Angela led the group up the stairs, more confident than ever. They were going to do things their way, no matter what the adults in the room said–at least, according to Drenar and Julia.
And she knew she was ready for it, except for the little problem of her parents now standing and talking sternly to Kiera. Sternly might have been a polite term–her mother, all blonde, with delicate nails, grey eyes, and looking like she hadn’t slept in a few days, was taking an accusatory tone even before they entered the living room. Her mother is leading off, like usual, at full tilt.
“--think that we might have needed to be consulted by this? You are unbelievable, Kiera! You and your daughter are the most reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous people in this house! And that’s after finding out Nick has been seeing my daughter as a–a–well, I don’t know what to call it, but a really inappropriate relationship! And you knew!”
Kiera looks unimpressed. “Really, Celes, your lack of candor is not helping, considering who you work for. Did you neglect to mention that little inconvenient truth?”
Oh, great. Damages. Joey, you might want to hold off on your reveal for a little bit. Or you know, use your psionics on my mom to get her to calm the hell down. Joey lets out a soft sigh as if she’s not fully on board with this, but makes no further vocalization. Angela hesitates by the door, and Drenar and company are coming from the kitchen. He still looks beaten to hell. “So, when did my parents start laying into Kiera? And where are Diane and Dave?” she asks him.
“Ah, they’re still upstairs talking to the Valkyries, they'll be alright,” Nick assures them. This discussion is gonna suck. He rubs errantly at a bruise on his neck, and gestures to the door, voice lowered. “You really want to go in there now?”
James interjects before she can get a word out, and his face is pressed tight. “Nick, everyone we count on has lied to us. It’s time to call out our parents’ bullshit.”
Drenar twists his lip and lets out a soft sigh. “On the plus side, even if they wanted to kill me, it would be a laughable attempt now.”
Angela twists the door open and locks focus with her mother, Celes–blonde, petite, and somewhat short in stature. Her father, Alan, is darker-haired, lean, and still managing to fight off the deleterious middle age look, and they’re still glaring at Kiera before turning to their kids. The fact that her mother didn’t even come to see her yet, was telling.
“Hi guys. We uh–decided that–” she is interrupted in two scant seconds by her mother.
“We’re leaving, Angela, James.” Her mother’s tone set the pace that this was going to be ugly. “I’m so disappointed in you two.”
“When did you two even get here?” James demands, and folded his arms before peering at them crossly. “You know, for two kids who were fighting for their lives in a facility hidden below a lake, against hundreds of bloodthirsty mercenaries, you two should have dashed home the second you were made aware of it. Been taking your time?”
“It’s not that simple, James,” her father states calmly. Kiera turns to face them, and Angela can see she had a murderous look on her face. The last time she’d seen it, Julia had just had a hang fire from her rifle, and almost didn’t keep the rifle pointed downrange. Her mother had been livid. This was beyond that. “We had to take a longer route home. For reasons I don’t want to get into–”
“Alan. If you try that line one more time, I will not be responsible for what happens in this room, because my patience is at its straining limit,” Kiera snaps while glareing at him, and she is not giving him any slack. “Celes, tell them what you told me. It’s time to air the dirty laundry.”
“Why do I get this feeling you’re trying to have your cake and eat it, too? Going to hug your kids? No? Is that too much for you?” Angela taps her arm, and feels that rush of fury burning through her. “No ‘sorry for keeping secrets’ from you? Diane and Dave at least had an excuse. They were sworn to secrecy, because of something I doubt you two know. So let's hear it. Right now.”
Her mother looks at her, and might as well be looking right through her. “We work for Magitech Industries. We have spent the last three days evading their security force, to ensure we were not followed. That is why we took so long to get home, and why we've avoided you. You two just cost us our jobs and nearly our lives!”
She thought nothing could surprise her. And she still let out a strangled gasp at this atom bomb of a reveal. James has a much more direct response and a ball of flame appears in his hand, and everyone backs away from him. She doesn't even try to dissuade him.
