Chaotic Pack Chapter 2 (Original chapter Chapter 62)
"Alan, take Emma and run! Go! I'll hold them off!"
"Danny…! Don't die!"
"Uncle Danny?! No, don't!"
BANG!
Emma Barnes' eyes shot open, full of tears. She sat up slowly, swiping angrily at her eyes.
'It's all my fault.' She thought bitterly.
That day, she and her father had taken Danny Hebert out to try to cheer him up. He had lost his wife, who Emma had loved like an Aunt, a few weeks beforehand. Taylor, her best friend had been just as devastated by the loss of her mother, but she had struggled to hold herself together, to be strong for the sake of her father. It had been something Emma had always admired about Taylor; the tall, lanky brunette had always been mentally stronger than her.
Danny had sent Taylor to Summer Camp in the hopes of helping her to recover fully, while Emma and her family, as well as a couple of people from the Dockworker's Association, tried to help Danny.
That day had been supposed to be a nice day out for them. Instead, they had been attacked by the ABB. One had tried to torture Emma and Danny had lost it. He had smashed a punch into the jaw of the bastard trying to hurt Emma and then flung him into the others before grabbing a length of pipe out of a nearby bin and ordering Alan to run with Emma.
She hadn't seen it happen, but Emma had heard the gunshot, had seen the aftermath after Shadow Stalker cleaned up the ABB scum He had been shot in the head and, amazingly, refused to die. Even now, he was in Brockton Bay General's Intensive Care Ward. Panacea couldn't fix whatever was wrong with his brain, but all of the other physical injuries Danny Hebert had suffered before being shot had been healed, even the bullet holes, both the entry and exit wounds.
When Taylor had been told, on top everything…it had been too much for her. Her eyes had rolled back and she'd had a fit of some kind. Emma and her father had panicked until she had come out of the fit looking dazed, but well. At least before she had burst into tears and clung to Emma like a limpet.
It had taken another month before Taylor was in any state to leave her house. A couple called Kurt and Lacey were named her legal guardians due to Danny's…state and they knew and trusted Taylor enough to leave her alone most days…especially since Emma had taken to staying with Taylor more often than not.
The maddening thing was, in Emma's opinion, Taylor didn't blame her for what happened to Danny. At all. No blame assigned to her, whatsoever. It didn't make sense. It had been Emma who was supposed to be tortured into a vegetable, not Danny. Why wasn't Taylor angry at her?
"Because you're my friend, Emma." Taylor had said, "You're practically my sister. Dad acted as he did because he saw you like that as well. He protected you because he wanted to protect someone he considered like a daughter. Don't demean what he did, Emma."
And so, she'd tried to forgive herself. Emma knew she was a little shallow, very much a clothes horse and was very weak of mind. She was in tatters because of what Danny -the person she had called Uncle Danny for years- had suffered on her behalf. If Danny hadn't been there…she would have been even worse, she knew.
Getting out of bed, she grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen. She paused as she heard the scrape of metal on metal. Sighing and shaking her head, the redhead padded towards the workshop area.
The most amazing thing about the mess with the ABB was that Taylor had become a Parahuman, a Tinker specifically. The things she could create were incredible! By putting a rock, just a plain old ordinary rock, in a solution for a week, she could make a 'Zoid Core' that glittered like a diamond.
Using those Zoid Cores, Taylor could build mechanical bodies that moved and acted like animals, once she formatted their programming to act like their chosen animal.
Her father was backing her with money for materials. He wanted the ABB to pay for what happened to his old friend, so he was doing what he could to help out. He had used his legal connections to set up a front business for Taylor, with himself as a member of the sole shareholder and a 'mysterious businesswoman' as the CEO.
Emma peered around the doorway at Taylor, dressed in her work clothes. She was chatting with her 'Organoid' that she called Zeke for whatever reason. Organoids were different from Zoids, somehow. Taylor had tried to explain it to Emma, but the words just sailed right over her head. Something about a special type of Zoid Core made from precious stones and a different solution.
