Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Shit! Shit shit shit shit" Sarah yelled to herself, somehow having the breath to do so despite spending the last twenty minutes at a run. "Fuck!" She yelled as she collided with a brick wall. She quickly picked herself up from the wall. "Left or right? Left or right!?" She all but cried to herself whipping her head from the two ways out of the alleyway, hoping to God that her powers would give her something.

     Sounds of a large group of people from the left.  Was all her power told her. "Left it is!" She shouted hysterically as she bolted for it. Sprinting down the alley the sounds of a small crowd grew louder and louder. Sarah quickly barged into it, gaining a few rude looks that she ignored. After a few seconds of shoving people, she managed to reach the front of the crowd. Sarah blinked when she saw why the crowd existed in the first place.

      The first thing she noticed was the sign. "The Magical Rose! Mistress of Magic!" was written in an old fashioned font and style. Sarah glanced at the right of the sign. ' That would be the Magical Rose then. ' She idly thought to herself. Next to the sign, nervously tucking her dark, wavy hair back into a top hat, was a girl wearing something way too skimpy for this weather. Fishnet stockings and black, three-inch heels were not exactly ideal fall weather clothing. The sleeveless black and white corset/one-piece ensemble she had on as well didn't help either. The Formal Tuxedo jacket she was wearing looked a  little  warm but Sarah could imagine how cold she was while trying to look the part of a professional.

      Not cold. Somehow perfectly warm despite the outfit and weather.   "Wait, what?" Was all she said to herself. Which was the wrong thing to say as one of the Boardwalk Enforcers looked at her and started to make his way towards her.

       Not an Enforcer. Working for the man who wants to kidnap you. Will just say you're a shoplifter.  Sarah was so preoccupied with her rising panic that she nearly missed what ‘The Magical Rose’ said next.

    "For my next trick, I need a volunteer from the audience! Anyone! Of any age! Or gender! Don’t be shy..... Please?" She said rather weakly. Sarah quickly stepped up.

   "I volunteer!" Sarah said, maybe a little too quickly. She quickly walked over to The Magical Rose, making sure to keep at least a few people between her and the fake enforcer. In a matter of seconds that felt like minutes, she was in front of the female magician. Sarah hadn’t realized just how much taller the girl was compared to her before now, something the heels certainly weren't helping with. Rose blinked a bit in surprise.

   Didn't expect anyone to actually volunteer.   ' Thanks power. I never would have figured that out. ' Sarah thought to herself. Rose, while not exactly recovering quickly, managed to get into the swing of things just quick enough to keep people from losing interest.

   "Okay!" Rose said, trying to get her momentum back, smiling a wide smile. She pulled a folded handkerchief out of the pocket of her tuxedo jacket and unfolded it... And unfolded it... And unfolded it. After 20 seconds of stunned silence from the crowd and Sarah, Rose now had a piece of red silk cloth the size of a rather large tarp. Rose smiled at the reactions of the crowd and spread the cloth out. She let it linger in the air for a few seconds before whipping it quickly and dramatically to the side. In its place were now two boxes on two wheeled tables. Next to the box were two long, thin blades with wooden handles and a large carpenter saw on top. As everything clicked together Sarah took an uncontrolled step back from Rose and the table. However, as she did so she caught sight of the Enforcer still waiting in the crowd, staring very intently at her. She swallowed the lump in her throat and stepped back forward. If Rose noticed Sarah’s hesitation she didn't say anything. Or show any sign that she had noticed. 

   "Now, miss. What's your name?" Rose said while holding her hand out to Sarah.

   "Lisa!" She squeaked out. When later asked Sarah would say she did it to at least not give the people chasing her something to make their job easier. However, in reality, she just panicked and thought of the first name that came to mind.

 "Let's give a round of applause for Lisa!" Rose shouted out to the crowd. The crowd, despite the frosty attitude they’d possessed at the start, did give a round of, somewhat underwhelming, applause. While they were applauding Rose leaned in and softly spoke to Sarah.

“Thanks a lot for this. It means a lot to me.”

Is being honest. The first thing someone has helped her with in a long time.  Sarah’s powers told her. Sarah snorted to herself. ‘ That makes two of us then .’ Right after thinking that the applause died down. Not quite on cue Rose clapped her hand together. 

“Right! Now if you could…..” Rose drifted off as she realized she forgot something. “Right! One second!” Rose strutted over to the table. 

‘ She moves faster than anyone has a right to in those heels. And I would kill for those legs .’ Sarah idly thought to herself as Rose quickly set up the illusion, opening the doors; setting the saw and blades to the side and unlatching the stocks. 

“Alright! Now if you could please step up to the table!” Rose said, a bit out of breath. Sarah made her way to the table slightly slower than she should of. The handful of steps seemed a lot longer than they actually were to her. As she made her way over, her eyes moved rapidly all over the table and the objects on it, trying to see the trick involved. However, after a few seconds, she had nothing. Not even her powers had anything to say.

‘ What’s the trick? There has to be a trick .’

Not a trick. There is no trick. She is going to saw you in half.  

‘ What ’ Was all Sarah thought to herself. ‘ What. ’ Was what she thought again. ‘ WHAT !’ Sarah started to hyperventilate. ‘ Nope. Nope nope nope. Nopenopenopenopenopenope! I’ll take my chances with- ’

It will not harm you.   ‘ What .’ Sarah’s brain slipped out of gear yet again at what her power was telling her.

Will not harm you. First real positive social interaction in a long time. Rose will not harm you. Rose is going to saw you in half. She will not harm you.   Her powers were telling her contradictory things. This threw her off so much that when Rose tapped her on the shoulder Sarah nearly punched her in surprise.

“Look if you’re getting cold feet you can go back into the audience.” Rose quietly said to her with a look of concern on her face.  Genuine concern. Will not force you.  Was all Sarah’s power said to her. She glanced at the Enforcer in the audience.  Genuine anger. Will force you.  Was all she got back. Sarah swallowed the lump in her throat and let out the breath she didn’t realize that she was holding. And took a leap of faith.

“No, I’m okay. Just rather nervous.” Sarah said. ‘ Understatement of the year ’ She snarked to herself. Rose yells over her own shoulder “Sorry folks. Just a bit of nerves. She’s better now!’ Rose explained to the now a bit antsy crowd. Rose took a step back and raised her voice.

“Now Lisa. If I could have your coat! I’m afraid you won’t quite fit in there with it on.” Sarah glanced at the open box. Even with her build, she could barely fit in there with her shirt. Let alone a fall coat. Sarah sighed and took off her coat, bracing herself for the chilly weather of a North Eastern Fall. It was to her surprise that she felt exactly the same as she handed it to Rose. Rose just smiled mischievously at the look of surprise on her face; folding the jacket carefully with a whisper of “Trade secret.”

 Rose then carefully set it on the sign advertising her show, then raised her hand. Sarah took that as he cue and carefully stepped onto the table, using the surprisingly strong arm of the Magician to steady herself and, almost as if she had done this a million times before, easily slipped into position, putting her feet into the bottom stocks and resting her head in the grove in the front. She had to cross her arms across her chest as, even without the coat, there wasn't quite enough room for her arms at the sides. Rose quickly nudged and moved Sarah into position, ending with pulling her hair out from behind her head and letting it hang down over the edge of the table. A cushion was quickly added when it became obvious that Sarah’s head wasn’t going to quite touch the table. Rose then turned towards the audience. 

“Normally the assistant would take off or would not be wearing shoes. This is for a variety of reasons. It's a lot harder to fake a pair of feet than shoes, shoes don't fit into the stocks nearly as well, some audience members like the sight of bare feet, the deviants,” That got a chuckle from some of the crowd, “ And most importantly it keeps the scuff marks off of the props.” At that, the rest of the crowd laughed.

“However with Lisa here I won't, due to the weather and the fact that her shoes will fit into the stocks.” Sarah glanced at her feet. ‘Made the right call with the thin leather boots than the Uggs today then.’ Rose keeping the momentum of the crowd going quickly slid on the top of the stocks for Sarah's feet.

“Normally I would also lock the stocks with padlocks but Lisa is nervous enough as it is.” The crowd laughed again and Sarah nervously laughed as well. Rose then slowly slid down the stock on Sarah's head neck. 

“You still okay?” Rose said quietly. Sarah didn't trust her voice so she only weakly nodded, trying not to hit her chin on the wooden stock. Rose gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze before finally closing the doors on the box. She then went around to where the groove was in between the two halves of the box… and then picked up the saw. Rose made a big show of showing it off to the crowd, showing them that it wasn't fake 

Not fake.   ‘ Thanks Power. ’ Sarah sighed. ‘ I thought she was going to saw me in half with a fake saw ’ After a few more seconds of showboating Rose finally stopped.

“And now Ladies and Gentlemen. I will now saw the lovely Lisa in half!” Rose exclaimed.

‘ Really hope that isn’t the last compliment I ever get. ’ Sarah thought darkly to herself. And at that Rose started to saw her way through the box. The sounds of sawing wood and the smell of sawdust filled the air.

Added in woodblocks to heighten the dramat-  ‘ THANKS I GET THAT! ’ Sarah yelled at her power. After an eternity of a few seconds the sawing of wood stop. Another eternity of half a second and the saw had reached Sarah. 

“ GASP! ” Sarah’s head suddenly jerked back as she let out a huge gasp. The crowd started to murmur in concern, worried about the poor girl inside. Their worries were (mostly) unfounded.

“ COLD! ’ Was all Sarah thought to herself. As it was, a carpenter's saw being outside in the fall would be rather cold. And when said saw is currently touching parts of you that generally should never be touched? Well, that certainly amplifies the effects. As the saw quickly warmed up Sarah came to a conclusion.

‘ It’s not exactly unpleasant ’ was she thought as she felt the saw work it’s way through her. She felt the saw, well, saw her in half but without the pain that should be accompanying such a thing. This just left a somewhat soothing rhythm going through her body. ‘ And it’s knocking loose the crap in my lungs. ’ Sarah thought to herself as the last few months of living on the streets hadn’t been the healthiest for her. At that she coughed a bit harshly, causing more murmurs of concern from the audience. After a while, the sawing stopped and Sarah felt a cool winter’s breeze on bare skin…… On two different patches of bare skin.  

She sawed you in half.   ‘ Holy shit she sawed me in half! ’ This obvious and startling conclusion made Sarah miss the fact Rose had picked up the two blades. And the grand show that Rose made of showing that they were solid. She did notice when she slotted them into place. ‘ REALLY FUCKING COLD! ’ She gritted her teeth, mentally screaming in an attempt not to make a spectacle of herself. 

“And now to prove that there are no fake limbs or anything of the sort!” Rose declared suddenly. She then leaned over from where she was standing, over the boxes containing Sarah, and unlatched the front covers. From where the Audience was they could clearly see that there was, in fact, something in the box wearing exactly what Sarah was wearing. Most of the more jaded members thought that Rose had used some clever sleight of hand to swap the pieces and that Sarah was just crammed into the front box. Though the exact details, they were still working out.

 The more naive, as rare as they were in such a place as Brockton Bay, honestly thought Sarah had been cut in half. And unlike most cases the naive audience members were right. To further show off Rose then grasped the two boxes by the blades and pulled them apart. Sarah felt the very confusing sensation of having one half of her body move one way, and the other move in the opposite direction. 

‘ I think I’m going to be ill ’ Sarah thought to herself as it played hell with her inner ear….. The timed out burger from Fugly Bob’s she managed to sweet-talk the cashier into giving her probably didn’t help either. Also not helping matters was Rose then spinning the two boxes ninety degrees so that Sarah’s feet and head were parallel to each other. Sarah then looked over to her feet. She did a few experimental wiggles, and her feet responded in kind. She clenched and unclenched her toes, and while she didn’t see them, she felt them respond. 

‘ Huh. ’ Was all Sarah thought to herself. Even with her powers that was all she could say. Her powers were uncharacteristically silent. The audience was not and started to applaud rather enthusiastically. Rose was startled by such enthusiastic applause. After getting over her shock she started to soak it in and bowed, taking off her top hat to do so. 

“You’re going to put me back together right?” Sarah quietly said to Rose as the applause slowly died down. 

“Of course,” Rose said as if offended.   Somewhat offended that you’d think she would do such a thing as leave you like this . ’ Sarah sighed. As the applause died down Rose quickly rotated the tables back, not helping Sarah’s nausea, and moved them back together. She then removed the blades separating the two halves of Sarah.    Sarah let out a smaller gasp as she felt her two halves shift incrementally towards each other and connect. Rose then quickly undid all the latches and then moved to the front of the box and opened the top door; removing the stocks holding Sarah in the box. However before Sarah could begin to extract herself, Rose had already scooped her up in her arms.

