Crystalized Munchkinry - Act VI - Chapter 79 (Patreon)

The next day, Vicky came over fuming with a bag of Amy's stuff. She packed up some clothing, necessities, her school things, and her computer. Apparently, the situation was very far from calm.

After the four of them had a tense lunch, with Amy staring morosely at her plate, Vicky almost vibrating with anger, and Danny and Taylor glancing at the girls and communicating through their eyes, Taylor was rather happy that they had managed to repair their relationship enough that they could understand each other through eye contact.

At the same time, she was also angry and somewhat disappointed that her friends were suffering and, despite her insane amount of power, the best she could do was console the sad healer.

Then she had a thought. She was rich now. And she had powerful friends. If parahuman powers failed, there was still the good old-fashioned power of money. Though she had to be careful how she went about it.

After lunch, they moved to the living room in the name of having a discussion, led by her father, but it resulted in them sitting there for minutes in silence while everybody waited for everybody else to start.

In the end, Danny was the one who had enough of the silence and broke it with a small cough before speaking up.

"All right, girls. Let's talk about this." With an apologetic expression, he turned toward Vicky, who was sitting next to her sister. "Victoria, can you tell us how Carol… reacted?"

Vicky frowned but nodded resolutely.

"By the time I left with Amy's stuff, Mom was ranting at Aunt Sarah while Dad was trying to calm her down. She said things…"

"I see. So, for now, it wouldn't be wise for Amy to go back. Am I understanding it right?"

"Yes. I don't understand what Mom's problem is, but I don't think the two of them in one space would help," replied Vicky while giving Amy a one-armed hug. "So, thank you, Mr. Hebert, for letting Amy stay here."

Danny just waved it away while Taylor smiled at her friend.

"It's no problem, young lady. We have the room, and she is Taylor's friend. Least we could do."

Taylor nodded, supporting her father's statement. Then she also spoke up.

"Why don't you stay here until things calm down? Arcadia is almost the same distance from here…"

Amy looked up from her lap with unshed tears in her eyes. "Really?"

Danny gave her a small but welcoming smile. "Yes, really. You are safe here, Amy."

"Thank you," replied Amy in a whisper, while her blonde sister beamed at them.

They continued to talk about the situation late into the evening.

After the discussion they had on Sunday, her father quickly called up Sarah Pelham, judging that contacting Carol wouldn't be the best idea, and told her that Amy was staying with them and that they were taking care of her.

The famous heroine was rather thankful and apologetic but agreed that it was the best choice for now. Hopefully, her sister would calm down, and then she and Amy could have a talk and go from there.

Taylor rather doubted that, so she made her own plans.

After seeing her father off to work and Amy off to school, she breezed through her own education (and made a note to talk to her father about joining Arcadia next year) and then sat down and began researching using the internet, her dad's books, and Tess's databases.

She also knew that while her father had promised he would only help Amy if she asked for it, he would do something in the background that would help the famous healer. She just hoped it wouldn't result in more drama…

It was late in the evening when Amy came home from the hospital.

She was working on her website, taking care of the incoming money and donations, organizing the different governmental approvals for her inventions, and also answering a few questions about the devices that had piled up over time.

Her father was already done with dinner, as he was just enjoying a small after-dinner drink and reading some kind of economic paper. The moment Taylor sensed Amy approaching the house, she left her room and went to meet the other girl.

Amy once again just barged through the door, closing it a little harder behind her, and charged up to the guest room.

Meeting Danny's eyes, she just said, "I will take care of it, Dad."

Danny nodded, then returned to his reading, noticeably less calm. She just placed a portion of dinner and some drinks on a tray and walked up the stairs toward their guest, who she saw through her senses was lying face down on the bed.

Apparently, Amy preferred to scream into her pillows…

She entered without knocking, placed the tray down on the desk that was in the room, and sat down next to Amy.

"So, what happened now?"

It was rather surreal that she was here providing comfort to another girl when, recently, she had wished somebody would do the same to her. But she had vowed she would help if she saw somebody in a similar situation, so she sucked it up and tried to help.

Amy said nothing for an entire minute, then slowly turned over, fixing her stare on the ceiling.

"The people in the hospital heard what happened somehow. The representative of the Nurses' Union and the hospital's legal team both approached me, asking if I needed help."

"And that's surprising? Amy, those people love you! Vicky told me they set aside an entire resting room just for you."

"It's just… I don't understand," continued Amy haltingly, still staring at the ceiling, though Taylor could see tears gathering in her eyes. "All those people are so much nicer to me than my own mother! I just don't get it…"

Taylor honestly couldn't say anything to that, so she simply gathered up the slightly smaller girl in her embrace and hugged the stuffing out of her. At first, Amy was rather surprised, but the next second, she was bawling her eyes out while also mumbling about Carol.

She waited until the girl exhausted herself, tucked her in, and carefully left the room. Danny was already standing there, holding a cup of steaming tea for her.

Giving him a grateful smile, she sipped it contentedly.

"How is she?"

"Bad. She needs more help than we can give her."

Danny sighed while nodding with understanding. "I will call Sarah and ask her what we should do, but without Amy agreeing to anything, we can't do anything…"

"Don't worry, Dad! I have an idea…"

With that, she took her tea and marched toward her room, intent on putting her plan into motion, while Danny watched her with a worried look.

