Azha would be going about her day when a knock comes from the front door. It was Spectre, this time with seemingly no ship or pod in sight.
"Hiya again." She waved. "I figured I'd pop by to see ya. And this time I didn't break any protocols… I think."
Azha's home was on the other side of the clinic that she was basically the head of. The look of absolute delight that greeted Spectre was clear on her face, a few smudges of dust seen all over her visor while her outfit was a simple-but-messy t-shirt and jeans.
"Oh my gosh hi and how did you do that?! It's good to see you and meet you! Do you want tea!? Sorry if it's kinda dusty I was working on something-" Azha seemed to be clearly a bundle of some kind of energy. The door was left open while she hurried into the main room, which was a bit of a mess. Various kinds of stone were on the flat surfaces, a single mug of something not hot was on one table near a lamp, and the walls were covered in diagrams and pinned insects with labels.
Her short mint-green hair bounced about as she moved, looking just a bit unkempt, but that was likely from the fact she was moving around so much. A space on a table was cleared off in front of a seat on the couch where the drone bounced on her feet excitedly. "Come in come in oh my gosh hi!"
Scraps sat still on the couch, tail swaying happily behind them with its mouth open, as though to smile. It was a good day. Something exciting for them.
Papa said that Azha was going to give them back their legs, and then he would help Scraps walk instead of crawl.
"Is big fixes yis." They spoke to themself, looking over the back of the couch as they heard the doorbell ring.
Hafiz was heard stopping whatever he was doing in the kitchen, probably working on cleaning some dishes, and headed over. They greeted each other. And then Hafiz brought the blue-tone drone into the entertainment room.
"Hey little one!" Azha smiled, a large case with her in one hand, and another case of slightly smaller size in her other. "Ready for today?"
"YIS!" They almost managed to hop up with how hard they threw their arms into the air. Their tail wagged faster, little chirps escaping the mouth. They then, with a giggle, fell back on the couch.
"Oh, so excited!" Azha set the cases down, opening the larger of the two to bring out one of the now repaired legs. It was clean, ready to be reconnected, and most importantly, it was stable. "Alright little one. Papa is going to help with this, alright?"
"Okies! Papa good! Papa smart~!" They giggled as Hafiz blushed, settling in and reaching out.
"Right first then left." Azha directed, holding up the leg and getting a little closer to where the joint was meant to connect. Scraps, knowing how this was supposed to happen, stayed as still as they possibly could.
Hafiz counted. "One... Two... Three!" And with two fingers from each hand, disconnected the sensor blocking discs and pulled them away, allowing Azha to quickly reconnected the new leg with the wires that were left peeking out of the space for the limb. With just a couple clicks, the feeling returned, and with some careful wiggling, the leg was put in place.
"Alright kiddo. You know the drill." Hafiz smiled, carefully turning off the disks in his hands and setting them aside. "Wiggle that little foot."
It was slow, the feeling being back making the child a little stunned, especially after the brief moment of pain that came with the sensor disconnect and then the sudden feeling of sensation that... didn't hurt, and wasn't really strange. There was a little twitch, then a slow wiggle. The foot rotated on the joint, then flexed as if to walk, testing the range of motion.
"Yeah! Good job kiddo! Alright now move your foot up like you're gunna kick yourself in the butt!"
"Papa, I no kick me!" Scraps giggled.
"Come on, gotta see if your leg can bend! Remember doing that with your arms?"
"Oh... is... okies." The child moved the limb a little faster this time, bending their leg to move their foot closer to their body. Azha hummed and reached out, gently rubbing at the joints.
"Little stiff, but that's from the lack of use. It'll get easier once you walk around. And for that to happen... Next leg!" She giggled as the tail chirped louder, happy and excited.
The process repeated, and the left leg was checked out. Azha smiled a little bit as she moved out of the way and pulled out her phone, then took Hafiz's when it was offered. Both were readied to record.
"Alright kiddo." The child was settled at the edge of the couch, and carefully their hands were taken. "Slow, right?"
"Yis... okies..." There were nervous chirps from the tail, but slowly they were brought to the floor and helped to stand. The recording would show the legs holding them up, but wobbling as the child hadn't ever stood before.
