-Begin AN-

Wing AU, anyone?

So this old hyperfixation decided to rocket out of the grave and keep me in a chokehold until I wrote this out. I'm going in for the long-haul, in that it'll be something of a canon retelling with quite a few twists and a few OCs sprinkled in here and there, and otherwise expanding on some things that the show left a little too vague for my liking, plus general AU goodness.

tl;dr this will follow canon plot more or less to the letter up until the end of S1, in the form of abridged episodes, with some notable divergences/alterations to suit the AU. Some will be expanded-on episode rewrites.

Come S2, we shall veer away from canon. I've got plans, folks. Which may or may not involve this lovable cryptid family suffering just a little more than they did in canon.

-End AN-

Everyone has secrets. My family just has bigger ones, and they're called cryptids.

The night was alive with the sounds of nocturnal birds calling and insects buzzing, enough sound to otherwise make picking out specific sounds impossible—but the eleven-year-old boy currently racing through the undergrowth wasn't relying on hearing.

It was pretty hard to miss a glowing white frog in the dark, after all, even with the komodo dragon also chasing after it, though the reptile's interest in it was more than probably predatory-based.

Chupacabras, the Loch Ness Monster, tsuchinokos, the Bishopville lizard-man—I've been studying them and more with my mom and dad since I was born, practically. There's a lot of weird things out there, some of which are so obscure you'd probably think I'm making them up on the spot.

The one downside to it being nighttime was that even with his eyes being as good as they were, they could only pick up so much in the limited lighting. Which meant he didn't see the fallen tree looking a little more rotten than what was safe to walk on, up until it split underfoot.

He didn't fall for long, though, because someone caught him by the foot. What sounded like "Be careful!" let him know who it was, and he laughed a bit nervously.

"Thanks Fisk. I owe you one."

His cryptid brother grinned at him before hoisting the boy up onto his shoulders and taking off after their other family member.

The Fiskerton Phantom is one of them. He's a seven-foot gorilla-cat and used to live out in the woods near Nottinghamshire in England, but the townsfolk were trying to hunt him down, so my mom and dad intervened. Now he lives with us, and we just call him Fisk. He's one of the best brothers I could've ever asked for.

Unfortunately, the other thing about nighttime is that it made someone that could put a cuttlefish to shame even harder to see, hence Fisk tripping over Komodo when the frog came back into sight, the three of them tumbling down a hill all while becoming tangled in vines.

I know Komodo's not the most original name out there, especially for a komodo dragon, but I was one when mom and dad found him. I don't know the whole story about him, but I do know that he was genetically-modified in some sketchy lab out in Indonesia before he even hatched. He can camouflage so well, he's practically invisible.

The roll down the hill ended with the three of them in a muddy lake, the sound of something that sounded alarmingly like a large rock following them, the sight of which had all three of them shutting their eyes and hoping for the best.

"So, who wants to tell me—what's going on here?"

The grunted question had the boy open one eye, the other following when he saw that his dad had stopped the rock with some effort; he was slowly being pushed toward the water by the weight of the stone, but wasn't in any danger. "Uh…science?"

"That's my—boy!" The rock was unceremoniously rolled to the side.

"Doc, frog," he heard his mom call from the top of the hill.

"Zak, come on—you heard your mother."

"Okay, just—let me get untangled first."

There are other people out that that are like us, too. Well, not exactly, partially because they all do different things, but they're all part of the same secret organization that my parents are in. All scientists, all working to figure out the mysteries of the universe before the bad guys do.

Some of them do more normal things, like Dr. Cheveyo, who can name at least fifty constellations off the top of his head, or Dr. Cheechoo, who studies geological anomalies.

Then there's Dr. Grey, who's trying to find the answer to the question of if wormholes can exist or not, and Dr. Beeman, who's pretty sure there's aliens somewhere out in the Xi Boötis star system.

They call themselves the Secret Scientists. I would've gone with something cool, like Blasterminds or Destructobrains, but no one asked me.

And the cryptids, that's what we take care of. Every kind and size out there, the Saturday family can handle.

"Do you think your cryptid-influencing powers can handle this, Zak?" Drew asked.

Zak sputtered a bit. "Mom, it's a frog!"

"I know, I know, but there's still so much about this…thing you can do that we don't know about. It's nothing like what your father and I are able to pull off."

"It's a controlled experiment," Doc reassured. "He's got to test the extent of his power sooner or later. And we're right here in case anything does go wrong." Pause. "And it is just a frog."

