We in double digits baby! Kinda writing this right after chap 9, I have a lot of free time right now, and I want to take advantage of it.
Michael looks at me, and my daughter, his eyes lingering on her bunny ears for a bit. Slight confusion clear on his face, at least his face is actually doing something, unlike the Michael I saw when he was hunting his father, he was like a symbol of stoicism.
"She got them from her mother." You know I just realized that Michael might have a irrational hate for rabbits...due to his father.Lets not tell him what Shanna used to be.
Now things have gotten a bit awkward...thankfully Evan and Emily don't notice and start talking with each other.
Michael and I are just nodding along to whatever they say as we walk them around. Michael seems like a pretty nice guy, definitely has gotten a lot better than what he used to be like.
We walk around the atrium for a bit, and Shanna meets us with some food...I have been reduced to a food holder by my daughter...I can't be mad, she looks so happy.
Michael again looks at the bunny ears of Shanna and Emily, he does not ask anything but I can tell he is curious, even without seeing the curiosity radiating off his soul.
I don't bother clearing the confusion, not that it would help. Shanna smiles as she guides fries like an airplane into Emily's mouth. Emily grins with ketchup tracing her mouth. I smile and wipe her mouth clean with a napkin I pulled from my inventory. Michael was a bit confused about me having napkins on me, but just assumed I am a prepared parent.
We all stand up, and Evan wants back on Michael's shoulders, and Emily wants back on mine. Shanna giggles and takes a picture of us, both me and Emily grinning as she takes it.
We take the kids around to all the fun attractions and meet the mascots, the first we meet was Chica, and she was with a day guard. Chica and this...Trudge? Is that a real name? Anyway, they are both hyperactive and are perfect matches for each other. Evan gets his cast signed by the pair before we say goodbye to them, and they zip away to some other part of the pizzaplex.
The next mascot we meet was the man himself, Freddy Fazbear. We walk up to Freddy, and as he turns around to greet us, Evan's finger lands firmly on Freddy's nose. A honk sounds and Freddy looks mortified.
Everyone is trying not to laugh, but Evan and Emily burst out laughing, followed by the rest, excluding Michael. Freddy now is playing keep away with Michael and Evan, as they try to honk his nose again. Freddy does not succeed and gives up as Evan honks his nose victoriously.
We exchange greetings and Evan manages to convince Freddy into signing his cast. Freddy looks like he has lost his dignity, and leaves.
We run into Monty again, we do another handshake.
"Hey! Mike-a-like! This guys is as strong as you! You guys should totally arm wrestle." Michael and I look at each other, both not wanting to, we both then look at Emily and Evan, and sigh. Looks like we are going to arm wrestle.
I go over to a metal table, and put down my right arm, and his metal arm clasps with mine. "GO!!" Monty yells and we both start. Michael puts up a fight, but succumbs to my technique and strength.
Emily gets exited and wants to arm wrestle me, sonI smirk and we go for it. "3-2-1-go!" Shanna calls out.
I go easy on her, and she knows it. But she actually did surprisingly well, especially for her age. I eventually allow her to beat me. As I feign pain in my arm, another animatronic shows up.
She walks right up behind Michael and "Corpse, what are you doing?" Right in his ear, but he doesn't even flinch and snaps back "What does it look like, Fae?"
The silver-haired wolf lady just sasses Michael and then looks over to the rest of us. Not caring about me, which I don't care. But she does pay much attention to Evan, Emily, and Shanna. She cares about Evan and Emily because they are kids, but she is also intrigued by the bunny ears of both Shanna and Emily.
The wolf takes the blunt approach. "Hey, lady. Why do you have bunny ears?" The bluntness shocks Shanna, as most people only look at them, and don't talk about it.
"I-"
"I think that is a personal matter, miss wolf." I say, interrupting Shanna.
The wolf looks at me now, clearly pissed because of how I spoke.
"And who are you?" She asks, not very nicely.
"Isn't it polite to introduce yourself before asking names?" I retort, making the wolf even more mad.
"You know my name, what is yours?" The wolf all but growled out.
"Jake. Happy now?" I say
I think she actually growled...okay, maybe don't piss of the wolf...at least without reason.
"And this is Emily." I say as I put my hands on Emily's shoulders.
Emily looks up at Roxanne, and Roxanne can't help but ooh and aww at Emily...At least she doesn't look pissed anymore.
