I awoke back in my apartment in my bed with Lone sprawled out in the middle of Marri and me, both soundly sleeping. The sight made me smile and I was glad that the other me had been able to see this and come away with comforting reassurance.

If this was what he last saw, no wonder he was grinning at the end..I would have-...

The thought made my eyes sting. My mind drifted into a melancholic, thousand yard stare as I came to terms with what had just transpired.

My life is the kind of thing that sounds exciting in history books, but when you’re the one experiencing it all, it’s fucking too much..I’m getting sick and tired of living in these ‘interesting times’..But..I had no choice, and I won’t give in. I can’t.

Especially not after everything-

#Siya# Godu? Are you awake? Are you back yet?

Oh it was damned good to hear her mindvoice, reminding me that I was surrounded by top tier people.

And a mothgirl...I wonder how everyone is after all that crazy EXP..

#Godu# Siya! Hello! Yes. How are you feeling?

I heard her trill a sigh from the other room.

#Siya# Oh thank the heavens it’s you..The other you was still, you..But too..cold. You are much more preferred. Kind-du.

Ah, so he did speak to some other people. I chuckled.

#Godu# Glad to hear I’m your top pick..What did..he say?

She paused and I heard the tip taps of her clawed feet as she got up and walked out into the living room.

#Siya# Minimal communication. He said he was you but from a different place and that this was only a short visit to check on Marri and Lone. He thanked me for being so kind to them and then went to sleep…It was haunting and I couldn’t sleep as I was terrified something had happened to you. Please kindly ask him never to do it again?

Yeah..don’t think there’s much chance of that..

#Godu# Don’t worry, I don’t think it will ever happen again..

Sighing, I activated a glowstone, one of those rocks that the scientists cooked up that could produce light, as well as oddly provide a small amount of air conditioning, then quietly creaked out of bed and placed a rolled up duvet next to Lone so that he wouldn’t roll off in his sleep. Even though it wasn’t high off the ground, the thought of him waking up after falling on the floor, scared of being alone..scared of being in pain..it really hit me deep for some reason.

Walking into the living room with my glowstone, I walked past Siya, who was sitting on a bean bag smiling at me, and ruffled her hair as I walked to the cupboard. Taking out a bottle of cream soda, I poured out a couple of glasses and handed Siya one who quietly trilled with gratification. It was Siya’s absolute favourite, so much so we had to ensure she didn’t spend her entire salary on the precious stuff, or overdose on it.

#Siya# Ooo yes, yes please. Good idea. Cheers.

She took a generous swig and then put the glass down to lightly tap her hands together in hushed bliss. We had a delicious drink together whilst she filled me in on what happened after our corrupted battle.

It turned out that most of us slept for the whole day and awoke in the evening but aside from EXP exhaustion, we were completely fine. In fact I feel pristine, like I’m glowing. The gateway had gone ‘viral’ and people were almost fighting over the chance to volunteer for shifts whilst the corrupted trickled through; the corrupted would find themselves like fish in a barrel shortly before getting peppered with decay based weaponry. It was somewhat hilarious that the lowest MAGN level members could walk up, fire a single shot, absorb a massive amount of EXP and then promptly devour a ton of food before passing out; they had a steady stream of caravans going back and forth bringing food down and unconscious people up.

Nobody had gone through the gateway and nothing else other than corrupted had come through, but Siya was concerned for Mya and the others, and she wanted to attempt a passing as soon as possible..

#Godu# I get that but..Don’t you think it is a bit too dangerous and risky? Let’s just wait a bit and maybe..um..

She gave me an accusational stare.

#Siya# Coming from you? Which strange human analogy nicely sums this up? A fish complaining about the rain? Come now Godu, we were four against, how many of the broken? Hundreds? Have you read my soul codex? Or even reviewed yours?! We’re on the cusp of completing the first milestone my wingless soulfriend. My soulspace has allowed me access to so much information and strength. Trust in my judgement. If there is something worse than a horde of corrupted on the other side, I will ensure my own survival, if only so that I can continue to protect my family from the dark..

