“That’s a bad idea.”

“What?”

“Aden, geniuses get attention, there's a reason that they want you on campus.”

“I’m not a kid anymore Sarah, I know a bad situation when I see it. This is a new chance for me.”

Sarah stared at her younger brother as he glared back at her evenly.

When did he get so stubborn?

“There’s a chance they might just want you for something nefarious Aden. When I was in college, there was a genius girl I knew that was being used for supervillain research.

They never found her after she got abducted Aden, I just don’t want the same to happen to you.”

Aden shook his head at her.

The nerve of this boy!

“It’s New Terra University sis, you know, the one almost right next door to the Hero’s League?”

Damn, he had a point.

If there was going to be some sort of plot to use geniuses, they wouldn’t be doing it at a learning institute right next to the headquarters of the Heroes.

Not unless they were insane.

Which… was most villains sure, but not the especially smart ones.

“Alright, but I’m giving you a panic button.”

“Aww come on sis, that’s so lame!”

“No buts mister!”

The irony wasn’t lost on Sarah as she was disciplining her brother in an eleven year old’s body, but that crap could be laughed at later.

She grabbed his arm and shifted a bit of room in his forearm, just below his wrist and a little past it.

She concentrated as she shifted his flesh to allow the ‘panic’ button she was installing for him.

After a few seconds, it was done.

“There you go, no stupid whistles or anything. I’m not one to cramp my little brother’s style.”

Both Meghan and Aden peered at the newest addition to Aden’s arm.

“What is this, exactly?”

Sarah placed her hands on her hips with a smug look on her face, “it’s a panic button, meant to take out whatever’s panicking you.”

She put a hand to her chin as she stroked it, “might be a good idea to test it.”

They all moved outside of the lab into the abandoned warehouse, a rusty place that Sarah was sure did not follow the local builder’s guild in terms of being safely built.

She shifted a bit of her arm, and tested a bit of her building technique to create a facsimile of what appeared to be a squirrel.

If its fur was red, its eyes a deep crimson and the rest of its pelt some shade of pink.

I’m sorry little squirrel, but this is for my brother’s safety.

She turned to her brother as she backed away.

“Alright Aden, come here.”

Her brother obeyed, a bit of anticipation coming off of him as he turned to the target.

“So, what do I do?”

She pointed at the squirrel, “its a threat, imagine it coming after you, and push the dot on your arm.”

He looked at the squirrel, “sis, i’m not sure that i can-”

The squirrel launched itself at Aden like a cannon, its teeth large and terrifying as it tried to reach his flesh.

Aden reacted immediately, pointing his arm at the now assailing squirrel.

With a poke, the button activated, and her ‘panic’ button assaulted the squirrel.

Spines, stingers, and a thick viscous fluid launched itself at the monster squirrel.

“Woah…”

The squirrel was no more, a melting mass of pink flesh that was riddled with spiny pig spines, bee stingers, and a generous amount of poison and acid.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

She touched his arm, refilling the panic button with it’s essentials.

“You only get one use, Aden, so make sure that you use it when you need it. I’m almost certain it will kill anyone organic, but the spines from the pig should damage robots and the like.”

Aden held the button and pressed it, shooting it at the squirrel bits again.

“W-What the hell Aden?!”

“...One more time?”

This time she send a tendril to reload the thing, making sure the needle hits him with the force of a tranquilizer dart.

“Yeouch! What the hell Sarah?!”

She pulled back her tendril, “this stuff takes biomass idiot, and I don’t have an unlimited supply. You use it only when you need to, got it?”

Rubbing the spot where she hit him, her stupid genius brother nodded.

“Good.”

They stared at each other a bit, until they both busted out laughing.

“You had the same look Mom had when she grounded us!”

“Hard to forget that face, she was hell unleashed when we broke that vase.”

“How about that time with dad’s jetpack eh?”

“Oh god don’t remind me, she came after us with the chancla for that nonsense.”

“Was fun though, right?”

