Things go boom in the night - OTA

[agathaheterodyne]

Who: Agatha and anyone who wants to investigate the explosion
Where: Agatha's creepy castle on the hill.
What: Something exploded in the middle of the night. Nice and loud, lots of smoke.
When: about 3 am.
Warnings: Mad science, possible violence/violence mentions, possible body horror mentions.



Agatha had been working on trying to figure out how to install the Castle into, well, the Castle. Which would have been easier if the small clank that contained the Castle's personality wasn't actively trying to help. She had turned at a crucial moment to tell the small - a little larger than her hand, smaller than her head - machine that NO, she was not going to install an exploding spiked portcullis when she made the fateful discovery that the Castle was only requesting it... because it had already tried to install one itself and the thing had jammed....

Hence the explosion at the front of the Castle.

Agatha backed up, down the road a bit, coughing. Soot cling to her hair, her dress, and her work apron. She pulled her goggles up off of her glasses, leaving them the only clean part of her. Until she reached up to adjust them and left a fingerprint on the lens. She turned to glare at the small clank, unaware anyone was coming to investigate...

Comments

[agathaheterodyne]

Okay. She wasn't going to ask about the name. She wasn't. It wasn't that people hadn't called themselves similar at home. They had. Just usually someone calling themselves spider anything back home would either have extra legs, extra eyes, or, you know. a hoard of robotic or mutated spiders following them around doing their bidding.

Well maybe she had just recently Broken Through and hadn't built them yet. That brightened up Agatha's expression. Female Sparks were rare, and she loved making friends with other bright young women.

"I'm Agatha," she said with a warm smile. She held off using her last name, which... might be silly given she was standing in the actual shadow of Castle Heterodyne WEARING a Heterodyne sigil, and had said this was her castle. If the person was going to recognize who she was from her name, they already would have. But... old habits died hard.

Except that she wasn't allowed to keep her last name back. Not here. A small palm sized... thing... came out of the entry way. It cleared a throat it didn't have. Loudly.

"No.." Agatha said to it, sounding tired.

"Do it," the small machine insisted.

Agatha sighed, mouthed the word "sorry" to Spider-girl, then stood straight, rolling her eyes before proclaiming in a booming voice, "I am the - "

The small device cut her off. "ALL of it, my Lady."

"There are no people of Mechanicsburg here... We're not in... Oh all right. I cannot believe I am even arguing with you!" She threw her hands in the air, frustrated, then shook her head. "Sorry," she said to Spider-girl. She took a deep breath and began again. "People of Mechanicsburg! The Castle is MINE! I am the Heterodyne!" For all she thought it was ridiculous, she was now standing tall and proud, voice pitched to carry but not so loud as to deafen the person before her.

"Go on, the whole thing, just as we practiced," the small device encouraged.

Managing not to sigh this time, Agatha added "Tremble before me!"

"Oh very nicely done, there you go. Would make me weep if I could," the device said. "How about we celebrate by killing..."

"No killing," Agatha said sharply to it.

"But it is traditional."

"I'm not. Now if you haven't scared my new friend off, she is gong to help me fix you. Or I could drop you down into a pit and have some peace and quiet until you climb back up. Am I understood?"

"Yes, mistress!" he said, snapping out a salute.

She sighed and turned to Spider-girl, if she was even still there. "Sorry about that."

[mayday_parker]

“Oh well done,” May said, clapping in approval. Yeah it totally sounded like a supervillain spiel but it was a well done supervillain spiel all the same. Mentally she made a note to make sure that she kept a close eye on Agatha. She seemed against killing, which was good, but the little thing hadn’t seemed against it so... less good.

“Uh, just... what is a heterodyne?” She asked, tilting her head to the side as she tried to parse the word out. Hetero meant different but she wasn’t sure about the rest.

[agathaheterodyne]

She rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. "My family, on my father's side. A very old line, old family, nearly everyone was a Saprk so far. And until my father and uncle, the Heterodynes are known for being some of the worst of the worst. They built the Castle," she nodded to the large building behind her, then to the small talkative machine beside her. "You'll probably meet the Beast at some point too. He's now small and more or less harmless, but when we found him in the crypts, he was a large city eating train. My father and his brother worked to try and change things. They were heroes. Honest to science heroes. But..." she shook her head and sighed, rubbing her face. "They're gone. Me... I'm not a villian or a hero. I don't want to be. I'm just... me. Agatha Heterodyne."

"You'll make a fine villian. Don't sell yourself short. I can teach you all you need to know, shall we fire up the scream machine? Maybe your new friend can be encouraged to... make a contribution...?"

"Go. Inside." she said to the Castle, through her teeth. "Or so help me I won't make any Fun-Sized Mobile Agony and Death Dispensers."

The small clank hesitated, as if trying to figure out if she was serious, then huffed and went inside, muttering under its breath about how they better be particularly impressive Fun-Sized Mobile Agony and Death Dispensers...

"Sorry," Agatha said again.