1.8 Dances Part 5

“I can try and bring it back if you want?” offers Ava.

“I wouldn’t mind if you tried,” answers Guardian.

“Okay,” says Ava and Guardian feels her dress disappearing and a set of armour appearing over her.

But while it may look like Guardian’s power armour, it isn’t. Instead, Guardian is now wearing a plastic copy of her armour without any of the electronics or other devices.

“This isn’t my armour,” says Guardian in disappointment, “Just a powerless pale imitation. Please bring back the dress. That would be preferable to this.”

“Okay,” says Ava as Guardian’s outfit changes back into the blue one strap dress, “Sorry.”

“I got a spare,” replies Guardian, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“Sorry,” says Ava again as she looks up at Guardian, “Things have all been going wrong today.”

“You can try and make things better by seeing if you can stop you using your powers on people,” suggests Guardian.

“Okay,” says Ava as she sits on the end of her bed, “I can feel them you know. I can’t explain it, but I can just sense everybody I’m using my power on.”

“Yeah,” agrees Guardian, “It is the same for me when I’m using my technopathy except it is machines in the network rather than people. Can you make your power stop affecting them?”

“Yeah,” replies Ava, “That’s easy. I could probably do more to them if I wanted to, but I don’t.”

“What do you want if you don’t mind asking?” inquires Guardian.

“Two things really,” answers Ava, “I want to dance and I want to make people happy.

That would explain what her powers do. Or least what she is actually doing with them.

Yeah, making people dance and putting them in a state of bliss.

Indeed. If her powers are based off of her wishes, it would explain a lot. We should ask her if she knows why Quicksteel and his gang try to drug her. That is unusual behaviour for dealers.

That seems like too serious a subject to broach now. I was thinking I should ask her if she can give me dancing lessons in the future.

Legacy! Focus on doing your duty.

“Hey Ava,” says Guardian, “I would recommend joining the Junior Heroes Union. At least as a reserve or part-time member.”

“Why?” asks Ava as she looks Guardian in the eye.

“Because you are an extremely powerful parahuman,” replies Guardian, “Even if your power is based around dancing. If you were trying to hurt people, there wouldn’t be much we could do to stop you.”

“I guess that would be best,” says Ava, “I hope I won’t get into too much trouble.”

“I hope you don’t either and you haven’t intentionally used your power on people,” says Guardian, “May I ask you something?”

“You only been nice to me so far, so sure,” replies Ava.

“Once all of this sorted, I would like to learn how to dance,” says Guardian, “I would like it you would teach me.”

“Absolutely,” agrees Ava as she brightens up considerably, “We could consider it repayment for me destroying your armour.”

“Great!” exclaims Guardian.

I am going to learn how to dance! I am going to learn how to dance! I am going to learn how to dance!

***

“So you had a little adventure in Chicago this morning,” says Leo to Legacy as he leads her down a corridor of their base that afternoon.

I suppose the fact I lost my armour and gained a dress is a giveaway.

You’re still wearing the dress.

It’s not like I have had reason to change!

“Did Allison tell you about it?” inquires Legacy.

“A mixture of her, the news and some illegal hacking,” answers Leo, “Ava isn’t in any serious trouble by the way. The government has decided it would be a bad idea to risk pissing off a parahuman that is willing to work for them.”

“That is good to hear,” says Legacy, “So you mentioned you met someone today in Grand Rapids.”

“Actually they sought me out,” replies Leo, “And to be frank, they could possibly be the most powerful parahuman yet.”

“Really?” asks Legacy, her curiosity piqued.

“Yeah,” says Leo, “She is a reality warper. Effectively unlimited. Well, she has a few limits and that is why she approached me.”

“What are those limits?” inquires Legacy as they reach the door.

“I’ll let Naomi explain her powers to you herself,” says Leo as he opens the door.

An Aphrodite girl is waiting in the room, sitting in a chair whilst looking through a book. She looks up as they enter the room.

So this is the reality warper.

Reality warpers are extremely dangerous. We have immunity to direct effects, but...

We have immunity to reality warping? That is pretty useful.

Except for the situations where being affected would be useful.

Everything has its ups and downs.

Very true. That is an important thing to remember.

“Hello Guardian!” says the girl as she gets out of her seat, “I’ve been waiting to meet you!”

“Hello,” replies Legacy, “While you may know who I am, I don’t know who you are.”

“Oh right,” says the girl as she flushes, “I’m Naomi Fisher. As I’m sure Leo has told you, I’m a reality warper. Any book I’m-when I’m holding a book, I can make it so it contains reality in it. And then I can change what is written in the book and that changes reality to fit what I have changed in the book. And I don’t need to worry about the changes making sense as reality makes itself work with what I have changed. And I don’t have any limits so far as what I can do. Well, actually I discovered that a few people are immune to my powers. People such as Darkness and Leo are, well, I can’t directly affect them and my ability to indirectly affect them is also hampered. Actually, I can affect the Darkness some of the time. Not sure what determines when he is immune or not. And you, well, take a look for yourself.”

She pauses for a moment before tossing the book in her hands to Legacy, who catches it. The book is a green hardback and Legacy reads the cover.

What in the name of Deltae is this?

Interesting. Very interesting.

Guardian 28,708,648: Legacy of Guardian.