Veronica’s homeliness somehow disturbed Morgan even more than her usual demeanor. The Chosen One sat beside his father who was acting more animated than Morgan ever recalled witnessing in his childhood. Chris was normally a more taciturn guy, but Morgan’s return had brought out an exuberance even his son didn’t know he had.

“And these are some baby photos of Agnes. Even when she was little it was obvious she mostly had a lot of her mother’s features; especially her eyes,” Chris said while showing Morgan’s younger half-sister to him. “She takes more after her mother than me. A lot like you and your mom, actually, Morgan.”

“Uh, y-yeah…” his son agreed.

He wished he could share his father’s enthusiasm, but the witch smirking at him with her legs crossed killed his vibe in ways his father neither noticed nor would have been able to comprehend even if he had. What the hero’s father had done was akin to marrying a natural disaster with a pretty face and a nice figure. And that disaster sat calmly, legs crossed and a smile perched on her face, while she watched her husband fawn over his long-lost son. It would be a heartwarming sight for anyone unaware of the context behind that smirk of Veronica’s.

“Dad, you and him have been looking at pictures for two hours. You were looking at old videos for hours before that,” Agnes said. “We even went to eat at some old restaurant together just because it used to be his favorite. Are you ever going to take me to piano practice?”

The impatient nine-year-old had watched mostly in silence as her father gushed over her newly introduced elder brother. She was surprisingly unimpressed by the whole affair. Part of that, no doubt, has to do with her and Morgan’s initial meeting earlier. Whether she had connected the dots of she and the hero’s blood ties herself or her mother had revealed it to her was unclear. What was clear was that she was clearly past the whole ordeal already. Agnes shared none of her father’s excitement or her mother’s amusement at Morgan’s return, and she made no attempt to hide it. She and Morgan had not exchanged words once since their acquaintance.

Tito didn’t seem to share his little mistress’s indifference. He sniffed Morgan’s hand, licked it, and sat patiently for the occasional scratch and head rub. Tito was the only member of the household aside from Chris who wasn’t adding to Morgan’s discomfort. By far the most polite hellhound the Hero of Eight Realms had ever known.

“Ah. Your practice,” Chris said, pulling out his phone to look at the time. “Damn, we’re going to be late aren’t we? And I haven’t even gotten anything done today. I need to…”

“Just take Agnes and go. I’ll handle all the chores,” Veronica advised. “You already promised her you would go to her next one, didn’t you?”

Chris looked at his wife, then his daughter, and finally his son. He could have honestly kept going on with his son until midnight, perhaps even until the sun rose tomorrow morning; but a promise was a promise.

“Morgan, we’ll catch up later. I need to---“

“Dad, relax. We’ve already spent the whole day together,” Morgan reassured. “We all even went to my favorite old restaurant for lunch. Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere this time. I promise I’m not.”

And just like that, all of Chris’s anxiousness concerning Morgan seemed to vanish. His boy was back, and though they had missed an important ten years of his development, they had the rest of each other’s lives to catch up.

Feeling reassured, Chris went for his jacket and keys. Agnes followed, throwing her brother only a glance as she headed to her piano recital with her father. As soon as the door shut, Morgan felt most of his energy leave him. He was now alone with Veronica and Tito the hellhound. One was an ungodly creature who endangered everyone around it, and the other was a dog from Validar’s Infernal Realm.

Morgan glared at Veronica and the Dragon Witch of Oblivion just returned his malice with a smile. Never had he seen her so pleased.

“So, what’s your strategy here? Trying to use my dad to get to me?” Morgan asked.

Veronica gave a snicker in response to the hero’s question.

“You think this is funny?!” Morgan snapped, rising to his feet.

Veronica finally broke and started cackling up a storm. Her manic laughter only made the hero’s agitation worse. It was, in a sense, her signature move that no one – not even himself – had a response to. There was nobody in Validar, and now nobody on Earth, who Morgan despised more to see enjoying themselves.

Tito whined and licked Morgan’s trembling fist as if pleading for him to settle down. He paid the dog no mind; his fury fully focused on the witch the hero had found was manipulating his father just to target him. At least, so Morgan believed.

Eventually, Veronica regained herself.

“Ten years later and you still get me laughing like no one else without even trying. Good God…,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “And just to be clear, whatever you’re thinking is going on: it’s not.”

“What?”

