If this is all A Simurgh Plot, then I am suddenly EXTREMELY worried about the brief period when the shield dome was completely and totally down. Seemed to me that it was less than a minute, maybe less than thirty seconds, but if Ziz planned all of this, possibly including intercepting the maintenance alert that would have prevented the breach had it reached it's proper destination, then even a mere 10 seconds would have been enough time for one or more cyber-zombies to sneak out the other side while everyone was focused on the area of the breach.
Unlimited Potential (Worm/Megaman)
- Thread starter Guardsman_Sparky
- Start date
If this is all A Simurgh Plot, then I am suddenly EXTREMELY worried about the brief period when the shield dome was completely and totally down. Seemed to me that it was less than a minute, maybe less than thirty seconds, but if Ziz planned all of this, possibly including intercepting the maintenance alert that would have prevented the breach had it reached it's proper destination, then even a mere 10 seconds would have been enough time for one or more cyber-zombies to sneak out the other side while everyone was focused on the area of the breach.
Sir_Braazmiir
Tiefling Paladin
- Location
- Wherever I am
Thanks to the not-so-subtle hints at Sigma's in-story debut here, are we gonna see any legit Maverick Hunters? Zero and Axl would be godsends, as would a Robot Master.
Yeah, I know I'm repeating an earlier sentiment, it's just that both Zero and the Robot Masters are immune to the Sigma Virus (Zero because he was Patient Zero, the Robot Masters because I assume they cannot even go Maverick on their own).
Yeah, I know I'm repeating an earlier sentiment, it's just that both Zero and the Robot Masters are immune to the Sigma Virus (Zero because he was Patient Zero, the Robot Masters because I assume they cannot even go Maverick on their own).
The Sigma Virus and Immunity
Guardsman_Sparky
The Clueless Wonder
- Location
- Virginia
Actually, the robot masters just might be hilariously susceptible to the Sigma virus. There's a theory out there that Wily created the Zero virus (what would eventually jump hosts and become known as the Sigma virus) by altering a strain of the roboenza (which he created in the first place) using the Evil Energy that debuted in Megaman 8. Since roboenza was originally designed to infect robot masters and other lesser robots...
Zero is 'immune' to the virus due to possibly being designed to use the virus as an OS/the virus being designed as an alternate OS so as to 'fix' Zero's personality.
X is not technically immune, he's just got a hilariously overpowered immune system. His anti-virus systems can be overwhelmed by the Sigma virus and similar viruses (see the 'Nightmare Virus') but it takes long enough that unless he's constantly being bombarded by instances of the virus, his immune system is able to effortlessly delete the virus from his body. One theory on X's apparent immunity is that where Wily potentially used the Evil Energy to create the Zero virus, Dr. Light used its counterpart, "Justice/Good Energy" as an integral part when building X. Which is possibly another reason why it is so difficult to understand X's systems fully.
- Location
- Texas
Wasn't expecting to get hooked on this combo but it's a good read so far
I wonder if engineering Sigma is Ziz's way of forcing Taylor to create the Mother Elf.
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
I have the amusing thought of Ziz going out of her way to arrange Sigma to come into existence...
...and forgetting/accidentally getting derailed by X (who seems to inherently screw with Precog and all that) when she keeps the Zero/Wily/Maverick Virus from existing or infecting Sigma, meaning you just end up with Charismatic Honorable Commander Sigma, noble hero and leader of the heroic peace keeping Maverick Hunters.
Prolly already got the next best thing to a Maverick Virus or a full strain around due to all the cyberzombies and Professor Haywire's Device Conveniently Activating, but it is still a funny idea.
...and forgetting/accidentally getting derailed by X (who seems to inherently screw with Precog and all that) when she keeps the Zero/Wily/Maverick Virus from existing or infecting Sigma, meaning you just end up with Charismatic Honorable Commander Sigma, noble hero and leader of the heroic peace keeping Maverick Hunters.
Prolly already got the next best thing to a Maverick Virus or a full strain around due to all the cyberzombies and Professor Haywire's Device Conveniently Activating, but it is still a funny idea.
Monitor 7:1
Guardsman_Sparky
The Clueless Wonder
- Location
- Virginia
As it did every morning, Danny's trusty old alarm clock went off at an ungodly hour, ringing like the timer on a movie bomb. Grumbling, the aging father slammed a hand down on top of the clock, and then again and again as the clock refused to stop ringing. Finally, the damn thing stopped, several new dents added to the device's dinged up patina.
Sitting up, Danny blinked blearily, put his glasses on, and then blinked blearily some more. Really, this early in the morning, the glasses were somewhat superfluous.
Grunting, Danny looked at the unrepentant alarm clock and glared. Five O'clock. Why was he getting up this early?
…
Oh, right. Work. What he did to keep a roof over his head. Yay. 'Course, things had been looking up at the docks lately, but still…
Hauling himself out of bed, he shuffled out of his room and down the hall to the bathroom for his morning ablutions. On the way back, he paused at a certain door.
Pushing the ajar door further open, Danny peeked into Taylor's room. He sighed. The bed was unslept in again. Shaking his head, Danny softly closed the door and continued his way back to his room, his head lost in thoughts.
Danny was worried about Taylor. It'd been days since she'd been home. Ever since the attack on the dockyards, she'd been cooped up in her lab, working on some project or another. She was being unusually tight-lipped about it; usually Taylor was willing to share at least a few details on whichever project she was working on. But this time, not even his grandchildren could tell Danny anything about it. That's what really had him worried; what was Taylor working on that she couldn't… or wouldn't tell her own family about?
Sighing, Danny finished getting dressed and meandered downstairs for breakfast. He could only hope this wasn't a return to… before. After Annette died…
Danny shook his head free of thoughts. No. No, this wasn't a return to that. He wouldn't let it.
