Balin held hands with his parents while Loona followed from right behind them, as they left the safe house and showed her around their new home of Tathra.
"My parents always dreamed of living here one day, Loona." Balin spoke to his caretaker.
"Hang on. Dreamt?" Loona asked with curiosity before getting cheeky. "Balin... have you been lying? Were they sent to witness protection or paradise?"
"Yeah... the program that left you with 'no choice' did actually come with a free choice of location." explained Raven. "Just as long as no one other than certain visitors like our family, or our little boy, knew about it."
His mother then rubbed his head softly while he snuggled into her thigh whilst they walked.
Soon, they took a turn at a corner which went downhill, all the way to the main street of the town.
"Loona, welcome... and Balin welcome back, to Tathra!" declared Elton, as Loona looked up and gasped at an amazing view.
TATHRA was a small town in the Australian South Coast. Whilst everything looked like a normal suburban street with one pub and corner store but lots of houses, downhill was a street filled with shops, restaurants/cafes, hotels and holiday homes, parks and skating bowls, and especially a beach.
The Beach Boys' song'Wendy'played loudly on the boomboxes at the park, the entire time the four walked around.
Loona was pretty stunned looking around this part of town.
"Huh. Lesson learned." she shrugged to herself, trying to keep her cool. "Never just a book by its cover. Unless they're men."
The street seemed pretty crowded for a small beach-town. Especially since it was three weeks into Spring in Australia. And soon, Balin's parents noticed Loona acting nonchalant.
"You okay, Loona?" Elton asked her.
"I'm fine! I'm fine." she replied sheepishly. "Just not, used to being in environments like this."
Raven looked around the beach, seeing some of the guys eyeing at her. One even had binoculars.
"Yeah... very good eyes." she shrugged it off in disgust, not wanting anything to do with those perverts just as much as Loona did.
So as the four humans, including one hellhound demon, walked down the promenade, a lot of perverted teenagers and young adult males kept trying to touch Loona's ass and she ignored.
A few times they encountered her, she let it happen because of Balin being in the scene. But at least it was better than mauling them or beating the shit out of them until she held a throat in her bare hands.
Along the street, Loona passed a convenience store and got a somewhat-thoughtful idea.
"Hey, Balin!" she called out to him, as Balin and his folks then stopped for her. "Can you come over here?"
The boy did just that, as Loona then held his hand into the store and paid for a bottle of sunscreen, leaving just before the cashier could touch her exposed tummy, then sat at the shady seagull-shit encrusted table out front.
"Take your shirt off. Just gotta put this stuff on you for the beach."
She started applying the sunscreen to Balin's smooth body. He was a little flushed at first, but when she started rubbing some on his cheeks, he felt rather soothed by her touch, making Loona smile and his parents' hearts melt.
PLAYGROUND...
The four were about to walk along the beach after the rest were applied with SPF also, when Loona saw the skating bowls as they walked through the park.
She remembered the old days at the orphanage where she was aged 9 to 11, where she had learned to roller-skate or skateboard around the courtyards during recess, but never did it again since getting her first phone.
Noticing a little boy with two skateboards in his hands, Loona seized an opportunity to wow Balin.
"Balin! Come watch this!" she called out to him before walking over to the kid. "Yo, bud, mind if I borrow this for a couple secs?" she asked him gently.
"...Uh, okay?" he replied unsurely, as he gave her the board.
As he did, Loona put on his helmet and started skating along the bowl like a rollercoaster, stunning all the little kids who stood a metre away from her.
For her finish, she made an Iron Man style landing that left a huge crack in the concrete ground.
"TA-DA!" she sang.
"Wow. That was totally wicked!" said Balin clapping his little hands, while Loona just blushed.
His parents however were shell-shocked again... and impressed.
BEACH...
At the beach, Loona dealt with all kinds of perverts from punches to drags, given she was in nothing but a bikini since she hated bras.
Yet, she still managed to have a good time with the Johnson family as well.
Elton and Raven collected shells along the more isolated and sandy spots of the beach, and with every special one, they showed it to Loona. Often times, she'd stroke them a little when no-one else around the three were looking.
Meanwhile, Balin was now in his swimsuit just in case and back in his holiday element, walking along the sandbar as the waves gently ended at his toes.
Looking at how happy he was, Loona slowly walked up to him and held his hand.
The two walked slowly as the waves met their end at their feet, and as they moved, Loona showed him one of the shells and curiosly, as well as stroking them, the boy carefully put his ear up to it to see if he could hear it.
And he did.
With a surprised expression, he then motioned Loona to listen too. She heard that the sounds were echos through the water, such as dolphins. This made the speechless Loona smile wide in awe.
Soon, she walked him closer to the waves as they got bigger, and before long, the two looked into each other's eyes as they floated in the saltwater, like a gentle wave pool.
This was such a sweet moment for them, and for the boy's parents, as if holding four seashells each wasn't enough.
"Such an incredible mother figure." whispered Raven to Elton.
Loona heard that whisper, however, and winked to Balin as if to say: It's working.
GRANDPARENTS' HOUSE...
Half an hour later, after getting dried, the four drove to see Raven's parents at an estranged street from outside of town.
One of the next big advantages of Balin's parents living in Tathra during witness protection.
"So, you want me to wait here or...?" asked Loona.
"Nah, it'll be fine." replied Balin's mother. "I'll let them know we have a special visitor. I'm sure they'll consider you family too hearing this."
