Chapter Text
The Buchanan nursery had never known such chaos.
At ten in the morning, the room should have been peaceful—sunlight filtering through lace curtains, the soft hum of London traffic beyond the window, and baby Sybille peacefully napping in her crib. Instead, the air vibrated with a wail so intense that the glass in the window frames rattled in sympathy.
Sybille's tiny face had turned an alarming shade of crimson. Her fists waved frantically, and her lungs—apparently capable of generating industrial-grade decibels—showed no signs of tiring.
Standing over the crib, looking profoundly out of her depth, was a three-foot-tall cyan dragon.
Aquadramon had shifted into her Terrestrial Form—a necessary adaptation for navigating human architecture without accidentally putting claws through the drywall. Her usual webbed hands had receded into something more finger-like, and she'd lost the dorsal fin that typically made doorways a challenge. She was, however, still unmistakably a dragon.
"Small-fleshy-one," Aquadramon said, her tone characteristically blunt, "you must cease this auditory distress. The mother is resting. The big-sister is at the War Room. The neighbors are beginning to make passive-aggressive comments about the noise. You are compromising operational security."
Sybille's response was to draw in a massive breath and scream even louder.
Aquadramon's antennae twitched with stress. She reviewed her limited database of infant-care protocols. The digital archives suggested something called "peek-a-boo" as an effective distraction technique. She activated her Active Camouflage, her cyan scales bleeding into the surroundings until she was entirely translucent.
Leaning her shimmering, invisible face close to the crib, she projected her voice. "Peek... a... boooooo."
From Sybille's perspective, the dragon hadn't vanished. Instead, a terrifying distortion-effect ghost was now floating directly over her crib—a shimmering void with glowing eyes and the vaguely menacing outline of a reptile.
The crying stopped instantly.
Sybille's eyes went wide, locked in a state of absolute, paralytic terror. Her tiny body went rigid. And then, with the peculiar intensity that only infants can achieve, she screamed with her mind.
The empathic resonance—a lingering side-effect of the serum link she shared with her older sister—detonated like a psychic bomb.
Deep within the IDA headquarters, in the War Room's training simulation deck, Rhonda was mid-lunge.
The hard-light projection of a Metalloid flickered before her, its arm-blade sweeping toward her exposed flank. She twisted, her training sword catching the blow, and Blaze—her Charmander partner—darted between her legs to unleash a precise Ember at the construct's knee joint.
"Good, Blaze! Now—"
Rhonda gasped.
It hit her like a physical blow: a crushing wave of inexplicable, agonizing panic that had nothing to do with the simulation. Her chest seized. Her vision swam. She grabbed at her sternum, the sword clattering from her grip.
"Blaze! Stop the simulation!" Rhonda choked out, her voice tight with fear. "Something's wrong. Sybille is... Sybille is terrified. Really terrified."
Without waiting for confirmation, Rhonda grabbed Blaze and initiated a manual teleport out of the simulation chamber.
Back in the nursery, Aquadramon's camouflage had finally flickered and failed. She materialized in her solid blue form just as Sybille's distress hit a new peak. The infant's latent telekinesis—still developing, still unpredictable—manifested violently.
A stack of diapers rocketed off the changing table and slammed into the far wall. The fluffy cloud mobile above the crib tore free from its ceiling mount and dropped directly onto Aquadramon's head. Sybille's pacifier launched from her mouth like a bullet, whistling past the dragon's ear to embed itself in the drywall.
The nursery door burst open with a resounding crash.
Rhonda skidded into the room, still clad in her combat gear, Blaze clinging to her shoulder. Her sword was already drawn, the blade humming with violet energy.
"Get away from her!" Rhonda yelled.
Aquadramon didn't move. She stood there, the fluffy cloud mobile draped absurdly over her horns, the projectile pacifier still quivering in the wall behind her.
"The small-fleshy-one is efficient at moving objects with her mind," Aquadramon observed, deadpan. "I do not think peek-a-boo is an acceptable training protocol."
"You were supposed to watch her!" Rhonda cried, sheathing her sword and rushing to the crib. "Not simulate poltergeist activity!"
She scooped the sobbing baby into her arms, immediately focusing her mind to send a wave of calming warmth through their empathic link. On her shoulder, Blaze leaned down and patted Sybille's tiny foot with a reassuring chirp.
As the baby's tears began to quiet, Aquadramon adjusted the cloud mobile on her head.
"Monitoring has ceased," she declared formally. "I shall revert to security protocols and camouflage the entire structure until the parents return. This is simpler."
Rhonda sighed, pressing her forehead against her sister's. "Please don't. Just... go make tea or something."