The Wandering Calamity

Back over by the pagoda.

Wag wag

A set of two bushy tails were swaying back and forth, excellently synchronised with one another, as Candy and Cotton made their way over to Kaleido. Candy was carrying Cotton on her shoulders and the tiny tyke was leaning forward so as to have her chin rest on her mother's head. Candy was particularly excited to see Ares again and, though it was 'subtle', Cotton was too. Well, subtle as her wagging tail could be anyway. She kept a plain face, one that displayed no emotion of any kind, but it was clear she was also looking forward to this meeting after everything she'd heard from Candy about her father. Cotton had been missing a parental figure since she was born, two technically if Candy's attitude prior didn't count, so to finally have the other one show up was an exciting time in her life. She understood his situation was complicated, and he couldn't be around right now because he was millions of miles away. and had to work his way here, but at least seeing him would be pleasant. Also, all the men in her life up until now sucked. Sevorus, Ject, Candy's relatives etc... They were all terrible people so to have a proper father figure she could look up to would do her growth some good, Cady figured. It was a relatively easy endeavour coming here, as Candy's parents even paid for the trip, but the catch was the private investigator they hired following her around and also meeting Ares in his own time. The investigator came packing a lie detector machine so he could query Candy on what she talked to Ares about but it was stupid because Candy was just here to see him again. She wasn't going to start scheming with him about anything regarding her situation as enough measures had been put in place by Ares already to make the situation tolerable as is. Plus his consistent performance in the pagoda mean there was never any doubt about Candy's safety so it was nothing more than a friendly reunion. No matter how many times she was asked, and clarified as such, her parents refused to believe it which, in some ways, made a lot of sense given the kind of shady people they were.

Anyway, with tails bobbing from side to side, the mother-daughter duo made their way over to the front of the queue and skipped everything. There were a number of very curious onlookers because the only people to arrogantly stride over to the front of te queue as of yet were Gods and legendary existences who's names echoed throughout the domains of this universe. This random fox kin taking a stroll with her kid definitely did not fit the bill, at least as far as anyone was aware, so either this individual was some shadowy figure that operated primarily behind the scenes, with immeasurable power at her fingertips or, more likely, she was familiar with Transmit or Ares. Either or would get her in the building and so everyone was curious to know who exactly this was. Some people who'd stalked the Ares situation, and were aware of every minute detail, made an educated guess this was Candy, and were correct, so people took note of her. If you messed with anyone of Ares' friends, family members, or colleagues, there would be hell to pay given his backing so it was imperative nobody bothered this fox if they could avoid it. Granted she was, for the most part, on house arrest and this wasn't an issue but, if somebody in the queue here was disgruntled about the skipping of said queue then things could get ugly fast. A couple of people looked like they wanted to make a scene but some of the more wary people standing around nearby kept them in line with their conjectures and so nothing untoward became of this particular scene. 

Candy eventually arrived in front of Kaleido with a spring in her step and gave a polite wave with a bright smile. "Hello!"

Cotton, whilst maintaining her non-expressive face, also gave a tiny wave and followed up with her own greetings. "Hello." The tails were still swaying together but it was really hard to tell what the kid was thinking otherwise. Cotton's stoniness was unmatched by even Terros himself and was likely a result of her upbringing in such a complicated environment. She'd gotten to used being mature at a young age, excessively so, which resulted in her not allowing her emotions to dictate her current mood unintentionally by getting the better of her. Closing off her heart for so many years meant that, even now that it was more open, there was still some traces left of the issues it caused. That being said, she was doing a lot better now and, though she was brusque with strangers, could easily manage a longer conversation if she ever actually wanted to. That was rare though, and getting her to be that upfront about anything was hard, but she was a smart and perceptive kid with a good future ahead of her.

Cotton was good at magic, learnt quickly, cultivated respectably fast, and could read between the lines when grown ups were talking. She was a child who's mental age was significantly higher than her real age, that was for sure. In fact, that was why she'd waved earlier. If she just spoke like a bored young child she would have given off a rude impression to someone she was aware worked, either directly or indirectly, with her new father figure. The tiny wave, albeit merely a small gesture of politeness, was an indication she was friendly despite her appearance during the greeting suggesting otherwise. She thought ahead about how best to navigate conversations, and how her actions would be viewed by others, because she'd really tried hard when she was younger not to upset her already depressed mother. Noticing facial expressions, and subtle twitches or agitation in peoples' voices, meant she made a pretty good body-language detective. Overall, she was a good child who'd been through a lot but had the chance now to live the life she always should have.

