Chapter 3 – Clean, Fix and Reevaluate your Goals
My stay in the Hebert household has been surprisingly pleasant so far.
I was still a little uneasy about being so close to and sleeping in the same house as Taylor. The girl had killed this world's equivalent of Superman in the future. But I managed to hide those feelings and slowly started to get used to her.
It was then that I suddenly recalled something that had a heavy impact on me as a child.
It was a little ironic, me being scared of her when I'd estimated that the PRT would've classified me as a Muscle Brute 3 or 4. But it wouldn't be the first time I'd found myself discovering irony at the hands of a bullying victim.
I'm ashamed to admit that I almost became a full-fledged bully back in 2nd grade. Taking my class-clown tendencies too far, making fun of the quiet kid in class. It was never physical, but pulling their pants down in front of everyone was as far as I'd gotten.
The next week, karma struck me when I managed to fracture my arm and even get my neck in a cast while enjoying my weekend. When I'd recovered enough to move, my mother had taken it upon herself to let me remain active despite my injuries. One of these trips outside had us visiting the home of a friend of hers – the mother of the quiet kid I bullied.
I'd expected scorn from Ellis. Maybe he would tattle on me? Kick me while I was down, maybe? Blackmail?
Instead, I'd received a warm welcome with actual concern. I was taken to the couch and given a controller to play video games with him.
When I realized that what was happening was real…I'd cried and apologized to both him and his family. That day I'd learnt to be a kinder person. Incidentally, that was also how I'd gotten into video games.
It was when I'd recalled that memory that I'd started paying closer attention to Taylor. Not paying attention to the Parahuman, a future Skitter, but to Taylor Hebert, the high schooler.
I'd come to realize that this Taylor wasn't the Queen of Escalation, the teenage Warlord or the dangerous Parahuman I'd read about.
'Not yet anyway…'
Right now, the girl was mostly quiet, responding when spoken to, and when she didn't have something to do…she just looked lost. I didn't know the signs of a suicidal person, but a quick Spyder-Finder (Pshh! Who uses Google anyway? Not Earth-Bet obviously!) search didn't let me remain ignorant for long.
Of course, any thoughts on reaching out to her were quickly dispelled when I saw her when she was actually focused on something.
'The intensity and focus with which she tackled her math homework was unsettling….'
She was a bomb waiting to set off. A chain-reaction explosion that – in the original timeline – was enough to kill an Alien God.
In the end, I was afraid of the consequences of helping her because that would involve digging into her problems and touching her sore spots, which could end up with her looking for an escape. A cornered animal was dangerous, a cornered Taylor was…
While the memory of me striving to be a better person always stuck with me, so did something I saw on my first airplane ride when I was 6. It was there that I saw that when the plane gives out oxygen masks, if you can, you wear your own first and only then help the person next to you.
Essentially, you had to help yourself before helping others.
The only way Taylor would open up to me was if I revealed my powers, and let that be the bridge to connect us, but well….
I wasn't going to risk myself fixing Taylor's problems. I'd help her when I was in a position to do so. And the best way to fix her problems was without her knowing who helped her and how. I'd long since decided that I would never willingly expose my powers to anyone and would mislead others into thinking I was a simple Brute if they found anything. Coil might have been an asshole, but I would learn from his example when protecting oneself.
No matter how guilty I felt every time I looked at her, knowing that I could do something, to improve her life, and stop her from feeling like she had nothing to live for, I—I'd wait until I was powerful enough to make sure if I do interfere I'd be able to actually help Taylor.
Danny on the other hand was where the actual positives to living here came about. I…didn't have a father back on Earth-Prime (It was what I'd decided to call my Earth) so spending an entire day he took off from work with him was…an experience.
(A/N: The perk [I Know What We're Going To Do Today (Phineas and Ferb) (400CP)] was locked-in in the last chapter, but it only unlocked in this one. I'm just making sure it's understood.)
Music: [URL unfurl="true" media="youtube:Li7uQ2IiOPk"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li7uQ2IiOPk[/URL]
"Triangle head. Rectangle head. Perry. Greetings, I see you're as carefree as ever. Well, it doesn't matter. It's Summer Vacation and I'm bored out of my mind. Huh? What do mean you just want to relax today? I'm going to get my fun either way, it'll be a lot better for you if I didn't have to extract it from you with the Fun-extract-inator. Where did I get it? You don't need to know. What you do need to know is that…I know what we're going to do today."
