by R. J. Ross
“Si,” he says again, a hint of amusement in his tone, “I will make sure they remember.”
Aubrey has the grace to look sheepish--after all, she was just barking orders at one of the most powerful supers in the world. It’s just hard to remember, she admits as she watches him for a second. He’s got such a gentle atmosphere, and the way he’s carrying her says he’s as careful about his strength as any of the Liberty family is. “You would like the Liberty family,” she says abruptly, only to blush again.
He looks down with a grin. “I already do,” he says. “I went to a party with them not that long ago. They are very nice people.”
“Yeah,” she admits, smiling a bit too happily, “they are. Oh--we’re here.” she says, a bit startled by how quickly they got there.
“This is an emergency,” Voltdrain say simply as he lands on the roof. He doesn’t look too surprised when a handful of black suits with large weapons surround them.
“You’re not cleared for this building, sir,” one of the men says.
“He brought me back,” Aubrey says, sliding out of Voltdrain’s arms and pulling out her tag. “I was in the South Branch helping out,” she adds as the man scans her tag and watches the information come up on his handheld device.
“And he is?” the man asks, looking at Voltdrain. Voltdrain obligingly pulls out his Hall card, holding it out to be scanned. For a moment the man stares at the information blankly. “I see. Thank you, Voltdrain,” he says finally, motioning for the others to lower their guns.
“Ms. Life Light--“
“Aubrey,” Aubrey corrects him.
“Welcome home,” he says, smiling at her. “I know our staff will be excited to know you’re back so quickly.”
“Thank you,” she says, giving him a smile in return before turning back to Voltdrain. “You’re welcome to stay for the night--it’s a pretty long flight, after all. I’m sure Jimmi will want to see you before you leave, too, right?”
“I would like that,” Voltdrain says, “but it is late, will they let me into the campus at this time?”
“No, probably not, but they’ll let you into the apartments,” she says, pulling out her phone and calling Nico. A few moments later Voltdrain is flying away and she’s heading inside, intent on finding her sister--her sisters.
She’s not about to accept the fact that Ditto is dead.
***
I’m jerked awake by the feel of a hand on my shoulder. I know that Liz is sleeping in the hospital bed next to mine, so I don’t automatically assume that I’m getting kidnapped or anything--it just wakes me up.
The room is lit up by that familiar white light coming from Aubrey’s eyes. “Aub--“ I start out, stopping as I realize that she’s working. I don’t want to interrupt her! I can feel her working, which is strange and a bit unsettling. I can feel a faint heat flowing through my body, feel tiny twinges and flutters of organs and muscles reacting without me telling them to.
The light fades and she looks down at me with her usual eyes, wrapping her arms around me as she realizes I’m awake. “Hi,” she says--then promptly climbs into the bed with me. “Scoot over, I’m exhausted,” she tells me, stealing half of the pillow as I scoot as far as I can. She’s asleep before I am.
I feel a bit like complaining, but I don’t have the time. I turn, instead, and focus on the empty area next to my bed. It flickers, once, twice, then all of a sudden Ditto is standing there. She gives me a wicked grin and waves.
“Thank God,” I whisper as she disappears again and I fall asleep.
***
“And we’re out,” Liz says, pushing me out of the Hall’s ER wing in a wheelchair the next morning. We’re now in the main Hall--the area where norms come to visit. “Want to walk now?” she asks me.
“Mmm,” I say, lounging with one arm over the armrest. “Do I have to?” I ask, kicking my foot lazily.
“Are you going to make me carry you?” she asks, putting her hands on her hips. She’s in civvies, and there’s norms wandering around, looking at all the Hall displays. If the norms see her carrying me as easily as she does, we’ll definitely be caught. Darn it.
“Nah, I’ll walk,” I say, hopping to my feet. The biggest worry they’d had was that Ditto wouldn’t come back. Now that she’s back, I’m good to go. “I wish Aubrey could come, though,” I complain as Liz hands the wheelchair off to another black suit and we start through the building.
