Part 4 - There is Thy Gold
It was a Saturday, thank the Lord, and eight-year-old Juliette LeBeau finally had a chance to sleep in. Her schedule during the summer had been hectic thus far, filled with Guild training, family outings, and quite a bit of punishment for her frequent mischief during both. But at that moment, she had approximately three blissful hours all to herself. Cuddled snugly into her warm quilt, she planned to use those three hours to not move a damn muscle.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans, sending her distraught, shirtless father suddenly stomping into her room at about eight o'clock in the morning. "Jules," Remy demanded softly, leaning over his daughter as she kept her eyes stubbornly shut in the hopes he'd just go away. "Jules," The man called again, shaking her lightly, a little bit frustrated that he couldn't tell with his empathy whether or not she was faking sleep. She had always been a bit difficult to read. "My beautiful Princess Juliette," He tried once more, his voice sing-songy and sweet, "I ain't leaving 'til I talk to you."
The girl sighed heavily, rolling onto her back and reluctantly opening her unique red-on-black eyes. Blinking a few times in the faint sunlight, the girl frowned. "What you want?" She yawned, refusing to come out from her cozy quilted cocoon.
"You hiding a cat?" Remy questioned, accusing but hopeful.
Once again, the girl blinked. "Uh..." She gaped, extremely confused by the odd, random question, "No, Papa. I ain't hiding a cat."
Her father's handsome face fell in disappointment, his lips forming a rather immature pout amidst the russet stubble on his square jaw as he pressed, "You sure? I won't be mad."
"Pretty sure," Juliette answered slowly, suddenly thinking that she must be dreaming. Her papa was weird, but not bust-into-her-room-early-in-the-morning-to-interrogate-her-about-an-imaginary-secret-cat weird.
"Oh," Remy returned, obviously let down by the answer, "Alright, petite. Sorry to wake you." He bent down to plant a loving kiss on her forehead and then simply turned around and left, quietly shutting the door behind himself.
The girl tried to go back to sleep, but damned if Jules' curious nature didn't decide that finding out what on Earth had just happened was more important than a well-deserved lie-in. Grumbling a few of the more colorful words in her vocabulary, the skinny little mutant slowly got to her feet and stumbled out of her messy bedroom.
She found her papa standing at the sink in his large bathroom suite, the top of his head mere inches from the mirror as he slowly combed his fingers through his shaggy auburn hair and frowned gloomily at his reflection. With a stifled giggle, Jules thought that he looked very much like a monkey from the Discovery Channel grooming insects out of his fur. "Papa?" She called when she had stood beside him for a few moments but received no acknowledgement.
Remy jumped and whirled to face his daughter. A little embarrassed at being caught in such a stupid position, the master thief's features bloomed into a seldom-seen blush.
"What you doing?" The girl asked, rubbing a small fist into her tired glowing eyes. She yawned, making a face when an escaped lock of her wild black hair got into her mouth.
"Nothing," Remy answered, trying to look as innocent as possible and, for possibly the first time in his entire thirty-two years of life, failing miserably.
Jules smirked. "Didn't look like nothing," She declared, definitely more awake and enjoying torturing her uncomfortable father, "Looked like you were picking bugs out of your hair... you got lice?"
"No, I don't got lice!" The man asserted hotly, frowning at the impish child. After another few moments he added seriously, "You sure you ain't hiding a cat?"
Raising one thin black eyebrow, Juliette guessed, "You're looking for my imaginary secret cat in your hair?"
Remy's skin flushed pink once again, all the way from his cheeks to his chest. "No," He stated, shifting nervously back and forth from one bare foot to the other as his glowing eyes darted around the room.
"Den what are you doing?" She pressed, scratching the back of one flannel covered knee with her small foot.
Suddenly looking very grave, Remy carefully pinched the marble counter top and then held his clasped index finger and thumb out in front of himself. Jules had to squint to see what he was holding. Quirking the other eyebrow, she asked, "A hair?"
"A gray hair," Her father solemnly reported, "Found it on my pillow dis morning."
