*Katarina’s House*

We were all sitting in one of the lounges of Katarina’s house. Violetta and I were fully clothed after our tumbling around earlier. She and I were sitting on the couch leaning against each other while Katarina and Flarea were sitting in chairs opposite of us. I honestly felt like we were going to get “The Talk” or something the way Flarea was looking at us.

I coughed, “So… What are we doing here?” Flarea just stared at us, but Katarina just laughed. After a few more seconds of silence Katarina spoke up, “I understand the need for physical contact, but you should honestly pick a better place for it. Or at least lock the door or something.” Violetta glared at her mom, “You guys leaned against the door so much it fell off its hinges. A lot of good locking the door would have done in that situation.”

Katarina coughed and then looked away from us. Flarea decided to speak up, “Was it good?” I was actually taking a drink of some whisky that Katarina left on the table and spit it out when she asked that question. I could feel my face warm up and I looked down at the bottom of my glass. Violetta stammered a response out, “W…W… Why do you need to know that!?” Flarea grinned and then shrugged her shoulders, “Just curious.”

Katarina spoke up before taking a sip of her whisky, “From what I saw she loved it.” I hadn’t taken another drink so I wasn’t able to spit anything up, but I did try and hide behind the whisky glass. I have no clue why this entire situation was so embarrassing and why Violetta was all of a sudden embarrassed, but it and she was. It may have had something to do with the fact that it was her mom and best friend, but neither one of them seemed to mind. Of course it may have to do with something else, because she was fine with telling them I made it to home base multiple times earlier.

I don’t know why Flarea was staring at us so hard at the beginning, but I was quickly given an answer to my question. She stared at Violetta a minute and then spoke, “Are you at least using your powers to prevent pregnancy?” I widened my eyes and then looked over at Violetta. I honestly completely forgot about the possibility of pregnancy. Violetta weakly shook her head, “Yeah, he isn’t powerful enough to protect a family yet. Once he is able to prove himself as my boyfriend or husband against the other suitors then maybe we could start one, but not yet.

I released a breath that I didn’t know I was holding and I felt Violetta glare at me. I looked at her and she was puffing her cheeks out, “Is having a baby with me that scary for you?” I quickly shook my head, “No, not at all dear. I just agree with you one hundred percent. I want to be able to guarantee my family’s safety and I can’t do that right now. Plus, I don’t think I am ready for a child yet.”

Katarina laughed, “No one is ready for a child Caelum. I was a millions of years old and still wasn’t ready for a kid when I had Xavier.” Before I could say anything she continued speaking, “When you have kids everything changes. It is no longer about you anymore. You have a little bundle of joy that used to be a part of you… that needs you. You can’t just go running off on adventures and stuff when they are born. You need to be there for them until they are ready to go off on their own. Even then you probably won’t want to let them go.” She was looking at Violetta the entire time and had an expression of love on her face.

I smiled, “I understand what you are saying completely. I don’t want to have a kid that may be put in harm’s way because of me. I need to be strong enough people will think twice before even attempting to target my family. If I am that strong then maybe I can just hang out at home for a while.” As soon as the words left my mouth I remembered the words that Violet told me. The universes are under constant threats from the outside and I may possibly be needed to protect it alongside her.

At point in time no one in any of the universes will be able to threaten my family while I am alive. I thought about some other question that I had and I decided to ask a few of them, “I have some questions that I forgot to ask you earlier.” She raised an eyebrow, “Oh? What are they?” I sat at the edge of the couch, “First off, how exactly are you able to live so long?” She laughed, “Once you reach the System Soldier level of power you basically gain immortality, but you can still be killed and die from really strong poisons.”

I nodded my head, “Okay second question, how do you raise your level of power?” The look on her face turned a little serious at that question, “Well there are actually a couple of ways you can go about raising your power. The easiest, but the slowest way, for you, is to meditate and gather your powers element into your body. Once the level of elemental energy in your body reaches a certain threshold it will bump you up a level.”

She continued speaking, “The second way is to kill a lot of people of your power level and absorb their power. You can absorb their energy from their body and let your body convert the energy into your respective element. This way would normally be the slowest way for normal people, but you can control any element under the light and dark. This includes the neutral elements. Well, you can only control the neutral elements and dark element right now, but the light should come later.”

