I smiled to those gathered in the medbay, as Tokemi rushed up to me, wrapping her thin arms around me. “There you are, dad! We were just about to take off without you.” She said as she looked up mischievously at me. It was hard to believe that she had not aged a single day since she was ‘born’. Her body looked exactly the same then as it did now. Even her hair, which had been cut a few inches shorter at her request a couple years ago had not grown back.

It made me worried just how her life would be. With my magic, I could ensure that old age would not be a problem for me, but for her friends to all grow old around her, while only she remains in the body of a child. Even Tessa had already hit her teenage years, her body having long since grown past Tokemi.

Seeing her embrace me like that, I could only smile slightly as I brought my hand down to pat her head. “How’s your training going, young lady?” I asked her while moving over towards the clone prepared for myself. I needed to put Lex on my clone before I forgot, or else I might accidentally leave him in the ship.

“Going alright, I guess.” Tokemi said, holding one of my hands as she followed behind me. “I got another percentage for my affinity. And… I think I’ve worked out a cool little trick.” Suddenly, her eyes shot open, and she glanced at me with excitement. “Want to see, dad?”

I smiled, nodding my head as I put Lex on my clone’s finger, then moved to sit in one of the free chairs. “Alright, go ahead and show me. As long as it’s not going to hurt anyone.” When she heard that, she nodded her head heavily.

“It’s not an attack or anything like that. But… I need to concentrate really hard to make it work.” Saying that, Tokemi closed her eyes, and I extended my mana senses to watch what was going on around her.

I could easily feel a rush of time mana flowing towards her body for a split second, but then nothing. The time mana stopped moving towards her, but even more alarming was the fact that she disappeared! Not simple invisibility, any trace of her existence that I could detect with my senses had completely faded away.

Out of the group, only Yo did not seem too surprised by this. Everyone else gasped in alarm, and we quickly began to look back and forth, hoping that she had simply teleported somewhere. However, roughly five seconds after she vanished, Tokemi appeared in exactly the same spot she had left from. When she reappeared, she let out a heavy breath, but grinned up to me as if nothing happened.

“Cool, right?” She asked in a confident voice, obviously eager to be praised.

“What did you just do?” I had to ask. I had a feeling that I knew, but I didn’t want to voice my suspicions. Only for them to be proven true when she answered.

“I shifted myself a bit ahead. Umm… it should have just been a couple seconds, right?” The baishiro asked as she glanced around, noticing the alarm on people’s faces. “I didn’t go too far, did I?” Her face held a small amount of panic, as if she knew she made everyone worry.

“No… no, it’s okay.” I couldn’t help but try to reassure her when I saw that scene. “We just didn’t know what happened. But, you can time travel? When did that become a thing?”

Obviously, I knew that time travel was possible. If it wasn’t, none of us would be in this mess. I’d still be back on Earth as a NEET gamer, and Tokemi would have never even been born. But, this was the first time I had seen time travel outside of the Seeds.

“I guess about a week ago? I’ve been working on it for a while.” Tokemi’s face relaxed when she realized she wasn’t going to be punished, instead choosing to brag about her work. “You see, time mana actually changes its composition slightly over time. It took me a while to notice it, but when I did I started thinking. I studied the patterns for the changes, and when I was confident I tested it on Fluffums.”

Fluffums was the name of her stuffed Qu’Shin, the Qu’Lopti version of a six-legged dog. And yes, it’s pronounced cushion. “I only meant to send him a couple seconds ahead, but got it a bit wrong. Only by a minute or two, though! I had to isolate the time mana inside his body, and then shift it all at once to what I believed time mana would look like in the future. It’s… not easy.” She then began mumbling the rest under her breath, crossing her arms behind her back and tracing a circle on the ground with her foot.

“The further away you go in time, the more changes there are to time mana. Right now, ten seconds is all I can really work with, unless I memorize time mana from the past.” Hearing that, I was just about to ask a rather important question, before she raised her hands up in front of her, waving them to stop me. “I tried the whole traveling to the past thing with Fluffums. It… well, it didn’t go as I expected. I was hoping to end up with two Fluffums, since I could just change my mind and not send the original back after I got it.”

“But… when I tried that, it kinda worked? Not really, though. I got Fluffums to go back about five seconds. But, when I changed my mind about sending the original back, he did it on his own! I don’t know why…” At that, she sulked like a child that had its favorite toy taken away.

I nodded, quickly switching over to my clone after her explanation. Once done, I slowly got up, and smiled over to Tokemi. “Well, that would certainly be an interesting ability. But you have to always use it carefully. Time travel is very dangerous.” The girls around us all nodded heavily at that. We knew the effects of time travel first hand.

“Aww… alright, dad. I’ll save it for emergencies.” Tokemi said sullenly, though she still eagerly grabbed my hand when I got back up. Regardless of how old or young she looked, she was still not even six years old mentally and emotionally. Just the fact that she had figured out time travel was a testament to her natural skill with time.

“Good girl.” I said with a light chuckle. Tokemi really was a good kid. I’d probably have to think of something later to help with her aging issue. Maybe using my magic to shapeshift her body to look older would help.

