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AnnoyanceDisgustSadness. I cringed. What was that? I went back to my armor and started slipping it on. I had been trying to relax, after Carol left. Yet another unequal relationship in my life, I supposed. She wanted to be my mother, now. Took her long enough. It was... I wasn't even sure. Too little, too late, really. I wasn't someone who needed a mother, anymore. Still, it was closure, and I hadn't realized how much I needed that.

"Okay, what the hell's going on over there?" I asked, once the suit was active.

"Lisa's been infested by Zach's mind, I think," Taylor responded. "She's discovered a way to torment me and your cousin and she's playing it to the hilt."

"It has to do with your parents dating, doesn't it?" I asked.

"Yeah. She found a way to dial the squick up to eleven," Taylor replied. I frowned, the armor usually was better at carrying her tone of voice. Was there something wrong with it, or something wrong with Taylor's emotions at the moment? "We're on our way home, now."

"What? So bad that it canceled your shopping?" I asked. I was more than a little disappointed.

AmusedPleased. "Don't worry, I've got a dozen new outfits. I'll show some of them off for you later. Maybe I'll even show off that bikini, now that I know you were the one that wanted me to get it so badly."

"I will build an underground pool for the base, if you do," I offered. Speaking of unequal relationships. Oh well. I honestly couldn't imagine being happier, and I was glad for the no pressure, no obligation sort of relationship we had. Or at least we had in our home lives. Being engaged to marry after we killed the last couple Endbringers was definitely an obligation. It just wasn't one between me and her. It was between us and the PR department.

"Actually, that's a really good idea anyway," Taylor agreed. "Then I can hold Lisa under until the bubbles stop."

"Or it can just be part of the gym," I suggested. "Winter's coming, you know." I had already started the process. It really didn't work, positioned where the gym was. I'd have to destroy one of the labs to do it. So I simply moved the gym. A section near the edge of the crater. Near the house that was still, in theory, where I lived. I haven't actually been there in a week, now that I think about it.

It was a bit away from our living area. That was fine, if anything it was a probably a good thing to keep it away from the main areas. A bit of work later, and I managed to put together something that I was pretty sure was about the same as the pool in Arcadia. Meanwhile, I kept talking to Taylor.

"So, what did that nightmare you forced me to accept onto the team do this time?" I asked.

"Something that would make the nightmare you forced me to accept onto the team squeal with joy," Taylor responded back. Uh oh. "She's been speculating on the possibility that Crystal and I might end up with a half sibling thanks to... a lack of precaution."

I laughed. "Oh, that'd be hilarious."

DiscouragedPlayful. "Thanks a lot," she muttered.

"Oh, don't worry," I laughed. "Sarah's safe. She had me make sure of it."

"Really?" HopeRelief. Taylor asked. "You're absolutely certain."

"Unless she had a second trigger that includes regeneration or a breaker state, or asked someone like Riley to undo it?" I qualified. "Then yes, I am absolutely certain. She was fine with the two she had, and only ever put off the surgery because she was afraid of medical complications with the whole 'is a superhero' thing. She got that taken care of like a month after I triggered. Which was a bit uncomfortable for my thirteen year old self, by the way."

RelaxedComfort. "Oh thank every god!" Taylor declared. "I'm telling Crystal right now."

"Although," I added with a smile. "It's easily reversible with my power. So don't discount adorable future siblings asking their sisters for help drawing their illustrious and peculiar family tree at some point in the future."

IrritationAmusment. "I will find a way to make you suffer for that. I am not entirely sure how, but I suspect it involves Missy, Riley, a sleepover, and approximately twenty pounds of cotton candy. Also, I'm pretty sure Lisa's scheming something extra special for ruining her joke. But we're almost home, so I'll talk to you in person soon."

"Looking forward to the fashion show," I said as I got up and left my room. She probably didn't need my help carrying the bags, but I wanted to. I passed by the lounge area, where Theo and Zach had finally abandoned their gaming. We could probably have just stuck televisions in every individual room, but Lisa said this was a better way to do it. A communal area where we could interact off the job. I suspected she just didn't want to buy all the extra televisions.

Emma was now watching the walkway from one of the couches. "Hey!" she exclaimed, rising to her feet. "Do you have a minute?"

I stopped and turned toward her. Remember, she's still a part of the team, now. Taylor didn't exactly like her, and knowing what she did to Taylor meant I didn't like her, but we owed a lot of our tech to her. It wouldn't exactly kill me to be professional. "Sure," I replied. "I'm not in a huge rush."

She jogged up to me. "Uh... Taylor, are you there?" She asked. Oh, right, my armor.

"Yes," Taylor confirmed.

"Okay, good," she smiled just a little. It was really weird seeing how she reacted to Taylor. "This is one of those things I wanted to announce to both of you at the same time. I've completed the copying device."

"Copying device?" I asked.

