At about noon, June 2nd, year 2580, in a dilapidated house, within the outskirts of Zephyr Heights, four people magically appeared in the middle of its living room, which was fairly empty.
"For an abandoned house in the outskirts I feel like I've kept it pretty tidy, don't you guys think?" Solstice smiled in pride as he scanned his relatively clean living room, for his current living situation. That smile quickly faded as Solstice turned his head slowly, peering into the kitchen.
Jest glanced between Ava and Daemon, noticing that they were understandably, not impressed. How could two children of the esteemed Lazarus family be impressed? This was far beneath their usual living standards. Jest sighed, he cleared his throat before he answered, "Well, considering you haven't been here in a few days it—"
Squeak!
Ava, Daemon and Jest turned their attention to their left in synchronicity, towards the open kitchen where Solstice had already been looking, all of their sights landing upon a rat that was currently eating moldy bread on the kitchen counter. The rat noticed them and stood up on its two legs, with its beady black eyes staring at the four of them.
"Motherfucker!" Solstice yelled as he charged into the kitchen in an attempt to catch the rat, but the rat narrowly eluded him, it hopped off the counter quickly and ran away into the hallway, darting towards the front door to escape.
Solstice caught the frame of the small cased opening to swing himself into position, only to see its owner, which he already knew about thanks to his supernatural senses, a drunken old man sleeping right next to his front door. The rat hopped into the open inner pocket of his owner's ragged, shit stained jacket for protection.
"Huh?!" The drunken man who owned a rat for a pet, rubbed his face with his fingerless gloved hands. The drunkard turned his sleepy eyes towards the sound of heavy footsteps that grew closer and louder to him. "Who the hell are—"
'That's It!' Solstice grabbed the intruder by his collar with his left hand and began to drag him to the front door, which he opened with his right hand allowing him to toss the drunkard and his pet rat out the door. Solstice didn't stop there as he exited his house as well, gently shutting his front door behind him, before squatting down to the drunkard's right side, grabbing his collar once more.
"Recognize me?" Solstice said coldly to the man who was still getting his bearings. The homeless drunkard blinked a couple times, seemingly realizing who Solstice was.
"Oh! You're that Hag Witch's apprentice, I sincerely apologize for my intrusion." The homeless man slowly prostrated himself, showing deep sincerity.
Solstice sighed before walking back to his front door, his hand gripping the handle but not turning it open just yet. He didn't really like the drunkard's apology, but he also didn't feel like hurting the man. "Don't call her that, she's a little bit of a wackjob, but she's an absolute genius. And don't even think about sneaking into my home again."
Solstice entered his home through the front door, shamefully walking back to the living room, Ava, Daemon and Jest were left speechless from the scene they just watched.
"Hahaha!" Jest's bellowing laughter broke the silence, which was clearly ignited from Solstice's embarrassment, which only made Solstice feel worse.
Solstice ignored Jest, focusing his attention on the twins. "Ava, Daemon, this won't happen again, I can assure you that. I have a skeleton that acts as a guard, courtesy of my boss. It malfunctioned again. I'll have to head to my boss's place and have her repair it." Solstice paused briefly, glancing between his three guests before heading towards his small bedroom.
In his bedroom was an old mattress that lay on the floor in the far right corner of the room, no bed frame, one pillow, and a decently sized blanket. To the left side of his bed was a bedside drawer, on top of it was a half a pack of flavorless chewing gum, a delicacy in the outskirts, a small booklet with a pen, and a small lamp. Not too much further away was a bookshelf, roughly 1.6 meters in height, and somewhere between 1.2 to 1.3 meters in width. The bookshelf itself was fairly empty, only holding five small books in its collection.
Solstice turned his head to the far left corner of his room, finding what he was looking for.
What was called a skeleton, was a humanoid robot, without any synthetic skin. The one Solstice had in his possession was a low quality one that his boss had assembled from various scrap, and discarded parts from other skeletons, which is why it malfunctioned from time to time.
Over time, as Solstice did well at his job, his boss even modified it with two semi-automatic guns, one attached to the top of each forearm, and an ammunition case that was attached at its lower back. This greatly improved its lethality, normal humans had almost no chance at beating it, and it would even put up a good fight against most Grade 0 Traversers in a one-on-one.
The only issue was that it would malfunction from time to time, and the fact that bullets were expensive, even if you had connections to the black market. Solstice tried his best not to deal with criminals, but, especially when gang activity rolled through his area, he made the venture to get as much ammunition as he could afford so he could feel safer, by making his guard more lethal. Of course, this was before Solstice became a Grade 0 Traverser and therefore is a superhuman, but he still had to be cautious and keep a low profile, not to alert anyone of his change in nature.
Solstice's boss however, was truly a genius when it came to robotics, to the point where most people who knew her thought she was performing magic. His boss mainly used older parts that were worn, or created them with scrap metal, programmed the systems herself, and designed the models herself. On top of that, specifically her skeletons, they practically powered themselves by turning kinetic energy into electricity with extreme efficiency, meaning that they could go on for a long time by themselves without needing an alternative power source. For most skeletons, they were usually powered by standard zephyr fuel cells, but zephyr fuel cells were basically a back up power source for her modified skeletons.
Zephyr fuel cells were pricey anyway, so Solstice was quite happy that he rarely ever had to acquire them.
Solstice walked over to his motionless skeleton, which currently stood upright in the far left corner at about 1.8 meters in height, full matte black in color making it extremely intimidating especially in low lighting. Its head was drooping downwards, reminding him of his initial encounter with the wooden automaton. Solstice examined it briefly before lifting it up onto his left shoulder, surprised at how much easier it was to lift it now, compared to himself before becoming a traverser. 'This thing is significantly easier to carry'
Walking out of his bedroom, Solstice showed off his skeleton to Ava and Daemon in hopes to reassure them, the twins' attitudes changed slightly to that of a slight approval and surprise.
Jest placed his hands on his hips, quietly examining the skeleton, his eyes were specially directed to the firearm modifications. "Cough*, technically, I should arrest you for owning a modified skeleton like that, especially since you've attached firearms to it, and you're too young to own a firearm permit." Jest scratched the back of his head with an aloof expression on his face. "Eh, I'll pretend I don't know you have it."
Solstice lightened up a little bit, grateful that Jest was as carefree as he was, especially towards him. "Thanks."
Jest's goofy expression fell away as he suddenly disappeared, yet the words still hung in the air as if they were spoken like he was still present there, addressing the three teenagers, he said seriously, "You're all on your own so take care of each other."
These words hit Solstice and Daemon the most, as Solstice was the one to originally present the dangerous idea of going alone, without any backing of a powerful group such as the World Government, and Daemon not only agreed to it, but dragged his unwilling sister into the decision as well. Actually, Daemon felt worse than Solstice, because he knew in his heart that Ava would not want to be separated from him, and he took advantage of her attachment to him, her reluctance to part ways with her twin brother.
The weight of their decision slowly grew as all of them were lost in thought.
Deep in troubling thoughts, Solstice knew that his responsibility grew more complicated. He had lived in the outskirts of Zephyr Heights for years, grew accustomed to it, even had some street cred. He had to make sure Ava and Daemon were taken care of, and return the favor to them as much as he could while they spent their time investing in his own growth, not only as a potentially powerful Traverser that was connected to them, but a person as well.
Solstice shook off his worried mind. "I'm heading out to get this repaired right away, I'll be back in about an hour."