In Which Taylor Finds a Princess

Taylor was hungry.

This was not a problem without a solution. In fact, as she sat in her living room next to Cass and watched reruns of Bugs Bunny--for inspiration, of course--she recalled that a particular local heroine owed her lunch.

That was good. It was an excuse to go out and not have to do the hero thing. Not that the hero thing was bad. In fact, she'd been doing it for the past few days.

The problem was that after her first romp around the Bay with Vista news started to spread that she and Simmy were on the hunt for bad guys and gals. The day after was not nearly as productive and she was afraid that if she went out again they would be hard-pressed to find anyone doing anything malicious.

Also, the police were tired of her calling them to arrest jaywalkers.

On the plus side, that meant that her efforts at heroism were totally working. She deserved a break.

"Hey, Cass, I'm heading out to grab a bite. Glory Girl owes me lunch. Wanna come?"

Cass looked up from where she was slouched on the end of Taylor's couch. "You'll get her to pay for our lunch?"

"She lost a bet," Taylor explained.

A slow, rather cruel smile crossed Cass's features and she started to roll off the couch and onto the floor. "Hell yeah, I'm in."

"Language!"

The girl rolled her eyes. "Tay, hell isn't a swear."

"Well, it's a rude word." Taylor stretched out as she stood. "Should we go in costume or just as is?"

Cass yawned into a closed fist. "Don't have a costume."

"I'm sure Simmy could throw something together in a pinch," Taylor said.

Cass shook her head violently. "Hell no. I won't go out in some skimpy-ass miniskirt and thigh-highs. I'm going to get changed into something other than PJs, but I'm going in civvies."

Taylor watched Cass leave the living room and run upstairs. She kind of wanted to go as herself too, but that might be rather bad for her secret identity, especially since she didn't intend to walk to wherever they were going and was planning on using Simurgh Air.

Then again, her robes were super comfy.

Her decision made, Taylor twisted her bracelet around and spun the appropriate bead. With a flash of light she was dressed. Grinning at the effortless change, Taylor started looking around her for her phone. She had texts to send.

***

Amy stepped out of the gloomy halls of Arcadia and into the brilliant afternoon sun waiting for her outside. She took in a deep gulp of fresh air, thankful once again that the rest of the semester was cut down to half-days. And, of course, when she opened her eyes, her Vicky was waiting for her, floating an inch off the ground with a radiant smile on her lips.

"Ames, you'll never guess who just texted me!" Vicky said as she wheeled around and started flying next to Amy.

She gave her sister a small smile of her own. "You know I don't care much for guessing games."

"Aww, don't be a sourpuss," Vicky said as she knocked shoulders with her. Amy gave her a flat look, or tried to, but the good mood was contagious. Vicky showed off her phone's screen. "It's Queen Administrator. You remember how I owed her lunch? Well, she's collecting."

Amy sighed and shook her head. The bet had been stupid, but knowing Vicky she was going to keep her end of the bargain. And it wasn't like she personally disliked Queen Administrator even if the girl was... bizarre. If there was anyone out there that could understand having a power that was dangerous it was certainly Amy Dallon.

There was a whisper, in the back of her mind, wondering who between the two of them was more dangerous.

"Where are we going?" Amy asked.

Vicky gave her a surprised look. "You want to come?"

Amy gave her the look. The one that said that Vicky had asked a silly question. "Why wouldn't I want to come?"

"Because you'll have to sit at a table with other human beings and actually say more than three words," Vicky pointed out.

It was Amy's turn to bump shoulders with her sister. "I'm not that bad. And Queen Administrator is... fun."

"Ohh! Is my little sister"--Vicky paused to gasp--"making friends?" She spun around in midair, then came to rest with her head on Amy's shoulder. Her legs were floating out behind her, crossed at the ankle. "Do I need to take a picture for posterity?

Amy ducked down between one step and the next, sending Vicky flailing towards the ground, her arms cartwheeling to keep balance. "I didn't say she was my friend. She's just nice and... innocent, I suppose." Amy waited for Vicky to catch up a few steps away. "And it'll just be me, you and her?" she asked.

