Susie ran up, her baubles jingling. Imagine the perfect woman. Perfect curves, blonde hair, almost like a Barbie doll but not quite. Put her in a bright pink mini-dress and high heels and jewelry… and you have Susie.

Wonder’s brain went on auto-freeze. It wasn’t that he was on bad terms with Susie… if anything, between his two siblings, Susie was the one he was closest with. That is probably why she recognized him: she knew the avatar.

But a part of his brain said FAMILY IS HERE, YOU MUST BE CHICKEN OR DIE!!!

Acryoa said, “SIR!!!”

Wonder thankfully woke back up. He spun around and killed off a few more bandits. He yelled, “NOW’S NOT THE TIME, SUSIE!!!”

Susie said, “Gotcha! Incendio!”

A fireball emerged from her hands, and put a bunch of nearby bandits on fire. Wonder blinked. She had picked Mage? Wonder would be sure she would play it safe or maybe Bard…

Worry about it later!

Also:

“Harry Potter?!? Really?!?”

Yeah, the geek was yelling at the nerd.

Between the two of them and about 15 Guardians, all the bandits were soon dispatched. None survived.

Wonder started checking them. Susie giggled, “That was fun!”

Wonder tried not to say anything. He forced himself to breathe. For some reasons, his old hide-away instincts weren’t as strong as before.

Then it hit.

Soulwave.

Wonder was his “true self”. And his true self was no coward that bent to everyone’s commands or expectations. He was who he was. And yes, maybe he could have eventually become Wonder in the real world, but the Soulwave body was definitely boosting that a millionfold.

He looked at Susie. “You didn’t cause this, right?”

“NOPE!”

She looked warily at the Guardians. “When could you handle bugs? No offense!”

Sheriff said, “None taken.”

Acryoa said, “They have protective spells to look like the scariest thing you can think of.”

“Oooooo! Ok, me dummy!”

Wonder got up. “Why are you even here, Susie? I mean, in Hoseki?”

Susie said, “Why wouldn’t I be?!? My baby brother went missing!”

“But… don’t you have a boyfriend? A job? A life?!?”

Susie hugged him. “Again, my baby brother went missing. And I broke up with Chad weeks ago.”

Wonder said, “Oh…”

Sheriff said, “Is it just me, but do all broken up boyfriends called Chad?” Acryoa shrugged.

Wonder hugged her back, then pushed her gently away. “Thank you. Like… really. But you should stay here. We don’t even know why these guys attacked en force. I’m not risking family.”

Susie said, “Don’t worry! I can shoot spells! And I have an insane mana pool!”

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Wonder said, “Mages are squishy, remember? All it takes is one lucky asshole. One lucky arrow. And you dead.”

Wonder rubbed his neck. “Dammit…”

Sheriff tapped on his shoulder. “Wonder. The sun will rise in only a few hours. I suggest you disappear for now. We can cover any evidence of you or Susie’s involvement.”

Wonder nodded. “Thanks, Sheriff. Come on, Susie… I can put you up in the carriage for now. Then introduce you to the fam in the morning.”

Susie perked. “You have fam?!?”

**********************

“Thank you so much for marrying my baby brother!!!”

Wonder winced as Susie wrapped Rose in a bear hug. Wonder had warned everyone of the Explosion Sunshine incoming. He had also warned Susie that some of them didn’t handle Extreme Extroverts very well. Hopefully it led to a good compromise.

Rose patted Susie’s back. “Of course, Susie. Thank you for coming after him.”

Susie said, “Why is everyone acting like this is a big deal?”

Wonder said, “Uuuuuuuuh, Earthling humans? Even my loved ones would not take all the time and effort to jump the Dimensional border. Better and easier to believe I was dead. There was probably a party too… I had some collectibles and…”

“SHUSH!”

Susie put a finger on Wonder’s lips. “Stopping you there! OK, your general mistrust of humanity does make semi-sense here.”

She sighed. “But before you start thinking you were just money to Mom & Dad, you were not.They… they can’t even dismantle the room.”

Wonder gaped. “Wait, what?!? Didn’t I put specifically in my will…?”

“Yeah, you did. But there was no time quadrant. So my parents are extending it as long as they legally can. And even then, I think they’re gonna find a way to keep 90% of your Pops. Possibly the plushies too, but I don’t think the lawyers are gonna allow that.”

Wonder said, “I… I mean… I expected them to mourn a little, but…”

He rubbed his neck. Susie said, “Wonder. Mom and Dad still loved you very much. Yes, you weren’t what anyone expected. And they probably didn’t process that very well. But they still loved their baby boy/girl.”

Sakura gagged. Susie said, “THANK YOU! I love this world for allowing me to use the correct pronouns!”

Rose said, “You know that, um…”

“You know my baby bro. He’s not very subtle, no matter how much he tried. I think anyone with a brain and understood what transgender meant knew that ‘she’ was a ‘he’.”

Wonder heated up. Crisis poked around the corner. “Sir… um… there’s someone outside who wants to speak to you.”

Wonder nodded and got up. He walked to the door to the room and opened it. A tired-looking official woman stood there. She said, “Good day, Mr. Hyde. May we speak?”

“I’m guessing about the chaos last night?”

The woman relaxed a millionfold. This conversation was about to go a lot easier for her.

Wonder had a bad feeling.

Wonder let her in. He said, “I’m gonna be simple. I woke up with some terrible shrieking last night.”

Susie giggled. “Might have been me. That faceless guy with a pretty forest suit seemed pretty upset I could get louder than him.”

Wonder facepalmed. Of course Susie out-yelled Malchon.

Official looked at him. Wonder said, “Malchon’s side job seems to be an announcer for foreigners. Apparently he wasn’t aware that Susie was a football announcer for nearly all her time in high school.”

Susie giggled.

The Official rolled her eyes. “Are you both aware that we lost nearly 400 people last night?”

Wonder grew immensely ill. He knew it was summoners and family, but…

Wonder shook his head. He said, “I knew something was up. When I looked outside, all the Guardians were…” He waved his arms around as his brain blanked on some words.

Susie said, “I thought I saw some guys who dressed like those bank robbers from the movies.”

The Official turned her attention to Susie. “Bank robbers?”

“You know, the old Wild West movies! Stick ‘em partner, or taste my lead!”

Wonder groaned. “Susie… they don’t have movies here…”

Susie blushed. “Ooooooh. My bad. Um…”

The official said, “Can you describe what they looked like?”

Susie said easily, “Scruffy, most of them had beards, nasty lookin’ clothes. Shiny guns.”

She giggled. “They’re all dust, now, though…” She ignited a fireball in her hand. “Kinda ran at me with those guns, so I panicked.”

The Official sighed. “OK, not surprising.”

She looked at Wonder. “You saw or heard nothing?”

Wonder admitted, “Heard some explosions. But never saw the source of them.”

The official nodded. “Please do not leave town.”

“We had some business to do at the blacksmith’s, so wasn’t the plan, ma’am.”

The official nodded and left. After a few minutes, Wonder groaned. “Hey guys, we’re part of a murder mystery now!”

Rose sighed. “Not much we can do.”

Izuku said, “What can we do?”

“Just follow the plan. Go to the blacksmith, get everything upgraded and maybe some armor for the Hoedown we’re about to get into on Fasis. Do some tourist Tamer-hunting in the mines.”

Then see if take 2 is about to happen.