“Don’t I know you?” John asked, trying to recognize the man in front of him. Entirely nondescript, he looked like the personification of a background character. He was part of a certain company responsible for movement and installation of water-based relaxation wear. The answer didn’t come before the Gamer had put his signature under the document he was presented with.

The dude adjusted his cap a bit and smiled, “Yes,” before turning around leaving John standing there in befuddlement. He handed the document to his superior and then said something about going for a leak, disappearing around a corner.

“I am most certain I do as well…” Lydia mumbled, then her eyes widened and she hurriedly marched after the man. She stopped dead at the corner and came back. “Gone, like always.”

That was when John realized it had been that weird man that fell in and out of dimensions and the Gamer’s life. “Been a while since I encountered that guy,” he scratched the side of his head. “Seemed like he had control this time, good on him.”

“I still desire to know who or what he is,” the queen crossed her arms.

“Evidently, someone who can break some more important rules than me,” John answered. Compared to the ability to travel between different versions of reality, being able to combine elementals and disregarding magical theories all across the globe in the process seemed rather plain. ‘Guess that comes with the advantage of better control,’ he thought as he turned to the house.

His parents’ new home was definitely larger than the house John grew up in. It wasn’t quite a mansion, but it definitely grew beyond the simple suburban household that had just enough room to raise a family of four in.

The house had two storeys and was broad rather than deep, presenting a large façade of a creamy, chocolate brown colour to a clean street. John could easily see enough space for three extra bedrooms inside. It was definitely much bigger than the Gamer thought his father’s job as an engineer would have brought them, but here they were. Evidently, John had very little idea what exactly his father did.

A hip-high hedge marked where the property began, encapsulating two decorative flower patches between themselves, the house’s veranda and a little walkway that led up to the white door. One that John stood before moments later, checking his clock one final time. It was shortly before noon. ‘Just about two hours later than I wanted.’

His hand raised up to the doorbell and he pushed. The pre-recorded sound of a bell went ding-dong through the house. A moment of waiting ensued, then footsteps tapping over a wooden floor in house shoes followed. The door opened with only the soft whisper of rubber seals expanding accompanying the motion.

Brenda Newman, the unknowing mother of one of the strongest people in the Abyss, was a woman of numerous beauties. She had silky black hair that reached down to her collarbone, not particularly stylized but clearly benefiting from the life as the housewife of a well-off man. She had a round face that was a nice mixture between cute and sexy, pillowy lips and brown eyes. Her figure was, to put it bluntly, the wet dream of any man who was into big tits. With a rack bigger even than Salamander’s and curves that had exactly zero signs that she had given birth before, one could have been excused for mistaking Brenda’s for someone in her late twenties, rather than the almost forty that she actually was. She was wearing a long-sleeved, deep purple shirt (the upper buttons open, revealing massive cleavage) and simple pants of a champagne colouration.

John would have totally booked her as a MILF, but as she was who she was, she was just the M and he felt no attraction to her whatsoever. Which was good, he had been somewhat afraid that his heavily increased Libido would put some thoughts in his dick that he didn’t want. Another Stat whose impact he was mildly worried about was Charisma. He had changed quite a bit, what if his mother didn’t recognize him?

“John, welcome!” she smashed right through that worry with a wide smile and motherly hug. It came with the warmth of home and shelter, lasted only a couple of seconds but put John’s day into a nice light. For the next few hours, he wouldn’t have to worry about anything, no magecraft or politics, just the small family he had. They parted and she looked up to her son. “Oh my, your father’s genes really took a backseat while you were in Germany, didn’t they.”

An amused outcry from within the house, “What is that supposed to mean, huh?” John looked up from his mother’s face and into the entrance area behind her. Down walked a man that everyone would have pointed at and said, ‘Yup, that is John’s father,’ just a few months ago.

With a rather uninteresting face, brown eyes and hair, a lanky figure and holding a coffee mug with a boring piece of wisdom printed onto it, Benjamin Newman was nobody outstanding. He wore practical clothes, a buttoned up blue shirt tucked away under the simple black-leather belt holding up his jeans, and was neither in particularly bad nor great shape. Observe, which John used out of pure habbit, revealed nothing unordinary either. Just a normal man with a hot wife.

“Oh, nothing, dear,” Brenda chuckled. “Well, nothing your beloved science can’t explain.”

“Don’t remember marrying you for backtalk,” the engineer shook his head. “Pretty sure it was to get a cook with huge breasts.”