"Well, us two, Queenie, and probably the Simurgh and Leviathan." Vicky blinked at her own statement. "We're going to have lunch with Endbringers. That's not the sort of thing I'd ever expected to say out loud before."

Amy could only agree. The Endbringers were still monsters. Leashed monsters with little more than a teenager with dubious sanity holding the other end. But they had personality, beyond what she would have attributed to a living natural disaster. The day Leviathan hit Brockton Bay, a lot of things turned on their heads. "Where are we eating anyway?"

"Ah, I haven't picked a place out yet. Fugly Bob's? He just reopened."

Amy gave it a moment's thought, then shook her head. "Too cramped. You don't want Leviathan tearing a wall apart by accident."

Vicky snorted at the image. "Yeah. Queenie's little friends are real collateral damage magnets."

She bit her cheek to stop herself from calling out Vicky's hypocrisy. "Uh-huh. Is anything open on the Boardwalk?"

"There's that Italian place?"

That sounded good to Amy. She wasn't super hungry yet but she was ready to eat something. "Sure. You can afford to cover for us, right?"

"Ah," Vicky said. "Probably? How much does a Leviathan eat?"

Amy rolled her eyes, but checked to make sure her wallet was in her purse anyway. It was just so typical of Vicky to forget that part. "C'mon, I'll text her for you, you do the flying," Amy said, gesturing as she did for Vicky's phone.

Vicky tossed her phone and Amy just barely caught it. She shot her sister a glare that went ignored before Vicky scooped her up in both arms and shot into the sky. Amy decided to forgive her sister as she cuddled closer to her chest. She moved her purse around and dropped it onto her lap, then brought Vicky's phone close enough to see through her squint.

>>Glory_Girl: Hey, Queen Administrator, its Amy, Im texting 4 Vicky. Want 2 meet up at the italian place near the boardwalk?

>>Queen_Administrator: *It's. *I'm. *For. *To. Hello Amy! You're coming too? That's brilliant. Cass and I will be there in two or three minutes. Is that the one with the big terrace?

>>Glory_Girl: Yeah thats the 1.

>>Queen_Administrator: *That's. *One.

Amy huffed. "She keeps correcting my grammar, it's like she's never texted before."

"Maybe she hasn't?" Vicky said. "Didn't you get the impression that she's a little, um, sheltered?"

She only made a non-committal grunt in reply. "So, how are you going to pay?"

"Oh, I dunno. Maybe we could dine and dash?" There was a hint of humour in Vicky's voice and Amy leaned back to look her sister in the eye.

"Hasn't Queen Administrator been arresting everyone that jaywalks or parks illegally or whatever for the past couple of days?"

"Hey!" Vicky shot back. "She also stopped a bunch of muggers and stuff too."

"Oh, is that a note of jealousy I hear, dear sister of mine?" Amy asked. "Did you want to fly around with the Simurgh stopping petty crimes too? I'm sure she'd let you come along. You could carry the zip-ties to make yourself useful.

Vicky didn't meet her eyes for a bit. "I'm not jealous." she said jealously. "It's just that she has it really easy when it comes to stopping people."

"I can't think of anyone that wants to play peekaboo with the Simurgh," Amy said flatly. "At least there weren't as many people coming in because some Merchant knock-off stabbed them yesterday. And people are driving safer too. Now, if she could scare people into exercising and eating right I might actually get some time off." Not that she would know what to do with it, she admitted to herself.

Vicky started angling down and Amy was disappointed to see that they were already over the Boardwalk. She spied Leviathan laying on its back in the waters of the bay, just floating there and staring up at the sky with all four eyes. The Simurgh, meanwhile, was moving tables around on the little terrace of the cafe they were supposed to meet at.

Squinting, Amy caught sight of Queen Administrator, sitting at the only table undisturbed by the Endbringer, with another girl by her side. Cass, if she remembered correctly, the girl with the powers that were suspiciously similar to Rune of the Empire Eighty-Eight.

