I'm not sure how I kept myself from reflexively jumping to Taylor's side, but a couple little things tickled my brain. One, she was texting in complete sentences, so she likely didn't have Lung charging down on her right now, and two:

what fucking kids are out :VC

at 1am? :VC

Still, I made sure I was suited up and started heading in her direction out at the docks; if I could creep up and not appear in a flash of light all the better, and she was texting, not fighting. Texting was good.

…plus it gave the adrenaline something to do rather than just stew in my veins and fuck with my head.

Now, I ran pretty fucking fast nowadays, but I was only two fucking miles away from my cape pad before I finally got a response.

Skitter: ….point

Skitter: but still, house invasion?

*Really?* :VC

Skitter: :P

I had gotten perhaps another mile when my phone vibrated again.

Skitter: need hlp

Skitter: cape fgh

Right as I took the texts in I saw an explosion of light from the docs far ahead and teleported reflexively. The light from Lung's fire was blinding but the chakra cycling through my eyes showed me Taylor's body flying backwards, away from a seven-foot dragon-kin Lung with—

…was that Taylor's arm in his hands that he just turned to ash?

Something pounded in my veins more potent than any adrenaline rush I'd ever felt. Time slowed as the arm charred and flaked away. I took a heavy step forward and I could see the cape swivel ever-so-slightly to orient on me. My eyes blurred with tears and I saw red as I realized I only had moments until Taylor bled out. I needed to hurry, I needed Lung away from her. Or dead.

My arm had already been coming up and I had been considering launching a chidori spear as all of this was still sinking in. The burn of chakra through my body twisted just so as my hand reached center mass on Lung and a half-dozen chains erupted from my palm and forearm.

Lung didn't do anything to stop them, obviously assuming either his scaled torso would block them or he'd merely regenerate the wounds away.

All six chains took him in the chest and punched through like he was made of paper, carrying his body back as they continued down the street. The fires around him snuffed immediately and I could suddenly see past him where ABB gang members were firing at a partially-collapsed building even as black smoke billowed out of it. The Undersiders could fucking deal, I needed—

I was at Taylor's side in a shunshin, the chains dissipating in puffs of smoke. She stirred but didn't rise and I checked her over. No obvious cuts in her bodysuit except for her arm…

…her three arms!?

"Taylor!" I hissed and felt heartened when those yellow lenses turned to me. "How do you have extra arms?"

"Gre—Cowboy…" she moved a little quicker, taking my hand and pulling herself upright and leaning heavily on my shoulder, "'s med frm chitin, bug strrge." Fuck, I hope that wasn't a concussion. I could see myself buying medical ninjutsu as soon as we got the hell out of here. With her upright, verbal, and in possession of normal numbers of limbs my desire to murder the dragon cooled. Slightly.

Now that she was upright I turned us and found Lung struggling to his feet. Fire began licking around him again and he had grown almost another foot as his arms likewise lengthened, but the wounds in his torso were still bloody and gaping, barely knitting as he hunched over.

"Muh… Motherfucker!" he managed through a savaged chest.

"Tay, d'you have any poisonous insects?"

The extra second or two seemed to have helped her a bit, she was holding more of her own weight now. "Yeah."

"I'm gonna put out his fire, then you hit him and everyone else." I pulled on all of the water I could, especially the sources beneath our feet.

A vaguely-serpentine body formed from the fetid water streaming from the sewers and storm drains near us and slammed into the gang leader like a train. I heard something crack, but whether any of it was him I couldn't tell and didn't care. This time the attack carried him back far enough he knocked over two of his guys and disrupted the attack as they turned to see what the commotion was.

And then Taylor hit them with a biblical plague. The already dark street was rendered pitch black from insect bodies and screams broke out and were quickly choked off. Shouts in both English and at least one language I didn't recognize followed as they apparently found a gap between buildings to escape down. The cloud of creepy-crawlies dispersed and Lung was nowhere to be found, so he either ran or was carried away.

I was still supporting Taylor as we walked closer to the building where the Undersiders were presumably holed up. Even with the danger gone—I was pretty sure I could take the Undersiders without breaking a sweat—I was seething that this particular station of canon was unavoidable because of these assholes. Enhancing my voice with chakra a bit I called out. "The ABB is gone, so you can scurry back to whatever hole you crawled out of. Next time you decide to piss off Lung, keep everyone else out of it and either stand up and fight or fuck off and die."

There was a flicker of something that I just barely caught in the periphery of my vision and Taylor stumbled suddenly. Fucking Regent. I saw red and stamped my foot, channeling earth chakra and creating a fissure that collapsed the rest of the building's facade. I was so angry at the little pissant that I just fucking snarled and blasted killing intent at the revealed capes. Grue's darkness boiled out again to try and hide them, but fuck no they weren't going to be able to hide from me, Taylor being hurt was their fault.

The air release that I hit them with was the wind gale palm magnified by the anger that had been reignited by Alec's affront . The humans were thrown against the back wall and even Bitch's car-sized beasts hunched down and were shoved backwards half a foot or so. I was fully about to rip Regent's arm off and sodomize him with it when Taylor groaned softly, clutching me a bit tighter and my attention turned immediately to her. "We're leaving," I whispered to her and teleported us back to my hideout.

Within seconds of our arrival I started stripping the top of her costume off her and checking for injuries. Her torso had a Lung-fist-shaped bruise on the front and a couple random bruises on her back where the armor plates hadn't covered. The forearms and hands of the bodystocking were singed and burnt through in places and the skin underneath looked burnt—but not horribly so, thank fuck. She helped me get her mask of without jarring her head too much and I probed gently through her thick hair for head wounds. There didn't seem to be any bleeding, but she hissed when my fingers ran over a sizable goose egg on the back of her skull. Some of her hair had also crisped, now that we were free of the faintly rotten sea-smell of the Docks the stench of burnt hair was obvious.

Fuck, I doubt I could get into the right mindset to get back to the options and buy healing and even the idea of making her wait while she was hurt and possibly concussed while I tried to relax, get a new ability, and try and discover how to use it hit me with another spike of adrenaline. No, she needed healing now.

