...Chapter 9, Happiness Here...

 

 

As mom's laughter continues, my sisters reveal that the reason all the prompts were completing is because they were the ones confirming the choices. And I was too slow to cast my vote.

"Okay. What was with that first party name?" I ask, my arms resting around Kaylie and Sawyer, massaging both their asses. They'd married me without asking, the least they owed me was some ass fondling. Besides, they were both enjoying it while returning the favour.

"That was... my idea," Madison blushes as my eyebrows try to crawl off my head.

"If not for the chance it could be seen by someone else, we would've gone with it," Bethany admits with no more than a shrug. "Would've been funny."

"You make it sound like you guys were discussing your choices," I say while rubbing the top of Sawyer's head with my chin.

Bethany glances over at mom before replying, "When we came the first time, we got the first prompt. That's why the party name was already there. Thankfully it wouldn't go through without you, so we messed around a bit. The rest of the options, we discussed on the interface. I thought it was weird you were quiet while we were talking."

“Quiet? You guys were selecting the options as fast as I could read the prompts,” I say, shaking my head. “How was I supposed to keep up with that?”

Instead of responding my sisters all look at each other for a second before everyone’s eyes settle on me. Bethany holds up a finger, asking, “How long… did that feel like it took for you?”

“Uhm. Hard to say. Ten to fifteen seconds, I guess?”

“Whoa, that’s some major lag,” Sawyer says, pulling away to look up at me.

“Really? We had… a lot longer than that,” Kaylie interjects before I can respond.

Madison nods, glancing at the interface. “At least half an hour. I was hoping the name would reset," Madison admits, blushing as she shoots me a small smile. Then in a whisper she adds, "Can you imagine if mom had seen it?"

"That would've been awkward," Kaylie agrees, her eyes drifting over to where mom's still chuckling. "Though maybe she'd have found it funny?"

We all turn to mom then, her laughter finally trailing off to a gentle wheeze. I kneel down next to her, putting my hand on her head where her injury was. But when I attempt to heal it, my energy just travels down her body, tickling at the edge of her burns.

"Hehe, that tickles," mom mumbles, her breathing still shallow.

"Sorry," I say as I pull away.

"Should be. Who knows where that hand's been? Oh wait! Everywhere!" mom laughs out, but there's moisture in the corner of her eyes.

"Sorry," I say again, this time feeling like a crappy son. I look over my shoulder at my sisters then roll my eyes to the side in the direction of mom. Madison understands my intent immediately, moving closer to give mom the hug I can't. Not after mom's comment about where my hand has been and everything that's happening with my sisters.

Cause she's right. I was literally just fondling my sisters.

I shuffle back as the rest of my sisters follow Madison's example, surrounding mom with hugs. Mom starts crying as she hugs the girls back, stroking their hair. There are several mumbled apologies, and mom just hushes my sisters saying that it's alright over and over. We stay like that for several minutes before mom reaches up and wipes her eyes. Then she looks over at me with a smile, the tear tracks still marking her cheeks. "I'm sorry Darren. This is just all so much at once."

Not feeling safe to speak, I simply answer with a nod and tentatively return her smile.

"It'll be okay, mom," Bethany states, her blond head buried against mom's back.

"I know, I know," mom nods. "Like I said. It was just a bit much. At least I know you're all going to be with someone who loves you."

"And that we can trust," Madison whispers, so quiet I'm sure it wasn't meant for me. It twists me a little when she says that. But only because Madison's had issues with every guy she's dated. Well, no more of that, at least.

Cause dating all four of my sisters at once is so much better for her, I sigh to myself. Right, not dating. We’re… married now.

"Okay, enough of this," mom declares, giving each of her daughters a squeeze before standing up and extending her arms for me. It's amazing how much that means to me as I reach forward and give her the most chaste hug I can. Which is actually my old standard squeeze-hard-cause-I-love-you hug. She ruffles my hair as we let go, her eyes drifting towards the electrical box. "So, what did you guys learn about the zone? Did it say anything?"

"Uhm," Bethany blushes, letting a cascade of blond hair fall in her face as we all look back at the forgotten control panel. "We might have forgotten to check."

"In our defence, we were a little distracted," Madison says, taking my hand and squeezing it.

