~Chapter 3- An odd past~
Aero scratched the kneeling Hopper's side to calm him down. Temp kept Kelvin at bay so the Hyena and Chihuahua wouldn't attack each other.
"This thing used to be your pet?" Temp asked, still trying to catch up on the history between Aero and the dog.
Aero nodded. Jirro and Corri both looked at the dog, after some thought they remembered the dog and living in that house a few years ago.
Temp chuckled, "Well, we're not killing him now."
"Nope. He's part of the family," Aero said proudly. Hopper stood to its feet and began to meander around the area, keeping Aero in sight, "All the town wants is Hopper out of their way. So he just needs to come with us. All of us are too strong for him to seriously hurt us, so it'd be safest for everyone that way."
"You sure you can tame that thing?" Jirro asked as he inspected their old home.
"Sure! How hard could it be?" Aero looked back and found Hopper digging emphatically at a mound of dirt. It popped its head into it and struggled to get out of it.
"Your dog's an idiot Aero," Corri chuckled as she watched Hopper struggle to get out of the hole it found itself in. Corri patted her well trained bird next to her.
Aero approached the dog and gently pulled on its hind legs to get it out of the hole. Upon exit, Hopper frantically scratched behind its ear with its back leg. Aero climbed its back. "See, he'll even let me ride him."
Jirro approached the dog, and Hopper immediately snarled at him. Jirro sneered, "Stupid dog."
Hopper spun around and used its hind legs to kick Jirro. The blonde boy was sent flying meters through the air before rolling along the ground. He picked himself from the dirt and gave the dog a death stare. Aero chuckled, "I wouldn't insult him like that."
"I don't quite understand, so when you were younger you used to live here?" Temp questioned.
"For a little while, yeah," Aero replied, "We actually lived somewhere else before that too."
"Any reason why you kept moving around like that?"
"Our dads never gave us a reason," Aero said.
"I'm sure they had a good reason," Jirro added.
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Temp folded his hands, something about these kids wasn't adding up. Why would they live out in the middle of nowhere in a tiny hut like this? Platt Mountain wasn't very well traveled either.
Nonetheless, they returned to town. Aero rode Hopper back, at first he struggled to get the Chihuahua to do as he wanted, but eventually the dog did as he was asked- when it felt like it.
The town looked on Hopper with terrified expressions, but after Aero explained that the Chihuahua that had been causing them trouble would leave with them they accepted it. As long as the dog was gone, they were happy.
Temp found Nout and Ruben around the bounty board. "What're you two looking at?" Temp asked as he dismounted Kelvin approached the two.
"Come look at this," Nout said, using his elongated trunk to point at one of the posters. Temp saw two posters, faces he recognized well. Sky Bandits 3 & 4, two muscular black haired men with 40,000 Ivases bounties on each of them. Sky Bandit 4 had a thin mustache and thinner features than the other. Sky Bandit 3 had a strong jaw and a scar over his brow.
"I wonder why they put up the bounties on these two again?" Temp remarked, "I thought these guys disappeared."
"You've met them?"
"Well... yeah. A long time ago. Why?"
Nout frowned while wrapping his trunk around him like a scarf, "It's their dads. Jirro, Aero, and Corri's."
"What?" Temp took a closer look at the posters and started to see the resemblance. Especially between Sky Bandit 3 and Jirro. If not for Jirro's blonde hair and blue eyes, they would've looked identical.
Ruben called out, "Hey, you three need to see this!"
The three children rushed over to the bounty board to come see what they were looking at.
"Whoa, that sort of looks like dad. That's weird," Corri said as she saw Sky Bandit 4. Corri and Aero bore resemblance to him.
Jirro tore the poster of Sky Bandit 3 down and stared, "Wh-Why would they have this? This must be some sort of mistake."
Temp gripped Jirro's shoulder, "Is this your dad?"
Jirro winced, "Well yeah, it looks like him when he was younger. But it's some mistake. He's no bandit."
Everything started to make more sense to Temp. Why the kids seemed to move around so much and how they were so strong. "Have you kids heard of the Sky Bandits before?" Temp asked. The kids shrugged, they all had little to no familiarity with the name.
"They were this incredibly powerful crew of bandits, so powerful that no one could stop them. They would rob people indiscriminately, but they disappeared around 13 year ago." Temp explained.
As Temp said it, he recalled that Aero and Jirro were 13 years old. If these really were the children of those Sky Bandits, then they must've disappeared from the public eye when they were born.
Jirro viciously responded, "Well, our dads would never do anything like that! They must've been framed!"
Temp looked down at Jirro, "I know for a fact they did."
Aero angrily asked, "How would you know that!?"
Temp sighed before answering, "They robbed my family when I was a kid."248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUXvvTkWMRw
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