-Amelia Dallon(?) POV-

As Amy followed behind her cousin, she did her best to ignore the possible repercussions of her power being different. Why not? She’d been ignoring her problems for years and it seemed like they mostly resolved themselves on their own anyway.

Perfectionist mother who never seemed satisfied with Amy’s best efforts of being a hero?

Well the woman preferred Amy to be dead so earning her affection seemed like a lost cause.

Secret forbidden feelings about her sister, her being adopted into the family or not?

Maybe it was because she was now damned to Hell or something else, but Amy didn’t feel the same feelings of attraction followed by guilt and disgust at the thought of Vicky anymore.

Spend every second of every day trying to control and downplay her real powers because if anyone actually knew what they were, Amy would be lynched in the streets?

Apparently not a problem anymore because Amy couldn’t feel her old powers at all.

And she had tried. Just to make sure it hadn’t been wishful thinking on her end she had brushed up against Crystal a few times and tried to read her.

…but there was nothing. No burst of information telling her every detail of her cousin’s body down to her DNA. No rush of intrusive thoughts about how various organs could be optimized or reconstructed. No ability to just reshape flesh and bone with barely a thought.

Ever since she Triggered Amy had been ordered by Carol to keep her powers under control and secret from anyone that wasn’t family. For good reason too.

Nilbog, a cape that could warp biomass into twisted minions under his command, had taken over and consumed the entire town of Ellisburg. The monster had killed every person there and was strong enough that the only way to deal with him was to lock him and his new fiefdom behind some heavily fortified walls.

And Amy’s power had made him look like an amateur.

Self replicating monsters, plagues that mutated as they spread, melting biomass into a primordial ooze at a touch, rewriting someone’s brain, resculpting bodies like clay…Amy would have been able to do that whenever she wanted. And if she ever went over the edge and turned villain she could have killed the world before anyone could stop her.

That was gone now though, for the low, low price of damning her soul and potentially being Mastered by the literal devil.

Speaking of…Amy wasn’t going to be able to put off that meeting anymore. They were already there. Though apparently the others were busy talking rather than waiting for Amy and Crystal to get there.

“...’re sure they changed? I’m not doubting you but I’ve never dealt with something like this before.” Amy recognized Crystal’s friend Rias almost immediately after walking through the door.

It was hard not to between the girl’s looks, her powers - currently being shown off as a giant holographic circle with a bunch of symbols in it she was currently sitting in the middle of - and the fact that other than New Wave, she had possibly the worst kept civilian identity in the city.

Even Amy, who only surfed PHO occasionally because her sister insisted, had seen dozens of posts linking Lucifer with Rias Gremory despite the mods’ best efforts to take them down.

She didn’t recognise the man she was talking with though. Probably another devil, given the wings.

“I’m sure. I can still design and make tinkertech, but it takes longer, I have to do more steps or use magic to get things how I want them, and I don’t have the same bursts of inspiration anymore. I used to picture a finished gadget and work towards that specifically but now I need to focus on each component. Does make swapping parts around much easier though…”

“So you’re slower but you understand your tech better?”

“Sounds about right. That does mean you aren’t getting a ton of stuff any time soon. I need to build up a stock of base components and tools before I can make anything else.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Rias waved him off. “That’s fine. But if you’re willing to work with us now the girls put together a list of things they want at some point. Your sister got them really excited.”

The man sighed and his shoulders dropped. “Of course she did. Should have expected she’d be an even bigger pest now that she’s a devil.”

“It’s just her way of showing she cares.” Rias said with a small smile.

“Oh I know, I just wish she’d ask first. Anyway, I’ve got stuff to build and you’ve got someone else to talk to.” the man said as he spotted Amy and Crystal walking in. He turned to leave but as he passed Amy he reached out and patted her on the shoulder. “Just wanted to say thanks for fixing me up, by the way. You do good work.”

Amy was put in the awkward spot of realizing she had no idea who this man was even though she had apparently healed him at some point. Rather than admit that she just fell back on her normal mumble of ‘You’re welcome’ and hoped he’d move on, which thankfully he did.

Unfortunately, someone else did notice her discomfort.

“You have no idea who he is, do you?” The redhead who brought Amy back from the dead smirked.

No, no she did not. But if Rias thought just because she was powerful, rich, and drop-dead gorgeous Amy was going to admit that, she was flat out wrong.

Vicky was those things and Amy refused to admit anything to her either.

“Wait, Amy knows Carl?” Crystal asked, giving Amy an excuse to not say anything. See? Avoiding her problems continued to pay off.

“Kinda, she healed him up after I rescued him from the Empire. She’s already met Gloria too. She was with me at the hospital.”

“Oh.” Amy kind of remembered that.

“Anyway, I wanted to catch you up on what happened yesterday and the consequences we’re going to be dealing with. But before I get started is there anything you wanted to ask?”

