After AnimeCon 2: Chekhov's Gun

    Visiting Emily’s house now gave Brian a lot of mixed feelings, because though he’d stopped by over there so many times in the past and was very familiar with the place, he had always just been Emily’s friend before. Her best friend perhaps, they’d been extremely close, but in the past always careful to never cross the line and reveal their feelings for one another. Now they were together, but semi-secretly, and actually in a weird polyamorous relationship that Brian had no way of explaining to Emily’s family, because Actress likely understood the whole harem thing already better than he ever could.

    Wrapping my mind around the whole EMILY’S MOM IS A SUPER POWERFUL WIZARDESS or whatever is barely something I can manage, Brian thought to himself as he parked. Hell, I still feel guilty even just showing up with two other girls I’m intimate with. In my head if I’m meeting the parent of a girl I’m involved with, bringing along others is—well. It’s super weird.

    “Couldn’t even tell last night in the dark, but they have a nice place,” Kelly whistled. “Whole neighborhood is pretty upper class. Lots of two story homes, lots of ones with pools and double garages on this street. Probably run million dollars a pop, nowadays? I thought Actress’ cover identity was like, a high school theater director?”

    “Well, she was Hannah Hudson in Criminal Lives,” Brian said as they unbuckled their seatbelts. “And, Truliet is the school for rich twats around here, so. Works well enough as a cover story. As someone with secret crazy powerful magic stuff, she could probably afford just about anything.”

    “Claire made it sound like almost everyone on the other side of things with all of that comes into wealth pretty easily,” Christine agreed. “Although. Who knows? It could just be that those are the only magic folk her and my dad encounter, since they’re the ones everyone goes to for money laundering.”

    “They wouldn’t accept the sixty thousand back,” Brian told Kelly. “So. You and I can probably replace our phones at least, finally. If that’s cool with Christine, of course. It was her money.”

    “No—please,” Christine shook her head. “It’s your money. Not mine. It’s definitely not mine.”

    The three of them stepped out of the car and onto Emily’s driveway—Mrs. Rivera’s car wasn’t out front, but with the garage door closed he couldn’t tell if she might have parked it inside today or not. Encountering her again so soon after speaking with her on the phone seemed awkward, but they did need to know if they were in the clear with the Masters or not. Even more than that, Brian was just excited to reunite with Emily. It had been barely a day without her, but spending time around just Christine and dealing with the tension of Mr. Weschler and Claire being Masters had that gouged out valley-like wound that was now a part of him parched and needing some of Emily’s nurturing water again.

    “Whose ever money it is, I would like a phone if that’s cool,” Kelly said. “I didn’t call Stephie yet today, and I’m really needing that sugar fix. Like sure, Brian is my meat and potatoes, and everything with Emily is gravy, but I have this sweet tooth that needs—”

    Before Brian could knock on the front door it opened wide in invitation all by itself, causing all three of them to pause and exchange glances.

    “Well, that sure was spooky,” Kelly remarked in a dry voice. “Must have just been the wind, huh?”

    “Oh har har,” Actress’ voice resounded from deeper within the house. “Come in, come in! Emily’s in her room, and I assume she’s reciting her prayers or doing bible study or something in there. We can catch up a bit on things before I call her out, she won’t hear a thing ‘til then.”

    Brian led them inside and the door closed on its own behind them. Try as he might to open his senses and get a feel for whatever the magic around him was doing, he couldn’t help but feel like everything here was just like it normally was. Which led him to the thought that that impression was baked into the illusion Actress was performing somehow, but once he started to cast doubt at the reality of everything in his surroundings it was hard to know where to stop.

    Emily’s mother was waiting for them at the kitchen counter, and just like last night she was a mature beauty of surreal quality, with an outrageous curvy figure that was dressed to the nines in expensive clothes perfectly tailored to her best attributes. Anne Rivera shared Emiy’s dark eyes and had that same mischievous quirk to her lip, but the bombshell body was such exaggerated perfection that Brian immediately felt himself on edge again like he’d been all afternoon worrying about the Masters.

