The history of the conversion of a city from a small working city to an international research and development center is not easy, no matter how much international publicity one has, there are many external and internal impediments to face: Available housing, public works, conditioning of the new sectors of the city...
All this was speeded up much more than expected thanks to an unexpected friendly voice in the government that convinced the president to grant full control of the investigations (finally in a completely official and public way) to Handshake. Dozens of voices rose questioning the decision, but as usual, none managed to change his mind.
And so Brightside began to rebuild to a new level, focusing the entire city on neohumans. Thousands of scientists (many more than at first Addams could accept) from all imaginable branches asked for the transfer to Handshake, eager to investigate with the NEPF; hundreds of parents awaiting adoption volunteered to adopt those neohumans abandoned by their parents, hundreds of companies tried to open businesses in Brightside backed by Bright Side Industries.
The small city of Northren California went from being the headquarters of some old mining operations and the secondary headquarters of a large multinational to being a nerve center of science and progress, to the point that there werent a few who called Brightside "The NewSperValley" (Only Addams really calls it that, and as much as the director is trying, the name is not viral at all), an ideal environment full of love and fascination for the NEPF, a place to raise your children without the worries of the outside world.
And from this place our four little stories are born today, each following one of the four members of the Barlow Holm family, the growing (in size) family of the first and biggest (in every sense of the word) neohuman.
1st Story: Apologies in advance
(Wednesday, October 31, 2019, 17:15. Home of the Barlow Holm family)
"Anne! Please! Look here!"
"Anne, my foxy sunshine! Looks at the camera!"
Alanna and Erika repeated the two sentences over and over again, desperately trying to have their little daughter turn to them to get a good picture. Anne waved smiling, held by the hands of her older sister, trying to find the tail of her fox costume. (Costume modified from a costume for 4-year-olds, but that kind of detail was not too important... Or at least the marriage didn't want to make it important)
The dark music filled the ground floor of the house, making Anne want to play more and more and therefore remain less and less still. "Anne! Please!" Alanna shouted, grabbing her wife's shoulder, penetrating her ear so hard that Erika took the picture more in fright than having heard what was being said.
“Aggg, dammit. The camera flash does weird things with our eyes ... and look, it was a good picture” Erika showed the phone to her wife, who nodded sadly.
Eyes dyed with the color of the night, that way so poetic and far-fetched Addams had decided to baptize such a curious phenomenon. Handshake scientists were quite perpetuated by such biological changes (or at least pretend to be, not in vain was the same family that was going through an almost miraculous streak of growth that was also growing organs, muscles and bones without major internal implications beyond muscle aches), which had not only caused an alteration of the eyeball of each family member externally but also internally. Greater ease to see long and short distances, less vision loss in dark environments, greater resistance to intense light flashes ...
Eyes worthy of study if it wasn't because Alanna and Erika had completely opposed any type of surgical intervention not necessary.
"I don't think you're going to get a lot of better photos, moms ..." Nellie groaned, fighting to keep the baby from letting go, the force and the jerkiness of the pulls, turning something simple into a real challenge.
Erika and Alanna nodded thoughtfully, looking around for something that would help take the picture more easily. "Fraje, honey-" Alanna called to the solution to keep Anne's attention fixed, if not on them, behind them. "Can you turn down the intensity of the entrance lights and put you with the car keys behind us? If you shake them maybe Anne happens to want to catch them"
The teenager did not answer not because of rudeness or an entry too early to the phase of rebellion, but because he was too absorbed looking at his reflection in the mirror. "Fraje ... Fraje ... FRAJE!" The three women screamed at the same time, making the teenager startle so much that in a step back, Fraje laid down his own cloak, falling to the ground wrapped in it.
"No! You monsters!” The teenager shouted, jumping up, tearfully checking the integrity of his cloak. “My first adult costume! Ruined! There is a stain of footprint on my coat! THE WORST HALLOWEEN OF HISTORY!” Screams of pain without any foundation, screams that would undoubtedly make anyone who listened to them think badly.
“Finally… my first adult Halloween costume specially modified for me… my first celebration after fulfilling my most coveted ambition that is to be taller than pappa… ruined! WHERE TO FIND ANOTHER COSTUME FROM MY SIZE NOW!?”
