Mist of Shadows
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Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 8
🕑 Added 2023-08-12 08:12:02 +0000 UTC"Do you want me to flip the lights on?" Taylor asked as she walked into the room where she'd teleported Glory Girl and Panacea.
Amy turned to look at the girl wearing white socks, BSU pants, a smiling theater mask and a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up so that you couldn't see her hair. "It would certainly make it easier."
"Do you have a cape name?" Vicky asked as Taylor flipped the lightswitch and the LED lights in the ceiling turned on.
"I'm working on it," Taylor admitted as she walked over. "Most of the good names are already taken."
"I got lucky," Amy admitted, "healers aren't all that common."
Vicky shrugged. "I'll probably have to change mine in a couple of years."
"Just a heads up, the duplication power doesn't copy clothing or equipment," Taylor warned Amy as she used her Power Creation ability to give Amy a copy of her basic Self Duplication ability.
"Do you have extra clothes and a changing room?" Amy asked, wanting to see if her duplicate could use her power to remove some of her freckles.
"Sure," Taylor replied as she teleported a clean set of BDUs from the laundry room, dropping them into Amy's hands. She gestured and used Illusion-Casting to create a changing screen so that Amy's duplicate could get dressed. "Just concentrate on where you want the duplicate to appear and how many duplicates you want."
Vicky glanced at the black changing screen then looked at Taylor. "How many tricks do you have?"
Taylor chuckled. "More than a couple."
Amy walked around the changing screen then focused on her new power and flipped the mental switch, creating a naked copy of herself. 'How come I couldn't get the cute type of freckles?' she complained as she reached out and poked her duplicate's arm, wanting to check on her health.
"Let's fix your freckles…" the duplicate trailed off as she tried to fix Amy's freckles and felt a decent amount of resistance. "I don't think that's going to work while you're conscious."
"Yeah, power interactions," Amy agreed as she handed the BDUs to her duplicate, having felt the resistance when she'd tried to fix some of the blotchy freckles on her duplicate's face.
Vicky turned to look at the door as three people in poorly fitting BDUs and theater masks walked into the room. "How many duplicates can you make?"
"Lots," Taylor replied as she turned to look at her duplicates as they walked over and stood at attention. "Do you want to check each duplicate before I empower two of them?"
"Might as well," Amy replied as she walked over and poked the back of the first duplicate's hand with her finger, not actually all that surprised that her genetics mostly matched the girl from the locker even if there were a couple of changes like she'd found in her sister and friends. "Have you given your duplicates powers?"
"I can but I just made these three," Taylor replied as the duplicate Amy stepped out from behind the screen dressed in baggy BDUs.
“Bonus sister!” Vicky cheered and hugged the duplicate. “Now I have two little sisters,” she said, making her sigh.
“I am so glad I’m not permanent,” the duplicate Amy snarked.
Amy touched the second duplicate's hand with her left hand, comparing the two duplicates, wanting to make sure they were identical before she started. "They even have the same fingerprints," she mused as she checked the third duplicate against the first duplicate. "I should probably check your biology."
Taylor held her hand out.
Amy reached out and poked Taylor's hand, comparing her biology to the third duplicate. "Everything checks out, you might as well start with two of the duplicates."
Taylor gestured at the duplicate that Amy was touching and used the enhancement spell she'd copied from her father, causing magic to swirl over her duplicate and leaving her looking a touch fitter. "How do you feel?"
The magically enhanced duplicate smiled as she rolled up her sleeve and tightened her fist, watching the change to her muscles. "I should have worn shorts."
"Probably," Taylor agreed, noticing that the magically enhanced duplicate had a flat stomach when she lifted her shirt up to check. "You certainly look better."
"I need a mirror," the duplicate mused as she looked over her shoulder at her behind.
"Here." Taylor let the changing screen vanish and created an illusion of a mirror behind her duplicate.
"Nice," the duplicate replied as she poked at her flat stomach, happy with the changes.
Amy grabbed the duplicate's hand and compared her biology and genetics to one of the other duplicates. "We're going to need a scale, she's probably gained at least twenty pounds."
"Doesn't look like it," Vicky mused as she compared the duplicates.
"Muscles are dense, hers are particularly dense," Amy explained as she let her power map the changes so she could replicate them.
"How much stronger do you think she is?" Vicky asked thoughtfully.
"Her muscles are more like a gymnast than a bodybuilder but I wouldn't be surprised if she can lift a couple of hundred…" Amy trailed off as the duplicate jumped up and crashed into the twenty foot ceiling, having put a bit too much force into her jump.
