Bray awoke to the sound of a screeching alarm and Mazie’s bright shining face. Even the sun in her eyes would have been less blinding than that child’s enthusiasm. The pair had taken to sleeping in the same bed every night. In their past life, Mazie would often sneak into Bray’s bed, so it wasn’t really new. However, since they were both small, they could share the bed with Bray having less of a chance of getting kicked in the face by a child’s foot in the middle of the night.

After crawling out of bed, the first thing they did every morning was take a bath together. Bray wished they did it at night, but she was always too tired in the evenings to attempt and wrangle Mazie into the tub. They’d been practicing Mazie taking baths independently, and she was getting more reliable at it, but Bray found she still needed to double check since there were always spots that Mazie still didn’t wash properly. How does she get so dirty in a single day?

“Do you want to eat here, or do you want to go to the restaurant for breakfast?” Bray would ask every morning.

“Restaurant!” Mazie chimed with excitement, and Bray let out a sigh of relief. She chose the restaurant most days but would occasionally ask for Bray’s homemade cooking. While Bray didn’t mind the cooking itself, it was a lot more tedious than it used to be. Everything required a lot of step stools, and her dexterity wasn’t as developed anymore.

On the walk over, Bray would hold Mazie’s hand the entire time. It was crazy how often she would see something or someone and get distracted from their goal during just the short walk. Now she no longer had the advantage of long legs to keep up with her if Mazie did actually run off. Even keeping her on the path, Mazie would still stop to talk with anyone they met along the way. Because of this, Bray always made sure to allot extra time anytime they needed to be somewhere.

“Surprise me!” Mazie had taken to saying every meal at the restaurant when asked what she wanted. This wasn’t because she didn’t have preferences, but the overabundance of choice overwhelmed her, and it would be lunchtime before she actually settled on something.

“Just toast for me,” Bray gave her simple order.

“What kind of toast?” Hazzle asked for clarification.

“Plain with butter is fine,” Bray avoided looking at her in the eyes, still finding it awkward talking to adults from such a low angle.

“Are you sure?” Hazzle smiled down at her. “We have stuffed toast with fruit and cinnamon cream today.” The smile didn’t end, and Bray kept glancing away until she broke.

“Fine,” she gave in. “I’ll have that. Oh, and a black coffee.”

“I want coffee too!” Mazie tried to add it to her order.

“No, you don’t, Mazie,” her mother insisted.

“But you get it all the time. I want to try it!” the child went into full pout mode.

“You can have a sip of mine,” Bray offered. “And if you want more then you can have your own.” Once they had their food, they sat next to Gatrim and Niloy who were both happy to keep Mazie entertained throughout the meal with big fancy words that she didn’t understand but was still amazed by.

For her own food, they’d given Mazie a bit of everything, spoiling her to pieces. At least it was child sized portions. She ended up not wanting another sip of coffee and quickly ran back to the counter, begging for some juice to drown out the taste.

After breakfast was school, and school was the biggest regret that Bray had with becoming a child again. She’d already lived through this nightmare once, why did she have to do it again? Well, she knew why. She knew within a day that her brain didn’t work the same anymore, so she had to relearn how to use it. Still, it was utter agony, but it at least made Mazie happy.

Ms. Jaimess, as Bray was forced to call her, came to properly teach for about an hour every morning. Since the two girls were her only proper students outside of tutoring, she could cram a full day of lessons in that short amount of time and then go back to her other duties. She’d always leave them with some activities to complete afterwards to fill the rest of their allotted school time.

There had been two other children that Bray wondered if they’d be joining as their classmates; a teen and a preteen. However, they were still humans that their Lesser parent had brought with them to escape their pursuers. To give them some semblance of a normal life, though, they commuted to the public school in Hedgehind with altered identities.

“Guhhh,” Bray stared at today’s math quiz with her head spinning. Mazie had finished it in seconds and then grabbed some art supplies to paint while she waited for Bray to be done.

“It’s the simplest of simple addition. It doesn’t matter what age you are, this should be trivial.” Andi looked down on her when she came to check how she was doing.

“It’s not quite that simple…” Bray whined. “My child brain is trying to do the math, but my adult brain is constantly griping that they just want to use a calculator. And neither of them will shut up.” She managed to work through it eventually, but not before Mazie had managed to cover her skin, clothes, and desk all in paint.

After the second bath of the day, they went to lunch and basically had a repeat situation of breakfast. This time, Tize regaled them with old war stories that were thankfully toned down to child-appropriate levels. They ran into Itsy on their way out of the main building, and she picked the two girls up onto her two shoulders and gave them a lift to their clubhouse since she was heading the same way.

“What do you want to do today, Mazie?” Bray asked once Mazie’s initial burst of chaotic playful energy was burned through. In the afternoons, they were pretty much allowed to do whatever they pleased and were given a clubroom in an attempt to keep them out of trouble.

“I want to play Fiends For Hire!” Yet they always found trouble some way or another.

