As Jelin ushered everyone to start slowly making their way back into the safety of their home ground while Ell, Emmy, and Clare checked through the captives, he sauntered closer to Mel.  She had stayed a little further back the whole time and wasn't acting like her normal, happier self.

<Hey, what's wrong?>

<I'm not having children!>

<Ooookaay?  I wasn't ever planning on forcing you to, anyways.  A little more explanation of what made you suddenly change your mind would be nice, though.>

<What?  Oh!  Wait, no!  I didn't mean it like that.  I still want to have your children someday.  I meant that what I'm doing now is not having children.>

<Right.  That's still not enough explanation.  Maybe tell me the whole story of what happened from the beginning?>

<Um.  So, as a 'Broodmother' I now can...well...will, I guess, start laying some eggs that spawn my own little swarm.  That's kind of where the others came from, already.  I tried to let the humans and foxes know about it so they wouldn't get scared or anything like they did with the others.  Then everyone started saying that they're my children.  They're not!>

<Ah.  I think I see now.  Hmm.  Zaer, can you come help with this, please?  I think you might be able to either better explain or at least correct me.  Thanks.  So, Mel, I'm going to tell you how I see it, first.  They technically are your children.  In a way at least.  They just aren't your...umm...children.  Actually, I think Zaer might be better after all.  Zaer?  

She's about to lay eggs for her own swarm.  A real swarm this time, if I understand it right.  However, she's distraught at the moment because everyone thinks and says that they're her children yet she only wants her children to be between her and I.>

<I see.  I believe I have the appropriate understanding with that.  However, since I am unsure as to the exact nature of the current circumstances, I will explain my own and hope that the similarities will be noted.  I hope that that will suffice.

My swarm are indeed my children in a way.  They come from me, are cared for primarily by me, and are raised, taught, and directed by me, much as any type of children would be.  That is where the similarities end, though.  I would likely be more accurate to consider them spawn than children.

The type of children you are considering are meant to be successors, which my swarm are not.  They are merely an extension of my will and do not count as actual reproduction.  They are mindless or near mindless and can only function through me or their own instincts.  When the time comes for me to reproduce with a male then those children will be the type of children you are thinking of.

The best I could say to you is to not heed the voices of those who do not understand.  They are certainly your children but should be considered as mere spawn instead of children to put your attentive care into.  Should you feel that they require greater care, then you may even go so far as to consider them as...what was it again...pets.  Pets that just so happened to be spawned by you and little else.>

<There you go.  From an experienced expert in the subject herself.  So, you don't need to have that depressed frowny face anymore.  Besides, does it really matter what anyone besides our family thinks about it?  If they misunderstand, then it's their problem.>

Mel didn't look like she was as convinced as he hoped but she at least seemed to be thinking about it.

<I'll tell you what.  Once we have this whole bat situation more settled, I'll open the link between us three so you can get a better understanding of how both Zaer and I see it.  Then we can open it for everyone and you can see that we all understand and it doesn't matter if others don't.  Okay?>

He saw her nod, though she still seemed to be thinking on it some.  He gave her a few moments more but she seemed to not have anything to say about it for now and they had already reached home territory, so he redirected his attention back to the others after sending a feeling of thanks to Zaer through the link.

He went back over to where it looked like most of the captives had been checked already hoping for some lucky news.

<So, any good news?>

<Not exactly.  It looks like one of the more injured and aggressive ones is decently far along in her pregnancy.  The problems are that she is...well...injured and aggressive, I guess.  I'm not sure we could get the babies you're holding to nurse from her even if we can solve that either.  Then, if the baby she has survives, I don't know if she can produce enough to make up for four children by herself...>

<Right.  Is there some way we can get the milk from her and then feed the babies ourselves?  Even if it's just a little, every bit will help right now.  I know a little bit about substitutes but it's very little and I don't think we've quite reached the point in our technology that we can do much about it.  I'll try and explain what I know, but...>

<We can try.  Ell and I can probably work out a little something.  I don't think we should hold very high hopes on any of those three surviving, though.  Sorry.>

<Let's at least give it a good try, first.  At the worst I can try to link up the mother bat and force her through mother-like evolution options to help.  Saph even mentioned a 'Caretaker' evolution that we could try to figure out and make her take.  So with that as a backup plan let's see what we can do.

We should still be able to make some more regeneration drinks, right?  If we can keep the mother docile and fed enough, then maybe we can use that to help her produce more milk?>

<Maybe?  It feels like that might be a little cruel, though.>

<I'll be honest here.  I'm probably going to end up being cruel to most of the non-children.  There's no reasonable way we can keep them alive in the end and we have a good chance here to do some experiments on non-sapient monsters.  I would have preferred to use something like other undead rats but we don't have any of those available.  Forcing a mother to care for several extra young is not the cruelest thing.>

<...okay.  I'll get some stuff ready and we'll try to do what we can keep them alive.>

<Thanks.  If we can get these little ones fed within an hour or two, that would be best.  All of us need some sleep so anything past that can wait until we wake up with clear heads.>

<Right.  Ell, I'll need your help.  I guess we can leave all the others in the guest room?>

<Sounds fine.  I'll keep these little ones with me for now, though.  I want them somewhere I can keep an eye on them.>

They all moved toward the nest while Saph started heading back to her own place to sleep.  Jelin went to the main room and sat down near the evolution spot before carefully pulling the baby bats out of his harness and setting them on the ground.  They were wrapped in soft webbing, but not tightly and other than looking somewhat malnourished seemed to be fine.

Kai flew over and sat on his shoulder as he looked each one over and made sure they were unhurt.  She seemed to be looking at them fairly intently from what he could see from the corner of his eye.  The other girls in the room also seemed to be watching with some amount of intensity.

<What's wrong?>

He finally gave in and decided to ask all of them why they were staring since he still needed to wait for Ell and Clare to bring the babies some milk.  Some brief conversation happened in the link between all of them with Kai being chosen as the spokesperson for the rest.

<Um.  They're pretty cute.  You also seem to be pretty good at this.  So, we were just admiring those points, you know.  The 'Mother' evolution probably gave some motherly instincts, too, so that was kind of being touched on...>

<Ah.  Well, I did want some more familiars and I intend to do what I can to take care of them.  Plus, like you said, they're kind of cute.  Even if the whole familiar thing doesn't work out, it'll be nice to be able to save these guys if we can.  I do feel a little bad for what I'm going to end up doing with the rest of them, if nothing else.>

<Hm?  You're going to do something to the rest of them?>

<Unfortunately, yes.  We have non-sapient monsters we can test some things on without having to worry about messing with our food or anything.  Since I don't think it would be a good idea to force them into the link, we'd have to kill them anyways.  We might as well make their deaths mean as much as we can.>

<Oh.  At least you'll be nice to these ones, though.  Right?>

<Of course.  I just said so, didn't I?  Right now, Clare and Ell are trying to get them some milk so they won't starve to death overnight.  Tomorrow I'll try and figure out what else we can do for them.  Depending on what we figure out, I might even try to see if we can start constant rescue operations for their abandoned babies.  These were the only ones we had a chance to save this time but there were more there.>