If Taylor hadn't come out of her lab by the end of the week, Danny resolved, he'd go in there and drag her out himself. After all, it was a father's prerogative to make sure his daughter was taking care of herself.
As it did every morning, Danny's trusty old alarm clock went off at an ungodly hour, ringing like the timer on a movie bomb. Grumbling, the aging father slammed a hand down on top of the clock, and then again and again as the clock refused to stop ringing. Finally, the damn thing stopped, several new dents added to the device's dinged up patina.
Thank God it was the weekend, when he got to sleep in for three whole hours. Whoo.
Sitting up, Danny blinked blearily, put his glasses on, and then blinked blearily some more. Hauling himself out of bed, he shuffled out of his room and down the hall to the bathroom for his morning ablutions. On the way back, he paused at a certain door.
Danny made to push the door open and paused. Taylor's door was closed all the way. With bated breath, Danny gingerly turned the doorknob and gently opened the door. His heart caught in his throat, relief flooding his veins like ice water as he took in the two prosthetic legs laying haphazardly on the floor by the bed, the prosthetic arm on the nightstand, and the large lump under the blankets, dark wavy hair spilling out across the pillows.
Quiet as a mouse, Danny shut the door and pressed his forehead against the cool wood. She was home. Taylor was home!
He should make breakfast, Danny decided as he returned to his bedroom and got dressed. Bacon and eggs. Maybe pancakes. Yes, bacon, eggs, and pancakes sounded about right. Just the thing for his baby girl to wake up to after her first night back in her own bed at home.
Humming to himself, Danny carefully padded down the stairs, making sure to skip the creaky ones. He could almost smell the bacon already as he threaded his way through the living room, sliding between the coffee table and the couch with the soundly sleeping teenage brunet splayed across its cushions, and stepping past the ash blonde sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons.
Entering the kitchen, Danny made a beeline for the fridge. He could already hear the bacon sizzling in the pan.
"Hey Grandpa."
"Hey Lan."
Danny froze, before slowly turning around. There, sitting at the kitchen table and reading the comics, was a young, green-eyed boy with messy brown hair.
Danny stared at the boy, and the boy stared back, until Danny realized that he wasn't just imagining the sounds and smells of cooking bacon earlier. Glacially, Danny turned his head to look at the stove, and the tall man with shaggy black hair tied up in a short ponytail flipping bacon in a cast-iron pan.
The man turned, a pair of tongs in hand, and nodded to Danny. "Good morning Grandfather."
Something clicked in Danny's brain. "Baryl?"
The man smiled. "Indeed."
"Huh." Danny turned back to the boy at the kitchen table. "Lan?"
Lan beamed. "Yup!"
Slowly, Danny turned to look back at the entrance to the living room as something else clicked together in his brain. "So, back there was…?"
"Iris and Alpha, yes," Baryl replied, a small smile on his face. "Or, as he has decided he wants his civilian name to be, Alf."
"Huh."
Sitting at the table across from Lan, Danny looked down at the plate that Baryl slid in front of him. Huh, bacon, eggs, and pancakes. Looks like certain things ran in the family, then. Grabbing the butter and maple syrup, Danny applied the proper amount of condiments to his pancakes
Picking up the fork left next to the plate, Danny cut off a chunk of pancake and proceeded to stab the piece of flaky breakfast flat cake and stuff it in his mouth. He started to chew, only to slow to a halt as the taste hit him.
'Oh…'
Chewing slowly, Danny eventually and reluctantly swallowed. That was… that was far better than any thing he could make. Huh. Seems Baryl got Taylor's talent at cooking… which she certainly hadn't gotten from him, that's for certain.
Taking another bite of delicious pancake, Danny gestured at Lan with his fork. "So, uh… is this what Taylor's been working on these last few days, all cooped-up in her lab the entire time?"
"Partially," Baryl explained, placing a plate of pancakes in front of Lan and a cup of coffee next to Danny's plate. He rolled up the sleeves of his black, button-up shirt, exposing the pale, pristine skin of his muscular forearms. "She spent a good amount of time building Lan and Iris their bodies and upgrading Alf's and mine, but the vast majority of her time was spent on a secret project." The Reploid rolled his sleeves back down and shrugged as he returned to tend to the sausage and bacon. "Two, actually. The only thing I can say is that she finished work on both of them."
Danny took a sip of his coffee and immediately perked up. Black and probably used as paint stripper, like good Navy coffee should be. Perfect. Taking another sip, he set the cup back down. "Sounds like she had a tinker fugue," Danny mused. "I think the last one she had was when she built her first prosthetics. Which was her first fugue, come to think of it." He shrugged. "Guess she was overdue for another one."
The scuffing of metal on linoleum heralded Taylor's entrance into the kitchen, the bleary-eyed girl shuffling into the room on her bare prosthetics. She slouched to the pantry and started blindly searching within.
"Huh. Speak of the devil and he shall appear," Danny muttered as he took a sip of coffee. "Or she, as the case may be," he corrected, putting the cup down.
Taylor didn't respond, pulling a can from the pantry and staring at it blankly. Silently stepping up behind her, Baryl pulled the can from Taylor's hands and gently replaced it with a box of teabags. Grunting, Taylor took the teabags and shambled to the stove, dropping the box into the teapot and staring expectantly at it.
Sighing, Baryl put the can back on its shelf and closed the pantry before going to rescue the tea. Taylor, for her part, simply stared blankly at the stove until Baryl finished preparing the tea, put the teapot back on the stove, and turned the burner on to a medium heat.
