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 Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2024 10:40 am
Backdated to mid-March. “Ew, Daddy, no!” Maisie screeched—louder than she probably should have, given the circumstances, but she couldn’t help it!
The night had been going fine. Maisie never knew what to expect from dinner with her dad. Either he’d be quiet and mopey the whole time or he’d ask her too many questions about school and sigh about the fact that most of her friends were boys. (“Oh my God, Daddy, they’re literally all gay.”) Tonight had been a bit of the former, but not as bad as usual; he must have had a good day at work or something. Whatever. The food had been good and they’d been on their way back to the car to drive home when out from the shadows came a whole freaking youma!
Considering she didn’t want her dad to know what she was, Maisie had thought the best option was to high tail it out of there.
Then Daddy had to go and touch something and transform into a superhero before her eyes! Kind of like Reims did, only not as cool because it was her dad. (Not that Reims was cool. At all. Not in any way, shape, or form. But, like, comparatively.)
The youma snarled, as one does. Maisie clicked her tongue in annoyance and drew up on the power within her, until she stood in front of her dad as Cynthus, Page of the Moon.
“Just so you know, the Code actually picked me,” she said—because that had to be cooler than randomly transforming, right? “Or have you been like this the whole time and you didn’t tell me?!”
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Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2024 10:42 am
David stared in shock at the chess piece he held in his hand, and then at the snarling monster, and then at his daughter, who was no longer his daughter but some kind of magic fairy??
“What?” was all he could manage to weakly sputter, but that wasn’t going to help them in that very moment. He thought he was picking up something he could throw at the creature -- probably a dog with mange or something.
He looked down at himself, no longer in a nice blazer and slacks, but in some… glowing… high tech looking getup. Something he would see at a convention, probably.
“What, no, this is new. Wait, have you been like this and not told me?” Whatever this was. “Maisie Ann--”
Oh, maybe with this crazy dog here, maybe they shouldn’t discuss this right now.
“Okay step back and let Daddy take care of the dog. Probably.” He wished he had something more than a pretty chess piece… He felt pretty useless, really. Running would likely be the best option.
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Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2024 10:42 am
“Ew, don’t call yourself Daddy!” Cynthus complained. Briefly, she tipped her head back and looked into the night sky. “Code, what the ******** thought about running anyway. Could they outrun a youma like this? She hadn’t tried to run since that first time. Usually she just whacked at them with her little crook until they burst into dust, or had Reims hit them with a stick or something. Or she stomped on them, if they were bugs. She was pretty sure it didn’t actually kill them, but she also hadn’t seen the same one twice, so she couldn’t be absolutely sure.
“You can’t call me my normal person name like this!” she continued, taking a swing at the youma—the motion was much improved from her first attempts with Riker’s baseball bat. She’d been practicing! The youma let out a screech to rival her own and jumped back to bare its teeth. “My superhero name is Cynthus! And yours is… I don’t know, whatever your gut tells you, I guess. Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re a knight. Not a Knight knight, but a Page knight. Whatever, this thing isn’t a dog! It’s a youma and it eats people!”
Not entirely accurate, but she was operating on adrenaline and disbelief. And dread. Ugh. Daddy was going to be so insufferable about this.
“And I’ll be taking care of it, because I actually know what I’m doing!”
Unwilling to get close enough to the snarling youma to take another swing, she kicked a rock at it instead. She was hoping it hit one of its half a dozen eyes, but the rock struck its muzzle.
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Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2024 10:43 am
Oh, well, David supposed that dogs usually didn’t have six eyes, so his daughter was probably right in that it wasn’t a dog but--
“You’ve seen these before?” he sputtered, not bothering to correct her language since, honestly, it was valid in this situation. He had no idea what was going on, but she seemed to. Although he wasn’t sure about superhero and creatures that eat people.
“Is this normal??” Oops, his voice was getting higher with distress. He picked up a rock to throw at the creature, but Maisie-- Cynthus was already attacking it.
Oh… his baby girl was so big and strong. Even if she was running around in a really short dress. At least she had shorts.
“How come I haven’t seen any news articles about these things?? Wait, are there more of you? What’s the Code? And you don’t look like a knight, what is that?”
Oh right, supposed to be fighting this… creature.
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Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2024 10:45 am
“Daddy!” Cynthus continued to complain. “I’m trying to dust this youma!”
As if she hadn’t been rambling on before.
