AN: This omake came about after some discussion on my Pat reon/Discord. It's just a bit of fun slice of life for Taylor and her family set a few years after the ending. For those interested, this is the song that Taylor is trying to beat all through this chapter. Holy cow, I have so much respect for people who can do this.

'[Beat Saber] Reality Check Through the Skull (Expert+)' and apparently 'Overkill' is worse...


Some Battles Can't Be Won

"Arrhhgghhhrrghh!"

Emily paused, her drink halfway to her mouth as the inarticulate scream rang out through the air followed by a sorrowful musical tone almost immediately after. She pushed her gas mask away as she set the drink down. Why she even bothered with the costume after this many years was a mystery for the ages. It wasn't like any of the household's identities were a secret anymore.

As the distant music started back up, she grimaced and glanced around the refrigerator to eye Mimi. The little fire sprite that was Conflagration stopped dancing on her hair and twisted towards the living room. It folded its arm over its chest and heaved a sigh, expelling a puff of flame into the air.

"I thought Taylor had decided to put the game down?"

"She did. Then a little while ago, she squared her shoulders and calmly declared that she had figured it out and could beat in with just one more round."

Emily nodded as Taylor's roar of frustration rang out yet again. The poor girl hadn't even made it 30 seconds into the song this time. "And how long ago was this 'one more round'?"

Mimi shrugged. "About 16 hours ago." Conflagration held up both hands extending them as wide as it could.

Emily groaned. "I swear to god, I leave you guys alone for one day. One day! You couldn't hide the damn game, Mimi?"

"She's having a good time. Let her unwind a bit."

Taylor's cry of rage shook the glasses drying on the countertop. Emily raised an eyebrow. "'Having a good time' huh? The next time that the Elite want to talk to someone about handing over their monopolies we're sending…someone else."

"Sure, Em."

"I obviously need to be the sane one here, while Paige is on tour."

"Of course."

"As soon as one of us gets Taylor away from that game, the other is going to burn it to fucking ash. Got it, Mimi?"

"Got it."

"I mean it, Mimi." Emily stepped forward and poked Mimi in the chest. She tried to ignore how the older girl's breathing sped up and the way her eyelids drooped. Emily had a good thing going with Brian and she didn't need to fuck it up by letting Mimi get to her. Besides Taylor and Simmy took care of the older girl well enough. "Focus on my eyes, Fire Girl. Burn. That. Game."

"Are you sure you want me using fire in the house?" Mimi asked, smirking. "I might get…into things a bit."

"Cool your libido. Taylor is way too annoyed right now to deal with your brand of kink. She'd just shut down your power and then go and stew. We both know that."

Mimi grunted, her breathing coming back to normal. "Yeah. I know. Damn, anything else and we could've had so much fun…"

Emily rubbed her temple and prayed for patience. "Mimi, just because Taylor isn't a teenager anymore doesn't mean that she's always ready to go. She has - "

"Responsibilities," Mimi parroted raising her fingers in air quotes. "I know, I know. I swear, I didn't convince her to start playing just to feed my fantasy. I actually tried to stop her. She just…she really thought she could do it this time. She was adorable and I, you know, I caved." Conflagration nodded his head, the little smoke ring that followed the movement lending an almost adorable air to the gesture.

Emily sighed. "I get it. Has Madison come home yet? She probably has the best chance of pulling Taylor away at this point."

"She got home about 20 minutes ago. I was about to call in Lily actually. I think Madison is making it worse."

"Oh god no," Emily muttered, wiping a hand down her face. "She's giving her tips again isn't she? I need to go take care of this. Call Lily and get her back here now. And get Lisa back from her Humiliation Revenge Trip. If I'm not out of that room in 15 minutes get Paige on the line and start having her sing…something relaxing."

Mimi nodded. "What's the Goddess Interrupt option?"

Emily grimaced. "Dennis. QA will back us up. We can freeze her for…a second? Just long enough to destroy that demon cursed monster."

Mimi blinked. "You really don't like watching her play Beat Saber do you?"

"I like sleeping," Emily hissed.

She stalked past her friend and through the house into the living room, arriving just in time to watch Taylor's run fail yet again as the Game Over screen flashed on the TV.

"Why!? Why can't I beat this?!" Taylor snarled. Her hair was standing on end and her clothes were creased, making it very clear that the girl hadn't bothered to sleep the night before. Or pretend to sleep at least. Or shower. At least her nature now made it so that she didn't actually have to, but still…Emily shook her head as she looked at Taylor trying and failing to avoid a groan.

"I keep saying, just increase your reflexes by 0.5 percent, and you'd be fine," QA said. Emily looked left and caught the shard's avatar stretched out on the coach, rolling her eyes at Taylor. She flipped another page in her magazine and raised a hand in an idle wave towards Emily.

"That is cheating! Madison can do this fine! Madison did this without any enhancements. She's just got durability, no speed, no reaction! I will beat this thing without cheating!"

"Taylor, sweetheart, half my life is games and the other half is being a weirdo online. I'm used to these sorts of things, you aren't. That's okay," Madison said, running a hand along Taylor's back. "That's perfectly fine. You don't have to beat this level."

