Ravensdagger_Headpats

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Amy blinked awake, her face smushed up against her pillow with the uncomfortable impression that she had fallen asleep in her clothes. A quick shimmy of her hips said that that was exactly the case.She wasn’t feeling bad, in fact she was feeling downright wonderful, as if she just had the most wonderful dream-Amy shot out of the bed and scoured around the room with wide eyes, looking for Vicky or anyone else that might have been in the room with her. It was empty, but her drawers were still opened and, as the memories trickled in, she realised that someone had to carry her to her bed.“Okay Amy, you just fainted,” she muttered. “Because Vicky has cat ears. And a tail.” She was hyperventilating.She slapped herself, a quick strike against the cheek that had her wincing as pain flashed across her face. But it was okay, it got her focused again.“Amy fainted!” came a cry from the floor below, Vicky’s voice, filled to the brim with panic.She flushed again, patted down her pants and straightened a little. She had been working lots of hours, maybe she could blame that and the sudden surprise?“I’m okay!” she called out even as she stepped out of her room and started making her way downstairs. She really was fine, it had only been a sudden dizzy spell and a bit of a nap. Certainly her power wouldn’t let her get sick or anything.“Ames!” Vicky said before colliding with her mid-way down the stairs.Amy would have protested the impact as she was walking downstairs, but she was too busy being smothered in Vicky’s “Glory Girls.”She was pushed away and held at arm’s length as Vicky inspected her up and down with worried, slitted eyes. “You’re okay?” she asked, and her ears twitched forwards to listen to Amy’s answer.She was, for a moment, distracted by the contact around her arms and what she could feel of Vicky’s biology. It was, to her power, as if the cat bits were grafted on, but also grown out of Vicky’s own body. An interesting, if simplistic way of giving someone extra appendages. All of it wired to their equivalent parts in the brain. The tail was like an extra toe, the ears were connected to the auditory cortex.“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” Amy said.Vicky’s face shone as she smiled up at her with wet eyes. Then she started purring. “I was so worried, nya!”Amy’s eyes rolled up into her head.

* * *

Vicky had to scoop low to pick up Amy as she dropped like a sack of potatoes. Her purring, which had been somewhat unexpected but not awful, stopped all at once as she held Amy up in midair, then floated around uncertain what to do.“Bring her here. Girls, off the couch, quick,” Taylor said as she immediately took charge.Then her mom and Aunt Sarah were up and moving too. “I’ll get the first aid kit,” her aunt said as she speed into the kitchen. Her mom just kind of stood around while Vicky rushed to the couch and gently placed Amy on it.“Is she okay? Should we call an ambulance?” Vicky asked.“Remedy, can you check?” Taylor asked.The little girl looked ready to reach out and touch Amy when she was stopped by Carol grabbing her by the shoulder. “Maybe it would be best that we get someone else’s opinion?” she said. “After all, Amy didn’t start fainting until she was in the room with your sisters.”A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.Vicky saw the confusion on Taylor’s face quickly morph into anger then, with some obvious effort, be hidden behind a neutral mask. “Sure, Missus Dallon,” Taylor said. “Remedy, let her be.”“Lemme be?” Amy asked.Vicky gasped and spun back towards her sister who was blinking away. “Amy, you’re back!”“I am?” Amy asked as she shook her head and tried to sit up. Vicky gently pushed her back down. If she fainted again it would be best if she was laying down already. “Sorry, I just, your ears surprised me?”Vicky smiled at Amy. If that really was all there was to it, then that was a huge relief. She was still going to drag Amy to the hospital later, but it settled the panic in her gut to see Amy okay.“Speaking of ears,” came her mom’s ‘what kind of bullcrap is this’ tone from just behind Victoria. She turned and looked up to find her mom, hands on hips, glaring at her ears and her tail in turn.“Ah, I can explain?” she said.“I certainly hope you can,” Carol said. She was using her Brandish voice, which was never a good sign. “Is this... Remedy’s work?” she asked.Remedy, who was currently hiding behind Taylor’s legs, waved shyly at Victoria. “Um, maybe?”“Victoria Dallon,” her mom hissed. “Don’t you know the first thing about allowing unknown parahumans to use their powers on you? It doesn’t matter if she looks like a child, she’s still dangerous.”Victoria snorted and stood up so that she could face down her mom properly. “Come on, don’t be silly. Remedy is a clone of Amy and they have the same power. Amy could have given me these ears but she’s too... restrained to do stuff like that. It was just for fun.” She felt her tail writhing behind her.“Um, maybe we should go?” Taylor said.Carol glared at her, then at Victoria. “Fine then, perhaps keeping the ears untill you learn your lesson about taking stupid risks will teach you a lesson.”“What?!” Victoria and Amy said at the same time.“I can’t go to school with these. Do you know the kinds of things they say about me online already?” she said.“Yes,” Remedy said, smushing her face against the back of Taylor’s leg to hide when Carol looked her way.“I’m really thinking we should go,” Taylor said. She began herding her sisters with little shooing gestures.“Good. Maybe being a laughingstock will help the lesson sink in,” Carol said.“But what if Ames can’t remove them?” Victoria said. She could already imagine all the comments online. And the fanart. Rule 34 was a disgusting, disgusting thing that she knew far too well.“Well, you should have thought of that before. And what of your unsubstantiated claims that that girl can undo everything?” Carol pointed towards Remedy, then blanked.The living room was now short five girls, the door in the hall clicking shut with a noise so loud in the sudden silence that it might as well have been a gunshot.“I found it!” Aunt Sarah said as she walked in with the first aid kit. She took in the room at a glance then turned to her sister. “Dammit, Carol.”

