Capítulo 608: 47
Date
2011 February 6th - Sunday - Earth Bet Time
Danny felt horrible upon awakening, and not just because of the hangover. Last day's events scared him something fierce, and Taylor's reaction even more.
But he knew if he started to discuss it right then and there, it would only escalate into a shouting match or even something worse.
So instead he let Taylor go with a half-hearted attempt to stop her from going out again and postponed the discussion for the next day.
But with how he was feeling, he wanted to curl up and just stay in bed. He shook his head and sat up while listening to Taylor leave for her run.
Funnily, despite knowing he couldn't really do anything to stop her, he knew she would honor his 'grounding'. Which spoke a lot about how much their relationship improved.
He hauled himself out of the bed, and began his morning routine, planning to be ready when Taylor came back.
They needed to talk about it; he needed to explain himself, and he wanted to know how she was handling everything.
Taylor returned home, pleasantly exhausted after her run. The last day's events were fun, and the talk with Tess after that was even better.
The news about Coil's situation was good to hear, and she couldn't be happier that Tess left them to stew in the darkness.
She was only locked into the locker for a brief time, but she still had occasional nightmares with walls closing on her. She couldn't imagine what Coil and his mercenaries were going through.
Though she wasn't really feeling bad for them, because they were horrible human beings.
She opened the door, then humming to herself as she headed for the bathroom because she stank. Apparently. superhuman bodies didn't come with sweat that smelled nice.
Her father was in the kitchen, wearing a ridiculous apron that was a gift from her mother, the writing on it saying 'My other ride is a meatloaf'. Taylor never got the joke, but her mother always laughed when she saw it.
"Good morning, Taylor!" called out her father, his voice still subdued. "I'm making pancakes. Do you want bacon with yours?"
"Sure."
"Okay. I will be finished, by the time you are done with your shower."
"Thanks, Dad," she answered, wondering whether he was using the food to soften her up for a talk. Because it was totally working. The pancakes smelled heavenly to her.
She ran up hastily to the bathroom to begin her shower because she was starving.
She sat back, satisfied, rubbing her stomach after a fulfilling breakfast, her father mimicking her.
"That was awesome, dad!" she breathed, realizing now that her father cleverly immobilized her, she had nowhere to run.
"Thanks, honey," answered Danny, and she could see in his eyes, she had fallen for his plan. "Let's move to the living room, and then we can talk about yesterday."
Taylor contemplated for a few seconds saying no, and just simply leaving for her room, but she couldn't do that. He promised to listen to her and pay attention to her, and he was holding up his end, so she needed to participate.
And why wouldn't she? She wanted to reconnect with her father as much as he wanted. So Taylor dragged her pleasantly full body to the living room and threw herself slothfully into the sofa. Coincidentally, it was the one she refitted with massage function.
Danny followed her more sedately, carrying a glass of orange juice for her and a cup of steaming coffee for himself.
She watched as her father torturously slowly arranged himself (handing over the orange juice) on the couch, then took a big sip of his cup, shook himself as if wanting to awaken, took a deep breath, and looked directly into her eyes.
"Taylor, I wanted to apologize," he began. She moved to interrupt, but he held up a hand. "No, let me say what I want to say, then you can take your turn, okay?"
She nodded silently and let him continue.
"So yesterday things happened," he continued, still looking into her eyes. "Taylor, you cannot imagine what parents… a father goes through when they see their child in a situation you were." He closed his eyes for a brief moment, then continued. "I know, I know. You are powerful. But it's quite different hearing it from you and understanding what it means. So when I saw you fighting, I was so afraid…"
He shook a little but carried on. "And when you came home, with that attitude, I was just so…" he curled his hands into a fist, and Taylor could see his fingers were turning white.
"Dad…"
"So, I just wanted to say, that I'm not angry that you protected your friends because while the video had no sounds, even I could see the guy was up to no good, I'm just angry you didn't even take it seriously."
"Oh…"
"Hell, I'm even proud of you doing it. Just, I'm afraid you don't really take it seriously what it means to have that kind of power."
"Dad, I…" started Taylor, but Danny held his hand up again.
"No, let me finish." she nodded again and motioned for him to continue. He gave her a small smile, then started talking again. "So please, for me… for your mother, take this seriously and treat every fight, every situation as a life or death and not like you did last night. So many people die because they think they are invincible, and you are a teenager who already thinks they are invincible. Please don't become that kind of person."
By the time Danny finished with his speech, tears were falling from his eyes. Taylor said nothing, she just stood up, went over to her dad, and hugged him.
"I'm sorry, dad," she whispered, horrified. "I never wanted you to think, that I didn't take it seriously. Before I joined the fight, I disabled every gun and bomb and made sure I knew where everything was. I was never in any danger."
"That's good to hear, Taylor," said Danny, still hugging her. "But that wasn't really spelled out on the video. And as I said, I don't really know what you can exactly do, and you weren't really volunteering information about this yesterday…"
"I saw you were angry, and I didn't really want to make it worse… I was afraid you would forbid me going out as a parahuman," she admitted a little abashed.
"Taylor, I would never forbid that," he said with conviction. "I mean, I freely admit I hate it, but I did some reading, and everything said that the power is part of you. You would never be comfortable staying home. So, while I would dearly love if you decided you would stay home and tinker away, I won't stop you as long as you are properly cautious about it."
She hugged him once again and wiped away a stray tear. "Okay," she whispered. "What about the grounding?"
"Well, the city is a little torn up after all those fights, so I would prefer if you would stay home while they clean up."
"That actually makes sense…" admitted Taylor.
"Thank you for the understanding, honey." said his father. "Though in the future I hope you would be more open with sharing…"
"Sure. How about now?" she asked with a small smirk, looking up from the hug.
