"So, where are we going to celebrate your victory?" Sofia asked as she flew up next to my massive dragon head now that we were past the atmosphere. She must have been too excited to wait and swallowed her pride to borrow one of Aiko''s mechs.


    "I don''t know, but I am sure that we will think of something," I said with a smile on my face as we all descended back down to Earth. "But tomorrow, I will be going back to the base to deal with thest floor."


    "You sure you don''t want us toe with you? We can help!" Eddie said, but I shook my head.


    "No, this is something that I have to do alone. But don''t worry; I will be back before you know it," I said as we allnded in a massive clearing in the center of the Central Forest, where arge crowd had gathered to greet us.


    It seemed that word of our victory had already spread, and people were cheering and celebrating as we walked through the streets toward my old apartmentplex. As we approached, I could see that the rest of my girls were waiting for me outside, and when they saw me, they started running toward me with huge smiles on their faces.


    "Do we really have power back?!" Amy asked as Chelsea, Kitsune, Victoria, and she came over to hug me.


    "Yes, but all the things that produced power will be out of service. Not a big problem, but even though we have ess to power again, it will still be a few days before anything is really working. Cellphones should work, but until we get the inte back up and running, they will be useless," I exined, but Chelsea pulled out her phone and held it up to me, and she had a full signal.


    "I wanted to wait until you were here, but I did look at the browser, but it changed on my phone, and I don''t know what Zerwelzingera, but it reced my old one, and I can''t understand anything that it says," Chelsea said handing me her phone, but I put my hand up.


    "I will check that out, but can we head up top? I just was put through the wringer up there, and all my transforming I did showing off burnt me out pretty fast," I exined with a tired smile, and the girls all rolled their eyes.


    "I am going to go get a recharge and see if Aio needs help if you are going to take a bath. You don''t need me up there," Eddie called from his mech that he was still in, and I nodded to him.


    "Sure, thanks for your help," I called, but Eddie gave me the finger.


    "Fuck you, help! I didn''t do shit! I need to see if Aiko can make me more powerful, or I am going to be useless as tits on a boar in the uing fights!" Eddie snapped and then lifted into the air to fly off.


    I watched him go, and I actually felt bad for him. I knew Eddie was trying his best when he attacked, but I had barely been able to do anything, and if Start Child wouldn''t of shown up, everyone would have been screwed.<novelnext></novelnext>


    "Is Eddie going to be alright?" Kitsune asked with a worried look on her face, and I nodded.


    "He is just feeling a little useless right now, but he will be fine. I am going to talk to himter about what happened up there," I said as we started walking into my apartmentplex/Great Tree with everyone following behind me.


    The ce was spotless as usual, and everything looked in its ce as we walked through the halls towards the elevators that would take us up to my penthouse suite on the top floor. Once we were all in, I hit the button for the penthouse and then leaned back against the wall as it started moving upwards quickly.


    All the girls were quiet, and it was starting to feel less like a victory celebration and more like a funeral march. I knew that everyone was worried about what was going to happen next, but there was nothing that we could do about it now.


    We would just have to wait and see what the future holds in store for us.


    Once up top, we all headed straight for the pool, and everyone stripped down to nothing, sliding or jumping into the thick green regeneration fluid. The girls seemed to get more excited, but I realized that I was the one bringing everyone down, but it was hard to still my mind now.


    "Daniel? Are you okay?" Melody asked me as she came over to sit beside me, and I shrugged.


    "I know I should be celebrating, but to me, this wasn''t really a win. This was just something that needed to be done in the long list, and that list still exists. I guess I am just having a problem with rxing when I know this is just chipping the tip of the gctic iceberg if you know what I mean," I said with a sigh, and Melody smiled, tucking herself under my arm.


    "That is true, but you need to appreciate the small wins just as much as the big ones. Something else happened up there, didn''t it?" Melody asked, and I sighed.


    "Yes, but I can''t talk about it, or it will make everything one hundred times worse. There is something helping me, but I really wonder just how much of it is helpful or if there is another reason for the assistance," I sighed, but Melody leaned up to kiss my cheek.


    "It will be alright, Daniel. You are just worried about everyone, and that is natural. But you need to rx; we all trust you," Melody said, and then the other girls started toe over as well, crawling into myp or leaning against me as they tried to help me rx.