All righty then!

This came from an idea suggested by Tin Mother on Discord, which I liked and have seized for my own :)

It's more or less canon, but currently not fixed in place or time. The idea is that The Family requires a backstory, something more fleshed out than "Giant lizards from far away and very deep." That is enough for now, but as they expand, and time passes, people will get curious and start to poke around. Taylor's ideas of planting artifacts in suitable places will help, as will 'coincidental' discoveries of a Family city deep underwater (when they finally get around to building it) and of course they're very carefully making people think that certain stories known to the public may not actually be entirely fictional...

However, all that may not be quite enough. As they have a written language, it would seem appropriate to use that to write down some form of origin story, and various myths and legends of the Family which would both serve as a reference for them to ensure they keep their story straight, and at some point as something for others to read, get confused about, and generally stare at :) Ideally while transferring the idea that upsetting the Family really isn't a particularly brilliant idea for those too dim to not have already realized it :)

So I wrote this lead in to the idea to set the scene. In time I'll add stories based on this concept, here and there...

"You know," Danny said thoughtfully as he looked around at the people gathered in the BBFO Big Room, as it had become known, "I think this is completely ridiculous. Very neat solution to the problem, I'll admit, but… ridiculous." He studied the disparate group of younger people with one very, very ancient demon added to the mix, then glanced around him. "Very Family, though, I have to agree."

"We wanted to go camping but it's absolutely pouring down and is forecast to be for most of the next week," his daughter grinned. "Sure, we could go somewhere else. Pretty much anywhere else, in fact. But if we're all away for too long the Endbringers might get nervous, you know they go peculiar if we stay cloaked from them too long."

Lisa snickered. "Nearly as peculiar as they go if we don't and move too far from Brockton."

"That's mostly Leviathan though," Amy added. "No one's heard from Behemoth since Varga turned up, and the Simurgh is very careful to stay as far away as she can get while still watching us. Leviathan seems twitchy, and runs away if Taylor goes anywhere. Or the rest of us, but not so much." She giggled a little. "It's funny how he starts running in circles if he can't find us, though. Like he's going 'Shit, shit, shit, I don't know where they are but they might be just over there, oh shit!'" She put on a squeaky voice and waved her hands comically while making an odd expression.

"I still find that completely bizarre," he sighed, shaking his head.

"We all do, Danny, but it does indeed appear to be a thing," the Varga, who was currently in his favorite mini-dragon form draped over the back of the chair Taylor was relaxing in, said with amused calm. "We've proven that by experimental evidence."

"The experiments making him crap a brick and practically go supersonic underwater once or twice," Randall chuckled, smiling quite a lot.

"So the tracking logs would suggest," the demon laughed.

"But even ignoring that, and taking all the things you people have done recently, this is a little off the wall." He reached down and adjusted the long stick that was inserted at a steep angle into the soft earth next to his own chair, the far end supporting a gently steaming hot dog that was hanging over a merrily burning fire in front of him. "We're camping inside."

Taylor shrugged, smiling at him. "Solves all the problems in one go. We're close to home if we need to do something important, the Endbringers aren't too worried and going off causing trouble, we're warm and dry, and the scenery is nice."

He looked up at the star field above him. "Hmm. Yes, I think you did a very nice job on the sky, Taylor. I have absolutely no idea how you did it, but there's no doubt you did it." They all followed his eyes. "That spiral galaxy there is particularly beautiful."

"That's M31, it's a very nice example of its type," Varga said. He pointed to another smaller one some way to the side. "That one is the Milky Way."

"Where's the viewpoint we're looking at them from?" Kevin asked curiously.

"The outer edge of the Triangulum galaxy, another one of the local group as astronomers term it."

"Cool."

Dropping his eyes from the impossible sky, Danny looked about him. "Your forest came out very well too, Amy. Are you going to keep it?"

The girl, who was resting her back on the side of Nike, the draconic bioconstruct watching them all and appearing to listen closely, smiled. "I don't know yet. Probably, but we'll have to work out where to put it when we're not using it." She stroked Ianthe's head, the other construct lying next to her on its side, also giving all the indications of both listening and enjoying the company. Amy seemed to like leaving them active as much as possible even when she wasn't inside one, and Danny was fairly certain they were looking more and more intelligent by the day.

