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“Oh Syl please! I've been wantin to bond with the rugrats for AGES and hater got to do three weeks ago!”
Wander had been pleading for the last couple of hours to the couple, honestly Sylvia thought it would be a great idea since the sitter had cancelled but Peepers didn't. He didn't know if he could leave the kids alone with someone like Wander, he wasn't known for being the most responsible.
“You might end up running off to go help someone and forget about them” The commander muttered, arms folded as he glances over to his trio of children. “Plus they are quite the hand full at times...glorp knows Hater had his problems”
“That's because Hater is a baby himself, he didn't help himself by letting Iris fly the ship” Sylvia pointed out as she picks up a bag, sorting her hair quickly in a mirror. “Wander is more than capable when it comes to looking after children, plus you know this is happening were you like it or not, we made reservations”
“I still don't understand why you would need to make reservations for a cage match...” Peepers frowns, eyebrows furrowing before he sighs. “I guess it's only fair...plus you are good with them Wander” Peepers glances at the man who hasn't stopped bouncing since he said fair.
“THE BEST” Wander was ready to burst with excitement, already pulling out books and toys from his hat which was practically over flowing with things to do with the kids. “OH you will not regret this! They will learn about stars, planets! OH I have so many stories! I know how Cornealius loves his stories!”
Wander couldn't stop going on and on about how much fun he was going to have with the kids as Peepers leaned to Sylvia looking anxious.
“You promise this jabbering idiot won't end up messing this up? I know the skull ship still has everything they could possible need in an emergency but he's really good at getting distracted” He mutters quietly as Sylvia gives him a small glare, she knew more than anyone that Wander could do this.
“Hey! That jabbering idiot is 10 times as capable of looking after the babies then Hater and we let him do it!”
“Only because Iris begged us too...”
“Not the point, I trust Wander and just look how happy he is!” She smiles looking over at the red head who had now gotten Iris and Lil excited, Cornealius hadn't looked up from his book yet but she knew he was happy.
“Okay, okay I'll let it go...I guess he can't do any worse than Hater”
The couple then said good bye to the kids, each one getting a kiss on the head as the parents left, getting dropped off at the planet they where going to watch the match on.
Wander hadn't been this excited since yesterday, he finally was going to have the bonding time he always dreamed of. This was going to be something the kids would never forget and he would rank first as best uncle, not like it's a competition or anything even though it kind of was. Sylvia's brothers were a force to be reckoned with when it came to being the most unclely of uncles and that wasn't even counting the whole crew of Haters ship.
The nomad was buzzing around the kids big play room on the ship, Sylvia and Peepers had actually decided that until they where old enough they needed a stable place to sleep for the night, they couldn't just rough it out every night like Wander and Sylvia did plus it meant Peepers got to see his kids more often which was also a bonus.
Wander had filled the room with toys before coming over too the trio, grinning with over flowing excitement. He smiles broadly at the group as they watched their uncle fill the space in seconds with new things.
“Okay rugrats! What would y'all think if we-”
“OOH OOOH!!” Iris was already grabbing up toys, huge grin on her small face as she started piling them up into groups “Invasion!!! lets play invasion!”
“Oh! Invasion sounds like a fun game, okay how about we take turns freeing planet-”
“I'm going to rule over everything one day!!! Dad said so so it's TRUE”
“Well your dad does know best!” Wander loved her ambition, she was so driven. He couldn't argue with such confidence. “I think you'll be the bee's knees Lord Iris” He pulls a crown from his hat putting it on her head before turning to the others as she squeals happily.
“What about you two? You wanna play invasion with us?”
“Well...maybe it sound fun but I was going to finish drawing first” Lil smiles at Wander, holding up a beautiful scribble drawing of four figures all looking happy tilted 'Uncle Wander day!' “It's us, this is me!”
She points to a scribble with two eyes and a big smile and black hair beside two other noodles with one eye each, one blue and one pink. The tallest of all the wiggly lines was an orange and green smudge with a grin, Wander's heart fills with warmth as he realises that it's meant to be him. He gives her a kiss on the head, looking overwhelmingly proud.
“I love it! We need to hang this on a fridge or a wall or IN A MUSEUM” The nomad gasps excitedly before Cornealius looks up from his book, small frown on his face.
“Well we'll have to tell Iris where we're going first” He looked back to his book, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Mom will get mad if she finds out she got left behind”
“What? But she's right here” Wander paused as he turned around, the spot beside the big piles of toys where the excited blonde headed child had been was now empty.
In fact, she was no where to be seen. She wasn't hard to miss with her giant pink bow on her head.
Iris had ran off and he hadn't even been paying attention.
This wasn't good.