    “First of all, you—come here,” Actress said, beckoning Christine forward. “Step up to me here, please. Slowly.”

    “Um,” Christine cast a glance towards Brian for permission and then at his nod she moved forward with hesitant steps.

    At her approach, the fashionable blouse and designer jeans Actress was wearing sloughed away to reveal pajama pants and an oversized shirt—it was plain as day when the illusions fell away, that the woman was not wearing a bra. Likewise, the dazzling radiance of her beauty muted down to something more normal and human to them, the elegant coiffured hair becoming a simple updo with a headband, and the picture-perfect face going from movie star attending a gala to housewife not wearing makeup today. She was still naturally gorgeous, but with Christine denying the magic of an area around her, Mrs. Rivera was forced to drop some pretenses.

    Or, so it had seemed.

    “Boop,” Mrs. Rivera poked a fingertip to Christine’s nose in a cute gesture, and all at once the full Actress look with blouse and jeans and celebrity salon look was all back in an instant somehow.

    “What the hell…” Brian stared in surprise.

    “Sorry!” Actress flashed a stunning smile. “I don’t always tidy up the house in the ways you’d expect, sooo—the illusions are gonna have to stay up. That, and there’s some stuff around here that’s better left unseen.”

    “That… feels weird,” Christine mumbled, reaching up to check her nose.

    “Well don’t touch it!” Actress slapped her hand away with an exasperated giggle. “Good lord, you’ve no idea how hard it is to get all of that just right. Everything came off okay after a while last time, right?”

    “I mean… yeah,” Christine sounded a little sullen, turning to the others to explain. “She uh. It’s like she stuck a sticker on my mirror. Feels weird.”

    “Trade secret,” Actress confided, clapping her hands together. “So. Are we all here to see my willful and wayward daughter today, or are we here on business?”

    “Uh—” Brian paused as he considered the delineation she was making for them, because it was perhaps an important mindset she was trying to teach them for engaging with the ‘magic’ side of the world. “That depends on what you can tell us? If the Masters are after us, or if there’s any chance they know where we live and could just roll up on us—then, we’re taking Emily and living in the woods for a while.”

    “They won’t come here to Seneca lightly,” Actress said with a bit of a smirk. “If they dare to come at all, they’ll do so on tiptoes and with heads bowed, and probably even then still check with me for permission first. I think you can rest easy so long as you’re around town, here. Anyways! Where’s my manners—can I offer you kids coffee, tea, soda? Martinis, hard liquor? It’s actually just warm tap water, but let me know and I’ll make you think it’s whatever you like. Here, have a seat. Please.”

    The central island countertop of the kitchen had several stools which pulled out, and Actress took one for herself while Brian, Kelly, and Christine each occupied one of the others. That weird feeling persisted and grew stronger, and Brian couldn’t tell if his charm sense was parsing that they were likely surrounded by illusions, or if it was just plain weird gathering here in the kitchen to chat while Emily was just a room down the hall away and unaware that they were here. He pushed with his senses again, but couldn’t make much sense of any of the feedback he was getting.

    “So you’re the local tyrant, here?” Kelly asked with a flat stare. “Sure seems like you’re a good person to know...”

    “Jack certainly was!” Actress answered with a soft smile. “My late husband. Seneca used to be a big attraction—back in the day, a fair few Masters came visiting here. I’m assuming because they just really wanted to have their minds ripped asunder and so that they could die pointless, ignoble deaths while experiencing unbelievable agony. Thankfully, we were able to oblige them.”

    “Has that uh, has that changed now that your husband is out of the picture?” Kelly asked.

    “Oh, honey,” Actress gave her a pitying smile. “None of that changes, not when I control what the picture is! Hehehe~!”

