-chapter 56-
-the next morning.-
"Cj are you awake yet? Can I turn the lights on?" Kitty quietly asked.
"Yeah, go ahead." I tiredly replied.
"Computer lights on." Kitty said, prompting the ship's computer to turn the lights on in the room, useful as hell when you didn't want to get up to hit the switch.
"Good morning husband." A joyous Kitty announced as she wrapped her arms around me.
"I don't know if you can call me that or not, but whatever, good morning babe." I replied.
"No more silly fights with Pheebles ok? She's been insanely generous, and she more than deserves your respect." I said.
"I know, I understand." Kitty replied. "You really don't have to tell me this."
"Good." I said. "You gotta remember you're hers now too."
"But I'm still your digimon right?" She asked.
"Yeah, technically." I replied. "Hey wait, you just turned the lights on for the entire ship."
"I did?" Kitty asked.
"Yeah, it's room lights on for just this room." I replied. "Lights on is the entire ship."
"oops." She replied.
"Awwwe, you two are awake already." Phoebe said, having apparently teleported into the room seconds earlier.
"How was your night?" I asked.
"Do you really want to know that or do you trust me enough to know that I'm yours now forever no exceptions." Phoebe said.
"I don't know Pheebles, it's been a long time, all I know is that for whatever reason you chose to spend last night with Saphira instead of me." I replied.
"I needed to straighten things out with her so things wouldn't get more complicated, I'm sorry, but you know it was for the best." Phoebe said. "Kitty, it's time you to go back to your own room."
"Awwe, ok, see you both later." She said before kissing me on the cheek and leaving the room.
"I don't get it Pheebles, after 100 years what do you still see in me?" I asked.
"How about the father of my children and the man I fell in love with who still loves me after all this time even though he also has feelings for Kitty." She replied.
"I don't feel for her the same way I feel for you." I explained.
"I know that." She said as she slipped out of her shoes and crawled in bed next to me. "That's why you're still my husband, and she's our virara now. I wanted to reward her and make her feel like she belongs, because she does."
"Couldn't just straighten things out with her?" I asked.
"You've been with her longer than you've been with me, I had to make a compromise." She explained. "You thought you were just going to walk away from her after all this time? This is for the best, trust me."
"I trust you babe, except with this Phanon thing." I said.
"Oh don't worry about that, it will be cake." Phoebe replied.
"And then we'll have a baby to deal with." I said.
"You're on a luxurious space yaught with four women, two of which are experienced mothers, the baby will be fine." Phoebe said.
"Do you think we'll ever see our kids again?" I asked.
"We better, after all this." Phoebe said.
"I guess that makes us the best parents ever for not letting go after all this time." I said.
"And yet you want to abandon one of your other sons to Phanon."
"I never even loved or intended to make love to his mother." I said. "You may have resorted to some trickery the night Charley was conceived, but I loved you, this girl, I, I don't even remember her name. You gotta understand that baby girl, it might as well be somebody else's child."
"Look it's Charley, Nina, and that baby girl I had with Aranea whose name I never say because I still can't pronounce it properly. Those are the children I have with the women I love, and those are my only children."
"You're going to regret saying that one day." Phoebe said.
"Challenge accepted." I replied. "Also, if we do make it home, how are we going to explain Kitty to the kids? Hell what are we going to tell our bosses?" I asked.
"I don't know, that's going to be fun." Phoebe said.
"At least I have you back for now." She added.
"Yeah, you do, my sweet princess." I said.
"It's galactic empress now." She replied.
"Oh really?" I asked.
"Mhm. " She cutely replied.
"At some point you need to go and shut those machines off." I said.
"They will when they run out of battery." She replied. "Now, how about some voir voir in the shower?"
"Mmm, just like we used to do almost every morning." I replied.
"Mhm, exactly." She said.
"Except now we have a way nicer shower." I replied.
"Is it big?" She asked.
"The whole crew would fit inside so yeah." I replied.
"Did that actually happen?" She asked.
"Surprisingly no. I did Zari there a few days ago and that's about it. Kitty won't go near it." I replied.
"Let's go before I'm the third girl you banged in there you horny man." She said as she got up.
"Ok, ok, geez, I'm not even fully awake yet." I said, prompting her to crawl on top of me.
"Well maybe we'll have to wake you up a little first." She said.
"Maybe." I replied as I pulled her into a kiss.
She used her powers to remove my pants.
The obvious happened and then we got dressed and made our way to the bridge.
"Hey Pheebles, it seems like our sex is different from what I remember." I said. "You're not squeezing me as tight as you used to and it's like you got sloppy almost."
"Well that's what it is I'm sure, I'm just a little sloppy, it's been a century CJ." Phoebe replied.
"It feels like it's more than that though, like you're not really into it." I said.
"Well I don't know what to say I still love you. You know that, we tied on our honeymoon." She said just as we made it to the bridge.
"Goodmorning." Zari said as we entered.
"Morning." I replied.
"Goodmorning Zari." Phoebe added.
"Who turned the lights on about half an hour ago?" She asked.
"It was Kitty, by accident." I replied.
"Again?" Zari asked.
"Yeah, again." I said.
With the confusing backwards control scheme it was not an uncommon occurrence.
"When we get closer to Phanon territory we should start watching the radar in shifts." Zari said.
"Yeah we should, remind me when we get there." I replied.
"So what do you do all day?" Phoebe asked.
"Sleep, fuck, watch tv if we have signal, Zari has her exercise routine before lunch. Watch the stars and planets pass by out the window. Go swimming in the pool. Sometimes we stop at stations and go to bars just to hangout, and that's about it."
"No videogames?" Phoebe asked.
"They're kind of hard to find, most of the big fancy ships use VRdecks anymore, game consoles as we know them are like 60-70 years in the past here."
"No VRdeck?" Phoebe asked.
"It was too expensive." I replied. "There's room for it on deck 5, but we don't have any of the equipment, so it's just a big empty room and we'd need to go back to U.S.C space to get one installed too. Which nobody will do cause our ship is probably blacklisted. Thanks to Kitty, so which exhilarating activity would you like to partake in?" I asked my beloved.
"Maybe at the next station we can buy something to do like some board games or something?" Phoebe asked.
"It's possible." I replied.
"As long as it's not too expensive." Zari added.
"So when's the next station?" Phoebe asked.
"We'll have to stop somewhere for supplies tomorrow." I said.
"Why don't we find somewhere to stop now?" Phoebe asked.
"Well we can if you want to, but what about my son?" I asked. "Phanon could finish their tests on him and execute him any day."
"Well that's a risk I'm willing to take, where's the closest station?"
"About ten hours away." Zari replied.
"No it's not they can't be they're all over the place."
"We need one that can dock a large ship, those little hole in the wall fuel stations aren't going to accommodate us."
"Hello! You don't need to dock, I can teleport." Phoebe said.
"You can't see the inside of the station." I replied.
"I can when I'm in my ship." Phoebe said.
"You want to have a pokémon battle?" I asked as soon as I got the idea.
"I haven't seen my pokémon in 100 years, they're still on our bus somewhere." Phoebe said.
"Oh, crap." I said.
"Another reason why we have to get back to that digital world, somehow." Phoebe continued.
"We'll see how, but first we gotta find the rest of our group." I said.
