Makesi finally recovered from closing the overlap late that afternoon and convened a meeting to begin shortly. It was a good thing that the level of investment of his Aspect he used here wasn't required for regular rifts. I'm not sure we'd ever succeed otherwise.

  Not with the unknown number we had to close on this continent alone.

  In the meeting room, I sat with my boots on the disassembled drone and my head on the soft curve of Aurin's chest. Across from us, Xinyu went through the motions of pouring herself a cup of tea. After taking a sip herself, she lowered the cup and blinked, as if surprised to find we’d been there the whole time.

  “Care for a cup?” she asked, a small, knowing smile playing at her lips.

  “Ren, what did I tell you about adopting fox girls?” Aurin asked, her tone serious.

  “Absolutely nothing?”

  “And that would be because?”

  “Your lecture was on catgirls and catboys. Which Xinyu is clearly not one of,” I questioned, turning my gaze up at Aurin, wondering why I even put knowledge of catpeople in her mind. It felt really important at the time for some reason. “Tea would be lovely, though. Thank you.”

  I reached out and picked up the cup of tea that Xinyu had made appear. She didn’t bother to take the time to pour as she did hers. Without removing my eyes from the bottom of Aurin's chin, I took a sip.

  “Now we've been over this, the catgirl example was a stand-in using the knowledge I had at the time. We both know you had a predisposition to getting attached to people with unique and quirky characteristics. Remember your first, what was it again? Six relationships?” Aurin asked, before turning to look down at me to meet my eyes. Her arms around me tightened slightly, and I felt her heart rate pick up as my glamour took effect.

  “First of all, it was seven, get your facts straight. Just because I like a good gimmick doesn't mean I lose my head every time a furry walks past me,” I said, placing a hand against her cheek and making puppy-dog eyes at her to increase my power level.

  “Yet here we are, a fucking kitsune—”

  “She's actually a huli jing,” I tried to get in mid-sentence, but Aurin didn't stop for my important correction.

  “Has joined me in your mind. One you can't get rid of and don't know the motive of. I can't believe it, I leave you alone for ten fucking minutes!” Aurin continued, blowing through my charm effect like it wasn't even there.

  To be fair, I wasn't really putting my all into it.

  “I swear if you've been affectionate with her just because you don't know how to be with me unless I physically restrain you…” she grumbled.

  “I mean, I only kissed her once, and that's because—” I tried.

  “Oh, ONLY kissed her once, she says?!” Aurin shouted, before grabbing my face and locking her lips with mine. The passion she was demonstrating belied the meaning behind her words.

  “I've joined a group of buffoons, have I?” Xinyu quietly asked from across the room.

  “Was it any good?” Aurin asked when she finally let me go.

  “Eh, would have been better if she didn't hock up a hairball into my mouth,” I replied, waggling a hand from side to side to demonstrate my feelings.

  Vivi let out a snort from the doorway as she entered the briefing room, “Sorry, what the fuck did I just walk into?” She was clearly putting effort into seeing Aurin, who was offstage at the moment and otherwise only visible to Xinyu and me.

  “Ren's going to be picking up strays from here on out, apparently. In a very literal fashion,” Aurin responded, pointing to Xinyu, who had shifted over to looking like a white fox.

  “Wait… did you find a miniature version of the rule enforcer? Oh, by Dust! It's so cute!” Vivi said, flying across the room to scoop the fox up in her arms.

  “Don't make any agreements with the fox, please,” I warned, despite the fact she wasn't paying any attention. She was busy nuzzling Xinyu's face against hers while floating midair. “Oh. Because I already did so first, go ahead and do whatever with her. I don't care.” I added, for Aurin, just so she didn't feel left out.

  Whether she even wanted to fuck the foxgirl didn't cross my mind.

  “Do you think she would wear the collar?” Aurin asked, prompting me to sit up straight and begin removing it.

  “That's a fucking great idea! Hey Xinyu, I've got the costume for the role you're playing here,” I said, holding the collar out for her.

  She stared blankly at it for a moment before letting out a chuff, ignoring my request entirely, licking Vivi’s face instead of putting a cool collar on. Vivi giggled while my fox tossed about in her arms.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “Gross,” I muttered, putting the collar back on and turning it on.

  Vivi fell from the air, and Xinyu let out a yelp when my emotions washed over them.

  “Hey, Ren?” Aurin asked, placing a hand on my head.

  “Yeah, Aurin?”

  “Why are you so worried?”

  “Ohhh, is that what I was feeling? I can never tell the difference between excitement and anxiety,” I replied while trying to judge my internal state. My chest had this tightness to it that I never knew how to interpret.

  “Ren, that wasn't an answer to the question.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” I replied, switching my collar off when I noticed the door start to open.

  “Alright, someone give me a report on how the Water Office is being handled,” Makesi asked as he entered, Aisling following at his heels. I needed to get the story on how those two met someday.