Danny shook his head at the display. "Oof. Haven't seen her this bad since her last sleepover with Emma." Taking another sip of coffee, Danny pointedly did not flinch at mentioning Taylor's former friend. Thankfully, Taylor seemed not to have noticed, fixated as she was on the teapot. But it was hard not to think of Emma as still being Taylor's friend; even after Taylor had reluctantly explained Emma's part in her torment, a part of him still remembered the gap-toothed little redhead who was almost a second daughter to him.
Leaning back in his chair, Danny stared up at the ceiling. 'Emma, what happened to you? What made you turn away from that sweet little girl you used to be?' He shook his head. 'God, I still haven't tried to talk to Alan about this. Dammit, what kind of coward am I, can't even talk to my oldest friend?'
The whistling of the teapot pulled Danny from his maudlin thoughts, and he watched as Taylor flopped down into a chair and took a long pull from her fresh mug of tea.
"So," Danny teased with a smile. "Are we awake?"
"Murgle."
Snorting with amusement, Danny took a sip of coffee. "Guess not."
As Taylor seemed disinclined to talking, nursing her cup of tea like a drunk nursing a hangover cure, Danny decided to enjoy the quiet. Baryl and Lan appeared to be enjoying the peaceful morning calm as well, an unspoken consensus that Iris and Alf also seemed to have reached as they wandered in, lured by the delicious scent of bacon. Though it was a little odd to see the rambunctious Alpha so serene and quiet, it just served to add to the tranquil atmosphere.
Just the perfect way for a family to share breakfast together.
"How did you all talk me into this?" Taylor asked from the passenger seat as she adjusted the simple, white cotton glove over her left hand (While Taylor could have coated her prosthetics with her latest strain of artificial skin, she had ultimately decided against it. The mechanical realities of the Variable Weapons System meant that any permanent covering for her arm needed to have seams between swatches so as to facilitate the smooth function of the VWS's transformations. The seams in Taylor's first, and so far, only, experiment with applying her artificial skin to her robotic arm had resulted in such a disturbing uncanny valley effect that she'd promptly shelved the project, settling for other methods of covering the exterior of her prosthetics. Currently, Taylor's prosthetics sported a simple eggshell-white enamel coating, an upgrade from the bare metal she'd had before).
Danny chuckled at his daughter's resigned expression as he parked the truck on Market Street. "Well, for one, you've been cooped up in your lab for the past few days." He paused as he turned off the old vehicle. "In fact, between that and studying, it's really all you ever do. You need to get out more, Kiddo."
"I get out," Taylor denied indignantly, as she opened her door.
"Going out in costume doesn't count," Danny retorted, opening his own door and sliding out of the truck. "Besides, this is a family outing, it'll do you good."
"Still don't know how you talked me into this," Taylor groused.
"I believe," Baryl interjected, hopping down from the bed of the old pickup. "It had something to do with the way Alf was looking at you."
"Ah, yes, that would do it," Taylor muttered. "Seriously, how did he get his eyes to glisten like that? I know I didn't include that in the designs…"
"It's Alf," exclaimed Lan, dropping the tailgate and stepping down, before helping his sister down from the truck bed. Iris, for her part, simply smoothed out her yellow sundress before nodding in agreement.
"Are you really so surprised?" Iris inquired. "The way he inhaled his breakfast, how could he pass up the chance for lunch?"
Rolling over the side of the truck, Alf flopped to the ground and then sat up. "Can we have pancakes? I like pancakes."
Iris pointed to Alpha, her face set in a 'see-what-I-mean?' expression.
Taylor gave her father a pleading look; Danny simply smiled and rolled his hand in a 'go-on' gesture. Sighing, Taylor turned to her youngest child. "Sorry Alf, pancakes are a breakfast food. We get to have something else for lunch."
A look of glee crossed Alpha's face as he bounced to his feet. "Something else? Oh boy!" The young Reploid's smile was blinding as he clapped in delight.
Barking out a laugh, Danny started walking down the street. "Well, when you put it like that. Come on all."
The small procession proceeded down the street, accompanied by Alf's aimless babbling about food. Though it wasn't as well known or as fancy as the Boardwalk, Market Street did have a certain charm to it; it was clean, and more importantly, crime free, thanks to the police headquarters at the end of the block. As such, Market Street was a thriving locale for shopping and leisure.
However, while nice, those factors were not Market Street's claim to fame. No, that honor belonged to the storefront that Danny stopped in front of.
"Behold," Danny declared with a grandiose air, arms thrown up and out to the side. "Brockton Bay's most infamous burger joint!"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Dad. It's Fugly Bob's. We've all been here before." She paused, and reconsidered her previous statement. "Well, you and I have." She shook her head. "But really, you chose Fugly Bob's for our first family outing?"
"Of course," explained Danny. "Fugly Bob's is a staple of Brockton Bay's culinary experience."
Snorting, Taylor crossed her arms. "It's a fast food place. And the food here is more grease than meat."
Waving his hand flippantly, Danny blew a raspberry. "I'll have you know; your mother and I had our first date here. It's much more than some mere fast food place."
Taylor blinked. "Oh, well, that changes things, I guess." She sighed. "Yeah, alright, let's go eat at the heart attack factory."
Danny clapped his hands together, a big smile on his face as he turned to walk to the front doors. "Great. Let's go!"
"I regret everything," Danny muttered.
Taylor couldn't help but agree with her father as she watched Alf stuff yet another chunk of his ten-pound burger into his mouth. "Well… you did agree to get him the Challenger."
"I regret everything."
"At least it's free if he finishes it within the hour?"
"Everything."
Sighing, Taylor turned away from her father and back to her own, more reasonable quarter-pound burger and small fries. Actually, everyone's order was more reasonable than Alpha's 10lb monstrosity. Baryl with his grilled-chicken sandwich and onion rings, Lan with his chicken nuggets and fries, Danny with his double-quarter pounder with all the fixings, and Iris with her veggie burger.