"We're so far away from home." Phoebe said with a sigh.
"Makes it all the more amazing when we get back." I said.
"Do you think our world exists out there somehow, or is it in another universe entirely?" She asked.
"I don't think we'll ever know the answer to that." I replied.
"What's this? We got other ships appearing on radar." Zari said."It's a zelusian missile frigate."
"Video communication requested." The computer said moments later.
"Allow." I replied.
"You're being tailed by a ship with a class 5 mind control device." The captain of the frigate said. " We suggest you jump out of the sector so as to not get caught in the blast radius. Due to recent events Zelusian command dictates that all ships containing mc devices of class 4 and up must either be surrendered or destroyed, due to recent events we do not anticipate their surrender. We'll make our move once you're clear of the sector."
The video communication ended without giving us any time to respond.
"They're going to blow up my ship!" Phoebe protested.
"Well shit guess we can't sell it now." I said. "Atleast they don't know it's yours."
"Don't you have a Jumpdrive?" Zari asked. "Go and activate it."
"I can do it from here actually." Zari said. "Computer access the mainframe of nearest ship."
"Mainframe accessed, password requested." The computer replied seconds later.
"What's the password?" Zari asked.
"Boobeyballs 1….. 3….. 1…. 4….. 9… 4… 3….. 2….. 1. . . .0 ." Phoebe replied.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yes." Phoebe replied.
"Computer mainframe accesed, input command." The computer chimed seconds later.
"Ok, let's see, access main controls, jump drive, set universal coordinates, activate, and done, should go in about 10 seconds." Zari said.
"To where?"
"Outside of planet Paloran, the last place it went." Zari said.
"Atleast it will be safe there for awhile."I said.
"Connection terminated." The computer went as Phoebe's ship entered hyperspace.
"Nevermind the bastards must have seen us coming." The zelusian captain said on vidcom seconds later.
"So it's safe now right?" Phoebe asked.
"If the U.S.C doesn't adopt a similar policy." I replied.
"Let's jump out of here too before those guys realize that ship wasn't just tailing us." I said.
"Jumpdrive already spooling up in 5." Zari replied.
"Awesome." I said.
"I'll just get us to the nearest station." Zari explained.
"Awesome." I replied.
"So we can find something to do?" Phoebe asked.
"Yeah, pretty much." I replied.
So we jumped to a location that would've been ten hours away otherwise, not much of a jump, only went through a few fuel rods, but enough to get us out of the current situation. An hour later we docked at the station, where we all got out and explored for a bit to break the monotony of things.
"Wow, this place is huge." Phoebe said as we entered the main area.
"Have you never explored these things?" I asked.
"Nevermore than necessary." Phoebe said. " I have to stay onboard to keep my ship from being seen. I just brainwashed them into bringing food and fuel when I needed it."
"Oh, there's a cute refuel lady, CJ look away!" Phoebe said as she playfully covered my eyes.
"What? Pheebles, get off." I said.
"I can't let you be seduced by her charms." Phoebe said.
"Pheebles, that was mostly Saphira's idea." I replied.
"It was." Saphira said.
"Well still." Phoebe said as she refused to let me see anything.
"She's not even here anymore." Kitty said.
"Oh, ok then you can see Cj." Phoebe replied as she let go of me.
"Are we done goofing around?" I asked.
"I don't know are we?" Phoebe cutely replied.
"I'll go order some fuel." Zari said. "Why don't you take your wife shopping?"
"Right." I replied.
"Can I go too? " Kitty asked.
"Ok but don't touch anything and don't make people do inappropriate things."
"Ok, stop reminding me about that." Kitty said.
"You can't forget it Kitty, you can't do that again, ever." I replied. "Or you're done."
"Agreed." Phoebe added.
"What does that mean?" Kitty asked.
"Just don't do it again and it won't matter." I replied.
We visited several shops looking for board games, or just something to do for entertainment while waiting around to arrive at places. No there wasn't any Clue, Life, or Monopoly available, there were a lot of alien alternatives however, none of which I ever heard of. Some were in an alien language so I couldn't even read the instructions. Kitty got distracted and started looking at rings. We, couldn't even find a normal deck of playing cards as they had their own system similar to the pokémon world, with 8 suites instead of 4, but we ended up buying one anyway, along with a pretty random assortment of board games, cause why not.
We found an old game console at a flee market, it was a strange circular yellowed white plastic shaped thing, about the size of an original xbox, it came with a few games, wasn't sure how old it was due to a lack of actual gameplay images on any of the boxes. The controllers were also very round, but other than that weren't too alien in design, featuring two joysticks and a variety of buttons. A few consoles only had controllers that were practically unusable to humans. It's most interesting feature was a really weird central disc drive that could spin and read multiple discs at a time. You pressed a button in the middle, and then the disc holder thing would spring out revealing 5 disc trays arranged in a column. Most of the games for it were put on 3-5 discs, that were maybe a quarter of an inch larger in diameter to common dvds, but because of more advanced technology, had 5 times the data capacity, to achieve a similar level of durability, they were also a fraction of an inch thicker, the back of the discs were black like early ps1 games. And basically, you know, you put the disc in the tray, in a specific order. Disc one had to be on the bottom, followed 2, and 3, etc. You shove the giant plastic spring loaded column back into the device, then the individual disc readers pop out from the side, and then some computer wizardry happens and it's able to determine what data it needs off of each of the five discs at any given moment. It was a little bit slow, but the games for it could be absolutely massive, and it was cheap, at 50 units for the whole lot, so we picked it up, hoping that the cables would be compatible with our tv.
At some point we visited a sporting goods store, and learned quite a bit.
As for sports, there were analogues for nearly everything from baseball to tennis, with different names, and slightly different rules and equipment. One of which was something amusingly called Smackball, which could best be described as tennis combined with basketball, with heavy square rackets, and a solid rubber ball, among other differences, it was also fun to say. It was played in an enclosed rectangular room, with beveled corners so the ball would not get stuck in them, and the goal was to either get the ball in about a 36" hole on the opponent s side which is worth 5 points, or cause a dead ball on the opponent's side, which is worth one point and is when the ball runs out of energy and no longer bounces, usually because the opponent cannot keep up with it. The ball, being made out of rubber, is extremely bouncy and usually ends up flying all across the room. It is not uncommon for the ball to strike the players, which usually results in a dead ball, but not always. If it hits the opposing player before it has bounced at least once on their side it's considered a foul, deliberate bankshots are allowed however, but tricky to pull off. Unfortunately, a specially built room was needed to play it, so, there wasn't much we could do with it really. The only reason we learned so much about it was because a game was playing on one of the instore TVs. Other sports we never really understood, cause we couldn't actually see how they were played, we could just see the equipment for them, and aside from a few absurdly large helmets, and jerseys with more than 2 sleeves, and other wearable equipment designed for various non-humanoid aliens, most of it looked ordinary enough. There was something that looked like a three pointed American football. I never understood what that was about, it didn't look like it could be thrown very accurately at all. Then there were regular soccer balls, in various sizes and colors which was apparently one of those things that was simple enough a wide variety of alien races came up with it. There also seemed to be some equivalent of baseball. And also some sport using a large yellow, not quite round but somewhat egg-shaped ball. There were also tables that resembled foosball tables, but with only 4 rows instead of 6 and for some reason they weren't related to other sports in any way. What I mean was instead of looking like a model soccer field it seemed to have become its own thing on whatever planet developed it. The "players" looked more like plastic rhombuses then players and the field was simply white with red markings around the goals. There were a couple of variations of tables for sale as well including one with a black field, one with a digital scoring system, and a few with various decorative images of things in the field, such as the company logo, which looked like a ball being shot out of a circle by one of the rhombus-shaped "players", with an unreadable alien writing around the edges, one had lots of strange alien fish, another had classic hot rod flames, and another had some kind of floral pattern. We went for the basic model with a black field. Phoebe thought the flames were too tacky, even though I thought they looked badass.