“That I deliberately married and started a family with your father just in some drawn-out revenge plot against you. That’s a bit too much even for me. The payoff doesn’t even seem worth the investment. All the years I’ve spent with your father could’ve been used plotting a way to kill you, to conquer or destroy your world; the list goes on.”

“Then… what are you doing with my dad then? How did you end up married to, out of every man in the world, my dad?”

“Okay. I’ll tell you…,” Veronica said while getting to her feet. “But first I have to spruce up around the house and start dinner.”

“Huh?”

“It was Chris’s turn today, but you came and ruined his schedule. Really, you should take over his cleaning duties just because of that.”

Morgan blinked. He stood idle as Veronica fetched a feather duster out of the closet and lobbed it at him.

“And after you finish dusting, vacuum; take out the trash; wipe the bathroom mirror; then take Tito outside so he can use the bathroom,” the witch ordered. “I’m going to do the laundry and then start on dinner, so you can meet me in the kitchen when you’re done.”

Morgan stood dumbfounded as the Dragon Witch tread off to do her wifely duties without another word. Tito gave a gruff bark and took a seat on the couch. There the hound watched the befuddled Hero of Eight Realms as he started with his first ordeal of house chores in ten years.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

After Morgan finished his assigned chores, he and Tito arrived in the kitchen in time to watch the lady of the house wrapping up her cooking. It was honestly a surreal thing for the hero to witness. The Dragon Witch of Oblivion, a female spellcaster who had been likened to a ‘walking calamity’ quite a few times by wizards that Morgan knew were nothing to sniff at themselves, was not at all living up to the reputation Morgan knew from personal experience she deserved. She wore a goofy apron with a cartoon frog printed on it, its tongue sticking out toward her cleavage and its arms wrapping around her waist. She hummed while swinging her hips in rhythm to a song that was playing on a Bluetooth speaker on the counter as she put the last *dish into the oven.

“And now we just wait to take it out of the oven,” Veronica said, satisfied with a job well done.

Removing her apron, she, at last, cast her attention toward the Chosen One.

“Okay. Now we can have that talk you want so much,” she said. “Do you want a drink first? We’ll probably be talking for a while.”

“You really think I’m going to trust a drink that was prepared by you of all people?”

The witch snorted before making a gesture with her finger. A fridge opened and a bottle of water levitated out and into Morgan’s.

“Here. Some water; freshly sealed. Or is that too suspect for you too, Mr. Hero?”

Morgan eyed the bottle for a moment, opened it, and finally took a quick swig as a truce of sorts between him and an old nemesis. The hero then took a seat in the kitchen while Tito went to lie down for a nap in the corner. Veronica perched herself on the countertop. After that smirk that always got under Morgan’s skin returned, she gestured for him to begin the inquisition.

“Go on then. Ask away.”

"How did you get to Earth?"

"Through you.”

Morgan cocked a brow. “Wait, I sent you to my world?”

“Not intentionally. It was a byproduct of you killing me. Well, I guess you technically didn’t mean to kill me. It was more of an assisted suicide than anything.”

Morgan shuffled in his seat somewhat. He didn’t want to recall it. Veronica was no friend of his, but how her final moments transpired was an experience that still left a bad taste in his mouth.

Veronica continued. “Have you met any other Validarans besides myself and the Dannith family?”

“Yeah. I met Niam the other day.”

"Ooh. The little genius necromancer turned world-class surgeon? Didn't expect you two to run into each other that quickly. That must have been a real 'fun' reunion for you, eh?”

"You already knew Niam was here?"

"Of course. He lives right down in Tacoma, after all. Besides, someone with magical energy as powerful as his can’t hide from me for long no matter how skilled at magic concealment they are. Anyway, there are quite a few other Validarans here in the United States, and like myself, the Dannith family, and Niam, they all share one thing in common besides being from another world. Can you guess what it is? Here’s a hint: it involves you and violence.”

Morgan made a face. He thought about this after meeting up with Niam, but now that Veronica was basically spelling it out to him, it was obvious.

“Every Validaran on Earth right now is someone whose death I directly or indirectly caused, right?”

“Ding, ding, ding! Clever Chosen One! Very clever. Yes, I’m sorry to say that, like a church girl whose fiancé just found out about her crazy sorority days, your body count has caught up to you. I won’t say every Validaran here wants a piece of you, but enough of them do that it needed to be formally codified who actually gets the opportunity to whenever you returned to Earth.”

“I’m guessing that’s what the whole ‘Hero Slayers’ thing comes in? But how did you guys even know I was going to return to Earth? Even I wasn’t sure I would ever get the opportunity to come home.”