Evan and Emily chat with Roxanne, and she eats up their attention, and even signs Evan's cast.
She looks so nice when she is interacting with the kids, yet every time she looks at me she has a scowl on her face. What did I even do to make her that mad?
Eventually our time together runs out, and we are all in the atrium saying goodbye to each other. Roxanne is still with us, but she sticks with Michael. And Monty has already said goodbye and gone somewhere else.
As we are saying goodbye, the kids that were so here for Evan's birthday come. "We are so sorry Evan, we didn't mean to make you feel so left out." Evan looks like he accepts their apology and we head to the lobby and find Evan's mother. She is clearly worried and upset as she has not seen Evan for a while, even if the pizzaplex is safe. I can't blame her, if Emily ran off and I never saw her for a few hours I would be worried, safety be damned.
I speak a bit with Evan's mother, seems Evan and Emily have the same class, and that is how they are friends.
Speaking of class, the only reason I had actually let Emily take public school is because I had lobbied several policies and laws that make the education system actually work...I knew from experience how bad the school system was, and I won't let that happen to anyone else.
After saying goodbye to Evan and his mother, the three of us get into my car and we leave the pizzaplex...hopefully to never return, but I'm sure Emily will use those puppy eyes and make us return.
After driving for a bit, I ask Emily a question. "Emily, did you have fun?"
Emily looks at me through the rear view mirror, her eyes sparkling and practically yells out. "THAT WAS THE BEST DAY EVER!" Wow, my ears...anyway, looks like we will be returning to the pizzaplex, since she liked it so much.
I then say to Emily. "How about we go to the pizzaplex more often? Would you like that?" Emily seems to vibrate in excitement and shouts. "YES!!"
Normally you would see a parent scold their child for yelling while someone is driving, but I don't have the heart to be mean to Emily...unless she really fucks up and need guidance, I will be there for her all day everyday.
I don't think I could ever yell at her...unless it is a life and death situation, and I need to yell at her. But that does not really matter.
Enough with the rambling, we are home now. I park the car and open the front door for Emily and Shanna, Emily sprints inside and Shanna walks with me.
"I'm thinking movie night, how about you?" I ask Shanna.
"Sounds great, just please don't pick a horror movie. You always mock the characters for doing dumb things."
"As I should, they are dumb."
"Then why do you watch them?"
"Uhh, cause horror movies are kinda funny, at least to me. Even Emily agrees, see!" Emily seems to appear when we start talking about horror movies and nods along with everything I say.
Emily clearly wants to watch a horror movie with us, and Shanna can hardly say no to that cute face. We all go into the theater room. Yup got our own theater, cause we can.
I start up the movie and a Friday The 13th movie starts playing. We all enjoy the movie, with both Emily and I making fun of the dumb things the characters do. Shanna enjoys it as well, and just smiles at our antics.
After the movie is finished, Emily and I are in my workshop, working on a special thing just for Emily. Her very own sword, she won't be getting a huge one, as even with her strength it will be cumbersome due to her stature, so I am making her a longsword...just extra extra heavy, so any blow will do much more damage.
We have the blade just about finished when Shanna walks into the workshop, and walks right up behind me, and in a very threatening tone. "Why are you making a sword...Jake?" A shiver runs down my spine, but I don't stop putting work into the sword as I reply back. "Emily needs something to protect herself if she is in danger, don't want her to be hurt right?"
The logic is sound...but mothers don't deal in logic. "What if she hurts herself with the sword?" She asks.
"She trains with me everyday on swordsmanship, she won't hurt herself or anyone she does not want to harm." I reply back smoothly.
Shanna sighs as she looks at Emily smiling in excitement as the blade is coming together, knowing that Emily's happiness is more important, plus she really won't hurt herself, nor will she stay hurt because of remnant.
It took the rest of the day to finish the longsword, but it is now made to the best of my abilities, and has been soaking in remnant for a while. Emily has been pouting about that, the sword looked ready but she still can't have it yet...how sad.
Seeing the sword has sufficiently soaked, I pull it out and wipe it dry. Before handing it over to Emily in it's sheathe...which she immediately unsheathes and starts practicing and getting used to the weight if the sword. "Wow, this is a lot heavier than the training swords dad, what is it made of?" She asks.