There was also a weird variation of pool with twelve balls and a single, slightly elevated hole in the center, on a little hill about 6 inches higher than the rest of the table. The corners of the playfield were banked by 45 degrees making it an elongated hexagon, and the cue ball was just slightly larger than the rest of the balls so that it wouldn't fit in the hole but would instead get stuck in it so it wouldn't fall in. The game started with balls arranged in 4 groups of three at each corner and could be started at either mid-point on either of the long sides. Other than that it was about the same, get all your balls in the hole before your opponent. When the balls went in the hole they fell onto a large ramp that conveniently brought them all to one side of the table via gravity. A more expensive version had a more complicated ramp system that automatically sent balls to each of the four corners in groups of three. Once again we picked up a basic model, thinking the extra price wasn't really worth it.
There were also pinball machines available, with shockingly little difference gameplay wise other than there were machines featuring alien movies and concepts. There really wasn't much to change there except the designs of the machines themselves which already varied wildly between machines, with the core gameplay being simple enough that many, many alien races with a reasonable amount of technology could come up with it. Even the name was the same it was just in an alien language so none of us could understand it at the time. We picked up three of the coolest looking ones. Of course we couldn't carry any of these things so we arranged to have them transported directly to our ship. This happens often enough that most stations do have an easily contactable service to handle this. The store owner was more than happy to arrange their transport for us.
On the way back, a clever street vendor realized Phoebe had psychic powers, which was probably because she insisted on hovering around everywhere now, and tried to sell her some power bracelets.
"Mam the voices must be overwhelming yes?" He asked.
"What? No, you get used to it after a while, I don't need any power bracelets thanks."
"Are you sure, these are designed to comfortably dampen your powers and eliminate a lot of background noise." The seller insisted as he very skillfully slipped onto her wrist, causing her to immediately fall to her knees.
"Oww. I told you I didn't want one." Phoebe said.
"What the hell?" I said as I turned around.
"Take it off I can't get up with it on." Phoebe said as she struggled to move.
"I'm so sorry mam I didn't know." The seller said as he struggled to remove the bracelet.
"You should have asked." Phoebe replied as she started to levitate again.
"What the heck just happened Pheebles?" I asked.
"Well, Cj, I tried to hide it from you the best that I could, but, the truth is I've been looking for you for so long hooked up to my own machine I can't move very well without my powers anymore. I lost all my physical strength, not that I had much to begin with, but, on the bright side I'm more powerful than ever!" She said.
"Well apparently you can't stand up anymore without your powers, so I doubt that." I said.
"Just wait until I have a chance to show you." She insisted.
"Anyway, Zari spent a few years as a drill sergeant, she can help you get your strength back." I said.
"You think she can?" Phoebe asked.
"Are you kidding me? She's great, I've been out of the U.S.C for forty years now, I train with her every day and I'm still in good shape." I said.
"Yeah, I noticed." She replied.
"Sir I think we'll take one of those bracelets anyway." I said.
"What really?" He asked.
"Yeah, she's going to need some training." I said.
"Um thank you." He replied as I traded some cash for the bracelet.
-later that day-
And here's the bill mam." The delivery guy said to Zari.
"10000 units? What the hell did you all buy?" A somewhat annoyed Zari asked.
"Enough to kind of deck out the ship basically." I said.
"Well, as long as it's for everyone." Zari said with a sigh as she signed the documents, and other delivery guys started carrying our new game toys onto the ship.
"Take it all to the big room at the end of the hall on deck 5." I said, it should all fit in there.
"You have a ship this big and you don't have a Vr room?" One of them asked, apparently he knew enough about these ships to know that room was usually the VR room.
"Couldn't afford it." I replied.
"Must have been rough." He said.
"Welllllllllllll, I am the only man on this ship." I said, which caused Phoebe and Zari to glare at me.
"Must have been really rough then." The man said, shifting their glare to him.
Anyway, once all the delivery men left and all our purchases were safely onboard, we headed out into space once again.
"Ok, hopefully this will be enough to pass the time for a while." I said as we observed our now well-equipped rec room.
"Hopefully." Phoebe said.
"Should have gotten some more exercise equipment too." Zari said.
"Sorry Zari, I didn't think of it at the time. You should have come with us." I replied.
"We'll make it up to you Zari." Phoebe said. "You know we can."
"Yeah, mmm, I know, you will." Zari replied.
"How we going to do that?" I asked.
"How do you think you dummy you're the only man on this ship." Phoebe replied.
"What about kitty?" I asked, seeing where this was going.
"She'll just have to join us too." Phoebe said.
-one fourway I was too lazy to describe in detail later-
"Didn't we get all that stuff so we could have more to do than have sex all the time?" I asked as Phoebe and Kitty layed beside me naked, with Zari on the far right.
"Yeah and now that we've payed Zari back they can do that." Phoebe said.
"I think you're still just a horny little nympho after all these years." I replied.
"It took you this long to realize that?" Phoebe replied.
"I'm going to go check the radar, I'll be on the bridge if you need me." Zari said as she got up.
"Ok, see ya." I replied.
"Ok I got my baby girl on one side and our, um, vehwawa on the other?" I asked after Zari left.
"According to custom when the virara is present, I'm supposed to sleep on top of you." Phoebe said.
"Well that's kind of awkward so we won't do that." I said.
"Mhm." Phoebe agreed.
"We're not even sleeping yet are we?" I asked.
"If you want to." Phoebe replied.
"I could use a nap." Kitty said.
"Ok take a nap then." I said. "I don't know about you baby girl, but we just bought a bunch of stuff why don't we check it out?"
"Ok, just let me get dressed again." Phoebe said.
"Right, unless you want to play pool naked." I said.
"Not really." She replied.
"I might see you later, in a bit." Kitty said.
"Ok, I don't know how long we'll be there, if we're not there we'll probably be on the bridge." I said as Phoebe and I started to get dressed.
Eventually we made our way back to the rec room.
"So Pheebles what do you want to play first?" I asked.
"Pool, duh." She replied.
"Ok, sure." I said. "Just don't use your powers to cheat."
"I won't, I promise. What would be the point Cj? We're just playing for fun." She replied.
"Allright then, let me read the instructions." I replied as I read the back of the package that all the balls came in while Phoebe started to set them on the table from the collection shelf on the end.
"We just put them where the dots are in the corners?" Phoebe asked.
"Um, yeah I guess so." I replied.
About an hour later neither of us managed to put a single ball in the hole, it was undoubtedly possible just extremely difficult. You had to be halfway confident with bankshots to have any hope at all. If nothing else, it was great practice for regular pool, if you could get to be somewhat competent at this, you'd be amazing at it.
