Chapter 2.11 - Party Time, Part I

“Um… Dad?”

“Yes, Jade?”

“What’s going on in here?”

“Beckett didn’t tell you?”

“I haven’t seen Beckett since this morning. What is there to tell?”

“Beckett wants to have a party for your birthday. You can invite people too, of course.”

Jade was confused. A party? Not just a little get together with the family and some of Dad’s friends from work, but an actual party? They’d never had a birthday party. And… “Does Alaric know about this?”

Her dad was entirely focused on decorating. “Not yet, but I can’t imagine he’d have a problem with it. Like I said, you can all invite people if you want.”

“The only person I want to invite is Eve, but you should probably talk to Alaric before you do too much more decorating.”

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“A party? What kind of party?”

“Like I said, a birthday party. I’m letting you all invite up to two people apiece, because I don’t think our house will hold much more than that. Beckett’s bringing a couple of his friends from soccer, and Jade just wants to invite Eve. Who do you want me to add to the invite list?”

Alaric was extremely annoyed. He hadn’t wanted a party, and he couldn’t stand Beckett’s soccer friends. They thought they were better than the mere plebeians like him, and why? Just because they could kick a ball around on a field? That didn’t make them special. And now he would be forced to spend at least a few hours standing around while they looked down their noses at him. If only there was some way to make this party as unpleasant for them as it no doubt would be for him.

As he stared at Jade’s Detention Hall poster, the answer occurred to him. What did the middle-school royalty hate above all else? Being forced to socialize with people they saw as unworthy. He wasn’t quite at that level (he was an overachiever, not a loser), but he did have a couple of invites to spare… “I’d like to invite Marc Funke and Danica Avendale.”

His dad raised his eyebrows a little bit. “Okay.” He took a breath, as if to say something, then stopped. “Okay.”

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“It’s so weird that Beckett’s throwing a party. Remember when we were little and he was obsessed with fish? And now he’s like, a soccer god. It feels weird.”

“You don’t have to tell me that.” Jade appeared to be perfectly focused on the TV, but her mind was almost entirely engaged in the conversation. She’d seen this episode a million times, and she could practically recite it in her sleep. She sighed. “It kind of makes me sad sometimes. Like you said, Beckett’s become a soccer god, and Alaric’s on the fast track to valedictorian, and I’m just sort of… there. Nothing special.”

Eve turned to look at her cousin. “Come on, Jade. There are lots of things that you’re good at.” She gestured at the TV. “Obsessively cataloguing the plots of cheesy soap operas, for example.”

Jade didn’t crack a smile. “That’s not what I meant. My brothers are both practically famous at school, my dad is a hero, your mom does all those stories, you’re a genius, and then there’s me.” All I have is sticky fingers. She didn’t tell Eve that, though. She hadn’t told anyone about her unfortunate habit of walking out of stores with a little something extra tucked in her pocket, and she wasn’t about to start now.

“Jade, you’re great. I wish you wouldn’t put yourself down like this.”

Jade wasn’t listening. “Shhh! The part where Lance tells Liana that he’s in love with her is coming up!”

The two girls sat and watched the melodramatic confession scene, and by the time they started talking again, neither remembered what their previous conversation had been about.

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“A birthday party? And I’m invited?”

“I wanted to have one. And of course you’re invited. Who am I better friends with than you?”

Madeline blushed. “It’s really sweet of you to ask me. I’ll definitely be there. Who else is invited?”

Beckett smiled at her. “I’m inviting Ted, I think Jade’s inviting our cousin Eve, and I honestly have no idea who Alaric wants to be there.”

She frowned. “Your brother is really weird.”

“He’s not that bad,” Beckett defended automatically. He didn’t really like Alaric, but that didn’t mean he was about to let other people pick on him. Then something occurred to him. “I didn’t even realize you two knew each other.”

Madeline shrugged. “We’re on Student Council together. He’s always proposing weird ideas for how we could make more money. Like, I’m all for more money to spend on the eighth grade formal-” She paused and gave him a significant look. He was oblivious, so she sighed and moved on. “-but that doesn’t mean I want to start charging a fee to students who want to turn in their homework late.”

“That sounds like Alaric, alright. Don’t worry, though. He can be a little bit weird and slightly obsessive at times, but he’s harmless.”

