"This is… This is a joke, right?"
Victoria watched as Dean looked away from the coffee table and the brief, heavily redacted report laid on it only for him to rally after a moment and look up at her and Amy again. His posture screamed uncomfortable, that he wanted to be anywhere but in the Dallon family living room, but not once did he look towards the door, much less budge from the armchair where he tensely sat with his hands clenched together in his lap. Victoria still didn't understand why her sister had taken such an interest in a villain like Meteor—she and her cohorts claimed they were mercenaries, but that was just a fancy way of saying they were villains for hire—but with how obviously she cared about the villain's wellbeing, Victoria didn't envy Dean his current predicament whatsoever.
"I… God, I wish I was, as awful as joking about anyone being mastered would be," he replied at length. "I don't know much about what happened at the library. They only gave us enough details to explain why she and Labyrinth are priority targets to be brought in for questioning, since their crew is known to frequent Palanquin. But I… well, you know I feel things. Armsmaster and Director Piggot were really wound up about this. Charisma's power must be really bad to have the higher ups this up in arms."
"Oh my god… Oh my god, I have to message her," Amy muttered her phone already in hand.
"You have got to be kidding, Ames! Didn't you hear what he said?" Victoria saw Dean flinch in the corner of her eye as she twisted on the love seat to face her sister, but her focus easily shifted to the more pressing issue of trying to talk some sense into her sister. "The PRT are looking for her in connection with a Master who straight up abducted people!"
"That's not her fault!"
"I'm not saying it is—" Victoria carefully did not voice her strong suspicion that Meteor was mastered while committing a crime. Why else would she have been targeted? "—but unless you're telling her to turn herself in, this is clearly not something we should involve ourselves in. Mom would be furious!"
Seconds passed without a response, and with Amy's attention evidently centered entirely on her phone, she opened her mouth only to be cut off by the third person in the room. "Vicky. We need to talk."
Victoria's eye twitched as she turned and fixed him with a glare. He wants to talk now? Of all times? "Dean, your sense of timing is awful. We can talk about you making up for ditching me later."
"No, that's—"
But Victoria had already moved on. "Ames, c'mon, don't do this! Please stop getting involved!"
"Stop freaking out, Vicky," Amy replied in a distracted voice, her eyes fixed on the phone she was frantically typing on. "You're worrying about nothing."
"It's not nothing!" Why couldn't she see how unhealthy her obsession with this villain was?
"Vicky, please—" Dean tried to interject again.
Frustrated with his continuing insistence on butting in, especially when he was very much so not in her good books, she didn't even dignify him with a look as she bit, "Dean, for the last—"
"Stop calling me that!"
The words on Victoria's tongue fell apart, and even Amy had stopped typing, her eyes slipping up to watch Dean with a confused expression that matched Victoria's. An awkward quiet descended on the room, and for a brief moment, Victoria could only stare at him. His cheeks were burning red, and he was fidgeting, his eyes dancing between hers, Amy's, and the table before repeating.
Victoria didn't like silence. She liked to be moving, doing—living. So naturally she was the first to speak. "Don't call you… what?"
Dean's fidgeting ratcheted up a notch, evolving to outright squirming. "D-Dean. That's… I-I'm… Vicky, we need to talk."
----------------------------------------
Victoria considered herself a good person.
She fought crime, and she did it without a mask. Sure, she sometimes got a little overzealous—anybody would with her power!—but she got them medical attention, and she got results. She also helped run a study group on Tuesdays after school for freshmen struggling in English literature. Sure, she was more of a figurehead while her friend ran the show—not everybody could stomach reading Jane Austen!—but attendance had nearly doubled since Victoria started helping. She even made a point to attend every home game for the girl's basketball team to support them. Sure, she was still salty that she couldn't play anymore because people would allege she was cheating—and she would never!—but she buried that bitterness behind a smile and cheered whenever they scored.
Victoria was a good person, and good people helped their friends… even if it was painful to watch him—her, she reminded herself again—become someone else altogether.
Their shopping trip that afternoon had been incredibly awkward, and that was putting it nicely. Dea— Therese, had practically begged her for help with bulking up her wardrobe. Apparently the Stansfields were in talks with the administration at Arcadia for… Therese to begin attending as a girl as soon as the following Monday. That meant new clothes were needed, and while she normally enjoyed shopping, she enjoyed it far less when she was asked to wear a baseball hat to avoid drawing unwanted attention to the b— uh, new girl she was helping shop in the junior's department. She especially did not enjoy it when she was helping her… her friend shop for blouses suited to someone flat-chested.