  Happy to change the topic I pulled up the notes I had made in the System. Then started providing an outline of the situation.

  “So I spent earlier today checking in on how the memetic virus’s spread was going and I linked up with the resistance cell. It seems like almost the entirety of the camp has been infected and at least the majority are already converted. They are going to make a move tonight,” I began. This was all technically information I could have derived just by looking at the camp because of that overlaid mental map.

  If I had to give a name for the mental symbiote phenomena, it would be that every character role was being combined into a single background extra faction. I couldn't wait to spend some time with it to see what it would allow me to do.

  “How are you going to handle the body snatcher?” Vivi asked, while she ruffled Xinyu's ears.

  I gave her a mental nudge to stop pretending to be a fox. Despite her mind snapping back at my touch, insisting that she was a fox no matter her form she acquiesced.

  “She'll handle that part,” I replied, pointing to the now grown woman that Vivi was cradling in her arms. My other hand going to my temple that was throbbing from her reflexive mental attack.

  “What the fuck!” Vivi exclaimed, dropping the fox girl on the ground and skittering away.

  “Did you already forget that I gained her as a Temporary Asset?” I asked incredulously.

  “I wasn’t thinking about your Assets or whatever. I just thought it was a cute fox,” Vivi grumbled.

  “Well, she still sort of is… but that's besides the point. In exchange for the sword, she'll sever the karmic ties that are allowing the body swaps to happen.”

  “And you have enough control over your… Asset, for that to be a good idea?” Makesi asked, leaning forward against the table as he examined Xinyu, who was picking herself off the floor.

  She shot me a displeased look, but I just met her gaze and watched as she wilted under it.

  “Yeah, I'd say I do,” I replied, inclining my head forward slightly.

  Xinyu nodded vigorously, “I'll do whatever mistre—you need to secure control of the Office.”

  I let eye contact with her drop to focus back on Makesi.

  “Great, how is the turnover going to work? Given you have to be the one to come up with the plan… for some reason. Where do you need us?” Makesi asked. I could hear the reluctance in his voice at handing off decision-making authority to me. To be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of it either. I preferred the idea of being that person over the comms that had to hack into the system so the protagonist could gain access to an important room.

  Not that those movies ever got hacking right, it involved a lot more seduction in reality, surprisingly enough. Social engineering and all that.

  But Aisling’s planning book spoke, and we answered.

  I broke down the plan the union had given me. Since the officer corps was prioritized to spread the meme to, they already held the reins. Anyone who wasn't interested in joining us would be taken out to the karst forest and given a persuasive lecture.

  “Will they really be persuaded by being threatened? What if one tries to run? We don't want the exposure that becoming a threat to upper management would bring just yet,” Makesi asked, pouring himself a cup of tea from Xinyu's pot while she glared daggers at him. When he finally set it down, the pot stopped existing. On taking a sip his face lit up, and his tongue flicked out as if tasting the air above the tea, “This is quite nice, it tastes almost like home.”

  “Oh, persuasion was a euphemism. Traitors to the cause will not be tolerated, and their bodies will return to the soil from whence they came,” I replied, then took a sip of the tea Xinyu had made for me. It was really quite good.

  Aisling shifted where she stood as Makesi slowly nodded.

  “You're getting rather invested in your little uprising, are you?” he asked.

  “Hardly, I'm assuring it meets our goals. Any other coincidentally positive outcomes are not of my doing. I don't foresee any problems popping up from here on out. Xinyu and I can handle the commander ourselves, I've already killed him once I can do it again. From there, the new workers' council under my control will take charge with no fluff,” I replied, then sent a copy of the notes I took during the union meeting to my team members.

  With that, I was pretty sure we were done, only for Aurin to nudge me in a way that implied she wanted to be made visible. Turning to look up at her, I pulled her onstage.

  “You’ve structured it so nothing can actually go wrong, assuming your converts follow through. So why are you anxious about the plan?” Aurin asked, poking my side with every word in her question.

  “I… well, it's stupid. But this all feels too easy. So when is the other shoe going to drop?” I told the room while nestling myself into her.

  “I don't see where any issue could arise while carrying out the takeover,” Aisling said, taking her notebook out to scratch something down in it. “If you feel like your Archetype is telling you something must go wrong, that could relate to after we've taken control of the Office branch.”

  “See, it was stupid. Everything is going to go great. As for what happens next, just improvising that will be fine. I'm not worried in that regard,” I replied with a wave of my hand.

  “Whatever it is, there's no use speculating. Shall we confront the Commander now, then? It's coming up on the time that your operatives are going to make their moves,” Makesi said, and a round of nods passed through the room. “Also, Ren in Dust's path, please come up with a better plan than ‘just improvise’ for our next steps.”

  I sent him an REB salute as I rose from Aurin's lap, with zero intention to follow that request.

  Discord Server if you'd like to chat with other fans of my work!