"Wow, demoted me to just your teammate huh? Not even gonna introduce me as your childhood best friend or I don't know… adopted sister? Just a teammate? Not even your 2IC either. Wow, I see how it is."
The woman's smile was gone now as she placed her hands down on her hips and shifted her weight lazily off to one side. Her annoyance with Matt for whatever reason had been made clear by now but his last comment definitely pissed her off. She had also begun tapping her foot rapidly on the stone sidewalk and looked at Matt as if expecting some sort of an apology.
Both Flow and Z were confused. It was clear to both of them that there was some sort of animosity between Matt and the stranger, but she had just practically declared herself as not only his best friend, but also apparently as his adopted sister as well. Pyre had gotten closer to the rest of the group almost so quietly that Matt hadn't even noticed he was standing by his side till he spoke up.
"Hey lady. I don't care who the hell you say you are, but you can't just go around threatening my charge like that. It's a good way to lose your head."
It had been the most Matt had ever heard Pyre say before, but his words were filled with a certain venom that Matt recognized one said right before they lunged an attack at their enemy. Pyre had just begun to lower his halberd when Matt raised his hand to stop him.
"That's a bad idea for you too Pyre. I haven't gotten the chance to see you fight before but if your skill level is anything like Flow's then I can almost guarantee you that you'd lose that fight nine times out of ten. There's a reason that this runt was my second in command."
Still holding his hand out to halt Pyre, Matt looked to the woman who's smile had returned to her pretty face. She seemed amused by the others willingness to defend him as she even let out a small chuckle.
"Damn Matty, you got yourself some loyal ass followers here. But you're putting way too much faith in me. I mean come on. She looks like she can move as smooth as the curves of her hips and that one is literally hot in more ways than one. I bet you they both could give me a good run for my money, if you know what I mean."
The woman licked her upper lip slowly with a devilish look in her eye as she shamelessly looked both Flow and Pyre up and down. Flow recoiled away a little, covering her chest with her arm and looking slightly flustered while Pyre seemed a bit more unfazed by the woman's antics. Matt let out a heavy sigh and shook his head as he was the one to step forward this time, putting himself directly in front of the woman. She was short enough compared to him that she had to look almost straight up to see his face while he had to look almost straight down to see hers. The two were locked onto one another before the woman suddenly let out a small snort and began to laugh.
"Can you not be so fucking gross for five minutes of your life?" Matt asked, slowly shaking his head.
The woman only laughed and gently punched Matt in his stomach before she took a few steps back. Both of their overall demeanors had suddenly changed and they seemed way more relaxed with one another. This only greatly confused the others even more as they watched the interaction between the two.
"Whaaaat? Not my fault you surrounded yourself with a couple of baddies. Even got a kid already? Damn Matty." the woman laughed.
"First of all, down girl. And second of all it's not like that you fucking degenerate. They are my… friends. And no, not that kind of friends either." Matt replied, instantly putting down any other conclusions the woman may have tried to draw from his meaning.
"Yeah now that you mention it. They're both just way too pretty to fall for your ugly ass and there's no way in hell you could pump out a kid as cute as that either." the woman continued to laugh.
"Fuck you" Matt laughed back.
"C-Chief? I'm sorry to interrupt but, who is this?" Z asked again
"Oh right, right. Well you see, this fucking walking pile of shit is Holly Remington. She's an old friend of mine and yeah, technically she's my adopted little sister too." Matt replied as he turned towards the others while nearly jabbing his thumb in the woman's face.
"Get your fucking dirty ass hand outa my face" the woman said a bit under her breath, as she barred her sharp teeth as if she was actually going to bite his thumb off.
"Wait wait wait wait wait. Y-You have a sister, boss?" Flow asked, cocking her head off to one side like a confused puppy.
"Well technically if I'm including myself, he has five." Holly replied.
"Such a big family," Flow said with a slight gasp as she covered the lower part of her face with her hands.
"Yeah and Matty here is technically the young-" Holly started before Matt slapped his hand over her face.
"Alright, we don't need to go telling everyone everything… Did you just lick my hand?" Matt said, pulling his hand away from Holly's face in disgust.
"I told you to get your hand away from my face," Holly replied with a shrug.
Matt let out an exasperated sigh while he whipped his hand on his pant leg and rolled his eyes.
"Anyways. Everyone, she's family to me so I'd appreciate it if you all at least treated her with… some respect" Matt said as he addressed the others and side eyed Holly.
"Eh, that's fair" was all she replied with as she shrugged and nodded her head "So are you actually going to tell me who your friends are? Or do I gotta just use context clues here? Tsk tsk, what would Emma say if she knew you were being so impolite?"
"Pretty sure she'd beat your ass first but… right. From left to right there's Z, Pyre, then Flow." Matt pointed to each one of them as he said their names.
"Sweet. I suck at names so don't hold it against me if I ask you all your names again at any point" Holly chuckled as she rubbed the back of her neck a little "But anyways, you can all call me Rem if you'd like. Any friends of Matty's are friends of mine."
"Pleasure to meet you Ms. Rem" Z said with a slight bow
"Hmph" was all Pyre said with a slight nod of his head.
"Wait, what is Boss's sister doing here so far from the North?" Flow asked
"That's none of our business Ms. Flow" Z sighed as he gave Genasi a small bump on the back of her head.
