Baby Cousin, the continuation
(by ShadowVulpix)
"How do you want to do this?" Taylor asked, looking down at the once-more tiny Varga demon.
"No idea." He shrugged slightly, the small wings shifting with the movement. "To be honest, it could likely just be you and me tomorrow, given that it's probably just going to be Dragon here." The three of them looked at Lisa, who nodded slightly.
"I don't think Armsmaster will come, given that he'll want to start putting those pieces you gave him together. Legend might come with her, he seemed to find Dragon's reaction to you amusing."
"Right, so possibly two." Varga tapped his chin, making Amy giggle at the bizarrely cute look that gave him, then nodded. "We could have me, Raptaur, and Saurial, then have either Metis or Ianthe come along later."
"I might come along as me, actually." Amy put in. "I'm planning on doing a hospital run tomorrow morning, so I could drop by in the afternoon to play."
"You could also swap out Saurial for Taylor." Lisa added. "I mean, having you here to help out with the little cousin seems just as believable as having Saurial here, especially since you said Saurial was on duty."
"Out of curiosity," Randall started, "How many aspects can you do at the moment?"
"Three is fairly easy at the minute." Taylor told him, making Saurial pop up next to her. "Mostly because Varga and I timeshare that aspect to a ridiculous degree. I focus on one, he does the other…"
"… And we both pay attention to the third!" The Saurial aspect chirped, picking up the main aspect's coffee and taking a sip.
"That's mine, you annoying reptile." She frowned, snatching it back. "Get your own." 'Saurial' smirked.
"Man, I'm really mean sometimes. I mean, why would I be so rude to me?" Lisa groaned, putting a hand on her forehead.
"Please, don't start doing that again." She sighed. "I swear…" Saurial vanished, leaving Taylor and the Varga to smirk at each other in amusement.
"But like my Brain was saying," Varga continued, "We can do three aspects fairly easily now, which should work for the sake of this."
"You guys do realise that you've effectively created another section of the Family that we'll need to bring out on occasion, right?" Kevin said. "Just for the sake of a prank?"
"If it's worth doing…" Taylor grinned.
"Besides, we won't have to use the dragons of the Family that often, Kevin." The demon added. "Although maybe we could bring the baby cousin up sometimes, because Raptaur and the others are very good babysitters and their aunt and uncle are often very busy?" He gave the other three reptiles a significant look, making them laugh.
"You really love being in that form, don't you?" Amy smiled.
"It's interesting, being smaller than everything. I doubt the novelty will wear off for a long time." He admitted. Randall laughed, standing up and stretching.
"Well, as much as I hate to say it, we were telling the truth earlier about your dad having some stuff for us to do." He said. "We might drop over at some point soon, if we can." The two left the office, Lisa closing the door behind them.
"Say, I just had an idea…" She smirked. Each of them raised an eyebrow at her, until she pulled out a couple of cameras. "Amy, could you make another of those ropes?" The purple reptile stood up, still confused, but headed for her workshop.
"What for, Lisa?" Varga asked.
"Well…" The Thinker explained her idea, which left all three of them chuckling for some time, until Amy returned with the same sort of chewing rope she'd made before.
Dragon was still grinning even during the meeting. Then again, she'd spent two hours playing with a baby dragon, of all creatures! While she knew that Family was unusual, she honestly hadn't been expecting them to have a branch in their family that were dragons. Half-listening to Emily as she talked, she started composing the message she would send about visiting tomorrow to see the dragon again.
Making a note to ask Raptaur about his name, so that she didn't keep calling him 'dragon', she paused at a pair of notifications that popped up in her display, one a minute after the other. One came from Raptaur and the other from Metis. In confusion, she opened the first one, scanning over it in moments before looking at the attached picture.
The entire table paused and shot curious looks at Dragon. She'd been cheerful ever since she'd returned from the BBFO earlier that afternoon, for reasons that no-one had been able to discern and the two that had gone with her were saying nothing. Then suddenly, in the middle of the meeting, that feeling of cheerfulness had spiked massively, giving all of them the impression that she had an enormous smile of her face.