"You are one meter sixty-six, Fraje ..." Erika remembered the teenager.
“BUT MY BODY ISNT STILL ADULT! I CAN'T GET AN ADULT COSTUME BECAUSE MY BODY STILL DOESN'T HAVE THE CURVES NEEDED...! And I need those curves! Just imagine how cool and sexy I will be when in addition to my enormous superhuman size I have the curvature with which my puberty will reward me! This hairless and childish face becoming a masculine, adult face with a well-groomed and well-shaped beard ...... What was I saying?” His whole family (even Anne, according to Fraje) shrugged in unison.
As Fraje had mentioned, even though it was only five in the afternoon, most of the non-essential stores were already closing the doors. Halloween night had been proposed by the city council as the first major event of the new Brightside, designating an absolutely abysmal amount of resources. Concerts, plays, movie marathons, ornaments and special markets in the three main parks of the city ... and even a special schedule with a premature night from 5 in the afternoon in order to generate the ideal Halloween atmosphere. A Halloween so definitive that a single day isnt enough, as Thomas had promoted it by opening the entrance of the dome to everyone freely during the three days of the event.
"Let me see it, my sweety idiot..." Nellie sighed and couldn't help smiling while Fraje desperately rubbed his cloak. "This takes off in a moment, go out and right now I'm going-"
“Can you really clean up, mamma? Really?” Fraje clung to his mother's costume pants, wiping his tears with such extreme care that it seemed that his own face was going to break with touch.
"Honey ... of course I can! I've been with my sister all my adult life, like it or not one ends up learning one or two cleaning tricks of Miss 'The dishes must be washed cold if they are nt going to go through the dishwasher'!" Alanna looked back winking at her beloved wife, who returned a mockery. Alanna again couldn't help rubbing her son's head, urging him to get up. “Let's not waste more time here, go walking to the park and I will reach you! I'm going to take the opportunity to put on my special costume… one needs to be well camouflaged so as not to be recognized in public!” Alanna's half-sided smile didn't help to convince her family, but watching her run to the stairs elevator helped Erika decide to give the order to leave.
...
And so, the remaining four members of the Barlow Holm family left home armed with their costumes and Anne's stroller filled with three pumpkin baskets's: Fraje, the vampire without coat; Anne, the damned stuffed fox; Nellie, the undead servant; and Erika, the guardian golem of the castle's doors. A group that followed a complicated plot of terror that didnt care who they try to explained it, nobody could understand.
"Halloween, Halloween!" Fraje was singing leading the group with Anne holding hands, the little girl pulling even more excited to approach each orange spotlight they crossed. “Our first American Halloween, Nellie! For you it is the first true Halloween but hey… you don't know this party at its best if you don't live it in the country where it reached its zenith!”
"Look at him, so excited ..." Erika laughed, pushing Anne's stroller with Nellie beside her, focused on taking lots of pictures of everything and everyone (as her friends at the orphanage had asked). "Last year he couldn't go out because he was with the flu, but now I see that he really has taken it seriously!"
"I remember perfectly ... he spent the night calling me crying" Nellie tried to laugh with her own anecdote, but the memories of crying between snot and sore throat on the phone were too unpleasant to find the slightest sense of humor. The group advanced slowly (by the steps contained in Anne mainly, since if by the baby it had already passed to the park from afar) first greeting the neighbors, and then even strangers who approached as if the family were a light insect catcher.
Of course this was logical, seeing Erika in the crowd was simple with the Amazon having reached two meters and fifty centimeters in height. So much was the crowd that formed around Erika that it didnt matter that most only reached her navel, the group grew and grew by the many who wanted to thank the Amazon for the work that her wife was doing.
Erika herself didnt give enough to so many conversations, her words beginning to be automatic while the overwhelm did not stop growing, her head began to spin unconsciously due to the rising dizziness.
And with Erika distracted ahead of time and Alanna still at home as planned, the family schemer Fraje had a free way to start her final Halloween plan. In the second that Erika turned around to attend to another person, Fraje took Anne in her arms (Something extremely difficult considering the size of the baby and the null physical strength of the teenager) and ran out into the park, confident of that Nellie would follow him scared for Anne.
