Enyo brought mini Ares up to the top floor of the coliseum where he was once again instantly snatched away by Calla who went back to taking more pictures. She was also occasionally shoving her cub into the other matriarch''s arms to take pictures with Ares'' ''aunties'' because this was also a tradition she''d upheld with every other child. Many of the matriarchs struggled to muster a smile considering what this punk''s clone had been putting them through in the pagoda but, for what it was worth, mini Ares was decently cute and quiet enough to pretend it was someone else entirely, making the whole process more bearable provided he didn''t open his mouth. Luckily mini Ares must have found this incredibly awkward as well so he was quietly grinning and bearing it like the matriarchs. Ares thought he might be spared after this was all over but next up were his brothers and sisters who he was stood in front of, by Calla, one by one... Up until it came to Venus! No way no how was Ares going to stand in front of this woman! Calla could see the reluctance in Ares and thought about the problem for a brief moment before coming up with a plan. She passed the camera to Rhea and dashed over to Venus while placing Ares in front of her. Calla then stood by Venus while holding the troublemaker''s hands behind her back with her tail hidden out of the picture. It didn''t stop Venus from very nearly drooling on Ares'' head, and looking at him in a way that could only be described as creepy and salacious, but as long as Ares didn''t look behind him or take a step back he would be safe! The second the flash of light indicated the picture was taken Ares bolted for the hills but this turned out to be a mistake as he ran right into the ''loving'' arms of Blo Blo who promptly gave him a noogie. As if that wasn''t bad enough, she then held him over the edge of the coliseum, dangling him above the arena with an evil grin. Ares wasn''t too fussed about this because he knew she wouldn''t let go and she had her magic to catch him even if she did, it was an empty threat! Plus Calla would save him anyway so he defiantly snorted at Bellona who''s right eye twitched in indignation that this mini shmuck had shown her up.


    "Alright brat, let''s see if you can worm your way out of this then!" Bellona wrestled with mini Ares and immediately put him in a bind, pinning him to the floor with his small arms held in place behind his back. "Who''s the prettiest of them all?" Bellona poked Ares head as she waited for an answer she liked.


    "You!" Ares cried. "You are the prettiest gorilla of them all!"


    Bellona glared down at the defiant child with a menacing smile as she cracked her knuckles. She reached out towards Ares but then stopped and sighed. "I would mess with you more but I think you did well out there in the arena today. I got to see that cool explosion too so I''ll let you off the hook." Bellona patted Ares head and got off him as she also gave him some congratulations for winning like Enyo had done earlier. Ares appreciated it so he gave Blo Blo''s leg a hug which took her by surprise and brought out a grin on her face because mini Ares could be adorable if he put his mind to it. Unfortunately for Ares that just made her want to bully him much like how he did to her for the exact same reason. Fortunately for Ares though, he was swooped up by Enyo who wanted to play around with him for as long as she could before they made it home and she had to start cooking. Until then, he was hers! She would fight off the fluffy matriarch if need be!


    The only person Enyo would share mini Ares with right now was Appa who''d been floating around trying to get a good look at the new Ares. Him being the same height as it, give or take, made it feel happy to have an equally sized friend that Appa could look in the eye without having to tilt its neck upwards. Before Enyo and co went back home, she did put mini Ares in front of Appa who wasted no time in tackling him with a full body hug, smushing Ares under what felt like a giant marshmallow monster. Appa giggled gleefully and wagged its tail because it found being bigger than its dad, even if only by a bit, funny. Actually, on that note, Appa had grown a tad. If this had happened back when Ares first met it then Appa would have still been smaller than mini Ares by a small margin. Ares didn''t know if it was the Snappas he was feeding it or if shades just naturally grew like this but Appa was definitely increasing in size. It would probably stop soon, as damned shades were never known to be huge or anything, but it was still heart-warming seeing his daughter grow up by an inch or so every now and then. Appa was also maturing a bit, as much as a happy go lucky shade can anyway, so he was being frozen less and less as time went on... Now, that being said...