Madeline smiled, but there was concern in her eyes. “Yeah, I guess…”

Author's Note: I'm finally back! As you might know if you're on the MTS thread, my computer died on Saturday. I got everything saved, and I managed to get a new, nicer computer, but when I tried to start up my save, it didn't work. I have all the significant characters for the triplets' stories, but this legacy will probably be moving to a new town sometime after generation four is born, since most of my town didn't save. I'm not entirely finished setting up my save, but you will know as soon as I am. The pictures in the first half of this chapter are from my old computer, and the pictures from the second half  are from the new computer. You can tell because my graphics aren't turned up as high on the new computer. Also, please ignore the change to Beckett's hair. He cut it for soccer season (read: I lost it in the Great Computer Move). The triplets are teenagers next chapter, so I figured there was no point in trying to find the old hair again. It might take a little while to get the next chapter out, but after that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, I should be able to get chapters out quickly again. Next time: the party!

Chapter 2.10 - Time Skip

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m playing soccer.”

“By yourself?”

Beckett glanced at the girl talking to him. He recognized her, of course. This town wasn’t big enough for him to not know who any kid was. Her name was Madeline. “I tried to talk my siblings into playing with me, but Alaric was doing homework and Jade was watching TV, and neither of them really like sports anyway.”

“That’s a shame. Can I play with you?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

They played for a while. Finally she paused and wiped the sweat off her forehead. Then she looked up at him, warm brown eyes sparkling in excitement. “You’re really good.”

“Thanks. You’re good too.”

“No, I mean you’re really good. Why aren’t you on the middle school team?”

He blushed, embarrassed by the way she was looking at him - like he had some real, impressive talent. “I guess I just never thought I was that good.”

“Oh, you’re definitely that good. You should talk to the coach about it.”

“Do you really think so?” He met her eyes, feeling strangely hopeful.

“I really do.” She paused, blushing a little bit. “I could come with you, you know… if you want?”

“I’d love that, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all.”

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Jade was watching what her brothers liked to call her “cheesy tween soap operas” when her phone rang. She fished it out of her pocket and answered it without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Hey Jade. We just got back.”

“Oh my Plumbob, Eve! It felt like you were gone forever!”

“Let me guess, since I was gone, you spent the whole summer lying on your couch watching Prince of Hearts.”

“You know me well. Have you managed to keep yourself caught up while you were gone?”

“I haven’t seen a single episode in three months.”

“Oh my Plumbob, you have got to get caught up! You’ll never guess what Liana told Lance last episode.”

Eve laughed. She was a couple of years younger than Jade, but they were in the same grade because Eve was a super-genius and had skipped two grades in elementary school. Sometimes Jade thought that if they weren’t cousins, they would never be friends. Eve was, as previously stated, a super-genius, and Jade’s ability to keep up with several complex interrelated plotlines on her favorite TV shows did not translate to doing well in school. Eve was really the only reason she was passing math this year. She just couldn’t focus in class. Her mind started wandering, and the next thing she knew, the teacher was calling on her and she had no idea what he’d said. She shook off her thoughts, because Eve was speaking again. “How about you come over and tell me everything I missed.”

Jade grinned. “I’m on my way.”

On her way out the door, she called back to her dad. “I’m going to Eve’s house!”

“Say hi to your Aunt Ayla for me, and text me if you’re eating dinner there.”

As she got on her bike, Jade grinned. Her life had been incredibly boring for the last three months, but now Eve was back. Things were really starting to look up.

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Alaric stared at his paper. He couldn’t quite figure out what the teacher wanted from him. The assignment said that he was supposed to summarize the assigned summer reading book, The White Flag of Victory, and then write a recommendation for it that would make other people want to read it. The vagueness of the instructions frustrated him. How much detail did the teacher want in this summary? How long should it be? Should he focus on the plot? The character development? The intricacies of the social structure the narrator was part of? Who was his target audience for the recommendation? What sort of books did they like to read? Why were they going to a twelve-year-old boy for a book recommendation?

He was currently in the process of drafting an email to the teacher to ask all of these questions. He’d found her email on the school website, and if she didn’t answer it, he had ways of getting her phone number. He absolutely refused to start his essay until he knew exactly what it was the teacher wanted from him, and there was only a week left until school started. It would take him at least a couple of days to draft, revise, edit, and run his essay by several experts. He needed answers soon.