Her friend. That was a different struggle altogether. Her on-again off-again boyfriend—That was okay, right? Saying girlfriend implied something about Victoria that wasn't right, so it must be—was venturing into territory where any further relationship between them couldn't follow. Saying she was 'sad' about that didn't do the depth of her emotions justice. It was like saying it was sad the Titanic sank. True, but not properly expressing the tragedy.
On the cape side of things, the PRT knew about the transf— uh, transition? Yeah, she was pretty sure that was the right word. They knew about the transition as well, and apparently the Image department was hard at work figuring out how to appropriately handle Gallant coming out. There was the costume aspect, there was handling the press conference to announce the change… but far more important than either of those was unmasking. Dean becoming Therese—Was it appropriate to phrase it like that? She wasn't sure—around the same time Gallant had a press conference about being transgender? Everybody would put two and two together and get four.
Rebranding in a different city had been proposed. Proposed and subsequently shot down. De—
Therese! Therese, Therese, Therese! Get it right! she berated herself, trying to get the idea to sink in. She was trying.
Rebranding. Therese wouldn't have it. She was the family heir and also stubborn and insisting on staying in the Bay to show the Empire not everyone was afraid of them. Victoria allowed herself to privately admit she would pay good money to see the looks on the Empire's goons and capes as a trans woman took them down, but she didn't dare admit that aloud. As hilarious as their expressions would be, it didn't justify the risk to her… her friend.
Navigating this situation was like trying to unwind a ball of knotted rope that had been super glued together and locked in a cage that was tossed into the middle of a labyrinth with no map, so it was no surprise that Victoria, despite having done very little in the way of physically exertion, felt utterly spent as she touched down on her doorstep and slipped inside, calling out, "I'm home."
Her dad was on the couch with the TV on, but he was staring blankly at the wall and didn't seem to notice her, clearly in the midst of another depressive episode. Victoria sighed, feeling the weariness all the way down to her bones. He had been like this for so long that she had trouble remembering a time when he'd been any other way. Yet another issue in her life she didn't know how to do anything about.
The muffled sound of Amy's voice reached Victoria's ears, and she grimaced. Please tell me that isn't who I think it is…
But no, it had to be. Amy had friends at school, but Victoria couldn't recall her ever talking on the phone with them, and whenever she had to do group projects, she always insisted on doing them somewhere else after the incident in their freshman year with that creep.
Victoria rose into the air and ruthlessly suppressed her aura as best as she could. The last thing she needed was for Amy to catch her snooping, but if she was really talking to Meteor again, then Victoria needed to know.
Victoria reached the air outside of Amy's door, and though her sister's voice was muffled by the door, Victoria could still clearly hear her when she said, "I'm so sorry! I, uh, am. Attracted, I mean."
Victoria's blood began to boil so badly she almost lost control over her aura. 'Attracted'?! Fucking why? Why was her sister so hellbent on pursuing a villain? Okay, sure, Victoria had been pushing the wrong type of person on her all these years, but she knew better now. She just needed a bit of time to find the right girl for—
"… what."
The deadness in Amy's voice brought Victoria's internal rant to a screeching halt as she tuned back in. What was happening on that phone call?
"L-Like…" A brief pause, perhaps a few seconds long, then she was stuttering, "But I… you… this wasn't supposed to happen…"
Hope blossomed in Victoria's chest, forcing her to once again grab the reins on her aura and pull back. Was this what it sounded like…? She desperately wished she could hear the other half of the conversation, so she could be certain, but if she wasn't off her mark, then Amy was getting shot down.
"Friends… Y-Yeah. I'd… I would l-like that."
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Yes! Oh thank god, yes!
"Yes! Yeah, why wouldn't we be?"
For a half second, Victoria seriously considered flying up to Palanquin and thanking Meteor in person. She wouldn't, obviously, but it was the thought that counted, right? It stung that she hadn't been the one to get through her sister's thick skull, but at least someone had managed it. The whole sordid affair was over.
Victoria would have skipped into her room if she hadn't been flying, and after tossing her bag into her desk chair, she let gravity take over so she could flop onto her bed. She could just barely hear that Amy was still talking to Meteor but couldn't make out the words due to the insulation in the walls providing some minor sound proofing. She wasn't worried though. Meteor had clearly broken Amy's heart if the tone of her replies was any indication, and while that would ordinarily be cause for her to throttle the villain, she welcomed it here in the hopes Amy wouldn't continue to pine over her despite being turned down.
