“Are you asking me to fight you, sister?” Belloc asked suspiciously.
Mira: “Yes!”
Gabbrielle / Apophis: “”No!””
“Ehh?? Why not!?”
Gabbrielle : “He is not even a full day old, what possible reason could you have to fight him?”
Apophis: “This is my first time having a brother so I won’t allow you to take this moment away from me! I will spar with him first!”
Apophis, Gabbrielle, and Mira all stared at each other incredulously like they couldn’t believe they were on different pages.
“Why are you acting like living with only girls is so taxing on your spirit? Are you bothered by us??”
At Gabbrielle’s question, Thea and Mira stared at their oldest brother with scathing and accusatory looks.
Belloc on the other hand just fiddled with the zipper on his hoodie.
“O-Of course I’m not bothered by you! But if I have to go on one more shopping trip or fake RSVP for another tea party, I think I may go insane.” he said honestly.
“So you don’t like going shopping with me after all…?” Thea asked with tears in her eyes.
“A-And you don’t like our tea parties..?” Mira added.
Apophis sensed that he was in for the beating of a lifetime if his parents found out that he made his sisters cry.
“N-No, of course I like those things! But… sometimes I want to do guy things to, you know? It doesn’t mean that I don’t like hanging out with you guys! Honest! I love you!”
Apophis’ additional cries of desperation, seemed to hammer his point home just a bit, and the faces of the girls relaxed tremendously.
“Alright..”
“We love you too..”
Apophis let out a sigh as he realized that he had finally saved his skin and avoided his parents wrath.
“So…. who am I fighting?” Belloc asked.
“”Me!””
Belloc looked at Mira and Apophis casually before his eyes drifted to another person in the room.
“Can I choose to spar with you instead?” he asked Thea.
“Oh?”
The silence that followed afterwards was like a library in the middle of space.
The youngest sibling couldn’t understand why his questions always seemed to make his family shut down, but he was beginning to think that he shouldn’t ask so many anymore.
Apophis placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder and shook his head pitifully. “Brother… I think that you may want to wait a bit before challenging Thea.”
“Yes… like for a few months or so.” agreed Gabbrielle.
“For safety.” Mira said with a cute nod.
Belloc raised a brow at this as he slipped his hands into his pockets. “Is there a reason why I-”
Gabbrielle: “Monster.”
Apophis: “Big monster.”
Mira: “Like daddy and mommies.”
Thea: “I can hear all of you!!”
“””So?”””
Thea gave three of her cheeky siblings ‘small’ punches in the stomach as she returned her focus to her youngest sibling.
Like Abaddon, she had a humorous light in her eye that was indicative of her very playful personality.
“Alright… I’ll make you a deal. If you can beat our brother and sister first, I will play with you for a bit. How’s that sound?”
“Okay.” Belloc agreed.
The deal struck, Mira and Apophis had excited glimmers in their eyes as they fist bumped each other silently.
“Alright then, brethren, to the training hall!” Thea said dramatically.
Apophis / Mira: “”Hooray!!””
Gabbrielle: “Hooray.”
Belloc: ‘I have weird siblings…’
–
It took next to no time for the five siblings to spill out into the hallway and start heading lower in the castle towards the training hall.
Along the way, the group ran into the combined unit of Apophis’ and Thea’s wives who were just returning home after spending some time out on the town.
The girls were understandably surprised to see a newborn baby that already looked to be around sixteen years old, but they quickly swallowed their surprise when they remembered just what family they had married into.
Although, they had a much more difficult time trying to understand why they were about to fight this alleged newborn.
Eventually, the girls followed the siblings down to the training room to act as spectators and satisfy their unrelenting curiosity.
Upon reaching the all white bunker located beneath the castle, Belloc let out an impressed whistle as he marveled at the magical density in the walls.
His mother Valerie had made a lot of sturdy training rooms in her life, but this was by far her grandest and most impressive endeavor yet.
Though this place looked simple, it was fully capable of tanking a hit comparable to six nuclear bombs fired off one right after the other.
Or, a single outside attack from a very irate Abaddon.
Belloc was really quite impressed, and the admiration that he felt for his new family was only increasing.
‘Mothers are so cool…’
“Hey, what’s taking you so long to get ready??”
Belloc was jarred from his thoughts when he heard his older sister Mira call out to him from a few feet away.
At some point, she had changed into a simple black bodysuit with no sleeves on the arms and tied her hair up above her head.