"Careful... One foot up.... then down..." The proud smile of the child's father was clear as day in the video as the little one took their first steps. The recording ending on happy and excited giggles as they child stood on their own, having let go of Hafiz's hands.
Scraps settled in for a cuddle as Azha closed up the case that had held the legs, allowing Hafiz to send the video to a couple specific people. "You wanna send to Spectre right? And Miss Alex? I'll send to Cassidy and Tera."
"Deal! And then we can fix that visor after a short rest."
(If you read Finally Home you will recognize the opening portion of the clip a little. Mo's New Beginnings aren't required for this read but you are welcome to read it. The video sent is after the {===} break in the story. This is basically part 3 to the series of things I wanted to write with the end of the thread with Scraps uvu)
It takes time to make things. Hafiz knew this, in fact most drones did. Hack appeared to be an outlier, or something of the like.
Whatever the case, Hafiz smiled a little as he stepped back from the object he’d been spending time working on here and there. His child looked over from the box they had decided they were going to guard, green eyes blinking a little as they looked at their Papa, and then to the vessel. Mo was settled nearby as well, one hand gently holding the necklace that his Fiancee had given him in return to match the engagement gift he’d given. The white Althea flower in the center of a pink heart made him smile to no end.
“Almost done?” Mo looked a little happy, eyes glancing over the tiny vessel. It was definitely space-worthy. Hafiz had used what he’d learned from Uzi to build it from what could be recovered from the mess that they’d had to let go of. Not before managing a picture with the poor thing, though. It was not the ship’s fault the initial builder didn’t care about… anything.
“Yeah. Just gotta fill with fuel, program the flight path, and load up what we were going to send.” Hafiz sighed a little, feeling bad they couldn’t send a little more… but, it did make sense why. Smaller was better for travel. It could avoid more debris, make more fine adjustments on the way, and obviously make a lot less of a flashy entry into an atmosphere. Hafiz got busy with programming the flight path as Mo took his cue to move and get the fuel to add in.
“Want me to do that so you can handle the cargo?” The steps entering the workspace were heard clearly, and the drones turned their heads to see the human that had offered her own hand in the work. The Disassembly Drone that had been with her was missing from her company at the moment, but she would likely return.
“Oh, nah. I think I can do this much Miss Alex, thank you though.” Hafiz returned to the screen, humming a little as the human seemed to shrug and help out Mo instead.
It took another hour, making sure the path was right and the fuel was properly allocated and the cargo was secure, before they were bringing the little vessel out to the actual space port on the planet. Paperwork was handed over, a scan was done, and it was taken off to the launch pad it would leave from. The four followed, the human with an eager skip in her step as she was fond of newly built things getting sent into the sky. Especially for good reasons.
The launch went flawlessly, leaving Hafiz to smile and hug Scraps as the child whispered ‘Yis.’
{===}
The video starts, showing the ship entering the atmosphere. It’s clearly day, and the sight seems to be from inside a vehicle.
“And there’s the three adult men and one child returning home.” The voice is clear, behind the camera as the vehicle stops moving and a door is opened. “Wisp, take the camera so I can use the umbrella for the little passenger.”
“You’d think that was your kid.” The joking tone from the maroon haired female that’s in sight for a moment before the camera switches hands is clear. The voice behind the camera, belonging to a drone with mint hair, blue eyes, and a soft blue dress, replied as she grabbed a large looking umbrella.
“Oh ha-ha.” The door was closed behind her. “I’m the kid’s pediatrician. Of course they’re mine.” It was said matter-of-factly. There was no response as the camera panned to watch the way the ship landed, the one leg snapping and startling the two females before the one with mint hair ran up to the exposed door that soon opened.
“Hafiz! Are you okay!? Holy crap!” The female voice was clear a shadow falling in view of the open door.
The camera didn’t catch the conversation that followed, though it did catch the female wiggling a little bit in excitement. “Oh my gosh that is so cute, did I really hear that?” she sounded like she was smiling, leaning in and holding the open umbrella to cover the emerging child. “Come on little one! Stay under the umbrella!” She encouraged as the little one crawled out carefully, tail looking around once they were out, there was a tear in the band shirt that Tera had put the child in. She picked them up carefully. “Oh, look at you! Did someone give you a new shirt? And fix your glass?”