“She had to stay,” Liz says, sighing, “Skystep did a number on several of the black suits, too.”
I frown, hugging myself as I think about it. “Yeah,” I say. What else can I say? Aubrey’s so adult. I feel like such a kid compared to her, and she’s only two years older than me. “And she even fixed me,” I say. “Ditto’s back because of her.”
“Thank God,” Liz says for what’s probably the tenth time since she’d found out. “I thought for sure... no. Emily?” she asks, holding out a hand to me. I grab it. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just... lost it. I never meant to--“
“I know,” I say. “We had to stop you--but you DID stop, which is the important part. I don’t want you to be a murderer,” I admit quietly. “You being here is way more important than what might or might not have happened in the past.”
“You’re such a good girl, Emily,” she says, looking at me closely.
“What?” I ask. She just gives me a smile, ruffling my hair before draping an arm over my shoulders and tugging me into a half hug. “Um... they say Skystep is almost completely healed,” I say quietly. “What if she wants revenge?”
“I don’t think she’s that stupid,” Liz says, frowning thoughtfully. “But if she is, I’ll be sure to behave myself.”
“Thank you.”
“Why?”
I jerk, looking around blankly before seeing Ditto standing behind Liz. It wasn’t Liz that had asked that. “Ditto?” I ask. “When did you--“
“Why behave?” she asks. “Don’t you know what she did?” She hugs herself, rubbing her arms as if she’s cold, and then disappears.
“Ditto?” Liz asks, taking a step towards where my doppelganger had been standing. She looks over at me, confused. “Emily, can you bring her back?”
I frown, wondering why I feel a little nervous. Just because, I lift my hand, holding it out in the direction where Ditto was standing and summon her. For a second she looks around curiously, and then a brilliant smile crosses her face as she throws herself into Liz’s arms.
“LIZ!” she bellows, hanging from our foster mom’s neck, she’s hugging so tightly. I’m not even surprised when she wraps her legs around Liz’s waist, clinging like a monkey. What I AM surprised about is that she’s wearing a different outfit than she was a second ago.
Something seems... off. “Ditto, do you really want me to not behave if--if it happens again?” Liz asks.
“What?” Ditto asks. “When did I say that?” she asks, glancing at me. “I’m just happy to see you’re not in the Cape Cells--don’t EVER ever leave us, got it? You’re going to be our mom when we’re like, ninety years old and walking with walkers or whatever ancient capes do,” she declares.
“Mastermental’s older than that,” Liz says, her teasing a bit flat as she looks at me. We both know that something’s off about this situation. We just don’t know what it is--yet. When I look as confused as she does, though, she wraps her arms around Ditto, hugging her tightly. “Love you,” she says.
“Em, Em!! Did you hear that?” Ditto calls over to me. “She said it to me, first!”
“Yeah, Ditto, I heard it--don’t let it go to your head!” I call back. “You just had to die first!”
“Totally worth it,” Ditto says. The look of shock on Liz’s face would be funny if it were any other situation, but I know Ditto can’t see it because she’s clinging again with her head against Liz’s chest. Instead she reaches out one arm and I race over, hugging them both as tears threaten. Somewhere along the way a batch of black suits have surrounded us
as a mob, blocking he view of the norms--probably when Ditto started showing up. They’re seeing all of this, I think. I don’t care.
What does bother me, though, was that first time Ditto showed up. Could it be--
No, I don’t think so.
“Hey, is that my girlfriend in there?” I hear someone say quietly from several feet away. The black suits part, forming a path to my little family. I look up as Trent walks through, grinning at him as he sees us. “Ditto!” he says, his expression changing from worried to happy as he sees her.
“TRENT!” she bellows, jumping from Liz into Trent’s arms. “Liz said she loves me!”
“She did, did she?”
“Yeah! Then Em said I had to die to get it, but I don’t care because I’m back,” she says. “It was sort of quick and I don’t remember much of it anyway, so it doesn’t matter, right? Hey, let’s skip school and go on a date, whaddaya say? Just the two of us.”
