“You do it once, you do it twice, and before you know, you do it thrice.

Then you look back, and you know, it's a habit... Doh!”

***Outer Rim***

***Antioch***

“It's unfair! So unfair, I say,” Veronica mumbles and stabs the food on her plate, shoving it around like an untrained student who is trying to dissect a frog. Her mother did a really good job today. There are grilled crustation and some sort of fried meat, together with well-seasoned vegetables. Just as I like it.

“Why am I not growing up?”

I listen to my daughter's rant; not for the first time, I might add. She is going through what I call a complaining-phase. Veronica gets those every now and then when she is reminded that she grows slower than the other kids.

Jill laughs happily, totally unperturbed by the fact that she is also still a child. “Why are you in such a hurry? Isn't it nice to take it slow once in a while?”

“I bet that you are the cause,” Veronica grumbles, giving her sister the evil eye.

I sigh and concentrate on my own food. “Try to be a little less moody, please. Family dinner should be a pleasing event, not a reason to bark at each other.”

All of us are at the large table in our luxurious living quarters. The whole family. At least those who belong to the inner circle. It's almost impossible to keep track of all my offspring by now.

The inner circle includes Silith, Lisandra, Fiona, and our children, Minerva, Samuel, Jill, Veronica, and Siegfried.

My wives didn't change at all, just like me. Our bodies grant us seemingly eternal youth. Min and Sam grew up into young adults, though they have yet to leave the house – so to speak.

I shoot a glance at the newest family addition, a little demonling who wasn't blessed with a personality. He squeals in delight, while his mother, Fiona, tries to get him under control. It's simply not understandable to me why she would want to have a 'normal' child. One that grows up normally and – god forbid – develops his own personality.

But Fiona said that she missed being a real mother, and so she took one of her eggs off the market for reincarnated personalities, something a mother apparently can do. I didn't know about it until she confessed it to us.

“I doubt that Jill would ever restrict your growth.” Silith glances at her daughter, clearly not so sure of her own words. “The system recognizes your growth and your accomplishments. If you don't behave like an adult, you won't grow up. It ensures that kids like our little Siegfried don't end up in adult bodies while they are still infants.”

“Well, there seems to be a bug.” Veronica puffs out her cheeks and pouts, which indicates that the conversation is over. She always does that when she doesn't want to admit that, despite her claims, she still behaves like a bratty teenager when she is challenged.

While I think that it's entirely possible that Jill has something to do with Veronica's strange condition, I can't deny the possibility that it's Veronica's own fault.

Silith did a... questionably... good job with designing our species. She tried her best to take the existence of the V.C. and G.O.D. into account and to make the best of it. Of course, that doesn't mean that her solution is perfect, as we are still depending on the game system. Though I want to argue that there were no perfect solutions to begin with.

Stabbing the meat on my plate with my fork, I shovel the food into my mouth and chew.

Lisandra giggles and reaches over to rub her daughter's back. “Don't worry. No matter how much time it takes, all of us know that you aren't any worse than others, just because it takes you a little longer. You are so smart, it's surely just a matter of time. I actually have a feeling that the game system somehow evaluates our mental state and not just our actions. I've heard of some similar cases here and there, so no reason to worry.”

I can almost hear her thinking, 'The longer you stay small and cute, the better.'

Lisandra is that kind of person, though I think that her fixation on Veronica might be one of the reasons why the child is held back. Being treated like a child makes her think that she is a child, and that might be reason enough for the system to stunt Veronica's development.

Not that Lisandra would be open to such a thought.

I gulp down my food, wisely keeping my thoughts to myself. Fifteen years have taught me a lot about living in close proximity to females.

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“Fifteen years, huh...” I mumble.

“What did you say,” Silith asks.

“Ah, nothing much. I was just wondering how fast time can pass. All it takes, is to fall into a certain rhythm and the time flies by... and before you know... we are all here...” I stop my musings when I realize that everyone is looking at me. “What I want to say, is that I am glad to be here with all of you.”

They raise their glasses and cheer. Everyone smiles and we continue our meal.

The years and our growing numbers forced me more and more into the role of a real leader, taking away the possibility to do research. I still like to wander the labs which are now filled with Demons, but even for that part of our main-colony, I had to appoint a head-researcher.

There is simply too much to do on the asteroid. As time passed, Haven quickly proved to be too small for our growing population. It takes a female Demon five months to lay a clutch of three to five eggs. Then, depending on their capabilities, the young demonlings grow up within two to five years, depending on their mental state.

It goes without saying that we had a real population boom once the first generation of children reached adulthood. The ship became really crowded and we were forced to stop Haven's continuous retreat into the void.

We chose an asteroid field with plenty of resources and re-purposed the largest asteroid, a small planetoid, round and roughly thirty kilometres in diameter, to establish a colony. Apart from being our new home, Tartarus is also a mobile dockyard which is constantly building new ships and releasing them into the void.

