Sometimes it's good to see old enemies, means that they still remember you.
Demon Extermination
It had been a long day for Azar, and it was going to be a long afternoon for him too. He found his way to a local bar close to the Den that he was currently testing his tolerance at. He had been contemplating whether not to skip out on his assigned mission that afternoon. He did love a challenge, but he hated that place- or being given orders in general.
That bloody bridge to him was the symbol of mankind's stupidity. That even through times of crisis mankind wasn't able to put aside its differences or its blindness to greed for the better good of its survival. The random memories that came with the Forgotten Carrier whenever he went there were annoying. That place had the audacity to make a beat of guilt run through his cold heart, even a little. He'd rather not deal with that place in general.
But the mission was a promising one too... Ugh, today was too troublesome. Just as he was nursing a cold cup of beer, Soma came into the bar and sat beside him at the bar counter where he got a cup of beer himself.
"Aren't you a little young to be drinking?" Azar said with a raised eyebrow at Soma.
"I'm a Gods Eater, the drinking age is 18 for us." Soma answered. "Aren't you a little old to be playing hooky?"
"Tushay." Azar grinned, swirling his drink around. "You're right, I am too old to be playing hooky. It's called 'going out' for me."
"And it's only coincidentally that you decided to go out when you have a mission coming up soon?"
"Nope," Azar honestly answered. "I just don't want to deal with the Forgotten Carrier. And I could use a drink right now."
"Too many painful memories?"
"More like annoying ones. Blasted things like to come up at random like terrible house guest."
"... Then maybe you should stop feeding them. They'll stop coming around."
"Heha haha hahaha! That's funny." He laughed, taking a sip of his beer. Soma was taking a chug of his own when Azar dropped a bomb on him. "Sooo... how far have you gotten with my daughter?"
Soma spewed out his beer, coughing as some of it went down his lungs. Bumping a fist onto his chest Soma steadied his breathing as he turned to look at Azar. "What?!"
"She wasn't in her room again, leaving me to assume she spent the night with you. So have you touched my precious flower or not?"
"No!" Azar just stared at him, looking into Soma's eyes for any signs of lies. "We haven't done anything!"
"Hm..." Azar must have saw something truthful, because he believed Soma. "Good... Means you're looking at her for more than flesh."
"You care?"
"Of course I care." Azar gruffed, getting offended that Soma would even ask that. "She is my spawn, after all. Why would you think I wouldn't care?"
"I thought you didn't care what your kids did after they turned 17."
"To an extent." Azar grunted. "I'll trust my brats' judgement, but I'd be damn if their partners didn't earn my trust."
"!"
"It's bad enough that I can't go drinking with Blaise without having to scare off weak whimsical girls away, now I'll have to worry about Fia with you."
"But, uh-"
"(Sigh) At least I got another year before I have to worry about Rangi, four for the girls." He rambled on, taking another sip of his drink. "I won't have to worry about the twins defying me. But if I ever find Rangi in a bar before his time I've got an OC bullet for him."
"... some father of the year you are."
"Damn right, kid."
"Grrh, when are you going to start calling me by my name?!"
"When you've earned it."
"!"
"Why don't you join me on this mission. Earn my respect. Earn my daughter."
"..." Soma looked at him for a long second, seeing if he was for real... He was. Turning back to his drink, Soma took one final chug to finish it before turning back to Azar. "I'll go. Tell me what I've gotta do."
*** Forgotten Carrier ***
"I call dibs on the Corrosive Hannibal!" Azar gleefully to Soma as they ran toward their opponents by the Carrier. "You can have the Hannibal. Ooo, there's even Cocoon Maidens."
He was right, there were Cocoon Maidens present all around Sector A and B, four of them in fact. But they were of no extra concern to Soma, it was the Corrosive Hannibal that had him uncomfortable.
"A Corrosive Hannibal. Ugh, great... not one of those rotten pieces of meat again." Soma sighed out as they worked together to take care of the Cocoon Maidens in Sector A.
