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Chapter 90  Old Family, New Weapons, First Kiss!

Aisha, Aubrey, and Serana had all bolted from their places and gave the young man returning home the biggest hugs they could muster. "Where have you been? We were all so worried about you!"

"I\'m glad you\'re okay... learn to respond to a text message, dickhead."

"Hey Mal, I\'m in your will right?? If you ever traumatize me by dying, I want to at least be compensated."

Malachi rolled his eyes and only returned his sister\'s hug as she was the only one who seemed to know how to be nice.

"Sorry girls, I had things to do."

"Was one of those things my friend Anna?" Serana asked. "I heard that you were supposedly with her, but a man and a woman alone this late at night is- Ow ow ow!!"

Malachi grabbed Serana by the ear and started pulling on it with the intent to put it in his pocket.

"You\'re quite a nosy thing aren\'t you? Didn\'t anybody ever teach you to stay out of grown folks business?"

"You\'re only a year older than me!" n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Don\'t really make a difference." He said with a shrug. Aubrey suddenly freed Serana from her brother\'s grasp and gave him a semi serious look. "I heard that you saw momma... or at least some monstrous version of her... Are you okay?"

Malachi glanced at Aisha and immediately knew she was the culprit. "I-I couldn\'t hold it in, they made me spill!"

Aisha had been made to tell her family and girlfriend everything that she experienced inside of the dungeon from A-Z. After she told them about the doppelgänger Mrs. Saint and the harsh words she\'d said to her, she also confided in them her worries and fears. ....And they all laughed in her face. Malachi and Aubrey\'s mother was the textbook definition of gentle, and the thought of her saying anything unkind to anyone was downright comical. "I know that you must\'ve been shaken up when she showed up like that, but you should know that whatever she said to you was-"

Malachi suddenly pulled his sister in for a hug that caught her completely off guard.

"You don\'t need to worry, sis. I won\'t let that thing taint her memory."

"Okay... I\'m just making sure." Aubrey muttered.

There was something about her brother that felt a bit different today. She wasn\'t sure what it was stemming from, but after a while she just attributed it to all of the sex he\'d been having with Sei. Maybe intercourse with an older woman was all it took to turn a boy into a man.

Mal was finally released from the group of girls and he made his way over to his elders that he hadn\'t seen recently. "Unc, Auntie! I see you met my grandfather!" Trevor and Marianne glanced at the still drinking Rowan and suppressed smiles. "We did indeed, and we\'re sorry for just showing up out of the blue, nephew."

The large tattooed man quickly embraced Malachi with the handshake they\'d been perfecting since he was little, followed immediately by a hug. "Don\'t think anything of it, I should have invited you guys over as soon as I got the place, that\'s my bad." No sooner had Mal released his uncle than he felt an instinctive sense of danger coming from beside him. His aunt quickly snatched his ear as she did so often when he was a child, and he wasn\'t sure why it still hurt the same. He was probably just imagining it. "That\'s right you bad boy! Do you have any idea what it was like to see my nephew all over television, yet never hearing from him even once?

You only call me when you want to ask for recipes! And when did you get a tattoo on your forehead?? Your father is probably rolling around in his grave right now!"

Malachi stared at Rowan and Trevor with eyes that were pleading for help, and both men suddenly looked like they found something very interesting at the bottom of their bottles. "A-Auntie it wasn\'t like that! I guess I just got a bit caught up in everything and I forgot to hit you up." "Hmph! I know I know, you\'re probably busy with your beautiful girlfriend with huge breasts whom you never introduced us to. Am I right??"

"...Partially but I mean-"

Marianne suddenly released Mal\'s ear and instead wrapped her arms around him to give him a crushing hug. "I\'m just teasing you, Mal but we were worried, you know...? We thought you may have outgrown us." "For the record, I never thought that." Trevor suddenly added from his seat against the wall. "Honey, you\'re sleeping on the couch tonight."

"Yes, dear."

Malachi chuckled as he returned his aunt\'s hug with one of his own. "You guys should know that I could never outgrow you, you practically raised me. You will forever be my family."

Marianne suddenly felt a lot better, and all of the anxieties she\'d felt were fading away. As he said, Mal would always be her nephew, and no amount of time, money, or fame, would change that.

"I\'m sorry to interrupt, but may I borrow him for a moment?"