"Well, go ahead and check it now. Don't worry, I'll wait," mom says, shooing us forward before crossing her arms and staring at us.

With a chuckle, I join my sisters at the panel. It has dozens of options, including upgrades for the zone. It takes us half an hour to sort through the basic features, consulting with mom as we work. One of the first things we discover is a map. But we ignore it at first as mom records every option in the back of a 'Caution, wet-floor' sign by carving plastic out with her power. Even this is uncomfortable to look at.

Most of the options are different ways of upgrading the zone or are only available once we've unlocked one of the zone upgrades. Most options make sense, like defensive walls, monster spawning and increased spawn rates (which are currently disabled) and increased resource production and storage. But there’s one that definitely stands out. The ability to teleport to the zone from another under our control.

While we’re going through the options, we discover we’re guaranteed control of the zone for seven days and six hours. Every day we keep the zone in our control, we generate resources. Not just electricity, but control points that can be used for all the upgrades we’ve been going through. We can almost afford one of the cheapest, which would let us use spawned monsters as guard animals. But only for our party. Unless we spend even more points to upgrade the zone to a 'settlement' area.

Once that's done, mom's able to vaguely match the map we found on the control panel, going just on verbal cues. It's the crudest map I've ever seen mom draw. And it's still better than any of us could’ve done. "Okay, so the 'Pinnacle of Light' zone is here, on the north side. And according to the map, there's more water just past the edge of the solar farm, correct?"

We agree, Bethany standing next to the electrical panel as her eyes dart back and forth to mom's copy of the map.

"And the highway is its own zone? The 'Danger Zone'?" mom asks, etching the name in place. Again, there's a round of nods. We continue, mapping off each of the 'zones' until the entire map is properly labelled on the back of the second sign. There are eleven zones on the map in total, only four of which are part of the chunk of land we were brought over on, the last two being ‘Unnamed Settlement’ and ‘Unclaimed Cliff’. Including everything else, our new map seems to indicate an island about four times the size of our initial 'chunk'.

Mom ends up having to break apart a mop bucket to keep the extra information we find on the map screen as we spend another half an hour searching through the interface. No more magical time pause like with the party selection.

While poring over the map, we realize each of my sisters see extra information while staring at the same basic screen. When looking at a zoomed in version of the map, Bethany is able to give the current resources, their income rates and storage for each of the zones. Kaylie reads what the current bosses are guarding each zone. Resource usage is Sawyer, and Madison’s extra info fills in any extra features or hazards a zone has, such as the Pinnacle of Light zone providing a power bonus to the owners while they're in the zone. To no one's surprise it's also an energy generation zone. Interestingly, the highway is a training zone which has its boss listed as a Gravel Raptor swarm. The ‘Unnamed Settlement’ is the entire subdivision. Unsurprisingly, it’s a settlement zone. It has no boss, instead having a timer with a little more than six hours left on it. The ‘Unclaimed Cliff’ doesn’t have a boss either. Like with the rest of the zones, we do know the approximate location of the zone’s control node. Halfway down the cliff face.

While we've been doing our research, I've been channelling my healing into my foot until I'm down to around half energy, then letting it recharge. By the time we're just about finished, my formerly severed leg is finally healed. As I'm testing my weight on it, mom says, "Okay. Sounds like we’ve got all we can for the moment. I'd like to take the jeep back to the house and consult my map. I have a feeling we're going to want to be there when the counter runs out."

All our eyes turn to Bethany as we realize mom doesn't know what happened to the jeep.

"Uh, kids? Is everything alright?" mom asks, looking up from her mangled pieces of plastic turned notes.

Deciding Bethany shouldn't have to bear the weight, I step forward. "The jeep kinda got slagged. There isn't much of it left."

Mom just stares at me for a few seconds before shaking her head. "Of course. Why else were you kids all on the ground, fighting to protect me, when you could've just drove away."

There's a noticeable hiss as most of us let out our breath. But the news of her jeep's destruction doesn't slow mom down. She's already gathered her notes and is at the door when she looks back at us.

Sawyer groans as she pulls me forward. "We're gonna have to walk home, aren't we? Soi annoyed."

