Author's Note (Disclaimer): There are parts of the chapter that are a bit confusing, so just clarifying it here. Before Daemon transforms back into his base form (from Lucy Heartfilia), when he is called Lucy, it is from his point of view, and when he is called Daemon, it is from Annette's Pov.
OO OO OO
"How is he?"
Annette asked in a concerned tone as she looked down at Daemon's sleeping form.
He was still in the blonde girl's form he'd been wearing when Annette and Miss Militia had come across him and Glory Girl in that ruined street near Vortex Solutions. His body was pretty scuffed and riddled with injuries, and he was covered in a layer of grime and blood that looked like it would be pretty hard to clean off.
Currently, those same injuries were slowly closing and mending under the power of a pale blue light being shone from the tip of a wooden stick.
"He's hurt, but nothing serious. No injuries that I can't handle, at least."
Annette breathed a sigh of relief.
The blonde woman standing beside her gave Daemon another once-over before lightly frowning.
Anastasia Greengrass, better known to her as Graceful Yandere from the Multiversal Chat Group, waved her wand over his prone form, watching the pale blue light wash across his body. "But I'm a little less confident when it comes to what's going on with his magic." She said as she pursed her lips in thought. "Witches and wizards from my world don't have a magical organ like he does to store everything. So even if I can patch up the outside, I can't exactly peek inside and tell you that everything's fine."
Annette nodded, though the concern in her expression didn't disappear.
Anastasia noticed. "He's not dying, though," she added, giving Annette a reassuring smile. "So don't look at me like that. You're going to scare yourself before he even wakes up."
That earned the faintest twitch from the corner of Annette's mouth, though it vanished almost immediately.
When Annette had visited the apartment last night and found Daemon out like a light, she hadn't been too worried - Well, not immediately, she corrected herself. She ignored the fact that he'd fallen asleep while transformed, since this wasn't the first time that had happened.
But when he hadn't woken up in the morning, she had started getting a little alarmed.
When morning turned into afternoon, that little alarm had turned into outright panic.
She'd reached out to Amanises through the chat group for help, only for Anastasia to see the message first and decide to come over herself.
Now, Annette could only look down at the sleeping figure and wait. "So, what can you tell me?" she finally asked. "Why is he still sleeping?"
Anastasia hummed softly, brushing a stray lock of blonde hair behind her ear. "Honestly? I think he's just exhausted." She gave Daemon another look before continuing. "His magical container is almost completely empty, and it looks like he pushed it pretty hard. Whatever spell he used, he must have poured nearly everything he had into it all at once."
She flicked her wand, and the pale blue glow finally faded away. "But that's all it is, magical exhaustion." Anastasia smiled as she pocketed the wand. "Give it a few hours, he'll wake up when he's ready."
Annette stared at Daemon for another long moment before finally letting out a heavy breath. With Anastasia's confirmation, the tension she'd been carrying for the past few hours seemed to leave her all at once. Without the sheer panic keeping her upright, the strength just faded right out of her legs. She stumbled back and found a nearby chair, dropping heavily onto the cushion.
She'd been frantic with worry for the past few hours, and that had taken its toll on her.
Anastasia's expression softened when she noticed. She reached over and gently placed a hand on Annette's shoulder. "You don't have to worry so much. He'll be just fine."
OO OO OO
A beam of evening light shone right through the tiniest of gaps in the curtain and landed on a beautiful face.
The beautiful face in question furrowed before the full lips lightly parted, as an annoyed groan escaped them.
Lucy squeezed her eyes tight to block out the light in an attempt to get some more sleep, but gave it up as a futile endeavour not too long after. Her eyes opened, revealing a warm but half-lidded and laden-with-sleep pair of brown to the rest of the world.
"Ugh…" The groan that escaped her came from the very depths of her soul.
She sat up and looked around.
For a moment, she was utterly confused about where she was, but then the memories of last night's events hit her. She flinched as she remembered all the zombies, dying against them, being saved by Glory Girl and then using Urano Metria to wipe them all out of the face of this Earth.
Lucy let out a yawn before rubbing her eyes to get rid of the grogginess.
How did I get home? She wondered, utterly blanking out on how she even got home after that stressful confrontation with Miss Militia and the PRT troopers yesterday. She thought on it for a few moments before shrugging it off and dismissing it as unimportant for now – leaving it as something to figure out for later.
