Episode: 4.2

--- Sol ---

Stepping out of the PTA meeting he rolled his neck twice, hoping to work out at least one of the kinks these annoying meetings always gave him.

Hell, the only reason he went was because he wasn’t actually given a choice. Mainly due to the fact that-

Something crashed to the ground in front of him kicking up a large cloud of dust and debris.

As the air began to clear, he was able to make out the two young girls, one a blonde girl in a blue sleeveless blouse and shorts, carrying a sword almost as big as she was, and the other a dark-haired girl in a black dress holding a large book in her hands.

(Well, think of the little devils…)

His eyes drifted away from the girls and towards a large round tear in the air, where with a blue border, the world abruptly shifted from the scene of an afternoon sun over a small town, to a red sun blazing over a series of stone and cloth homes set apart by desert sand.

In front of this Rift to another land were a dozen or so creatures of various shapes and sizes, ranging from eight-foot-tall giants covered in fur with tusks in their mouths, to bipedal reptilian creatures, all with weapons of various kinds in their hands.

At the front of this crowd was a thin green lizard creature, built more for speed than power, and clothed in an assortment of leathers over its arms, legs, and torso.

The lizard pointed its sword at the girls before speaking with a slight hiss to its speech, “You think you can s-steal what rightfully belongs-s to general S-Scaleian?!”

“We didn’t steal anything!” the blonde girl growled, pointing entirely too large sword back at the mercenary leader, “You lot are the bad guys, always invading our town!”

“And how pray tell, are we s-suppos-sed to make a living otherwis-se?” the reptile drawled, in a way that was probably charismatic to its own people, despite being more intimidating to anything remotely mammalian. “The des-sert is a particularly harsh plac-ce.”

“Yeah, well you can, uh…” the blonde fumbled her comeback before turning towards the dark-haired girl, “Luna?”

The dark-haired girl rolled her eyes, before turning towards the mercenaries, “The desert may be harsh, but your treatment here shall be harsher.”

The blonde nodded with a determined grin, as she turned back to the mercenaries, “Yeah, what she said!”

“S-so be it.” The green lizard chuckled as if amused, before pointing its sword at them once more as it screamed, “Attack!” sending the other mercenaries into a frenzy as they rushed towards the girls.

(Best plan would be to pull back, let Luna drop a few spell traps on the ground, clear out the first wave and then pick off the stragglers.)

Rather than doing this, the blonde girl recklessly met the charge, all the while swinging her sword more like a baseball bat than an actual blade as she swatted the various mercenaries away.

(And… she completely disregards all of her lessons…)

He couldn’t help but pinch the bridge of his nose as he held back a sigh.

(Of course…)

The few mercenaries who were either too strong or too fast for her to hit, stood their ground by batting the blade away or simple out maneuvering it in feats of skill and experience, the ten-year-old just couldn’t hope to naturally match.

Not that, that discouraged said ten-year-old in the slightest.

Rather than trying to back up and re-evaluate the situation, the blonde swords-girl stepped further into the fight, rushing under the guard of the closest mercenary that was giving her trouble, before kicking forward and… several of the male mercenaries winced in sympathy, as the low blow sent their comrade flying.

(Maybe I’m letting her spend a little too much time with Payne again…)

“That’s fighting dirty, girl!” The green leader smiled with a maw full of fangs, “Maybe you will las-st a few minutes-s in the real world!”

The lizard rushed forward, easily batting aside the blonde’s blade, before pushing her back and giving the mercenaries enough space to change their approach.

While all of this was going on, the dark-haired girl began flipping through the pages of her book before slapping her hand down, and stopping it on a specific page as she began chanting something under her breath, causing the text to glow a faint blue.

One of the larger mercenaries, a muscled lizard almost ten feet tall, caught sight of her, and the blatantly glowing object of power. Immediately realizing the threat, the lizard rushed forward slamming its claws into the ground and gouging several long streaks through the pavement as the dark-haired girl leaped back, avoiding the strike without breaking her chant.

As the young witch landed, she threw her hand into the air, causing the glow of the pages to increase exponentially as several green fireballs began to form in the air. She dropped her hand and shot it out towards the large mercenary and his cohorts all while shouting, “Burn, Fiendish Flame!”

Heeding her command, the green fireballs began shooting forward, several impacting the large mercenary, and several more bombarding its comrades.

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(At least she’s actually using her lessons with Allister.)

Noticing the damage his comrades were taking from the spell slinging Arcane, the green lizard leader leapt away from the blonde, leaving her distracted by his sword wielding allies.

So distracted by her spell casting, the dark-haired witch didn’t even notice as the lizard came from behind, grabbed her by the back of her neck, and threw her to the side as if she weighed nothing. As the girl hit the ground her book flew from her hands, landing a few feet too far for her to fetch.

The lizard grinned before pinning the girl down with one of its clawed feet, “You need to watch yours-self little girl…”

As he watched the mercenary leader taunt the child, he clenched his fist, every instinct screaming, begging for him to run out there and help his little girl, but at the same time…

He’d only cause everyone more problems in the long run…

The green lizard glanced up, before seemingly slipping a step as their eyes met. An action that gave the blonde girl the perfect opening to dropkick the mercenary off her sister, while breaking away from her duel with the other mercenaries.

The blonde helped the dark-haired girl up before swinging her arm, as in a flash of light her blade formed once more in her hands.

The lead lizard looked the scene over before glancing at the Rift that was steadily getting smaller. The lizard mumbled something he couldn’t quite hear, before raising his voice and yelling, “Retreat!”

The other four creatures stood and glanced from their leader to him and the girls before grimacing. Only one or two of them actually looked happy with the order, but they all turned back towards the Rift, and began running for their side of the portal.

