The group - right now made up by Lucas, Johanna, Sider, Samuel, Hawkins, Cecilia, Jon, Haru, Tim, Karyn and Brittany (though more were to come) - made its way to the place where the giant clockwork girl was.
They reached Jeff Jr.
"Uhm... Help a buddy out, Sam." - Said Lucas, as she flew to the key behind Jeff's back. Samuel took the cue and helped Lucas turn it all the way. Jeff sat up with a start.
"Wh-what happened? Where's daddy?"
"Relax, kid. That clockwork wasn't your father. In point of fact, it was nobody. We'll find him. Sider, got any easy way to locate the man?" - Said Lucas.
"Deduction." - Said Sider - "A wave of, shall we call it, abnormality is what allowed those beings into the other clockwork in the first place. I know for a fact that none of the other scientists were willing to look into Jeff personally, for the one part my Siderscope didn't reach. And if said part was covered in uncertainty, with this energy that blocked even my sensors... Cecilia, could you detect for a heartbeat there?"
Cecilia nodded.
"Did it. Yes, he's in. Close to where her left kidney would be."
"He's inside her. He waltzed inside her to see what makes her tick. Is that what you're telling me?" - Asked Lucas, not caring to hide the disgust in her voice.
"Pretty much." - Said Sider.
"Okay..." - Said Karyn, gently - "Jeff, your father is fine. We'll need to open you to get him back, okay? But everything will be fine."
The group made its way to the warehouse, where they found the key to Jeff.
"Hello..." - Said a translucent woman, coming out of a nearby wall.
"Sandra? What... Huh, so the wave had this effect on you." - Said Sider - "Not to worry. I can solve it, but you'll have to give me a moment. Is everyone else, well... Decent?"
"Yes. Brandon became an Asian woman, though she seems to like it, Frank is invisible and Alice, well... Ask for yourself."
Alice, a cute redheaded scientist, walked up to Sider. She mouthed something.
A second after she finished, the words "Seems there's a delay when I speak!" sounded off.
"Uhm, I can help you guys out, save for Brandon..." - Said Sider - "But it will take a moment after we're done here."
"It's okay! I rike it!" - Said a cute Asian woman in an oversized lab coat.
"Uhm... Okay. Was it only you guys?" - Asked Lucas.
"Yes, we were the only ones here when the event occurred." - Said Sandra Tesla - "And thank you, Sider... But why are you even wanting to help us?"
"Because I don't want you guys to go through life with major inconveniences just because you didn't listen." - Said Sider, as if it was obvious.
Sandra blushed.
"Thanks, man." - Said a voice out of nowhere, which Lucas presumed was Frank's.
"Okay. I got the key." - Said Cecilia - "Now, sweetie, open the hatch for me, okay?" - She said, gently.
Jeff's hatch opened and Cecilia dove in, following Sider's orientations through her in-built radio. She finally gasped as she reached and got Geoffrey Aurelius Sr., coming back with him - who was two feet tall at the moment.
"Well, well. If it isn't Geoffrey Baggins." - Said Lucas - "In a tutu. And NO ONE has a cell phone camera ready. Damn!"
Sider typed on his keyboard. A beam of light came off of it and Geoffrey Sr. was normal-sized again.
The tutu remained, however.
"Daddy! You're okay!" - Said Jeff Jr.
"Who are you people?" - Asked Geoffrey - "What happened and where is the machine?"
"The machine is now a bunch of scrap metal. We had to stop it from attacking the city." - Said Samuel, as gently as he could muster.
"What? I invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in that!" - Said Geoffrey - "If you destroyed it, I will recoup my investment, then..."
"One, your child is okay in spite of what you did to her, two, your thing nearly destroyed the city!" - Said Lucas.
"You'll have to prove it in court if you don't want to pay for the damages." - Said Geoffrey, calmly.
Lucas was about to reply - colorfully - when a car pulled over. Out of it came a woman that - due changes nonwithstanding - looked a bit like Jeff Jr. looked now.
"Jeff! Are you all right???" - She asked.
"Mommy!" - Said Jeff, crouching to better see her mother.
"So that's your change? Your father said you bacame an uncontrollable thing that could attack me!" - She said.
"Is that so?" - Asked Lucas, matter-of-factly.
Too matter-of-factly - Thought Hawkins.
"Jeff! Are you okay?" - The pitch was a bit mechanical and higher. Ricky came out of the car with Belle, Jeff's mother having given the two a ride when they told her where they were headed.
"Ricky? Belle? I... I thought you didn't want to see me again!" - Said Jeff.
Ricky decided against piping in for this moment. Belle spoke up.
"What? What on earth made you think that???"
"Uhm, daddy said you were angry at me, 'cuz I reminded you of your own imperfect forms..." - Said Jeff.
"What???" - Asked Ricky and Belle.
"So, you lied and kept your daughter from any other contact while you tested on her?" - Asked Hawkins.
"I did nothing illegal, agent." - Said Geoffrey - "You and your group, however, did destroy my property, for which I will seek legal compensation."
Jon felt something. She instinctively moved away from Lucas and pulled Karyn and Tim a few feet over.
"My lawyer will hear of this, Geoffrey!" - Said Jeff's mother.
"So? I have a team of lawyers dedicated to ensuring Jeff remains with me. And as for destroying the city..." - Said Geoffrey - "What I see here, agent, is a bunch of changed rampaging and destroying my property without it having made its way to the city. It is what the news networks will say. By the time I am done, people will be screaming bloody murder for laws to protect us humans from the changed. And I will have recouped my investment."
"Chega." - Lucas muttered.
"What was that?" - Asked Geoffrey, faux-politely.
