=::= Cass's PoV =::=

As soon as we appeared in the apartment building hallway I felt that tingly sensation of another god nearby, so at least my other self and I knew we were in the right place. Then after taking a deep breath I reached out and knocked on the door in front of us.

It opened a moment later, and Amethyst smiled as she greeted us, "Hello again Cassandra. Come on in."

The silver-haired goddess stepped aside, and I walked past her into her apartment. Kaylee, Nina, and Sasha all followed in behind me, and the four of us came to a stop just inside the door. I knew my sister was probably feeling shy and a little anxious like me, while my cousin seemed a bit wary. My girlfriend on the other hand looked excited. She was smiling, while her tails swished around and her ears pointed forward.

My first impression of the apartment was a nice clean open-concept place with lots of modern furnishings. In fact the furniture and everything reminded me a little of Theresa's office at the clinic. To our right was a spacious kitchen with large sleek stainless-steel appliances. Beyond that was a dining area with a fancy-looking black table and matching chairs.

The living-room was on our left, and while it seemed large for two people it was probably cosy for a small group. There was a big sofa to one side, and against the wall across from that was a matching love-seat, with a large low coffee table between them. Some music played from a home entertainment system that was set up against one wall.

Finally there was a short hallway with a few doors, that presumably led to bedrooms and a bathroom. And the far end of the living-room area ended with some large windows, and a door that opened out onto a balcony.

The apartment was on the fifth floor and from what I could see they had a nice view out there. Although with this being the second half of November it was too cold nowadays to sit outside and enjoy it.

While we were all quietly looking around Amy closed the door behind us, then moved past us to stand next to her girlfriend and another young woman I'd only met twice before. The first time was back when I was twelve or thirteen years old, when she was introduced as my Aunt Merel. And the second time was almost eighteen months ago, when I found out she was an angel named Raven.

Everyone was quiet at first, and there was a definite sense of unease and awkwardness between all seven of us. Cassandra and I had only met Amethyst twice before, and both of those meetings were cut short. Kaylee and Tess seemed to get on ok when they met, but that only happened once. Plus that encounter was more than two months ago, and barely lasted ninety minutes.

Our host finally broke the awkward silence as she suggested, "Let's take care of all the introductions first, since there's a few new faces here? Then we'll see about some refreshments and we can all get comfortable."

She looked towards my sister and cousin as she continued, "My name is Amethyst, but you can all call me Amy if you like? I'm goddess to trans queer and demi-human people. This is my girlfriend and high priestess Theresa, and Raven is my angel."

"You can call me Tess," the tall redhead added with a smile.

My goddess half took over for a bit at that point, so she could handle our side of the introductions. Not that I couldn't do it, but I was feeling a bit shy. And having her help out just made things easier for both of us.

"You already know I'm Cassandra," she began, "Or you can call me Cass. And of course I'm also known as Kid Chaos."

"This is my girlfriend Kaylee," she continued as we slipped an arm around the small kitsune's shoulders. Then with our other hand she gestured, "This is my sister Nina, she's a demon. And my cousin Sasha, who's a cambion."

With all the introductions complete there was an exchange of greetings on both sides, as everyone said hello to everyone else. Then Amy asked what we all liked to drink, while Tess suggested we should all get comfortable. She also apologized for the limited seating available, but we managed ok.

I sat at one end of the sofa and Kaylee hopped up onto my lap like usual. Sasha took the other end of the sofa, and Nina sat in between the two of us. After getting our drinks Amy and Tess were together on the love-seat opposite us, while the angel brought a chair over from the dining area and placed it next to her goddess.

There was still a bit of awkwardness in the air, and that wasn't helped by the way our two groups were sort of facing off against each other from either side of the room. Even our drinks choices seemed opposite. Amethyst and Theresa were both drinking white wine again, and Raven had some kind of booze in a tumbler glass. Meanwhile Nina and I had water, Sasha had juice, and Kaylee had orange soda.

The awkwardness lasted for another second or two, but was suddenly broken when a cute little tortoiseshell cat wandered into the living-room then jumped up onto Theresa's lap. The cat curled up as Tess began to pet it and stroke its fur, and a moment later we could all hear the happy purring.