“Mmm!” The child seemed happy, the tail opening its mouth as it curled around their neck to stare at the female that held them. From the ship crawled Hafiz with one arm in a sling, dragging Hack while Mo was pushing the bound drone from inside to out.
“Uh… what’s up with-”
“Turned into a worm for crimes against me and my child.” Hafiz shrugged, as if that was the most normal way to say anything at all. Hack seemed to want to protest, but all that he could do was squirm a little bit as Wisp stepped up. “Oh… Hey Wisp.”
The voice that held the camera responded. “You know you’ll need to do a de-brief? I know you had Azha send in that report, but-”
“I know I know… Did you get what I sent after the adoption filing and the ration increase?”
“Uh… maybe? I-”
“WISP!” Mo was heard as he crawled out, eyes wide as he spotted his maroon-haired ex. She herself was a bit startled, the camera moving a little bit before it was taken by the blue haired drone.
“Mo?! Is this where you’ve been?” She helped him stand, a worried look reaching her face. “What happened t-”
“Not important!” Hafiz moved to take the child from his friend as she held the umbrella over their heads. Mo dropped to one knee, causing wide eye-lights from the other adults and causing Hack to wiggle in an attempt to get free. “The day you broke up with me, I was going to ask this! I wanted to tell you that I think you’re amazing! You’re beautiful and smart and your laugh makes my core pick up until I feel like I might shut down!” Wisp was blushing as he spoke, looking over her shoulder once to see the smug expression of Azha, and the soft smile from Hafiz as he held his child. Looking back to Mo, she could see the tears on his visor. “I… I love everything about you and I never want to go home knowing I’d be alone ever again! Will you marry me!?” A box was pulled out of his pocket and opened.
Wisp stared a long moment at the man before her with so much hope in his eyes. Her own softened a bit, and she reached out to gently caress his cheek.
“How about… You get yourself cleaned up, rest properly with some food… and ask me again then?” A moment of worry reached his face before she bent down more to lay a soft kiss on his lips, earning a giddy and kind of dazed hum before she pulled back.
Mo’s smile was a little dopey, the box carefully closed as he stared up at the woman he was so smitten with. “O-okay… yeah ok…”
“And here I thought he was just going to ask her to date him again.” Hafiz commented before the scene changed.
Hafiz was in the shot, arm out of the sling it had been in. He’d clearly had a proper night sleep and cleaned up. The scene appeared to be from him sitting at a desk in a bedroom, most likely his own. “So we made it home, as the previous clip should show you… I don’t know, Wisp and Azha wanted to do the editing for this.” He looks a little amused by the thought. “Right now, Scraps is sleeping. They’re going to get proper treatment, and some of that might be explained next. I’m working on building what you probably found this in. I did say I had to repay you right?” He laughs a little before leaning in to turn off the camera. “So enjoy some home life stuff I guess?”
The view shifts to the little drone wrapped in a large fluffy towel, the mint-haired drone from before gently patting their much cleaner hair dry to reveal the soft powder blue that seemed to be the natural color. Their eyes are closed while this happens. “So repairing that little bit was tough.”
“Azha you’re a miracle worker.” Hafiz’s voice is clear behind the camera.
“No, I’m a medically trained drone with childcare knowledge.” She waves a finger as she finishes up. “Ok little one! What do we say?”
“Is… Yis!” Their tail wags as they look from Azha and her now rather dirty towel to the camera held by Hafiz. One arm raised from the towel, the item moving to show a noticeable lack of a left arm, and some glowing green device in the socket instead.
“Now you’re not dirty anymore!” The camera moved closer and the child stuck their tongue out while blinking directly into it. “Wanna show them your room?”
“Is… who?” Scraps tilted their head.
“Your friends! This is gunna get sent so they can see!” Azha’s words seemed to make the child gasp and their tail pulled something over. The shirt that Tera had dressed them in, the rip mended now. A moment was taken for the child to get it on before they set off out of the bathroom, Hafiz following as they eagerly waited before wandering into the room that was so clearly for them.