She paused a second before continuing, “The third and possibly the fastest way is to kill someone of a higher level of power than you and absorb there life force. This way is actually kind of frowned upon by most of the universes, because of the absorption of life force. Once you absorb someone’s life force you are basically absorbing their soul. This denies them any chance at reincarnation or rest once they die.”

I was shocked at the ways of raising my power and sat there for a minute thinking. After a minute or two I spoke to her, “So basically if I want to raise my power at a significant speed I need to kill a lot of people?” She nodded her head, “That or kill one person of a higher level and absorb their soul.” I shook my head, “I really don’t want to deny someone the chance of rest after death or reincarnation, but if they are truly evil or attack my friends and loved ones then fuck it. I will eat their soul in a heartbeat. Not sure if that is being hypocritical or not, but if my friends and loved ones are in danger I don’t give a fuck.”

Katarina smiled and nodded her head, “So I guess it’s one of the first two ways then?” I nodded, “Yeah for now it will be the first way until I am at least a System Fighter. Once I get to the System Fighter level of power then I can start my assassination career or challenge other System Fighters.” She furrowed her brows, “Why not a System Soldier? At the System Soldier level you can survive in space or even underwater, because you really don’t need to breathe.”

I shrugged my shoulders, “System Soldiers seem like they would be really common in our system, so I figured I would try for System Fighters because they wouldn’t be as common.” She nodded, “You’re not wrong on that note. System Soldiers are everywhere in this solar system there are even a bunch on earth. System Fighters on the other hand aren’t common. In the entire solar system there are probably a few thousand. As for beings at the System Lord level they are around a couple hundred. The one at the top is the actually Lord of their respective Solar System though.”

I raised an eyebrow, “I take it that is you?” She smiled, “Yup.” I decided to has her a question, “If you have been alive for a few hundred million years then why aren’t you stronger than a System Lord?” She sighed, “I honestly could be, but when my husband died I didn’t have a reason to grow any stronger. I decided to just stay on Earth and protect the Solar System from invaders.”

I continued to stare at her, “What if another System Lord was to try for your spot as the ruling System Lord?” She shrugged her shoulders, “Then they would challenge me and if I lost they would become the new ruling System Lord.” I widened my eyes, “Wouldn’t that mean that you would die!?” She laughed and shook her head, “Not necessarily, as long as I don’t agree to a death match then I won’t die from the challenge.”

I continued to ask questions, “What is stopping them from just killing you though.” She smiled, “The universe.” I was shocked, “The universe?” She nodded and took a drink of her whisky, “Yes, every universe has its own set of laws that every being must follow. Most of them are all the same set of laws, but there are some universe’s that have completely different laws. My son actually told me of a universe that required every being to kill someone once a year after they reached adult hood for their species. If they didn’t follow this law they would be struck down by the universe and their soul would be extinguished.”

I gasped, “Why would there be a universe like that?” She shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know. That’s something you would have to ask the universe, which is impossible to do.” I sighed, “Remind me to avoid that universe if I can.” She laughed, “Noted.” I looked around and noticed that Flarea and Violetta actually left the room without me noticing. Katarina spoke up, “They left a few minutes ago.”

I nodded my head and looked back at her, “So I guess I should get back to practicing.” She smiled, “Mind if I tag along?” I squinted at her, “I don’t mind, but why?” She shrugged her shoulders again, “Just want to. That and your powers may go hay wire and in the training room you would be very powerful due to no limiter.” I stared at her for a minute before I nodded my head and headed towards the training room.

*Violetta’s POV*

Flarea and I decided to leave mom and Caelum talking while we went to hang out in my room. I was sitting on my bed cross-legged with a pillow in my lap while Flarea was lying across the bed with her feet on the floor. She smiled and looked over at me, “So, you going to answer my question from earlier or not?” I raised an eyebrow, “Which one?” She rolled over and put her chin in her hands, “Was it good or not?”

I smiled, “It was actually amazing.” She snorted, “It couldn’t be that amazing; I mean he only has a few years of experience at most.” I smiled, “It really doesn’t matter how good their technique or skill is as long as you love them.” Flarea snorted again, “You love him? You pretty much just met him.” I shrugged my shoulders and held on to my pillow, “That doesn’t matter honestly. I feel like I love him so I do.”