Victoria was on cloud nine when her phone buzzed in her bag, and she tugged it out and saw it was a message in her friends' group chat. She happily texted back and got caught up in that for a few minutes, ultimately making plans to see a movie from Earth Aleph later tonight. That left her several hours to get her homework and eat dinner—more than enough time by her estimation—so she decided to quickly check her watched threads in PHO before getting started. Her laptop was halfway out of her bag when there was a knock on her door.
"Come in!" she said, letting the computer slip back into place.
Amy stepped in, and Victoria couldn't quite withhold a wince. Her eyes were bloodshot, and tears were running down her face, leaving bright, shiny tracks—that much was expected. What was less expected was her expression, which was equal parts despondent, horrified, and crazed.
"Vicky, I… I don't know what to do," Amy whispered, her voice shaky.
"Ames? What—?" Amy took an unsteady step forward and stumbled, and Victoria nearly tore straight through her bed to catch her in time. "What is this? What's wrong?"
"You heard."
"Heard what?" Victoria lied, before blanching when she realized Amy's hand was gripping her forearm for balance. Hadn't she said once that she could tell someone was lying by the chemicals in them or something? "I, uh…"
Amy chuckled, but there was no mirth in it. Just emptiness. "Knew during the call. Your aura flared… You heard."
Victoria worried her lip between her teeth for a moment before admitting, "I… might have heard some of your conversation through your door. But that doesn't explain this! You look…"
She trailed off, unsure how to politely phrase Amy's expression. Her sister had no such compunctions. "Like I killed someone?"
Victoria's eyebrows pinched together in worry. Killed…?
Amy let go of Victoria's arm and collapsed, trembling onto the carpeted floor of Victoria's room. "I… I made a mistake…"
Killed…? Mistake…? "Ames, what did you do?" she whispered, worried about where this was going.
"She asked me to!" Amy suddenly yelled, the outburst prompting Victoria to take an unconscious step away from her. "She asked me to!"
Amy grabbed at her hair, tugging as she curled up into a ball, her wild eyes fixed on the floor. For a brief moment, Victoria debated running away. She could go to the mall and shop the afternoon away before meeting her friends for the movie like planned. Or maybe she could go beat up some thugs to relieve—
No. No, how many times had Amy come bail her out when she needed help? Sure, those gangbangers had deserved everything they got, but if they had died, then she would have been in deep shit. She couldn't leave. She owed Amy.
She took a deep breath. Then another. "Amy. I need to know. What did you do?"
Amy's eyes, previously boring holes into the carpet, shot up to her. "H-Huh?"
Victoria knelt next to her and laid a hand on her arm. If she was careful to only touch Amy's sleeve, well, that was understandable. "This is about Meteor, right? You need to tell what you did to her. I can't help you if I don't know what's wrong."
For a long minute, Amy said nothing. Victoria had just begun to ponder how she could go about investigating what might have happened without Amy's help—practically impossible, especially if she didn't want Meteor or the members of her villain team to know—when Amy gulped and quietly began to explain.
"She… She's trans. L-Like, Therese. The incident at the hospital, we… we ran into each other on the roof. Meteor had a broken arm, and their power duplicator, Shade, needed to be near me for a bit to copy my power to heal her…"
Victoria nodded encouragingly. She recalled the incident. She had been at a movie with friends and her silenced phone meant she hadn't known until after.
"I, uh, had a problem, b-but I can't heal myself. So I… we made a deal. Shade helped me, and I would fix Meteor's arm a-and…"
"Make her a girl," Victoria supplied when Amy trailed off.
"She already was," Amy distractedly replied. "I just… made her biology match."
"And you… made a mistake?" Victoria was missing something. Amy could fix any mistake she made on the spot. Even if she realized later, then she could have just messaged the villain, arranged a place to meet and take care of it. Right?
Amy was beginning to shiver again, her breathing picking up pace. "I… I…"
What was this? What mistake could Amy have made that would have her freaking out so much?
"I can do brains!" Amy blurted in a rush, the half jumbled together words leaving Victoria unsure she had heard right.
"You can… do brains?" Surely she had misheard. That couldn't be true. If Amy could do brains, then she would have cured Dad's depression, she reasoned.
"I swore I wouldn't," she replied, her voice a whisper, and her gaze faraway. "Too easy to make a mistake. To change someone… Make them someone else."