"Are you sure I can't use my powers just to make this go faster?" Phoebe asked.
"Yep, you getting bored? " I replied.
"Yes," She said.
"Wanna see what we got for videogames?" I asked.
"Sure." Phoebe replied.
"Allright, let's see if that console we bought will work with our tv."
We headed to the 6th deck lounge, which was a small room in front of the dining room on deck 6 that didn't have much more than a couch and a tv. A bigger and fancier tv than the ones in the bedrooms. There were also lounges on deck 4 and 5 that were basically the same idea, but with bigger rooms, but deck 6 was closer to the bridge, so it seemed like a better place for it, it also didn't have any windows so there wouldn't be any glare on the screen from passing stars or other heavenly bodies. Unfortunately the cables for the console were completely incompatible, which wasn't very surprising considering its age and origin.
"It won't connect, I was worried this would happen. Sorry baby girl. We might have to do some cable splicing," I said.
"How is that going to work? We don't have any extra cables. " Phoebe asked.
"True, we'll just have to get some at the next station." I replied.
"Awwwe." She moped.
"Well hey we can play pinball." I said.
"Not together." She replied.
"So?" I asked." I bet I can get a higher score than you."
"No you can't" Phoebe replied.
"Have you ever even played pinball?" I asked.
"No, but, I'm still better at it than you." She said.
"Without your powers?" I asked.
"Mhm." She insisted.
"We'll see." I replied.
We had 3 different pinball machines, so we took turns playing two of them, taking note of our scores.
We kept beating each other's scores until we started doing well enough that it was hard for us to improve much further. Then Zari came in.
"I thought I would find you here, we're still on for training right?" She asked.
"Yeah about that, Pheebles needs some special training." I said.
"What do you mean?" Zari asked.
"She's become way too reliant on her powers and can barely stand without them anymore." I said.
"I can't stand without them." Phoebe added.
"So basically she has no muscle mass whatsoever?" Zari asked.
"Yeah basically." I said.
-cue the saddest workout montage ever because we were weeks away from entering Phanon space and not much else really happened other than Phoebe and I got more reacquainted, both of us trying to get used to each other again, it was more her getting used to me, she somehow hadn't changed much in all that time, though she had gotten used to being alone and seemed to be a bit more selfish at times. I filled her in on all my adventures with Aranea, which, for the most part, weren't that noteworthy in the end, nothing like what Phoebe and I had accomplished thus far. It wasn't a bad life by any means, just kind of, average.
"Just stand up, that's all you have to do, is stand up." Zari said.
"I can't it hurts too much." Phoebe whimpered.
"Congratulations, you are literally, the weakest humanoid, I have ever seen. I doubt you could even make it a week without your powers. We're going to need to get more protein supplements." Zari said.
"Yeah, Pheebles, Charley can stand longer than you, and he hasn't even learned how to walk yet." I said.
She replied with an angry groan, but was too weak to do much more.
-about a week later-
It's just literally the power bracelet, you can lift it!" Zari said as Phoebe desperately tried to lift her braceleted arm off of the floor.
"No I can't it hurts too much." Phoebe whimpered.
"You said the same thing about being able to stand and now look at you, you made it a whole 5 seconds today." Zari said.
-another week later-
"Good job, you made it 5 steps today, you only made 3 yesterday before collapsing. You're making progress it's just slow going because we have to rebuild your body from scratch." Zari said as Phoebe layed on the ground, exhausted.
-Three weeks later-
"So it looks like you finally got walking down let's try some stairs." Zari said.
"But there's an elevator." Phoebe protested.
"It's broken." Zari said.
"No it's not I used it this morning." Phoebe explained as she kneeled down.
"What is this? Get back up and go up those stairs!" Zari yelled.
"Come on Pheebles, I'll help you." I said as I took her hand.
-Another week later-
"Ok so now that you can actually take a drink without your powers, let's see if you can bring two drinks for Cj and I, at the same time." Zari said.
"You've got to be kidding me." Phoebe said.
"Pheebles, it's just a glass of water, if we had weights you couldn't even lift them yet." I said.
She proceeded to spill both drinks on the counter before even making it out of the kitchen.
-another week later-
The drinks made it to the floor.
-another week later-
After several unfortunate meetings with the floor, they made it to the table.
-another week later-
They made it to us, but then it slipped out of my hand and crashed to the floor.
"Really Cj?" An exhausted Phoebe exclaimed.
"Whoops." I said. "I'll clean it up don't worry."
"No, let her." Zari insisted.
"I hate you." Phoebe said with a glare.
-another week later-
"Are we getting close to Phanon HQ yet?" I asked.
"Almost." Zari said as Phoebe hobbled into the room.
"Hey, you made it up the stairs on your own." I said as she basically collapsed on top of me.
"Can I take this thing off now?" She asked with her head buried in my chest.
"It's only been a few hours so far, you're supposed to go the whole week." Zari said. "Now that you can survive with it.
"Please Cj?" Phoebe asked.
"You're doing great baby girl don't worry about it, you can just sit here and relax for a while if you want." I said.
"I want to play pinball, Kitty beat my score again." Phoebe said.
"When you can make it a week in that bracelet you can do whatever you want, but now it's important for you to get your body back in shape again, after decades of apparent neglect, seriously Pheebles, even the weakest troops I've ever dealt with were stronger than you, and I've made 400lb momma's boys who spend too much time in a VR deck fit for service." Zari said.
"She's right Pheebles, just make it one week and then you can beat Kitty." I said.
"I mean come on Pheebles, a few weeks ago you couldn't even stand and now you made it up 2 flights of stairs to get here from our bedroom?"
"I took the elevator." Phoebe said.
"I'm disabling that elevator." Zari said.
"Wait no!" Phoebe begged.
"You can have it back when you can take the stairs." Zari said.
-Another week later-
"You've come a long way Phoebe." Zari said. "You went from not being able to stand to being able to make it up all the way from deck 1 to the bridge without the elevator, you've been able to beat Kitty at pinball even with that bracelet on, you can now carry an entire pitcher of water all the way from the kitchen to the dining room table. And you're able to walk very elegantly without constantly trembling."
"You're about as strong as you were before all this baby girl." I said.
"So are you ready for the final test?" Zari said seductively.
"Ever since I realized what you were up to." Phoebe said, excitedly as they both started to get undressed.
-a few minutes later-
"Ride that dick ride it ride it ride it, and don't you dare say it hurts too much." Zari said.
"It hurts just right." Phoebe said.
"Good girl. Embrace he pain." Zari replied as I layed there in ecstasy with my cock inside Phoebe and my tongue inside Zari.
So we made sweet love, which we hadn't done in a while actually because all this training made her very tired at the end of the day, and out of respect I wasn't just going to use Kitty as a substitute. After we finished we decided her training was complete and she didn't need the bracelet any more.
'Arceus that was amazing." Phoebe said as we all laid in bed together.
"That's why making love to you felt so off. Now it's just like it used to be. " I said. "I love you baby girl."
"I wuv you." Phoebe replied.
"Let's just keep this a secret from Kitty she'll get upset if she knows we let Zari get involved and not her." I said.
"Right." Phoebe agreed.