It would be a while until compete freedom was at Cotton's fingertips but, until then at least, she could be comfortable. Good food, entertainment, warm beds, everything within reason could be argued over with Candy's parents and acquired thank to Ares help from afar. It took convincing in a lot of cases but even Cotton would jump into the arguments between Candy and her parents now with well timed points from a calmer, level-headed perspective that was hard to disagree with. Sometimes she had to sell her own position short, to anchor her position in the discussion down the line and not just be treated like some selfish, silver tongued brat who wanted everything under the sun, but it always worked in the end and what she really wanted, even if it wasn't what the conversation was about ot begin with, she was able to get within a few weeks or so of first laying eyes on it. Cotton hadn't made friends, she wasn't ever really in public and so environments like sects, clans, or schools weren't happening ever, but she had everything else a kid her age could want for and was content to just live with her fluffy mother, play games with her during the day, and cuddle with her bigger tail at night. Her life had done a sharp one-eighty so yes, part of today's excitement was meeting her father figure, but it was also something a bit more than that. Ares was like a kind off hero who'd swooped in and fixed her life without even showing his face. He was enigmatic and mysterious so Cotton had built up a very strange image of him in her head and wanted to know how much of it he lived up to. Being the person who made her and her mother happy for once was a major deal and that was what truly mattered to her because it's not like she had much else to judge him based off.

Kaleido, however, knew basically none of this. Only the most cursory of information regarding Candy had ever spread so he was somewhat confused as a big and tiny fox waved at him like some kind of cute, animated totem pole. The sight of these two fluffy individuals being so friendly was impossible not to smile at, unless you were stonehearted or just had a lot of control over your facial muscles, so, although Kaleido didn't know what they were here for, he politely returned a cordial smile and asked instead of turning them away before they could even speak again. "Good afternoon. Is there any way I can help you two? I take it you aren't lost?"

Candy shook her head side to side which also caused her chest to bounce a bit and there were plenty of people who were drawn to that part of her foxy charms. They were undeniably sizeable and were outlined nicely by the jumper she was wearing today. She'd come in casual clothes, a sweater and some jeans, but she actually looked incredibly good in this outfit so it garnered a lot of attention. She still regularly wore the outfit she wore in the pagoda previously but that was mostly for when she was experimenting with runes as some of the attire was actually treasures that made her life easier. The lab coat and a pair of glasses, namely, were really helpful in developing runes but did little in day to day life. They could also be decent in combat scenarios so she wore that set of clothes often enough but it wasn't needed today. Not that it really mattered, she was definitely an attractive woman by just about any standard regardless of what she wore. She was an older lady but age had clearly done right by her. If anything, she'd aged like fine wine and would be very popular with a certain crowd of people due to a combination of her age and sly-but friendly personality... And her proportions, they couldn't exactly be ignored because they were rather in your face and impossible not to see. "Nope. We're exactly where we want to be!" 

Cotton gave a small nod and followed up with a statement that basically clarified everything. "We want to see father." Her tail sped up a tiny bit as she said it, which made a couple of people in the crowd coo in delight as this tiny fox was very adorable, and it was now obvious who they were. Teh whole father thing was a bit strange, as Ares was trapped in a lower domain so getting this foxy lady impregnated remotely was rather impressive if that was truly the case, but weirder things have happened in this world. Remote impregnation was doable in more ways than one, as some rare treasures could incubate eggs or induce a sort of pregnancy in women, so that was the general assumption being made here. They were technically right too, it had been a remote injection with magic and surgical equipment that Sevorus painstakingly devised so as not to have to anywhere near the flesh of a lower creature, it was just that Ares himself wasn't responsible for that. Not that the specifics mattered as Ares would immediately claim this bundle of cuteness named Cotton as his own the second he saw it anyway.