Because she's three seconds away from making her mother a greasy smear on the wall, too. James growls out a response. “Magitech Industries. The people we just fought. Oh, this makes so much sense why you didn't tell us about your careers. You're working with team villain! You two are dead.” He is not backing down, and a shimmery texture lights on her hand. Her telekinetics are about to make her mother a human yo-yo, if she says anything else unflattering.
“James, you better put that out, or you will regret it. We are still your parents," her mother says in a low tone. Angela has a much more biting retort in mind, and she is absolutely done with her mother.
“Parents who work for a murderous diva. Parents who likely took my information and sold it to the Talons. Or just Magitech industries, in the most criminally unethical way imaginable. Or, conveniently told someone where the records could be found.” She put the pieces together in an instant, eyes narrowed and focused on her mother. “Tell me you two aren't so horrific that you didn't do all of that.” Or that shard of mana in my heart that I’m all but certain is your doing, too, but that one might be too dangerous to air out in this room.
“We're not discussing this in front of them–” her mother waved to her friends and Kiera. But Kiera takes a menacing step forward, and she is still only the second most dangerous person in the room, next to herself.
“No, Celes. You are. You are going to tell them, because I will be laying cards on the table as well, today. I should have known this day was going to come back to haunt me, when you mentioned you avoided discussing your jobs when at all possible.” Julia has a hand of restraint on her shoulder, and she glances at her briefly.
“Angela, don’t. Let’s hear them out rather than screaming–”
“We are past that point, Julia.” She shrugs her off and takes a footfall of doom toward her mother, arms folded across her chest. “Drenar, don’t even try, either. Joey, this one is mine to fight.”
“Angela, you are out of line–” her mother says, but her mother backs down when she sees the seething expression on her face. She’s never had difficulty in holding back her emotions until the past few days, and she is going to let them see a side of them they haven’t been around long enough to witness.
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“No. You were out of line the second you decided your jobs were more important than your kids. You decided to blind us from our heritage since day one. You decided to lie about how I was clinically dead for several minutes. But we’ll get to those. Your boss, Valosterla Roshanikov, tried to kill every single one of us. Your murderous diva of a CEO–oh, scratch that, because Bennett Magia is still breathing–”
“Actually…” Levine came in from behind them, looking rougher than usual. “Yeah, Bennett is dead. They found him shish kabobed in his penthouse last night. Doubt the news reached you two yet.” Both of her parents look like the light went out in their eyes, and her father winces while her mother stutters.
“Seriously, we beat that bitch to high hell, and she still had enough energy to go murder her boss?” Drenar asks on disbelief while throwing up his hands in frustration. She sympathizes–she’d shaken off deadly blows, even from Luminari. Then again, Val seemed to scream about a ringing sound. Maybe the sword had marked her for justice?
The next blow is going straight through her heart. Angela lets out a calm breath before continuing. “Well then, soon-to-be-deposed murderous CEO, for as long as she can before Valkyries and SAF raid her office and depose her.” She peers intensely at her mother. “Yeah, that’s right. I fought that monster a couple of nights ago. Weird stuff happened. I was also Awakened by a dragoness in my soul that seems to know things about the history of this woman, who also had a bone to pick with her. And where were you guys? Oh, that’s right, keeping up appearances. I’m disappointed in you both.”
“Angela, say another word and–” her mother’s threat is lost on her.
“You’re gonna pretend I don’t exist? Never acknowledge anything I ever did as important? That’s what you’ve been doing for a dozen years already, mom. That’s nothing new. There is nothing you can threaten me with, that could possibly top what we went through over the past week.”
“Angela, stop. Let us get a word out, please,” her father gently nudged her mother aside after his attempt to diffuse this situation. “We didn't plan on any of this happening. None of us did. We worked on research projects for various medical benefits of magical and mana based materials. That’s what we’ve been doing. A lot of it has military applications for soldiers in combat. Some of it is prosthetics. Advanced ones.”