“Hey now!” I protest. “No hogging the boyfriend!”
“He owes me a trip to Build-A-Bear,” Ditto tells me, “don’t think I’ve forgotten how you took Carla out--that’s cheating, you know!”
“It wasn’t cheating,” he says as she twists so she’s piggy-back. “It was bribery to keep her from running off on me. That girl is seriously fast.” He hooks his arms under her legs and looks over at me. I shrug and head to Liz’s side, since she was just abandoned. Plus, I need to talk to her.
“Why don’t you two go on that date?” I say, much to both of their surprise. “I want to spend some time with Liz. She was a bit traumatized, I think.” It says something when Liz just flushes slightly and looks away, stammering something incomprehensible.
“Yeah, okay,” Trent says. “We’ll meet you back at the apartment in... two hours?” he offers. “Wanna go to a movie, Dit? We’ll go to the toy store when Em can come.”
“Sure!”
A tiny part of me feels jealous, I realize as they head off, but I shove it down, turning and looking at Liz. “Want to get an ice cream?” I ask her.
“For breakfast?” she asks.
“Can we not?”
“I didn’t say that,” she says, “just let me call up Nico first and tell him what we’re doing. He’s probably worried.”
“Call Taurus, too--and Andre,” I tell her, “and probably Jack--“ I stop as the norms start freaking out and look up to see Jack stepping through the front door. “Forget about Jack, Aubrey must have told him already.”
He stops in front of us, looking at me strangely. I hear someone start to protest, but Jack ignores them as he reaches up, poking me in the forehead. “You alive?” he says.
“Yeah.”
“All of you?”
“Yep.”
“Good,” he says before walking past us to the door that leads to the ER.
“Next time come in from the back, dork,” I mutter, giving him a dirty look. I hear him laughing as Liz hauls me off. “He’s such a pain sometimes,” I say, shaking my head. “Really, I still don’t see what Aub sees in him,” I tell her. “Aubrey needs someone not such a bully!”
“He doesn’t bully her,” Liz says. “Trust me, I watched him like a hawk that first month.”
“Yeah, but he bullies me!” I protest.
“When did he bully you?”
“He just poked me in the forehead! That’s bullying!” I lie cheerfully. “I’m going to have to get him back for that one.”
“Yeah? How?”
“I’m thinking magnets,” I decide, “but I’m open to suggestions!”
“Nah,” Liz says, draping an arm over my shoulders and tugging me into her side. “He was worried about you, right?”
“Yeah, but... so am I,” I admit as we reach the street. “That first time Ditto showed up--I don’t know what happened. I didn’t summon her, Liz,” I say seriously, looking her in the eyes. “I had no idea she was even there--and she wasn’t...”
“Yeah,” Liz says, “I noticed.”
“Was it Ditto?” I ask. “Ditto didn’t seem to remember saying something like that--and she was wearing a different outfit. What if--what if it WASN’T Ditto?”
“So you think it’s another doppelganger?” she asks. “How did Ditto show up the first time?”
“I was looking in the mirror,” I say, “and all of a sudden she popped up behind me. I almost had a heart attack, I swear. It didn’t help that she disappeared right before I turned around. It was like living in a horror movie for a little bit.”
“Then we know what we have to look forward to,” Liz says. “The only problem is...”
“Her personality,” I finish for her. “It was... off.”
“Why don’t we go see Mastermental?” she asks.
“Yeah.” She looks at me, I look at her, and we reluctantly turn and go back inside, heading up the stairs that lead to Mastermental’s office. Looks like it’s time to get my brain scanned.
Somehow I’m really not looking forward to it.
CHAPTER SIX
“So,” Trent says as Ditto slips off of his back and moves to his side. She takes his hand, slipping her fingers through his. “What’s going on, Ditto?”
“Um...” There’s hesitation in her voice, which makes him glance over at her. “Well... I think... that Emily’s going through a growth period.”
