Pyrophobia

Chapter 1 - Genesis

"Coming through!" A sweetly accented voice called out, the owner moving by in a blur. A rather small blue and tan blur, pulling a cart that was far too big for her petite frame. The brunette had finally gotten more tungsten carbide,courtesy of her dear friend, Tadashi Hamada. He had been talking that he excess leftover from his own project; and she, being in need of said material, asked for all of it. She hadn't expected quite literally all of it. She only needed a small amount for the final product of her own project: A fully functional, flexible and growing rib cage that had nanites infused to take place of real chondrocytes.

Though the French exchange student only stood at a measly five-foot two, her momentum had other students stepping away with a look of high exasperation. She was fast for her little legs.

Alix finally stepped into her lab, lit up with holoscreens and filled with body dummies, opened and some with fake organs inside of it. She let out a long sigh, leaning against the cart for a moment before feeling it move as she swiped at her left temple, letting out the tiniest of gasps. "Right, cart," she murmured to herself while pivoting on her heel. It was strange, she thought to herself, the way that even while she was alone, she had began to talk to herself in English; even think naturally in it. Delicate hands wrapped around the edge of the bottom of the box to lift it, immediate strain finding a place in her lower back.

Despite the box having ultra light contents, it was the container itself that that caused her balance to nearly fail her and make her legs and back scream at her. At least, until the box was lifted from her own hands and taken into much larger ones. Alix looked up sharply, to which her new companion was surprised that it didn't give her whiplash. The tiny woman was rather surprised - pleasantly, to say - to see dreads and the friendly face of Wasabi. "Need some help?"

An airy laugh escaped Alix, playing a smile onto her rosy cheeks. "Oui, I do. Thank you, dearest Wasabi." He was a sweet man. "Say, have you seen Honey Lemon anywhere, or heard from her? She texted me that she would be by around this time, but isn't responding to my messages now. I need some help with this stuff." Her gaze looked at the box in Wasabi's hands, before refocusing on his face. Dark amber pools met with amethyst gems before looking back at the container, green-clad shoulders shrugging rather heavily.

"Last I heard, she was with Tadashi," he paused before laughing, following up with the rest of his sentence sheepishly. What a shit eating grin he had on. "Probably making out."

Alix joined into the laughter hesitantly, contributing with tiny, soft chuckles and a passively happy face to hide the sting that spread across her chest, centering in with the worst pain over her heart. That comment hurt her, despite Wasabi not knowing it. No one knew it, actually. Her dreams of having a romance fit for a fairytale; to travel to America, meet her Prince Charming and to live a happy life. Well, she certainly had her Prince Charming.

The only problem? He was already being pinned after by a queen. The Queen of Chemistry.

Alix couldn't dream of interfering - Tadashi never showed much affection in public, but she could only be left to imagine what happened behind closed doors. They had known each other for years, it only seemed natural. Alix? She was an outsider - she had only joined recently, however long or short someone saw two years to be.

She was snapped out of it by Wasabi setting the container down onto one of her desks mostly free of clutter. He did have his own things to do, after all, no matter how much she enjoyed spending time with her friend. "Thank you, again. I owe you one."

She heard his sonorous chuckle as he walked away, raising his hand as a gesture. "You sure do!"

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Her head was on the desk, ponytail long forgotten with locks strewn across her back and over her face. The lights in her lab were on, as bright as could be to all but those outside, only getting a dim view of what was going on inside. Somehow, Alix managed to fall asleep like that. It was after midnight, but her coffee was long forgotten across the room, and her plans spread out under her drool, hands gripping a screwdriver. Three loud thumps to her door had her sitting up quickly.

"Mm- wha- merde," she cursed loudly, head pounding and a crick in her neck from sleeping the way she did. The door opened before she could even respond, bringing the smell of fresh coffee and- was that food?

"Morning, sleeping beauty," a mellow voice greeted, all to familiar despite being laced with the same fatigue that had seduced her hours earlier.

"Tadashi, what are you still doing here? It's," she squinted at her phone. "It's two in the morning." The college student laughed, bringing a small smile to her lips. His baritone laugh was impossible to be immune to.

"I could ask you the same thing. I was going to make my coffee and saw that the lights under the door were still on. So I brought you a cup and a piece of bread too." He held the items out like a peace offering; an apology for waking her up. Alix didn't mind anyway, she would have been aching even worse if she stayed like that all night.

Alix was quick to grab them with a thankful glance, sipping on the fresh coffee with a satisfied sigh, the hot liquids warming her from the core and out. "You're a lifesaver. I didn't expect to pass out while working on this." Tadashi raised an eyebrow as he looked over the plans that had been revealed by her sitting back. "Anyways, how is your project going? Why does no one tell each other what they're working on? Some secret code or something?"

Tadashi grinned and pulled up a spare chair. "Or something," he replied and pulled his cap off, running his fingers through his soft, short cut hair. Oh, how Alix wanted to do that for him. "He's - it's - going fine. Great. I think I'm really close to working out something." It was Alix's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"He? What are you doing, making a robot that people can talk to? It's been done, bud." Tadashi chuckled lowly and leaned against her desk, shaking his head. "You'll see one day. I promise. It's kind of... in beta at the moment. Your project seems to be going much better than mine, by the way."

Alix nodded softly, taking out one of her prototypes to hand to him. In vitro, it seemed to work fine. She just hoped it would be better with the tungsten that he had given to her. "Yeah. I'm really hoping that Professor Callaghan will take a liking to this - it could save so many lives of the young and the old, no?" Tadashi stared at the French woman for a moment before giving her a big toothy grin. They were both working on something for the medical field, even though Alix's major was for that sole purpose.

"I'm sure he will." His large hand wound up on top of Alix's messy hair, ruffling it even more like he did so often to his little brother. Alix's smile faltered a bit, the motion reminding her of how Tadashi saw her; a sibling. He took another look over her artificial ribcage.

"In fact, I'm positive."