Descend- Seeing Stars

by Sean Oswald

  “And this isn’t just because you want to add my power to the collective?” Rosa asked, hesitantly.

  Jay was actually caught off guard for a moment because he hadn’t even considered that. But then he realized why she might think that. Her power was different, but it had many applications and with enough power might actually be a game changer. When he spoke, he was very deliberate. “That hasn’t crossed my mind. Now that you mention it, yes, your power would be useful and yes, I would be willing to fuse with you, but that wasn’t what I was proposing. I get that you want to take it slow. Even if we have slept together there were reasons for that. And why shouldn’t a girl get properly romanced even at the end of the world?”

  She ran her hand along his arm and said, “There may be hope for us after all.” Then she looked to where Amelia was motioning for Jay to come over. “Looks like you are needed.”

  Chapter 5- Breaking into Pods

  For two hours, Jay did little more than go around and check in on his children and their mothers. It was a pleasant experience while at the same time being a reminder of Higen’s absence. Still Jay knew first-hand what happened to the child who was left if a parent couldn’t get over the child who was lost.

  He had no intention of giving up on finding his son. In fact, he was about to undergo some very grueling training in order to make it happen. The reports from the tech division had been encouraging. They were going to start doing brain surgery tomorrow.

  It sounded scary and he supposed it was, but he trusted his team. If they said they were as ready as they could be then so be it. They were going to remove the A’snkarnt implants from three volunteers and replace them with newly designed ones which they hoped would provide all the same controls for the leveling process without being a possible back door for the enemy to control them or even blow their heads up.

  Jay had volunteered immediately, but his seven wives had unanimously outvoted him and forbade him from risking himself first. There was a certain logic to it. Only nine men left and all that. But Jay didn’t imagine it would ever be easy for him to allow someone else to stand in his stead when facing danger.

  Ava’s report about the implant got a little crazy as she was speaking a million miles per hour but there was one crucial part that she mentioned at the end. They believed that Veronica had figured out a way to allow the user to interface with the A’snkarnt systems on board their ship and essentially control them with their mind. It surely sounded cool, but Jay was gonna hold his breath to see how it worked out.

  As for the newcomers, in the end fifty-one of them joined Team Jay. Amelia and Trina had required that each of them get a sponsor before being accepted onto the team. Then Samantha had overseen them all making oaths of loyalty to the team and had insisted on adding a bit about personal loyalty to Jay.

  The pods had been broken down again by fuses rather than wives. So now there were one hundred and eleven women on Team Jay but with eighteen fuses they each were only responsible for a relatively small number. They also established certain schedules as part of the next week.

  Jay still needed sleep but fortunately not as much as a normal human. He was going to have to allot the equivalent of four hours each day to refining the newcomers. Two hours per day would go to further enhancing the refinement of those who were already at least partially through the process. One hour was allotted for his personal refinement. Four natural hours without time distortion for sleep, two hours for relaxation and time with the kids, and one hour for extracurricular activities. That left ten hours a day for training minus whatever time he ended up having to give up for meetings.

  The good news was that he could turn the next six and half days into an exceedingly long time through time distortion but as they had previously noted there were limits or maybe not limits. There were negative ways in which it affected those who lived through the time distortions. So, they decided to use a 125:1 ratio for the refinement. That would allow him to get at least between four and eight hours of effort each day with each team member depending on what stage they were in.

  The sleep and relaxation hours needed to be normal hours so that his body could adjust to normal time at least one-quarter of the day. The training time was what he had expected there to be the most fighting over. Maybe he should have known better though. The lack of aphrodisiac hadn’t changed very much about most of the girls’ drives in that department. Or his for that matter. It made sense though as part of the evolutionary process they had been undergoing had been intended to push them in that direction.

  It was decided instead that he would use a 400:1 ratio for that time and would split it up into fifteen-minute increments around his other activities. That seemed to appease even the greediest of the girls. Some of the newcomers had trouble understanding why their teammates were insisting that they needed at least four hours a day with Jay, but the grins they got made them shut up. Certain things had to be experienced.

  When it came time to break down the time distortion for the training, Jay agreed to use half the training to train with teams set up on a schedule that Trina would create. The time distortion would be 1750:1. This meant that he could allot five hours each day for team training and end up with almost a full year’s worth of training. They would obviously have to sleep, and certainly other activities might happen but as many hours as possible would be spent in actual combat training.

  It would require them being away from their children for great swathes of time, but it couldn’t be helped. Even the tech crews insisted that they be allowed to get the same distortion periods. They needed to work on their skills after all too.

