“Ya know, this feels all kind of wrong,” Rave commented out of her turning swivel chair as John pulled the blue pin that represented their own influence out of yet another of their previously conquered positions.

“Think Scarlett will betray us after all?” her boyfriend asked as he threw the pin into one of the colour-coded plastic dishes.

“Nah, ya know me, I am the trusting type,” Rave told him, still turning, “but she ain’t the only one that could attack us in their loose alliance, so I don’t get why we are ceding so much ground in the first place.”

“Because of the Spanish Civil War of the 20th century,” that answer got him a very judgemental look, and Rave put her foot down to stop the rotation.

“Yeah, go ahead, Johnny, see where showing off gets ya with your not particularly informed girlfriend,” she told him drily, crossing her arms.

“You sound genuinely annoyed,” John stated while blinking rapidly. That was not a state he often got his girlfriend into and he was sure he did not like it.

“Ya have been a bit too in love with your own brain recently,” Rave told him, “dial it down or no more hugs and kisses.”

“But I like those!” John whined overdramatically and stumbled towards her with outstretched arms.

Rave raised a leg up high, stopping him by pushing the sole of her foot against his lower stomach as he gestured towards her like a love starved zombie. “Ja, ya do, sohowabout ya don’t be a smartass,” she smiled again, slurring her words a bit. “So we both don’t have to live through those terrible times?”

“I will try my best,” he swore, and the leg pulled backwards until she lowered it and tugged it between them as they kissed. A pleasant shiver spread from his lips touching her glossy, soft ones over his body; their tongues whirled for a second as she gently slid a hand on his neck.

Then the kiss ended and she gave him a headbutt. It wasn’t terrible, but the impact definitely hurt. “There, now ya stop treating your – admittedly not the brightest – best girl like an arrogant prick and we can hug later,” she smirked. “Watch some more Fullmetal Alchemist.”

“That show is actually good,” John smirked, rubbing his forehead and going back to the map to pull out one last pin.

He wasn’t mad about being berated; when Rave, the person in this world he loved the most, told him that he was getting obnoxious, he wanted to hear it. Better to be corrected early than annoy her for weeks and not knowing it.

“Anyway, the explanation is quite easy: Opportunistic alliances that think they have almost won start in-fighting, given enough time. The great thing is, even if we are pushed into just this little corner,” he tapped on the central pin on the Hudson that was the Guild Hall and the place they were currently residing in. “We are remarkably safe. Thorne has the biggest navy around these parts, which is abysmal, so even if they tried to land here in earnest, we could beat them back quite easily.”

“Unless they bought Sigmund or someone like him to crush us,” Rave pointed out.

“Just another reason why we keep losing to them,” John nodded, “they won’t spend that much money on a resource they don’t feel they need. That aside, Sigmund specifically I doubt will come here as long as Seminaris is…”

“WHO IS TALKING ABOUT THAT BITCH?!” As if on cue, Metra stormed into the room. “I heard her name, what is this about? Answer me!”

“…as long as Seminaris is afraid Metra could use something that will murder her king candidate at the current moment,” John finished his sentence and hopefully supplied the necessary content.

“Ah, I see,” Metra threw herself in another chair and slowly began to spin, Rave was at it as well. Slowly his other girls started arriving in the room.

“If any fuckers of high enough level come here,” Eliza, who had probably heard the conversation from the other end of the ship, “there is always the giant ass red button we could press.”

What she was referring to was awakening Thana on them. That was not only risky enough to warrant that situation being the example used in a dictionary definition of the word but it would also be feeding souls to the proverbial apocalypse engine. Nevertheless, John had no illusions about what would happen if he died. Maybe if Rave was still around after him, or any of his other girls the blood mage was close with, Eliza wouldn’t want to just let Thana run wild. In every other situation using the goddess of genocide as a panicked defence protocol was perversely better for humanity as a whole.

“You know, I would have to worry way less about things going south if you didn’t assure me that you will let her take control if I die,” John told the blood mage.

“Worry more then, you nipple pressing nerd!” Eliza screamed at him, taking him by the arm, whirling around her own axis and tossing him into a chair. “DON’T EVEN FUCKING MENTION YOU DYING AROUND ME OR I WILL RIP YOUR HEART OUT!” she grabbed him by the collar and started shaking him, violently. “Don’t you dare tell me that that sentence makes no sense; I will feed you to a school of thirsty Thai ladyboys!”

Aclysia freed him from that torture by pushing some ripe honeydew on a toothpick in the range of Eliza’s mouth. Like a tarantula sensing prey, she struck suddenly, and Aclysia was left with half a toothpick. “I demand you at least use your inside voice to berate Master; this screaming is over the top,” she told the blood mage and silenced an answer by taking a second honeydew off the plate on her salver. “Not complying will result in a ceasing of honeydew supplies.”

“Fucking fine,” Eliza turned around, sitting down in her favourite spot (on John’s lap) and snuggling her back against him. “This is the only damn time I am happy I am kind of small,” she grumbled and then cried out in protest when Nia forced herself into the chair next to her wordlessly. No matter the tirade of curses Eliza then threw at the blank, the blonde just sat there on John’s thigh.