Legend raised an eyebrow. "I'm beginning to wonder if Leet was right about that Master rating being necessary." Dragon gave the leader of the Protectorate a reproachful look while many of the others traded startled glances.
"A baby dragon hardly needs a Master rating." She returned. "He's just cute."
"Care to fill the rest of us in?" Emily asked drily.
"Mind if I borrow the projector?" Dragon responded, getting a nod. "Thank you." As Colin moved to set it up, Dragon began to explain, "None of us said anything due to the fact that we all know quite well what the Family's outlook on privacy is." The room nodded; the reptilian heroes were well known for keeping their history private. "Well, Raptaur just sent me a message saying I could explain about today, along with a picture."
"Well?" Battery asked, sounding intrigued.
"One of the branches, apparently a cousin of theirs, are dragons." She smiled at the raised eyebrows from the rest of the group. "It turns out Raptaur and her cousins are babysitting this weekend because of their aunt and uncle being busy, and he happened to escape the room they had him in and come down to us when we arrived."
"And immediately decided to cuddle up to Colin." Paul added, ignoring the look the Tinker gave him. Assault began laughing.
"Seriously?" Dragon grinned as well.
"Only for a minute. Raptaur thinks he must have mistaken the armour for scales, since he's so young. She thinks that's why he took to me so well too."
"And the fact that you spent the better part of two hours playing with him." Paul responded.
"He spent a good bit of the two hours asleep, actually." Dragon countered, before connecting her armour to the projector and bringing the picture Raptaur had sent up for them to see, where the little dragon was staring up at the camera with his head tilted to the side in confusion, the pink chewing rope Ianthe had given him hanging out of the side of his mouth and onto the table, practically forgotten by the tiny reptile baby in the face of something new and interesting to look at instead.
The room was dead silent.
"That's a Night Fury." Rory commented. "My little cousin thinks they're awesome, she loves dragons."
"Why does the Family's newest member look like a character from a movie?"
"That's exactly what Über asked." Colin replied. "Raptaur's exact words were 'who says we look like them?'"
The room was quiet for a minute more, before Dragon continued, "The Family have said that I can come back to visit tomorrow, if I want to. I'll probably go, I like the little guy."
"I think I want to come." Battery said slowly. "He does look pretty cute." She was smiling slightly.
"I've got something from Metis as well, if you'd like to see it." Emily nodded acceptance, allowing Dragon to exchange the picture for a video file on the second message. "Metis says that Raptaur doesn't know she took this, which is half the reason it's all in the Family language. The other half is the fact that their cousin doesn't speak either language yet, since he's only seven months old, but they're trying to teach him that language first. She included subtitles, though, which are apparently vaguely correct." Playing the video, the group watched the translation the reptilian Cape had provided.
"Cousin, come here." Raptaur said, holding a widely too small camera in her hands. The baby dragon sitting on the table ignored her, engrossed in chewing on the end of the rope he was holding. "Cousin." Ianthe chuckled, standing at Metis' side.
"Raptaur, he isn't going to listen to you, you know." She told her. "He's having too much fun with his toy, aren't you little cousin?" The purple reptile had gone over to the dragon and started scratching his head, making him stop chewing and look up at her. He made a small, squeaky hiss that made Battery awww at him, while Dragon's grin got even wider. Raptaur frowned.
"So, you'll listen to her, but not to me?" The taller lizard said, mocking sadness.
"That's because he knows who's best." Ianthe replied smugly. Metis chuckled.
"Alright you two, enough arguing. Sister, stop monopolising cousin and let Raptaur take the picture."
"Oh, alright."
Ianthe moved away, seeming a little put out by her sister's scolding, walking back over to her side, while Raptaur went closer to the table, dropping to all fours as she did.
