“Light me a cigarette,” Scarlett demanded, her naked body sprawled out on the table. Glops of semen oozed out of her pussy and red strains around her neck clearly marked where John’s hand had been through the majority of their engagement. Now that they were done with the sex, their roles reverted to their every day relationship. “There are packs in the uppermost drawer.”

John pulled it out and was greeted with the sight of boxes upon boxes of the stuff, amongst a bunch of extra lighters. “You really shouldn’t smoke that much,” he told her while placing one of the tobacco sticks between her lips.

“Shut it,” she jabbed back while taking a deep huff that pulled oxygen through the fire, igniting the cigarette. With quivering arms, she raised her upper body off the table at least that little bit and tapped the ash off the tip. “Smoking after sex is great. Don’t knock what you didn’t try.” Challengingly, she extended the arm holding cigarette towards him.

After a moment’s hesitation, John shrugged and grabbed. ‘Might as well try what this is about,’ he thought. The smoke scratched through his throat and only stayed in his lungs for a second before he exhaled forcefully. “Just no,” he maintained his opinion and hastily returned the rod of poisonous leaves to the person that actually liked damaging her internal organs.

“Your loss, have fun living into your thousands,” Scarlett sarcastically replied as she went back to huffing. “Any reason you were so insistant on cumming inside me like five times? Normally you spread that more evenly.”

“Much like you wearing high heels, I don’t have a logical answer for you,” John stated and sat down in her leather chair, just as naked as she was, except for the sunglasses. “I guess it’s because I almost died a bit too often recently, but my instincts are yelling at me to leave my genome somewhere… you are on birth control, right?”

“Still yes,” Scarlett blew a ring of smoke into the air, followed quickly by a simple pillar that accurately went through that ring. “Guess you only got the craving and not the actual wish, if you ask that.”

“If I did, Eliza would be running around in a much better mood,” John reported. “No, just a kink right now, I expect it’ll pass eventually. At the very least, I am not going to impregnate someone without thinking very carefully about it.”

“Whatever floats your boat.” Scarlett rolled over on her stomach, hiding her ravaged throat but showing off her bouncy butt that was almost as red as her hair. “As long as it also floats mine, we won’t have problems.” The circuits in her eyes began to dance as she began moving ones and zeros somewhere John couldn’t see.

“Like you having a problem is of any importance for my decision making,” he joked.

“It better be,” she bantered back. “Since I am twelve percent of your entire economy right now.” She snickered to herself. “If you think I don’t already have stocks in former Maryland territory, you are pretty naïve.”

“Of course, I know that,” John rolled his eyes, a gesture accompanied by slight neck movement to make it actually sensible for her. “Twelve percent through? My last estimation came out at nine, maybe ten.” The palm of his hand landed on her butt with only light slap, gliding over the bloodshot meat for a little while. “Do I have to break in some monopolies?”

“Do you mean break UP?”

“I know what I said,” he stared into her eyes, and she gave him a pleased smirk.

“Well, we’ll have that conversation when I get there,” she decided for them, finally having calmed enough to move. “Unless you don’t trust me enough to continue?” She put weight on her feet and almost collapsed as the muscles of her lower abdomen and legs hadn’t quite recovered from the punishment they had received.

John wasn’t even needed, Scarlett had held onto the edge of the table in anticipation of this, but he still moved in to catch her. “No, we’re good,” he assured her. “I need your expertise in all of this. I don’t have the time to deal with the economy in addition to all this politicking. Neither do I have the know-how.” He leaned closer, “I need you,” and kissed her. The taste of smoke on her tongue didn’t bother him whatsoever in that moment.

“You are being one charismatic stud, I have to give that to you,” Scarlett told him when their lips parted. He fell back into his chair, adjusted his glasses and watched as she walked over to the pile of clothes they had produced. Grabbing her red lace panties, she began the process of getting herself dressed again. The fact that the cloth darkened immediately upon contact with her crotch made John oddly satisfied.