"Tay, I want you to bite me and drink my blood."

I felt her jerk in my arms and immediately flinch as her head probably hurt worse. "Fucking what?"

"My energy speeds up healing, but as lovely as you are I'm not feeling like sex right now, so you can get it through blood instead."

She sat up and pulled my own mask off and looked into my eyes for a long moment. I did the same, trying to convey my worry to her without words. I was about to offer my arm or neck to her when she leaned forwards and took my lip between her teeth, worrying at it for a moment before biting down sharply.

I managed to stifle my hiss of pain and started cycling more chakra to the area. Christ, I was always such a baby about pain I knew was coming. Taylor made a confused noise and ground her teeth in a bit harder, sucking at my bleeding lip. I could almost hear her swallow with how close our faces were and I wondered if I'd have a new tattoo on my face from this. Something inside, deep in my belly, told me that it would be worth it if it did.

After two-ish minutes of vamping me as I tried to stimulate by body to create more blood she pulled back with crimson lips and teeth and blinked at me repeatedly. "That's…" she shivered a bit and her cheeks dusted pink. "It's working." She pulled me to her and laid her head on my shoulder. I could feel her start crying and shaking and rubbed her back as a few hot tears escaped my eyes as well. I couldn't lie to myself about it—I had caught serious feelings for Taylor and was about to murder Lung until I realized he hadn't taken her real arm, and was unduly pissed at Regent for fucking around—again, because he messed with my woman. Fuck.

I levered both of us upright and we finished stripping each other. Taylor kissed me and threaded her fingers through mine, squeezing hard as she wiped at her face with her other hand and tried to compose herself. "The full face mask's a good idea, I can see where the eye thing would bother people."

….huh? "What eye thing?"

She pointed to her own eyes confusedly and made swirly motions with her finger so I picked her up and quick-stepped into the bathroom. Even with just the light filtering in from the main room the swirling tomoe of the Sharingan were obvious. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried diverting the chakra flow and opened them again. Then again. And again.

It took an entire minute, maybe two, of shuffling energy around to turn the fucking things off, and another couple of seconds to figure out how to turn them back on again. Taylor had squirmed out of my arms and was leaning against my back and over my shoulder as I kept my face inches from the mirror. "I'm thinking that's new if you're this confused about it."

Flicking my eyes down to my lips and finding only an already-fading set of tooth marks, I leaned my forehead against the glass and heaved a sigh. "D'you remember dorky anime-loving Greg from two weeks ago? 'Cause I'm about to be dorky anime Greg."

Tay's giggle was a little hysterical. Adrenaline comedown and realization that she was within claw range of Lung, maybe? "Go ahead, I want to hear all about it."

Bending my arm behind me, I pinched her butt and after she jumped off grabbed her and carried her into the shower stall that I had outfit like the one I made in Vicky's hideaway. While I washed her I gave her a vague rundown about my chakra I got to my brand of eye infection and paused.

"It happens when something with severe—normally negative—emotional impact happens to someone the person cares about."

Taylor looked down at me as I knelt and washed her legs and I could see the gears spinning as her eyes got wider and wider. "Greg…" she squeaked. I just raised both eyebrows and gave her a 'Yeah, I said what you think I said' look. Luckily I had finished washing the rest of her because she almost threw herself at me as I stood, wrapping herself around me like a silk cocoon around a spider's prey. She buried her head in my shoulder and just grabbed on, so I dried us off and walked back to hold her on the futon. I ran my hand through her hair and felt for the bump she had, which had already almost disappeared and let her think.

She was silent for quite awhile before she pulled back and smushed my face between her hands. "What exactly made you get those eyes?"

"I thought Lung had ripped off your arm. I had a million thoughts go through my head but one was I had to get Lung away so I could hopefully get to you and save you before you bled out." I shrugged, "I also wanted to fucking kill him for hurting you, just like when Regent made you trip. I kinda went a bit crazy."

Blinking back some tears from escaping, Taylor leaned in and kissed me hard. "Sleep with me tonight?"

I gave my girlfriend a wan smile even as my desire to wrap her up and keep her here with me flickered through my mind. "I'll have to run us back to your house, I left a mark a block or so away."

We dressed in some non-cape clothes—Taylor in my t-shirt and underwear and me going commando in my jeans—and I took her in my arms and flashed to the same roof I had spied on her from earlier. Luckily Danny was still asleep and we made it inside and under the covers in moments. You'd think we'd still be too keyed up to sleep immediately but Taylor pushed me on my back and burrowed her head against my shoulder and fell asleep seconds after she got comfortable. I did feel a bit restless—like I had forgotten to do something—before I used both my water sensing and chakra sensing to make sure the area was clear. There was only one other human-water-sack in the area where Danny should be. With that assurance that Taylor and I were in no danger tension I hadn't even noticed I felt relaxed and I fell asleep.

My alarm softly chimed in the morning after way too little sleep. I wasn't physically tired—after taking Uzumaki I hadn't found a time I really even broke a sweat—but I was mentally pretty beat. I poked Taylor awake and had to admit she was pretty cute when she was grumpy. Telling her that just made her more grumpycute, but I didn't poke the living beehive any more than that, checking her head injury (gone, hooray!), then flashing home and getting dressed after kissing her.

Pan: There's an issue with your semen

Pan: I need more for unholy experiments

At least you're honest :VC

This afternoon? :VC

Pan: Yep, lemme know when you're free

Pan: sexy_selfie dot jay peg

…well wasn't she a sweet talker? And she finally learned how not to give me a heart attack.

I had coffee for Taylor when she stepped off the bus. No skirt today, but her hair was up in double-buns that I really liked, probably to hide the mis-matched length until she could get it trimmed. She took the cup and chugged it before snagging my hand as we walked. "Ugh."

"Your head?"

"No, apparently being a vampire healed me completely." She bumped her shoulder against me and smiled, but it fell off her face as she continued, "I spent the entire morning since you left going over all of the dumb decisions I made last night. At least I let you mark me."

The noise I made in response to that mental image must've been amusing, because the side-eye she shot me was super suspicious. "Is this a dorky anime Greg thing?"

