Saori stared outside the living room window, waiting for any sign of movement. Hikari, who was sitting at the dining table with her head down, groaned.
"Did they come back yet?"
"No," Saori replied.
After a few more minutes of waiting, nothing happened. Hikari stood up. "This is why you don't send LUCA to do ANYTHING! What are we going to tell General Fujii?"
Saori thought for a moment. "We could go look for them! Maybe they're playing hide and seek!"
Hikari walked up to her and patted her on the shoulders. "Sweetheart, it's VERY unlikely they're playing hide and seek at this time of night."
"Aww…"
They heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
"Then let's go."
Akari smoothed out her hair, a serious expression on her face. The other girls turned around.
"Go where?"
"Outside. Let's go find them."
Akari threw open the door and walked outside. Saori jumped up and followed her with a smile.
"Yay! Adventure!"
"Wait! Are you sure?" Hikari asked, nervous.
"They've probably gone to Batango. We'll go there, and we'll come back. In and out."
She picked up Saori. "You don't run off."
"Okay!"
As they left the mansion, Hikari looked around for a moment before following.
"Well, we'd better hurry!"
Meanwhile…
"Welcome in! I hope everything is to your liking!"
Rumi and Teppei led the boys into their home, and they saw a massive living room with an enormous TV and a long couch surrounding it. The walls were silver and white.
"Do you like it?" Rumi asked, her eyes seemingly kind and gentle.
"Yeah, it looks awesome!" Dachii remarked.
They directed them toward the room next to the kitchen, where a giant dining table resided. Teppei pulled a few chairs out and placed the bags of food on the kitchen table.
"You can have a seat. We'll go get our dad and prepare the food."
Dachii and Marachii took their seats, and Luca hesitated, sniffing his chair, before he sat down as well. Teppei and Rumi disappeared upstairs.
Once they were out of earshot, Luca began to whisper to Dachii and Marachii.
"I don't sense or smell anything weird so far. If they are spies, they're doing a good job."
"So does that mean we're in the clear?" Marachii asked. "Or do we need to call for backup?"
"Can't say yet," Luca replied.
Dachii looked at the bags of food, his mouth watering.
"I'm hungry…"
But a noise from upstairs distracted him. All three of them turned their attention upstairs. Rumi called down from the staircase.
"Sorry! Dad's a bit clumsy!"
Immediately after, an older-looking Voltian in a suit, with dark gray hair, jumped off the top of the stairs, landing at the bottom. He ran towards the boys.
"What the hell?" Dachii shouted.
The man slammed his hands on the table, looking around at the others with a smile.
"Guests! It's been so long since we've had GUESTS! How are you doing today? Can I get you water, coffee, tea?"
Rumi approached, putting a hand on his back. "Sorry, guys! Dad just loves visitors!"
"Probably more than his own children," Teppei grumbled as he also made his way to the table.
Luca sized them all up. "It's fine. Just give me water."
"Me too," Marachii added. Dachii asked for the same thing, and Teppei brought out some water from the fridge.
The older man sat down in front of them. "How rude is it to not introduce myself? I'm Ichirō Kobayashi, and these are my children, Rumi and Teppei."
He patted the table. "Get the food and sit down, kids."
The siblings grabbed the bags of food and laid them in the middle of the table. They set plates in front of Dachii, Marachii, Luca, and Ichirō, before setting down their own. Ichirō dug into one of the bags.
"Mmm, look here! Ripe and tender steak! Which of you wants a piece?"
The three looked at each other before Luca raised his hand. Ichirō fetched a knife and pulled the steak out, cutting a piece off for Luca.
"Don't eat too fast!" he bellowed, laughing. Luca sniffed the steak before taking a small bite.
"Wow, that's actually…not bad…" he commented.
Ichirō nodded. "Let's serve the rest of the food!"
He spread out the rest of the steak, fish, and rice evenly, before pulling out the cake last. "Whoever finishes the quickest gets the first slice!"
He sat down, digging into his own plate. "YUM!"
As he ate, he looked at his daughter. "So, Rumi. Where did you find these kind folk?"
"They were at the Preview for the Tech Expo! They helped me find Teppei, who, like an IDIOT, got lost!"
Teppei spat out a piece of steak. "I was buying food!"
