Turn 35

--- Maya ---

As she made her way down the stairs for the morning she found her dad scrolling through his phone with a worried expression on his face.

“Uh, is everything alright?” She wondered.

Her dad jumped with wide eyes, before relaxing. “Sorry, what was that sweetie?”

“I was asking if everything is alright?” She told him. “You looked pretty worried about something.”

“Oh, uh, I guess I am a bit…” Her dad admitted a little sheepishly.

“Something you’re willing to talk about it?” She pressed when he didn’t follow up.

Her dad grimaced, thinking about it for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, it’s not… too big of a deal, but…” He waited for her to take a seat before continuing. “It’s just that whole festival thing yesterday has got me a bit stressed.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s got everyone stressed.” She pointed out, remembering how awkward and jumpy everyone had been on the drive home last night.

(Well except Seamus. He seemed pretty normal all things considered.)

(That’s because he’s awesome.)

“I know, but it’s…” Her dad trailed off for a moment, before shaking his head. “It’s different when you’re a parent you know? The entire time you girls were missing we were pretty much panicking over whether you were safe or in danger, or what…”

“Yeah, but… we were safe.” She told him, not sure how to explain her Hand Cannons without causing a situation even worse than the one she had with Vi right now.

“I know, but… like I said, it’s different for a parent. There’s this whole thing about you’e kids being in danger and you being powerless to do anything about it, and…” Her dad sighed. “It just, it leaves you a mess… you know?”

“I…” She stopped, taking a moment to remember the subtle fear she’d had while looking for Izzy, knowing that there was danger around but until Izzy was right in front of her. A feeling that even after finding her was still echoed in the fact that she didn’t know where the rest of her family was, or how they were doing.

(Even when I found out they were okay there was still that bit of, ‘what’s happening to them now’ kind of thing in the background…)

“I think I get it…” She eventually nodded.

“Hmm, sorry.” Her dad apologized running a hand down his face. “I shouldn’t be putting this on you, not after everything else that happened yesterday.”

“No, it’s fine, I asked.” She assured him. “And to be honest I’d be a lot more stressed about it all if I didn’t know why, you’re stressed out.”

“You’re a smart kid, I’m sure you would’ve put it together with everything that happened yesterday.” Her dad admitted with a wry grin.

“Maybe…” (Though given how little I’m actually thinking about it on my own, I’m not so sure…)

---

“Um, you… doing okay there?” She asked, as Izzy finished another set of blows to the punching bag their dad had set up in the backyard.

“Fine.” Izzy grumbled, going for yet another series of angry punches and kicks.

“You… sure?” She flinched as the middle schooler delivered a vicious roundhouse to the bag.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Izzy growled, giving her a glare.

“It’s just… you seem kind of… angry…” She tried to explain as cautiously as she could.

“I’m not!” Izzy practically shouted.

She just stared at Izzy, making no effort to hide her concern.

After a moment Izzy refused to meet her gaze. “It’s nothing.”

(She’s too tense right now, I don’t believe she’ll open up to us in her current state.) Her inner reason pointed out.

(Well, if she wants to beat something up…) Her inner madness prodded, earning a sigh.

“Well, uh, since I’m out here you want to, uh, spar?” She asked, a mild reluctance hoping Izzy would treat her better than the sandbag she’d been beating moments prior.

Unfortunately, while her sister was kinder to her than an inanimate object, that didn’t mean she was pulling her punches, so much as… not trying to break her fist on Maya’s face.

(Dodge!) Her inner passion screamed, as she hopped away from a blow to her face.

“So, uh, you’re taking this a little seriously here?” Maya laughed with just a touch of panic.

“You can’t get stronger if you don’t take it seriously.” Izzy argued, far more fiercely than a middle schooler should be capable of.

“Y-you’re in middle school,” Maya gasped, blocking a quick series of punches, “why on earth do you need to be strong?”

“Because!” Izzy growled before delivering a particularly vicious roundhouse to her side.

“Gah!”

(Well, at least we know what her issue is now.) Her inner logic admitted.

“Time out, time out!” She cried in her own head, as she raised a hand to try and get Izzy to back off while pressing a hand against her aching side. “Oh…”

Izzy narrowed her eyes for a moment, before letting her hands drop to her sides. “That’s it? You usually last longer than this.”

“Yeah, well usually you’re not trying to kill me!” She couldn’t help but raise her voice, as she felt what was sure to be a bruise forming under her hand. “Seriously, you put way too much force into that kick! What the hell?!”