She looked down at her hands and tapped her hands together.

#Siya# I’m so glad you saved me that day..You, your family and the others have all shown me what a family is supposed to be like..But so did Mya and Grave. Vyolyn was okay. Although I think she was just doing things because she wants to mate with you and make the same noise as Marri does-

!!!!

“Siya!!” I hissed, forgetting that our conversation was private, but she just smirked at me.

If Marri heard that she’d laugh and say to forget about it, but she certainly wouldn’t let me forget about it. I’d be teased to death.

#Siya# A funny joke right? Marri loves those kinds of jokes…

That woman corrupts everyone..

Face palming, I looked out the small reinforced porthole for some kind of savior, observing that it was starting to get a little lighter.

#Godu# Yes I know you’re right. I’m just scared of you getting hurt is all..And the corrupted are never a good sign are they?

She patted my head.

#Siya# Now you know how we feel about you. But fear not, for I am your better, Slowdu. And the corrupted coming through is actually a good sign, is it not? It indicates they are stuck outside the box. I shall simply fly in. I shall take a look around to see where the giant box is. I shall then fly right back home. And that shall confirm we can freely travel.

#Godu# Which means we can then send expeditionary groups through, yup, heard Steve and Catara say that about a dozen times..Although they are probably more keen on the sanctuary tech I have stashed over there..If a corrupted hasn’t demolished the building that is..Alright let’s wait until it’s light and breakfast is finished and then we’ll see if Steve and Catara are free to try again.

#Siya# Excellent! Yes! I do enjoy our fasting breaks. A pleasant time for commune and watching the little hatchling nourish himself. Such a heartwarming sight!

Smiling, I stood up with open arms.

#Godu# You’re a good egg Siya. Come ‘ere.

I gave her a big hug.

#Siya# And you’re a good chicken Godu.

Snorting, I gave her a shoulder pat and walked back to my room, returning to bed to take advantage of some calm snoozing time..But also to make another call..

…Are you there?

…Mm.

You..Alright?..Anything you want to talk about?

I’m..afraid to say anything.

Afraid? How come?

Afraid of what will happen! Afraid of you hating me..for not..telling you some things..sooner..B-but I was going to!

Ah..Well, it’s pretty blatantly obvious that you would have told me if it was sensible to do so..But I assume that because we saw S-..I mean, a lot of things are different, right?

Wha-..Yes..And it’s okay. You can talk about mother with me……But..Why..Why are you so forgiving?

It was a good question. I looked over at Marri and Lone in the soft blue light of the glowstone and the memories of all the countless times Seren was there for me and my family, then I thought back to the other Seren..The other me had hurt her and yet, she had stuck with me until the very end. She had been forgiving and protective, and all she wanted in return was warmth and affection…amongst other things….not exactly sure what all that weird slime talk was about.

Oh goodness..Even in other cycles you are insatiable..Can you..come here please? So I can give you a really big hug?

I activated innerplane and when I opened my eyes on the galaxy bed, I looked over and saw Seren but she was a translucent pink colour, indeed made of slime whose surface flowed and shifted around. She turned and wiggled her see-through behind, looking back over her shoulder with a finger pointing to the corner of her mouth in a classic seductive pose.

You mean this is your kind of thing huh big boy?

I burst out laughing and waved her off, although shamefully, my primitive male neurons did register a momentary spark of intrigue…

She returned back to normal and we hugged it out, before getting stuck into newly revealed facts and observable differences from the other cycle. The entire experience had been ultimately heartbreaking, but it was hard to deny the critical, potentially life saving benefits that all this knowledge could bring, and the first order on the list was Sigura and her existence in our time.

