The next day around lunch time...
Teana blinked as she saw Vita eating alone. Normally it wasn't something that would interest her too much, but the woman looked like she was slightly upset about something. "Hey, Vita..." She said softly as she moved near the table. Teana's eyes widened when Vita looked at her. "What happened?"
"Sparring match with Suzuka." Vita grumbled, her eye was blackened and she had some blood on her face around her nose. "I lost."
"Ah, but, but, how?!" Teana stared and Vita snorted, grimacing painfully.
"I'd curse Shamal, but she said she'd fix me up in a little bit, as for how? It was a sparring match, pure hand-to-hand, no magic and I didn't use Graf Eisen," Vita grinned painfully, "she got a lucky shot in and pinned me for three seconds, she won."
"Bu, bu, bu..." Teana stuttered as Vita rolled her eyes.
"Look, sometimes it's not who's more powerful, more skilled or more experienced, sometimes a fight comes down to a stupid lucky, or cheap, shot." Vita shrugged at her stare. "Trust me when I say that there's no one more skilled in armed combat than Signum is and she tends to win any one-on-one sparring match she's in, or at least draw. But throw her into a group sparring match and she's one of the first ones to lose." Vita smirked and shook her head. "If you're wondering about the blood, lemme tell ya, headbutts against the nose hurt." Taking a napkin, she dabbed at her face again before getting up and leaving the table. "See ya this afternoon."
Teana could only slowly shake her head. "...Everyone in this place is insane."
She just wondered what kind of insanity they lived through to make them come out like this.
A couple of hours later...
Subaru was bending down, stretching as she and Erio spoke before afternoon practice. "Really? The whole chicken?"
"Yeah!" The boy laughed as he twisted his back to get some tension out of it. "Great grandma was crazy with that recipe, but yum, it was good!"
Subaru laughed as she tried to imagine it. "Oh wow, I couldn't see mom doing that."
Erio kept laughing. "It got really funny with Fried was accidentally thrown in as well, great grandma wanted the other chicken but grabbed him instead. I thought Caro was going to cry."
"Great grandma shouldn't be trying to cook Fried!" Caro yelled at Erio while Fried chirped in as his mistress sat on the ground and tried to stretch her legs and back out. "It's not Fried's fault he was flying near the live chickens, he's a growing Dragon and he was hungry!"
"Ku ku!" The Dragon landed on Caro's shoulders as she sat up properly.
Caro had a rather mischievous grin on her face. "Besides, at least I didn't get kidnapped by a mama pig like you did, Erio-kun."
"That's a lie and you can't prove it!" Erio spun on the ground to face and point at her. "I was just playing with some baby pigs and followed it, that's all."
"Uh huh..." Caro grinned at him. "That's why Yuuno-papa found you in the mud begging to get out of the pig pen?" She giggled as Erio hung his head and sighed heavily.
Erio wanted to get mad, he really did, but seeing her smiling and giggling, well, it made it hard to get angry at her when she was being so cute. "Subaru..." When the older girl looked at him, he grinned at her. "Wanna help me with some stuff later?"
Subaru blinked a few times and shrugged. "Don't see why not." She bent over as she stretched her legs out again. After a few more minutes of stretching, she shook her arms and legs to get any lingering pains out of them before blinking as she saw Erio and Caro running laps around a few trees. 'Wait, no, is she chasing him?' Subaru had seen the two argue and fight before, but this was the first time that the two had acted like actual children, with Caro running after Erio, swinging her arms up and down and Erio running and sticking his tongue out at Caro, occasionally putting on a burst of speed so he could kick her in the butt before changing directions.
Looking at Fried, she just blinked as the small Dragon sat on the ground, doing nothing, no, wait, it was doing something, it was eating some jerky.
Subaru looked at Erio again and chuckled. 'He... He bribed a Dragon.' She knew how protective of Caro Fried was, the small Dragon had headbutted her several times in practice for nearly hurting Caro by accident.
