Hazey Jane I
BANG
“Stupid fucking cunt!”
BANG BANG BANG
“Goddamn fucking whore…wish she’d shove that camera of hers so far up her twat she’d give birth to 35mm Ektachrome….”
BANG BANG BANG
“I mean, where the fuck does she get off thinking she has any say in my life?”
BANG BANG CLICK
At that last sound, Derpy set down her pistol. It was already bad enough that she was firing angry, which didn’t do wonders for her targeting skills or her concentration. But when that last sound came, the last thing she wanted to do was to explain to her father why she’d dry fired the pistol to the point where she ruined the firing pin.
“Hey, Derps, you okay?”
She turned to look at Red Dot, the owner of the shooting range. He’d been an Olympic shooter and then a Coast Guard marksman before getting out and starting a shooting range here in Bella Vista. It was comfortable and nobody minded that she was a girl, unlike some of the other ranges in the area.
“Yeah, just…frustrated, you know?” she stated.
“Yeah, I can tell,” the man said, taking off his ballcap as if to dust it off. “Haven’t seen shooting that shitty since the time we were hunting drug runners who had more hardware than sense.”
Derpy ejected the magazine and slipped a new one in. “I take it that was a bad move on their behalf?”
“Well,” he said, a strangely nostalgic grin coming over his face, “half of them are dead and the rest are serving time in Sumter County Penitentiary. What do you think?”
Derpy gave him a smile back. “Sounds like they fucked with the wrong guy.”
“Smart kid. Just keep it focused, okay? A shitty shot is worse than no shot taken.”
The blonde aimed and said absently, “Yeah, my old man tells me the same thing.”
BANG
After several minutes more, she felt she got everything out of her system. Several perforated targets told the tale of her practiced murder of paper profiles, and sure enough, Red Dot had been right. It hadn’t been some of her best shooting, but she knew why.
She had a chirp on her phone and pulled out a hot pink LG flip phone. It was barely serviceable, but it had internet capability – and she used that function for all it was worth. She opened it, punched in the security PIN and briefly glanced at the screen, noting an email that had the subject line of BARELY LEGAL TEENS WANT YOUR TOUCH SO BAD – XXX SERVICE. A grin came over her face; she knew that the gene donor, who paid for her “phone”, was too stupid to realize her daughter had intentionally signed up for the nastiest porn services available and was billing it to the account. Closing the clamshell without looking at anything else, she slid it in her pocket.
She started packing up the gun when a second chirp sounded – this time from her real phone, something that she paid for herself. Reaching in another pocket for her trusty iPhone, she saw who it was and a genuine smile appeared on her face.
“Hi, Mom!” she said, a genuine tone of joy in her voice.
On the other end, a voice similar to hers sighed. “Derpy, as much as both you and I would prefer that, you know that’s not the case.”
“Yes, but you deserve it a thousand times over – you know that, I know that, Dinky knows that, and most importantly, Dad knows that.”
“Yes, but that still isn’t going to change what we are, sweetie.”
“Fine, Aunt Hazey.” The words came out of her mouth reluctantly, but not because of the person on the other end. On the contrary, her aunt, Hazey Jane, was as far as Derpy and her sister were concerned, their real mother. Admittedly, both girls knew their life was extremely complex, but Derpy and Dinky had never really known simple. Not when on one hand, their “real” mother, New York photographer, Artiste Boheme, only acknowledged their existences as much as the law and her convenience went; while on the other hand, their maternal aunt, Artiste’s kid sister and their father’s (all-but-made official) girlfriend, Hazey Jane, had been there since the day that she’d been horrified that her older sister mistreated and abused her older daughter, and had fallen into a long-term relationship with their father during the divorce.
She knew that part of the reason they had never seen their maternal grandparents in years was because their aunt had been disowned by them and in response, their father simply had written them out of their lives, something that Derpy and Dinky were perfectly fine with. Their paternal grandparents absolutely loved their aunt and often told her that “at least Argent got with the right sister this time,” much to the chagrin of both Hazey and Argent Lance, their father.
Hazey sighed. “Derpy, they’re just words, and those are different from actual feelings, you know that.”
Derpy, despite everything, beamed. “Yeah, I know. What’s up?”
“I’m at the airport right now – I have a week off. I was wondering if you could pick me up?”
“I’ll be there in thirty!” the teen sang and got the details immediately. She then immediately packed up the gun and virtually skipped to her car.