"I SAID 'ENOUGH'!" - Lucas shouted. She then looked at him and went on, in a very composed tone, after the outburst - "You are scum, Geoffrey Aurelius Senior. You hurt your daughter, you kept her from contact with her mother and her friends, you nearly destroyed a city and, instead of thanking the people that saved you, you are threatening to sue them. You are willing to attack the civil rights of the changed to try and get back your precious money that you invested in trying to make a 2.0 version of your son! That's why I said 'Enough', Geoffrey. Because you can't expect to toy with the lives of everyone else and live to see it through."
"Hawkins, you don't think she'll..." - Said Cecilia.
Lucas drew her sword, making it quite clear she was about to.
"You'll have plenty of time to ponder that on the other side." - She said, getting ready to charge at him.
"DON'T!" - Shouted Jeff - "He's my father!"
"So are countless people whose lives he made, is making and would make into Hell." - Said Lucas, calmly walking towards Geoffrey Sr., who was backed up against a wall.
Lucas walked slowly towards him.
"Lucas, don't do this." - Said Hawkins.
"What, Nate?" - Spat Lucas - "If I kill him I'll be jailed? I won't, and you know it. If I kill him I will be just like him? Unlikely."
"No." - Said Hawkins - "But if you kill him, you will be less like you."
"Less like me? Hawkins, what exactly ever made you think that I wouldn't do this kind of guy in, given half the chance?" - Said Lucas, pointing the sword at Jeff Sr., who by now had figured out what to expect if he tried to escape. Hawkins saw her sword-wielding wrist was white.
Keep her talking - Thought Hawkins.
"I know you and I know what you do with power, Lucas. That's what. You're right that you wouldn't be arrested. You're right that killing him won't make you his equal. But killing him will destroy something in you, and you know that. It's why you didn't do it yet."
"The only reason I didn't do it yet, Hawkins, is that I respect you enough to listen..." - Said Lucas.
"Lady Lucas..." - Said Brittany - "Surely Excalibur does not deserve to be soiled with this man's blood?"
So that's why she calls Lucas Lady... To remind Lucas of her position... - Thought Samuel.
"Lucas. I won't lie. I'd shed no tears whatsoever for this guy. But she would." - Samuel Said.
Lucas looked at the face of the giant girl, Jeff. To Jeff, this man didn't represent a threat to the civil rights of the changed, a horrible, horrible human being that deserved whatever Lucas could dish out at him, or even D&D; concepts like Lawful Evil. To Jeff, this man, this rat bastard, was only her father. Her deeply, deeply flawed father, but still.
Which meant Lucas now had the choice between dealing with this some other way and killing a man, no matter how much he had done to earn a sword to his gut, in front of his daughter.
He called her it. - She thought.
Not your choice to make. - She thought back to herself.
"You owe your daughter your existence, vermin." - Lucas finally said to Geoffrey Sr. Then, her self-control returning very slowly, sheathed her sword.
"It shows a lot of hubris, angel, that you are willing to attack me in front of law enforcement." - Said Geoffrey Sr., feeling safe that he would not be attacked.
"Hubris." - Said Lucas - "A funny thing, hubris. I have a lot of it, you're right... So much so that I once went outside, outside everything, I very nearly destroyed the Universe in the process, and, in the end, I ended up getting to know a lot of stuff. But I corrected my own mistake, and I'm not like you. I do not fancy myself so important, so great, so magnificent that I should symbolically live forever AT THE COST OF HAVING A BUNCH OF MENGELES POKE AND PROD A KID! I went out because I wanted to know. And you know what? I found out a lot of stuff. I didn't try to build a mockery of life and I didn't nearly destroy a city in the process because of a feeling of entitlement. I touched the face of the gods, and do you know what I did with this power? I protected the world and countries like mine own from people like you, you son of a bitch."
"You do not have the right to address me like that." - Said Geoffrey.
"Shut it." - Said Lucas - "I did my best to EARN all of this, and I'm still doing it. You still breath because of me, you idiot. And a LOT of people in Lakeside are still breathing because I and a bunch of others came here to clean up the mess you made. Let me be perfectly clear. Yes, I had to deal with hubris. Yes, I made mistakes. But not a one of them was ever described IN A MOTHERFUCKING MARY SHELLEY BOOK! You can hire however many lawyers you like, Geoffrey Aurelius Senior, and you can have your precious media say anything. It's your right. However, they depend on rhetoric to make their cases, a skill I will call in a favor and make sure they all lack, for your case and only for your case. I can and will make sure no lawyer you hire shows any more skill to get you off the hook than Lionel Hutz. Likewise, your media network won't convince anyone. Because, Geoffrey, yes, I have hubris. But I don't let it control me, and when I visit it, I AM IN CONTROL and there is NOTHING I CANNOT DO, HAD I CAUSE!"
"You cannot do this." - Said Geoffrey Snr., unwilling to believe Lucas was able to pull such a stunt.
"Hubris..." - Said Lucas - "...is to try and tell me what I can or cannot do. When I'm done, a teenager playing a Phoenix Wright game will be able to beat you in court. A crazy old man with a police radio will have more media influence than you. And before you condemn me, know that I tried to avoid having to do this. You are done. Within this month, your ratings will fall, you will lose any and all cases related to this or Jeff and, if you don't play your cards really, really right, you will go bankrupt."
Lucas willed a rift open and stepped through, without another word.
"Hermes. I need to call in that favor. I really didn't want to have to do it, but..." - She said, to nowhere. She knew the god had heard and felt the god would do it, however.
She then sat on the basalt sands, overlooking the Earth, thought back to what she very nearly had done, hugged her legs and began to cry.