He was ready to put on the nerdy get-up that he had entered in again when the wall parted and Aclysia stepped in. The weaponized maid took a small bow the moment she was inside. “Thank you for letting me in.”

“We are done now, there was no sense in letting you wait any longer,” the redhead factually responded. John wondered if that meant that Aclysia had been waiting outside and for how long. Neither were important; she hadn’t contacted him, so she must have had no urgent wish to interrupt their lovemaking.

Crossing the distance, Aclysia presented John with his new suit. It was simple and well-fabricated. Black vest and pants, white shirt, no tie, the way John liked it. He put it on within a few moments, using his inventory, and made a slightly dissatisfied face.

“Something the matter, Master?” Aclysia asked, always concerned about even his slightest displeasures.

“Just… feeling the quality change,” John explained. The suit was light, soft and made from costly materials. Yet the Gamer, thinking of his previous, enchanted suit, could still feel the numerous ways it could be improved. It sat just slightly off around his shoulders, the back of his neck rubbed against a corner in the shirt, and the pants were just a tad tighter than he wanted. Small irritations, an inch away from the perfection he had gotten used to.

It was ignorable with the t-shirt and the slouching pants because he had expected and knew how those felt. The suit just didn’t measure up to his old standard. However, it would only have to do for now and he would have been complaining about very inconsequential things if he said any of this out loud.

“I need to get back on that sewing idea…” Aclysia was already taking precautions against future instances of this anyway.

“I really don’t get your hatred for ties,” Scarlett commented as she fixed her own. Aside from that and her shoes, she was also clothed again.

“Excuse me that I like to breathe,” John retorted.

“Do I look like I am suffocating?” the Technomancer asked, gesturing towards her red tie. “Maybe you are just awful at binding them?”

“Could be, I like my image without though,” John stated, leaving the upper button of his shirt purposefully open to tease some collarbone. At that point, Scarlett conceded the argument. “Anyway, we have used up enough time.” He didn’t say ‘wasted’ since he didn’t really feel like that would have been a proper expression for something that he so willingly partook in. “Let’s talk strategy.”

“We bloody best,” Scarlett agreed, not dropping her American way of talking for the British phrase. The look towards the outside was slowly blocked by a massive screen rising out of a gap in the floor that had just opened. John spared himself the question how many inches that thing had and the innuendo that would doubtlessly follow it. Instead, he just mustered the map of their current situation that appeared on it.

“Way less change than I hoped,” the redhead commented, falling into her chair with a sound equal parts relief, from no longer having to stand on her wobbly legs, and pain, from her ravaged bottom.

“Well, I like your optimism, that you already coloured in the Hidden Tradition as if we could trust them and they are going to become part of Fusion eventually,” John drily noted, completely prepared for the correction coming his way.

“If they aren’t at least our allies, you are going to die in that meeting, so we might as well take the condition allowing our current plans to continue as a given. Otherwise you will be gone and I’ll… you can imagine I have plans,” she added that last part hastily, as if she didn’t want to think about that possibility more than necessary.

She was as pragmatic as usual, but the way she confessed her feelings through little gestures like that was absolutely adorable. “Yeah… for better or for worse, we have to assume they are with us.”

“Which brings us to the question of how we are going to handle the Lake Alliance,” Scarlett stated. “Best case, all hostilities cease and we have to take no further actions regarding them. Middle case, most likely in my opinion, they are going to remain openly hostile. Worst case, they will retract obvious meddling but will work against us in every way open to them.”

Aclysia was a bit confused by that. “Wouldn’t the worst case be open hostility with them?”

Scarlett shook her head, grabbed her packet of cigarettes, only to throw it back into the drawer. “We can use the enemy more than we can use the hostility. Not only is a force we are at war with a brilliant propaganda tool, it is also much easier to fight in a war than it is to find spies – in the Abyss, at least.” The drawer closed with the smooth whisper of well-maintained parts. “It will also serve to polarize the area. That could be ultimately bad for us, but in the current situation, we have more tools to abuse than they do. For example, we can pull the Small Lake Pact into our sphere by promising them backing in getting control over the unclaimed land between us.”

