“H-how was that?” Pale hands dropped back to his side, a neon sword the size of a surfboard fizzling away into glitchy squares of hard-light magenta. They barely lasted a full three seconds before they popped out of real-space completely.
By the time the last of them was gone, Donny just stood there heaving as he wiped at his forehead with one hand, the teenager standing there in a sweat-stained Legend of Zelda tee sticking to him in ways that felt gross. “Is, uh… is…”He smacked dry lips, mirrored prescription glasses inched up the bridge of his nose with one sweaty thumb. “Is that passing?”
The intercom crackled for a bare second as he stared forward; the heavy tungsten target dummy across the testing range basically just smoking scrap metal, its surface littered with a dozen different pixelated impact craters.
“That was… highly efficient, son.” The crackle gave way to perfect audio as his dad’s voice sounded out, perfectly chipper and measured for someone watching his kid tear apart steel with video game powers. “Impact yields are registering consistently in the fifty-ton class.”
His dad stepped out from behind blast-proof glass, leaving his observation booth behind to walk his way; armed only with a clipboard and a pen. According to what he’d been told, it was already ‘highly irregular’ for just the two of them to be alone in here — at least without a small army of GDA agents standing guard.
Perks of being Deputy Director’s son, I guess. The Deputy Director in question came to a slow stop in front of him, glasses aimed down at his clipboard as he continued to check things off slowly. Staring at his dad, Donny had the feeling he knew exactly how he would look in a good twenty-five years, assuming he ever learned how to wear a suit without looking like he was going to a funeral.
“Still need to run a few more kinetic endurance trials to see where you properly top out at this point, buuuut…” His dad cleared his throat, adjusting his own mirrored glasses. “It’s looking like we’re done with the destructive applications for today.”
“Yeah, well.” A snort left Donny as he crossed his arms over the gold of the Tri-Force. “You’re the one making me do this, old man.”
“Donny.” The serious tone slipped just a little bit, Donny hearing a bit more of his dad under there instead of the Deputy Director. “We already had a long talk about this. Your mom and I both and you know that. It was either comprehensive capability assessment under controlled GDA parameters, or…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Or I’m grounded for two months without Wi-Fi.” Donny rolled his eyes so hard it almost hurt. “Which is, like, legally child abuse, you know. I helped save the world by the way!”
“Engaging an unknown dimensional god-being without authorization, without training and without your parent’s permission is what got you in this mess, young man.” The clipboard shook as his father’s hands tightened around it. “Y-you could have been killed, Donny. We didn't even know... well, we didn't know the full extent of your... output.”
Which was bullshit.
Total bullshit.
Because even if mom hadn’t, Donny knew his dad had known; the looks he’d get from the old man walking in the room after he changed the channel with his powers instead of the remote, the strength that nearly had him rip the fridge door last month, and the flicker in his eyes when he was frustrated.
Yeah, he’d definitely known.
But instead of saying anything, like “Hey son, you wanna talk about it?”, the guy just filed it away in that cybernetic brain of his until Donny literally fell out of the sky throwing exploding digital broadswords at Omnipotus.
“Yeah, well, the old house got flattened by aliens anyway.” Donny kicked a piece of torn tungsten so hard it pinged off the wall. “Not like I could practice in the backyard.”
Not that he minded their new place at all, even with all his old stuff slagged by aliens. The GDA had set them up in a big place closer to the Pentagon, meaning Donny had a whole finished basement to claim as his living space.
With Dad living in the same house again on top of that…
Well, things were nice.
Still smelled like fresh paint, though.
“If you don’t like the new place, well…” His dad let out a sigh of his own, bionic lungs somehow recreating the sound perfectly. “We could always move back in after the reconstruction in your mother’s old neighb—”
“It’s fine, Dad. I didn’t mean it like that.” His hands shoved themselves deep into the pockets of his cargos, shoes squeaking as he kicked at the empty floor again until the sound echoed.
“You... you did good out there, Donny.” Donny blinked his dad’s way as the old man looked down at the clipboard, then back up. “Really?”“Yes, son. Really.” Donald Ferguson nodded his way. “You were brave. With all due respect to the situation, you handled yourself better than some seasoned capes.”
“...what if I don’t wanna be just a cape?” Donny kept his gaze steady, meeting his dad's mirrored lenses with his own. “What if I wanna be something else?”
The seriousness returned for a moment, his dad’s spine going straight as he stared back at him as if waiting for a bomb to drop. “Like what, son?”
Donny chewed on the inside of his cheek before he finally forced the words out. “...an agent. Like you, Dad.”