Chapter 3 - Void

Niki is seen sitting just outside the door to the room, reading a thick book. Out steps Techno. Niki looks up at the taller man and smiles tiredly. "Did Tommy have fun?"

"Uh yeah. I don't think I've heard someone ask so many questions in such little time. He can spin a great story, though." Techno responds, making Niki's smile widen.

"That's good. I know Tommy gets bored easily during his resting periods here at the hospital. I'm sure every employee has already heard of the great story of that one time Tommy got a fidget toy stuck in his nose for a few hours."

Techno's eyebrows furrow at the mention of resting periods. "What do you mean by rest periods? Isn't he here all the time?"

"He's only here till he's stable to rest at home. He has another week and a half or so of rest before he's released. As you can tell, the thing he does to entertain himself is to annoy anyone within shouting distance till he's free from here." Niki explains as she moves back to the front foyer. Techno hums and looks behind the two back at Tomy's door.

Niki watches him from the corner of her eye and giggles, "You can visit whenever you want, but please call ahead. Don't want to give our secretary a heart attack as one of the top villains just walks in." Techno huffs at the remark and gives the hospital a good look.

There are only hybrids here. Techno looks down another hallway and sees only hybrids. "Where are all the humans? Aren't you a normal hospital?"

"Well, we are a hospital, but we don't get much funding, and humans usually want to stick with the more funded hospitals with less "filth." We do a lot of fundraisers to help get medicine and proper treatment for the sick here, but that's a gamble on how much we raise, and we sometimes have to cut people short." Niki explains as she shows Techno a room through a window of a sick patient looking at their almost empty iv with a sad look.

Techno's eyebrows pinch and look away. He turns back to the main hallway and continues to the foyer. He walks up to the secretary and pulls out his checkbook, writing an expensive check for the hospital. The lady looks at the check and back at him, ensuring he's alright with the amount. He turns to the doors, sighing, and leaves. Phil's gonna question where the money went later.

Techno walks into the mansion and speeds over to his room, not giving Wilbur or Phil the time to ask why he's back so late. He changes out of his villain wardrobe and flops onto the massive bed, contemplating what had happened earlier. He falls asleep thinking about the blinding smile that Tommy owns.

Techno goes about the next day with a molasses-like mood. Both Phil and Wilbur notice but decide to wait for Techno to open up to them instead of asking him. Which Techno appreciates greatly. He couldn't fully understand why he feels so empty, and when he tries to think about it, his mind wanders to Tommy. Techno bets Tommy is talking his head off to some poor nurse or is taking a nap right now since it's close to noon. Maybe Tommy is eating jello. Hospitals always serve jello. Techno wonders if he could bring Tommy food. The kid would probably kill for a burger or something. Or what if he gets Tommy a spare cape he has. Tommy would absolutely love it, and it could help keep the small kid warm since he seems to run chilly.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Techno finishes the flash drive for the client and is getting ready to go with Phil and Wilbur to the meeting place. Techno didn't care for this part of the mission. It was more of Wilbur's or Phil's area of expertise. Techno just came to give them back up, mainly since he couldn't care for the chatting and negotiating. He notes all of his weapons before following his family out of the mansion and to the car.

The ride to the meetup place was located at an abandoned warehouse that had nothing special going for it. Techno finds himself mindlessly following Phil to the lone table in the middle of the dark building. The clients were already waiting for them at the table. Phil starts the conversation, and Techno immediately zones out. His mind wanders as he watches Phil hand the flash drive to the two clients, Carl and Oreli. Some of their goons eye Techno as he stood utterly still behind Phil, doing his only job, intimidation.

At some point, Techno notices that the conversation was starting to get hostile. Techno could see that Wilbur was slightly tenser next to him, and his voice was a pitch lower than usual. Techno checks Phil to see that the old man is still covering his emotions with a smile, like always. Techno's cold eyes scan over the client's goons. He spots a few simple weapons and guns on them, but nothing he feels worried about.