'"Oh I see. You must be Candy then. Alright, I'll let you in but, unfortunately, you still have to pay." There was no friends and family discount here, no sir! Kaleido's unflinching resolution to nickel and diming everyone was truly as spectacular as ever. It wasn't an issue for Candy, though, as she came from big money in a big family and an expense like this was child's play even if her own allowance to live off was comparatively miniscule to what it realistically should have been were her parents not exactly who they were. Candy handed over the stardust and took Cotton over to the entrance immediately after, while passing by a strange old man who vanished for some odd reason, before placing her hand on the entrance and remembering what it was like to first enter this place a long time ago. How much things had changed since then... She certainly wasn't even a fraction as happy last time as she was now but that version of her ended up finding the answer she was looking for to her predicament in the most unlikely of ways. Originally, if she had to make do with someone who could help her with her situation that she didn't even like, she would exploit that for all it was worth but the opportunity just never arose as someone with the status to deal with Ject and Sevorus didn't really exist or visit her level of the pagoda nor would they be interested in her. Of all the places to find success in eventually, though, she never expected it to be the lower domains that pulled through for her. On top of that, it was someone she actually liked and enjoyed spending time with! Win win! Both parts of this victory were equally fortuitous as one was better in the short term whereas one was better in the long term and, the best part, was that she didn't have to sacrifice one for the other. She could have her cake, clawing back some freedom, and eat it too, have Ares be in her future, so into the pagoda in a joyful mood she went.

Candy was aware of what the top floor looked like when Veteran was still around so it was quite a surprise to see something so drastically different and that much more vibrant. Instead of doom, gloom, and everything in between, this cityscape was much more alive. There weren't any people here, as the simulation would never inconvenience combatants with NPPC extras wandering around, but the vibe of this place made it abundantly clear that it was based on a city teeming with life and neighbour to neighbour friendliness. Clotheslines hanging from one side of a road to another on the buildings opposite, open doors during the day on most houses, communal areas, and so on so forth. Although Ares had a rough start to his own life he at least had it somewhere that would provide him a great environment when he escaped it and he must have been living quite happily there for a while now. Candy wanted to visit this place! She made a note to go and check out this 'Sheryashka' place one day when Ares met up with her at long last for real. She could take a trip down Ares' memory lane with him, eat at all the good restaurants, and just stroll with Cotton holding both their hands. That was a pleasant thought so Candy added that to the long, ever growing list of them in her imagination to help her get through these long years of waiting. Of course there was something here far more valuable than all of that and that was the man himself who seemed to be bickering with thin air at this current moment in time. This was very much like Ares and completely in line with the kind of person Candy had explained to Cotton that Ares was. Candy made sure to prep Cotton for the fact that Ares was somewhat unorthodox in may ways, and that was just a trait of revenants that she'd have to get used to, but he was fun to be around if nothing else. Though Cotton was a stoic kid she was more than capable of having fun and probably appreciated such a thing more than other kids her age due to being deprived of it for so long so she wasn't bothered by Ares' nature.

Ares was just finishing up a rather coincidental conversation with Dominus about the upsides and downsides of using a fishing rod as a weapon. Ares had learnt a lot about how surprisingly tricky it was to use which, combined with how ineffective it was compared to other similar weapons, just meant it was mostly pointless. There were some unique combinations you could do by combining the rod with other weapons though! Dominus had once put a small robot holding a gun at the end of it and swinging around that robo maniac as it sprayed lead everywhere was daintily a fun experience. Useful? Hardly. Wild, unpredictable, and the kind of nonsense revenants lived for? Abso-friggin-lutely. Still, the rod just wasn't good enough for Dominus to stick with for any real reason and invest time in as, though he had fun with it, there were other weapons he had more fun with. It was unconventional but so were more than half the oddities Dominus wielded all the time anyway. There was one weapon exemplar in the upper domains who leaned into rods quite heavily, though, and he had spatial magic to create a pretty interesting one-two punch between his weapon and magic. He could fish through the portals which meant his angles of attack were incredibly strange and hard to come up with a proper response for. Portals would normally appear right next to the person you wanted to attack but, in his case, he could curve hooks with arcs and thus the portals came from blind spots, or around / behind walls, that were hard to keep track of. Imbue the rod with some magic of whatever kind to make it more deadly, or find a treasure fishing rod that could do some serious harm, and it wasn't bad idea honestly. That weapon expert was still around and getting decent mileage out of his mastery so good for him! He'd also become a legendary fisherman as a result but, really, that was kind of an expected outcome so nobody was shocked when he hauled a leviathan out of the sea on his very first attempt at using a rod properly. There were rumours that he'd even managed to yank the water pillar deity by the tail once but that wasn't something that ever been confirmed.

