Amy interrupted. "I will keep your secret too."

"Thank you, Amy."

"No probs."

Vicky, seemingly deciding that ignoring the last part was the prudent choice, sat back down next to her sister and reached for another snack. "So, just to be clear, are you a parahuman, Taylor?"

Taylor slumped back into the armchair, crossed her arms in front of her, and answered petulantly. "Yes. I am."

"Cool."

Vicky took a bite of her food, but Amy seamlessly took over and continued the questioning.

"And what exactly is your power? I remember seeing you use electricity and magnets…" said Amy with a laugh in her voice.

"Well, I basically control electromagnetism and a few extras," answered Taylor smugly.

This rather surprised the girls sitting across from her, their mouths falling open.

The next second, the room was filled with questions from the Dallon sisters, while Taylor enjoyed their awe.

They spent the rest of the day talking about Taylor's power (with her leaving out a lot of things), the sisters' new powers, and the events that had happened recently.

Though a brief hour was spent with Taylor showcasing her awesome hair power while her guests watched jealously.

Around eight in the evening, Taylor packed up the board game they had been playing, while Vicky picked up the trash they had generated and Amy washed the few dishes they had used.

"So, how about we do a quick shower run, then watch a few movies?" she asked, looking at the others.

Vicky looked around, confused. "Sure, but where is your TV?"

Taylor just smirked and spoke in a firm voice. "TV, activate."

Vicky and Amy watched in amazement as shades automatically covered the windows and an almost wall-sized holographic screen appeared in the living room opposite the sofa. On it, they could see a list of movies and TV channels that could be selected, while in the background they could barely hear the gentle hum of a sound system.

"What the hell! What is that?" asked the astonished Amy while dramatically pointing at the screen.

"A Tinker-tech soft-light projection screen, connected to a database of movies, the TV cable, the radio, and the internet. It also runs Doom," explained Taylor proudly.

"Where the hell did you get something like that? Even the Wards have to make do with a simple TV!" exclaimed Vicky as she went closer to examine the technological marvel.

"I made it."

Vicky whirled around and stared at Taylor. "You made it? You are also a Tinker?"

"Yep," answered Taylor, popping the p as smugly as possible.

Meanwhile, Amy, after drying her hands, picked up the tablet Taylor had laid out and browsed for a movie to watch. "Why didn't you mention that you can do this too?"

"You didn't ask…" was Taylor's reply.

Vicky looked at her for a few seconds, then dramatically sighed. She turned around to join her sister in choosing a movie while muttering to herself.

"So not fair…"

Taylor, enjoying her ’victory’, simply started toward the stairs.

"I'll lay out the towels and stuff. You guys can go first in the shower."

His experiments with the empty space between dimensions were making excellent progress, but he still hadn't finalized his plan for how to make use of it. Though, as a side effect of this, his awareness and knowledge of parallel dimensions had grown greatly.

Apparently, observing from outside the system was what he needed for another breakthrough.

He had always wondered why, despite the multiverse being infinite, only a few dimensions (comparatively speaking) were actually used by the Entities. Of course, he knew that some powers made use of this very fact, but aside from that, he couldn't see any evidence of the Entities utilizing it.

The technology was there, and their very nature allowed them to experience and observe parallel dimensions, yet after reaching a certain number of them (granted, it wasn't a small number), they stopped.

It seemed that, after a while, the differences became so minuscule that the dimensions could no longer be meaningfully distinguished from one another. But thanks to discovering a way to observe these dimensions from the outside, he could be far more precise.

He used this knowledge to move certain parts of his enormous body into closer dimensions for security and to use the similarities between dimensions to hopefully confuse anyone who attempted to locate his body.

Furthermore, it allowed him to improve and upgrade Sting, as well as his defenses against it. This made Sting much more powerful and effective against dimensional defenses while making his own defenses more efficient.

He hoped that, with further experimentation and research, he could completely isolate himself dimensionally from the other Shards, thus making himself immune to their powers.

His search for the dimensional addresses was also making progress. He probably had almost all the addresses for the Shards connected to Earth Bet, and thanks to the few parahumans guarding the channel to Aleph, he was making great inroads there as well.

Sadly, his access to the other dimensions where the Entities and their Shards were active was nowhere to be found.

He had already collected the addresses of Alexandria, Eidolon, and Legend, and with them, he had the address of Doormaker and Clairvoyant. But sadly, he didn't dare contact their Shard to begin the takeover process because he was one hundred percent sure they were always in contact with Path to Victory.

True, he wasn't as defenseless and powerless as he had been before, but PtV had an amazing prediction system, and there was still a chance that, if he gave it enough information, the Shard could play him like a harp.

Better to play it safe for now.

The other hot spot he didn't dare approach was the Birdcage. The Faerie Queen's territory.

Thanks to tapping into Teacher's Shard, he had a rudimentary understanding of the Queen's Shard and the addresses of the other Shards contained within the prison.

He discovered that the Queen's Shard routinely scanned the Shards it was in contact with, and thanks to the prolonged contact between their hosts, it had forged connections to them that were similar to his own. Probably in preparation for the time when Ciara decided to reap them.

However, this connection allowed the Shard to monitor every other Shard.

His tap into Teacher's Shard only succeeded because he used the connection it had with Saint and altered nothing.

When he learned this, he had the urge to flash-clone a human body, take control of it, and just be able to sweat.

So, to make sure the Shard, which was said to be on par with the Administrator and Shaper, remained unaware, he hid the connection even better before setting up several dummy Shards a few dimensions away and funneling the connection through them.

It wouldn't fool the Faerie Queen, but it would give him ample warning in case he was discovered.

Though it was dangerous, he was fairly sure he could take her in a fight.

It just wasn't the right time.

He needed to be prepared for the next Endbringer fight. Not that he would allow Taylor to participate if it wasn't attacking Brockton Bay, but one never knew.

And of all the things Entities had created, he had the least knowledge about the Endbringers.

He had a few encryption keys and similar information, and theoretically, he could get in and shut them down. However, doing so would more than likely raise so many alarms that the chances of Zion not noticing them would be close to zero.

So, for the first one, he planned to have Taylor sit it out and see how the Endbringers reacted to the changes he had made.

Would Simurgh attack Canberra again, or would she choose another target?

He also wanted to see what he could do and sense without sending his host onto the battlefield.

He wasn't looking forward to that argument.

He watched as the tired girls went to sleep, with the sisters in the guest bedroom and Taylor in her own bed.

He was rather happy that Taylor finally had a few more friends because she desperately needed them. And the fact that they were parahumans was just icing on the cake.

He had, of course, immediately noticed their suspicions, not least because he had a direct connection to their Shards. At first, he wanted to warn Taylor, but in the end, he decided to let it play out and see what Vicky and Amy would do with the information.

He was quite happy with the results, and despite her sulking, deep down Taylor was too.

Now, for the next act: allowing them to connect to the virtual world.