Baby Cousin
(by ShadowVulpix)
"So, you guy's will play along?"
The three scaly faces grinned forebodingly.
"Of course," The shortest one said. "It'll be pretty funny, I think."
"My power agrees." One of the taller ones nodded, smirking smugly. "Still, are you alright with it?" She angled her question towards the shorter reptilian form with a slight tilt of her head. A tiny dragon formed, hovering for a moment before settling, and smirked as well.
"I am. After all, it will be quite amusing to perform." The minidragon grinned. "I think I'll use this as a form, if you don't mind?"
"That works perfectly." The taller of the two humans said, his gaze shifting between all four of them, then to his partner. "So, here's how we should do this…"
Colin pulled his bike into the familiar spot next to the BBFO offices, Legend and Dragon both landing next to him as he dismounted. Turning, he spotted Über and Leet heading their way, presumably coming over from their own workshop that he knew they had somewhere in the DWU grounds.
"Hello there!" Leet waved. The two not-really-villains hurried over. "Nice to see you all again."
"It's good to see you as well, Leet." Dragon emoted a smile through her armour. "I assume you've been using Raptaur's abilities quite a lot since moving here?"
"Not as much as I'd like." The Tinker said thoughtfully. "The girls all left yesterday afternoon, around four, and when I saw them pop back up a few hours later they all looked pretty harried about something." Über nodded his agreement.
"I spotted them wondering around a bit ago, they looked exhausted for some reason." He told them. "Ianthe in particular looked like she hadn't slept, and Metis wasn't looking all that much better. I don't think I've seen Raptaur at all, and Saurial looked like she wanted to cry." The visiting heroes traded startled glances.
"Has something happened, do you think?" Legend asked, sounding a little worried.
"Perhaps it's something to do with their home life." Colin suggested. "You said they vanished somewhere, so maybe there's trouble at their home they had to deal with?" The door to the BBFO opened behind them, making them all look towards the tired and annoyed face of Raptaur.
"Not quite trouble, exactly, not in the sense of actual issues, but I'd call this trouble enough." She sighed.
"We could go, if you'd like." Dragon said. "You sound exhausted."
"No, it's fine, come on in." The huge lizard-woman moved to one side. "I think a bit of Tinkering would be great to help take my mind off things. Ianthe and Metis can handle it for a moment, but they'll be down soon. Saurial's stuck on duty, as it were, so she isn't about anyway. I wish she was, then she could handle this…" Raptaur grouched. Trading confused looks, the group filed in, scanning the room for anything odd. Nothing seemed out of place, but there were odd noises coming from an upstairs room that hadn't been there the last time they'd visited. Colin decided he wasn't going to ask what was happening up there, for the sake of his own sanity.
A strange something that was also Family related was probably not something he should question.
"Right." Raptaur stifled a yawn, heading over to a table. "What was it you all wanted to look at?"
"Well…" Colin began, only to be distracted by the sound of a door opening, and some shouts in the Family language. Raptaur's head snapped around faster than he'd ever seen her move, then she ran over to a staircase that had been added and hurried up it, calling back to whichever of her cousins had spoken before. Wondering if it would be a good idea to start running now, the five visitors looked at each other in confusion, before a gasp from Dragon made them look back at the stairs.
A little black shape was fluttering in the air, haphazardly making its way over the handrail and flying downwards awkwardly. They all watched, confused and not a little worried, as the shape headed over to them, before spiralling awkwardly and landing on the table in front of them.
A little black dragon stared back at them, before making a strange squeaking sound and crawling towards Colin, looking up at him with yellow glowing eyes, similar to Raptaur's, but a lot less unnerving.
It almost looked cute.
The dragon leaned against Colin's armour, nudging it confusedly, then squeaked again and curled up into a little ball of scales, hiding its head under a wing, and gave off a tiny yawn before presumably falling asleep. Colin stared at it for a moment, then looked around at the others around the table. All of them seemed just as confused as he was, though Über and Leet were giving of a sense of equal awe and amazement, while Dragon was emoting something else through her armour that he couldn't quite place. She also seemed fairly amazed. A quiet chuckle from next to him made him twitch, and apparently broke the rest out of their shock, making them turn to look at Raptaur. She'd approached them so silently they hadn't noticed her.
"Sorry about that." She whispered, obviously being careful not to wake the sleeping dragon.
"He must think your armour is actually scales of some sort."
"You have a dragon." Über whispered in return, eyes wide.
"Yes…?"
"That's a Night Fury." Leet added.
"Yeessss…?"
"Why do the dragons in your family look like a movie character?" Legend asked, catching on. Raptaur smiled.