Izzy frowned, not quite meeting her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to kill you…”

“Maybe not, but you’re definitely pissed about something.” She growled, before flinching as she realized she’d cussed at one of her younger siblings, something she typically tried to avoid despite inheriting her mother’s tendency to curse out anything that riled her up.

Shaking her head, she forced down the irritation caused by her bruising side and told Izzy, “Something is eating you up right now. I don’t what it is, and I get that you don’t want to talk about it, but you really should before this,” she gestured to Izzy’s temper, “gets worse.”

Despite having a thoughtful look on her face, Izzy was now blatantly avoiding her gaze, something that Maya couldn’t help but sigh at. “Just whenever you’re ready to talk about it, let me know… I’m all ears whenever you’re ready…”

---

(I feel I should be making a moral objection of some kind.) Her inner reason admitted with a bit of apprehension.

“Why?” She asked as her fingers continued to type out an absurdly long string of paired letters with minimal control on her end of things. (Huh, the whispers are really jumping at this one…)

(Yeah, they are.) Her inner emotion agreed. (And it’s probably got something to do with our murder bot feeding things to our bio-pod.)

(Yes, that’s part of it, but the rest is in the fact that we’re creating an intelligent critter, while we have virtually no experience in any biological fields.) Her inner reason explained.

“To be fair, this is what? The second time we’ve grown something?” She pointed out. “If we never grow anything we’ll never make anything cool.”

(Perhaps,) Her inner logic conceded, before reiterating that (this still seems like a reckless endeavor, given our experience level, or rather our lack thereof.)

(Bit late for the reckless thing, given -again- how our drone keeps killing things and feeding it to the bio-pod.) Her inner madness reminded them. (Might as well put that stuff to use somewhere.)

“Exactly, and besides all of that rat DNA gives us a pretty solid baseline to start off from.” She admitted, “Especially since rodents are apparently pretty smart given their brain sizes.”

(Still this just seems like the kind of thing that we need to be careful of…) Her inner reason confessed, refusing to let this go.

“Eh, we’ll figure it out, I mean it’s not that big of a deal.”

(Yep, after all, all we’re doing is playing god, and creating life that may or may not try to take over the world every night.)

“That reminds me, we really should make two of these things, so they don’t get lonely.”

---

“Where were you?!” Her mom shouted the moment she stepped inside the house.

“Uh, what?” She blinked, having been caught flatfooted.

“Where were you?!” He mother repeated sternly.

“I was…” She scrambled for a lie, “out at this game thing? W-what’s going on?”

“Did you tell anyone you were leaving?!” Her mother asked hotly.

“Was I supposed to?” Her parents had never really noticed her comings and goings so long as she was home for any meals, meaning she only ever had to ask when she was going to be out for the entire day. Certainly not for the few hours it took her to take and modify the rat DNA she’d set her Bio-pod to spin together.

“Yes! Of course you are!” Her mother snapped, her eyes wide with shock for some reason.

“Oh…” She wasn’t entirely sure how she was supposed to respond to that. At least not without getting herself in trouble.

(Not that we should be, given how they’re the ones who don’t notice we’re gone.) Her darker emotions growled from the back of her mind.

(That’s not entirely fair, given how she noticed now.) Her inner reason argued.

(Didn’t notice when we were kidnapped.) The darker voice reminded, its voice bitter enough that she couldn’t help but agree with it on some level.

“I had my cell phone with me.” She pointed out with a frown. “So, if you guys needed something you could’ve just called.”

“That’s not the point!” Her mother growled. “The point is that after everything that happened yesterday, you shouldn’t be running off without us knowing where you are!”

Part of her wanted to call (bullshit) on that, but another –(more logical)- part reminded her of the conversation she’d had with her father that morning about how her parents were both worried and stressed after having to spend so long not knowing if their children were okay or not.

“Alright.” She forced herself to as calmly as possible say. “If one of my things pops up again, I’ll let you know before I go and let you know what I’m doing.”

(Or lie to you about what we’re doing.) Her darker self felt the need to tack on.

(Yeah, but we’re not telling her that part.) She reminded herself, feeling a bit of satisfaction in the fact that having a secret identity gave her a moral reason to lie about this.

(It doesn’t.) Her inner logic told her dryly.

Her mother watched her for a moment before letting out a sigh and giving her a nod. “Right, good. I’m glad you understand.”

“You’re just worried.” She told herself as much as her mother.

“I’m glad you understand, mija… I honestly thought this would be more of a fight.” Her mother admitted, losing a lot of the fight she’d worked up.

(Oh, it can be a fight!) Her emotions lashed, having lost none of its.

(It can be, but it won’t be.) Her logic scolded, forcing her frustration back, because,

“Like I said, I get it.” (Even if I don’t like it…)