Taylor made sure all four of her sisters were sitting down in a more or less straight line on the couch. Even Crochet, who was mostly innocent here. They all looked down at their feet and shifted between pouts and pitiful, watery-eyed puppy-dog looks in a transparent attempt to avoid punishment.

The attempt was cute, but there was no way it was going to work on the likes of Taylor Hebert. So, with a deep breath to harden her heart, she stood before her sisters, crossed her arms and set her legs like a sergeant looking at a lot of unimpressive soldiers. “Which one of you wants to explain what just happened?” she asked.

The girls looked at each other, and as one, decided that the one who would speak was anyone but themselves.

Taylor sighed and brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. It didn’t help that her little problem was making it hard to focus.

“Are you okay, Big Sis?” Remedy asked. “I can make it better, if you’re hurting.”

“Nothing you can help with, Remedy,” Taylor said. “But thanks. My tummy’s just a little queasy.”

“Is it another little sister?” Crochet asked, then her face lit up. “Or are you pregnant?”

Taylor reminded herself that taking deep breaths was an excellent way to stay calm. Maybe she could just keep breathing deeply until all of her problems solved themselves. “No Crochet, I’m not pregnant. A whole lot of things would have to go really wrong for that to happen.”

“Aww,” Crochet sighed.”I want a little niece to play with.”

She was going to have to do something about that, she realized. Not getting pregnant, but Crochet’s obsession with her giving the girl a niece to play with.

“So, ya touched Tits,” Cheshire said, derailing all of Taylor’s thoughts.

“I did what?”

Cheshire nodded. “Ya touched Tits. The blonde one. She’s their ringleader, I figure.”

Taylor shut her mouth with a click, blinked a few times, then reset herself with a shake of the head. “Yeah, I touched... is that really her name?”

“That’s what Regret said. He’s the skinny one.”

Taylor narrowed her eyes, but none of the other sisters were jumping in to say that Cheshire was wrong. “She was hardly big enough to earn the name,” she muttered.

“The one with the puppies was called Bitch,” Remedy pointed out.

“Yeah,” Cheshire said. “And the black one’s Goo.”

“Tits, Regret, Goo and... and a word that I don’t want to hear any of you repeating,” she said. Her head was starting to pound. “I don’t know what kind of depraved weirdoes you stumbled onto, especially with names like those, but I would really appreciate a full explanation.”

“Well, we could give ya one,” Cheshire said. “But you seem really out of it.” She moved to the edge of the couch and leaned forwards, ears perked and eyes filled with adoration.

Remedy nodded and scooted up too. She pressed her hands together as if in prayer. “You do look a little pale. You should sit down. Maybe we can get some water. And prepare your bed? Pop could get your PJs. We could go to bed early.”

Taylor snorted. “Stop pretending to be nice just to get out of me punishing you.”

Pop shook her head. “I, unlike these other imouto, am ready to face the consequences of my actions, Onee-sama.”

“Sell-out,” Cheshire muttered.

“It’s okay, Big Sis, you can have another little sister, and then we can talk.” Crochet said.

“Yeah, even the snitch is on our side,” Cheshire cheered.

“I’m not a snitch,” Crochet said.

“Yeah you are, you told Big Sis everything,” Cheshire shot back.

“It’s not snitching if it’s to Big Sis,” was Crochet’s reply.

Next to her, Pop nodded solemnly. “The seamstress is correct. Onee-sama deserves only honesty from her imouto.”

Taylor sighed again, a hand going to her stomach. Her power was being insistent, a constant rumble like the onset of indigestion. Or maybe that was just dealing with the drama. “Okay, fine,” she said.

Four cheers reverberated across the Hebert living room. Cheshire started bouncing on the couch, Pop popped to the far corner of the room to watch from the shadows and Remedy and Crochet hugged while cheering. Even Taylor felt a bit of a smile tugging at her lips. “I didn’t think you guys would want even more sisters,” Taylor said.

“Yeah, ‘course we do,” Cheshire said. “‘S long as ya remember that I was the first and the best, we’re all good.” She frowned a little. “But you’ll need to give out more headpats to make up for it, yeah?”

Taylor snorted. “Sure,” she said. “You guys ready?” she asked. “I don’t want to scare the new little sister, so be nice.”

“I’ll go put the tea on!” Crochet declared before rushing out of the room.

“Alright, here goes nothing,” Taylor said as she pushed. She knew it was probably a bad idea, and that she would have to do something to avoid coming into contact with more parahumans in the future, but it was unavoidable. She couldn’t live with her power niggling at her for the rest of her life.

Eyes squeezed shut, Taylor focused on the burning in her gut and, for lack of a better word, squished it out.

“Sup!” Cheshire said.

“Hello, lesser nee-chan,” Pop said from her corner.

“Huh, I’ll have to give you a poke to see if those are natural,” Remedy said.

Taylor opened her eyes to see the back of a head, a head covered in a squashed brown fedora plopped on a mop of blonde hair done up in a big braid that stopped at the base of her new sister’s back. She blinked as her eyes fixed on the long duster the girl was wearing, or rather the large, bushy tail sticking out of the bottom of her coat.

The new girl whipped around, bottle-green eyes searching until they locked onto Taylor’s, then she grinned, the huge fox ears sticking out from under her hat perking up so much that it almost fell off. “Heya there, sis, I’m Tattletail.”