Oh. Oh. "You—"
She kept talking—no, rambling was a better descriptor—seemingly unaware Victoria had begun to speak, and what began as an explanation quickly devolved into rambling. "I just needed an excuse to touch her again. I could try— no, I could fix it. I could! Just a touch, just one little touch! She didn't need to know. I dropped some hints I was interested, hoping she would take the bait. Kept it simple—didn't come on strong. I couldn't risk scaring her off.
"If I could get her to agree to one date, then I could touch her—could fix it—and she w-would've laughed it off. What was she thinking, she could like a girl? Obviously she didn't swing that way! She'd make up an excuse—justify it. She had really just wanted to thank me! She felt sorry for me! She was just curious! She never would have known, if only I could have touched her! And now… now…"
Victoria's stomach was beginning to churn, a horror swelling in her gut at what Amy had done… and what Victoria was going to do. "We can still f-figure this out," she said, swallowing down the bile rising threateningly in her throat. "She lives at that club, r-right? We can go there. Figure out how to get you both a-alone, then you—"
"She's with Labyrinth."
"I-I'll run interference! Or wait! She shot you down, but she wants to be f-friends, so we could—"
"No, Vicky, she's with Labyrinth! And I… I…"
"Well, that's… not ideal, b-but uh…"
"I can't."
"Look, I'm not saying it won't be difficult! Her team might notice something's up, but—"
"Vicky. I can't because… because… i-it wasn't an act. I thought I was just leaning into it, so I could make it more realistic—make her believe I was genuinely attracted to her. But when she said she was with Labyrinth, I… I…"
Victoria watched, numb, as Amy curled into a ball once again and began to weep. "I don't know w-what to d-do, Vicky," Amy wailed, her entire form shaking with each sob. "I l-love her, Vicky. I love her so much, and I know I should fix her, but I can't! I can't!
"I can't!"
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Victoria had once heard about a song that could cause insanity. An earworm that wriggled its way into your consciousness and stayed there, logged in your thoughts. It began innocuously enough—perhaps something whistled by someone who passed you on the street—but once heard, it inevitably consumed all waking thought until no other thoughts remained.
But what about an idea? Something you couldn't un-think once it crossed your mind. Could something like that happen too?
"Vicky?"
Think of the devil… "Hey…" she quietly replied as she shut her locker. "I was just about to go looking for you."
"Vicky what happened to you? You look awful!"
She probably did look a fright. She barely paid attention to what she was pulling on this morning before she left for school, and she hadn't looked in the mirror, much less touched her hair. But it wasn't that—or wasn't just that. Her aura was probably a mess.
What colors did he see in her today? She struggled to remember all the times he had mentioned what bands of light signified each emotion. Black for despair, but that was easy enough to remember. She knew marmalade orange was envy—she remembered that one because she had been shocked it was a shade of orange instead of green—but it didn't apply to her right now. She vaguely recalled rose pink was worry…
What about her anger? She should remember that one, but it frustratingly eluded her, which ironically meant it was sparking more of itself into life. She knew self-hatred was different from anger that pointed outwards, but that was likewise escaping her. Could he see her sympathy for what he'd been put through? How about her determination to free him?
"I figured it out, Dean."
He flinched away before dejectedly saying, "Vicky, it's been two months… Please don't deadname me."
Victoria turned to him and fixed him with an intense look that made him take a step back. "No, no—hang on. You don't get it. I figured it out. I know what Amy did to you."
"What she—? No. Stop it. I don't know what this is, but stop it," he hissed, closing in on himself with his arms folding across his chest defensively. The motion drew her attention to what he was wearing. She remembered that blouse. She had helped him pick it out the night Amy broke down…
God, how blind she had been.
People nearby had begun to stare, but she hardly noticed as she leaned in close to whisper, ignoring his defensive posture. "She told me all about what she did to Meteor. Did she tell you?"
"Huh? What are you—?"
"She didn't tell you," she replied with a glower, pulling back as her fists unconsciously clenched and her aura flared. Everyone who hadn't already been staring was now watching with bated breath. "No, of course she wouldn't. She wouldn't have even told me if I hadn't been there when her little house of cards came tumbling down."
"Vicky, you're scaring me," Dean whispered, his eyes wide and his blond curls bouncing slightly as he shook his head. They really would look stunning grown out… It was too bad it was all a lie. "Where is Amy?"
"Gone."
"Wha— what do you mean gone? Please tell me you didn't do something to her!"
"Dunno. Didn't say in her letter. But I know the truth, Dean, and I promise you I won't stop until I find her, okay?" She reached out to touch him, but he flinched away, scurrying back so quickly that he nearly tripped and fell backwards over a few of the people who had been gawking at the developing confrontation.