    “Wait, so uhh—Emily’s father was this incredible powerhouse, and he’s gone now, but the Masters all just still think he’s around?” Brian couldn’t help but feel alarmed. And, I thought OUR group was pulling off the big bluffs…

    “I’m quite sure a lot of them suspect he’s gone,” Actress gave them an unapologetic shrug. “But, they always have! With me around they can never be sure, and—they’ve wrongly presumed him dead before in the past and paid DEARLY for it. So.”

    Brian and the girls exchanged worried looks at that, which Actress seemed to find amusing.

    “Look, first of all the Masters are tangled up in their own preconceptions about how magic works,” Actress rolled her eyes. “By their logic, we ladies in Jack’s orbit were upjumped thralls, and empowered by him. Thus, with that line of reasoning our group—Author, Teacher, Nurse, Flower and myself—would not retain our abilities after Jack passed away. The way we operate flies in the face of their understanding of how everything works, because they assume our handy little wooden trinket was an ordinary Master’s focus, and plays by their Rules.”

    “You told me before that it was a ‘legacy’ Focus,” Christine recalled. “Back there at the hospital.”

    “It’s certainly a guide, and it functions in much the same way as a Focus would,” Actress said. “But, in more literal magical terms, it makes each of you into each other’s living Focus. Rather than an ordinary covenant made between magic itself and one’s own ego, you all share a very complicated covenant made with each other—which is just love. Love can absolutely have its own certain sort of logic to it you’ll come to understand, especially as you mature… but it definitely doesn’t play by the Rules, and it never will. It just is; it’s love. Love will change and grow with you as your relationships do.

    “When Jack died, an enormous part of each of us died,” Actress admitted with a bitter smile. “We were absolutely diminished by the loss, and we always will be, forever. But, our love for him still endures, and us girls do still have each other. Difficult as it may be sometimes to get back together and just always be forced to remember what was, or think about all the could-have-beens. Us actually retaining our magic without Jack is simply nonsensical and impossible by the way the Masters imagine magic works—because, they think of everyone in the terms of being a Master like them.

   “Thus!” Actress concluded with a sigh. “For as long as we can still do what we do, they’ll always believe Jack must still be around somehow. Even though some of the Masters were literally right there with us when he died. Well, but also Jack always was a tenacious bastard. His personal ability was luck, so you can probably imagine the amount of absolutely unbelievable bullshit he always pulled off on a regular basis.”

    “Wait, so he was just… lucky?” Brian’s eyebrows went up. “That was his whole thing? His charm ability?”

    “Hm, saying it like that is a bit of an oversimplification, but yes,” Actress shrugged. “It’s like; everything is complicated, and life is a constant twisting quagmire of events and probabilities and outcomes, but when he so chose he could just smooth out all of those wrinkles into a path of almost no resistance. He was only ever vulnerable because he then felt morally obligated to always overextend himself to help others. Which we loved him for, but at the same time… well, I digress. He was a very lucky guy, but then he also really really pushed his luck. But, well. It’s all in the past, and we’re just as much to blame as he is for not managing to keep his tendencies in proper balance.”

    “Is there a way to be able to confirm what my own ability might be?” Brian asked.

    “Oh, I can tell you that—it’s probably much more obvious to me, because I have better perspective on it,” Actress said. “And, I looked into it last month just shortly after discovering all of what you kids were getting up to. Grandma Melly, she was part of one of the generation before mine, she collected a long long long list of all the personal abilities that appeared in association with the charm, and a lot of them were recurring. Mine certainly was, it was one of the more common ones. Teacher can pass on all those records to you, sometime.

    “Just—don’t read through seeing some of the previous generations which had hundreds of girls in the harem and think oh, we need to do that, too! Doing that also has consequences, obviously. Falling in love is easy, maintaining an enduring love with multiple people is difficult, and falling out of love will be many, many times more soul crushing kind of heartbreak than a normal breakup.”

    “Right, right, so what power does Brian have?” Kelly pressed. “You said your guy had ‘luck?’”