"Actually, that is a good question" Matt replied as he crossed his arms with a raised eyebrow "What are you doing here?"
"You mean why am I here? Or why am I here? Because I could ask the same thing." Holly, or Rem, asked as she shifted her weight off to one side a little mimicked Matt's pose.
"Why are you here… in Venindale?" Matt clarified.
He knew the answer to her other question was something they both would prefer to talk about in private, away from really anyone else. The last time Matt had seen Rem was back on Earth in… less than ideal circumstances.
"Well that's easy, I'm here because I heard the local Matriarch in the area is finally getting married. My current boss is an old friend of the Matriarch so she asked me to come along as her plus one to the ceremony. I honestly don't know any details about this wedding or who this Matriarch is even marrying but I was told it at least be a fairly entertaining shindig. What about you? Are you here for the wedding too?"
"I um… well, I guess you could say that" Matt replied, looking away and rubbing the back of his neck
"You… didn't even tell your own sister Chief?" Z asked, sounding confused.
"Tell me what?" Rem asked
"No, not exactly. But to be fair it's not like I had any means of contacting her." Matt replied through slightly gritted teeth.
"What are you talking about? What's going on here?" asked Rem
"Sorry Chief, I just thought that maybe you had sent a message out or something to let her know" Z said a bit apologetically
"Tell-me-what?" Rem asked again, this time grinding her teeth and grabbing Matt by his shirt and yanking him down to face level.
"Well… you see. I… may or may not be the one the Matriarch is getting married to" Matt replied.
The silence that followed afterwards was deafening. Matt felt like he couldn't hear a thing but the soft whistle of the wind around them. Rem's eyes were wide, and full of shock and surprise as they darted back and forth over Matt's. Her smile was gone now, replaced now with her mouth opening and closing as if trying to formulate words, but none ever came. Instead, she nailed Matt in the face with a strong left hook that made his jaw pop for a second before she grabbed him by his collar and brought his face back in front of hers while he was practically kneeling to meet her level.
"The fuck you mean you're the one marrying the Matriarch?! I swear to fucking god Matty!" rem yelled in his face after she had punched him
"Look a lot happened really fucking quick okay? One thing led to another and now we are getting married! Why do you care so mu-?" Matt replied, but was cut off when Rem punched him again.
"You fucking asshole! You fucking incompetent fucking moron!" She yelled while repeatedly punching him over and over again.
Matt finally raised his hand and caught one of her incoming punches in his large hand but she then delivered a knee directly into his chest, temporarily knocking the wind out of him for a second.
"N- Fuck! What was all that for?" Matt asked once he'd caught his breath a little
"You fucking idiot" was all she replied with but Matt could hear a slight tremble in her voice now.
He looked up to see Rem still looking at him with furry in her eyes but he could also see small tears forming in the corner of her eyes as her lower lip trembled a little. Matt suddenly realized that there was a lot more behind the beating she had just given him beside the fact that he was getting married. She had been clearly holding back on her punches before when she was striking him in the face but he must have really pissed her off when he stopped her, because she put a lot more power into her attack when she kneed him. Now she stared at him like she wanted to kill him and he could see her body trembling ever so slightly. The Rem he knew, his teammate, sister, and best friend… never got this angry.
"Pyre. Take the other two and go back to the manor. Tell my wife that I might be a little late coming home tonight but I promise I'll explain everything later" Matt said, looking over his shoulder at the others
Pyre nodded, as if he somehow knew exactly what was going on at the moment, and grabbed the other two by the collar of their shirts and began pulling them away.
"W-Wait! Boss!" Flow said in protest
"Go Flow. I'll explain it later." Mat said as he slowly rose to his feet and whipped his face with his sleeve.
"Be safe Chief" Z said with concern in his voice before Pyre pulled them both away from the remaining duo.
Matt waited until they were gone before he turned his attention back to Rem. She was staring down at his boots now but was still visibly shaking as she was holding back her tears. With a heavy sigh, Matt stepped forward and wrapped the small quivering form up in his arms, holding her close to him as she immediately buried her face into his stomach. He could feel her entire body shaking as she made small, sobbing noises. Neither of them said a thing as they stood, thankfully all alone in the street as she wept into his midsection for time.
"Your…not supposed to be here… Matty" her voice was trembling and a little hoarse as she spoke into his shirt.
"I… I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Remmy" Matt replied in a soft voice.
She sobbed into his shirt for a little bit longer before she did her best to collect herself with a sniffle and managed to look up at him. His heart broke. Rem's face was contorted with such a pained expression that he'd only ever seen once before when her biological father had died back when they were both kids together. She'd made him promise to never tell anyone about the way she had looked and had done her best to always have a smile on her face since then. Now, she had the same pained look as she looked up into his eyes and did her best to choke out her words.
"You're fucking dead Matty!" she nearly screamed
Matt was frozen for a moment as he looked back down into her eyes in shock. Her eyes darted back and forth across his face as her expression slowly turned back to anger and she slammed her fists up on his chest.
"You're dead! You're fucking dead, you asshole! That's the only way you could be here! You fucking died and now you're stuck here! Just like me!"
"Rem, what are you talking about?" He said, catching her fists in his hand to stop her as tears rolled down her cheek
"You have to be fucking dead to come to this world Matty! That's what she said! I came here when I died! You! You! You're not supposed to be here!"