Childhood
Chapter 1.2
Sleepy

Waking up at the crack of dawn, Garagus pulled his training clothes on for some tough exercises with Celerave.
She may be young, but he found the idea of her being so easily beaten by wild animals distasteful.
With his wife still asleep, he leaned over her to look for Celerave tucked between Rhuba and the wall.
But she wasn't there.

Leaving the bedroom, Garagus heard the TV on a low volume and saw Celerave curled up and asleep on the sofa, still wearing her underclothes from the day before.
Grabbing the backrest, Garagus tipped the sofa forward.

Celerave landed on her elbows and knees, yelping in fright as she found herself on the floor.

"Oh good, you're awake. Put some clothes on and meet me outside." With his orders clear, he threw her usual training top and trousers on top of her before leaving through the front door. After fifteen minutes of waiting for the girl to emerge from the house, Garagus peeked through the window to see how she was getting on. He saw that her shirt was on at least, but her trousers were only halfway up her thighs as Celerave slept with her face pressed on the floor."can literally sleep anywhere," He sighed before going back in to get her.

Celerave slept through him dressing her and didn't wake up until they were already outside.

"What time did you fall asleep last night?" Garagus asked as he stood her up.

"It woz night time." She yawned, her head tilting slightly as she tried to focus on him.

"Well tonight, you will be asleep On time, I'll make sure of that."

Celerave shook herself awake and did the few basic stretches her mother taught her.
As she bent down to touch her toes, her white tail straightened and flicked before relaxing into a calm sway behind her knees.

Checking his scouter, Garagus set a timer for when a delivery would be coming to the house.
Nearer the time, the family will need to ground themselves and try to act socially civil. Meaning no shooting blasts or punching each other.
For himself and Rhuba, this also means no flying. But for Celerave, this means no running faster than animals, or jumping on top of the house.

Getting Celerave to vent out some heat before the delivery comes will be a good way of keeping her calm.
She'll probably be too hungry by then to think about anything other than food.

Before leading Celerave to the training grounds, Garagus did a scan with his scouter to make sure no one was around who'd witnessed their battle.

"All clear?" Celerave asked, skipping between her feet and jumping trice her own height.

"Yes. Just don't burn yourself out before we get there." Garagus dragged his toes along the grass as he flew towards their destination. "Catch up~!" He teased, watching the girl frantically chase after him.

He of course arrived before she did and spent his time doing push-ups until the girl finally broke through the tree line.
While packs of wolves further out might see her as an easy snack, those in the know try to avoid anyone carrying their scent.

"We'll make this a game, Celerave. We'll fight, but if you're hit on the back, you lose."

"Okay!" Celerave started running around, but she noticed Garagus kept his hand up. It wasn't a defensive strategy. It was more like he was waiting for something. "Oh, right…" Running up to him, Celerave landed the first hit square on his palm.
The weakest fighter sets the pace. Sparring rule number one.

From there, he backed off and put up a proper guard before circling her.
He knew there was next to no chance of her getting behind him. That wasn't what was important.
He wanted her conscious of her surroundings, and to not let him get behind her.
If she had that lesson with the wolves, she wouldn't have lost.

Celerave was light on her feet, stepping fast to keep him in her view while also watching out for surprise attacks.
Her father would only ever pull his punches at the very last second. His hope is that she'll learn to dodge or block those attacks.
Strength is something that can be built over time, but reflexes and instincts should be instilled as soon as possible.

The hardest part was aiming such attacks at such a little girl.
But she didn't back down. Celerave hopped side to side, jumping with solid kicks and landing on her father's arm.
Even when she was thrown back, Celerave was nimble enough to land mostly on her feet.

Garagus felt such frustration in watching her.
He knew she was able to fly. The subtle motions in how she moved through the air, it was like watching someone use penmanship for drawing but doesn't know how to write.
Formal lessons is all she needs to fly properly.

When a fist narrowly missed Celerave's face, she tried to backflip away.

"whoa." Garagus laughed, watching her land flat out on her face. He didn't know which of her tv heroes taught her that move, but clearly practice was needed.
"Your mum can teach you to flip when she wakes up."

"Can you do it?"

With a roll of his eyes, Garagus jumped high with his knees to his chest and started rolling backwords in the air.
And rolled, and rolled, and rolled, and rolled.

Celerave's excitement slowly faded as she started to realise he was just flying.
Eventually, he did slow down, suspending himself in the air as he stared at her.
Holding his spinning head, he tried to focus on her.
"Celerave, why are you upside down? … And those trees?"

"No! You're up side down, Dad!" She laughed as he pulled a face at her.

"Whaaat? No I'm not…" Looking towards his feet, Garagus yelled and reached for the nearest bunch of grass. "Celerave! Grab on to something! We're going to fall!"

"No!" She laughed, grabbing his arm. "Let go!"

"No way!" He grabbed her arm, falling higher above her. "Don't let me go! I don't want to fall!"

Celerave was smiling brightly, but in a rather cold move, she pulled her hands away.