“Fraje! Come back!” The teenage girl shouted storing her phone in her purse before running to Bright Hill Park. "Fraje, release Anne, please!"
The shouts out of place of his sister began to attract more looks than Fraje would like, that he stopped running so that Nellie could reach him (totally not because he couldn't carry Anne more ... no, of course not). "Nellie, please stop try messing up my vibe and stick to the plan!" Once the three were at a relative distance from Erika, safe in the crowd, Fraje again left Anne on the ground holding her hand to hold all the accumulated energy for 20 seconds of being taken.
“Your… plan? Your problem with the coat was a lie!”
"No, that was true ... but yeah! Bingo! And now the vampire's servant...” Offering his arm (Something that Fraje knew that Nellie wouldn't deny), Fraje began leading Anne to the coveted Plaza de la Calavera where the biggest event was taking place. "It's time to take advantage of our sister!" Nellie blinked confused as Fraje approached one of the booths around the square, where a man made up like a skeleton handed him a pumpkin basket.
Fraje wasted no time, placing the basket in Anne's hands. Directly the baby remembered what she had to do, raising the basket to her older sister. "Tri or thre!" Anne exclaimed waving her basket up and down.
"Have you ... taught Anne to say Trick or treat?!"
"Yep! My secret weapon, the biggest cute disguised baby or BCDB! Come on Anne!” Fraje began to guide the baby through all the stalls in the square. Every time the duo stood in front of a shopkeeper Anne raised her arms repeating her sentence, causing a silly smile in the adults who threw a good amount of candy in her basket. The process continued until the basket was full, at which time Fraje and Anne returned to the man who had handed them the basket, changing it for some golden fair tickets.
And this second process lasted until the duo had passed through the 70 booths in the square, constantly followed by Nellie who kept hallucinating. “And 300 tickets! Good job, Anne!” Fraje knelt and placed his palm in front of the baby, a gesture that Anne quickly understood and collided her own palm with that of her beloved older brother. “Before you ask, all this is legal. Earl changes the sweets you don't like for raffle tickes”
"And why do you need so many? ..." Alanna asked while the trio began to walk to the center of the park where the booth was.
"Isn't it obvious?! Nellie, please ... our height leads to greater maturity, dear" Fraje asked, making himself offended as much as possible while handing the tickets to the shopkeeper without saying anything, the shopkeeper taking out a photo camera and gesturing to the teenager. Without letting Nellie say anything, Fraje pulled her until they were both kneeling beside Anne. The shopkeeper counted to three to take the picture, then directly into the back room. “Today I am going to consolidate my position in the family, getting in the process what I call a Ticket for a future I'm sorry”
"A ... what?" Nellie asked as the shopkeeper came out with two skull-shaped pendants, delivering them to Fraje. Without saying anything again, the teenager opened them showing his sister how the picture they had just taken was inside them.Nellie had no words to describe it, mainly because as nice as the gesture was, something was hiding behind him. While Fraje finished hanging both pendants from chains pulled from the tail of Nellie's disguise (Explaining this way because before the girl seemed so excited to grab the tail), Alanna already disguised as monstrous dracula and Erika came to the square, both furious and willing to punish Fraje on the spot.
In a masterful wrist movement, the teenager made both necklaces hang, thus stopping the fury of their mothers as if it were a lion tamer. "Happy Halloween to you both ... I hope you like my gift!"
Final score?
Punished 4 days without going outside or computers or consoles. Apparently disappearing with Anne on one of the few nights with free entry to Brightside wasnt the best of ideas, no matter how beautiful the detail. (Today it is still possible to find Fraje walking alone and wondering what could have gone wrong)
2nd story: Expectations
(November 9, 2019, 6:50 p.m. Changing rooms of the Geremia Wing High School)
The time had come. The first game of the season.
Geremia Wing High School vs. Flying Squirrel Women's Academy.
The ninths of last year's table against the thirds of last year's table and previous year champions.
"Are you seeing that?" "We have a lot of fans!" "I thought only our parents would come!"
