Once the rest of the girls got inside, they found themselves inside of a dark tunnel.
It was a tight space, so even though Thrudd had already shrank herself to appear human, she was still knocking her head against the ceiling quite a bit.
Bagheera had used his special collar to turn into a teacup poodle so that he could walk around unimpeded.
Meanwhile, Courtney was at the front of the group; trying not to pat herself on the back too much over her prior stroke of genius ingenuity.
She didn't want to make it seem like she was unused to doing cool things, you know? Especially not in front of her much older and much cooler siblings.
.net
But on the inside, she was unbelievably proud of herself. More than when she did burnouts in an empty parking lot.
"You did good back there, youngest." Mira nudged.
"W-Who, me? It's 'nothin." Courtney shrugged.
The young girl was barely keeping her composure locked inside. This was the best day of her life.
Finally, the tunnel opened up into a dark cavern at least a mile underground.
Thick columns were erected to help keep the ceiling in place and stable.
The makings of a long abandoned alter could be seen amongst the dark rocks covering the ground.
"Kinda creepy down here, no..?" Courtney's earlier enthusiasm had now vanished like it had never existed.
"I've seen worse I'm afraid." Mira shrugged.
At that moment Courtney remembered that she was siblings with someone who had done quite a bit of multiversal traveling by this point at the behest of their father.
There was no way that Mira had gotten to that kind of position without seeing her fair share of awfulness.
Courtney was beginning to feel a bit like a baby in comparison.
"Well... it's not
that
scary." Courtney shrugged.
Mira found her sister' transparent actions to be unspeakably adorable.
"Oh? Well that's a good thing, sister. Since the enemies are about to wake up." She smiled.
"...Wait, what?"
Mira pointed to the pillars overlooking them.
Nestled near the top were an array of stone monsters wrapped in rather thick blankets of moss.
Dust trickled down to the cavern floor as these enemies who had been immobile for an impossibly long time suddenly shook themselves back into the waking world.
Red lights flickered to life in their eyes as they scouted out the intruders in the room.
At first, Courtney wasn't really all that worried since her sisters were literally right behind her.
Now that she was paying attention, Courtney was able to fly about the room and cut down gargoyles like mowing the lawn.
Though as time went on, she did get increasingly jealous of a certain set of appendages that they had and she didn't.
"Why the fuck do these guys have wings and I don't?!"
"You told dad you would rather have a car!" Yemaja reminded.
"I was thirteen! I was still scared of heights and crushing on Mac Miller, NOTHING made sense!"
"I never knew you had a crush on him. Is that why you started getting tattoos?" Mira tilted her head.
"No it's because our mom and dad look like walking murals!"
Courtney leapt off the scabbard of her weapon and drove her blade right between the eyes of one of the last few Gargoyles alive.
"I'm not letting this go! How do I ask dad for wings??"
"I think you should focus more on your surroundings first, little sister." Mira warned.
"I got it, I got it, I'm totally- Ack!"
Courtney was tackled off her scabbard.
- Three Minutes Later...
Courtney was sitting cross-legged on the ground- blowing her now unrestrained hair out of her eyes.
"...We shall never, ever, speak a word of this day to anyone." She said seriously.
Three of her siblings were around her- helping her blow bits of sediment and debris out of her hair.
"Sorry, what was that?" Yemaja looked up. "I'm sending this video to Belloc and Straga."
"WHAT!? NO!" Courtney panicked.
Those were literally the worst two she could send that kind of video to!
"Were you serious about wanting wings?" Mira suddenly asked.
Courtney forgot all about any prior conversation she was having and trained her eyes on her sister.
"I was deadly serious. And just to be clear, I'm definitely not talking about chicken. Although I am a little hungry..." Courtney rubbed her stomach.
Mira smiled knowingly as if she had just found a key to motivating her sister that she had previously overlooked.
"I see... I might have a way to help you get what you want without bothering our old man at all."
———————-
NORMALLY I would say thanks to Gavin_Mcroberts for sponsoring this bonus chapter but I'm pretty sure he did this to be petty.
Like 70% sure.
Maybe 60.
So instead of thanks, I want everyone to remind him that tater tots are an inferior food choice and are basically the same as horse feed.