The Void. A place of pure, unadulterated chaos. Within this infinite expanse of weirdness flew a single ship. Sleek and aerodynamic, this ship had a logo emblazoned proudly on its side:

At the helm of this totally-not-the-SSV Normandy-why-would-you-even-suggest-that ship stood a single being, the aforementioned Aaron Heibai. The shadow was, at the moment, garbed in his normal–albeit slightly androgynous–human form, steering the ship with incredible precision.

That is, until something popped out of a dimensional tunnel and splattered into the windshield, causing the startled shadow to fly backward with an awkward squawk.

“MOTHERFUCK!”

Expletives spewed, he took a closer look at the object clouding the windscreen, making sure to park the ship while at it.

“Wait…” he muttered, flicking his braid back over his shoulder, “Is that…. Kat Shifter? Huh. She’s gotten more… supermodel-ish. Neat.” Kat waved awkwardly from the other side of the windshield.

Aaron blinked and slapped himself on the forehead, reaching through the glass and phasing Kat inside, taking care not to touch anywhere inappropriate.

“Hey Kat. Sorry about splattering you all over the windshield… eh, how’s life?” Aaron leaned up against the steering console, buffing his nails against his button-up shirt.

She rubbed her head, groaning. “Ah satané, that sucked! This is really not turning out to be my week.”

“... You okay?” Aaron leaned in, tilting his head in curiosity.

“No, I just match now. I hurt both physically and emotionally.” She pulled herself to her feet, dusting off her clothes. She stretched and cracked a few bones before turning to meet her host. “Hello there, I don’t believe we’ve met… besides you knowing me, but hey! At least I know I finally have a reputation.”

“We have met. I think. I used to go by the name ‘Umbra Shadow-Walker’. Though, considering my loss of position, I now am forced to go by Aaron Heibai. At your service.” Aaron bowed with a flourish, creating little sparkles and beams of light to further enhance the weirdness present. As he rose, the ship suddenly rocked with a muffled cry of ‘Sorry!’ reaching through the closed door. Aaron stumbled, and in true protagonist style, he managed to fall straight into Kat, causing the both of them to crash into the floor, Aaron accidentally landing straight between her breasts.

Suddenly, Jupiter burst through the door. “Aaron! I heard a loud noise and wa-” She then noticed Aaron and Kat in their compromising position and began to blush. “I-I-I-I’m so-so sorry! I had no clue you had a g-g-girlfriend over!” she said, turning around to face away from them. “I-I’ll leave y-y-you two a-alone.” She then ran down the hall again, Juno arriving as she was leaving.

“Aaron, what did you do to make Jupi-” He, too, turned his head to see the two of them. His hair and body burst into flames. “YOU MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLE, I’LL KILL YOU!!!”

Kat’s mind had gone blank for a moment there, first the fall then the strange girl and now the even stranger guy. It was a little too much for the poor woman. “SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU!!” and with that extreme use of the Royal Canterlot Voice came a devastating gravity explosion.

Aaron, still somehow dazed, flew into Juno with the speed of a bullet, slamming the two of them out the door and into the massive open area that comprised the shop. Sixteen miles of conveniently empty shelves later, the two finally rolled to a stop at Jupiter’s feet, covered in splinters and, in Juno’s case, blood and bruises. Aaron, as per usual, had immediately shifted to shadow form upon the first impact, and was thus completely fine.

“Oh, hello Jupiter. Lovely weather we’ve got, ain’t it?” Aaron spoke as if he hadn’t just been flung sixteen miles by an angry blonde with gravity powers.

Jupiter, something glistening in her eyes, simply turned and ran away, soft sobs coming from her direction and small puddles of water-like liquids trailing behind her.

“... Okay then?” Aaron stared, confused, at Jupiter’s retreating back before pushing Juno’s unconscious weight off his legs and rocketing after Jupiter. As he halted in front of the distraught catgirl, he swept her into a loose hug, spinning her around and planting her in front of him with a casual, “You seem sad, is it because of what happened back in the control room? I swear, that was an unfortunate accident. I think it’s because someone hit one of the gyro-stabilizers and made me fall over.” As he spoke, he delivered a half-hearted glare at Juno’s unconscious, slightly bloodied form.

“So… was that it, or was it something else?” Aaron placed a hand on Jupiter’s head, ruffling her hair.

Jupiter’s expression was hidden behind her hair, but it was obvious she’d been crying. Her face was wet with fresh tears. “I-I-I didn’t kn-know you had a g-girlfriend, Aaron. I sh-should’ve known,” she laughed cynically to herself. “How could a perfect guy like you ever want a girl like me?” she mumbled under her breath, breaking out of his hug and walking away; knowing that if Aaron wanted to follow, he easily could.

Aaron, meanwhile, stared befuddled at her retreating back, “Girlfriend? Me? WHAT!? I don’t have a girlfriend! I haven’t even had my… urges... restored to full functionality yet! … Wait, what was that about perfect? … If you were referring to me, you’re dead wrong, Jupiter. I’m about as far from perfect as possible. I ramble, I monologue, I swear like a sailor, I’ve got a kill count longer than the circumferences of several Universes, and I fuck up… a lot. Best to count how many times I haven’t fucked up, really.”

Jupiter stopped walking away. Standing a few feet from Aaron, she begins her own monologue. “You may be all those things, but you’re so much more.” She turned slightly. “You’re powerful beyond all imagination, you’re rich with literally everything, even if you screw up all the time you try your hardest at everything, and–last but not least–” She turned around to look into Aaron’s eyes with tears in her own, a small smile gracing her lips. “You care.”

She turned back around, obviously beginning to cry again. “I hope you make her very happy.”

And she teleported away.

“.... Did she not hear the part where I literally yelled that I still don’t have those kinds of urges?” Aaron wondered idly, scratching his cheek.

“I-I’mma… fuckin’... kill you… Heibei….” Juno was still lying on the floor, covered in wounds and his own blood.

“I care, huh? Well, my boss always did say I cared too much about the little people… Ah fuck him, I was a little person once.” Aaron ignored Juno’s weakened threats, still scratching idly at his cheek. “Oh hey, you’re awake. Need some help?”

“Fuck… you….”

“So this is where you ended up,” Kat mused, startling Aaron. “Huh, didn’t expect so much power to have been put into that blast. Sorry ‘bout that.”