After a brief pause, the sleepy little devil girl burst out laughing.
"Ain't funny!" Remy argued, pouting like a toddler, "I'm too damn young to be growing gray hairs! You sure you ain't hiding a cat? A gray cat dat likes to shed on my pillow?"
"I'm sure, Papa," Jules snickered, snatching the offending strand of keratin from him. Shifting easily into an acting mode, the girl put on a very serious expression before insisting, "And de hair ain't gray. It's silver."
She did not let her father's glare deter her, continuing very sincerely, "And any good thief knows how beautiful and valuable silver is-"
A slight, reluctant smile came over Remy's face.
That is, until his daughter finished, "-even de ancient stuff."
Jules' three hours of free time quickly vanished as she found herself giggling and running frantically away from her father's outraged shouting and playful, half-hearted threats of swift retribution.
xxXxx
"How old are you today, Jules?" A deep voice chuckled somewhere off screen. The sweet, angelic little devil girl depicted on the large television monitor was seated behind a white frosted birthday cake. She had a glittery plastic tiara perched on the crown of her head and was happily grinning straight into the camera as she chirped, "I'm four!"
A wrinkled, gray-haired Jean-Luc LeBeau leaned around his granddaughter's shoulder, kissing her cheek and lighting the candles on her cake as he prompted, "And what do you think dat makes you old enough to do now, ey, petite"
The onyx-eyed mutant scrunched up her angelic face in deep thought, pushing wild black hair away from the small, bony crimson horns growing out of her forehead. All at once, a brilliant smile bloomed, the girl bouncing in her seat as she cried, "OOO! I'm old enough to drive de car!"
"Hah!" Sitting on the comfortable chair in the living room of his small house, Remy LeBeau found himself smiling fondly as he heard his own voice remarking on the old home movie, "In your dreams. You ain't driving 'til you're thirty, Hurricane Jules."
He watched his four-year-old daughter pout directly at the camera once again, which he happened to have been holding when the video was shot. "Dat ain't fair!" She cried, folding her arms over the frilly pink dress Tante forced her into that day, "I'd be a great driver!"
"You couldn't even reach de pedals, shrimp," Simon teased, the blonde suddenly plopping down beside his baby cousin and sticking his finger in her cake. At eight-years-old, he was tall for his age, skinny and gangly and awkward. The boy could be quite a little bastard, as the mouthful of stolen icing attested to, but he did love his baby cousin dearly. Hardly a day went by when he wasn't walking the block and half between his house and his Uncle Remy's in order to see her. It was her eyes, Remy knew; Simon was infatuated with the rubies in her eyes, always had been and always would be.
"Hey!" Juliette screeched, standing up on the picnic table bench to make herself look taller as she asserted, "Could too! Tante! Simon touched my cake!"
The camera panned towards the right, zooming in on the plump black woman as she tried to herd Nico, Ani, and Christien towards the festivities, Henri, Mercy, Lucille, Theo, and Emile bringing up the rear. "Ain't no harm in stealing a taste. I seem to recall you have a fondness fo' doing de exact same thing," Mattie soothed, laughing as blue-eyed mini-Henri Nico swung Ani onto his back and ran giggling towards the table, leaving Christien, who was far too large for that even at the age of four, to totter along behind them. The camera panned back just in time to catch Simon smugly sticking his tongue out at Juliette.
The girl glared and then smirked evilly. Without first sitting through the traditional song, she quickly bent down to blow out her four flickering candles, picked the small cake up off the table, and then slammed the whole thing right into her cousin's startled face. She giggled as it fell away to reveal Simon's frosting-covered expression of shock, quickly hopping off the bench with a surprising amount of grace and skill for one so young as the boy growled and made to chase her.
"JULES!" He screamed, streaking off after the little girl as she ran squealing through the long grass at the edge of the swamp that bordered Jean-Luc's property, "GET BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE BRAT!! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!" Remy found himself smirking once again as he basked in the memory.
