Margot woke up in a bed that was at first strange and then eventually became all too familiar. She looked up at a mirrored ceiling and saw a face she hadn’t seen in roughly fifteen years. She sat up and wandered through a house she hadn’t been in since she was a little kid. Smelling a smell that filled her stomach with hunger and her heart with yearning.

There was piano music playing in the background. She could hear it inside her head but it felt like it was coming from far away.

A small girl with orange-brown hair wandered through an old townhouse. Her childhood home before her mother abandoned her to her relatives.

It was just like she remembered it. There was the wall by her father’s study that was marked with each centimeter and inch she’d accrued during her short five years of living.

The house also held the old piano that her mother used to play...which oddly enough wasn’t the source of the music she was hearing.

There was a wall with the portrait that was made during her parents wedding. A photorealistic painting of a beautiful red-headed woman in white standing next to a dashing man with black hair and dazzling silver eyes.

There was the old lion clawed bathtub where she and her mother used to soak till their skin had turned all pruney. There was the media room, where her father made her fall in love with anime and games. Sitting and watching the old classic movie about a girl and adorable furry weirdo wandering through the woods.

Margot wandered into the kitchen and saw an all too familiar profile. Slender and broad shouldered. Long flowing black locks that went down to the back of the figure’s knees. It was a man. A man with a strong jawline, mischievous, ambitious eyes, and the rumpled, tender, look of someone who never quite left adolescence.

“D-...Dad?”

The man jolted in place and turned around. When spotted the speaker a wide smile broke across his face.

“Rabbit!, Is it really you, my little rabbit?”

The young girl stood staring at the ghost in the kitchen. Her throat blocked up, her heart pounding, her eyes filled with heat and moisture.

“This is...This has to be a trick.”

Margot took off her glasses. Like most people in the present age, Margot didn’t wear glasses because of poor vision. Even if she was the Wallace family’s unfavorite there was no way they wouldn’t be able to afford a visit to an average doctor or healer.

In the current age, optometrists and dentists were only specially called upon for serious things or special cases. Serums and spells that could fix one’s eyes and straighten one’s teeth were as common as rocks on the road. As such the only reason one would wear glasses would be because there was something odd about one’s vision that was impossible to fix under conventional means.

In Margot’s case, she possessed true-sight, colloquially known as sage’s vision. She could see through things that men were not meant to see. She wore the glasses to seal the power of her eyes and avoid bringing harm to herself.

They prevented her from accruing spiritual and mental damage from seeing things that were not meant to be seen. They also prevented her from drawing the attention of beings whose ire and appetites were triggered whenever they were seen.

Naturally, the Wallace family would never go farther than this to protect the girl from harm. The only reason they’d bothered to get the girl glasses at all was to protect themselves from the possible consequences of her true-sight.

Many of the creatures that took offense to being seen were “old world” beings. Entities that believed in striking at the blood and not just the individual.

Now, Margot was taking off her glasses. She needed to take them off because she needed to see what lay beneath the illusion she was being shown.

The figure in the kitchen remained the same. Its core and fundamental identity clear to her eyes. Though slightly paler, slightly translucent, and slightly muddled by some strange outside force, the figure in the kitchen was clearly her father.

“Daddy?”

“...Rabbit.”

*************************************************************************************************************

The father and daughter tearfully reunited. Embracing and holding each other. The little girl sobbed into her father’s chest as the man stroked her hair. Then as an acrid smell entered the air, the man remembered that he’d been cooking something.

Vergil Cooke ran to the kitchen and quickly rescued the bacon mac and cheese he’d been cooking before his daughter’s appearance. He then cleaned two plates and served up two servings of the mac and cheese.

The food was basic in name but not in ingredients. Made with high tier materials and cooked with high tier skills. The two ate in silence. Calming themselves down. Quietly assessing the other party.

Eventually as both plates were nearly emptied they struck up a conversation.

“S-, So...Are you a ghost or…?”

“Huh? Oh, di-...did you guys think I died?” said Vergil. Making a difficult expression.

