“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Taylor said.

Remedy resisted the urge to roll her eyes just as much as she suppressed the temptation to look away and sulk. It wasn’t as if her big sister didn’t appreciate her; she was just a tiny bit afraid.

And that was okay. Remedy was afraid of plenty of things too. But most of all, she was afraid of disappointing Taylor. That’s why she had to do what she was about to do. “It won’t be anything extreme,” she said. “In fact, no one will be able to tell at all.” She placed a Tupperware container on Taylor’s bed.

Taylor raised an eyebrow. “So, no cat ears?” she asked in a tone that said it wasn’t a question.

Remedy thought about what her big sister would look like in cat ears and dismissed it. Taylor wasn’t the cat ear sort. She was more of a... mother hen sort. And chickens didn’t have cute ears.

Also, if she gave Taylor the ability to lay eggs it would cause all sorts of trouble. Pop wouldn’t care, but Crochet would insist that Taylor sit on them until they hatch so that she could cuddle the tiny big-sis chicks, and Cheshire would try to eat them.

No, best to stick to the plan.

Remedy knew that of all the little sisters she was the least deserving of headpats, that she wasn’t as good or as beloved as the others. She was going to have to work hard to change that, and the first step was winning Taylor’s love and loyalty.

“Sit, sit,” she instructed as she patted the edge of Taylor’s bed.

Taylor gave her a smile and sat down, then watched as Remedy climbed onto the bed and scrambled to be behind her. “Okay,” Remedy said. “Now lay down.” She pulled Taylor back and helped her lay down across the undone sheets.

“Do I really need to be laying down?” Taylor asked as she looked up at Remedy.

Remedy nodded seriously. “Oh yeah. I’m going to make you better, and that means your reflexes and sense of balance. I don’t want you tripping and knocking your head on a table or something. That would undo all my hard work.”

Taylor snorted. “You’re not going to mess with my brain, right?” she asked.

Remedy had to think fast. There were ways of doing what she wanted without touching the brain, it just made things so much less fun. “Of course not. What do you take me for, an idiot?”

Taylor raised her arms. “I would never say that,” she said.

She felt a smile tugging at her lips. “But you’d think it?” she asked as she looked down at Taylor.

Taylor grinned back. “Well, I might think that when Cheshire acts like herself sometimes,” she admitted. “But don’t go telling her that.”

Remedy was totally going to rub it in Cheshire’s face later. “I would never,” she said. “Now, close your eyes, big sis, and let doctor Remedy fix you right up!”

Taylor closed her eyes, the corners of her lips still quirked in a small smile. Remedy sat cross legged next to her and placed a hand on her forearm.

Her power spread out through Taylor’s body, riding the nerves, the streams of blood and bones until Remedy could see, in her mind’s eye, the entirety of Taylor’s body down to the most minute of details. There were a lot of things to fix.

Small things, some of them inconsequential and that would go unnoticed by anyone else. Little abrasions just under the surface of the skin that would, in twenty or thirty years, turn into slight wrinkles. There were places where the muscles were a little weak, where the circulation of blood was just a tiny bit off. Nerves that were connected properly, but not optimally.

Then the bigger problems, a few spots in the lungs that weren’t quite up to snuff, some scarring in the stomach probably caused by Taylor’s less than ideal diet, the paunchy belly wrapped around Taylor’s midsection, love handles and all. Her musculature was under developed and she had a bit of a malformation in the eyes.

With a swipe of her power, Remedy fixed it all.

Taylor gasped and almost stood up, but Remedy pushed her back down. “I’m not done yet,” she said. “All I did was fix all the little bits that weren’t working right.”

She had only just started. Now was the fun part.

Reaching over, she pulled the plastic container she had brought with her over and popped the lid open. Inside were all sorts of goodies. A few rotten bananas, some onions, a big chunk of cheese and other leftovers she had found at the back of the fridge. Maybe a pound or two’s worth.

Scrunching up her nose at the squeamish feeling, she dipped her fingers into the mix, then wrapped a hand around Taylor’s forearm again. This was tricky. Her power didn’t like working with things that weren’t alive, but technically bacteria and fruit were alive. Sorta.

The bones were the first to be improved. A few realignments of their structure on the microscopic level, some thickening and improving and hardening in key places. Correcting the dumpster fire that was the human spine. She had heard about this stuff called carbon fiber that was supposed to be really neat. She didn’t have any of that, but she did have cheese, and cheese was made of milk, which had carbon in it. The TV told her so.

Then she went to the muscles. It wasn’t hard to bulk those out just a little bit then improve their reaction time and strength. She had heard that muscles were either meant to move fast or lift a lot, but that was silly, they could totally do both if one was willing to tinker with them just a bit.

Blood vessels, the heart, lungs, stomach and liver and kidneys. All cleaned out and improved. She couldn’t make Taylor pee fire yet; that would require a bit of experimentation. However, she was more than willing to lay out the groundwork.

A few more tweaks to all of Taylor’s senses, then the next step; making Taylor prettier so that Taylor would love her more. First fixing her hair, then her skin, then improving her bust until she was all out of biomass.

“I’m done!” she announced.

Taylor opened her eyes and blinked a few times.

Giggling, Remedy reached over and took her glasses off. “Taa-daa!” She grabbed Taylor’s hand and helped her to her feet before jumping off the bed to drag her to the mirror over her vanity. “What do you think?” She preened, head held high so that Taylor would know where to apply the many headpats she had earned.

Taylor stared at her reflection. A reflection that was a near perfect clone of one Victoria Dallon. “What.” She moved a little, as if to make sure it was really her. “What?”

“I made you pretty!”

Taylor ran her hands over her new and improved body, then touched her cheeks. She looked longing, then sad for a moment. “Remedy, this is very nice, but, um, it’s not me,” she said.

Remedy had to resist the urge to pout. She had worked hard for a whole three minutes to make Taylor this pretty. “Fine, I’ll change you back,” she said.

She felt a warm hand on her head and her pout faded even as she looked up. Taylor was smiling at her with Glory Girl’s face. It was... wrong. “I’m sorry, but I still want to be me, even if I’m not as pretty as Glory Girl or any other girl. Um, not that I would mind being a bit prettier. Just a little. Like, not enough for it to be noticeable at school, but still... nevermind.”

Remedy sighed. “My work is never done, is it? Come on, lie down again and I’ll fix you right up,” she said. So apparently Project Glory-fication was off the table. That was alright. Taylor said she wasn’t opposed to being prettier, so Remedy would just have to be sneaky. Maybe a few little changes at a time so that her other sisters wouldn’t twig onto what she was doing.

Yes, Remedy already had a plan laid out in her head. It might take a while, but she would prove that she was a good little sister and thus a good person too.