Chapter 25: Chapter 24 - Restoring Balance

I stopped Jeff before he started working on either of his siblings. I asked him who he thought should be woken up first. I explained everything I knew about the situation between them, about the confinement and what happened when Alec escaped. After a few minutes of deliberation, we decided to wake up Alec first. Jeff assured me he could help keep him calm. That way, we could sit down to discuss everything before asking Cookie what her version of events was. My main goal was to get them healed and talking, like a family should.

As Jeff stood over Alec, I kicked on my divine sight. I watched as his blue mana made its way into each of Alec’s channels and slowly but forcefully opened each node. As the mana went from one node to the next, Alec’s red mana tried to brute force its way through the newly opened nodes. Sim held the mana back as he entwined the origin mana with the red in a double helix so they shared power and coexisted instead of being in a constant state of battle.

This went on for the next two hours. Apparently, Alec had less than 300 nodes left to open. Jeff and Sim successfully opened them all and repaired all the channels that had been brutalized by the two types of mana fighting for space. The entire network opened and flowed in a perfect double helix radiating power. His core reshaped into a beautiful combination of colors. Now, appearing almost identical to the masterpiece Jeff had created, the mana shone brighter than ever.

Alec began to stir. He slowly opened his eyes and looked up at Jeff. “Hey Fatty, what are you doing here?”

Jeff smiled. He had dealt with being called "Fatty" his entire life. All because of one baby picture where he looked like the Michelin baby. Even though he was the smallest in the family, he was still dubbed Fatty.

“You’ve looked better,” Jeff replied.

“Yeah, well I just…” Alec stopped and looked around the room. “Wait, where the hell are we?"

“You’re gonna be disoriented for a little bit. We’re in my basement. I did a little remodeling,” I told him.

Alec looked at me suspiciously. “Dad, is it true? I remember you being the admin before I blacked out. Is that true?”

“Yes,” I told him. “You’ve been out for a long time. There’s a bunch we need to tell you.”

Right as I was about to explain everything, he looked to his side and saw Cookie. “What the hell? How is she here?”

He jumped up and started looking around. He had a defensive fighting posture. He appeared to be under the impression he was a prisoner again. Jeff immediately called out to him. As he did, Alec visibly calmed down. I could feel Jeff’s aura radiating off him. As he was talking to Alec, I activated divine sight. I could see the blue glow from Jeff’s aura wrapping around Alec and pushing his red mana back into his core. Whatever skill this was, it had the ability to alter a person's mental state, calming them down.

I interrupted them and explained the situation with Cookie, how we found her, what led up to her being here, and the reason we woke Alec up first. I explained that we wanted answers about everything as well but we wanted to make sure that Alec got all his answers before we did. Alec had visibly calmed down and agreed to waking her up now.

Jeff started his examination and looked at me with a troubled look on his face. “This is going to take a lot longer than Alec’s channels did.”

“How much longer?”

“Alec had a few hundred nodes that needed to be opened. Cookie has a total of close to 4,800 nodes; about 1,100 are still not open. Her channels are not nearly as damaged, so the process is a lot quicker but there is a lot more to do. It’ll take about four hours.”

“That’s still a lot better than the weeks she’s already been here. Do it.”

Jeff got started, and I kicked on my divine sight. Cookie's pathways were larger and more intricate than Alec’s were. It didn’t look like they were brutalized either. There were a few spots that needed repair, but her core was the biggest thing needing alteration. It amazed me that Jeff had the ability to help cores develop like this. He was able to change the mess of a spinning orb into a perfect Dyson sphere, pushing and pulling both white and origin mana.

We decided to leave him to it while we went and talked more. After I brought Alec upstairs, we sat and discussed the system, specifically what my role would be after integration. “I haven't really thought about it,” I told him. This was true, but I had a feeling I would be fixing things for years to come. “I suppose I’m gonna have to fix a bunch of things after integration and I’m still going to do everything I can to help if we get invaded. I’m just not sure how powerful other universes will be. If they cross over into our universe, they’ll be bound by our universe's laws. Hopefully, anyway. If so, I can help protect everyone, but according to Sim, they have been around for billions of years longer than we have and their understanding of mana is bound to be more advanced. The only advantage I can see is that we have Sim. She is a part of our universe now. They can’t really do anything about that. Well, probably. She could at least help. I’m not too shabby myself, so there’s that too.”