"Come on, look up at me." Raptaur said quietly. The baby ignored her, going back to the rope. Raptaur sighed, giving Metis a pleading look. Some form of non-verbal communication went between the two, before Raptaur sighed again and got the camera ready. She gasped loudly, making the baby dragon look up quickly, then the snap of the camera followed. "Finally." He chirped in confusion, making Raptaur scratch his head gently with the tip of her claw. He yawned, lying down on the table and letting go of the rope.
"I think the day just caught up to him." Ianthe noted, walking over again. "Come on, little cousin. Let's get you to bed, hmmm?" The video ended there, with the little dragon yawning again and curling into a ball in Ianthe's hands.
"Metis says the translation isn't completely accurate, but it's about right given the differences in language, and that the subtitles only called him cousin because his real name can't be translated and they didn't expect to need an English name any time soon, so he doesn't have one."
"Huh." Disconnecting from the screen, Dragon sat back slightly, continuing her message where she had left off and adding the note that Battery had been interested in coming to see the little dragon as well, while she waited for the remainder of the meeting room to get their trains of thought back.
"Huh." Lisa said intelligently, looking at her 'Metis' phone.
"Something wrong, Lisa?" Brian asked, looking up from his food.
"Not wrong, no." She replied, turning off the phone and looking over. "Just a message meant for Metis that I'll need to pass on to one of the Family sooner over later."
"Why're you getting messages meant for the Family?" Alec questioned, slightly suspicious.
"Metis had to head out on business and left her phone with me. She can't use it where she's going, so they decided I could keep it with me to pass on anything urgent that might come through while she's gone." Lisa slipped the phone back into her pocket, making sure to remember to send Taylor a message before she went to bed. Looks like we managed to be a little more effective than we planned. She chuckled to herself, going back to her steak. Oh well. Should be fun either way.
Dragon landed in front of the BBFO office the next morning and knocked on the door, glancing over towards the front entrance, where Battery and Assault would be coming through. The irrepressible man had insisted on coming along with his wife to see the tiny dragon, and had honestly seemed more excited than she was at the chance to come along. Dragon had called it ahead, getting an answer from Raptaur that it was alright to bring the last-minute addition as well, since she'd already added Battery to the list during the meeting last night.
"Hi Dragon." Metis smiled, opening in the door. "Come on in. I think the others will be here in a minute…" Behind her, Raptaur answered one of the radios, speaking quietly into it, which Metis clearly heard. "Yeah, the guards will send them this way." Smiling at the black lizard, she headed inside, spotting the reason for her visit curled up on the table. Raptaur, who had just put the radio down, headed over to meet her.
"Good morning Dragon." She greeted, holding out a hand. She was currently walking around on all fours, making the reptilian woman appear a little shorter than her, but she straightened up after greeting her visitor. "I hope we weren't too distracting with the timing of our message yesterday?"
"No, it only came through in the middle of a meeting and caused the entire group to collectively lose their trains of thought." She chuckled, heading for the sleeping dragon on the table. Assault and Battery, who had just walked in at the end of her statement, snorted.
"You managed to derail the entire meeting for about five minutes, Dragon." Assault laughed. Raptaur glared slightly at him, as did Dragon, making him gulp. "Sorry." A small yawn from the table made them all look down, seeing the baby dragon scratch at his eye for a minute and sniff, before cocking his head and opening his eyes properly. With a cheerful squeak, he jumped off the table, flapping haphazardly in the air before Dragon caught him, where he made a few more happy squeak-hisses and curled up on her palm again, looking over at the other two visitors from his new perspective.
"Awwww…" Battery sighed. "He's so cute."
"Come on, you can meet him. You don't have to hover so far away." Raptaur invited. Battery immediately made her way over, heading for the little dragon in Dragon's hand. "Let him sniff at you first, it's the way hatchlings get used to new people or settings. If he doesn't like you, he'll hiss and probably shrink away, but since he's seen me and Dragon are alright with you, it's fairly likely he'll be ok." Taking the woman's advice, she held out her hand, palm up, for the baby to sniff. He chirped confusedly, cocking his head, then backed away slightly. Seeing Battery look disappointed, Dragon took her hand and gently moved it away, before the dragon jumped up and fluttered onto her palm like he'd done the day before. Raptaur giggled at the surprise on the Cape's face.