The Zoids that Taylor had made up until this point had needed a place to be stores, so the 'company' had purchased a warehouse and Taylor had made it into a fortress, albeit a very well concealed fortress. Even if you knew what to look for, you couldn't see or detect the weapons and shields before they were deployed. Plus, Taylor had used her first five Command Wolves to dig a tunnel from the base to her house's basement. After supporting and securing the tunnel, it was an easy way to get to and from the base without being seen, especially using the Command Wolf-drawn sleigh to go to and fro. If they had to sleep overnight at the warehouse/base, there were the sleeping quarters that Emma was in at the moment.
Right now, Taylor was working on what she called a Shield Liger, a lion-shaped and carthorse-sized Zoid that was to be her mount around the Bay. Emma envied that she could do these things and wanted to help, but her father shot the ideas she made down before she could get them out of her mouth.
She watched as Taylor started the Liger up and then ran the main test for it, involving Zeke somehow combining with it like in an episode of Power Rangers or something. After a moment, Emma decided to make herself known.
"Taylor, you still awake?" she called, making herself sound sleepier than she actually was.
"Hey Ems." Taylor answered with a smile as she turned to look at her, "Did I wake you?"
"Nah. Nightmare." Emma answered.
"About…that?" Taylor said nervously.
"Yeah…I can't get it out of my mind…" the redhead sighed.
The brunette padded over and hugged her friend. "I wish there was something I could do to get rid of those stupid nightmares. It wasn't your fault; it was the ABB's fault…and I started to make them pay for it tonight."
"You did?" Emma pushed back to look up at her friend's face.
"Yup. Stopped a gang fight between the Empire and the ABB." Taylor's grin was bright. "The unpowered members stand no chance against my Zoids."
"Yeah, but what about Oni Lee and…Lung?" The redhead worried.
"The Command Wolves, the Flock and the Swarm aren't going to be enough for them." The Tinker admitted, "But my Shield Liger is the first of my larger Zoid forces. Once I've finished putting him through his paces, I'll build a few more and then start working on a couple of long-range designs I have in the back of my mind. Then I'll work out something to track a teleporter and inhibit regenerators. And THEN we'll see if the Dragon of Kyushu is all he's made out to be."
The iron determination in Taylor's voice made Emma shiver slightly. She was still furious about what happened to her father, unsurprisingly.
"OK, just…remember you need to sleep like all us mortals." Emma reminded her friend, "Zeke, remind her to get to bed before three, OK?"
"Hrrrm!" the Organoid nodded.
"Hey! No suborning my Organoid!" Taylor mock-complained.
"Well then get to bed, dummy." Emma teased. She gave Taylor another hug before padding back towards the sleeping quarters, "Like I'm gonna do. Night, Tay."
"Night, Ems."
The Next Day
Winslow Highschool
I yawned as I walked alongside Emma towards the beaten-up façade of the school building.
"You didn't go to bed until after three, did you?" Emma said flatly.
"Two-fifty." I yawned again.
"I need my own Organoid simply to get you to bed sooner." Emma muttered and shook her head in exasperation.
"Easily done. I figured out how to make them two days ago." I smirked as Emma's head snapped around to stare at me.
"I'd hug you right now if it wasn't for everyone else, so consider yourself glomped." She muttered to me.
"Noted."
Lunchtime
Cafeteria
"I think this mystery meat is pre-Scion." I said as I eyed the blob of…something…on my tray.
"The salad is pathetic too." Emma noted, poking at the brown-tinged leaves dubiously.
"All in all…around what you'd expect from Winslow's cafeteria." Madison Clements sighed dramatically. She'd attached herself to us in First Period and was a pretty nice girl. Plus she had that whole 'small and cute little girl' look going for her.
"Packed lunches from tomorrow onwards?" I proposed.
"Agreed." The two girls with me chorused and giggled. A passing girl gave us a disgusted look and muttered, "Fuckin' lesbos."
"Who's that bitch?" I asked when the girl was out of earshot.
"Sophia Hess. She's a real troublemaker, but also an excellent runner." Madison explained in a hushed voice, "She'll be recruited into the Track Team for sure. A friend of a friend of mine who went to the same Middle School as her says she has a mean streak as long as she is tall."
"Stay clear of her, right." I nodded. Last thing I needed was a bully getting on my back.
After School
Taylor's Base
Emma was practically bouncing on her seat as I grabbed a quartz crystal from a drawer.
"So that's the thing you couldn't figure out? Using a quartz crystal instead of a rock?" she asked curiously.