“And I say you also did it to have a good-looking kid, which,” mother Newman gestured at her son, “we now have. Can’t say that face is your genes at work, darling.”

“Mhm,” Benjamin took a close look at his son and the women around him, “I have to bow to that wisdom.”

John pinched the bridge of his nose, he was sure most of the girls around them were having a great time listening to his parents bantering, but to him this was just embarrassing. Leaning up to him, Rave asked, “I have been wondering this for a bit, but how did you grow up to be an ass-person?”

“Yeah, what the --- John,” Eliza added, less quietly, swallowing a certain word in her sentence. “With a mother with that s--- giant rack around, I guessed you reta- really nice person would grow up to be a…”

“What are you doing?!” John interrupted her.

Eliza clenched her teeth and hissed, “Not trying to f-- it up in front of the grandparents of my kids… and…” She stopped with a pained lustre in her eyes, there was something else but the first part already caused the house owner’s to stake a new question.

“Did we miss anything?” Brenda asked, her and Benjamin’s ears primed maximally at the prospect of grandkids. Something genetic about moving towards the forties, no doubt.

“No, she is just baby-crazy,” John stated, “…and generally crazy.” He took a sharp, pained breath in through his teeth when Eliza rammed her left heel into his foot. Then she did it again. Then she suddenly stopped, with her foot still raised for the third stomp, and quickly stepped behind John, almost as if to hide.

“U-uhu,” Benjamin cleared his throat. “Didn’t think you were one of those masochistic fellows, John.”

Rave leaned in conspiratorially, “In the bedroom that crazy little psycho is a total kinky slut, usually on all fours, so don’t let this deceive ya.”

“Ah, I see, I see,” father Newman nodded and took a sip of his coffee. Then he checked his wrist. “Well, my break is about to be over, so I have to get back to work.” John’s father worked relatively nearby, so he often returned for lunch from work. That he had passed his son was more of a lucky coincidence of John being late. Benjamin was out the door just as John was in.

______________________________________________________________

About twenty minutes later, they all found themselves inside the spacious living room of the ground floor. They were sitting around a large table, the elongated kind with round ends. Around it sat John, Rave, Eliza, Lydia and Metra. His mother finalized placing a bunch of little treats on the white sheet that covered the table and took a seat herself.

White was the general theme of the room as well. The carpet was just as cleanly coloured, the walls a nice and light beige, the furniture switching from cream-coloured leather to dark wooden shelves and tables.

“So, introduce me to these fine ladies,” Brenda asked, looking around them.

“Well, you already know Jane,” John pointed at his girlfriend, who waved across the table in a cheeky fashion.

“Yes, and I see you dyed your hair,” his mother didn’t say that without any approval or disapproval, she simply observed the obvious. “Looks good on you, Jane.”

“Thanks! How ya doing yourself, Bren? Did’ya get that special wool discount?” Rave asked about a topic that John had absolutely no idea about.

“Oh, that old story did come to a rather interesting conclusion including some dirty bits,” Brenda giggled in a way that made John shift in his seat uncomfortably. They were obviously really dirty bits.

Metra noticed and, perhaps just to annoy John a bit, challengingly stated, “Do tell.”

“Ah, it would take a while to unravel that tapestry – excuse the pun – so maybe later,” Brenda insisted. “So, yes, I know Jane already. I am honestly surprised you found an array of girls just as good looking.”

Lydia bowed her head, “I am most grateful for that compliment. I do think Jane happens to be prettier than me, but if that is your observation, I won’t contend with it. I am Lydia,” she conveniently skipped the second name, although John had no doubts she had a fake one prepared.

“Mhm, are you from Britain?” Brenda asked.

“I was born in Poland but am mostly German by heritage,” the queen stated. “Why the question, if I may inquire?”

“You just have a very… eloquent way of expression,” mother Newman commented. “Well, it is good to see that my boy can attract the charismatic and the beautiful. Also, the athletic from the looks of it,” she looked over to Metra.

Rave and Lydia were both wearing summer dresses, even Eliza had managed to put herself into a black t-shirt with leather pants of the same colour (making her look anything but proper together with the choker; if anything, she looked like a nice-assed goth gf). Always one to swim against the stream, Metra, however, had insisted that it was warm enough for people to only raise an eyebrow at her outfit without actually seeing it as impossible. Technically, she was right about that, and so John had been unable to argue her out of her more than revealing choice of presentation.

“Got a problem with that?” Metra asked, crossing her arms with a broad smile that made it clear that wasn’t supposed to be confrontational.