Aaron shrugged, “Eh, I managed to redirect my flight path into the conveniently empty shelves–strange how I put them all in a spiral–so there wasn’t any real harm done… except to Juno, but he’s always threatening to kill me for some reason, so he sorta deserves to be beaten up by a bunch of inanimate, poorly constructed wooden shelves.” As if on cue, all sixteen miles of empty shelving collapsed into splinters and chunks of lowest-bidder plywood. Including one shelf that landed, mostly intact, on Juno.

“Oops.”

“What kind of fresh enfer did I end up in this time?” Kat asks herself, bewildered out of her mind.

Aaron kicked the rubble off of Juno, healing him with another boot to the groin, and shrugged, “Eh, it’s just my crazy, physics defying shop of infinite products. And yes, it does include an adult section… unfortunately.”

Juno stood, holding the aforementioned groin. “Y-you’re an asshole…” he muttered before shaking it off and standing tall again, the full effects of the healing… thing Aaron did taking the pain/damage away. “So, who’s this?”

“Juno, Kat Shifter. Kat Shifter, Juno. Welcome to my little shop of horrors~” Aaron grinned, shifting back into shadow form for the extra effect of having a smiling shadow with a glowing jack o’ lantern face. The scary kind, not the cute ones on pumpkins.

“Uh… huh,” Kat slowly said. “So you’re Umbra, huh? Auric told me about you… not all that nice about it, but people change over the years, know what I mean?”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Kat.” He put his hand out for her to shake. As she shook his hand she received a stern glare from Juno.

“Hey, what’s with the look?” she asked, a little miffed from the cold reception. “What? Is this hate on Kat week or some merde?”

Juno glanced over at Aaron, then back to Kat. “Let’s just say you hurt my sister,” he said ominously.

“You have a sister? Was it that girl from earlier? Why did she run off crying anyway?” She looked at Aaron, completely confused. “Am I the only one on this bloody ship who has no idea what the putain de enfer is going on?”

Aaron facepalmed and sighed, “She’s apparently got a crush on me… and thinks that you’re my girlfriend. Which is totally a non-issue. I lost my ability to reproduce after I became a SysAdmin, and even now, my human form can’t… uh… y’know… since I spend so much time in shadow form. I’d have to spend a feckin’ month without powers to restore them with any sort of speed…. no way in hell.” He shrugged, waving his arm negligently and repairing the shoddy shelves with but a thought. “Anyway, that’s what’s happening, so… yeah.” Juno simply gave Aaron a death glare for his apparent knowledge and inaction of such feelings from Jupiter. Instead of listening to what happened next; he, too, ‘ported away.

Kat sighed, putting her hand to her forehead. “Yeah, no. I’m not anyone’s girlfriend anymore. I think I’ll go talk to her, set this record straight. Directions, please? This place is too satané big.”

“Lesse…. it was…. actually, here.” Aaron thought about giving directions, but in an infinite expanse of shelves, it occurred to him that that would have been a bad idea. Therefore, he pulled open a random door, connecting it to the hallway just outside of Jupiter’s room.

“After you, Kat.” Aaron studiously stood away from Kat, so as to not repeat another incident such as the one just minutes prior.

“Merci,” she nodded, walking down the aisles.

Aaron followed, closing the door behind the two and thus revealing the scene to be not unlike one straight from a five star hotel’s hallway. “And this is the residential quarter. Well, there’s only three bedrooms here and some other stuff, but it’s home. Jupiter’s is on the right, with the little cat doodles all over the door.”

Kat looked at Aaron for a moment before sighing and shaking her head. “Not even gonna ask.” She walked up to the referred door and knocked three times. “Hello? Anybody home?”

“G-go away!” Jupiter shouted from within. “I w-want to be alone right now.” There was audible sniffling from the other side of the door.

“Um… okay? I just wanted to meet you properly,” Kat yelled at the door. “I’m Kat Shifter. And you are?”

The sniffling seemed to lessen, though not by much. “J-Jupiter,” she said, a little calmer than before.

“Well Jupiter, I think we got off on the wrong foot. First off, I would like to point out that I am not dating your friend, Aaron. I’m single, actually.” Kat sighed, mumbling to herself, “Just got through a breakup, actually.”

The sniffling seemed to all but cease.

Aaron blinked and stashed his yoyo away inside his shadowy torso, returning back to human directly after, “You did? Huh… It wasn’t a bad breakup, was it? Those are the worst… or so I’m told.”

“It’s… complicated,” Kat told him. “Could you come out, Jupiter? I’d like if we could be friends.”

A few moments passed before there was some shuffling from beyond the door. The shuffling seemed to be coming towards the door. When it seemed to reach said door, it stopped for another moment before the door slowly swung open. Beyond was a still-crying Jupiter with a plushie Aaron clutched in her arms.

“Y-you mean it?” she asked in--possibly--the most adorable way ever.

Kat stared at Jupiter for a moment before squeeing. “Oh mon dieu! You are so cu~te!” She quickly wrapped the girl in a tight hug, smiling widely as she squeezed her. “You are so adorable I could just hug and squeeze you all day~!”

“Nuuuuuuuu!!” Jupiter screamed as she was bombarded with hugs. She teleported back into her room and slammed the door, keeping the others out. “No huggies!!”

“Aww!” Kat pouted, crossing her arms. “But you’re so cute! Come on~! Just one more hug?”

“No!” Jupiter shouted, stomping her foot from beyond the safety and security her door provided.

Aaron stood, bewildered, on the sidelines. “Was… was that a plushie of me in my shadow form? … Maybe I should stop stocking those…”

“Well, you’re no fun. I thought you cute people liked hugs, so much for that thought.” She huffed, leaning her back against Jupiter’s door. “Oh, but uh, yes, I meant it. I’m not dating Aaron,” Kat eyed the Void Dweller. “Nor am I interested.”

The door opened once more, causing Kat to fall backwards into the arms of Jupiter. “Thank you,” she whispered into her ear, “But Juno already cleared everything up with me!” She began laughing, Kat still in her arms. “You know, you’d be much more Kat-like if you had ears.” Jupiter felt her own ears.