She smiled, “And why do you feel like you love him? What about him makes you love him?” I furrowed my brows and thought for a minute. I put my pillow up to my chin, “I honestly don’t know. I thought maybe it was because the remnant of Xavier told me to love him and protect him, but now I don’t know. After the mission in Iraq and the situation on the plane I don’t know how I feel. All I know is that I don’t want to leave him and I don’t want him to leave me.”

She smiled at me again, “You may really love him. Honestly love is one of those things that nobody can really explain. I honestly believe that when someone asks why they love them and their lover answers with things like; I love your nose, your laugh, your smile, your etc. that really isn’t love. I don’t really know how to explain it myself, but I believe that love is just there. It has no rhyme or reason to why it is there, it just is. If it was about all those things such as smiles, laughs, personalities, and whatever then how do you explain love at first sight? I know that a lot of supposed “love at first sight” is just infatuation or lust, but what about true love at first sight? It has been known to happen; there have been people that meet someone and marry each other the next day. Normally you would think it wouldn’t last a week, but there have been cases of those marriages lasting for decades.”

I looked at Flarea, “I never thought about love too much to be honest.” She laughed, “Most people don’t think about love until it happens. There are universes that have people that understand the meaning of life, but even they can’t figure out this thing called love.” I looked at her, “They know the meaning of life?” She laughed, “Well they think they do, but I kind of agree with them on it.”

I raised an eyebrow, “What do they think is the meaning of life?” She sighed, “Honestly they and I believe that there is no meaning of life. We believe that we are just here. If there honestly a true meaning behind our life then why would we have free will? I believe that we are here because something wanted us to be here. If they had a meaning or reason behind placing us here then they wouldn’t have given us free will. If anything it was bored and wanted some entertainment.”

I snickered, “So they don’t really “know” the meaning of life, the entire universe just has a common idea of what the meaning of life really is.” She went blank for a minute before she shrugged her shoulders, “You know that actually makes sense.” I laughed and shook my head, “Now back to the love topic. You said that you really don’t think about it until it happens, does that mean that you were in love once?”

She sat up and sat cross-legged on the bed across from me, “I honestly thought I was one time. I met this guy at a party and he came off as this amazing man. I felt my heart race just looking at him and I couldn’t find words when I tried to talk to him. I automatically thought that I was in love, but after a bit of dating we had our first time together and all the feelings just disappeared. I realized that I really wasn’t in love with him, but I thought that I was. After we had sex the feelings were gone and I realized that I was just lusting after him. My form of lust was just really close to what people call love, so I instantly thought it was as well.”

I smiled, “Was the sex good at least?” She laughed, “It was alright. His dick was a little on the small side.” I laughed, “I thought size didn’t matter.” She snorted, “Any woman that says that is lying their ass off. If you love the man then you can forget about it and not really care, but it does matter when it comes to how good the sex can be.” I was confused, “I thought if a guy could make us orgasm then it was good sex?” She laughed, “If a guy can make you orgasm that is a very good thing, but if they can make you orgasm more than once isn’t that better?”

I nodded my head in agreement, “More than one of anything is always better.” She smiled, “Exactly!” She scooted closer to me, “So how many times did you orgasm during sex with Caelum?” I raised an eyebrow, “Which time?” She grinned, “Anytime, it doesn’t matter when.” I thought about it and then spoke to her, “I think there was this one time that it was one short of double digits so nine.”

Flarea widened her eyes, “Nine fucking times! What the hell?” I laughed, “He actually has amazing stamina, even though we took each other’s first time just a bit ago.” Flarea stared at me wide eyed for a little bit before she shook her head, “Damn girl, even I have only had like three orgasms and that was when I was with two guys at the same time.” I raised my eyebrows, “You fucked two guys at once?” She waved her hand, “Yeah, but I wouldn’t really recommend it.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Why not?” Not that I would ever have sex with another man besides Caelum. She laughed, “It was awkward as hell to be honest. We couldn’t get in the right positions for anything comfortable, so they ended up taking turns.” I grinned, “Well aren’t you just the little slut.” Flarea laughed, “Eventually the right man will come around and I won’t have to fuck around so much.” I shook my head, “Maybe your fucking around is preventing the right guy from coming around.” She stiffened at that comment, but before she could say anything there was a loud boom and the house shook.

*Caelum’s POV*

I was leaning against the wall groaning in pain. I looked over and saw that my left arm was twisted and there was a bone sticking out. I used my right arm to help myself stand up and then I had to hold my left arm because every single movement sent pain through it. I gritted my teeth and then glared at Katarina.