He looks at her, raising an eyebrow as he puts his hand on her head. “Doesn’t seem like it to me--unless it’s something else?”
“You’re making fun of our chest size, aren’t you?” she says, giving him a dirty look before peeking down her shirt. “Well, guess you’ve got good reason,” she admits after a second.
“Don’t do that in public!” he says, starting to laugh. “It doesn’t look right.”
“No, what wouldn’t look right is if YOU looked,” she says, “me looking is no big deal. But like I was saying, I think Emily is going through a growth period--her abilities,” she finishes on a whisper.
“What are you talking about?” he asks. “How can you tell?”
“I don’t know, but I feel stronger. Hey, Trent, instead of going to the movies, will you go with me somewhere else?”
“Where to?” he asks.
“The park,” she says, tugging his hand and changing course. He follows along, letting her lead them to an ancient, graffiti covered playground in a park where there’s no one to be seen. “Look, I haven’t mentioned this to Emily, in fact I didn’t even realize it until this morning, but something’s happening,” she says as she heads for a picnic table.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says as she reaches down and picks the picnic table--and its connected benches--off the ground with no effort. “I’m getting stronger. I think Emily is, too. You know how Falconess suggested we make a new doppelganger?”
“Yeah.”
“Well I didn’t really think it would work--but it will,” she says, putting the table down. “I’m just wondering what will happen to me if she does.” She grabs his hand, tugging him over to the table. “Sit on top,” she orders him.
“You sure? I weigh a lot more than I look.”
“I know, I was there at the water slide, remember?” she says. “Get on, I want to try it.”
He climbs on top of the table, sitting there as she moves to the side. He sees her grit her teeth slightly, but he feels the table lift slowly. She moves underneath, lifting it straight up with a grunt. “I was right,” she says a bit breathlessly. “It’s getting easier.”
“So what does it mean?” he asks as she puts the table down and climbs out from underneath.
“It means that Emily’s probably twice as strong when I’m not out,” she says, climbing onto the table next to him. “And at this rate, she’ll be really strong when she’s full grown, right?”
“I meant for you,” he says. “You said you were worried about what it would mean for you.”
“Oh,” she says, looking down. “Well, I’ll be one of who knows how many?” she says
finally. “She’ll realize what I really am--a part of her already has.”
“What do you think you really are?” he asks, reaching up and touching her cheek.
“A tool,” she says with a bittersweet smile, “one that can be tossed into the fire without dying, just like what happened last night. I chose to do it this time, but sooner or later she’ll realize she can make me do it. A part of her knows that’s what I’m for--that’s why she left me with that family. I’m here to take the abuse that she can’t handle.”
“That’s not--“
“Which of us knows Emily better, Trent?” she asks. “I AM her--or a part of her, at least. My biggest job is to do what she needs me to do. I just...”
He pulls her into a hug, cuddling her close as she starts to cry. “You ARE her,” he says quietly. “It’s confusing, and difficult, but she wouldn’t have put so much of her heart into you if she saw you as just a tool. She wouldn’t bring you out just so you can go swimming, or eat pizza, or watch stupid movies with Liz and Aubrey. She wouldn’t let you run off with her boyfriend to see a movie if she didn’t see you as an important part of her.”
“Yeah,” she whispers, hugging him tightly. “You realize, though, that all of the doppelgangers she comes up with will love you, right?” she asks, looking up at him with a grin.
“All of them?” Trent asks, looking a bit pale.
“Probably!” she says, cheering up with how worried he looks. “Well, I might be wrong,” she goes on, frowning slightly. “Maybe if she comes up with them when she’s irritated with you they might not.”
“When has Emily ever been irritated with me?” Trent asks. “I’m a great boyfriend!”
“HAH!” she says. “You can be a pain!”
“Never!”
“Breakfast time, lunch time, dinner time, afternoon snack time, morning snack time--“ she lists, counting them off on her fingers, “or when you’re always trying to make peace, even when she’s CLEARLY right.”
“She’s not CLEARLY right,” he says, “you’re just biased.”