Seren didn’t actually know about her mothers survival until after we saw the Preterghast, but she WAS aware of the Preterghast all this time and didn’t tell me!-

AND I’M STILL VERY SORRY! I truly thought Mother was gone..And even though I didn't volunteer information, I would never lie to you…We knew about the avoid but we only had the hypothesis about the true preterghast themselves..We originally nicknamed them the bleach actually but-Tits it’s all far worse than we initially feared if everything you’ve learnt is true…We just..We were given specific instructions to not mention any of it until a specific time, and that it would be very clear when this time came..And it appears that is most certainly now.

Uhhmm naturally..when the cats already out the bag-

Hey! Don’t tease me like that!..I mean, you can’t get mad at a sincere, woeful slimegirl, can you?

She fluttered her eyelides and started to change. I rolled my eyes with a disapproving smile.

Hmmmmmm, you got me there..

But the core necessity for information secrecy was apparently the mind blowing simulations that they had achieved which resulted with a set of rules and scripts to follow in order for them to safely interact and integrate; premature information revelations always showed drastically elevated levels of mistrust, fear or downright ignorance.

To be honest..Yeah..If you had came out with all this at the start, I probably would have freaked out quite heavily..Possibly even aggressively..Hm.

I could understand the reasoning.

But, why do you need a human in the first place? Is it because you can’t survive outside on your own?

In a sense.. So, I started out as a cute single cell, I’m still single b-t-w-

She winked at me.

-and it’s a slow and costly process to replicate, especially compared to your cells that multiply like rabbits..Jealous..But it approximately takes 1 year to create a single new sub cell that can integrate with my..let’s call it my primordial cell.

Me and you will now forever always be intrinsically part of the same consciousness, thanks to the processes involved when I tethered to your innerplane..Being super honest, that is stuff I don’t fully understand, but it is straight forward to pull off. I just needed to make you trust me and that allows me to extract a type of cipher brainwave key that um-...Blabble!

She made a strange noise and waved it off; I was about to protest as I was heavily fascinated with it, but she continued and I got the sense that she didn’t actually know.

Trust me, it’s not hugely important and it might all sound a tad bit heavy, b-but there’s upsides and downsides to it all! So try not to worry your cute little self..One of the neat upsides is that, once I have built my body, if your body dies, you would be fine and could live inside me until we could build you a new one!

She wrapped her arms and hugged herself.

Oooo just the thought gives me tingles down-Oh, but one minor downside you should know is that there are ways to obliterate you through me, and vice versa, so we should always stick together, no matter what.

Nothing super serious then.

Tehe, exactly. The other upside of course is we share strengths such as my super intelligence and some of my reaction speeds. All those slow-mo’s and nervous system upgrades, well you can thank yours truly for that! Accelerated neural boosts and predictive reflexive-neurons are not available to any regular plebbo ya know! You need a supercomputer to handle the calculations and orchestration needed! Lucky you eh? Mwuahahaha..

Her new body would take around 20 years before it was livable and then her body would grow from a small size to an adults after around another 20 years from there. I smiled as her bright, optimistic and warm personality blossomed as she spilled her heart out with secrets I could tell she had wanted to get off her chest for a very long time.

So the tasks we get? The other you said they were echo's? But they are from Sigura?

I'm not entirely sure why the word 'echo' was used..Mother had an algorithm to simulate reality and then come up with the best series of macro events that would need to happen in order for a specific objective to have the highest chance of succeeding. We were told to pay close attention to any transmissions as they would contain instructions specifically tied to those macro events. Case in point, ‘Save the Archon’. If you hadn’t achieved that, I would wager that I wouldn’t have caught up with you in time before you got to the cube..But it does appear like Mother has modified them and attached rewards to encourage anyone in the vicinity to carry them out, so the reliance on us doing it is far less..

Wait! Does that mean she knows my future?!