“Didn’t we just play that yesterday?” Bray tried to dissuade her. “There’s not that much crime around here.”

“But there’s always somebody to help!”

“...Alright,” Bray couldn’t fight against her childlike innocence and didn’t want to dissuade her desire to help others. “But recite to me the rules of playing Fiends For Hire first.”

“Okay, uhhhh…” Mazie counted on her fingers for a moment. “Number one, I can never leave your sight. Number two, I can not cross the street unless I am holding your hand. Number three… uhh, number three….”

“Adults.”

“Right! Number three, if an adult looks busy or is headed somewhere, do not bother them! Number four…”

“Strangers.”

“Do not follow any strangers!”

“And number five?”

“Run away if things get scary or dangerous!”

“Very good,” Mazie had made some progress if she could fully remember two of the five on her own. The first few times she couldn’t even remember the first.”

◆◆◆

“Greetings, ma’am!” Mazie approached a woman running a street stall. “We are Fiends For Hire! Is there anything we can help you with today?”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Oh yes I can see you are,” the woman played along. She was one of the regulars along the usual route they took. Most days, playing Fiends For Hire meant just walking up and down the streets of Bisomote and having fun, but Mazie insisted on calling it ‘patrolling’. Often, it didn’t devolve into more than that, and Bray prayed today would be another one of those days.

“I have these two popsicles that I’ll have to throw away tomorrow if no one eats them, do you think you could help me out?”

“Of course, ma’am! Whatever the client requests!” Mazie tried to maintain professionalism but a bit of drool leaked out from her mouth.

The two of them finished off their popsicles and properly disposed of them in a trash bin just before coming across their first real trouble of the day. “You look to be having trouble, sir!” Mazie yelled at the man from behind.

“Oww!” the man banged his head in surprise. He’d been under a car from the shoulders up, staining the nice suit he was in. “Oh, hello girls.” He was one of the usual Bisomote citizens they ran into, and he greeted them while he rubbed his head. “Was about to head into the office, but then I dropped my keys and clumsily kicked them under the car.”

“I’ll get it!” Before Bray could say anything, Mazie had already flopped to the ground. In one swift motion, she rolled under the car, grabbed the keys, and rolled out the other side. Thankfully, there were no other cars coming down the street at the moment, but Bray would still have to scold her later. And now, of course, Mazie's clothes were dirty again. Fortunately, Bray had the foresight to dress her in overalls after the second bath, expecting something like this to happen.

The man thanked them and said he’d send money to the Fiends For Hire later. Before Bray could clarify anything, he’d already sped away.

A balloon stuck in a tree? Could it get any more cliche? She wondered when they came across their next trouble in the form of a crying child. It was way up there too. There were no low limbs to climb, and it was a good bit higher than the girls could reach, even if they stood on each other's shoulders. At least, that would be the case if they were normal children.

That had been one of the hardest things for Bray to accept. They weren’t just 5 year old girls, they were also Lesser Fiends. That meant they were capable of things beyond the norm, and it meant they should learn how to utilize it.

Bray crouched down and held out her hands flat to her sides. Mazie straddled them, placing one foot in each hand. Bray then stood up, hoisting Mazie above her head, holding her daughter’s feet around her shoulders. Once they got their balance steady, Bray crouched again and then sprung back up, pushing her arms up as hard as she could.

Mazie went soaring into the air and she just barely managed to grab onto the string of the balloon. She never panicked for even a moment since she knew that Bray would catch her. Mazie landed softly and then dismounted like a professional acrobat. She handed the balloon back to the crying child, patted them on the shoulder, and sent them on their way like a proper Fiend For Hire in training. It was a proud moment for both of them.

“Look, mo- Bray! An actual crime!” Mazie’s pointing finger danced in front of them as they watched a crime unfold right before their eyes just as they were about to wrap up their patrol. A pickpocket had just slid a wallet out of a woman’s purse and then dashed away. Unfortunately for this poor unfortunate soul, he was running straight towards them.

He wasn’t even looking where he was going, constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure he’d gotten away with it. Never in his wildest dreams did he expect a child to stand their ground on the sidewalk in front of him and even take a solid fighting stance.

As the man darted closer, Mazie drew back her arm and lined up the shot. She timed it perfectly. Her fist flew forward right as the man’s nether region came into range. Bray doubted the man ever saw what happened. One moment he was running, and the next he was on the ground in agony.

Mazie looked over to her mother, her eyes beaming with satisfaction. She expected Bray to have the same look, but she could only shake her head in disappointment. “We need to have a talk later about why you shouldn’t do that, Mazie.”

“Huh, but Nachi told me that was the best way to take down an opponent that was much bigger than me if they’re a boy,” Mazie was bubbling over in confusion now.

“While that may be true, not everything Nachi says is the right thing to do in every situation. I’ll explain more later.” Bray did her best to give a generic answer that would satisfy the curious girl for now. They retrieved the wallet from the man who seemed to have passed out from the pain, returned it to the rightful owner, and then headed back to the compound.