“Oh no no no no” He looks panicked, searching around the room looking for Iris frantically. Iris wasn't one to just go to the bathroom alone and come back, if she had ran off Wander knew mischief was a foot.
“Cornealius...” He turns around to see him sitting by himself, turning a page loudly before putting up his index finger scanning the page before looking at him as if nothing was happening.
“Yes?”
“W-where is your sister?” Wander looked confused as the one eye'd child looked over his shoulder to where she had been standing before.
“Um...” He shrugged after having a brief scan of the room around them “I think she went to go see what Iris is doing”
“But they where meant to stay with me!!” He looks concerned, Wander takes a breath. “It's fine! The ship is big...sure but they can't have gotten far! It's not like there's anything dangerous on the ship”
“Two thousand blasters, one thousand death rays, over seven hundred booby traps and torture devices in the lower dungeons and a room filled with weapons from various planets” Cornealius counts with his fingers before nodding “Sorry, over eight point four hundred booby traps and torture devices”
Wander stares at the one eye'd blue haired child in horror for a moment, he feels his eye twitch as the shock runs over him. He quickly snaps out of it, he has to remain calm.
“T-that was very impressive darlin, you...you should be very proud of being able to count so well, I'll add it to your 'good work chart' once we find the troublesome twosomes running about this ship! Lets go!”
Wander headed for the exit of the room before noticing Cornealius hadn't moved, he was staring at Wander with a face he'd seen his father make a million times. He looked like he was trying to guess if he was joking or not.
“C'mon mister! The quicker we find your sisters, the quicker we get to have story time!”
“I'm having story time right now with my book”
“Well you've not heard MY story time, I have so many! You wouldn't believe some of my adventures” Wander tried to make it sound as tempting as possible and it worked, the child paused for a long moment before he put the book aside frowning as he came over to his uncle.
“Only because I know Lil wants to hear them” He said before making a scrunched up face “...Iris is annoying so she can run around the ship while you tell us them”
Wander appreciates the help, taking the small child's hand and leading him through the ship. Wanders voice bounces off the walls, echoing down halls as he searches for Iris and Lil but the girls were no where to be seen. They checked the cafeteria, the room with the blasters, even the room filled with party stuff and a disco ball.
“...No one is here! Why is no one here? I thought Peepers said the whole crew would be handy in case we needed anything?” This was getting troubling.
Wander was not worried, he wasn't one bit! It's not like these are the most prize things in his best friends life or anything. Irreplaceable, fragile little angels that he had been trusted to guard.
“You're breathing so loud”
“I'M JUST EXCITED!” Wander's voice didn't sound excited, he didn't even mean to shout but his thoughts had a way of exploding out of him if they got bolted up enough. “I'm excited! This is fun! It's a game of hide and seek! You're sisters are very good at it”
There was a sound of running up ahead, Wanders eyes widened as he spotted a solider dashing toward them in frantic panic. The nomad felt his heart bungee into his stomach in fear as he picked up Cornealius onto his back and ran to meet the solider who had a picture of a scribbled planet taped to his chest, he didn't slow down and ran right past them making Wander chase after him.
“BEN! BEN WAIT!” He shouted full speed sprinting after him “WHAT'S GOIN ON? HAVE YOU SEEN IRIS AND LIL? ALSO ARE THOSE NEW SHOES? THEY LOOK GREAT!”
“YES AND YOU BETTER RUN TOO! THE EMPRESS WILL GET YOU” Ben shouted back as Wander slowed down, confused to who he was even talking about. “ALSO THEY ARE TIMBS”
“Empress? Who's that?”
“Iris calls herself that” Cornealius points to Ben as he runs full speed away “She also played this last time, he's a planet and she has to catch him....she's probably playing in the fort again”
“So you know where she is?”
“Yeah, I mean it was kind of obvious where she was this whole time...”
“Buddy! Why didn't you say anything, I have been a little worried here” Wander tried to laugh lightheartedly but he had just nearly had a heart attack over trying to find these two.
“You interrupted my book twice”
“I'm sorry, that was rude of me” Wander had to admit he hadn't exactly been as gracious with Cornealius as he could have been, something to work on in the future. “So you wanna show me where to go from here?”
“Sure...” Cornealius shrugged getting off his back, taking his hand and dragging his uncle down the hall, around corners until they could hear laughter.
High pitched, girly sounding laughter with a gently evil under tone.
It was iris, it had to be! Wander would recognise that laugh anywhere. The nomad sped up with Cornealius towards the large doors of the meeting hall where the soldiers would normally stand to attention as Commander Peepers spoke to them.
