Zodiac Circle

Chapter 74: Surprises

Tiger was learning how to ride a dragon together with her father. She was getting better and better at it, performing various tricks in the air together with Fireball who grew quite fond of her. So once, Scott smiled at her and declared:

"Well, Tiggie, today's your big day - I'll permit you to perform your very first independent flight!"

Tiger chuckled:

"If you wanted a baby daughter to give permissions to, Scott, you are twenty-one years late - I am an adult for three years now, and if I need anyone's permission to ride Fireball independently, it is Fireball himself".

Scott first blinked and then chuckled, shaking his head:

"Straightforward and blunt like your old man, eh? I guess you're right, you're already an adult and you can decide for yourself what's better for you. Well then, I won't follow you today. See if you can ride Fireball on your own. He will protect you, if anything," he glanced at Fireball who was lying there in the Order building front yard in his red dragon form.

"Haha, fine! See you later today, Scott!" Tiger waved a hand at him, then ran up to Fireball, and jumped onto his back.

Scott smilingly waved his hand back at her, and then cried to the dragon:

"I'm counting on you, Fireball!"

He heard Fireball's voice in his head (as dragons could communicate only telepathically and Fireball too could speak without telepathy only when in his human form):

"No worries, Scott. I'll take care of her," he swung his giant red bat-like wings and rushed up in the sky.

"Woohoo!" Tiger whooped with delight, raising her hands as they reached the sky up high.

Scott watched them with a smile, and when they were some kilometres high already, he grinned to himself:

"Now let's get on with our own business..." he sneaked back into the Order building and accessed the table where the beautiful woman he long had a crush on, Danielle, was sitting, having just finished her coffee. At another table, there sat her daughter Riza and Tiger's 'sisters'. Scott walked up to the woman and quietly called out: "Um, Danielle..."

Danielle looked up at him and kindly smiled:

"Oh, hello, Scott..."

They had already talked a lot for many days that passed so now they permitted to call each other by names.

"Danielle, um..." Scott blushed and nervously scratched his head, "What would you say if we... went into the city together today?" he timidly smiled, "I... I know a good restaurant..."

Danielle first widened eyes and then beamed:

"Oh, you're calling me out on a date?"

Scott went completely red, but then chuckled and confessed:

"Yes... So, what would you say?"

"I'd gladly accept," Danielle took his hand and stood up.

"Ah, that's wonderful!" Scott brightened with happiness, "Let's go!"

They both walked out of the Order building together. However, Riza couldn't miss this particular event:

He's already made his move, after just one week?! No, I can't leave it like this. I must know what's going on between them. It is my mom, after all!

She excused herself to the girls and rushed out of the Order building after the two adults. Once she left the mansion, Tamie blinked in stupefaction and turned to the remaining girls:

"What's with her?"

"She's probably concerned that Tig's Dragon Tamer hunk father flirts with her mom and now has even asked her out on a date," Olivia coldly shrugged and sipped her juice.

At such a carefree remark of hers on this kind of a matter, the girls giggled.

"But what's wrong with that? If it works out, she and Tiger will become true sisters!" Tamie chuckled.

"Yeah, but even Tiger doesn't know her dad too well, so don't expect it to be so easy for Riza," Cherrie noted.

"Yeah, I guess..."

As they were so casually talking, the Order door banged open as if someone had kicked it from the outside, and indeed, some hostile-gazed vicious bandits appeared at the threshold. The whole hall got stupefied once saw these uninvited guests so rudely barge in, but the most experienced members of Rose Cruce, including Magister Edmund, immediately recognized the intruders - it was the New World Order.

"What are you doing here?!" Clara and her gang instantly sprang up from their seats, sneering at the uninvited guests.

"You are not welcome here," Erisa too clutched the tablecloth she had just been cleaning tables with.

"Ed, give the signal, we're ready to charge on. No one barges in our order without knocking..." Nick cracked his finger-joints.

However, Edmund could not hear anyone now - he was gnashing his teeth, watching the white-clothed, short-brown-haired, vile-eyed mysterious man who stood at the head of the New World Order members, hands in his pockets, and calmly smiled with a slight glimpse of irony, pride, and arrogance, while Edmund's light blue eyes shimmered with rage from behind his glasses:

"You..."

The man answered with the same arrogant smile:

"I came back to take what is mine, son".