"Now, now, children! Don't fight! If it wasn't for your actions, we'd have never met these young men!"
The way he looked at them unnerved Luca, who tried his best to make proper eye contact. "Yes…it's our pleasure to be here."
Marachii gulped down some fish before speaking. "So, you guys all are savvy with technology?"
"Only my son. He's a Protection Force Officer, so he's around all kinds of cool technology! We just use the basics, traditionally."
"Interesting," Luca stated.
"I know! I'm so proud of him for representing the Kobayashi family well! A fine young man!"
Teppei rolled his eyes. "It's just duty, Dad. Nothing more."
Rumi glanced at Dachii. "Hey, aren't you gonna eat your food? You've just been staring at your fork…"
Luca and Marachii looked at Dachii, along with everyone else, and they noticed both of his eyes were twitching, and he seemed to be in some kind of trance.
Marachii tapped him. "Dachii? Something wrong?"
He dropped his fork, surprised. "Huh?"
He looked around the room, noticing all the eyes on him. "I'm fine, I just need….some air."
He hastily got up from the table and walked outside. The family all appeared confused.
"Is he…normally like this?" Rumi asked.
"Well no, but he can have…outbursts…here and there. Maybe I should…go check on him," Marachii answered.
Marachii got up, and so did Luca. "As his friend, I will check on him as well."
As they left, the family all stared after them, before resuming their meals.
Outside the house, Dachii was holding his arm, in visible pain. "Stop, stop! Come on, stop!"
"Free…free me…free…"
The voice in his head grew louder and louder, causing Dachii to hold his head in pain. One of his eyes began to shift to black.
"Not now…damn you!"
"Dachii?"
Marachii and Luca came out of the door, concern on their faces. Dachii was surprised to the point his eye shifted back to normal.
"Yeah? Why did you leave the dinner?"
"We could ask YOU the same thing," Luca remarked. Dachii's head began to ache again.
"Look, it's nothing. Just…homesickness. That's all."
"Homesickness that causes you to twitch and stare at forks?" Marachii pointed out.
"Okay, okay. Some weird stuff has been happening to me ever since the festival."
"Weird like what?" Luca asked.
"Voices inside my head. Dark influences and impulses. I feel like my body isn't my own anymore."
As Marachii and Luca absorbed the information, Rumi opened the door gently.
"Are you guys coming back inside?" She asked, nervously. They all turned their attention to her.
"Yeah, yeah! I'm good now!" Dachii answered.
"Okay, well don't let your food get too cold, and we're beginning to cut the…"
Her eyes widened. "…cake…"
When they turned to see what she was looking at, they saw a horrific creature, with two heads, a spiny frame, and 4 arms and 6 legs, hanging from a nearby roof. It had three red eyes on its forehead.
She screamed, just as the creature tackled Luca. "Monster! Daddy! Help!"
The creature snarled into Luca's face, with horrible fang-like teeth and the stench of blood coming from its mouth.
"Voltian flesh tastes great! Let's see what flavor you are!"
"Let's not." Luca summoned his axes and sliced into the creature's chest, which howled in pain and jumped back. Marachii, Dachii, and Luca all stood in front of the creature.
"That must be one of the bandits they were talking about! But that's not…a normal bandit." Marachii pointed out.
"Nope. It's a monster," Luca replied.
The monster turned its head towards Dachii. "Let's go for something easier. How about you, HUMAN!"
It leaped onto Dachii, and both of them went tumbling down the road.
"Get off, you ugly-ass spider!"
Dachii tried to make a fist to punch it, but his body struggled to form one, almost as if it was resisting.
"Come on! Stop!"
He resorted to kicking the creature off of him using his power. As Dachii got back up, the creature stared at him with a shocked look on its face.
"You have an Element…? But that's impossible! You're human!"
Dachii got into a fighting stance. "Back away from me, right now."
As Marachii and Luca caught up, the monster unleashed a horrific cry, making all three of them cover their ears.
"SCREEEEEEECH!"
In no time at all, two similar monsters landed next to it, and they all crawled around, sizing up their opponents.
"Now the odds are even! We'll kill you all and rob the Expo's technology for our people!"
The original one charged at Dachii, while the right and left monsters attacked Marachii and Luca respectively.
