☠ WILY.

“That’s wonderful, sir! Forte will be pleased to hear it; He’s been very excited about the notion of having a linemate. And I’m excited, too– It’ll be nice, having a younger sister… An interesting change of pace, don’t you think?”

That being said… Dr. Wily doesn’t look like he’s been taking very good care of himself in the rush to finish his daughter. Stepping into the lab proper, the DWN noes the mass of coffee mugs scattered about the lab, one of which only half empty and looking fairly cold. The man kind of smelled a little, too, and the bags under his eyes were heavy. Alto chuckles, sighing softly. 

Oh, father… Please take better care of yourself…

“Though… If I might make a small suggestion, sir…? Perhaps you ought to take a break and get some rest before reviewing her coding. It’s best to step away from a project before beginning the final touches; You’re more likely to catch mistakes and things in need of fixing after resting your eyes.” He prods his fingers together nervously. “And, ah– If I’m not being too bold in making this request– Perhaps it would be wise to get a second party’s inspection of her coding? I’m sure Soprano wouldn’t mind, if he’s not too busy… All of us would like our younger sister to be brought online as smoothly as possible, you see…”

... but he couldn’t say no to his favourite son. How could anyone? His boy was the best thing he’d ever built! Though Alto insisted on referring to Wily as ‘Master’ and taking care of him so often, the fact was that Alto would get whatever he wanted the moment Albert knew of it. He built the boy to be too cute! (Which, of course, he attributed to having based his physical appearance off of himself at that age.)

“Bah, alright...” Dr. Wily got up from his chair- and a very audible crack sound came from his back. Ow- come on, he wasn’t that old! ...Yet! Nevertheless, the mad scientist was sluggish, “Wouldn’t want her to end up like Forte, eh?” 

Though, by now, he’d realized what had gone wrong with him. Since he hadn’t been able to complete Piano at the time, he had removed the twin coding that would cause Forte to glitch out. Unfortunately, he must’ve removed either too much or too little, because the missing coding resulted in Forte’s violence feedback loop glitch. Probably a misdirection from the coding trying to fix itself... But oh, well. Soprano fixed it and he was better now.

“YOU’RE THE ONE TO BLAME. IT’S YOUR FAULT THAT YOU BUILT ME!” Reggae flew off out of Wily’s reach, but didn’t leave.

There had to be a reason he hadn’t shown up to dinner. It wasn’t every day someone had a birthday, and Isabelle had gone out of her way to make sure Albert had been invited. Noele (nor Mikhail, for that matter!) might not have been too upset over the lack of redhead at the restaurant, but the blonde certainly had been. He was a good person! She could tell! He just took… Time to get through to. Tom had managed it, and she thought she was well on her way… But the only way for Pedro, Noele, and Mikhail to do the same was to be in his presence.

…And he was usually pretty good about showing up when he was invited, anyways– If only when it was a given Thomas would be there. And it wasn’t like Tom would miss out on Noele’s birthday… 

Something had to be up, and she’d taken it upon herself to find out. Isabelle had left early, convincing Tom to stay with the group; If Albert talked, she felt one-on-one would be easier for him anyways. And if she thought what was wrong was actually wrong, then it might be difficult for the poor thing to open up with his best friend present. What was that guy from engineering’s name, again…?

She’d stopped at home first, changing out of the dressier clothes she’d picked out for the restaurant in favour of something more comfortable– There was going to be a lot of sitting around on Tom’s bed listening to Albert rant or rave or cry about whatever made him miss out on dinner, and as pretty as her dress was it wouldn’t be very good for that. She didn’t want to bring much attention to the fact that the group had gone out without him, too– It might make Albert feel worse, and that was the last thing Isabelle Beaulieu wanted. 

Before heading out, she made sure to grab a couple of bad sci-fi films and snacks. Making fun of or criticizing all the inaccuracies might make Albert laugh a little, at least, and if they were going to be there for a while it would be nice to have a good supply of junk food lying around.

The next stop before dropping off at the boys’ dorm was to the nearest corner store, in search of a big tub of rocky road ice cream. She didn’t care much for it, but it was Al’s favourite, and Isabelle wanted to make him as happy and comfortable as possible. Once the precious ice cream and a few more snacks were collected, the blonde set out for Al’s dorm.

…Maybe she should have bugged Thomas for his key, in hindsight. Oh, well.

Albert would soon hear a knocking at his door, followed by Isabelle’s voice.

