Chapter Twenty-One - Chi-cane-ry

Emily pressed the little button on the cane and it snapped out to its full length with a distinct crack.. It reminded her a little of two pool balls striking each other.

The cane itself was matte black, without any real decorations except for a small silver cap on the bottom. The head was slightly curved, to fit nicely in her hand, but that was it. Just a rapidly retracting cane that clearly couldn't fit into itself but did so anyway.

It was also a gun. Maple had noticed that Emily had... mild issues with the toaster-based railgun she'd built, so Maple made a smaller, more compact railgun just for Emily.

This one fired a metal rod (Emily suspected that it was the sleeve of a pen) at speeds that Maple had said were 'very fast.'

She hadn't dared test it.

Emily was never very fidgety, but she found herself triggering the cane to open and close repeatedly.

The day out in the little campsite had been fun. She'd encouraged Teddy and Trinity and even the more reserved Athena to run around. They played tag, hide and seek, and generally got exceptionally messy while exploring the woods.

Athena got lost, at some point, but Sisterportation came in handy and brought her back without any issues.

They also practised with the tools Maple had made. Trinity needed to learn how to coordinate while partially invisible. Teddy needed to learn how to time the use of her hammer, and... well, it didn't take Athena too long to figure out how to use her monocular, but her tool was relatively simple.

There was one more thing that Maple had made, but this one she didn't box up and wrap in flower-print wrapping paper.

It was a small device. Emily could recognize the parts for a remote, as well as a small metal box with a few little metal rods sticking out of it and bent in strange angles. It was all held together with hot glue and a generous application of rubber bands.

It was Maple's anti-vibration device.

"It stops things from shaking," Maple said with a self-satisfied little smile. "But don't worry, I made sure it doesn't stop people-stuff from shaking, because I don't know if that would be bad for you. Do parts of the brain need to shake to work?"

"Right, that's a good idea," Emily said. Then Maple earned herself a few more pats on the head for not creating something that might accidentally kill everyone around her when she activated it.

Emily loved all of her sisters, but she was also afraid of all of them. So much power concentrated in such little, remorseless packages was kind of terrifying.

Coming back home from their little trip was much easier than heading out.

Maple had drained her social batteries and was extra quiet, and all the others had run around for hours. They were stuck somewhere between starving and exhausted, so the drive back to Eauclaire had been blissfully quiet.

"We should get them to run around like that more often," Sam murmured.

"Yeah," Emily agreed. "It's nice."

She turned in her seat and looked into the back of the van.

The girls were sleeping. Or some of them were, in any case. Teddy had her head tilted way back in a way that would lead to the worst crick in her neck if she was Emily's age. Her mouth was wide open and she was letting out small, gargling sounds.

One of Trinity was laying on Teddy's lap while another had her head on Teddy's shoulder. The third was laying on the floor, nestled between Athena's knees.

Athena and Maple were more or less awake, talking to each other in low voices, but it was mostly Athena who was chatting, and even then, her head kept falling forwards then jumping back up as she fought back sleep.

Emily took out her phone, positioned it against the headrest, then snapped a picture up. Her mom would like it, even if the girls had a concerning amount of mud clinging to their shins.

They got home soon enough, and then Emily had to herd her sleepy sisters in the bunker. She insisted on showers for all of them, no matter how much they complained. She said goodbye to Sam while cooking a very large pot of mac and cheese, then she fed her gaggle of sisters and sent them to bed.

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Emily found herself standing in their living room, the exhaustion catching up with her now, but there was still so much to do. She had schoolwork to look over, plans to verify. So she sat down with her laptop, went to Outube, and started watching videos of cute animals being cute.

She was particularly fond of videos of kittens trying to jump but missing because they were so small and couldn't judge their jumps yet.

Emily startled when she looked at the time and noticed that it was half past ten. It was hard to tell the time in their bunker, especially with no windows to the outside. She slapped the laptop shut, regretted not doing any work for the last couple of hours, then showered in a hurry and slid into her bedroom to find that all of her sisters were stacked up on her bed.

Rolling her eyes, she found some extra blankets and a soft sweater to use as a pillow and returned to the couch.

She woke up several hours later to a knee jabbing her in the kidney. She shifted, suddenly aware of a heap of dead weight on her legs, and several warm bodies squeezed in between her and the back of the couch. She was so close to the edge that it was a miracle she hadn't rolled off while sleeping.

Groaning, Emily wrestled an arm free, found her phone, and stared blearily at the screen. Nearly six thirty. Early enough to rise, she supposed.

The problem was actually getting out of the tangle, but that was something she'd gotten a lot of practice doing lately.

She stumbled to the washroom, brushed her teeth (she had to set an example) then did her morning routine in a hurry before she started on breakfast. Usually she let her sisters figure that out on their own. Cereal wasn't rocket science (unless Maple got involved), even if her sisters tended to discover new ways of making a mess with nothing but milk and Orn Lakes every morning.

But today was a big day. So she cracked some eggs open and got out a box of pancake batter as well as a few breakfast sausages.

At one point she turned around to discover the entire gaggle had sleepily snuck over to the table and were staring at her while she cooked.

The food was served in the order it was done, so it wasn't a perfect breakfast, but they scarfed it all down anyway like a pack of rabid hounds discovering leftovers.

"Alright," Emily said as she sat down with her own breakfast. "Today's a big day, and we have a lot of goals to hit, so, do any of you have questions?" She smacked Teddy's questing fingers away from her breakfast sausage.

"Nah, we're all good," Teddy said with confidence while shaking her fingers.

Emily didn't believe her. "Let's do a recap anyway," she said. "Trinity, what's the goal today?"

"Uh," Trinity said in harmony. "To get stronger?"

"Essentially. The goal is to have all of you, and myself, complete a couple of minor quests so that we have more skill upgrades to work with. Teddy, how are we doing that?"

Teddy rubbed at the underside of her nose. "We're doing a charity?"

"Yes," Emily said. "But go on."

"We're going to convince people to give us money for stuff, then we're gonna steal it."

"That's essentially correct," Emily said. "Maple, what are your and your sister's job during the charity event?"

Maple flushed, stared at the table, then gasped. "Oh! Sam said we just had to look cute."

"That's right," Emily said.

Maple's hand rose, as if asking a question. "Big Sister Emily, how do we look cute?"

"Don't worry about it," Emily said. "Just act naturally. You'll be fine. Athena, what are the contingencies?" That was a harder one, and one she wasn't sure her other sisters would remember.

"If another villain shows up, we stick together and run away. If someone touches us too much, we kick their shins in, and if someone asks us too many questions, we get you or Sam," Athena said.

"Fantastic," Emily said. "Sounds like you're all ready for today."

They were so not ready.

But she expected that even given a year to prepare, she still wouldn't feel ready for what was going down today. So moderately ready was the best she could hope for.

Besides, the event was relatively simple, she didn't expect too much to go horrifically wrong.

***