“....”

Margot didn’t know what to say to that. Scenes flashed through her memory as she recalled the very instant her little family fell apart. She remembered her mother’s tears when the woman learned that the love of her life had gone missing. She remembered being left with her aunt as her mother decided that she’d go and find her husband herself, or find his body to bury. Refusing to live without knowing for sure that her Vergil was truly gone.

“I...You’re not kidding are you?”

“No, dad. I’ve very much not kidding. If you’re not dead then what is this? How are you here? Where is this place even?” said Margot. Trying very hard to keep calm.

“Woah, woah...Too many questions at once, kiddo. Let’s...Let’s take it one step at a time. First, how long have I been...gone? It can’t have been too long, right?” said Vergil.

“I...You’ve been gone for fifteen years, six months, and eighteen days, dad. Mom started looking for either you or your killer on the first anniversary of your death...Or I guess, your presumed death? Wait, dad...If you’re not dead then why are you all translucent?”

“Fifteen years?! But you barely looking any older than you were when I left?”

“That’s...This isn’t real. I’m twenty-one now, dad. Almost twenty-two. I don’t know why or how I’m a little kid again but that doesn’t change that you’ve been gone for most of my life. Do you really not know this or…?”

“Damn it...I knew that there’d be some disparity between the timeflow but I didn’t think it’d be this bad. You said your mom is looking for me? How long has your mom been looking for me?”

“I just told you...You’ve been gone for fifteen...almost sixteen years. Mom started looking for you after the first year when you didn’t come back.” said Margot. Blinking rapidly. Feeling confused and frustrated, and puzzlingly just a little bit angry.

“Shit...Shit! I...I’m so sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was angry at your mother but I didn’t want to leave. Not really. I just...this was just supposed to be one last romp. One last high adventure with me and the boys through the folds of time and space but things went wrong and I got lost and...shit...This is a mess.”

“What do you mean you were angry at mom?” said Margot. Her nails tearing into her arms as she held herself.

“Huh?”

“What do you mean you were angry at mom?” repeated Margot.

“I...I wasn’t really going to leave. She knew that. I knew that. I just...I just wasn’t ready to hang up my hat and stave yet. I went out with a few of the lads to show them and a few other folks that I was still...the mage I once was and then...then things got out of hand.”

“....”

Margot was once again left speechless. Her Aunt and Uncle had always said that her father had gotten himself killed for foolishness’ sake but she’d always assumed they were bitter lies. Just them trying to use yet another means to hurt her.

“Okay...So...Just to clarify. You’re not dead?” said Margot.

“No. No...I’m not dead. Just...Lost. I was travelling through the sub-realities and lesser-alternates of our world and ended up another world axis...I ended up wandering to far into the twists and narrows of the cosmic hallway and couldn’t find my way back. Now I’m stuck in between...Still wandering.” said Vergil.

“....Then how are you here?” said Margot. Her mind still racing. Her feelings overloaded to the point that she no longer felt anything. Thus allowing her to stay serene and rational and clear minded.

“I...Tell me, kiddo. Did you take after your mom and I?” said Vergil.

Margot almost spat out an acerbic ‘no’. She felt a rant on how she would never become like either of two, irresponsible, and endlessly self-interested, parents, crawl up her throat. Then she swallowed those words back down.

“If you’re asking whether I’m a mage...then the answer is yes.” said Margot. A part of her wondering why the music stopped and feeling oddly anxious about it.

Vergil frowned. Sensing a strange tension in the little girl’s posture. Sensing an odd rigidness in the set of her jaw.

“Good. Good...W-, Well, then you’ll probably have taken at least a basic class on spiritualism, shamanism, and the natures higher beings, right?”

“...Yes.” said Margot.

“Then you’d know that summoning is based on true names and there are some beings whose essences are so potent that even uttering their true name, or their regular names...or even just visualizing them hard enough is enough to get their attention or give them a way to find and/or reach you…”

Margot thought and remembered a certain handsome green-eyed aeon. The thought oddly calming her, making it easier to keep her cool even as her mind threatened to boil over.