She pushed the blanket off her and stood up, and –
"Whoa!" Lucy stumbled as she stood up, and grabbed the nearby chair to steady herself before she tumbled back to the ground. Standing back up with her own power, she looked down – and to her surprise, she was wearing something different than what she had been when she'd first transformed into Lucy Heartfilia last night.
Instead of the crop-top and the mini-skirt she had spawned in, she was wearing an oversized, cable-knit blue sweater with a deep V-neck. She was wearing it off the shoulder on her left side, and the sweater was so large that the hem hung low enough to touch her thighs, acting as a makeshift skirt.
Wonder who changed me? The thought flashed across her mind, but she didn't worry.
It was probably Annette, as she was the only one who had consistent access to this apartment. Well, other than Dinah, but she doubted that the younger girl would even be able to muster enough strength to move Lucy enough to undress her – let alone change her clothes.
The other main thing she noticed was –
Wait... I'm not hurt? She noticed, befuddled.
– that she wasn't a little bit injured.
Now, don't get her wrong, she wasn't complaining a single bit – it was quite the opposite, as a matter of fact, but it was a fact worth noting, as Metamorphosis didn't heal.
Unless the form she had assumed had native healing abilities, the only way metamorphosis would even be able to heal is when she turned back into her base form, as any injuries she got while transformed did not transfer to her base form.
Unfortunately, the reverse was not true, as any damage she had sustained as Daemon would appear on her transformed self after she used Metamorphosis.
But none of that was relevant for now, as she was still in the form that she had been injured in – the form of Lucy Heartfilia.
But she wasn't going to get any answers stuck in her bedroom.
So off she went, stepping out of the door and into the living room, from where she could barely make out the faint sounds of a conversation coming from.
OO OO OO
*Click*
Annette paused, the teacup in her hands just shy of touching her lips, and turned.
The comfortable conversation she had been having with Anastasia died down as the doorknob turned before the door was pulled open. Daemon, still in the form of that blonde girl, stepped out, looking around for a moment with bleary eyes before his eyes found Annette and Anastasia sitting around the coffee table.
"Uh, what is going on here?" He asked. "And who's this?"
Annette shot up, almost dropping the teacup but managing to gently place it down at the last second. "Daemon! Are you alright?" She made her way towards him in a few long strides and looked him over, trying to see any sign that he was unwell. "Do you feel okay? Are you hurting anywhere?"
"I'm fine," Lucy said as she let out a deep yawn, running a hand through her long and currently bedridden blonde hair, trying to straighten the locks and the curls, before giving up as futile a few moments later. Her hand then moved lower, scratching on the underside of her boob to rid herself of an annoying itch. "Just really fucking tired."
She then turned towards the other blonde woman.
"And who's this?"
Lucy asked as she gestured towards said blonde woman, who was sitting there elegantly drinking tea.
"Ah, right, you've never met before," Annette said as she suddenly realized that fact. "This is Anastasia Greengrass, but you'd better know her as – "
"– Graceful Yandere, I know that name," Lucy smirked as she dropped down into one of the chairs surrounding the coffee table. "But what is she doing here? Last I'd heard, she had her nose buried in Amanises' library."
Anastasia smirked, "That is quite true, I'm afraid. But then I'd heard of inferi being discovered on a world without its own magical presence, and I just had to come look at it. Then I came to find out that you were critically injured, and decided to take care of it since I was here and all."
"Inferi?" Annette asked.
"My world's version of these zombies," Anastasia offered. "They are animated corpses brought to life through horrifically dark magic and possess no free will or independent thoughts, and simply follow their necromancers' orders."
Lucy leaned forward in interest. "You got a close look at the zombies from yesterday, yes?" At Anastasia's nod, she continued, "What can you tell me about them? What's different about these zombies from the Inferi you're talking about?"
Anastasia let out a light hum as she gently swirled the teacup.
"The main difference I noticed was that these zombies, or Ghouls as they have been officially termed -" she paused for a moment to nod at Annette before continuing, "are not as flammable as Inferi. Inferi can be reduced to ash by even the most basic of fire spells."
"That's… interesting, I suppose, but where did they even come from?" Lucy frowned as the memories of last night appeared in the forefront of her mind. At how they had suddenly appeared after the bombings had started.
And about that…
"And speaking of suddenly," Lucy suddenly turned towards Annette. "Is there any news on who caused the bombings?"
