Chapter Forty-Two – Mad Skills

“Alright,” Emily said. She needed to set some ground rules down now, or else everything would fall apart into some chaotic mess. “Who wants to go first?”

The sisters looked at each other, then they all insisted that they would go first. It was exactly as chaotic and loud as Emily didn’t want it to be.

“No, no, stop,” Emily said. “We’re going to do this one at a time. Last time… last time I think we did Teddy first? How about this time we go Trinity first, then Teddy last?”

“But that’ll mean that I’m in the middle twice,” Athena said.

Emily nodded. “Okay then. Athena first, then Trinity, then Teddy.” She pointed to Teddy who looked ready to complain. “You went first last time, Teddy, it’s only fair.”

Athena grinned and moved over to Emily. Emily didn’t know what to expect until Athena jumped up and sat on her lap. “Okay,” she said. “I’m going to unlock my new skill now.”

Emily didn’t know what to do with her hands for a moment, so she settled on patting Athena on the head, which seemed to make the owl-girl perfectly happy. “Do your best,” Emily said.

With her tongue pinched between her lips, Athena focused ahead on nothing, then she grinned. “Got it!” she said. Then, much to Emily’s mounting concern, Athena started to cackle. “Oh, this is perfect. Here, want to see?” She raised a hand and summoned a blueish square in the air with the details of her newest skill written on it.

Emily read the skill description with mounting worry and horror. She loved her sisters, she really did, but giving any one of them the ability to read minds was… a plainly horrific idea. Still, of all of her sisters, Athena was the most responsible and mature.

There was a gasp, and she glanced at Athena who was smiling. “You think I’m more mature than the others?” she asked. “Hear that? I’m better than you!”

“What’s the power?” Teddy asked.

“I can read minds now!” Athena said.

Teddy nodded. “Cool. What am I thinking?”

Athena hopped off Emily’s lap and stared intently at Teddy. “Nothing. Your mind’s empty.”

Teddy puffed out her chest. “My thinking is too confusing for someone so stupid to understand.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Girls,” Emily said, cutting off that argument before it could start. She knew it was just putting off a fight that was going to happen no matter what, but a few more minutes of peace was worth putting off the inevitable for.

“I’m next!” Trinity cheered. All three of her bodies tried to sit on Emily’s lap, but there was too much Trinity and not enough Lap. One of them ended up on the floor while Emily dealt with two of Trinity using her as a chair. “Alright, lemme get my new awesome skill!”

“Do your best,” Emily said.

Trinity nodded all of her heads, then she concentrated. “Got it!” she said. She raised her hand, the same sort of blue box appearing before her.

Emily read over the skill message and tried to understand it. “Does it mean that you can… teleport things between yourself?”

“Yeah,” Trinity said. “Wanna see?”

Glancing around, Emily looked for something she wouldn’t mind losing. She found a pen on her desk and gave it to Trinity.

One of the Trinity on her lap bounced up while the one on the floor stood. “Okay, look sis,” the Trinity with the pen said. She put the pen into her pocket. The Trinity next to her reached into her pocket and pulled it out.

The pen had definitely moved from one Trinity to another, without any flashes or obvious signs that it had changed places. “That’s something,” Emily said.

She could imagine a few ways that could be useful. Combined with her Sisterportation, she could summon a Trinity while another picked something up for her and teleported it over. Or Trinity could use it to steal something and transport the thing to another Trinity in a secured location. It could also be used to hide evidence, if one Trinity was in a safe location.

“I’m going to teleport bread!” Trinity cheered.

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Or, Emily reasoned, Trinity could burn her cooldown teleporting useless things around.

“My turn!” Teddy said. She ran up to Emily and hopped onto her lap, feet kicking out. “This is going to be easy.”

Teddy only blinked twice before she had a new screen open.

She frowned at it. “This doesn’t mean I don’t get headpats though, alright?”

“Okay?” Emily asked as she read the skill.

A self-healing ability. One that seemed to rely a bit on Teddy’s own natural healing. That was still impressive, and useful too. Teddy was their front-line fighter, when there was fighting to be had. It was nice to see that she wouldn’t ever be hurt for long.

Still, Emily wondered what accelerated meant exactly. If an injury would take a normal person a month to heal, would Teddy be back on her feet in only two weeks? Or was it more than that?

She wasn’t sure she really wanted to test the ability.

“That seems very strong,” Emily said.

Teddy grinned. “Yeah! Now summon another sister so that I can go to bed sooner! I wanna use my new skill already.”

“Uh,” Emily said. Teddy wasn’t entirely wrong though.

Do you wish to spend a Skill Slot point on the Power: Sister Summoning?

“Yes,” Emily said, for once without too much hesitation.

New Skill unlocked!

Quadruple Quirkiness has been added to your Power’s Skills!

“I have the skill,” Emily said.

Her sisters cheered. “Yeah, Boss! Use it!” Teddy said.

Emily took a deep breath. She was pretty sure this was a terrible idea. It didn’t stop her from saying the words. “Create Sister.”

There was never much fanfare when her power went to work. One moment there were only three sisters in the room, and the next there were four.

The odd girl out was standing in the middle of the room, just a step ahead of Emily. She had messy brown hair, all bushy and wild, and was wearing jean overalls and a white t-shirt under an all-white lab coat.

The girl started at Emily.

Emily stared back.

The girl’s entire face went red. Starting from the tips of her ears and slowly crawling to her cheeks and across the bridge of her freckle-covered nose.

“Hey!” Teddy said.

The girl squeaked, turned, saw that she had an audience, then she ran around Emily’s chair as if to hide from her sisters. Or at least, she tried. Halfway around she tripped over nothing and crashed belly-first onto the ground, arms and legs splayed out and her tail flopping back.

“Oh no,” Emily said. She stood up and raced to the girl to kneel down next to her.

Emily’s other sisters all did the same, but on seeing the way the girl was peeking at her from under the tangled mess of her hair, Emily gestured them all back.

“Let’s give our new sister some space, okay?” she asked. To her new sister, she spoke in a softer, more careful tone. “Are you okay? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

The girl shook her head, then scrambled up to her feet. She then stepped on her own labcoat and proceeded to trip again.

The others laughed, but Emily gave them a warning look.

“It’s okay,” Emily said. “Take your time.”

“Okay,” the girl whispered. It was so quiet that Emily wasn’t sure if she heard it or if it was her imagination.

“I think she’s a beaver girl,” Teddy said. “Look at her tail. It’s all flattish.”

Teddy wasn’t wrong. The girl did have a tail peeking out from under her white coat. A flat, brown tail that only just reached the back of her knees.

“Is that right?” Emily asked.

The girl, her face still very red, nodded twice.

No words though. Emily suspected she had just found her quietest sister. “Are you shy?” Emily asked.

The girl’s eyes watered and she nodded, though only a little.

“That’s okay,” Emily said. She was shy herself, which meant… actually, that in no way helped. Emily knew what it was like to be cripplingly shy–though she was getting better–but she had no idea how to help someone else work through their own reluctance to talk. “We’ll take things slowly, okay?”

The girl nodded again. “Okay.”

“Right… so… we can do introductions? Don’t worry, you can go last. No pressure, okay?”

***

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