Emberclaw Protocol

Extra: Moonlight Lullaby

As Cole pulled his mechanical tail out of the crib for the umpteenth time, Erin finally couldn't resist slamming the hemostat over it, “Told you no smuggling snacks with your tail!” Moonlight shone through the crystalline windows of the treehouse, illuminating the scattered wolf teething sticks on the floor.

Little Cole hugged and blew on the tip of his father's smashed red tail, “Daddy's tail tastes better than a teething stick.” His new baby teeth glistened silver, perfectly inheriting the curvature of Erin's sacred stripes.

“Come here and sterilize.” Erin picked up the back of her son's neck skin, and before the swab could touch his gums, the treehouse suddenly shook violently. Cole tumbled in from the terrace with his daughter in one arm, carrying a howling little Erin over his shoulder, “Your daughter demolished the mechanical wolf in the training ground again...”

Erin glanced at the black smoking ruins behind her husband, “What was it about this time?”

“They said Mommy's silver crossbow was an imitation.” Little Erin huffed and held up the deformed barrel, “I obviously improved the propulsion...”

Cole took the opportunity to tuck his daughter into his wife's arms, “I'll leave the education to you, I'll handle the aftermath.” His tail quietly curled around the pain spray in the med kit as he turned - it had just been modified by his daughter as an experiment this morning.

Erin was soaking in the lab analyzing the children's genetic profiles when the alarm sounded at midnight. Cole came up from behind wrapped in the smell of smoke, his canines nipping at the holy tattoo on the back of her neck, “For the third time, they blew up the police station tower with sonic weapons.”

“Much gentler than when we blew up the lab back in the day.” Erin backhanded him and stabbed the tranquilizer into his thigh, “You teach lock picking skills?”

Cole smothered a grin and spun her around, revealing the federal prison keycard jangling at his waist, “The kids said they wanted to experience their parents' first encounter scenario.”

Screams suddenly came from the roof. As the two crashed through the skylight, five year old Cole Jr. was skimming across the moon on a mechanical giant wolf, his sister shooting behind him with a silver crossbow coalesced by the Sacred Ripple, “Brother left! Going to hit the tree where you got s*****d by Grandma back in the day!”

Cole whipped out his tail and wrapped it around the mechanical wolf's energy core, and Erin's calming darts hit the backs of both children's necks with pinpoint accuracy. When they returned to the bedroom with the sleeping pups in their arms, they found the crib piled high with wedding photos “borrowed” from City Hall.

“You bit my neck a lot harder than that.” Erin poked at Cole's animalistic fangs in the photo.

“And some forensics lady was keeping track of my heart rate while pretending to be in a coma.” Cole licked the traces of reagent from her fingertips, “Need a refresher on lab data?”

The alarm blew again, but this time it was from Erin's genetic tester. In the flickering iridescence of the screen, two newborn fertilized eggs were spinning around each other - in a form of quantum entanglement.

“Cole Black!” Erin chased her onto the terrace, holding up the test tube rack, “You stole my egg cells for a quantum experiment?!”

Silver Wolf stretched his mechanical wings in the moonlight, “It was the children who wanted glowing siblings.” He brought in the rose from the Scarlet Wedding that year, “And you said the second child was going to be more romantic...”

The rose suddenly bursts into holographic fireworks, the wedding vows from twenty years ago flickering in the air. The two imps took the opportunity to break free of their sleep magic and crashed through the shield on modified mechanical wolves, “Daddy Mommy eloped to take the pups!”

As the federal sheriff's hovercar surrounds the treehouse, Erin is stitching up Cole's mechanical heart, which was bitten through by her daughter. The sheriff lifted his mask to reveal a bitter smile, “Mrs. Blake, please mind your family's...”

“Rule number thirteen,” Erin slammed the blood-stained gauze into the recycling bin, ”Officers who break into people's homes without authorization are going to have to pay for my emotional damages.”

Cole suddenly wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, his tail curling around the wedding ring from back then, “How about using the damages to buy a new cradle?”

“How about buying containment chambers that hold quantum embryos.” Erin bit down on her ring and glared at the snickering children, “Now, who's going to fix the stained windows in the church?”

The runaway song of the wolf pups came from the treehouse as the moonlight faded. Cole used his tail as a cradle rope, and Erin's silver crossbow pointed at a loophole in the Intergalactic Code regarding “special racial parenting provisions”. Two newborn points of light pulsed in their clasped palms as the first rays of morning light penetrated the quantum shield.