Vicky snickered when the duplicate switched from falling to hovering a couple of feet from the concrete floor. "You forgot you could fly, didn't you?"
"Yeah," the duplicate admitted sheepishly as she dropped to the floor and unconsciously adjusted her stance to be more balanced. She tossed a couple of shadow punches at the mirror then dodged to the side with a smile on her face. "I know Kung Fu."
"Really?" Taylor asked, getting distracted enough that the illusionary mirror vanished.
"Not really but I can toss a punch," the duplicate replied.
"Something to check," Taylor mused as she tossed a couple of shadow punches, all of which looked worse than her duplicate's punches.
"Did I get enhanced reflexes?" the duplicate asked hopefully.
Amy shook her head. "I'd be surprised, your joints are more durable but your nerves seem the same."
"Which probably means the ritual increased her strength and combat ability, could be worse," Taylor mused. "Do you want me to enhance the second one?"
Amy reached over and touched one of the unenhanced duplicates so she could 'watch' the process again. "Go for it."
Taylor gestured towards the duplicate Amy was touching and used the enhancement spell, glad that her increased power meant that she didn't need a ritual like her father.
Amy frowned when the only changes were in the hippocampus of the duplicate's brain. "The only changes were in the duplicate's memory."
"Might be combat related, increased intelligence should have more changes," the newly enhanced duplicate said. "I also have another spell."
"Spell?" Vicky asked.
"The enhancement spell seems to come with magic spells, I'm pretty sure we could share the spells with people that have magic, I'm still trying to figure out how everything works," Taylor admitted.
"Which spell did you get?" Amy's duplicate asked.
"Levitation," Taylor replied with a shrug. "I'm not sure how useful it's going to be since I can hand out Flight."
"It's sort of like computer code, if I have enough of it, I might be able to figure out how to change things," the duplicate with the levitation spell suggested.
Taylor glanced between the newly enhanced duplicate and the unenhanced duplicate. "You should probably spar with the other normal duplicate to see if you're actually better at fighting."
"Sure," the enhanced duplicate said cheerfully.
"This is going to suck," the unenhanced duplicate complained as they moved to the center of the room. "Go…" she trailed off as the other duplicate did a roundhouse kick, stopping a couple of inches from her head. "Ah!" she stumbled backwards then promptly fell as her duplicate lunged forward and tripped her using her leg and shoulder in a move too fast to catch. She tapped into her flight before she hit the ground. "I'm done."
"Let's go a round," Vicky suggested.
"Sure," the enhanced duplicate said as she jumped at Vicky, knowing that Glory Girl was a lot stronger so she'd have to win via technique.
Amy's duplicate smiled as she watched the fight. "She's better than Vicky but her powers give her too much of an edge to actually win."
"She'd be a lot better if she practiced," the other enhanced duplicate mused as Taylor hit Vicky twice in the head, trying and failing to break her force field. "Nice double tap, works better if they don't have a force field…" she trailed off as Vicky punched the duplicate and sent her flying. "She might need some practice using her Flight to fight super strong opponents."
"You should stop before you break something," Amy suggested.
"Fine," Vicky agreed, willing to admit that she'd gotten a touch carried away.
"You should probably make a couple more duplicates, I haven't seen anything that would help with endurance or reflexes," Amy told Taylor.
Taylor used Illusion-Casting to conjure a screen then created ten duplicates that promptly used Illusion-Casting to create clothes and masks. "Which one first?"
Amy walked over and touched the closest duplicate and stared at her when her hand went through the sleeve of her BDU. "Are you using an illusion for clothes?"
"It was easier," the duplicate replied as she reached out with telepathy and started skimming Amy's thoughts so she could try to get a handle on her power.
"What happens if you lose concentration?" Amy asked.
"Then I lose the clothes," the duplicate replied, fairly sure she wasn't going to lose her concentration.
'We're going to need more masks,' Taylor told one of her other duplicates via telepathy then smiled at Amy. "Don't worry, I have someone grabbing actual masks."
"Okay," Amy agreed, not seeing a point in admitting that she knew who the girl was under her mask.
'Is there bits of her power we didn't copy?' the duplicate mused, surprised that Panacea could recognize them from their genetics. 'I'll just have to ask once we're done upgrading everyone.'
"Ready?" Taylor asked and used her enhancement spell when Amy nodded, causing her duplicate to slim down and look a bit more like an athlete.