"Zari I hope this is more than enough of a thankyou you know we're broke as fuck right?" I asked.
"Of course I knew that, you thought I was doing this for money? You're my best friend." Zari said before kissing me on the cheek.
"Are you going to turn the elevator back on now?" Phoebe asked.
"If I remember to." Zari said.
"Well we probably shouldn't stay here for long, we're about to enter Phanon space. " Zari said after a few moments of silence. "I 'll get back to the bridge, I'll tell you if anything shows up on radar and when someone else needs to take over. And you two can figure out how to make this up to Kitty even though it's pretty obvious. And Phoebe, why don't you keep wearing that bracelet when we're not doing anything important, until you get completely used to wearing it."
"Ok." Phoebe said with a sigh.
"How are we going to make this up to kitty?" I asked as Zari left.
"She's just our virara, we can cheat on her as much as we want." Phoebe said.
"We can?" I asked.
"As long as we both agree and it's with somebody who isn't married." Phoebe explained.
"Well let's not though because I actually like Kitty and don't want to hurt her." I said. "Except with Zari, Zari is cool."
"Aww thank you." Zari said as she got dressed.
A few minutes later we both got dressed and headed to the rec room, where Kitty was playing pinball. Phoebe immediately ditched her bracelet as soon as she could.
"Hey Kitty cat whatcha doing?" I asked as she seemed to be deeply absorbed into her game, a strange thing to see a lilithmon do.
"Beating Phoebe's high score again." Kitty said.
"No way you can't." Phoebe said.
"I already did." Kitty replied.
"It took me a whole hour to get my score that high." Phoebe moped.
"Well you're not hitting the right spots then." Kitty replied. "Oooh multiball mode."
"If you girls get this worked up over pinball I hate to see what happens when I finally get that game console working." I said.
"Yeah, why won't it work this time I forgot?" Phoebe asked.
"I need to get a different tv because the video signals it sends are a different standard and the tv in the living room doesn't understand them, even if the cables are spliced, it just looks like a rainbow unicorn vomited all over the screen, we need to go back to that station and find a tv made on that planet." I said. "But we gotta sort out this stuff with Phanon first apparently."
"Yeah we do, we have to get there before they execute your son." Phoebe said.
"I still don't get why you're obsessed with saving him, he isn't Charley, you know? He's just a random baby you've never met before. We're really only doing this because we have no idea where the others are and we have nothing better to do." I said.
"Why don't we just jump there then and get it over with?" Phoebe asked.
"Because it's an anti-jump zone." I said.
"What? How is that even a thing?" Phoebe asked.
"Well it is." I said. "Otherwise the USC, or anyone really, could send an entire fleet of battleships to their doorstep. It's not that difficult really you just fill the space up with obstacles, sometimes it's a bunch of large rubber tires strung together, sometimes mines, and other times just large chunks of garbage that can't be seen on radar and then when a ship jumps in BOOM the obstacles end up inside it and it gets tele-fragged, especially if it ends up in the reactor core, if that happens it's game over, crew would have an hour to live at most if they don't find another ship by then."
"What happens then?" Phoebe asked.
"All power would be lost, including that needed for life-support." I said. "If it doesn't just explode and take the whole ship with it, but if we just go there the slow way most of that stuff will just harmlessly bounce off the side of the ship, if we can't just avoid it entirely. " I said. "You've been in space for how long now? You should know that Pheebles."
"Well, I'm just glad I didn't go after Phanon myself." Phoebe said.
"I am too." I replied. "That could have ended really badly for you and we never would have known."
"kapuki akanuchi." The machine said in what sounded like the voice of a disappointed female, which by now we knew was basically its game-over line.
"Oh come on! That was cheap!" Kitty said after she lost her last life.
"Well looks like it's your turn baby girl." I said.
"Good luck." Kitty teasingly said as she switched to the second machine.
"What's your best for the terminator squid machine?" I asked.
"222000, something like that, it's on there." Kitty said.
I called it the terminator squid machine because that was the best way I could describe it. The image of the side of the machine was a purplish squid-like alien with a cybernetic eye aiming some type of pistol, as a few pink-skinned humanoids ran away from him in terror. It featured sound clips of laser fire, and other scy-fy sounds, people screaming, and some alien, probably the squid, speaking in an alien language in a somewhat robotic and evil sounding voice. There was also the voice of some ordinary sounding man which was probably related to the movie somehow, but there was very little evidence other than his audio clips, which were in the same alien language so we couldn't understand who he was or his purpose. The 2nd machine was for a different movie featuring a cast of pink-skinned aliens and some alien fluffball creature Phoebe thought was completely adorable, and the first seemed to be for some kind of animated series featuring transformers-esque robots, all with appropriate sound effects and dialogue in that same alien language.
"Does Saphy ever come in here?" Phoebe asked.
"I think she came up here once just to check it out and hasn't been back since." Kitty replied.
"She spends most of the day in the pool and then she sleeps on the couch in the 4th deck lounge." I said. "We got 24 empty bedrooms and she sleeps on the couch."
Phoebe claimed room 1, I slept with her in that room now while Kitty kept room 7. Aranea's pictures were promptly put away. Everyone slept on deck 5 except Saphira.
"Why did you get such a huge ship?" Phoebe asked.
"Because we could." I replied.
"24 empty rooms is 24 more girls he can bang." Kitty said.
"We can finally build that harem you've always wanted!" Phoebe said.
"That's not why." I said. "And what do you mean I've always wanted, that was always your thing Pheebles."
"Oh really?" Phoebe asked in disbelief.
"And we're going to need at least one more room for Henry and Claire, whenever we find them, and another for IceLeomon. So it's more like 22 rooms."
"That's still a lot of women for you to sleep with." Kitty teasingly said.
"You're not helping at all Kitty." I replied.
"She's fulfilling her duty as our Virara by helping me." Phoebe said.
"I thought she wasn't supposed to take sides." I replied.
"No, as long as she only takes mine she's ok." Phoebe teased.
"Well that's not very fair." I replied. "She's my digimon, yours is probably downstairs."
"Well in her absence Kitty is my digimon." Phoebe said.
"That's not how it works." Kitty said.
"See Pheebles." I replied.
"I'm always Cj's digimon no matter what. Saphy is downstairs if you want to see her." Kitty said.
"Ok if you say so, now quiet I want to play some pinball." Phoebe said.
"Awe Pheebles you jealous, don't be you were my pokémon once before we became something more." I said.
"I'm not jealous, be quiet so I can properly launch the ball." Phoebe said as she prepared to start her game.
"She's totally jealous." Kitty said.
"That just means she loves me." I said as I put my arm around her.
"Awwwe Cj, don't, not right now I'm trying to play." Phoebe said.
"Ok ok." I replied.
"I'm just trying to be nice so you don't feel so jealous." I said.
"I'm not jealous. You're my husband she's our virara." Phoebe replied. "Now please, be quiet and stop hugging on me."
"Ok, ok I'll just hug on Kitty instead." I said.
"No, I want to play too." Kitty said. "Go play the third game."
"Ok, fine." I said. "I'll beat both of your scores."
"No you won't." They both said almost simultaneously, and so my quest began to prove them wrong, by pressing buttons and keeping a little metal ball from falling into a hole.
Saphira came in about an hour later.
