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The hero and the villain glared at each other over the ruined expanse of the room. Jackie bared his teeth, powering up his fist with his power and was about to throw himself at the snarling glitch—
A hand snagged the back of his hoodie and harshly pulled him back. The action made him yelp loudly and his fist stopped glowing.
“Jackie,” the fatherly disappointment in Chase’s voice withered the hero’s heart and he slumped over against the younger ego’s hand, metaphorical tail tucked in-between his legs, “you and Anti nearly destroyed the house. Again .”
At the corner of Jackie’s eyes, he could see a sulking Anti being scolded by Henrik and Jack at the same time for the same reason. Serves the glitch right.
“He started it,” mumbled Jackie, eyes snapping back towards Chase only to see the father raising an unimpressed eyebrow at his childishly petulant tone. “He didn’t want to share some of his cookies and I asked him nicely!”
“You have your own stash and you know it.” Chase narrowed his eyes at Jackie who cowered back and looked sufficiently scolded at his stern tone. The father raised his voice so that it would carry over to the trio on the other side of the room, then said with exasperation evident in his face, “since the two of you are acting like children I suppose I should punish you both like one. Anti, since Jackie was in the wrong here but you still nearly destroyed the room with him, you’re just going to get less cookies for the next batch. Jackie, since you tried to pin the blame on Anti and started this up, you don’t get a stash for the next two batches.”
Anti looked displeased but he nodded to show his agreement. At least he still had some unlike the hero. Jackie looked like he was about to cry but acknowledged that what he did was wrong and so just nodded sadly and made a soft wounded animal when Chase patted him on the head.
“Good boy,” Chase cooed, “you still have some of your stash anyway. You can try to ration it until you get your next batch and maybe if you behave really good I might lighten your punishment.”
Anti looked like he was about to start boasting but then backtracked at the stern look Chase sent his way and just retreated pouting. Jack chuckled and shook his head in amazement at how much hold Chase has over his rowdy fellow egos just with his threat of the cookies being forbidden. He can’t exactly blame the others. Chase’s cookies are really heavenly.
“Great job preventing World War 6 from happening, Chase.” Jack gave the father a thumbs up while Chase merely shrugged graciously.
“Well, since that’s done and all… The three of us are gonna go and discuss a project for the channel.” Chase patted Jackie’s shoulder and followed Jack and Henrik who was already out of the room. “Behave you two.”
With one last nod at Anti, Chase was gone. There was silence in the room for a few seconds before Anti spoke.
“Sucks to be you,” Anti snidely said as he waved his hand and the room started glitching back to how it was before they fought.
Jackie sucked in a breath of air and stomped out of the living room, ignoring the smug air hanging around the glitch. If it weren’t for the fact that Chase might threaten to take away his batch for the entire year, he would have brawled with Anti again. He’ll find a way to get back at the other without Chase or Jack finding out and without him getting into trouble.