"Ooh," Amy said as she watched the changes to the girl's body. "I doubt she's quite as strong as the other duplicate but she should be more flexible." She moved to the next duplicate. "Next!"
"If she starts laughing maniacally, run," Vicky teased, happy to see Amy enjoying herself.
Amy's duplicate snickered as she walked over to check the newly enhanced duplicate, wanting to check a couple of the duplicates before she suggested heading back to the house with a duplicate Vicky to keep her parents from worrying.
Taylor used the enhancement spell on the next duplicate, looking forward to seeing how far they could push things.
0o0o0
"How was your patrol?" Carol asked as her daughters walked into the living room.
"Quiet," Amy replied as she closed the door.
Carol glanced at Vicky then focused on Amy. "Did you catch any villains?"
"No, just a guy trying and failing to break into his car because he locked his keys inside," Vicky replied with amusement as she walked over and flopped down on the couch.
"We mostly just flew around, trying to get used to my new powers, which appear to be permanent from what everyone can tell," Amy explained as she walked over and sat down on the couch, putting her bookbag on the floor.
"Good idea," Carol told her, figuring it was better to fly around and make mistakes when it was less likely to catch them on camera. "Did they figure out why a number of students got powers?"
"Yeah, I'm a squishy healer or I was," Amy replied.
Carol glanced at Vicky then focused on Amy. "It's late, you're going to have to explain that one."
"Officially? No clue. Unofficially? There's a trump running around that can give people powers. They didn't want some random idiot killing me so they snuck into the school to give me enhanced durability and walked into a stupid conversation about getting powers and people basically asked for powers."
"And they took advantage of the situation to give you Flight and Enhanced Durability?" Carol asked.
"Yeah," Vicky agreed, expecting her mother to explode.
Carol relaxed as the pieces dropped into place in a way that made sense. "Good."
"Good?" Vicky asked, surprised that her mother looked relieved.
"She can't heal herself and it just takes one bad day at the hospital, knowing she'd survive getting shot by a tank helps," Carol admitted, thinking of the report the PRT had sent her.
"That goes double for me," Mark said as he walked out of the kitchen.
Amy turned and looked at her dad. "Speaking of worrying and new powers. The trump also gave me a different type of healing that works on brains. Do you want me to try healing your depression?"
"Yes," Mark replied without hesitation. “Though I do have to say it seems healthy and strong all on its own.”
Vicky groaned. “Dad jokes,” she muttered.
"Is it safe?" Carol asked cautiously, trying not to get her hopes up.
"Should be, I tested it on a stray cat on the way here," Amy replied. "It doesn't require biomass or a lot of focus, which means I can basically use it on an entire group to make sure they're stable and save my power for precision work."
"I trust you," Carol told her.
Amy briefly considered calling the PRT so they could toss Carol into a cell for observation before deciding that she was just really tired of dealing with Mark's depression. She walked over and touched her Dad's hand so that she could observe the process then flipped the mental switch on the new power, causing all of her father's old injuries to fade away thanks to the regeneration.
'At least I don't have to worry about screwing up.' She kept the power going until all of his old injuries and a couple of genetic issues fixed themselves, including his depression and his ability to pass it on. She held the power for another twenty seconds then used it on Carol, knowing that she had a decent collection of problems and figured forgiveness was better than permission in this case. "That should do it."
Mark smiled and hugged Amy when he realized that he already felt better. "How often are you going to have to heal me?"
"That should do it, but I'll check every day for a month just to make sure it's not coming back," Amy assured him.
"This is better than the medications, I feel fantastic." Mark let Amy go. "What do you want me to cook?"
"It's almost one o'clock," Carol pointed out.
"And I'm awake and happy. What do you want?" Mark asked, wanting to take advantage of his good mood while it lasted.
"Stir fry," Carol suggested without hesitation, trying not to cry at the thought that she might not have to watch her husband continue spiraling into the abyss.
"I'll help," Vicky offered as she flew towards the kitchen.
“No flying in the house,” Carol reminded her.
Amy smiled as she walked over and flopped down on the couch, content to relax for the moment.
0o0o0
Amy glanced between the strength enhanced duplicate of Taylor that was holding a bar with a thousand pounds on it with only a little visible effort and the duplicate that she'd upgraded that was having to work to lift the eight hundred pounds on her bar. "At least part of her strength isn't natural considering they should be the same."
"That's still a hell of a lot more than I can lift," Taylor said as she marked the numbers down in her notebook, disappointed that using the enhancement ritual on the upgraded clone hadn't been able to push the duplicate's 'natural' strength beyond what Amy had already managed but the spell had pushed the duplicate's strength to a point where she could beat Vicky in arm wrestling so she was hoping she'd get lucky.