Not quite, it’s more about…monitoring in realitime and providing the best possible actions or answers to situations, which collectively build greater chances of favourable outcomes. I best not go into too much detail otherwise it might disrupt the whole thing…Think of it just like how observing quantum superposition will collapse it, and thus, so too does knowing collapse..other..things…

Food for thought on my personal theory, it’s the same reason you can’t physically change the past, present or future, you can merely only observe things and react accordingly. The cute little difference is the same as seeing a ball is coming to hit you, and being able to move out the way, compared to seeing the ball coming to hit you, and being able to smack it out of the way. You can see events as they happen, but you can’t enforce a macro change, you can only navigate through them and even then how can you say for certain that this simply wasn’t a deterministic action, governed by all the external forces at that slice of time. Simulation theory becomes more and more logical the more you think about it, but personally it makes no difference to me..

Yyyyyeah okay, I might not even understand what you just said so I’ll just smile and agree. Okay, hmm, I think that only leaves why we have Majik and not this Prog-org stuff and..did the other me say anything to you?

Ah yes! A very good question! So my lovely darling, it is indeed quite interesting, as, prog-org did come up as a potential solution in one of mothers sims, but it was quickly dismissed due to a perceived low risk chance of the Preterghast being able to mitigate it through their capabilities, and it seems like that was an incredibly smart choice now that we know better, right?..And Majik was-well, isn’t, a strictly a new thing by itself but more like a different type of matter. How can I put this, there’s not actually any human words to capture its anomalistic existence, but I’ll try..

She explained that you have matter and anti matter, and there were some scientific properties to define each one, which, I failed to grasp or understand, but, the one thing I loosely understood was that anti matter and matter are created in pairs, and, when they come into contact, they obliterate each other and turn into pure energy and sometimes other particles.

I think that’s right.

But, then she said there was actually a hidden third type called, potential matter. If we focused on the single moment in time and space when matter and anti matter spontaneously appear, you would observe a strange behaviour where this other third particle is briefly created called a virtual particle. This particle goes through a process that doesn’t have a name, but it’s akin to a superposition state of calculating possibility, where the virtual particle goes through all possible states it could ever achieve before finally collapsing into the one that makes sense according to the properties of the matter and anti matter it came from.

Deterministic.

A crude analogy for you..Think of a coin flipping insanely fast in the air. Heads is matter, tails is anti matter, and the size of the coin and the shape determine what it can do. It can only land on one side, or, you could split the coin in half and have them in separate places at the same time, but! if you try to push them together? Well, it would obviously explode apart since you’d be squeezing the coin..Now, whilst it is flipping in the air, you observe the coin as not two sides, but as a blur right?

Well, potential matter is basically all that and more.

Before you have even touched the coin, potential matter is already there, virtually spawning an almost infinite number of coins based on all possibilities that it could be or has been. It would look like a kaleidoscope of coins, being flipped, thrown, imploding, exploding, floating, shrinking, expanding..anything that could possibly happen to that coin, happens, in a single moment. It’s entire life and all possible lives are calculated so that it can computationally be aware of how it could exist in the fabric of reality. Finally, we as observers, observe that only one possibility can obviously coexist within the fabric of space time that we know and frequently witness, but secretly hidden away from us, virtual possibility calculations have already been brute forced, so all that coin needs to do is fall into place and then live its life according to the simulations its virtual constituent parts have already calculated for it!

I didn’t get it but it was fascinating trying to visualize.

..Yeah..this is big brain stuff.

Ha! I told you! But don’t fret my inferior processing powered darling, none of that is really important. The crux of it all, is that Majik is tapping into this virtual possibility superposition, and influencing it to collapse to a specified state.

Want a cool block of ice? Collapse it when that particle has no energy, or an exotic state where it has an impossible minus kelvin temperature!

Want a hot beam of plasma? Collapse it when that particle is energetic, or even better, make it come into contact with its anti matter!

The Majik you can see and manage, is virtual particles being captured and primed after being collapsed and maintained in a sort of continous ‘encryption’ in its primed state, emitting small amounts of energy as continuous light during the process. You see the different colour wavelengths of light because that is a type of directed acyclic graph, continuously re-priming them into slightly different states so that something else can’t just come up and take it off you. But it can and does happen, you do it all the time with mass break and your shoulder charge cost refund as one prime example.