While it was a little strange to see Iris eat her burger with a knife and fork, it still didn't hold a candle to the center ring spectacle that was Alf and his ten-pound burger, his beach bucket of fries, his basket of onion rings, and an entire jug of vanilla milkshake. Out of which, only half his burger remained.
"It's like a train wreck… but I just can't look away," Lan muttered next to Taylor. "Where is he even putting it?"
"I have no idea," Taylor muttered in return. Honestly, she hadn't the foggiest, and she'd built the Reploid. Alpha's stomach, like his siblings', was designed to stretch like a human's did. While theoretically it could hold the volume of food Alpha was eating, the sheer speed at which he was packing it away was certainly stretching, if not outright breaking, the calculated design thresholds.
'Did I miscalibrate one of his internal sensors?' Taylor wondered. 'Seriously, I'd have thought he'd be bent over with a stomach ache by now, the speed he's going.'
Taking a breath, Taylor stood up. "I'm, uh… going to go get a refill," she explained, shaking her empty cup, what ice cubes remained rattling off the insides of the cheap wax paper.
Standing up and stepping away from the table, Taylor walked over to the soda fountain, striding past all the silent faces watching Alf devour his lunch with horrified fascination.
'Let's see… Coke or Pepsi?'
Ultimately deciding on Coke, Taylor refilled her cup. No diet anything for her, thank you. She wasn't dieting, the sweetener the diet stuff used left a horrible aftertaste, and besides, she needed all the sugars and calories she could get to power her prosthetics.
It was just as she was putting the lid back on her cup when it happened.
"Oh em gee! Is that you Taylor?"
A chill went down Taylor's spine as a sickeningly sweet, familiar voice sounded behind her. For a brief moment, she was back at school, helpless to do anything
'No.' Her fist clenched, servos whining and metal creaking under the strain. 'No. This isn't Winslow. This is the real world.' Taylor took a deep breath. 'I've fought Skidmark and Hookwolf. Saved a pair of kidnapped girls in a high-speed motorcycle chase and killed a monster. I brought down Saint and brought him to justice. I fought Oni Lee and survived! I can face a simple bully. She is nothing!'
Letting out her breath, Taylor adopted a bored expression and turned around. "Emma," she greeted blandly, idly sipping from her straw.
"Look at you," Emma Barnes crowed, demurely twirling a strand of her long, fiery red hair around her finger. "Out and about in public. You've even bathed. Good for you!"
Taylor stared blankly at Emma, slowly sipping her drink out the corner of her mouth as she looked her former friend over. She looked much like she had that last fateful day Taylor had been whole. Long red hair falling past her shoulders, a headband keeping the bangs out of her face. Thin, though not anorexically so, and curvy, with a bust that many of their peers envied. She wore some sort of short pink skirt and a white button-up blouse. Emma was also about a head shorter than Taylor was, now that she no longer habitually slouched. Something it seemed Emma hadn't noticed yet.
Also, bathing? Was she alluding to the locker? If so, it was a poor choice of weaponry for Emma. Time heals all wounds, after all, and Taylor had had literal months to work through the trauma. There was also the fact that her memories of the locker after being shoved in there were fuzzy at best—a common side effect of massive physical trauma, the doctors had said. Perhaps if the ambulance hadn't been collateral in a cape fight… Whatever the case may be, Emma's quip might have had some bite she'd made it a few days or weeks after the incident, as opposed to several months later.
Of course, there was also the possibility Emma was insinuating that Taylor had poor hygiene. That was one of her more go-to insults, Taylor recalled.
For a moment, Taylor considered the merits of responding in kind, making a quip about plucking an imaginary mustache perhaps. But then, that would involve lowering herself to Emma's level, wouldn't it?
God. It was all just so… infantile. The words hurt, coming from someone who had been her friend, her sister in all but blood. But… the veiled insults somehow lacked the bite they used to carry.
Ultimately, Taylor simply shook her head, turned around, and walked away. "Goodbye Emma."
"Wha-? Hey!" Lunging forward, Emma grabbed Taylor's left wrist, pulling the taller girl to a halt. "You don't get to walk away from me," Emma sneered, face twisted into an ugly snarl. "You… don't…" She trailed off, her snarl melting away into confusion as she slowly looked down where her hand gripped Taylor's.
Taylor pulled her hand away from Emma's, and fixed her with a glare. "Goodbye, Emma." She resumed walking away, ignoring Emma, and the way the redhead was staring at her hand in bafflement.
"Hey, Dad," Taylor muttered as she returned to the table. "I think it's about time we leave."
"Hmm?" Danny turned away from Alf stuffing the last triumphant bite of his burger into his mouth, his puffed-up cheeks putting chipmunks to shame. "What do you…?" He trailed off, his eyes narrowing as his gaze fell on Emma. "Ah. Yes, I think you might be right." He eyed Alf as the Reploid swallowed the last of his burger. "Well, we were all just waiting on Alf, really." The youngest of the Hebert siblings had been the last to finish his food, after all.
Standing up and pushing his chair back under the table, Danny brushed off his lap of any errant crumbs. "Right everyone, time to go. We got places to do, things to be."
Alf giggled. "You said that wrong, Gran'pa!"
Danny sniffed as he put on an air of mock disdain. "I know what I said."
As he ushered his growing family towards the door, Danny spared a second to turn and make eye contact with Emma. Emma met his gaze, but didn't last long under the accusatory, disappointed stare. She averted her eyes, unable, or perhaps unwilling to confront the feelings that look brought forth.
With Emma turning away, Danny turned back to his family and followed them out the front doors.