Dachii jumped back as a spiny arm reached out to grab him. "Why, why, WHY?"
The creature continued to attack, gurgling up slime from its mouth, which it tried to spit at Dachii, but missed. Dachii punched the monster with a gray fist.
"Why every time I try to go home, it's always some UNNECESSARY COMPLICATION?!"
The monster stumbled back, struggling to stand, but it got back up and jumped onto the wall of a building, using its many limbs to dig into the wall and anchor itself. It continued to spit out slime at Dachii.
"Ew! That's nasty!"
Luca and Marachii attempted to hold their own against their own monsters. Marachii used a tendril to toss his monster into a wall, but it recovered. Luca sliced his monster in the neck with an axe, but it continued to press on, reaching out to try and snatch him.
"Guys! These things are more powerful than most monsters I've seen! We may have to fall back—-!"
A monster batted Luca away, sending him flying into a wall of the Kobayashi house, damaging it. Ichirō stepped out, armed with a plasma rifle.
"Hey! How dare you wreck my house and attack these young men?"
He rapidly fired off shots at the three monsters, which seemed to annoy them and forced them to cover their faces, but one quickly spat slime at Ichirō, covering the muzzle.
"Damn it!"
A monster headed towards him, but Teppei got in its way, armed with another, even more powerful rifle.
"Leave Dad alone."
He pulled the trigger, and a plasma blast shot out that ripped into the monster's right shoulder, and it winced in pain.
"Fool! I'll have you for DINNER!"
With a powerful swipe of its arm, it broke the gun in half and sliced the left side of Teppei's face, destroying his eye.
"Son!"
Luca threw his axes at the monster but it had no effect. As it picked up Teppei by his neck preparing to crush it…
"WHOOSH."
Suddenly, it lost its head. It fell to the ground, and its body twitched and fell over. It dropped Teppei, who was caught by his dad.
"What was that?"
Nakada landed gracefully, gunblade in her hand. "Sorry for taking so long. I had to wait on the old man."
"You…you BASTARD!" Another monster tried to rush at her, but it found itself restrained by a powerful chain.
"Fury."
The chain heated up and set the monster on fire, quickly burning it to ash before it could even process.
Dachii and Marachii both recognized the figure holding the chain. "Grandfather?"
Morino pulled his chain-axe back. "Yep! Your mother demanded I come and get you guys ASAP, so here I am!"
He glared at Nakada. "And I'm not OLD, young lady! I haven't even hit seventy yet!"
"Still only two years away from it, Sir!" she responded in a playful tone. The last monster looked between the two before pondering what to do.
"Screw this! It's not worth it!"
It began to run, bolting at an extreme speed. Nakada caught wind of this. "Sir! It's fleeing!"
Morino cracked his joints. "Not for long."
In the blink of an eye, he darted towards the monster, and with a slash, he reached it and cut off its head, shocking Dachii and Marachii.
"Woah…"
He landed on his feet, breathing heavily. "Done and done. Let's head back, now."
Nakada went to check on Teppei, who was being tended to by Rumi and Ichirō. "You should get treated by a hospital, young one. But I commend you for your bravery.
She gave him a bow and left.
"We'll take care of him right away, Ma'am! Thank you for all your help!" Ichirō said. He and Rumi took Teppei inside.
Nakada turned back towards Luca, Dachii, and Marachii. "And you three. Your effort was also very impressive, but it's clear you still have a lot of work to do. Those monsters were only medium-tier."
Dachii approached Morino. "Grandfather, what is she saying?"
"Hey, kiddo. It only means one thing. First thing in the morning, we're going to TRAIN!"
"WHAT?"
Inside the house, Ichirō and Rumi waited until the squad members left before signaling to Teppei.
"All clear."
He breathed a sigh of relief before taking off his bandages. Instantly, the damage to his face healed, along with his eye.
"Pretending to be hurt is much harder than it looks. Next time, one of you do it."
Ichirō smirked. "Don't worry, it was all worth it."
He watched Dachii walk away. "The more interactions we have with them, the closer Deity is to becoming ours."
Raylon appeared out of thin air. Ichirō pointed after the group. "Go. In the morning, I want you to spy on their training."
Raylon nodded and left the house, disappearing once again.
—-