The bed being some kind of kid’s loft size with the bottom turned into a cave with a curtain attachment was cute, and they seemed very happy. The camera followed them in where they showed their mess of pillows, a couple blankets of green and blue, and a brand new navy blue bat plushy.
“They realized they left the toy you gave them behind by accident.” Hafiz explained as Scraps hugged the toy. “They were upset so I went out to see if I could find something that worked… Guess your toy has a brother now.” He joked as the child let their tail cover it with a blanket before wandering out the other side. They don’t seem to want to move far, showing just the toybox for a moment before the scene changes as they try pouncing at Hafiz.
The next view is of the child’s room in daylight, the child secure in someone’s lap out of the sun as a human female and a disassembly drone work on the lack of windows. It’s hard to hear them, but it’s not hard to hear Mo speak.
“Ok so you want a story and…”
“Mhm!”
“But what else?”
“No.”
“Oh just a story?”
“Yis.”
“Ok ok.” The camera moves and shows Hafiz walking up with some tools.
“Mo, don’t play with that, you’re babysitting remember?”
“I am! They’re just so well behaved!” The section cuts off.
The camera is on a tripod, or at least secure in place as it looks at Hafiz with the two wooden boats in front of him. There’s no paint.
“Alright kiddo, whatcha got?” He looks at the child sitting on the floor barely in sight on his other side. The tail holds up a paper with crayon on it. “Oh… wow that’s cool… Ok yeah. I get it, you want them to be the same huh?” Scraps being the one with the idea to have their papa paint the boats with a really cool storm scene with glow in the dark lightning was probably rather sweet.
“Yis! Is… A.K… and is Boat!” Hafiz chuckled before looking at the camera.
“I think we’ll work on his L’s so he can stop calling your son Bolt a Boat.”
“Boat good! A.K. good! Best!” Hafiz laughs at the declaration from the young drone before he gets a pot of purple paint ready and the scene cuts off.
“Heya! Azha here!” The mint-haired female smiles at the camera with happy blue eye-lights. “I didn’t wanna make this too long, you guys are probably doing a lot of important stuff, but I thought you’d like some of the cute moments. And definitely not something liiiiiike-” The edited cut is a focused shot of Hack from the landing trapped as a ductape worm, wriggling angrily before it cuts to a photo of a pair of guards sitting next to him, one doing a peace sign. Another clip follows, the drone dragged out of the vehicle and toward a rather sturdy looking building as he protests nothing had been done that was wrong. He shuts up when one mentions ‘illegal ship launch’. It cuts back to Azha, looking overly pleased with herself. “That. Aaaanyway.” She taps her hands on the desk. “I’m including contact info in case you wanna harass Hafiz or me about the little fella. Scraps is their official name, they insisted because it’s from ‘Papa’.” She smiles brightly. “Thanks for that by the way. He gets so flustered still. I’ll toss in some pictures.” She winks before the video finally ends.
OC LORE POST? Little bit. Mind you this is written with less inspiration and more a need to get something down as I work some bugs out in my brain. BUT YAY. Need to get used to tagging too hmmmmm.
When the cup just kinda detached itself from the handle of the mug of hot coffee, Hafiz knew it was gunna be a Day. His white eye-lights stared at the liquid filled thing on his fold out table, then the partial ring of ceramic that was left in his hand.
“Fantastic.” The dry tone was accompanied by a tired look from the eyes on his visor and a frown on his lips as he let himself pick up the warm mug and down what he could before setting it aside. That could be fixed with the proper type of glue later. For now… He had a to do list. A change out of his pajama bottoms and into his usual black tank top and black shorts was all that was really needed before he was out the door with his keys.
First the supply run, which was more of a supply stroll. The building he lived in was close enough to one of the Supply Centers that the trip was just kinda… walk down the street, cross a couple, go in and find what he needed. The walk was nice and calming, the few towering buildings around gave the city some atmosphere as he went. The squabbling of some birds above and the passing chatter of a group returning from what he himself was out to do was all that really filled the air. It was a nice and sort of calm day.
Maybe the weird cup thing was just… a weird cup thing?