"Hehe," A light little voice snickered as a pair of arms slid around his neck, "I love dis one." The auburn-haired thief looked up, immediately seeing his daughter's smiling face. She was so pretty, he thought proudly, beautiful, and pale, and delicate, but still tough as nails, her wild black hair pulled back from her sweet heart-shaped face, brilliant smile wide and beaming as her eyes glowed a deep red. She was dressed in all black, finally ready to leave for Guild training after spending the morning getting chased around the house by her playful father.
"As do I, petite," He laughed, pausing the video before grabbing the girl and swinging her over the back of his chair. He cuddled her tightly to his chest, smothering her with noisy kisses as she giggled and squirmed in his lap, "I love anything with my Princess in it."
Juliette LeBeau smiled up at her daddy, mischievously reporting, "Well, I love anything with Simon getting caked in de face in it."
Throwing his head back, Remy let out a loud hearty cackle.
And then immediately began coughing. The morning of running and laughing had finally caught up to him.
"Oh! Papa! Your asthma!" The girl cried, leaping to her feet and running to find an inhaler. She was back within seconds, and Remy was taking desperate puffs of medication shortly thereafter, his shoulders shaking as his daughter carefully carded her fingers through his hair and instructed, "Go slow, Papa. I'm right here."
"I'm fine," He finally gasped, putting on a brave face as he slowly calmed down. Every asthma attack or flare up of his chronic pneumonia was a harsh reminder of what the X-Men had done to him. Remy found himself once again cursing them all to hell.
"You sure, Papa?" The skinny eight-year-old inquired, her eyes wide and apprehensive as she pouted at him and ran her blunt red fingernails tenderly over his cheek.
Managing a slightly smile as he continued to wheeze, Remy hugged her close and buried his face in her hair. "Long as I got you," He rasped, "I be a happy man."
xxXxx
Emile Benoit anxiously looked over the training schedule tacked to the wall of the Thieves Guild gym, searching for the name of the student he had been assigned to that day. It was summer time, which meant the Guild children were out of school, which meant the five-day-a-week half-day training sessions--as opposed to three-day-a-week two-hour morning and night training sessions--were once again starting up. Any thief not on a heist would be showing up to offer his or her expertise in educating the next generation.
His handsome face broke into an excited grin when he read "12:00 P.M. - Juliette LeBeau" printed neatly right beside his name.
"Ey, Theo," The burly twenty-four-year-old laughed, smacking his brother in the arm and almost causing him to drop one of the sugary beignets he was munching on for breakfast. Disregarding the venomous glare his mirror-image sent him, Emile smugly announced, "I got Jules."
"Lucky bastard," The dark-haired man grumbled, leaning over to search the list for his own student. He smirked, happily stating, "Well, I got Christien. We can keep dem together in de weight room and vaults."
Chuckling, Emile replied, "Ya, but Jules is past him in everything aside from computer hacking, and even den she's not far behind."
"Not de Élan's fault he's a clumsy giant," Theo said with a shrug, "Guess he takes after us more den Lapin. I'm sure he'll adjust."
"Ey," His twin snapped, petulantly wrinkling his broad nose, "You calling me a clumsy giant?"
Theo arched one dark eyebrow, flatly stating, "Don't tell me you don't remember what it was like to be a big awkward teenager. And poor Christien is a big awkward grade schooler." Emile suddenly looked thoughtful, gazing off into space as he mused, "Oh ya... dat wasn't too fun." With an eye roll, Theo went back to his beignets.
At promptly 11:55 A.M., Remy and Lapin escorted their children into the Thieves' Guild's private gymnasium and training center, chuckling as they watched Juliette chatter happily and bounce in circles around her big redheaded cousin. Not really a morning person--even though it was nearly noon and that was hardly an excuse--Christien was only managing small, tired grunts as he rubbed his large fists into his bleary blue eyes. A certain hyperactive horned cousin had kept him up half the night breaking in to a museum she'd been banned from. The girl had needed his help rearranging the exhibits to get back at them.
