As I sat watching Mia pet Peaches while she was whining, my eyes started to swell. Peaches had gone through all the stages of a dog when they’re dreaming: whining, growling, legs pumping like they're chasing something. At this particular moment, she was whining and randomly glowing a different color through her chest. Sim guaranteed me that she was fine; she was just going through her legendary metamorphosis.

I don’t cry; I haven’t shed a single tear in a long time. But watching someone with whom I share every aspect of my mind, body, and soul trying to comfort someone I care so much about brought me to the edge. I’ve heard of people crying when they’re happy. I’ve seen numerous movies and videos of people shedding happy tears, but even through all the joyous moments raising my kids, I’ve never experienced one. Maybe my body before the convergence wasn’t capable of it. It could have been a hormone imbalance or just not part of my nature. Whatever the reason, that had all changed in this moment.

Mia got a smile on her face. She could feel my emotions, and she knew I was watching her. One second she was petting Peaches, and the next she appeared behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist. As she laid her head on my shoulder—or tried to, given the significant height difference—I grabbed her hands, holding her arms in turn as I tilted my head onto hers. “You big softy,” she said as she squeezed a little tighter. I stood there just caressing her arms as she held me. I decided to take the opportunity and teleported behind her, scooping her up with one arm under her legs and one behind her neck, carrying her like you would a child. As I picked her up, she gasped and wrapped her arms around my neck. I teleported us both to the top of the Andes Mountains. We had been to this particular spot on a few occasions. There were better views, but something kept pulling me back.

As we stood there taking in the view, she finally spoke. “Why did you choose here again? I love the view, but we’ve been here twice—no, three times now. We can go anywhere in the world. Actually, anywhere in the universe. What makes you so focused on this particular mountain range?”

As I thought about it, I actually didn’t know. It wasn’t even my favorite place to go. As I turned to look at her, something in the corner of my vision made me pause. “Honestly, I’m not…” I stopped mid-sentence. I couldn’t finish because I could feel something strange coming. There was a power bubbling up from beneath the mountain. All of a sudden, one of the smaller mountains exploded. I quickly shielded us both from the flying debris.

We didn’t need it; both of our bodies were virtually indestructible now, but it’s one of those habits that will probably never break. If you see a rock headed for your head, you either duck or block it.

As the dust and debris clouded everything, I activated my divine sight. Mia looked at me with a horrified look. She had beaten me to it. She had been given a lesser form of the ability but could still see mana through her skill. “Activate your sight,” she told me as she looked back. “What is that?”

…

Cookie was just handed a report detailing exactly how much more liquid mana they had. The company had hidden from her that they were originally started because two billionaires had found a pool under one of their cabins back in 2010. They had been experimenting with it for over a decade without any progress. It continued to alter the test subjects into unrecognizable beasts. They had to flash-fry each of them to prevent escape. On one occasion, they just buried the compound because the subject became some form of lava monster, and fire only made it stronger. They had lost over half of their supply when they destroyed the lab.

Cookie had created a new process that allowed them to convert the solid mana chunks they found into liquid mana. The conversion rate with Cookie’s process was amazing. For every ounce of solid mana, they could create an entire gallon of liquid mana.

As she was reviewing the numbers, she felt the largest outburst of mana ever recorded. Even though she was almost 8,000 miles away, she could feel the power explode through the surface. Cookie closed her eyes and focused on the source. She could see an entire mountain reduced to rubble in the Andes mountain range. As she focused in, she saw a horrible sight. It looked like a twisted and deformed gigantic Cherufe—a monster made of lava with a solid outer shell of rock.

This particular mutation had three heads with flaming hair. The eyes on each head were a different color. The head on the left had two glowing purple eyes. The middle had one yellow and one a weird shade of pink. The head on the right had two crimson red eyes burning from the inside. On the upper torso were wings made of pure mana in plasma form. They shifted from solid to liquid and back to plasma, sometimes disappearing from the visible spectrum altogether. The wings spanned over 10,000 feet and dripped plasma from each point.