Anyway, that aside, Ares detected the presence of two people and was about to turn around to smack them silly! It wasn't the first time Ares had to deal with two people at once, as some competitors had cheated in some manner, so he would just do his usual and blow them up to make them regret altering the rules of engagement. Of all the 'cheats' Ares had encountered so far, such as using weapons, using magic, affecting the simulation itself, etc... Bringing in a friend or a pet was by far the most common and easily exploitable route, it seemed. It's not like this stuff happened often, maybe once every couple ten thousand fights, but it was enough to make Ares think that there was some information network outside the pagoda that was selling the details on how to circumnavigate the runes. Only one person needed to figure out a way and then sell that information on so it wasn't even really the fault of the runes. Were it not for this taking place then the number of cheaters would fall drastically and one in, maybe, every couple hundred million would even be able to scratch the surface and cheat in the simplest way possible. Not that it mattered in the end as Ares was more than capable of dealing with literally anything. Even if somebody could alter a rune such that it just flat out killed Ares on the spot he would just disintegrate the thing then and there. He could not be killed or beaten by any realistic measure that was actually achievable in this pagoda and that was something people were just going to have to accept.

As such, Ares was going to spare this cheater no mercy! or so he thought. He turned around and got a face full of fluffy tail, however, and immediately dropped any and all hostility he had a second prior because this was a tail he recognised! He'd only seen it once before but there weren't many tailed humanoid people out there in the lower domains and so this one was pretty iconic to him! Sure enough, a second later, after the tail had been retracted, Ares caught sight of Candy gleefully circling around him and sniffing the familiar scent in full before nimbly hopping onto his back and leaning onto his shoulders with a big hug. She was like a pet fox that hadn't seen its best friend in a while and the affection could practically be felt oozing off her! Or maybe that was just her large chest pressing up against Ares' back which was an entirely different kind of sensation but pleasant nonetheless as they were bigger than Enyo's and by a decent amount too. Either way, there was a beaming smile on her face and her hug was passionate and clingy. She was light as a feather and speedy with her actions so it felt like some wild, playful fox spirit had taken a liking to Ares and had playfully darted around him until it found somewhere comfortable to perch itself upon his body. She would stay there for a long time if it were possible to do so and Ares would be happy to have her there but there was no way she could stay in this pagoda for too long otherwise her parents would give her grief over it. Candy gave Ares a kiss on the cheek and her tail practically became a blur afterwards so it was pretty evident she was in a fantastic mood and wasn't trying to hide it. Cotton saw this and also instinctively felt the same way because she'd never seen her mother like this for as long as she lived. Speaking of Cotton, Ares was about to give greetings to Candy and say hello properly but he spied the munchkin out the corner of his eyes and paused momentarily. The two made eye contact with one another as a smile gradually appeared on Ares' face and just kept growing the more he looked at this sweet little fox. He didn't forget about Candy but darted over to Cotton and gave her all the attention right now as he held her aloft in the air and looked up at her with a grin.

Cotton tried to maintain her normal, unflinching facial expression but it was hard and her cheeks couldn't resist raising as a mini smile formed and her lips disobeyed her orders to not tilt upwards. The smile forced upon her by emotions she couldn't control for once just made her flummoxed self even cuter and her cheeks looked incredibly squishy and pinchable right now. Throw in the tail that was going ballistic behind her and Ares couldn't resist chuckling as he pulled the child in close and gave her a big hug much like the one he was receiving from Candy. No words had been spoken as of yet but this was a cosy family moment with everyone coming together with arms wrapped around one another in a warm and loving embrace. Cotton let out a few small tears but wiped them up on Ares' clothes, so as not to be seen in an emotionally vulnerable state, but it wasn't something she could hide from someone as powerful and omniscient as Ares at his current level. Still, he didn't mention it and pretended to see nothing, as he understood this child must have had it hard with who Candy was prior to returning from the pagoda, and just gently patted her head and softly stroked her hair. He'd never met Cotton before, and still didn't even know her name as of yet, but this was his child and he felt the same way about her as he did Appa instinctively. Cotton was his from now on and that was the end of the conversation. Rather, so was Candy. He'd gone to lengths to protect them because moments like this were worth every single ounce of effort. So what if he hadn't known either of them for a long period of time just yet? He knew what love was nowadays and he definitely felt it here without a shadow of a doubt. Ares didn't know how long these two could stay here but he would enjoy every single second of it.