"Not just that." I corrected her, "The size of the rock and how much quartz it has determines what kind of core it can be used for if I use the standard dip. Small pieces of gravel are perfect to use for my Blitz Hornets; reasonably high quartz count, small size. Most other stones vary greatly between mammal, bird and sea life cores."
I nodded towards the wall with jar after jar of Zoid Cores floating in a yellow liquid. "Those are the ones I either can't use yet or haven't built bodies for. There are two differences in the way you make an Organoid Core. The first is that the Core's base material has to be made with a stone made up of at least 90% quartz, the more pure the better. Not sure why, but Organoids seem to be a lot smarter than even Zoids, so maybe it has to do with that."
"How smart are Zoids, anyway?" Emma asked.
"About as smart as a child of ten to twelve years-old, if they aren't Blitz Hornets." I answered after a moment, "My Shield Liger's about as smart as a fifteen year old. Zeke, on the other hand, is definitely smarter than your average adult."
"Hrrrm-hrrrm!" Zeke agreed as he curled into a ball at Emma's feet.
"Yeah, we're talking about you." I laughed.
"What's the other difference?" my friend asked.
"Blood." I answered simply. "When I was making Zeke's Core, I accidentally cut my palm and infected the dip with my blood. From what that knowledge 'unlocked' in my mind, it binds the Organoid to the owner of the blood. It'll be your Organoid and not mine. I won't be able to command it."
"Will…will it have to be a lot of blood?" Emma asked in a small voice. I realised why. Those damn ABB bastards threatening to cut her eye out. If I ever found them, I'd teach them a lesson.
"No, Ems. Just the kind you get from a shallow cut." I reassured her, "Tip of your finger with the jab of a needle and a few drops. Then a plaster and you're fine. Trust me?"
Emma nodded. "Of course."
The procedure went fairly smoothly. Emma flinched when I jabbed her finger with a sewing needle and dripped the resulting blood into the dip (my name for the mixture that creates Zoid Cores), after which I put a band-aid on it and teased her by kissing it better, earning me a slap to the arm.
"There." I said with a nod as I sealed up the jar and placed it atop a Bunsen burner. "A week from now, we'll have a second organoid up and running. Now all I have to do is build its body and we'll be good."
"Tay…thank you." Emma said with a smile.
"Eh. What're friends for." I waved her thanks away airily, "Besides…I have a plan."
"Oh?"
I led her to the map of Brockton Bay on the wall. It had the various territories marked out on it; Empire in black, ABB in red, Merchants in royal blue, New Wave in in white and blue, the Protectorate in yellow and the mysterious Coil in orange. My base was marked on it with a brass tack, with a circle drawn in pencil around it stretching for several blocks.
"That ring marks the limit of Zeke's ability to wirelessly command my Zoids." I told Emma, "All Organoids have around about the same range. What I'm planning on doing is putting special repeaters spaced in strategic locations throughout the Bay so I could, theoretically, control my Zoids all over Brockton Bay at the same time, without moving from this base."
"Holy shit!" Emma squeaked.
"Uh-huh. It gets better though." I smirked, "If you have an Organoid as well, once I get the repeaters up, you and your Organoid could support me while I'm out there with Zeke! Or even take care of other crimes elsewhere while I'm dealing with some myself!"
My best friend looked at me with wide eyes. "Tay…you…you've been planning to do this since you found out how to make more Organoids…haven't you?"
"Well yeah." I replied with a blink. "I know you want to help and I know Alan doesn't want you to be hurt. This helps both of you and I get help kicking ABB ass. Win-Win-Win."
Emma said nothing for a moment before hugging me tightly. "You idiot." She said once she pushed away, happy tears in her eyes.
"Let's get down to talking about what you want your Organoid have on-board." I said with a kind smile in return, "I have some plans for a stealth system…"
So, here's the major difference. Emma didn't fight back because she wasn't given a chance to. Danny went berserk and stomped two of the ABB grunts before the third headshot him. Why did he go apeshit? He couldn't save his wife, so when he had the chance to save someone else he cared about, he took it. Stranger things have happened
On another note, I like all the suggestions that people make in reviews, but a little word about the chapter in addition to any suggestions would be nice.