Watching from a distance, a man who was just about to go into the firing range watched the usually taciturn girl act…well, like a teenager. “What the hell got into her?” he asked Red Dot.
Red Dot watched as the small Volkswagen Golf zoomed off into the distance. “My guess?” he told the other man. “Something happened to make her act like a girl for a change.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Most of the time she acts like she’s too old for her age,” he mused, “and maybe just for once, she got to be a kid again. But that’s just my guess.”
Thirty minutes later, an unusually giddy Derpy was practically vibrating with excitement as she walked through the familiar walkways of CJV. Even though she didn’t fly often, she was here practically every other weekend, and her pass, as she moved through the gates and into the secure area, showed why.
After a quick check, she walked over to the airline lounge, and quickly poked her head in. At the far side, a group of pilots and airline attendants were joking, after apparently a long series of flights.
One of them looked at the door, then turned to a woman with chiffon-pink hair and hot pink eyes, “Looks like your kid’s here, Haze.”
The woman in question looked over at the door and smiled softly. “Yup, so she is. I’ll catch you later, Skyblaze. Folks, enjoy the week, and I’ll see you guys next week, got it?” Hazey Jane got up, grabbed her coat and her hat – the symbols of an airline pilot – and walked over to Derpy, who was all smiles.
As the two departed, Skyblaze looked at some of the others. “Think it’ll happen this time?” he asked them.
“No idea why it would,” one of the attendants commented. “They seem to be content with their life.”
“I’m not so sure,” Skyblaze replied, looking at the closed door where his co-pilot and long-time friend was. “Really not so sure of that at all.”
On the other side of the door, two women embraced, and to a casual onlooker it would have been easily mistaken for a parent embracing her child. Only those who truly knew the situation knew it to be anything else.
Once they let go of each other, Hazey sighed. “Why is it that it seems like lately the only time I get time off is when Argent is out of town?”
“Oh, c’mon, you can’t be that hard up,” Derpy said impishly
“Young lady, I swear your father and I taught you better than that.”
“I blame my mother,” the teen said blandly as she automatically went over to the luggage rack, grabbing her aunt’s bag as always. Affecting an overblown tone, she said, “Artiste Boheme always calls it like she sees it and she makes sure her next generation does as well.”
Hazey rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, tough shit,” was her response.
“Yeah, that’s what I keep telling her, but you know how she is,” Derpy replied. “So, usual question?”
Despite everything, Hazey gave a response that Derpy expected: “Usual answer.”
“I guess I need to step up my game, then,” Derpy replied.
“Last time you ‘stepped up your game’, you got grounded for a month by your father, as I recall. And then he got mad at me for even explaining how it all worked, which was unfair, given that it wasn’t even my fault!”
“Look, I told him that, but he didn’t want to believe it until Mom had to confess that she’d left her photographs from her latest shoot around and I figured it out that way.”
Hazey put an arm around Derpy’s shoulders. “Yup, precocious kid that you are and all that. Speaking of which….”
“No. Especially not after that incident.”
Hazey just laughed.
“This is soooo weird.” Carrot Top, who had come over to see how her best friend was doing, instead saw something on Derpy’s face that practically seemed like it didn’t belong there: a wide smile.
“Oh, c’mon, Carrot! You know I don’t get to spend enough time with my mother as is!” Derpy told her.
“Yeah, especially since she’s not really your mother,” Carrot reminded her friend. The familiar scowl immediately fell into place, and Carrot felt as though she’d hurt her friend. “Look, Derpy, I know your home life is complicated, okay? This is me you’re talking to.”
The scowl was replaced by a melancholy smile. “I know you didn’t mean it, Carrot. It’s just….”
“Derpy, you don’t ever have to explain. Not to me – I get it.” Carrot reached over and embraced her friend and sister figure. “If she’s been that way to you, then what’re words?”
“Formality and official recognition,” Derpy responded. “That’s what.”
There was a knock at the door, and a second later, Hazey poked her head in. “Hey, Carrot, interested in staying for dinner tonight? I think I made a bit too much, and you’re always welcome.”
“Dunno, Ms. Jane. What’s on the menu?”
“Pad thai, chicken satay and spring rolls,” the older woman replied. “All for a girl who looks like she’s on a diet again.”