Aaron studiously ignored the what-most-men-would-consider-an-insult from Kat and went back to re-braiding his suddenly luscious and flowing mane of hair. “Stupid hair… stupid tangles… stupid splinters embedded in my hand…”

“I don’t think so. Not a big fan of cats,” Kat informed her. “Kittens are cute, cats Kat no likey.” She teleported out of Jupiter’s embrace to behind her, hugging the girl close again. “Got ya!” she laughed.

“Nuuuuuu!!!” she began screaming again, but quickly gave up now that Kat was in her room. She became oddly still, though, which tipped Kat off to something being wrong.

Kat looked at Jupiter oddly for a moment, but shrugged. “Now, where did I put that brush?” she asked herself, rifling through her jacket, keeping one arm wrapped around the other girl. “Aha!” Kat proclaimed, pulling out a hairbrush. “Brushy brush time~!”

“Y-you don’t like c-c-cats?” Jupiter sobbed lightly.

“I don’t like grown up cats,” Kat explained. “They’re jerks. Looking down on people like they do. But when they’re cute and huggable like you, then I love ‘em to pieces!”

A sudden crashing noise from outside entered the room along with a heaping pile of swearing and an imperceptibly massive shadowy aura of pure frustration.

“F***ing braid! F***ing hair tie! F***ing f***er f***ing f***edy f***er f***-sake f***ing f**********! F***ing censor bleeps!”

With a final explosion of shadows, Aaron gave up and slumped into Jupiter’s room with a despondent gaze and an impossibly fantastic curtain of raven hair billowing behind him.

“A-Aaron… is that your hair?” Jupiter asked in wide-eyed awe.

“Unfortunately, yes. Yes it is.” Aaron idly brushed the ceaselessly billowing locks of shimmering hair behind his shoulder, stuffing a ruined hair-tie in his pocket as he did so.

“C-... can I…?” She was still staring at his hair. There was something… off with the way she spoke.

“Dude, you need a haircut… badly,” Kat commented, brushing Jupiter's hair softly with the hairbrush.

“I have. You should have seen how long my braid was six millennia ago. Thing was longer than Rapunzel’s hair.... Just as billowy, too; so I had an eighty foot long cloud of hair following me whenever my hair-tie broke.” He huffed, clearly annoyed at his hair. “I can’t even cut it shorter anymore… it just grows back instantly…”

Jupiter reached a hand out towards Aaron, seemingly wanting to play with his hair. “P-please…” she begged.

“You can play with the hair when Aunty Kat is done brushing yours.”

Jupiter began to cry again, tears already welling up in her eyes.

Kat sighed, putting away the brush. “Alright, you can play with the hair. We’ll have brushy time later.” She released Jupiter, muttering, “‘Bout as bad as Kuna and yet I still fall for the crying bit.”

“Yay!” She jumped at Aaron, landing in the obscene amount of hair with little more than a soft thump.

The next few minutes didn’t make much sense to everyone except Jupiter, so we’ll skip right to the end result.

Aaron’s hair was back in its original braid form, no longer flowing over the bed he’d been sitting on.

“I have no idea what the hell just happened, but I’m so glad my hair isn’t a cloud anymore that I really don’t care. Prehensile braids are better than clouds of hair no matter what Sailor Pluto says.”

Kat just stared for a moment, before sighing with her face in her hand. “I really need to just give up on this stuff.”

Jupiter was looking back and forth between the two, wondering what was so confusing. “I just braided his hair. I used to do it to Juno all the time!”

“Yeah, that’s why I got it all cut off,” Juno said from the doorway. “You kept playing with it every chance you got.”

“Juno!” Jupiter yelled, standing up and rushing over to her brother to tackle-hug him.

“I see you’ve made up with Kat.” He took the maul-of-a-hug in stride, not moving an inch from his spot.

“Mhm!” she hummed, releasing her brother and turning back. “She likes little girls.” Though she said this in the most innocent way possible, it still managed to sound incredibly dirty.

“Jupiter… We really need to work on your phrasing…” Aaron dropped his face into his hands, braid following soon after to create the effect of a “triple facepalm”. The tuft at the end of the braid splayed out into a hand shape and everything.

“Well, I like girls, but I don’t force myself on anyone unless I’m in heat.”

Juno, who was silently fuming in the doorway, looked at Kat with a hidden rage it would take a normal human millennia to master. “You’re not helping your case.” Sadly, he still needed to work on keeping his anger out of his voice.

Kat just shrugged. “I don’t exactly give a putain de satané. I’ve had the worst week of my life, so there’s not exactly much you can do or say that will have an affect.”

Juno sighed, the fury that was there a moment before vanishing. “Just…” he facepalmed, “don’t touch my sister, alright? That’s all I ask.” He knew he couldn’t win a fight with her. He knew all too well.

“Only unless she wants me to,” Kat shrugged again. “So, now that we’re friends all ‘round, where the putain am I?”

“Pu… puta… put….” Jupiter was trying to pronounce “Putain” as Kat had multiple times moments before. “What does that mean, anyway?” She asked, returning to her pronunciations.

“It’s the ‘f’ word. I can’t say it anyway else. See, when I try to say ‘putain’ it comes out ‘putain’. Get it?”

Jupiter stared at her in confusion. “But you just did say ‘pu-’... ‘put-’... ‘puta-’....”

Aaron sighed. “Jupiter, she just can’t curse in English. If she tries, it comes out in French. Anyway, Kat, you’re in my lovely little shop of horrors, as I had previously stated. Well, massive shop of everything and anything is a bit more appropriate… but yeah. Welcome to my house and workplace.” Aaron flourished with a wave of his hands, and suddenly they were all standing in the main foyer of the shop, right in front of the cashier/information desk. A massive neon sign flared into existence, proclaiming:

“Neat, huh?”

Juno walked behind the desk, put a name tag on and assumed the most bored face a person could muster.

“Welcome to Aaron Heibai’s Infinite Emporium of Everything, where the prices are low and the points don’t matter! How may I help you, madams and sir?” he said in the most “I’ve said this a billion times and I don’t want to say it again, but if I don’t I get the whip- I mean fired” tone Kat had ever heard.

“....” Aaron deadpanned at Juno. “Way to kill the vibes, man.”

Juno pulled a seismometer out from behind the desk and showed Aaron the results of the last few seconds. “There have been no major vibrations in the air or in the infrastructure for the past few minutes, sir.” He continued the same tone.

