Danny blinked as he drove up the driveway. There was something strange going on here…
The street signs and the addresses on the mailbox were all the same. There was even the same old familiar Hebert family name on the mailbox itself.
But… the house in front of him looked significantly nicer than it was before. It had the same beige white paint color, but instead of the fading paint slowly peeling as it had been before, it looked as if it were freshly painted. Even the trim around the windows was a nice new dark red color, which contrasted with the paint on their house. The house shape and porch with the ramps on each side of the stairs was the same… but it was obvious that it had been altered somewhat, starting with the fact that the wooden porch, ramp, and stairs were painted the same red color as the window trimmings.
The house was also decorated with Christmas decorations, making it look like something out of a Christmas postcard. Even the roof's trim was covered in icicle Christmas lights. He or his wife had never bothered to do that before, considering that it'd be a total pain to climb ladders up there just to put up lights. Truth was, he and his wife had a secret fear of heights… so they didn't like climbing up ladders unless they had to.
And the porch steps were fixed, now that he looked closely. He slowly walked up to the door, the snow loudly crunching under his feet, because he still wasn't sure if this was his house. He blinked when his key fit neatly into the key slot and turned without too much trouble.
He let out a breath of relief when the insides of the house looked the same as ever, which meant this was their house. But, how did Annette have the time to do an impromptu paint job on the outside of their house… in winter? And most importantly, could they have afforded this?
"Honey I'm home!" He called out.
"In here!" Annette called out from the living room, so he moved to join her there. But he abruptly stopped midway through the doorway to take in the scene before himself.
The living room was completely transformed into something that looked like it came straight out of a Christmas painting. The dinky little tree they had gotten was now a towering large green beauty adorned with lights and other decorations. There seemed to be more gifts under the tree than usual, as well.
The large old entertainment center with the boxy TV inside it was gone and replaced by a fireplace with a large flat HDTV secured over it. Christmas stockings were hanging from the fireplace's mantle.
…… damn, that flatscreen TV was really large. A small side of him couldn't help but fall in love with that TV the moment he saw it. He always wanted something like that but had felt that his meeting his family's needs were more important than having a luxury like a big TV.
There was a lot of other things to look at, like the large green and red rug that took up a chunk of the room, and the new decorations on the walls. But, Danny opted to focus on his wife and daughter, who were doing something to the sofa now.
"Nah, that color doesn't work too well… maybe a nice cranberry color?" Annette was saying, and Taylor simply nodded.
Taylor briefly closed her eyes, and then in a split second the new sofa the ladies had been staring at went from a yellow cream color to a deep cranberry color. And, some matching recliner chairs had popped out of nowhere flanking the sides of the sofa along with a new coffee table. There were some Christmas-themed candles in the center of the coffee table too.
Annette simply nodded, as if this were all perfectly normal. "Perfect! Thanks, sweetie."
Dan just shook his head, relieved that he had figured out what was happening here.
"Exploiting our child's powers already, huh?" He joked.
Annette looked somewhat sheepish. "I couldn't help myself. Our daughter here not only had the power to improve herself by leveling in skills or whatnot…. But she could also improve objects by altering them? After what I saw what she could do with our house outside, I had the idea that maybe we could turn our living room into a picture-perfect Christmas room for that Christmas family photo we were gonna do."
Danny walked into the room and took a good look around. "Yeah, it's very nice."
He then looked at Taylor. "So… you turned the entertainment center into a Christmas fireplace, and made that boxy TV we had into a large flatscreen? Mind ya, I'm not complaining… it's just a little bit strange is all."
Taylor just shrugged. That wasn't exactly how her powers worked at all, but she didn't want to get into all the details with her parents just yet. She was still wrapping her head around the fact that her powers were game-based after all. "Yeah. I can change them back later if you want."
All the old stuff was apparently in her game's storage space now, since she hadn't "sold" them just yet.
He eyed the flatscreen TV. "Well… I'm not in a big rush to get rid of all this. Matter of fact, I wouldn't mind if we all sat down and watched some Christmas movies on this thing…"
His wife just smirked, as if she knew what he was thinking.
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Her parents had set out the portable small tables that now held their dinner and some popcorn, and set it in front of their new sofa. And now, they were all settled in watching the Die Hard movie.
Taylor frowned slightly to herself, as she was more occupied with other matters right now.
She was having a hard time figuring out this whole simoleon money system thing her power had. You could "buy" furniture and build houses with a limited amount of funds, using fictional money like Simoleons.
But the weird thing was… When her dad came home, she had gotten a notification that Danny came home and had earned the Hebert family 560 simoleons today. Which made her wonder if real money was being converted into Simoleons.
She hoped not, because it'd suck if she was accidentally draining the family bank account all along. How her powers would even gain access to a bank account, she didn't know.
She wanted it to be something like dad unknowingly bringing her simoleons on top of the real Earth Bet money he made for the family. Not only would that be simple enough it'd make things so much easier for her.
But… what would happen if her parents discovered that money had gone missing from their funds though? Just the thought of that was giving her anxiety. After all, she would be in so much trouble if they ever found out…
After all, she had gone all out on this room and the outside of their house thinking that she was spending nothing but fictional money from a video game. She only had realized that something might be up when dad came home and she got this alert...