Loona blushed feeling like for the first time, she was wanted by someone other than Blitzø or the others. Even if it was for someone as innocent as Balin.
Hopping out of the car, the grandparents stood out front and waved to them.
"Hey mom! Daddy!" greeted Raven.
Balin however, just ran up to them in happiness. "GRANNY!"
"Our little ankle-biter!" Grandma greeted him in a raspy Marge Simpson tone and hugged him tightly. "I'm so happy to see you!"
The Grandpa then walked down the two stairs slowly with his cane, and after greeting his folks, he noticed Loona.
"Why hello there." his voice sounded like if Fred Willard was still alive. "You must be the adoptive young mother we gossiped about on the phone."
"Yep. That's me." chucked Loona anxiously. "Sorry if that's weird. But, I'm Loona."
"Nice to meet you, Loona." the Grandpa replied.
"Well, why don't you all come on in?" said Grandma. "We got some cocoa heating up and Wheel of Fortune's coming up."
While everyone was walking in, Loona saw Grandpa struggling to walk up the stairs and decided to do something very surprising for her.
"C'mon, I've got ya." she said, helping him up the stairs.
"Thanks dear." he patted her shoulder. "You're so kind."
As soon as he walked into the house, Loona couldn't help but... feel warmed by the touch.
...
'Wheel of Fortune' was playing on the TV, with a word being spelt out as the phrase 'An Act of Kindness'. Soon, one contestant buzzed in his answer.
HOST: Greg!
CONTESTANT (GREG): Uhh, an ace of kidneys!
As the TV audience laughed, Loona guided Balin's grandpa to his favourite armchair, where he had a surprise waiting for the boy.
"Hey mate. I wanna show ya something." he said, as the two looked closer. "I've heard from your folks how much you like going to picture shows."
"You have no idea, mate." grinned Loona.
"So, your Grandma and I grabbed out some pretty cool stuff from the closet of the past to show you."
He then opened a collectable book which included lots of vintage movie tickets from the last century.
Balin was so amazed seeing these amazing but extremely valuable tickets from his grandparents, but not as much as Loona was.
"Wow..." she said in her head.
She never in her wildest dreams thought she'd see such a find, not even from the living world, and be so interested in it.
"You have some lucky grandparents, kiddo." Loona ruffled his little head sitting right next to him, making him laugh.
"Yeah, he's a good kid." said Grandpa as Loona warmly smiled. "Our daughter should know. Me and his grand-mammy sure do know how good she is."
The two then laughed a little softly.
"What's funny?" asked the boy, noticing the laughter.
"It's okay." replied Loona quickly. "It's just, adult stuff." she still showed her warm smile to him.
Soon, everyone in the house sat at the couch with some hot cocoa, while Loona sat Balin between her thighs, and began watching TV and chatting.
IN MERIMBULA...
It was dusk when Elton and Raven drove to Merimbula with the two after visiting the grandparents, where they wanted to do some grocery shopping.
Merimbula was a much bigger coastal town than Tathra was, and it had grocery stores, a movie cinema, more pubs, an upstairs McDonald's, and even an arcade called 'Adventure.'
Loona took Balin over for a few games whilst they waited for the parents to do their grocery shopping.
But as Balin played a basketball game, a few feet away, one perky teenager was about to try and touch Loona's ass, when she turned around quickly to growl at him in her hellhound voice.
Nervous, the kid tried running away with her chasing him without Balin noticing once.
As the chase went on, Loona pinned the kid to the wall with her angry sharp-toothed mouth snarling at him. But he managed to escape and run for his life after a few times of this happening until they got to the exit.
Scoffing, Loona then went back to the basketball game with her small smile coming back, as the kid won lots of tickets.
"Loona! I won!" he exclaimed.
"Yeah, you did." she gently nudged his shoulder. "Why don't we see if we can buy you a prize?"
They walked over to the prize counter, where Balin saw tons of goodies.
But one that tickled his fancy most was a toy ring, which cost around 100 tickets. Balin looked at the lot to see how many he had, and it was one ticket past the cost. So using them, he paid the for the ring before the cashier picked it up with a long fishing rod.
The fishing rod impaled the janitor's skull by accident on the first try, until she managed to get the ring on the second try.
The two soon left the arcade to catch up with the parents, who at the same time, finished their shopping.
"So how'd it go?" asked Raven.
"It was so much fun, mommy." the boy replied. "And look what I got." he showed them the ring.
"Oh, that's so cool." Elton smiled, admiring the ring and patted his back. "Now time to go, we got about 30 minutes before curfew."
"Then what the hell are we waiting for?" Loona said.
As they all walked to the car, Balin looked at the ring again. He didn't really buy it for himself, let's just say, but he was saving it for some strong independent girl still holding his hand.
...Sooner or later though, he still had a tough choice to make.
Would he stay with Loona and the IMP crew? Or would he move back in with his family, the life he used to know before but different?
...
As the car drove away from Merimbula, a plane soon landed in the airport a few minutes away.
Amongst the passengers, were the two DHORK agents from earlier.
They were shown in their summer clothes to go incognito as tourists, and Agent Two looked around while Agent One barfed in a vomit bag from all the turbulance.
"Hey! Taxi!" she called out to a cab in the carpool lane.
The two agents ran to the cab, hopped in, and forced it to drive, as if they were following Elton and Raven's car from very far away.
A/N: See y'all in the next chapter.