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The Wonderful Adventures of Sophia Hess, Babysitter Extraordinaire

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In the Past (2007)
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    • In the past (2007)




    In the end, Sophia's need to move gets stronger than her fear, and she goes out again.

    (This time, she checks the whole house first, and makes sure the door of the rooms she searches is closed.)

    She finds a radio, the kind that's used to listen the news.

    The kind that works on batteries.

    She immediately goes back 'home'.

    The radio doesn't turn on.

    Sophia resolutely doesn't cry.

    She looks through some drawers, and finds some batteries. She exchanges them with the ones inside the radio.

    The radio turns on.

    No matter which station she tries, all Sophia can get is static.
     
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    • In the Present (2009)
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    • In the present (2009)



    A man without safety equipment is washing windows on the 30th floor. He falls, but isn't hurt or killed. Why?

    Sophia stares at the text for a few seconds, then presses send. Dee only takes about a minute to text back.

    He's inside the building

    Sophia snorts.

    That was fast, she sends.

    I already knew that one

    Not the first time it happened, on either side. There are only so many riddles in the world.

    A chimes signals the arrival of another text.

    My mom's calling for dinner. See you tomorrow!

    See you tomorrow     texts back Sophia.

    She thinks she will bring a second muffin, and share.
     
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    • In the Past (2007)
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    • In the Past (2007)



    In the end, food is their downfall.

    Because, well.

    Eddie is five.

    It's August, and it's hot, and no electricity means no AC, and Eddie wants ice-cream.

    Sophia doesn't have any ice-cream.

    Eddie throws a tantrum, and screams, and Sophia clamps a hand over his mouth, but it's already too late.

    The Things have heard.

    There are sounds outside, Things banging against the shutters and the door, and Sophia tries to use the furnitures as barricades, but they are heavy, hard to move, and she is out of time.

    The door breaks down, and the Things come in.

    Sophia isn't sure what happens next, her actions blurred together by the beating of her heart in her ears, but she manages to get Eddie and herself out.

    There are Things outside.
     
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    • In the Present (2009)
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    • In the Present (2009)




    Drinking a cup of hot chocolate with Miss Bass before going home becomes something of a ritual.

    Sophia still doesn't talk. She doesn't know how.

    Sophia doesn't talk, but she knows Miss Bass would listen if she did, would listen and would care, and that alone is not quite enough, but it almost is and that's a start.

    Eddie sits in her lap, heavy and warm, and shows her a drawing he made, and Miss Bass asks her about her day, and in her pocket there's a riddle sent by Dee, and earlier that day Dean tried to describe what his powers were like and sounded like he'd gotten high, and Sophia is still sharp, Sophia still isn't nice, Sophia still isn't kind, but all those things are sweet against her bitterness, like sugar and milk in cacao powder.

    Sophia has a not-quite-home, and it's not-quite-enough, but it's so much better than not having a home at all.
     
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    • This is written wonderfully well. It conveys so much emotion and depth that I can't help but want to find out what happens next, despite the shortness of the entire thing.

    You're doing a great job so far.
     
    Jhojji said:
    This is written wonderfully well. It conveys so much emotion and depth that I can't help but want to find out what happens next, despite the shortness of the entire thing.

    You're doing a great job so far.
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    Agreed. If you haven't seen the author's other stories, they're very worth checking out. They all have the same style/format and every one I've read has been excellent.
     
    @YseultNott was this supposed to be in the 'Teenager with a Sword' story? Or is Babysitter Sophia set in that universe and I just haven't realized it till now?

    Edit: Ooh, hadn't seen you have another sequel to that 'verse about Theo. Catching up now.
     
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    In the Past (2007)
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    • Sophia dodges the Things as well as she can, but it's hard, because she has to carry Eddie and she can't take him with her in Shadow form, and she can't do stuff like punching or kicking them because she doesn't know if they can absorb her if she touches them through clothes.

    (There's a Thing with her face in the house that isn't hers, and Sophia doesn't want to end like that.)

