By CmptrWz
"AHA!" Kevin yelled, interrupting Randall's attempt to learn underwater basket-weaving. He wasn't sure why he was trying, though it was worth it just for learning Mr. Black's method for breathing underwater at the beginning. Randall paused the video and went to see what it was Kevin had done.
"Oh hey," Kevin said as Randall came in. "I think I figured out how to make an anti-cloaking tinkertech field!"
"Why do you want to?" Randall asked, after thinking about that for a moment. "I mean, don't we like using that kind of tech ourselves at times?"
"I still recall a few times Squealer monstrosities got the drop on us," Kevin admitted. "I figured if I could disable anything like that or similar things within an area it could be helpful. That and I think the girls might appreciate it as an additional security measure if it works right."
"Can't argue with that," Randall admitted. "What kind of range does it have?"
Kevin double-checked his notes before answering. "At low power it should be about ten meters, scaling up to a hundred at full power. I am kinda hoping Dragon can figure out how to duplicate it as a result so that proper coverage can occur, amongst other things."
"I can see that being a valuable thing for a lot of people who like their security if she can," Randall said, wondering just how much it could be worth. "Very valuable. Shall I grab one of our scavenged Squealer-tech cloaks to test with? I think we still have the box working."
"Please do," Kevin said as he hooked a laptop into the device on his workbench and started a diagnostics and control program. Randall walked over to a closet and pulled out a test box they had rigged with a cloak device in an attempt to get the Snitch to see through it. That hadn't panned out.
Once the box was in place and the cloak active Kevin hit a couple of keys on the laptop and a small whine started in the device on the bench. Moments later the laptop threw up an error as the lights dimmed and the whining suddenly went from "small" to "I can feel it in my bones, but I can't hear it because my ears are bleeding heavily".
Before Kevin could shut the device down there was a bright flash and a visible pulse of energy exploded from the device. As the energy wave passed over the cloaked box the cloaking effect was stripped, though nothing else appeared to happen to it, the power indicator was even lit. On the other hand the device on the bench was starting to glow, and not in any way it was supposed to.
A few minutes later Kevin had shut the device down, though the device and the workbench were both in varying states of burned and melted, and their ears had healed up. Amy did good work, luckily. Randall was pouring over Kevin's notes to see if he could figure out what may have gone wrong while Kevin looked over the diagnostic data.
"I think I found something," Randall said after looking over some calculations a few times. "It looks like you missed an exponent between these two lines here due to a bit of cheese having stained the paper. On that note, stop eating pizza while handwriting calculations, would ya?"
"Crap," Kevin said, coming over to look, then paused. "Which pizza stain should I be looking at?"
"Right here in your distance calculations, which were the basis of your power calculations. I think you were off by three orders of magnitude as a result."
"Wait, that would put the minimum range at ten kilometers."
"And due to the initial power formula being slightly non-linear it used around one and a half thousand times the energy you predicted. The extra for the power bill is coming out of your account, by the way."
"I guess that means the pulse probably just hit the entire city and then some. Hopefully it won't have any negative effects, it doesn't seem to have acted like an EMP or anything."
As they discussed the potential issues that they weren't seeing they didn't notice that it took over an hour for the cloak on the box to start working again, as they had never bothered to turn it off. Kevin finally noticed it the following morning when his bowl clipped the invisible box and spilled all over him and his notes.
Across town Taylor was participating in another math night, though this time the Dallons had volunteered to host as Danny wasn't available. Carol hadn't fully gotten why the "PHO, math, movie, math, PHO again" system seemed to work so well, but as it did work she was ok with it.
They had just finished their first math run and were looking into movie ideas when a wave of energy swept through the room. Initially only Amy and Taylor noticed it at all, and they glanced at each other wondering what it was. But as nobody else had noticed it they figured investigating may have to wait.
"Woa," Eric said a moment later, dodging Taylor's tail on his way to look at a different part of the shelves holding the movies. "Taylor, watch where your tail is swinging, would you?"
It took everyone a few moments to catch up. Vicky was, unfortunately, the first to do so. It didn't take long before she screamed bloody murder and flew out of the room at high speed.
