One-off short stories

The Adventures of Sky Endo (and Alice) -10-

Last time on The Adventures of Sky Endo (and Alice), it was Halloween, and by Sky using her character transformation as her costume, she planned to take down Harry. Eventually she found he used his powers to take over the auditorium, but together her Sisters help, Harry's plan was thwarted, and they even got away with his laptop. Now, find out what happens after school...

(Also, in honor of this being the 10th official Sky Endo (and Alice) episode, and it being the 50th draft in this book, adult Ryan Endo will finally show up.)
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Sky burst through the door to their house, although she quickly closed it behind her,"Sis! How's your progress?" She ran in, and Alice popped out of her finally, her clothes turning back into what she normally wears to school.
"Not great..." Aiko says,"I can't figure out the password. I've tried everything I can think of, but there are just too many possibilities."
"Oh, so, you can't find the data inside." Sky sounded disappointed.
"Isn't there some way you could do that?" Alice asks.
"Not that I know of." Aiko says,"We'll probably need to get some help."
Then, the two girls father, Ryan Endo, walks through the door, his normal smile on his face,"Hey. What are you two up to?"
Alice quickly flew away, not wanting to be distracting,"I can't help with computer stuff anyways, so I'll probably take a nap." She told Sky and Aiko as she flew away.
"Oh, well, actually we could use your help with something." Sky said.
"What, is it your homework, cause I'd be glad to help." Ryan said.
"Well, uh..." It took about that long for Sky to realize they were trying to hack into somebody else's private computer,"A-Actually, we'll be fine."
"Please, I'm glad to help." Ryan said.
"No, I think we've got it under control, thinking a bit more." Aiko added.
Ryan shrugged,"Well, alright. But if you do need anything, please don't hesitate."
"Of course, of course, Dad." Sky said, having heard that many times before.
"We know." Aiko added, and after Ryan left,"That was close."
"Unfortunately that doesn't put us any closer to getting inside of Harry's computer." Sky grumbled slightly.
"Yeah... Well, even if we can't get inside it, it's good that he doesn't have it." Aiko pointed out.
"Still, how are we going to stop his plans then?" Sky said,"Arrrrrgh."
"I guess, we could try to make Dad help out a bit with a good excuse?" Aiko said.
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"Basically, a friend of mine and us are working on a project, and he let me borrow his laptop so I could work on it, but I can't get past the login screen." Aiko told Ryan, it was the best excuse they could come up with.
"Well, I guess I can try to get you on a guest account. But you might not be able to access the project." Ryan said,"Still, it's not like there's any way I could help you actually get on his account."
"That would work." Sky said,"A guest account is enough."
After a few fancy button clicks, Ryan did have quite a bit of experience with messing with computers, he got a Guest account open.
"Well, here you are." Ryan said,"Hope you can work on the project."
"Thanks." Sky and Aiko said in unison.
"Alright, let's look through this thing." Aiko said after Ryan left.
"Hmmm," Sky looked through the desktop, and finding nothing, tried to look through other menus.
"Probably check applications." Aiko said,"Whatever Harry was using during school must've been some kind of application."
"Hmmm, there's a lot of stuff here." Sky said, looking through a big list.
"A lot of them have that same title too. 'TEM' with then a number after it." Aiko said.
"I bet one of those is what we're looking for." Sky said, trying to open 'TEM' (4),"Apparently a guest account can't open it."
"That's not good." Aiko said,"But now I'm even more sure it's what we're after."
"Still, how can we get Ryan to help us with this?" Sky asked.
"I don't know. We could say this is what we needed to open for the project." Aiko suggested.
"We won't get anywhere if we don't try, I suppose." Sky said,"DAD!" She called out, and Ryan came back in after a bit.
"What is it this time?" Ryan asked, although he actually sounded kind of happy.
"We need to access these applications for the project." Aiko said,"But it says we need a higher level of permission than a guest account."
"Well, I don't know quite what I can do about that." Ryan said.
"Isn't there something you could do?" Aiko asked.
"Well, not without doing something's that I really shouldn't." Ryan admitted.
"Like what?" Sky asked.
"I'd have to go through the command prompt to make you have greater permissions. I'd basically be hacking." Ryan said.
"We need to for the project." Aiko said.
"Please...?" Sky used her best puppy dog eyes.
"What are you really doing?" Ryan asked,"No project nowadays would require things like this."
"Ummmm," Sky froze up again. He saw through their excuse. But what could they say?
"Well..." Aiko seemed to be in a similar predicament.
"I admit, I did similar things when I was a kid." Ryan said.