After the email was sent, Alaric wandered into the living room, idly wondering where Jade was. It was a rare occurrence for her to be somewhere other than lying on the couch, watching bad television. Beckett was probably still out playing soccer, but he really couldn’t figure out where Jade was. Alaric walked out to the back porch, where his dad was painting, as he usually did on his days off.

“Dad? Do you know where Jade is?”

His dad didn’t even glance backwards, completely focused on his painting as he replied to Alaric’s question. “Eve’s family just got back from Monte Vista, so Jade went over there to visit.”

“So when should I expect a scathing expose of the Monte Vista mob?”

Alaric could hear his dad’s smile in his voice as he spoke. “It should be out in a couple of weeks. Not that I would know anything about that, of course.”

“No, of course not. The upper-level forensic profiler who just happens to have a sister who’s one of the best investigative journalists of all time knows nothing about her exploits. Especially not when she sometimes gets access to information that only high-ranking police officers should be able to get their hands on.”

“Exactly.”

“Did she take them down?”

“From the inside. It was beautiful.”

“I imagine it was.”

They stood in companionable silence. Alaric stared at the sky and wondered what it would be like to have the power to take down the most powerful mob in existence. The corners of his lips curled up at the thought. He had to imagine that sort of power would be… intoxicating.

Author's Note: It really feels like it's been forever since my last chapter. It's been over a week, so I suppose it kind of has, by my standards anyway. At least this was a long chapter, right?

The rest of this generation will be almost entirely focused on the kids. We'll have a couple more chapters of them as kids, but the fun will really start once they're teenagers. Madeline from this chapter is the first of several interesting characters that the kids will interact with in various ways. She is a (slightly edited) child of Mei Milne (who TwistedSmiley lent me) and Geoffrey Landgraab. 

Hopefully it won't take another week to get the next chapter out, but I haven't written it yet, so who knows? Nevertheless, I can tell you that it will contain some evil plotting, awkward preteen flirting, and more than a little angst.

Chapter 2.9 - The Truth, Part II

“Are you sure you want me on this?”

“I know that you don’t usually do fieldwork, but we really need every able-bodied officer we have. Goddard, Wainwright, and I are all past our prime now, so you’re our highest ranked officer. I don’t want to send a bunch of rookies into this. You know what you’re doing. I trust you to get this done.”

So here he was, leading a raid of the secluded manor they were fairly sure was being used for criminal activity. After receiving Dylan’s information, they had scouted the place and seen the man called Avery coming and going several times. This was definitely the place, and tonight they would take it down.

“Is everything ready?”

Miraj nodded. “We’re all good. All that’s left to do is get inside.”

Dylan took a deep breath. “Alright.”

He walked up to the front door and began to rap sharply, but the door opened as soon as he applied pressure. He frowned, but stepped inside, followed by his team. As soon as the last of them was inside, the door closed behind them. Dylan just had the time to think, that’s not right, before everything went black.

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He woke up in an unfamiliar room with a pounding headache.

“Good, you’re finally awake. I was worried that might have been too high a dose. I didn’t want to kill you, after all. At least… not yet.”

His blood turned to ice. He knew that voice. The words it was speaking didn’t make sense, but he knew that voice. He looked up, and sure enough - “You!”

“Why do people always say that? On movies, in books, on TV shows? Is it for dramatic effect? Personally, I think this moment is already dramatic enough. Don’t you?” Tara Rose smiled at the father of her children, showing a lot more teeth than she ever had before.

“I can’t… What… How?”

“Oh, so you want my supervillain monologue? I guess since you’re tied up anyway, I might as well. I need to waste a little more time before I finish this up. How much do you know about your grandfather?”

“He was evil. That’s all I need to know.”

“Maybe he was evil. I don’t really think I can judge on that point. But he took me in as a child. He raised me as his own. He made me heir to his estate and everything that went with it. And all he ever demanded of me was that my heir be of his bloodline. He told me about his daughter, his real daughter, and how she was a disappointment to him. He told me that she ran away many years ago, and he never looked for her because he knew she would never be worthy. After he died, I tracked her down.”

“How did you find us, though?”

“I sent out pictures of both your mother and your grandfather. I offered a reward to whoever found me a descendant of Chance Porter, and I got your name and your location.”