"Yeah, the placement reminds me of a womb tattoo."

I saw her partially mouth that and pull out her phone. Despite not looking up she navigated perfectly fine next to me as we made our way slowly up to the second floor. By the time she looked up to open her locker she had apparently read enough because she leaned towards me a bit and murmured, "And you promise it doesn't do anything other than let you find me?"

"On my life. I can find general directions and teleport to you, that's it."

Gathering her books and locking the door we walked past Emma for the second time and paid just as much attention to her. Today we had classes together for most of the day so we continued in and sat down as we continued talking.

"I guess that's fine then," Taylor said then pitched her voice down a bit. "Besides, you marked me as yours when you came inside me that first time, anyhow."

…I managed to contain my conquering roar luckily for everyone else in the room, but my blood pounded in my ears at that declaration. It obviously showed on my face as her own broke out into a somewhat-embarrassed but wide smile with rosy cheeks.

After that start to the morning I couldn't've told you what went on in class for the life of me because I had some vivid fantasies of claiming Taylor on every surface in the building and knocking her up with a million babies before climbing up to the roof to bellow my victory to the entire Bay. I do remember Emma approaching after first period with a bitchy look and her swiftly turning around as I turned my attention on her.

Lunch rolled around and somehow we were on the roof. I threw up the genjutsu I had taken to using and started digging in to my bag for food when Taylor climbed on my lap. "Greg?" she paused and thought for a moment. "Honey?"

I blinked like coming out of a fog and smiled at her, "What, Tay?"

Rolling her eyes fondly she kissed me. "You like went all caveman during first period and stayed there. I think you might've made Emma pee herself."

"Fuck," I groaned, massaging my temples, "you just like, hammered a fetish of mine. I seriously wanted to roar and beat my chest and maybe throw you down and take you in the middle of class."

Giggling, Taylor kissed me hard and popped her sneakers off. "Let's eat first big boy, then I'm yours."

I'm not gonna claim I inhaled my food like a ravenous beast, but, well… In any case we finished up and Taylor finished stripping off both jeans and panties, then leaned back on one elbow and hesitantly played with herself, dipping a finger in to show me how wet she was. Her face was tomato-red despite her hooded eyes—she was blasting full-speed-ahead in exploring, but what recently-bullied teenaged girl was used to being sexual like this?—as she hiked her legs up. "Greg," she said with a faux-innocent tone, "I saw something else when I was looking up womb tattoos. Can you show me what a 'mating press' is?"

I did growl this time and pounced on the most willing of victims and showed her exactly what she was missing. All of the worry that I had carried for her since last night evaporated as she ran her fingers through my hair and kissed me like she needed me more than air. I sheathed myself in her and did my damnedest to bury every millimeter of my cock in her steaming-hot depths.

Neither of us lasted long—I held on until Taylor came by sheer refusal to cum first and make myself look bad. Afterwards she cuddled up next to me and almost dozed a bit as she held her hand over my mark. I kissed her head and let her rest and pulled out my phone to check over PHO. I wondered if some things would continue the way they had in canon…

…not exactly, but close, as it turned out. Instead of a mysterious posting in the 'Connections' section, I had a private message.

Tt: I apologize for last night; tensions were running a bit high.

Tt: We'd like to thank your friend for jumping in though. Do they have an account?

Why in the hell was Tattletale apologizing to me? Was she actually capable of that?

…that was mean of me, she wasn't a caricature of a bitch. Still, it seemed different, and different could be bad—look at what happened last night.

I let Taylor rest until it was time to head back to class and informed her of what I had read. She snapped her fingers. "That's what I forgot to do last night! I was going to do the pose with a newspaper thing to verify myself. Will you help me do it right after school?" When I agreed she beamed at me, then hid behind me for a second before we walked into class. Once we were in the room she slid past Madison and rubbed a suspiciously wet finger under the smaller girl's nose and kept moving with a wicked little smile on her face.

Madison's notebook was filled with some interesting doodles by the end of class. She didn't get any of them fulfilled—although I did like the one where I (or I think it was a sketch of me) had a bouquet of schlongs impaling her while Taylor beat her with a riding crop.

Aaaaanyhow, after school she got a second taste from Taylor and then we mysteriously disappeared via my teleportation. We hopped to my hideout and this time I actually paid attention to her costume. As she had slurred to me the night before she had two (one, now) bug-like legs attached to her back and curving around the middle of her torso, sticking out a bit. She had used them to store bugs so she could keep some especially nasty stingers on hand and rested instead of using up precious energy keeping up with her.

"But how did you make them?" I asked. Flipping my Sharingan on I was able to make out more detail. It looks like—"

"I merged exoskeletons together with your charka's help." She funneled bugs in from somewhere and showed me, the myriad of little bodies flowing into a larger shaped form. "See?"

"…chakra," I corrected lamely. Vicky got stronger and faster, Amy could self-change, but Taylor turned into Amy-with-bugs? I thought she'd go Khepri, or move up the brain-chain from bugs to like squirrels and birds or something, not do this weird zig-zag to bug-bio-tinkering.

In just a few minutes' work she was well on her way to recreating the lost leg and adjusting the first one so they arched over her shoulders instead of coming down between her arms and legs. "This started going a lot faster yesterday after whatever change happened to your energy. You said it got denser I think—anyway it lasts longer now. Ooh, a hornet's nest is upstairs!"

I ended up sitting back and watching and chatting with her as she took over the small card table and chair I had and kicked her legs as bugs crawled in and sacrificed themselves for chitin. That she had tossed her pants onto my head and was sitting there in panties surprisingly had little to do with it—she just seemed so happy that I enjoyed watching her work. After she was done I used some water manipulation to wash the sweat from last night out of her costume for her and she pulled it on. The hand sections still showed patches of skin, but mostly on the sides and palms, which could be worked around for now. Some teleportation, a newspaper, and bugs formed into the letters 'SQ' behind her and Swarm Queen (well, Swarm_Queen if you wanna be technical) was a verified cape on PHO.