"What 'Cha Doin'~?"
"Goddamit woman! No one invited you!"
Oh right, there was also that. I was a little bummed when I found out that the Forge didn't actually give me all the memories from my alternate self in the Phineas & Ferb universe. So, while I did get the talent to build things I already know how to make, at much, much faster speeds, I didn't get the knowledge to build all the crazy stuff my other self helped P&F build. I also didn't get any smarter, so inventing them myself was a no-go. After all, it was their inventions, I'd just helped them make them faster. Also, I guess I can sing now, which is well…OK?
Well, it wasn't all entirely useless.
Danny's day off was spent mostly with me and the Heberts deciding to clean and repair the entire house. Well, it started as cleaning but as we 'somehow' worked at normal human speeds but made such insane progress, I was able to convince Danny to get a bunch of spare old tools and building supplies from his dockworker contacts.
The Forge might not have given me any Knowledge on how to build anything yet, but being prepared was something I could do. Getting tools to build literally anything would have been next to impossible for me without taking massive risks. This way no one would suspect a thing!
Sometimes, my genius scares me. Muhahahahaha!
Then again I think I might have gained a little more than I bargained for. Like, a lot more.
The people whom Danny called for the tools and raw materials ended up coming to help out with the repairs when they heard what we were doing.
'*Sigh* This was going to turn into a whole social thing huh?'
It seems I was going to meet the Dock Workers of Brockton Bay.
Well, I'll talk to them politely and slowly back off to quietly work on the house, the least I can do for Danny is help fix up his house quickly with the help of [I Know What We're Going To Do Today (Phineas and Ferb)]. The man did take me into his home out of nothing but the kindness of his heart.
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POV – Danny:
It was supposed to be a small thing.
Take a day off, spend some time with and get to know your newly adopted nephew.
Then Daniel suggested we clean the house, and somehow…it led to this situation.
"""Rise and shine, a mess to face,
Together we stand, in this cleaning race.
Gather tools, let's make a plan,
Turning chaos to order, hand in hand."""
I'd only asked Kurt and Alexander to lend me some power tools and see if they could get some of the endless abandoned construction material that could be found at certain points of the Bay.
Instead, when they learnt what we were doing they somehow ended up calling all the boys and girls to help fix the house up.
Well, the dockworkers were out of work right now, that was why I even had the time to take a day off. And with the constant heavy snowfall well…suffice to say no one was working today.
They'd all driven here ready to renovate the whole damn place! Work like this would take a month or a week at best. And yet somehow, we were making remarkable progress.
"""With determination burning bright,
We'll fix and clean with all our might.
From attic's dust to the floor below,
In unity, forward we'll go."""
I could tell that the kids weren't comfortable with the dockworkers' presence at first. Taylor had mostly clammed up, sticking to Lacey and helping her out quietly. Daniel was better off, making polite conversations with Kurt, Alexander, and Bill.
Then at some point, he left the formalities. He began taking an actual interest in talking to them. When the dockworkers realized that he was in incredible shape for a 13-year-old, they started giving him bigger jobs. At some point, Daniel was helping and observing all jobs across the house, he made sure to be involved in every aspect of the work done on the house.
He also seemed to be touching every part of the house where the work was done and muttering something. He was probably checking them. Or maybe he was playing around?
"""Sweeping, scrubbing, in perfect grace,
Transforming disorder to a peaceful space.
Mending, painting, every nail and glue,
With our combined strength, there's nothing we can't do."""
It was easy to see how happy he was when he was working. Seeing him smile today made it obvious that his attitude on his first day wasn't quite authentic. But it made sense, there was no way he wasn't affected by the death of his parents. Trying to act like everything was fine was understandable.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
But now? It felt like he was actually having fun. And it showed when he began humming quietly as we worked.
The tune was nothing special. But somehow it seemed amazingly well in synch with the work we were doing. Then as he got louder, and louder, others began to join in and hum with him.
As Daniel continued humming, I saw him looking at Taylor. I couldn't quite make out his expression, but it seemed complicated.
