I’m back home. By that I mean, my actual home in the family’s private dimension, not my little hide-away on Nine-Clover’s third moon. I’d say it’s been a while, but it really hasn’t. There were countless MEs running around the multiverses that are controlled by our Empty-Society, and the main me and primary clone of mine would often return home after a hard day of work to be with my wives and/or my wives’ clones.

Still, it “had” been a while since I’d been properly focused on being home like this. Normally, my mind was split in so many different directions that I couldn’t help being a bit distracted.

. I’m not sure if you’d call it a negative, but having one’s own private universe, and being able to expand our house whenever we want, has resulted in our home being slightly larger than your average mortal empire. I never really noticed before because, again, I was kind of distracted before, and also there were enchantments in place that assured that the space within the house would bend and twist according to our needs. Either taking us to a desired destination, or whichever room would suit our needs.

Jack, Kian, and I were chilling, hanging out in one of our ludicrously large house’s bigger living rooms. Jack and I were playing video games. Kian was watching because she was the kind who liked to watch…in more ways than one. I was beating Jack on the space-bridge level of a certain cart racing game, but then Jack totally cheated so now I was chasing her tail.

Yuval, Hong Mirae, Kal, and Ellison were home too. They were elsewhere in the house. Kal was in the training room, working her way through a martial breakthrough she’d had with Hong Mirae. Yuval was in the kitchen mastering some dishes that she was already good at, but not "corrupt your soul and lead you down the path of hell"-good at. Ellison was in the library, doing librarian things despite the fact it was the family’s private library.

Basically, the entire family was having a nice chill evening, because recently, our Empty-Society had been able to finish training up a batch of juniors who were now taking up a big slice of our responsibilities. We’d also upgraded our automated systems, and improved our magically-created and summoned minion force. Which further reduced the Empty-Society’s workload, and personnel needs.

My colleagues Yoshino Yuki and Trefor Pradhan, had practically cried tears of joy. Especially Yuki, who’d been on the verge of going bald from stress. This was actually a little alarming considering he was supposed to be an ageless immortal, that was immune to such things. Admittedly, we’d kind of rode the poor guy pretty hard, since his future-sight made him an excellent person to send for threat assessments, and planning tasks.

Unfortunately, for Yuki, there’d always, always been no end of threats to assess and big jobs that needed complicated planning done if we wanted a favorable outcome for the worlds under our control. I did my fair share of that kind of work too, which might or might not have had something to do with my fixation with Nine-Clover. That third moon was a great place to have a nice quiet cry and think about life. All jokes aside, it was great to know that our family and friends, and all that we’d built over the eons, would now be much more secure.

In the end, I wasn’t able to overtake my wife. I was just too magnanimous I guess. Maybe next race. Jack took her victory with grace and good sportsmanship as could be expected.

“Ha, in your face. Suck it!” laughed Jack. Hopping onto my lap.

“Tch, I could have won if you hadn’t managed to get that damn rocket in the second lap…” I said. Pushing her away from mine a bit, before giving in and then giving her a long tender kiss.

“Man, that win felt uncustomarily good…So, good I almost feel like having a baby!” said Jack.

“Uh…That’s a pretty weird response to winning at video games,” I said. Brow furrowed.

“Er, in that case, maybe I just feel like having a baby, and that was my awkward ass way of telling you,” said Jack. Blushing and looking away.

We both froze. I could feel Kian’s eyes on us. I could feel the others in the house paying very close attention to our part of the house.

“I mean…Hear me out. We’ve gotten good and settled in the Shattered-Heavens. We’ve managed to build, establish and settle our own faction…So, career-wise, we’re all pretty set…Our personal strength is way up there, and our home-life has been copacetic for thousands of years now…” said Jack.

She made good points. Points that I’d seen myself, but said nothing about, because parenthood was scarier than dealing with universe-sized space monsters. Maybe it “was” time that we stopped dragging our feet.

“Do…Do you guys all feel the same way?” I said. Aware of all the ears that were listening in.

“Yes…” said Kian.

“Pretty much,” said Kal. Walking in from another room.

“Hell, yes…Dammit…The sauce broke again!” said Yuval.

“Indeed…I hope you’ll recall that procreation with darling has been my primary objective all long,” said Ellison. Her voice traveled over from the family’s library, along with the sound of flipping pages.

“Er…I’m down, I guess…Maybe we should space all the baby-making out a bit though, so we’re not overwhelmed,” said Hong Mirae. Panting softly, the sounds of fists hitting metal followed her voice.

“Huh…I guess we’re doing this then,” I said. Sighing contentedly. Accepting my fate, as I realized that my world would soon be getting much bigger.