Once Phil speaks a bit more, everyone calms down, and Techno slips back into thinking about Tommy. Techno couldn't figure out what he is. The child had so many traits of other hybrids that he could be a quadruple hybrid. But that statistically is nearly impossible since double hybrids are already extremely rare in the hybrid community. With the raccoon ears, horns, sharp teeth, and claw-like nails, Tommy was an amalgamation of too many things all at once. To Techno's knowledge, most double hybrids were similar, like a double hybrid fox dog or a double hybrid of dove hawk. The two parts of the hybrid were identical or at least in the same animal family. But none of Tommy's hybrid physical traits were related, it seems. No raccoon hybrids that Techno knew of had sharp teeth or claws like nails. So those were different traits and likely also not associated with one another. Techno wonders if Tommy had more hybrid features that Techno might've missed or didn't see during his visit.

As Techno fully spaces out, suddenly, a goon pulls out a revolver and aims at Techno's head. Quickly Wilbur lunges at the guy, and a loud bang rang through the warehouse. All hell broke loose. The bullet had hit Techno in his side thanks to Wilbur's action of lowering the gun before it went off. The two clients rushed out of the fight as Philza released his wings and turned his once soft feathers into steel-like blades. Quickly Philza flicked his wing, causing a few blades to fly out of his feathers and hit the other two goons. Wilbur tackles his goon to the floor and takes the gun and points it at the guy's head.

"Blade?!" Wilbur yells, asking if Techno was okay while he keeps his eyes and attention on the man responsible for the hole in his twin.

Techno touches his side and feels his hand immediately gets covered in what he assumed was blood. "Fine!" Techno yells as he grabs a few daggers and throws them as Philza's two goons. Immediately killing one and leaving the other to Philza's enjoyment.

Wilbur shoots his goon in the side just like he did to Techno before discarding the weapon. The goon screams out in pain from the shot, and Techno could see that Wilbur wasn't finished. He watches as his twin steps on the man's neck and slowly suffocates him to death. The goon struggles under Wilbur's shoe for a few moments before his face starts to turn pale with a slight hint of blue on his lips. Techno was pretty sure he could hear Wilbur giggle slightly when the man's limbs went limp.

Techno turns to see Phil slicing the head off the other two goons with an almost sick wet slicing sound that would make most men weak in the stomach. Techno just sees it as Phil being dramatic. "Do you want some stick or something Saint Oswald?" Techno teases Phil lightly as he pulls out his phone to check if a hero or police were called because of the shooting. Thankfully no one has called it in yet, so they still have time to leave without another fight or car chase.

"You okay, mate?" Phil's words snaps Techno's attention away from his phone, and he looks up to see Phil in front of him, hesitant to reach out to his wound. Techno nods slightly and puts his phone away.

"We should go then. The quicker we're home, the faster I can patch Mr distracted here." Wilbur teases as he starts walking to their car.

Techno rolls his eyes and ignores Wilbur's words as he follows with Philza close behind.

After they arrive home, Wilbur sits Techno down in their small one-bed infirmary room and demands that he stay like a dog. "I'm not a dog Wil, you can't just point at me and say 'stay,'" Techno calls out as he gently pulls off his villain attire. He lets out an involuntary grunt of pain when he moves his side slightly.

"I'll stop treating you like a dog when you stop acting like a bitch" Wilbur calls out from the other room as he gathers supplies. Wilbur's pun makes Techno roll his eyes. Soon Wilbur walks in with a basket of random medical stuff. Don't ask Techno what all that is because he doesn't have a clue.

"What even happened out there?" Phil's voice snaps both Wilbur's and Techno's attention towards the door where Phil is leaning against. Wilbur turns back to Techno's wound and starts to clean up the slowly healing wound, ignoring the beginning of a battle that everyone knew Phil would win.