Then he began to sing.
"""Cracks and leaks, we'll make them right,
Aiming high with each ladder's climb.
Crafting solutions, creativity soars,
Laughing and working, opening new doors.."""
He was good. Really good. It almost felt like I could hear music playing in the background.
All while singing, he slowly made his way to where Taylor and Lacey were working.
At that point, many of the other dockworkers had joined in the singing, Lacey included. Taylor looked bewildered like she couldn't understand what was going on.
When Daniel reached her, she looked even more surprised. As if she couldn't believe he snuck up on her.
Then when he pulled her in to start dancing, her eyes were so wide with surprise that it almost looked like they would fall out, and in her surprise, she ended up going along with it long enough that she couldn't really stop without making it awkward.
"Through the sweat and tears we've shed,
Our bond grows stronger, there's no thread.
In every challenge, we found a way,
Together we brighten even the darkest day."
Then it was just Daniel singing, with a new verse he added to the song, while everyone else continued humming the same tune loudly.
Daniel's dance wasn't any specific dance style. Without the song he was singing it might have even looked plain weird, but with it, somehow it worked. The dance incorporated the work they were doing, with him dragging Taylor around with him to hand materials to everyone, placing planks of wood along the floor that was opened up, and other little jobs.
Taylor, despite following Daniel's lead, still looked ready to run, as if she was expecting something terrible to happen. But as the dance went on she looked around at everyone still working and singing with smiles on their faces and slowly became surer of herself.
Looking at that hurt. I knew she was being bullied and that she didn't want my help or interference, but did she think that things were so bad that the people here, my friends and colleagues, would actually make fun of her or hurt her?
As they continued to dance and work, Taylor's expression showed disbelief. Whether it was the fact that we were singing or whether it was the fact that she wasn't getting a negative response to dancing in front of everyone, I couldn't tell.
That disbelief eventually turned into a smile. Not the awkward upward twitch of the lips I was so used to seeing. A genuine smile that I realized, I hadn't seen in years. I was so surprised that I'd stopped singing, it didn't register to me that at some point I'd also started singing without realizing it.
"With smiles that light up the room,
We chase away any hint of gloom.
Hand in hand, we face the unknown,
Turning obstacles into steppingstones."
With encouragement from Daniel and all the Dockworkers, that smile eventually turned into laughter that hadn't echoed through the house since Annette.
And if everyone noticed the stray tears falling down her face as Taylor laughed and sang? No one commented about it, simply continuing to work.
Daniel took off Taylor's glasses during the dance. I noticed him muttering something while holding them with a look of intense concentration before returning them but didn't think much of it as I was still reeling from the fact that Taylor had just laughed, possibly for the first time in years. He'd probably just been wiping them.
"""Sweeping, scrubbing, in perfect grace,
Transforming disorder to a peaceful space.
Mending, painting, every nail and glue,
With our combined strength, there's nothing we can't do."""
He had other things to think about now. Like the looks some of his friends were giving him.
He hadn't told them that Taylor was being bullied. They only knew that she'd gotten hurt at school. One of the reasons Taylor had hidden it from him had to be because she was ashamed of it, which is why he didn't tell other people about it. He thought of it as something only she had the right to share.
But he doubted they would let him go without an explanation after today.
"""As the final touch is made, and the work is through,
We'll stand back and admire, feeling content and true.
With shared endeavour, we've answered the call,
Uniting our energies, we've conquered it all."""
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POV – Daniel:
D38 Roll Result: 12
D22 Roll Result: 1
Everyone in the Hebert household was occupied with their work, singing or their thoughts and emotions.
As they worked they didn't realize that the speeds at which they worked were so incredibly fast that we were finishing the entire renovation of a house in a single day. Work that normally took months, or even longer, was accomplished in comparatively no time at all, through sheer efficiency of movement, teamwork, and a little bit of P&F insanity.
So lost in the song and dance that no one noticed me casting Magic. Slowly enchanting the entire house, brick by brick, plank by plank. Even the screws and smaller components were enchanted.
(A/N: I have no clue how [Old Patient Magic] actually works in Circle of Magic. And I couldn't find a concrete answer online without actually looking through the books. So, I'm going to give my own spin to it while following what the Perk description says about it.)
