"Oh? Those old things?" She gestures dismissively. "I threw them out after we moved here. Not that it seems to help - the girls wear whatever they want, it seems. Why don't you come inside? I'll fix you up something."

She wanders off, and Jackie gives a distasteful look in her direction, sighing. Her sister rolls her eyes, looking to Wire Nest and co. "We kept them. Which is to say, I snuck them out of the bags and kept her from throwing them out. They're our favorites, I'm not just going to let her steal them." She tugs on her jacket. "See? I'm wearing it right now and she didn't even fucking notice."

"Difficulties with Mom and Dad, huh?" Arielle asks, stepping inside with the others.

"Whatever. They aren't our real parents."

"Arielle," her sister puts her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, that's right. I kind of remember you, from next door? Wow, we lived right next to you all this time and never put it together."

"She moved out just after the show started, and she didn't get out much with the damage from the accident."

Heimarmene caught it, too, and it wasn't lost on the others. "Chloe, right? I remember you," she says, coming over to her. The punkish girl looks like she's about to say something, but the words die in her throat as she looks up at her.

"...uh, yeah. That's my name."

Heimarmene glances over towards the woman and concentrates for a moment. Magic ripples across the air, and if Valerie shifts back a bit to look, she'll find their stepmother locked into a time loop, constantly taking out and putting back glasses from the cabinet. The girls don't notice, transfixed, and she gestures to them. "Would you mind if we spoke outside?"

Jackie looks between them, tugging on her ponytail, and the two of them lead them out the back door, into the yard. There's a short balustrade that looks out over the sea, palm trees rooted in the grass. There's a pool and a hot tub, naturally, as if the water wasn't right there.

Hopefully Heimarmene isn't trapping her there forever!

It's a strange feeling, reminiscent of discovering that she wasn't even human. In the span of a few hours she discovered that her mother is both alive and dead, herself and her father resurrected by paradox, the truth of their lives stolen and broken up. This is some Exarch shit - not deliberate action, maybe, but a result of how much they damaged the world that something like this should even be possible.

Facing the pair, she tries to find signs of their being Semyaza, but it would be impossible to see without using Prime to extract their souls - that aggressive, powerful voice wants to do just that, to expose their sleeping heart for the sake of knowing and showing that she can.

Then the two take one another's hand and chirp at one another quietly, nervous, and she knows, she fucking knows.

She can't understand it, because it's their twin language, not without High Speech anyway, but it's so similar. Agonizingly familiar.

Might be a job for a Time mage, then.

Heimarmene, her heart in her eyes, nods and approaches them. Hank stands near Ethan, not sure how to deal with this yet, while Arielle gives them a smile.

"... Were you just talking like us?" Chloe asks, baffled.

"Yeah. This is gonna be a hell of a thing."

"I'm Marceline," Heimarmene says, "this is going to sound odd, but you're right, they aren't your real parents. Hank and I are."

"Yesss! I knew it!" Chloe pumps her fist, but Jackie looks skeptical.
"I'm pretty sure they're our parents, I mean, Sal-uh, Mom talks about how hard giving birth to twins was. A lot. As much as Chloe feels like we aren't, the evidence is kind of against it."

"We can be Wire Nest's sister!"

"You will find that that is both true and false, from a certain point of view." Heimarmene considers, then lifts her hand. "I can show you the truth, if you will let me?"

Jackie meets Val's eyes, then Ari's, then Hank's, then finally Heimarmene's, and sighs. "Okay."

Chloe is all for it, her eyes widening as lights emerge from them.

Semyaza is very different from Sariel or Araqiel. She's tall, commanding, a powerfully built preteen girl with deep purple hair spilling down her back and amethyst eyes adorning her body. She holds a commanding rod in one hand and a complex handheld clock in the other. Six shining wings emerge from her back, feathery and bright. Serpents coil about her arms.

Semyaza was their leader, according to their legends.

"Holllly shiiit - is that - "

"You." Heimarmene puts her hands on their shoulders, speaking with Words of Truth. "You two are very special - and due to complicated circumstances were detached in time. I can fix that, though - you can come home."

"Fuck yes! Get us out of here!"

Jackie gapes at the soul, then up at Heimarmene, her eyes streaming. "Mom...?"

"Shh." She hugs them to her chest. "Just close your eyes."

Light begins to gather. Arielle takes her heart's hand, watching as their mage sight is forced open and they, once again, witness an Imperial spell at work.

With a flash, they find themselves back in their own living room back in San Francisco - and the two are gone, their clothes fallen to the floor. Heimarmene blinks, looking around.

"Did it fail?" Hank asks, worried.

"No.. look, their shoes are in the rack."

There's a pair of smartphones resting on the end table by the couch. Chloe left her cereal bowl without bringing it to the dishwasher, typical - whoa, that was weird.

"I know what happened," Arielle grins.

(Gain 1 Gnostic Beat)

She folds her arms, leaning against the wall and grinning. "I caught a glimpse of the Aether right after we arrived. Mom probably missed it, what with the spell."

Heimarmene, who had been out of her mind with worry and running fingers through her hair in a nervous gesture, exhales in relief. "Oh, thank the angels. They're just Awakening."

"I'm amused that I had very little to do here," Ethan flicks his tail. "The Time anomalies have been straightened out - well, for the most part."

