Chapter 155: Can We Be Excused?

"What are you two doing here so early? Not that I'm not happy to have you join breakfast, but...you two look different...is everyone evolving without me around?"

"Haha! Yeah, Boss! The wife and I were talking about the things we wanted and boom! We were blind! Then boom! I could see, and not only could I see, but Gweneth got hotter! I don't have to tell you what happened...oww! I didn't say what I did to...OWW! Dammit, women! Stop hitting me!" Cable complained as Gweneth beat him.

"THE GUESTS! Did you forget that we offered to introduce the head of The Hyde?" Gweneth scowled Cable but then turned back to the robed figures. "I'm sorry for my husband's rudeness, Balthazar, would you like to introduce your wife?"

Wife? That was a load off my back, I was sure it was going to be another one of the remaining girls. Still, that wouldn't make much sense, the remaining girls shared something between them. Then again, betting that they were all in one place under a single assumption didn't make a bunch of sense, but them being split up made even less.

I walked down the stairs as the robed figures pulled back their hoods. Underneath them revealed Balthazar and a strange-looking Beastwoman. After browsing through my brain, I stopped on something familiar. 

She was covered in colored feathers, but I could tell she was a bit older, but not nearly as old as the man. She must be a tropical bird of some sort, but the two looked like an odd couple. I reached the bottom of the stairs and offered her my head, but only to shake.

"This is my wife, Tocori, she is the one that pushed me to start this all," Balthazar explained while introducing himself. 

"Pleasure to meet you, Tocori. Will you all come and sit down for breakfast, I think my daughter is getting hungry. She might start gnawing into my finger soon."

Tocori must not have noticed with her hood pulled up, but at the mention of Kyla trying to eat the finger she was sucking on, Tocori was on me.

"Is this your child? With wolf ears? How? I knew you had taken Beastfolk wives, but a child, so fast…" Tocori's voice faded off as she stared lovingly at Kyla.

"Yeah, my magic was responsible for the fast birth, I also have two more children with the Spider Goddess, Alexcoria."

"But, how?"

"Hmmm? I don't really want to get into specifics, but I think we do the same things as everyone else does to get children, right?"

I looked back to Wendy and got a shoulder shrug, but that was like asking someone who was just learning addition to teach you calculus. I turned back to the woman with a puzzled look on my face, but Kyla's chomp on my finger brought me back to the moment. I led the group with my daughter now squirming in my arms like a snake, the little beast was strong for being such a little shit! She was going to get into endless amounts of trouble!

Inside, the table was covered in fruit and stacks of flat cakes on multiple platters. There were also some of my wife's eating, so I went over to join Alex and Xelios. They each had a child, Lydia was sleeping in Xelios's arms and Kenos was latching only his mother's breast; I was a tad bit jealous, but I tried not to mean mug my child too much.

"Do you want to latch onto the other side?" Alex joked with me, catching me glaring at her boobs.

"Maybe if we don't have so many guests, but I would love to see more of you in the future!"

"Maybe you should get through your kingly duties first, and stop taking so long! You know how it goes, plus this is your fault."

"What? My fault? For rescuing you all? Now I have to complete all the levels before I can go back and replay the others!"

"Oh, such a chore! Don't forget you have guests, but you can take Kenos and burp him while I feel Kyla."

"You can do that? Just switch them around?"

Alex rolled her eyes, but then we both laughed as I traded children, putting Kenos on my shoulder. The kid already had a good patch of black hair, opposite from his sister's platinum blonde mess she was already growing. I walked over to the guess, but Tocori stood and asked if she could burp him instead. I couldn't find a reason not to let her, so I gave her Kenos and took her place beside Balthazar, who was smiling.

"She doesn't get excited like this you know? Tocori is normally very reserved, but she is serious when it comes to freeing others like herself from the oppressions of this world. We can't have kids, you know? That's why she was so surprised when she saw your daughter."

"Why can't you have kids? Is that something between you or?"

"Human and Beastfolk can't have children, that's why I wanted to become more human, so we could have children!" Mishka said, sliding into my lap.

"Oh, hello dear, good of you to drop in. This is Balthazar, one of the leaders of The Hyde."

"I have heard of your group over the last couple of days! You have been ambushing slave haulers and taking the slaves! Where are they all now?"

"They are all waiting at our camp, and more come to us every day, brought to us by the people that saved them."

"Wait what? You have been intercepting slave traders? Just how many have you collected? And where was I for all of this?"

The last question was a stupid one, but this was big, this was more than just some church group. These people could be my Resistance Fighters I was looking for. I needed people like this to go out and cut down the number of slaves being shipped. If I could put enough pressure on the slave masters, and make them stop trading them all together would make getting rid of it altogether easier.

"Yes, well, I don't do it, but we have groups of people that come out and help. I am ashamed to say that some of our hunters are people that you have given the power to in the past, a group of people from Locksland joined us and were the ones to suggest that we start freeing the slaves. I hope that you don't mind that they are working with us." 

"Mind? Hell no, I am glad that they have decided to help. When I gave them that power, I told them they could do whatever they wanted as long as it was something I would approve of. You know Balth, I think I'm starting to like what you have going on here, but I have a question for you. What would you do with more time? If I could give you more time in this world, what would you do with it?"

Balthazar didn't answer right away, instead, he looked over at his wife and then around the room. I followed his gaze as he swept over the room and watched each group of girls and then back to his wife, Tocori. She was not sitting with Xelios and Alex, with a sleeping Kenos in her arms.

"More of this, except, I would like my wife to be holding my child. What you have created here, Hyde, there isn't a world that would properly describe the scene. A world where everyone's the same, but still allowed to be different; a place where everyone belongs. I would give the rest of my life all over again to see this dream come true."

I stood up and gave a short whistle, motioning with my hand for Balthazar to stand up. Once everyone was paying attention, I started to speak.

"Some of you have met the two heads of the new group called The Hyde, and now I have had a chance to sit down and talk with them about what they are trying to do. From what I can gather, they want the same thing as us and have taken it upon themselves to rescue slaves already and still are as we speak. My question to all the current members of my magical family, do we want to invite these like-minded people to join us?"

I didn't need an answer, and I didn't need to make that stupid speech, but it felt right. This group would be very helpful with deterring the sales of slaves and rescuing the ones that were already trapped. There were a lot of things to do in the coming days, but this was something that would help for the future, so I reached out my hand to Balthazar.

He took my hand and smiled as he burst with light, and I stood there waiting until the glare was gone. In the old man's place was a fit, but still a short muscular man with jet black hair and a white T-shirt with shorts. Balthazar now looked to be in his late thirties and in the best shape of his life. 

"Balthazar?" Came Tocori's voice from behind me. 

I turned to see the shocked look on her face and a smiling Kyra holding Kenos beside her. I walked up to the open-mouthed Tocori and offered her my hand. She looked at me wide-eyed and then at my hand, which she grabbed onto. 

In another flash, a beautiful and younger version of Tocori stood in place after the light cleared in a multicolored dress. Her hair was a series of feathers of all colors and I was pushed out of the way as Balthazar scooped his wife into his arms. He looked like he was about to bolt with her, when Tocori stopped him and asked to be put back down.

She whispered something into his ear and then both of them got down on their knees and then put their heads to the ground.

"Thank you very much for this gift you have given us, we will serve you faithfully."

Then.

"So we can have kids now?"

"Yes…"

"Do you mind if we…"

"By all means, go enjoy yourselves, come see me tomorrow and we will discuss this more, but also get all the slaves moved into the city so we can find homes for them."

Both of my two new church leaders ran off to do a little sinning.