Some of the players laughed watching through the breathing windows of the locker room the huge crowd that was forming just outside the gym where the game was going to be played.As legally only adults could qualify for a validation of the exit of the dome, (all matches against Geremia Wing became like the locals), and now it was possible to enter the dome with special permits, all families of both Teams and student audiences from both institutes had come together.
And yet the families of the players and students of both highschool only reached 85% of the attendees, but only Nellie knew the reality of why.
------------------
(Hours before)
"Scouts?" Nellie asked confused, not knowing if she had heard her coach's words well. "Why are there ... scouts? It is my first game in the country as a starter!"
“That's right, Nellie. They are here because I've called them” Charlie nodded (not to Nellie, but a nod to no one in particular) while spinning a pen between her fingers. “You shouldn't surprise. At the beginning of the pre-season and the middle course you measured ... much less than now, I don't remember how much concretely. And now look at you! Five feet and ten inches at age 13 is barbaric ... and you're only going to keep growing. We cannot call it exactly natural growth by the nature of the NEPF, but almost”
The papers that were on the coach's table seemed to be letters, letters with logos of several teams that Nellie recognized instantly. 6 of the 8 cards were marked with green pen by Charlie herself. "I'm too young for scouts to come-"
“I don't believe that's true, honey. You are skilled for your age and have adapted to your new position even if you insist on not enjoying it so much; you are also flexible and agile and all that without losing your enormous size and weight! It will seem silly to you, but weighing so much compared to the other players being as agile as you are is valued very much in the fastest American basketball” Charlie's words went without any malice, and even then hearing the word weight a thorn stuck in Nellie's heart. "If you keep growing up to measure like your mother Erika ... and I know that it is not something clear because you aren't being related by blood ... if you keep growing even if it is up to a fraction of Erika's height you will become the golden girl of the Wnba by which all teams will want to pay for anything”
"But I can't get out of the dome ...-"
“My sweet big girl... That doesn't mean they can't sign and start training you! You really need to trust me, honey. I have lived all this, I have played in those fields and I know how they are handled up there ... if a high-class team would like to sign they will get you out of the dome even if it is only for the matches. What do you say, Nellie? Are we going to give 200% in today's game to impress them? You don't need to meet their expectations today. Most scouts who are coming today are known to me, they will keep you under surveillance for a season.”
The teenager looked down, nodding not very convinced.
"That's how I like it, Nellie! Pay attention to me, big girl, you're on your way to being the biggest star in women's basketball in this country!"
--------------
(Present)
Nellie kept thinking again and again about the scouts hidden in the crowd, devouring herself with terrible thoughts of possible future. So much that the teenager did not notice that her friend was hitting her shoulder until Sandra got tired of waiting and decided to hit her directly with a punch. "Nellie!"
“Auuuhhh! My arm!” Nellie complained, releasing the sneakers and rubbing her beaten arm.
"Dont try to blame me, if someone here is guilty is you for not paying attention to my 6 previous attemps" Sandra defended herself crossing her arms and sitting next to the teenager. "And now if you'll excuse me, you were trying to put my sneakers on your huge and sexy foot... Damn it, girl ... to be so big your feet are still super feminine and not like those of my great-aunt, who could be mistaken for those of a Canadian lumberjack" Nellie looked quickly like lightning to the ground, checking how Sandra was right. There, between her two feet, were a sneakers much smaller than she needed. "I know, I know ... I'm talking weird ... things about being nervous and that. Don't bother asking me for forgiveness, okay? An oversight can happen to anyone" Sandra hurried to cut off Nellie's feelings of apology, crouching down and taking the swabs herself.
"Are you okay? I understand that you have butterflies in your stomach because this is your first game as a starter, but it's still weird not to listen directly when they talk to you”
"I'm sorry ..." Nellie didn't know if she should tell the truth or not, rubbing the back of her neck looking in the direction of the coach's office. "I was thinking if my mother Alanna was going to arrive in time for the game or not ..." And although Nellie knew perfectly well that it was a lie, that Alanna had taken all day free expressly for her, the excuse sounded perfectly credible in her head.