"Hm?" Azar raised an eyebrow at Soma's statement as he shot down the last Maiden in the Sector while Soma went for the core. "Have some special quarrel with that Aragami?"
"Of sorts," he answered as they went to take out the Cocoon Maidens in Sector B. His irritation caused by the topic empowered his crushing blow on the Cocoon Maiden. "That damn daughter of yours just gave me a scare once, fighting one alone."
"Ha, my girl!" He praised, firing a couple of shots into the last Cocoon Maiden's chest. Soma yanked out its core as they continued running up the bridge for their primary targets.
"She got lucky that time. But she had almost died when we fought a Hannibal for the first time, I had to carry her back unconscious."
"... Did you stay by her side?"
"What?"
"Did you stay by her side when she was unconscious?"
"Y-yeah," Soma answered in embarrassment. "I stayed with her until she woke up..."
"... Hm..."
"?"
"There's our targets." Azar finally spoke. "Best take care of your vendetta, I'm going to face a new opponent to me."
"What the? I don't have a vendetta!" Soma growled with a blush.
"Heh haha! Your voice gives you away, you big push over." Azar smirked widely, enjoying Soma's distraught. Teasing Soma some more as he ran toward his target. "Go. Avenge your princess's tribulation upon the demon, noble hero."
"Ugh, be quiet old man!" Soma growled at him.
The Corrosive Hannibal was devouring salvage material in Sector C, while the Hannibal did the same in Sector E. The Hannibal started to run toward them when it heard Azar fire at the Corrosive Hannibal, but Soma met it halfway at Sector C. The Corrosive Hannibal constantly tried to shoot corrosive energy balls from its mouth at Soma, but he just stayed on the other side of the Hannibal to use as a shield. Didn't help much that Soma had to keep dashing from his target to avoid molten corrosive attacks from the Corrosive Hannibal.
"Dammit, can't you keep better track of your Aragami?!"
"Don't get angry at me that it took a liking to you, kid." Azar chuckled, dashing out of the way of the Corrosive Hannibal's claw attack then firing at its head.
"Avoid shooting the back scale!" Soma warned. "It'll make'em set this whole place ablaze!"
"Heh, I got it."
Each of the Hannibals were slowly herding toward each other. Making the fight a lot harder for the two, since they were constantly caught off guard by the others Aragami's spear attack. At last Soma was able to break off the gauntlet armor of his Aragami, but that only served to get it angry. Constantly getting on its twos and sword dancing around the area with its fire blades. Both of them were forced to dodge- and block for Soma's case but they couldn't dodge them all. Didn't help either that the Corrosive Hannibal kept doing its tail attack, smacking the crap out of the both of them.
"Dammit," Soma hissed, taking a Recovery Pill II. "No good, huh."
Having enough, Soma struck hard at the back of the Hannibal's knee, knocking it down to the ground. While down he went for the head armor. Soma wasn't able to destroy the armor but he was able to weaken the Hannibal enough that it struggled to get back on its feet again, let alone attack.
"Hey, how you doing old man?" Soma called back to Azar, turning to check on him while the Hannibal was busy struggling to get up. What he saw did not please him. "!"
Azar was down on one knee as the Corrosive Hannibal curled up for a tail attack. A trail of his blood leaked from his grinning mouth as a puddle of it gathered around him. But his eyes still widened in excitement as his body slightly shook with glee.
"Oh my, it's been a long time since I've seen so much of my own blood before." Then his voice began to deeply purr. "This guy's got magic hands, or should I say magic claws."
"What are you doing?! Use a recovery item already!" Soma shouted at him in concern. The tail came swinging, Azar jumped back at the last second.
"I already used them all!"
"What?! Why didn't you pack more?!"
"Never had a need to."
"Damn it," Soma groaned, reaching in his pocket for something. It's a good thing Fia taught him how to make these in the Terminal and was a stickler about him carrying at least one with him when he went on missions without her. He threw a Recovery Wall close to Azar's direction as he turned back to finish his Hannibal. "Here, old man. Don't go dying on me!"
