Neomy Schwartz, found herself still marveling about it, after all these years…

She looked at Boaz… A Part of her was still surprised that little Ruty never got angry about her name. She was such a kind girl…

"Hey, Nummi'Num'Num!!"

Her simple brothers bellow snapped her out of the thought.

"Don't call me that, lure-bait."

Boaz snorted his coffee at that and turned away from her as his personal particle swarm got to work at cleaning him up.

Yoel smirked at Boaz and nodded a bit at Neomy.

"Yeah, I guess I earned that one," Boaz said in resigned acceptance. Then his face cleared most of his expressions out, leaving a stern face in their place.

"That said, You were zoning out and this conversation is important."

She sighed, and wiped her eyes.

"Yeah, I get it. Our girl has got herself in yet another mess, this time on earth... At least this time it's someone else who got her pulled into their own mess, and not-"

She stopped, no one needs a reminder of the currently unfolding great pirate clan clash fiasco Ruth and Eli now found themselves in.

Ari-Paz summoned forth another pitcher full of coffee from the ether for the group.

"You know, we really should cut him some slack there, he was literally minding his own business when those jumped up thugs saw him," he added as he refilled everyone's cups.

Yoel raised a brow at that. Which Neomy kinda got.

"A single dude, alone on a quiet and empty street, and a handsome one at that. The Dude practically had 'Take Me By Force' hovering around above his head *in flashing neon lights.*"

Ari-Paz tilted his head at that, the look on his face somewhere between bewilderment and 'slap some sense into your husband before I do' bewilderment toward Batia. Still he didn't act on that impulse and She wouldn't be commenting on the blatant victim blaming herself in this setting either, for now. Behind more private and closed doors however…

For what it was worth Ari-Paz did answer Yoel's statement though. "Yoel, let's not overlook the fact that he's Israeli. You have to remember that their birth rate was never affected by the final strains of the virus. They never had to implement the population replacement measures, and the Covid effects on their SBR were much milder than everywhere else, so their Gender norms never particularly shifted. As you already know."

No one added the many other things they could to the conversation, they didn't need to.

Yoel's clamped mouth, and Batia's hanging jaw, more than showed their renewed appreciation of the matter.

However Ari-Paz's raised brow at Batia, who had seemed ready to speak in agreement with Yoel just a moment prior, showed he wasn't impressed with her either at the moment.

Yoel shook his head, and reclaimed enough agency to speak freely again.

"Anyway getting back to the matter at hand, those two now have a jumped up street gang vying for them. Where do we go from here?"

Boaz then said what should have been self-evident.

"For now we spread their targets. So Neomy and I are going home to the great train. Possibly even split the home from the train, and become an independent agency to both protect the *Carbon Fountain* as well as… Well, Y-."

Have the authority to kill them if they attack.

He didn't actually need to say it. They knew.

But Batia interrupted him. "Carbon?"

Ari-Paz was the one to answer.

"The great Train is basically a nickname. Because it's the first Cycler. It goes between Earth and Venus, you know…"

He is kind, and not asking her to her face how she didn't know.

And then dad changed the subject.

"Don't forget to go by Miriam and Arnon's. Your parents will be pissed if you don't stay with them for at least a few hours before going away," Dad Itamar was very loud and cool.

Boaz began to nod and then seemed agitated, clearly bothered by the idea of leaving his parents behind in such a dangerous situation.

"I will bring them with you." Ari-Paz smiled as he said it.

…

Tara would've breathed dragon smoke if she could. Unfortunately for her and fortunately for Bling, her abilities ran counter to fire in just about every way.

"Come on, twinkle star, make us a door!"

Bling paused for a moment, at the new nickname.

"Boss, my nickname is Bling, my actual name's Belinda. I don't need anoth-"

Tara raised a brow and cut her off, her own brand of venom seeping into her words.

"Don't let the Dames' empty flattery from earlier get to your thick head, keeper. She already forgot about it." Bling hesitated for a moment, as if about to counter Tara's point.

Stolen story; please report.

At that, Tara abandoned her own cultivated manner of intimidation and instead tried for the Dame's slippery steel tone. She failed of course, but not by much. Certainly not such much that someone like Bling could tell.

"Yes Boss."

And the little twinkle star went to work. Harder.

…

"So, The Family Zekunim girl. The very youngest girl, found a boy who made her want to move the sky- *And we don't get to meet either of them, when we're all in the same town?*" Arnon Schwartz's voice was less than amused.