"Ahhh ... Alanna ..." Sandra sighed like a schoolgirl in love, pretending to fan herself with one of the sneakers. "You know? When I grow up I want to be like her. So pretty, so sexy ... so powerful and so brave ... you're lucky to have such an amazing mother, a mother willing to worry so much about all Brightside! It has been for her that my parents have been able to maintain the store even though the owner has left the city!” Nellie nodded red in shame, enjoying the compliments to her mother indirectly.
The first siren of the institute rang giving the signal to both the parents to start filling the stands of the gym and the players to go out to their respective benches.
Nellie's nerves extended to all the players when the coach left her office, carrying her notebook. "Well ladies, it's time for the show!" Charlie smiled as his players lined up filling the gym. “As you know, in the teen league teams have no limits. Even so, I want to treat you as adults, so as usual we will designate the headlines and reservs of the party as always in order of positions, something that I hope you have well memorized!” The players stood firm waiting for the coach to begin listing, even though they all knew the game plan to spare. "Sienna Hart, Gracie Moreno, Jess Ellis, Sally Island and Nellie Barlow Holm as headlines-"
And although Charlie kept naming players, Nellie had stopped listening as soon as she heard her name. Her teammates were the best team players on the team ... or in other words, Charlie's plan was for the four of them to play just for her. Each ball, each play would end in some way or another in the hands of Nellie to finish off the play.
Something that terrified every second more and more the teenager. “And… 12! Remember girls, in the major league there can only be 12 players on the team, which means you will need to be very good to have a place in a team!-”
"Or be as big as Nellie so they have to let you in!" One of the players who had been left off the bench shouted causing a wave of laughter even in the coach.
"Come on, let's go girls!" Charlie saw the opportunity to teach his players a valuable lesson. “Not everything is size in basketball! The story of the Nba and Wnba is full of players of medium sizes imposing themselves on human towers!....-” Grabbing Nellie by the arm in a gesture that the teenager did not expect, Charlie made her get up and look at the team. “Of course, that won't happen today! If you all play as you know, our personal titan will finish everything!”
The players dont need more motivation to take the field, taking all their positions. Nellie was the last to arrive just at the end of the greetings between the two teams. After apologizing and checking how the highest player of the other team only reached her shoulders, Nellie prepared herself by placing herself in the center of the field for the initial whistle.
The game could be described in one word (as the institute newspaper later did):
Easy.
Nellie had no rival in the whole game. If they went up to attack, any pass meant that the teenager could score without fear of trying to defend her (only three times the rivals tried to stop her with a foul ... all three times Nellie accidentally knocked them down). If they went down to defend the play it only reached the moment when Nellie took the position, hunting any ball didnt matter if they were high, low or lateral.
For the final whistle, Nellie didn't even want to play anymore ... neither the position nor the facility managed to keep the teenager's attention. The victory was sweet for the whole team except for her.
3rd story: A little Concerns
(November 28, 2019, 8:30 p.m.)
For the Barlow family, Thanksgiving was always celebrated with a dinner instead of a special meal. The tradition came from many years ago, from the days where Velio and her wife were parents of three children of 5, 4 and 1 years and with Velio traveling from here to get home soon it was almost impossible. The rules of the tradition were simple:
Full dinner (Appetizers, 1st dish, 2nd dish with turkey and dessert), prohibited from getting up from the table from the previous 15 minutes to 30 minutes after serving dessert and no phones or distractions.
With these simple rules, the Barlow family had maintained a strong bond between them no matter what happened. And for all this it was so important for Alanna to keep up the tradition, even more so being the host of dinner for the second time. (Another of Velio's traditions said that the family with new members or new house must be the hostess of that year)
"Amamma, watttttar ..." Anne complained holding on to her mother's pants, using her growing vocabulary to attract attention as well as the baby had learned. (Although the mess of words and pronunciations between Swedish and English was causing authentic chimeric words)
"It's right there on your little table!" Alanna pointed with one hand while stirring the mash with the other, trying to get Anne to look in the right direction. The vice president was originally very convinced that she could manage her daughter and the thanksgiving menu at the same time, giving Erika, Fraje and Nellie time to fight with Declan and Ravel and bring them back to the dome from their modeling convention in Sacramento.
