When I stepped out of my room, I found the residential area suspiciously quiet. The area was usually filled with the sounds of Issi and Eddie’s games or Jennifer’s tinkering, but when I stepped out of my room, there was nothing.

  I quickly slipped down the hallway and into the main residential area, only to find Jane and An sitting at the kitchen table. Calmly sipping some sort of warm beverages and reading their tablets.

  “Hey…Good morning,” I said, gncing around the area. “Where are the kids?”

  “Good evening, you mean,” Jane replied, lowering her tablet. “It’s almost seven in the evening. You missed dinner. There’s leftovers in the fridge if you want them.”

  “I’m fine. Nyx provided me with all the nutrition I needed while I went through my upgrade,” I expined casually as I strolled up to the table. “I did tell you it would take awhile.”

  “You did,” Jane replied, “but when you said it would take twenty-four hours, I thought you were exaggerating.”

  I caught An looking me up and down out of the corner of my eye.

  “Jane told me you were getting upgrades. You don't look any different than before,” he said.

  “That’s kind of the point of choosing bionics over cybernetics or synthetic upgrades,” I replied, turning on my little brother. “I didn’t want to change my appearance that much. Why? What kind of wild change did you think I’d invest in?”

  “I thought you’d want to be taller,” he replied, without batting an eye. Jane snorted.

  “What? That’s crazy; I like being this size. Can you imagine what people would say if I ran around with a ton of teddy bears as a regur-sized person? I’d look crazy!” I excimed, throwing up my arms, drawing another giggle from Jane.

  “I hate to tell you this, but people still think you look crazy,” An said as he turned back to his tablet. “It’s just that the locals are used to it, and everyone else is too afraid of the army of bears behind you to say anything.”

  “Hey, that’s also good,” I replied with a shrug. Since An didn’t seem to have anything else to say, I took a quick look around. “So, once again… where are the kids? I kind of expected them to be bouncing off the walls when I woke up. There’s a surprising ck of chaos and disorder in here.”

  “Nyx sent a couple of your bears to keep them company. They even set up a room for them to study and py in,” Jane expined. “It’s actually quite an impressive pce. I’m going to request we build a simir space back in the shelter.”“I’ll think about it,” I said warily. “I’d like to see this pce first, since this is the first, because this is the first I’ve heard anything about this.”

  Surprise! Nyx excimed in my head.

  “Go ahead,” An shrugged. “It’s just down the hall. I did keep an eye on them at first, but your bears seemed to be doing an admirable job of entertaining them, and, as Nyx reminded me, I’m on vacation too. It feels good to have a little time to myself again.”Jane nodded in agreement as she took a sip of her beverage. “If you want to take a look, you better do it soon. The bears will be escorting the kids back for their bedtime soon.”

  “Fine, where is this pce?” I grumbled.

  The door to the hallway shot open, and Nyx’s avatar stuck its head into the room. “Follow me, I’ll show you the way!”

  Jane and An didn’t even flinch at the sudden visitor. Either they’d been hardened after years of looking after the kids, or they’d grown used to the lunacy that seemed to follow me. Probably a bit of both.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I excimed as I headed towards the door. “We can start discussing pces we might want to visit in Vancouver.”“Sounds good,” Jane replied casually, without looking up from her tablet.

  When I slipped into the hallway, and the door slid shut behind me, I stared at Nyx suspiciously. “A pyroom? Why is this the first I’ve heard of this?”“I wanted it to be a surprise!” Nyx chirped. “I figured if you were all going to be trapped on this ship for a couple weeks, I could do something nice for the kids. Since you had one of the matter reconfiguration machines on standby, and it was extremely unlikely that we’d run into any issues on our way to Vancouver, I borrowed it to produce a few things.”

  “Define ‘a few things’,” I said, eyes narrowing, as I followed the bear down the hallway.

  “You’ll see!” Nyx decred.

  We didn’t go far, this supposed pyroom was just a couple doors down. I gnced at the pque next to the door before stepping inside, it read ‘Recreation.’

  As the door slid open, I was nearly blown away. I had expected a fairly small space, with a couple improvements tailored to each of the kids, with a handful of bears supervising them. What I found was a massive py area, with different sections tailored to each kid.

  Deadbeat and Jennifer were in the area on the left, crouched over a small, exceptionally well-equipped workbench. A bevy of new tools littered the area around them, including a miniature fabricator that was sitting on one side of the bench.

  The middle of the room held Eddie and Heavy. The pair were settled into a pair of plush chairs located in a reading nook completely surrounded by shelves full of hardcover books. Off to one side there was a heavy writing desk piled high with notebooks.

  Finally, on the right, was a huge pstic and rubber py center in the shape of a ship, where Issi and Bob were yelling at a small group of bears dressed as pirates.

  While the kids were occupied in their own areas, there was a central area with a handful of plush couches and chairs arranged across from a rge monitor hanging from the roof. Around this area were a handful of low shelves filled with boardgames, in case they ever wanted to py together.