"Those bioluminescent dragonfly things are particularly pretty," he added, watching as one of the colorfully glowing insects flew past, stopping abruptly in mid air and rotating a full circle, seemed to pause when it was facing Amy, then zipped off into the trees. Strange sounds and calls came from other, currently invisible, creatures. Very few of which had ever lived on Earth, he supposed.

"I like them," she agreed, holding up a finger and smiling when another one, this one shades of red, instead of the pale yellow of the previous one, landed on it momentarily before lifting off again and vanishing behind Nike. "Insects are neat. Not quite as cool as reptiles, but then I may be a little biased for some reason." The end of her tail twitched a little, causing him to smile slightly but not say anything. She moved her own hot-dog cooking stick slightly to a different place over the fire.

Randall, who currently had three of the glowing insects sitting on his head, all different colors, prodded the steaks cooking in the frying pan he was in charge of, then added a little pepper from a grinder. "Thanks for inviting us, this is fun. I haven't had a cookout since I was a kid."

"Yeah," Kevin nodded, putting some ketchup on the burger he was assembling from the ones they'd cooked a little while ago, "It was a good idea. Nice and relaxing. HEY! COME BACK HERE WITH THAT!"

His roar of anger made them all laugh as a small half-scaled, half-feathered almost- bird somewhat larger than a crow swooped down out of the trees, neatly snagged his nearly finished burger in its claws, and zoomed upwards again. He glared after it, holding the spatula he'd grabbed and swung at it just a little too late as it cackled back at him, sounding triumphant. "That's the third time in a row! Damn it, Amy, did you have to make those things? They're way too smart for their own good."

Amy was lying on her back laughing and wiping tears from her eyes. Nike and Ianthe both seemed to show amusement too, the dragon having lifted her head to follow the bird-thing's path with interest.

"Fucking archeopteryx stealing my fucking food all the fucking time," Kevin muttered under his breath as he started making yet another burger. "I wonder what you taste like with ketchup you little bastard..."

Randall, who was also heaving with laughter, clapped his friend on the back. "Don't eat the second cousins, man. Or the girls will get annoyed."

"You notice how nothing's stealing Amy's food," Kevin grumbled, looking suspiciously at the still giggling healer. "Or Taylor's, but that's just common sense."

"I bite," Taylor put in, smiling with a mouthful of glinting needle-like teeth in a mouth that briefly stretched from ear to ear.

"Yeah. I'm going to the next time that fucking OH COME ON YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

He watched the fourth burger patty fly away in a different direction, slumped, and tossed the spatula over his shoulder. "I give up. Hand me a beer."

Lisa tossed him one from where she was sitting next to Metis, who was curled around her in an almost protective fashion. "Thanks. And someone poke Amy before she stops breathing or something."

Pulling his stick out of the ground, Danny checked his hot dog, then satisfied, slipped it into a bun from the bag of them near him and put a little mustard on it. It tasted fantastic, just like he remembered from the times he and his family had gone camping years ago. "It's still ridiculous but it's a lot of fun," he said, lying back in his chair and crossing his feet at the ankles before taking a sip of his own beer. "Thanks for inviting me."

"You're part of the Family too, Dad," Taylor assured him with a warm smile. "I know you needed some time to relax. We're having fun all the time even when we're working but you've been putting in long hours for months all because of me, really. I wanted to try to make it up to you."

"There's no need, dear," he assured her fondly. "You and your friends are changing the world for the better, as I've said before. Just seeing that is reward enough. Your mother would be very proud of you. I know I am."

"Thanks," she replied after a few seconds, in a low voice. One hand was on the demon, whose head was resting on her shoulder, and she gently stroked him. "I couldn't have got this far without everyone else though. All you guys, the rest of the DWU, the Mayor, even the PRT here too."

"And hardly anyone outside this room knows most of what's really going on," Vicky, who had been quietly floating about six inches off the ground on her back, listening and smiling to herself, commented. "I bet a lot of them wouldn't believe it even if anyone told them."

"I suspect not," Varga smiled. "Which is useful, I must say."

Danny shook his head, still finding it extraordinary how things had worked out and how it continued to work. "I'm amazed that you've all managed to convince the world that the Family exists, and has existed for unknown eons. Pleased, obviously, but still amazed. How so few people have ever had even an inkling is… strange."