"He did the same thing to me yesterday." Dragon explained, scratching him gently on the head. The baby sighed contently and curled up in a ball, with little twitches of his tail showing that he was happy with his current situation. "I think he's already picked up his family's sense of humour." The dragon looked up at her, his tail tapping a few times like a happy puppy, over the cat-like actions a lot of the Family shared. Battery turned to look at Assault, who was standing back and watching with a small grin on his face. With a small look at Raptaur, he went over and offered his hand to the baby as well, who cocked his head before moving to the other Cape's hand. The three of them were grinning goofily now, all fussing over the tiny dragon, when Metis cocked her head, then headed over towards the door.
"Amy's at the gate." She called.
"Already?" Raptaur sounded surprised, while the three Capes looked up in curiosity. A slightly irate squeak from the baby made Dragon smile slightly, going back to gently patting his head. "I thought she was going to visit the hospital today. Did something change?"
"You can ask her when she gets here." Metis replied, waving to the blue truck that was driving down the road. "Oh, and our sister is here too." Raptaur perked up at that, making the dragon sit up and cock his head, confused. The vehicle stopped outside the building, making Metis step back out of the way as a tall brown haired girl ran in.
"We're here!" She said cheerfully. Squeaking in excitement, the baby dragon stood up and launched himself off of Assault's hand, unsteadily taking to the air and making a beeline for the new arrival. She quickly caught him and brought him into a hug, where he nuzzled at her face, before a laugh from both older reptiles and Amy Dallon made her stop.
"Nice to see you here, Taylor." Raptaur smiled, giving the shorter girl a hug. "You caught a ride in with Amy?"
"I was done with my homework earlier than I'd expected, and Amy had finished her shift." Taylor shrugged.
"Better than her walking or taking the bus." Amy added, smiling over her shoulder at the baby dragon. "This is your cousin?"
"Yup." Taylor grinned. "No English name, and it's pretty impossible to pronounce his real one, so I've been calling him cousin."
"Fair enough." She reached around to touch him, letting him go through the process of smelling her scent first, before the dragon smiled at her and nuzzled her hand.
"Ahem." Both girls jumped slightly when Raptaur cleared her throat. "Amy, you can use one of the rooms upstairs to change out of your costume, if you'd like?" The healer nodded, going back outside to her truck and returning with a backpack before heading up the stairs and slipping into the first room there. "Taylor, let me introduce you to our friends." The girl looked a little surprised, as if she hadn't noticed the three Capes, who Raptaur quickly introduced. "Guys, this is Taylor Hebert, the daughter of the DWU head and an honorary Family member. Hence why Metis called her our sister." Taylor moved the mini dragon to her head, letting him cling to her hair and leaving her free to shake hands with the three.
"It's a pleasure to meet you all." She smiled. "Especially you, Dragon. Metis said yesterday that my little cousin was quite taken with you."
"Well, she is another dragon." Assault quipped, earning a slap from Battery and a chuckle from the Family members who understood it. Taylor grinned, amused.
"I guess that would make sense." Amy, who was now coming down the stairs again, replied. "Metis, could you do me a favour and put this in the back of my truck?" She threw the bag at the black reptile, who nodded and left.
"Sure thing, Amy." Raptaur went over to the coffee machine in the corner, making a mug and casting a look around the room, earning nods from everyone but Dragon.
"We need to see about getting you the same status, Amy." Raptaur said.
"How come you haven't done it already?" Taylor asked, untangling the dragon from the little nest he had built in her hair and handing him over for the shorter brunette to coo over.
"Something something bureaucracy." Metis replied, smirking. "It's annoying as all hell to fill out the paperwork, even with five official members vouching for you. We're working on it, though." The baby dragon yawned, quickly drawing their attention away from the conversation and back to the little Family member, with Metis soon heading away to bring out the chewy ropes for him to play with.