"Vicky! Stop this! Amy didn't do anything to me! You're being… I don't even know what to call this! Paranoid doesn't do it justice!"
Victoria shook her head, her face twisted with sadness and anger. "She already got to you—you think she didn't do anything, but that's what she wanted you to think! She can get in your head and twist it. Weren't you listening? She confessed! And if she did that much, then she's absolutely capable of making you believe this nonsense that you're a girl!"
Tears began to stream down Dean's face, and if that wasn't a sign that this wasn't her Dean, then she didn't know what was. She had never seen him cry! This person Amy had made him into was so clearly and obviously not the Dean she knew and loved!
"I'm gonna save you, Dean," she promised, her voice thick with emotion. "That's the only reason I came today. I needed you to know that someone's still in your corner."
"Leave me a-alone," he said, his voice cracking and exposing his real baritone. "I n-never want to see you again."
He didn't wait for a reply, turning and fleeing into the crowd. For a brief moment, worry surged through Victoria. She was sure she was right, but the thought of losing Dean, her love, forever made her heart stop.
No. If I get Amy to reverse this, then he'll take it back. One more reason to succeed—as if she didn't already have reason enough.
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"What do you mean I can't go with you?!"
Armsmaster's mouth pinched together into a thin line. "Surely Brandish or Flashbang explained to you that New Wave has been withdrawn from the Endbringer volunteer list. Without explicit permission from one of them, we cannot allow you to come with us when Mover support arrives."
Victoria grit her teeth, doing her best to suppress her aura but unsure how successful she was being. The rest of the ENE Protectorate was gathered nearby along with Aegis and Clockblocker of the Wards, and all of them were pretending they weren't listening in as they checked over their gear while they waited. Crusader from the Empire was present, which momentarily surprised her, until she remembered that Othala was dead. It seemed Kaiser intended to keep up his game of sending a single cape to each Endbringer fight to appease the PRT. The ABB and Merchants were nowhere to be found, but they never showed up, as far as she was aware.
The sight of Gallant's gunmetal power armor with its recessed blue lights was nowhere to be found, though that wasn't a surprise, since Dean had been taken off of the patrol roster for the past month. She imagined Image was finalizing their plans for a reintroduction and were trying to obscure Gallant being tied to Dean by putting so much time in between their respective coming outs.
A polite fiction at best, in her opinion, but hopefully it wouldn't matter. As long as she could get to Amy and convince her to fix what she did, Dean would come to his senses and—
A door leading deeper into the PRT headquarters opened, and Victoria's breath caught as Dean walked in. His armor had a sleeker cut clearly intended to give the illusion of curves, and it was opalescent, a stark departure from the original gunmetal, with deep purple lighting. But more than the swapped shape or colors, the switch to a half helmet was the design change that caught her attention the most. Though admittedly, that probably had something to do with how it showed off the faint purple sheen on his lips.
Fuck. She actually liked the design. Just not on her Dean.
The grim set to his lips grew more severe when his helmet glanced her way, after which he purposefully looked away and moved to join the Protectorate and Wards. The snub hurt but wasn't unexpected. Dean had been avoiding her at school and had even skipped a few days—purportedly because he was sick, but she could read between the lines.
"Miss Dallon, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." The sound of Armsmaster's gruff voice brought her attention back to him, and her cheeks heated when she realized she had been caught staring.
She glared at him defiantly. She had to go. Amy had been going to Endbringer battles since she triggered. This might be Victoria's only chance to find her! "This is ridiculous! I can help! Just let me do something safe like Search and Rescue!"
"There is no safe job at an Endbringer fight," he retorted, sounding irate. "Even though they have been successfully killed before, attacks are extremely dangerous, especially when they involve a previously unseen Endbringer. In addition, Charon is present. You aren't talking about just risking death. Do you understand?"
Fuck. Charon was there too? And Dean was going?
Armsmaster's expression shifted, softening a bit. "Thank you for offering to assist. It speaks to your character. Truly. However I will only ask one more time. Please leave, or I will be forced to place you in containment foam."
Victoria looked to Dean, allowing her gaze to linger a moment. To remember what she was fighting for.
"No need. I'll see myself out."
Once she was outside, she quickly took to the skies and started flying southwest as she pulled out her phone to check the distance. Brooklyn was around 190 miles to the southwest, and she could fly at her fastest around 80 miles per hour. So a bit less than two and a half hours. Not ideal, but if she had to get there herself, she would.
She was going to find Amy and make her fix this.