Yeah. Very science brain stuff.

Paha! Yes! It’s actually extremely dangerous if uncontrolled, I mean, we’re talking about being able to tap into timespace possibility as an energy and computational source, but fortunately you do need to obtain enough information or ‘Experience’ in order to have all the data and information required to pull off such a fea..So we won’t have to worry about anyone just spawning a black hole for instance and obliterating the planet for a long time, espcecially since your cute, squishy human minds couldn’t handle the processing required to achieve that by yourselves..yet...But don’t worry, by the time someone could do that, there will be another person who can stop it somehow, I’m sure.

That’s comforting.

Yup! Nothing is impossible or off limits! In fact, your Slipfold, and many other things that we don’t even know about, should all be physically impossible, using up volumes of energy and computation that is more than what is available in the known universe, but that’s based on a single point in timespace, it doesn’t take into consideration what is available throughout timespace itself..And that, kurzgesagt, is how Majik works.

She put her hands on her hips and lifted her head victoriously.

Oh and it was mother who introduced the first primed matter in response to the ovoid. It’s the only stuff that could halt it’s horrible progress and in some cases we managed to even reverse pieces. Prog-org would have achieved the same thing due to it being a kind of artificial version of Majik? But against the Preterghast themselves it was pretty much unknown…And judging by what happened to the other us….I think we found the answer.

I had always been fully aware of my insignifance in the universe, but each new shiny day seemed to be added new rungs to the ladder of cosmic importance, with me right down on the bottom…But I was quite impressed with myself as I gasped for intellectual air and posed what I hoped would be a smart question..

So..what about us? Me? Does that mean I am, um..you know, doing the virtual possibility thing all the time with no control?

Oh bless, nonono..Ah.…well physically no, because all that matter has already collapsed into, well, matter. But meta physically..how do I summarise..Ah right got it! Firstly, brownie points for such a complex and intricate question! But basically your brain uses bits of the same process to tether your consciousness to the innerplane and also randomly during dreams, seizures and comas etc. Why does your mind do this? Well it's unknown and we could be here forever debating it, but it most certainly is one of the key reasons why you became the dominant sentient species. Just embrace that there is a large divide between having sentience or sapience, compared to having consciousness, especially with humans or my kind for example. Bear in mind that actually not all humans have this tether and as a consequence I'm afraid to say they are naturally less concious and more ‘NPC’ like if you will. I’m sure you’ve looked at somebody and thought ‘the lights are on but there’s really nobody in there’.

Sounds a bit..Harsh?..But I see what you mean..

Not my call, blame your random mutative genetics sweety!

Fair enough..oh what about EXP?

Oh oof. That one is a bit darker..In order to control all this Majik stuff, your body constantly evolves and replaces cells with more intricate selfsufficient ones, but when the control system, the brain, is killed, then all these cells need a new home and are very eager to accept new orders from the nearest safe space, the killer. In the end it’s pretty much what is says on the tin. Experience. Memories, thoughts, information, mostly only data on skills or ability functions get carried over, and it is almost always fragmented or missing parts, but, over time, when you collect enough…guess what happens?

..I can unlock skills and level up.

Bingo. These days it ain’t ‘you are what you eat’, it’s ‘you are what you kill’. Although in certain people’s case it’s both.

Lovely.

Yip! Majikal. The rest of it all is pretty much just human imagination filling in the blanks after we presented the EXP saturation and attribute metrics; ‘Stats and levels? This must be some kind of RPG or game system! Oh god there MUST be monsters!!’

I smiled grimly.

Well, I for one am very glad it didn’t stem from some cosmic, alien, entertainment gameshow or pointless cultivation system that was created by ‘higher beings’ to chose their next chum..No, this is a much more fitting play from the universe. Raw, uncaring, ethic-raping nature, pandering to whoever strikes the evolutionary lottery...Well shit. In some ways we’re still just a spec of bacteria in the universe, but it sounds like we may end up being the spec of bacteria that becomes the anti-biotics of the universe.