A few hours later, after managing to completely exhaust the baby, Dragon, Assault and Battery were all ready to leave. Like yesterday, the Tinker was projecting the effect of a large grin, while both of the others were also just as cheerful.
"Thank you for letting us drop by." Dragon said. "Your little cousin is really cute."
"He is, isn't he?" Metis smiled fondly at Raptaur, who was taking the baby upstairs to sleep, Amy following behind and talking in a low voice to the reptilian woman.
"It's possible you'll get more chances to see him, too." Taylor added, having really warmed up to the Capes while they were there. "I'm pretty sure that his parents tend to get very busy, so they might end up babysitting again fairly soon." Dragon's grin got wider, and Metis sighed.
"Alright, I'll message you whenever this situation shows up again, so you can come to visit." She smiled. "I'm sure our little cousin won't mind, at least."
"Thank you." Dragon replied quietly. Taylor smiled slightly in return, shaking her hand.
"No problem, Dragon." The brunette responded. "After all, it's fun for everyone who drops by, so why not invite people over to play with him? He certainly wouldn't be complaining." Metis chuckled, and the three Capes left the DWU, with Assault and Battery leaving through the gates and Dragon flying off.
The three girls, plus demon, were laughing to themselves long after their visitors had left. The aspect being used for Raptaur had been dispelled as soon as they could, since Taylor had been starting to get a headache from holding all three for multiple hours.
"We need to bring the dragon back soon." Amy decided, sitting back with more coffee.
"I have to agree, Amy." Varga nodded.
"Not like you were going to object anyway." Taylor snorted, sipping from her own mug.
"Perhaps not, Brain. But it is always good to check, and not just assume things." The slightly smug look on his face was ruined by him sipping from a curly straw that was in the mug of coffee he'd claimed.
It had drawn a few odd looks from the group when he'd grown to his normal foot and half, but in the end they'd simply shrugged and let the mini version of the demon do what he wanted.
"I think we should bring in a slightly older one as well, seven or eight perhaps?" 'Metis' suggested slyly. "Find some reason for him or her not to have been here this time, like they were at a boarding school and now it's their holiday or something, and have them able to speak English as well."
"You're having too much fun with this, Lisa, making up such a complicated story for the PRT." Taylor giggled.
"Like you're any better." Amy retorted for her blonde friend. "'Honorary Family member' indeed."
"It's not wrong, though, is it?" She smirked. "I am an honorary Family member. I'm also a full one, but we never said how honorary I was."
"I don't think it works like that." Lisa started.
"We're the Family." Varga interrupted. "We do things differently."
"Isn't that the truth." All four were quiet for a moment, sipping their drinks. "So, all in favour of an older brother or sister coming to visit some time?"
"We've just proved I can handle three aspects for a while, and if I have to I'll find an opportunity to slip out and dispel one for a bit to get some rest." Taylor nodded. "We'll practise working with four, but it's harder than you might think to multitask, since while we're technically still only doing two each, all four have to be processed through my brain, so it's a bit of a problem."
"We'll work on that." Varga added. "Otherwise I'm in favour. As is Taylor, I think."
"We should see if we can get Director Piggot in one of them." Lisa suggested. "Either just the baby or the one with both of them. Maybe Miss Militia as well."
"Could be fun." Amy agreed.
Elsewhere, Emily felt a strange sense of doom.
"What the hell have the Family done now?" She complained quietly, mentally cursing Brockton Bay and the weird lizards it seemed to be attracting.
Even with the amount of work they must be saving her, Emily wasn't entirely sure it was worth the effect on her mental state.
Down in her office, Hannah looked up suspiciously.
"Why do I have a bad feeling about something in my future?" She asked the air rhetorically. As expected, nothing answered.
After a moment, both women went back to their work, wishing they'd never run into the strangeness that was the Family.