"Well, Dad-"Boaz began only for his mom to interrupt.

"Oh don't leave me out of this boy. We both felt left out ever since, what did you lot, call it? Yes, the Space Pirate clan War? Did I get it right?"

Both Boaz and Neomy nodded at her.

Though Neomy actually answered her mother-in-law's challenge.

"Close enough."

Miriam took a sip of Coffee, locking eyes with her suddenly sheepish daughter-in-law as she did so, before refocusing on her son.

"So, not only *all of that*, but *now* you two now want us, your own *Imma and Abba*, to move out of *Our Home* so some street thugs with a few crumbs of insight don't try to kill us?"

Boaz took a breath. He wasn't sure how to answer, but he knew that he was gonna lose no matter what. So, armed with that reality, he went for it anyway.

…

An alarm drew Ruth's atention.

"Eli, get ready."

She could see his nature changing, though in reality it was only a feeling, something primal in the air. Something had shifted in the way the air moved about him, something she could almost feel on the surface of her skin. The feeling was one word, an instinct common to life really, *Fire*. He didn't look different of course, but she knew he could burn the place down, with ease.

He smiled at her.

'How sweet,' she thought.

Then his nani-interface shifted to combat, and a flash flashed before them;

And then again a second time; And now they had three new girls with them, and Ruth's home had a new 'door'.

The one in the lead barely smirked, and without a word, released a skill, something water oriented.

It flowed outwards from the woman in a pulse, attempting to submerge them to their knees, surging vortexes creating suction, slowing them down even as her skill effortlessly propelled her toward them, like an insult to water-spiders.

Ruth reacted though, and using her own strength managed to jump toward them enough to free herself from the targeted vortexes entangling her legs. Skill or not, this was her ship, she was Law And Justice here.

With the acrobatics of life where the words floor and ceiling meant different sides of the same coin, leaped once more and interfaced with her ship, and her world heard & obeyed.

Still, Eli got to them first.

On a jet of plasma, light and scalding vapor erupting from where it contacted the water, he hurtled towards and crashed into the supposed invasion leader.

As their skills clashed, steam filled the space. It choked the air, and each blow sent powerful, scalding vapor jets in multiple directions.

The One next to her tried to help her ally, But he was holding his own.

Her own surprise was ticking away just fine.

The third though, was trying to spoil it.

Outside her baby, an articulated net of nanites, plasma and electromagnetics stretched out, Catching light, and every second, it accelerated, Just a bit, But constantly.

And this little Hyena is trying to use her little skill to take what is hers, siphoning the field and redirecting inwards, boring into the ship.

And the bitch was smirking about it.

As her system hacker defenses dealt with the deluded beast, attempting to alter the pathways of the streams it was attempting to hijack, Ruth turned to the other fight.

"Eli…"

He was bleeding, and shaking quite a bit. 'The two bitches are bleeding him dry!'

"You… YOU Animals!!"

She cried helplessly, and finally,something, in a quite, still place behind her mind she never noticed, that never *needed* to be noticed clicked, something *primal*.

Animals. Instincts covered in skill and experience. Senses. How limbs are weapons.

The Concept of Animal takes hold in the *stillness,* the Loci of magic that deals with one's own body… She thought she couldn't do that. But that thought is beneath her notice.

Like a dream…

The little Puppy that was trying to take her ship or at least distract her, had managed that.

Distract her for a moment.

Controlling her baby is very similar to controlling her own body. As such, the newly awakened loci of Stillness would be very useful in managing her ship.

As such She did two things:

The first- Finish her surprise.

The slow speed creap jumped from just over 1.5 g.. to 10g. Gravity bending to her will.

As everyone fell she did the second.

Little puppy found that her *skill was getting scratched.*

No *impaired* had ever developed a *concept* without surgery before, surgery that capped potential, but Ruth, the first-ever *impaired* to naturally *grasp* a *concept*, didn't have that weakness, and now she, as an Impaired who lived in space, had an understanding of the mechanisms of the cold reality.

How technology finds and uses the loopholes of physics in ways that the Suite uses, those who find the patterns of ideas and use them as… How did she always call it in her meaner days?

Magic Coupon Codes… Now, she had that coupon too. And she has always been great at incorporating new systems.

But that moment of distraction was enough.

By the time she'd finished subduing her…

Ruth was alone on the ship.

…