Taylor always expected that she would have to explain her power to someone someday. Maybe a teammate, maybe some bored PRT officer sitting behind a desk, maybe (to her potential-mortification) to her dad.

She didn’t think it would be to two celebrities in the middle of a literally bloody alleyway. “I can explain,” she said.

“Yeah, I sure hope you can,” Glory Girl said. “You can start with names.”

“Ah, that might be complicated,” Taylor hedged. None of her sisters had what anyone would call an ordinary name to begin with. “I’m Taylor. Taylor Hebert. Um, these are my sisters.” she gestured at all the girls, then paused over Dinah. “Except her.”

“Hi, I’m Dinah,” said Dinah. “I was being kidnapped, so Taylor saved me.”

“Uh-huh,” Glory Girl said. She made a little gesture with a roll of her wrist, a sort of ‘get on with it.’ It seemed like Glory Girl had read the same ‘Body Language for Condescending Bitches’ book as Emma had. “If that’s the case, you won’t mind coming with us, right Dinah?”

Dinah shrugged one shoulder. “Okay,” she said before walking over to the New Wave girls. They seemed surprised by her nonchalance; she wasn’t acting according to the ‘kidnapped little girl’ script.

Nodding, Taylor continued. “My power is that I can make, um, sorta-clones of capes by touching them. They’re not the same person though. No memories or anything like that. Just a little sister version of that cape. And they’re really nice.”

“Hello,” Crochet said with a quick curtsey.

“Sup, bitch,” Cheshire said.

“Mostly nice,” Taylor added. She tried to smile, but it felt really brittle. “Um, Dinah was being kidnapped, so we helped, or tried to, but then Crochet,” she began, placing a hand on the girl in question. “She got hurt. And I couldn’t lose her, not someone else, and Dinah said you were close and that you could help.”

Glory Girl made shushing motions and Taylor realised that her voice had been rising a little the entire time. It was Panacea that spoke next. She touched her sister on the arm, then focused on the little sister that had come from her. “So what’s with her?” she asked.

“I... I couldn’t convince you to help me. I’m sorry,” Taylor said. “I had to make a new little sister to save Crochet. That’s her. She doesn’t have a name yet.”

“What am I, a side of beef?” the newest little sister asked. She tried scowling, but failed and only ended up with a pout. She huffed, uncrossed her arms, and turned towards Glory Girl with an assessing look.

“Amy,” Glory Girl said.

“Don’t,” Panacea said with a warning note in her voice.

Glory Girl ignored her sister with aplomb and walked over to Taylor’s newest little sister, then bent forwards at the hip to look her in the eye. “Hi.”

“You’re Glory Girl,” the sister said, sounding rather shy all of a sudden.

“And you, are adorable,” Glory Girl said. She reached out and grabbed the smaller Panacea under each armpit and lifted her up to head height.

“Big Sis, please don’t let that be my name,” the little sister, who looked like little more than a kitten being grabbed by the scruff of its neck, asked.

“No no, you need a much better name than that,” Glory Girl said.

“Um.” Taylor shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Big Sis is me, actually. That’s what they call me.”

Glory Girl blinked. “Oh, right. Well, I can be your Bigger Sis, then,” she said to the girl still held in her arms.

The little girl frowned thoughtfully. "No, I only have one big sister. Maybe you could be my girlfriend?”

Glory Girl looked startled for a few long seconds, then broke out into peals of laughter. She turned towards Panacea, smile still in place. “Did you hear that, Ames?”

“I did,” Panacea bit out.

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Glory Girl laughed some more, and Taylor felt the tension just draining out of the alleyway. “Maybe when you’re older, little Amy,” Glory Girl said as she placed the girl back down.

“You could at least hug me, if you’re gonna manhandle me like that,” the tiny healer said.

Glory Girl snorted, but patted the girl on the head anyway before focusing on Taylor. “So, you have the most awesome power ever, basically.”

Taylor felt her expression going flat. “Yeah, sure. Do you like babysitting?”

“Uh,” Glory Girl said. She eyed all the girls and Taylor could almost hear the mental tally rising. “Well, if it was just small Amy.”

“I might take you up on that,” Taylor admitted. She was losing the tenseness as they went on. Her nightmares of violence and accusations was fading. “So, now what?”

The two cape sisters shared a look. Panacea sighed, then hitched her shoulder. “I don’t know. I feel like we should be reporting this.”

“No!” Taylor said. She only realized that it was a shout after she had said it. “No, please. I... if you report me, they might take my sisters. Or, or they’ll do things to them.” She grabbed Crochet, the nearest sister and pulled her close. It wasn’t something she wanted to think on much, but her sisters were important, they needed protecting.

“Dammit,” Glory Girl said. She ran a hand through her hair and frowned at the lot of them before turning back to her own sister. “We can’t call the PRT on them, Amy. Armsy would be anal about them and Piggot would probably freak out, you know how unreasonable she is.”

Panacea rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because a clone-making cape that can make more capes isn’t worth freaking out over.”

“Oh, come on, look at them, Ames. They’re harmless.” Glory Girl picked up small Amy and held her up again. As soon as she was lifted, the girl went limp and dangled in Glory Girl’s grip.

Panacea glared, but she relented. “Fine, but she should have to report to someone.”

Glory Girl’s smile was radiant. “I’ll ask mom. And then we can try to figure out what this whole kidnapping business is all about.”

Taylor had the impression that she wasn’t out of trouble just yet. “Can, can we go home now?” she asked. She felt a small hand poking at hers and gripped it without even looking to see who it belonged to.

Glory Girl and Panacea shared another inscrutable look. “Yeah, yeah you can go,” Glory Girl said. “But I’ll be texting you my number, and I expect you to show up at our place tomorrow. You can talk with my mom or Aunt Sarah. They’ll know what to do about the whole kidnapping and clone thing.”

***

Coil rewound the footage to the start. This time his attention wasn’t on the Alcott girl, but on all the other children with her. The oldest looked to be no more than fifteen or sixteen at most, the rest were all his future pet’s age, if he had to guess.

The van pulled up, his men acted. That had been the moment where time was split, where success should have been guaranteed. In this reality, the one that remained, the men fought, one lost his hands, another was kicked back. A gun flashed and one of the children fell back.

Then things got even worse and the squad leader pulled back.

The footage ended there, with the oldest girl panicking over the injured one and his pet talking to her.

But he remembered the other reality. The one were his man shot the older girl. The reality where Dinah was captured. The reality where, minutes later as he eagerly awaited the arrival of his pet, a pair of girls phased through the walls of his base and chopped his head off.

Coil clenched his fists on the armrest of his throne-like chair. So close. But a new player was on the board.

He slammed his fist down. “And I would have gotten her too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!”