  The one area that he wouldn’t let the team dictate to him was how he was going to handle his personal daily training. He had five hours each day allotted for that. At first, he thought he would probably keep it shorter. After all no matter how much he might want some alone time, he didn’t really want to be in solitary confinement for an hour. It was that thought that made him realize this plan was all fine and dandy, but it might not end up working out like that.

  The rest of today he was going to dedicate to some solo training and then he was going to spend the evening in normal time, with his wives and children around him. It was going to be relaxing before starting the next six days of work. Six days that depending on if they kept to the pre-set schedule or not would end up dragging out to be almost thirteen years. If that didn’t prepare them then he didn’t know what would.

  There were of course some requests that he start providing the privileges enjoyed by all members of Team Jay right away, but thankfully, Huong took that problem in hand and insisted that all team members come through her for scheduling. She had the most wicked grin as she explained to the newcomers that she was Jay’s Madam.

  The final issue of dispute was about more fusions. As he had expected once the new pods were set up all of his fuses started making suggestions about who should be fused with him. Some like Nalani and Faith were noticeably quiet and didn’t want to cause a problem even though their pod members were asking them to fight for the pod. Others like each of his wives except Meikiyo and Ava were pushing for members of their pods awfully hard.

  Others like Maddy and Char also had strong opinions about who the next fuses should be. Even with Meikiyo and Ava it wasn’t that they didn’t have opinions. Ava clearly did and when he insisted that she tell him he ended up with a lecture about the best options.

  Meikiyo’s response was the one that most shocked him. When he asked her if she had an opinion about who he should fuse with next she said, “All of them.”

  Jay had stared at her for a moment trying to see if she was pulling one of her exceedingly rare jokes. Because she was such a serious and quiet person she could get away with the subtlest jokes and a very dry sense of humor. But as he searched her feelings, he realized that not only was she not kidding, but she was almost desperate for him to do that very thing.

  He asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Simp
le, you have fused with eighteen women so far. I may not like sharing you that much, but I do value the connection with the women who are closer to me than sisters now. They are as close as my very own skin. In fact, we are all part of a greater whole.

  “Those eighteen have given not only you but all of the fuses a great deal of power. So why not fuse with all of them? At least with any who are willing to make the commitment for lifetime exclusivity.”

  “I get it. This is about Higen. You are desperate and willing to do anything to gain the power you think will allow you to save him. I am too, but we have to be smart about this. I need to learn to use the power that I have now,” Jay replied, trying to sound comforting.

  “You are afraid. I can sense the fear. Shouldn’t your fear for our son be greater,” Meikiyo accused him.

  He was taken back by the accusation but instead of immediately denying it he examined what she had said for a moment. “You are right. I am afraid of losing myself. I am afraid of you losing yourself. Higen deserves to have his parents be sane people when we get him back. Who knows if we lost ourselves too much, we might not even care. So, we will do this slowly.”

  Jay took her into his arms, and she softly cried against his shoulder there in front of all the rest of the cluster. He held her and wished he had Jasmine's power to soothe emotions. Instead, he had to comfort her the old-fashioned way, but he was still able to push his strength and confidence through the fusion they shared and joyfully he felt all the other seventeen parts of them pushing back towards their hurting part, Meikiyo. They truly were not alone.

  Ultimately it was decided that he would fuse with one new girl each day starting tomorrow. There was a brief argument about the order they should be chosen in, but he put his foot down. Since each of the fuses now controlled a pod, he decided to let them take turns picking the next fuse in the order that he had fused them. Amelia was upset, but the calm satisfaction from the rest of the fusion helped smooth that over. Either that or the fact that he was still holding Meikiyo and even Amelia wasn’t willing to upset a grieving mother any further.

  After that he was finally free to go to one of the areas that they had set up as a training area. The ship’s artificial gravity system had been tinkered with by Ava and they were able to increase the gravity in this area by a factor of ten. It wasn’t that much but it would help as he increased the mass effect in the area as well.

  Of course, the physical changes were just the beginning. He needed to push his physical abilities, but he needed to also work on his numerous skills. His enhanced processing helped him keep everything straight otherwise he likely would have needed a spreadsheet just to track what abilities he had now.

  While he was stretching and starting to perform high-speed movements to get his body ready for the strain, he pulled up the list that his wives had prepared for him. It was great how they had made it so he could access it at any time. With one hundred and eleven women in Team Jay, or as the wives liked to call it, his harem, he needed the list.