“Dad, seriously, how powerful could you possibly be?”

I just smiled at Alec and snapped my fingers. The next thing he knew, we were both standing on the moon in an air bubble.

“Before you freak out, yes, I just teleported us to the moon, and yes, I just did this too.”

I pointed off into the distance. A mountain started forming. I put on a little hand choreography and raised the mountain. I pretended to be an orchestra conductor. Each movement of my hand did something else. The landscape changed in front of his eyes. Mountain ranges formed, canyons were dug, a riverbed was pushed through that would eventually have water flowing directly into a large lake. I leveled the ground and created channels from the mountains into the riverbed.

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We were currently standing in what used to be known as the Capella Crater. I looked at Alec and told him my plans for the area.

“This is going to be the site of our new family compound after integration. We will each have a house with a yard, and an area of about 10 acres to add anything we wanted. A teleportation platform is going to be placed in the middle with our housing in a circle pattern around it.”

Embedded in each of our skill sets would be the ability to transport back. Well, I can come and go as I please, but I’m the only one with divine-tier teleportation. The limitation without the skill will be that if you choose to transport up, you would have to transport back using the pad. They will only go to one of the cities instead of where you came from, and that will only be available once the city levels up enough to get the pad built.

His eyes were as big as dinner plates. I absolutely loved this part of sharing my capabilities. The utter shock on his face made me laugh out loud.

“Dad, this is crazy!”

I let out a big menacing laugh. “I know, right?”

Alec just looked at me and shook his head. “You’re an idiot. Who in their right mind would give you this much power? We’re gonna end up with something like mockingbirds that actually fly around mocking people.”

“Hey, that’s a good idea,” I smiled.

“Don’t you dare!”

We just sat there staring at the sight of the new compound. It wouldn’t actually become livable until the moon's core was finished being altered and we put an actual ecosystem into play. But I gave Alec a sneak peek. I waved my hand, and he could see an image of a lush green forest with snow on top of the mountains surrounding it. Water was running down little creeks into the river with futuristic houses and buildings lining the bank. It was beautiful.

“Dad, with what I’ve done, I don’t know that I deserve to be a part of this. I haven’t been the best person since I left.”

“But you recognize it. That’s the first step. All those messages I’ve been sending were to... Wait, you were unconscious the whole time. Do you have a little asterisk in the top right of your vision?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“I’ve been sending out messages to the world. Don’t freak out, but read through them. I’ve kinda altered the entire world already.”

“How do I read them?”

“Just think about clicking on it to bring up your notifications.”

For the next few minutes, I stood there waiting to get yelled at. Hopefully, when he realizes I’m responsible for millions of deaths, he might not be as hard on himself.

“Dad, did you really kill everyone with a 1 or 2 in morality?”

“I did. I’m responsible for creating a new world. Whether I like it or not, I was chosen to do it. I had to decide what kind of world I wanted and I chose to get rid of all the crappy people. I understand that no one is perfect. People do things they regret every day. It’s the people that have no remorse that I didn’t want in the new world. Once a new leadership is chosen, then they can decide what to do about the heinous actions some people will be responsible for. Until then, I would just rather them all be dead.”

“You realize I’ve killed before, right?” Alec said in a quiet, somber tone.

“Yes. I have actually had Sim show me quite a few of your actions leading up to this moment. But if you look at your morality meter, you’re at a 4, which means you obviously felt like there was a reason behind your actions besides the money or just doing your job. Dude, I have a pretty relaxed outlook. If someone deserves something, I am not against giving it to them, good or bad. Just like the scum I killed. They didn’t deserve life, so now they’re dead. I’m not expecting perfection. I just want a better world than what we had. You’ll never be a leader because your strengths lie elsewhere, but I bet you could have an amazing life as an enforcer or maybe something like a Disneyland Tinkerbell actor.” I said the last part as I winked at him.