After an enormous joint effort to combine table and marbles in one to be able to handle kitchen and table at the same time, Alanna had fenced everything and each one of the edges to be able to protect her curious little daughter from an inevitable fall of 4 meters. Between the fences and a table for young children with each toy that Alanna had found to arouse the least interest in Anne, Alanna managed to concentrate fully on her recipes. “Ammama! Watttttar!”
Or it would be because Anne seemed determined not to recognize her water bottle for children, asking her mother instead incessantly. Not even the relaxing music that the mother had put on spotify was working to keep her nerves at bay. "Anne, my love, my sunshine ..." Alanna began to accelerate her speech, taking Anne, carrying her manually to her little table and even putting the water bottle in her hands. "You already have water, what do you say?"
"Tans!" Anne smiled, beginning to drink out of control, water drips dripping down her shirt. Listening to her daughter remember to say thank you served to calm the mother for a few seconds, until the beep of one of the pots returned her to her world of tension. The cranberry sauce was ready, freeing Alanna from one more responsibility. Since she accepted the position of vice president and began working harder than in her entire life, Alanna had not had many occasions to make food for her family. The obsession of organizing everything from Erika had been much more effective than she ever expected, the house always perfect when she returned or left her office.
In a way, she longed for something as simple as cleaning the dust with her wife… but the responsibility on her shoulders served to remind him of how important his work was. “Mammamma! Hungy!” Anne pulled her mother's pants again, this time she was pointing at the ears of corn on the main table. "Ann ... Ann ... Anne hungy!"
"I'm surprised you learned to say Hungry before your own name ..." Alanna smiled making sure nothing started to burn, kneeling beside her daughter and gently pinching her nose. “Cobs, huh? You shouldn't have problems eating them watching how you eat the grapes and the meats… even so, let Mamma prepare it for you, okay?” Anne nodded obediently, running to sit at her table while Alanna looked for the smallest cob of all (not wanting Anne to swell to eat before the big dinner) and beginning to shed it on one of Anne's plates. After making sure that only tender grains were left, Alanna left Anne's plate next to her spoon on the children's table, making sure the baby grabs the spoon to eat instead of using her hands.
“...Do you know, Anne? I'm going to take advantage of the fact that you're still my baby to confess one thing…” Crossing her arms on the table while her little girl devoured the corn kernels, Alanna snorted as she saw more and more food stuck around Anne's lip than in her mouth or plate. “I want to have a fourth child… but I don't want to overload your mamma Erika with more things and I can't miss this opportunity to build a better city for you and the other neohumans… what would you want, treasure? A little sister or a little brother or be you the little one of your brothers?”
Anne inclined her head in confusion, licking her face while looking for more corn kernels. "If we have more children for sure they will be as big as we are ... and we have enough giant rooms to give you enough little brothers or sister... at least 4 more without sharing rooms! Meredith says that her father has give her another MM, so we could have children whenever we want as long as we give her all the credit... even so, don't you think that 4 little brothers or little sisters are too many?”
"Amamma!" Anne exclaimed happily, a flash going through her eyes.
“You have been saying mamma and its variants for almost 6 months… but I don't want to lie to you, my Sunshine. I'm not sure when you use mamma as a wild card or use it to call us!” Alanna laughed, spitting in her thumb and cleaning her daughter's face. (Realizing in the act of the unconscious action he has just done and hating himself for ending up doing it as his own mother)
"It's a bit silly ..." Alanna stifled a sigh not to worry her little girl, convinced that Anne was mature enough to fully empathize. "But even being silly I can't help wondering if I'm putting too much work on your mamma Erika's shoulders"
"Ammama tong ... toonnng!" Anne humming raising her arms imitating her mother pointing at her biceps.
"...That's true!" Unable to contain the laughter, Alanna took her daughter's face to rub their noses together. "Mamma Erika is strong ... so I'm going to have to work hard to get her pregnant! Oh god ... that has sounded awfully bad ... can you forget this?" Anne tilted her head in confusion, approaching again to rub her nose with her mother. "As I like that you are still too small to understand things like this!"
The phone's chronometer began to beep, indicating that it was time to take out the turkey and that his family began to arrive. And just at the moment when Alanna had placed the turkey on the counter, the main bell began to ring. “Here they are, Anne! Time to fight, my sunshine! Let's make this a memorable thanksgiving!”