Techno shrugs slightly, trying not to move much. "I was….. uh spacing out for a while," Techno tells the two as he pointedly ignores Phil's concerned eyes and Wilbur's intrigued eyes. They don't need to know about Tommy. Tommy was… well, Tommy wasn't theirs, so they didn't need to know about the kid.

Wilbur chuckles softly. "Techno, you're hiding something~ What is it? Certainly, it's important if you're thinking about it while on a mission." Wilbur says as he's applying a goo to Techno's wound.

"It's nothing. Really. The conversation was boring, so I spaced out. I'm the brute, not the conversationalist," Techno jokes as he takes off his boar-like mask that covers his nose and eyes. "What happened? Why did it suddenly turn sour?" Techno asks Phil, attempting to steer the conversation away from himself.

It seems to work because Phil sighs and frowns a little. "Essentially, what happened was Carl tried to give us less than what was initially agreed upon. The money hog tried saying the movment of deadlines caused the decrease of payment. I called bullshit since this date was already our original plan, and they were upset that we couldn't do it a day earlier than they wanted! They just wanted an excuse to pay us less. Wilbur, at some point, called Oreli, a stupid blind mole, and Oreli cussed him out. After that, one of their men glared at you, and he must have thought you were planning something with the default frown you always have on." Phil explains while Wilbur finishes patching up Techno's injury.

"Pretty much fuck Carl and Oreli" Wilbur gave the shortest explanation since Techno seems to buffer at Phil's long story.

"Okay. Cross them off our BFF list and put them on our loser list," Techno said as he stood up and put on an extra shirt they kept on the nightstand. He already felt better to move after that short rest. Thankfully, Techno's power caused him to heal quicker than most humans and hybrids to the point that Techno was immortal to an extent.

"Will do, Tech." Wilbur jokes with Techno as he cleans up the medical mess. "Put them on our shit list," Wil smirks, having to make Techno joke viler. "Right between the Dream Team and the governor," Wilbur said, naming their two biggest enemies.

"I don't think they're as bad as the Dream team. At least they didn't try to break off my wings," Phil said honestly as he checks his phone for a moment before remembering something. "Oh! Techno, I'm pulling you out of our next mission since you're hurt and clearly distracted." Phil used his dad's voice on the last part, making Techno want to quickly agree just to please Phil.

"Heh?! What?! No! That mission was my plan!" Techno argues back, trying to hold his ground against Phil. Wilbur decided he isn't a part of the conversation anymore and left them to chat. He probably went to his guitar, Baby Blue.

"Techno, you could barely engage in the fight today or even bring yourself to listen to our negotiation. You're not in the right headspace, and I won't let you risk your well-being or ours because of your secrets. You're staying home and resting. That's final." Phil completely shuts Techno's hopes of rejoining the mission after that lecture.

With a dramatic sigh, Techno rubs his eyes in defeat. "Fine old man. I'll sort out my business while you guys are away. Just don't have too much fun without me," Techno says as he walks out of the infirmary room and starts to head towards his room.

Phil yells, "I'm not old!" at him, making Techno smirk some when he hears Wilbur yell from his room, "Your bones have dust on them, I bet."

"Oh, you motherfuckers, Wil! Shut!" Phil yells as he storms his way to Wilbur's room, probably to smother him with a pillow for a minute or two if Techno had to guess.

Techno makes it to his room and lays down on his bed, tired from the day's events. His mind quickly slips back to thinking about Tommy. Is it that obvious that he is distracted? Did that kid really make that much of a mess of him? Now that Techno thinks about it, he feels an empty space in his life that wasn't there before.

End Chapter notes

Hullo, Moo here, I can't wait for the story to pick up speed later, so enjoy the slow pace now before it all goes to hell. We do have a bunch of books kind of planned for this series so be ready for those after this one is finished and Guppy is finally not sick :D

Void

NOUN

a completely empty space.

"the black void of space"

synonyms:

gap · empty space · space · blank space "baby, and i'll write your name" · blank · vacuum · lacuna · hole

Oh don't forget we have a discord :D