“What are you doing!?” Sarah squeaked out, her face glowing bright red now. Rose blinked and then her face flushed as well.

 “Sorry!” Rose squeaked out as well. “When I did this on myself I had some trouble standing afterward…. Mainly because I got stuck in it for a couple of hours.” Rose muttered to herself.

   “Can you just put me down?” Sarah's face was not getting any less red. 

“Yeah. Sorry!” Rose quickly muttered out as she put Sarah down a little too fast. Sarah nearly stumbled when set on the ground. Other than some minor cursing, her main focus was checking her waist to see if anything was, well different. Her probing hands and eyes found nothing out of place. No seam or cut. Not a thread out of place. In fact, Sarah was pretty sure that her clothes were in slightly better condition than before she got in the box.

While this was going on Rose took off her hat and did a collection round. This time she was much more successful. She then made a point to step around the Enforcer. So did the rest of the crowd, seeing as everyone was at least a step or two away from him. Taylor did a small bow and then placed the top hat back on her head. Most of the crowd assumed that she had a well-designed pocket as she had done that three times already with no sign of the money. Only Rose and Sarah knew the truth. 

Sarah was brought out of her thoughts when Rose clapped her right hand on her shoulder. 

“Let’s have a round of applause for Lisa!” Rose shouted and dramatically threw her left hand out. The crowd was more than willing to comply, bursting into applause once more. While this was going on Sarah took the opportunity to lean into Rose’s ear. 

“I need your help.” Sarah quickly whispered. Rose looked a bit startled. Before she could say anything Sarah continued. 

“You see that Enforcer? He’s not an Enforcer. He’s been stalking me for the last few hours. He nearly caught me already.” She desperately whimpered. Rose glanced at the Enforcer. She would admit, even if only to herself, that he seemed to set off all sorts of warning bells. Then she took a look at his eyes. And sucked in a breath. 

His eyes were full of nothing but hate. Just from looking into them for a moment, she knew this man could kill her. Would kill her without the slightest bit of hesitation. She managed to suppress the shudder from the crawling sensation going down her spine.  

“Please.” Sarah quietly begged as the applause died down. Rose nodded. She couldn’t let her assistant face whatever the man had in mind for her. 

“ I do have something.” Rose continued, trying to act casual about the conversation. “I haven’t had a chance to practice it, and I’m not sure how to restore you. So if you’re willing-” She was cut off by Sarah.

“I already took a chance with you literally sawing me in half. I think I’ll take a chance with you again over him.” Sarah said with finality. Rose nodded again and turned back to the crowd.

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” Rose boomed to the audience. “Lisa here has volunteered for another illusion!” She said in her best showman's voice. Sarah noted that the Enforcer’s eyes hardened at that but he did nothing as the audience applauded again.

This line of thought was stopped by Rose gracefully picking up the red silk cloth from where she dropped it. A flourish for dramatic effect, a few seconds of the cloth floating, and a rapid pull to the side. In the place of the two boxes was instead what looked like an industrial hopper with a crank on the side and two giant rollers on the front. All of which was on a solid industrial steel table with wheels. Sarah gulped. 

‘ In for a penny. In for a pound. ’ Sarah thought to herself as she steeled her resolve.

“Here’s hoping,” Rose said as she led Sarah. Sarah could only nod, hoping that this wouldn’t end how she feared. With a little boost from Rose, Sarah found herself sitting on the edge of the Hopper, her feet touching the two rollers.

“Now!” Rose went from concerned back to the tone of a practiced showman. “Some of you may be wondering what this is! Well, don’t feel ashamed or anything of the sort! This little number is a more obscure magic trick! It’s called ‘The Wringer’!” Lisa gulped again at the name

“With this, the lovely assistant is placed into the illusion like so. Every Magician has their own style of the Wringer, as well as the method in which the assistant is placed into position but they all follow the same general rule. The Magician  must  make a big show of showing the audience that there was no room for the assistant to hide. Some lesser magicians don’t, as their prop is far too large or fragile to move around too much or they just aren’t all that good. But I like to think of myself as a high-quality magician, with high-quality props, so I have no such issue!” Rose exclaimed with a wink, briskly walking to the table to the laughter of the crowd. She made a big show of rotating the table to show that there were, in fact, no secret compartments. Sarah attempted to wave to the audience, playing up her role as the assistant. She felt that she at least added something to the presentation… it felt nice. 

“Now!” Rose continued again, “that the Magician has proven that there is no place for the lovely assistant to hide!” Sarah actually felt herself blushing a little. Rose then went over to the crank on the side. And continued

“The Magician would then start to turn the crank, or wheel depending on the prop. This would cause the rollers to turn, which would cause the assistant to be forced through and flattened!” Rose exclaimed, emphasizing the crank with her hand. She then looked up at Sarah. 

“Any pain whatsoever you scream okay?” Rose whispered. Sarah nodded and bit her lip. Rose then, with some hesitation, turned the crank. 

“Whoof.” Sarah rapidly let out a breath at the sensation. She glanced down and saw that her feet had now slipped between the rollers. She couldn’t move her feet and seemed to have muted sensation in them. But she still felt them. 

Sarah looked at Rose, gave a subtle nod, and mouthed ‘ Keep going. ’. Rose nodded back and turned the crank again, dragging Sarah down into the rollers. 

‘ This is perhaps the oddest experience of my life .’ Sarah thought to herself as she watched herself slowly, and quite literally, be put through the wringer. Once it had gone up to her knees she experienced the very unique sensation of feeling herself waving in the sea breeze. Next, she felt the air get forced out of her lungs as her Solar Plexus had been fed through the rollers. Not that it mattered much as her chest, and therefore lungs, entered into the rollers next. With a few more cranks Lisa felt the rollers touch her chin.

‘ This is it .’ Was her final thought before two more cranks pushed her entirely through.

‘ Huh .’ Was all Sarah could think. The state she found herself in was a unique one. She was both aware and yet not. To say that she was in a dream-like haze would be inaccurate but close enough. She stared unblinkingly into the Afternoon sky. Then she felt an upwards sensation and found herself staring unblinkingly at a somewhat stunned mass of people.

“ The Audience ’ Sarah corrected herself mentally. Her tenuous grasp on that thought was interrupted by a loud sound.

“Another round of Applause for Lisa!” Rose shouted as she held up the now flattened form of Sarah, facing the crowd. The crowd snapped out of their stunned silence and started to applaud harder than they had before. Whistles and shouts came from the audience.

‘ I feel that I should take a bow .’ Sarah thought to herself. And then mentally kicked herself for that. Not that she could do so physically. Any other admonishments of herself, by herself, were interrupted by the also unique sensation of being folded.

“Don’t worry folks!” Rose cried out over the crowd. “Lisa is in good hands!” She said as she continued to fold Sarah like she was a piece of paper. Which she effectively was at this point.

“I just forgot my bicycle pump at home!” She claimed, much to the enjoyment and laughter of the crowd.

“I’ll restore her to normal later! So don’t think that she’ll be like this forever!” She said, invoking even more laughter from the crowd.

‘I hope.’  Both Sarah and Rose thought to themselves. 

Rose removed her top hat once more and held Sarah in front of it. 

“I’m not sure how it will affect you but I’ve put a rabbit in there for a while and it was fine. Confused but fine.” Rose quietly said. Sarah wasn’t in any condition to object and was quickly placed into the hat. Rose then flashed a hopefully convincing smile to the crowd and held out her hat for collections. This time the donations were much larger. Eventually, the donations grew smaller and so too did the crowd. Rose quickly made her way back to the table and the Wringer. She grabbed the sign and Lisa’s coat and placed them on the table. Before she could get any further in packing up a hand roughly landed on her shoulder.

“Miss. I’m going to have to ask you to tell me where your volunteer is.” A voice filled with barely contained anger and violence said behind her. Rose tried not to shudder at the sound. She broke contact and sat down on her table. Rather bit too quickly, but she really  really  wanted to put some distance between herself and him. 

“I’m sorry but a Magician never reveals her secrets.” She said confidently. Or at least tried to. The slight quiver in her voice gave her away. She cringed when she saw the man smirk.

“Too bad.” The man said. Rose glanced around for something, anything that she could use to get away, or stop him, or something! Thankfully she did see something. She subtly shifted her hand to grab it. Just in time too as the man stepped closer.

“So are we going to do this the easy way or the hard-” Anymore cliche threats were interrupted by a flutter of red cloth filling his vision. Once it subsided the man rolled his eyes. 

“You think that playing pillow fort is going to stop me?” He snarled at the sheet now covering Rose and the table. He angrily grabbed the cloth and ripped it aside.

“What. The. Fuck.” Was all he could say. The girl was gone. The table was gone. Everything was fucking gone! He wiped his head to the left and right. No sign whatsoever. He was the only person in that area of the Boardwalk. He made sure before he went up to the bitch!

“What the fuck!” He yelled stomping on the cloth in anger. The fucking boss was never going to believe this!

“WHAT THE FUCK!” He screamed into the sky

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*CRASH* *BANG* *THUD* “Ow.” The clatter and noise of various props and one very lucky Magician crashing to the floor filled the room. Rose slowly picked herself off the floor, cringing when a few parts of her moved the wrong way. She sucked in a breath when she put too much weight on her ankle but that quickly went away. 

“Okay. For my first attempt at teleporting someone, that went rather well. And rushed even.” Rose laughed, glad that she was alive, in one piece, and not at the tender mercies of some thug. She was so relieved that she got away that she nearly forgot something very important. Or someone. 

“LISA!” Rose yelled out. She looked around desperately for the top hat that held her. And her money but that was a very distant secondary concern. Her eyes lit up as she saw it next to a toppled over sawing in half prop. She quickly lunged at the hat and then winced as her foot collided with the Wringer prop.

“Shouldn’t have made it out of solid steel.” She hissed as she then hobbled over to the hat. And nearly tripped as the heel to her left shoe broke off. 

“Stupid shoe!” She yelled as she kicked off the now broken shoe. She then hopped in place as she tried to remove the other one. She succeed in both removing it and not smashing into any of the other items strewn about the room in the process. After a brief moment to celebrate her small victory, Rose then lunged once more for the hat. Snatching it from the ground, she headed to the bed in the room and, after a few more dangerous steps, managed to reach it. With the arm not holding the top hat, she threw off the crumpled blanket and sheets. She then held the hat upside down and shake it vigorously. Various coins and dollar bills spilled out and went everywhere. A handful or two of rose petals spilled out and spread out across the room. A hairbrush fell on top of the pile of money.

“I wondered where that went,” Rose muttered as she set it aside. More shaking resulted in nothing. Right as Rose was about to scream in terror and frustration, ‘Lisa’ unceremoniously fell out of the hat and laid crumbled up on the bed.

“Lisa!” Rose yelled, flinging the money off the bed, coins, and bills scattering across the room. With a quick few hand motions, ‘Lisa’ was more or less straightened out on the bed. Her head was on the pillows and her feet were more or less pointed towards the end of the bed.

“Okay, Lisa,” Rose said, trying to get the girl’s attention. While there was no change on her face, Rose felt that she had “Lisa’s’ attention.

“Okay.” She said, mostly to herself, as she grabbed the bedsheet off the floor. 

“I don’t actually need to get a bicycle pump. At least I hope not.” She muttered. She then snapped back to attention.

“As I said I’ve never actually done this before and I’m not confident that I can restore you properly. But it’s never let me down before. On the count of three, I’m going to cover you, and hopefully, everything will work out fine.” She explained rapidly, almost forgetting to breathe. 

“One.” She said as she took the bed sheet in both hands.

“Two.” She raised the bedsheet, sweat dripping down her back.

“Three!” She flung the sheet over ‘Lisa’. She closed her eyes tight and ripped the sheet away from ‘Lisa’. A loud, horrid, tearing sound filled the air.

“Oh no.” Rose whimpered out. She kept her eyes screwed tight, not brave enough to see what nightmare had happened. So it was to her great surprise that she felt the sheet be tugged out of her hand and a familiar voice filled the room. 

“B, B Plus I would say, Rose.” ‘Lisa’ said. “Presentation was good. You restored me perfectly. But my clothes….. Not so much.” At that Rose peeked one eye open. Lisa was sitting on the edge of the bed, with a relieved smile on her face, and with the sheet wrapped around her. Lying around her in a rough circle were various scraps of fabric that Rose recognized as her clothes. “You should pay more attention in class.”