"There is." The expression on Annette's face darkened. "It's the Cornell bomber. She's now a part of the ABB and is going by Bakuda. She was the one behind all the bombs yesterday."
It was horrible.
Bakuda had targeted critical infrastructure all around the city - bombing transformers and the like to deny power to entire districts. Schools, hospitals, trains… entire swathes of the city was currently without power and completely in the dark.
All that death and destruction, and the worst thing was that she had done it as a distraction.
Oni Lee had freed Lung while the PRT had been mobilized to deal with the bombings and the zombies.
Annette relayed this to the other two.
Lucy leaned forward, interested. "A tinker? Are we sure that it wasn't her tinkertech that turned the people into these zombies?"
"They're ghouls, and yes," Annette said pointedly. "While Bakuda is a Bomb Tinker, none of the other locations had Ghouls, only in 4 relatively close-by areas."
"Then it must be something about these areas that caused these ghouls." Anastasia pointed out. "There might be some clue to find there. Maybe some residue or energy signature or something along those lines."
"Okay, first off, they're zombies. Call em like you see em." Lucy said, pointing at Annette, who was the one insisting on calling them ghouls. "And second, wouldn't the PRT have swept everything over there? Collected any scans or metamaterials they found there?"
Lucy paused for a moment as she grimaced at the feeling of a metal wire digging into her sternum, before reaching into her sweater and adjusting. "And even if I go there, it's been like 20 hours - would any energy signatures remain to be scanned by now?"
The last question had been directed towards Annette, who shook her head. "We didn't find any of this metamaterial you are talking about. Armsmaster has taken plenty of scans, both of the ghouls and of the emanations from Bakuda's more esoteric bombs. They are being analyzed right now to see if it can be used to track down Bakuda or the source of the ghouls."
"Maybe if you can sneak out a flesh sample, I can take it to my world and perform some rituals to get more information on them?" Anastasia offered.
She hadn't gotten as close a look at this new form of Inferi as she'd like, only being able to perform a few diagnostic spells while disillusioned amidst a crowd of the Aurors of this world.
Annette shook her head. "I don't think that would be possible. The Ghouls are under strict guard and constant watch by both officers and Dragon. The few samples that were taken are in Armsmaster's lab, and that place is even more difficult to get into."
"Man, that blows." She saw Daemon frown, which looked like an incredibly cute pout in his currently female form. As he idly scratched at the underside of his chest, her gaze went past him and landed on the TV playing behind him.
Her brows furrowed, and she grabbed the TV remote and increased the volume.
"... Has to come to your attention that, due to current events, Vanguard will be expanding into Brockton Bay ahead of schedule, skipping several cities ahead of them in line!
Now to Sarah in Phoenix! Sarah, how do the good people of Phoenix feel about this decision?!"
"Not good, Dave! Not good at all. The people of Phoenix are outraged and are calling this unfair and feel stolen from! Brockton Bay is being called opportunistic and…"
"What the…" Lucy turned around and stared at the news. "The guardians are coming to the bay, " she muttered under her breath. She then turned to Annette, "What does that mean?"
Annette frowned.
"It means things are about to change."
And she doubted it would be for the better - it seldom was, in Brockton Bay.
Vanguard was an organization that had come out of nowhere a few years ago, and had rapidly spread across cities. As of today, they patrolled over 10 cities, and it was looking like Brockton Bay was going to be the 11th.
Their Motto basically was, to paraphrase it: You don't need to be a cape to keep your neighbourhood safe.
And to that effect, none of its members were parahumans. The Guardians, as they were called, were all just normal people suited in power armour that made a normal person able to fight a cape without having powers.
And it was all normal tech, not a single piece was tinkertech - as confirmed by Dragon, who was then slapped with all sorts of NDA's and restrictions against using the tech.
She'd been there at the rig when Armsmaster had received that news. His reaction to the fact that Dragon had access to such unique technology but couldn't share it was… interesting to say the least.
No one knew how many guardians there were, but some estimated they were in the hundreds. There were rumours that DoD or some other military branch had dealings with Vanguard, but it was never proven.
"... may guardians would be coming to the bay?"
Annette blinked, then realized she had lost herself in thought.
"What?"
Daemon repeated his question.
"Not that many, actually."
She shook her head.
"Vanguard prefers to send a small team first before then recruiting from the people of the city. They say it's so the guardians would have more of an emotional connection to their hometown and would do more to protect it."