"Unless you've figured out how to fly," mom says, neither acknowledging Sawyer’s pun nor hesitating as she leads us through the service building. "How much did beating that monster help your growth?"

I blink, realizing I didn't even think to check that. When I open my status, I'm shocked to find that my Body and mind are both at 12%. But the real shock is my spirit at 100%. When I focus on it, I get the sensation that I need to raise my other two attributes to increase to the next tier. Except… none of that came from the monster. My growth comes from my sisters. So what…

"It was pretty good. We got... holy shit, where did the rest of this come from?" Sawyer sputters, drawing everyone except mom to a stop.

Bethany hums as she stares at her own status, her eyes drifting to me. "I think it's obvious."

The rest of the girls also turn to me, but whatever understanding Bethany came to doesn't seem to occur to them. Or me. Not until she says, "Darren is officially our husband. At least according to the System. Still owes us our weddings."

"Hmm," Madison says while I'm considering how much effort it’ll take to set up four separate weddings. That'd be crazy enough back on earth. But my sisters are worth at least that much. Then Madison takes the hand not held firmly by Sawyer, draping it over her shoulder. Yep, four weddings will definitely be worth it. "It was certainly good for my spirit, knowing he's ours."

Kaylie gives me a grin that's nothing like the way she was smiling this morning. "You know, I'm okay with a fourth. It's awesome it’s us. And it's a lot better than that tenth." At the last, she blows a raspberry at me. It takes me a second to realize she’s talking about my teasing of her yesterday.

"Mom's right, being able to get stronger just by loving our brother is busted," Sawyer says, copying Madison as she pulls my arm around her waist before grabbing my ass with her free hand. "Kinda bull that I had to share my day and we didn't even get to play any APEX, but I guess that's life."

"You kids coming?" mom calls from the next room, reminding us of the trek ahead. I pull Sawyer into my side, nuzzling her head as we join mom.

We pause just inside the front door to collect the cooler, which has the essence core Kaylie harvested from the GS-Raptor. The second Madison and I lift the cooler between us, a prompt appears on the screen.

"Convert one 'Essence Core - Solar - Bronze Grade' to 2000 control points?"

"Huh, it's bronze?" I ask, while swiping the prompt to the negative. "That seems good."

"I think so," Bethany agrees. "I really want to absorb it. I bet a solar essence would work great with my light essence. And it feels good, you know?"

"You should," I say as we carry the cooler out into an empty parking lot.

"I mean, I didn't want to assume," Bethany starts, only for Madison to hold up a hand, causing us to all fall behind mom again.

Madison lowers the cooler, glancing at the rest of us. "We agree that Bethany should use it, right? Especially after reading how cores can increase our attributes when we bond them?"

"Wait, I missed that," I say, drawing her attention to me.

Sawyer elbows me lightly. "That's what you get for trying to help mom get the zone boundaries accurate. Watching her work messes with the head. And yeah, Bethany should tots use it."

"Mhmm, the core feels... wrong to me. Like it would twist my magic if I used it," Kaylie says as mom approaches us.

As we set the cooler down, Bethany explains everything to mom. But even with our encouragement, Bethany still seems hesitant. "It... I just... after mom's jeep. And Darren."

At that, I reach forward, covering her lips with my hand. The cheeky minx licks my fingers but remains quiet as I say, "It'll help you get stronger. And then we don't have to carry this cooler all the way home."

The second point is when Bethany starts nodding. I draw my hand away, and she flips the cooler open. Packed next to our dinner is a golden spiral, shining as brightly as the GS-Raptor had been when we first spotted it. Bethany reaches in, pulling out the essence before closing the lid. Then she licks her lips, before closing her eyes and tracing her other hand along the curve of the spiral. As we watch, the spiral breaks into small motes of light, which float up Bethany's arm before slipping in through her nose. A minute later and the entire spiral is gone and I'm fighting off the urge to scratch at my nose in sympathy.

Bethany beams a wide smile at us, then she says in little more than a whisper, "I think I'm gonna need someone to-"

The rest of her words are lost as she slumps forward. I'm already there to catch her, my ability alerting me to the sudden wave of exhaustion just before she slumps. As I hold her, I look at the rest of my family with a small frown. "Looks like we're gonna be carrying her instead."