    “Briah has ‘refresh,’” Actress answered with an apologetic smile. “I looked into it again once I realized, it was a very common support ability. I’d just never heard of it being held by the main man, before, so yours might be a bit more amped up? It’s not exactly big, dramatic, and exciting like a lot of other abilities that appear… but I wouldn’t ever knock it, either. You’ll all always feel clean, refreshed, energized and ready to go. Your whole group will. When was the last time you actually had to brush your teeth or shower? Eventually you might not even have to go to the bathroom at all, anymore.”

    “Okay,” Brian gave her a slow nod. “I’m—I’m not gonna say I’m not disappointed, because I am, a little. But, also I guess I kinda suspected? And, it is definitely pretty handy. For all of us. Spent the last several years waking up every day already exhausted and miserable, and then having to still go to work on top of that, so. Waking up feeling like each day is gonna be the best of my life is pretty awesome.”

    “So—that’s it, just ‘refresh?’” Christine asked. “That’s all it does? It can’t, um. Heal injuries, or reset them, or—”

    “It plays a very small role in a very wide array of things,” Actress explained. “So, do try to appreciate it for what it is—a constant reinforcing positive influence.”

    “Still,” Brian let out a long sigh. “Emily’s never gonna let me live it down. Everyone gets these cool magic powers, and mine could easily be replaced by a washing machine, or a shower, or a quick visit to the laundromat, or something, hah.”

    “You won’t be saying that when you’re out and about in the wild, or visiting Other Places,” Actress mused with a rueful smile. “You can go to bed sweaty and tired and wake up clean and refreshed. You can go to bed on an empty stomach, and wake up like you had a full meal, you can—”

    “Wait wait wait,” Brian held up his hands. “You keep saying go to bed—does my thing only work if we sleep?!”

    “Until you properly master it… probably?” Actress shrugged. “I’d have to pull up all the nitty gritty details again. I’m sure you can empower it somehow, just, like with everything that will take some work.”

    “I mean,” Brian laughed at himself and then couldn’t help but grumble. “Even then. Like, yeah it’s convenient, but that’s also all it is. My power provides a convenience? It’s more of a convenience or an extra than it is a utility or a uh, necessity. It’s not like—warnings from the future, or an anti-magic mirror, or—”

    “Don’t look down on convenience too much, quite a few abilities in the archive weren’t conventionally convenient in the slightest,” Actress gave his shoulder a playful slap. “Look at it as being a logistical wet dream, and be satisfied with that. Okay?”

    “I mean, yeah I’m trying, but—”

    “Brian hon, there’s already an entire book written on the different ways who gets what power and WHY can be interpreted,” Actress said. “My twin sister was Author—she wrote it! What everyone winds up getting is usually equal parts aspirational and corrective, but they also tend to tie into your role in the group as a whole. Girls with genuine psychological problems or mental illnesses usually gain flashy abilities that help them become better adjusted. If—”

    “Gee, thanks,” Kelly muttered.

    “Yeahhh,” Christine sighed.

    “—If you do get something supportive like healing or refresh, it’s because you have a deep desire to serve, uplift, and you know, better those around you that you care about,” Actress finished. “Healing is super useful if you guys are out getting your asses kicked or you’re getting mauled by creatures all the time, and not too relevant during ordinary normal life. Refresh is helpful all the time.”

    “What about when someone gets empathy?” Kelly asked. “What does that mean?”

    “I don’t remember every damn chapter of the book, okay?” Actress chuckled. “I flipped through it a little while ago just to read up on refresh, and to see if there was anything on precognitives. There was—sort of, but none of them seemed to be exactly like yours, and they all seem to slide on a spectrum that balances false positives and useful information.”

    “I—no, I mean one of us does have empathy,” Kelly explained. “Stephanie. She’s, she had to go back to college. After the convention.”

    “Oh—ohhh, okay,” Actress nodded. “Yeah, I’d have to look it up and get back to you. I can’t loan out my copy without permission, but I can definitely check on things, and then paraphrase whatever I find for you. Teacher has an eidetic memory, so whenever you’re able to meet up with her, she’d be able to answer anything and everything she knows. My speciality was making us look good, and making everyone else look bad.”