“..... I’d commend you for your attention to detail, but I’ve got a neon sign to take down.” With a snap of the fingers, the sign vanished. “Good job, Juno.”

“Thank you, sir.” He wasn’t thankful, but if he told him what was really on his mind--which was more along the lines of “fuck you, asshole”--he’d get fired for sure.

‘I can read minds too, Juno. I may be slightly diminished in scope, but I’m still very very powerful. Don’t worry, it takes more than an insult to make me fire people.’

The thoughts that followed in Juno’s mind nearly brought the shadow-man to that point.

Nearly.

As Aaron and Juno continued their little back and forth, Jupiter took up position near Kat, who resumed brushing the cat-girl.

“Brushy brushy the cutie~,” Kat hummed to herself.

Jupiter said nothing, pouting as she got her hair brushed.

“So… Aaron,” Kat said, interrupting the two guys. “What do you sell in this store, anyway? I’ve never heard of such a place as this.”

Aaron shrugged, “It’s all up there in the name, really. Everything and anything. Souls, robots, robots with souls, soulless robots, toys, toys, food, clothes, books, keys, cars, rocks, mountains, planets, universes, galaxies, dark matter, anti-matter, strange matter, red matter, blue matter, grey goo, nanobots, cellphones, computers, adult material, biological material, corpses, zombies, zombie corpses, vampires, vampire corpses, pets, dementors, Shen Gong Wu, Dragonballs, dragon… balls, dragons, kaiju, kaiju parts, fertilizer, fertilizer, furniture, beds, massage tables, gundams, crystals, rings, jewelry, chaos emeralds, rockets, rocketships, rocket launchers, rocketship launchers, guns, rifles, swords, daggers, shields, staves, sticks, legos, lego carpets, booby traps, booby traps, lingerie, tea, coffee, drinks, alcohol, soda, assorted slime, assorted slime, eldritch abominations, tentacle monsters, the other kind of tentacle monsters, viruses, bacteria, cures, pathogens, vaccines, potions, tinctures, draughts, fridges, freezers, ice cream, cookies, desserts, deserts, oases, oceans, lakes, streams, bedrock, charcoal, paint, pencils, pens, paper clips, chalk, paper, construction paper, nuclear weapons, WMDs, countries, flags, chargers, games, video games, board games, card games, drinking games, armies, armies-in-a-box, suns, moons, stars, nebulae, holidays, etc etc.”

Kat seemed overwhelmed by the amount of items, but something stood out to her. “Did you say you sell cell phones?”

“Yup. I’ve got every model known to every race in every Universe. Even the ones that us eldritch abominations use.” Aaron held up a weird blotch of light. “See?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any that can connect across different dimensions and universes, would you?”

Aaron pat down his pockets before facepalming and summoning a phone from god knows where. “This is one of my personal Tokens, since I also used to be a Displaced. It’ll connect to the Tokens of any other Displaced you’ve met, it’ll connect to any number that you know, it’ll even connect to the internet no matter where you are. Oh, and it’s got games, movies, music, it even comes with a free pack of earbuds.”

“Um… I hate to sound picky, but do you think you could turn it into a simple phone? I… I actually was one of those few who hated smart phones.”

“Aww…” Aaron pouted, and threw the phone in the air, catching it as it came down. Once down, he proudly brandished a glossy, black Motorola V3 Razr, with the Motorola logo replaced by a white circle with a smiling, black jack o’ lantern face in the center. “Tada~ Same features, just… well, with more buttons.”

“Ooh,” Kat oggled. “I always wanted one of those!”

“Well, glad to see you’re happy. Now, given the current market value… that’ll be forty five bits. Unless you have some other method of payment, that’s fine too.”

“I don’t have any bits,” Kat admitted. “Would you take gravity crystals as payment?”

“Depends on the quality, but yes. Yes I do.” Aaron held out a hand, floating the phone into the air and clutching a magnifying glass with his free hand.

Kat opened up a portal and pulled out several perfect crystals. “Will these do?”

“Let’s see… wow… haven’t seen such nice crystals in eons… That’ll do very well. Would you like a receipt?”

“Sure, might as well. You do returns, right? Or at least replacements?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about contacting me, though. Just… if at all possible, toss the thing through a portal to the Void and it’ll come out factory fresh, with all the data preserved. If it’s in the Void, it’ll be nigh indestructible, and it’s almost as strong as Taydenite inside a Universe.” Aaron nodded, tossing the crystals around in complicated maneuvers.

“Well, as long as it can connect to a pocket dimension landline (don’t ask how I set that up), that’s fine by me. I need a way to keep in touch with my nanny.”

“Like I said, instant coverage anywhere. Of course, there’s always the premium package, which gets you extra bandwidth for just three bits a month. Or, rather, a couple shards of crystal dropped into a portal or something. Anywhere conventional physics don’t apply, really.”

“Do I need the extra bandwidth?” Kat asked. “I don’t know all that much about phones.”

“It’ll make phone calls faster and less liable to drop. Then again, that really only applies to standard phones.” Shadows flickered across Aaron’s body as he switched back to shadow form.

“I think I’ll be good as is. It’s already connected to my totem?”

“Yup.”

“Sweet.” Kat flipped it opened and dialed in a number. “...yes, it’s ringing!” They heard a click from the phone. “Yeah, it’s me… uh huh, I can keep in contact now…” she deadpans. “You did what?... well, clean it up and get her in a fresh one… no, I will not raise your pay to do this! It was in the putain de job description!... Just get her down for her nap and I’ll be there as soon as I can… Uh huh, buh-bye.” She clicked it off and sighed, shaking her head. “Stupid nevi, can’t do anything right.”

“Something happen?”

“The nanny is incompetent as all enfer,” she groaned. “I really need to get better at making Minions. I need to practice a lot more.”

“If you say so.” With that, Aaron walked back to the cash register and placed the crystals inside, tossing a receipt over to Kat as well. “So, you need any help getting anywhere?”

“Nah, but would you mind if I stayed the night? I’ve been flying straight through the Void for about five days without rest.”

“Huh… well, that’s no problem. I mean, I’ve already got several rooms, but none of them are exactly set up yet. Jupiter, would you mind terribly if she crashed in your room for the night?”

“N-no! Not at all.” For some reason, Jupiter was fairly flustered.