Struck out again- he just had the worst luck with guys, didn’t he? They either already had somebody, or they were straight, or they were homophobic or really any combination of things. Albert had pretended to have been napping off the pain when Tom had left the room; because he knew that his bestie wouldn’t have left if he knew he was awake. Whatever- Thomas could go hang out with his friends for his girlfriend’s birthday, didn’t matter to Al. He wanted to mope on his own, anyway. No need to have him drag down the mood--

Okay, he was a little more bitter than he’d want to let on. Still, he really wasn’t up for anything right now aside from wallowing in heartbreak. The robotics student grumbled as he lifted his head for a moment to rummage through his drawer and pick up his phone. What time was it?

...It was getting late. Ish. Tom would probably still be gone for a while, and he’d have the time to himself. Well, he’d stopped crying for the moment- that was at least a plus?

“Gah!” He was startled by the sudden knock on the door. Wait- he can’t have possibly been back this soon! Then he heard the voice coming from the other side of the door and identified Isabelle’s voice. Wait, what the hell was she doing here? Did Tom forget something-? Wait, maybe not. Thomas Light aside, Isabelle did seem to be the one other person in the universe that ever paid him any mind.

...Uh. “Just-- just gimme a minute,” Albert called. He looked around for his glasses, shoving them on his face and grimacing as he noticed smears all over the frames. He grabbed whatever tissues were in plain sight and dumped them in the trash bin, which had already been overflowing with papers; and took another three seconds to wipe his glasses on his shirt before answering the door.

There was an eagerness in his expression and a longing in his voice that Forte barely noticed, so wrapped up was he in the thought that he was supposed to have a sister. Now that he knew, the SWN simply couldn’t push the thought - or the desire - of that missing unit existing away.

For now, however, he grabbed a piece of scrap paper and scribbled down some parts. “Here- these are the parts I’m sure she’s going to need,” he said. “I’ll call you back when I’ve finalized her design. Oh- for that matter, I might need to pencil you in for programming modifications before I activate her. There’s a bit more to having a twin than just her being around!”

He’d gone as far as to include twin programming in their designs; however, he’d taken that coding out of Forte when he realized he wasn’t going to be able to finish Piano. Otherwise, Forte would’ve been suffering; and luckily for both of them, Dr. Wily had, in a rare moment of proving his intelligence, kept the coding for that twin programming saved ...somewhere. He’d have to look for it later!

 “Why didn’t you before?!? I need her Doc c’mon!” Pulling the blueprints back again to try and prevent any snatching  - he was going to protect these papers like they were already his sister. His sister. He’d been intended to have a twin, except he hadn’t gotten her because… because Dr. Wily was a STINGY OLD FART. (This was the only plausible explanation in his mind at the moment.)

Whining, Forte rocked back on his heald and started at Albert, taking in his appearance more fully for the first time. Had he woken the old man up? It sure seemed like it… but he’d feel bad about it later. (Maybe.) Right now, he had something more important to deal with.

It had been a long time since Wily had looked at those particular blueprints. He wasn’t exactly swimming in funds; it was difficult to get in contact with- well, anybody outside of the fortress, due to his wanted level, so donations were rare and far between. His kids were so trigger-happy and wasteful with what he could get, either by forcing him to use up the spare parts to repair them or by wasting the cash in some way. As such, there were a number of projects he’d stashed aside and forgotten about- including the one Forte was holding.

“Let me see that,” Dr. Wily insisted, resisting (for now) Forte’s ...rather surprising pleading. “I can’t build her if I don’t know who you’re talking ab-- ooohhh, her.”

In the middle of his own talking, he’d figured it out. One SWN-002 Piano, the Roll to Forte’s Rock. He didn’t exactly have a plethora of female designs; Dr. Wily was an extraordinarily lazy man whose only two female robots were both copy robots; and one of them only female by accident. Like the others, Piano had been set aside due to a lack of money and a lack of parts.

But... well, it wasn’t like he had anything else to do. He had no other ideas and Forte was being really insistent. (It was kind of cute, actually, coming from his son. That wasn’t exactly something he saw often from Forte.)

“Man, does the Doc never junk anything?” Forte mumbled to himself, not daring to speak louder lest he risk discovery. It would be bad enough to get in trouble for being in here without permission - but to be caught rifling through the old man’s things?