4th Story: And they looked at us
(December 23, 2019)
And with Christmas just around the corner, the Barlow Holm family was preparing for a quiet Christmas dinner all five. The year had been tough, and both Alanna, Fraje, Nellie and Erika herself deserved a quiet Christmas. Hell, even Anne deserved some peace of mind before her first birthday! The little girl (Little ... measuring 4 feet 7 inches (1 meter and 39 centimeters) before the end of the year ... she wasnt small) Anne spent the days playing at home with her older sister, something that helped Nellie much more than the teenager wanted to admit after her disenchantment with the basketball team.
Coach Charlie imposes a style of play more and more focused on Nellie, something the teenager was beginning to hate as she expressed to her mothers. (The fact of having reached six feet tall (1 meter and 82 centimeters) beating many other trainers didnt help to present a challenge that felt fun and not almost a robbery)
Fraje, on the other hand, was spending more and more overtime in the biology club while Nellie trained with her team, and according to what the teenager told her mothers, they were hours until studying and participating instead of showing off his height of five feet and nine inches (1 meter and 75 centimeters). Causing some other messes with his friends around the neighborhood like any normal teenager and being pissed off about not having started his puberty yet, Fraje was certainly further down the list of marriage concerns. (Except for the puberty part, that Erika was relatively worried)
Her family deserved a perfect Christmas, and that is why Erika threw herself into the crowded streets of Brightside to pick up the latest preparations for the big day, which included picking up her wife starting her winter break. Moving fast through Brightside after the huge number of people who had requested and received residence in the city was somewhat difficult, much more for someone of Erika's size. Standing at 8 feet 6 inches (2 meters and 58 centimeters) Erika was officially recognized as the tallest woman in history and the fourth tallest person in general, something that the televisions had not taken to echo after the leaders of the Guinnes records got the information from Handshake.
The Guinness record was debating whether to include her or not, and after a long talk with private scientists and with Handshake it was decided to count the modification of the NEPF as a natural mutation as it is a 100% organic part of the Amazon. (Although Erika herself was against being given the prize, the Swedish honor making her not feel at ease)
Being the tallest woman in the world had not changed the amount of people turning when they saw her passing or moving away, the majority of adult men and women not wanting to hit Erika's stomach directly. A couple of autographs over there, a couple of pictures over here, nothing beyond what Erika herself was used to seeing her wife do.
In a way, with both become celebrities, marriage was expected many more complications in their daily lives than they ended up arriving. For alleged complications they appeared everywhere, only that they were related to the enormous height of the couple. (Since Alanna had not been left behind with respect to her family, rising at an incredible 7 feet 1 inch tall (2 meter and 15 centimeters))
A marriage large as towers and strong as trucks, the exact words with which they had been described in the Sacramento Bee.
After walking half Brightside on foot (something easy when each of your steps cover a full meter away), Erika ended up arriving at the town hall where the crowd was piling up.
Luckily for the Amazon, her calculations of spending time shopping had worked and the mayor had already stepped off the stage, leaving Alanna in front of the crowd behind her huge custom lectern, so large that the mayor's looked like a toy by her side.
"Good morning everyone and thanks for coming" Alanna greeted with a well-trained smile from ear to ear, proud of what she was going to announce to her community.
Standing out and feeling like the only adult in a children's concert, Erika tried to hide in a bad way behind a relic phone booth from another era, trying not to distract her wife. “I am very happy that you have all been able to make a place in your agendas for such an important day as today despite being so close to Christmas, and I am even more happy to see that everyone has come with a jacket respecting our particular winter!"
The jocular comment was well accepted among the crowd, formed by all the neo-human families, international press and curious who had wanted to approach as a rest from their pre-Christmas shopping. Thousands of people gathered, thousands of people who watched attentively all the movements of the greatest vice president of history as people liked to call her. “Today, December 23, we celebrate our first victory as a species! The first step to breaking the stupid barrier that some want to form between us and them! We don't need more barriers, we already live under a dome!”
