Chapter Text
“You are destined for greatness.” The door of the small blue escape pod closes on a M’ega and Mynyn. On two infants filled with a sense of purpose.
As the pod hurtles through space - as the infants view the black hole consuming the planets of the Gloupunkt System - the next thing to catch their attention is a shimmering golden refraction of light, ahead of them. In the time it takes to travel through cold, empty space, the young M’ega looks towards the sparkle, always ahead of them, as though seeking a light to lead the two to a new home.
One beautiful thought can last as long as memory. One more splash of paint can mar a masterpiece. One added feather can tip a scale.
One second can alter a story completely. Of the many seconds, many factors, in the events leading up to this story… two instances are paramount. In this new story, in the tale that once told of MegaMind and MetroMan, one more occurrence is necessary - to make this story a happy one, overall.
Lady Scott stood up. She stood up, and then the chair upon which she’d been sitting was sent flying away - as a small golden object blasted through the front wall of the Scott’s mansion, the back wall, and went skidding across their lavish backyard until denting the back fence. As she stood still in shock, and her husband fumbled his newspaper, a blue object slid gently across the floor, settling neatly beneath their elaborate christmas tree...as though belonging there to begin with.
Lady Scott, quick witted as she truly was, recovered first from the surprise. She took in the ruined walls, the dropped newspaper, the unwrapped parcel that had not been there before. She took a few slightly shaky steps forward, reached beneath the tree, and the escape pod opened, sensing another lifeform. The larger infant within stared up at her with large, solemn, curious green eyes. The woman was, instantly, smitten.
“Our child,” Mrs. Scott proclaims, “This will be... our child.”
“The sky...is falling,” Mr. Scott trembles in his seat, hand to his chest. However, in that moment, his wife has only eyes for the blue bundle she lifts into her arms, noting but heedless of the fish and water filled ball clutched to the infant’s chest.
“Hello, curious one,” she coos. The baby blinks, takes in her tone of voice, and smiles a toothless grin, burbling back. The sound is somehow sibilant. The fish seems to squint up at her, into her eyes, before… nodding approvingly? What an odd day this was. The blue baby turns in her arms, lets the water ball roll into an elbow, and points to the quivering man by the next chair, babbling up at her worriedly. “What a sweet child you are.” Mrs. Scott looks then, to her husband; to his curled up, shaking new position on the floor, to the far side of his chair. She notes critically that he reaches for his newspaper, despite it all. “Father will be fine,” she promises, and the baby nods as she does. For lack of a crib, the new mother sets her child back in the pod as she goes to soothe her husband.
~~
Mrs. Scott has Mr. Scott ask the gardener to investigate the first projectile. Oddly, the gardener does not return. Day one, the Scotts do not notice.
~~
There are concerns. The Scotts’ baby is, obviously, not human. This causes some problems rather...immediately, as it were, for by the first evening and before being named, the young M’ega was running a high fever. That was manageable - calling in the family doctor, bribing her to secrecy - but this brought up more than simple parental worries. After the child recovered - and the child would recover, had to - how often would sickness occur? Was this planet a poor match for the child? There were other questions relating to alien biology, of course, the least of which by far was wondering about the child’s gender. Mr Scott shrugs as the doctor gives the parents a description of the first x-ray.
“We can ask,” Mrs. Scott consoles her spouse, “when our child is old enough to know.”
~~
Mr. Scott is perplexed, as he often is, when things don’t go according to schedule. The Scotts had left their child’s side long enough to eat what would have normally been breakfast, and to note that the gardener is not trimming the hydrangeas. When his wife gently reminds him the gardener went looking for the mysterious projectile, he points out, puzzled, that the man had been sent out two days before.
The gardener is found about fourty minutes later, missing six fingers and his left foot, shivering and muttering to himself.
“Baby… baby …” As he is carried past the Scotts on a gurney, he fixes his fevered gaze on the two of them. “ Killer baby ,” he manages, as he is lifted into the back of the ambulance. Mr Scott looks to Mrs. Scott, who quickly connects the dots. Two small projectiles. Two small passengers?