“Yes...I’m familiar with those doctrines. It’s part of why I have to wear these glasses.” said Margot.

“Okay, well...People are kind of the same. Humans are kind of the same. Some of us with more power and thicker souls...are sensitive to the use of our names, true names, and images...I'm one of those people because, even if I’m not ‘all that’ powerful, my soul has always been fairly potent and I leveraged to do a lot of my magic.”

“So...When wherever this is-...whoever is behind this place-...You became a ghost when they tried to use your image?” said Margot. Nodding to herself as she connected the dots.

“Exactly, I knew you were a chip off the old block. You’re just a smart as your mom was when she was your age. I was able to take it over...it basically was like they summoned me.” said Vergil.

“Oh, so...so are you back now?” asked Margot. Trying to grimace at her father’s words.

“No...Unfortunately, not. The only reason I’m here...wherever ‘here’ is because there’s tons of cracks in reality in this place. They’re not wide enough for me to actually pass my full body through, or even my full soul, but I was able to smuggle a bit of my essence through.”

“Where are you then?” said Margot.

“Still wandering in the cosmic corridor...lost in the space between the worlds...Well, actually, I’m much less lost now...Getting pulled here temporarily has helped me get my bearings a bit. I think I know how to actually find my way back now.” said Vergil. Getting misty eyed and excited at the thought of returning back home.

“...So what happens now?”

“I can give you something that’ll help you and your mother pull me into this world for real...Then you need to get out of this strange place and get away from me because the thing inside me...the thing sharing this shell with me...I think it wants to kill you. I can feel it fighting me trying to push me out so it can lunge at you.” said Vergil.

Margot frowned. She lifted her glasses and saw that the murkiness in her father’s translucent form had increased.

“Okay...give me the thing. Whatever it is….” said Margot.

The man nodded. He chanted a few dozen words for a few dozen minutes his face lit by the gathering aether. Then he took off the wedding ring on his left hand. He handed it to the girl and Margot frowned as she felt the ring’s nature changing as it fell into her hands.

“So...this is all we need?” said Margot. Asking just to be sure.

“Yes...I’ve basically created a soul-linked data packet that will make it easier for me to find this world and for you guys to summon me. I’ll try to get closer to make things easier so all you have to do is summon me with the Dull-light ritual...Your mother will know the details so she can guide you through it.” said Vergil.

“Ah...Alright, then. And that’s all I need?”

“Yes...That should be everything...Hon, I just want you to know I’m so sorry I didn’t mean for things to go this far.”

“I understand, dad...Really...It’s fine.” Lied Margot. Her small face empty of emotion.

“Now you really need to leave, honey. This thing is-...”

“[Banish]” chanted Margot. Exorcising the sliver of her father’s consciousness from the spectral clone it was inhabiting.

She took another peak under her glasses and found herself staring at a dull gray featureless form. Humanoid but blank, like a mannequin made out of crab shells. The murkiness exploded as the spectral humanoid became a horrific rotting nightmare.

She let the glasses fall back into place and the mannequin became her father again.

The creature roared with a mouth that was wide enough to easily swallow a small child whole. Then it lounged only to be blasted backwards out of its seat, as Margot chanted yet another spell,

“[Aether Shotgun]!”

The spell erupted as an explosion of bright green energy that tore the rotting nightmare into pieces. Blowing away its head and upper torso. The music resumed as the monster flopped onto the ground leaking oily, blue-gray, ichor.

Margot watched as the rest of the creature fell to the ground. Leaving her glasses on despite the fact that the creature had still looked a lot like her father. She watched with a strange detachment as her ‘father’ disintegrated melting into a gleaming magic core and heap of spectral ash.

“[Store]” said Margot. Chanting the command that would let her send the core and the spectral ash into her and Monty’s shared inventory.

Then the young girl got up. She pushed aside the half-eaten plate of mac and cheese and she prepared to go find wherever it was her familiar had disappeared to.