“Cut the bullshit, dad.” She hit her patience limit. “What deal with a devil did you make to save my life?” she taps her chest for emphasis. “Julia’s seen it. Joey–our new bestest friendly alchemist ever–has seen it. A mana shard in my heart, and it’s not supposed to be there. Is it? It’s why I’m still alive, isn’t it? And you’re reminded every day of the price you paid for it, aren’t you?”
Well that was one way to get the adults to all shut up, and her mother looks mortified, and her father gazes at the ground. They both knew. She lets out a measured breath before continuing. “Of course, I wasn’t normal. Why did I ever believe you two? What’s one more lie to Angela and James? They’ve already been spoon-fed the lies since birth.”
“Angela, let us get a word out, please? We were valued researchers. We still can’t talk a lot of those things in this room,” her mother adds after eyeballing Kiera, who gives her a death glare right back, “About what it is we research, specifically. And we are sorry you got caught up in this.”
“You know what, hell with it. I know how Angela’s records got snagged, along with the rest. You gave them to the Talons, didn’t you?” Nick is quick to pile on, eyes narrowed. He brushes past everyone else. “How else did a low-life like Jimmy Cabresa get access to those documents or even know what to look for? Someone who knew what they were told him. That was you, wasn’t it? I could pull up the roster of other Magitech Industries employees, but I’m sure the number of them working in this town, with the right access, can be narrowed down to a handful. You were researching Angela too, weren’t you? Your daughter.”
“That’s not true. We were told to specifically keep her clear of any testing that might…cause problems.” Her father twitches when he says that, and she ponders what that meant. “There’s more to it, but we had your best interests at heart, once we realized what that data was going to be used for.”
James is still out for blood. “Oh, how convenient, how this comes out after Magitech Industries became a known collaborator for the Talons,” he growls. He still hasn’t extinguished that little fireball. But Angela has one threat she's willing to drop.
“Mom, I’m gonna lay this out for you. I fought the deadliest dragoness on the planet, and survived. You’re going to tell me what you’ve been hiding, right now, or we’re done. As soon as I’m eighteen, I’m gone.” She’s never been more pissed off, and yet more reserved in her words while she taps a shoe patiently. “You can think it over after we have our debrief with Kiera, and the next day or so. But if you’re not gonna come clean now, nothing is anchoring me to you two, whatsoever.”
“Angie, maybe this is a bit extreme–” Joey starts to say.
“If you knew my mother and how she acted, you’d take one of your acid canisters, and melt a hole through her body,” Angela replies calmly. Joey stands there, mouth agape for a second, before letting out a soft huff. "Yeah, this is what it looks like when a kid gets fed up with nonstop abandonment by her family. I won't give you the satisfaction of raising my voice to give you some justification in your words that I'm being emotional."
“Oh, is this your new friend?” her mother states with an eye-roll. “Spoilers, miss–whatever your name is–she’s in a bit of a transition state. She’s in that age of confusion.” Does her mother still think she's gay? She's pretty sure she's not. She's just...awkwardly close to all her friends who are girls. And Drenar's still decent on the eyes, even if they aren't going down that particular path anymore.
She's had enough. “Okay, I tried to be polite. Bye Mom, the rest of the adults are going to go have their little discussion, Kiera, make sure she doesn’t go anywhere?” She knows with that menacing look that Kiera keeps giving her mother that that won’t be a problem. “I look forward to seeing how this round of disappointment turns out.”
“Angela…we’ll talk.” Her father finally grows a pair, and her mother whirls around, looking incensed. “I suspect, however, that this particular discussion can wait a little while.” Angela glances at Drenar, who lets out a soft sigh before giving a soft nod. He's saving his willpower for the next round of disaster.
This discussion coming up next is going to suck for everyone in this house, no doubt.
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