"Partly it's human nature, partly it's the cloaking spell, partly it's some misdirection on our part, and of course partly it's pure luck." The demon shrugged a little. "I suspect some of it is simply down to my existence as demons do tend to have a somewhat odd effect on local reality as we've discussed in the past. Everything came together to our benefit and we've taken advantage of that. With good fortune, we may well be able to keep it going indefinitely. And of course the more inertia the entire concept gains, the less likely it will be to fall apart as people simply won't believe the truth as the story is more compelling. I've seen it before more than once, although usually not in a manner as entertaining as this is."

He grinned, making Danny chuckle and nod.

"It's certainly funny to read some of the ideas that people come up with on PHO about the Family," he nodded, smiling. "Most of them are less believable than the real truth."

"Only because you know the real truth."

"Maybe." He took another bite of his hot dog, watching one of the three moons overhead slowly slip below the treeline. The two others were smaller and brighter, with patterns that he'd been idly assigning names to in his head. A sound to the side made him look and sigh. "Amy, one of those velociraptors is trying to get into the tents again."

She sat up and tossed a marshmallow at the small bipedal feathered lizard, which squawked indignantly, then ate it. "Stop that," she chided. It looked slightly apologetic in a strange but cute manner, so she flipped a raw hot dog from the packet near her towards it. Snapping it out of the air, the creature turned and dashed off.

Watching all this with an indulgent smile Danny wondered what Director Piggot would say if she knew…

"I've been thinking about the whole Family idea, and although you've done a remarkably good job with it, I think I've worked out one place you've missed," he said a little while later when he'd finished his hot dog and had another one cooking on the stick.

"What's that, Dad?" his daughter asked, looking over at him.

"Well, you're gradually building up this entire mythos of the Family, complete with artifacts, an alien language, even with its own writing for that matter." He glanced at the pad of paper next to her, which was covered in the bizarre spiky runes that were written Famtalk. They seemed to writhe oddly in the flickering firelight in a manner he still wasn't quite accustomed to. "And you're making new members of it fairly quickly too," he added, studying Nike, who was looking directly at him. The other dragon, Lisa's one, appeared to be asleep on the edge of the small clearing in Amy's forest, breathing slowly and deeply. "Pretty soon I think there probably will be an alien lizard civilization. But the thing about civilizations, all the ones I've ever heard about, is the mythology. The backstory."

He looked around at them all one after another. Vicky had sat up, still floating a few inches off the ground, and was studying Nike too. Taylor looked thoughtful, while the Varga was nodding slowly. The rest were listening as well. "Creation myths, for example. Every culture has one. The Greeks thought the world was born from chaos, so did the Babylonians and the Sumerians much earlier. Many religions have something similar in them. Some have it formed from nothing, some from the endless sea, and so on. Then you have things like stories of heroes of the past, great figures of legend who did something they're remembered for millennia later. Odysseus, or Gilgamesh, or Prometheus, for example."

Vicky was thinking by the look of it while Randall seemed pensive, and Kevin was drinking another beer and lying on the ground listening. Lisa had her eyes closed but he could tell she wasn't asleep.

"Morality tales too. Aesop's fables are the obvious ones, but again every culture has their own versions. Certainly every one I've ever heard of. My guess is that it's probably not restricted to humans either."

"No, it isn't," the Varga put in, his voice soft and deep. "Every species I've ever come across has had something similar, Danny. I've known more than I can easily bring to mind now and it's a common theme. Intelligent beings want to know where they came from, and if they can't find out, they come up with stories to explain the unexplainable. Often these are wrong, of course, but sometimes there's a kernel of truth to them."

Danny looked at him. "I guess you probably know more about the real truth of that sort of thing than any of us."

The demon smiled in a sort of mildly melancholy way as Taylor stroked his head. "Probably. Even my own kind had myths of our forebears. I believe my species may well ultimately pre-date almost any form of life anywhere, although I myself cannot claim that status personally. I'm old, but I'm not that old." He chuckled a little as Taylor smiled affectionately at him.

"Are you thinking that we need to come up with a Family religion or something like that?" Kevin asked.

