Emmett and Clara met Dr. Venture in the biolab—section 006. Compared to the rest of the bunker-like aesthetic of the lab, the biolab looked almost like a hospital room. Except that the sterile white walls of the room were almost completely hidden by a jungle of empty glass tanks and tubes of bubbling liquid that twisted like vines.

This was where he woke up after the Champion street attack—the first place Emmett saw when Venture brought him back from the dead.

Even though it had only been a few weeks, it felt like much, much longer since he'd woken up to bright lights, steady beeping, and pain. He felt like an entirely different person, figuratively and literally.

Emmett suppressed a shiver as he walked up to the sleek metal tables in the center of the room.

Dr. Venture pushed up his glasses, then stood with his hands in his pockets expectantly.

Clara stepped up beside Emmett and pointed at the vials spread out on the table. "So, when do I get to take one of these?" She'd clearly meant it as a joke, but Venture ignored her.

"I will say, this time you actually will have a choice to make. Several of the compounds are either duds or will be of minimal use to those. Would you like me to start with the good choices or the duds?"

Emmett sighed. "At least this time I have a choice. Tell me about the duds."

First up was the vial filled with soft pink liquid. "This mixture is for enhanced strength. Unfortunately, it has diminishing returns when combined with other strength enhancements, such as the Mutagen-A already in your system."

Venture pointed to the swirling orange vial next. "This one was interesting. It results in an elongated, prehensile tongue... like a chameleon. It's slightly more useful to you, but unless you're concerned about your dating game, I think we can skip it."

"What do you mean—"

"What's next?" Clara asked quickly.

Without missing a beat, Venture continued to the deep red vial. "This one stimulates bone growth. It increases bone density, which could be useful, but it also had the side effect of causing protrusions and even bone claws in several simulations."

Emmett's shoulders sagged. So far, that was two out of five vials that were useless and a third that was troubling.

"What else?" he asked.

"This one was interesting." Venture held up the vial with a gritty purple liquid inside. "It causes the body to produce excess pheromones, causing others to feel increased connection, fear, or attraction. It's not as exact or potent as something like psychics could do, but it has its uses."

Emmett wasn't quite sure what to make of it. It certainly didn't seem as useful as some of the other powers, but when he looked to Clara for advice, she seemed apprehensive of it. So Emmett asked about the final vial.

Venture picked up the shimmering blue vial. "This increases your body's tolerance to extreme cold, and potentially even ice-based attacks."

Emmett raised an eyebrow. Training in the Gray Room was fresh in his mind. He hadn't run into many ice-based supers... any, really... but that could be useful, even if it was niche and in the future.

Venture set the blue vial back down, and Emmett reviewed his choices. And sighed, again. Even if he had a choice, this time compared to last time, nothing was popping out as the obvious choice.

Dr. Venture cleared his throat as if he had something to add. Clara chuckled.

Emmett scoffed at both of them. "Oh, come on. What is it now?"

"There is one more thing." Venture pulled another vial out of the inner pocket of his lab coat—a mix of swirling green.

Emmett nearly rolled his eyes, but stopped. "I've seen that one before."

"This isn't the same as the vial you found last time. I took inspiration from the mutagen variant that allowed a super to manufacture their own poison. Except that this formula does quite the opposite. This will turbo-charge your body's defenses against poisonous compounds. At the very least, you'll be able to weather the effects of things like the hallucinogen that drove Porcelain and Amarque insane.

"It won't always result in outright immunity, but it should allow you to build metabolic tolerance to most complex poisons and biological poisons. And it should allow you to build that tolerance much quicker than even your mutagen strengthened body could."

"But not everything?"

Venture smirked like he'd expected the question. "No. Coincidentally enough, the body can't do the same against simpler compounds like acids or heavy metals. Don't expect to become immune to chemical warfare anytime soon."

Emmett looked back over the vials again, but his mind was already made up. He nodded to the green vial in Venture's hand. "What's the catch?"

"No catch, other than the rules from last time still apply. You could potentially take another mutagen in a few weeks, but you need to give time for your body to acclimate to this one first." He handed Emmett the vial.

Emmett looked at Clara, but she just asked. "What are you waiting for?"

"What about you? If we're going to run into this rogue super again, shouldn't you take some of this, too?"

Clara smiled widely. "Thanks for thinking of me, but I have an exosuit. If poison manages to get through the suit, then I have much worse problems to worry about."

Venture added, "Besides, this was formulated with you in mind. I'll need time to make a compound for someone that doesn't already have Mutagen-A in their system. In theory, we could have a general antidote soon."

