Sophia, Steph, and Maya went to Earth to meet up with the family of the sisters. The cat-girl was extremely nervous about meeting her girlfriend's parents, but once the blonde's mother actually believed she existed, she came to immediately like her. They had yet to bring up the main reason for their visit, though.

  “By the way, where’s dad?” While everyone was sitting in the living room, Steph eventually faced her mother.

  “And Sari!” Sophia was dying to see their baby sister.

  “Pete took her on her usual noon stroller ride.” Lydia, their mother, smiled at them. “We usually do that together, but I stayed behind today because I wanted to prepare something to drink and a few pastries for our daughters, who wanted to come to visit in… about half an hour from now.” She took a quick glance at her wristwatch at the end.

  "A-Ah.” The daughters in question scratched their cheeks.

  "Those two always operate at their own pace." Maya could sympathize with their mother.

  “As if that doesn’t describe everyone in our group!” The sisters didn't like being singled out.

  “N-No comment.” The cat-girl turned her head away.

  “Are those two behaving?” Lydia then faced Maya. “I’ve asked Chloe before, but the fox is such a gentle and positive person that I don't think she's even able to say something negative about someone. Not saying you aren’t, but I’d like to know more.”

  “Uh-oh.” The sisters froze.

  “Mhmm.” The cat-girl tried her best not to look too smug. After all, she wanted to leave a good impression on their mother. “Steph is quite, no, very needy, overly active, and is unable to sit still for more than four seconds, but she never means any harm. I can only fault her for her love for the cold. That one's actually rather infuriating.”

  “Your love for the heat is what’s infuriating!” The dog didn’t share her opinion.

  “Ahaha, she’s always been oddly fascinated by the cold weather, so I’m not that surprised there.” The woman let out a small chuckle. “Neither by the part where someone with cat features would disagree with it. What about our striped girl, though?”

  “Oh, she disliked the cold even more than I do.” Maya shrugged in return.

  “True!” Sophia nodded a few times.

  “Not about that, you dorks.” Lydia rolled her eyes. “I wanted to know how our tiger behaves in that world of yours.”

  “Ahh!” The cat-girl noticed her mistake. “She’s behaving oddly well lately.”

  “Really?” Their mother raised an eyebrow.

  “Which concerns me greatly.” Maya scratched her cheek. “It’s some sort of the calm before the storm kind of feeling. She's so disaster-prone that the next incident is long overdue."

  “There’s just no winning, is there?!” Sophia raised her voice. "I cause a disaster or seven; I get side-eyed. I hold back or be lazy, I still get smack.”

  “And the moral here is to always go all out.” Steph gave her sister a thumbs-up. “It doesn’t matter, so might as well have the most fun.”

  “I guess so.” The tiger nodded in return.

  “I’m sorry about my daughters.” Lydia could only apologize.

  “It’s alright.” The cat-girl smiled at her. “I’m used to it.”

  “Hey!” The two didn’t like that, either.

  “To be fair, ever since she made her own playground, things have become much more reasonable. She gets to power herself out there, so the regular world doesn’t almost get destroyed at least once a month like it used to be, and it only benefits from her ideas and way of thinking when it comes to magic. At the end of the day, she’s an invaluable benefactor who's actively improving the lives of our entire kingdom at the expense of some massive headaches for a select few."

  “I heard some rather concerning things in there, but it appears that she’s positively influencing the world, right? Overall speaking, that is."

  “Yes.” Maya could only nod while smiling at Lydia.

  “That is amazing!” She was delighted to hear it. “What is this playground about, though? Is it some uninhabited place to let loose? I still don’t understand this magic business at all and what you can do with it…”

  “Something like that.” Sophia took over. “My portals, the pink swirly thing in the cabinet we use to visit, connects to that playground.” She decided to use that rather fitting word, as well. “It’s a separate place from the other world where Maya and Chloe come from.”

  “I don’t have to pretend to understand that, right?” Her mother only got confused.

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  “How about I show you?” The tiger thought it was a good transition for the main topic of today’s visit that the sisters had planned.

  “E-Eh…?” Lydia looked shocked. “You want me to go to another world?!”

  “We’d greatly appreciate it.” Steph smiled at her.

  “For a visit," Sophia added more detail to it. "We want you to see how and where we live now. For you, it will be no different than visiting another country. Only that the travel time will be a fraction of a second. You can freely return at any time, as well.”

  “Y-You can’t be serious?!” She couldn’t believe her.

  “We always are!” The sisters slowly shook their heads.

  “…” Maya just silently rolled her eyes while hearing their standard response to this overly justified claim.

  "It's not just you who we'd like to see it, either!" The dog-girl clapped her hands. “Dad should come, too!”

  “And Sari!” The tiger added an important detail.

  “Why?” This only made her more wary.

  “Why not?” Steph threw the question back at her. “Like Sophia said, we want to show you our new home. Yes, ideally, we’d like for you to move there entirely, but that wouldn’t be any different if we were to live on the other side of this planet.”

  “Mhmm.” Lydia’s expression scrunched up. “I get what you’re trying to say, but it’s still another world we’re talking about! That’s something else than going to another country!”

  “True.” Sophia nodded. “You need to pack a suitcase, find your passport, get to the airport, board a plane, fly for a couple of hours, do all the security stuff, get a rental in the other country, and drive to your destination. I’ve skipped a lot of things, as well.”