Hmm, well technically life on earth, especially humans, can be considered cancerous and toxic compared to more sustainable alternatives..But..Yeah. In my opinion, not sticking to your universal cycle and obliterating others is considered a real ‘shit-dick move’ and needs to be stopped.

Alrighty..I guess that’s the ‘main quest’ then huh. Stop the Preterghast? How long do we have?

She gave me a puzzled, whimsical look.

Your acceptance of all this is pretty astounding I must say, we weren’t supposed to...Nevermind. Hmm, I’d say about 2000 years from now. Mother doesn’t intend to destroy the ovoid as she figured out it was communicating, so she plans to drag it through a wormhole which will take 2000 years before it comes out the other end, hence my guestimate..Although to them it will feel pretty much instantaneous ‘cos’ ya’know, ‘time is relative’ and all that jazz..We won’t see Mother for quite some time..So I think the main quest for now is to clean up the planet and prepare ourselves and friends. But also keep an eye out for task transmissions.

That’s uhh..a very long time? Will I even be alive?

Oh sweety, you’ll live far longer than that, if you wish to. But unfortunately I will selfishly drag you through life until they or we are dead, after that I’ll have completed my reason for being and I’ll probably find some planet to settle down on and start a civilisation..One with sexy slimes and hot, busty, well endowed demons. You’re more than welcome to come join of course.

Haha sounds fantastic. I’m sure I’ll visit…

Alright. Fuck it. I’m in.

Oooooo! Another thing that a girl always loves to hear! Excellent! For now, our course has not changed, we are not to deviate from overcoming the current natural obstacles, Mother must still not be discussed, and, we should avoid telling people about, well, everything, mainly because they probably won’t believe you but also because not everyone will be as accepting and forgiving as you are. I mean, it’s your decision at the end of the day and personally, I think it’s best to wait until you feel the time is right, because if you just rush out there and blurt everything, you’ll just be putting yourself, and therefore Marri and Lone, at risk.

Isn’t that untrustworthy though?

Think of it this way. Most of your special forces and intelligence agencies had operatives that would never tell their family and friends information because if they accidentally said the wrong thing in front of the wrong person, they could endanger themselves. Same concept here sweety. And here’s a big example, I didn’t tell Marri I knew you were in europe, because guess what she would have done? Packed her bags and gone on a road trip with Lone, right into the protective mists, which we found out is swarming with colossals, or mother forbid! She would have gone through the tunnels! Brrr, gives me shivers just thinking about it..

Ah. Okay. Very strong points taken, I completely understand what you mean. Right. I’m absolute dogshit when it comes to this kind of foresight..Can you help me and let me know when I should tell people stuff?

She smiled and put her arm in my arm, leading me to the galaxy bed.

Of course I can help! Just remember this isn’t me trying to control you, I’m only trying to guide you with the variables we are given. All I want to do is help you, whilst trying to reach the objective of obliterating those preterbitchs..So I could be completely wrong, I’m not infallible, but it makes sense for now doesn’t it? So I’m glad you agree..Heh, I can act like your secretary if you want-OO, a daemon slime secretary!..Hmm, that would make a great book..I should write it in preparation for my Slime civilization..

Oh boy.

Anyways! Time to get up and check out what’s going on the other side of that gateway. Strong friends will be needed and those guys were pretty hardcore…You should keep Vamp in mind as well, since, now that you can control slipfold, removing his collar should be trivial. He might be the first human that made it to Tier I, and that is no small feat.

The creepy pale kid? Aw man..

He might of looked like a kid, but he was actually over 90 years old.

That makes him even creepier.

She smiled and with the tip of her finger, pushed me on my forehead, back onto the bed. I returned back to earth, soaking in the ever increasing amount of reality shattering revelations being thrown my way, and I simly laid there, spending a few more minutes just decompressing.

So all this time it was a super weapon from some absurdly advanced civilisation hellbent on safeguarding their own interests by wiping out the natives...Sounds familiar..But damn, what fucking timeline have I slipped into..

