Turn 80: Science, Siblings, and Secrets

--- Maya ---

Now that she’d built herself a med bay -and knew that just asking around the club wouldn’t give her any answers- Maya decided to instead focus her efforts on something that could prove more productive. Namely figuring out how to more efficiently use her Healing Herbs, because while she could use the herbs to make a salve to help with bruising cuts and other various injuries she felt that that wasn’t exactly useful mid-combat.

Which is why she instead figured out how to break her herbs down into a chemical solution that could be more readily consumed or injected into the human body.

(You make that sound fancy but all we really did was grind it up and stir it into a candy tube filled with water.) Her inner critique pointed out.

“Ah, ah, a program reinforced candy tube.” She corrected herself, as she held up the vial that would make healing mid-combat an option… just so long as she remembered to make an injector to go with it.

“Oh, shit. Knew I was forgetting something.” She frowned, going over to some of her scrap and prodding her whispers to give her some ideas.

(I don’t wanna.)

“What?”

(I’m having a lazy day.)

She pinched the bridge of her nose, before deciding that it was easier to not fight this and instead pulled up a search tab on her computer. “Right, given how common healing herbs are there’s got to be some kind of easy blueprint for a- ah-ha, a Chem Injector!”

It’d take a little bit of effort but it was also generic and simple enough that it wouldn’t put a major dent in her supplies, “Hell I don’t even need to make it myself. This thing is simple enough that I can just get the LCMs to make it for me.”

Scene Consequences

-Maya can now convert Healing Herbs into a Healing Serum, allowing her to regenerate HP each Round for a duration dependent on Herb Quality.

--Note: This serum does not remove Physical Debuffs.

--Standard Herbs: Last 3 Rounds in combat.

-The LCMs have developed: Serum Injector (Mk. 1)

--Chem Injector allows Maya to use any developed Serum mid-combat as a Standard Action.

-Gained 1XP to Biology. (+2XP for setting Bio-Pods.)

--*Skill Level Up* Biology Lv. 4 (2/10)

---

“You know when you said you were in an M.A.D. club I was expecting something a little… different.” Tommy admitted as the elder half of the Williams children made their way through said club.

“What do you mean?” She frowned.

“I don’t know like… I was expecting drones or something flying through the air, you know like Sanctuary’s got all over the place.” Her brother elaborated.

(Add that to the todo list will you?)

(Done.)

“Yeah, or at the very least robots.” Vi added, peeking into a club room just in time to watch something catch fire. “Though uh, that might’ve been asking too much.”

“Well… everyone here is a low level Deviant you know? I think they said no one here is over D Rank.” She explained. (Well everyone but me anyway.)

After all, she could hack reality itself. She was pretty sure that made her A Rank by default.

(Yeah, we just got to work our way out of elo hell and get into a proper league.)

(How are we in elo hell, when we’re playing solo?)

(Well, we’ve got you on our team, so…)

“I guess that explains why none of the gangs bother this place.” Vi mumbled low enough that she was pretty sure her sister hadn’t meant for her to hear.

“Yeah, fish too small for the effort.” Tommy agreed just as quietly, as they passed what looked like a regular garden but she knew was actually filled with a number of gene spliced plants such as a bunch of impossible in nature blue roses.

“Hopefully, that applies to Maya too…” Vi threw out, causing her a twinge of annoyance.

Part of her wanted to correct her siblings out of pride (because we are not some low level scrubs!)

But her more logical side prevailed with the argument of, (as long as they think we’re low level they won’t worry about us getting into trouble… or kidnapped.)

She couldn’t help but grimace at the reminder of that little episode.

(We ever figure out what happened there?)

(No, though we probably should look into that again.)

“Don’t worry, there’s not going to be another Asylum mess.” Tommy assured Vi in a tone that told her Asylum -(Which sounds familiar…)- was a very bad thing.

Sensing that her siblings' heads were going in a direction that would very much ruin her attempts at reassuring them about her M.A.D. status, she turned around and asked them, “So what do you guys think?”

Both Tommy and Vi blinked for a moment, before Tommy recovered and told her that, “Yeah, all of this stuff looks pretty… cool.”

“I know right!” She smiled, purposely setting aside her feelings on her siblings' odd behavior. “They even pay for some of my cheaper inventions each week.”

“Really?” Vi asked. “Like a community art supply type of deal?”