We had discussed the message from Tattletale and against my better judgement Taylor had messaged the villain back and agreed to meet in costume. I was completely against her meeting them at all and my fallback position of going with her and standing guard the entire time didn't seem to impress her much either. Accusing me of being a chauvinist pig did give me enough pause that she could worm her way up into my personal space and kiss me a couple of times until I calmed down. At least she agreed to take precautions and check in with me, and I had been brutally honest in my assessments of the Undersiders. I swear, if she joined up with them….

After dropping her off I texted Amy and ended up swinging by the fancier part of town to pick her up. When we arrived back at my place I eyed the gallon jug in her hand. "I'm not filling that up, bee-tee-dubs."

Amy shot me a 'you're a jerk' look and punched the (full) container into my belly. "I got it for you so you'd stay hydrated you tool." She blushed when I kissed the top of her head and moved off to put her backpack down. She touched the table and paused. "You have a bug infestation… no, way too many. That bug controller?"

"Yep, she's going by 'Swarm Queen'. And by the way I'm kinda on standby if she runs into trouble, so I might blue-ball you temporarily as I flash out."

She gave an affirmative hum, stripped off her shirt and shimmied out of her bra before turning to root through her bag which did lovely things to her breasts. After finding what she was looking for she flopped down next to me and started fishing my cock out. I grabbed the object and came up with a fucking big graduated cylinder and got nothing more than an smirk from poking her in the face with it. "Really?"

Amy ignored me and concentrated on sucking my dick. It occurred to me that this was the first time she'd taken my dick in her mouth when it wasn't posing for pictures or while I was genderbending. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that she took her time and didn't get a whole lot in her mouth. I also wouldn't claim she cheated (in her earshot, anyhow), but I did find it interesting that I suddenly started feeling like I was about to cum right around the time it looked like her jaw started to hurt.

She pulled back and jerked me, my shaft slick from the slobbery job she had done. "Lots of chakra," she panted, holding her other hand out for the cylinder. She slid her tongue around the head for a moment as I did her bidding then swallowed the first couple of blasts greedily before capturing the rest.

After I filled the cylinder—and while I came a lot, I normally didn't cum a liter—she nursed a world-record cumshot out of me before turning around and laying back against my thigh and sticking her finger in her collected sample.

I pet her hair as she worked and watched as the pearly cum changed into something clearer and much reduced, then again into… gel caps? Amy rolled up my leg and chest and cuddled into my side, grinning toothily. "Guess what I made!"

"Something like those pills you put in hot water and they turn into dino sponges, except the dino sponge is my cum?"

Amy burst out laughing so hard she snorted like a pig, then tried to punch me when I snickered at her. Her noodly arms and lack of breath from her continuing snort-laughs meant she did absolutely no damage, but I found it amusing all the same. She recovered after a few minutes and covered my mouth. "No you ass, they're soldier pills." Swirling them around in the beaker she continued. "Not for you, I doubt it'd work, but for me or Vicky. Or Queenie."

As if summoned by her name, my phone dinged and I reached over to grab it. Amy scrambled to tuck me back in my pants, but I stopped her. "That wasn't the emergency tone, don't get my dick stuck in the zipper." I checked the message. "Ah, she's done, just wants a pickup." I paused and looked over at her. "Is that going to be a problem if I bring her back here?"

I couldn't completely categorize the emotions that played over Amy's face. "No. Will I be a problem for you?"

"Shouldn't be, she knows I'm a manwhore."

Amy waved me on and I flashed to Taylor, who was chilling on a rooftop. "How'd it go?"

"You pissed Tattletale off without even being there," Taylor commented, pulling some bugs into her storage arms. She took my hand and pulled herself upright. "You guessed exactly what she was going to ask. She apparently read that from me and it annoyed the hell out of her, but not so much that she didn't want to to know that they didn't appreciate your assistance as well." Brushing her butt off she cocked a hip and thought a bit. "They all looked pretty banged up as well—they had rips in their costumes and all of them were standing funny, like their bruises hurt. Grue was right next to Regent the entire time, but Bitch seemed like she wanted a fight until Grue and Tattletale stepped in, then turned away and pretended I didn't exist. Tattles was pretty insistent that she not fuck around and try to play dominance games."

"…huh. She's going to some length to not make waves with either of us." That was a head scratcher, but not one I was willing to deal with at the moment. "Panacea is at the fuckpartment, is that a problem?"

I couldn't see if she had a bunch of emotions on her face, but I got a slap on my ass and a 'giddyup', so I took it as a no. Flashing back, Amy was sitting on the futon and stood awkwardly as I made introductions between 'Swarm Queen' and 'Panacea.'

"Amy is fine, really!" she said as soon as I finished, waving a hand. She reached out and touched Taylor's glove and got some skin contact and blinked, then immediately snagged a sleeve and started pulling the taller girl away. "Uhhhh, gir—cape talk! Go… do something else. Or something."

Ah fuck. "No fighting!"

All I got back was "Of course not you idiot!"

I pinged them and they were up a floor and slightly apart from each other. There really didn't seem to be any fighting going on. I guess I could eavesdrop, but listening in on people talking about me in more of a personal way made me cringe internally. I sighed and flashed to my parents' house and fired up PHO on my computer. There were a number of shaky videos of Taylor's original attack on Lung, and honestly after reviewing them I hadn't given her enough credit. She hadn't attacked from far enough back in my opinion—I would have been at the edges of my range in her shoes—but she had been out of sight and hit the shirtless Changer with a wave of nasties that had quite possibly clawed out his eyes before being barbecued in a small explosion. At that point he had apparently used his hearing to track her as she led him on a chase before using a burst of speed to catch her as she doubled back to check on the Undersiders. Her retaliatory strike to try and get him to release her had gone in his mouth and eyeholes and led to the blast and punch that had caused my entrance.

From a third-person view the chains I launched looked less like, well, chains and more like a braided whip, or maybe the pattern of snakeskin—in any case they were cylindrical and not thin with big holes like actual chains. That all of the videos looked like they were shot using a potato by someone with palsy did nothing to give anyone a better look either. Also I looked like a fucking maniac attacking and shattering the front of a building and beating up on the defenseless-seeming capes no one had really ever heard of. Kind of a clusterfuck all around.