◆◆◆

“You’re slacking today, Bray. Give me ten more sets!” Nachi was as ruthless as usual with her training.

Since they’d joined, Mazie had a burning obsession with the group and wanted to join. Of course, they wouldn’t let a child take on such dangerous activities, but it was eventually agreed upon that she and Bray could participate in special training with Nachi when the trainer had some spare time.

That said, the vigorous and strenuous training could still be considered dangerous and wasn’t suited for a child’s training. So before each session, Ahvra would temporarily change Mazie and Bray into teenagers. This allowed them to workout properly, but it had a few drawbacks.

First and foremost, no muscle gained or weight lost during training would transfer when they were reverted back to children. Progress only went one way in time and couldn’t be circumvented. For that aspect, their training was virtually worthless.

However, skill was the result of memory and practice. Even though they were harder to use as children, and the memories may not be as sharp, the skills they learned couldn’t be taken from them as long as they continued to refine.

Interestingly, when it came to their mental states, Mazie’s was virtually unchanged. Perhaps it was since her brain knew nothing but being a child, but she acted like her usual self the entire time. Her reaction times and cognition were a bit sharper, however.

Bray on the other hand became much closer to her older self. That had become something of a crutch to her, and it allowed her to accept her time as a child much easier since there was a bit of a reprieve from the fogginess of a child’s mind. She kind of wished that they were made even older since the hormonal craziness of being a teenager was always a bit jarring, but she understood that any older could have too adverse of an effect on Mazie’s development.

The training itself mostly went over the fundamentals—proper form on how to do exercises and techniques for specific movement. In the beginning, it had just been exercise along with teaching them self defense, but the two girls had now delved down their own paths.

Mazie was much more interested in strength and fighting. In particular, she had started incorporating a boxing style into her technique. Nachi was more than happy to teach her the moves and some punches, well enough that she could knock out any grown adult if she could reach their head—or disable them with a single lower hit as Mazie had demonstrated earlier that day.

Bray on the other hand was more into agility and flexibility. She wasn’t really interested in fighting or violence in general. But if she was going to do this to support her daughter, she wanted skills that would compliment them and make up for Mazie’s own deficiencies.

Nachi had Bray running through a course made of gymnast obstacles—basically just playground equipment but higher up and far less fun. For practice, Mazie was sparring against a few mannequins that would pop up and she had to beat back down into submission.

Where they both had the most fun, though, was the tandem practice they did. Since they were of eerily similar builds and able to work well together, they could combine their strength and abilities into joint attacks and moves. This was what really sold Bray on allowing them to do this, since she could be there for Mazie and protect her daughter with her own hands. Together, they’d become a pretty impressive fighting force—nothing compared to one of the actual Fiends For Hire, but Bray had become confident that the two of them could take down anyone else.

When practice was over, the two girls had to return to Ahvra before they were allowed to do anything else. For one, she didn’t want her experiments running off. But more importantly, if they ate anything, it could really wreck their stomachs when they became children again. A single sports drink and nutrition bar was all they were allowed when their forms were changed.

Ahvra had come up to meet them in the workshop the first few times, but she became lazy and got them permission to journey down to the secret lab. Oddly, Mazie was on her best behavior in the lab and around Ahvra in particular. Maybe she had some understanding of her and Bray’s relationship.

Mazie was turned back into a child as usual, but Ahvra left Bray as she was. This was the signal that her presence was requested for Ahvra’s experiments. “Go on ahead to dinner without me, Mazie,” Bray was firm with her words—the most parental sounding she’d been in a while. “I’ll meet you back at the apartment before bedtime. I will, won’t I?” She glanced over to Ahvra who just shrugged.

At least that night's tests hadn’t been painful—no dissection. Ahvra was studying her muscles and the effects of time manipulation. They had improved since the last time Ahvra measured them since both she and Mazie did some exercise as children. Mazie even had a pair of weights she’d do reps with in front of her children’s shows. Ahvra also did a full scan of her brain’s electricity with her Curse to see how it was functioning.

Bray elected to not hear the results. If there was something wrong, or if this was causing long term effects to her health, she didn’t want to know. That would only distract her from her goals in life.

After she’d been shrunk back into a child once more and grabbed something to-go from the restaurant, Bray returned to their apartment. Mazie had already fallen asleep, but it was obvious that she’d tried to stay up and wait. She was passed out on the couch with the tv still on and still holding some toys.

Once she’d cleaned everything up, Bray tried to hoist Mazie and carry her to the bed, as she’d done many times in the past. Sadly, her infantile strength and exhaustion betrayed her, and she only succeeded in flipping Mazie over. Bray decided to leave her, thinking she’d finally get some decent sleep alone in her bed for once. But not too long later, she returned to the couch, snuggling up to Mazie and covering the two of them with a blanket.