'[Old Patient Magic: {Reinforce Structure}, {Self-mending}, {Anti-Scrying Field}, {Healing Field}, {Anti-Spatial Interference Field}]'
The Magic was incredibly weak right after I'd cast it. To the point where it would have next to no effect for a while. But it was that fact that allowed me to cast it so many times, for every part of the house.
The Magic would slowly make the house tougher, repair itself with time, heal its occupants of basic injuries, resist scrying attempts, and even interfere with the use of Spatial Magic or technology.
'[Old Patient Magic: {Restore Sight}]'
When I got the chance to grab Taylor's glasses, I'd taken the opportunity and added an enchantment that was meant to restore the vision of anyone who wore it. It was something that was meant for people with no eyes, or a curse on their vision. While it wouldn't do something like that now, slowly fixing Taylor's vision to normal would still be in its purview if given a few months.
The house would take longer, right now it was barely tougher than its base materials would suggest, could only 'repair' itself at a rate slower than time and the elements would deteriorate the condition of the house, barely give resistance to any scrying attempts, only accelerated the speed at which a small paper cut would heal by a small percentage, and give the slightest amount of interference to spatial effects that would probably go unnoticed.
This would change as the enchantments grew in strength over time.
D38 Roll Result: 1
D22 Roll Result: 16
As I had started using Magic I'd noticed that the source of the Magic I used from the Perk that allowed me to cast Charms, Wards and other Protections, was completely different than the Magic Circuits gained from [Roman Holiday (Fate/Legends - Empire of Antiquity)].
While Magic Circuits felt like veins running throughout my body that let me feel my Od (Internal Mana Supply) and the Mana (External Mana Supply – Breath of the Planet) in the air, the Magic source for [Old Patient Magic (Circle of Magic)] was like a ball of fire I could feel at the centre of my being.
Something that I was quick to notice was that my emotions often affected the Magic I used to cast the Wards and Protections.
So, I could tell myself that I'd only sung the song and danced to make my Magic more effective and distract everyone from consciously noticing the effects of my speed-building perk. But that wouldn't be true. Those accidental benefits were something I'd only realized after the fact.
The actual reason was because of how easy singing had become with [Choreographic (Phineas and Ferb)], and I'd realized that helping Taylor was not the same as eliminating the reasons her life was bad.
'Being Taylor is suffering'. A famous line in the Worm community.
When I saw Taylor, uncomfortably working (suffering) in the corner, I realized that instead of making the dockworkers go away or letting Taylor leave the work and the presence of so many people in her house, I could do the opposite and let her enjoy their presence and working alongside them.
It was an uncomfortable realization.
Just removing the things that cause problems or removing the person from the situations that cause problems doesn't always solve the problem.
I couldn't save Earth-Bet by killing Scion or stopping Gold Morning. There were so many things that were wrong with this world that it wouldn't be enough.
When I came to this world and received the Celestial Forge, I'd only thought of stopping its destruction because of the responsibility the power of the Forge would provide. And the fact that if I didn't kill Scion and simply ran home the first chance I got, the Entity and its Shards could track me home to Earth-Prime and infect my home world.
Mostly I just wanted to go home after being done with this world. I had no attachment to it. No obligations.
But now, after staying here for a few days, I knew that I didn't want Danny to die. I didn't have that much of an attachment to Taylor, but now that I was slowly letting go of my negatively biased view of her I knew that I didn't want her to go through all the things that happened in Worm, only to get her 'happy' ending.
Kurt, Lacey, Alexander, Bill, Kevin, Martha and all the other Dock Workers who I'd met today were also good, hardworking honest people. They'd taught me a lot about handling tools from the smaller mundane ones to the heavier power tools, the basics of construction, tool maintenance, and about building things in general.
Could I really just abandon them? Leave them to die in this hell-world?
Shaking my head, I mentally reviewed the Perks I'd gotten today. The second was still waiting at the periphery for more power, while the first one…
It was access to an alternate universe. One with potentially unlimited resources.
'I could leave.' I realized.
It would take some effort, but I was capable enough to get a one-way ticket to a remote corner of Earth-Bet. Open a door to my Personal Reality and enter the [Mundane Supply World (The Celestial Foundry)] and simply spend all my time preparing for Gold Morning.