Vicky landed with her usual grace and Amy dislodged herself from her sister's grasp with only a bit of reluctance. "Hello everyone," she said.

"Glory Girl, Panacea!" Queen Administrator jumped to her feet and practically bounced around the table. She engulfed the two of them in a hug, one arm around each of them, and squeezed. Amy was momentarily envious of her sister's Brute rating. Queen Administrator had a strong hug.

"Hey there, Queenie," Vicky said. "I think that's enough hugging. You've filled Amy's quota for the month."

Laughing, the crazy cape let go of the Dallon sisters and spun as she stepped away. "I'm glad you both showed up. The more the merrier, right? Oh, and Simmy wanted to join us. But Levi didn't, so I told him he could go swim or whatever. I hope you don't mind?" She actually sounded a little worried in the end, as if their opinion mattered. It was actually kind of flattering, and reminded Amy of why she was growing to like the girl.

Vicky gave the Simurgh, who was done rearranging all the seats so that she had place to sit, a wary look. "I guess that's not a problem."

"Cool!" Queen Administrator said. "I kinda hoped you and Simmy would be friends, since you're kind of the same and all." She pulled out a chair and flopped into it, her robes bunching around her waist until she straightened them out. "Oh, you guys all remember Cass, right?"

"Yo," Cass said.

Amy gave the girl a friendly nod and pulled up her own chair next to her sister. She had the difficult choice of sitting next to Queen Administrator or the Simurgh and chose the girl.

"Uh, what did you mean, about us being the same?" Vicky pointed between herself and the Endbringer with a thumb.

"Well, you both like flying, you both have emotional manipulating aura thingies, you're both really tough, and you're both white." Queen Administrator looked up from the menu and saw the horror writ across Vicky's face. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be racist. Some of my best friends are white!"

Amy and Vicky just stared as the girl waved her arms around wildly and tried to prove that she wasn't racist. Then, she turned to the Simurgh with wide eyes. "No!" she screamed. "Simmy, I love you even if you're white. You don't need to change your skin colour for me. N-not that I wouldn't love you even if you were some other colour."

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The Simurgh looked up from where she was pinching the back of a forearm and towards Queen Administrator. A shit eating grin was growing on the Endbringer's face. That, finally, gave Queen Administrator pause. "Wait, you were just... don't do that!" she told the Endbringer off. With a huff, she crossed her arms under a less-than-ample chest and leaned back into her chair. "Can we just pretend that none of that happened?"

"I don't know," Cass said. "Can I trust you after hearing your racist anti-white propaganda?"

Amy shook her head. She'd seen where that sort of bickering could lead. "How about we all just order lunch?" She fingered one of the menus left on the table.

There was a consensus that was reached when everyone pulled up a menu and the group went mostly quiet for a bit. There was some discussion about what the others were picking, but for a blissful few minutes they were silent.

A waiter came out of the restaurant, eyes glued on the Endbringer in their midst and his tray held against his chest as if it could shield him. "C-can I take your orders? Ladies?"

Amy rattled off hers, followed by Vicky and Cass, then it came around to Queen Administrator. "I'll have the spaghetti with meat-sauce. Um, just water to drink. Oh, and do you have marshmallows?"

"M-marshmallows?" the man said, looking up from the notepad where he'd been writing down their orders.

"Yeah. It's for her." She pointed at the Simurgh who smiled and waved.

"I, I will find some, Miss," he said. Amy almost felt bad for the man as he bowed and tried not to look at the Simurgh and focus on the four capes around the table instead.

"Awesome. That's it for me. Thanks."

Seeing the dismissal for what it was, the waiter turned tail and walked fast enough that it could almost be called running.

"So, how have you two been doing?" Queen Administrator asked. She was staring from one sister to the other.

"It's been pretty quiet for me," Vicky admitted. "We have some patrols this weekend, and the whole family volunteered to escort some of the last convoys into the bay this weekend, but other than that it's been nice and quiet. I think things are really picking up, too."