“You’re alive!” Rose exclaimed, finally opening her eyes fully. ‘Lisa’ smiled even wider.

“Yes. Thanks to you. I had no idea what exactly that fake Enforcer was going to do to me when he caught up... but it would not have been pretty.” ‘Lisa’ said with a large amount of gratitude. Rose said nothing but collapse onto the bed next to ‘Lisa’. They sat in silence like that for a few minutes.

“Holy Shit.” Rose eventually said. “That happened.” She continued, flopping backwards onto the bed. ‘Lisa’ joined her.

“Yeah. That happened.” She added in herself, still trying to comprehend everything. Not helping the matter was that her power had been uncharacteristically silent the entire time. 

“Soooo…..” Rose awkwardly said. “What was it like?” She asked.

“Being flattened or being in the hat?” ‘Lisa’ asked back.

“Both?” Rose awkwardly said.

“I don’t remember being in the hat. At all. I was about to be put into the hat and then I was in a heap on your bed. As for being flattened…. The best I could describe is that I felt two dimensional. That’s the best I can say.” ‘Lisa’ explained.

“Huh,” Rose said. They stared at the ceiling for a little while longer.

“Taylor” Rose eventually said.

“What?” ‘Lisa’ asked.

“My name. I’m not Rose. I’m just Taylor.” Taylor explained.

“Well, I’m not Lisa. I’m Sarah. I just gave you the first name that popped into my head. Being chased and all that.” Sarah explained. Taylor just made a noncommittal sound of acknowledgment. They once more laid there in silence. Their minds trying to process the last few minutes.

“Where are we anyway?” Sarah eventually asked, looking around.

“My bedroom. It’s uh… It’s normally not nearly this messy but with everything that happened and all that.” Taylor awkwardly trailed off. Sarah shrugged.

“You saved my life. I’m not going to judge you for that.” She said simply. And then sat up, making sure to keep one hand on the bedsheet to protect her modesty. 

“So where do we go from here?” Sarah asked simply. “I have no idea who that guy was and why he wanted me.” She explained. She had a very likely idea why... but one thing at a time. 

“Well, you could stay here for a while. I’ll ask my dad. I mean with your help I made a lot more than I usually do. Not that I’ve done all that many shows... So money’s not an issue ” Taylor said, sitting up on the bed as well.

“Maybe you can buy me some clothes with that,” Sarah said, playfully poking Taylor in the shoulder. Taylor laughed.

“Sure. I can buy some clothes. I did wreck yours.” She said with a giggle.

“Maybe we could make this a thing. Rose and Lisa! Boardwalk Magicians! I would have to wear a mask to hide my identity.” Taylor poked Sarah back.

“It’s usually the Magician that wears the mask. Not the Assistant.” She said with a giggle. The two of them started to giggle together. And the giggles then turned into full-blown laughter as the stress of everything caught up with them. The laughter continued for a minute or two. However, once the two of them had finished laughing they found themselves in a slightly compromising position. 

Sarah’s face was only inches away from Taylor’s. The two of them felt each other’s breath on their face. Almost simultaneously their faces started to turn red. They looked at each other in the eyes. Neither one of them sure what the other wanted. Or even what they wanted.

Before the situation could go any further a knock at the door interrupted them.

“Hey, Taylor. I didn’t hear you come in. I thought you were still at the Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo...” Danny trailed off as he walked in. He quickly glanced from what his daughter was wearing, to the naked except for a bedsheet girl next to his daughter on the bed, to the rose petals scattered everywhere, to the various props scattered around the room, to how close their faces were.

“OKAY SORRY TO BOTHER YOU!” Danny quickly said and left, slamming the door behind him.

“DAD, NO! COME BACK! IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK! SARAH! STOP LAUGHING!” Taylor continued to scream for a while after that, all to the backdrop of Sarah’s mad cackling.

Chapter Text

“So what is so important that you just had to show me right now?” Lisa asked carefully as she walked down the rickety stairs that led to Taylor’s Workshop. The place that had been, at one point, called the basement. Once.

They’d smashed far too many toes on far too many sharp corners to call it the basement anymore. The blood, sweat, and tears this unholy place had absorbed over the course of a weekend had given it a much-needed upgrade. She might be exaggerating a touch, but you can only smash your toes so many times before you start to hold a grudge.

“You’ll see it when you see it! Just like everyone else, my assistant!” Taylor teased as she bounced her way down the stairs two at a time in excitement. “You already know the rules!”

“... Yeah…” Lisa sighed the sigh of someone that had just heard something that they’d heard a hundred times before. “I know. A magician never reveals their secrets.”

“There we go!” Taylor chirped, now out of Lisa’s sight.

Lisa wasn’t exactly enthused with how tightly Taylor clung to that rule, what with her curiosity doing its damnedest to burn a hole in her skull...but she was used to it. Everything screamed at her that there had to be a trick. Some sort of Tinker-tech. An odd Parahuman power. Something.

Everything also told her that none of that was in play. Her subtle, and not so subtle prodding. Her own powers. The fact that she had been sawed in half with no harm. That certainly convinced her that Taylor really was magical.

“Alright,” Lisa started once more as she reached the landing. “What is it?” The blonde then looked up. Then a little more up. Just a smidge. “Besides big, I mean?”

At this point, that was all Lisa could comment on. The sheet over whatever it was that Taylor was so happy to show off prevented her from seeing it directly. But she could tell it was big. It nearly touched the ceiling, even with it being wedged in between the support boards.

“I’m glad you asked!”

Lisa, grudgingly, clamped down on her powers as hard as she could, an act that got easier and easier each time she did it. It was...inconvenient…to cut off her greatest advantage like that...but she wanted to be surprised. Not for her sake, but Taylor’s.

Seeing that Lisa was surprised always made Taylor’s day...and it didn’t hurt Lisa to at least try.

“Now!” Taylor cleared her throat and stood up straight, her stage persona now out in full. “Behold, my audience! Feast your eyes on my latest addition to the act!”

With a twirl of the wrist and a swish, the sheet was pulled away...and Lisa started rubbing nervously at her neck as a bead of sweat appeared on her brow.

“An old classic!” Taylor twirled on the spot, her sneakers squeaking loudly on the floor as she did so that she could run a paper that she’d pulled out of...somewhere...along the edge. An edge so sharp, that Lisa didn’t even hear the paper get cut when it separated into two perfect halves. “THE GUILLOTINE!”

Lisa, instead of clapping like had most likely been expected of her, gulped and continued to rub her neck...and was that dried blood on the blade? Fake or not, that wasn’t helping. “I...thought we were a family-friendly magic show?”

Taylor’s pose and smile held for a second longer...and then she sagged in disappointment. “Of course we are...and you’re no fun,” Taylor mumbled, sounding somewhat put out as she began fiddling with the equipment with the ease of long practice. “You act like this is actually going to hurt you or something.”

A testing pull of a string. A swish. A metallic thud and a clink... Lisa flinched. Swore that her pupils had just shrunk down into pinpricks… She may have known, after living with Taylor for as long as she had that this was non-lethal...but there was a difference between knowing and knowing.

“... It’s very convincing.”

She knew whose head was going where. What she was feeling right now, emotionally, as she looked at this French executioner’s tool was completely rational!

“That’s kind of the point. Wouldn’t be much of one if the audience didn’t feel like there was at least a little danger, right? It is safe though. Totally. A hundred percent.” Taylor explained, her voice filled with a quiet sort of hope as she started hauling the blade back up to the top. “Just put your head in and you’ll see!”

Lisa stared at Taylor. That was all she could do. The sheer insanity inherent in her friend’s statement didn’t exactly leave her with much room to do much else...besides running out screaming anyway. An option that wasn’t really an option at all, seeing how it would hurt Taylor’s feelings.

That was fine though. That last option was just the one that had popped up first. That didn’t mean anything. She was a smart girl, damn smart if she was honest. If she just applied herself she could get out of this—

“Sure. I guess I could give it a go.”

Fuck.

After her unthinking acquiescence, Lisa found herself caught up in the whirlwind that was Taylor at her most excited. Hand-in-hand, hair tied back, a pillow placed under her knees as she stared very intently at the wardrobe across from her while she had the stocks placed around her neck.

It wasn’t exactly her first choice on the last thing she ever wanted to see if this went wrong...but it was definitely not the worst… It was pretty. Handmade. Surprisingly sturdy for something that Danny had put together out of some sanded 2x4s, pipes, spare furniture wheels, and a couple buckets worth of paint.

The fact that Danny had recently taken up woodworking as a side job, turning thirty dollars or so in supplies into something worth a hundred or more was just a decent bonus. It had really upped the standard of living around here and Lisa couldn’t help but appreciate the rising quality of their shampoo-and click went the lock, oh shit.

“Almost forgot!” Taylor said, grabbing a nearby laundry basket stuffed with dirty laundry. Laundry that she, thankfully, replaced with something a lot cleaner before she put it under Lisa’s head to catch it.

A noble final resting place, it most definitely was not.

“You ready?” Taylor asked, oblivious to Lisa’s internal screaming. Obviously, seeing as it was internal...but would it kill her to read the mood a little?

“As I’ll ever be, seeing how you’re going to take my head off right now.”

“That’s the spirit! Now, try not to move! I don’t know what’ll happen if you do. Probably nothing too bad but...try not to.”

It said how much that Lisa trusted Taylor that she wasn’t screaming bloody murder right then.

“3. 2. 1! Showtime!” Taylor said just before she pulled the cord.

She clenched her eyes shut, tears threatening to pour out as, with a swish, she felt pain. The shadow of death as that blade fell into her neck. Right through it, even as she clenched her fingers and waited for the dying sparks in her brain to go…

Wait. Her fingers. She opened and closed them in testing motions. Nope. Not phantom sensation. She slowly opened an eye, scared of what she might see that wasn’t just Taylor’s assumably fresh underwear… Thankfully though, that was pretty much it. No blood, no gore, nothing else that would cause a sane person to go into a screaming fit of terror. She had never been so happy to see Danny’s socks in her life.

“Oh my god! Lisa, are you okay?!”

Lisa opened her mouth at that question, her instincts telling her to say something scathing before she thought about it. Closed it. Opened it again. “No,” Lisa said flatly. “I’m not.” Huh. Her voice rather gravely at the moment.

She was pretty sure that the blade had hit but, seeing how she wasn’t in the basket right then…

“Well…” Taylor drifted off, making a point not to look at Lisa. Or stand too close to her. Or breath...much of anything really. Comforting, Taylor was not. “That makes sense, considering…”

“What. Happened.”

Judging from how Taylor flinched, her voice was especially threatening. “The blade got stuck,” Taylor said weakly. There was a pause.

Yeah. That made sense. Totally. The blade got stuck. Hahaha. “Well, seeing as I’m not dead, I’m going to assume that the magic is still working.” All sorts of sense... a point. Magic. Enough said.

“Yeah,” Taylor said weakly. There was another silence.

“GET ME OUT OF THIS THING!” Lisa screamed at the other girl, feeling her voice vibrate the blade halfway through her neck as Taylor nearly jumped out of her skin and leaped into action.

First things first, Taylor grabbed the top of the stuck blade and started to pull up...not that it did much. She pulled until her arms started to shake, but the blade didn’t budge an inch. Taylor then switched to pushing on it as hard as she could. She leaned in to put as much of her body weight into it. Nothing.

Then, in frustration, Taylor brought her fist down onto the top of the blade...and her eyes teared up as she cradled that hand against her chest with a mewl of pain. Lisa said nothing but she savored the moment if only a little. She was pissed at Taylor, yeah, but she wasn’t a sadist.

“Wait right here. I have an idea!” Taylor said after some thought before running off in a random direction.

Lisa didn’t have to wait long. Not even long enough to get off a smart remark before Taylor was back… No fun.

“Back!” Taylor said as she skidded to a stop somewhere behind Lisa.

“Brace yourself.” Was all the warning Taylor gave, leaving Lisa thinking ‘for what’ before she heard a loud, dull thud that made her teeth and spine vibrate like a rock in a tin cup.

Pleasant, that was not...and, before Lisa could even say anything about it, something that someone was probably going to regret later, it happened again and she was forced to grit her teeth and bear it.

The blade shifting a little bit more made that easy. The third blow seemed even worse, leaving her bones ringing like a bell for lack of a better word. The fourth blow happened before the effects of the third blow had faded away, compounding the sensation as it bounced off of each other and her every bone.