That was something he didn’t really want to risk. He was only in here in the first place because he was trying to get a good feel for the room so he could set up another prank sometime - Quick had approved of the paintball-splattered door, after all, and anything that would give him a sibling’s approval after he’d managed to aienate most of them was a wonderful thing.

Even if it meant getting in trouble with other siblings, which was definitely what would happen if Metal or Flash caught him in here.

  “Junk,” Forte muttered, digging through a file folder and tossing papers aside - it was still messing things up, probably, but he wasn’t burning the paper so Metal couldn’t come down on him too hard for it.  “Junk, trash, what’s a tissue doing in here?” He tossed the offending paper away and made a face.  “Gross, Doc. That’s just gross. Garbage, stupid, ju— oh hey, what’s this?” 

Pulling out a set of Blueprints, Forte peered at them with only half-interest until he noticed the design and the serial number scribbled onto the paper.  “What in the— DOOOOOOC!”

 Forgetting everything else he had been doing and stomping on tossed and crumpled papers on his way out, Forte ran out of the office and to the last place he had seen Dr. Wily, screeching at the top of his lungs.

Then the rowdy boy had started calling for him, and Dr. Wily snapped awake. As he shook himself awake, he could hear his last son continue calling for him, and he grumbled. Luckily the kid was coming here, so he didn’t have to go searching for him via intercom or anything. Darn kid- he’d been sleeping so well!

“What is it, Forte?” the mad scientist asked a bit impatiently. He didn’t have his contacts in, so he reached beneath his glasses to rub his eyes awake. One of these days that boy would be the death of him! He noticed the files in Forte’s hands and scowled; “Didn’t I tell you not to go through my files?! Give me that!”

The older DWN’s shoulders slacked a little, a barely noticeable action to anyone who didn’t know him well. To those who did, it was an indicator that he was feeling something other than anger. In the case of the situation with Magnet it was probably a rising feeling of guilt that hadn’t fully surfaced.

"I’ll be having a talk with you later, Snake Man," Dr. Wily said.

"…Yes, sir." Snakeman replied, a bit confused by the statement.

Snake tensed when he heard Magnet mention decommissioning— That wasn’t what he had planned to happened to Magnetman at all! Even at his most furious he wouldn’t go to the lengths of decommissioning— or attempting to decommission— Any of the third generation.

Dr. Wily’s willingness to let Magnet leave the castle was not a surprise to Snake— As he had said, there were plenty of DWN’s that weren’t always in the castle. Which Snake didn’t mind, as long as they came back— and didn’t spend their time being friendly with humans. Wily’s concern was the same as Snake’s, although the green DWN had a hatred of humans tacked onto his insistence on not letting Magnet interact with the human race casually.

Snake tensed slightly at Wily’s thoughts regarding Magnet possibly being handed over to Dr. Light should he be caught. He didn’t want Magnet to be at any risk of getting caught if it were possible, even if he’d simply wind up with Dr. Light. On top of that, it gave Snakeman the feeling that Wily might have been considering letting Magnet actually go to college. He didn’t have confirmation of his suspicions, but he had a bad feeling about it.

He was making plans on how to retrieve him if everything went wrong?! 

Magnet looked as incredulous as Snake probably did, staring at his father as though he’d grown a second head. He was… Really okay with this?!

Granted, Magnet wasn’t sure how much he really wanted to act on his plans anymore thanks to all of this, but… If his father gave the okay and he went through all that trouble in the first place… Why wouldn’t he?

But Magnet Man was cautious and too friendly for anyone to immediately see him as a threat, or suspect him to be a DWN. Besides, it had been eons since the third line had been built. Chances were that people were no longer going to recognize the DLWN identification that was on his IC chip.

Dr. Wily pored over the decision for a minute more before answering Snake Man's question. "...Magnet Man is allowed to go to college," he said decisively. "Personally I'd rather he get a university education, but he's the one who forged the papers and sent the application." Of course, he was speaking as someone who got both; and all the hands-on work at college basically resulted in numerous injuries that summarized Dr. Wily's life in a nutshell.

He turned to the other third-gen. "Now; I'll be giving you plans for what to do should a bad situation arise. I'll sit you down and talk them through with you later- and I should hope you've also figured out how to pay for all this. It's not cheap, you know! Furthermore-- oh, for the love of..." Dr. Wily got a closer look at the injuries Tone had endured from Snake. "...Get Flash Man to take care of these. If he has any paperwork to take care of tell him to transfer it over to Air Man."