As they walked away from the restaurant and back to the truck, Danny strode up next to Taylor. "So, baby girl, why don't you show us what you've been working on all week?"
Although the question was only partially an attempt to get Taylor's mind off her… encounter in Fugly Bob's, it still worked.
Taylor hummed in thought, before giving her father a smile. "Yeah. I think I can do that."
Sitting up, Danny blinked blearily, put his glasses on, and then blinked blearily some more. Really, this early in the morning, the glasses were somewhat superfluous.
Grunting, Danny looked at the unrepentant alarm clock and glared. Five O'clock. Why was he getting up this early?
…
Oh, right. Work. What he did to keep a roof over his head. Yay. 'Course, things had been looking up at the docks lately, but still…
Hauling himself out of bed, he shuffled out of his room and down the hall to the bathroom for his morning ablutions. On the way back, he paused at a certain door.
Pushing the ajar door further open, Danny peeked into Taylor's room. He sighed. The bed was unslept in again. Shaking his head, Danny softly closed the door and continued his way back to his room, his head lost in thoughts.
Danny was worried about Taylor. It'd been days since she'd been home. Ever since the attack on the dockyards, she'd been cooped up in her lab, working on some project or another. She was being unusually tight-lipped about it; usually Taylor was willing to share at least a few details on whichever project she was working on. But this time, not even his grandchildren could tell Danny anything about it. That's what really had him worried; what was Taylor working on that she couldn't… or wouldn't tell her own family about?
Sighing, Danny finished getting dressed and meandered downstairs for breakfast. He could only hope this wasn't a return to… before. After Annette died…
Danny shook his head free of thoughts. No. No, this wasn't a return to that. He wouldn't let it.
If Taylor hadn't come out of her lab by the end of the week, Danny resolved, he'd go in there and drag her out himself. After all, it was a father's prerogative to make sure his daughter was taking care of herself.
---
As it did every morning, Danny's trusty old alarm clock went off at an ungodly hour, ringing like the timer on a movie bomb. Grumbling, the aging father slammed a hand down on top of the clock, and then again and again as the clock refused to stop ringing. Finally, the damn thing stopped, several new dents added to the device's dinged up patina.
Thank God it was the weekend, when he got to sleep in for three whole hours. Whoo.
Sitting up, Danny blinked blearily, put his glasses on, and then blinked blearily some more. Hauling himself out of bed, he shuffled out of his room and down the hall to the bathroom for his morning ablutions. On the way back, he paused at a certain door.
Danny made to push the door open and paused. Taylor's door was closed all the way. With bated breath, Danny gingerly turned the doorknob and gently opened the door. His heart caught in his throat, relief flooding his veins like ice water as he took in the two prosthetic legs laying haphazardly on the floor by the bed, the prosthetic arm on the nightstand, and the large lump under the blankets, dark wavy hair spilling out across the pillows.
Quiet as a mouse, Danny shut the door and pressed his forehead against the cool wood. She was home. Taylor was home!
He should make breakfast, Danny decided as he returned to his bedroom and got dressed. Bacon and eggs. Maybe pancakes. Yes, bacon, eggs, and pancakes sounded about right. Just the thing for his baby girl to wake up to after her first night back in her own bed at home.
Humming to himself, Danny carefully padded down the stairs, making sure to skip the creaky ones. He could almost smell the bacon already as he threaded his way through the living room, sliding between the coffee table and the couch with the soundly sleeping teenage brunet splayed across its cushions, and stepping past the ash blonde sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons.
Entering the kitchen, Danny made a beeline for the fridge. He could already hear the bacon sizzling in the pan.
"Hey Grandpa."
"Hey Lan."
Danny froze, before slowly turning around. There, sitting at the kitchen table and reading the comics, was a young, green-eyed boy with messy brown hair.
Danny stared at the boy, and the boy stared back, until Danny realized that he wasn't just imagining the sounds and smells of cooking bacon earlier. Glacially, Danny turned his head to look at the stove, and the tall man with shaggy black hair tied up in a short ponytail flipping bacon in a cast-iron pan.
The man turned, a pair of tongs in hand, and nodded to Danny. "Good morning Grandfather."
Something clicked in Danny's brain. "Baryl?"
The man smiled. "Indeed."
"Huh." Danny turned back to the boy at the kitchen table. "Lan?"
Lan beamed. "Yup!"
Slowly, Danny turned to look back at the entrance to the living room as something else clicked together in his brain. "So, back there was…?"
"Iris and Alpha, yes," Baryl replied, a small smile on his face. "Or, as he has decided he wants his civilian name to be, Alf."
"Huh."
Sitting at the table across from Lan, Danny looked down at the plate that Baryl slid in front of him. Huh, bacon, eggs, and pancakes. Looks like certain things ran in the family, then. Grabbing the butter and maple syrup, Danny applied the proper amount of condiments to his pancakes
Picking up the fork left next to the plate, Danny cut off a chunk of pancake and proceeded to stab the piece of flaky breakfast flat cake and stuff it in his mouth. He started to chew, only to slow to a halt as the taste hit him.
'Oh…'
Chewing slowly, Danny eventually and reluctantly swallowed. That was… that was far better than any thing he could make. Huh. Seems Baryl got Taylor's talent at cooking… which she certainly hadn't gotten from him, that's for certain.
Taking another bite of delicious pancake, Danny gestured at Lan with his fork. "So, uh… is this what Taylor's been working on these last few days, all cooped-up in her lab the entire time?"
"Partially," Baryl explained, placing a plate of pancakes in front of Lan and a cup of coffee next to Danny's plate. He rolled up the sleeves of his black, button-up shirt, exposing the pale, pristine skin of his muscular forearms. "She spent a good amount of time building Lan and Iris their bodies and upgrading Alf's and mine, but the vast majority of her time was spent on a secret project." The Reploid rolled his sleeves back down and shrugged as he returned to tend to the sausage and bacon. "Two, actually. The only thing I can say is that she finished work on both of them."