"Indeed," Heimarmene agrees.

Hank comes over, looks into her eyes, and embraces her. Tears shine as she hugs him back. "You'll be here, to help? I had to raise teen girls alone last time, and I'm super unqualified for that..."

"Promise," she whispers.

Sure enough, a minute or two later, a naked pair flash back into existence, a litlte singed and tired. They've changed, too - from the dark hair of Sally and Abraham to their mother's pale, lighter than Val or Arielle, their features shifted around and a bit of height regained.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Chloe rubs her arms, static bursting. Ethan politely shows himself out to the kitchen while Arielle fetches their clothing and they get dressed.

"Young lady," Hank chides, "I know I'm a military dad and swearing is part of my DNA, but would you mind toning it down just a little?"

Chloe looks up at him and the punkish girl's eyes well up. "Y-yeah," she says. "Sure thing, Dad." She coughs and rubs her face. "Got somethin' in my eye there..."

"That was... an experience..." Jackie murmurs. She looks at Valerie and Arielle with new eyes, then at her own heart. She touches her hair, awed and comforted at once. {...I'm so sorry, this has to be so weird for you all,} she murmurs, the more sensitive of the two. {I... I feel like I'm home for the first time and I'm an interloper and...}

Valerie looks down at the clothes, picking them up and folding them neatly to put on the coffee table. They have sisters. They found Semyaza the angel, and she is their sisters. She looks up at Hank and Heimarmene, and she feels herself choking up a little at seeing them embrace like that. She's still stunned and reeling. Magic did that. Magic took this gaping hole they never realized they had and filled it.

She feels before she even sees the two girls appear, turning to the two of them. After Jackie and Arielle's moment, she smiles and wheels herself in as well. She stands up on shaky legs - partly from exhaustion, partly from emotion - and grabs at Chloe (since Arielle has taken Jacqueline well in hand.) {You're like me, the lion's share of the split. ...but I'll say it anyway: you matter too. Semyaza... Our sisters.}

{We have all the time we need to get to know one another properly, to catch up on what we should already know.}

It's sappy, but it's such a strange and monumental event that none of them can really help it. Ultimately, though, as the high of emotions begins to petter off and the embraces finally wrap up, she flops down, exhausted, back into her chair to once again look her new sisters over. Sariel may have some priority, if only because they know where she is, but they will have to find - and save - all of the others, too. It's not an ideal way to do it - but it's a damn sight better than the alternative.

Finally, after a few moments of silence and after Valerie has wiped her eyes clear, as everyone settle to seats holding hands or next to parents, she blinks, as if something obvious had yet to be said. "Oh, uh... congratulations on Awakening, by the way! We'll be able to show you all sorts of cool shit you can do now, not least of which is how to be your own WiFi."

"You're mages now, and we'll have to go over the spheres and practices and stuff soon."

"I think we'll be getting that a lot," she says to Hank, then turns to the others. "Though that does bring up a good point... how much has changed? I mean... having two extra bodies in the household for the last decade must have some repercussions on sleepers, right? But sleepwalkers and awakened and werewolves and vampires and stuff... They'll know, or...?"

She rubs at the sides of her head. "I swear I'm going to be tasting blood in my mouth for the next while. How can you manage to think this perpendicular, Ethan?"

"And we'll be around, for sure. Don't you worry... We'll learn about one another, flaws and virtues, both by shaking time-built memory shenanigans loose, and by creating brand new ones! Magic and regular."

She blinks down at her phone, a sudden bit of relief coming up that she's still around - and a bit of dread in case there's something bad that happened. Hopefully not. "It's Grease. Gotta take this one." She smiles at Jackie and Chloe again, then wheels on off to the guest room.

Once there, she swipes the green phone icon. "Heya.. how are you doing?"

She knew there had to be some cost to so many good things happening all at once. She's sure Ethan would have something about Fate regarding that.

Her creation... the golem? "Grease, calm down, I'm here, I'll help, I promise on my life. Tell me what happened."

That's... That's weird. She's not even an apprentice of Mind, but she assumes you could, at best, create some sort of basic mentality, not exactly something that would get frustrated and angry. Just what on earth did Grease stick into that golem?

"Don't apologize, I know all too well what inspiration does, and magic... magic is just magic. Look... I'll come over, alright? I'll take a stargate-like portal to you, I'll give you a hug, then we'll find your missing golem. We'll calm her down, figure out what sort of help she wants, and work together to make that happen.

"Okay?"

Valerie lets off a breath, then turns to him. "I need to go help her. Can you get me there, please?" she holds her phone up.

"You should go hug your brothers and sisters too," she assures. "You were there when we found mine, so it's only fair." She smiles at him. "Though, if you can stop by my place and let Ashlyn know - and get her to me - I'd be down. I'll call you if I need a quick evac."

She leans up to kiss him, brushing her fingers through his fur before turning to wheel on through to the ruined truck and see just how badly it took it.

"Hey, Grease..." She navigates any debris before coming up towards her. Seeing her broken down like that, compared to the animated, happy-to-talk-shop girl she was Skyping with not long ago, is fairly heart breaking.

She sets the brakes on her wheelchair, then pushes out of it to slide down to a seat next to her, then opens her arms to her. "I'm here. And we'll fix all of it together."