    Crackle


    ... This should have been an obvious outcome from the start. Mini popsicle! Appa felt like this had to be done at least once just to get a good look at tiny, frozen Ares. Unlike the usual support she received form Enyo, however, the shade was picked up by its mother and given a soft boop on the face as Enyo reprimanded it for not playing nice with its new little brother. Appa looked a bit gloomy after being told off for the first time but it unfroze Ares, apologised like a good shade, and then left its glum self behind all but instantly. Appa was basically happiness incarnate so it being upset for more than ten seconds was essentially impossible and that time limit was already up. Appa held out its rope to Ares so they could walk home merrily, hand in hand together. Though Enyo wanted to carry mini Ares this was also sweet enough to let happen instead and so she gave up on holding him for now to let Appa have some fun. It seemed like nobody else felt the need to disturb this tranquillity either so that was how Ares managed to walk home without being smothered twenty four seven and in moderate peace. Moderate because Calla was still taking pictures and that was simply unavoidable. Also a few civilians who hadn''t been to the coliseum were flabbergasted by tiny Ares, especially those that already knew him, so he got a lot of stares from onlookers.


    Perhaps, for the first time ever, Ares had been getting more attention than Enyo when walking around town. It was embarrassing! He''d already been a child once on these streets and he didn''t need to do it again! Although it did feel somewhat nostalgic and he felt the desire to run around in the alleyways for old time''s sakes welling up within him on occasion. He was even tempted to go look for Hans just to see the look on his face. Ah well, he''d see Hans eventually when he went to go check up on Windsor and make sure everything was progressing smoothly on that side of things. For now, Ares really was tired. He''d knackered himself out during the fight and, although his body was ok to an extent, because he fought inside a Training Field, it could never fully mitigate the loss of stamina and so extreme training could still leave you feeling partially exhausted. It was also somewhat person dependent and one person might not feel as tired compared to another after long sessions just because the way this magic interacted with people was weird. Did this happen because they had high magic resistance and so the benefits of the Training Field, in a twist of fate, didn''t affect them? Was it because of affiliations to the runemancy pillar? Was it due to how strong a person was? Again, in these lower domains at least, Training Field wasn''t very well understood. It was something invented in a higher realm that became prevalent even in the dregs of society long before the Primordial barrier separated these domains from the outside world. They still had the art floating around but nobody truly comprehended its inner workings perfectly. Thankfuly it was an easy art to mess around with and include variables / alterations if you possesed even basic runemancy knowledge so it was clearly well designed and whoever invented it deserved some serious praise. Unfortunately, however, one thing weaker Training Fields couldn''t do at a base level was restore mental tiredness at all. It didn''t matter if you were the kind of person who''d regain some of their physical stamina, this was just out of the cards. So yes, Ares wasn''t physically exhausted, though his body definitely felt a bit cumbersome, but he was feeling sleepy and wanted to rest his brain. It had done exceptionally today both in and out of combat so he wanted to eat and then give it a break. He did promise it fatty tuna but that was best left for the Freeride where they would be guaranteed to have heaps of the stuff fresh.


    Anyway, that aside, everyone eventually made it back to the sect, although a large majority of the group had left to go to their respective accommodations, so now it was just Ares'' family who where hanging around. He did feel bad for Enyo, who was going to be making food for all of them, but it seemed she was saved by the bell as everyone other than Fate, Sadie, and Calla were seemingly busy with this and that. They had preparations to make before leaving Red Sun and so Scar and Skyzo were heading off to do precisely that. They were bringing Verv and Venus along with them, by the scruff of their necks if they had to, because there was a very high chance they would cause trouble at Ares'' house if left to their own devices.


    Verv was excited after seeing the fight earlier but mini Ares was not in a position to combat him and Verv would not care about that detail in the slightest. Venus... Did not have to be explained so she was hauled away with tears in her eyes. If it weren''t for the fact that there was a playground nearby for her to take out her sadness on she would have fought harder to remain here and raised a bigger stink than she currently was about this whole mess. Regardless, this meant that Enyo only had to cook for three extra people, Calla, Sadie, and Fate, as the matriarchs had also skedaddled. They had no problem with mini Ares but they certainly had a problem with Calla who was being excessively proud of her cute cub and would keep forcing him onto them for pictures and what not. Had Ares actually been a child, and not just a grown man larping as one due to events beyond his control, then maybe they would have been fine with it but it just felt weird to them. It''s not like they couldn''t understand where Calla was coming from it''s just that Ares wasn''t their child. If Enyo had shrunk back down to size, for example, then you can bet Rhea would be acting very similarly right now. As that wasn''t the case, they scarpered as soon as they were able to and wished Ares the best of luck in his future endeavours. He did try begging them to take him with them but they completely ignored him because that was a death wish as Calla would hunt them down and poison them until they were like twitching insects buried in the mud and frothing at the mouth for daring to steal her baby. Calla had been in a good mood, and highly tolerant as of late, but Calla was still Calla deep down and better left well enough alone at times like this. No point poking the sleeping bear!