“The absolute best feeling ever.”

They both swapped stories between their parents until the end of the day, and by the time Meghan came to collect them for dinner, both were out of breath from laughing.

…

“Crysa…”

Gideon was experiencing many things that day.

Most of them were things that he wasn’t able to handle.

However, it was a strange bit of hope that blossomed in him when his older sister showed up.

“Gid, heard you finally got caught today. Knew it would happen eventually.”

A lack of accountability surged in him as he prepared to explain himself.

“It wasn’t my fault, how the hell was I supposed to prepare for a shape-shifting demon girl?!”

The smirk on his sister’s face only ignited his latent rage.

“What the hell are you here for Crysa? Come to gloat? To tell me I was wrong for following Father’s will for nothing?”

Crysa sat on the side of the bed, staring back at him with a level gaze.

“My brother was hurt, and I came to visit him, what's wrong with that?”

Gideons’ fire was doused immediately, and those unfamiliar feelings of guilt came back in full force.

“Damnit, not this again!”

Crysa’s eyes shot up as she noticed his mood.

“Wait, brother, are you feeling guilty?”

“N-No! I would never, I’m not soft and weak. I’m not!”

Yelling didn’t make it true though.

Gosh, why am I yelling at her, she didn’t do anything wrong.

She came to visit me because she knew I was hurt.

She cares… fuck!

All the energy he put into maintaining his facade dropped, and the full force of his emotions washed over him like a wave.

“...I can feel the emotions, Crysa. That damn monster girl who put me here did something to me. Now I can’t shut out my stupid feelings.”

Crysa, his failure of a sister, the one that all of the others mocked, smiled back at him in the warmest way.

“Idiot, that’s just normal. Dad made us that way because he didn’t want us to be stopped by guilt or hesitation. He wanted soldiers for his stupid crusade, not people. This, what your feeling right now, Gid, is what those people felt.”

She held his hand, and he held onto it like a vice.

“I… can’t deal with this, it’s too much.”

She squeezed his hand back.

“Baby brother, that’s what family is supposed to be for. I’m here, and I’ll help you figure this out.”

Does she mean it? Really?

Gideon never felt this before, because his siblings were always at each other’s throats.

It was kill or be killed, unless it was for Father’s mission.

Even then, sometimes they would throw each other and cast them aside if it meant the mission would be successful.

…She’s the one who came.

Gideon felt wetness in his eyes, his heart in a vise, and his relief as he felt his sister’s hand hold his own.

“So, what did she do to you, Gideon?”

He looked up into her gold eyes, and flinched.

Crysa was the failure in their group, the one who succumbed to human emotions.

But when Gideon saw her eyes, he felt relief once more.

“She’s a Hero right? Tell me who she is, I’ll take care of it.”

Gideon’s new emotional wavelength felt sympathy for the monster girl.

Crysa never showed anger, since she knew it was what their Father planted in them to make them all killers.

Her fury though, was on full display.

“Her name is Chimera. She’s a little girl, but she’s also a shapeshifter. I don’t really know what she can change to, but she did change into a bunch of animals, and she could make claws and things appear.”

Crysa smiled back at him.

“Guess I’ll be visiting the Hero’s League soon, but enough of that Gid, It’s time to leave.”

Gideon looked down at his hand, the one that his sister was holding and the one that was chained to the bed by handcuffs.

The handcuffs that were now destroyed and in ruins on the floor, along with the straps that held him in place.

“Not to worry, I’ll carry you out. It’s not like you can walk right now anyway right?”

Crysa carried him like a princess as she smashed the window of the fifth floor with her foot.

“It’ll be windy, so hold tight okay?”

Stupid sister, of course I’ll hold on. I don’t want to fall!

Still, he didn’t say it, that would be rude.

“...Damn these stupid thoughts.”

“Yeah, you’ll get used to them after a while.”

With a kick, she launched them both into the air, the night sky shrouding them in darkness as the stars twinkled above.