"No, not as such. Religion itself tends to complicate things too much, which is why I've never really had time for it myself." Danny shrugged. "Neither did Annette for similar reasons. Most religions in my opinion have good parts and bad parts, but I'm not a believer in anything in particular. We didn't raise Taylor like that either. We wanted her to form her own opinions and think for herself. Even knowing for sure that at least one Greater Power does exist hasn't changed my thoughts on that."

"And she ended up possessing a demon," Amy giggled. "You monster."

Taylor bounced a marshmallow off her nose, grinning.

"That particular Greater Power isn't one you'd worship anyway," the Varga said with a sly grin. "He's more one you'd get drunk with." Which made everyone laugh.

When Danny calmed down, he continued, "I'm thinking more along the lines of origin stories, something that could be plausibly used to show that the Family has a real past. Nothing too complicated and difficult to remember, but something like Aesop's fables with a Family twist, maybe."

"It's an interesting idea," Lisa commented, her eyes still shut, but a small smile on her lips. "We have a written language like Danny says. We could start writing down parts of the Family backstory, so we had a consistent reference for it that we could, if necessary, show to people. Or possibly 'accidentally' leak. Taylor could certainly make demonstrably ancient stone tablets or something that would prove how old the Family really is."

"Especially if a couple of them get found weathering out of a hundred million year old rock strata under some dinosaur bones or something," Kevin chortled, shaking his head. "Next to a Family field recognition guide to dinosaurs..."

Danny couldn't help it, he started laughing helplessly. "That might be going a little far, Kevin," he guffawed. "But that's the general idea."

Taylor was grinning widely at the idea as was Amy. "The story of how the first BioShaper happened," the former suggested. "Back when we started modifying worlds to make them more interesting..."

"Oh dear," Danny sighed, smiling a bit. "I can tell this might have been a bad idea. You're just going to get carried away with it now, aren't you?"

"Might be," she agreed mildly.

"Our underwater city can have carvings on the walls that show how Big Brother came here from home and made things work," Amy said brightly. "I like that."

Taylor looked down at the demon who was snickering under his breath on her shoulder. "Tell us a story, Big Brother. Tell us how the Family came into being."

"As you wish, young one," Varga smiled. "Gather around and I shall tell you a story of Before."

The capitalization was easily audible.

Everyone listened as he sat up on the back of the chair, looking around the group who were all, even the bioconstructs including Lisa's dragon which woke up at that point, looking back at him.

"In the true beginning of all," he began, his voice deeper and somehow surrounding them, "There was only The Everything. The Everything is beyond infinite. There is no limit to The Everything, it merely is. The Everything has always existed and will always exist. Random currents of magic, which at heart is what The Everything truly is, occasionally come together just so, and Something is created. Most times that Something quickly returns to Everything, but rarely, very rarely, it does not."

"We came from Everything, made into Something by random chance, but unlike all previous Somethings, we persisted, we lived, we thought. We moved through the Everything with ease, it was our home, our all. And we grew."

"At first, we were little more than instinct. We fought, we multiplied, we played, we lived. After unknowable time, for time has no real meaning in The Everything, we began to think. And this was the greatest thing of all."

"The more we thought, the more we learned, and the greater we became. We learned to mold aspects of The Everything to our desire, and we learned from that too. Occasionally we would find other life that rose from The Everything but none of it ever gained sapience, which we found sad as we only had ourselves to talk to."

"We were not numerous but there were enough of us that we would sometimes lose touch with one or two as they explored The Everything, and it was one of these lost ones who returned with word of a fascinating new discovery. We had long been aware that one Something that sometimes occurred was bubbles in The Everything. They would pop into existence, many of them immediately dissolving, but every now and then one would stabilize and remain. They were pretty to look at, complex and layered, with fascinating patterns that evolved and changed, but they were merely objects. There were innumerable examples of this phenomenon, as this process was inherent to The Everything, but one cannot fill The Everything even with an infinite amount of anything."

"We had no need for objects for we could create whatever we wished out of raw Everything. So we paid them no great attention other than the initial interest of their existence. The Explorer, though… He decided to investigate what they truly were. And he discovered something amazing. He was the first to find how to go inside such a bubble, and what he found there changed our destiny. For those bubbles contained marvels."