"Nooooooo!" Garagus yelled as he ascended feet first into the sky.

Rhuba had absolutely no idea what she'd just walked in on. But Celerave was screaming at the sky and Garagus was apparently going to visit other planets.
Garagus was just a speck in the otherwise perfect sky when he shot off.

Letting him do his own thing, Rhuba approached the girl. Upon her arrival, Celerave immediately asked if she could teach her how to do a flip.
When Garagus finally came back, he was treated to the sight of his wife and daughter doing back cartwheels.

"Just keep doing that," Rhuba instructed as she approached Garagus. "I'm a teacher now." She smirked, feeling pride in her little student.

"She's wanting to use it to dodge attacks."

"Oh that's pointless, it'd take less effort just to step back." Glancing at Celerave, she could see she was still leaning too much to the side before landing on her feet. She seemed distracted enough.
Leading Garagus away, Rhuba whispered in private.
"I had a dream last night something happened and the three of us turned into the Oozaru. We killed a lot of people."

Garagus was surprised at Rhuba's out-of-the-blue proposal to learn how to control the primal beast as he had. But it had been so long, he wasn't even sure he could still be in control himself.

"But that's just it!" Rhuba urged. "It's one thing to be careful, but what if something happens? And don't say cut off our tails."

"How is training even going to go? Celerave needs her gravity therapy to grow strong, and the full moon is when we do it. It takes hours, to come down from it, Rhuba. Hours. Celerave's a good girl but I don't like the idea of her being in the ship by herself while we're out taming monsters."
There was also the fact that for the training to even stick, Rhuba would need repeated successful goes. That means Celerave would need to be alone each time.
All she needs is a bad dream to wake up in the night. She'll find she's unsupervised and might decide to go for a wonder.
One look at the full moon and she'll turn too.
Celerave has seen the moon many times through shielded glass but has no idea of the consequences of the glass not being there.
She'll destroy the house, the ship, kill anyone she locks eyes with, and it won't even be her fault.

"Look!" Celerave yelled.
Once she had both her parents' attention, she did a perfect back cartwheel.

"Fantastic! Do it some more." Rhuba told her before turning back to listen to Garagus.

"Suppose this. We wait for a cloudy night. I'll fly above the clouds and turn. If I'm calm, you bring Celerave to come and see me. We can show her what we are and make her understand why it's important she does what we say during a full moon."

"She'll never keep that a secret." Rhuba sighed. "It's not only that we become monsters, but also the existence of these creatures at all."

"Counterpoint, she's five. Who'll believe her?"

Rhuba couldn't deny he had a point. If she slips up at all in front of strangers, they just have to say that it was a bad dream she keeps having, then reinforce in private that she mustn't talk about it.
"If we do show her the Oozaru, do we let her turn?"

"I'd feel more comfortable if you were in full control of yours before we do that."

"We get one day a month. So if we agree today, it'll be a year or so before it's her turn."

"It's not that simple…It took me a long time, and I was getting daily training." Garagus cringed at the memory of his tail getting squeezed. "There's something. Do you want to become immune to your tail being pulled?"

"No thanks." Rhuba also felt the shiver at the base of her spine. "It's simple enough to just avoid it getting pulled. Just get me used to being the Oozaru."

"Alright." Garagus took a deep breath. Before the next full moon, he'll have to find a good out of the way spot to transform while Rhuba and Celerave have their gravity therapy. "Just remember that I can't do next month."

"Yeah yeah."

Once Celerave had mastered back cartwheels, the next stage of jumping high and pulling her knees to her chest was easy for her.
Within no time at all, she was doing double and even triple flips while at the very least, landing on her hands.

"Surprise Attack!" Garagus swooped in, aiming a kick right for her stomach while she was hunched over.
He expected her to flip away, but she cartwheeled instead.
"Good. But you forgot something," He waited for her to stand before taking his stance. "Your mum is here."

Celerave glanced behind and then narrowly jumped away before she was tackled to the ground.
But Rhuba did grab her ankle out of the air.

The correct follow-up would be to slam the girl into the ground, but Rhuba just let her fall instead, leaving her to Garagus.
Celerave just managed to get on her feet to block the next kick with her hands, but it only left her back open for an elbow drop.

On the ground yet again, Celerave could see her parents circling like sharks.
She could exploit the new 'down' rule to catch her breath, knowing they're not going to aggressively attack her while she is.
But she could feel their eyes. Like they were silently mocking her.
'Get up, Get up!' Her own voice was telling her.
From flat on the ground, Celerave threw herself at her father.

He raised his arm to guard his face.
Being a large man, and her being a tiny girl, she grabbed his arm and pulled with all her weight to kick him square in the chest.

"Ouch!" Garagus coughed as Celerave landed on her knee. He didn't get much of a recovery before she delivered another punch to his gut.

Garagus had taken much harder hits. It was more shocking that she was doing so well at breaking his defence.

Rhuba circled as the two exchanged blows, waiting for one to disengage before moving in.
Garagus could see the impatient woman waiting for her turn, and so grabbed Celerave by the wrists to pause the fight.