If that did happen, she just hoped that her parents would see the humor in this situation and not get too mad at her.
She knew she should say something to them now, but she couldn't bring herself to. After all, what kind of stupid power ate up money to give her nice stuff like this? It had been unheard of… until now.
The worst part was, Taylor had been frantically poking the tutorial mode voice to tell her about simoleons, and it couldn't tell her if real money was being converted into simoleons or not. Because apparently, it didn't know what the heck she was talking about.
Taylor sincerely hoped this meant that she was just overthinking things and that no real money was being used here.
Maybe she could just say nothing and wait to see if they noticed any unusual activity with the family's money? If they didn't say anything and didn't seem to notice… then it'd mean that Simoleons were in fact, just fake life simulation money… and they had only awarded her fake sim-money for doing stuff like going to their jobs. Because that was part of life simulation games even in older games like princess maker. Which would make sense, because Taylor was a teenager herself so she wouldn't be able to have a "real" job, just the typical chores and part-time jobs like slinging burgers at a burger joint? And now that she was outed as a parahuman, it'd become doubly harder for her to find a part-time job outside of the wards that would accept her.
So naturally, if she wanted to earn more fake sim-money, it'd have to be though her parents.
………….
You know what, not saying anything and avoiding the issue completely seemed like the best idea right now. She'd just wait it out until she found out for sure which one it was.
Satisfied with that plan of action, she finally relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the Die Hard movie.
"You know, I can't get over how comfortable this sofa is. I feel like I'm sitting on a fluffy cloud." Mom commented as she snuggled into her husband's side.
"Well, I just went for furniture that had the highest comfort stats according to my powerset. It said this sofa was a ten on a scale of one to ten." Taylor replied, trying not to think about the fact that said furniture that had the highest comfort stats was also the most expensive one in terms of simoleons. It had cost her 1,200 in sim-money…. How much was that in American coins and dollars? Were there such a thing as a currency converter for fictional video game money??
Dad sighed loudly in contentment. The nicely decorated environment and the new sofa was getting to him and lifted his mood completely. "Oh yeah, it's a ten. Any chance you could improve our beds too? Come to think of it, it's been years since we got new mattresses too… they say you should replace mattresses every eight years if you value good health and whatnot."
Mom snorted. "In that case, ours are clearly expired. Wasn't our bed passed down to you from your parents? Granted, it's in pretty good shape… but it's gotten a little flat lately…"
Taylor mulled this over. She could stop this whole thing right now, by claiming that she had run out of energy or something… or, she could butter up her parents by giving them a bed so nice that they were instantly in a good mood every morning...this way they'd forgive her if it turned out that spending simoleons did use up real money. After all, it's the truth that she didn't know how everything worked exactly… they'd chalk it up to an honest mistake.
Well, she might as well go all in… in for a penny, in for a pound.
She smiled at her parents. "Sure, I can do that for you. Should I do it now, or wait until after the movie?"
Her parents honestly didn't want to get off the sofa right now… they were feeling too comfortable right now. So they both said almost at the same time, "Eh, later."
The three of them then relaxed as they enjoyed watching Die Hard on a big flatscreen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next morning, Taylor was somewhat baffled. She could have sworn that she had just gone to sleep, but it was already 6 am? It was like time just fast-forwarded when she went to sleep…
But at least her energy levels were maxed out because she felt like she had 18 hours' worth of sleep under her belt. It was thanks to her new bed. She didn't go for a king or queen-sized one like the one she had given her parents, so it was a simple single bed.
However, she had still gone for the one with the highest stats on it. The comfort on single beds wasn't usually in their tens, but she did find one that had its sleep rating maxed out at 10, so she had selected that one.
Feeling highly energized, she went to take a quick shower before getting ready for school.
Without really thinking about it, she found herself spinning around in one spot as soon as she stepped out of the shower, which caused her to instantly become dry and got dressed in that main default outfit she had put on the other day.
She blinked at this, and then just raised one eyebrow as she thought to herself: "Huh. that's handy."
But did she have to wear the same outfits every day or was there a way for her wardrobe to randomize things? Just liven up things a little bit?
She thought about that as she brushed her teeth, and when she was done she tapped on the mirror, which took her to the customization menu once again.
She then silently asked her power whenever she could set up more than one outfit for each occasion, and to her relief, the tutorial voice replied in the affirmative.
Unfortunately, though, she could only set up five outfits for each occasion in all the clothing categories… but that was still good enough for Taylor. That way she didn't look like she only had one set of clothes should she opt to take the sim way out by equipping clothes this way, instead of putting on clothes manually as everyone else did.
Besides, she wasn't gonna do it the sim way every day for anybody to notice that she only had five sets of outfits in each category.
Once she was satisfied with the five sets of clothes she had selected for each category, she exited the customization menu and went downstairs in one of her new outfits.
Her parents seemed to be in an extremely good mood as they made coffee and breakfast.
"Hey, little owl." Her father greeted her as soon as she walked into the kitchen and sat down at the dining table, which already had plates set for each one of them.