In her hands she had two daggers that looked like they were made out of ice and gold.
‘Sharp…’ Belloc thought.
“What’s taking you so long? Get ready!”
“Hm? I’m ready though.”
Mira looked her younger brother up and down.
He hadn’t even bothered to take off the hoodie that was still resting haphazardly off his body, and his hands were still situated in his pockets.
She honestly couldn’t tell if he was taking this very seriously or not.
…. Oh well, who cares!
“Alright, I’m coming!” Mira got down on all fours into a strange stance that was somewhat reminiscent of a leopard.
As soon as she declared her intention to start, Belloc heard a fair bit of rustling coming from the sidelines.
Turning his head, he found the group pulling on a bunch of furry mink coats that looked like they were made from some very warm and large beasts.
The two red-haired girls that he’d been told to be sisters held out their hands and produced bright red flames that they made float around the group like little red will o’ wisps.
‘Why would they…?’
WHOOSHHH!!!
As soon as Below watched the group make their preparations, he learned exactly what they were for.
Out of nowhere, a fierce blizzard whipped up into the air with his older sister at it’s origin.
The temperature within the room dropped to negative eighteen within seconds, and soon the entire training hall transformed into a wintery wonderland.
And almost immediately, Belloc had begun to notice a problem.
Dragons have peerless eyesight among mythical creatures, likely inferior only to dodomeki.
They can see through illusions, the inner workings of magic attacks, rain, sandstorms, and of course snowstorms.
Except this time… Belloc’s vision was not working as it should have.
It was as if he was a normal human in the middle of a blizzard, and he had no way to see through this level of impairment.
‘Interesting… big sister is so cool.’
Belloc sprouted a greyish black tail from his lower lumbar region.
Where their father’s had something similar to a metallic texture, his was more bone-like and organic in origin.
“It’s a really cool trick, but… I don’t actually need to be able to see you.”
CLANG!
Belloc made a slash with his tail behind him and a sound like steel bashing against steel ragout from the training room.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a pair of glowing red eyes floating amongst the storm of white surrounding him.
Though he couldn’t be certain, he felt like his sister was smiling madly within the storm.
As quickly as she appeared, she vanished from behind him without a trace and left him surrounded only by ice once again.
Mira was a true warrior at heart with a love for battle.
Because of that, she was always looking for ways to improve and refine herself so that she could earn praise from her father and mothers.
It took a long time, but eventually Mira settled on a fighting style that fit her best.
Mira was a huntress.
Like the animals she tracked in the wilderness with Bekka and Seras, she enjoyed pouncing on her opponents when they weren’t expecting it and forcing them into submission before they even knew what happened.
But it looked like she was going to have to swap around her tactics just a bit for her brother.
Belloc raised a brow as he felt the gentle snow that was falling suddenly turn into razor sharp hail.
Most of it was cracking against his skin and breaking, but a few shards were piercing the more soft and tender parts of his body.
After plucking an icy needle from his eyelid, Belloc exhaled audibly and sparks of orange flame flew from between his lips.
Though he found this cold weather charming, he was not exactly a fan of being poked in the eye so he decided to end things early.
A huge gust of orange fire left his lungs and collided with the cold temperature in the room and immediately melted.
The wintery wonderland turned into a wet and muggy land filled with a mist so dense that you could weigh it on a scale.
Splish, splash splash! 𝐎𝒱𝐞xt.𝑐𝑀
‘So she gave up on surprise..’
Belloc turned his body to the side in an effort to avoid Mira’s icy blade that went to pierce his sternum.
He saw a mad smile underneath a shock of inky black hair and the pace of the battle started to speed up.
Mira dropped down even lower and executed a low sweep aimed to take her brother’s legs out from underneath him.
Belloc tried to take a step back, but realized at some point that his feet had been frozen.
He wondered exactly when Mira could have frozen his feet, and he immediately knew the answer.
When she first abandoned her stealthy strategy and let herself make noise in the puddles on the floor, he had been so focused on the sound of her coming that he hadn’t actually been paying attention to himself.
‘Her control is that great that she can freeze things from far away…? Family is amazing.’
As impressed as he was, something within him did not want to let his sister show off at his expense.
When Mira’s leg was about to sail into her brother’s knee, he caught it reflexively and held her so firm that she was unable to budge.
Since she wanted to fight against a demigod so badly, he figured that it was okay if he showed off just a little bit too.
However, he would of course try his best not to hurt her too badly.
After all, she was his precious family.