((Monday, July 4th, 3571. Just before lunch.))

"I hate you," he spoke evenly, staring at the cube in his hands. For thousands of years now, the things had been all too popular. And yet, even with a guide telling him how to solve it sitting right beside him, Khonsu was getting nowhere. It kept talking about 'cubies' and 'facelets' and 'carefully-crafted algorithms'.

He'd show them a carefully-crafted algorithm, he'd show it right up their rears if he ever met the insufferable being who had created this guide. He could just see them now, being all Mercurian and mighty. And thus, Mercurians were added to the list with Jovians. It was a short list, full of things he was doomed to dislike.

Brussel sprouts were on there too.

His seat in the shopping centre's food court was littered with stickers as he attempted to peel off each one, placing them where he felt they really belonged in an effort to have something to show Amina later (look, I did it!). For thousands of years of history, she certainly did like to tease him. He pouted at the thought.

Of course, the Lunarian probably should have been doing something more productive with his time, like hunting down more soldiers for his cause. There were enough planets to merit more girls than just his Venus, and he was eager to get her someone to train with who could stand up to her a bit better than himself or the few bots he had in his basement gym.

He could always put out an ad seeing if a Jovian (especially the one who had hurt his poor bicycle) wanted to come get their ass kicked by a hot woman... drunkards would probably fall for it, too...

Khonsu gathered the Rubik's cube in his left hand and carelessly lobbed it into the crowd, giving up at long last on his endeavours there as one of the stickers he had been peeling off ripped. He just wasn't meant to solve the thing.

"Ouch!" The cry of surprise and pain from his daughter alerted Nier immediately. Unlike most Jovian children, she'd never gone to the camps, and while he had made certain she could defend herself, she certainly wasn't as hardened as any of her peers back home would have been. He glanced at the child, frowning as she rubbed her head with one hand, and held a mutilated Rubik's Cube in the other. Where had it come from? He scanned the crowd, only pausing when a small hand tugged at his shirt.

"Over there, Papa." She child was pointing to a blond, and Nier grinned for a moment. He knew the little twerp. Was the same one whose bike he'd already broken. Nier captured Neena's hand in his own, and began to walk towards the unsuspecting Lunarian. When he got close enough, he slammed the Rubik's Cube onto the table, breaking it beneath his hand.

As he calmly waited the other man's reaction, he tugged Neena behind him. "Well, surprise surprise. Having fun?"

Khonsu's newest dilemma appeared to be something along the lines of having bits of red, blue, orange, white, green and yellow stuck to various bits of his skin, clinging to him like an unwanted girlfriend. He sighed as he found another colourful piece of sticker, wondering exactly how much of the Rubik's cube had even been left intact. Though he felt momentary temptation to go find the damn thing, there just didn't seem to be a poi -

"AIIEEEE!" he squealed as the very object of his hatred that day came slamming down onto the table he had been perched behind, leaving the blonde man to quake and pant in his shock. Bits of the cube hit him in his belly, wobbling off to the side when they hit nothing but a tiny bit of fat and no muscle whatsoever. Damn, he really needed to work out.

He felt something between annoyed, and so terrified he might piss his pants as he stared at the hand on his table, glancing upwards with stunned green eyes to see... only the most vile, barbaric of creatures he had ever had the displeasure of meeting. "Oh. It's you," he deadpanned, calming with a sudden burst of exasperation, "Got tired of picking on guys riding bikes? Shouldn't you be, I don't know. Comparing your dick to another dude's out back or something? Seriously, first my bike, then that poor cube. You oughta really learn some culture. Manners and whatnot, they're important here. On Earth."

The Lunarian eyed the brute before him defiantly before huffing, crossing his arms over his chest and reclining in his chair. He muttered something that sounded like 'real man my ass', but otherwise lacked either the common sense or the motor skills to get up and run for dear life.

Or perhaps he simply wanted to be killed that day. Who could know, really?

The squeal would normally have caused Nier to roll his eyes, but in this instance, he really didn't feel like lessening his temper enough to act in any way remotely amused. Because he wasn't. The man ground the Rubik's Cube harder into the table, eyes never leaving the Lunarian's and never voicing a word. His glare was a harsh one, and he often times could reduce someone to nerves with simply the silent tactic he was now employing. The word about manners caused merely an arched eyebrow, and Nier was preparing to speak, when his daughter sidled around him, and delivered a very hard kick to the Lunarian's chair.

"YOU HIT ME!" Her youthful outrage was sincere and filled with disgust. She balled her little hands, and just glared at him. "My daddy is a good man, and you're just an-"

A large tanned hand covered his daughter's mouth, as Nier pulled her back against himself. Yes, she had inherited her mother's temper and her lack of timing. The problem was, that now he was amused. The Jovian took the seat across from the Lunarian, and tugged his daughter onto his lap.

"Let me level with you, Lunarian. You're an idiot- a well-intentioned one, I would wager. Yet hitting my daughter in the head with a Rubik's cube is not an acceptable pastime, even for someone who does lack common sense."

The sound his chair made as the Jovian's foot connected with it was nearly unbearable. It screeched across the floor like it was as terrified as he may or may not have been at that point in time. He may have contemplated making terrible, horrible things happen in his pants if only to scare the brute away.

Nobody liked dealing with a guy who shit himself, right? The Lunarian contemplated the idea around the same time a little girl came wailing at him, apparently just as unamused as his father. Unfortunately for her, Khonsu was not afraid of children, not in the slightest. "Aww, aren't you precious!" he cooed, tempted to reach out and pinch her cheeks before remembering who her father was and clearing his throat.