That thought stayed through the day, past the cleaning and the brief bit of work, and into the little favor asked of him by his friend. The little favor making him stop in at his apartment, needing his usual backpack for supplies and an empty sports bag for what he needed to collect. Armed with a bag full of snacks and a few emergency medical supplies, he headed out of the city’s limits as the sun began to set, thinking about the reaction he might get.
Thoughts of the drone slipped away as he looked at the area, taking out his pen-light to peek around as the day grew darker. A hand was placed on the trunk of a carefully inspected tree before that feeling was back in full force.
After all, who expected to find a dead child in the woods?
Or… sort of dead? The blaring red of Fatal Error switched to a clear bright green set of closed eyes, the damaged glass of the core barely seen behind two objects stuck in the chest of the small drone. A shirt, far too large for the body in a faded threadbare maroon color, was torn open and caught on a low-hanging branch. The cracked visor showed they didn’t wake up, though the steam coming off of the small body… Were they overheating? That shouldn’t be possible-
“Help. It.” The sport bag full of rocks was almost dropped as Hafiz jumped, the pen light turned toward the voice that spoke.
Three yellow eyes stared from under the shirt portion stuck on the branch, the dark almost black green of the… thing with a mouth seemed to be reforming? It too was smoking lightly, almost as if something had set it aflame. The mouth opened, weak feminine voice speaking again.
“Help… It…” The yellow flickered, overtaken by green and filling the area with silence and the hiss of repairing metal and organic matter.
“Uh… Ok this might be happening.” Kids were… uncommon. Most drones in the city didn’t seem to feel the need to make ‘families’ in the traditional sense. As such he probably knew of like… what, two in his settlement? This one might count now though…
With careful hands, the shirt was removed from the branch with minimal material loss, though the fact most of it seemed to just kind of… disintegrate… that was a bad sign right? Like yeah, people wore stuff until it fell apart, but this was beyond that. He shook his head, sticking the light in his mouth and leaning forward. The moment he got much closer made him realize that yeah… the little one was probably overheating and too damaged to do much about it. Hafiz shook his head, taking off his backpack to pull out the canteen of oil, moving through the brush to get to the child’s head.
“Come on… Maybe you can-” Carefully moving the little drone’s head seemed to get a look, and then a low hiss came from their little body, teeth bared in a weak and threatening manner. It made Hafiz nearly drop them, but determination to help outweighed the startled fear that rose up. “J-just have some… come on.” A bit of oil was carefully splashed onto the little drone’s cheek, their tongue peeking out to lick as a reaction before a small hand was holding the arm with the canteen far too tight and yanking it down to the little mouth.
There was a light crunch as the container was bitten into, teeth catching one of Hafiz’ fingers and making the adult wince before the sound of the oil being drained from the container was caught. At least that could be fixed. Azha was pretty skilled with the whole ‘doctor’ thing.
A crunch brought Hafiz to look at the small drone, the container being eaten now, and quite frankly, Hafiz was fine to let go. In doing so, his own arm was released, now hosting a rather painful warp from the hand of the child and a missing finger cap. That was something to handle later, though. For now, he had a child to… rescue? Help?
“Alright. You can eat that, and I…” There was a low hiss as Hafiz picked the small drone up, the side that was against the ground revealing wear and more physical damage as the child was carefully maneuvered to avoid the severe damage from touching the older drone. “Ok, yes, you don’t like this. It’s kind of important though. I just need to get you somewhere I can hide you…” Well that didn’t sound good. “Uh… Help you? Yeah that’ll… Alright this is not how I expected today to go.”
Thankfully, at the sunset hour, most drones were either in their homes or out at a gathering place. The streets got to be fairly quiet, especially this far out, but getting closer to his apartment had Hafiz move slightly slower and look around a lot more.
Thankfully the child was not prone to making sound, other than the hiss of whatever was happening to their tail or some injuries. It sped up after the oil was shared, and Hafiz tucked that fact away for later.