"You're mine, Jules," Emile called across the wide open room, managing to successfully take the girl's attention off of Christien. Smiling, she turned to face the taller man, red eyes glowing and long, wild black hair pulled back into a neat braid. "Can I jump de ledges?" The mutant requested, showing off even while stretching as she managed to keep perfectly balanced and wedge one skinny ankle all the way behind her horned head.
"No," Her father cut in, giving the girl a very stern look when she pouted at him. "Don't want you doing dat one again until you get a bit older," Remy proclaimed, absolutely determined not to give in, even though he usually did let his baby girl have anything she wanted, "You nearly broke your arm last time you were in dere."
"That was Marquis' fault!" She grumpily proclaimed, "He was mad dat I was beating his time so he pushed me off!"
"And I'm taking care of him," Remy answered, still sticking to his guns, "He is mine today, after all, but I still don't want you on dose things for awhile." He turned to his twin cousins, instructing, "Emile, don't let her jump de ledges. And, Theo, don't let Emile let her jump de ledges." Emile frowned as his brother gave a mock salute. "Not fair," Jules grumbled.
However, she wasn't given long to sulk as a loud shout from Jean-Luc echoed through the wide open training floor, the Guild leader thoroughly examining the training equipment as he enthusiastically instructed, "Start warming up, petites. You all got big days ahead of you."The baker's dozen of young thieves-in-training ran to pull tumbling mats to the center of the room, where the black-clad youths ranging in age from eight to eighteen began stretching and sparring, playful as they greeted friends and relatives.
Smiling fondly, Remy watched as his daughter sparred with his nephews, twelve-year-old Simon and thirteen-year-old Nicolas LeBeau, as well as eighteen-year-old Marquis Marseille, with whom she had a bit of a love-hate relationship.
Marquis was the oldest of this newest generation of young thieves and he had always been the head of the class until about a year previous when Juliette began her formal Guild training. With a strong foundation in gymnastics, combat, stealth, and safe-cracking, as well as the clear advantages of being a mutant and the Princess of Thieves, the girl had quickly progressed to if not equal to than not far from the older boy's level.
While Marquis hated her for it, anyone watching could still detect a kind of grudging admiration and respect, especially when they were competing or fighting, which they did at all available opportunities.
Remy stoically observed as the sandy-haired teen dodged Jules' punches. His daughter was leading Marquis away from her cousins, having complained to him many times that Nico and Simon refused to be tough enough on her.
That was never a problem with Marquis, the muscular young man readily kicking Jules' hand out from under her when she attempted to bounce away from him with a graceful back-handspring. She had always been near indestructible though and was very quick to recover, landing on her butt but flipping right back to her feet in one swift instant. She continued to fight without skipping a beat.
Remy was so busy being proud that he didn't notice his older brother approach until Henri was right beside him. "Who you got today, petite frère?" The brunette asked, conducting his own proud examination as Nico helped small, ten-year-old Ani practice standing back-flips--even if his youngest son was having problems keeping his new glasses on his face during the activity--and Simon, with his skinny body and head of frizzy golden curls, shamelessly teased gangly, redheaded Zoé Roux, on whom all the adults knew he was quite sweet.
"Marquis," Remy distractedly replied, not bothering to take his eyes off the warm ups. Laughing, Henri clasped his little brother on the shoulder and remarked, "Ah. Dat boy's cocky as all hell. You should have a lot to talk about."
The thief frowned. "And who did you get?" He asked scathingly, his breath catching harshly in his damaged lungs when Marquis punched Jules in the head. However, the auburn-haired man was snickering a moment later as the teen gave a yelp of pain and began shaking out his fist. Jules always did have a hard head. The theory was that her skull was excessively thick as another part of her physical mutation, though her overwhelming fear or hospitals and, to some extent, doctors made it impossible to get her in for tests.
"Hélène Gaulle," Henri answered casually, also chuckling as he watched his pretty niece beat up on a boy who was more than twice her age and size. The mutant beside him laughed. "Good luck," Remy replied mockingly, "Marquis' a kitten compared to dat fille."