Lisa was breathing heavily now. The sensations were getting to be just a little too much. They weren’t painful, thank the Lord, but they weren’t pleasurable either. Her body and mind didn’t seem to know how to interpret any of it, with how unnatural it was. Her reactions just seemed to rapidly cycle through before being quickly discarded. From horror, to fear, to anger. Then the shift to the positive emotions. Serenity, joy, and for one horrifying moment, excitement.

Lisa took in a deep breath. She couldn’t do this anymore. Even if it meant that she would be stuck in this damned thing for even a second longer, she needed it all to just stop!

Of course, the moment that she started to say something was the moment that she felt herself drop. One instance she was still attached, if barely, to her body. The next she had a mouthful of Danny’s gym socks.

‘Oh god. We need a better brand of soap. I can still taste the foot cream.’ Lisa thought to herself with revulsion. It got her mind off of what had come before though, so it was almost worth it.

That feeling of something getting stuck in her throat being gone was nice too. Couldn’t forget that.

“Lisa! Are you alright?!” Taylor said as she quickly picked her up, bringing her head to eye level...where the blonde greeted her with a flat look. The flattest look of her life as she spat a gym sock out of her mouth and onto Taylor’s chest and frowned.

“Right,” Taylor said sheepishly. Oh good. She was capable of learning. “You’re going to have to stand up for me to do this.”

Lisa stopped glaring at her and instead closed her eyes to make this much easier on her. It was playing havoc on her sense of balance to feel herself get up, even while her inner ear said she was stationary...But it had to be done, even if it made her want to throw up. Especially when Taylor moved and her inner ear told her she was moving when she wasn’t.

It was all only temporary though. Didn’t take much longer after that until that familiar yet alien sensation that was Taylor’s magic washed over her and she was good as new...maybe.

She still had to check to make sure and so she did.

Her hands were unable to find any obvious gaps. Any new grooves or crevices in her neck. Her hair wasn’t somehow stuck where it shouldn’t be and a couple of quick breaths and a swallow told her that her pipes were working just fine. Her thumb showed that her carotid artery was working too. Her pulse told her that she didn’t need to do any exercise today though.

She glanced over at Taylor. Who looked every bit like a puppy that realized that it had done something wrong and was going to get yelled at. Cute, and yet guilty as all hell.

Instead of saying what she wanted to say after an experience like that...Lisa didn’t. She just turned to leave.

“I’m going upstairs before I say anything I shouldn’t..” She finally said, walking by Taylor. That might have actually been worse than just laying into Taylor, once she thought about it. It denied the incident being over and dealt with, and the specter of the chewing out would hang over them.

Lisa didn’t really care though. She just wanted to go to her room, lie down, and process everything.

================

It was only a day later when Taylor meekly, after a period of long silence, poked her head into Lisa’s room.

“Um… Could you come downstairs?” Taylor asked, nervously fidgeting. Lisa raised an eyebrow at that. Put on her socks and some solid shoes to avoid the basement’s curse of broken toes...and found herself standing in front of the guillotine again.

She only had one response to that.

“No. Fuck no,” Lisa said simply, pointing at the guillotine for emphasis. Taylor scratched the back of her neck.

“No... I don’t blame you. I figured out what the issue was though.” Lisa’s eyebrow rose once more. Taylor continued on in that annoying and yet endearing way of hers.

“Pretty much I tested it out so much to make sure it was work that I broke it,” Taylor said nodding her head back and forth in slight anxiety.

“Ironic,” Lisa commented. That was all she could say without saying something acidic.

“I kinda wore a groove into it and them that grove splintered and then it got stuck between the wheels.” She said as she kicked her shoe against the ground, not meeting Lisa’s eyes. She then perked up. “I ripped apart the mechanics, cleaned out the jam, sanded the wood-” Taylor started to go into technical talk mode.

“Taylor.” Lisa tried to stop the lecture before it could get off the ground. There were three things that Taylor wasn’t a ball of self-conscious nerves about. Performing magic, talking magic, and making magic. And God help anyone who got caught up in one of her rants about magic.

Lisa couldn’t keep up and she cheated. It wasn’t fair.

“Waxed the wood, oiled the wheels, replaced the rope,” Taylor was still going on without a care.

“Taylor!” Lisa said a bit more forcibly. If she didn’t stop her soon, there might be a repeat of the wood explanation. It was interesting to know how the principles of Teak and Mahogany could enhance and interfere with various tricks... But Lisa probably could have gotten an Associates' degree in the time that Taylor’s rant had lasted. A legit one. Not the one she forged.

“Sharpened the blade-”

“TAYLOR!” Lisa yelled, her hand grasping her neck. Nope. She was stopping it right there. Taylor nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Right! Sorry!” Taylor said, coming back down to earth. A couple of breaths and she nodded to herself.

“Okay. Pretty much I made it so that what had happened before wouldn’t happen again. I even made a checklist and maintenance schedule!” Taylor happily said.

Lisa looked down. That would explain the clipboard attached to the side of it. “That’s nice. I’m still not getting in that thing though,” Lisa said. Taylor wilted. And there were back to where they first were when they came down here today.

“I am well aware of that,” Taylor said as she made her way over to the contraption and placed the same basket as earlier underneath it. “I just need you to attach me,” Taylor said as she opened the stock.

Lisa blinked. “... Uh. I’m not the magician here,” Lisa said hesitantly. She had this horrible bloody image in her head of Taylor. She did her best to block it out but it wouldn’t go away. “You know that, right?”

“Oh, I know. But that’s fine. As I’ve said earlier, I can work my tricks on myself. I just need help to get my head back on. Nothing major,” She calmly explained as she kneeled down on the pillow.

“Or we could just not use the prop that’s already broke once,” Lisa said, shuffling over to the basket. She really didn’t want to have to explain to Danny what had happened. If she would be able to. Screaming hysterically in horror tended to get in the way of that sort of thing.

“But where is the fun in that?” Taylor asked, sliding the stock down and moving her hair out of the way.

“I think our comedic roles got switched around on the stairs,” Lisa muttered to herself. That was something she would say, not Taylor. Taylor didn’t hear her, or just ignored her, seeing as was already grabbing at the rope.

“Ready?” Taylor asked. Not letting Lisa say anything before she continued. “3, 2, 1!” She pulled the rope.

Lisa cringed and squeezed her eyes tight. A swish, a thud, and a soft plop. She knew that Taylor wouldn’t have done it if there was even a remote chance of anything actually going wrong...but still. She still didn’t want to risk it.

“Oh god… Oh god... what does dad buy? It tastes like paint thinner!” Taylor complained, much to Lisa’s relief as she opened her eyes a crack, just to see a glossy mop of brown hair and an extremely welcomed lack of blood.

“A success!” Taylor’s booming smile greeted Lisa first thing when the blonde flipped the brunette’s head the right side up...and. Lisa couldn’t help but smile in return.

Taylor’s smile was contagious. It was one of those things that Lisa couldn’t get tired of seeing… Because friends were like that. Actual friends.

“Okay! Now if you could put me back on my body we can break this down for storage.” Lisa took a half step, and then stopped with a shake of her head to clear her thoughts...only to get a new one.

It was an awful one. A wonderful one. A wonderfully awful idea...and, possibly, just a little evil. Maybe.

“Uh...Lisa? I don’t like that look on your face...” Taylor said, paling at the smile that Lisa was giving her. “What are you thinking of?”

Lisa said nothing. She pivoted on her heels and headed up the stairs.

“Lisa? Lisa! Where are you going!? My body is back that way! Lisa!” Taylor badgered the blonde endlessly as they left the room and left her body behind.

“OW! MY SHIN!”

It might not have been what Taylor had wanted...but she was stuck with this. Lisa wished her luck getting out of the workshop, and up the stairs without sight. Really.

========================

Danny sighed as he turned off his truck. Another day, another dollar. That’s what he felt like these days as he took his keys out of the ignition and got out.

Why did he even bother getting out of bed? That was a serious question sometimes.

A few steps brought him into the house. He threw his keys onto the table, took off his shoes, and hung up his coat. He sighed as he started to make his way to the bedroom, feeling the need to lie down for a while.

“Did he really say “Because you’re a vampire!? Really?”

He paused as he heard his daughter's cheerful voice coming from the living room.

“Yep. Another interesting premise ruined by hack writing and forced harem comedy. Because why try to do anything new or even different?”

That was Lisa. What are they even talking about?

“American tv isn’t much better. There are more murders solved in NYC on tv than actually happen there. Or anywhere, actually.”

Danny peeked his head around the corner. Taylor and her live-in assistant were watching TV in the living room. That wasn’t odd. He was glad she was interacting with people her age again.

No, what was odd was the fact that his daughter’s bruised headless body was leaning against Lisa, while her head was in Lisa’s lap.

It said a lot about how things have changed in the house that he wasn’t screaming...and that she was smiling.

He carefully went back around the corner and crept up the stairs. He didn’t want to disturb them. The day, now that he looked back on it, was better than it was before...and he hoped that they realized the obvious soon.

Chapter Text

Warning: Contains age-appropriate swearing, which means quite a bit. Also contains POV changes, as I can't keep a consistent POV to save my life. Pretend it's third-person omniscient.

"Ow," was the very first word Lisa said this morning. It was not a "Hello," "Hey," or even a "Good morning." It was an interjection of surprise and pain.

It's not something she should be surprised at anymore in this household.

"Are you okay!?" Taylor asked, becoming the first thing that she'd heard this morning. Again, that was nothing new.

And this was her life now.

"I'm… fine?" Lisa said in the form of a question, unsure what else she could say and… She poked at her nose. Not even the slightest hint of any pain. A few more experiential twists and turns told her that nothing was broken.

Her eye twitched when her power helpfully told her that if she kept doing that, she would break it in about 56 twists and needed more calcium in her diet.

"I guess I was more surprised than anything," she clarified as she bent down to pick up what had hit her. "You don't really expect to have something hit you in the face first thing in the morning."

A small cardboard box, still wrapped in plastic, proudly declares itself to be 'fun for the whole family'... scrawled over a clown's face.

Lisa had her doubts.

Taylor grinned sheepishly instead of replying while scratching the back of her head. "I'm trying to practice my card tricks. And I just…" Taylor trailed off, not wanting to follow that train of conversation any further. Because it had just happened, she smacked her best friend in the face. "Yeah."

"It's still sealed!"

"I hadn't even gotten to the trick part yet," Taylor replied defensively as Lisa shook that deck at her. I was just practicing the part of the routine where I would show the Audience that the card pack is still sealed—show that it hasn't been tampered with or pre-shuffled. You know?" Taylor picked up a second deck of cards from the portable table she used in her show.

"That, of course, ignores that shrink wrap and a hair dryer is about 40 bucks. Tops." Lisa said back, feeling catty, as she rapidly dismantled the box to get at the prize inside: Cards. As Taylor had said. With a nice shine to them, thick while still being able to be manipulated for any nefarious purposes one might have.

She'd card-sharked a time or two. And she had to say that Taylor was right.

People tended to relax when you opened a fresh box of cards right before them. They tended to believe they weren't about to get fleeced.

Lisa shuffled the cards in her hands with the grace of an expert.

… Magic shows were a bit different there, context and all, but she guessed Taylor had a point.

"I wouldn't do that!" Taylor declared, offended. She then let out a little squeak as her being offended resulted in bringing her hand to her chest and dropping her deck straight down her top as she fumbled the lot. "Dang it!"

"There are people who don't put in as much effort as you do in their magic, you know? Which is rather sad as they do it for their living, and they're rank amateurs compared to a high schooler." Lisa remarked, bridging the cards together in her hands with the characteristic snap. "I mean, not like the shrink wrap trick is common knowledge, but-"

"Oh, I know." Taylor interrupted after catching the deck of cards as it fell out the bottom of her shirt. "Have you seen some of the buskers on the Boardwalk? It sounds mean, but I'm not sure some of them know how to tie their shoes." Taylor said, trying to remember where she left off in her routine. "Embarrassing."

Oh boy.

"Uh, I hate to burst your bubble there, Taylor, but I'm pretty sure that the last guy we saw there was mentally ill."

Telling Taylor some of the unpleasant facts of life made her feel like a heel. But better that Taylor get them said to her gently instead of the accelerated courses she got on the street.

That he'd probably been forced off the Boardwalk by Boardwalk security soon after was something she kept to herself. She wasn't that cruel.

"Oh," Taylor said softly, her head dropping slightly.