"Hey look who showed up." I said as she walked in.
"Oh hi Sapphy." Phoebe said.
"Hi Pheebles, what's going on in here?" She asked.
"Pinball." I replied. "You finally get bored with that pool?"
"No, I just came to see what's going on up here." Saphira replied.
"Just some pinball." I said. "We also have a different kind of pool up here, kind of."
It wasn't actually called pool it was just a similar looking table. From an alien language known as Kayonian, the best translation is Xingzashenlujion, though the phonetics don't completely translate.
"You want to play after this Saphy? It's kind of hard but maybe somebody will get a ball in the hole this time." Phoebe asked.
"We can split into teams. Or just everyone takes a corner." I said.
"Nah it's fine, I just wanted to see what was going on up here." She replied.
"Oh come on, stay awhile." Phoebe said. "We promise nothing crazy will happen, and you'll have days and days and days to spend in the pool."
"I missed you tamer." She said as she lovingly wrapped her arms around Phoebe.
"I know Saphy, now stop hugging on me you're going to make me mess up." Phoebe said.
"Sorry." Saphira replied. "Is Cj still making you train?"
"He's not making me, I'm going along with it, reluctantly, and no, I'm pretty much done for now." Phoebe said.
"So you can hang out in the pool with me?" Saphira asked.
"No, I'm hanging out with my husband right now." Phoebe said. "But you can hang out with us here if you want to."
"Someday we should have a bikini contest." I said.
"Why? Just to appease you, you big perv." Phoebe said.
"Well I thought it could be fun, and yeah, gratifying." I said.
"I'll wear a bikini if you'll wear a bikini." Phoebe said.
"Whoever makes bikinis my size should probably be put in a mental ward." I said.
"That doesn't mean they don't exist." Phoebe said.
"OK fine, whatever I was just trying to make things interesting." I said.
"I was trying to make them even more interesting" Phoebe said with a smirk.
"A little help here Kitty?" I asked.
"What? I think you in a bikini would be hilarious." Kitty said. "Especially when we get more girls."
"We're not getting more girls." I said. "We got all the girls here except for Claire, but she's probably with Henry, or maybe she moved on and doesn't want to be found, who knows?"
"Calling Cj to the bridge." Zari said over the intercom.
"Oh come on what now? Saphy take over my game quick!" I said as I left the table under her control.
"Wha- what am I even supposed to do?" Saphy asked.
"Press the buttons to hit the ball so it doesn't fall in the hole, I gotta go see what Zari wants, it's probably important if she used the com system." I said. "Pheebles when I get back here you all better still have clothes on."
"Well Zari better not be pregnant." Phoebe quickly replied.
"We should totally buy him a bikini." Phoebe said after I left.
"None of us have money." Kitty said. "We'd have to get Zari in on it."
"Awwwe." Phoebe said.
-on the bridge-
"So what's up Zari?" I asked.
"Some kind of custom U.S.C fighter is inbound, could be pirates." Zari said.
Custom meaning it didn't fit the profile of any known U.S.C or Zelusian ship. Nearly all pirates are customs, but not all customs are pirates, just like with cars, there's custom spaceships in existence as well. Though the incoming ship was based on a demilled U.S.C fighter, it was heavily customized.
"Yeah, a lone fighter shouldn't be this far into Zelusian space. " I said.
"Well there's a custom light carrier on radar too, but it's just sitting there." Zari said.
"We should get a military scanner, it would give us more useful information." Zari said.
"Yeah, but how the heck are we supposed to afford that?" I asked.
A mil-spec scanner could even determine what type of weapons the ship was equipped with, they were pretty cool, but expensive and kind of hard to find.
"Did you try contacting them?" I asked.
"I was just about to suggest that." Zari said.
"Go for it." I replied.
"Contacting inbound fighter, what are your intentions?" Zari asked over the radio.
"If they don't respond in ten seconds activate the defense system." I said.
"Right." Zari replied.
We were too close to the border of Phanon space to jump away, and trying to jump across or around it would use too much fuel, and would likely just leave us on the edge which could potentially be a deathtrap.
"You're all wanted by the U.S.C, surrender or be destroyed." The fighter pilot replied.
"Activate defenses and get ready to jump out of here." I said.
"Dammit there goes weeks of progress." Zari said.
Zari activated the defense system, causing both the fore and aft turrets to be deployed, they turned towards the incoming ship and opened fire, though most of the shots would not break through the enemy's shield. We could see the one on the front from the bridge, but not the one on the back.
"The carrier just launched five more fighters, jumping in ten." Zari said.
"Ignore them they won't make it here in time." I replied.
"Jumping won't save you." The fighter pilot said, before launching a missile, which quickly split into about 10 smaller missiles. The defense system shot down most of them, some of them hit, but they didn't explode, they weren't that type of missile.
"Shields are going down really fast." Zari said.
"Leach missiles." I replied. "They're trying to keep us from jumping. Start turning, try to keep them from hitting us in the side."
"Right." Zari replied.
"Incomming missile." The computer said.
"Another leach probably." I replied.
A leach missile is specially designed to disrupt shield systems and basically cause a huge power drain, if you get hit by enough of them and they start draining more power than the reactor can produce, you're screwed.
"Go into lockdown mode, warn the others." I said.
Lockdown mode is reserved for times when the shields might fail, it covers all the windows with armor plates and turns on an interior siren to warn everyone onboard that shit is about to get real.
"Right." Zari replied.
"Divert all non-essential power to the jump drive." I said.
"You don't have to tell me this stuff, I know." Zari said.
Most of the lights cut out seconds later, except for a few of the screens on the control consoles.
The ship then entered hyperspace for about five seconds before coming to a stop.
"Jump aborted, energy level critical." The computer said.
"We didn't even have enough to make it back to the last station." Zari said. "We're down to two fuel rods, nothing sentient on radar, we shook off enough of the leaches that the reactor is making power, , but shields are offline."
"How much further is it to the last station?" I asked.
"A few days." Zari said. "We have enough fuel we should be able to limp there.
"Go there and dock there, those guys will be after us and we can't fight them in space, but on a station we'll have a better chance." I said.
"Right." Zari replied.
"But right now bring us to a stop so we can remove some leeches." I said.
"What's going on?" Phoebe asked as she entered the bridge with the digibabes trailing behind her.
"Some bounty hunter assholes are after us and we got leached and now we have to go back to the last station so we can get more fuel, again, and possibly make some repairs. But right now you and I have to get into some space suits so we can remove the rest of the leaches so we can keep the shield up without them eating the rest of our power."
"Like actual wiggly blood sucking leaches?" Phoebe asked. "Cause if that's the case, Kitty would probably be better at it."
"No, it's a type of missile, usually used to capture or disable ships as opposed to just destroying them." I said." And you'd be better at it because you have your powers, so let's get going."
"OK fine." Phoebe replied.
So we both put on a spacesuit and headed outside to clean the leach missiles off the ship. A task that was way easier with her power, they were all concentrated in 2 small areas as they were fired at close range to defeat the missile defense system.
"Wow this ship is so huge up close." Phoebe said to me telepathically in lieu of using the radio.
"Yeah, you don't really get a good idea of how big it is until you see the outside up close" I replied over the radio.
"So anyway galactic empress, I think these are the leaches over here." I said. "I need you to pull them out with your powers, they're too dangerous to touch."