"She ain't dat bad," Henri weakly defended, his eyes straying to the pair of young blondes doing spin-kicks in the corner. Hélène and Yvette Gaulle were the ten-year-old twin daughters of the Guild's head physician, Alexandre Gaulle. They were both pretty and skilled, but, while Yvette was a brainy, quite girl who was thought destined to follow in her father's footsteps as a Guild doctor, Hélène was loud, crass, and had a ticking time bomb for a temper.
She was most notorious for her very first week of training, when she threw poor little Philippe Emery out of a tree. They were supposed to be hiding and the girl claimed that he was breathing too loudly, that she didn't want to fail the exercise just because her partner was "un petite con" (a little shit). It took three of the instructors the entire rest of the lesson to explain why a body falling out of a tree was a bit more conspicuous than loud breathing. To that day, she still vehemently maintained that it was all Philippe's fault she failed the concealment exercise. The little blonde boy was eleven that summer, and still scared to death of Hélène, keeping to the complete opposite end of the gym as he warmed up.
Francis "Lapin" Benoit jogged up to the small group of men, his usually happy face solemn as he reported, "I got Hugo." Everyone else winced before laughing at the short redhead's misfortune.
Hugo Allaire was fourteen and already crazy for explosives. No one could count the number of times he'd almost blown up the Guild gym with homemade dynamite he brought in because he didn't like "de fake stuff" young thieves were taught with until they reached an age at which they could be trusted with actual explosives. Hugo would probably never be deemed to be at that age.
At least his nine-year-old cousin, Olivier Babin, was as sweet and well-behaved as Hugo was insane, chatting quietly with Christien as the both of them sat on a mat and stretched.
Swinging her hips, a slim, sultry blonde stalked her way towards the men, silently sidling up beside Henri. "Ey, LeBeau," The woman cooed into his ear, smiling smugly when the brunette gave a small, startled jump, "Seems like I got your Nico today."
Henri frowned, squirming uncomfortably as he replied, "Oh... dat's nice."
"Sophie, you minx!" Emile smoothly chirped, winking at the tall, curvaceous lady, "When did you get back? Your job in Rome go alright?"
"Yesterday morning," She answered, smiling at the young man, "And it was easy as pie. In fact, a little disappointing. Hell, I didn't even have to break in. I just flirted a bit with de guards, made up some bullshit about taking de painting for restoration, and, bingo, carried a DaVinci masterpiece out through de front door."
"Ain't fair," Lapin pouted dramatically, still a bit sulky over the impending loss of his eyebrows.
"Just cuz you ain't suave like Sophie and me don't mean you gotta hate," Remy teased, winking flirtatiously at his sort-of girlfriend... well, the woman with whom he occasionally had great sex...
Sophie Borgognon grinned, agreeing, "Exactly! OOO! Remy! You got de video of Jules' play for me? I can't believe I got called out on dat job three minutes before curtain!" Ok, also the woman who was trying her hardest to get in good with his daughter...
But Jules did not like Sophie. She was pretty, the girl admitted, but she told her father that she found the female thief to be quite... fake. Her blonde hair was a dye job, her French-tipped fingernails thick acrylics, and her much fawned over cleavage Wonderbra™ induced. Even the woman's sparkling blue eyes were fake, a ring of brown sometimes just barely visible when her colored contacts shifted.
Remy really hoped she wouldn't be pushing him for a serious commitment any time soon. He had no interest whatsoever in one. His briefly rekindled romance with Belladonna Boudreaux had nearly ended in him being shish-kabobbed for the very same reason. After getting his heart broken by Rogue, he couldn't ever see himself wanting more than occasional companionship and fair regular sex. The next time Sophie hinted at how much his daughter needed a mother Remy was going to break things off. He had a feeling that such an occasion would not be long in happening.
"Merde," The mutant swore, giving himself a light smack in the forehead, "I forgot it on de counter at home. Had a problem with my asthma, so I was running late by de time I got it under control-"
"You had an attack dis morning?" Henri interrupted, immediately concerned for his little brother's sometimes troublesome health, "You alright? You sure you're up for dis today? I'll take Marquis if you wanna rest."