Chapter Thirty

Taylor had a lot to think on. That’s why she was planted on her living room couch, staring at the television as reruns of some cartoon played with the volume one notch above inaudibility. Her sisters were all in the room and under quite a few threats demanding that they stay quiet for just an hour.It was, surprisingly, hard to think with four screaming girls in the room.The quiet, on the other hand, was nice. Crochet was fiddling with some needles on the couch right next to Taylor, sometimes bobbing her head to the music from commercials while the knitting needles in her hands clack-clacked. She was in the middle of making a nice fluffy scarf with bits and pieces of yarn of every colour.The other three were sitting on the floor to one side playing an intense game of Go Fish over a few papers with chores like ‘dishes’ and ‘dusting’ written on them. Taylor wasn’t going to do all the chores when she had this many extra little sisters adding to the piles of dishes to do and all the dirty clothes to wash every day.Pop and Cheshire were glaring at each other over their cards. “Sevens?” Cheshire hissed.Pop’s face twisted into a smug grin. “Go fish, neko.”Cheshire tore a card from the top of the pile and placed it in her hand with a sullen pout. Then Remedy looked at her and smiled sweetly. “Do you have any sevens, dear sister of mine?” she asked.Taylor watched to make sure that no one got stabbed after Cheshire tossed a few cards into Remedy’s face, but they settled down soon enough. She didn’t comment when Pop swiped a few cards but made a note of it for if she ever played Uno with her.She went back to staring at the television while her mind waffled over her choices. She knew that her dad had been buying more food, and that her spare money had all left to buy clothes and things for the girls. Soon she’d need to ask dad for help with that too.They just didn’t have the money to take care of four more hungry little mouths. And the Wards would cover for a good part of that. But they would insist on putting her sisters at risk, or they’d discover that her sisters were made by her and would do things to them. The nightmarish ideas were giving her pause.She was still mulling over other options when the door opened up and her dad stepped in. “I’m home!” he called out before the door clicked shut and she heard his jacket slipping onto the hanger next to the entrance.