"And you take after your charming daddy so much." Perhaps the sarcasm there should have been better thought-out. Perhaps. Especially since seconds later, he was being called an idiot. The younger man frowned, contemplating just how many different sorts of idiot there could be in the world. Were there other definitions? Maybe idiot meant extraordinary example of human kind on Jupiter.

He fidgeted in his seat uncomfortably, muttering an apology to the girl that could barely pass as anything, disappointed with his newfound company. Based on the fact that the Jovian had taken it upon himself to pull up a seat, he was willing to wager he didn't intend to move for quite some time. "I didn't mean to hit her, I was aiming for, er... the... garbage can?" Well... that'd have to do, right?

"....you mean the trash can ten feet away?!" It was clear that Neena Zakran was not impressed with Khonsu's aim. At all. In fact, she rather giggled at him and his lack of aim, before distracting herself with the stickers littered all over the table, arranging them in patterns that seemed to only make sense to her in her childishness.

For his part, Nier was trying very hard not to add his laughter to his daughter's. Not everyone was Jovian and exceptionally talented with physical prowess. Their time on Earth had taught both father and daughter that lesson. Still, when he spent most of his time with the military....a man who hit a little girl instead of a trash can was rather funny.

"Perhaps next time you should get up and walk to the trashcan?" He shook his head, and then ran his hand over his daughter's hair, relieved that Neena had not actually taken an injury from the incident. Had that been the case, he would have broken the Lunarian's jaw. "Look, we've obviously started on the wrong foot. Twice. Why not start over, yes?"

In true Jovian fashion, Nier was ready to let bygones be bygones. As a people, they had quick tempers and didn't seem to hold grudges.

"I'm Nier Zakran, and this is my daughter Neena."

Khonsu stopped, and simply stared at this little girl as she first berated him, then went to play with the mess he'd made on the table. "We can't all be Amazonian freaks of nature," he supplied past pursed lips in a rare, though perfect monotone. She would not have the better of him, playing with his stickers. Those were his. All his.

And they belonged on that Rubik's Cube that her brute of a father had smashed, so he supposed it really couldn't have mattered much anymore anyway, shrugging it off.

Her giggling brought the Lunarian's eye to a place where it was twitching none too comfortably, trying to decide whether or not being killed by the man behind her (or maybe the girl herself) was worth acting on the small amount of rage in him. It might've been an effort in futility, but she was just across the table, so… close, so chokable.

"Yeah, well… perhaps next time you shouldn't break my bike," he retorted lamely, all the while staring at the girl in this Nier's lap. Oh, sure, now he wanted to be friends. After trashing his only mode of transportation and then nearly making him pee himself… in public. He really didn't think anybody needed to see a grown man wet himself in fear. Definitely not in the mall, anyway. Maybe in a movie.

But, as much as he would have liked to hold a grudge, it wasn't in Khonsu's nature to go on hating forever. "Khonsu Bjoran," he mumbled, holding a hand out for the shaking in spite of looking like an absolute grump. He would shake Nier's hand.

But not his demon daughter's. She was a fiend. And she was a giggly one. Those were the worst kind.

The little girl on Nier's lap looked outraged, and even opened her mouth to say as much, before her father cleared his throat behind her. Instead, she began to rip the little stickers up, mumbling about idiot Lunarians under her breath as she did so. She had clearly taken offense to being called an Amazonian freak of nature, yet her father wouldn't let her do anything about it.

Instead, the Jovian smiled slightly. In this regard, Khonsu was very lucky, for Nier was one of the more laid-back Jovians he could have hoped to encounter, and truthfully even Nier was getting a bit annoyed by the man's prejudice and lack of common sense. How did the blond survive? It was beyond any understanding of Nier's.

"Perhaps in the future you won't unwisely get into a drinking contest with a Jovian?" It was said mildly, but there was an implied warning. Many Jovian men took their drinking extremely seriously, and Nier was no real exception to that rule, except perhaps in that he got to drink less often than many of his counterparts due to his being a single father.

Still, he hoped the Lunarian had more sense than was initially apparent.

Nier shook Khonsu's hand, smiling once more, and then easing Neena off of his lap with the other arm. He stood as well, and gently hauled Khonsu out of his seat. "Why don't you walk with us for awhile?"

It was creepy, when this guy smiled. Part of it was that he was just so freaking large that any smile coming from him seemed like it was meant to be malicious. And Khonsu and malicious usually wound up bad. He hadn't really experienced it until coming to Earth, mind you, but it hadn't been something that had gone well for him thus far!

The Lunarian shifted uneasily under Nier's gaze, occasionally shooting his daughter dirty looks. He'd have stuck his tongue out at her, had he thought it wouldn't have ended with it being ripped from his mouth. Part of his life plan was to keep all parts he had been born with firmly attached.

It was why, in spite of how much he loved Amina, the blonde man typically avoided Venusian women. He'd heard some strange stories about them and, ahem... teeth where there ought not have been any teeth.

"Well if you hadn't been making 'real man' contests..." he muttered, making tiny finger quotes to emphasise his point. Real men can drink this, real men can bed that... pah! He was a real man! He had man bits, not lady bits, and he had plenty of swagger! He didn't need to be Jovian or anything drastic like that in order to slug a few back!

Though they admittedly made drinks extremely strong in the Jovian pubs. Extremely.

The idea of walking with this guy, however begrudgingly he had agreed to a truce between them, was not high on Khonsu's to-do list. "I'm fine right here actuallyyyyeeeeEEEEEE okay!" He was on his feet in spite of having not tried to get there, hauled by the brutish lug in front of him. Well then! Maybe he was gonna get a-walkin'!

Because he was kind of afraid of losing his arm or something else if he didn't.