Daemon's eyes widened at her words, and even Anastasia raised an eyebrow.
"They really said that?" She asked.
"Yeah," Annette said.
"That's bold." Daemon vocalized what they both were clearly thinking. And Annette had to agree; it was really bold. They had basically admitted that they were planning to manipulate their own guardians, using their feelings towards their hometown to make them fight harder.
It was blunt, to say the least.
"…The Maker has been seen boarding a helicopter going towards Brockton Bay!"
Annette's head snapped towards the Television even as she heard Daemon speak. "Who's that?"
Her thoughts raced as she ignored the boy-turned-girl.
The Maker?!
She knew that name; it had come up when she had been first onboarded as a PRT hero, and then occasionally whenever Vanguard came up, especially in the last few months when Brockton Bay negotiated a place in the line to have them expand to the city.
The Maker was known to be the head of the Guardians.
Many suspected him to be the parahuman who designed the power suit that the Guardians used, but it has never been proven. But it was known that the Maker had incredible influence within the Guardians, to the point that they listened more to him than anyone else in Vanguard.
She suddenly realized that she was once again losing herself in her thoughts and snapped herself out of it. She looked towards the other two and filled the other two in on who exactly the Maker was.
Daemon frowned, "What exactly did this Maker do to get that much influence over the Guardians? Surely it wasn't all from developing their suits?"
"The Maker is more than just the person who designed the suits," Annette explained. "He was one of the founding members of Vanguard, and from everything the PRT has gathered, he helped shape how the organization operates. The Guardians listen to him more than they listen to almost anyone else."
Daemon frowned. "Even local authorities?"
"Sometimes." Annette sighed. "That's one of the things the PRT doesn't like about them. Vanguard is very independent. They cooperate with governments, but they don't exactly answer to them."
Anastasia tilted her head. "And the people in power simply agree to this?"
"For the most part."
"That seems rather trusting."
"Or they know something the PRT doesn't," Daemon pointed out.
Anastasia glanced at Daemon and nodded silently, acknowledging he had a point. "Or they know something you don't," She echoed him.
Annette nodded. "That's what the PRT has been trying to figure out."
Daemon was silent for a moment. "There is one thing I don't get," he started, and the two women looked over him. Annette saw him bite his lip for a moment before he spoke, "Why is this Vanguard allowed so much leeway? Aren't there laws against this or something? Those NEPEA-5 laws?"
"NEPEA-5?" Annette repeated.
Daemon nodded. "Yeah. Doesn't that put restrictions on organizations like Vanguard?"
"It does," Annette admitted. "On parahumans. Vanguard found a way around most of them."
"By not being parahumans," Anastasia said, finishing the thought.
"Exactly."
Annette folded her hands in her lap. "Most of the restrictions in NEPEA-5 are built around parahuman activity. Licensing, employment, compensation, liability, the use of powers in certain professions…" She shrugged. "Maker's Guardians don't have powers. They're legally just civilians wearing extremely advanced protective equipment."
Daemon's brow furrowed. "So, the fact that their suits let them fight capes doesn't matter?"
"Not legally, apparently."
"That is insane."
For a few seconds, the room fell quiet, and the only sounds that existed were the humming from the various technologies scattered across this living room and that of Daemon's fidgeting.
In fact, Annette noted, Daemon had been fidgeting for a while now, subtly tugging at the neckline of the oversized sweater before grimacing and shifting again.
"It gets worse," the brown-haired woman continued a few moments later. "Because their technology isn't tinkertech. Dragon confirmed that herself. So they don't fall under any of the usual regulations surrounding parahuman-developed technology either."
Anastasia raised an eyebrow. "So they have managed to create technology capable of putting an ordinary person on the battlefield with a cape, and because the person inside the armour is technically just a civilian, there isn't much anyone can do about it."
Annette sighed. "That's the simplified version."
"And what about the Maker himself?" Daemon asked, grimacing once more for a moment before continuing what he was saying. "Why hasn't the book been thrown at him yet?" He asked, before his hand reached down beneath the sweater. reached beneath the fabric, fiddling with something hidden underneath.
"Because we don't really know if he's a tinker or just really frickin' smart," Annette said, idly noting what Daemon was doing. "His technology has been proven to not be tinkertech, and replicable by normal people, and that is like the only measure there to identify Tinkers."
