The new adopted family made their way down the stairs and into the kitchen. Though nobody knew what they were doing, that didn't stop the gods from trying to educate themselves. While Vadina looked around for the necessary—or at least what she thought was necessary—materials for making a cake, Kiera tried searching the mostly barren cupboards for a cookbook. Jak pulled an apron from the lazy suzan, faded lettering on the front that had once spelled 'Kiss the Cook'. What was it doing there anyways?

"Ah! I've found it!" Kiera proudly waved a book entitled 101 Easy to Make Cakes as if it were a gold medal that she had just won at the olympics. The other gods huddled around her as she threw the book on the counter with a loud THUMP. Kiera opened the book up to the extensive table of contents. "So, what kind of cake are we making, exactly?"

Jak shrugged. "This selection doesn't exactly narrow it down or make it easy. It's got everything from Mint Oreo to Chocoholic to Red Velvet and-"

"Bacon!" Vadina jumped up and pointed to the recipe, eyes sparkling as she nearly slobbered over the pages.

Kiera looked closer at the book, reading the words Vadina was pointing to. "Huh, never would have figured. Is that even legal?"

"The real question is if it's any good." Jak pointed out, stroking his chin even though he sported no real beard.

"It has to!" Vadina stated confidently.

Kiera flipped through the pages of the cookbook until she found the recipe for the bacon cake. "Well, if we want to eat this now I could just summon-"

"No." Vadina cut her new mother off, stamping her foot indignantly. "It won't be as much fun if we don't actually make the cake. How else are we supposed to bond as a family?"

"Uh," Jak began. "I may be going out on a limb here, but how about—I don't know—we just eat the thing as a family?"

Vadina shook her head and clicked her tongue. "That would be like cheating. We need to physically bake the cake together so that we can increase the parent to child bond."

"If you say so." Kiera said. She looked through the ingredients, and one by one the necessary food items appeared on the counter. "All we need to do now is follow the instructions."

"How hard can that be?" Vadina asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Well," Jak started, but before he could say more he was cut off by Kiera.

"Let's get started!"

* * * * * * *

After plenty of failures and fires extinguished later, somehow the three gods had managed to successfully make a cake. Frosting was much easier than baking. Kiera had coated the desert in grey icing and spelled out "A New Beginning" in aqua frosted calligraphy. It was almost impossible to eat something that they had worked so hard on. Almost.

Kiera looked at the cake with satisfaction. She had made it six tiers tall with the diameter of the largest tier being about seven feet in length. Carefully cutting three slices from the masterpiece and putting them on plates, Kiera served her family.

"We did it!" Vadina cheered.

"Now to see what this abomination tastes like." Jak announced, preparing to stab his fork into the curiosity that laid on his plate.

"To family!" Kiera announced.

"Amen." Jak and Vadina followed.

After simultaneously digging into their cake, Jak and Kiera took a moment to process what they had just put in their mouths.

"It's...crunchy." Jak offered.

"Never expected a cake to be this salty." Kiera followed.

"It's amazing!" Vadina scarfed down the rest of her food while Jak and Kiera engaged themselves in a telepathic conversation.

<That was disgusting.> Kiera noted.

<Agreed.>

<There's no way that I can eat this.>

<Well, we'll figure something out.>

The two were interrupted by Vadina glomping them. "Thank you for everything!"

While Jak stood stiff as a board with no idea what he should do, Kiera smiled and ran her fingers through Vadina's hair. "You're welcome."

Vadina tilted her head so she looked up at her adopted parents with a huge smile. The pair of third-level gods were completely caught by surprise as their daughter smirked and then smushed two fistfuls of cake into their faces. Vadina giggled as Kiera wiped cake out of her eyes and Jak raised an eyebrow.

Kiera crossed her arms. "Dina..." She looked to Jak and grinned.

"You really shouldn't have done that."

Vadina became anxious at the tones in their voice, but immediately relaxed when she saw both of her adoptive parents reaching for the cake. The young goddess squealed and ran off, but Kiera evaporated and then resolidified in front of her daughter so that she directly ran into a fistful of cake. Vadina smiled as she looked up at her new mother.

"This. Means. War!" Kiera announced, shaking her fists to the sky.

At that moment, the angel felt something hit her shoulder. She looked behind her to see her husband with a crazier-than-usual smile on his face and grey frosting covering his fingertips.

Kiera scoffed and rested her hand on her chest. "You dare to strike Kiera, Goddess of Anarchy, with mere cake!?" She exclaimed.

Jak shrugged, eyes twinkling with childish pride. "Maybe."

Kiera shook her head. "You asked for it." As the goddess scooped up handfuls of cake, Jak took his position standing atop the table with Vadina running to take refuge behind the shield that was the couch. Kiera lobbed a chunk of cake, hitting Jak square in the chest. He just brushed it off and threw whatever had bounced off him and onto the floor. Kiera successfully dodged his attack by doing a backflip over the sugary projectile. Jak decided that this would be a good time to see how far Kiera could go. Faster than a human eye could track he threw globs of cake at his spouse.