"Cool! Maybe I'll join you guys? I've been meaning to get out of the city a bit. Maybe go down to Boston. But not this weekend because I'll be busy. Oh, what about you, Panacea?"

"It's Amy when I'm out of costume," she said. "And it's been the same old story for me. I've been spending a bit more time at the hospital this week, but that'll end when classes go back to a normal schedule."

"Yeah, sis spends like, all her time over there. It's practically her home away from home. Casa de Amy."

Queen Administrator spent a long few seconds staring right at Amy, her eyes filled with something that wasn't quite pity, but more like... remorse? Amy felt distinctly uncomfortable under her gaze. "I wonder if we could help you?" she finally asked while turning her gaze towards the Simurgh.

It looked as though she was listening to something none of them could hear, and that alone creeped Amy right out. She felt Vicky shifting by her side. Queen Administrator's head snapped around, eyes wide. She stood up, her chair clattering out behind her, but her full attention was on Amy.

Amy felt a pit open up in her chest. The girl knew something. Had the Simurgh revealed her secrets? She would, the giant white bitch.

"You... you're a princess?!"

***

[Anticipation. Host-Queen_Administrator wants to Help Host-Queen_Shaper?]

Taylor felt her heart skip a beat. Unit-Three was obviously talking about Amy--about Panacea--but to use the queen title meant that Amy was on par with her, didn't it?

Simmy must have read her mind because she added a bit of context to her mental ramblings. [Host-Queen_Shaper has the Ability to Shape all Organic Materials. Ability is on Par with all Other Queens.]

That was... huge. That meant that Amy was, if the Simurgh was right, her equal. Or maybe something close to an equal. Taylor couldn't decide if this was a good thing or not. As far as she knew three minutes ago, Amy's power was the ability to heal. But that couldn't be all of it. There had to be more, something else that Amy--that Panacea--was hiding or was unaware of.

Taylor blinked when she realised that she was standing up, her chair forgotten behind her. She turned towards Amy, taking in the sarcastic healer with the slight bags under her eyes and the wary look on her face. "You... you're a princess?!"

"What?" Amy said.

Taylor rushed around the table and tackled Amy into a hug that made her chair tilt dangerously back until Glory Girl caught it. "That's so cool!"

"What?"

"Oh my gosh, we're both royalty! We can be princesses together."

"What?" Amy's voice was growing progressively fainter and Taylor didn't know if it was the surprise or the lack of blood on account of her fierce hug.

"This is spectacular," Taylor declared.

"Sure it is," Glory Girl said. "But, uh, how about you sit back down and explain it to us non-princesses before Amy runs out of air?"

Flushing, Taylor nodded at the suggestion and retreated to her chair which Unit Three had lifted back into place. She plopped back down.

"Okay," the healer said. She brushed her hands across her lap, giving Taylor a concerned look the entire time. "Explain."

Taylor nodded. "Okay, so you know how we're all hosts to space aliens in our heads?" she asked.

They all gave her blank looks.

"Because of our powers," she said, pointing to her head where she imagined the connection thingy was. "Anyway, the things we're hosts to all have names. Like, um, mine's called Queen Administrator. And Glory Girl's is Aura Projector and Cass's is Telekinetic Displacer." She nodded along to what she was saying because the others sure weren't. "Anyway, the names are kinda sorta like... ranks, I guess? Some are more important than others, you know? I mean, it's not fair or anything, but some powers are just better than others. Anyway, so they have ranks, and, um, I don't think there are that many Queens out there." She looked towards the Simurgh for a response.

[Affirmative. One Remaining Queen Host. Host-Queen_Hostess. Local designation 'Faerie Queen.']

That made perfect sense. "Cool, Simmy says that the only other Queen around is the Faerie Queen."

Amy's face turned an interesting shade of off-white at that. "W-what's that mean? You're comparing me to the Faerie Queen?"

"Yeah. Well, her and me. You're Queen Shaper. Which, um, I think it has something to do with shaping organics, which I guess is how you heal people." Taylor thought on this for a moment. Her mind made an intuitive leap of logic. "Wait, does that mean the hospital is your castle?"