    “Appearance is nine-tenths of the law?” Brian chuckled.

    “Exactly!” Actress beamed. “You’d be surprised at how often that holds true.”

    “But, uh—and not to knock your powers, because they are absurd, overpowered and incredible,” Brian chose his words carefully. “But, if push comes to shove, and one of the Masters already knows your specific powerset, can’t they make certain preparations to counter or uh, completely nullify your advantage there? Call your bluffs? What makes you feel so safe here? Just the threat of what Nurse or Teacher could do to someone in retaliation still means that—”

    “Well, the house here itself is also physically protected,” Actress remarked with a smirk as she sipped her coffee. “So—if anything happens and you’re in the area, yeah. Just come here. There’s this huge hidden tower that protects the residence, I’ve kept it hidden with my abilities.”

    “You have… a magic tower?” Brian asked. “What, if baddies come too close, they get zapped by lightning? A magic defense array, or something? Or—”

    “Hah, not quite,” Actress regarded him with a smile, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “I, well, I don’t specialize in that kind of magic thing. None of us really did. It’s this big brutish military gun tower, just hidden from plain sight with my magic.” 

    “So wait, like just normal guns, set up like a turret emplacement?” Brian blinked, trying to imagine some sort of invisible contraption standing over the house he’d visited so many times over the course of his life. “Does that even do anything to Masters? I thought…or ah, from what I understood, can’t they just block mundane firearms and stuff real easily with their magic?”

    “Oh, for ordinary small arms fire, certainly, and Masters might even shrug off a .357 magnum or two,” Actress agreed, glancing around and then crossing the kitchen to pick up an extra thick marker from a messenger bag on the counter.

    “But, the one Teacher installed here fires twenty millimeter rounds. Big boy bullets! Big rounds like this size, I think at a rate of seventy-five of these, per second? Every second? When it comes to the ah, bigger guns, sheer brute force application of physics tends to overcome just about any personal magic defenses or armor or such. I remember Teach was saying if anything, we should be more worried about over-penetrating our targets?”

    “Seventy five of those a second,” Brian stared at the extra-large marker. “Twenty millimeter. You have… does your tower have a big metal rounded tank looking thing on top? A radar thing?”

    “It does!” Actress beamed. “You’ve seen them before?”

    “It… sounds a lot like you have a Phalanx anti-missile gatling system?” Brian sounded unsure of himself. “But I uh, I really don’t know how you’d even get your hands on one? Wouldn’t those be like, millions upon millions of dollars?”

    “We borrowed ours!” Actress confided with a wink. “From this big beached aircraft carrier in one of the Other Places; an alternate universe. All of the people there had already abandoned their humanity and—well, it was a very sad and broken world, there. A lot of the empty ones are like that. But, well they certainly weren’t using it anymore, and waste not, and Teacher was very confident that it should shred just about anyone who comes along trying to be a bother into meat mulch.”

    “I can’t tell if you’re pulling our leg or not?” Brian gave her an uncertain smile. “You have a… big, invisible Phalanx system, just perched on your roof?”

    “It’s mounted up on this thick heavy frame thingie, but yes,” Actress told him. “I never heard anything about Phalanx, I don’t think, but it’s probably a very similar thing? Naval gun? Big rounded radar thingie at the top, spinny gun barrels beneath? Teach just calls it the ‘Sea-wiz,’ no clue if she made that up herself, or not. We did test the one of them out at her place—they’re OUTRAGEOUSLY loud! Definitely don’t ever try to fire one yourself, unless you have someone like me to dampen the sound, or someone like Nurse to put all the blood back in your ears.”

    “Uhhh—” Brian blinked.

    “Makes me feel so much safer living here, though!” Actress smiled. “Knowing that should any mean and nasties creep on by, we can just hose them down with their own body weight in supersonic lead every few seconds. Hehehehe! The one we tried out obliterated the test dummy, and then also dug this big long trench in behind it, too. And I mean like a long trench, like this could’ve been the drainage ditch beside a road. Trust me, I sleep like a baby knowing that big ugly thing is keeping watch overhead. Teacher has it all automated for us, and whatnot.” 