"So cute!" my sister exclaimed with a grin. "What's the kitty's name?"

Amethyst smiled back, "They're called Siggy."

"They?" Kaylee asked as her tails twitched around.

Tess nodded, "Siggy's non-binary, so they-them pronouns."

"That's adorable," I responded with a smile of my own.

Somehow the arrival of the little cat seemed to break the ice, and both Nina and I spent the next couple minutes talking with Tess and Amy about their kitty. I could feel Cassandra was very interested in the cat too, which was unusual. My other half normally left the cute animals to me.

After a few minutes the conversation expanded a bit, as my sister and I talked about all the cute cuddly critters we got to spend time with when we did our volunteer work at the animal shelter.

Raven seemed surprised to hear that, like maybe the angel didn't think a goddess or a demon would do volunteer work or something. Tess already knew about it though since I told her in one of our sessions, and Amy seemed cool with it too. Then we found out the angel worked in a cafe, which got Kaylee's tails twitching again.

My girlfriend's fuzzy ears both pointed at the goth angel as she suddenly asked, "Hey do you know a little cambion named Jinx? She mentioned an angel barista, I wonder if that was you?"

Raven's cheeks started to colour and she almost sounded a bit anxious as she asked, "How do you know Jinx?"

"Me and Nina met her once back in August," Kaylee replied with a smile. "Along with a catgirl and a human girl. They all seemed nice, but Jinx was the most enthusiastic."

By that point both Amethyst and Theresa looked like they were trying not to smile, while Raven was definitely blushing. The angel finally grimaced as she admitted, "I've come to know Jinx rather well lately. And you're right, she's very enthusiastic."

"Are you friends with her?" Nina asked.

Raven hesitated before answering, "Not exactly. The human girl Kaylee mentioned is named Cheryl, and I'm dating her older sister Avery."

"Cool!" my girlfriend stated with a happy grin, while her tails swished around behind her. "That just leaves the underworld bookstore nymph. I wonder who she is?"

I grimaced slightly, "That's Melinoë. She works at Ismene Books in Toronto, along with a couple human witches named Morgan and Myrna."

Kaylee's tails all stuck straight out behind her as she gave me a surprised frown, "What?! How do you know them? How come I've never met them?"

"I don't know them," I insisted. "I just know who they are. I bought some old books from them about a year ago, that's all. They supply magic books and stuff to supernaturals, kind of like that old fae guy with the antiques store?"

The angel asked, "You know Fiachra as well?"

I grimaced again, "Not really? I've only met him once or twice and that was over a year ago. He's the one who told me about the supernatural bookstore."

Amethyst smiled, "This feels like another one of those 'small world' things. Like we all seem to have a few surprising connections in common with each other, right? Raven is friends with Cassandra's parents. Theresa met Cass through her work, while I met her through May Hawthorne. Kaylee Nina and Raven all know Jinx."

"That just leaves you Sasha," the silver-haired goddess added as she looked to my cousin. "You've been kind of quiet the last little while, I hope you haven't felt left out of the conversation?"

Sasha shook her head, "No ma'am, not left out."

"As for surprising connections," she hesitated slightly before admitting, "It seems like you're already friends with my mother, May Hawthorne."

Amethyst looked surprised, "Oh! You're that Sasha? I didn't realize..."

Cassandra and I could see it in the other goddess's expression. She probably learned something of Sasha's past from May, and now Amy was obviously curious about how Sasha could go from being an immortal goddess to a mortal cambion. At the same time we could tell Sasha was almost dreading the coming questions, so we both agreed to intervene.

I took a step back again while Cassandra moved forward. Then my other self suggested, "Now that we've broken the ice and we're all talking to one another, perhaps we should move on to the real purpose of this get-together?"

"You mean dinner?" Kaylee grinned, while her tails wagged eagerly behind her.

She was obviously kidding around, especially since she didn't actually need to eat. She got a laugh out of a few of us though, and it helped further distract folks from Sasha's situation.