Luna had approached the group without a sound, and wearing her usual eye-catching smile. Marianne wasn\'t old enough to the point where she couldn\'t feel the chemistry between these two, so she let Mal go without a fuss and watched as they walked out onto the balcony. She found her place in her husband\'s lap, and let out a sigh of melancholy. "He\'s all grown up now." She muttered. "He grew up to be quite the fine young man." Trevor said thoughtfully. "He won\'t be one for long. I was a man too before I got married." Rowan suddenly said. "Hahahahaha!!"

Rowan and Trevor shared a round of knee slapping, out of breath laughter as if they had just heard the funniest joke on the planet. Tears fell from their eyes and they very nearly spilled their drinks, and they shared a moment of true camaraderie.

When they finally calmed down and wiped away their tears, they realized that the room had fallen into a complete silence at some point.

Looking up, they found every woman in the apartment staring at them with ugly scowls.

Rowan: "... Don\'t mind me, I\'m off my meds."

Trevor: "I swear I was laughing at something else."

-

Out on the balcony, Malachi and Luna were immersed in a beautiful dark night with a full moon overhead.

"Coming home to everyone I care about is nice but I have to admit that you were the biggest surprise." Mal said with a smile. "Yes, well... you distracted me so much this morning that I forgot why I came here in the first place. "

Luna suddenly held up a small golden ring with a dark black gem embedded inside of it. Mal pretend to be shocked with an Oscar worthy performance, as he clutched his heart like he was overcome with shock.

"But my dear Luna, we haven\'t even kissed yet! But I guess if the time is right then..."

"Y-You idiot!" Luna yelled with a red face.

"T-This is one of your drops from the dungeon boss. I discussed it with the girls and they both refused to take anything since they felt they didn\'t contribute, so that leaves only you."

Malachi finally ceased his act as he laughed and took the ring from her. "Seriously... those girls are so stubborn."

He carefully inspected the ring but still had no idea what it did. "It\'s a storage ring." Luna explained. "You can use it to-"

When she saw the excited glint in Malachi\'s eyes, she knew immediately that he did not require an explanation.

"Check inside, you have another prize waiting." "How do I...?"

"Infuse a bit of your aura inside the ring, then you should be able to see inside of it, and take out what you want."

Mal closed his eyes and did as instructed, and a moment later a large silver briefcase appeared in his hand.

Opening it up, Mal found a pair of weapons inside, and he felt like a kid on Christmas. Twin iklwa with dark black blades and hilts wrapped in matching dark leather. The blades themselves were around 14 inches in length while the hilt was closer to 20, and despite being a bit heavy, to Mal they were relatively light. The blades themselves were inscribed with glowing purple runes, signaling that these weapons possessed a special ability. "We tested them and found out they have a corrosive effect. Anything that you stab will start to deteriorate and rot at an alarming speed." Luna explained.

"That\'s cold... and maybe a bit gross." Mal decided not to use these when he\'d eaten anything prior.

"Thank you for the gifts, love. But... I don\'t think I\'m going to need this one." Mal said as he held up the ring. Luna blinked several times as she looked at Mal like he was throwing away literal gold. "You... are you serious?"

Mal chuckled and pointed down at their feet. The shadows had become concentrated, and Mal placed the briefcase containing his weapons onto the ground. The briefcase was swallowed up by the darkness, and soon it disappeared without a trace.

"You\'re amazing... you just keep surprising me." Luna said with a helpless smile. "Hell, I surprised myself that time. I had only theorized that before now."

This would make his day to day life a lot easier. He couldn\'t wait to go back inside and put his suit and mask inside too, not to mention his daggers. It was going to be really nice not to worry about wearing that ugly belt everywhere. Mal suddenly took Luna\'s hand and slipped the ring onto her finger. "You should hold onto this for me. I think it\'ll look better on your hands than mine."

With her slender, pale fingers and dark pink nails, the addition of the intricate golden ring indeed suited her perfectly. "You see? I was right on the-"

Before Malachi could finish, luna grabbed him by his face and pulled him down, forcing their lips together. At first Mal\'s eyes betrayed his surprise, but the feeling of Luna\'s gentle and plump lips on his own caused his brain to short circuit. His hands quickly found their way around her waist and he pulled her body deeper into his own, and the two of them became lost in their first kiss under the moonlight.