Now it was Carrot’s turn for her smile to fall as Derpy covered her mouth in an attempt not to laugh. “That obvious?” she groaned.
“Hey, I’m not so old that I don’t recall when I was a teenager, you know,” Hazey responded. “My teenage years just involved flannel, Nirvana and beepers.” She then grinned and said, “Oh, and as an extra bribe, I picked up some green tea ice cream from the store, too.”
Carrot pouted. “You’re the worst, you know that?” she said, mock-complaining.
“Just how I roll,” Hazey said with a laugh.
“Okay, Dinks, you made two spelling errors here and there,” Hazey said, looking over her niece’s homework. “Aside from that, I think you’ve pretty much got this book report in the bag.”
“Thanks, Aunt Hazey!” Dinky happily hugged Hazey and showered her with kisses like only a kid could.
“It’s what I’m here for. Now, I’m due for watching a movie or two – catching up on what I missed while out of country. Care to help me find what’s new?”
“Really?” Dinky asked, overjoyed to be of help.
“Yeah. But I think I want to see it with both my girls. Hold on.” She walked over to Derpy’s room and poked her head in. “Hey, girls, we’re going to be watching Netflix or Hulu or whatever it is that sure as hell isn’t in-flight entertainment. You guys want to join us?”
Both Derpy and Carrot were working on projects at the time and Derpy looked up at her aunt. “As much as I’d like to, I’ve got this coding thing I’m working on, and Carrot’s probably going to need help with her assignment.”
“I’m not that hard up,” Carrot grumbled.
“And yet you’re here doing it instead of at home or at your boyfriend’s place,” Derpy reminded her.
“Spot’s got a game out of town tonight, otherwise, yeah I’d probably be over there,” Carrot admitted. “Besides, I don’t see you rushing off to be with Code.”
“He’s with his computer club today, and I have to let the guy have some time around people who don’t know how to tech the tech, you know?” Derpy said with a grin. She then looked back at her aunt and said, “We’ll get some family time in later this week, Aunt Hazey. Promise.”
“No problem,” Hazey replied, then closed the door, leaving the two girls be.
Derpy popped away from the door, after having seen Carrot off for the evening. She noted that both Hazey and Dinky were still on the couch. But it was a second later that she realized both of them were asleep. Not wanting to disturb them, Derpy walked over to her father’s bedroom, grabbed the comforter off the bed, then walked over to the couch and covered them both.
She then went over and kissed her kid sister on the forehead, then went over and did the same, whispering, “Good night, Mom,” then finally turned off the TV and the light in the living room, bathing it in darkness. She then returned to her room; given that she had that new code project that she’d been hired by an “unknown company” to process. She wasn’t sure why someone in the national security system would come to a teenage codehead like her for that, but she knew if it were a real threat, there were people that she could confide in to get it solved.
Best to just get it done for now, since the pay was good. If it turned out to be a danger later, she knew how to protect herself and her loved ones in multiple ways.
Derpy woke up to an unusual smell in the house…someone was cooking, and for a change it wasn’t her. Furthermore, she knew it couldn’t be Dinky, as while the younger girl did know how to cook, actually trying to do so usually ended up with things burned on occasion. She then caught a whiff of some exotic scents and smiled; she knew that she was being spoiled.
Sure enough, a second later, Hazey showed up, wearing one of Argent’s shirts and a pair of her own shorts. “Get up, lazy,” she teased. “Made brouillade de truffes, chistora sausage and sage potatoes and the family French hot chocolate recipe.”
“Wasn’t aware we had one,” Derpy told her.
Hazey booped her niece on the nose. “Of course we do, kiddo. We come from a proud family of French assholes and sweethearts. Arti inherited the asshole part, and so you can guess which one I inherited.”
“The sweetheart part?”
The older woman laughed musically. “Of course not. I inherited the bigger asshole part!” she said with a wink. “C’mon, let’s eat and then drop Dinky off at school.”
Derpy caught that. “Don’t you mean both of us?”
But Hazey shook her head. “No. There’s a reason I said that. You’re taking the day off from school,” the woman said in an uncharacteristically serious tone. “We need to talk, Derpy.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Sweetheart, none of us do. That’s why you’re taking the day off – so Dinky doesn’t get word of this, got it?”
Derpy sighed; she hated hiding things from her kid sister, who was no slouch in the perception department, either; that seemed to be something they picked up from their father. “Yeah, I got it.”