"A frog with a potent neurotoxin in its tongue," Drew reminded.

"Which is why we're right here."

She sighed, shaking her head a little, before handing something to Zak; he'd seen it in the lab on the airship a few times, but this was the first time he was getting to hold it. "Remember, the Hand of Tsul'kalu is a mystical artifact. A tool to help you focus your power."

"Mom—" Zak tried interrupting.

"Find your center, and let your instinct—"

"Mom, I got it."

Hopefully. The last time he did this, he hadn't even been thinking about it—it had just happened. One second a dakuwaqa had been trying to eat Fisk, and the next it had been swimming away in a hurry just because he'd told it to. With his brain. Somehow.

It hadn't happened again since, but there were some times when…well, he just knew if a cryptid was near them. Even before then, actually, now that he was thinking about it—

"Zak?" Doc asked.

He shook his head. "Sorry, just…trying to remember what it felt like."

That was easy enough, actually. It was pretty hard to forget a feeling that weird. Recreating it was different—up until it suddenly was there again, right as the frog's eyes lit up orange, along with everything in his line of sight looking…well, orange-ish.

His dad took a few slow steps forward, smiling. "The legendary Cameroon flashlight frog. I'd say we've verified its existence—what about you?"

"Looks pretty real to me," Drew agreed.

"Hey, are we just going to ignore what I'm doing here?" Zak asked with some false indignance. "Watch—" He turned his focus briefly away from the frog so that its eyes dimmed, and then back again to the opposite effect.

"Zak, honey, don't toy with nature please," his mom reprimanded.

"I'd like to measure the lumens on that glow," Doc said, opening up the cryptipedia. "Zak, can you hold it still for a minute?"

"Uh…" He was getting a weird feeling now that was kind of like being irritated, but he had a feeling that it wasn't really him getting annoyed. "Yeah, I can hold it."

"Don't push the Hand of Tsul'kalu too hard," Drew warned. "Mystical artifacts can be dangerous—"

"Mom, I can handle—"

"Zak, careful with the frog's tongue!"

"Sorry dad—

"Darling, let him focus—

"Guys, I'm serious, I can handle—huh?"

Where had those other frogs come from? And…why were their eyes red instead of pink?

"…it looks like the glow's color changes dependent on the frog's emotions," Doc said tightly.

"Good to know," Drew said in the same tone. "And I think I know what that color means!"

There's one other thing about us. Namely, the Saturday family mega-secret.

It's so secret, not even the other Secret Scientists know about it, and both mom and dad drilled it into my head the moment I was old enough to understand that it's supposed to stay that way until the right time…whenever that is.

The next thing Zak knew, Drew had grabbed him, and then there were above the canopy in what felt like seconds.

My parents and I are technically cryptids too.

See, normal people don't have person-sized bird wings sticking out of their backs. I got my first actual feathers when I was eight, but my wings are still too small to even really glide with. Mom and dad say that they're getting there, though, and that means soon I can start working on figuring out how it works. And after that it'll be flying. Sounds fun, right?

"Moooom, I thought you said you wouldn't do that anymore," Zak complained when they'd reached the airship; Doc was right behind them, Komodo on his back and Fiskerton hanging onto an arm.

"I know, I know, it's just—it's an old habit," Drew not-apologized, smiling a little. He groaned in response, before jumping on reflex when an alarm started blaring.

"That's from home," Doc reported, expression darkening.

"Home?" Drew repeated. "A month after you upgraded the security system?"

"A break-in? Cool!" Zak exclaimed.

"Uh, no, not cool. You know the rules, Zak—there's a fight, you boys stay in the airship."

"Aw, man…"

"Aw man," Fisk agreed.

Flying's not all we can do, either. I've got my cryptid powers. Dad can shrug off anything just short of three gigawatts when it comes to electricity, not to mention being able to charge his own equipment. And mom, if it's snowy or foggy enough, she'll disappear just like Komodo.

She can't turn it off like he can, though, which might be part of why we all wear bright orange all the time. It's hard to miss that color in monochrome places.

There's a lot of technical stuff to go with it, like us being hollow-boned, though that just means we have to have our own private doctor who's both sworn to secrecy and got the background check to end all background checks before he got let in on the secret.

As for how we hide them when other people are around, dad worked out some holographic tech. His is programmed into the cryptipedia, mom's got a necklace with an emitter in it, and I've got a bracelet.

So long as we don't run directly into an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to bypass the safety mechanism, we're safe.

…so long as no one touches our backs, anyways.