    “Uhhh—” Brian couldn’t help but stare. “Can I… can I see it?”

    “Of course!” Actress chuckled. “Hah, boys. Go on out around and take a look, I’ll sneak you a peek. Now um, mind you it’s normally quite hidden, so I haven’t had it painted or anything—it’s actually a bit of an eyesore, when it’s not—”

    “I completely do not mind,” Brian assured her with a wry smile. “Trust me. Just… I mean that is so awesome.”

    “Boys,” Actress said again, shaking her head in amusement. “Go on.”

    The girls joined Brian as he slid his chair out and then trotted out of the kitchen to make for the front door. He opened and held it open for Kelly and Christine, and then followed them out into the yard, each of them looking back up towards the roof of the Rivera residence. There, incongruous among the ordinary trees and boring roofs of the suburban neighborhood, was a gigantic gun tower.

    The emplacement stood atop metal bracing a good ten feet above the house where there had been nothing at all visible before, exuding silent menace and the promise of near-instantaneous obliteration. It was a naval gun with an enormous pill-shaped off-white metal radar tank awash with grime from rainwater, the giant words ULTIMA RATIO REGUM emblazoned across the front in rusting script, and with the underside protrusion of its enormous gatling barrels looking to be about as long as a person was tall. Tucked in just beneath the big boxy framing brackets housing the barrels was an enormous squat metal cylinder which contained its ammunition feed, and Brian couldn’t help but wonder how long the thing could fire for.

    “Fuck me, that’s cool,” He whispered. “And, Emily never even knew this shit was up there this whole time. Goddamn.”

    “Doesn’t look like I pictured at all,” Kelly admitted. “I thought it’d be like a battleship cannon? Looks more like a water tank or something. A big fat ugly water tower, with a minigun for a dick?”

    “With a minigun for a dick, yeah,” Brian grumbled. “Jesus. I’ll uh, I’ll have to pull you up some videos online of what those bad boys can do. Actress’ power can conceal multi-million dollar navy anti-missile systems, while my power is like getting ordinary showers, but for free. Fuck me.”

    “Comparison really is the thief of joy, I guess,” Kelly shrugged. “And hey, speaking of which. I kinda want you to meet one of my coworkers, Joy. She’s hot. Seems nice. MILF. Probably lonely.”

    “Emily’s mom literally just warned us there about adding too many people to the harem arbitrarily,” Brian shook his head, incredibly distracted. “I think Rebecca, yeah for sure, but after that we should put a pause on any thoughts of expanding, until we figure out what the hell we’re doing.”

    “Yeah… I don’t like feeling so out of my depth,” Christine admitted. “Or having to rely on Emily’s mom all the time whenever something might go wrong. We already owe her and don’t even know how we’re paying that back, yet. And uh. Whatever the fuck she stuck onto my face is really really disorienting? My powers feel like they’re going cross-eyed at one of those hidden image posters. Trying to resolve it and see properly, and just getting confusing nonsense in return...”

    “Emily and her mom have a Phalanx anti-missile system on their fucking roof,” Brian repeated to himself, still gazing up at the thing. “Like it’s just a big Christmas decoration. I’m just in awe. Just look at it. This is so cool. I want one. This is so fucking cool. Those uh, those are not intended to be anti-personnel? And, they’re close-distance defense systems, but that’s like, close distance in terms of being out at sea? Not a suburban neighborhood? If you pointed that at a person, it would just be buurRrRrRr, and the result would be like their whole body was instantaneously fed through a wood chipper. Cars would get chewed up basically the same way, I’d imagine? Like, twenty millimeter rounds—holy fuck.”

    “It’s a bit… I want to say it’s overkill?” Christine observed. “But, knowing the Masters, maybe not. And, if things like vampires are real, then yeah you’d probably need something like this just to sleep at night.”