"I've got to say this… The bed you gave us was something else. I can't remember the last time I had such a great sleep." Mom grinned as she brought over a family-sized plate of omelets and toast, and laid it on the table for everyone to take.
Dad nodded. "Yeah, I woke up feeling completely energized for some reason. For once in my life, I didn't even need coffee to perk myself up in the morning..."
He chuckled slightly at that last part, as he held up a mug. "Still having my coffee anyway, though."
Mom squinted at her suspiciously, as she asked, "You sure that those beds are normal? I just find it hard to believe that we could feel so good after a night's sleep without parahuman assistance."
"Err, yeah? I mean, sure, I created them with my powers but they should be normal beds…?" Taylor replied, looking slightly puzzled.
"Well, our old beds were pretty old… maybe we just thought a shitty night of sleep was normal, and now that we finally had a good night's sleep we think it's so unusual?" Dad wondered.
Mom smiled. "Well, either way, we're keeping the new beds. No way I'm gonna give them up now."
Dad simply nodded in agreement to this and drank his coffee.
Everyone then ate in companionable silence as they finished up their breakfast before it was time to go to school and work, respectively.
Taylor sighed loudly as she finished up her breakfast. "Well, time to face a grueling day of exams…"
Her parents looked at her sympathetically.
"You could've had just skipped on that when you had the chance, you know." Her dad said.
Taylor sighed loudly. "I know, I know. But you know how I get about my grades. How am I going to get a college scholarship with subpar grades? I can't afford my grades going down even if it was for good reasons."
After all, there was no way she was ever going to get into any college the normal way. They were still paying off some of the hospital and therapy fees from years ago. Buying hospital equipment for home use and installing the ramps so that their home would become handicap friendly had eaten up quite an amount of money too. And they hadn't gotten all of their money back when they resold all of that after mom got healed up.
And the last thing Taylor wanted to do was become a burden to her parents. She didn't want her parents going broke getting her into a good college.
Mom just shook her head. "I still don't think that the people who give out college scholarships would've been that picky about your grades, Taylor. You've been an A-plus student for years straight, I don't think they would pass you over just because your grades slid back to a B plus for one month. Considering the circumstances, I'm sure they'd understand."
"What Annette said. Also, you're still only 14 years old. You have plenty of time before you even think about college." Dad replied, "So why don't you just take this chance to relax and be a normal kid, eh?"
Taylor just shrugged at this. Her parents didn't seem to understand at all… and it's not like anything she said would change their minds.
So instead she just grinned as she said: "a little bit late to back out now, considering that I've been going to classes. Anyway, see ya!"
With that, she left the house to run down to the bus stop where her school bus was waiting for her.
Annette and Danny looked at each other with slightly worried expressions, and they reached across the table to hold hands with each other.
Being in that accident had changed plenty of things for the family… and it had also changed Taylor, as well.
When Annette became something of an invalid, she found that she couldn't do things that she normally did as the mother at first, such as cleaning the house, cooking and the like. She had to slowly relearn how to things all over again in a wheelchair. And worse, the university she had taught as an English professor at stated that while they were allowing her to come back after months of rehabilitation, they weren't going to give her paid time off.
So for entire months there while she tried to get used to being in a wheelchair, the entire family was forced to live on one paycheck… and it had taken a lot of mental gymnastics to try to make that last month by month.
So during that time, Taylor had chosen to take up most of the slack in household chores and the like and started cutting back her time on frivolous activities like going out to the movies with her friends because that usually cost money.
Annette and Danny had appreciated Taylor's help in a lot of things, but the two of them couldn't help but feel guilty. It was like Taylor had been forced to grow up way too fast, and worse they had allowed it to happen.
They had thought that after Annette had regained the use of her legs and had taken back her share of responsibilities in the household, that maybe Taylor would finally relax and go back to her old self, but that didn't seem to be the case here.
It had been roughly a year and a half ago since Annette returned to her normal self, but Taylor was still acting overly responsible for a child her age.
Frankly, the whole thing kind of sucked from their viewpoint. Granted, things could have been worse… Annette could've died in that accident and she knew it. She knew she was extremely lucky that an off-duty nurse had been nearby to help her. But still…. She couldn't stand the idea that her daughter's childhood was being robbed because life's problems got in the way of that.
And now her daughter was a parahuman too on top of that. What kind of pressure would that put on Taylor?
"Well, I'm off to work. Have a good day, dear." Danny kissed his wife on the forehead as he got up and went to get his jacket and keys.
Annette nodded in response and sat there looking thoughtful as she thought of what to do about Taylor's newfound parahuman status, and how to get her to relax and enjoy the rest of her childhood.
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Author notes:
Taylor was just overthinking things... as usual. Her Sim-money account isn't directly linked with her parents' bank account, so she actually can't drain her parents' bank account. Sim-Money and Earth Bet money are two different things and have nothing to do with each other, which she'll be very relieved to learn later on.
Still, I couldn't help but have her sweat a little bit for a while there.
and yeah, this was kind of a filler chapter... The PRT power testing thing is next, so look forward to that.