“What is currently going on in that head of yours?” John asked Nia as Stirwin manifested on his shoulder and ran down his hand. The crocodile hatchling was as unafraid as always of the pariah, despite her very existence being polar opposite to him.

Climbing on her extended hand, Stirwin was raised up in front of her face. With an odd movement, that happened quickly and was executed with certainty but appeared to the naked eye as if Nia was moving through water, the blank raised her other hand and scratched the crocodile under the chin. “Yaaaaaassssss,” he squealed and hissed.

Instead of answering, a strange black substance started oozing from the roots of her hairs, creating swirls over her white skin, down her neck and stopping at her collarbone where they connected with her tattoos, like drops of colour in a clear pond falling down to the plants growing on the bed.

It didn’t touch her face, however, instead growing into the air in front of it and forming a sort of vizor. The air was filled with an odd tenseness as she looked around.

While visually similar to Lorylim, that feeling was entirely different. The Nirvana Nia pulled her powers from was actually empty of everything, the weirdness came from the senses knowing they should feel something but didn’t. On the contrary, with the Lorylim the senses were overloaded with signals that shouldn’t happen in that configuration. Both were alien and creepy, but one was completely calm while the other was a cacophony of everything. Much like water and alcohol appeared the same in a glass, these two only shared some minor aspects.

Now for why Nia did that in the first place, John found out a second later when a wave rippled from her skin outwards throughout the whole conference room. The world was washed clear of every colour related to red. Rave did not look happy with that change, her hair having transformed into a greenish grey in the absence of pink. “I do not trust Scarlett,” the blanks mouth finally opened. That wave just now had cut off magical access to all electronic devices in the room. None of the elementals, not even Stirwin, had been harmed in the process.

She was, without a doubt, getting stronger, quickly as well. Nobody had any idea what kind of training she went through when she just upped and disappeared for hours on end.

“I trust her enough to go along with this,” John said, “but don’t worry, I took care of escape routes if we should get turned on. We will relocate further down the coast, probably somewhere in Florida, and try again there.”

“And bash her fucking brains in if she thinks she could get away with that,” Eliza commented, still being fed honeydew. The pure yellow stood out immensely in the otherwise changed world.

“Pretty much,” John said. “My revenge shall be swift and involve her bent over this table… well, I wouldn’t rape her, but spanking is in the program.”

“I wouldn’t mind being spanked,” a new passive voice joined the conversation. Beatrice entered the room and pulled the blue pin out of the position of the Ikea she had been tasked with defending in a robotic movement. “Reminder: I asked for my Libido to be raised to 25, but I have yet to make use of that in any way.”

“We can fix that in a minute, but first, did you make sure to lose convincingly?” John asked. Just ceding territory wouldn’t have been authentic, the enemy needed to feel like they were pushing against resistance to not call shenanigans. Therefore Aclysia, Rave and Beatrice had been going around losing fights on purpose. Nia had tried once to play the act, but she was trained exclusively in winning fights and not at all a good actor so she just beat them back, unable to pull her punches.

In a way, that was good, as never losing against people that were in one of the most high-profile engagements on the world stage was just as big a red flag as never fighting was. A few victories here and there were necessary to keep the appearance of an actual war up.

John had yet to face anyone himself, something that was about to change.

“Affirmative,” Beatrice answered, “I held the ground as Aclysia escorted everyone who wanted out through the teleporter.” That was another thing they currently did, the people that fled willingly to John’s side, despite it looking like he was losing, were most likely to be those who agreed with him and his actions on principle, not just because it looked like he was the new strongman in town. He could use those people in his administration. “I then stayed a little longer, making sure I looked defeated, before pulling back.”

“Good…” John checked his building menu. The Transport Station was still at 2/2 Outposts, but it also said 1 Damaged Outpost underneath, with a note explaining he would need to repair it to use it again. When the enemy had found they couldn’t follow, it seemed they had thought it best to just smash the thing.

With that barrier lost, Collide’s minimal presence on the east side of the Hudson was completely eradicated. On the west side, they still held a ring of bases centred around the Enclave. That was the point where John was supposed to appear and lose. Him doing so would make room for phase 3 of the plan.

The coalition had stayed away from that because it was the Gamer’s landing point; they were convinced that he concentrated his ‘remaining’ power there so they would need to amass their own assault crew.

Wonderous how all of that could happen in just a few days. It was literally yesterday that Beatrice had failed in her initial fighting trials. It had taken ten days to build what he got and four days for it to fall. Then again, it was all railroaded.

“Anyway, now we wait for them to attack us… and I will go ahead and fulfil Beatrice’s request!” John announced, acting like he was doing something for someone else. “How do you want to lose your virginity?” that felt like a weird thing to ask.

Beatrice thought about that for a second. “I don’t have strong preferences on the matter. However, in the interest of serving you to a maximum of your pleasure, Master, I suggest two options. A: threesome with Aclysia, B: orgy.”