"Then what do you want me to do with them?" She asked.
"Throw them off into space, most of them have built-in tracking devices so keeping them is a bad idea." I said.
"Ok." Phoebe replied.
"Not as slimy as you thought they'd be huh?" I teased.
"No, no at all they're hard and metaly." Phoebe replied.
"Yep." I agreed. "Not too much for you to manipulate though right?"
"I think I can do this." She said as she approached one of them.
"Good." I replied.
"Asshats had to go and put holes all over the outer skin. Brand new multimillion dollar ship and now it has holes in it." I said as I observed the damage.
"Can we get it fixed?" Phoebe asked.
"If we can find a station with a repair service yes, but they're rare." I said.
"Is it insured?" Phoebe asked.
"Yeah, in U.S.C space, not out here." I replied.
"Allright you got those two? Let's check out the other side. I know we got hit there as well." I said.
"Ok." Phoebe replied.
"Oh come on! They hit the G in "Great Sword of Space." I said when we maneuvered around to the other side.
"Well Cj it's not really that great of a sword anyway." Phoebe joked as she removed the leach embedded in the g.
"No, no it's not, but it sounds cool." I said.
It didn't put a hole through the entire "g", but it put one through the center and burned most of the paint off, eliminating the "g" and most of the "r" next to it so now it was the "eat sword of space" like that meant anything. Anyway we finished removing all the leaches and headed back onto the ship, where we quickly changed out of our spacesuits.
"So how is the damage?" Zari asked.
"Nothing serious, but enough to be annoying." I said." It's the "eat sword of space" now."
"We'll see how much it costs when we arrive somewhere where they can make repairs." Zari said.
"Thanks for the help baby girl." I said.
"Mhm, now what are we going to do?" Phoebe replied.
"I don't know." I said.
"No more pinball." Zari said. "We need to watch our power usage, we can't lose those last two fuel rods or we're dead."
"Awwe, well what are we supposed to do then Zari?" Phoebe replied.
"Anything that doesn't waste a lot of power. We're two weeks away from the nearest station, that's all, it's not that long." Zari said.
"Yeah, but its two weeks." Phoebe said.
"I need to go tell Kitty too. Unless you want to for me." Zari said.
"No, you can deal with that nightmare." I said.
"Fine." Zari replied as she left the airlock.
"Is she really that much of a nightmare?" Phoebe asked.
"She won't fight about it, but it's not the only time somebody is going to have to tell her." I said.
"Great, she's going to kill us all." Phoebe replied.
"Not really, 2 fuel rods is a lot of power for 2 weeks if we're not jumping around everywhere. Zari is just being a bit overly cautious when it comes to stuff like this. Not that that's a bad thing. Cause we are royally fucked if we lose them." I said.
"So we can still play?" Phoebe asked.
"When she's not paying attention." I replied.
"Well you know what that means? You're going to have to keep her distracted." Phoebe said.
"Pheebles it's a huge ship and she spends most of her time watching the radar anyway." I said. "Plus you got your powers, you can see her coming can't you?"
"Oh, right." Phoebe realized.
"You silly gardevoir." I said as I affectionately rubbed her head.
"I am silly sometimes aren't I?" She asked.
"Hell yeah you are. It's one of the reasons I love you." I replied.
"Oh Cj." Phoebe amorously replied.
"You want to go see how to fly the ship?" I asked.
"Why? I've flown my own around before." Phoebe said.
"I don't know, just something to do, since Zari isn't on the bridge right now." I replied.
"Oh ok, I'll play along." Phoebe replied.
-a few minutes later-
"And this button turns off the autopilot, for those times that it's being dumb and constantly circling around a station instead of docking at it, or also when you need to navigate around obstacles or asteroid fields. You can also do barrel rolls and loopty loops and generally look like an idiot. " I explained.
"I see." Phoebe replied.
"And this one turns off all the outside lights so we can hide from pirates or whoever." I said.
"Is there a button that makes oran berry juice?" Phoebe playfully asked.
"Sadly no." I replied. "But there's a juice machine in the kitchen."
"I miss oran berries." Phoebe said.
"I miss the magic cabbages, I ran out of those really quickly once we got separated."
"Oh yeah, I still have some." Phoebe replied.
"What? No way really?" I asked.
"Mhm." She said.
"100 year old cabbages." I said.
"Yeah, but they're digital so they don't age." Phoebe said.
"True, but still, you've kept them all this time?" I asked.
"I didn't need them, I could get real food. I saved them for emergencys that I never ended up having." Phoebe said.
"Well there you go, there's your oran berries." I said.
"Actually no, I'm going to keep saving them." Phoebe said.
"Oh come on, two won't hurt anything. It will be our secret, even more so than our other secrets that aren't so secret even though they probably should be." I said.
"What?" She asked.
"I don't know." I replied.
"Ok we'll share some leaves, off of one, for a snack, but no more. I'll be right back my digivice is in our room." She said.
"Ok, I'll just go with you." I replied.
"Ok." She agreed.
I followed her back to our room where she quickly located her digivice and deployed a single cabbage, then she peeled 2 leaves off of it and quickly withdrew it back into the device.
"Just one leaf huh?" I asked.
"Just one, it's still fresh, even after all this time." Phoebe replied.
"Gonna be super stingy huh?" I asked.
"These are the very last ones we'll see in a while." She said.
"True." I replied.
"I'm going to save them for special occasions." She said.
"What's so special about this one?" I asked.
"I don't know, I just want to have a nice moment with you." She replied as she handed me one of the leaves.
"Well ok we'll have a nice moment." I said.
Just then Kitty burst into the room.
"There you are, Zari won't let me play pinball anymore, she's being mean." She wined.
"Kitty what have we told you about knocking on the door?" I asked while attempting to hide the leaf from her, more out of instinct than anything. Phoebe did the same.
"But you're my husband and I need to talk to you about this, it's crazy." Kitty said.
"Yeah well I'm talking to my other wife right now, and still, even if I wasn't even in here, knock on the door." I said.
"How would I know you weren't in here unless I opened it?" Kitty asked.
"She's not your wife she's our virara." Phoebe said to me telepathically.
"Yeah well that's not what she thinks." I said.
"Well she needs to know." Phoebe said.
"Well you can explain it to her for the ten millionth time when I'm not here." I said.
"Because nobody would respond." I said. "Now listen, you can still play pinball, but Phoebe has to be there with you, that way if Zari comes to check you two can get out of there before she finds out, but you need to be extra careful and be sure to turn off the machines. Now go to your room, Phoebe and I were having an important discussion about gardening, we'll tend to you in a bit." I said.
"What is gardening?" Kitty asked.
"It's providing houses for poor security guards that got injured in the line of duty and can no longer work to afford one on their own," I explained.
Guard-den-ing
"Oh, that sounds nice." She said.
"Yes, now please leave us be for a moment this is an important discussion. It could impact the lives of security guards everywhere." I said.
"Ok." She replied as she peacefully walked out of the room.
"You really gotta stop doing that, she actually believes you." Phoebe said a few seconds after I re-closed the door.
"I've been doing it for twenty years Pheebles, it's hard to stop now. I'm not too sure she doesn't do it on purpose, I mean hell, she has her own garden, she's read books and watched tv shows on gardening, she should know." I said with a chuckle." Anyway where were we?"