    Sophia dodges as well as she can, but she knows she can't hold on forever.

    She's getting tired. Her arms hurt from Eddie's weight, and she's out of breath, and everything is blurry, and she's getting dizzy and…

    She trips.

    She trips, and falls, and a Thing bends down and raises a hand toward her.

    A halberd cuts down the Thing's arm, and the blue of Armsmaster's armor is the most beautiful thing Sophia has ever seen.

    "Take them to the portal !" he says, and Velocity is there, too, and he takes Eddie from her arms and tells her to follow him, and they start running as Armsmaster covers their retreat.

    (He doesn't use his superspeed, for some reason, even after Sophia goes to Shadow form and tells him to get Eddie to safety.)

    They run for a while, and then there's a strange door in the air leading to the insides of a white plastic tent, with a weird machine she doesn't recognize, and they all stepped through.

    Armsmaster turns the machine off, and the door closes.

    The Things are left on the other side.
     
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    • In the Present (2009)
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    • In the present (2009)



    Sophia has mixed feelings about therapy.

    On one hand, it's… Useful. It kept her together, after she came back, when she couldn't bear to let Eddie out of her sight, and gave her the tools she needed to deal with the nightmares, or the irrational fear to still be there whenever she's alone.

    (The suggestion to modify her room in easily recognizable ways so she can immediately tells where she is when she wakes up, for example, comes from Doctor Wiggins.)

    It has even helped a bit with her anger issues.

    (Sophia doesn't know who she would have become, had things been different.)

    On the other hand, the rotation shit is pissing her off.

    At first, it was Doctor Wiggins.

    Then it was Doctor Grimes.

    Then Doctor Aranello.

    Doctor O'Neill. Melton. Savage. Ho. Beltran. Right now, Doctor Pitts.

    She knows why the therapists rotate. She can even understand the reasoning behind it, somewhat.

    But it was weird, after all that time spent talking to Doctor Wiggins, to have him replaced, only to, a few months later, have Doctor Grimes be replaced too.

    By the time Doctor Melton rolled by, Sophia didn't believe anymore she was anything to them but a collection of files and problems to be solved. Didn't believe anymore that they give a shit about her.

    So, Sophia has mixed feelings about therapy.

    Because, as things are, it helps, but it isn't quite enough.
     
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    • In Canon, is any excuse given at all for making the doctors less effective by moving them around?

    Just curious if it's part of a path to keeping the Protectorate useless or something.
     
    Anti-No said:
    In Canon, is any excuse given at all for making the doctors less effective by moving them around?

    Just curious if it's part of a path to keeping the Protectorate useless or something.
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    PoisonedWit said:
    I don't remember if it's canon or fanon, but there was something about a case where one of the therapists got too attached to a Ward. Like, beyond the professional boundary. And that's why they started the rotation system
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    I'm fairly sure it's WOG canon that a therapist took advantage of a Ward, but I can't find cites.
    We do know, from Yamada's interlude, that the rotation is so that therapists can tell if one of them is using their position to manipulate a cape, so it doesn't seem outlandish.
     
    In the Past (2007)
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    • In the past (2007)




    In the white plastic tent Sophia pries Eddie out of Velocity's arms, and holds him tight.

    (There was a Thing with her face in the house that wasn't hers. There was a Thing with her face in the house that wasn't hers, and Sophia can't stop thinking about it, or Eddie, or how close she came to dying tonight, how close she came to have her body warp and melt and become one of them.)

    Sophia holds Eddie as tight as she can.

    Someone is telling her it's alright, it's fine, it's over, she's safe now, it's all going to be all right, she's safe, it's over, she's back.

    She's not sure she believes it.

    (There was a Thing with her face in the house that wasn't hers.)

    They make her take showers full of chemicals, and wait for days in strange locked rooms, and strange people ask her questions through walls and interphones, and the whole time, she refuses to let Eddie out of her sight.

    It's over. She's home.

    She can't quite believe it.
     
