At least five different groups were trying to save the world. Victoria’s was now among them. She and Chris, Lab Rat, were chasing down the bloody road of biology and transcending Earth and humanity both, more as an emergency clause than anything else. If she had any say in it at all, she wanted to at least preserve the good and healthy parts of humans and humanity, whether they used the emergency measure or not.

And that preservation necessitated that she have a handle on what ‘good’ and ‘healthy’ were. Failing with Hunter made her less confident in that regard.

Saying yes elicited many of the same doubts.

“Yes,” she said it, quiet. She felt the slight change in Mark’s grip as his faith faltered as well. She indicated the door, where Marquis and Dot were standing. “But I’m coming. This is going to be messy.”

From Within 16.z

Now

I’ve surrounded myself with lunatics and the mentally ill.

Hunter, in her ‘powered’ state, had control over her power but less control over herself. Her eyes were too wide, revealing the whites, and she had almost stepped outside without the proper clothing, before they’d brought her back and made her pick something better. As much as regret chewed at Amy’s middle and false hopes stabbed and tugged at her heart, having Hunter close was reassuring. She’d had to put measures into place to ensure that Hunter wouldn’t attack her if an attempt at healing her personality rebounded, and it meant Hunter was loyal, reliable in her own way. The silhouette of Hunter, the shape of the face and color of her hair, it allowed Amy to have the periodic moment of feeling like she was still in the old days, Victoria just a few paces away.

Like Victoria but shorter, narrower, more of an elfin frame than an athlete’s. Like Victoria, but a Victoria that could disappear in a wave of snowflakes if that snow around them blew any harder. She was constantly moving, getting ahead of the group, turning to face them while walking backwards, turning forward and creating those black razor-lines, then hopping up onto them, to try walking them like one might walk a tightrope, until her attempts saw her fall behind, at which point she bounded forward again.

Like Victoria when Victoria had been ten and playing at being superheroes, but wearing a body like Victoria at thirteen or fourteen, if she’d never gotten into basketball or running.