"Alright! Knock it off!" Vita's voice was heard and the two children stopped running around and Subaru looked up as Yuuno, Vita and Teana walked towards them. "Arisa and Suzuka'll join us later, anyway..."
"Aww!" A new female voice spoke up, one that had Yuuno and Vita instantly pale and tense up. "And I was so looking forward to having some fun with those two kiddies again!"
Yuuno, Vita and Teana all turned to see a rather tall and muscled woman with green hair, sunglasses over her eyes, a large grin on her face, looking at them. She was dressed in a green tank top that did absolutely nothing to hide her curves and what looked to be like military-grade camouflage pants with black boots on her feet. On her back was a sword hilt, but that was all most of them could tell at first glance.
"Riksfalto!" Yuuno and Vita hissed at the same time as the Mazoku general chuckled to herself.
"Glad to see that you didn't forget about me, kiddies!"
"Who is.." Teana started to speak, only to get interrupted by Yuuno.
"Someone who could likely fight everyone in the Riot Force right now and wipe all but a few of us by the time everything was said and done. She's nothing but a ruthless battle maniac who actually taught at our school back on Earth. At one point, she was an enemy, right now, you could probably place her in the category of ally... Tentatively."
"Aww!" Riksfalto suddenly disappeared before reappearing in front of Yuuno, hugging him tightly. "You say the sweetest things about me, and all it took was you nearly killing me when you were younger too!"
"Hey!" Caro yelled while swinging her arms up and down. "Stop hugging my papa!" It was rather simple for Caro, she didn't know Riksfalto personally, but she had heard Vita, Suzuka and Arisa complain about Riksfalto in gym class to give her the image of a horrible monster that liked to torment people endlessly. Besides, Riksfalto wasn't on Caro's "approved huggers of papa" list.
Granted, it was a very short list that really didn't extend too far, but it was still her list, dang it!
"You're that weird lady!" Erio pointed at Riksfalto. "You said to try and not blow everything up to me."
"Hmm?" Riksfalto let go of Yuuno, mentally amused by the fact that he somehow managed to be both blue in the face and red on his cheeks. Then again, she did hug him against her impressive chest. "Oh yeah, I remember you. That still stands kiddo, don't try to..." She trailed off as she looked at Caro and almost felt like taking a step back and looked at Yuuno. "...You adopted her?"
Yuuno patted his chest. "You do remember the rumors in school about me having a daughter?" He pointed to Caro. "She's my daughter."
Riksfalto looked at Caro, who smiled brightly and waved her hand slowly. "I see.." She looked at Teana and Subaru, both of whom were just looking at her in confusion. "I guess you two are interested in who I am?" They nodded slowly. "Name's Riksfalto, General to Lord Deep Sea Dolphin of the Red Staff," she lifted up her sunglasses, revealing one eye that was closed with a scar over it and the other eye had a look of almost insanity on it, "and I'm one Mazoku you'll never forget."
Subaru looked at the Mazoku and felt a shiver go up her spine. She wasn't exactly sure what a Mazoku was, but it probably wasn't a good thing.
"By the way, Yuuno..." Riksfalto shot to Yuuno, who took a wary step towards Caro as the Mazoku general looked at the girl again. "You do realize who those two are, right?"
"Erio and Caro being Dark Star and likely Vorfeed's reincarnations, yeah, why?"
"Just making sure." Riksfalto didn't like subterfuge, at all. However, when dealing with something that the Lord of Nightmares set up, well, it was best to not be straight forward.
"Actually..." Vita had a wicked, evil and flat-out mean idea enter her head at that moment. "We were about to start the afternoon training..." She trailed off and looked around. "Hey, where's Ginga?"
"Oh, mom needed her." Subaru rubbed the back of her head. "Sorry, I thought you knew."
Vita crossed her arms under her breasts and let out an annoyed snort. "Fine, well, you four..." She jerked a thumb at Riksfalto. "Caro to try and beat her up?"
Riksfalto grinned and pulled her sword out. "Give me a good fight, or I may... Hurt you a bit."