The next few hours for Derpy were a whirlwind of…well, having something that she rarely enjoyed in her life: that of an actual mother figure. The two went shopping for new things, talked girl stuff, and Derpy generally admitted more about her relationship with Code than she probably wanted to, but it was worth it. They tried on perfume, clothing and as lunch came, Derpy had run up a hefty shopping bill on her aunt’s dime, including a cute gray sleeveless turtleneck with stenciled wings on the back and a matching gray skirt with a bubble pattern on it.
She’d also begun to dread what was coming next. Her aunt refused to talk about what she’d said in the morning, or even acknowledge it. It was as if Hazey’s words had never been stated. It reminded Derpy of a computer she’d fixed for a fellow student a year ago. The software was erasing the words as quickly as they had been written, as if they were never meant to fix. Ultimately, it was just a simple matter of cleaning the viruses off the hard drive and then reinstalling the program, but it was a unique enough effect that she’d never forgotten it.
And now she was seeing a real-life version of it, via her aunt.
Finally, they decided to have lunch at one of Derpy’s favorite places, a burger place in Everfree Glades called Hot Bun’s Hot Buns. It was run by this saucy woman who was, by her words, “loud, proud and got sliders for days, honey!” So with both of them ordering the signature Grand Champion burger, a double decker slathered in caramelized onions, roasted mushrooms, black truffles and blue cheese crumbles; a basket of beer-batter onion rings and cajeta milkshakes, she knew she was in heaven.
She also knew the boom was about to be dropped, and for the first time in months, Derpy was afraid again. It was almost like the time she’d been there to narrowly prevent Carrot from committing suicide. In some ways, reliving that again would have been preferable. That was talking on a level to someone she loved dearly and could help. This was completely out of her league, talking to her mother figure and she had no idea what was going on. She felt completely helpless.
Finally, she looked at her aunt. Eyes to eyes and the joy in them was gone.
Hazey sighed. “I knew you were going to get to this sooner or later. You’re too smart, Derpy,” Hazey told her. “That can be a good thing and a bad thing.”
“Did I do something wrong?” Derpy asked honestly.
“Of course not. I wanted to spend this time with you because I don’t know when I’ll be able to do so again. You know my job keeps me busy.”
“That’s not true, and you know it.” Derpy’s eyes narrowed. “You’d be home a lot more if you flew domestic routes,” she accused. “And I remember Dad telling me once that you were offered a position at the airline pilot school down in Colton. Sure, it’s a drive, but you’d be home! With us! With your family!”
“Derpy, sweetie, it’s not that easy,” Hazey began.
“Yes it is! Do you think we’re blind, Aunt Hazey? You and Dad have been an item since I was a little kid! Even Dinky knows that! So what if you’re technically our aunt – to Dad, you’re the woman he loves and to us, you’re our mom! I know you hate it, but that’s what you are to me! My mom!”
To Derpy’s surprise, Hazey started crying. “I don’t hate it,” she said in a soft voice. “I never have.”
“Then why won’t you come home?”
“To protect my children,” she said, looking at Derpy, never removing her eyes from Derpy’s own. Hot pink bored into citrine, and Derpy hated the fact that she had Artiste’s eyes. She wished that she’d instead been as lucky as Dinky, who had inherited their father’s eyes.
And then Hazey’s words sank in: my children.
“Derpy, do you remember the two weeks that your father had to spend on active duty training back in March? I know you and Carrot had some issues; Argent told me about it.” When Derpy nodded, Hazey sighed. “There’s…there’s really no easy way to do this.” Reaching inside her shirt, she pulled out a thin silver necklace, upon which sat a platinum loop.
A wedding band.
“He…wasn’t on active training,” she admitted. “He was with me. In the Bahamas. On our honeymoon.” She reached over and took Derpy’s hand in her own. “Technically, I’m not just your aunt anymore, Derpy. I’m now your stepmother as well.”
Derpy’s jaw dropped. “What? What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?” she gasped. “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything? You or Dad?”
“Derpy, language,” Hazey chided.
“No!” Suddenly angry, Derpy slammed a fist on the table, causing a scene. “I have always wanted this! And you two just go and hide it from me like I’m some spoiled kid that wouldn’t fucking understand—”
“I’m actually surprised you hadn’t figured it out already,” Hazey said with an awkward half-smile. “Argent told me he hasn’t really been hiding it.”