"Those are both good ideas actually," Amethyst responded. "Let's order something in for dinner, then we can get down to business."

It only took a few minutes for everyone to agree on something fun and casual. Amy made the arrangements, then while we were waiting for the pizza and wings to arrive the conversation settled onto the more serious stuff we'd come to discuss.

"I assume you're still distributing your enchanted plush toys?" Amethyst asked us. "I've been picking up three or four more faithful every month that way. Folks who've received and used those toys, then in their search to find ways to handle the paperwork and bureaucratic hassles they've learned about me from other plushie users."

Cassandra was still in control, she nodded but ignored the slightly accusatory undertones in our host's voice. Instead she responded, "Up until about six weeks ago I was mailing between one and two dozen plushies every month. Then I got some added publicity and the numbers spiked slightly, I've been sending out eight to ten plushies a week since then."

Amethyst's eyebrows jumped up as she asked in surprise, "You're advertising them now?"

Both Tess and Raven looked surprised as well, while Kaylee grinned and Sasha smiled. Nina was mostly focused on the little torty, my sister looked like she desperately wanted to go pet the cat but she was too shy to do it while it was on Theresa's lap.

Meanwhile we just shrugged slightly as Cassandra replied, "Not yet, no. I sent some plushies to a pair of video podcasters, who used them during their October live-stream. They only had a few hundred viewers, but after they made the episode public it picked up something like ten thousand views in the following week?"

"There were twenty thousand hits in two days," Kaylee corrected us, while her tails swished around happily.

All three of our hosts looked shocked at that. Then Amy asked, "You said you haven't started advertising 'yet'? Does that mean you're planning to start?"

My goddess half nodded, "Definitely. Sasha and I are studying marketing in college, we've got some big plans ahead. Mailing plushies out one or two at a time like I'm doing now isn't scalable. We're going to be setting up a web-based storefront and making arrangements for proper worldwide distribution. We're also looking to expand our product line into other areas, beyond the plushies. They'll remain our flagship of course, but Sasha has some brilliant ideas for ways we can start disseminating magic out into the world at large."

By the time we finished talking both our girlfriend and our cousin had wide smiles on their faces again. Even Nina was smiling a little. Amethyst on the other hand actually facepalmed.

The silver-haired goddess gave us a very worried look as she asked, "Surely you've heard of the status quo right? Or the council? You must know this isn't going to work. I'm sorry to be blunt but Sasha's already been exiled once, she has to know this scheme is doomed to failure."

By that point Kaylee's tails were swishing around again while she had a huge grin on her face. Nina and Sasha were both a little more reserved, and for that matter so were we.

We sat back on the sofa and announced calmly, "The council is no longer a concern. For anyone."

"Four weeks ago Kaylee and I visited their headquarters and brought them down," Cassandra continued, "The organization is bankrupt, half of their upper echelon are facing criminal charges in over a dozen countries, and a week from tonight several of the council's darkest secrets will be shared online as part of an investigative exposé."

Our girlfriend chimed in, "If you're not busy next Saturday night you should tune in and watch! I think the video is supposed to drop at ten PM local time? I can send you the link if you like."

Tess and Amy exchanged a worried look. In a nervous voice our former therapist asked us, "Cassandra what did you do? You haven't started smiting people, have you?"

"Not at all," Cassandra replied in her usual calm confident tone. "I did turn three of them into stone, but that can be reversed if I'm feeling merciful. And to be fair they did almost murder our girlfriend's parents, tried to kill Kaylee and Sasha, and were about to destroy Nina."

"Then I neutralized the demi-god who sat on the council's board of directors and orchestrated the attacks on our friends and family," she added almost casually. "I also bunnified about a half dozen of the council's guards when we visited their headquarters in Spain, but only the ones who were attempting to murder Kaylee and I. And they turned back to normal a day or two later."

"What about that director guy?" Kaylee asked. "The annoying one you bunnified in the boardroom?"

My goddess half shook our head, "He turned back to normal too. Just in time to be arrested for the various crimes he helped plan or personally authorized."