The crowd shouted supporting the vice president, clapping and cheering. “Today we welcome our first brand of clothing for neohumans! A brand designed to cover all the special textile needs of our children, however strange they may seem! Tails? Wings? Claws? We have worked hard with Handshake so that not a single child runs out of clothes designed for them!” With a nod, the head of the projector gave rise to the following image, a huge corporate logo with the word "Shapes" while the trucks next to the stage opened the doors of their trailers full of boxes of all kinds of sizes.
“Seeing that so many of you were voting Shapes as a name, I decided not to waste time and take it to the board of directors. As everyone liked it, today I have the pleasure of welcoming our specialized suppliers, Shapes! I wish I could promise you that this will always be free like today, but the suppliers would kill me for it. Even so, I want you to always keep in mind that from Bright Side and Handshake Industries we will always cover 80% of the cost of all our necessary clothes and accessories! We will always be on the side of neohumanity, both of the little ones and of you, parents! Because neohumanity we are all! Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles and aunts… each and every one of us is part of this! Now a representative of Shapes will go on stage and will start calling you by the name of your sons and daughters, please approach the trucks in order and push to receive your Christmas gift from us! Merry Christmas to all!"
The public burst into shouts of happiness and applause while Alanna got off saluting the stage from the back, entering the town hall back. Erika decided to seize the opportunity to sneak (With her size? Sneaking was too generous) towards the entrance to the underground parking lot of the town hall, stopping to laugh when she saw that the maximum ceiling height was 8 feet two inches. Bending slightly as it was more than a customary shadow, Erika began to navigate between the different music groups that were going to play after the gifts were delivered.
Sitting on one of the chairs brought directly from home, Alanna fanned herself with half-wrinkled folios. "Luckily the cameras were far away ..." Erika joked surprising her wife from behind, thanks mainly to the noise of the different sound tests had covered her footsteps.
"You cant imagine how bad it is with so many lights illuminating and having to wear so many clothes because of the cold ... the combination of cold and heat is terrible for the skin" Alanna faked a sigh as she stood up, placed the shopping bags on the floor and hung on her wife's neck.
"I see that your skin is as perfect as ever ..." Erika whispered taking her with one hand and taking one of her wife's hands, slowly stroking her fingers.
"Silly ... don't fool around here, there are people present" Alanna discreetly pointed to the musicians who had stopped all sound tests to see the marriage scene. Tipping her head as much as the ceiling allowed, Erika shrugged, planting one of the most intense kisses that Alanna (and the musicians and technicians of sounds and lights present) will remember all her life. "At our size and with our family and popularity, my love ... the strange thing would be that there were no people present!"
"What the hell-..." Alanna had to stop breathing, unable to keep talking because of all the sudden heat inside her. "Is this?..."
“It comes to me that sometimes I like to play the role of your huge heroine in a bright tracksuit that comes to pick you up after your speech to the kingdom! Do you have anything else to do here?” Alanna denied more and more red as her wife carried her like a princess, leaving the two shopping bags delicately in her lap. "Dont let go, they're gifts for your mother and Fraje"
Dedicating her best smile to everyone present, Erika nodded giving them permission to start taking pictures with their phones already drawn while the marriage left the garage.
"And where ... is the car?" Alanna whispered grabbing with one hand the top of her wife's abs.
"I've come walking!"
"... just kidding?" Alanna finally asked in understanding her wife's plan.
"Merry Christmas, my love ..." Erika whispered, stopping for a second to lift and kiss her beloved wife again.Resigned, Alanna decided to enjoy the kiss and the walk. "Merry Christmas, my huge heroine... smile as long as you can, I think of putting on a hype that won't let you walk ..."
"I'm waiting for you, whatever that is!" Erika humming happily as everyone turned around as they watched them go by, the 8-foot, 6-inch Amazon carrying her 7-foot-2-inch wife as if it wasn't the big deal. The glances will follow them wherever they were, but their love will help them to lose themselves in their small personal world where size was directly influenced by their love.
4 stories, 4 moments that a priori did not seem important but that would mark the coming of his family for years to come. Of course, these stories only tell 4 of its members ... the last member of the family is still missing (the last member for now) to tell their own story.
And that story that came with the night will progress along with the false dawn of a new year. After all, ours is a story to be told in the dark, far from the sun.
The story of the one who will reign over land, sky and sea.