He pushed open the large doors, seeing instead of a room full of soldiers standing proudly it was filled with soldiers with planet drawings stuck to their fronts tied up with jumping ropes or being guarded by stuffed animals. There was so many soldiers, almost so many that you could barely walk into the room without having to shuffle past someone.
“There she is!” Cornealius pointed forward letting go of Wanders hand to go towards his siblings.
Iris and her sister where on the stage where Peepers would stand, Lil was sitting down on the ground with paper scribbling away happily as Captain Tim rubs itself at Iris's feet, panting and looking for attention from the small child.
She was standing proud, hands on her hips as she grinned at Wander and Cornealius.
“UNCLE WANDER!!” She called, bouncing with excitement as he made her way towards her. “You didn't get a planet yet! You are SO bad at this, I'm winning”
“Well I didn't even know we where playing yet Iris sugar!” He smiled at her, so happy just to see the little ones safe and secure. No damage done.
“WANDER!” The bark of a gruff voice made Wander jump, he looks around before seeing Hater sitting in a cage in the air. “TELL THE LITTLE BRAT TO LET ME OUT”
Wanders face lit up before he starts to laugh, looking to Iris with a confused but amused look on his face.
“May I ask darlin, why is Hater in a cage lookin like a extra from one of Emperor Awesome's parties?” He looks up at Hater again, seeing the skeleton man was glaring at him.
“Oh! He wasn't playing by the rules” She folds her arms, looking upset “He cheated uncle Wander, he cheated and momma always says cheaters never um...pros...pros-”
“Prosper” Cornealius chimed in, Iris spits her tongue at him mimicking him with a high pitched voice.
“Now you two, you both gotta get along and Iris I think Haters learned his lesson” Wander grins up at the cage, it began to shake with Hater having a tantrum in it.
“The rules where DUMB, I don't play by some kiddy winks dumb dumb game!” Hater huffed before looking irritated “Plus the brat is quick...and strong, tiny hands must lift weights all day probably gets that from me”
“Now c'mon Hater, you know you can't be a lord cheater too!” Wander smirks at him before going to a rope tied to the wall, starting to loosen the knot before he hears a small little growl behind him.
He turns and sees Iris eyebrows furrowed and looking mad, she puts her hands on her hips before narrowing her eyes. He'd seen Syl do the same look to villains before, heck he'd seen her do it to Peepers before. This was not good.
Peepers and Sylvia finally got back as the three suns on the planet they were on began to set, they had stayed a little later than planned but Wander would never complain about getting to be with the trio for longer than thought.
The ship was quite when they got on which was shocking, Peepers instantly didn't like it but Sylvia was willing to be a bit more open minded to the possibility of the kids being in bed by now since it was past curfew.
They looked into their rooms but there was no children there, no one seemed to be anywhere until they found Ben cowering in the corner. The shock of seeing no one then suddenly a Solider obviously terrified made Peepers and Sylvia go into instant panic mode, they both brought out there weapons expecting to be told that someone has took the kids or keeping the ship hostage until Ben lead them right to the hall explaining Iris's game in all it's horrifying details.
“Oh my glorp” Sylvia gasped at the amount of soldiers tied up and being held hostage, their little girl was a sleep at the stage, hugging a sleeping captain Tim.
Cornealius was sleeping soundly leaning on Lilith who was out like a light too, the stage was littered with candy wrappers and all their mouths where covered in some sort of candy goop. The evidence of a sugar rush and crash was obvious by the amount of glitter and braids in peoples hair.
“Over here!” a hushed voice called, Peepers looked up to see Wander and Hater both in cages hanging in the air. They both looked exhausted, covered in foam bullets. Wander gave them both a sheepish grin knowing this probably wasn't the best way to find their children.
“C-can you let us down? We've been up here a while” The couple stared up at the cages, both of them taking a moment to try and hold back laughter when they saw Hater cramped into a small cage covered in paint and stickers.
“Iris?” Peepers asked quietly to the two in the cages, Hater sneers and nods glaring down at the small sleeping child.
“I was tricked by your freakishly strong kid”
The commander pats her on the head, smiling as he kisses her on the cheek softly.
“That's my future commander”
“Our future commander” Sylvia corrects in a hushed tone, smirking at him looking pleased before scooping up the two other children softly “Least this is better than the crashed ship...”
Hater struggles in the cage, looking angry about to shout when all the adults in the room turn their heads giving him a look of 'don't'. The over lord shrinks back into his cage, letting out a irritated sigh.
Peepers picks up Iris before nodding at Sylvia as he carries her out of the large hall, the soldiers begin taking off their chains looking tired and going out of the room. Wander and Hater hang in silence for a moment before Wander grins at a furious Hater.
“At least we have each other”