Current Energy: 19
Current Training: Dragon Warrior (5/10) Cost 5 to Complete (Everyone can thank creativity's_darkside for this Omake bonus)
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
Hebert Household, Brockton Bay
You have such mixed feelings on past you right now. On the one hand, 'You' managed to successfully ensure your Master survived for the duration of 'Your' lifetime.
On the other hand, 'You' have trained her to be a twitchy reflexive murderer who's current powerset seems to be 'execute your problems'.
Honestly, what were you thinking? Probably not much at all honestly you guess. That didn't seem like your previous Emulation strong suit much at all.
"Emmy?" Taylor asks you blearily as she and her Father descend the stairs.
"Taylor! Danny! I was just sitting here last night when I thought - hey you know what everyone likes? Dumplings! And you know, I realized you have no ingredients!" You say, whirling around on them with an old cooking apron straining to contain your bulk as you move. In a single deft motion, you deposit a plate of steaming hot dumplings in the center of the kitchen table.
"Then, when I was looking around your kitchen - great place by the way Mr.Hebert, very well maintained - I realized, 'hey, anything can be a Dumpling if you put your mind to it!' And so, I give you, The Bacon & Egg Bite!" You declare loudly, flourishing one hand and bowing to the obviously flabbergasted duo.
"...Taylor." Danny says in an almost conversational tone.
"Mm?" She replies tiredly, a wry smile on her face.
"Is he getting... weirder do you think?" Her father asks conversationally.
"...Maybe that's my real power. I call upon the infinite multiverse for an ever growing number of weirdoes." Taylor says blithely, stepping around the kitchen table and moving to pour herself a bowl of cereal, which she promptly begins to munch on while ignoring your offering.
"Don't joke kiddo." Danny says with a put upon sigh of his own, gingerly taking one of the comically oversized dumplings - they're easily the size of a human fist after all - and dropping it on a small plate in front of himself.
"Go ahead! Oh, uh, don't worry about eating them all. I can handle whatever you don't finish." You grin at him hungrily, glancing sidelong at the remaining dumplings as you put out a pot of coffee for Danny.
"I'm sorry but... don't you dislike me?" Danny asks you, perplexed.
"What? Never! What gave you that idea Dan the Man." You blurt out in confusion.
"You barely speak to me, tend to refuse to respond to me unless Taylor makes you, and frequently call me an idiot?" Danny offers, seemingly nearly as confused as you yourself.
You wince. Your last Emulation had no respect for Family as a concept. He was a murderous street rat that became a murderous authority figure and that was about it. He was pretty much just an Axe Murderer that lucked into a position of respect. Your current Emulation knows very well the pains of growing up with a single father, and as such, can't help but respect the man for everything he's done.
But it's hard to explain that to Humans, who generally consider continuity of the mind a fairly important aspect of being alive.
"Yeah, okay, I deserved that. But! I'm a new M.E! Just you watch Danny I am going to rock this thing!" You say, pumping one fist while surreptitiously flipping several dumplings into your mouth and chewing.
"Mm... bacon..." You croon, only to realize that the Heberts are staring at you again.
"I didn't know you could eat?" Taylor asks you hesitantly.
"Oh, I totally can. Sleep too. I just don't." You explain with a shrug.
The rest of the morning follows apace after that, with the Heberts mostly ignoring your eccentricities in favour of preparing for their days.
Just as everyone exits the front door, however, Taylor pauses to ask her father a poignant question.
"...Is it sanitary for someone with fur to be cooking?" She asks rhetorically.
Danny - the only person who ate any of your food besides yourself, gags.
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
Winslow High School, Brockton Bay
School that day is awkward for a number of reasons. The first one being that, as Taylor arrives at school, there appears to be something of an altercation going on. There are a large number of students - almost perfectly split between Asians and Caucasians you notice - milling about in front of the building.
Taylor approaches the large group with you - as ever - following invisibly behind her, and steps past them to enter school grounds. Or rather, she tries to anyway. She is rather summarily stopped by an Asian boy who - if the looks of the caucasian kids present are anything to go by, given their sudden look of amused glee at the action - has no idea who your Master actually is.
"Oi, no Empire in the school." The kid says firmly, crossing his lanky arms in front of his chest.
"That's nice. I'm not Empire though so - " Taylor says meekly - always meekly at school for some reason - trying to step around him only to have him shift to block her path again. You gaze worriedly at the boy as he does so. He doesn't realize it, but if your Master really wanted to she could travel through the space he's standing in so fast that he would probably die without actually slowing her down.
A fact that the group opposing his own, the Junior Empire you guess, seems to both be aware of and find massively amusing.
'What's his problem?' You ask curiously, glad your previous Emulations driving need to punt the little bastard across the street is only a mild tingle in the back of your head, easily suppressed by your current peace of mind.
'I don't know but I really don't want to do this right now.' Taylor answers you tiredly.
There is a pregnant pause while both crowds of people look on in mild interest, happily awaiting what happens next, when your Master sighs and turns to look back at them.
"Hey, I said this yesterday but, if you want to beat your chests out here that's fine. Keep it off school grounds and I won't have to do anything about it." She says, obviously still mildly grouchy about being awake. Your Master, you realize, is not a morning person. And she is becoming less of one as time goes on for some reason.
Ignoring the mildly dumbfounded looks of the ABB and E88 kids who were no doubt expecting some kind of fight to break out, Taylor eyes the roof of the building as if judging the distance, taps her foot against the ground once, and then leaps clear onto it in a lazy parabolic arc.