"I'm fine, Henri," He laughed, "Jules took good care of me. Didn't even have to go to de doctor dis time." The tall, muscular thief turned back to Sophie, giving her a friendly smile as he offered, "Jules is going to de beach with her cousins tomorrow, so if you wanna come over to my place and watch de video, you're welcome to."
"Think I'll do dat," The woman grinned, lightly touching Remy's solid bicep, "Better be ready for me, Cajun."
xxXxx
Meanwhile, a few of the thieves-in-training had taken advantage of a lapse in responsible adult supervision in order to quietly sneak out of the main gym. Jules LeBeau and Marquis Marseille stood face-to-face in the center of a simulated alleyway. The space was narrow, with small faux window ledges sticking out from the sparsely padded walls. The ledges grew progressively narrower the higher up they were, each with either a large red or blue button somewhere on it. A wobbly wooden platform hung from the ceiling by one sturdy chain bolted in dead-center. It looked as if only a single very well-balanced person could fit on it at a time.
Jacinthe Didier, sixteen at the time, stood guard at the door while Hélène fiddled around in the control room. "You just watch!" Petite, raven-haired Juliette smugly asserted as she balled her little fists at her slim hips and smirked up the boy before her, "I'm gonna beat you so bad you ain't gonna be able to tell which way's up!"
"In your dreams," Marquis fired back, trying to hide that he suspected some competition from the eight-year-old. Getting beat by a girl would be embarrassing enough, but getting beat by one who'd just barley started grade school? Well, the sandy-haired teen would never been able to live that down. "You just gonna fall again," He taunted, "Like last time, and I ain't taking de blame for it!"
"Shhh!" Jacinthe hissed, the lanky brunette watching the adults through a crack in the door, "Be quiet or dis ain't never gonna happen! And den de rest of us are gonna have to list to you two babies bicker for another six fucken months!"
"All set," Came Hélène's voice through the loud speaker, a shadow of the stocky blonde girl just barely visible behind the tinted window of the control room, "Get ready."
A red "00:00:00" appeared on the large digital clock above the booth, and Jules and Marquis both took positions on opposite walls, on opposite ends of the simulated alley, on equally small ledges. After a tense pause, a small beep echoed throughout the room and both children were immediately moving.
The object of the exercise was to be the first person to reach the platform suspended from the ceiling some fifty feet above the ground. Young thieves had to flip, leap, jump, etc. back and forth between the walls, competing for the best time as they activated either red or blue buttons, all the while traveling upwards as the ledges grew narrower and the alley grew wider, a hidden mechanical mechanism slowly moving the walls away from each other.
Marquis was fast, efficient, and strong, but Jules was graceful and agile, tumbling through the air without fear and landing without sound on each next ledge to tap her red buttons. She was lithe, and elegant, and beautiful to watch, like an acrobat, or a butterfly, or an angel. She was born to fly.
Which was why Jacinthe abandoned her look-out post at the door, the teen awestruck and slightly jealous of how quick and elegant little Jules was as she scrambled higher and higher and higher. The brunette did not notice when Christien Benoit slipped into the room, when he was joined shortly after by Nico, Simon, and Ani LeBeau, Hugo Allaire and Zoé Roux, Philippe Emery, Yvette Gaulle, and Olivier Babin. Despite Nico's first instinct to get his baby cousin down, all the thieves-in-training were soon cheering the pair on, shouting encouragement as they both passed the hallway point almost simultaneously. The clock read "02:34:12."
"Kick his ass, Jules!" Simon cheered, grinning stupidly as he watched his cousin artfully defy gravity over and over again.
"And be careful!" Nico added, his heart in his throat and a smile on his handsome face as the girl scaled higher and higher.
Ani's green eyes were so wide behind his thick glasses that they threatened to engulf the rest of his head.