"Heh, death's too scared to collect me!" Azar crazily laughed, jumping backwards into the Recovery Wall. His wounds closed instantly, healing most of his damage as he dashed back toward his prey. "Now, hit me with your best shot!"
"Glad you're back to your crazy self." Soma teased at Azar while charging his devouring mode. Focusing back on the Hannibal he took a bite while it got ready for a blade attack. "Sorry..."
He took the bite, knocking the Hannibal back on the ground and giving him a boost. He took a few extra powered up strikes to finally finish the Hannibal off then extracted the core. Once done, he dashed over to help Azar with the Corrosive Hannibal. Having to dash to the left at the last second as the Aragami fired corrosive fireballs at him again. Then he had to move to the side, along with Azar on the other, to attack at the Corrosive Hannibal's arm as it let out a wave of a breath of corrosive fire.
A good shot to its leg got it down on the ground. Moving to its front, Soma began striking at its face armor and thus breaking it. Azar had been working on it early so it made the job easy for Soma. Enraged but unable to do anything, the Corrosive Hannibal fell to the ground, weakened and tired. Soma had moved to the side to try and break its gauntlet armor, but Azar moved to the front to get the final head shot.
"Pity," he pointed his barrel at its head. "You came the closest."
BANG
"It's over..." Soma sighed out, catching his breath as the Aragami finally stilled. Extracting the core once the rush of battle calmed from his system. "Man, that was a handful."
"A shame it's over, really. I could've gone for five more minutes."
"..." Soma looked Azar over in disbelief. "You look like hell, old man."
"Heh, right back at you, brat."
It's true, both were worse for wear. Banged up and out of healths, not a very good combination.
"Soma von Schicksal!"
"!" Fia?! What was she doing there? Soma nearly flinched at the anger in her voice as he froze in place. There she came, marching in from the horizon of the bridge. Stomping down hard, and royally pissed.
"You've got a lot of nerve taking on a mission like this all on your own!" She yelled, making her way toward him. "I'd expect a stupid stunt like that from me, not from you!"
"Why are you only angry at me?! Your dad took it on too!"
"Oh, please! Dad does stunts like this all the time, I couldn't stop him even if I wanted to. But YOU, you know better than that, Soma! Look at you two! You look like crap!" She final made it up to him, face to face as she poked at his chest. "I'm the crazy one here! I do all the reckless missions, don't go making me worried sick because you decided to do idiotic stunts!"
"Heh, I like to think of it as payback." Soma grinned down at her, making a vein pop from her forehead.
"Oh, you make me so made I just wanna...!" Soma expected her to punch him. But he was caught off guard as she wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him in for a hug. "I'll never forgive you if you do something like this again. So promise you won't be reckless like this again, okay?"
"!" He was caught by surprise by the affection in her voice, causing his eyes to widen. But they soon softened as his body began to relax in her arms. Lifting his arms to her lower and upper back, he hugged her back. "Yeah... I promise."
"Okay! ...Well that's a promise you better keep, Soma-" But then Fia was suddenly pulled out of Soma's arms and lifted onto her father's shoulder like a potato sack. "?!"
"Sorry to break up the love fest, but I was starting to barf." Azar groaned out, walking toward the Starting Point with his daughter still on his shoulder. "You can make kissy-kissy faces with each other when I'm not around."
"Daddy!" "!" Both Fia and Soma began blush madly at his words.
"What? Don't act like it wasn't going to happen if I didn't stop it. You brats probably even forgot I was there." Then he looked at Soma, following after them in the back, with the corner of his eyes. "I'm afraid this dragon isn't going to take any 'buts', Soma. You're gonna have to wait for another time."
"!" Soma gasped with widened eyes... Azar called him by his name.
"Heh, congratulations, Soma. You passed."
"Hm," Soma let out a small smile. Pleased to have finally gotten Azar's approval of him.
"But that still doesn't mean I want grandkids now!"
"!"
"Dad!"