Danny took a sip of his coffee and immediately perked up. Black and probably used as paint stripper, like good Navy coffee should be. Perfect. Taking another sip, he set the cup back down. "Sounds like she had a tinker fugue," Danny mused. "I think the last one she had was when she built her first prosthetics. Which was her first fugue, come to think of it." He shrugged. "Guess she was overdue for another one."
The scuffing of metal on linoleum heralded Taylor's entrance into the kitchen, the bleary-eyed girl shuffling into the room on her bare prosthetics. She slouched to the pantry and started blindly searching within.
"Huh. Speak of the devil and he shall appear," Danny muttered as he took a sip of coffee. "Or she, as the case may be," he corrected, putting the cup down.
Taylor didn't respond, pulling a can from the pantry and staring at it blankly. Silently stepping up behind her, Baryl pulled the can from Taylor's hands and gently replaced it with a box of teabags. Grunting, Taylor took the teabags and shambled to the stove, dropping the box into the teapot and staring expectantly at it.
Sighing, Baryl put the can back on its shelf and closed the pantry before going to rescue the tea. Taylor, for her part, simply stared blankly at the stove until Baryl finished preparing the tea, put the teapot back on the stove, and turned the burner on to a medium heat.
Danny shook his head at the display. "Oof. Haven't seen her this bad since her last sleepover with Emma." Taking another sip of coffee, Danny pointedly did not flinch at mentioning Taylor's former friend. Thankfully, Taylor seemed not to have noticed, fixated as she was on the teapot. But it was hard not to think of Emma as still being Taylor's friend; even after Taylor had reluctantly explained Emma's part in her torment, a part of him still remembered the gap-toothed little redhead who was almost a second daughter to him.
Leaning back in his chair, Danny stared up at the ceiling. 'Emma, what happened to you? What made you turn away from that sweet little girl you used to be?' He shook his head. 'God, I still haven't tried to talk to Alan about this. Dammit, what kind of coward am I, can't even talk to my oldest friend?'
The whistling of the teapot pulled Danny from his maudlin thoughts, and he watched as Taylor flopped down into a chair and took a long pull from her fresh mug of tea.
"So," Danny teased with a smile. "Are we awake?"
"Murgle."
Snorting with amusement, Danny took a sip of coffee. "Guess not."
As Taylor seemed disinclined to talking, nursing her cup of tea like a drunk nursing a hangover cure, Danny decided to enjoy the quiet. Baryl and Lan appeared to be enjoying the peaceful morning calm as well, an unspoken consensus that Iris and Alf also seemed to have reached as they wandered in, lured by the delicious scent of bacon. Though it was a little odd to see the rambunctious Alpha so serene and quiet, it just served to add to the tranquil atmosphere.
Just the perfect way for a family to share breakfast together.
---
"How did you all talk me into this?" Taylor asked from the passenger seat as she adjusted the simple, white cotton glove over her left hand (While Taylor could have coated her prosthetics with her latest strain of artificial skin, she had ultimately decided against it. The mechanical realities of the Variable Weapons System meant that any permanent covering for her arm needed to have seams between swatches so as to facilitate the smooth function of the VWS's transformations. The seams in Taylor's first, and so far, only, experiment with applying her artificial skin to her robotic arm had resulted in such a disturbing uncanny valley effect that she'd promptly shelved the project, settling for other methods of covering the exterior of her prosthetics. Currently, Taylor's prosthetics sported a simple eggshell-white enamel coating, an upgrade from the bare metal she'd had before).
Danny chuckled at his daughter's resigned expression as he parked the truck on Market Street. "Well, for one, you've been cooped up in your lab for the past few days." He paused as he turned off the old vehicle. "In fact, between that and studying, it's really all you ever do. You need to get out more, Kiddo."
"I get out," Taylor denied indignantly, as she opened her door.
"Going out in costume doesn't count," Danny retorted, opening his own door and sliding out of the truck. "Besides, this is a family outing, it'll do you good."
"Still don't know how you talked me into this," Taylor groused.
"I believe," Baryl interjected, hopping down from the bed of the old pickup. "It had something to do with the way Alf was looking at you."
"Ah, yes, that would do it," Taylor muttered. "Seriously, how did he get his eyes to glisten like that? I know I didn't include that in the designs…"
"It's Alf," exclaimed Lan, dropping the tailgate and stepping down, before helping his sister down from the truck bed. Iris, for her part, simply smoothed out her yellow sundress before nodding in agreement.
"Are you really so surprised?" Iris inquired. "The way he inhaled his breakfast, how could he pass up the chance for lunch?"
Rolling over the side of the truck, Alf flopped to the ground and then sat up. "Can we have pancakes? I like pancakes."
Iris pointed to Alpha, her face set in a 'see-what-I-mean?' expression.
Taylor gave her father a pleading look; Danny simply smiled and rolled his hand in a 'go-on' gesture. Sighing, Taylor turned to her youngest child. "Sorry Alf, pancakes are a breakfast food. We get to have something else for lunch."
A look of glee crossed Alpha's face as he bounced to his feet. "Something else? Oh boy!" The young Reploid's smile was blinding as he clapped in delight.
Barking out a laugh, Danny started walking down the street. "Well, when you put it like that. Come on all."
The small procession proceeded down the street, accompanied by Alf's aimless babbling about food. Though it wasn't as well known or as fancy as the Boardwalk, Market Street did have a certain charm to it; it was clean, and more importantly, crime free, thanks to the police headquarters at the end of the block. As such, Market Street was a thriving locale for shopping and leisure.