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    • In the Present (2009)
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    • In the present (2009)




    "James is stupid!"

    Eddie's arms are crossed in righteous indignation, and he's aggressively pouting. Sophia resolutely doesn't laugh.

    "James is in your class, right? What did he do?"

    Eddie pouts harder, but brightens as he speaks.

    "In class, we were talking about superheroes, and then, Miss Mason, she asked who our favorite superheroes were, and I said you were mine ! But then, James, he said you weren't a superhero, because you didn't have powers, or, or, a mask, and a secret identity, and stuff."

    Sophia tries not to wince. Eddie didn't understand what her using her powers meant at the time, or forgot about it, and it was deemed safer not to put him back in the confidence.

    Sophia is mostly fine with that, but sometimes, it leads to awkward conversations.

    "I don't care if you don't have powers! You're still the best superhero in the whole world!"

    Eddie beams at her.

    She smiles back.
     
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    • In the Past (2007)
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    • In the past (2007)




    Laser Man's name is Zap.

    The PRT says he's a villain, but apparently, he thinks of himself as a vigilante, and only goes after other villains.

    His lasers aren't actually lasers, just beams that send people to the other world. The PRT is calling it Earth Vav.

    Zap is a villain because once he sends someone to Earth Vav, that's it. He can't bring them back. Apparently, he can tell whether they're still alive, but that's it.

    They don't tend to live very long.

    Zap didn't mean to send Sophia and Eddie to Vav, but he did, and they could have been hurt, they could have died, they could have…

    (There was a Thing with her face in the house that wasn't hers.)

    Sophia hates him.

    (He surrendered. When he realized he'd sent them to Vav, he gave himself up to the Protectorate, and worked with Armsmaster to make the machine to bring them back.)

    (He sent them there, and brought them back, and he will go to jail for it.)

    Sophia wanted to be a vigilante, but she can't, now. The PRT knows about her, and so does her mom.

    Armsmaster's hand is heavy on her shoulder, equal parts reassurance and burden.

    "Welcome to the Wards, Odessa," he says.
     
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    • Lord, that's a hell of a power to have.

    Honestly, good on him for owning up and working to get them out of there.
     
    Revlid said:
    Lord, that's a hell of a power to have.

    Honestly, good on him for owning up and working to get them out of there.
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    The way I see it, Zap started out as a pretty benign vigilante, or even an independant hero, but wasn't necessarily very efficient due to not using his power directly on people (he could still do some stuff like using his beams to break fragile stuff like glass or slightly light up a room, or even get rid of animal minions, but it was very limited). However, he accidentally sent a villain to Vav and felt them die, and convinced himself they deserved it as a protection against the guilt. He then started to get use his full powers against some villains, until he got declared one himself. In a sort of slippery slope, he slowly became more violent, sending people to Vav for more and more minor crimes, until accidentally sending children there proved too big a jump in his morality and he surrendered in an effort to save them. It can however be noted that Zap knew at least one of them was alive. If Eddie and Sophia had died, or even just Eddie and he had belived Chain Guy was the one still alive, he wouldn't have surrendered and would have stayed a villain, since there would have been no point in trying to save them.
     
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    In the Present (2009)
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    • In the present (2009)




    "… Is that a kid?" Dee asks.

    She asked Sophia to meet her on the Boardwalk, and she's holding a plastic cup full of something colorful in each hand. Sophia came, but brought Eddie. He doesn't like being left out.

    "Yes," says Sophia.

    Dee and her stare at each other in silence until Eddie get bored and starts tugging on Sophia's hand.

    "Eddie, this is Dee. Dee, this is Eddie. He's my neighbor's kid." Sophia says.

    "Is there a particular reason he's there?" Dee asks.

    Sophia picks Eddie up and settles him on her hip. He's used enough to it he doesn't bother protesting.

    "We're a package deal," she says.

    Dee stays silent a little longer, then shrugs, and smiles wider, and gives a cup to Sophia and the other to Eddie.

    "The more the merrier!" Dee says.
     
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