* * *

Danny made sure his jacket was going to hold in place, a smile growing as he heard Cheshire scream “Dad!”He walked into the living room in time to see her dropping some cards onto the floor and jump to her feet. His eyes widened a second before he caught a ballistic Cheshire in the gut. “Oof! Hey there, little kitten,” he said.“Gimme headpats!” she demanded.He laughed and patted her head, then blinked down at her ears. “Wow, that’s a neat toy,” he said. She had probably gotten it for Halloween. Maybe. He couldn’t quite remember what she went as, but he could look at the pictures later. Surely he had taken some. He dismissed his worries and smiled down at his daughter, the new words he had learned coming to mind. “Hey, how would you like it if we spent some time outside yeeting a ball back and forth? You know, some daddy daughter bonding time? We’ll be super tight in no time flat.”You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.Cheshire blinked up at him. “Huh?”Danny walked around her and into the middle of the room, completely ignoring the way he blocked the television as he pointed to Crochet. “Hey there, sweetie. Your dress is super fleek this evening,” he said.“Thank... you?” Crochet said. She looked confused, but didn’t protest when he patted her on the head.He did the same to Taylor, even if he knew that mussing her hair was a crime punishable by pouting. “Hey little owl, you watching over the kiddos?”“Yeah dad,” she said. “They’ve been behaving. I only had to threaten them a little.”He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, and decided that ignorance was the better part of valour. He laughed. “That’s a mood.”He moved on to his other daughters and paused. One was a cute little brunette with freckles all across her cheeks and nose. The other was definitely asian. She couldn’t be annette’s daughter, although the hair matched. Maybe Annette had some parentage she had never told him about? It didn’t matter, she was his daughter, obviously. “Um, hey girls, T-B-H your old man is getting old, he can hardly remember all the girls he has! Bit of an Okay Boomer moment, huh?” His smile widened and he patted both girls on the head. “But don’t get too salty with me. You’re all my bae.”He stepped past them and towards the kitchen with a grin and a whistle on his lips. “I am so Gucci. All those other dads are basic,” he whispered. He wondered how his kiddos would talk about him on the playground. Would they brag that their dad was the most wokest dad ever?

* * *

“That, that was,” Taylor began. She looked around and found that all of her sisters, without exception, were hiding behind the couch. Slowly, after making sure she could hear her dad puttering in the kitchen, she turned to Remedy. “Could you, you know, do something about that?” she asked.Remedy shook her head violently from side to side. “I don’t want to catch whatever sort of cooties do that to you.”“I... don’t think it’s cooties,” Taylor said. She didn’t even sound sure to her own ear. “More like, uh, old age?”“Does that mean Big Sis will be like that one day?” Crochet asked. She was looking at Taylor with guiless eyes.“I’m like, four or five years older than you... sorta,” Taylor defended. Having to defend her youth was a rather new experience. “It will take a long time and maybe a few hits on the head before I become like... that.”“I trust you, Big Sis,” Crochet said. She patted Taylor on the knee in a way that felt all the more condescending coming from a girl half her size. “Maybe Remedy can make you young like us so that you won’t go crazy.”Taylor shook her head, then shook it harder upon seeing the considering look Remedy was giving her. “No, no, I like my age where it is, thank you. I haven’t suffered through this many years of puberty just to do it again.”“Oh my god, it’s beginning,” Cheshire said. “She’s complaining about when she was a kid.”Taylor was still trying to calm down her panicked siblings when her dad’s voice called out into the living room. “Come on kids, supper’s ready and it’s hella extra.”

