Like Father, Like Daughter

Chapter 1 : Surprise

Chapter 1 : Surprise

Marco was finding it hard to readjust to his old life. The smallest of things seemed to get odd reactions out of him. Living in forests filled with monsters eager to gobble him up kept him on high alert all the time, even in his sleep. He would wake up from the smallest of sound creaking throughout the house late at night, even when it was his own father walking down the hall to use the bathroom.

He had trouble waking up in the morning, having been used to sleeping in as late as he wanted to or could for years. Waking up at a set time every day was difficult now.

He wasn't having any luck at school, finding it a little hard to focus on classes. Classes in which he had a hard time remembered what they had covered, to him a decade ago. While his teachers went over concepts he wasn't able to learn about or had forgotten in another dimension , Marco constantly found himself thinking back on his adventures and how they affected his life back on Earth.

His relationships had changed by a huge margin. None of these people he had seen for over a decade and a half. He remembered them, but it felt odd to be around them all of a sudden again. Ferguson and Alfonso were nice enough to try to give him all the space he needed. They too were trying to readjust, settling with having lunch together talking about anything and listening to him as he told them about his adventures.

Janna, simply put, was annoyed with him. She had loved getting a reaction from Marco before, but now she found it hard to get even a peep out of him. If she stole anything from him, he didn't really care, he'd lived without such things for years. If she hid a snake in his locker, he would check to see if it was not venomous and carefully take the snake somewhere else where it could live peacefully. She should have realized that things would change when he asked for his password from her.

Miss Skullnick was noticeably worried about his 'recent' change of attitude. She had asked if anything was wrong and said that if he needed someone to talk to, she was always there for him. He'd admitted that something had changed, but he just wasn't up to talking about it at the time. He did appreciate her concern though. If anyone could understand having your life changed so suddenly it was her. He said that he was fine and that he might eventually come to talk to her, but still, she told Marco her door was always open if he wanted to talk.

Even Tom noticed something was different despite the limited time and bonding they had together. Before, they mostly played ping-pong, but Marco was usually never much of a challenge for Tom back then. Now, after he had come back, things changed between them. Sure, Tom still had his demon powers and everything, but Marco had started to close the gap between them. In fact, he was actually eager to make Tom push him more, asking for more dangerous games to play. Marco seemed more at ease with the demon just for the fact that he provided a challenge to him. Tom, however, wasn't used to Marco of all people feeling this way about him, something that made him uneasy at times. He just didn't know what to make of this new Marco.

Jackie, on the other hand, was more than a little worried, and that was to be expected when they hadn't even been on more than one date when this kind of development came up between them. She was unsure of what it meant for them, where they would go from here. To be honest, even he didn't know where their relationship would go on out from here. He had accepted that he would never see Jackie again years ago, and now when he tried to take her out on a date, his stomach never fluttered and his heart never jumped like they used to anymore. Not since those years he'd spent chasing Hekapoo had come to an end.

Marco could tell that Sensei had sensed a different flame within him, that he had changed. Movements that felt strange and forced, from fighting in a body he wasn't used to anymore, told a great deal to his old master. Marco was still skilled in the martial art, but it wasn't easy getting used to fighting in his fourteen-year old body again. At he still had the drive to perfect himself, though he felt a tad conflicted and guilty when his mind occasionally thought of looking for another sensei, one that could help him regain the other skills he had now lost. Thoughts he sometimes felt that his sensei could hear but didn't show it.