Wingless

The little girl looked at Ethan and Scarlett with a fearful face. She was sitting in the middle while Scarlett and Ethan surrounded her, looking at her as if she was some exotic being. 

She could only make growling noises to make them move, but they didn't. These giant things! 

Her blood ran cold as Scarlett poked her hair with those giant fingers.

Ethan slapped Scarlett's hand and said, "Don't be rude to her. She is our guest."

Scarlett showed her tongue. "Why doesn't she have any wings? I thought fairies have wings." She couldn't ask the girl directly as she lacked the language proficiency that Ethan seemed to have due to some weird luck.

"What is your name, little one?" Ethan asked.

The girl's gaze was still roaming around in search of an escape, but she saw none, especially since these giants were faster than her. Her eyes focused back on Ethan, who seemed like the nicer one of the two.

"My name is…" The girl looked anxious, but Ethan gave her a reassuring smile. "My name is Emmy. May I go? Emmy's mother and father would be waiting for her, Big Brother. Emmy has to go!"

Ethan was speechless. This girl was something!

At first, she tried to act as if she had died, like he and Scarlett were a bear or something. Then, she was here, making an attempt at a cuteness attack. Thankfully, he had some resistance, near immunity against those, having fought against Scarlett's similar prowess from a young age.

He was a stoic man. Or so he liked to believe himself to be.

"Emmy, do you want to go?" 

"Hum, Hum," she nodded like a bird pecking rice.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"Humans are not allowed there!" She grew defensive, "Emmy's grandpa beats up all humans who come."

Ethan's eyes twitched for a brief second.

Was this some kind of survival instinct? Throwing out detail after detail, which would make enemies hesitate to kill her one after the other. Was she taught to do this?

She didn't seem particularly intelligent, like a child lost in the wilderness.

"So, girl, why are you here? How long were you here?" 

Anyways, these little beings seemed to have a colony of themselves around here, so why was she here? This was supposed to be a bear cave, after all. Was she planning to be food for the bear?

The girl walked around nervously in between their encirclement.

"Emmy was running away from home, and night fell… Huge storm! Huge!" She emphasized the word. "And Emmy saw the light inside and jumped in but didn't see you two because of exhaustion."

Her listeners became silent.

Scarlett said to Ethan wryly, "She seems afraid of us one second and unafraid the next. Really, what a quirky girl. Can I adopt her?"

"Turn into your fairy form and surprise her, maybe?" he asked.

The girl looked at them in confusion. She couldn't understand the English that the other two were conversing in, after all. She scrunched up her face.

Suddenly, Scarlett's eyes shined, and she transformed her own figure without much thought. The girl was stunned and yelped in fear before moving towards Ethan. They had done a little good cop-bad cop tactic on her, so she was obviously less afraid of Ethan.

She seemed to have an inherent fear of humans, but at the same time, it was not too ingrained. In a calm fashion, a red-haired girl, half a palm-sized, walked towards her.

Her beautiful little emerald eyes widened. 

Scarlett was even more majestic than she had been in the bar. 

She had red, flaming hair, green eyes like the girl, and a small stature but a hundred times more mature charm. She looked at Emmy haughtily as a pair of crystalline butterfly wings spread out behind her. Even though she was in a simple T-shirt and trousers, that only made her more exotic with her curvy figure. She looked like a doll.

Haughty and arrogant, little Scarlett looked down at the girl half her size with her hands on her hips. Suavely, she moved her own hair to the side, and the fairy before her was completely stunned.

"Fai…Fairy!" the girl exclaimed. "Wings!!!"

Ethan looked at her curiously. His eyes burned as if blue embers were simmering inside. He smiled softly. Her Fairy mode was a mixture of her abilities, namely, [Body Manipulation] to shift her size, [Dress Copy] to change her clothes to a similar size, [Fire Ball] for the fiery hair, and [Butterfly Wings] for the wings. The use of the Transmission ability also made her eyes turn green.

It not only helped to change her appearance, it also made her stronger. This was her most efficient fighting style. In this form, as long as Ethan didn't move using teleports, he really didn't stand a chance against her in a fight. 

She could move like a housefly around her attackers, and being small, it would be hard to hit her. Fireballs could come at you any time, and Transmission could make you lose focus in surprise, or she could cooperate with her allies with conversations in the middle of battles. She also had an unused ability here, Pillar of Protection, which she could use in case of dangerous attacks or AOE attacks came at her.

She was a cute little thing but just as dangerous. Yet, he wondered how she would compare to cultivators. He tapped her little head with his finger, and her haughty look was broken. She growled out, "What?"

"Nothing, very cool. Carry on," he said.

She furrowed her brows in irritation, her mood turning sour. Was it a sarcasm?

Clicking her tongue, she looked at the awed girl before her once more. Then, asked in Emmy's language, "Where are your wings, little one?" of course, she hadn't learned the language as of yet; she had just cheated by asking Ethan through voice Transmission.

Emmy dramatically took deep breaths and, a second later, began to cry.

Both Scarlett and Ethan were startled.