Star Wars: The Earthling Gamer

Chapter 6 - Family Bonding

Later that same night...

I woke up in a cold sweat, bolting up to see Kara looking at me nervously. "Sorry. I tried waking you up, but you didn't respond. You kept just thrashing and muttering. Nightmares?" She asks. I nod, and hug her tightly.

"It's fine. I don't usually sleep a ton, and that's honestly what I get for not sleeping while we were on the run. I hope I wasn't that loud, and I hope I wasn't a bother." I reply softly, Gamer's Mind doing its work to keep me relatively calm.

I break from the hug, standing up. "I need to talk with Hazel. She wanted to talk earlier, but she sent me to bed around when you fell asleep on her. Is she still awake?" I ask numbly. Kara nods, and with that, I thank her and go looking for Hazel.

I finally find her sitting in the backyard on a lawn chair, and I join her, sitting on the ground, looking around the area as the sun sets. "Beautiful night. Is it always like this?" I ask. She nods, and turns to me. "You care for her." It wasn't a question. She just said it as a fact. "I mean, I invited her along, which was stupid of me, I'll admit, but I had a reason. I think it's rather clear how much I do care for her, though, considering my loss of sleep, among other reasons." I start.

With her silence, I chose to tell her what I was hiding. No point garnering trust if it'll go down the drain to paranoia later, right? The truth is important, no matter how hard it can be sometimes. "System, unlock my status and titles specifically for Hazel." I called out. "Ping!" was heard as it was unlocked. Hazel raised a brow, but looked over me, seeing my title, my stats, and my bio. "It doesn't say what the title does." Hazel says simply. "The Echo title summary." I call out again.

The Echo: With this title, you gain a permanent +5 to Cha. When you speak with people who are destined to be important allies, you can gain or lose influence with them. They will remain allies no matter what, but their actions and goals won't always match yours if your influence with them is decreased. Be careful what you say, smartass. With time, the maximum influence you can gain will increase, as well as your control over them. Choose carefully what you ask of your trusted allies.

Hazel mulls it over, and decides on simply slapping me. "Deserved." I mutter. "You're right. I should be furious with you. But I've had time to think about everything, and realized something like this was pretty likely, in the grand scheme of things. Kara knew that you were losing sleep for her, and only mentioned it when she woke up. She was scared for your health, and was glad that you were sleeping. I'm not sure you knew that she'd known, but it means a lot to her. I don't think you have bad intentions, otherwise I wouldn't be hosting you now. I'm glad you spoke with me about this, so it wasn't some huge confrontation." She rambles.

"Understood. But there's another problem." I replied, bringing up the influence list for her to see. Her name and Kara's name, as well as the influence ratios, appear in front of her, and her jaw drops. "You have more over me than you do her." She mutters. There was silence for a few minutes, as she took in what she saw.

She stands abruptly. "I'm gonna go back in and cook. Anything you want?" She asks. "Just a sandwich, I guess works. Whatever's easiest." I reply absently. She nods and runs back inside, while I sit there, deciding to train my powers a little.

Thirty minutes later, we were seated around a table, eating sandwiches. My Force powers hadn't grown all that much in the time she'd left me, but I did manage to level them all up at least once, the ones like Shock and Revitalize being used on a rat I found scurrying around.

"So... We're all reunited, I guess." I start awkwardly, swallowing a bite of my food. "I guess so." Hazel replies dully, picking a little at her turkey sandwich. "How come you're alone, Hazel? I thought you still had family around?" Kara asked, slight unease in her eyes.