  “To visit our place, you just have to go upstairs and go through the portal.”

  “Ha.” Their mother was at a loss for words. “If you put it that way, there’s actually very little I can say there.” She scratched her cheek. “The emotional aspect is a lot more involved, though.”

  “That’s fair.” The tiger couldn’t blame her too much for that.

  “Is it?” Steph didn’t share her opinion. "It took me a grand total of zero seconds to decide to go there."

  “You might not be the best person to ask when it comes to such discussions.” Maya thought the happy-go-lucky girl was a bit too easygoing at times.

  “I’m the bestest when it comes to anything!” The dog-girl thought otherwise.

  “You know that’s not a real word, right?” Lydia stared at her daughter. “Best already is the superlative.”

  “Wrong.” All three girls disagreed with her. As Ellie was the superlative in the other world, bestest definitely was a real word.

  “I guess grammar isn’t exactly the same everywhere, huh?” She didn't feel like arguing, and a different world with different rules wasn't too out of the ordinary.

  “So?!” Steph excitedly looked at her mother. “Let’s go?!”

  “That’s not something you decided on the spot, okay?”

  “It absolutely is!” As she had done precisely that, the dog-girl didn’t agree with her.

  “At least let me talk about it with Pete.” She scratched her cheek. “That’s not something I can or want to decide on my own. Even if it’s just like a holiday trip, which you two are trying to gaslight me into, it’s still an important decision.” She stared at her daughters during the end.

  “Such slander!” Even though she got loud, Steph still looked quite awkward.

  “By the way, we were also planning to show Maya’s parents my playground today.” Sophia finally mentioned another point on their agenda. “We’re basically living in the place where my portals lead, so Maya and I wanted to show them our home. If you coincidentally show up at the same time, you could get to know the family of my girlfriend and have a nice chat with them~.”

  “You cheeky little…” Lydia slowly shook her head. “Who raised you?”

  “I wonder~.” She gave her a cheeky grin.

  “I, uhh… think my parents would like to meet Sophia’s family, too.” Maya reacted with a wry smile in her direction.

  “…” This more subtle attack had the most significant impact on her. “Fine, once Pete’s back, you all can try to convince him, too.”

  “Yay!” The sisters cheered. “Let’s go!”

  “Convinced me about what?” As if on cue, the man in question, with his short light-brown hair, returned home and joined the conversation. Just like Lydia, he seemed to be in his early forties.

  “Dad!”

  “Hey!” The sisters immediately greeted him.

  "Welcome back." He waved at them before putting the stroller he was pushing to the side, gently lifted the sleeping Sari out of it, and cradled the light-blonde-baby in his arms before joining them. “What’s all this about?”

  “Gimme!” Sophia immediately gestured at her baby sister while stretching out her arms. She wanted to hold her as soon as possible and jumped off the sofa to receive holding and cuddling privileges.

  "That's one loved little sister~." While smiling at the tiger, Pete carefully handed Sari over to her before sandwiching both in a gentle group hug. Afterward, he moved over to Steph and hugged her, as well.

  “That’s just Sophia loving kids.” The dog-girl smiled at him.

  “No, Sophia loves little sisters and children, so I get twice the satisfaction out of Sari.” She lightly corrected her other little sisters.

  “Hehe.” Steph liked that.

  “So adorable~.” The tiger sat back down and held Sari in one arm over her lap and against her stomach while she used her other arm to gently caress the tiny head of the sleeping girl.

  “So, again, what are you trying to convince me to… Wait, who’s this?” He only then noticed the new cat-girl. "A friend from the other world thing? It certainly is interesting how everyone from there has animal features.” He already sounded used to it.

  “That’s Maya!” Sophia briefly answered him before focusing on her newest little sister again.

  “I see.” He nodded. “My name is Pete. It’s nice to meet you.” The man smiled at the cat-girl.

  “T-The pleasure is all mine.” She stumbled on her words again.

  “There’s no need to be nervous, is there?” He tilted his head at her jumpiness and twitchy tail behind her back.

  “She’s nervous about meeting the parents of her girlfriend.” Steph smiled at her.

  “WHAT?!” He got loud.

  “Pshhht.” Sophia put a finger to her lips while gesturing at the sleeping Sari in her arms.

  “What about Chloe?!” Pete stared at the dog-girl. “She was such a nice girl!”

  “Don’t worry, Chloe’s still my partner.”

  “You have two girlfriends now?!” Her father only got even louder.

  “Dad…” Steph rolled her eyes. “Maya is Sophia’s girlfriend.”

  “Huh?!” He was the most shocked yet. “She wasn’t making it... her up?!”

  “Hey.” As she didn’t want to get loud and wake up Sari, the tiger put extra power into her glare to convey her feelings.

  “W-Well, I mean…” Pete got slightly intimidated. “You know, when you still lived in this world, it was not overly likely for that to happen, so I’m still not used to the new you. I’m incredibly glad that you’re doing so much better now, though. Your partner is a charming and courteous girl, as well, so I’m very happy for you.”

  “Pfft, courteous.” Steph tried her hardest to hold back another chuckle.

  “Oi.” Maya didn’t appreciate that, either.

  Once the initial shock was over, Pete got to know Maya a little better. The cat-girl also warmed up to him as she retold the story of how she and Sophia met, just as she had explained it to Lydia before.

  Back in April of 2021, I posted the first chapter of Boosted Restart, which means the story has its 4th Anniversary this month!

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