Elesis ignored the shout of “Go away!” as she poked her head into the Mastermind's lab. She blinked, getting her eyes adjusted to the lighting, then her gaze locked onto the researcher.
“Did you not hear me the first time?” The Mastermind turned around angrily, his Dynamos quivering as he saw the Crimson Avenger staring at him. “....keke, what do you want?”
“Dark El, I'm not allowed to say 'happy New Year's Eve' to you?” Elesis rolled her eyes, intending to milk the opportunity presented to her by her Add, Esper. Without Esper's protection, this Add would already have blasted her.
The Mastermind's eyes narrowed. “New.... Year's.... Eve?” he asked slowly. “But....”
Elesis laughed in delight. “Oh, don't tell me you actually forgot!” she said, clapping her hands together once.
“I have better things to do with my time than wait around for a new year and my birthday, keke,” the researcher snapped.
“Kind of dropping the ball here, aren't you?” Elesis' pun was met with a blank magenta stare, and she waved it off, remembering that Esper had probably never taken any of his other forms to alternate universes. “Never mind. Happy New Year's Eve, by the way, and I'll just go take a nap now.” She closed the door, smiling, knowing full well the turmoil her words had created in the Mastermind.
=====
Add paced. Did I actually forget New Year's Day? he wondered. And after that, my birthday.... He traced the band around the back of his head, lost in thought. Before the whole slavery thing happened, Mother was always so hyped about the new year. She loved the idea that you could start over, and I remember her using the time between Christmas and New Years to prepare for my birthday. Add ran a hand through his white hair, smoothing the long, silky locks, trying and failing to shake off the memories of his last birthday before everything went to hell in a handbasket.
--flashback--
“Add! Wake up!”
Add reluctantly looked up from his book. He had been awake for the past hour, intrigued by the intricacies of quantum theory. Admittedly, physics wasn't exactly the normal subject matter for a eight-year-old boy, however, most boys Add's age didn't have his intelligence.
Light footsteps came down the hall, and someone knocked at Add's door. “Add?”
“Coming,” Add muttered, carefully marking his spot and setting the book aside. Then he got up off his bed, straightening his shirt as he walked to the door. Apocalypse, Add's favorite cat, looked up from her spot on the bed and meowed at him.
“Shush,” Add said to the kitty, and pulled open his door.
His mother was waiting outside, hand raised to knock again. As Add opened the door, she grinned and hugged him.
“Happy New Years!” she whispered into his ear. Add squirmed, like any other nearly nine-year-old male would when hugged.
“Mama! Let go!” he whined, and she did, standing straight again. She smoothed her long white braid.
“Your father and I were debating giving you one of your presents today,” she mused. “You wouldn't mind, would you?” The question was obviously rhetorical, as she started down the stairs. “Take your jacket,” she called.
Add tilted his head, confused. Why would he need a jacket? He grabbed one, though, and shrugged it on as he ran down the stairs. He almost fell at the bottom as he tripped over another one of their four cats, but righted himself in time.
“Stupid Dynamo,” he muttered at the feline, who simply meowed in reply and flopped back down at the bottom of the stairs. Dynamo was always in the way, unlike Paranoia or Doomsday. Apocalypse just followed Add around. All. The. Time. It was annoying, but endearing at the same time.
“Don't call the cat stupid,” Add's father chided him as the older scientist came out of the kitchen. “It's got less intelligence than a Nasod, which is slightly depressing.” He tossed a piece of toast to Add, who caught it. “Come on. We've got a ways to walk.”
“We have to walk?” Add whined, speed-walking to catch up with his father's pace. “But....”
“It's not that far,” Add's father chuckled. “Besides, I'm missing a couple pieces for the calculations for Nasod-agumented flight. Will you help me look for them?”
The words sank in slowly, but when Add got it, he started grinning. “We're going to your research site, Daddy?!”
“Yep,” Add's father said, smiling. “And you can pick up as many pieces you want, to experiment on.”
Add nearly danced out the door.
--flashback end--
Add shook away the memory, remembering how excited he had been when he found the completed Nasod flight calculations in the Library. Too bad his father was dead by then.
A new thought occurred to him, and he paused in his pacing. If Esper and Lusa had the same background as he did, the same memories, did that mean that they too had gone to the Return Plains on that birthday? Assuming the specific site was still there....
The door to Add's lab closed behind him as the Mastermind walked out, his six Dynamos floating in their normal spots at his waist. He had research to do.