    “Ehhhh,” Kelly said. “I’m not even sure I buy it? That it’s even real, the big gun tower thingie. And not just a show she’s putting on. So far as I’m aware, even Actress should have this certain limited radius where she can extend her illusions to, and then you can’t put them out farther than that. A range? You wouldn’t ever be able to leave the vicinity of the neighborhood, if you had to constantly maintain an illusion to hide a big gun tower. Yet, she goes off to leave for work in a car, and fiddles about town for groceries and such I’m sure, and—”

    “No, there are ways!” Actress appeared out of thin air beside them, making each of them flinch back in surprise. “Certain special crystal shards exist which you can affix illusions or other things to permanently. Those are worth more than the big guns! Probably worth more than the aircraft carrier we stole them from, or even the entire world we visited there—they’re genuinely priceless. You can’t have a peek at those though, I’m afraid. I have to guard those pretty close.”

    “...Okay, sorry,” Kelly sighed. “I guess I just thought that since you’re all about illusions, that one of us should always play the skeptic. About everything we see.”

    “Trust me, I take no offense,” Actress giggled as her image faded from view again until she was just a disembodied voice. “Rather, I’m very glad my Emily has people around her who don’t just blindly take everything at face value! That’s incredibly important.”

    “Speaking of Emily—?” Brian asked.

    “I’ve been hollering at her from across the house,” they heard Actress confess. “She’s been grumbling and getting herself dressed for the past few minutes! I told her I think one of her friends is here, and here you guys are outside the door again—so, now you can act like you’re just now arriving to see her.”

    “What a clever reminder of your constant manipulation,” Kelly said in a dry voice.

    “And so, it was nice talking to you all!” Actress laughed. “Please take my lazy slob of a daughter back to your place, I’m begging you. I’m begging you! She’s leaving half-baked magic forms all over her room, without properly deconstructing the strata afterwards when she’s ‘practicing’—and yes, I use that word loosely to describe what it is she’s doing. I’m really tempted to have dear Chloe here go in and purge all the magic mess from her room! Before leftover magic structures start to jumble up together into weird effects or distortions or something.”

    “I can do that, if you’d like,” Christine sighed. “I guess.”

    “We’re uh, we’re calling her Christine, now that it’s like she’s reformed from who she was,” Brian said. “Or, maybe we’re supposed to call her Misandry, when we’re referring to everyone in the context of the magic B.S.?”

    “Ooh, sorry!” Actress apologized. “Christine, then, from now on. Christine. Trust me, I know a thing or two about having to use different names for different situations and contexts. For you all, you can refer to me as Mrs. Rivera while you’re around my daughter, and maybe someday you can call me Mom?”

    “I’ll call you Mrs. Rivera, if that’s alright,” Kelly said. “Already have a real fucking complicated relationship with parents in general.”

    “That’s not uncommon,” Actress said. “Hm, but you do have parents? A wildly disproportionate number of girls inducted into harem in the past were already orphans or recently orphaned. My sister dearest wrote a treatise on that at one point, as well.”

    “I… think we all have our parents?” Brian said. “But, we either have messy relationships with them, or well. Emily has you for a parent, and Christine’s dad is a Master, so having mysterious secret figures of power for parents may set some kind of precedent, there? Should probably go and double check and make sure that my dad isn’t a Master, too. He’s definitely some kind of psychopath, I just never saw any indications of uh, abilities, or anything.”

    “Hm, well that would definitely set your generation apart from the norm,” Actress commented. “We can look into it. Well. Emily’s coming out now—so, I’d better skedaddle.”

    “Wait, wait,” Brian asked, arching an eyebrow. “So—Emily’s power is really summoning random buffet trays from across the world?”

    “...It is!” Actress’ disembodied voice reported with glee. “Haven’t been able to sneak a bite for myself just yet, though! The food certainly does look good. Her ability might be even more convenient than yours, kiddo.”

    “See?” Kelly snorted. “What did I tell you guys?”

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/// The Sea-Wiz is ideal for home defense.