"Dance, fool!" He joked.

Kiera seemed amused by his attempts, nimbly avoiding each of the globs of cake. Jak rabbed an entire tier of cake, hurling it at Kiera with superhuman strength. In the blink of an eye, Kiera summoned Hakai and Kyōki, slicing the tier in an x-fashion so that it split into four perfect pieces.

Not wanting to be left out of the fun, Vadina decided to join in on the mayhem. She quickly ran in and threw the pieces of the quartered tier at Jak and Kiera. Jak was able to duck and dodge this attack, but Kiera was not as lucky. Grey frosting was caked all throughout the mechanisms of her wings, cake bits lodged in the gears and hinges.

A shock of fear rolled through Vadina's body as Kiera's head dropped and her shoulders sank. Had she killed her?

"Ma?" Vadina tried.

Kiera's head snapped up and Vadina squealed again as grey light wrapped around her mother like a blanket, crackling like lightning. The light began to take shame and formed a ring of daggers floating in mid-air. Kiera smiled maniacally and Vadina hid once more behind the couch. When she heard nothing whiz past her head, she decided to take a look at the situation. Vadinia brought her head up to the edge of the couch to see that the daggers had morphed into a giant scrubbing brush that was cleaning out Kiera's wings.

Kiera spotted Vadina and stopped only to throw a small piece of cake that landed right between Vadina's eyes. She dramatically fell back, crying, "I've been shot!"

Kiera appeared in front of Vadina, leaning over her. "Any last words before this miserable life of yours comes to an end?" She played along.

"I see a bright light!" Vadina reached out in front of her, taking her 'final breaths' before collapsing and 'dying.'

Just at that moment, Kruphix appeared. A scowl was prominent on his face as he looked around him at the mess that was the living room.

"What in the hell went on here?" He bellowed.

"Things." Jak answered simply, a lock of his white hair sticking up at a weird angle and covered in grey.

Kruphix rolled his eyes. "Well, obviously things went on!" He snapped. "I mean why is everything grey and sugar coated?"

"We baked a cake!" Vadina answered. "Ma and Pa and I made a bacon cake!"

"Ma!?" Kruphix pulled on the ends of his hair. "Pa!?" He looked at the two elder gods. "You'd better explain what's going on right now!"

"Well..." Jak started, looking to Kiera to explain.

Kiera flicked more frosting out of her wings. "We adopted Vadina." She said almost like she didn't care.

"What!?" Kruphix's eyes blazed with anger. "You two are barely responsible enough to remember if you did a load of laundry or not! How in the world did you think it was a good idea to adopt a child?! You're practically children yourselves!"

"Kruphix, I've never had a real, loving family and neither has Jak!" Kiera exclaimed. "Maybe somehow we can all help each other heal this way."

"You know better than anyone that the sins of others don't need to be paid for by you!" Kruphix scolded. "You're becoming a parent for the wrong reason!"

"I want to be a mother! I want to raise Vadina! I want to care for her! I want to be there for her when she falls down!" Kiera argued. "If those aren't the right reasons then I don't know what are."

"You're adopting a child without being married! That's almost as bad as actually having one!" Kruphix raved.

"Actually, we've been married for about three years now." Jak interjected.

Kruphix laughed. "You couldn't have been married! I wasn't invited to any wedding and I heard nothing about you two getting hitched!"

"Because we didn't want you there!" Kiera shot back.

"What kind of sister doesn't invite her own brother to her wedding?"

"Me!"

Vadina couldn't take this anymore. She scooped a chunk of cake of the floor, then walked up to Kruphix. Tugging on his cloak to get his attention, she was met with a sour look. "You're Ma's brother?"

Kruphix blinked in surprise. "Yes...I am."

Vadina smiled and smashed the cake all over Kruphix's face, causing Kiera to giggle and Jak to smirk. "So that would make you my Uncle Kruphy!"

Instead of blowing up like everyone expected him to, Kruphix nonchalantly wiped the frosting out of his eyes and sighed. "I guess this means I have a niece."

"Yay!" Vadina glomped her uncle and laughed like a younger child. "Can you give me a piggyback ride?"

Kruphix raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you sixteen?"

"Yeah. So?"

Kruphix groaned and lifted his niece onto his back. "You people will drive me to drink one of these days."

Kiera groaned. "Oh, shut up and just throw the freaking cake already!" She scooped up another chunk of cake, hurling it so it splattered all over her brother's chest. "Like that!"

He grimaced. "This is one of my favorite cloaks!" He frowned at Kiera. "Oh, that's it!" He grabbed an entire tier of cake like Jak had previously done. "It is on!"

"Bring it!"

The sound of the merriment amongst the four gods echoed throughout the evening sky, for all to hear. One could only wonder what was really going on after that moment.