Chapter Thirty-One

“Come on,” Onee-Sama said. “You can sit on my lap.” She patted her lap, one hand on each leg.Poppu only hesitated for a moment before shuffling over and plopping herself down on Onee-Sama’s lap. This was a great honour. The greatest. It was like being asked by the emperor to sit upon his throne. Only no emperor had ever been worthy enough to sit upon Onee-Sama’s lap, because that lap was for her imouto.She looked into the mirror before her, having to stretch her neck a little to look over all the unused beauty things left on Onee-Sama’s vanity. None of the make-up stuff looked used, which made sense. Onee-Sama did not need them to be pretty.Poppu met Onee-Sama’s eyes and she felt her cheeks warming a little before she looked back down and away from her eldest sibling’s soft smile.It was a very un-ninja moment, but Onee-Sama would forgive her. She always forgave her imouto.“You know, of all my sisters you’re the only one with hair that’s similar to mine,” Onee-Sama said. Her voice then turned a little softer. “Similar to mom’s.”Poppu nodded once. “I will wear it with pride,” she declared. She would. Next time Crochet snipped her scissors at her, she would make her foolish nee-chan suffer for threatening her hairy heritage.Onee-Sama laughed and it was the best laugh because it made her jiggle a little and that made Poppu bounce on her lap. “I would hope so. Do you mind if I comb it while we talk?”“I do not mind, Onee-Sama,” Poppu said.There were a few moment’s confusion as Onee-Sama undid the oni-mask clasp that held her hair in a ponytail, but she succeeded as she did everything else and gently placed the porcelain clasp on the vanity before taking up a bristle-y brush.Soon, Poppu was standing tall and stiff as Onee-Sama ran the brush along her head and pulled her long hair back in a loose cascade of inky blackness.It was nice.At first it was just the slow, rhythmic swish-swish of the brush passing through, but then Onee-Sama ‘tsked’ and started combing her fingers across Poppu’s scalp. Her nails dug into Pop’s head, and at the edges she would brush her fingers out and through her hair, like a constant, rotating, scratchy head pat.Every gentle pass tugged her eyes closed, and for just a tiny moment Poppu forgot her duties as Onee-Sama’s ninja because she was safe and cuddled and warm.“You’ll need to shower soon, maybe use a bit more conditioner,” Onee-Sama said, breaking Poppu’s reverie with a start. She was passing her fingers through the longer locks of her hair now. “Your hair is very pretty, but it’s a bit dry.”This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.“But Onee-Sama, the conditioner smells,” she said. The smell might give away her position to an enemy nin who was trying to track her, and that would be unforgivable.“You don’t like it?” Onee-Sama asked. “Well, I’m sure we can find some scentless conditioner at the pharmacy, just for you. I need a few toiletries too. I think Cheshire’s been rummaging through my things.”Poppu did not say that it was she who had ninja-borrowed Onee-Sama’s anti-bleeding pads. After all, she was the one that would be there if Onee-Sama got a cut that needed fixing, not one of the other, slightly lesser imouto.“Oh well, we’ll find the money, one way or another,” Onee-Sama said. She sounded a little bit off, as if something was wrong.That could not be allowed to continue. “What is wrong, Onee-Sama?”She saw the sad smile on Onee-Sama’s face in the mirror for just a moment before the brushing resumed and her eyes closed themselves again. This whole brushing thing was very bad if it meant she was not on-guard whenever Onee-Sama did it.“Nothing.” More brushing followed, a few more strokes before Onee-Sama sighed so hard Poppu felt the brush of air behind her neck. “Well, not nothing. We’re a bit tight. But we’ll pull through, I’m sure. I have some ideas, but they’re not safe and, well... I just, I just don't want anyone to hurt any of you," Onee-Sama said.Poppu, being a good ninja, saw underneath the underneath. Onee-Sama wanted her to kill anyone that could hurt her imouto.“I will take care of it, Onee-Sama,” Poppu said.Her Onee-Sama snorted, then giggled as she met Poppu’s confused gaze in the mirror. “You know, you might be one of my quietest little sisters, but you’re also one of the most earnest. It’s very cute.” She reached over and pinched Poppu’s cheek.She resisted the pain and humiliation of the cheek pinch with the grit and determination of a proper nin. The warmth in her cheeks was her body fighting off the pain and nothing else.“It is true, Onee-Sama, I will help, and protect my Onee-Sama. And the others too, if they are not bothering Onee-Sama too much. And then things will be okay,” she said. Because if all of their enemies were dead, then there was nothing to make things not okay.“I don’t think you can protect us from poverty, Pop,” Onee-Sama said. “But I’ll take all the help I can get. Thank you.” Warm arms reached around Poppu and pulled her into Onee-Sama’s chest.She swore then and then, that she would find poverty and slice its throat.