“Now, that I can’t answer. There’s only one Validaran on Earth who knows and he decided to keep it to himself. You would have to ask him whenever you two meet.”

“Will we?”

Veronica didn’t answer that time. She just flashed a devious look in her dangerous eyes and continued to smile. Morgan knew it was pointless to press on.

“When I met Niam, he said he was on the hunt for the Puget Sound Killer. Niam thinks that the killer is a Validaran and that it’s impossible for the cops to catch him. Do you know anything about it?”

“Oh, that serial killer? Yeah, I suspected he was a Validaran a while ago.”

“And you haven’t done anything about it?”

Veronica snorted. “And why should I? He’s not my problem. So long as he stays away from my territory in Seattle, I don’t really care what he does.”

The Chosen One sighed before taking a sip from his water bottle. That signature callousness of Veronica’s hadn’t gone anywhere, it seemed. He just brushed it off and continued.

“The Hero Slayers – who are they?” he asked.

“They’re a group of Validarans who had been allotted the privilege of being able to kill you. Only they have this privilege. Anyone else who makes an attempt at your life is breaking code and can be punished by any other Validaran without infraction.”

That explained why Veronica was out hunting for Marko Dannith before, and why she was about to kill his daughters after.

“So, am I going to wake to all of these Slayers jumping me?”

“No. Each Slayer gets his or her turn at you, and each must wait for their turn to come up. If you die before they get their chance, that’s just too bad for them. A Slayer trying to cut to the front will be dealt with like any other Validaran who goes after you.”

“That’s a whole lot of officiating just to get an opportunity to murder me.”

The witch shrugged. “What can I say? Your life is in high demand.”

Morgan just shook his head and moved on to his next question.

“When did you arrive on Earth?”

“The same day after your plane crashed into Puget Sound, a little over a decade ago.”

“The same time as Niam then? Quinn and Renee mentioned being here for about that much time too. It seems everyone I killed – or at least, whose deaths I assisted in some way – arrived in my world at the same time. Which leads to my next question: Why do they all look so young? You I get since you’re only half human. Also, you’re a witch, and staying youngish-looking forever is a special trick a lot of you seem to know. But Marko, his daughters, and even Niam all look way younger than I would expect after a decade of aging.”

“Well, that’s another fun thing, the details to which you would have to ask that ‘peculiar individual who knows certain things but doesn’t like sharing them’ to learn. For some reason, Validarans who arrive on Earth aren’t just brought here; we’re reborn here based on her age relative to your arrival in Validar?”

The Chosen One squinted. “Huh?”

“Let’s say you killed a bandit who was 34 when you two fought. If you killed him five years after you first arrived in Validar, he would physically be 29 years old when he woke up on up. Let me show you an example. Do you remember that scar I received from that Great Spirit Beast in Torigashima that never fully recovered?”

The witch suddenly yanked up her shirt to reveal the scar in question, causing Morgan to briefly avert his gaze. When he glanced back he saw that the famous scar in question was gone.

“My body now is exactly how it was when you first arrived in Validar – completely flawless.”

Morgan rolled his eyes while Veronica rolled down her shirt. He tapped his foot while coming up with his next question.

“Can you tell me the identities of the Hero Slayers?”

“No.”

“Any details then?”

“No.”

“A hint or two?”

“Nope.”

The Chosen One made a face.

“Sorry, Morgan. To tell you any of that would be breaking code. You’ll meet them when you meet them.”

“Are you of all people really scared of other Validarans coming after you?”

Veronica snorted. “Please. This is just me showing courtesy to the rules. Stepmother or no, I can’t break code just for your sake.”

Morgan’s felt a chill run up his spine a little when he heard the word ‘stepmother.’ It was, tragically, 100% factual. Veronica was not only his father’s wife but the mother of his second child. She was his stepmom regardless of how nauseous it made him feel. By some bizarre set of circumstances, this woman of all Validarans married Christopher Moon of all Earthlings.

This led Morgan to his last and, for his emotional state, most important question.

“Since you say you marrying my dad wasn’t just a plan to set me up, tell me how it actually went down. How did you meet my dad?”

The witch stared at her stepson for a moment. She smiled again, but this time, it didn’t create the same feeling of anxiousness that the previous smirks and grins had. There was an earnest softness to it.

“Gladly. It’s a really romantic story after all,” the witch said. “It all started after my death…”