She was in a karate pose in the middle of the training room. She grinned at me, “You were hurt by that little of a punch? I seriously wonder how you could even entertain my daughter in bed with a body like that, pitiful.” She shook her head and then made a come her gesture with her out stretched hand.

At this moment Violetta and Flarea burst into the training room. They saw Katarina in the middle of the room and then saw me standing in front of a small crater in the wall. Violetta saw my arm and she panicked, “Caelum!” She started to move towards me, but Katarina yelled at her, “Don’t go near him!” Violetta stopped for a second and glared at her mom, but she continued to move towards me. Katarina yelled again with more power, “I said stop!” I saw Violetta stumble, but she kept walking.

I smiled and spoke to her, “I am alright, go back to Flarea.” She stopped walking and stared at me for a minute before moving back by Flarea. I smiled at her again and then gripped my left arm with my right. I gritted my teeth and then gave my arm a twist. The pain was instantaneous and caused me to yell out a little. Violetta started to move again, but I stopped her. I lined the bones up the best that I could and I could actually feel them start to heal.

After a minute or two the bone was together again, but it wasn’t healed completely. There was still a hole in my arm and blood was running down it, but it I could move it again. Painfully move it that is. I glared at Katarina, “I thought you weren’t going to use power above mine?” She grinned, “That was before you started to beat me with your technique.” I laughed, “It’s just something I made up with different stuff from the different styles of fighting from Earth.”

I laughed, “Well it covers the weaknesses and emphasizes the strengths of the styles very well. You were actually proficient enough in it that I couldn’t find any openings.” I smiled, “It’s thanks to your sons powers.” She shook her head, “I think it is actually thanks to that bastard’s power that you were able to learn martial arts so easily.”

I stepped back into the ring, “So, now what?” She smiled, “Overcome the strength difference with technique.” I gritted my teeth and went into a combat stance. Moving my left arm still hurt, but I managed to get it up. We stared at each other for a few minutes before I made my move. I launched towards her and threw a punch with my right fist. She dodged to the left and I spun my body towards the left as well. I threw my left elbow backwards towards her face.

She planted her left foot and pushed backwards, causing my elbow to miss. I faced her again and sent a kick to her side. She stepped back and then after my kick missed she stepped back forward. She moved towards me and tried to punch my open side. I dropped my upper body and supported myself with my arms. Pain went through my left arm and caused me to lose a little power as I kicked backwards like a horse with my left leg.

She dropped her fist down and used her palm to push my kick towards the ground. My kick missed her and I used my palms that were on the ground to pull myself away. I rolled forward and stood back up. I turned to face her and saw a fist coming towards my face. I immediately dropped down like I was going to sit and twisted my body to the left from the ground.

As I twisted I brought my right leg up and swung a kick into her side. There was a boom as my kick actually broke the sound barrier and my leg landed on her side. She didn’t move and the kick didn’t even faze her. She let go of her fighting stance and stepped back. I stood up and looked at her. She smiled, “Nice capoeira kick1 there that actually caught me by surprise.” I smiled, “If we were of the same strength that would have hurt you pretty good.”

She nodded, “Yes it would have, but remember something. Everyone can use a power or powers and they are the deciding factor of a fight most of the time. If you were to just fight on technique alone there wouldn’t be many that could beat you in the universe.” I nodded, “I understand. I won’t stop practicing my martial arts, but I will practice controlling my powers more.” She nodded, “There may be a time that you could rely only on your martial arts to win every fight, but that is a very long time away.”

I nodded and then cupped my left fist and bowed. I gritted through the pain of touching my left arm, but I tried not to show the pain. Katarina bowed back and then after that the training session was over. I immediately sat down on the floor and laid back. Violetta finally rushed over and looked at my arm. I could see the worry in her eyes. I touched her cheek, “It will be fine, it’s already healing.”

She smiled and laid her face in my palm, “I know, but I can still worry about it you know.” I snorted, “Yes dear.” We both laughed and I heard Flarea snort from the other side of the room. I looked over and she was shaking her head, “You too are a little too mushy you know?” I grinned, “So. Would you like a little bit of this mush too?” She stiffened and then snickered, “You couldn’t handle this even if you tried.” She turned around and walked out of the training room leaving me and Violetta laughing our ass off.