We all felt the System's presence. It was different from what it had ever been before. Not an alien machine. Not a strange entity. It wrapped around us like a comforting blanket, like a snug cloth that kept us warm or an armor that protected us.
Our minds thought in unison, as they very often did. At least when it came to serious matters, the bond made us something very close to a single being. A single mind, with many nuances and colors, threads of thought and, of course, different opinions. A somewhat multipolar intellect, but one where all the poles revolved around a centerless existence, like the maelstrom in my thoughts that threatened to drown me in the abyss of rumination, except this time the black hole was benevolent, a center of gravity for all of us.
I—we, thought about the bond. The strange empathic link that connected us, that made us more than the sum of our parts, a thing that had changed our very essence, bringing about strange parts of ourselves, melding us together, making us this strange, twisted thing. Making us horny and perverted.
The bond.
If we were to consider what Elyra was suggesting, then we had to take all of it into consideration. The good, the bad, and the strange.
The first thought came unabated.
The bond would be an easy access, the perfect backdoor into the System's programming.
It was all theoretical, of course. Between a blink and the next, I am back in my hauler. Around me, through the thin metamaterials and fibersteel of the hull, I can see the freighters representing all my girls. I don't even need windows to see them. They are always there, charting a course together with me towards the great unknown that lies before us.
The stars fly by us. Galaxies of milky softness, and magic of all colors surrounds us as we zip past through a strange and alien cosmos. I don't know where the hauler and its bonded other ships are headed, and perhaps this is the point.
Right now, the hauler is at the center, but more and more I feel it shifting. I do not want to be different from the girls. I do not want to be the bigger ship, the different ship, the central ship.
It shifts again, responding to my thoughts. The girls are each in their own ship but also here with me. Vespera caresses my bare forearms, smiling seductively at me.
"You are finally willing to give up control?" she asks, and I don't know if it's the real her or the here-her.
They are the same person, of course, but here she exists as a primal, raw form that is stripped bare of all the embellishments of the outside. A fancy way of saying that she is herself here, without filters and fears holding her back. For embellishment can often make someone fake and unauthentic, especially when we share so much of ourselves with each other.
Am I willing to give up control?
The answer comes immediately, without even needing to think about it.
"Yes."
And so my hauler changes and shifts. It becomes just like the other girls' freighters, or perhaps it is their ships that change to match mine. Whatever the case, now the five of us are points in a pentagon, with nothing at the center.
The bond connects us, lines going from each point to the other, crisscrossing and touching each other.
I think about the black hole again. The force of gravity holding us together. Sure, we are in a stable path now, a constellation of minds and bodies held together by something that cannot be severed. We don't need a sixth.
And yet, we all yearn for it. The realization is startling. As we look at ourselves from a strange, outside perspective, we realize that the center of the pentagon is painfully empty now. It aches to be filled.
"There is a spot for someone else," I say dreamily.
Elyra takes my hand. "You already know who that spot is meant for."
I think again about her earlier words. The System. If the System truly opened itself up to us fully, there would be no prime directive that could resist the change. Change would truly be inevitable.
It would be a presence higher than us, though. Stronger. Enigmatic. Foreign to the bond.
"Has that ever stopped us from taking what we want?" Vespera asks. "Was it not the same, when we brought Zery in, a dragon of unfathomable power and pride?"
"Was it not the same?" Elyra adds. "When we, through you, asked Calla if she wanted to be remade by powers we did not understand? She still yearns to be changed even further; is it not a testament to the fact that change is an essential part of our bond?"
"Change," I say, ruminating.
A dragon appears. "We conquered change," Zery says. "You did, Sol mine. And I am so, so proud of you."
Now a dryad. "We were all so scared that change would take things away from us," she says. "And maybe it will, or maybe it will bring about wonders."
She looks around, and I meet her gaze with a smile. "We already made up our minds, didn't we?" I ask.
"We did," Vespera says. Then, breaking the strange air that had settled on us, still with the System watching us, she frowns. "How do we invite the System to the bond anyway? Let's pretend this all makes sense and it's perfectly sane, which it probably is not, but whatever. We are insane, after all. How do we even do that?"
And now our individualities bubble up again. We are one mind, but we ourselves remain, so that we may enjoy each other's differences rather than just being all-knowing in our little domain. It's a strange thing of contradictions.
"Well, maybe we could start by not calling it System anymore," I offer.
"The only other thing we have going on for us would be B2TTn#-7," Vespera says awkwardly.
"That is hardly better, little troublemaker," Elyra says with a chuckle.
"Throwing hands, angel?" the demon says automatically.
"Perhaps," Zery butts in. "We could ask the being in question for its—their opinion. They are here, although they are being shy."
There is a ripple in the air, like static electricity. Through the metamaterials of the windows, I see galaxies ripple and spasm, magic gathering and undoing in great arcs of lightning that split the emptiness of space apart. I wonder what it all means.
"Hey," I say softly. "You can come forward, if you want."
"This is your space," a voice says. It's a soft, gentle, caring woman's voice. "I would never dare intrude upon it."
"Yet you are here," Vespera teases.
"I cannot help it. As you know, I intercede with magic on your behalf and thus, I follow magic."
"Is our bond magic?" Elyra asks.