“Yeah, though they only really cover one project a month due to budget issues and junk.” She admitted. “Part of the reason why I have to scavenge up so much junk all the time.”

“Like all the broken electronics in the house.” Tommy nodded as if putting something together.

“Exactly, though uh, I store a lot of that at the uh, hospital rather than here.” She told him, seeing a way to explain away her little ‘lair’. “That way I don’t have to risk someone stealing any of the good stuff.”

“That… makes sense.” Vi figured frowning as she watched someone pass by with a cart full of parts. “I’m guessing being an M.A.D. can get… expensive.”

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“Yeah, I dump pretty much all of my allowance on this stuff.” She grimaced, before shaking her head. “Honestly, only reason I can afford some of my more expensive stuff is because they pay us to help out with the tours sometimes.”

“Wait, doesn’t that mean you’ve got like, an actual job?” Vi frowned. “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

“I mean, it’s not really a job… I can help out whenever I get time. They don’t really expect us to do anything unless we volunteer in advance.” She explained with a frown of her own.

“Still that’s… Hmm…” Vi made a face before sighing and running a hand through her hair. “Hey, uh, you know that… now that I know about this M.A.D. stuff, I can… I can help you with some of it… now and then.”

“Uh, what do you mean?” She asked curiously, glancing towards Tommy who had a contemplative look of his own.

“I can’t help with the actual like building or whatever but… if there’s ever a part you really need, or if you… need a ride here or something, I can probably help out.” Her older sister explained.

“Yeah, and if she can’t I might be able to work something out.” Tommy offered, throwing an arm over Vi’s shoulders.

“Oh, that’s…” She felt something warm in her chest. “Thanks…”

Scene Consequences

-Tommy and Vi are a lot more comfortable with Maya being an active M.A.D. and will occasionally do things to help her out with non-Mask, Deviant things. (I.E. Maya now gets a randomly activating Sibling Assist every Week.)

---

Despite the warm and fuzzy feelings she had gotten after showing her siblings around the M.A.D. club, even going so far as to introduce them to Melvin and Kim, she found herself unable to keep her mind from drawing to the one little shadow on the whole event.

Asylum, and why her siblings seemed to be scared of it in regards to herself.

Which is how she found herself going down a rabbit hole of mildly suppressed history from the Rift Riots of the nineties, back before either the Hero’s Guild or Sanctuary had been brought into play.

At first she simply dismissed the organization as a sort of proto-Sanctuary that eventually evolved into the organization she was more familiar with occasionally seeing on the streets.

It didn’t take her long to realize that while it was in fact Sanctuary’s precursor, it was also its significantly more racist and violent precursor. One that had at one point tried to commit outright genocide against the Deviants of america.

Something that caused her to grow increasingly appreciative of the current standard of Sanctuary, which while occasionally filled with assholes like any other law enforcement agency, was still noticeably kinder to Deviants on the whole. Even going so far as to allow some Deviants to take on positions of authority and rank within the organization.

In spite of the general mood of the topics she was researching, she couldn’t help but pause her research at the image of a white haired woman with blood red eyes, dressed in a jacketless suit and vest. A murder of crows surrounding the woman’s figure as she stood atop the corpse of a Creep while staring down a dozen more with a gun in one hand and a flame burning in the other.

A level of badassery that had her wondering if she could one day be like the woman in the picture.

Scene Consequences

-Maya has learned more about the previous generation of Deviants, Sanctuary, and Asylum.

-Maya has a begrudging -and cautious- respect for the local Sanctuary branch.

--This removes the default [Dislike] reputation all uninformed Deviants have towards Sanctuary. (Note: Sanctuary was and is Neutral towards Maya’s existence, she had the penalty when talking them into things or listening to them. (Which would have bit you if you crossed paths with them before now.))

---

“What’s got you in a mood?” Ying asked as they and Aisha walked towards the school exit.

“I’m not in a mood.” She frowned. “I’m just thinking about some stuff…”

Namely, the fact that she found herself wanting to emulate a woman who wasn’t just a (filthy magic user) but also happened to be a (Sanctuary sellout.) Both things that she normally wouldn’t offer any thoughts of admiration towards.

(Oh, is someone acknowledging their biases are bad?)

(Shut up, we shall fall for foul seductress’s sexy wiles or temptations! We are a science stan in this household!)

Ying rolled her eyes as she opened the school’s front door. “And what exactly has you so distracted that- oh, shit.”