I went ahead and posted in the thread, namedropping Swarm Queen and explaining that it was her first patrol and I was seriously worried when that first patrol involved encountering Lung, which hopefully would go a decent way towards explaining why there was so little yee in my haw last night.

Skitter: hey, where are you?

Pan: come back, things are fine

Pan: But bring a big sack of rice

…? :VC

Walking into an Aisan grocery was interesting—as a blonde white boy I'd get a fair amount of attention normally, but I'm pretty sure I was under ABB scrutiny the entire time I was near Asiatown. Back at my lair both capes were sitting on the futon and—"Uh, you unmasked already?"

Taylor shrugged at me. "You mentioned the other day that Amy'd likely be able to figure out who someone was or if they were a cape by touching them anyhow."

Flipping the chair around I went ahead and pulled my own mask off. "Yeah, but I hadn't mentioned that to her at all." Taylor looked abashed as I glanced over at Amy. "Are we doing first names now?"

The little healer smirked at me. "We are. Mine's Amy, by the way."

Moving my gaze back to Taylor I gave her the flattest, most unimpressed look I could. "I blame you for this." Back once again to Amy. "Greg." I pointed over to the rice. "I assume we're not cooking this, so what's up?"

Rolling off the futon, Amy pulled a little knife from her bag and slit the sack open, stuck her hand in, and started pulling out pieces of chitin. "Alright, these are based on the bugs you showed me, can you do anything with them Taylor?"

My girlfriend also got up and ran her hand over my shoulder as she walked by. Since it looked like everyone was going to be at the table I got up as well and joined them.

Taylor was sticking fake exoskeletons together and molding them when I came up. I watched her for a second and then looked down at Amy. And by down I meant down. Taylor was pretty much on height with me at 5'9" or so, but I hadn't really realized exactly how short Panacea was. She looked up at me curiously and I smirked at her. "'Sup shortstack?"

She looked at me and turned to Taylor before realizing she was a least half a foot shorter and pouted. I expected she was about to bring out the crocodile tears and demand a gallon of cum to try and boost her height when Taylor interrupted by poking her with what looked like an armor plate. "So here's what I was going to create."

Amy took it and something changed in the color and reflectivity of the piece before handing it back. "Okay, can you change them to be like that?"

"Uh…" Taylor propped a hip on the table. "Maybe, but I'm running out of power." She paused as Amy ran over to her beaker and pulled out a pill and handed it to her. "And this is…?"

"It's a soldier pill—from the same anime that Greg's powers are modeled on. It should give you a boost of chakra like drinking from the tap. Swallow and it should dissolve in like ten seconds."

Mostly controlling her blush, Taylor popped it in her mouth and dry-swallowed. She looked over at me. "So Amy knows about the eye thing too?" she asked, then twitched as the chakra load hit her. "Whoa."

The shorter brunette whirled on me and got up on her tip-toes for all the good that did her. "Eyes? What eyes?"

I sighed and did the thing that turned my Sharingan on, then immediately dodged back out of range when the girl went for my hair. "No—you're a fucking Sasuke fangirl, aren't you?"

With absolutely no shame she put her hands on her hips and nodded. "He's so cool looking!"

"What the fuck you Sakura-wannabe. In real life he'd be a stuck-up asshole."

"You don't know that. Just let me do your hair like his and…"

I henged into early-model Sasuke with the sexy white shorts and funky collar on the shirt. Regarding the girl with dispassionate eyes I crossed my arms. "Hn." You'd think I'd've expected the high-pitched squeal and little tappy-claps she did.

"Come here and let me see the eyes." She leaned forward and mashed her breasts together and gave me the doe eyes. "Please?"

"Tch." I ignored the second squeal—it started high and quickly went out of my range of hearing anyhow—and walked over to the fangirling healer. Taylor looked confused so as Amy fondled her 'Sasuke-kun' I gave my girlfriend a quick rundown on the guy.

"He sounds like a jerk."

I laughed. "I agree, but apparently he's considered less of one in Japan—Aleph Japan at least." Looking down at my groper I did my best constipated frown. "So… about my chakra in other people…"

Amy seemed to enjoy looking at the spinning tomoe quite a bit and was rubbing her thighs together. Weird girl. "Yeah?"

"I shiki-marked Taylor, which is how I got to her so fast last night. It's not gonna cause issues, is it?"

"I hope not," Taylor cut in, frowning at the plate she was holding. "I kind of like it now." Reaching down with one hand she popped the button of her jeans and slid them down enough that the mark peeked out from her panties.

Of course the little lesbian in front of me immediately zeroed in on the uncovered flesh and poked it with her finger. "You let him put a womb tattoo on you?"

Taylor's eyes shot to me and I smirked. "Yes, as I am dorky anime Greg, she's dorky anime Amy. Isn't that right, onee-san?"

The strangled sound from Amy made me laugh and she turned and got all huffy. "I was going to try and drop an onii-chan on you to see how you liked it you jerk." She shook her fist at me as I stage-whispered 'tsundere'then reached over and snagged the chair. "So I had noticed a little trickle of your chakra into Taylor, there could have been a couple of reasons for that, but I think this is what was actually going on. I guess the marks are linked to you?" She looked over and continued at my nod, "So you're establishing some kind of connection and in order to maintain itself you're broadcasting a bit of your energy. Not a lot, really, but it leaks to the rest of the body and might maintain the slight difference to our powers that we get. Maybe. I'm not sure it's enough quite yet, I'd have to see after a day or so when she got no nookie from you."

...let's pivot this conversation to something less about sex until I figure out what they talked about. "Speaking of chakra though, I've made seal tags. I can trigger them with a push of chakra, but can either of you do it I wonder." I unsealed a couple of tags and held up a Starch Syrup and explained what it was. "I push chakra into the little thumb-sized circle and there's a three-second timer. If you wanna test it, do it by the far wall."

"What, no kunai?"

"Do you have any idea how to throw a knife?" I laughed at her pout and disappeared behind the sheet and came back with a section of drywall, then stuck one to the other. I handed it to her and gave her a push towards the sheet. "There, see if you can trigger it and then frisbee the thing."