It wasn’t long before Lone started fidgeting, making chomping noises, the ‘I need boobie breakfast right now mother’ and so Marri half asleep whipped out a boob and started breakfast, signalling the start of another day.

We gave Lone some solid breakfast and had a nibble ourselves, not because we needed to eat, but mainly because it was good for Lone’s social skills to see us eating the same food he was so he felt comfortable eating. It was a great family unit activity that included allowing him to feed us, as it also helped build relationship trust and helped with his general development and cognitive abilities. Plus it was adorable as hell. Siya would always join and be a beacon of smiles as she cherished the inclusion, and Lone would squeal with delight at her trilling noises.

Marri and Siya were updated on what had happened to a certain extent, I had decided that it would be wise to at least give a little bit of information. I kept it short, covering that ‘me’ from a different time had somehow managed to swap our minds, but it wasn’t malicious, only wanting to check that Marri and Lone were okay because in his time he had lost them. Marri was stunned and held me for a long time after I finished.

“Oh my goodness…Honey, I can’t even begin to comprehend what occurred for you to go to those lengths..But, thank you. For coming to check on me even through..what would it be, the multiverse?”

I laughed. “Ha that’s what I thought at first..but naw I’ve been told there’s only one universe but infinite cycles of it or something.”

“How bizarre..That’s so spooky though, I didn’t even know it wasn’t you last night. Your other self got a big sleepy kiss, I hope you don’t mind…Well it was you still so you can’t complain.” She scrunched her fast in a cheeky smile.

BASTARD MOTHER-..Well..I suppose it’s me in every sense. He deserved it anyways.

“A-ha, nooo, that would be like me getting annoyed at something I did with you last week..or the other night..or maybe in the future..like maybe tonight?” I winked at her and she gave me the innocent cutesy look.

“Why, I don’t have a clue what you mean Mr. But perhaps we can discuss this further, once I have got this little goblin to sleep.”

Internally I fist pumped..But then I remembered what the other me said and switfly made a mental note.

Need to eradicate all goblins.

“H-Honey? You..Okay there?”

Realising I had started staring off into the distance, I snapped out of it and grinned.

“Oh forgive me Miss! Absolutely, my attendance will be assured no matter what demon I have to punt into orbit..I was just reminded that we have an important task to do as soon as possible today. Um, Siya’s going to go through the portal..”

She turned to Siya who was in the middle of making Lone’s spoon float using some kind of Majik, and he was pissing himself with laughter over it.

Huh, never seen her do that before-

She looked up with a pleasant smiled readiness.

“Oh babs..Do you really need to go?..Oh you be careful okay! Come back to us safely or I’ll have to come over there myself, draggin’ Lone and this big oaf to find you!” Marri went over and hugged her, making her trill softly. She absolutely loves heartfelt hugs, especially from Marri.

#FGroup#

Siya: Of course! Do not fear, I have no intention of leaving you and the little hatchling for long!

“Hang on..why am I the oaf-” Siya and Marri turned and gave me a flat stare before they went in for the kill.

“Look Siya, the oaf has forgotten his transgressions.” Marri looked down her nose at me with a smug grin.

Siya: Ohh slowdu..Your memory does not serve you well.

Siya shook her head with the same smug grin.

“Although I’d say the particular one that ended up with him bringing back your gorgeousness was at least a redeemable outcome. Pot luck of course. But all the other ones..disgraceful. He’s oh so fortunate to have such beautiful girls like ourselves watching over him, doing all the hard work whilst he zips around in his little portals. I wonder, where would he be without us, hm?” She smirked.

Siya: Indeed Marri. Such a pitiful slow creature-

“Right! I’m not taking this abuse anymore! Fairwell maidens! I’m going through the portal myself! Maybe I’ll find a new wife with some other mothgirls that won’t verbally stab me in the back-” There were gasps and I ducked with a huge smile as a spoon of porridge hurtled towards me.

Playful chaos erupted.