They are filled with Demons who want to found their own colony. Of course, that doesn't mean that they don't adhere to our commands. The people at this table are still the highest authorities in Demon society, thanks to our horns and the power the four of us wield through our special abilities.

Unfortunately, the promised selection process to weed out bad eggs isn't perfect and I was forced to give orders to keep some of the younger generations in line. I didn't like wielding the power of command over another being, which is very close to slavery in my opinion. Thankfully, those incidents can be counted on one hand.

All in all, the statistics tell me that I have 14.239 adult Demons and 124.532 demonlings under my command. That doesn't take the hundreds of thousands of eggs into account which are waiting in the spawning chambers.

My left eye starts twitching when I imagine that – in a sense – all of them are my descendants.

Silith notices my irritation and looks up from her plate. “Is something wrong?”

I smile. “Oh, I was just trying to calculate a function to judge our growth-rate. If we keep going like that, we might be forced to duplicate Tartarus soon.”

Minerva looks up from her own plate. “I've told you that it's not Tartarus. It's called the Death Star!”

I press my lips together in annoyance. “I named it Tartarus and that's the way it is.”

Sam jabs his knife into a piece of vegetable, using it instead of the fork. “You are the only one who calls it Tartarus. Everyone else calls it the Death Star. If you would've paid a little more attention to our history lessons-”

I raise my hand to stop him. “I know why you guys chose the nickname, but Tartarus is hardly the size of a star. It's a very small planetoid at most. A large piece of rock in my opinion. Calling something so small and insignificant a star is preposterous.”

Min pouts. “It's pretty large.”

“Not that big, compared to what some of our enemies have,” Jill comments, playing with her own food.

Raising my eyebrows, I smile and gesture at the reincarnated Blue who forced her way into this family. She plays the innocent kid most of the time, but then and now she drops a random comment which clearly shows that she is more than meets the eye. A real child would be waved off as having a highly imaginative mind, but this is Jill, the reincarnation of a Blue. A human who upgraded her mind to the point of becoming something inhuman.

Most of them are insane, and all of them are immensely powerful within the V.C.

It makes me wonder how much of the Jill at this table is still the Blue, and how much of her is like us. From time to time I catch her doing some pretty strange things. Like eating stuff just for the taste. At least that's her excuse. Another oddity of hers is to doodle strange things onto the walls of her room when she is bored. The strange symbols and lines aren't the drawings of a child, but some sort of code or language. My head started hurting when I looked at it for too long.

I even gave some samples to my subordinates to decode. No luck so far, not that I find that surprising.

I am not completely happy with my role as a manager, or sort of king. If it weren't for Silith, Lisandra and Fiona, I would go mad.

While I am in charge of military matters, Silith took over all issues of society as a whole. Lisandra is helping her with that, though she is kind of the real mother in our family, spending most of her time with the eggs and matters of the household. Fiona is ever busy with matters of legality and Tartarus itself.

When I look at her, she raises her eyebrows, clearly thinking that I expect her to end the discussion with the power of her station. Fiona quickly glances at the others and shrugs. “It looks like a Death Star...”

I pull my eyebrows together.

“… buuut… I could be persuaded to judge otherwise.” She wets her lips allows her eyes to roam over my chest.

“Fi! Not again,” Lis chimes and Silith reaches over the table to swat at her. “We made an agreement to tone it down! There are enough eggs in the spawning chambers!”

Fiona clears her throat. “I wouldn't have to take the quest. You never said that we have to stop joining the fun.”

“Guys, the kids are listening!”

“I know you! You always take the quest!” Silith complains. “You two forget yourselves, because, in the end, Antioch is still mine!”

Fi isn't fazed in the slightest. “As if you are any better. What about the last time, you remember, when we all agreed not to-”

“My attention slipped when he thrust just in the wrong moment. It was an accident!” Lis exclaims.

“Hah! Do you really think that anyone believes that? You could have cancelled.” Silith retorts.

“But he kept thrusting! I was through the query before I knew.”

They go on like that and I sense the inevitable conflict, so I quietly put down the fork and get up. They are still bickering when I leave the room, aiming for the bedroom. If they start going like that, a big 'make up' orgy is scheduled.

When I reach the door to the bedroom, I realize that it's strange how accustomed I became to having three partners, even if two of them are just using me as a donor. Dropping my hand, I try to break through the conditioning I must have experienced over the years.

Suddenly, it's like a veil falls off my mind. What the fuck is wrong with me? The three of them quarrel and I automatically head to the bedroom? It's certainly not like I do not have any better stuff to do.

I turn, intend on leaving, just to have three women facing me.

“Where do you think you are going!?”

I guess that... that's the life of a king?