"You'd probably count as a low end brute considering you don't look like a bodybuilder," Vicky mused, knowing the numbers were more of a guideline.
Amy nodded. "I could push the strength up but you'd look like an ape in a dress and your agility would drop."
Taylor shook her head, thinking about the duplicate that Amy had turned into a muscle bound bodybuilder using a bag of potatoes and onions for extra mass. "I'm good with the balanced upgrade, if I want to toss a car I can use a magic ring."
"Your powers are bullshit, you know that right?" Vicky asked with amusement.
"I'm aware," Taylor admitted as the duplicates put the weights back on the ground. "Do you think you'll learn anything else from experimenting on the duplicates?"
"Not enough to matter," Amy replied as she gestured towards the cot they'd dragged into the weight room when they started modifying the duplicates. "Lie down and I'll get started."
Taylor walked over and lay down on the cot. 'Just relax, she hasn’t messed up yet.'
"How hard do you think it would be to upgrade the wards?" Vicky asked, figuring Dean could use a boost.
"I'd want them to go through the same process," Amy replied as she grabbed an onion and started converting it into goop that she could use to improve Taylor's muscles and organs. “The only reason this is at all safe and reasonable is because I have living breathing examples of her in better stages of health and development.”
"On second thought, I'm not sure we need a bunch of Clockblockers running around," Vicky admitted, knowing he'd abuse the hell out of the ability to be in multiple places at once. “That is just asking for trouble and pranks. Not quite an S class danger except to everyone’s dignity that's involved.”
"We could always make a magic ring to temporarily let everyone use the duplication power," one of Taylor's duplicates pointed out.
"Not a bad idea," Taylor agreed as she closed her eyes and tried to relax.
Amy turned her head and looked at the duplicate with the balanced augments. "Get over here, it's easier if I have a template."
"Sure," the duplicate replied as she walked over.
Amy touched the duplicate with her left hand so that she'd have the template handy then got to work modifying Taylor's biology.
Taylor spent the next five minutes staring at the ceiling, trying to relax so that her various defenses wouldn't stop Amy from improving her physical abilities and wondering what percentage of her body would be built out of onions by the time Amy was done modifying her biology.
"Let me fix your eyesight and then we're done," Amy said as she fixed Taylor's eyesight, pushing her up to the top one percent of the population for eyesight. "You'll probably want to do a couple of stretches and walk around so you can get used to things before you try anything too strenuous."
"Thanks," Taylor said as she sat up and looked around the blurry room. She covered her face with an illusion of her mask and took her mask off, surprised by the amount of detail she could see on the back wall. "Damn, that's a hell of a change."
"She's amazing," Vicky agreed.
"Absolutely," Taylor agreed as she used her Molding ability to remove her glasses from her mask.
Amy shrugged. "It's just a couple of tweaks."
"Doesn't change the fact that you're awesome," Taylor replied as she put the mask back on and dropped her illusion. "Speaking of appreciation, do you want a magic ring that can clear up acne, moles and freckles and let you change your hairstyle?"
"Only slightly more than the ability to fly," Amy replied without hesitation.
Taylor pulled a plain silver ring out of her pocket that she'd picked up from the thugs that had jumped her duplicate and tossed it to one of her duplicates. "Tweak the changer part of Noelle's power and stick it in a ring. Amy can have a duplicate test it."
"Sure," the duplicate replied as she swapped the power she was emulating for the altered version of Noelle's powers that she'd copied.
Amy looked at the ring the duplicate was holding. "I wonder if Dauntless could make something that would let him change people's appearance or heal people."
"Considering how long it takes to build up a charge…" Vicky trailed off as she got an amusing idea. "Do you think having a bunch of duplicates would let him boost his gear?"
"Can we avoid mentioning that particular ability in official reports?" Taylor asked hopefully as she carefully stood up, testing her balance. "People are already going to try to kidnap me when they find out I can hand out Flight and durability, I don't want to start a war and the ability to create armies of parahumans would certainly spark one."
Vicky winced as thought about the research she'd done on the CUI when Amy had first triggered. "Yeah, on second thought, that sounds like a good way to get the Yangbang to try to kidnap you."
"Or kill her," Amy added, thinking about China's general opinion on parahumans.
The duplicate with the ring used her Power Manipulation to tweak her emulated power, giving it a menu for changing the wearer's appearance and dropping the rest of the powers in exchange for increasing the rate that the power changed people. She used her Energy Source Creation ability and imbued the altered power in the ring. "You should make a duplicate to test the ring."