"wait, wait. Rhuba wants a turn."

"It' still my turn!" Celerave growled, struggling to pull her arms free.

"Okay. We'll flip for it." He said letting her go and reaching into his pocket. "Heads or tails?"

Dropping her guard, Celerave waited for him to pull out the coin.
"Um… Headz."

With her eyes locked on his hand, Garagus suddenly backflipped and whacked Celerave's face with his tail, throwing her to the ground.

"Tails!" He declared.

"That was awful!" Rhuba laughed as Celerave picked herself up.

"What are you going to do about it?" Garagus challenged as the two stood side by side. Once they silently agreed to take him on together, he breathed a silent word through his grinning teeth. "Wonderful…"

Rhuba charged first, aiming a punch for his head while Celerave ran the other way.

Garagus evaded Rhuba's assault but felt the tiny hands grabbing the end of his tail when Celerave managed to flank him.
After Rhuba landed, she came back for a second attack, this time going for a drop kick.
Garagus spun again, using Celerave as a weapon to whack Rhuba away.

The two hit the ground while Garagus stood smugly over them.
"Did someone forget I don't have that weakness?" He chuckled, lightly gripping both of them by their tails.

Rhuba and Celerave both froze up on the ground.
Seeing the distant but scared look in their daughter's eyes, Rhuba shot a nasty glare at Garagus. But even she had to fight every instinct she had to not just submit.
Maybe he had a point about getting over having their tail pulled.
Evidently, it is a very exploitable weakness of hers.
No doubt this is the point he's trying to make.

Suddenly, he released both their tails and backed away.
"So. Anyone want to tell me how unfair that was?" He asked, rolling his neck and shoulders. "Or, would you rather get payback?"

Rhuba got to her feet first and helped Celerave up.
The power creep he gained over the years was beyond frustrating. But part of her suspected the secret to his strength has been exactly what he's doing now.
"Celerave… I want you to join your father."

"Huh?" Looking up at her mother, Celerave didn't understand why she should switch sides. "But why?"

"I want to fight on my own for a while." Rhuba gave the girl a nudge forward.
It was slightly heartbreaking seeing the almost look of betrayal in her eyes.
"Celerave." Rhuba pulled her into a hug. "It's not that I don't like fighting with you. But you'll learn more from fighting alongside your father than with me. You and I can't beat him. But you and him can beat me. So go and give yourself a chance."

"okay…" She didn't look much happier, but she did run up and explain what was going on to Garagus.

The smirk he shot back to Rhuba was one she'd never tire of punching.
Of course, the ulterior motive Rhuba had for sending Celerave away was that by taking on the extra combatant, even one as inexperienced as Celerave, Rhuba's reaction to new situations will need to be on point if not far better than it is.

Garagus always lets the mother and daughter team up.
Celerave never gave much of an edge to Rhuba when she was three, but Garagus did need to watch for the little one on the battle space.
He got faster and faster. Adjusting his style to fight full force with Rhuba while holding back with Celerave.
Rhuba fully expected to lose the coming fight. But that was inevitable with Celerave on either side.
The benefit of this configuration is Celerave gets to taste victory for a change, and Rhuba can learn far more in this defeat than she otherwise would have.

"So…" Garagus muttered. "Who hits first?"

That was a good question.
Celerave is the weakest fighter, but Rhuba is the weaker side.
"Celerave, do you want to hold back and just shoot blasts at me?"

"Really?" Celerave was bright-eyed and excited. It's not often she gets permission to use energy blasts, as the damage left behind is against the law allowing them to live there.

"No!" Garagus objected. "Shoot at both of us. Keep it interesting." With a lunge from the ground, he started floating above the battle space.

Rhuba leaped up too, watching as Celerave ran to the edge of the clearing.
She looked thrilled to get a chance to shoot her parents.
"oh…" The alarming revelation took Rhuba by surprise.

"Remember, only aim above the treeline!" Garagus called down to the excited girl before turning his eyes on Rhuba.

Rhuba swooped up, ready to land the first punch but both she and Garagus started getting pelted by a volley of blasts.

After taking between five to eight hits each, the pair focused more on evading Celerave's barrage as opposed to fighting each other.
"She's really going at it."

"I did say to keep it interesting." Garagus deflected one aiming right for his face.

Rhuba ducked and weaved between the tiny balls of light. Each one that made contact hit with the force of Celerave's punch.
What was remarkable was how often she was keeping it up.

On the ground, Celerave was giving everything she had into firing shot after shot, switching from Rhuba to Garagus, alternating hands, aiming for leading shots, suppressive shots, and effective shots.
Some landed, most missed. It didn't matter.
Because under the noises in her ears and the sweating down her arms, she was having fun.
"Ya-Ya-Ya-Ya-Ya-Ya! Ya! YA! YAAA!" With one arm clutching the air before her face, and the other hand reaching as far back as she could, Celerave saw the world around her go dark and spotty as the orb in her back hand flickered to life.
Everything went white.