"Well, if you had been paying attention-" "I was!" "Then you would know it is titanium alloy, mixed with a lot of remnant, then soaked in remnant. This gives it the weight and allows the sword to repair itself from damage, and wear."
Emily's eyes sparkle as she looks at the sword.
The sword is as long as she is, and weighs about 50 Ibs. The sword has a gray metal, with a slivery patter running throughout the blade.
"So, any names for the sword Emily?" I ask.
"XYPHOS!" She excitedly yells.
I suppose that is a name, not like I can talk, mine is called Remna.
Seemingly content with how the sword feels in her hand, Emily puts the sword back in the sheathe and puts the whole thing into her inventory.
About that, I have been teaching Emily everything I know about powers relating to the soul. Emily is able to do the inventory trick, but is not able to cloak. The reason why eludes me, but I think it has something to do with either the strength or power of a soul, or it is the affinity of the soul.
As far as I know, Emily can only use the inventory. But there are plenty of other things that the soul can do, for example is the flight and telekinesis of Charlotte, and the weird teleportation of Fredbear.
I have been working on getting those, and have not quite gotten flight or teleportation, but telekinesis? I got that. It actually makes forging so much easier as I can just shape the metal to my soul's whim. That is also why the sword...'Xyphos' was made in one day.
I also took the liberty of reforging Remna, and making the whole thing better, as telekinesis allows me to compress the metal, allowing for the sword to get even heavier, now at a staggering 260 Ibs.
And now that I had the ability, and the materials. I made some proper armor, so far it has just been sitting in my inventory, but it has the same properties as Remna, and even has cloth and chainmail for added protection. I based the design on the Black Knight Armor from Dark Souls. The flair from the horns and stuff are still there, even if they don't serve practical use, and the reason they are there is because of fashion. Any dark souls player knows exactly what I am talking about. But regardless, the impractical parts of the armor are made up for by the sheer thickness of the armor, almost 5 inches of pure metal, and the whole thing is made with a lot of remnant, making any damage to the armor temporary. And for giggles, I made a Black Knight Ultra Greatsword...that was a tough challenge, as getting the color just right while having it use remnant was a big problem.
I could totally cosplay as a Black Knight...and I have, people didn't recognize me as Jake, but I did go to several conventions with the armor and sword. I always let people try and lift the sword, they thought it was light due to how I walked around with it, but they couldn't even get the handle an inch off the ground. A lot of people recorded me and called me a real Black Knight, and that was pretty cool. I even have the height and build to pull it off, so with the thick armor I have a very menacing look.
I stop thinking about my armor and focus back on Emily, she is thinking about something as well. Oh dear, she might actually ask me for something else.
She seems to have reached some sort of conclusion as she is now looking at me...and those puppy eyes are already out.
"Dad..can I also get a shield? To protect my friends?"
That is just too cute...time to make a shield. I nod to her and pull out some more titanium alloy...lot of that stuff has been bought by me...I think I may have singlehandedly funded 10 college tuitions for my supplier.
Now that I think about it, I have become my own Speedwagon foundation. I couldn't do half of the things I have done without the funds I had made, or the people I have hired. Funnily enough, the name of my 'foundation' is similar and it is called Rivers Association, or RA for short.
RA has become a global presence and has more power than many countries, this is because people see that I want to help and don't band together to make my life hard. The people have done this before to mega corporations like Amazon, because they were greedy and treated people poorly. I do not treat anyone poorly, be they an employee or not. All employees get a livable wage, and are treated like actual people.
Stopping myself from ranting for much longer, I pull the finished shield out of the remnant bath, and hand the overly large rounded kite shield over to Emily. She can still hold it, but it looks silly in her hands. Before I can even mention anything about naming it Emily shouts out. "AEGIS!" Turns out she has been wanting a shield for a while, as she even had a good name ready for it...or maybe she just likes greek mythology, she does read a lot about it.
Taking a look at the shield, Emily looks happy. Aegis is on the large side, as I expect her to use it when she is older, not now. Before she gets any more ideas, I power off the forge, and put away tools, signaling that I am no longer making anything.
We go back inside and Emily has a goofy grin on her face, Shanna, Emily and I watch another movie before I tuck Emily into bed and get in bed with Shanna.
Well, that took a lot longer than I expected. I procrastinated a lot. Sorry about that. But hey, 10 chapters now...yippee. See ya- Death