Emmett shrugged. "Alright then. Can I just drink it?"

Venture nodded.

Emmett pulled the stopper out, pinched his nose, and drank the vial quickly. It didn't help—the liquid tasted like sweet vomit.

When he was done gagging, Clara chuckled and patted him on the back.

"You're a trooper. Dad let me smell it and I almost threw up just from that. But hey, you have to suffer to get stronger, right?"

Emmett couldn't answer without feeling like he was going to lose it.

Venture had turned away from them both, his shoulders silently bobbing like he was stifling a laugh.

~

In the end, it took almost five minutes and a glass of water before Emmett didn't feel like gagging. Then he still had to wait another hour to make sure he didn't have an adverse reaction to the mutagen compound.

While Emmett waited, he grilled Dr. Venture on how to fix his whip.

The three of them had migrated to section 002—one of the wings of the lab marked by an old camera and a retinal scan. Beyond that, the layout was almost identical to section 003 where he'd spent most of his internship working on heat sinks.

They reached the central testing hub for the section, and Venture commanded TINA to bring up schematics for Emmett's arm and the whip. Soon the walls were filled with wireframe views of the two parts, with zoomed in views of specific areas.

"Put the whip on the table, please," Venture said.

Emmett unspooled the whip so it lay flat on the holographic table. Venture pulled the damaged linkages from his pocket, then made a quick gesture and a holographic display of the whip appeared in midair above the table.

"These are the damaged sections." As Venture spoke, the five linkages in the hologram glowed red and then expanded until each section was nearly a foot long. "It looks like when you attacked Feedback, the power surge overloaded the wiring. We can replace the wiring, but it will be quicker to replace the linkages for now."

"Because of your line of work, I've tried to make your prosthesis and initial mods with replacement in mind. I have spare parts and duplicates for everything."

Emmett smirked. "I thought you said my arm was one of the most advanced things you've designed. You already have spare parts?"

"One of the most advanced prostheses I've designed, and yes, I always have spares. ...Not as many for your arm as I have for your mods, so don't go breaking your arm recklessly."

"Noted. I'll try not to get destroyed... again."

Venture wheeled over one of the sleek silver carts and pulled out a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. With one in each hand, he set to work on the linkages, and the hologram in the air showed an expanded view of what he was doing.

It looked simple enough—each linkage in the whip was like a link of hollow chain connected together. Each piece was self-contained, basically consisting of a node at either end, conducting wire, and the metal casing that surrounded it all. Any link could be removed and the whip could still function.

Venture said, "Clara, watch closely. You need to know how to do this, too." When Emmett looked up in question, Venture added, "On the off chance you are incapacitated, someone else might need to disconnect a mod for you."

He pried apart the node that connected the very last damaged link, and it came apart with a snap.

Emmett nodded. "That was easy enough."

Venture examined the damaged piece. "Fascinating. The casing took the brunt of the damage, allowing you to still use it to its full potential. Now you try." He handed Emmett the pliers and screwdriver.

Carefully, Emmett did just as Venture had with the next damaged link. It took him a moment to find the correct angle, but then the link snapped apart easily. Emmett repeated the process for the next damaged pieces, then relaxed.

Clara patted him on the shoulder. "Not bad. Soon you'll be fixing my exosuit."

Venture turned and grabbed more links out of a nearby drawer, then deposited them on the table. Emmett set to work excitedly.

Venture added idly, "One day, Clara or I will show you a similar procedure to take apart our armor, on the off chance that both the wearer and the suit are incapacitated."

For a moment, Emmett wondered why they would wait to show him that kind of procedure. It seemed important, and on the off chance of something catastrophic like that, Emmett would want to be able to assist. But suspicion slowly dawned on him, and Emmett realized the likely reason:

They didn't trust him with that knowledge yet.

Emmett kept working and hoped Clara and Venture weren't looking at his face too closely.

He didn't blame them, of course. He would probably be wary of trusting someone with knowledge that could endanger his family. But it still stung to realize that even after the craziness of the last three weeks, even after seeing as much of the lab as he had and being trusted with so many secrets so far, even after dying, Emmett was still on the outside. They still didn't trust him—not really.

Emmett pushed the thought away and focused on the feeling coming back to the whip with each added link. The final piece clicked into place and Emmett wiggled it to test it out.

"Good as new," he said, retracting it back into his arm. Then, wanting to change the subject, he asked, "Is it a similar procedure to swap out mods?"

"More or less," Venture replied. "Let's give it a shot."

~ ~ ~