"You know, the one that lets you copy minds into new people?" Emma looked at me strangely and shifted into her brown state. I ignored it, we'd decided a while ago that she didn't have complete control over her forms. She usually did, in the way that people controlled their facial expressions, but it was often subconscious. As long as she didn't use her hybrid state, it wasn't anything to be alarmed by.

"Do you mean the memory transfer tech?" I asked.

She looked at me strangely. "Umm... no?" Then she hesitated. "Oh, fuck, you don't know, do you?"

"Know what?" Taylor asked. The voice through the armor sounded a lot calmer than the emotions of worry and suspicion coming through our bond.

"Maybe... maybe we should talk about this in person?" Emma offered. "Just... just the three of us? Somewhere private? Maybe secret?"

"I'll be there in a minute or two," Taylor agreed. CuriosityWorryConfusion.

Amelia, 142

"Come on, Emma," I said, leading us back toward my bedroom. We stopped several feet away and I forced a bubble to open inside the wall for us. It took considerably less effort to build a room there than it did to build that swimming pool. I'd have to show it to the others later. "Taylor, just go into the bedroom." We waited the few minutes before Taylor managed to get there in silence.

Taylor went along with the instructions, leaving her shopping bags on my desk before stepping into the portal I created. "Okay, so what's going on here?"

"Well, like I was saying, I got the memory device working," she said.

"So you can rescue Victoria?" I asked. HappyConcerned. I looked at Taylor. I could see the mixed emotions on her face, and I knew why. Bringing Victoria back was one of those things I had longed for. I hadn't really stopped to think about what it meant. Given what we now knew about how her aura influenced me... there were a lot of things to consider. I was still going to do it, of course, she was my sister and I would save her. What came after, however, was a far more difficult question.

"That's rather the problem," Emma looked away. "Promise not to shoot the messenger on this one? All I'm doing is telling you about something that I know that you haven't figured out. None of it's my fault. I get credit for that much, at least, right?"

I glanced at Taylor. HesitanceWorry. "Okay, that's fair," Taylor answered. I was most definitely letting her take the lead on this one. Taylor was the one with the personal connection to Emma, after all. I would let make the calls when it came to this.

"This tech only 'saves' people in the same way you save a file on a computer. We aren't restoring her to life, we're building a copy of her body and then giving it her memories. It doesn't 'rescue' anyone, it creates duplicates."

"It's not the same as the memory transfer tech we used on Noelle?" Taylor asked.

"It's the same," Emma answered. "We do not have a transfer device. I doubt such a machine even can exist. Maybe if you somehow teleported the brain out of the old body and into the new one, but that's way outside the abilities of the kind of tech we're using here. This is pretty much no different than burning a CD. When you're done, there's always three copies. One's the original, one's stored on the computer, and the last is the new CD."

ShockGuilt. "So... so when we incinerated Noelle's body original body?" I asked. "Does that mean we killed her?"

Emma nodded slightly. "If this equipment is how you cured her, then yes. The original was just as much a person as the copy. Unless Riley included a second function that wiped the original's brain when it was finished, in which case that killed her first."

I leaned against the wall and formed a place to sit. "We murdered her," I muttered. "I thought we were just destroying an empty vessel, with nothing left inside it. Not killing a human being." ConcernProtectiveness.

"I don't think Noelle would see it that way," Emma countered. "Or, at least she wouldn't complain too much about it. I guess maybe the original might have, if you asked her after the transfer. I've talked to her some, and she always seems really glad to be normal. She seemed pretty set on the idea that if it hadn't work, she'd rather be dead."

I frowned. God damn it. I'm not even saving Victoria... I'm simply creating a duplicate of her. And that wasn't even the worst part. I ordered the murder of a helpless girl. I've never killed before, unless we count Jack Slash, and even now it was difficult to consider that a murder. I injured him, fatally even, and then left him to die. But that was in combat and he was Jack Fucking Slash.

In retrospect, however, I could have easily caught him instead of killing him. So I guess I've murdered twice, now. Taylor moved over to me and nudged me over a bit so she could share the seat with me. I enlarged it. She pulled me against her and started stroking my hair. It was wonderful as always, but I wasn't in a mood to appreciate it.

"Are the copies still the same person?" I asked, after pulling away from my resting position on Taylor's shoulder.

Emma shrugged. "Maybe you should ask a philosopher or theologian that question. I'm probably not the person you should be taking advice on morality and spirituality from. I can tell you that, if it's done correctly, there wouldn't be an observable way to tell the difference between the two. Assuming the bodies are copied as perfectly as the memories. The brain will be a perfect duplicate. Unless you tried something completely insane like copying onto an already active mind. That... then you'd get something incredibly messed up in the head."

"I just..." I sighed. I squeezed Taylor, just to have the comfort of someone to touch. "If we do this, will what we bring back still be my sister? I thought we were going to rescue her. Wake her up from some kind of tinkertech stasis. Not copy her like a computer file."