See? This is precisely what Lisa meant. All she'd done was gently tell Taylor about how that man might have been sick, not bad at magic tricks, yet she felt she had personally caused it.

If Taylor ever became aware of her ability to manipulate people like that, she could…. she would just use it to be an even better magician.

The girl had a one-track mind.

"Pick a card," Lisa said in a straightforward attempt at distraction, fanning the cards out in front of her.

Taylor blinked in confusion, staring. "Okayyy?" Having fallen for that distraction, she picked a card.

Lisa smirked.

Just as planned. "Now, don't show it to me!" Lisa continued, waving her hand and wriggling her fingers. Back in her element. Enjoying the moment.

Bullshitting like a master.

"Memorize the card!"

Taylor, so lost in what Lisa was doing that she'd forgotten what Lisa had wanted her to forget, stared at her card. Stared with the intensity that came with people who could set fire to things with their eyes.

That was not a power Taylor had. Lisa was…pretty sure. Or any other power besides the power of puppy dog eyes.

That was bad enough.

"Place the card back into the deck…and make sure that I don't see what it is!" Lisa held a hand between the other hand holding the cards and kept her face turned away until she felt Taylor slip the card back into the rest. Then, faster than the eye could see, she collapsed the fan of cards back into a deck. Her hands shuffled the cards over and over, all one giant blur. A flourish here and a flourish there had Taylor leaning closer and closer to see what exactly Lisa was doing.

All according to plan.

Lisa's grin was so wide that it hurt a little. She let the whole thing go up in Taylor's face and made the bespectacled girl recoil with a scream.

And it was sweet.

"Lisa!" Taylor sputtered out, brushing the cards away like an A-list actor in this week's blockbuster swatting at cave bats. The six of clubs had managed to get between her glasses and her face. "Why?!"

She knew why.

"A little revenge," Lisa explained anyway. "And, more importantly, you need to relax a little. It's obvious that your lack of rapid progress is getting to you." Lisa snatched the card from behind Taylor's glasses before the other girl could hurt herself. "You're just radiating stress."

"... Oh, that makes sense," Taylor said, sweeping the rest of the cards off her shirt to flutter to the floor. She was going to say something more, but her breath left her when she looked up. Thanks for that, I guess."

"You're welcome." Lisa flicked the single card still in her hand in Taylor's direction. The girl almost fumbled this one as well but made it in clutch. And what do you have to say about this?"

"About what?" Taylor asked absently as she looked down…and gasped, looking up at Lisa so quickly that the blonde was sure she'd feel that later. "Wha-!?"

"The five of diamonds was your card. Simple." Lisa spread out her hands. "Sleight of hand tricks like that are a dime a dozen…" Lisa's grin quirked up. "I can't lie, though. My powers helped."

Only a little. It wasn't as if it could move her hands for her.

"Most of this is practice—a lot of practice," Lisa explained, well-deserved pride coming into her usual tone of voice. But I also have to say that's not all I know."

And she wasn't being snippy this time, either.

She's going to grab you.

"Teach me!" Taylor said, grabbing Lisa's hand as the blonde's useless powers warned her far too late to do anything about it. "Please!"

Lisa's face started to heat up at that. Her hands were in Taylor's. Affectionate skin contact without the flood of information. And then it went away when she realized what she said.

Dull realization.

"We're going to do a training montage of me showing you all the sleight-of-hand tricks I know, aren't we?" Lisa asked.

Taylor nodded.

Lisa could only sigh.

Well, that was on her.

"Get comfy. This is going to be a while." Lisa sighed as she went to get a chair. "I learned quite a bit."

---------------------

"Okay. So, look. This is my variation of Three Card Monty." Lisa said, bending the cards precisely before laying them out on the card table in front of them.

"Your variation?" Taylor asked, about to poke at the cards.

"My variation," Lisa repeated herself, lightly swatting Taylor's hand away before she could mess it up. "A proper Three-Card Monty involves a team of people. The dealer, a handful of shills to keep the mark from winning while stringing them along, and a lookout. To both pretend to see the cops and to actually look out for the cops. A modified one usually can get away with fewer people. Really good or desperate ones only have the dealer."

Lisa shuffled the cards around the table, working through the rust, quickly remembering how it went.

It had been a while.

"So what's your version?" Taylor asked, rubbing the back of her hand.

"Well, I was desperate at the beginning, really good at the end, and at various levels of the two throughout my short career as a con woman," Lisa said, a little bit ashamed. Only a little bit. She had to eat and knew almost all her targets had it coming. The handful that didn't, it was a well-learned lesson for only a couple hundred bucks. And that wasn't entirely something she told herself to ease her conscience.

They were far too trusting. How they managed to make it big in business while being that naive was a miracle in its own right.

"I had two major advantages. One visible, and one invisible." Lisa said, holding up two fingers. "The invisible one is something that no one would suspect some teenage hustler outside of a market would have."

"Your powers," Taylor said simply. Lisa nodded.

"Yep. When people think Thinker, they think of someone in a darkened room, plotting while in a nice suit and mask. Not some 14-year-old girl badly hustling cards on a boardwalk somewhere," Lisa said, shifting the cards around the mat. Or someone as smart as I am."

Damned smart.

"And the visible?" Taylor asked, keeping her eyes on the card and quietly accepting what Lisa had said without comment.

Sweet.

"I was a 14-year-old girl who was badly hustling cards on a boardwalk somewhere," Lisa said smugly. "No one thinks that me, all acne-ridden from a lack of any proper facial products and diet, would be a proper hustler. And they would be right the first few times."

Those acne scars still bothered her.

"I literally had to grab the money and run a few times," She admitted sheepishly, scratching at the site of what had once been a nasty blackhead and thinking of finding a good dermatologist.

Taylor snorted at that, taking her eyes off the cards.

"And let me tell you. Fat businessmen in cheap suits can move when their money is on the line," Lisa said, pointing a finger at the deck for emphasis. Her eyes were wide, her face twisted in a caricature of what she called 'sweaty horror. '

Taylor laughed out loud.

"I barely got away, and only because I discovered I can vault a chain-link fence in less than two seconds when properly motivated." She shook her head in wistful remembrance. "But back to the matter at hand. The first rule of Three Card Monte is that the mark never wins."

"Okay."

"As I said earlier about the classic set-up with the shills, the dealer and the shills have a system of tells, where the dealer can tell them where the winning card is. So the shills will always win, and when the mark places a bet on the winning card, the shill will outbet them, thus getting the right to pick that card."

Taylor listened with rapt attention as if learning how to con gullible gamblers would reveal the universe's secrets to her. And who knows?

It might.

"Usually, there is a second shill who's talking with the mark about how easy it is to win." She kept on. "Of course, it's easy because the dealer lets them win." Lisa carefully folded the cards again, glad that the deck Taylor had been using for practice this morning had been cheap.

They certainly weren't made of money, even with her using her Thinker powers to squeeze every single legal drop possible from the Government. All those pesky insider trader regulations revolved around powers, and not a single one applied to Internal Revenue Code section 7623.

Suck it, Max Anders; that's what you get when you cut a stranger in the coffee line!

"Anyway," Lisa said, shaking her head to clear her thoughts, "find the lucky lady!" Her hands rapidly moved the three cards in a blur in front of Taylor, causing the bespectacled girl to go cross-eyed from trying to keep track of where it was.

Easy.

"Uh," Taylor intelligently said as she blinked and refocused her eyes again. That one?"

Lisa made a big show of gesturing towards the card, making it so that Taylor would be the one to touch them. After some hesitation, she picked a card and flipped it over. She sounded much like a goose colliding with a clown when it was revealed to be the five of diamonds again. She quickly turned over the second card to find it was the six of clubs, and finally, the third one was, in fact, the Queen of Hearts.

"Bwah!?" Taylor continued her goose calls, thankfully not flapping her arms at her with the strength to break bones as she stared up at Lisa.

Lisa pointed at her temple with her index finger. "Headology," she said simply, trying not to crack up.

It was a near thing.

"I never should have lent you my Discworld books," Taylor said, giving Lisa a flat look as she regained her wits.

"You shouldn't have," Lisa agreed. "It's still true, though. Now make the tea, Magrat."

Taylor grumbled as she got up and started walking over to the kitchen. She really should never have lent them to Lisa; now she knew how to get her to make tea. And her hair-

"And yes, your hair is not frizzy and full of split ends!" Lisa called back as she walked away, causing Taylor's shoulders to hunch up.

She was starting to see why no one was ever happy to see Granny Weatherwax.

--------

"All Discworld references aside," Taylor said in what, to some people, would be considered a non-sequitur. Some, like Lisa, hadn't made a Discworld joke in almost an hour; as Taylor put her mug on the table, "How did you do that?"

Taylor had fumed for that hour; Lisa had let her, and now she guessed they were back to it.

"The actual card shuffling is from me needing to do it if I wanted to eat. And lots of practice." Lisa said as she set down her own mug. "My circumstances were really motivating."

The Hebert dining room wasn't at all where she would have ever imagined winding up when she found herself on the streets, but goddamn. She wouldn't trade it for anything in the …..Okay, she would trade it for several things, but Taylor and Danny would be coming with her.

The house was lovely, despite someone needing to fix that porch step out front before they broke something, and it was on a great lot if the city ever picked up again. But was it "Someone is offering us their French Riveria villa in exchange" nice?

"But getting the mark to never pick the right card? I wasn't 'just' being smug when I said " Headology." Lisa started to reshuffle the cards, this time slow enough that Taylor could follow them.

And the puppy dog eyes were back. What was she supposed to do in front of that?

"As I said, I cheat in a way they would never suspect. I shuffle the cards around fast enough that they get confused or unable to focus on where the lucky lady is. Then I just have to do it long enough to know which one they'll guess. Then, even if they flip the other cards, they can't accuse me of cheating, as it's right there. And since they flipped the card themselves, that's even harder for me to have cheated them." Lisa said as she gestured to the cards again.

She couldn't help but grin as Taylor hesitated, unsure of herself if the card she thought was the lucky lady was, in fact, lucky.

"Damnit!" Taylor swore as she went with her second choice, again finding the five of diamonds. She growled a little as she flipped over the second card and found it had been the Queen of Hearts all along. "How the hell-"

Lisa's grin softened as she shook her head as Taylor picked up the last card, holding it in both hands and resisting the urge to crush it as she glared.

This girl could perform literal magic, and here she was, getting frustrated at being unable to win at Three-Card Monte after only an hour. This girl really only had a one-track mind.

"Why don't you practice shuffling those three cards around while I go get the things I need for the next trick," Lisa said as she got up, leaving her tea behind.

Taylor barely acknowledged this, glaring at the cards as if they had betrayed her somehow.

Lisa shook her head once again as she went down to the basement.

This girl.

----

"So why am I wearing a watch exactly?" Taylor said as she held up her wrist.

When Lisa went into the basement to get props, she expected quite a few things. An old Alexandria Happy Meal watch was not one of them.

"What watch?" Lisa asked, her face completely neutral.

Taylor turned to her wrist, and her eyes widened. The watch that had barely fit onto her now (mostly) adult wrist was gone; only the red marks from something a little too tight applied to the skin remained. She looked back to Lisa, who was casually spinning the watch at the end of her finger.

"How!?" Taylor asked, bewildered. Lisa started to open her mouth but got interrupted by Taylor.

"No, I mean, pickpocket artists are a thing, but they usually use misdirection, audience pressure, or star-struck volunteers. We were just sitting here! How?!"

Lisa….Lisa didn't have the heart to tell Taylor how exactly it had been possible. The poor, sweet girl.

"Once again, skill born from desperation," Lisa skirted around the truth with another truth. "Though funny enough, the cheaper watches are harder to get off. Sports watches have Velcro straps, so they make a noise when taken off and actually are fitted properly," Lisa explained before she showed off the clasp on the cheap watch.

"Then you have plastic or leather bands that are just as hard to remove. They don't make noise when you fiddle with them, but you have to undo a buckle in three seconds without your target noticing." Lisa demonstrated how little time that was, undoing the buckle in the mentioned time limit. It didn't seem too hard, but that was without the pressure of not trying to get caught and the difficulty of being on someone else's wrist.

"Then there are the fancy watches," Lisa said, a little sparkle appearing in her eye.

Those made for good eating once you got them to a fence.

"Metal clasps are a lot easier. Their clasps are easy to get off, and far too many people never get them fitted correctly." The sparkle in Lisa's eye grew as her smile and face started to turn vulpine.