The youma growled and lunged. Cynthus caught it on the side of the head with the end of her little crook. Ugh, this was so annoying! They were supposed to have a normal father/daughter dinner night! But noooo, Daddy had to go and be a Page of… something. Cynthus didn’t think she’d ever seen an outfit like that before. What were his symbols? Clearly she should have paid more attention to astronomy or whatever. Her symbols were easy. Reims’ and Derings’ she only knew because she knew Reims and Dering. Dad definitely wasn’t wearing electric hearts or spikey croissants.
The youma snapped its many-toothed jaws at her. Cynthus squeaked and jumped back, but the youma took the opportunity to turn for the weaker obstacle. (Because, yes, Daddy was weaker. He was newer, so obviously that meant Cynthus was stronger!)
“Hey, you ugly mutt! Leave him alone!”
Cynthus turned to take another swing, and as she did she felt a surge of power. It was bright and blinding and almost took her breath away, but it felt good and right and she didn’t shy away from it. She let it fill her up up up until it burst out--
--and her crook was no longer little. Suddenly she had a longer reach. The curved part caught the youma by the neck. Cynthus pulled it back toward her and kicked it so hard it yelped, but she stumbled right after when her foot got tangled up in her newly long dress.
“Oh!” she gasped, because she knew what this meant. “I did it! I’m a Squire!” She turned her crook to stab at the youma with the flat end, then tipped her head back to shout into the sky again. “Thank you, Code!”
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Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2024 10:45 am
“Hey!” David shouted when the creature -- youma snapped at Cynthus. But of course it had to turn on him instead. Okay, that was fine! He could kick it or something. How dare it try to hurt his little girl??
Oh… But it turned out she didn’t need help from her old man, anyway. Instead, she suddenly had a long dress and longer weapon. Good. To keep things at a distance. Although hopefully that didn’t include her Daddy.
He felt a little silly not knowing what to do, but he was also impressed by how well Cynthus seemed to be handling things.
“Alright, make sure you keep your hands mostly together when you swing, and make sure you follow through,” he coached, since that was really the best he could do at the moment. He made a gesture of holding his hands together as if holding a bat, and then swung said invisible bat just in case she needed to see.
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Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2024 10:45 am
“Oh my God, Daddy, I know,” Cynthus said.
Then she rolled her eyes.
But she also did what her dad said and adjusted her grip. She was pretty sure Reims had said something about that at some point, too. Whatever, she wasn’t into sports! Cynthus thought she happened to do a good job anyway. She put all of her strength into her next swing and struck the youma across the face so hard its head snapped to the side and got stuck like that.
It whimpered once like a dog in pain, then burst into dust.
“Go back to where you came from and stay there!” Cynthus called after it, even if she was sure it could no longer hear her. “And tell the Negaverse there’s more where that came from!”
Youma effectively dealt with, Cynthus turned back to her dad and cringed. This was bad. This was very, very bad. Daddy was old. Not old old, but still old. He shouldn’t be a knight! The oldest knight she knew was… okay, so it was Aunt Claire, apparently, and she was older than Daddy, but she acted younger and her hair wasn’t going gray, so sometimes it was easy to forget.
“Why do you have to be a knight?!” Cynthus moaned in disappointment. “This was supposed to me my thing! Now it’s literally everyone! Does it run in the family?! But you’re not Jupiter or Cosmos or the Moon or… is that all we have? Who are you?”
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Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2024 10:46 am
David cringed as Cynthus struck the creature, but blinked in surprise when it just… turned into dust. How was that possible? There should be some logical explanation for all this, right?
As for his daughter. He frowned when it was very obvious how upset she was about him being… whatever he was. He put his hands on his hips and sighed. He was going to tell her how proud he was of her, but she was already critiquing everything about him.
“I’m supposed to just know?” he sighed again, although it was a little forced.
There was… something that he thought he heard in the back of his head but… it didn’t seem right. He shook his head as if that would clear any weird thoughts and he looked over his daughter once more… and paused… his eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean -- does it run in the family?” he definitely didn’t like the sound of that.
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Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2024 10:46 am
Cynthus would’ve liked to spend more time admiring her new dress and cooing over her larger crook, but she had a parent to deal with. A parent who didn’t know anything. Who was old and a Page and who was going to freak out as soon as he heard about everything.
Like father, like daughter. Cynthus sighed again.
She let the power go. Her crook disappeared and her clothes returned to normal. She was Maisie again, just a normal girl in her Crystal uniform. Only her expression stayed the same—frown firmly in place, nose wrinkled in a mix of annoyance and disgust. She looked at her dad like he wasn’t nearly as smart as she knew he was.
Then again, this was the one thing she knew more about than him.
“Just get to the car, Daddy,” she said. “We’re gonna go see Aunt Claire.”
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