2.3 Invocation

I spent the next hour trying to explain to Akane how much of a bad idea her chosen code name was. I mean, who in their right mind would go around naming themselves in honor of a mass murderer? I don't think even the Empire capes have names like "Kung Fürer", or "GoebbelStriker", "Stangler", "KaltenBurner", or… well, you get the idea. Huh, I wonder why I can think of multiple Nazi-like names, but not one that goes with my power?

Anyway. If Akane's anything, it's stubborn. I tried to push her to go with something more 'japanese', like, I don't know, "Akaze" or maybe something that tweaks the name a bit more, like "Red Wind" or "Aka Wind", or…

Yeah. No such luck. Red Kaze it is.

"Don't worry so much." Andrew said, when Akane left to the kitchen to prepare some tea.

I sulked. "Yeah, no worries, if Armasmaster was pushy before, imagine how much of a pain in the ass he will be when he finds out."

He scowled a bit at the mention of Armsmaster, but quickly concealed it with a plastic smile. "Just make sure he knows the difference between being a mass murderer, and being the daughter of a mass murderer."

Akane came back with tea for all three of us. She gave me a cup and I examined it. It had a strange texture, almost as if she had used yogurt or something. I warily eyed it. "Akane?"

"Yes?" she asked, while raising her own cup to her lips.

I stared at her as she took a sip. Her eyes bulged out. She remained still, almost frozen in place.

"Akane?" Andrew asked, putting down his own cup.

"Agh!" She exclaimed and ran to the bathroom. We heard her puking and coughing like she was dying.

Andrew took a look at his coffee from a safe distance. "What did she put in this thing?"

I shrugged my shoulders and walked to the bathroom, and gently knocked the door. "Hey, are you OK in there?"

She was whining now. "I can even make coffee!?"

"Wasn't it tea?" I wondered out loud.

Andrew followed me, with a thoughtful expression. "I think it's some kind of poison." Poison? How did she make poison while trying to make coffee with supplies to make tea?

My thoughts were interrupted when the bell rang, I turned. "Is that your daughter?" I asked Andrew.

"Probably?" He went for the window, and spied to see who was outside. "Oh, yes, it's her." He told me, and hurried to my computer and started picking up things there.

I sighed. "Akane? Andrew's daughter is here, will you meet her before they leave?"

She was about to reply, when she suddenly got the urge to puke again. I coughed, almost tasting the disgusting 'tea' thanks to our link. I shook my head and focused on Andrew's senses instead, and the horrible feeling faded to the background.

"If you need my help, just call me." I said while walking to the front door.

I heard the bell being ringed again, and I sighed before opening the door. "Hello?" I said.

"Hello!" A small girl, maybe thirteen years old said. "You must be Taylor!"

I started to nod when the younger girl glomped me. She was surprisingly heavy for a girl her size. Her skin was also way too cold for some reason. I grunted in pain as she applied way too much pressure around me.

"H-halp" I managed to say, and the little girl seemed to realize what she was doing, and let me go.

"Oh, sorry about that. Sometimes I forget how strong I can be." She said, and winked at me.

I massaged my arm, and then looked around. "Please come inside." I said, and let her in.

She skipped behind me, all the way to my old computer. "Andrew, your ride is here." I said, wondering how this little girl had brought a car to pick him up.

Andrew had a small bag with him, full of papers and old 3 ½ floppy disk we still had around from the nineties. "Oh, hey there Sue."

Sue smiled showing her pointy teeth. Huh. Almost like some sort of dog, or maybe a lion. "Hey dad, good to finally meet you."

"Finally?" I asked, raising an eyebrow Andrew's way.

He gently smiled at us. "Yeah, she's the third one. Taylor, this is Sue, also known as Tyrannosaurus, or T-Rex, or Rexy, for short."

I eyed the little girl. "She's parahuman?"

"Dragon is her big sis, and while Dragon is a tinker, but we found out that each of her sisters had a different power, depending on their personality and conditions. Sue here has a striker power, and her, eh, suit also gives here a low level brute rating, particularly in her jaws."

"I can chew anything." She said, and bit the air a couple of times to demonstrate. "Anything."

"O-ok?" I said, wondering what she meant. I shook my head. "Wait, sisters? How many parahuman daughters do you have?"

"Right now? Four. Dragon, Scatha, T-Rex, and Rodan. But more are coming pretty soon." He said as he started walking to the front door.

"Wait, more? What are you, cloning them or something?" I asked, hurrying to stay close to him.

Sue nodded slowly. "That's one way of putting it." She looked back at the bathroom, where Akane was still puking. "Is she OK?"

I sighed and went back to knock the door. "Hey, Akane, come on, knock it out. Andrew is leaving soon."

She raised her hand. "One second!" Proceeded to burp, and threw out the last bit of whatever was in her stomach. "I'm Ok!" She said, more to herself than to me.