  They had broken it down by pod and placed in bold the names of each of the women who either were fused or were willing to fuse with him. Some were downright begging after learning about all of the benefits. Fortunately, once being told it was a lifetime commitment, which might mean an exceptionally long time, and an exclusivity commitment the majority of the non-fused girls were undecided.

  The ones who had already stated that they were happy to be part of the team but had already decided that they didn’t want to be stuck with him forever, they were marked in italics. For most of them that even meant sleeping with him, but somehow that was different than a long-term commitment. He felt funny that he was the one dealing with numerous girls unwilling to make a commitment. Jay realized it was a sexist assumption, but it still made him laugh.

  At least it was nice that the list organized the girls. Names listed in bold were either already fused or wanted to be. The ones in italics did not want to join the fusion while the rest were undecided.

  PODS

  Mia- empathetic bond, shared potential

  Emma- Induce pain, intellect fortress

  Cecelia- assimilate, chameleon

  Tiana- Pattern recognition, variance detection

  Jaylene- Soothing emotions

  Thalia- subspace projection

  Macey- dysfunction

  Hope- attraction and repulsion field

  Ava- wrench, extra-dimensional space/holes

  Veronica- technomancy, data processing

  Clara- centrifugal force

  Victoria- harden or soften

  Scarlett- Self Duplication

  Deja- Tech interface

  Kamari- psionic construction

  Amelia- shadow sheath, visual shroud

  Harper- sonic kinesis, concert

  Grace- disarming presence, ethereal state

  Trudi- metalmancy

  Martina- Illusions/mental traps

  Clarissa- puppet control

  Elliana- null field

  Carmen- temporal regression

  Huong- cellular regeneration, scavenger crafting

  Skylar- (S) creation

  Felicia- (S) transmute similar materials

  Samara- hyper cognition

  Audrey- meta faculty

  Aliza- precognitive

  Bethany- remote viewing

  Meikiyo- pyrokinesis, flame form

  Kenzie- ice, healing

  Olivia- electric

  Jade- acid creation

  Willow- areokinesis

  Aurora- light control

  Ellie- telekinetic shielding

  Jessie- bestial control, primal adaptation

  Hanna- summons objects, melee combat

  Rosa- trajectory deflection, vector step

  Riley- sustenance, telekinetic thrust

  Bella- concussive blast, damage resistance

  Zuri- energy adaptation, health conversion

  Morgan- body recomposition

  Trina- necrotic absorption and projection

  Kayla- enhanced strength, combat reflexes

  Sora - flesh manipulation, vitality generation

  Uremi- flight, enhanced coordination

  Abby - projectiles, rebound

  Bianca- ecto spider

  Zariah- diamond body, energy refraction

  Jamiya- immovability, free step

  Bong-Cha- speed, strength, extreme regeneration

  Molly- inertial barrier

  Isabelle- venomous touch

  Addison- enhanced speed, stutter step

  Sabrina- psychic vampire

  Malia- modified breath

  Jayda- body adaptation

  Alexis- sees psionic connections, ethereal form, power guidance

  Tara- duo dimensional

  Lilly- grafted technology

  Karma- sustenance, body purification

  Nyasia- combat prowess, levitation

  Chanel- spatial push, detect movement

  Callie- beast form

  Nalani - metal fibers, matter absorption

  Taylor- force whip

  Mariela- empathic transfer, accelerated healing

  Giovanna- hex of improbability

  Amani- iron body, psi blast

  Janiah- death recall

  Francesca- focused fusion blast

  Sofia- molecular separation

  Makayla- affinity field

  Esther- enhanced durability, emotional drain

  Giada- enhanced speed, positive impression

  Cherish- dream travel, pre-cognition

  Greta- telekinesis

  Karla- shared fate

  Cadence- Chemical Creation

  Sophia- physiology manipulation

  Liberty- cellular restructure

  Phoebe- chemical mutation

  Giselle- cyber mind

  Amaris- dark matter kinesis

  Jimena- ma
gnetism

  Madison- mass control

  Rachelle- bio-plasma generation

  Angel- winged flight, light burst

  Gabriella- Ability duplication

  Joslyn- power acceleration

  Kaylee- construct form

  Whitney- hydrokinesis

  Charlotte- zealous fury, hyper accuracy

  Renee- Object control

  Destiny- electrokinesis

  Jenna- elemental constructs

  Sherlyn- energy redirection

  Izabella- enhanced physiology

  Delaney- explosive gore

  Esseme- psionic crush, incarnate

  Serenity- hostility management

  Gwen- friction manipulation

  Alia- pyrokinesis

  Paloma- force armor construct

  Sage- Bio-radiation absorption and generation

  Leilani- flesh manipulation