Family Begins With You

by Jmaster49

Arc XXI Episode XI: Kill The Itch

Coral had stepped outside of the restroom with her phone in hand. Once she saw Sandbar carrying Fricket, she immediately perked up and ran up to him. “Oh! Big brother! Big brother?”

Upon hearing his sister call for him, Sandbar was all smiles as usual. “Hm? Oh, what’s up, Cici?”

Her cheeks puffed up in response to that. “I said stop calling me--whatever,” she shook her head, and pointed to the teen girl’s hoop earring device, “Can you hand me that earring of hers? I think I can hack it to undo the spell she cast on everyone in the mall.”

Sandbar created a small projection of his hand made of sand to pluck the earring from Fricket’s ear, and used his real hand to offer it to his sister. “Here ya go. Go hack it, kiddo!” he added as he affectionately patted her on the head. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” he continued walking along towards the restroom as Coral started to inspect the device.

“...This is some interesting stuff here. I wonder…” Coral took a closer look at the earring, and found the words, ‘Hishima Zaibatsu Inc’ written in small font near the buttons on it. “Of course. It figures--the Japone folks always have the leading tech. Doesn’t mean I can’t break into it though.”

With Keiji and Flash…

The two had sat down in nearby chairs as they recovered from all of the fighting they had done. The gang of boys had already run off by then, and they were far too tired to give chase.

“The hell….were those guys…?” Flash asked in between huffs to catch his breath.

“No--blegh!--clue…” Keiji replied as he coughed dryly, and took a sip from a blood vial. “Someone always…has to come out of…the damn woodwork…and mess with us.”

“Yeah well…” Flash tried to lighten the mood with some humor, “At least they weren’t magical this time, eh?”

“I suppose,” the vampboy huffed in response. “...Honestly didn’t expect you to stick around, Sent. Guess I judged you wrongly.”

Flash put his fist to his chest as he closed his eyes. “I made a promise to myself that I’d never leave anyone behind. It’s why I’ve always found myself helping others out whenever I can.” He chuckled and added, “...Even if it means helping the girls stop a giant Toaster Transformer.”

Keiji started to think back to the details that Sandbar had told him a while back, and agreed. “Yeah…you got my respect--wait Toaster Transformer? I think there’s some context I’m missing here--what the hell--?”

Near the restrooms…

“Hey Yona, come on out,” Sandbar called out to his well-built girlfriend, “She’s here to apologize.” He slowly turned his head towards Fricket--who was still restrained by the fist made of sand, and spoke with a casual smile, eyes closed, “Aren’t you, miss?”

Fricket stared down at Sandbar’s smile--her pupils shrank and shivered about within her irises. “Y-y-yes! Yes! I’m here to apologize! Q-quit looking at me like that, please!”

“I will once you apologize,” Sandbar refuted her and continued to smile.

Moments later, Yona walked out of the restroom with a stern, gruff frown on her face. “...Do you mean it? Are you truly here to say sorry or are you acting facetious to save your face?”

“No no!” Fricket shook her head, “I-I’m really sorry! I didn’t realize how much I was hurting you by saying those awful things! Y-you’re not a destructive meathead! I take it all back! Just please don’t hurt me!”

Yona huffed hard enough to cause steam to appear from her nostrils, but then she relaxed with a sigh. “Fine. Sandbar, let mean girl go.”

“Alrighty-roo,” Sandbar literally did just that, making the sand-hand disappear and dropping her on the hard tile floor.

“Oof!” she yelped as she rubbed her butt from the fall.

“Oops,” Sandbar replied nonchalantly with his expression returning to his usual lazy smile, “Sorry about that.”

Not to be outdone, his little sister appeared moments later and flung her earring back at her with the motherboard for the magical device removed. “Here. This is yours. Whoever made it clearly had no idea what they were doing. For the record, I’ve dealt with harder tech to crack made of toenails and bubblegum,” Coral tossed the motherboard on the ground and stomped on it under her shoe.

FWOOSH!

And in an instant, the mall returned to normal and the people within it continued to walk as if nothing happened.

“And for Yona’s record. Yona don’t smash things at random,” the muscular girl finally defended herself, and took a step towards Fricket, leaning down to get closer to her face. “But if Yona hears mean girl make more passing comments about Yakistan or other foreign people, Yona will find you. And Yona will smash you.” She was about to stand up, but paused and added, “...and not in the good way.”

“Y-yes…okay! I’m sorry…I’ll never judge anyone for where they come from ever again!” Fricket hurriedly got up, and started running off.

“Aw man,” Coral huffed, “I was hoping to see some actual smashing. She deserved it by this point!”

Yona shook her head. “Yakistan people know that karma catch up to mean people. She won’t get away with it scott free.”

Sandbar was quick to change the atmosphere of the situation with positivity. “C’mon, we should check on our buds anyway--we’ve been through a lot, and I wanna make sure they’re okay too.”