As the plasma hit the ground, a miniature version of the monster appeared for each droplet. In the short time since it had burst through the mountain, there were already over 50 of the little beasts. Each one sprouted wings and flew up to join the heads.

As Cookie scanned the mountain range to make sure she knew the full scope of what they were dealing with, she saw her father and his bonded.

Cookie quickly brought herself back, releasing her focus. “Hannah, get me everything you can on the test subject that forced the destruction of the first lab. DO IT FAST!”

Hannah rushed to the safe, opening it and handing the paperwork over as fast as possible. As she stared at Cookie, she could tell something was wrong. Cookie’s face showed more and more concern as she read through the info. The data on the paperwork showed that enough mana was lost in the first lab to supply a full planetary conversion. It was the single largest mana repository anywhere on earth, and it looked like this one monster had consumed it all.

“Damn it,” she said, looking at Hannah in absolute horror. “I have to go. My dad is about to fight a monster capable of destroying half the planet, and I need to keep it away from Yggdrasil. If anything happens and I don’t return, follow the plan. The tree has to complete its growth cycle, or we’re all dead anyway.”

Hannah, with tears welling up in her eyes, ran and wrapped her arms around Cookie. “Please be careful. Trying to finish this without you is…” she paused for a moment before continuing. “I don’t even want to think about it. I’m scared, I’m scared that I’ll fail and everything we’ve worked so hard for will fail because of me.”

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Cookie, grabbing both shoulders, pushed her back. She stared at her for just a second before slapping her across the face. “Now is not the time for emotions,” she screamed. “Call and tell team 2 that if they don’t hear from me in the next 24 hours, begin the release. I want every single creature brought to the surface and let loose. We have to keep them away from the main objective. If I don’t go help keep this thing away from the tree’s base, then we’re all dead .”

Hannah looked at Cookie with confusion on her face. “What do you mean keep it away?”

Cookie got an almost violent expression on her face before finally responding. “It’s the size of a mountain and only about 500 miles from the base of the tree. We’re all dead if I don’t go work with my father to push it into the ocean.”

Hannah’s entire demeanor changed. She went from a scared little girl to nothing but absolute horror showing on her face. She immediately picked up the phone and started dialing. As soon as the line connected, she began speaking. “In 24 hours, unless we call and confirm a cancellation, all phases are a go at the same time.” The other line was quiet for a moment. Then you could hear a male voice on the other end. “All phases, at the same time?” he asked.

“Yes, everything at once,” she responded before hanging up.

While Hannah made her call, Cookie spent a moment activating her core. As she sped it up, forcing the release of all types of mana that she could, she prepared to teleport. Once Hannah looked at her with confirmation, she jumped.

….

As I stared at the beast in front of us, I tried to make out exactly what I was looking at. “Three heads? And every droplet from the wings makes a new little guy? Babe, are you seeing the same thing I am?”

As Mia watched a new miniature version of the monster be created with each drop from the wings, she replied, “This doesn’t look good. That thing’s gonna hurt a lot of people if we don’t do something.”

As we stood there for a few more seconds, I could feel another pulse of power. Suddenly, Cookie appeared next to us. I immediately went into defense mode and put up another shield, blocking both of us from Cookie.

“I’m not here to fight, Dad. I’m here to help. That thing will destroy the entire planet if we don’t stop it.”

As I stood there just looking at Cookie, I couldn’t help myself. “Why did you—”

That’s as far as I got before the beast roared and slammed the mountain next to where it had just exploded out from.

“Dad, there’s no time. One day I’ll explain. I promise I have my reasons for what I did. It wouldn’t have killed you. Now can we please just get this stupid thing into the water? It will be weaker in the water.”

After Cookie said what she did, she disappeared. She reappeared directly in front of the beast. Floating in front of the monster's faces, she sent a stream of void mana directly into the eyes of the middle head. The dark, void-like substance completely engulfed both eyes. As the power was drawn back to Cookie, she started to glow with an eerie dark aura. It became weaker and weaker, like something was taking her power from her”

When I looked to see what she was doing, I saw two gaping holes in the center head where the eyes used to be. It was screaming an ungodly roar, like it was in horrific pain but getting more and more angry by the second. I glanced at Mia and then back at the monster. “Don’t do anything dangerous, please,” I told Mia. “We have no idea what either the monster or Cookie are capable of.”