However, while nice, those factors were not Market Street's claim to fame. No, that honor belonged to the storefront that Danny stopped in front of.
"Behold," Danny declared with a grandiose air, arms thrown up and out to the side. "Brockton Bay's most infamous burger joint!"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Dad. It's Fugly Bob's. We've all been here before." She paused, and reconsidered her previous statement. "Well, you and I have." She shook her head. "But really, you chose Fugly Bob's for our first family outing?"
"Of course," explained Danny. "Fugly Bob's is a staple of Brockton Bay's culinary experience."
Snorting, Taylor crossed her arms. "It's a fast food place. And the food here is more grease than meat."
Waving his hand flippantly, Danny blew a raspberry. "I'll have you know; your mother and I had our first date here. It's much more than some mere fast food place."
Taylor blinked. "Oh, well, that changes things, I guess." She sighed. "Yeah, alright, let's go eat at the heart attack factory."
Danny clapped his hands together, a big smile on his face as he turned to walk to the front doors. "Great. Let's go!"
---
"I regret everything," Danny muttered.
Taylor couldn't help but agree with her father as she watched Alf stuff yet another chunk of his ten-pound burger into his mouth. "Well… you did agree to get him the Challenger."
"I regret everything."
"At least it's free if he finishes it within the hour?"
"Everything."
Sighing, Taylor turned away from her father and back to her own, more reasonable quarter-pound burger and small fries. Actually, everyone's order was more reasonable than Alpha's 10lb monstrosity. Baryl with his grilled-chicken sandwich and onion rings, Lan with his chicken nuggets and fries, Danny with his double-quarter pounder with all the fixings, and Iris with her veggie burger.
While it was a little strange to see Iris eat her burger with a knife and fork, it still didn't hold a candle to the center ring spectacle that was Alf and his ten-pound burger, his beach bucket of fries, his basket of onion rings, and an entire jug of vanilla milkshake. Out of which, only half his burger remained.
"It's like a train wreck… but I just can't look away," Lan muttered next to Taylor. "Where is he even putting it?"
"I have no idea," Taylor muttered in return. Honestly, she hadn't the foggiest, and she'd built the Reploid. Alpha's stomach, like his siblings', was designed to stretch like a human's did. While theoretically it could hold the volume of food Alpha was eating, the sheer speed at which he was packing it away was certainly stretching, if not outright breaking, the calculated design thresholds.
'Did I miscalibrate one of his internal sensors?' Taylor wondered. 'Seriously, I'd have thought he'd be bent over with a stomach ache by now, the speed he's going.'
Taking a breath, Taylor stood up. "I'm, uh… going to go get a refill," she explained, shaking her empty cup, what ice cubes remained rattling off the insides of the cheap wax paper.
Standing up and stepping away from the table, Taylor walked over to the soda fountain, striding past all the silent faces watching Alf devour his lunch with horrified fascination.
'Let's see… Coke or Pepsi?'
Ultimately deciding on Coke, Taylor refilled her cup. No diet anything for her, thank you. She wasn't dieting, the sweetener the diet stuff used left a horrible aftertaste, and besides, she needed all the sugars and calories she could get to power her prosthetics.
It was just as she was putting the lid back on her cup when it happened.
"Oh em gee! Is that you Taylor?"
A chill went down Taylor's spine as a sickeningly sweet, familiar voice sounded behind her. For a brief moment, she was back at school, helpless to do anything
'No.' Her fist clenched, servos whining and metal creaking under the strain. 'No. This isn't Winslow. This is the real world.' Taylor took a deep breath. 'I've fought Skidmark and Hookwolf. Saved a pair of kidnapped girls in a high-speed motorcycle chase and killed a monster. I brought down Saint and brought him to justice. I fought Oni Lee and survived! I can face a simple bully. She is nothing!'
Letting out her breath, Taylor adopted a bored expression and turned around. "Emma," she greeted blandly, idly sipping from her straw.
"Look at you," Emma Barnes crowed, demurely twirling a strand of her long, fiery red hair around her finger. "Out and about in public. You've even bathed. Good for you!"
Taylor stared blankly at Emma, slowly sipping her drink out the corner of her mouth as she looked her former friend over. She looked much like she had that last fateful day Taylor had been whole. Long red hair falling past her shoulders, a headband keeping the bangs out of her face. Thin, though not anorexically so, and curvy, with a bust that many of their peers envied. She wore some sort of short pink skirt and a white button-up blouse. Emma was also about a head shorter than Taylor was, now that she no longer habitually slouched. Something it seemed Emma hadn't noticed yet.
Also, bathing? Was she alluding to the locker? If so, it was a poor choice of weaponry for Emma. Time heals all wounds, after all, and Taylor had had literal months to work through the trauma. There was also the fact that her memories of the locker after being shoved in there were fuzzy at best—a common side effect of massive physical trauma, the doctors had said. Perhaps if the ambulance hadn't been collateral in a cape fight… Whatever the case may be, Emma's quip might have had some bite she'd made it a few days or weeks after the incident, as opposed to several months later.
Of course, there was also the possibility Emma was insinuating that Taylor had poor hygiene. That was one of her more go-to insults, Taylor recalled.
For a moment, Taylor considered the merits of responding in kind, making a quip about plucking an imaginary mustache perhaps. But then, that would involve lowering herself to Emma's level, wouldn't it?
God. It was all just so… infantile. The words hurt, coming from someone who had been her friend, her sister in all but blood. But… the veiled insults somehow lacked the bite they used to carry.
Ultimately, Taylor simply shook her head, turned around, and walked away. "Goodbye Emma."
