A Hell of a Time
"Thank you very much." I hung up mom's hellphone, having finished finally claiming her bank accounting and placing a few weapon orders. I mean, after the thing with Snake Face I figure that being armed would be a good idea. I was pretty sure that like, a good 20% of those "weapons" were jokes, but Sicily insisted that they were legitimate so whatever. I picked out a couple of mid tier ones that I thought I might be good with and ordered them.
Apparently, I was rich, or Mom was, or something like that. I'm not, I'm not 100% sure how exactly... Well, I guess we were royalty but... Holy shit I'm royalty. That was... Wow.
But... If Mom was so Rich, why did we live the way we did? I mean... Eh, it was something to talk to Dad about, later.
People had said some very nice things about Akuma on PHO... Other than Greg harassing me, that is. Took me 20 minutes to figure out it was him, but in hindsight it was obvious.
Sicily had wandered off at some point, so I went looking for her. She wasn't in the kitchen, my room, the living room, and the bathroom door was wide open. Out of options, I went back down to the basement and... what the fuck?
At some point, very fancy bed, a bookshelf, and a bunch of weird looking posters had been moved into the basement. Sicily was sitting on the bed, reading some kind of paperback book with what looked like a robot prinny on the cover. Her prinnies were running around, dusting and sweeping things.
I blinked. "Sicily," I asked, "where did all of this come from?"
My cousin very carefully closed her book and gently set it down. "Since I'm gonna be here for a while, I sent some prinnies back to the castle to get my bed and some of my things."
I blinked again. "And you didn't tell them to tell your brother that you're here why?"
"Because he was taking a nap when I left," replied my cousin as though it explained everything.
"Yeah, but... it's been at least a day," seriously, I was starting to worry, "shouldn't he have woken up by now?"
"Not really," she replied matter of factly, "he usually naps for a week or two at a time."
I blinked again. "What?"
"His average is about ten days," she added helpfully, "but Etna once told me that he once slept for two years straight."
"What?" Seriously, what? "Who does that?"
"Apparently, it runs in the family" came Dad's voice from the top of the stairs. I turned to look up at him as he descended, a smile on his face. "Do you remember when you were six, and your mother slept for a long time and I had her taken to the hospital?"
"Yeah..." I think I knew where this was going.
"And you remember that she was mad at me when she woke up and got home?" Dad chuckled in fond remembrance, "well now you know why." And that made so much sense now.
"So," I said to Dad, "Did you know she did this?" I gestured to Sicily's imported belongings.
"Yeah," Dad replied. "She asked and I said it was okay." Sicily nodded in time to this declaration.
"Okay... um, I have to ask," I took a breath, "is there any other weird stuff about my, er... our family that I should know about?"
"Attacks with "knuckle" in the name are apparently your family's signature," Dad answered. "Your mother explained it to me once, it's um... she's got no clue either."
"Are you sure," Sicily interrupted? "Because Flonne has one and she's not family." I made a mental note to ask Sicily about these people she kept mentioning, in case I ended up running into them.
*Meanwhile, in Celestia*
A certain archangel sneezed. Unfortunately, she was playing hide and seekNinja with some young angel children, and thus her sneeze gave away where she was hiding
*Meanwhile, back at the plot*
"So, Taylor," Dad asked me, "how was your day?"
"Eh," I shrugged, "on the one hand a bunch of people made a big deal about what happened yesterday." I held up my hands to demonstrate, "on the other, I for sure know I don't have to deal with any sh-stuff from bullies anymore, so I guess it breaks even." I don't know why Sicily grinned maliciously when I said that.
"Well, breaking even is better than nothing," Dad had been smiling a lot more in the last few days, and it was a trend that seemed fit to continue. I had to smile more myself at that. Ever since I'd learned of my heritage, things had been looking up... other than last night's hiccup.
"Oh," I said as an afterthought, "I got contacted by some villains who worked for Snake Face." I made to head back upstairs. "Apparently they want to work for me now."
The look on Dad's face was hard to read... like a mix of fear and pride, but that doesn't make much sense, so... "Taylor, that's the kind of thing you open with."
"Oh, ok, well-" I was cut off by Mom's hellphone ringing. Dad jumped, just a bit... The car crash Mom died in was caused by phone use, so cells were a problem for him, but... I checked the phone, and Director Piggot was calling me back.
I answered. "Hello?"
"Yes, Akuma," came the director's voice. "We've managed to establish contact with... the villains who contacted you. Assuming that they're genuine in their desires to reform, that they're willing to cooperate," she paused for a moment before continuing, "and that some of this information they're giving us is accurate, we'd like you to participate in a meeting with them this weekend."
"Okay," I said, "and where is this meeting to be held?"
"Normally, it would be held at PRT headquarters," the director answered, "but apparently one of them has trust issues, so instead we'll be holding the meeting at Coil's fortress-it should be cleared out competly by then."
"Okay then," I got the strangest feeling that this wouldn't normally go this smoothly.
"And, depending on how things go, we might be granting your request to claim Coil's fortress." I had to blink. I honestly hadn't expected that the PRT to take something I said in the spur of the moment while exhausted seriously, much less to actually...
"Okay..." I looked to Sicily and... "Um, before we finish, I have a question... I recentlymet some family from my mother's side I wasn't aware of, and I've got a little cousin who also has powers." I took a moment to inhale, "I might have gotten talked into letting her be myy sidekick. Can I bring her, or..."
"What are her powers?" Asked the director.
"Healing and minions," I replied.
"I need more detail that that."
"Um... She healed my laser burns completely last night, and she has..." I looked to the prinnies trying to guess the best way to describe them, "animate stuffed penguins."
"They have machetes and explode when you throw them," Sicily interjected helpfully.
"They um, have machetes and can explode. They're also good at housework."
"Umm," the director was silent for a while, "how old is she?"
"About Nine."
"Hmm, I'll get back to you on that," the director said, "Good day, Akuma."
"Goodbye director." She hung up first, and I turned to Dad. "Well, looks like this is happening." There was that look again.