"They had rules. And they had stars, and galaxies, and planets, and gravity. Some had life, of so many different varieties that we were astounded. And best of all, some of that life could talk to us."

"We were finally no longer alone."

"Entering a bubble reduced us considerably, for we could not exist in our true forms in such a limited environment without destroying it utterly, destabilizing it and returning it to Everything. That would have been an abomination so we accepted the limits gladly. It was more than worth it to explore, and those limits were after all not onerous. We could still call upon The Everything as a source of power at will, we could choose which of the rules of the bubble to follow, and there was little disadvantage compared to the advantages."

"We were not all powerful or all knowing, of course. Nothing truly is. But we were sure we had little to fear from anything we might encounter in these bubbles. Even if we found something that was too powerful to directly counter, which did occasionally happen, we could merely withdraw and escape."

"And so we began to explore these universes, as they became known. Each essentially infinite and unique in itself, and spawning variants and alternatives in such fascinating ways, all joined together into a true Omniverse where anything can and will happen at least once. It was enormous fun and we spread out through them willingly and eagerly. Often aiding the life we found there, for life is precious and should be protected. The Everything contains all, but it does not care. It simply exists. We did care."

"Then we encountered Them. Beings even older than we were, powerful beyond knowledge, they moved through the Omniverse even more easily than we did. They couldn't directly enter The Everything, what they termed Outside, but within their domain they were nigh unbeatable. And they took an interest in us, as we had abilities they did not, which did not work in our favor. Some of us escaped back into The Everything, some of us were destroyed in the process, and once we even managed to take one of Them with us. The ones that were left were captured. Enslaved. Limited. And used as Their pawns in battles between Them until only twelve were left, and locked away."

"Occasionally one or other of the Twelve would be unleashed for some purpose of Theirs. Used as weapons against those they decided they had a disagreement with. Some of us ended up so full of anger and hate they would rejoice in their brief existence outside the prison They had trapped us in, and lash out at any who got in the way. Some of us did what we could to avoid causing damage. We were even pitted against each other more than once, further reducing our number. In the end, after more time than even we care to consider, only two of the Twelve remained."

The Varga's voice had become softer as he talked until everyone was still and silent, listening carefully. At this point he paused, looking around and meeting the eyes of each of them in turn. Danny saw ancient pain and regret in those glowing windows into the mind of something so old he simply couldn't begin to understand it.

"And then, there was only one. Alone, the last of his kind anywhere in the Omniverse."

Taylor had her hand on his back and a glimmer of tears in her eyes. Amy, he noticed, was hugging Ianthe's head like a teddy bear. Everyone else was affected in their own way too, even the constructs seeming intent on the story.

The currently tiny avatar of the enormous demon smiled. "But things worked out well after that, so not all is lost. He may be the last, but he is no longer alone. And he now has a Family of which he is immensely proud."

There was silence for a while after he stopped speaking, broken only by Randall poking the fire with a stick as he stared into it. Taylor kept her hand on his back and had her eyes closed, but the tears had stopped.

Eventually, the Varga sighed a little. "I apologize for bringing down the mood. Perhaps I should have come up with a story that was somewhat lighter in tone."

Danny shook his head. "Don't worry about it, Varga. It was… interesting."

"How much of that is actually correct?" Lisa asked, her voice calm but with an undercurrent of sadness. "You said you weren't that old, and that sounded like a creation myth if ever I've heard one."

The demon chuckled as he looked towards her. "No, I'm certainly not as old as that story is. I was born, although that's not entirely the correct word, far more recently than when my kind first discovered the method to enter the Omniverse from Outside. But it's what we told each other, and there is at least a kernel of truth to it as there usually is in such a story."

He shrugged slightly. "We did evolve outside the Omniverse, there's little doubt of that, and we were indeed enslaved by the Greater Powers and used as weapons. Not all of them treated us badly, I will admit, if one leaves the enslaving part of things out of it. I've discussed those aspects before. But I couldn't give you an accurate timeline of how long ago it truly was that we first entered the Omniverse, or how many of us there actually were, or even how many more of my kind may still exist Outside. I would like to think we didn't go extinct. I am sure that I'm the only one left anywhere in the Omniverse at this moment, though."

"What is The Everything?" Kevin asked, sounding fascinated.