"What de hell is goin' on in here?" Jean-Luc demanded as he burst into the infiltration training room. The old man turned his back for five minutes to set up some of the other exercises and all the kids just disappeared! Their parents and teachers were no help, too distracted by shameless flirting and boasting--which, besides stealing and eating, was what the thieves did best--to even notice their charges had left.
Walking into the seldom-used ledge room to find his youngest grandchild already thirty feet from the floor was both troublesome and awe-inspiring. On the one hand, she could get hurt. On the other, she was so utterly... beautiful flying through the air that he had a hard time looking away or conjuring any emotion aside from pride.
The noise from the riotous cheering of the young thieves finally drew attention from the assorted adults still in the main gym, all of them rushing over to investigate. Knowing his daughter well enough to know that she was involved and at least partly culpable in whatever mischief was taking place, Remy was at the lead.
His strong square jaw dropped nearly to the floor when he arrived just in time to look up and watch Juliette and Marquis take simultaneous jumps off of either side of the near fully-extended alleyway. Both were at least fifteen feet from the wobbly platform hanging from the ceiling, careening towards it and each other.
When she and Marquis landed together, there was a split second where everyone in the crowd held their breaths. The platform was only supposed to fit one person but, fortunately, Jules was rather petite and didn't need much of the space, leaving enough for Marquis to gain a hold. The slab of wood wobbled but neither child fell the fifty feet to the padded floor. In fact, each grabbed a handful of the other's black uniform to make sure he or she stayed in place. The red numbers of the big digital clock froze at "4:59:56."
Before anyone could even remember to breathe again, the horned mutant hanging high above their heads triumphantly laughed, "Ha! I win!!"
"No way!" Marquis cried indignantly, giving the girl a light shove that set the platform to swinging even more perilously, "I beat you by a long shot, shorty!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did no-"
"JULIETTE RENÉE LEBEAU!!!" Remy screeched, making everyone in the room jump. His voice was furious and terrified and grating as he bellowed up at his daughter, "YOU GET YO' SKINNY LITTLE BEHIND DOWN HERE RIGHT DIS SECOND!!! WHAT DID I TELL YOU, GIRL? WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU NOT FIVE DAMN MINUTES AGO YOU WERE NOT TO DO?"
The girl frowned over the edge of the platform, innocently claiming, "Marquis made me do it."
"What?" Her co-inhabitant of the small and dangerous space gaped incredulously, "I sure as hell didn't make you! I swear, Remy! Dis was all her idea! And I didn't know you told her she wasn't allowed!"
"Both of you just get down," Henri ordered, looking very concerned over the vein throbbing in his brother's temple. Remy and Juliette butted heads quite a bit--the child had always been willful and disobedient--but he let most things go because, well, he'd done most of them himself, not to mention that the Prince couldn't help spoiling his little Princess. However, he had never been able to handle his daughter putting herself in danger. That was the one thing that always managed to set him off.
Juliette huffed but did as she was told, gracefully vaulting backwards from the platform to the wall and then quickly scrambling straight down. Marquis wasn't far behind. Halfway to the floor, the silence of the training room was broken by muffled but hysterical laughter from inside the control booth.
"Dat Hélène in dere?" Jean-Luc demanded flatly, looking at the shadow of the blonde girl behind the black tinted window, "What's so funny, petite?"
After a few more seconds of giggling, the loud speakers clicked on and a very amused voice announced, "Marquis missed a button. Jules wins."
Nearly to the floor, Marquis was so utterly shocked by the declaration that he lost his footing and fell the last five feet straight onto his backside. Snickering, Juliette did an elegant double tuck flip and landed lightly, her little feet meeting the padded floor without so much as a whisper. "Told ya so," She taunted smugly, flipping her long black braid over one skinny shoulder as she turned to face her father.
Remy was only able to hold the angry glare for another few seconds before the corners of his lips quirked up into a proud smile.
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Aw. I made myself smile, too. She's a cute little girl, ain't she? Hehe, anyways, hope you guys liked this installment and reviews, as always, are highly appreciated. Much more to come, sports fans, so stay tuned!