Instead of answering, Amy pointed past Taylor's shoulder. "Look, our food!"

Taylor knew that Amy was trying to distract her, but then, she had just revealed that Amy was basically a princess and that had to be kind of daunting. Now Amy would have to change her entire wardrobe. Her costume obviously needed a crown.

"I need a crown too," Taylor muttered under her breath. "And a scepter."

She stopped when the nervous waiter slid a plateful of steaming pasta in front of her, then, with shaking hands, put a bowlful of fun-sized marshmallows in front of the Simurgh. The Endbringer was delighted, smiling and clapping her huge hands in a way that had the waiter almost dropping the rest of the food over Cass's head. She popped one of the marshmallows in her mouth.

"D-do you, uh, ladies need anything?" the waiter asked. Taylor suspected that he was trying not to cry.

"We're fine, thank you," she said.

He didn't pretend to walk away this time and Vicky snorted until Amy jabbed an elbow into her side.

"Should I keep calling you Queenie?" Cass asked.

Taylor was in the middle of making a slurpy mess of her plate when she paused to answer. "Why shouldn't you?"

"Well, Amy here is apparently also a queen, and you can't have two in the same city," she explained while stabbing at her pesto testaroni as though it had insulted her heritage. She took a bite, then used the fork to point at Panacea. "She's already got the castle-hospital." She then turned to point the same fork at Vicky. "And she's obviously the royal concubine. All she needs now is a crown."

Amy's face went very, very red and Taylor jumped in before her anger ruined their lunch. "Now, now, Cass. The hospital's not really a castle. It doesn't have towers. It's not a proper castle until it has towers. And I'm sure Parian can make Amy a really cool crown if she asks."

"You're not going to poke at the concubine thing?" Vicky said with a grin that was rather salacious.

Taylor perked an eyebrow. "Should I?"

"No!" Amy retorted, her cheeks still a little pink. "Please don't. Poke at it, I mean."

"You know," Taylor said after slurping up a noodle. "Simmy and Levi could probably build a tower next to the hospital. I'm sure the city wouldn't mind. It could be like... Panpalace or something."

"That's a horrible name," Cass pointed out.

[Agreed. Bad name.]

"Oh shush, it's a perfect name." Taylor huffed.

The Simurgh pressed a long finger to her cheek. [Could Build. Bedrooms, Observation Rooms, Living Space, Connection to Hospital, Dungeon, Waiting Area, Throne Room, Second Dungeon.]

"Wait, why would her tower need two dungeons?" Taylor asked, one eyebrow quirked as she looked up at the Endbringer sitting across from her.

"Is she actually planning on building a tower for Ames?" Vicky asked.

"Why not? Amy deserves it. She's the only healer in the city and she's totally awesome. Also, she's a princess and princesses need towers so that knights can save them," Taylor said quite seriously. It wouldn't hurt for Amy to have a proper castle. In fact, the more she thought about it the more she wanted her own. She nodded and stuffed a forkful of noodles into her mouth.

[Second Dungeon is Sex Dungeon.]

Taylor choked on a noodle. She coughed, her eyes going watery as she thumped a fist against her chest and tried to breathe. Almost immediately Amy had a hand pressed against her neck and the coughing stopped and her airway cleared. "T-thanks," Taylor said.

"What did she say that made you choke?" Amy asked.

Taylor felt warmth climbing to her face, more when she realised that Amy's hand was still on her neck. "Um, she listed the rooms she could build in your tower, the Panpalace. Um. Sex Dungeon was on the list?"

Amy groaned, pulling her hand back to bury her face in both hands while her sister started cackling.

"Amy, is there something you're not telling us?" Vicky needled.

"Shut up, concubine!" Amy fired right back, though it only made Vicky laugh all the harder until Amy flung a wadded up napkin at her.

Taylor let them bicker for a bit, her mind on other things. She noticed Cass joining in on the fun but that didn't matter. She had reached a decision. "Unit Two?" she asked in a low voice.

{Unit-02 is Combat Ready.}

"Make me a castle."

***