He laughed and the only thing he said was, “Piss off.”

“Alright, let’s head back and see how Jeff is doing. Oh, I almost forgot. You're probably gonna want to be careful when you meet Peaches.”

“Isn’t that your puppy you got after I left?”

“Well, she was a puppy. I had Sim bond us and give her mana channels. She’s kind of overpowered now.”

“What do you mean by overpowered?”

“Here, I’ll just show you.”

I mentally projected an image of Peaches to Alec.

I said this next part out loud so Alec could hear me, but really I was projecting my voice into Peaches' head too. I made sure her voice was audible so Alec could hear it as well. “Hey Peaches, I need to introduce you to someone.”

“Daddy… Did you find the bird? Where are you? You’re gone again. You’re just nowhere. I don’t like when you’re nowhere. Come back so I know where you are.”

Alec’s eyes did the saucer thing again. He was looking at a gigantic image of Peaches with her wings on full display.

“No, it’s your other brother. He’s back and he wants to meet you.”

“Brother? My bigger, bigger brother you told me about? Is he cool like my favorite brother? Maybe I’ll have two favorite brothers. Does he want to find the bird with me? Stupid bird. I’m gonna get it. Does he wanna help me right now? We can bring best brother too. Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

“Peaches!” I yelled. “Please focus. I’m gonna teleport you to us. We’re on the moon.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

I teleported her right in front of us. I didn’t think to expand the air bubble, so right when Peaches arrived, she did it for me.

“You forgot the air, Daddy. I fixed it for you.”

“Holy crap, Peaches, you’re getting really good at manipulating mana. How did you know what was missing?”

“I don’t know, I just fixed it. No idea what mana is, but I’m good at fixing stuff. I just use the glowy stuff and make it do what I want.”

“That’s mana, Peaches.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. This is your brother Alec. He’s gonna be staying with us for a little while.”

“Ooohhhh, Daddy, he smells just like you and best brother Jeff. Did you know he has red glowies? Inside he has red glowies. Jeff’s glowies are blue. Why are you red inside, big, big brother?”

“Wow, Dad, she is a little hyperactive, huh?”

“Peaches, what color do you see inside of me?” I asked.

“You’re a cheater. You have rainbow glowies. My glowies keep getting better, but I only have red, white, blue, green, and the clear bluish one that’s everywhere. I just barely got the blue ones. When my best brother got his glowies, some of mine turned blue. It was awesome. I also felt more tingles when they came. I like tingles. I can do new cool stuff when I get tingles. Do you wanna come with me to find the bird, big, big brother? Here, get on. I’ll grow really big.”

Peaches then grew to about 40 feet tall and turned around for Alec to climb on. Alec looked at me like he was wondering if he should.

“Go ahead,” I told him. “I’ll let you know when Jeff is almost done and you can come back.”

Alec then climbed up onto Peaches' back and grabbed on right between her wings. The next thing I knew, they had teleported back to the surface.

“Sim,” I said. “Did you notice Peaches’ core? She has an origin core in a perfect Dyson sphere and inside there are tiny spheres of each color. It coincides with bloodline activations. How powerful do you think she is gonna get?”

“I believe that if this pattern holds, once all bloodlines are active, she will have just as much power and control as you have.”

“Sim, that’s scary. We have to find a way to get her to mature a little bit. It’s fun now, but if she still thinks like a little girl when she is that powerful, what’s stopping her from just creating a new continent because she wanted a new playground? That could alter the entire world and she wouldn’t even know she did it.”

“I believe with time she will mature. If not, we can always attempt to put you both in a time dilation astral space, speeding up both of your personal time to give her more life experience. It will also allow you to master your abilities as well.”

“If we get close to shield failure and she hasn’t matured at all, then we’ll discuss the option then.”