Turning his attention to the Tinker, Varga shook his head. "I am unsure. We draw from it to fuel the matter creation ability, and return the 'energy' to it if we unmake something. Magic, or our type of magic at least, is powered from the same source. Most versions of magic draw from far more limited power sources, although ultimately I believe all magic comes from there. Similar to how many forms of energy on this planet derive from the Sun in the end, either directly through heat and light, or indirectly through eating plants, or burning fossil fuels."

He thought for a moment, then added, "I suspect that in the terms of physics you might be familiar with, the nearest concept to describe it is probably something along the lines of a quark-gluon plasma of infinite density and extent. It's more complex, of course, but that's as near as science on this world has come."

Kevin nodded slowly, his face showing careful thought. "And those bubbles coming into existence… Viewed from inside a bubble, it's..."

"A Big Bang. Yes. A point of infinite density expanding into an entire universe, and all its many variations." The Varga smiled. "An infinitesimal aspect of The Everything turns into… everything."

"Trippy," Randall commented, picking up his beer and taking a swig from it.

The demon laughed, glancing at him with humor.

"That is certainly one way to describe it."

"Could you return Outside?" Amy asked quietly.

He turned his head to regard her. "Possibly," he finally replied. "I believe I know the correct method. But I would not, even if it was allowed by the Bargain. I will not abandon my Family for the uncertainty of seeking something that may well not exist. I was not born there, I have no memory of it, and I have no reason to go there. Everything I care about is here."

She nodded, still with her arms wrapped around Ianthe's head, the big violet lizard appearing contented to be held.

They fell silent again at that point. Randall busied himself with cutting up the steaks and distributing them to everyone, then put a few more burgers into the pan and placed it back onto the fire, sizzling meat soon filling their clearing with delicious smells.

After a while, Danny said, "That particular origin story may be too close to home to tell anyone outside the Family, but it's certainly the sort of thing I was thinking about. Possibly some variant of it would fit the mythos, and if we could come up with some other stories too, it would be a start on a Family background that you could use to flesh out the whole thing. I honestly think it would be a useful resource and might be fun too."

His daughter nodded, her somber and thoughtful expression, which she'd been wearing since her companion had finished his story, lightening up. "I'm up for it, Dad. I'm sure that between us we could come up with some good ones." She looked around, getting nods from the others, even Vicky, who was now floating on her stomach two feet in the air with her head resting on her arms.

"Why not? We can each think of something then compare notes," Lisa smiled. "Could be fun."

"Your homework, then, is to each produce one Family myth, write it down, and read it to the group," he grinned. "Marks will be given for inventiveness and humor."

"Yeah, humor is a big part of it," Amy giggled. "The Family always does things in the funniest way, because that's the best way."

"And we can find the funny side of almost anything," Taylor agreed. "Although we also need stories that show why you don't fuck with the Family."

"Hey, we need to come up with some stories about when we had to move some continents around because they were in Big Brother's way," Vicky laughed.

"How about that time we had to plug some volcanoes because they were erupting all over a nice beach we'd just made." Randall was grinning widely.

"No, we had to make some volcanoes to fill a decent sized lava lake," Kevin riposted. "Because Big Brother wanted a nice hot tub."

"You know where the moon came from?" Lisa looked around them. "Big Brother tripped over a really big mountain, got annoyed, and kicked it into orbit."

Danny sighed faintly, meeting the demon's eyes again. He had a feeling he might have started something he was going to regret…

The Varga merely snickered, then started suggesting his own absurd ideas.

Around them, the small forest made strange and alien sounds as odd creatures went about their business, while the fire crackled cheerily in the middle.

Then a velociraptor stole the rest of the steaks and the evening ended up with excitement, shouting, and a chase.

OK, then. That's my lead in. I'll put a short list of prompts below, which may get added to if I think of more good ones. Feel free to suggest more, although I can't promise to use them all, since time is finite... :)

How the first Bio Sculptor learned to Sculpt

Why it pays to be cautious when looking down a loaded volcano

Appearances should be deceiving as it is much funnier that way

Avoid lying if one can mislead with the absolute truth

Family is everything

Enjoy a joke but do not become a bully

Friends are important and should be cherished

Enemies are still worthy of respect

Find out how to make an enemy a friend and you have won the battle

Humans are people too