"Wh-what?" Sky looked up at Ryan.
"I used to love sneaking into computers or finding stuff I shouldn't. You're basically doing the same thing, right?" Ryan asked.
"Um, kinda." Aiko said.
"Still, just because I did it doesn't make it right." Ryan said.
"Basically had stuff has been happening at school, and this computer holds data on the bad stuff, so we need to get inside its programs to see it." Sky said. Although if most people said something like that it would sound stupid, like an obvious excuse, Sky's natural honesty shone through and Ryan could tell she was trying to explain what was really happening in some sense.
"Well, that's...kind of weird. But I think I'll help. Hand me that computer." Ryan said, taking it.
Again, his fingers flew across the keys and through menus, he smiled a bit, remembering doing similar things when he was younger. He wasn't quite sure whether it was actually good to do this, but he couldn't stop himself from helping his daughters. He knew he spoiled them. 
Sky and Aiko watched in awe. This was never the kind of stuff he talked about knowing how to do, since he worked as a teacher. Sky wondered just how many other talents Ryan had she didn't know about. 
"Here you go. You should have the ability to open the files now." Ryan said,"But if I found out this wasn't for the greater good, you should know it won't turn out well." For a moment he was scary, but quickly reverted to his normal self,"Still, I trust you guys. I think crazy stuff like this must just run in the family." He left the computer to the two girls.
"Alright then, which should we open first?" Sky asked, looking at all the different files.
"Hmmmm, how about, we just do this one." Aiko said, it was titled 'TEM-Combined',"That might have all the data in one place."
Sky double clicked it, and nothing happened for a few moments,"Should I press it again?" She asked, already about to start.
"No no no! From my experience it always takes way longer if you click it more times. I've made our computer crash a few times by hitting too many things too many times." Aiko pointed out, and Sky stayed her hand from clicking again.
After a few more moments of waiting, the program actually started. It looked almost like an editing program. There were different bars rising towards the top of the screen, and percentages, and it seemed to have a lot of stuff there.
"Ummmm, what is all this?" Aiko asked, having never quite seen anything like it.
"Well, each of those bars is labeled an emotion." Sky pointed out,"That might mean something."
"Well, at least this makes sense." Aiko pointed to one box near the bottom right of the screen, it said 'Emotions Gathered 88%'. 
"I bet his master plan will happen whenever that reaches 100% percent." Sky concluded,"Which means... he's really darn close!"
"Wait look!" Aiko said, and suddenly, one of the bars, confusion, started to rise.
"He must be absorbing emotions again." Sky said,"Darn it, we've got to stop him."
"Um, we don't know where he is or what exactly to do. Plus I don't think we can just leave." Aiko acted as the voice of reason to Sky's excitement.
"Oh... right... darn it." Sky looked down.
"What's wrong?" Aiko asked.
"If he can still take emotions, then what good came out of taking this..." Sky muttered quietly, most people wouldn't have understood her, but Aiko was not like most people to Sky. 
"I think it told us one thing." Aiko said.
"What?" Sky asked, clearly she wasn't believing it.
"That we need to take him down soon. And that we can." Aiko said confidently.
"What do you mean?" Sky asked.
"Come on, we won against him last time, and got this. I bet that means next time, we'll have the ability to take him down." Aiko tried to give Sky confidence.
Alice also flew down to Sky,"Don't worry. I can tell your feeling down about this, but overall, I think we did great today!" 
Sky paused for a moment, before smiling,"Thanks. I'm glad you're always there to support me."
"Of course." Aiko and Alice said together.
--Later that day--
"So, you've gotten roped into their antics too?" Kyoko asked Ryan.
"I suppose, I didn't think I'd be hacking into a computer though." Ryan admitted,"Just what is going on."
"Sky became a Magical Girl." Kyoko said, and Ryan almost immediately cut in, but Kyoko kept speaking,"Don't worry, it's not like me. She's more just having fun because of it. And I think it's making both of them grow."
"You're certain of that?" Ryan asked, still sounding a bit worried.
"Yeah. She's making new friends. As strange as it is, her being a Magical Girl might actually solve some of our worries." Kyoko said. 
"Well, then that's good." Ryan said,"It was nice to see her so focused like that."
"Yeah." Kyoko nodded.
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And so, Halloween day came to an end. Now, what will happen next? Just what is Harry's plan? Will they be able to stop it in time? What will happen to Sky and Aiko next? Will Ryan ever appear again? Find out next time, on The Adventures of Sky Endo (and Alice)!

@uniduckface (Here's the next part!)