  “There’s no way you put this together in just twenty-four hours,” I muttered as I turned towards Nyx. “Expin.”

  “Well, I didn’t originally pn to go this far. Just a couple distractions to keep them from exploring and possibly getting hurt. There was an extremely low chance of that, considering how many bears you have on patrol around the area, but still a possibility,” Nyx said. “I was already halfwaythrough fabricating the distractions when you decided to accept Stalking Shadow’s request and load most of your troops onto the carrier. Since I had a couple extra days, I expanded upon the original pns and was able to go all out.”

  “Even with all the time and materials on hand, wouldn’t you need blueprints for all this stuff?” I asked.

  “I did, but I don’t think you understand how inexpensive Css 0 blueprints are. You see all those tools over by Jennifer? The entire package was less than five points. Issi’s py center? That just took some creative design and three points worth of designs for textured rubber pnks. I received Jane’s permission for the purchases ahead of time, although I doubt she had any idea of the scale of the changes I was pnning.”“You’re very proud of yourself, aren’t you,” I muttered.

  “Yes, I am actually. I’ve managed to make the kids happy and keep them occupied while giving Jane and An some time to themselves. A true vacation for everyone?”

  “And, what about me?” I asked.

  “Please, we both know that even though you’re supposed to be taking it easy, you’ll be spending half the time poking around the ship or trying to optimize bear production. You can’t help yourself,” Nyx replied.

  I didn’t reply to that. It was probably more true than I was willing to admit.

  “One st question,” I said as I surveyed the room. “How did you know that Issi would develop a pirate fixation during the trip?”

  “She may have been watching pirate shows prior to the trip, and someone may have pointed out that an airship is still technically a ship,” Nyx replied.

  “So you pnned this and actually directed her to obsess on them during the trip? That’s devious!”

  “Maybe, but even with my titanic processing power I could only be 76% sure that my pn would work, and I’m 100% sure that her interests will change before the end of the trip,” Nyx frowned. “It’s actually a little frustrating.”“So the ability to predict and direct Issi’s behaviour with a hundred percent accuracy is even beyond the protectors, huh?” I chuckled. “I guess there’s some things even beyond the mighty protector’s capabilities.”Nyx shot me a quick look, but instead of trying to correct me they redirected the conversation. “Are you going to go in and join them?”

  “Naw… They seem to be having fun, and they’ll be coming back to the residence soon. Deadbeat, Heavy, and Bob seem to have things in hand. I’ll spend some time with them in the morning.”

  “We’ll be arriving in Vancouver tomorrow, so you won’t have that much time,” Nyx reminded me.

  “That’s fine, it’s going to be a long trip,” I replied with a smile. “We have plenty of time.”

  TheWackyWombat

  SCS Fan Fiction DiscordIf you'd like to join a slightly more active discord, try the SCS Extended Universe (ie Fanfiction) discord.

  A bunch of authors in the community frequent it, so come sign up for updates from your favorite authors, or just chat with other SCS afficinatos.

  Here's the link: https://discord.gg/bxPhAYJWcs

  Check out my Stories:

  Teddy Bears On Brigade

  Evelyn "Teddy" Cire is a street kid just trying to make ends meet, in the slum deep under Calgary Megacity. That is, until the Antithesis attack, and she's given the power to fight back.

  Avaible on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

  Tarnished Honor

  Reina and Skyler, long term girlfriends, fight Alien invaders in the Cyberpunk City of Vancouver.

  Avaible on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

  The Wicked Witch of the Wild West (ON HIATUS)

  A young outcast witch tries to find her pce in the world by traveling the remote wilds in the wild west

  Avaible on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

  Duelling Dungeons

  A story about Talia, an Arachne girl, finding her pce as a floor boss in a competitive dungeon. Half cozy slice of life, half action.

  Avaible on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

  Unexpected Guests (TBoB x DD crossover)

  Evelyn (From Teddy Bears on Brigade) ends up in the world of Duelling dungeons and needs to find a way home.

  Avaible on: [Royal Road] or [Scribblehub]

  Support me!

  Join me on to gain full access to my backlog (Currently 10+ chapters ahead!)

  If you don't want to support me, or don't have the cash, you can join as a free member and gain access to my other, unreleased stories!

  Here's the link: https:///c/wackywombat

  Buy the shirt!Want to wear your favorite bear loving samurai? Get a shirt! Commissioned by RavensDagger himself, and hosted on the official SCS webstore you can get the Teddy T now! Sorry, no bear hoodies... yet, but if you show your support who knows what might happen in the future.

  Teddy T-shirt: https://litrpgforge.com/products/scs-secret-merch-teddy

  And if you don't feel like supporting me, you can still take a look around at the other Fan fiction shirts, or even official SCS merchandise here: https://litrpgforge.com/collections/stray-cat-store

  Finally: Big thanks to all those people that review my draft, the chapters would be a lot rougher without your feedback!