"Er," Rich said, shaking his head for a moment before turning to Taylor and Amy. "I am not positive I heard that correctly. Did she just say something about the lizards having replaced you two?"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEE" Lucy squealed, her brain having finally rebooted. Taylor and Amy were wondering if she had just triggered with a teleportation ability as she cuddled against their tails, somehow having crossed the room in an instant. Amy actually took a moment to check and confirm that no, Lucy was not a parahuman at this time. "IWANTONEWHEREDOIGETONEPLEASETELLMEWHEREICANGETONEPLEASEpleaseplease…"
"Huh," Amy commented, looking down at the passed-out Lucy. "She actually passed out because she forgot to breath. I didn't think that was possible."
"What is going on in here?" Carol asked as she was dragged into the room by Vicky. She then took a moment to look at Amy, Taylor, and their tails with a passed out Lucy still cuddling the tails. "Oh, you two just revealed your tails. You should probably be more careful about how and when you do that."
Now Amy, Vicky, and Taylor were staring at Carol as though she had just grown an extra head. Amy tried several times to say something, but couldn't seem to start. Finally she got out a "How?" just as Taylor shook her head, having apparently zoned out for a moment.
"I've known for a couple of weeks," Carol answered. "Admittedly I was very confused at first. You kept leaving tail-marks wherever you sat in the backyard and I couldn't wrap my head around them until I spoke with Danny. He explained that the family life-sculptors had come up with the tails as a means of keeping 'squishy humans' healthy and uninjured, and something about fixing the tragedy that was the lack of tails on humans. I asked and he agreed not to say anything to either of you, I was wondering when you would come clean to me about it. I am curious about the stranger effect you have been using the hide the things though."
"You mean the family can actually give people tails?" Mandy said, looking over at Amy and Taylor. "And they keep you healthy?"
"And solve the severe deformity of lacking a tail," Taylor added, having decided to just run with it for now. "Serious issue that is, you can't learn the family martial arts properly without one. The stranger effect is a family secret, though." She turned and looked at her and Amy's tails. "Kindof odd, really, it should still be working. I wonder if that energy wave did something."
"Energy wave?" Carol pondered. "I thought I saw something before the cloak failed on my toybox. Oh, oops. I shouldn't have said that…"
Amy and Vicky shared a look, then Vicky decided that she had enough panicking and confusion for now and floated over to the couch, collapsing onto it. "So sis, for some reason I think you have a lot more secrets I don't know about if you have been hiding a tail for weeks. And I suspect Taylor is involved there too, so are you two going to fess up?"
"Screw that," Lucy said, having woken up. "Beyond wanting one of my own, how long have you two had tails? And how did Amy get one anyway?"
"Well, err," Amy said, looking at Taylor. "Technically I tripped over Taylor's, injured my nose, and then had a mild loss of judgement when I noticed how different she was due to the tail as she helped me up? Things kindof snowballed from there."
"So THAT'S what you were doing in that closet!" Vicky yelled, popping up off of the couch. She then slumped. "Damnit, that means you really weren't dragging Taylor into the closet for a makeout session, were you? I think I owe Dennis twenty bucks."
Around an hour later suddenly everyone but Amy and Taylor stopped talking as they got a migraine, confusing Amy and Taylor until Varga realized that the assassin's cloak was working properly again. To save everyone's heads he added exceptions for them all.
As she recovered Vicky thought about the tail she could see again and then stopped. "You wanted the driver's seat in your truck to have the tail hole for you, not for Saurial, didn't you! That's why you never have the plugs in!"
"Duh," Amy said, rolling her eyes.
"Does that mean you will let me drive it now?"
"Nope. Still trust Saurial, and Taylor for that matter, with it more than I trust you with it."
"But whyyyyyyyyyyyy?" Vicky whined.
"Because your power only makes your head, not the entire vehicle, capable of taking a significant impact" Taylor deadpanned. "And you can't even avoid going through buildings when you aren't driving, why would she trust you to avoid them when constricted by what the truck can do while you are driving?"
Elsewhere Danny suddenly shivered for no apparent reason. He looked around and got the feeling that something annoying was going to happen when he got back home, but couldn't figure out why.