“Alright, men! Move out!...Let’s do this. Our gods are watching over us! The Imperium shall prevail!” roared the Captain of a small-elite force of turtle-kin soldiers.The turtlekin were exactly what they sounded like. They were humanoid reptiles, with their abdomens covered by thick heavy shells.

With their human-like faces, and beaked mouths, they strongly resembled a certain breed of shelled, cucumber-loving, water yokai. Alternatively, if the turtle-kin walked around in Ninja-cosplay, you might consider asking if there was an old rat-kin around who was serving as their teacher.

Less than ten minutes after all those turtle-kin climbed into their hover-transports, motorcycles, and cars, they were reduced to ash. The ash quickly disintegrated into carbon vapor and traffic within the city of Prospero was only backed up for about five minutes that afternoon.

Similar things happened, elsewhere within the state of Arcadia and an entire moon might have ended up being incinerated as well. The point being, that Monty’s aptness at catching those foolish enough to plot against their family before they could do any damage was continually improving.

Some people were just intimidated into rethinking their ill-formed plans. Others were summarily destroyed. Others still were goaded into acting, for the sole purpose of giving Monty an excuse to annihilate them and everyone associated with them.

Henrietta found it slightly humorous that her normally easy-going husband technically operated his affairs with more forbidding, heavy-handedness, than your average authoritarian dictatorship. She’d even said as much once, while teasing him. Monty then made a face and said that he was actually well-received during the few times he found himself as the head of a state.

Which led to a discussion of when, and how many times, the man had found himself running the helm of a country. Which somehow led to some fairly enjoyable sexual cosplay with Monty wearing a crown and robe, while Henrietta was his queen, in invisible robes. At some Maci popped in to watch. So overall, it was a fairly excellent Wednesday afternoon, for all involved.

Now it was Thursday, and Henrietta’s day was going a little less great, though admittedly she was still doing marginally better than the reptile shinobi’s that had just been disintegrated.

A few of the alien worlds that the company had started to expand its reach to, were trying to play hardball regarding trade rights, because of ongoing friction between them and earth.

Then more personally, Henrietta’s experiments with trying to marry a new alchemically-created form of iridium with the carbon-polymers most commonly used in biological augmentation, just wasn’t happening as it should. The iridium either refused to make the key electron linkages, or it reacted with chemicals that it wasn’t supposed to even be able to react to.

Just as Henrietta found herself getting hot under the collar, the internal app that she’d replaced her phone with once she went full cyborg, informed her that she had something else scheduled for the day.

Henrietta checked her calendar and found that she was supposed to head over to the kids’ school today, there was some kind of game going on. It took her a second to recall that Harold and Blair were on the school’s baseball team, and she’d promised her sons that she would be there.

A part of Henrietta was tempted to just let the matter lie. She knew Monty would be there, because Monty was there for everything. Literally, everything. It was a common joke between the women of the Kaylan household, that their children had no secrets, because there was always a Monty-clone looking over their shoulders 24/7. Thankfully, the man was aware of the potential issue, but that meant that everyone had to deal with Monty sighing and moaning about the days when he’d have to pull away a bit, to allow the kids to grow up and be their own people.

Ultimately, Henrietta found herself joining her husband when he was about to depart for the Watts Academy. She’d always hated it when her own parents missed her events, even if she’d also been aware that they couldn’t help it and were busy doing work for the family. Henrietta on other hand, ‘could’ help it. She was her own boss, and nothing she was doing was something that couldn’t wait. Thus it was off to the game she went.

The game itself wasn’t that bad. She and Monty met with the kids who didn’t have a game going that day, or any after school clubs. A list that was just made up by Blair and Tau, because Blair was super engaged in her own home lab work, and she found the school’s Science Club a bit parochial and rudimentary. According to Blair, she'd been playing with motors and circuit boards since before she was four, now that she was almost ten, the girl had bigger fish to fry.

In the end, the Watts Academy team lost, but that was okay because both teams got a pizza party just for participating. An outcome that grated on Henrietta’s nerves just a little, due to her own hyper-competitive, likely unhealthy, upbringing. Participation prizes didn’t exist as far as the Albani family was concerned. It was either succeed or be reduced to an asset. Which thankfully, wasn’t how the Kaylan family operated.

Speaking of the Albani family, Henrietta happened to spot one of her cousins in the stand. They ended up meeting up for a bit and chatting while Henrietta was buying snacks for Blair and Tau.

Apparently, a few more members of the Albani family had ended up moving to Arcadia, because the Albani Corporation had opened up offices in Arcadia.

This news took Henrietta by surprise, it was also just a bit unnerving, because it wasn’t like Henrietta was completely out of the loop. She was still in touch with her Albani kin. A little research helped Henrietta calm her nerves, because she realized it was probably just a minor thing.

The Albani Corporation had done well for itself, especially thanks to its cooperative deals with Henrietta and Monty’s Doorknocker Solutions. So ultimately, Henrietta took it as a bit of surprise good news. She didn’t hate her family, even if they’d always been a bit too demanding and competitive and it would be nice to be able to see them more often.

Later, after the game, Henrietta found herself back in her lab. This time she had Blair in tow. Blair had her own little lab, but Henrietta liked to be there to supervise when the girl used the bigger, more dangerous equipment. Blair seemed to love working in the lab with her mother so the arrangement suited both the mother and child, perfectly.

Henrietta was still plainly having no success trying to marry her alchemical-iridium with the synthetic flesh amples she was working with. Suddenly she heard a little voice from the corner of the lab.

“Um, Mom, I think it did something,” said Blair. Taking off her goggles as she stepped away from her miniature version of Henrietta’s set up.

Henrietta walked over and then her eyes went wide.

“Huh...That's damned impressive my little einstein,” said Henrietta. Taking off her gloves so she could ruffle her little girl’s hair.

Blair hadn’t succeeded in marrying the iridium to the carbon polymers either. What she ‘had’ done however, was discover why the polymers weren’t mixing. Forcing a reaction that released a fair amount of magical radiation that probably would have been more problematic if either the little girl or her mother, were regular humans.

“Do you know what time it is, my sweet?” said Henrietta.

“Time to write a report on my process so we can design an experiment to see if the results can be repeated?” said Blair. Sounding excited.

Henrietta grinned and nodded.

“Clever, girl. Let’s get to it, shall we?” said Henrietta. Giving her daughter a hug.