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    In short, that left Calla, Sadie and Fate... The latter of which seemed to be smugly gloating to Ares with a wide and haughty smirk every time they crossed eyes. She even occasionally directed a few exaggerated Hmphs at him like the bratty munchkin she was... Why this boastful child was being sassy now, and seemed to think she was in control because her height was no longer the shortest around, was anyone''s guess but she seemed to be enjoying this rare win and so Ares let her have it. Ah the things a kinder older brother has to do for the knee-high gremlin in the family. Watching her puff up her chest with misplaced pride was a good laugh for Ares so he made no effort to spoil her fun and didn''t get argumentative with her. His passivity did lead to her ego swelling a bit but that only made her look sillier as she pompously swept her hair around with baseless arrogance so no harm no foul.


    The group headed back to the house and spent the rest of the day relaxing. Nothing of note happened other than Leo getting quite a shock at the sight of mini Ares. Laughter ensued and Ares felt like wrangling this dumb creature''s neck but, alas, Leo was currently stronger than him by a wide margin and so the stupid tiger just flew circles around him while pelting Ares with chuckles. Thankfully Leo''s attention was diverted elsewhere when Charity showed up with Gladius as they were curious about the results of the tournament. They weren''t much interested in watching it live and would rather just do their own thing so they swung by to see if Ares had won or not. They were already convinced he would, as a team with him and Enyo was basically unbeatable at the outer court level, so they weren''t surprised that it turned out to be as such... But they were caught off guard by mini Ares... Realistically who wouldn''t be? If you spoke to someone one day and they were less than half their heigh the next time you spoke to them you''d probably have a whole host of questions too! Thankfully it didn''t take much explaining as the duo were familiar enough with revenants to get the gist of things quickly. After that they went back to ''debating'' with Leo... Although that was mostly Charity and Leo having an insult hurling competition with one another. There was no such thing as a ''winner'' in this fight and they both came out of it losers by the end of their spat. If anything, only Gladius had really won as he was wise enough not to join in... Although he was trying to sway Sadie into training with him again... Apparently Gladius had been training pretty much non-stop since his loss back during the regionals and he''d made some considerable improvements. He was already the best spearman around and that was likely doubly true now. Ares figured it would be wise to train with him when it came time to developing his own spearmanship but, right now anyway, he was more interested in the scythe so that took priority.


    As for Sadie, she wasn''t willing to train today because she wanted to rest up and then go hard in the paint tomorrow. She was inspired to further improve herself after watching Dominus and so she wanted to be in tip top shape when she went all out. Her and Rox as he too seemed to want to practice some stuff here and there. It would likely wind up being a Gladius, Rox, and Sadie free for all which was lucky for Gladius as he stood to gain by training with Dominus'' pupils. Sadie did at least partially want to drag Ares into the Training Field, because him being weak right now made him easy prey and she wanted payback, but with Calla around that was fruitless and would backfire horrendously so she wisely avoided trying such a stunt.


    Regarding everyone else''s plans going forward, Ares had the most but it was all stuff that could be done in the blink of an eye while he went through his list. Things like collecting his pay-out from the betting brothers, finishing the Backfire Bindings'' pressurising, and so on so forth. Really the thing he wanted to do that would take the longest was talking to the sect elders about his plans going forward with Red Sun as this involved them too. They would have found out through hearsay but Ares had never spoken to them directly about it and so, via Yulo, Ares would have a massive gathering to discuss it. That and watching the core level of the international tournament come to a close was something he wanted to go and do because Eagerton and Edgerton were both competing on the same team. It was likely they''d decimate the competition, as they were both prodigious and were strong enough to be the aces of their major clan, but Ares wanted to see it as there was a good chance they''d be sticking around in the sect even after Ares took control of it. More powerful people was always a welcome sight but he still wanted to get a rough grasp of how strong they were compared to the average cultivator at their level.