Leaving Amy to experiment I hugged Taylor. "Is everything actually okay?" I murmured softly.

She turned her head and kissed me. "Yeah. I like her, she's pretty cool. I wouldn't mind—" A wet splat and a startled scream cut her off and I dropped my head onto her shoulder with an amused snort.

"Heeeelp?"

It turns out that Amy could, in fact, trigger a seal tag. She just didn't get any feedback that she had, so she was still holding the thing when it splorched her. I suppose she could have changed the sticky liquid to regular water with her powers, but with her eyes glued shut from the facial she got she just seemed irritated and flustered by the whole thing. Taylor guided her to the bathroom while I cleaned up the mess and then started jutsu-washing Amy's clothes as they were tossed out to me.

Neither girl emerged from the bathroom as the shower started up although no more clothes got tossed. A minute or two later my name was called and I walked in to see them naked and kissing in the shower, Taylor having pinned the shorter girl's hands above her head. "Problem?"

Pulling her head back, my girlfriend looked over at me and frowned. "She tried to take control. I like being in control."

I started stripping my clothes off and watched them kiss again. "So what're you gonna do about it? Wanna pull a Specific_Protagonist?" Hearing an affirmative grunt from Taylor I created a bench against the far wall just out of the spray and then snagged the taller girl by the waist. Amy got a chain from my other arm wrapped around her wrists.

"Hey! Wait, what about S_P?"

Sitting Taylor on my lap I let her wiggle her way down my shaft as I kept Amy out of range. "See, Tay knows her as well and told her she needed to 'apologize'. She called the girl—let's call her Mary—up to the roof where we were sitting like this, just with clothes covering." I smiled at Amy with some fangs behind it. "Taylor told her she needed to show how sorry she was. What was it you told her, dear?"

Taylor blinked at me from behind steamed-up glasses, then over at the panting Amy. "Kneel."

The healer hurried up close and knelt, so Taylor got to do the foot-in-the-face again. I continued, "You see, Mary was also thirsty as fuck, but Tay made her suck her toes first."

That seemed to be totally cool with Amy, who skipped the licking part and went directly to mouthing Taylor's big toe while fondling the muscles on the back of her calf. Once again my girlfriend's pussy went crazy. She let it go on for a minute before pulling her foot back and sliding it down the other girl's body and using the top of her foot to rub Amy's pussy. "A better job than her, but I know what you want." I dropped the chain and Taylor pulled the brunette to us. "And just like I told that little slut, don't try to breathe, your job is to eat."

It didn't have the same impact that it did with Madison, but Amy still applied herself with enthusiasm. Her longer tongue let her lap at both my shaft and Taylor's slit and she was a messy eater. I also learned from experience and held the taller girl up a bit so I could stroke full-length. Amy even showed excellent initiative by pulling my cock free and sucking all of Taylor's wetness off of it and getting some from the source as well before lining us back up and tonguing my sack.

With a more-experienced cunnilinguist Taylor came much faster and quicker, and then a second time. As she came the third time I did as well, again like yesterday sliding out as Amy focused on devouring the other girl. This time though I settled down behind the healer and tapped my still-hard erection on her wiggling cheeks. "Mary didn't get this, though. Pussy or ass?"

Whipping her head back Amy moaned. "Ass!"

I smirked at Taylor over Amy's back and did a little henge. This was her first time seeing anything more than the tongue trick that I used to explain the ability to her and got some comically wide eyes but she only needed a second to figure out what I was doing. The rest of my charades took a couple of moments longer, but she seemed to get it and grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked the other girls' head back. "You don't get to decide, I do."

"But Tayl—uhhh… Mistress? Mistress, please?"

Smiling down, Taylor turned her uncomfortable hair pulling into a gentle pat. "No. You don't get anal. You get something better." Her eyes flicked to me where I had created the opposite of the sticky Starch Syrup—a slick lube. I nodded. "You get both."

Before the smaller girl could open her mouth both of my cocks nudged at her holes and began to slide in. The only thing Amy was able to muster was a gasp as her head flopped against Taylor's thigh and she drooled a bit.

I was about halfway in when Taylor called a stop. She was looking down at Amy and frowning disappointedly. "She doesn't get any more until she gets back to work."

Apparently that percolated into the healer's skull because she suddenly snapped to attention and dipped her head (and tongue) down, making the darker-haired girl squeak.

"Greg, she's eatingmyass!"

I pulled out a bit and then thrust in a bit faster before swatting at a cheek. "I think Amy's a buttslut!" I announced cheerfully.

Ignoring the noise from the body between us Taylor's eyes rolled in their sockets. "Mmm, I can tell. She—" she moaned when Amy curled an arm around her leg and stroked her clit as well. "—she might be better at it than with pussy."

After that there was no need to talk as I began to fuck Amy in earnest. I had a sneaking suspicion that the biotinker had made her ass super-sensitive like Vicky's had been yesterday. Her muffled scream into Taylor's ass after less than ten thrusts seemed to bear that out. In fact she may have miscalculated since she quickly turned from an active participant into a sex toy that I stuck my cocks in on one side to drive her tongue out into Taylor as she melted into a constant state of orgasm.

Amy's ass-eating and clit-stroking brought Taylor off hard, and the taller girl ended up pushing the healer away from her after she became too sensitive. Now that her head wasn't busy I pulled the busty girl up against my chest and stood up pounding into her and growling into her ear. "You're getting fucked in front of a girl you just met. A girl you just ate the ass of. You love it don't you?"

I got something that sounded like a yes, which was good enough for my purposes. "Cum while I'm cumming in your ass you slut!"

Amy managed a pleased groan as I came which quickly became a muffled series of cries as Taylor stood and mashed lips with the brunette. I could feel the taller girl's fingers playing around where Amy and I were joined as well, with Taylor cupping my balls and giving my sack an affectionate rub.

After coming down from her orgasm Amy nuzzled into both of our chests as we washed her, although she did seem to prefer Taylor's to mine. We flopped onto the futon in a pile and the healer played with Taylor's shiki-mark absently. "Are you going to mark me too, Greg?"