Mia looked at me, smiled, then teleported in front of the first head. She began to create a gigantic tornado, sucking up all of the flying debris and directing it towards the first head. As the beast closed its eyes, it raised an arm to shield itself from the wind. Trying to swat them both away with the other arm, both Mia and Cookie only required slight movements to avoid the strikes. Their movements seemed to slow, and with each swat, the hands were getting closer and closer. This is when I joined in. I teleported in front of it at ground level. I started pushing mana into myself, increasing my size. More and more mana was flowing in and through my channels. I concentrated on my core. I could feel it spinning faster and faster. I had never attempted to grow this large, but I knew I needed to match its size to get it to focus on me instead of the girls.

As my core reached what I thought was its maximum, I felt little explosions inside my chest. With each explosion, I felt a burst of power. Instead of losing my power like the girls seemed to be doing, I was getting stronger and stronger. At first, green light engulfed my body. As it did, I grew a little. Then blue, then red, then white, and then two new colors I had never seen associated with a bloodline—yellow and pink. It was quick. They were there for a second and then disappeared just as fast. I began to glow with a purple light. This matched the color of the far-left head of the monster. With each new light, I not only grew, but my core started producing the correlating mana. Finally, a massive explosion of darkness and tendrils of inky black color shot from my back in the form of liquid wings. They were immediately followed by a second explosion, and all of the darkness was engulfed with a divine glow. As I grew and grew, I began to overtake the monster. All motion stopped as all three heads followed my growth. The entire beast began to shake in fear. The girls looked at me as if I had just become the monster myself.

My core had started spinning so fast and producing so many types of mana that I felt like I would explode from the inside. After what felt like an eternity, my core began to devour, sucking all the mana it could reach from all sources. Cookie yelled and told Mia to leave. Mia, with a confused look on her face, realized the danger she was in, hurriedly told Sim to help me if possible, then teleported away.

Once Mia was gone, Cookie addressed me directly. “Dad, get out of here. Teleport across the galaxy! You will devour the entire planet if you don’t go. Your full bloodline is activating! GO NOW!”

As I tried to withstand the pressure building in my core, I hesitated for just a moment. I could see through my divine sight that I was sucking mana from not only the monster but Cookie as well. I jumped next to the monster, pulling as much of its mana as I could with every bit of willpower I had, focusing it directly into my core. Absorbing so much mana made me feel like I was going to pop. Before I knew it, I had absorbed more than half the monster's available mana. Luckily, Mia had left and Cookie was far enough away that I only stole from the beast at this point. But before I finally chose to teleport away, I glanced at Cookie. She looked at me with concern—not disdain or anger. I actually saw my little girl staring back at me. Then I disappeared.

As Cookie glanced at the now shrunken monster, she quickly flew over and started mentally pushing it towards the sea. Instead of being thousands of feet tall, it was now only able to reach about 500 feet into the air. This was still way too dangerous to be close to Yggdrasil. The heat alone could put them back months, if not years, on the ultimate goal. Healing the root system was not as difficult as it would be healing the base of the tree itself.

The monster, still writhing in pain from having more than half of its mana stolen in an instant, fought with everything it had to stay on land. Cookie, however, was back at full power. With the Tri-Mental-Union bloodline fully active, she was able to use her telekinetic abilities to push the beast back little by little. The weakening power was not near as strong as it was when the beast was at full strength. As it got close to the western coast, it knew that it had to act. It may have just been a monster, but because of an innate survival instinct, it knew it didn’t want to be forced into the ocean. It turned towards the ocean and jumped. When it did, its wings spread wide. As it flapped in an attempt to gain as much altitude as possible, a plasma-type substance began flowing from beneath both its feet, propelling it higher and higher. Cookie could not believe her eyes. “Rocket boosters?” she questioned. “What the hell!”