The green lizard glared at the two girls as his comrades escaped, before pointing a clawed finger at them, “You may’ve won this fight Grey sisters, but we shall return, and we shall have vengeance!”

(Not the best banter I’ve heard before, but something a ten-year-old ‘ll appreciate at least…)

He waited for the Rift to close, making sure the interdimensional mercenary group wasn’t going to cause anymore problems, before walking up behind the two.

“Not bad kiddos.”

Both girls turned to him, still half tense from their fight, before the blonde’s face melted into one of the brightest smiles anyone had ever seen.

“Sol!” she ran at him and leapt, hitting him with a flying tackle hug, and nearly cracking half his rib cage.

(Really, need to talk to her about controlling that B-Rank Strength…)

“Ellie…” he managed to greet back, after a half minute of hidden gasping.

“Sol.” The dark-haired girl nodded to him as she walked up.

“Luna.” He nodded back, before ruffling her hair. An action that earned him a fairly powerful glare, for a ten-year-old, as she straightened her hair back out.

He gave them both a once over, just in case he missed any injuries while they were facing away from him. “You both doing okay?”

Ellie blew a raspberry before waving away his concerns. “It was just Scaleian, we beat him like three times a week.”

“All he needs to do is get lucky once kiddo.” He reminded her, after all advice was all he was really good for on that topic.

“But it’s Scaleian he’s harmless…”

He sighed, before glancing at his more mature daughter.

Luna gave him a decisive nod back.

(Well at least one of you is keeping vigilant…)

“So… anything else fun happen today?”

Both girls looked at each other before shaking their heads, something he didn’t quite trust, knowing his kids as well as he did. Namely how much they took after him…

“Really, nothing cool or interesting?” he pressed while looking at his less devious daughter, primarily because he knew Luna wouldn’t crack for anything short of S-Class torture methods.

(Ellie on the other hand…)

She paused as if trying to think of something interesting before her eyes went wide as she gasped in joy. Shoving her hands into her pockets she began digging through them as she hopped from foot to foot, with a thousand-watt smile.

“Sol, Sol, look, look at this!” Ellie went on while shaking a particularly large tooth of something that most certainly wasn’t of this earth.

“Oh, what have you got there?” he asked crouching down to meet the girl’s bright blue eyes.

“It’s a dragon’s tooth!” she yelled excitedly.

“It is not a dragon’s tooth.” Luna’s much more somber voice argued.

He glanced behind the blonde to a dark haired ten-year-old, who was still trying to brush dirt off of her dress.

(I told you not to let her jump and drag you everywhere…)

“Then what is it?” the blonde asked tilting her head curiously.

“I do not know.” The ravenette stated bluntly.

“Well if you don’t know…” Ellie frowned crossing her arms, “How can you say it’s not.”

“Because dragons are reptilian in nature, and this is clearly mammalian.” Luna explained swiping the tooth from her sister.

“If it’s not a dragon’s tooth…” Ellie paused staring at the tooth thoughtfully before smiling wide, “Then maybe it’s a lizard person’s!”

“Ellie,” he started, deciding it was best to intervene as his other daughter began pinching the bridge of her nose.

His blonde daughter slapped her cheeks, “Wait, if this is a person’s tooth then we have to give it back!”

“What.” Luna stated more than asked, her expression of annoyance mixing with a thorough dose of confusion.

“If we took someone’s tooth, then we have to give it back so they can give it to the tooth fairy and get a dollar!” His little cinnamon roll explained as if it were obvious.

Luna visibly restrained herself from speaking as logic and love warred with themselves on the ten-year-old’s face.

“Girls,” he called, trying once more to get their attention, “why don’t you give me the tooth and I’ll deal with it?”

“Are you going to give it back to its owner?” Ellie asked swinging her arms around.

He glanced at Luna who simply shrugged, not capable of actually caring about some strange tooth beyond her need for descriptive accuracy.

“I’ll take care of it, sweet heart.”

“Promise?”

“Mm-hm.”

Ellie watched him for a moment before sticking out her little finger, “Pinkie promise?”

He couldn’t help but smirk.

“I thought Luna was the paranoid one?”

Ellie gave him her equivalent of a glare, something even a puppy could out do, before shaking her finger.

Sighing, despite the grin he couldn’t quite suppress, he hooked his finger with hers, before shaking once, twice, and thrice as they broke apart.

His little ray of sunshine nodded with a wide smile, “Okay, you can give it to him.”

Luna rolled her eyes before doing just that.

He gave the tooth a once over before frowning.

(Luna ‘s right it’s mammalian, carnivorous too.)

“Where exactly did you two find this?” he asked, idly noting the way his more guileful daughter seemed to stiffen, “One of your ‘adventures’?”

“Uh-huh!” Ellie nodded in excitement, as Luna shook her head ‘no’ before slapping her palm against her face.

“Were you two running into the Rifts again?”

Ellie seemed to freeze as she realized her blunder.

“Um…no?”

He gave her an expression that, while amused, was not impressed.

“A Rift opened. The standard sort came through.” Luna began listing in a clipped but even tone, “We pushed them back, but were dragged in, in turn. We fought our way out. And we came back, before the Rift closed. The few you saw were the ones that managed to follow us through.”

“You see that was a much better lie.” He pointed out to his little ray of sunshine, “If I didn’t know her, I’d actually think she was telling the truth. It’s best to leave the lies to your sister, sunbeam.”

“I am telling the truth.”

“The whole truth?”

His little moonbeam stared at him for a moment, a blank expression meeting his own amused.

“I rescind my complaint.”

“Sure, you do.” He ruffled Luna’s hair, just to annoy her a little more.