Mrs. Scott had always loved children. Had always wanted her own. Thoughts of danger did not escape her; thoughts of the gardener’s dismembered foot, thoughts of - of her little blue baby, wheezing for air, needing it, needing -
“Somewhere on our property, we have another child,” she whispers. “And likely, the child...needs... food.” Mr. Scott looked to a droplet of blood on the floor, looked to the rare sight of his visibly determined wife, and swallowed.
~~
As it turns out, the Glau child is not hard to find. Crying loudly with a soiled diaper, if not for the reddish-brown streaks on arms and abdomen, the young one would seem like a human baby. Until you looked cautiously at the infant’s mouth. Full of...so many teeth. Mrs. Scott pulls a raw steak from her purse, removes the layers of plastic, and sets it at the child’s feet. After looking up at her, pouting, sniffling, the child shoves most of the thing into a small mouth, crunching through the t-bone effortlessly. As the baby gulps down the rest of the meat, even as blood drips around chubby cheeks, Mrs. Scott coos, and reaches down to deftly remove, then replace, the soiled diaper. Lifting the Glau into her arms, she dabbed the gore from his face and showed her husband the chubby, sated baby.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” Mr. Scott, who had followed his wife blindly, took a moment to truly appreciate her earnest, beaming smile.
“Terrifying,” he admits, mumbling, in response to the infant with the flesh-filled grin. “You’re... you’re beautiful, darling.” Whenever it came to mind, he had wanted to have a family with her… if only to see her smile, just like that.
~~
The M’ega eventually recovered, as if by some miracle, as if by the power of the child’s new mother refusing to believe otherwise. After a year of sickness, in and out of consciousness, one morning Mrs. Scott was speaking to them, words of encouragement she was sure her blue baby could not hear, and the child opened beautiful green eyes and spoke a raspy ‘ollo.’ The Mynyn, who had always hissed when lifted too far away from the M’ega, then did something Mrs. Scott had never witnessed a fish do. The Mynyn answered back.
“I love you,” said the fish, repeating a phrase she’d often said herself in… in both their companies. And her baby smiled at the fish, too.
“Oh,” Mrs. Scott spoke, looking down at (her child’s pet? No, another child ,) with new eyes. Her blue baby was squeezing the sphere of water close to their chest and smiling, smiling, with the beginnings of dull infant teeth.
~~
Her fat baby, Wayne, eats and eats and eats , and is well. Blood mixed with milk, rare steaks, and - her blue baby (‘Ssyyyyx,’ they’d said, pointing to themself, ‘Syx,’) always looks a bit ill, watching him, sipping slushed baby food, mixed vegetables. Her aquatic baby, (who refuses to respond to any name given, but Syx’s odd nickname… Minion?) for the past year had eaten fish food with distaste. Now, adversely, he stares hungrily at the Glau child’s food. However, one look to the M’ega’s obvious discomfort, and the Mynyn would refuse raw meat. It wasn’t until one day he was offered cooked meat that his eating preferences were known.
Taken by a rare impulse, Mr. Scott looked up over his paper that morning to really survey his family. ...A seeming cannibal, a babbling fish, and…Syx looks back at him, smiling a soft, genuine smile.
“What are you reading?” The one year old inquires. Mrs. Scott nearly spills her drink down her shirt, shocked to hear her common phrase correctly used by their small child. Mr. Scott locks eyes with his wife, baffled, and she nods encouragingly.
“Ah...the news…”
“The news…?” Syx echos, question in their tone. And thus, uncertainly, Lord Scott began to explain newspapers and politics to his rapt audience. Eventually he forgets who he’s speaking to, lulled by the hypnotic tone of his own voice; but Lady Scott watches the scene with quiet fascination. Syx squints, tilts their head, nods… they clearly understand some of what is being said. My child, Lady Scott thinks with pride, will have a wonderful future. A blue hand moves automatically and clumsily as Syx sticks their binky into their mouth, mouthing it thoughtlessly. The gesture is so endearingly baby that the lady melts inside all over again. A new surety comes to mind. I’ll make certain of it.