“Didn’t you say they were basically terrorists?” John remembered the description he had of that, otherwise unremarkable, force. “Bunch of mediocre guys that maintain power through aimed strikes guided by a good leader?”

“Good enough for the task at least,” Scarlett commented. “They also maintain a healthy slave trade, don’t care about abusive mana factory practices and have an ‘all accepted’ policy for traitors from any enemy camps.”

“Not exactly people I want to work with,” John summarized but looked at the map, reacting to it with a grimace. “Necessity might make a hypocrite out of me, won’t it?”

“With one move you would secure your northern borders against any large-scale operation and gain an ally already schooled at border skirmishes with your enemy,” Scarlett simply laid the facts out for him. “You can worry about your morality once the war is won. Whenever you are the local power, nothing is stopping you from crushing them into submission.”

“Yeah… I will likely do it,” was as much of a promise as he was willing to make. The whole idea behind Fusion was to not work with people like that; the Small Lake Pact sounded way worse than what he knew of the Lake Alliance, who only tolerated these practices rather than promoting them. However, he couldn’t do anything if Fusion no longer existed, so he might have to swallow the poison to fend off the disease. “What about Amacat?”

“They are there,” Scarlett told him. “Making what little money their position allows them. They have much more to gain from siding with you than the Lake Alliance, given your relations with overseas business partners, but I don’t see them giving troops or joining your cause at large. They pay lip service to the banning of forceful mana factories, but they don’t check the insides often.”

“Slavery?”

“Third biggest guild in export, fourth import. They don’t enslave themselves and protect all members from such a thing, but they have no problem being the trafficker.”

“…Well, they got halfway there,” John had to give them some credit. “Seems like I could convince them to go the whole way if I promised the right things. You don’t think they will support on arms though?”

“They will happily sell you everything you want in the way of arms,” Scarlett repeated more specifically. “Manpower or an absolute agreement to join Fusion? Much less likely. You will have to butter them up for a while and, frankly, the exchanges you had via email aren’t going to cut it. Someone has to go there.”

“Alright… that we have to absorb the rest of the Maryland goes without saying,” John contradicted that by speaking out loud. The original intention had been to gain access to the unorganized small and medium sized guilds in the south by annexing the DC centred guild. Currently, John was also rightful head of state of that land, so he had to get it for more than just big picture reasons.

Problem was that he wasn’t exactly in fighting shape right now. Meaning that he had to delegate that to someone able as well. At least there were some good news, if the Hidden Tradition joined John, they could expand westwards as well.

At least if the Lake Alliance didn’t decide that they had to get there before him.

“Any chances any powers surrounding the Lake Alliance could help us?” John wondered. He knew the Golden Rose was active in the middle of the continent, although he doubted, he could spin that particular relationship into a quick alliance. Aside from that, he was largely reliant on Scarlett’s council.

“I would be very surprised,” Scarlett told him. “There are power struggles everywhere right now… well, its America, so there are always power struggles everywhere. Basically, people are hoping we and the Lake Alliance bash each other’s brains out for the next few years so we are nice and weak when they themselves get in a position to act against us. Which is exactly what I would do.”

“Yup,” John agreed. “What do we in the worst case?”

“What can we do?” Scarlett shrugged, one hand inside her vest to keep contact with her smartphone and through it access to the internet. “I think our strategy towards the Amacat shouldn’t change. Having hegemony over the East Coast should be one of our highest priorities. Although you can be more thorough in your diplomacy, since there is no official reason to be hasty. The empty lands would be part of a chess game rather than our promise to the Small Lake Pact, it seems better if we annex them if we have the time to build them up again. Otherwise, we have to take extra precautions against sabotage… and send more forces south.”

If there was no obvious war, the Lake Alliance had every reason to send aid to the rebels in the southern Maryland. What would hopefully be a quick affair could turn into a lengthy, resource sapping guerrilla war under the right circumstances.

John checked his phone. “I better go and find out what it’s going to be.”