"Wha-? Hey!" Lunging forward, Emma grabbed Taylor's left wrist, pulling the taller girl to a halt. "You don't get to walk away from me," Emma sneered, face twisted into an ugly snarl. "You… don't…" She trailed off, her snarl melting away into confusion as she slowly looked down where her hand gripped Taylor's.
Taylor pulled her hand away from Emma's, and fixed her with a glare. "Goodbye, Emma." She resumed walking away, ignoring Emma, and the way the redhead was staring at her hand in bafflement.
"Hey, Dad," Taylor muttered as she returned to the table. "I think it's about time we leave."
"Hmm?" Danny turned away from Alf stuffing the last triumphant bite of his burger into his mouth, his puffed-up cheeks putting chipmunks to shame. "What do you…?" He trailed off, his eyes narrowing as his gaze fell on Emma. "Ah. Yes, I think you might be right." He eyed Alf as the Reploid swallowed the last of his burger. "Well, we were all just waiting on Alf, really." The youngest of the Hebert siblings had been the last to finish his food, after all.
Standing up and pushing his chair back under the table, Danny brushed off his lap of any errant crumbs. "Right everyone, time to go. We got places to do, things to be."
Alf giggled. "You said that wrong, Gran'pa!"
Danny sniffed as he put on an air of mock disdain. "I know what I said."
As he ushered his growing family towards the door, Danny spared a second to turn and make eye contact with Emma. Emma met his gaze, but didn't last long under the accusatory, disappointed stare. She averted her eyes, unable, or perhaps unwilling to confront the feelings that look brought forth.
With Emma turning away, Danny turned back to his family and followed them out the front doors.
As they walked away from the restaurant and back to the truck, Danny strode up next to Taylor. "So, baby girl, why don't you show us what you've been working on all week?"
Although the question was only partially an attempt to get Taylor's mind off her… encounter in Fugly Bob's, it still worked.
Taylor hummed in thought, before giving her father a smile. "Yeah. I think I can do that."
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- Location
- Philippines
did he get his pic taken for the wall? I imagine it would be like a family pic
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
Surprised Emma wasn't aware Taylor had lost her limbs. Would've figured her locker experience to be a big discussion around Winslow for at least the first month after it happened. Can't recall enough of the early story to remember whether many details were shared, though.
I did like the surprise reveal of the robot family now having human-ish bodies. Were you inspired by the people in ZX?
I did like the surprise reveal of the robot family now having human-ish bodies. Were you inspired by the people in ZX?
- Location
- new york
Maybe it was swept under the carpet.
Tisaku
Head Chief Thinkomancer
Jonn Wolfe
(Verified Sarcastic) (Not a Wolf)
- Location
- Beyond Sanity Since 1971
Emma might start to understand she fucked up, but I doubt it.
She didn't lose her limbs from the locker. Taylor lost them when the ambulance taking her to the hospital became collateral in a cape fight. And Taylor hasn't been back to Winslow since.
- Location
- Missouri
IIRC, the ambulance got held up by the cape fight and delayed treatment to the point they had to amputate due to the degree of infection.
Guardsman_Sparky
The Clueless Wonder
- Location
- Virginia
Actually, the ambulance got caught in a cape fight en route to the hospital and was completely totalled. Taylor's arm and legs were pinned in the wreckage, and the EMTs were forced to amputate to get Taylor away to safety from the still raging fight.
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
To make it even worse, that would apparently make it the SECOND set of EMTs who did the emergency amputation. Went back and checked intro, and it said the initial ambulance crew were killed in that cape fight.
Guardsman_Sparky
The Clueless Wonder
- Location
- Virginia
Yup. Poor bastards.
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Eh, may be an issue, but not quite as much of a surprise as it could be. Piggott, at least, is already pretty sure she knows who X is anyways.
She's just (justifiably) paranoid enough about the PRT being compromised (due to realizing someone, probably Coil, purposefully supressed the incident report involving the Locker until after the Youth Guard mandated investigation deadlines so she isn't officially allowed to censure Sophia for it now, and then realizing the rest of the PRT is compromised as hell as well) so she hasn't told ANYONE.
But it also means she is alert to Sophia's shenanigans (in that Piggott dislikes her immensely, beyond her usual dislike or annoyance for Parahumans, due to Sophia's charming personality) so she'd probably drop the hammer on her first chance she gets if Sophia steps out of line, so Sophia os maybe neutralized a bit for now.
Unless Sophia does something dumb, but that never happens, right?
...asides, Emma has to recover from the trauma of Disappointed Dad Look first, which is going to take her a while! It's a very Disappointed look, after all!
EvaUnit01
Kept you waiting, huh?
One miscalculation there.
It isn't Emma's dad who's looking at her disappointedly.
So it doesn't have as much of an effect.
And from what I can recall, Allen's a sack of shit, more likely to be disappointed that she let herself get told off than anything else.
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Well, yeah, but Allen's not been using his Dad Powers lately, since he hasn't reigned Emma in, and Danny's POV sections mention him wondering what happened to the 'gaptoothed little redheaded girl who was like a second daughter to him', so Emma's probably not built up any resistance to Dissapointed Dad Stare either, since Allen doesn't use it properly, if at all, while Danny's natural Dad Powers will probably identify Emma as a valid option of being affected properly.
I mean, from the evidence we have, it was at least effective enough to make Emma look away rather than face the feelings of shame and/or discomfort that result from the Dad Stare of Young-Lady-I'm-So-Disappointed-In-You-I-Don't-Have-Words-For-It.
So even if it's not necessarily a hundred percent effective, we're seeing that Emma isn't immune to Danny's Dissapointed Dad Stare.
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Sir_Braazmiir
Tiefling Paladin
- Location
- Wherever I am
Have you been reading Constellations recently? Specifically, Datcord's chapter reviews? Because this sounds like something from one of those.
