Parenting is always hard, especially when a child suddenly gets an AI companion that gives the child unlimited access to the most advanced arsenal in the world. Not only does that make them a lot more dangerous, but they also become a lot harder to punish and discipline. According to several parents of samurai children that we have interviewed, nothing really works; any access blocking to the web gets circumvented, and any stuff you take away, they will just buy anew. That is why Parenting Co is offering this new special service for parents of samurai. We call it the Pluto timeout zone.

  Simply putting your child on Pluto will make sure they can't access the web or do anything dangerous. Buy your tickets now.

  Parent Co will not be held liable for any asphyxiation or freezing of the participants

  --Ads from Parenting Co after several parents compined that having samurai children was hard

  'Here is your room, please stay in there and be quiet.' Honestly, that sounds an awful lot like I am a petunt child being sent to my room for a time out, and I don’t like it, especially since this room is some kind of Faraday cage. Which tells me exactly how much they actually trust me to be quiet.

  Funnily enough, Luna just gave me a signal booster just in case I find myself in a simir situation once again, and I could use it here just fine to get around this and surf the internet, but I am feeling particurly petty today.

  “Now, which one to use?”

  Fuck it, who cares! I summon my fire sword, walk to the wall opposite of the door, and stick it in the wall, carving a small circle-Ish shape. What? You try to make a perfect circle in a meter-thick wall. I look through the hole, noticing a big empty space beyond it with some kind of garage door on the far side, and the fact that I am a full story above the floor tells me that this is probably some kind of hangar for heavy vehicles or pnes.

  Luckily for me, there is an active incursion, so the hangar is empty. I take a few steps back, take out my new grav-hammer and whack the wall. The concrete, metal, and other bits fly away and into the hangar. I check my connection, noticing that it is working properly now.

  I smile. See, these are the kind of problems I can work with a lot better, a lot less stress, and no one got hurt. I move to the bed provided in this room and jump on top of it. As I lie down on the bed, I take out the newest weapon in my collection.

  The sword looks to be made out of sleek bck metal, not all that different from my first sword, which makes me smile somewhat at the nostalgia. Strangely enough, the sword does not have any visible circuitry, even my fire and ice swords have some amount of circuitry still visible. It makes me wonder how much crazier Css 4 or even Css 5 would be. Also, at what point am I just allowed to call it magic?

  I put the sword away for now. It is a fun piece of equipment, but I don’t have anything to use it on, and I am more or less banned from going back to the city and participating. I guess it doesn't really stop me from watching, though. I quickly run a few of Evelin’s programs, and multiple panels flick open, revealing different parts of the city. It looks like it is mostly under control between the different Samurai, undead, and for some reason, raccoons, running around in the city.

  I even managed to spot some PsyCo mercenaries at the edge of the city putting up defences and setting up temporary shelters for civilians. Daisy is running around in some kind of dog armour with a ser turret on her back, making her an absolute menace. Next time I go out, I should really bring her along; that could be a lot of fun. Further in, I spot Bubbles' red fire truck, with Glowstick standing on the dder pying overwatch, as they slowly clear the streets.

  Bubbles looks good, having grabbed some upgrades as well. But I still wish she were here with me to cuddle instead of fighting out there. Not that I don’t want her to fight and get stronger, she should definitely do that too, just that I feel a bit lonely, and with how I just got betrayed, I didn’t like the prospect of sitting alone in a room all that much.

  “You do know we have another girlfriend you can talk to, right? You don’t have to keep staring at Cire's ass.” Evelin suddenly pipes up.

  I blink, not really having thought about that. A quick check in the PsyCo database ter, and I have her location. She is in the newly finished penthouse on top of the PsyCo building in some kind of office, which is fortunate, because it has been outfitted with holographic projectors, allowing you to have an in-person meeting digitally.

  A quick bit of pressure to the security system ter, and I manifest a digital avatar of myself inside the room a few steps behind her. Her attention is glued to several screens covering one of the walls, all dispying different parts of the incursion.

  “If you ask me, you should wait a few days for all the fan edits to come in, watching it on so many screens looks exhausting.” I say by way of a greeting.

  Cierra whirls around with big eyes. “Who are you? And how did you get in here?”

  I pause, feeling a bit confused at the question. Then Lyssa speaks up.

  When you entered this conference, your mask hijacked the connection and pced your disguise on top of it.

  I quickly look through the camera and notice that I am in my green-haired goth girl outfit, white mask on the side of my head and wearing my purple hoody, but instead of the normal version, this one is oversized, coming down to my knee.

  “Right, sorry, my name is Maniac.” I say, grabbing the bottom of my hoody and doing a curtsy “As to how I got in here, I am not actually here, I took over the projectors.”

  “Ah, right, protector AI shenanigans! I should expect that when having a bunch of samurai below me.” She says, still looking at me with trepidation.

  “My AI had little to do with this. Evelin is very much the type to make her own bullshit programs.”

  Cierra paused, “Right, you know Evelin. How did the two of you meet?”

  “Uhm, well, you know what? It's kind of hard to expin, and something we should probably sit down for together, but to answer the question, she is kind of my sister, I guess.”

  “Sister? Wait together? You know where she is?” Cierra looks at me with big eyes.

  I smile then slowly nod, “Yeah, she is with me. We were stuck in the undercity of Zurich for a while, but with all the chaos,” I gesture at the screens, “We managed to get out. Now we are in some kind of fort waiting for a car to show up so that we can go home”

  “You're bringing her back here?” she asks, looking at me with calcution behind her eyes.

  “I am not bringing her anywhere. She is perfectly capable of moving on her own most of the time. Also, she misses you, so yeah, she is coming back to you.” I say in a steady tone

  She becomes impossibly bright after that, basically beaming at me. “You really think so? I mean,” She pauses and looks at me. “I was not always that great of a girlfriend.”

  “You were kind of a bitch.” I state, making her wince. “Even though you protected her in your own way, she should never have needed that protection. Then again, that isn't your fault; the only thing that really matters, is if you are going to do better from now on.”

  Cierra nods to herself, “Don’t worry, I broke off from my family and opened my own company. No one will hurt her, not if I have anything to say about it.”

  “Your own company, huh? That is impressive. Is it going well?”

  Cierra just shrugs, “We aren't really focused on profit, more on helping people, so it's a bit hard to tell how well we are doing exactly, but I am at least a lot happier.”

  “That's important too, I am sure that Evelin likes that as well and will help out wherever she can.”

  “Probably not, she is working for PsyCo, right? I don’t want to overwork her.” Then she suddenly takes a deep breath and looks me straight in the eyes, “ What about you? What is your story?”

  I raise my eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

  “What's your story? If you are Evelin's sister, I assume you found out when you initiated, but what were you doing before all that, since you know, you were not really mentioned in the family registry?”

  I pause, thinking of the best way to expin it, then throw those ideas out the window for Evelin to deal with instead. Hey, we did agree that social was her area of expertise after all.

  “Let's just say it's complicated and that we should probably talk about this with a lot more people present, to not, you know, repeat the story a bunch of times, but I guess I am basically a mercenary specialised in protection. And currently it is my job to protect Evelin.”

  “And when would this job end?” she says with a smile.

  “Probably when she has kids., I'll probably switch to protecting those, then.” I say without much thought, making Cierra sputter.

  “You think she wants children?” she says, turning impossibly red. Ooh, this could be fun. I wonder how red I could make her.

  “I don’t know, but it is a possibility, I guess. I know that I want children at some point, so let's just call it a work in progress.” I say with sly smile.

  “Why does your wanting children have anything to do with Evelin?” Cierra asks, confused.

  “Uhm, it’s a twin thing,” I say with a shrug.

  “Right, will you be staying in the hotel or here with us in the penthouse?”

  “Not sure, just don’t worry about it, we’ll figure something out.” I say with a smile.

  Cierra nods, then looks at me, “You're different from what I imagined.”

  “Well, it's a weird day. Girlfriend broke my heart, but I finally got out of the undercity only to be stabbed in the back by Magenta, then I am sent into time out, so yeah, I am feeling a bit discombobuted.” I say, looking at my… yeah, not really sure what she is to me at the moment, today is really a strange day.

  Apparently, she spots something in my face and comes closer to try to give me a hug. Sadly, I am just here in projector form, and she goes right through me. She steps back, looking slightly embarrassed.

  “Yeah, right, hologram. You can’t touch those.” She says with an awkward chuckle.

  “I am pretty sure we can install some stuff so that it does transmit touch. That might be a fun upgrade to get, allow people to visit while not being physically there.” I suggest.

  “I guess it would be nice to have Cire around when she is off doing Samurai stuff.” she says, smiling at me.

  “Yeah, anyway, I've got to go. There are some people at my door asking why I smashed the wall of my prison cell, so I need to deal with that.” Cierra looks surprised, but before she can answer, I send her a little air kiss and log off just in time to see the door open up.

  I look at the three armoured soldiers with some amount of contempt. “Isn’t it a bit early for housekeeping?”

  The middle man speaks to me in a slow and measured tone, like I am some kind of child. “Why did you destroy the wall?”

  I look behind me at the giant hole, then shrug, “There was a signal jammer in it. I got rid of it so I could surf the web.”

  “I see, would you please come with me, the director has some questions for you.” the man continues.

  I just shrug. “Fuck it. Lead the way, brigadier.”