'Emmy, can you stay out there and make sure no one gets hurt?' She asks you as you prepare to follow her, no longer having the same ability to move about as your Master has. In a pinch, you can probably keep up with her, but your current Emulation is a lot less passively inclined towards tremendous physical feats, so you would prefer not to waste your Energy that way.
'Kay. Say hi to Greg for me!' You answer easily, not having wanted to challenge the stairs anyway. It wouldn't have been difficult, but it wouldn't have been fun either.
By the afternoon, the fact that you have been studiously ensuring no one in front of the building gets 'accidentally' punched, beaten, stabbed or otherwise accosted has spread throughout the school. Enough so that people spend nearly the entire lunch period hastily looking over their shoulders to ensure the invisible Panda isn't watching them.
And you find it hilarious.
"It's because Lung is gone. They have to put up a strong front so the ABB is being super aggressive. I heard they've given the go-ahead to just indiscriminately kill anyone they end up against. To bad most of the Empire is immune to guns though." Greg is explaining to your Master as the pair pack their things up at the end of the day.
"I don't know about 'immune' to guns. The one with the... uh... the cage thing? On her head? What's her power even?"
"On PHO everyone's best guess is enhanced reflexes. There are a couple videos of her dodging bullets so..."
The conversation drones on like that, with the pair heading towards the exit of the school. Taylor still doesn't seem entirely comfortable with him, and he's not very good at not ogling her when he thinks she's not looking, but they seem to be getting along fairly well.
And Greg is a pretty good substitute for doing your own research, which is good because research is boooooring.
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
Hebert Household, Brockton Bay
"What if he doesn't answer?" Taylor asks you hesitantly as you gently prod her towards the phone.
"Then he won't answer?" You answer nonplussed.
You've been arguing with her for the last 15 minutes about the most 'appropriate' time to get in contact with your one and only prospective teammate. Usually, you wouldn't be too concerned, and let things progress at a speed that your Master finds comfortable, but a number of the kids at the school of hers were fairly verbal about their resentment for her mild chastisement that morning.
They're only kids, so you doubt anything too untoward will happen, but those kids have parents and brothers and cousins. Most of whom, you're sure, are part of the Empire - who probably won't take kindly to their non-aggression to this point being snubbed.
Not that you have voiced any of these thoughts to your Master, who seems to be only just now getting accustomed to a semi-normal schedule and life. You are somewhat hesitant to take that away from her by increasing her worries, possibly needlessly.
"Emmmmmy!" Taylor whines at you when you eventually pick her up and put her back down in front of the phone like a misbehaving toddler.
"Masterrrrr!" You respond playfully mocking her tone.
"Fine. But only because we aren't training today." She says with a huff, turning to dial the number.
You make very sure not to change your facial expression in response to her (incorrect) statement.
"Hi, it's Taylor? We met the other day." Your Master says politely like she is making an appointment at a doctor's office.
"I was wondering if I could take you up on that offer to patrol?" She continues after pausing for the person on the other end of the line to talk.
"Okay, uh, cool. Should I bring anything or-" She pauses, taking the phone away from her head to look at it in brief confusion.
"No good?" You ask worriedly.
"No, he said we could meet down at the Docks tonight, but he hung up right afterwards. I think I heard someone talking to him so maybe that's it?" Your Master says, obviously feeling mildly hurt but not taking it too personally.
"Great! Now! Come 'ere!" You say, sweeping your Master up into a Panda sized hug that she makes only the barest attempt to resist.
"Soft. Um. I mean, where are we going right now?" Taylor asks, briefly relaxing into your hold before realizing you are carrying her into the basement.
"Basement, duh." You answer.
"You don't really do 'days off' do you." She answers you bitterly.
"Never heard of 'em. All right. Here we go." You say, dropping her in the clear space at the center of the room. Then you plop down onto your rear and cross your legs. After a second, Taylor sits across from you, awkwardly mimicking the posture.
"So what is it today. Punch each other in the face until I learn to make injuries go away with violence?" She asks you dryly, causing you to cringe at the methodology she had apparently picked up from your previous Emulation. You admit that training in the art of combat has it's ups and downs, and you've definitely gone to bed bruised and tired before, but what that guy put your Master through was blatantly inhuman.
"No! Look just-" You pause leaning forward to prod your Master into a better sitting posture.
"Okay. Tell me about the boxes." You say patiently, gesturing around the room.
"...They're full of Mom's stuff. We didn't have anywhere else to keep it. Is this going to be a distraction thing? You're going to attack me randomly in the middle of the next sentence right?" Your Master tries to deflect weakly.
"Master, you know, you matter a lot to me, right? So keep that in mind when I say, the last guy who trained you was a psychopath. I want to teach you what it means to be you. You're so sad when you aren't doing anything else. I think half the reason you accepted that kind of training from me, was because it was better than the alternative to you, and that's horrifying." You explain gently, waiting for your Master's facial expression to shift away from apprehensive.
"...I don't really want to talk about Mom though. Can't you just teach me that healing thing?" Taylor tries again desperately.
"Sorry Master. I have just a bit more agency than that." You say with a shrug.
Taylor turns red briefly, apparently trying to contain all her pent up feelings on the topic, before exhaling, going limp and relaxing her shoulders.
"Fine. But I'm not doing this every day." She says adamantly.
Then she begins to speak, at first sadly, and then wistfully, about the life and times, of Annette Rose Hebert.