Brenda winked back with the eyes of a fellow pervert. Despite John’s best attempts to forget this, his mother did have a whooping Libido of 36. “Oh no, if I could get away with it, I would do just like you,” she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, wedding ring sparkling in a ray of sun that fell through the window, breasts swaying. “But with my figure, sparing clothes lead to a lot of risks, plus I get cold way easier. I do have some pretty nice dresses for nights out with Ben, though.”

“Really?” Rave asked. “Can I see later? Trying to find some designs I don’t find super ladylike and boring.”

Lydia gave her some serious side-eye, “Festivities are a time to dress proper, not to…”

“Nights out being swinger parties,” Brenda added, silencing any discussion about this from the start.

“…Disregard my comments, in that case,” the queen stated after a moment of silence.

“We are not going on swingers though,” John picked the topic back up. “These are my girls, I am not sharing.” He was absolutely adamant about that.

“Tiger, ya know cheating ain’t happening in this… polygyny?“ Rave threw in, putting a hand on his thigh, “I just want something that makes everybody in the room jealous and you can fuck me inside afterwards. Ya know, going into clubs in shirt and pants all the time gets pretty dull.”

Appeased by that prospect and his girlfriend’s touch, John nodded and put his hand on hers. “Anyway, that is Metra. This last girl here is Eliza,” the Gamer turned to introduce the currently black-haired girl that sat at the table in a surprisingly docile fashion. “I think you got an impression earlier.” Now it was the blood mage’s turn to give him massive side-eye, but she kept her mouth shut.

“That I did. You are a pretty lively one, aren’t you?” Brenda asked and got a simple, courteous nod in response. Leaning back in her chair, John’s mother looked a bit annoyed for the first time. “Just drop that façade already, young lady. Speak your mind.”

Carefully and in an uncharacteristically timid voice, she asked, “You won’t beat me for it or anything?”

‘Jesus, what the hell?’ John thought and was incredibly happy he hadn’t said that out loud when it dawned on him where that question stemmed from. He had never inquired deeper into Eliza’s actual past; she had stated something about overly religious parents one time and that had been all he thought he needed to know. He hadn’t even thought about it, but given the times she grew up in and her luck in life, there just had to be some major abuse in that family.

Normally that wouldn’t have mattered, what parent figure could the blood mage still have that she couldn’t just break the neck of if they came at her the wrong way? Well, the answer found itself rather unsuspectingly in Brenda. Not only was she protected by Gaia, but she was also the mother of the man she was in love with, that made her doubly untouchable.

John wanted to stand up and start helping her with yet another trauma. For her, it didn’t matter how often he had to do that. This time, however, there was a mother at the table that reacted quicker to the plight of the girl than he could. That she was technically older than Brenda didn’t put a wrench in the dynamic.

Getting up and hastily walking up to her seat, Brenda reached out firmly. Eliza recoiled at the raised hands, put they wrapped around the sitting girl’s form and pulled her into the warm embrace that John had felt at the entrance. Unlike him, however, Eliza had not known that feeling before and her eyes started swelling with tears.

“Of course not,” the matrimonial voice of Brenda assured, gently caressing the back of her head. Slowly, Eliza relaxed. “I am no hidden monster on the inside, you know?”

Something about the blood mage’s body language subtly changed for a split second, and her tearing eyes were replaced with that of a hungry wolf. John felt a jolt of panic, bolting out of his seat, but Thana was already gone, leaving only Eliza as she began to cry. Not just because she felt motherly love for the first time, but because she was reminded that inside her was something worse than a monster.

“What is the matter?” Brenda looked up at him in a confused manner, uncaring about her perfectly clean shirt currently getting stained.

“N-nothing,” John stumbled over his words at the obvious lie. His reaction had been foolish, despite her hate of humanity, Thana had enough of a mind to prioritize self-preservation. There was no way that the goddess of genocide would attack Brenda, but the prospect still caused John to immediately make plans to triple the original security measures he had planned for the future. He went over to Eliza to hold her hand.

After a few minutes of the blood mage slowly gathering herself back up again, Brenda suggested, “I have some cake lying around. I wanted to keep it for later, but you look like you could use a slice now.”

Eliza sniffed and John was pretty proud of her at that moment. Afraid originally that she would have had a panic episode and ran out of the house to hide herself in the yacht and wallow in the misery of her memories and the burden she hadn’t asked for, hearing her say the words, “That’d be the… fucking best,” even through hesitation and a choked breath, was a great sign of the progress they had made together.