No one would bother me. If Contessa hadn't already come to me then I doubt she would come after me now. Plus, the Forge and other Magical effects would be invisible to her.
The Door to Earth-Bet would always be open as long as I stayed there, but it would still be very far from any other parahuman. Even if Shards could access the Forge-given world, I would still be better off there.
"Fuck…Why didn't you give me this perk when I first arrived here? Then I could've left without a single thought!"
It was already too late. I was getting attached.
Before I came to Earth-Bet, I didn't have any friends. Oh, I had acquaintances. I even had old friends I knew from school. But I hadn't stayed in touch with them, and we'd drifted apart. I'd even stopped playing video games after starting college and lost touch with all my online friends.
I didn't think I was lonely. But I sure as hell don't remember getting along so well with people so quickly before. Then again it could have been the Phineas and Ferb magic and positivity that infected me.
Leave it to me to befriend a bunch of sweaty, muscular dockworkers.
"Fuck it! I'll stay for now and decide later!"
'At least I know I have another option to consider if things go wrong…'
Just then the Forge attracted my attention when I'd gathered enough power for the latest star to come my way.
Instead of memories or other information about a pile of resources, I just heard a voice in my head and became aware of the ability to summon a piece of paper with something written on it.
'What. The. Fuck?! Is Evil Sexy Taylor?!' The thought of that girl in a skimpy black leather outfit armed with a whip came to mind…
'Fuck no!' And I violently smashed my head into the wall of my room to clear my thoughts.
Thankfully, the basement walls were pretty tough
"Daniel?! Are you all right down there?"
"Ah, shit! Yeah! I'm fine!"
Quickly summoning the piece of paper, I read its contents.
"*Whew*~." After finally reading what I now knew was a deed to a shop, I breathed out in relief.
"OK, it's Tailor. Not Taylor. Got it."
When I finally calmed down I realized that there was possibly a Dark Elf setting up shop somewhere in Brockton Bay.
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Remaining CP: 0
Total Word Count: 3792
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Perks Gained this Chapter:
* I Know What We're Going To Do Today (Phineas and Ferb) (400CP): 24 hours just doesn't seem like enough time to get stuff accomplished, but you'd be surprised what determination (and this perk) can get you. You can now complete days and even weeks' worth of work in just a few hours, and this effect increases tremendously when you have a few helpers, to the point where a small team can work with you to complete years' worth of work in a simple afternoon.
* Choreographic (Phineas and Ferb) (Free): Ever had a feeling you just weren't sure how to express? Well, now you can do so through song. You have a perfect singing voice, combined with a decent understanding of choreography, and the capacity to break into song almost anywhere and have musical accompaniment start up for you.
* Mundane Supply World (The Celestial Foundry) (100CP): This item gives you access to all the materials that one could get on Earth, but with one caveat, you'll have to find and harvest them yourself. Your warehouse gains a portal that is linked to an artificial plane of existence that is of infinite size in all directions, where humanity or sapience of any kind never developed. You can find an unlimited number of any resources given enough time, but they are spread around as would naturally occur in nature, meaning you have to often move when you exhaust the local supply. Resources are always located in environments where you would find them on Earth, and when you travel to this world, you are able to choose which environment you arrive in or return to any prior location you have been to before. Environments have realistic distances between them, so if you need something found in several biodomes you need to return to your warehouse or use a fast transport of some kind. Every time you gain a perk that requires access to a new raw material, this raw material appears in the most native form in this supply world and has to be collected as it normally would be. If your material is only found inside stars, you better be ready to get a rocket to go collect it somehow.
* Sexy Evil Tailor (Dungeon Keeper Ami) (200CP): This is a deed to a tailor's shop which includes a Dark Elf Tailor. She knows exactly what is needed to make a person look their most sexy, evil, and impressive, able to create clothes for any shape and size ranging from leather strips covering the important bits all the way up to dark billowing cloaks. No matter what look you are going for she can help you pull it off and look good doing it, though she normally works for gold she will accept any currency. At the end of the week, she will give you your portion of the profits made from other customers. You will receive a new deed every jump to place as you wish. Beware though, she does try to push the leather underwear look.