Well, aside from taking a scan of the Maker's head and looking for a Corona Pollentia or Gemma. But the Maker was far too important a man politically for someone to even consider asking the man to submit to one such scan.
Annette suddenly paused, hearing an audible click – and glanced at Daemon.
"Sounds like a loophole." Daemon continued talking as if nothing had happened, even as his hand moved beneath the sweater. There was a faint rustle of fabric, which was followed by another tiny movement.
A moment later, the tiniest groans of relief hit her ears as she heard Daemon's mutter. "Much better…" As he pulled out a large sky-blue, almost turquoise bra from one of the sleeves and idly threw it to the side.
Annette blinked, and her brows furrowed. She had seen Daemon do plenty of strange things while transformed, but the way he had done that, probably not even realizing what he was doing, was very… woman-like, to say the least.
He simply tossed the bra onto the arm of another chair and settled back down, looking noticeably more comfortable.
Annette said nothing. She was still trying to decide what was stranger, the fact that Daemon had done that so naturally or the fact that he hadn't noticed it at all.
It was sheer instinct, she realized. The instinct of this blonde woman whose body he was now inhabiting.
What more does he inherit from his forms, she wondered.
"Annette?" Anastasia probed, having not noticed what Annette herself had. To her, the brown-haired woman had suddenly gone silent.
Annette blinked before remembering what she had been saying. "It is," She continued, "and a very large one."
"Are they the only ones using it?" Anastasia asked, finishing the tea she was drinking and elegantly placing the cup back onto the saucer
"Not on this scale." Annette glanced toward the window. "That is another reason the PRT is keeping a close eye on them. If Vanguard proves that this works, there is nothing stopping other groups from doing something similar."
Vanguard was already skirting several laws, but with how important they were getting, those same laws were getting harder and harder to enforce on them. The fact that any villain organization would be able to just ignore laws and have them not apply to them just because of how important they were… the implications were horrifying.
And Vanguard and, to a lesser extent, Uppercrust, already did that.
Anastasia hummed. "So the problem isn't merely that Vanguard exists."
"No." Annette shook her head. "The problem is what happens if everyone decides they can build their own little army."
Daemon whistled softly. "Yeah. I can see why you'd be worried."
Annette smiled at him.
Daemon stayed silent for a moment before shrugging. "Well, I suppose we'll find out soon enough."
He pushed himself up from the chair, and before Annette could ask what he was doing, a wave of silver light consumed him – fading away after a few moments to reveal the grey-eyed, black-haired boy she knew as Daemon's boy form.
[Lucy Heartfilia >>> Daemon Targaryen]
He flinched as soon as he turned back to normal, suddenly noticing that hew as missing his underwear. It was just gone, even when the rest of the clothes from last night – from before he had turned into Talia – were perfectly intact.
He turned to look at Annette, about to ask what happened to it, but couldn't find the words needed.
"Although before you go anywhere," Anastasia said, standing up after him and pulling out her wand, "I'd like to have another look at you." Now that he was back in his normal form, she wanted to scan him, not just to check if he was truly alright, but also to see how this boy's body changed under his transformations. Getting a baseline would surely yield a lot of data.
"Oh, come on."
"Humour me." Anastasia insisted.
Daemon sighed and crossed his arms. "Fine, just get it done quickly." He had things to do.
Anastasia nodded and waved her wand over him. Pale blue light shone from the tip of her wand as she ran it over her body. She did that for a minute or two before stepping back with a satisfied expression on her face. "You're recovering nicely. You seem to be a little tired, but other than that, there isn't anything wrong with you."
"Awesome," he grinned. That was more than good enough for him.
Annette frowned. "You shouldn't be going anywhere."
Daemon looked at her before glancing through the window outside, his eyes landing on the evening sky. "I've spent most of today unconscious, and I have shit to do." He still had to go to the hardware store to buy the parts to complete the cooling system of his computer setup.
His stomach suddenly grumbled, and he realized that he hadn't eaten anything since yesterday evening – and he was fucking hungry.
Anastasia smiled faintly. "At least try not to exhaust yourself again."
"No promises." He smirked before making his way towards the door leading out of the house. He walked past the dining table and idly noticed that Elijah hadn't picked up the package he'd had Daemon make.
"Daemon."
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. He turned around to look at Annette.
"Be careful." She spoke.
For a moment, he simply looked at her, then he gave her a small smile.
"Always."
The door opened.
A moment later, Daemon was gone.