"And Rolexes," Lisa let out a sigh of (platonic) pleasure at the name. "New money and people putting on a front just love wearing Rolexes. They don't know any other brand name for luxury watches, so they go with the most well-known for bragging rights. They never get them fitted as they don't know you're supposed to do that, and sometimes they don't even have the serial numbers written down, let alone insured. Even the fake Rolexs can go for a decent price if they're good fakes."

Lisa continued to stare off into the distance with a wistful smile, slowly sipping her tea.

Taylor felt like their roles had been reversed in the past few minutes.

"However," Lisa said as she came back to the present, "Never attempt to lift an ALS, a Vacheron Constantin, or, god forbid, a goddamn Patek Philippe. Money talks, but wealth whispers. And the wealth that can afford a Patek whispers into the ears of Intelligence Agencies." Taylor snorted at the joke and started to bring her mug up to her lips. Only to have it dribble onto her shirt as her eyes widened and she realized Lisa wasn't laughing.

"Holy fucking shit," Was all Taylor could say as she finally stopped pouring tea onto herself and setting the mug back down.

"In the Secret Service's defense, it had been the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury." Lisa said this like one would say, 'It's a fair cop.'

"And when they kicked in the door and saw that it was just some dumb teenage girl in her sweatpants with a slice of pizza halfway to her mouth instead of an enemy of the state, they just wanted the damn watch back." Lisa continued as if she wasn't describing the nightmare of everyone who had the slightest bit of social anxiety when they heard a knock at the door.

"So I changed tactics a little bit after that incident," Lisa said like she was talking about how she doesn't go to the taco stand near her office after an upset stomach instead of nearly being arrested by the literal Feds.

"Which was?" Taylor was actually dreading to hear the answer now. She was all for learning more about magic, but not at the expense of her sleep.

She was going to start nodding off tonight, and then her dad was going to go to the bathroom and cause a floorboard to creek, and then she'd jolt awake thinking the IRS was about to arrest her for failure to pay import tax on something she bought off eBay.

"It's US Customs that collects import tariffs," Lisa said as she pseudo-read Taylor's mind, "And technically committing international tax evasion makes for one hell of a trump card for Two Truths and a Lie."

"Back to the matter at hand," Lisa said with a little flourish of her hand, showing that she did pay attention to Taylor's long lectures on magic. "The new scam was to knock the watch off their wrist, but not to steal it."

"Okay?" Taylor said, not quite understanding Lisa's point. She thought like a showwoman, not a criminal.

She knew what the misdirection was but not what it was for.

"Well, then I would fumble with picking it up, putting it in their hands, maybe even helping them get it back on their sweaty wrists." Lisa started to spell it out for Taylor, walking her through it like a teacher would for a particularly inattentive child.

"And then steal their wallet?" Taylor said, taking an educated guess.

"No," Lisa said simply as she held up her hand, "taking the rings off their fat fingers. Wallets are usually too hard to get to."

Taylor blinked at the pieces of plastic in Lisa's hand before looking down at her own. Now that she was paying attention to them, she felt the familiar sharp little stings of blood flowing back to places they were cut off from. She had to settle for less dramatic heels for her shows. They gave her less stage presence, but she could still walk after taking them off.

"I'm both impressed you managed to get those off me without noticing and the fact that you managed to get those off me at all," Taylor said as she rubbed where the plastic rings had been on her fingers.

"I make it look easier than it is."

"Where did you even get these?" Taylor asked as she shook her hand. It started to hurt now that her attention was brought back. She was pretty sure Lisa actually drew blood with a sharp bit of plastic when she pulled them off.

"There was a Pretty Pretty Princess game box underneath my cot. You know, in the closet. Where I sleep," Lisa said, her voice dripping with sad melodrama.

"It's a nice cot," Taylor said, not biting.

"It even has a heated blanket. Your pillow is newer than mine!" Taylor had failed at not biting.

"Nope. I am just a poor unloved orphan being forced to live in the cupboard under the stairs, boo hoo." Lisa flatly sobbed, her face not even showing a trace of emotion, while an unheard tiny violin started to play in the background.

"Okay, your stage name is now the Pretty Pretty Assistant," Taylor said as she started to give back as good as she got. "I'm sure I can find the pink tutu I had when I was five and wanted to be a ballerina and cram your fat thighs into it. Make you come out to the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, throwing glitter all over the stage. Then you do a pirouette before I saw your ungrateful ass in half."

"Well, at least I would finally be pretty," Lisa sniffled breathlessly as she daintily rested her chin on the top of her hands and fluttered her eyelashes.

The silence lasted five seconds as the two girls stared at each other. Upon the sixth second, they both broke into cackles of laughter and started to slam their hands onto the table, sending a mess of tea, playing cards, and cheap plastic across the room.

A mess of safety and comfort.

Edit 03-16-2024: Fixed a couple of grammar and formatting errors.

Chapter Text

"Lalalala!" Lisa happily sang to herself as she scrubbed at her scalp. Yes, yes. A blonde girl enjoys showers while singing in them—how stereotypical. But after spending far too long on the streets, she had learned to enjoy hot water whenever she could get her hands on it. Her power helpfully told her that the bathroom might not have been updated since the 1960s, 1968 to be specific, but it was perfectly functional.

And she didn't have to shower in a rest stop shower, which was always a good thing.

Lisa dug her nails into her scalp, making up for lost time and soap. A girl had to care for her pores, no matter where they were. Such was her concentration on this task, Lisa did not foresee the tragedy that would befall her.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Lisa screamed as winter-chilled water poured over her, her hands thrashing against the shower curtain and soap bottles flying through the air. A bathroom that hadn't been remodeled since 1968 also meant that the hot water heater had been installed in 1968.

And it was freezing outside.


===================================


"T-t-Taylor, we need to t-talk." Lisa stammered out, teeth chattering. Lisa had been a valley girl, literally. Freezing had been in the low 50s to her, and hypothermia was the trendy new ice cream place.

Thin ice being a danger made a lot more sense now.

"Yeah, when it gets this cold out, the water heater struggles to keep up," Taylor said with the grim wisdom of a long-suffering veteran of the horrors unleashed upon Lisa.

"Why d-does a-anyone willingly live here?" Lisa chattered out as she wrapped her bathrobe closer to herself.

"Why does anyone live where the ground shakes?" Taylor asked with some venom as she hammered a panel back into place. Lisa stopped and looked at Taylor with mild shock.

"...It happened to you today, didn't it?" Lisa asked, already knowing the answer. The past few weeks had her relying on her power less and less. But in its absence, she had gained something much more valuable. Common sense. That or her powers weren't nearly as forceful. Either way, she had fewer headaches, so she wasn't complaining.

"Oooohhhh, yeaaaaahhh." Taylor hissed out as she gave an open slap to the side of whatever she was building today. There was a brief pause, and then the doohickey slid into place with a click. "That sucked."

Lisa tried to pay attention, but Taylor would start rattling off things about color theory and negative space and its effects on perspective, and Lisa could feel herself go cross-eyed.

"And all the money from our last three shows has already been spent," Lisa commented.

She didn't need to ask if that was true. She already knew the answer to that, but it was polite to think aloud to avoid misunderstandings.

"Well, I can only really do shows after the schools let out to avoid the handful of Truancy Officers that still care about their jobs, and I can't linger on the boardwalk for too long before that murderous Enforcer shows up," Taylor muttered, causing both of them to shudder in remembrance.

There was something deeply wrong with him, something that needed very strong Retrophrenology to cure.

"And no one is going to give a timeslot in any of the venues that would take a magician to a couple of no-name teenage girls." Taylor's mutterings turned somewhat sad as she grabbed a heat gun and clicked it on.

Lisa stared at her while Taylor carefully manipulated the vinyl and plastic parts on the device. "Taylor, you are an amazing magician but a horrible businesswoman," Lisa eventually said, rubbing the back of her hand on her forehead.

Taylor looked up from her work. "'Available for birthdays, weddings, and bar mitzvahs' is a cliché for a reason," Lisa explained, pacing around the basement. "It's not dignified, but it keeps the lights on and the fridge stocked."

"But how will people know we're available for those?" Taylor asked, not quite getting it.

"They're called charity events, Taylor. Charity events, business cards, and your plastic is flopping," Lisa said, pointing at the contraption. Taylor let out a panicked squeak as she tried to salvage it. Lisa was starting to tap her chin, thinking. She hadn't been paying attention to her "parents'" charity events but had to remember something.

A lightbulb went off in her head and next to Taylor's as the poor girl tripped a circuit. She got it. Lisa cracked her knuckles and headed back up the stairs. Time to work her social magic and leave Taylor alone to work her magic magic. And also dry off; she was still dripping.

===========

"Go to the Children's Ward, Amy. You've been pushing yourself too hard, Amy. You need to relax Amy." Panacea grumbled to herself as she made her way to said Children's Ward, one of the last ones on the East Coast. Okay, maybe she was pushing herself too hard. Maybe she was too moody even as a teenager. But the gift store carrying more and more Grumpy Bear merchandise was not a coincidence. Especially with how the thank you cards kept winding up in her locker.

The next person who handed her a stuffed animal was getting Amy's Revenge, which was a lot like Montezuma's revenge but much more personal. The Proctologists would thank her for it, as it would be the cleanest rectal endoscopy they had ever done.

Amy sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She was stressed out; she had to be. Why else would she be waxing poetically about making people shit their pants? Yeah, she needed to go see the show. Watch some sweaty guy in a cheap tux try to convince her that the metal rings he was holding were completely solid. If she was in a good mood afterward, she might even clear the plaque from his arteries.

Amy hummed to herself as she approached the Children's Ward, picking up the edges of the commotion coming down the hall. Amy took a short, deep breath through her nose to steel herself at the thought of being social, especially with children. It was so much worse when you had children swarming you when you could feel just how many pathogens they were covered in when they touched you. Amy still occasionally felt the need to scrub with hand sanitizer, and she could sterilize 101 percent of all disease-causing germs. No, she didn't fail math; she got a B+ on her midterm. She was just that good.

Amy exhaled, took the last few steps, and pushed herself through the double doors. And blinked. What she had been expecting was not what she was seeing. She had been expecting a fat guy wearing a headband while badly mangling a dove and claiming it was sleeping. What she got was a leggy brunette girl around her age in fishnets. Obviously, she was wearing more than just fishnets; it just took Amy longer than she would ever admit to realize that.

The girl was wearing a tuxedo tailcoat that was made specifically for her with how perfectly it fitted her frame. The white blouse and red corset caused Amy to swallow rather hard. The red bowtie only served to make Amy's mouth just that much drier. The top hat on her head sat at a jaunty little angle, enhancing the image. However, the shorts pulled over the fishnets seemed out of place. A noticeably different shade of black than the tuxedo and a completely different material. That, combined with the pair of quickly disinfected foam rubber clogs for her choice of footwear, told Amy that wardrobe compromises had been made for the venue.

Not that she was letting that stop her. She was currently juggling six large silver hoops, the cliché kind she was thinking about earlier. The ones magicians made a big deal about being solid before making a show of them suddenly being able to go through each other. As if the tiny little cut on them was so hard for someone to think of. However, juggling them before you did that part of the routine was new.

"Alley-oop!" Amy's attention was drawn to the person who said that, who was tossing another ring to the magician. They were also a girl around her age, though blonde and not quite as leggy. Their outfit seemed better matched to the age environment; white lace blouse, purple pencil skirt, and black domino mask perfectly framing green eyes that almost seemed to glow in the light.

The matching pair of rubber clogs was the only compromise the outfit needed.

As far as Amy could tell, seven silver rings were spinning through the air. The shine from the rings catching the fluorescent lighting was distracting, making it hard to keep track of the rings, let alone count them. A flourish here, a flourish there, a trick shot as the magician tossed one from underneath one arm. But no matter what, the rings never stopped moving.

And then suddenly, the rings stopped, the magician catching them all in the palm of one hand. They chimed as they came to a rest in her cupped hand. There was silence as the crowd waited to see what happened next. The magician gingerly pinched one of the rings between her index and thumb and pulled it to the side. A subtle clinking of metal was all that was heard for a few seconds before the Ward erupted into rapturous applause, Amy being shocked to find herself included.

The magician held outstretched all seven rings, perfectly linked together in front of her, with a bright, shining smile on her face. Amy swore she felt her heart skip a beat.

"Thank you, thank you," the magician said, taking a deep bow before bundling the rings back together and handing them over to the blonde. Amy's eyes followed the blonde as she opened a door on a wooden stage trunk covered in doohickeys and neatly deposited the rings into it.