"I will beat it," Taylor snapped. "And I will do it with the same baseline reaction speeds you have!"

"5 Meetings says you won't," QA commented.

Emily groaned and slapped a hand to her head. "Please, dear god, don't egg her on."

"Yeah, you're not helping, QA," Madison murmured glaring at the shard-woman.

"You don't even go to those meetings!" Taylor growled. "You have Clone make an alternate version of us to attend and then tell it what to say if it pings you with something important!"

QA shrugged. "Eh, I don't have anything else to bet with. It's not like I use money like you humans. What do you want me to bet? Mars in Instance 5? Actually…that's not a bad idea…"

"No," Emily said, stamping her foot and drawing all of their attention. Even if Taylor only looked her way for a moment before turning back to her game and restarting the level - it was still progress! "You can't bet planets, QA. We've talked about this."

"I think it's more the rights to the planet, right?" Madison commented. "Taylor you have to flick your wrist, not swipe. You get much better results if you flick."

"I am flicking."

"No, that was a swipe, sweetheart. Here I can show you again if you just - "

"I. Can. Do. This!"

QA looked at Taylor, rolled her eyes and focused on Emily. "I just want to use that Mars Instance for research purposes. I think there's some weird sort of energy thing in that particular version. Most of the others don't seem to have the sort of resonance I found there. Bet does have a similar thing, but it's all the way out by Pluto and I really don't feel like sending something that far out when we don't even know what it is. The other shards in the Network think it's pointless either way at the moment. They're more focused on current projects and want to finish what we've started before we investigate anything new. If we're betting though, I could totally start a poker game or something to get resource time to look into it. The Hosts would bet on the game normally, the shards would bet on the different Hosts winning! It's a perfect system!"

Emily groaned. She had a new appreciation for Lisa's old complaints about headaches. How she and Paige managed to keep this household together was a mystery for the ages.

"QA, you are the leader of this Network. Don't bet. Tell them you're going to go look at Mars."

The shard-woman looked up, frowning. "Seems mean to not get Consensus."

"Oh come on! I hit that!" Taylor shouted. The knuckles on her hands were white as they wrapped around the controls even tighter.

"Sweetheart, you were really far off…"

"Yeah, you missed a registered strike by at least 0.2 seconds."

Taylor ripped the helmet off her head and twisted to throw it at QA. Madison squeaked and scrambled to duck while Emily barely managed to lunge to the side. The projectile flew between them and QA reached up a hand to snatch it out of the air.

"If you're so smart you do it," Taylor snarled. "And no cheating."

"I don't have to cheat." QA stood, rolled her shoulders and stepped forward grabbing the controllers from Taylor. Taylor moved back a few steps and crossed her arms glaring as the level booted up again.

"Let's get something to eat, sweetheart," Madison murmured, closing her arms around Taylor in a hug. Taylor barely reacted, her eyes focused entirely on the screen and QA's near perfect timing. Madison turned her head to Emily, mouthing, 'Help me?'

Emily grimaced. QA's score climbed higher. Not quite as high as Madison and Dennis had gotten, but still damn impressive. If she kept up that pace, she'd set a new personal record. Emily looked at Madison. 'Distract her as soon as you can.'

Madison's eyebrows climbed into her hairline, but she nodded.

A minute later the song ended and QA pulled the helmet off, grinning wide. "See! I told you I could do it. That's only a few hundred points away from the best score!"

"You cheated."

"Taylor, you can literally see inside my planet-sized brain," QA said, steepling her hands into a prayer posture as she closed her eyes. "You know I stayed at baseline human for that. You just suck. And now you owe me 10 meeting swaps."

"Come over here and say that again you crystal bodied bitch," Taylor snapped.

"Oh are we getting into insults now? How cliche."

Madison apparently saw her chance and leapt at it. "At least she didn't call you a noob. Right, QA?"

QA grinned wider. "Oh she is definitely a noob."

Taylor screamed. "I don't care if you're a part of me! I'm going to strangle you!"

"Taylor, calm down!" Madison shouted, holding her wife tighter even as Taylor squirmed madly, reaching with outstretched arms for the cackling QA. Emily was briefly struck dumb by the sight of the 5-foot-nothing Madison trying to drag the comparatively giant Taylor backwards and instead being pulled forward along the carpet with her heels dug in. As they passed her, Madison glared at Emily and jerked her head towards the TV.

Oh, right. She had wanted a distraction. Emily quickly side-stepped around the lunging Taylor and got to the game console. She snapped Beat Saber out of the machine and turned to sprint back out the room.

She almost made it to the threshold when Taylor screamed. "Where are you going with that?! Emily get back here!"

"Mimi! Mimi help me burn it! Mimi help!"

"Don't you dare!"

"Mimi backyard! Backyard!" Emily sprinted towards the patio door as Mimi surged towards it.

They would destroy this accursed thing if it was the last thing either of them ever did.


AN: This is Part 1 of 2. The second part will be in in the Mass Deviations time frame and cross posted between here and that story. Enjoy!