“Ooh! I get to sleep with the cute cat girl? Yay!” Kat hugged Jupiter’s head, bringing it right between her voluptuous breasts.

“Y-y-yay…!” Jupiter said, blushing heavily and with little actual enthusiasm.

“We’re gonna have so much fun! It’ll be just like a sleepover!” Nobody could confirm it, but there seemed to be a whimper coming from Jupiter.

Aaron said nothing, cranking a lever on the side of the cash register, generating a truly horrifying set of grinding noises as he rended down the crystals and converted them to credits.

“You would have been better off with those as crystals,” Kat cringed from the sound. “They make great power cells.”

“Yeah, but power cells don’t pay rent. I may be in the black, but I still have to pay bills, taxes, rent…”

“To what?” Kat asked, bewildered.

Aaron shuddered. “You… really don’t wanna know.”

There was a few minutes of silence; Kat wondering who could make Aaron scared, Aaron hoping said beings weren’t listening, Juno trying to sneak off and Jupiter twiddling her fingers and waiting for the inevitable.

Aaron shuddered in disgust for a few more seconds, before straightening up and holding out his hand. “Well, I apologize for my momentary case of disgusted shuddering, but I had to repress some… unpleasant… memories. Now then, would you like me to show you back to Jupiter’s room?”

“That’d be nice,” Kat nodded.

“I-I-I can t-take her….” Jupiter was blushing a little, her arms behind her back, and she wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

“Oh. Okay then. Well, dinner is in…. hmm… it’s six right now… Dinner will be at eight. Well? Go on, then. I need to start cooking.” Aaron reappeared in standard human form, this time wearing an apron reading ‘I Have What You Want’ in bold, pink letters. He disappeared through a door, through which the sounds of cooking could be heard as steam billowed through the opening.

The two girls stood there for a moment, briefly wondering what he’d be making. “W-well, my room is off this way,” Jupiter said quietly, beginning the short trek to the sleeping quarters.

“Hey, I’m sorry if I was a little overbearing,” Kat said as they walked. “I just can’t control myself when I see something extremely cute. Sorry if that made you feel uncomfortable.”

“N-no! I-i-it’s alright.…” Jupiter turned a corner, finding her room only a few doors down. She gulped audibly.

“Are you alright? You seem nervous.”

“Just fine!” She began laughing nervously.

“Are you sure? You’re sweating a little bit. If you don’t want me sleeping in your room, Aaron will probably have another room I could use.”

“Nonononononono!!!” she yelled, nearly rupturing Kat’s eardrums. “I-I mean… uh… it’s fine, really!” More nervous laughter.

Kat still wasn’t convinced, but decided to shrug it off in the end. “Whatever.”

Jupiter opened her bedroom door. What was once an innocent little girl’s bedroom was now a sex dungeon. “M-m-m-make yourself a-at home…” Jupiter said, not at all relaxed in the comfort of her own property.

Kat looked at the room then back to Jupiter. Then the room, then the girl, over and over for nearly a minute. “Aren’t you a little young for this?” she finally asked.

“I’m fifteen! I can do what I damn well please!!” the loli shouted in a sudden rage. She then “harumphed” onto her bed, looking pretty pissed.

She quirked an eyebrow at Jupiter. “So… you wanted to have that kind of fun?”

“W-well…” she lost all of her anger in the blink of an eye. “O-o-only if y-you wanted to….” She touched her index fingers together, shyly hiding behind her bangs as a deep crimson blush covered her cheeks.

Kat sat next to the younger girl on the bed, wrapping one arm around her shoulder. “Jupiter?”

The young girl looked up to Kat with the most adorable expression of curiosity the powerful mistress of Gravity had ever seen. Before Jupiter could react, Kat planted a quick kiss on her lips. She smiled as Jupiter stuttered, getting up. “That’s all you get for now. I don’t have fun on an empty stomach.”

The stuttering came to a halt as Jupiter realized something. “You teasing bitch,” she whispered to herself as Kat had left the room seconds ago. The younger girl was not far behind her. Kat skipped to the kitchen, smiling at thoughts of what might happen later that night.

“Oh Aaron~, is dinner ready?” she called.

“In a moment~” he called back, mini-Aarons floating around carrying ingredients. “Give it a bit, almost got the last thing ready…”

One of the mini-Aarons floated over, twirling its braid. “Come along you two. Juno’s already in the dining room~” For some reason, this Aaron was stuffed into a maid outfit, somehow filling it out in all the right places despite being a chibi and a male.

Then again, considering that Aaron normally placed himself slightly on the male side of androgyny…

“I get the feeling if you don’t fly off now, Jupiter’s gonna keep you,” Kat warned.

The chibi giggled in a disturbingly feminine way, “That’d be fine~” Blush stickers appeared on the chibi’s cheeks, even as its braid unwound and made it seem even more feminine and adorable.

Just then, Jupiter walked in. Her eyes scanned the room and fell on the chibi.

It suddenly regretted not running for it’s adorable little life.

“OHYOU’RESOCUTEANDYOU’VEGOTALITTLEMAIDOUTFITANDYOURHAIRISSOADORABLEANDLOOKATTHOSE-” This babbling went on for minutes before Aaron gave her a… look. From Kat’s point of view, it seemed that he just stared at her blankly; but it was so much more than that. “AlrightI’mdone.” She stuffed the chibi Aaron in her pocket when she thought nobody was looking and made her way to the table.

Aaron chose not to comment on the billowing length of hair sticking out of her pocket. “Well then, it appears as though we are all here. It’s not much, but I actually worked on this instead of just pulling it from the aether. Behold!”

Without further ado, Kat found herself seated at a rather large dining table with Juno and Jupiter. Aaron waved his hands like a conductor, and in floated one of the most glorious five course meals the three of them had collectively seen.

“Oh mon dieu,” Kat awed, drooling slightly. “I haven’t seen a spread like this in years.”

“Why don’t you cook more often?” Jupiter asked as she watched the food float in front of her, drooling a little herself.

“Hey…” Juno commented, a little hurt that Jupiter would say something so insulting to his own cooking.

“Yours is good, too; Juno. It’s just…” she motions to the floating food and Juno conceded.