"I'm sorry, I thought you knew before I even started on this project," Emma answered. "I think it still counts. The mind is what makes a person, right? The brain, the memories, the thought processes? Really, it's not much different than how Zach's power works. Just a lot slower. Honestly, you should all get backups. Maybe update them every week or so. Right now... if certain members of this team die, especially the two of you... then Pantheon's pretty much fucked. And there are a lot of people who want to kill you. Two of whom are Endbringers."

I took a slow breath. "Know what? You're right. We've long since graduated past ethical dilemmas. We are dealing with omnicidal parasites." UnderstandingAgreement. I stood, and Taylor stood beside me. "We're doing it. We'll keep the clone thing a secret. Keep calling it a memory transfer device." ReliefCertainty. Taylor held me tighter. "We'll restore Victoria, and I'll have a copy of myself made."

"You already have the one copy we're studying to break Taboo," Emma pointed out. "I guess this is a big enough deal to have a newer save file made That way we won't have to go through this again with your copy if something happens."

"Yeah, kind of a big deal," I agreed. "But let's not sugar coat this. If a copy's awakened, it means I'm dead. Having a really good replacement doesn't change that. It means Pantheon can survive, and that's more important than our individual lives, but I would still be dead."

Emma smiled, if a bit hesitantly. "Okay. I was afraid you'd take this a lot worse than you did, honestly."

"Like I said," my smile probably wasn't any happier. "We're facing the extinction of our entire species. We can't afford to be picky." CertaintySupport.

Emma glanced over at Taylor. "Umm, can I talk to you about something? Alone?"

"Is it important?" Taylor asked. SuspicionAnnoyance.

"Not the way this was important," Emma admitted. "But it's important to me. I'll call in whatever credit telling you about this earned me, if that helps."

ReluctanceTolerance. Taylor gripped my hand. "Okay," she agreed. "But if you can say it to me, you can say it in front of Amelia."

Emma looked at me, then at where our hands were entwined. "Okay," she agreed. "That's fair. I was... I wanted to apologize. For everything I've done."

"You've done that already," Taylor grumbled, gripping my hand just a little too tight.

"I know," Emma agreed. "But this time... remember when I said you were acting like the old you? I meant it. And I've been thinking about it. And watching how Missy and Riley are. The way they get along. They're just..." Emma trailed off. And Taylor didn't speak, either.

"They are pretty adorable," I volunteered after an uncomfortable minute or so. If just to prompt one of them to speak up.

"Yeah, they're like sisters." Emma agreed with me, before looking back over to Taylor. "I've been paying a lot of attention to that. And it's brought back a lot of memories. How I used to have a friend like that. You're becoming the girl I remember. The one I used to be best friends with, someone I was closer to than I ever was my own family. I want that relationship again, Taylor. I want to be who I was then. Back before everything that happened."

AngerResistanceIncredulity. I gritted my teeth against the wash of emotion, and then I pushed back. Focusing on the same nostalgia and longing she had used on me just this morning. She froze for a second, losing her grip on my hand. She looked over at me, and I looked back. She paused, and then she relented, letting go of her anger, if only just enough to get the message. I could almost hear her thinking about just how ironic this was. It was my will that won this time, as the hatred splintered and dissolved in the sea of other concepts and emotions.

Taylor smiled at me. She knew the truth: that wouldn't have worked if the feelings weren't there to begin with. At best, we could mute or encourage. We couldn't create what did not actually exist. Kinda like our failed attempt at physical intimacy. Taylor looked back at Emma. Who was waiting with a nervously hopeful smile. "No," she finally said, with a soft certainty in her voice.

What? I hadn't expected that, not with Taylor's current emotional state. Emma's face showed her devastation. "I... I understand. It was too much to ask for, I'm sorry for bothering you." She turned to leave, only to realize there currently wasn't a door to leave from.

"We can't go back," Taylor continued, before I'd put together the concentration to open a new door. "But we can move forward."

Emma turned back to look at Taylor again.

"Holding on to the past isn't going to help either of us," my partner's hand gripped mine tight again. "I'm not who I was, and I never can be again. Neither are you. That door has been closed, and frankly it deserves to remain closed. But maybe, just maybe, who we are now, who we're going to be in the future, can be friends."

Emma was smiling broadly. I was pretty sure she'd be crying right now, if her physiology still had that ability. None of us said anything for a few seconds, and then Emma stepped forward and clung against Taylor, hugging her tightly. I should feel a bit more awkward about this, I reflected.

"Okay," Emma agreed, her voice still relatively neutral. Far more than it should have been. Another side effect of her altered biology.

Taylor looked at me. HesitationPeaceSatisfaction. She still held my hand, but her other arm moved around her former best friend's back and held her.