“Bullshit! I want answers!”
“Derpelle Hooves, you’re making a scene,” Hazey said in a suddenly parental tone, “and I know your father and I raised you better than that. I thought I would bring you here to break it to you, but I’m wondering if that was a mistake.”
The parental tone got Derpy to calm down. “Fine. Spill,” she said, angrily grabbing an onion ring and spearing it in boom boom sauce.
“Thank you.” Hazey looked at her niece and stepdaughter and said, “Derpy, I want to make this clear: I love you and Dinky both. To me, since the day I stepped in to stop my sister from abusing you; from the moment that I supported your father in his divorce from your mother; and the day I told my own parents to fuck off, that protecting you was more important than Arti’s precious reputation; you stopped being my niece and became my own daughter, you and Dinky both. I don’t care that you came out of my sister’s womb instead of mine: you and your sister are mine, not hers.” She sighed. “And with Dinky getting older, your father and I knew it was just going to be a matter of time before we could – or rather, needed to – normalize our relationship.”
“Then why—”
“Because of that bitch I call a sister!” Now it was Hazey’s turn to make a scene and both of them were glad that the restaurant was empty. From her perch at the grill, Hot Bun realized this was a woman-to-woman moment, and with her being a part of the XX club as well, she just shrugged and turned away.
“I don’t understand.”
“Derpy, do you know why all of a sudden you two had to spend two weeks with her in Manhattan, despite her almost never wanting to see you and then spending all this money on you and your sister even if she knows jack shit about either of you? I mean, you told me she bought you that expensive Prada bag that you never use?”
“Yeah, she kept wondering why I was looking at the ‘hideous’—” she did finger quotes, “—laptop bags from Republic of Codemonkeys instead.” She grinned and held up the one Hazey had bought her an hour prior. “Trust me, going to get a fuckton of use out of this.”
“It was meant to be a bribe. She wanted you and Dinky to forgive her everything so you two would want to live with her.”
“I swear, she’s fucking stupid,” Derpy snarled.
“Derpy, she’s your mother…even if, yes, she is fucking stupid,” Hazey agreed. “But the fact is, somehow she found out that your father and I got married and she threatened to take custody of you and Dinky away from your father. That was what the whole summer shit was meant to be – a knife in the wound aimed directly at me and Argent.”
“As if I give a fuck about what she wants,” Derpy stated. “Hell, Dinky doesn’t even trust her – you know that.”
“It’s not about trust, Derpy. It’s about the law. You know that your father is the local National Guard recruiter for officers, but his local duty is scheduled to end soon, and with him in demand, his superiors are looking at him for a potential Pentagon job in DC for two years. That’s part of the reason why we got married: if he has to take it, someone needs to be home for you two. For our family.”
“Then why—”
“Because your mom hates me and your father so much that she would even take you and Dinky away from us, even if she resents having given birth to both of you,” Hazey said flatly. “Because my parents are so enamored over my sister’s fame that they’re so fucking blind to what she’s done to you and nearly could have done to your sister, that they think I was out to steal your dad since the day we first met.” Hazey’s hands balled in fists of anger. “I didn’t fall in love with your dad because he’s a hunk – and believe me, he is – but because he’s the nicest, gentlest soul I’ve ever met. It took me a long time to stop seeing him as ‘my sister’s husband’ and as Argent. And I felt guilty about the first time I kissed him, because I felt that maybe my sister’s accusations were right.”
“They’re not.”
“I know. The fact that you can’t see straight without glasses, even if you should have perfect vision, tells me that every day. The fact that I still have nightmares of the day I found you, beaten and battered, with your literal blood on my sister’s hands, tells me that.” Hazey looked at Derpy once more and the teen noted they had long stopped being the eyes of a loving aunt, but instead of an actual mother. “Derpy, have you ever heard the term ‘vodka aunt’?”
“You mean like Aunt Bullion?” Argent’s sister Silver Bullion was the same age as Hazey, but while the former was level-headed, the latter lived a bohemian lifestyle in Austin. Derpy wasn’t sure what her aunt did for a living, but based on her Instagram posts, it was probably enough to keep the woman out of trouble.
Hazey giggled. “Something like that. Have you ever seen me like that?”
“Of course not!”
“What about my sister, then?”
