"You good?" Parker asked Cassidy, who was still vibrating with excess power like a kid who'd discovered coffee for the first ti.
"I'm fucking incredible," she breathed, her eyes still flickering with microscopic flas. "Like, transcendentally amazing. Is this how immortals feel all the ti?"
Parker's smile was enigmatic. "This is how I felt about three rebirths ago. But it's a start."
Back in the limo, Nyxavere was watching the whole scene through the tinted windows, her legs sprawled across the leather seats in that uniquely teenage way that sohow consud three tis the necessary space. She turned to Maya with a shit-eating grin spreading across her face.
"Okay but isn't it totally sus that Daddy can juice up everyone else's power ranking with, like, a handshake, but can't do the sa trick on himself?" she asked, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "Like, what kind of half-assed cosmic cheat code is that?"
Maya snorted, not looking up from her phone. "That's rich coming from the girl who can literally erase people from existence but still can't rember to put the milk back in the fridge."
"It gets warm on the counter!"
"And reality gets wrinkled when you delete people, but go off I guess."
Seraphina giggled, still nursing her thermos of Parker's cosmic blood like it was a Starbucks drink.
Nyxavere chuckled too, Maya continued "But you're not wrong though but Dad's power limitation is basically non-existent. He could yeet himself into Omnipotent rank in like a week of actual cultivation if he wasn't such a lazy ass about it."
"Man's got more cultivation thods than TikTok has dances. Regular cultivation, dual cultivation..." She trailed off with a aningful look that made Nyxavere gag dramatically.
"Ewww, Mom! I do NOT need to hear about your and Dad's 'dual cultivation' sessions, thankyouverymuch. My therapy bills are already astronomical. I don't want that woman to get more."
Atalanta, wedged in the corner of the limo trying to maintain so semblance of dignity among the chaos, just nodded along with the conversation.
She'd long since decided that being shocked by Parker's casual reality-breaking was a waste of perfectly good emotional energy. The man had literally teleported their private jet to New York mid-flight when he got bored of sitting still—just *poof*, goodbye airspace regulations.
After that, Atalanta figured her surprise reflex would eventually just wear out like an overused muscle, so why bother?
"You know he made the Chrysler Building do the macarena last Tuesday?" she comnted dryly, scrolling through her own phone. "Just because Seraphina asked about whether buildings could dance. Nobody else saw it, but that's not the point. He does anything he wants!"
She didn't ntion that she'd seen how Nyxavere paused ti flow for a week just for her and Seraphina to enjoy their ti with their daddy.
The casual suspension of universal constants—treating the fundantal laws of physics like a TV remote with a pause button—just so two teenage girls could have extra quality ti with their father.
He was powerful as hell and so was Nyxavere but why were they so childish at tis? She almost questioned her decision to join them. Cosmic entities with the collective power to unmake reality, and they used it for extended father-daughters bonding sessions like so supernatural version of a weekend custody arrangent.
"THAT'S where he was during my cello recital?" Nyxavere exploded, throwing her hands up. "Making architecture bust moves?"
"To be fair, big sister..." Seraphina countered, "your cello playing sounds like a cat being slowly fed into a paper shredder."
"It does not!"
"Girl, when you practiced, Ere hid in the shadow dinsion for three hours, and she literally eats souls for breakfast." Maya chuckled at her wronged daughter.
*
Outside, Cassidy was still processing her transformation, flexing her fingers and watching microscopic fire eddies swirl between them.
Parker watched as Cassidy's face transitioned through a kaleidoscope of emotions—wonder, disbelief, ecstasy—all playing across her features like a highlight reel of human reaction to divinity. Her eyes, now containing actual galaxies of microscopic flas, widened with the pure joy of cosmic transformation.
"Congratulations on becoming an Immortal Being," Parker said, his tone casual as though he'd just complinted her on a nice haircut instead of fundantally rewriting her place in the cosmic hierarchy.
The words had barely left his mouth before Cassidy launched herself at him, colliding with his chest in a hug that would have shattered the ribcage of any normal human.
Parker's hands hovered awkwardly for a beat—the eternal dilemma of a boss receiving unexpected physical affection from an employee—before settling gently on her back, one hand patting her head with almost paternal affection. Despite her new immortality, there was sothing childlike in her reaction, a pure joy that reminded him of just how ancient he truly was.
Cassidy might be brilliantly ruthless in boardrooms, but in cosmic terms, she was younger than Nyxavere—a infant compared to his incalculable existence.
"Thank you thank you thank you," Cassidy mumbled against his shirt, seemingly content to remain face-planted against his chest for the foreseeable future.
So part of her new consciousness recognized the utter safety of being this close to him—like a small boat finding harbor in the lee of a mountain during a hurricane.
"So what'd I miss? Another impromptu power upgrade? God, I step away for twenty minutes to take a call from the SEC and you're already playing cosmic Santa Claus."
The crisp, slightly amused voice cut through the mont. Ava Klein approached with the confident stride of soone who regularly made Supre Court justices stamr.
Her charcoal pantsuit was immaculate, her blond hair pulled back in a severe bun that sohow managed to look both professional and vaguely threatening.
Where Cassidy was Parker's surgical blade in the corporate world, Ava was his legal scalpel—precise, devastating, and terrifyingly effective.
"Well if it isn't my favorite attorney," Parker called out, gently disengaging from Cassidy's koala grip. "Impeccable timing as always."
Ava's perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched upward. "I thought I was your favorite woman, period," she replied, the slight pout in her voice contrasting with the predatory gleam in her eyes.
Before Parker could respond, the limo's tinted window rolled down with electric smoothness.
"That position," Maya's voice announced with queenly certainty, without showing her face, "...has been filled. For approximately Nine lifetis." Her voice was sweet enough to cause diabetic shock, yet sohow communicated the ssage: *I could erase your entire bloodline from reality without blinking if you say that again*.
Ava's smile didn't falter. "Of course, Your Highness. I simply ant in the legal sphere." Although she didn't even know who she was addressing.
"Mmhmm." Maya's hum contained multitudes of skepticism.
Cassidy, finally releasing Parker, moved toward the limo in a slight daze, her new senses still adjusting to reality's true complexity. When her gaze fell on Maya, however, her body reacted before her mind could intervene.
She dropped into a deep bow, nearly cracking her forehead against the car door in her haste.
"Your Royal Highness," she breathed, the instinctive reverence overwhelming even her corporate composure. Every supernatural being with two functioning brain cells knew to show proper deference to the Origin Families—the primordial bloodlines from which all power stemd.
Not bowing to a Princess of an Origin was like not getting out of the way of a speeding freight train: technically possible, but with similar ssy results.
A musical giggle erupted from inside the limo. "Omigod, you don't have to do all that," Nyxavere called out. "You're basically family now!"
Cassidy straightened slowly, caution warring with confusion on her face as she carefully entered the vehicle. Her eyes widened further (a feat that seed physically impossible at this point) as she took in the limo's occupants. Seated among luxurious leather was what appeared to be a collection of teenage girls who collectively had enough power to unmake reality as a weekend hobby.
"It's cool, for real," said a girl of about thirteen, her hair a cascade of impossibly perfect curls that defied both gravity and common sense. "I'm Nyxavere, Daddy's daughter," she added with a casual wave toward Parker, who was still outside speaking with Ava.
Cassidy's brain attempted to process this information and promptly hit a 404 error. Parker had a *daughter*? Since when? How?
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