“Now now, everyone. Hold your spots for just a few more seconds.” Aaron set the table with the first course, setting the rest of the meal off to the side. “Now then. Ahem. This’d normally be the part where we say grace, but considering how two of us are gods, one of us is a Void travelling gravity manipulator, and I’m literally more powerful than the Biblical God, it’s pretty redundant. However…”

Aaron began chanting in an unknown, yet incredibly melodic language, hands clasped in prayer.

[SUBTITLES]: “Dear Multiversal Void and all that lies beyond and within, I thank you for these abilities that you have gifted me with and the food that we are about to eat. I pray that this Void shall continue to exist for an eternity more and that none shall ever bring about its untimely demise. In DEATH’s name I pray, Amen.”

“Aaron, did the Void actually hear that?” Jupiter asked, seeming to break the fourth--dammit, Jupiter! Quit it! “Fine!”

“What was that?” Juno asked, genuinely confused by the seemingly indecipherable mumblings of the shadowman.

“Just a little prayer to the infinite Void and such. I only really do it when I actually cook, so don’t expect it to be a terribly regular thing. Anyway, dig in!”

“Don’t mind if I do!” Kat said eagerly. The others simply began eating.

Dinner concluded some hours later with several satisfied burps and a whole load of dishes. Aaron sat back, folded his hands in his lap, and surveyed the room. “Well then, Kat. Jupiter’s room isn’t too difficult to bunk in, is it?”

“No,” Kat said with a mischievous glint in her eye. “I think we’re gonna be just fine.” Jupiter began blushing lightly.

“Huh… judging by Jupiter’s reaction… Hmmm…” Aaron blinked out of existence for about half a second, returning with a slightly surprised look on his face. “Jupiter… why did you convert your room into a sex dungeon? Honestly, there’s… regrettably… one downstairs. You could have just used that one if you’re really that into it.”

Her blush steadily grew through Aaron’s tirade. “Shutup!” she shouted before ‘porting out.

Kat looked between the spot Jupiter was and Aaron a few times before finally, “For the record, I had absolutely nothing to do with that.”

“Honestly, I’m just surprised that Jupiter did that. Not being Omniscient makes things quite surprising when my ability to read people isn’t exercised properly. Ah well, c’est la vie.”

“What’s this about a sex dungeon?” Juno asked, seeming to be stuck between non-belief and a rage that would black out a small pocket of the multiverse.

Aaron snapped, erasing his memory of the past few seconds. When he noticed Jupiter was gone, he simply explained it as her feeling tired and leaving without him noticing.

“Well, I guess I’ll follow from example.” He, too, ‘ported back to his room.

“Man, this ship is wild,” Kat sighed. “I think I’ll go talk with Jupiter, it’s nice being around a girl I don’t have to explain things to. That’s usually all I have to do around the Mane Six and friends.”

Aaron sighed at the empty dining room and released hundreds of chibi-Aarons from his now unbound hair. “Of course I don’t get any offers to help with the dishes…”

“Jupiter?” Kat said, knocking on her bedroom door. “Hello? You in there?” She cracked the door open to find Jupiter face down on her bed, the room back to normal, and loud sobs to be emanating from it’s sole inhabitant.

Then, she heard her say something through the tears. “You lied to me. You told me he’d like it. I believed you, and you lied to me.” Jupiter suddenly shouted in a crying rage, throwing something across the room at Kat. The object hit the wall next to the door and fell to the floor.

“Um… what? I’m confused,” Kat admitted.

“W-what?!” the younger girl shouted as she scrambled to sit up on the bed, wiping the wetness from her cheeks. “H-h-how long h-have you been st-st-standing there?”

“About thirty seconds. Long enough to have something nearly chucked at me.” Just then, she looked down to see it was a playboy magazine. Specifically, the sex dungeon edition.

“Wow… didn’t even know they had that edition… maybe that’s why you don’t see them in bookstores anymore,” Kat thought aloud.

“U-uh….” For a brief moment, Jupiter tried to think up an excuse for even owning a magazine as lewd as that, but just broke into tears again. “I-I-I wanted to m-make Aaron l-l-love me!” She began crying into her legs, balled up into the fetal position.

“Oh… well, a sex dungeon ain’t gonna help ya do that, sweetie,” Kat said, sitting on the bed next to her. “Although… I do have an idea that might help you out.”

“R-really?” she asked, looking over to Kat.

“Mm hmm,” Kat nodded. “See, one of the greatest ways to get your man’s attention is by getting off the market.”

“Off… the market?” Jupiter was confused by her wording.

“Yeah! You know, you gotta find another someone to date. You need to make yourself unavailable to Aaron.”

“You mean like… go out with someone else to make him jealous.” Kat nodded. “That seems a bit counterproductive, don’t you think?”

“It’s a tried and true trick, honey. Men want what they can’t have. And if he can’t have you, then he’s gonna want you bad. Get what I’m saying?”

“I see, but I think that’ll just drive him away. And who would I date? The only other people on this ship are you and my brother.” Jupiter pointed out, now depressed more than sad.

“Ah, but you need to make him jealous, my little Jupiter. By making him see you in a relationship. And that’s where the fun part comes in.” Kat was getting more than a little comfortable in Jupiter’s personal space.

“Fun part?” As Jupiter turned her head to look up at Kat, she dove forward, locking her lips with Jupiter’s. It only lasts a few precious seconds, but that was more than enough.

After Kat pulled back, leaving Jupiter breathless, she smirked. “Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“M-maybe…” she said hesitantly, then looked up into Kat’s eyes. “I-if you could make sure? I-I don’t want to make a mistake.”

“Oh, most definitely, you delectable little thing.” Kat pulled Jupiter in close again, locking their lips together and forcing her tongue into the younger’s mouth.

The rest of the night was full of gasping, screaming, and loving.

Thankfully, the walls are insulated and soundproof.

Aaron strode up to Jupiter’s door at precisely six o’ clock in the morning, blasting open the door with the loud, but somehow not too annoying, roar of an F-1 racecar engine. Or a chainsaw, either or.

“Mornin’ Jupiter! Rise and shi-! …. The fuck!?” Aaron’s eyes widened in shock. There, lying not six feet from him, were the entangled and oh-so naked forms of Kat and Jupiter, the smell of the room and the stains all over Jupiter’s bed telling him exactly what he did not want to know. “... I… have no idea how to respond to this.” With that eloquent bit of speech, he collapsed backwards as if he were a puppet with its strings cut, crashing into Jupiter’s floor with enough of a crash to jolt the two into full wakefulness.