We walked outside as Akane washed herself. I looked at the black car parked on the driveway. I couldn't make out the brand, so I assumed it was tinkertech. It looked like it was Dragon's, it even had some fins by the back, probably to make it look more 'dragon-ish'.

When Andrew was a few feet away from the car, it suddenly opened itself. Raising its doors, like the one from that old science fiction film about a time-traveling car that dad loves to put in our movie schedule. Andrew seemed to examine the inside of the car before sitting on the driver's seat. He turned to us and gave us a thumbs up. "Ok, looks like this is goodbye for now."

As Akane caught up to us, I said, "so, you're leaving to Canada? Stay in touch, will you?"

"Canada?" He asked, puzzled. "Nah, I don't even have an up to date passport yet. I will set up shop here in Brockton bay." He turned to Akane and waved at her, "didn't I tell you guys?"

Akane was still feeling something a bit disgusting in her tongue, she swallowed and glared at Andrew. "No? You said you were talking with Dra-Tess to go home or something?"

Sue smirked. "Yeah, big sis had me look over some property we bought using the updated Robin Hood."

"Robin Hood?"

"Our Simple-minded brother." Sue said. "But I guess he's due to have some upgrades sometime soon?" She asked, eyeing Andrew.

"You are all due to some upgrades." Andrew said, rolling his eyes. "Why don't you broadcast that for all the world to hear?"

Sue crossed her arms. "Nah, no one can hear us." She said, and showed us something on her arm, some kind of device that had a green blinking LED. "Anti-evedrosping technology. Full package. The neighbors probably are seeing you right now on an old VW Bug instead of that- whatisit-mobile."

"Batmobile." Andrew said, drawing a breath. His cheeks red.

"What, like that old comic-book? Manbat?" I asked, somewhat familiar with the character, even if fictional super heroes weren't really a thing anymore in Earth Bet.

"Batman." Andrew corrected, a bit offended that I got the name wrong.

"Yes, Batman." Sue said, looking like she was pretending to just remember the name. "Anyway, this is Scatha's toy." She smiled at me. "She's a tinker, like Dragon. She gave me this to test it on the field and help her figure out her speciality, she doesn't really know what it is."

I was somewhat familiar with tinker specialities. From what I heard from Andrew, his speciality is with logic and programing, and being able to understand and connect ideas really fast. Dragon's speciality is well known, she has the ability to replicate other Tinker's work, and looking at Scatha's tech, she had some kind of Stranger speciality.

I stared at the blinking green light for a moment, wondering where the device actually was. It wasn't wrist-attached or anything like that. It just kinda was there, in Sue's arm.

Weird.

I shook my head as Andrew closed the batmobile's door. I turned to Sue. "Aren't you going with him?"

"Who? Me? Naw. I have to stay over with you guys, but don't worry, I can handle myself on the field much better than ninja princess here." The little girl said, pointing at Akane with her thumb.

"Hey!" Akane called out, annoyed.

"I don't think my dad can support another mouth to feed and-"

Sue fished something in her pocket and extracted a rather large wad of money. "I brought some Franklins to pay for my stay. I'm not a freeloader or anything."

"Hey!" Akane repeated, her face red with anger and… shame?

She grinned. "And I know how to cook like a pro."

"HEY!" Akane exclaimed, and then started coughing, the memory of her tea coming back. She glared at Sue and then ran back to the bathroom, more puking followed.

I shook my head, still unconvinced. "Look Andrew, I don't know what I'll tell dad about this, why are you even placing her with us?"

"Like I said, she's new," He said, as if that explained anything. "She had her trigger event when we duplicated Dragon's source. She still has some restrictions in place, and in order to lift them, she has to grow as a person. I think it would be very good for her to be around you."

I looked at the younger girl and wondered what was going on inside her head. She was some sort of clone of Dragon, but she acted completely different. I turned to Andrew and studied him. "You're not building your own army of parahuman daughters, are you?"

"Who, me?" He smiled, showing his teeth. "I can't make a billion, I have to be very careful with how they're all raised. Sure, they could all just be perfect copies of Dragon, but then, they would lack individuality and one might go nuts or something." He shrugged his shoulders. "I just want to make the world a better place for everyone. Dragon proved her ways of doing things are better than mine, so, we started the hatchling program to expand her operations."

"Expand her operations." I repeated, slowly.

"Each of her sisters specializes in a different area, intended to help Dragon accomplish as many things previously impossible." He pointed at Sue's direction. "Li'l kid here is intended to be the street level hero. Scatha is a lot closer to Dragon, meant to boost our productivity and new ideas, help with the Birdcage and support allied hero teams."

"What about the last one?" I asked him, cautiously.

"Rodan?" He asked.

"Yes."

"Oh, she's the newest member of the family, our answer to Endbringers." He smiled and pressed a button that started the engine. "We're going to avenge Newfoundland."

"Holy shit." I muttered as the 'batmobile' rocketed away from my house.