"Eh, I hadn't planned on it. I marked Taylor because I wanted to be able to get to her if something went bad on her first patrol." Giving the black-haired girl a stare over Amy's head I continued, "Y'know, exactly like what happened. I have no problem with doing you as well if you want, but this isn't one of those harem fanfics you probably write."

If my cock hadn't been nestled between her cheeks I would never have felt the reflexive tensing of her muscles when I mentioned fanfic. The thought that Panacea wrote smut amused me greatly. I wondered if any of the past week's experiences had made their way to the page yet.

Taylor pushed the shorter girl gently onto her back and placed a palm right above Amy's slit. "Can you make it look like something other than the hat, or like in addition to the hat?"

I nodded. "I can make it look like anything really, the important part is coded in the line work itself." Luckily the marking didn't need artistic talent on my side, all I had to do was picture what I wanted.

Amy was looking between us as we talked over her and Taylor tapped a soft tattoo right above her pubis. Being talked about like she had no choice in the matter seemed to agree with her; her nipples were hard as rocks and her breathing was fast.

"Well, you marked me, but I want in on marking her. How about…" I don't know if Taylor planned it, but we ended up trapping Amy's arms by her sides so that she was defenseless(ish) against us. Not counting her powers, of course. When Taylor lifted her hand away for a moment Amy's hips curled up searching for attention; I draped my hand over her pussy and hid my smirk as she not-very-subtly tried to grind into it.

"Instead of deciding on a permanent brand," and didn't the girl under us shiver at that, "we can time-share her womb tattoo. I'll let you go first."

It was amusing seeing Taylor's eyes light up at that. After just a moment of deliberation Amy was the bearer of a stylized spider with the letter 'Q' and a crown instead of a black widow's hourglass. I had barely pulled my hand away from making it before Taylor started stroking it with a thumb. I let my Sharingan swirl and mouthed 'cum' as Amy looked up at us. She was so worked up I probably didn't need to hit her with a pleasure genjutsu but I did anyway. Her soft shudders caused her breasts to bob gently and attracted attention from Taylor, who captured a nipple with her nails and applied a bit of pressure.

Amy arched and moaned before curling on her side and using Taylor's more modest chest to hide her face and catch her breath. I ran my hand down her back until she collected herself and sat up, pulling both of us into a hug. "Holy shit you two."

I chuckled into her hair. "So, d'you want to tell me what you did to your ass to make it so sensitive? Vicky got all twitchy when I touched hers yesterday."

Mashing her face into Taylor's neck she mumbled something that I needed to enhance my ears to make out. "—gave us a prostate that I based on yours." So, apparently I'm a latent buttslut? "But the problem is that I also linked it to the clitoris so we're getting like twice the pleasure." Ah, double-dipping. And she was also being double-penetrated. Did that increase it arthmecially or multiplicatively? I'd never studied sex math. Sex calculus? Anal derivatives?

"Are you going to dial everything down so it's less sensitive?" I snorted when Amy turned and gave me a look.

"Hell no, I'll just suggest to Vick that she doesn't jump straight to getting DP'd." Turning back to Taylor she batted her lashes. "Want me to fix you up with the same tuneup?"

Running her tongue over her teeth, the younger girl sucked in a little breath as she looked over at me. "Sure." A few seconds later her eyebrows twitched and she started shifting around on the bed. "What the hell?!"

Amy giggled. "Yeah, you'll get used to it in a minute."

"So why was Vicky so surprised? Shouldn't she have felt that?" I asked.

"Weeeeellll…. I did it while she was asleep Sunday night," Amy allowed, then wiggled her eyebrows, "She got all squirmy but didn't wake up. I felt it too when I did me." Her stomach growled and she reluctantly pulled away enough to find her phone and look at the time. "Well fuck, I need to show up for dinner or people will get worried."

Despite the noises she made about needing to go she certainly took her time walking over to find her clothes and bending and stretching to show off her assets. I gave a long thought to giving her Void_Cowboy ass antlers to mark the back country as my territory but decided that could hold off for some other time.

I threw on jeans and a shirt before using henge to approximate the rest of my costume so I could drop her off near her house. When I made it back a minute or two later Taylor paused in putting her pants back on to kiss me before she too needed to go be visible to Danny. I did stop and slip my hand around the curve of her tight cheeks to skim over her pucker and make her gasp and dance, so I could only hope that she experimented with it a bit and I could take the road less travelled soon.

Alone and bereft I checked my phones and found a message from my brother asking me to call him, so I did. He picked up on the second ring and started talking immediately. "Did a little poking around and found out why the landlord is so willing to sell. It was already in Merchant territory, but they've apparently started making noises about protection money. The guy's old and done with that shit, so he's moving to Maine to fuck lobsters or something."

I hummed into the phone, "Did he say if they were actually shaking him down or just flexing, and was it capes or civs?"

"So far just talk, walking up and down the street, dealing on the corners, being threatening. The guy moved out of the south of town to get away from the ABB a couple of years ago and apparently this was the total last straw. Started like two weeks ago."

"They won't be an issue, I can handle any bullshit they bring."

Frank was quiet on the other end of the line for a few moments before he spoke haltingly. "Greg, you made it sound like you just had income last time. Now you're talking about handling gangers. Should we talk about this—"

I cut him off before he could try talking about feelings. It wasn't that he was some emotionless robot, but I had memories of him trying both the big-brother thing and a more paternal attempt and both made me cringe so hard I might break something. "Nope. If it makes you feel better I'm not falling in with a gang, it's the other weird fucked up shit that happens to people. And seriously, I can more than hold my own."

"I… fine," he sighed. I could hear paper shuffling for a moment and he cleared his throat and very obviously moved on. "Both of the other levels are supposedly rented out but after you sent me pictures the other day I did some additional digging. The guy gets money orders in the mailbox every month but hasn't seen either tenant in years. I'm guessing they're paid out of a trust and the tenants are dead, or bolt-holes for gangs or capes, but haven't been able to track down who. I also don't care at the moment, I had my contractor look in and both apartments seem to be taken care of and there's no dead bodies—apparently there's different cleaning services for each."