As soon as she was in her room, she locked the door, turned on her shielding devices, and dialed Tess. There was only one ring before her friend's face showed up on a projected screen. Tess swiveled in her super-comfortable office chair while absentmindedly leafing through the documents containing the results of Taylor's research.

"Hello, Taylor. How have you been?"

Taylor gave her a half-smile, half-grimace before answering. "I'm good, Tess. But things got interesting…"

"Panacea?"

“Oh? You knew about it?"

"Danny told me about it."

"I see. Then I can skip the explanations and get to my solution right away."

There was a weird look on Tess's face before she answered. "Oh, boy…"

"Don't be like that! I'm not that bad…" replied Taylor in an embarrassed tone. "But here!"

With that, she simply sent her proposal over to the AI. Much faster than explaining it.

It took Tess barely a second to go over it and consider it. "You want to start a Parahuman Union?"

"Specifically, a Healer Union. A neutral organization that would accept any healer-type parahuman and provide them with legal representation, social services, and all-around help with transportation, protection, or even training."

"And you want Amy Dallon to be the first member."

"Yes. With this, we could offer to help her without Amy feeling bad about it. Plus, if we do it under the aegis of Serenity, nobody will really say no to it. If even Dragon supports it… I would like to see how Carol Dallon reacts to that."

Tess just sighed.

"Taylor, it's an excellent idea, and I will help you realize it, but you know that Carol Dallon is technically not your enemy that you have to destroy, right? She is the mother of your friend, and they need therapy, not an army of lawyers…"

"I know that! The Union would provide this exact counseling. I don't want to hurt them, but what Carol did was unacceptable!"

Tess stayed silent for a few seconds while looking directly into Taylor's eyes.

"Fine. If you promise to leave it to the professionals, I will start with the paperwork."

Taylor gave her a brilliant smile and nodded.

"Thanks, Tess! I promise!"

"Thank you, Taylor. Now let's talk about details…"

"Sure!" replied Taylor, and she turned toward her computer screen, bringing up her research. "Do you think if this Healer Union works out, we could get a Parahuman Entertainment Union? Imagine a movie made by an illusionist cape!"

Ethan wandered along the street, pretending not to pay attention while making sure he took everything in. Currently, they were on the PR part of their patrol with Battery. They stopped to give autographs, sign pictures, or take pictures with fans, then they would head deeper into the city and hope to catch a few ne'er-do-wells.

After Armsmaster's capture of Stormtiger and his Nazi friends, he wanted his own arrest before they ran out of Nazis to go after.

But for now, he had to smile, shake hands, try not to look at cleavage (Sherry always knew somehow), and sign awesome action figures that depicted him with his even more awesome battle hammer.

Sadly, after power testing, the Protectorate powers-that-be declared the hammer too dangerous to be used in everyday situations, so they locked it away for the next gigantic battle against biotinker abominations.

His first idea was to contact Blasto and ask him to arrange something, but now he was just sad.

Maybe Lung would be up for a spar?

They left behind the clean part of the city where people of their 'fair' city could walk around without a worry, or at least comfortably ignore their worries.

Brockton Bay was strange.

Now they were in a less populated but more crime-prone part of the city (from what he heard, not for long, thanks to the revitalization of the Docks). They were walking their route slowly and methodically while talking about everyday stuff.

Mostly about what they should make for dinner…

He was about to make a dramatic speech to convince his wife to have steak when they heard a very familiar sound.

Both of them instantly turned in the direction from which the sound of breaking glass had come, their previous discussion forgotten.

"Go ahead, I will call it in," said Battery with a frown.

"Got it."

He began jogging, not really in a hurry, as he heard no other sounds, especially not anything that would indicate the presence of other parahumans. Though one never could be too careful, so Ethan still made sure to watch out for spotters or people waiting in ambush.

Seeing nothing, he turned the corner to behold a rather weird sight.

It was Rune, hovering over the asphalt and halfheartedly throwing bricks and other detritus at the shop with a distinctly Asian name.

He raised an eyebrow in surprise and glanced at Battery, who was whispering to the dispatcher. He waited until she also took in the situation and tilted his head questioningly.

Battery just mouthed, 'Talk to her!' and then continued to murmur into her communicator.

Glad that she agreed with him, Ethan strode toward the teenage villain, making sure that she heard his steps.

Surprisingly, even when he stopped next to her, she still hadn't stopped her vandalism or acknowledged him.

"Would you mind stopping it and coming in quietly?"

For a moment, he feared she would attack him when the hand holding another brick tensed, but she simply dropped it to the ground, turned toward him, then hopped down from the levitating disk and held out both hands in front of her.

"Sure! I surrender."

Surprised by her chirpy voice, he didn't move.

"So… what happened? Your Nazi membership ran out?"

Still holding her hands out, Rune shrugged.

"Basically. I just want out. With how things are going, it's a toss-up who will kill me, Hookwolf or Kaiser… I like my chances in the Wards better."

He took a long look at her and saw how she was pretending to be confident but couldn't really hide how she was glancing around, looking for something, or how she was shaking. Ethan glanced back at Sherry, who gave him a subtle nod, then took an enhanced handcuff from his tool belt and clasped it around the young woman's wrist.

"Well, we can definitely help with that…"