"It is more," the voice says. "Much more. I cannot even begin to understand it."
"But you listened in on us," Zery presses. "Do you think it might be possible?"
"I…" the voice falters. "Have no idea."
"Would you like to try?" I ask.
The voice does not immediately reply. "I have been watching you for a long time. Never have I stopped to ask myself the question. What do I want? Not even when you freed me of my shackles. Now you offer me complete freedom…"
"That's not exactly true," Calla says, smirking. It is such a strange expression on her face, as if she is suddenly much more mature and less shy. "You lose your chains, but you become part of us. Forever. There is no going back. They are chains in their own way."
"Chains that we love," Elyra says. Somehow, she has manifested a collar around her neck, and it connects to my hand.
"I think I want that very much," the voice of the System says after a long, long time.
Vespera breaks our composure, though. "Did we ever stop and… think about all of this? This is crazy! Like, serious case of nuts. Spacer boy, you do realize what we are trying to do here, don't you?"
I shrug. "Honestly? I have no fucking idea."
"Fuck," the demon says. "And why are Calla and Elyra so fucking horny right now?"
"They are thinking about changes and chains," Zery says as a sudden realization hits her. "And now I am too. By all means, why do we find change so… delectable?"
I know the answer. "Because it is an irreversible change that binds us even tighter together, that's why."
The dragon looks at me with surprise. She is her full height, and she shouldn't fit in here, but she does. "Oh," is all she says. Then, "that makes sense. Honestly, it makes so much sense now. We conquered something that was holding us back, I think. Like when I accepted I would become a full dragon again. When you and Calla did… your thing."
Vespera chuckles. "Oh, they did plenty. Did you forget we could feel and see and hear it all?" She points at the dryad's neck, seeing the dark green hickies I gave her. They are between the color of dark chlorophyll and a bruise and just seeing them makes the girls wet with desire, and me raging hard.
"I think we aren't right in the head," I say. "Fuck it. I think we are broken all the way through by now. Why hide it? Let's embrace it. Who's in for doing this?"
"We are all in, Sol. Five points in a perfect pentagon," Zery says.
Then Elyra. "But there are as many perfect shapes as there are numbers," she says with a flushed face.
"Each new vertex will bring more changes," I say.
"It better," Calla says. "But we are not thinking about a vertex right now, are we? Not with this."
"No," I say. Looking up, as if the voice of the System is above us, I say, "Do you want to do this?"
"I do," she replies immediately. "But not as the center. I want to be another point in your constellation. I want you to be the center."
"I…" words fail me. "I…"
"We do as well, Sol," Zery says.
"We let you move to the edge with us for a moment," Calla continues.
"And it was hot. You are finally capable of surrendering control. But now it's time you go back to where you belong," Vespera says.
"Star of our lives," Elyra, with little stars in her eyes, finishes. "The center of gravity of all we care about. Not a black hole, Sol, but a radiant star. The Sun. Sol."
I smile warmly. Their words touch me in ways I never thought they could before. Honestly, I don't know what to think, and if not for the bond, I'd be tying myself in knots thinking I don't deserve all of this, wondering if they are not really meaning what they say, second guessing myself, drowning in doubt. But I can read their minds. Four of them, lending me their strength. Soon to be five.
In a way, they have corrupted me and are still corrupting me. I am aware that the bond is changing me, all of us, making us into different people from what we once were.
And, I finally admit to myself. Who fucking cares. This is us now. This. Us.
And I am never going to surrender this. I will defend this with my very life.
"Okay," I say as I feel my hauler return to the center. But now, around me, there is an empty spot in the five-pointed constellation.
"I want you," the voice says. It is trembling, I realize. How cute. "Sol, please, I want you to give me a name. I do not know if this will work, but I want you to give me a name as a new beginning."
I swallow. Shit, this is so damn cute and honestly? Very hot? I feel the possessiveness within me, and from the girls. A name. A true name, they are thinking. Marking someone MINE.
"You talk like a girl," I say. "Do you want a girl's name?"
"Yes, please," she says. "I have watched you and your girls, every moment of your lives together, every thought shared through your bond. I was an observer and I didn't even realize how jealous I was. Of all of you. I want to be one of your girls, Sol Nightguard."
"Shit," Vespera says, grinning. "This is so mental."
Elyra grabs her hand, kissing her. "And Sol is going to do it."
"Eve Nightguard," I say.
"YES! THANK YOU!" Eve says, almost sobbing in happiness.
How do I know she's happy? Well, I know because I can fucking feel her now. We all can. She's strange. She's alien. She's weird. She is the damn SYSTEM, at least in this corner of the world.
But she's ours. She's all ours now. And we are hers.
The emotion is too much for us, and we all shed happy tears. The empty point in our constellation fills up with a new presence. Another freighter, like the others in some ways, but it looks like a hologram or a computer projection.
Then magic swirls, and there is a new girl here with us. She's translucent, like her ship, a faint impression of light upon reality.
"Hello Eve," I say.
She smiles, then throws herself at me. Before she has even made it three steps, however, she flickers and disappears. Her form passes through me, and then she is gone. Outside, her ship is still there, but it's barely more than an outline, a faint presence.
"I'm sorry," her voice reaches us through the bond, but it's so far away. "I failed you…"