Well there were a few things.

“So did you really bring me back from the dead? Does that mean I’m going to hell now? And what are you planning to do with me?” Those were the more but those were the important ones.

“No, not right now, and not much besides getting you adjusted to being a devil.” Rias responded easily before reaching into a pocket and pulling something out. “Since I knew I’d need to do this for every new peerage member, I made a booklet! Give it a read and let me know if I need to clarify anything.”

Amy took the booklet and read the cover.

“‘A Dummy’s Guide to Devildom’? Was that really the best you could come up with?”

“Nope, but I used the cool names on the intro stuff, I'd have to think harder about what to name the more advanced things. And wasting titles like Detailed Diatribes for Developing Descent Devils on what is essentially a FAQ book would be a tragedy. ”

Crystal sighed and facepalmed. “Your naming sense is the real tragedy. Why are you like this?!”

“Cause it’s fun?”

Amy pointedly ignored the byplay and started reading through the booklet. If Rias was anything like Vicky, she only fed on any attention given to her. And as the internet always told her, don’t feed the trolls.

-o-

-Rias POV-

As much as I tried to hide it behind a mask of cheer and humor, I was fucking exhausted.

I really hadn’t slept well the night before despite being tired from the fight against a Kaiju. Too jumpy waiting for someone to decide to drop by unannounced for one thing or another.

It was still too early for most people to hear about the bringing people back from the dead thing but there were plenty of groups that could have heard about it anyway. The government, the PRT, the local gangs and heroes to name a few…and yes I was considering the government, the PRT, and the heroes as separate entities at the moment.

But even though no strike force hit in the middle of the night I was still too wired to actually sleep. So I ended up buffing up my house’s defenses instead, which was pretty easy since I was just upscaling some things I already knew how to do.

The first line of defense - and probably the reason we didn’t have people beating down the door now that everyone had time to regroup after the latest crisis - was a SEP field over the property that did its best to keep people moving around the edges. It wasn’t perfect and someone focused or maybe resistant enough could ignore it for a time, but that was what the second defense was for. A giant forcefield based off of what I had seen Shielder and Laserdream do.

The only downside was that both needed to be actively powered by either myself or the majority of my peerage and an actual dedicated attack would probably get through. But for now it was giving us the illusion of safety. Something I appreciated because it gave me some of the time I needed to get the newest members of my peerage up to speed on their new existence. Nowhere near enough to walk them through everything, but enough to hit the highlights and reveal a couple issues I’d need to investigate eventually.

Carl and Amy’s powers behaving differently was definitely high on that list.

Both former parahumans seemed to have lost most of the more passive or automatic aspects of their powers but retained others.

Amy in particular had lost almost all the unconscious power expressions she was used to but a brief experiment revealed she was able to replicate at least of her old powers through spells after some difficulty. So far she was unable to use them to heal or change anything but was able to replicate the same scanning function she used to have any time she touched someone.

Of course as a completely new devil, she wasn’t able to keep it going very long and had to turn it off after a few seconds, something she actually seemed happy with.

I guess finally having an ‘off button’ for her powers was something she appreciated.

But as much as I wished otherwise, I couldn’t just spend the day with my new members. The rest of the world was going to come knocking eventually and half my Peerage had no idea how to use most of their powers now. I needed time, time I wasn’t going to get with every interested party knocking on my front door.

‘So just leave then.’

‘Huh?’

‘If we’re just going to be swarmed by pests constantly, just leave.’ Ddraig repeated. ‘Take your little group, train them up, and come back when you don’t need to babysit them all the time.’

‘I can’t do that!’ I instinctively protested, before I really thought about it. ‘...can I?’

‘Don’t see why not. You can teleport and as far as we know they have no way of stopping you.’

That was true…

The only real issue was leaving the house empty for who-knows-how-long and letting someone break in while we were gone. But I had that half solved with the current defensive wards I was powering. If Carl could come up with some sort of magic battery, even if I needed to teleport back myself every day to keep it topped off…that could work.

‘That’s a great idea, Ddraig. Thanks. I got too hung up on the idea of dealing with everything on someone else’s schedule. I’ll still probably get dragged into a meeting somewhere but that’s fine if it’s on my say so.’

‘That’s what I’m here for, partner.’ My dragon chortled. ‘I bring the power and good ideas, you bring…something important I’m sure.’

‘Legs, for one, you glorified paperweight.’ I sniped back, already feeling better about things.

A quick training trip to get Carl, Gloria, and Amy up to speed with the added benefit of giving me time to deal with Amy’s reincarnation. Potentially giving the New Wave kids space to deal with their parents…yeah, I was sure I could convince everyone a trip was necessary. There was just one question remaining as I moved to gather up everyone.

Where did we want to go?