“MERDE ALORS!” Kat shouted. “C’est quoi ce bordel was that?!”

“H-h-huh?!” Jupiter shouted as her head flew from it’s resting place.

Kat looked over at the floor. “Looks like we have a good start, Jupiter. Aaron just passed out on the floor.”

“W-what?! That’s a good thing?!” she yelled, scrambling to untangle herself from the Kat-girl and rush over to Aaron’s prone form.

“Uh huh, it means he’s seen us together. The idea is now set in his mind… all we have to do is drive it home on what he could be having.”

“I-if you say so.” Jupiter knelt down, placing her fingers on the side of Aaron’s neck.

Aaron woke with a start, immediately seeing Jupiter’s face and flushing a red so deep it was as if his face had spontaneously transmuted into a tomato made of red LEDs and blood. “A-h, mornin’ Jupiter… eh… sorry about barging in like that…” Steam poured from his ears, forming a thin fog across the ground.

“N-no… we should’ve locked the door.” Jupiter blushed right along with him, though steam didn’t pour from her body.

…

Well, not physical steam.

“Sorry about the mess, Aaron,” Kat said, draping her arms over Jupiter’s shoulders. “We just got a little carried away last night.” Jupiter’s blush grew exponentially.

“I-I… I see… Hrm…” Aaron shifted uncomfortably, thanking the Void for the fact that his biological urges hadn’t retur- ‘Oh goddammit. They’re back. And at the worst possible moment.’ It was all Aaron could do not to ogle them.

He had more self control than most people, that was all he’d ever say.

The awkward silence hung pregnant in the air for a few moments before Kat, who’d been glancing back and forth between the two other beings in the room, broke it with a simple question. “So, what’s up, Aaron? Why’d you wake us up?”

“We-well… Breakfast is ready. Ahem. Anyway, I’d much appreciate it if the both of you got dressed post-haste and cleaned yourselves up. And wash your hands… and other parts.” With that, Aaron shifted back into shadow form and dropped through the floor like a bitch.

“Well, looks like Aaron wants us to take a shower,” Kat said, gently guiding Jupiter towards the bathroom.

“U-uh… yeah.” Jupiter didn’t mind. Not one bit.

“And we’ll have a little wrap up fun while we’re at it~,” she whispered into the younger girl’s ear.

“Y-yeah…” Jupiter repeated, albeit with a growing blush.

“I wonder what’s taking the girls so long.” Juno had woken up shortly after Aaron’s wake up call, which he’d received before the shadow’s little run-in with Jupiter and Kat.

“Eheh… Trust me, Juno. You really don’t want to know,” Aaron muttered, face still glowing red despite his shadow form. He picked idly at his pancakes as chibi-Aarons floated around, some of them sporting dazed expressions, others sporting incredibly shell-shocked faces.

“Are you alright? You look like you caught a cold.” Juno leaned over to inspect Aaron’s face.

Said shadow calmly folded his arms on the table, pushing his plate away, and unceremoniously dropped his motorcycle-helmet shaped head into said arms and melting into an amorphous mass of shadow and white highlights.

“W-woah! Aaron!” Juno stood up, moving over to the blob that was once the aforementioned Void dweller.

“Mmfine. Just… not used to being surprised, shocked, horrifyingly embarrassed, mortified, semi-proud, a tiny bit hormonal, and very very slightly jealous… all at the same time.” The blob spoke as if normal, the highlights swirling around and forming an approximation of Aaron’s normal shadow-face.

Juno thought for a moment. “Ignoring the fact that half of those are the same thing…, you wanna talk about it?” He was genuinely concerned for his employer and knew that, when things like this happen, the best thing you can do is help them get it off their chest.

Or something like that.

“Not particularly. Considering that it involves the two females in the building, I’d really rather not have you attempt to repeat your stunt on Equus in my shop.”

He thought for a moment. “Just one thing: is Jupiter in trouble? Should I be worried?”

“Nope. As a matter of fact, here they come now.” Aaron’s blob form stilled, then after realizing the accidental innuendo, collapsed into a puddle of pulsing red light, strangely corporeal, though not really.

“Alright, I’ll take your word,” Juno said as he retook his seat. Just then, Jupiter and Kat walked in, the elder’s arm over the younger’s shoulders. “Good morning, Jupiter, Kat. How’d you two sleep?”

“Blissfully,” Kat practically purred while Jupiter blushed.

Aaron-puddle pulsed faster and in a more vibrant shade of red, nearly reaching magenta.

“A-are you okay, Aaron?” Jupiter asked timidly as she and Kat walked to their seats.

Aaron-puddle stilled and turned back into his normal shadowy self, still blushing, and replied with a, “No, not really. What I saw earlier was enough to shake me out of my normal groove for the next few minutes. This is also the first time a blush has ever actually stricken my shadow form. Funny, that.”

“O-oh… s-s-sorry….” She, too, blushed a little harder and looked down at her plate. “S-so, pancakes?” she asked, masterfully avoiding the elephant in the room.

“Pancakes sound amazing,” Kat agreed, shoving one into her mouth.

“You go ahead. I’m gonna… awkwardly attempt to avoid you two while my raging emotions die down.” Aaron left through the kitchen door, trailing chocolate ice cream scented smoke and a faint hint of ozone.

Replace the word “emotions” with a word more befitting of a teenage male, if you would. *coughbonercough*

Jupiter watched him go before turning to Kat. “Maybe we were a little too… I don’t know, blunt?”

“Trust me, sweetie. Just give it some time.”

Jupiter looked after Aaron unsurely.

“So, what’ve you gotten yourself into this time?” Juno asked Jupiter, snapping her out of her daze.

“O-oh, me and Kat are going out, now.” She smiled and took Kat’s hand in her own.

Juno did the classic spit-take.

Aaron, on the other side of the kitchen door, placed his hand over his heart, eyes wide open. “... How odd. I appear to be feeling some sort of… loss? But why?” He mulled over what he’d just heard Jupiter say. “Why would I be feeling this sort of thing just as Jupiter said something about dating?”

“Dunno, boss. But you’re squishing me against the door and my maid outfit is getting really rumpled.”

