Turns out that even with all my flailing, walking was more than a one-month process.
It's been six months since I was birthed, and I've managed to be everything my twin is not. I say full words - I still call "dada" asshole - I don't puke up my meals when I can help it, and I'm clear and concise when declaring if I "poopie" or "peepee."
Fiona, on the other hand, and by all observations, is a regular baby.
Good.
I'd hate to think I'd be competing with some other person like me. Plus, if she was a blank slate, I could perhaps bring her over to my side. Make her realize our mom was passive and weak when it mattered and our dad was an-
"Asshole!" I declare as Crusader tries to get me to say "Daddy."
I'm proud of being able to make L sounds now, even without teeth.
"Daddy!" Fiona shouts from across the room. The little traitor.
I've been up and walking for the last three months, and I take the opportunity to walk away as Christopher Carver picks up his favorite daughter.
Ugh, I hate my new last name.
I find Destiny dismantling the lair model I made with those dull little blocks made for kids aged 5 and up. I'm fine with it since I've already committed my future planning to memory.
My next lair will absolutely be Crusader-proof if I don't figure out how to kill him first.
Baby steps, Ash, I tell myself. I've decided to accept the new name as mine, like a method actress, in order to make twisting the knife all the more painful for my murderers when the time comes.
Perhaps it was my killing intent that made Destiny turn and regard me with a strange look in her eyes.
"You don't want me to put it away?" she asks.
I shrug. Six-month-olds can shrug, right?
Getting around her precognition is a challenge. I can't even reach for a knife or some rat poison - seriously, who keeps rat poison in the top of a fucking skyscraper? Any rat that makes it this high will be asphyxiated if they're not crawling up the ventilation system, and they can't even do that because our "mansion" is on its own ventilation, water, and power. Sheltered by a dome that makes weather a thing for the mortals beneath us.
Destiny is about to say something when her heard jerks towards Crusader.
"Alarm's about to ring."
Sure enough, five seconds later she's proven right, and she and Crusader hurry to don their colors and fly off.
I need to figure out her timing... there was no time to do it in the battle, but I'm going to guess she exists, like, five to sixty seconds in the future on any given day.
I will, of course, be refining my measurements with experiments...
"Aislin, Fiona, don't get into trouble while we're away," Destiny calls out to us as she dons her mask. "Kora will be here in ten minutes."
One minute later, we twins are left alone as they fly off. Talk about helicopter parenting. They didn't even put on a show for us.
"Ma-ma," Fiona says to the shrinking silhouette of our flying mother before they dive below the clouds. No doubt off to "save the day" against someone who doesn't agree with how the world is. Or hell, even someone with an unlucky set of Talents.
With everyone having powers, not everyone was as in control as society needed them to be. And some people's powers were downright immoral to use.
Like psychics. Sure, there were always limits on how much a person could manipulate others before paying the cost, but people who could use their Talents to both control others and tamper with memories were a nightmare, even if they weren't outright villains. The temptation to abuse those kinds of powers made psychics highly feared - and I was prudent enough to keep my psionic jammers always up to date.
Or had been, at least. Hard to do pico-scale manufacturing with a body so uncoordinated I often had to resort to - shudder - crawling.
"Ashy!" Fiona declared, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I recently learned that I wasn't expected to be talking until the age of one at least, but it seemed my early adoption of human vernacular had somehow helped Fiona develop her own limited vocabulary.
I couldn't wait to teach her to call Crusader "asshole."
Hopefully, we weren't Corsican twins or something weird like that. I'd hate to think we were psychically linked because it would become impossible for me to hide my thoughts and schemes- No! Plans. Villains had schemes. Anti-villainesses like me had plans and schematics.
But first I need to deal with the baby slobbering her way up my torso and toppling me in the process.
"Asheee~"
I accept her affection with mute forbearance.
Ugh, my Talents couldn't come in soon enough. If I inherited even a fraction of my new parent's Talents, that would more than set me up for solving the power issues that plagued my previous career in anti-villainy, freedom-fighting, eco-terrorizing, and, much delayed, world domination.
Sadly, it was statistically likely I would only discover my Talents between ten and thirteen.
But hey, if I could take over Knight City, the city of heroes, paragons, and all the blah-blah-blah Status Quo Warriors, then that was pretty much the biggest hurdle, right?
Thirty minutes after the promise of salvation from the slobber of my sister, Kora arrived.
"Kora!" I cried out, hoping I put the right amount of desperation in my voice to make her act quickly.
Kora Kao is a goth teenager with shadow manipulation powers. She didn't exactly rush to my aid as she put down her backpack and took the headphones - kitty-eared ones I found myself liking - off her head.
"What's up, little women? You need nappies?"
"No nappies," I replied, trying ineffectually to push Fiona off myself.
"Alright, alright. Break it up," Kora rolled her eyes and lifted my sister off of me. She checked Fiona's diaper. "Looks like you're still fresh. I wonder if twins poop at the same time..."
Kora had a morbid fascination with all things medical. She was aiming to be a pediatrician or pediatric surgeon, I can't remember, with a dual major in child psychology. Part of that meant she put on medical and psychiatric streams and podcasts to listen to and watch on my new parents' high-definition surround sound holographic entertainment center.
"Hey Ash, wanna watch some open heart surgery with me?"
"Yesh," I reply, nodding for emphasis.
There was no way I would tolerate anything not educational... or not anime.
Hey, even I need a break sometimes. Can't beat the classics like Bigun, Ronin Bebop, or High School Host Club.
"Alri~ght! Us weirdos gotta stick together, right?"
I like Kora. She talks to me like a friend, and readily accepts I am smarter than any baby my age should be.
I didn't have any friends in my past life. Well, except Pi. But she was more of a roommate.
Kora gave Fiona her favorite rattle, and together we settled in for an afternoon of acceptable entertainment.