“Hey guys, sorry we took so long!” The medbay door slid open, and Sharon, Yin, and Celeste walked in. To my surprise, the clothes they were wearing were anything but normal.

Sharon was wearing a blue, one piece swimsuit that practically only covered the front and her butt. On either side, it left off with straps that went around her back to hold it in place. On her head, she wore thick sunglasses and a domed, black hat with a wide brim. Instead of her usual sneakers, she was currently wearing sandals on her feat.

Yin was wearing a two piece bikini, white with yellow lightning bolts pointing towards the center on both the top and bottom. Her hair was neatly combed back, with a unique hairpin. The length of the pin was shaped like a lightning bolt, with a decorative bird token on top of it. In her arms, she held a small, green purse. Like Sharon, she was only wearing sandals.

Celeste was no better, wearing a pink one piece swimsuit. At the bottom of hers, she had a frilly skirt that went down several inches. In her hand, she held the wand we had gotten so long ago, the one that triggered the magical girl transformation. The wand seemed to complete the look, making her appear to be a magical girl even without the transformation.

“Did I miss something?” I asked as I saw the three of them walking in with swimsuits on.

Celeste giggled slightly before she explained. “It’s easy, John. You didn’t have a venue planned for our vacation, so I called up Maeve. She was happy to help us find a good beach to spend our time on. She even suggested a good store nearby for those of us without any swimming gear.”

Several of the girls let out ecstatic cheers, not having had the chance to swim since we left the Qu’Lopti homeworld. And, even though they had swimming pools, they were a rather short race, so most of them had only been able to enjoy the beaches, which happened to be teeming with monsters.

However, there were three girls that seemed dismayed by the announcement. Namely, they were Tokemi, Yo, and Yang. Tokemi was the first to step forward, speaking in a small voice as she admitted to the group. “But… I don’t know how to swim, though.” Because I had been so busy with the politics on the Qu’Lopti world, I had not had the chance to take Tokemi to a swimming pool or a beach to properly teach her. And, judging from this reaction, it looked like Sharon or Yin hadn’t either. In fact, Yang nodded her head abruptly, as if saying that was a problem for her as well. Well… for Yang it really is understandable. If her wings got wet, she might sink way too easily.

As for Yo… “Can I swim? I’ve never really tried.” She had a pensive look as she thought about it. On the one hand, her original form was that of a water slime, so there shouldn’t be an issue about her surviving in water. On the other… she was, after all, a slime. It was entirely possible that her body would spread out like goop once she entered the water.

Part of me was reminded about the ultimate evolution of the water slime, a path that Yo could have taken if we did not evolve her into a slime person. “You should be fine. Start small, and if you feel like you can hold your body together, it should be good.”

Yo seemed to be assured with my words, nodding her head. Though, her next words raised a very important point. “Do any of us have money for the Gerin worlds? How are we going to buy suits for everyone?”

Thankfully, Celeste came in with an answer. “That’s already been taken care of. Maeve is going to call ahead to the store, and let them know to expect us. We’re shopping on her tab today, so it’s fine.” When she heard that, I couldn’t help but notice how Yo got a wicked grin on her face.

“Sweet.” Her only reply to Celeste. “So, everyone ready, or are we waiting for someone?”

I looked around, seeing that everyone was accounted for. “I think we’re good.” The people that had yet to get into their clones yet, namely Tessa and her mom, did so and we immediately left to head for the teleport bay. Beth spent the entire time reminding Tessa of the various rules she would have to obey while we were at the beach. This was especially important, given that sharks were the least of our worries.

Tokemi kept holding my hand the entire way to the teleport bay, occasionally glancing to Tessa and her mom talking about safety. “Dad, is the water really that dangerous?” She asked timidly.

I shook my head, smiling down to her. “Well, it depends. Most places, it shouldn’t be. I doubt that Maeve would set us up with a beach that wasn’t secure. You shouldn’t have anything to worry about, as long as you listen to us.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, baby sis!” Yo called out from ahead, her head twisting back like an owl to smile at Tokemi. “If anything happens, we’re all here. Our dad fights gigantic empires set on dominating the galaxy, you think he’d be able to handle a little beach, right?” She gave a little wink in my direction before twisting her head the rest of the way around to look ahead again. Thankfully, her slime neck quickly adjusted so that it was not obvious she twisted it all the way. That would be a little bit creepy, to be honest.

Her words, though, did seem to do the job and cheer up Tokemi. The small foxgirl nodded her head with a smile. “That’s right, dad’s the best.” She said with a confident tone, making me feel rather proud of myself. Not just because my pseudo-daughter was praising me like that, but also because of how strong Tokemi herself was. Given her mastery over time, I wasn’t even sure if I could beat her in a fight.

That reminded me of one of the reasons that I wanted to go down to the world in the first place, so I looked over to Celeste to ask about it. However, she simply smiled, nodding her head. “I went ahead and brought them. I figured we could all enjoy a day at the beach.”

I was not entirely sure how an AI stuck on a soft stick could enjoy a day at the beach, but I had a feeling I’d be finding out soon. By the time we were done talking, we had found our way to the teleport bay, and were ready to beam down to the planet.