"Now? About what?" replied her father, puzzled.
"How about I tell you about the fight?"
"Oh, that sounds cool! Do kids still use cool?"
Date
2011 February 6th - Sunday - Earth Bet Time
Amy woke up well-rested, but massively confused. The time she spent with Shaper was calm, no matter how weird, but the moment they joined her sister, that calm went out the window and was replaced by the usual chaos and loudness that her sister was known for.
Only doubled, because of course, Vicky's power was just as loud and peppy as she was.
Everything after that was just the blurry chaos of the pair cheering as she practiced her new supposed power, or booing when Shaper insulted her for something.
Like having a personal cheerleading squad. A pleasant image, but she never thought she would become exhausted in her own dream.
She trudged to her mirror and looked at herself. At first glance nothing changed, so to make sure that what she saw in her mind was actually real, she activated her power.
Previously when she did that, information about whatever she was touching with her bare skin showed up in her mind in crystal clarity, and then ideas came flooding about what she could do with them.
Now it was different. Life bloomed around her in her senses. She could feel the half-dead plant on her windowsill, the other plants in the house, the garden, the trees, the grass, and everything around her in a 30-yard radius.
She could feel as life flew through everything, as everything was connected to everything else. She reached out to her dying plant and drew on her power.
The plant, a simple snake plant, immediately came alive. Straightening out, the leaves becoming healthy green again. And she knew without a doubt if she wanted she could've supercharged the plant, making it grew with abandon.
That was one part of her new power confirmed. Area plant manipulation, as Shaper called it.
The next one was the Brute power. She drew on her power again, now only circulating inside her body as was taught to her by the surly green woman.
She picked up a metal pencil case, emptied it, then crushed it.
It instantly turned into a tiny, crumpled ball of aluminum. She let go of the metal ball, letting it fall to the ground while staring at her hand in wonder.
So that was also real…
She shook herself, then looked up to the ceiling. One more thing to try.
She crouched down, and after realizing how silly she must have looked, jumped.
Unfamiliar instinct took over, and a second later she landed on the ceiling, head pointed towards the ground with her feet stuck to it somehow.
"Huh, so that happened," she exclaimed softly, then grinned.
She now had better powers. She could go out and do much more than inefficiently heal some people.
She dropped from the ceiling and was about to try some lesser powers she was granted when her door banged open.
There stood Vicky, in crumple pajama, unkempt hair, but a wide smile on her face.
"Amy!" she exclaimed in what she probably thought was in a whisper, but to other people sounded like normal speech. "Did you get the same dream? Because I just had an awesome dream!"
Instead of answering, she just smirked at her sister, raised her right hand, and on it grew hard wooden bark in the shape of a big gauntlet.
The next moment she was enveloped by an excitedly squealing Vicky.
They had a fast breakfast, then retreated to Vicky's room (because it was bigger) to try out their powers.
This consisted of Amy repeatedly hitting Vicky with super strength to see how much her new shield could stand up, and how fast it regenerated. Or Vicky watching as Amy grew an entire wooden clone out of herself. Then she insisted they play a round of cards to see how good the clone was.
That devolved into Amy creating another clone and trying another board game.
They were interrupted when Carol yelled up for them to come down.
They walked down to the living room, where they found the entire New Wave sitting.
Carol was glaring at something only she could see. Mark was sitting next to her, a little more alert than usual, softly smiling at the younger generation, while Sarah and Neil were sitting next to each other with serious faces. Their cousins were standing around the room, restlessly looking around.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Crystal perked up immediately.
"Vicky! Amy!" she exclaimed, then ran at them, enveloping both of them in a massive hug. "How are you guys? Did you sleep alright?"
The others also greeted them, and Amy could see that even her mother's usually severe expression softened a little.
She talked about it with Vicky and the avatars of their powers, how they should handle their powers changing, and their response surprised her. She expected them to want to hide it, but they just shrugged and told them that their boss only wanted to conceal that the sisters could talk to the powers.
Mysterious boss notwithstanding, she liked that attitude.
So with barely hidden glee waited until Crystal stepped away, looked deep into Carol's eyes, and spoke up. "I second triggered," she said with the most nonchalant voice she could.
She watched as everybody's eyes opened to their maximum in surprise, but before anyone could question her, she held her arm out and created a wooden clone.
Her family watched open-mouthed as a weird material flowed from her hand with the texture of rough bark, then solidified into the exact shape she was, only wooden grain before the clone turned human-looking, wearing the same clothes she was wearing.
The clone, sporting a smirk, gave a small wave.
She was savoring their expression when Vicky piped up from behind her.
"I did too, but I only got better shields…"
The room immediately descended into chaos.
Date
2011 February 6th - Sunday - Earth Bet Time
Day 6086 - Sunday - Administrator Network Time
He consolidated the known-to-him Shards connected to people in the Bay, made sure that all of them were connected to the new Network, their upgrades were under process, couldn't do anything without him giving permission and he was getting constant updates about their hosts.
Now that he was connected to every Shard in the city, he didn't have to hide that much, so he ran a quick city-wide scan for anybody who was hiding their power.
It came up empty. It was expected, but he was still a little disappointed. Though he was also somewhat worried because he didn't find something he expected.
Dinah and her Shard, which was nowhere to be found.
He scanned her properly, and the Corona was there, ripe for triggering, but the Shard he expected wasn't connected to it.
While that was not the best news, he wasn't really bothered about it. Sure, it could've been useful to access to a Shard with that kind of capabilities, but in the end, he knew depending on future knowledge was a double-edged sword.
As a consolation prize, he set up the Corona he created in Dinah and connected it to the Network. If it came to it, he would allow her to 'trigger' with one of the powers he had access to.
He then turned his eyes towards the next event.
The Endbringer attack.
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder