"They're very lovely together," Neph said brightly.

"They're too mushy," Blood growled in complaint, turning on the wallscreen, though she had the volume quite low.

"I'd rather be mushy than sneaky," Beth fired back, getting an unintelligible growl in response.

"You want to go get cleaned up, Ser?" Beth asked, craning her neck to look back and up.

"You want to join?" Sera asked, raising her eyebrow at the choking noises from Beth's sisters.

"You're very open," Kim said.

"Wait'll you hear how they met," Neph interjected excitedly, causing Beth to facepalm.

"Yeah, a real treat," Blood snickered.

"I think we can save some of that for another time," Beth said, patting Sera's hand. The tall dragon girl leaned down to give Beth a kiss on the temple before sashaying her wide hips into the bathroom.

"She's, uh, nice," Soph said, really struggling to come up with something.

"She's incredible," Beth replied, a bit wistful.

"I didn't realize you were, ah, into that," Kim commented.

"What? Girls? I'm only into girls. I thought you knew that," Beth said with a small frown.

"No, dummy, I meant I didn't fucking know you were a scaly or whatever they're called," Kim retorted hotly.

"Oh, yeah. That. Yeah, sorry to break it to you, but I like some weird stuff, too, I guess," Beth said with a shrug.

"Well, I mean, she was hot enough," Soph said with a pondering expression.

"Down girl," Kim said.

"Well, I mean, the scaly stuff is a little much for me, but she's very pretty and, I mean, come on, did you see her body?" Soph argued.

"I don't know if you're helping your case or not," Kim said.

"I didn't know I even had a case here," Soph shot back.

The two bickered for another minute, Beth glad to have a bit of heat off her for a minute. That heat would come back, however, as Sera soon emerged from taking a quick shower to wash the forge stink off, not lingering in the bathroom today. The dragon girl was wearing a classic; her half-jacket with nothing underneath combined with what was basically a bikini bottom, based on the fabric. Her entry had stopped the bickering dead and the other two were both gawping at what was walking across the common room towards them.

"You'll catch flies like that," Beth commented acerbically.

"Right, sorry," Soph muttered, shaking herself.

"Yeah, I didn't quite get the full picture before," Kim said shaking her head slightly as she watched Sera walk over to Beth, hopping over the couch to land sideways in the shorter girl's lap.

"I didn't think you'd be interested," Beth said to Kim with a slight smirk.

"Eh, not like that, I'm only into guys. But, shit, she really is like a work of art or something," Kim said.

"'Or something.' Real smooth, Kim," Soph said in a teasing tone with a little shake of her head.

"Oh, come on," Kim huffed, glaring at their younger sister.

"It's back to being lively," Sera commented with a grin.

"Annoying," Blood added in a growl, frowning when Neph poked her in the ribs.

"You love it, Blood," Beth said.

"You had other guests?" Kim asked.

"Had a group of friends in," Beth said with a shrug. "Had some stuff we wanted to check out with them here on Earth. Showed them a couple of the sights, all that. They bailed a week or so ago."

"Shame we missed them," Kim said with a small sigh.

"So, do you wanna go?" Beth asked then, looking at Kim in particular.

"Do we really have to?" Kim asked, a plaintive note in her voice.

"I can't force you, but you did want to see," Beth said.

"What's happening, now?" Sera asked.

"Kim was saying she thought she'd caught up a bit," Beth explained. "I was saying a spar might, uh, disabuse her of that notion."

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"You're gonna beat up your sister?" Sera asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't give me that. Wasn't it your cousin you lost the fight with that had you at the Rose?" Beth asked grumpily.

"I'm just saying, this takes the whole sibling rivalry thing a bit far," Sera said.

"Well, I don't think there's much rivalry, considering either of you could probably kill me with one hand, at this point," Kim said with a small shake of her head.

"Well, that's true," Beth said, finger on her lower lip, grunting as Sera jabbed her in the side.

"Be nice," Sera said, though without any heat in it.

"It's fine," Kim waved it away.

"Then let's go do a little, uh, 'training,'" Beth said, standing while holding Sera with one arm.

"I'm starting to regret this," Kim muttered, but she stood and followed Beth, the others all coming along.

They moved through the main building and down into the underworks, Beth not wanting to put on a display on the arena floor. They grabbed what Beth still thought of as 'their' training room and booked it out for the rest of the afternoon, making sure nobody else would try to come by and use it. They entered and Beth made doubly sure the stage was activated and ready before they did anything, not wanting to do any lasting harm to her sisters. She and Kim got up on the stage while the others found positions off to the side, either in seats or standing.

"You ready?" Beth asked, watching Kim limber up and prepare herself.

"I should ask you that. Where's your armor?" Kim shot back, seeing Beth in just her normal clothes, no weapons out either.

"Trust me, I'm fine," Beth said with a small smile, making sure the training field was ready. She gestured at Kim to start, watching her sister take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Kim burst across the training stage, drawing her blades as she moved, blurring towards Beth in a lightning-fast attack that would have put quite a few on the back foot. Unfortunately, she wasn't facing quite a few, she was against Beth, and worse yet, Beth watched as she hesitated fractionally in the attack. Beth hadn't moved and just waited for Kim's blades to hit her, seeing her sister slow down a little at the end, which was a big mistake. When Kim was fully committed to the attack, Beth moved, sliding forward and to the side, lashing out with her left hand, not even using her full strength, just a jab.

Even that was too much for Kim, the girl barely able to follow the movement, only trying to correct herself at the last millisecond, and not able to change much. Beth's fist hit her like the fist of an angry god, the simple jab lifting her off her feet and throwing her across the training field. Several of Kim's bones didn't survive the encounter, and it felt like her organs were more soup than anything. She smashed into the barrier around the stage and puked out blood, collapsing to the ground before the stage healed her and cleaned up the fluids.

"Jesus Christ, Beth!" she coughed out, sitting up and looking at her sister.

"Sorry, uh, still not used to my current strength," Beth said, scratching at her head.

"Well, don't go so hard," Kim snapped, standing back up, well-used to the CRA's field's ability to heal serious injuries at the snap of a finger.

"Uh, that wasn't that hard, Kim," Beth said, shaking her head. "That was just a jab."

"You're telling me that wasn't using a skill? It wasn't even a full-strength punch?" Kim asked, clearly doubting.

"Would you like me to hit you with a full-strength punch?" Beth asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"No thanks, I think we can skip that," Kim replied, waving a hand.

"Why don't you go all-out, this time," Beth suggested, watching as Kim sighed before summoning her Presence.

She had clearly had some practice with it, as she handled the flag-spear that was the primary physical manifestation of her Presence with some alacrity. She then charged Beth, leading with the flag-spear, but Beth slid out of the way with ease. The older girl then lashed out with a jab, the same move as last time, but Kim hadn't over-committed to the attack this time. She was able to block Beth's blow and retaliate, though Beth just slapped the strike away.

Kim reversed, spinning slightly and bringing the haft of her Presence into play, hammering at Beth with the end of the handle before slashing at her with her sword, wielding each in one hand. Beth wasn't sure that was the right play, as Kim couldn't swing her Presence's weapon particularly fast with just one hand, but she supposed it would work well when Kim was close to the same speed and strength as her opponent. It was a little hard for Beth to judge how effective some of Kim's tactics were as she was so much more powerful than Kim that none of it worked on her.

"Are you using any skills at all?" Kim asked as she slashed at Beth with both weapons.

"Well, I have a boosting skill that always gives me a little boost passively even if I'm not putting mana into it," Beth explained. "And I have another, uh, thing that passively boosts me, but other than those two passives, no, I'm not."

"And you're this fast and strong, just from your stats and two passives?" Kim asked, desperately trying to find an opening while they talked.

"I mean, yeah? I have multiple thousands of points in each physical stat right now, and the boosts only enhance that," Beth said with a shrug.

"Damn, that's crazy," Kim said, stopping and stepping back. "Even with my Presence, I can't even land a hit on you."

"Yeah, well, we've gone through some crazy stuff the last couple years and gotten pretty strong," Beth said with a shrug. "You and Soph could train with Neph; she's around you guys' level, though she doesn't have as much training or experience. It would definitely be good for her."

"We could do that, absolutely," Kim said. "Come on Soph, you want to come get beat up?"

"No, no, I'm totally fine," Soph refuted immediately, not getting up from her seat.

"Okay then. Why don't you show us something of where you're at, just to see?" Kim asked Beth.

"Sure, I can spar with Ser for a second," Beth said.

"Sure," Sera said, hopping up on the training stage.

Kim hopped down, putting her Presence and equipment away, finding a seat near Soph to watch the fight. Neph was paying close attention to everything that was happening, but Blood was either sleeping or zoned out, having both watched and sparred with them enough that she wasn't going to catch anything new. Beth and Sera squared off and Beth had put on equipment for this, also bringing out a greatsword to wield to counter Sera's spear. They both made sure their gear was up to snuff before signaling they were ready, launching across the training stage when they were sure.

The two dueled twice, Beth looking over after she beat Sera the first time to see both Kim and Soph with their jaws on the ground. They had trained under and likely watched people much stronger than Beth and Sera fight, but seeing your sister and her girlfriend at a level that was starting to approach the people that trained you was a new experience. Their expressions only recovered a little by the time Beth had defeated Sera a second time; the dragon girl was strong, but Beth's Mana Physique had put her in a different league, rather literally. She didn't have the stats, the skill levels, or even the experience that most Enlightened could boast, but she was more powerful than just about any other Empowered out there.

"That was crazy," Kim said when the other two stepped off the training stage. "I can't believe you can move that fast. Also, uh, not to speak out of turn but, uh, you kinda kicked your girlfriend's ass a little bit there."

"Oh yeah, she's stronger than me," Sera said with a shrug. "She'll be until rebirth ten, at least. Once I have a Mana Physique myself, then we'll see what's what."

"Wait, Mana Physique?!" Soph exclaimed, having perked up at that. "Beth, you built a Mana Physique already?!"

"Yeah, I mean, you get a chance to try it at rebirth five and I thought, 'Why not?' So, I just went for it and it, uh, sorta worked out," Beth explained plainly.

"What the hell does that mean? You tried to build a Mana Physique and 'It just sorta worked out?'" Soph scoffed.

"Well, yeah, I did a decent job. Built a Platinum one," Beth said with a shrug.

"We shouldn't have come back," Soph said dejectedly.

"Soph!" Kim said, exasperated, poking the younger girl in the ribs.

"Hey, you'll get there eventually," Beth said.

"She's right," Sera was quick to add. "This is definitely a marathon, not a sprint. You'll really mentally wear yourself out if you constantly compare yourself to stronger people."

"Yeah, but, like, it's different when I look at Baelvyr or someone compared to my sister, who is thirteen months older and now like a thousand times stronger," Kim replied with a sigh. "We need to level. A lot."

"Well, you can use the gate," Beth said with a shrug. "I have it on the max, which is ten times time dilation, so you can get quite a few levels in just a handful of days objective time."

"That's pretty cool, but what are we fighting?" Soph asked as they left the training room, already finished with it for now.

"I can set it to anything I've fought. I usually just make it something like hobgoblins or something fairly easy to predict and kill in large fights," Beth explained. "The enemies are in this sort of pattern where you get a spread-out circle of individual enemies, then pairs, then triples, then the level bumps and you get singles again. The further out you go, the longer it takes for the level to bump, so you'll get groups of four, five, six, and so on."

"Sounds simple enough," Kim said as they returned to the suite.

"Anybody need to clean up?" Beth asked, having not even really worked up a sweat herself.

"I do want to shower quick," Kim said. "The ring cleans you up, but it still can leave you feeling a little gross. I'm not sure it actually gets all the blood and stuff fully off, just most of it."

"Don't know that I've ever noticed that, but sure," Beth said with a shrug.

Kim quickly made use of the shower before rejoining them in the living room. Beth had shut the portal for now, ready to open it whenever they were ready to keep leveling. The other two spent another hour or two with them just chatting before they left for the day, having not yet stopped at home to see their parents. Beth told them to just show up whenever and they could make use of the gate and then they headed out for the night.

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