After the fumbling with his door with full arms that is. Trying to unlock a door with his arms full of hurt strange mystery child was not something he ever imagined he would need to do, but here he was as he kicked the door closed as gently as he could to not alert the neighbors and set the child on his couch to close the windows. A grinding sound caught his attention, looking back to see the child working on pushing themselves up with self-repairing arms. Now that he could see the damage properly…
“Holy shit kid…” A nearly smashed core, dried leaves and a couple small sticks stuck between the glass and some weird fleshy membrane, the open cavity drooling oil and… was that blood? Did this kid have flesh somehow? Hafiz stared in horror as the tiny drone tried to take up a threatening position, that tail that had spoken earlier being smacked into the back of the couch and sending a splatter of blood right into the kitchenette.
“I just- ugh.” Ok. More cleaning later. For now… For now he had to work with what he could.
If you asked if he would find himself, hours after he was supposed to be hunting specific types of rocks and plant samples for his friend, instead caring for an injured and feral looking child… He’d have said you needed your head checked. Sure, now he thought he needed the same, but that wasn’t the point here. The point was, he managed to get the child to let him near enough that he could remove the leaves and twigs from the glass around the small drone’s core. The fact there wasn’t something in the way seemed to let a little damage heal, but not all of it for some reason?
Hafiz put the debris aside for later tossing out as he looked at the tiny drone, now curling up and glaring at him.
“Can’t talk, shirt too big, bad coordination… I really hope I’m not coming to the conclusion that I’m slowly coming to.” Hafiz sighed and moved, earning a new hiss. “Just… going to sleep. You know, sleep?” God it felt… weird to try communicating with the kid. They seemed to barely understand, and without a voice, other than what the yellow eyed tail said… Hafiz wasn’t comfortable calling them anything other than they or them. Or kid of course. For now he had to send a text and get some rest. Another day might shed some light on the world, right?
The phone was put away, and he sighed as he flopped onto the bed in his room. Another day… another day for whatever this whole thing was.
Maybe more than a day.
At least more than one day until the little feral child managed to get out, fed and somewhat repaired enough that they could manage to slip out the door when Hafiz was returning from a supply run.
Thankfully it was night when the event happened, and the only real issue that happened was that it looked like someone had been mugged when he caught the small one and brought the kid back to the apartment. It resulted in some damage to his arms, but once he had the child settled in with a large can of oil, he attended to it.
“Alright, what the hell have you gotten into with this?” The sound of hissing followed the door closing, Hafiz looking up from where he had been about to pick up his phone to see the friend he was about to call standing shocked in front of the closed door.
“Hey Azha.” He smiled a little bit, relaxing before coming up to try and convince the child she was not a threat.
Azha seemed to wear rather plain clothes. A frill-sleeved dress that looked a bit torn near the bottom hem at her knee area held an off white color. It contrasted a little with the dark visor, blue eye-lights staring at the calming damaged child with a bit of worry on her expression. Short mint-green hair was brushed out of her face.
“What the hell-”
“It’s a long story… look she’s ok! No hurt. Just move a little slow alright? I think they’re… uh… no shit traumatized but…” Hafiz shrugged. “Remember when I said I’d need to go rock hunting another day? Well… this is kinda why.”
“You found a…”
“Nearly dead child in the woods on my way to get those rock samples. Just didn’t really know how to say anything about it.” Hafiz blushed and rubbed the back of his head, the short black hair ruffling a little more with the action as a bit of oil dripped off his arm. “Or… yanno, what exactly is going on with them. I mean…”
“Yeah I notice the tail. Clearly organic in make up, and the damage that shows some kind of… flesh? On the inside?” Azha tilted her head and she moved at a distance to see if she could get a better look. The blue eyes narrowed a little, and she huffed. Not easy without being close, and the way the child was growling low…
“Well. I know what I have to do.” She offered a little smile to Hafiz. “Mind if I stay over for a bit?”
The man blushed, a little alarmed as she walked up slowly to look at his arm.
“Stay here? Over here? But I- But they- but you-”
“ ‘Yes Azha, I have room if you’re ok with helping me out!’ Well no problem Fizzy. What are friends for? Now let me handle your arms, and then I’ll get some stuff from my place, and you can set me up… in your room since this little guy clearly has the couch?”
Hafiz stumbled over his words as she made a quick repair before almost skipping out of the door, leaving him with a hissing child and a blush on his face.