"Who's to say we look like them?" She returned, making Colin blink in surprise. "Here, Armsmaster, just move away a little, I'll take him back upstairs." Very slowly, the Tinker moved his arm away from the tiny dragon, who shuffled a little before looking up in confusion, searching for his resting place. Dragon was still staring in amazement, then glanced over at Raptaur, who was moving to lift him up. She looked at her for a moment, then nodded slightly, shifting away, while Dragon reached an armoured hand towards him. He tilted his head slightly in a familiar motion, looking at it, then her, before pushing his nose against the palm of the suit. Making a strange squeaking chirp, albeit a slightly hissing one, he shuffled back a little. Emoting some disappointment, Dragon went to back away, assuming that meant he didn't like her, when he leapt up and started to flap his tiny wings, barely holding himself in the air as he flew forwards a little. Putting her hand out palm up, the little dragon landed on it, staring up at her helmeted head when she brought him closer, and squeaking cutely again.
"Hello there." Dragon said softly, emoting a smile. He cocked his head at the sound of her voice, making a confused chirp, and Raptaur chuckled slightly.
"He's only seven months old, so he doesn't even know our language properly yet, let alone human English." She told the Tinker. "Of course, he recognises sounds, and I wouldn't like to say he has no idea what you're saying, since he's probably heard us talking to some of the others before, but he's not likely to know much."
"He's still really cute." She smiled. "Is he your brother or something?"
"No, he's a," Raptaur paused, looking like she was reading off an invisible sheet for a moment, then shrugged. "We'll go with cousin, it's close enough. Our aunt asked us to babysit for a little while over the next few days. He's a bit of a pain, but with the four of us we've got it covered." They all looked at the little dragon, who had now curled up on the far larger Dragon's palm and seemed to have gone to sleep again, given the quiet snores. "And don't worry, he won't accidentally sneeze fire on you in his sleep or something. A dragon's fire breath doesn't come in until they're about six years old, sometimes a little later, but he's not about to set someone on fire by mistake."
"Thank goodness." Über murmured. Dragon had brought her hand closer by now, and was softly stroking the sleeping dragon and giving off the impression of an enormous grin. Metis and Ianthe had come down at some point and joined them, both with small smiles on their faces.
"It appears we've all gotten a little distracted." Metis said quietly, leaning back on her tail. "Why did you all come around, again?" Dragging his gaze from the sight of his friend gently cuddling the baby dragon, Colin started talking softly about the requests he had, carefully explaining the parts he needed. Raptaur, Metis and Leet had soon gathered around the plans and were quietly making suggestions while Legend and Über listened in.
Ianthe, meanwhile, was watching Dragon with a thoughtful look on her face, the Tinker ignoring everything in favour of watching the tiny dragon sleep on her palm, still gently running a finger down his back, a quiet joy evident to everyone in the room as she did.
Around two hours later, Colin was given a bag by Raptaur.
"I expanded it out a lot, and it's permanent." She explained, as they packed the collection of parts into it. "It should fit pretty much anything into there with no problem, excluding the one of getting it through the opening."
"Thank you." Colin smiled slightly, taking the oddly light bag from her with a raised eyebrow.
"It's like these guys' armour, in that nothing in there weighs the right amount. Makes it far easier for someone to carry about tons of stuff. We use it a lot." Standing with a nod, Legend smiled.
"I can see why." He commented. "It's a very useful ability."
"I could expand some of your own stuff, if you'd like." Raptaur offered.
"Perhaps I'll take you up on that." The Protectorate leader smiled, then looked over at Dragon.
"Now we just need to try and get our other Tinker away from your cousin." The rest of the group followed his gaze and grinned.
Ianthe had been sitting out the entire time, not having much to add to the Tinkering, and had instead been speaking quietly to Dragon while she cuddled with the sleeping minidragon. At some point, the little Night Fury lookalike had woken up, and now Dragon was playing keep-away with something that looked like string, but clearly wasn't given the number of times the little dragon had caught it and chewed on the end. Metis cleared her throat loudly, making the duo jump and look up sheepishly, a distraction that the baby used to snatch the rope away and start chewing on the end.
"Is that safe?" Über asked, sounding amused and a little worried. Ianthe looked down.
"Perfectly. It's basically a flavoured chew toy that hatchlings can play with. They're pretty common, and absolutely safe." Ianthe gave him a look that clearly asked if he thought she was stupid, before she smiled at the little dragon, scratching his head with a claw, which made him look up in confusion before going back to attacking the rope.
"Dragon, we need to be going now." Legend said, making the Tinker sigh.