    But that was all for another day as it was getting late and everyone was getting comfortable in their beds. Daily life, filled with menial tasks, would resume tomorrow. That''s not to say it was all work no play, however, as Ares, Aejaz, and Enyo would be checking out the scrolls they received as prizes and testing out their respective treasures... Aside from Ares who didn''t get one... Oh well, he could play with Enyo and Aejaz'' as he''d likely have recovered some mana by the time he woke up. Not much but enough to throw some into the treasures and activate them at least. More than anything, though, Ares was curious to see what kind of technical he would get from the scroll as he had high hopes. It''s not like he needed anything specific but he wouldn''t complain if he got something good! Thinking happy thoughts about receiving some spectacular technical were keeping him afloat right now as he gingerly hopped into the bed while facing mischief incarnate Blo Blo herself. This woman did not have good intentions! What was it gonna be this time? A wedgie? Was she going to sneak him out of the bedroom at night and give him a swirlie in the bathroom?... The cleaver? Ares shook his tiny head and prayed Blo Blo would be merciful as he lay down in his usual middle spot. Sometimes Enyo or Bellona took the spot but, given the current circumstance, there was no way he wouldn''t be the centre of attention for the next month. The only possible way for Ares to escape this was to provoke Enyo into being greedy and hugging him off to the side while she lay in the middle, effectively granting her sole access to mini Ares. This was selfish but Ares could convince her to do it if Bellona kept trying to bully him before he went to sleep every day as then there would be a valid excuse! Ares held his breath as Blo Blo''s ominous hands slowly reached out towards him. They were drawing ever closer and her nails were looking especially sharp today for some reason.


    Slap


    Enyo! Heroine to the rescue! Enyo had bat away Bellona''s wrists and was glaring at her from behind mini Ares. He''d been saved by the bell!... From the belle Bell-ona! Mini Ares stuck his tongue out at Blo Blo, revelling in his victory, but she quickly swiped her hand towards him and caught his tongue between her fingers. She gave him a few light tugs as he made funny noises trying to regain control of his tongue. Enyo allowed this to happen because mini Ares deserved it for taunting in the first place. If he was innocent, she would protect him. If not, he could figure it out himself! Like this the trio played around for a while before going to sleep with mini Ares being hugged from both sides. He was squashed yet again but, as per usual, there was no way out so he just resigned himself to this fate... Although he seriously had to hope Blo Blo wouldn''t start headbutting him in her sleep like she occasionally did. It would hurt! Ares didn''t have his cultivation base anymore! Thankfully Blo Blo seemed to be fast asleep and wasn''t stirring at all. With his worries rendered moot, Ares was finally able to catch some shut eye. Perhaps due to his current bodily state, Ares had some rough dreams about his time back in the Chen clan that were rather immersive. Luckily he was only woken up by them the following morning after getting his forty winks so it was mostly irrelevant. Not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination but also not an issue. It would go away soon enough as he became accustomed to his short self. Ares had opened his eyes but, much to his dismay, he''d been abandoned! Enyo was gone and only Blo Blo was left, grinning at him with an evil smile!


    "Hehehehe, I told Enyo I''d be good and that she could leave you with me. How easily the words ''I won''t bully him'' flowed from my deceitful mouth!" Bellona wriggled closer on the bed and caught Ares before he could run away. A good deal of cheek pinching ensued while Bellona happily giggled to herself as mini Ares pouted. She was only fully satisfied after picking him up and tossing him into the air and catching him a few times. Ares was too dizzy to walk straight afterwards and walked headfirst into a door which led to a fit of laughter from Bellona who was sprawled across the bed and rolling around on it. Ares let the woman have her fun as he left the room to go look for his protector and complain about her carelessness! Or, well, he would have but he found Enyo making lunch for everyone even though he could have done it himself today. She was being considerate, and he appreciated it... But why was it toasted pitas again?! Enyo was never going to learn to make anything else, was she?... Well, to be fair, she was really good at it so why not just revert to the playbook every time? At this rate she might even become the best pita chef of all time, oddly specific though that achievement was. She seemed to be having fun cooking it too so Ares left her to it without disturbing her... Although he still planned on ratting out Blo Blo! He was going to tell on her real good! Ares sighed as he sat on the couch next to Aejaz who was still having the hardest time of everyone coming to terms with mini Ares. He really didn''t know how to treat his small big brother and was at a loss so, instead of trying and failing, he simply went back to reading his book without a care in the world. Ares would have flicked an Echo at him or something but he didn''t yet have enough mana for that. His cultivation was showing signs of life but he was still only in the very early stages right now. There was nothing for Ares to really do so he just plopped Appa on his lap, and hugged it from behind like it was a giant pillow, while he waited for lunch. After that, and after selling Bellona down the river she herself had flooded, it would be time to open up the scrolls and see what magic everyone got!