"So you single-handedly destroyed the entire council?" Amethyst finally asked.

"Sure," Cassandra shrugged. "They were only humans. Well, a bunch of humans and one demi-god."

The silver-haired goddess stared at us for a couple more seconds, then finally shook her head.

"What about the status quo?" she asked. "That's a much bigger threat to us than the council ever was. And you can't just ignore it. You can't attack it either, it's not a tangible thing like the council."

My other self and I both smiled as we replied calmly, "I agree we can't ignore it, but I disagree on your second point. It may not have a headquarters or some humans calling the shots, but it's not unassailable."

"I know it won't be easy," we continued, "And it won't happen overnight. But we have plenty of time, and we have resources."

"What sort of resources?" Amethyst asked in a guarded tone.

Kaylee jumped in with the answer, "We've got all the money we looted from the council's accounts. We have Sasha's skills and experience, same with Nina. I'm learning too, and I'm good at research. We have the support of our friends, along with Tanya and Julie Underwood. And we have a secret ally, someone older and stronger than anyone else around."

The other goddess looked at her girlfriend and her angel, then looked back at us again. She asked, "What is it you're hoping to achieve? If you manage to beat the status quo, what then?"

"Equality," we replied. "The status quo works to prop up a small percentage of overpowered gods while holding all the others back, just like capitalism props up a small percentage of obscenely rich people at the expense of everyone else. And both systems unfairly punish those who are different."

Sasha took over at that point, "We want to bring magic back to the world, starting with the kinds of people that the existing systems have already failed. Like Cassandra's enchanted plushies? They're the first step, and they're primarily going to trans people."

Nina had been quiet for a while but even she spoke up, "We know it'll take time, and we have to be careful not to empower the wrong people. That's why we're talking to you about it? Incase you might want to help us?"

It seemed like none of our hosts knew what to say or how to react to that. Then another voice spoke up, which caught the rest of us by surprise. All except Cassandra, who seemed to have expected it.

The small tortoiseshell cat asked, "Do you have a plan? Could you use a retired warrior goddess's help?"

My other self smiled at the little torty, "We do have a plan, and we're definitely looking for more allies. We don't expect to be doing a lot of hands-on fighting, but we could certainly use some help in developing strategies and tactics."

"Ours is going to be a war of information. At least at first," Sasha added. "The status quo's biggest weapon is its ability to convince humans to look the other way. I believe that's also its primary weakness, and once we can subvert that the blinders will fall away from the human race."

Cassandra and I stated together, "We need to be ready before that happens, to make sure humanity doesn't immediately attack the supernatural. My plushies are part of that plan, we're already taking steps to normalize both the existence and use of magic, and the existence of beings that aren't quite human. And we're starting with LGBTQ folks, because they're important to us and we feel like they could use the help."

Siggy asked, "What about neurodivergent people? Would you be willing to work on helping them too, similar to what you're doing for trans folks?"

"Absolutely," we replied. Then after a glance at Tess we smiled at the small cat, "I probably qualify as some form of neurodivergent myself, and I know that's another heavily marginalized group. So yes, we'd be happy to include them in our plans."

"Then I'm in," the little torty stated.

Amethyst looked thoughtful again, but after two or three seconds she nodded to herself. "I still have some reservations about your methods, but I'm interested as well. If we can do this safely, then I'll try and help out too."

"If Amy's in then so am I," Tess stated. "My goal has always been to help young trans and queer people, and both Kid Chaos and Amethyst are doing exactly that."

That just left Raven, but by that point it was mostly a formality. Sure enough the angel stated, "I follow where my Goddess leads."

Then she added, "Beyond that, and on a personal level, I also support the cause. Equality and fairness for all is a noble goal. As is helping both queer and neurodivergent people."

By that point Cassandra and I were both smiling happily. So was Sasha, and Nina looked really happy too. Although she also looked like she still wanted to pet the kitty. And Kaylee had a huge grin on her face, while her tails all swished around in excitement.

The little kitsune beamed at our four hosts and announced, "Welcome to Team Chaos!"

~ End of Book Four ~

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