"Alright." She stood up, stroking the dragon's head, which caught his attention. "I need to leave now, little guy." He made a little chirp, one that sounded like a whimper, and Dragon emoted a rueful smile. "I know, I'm sorry, but I do have to leave sometime." The little dragon looked up at her, then around to his cousins, giving them the most pathetic and begging look he could manage. The rest of the humans in the room immediately felt awful, but Raptaur shook her head, going over and picking up both him and the chewy rope. She said something firm in the Family language, making her cousin pout and look down, before going back to eating the rope. Handing him over to Metis, who was closest, Raptaur went over to Dragon.
"Thanks for that." She smiled. "Maybe he'll be a little easier to handle now."
"I doubt it." Metis grumbled affectionately.
"We've got him tomorrow as well, though he's going home the day after, since aunt and uncle will be back. Just call ahead if you want to drop in." Dragon perked up slightly, smiling as well.
"I'd like that, thank you." Following her fellows out the door, Raptaur raised an eye-ridge at Über and Leet.
"Not stopping?"
"We're getting food first, then moving on to doing some of the stuff the Boss-man actually wants us to do." Über explained. "We'll probably come back again later." Raptaur nodded, waving goodbye, and closed the door behind them.
Dragon was fairly sure she was the only one who spotted the baby dragon waving as well, with half the chewing rope in his mouth and a somewhat sad look in his eyes.
"That dragon needs a Master rating." Leet announced, as Colin walked over to his bike and put the bag into storage. "Seriously, how can something be that cute?"
"I don't think he really needs a Master rating, Leet." Dragon replied, somewhat reproachfully. "He's just a baby, after all." Legend grinned slightly.
"I'll side with you on that one. He is just a kid, so I doubt we need to worry." Über grinned.
"You'd think so, but I'm not willing to say I wouldn't be wary of something that cute." He raised a hand in a salute. "Anyway, see you all around. We've all got other stuff to do, after all." The duo strode off in the direction of their workshop, while Colin started up his bike and turned it around. Legend and Dragon took off, heading back to the Rig at their own paces, Dragon still emoting a feeling of contentment and joy.
That same feeling would be following the Tinker around for the rest of the day, immediately spawning a mass of discussion between everyone she ran into about what was going on to make her so cheerful.
Naturally, none of it was anywhere close to the truth.
Taylor settled back into her base form and dropped into a chair, grinning. The 'baby cousin' followed, still chewing on the rope Amy had made with her power beforehand, and settled on Taylor's lap at about a foot and a half long, rather than the few inches he'd been maintaining over the last two and a bit hours. Swallowing the rope, he grinned at the tall form of Ianthe.
"That was pretty good, Amy." The Varga said. "How did you make that?"
"I based it on strawberry gum." She admitted, taking her seat again. "A bit of biomass made to be chewy instead of solid, then gave it a strawberry flavour. It's not really meant to be eaten, but we've already played up the fact that our biology can digest pretty much anything, so you might as well eat it." 'Metis' snickered, walking over with a camera in hand.
"That was extremely adorable." Lisa put in, placing the camera down in the centre of the table and looking at the Varga. "I'll admit, I wasn't sure how convincing of an act you could put on." The dragon form looked extremely smug.
"Thank you, Lisa." He smirked. "That was quite fun, I will admit."
"I don't think I've ever seen Armsmaster so confused." Taylor added, grinning widely. "He looked like he couldn't figure out how to react with the rest of us there."
"He did smell pretty nervous when you leaned against him, Varga." Amy agreed.
"He was worried he'd accidentally do something that might be seen as a threat by one of us." Lisa explained, walking over to the coffee machine in the corner. "He really values your friendship with him, Taylor, and didn't want to accidentally offend you."
"Huh." The group was quiet for a minute, until Lisa brought back and handed out the coffee. They'd pretty much all had some during the Tinker meeting, but there wasn't really any reason why they couldn't drink more of it. "So, I guess you're going to be playing the role of little cousin again tomorrow, Varga."
"That's fine by me, Brain." The dragon form grinned. "Dragon seemed to find it fun as well."
"I honestly thought that Armsmaster and Legend were going to have trouble getting her to leave." Amy giggled. "She was really happy."
"Not that it's really surprising." Lisa noted, sipping her coffee. The three others raised an eyebrow, making her smirk. "I mean, how likely would it have been for Dragon to run into another dragon?" Taylor rolled her eyes, while Varga chuckled.
"We put a dragon on their Dragon." He commented, making all three of them groan.
"Varga…" Taylor sighed, grinning. He stuck his tongue out at his host, making her smile a little wider, before looking at Amy.
"I hope you have some more of those ropes ready, Amy." He requested. "They were surprisingly amusing to play with at that size." The Bio-whatever laughed.
"I'll make some more for you, Varga, no worries." The group laughed again at the mini fist-pump the dragon did, before Lisa went over to the door and opened it, letting Über and Leet come back in with similar grins on their faces.
"Shall we?" Lisa smirked, gesturing to the camera on the table and one of the large monitors.