“Oh, sorry.” Aaron quickly stood straight, freeing his unwittingly trapped clone.

“Ugh. What I saw last night… Well, you already know, now that I tapped back into the central intelligence.”

“..... I didn’t know that Kat was so flexible…” Aaron muttered, spacing out and blood leaking from his nose.

“Eyup.”

“.... How does Jupiter know how to use lightning like that?”

“Dunno.”

“... Oh my…”

“Yup.”

Some time later...

Aaron strode unsteadily through the shelves of his shop, desperately trying to clear his head. “Ach, why do I keep thinking about Jupiter!? Especially her soft, pret- NOPE. She’s fifteen, dummkopf!” He studiously ignored the voice that whispered And you haven’t aged a day past twenty, idiot.

Unfortunately for his state of mind, his random wanderings drew him back to Jupiter, Kat, and Juno. The two females were, unfortunately for Aaron’s new hormones, browsing for swimwear. Juno was studiously trying not to perv on Kat.

“Fuck.” Aaron hissed, unfortunately noticing too late that he’d been spotted, and thus was unable to run away like a bitch... again.

“Aaron! Help!” Juno came running to him, diving to his stomach and begging at the shadow’s feet. “Give me a job! Anything to get away from that succubus!” he shouted as he turned his head to look at Kat, who waved suggestively to him.

Aaron stood his ground, desperately trying to come up with a proper response to the two females even as he picked Juno up by the scruff of his neck and threw the hysterical catboy into a portal to some uninhabited portion of the shop. Namely, the area of the shop dedicated to fire prevention.

“So, Aaron, which looks better on Jupiter? This?” Kat began to undress Jupiter, putting her in a skimpy bikini, “Or this?” she then took the bikini off and replaced it with a Japanese school swimsuit with “木星” written on the front in a white box.

Aaron’s human form couldn’t take the strain, and promptly collapsed to the ground in a violent case of nasal hemorrhage. Said corpse promptly dissolved into more blood, leaving a violently blushing shadow reeling in its previous place. “I… uh… Oh lord.” Said shadow was summarily launched a few feet backwards in a spray of white light issuing from his face.

No, not his crotch. His face. Minds out of the gutters for now, please.

Kat chuckled. “I’m getting more of a kick out of this than I thought I would.”

“W-well, A-A-Aaron?” Jupiter asked, starting to get scared that he didn’t like to see her in a swimsuit for whatever reason.

The dazed eldritch abomination raised his hand in a thumbs up position before collapsing into a puddle of liquid shadow. “Y-y’look great…. I can’t tell which is better...”

Kat nudged Jupiter to go forward. She hesitantly walked over to Aaron and got down on her hands and knees, positioning herself right over him. “A-are you s-s-sure?” she asked, stuttering heavily as she pressed her small breasts against the shadow’s chest-ish area.

“Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y–” Aaron’s head area promptly exploded into a cloud of confetti with the word ‘Yes’ appearing in glowing green letters.

“Maybe it is a good thing this is a video phone,” Kat giggled, recording the entire time.

Jupiter launched up from above Aaron. “You said you wouldn’t record it!” she shouted, running over to Kat and trying to take the phone from her grip. Kat, being the taller one, simply reached up to keep it out of reach. This, however, created a new obstacle.

Kat’s breasts.

As Jupiter was reaching and jumping to get the phone, she was also rubbing their chests together rather suggestively. Aaron woke up to find this going on and promptly looked away, drawing the last scraps of his dignity together and standing tall, ready to attempt to take it like a man. “Would you two mind not doing that in my presence. My hormones have just recently reorganized themselves in a baseline normal pattern, and my libido is thus raging like a teenage boy suffering through puberty. And I’d really rather not lose control to my raging libido any time soon, thank you very much.” Aaron punctuated this with a quick spin, facing the opposite direction from the girls in a not-entirely-manly way. Nodoka Saotome would have been so disappointed.

“Aaron?” Jupiter asked from behind him, sounding genuinely concerned.

“I’ll be fine!” Aaron yelped, voice changing pitch as he rapidly dropped back into human form, braid waving through the air like an agitated cat’s tail.

“Are you sure?” She reached a hand out and lightly touched his shoulder.

Aaron made no reply, only stiffening up under her touch and wow that sounded dirty. His braid even came to a complete stop as her touch finally made him realize exactly what he was feeling towards her. A feeling he’d never had in any way beyond platonic. A feeling that he was desperately unused to.

Love.

If you’ll excuse the fourth wall break, the narrator shall now take a five minute rest in order to cough the sugar from his lungs.

...

Back to business.

Jupiter tugged on Aaron’s shoulder, trying to get him to turn around. “I… I’m sorry, Aaron. I didn’t know…” she began, trailing off when he refused to move.

Kat smirked, slinking back a little. “He’s breaking~,” she whispered near silently to herself.

Aaron stayed silent, his braid and body stiff as a bo- okay, you know what? He was very still. Let’s leave it at that.

“I-it’s… it’s alright… Jupiter…” Aaron stuttered, swallowing the lump in his throat as he desperately tried to force himself to move, dammit!

“No! It’s not alright!” Jupiter shouted suddenly. “I’ve tried everything, Aaron! I really have! At first I just let it develop over time, but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere; then I tried to be more direct, but that sent the wrong message; and now I tried Kat’s idea of getting off the market! None of it’s worked.” She sounded like she was crying, which snapped him out of his dazed paralysis.

“Jupiter… what… what are you-?” Aaron was nearly frantic.

She, in one quick motion, spun him around and, with tears in her eyes and a smile on her lips, said, “I love you,” and kissed him.

Aaron’s eyes widened for the briefest instant as a blush overtook his face. Then, his eyes closed and he melted into the kiss, gently cupping Jupiter’s face in his hands.

Kat sighed, looking on fondly. “Well… it was fun while it lasted.” She started walking in the opposite direction of the new lovers, running into Juno along the way.

“Whoo! I told him to give me a job, not-” he ran face-first into Kat’s breasts, sparking an idea in the shifter’s mind.

“Hmm… you’ll have to do,” she said with a sultry tone.

“Huh?” he asked from her breasts, wondering just what he’d have to do.

“You’re coming with me,” Kat said before dragging Juno away.

That night, much sex was had.

Author's Notes:

Haha what am I doing