“Then you got me to give you an heir of your precious bloodline. But why leave us after the babies were born?”

“What use do I have for babies? I knew you would raise them up fine until they were children. Then I could take whichever one showed the most potential. Speaking of which, I should be getting a call about that any moment now…”

As if on cue, her phone rang. She quickly checked the caller ID, then smiled at Dylan. “I’ll put this on speaker so you can hear.” She hit a couple of icons on her screen. “Avery?”

“Tara? Is that you? Wow, I always had a bad feeling about you, but I didn’t think it was this bad.” Ayla Doe’s voice echoed from the phone.

“What have you done with Avery?”

“If Avery’s the bulky fellow you sent to kidnap Beckett, I knocked him out. Men like that never expect sneak attacks.” There was a slight shuffling noise on the other end of the phone. “Yeah, he’s out cold.”

“Are the kids okay?” Dylan asked from the chair he was still tied to.

“Yeah, they’re fine. A little bit shaken, but I think they’ll be alright.”

He sighed, relieved. He hadn’t known exactly what was going to happen, but he’d known it would be a good idea to ask Ayla to watch the kids tonight.

Tara, meanwhile, was shaking with fury as she ended the call. “I guess I’ll have to do the job myself. As soon as I dispose of you and your cop buddies, I’ll stop by the house.”

Dylan was starting to get nervous. They hadn’t planned for this, and it had really just been a stroke of luck that he’d thought to get Ayla to watch the kids. He had to figure out some way to get out of this. He had to - “Stop! Police!”

Dylan had never been so thrilled to see anyone in his life. He would never have expected that Miraj Alvi would be the one to provoke such feelings, but he would probably have been glad to see Nick Landgraab in that moment. “Can you get me untied, please? I know you were an Eagle Scout, but I wasn’t.”

Miraj untied him while the other officers kept their weapons trained on Tara. As Dylan stood up, still a little bit wobbly, he spoke. “It’s over, Tara. You’re going to prison, and none of my children will ever be your heir.”

At that, resolve hardened in her eyes. “No. If I go down, you’re going down with me.” Before anyone had time to react, she reached into her pocket and pressed a button.

The world exploded. That was the only way Dylan could describe what happened next. Everything went white and he was suddenly thrown backwards, landing heavily. For a moment, he was blinded, but he heard the crackling of fire. He got to his feet and began to run in the general direction of the exit. He didn’t really know how he got out, only that he somehow found himself standing outside with the rest of the officers he’d brought with him. They’d been virtually unharmed. He had the most bruises of the lot of them, since he’d been the closest to the blast… besides Tara.

“We have to go back in for her. She might be a criminal, but she doesn’t deserve--” That was when the roof caved in. Dylan stared at the ruins of what had been such a beautiful house mere hours before, and suddenly felt like crying.

“Come on. There’s nothing you can do for her now.”

He nodded numbly and let his friend lead him away. Part of him was strangely relieved. It was all over now, it said, so now things would be back to the way they were. The rest of him disagreed. It was all over now, yes. But he doubted things would ever be the same.

Author's Note: Geez... where to start?

Well, Dylan's family structure roll is Single Parent. That means his complete rolls are:

Family Structure: Single Parent
Number of Children: 3
Primary Income: Law Enforcement (Forensics)
Generational Goal: Perfect Careers
Miscellaneous Fun: Hidden Heritage

Those will be up on the Rolls and Traits page shortly.

This chapter was shot right before Dylan got his promotion to level 6 of his career and joined the forensics track, which means he will no longer be doing fieldwork. He's working on the skills he needs to max out for his Perfect Career.

Tara Rose (for the record, that is her name in game) will be up for download on my Download a Doe page soon, if you want her. She's been evil all along: when she first moved into the house, before she even got pregnant, her very first wish was to steal candy from a baby.

Edit: I just realized that I've published several pages that haven't been linked on the blog, because I don't know how Blogger works, apparently. I fixed that, so feel free to check them out.

The triplets will be children in the next chapter, so here are their CAS pictures and traits. I didn't get to pick their traits, because I was not about to train three toddlers in a house with only one adult who's trying to do Perfect Careers.

Alaric is now a perfectionist.

Jade is now a couch potato.

Finally, Beckett is now over-emotional.

The next chapter will be a short interlude, then I'll start to focus on the children. I'm really excited to start getting into their plots!