Derpy was about to open her mother in protest, but then said, “Okay, she does fit the profile much more than you do. Especially after she left those pictures of—”
“Exactly,” Hazey sighed. “Derpy, you and Dinky were mistakes. Accidents. Arti and Argent had a physical attraction to one another and it never should have ended in children. They should have gotten married, then had a quick, regretful divorce a few years later. But let me make things clear: you and Dinky, have never been mistakes or accidents as far as I’m concerned. When your father and I have children, I can only hope that they’re as perfect as you two are.”
Derpy nodded, but her face still bore some confusion. “But there’s something I still don’t understand: you know that Dinky and I don’t care about you and Dad’s relationship – we want that, obviously. And we don’t give a damn what Mom wants. Why don’t you come home and live with us? Why this farce about maintaining your apartment in Maryland? You told me once you don’t even like Baltimore.”
“Because of my parents,” Hazey told her. “They’re so blindly on her side that they would do something like hire a private eye to watch every time we’re together, for some fuck up your dad or I might make, something they can use to strengthen a legal case. And neither Argent or I want to lose you – either of you – because of something we did without thinking.”
Derpy suddenly thought back to the temper tantrum she’d just thrown a few minutes prior, and then with equal horror, the incident with Carrot earlier in the year.
Hazey nodded. “And now you see why we were so careful. We didn’t want to intentionally hide this from you, but wanted to wait until you were legally eighteen. That way I could adopt you both without Arti having any say in the matter, because then you’d be adults and could choose.”
“I’m choosing now,” Derpy told her. “Fuck that cunt and fuck those old assholes. They aren’t family. You are – Mom.”
Despite the frown on her face, Derpy saw that Hazey’s eyes lit up at that. “Derpy, I told you. It’s just a word.”
“Yes, and someone I love dearly – someone who raised me – told me that words should have meaning or else they’re just sounds. So I’m making sure they have meaning.”
Two women looked across a table of half-eaten burgers and onion rings and melting milkshakes. And somehow in that messy moment, everything seemed perfect.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” On the other end of the phone, Derpy could hear her father’s concern. Thankfully Dinky was over at her friend Pistachio’s place, which meant that both Derpy and Hazey could make dinner that night unimpeded. Officially that was the plan. In truth, the two had called Argent.
“Yup. Fuck that bitch, Dad.”
“I did; it’s how I ended up with you and Dinky,” he replied with a laugh.
“Sounds like you screwed the wrong sister, then,” Derpy countered with a straight face.
Hazey laughed and added, “Yeah, you can tell she’s an Army brat.”
“Yeah, that’s my fault.” He then paused to gather his thoughts. “Derpy, I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want. But if you go this route, you know she’s just going to make it harder for us. Your mother isn’t stupid.”
“I know.” Derpy reached over and put her arm around Hazey. “Too bad I was born to the idiot instead.”
“This is going to be messy as hell, kiddo. And while you only have to deal with it for maybe a year or two more, keep in mind this is not going to be easy for your sister. She’s still got years to go until she’s an adult – and that’s the rub.”
“I’m sure we can find a lawyer that’ll nail her ass to the wall,” Derpy insisted. “We do have what happened to me, and if it means protecting our family, I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“I know I don’t say this enough, Derpy, but I’m proud of you,” he told her.
She blushed, then said, “Well, I’m lucky I had parents that raised me right.”
“So I guess you’re going to talk to the brass about switching away from international routes, Hazey?”
“Yeah. Domestic routes don’t pay as much, but I’ll be home more often. And given that I want to see my girls grow up, I guess that means we’ll have to close up my apartment in Baltimore next summer. Besides, I think you and I should talk about having a third kid before Derpy ups her game again.”
“Please don’t,” Argent insisted.
BANG
“God fucking dammit!”
BANG BANG BANG
“Stupid ass fucktard, not paying attention to jack shit and ruining everyone’s day….”
BANG BANG BANG
“I mean, seriously, why the fuck did this happen now of all times?”
BANG BANG CLICK
At that last sound, Derpy set down the pistol. She was starting to get riled up again and that was never a good thing.
“Hey, Derps, you okay?”
She turned and standing there was Aria Blaze, one of Sunset’s cousins and, as the flame-haired girl had said often, practically a sister. The two didn’t run in the same circles often due to the fact that they attended different schools, but they were both shooters and Derpy knew her well enough to consider her a friend.