"And now, watch as I pull a rabbit out of my hat," The magician said, taking off her top hat and twirling it around. Amy gave the magician a pitting look. That might be a staple of a magician's repertoire, but there was no way the nurses would be happy about an animal being introduced into a ward. And Doris was the charge nurse right now. She had been an inner city nurse for 30 years; Amy once watched her make an E88 gangbanger apologize for calling a doctor a racial slur.

Telling someone, "You're the one bleeding to death, not us!" was a great way to get someone to cooperate. Amy liked her but never wanted to be on her bad side.

"Let's see here," The magician said, not realizing the hell that she was unleashing upon herself. Her right arm entered into her hat, significantly deeper than Amy expected. The top hat wasn't that deep, maybe to the middle of the girl's forearm. But the magician had managed to get past the elbow and had a part of her upper arm in it. That was a remarkable feat of showmanship, Amy could admit. Her sticking her tongue out in feigned concentration as she pretended to root around was just unfair.

"Nope, that's not it," The magician said as she tossed a deck of cards behind her shoulder. The assistant caught it with practiced ease and put it on top of the cabinet. This was followed by a plastic magic wand, a stack of cups, a metal bell, and, at one point, a bra.

Judging from how deep red the magician's face went and how she desperately shoved it into the hands of the assistant instead of tossing it over her shoulder, that had not been part of the routine. And if it had been, then honestly, her acting talents were wasted on the Eastern Seaboard, let alone the city.

"Okay," the magician said after taking a few anxious breaths, which Amy felt on a visceral level. "Let's try that again."

There were a few nervous laughs from the adults who shared Amy's sympathetic pain towards the girl. The kids, of course, had been laughing their heads off the entire time, which had only caused the poor girl to go even redder. Amy thought she might have had to step in to prevent hyperventilation, but thankfully, the assistant stepped in and managed to calm her down with a few whispered words and a squeeze on the shoulder.

Amy was starting to think that the relationship was a bit more than just professional, but she wasn't one to judge. At least about this. The guy whose 'magic trick' was to get a shampoo bottle up his ass by falling on it in the shower without a single sign of trauma? Oh yeah, she was judging him.

The magician returned to her hat, though without the flourish of last time. She reached in just as deep but with the aura of someone who wanted this over with so they could all pretend that what had happened hadn't happened. It was downright anti-climatic when she pulled out a little velveteen rabbit. It was a little less anti-climatic when she pulled out a second one. The third and the fourth, which were produced quickly afterward, Amy felt a little bad for them despite being inanimate objects. They should have at least a little bit of presentation

And then shortly afterward, rabbits five, six, and seven joined their previous four on the trunk. It really was a shame that they were given all the aplomb of someone trying to get through a group project with the annoying kid in the class. Even if she was just pulling them out of her hat, that was quite a few rabbits stuffed in there.

Then, the number quickly grew to ten, and Amy came to the same conclusion that the rest of the Ward did—roughly at the same time, too, if the cheering from the kids was any indication.

There was going to be a rabbit for every kid in the Ward. Which was even more impressive as the gift shop didn't have velveteen rabbits, meaning the magician and assistant had to bring all of them with them before they even got to the hospital. Even if she was keeping some of them up her sleeve, Amy had no idea how she managed to tuck away 20 rabbits without giving the trick away.

"Alright," the magician sighed, blowing a strand of hair out of her face before putting the top hat back on. She started to turn towards the truck and stopped.

"Really?" The magician asked as she looked towards her assistant. The assistant flashed what could only be called a vulpine grin over the top of a human pyramid made out of all the rabbits.

"I don't suppose you have one more in your hat? I'm missing one to finish the pyramid," the assistant said without any shame, her hands on the trunk on both sides of the pyramid. This confirmed that this was also not part of the routine but a spur-of-the-moment idea she had. If it had been planned, they would have had the 21 needed to finish the pyramid properly.

"We barely managed to scrounge up the 20 we needed after three shops, I do not have an extra." The magician said as she walked back to the trunk and plucked one of the rabbits from the bottom row. Everyone blinked as the pyramid did not collapse as expected but, in fact, remained upright. After a couple of seconds, the assistant lightly poked one of the rabbits, causing gravity to properly assert itself and collapsing the pyramid.

"Well, I'm never going to manage that again," the assistant muttered before she swept an armful of rabbits into her arms.

"So, who wants a free stuffed rabbit?!" The assistant said, starting to work the crowd back up. It was widely successful, with the cheers of the children echoing off the hard, easily sterilized surfaces common in hospitals. Amy winced as her ears started to ring. She couldn't get sick, but she sure could suffer hearing loss. That would be the poetic irony now, wouldn't it? City's greatest healer with hearing aids.

Thankfully, the ringing was quick to subside as the magician and the assistant went from bed to bed, handing out the rabbits. The kids reacted like how kids do. Most of the kids were all too happy to play with the new stuffed animal. A few were trying to see if they could molecularly fuse with the rabbit if they just hugged them hard enough. And, of course, a couple of kids were being that kid and acting out horrible things happening to their rabbit. Those were quickly stopped by their parents, who gave them the universal "how did I raise a child like this" neutral look of disappointment.

"Huh," Amy vocalized quietly as she realized something. She had never seen the Children's Ward in a mood anywhere close to this. Even in the best of hospitals with the best of prognoses, kids were miserable, tired, and scared. The hysterical strength of a toddler who didn't want an IV was incredible, needing four grown men to pin them down enough for a veteran phlebotomist to even attempt a stick. The only reason she didn't suggest that Vicky volunteer as a nursing assistant is that Vicky would accidentally break a kid, and then they would have an even bigger problem.

Amy shuddered. Yeah, they did not need that to happen. She managed to get that horrible image out of her head just in time for the magician and assistant to finish distributing the rabbits.

"Thank you, thank you," the magician said as she managed to get her rhythm back from the earlier mishap and took a bow. She didn't act like she was taking it personally that most of the audience wasn't paying her any more attention. She chuckled a bit, seemingly aware that she had just given a bunch of kids a new toy. The parents, however, were appreciative enough to give her a polite clap, a few nudging their own kid to do so. They tried to applaud without letting go of their new stuffed animals, making it the quietest non-sarcastic applause Amy had ever heard.

The performing duo didn't let that slow them down at all. Their trunk was open, and things were rapidly taken out, moved around, and put back according to a system that was only known to the two of them. The magician continued her esoteric actions while the assistant quickly hopped over to an empty gurney. Amy's eyebrows raised slightly as she realized it had been sitting there this entire time.

You didn't just leave anything with wheels around children in a hospital or hell, just in general, meaning the nurses had left it there for the performers. Doris once hissed, "My precious," when someone tried to take one of her gurneys without asking. That was also the day Amy pulled an all-nighter for her English paper, so there was only a slim chance it actually happened, but still. You did not touch Doris' gurneys without her permission. This was also why Doris always had a gurney for people to try to steal, as she kept everything in proper order.

The woman was a battle ax but in a good way. This meant that if they had one of her gurneys, they would have to sweet talk her into it. But why-

"And now onto the grand finale!" That exclamation from the magician answered all of Amy's questions. The assistant pulled out an odd wooden frame and placed it onto the gurney, which raised more questions. Whatever it was had high production values. Dark walnut, well varnished and sanded, with brass locks. But the groove on one end and a semi-circle large enough to fit a grown person on the other end left her pondering what it could possibly be for.

The comically oversized hacksaw that joined it on the gurney quickly answered the second set of Amy's questions. Well, they were magicians and had already done most of the clichés; she probably missed the long string of handkerchiefs. Amy wasn't dismissive enough to deny they did the clichés well. Maybe that was the real secret to entertainment. Doesn't matter if they've seen it before as long as they enjoy seeing it again.

"And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls!" The magician managed to project her voice with enough bombast that shouldn't have been possible with her frame, "Onto our grand finale!"

"Watch as I take my pretty pretty assistant-" There was an undignified squawk from said pretty pretty assistant, who stumbled as she started to sit down on the gurney.

"You were serious about that?" The assistant said in a tone of not quite faux horror.

"You're lucky I wasn't able to find the tutu," the magician said with her own vulpine smirk. This caused another round of laughter from the children and a round of nervous laughter from the parents, who glanced at their fellow co-parents. Amy could almost hear the nervous gulps as they all recognized that sentence's subtle, vicious undercurrent.

Yeah, their relationship was far from just professional.

"Take my pretty pretty assistant," the magician continued while the now-titled pretty pretty assistant groaned and sat on the gurney. "And I saw her in half!"

"No!" A childish cry cut through the room, drawing everyone's attention. All eyes were now on a pale-looking girl sitting in a bed who had buried her face into her rabbit.

"She'll get hurt," she muttered. Her father's attempts to tell her it was just a show did nothing to console her. The magician and assistant looked nervously at each other, and it was obvious even to Amy why.

You can't exactly skip the grand finale of a show, nor could you stress out a sick child. And wheeling her out would just make her feel alienated. The magician was looking around the room, trying to come up with a solution.

Amy cursed quietly when her eyes met the magician's.

"Don't worry," The magician said as she quickly made her way over to Amy, taking her hands in her.

"Panacea here will make sure that nothing will happen!" Amy bit back on what she wanted to say about being volunteered like that because there were kids who could hear her. Turns out even a leggy brunette in fishnets wasn't enough to properly bribe-

"Please?" Amy blinked. That was not a please done out for the sake of politeness while expecting someone to comply. That was an honest, please. The type said while trying to hide your desperation and failing. The magician's smile showed too many teeth to be anything but a thinly veiled grimace.

"Fine," Amy found herself saying, "But only because you said please." That's the ticket, Amy. Sell it as a good moral lesson to the kids so they can both have some dignity here.

The muttered "Oh, thank god" from the magician was barely heard by Amy over the noise of approval from the children. A quick glance over to the girl who panicked showed that she was peeking up from behind her rabbit. She wasn't thrilled that they were still going to 'saw' the assistant in half, but she wasn't panicking about it. Well, out of all the ways of getting your start in show business, "Had to assist in a show because the kids were scared someone would get hurt, and I'm technically a medical professional" was one of the more dignified.

"All right, what do I do?" Amy said as she made the short journey over to the gurney, following behind the magician.

"Just stand right…there!" The magician said as her hands flew across Amy's body, minutely adjusting her position here and there. Amy didn't see the big fuss about her exact footing, but she was a 'healer,' not a showwoman. She wouldn't ask a magician to clear up a cellulitis infection, so she shouldn't question her about how to perform.

"No magician's secrets are going to be revealed to me?" Amy only lightly snarked as the magician clicked open the brass locks on the frame and separated what Amy now knew to be the two pieces.

"I don't even know how she does it, and I work here," The assistant lightly snarked back, the grin on her face showing that it was all in good fun. "I just lay here and look pretty."

As if to prove her point, the magician placed the bottom of the frame on the gurney and helped lay the assistant down on top of it.

"Wish we could put padding on this thing," The assistant muttered to herself as she shimmed into position before freezing slightly and glancing at Amy. She saved face by straightening out her pencil skirt, ensuring she stayed modest. Amy got the feeling that was an old complaint she forgot to bite down on now that they weren't just rehearsing. Amy couldn't say anything about complaining too much without being a massive hypocrite, and she already had fulfilled that quota for the week.

"Alright," the magician said as she slotted the top half of the frame into position. Now that a 'pretty pretty assistant' was properly placed in it, its function was clear: Make a big show of the saw going through the assistant. The scraps of wood wedged into the groove on both sides of the assistant to show how 'real' the saw was. The saw would move back and forth, and the wood chunks would be sawn alongside the assistant.

"We should probably remove these," the assistant said quietly as she started to pluck them out. The magician seemed to agree as she, too, began to carefully pull them out. Amy started to raise her hand before quickly lowering it. She felt awkward standing there, not helping, but the fear of making a fool of herself kept her paralyzed.

Any more self-chastisement was interrupted by a pile of wood scraps placed in front of her.

"Okay!" The magician said as she landed right next to Amy's left, tucking a stray bit of hair back into her hat. After finishing that, she picked up the saw and placed it in the grove on top. Amy stiffened up when, instead of just starting the sawing or whatever she was supposed to do, the magician intertwined her fingers with Amy's. She still hadn't gotten used to the brief feeling of vertigo whenever she touched someone and got a complete visual of their biology.

This meant Amy didn't have any chance to protest before she found both of their hands wrapped around the handle of the saw. Amy thought she was going to just stand there and look grumpy, not actually perform. Her eyes met the assistants', who subtly rolled their own in a sign of solidarity. An entire conversation in snarky teenage girl was had.

