This was normally where Angel’s father would back away and let the two girls duck it out. Claiming that his fragile human state would not survive a struggle between two such powerful sisters. Their mother would just summon her own abilities and subdue both of them. Sometimes with a none-too-gentle smackdown the likes most people would never experience in their lives. When children wielded power the equivalent of small stars, sometimes you needed to nip quarrels in the bud real fast.

Brent? He couldn’t let the sisters fight. Letting frustration with their parents boil over into animosity between the two girls would just create bad blood that wasn’t their fault. But God damn it was frustrating dealing with this over and over again. It wasn’t their fault. Yet, it got old. He was just a mortal man among what might as well have been Goddesses and couldn’t they just be happy normal teenagers for a few fucking hours?

“Well…I…” On her side of the table, Angel had stood up ready to catch whatever potential attack Haka sent her way. “You – ”

“Knock it off.” Brent pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen island. “Just…knock it off. And one of you do something about that smoke alarm.” They started out of their stand-off reluctantly. Angel waved one hand in an elaborate and elegant gesture toward the smoke alarm. Hake not to be outdone just pointed at it with an angry thrust.

The piercing repetitive piercing noise stopped with a plaintive final squawk as the device in the ceiling burst open raining down charred components and fragments of its housing. Elbows on the kitchen island, the one human in the room lifted his hands to his forehead. And groaned.

“Your mom is going to be pissed.”

It didn’t require more than that.

“One day.” He continued quietly, head still in his hands. “We get one day a month to just hang out and be people instead of having to deal with…” He waved his hand out the large window over the sink. Both girls looked up shamefacedly. In the distance, they saw the gleaming building where their mother and Angel’s father were working.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Beyond it. Ships.

Enormous cargo ships. A massive spaceport ferrying goods and people up to the interstellar vessels in orbit. Further in the distance on the top of a mountain was the thin silvery line of a space elevator.

But closer, in the yard between the house and the impenetrable security gates, was a veritable army of security guards. Loaded with weapons. Multiple anti-aircraft missile launchers were parked on the lawn. And there were others. Those who clearly were more than human, like the two girls in the kitchen. Those who could bring the pain of particle physics just by thinking about it.

“This is my day with you girls. And I just want to have fun and forget that everything is changing. Just for a few hours. Can we just be us and not worry about all of that out there?” It was clear from the surprise on the girls’ faces that they hadn’t realized he knew what was underneath all of their worry, fears, and bravado. The glow about them both drained away with their anger at each other.

“Sorry, Dad.” A blonde girl with a white streak in her hair mumbled at the same time as a part-Asian girl with a white streak in her hair whispered…

“Sorry, Brent.” Both looked down. Sad for a moment until Brent clapped a hand together and forced a smile.

“Now. We are going to finish breakfast. We are going to make pancakes. And scrambled eggs. Then…” He held up a finger for emphasis, “…Then we are going to eat said breakfast while playing reeeally old video games and beating all of your mom’s old score records.” Both girls had brightened until the very end when Haka’s eyes dimmed again.

“Um…How long were we planning on doing that?” Haka asked hesitantly.

“Oh. My. God. You didn’t tell him?” Angel stared at her younger sister in disbelief.

“Tell me what?” He’d already begun gathering the supplies for pancakes knowing that time was limited.

“I have a date with my boyfriend.” It came out quiet. Meek. But casual-like. As if it was the most normal thing in the world for Haka, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the most heavily guarded family in the world, to have a boyfriend her father, her bodyguards, and all of the security staff didn’t know about.

Because if anyone of them had known, Brent sure as hell would have been told.

“No.” He shook his head in denial and puffed out his cheeks with some air in thought. “Nope. You do not have a date. Because you are too young to have a boyfriend. And dating is not allowed.