Amy used her duplicate power, not seeing a point in bothering with a screen when there weren't any guys or cameras around. "Let's see if this works."
Taylor's duplicate tossed Amy's duplicate the ring. "Just put it on and play with the menu."
"Play with the menu…" Amy's duplicate trailed off as she put the ring on and a translucent window appeared floating in front of her, reminding her of the character design page in her favorite online game. "Oh, skin types… hair," she mused as she started playing with the sliders, causing the floating character model to change appearance.
"How are you going to explain the changes?" Vicky asked as she walked over to look at the floating window.
"When in doubt, blame it on a tinker," Amy replied with a smile as she walked over to look at the floating screen.
"Leet," Vicky suggested, fairly sure the PRT had a standard form for Leet's inventions exploding.
"Always a good choice," Amy agreed as she watched her duplicate tweak her appearance, trying for something that looked reasonably close but better. "You should try the perfectly healthy button."
Amy's duplicate pushed the button to reset the changes she'd made then slid the slider for freckles all the way to zero and pushed the perfectly healthy button, causing the Amy shaped model on the page to lose her freckles and get taller. She checked the tape measure on the page. "She got a couple of inches taller."
"Makes sense, we missed a couple of meals over the years due to emergencies. Are you going to increase our bust size?" Amy asked, thinking she could use a touch more up top.
"Give me a second," Amy's duplicate pushed the slider up on her breasts, going up until the model looked like she had watermelons then going back down until they were only about half a cup size larger than they'd started. "This would be easier if we had a way to figure out what we're going to look like when we're fully grown."
Taylor shook her head. "Pretty sure that would take some type of precog ability which isn't something I have access to."
"I should have a decent idea once you use it and I can check your genetics," Amy pointed out.
"Cool," Amy's duplicate replied as she pushed the 'Apply Changes' button, causing her to grow a couple of inches, her breasts to get larger and her freckles to vanish leaving her with clear skin.
Amy smiled as she looked at the changes to her duplicate, surprised by how much of a difference a couple of changes could make.
Taylor gestured and created a full length mirror with her Illusion-Casting so the duplicate could check out the changes. "The lack of freckles make a bit of a difference."
"Not to mention better breasts," Amy's duplicate said as she checked herself in the mirror, happy with the changes. "I won't be winning any beauty contests, but not having a mess of freckles covering my face is an improvement."
Amy reached out and poked her duplicate's arm and checked her genetics and biology. "If you stuck around, you'd get another cup size and probably three inches, putting us at about five ten when we stop growing."
"So much for being the taller sister," Vicky said with a pout.
The duplicate pushed the button for saving the changes then took the ring off and handed it to Amy. "Here."
Amy created another duplicate to use as a template in case something went wrong then put the ring on, checked to make sure nothing had changed and pushed the apply changes button before she could talk herself out of it.
"You know what this means?" Vicky asked with a grin.
"What's that?" Amy asked as her unmodified duplicate checked her health.
"Shopping!" Vicky said enthusiastically.
"Shit," Amy complained, having completely forgotten about that minor detail. "So much for having money."
Vicky laughed. "It's for a good cause."
"Everything looks good," the unmodified duplicate told Amy then dismissed herself, seeing no reason to stick around since she’d just be standing around Naked.
Amy blinked a couple times as she got her duplicate's memories. "That's not as bad as I was expecting."
"You get used to it," Taylor replied as she started working on doing leg stretches, trying to make sure everything was working right before she started seeing how much she could lift.
Vicky glanced between her sister and Taylor. "What's the next step?"
Amy glanced at Taylor. "Are you up for boosting some of Vicky's duplicates so I can get a baseline?"
"Sure. Do you want me to grab…" Taylor trailed off as Vicky made five naked duplicates of herself. 'No wonder Amy has a crush on her, damn,' she thought, trying not to stare at the duplicates. "Right, let's get started."
"This is going to rock," Vicky said cheerfully, looking forward to getting a nice boost to her physical abilities.
'Can you get a copy of Victor's power without him noticing?' Taylor asked one of her duplicates that had BDUs and didn't have an ungraded fighting skill via telepathy. 'I want to grab a copy of my duplicate's combat skills.'
'Shouldn't be a problem,' the duplicate replied as she turned invisible left, grabbing another duplicate on her way out to make things easier.
Taylor pulled her attention back to the duplicates and started casting her enhancement spell on them.