"Yes, she is always like this. Just go with it."

Amy licked her lips as the saw slowly went back and forth in the grove, working its way down through the stock. Say what you want, but the magician was good at her job. Sure, she was young and unseasoned, but she was doing a fantastic job of mimicking friction and resistance without the wood blocks and with the added difficulty of having a volunteer who wasn't a plant assisting in the sawing.

The saw had gotten lower now, through the assistant's middle. Amy's height difference from the magician meant that she already had to start leaning down. Her right hand subconsciously reached out to steady herself, landing on the assistant's bare leg.

That was when everything changed.

Amy's vision was filled once more with the image of someone's biology. There was a reason why she only ever tried to heal one person at a time; it was so hard to keep track of who was who with the overlapping images.

That wasn't going to be an issue here.

"What," Amy said quietly to herself. She blinked rapidly, trying to see if it changed anything. Then she stopped blinking when it didn't, instead opting to stare.

They weren't mimicking. They were actually sawing the assistant in half. She watched as skin, tissue, muscle, fat, and organs slowly were divided.

With no harm or loss of function.

She watched the remnants of two bagels making their way through the assistant's small intestines, going into the gap caused by the saw and then exiting out the other side of the gap with no issue. Her blood flow was fine, nerves were transmitting at proper speeds, and her goddamn cells were divided into two without the cell membranes even moving! Osmosis and capillary action, fundamental laws of physics, were unaffected!

Amy could feel her pupils shrink as the saw reached the assistant's spine. She glanced over to the assistant facing the audience and waving, making a show of being all right. And she was being honest about that! There was cortisol and adrenaline in her system, but that had been released into her system a few minutes ago when they were panicking. The assistant was more concerned on a biochemical level about the feelings of the audience than the fact they were sawing through her spine!

And they were now sawing through her spine; Amy now knew the sensation of metal cutting through bone. She would admit it was happening far faster and neater than it should be. "Strong as an ox and twice as smart" was a joke about orthopedic surgeons for a reason. Two teenage girls with a prop saw could not get through a vertebrae.

Amy let out a shudder of relief as they finished, the saw coming to a rest at the bottom of the frame. She blinked and just stared, seeing that the assistant was now unsawed, for lack of a better word. There was no physical or biochemical sign that she had even been touched. Hell, if she looked really close, the parts that were sawed seemed to be in slightly better shape than the rest of her.

The magician unwrapping her fingers from Amy's snapped her out of her daze as the magician's biology disappeared from her vision. Her left hand dropped to her side as she numbly stared at the magician, who was currently unlatching the frame. With two loud clicks, the brass locks were unlocked, and the frame's top was removed and placed to the side.

And the saw didn't come with it.

The magician made her way to the front of the gurney, somehow managing to give showmanship to foam rubber shoes, and stopped right in front of the assistant. She offered her hand, which the assistant gently took. The magician helped the assistant upright and onto her feet with well-practiced grace.

The audience paused for a second before erupting into applause and cheers as they took full stock of the assistant. Standing there, looking pretty and unharmed. With the oversized hacksaw wrapped around her waist, sitting perfectly on her hips. Both the magician and assistant took a bow, making sure to smile at the little girl who had been so concerned. The girl hid her face behind her rabbit again, but Amy saw a flash of a shy smile on it.

"And one last round of applause for our last-second volunteer!" the magician said, snapping Amy out of her trance. She blinked and realized the magician had made a big showmanship gesture to draw everyone's attention to her. Amy felt her face heat up a bit, for once grateful for all her freckles. This was somehow much different from all the praise and expectations she got for being a healer and a public cape.

Thankfully, she was spared from any more awkwardness as the magician and assistant returned to her. They quickly moved the gurney out of the way and stood on either side of her. Her face grew even hotter as they took her hands in theirs. They raised their hands up and then bowed. And thankfully, for Amy's self-esteem, she caught on in time and bowed as well.

Amy wasn't quite sure what the feeling bubbling up inside her was as she took in the applause. And she wasn't sure if she liked it. She was going to need some time to think about things. While at home, in her room, laying on her bed and staring at the ceiling.

After this, everything seemed to move fast. The magician and assistant did one last round of meet and greets with all of the families, making sure to spend extra time with the girl that had been scared to show that the assistant was perfectly fine. They then had the assistant remove the saw from her waist with some help from the magician to properly lift it off of her. Then they packed up, gave one last goodbye, and disappeared through the double doors.

It took Amy longer than she would have liked to remember that she could move, let alone talk. Eventually, she muttered some excuses to a few people and made her way out of the Children's Ward. She took a few back hallways through mostly administrative areas, and sat down in a tucked away niche that was mostly used by staff that wanted to sneak away for a power nap.

Amy found herself staring at the wall. Well. She certainly wasn't stressed out anymore. Deeply confused and left with a whole lot of questions yes. But not stressed out.

A crinkle drew her attention and made her realize that there was something in her right hand. She brought it up to her face and realized that it was a business card. Tastefully burgundy, thick card stock with a top hat and wand.

"The Magical Rose and her lovely Assistant. Available for birthdays, weddings, and bar mitzvahs." it said in gold foil lettering. Listed next to it was several methods of contact, including email and PHO of all things. Amy would have dismissed it as just a regular business card given to her if it wasn't for the back of the card. Which had a phone number written on it in purple ink and a winky fox face drawn next to it. The identity of who had slipped it to was obvious as well as when it was.


It took Amy a week to work up the nerve to call.

Ending Author's Notes: This is going to be a long one. To the point I have to put in the main body as it's too long for the ending notes on AO3.

But the first thing I want to say is that I was shooting for the feeling of Taylor and Lisa here being very talented amateurs. They have plenty of raw talent, plenty of potential, but they need a lot more practice and weathering before they're one of the greats. But they're already far better than what two teenage girls have any right to be. Hence them having mishaps but quickly recovering and getting the crowd right back into the mood. The kind of show where you go "They were amateurs, it was the best show I've ever been to and I have tickets to their next one."

Also there was going to be a much more comedic ending to the chapter, but I wanted to just end the dang chapter already and I felt the ending here was a strong line to end on. However the comedic scene will be in Chapter 5. You'll know what it is when you read it. But the comedic ending now seems like it would be too much tony whiplash and I had gotten most of the comedy out of the way in the beginning.

Now onto some of the background/behind the scenes information.

There was about three years between this first being started and me finishing it. And in that time Amy did not stop being a thirsty lesbian. The only difference is that the next chapter is that she is much more in character in this chapter and the next. The original chapter 5 had her almost be a crack parody but that was the equivalent of a cocktail napkin in how rough and how much was missing.

The fat guy wearing a headband is a reference to The Amazing Johnathan. The guy was considered one of the best stage magicians out there but the last decade of his life he was living on heavily borrowed time with a heart that could have killed him any second. If you can, look up his acts. Completely inappropriate for a children's show, which means that 20 percent of the kids would have been traumatized and the other 80 would have been laughing hysterically.

Also, the silver rings trick is so cliché that you need something to impress people. Everyone knows how it's done. So unless you do it like Penn and Teller, where you do it with such skill that people are amazed even with you telling them what you're doing every single step of the way, it's not going to impress anyone. Also my current idea is that Penn and Teller are still active on Earth Bet, but Penn's damage to his vocal cords was greater so it's Teller who has to do the talking for the duo instead. Their roles are still exactly the same. Penn-Aleph actually does Voicework for Penn-Bet on the basis of "But for the grace of the cold unfeeling universe go I!"

(Penn Jillette is an atheist.)

Penn's raspy voice is from when he blew out his voice repeatedly as a street magician when he was first starting out. Teller's silence was from when he was doing shows at Frat houses and was too nervous to speak. Penn has said, when not in their stage personas, that while he is the better showman, Teller is the far better magician.

And the bra thing? Honestly it was going to be a lot more professional and without Taylor being a flushed flustered mess. But when the image of the poor girl accidentally pulling out one of Lisa's bras pops into your head, it's going into the story.

Also, the little pyramid of bunnies wasn't planned. Pulling the rabbit out of a hat and having a little stuffed rabbit for each kid has been planned for literal years, but these two details came while I was writing. I think because I realized that Lisa would still be Lisa even if she's completely on Taylor's side and being a good assistant. She still has to be smug and cheeky. Also, it's what my ADHD ass would have done.

And yes. The shampoo bottle is a very common thing in the ER. The ass box bit in Scrubs? Not an exaggeration. At any given point in any random ER, there is a good chance someone has something up their ass. And the "Either he has a lightbulb up there, or his colon has a bright idea" joke? ALSO NOT AN EXAGGERATION. One doctor actually had a person show up in the ER with a lightbulb, and it was an old incandescent style. IIRC they sent him immediately to the operating room for removal because if that thing broke he would have bled out in minutes.

And the "You're the one bleeding to death, not me!"? Yeah, I know of one nurse that said that to a gang member who had been shot but was still combative. That nurse was both slick AND just that burnt out. It got the gangbanger to get some perspective on the situation. The people he's doing his tough-guy gang act with are the people trying to keep him from dying.

One of the issues with both Canon Worm and Worm Fan Fics? They don't really get what happens in the bad parts of cities. I mean, they get some of the stuff, but not the really weird shit. Watch Radio Dead Air's "WTFIWWY" segments. Tara, the Co-Host, has a story about a college friend who got McDonalds and a streetwalker hit him over the head with her purse and stole his food. That's the kind of thing that happens. Also read the Student Doctor's Network "Things I learned from my Patients". Most dangerous thing ever is "Standing on the corner and minding your own business" or "Reading the bible on the front porch". (Hint. These are the socially acceptable/not legally admissible ways of saying drug deal gone bad or picked a fight I couldn't win)

Doctors and Nurses do not get paid enough for even more reasons than you think.

A bit that was left on the cutting room floor, so to speak, was that I was going to make a joke a reference to the first chapter with the saw being cold.

"You didn't leave that saw outside again, did you? Because last time it was cold and I got goosebumps on my pancreas."

"It's been with us this entire time."

"That means nothing, hospitals are cold"

And then Taylor would have put it under her arm and badly failed to hide her for real shiver.

But that level of banter would not have fit with how the scene wound up playing out. But it was replaced with the bra mishap and the bunny human pyramid. Also juggling the rings wasn't always there but it was pretty close to the beginning. However, I realized that ending it with them all landing in Taylor's hand and then her showing that they're all linked would be a good twist on the linking rings, and it's an actual possible way of doing the trick. You just have to be a skilled juggler, practice a lot, and make your own linking rings to do so.

The bit with seeing how the two bagels going through Lisa's digestive system is also from a cut bit of banter. Taylor was going to ask how Lisa was doing and she was going to say that she was regretting having that second bagel for breakfast. But once again how the scene turned out didn't let it flow. Or maybe that banter did happen but Amy (and by extension Queen Shaper) was too enthralled by what was happening to notice.

Also Lisa slipping Amy her burner number was literally come up with as I was finally finishing up the chapter. Initial plan was that Amy would spend over a week trying to track them down before showing up at the Hebert's doorstep. But I realized that Lisa is literally right next to Amy as Amy is touching her and Lisa wouldn't need her power to know what is happening or what Amy is thinking.

As for the future of the story? I honestly have a plot for the rest of the story. I think there's about 6 more chapters worth of story. I got chapter 5 pretty much plotted out, and chapters 6 and 7 with a good idea. Chapter 8 is going to be the issue as I got the ending pretty much plotted out as that had been in the planning phase before even chapter 3 was really written. Chapters 9 and 10 are much easier. It's just chapter 8 which would bridge that gap.

Though the story could go a little bit longer if there's any more illusions that I get inspired to inflict on Lisa.

Lisa: Why do you bully me so much!? You've technically decapitated me three times in your stories!

When in doubt, bully Lisa and have her kiss Taylor.

Lisa: I hate you. Especially the fact you're still one of the more benevolent writers to me.

Fair enough. Now get in the robot, we got Cybernetic Love story chapter 3 to finish.

Lisa: *from far in the distance* Haaaaattttteeeeeee yyyyyyyooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

*Locker room door closes from far away*

(The three decapitations are Chapter 2 of this with the guillotine, cybernetic love story as she's technically a brain in a jar in a robot body, and a WIP where she unexpectedly and mysteriously found herself a Dullahan and trapped in a room with Taylor. Plot? Who needs plot when you have fluffy lesbian smut to write!? :v)