=====
“Why the hell do you want us to help with clearing this place?” Lusa complained. The Lunatic Psyker dusted off his clothes angrily, trying to figure out where Esper was in the sparsely lit Return Plains. The Mastermind was easily visible, his white clothes showing up clearly in the moonlight. “You couldn't have done it yourself?”
His complaints fell on deaf ears, as Add used Panzer Buster to clear the stage in front of them. He put out an arm to stop Esper from moving forward.
“This way,” he said quietly, ducking to the side and weaving his way through piles of junk. Esper and Lusa exchanged puzzled looks – what was with Mastermind today? and followed.
The towers of old Nasodic parts started looking more familiar as Add navigated them. His Dynamos scanned the ground before him, reading the electronic trail he had left earlier to guide him.
Add heard Lusa curse behind him, and he rolled his eyes. Stupid berserker, always so clumsy.
“Do we have to walk?” Esper whined.
“It's not that far,” Add replied, repeating his father's words. Esper didn't recognize it, though, and a pang of doubt shot through Add. If Esper and Lusa didn't have the exact same memories as he did.....
Add's Dynamos rushed forward to shove aside a piece of metal that might have once been part of an energy generator. Add walked forward a few more steps, then stopped when he realized that Esper and Luna weren't following. “... Guys?”
He turned, to see his other two forms staring. Add had found the exact place that his father had taken him a decade ago. Or, at least, it felt like a decade to the three geniuses. They didn't count the time distortion in their ages.
“You....” Lusa's voice came out as a whisper as he took a step forward. His gloved finger gently stroked a generator, which was missing an entire side of casing.
“What pieces did you take?” Add asked softly, looking at both Lusa and Esper in turn. Lusa was the first to answer, reaching into the generator and deftly disconnecting something inside it.
“A force field that was missing a piece,” he said softly, toying with the bit of technology that he had taken from the generator. “This piece.” The tech got turned over in his black-gloved hands, and Add pretended not to notice as Lusa blinked away sentimental tears. “Kkkkh, if I had known what I know now, I could have fixed that damn thing,” he growled.
“Esper?” Add prompted, switching his gaze from the furiously blinking Lusa to the stunned time-traveler. “What did you take?”
Esper stood still for a couple more seconds before moving, taking hesitant steps toward where Lusa's generator stood. He went to his knees beside it, Dynamos spreading out to scan the area.
“The Al-deprived remnants of a Nasod cat,” he said quietly. “I wanted to investigate its abilities, keke. But....”
Add raised an eyebrow as Esper went silent. “But?” he prompted.
Esper's head turned into his shoulder, the two metal plates at his shoulders squishing closer in a protective gesture. “But it sent out a mental ray when I was experimenting. It hit Paranoia, and she started running around and never stopped until Mama decided to catch her and anesthetize her. Paranoia died because I was stupid, kekeke.”
Add's mind raced back to what he remembered of the cat called Paranoia. She had been a quiet black cat, who slipped around the house a lot and liked sleeping in weird places. Sort of like Esper, actually, minus the creepy laughter.
The three were silent for a moment, before Lusa broke the quiet. “Mastermind? What did you take?”
Add looked over to where a small niche, created by the protective sides of two broken Nasods, was unfilled. “I.... I simply took data,” he muttered.
“Data on what?” Lusa asked. “Come on, we shared our stories. You get to do the same.”
“Yeah, MM,” Esper chipped in, trying (and failing) to regain the normal chirp in his voice.
Add sighed, his Dynamos ranging away from him as they flitted over the old pieces of Nasods. “Kkkkh. It was data on.... merging carbon-based organisms with Nasods,” he said quietly. His hand raised, tracing the band attached to the back of his head. “It was what gave me the idea to connect my Dynamos to my mind, actually, a few years ago.”
“Better than Paranoia dying,” Lusa said. “Hey, did we all name our best skills after the cats?”
Esper didn't reply, but his silence was a response in itself.
Add shrugged. “Apocalypse would always follow me around – I don't know if it was the same way for you guys. When I created Appy, it was meant for the same purpose. Appy tends to be more useful than the cat was, though, kahaha!” He laughed.
The tension and sad atmosphere was broken by Add's laugh. Though the Mastermind's laugh was still crazy, it sounded the least insane of the three. The three geniuses stayed where they were until the sun came up on their birthday, reminiscing about the past.