"We were about to share these leaves." Phoebe said as I reminded myself of Geraltar, a solidier I had fought alongside in the battle for the castle long ago, the castle Aranea and I were supposed to spend the rest of our days in, prior to the U.S.C intervening and me discovering I was immortal. Anyway, poor guy got arrows in both his legs and his left arm, fortunately he was right-handed. That said he was probably dead by now.
"Yeah, we were weren't we?" I said.
"Quit thinking of triple amputee-man and share with me." Phoebe said.
"Hey triple amputee-man was my friend, a long time ago." I replied.
"Yeah, well, he's probably dead now." Phoebe said.
"So are our kids, but we haven't forgotten them." I said.
"No no Cj." Phoebe said. "Gardevoir live 300 years naturally, plus they have revives. I don't know for sure about Charley, but there's a very high chance Nina is still alive, somewhere."
"If Charley is still alive you think he would remember us?" I asked.
"A gardevoir never forgets their mother." Phoebe said. 'I don't know about you, but I think you were nice enough that he'll probably remember you too."
"I hope they're ok." I said. "I don't think Nina would take our disappearance very well."
"She wouldn't." Phoebe said. "We were her whole world."
"That why we need to get back to them to fix this." Phoebe said.
"Mhm." I replied. "And we will, but we have to find Henry first and maybe deal with this Phanon garbage."
"Right." Phoebe said. "Now, let's enjoy this snack before somebody else inevitably barges in."
"Right." I replied as I expectantly took a brief glance at the door, nope, nobody was there.
We enjoyed out little snack and spent the rest of the afternoon together, it was a lazy afternoon. Which was good because I needed to conserve my energy so I could watch the radar once Zari got too tired to do so.
"Hey Cj remember when we used to sing?" Phoebe asked out of the blue.
"Yeah, I missed that, Aranea was amazing, but she couldn't sing for crap, and I don't think Kitty ever bothered to learn any songs." I said.
"Really?" Phoebe asked.
"Well either that or she just doesn't like to sing, I don't think I've ever seen her sing, to be honest." I said.
"You want to sing right now?" I asked a few seconds later.
"You want me to?" She asked.
"We don't have much better to do." I replied.
"What do you want me to sing?" She asked.
"I don't know, surprise me." I said.
"Watmel berries, pink green and round, and they come from a vine that grows out of the ground." She sang. "Oran berries, small round and blue if you give some to me, I will eat them for you."
"Yeah you would." I joked.
"Yeah I would." She said.
"Did you just make that up?" I asked.
"No, it's a nursery rhyme." She said before continuing to sing. "Topo berries, bumpy and brown, they can be hard to find, cause they grow underground. Pecha berries have soft orange skin, if you eat enough it will cure croagunk poison."
"Croagunks?" I asked.
"Oh yeah they're very mean." Phoebe said.
"They are?" I asked.
"Well sometimes they'll be wandering through the forest, back then young Ralts will get curious and want to touch them and it usually doesn't end well." She replied.
"Awe." I said.
"But the rare dorapion and toxicroak are much much worse." She said. "Beware of the purple pinchy monster, if it should come around, best not let it see you, teleport off of the ground."
"That another one?" I asked.
"Well I changed it a bit so it would rhyme in human language." Phoebe said.
"As well as the berry song too I take it?" I asked.
"Actually that one came from a book that was donated by the pokémon rangers 400 years ago, it was already in human." Phoebe explained.
"Oh, ok I thought it was some kind of ancient tradition thing." I said.
"400 years Cj." Phoebe said. "It was tradition, for a while it was a thing humans and gardevoirs shared until humans started making bigger and bigger cities and it became less important for their children to learn about berries."
"Oh, ok." I said.
"I wanna go home, I wanna see my parents again." She said.
"You know Aranea said the same thing a lot, and she never got to see them again." I said. "The U.S.C would not let me take her."
"You should've taken her anyway." Phoebe said.
"Well that was before Kitty pissed them off. We were on good terms back then." I said. "But I promise you we'll go see them, but first we have to get back home."
"I know Cj, but it doesn't make me miss them less." Phoebe said.
"Oh you got me back isn't that enough for now?" I asked. "I mean really we just got back together after being apart for 100 years and now you want your parents back too?"
"And Charley, and Nina, and our friends, but yeah, you're right, I do have you." Phoebe replied as she clung to me. "And you have me and I wuv you so very very much."
I put my arm around her.
"I love you too baby and I never wanna lose you again." I said.
"You won't I promise." Phoebe replied. "Once we get home we're retiring, no more portals, no excuses."
"Right." I agreed.
"Me graveora cianno molevia kenanoo." I said.
"What was that?" Phoebe asked.
"It's Ariana's language, from her home planet." I said. "I was there for two years almost, I had to learn some of it."
"What's it mean?" Phoebe asked.
"Now that you are mine you are mine forever." I replied. "They say it at weddings a lot."
"Oh, ok." Phoebe said.
"So Pheebles you really spent 100 years alone with nothing but some toys and some lewd pictures?" I asked.
"Even if I didn't would you really want to know?" Phoebe asked.
"I just find it hard to believe." I said.
"Well believe it." Phoebe replied.
"Now Cj, we have some time to kill, so before your mind starts to wander, why don't we have some fun?" She asked.
"Why don't we?" I said.
"I don't know, that's why I asked you." She replied.
"Well let's get going princess." I said as I carefully crawled on top of her and began to lift up her dress.
"I just wanna kiss you and kiss you and kiss you." I said. "And then I want to do some other, much more naughtier things." I said.
"I know." She replied as she pushed my hands away. "I can see them and it's turning me on even though so many of them involve my feet, but we got so much time so let's take it slow."
"Oh allright." I said as I stopped trying to undress her and pulled her in close for a kiss instead.
Anyway, I spent the afternoon playing around with my baby girl until it came time for me to replace Zari on the bridge so she could get some rest. That first shift was difficult as I had been awake for nearly 20 hours towards the end of it, but as time went on I got used to it and Phoebe decided to accompany me as well, so we could sleep at the same time and so I was never on the bridge alone. It was a slow process to get reacquainted with her after we had been apart for so long, but over the weeks she'd spent training with Zari, and the weeks we spent slowly moving towards the nearest station, we finally started to feel like a couple again, and Kitty was the weird, bubbly friend we had some fun with on occasion.
Even after 20 years I never felt as connected to her as to Phoebe, or Aranea for that matter, even in her later years, when she was a sweet old woman I kept referring to as my adoptive mother to strangers to avoid awkward explanations. It was a strange time as I progressively went from being her husband to her caretaker, and there were some times she tried to talk me into just divorcing her so I could be with Kitty, or occasionally some other hotty of the day, enter a long line of random young waitresses, medical personnel, and store clerks, but I kept insisting she deserved more than that and I ended up staying faithful to her till the end, but enough about that. Anyway, I always had a hard time seeing Kitty as more than a close friend with benefits, maybe her former boyfriends felt the same way. That said, she seemed happy thinking we were married, and that worked out pretty well for the most part. There were days she would push her boundaries, but she definitely had more respect for Pheebles than before. And then there were days where Phoebe just would not get off of her case.