"You sure this is a good idea, Vita?"
"Trust me, they need to fight against a Mazoku, right? Unless she's ordered to, Riksfalto's never tried to kill any of us intentionally, and despite everything, she's always been straight-forward, right?"
"...True..." Yuuno broke the link and looked at everyone and then at Riksfalto. "...Just don't kill them, please?"
Riksfalto smirked at him. "No killing, but I can't guarantee I won't maim them."
Yuuno stepped away from the upcoming battlefield with Vita patting his back and wondered why all the women in his life were all violent maniacs. When he said it out loud, Vita just laughed and elbowed him lightly.
"Hey, at least it's not a romantic comedy manga, right?" Vita grinned at him as they stood by to watch the upcoming fight. "Even if your life kind of parallels some of the manga I've read. Then again, if it did for real, Signum, Shamal and myself would probably be interested in you as well."
"You're not?" Yuuno asked, fairly surprised as the battle was about to take place.
Vita rolled a strand of her hair in front of her eyes. "To be honest, Yuuno, I do like you, and I probably wouldn't mind going on a few dates with you. If it led to something more, I sure wouldn't complain." She looked at him and smiled softly before lightly punching him in the arm. "I could probably steal you away from the Takamachi sisters easily enough too." She nearly laughed as he blushed pretty hard. "But I'm not going to." she put her finger on his lips to keep him quiet, "because I respect your relationship with Nanoha, Fate and Miyuki to not do anything." She shrugged and turned back to watch as Riksfalto caught Subaru's punch with ease before throwing her through a tree. "Ouch, that had to hurt. And, Yuuno?"
"What?" He had to admit, he had never seen this side of Vita before.
Vita grinned at him. "If you end up wanting all three Takamachi sisters, let me know ahead of time, okay?" When he stared at her, she blushed softly. "What? After Chrono married Amy and Filia, I would have thought you would have gone for the same thing too."
"Uh..." Yuuno scratched his head. "Vita, I'm only nineteen, you're eighteen, we don't need to rush, do we?"
The redhead shrugged at that. "Not really, though it is fun to experiment and find out what we really want and need..." She sighed heavily. "Though, sometimes I think that dad doesn't really understand that."
"Hayate's had Reinforce for a long time, Vita..." Yuuno winced as Riksfalto smashed Fried into the ground hard enough to cause a small crater. "And there's Zwei..."
"I know..." Vita grumbled softly and crossed her arms under her breasts. "Did you know that I wanted what Reinforce has? Still do, actually."
"...You wanted to be Hayate's lover?"
Vita smirked softly. "I'll never get that in my life, though it's kind of stupid now that I look back at it."
"Not really." Yuuno said while watching the fight continue, though from the looks of things, Riksfalto wasn't trying too hard. After all, she put her sword away. Not that she needed it with how she was literally mopping the ground with Erio. "Erio! You might want let go of that spear when she grabs it and tries to use you as a squeegee!"
"Not really?" Vita snorted at him, "that's rich, coming from you."
"...Considering that I was dating Miyuki for a few years, Vita, I'd say that a notion like that doesn't bother me."
"Hey," Vita narrowed her eyes. "Speaking of Miyuki, is she still on Earth?"
"Last I heard..." Yuuno muttered, hoping that Miyuki didn't follow him to Mid-Childa. He had nothing against his girlfriend, he just wasn't sure if he could deal with Miyuki, Nanoha and Fate at the same time. Signum's constant amusement from watching him deal with his girl troubles was never a good thing.
"We're going to see Nee-chan now, Miyuki-nee?"
"Yes, Arashi," Miyuki smiled as they stepped off the ship and into Cranagan, "we're going to go see Nanoha now."
"Yay!" The young boy cheered and jumped into the air. "I can't wait to show her!"
"I bet." Miyuki sweat-dropped and hoped that this wasn't a bad time. Oh well, at least she could see Yuuno again, that was always nice.
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See other episodes by Philip Weigel
(Posted Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:52)
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