“Yeah, just…frustrated, you know?” she stated. “My mom got called back off vacation early; she had to take over piloting a flight to Sydney because one of the other pilots broke his leg or something, and apparently she’s one of the few available pilots familiar with that runway or some shit like that.”
“Didn’t you say that your mother was a photographer in New York?” Aria asked.
“Well, yeah. But the woman I call my real mom is my stepmother. She’s also my aunt,” Derpy replied. “Problem with that?”
Aria laughed as she ejected the clip on her pistol. “If you’re expecting me to be freaked out about that, you’re talking to the wrong girl. Did I ever tell you why we’re living with my aunt and uncle?” When Derpy looked at her, Aria explained the fact of her and her sisters’ lives: about their adoption, and how their adopted mother had been killed during 9/11; how they’d been partially raised by one aunt and then a stepmother who was barely an adult herself before dying in childbirth and ending up with their current aunt and uncle.
“So yeah,” Aria commented as she finished, “I get blended families. And because of that, it sounds like your aunt – excuse me, your mom – is cool as hell.”
“Yeah,” Derpy said with a proud smile coming onto her face as she switched the magazine on the pistol and raised it once more. “She is.”
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You know, I almost want Durpy's egg donor to do something stupid and it get back to Sunset via Aria.
Besides that, here is to hoping that Photo Finish, and steals every last bit of that "woman"s fame in time.
I think you do not like Derpy. You just cannot help make her life hell.
9422530
Why do you say that?
9422551
This is the second major story you are envolved with that she just seems to be delt a bad hand. In AAG she had had a kid that her sister was raising because of a one night stand and then she got cold hooves and lost the love of her life. Then she and her adoptive children had a horrific death. Here she seems to have a better home life with her sister but damn does she have anger issues and it feels like no matter what the universe is out to make her life interesting and not in the fun way.
9422590
Hand or hoof?
True. But she is also recognized as one of the greatest non-alicorns of all time (even if posthumously) and the small cottage industry she started turned into one of the largest companies on either planet. Basically she's Gates, Jobs, Edison, Tesla and more, without any of their advantages. She was posthumously made nobility and would have likely been so if she'd lived as well. Hell, she even has one of the most celebrated warships in the REN named after her. So not bad, I'd think.
It has been noted by others that she's snarky because of her life experiences (she was physically abused by her mother and is still emotionally abused by the same, even if she can fight back - that would do that to anyone, arguably). And she is unguarded around her true friends: look at how much she completely trusts folks like Carrot, Sunset and Aria. She's also willing to look out for the defenseless (she stood up to protect Minuette) and despite being abused as a child, she's bounced back to be as smart as her AAG counterpart - or even as much (if not more) than her BV Equestria counterpart.
9422590
How so? Sure, her handicap was due to her birth mother being an abusive bitch, but it also marked the point where her father both got a full divorce from her and was put on the path of hooking up with Hazey, who Derpy and Dinky consider their true mom and her in turn. She's guarded and snarky because her handicap means she gets mocked, but that's true for any kid in real life with a noticable physical handicap.
As somebody with bad anger issues myself (I get it from my dad), I certainly never was abused or suffered what Derpy went though and I can be just as bad as her. As a matter of fact, I also have had to have eye operations to correct lazy eye, or more or less the exact same thing Derpy has - twice. Of course, in my case I could have the operation whereas Derpy's skull in the relevant area is too fragile to operate on, so she's forced to use glasses. But she certainly is making the most of what life has dealt her - which in this case is a superbrain on par with Twily given she's a tech goddess more or less.
No "Hazey Jane II". Missing chapter, or simply a change of plans?
11540747
Hazey Jane II is an All-American Girl sidestory. The two titles are a joke: On his album Bryter Layter, musician Nick Drake had both songs on it, but due to the record label, "Hazey Jane II" came several songs before "Hazey Jane I". So when I decided I'd use the titles, I'd figured that the story "Hazey Jane II" would come quite some time before "Hazey Jane I". Furthermore, since the lyrics of the two songs are barely related, having them as part of two different series just naturally seemed to work.
11540831
*Checks* 2012? Wow, you've been sitting on this joke for a while. *Golf Clap*
And I apparently have already read Hazey Jane II, just long enough ago that it has slipped my memory. I do remember something about a story arc from that anthology getting pulled to be turned into its own story, but nothing on said story being produced.