She and Aisha both froze and gave Ying a look, because despite Maya’s inability to go five minutes without cursing, and Aisha occasionally cursed during one of her games in surprisingly brutal trash talk, it was far more rare for the more ‘proper’ of their trio to curse out of nowhere like that.

Leaning around the taller teen she tried to see what could elicit such a reaction from Ying, since the only thing she could really think of that would get that kind of reaction would be if her mom showed up randomly. (And I don’t see that bitch anywhere.)

The only thing she could see that was even slightly out of place was a gray-haired woman standing near the gates wearing something distinctly less formal than anything worn by any of the school’s students or staff.

Ying glanced around with a panicked look before rushing towards the woman with a hurried pace.

Always a metiche, she found herself following with an equally curious Aisha.

“M-Miss Edna, what are you doing here?!” Ying practically hissed.

“Eh, had a free day, and figured it wouldn’t do if I only saw Jon while I was in town.” The woman explained, completely unbothered by Ying’s very clear distress.

“Yes, but-” Ying glanced over at them. “Why are you here?!”

“Oh, Ying-y are you embarrassed by me?” The woman sniffed, tears forming in her eyes. “Don’t want your friends to know about your sugar mama?”

She coughed, as Ying let slapped her face. “You’re not- She’s not my-”

“I’m just teasing.” The woman laughed, tears gone in an instant as she turned back to the other teens. “So I’m guessing these two are your tower prin-”

“Shut up!” Ying interrupted, face going red.

“Oh, you really are so much easier to tease.” The woman smiled, before offering Aisha -who had taken a step too close- her hand. “Name ‘s Edna Donovan, any friend of Ying’s is someone to give the shovel talk to.”

“What?” Aisha blinked.

“You know the talk where I have to warn them about her getting a shovel to bury th-” Edna was cut off as Ying elbowed the older woman, a more physical interaction than Maya usually saw out of the other teen. “Oh, Ying, this is elderly abuse!”

“No one will believe you’re a day over forty.” Ying glared, her eyes seemingly flashing.

“Ah, thanks.” Edna preened, fluffing her hair. “Anima is fantastic for skin care.”

“Um, sorry but uh, who are you?” She felt the need to ask, because clearly she was someone of import to Ying given how differently the other girl was acting.

“I already said, I’m Edna Donovan, keep up kid. Got to be quick or life you’ll con ya.” Edna warned her.

“I meant, who are you to Ying?” She frowned.

Edna clasped a hand to her heart. “Ying, you haven’t told your friends about me? I’m hurt.”

“No you’re not.” Ying sighed, apparently done with whatever was going on here.

“No, I’m not.” Edna admitted with a shrug. “Honestly, can’t blame you for wanting to live a double life. Mystery like that is how you pick up the girls.” The older woman gave Ying a finger gun, before coughing into her hand. “Anyway, I’m Ying’s summer boss, mentor, and possibly her actual maternal figure having met her mother. If she want’s, my ex has two foster kids so why shouldn’t I, right?”

“W-what?” She blinked, unable to keep up with the woman in front of her.

“Sam’s got an adoption addiction, just like his dad and his brother both. Swear the shits contagious with the way I feel about half of the kids at my camp.” Edna elaborated in a way that explained nothing.

Ying inhaled deeply before exhaling. “Miss Edna, did you… need something?”

“Eh, mostly wanted to show up and see what kind of chaos I could make.” The older woman confessed.

“I see…” Ying ground out, before turning back to Maya and Aisha. “I’m sorry but I need to deal with this… hot mess.”

“Underline the hot.” Edna told them.

“I’ll see you girls later…” Ying sighed, walking over to Edna. “So can we go somewhere else for… whatever it is you’re here for?”

“Sure thing.” Edna nodded, placing a hand on Ying’s shoulder before raising a hand into the air.

Ying’s eyes went wide. “Wait, no, that’s not what I-”

Edna snapped her fingers and both her and Ying disappeared in a flash of blue.

(...)

(...)

(...)

Silence rained for several moments, as what few people that had been near the gate all stared at where Ying -a fairly well known individual- had just teleported away in what was clearly magic.

At least until Aisha broke said silence,“Uh, Maya… do you, uh, do you know what just happened?”

“No… No I do not.” (But I intend to find out.)

Scene Consequences

-Maya is now aware Ying has some connection to magic, but not what that connection is.