"And this contractor is…?"

There was actual warmth in Frank's voice, "Name McName, normally does some of the expensive mansions just outside the city. This is a second crew he's working up to try and expand. Honestly, they're slumming it doing that shit in Brockton. I manage some of his investments."

I nodded even though he couldn't see. "Fair enough. I'll see about wandering that way in the evenings and see if doing a Neighborhood Watch impression accomplishes enough. Later, Francis."

Grabbing some dinner as myself, I suited back up and did indeed run another patrol of the area, this time at night. While there weren't packs of roving Merchant drug-pushers haunting the streets their unwashed presence was noticeable here and there. Not wanting to stir shit for the contracting crew if they hadn't gotten bothered yet I declined to start smacking every druggie I saw but I did note that there seemed to be more in the streets north and east than west or south, so they might not be up to expanding out in force quite yet.

Wednesday at school followed much the same pattern that the first two days had—Emma was largely a nonentity without the still-missing Sophia to provide muscle, the rest of the clique fluttered uncertainly around, and Mads eyefucked us at every opportunity. I assisted by using genjutsu to arouse her even more every time she looked at us.

Up on the roof at lunch Taylor turned to me very apologetically and asked if we could skip any fooling around and seemed surprised when I just agreed without argument, even when she clarified that she wasn't planning on calling Madison up because she was 'testing' the girl.

"Tay, I did say I was a sack of hormones, but that doesn't mean that I just wanna fuck constantly. I have no problem with just spending time with you." I gave a one-armed shrug, "Hell, just say it, you don't owe me an explanation, just tell me you aren't feeling it."

Finishing the bite of her sandwich, Taylor shook her head. "No, I'd totally be okay with messing around." She blushed and looked down, then nudged my thigh with her toes. "I was texting with Amy and she asked if I could hold off on anything that might get chakra from you—other than kissing—so she could see how much I still had and if your mark was doing anything."

"So you're meeting Amy later?"

Leaning against my shoulder, she nodded. "Yeah. Actually I'm going to meet up with both her and Vicky and we're going to do a patrol."

Since Taylor didn't react, I guess the shiver that I felt overtake me was a mental thing more than a physical one. "…and when did you start talking to Vicky?"

"Oh, Amy made a group chat for the three of us, but Vicky's been texting me separately some too." She sat up and turned to look at me seriously. "She told me about the 'falling in love' comment you made to her that first time you met. Greg, have you been pushing Vicky away since we started…" she flopped her hand around.

"Dating?" I asked.

That got a ghost of a smile before she frowned at me again. "Seriously."

Closing my eyes I considered it. "Not in any obvious way, but yeah, I guess. She and I were going at it pretty heavy and then she left for the weekend and we went on a day and kinda clicked, and I—I mean I haven't pushed her away really! Hell, it's been less than two weeks, and—" I trailed off and looked down at my hands.

"Greg, spend time with Vicky. Stop acting like you're dating one of us and cheating with the other. Just be open about what you're doing." She gave a soft little snort and rubbed her foot over the crotch of my pants. "It feels weird saying this, but I sorta feel like I owe her for getting you all worked up and sexual. I mean, would things have happened like they did if she hadn't called you up to mess around?"

I blew out a breath. "Yeah, considering that going down on Vicky started this whole manwhore train I guess I have treated her bad. Maybe Cowboy should take her out to dinner at some point."

Taylor nodded. "But not today, we're patrolling together today."

"Can I suggest not in ABB territory? After sicing all your creepy-crawlies on Lung they've been hella twitchy the past couple of days." I scratched the back of my head sheepishly. "…and I have plans to check something out that I asked Kaiser to make for me. I'm pretty sure he's gonna try to fuck me over so I'll be raising hell around seven or so, so the Empire might either be a great idea or a horrible one depending on how they react."

"I think we were planning on sweeping some areas up by the Trainyard actually. I didn't want to get the other big gang mad at me on my first week."

"Ooh, I have a suggestion…." I explained how I was trying to move out and the location of my presumed apartment. "Don't know if you'll find anyone showing the flag—such as it is for the Merchants—but if you do it then it'll be a little less suspicious than if a random male cape busts heads and a random dude moves in to a new apartment."

"Sounds—" Taylor got distracted by a chime from her phone. Looking down a smile spread across her face and she turned it to face me, "Look at what I got~!"

What she got was a picture of Madison in one of the bathrooms here at school completely naked with 'Sex Pet' written on her chest, one hand holding the phone and the other under her small breasts and puffing them up. I looked over at a grinning wannabe mistress. "She's doing that right now?"

Taylor nodded and started texting back. "Yep, I told her that she wouldn't get fucked until she accomplished two tasks. This is one."

"And the other?"

"She can't accomplish it in school, but I'll bet you it's done in the morning. Can we use your little hideaway tomorrow?"

Like I was going to tell her we couldn't have sex there, honestly. I did tell her to be super careful of the pictures, but she assured me that she had the phone bugged. Like, literally.

After school Taylor headed off to meet up with the Dallon girls and I created another earth clone to pilot and check on the drop-off site. I fully expected some bullshit to go on, so I had my clone henge into a pigeon so I could scout it out from the air.

…and of course an earth-clone-henge-pigeon couldn't get off the fucking ground. I mean, kinda didn't expect it to, but there was the off-chance that with all of the other bullshit that went on I could slip that one by physics as well. I wasn't willing to try shadow clones without someone nearby I trusted to try and help if things went bad, so the clone went as a particularly chunky rat and stationed itself on the actual rooftop the drop point was on. Nothing and no one was there, but the armored Nazi had a couple of hours before I started looking for him to administer a beating.

I slipped out to grab food and was hopping back in through a window when I felt more than heard a displacement of air followed up by a disappointed sigh. "Aw, no welcoming committee?"

Hitting what was probably the Mousekateer with the shrill whistle of 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly' my spurs chimed as I came around the sheet that blocked off my lair's area. "Them pants ain't big enough for the two of us. Drop 'em."