It takes some time

Throughout the course of two weeks, James and Lucas-Ivy worked their angles with their marks for the plan of adding Beth's body into the mix. During the two weeks, they were model students for Mr. Iverson to not suspect any unusual activity. Ivy's grades saw an immediate boost--soon the only C's she had were encased in her bra. For the most part, during the school day, Lucas and Ivy played along as James's girlfriend, and then after school was split between some time with Ivy without the mask, and some times with it on so Luke was able to at least have some fun as well as all this work they had to do. The batteries on the Ascend units were stellar, so there was never really a concern about using it for a full day if they wanted.

James would still stop by the hospital to 'visit' Luke, usually alone but one time with Ivy in tow to see the weird feedback loop of Lucas looking at himself in bed through the Ascend headset. They only did that once, before Ivy decided to just wait in the hospital lobby. More importantly, James was able to run into Luke's dad and talk about the headset. It took time, and he had to patiently set up the premise that the headsets were glitchy or faulty, and could potentially shut off in the middle of school. Given that Luke's dad worked for the rival of Hideki Tech, he seemed to just assume that their tech was prone to bugs, but convincing him to then order a second one as a backup. The only thing worse than buying one buggy device was buying two of them, in his mind... but, eventually he relented and placed the order. James had done just enough to convince him that it would be better to be safe than sorry, since if something happened during these big upcoming tests it would push him below the GPA threshold.

Ivy had the benefit of two minds to think of ways to approach Bethany about the idea of using the Ascend headset. Bethany Wood was a drama student, often featuring in the various school plays and productions throughout the year. Despite her love of all things cinema--which was where Luke and Beth had the most in common, they could talk for hours about a sci-fi film, and had gone to conventions together--she never seemed to get the same 'nerd' label that the rest of your group had. Probably because while Ivy had to develop into her body, Beth had always been ahead of the curve in growing up. Her long, dark brown hair and green eyes, coupled with her body that Ivy had always envied, should've technically put her out of Luke's league. And yet, somehow, Luke managed to maintain a foothold with her, enough to where they would try to date and then Beth would lose interest and move on for a bit, only to return for a little while for the nerdy cinema talk. Lucas seemed to conflate "talking about movies" with "actually dating", which made things more complicated.

Still, Ivy and Lucas had a plan. They had to hype Beth up in the same way a thrilling movie would, by gently pulling her in with new details that left her wanting more and more information. The Ivy half was able to utilize her friendly charms, while the Lucas half could construct the plot. Ivy planted the idea of the Ascend headset into Beth's consciousness by talking about it one day from some sort of sci-fi magazine, where Beth at first didn't believe it was possible. Ivy didn't push her on that, not at first, but she did ask a lot of hypotheticals--trying to understand what Beth would do if she had the device, mixed with someone else. After enough prodding, finding out that Beth would consider the opportunity with a friend in a purely hypothetical sense, the stage was set.

Ivy slowly introduced the idea that she was not just herself to Beth, with various mannerisms, or little tokens of affection that would remind Beth of Luke. After about a week, at Beth's house for a study session, Ivy reveals the secret that in school, she had partly been Lucas. Simultaneously amazed and weirded out, Beth didn't believe that Ivy would be so willing to share her body with a guy, but after using the mask, and giving Beth voice control to change the percentage of the mix so she could ask both sides independently to prove that this wasn't some elaborate prank... she was convinced. And she was, frankly, excited by the possibility! What better way to improve as an actress than being able to let someone in, to become them by having them actually a part of the body?

Still, it took more time for Ivy and Lucas to convince Bethany to actually want to try it with James. She had already convinced Beth that she was part of a secret program for injured people to continue living normally and that she actually stumbled on a way to take the best of both worlds in one body; to introduce the romantic subplot was a whole other matter. At the moment, Beth wasn't attracted to Ivy, and her affections for Luke weren't as strong as he thought. Ivy took a different angle, suggesting that it would help Luke acclimate more if his best friend was in a similar situation and could help out. While the romance angle didn't work, the idea that Beth could be like a heroic secret agent watching out for another person won her over, that was the plotline that sunk in.

James had taken the backup hardware from Luke's dad for 'safekeeping' when it came in, and had given the receiver to Ivy that Friday. Ivy said that she would try to get Beth to put on the headset around 8 PM, so all James would have to do is wear it around then and wait. He hooked everything up, and then lay down, letting the transmitter headset pull him into a disembodied virtual world, after ensuring nobody else in his house was going to bother him for an afternoon while he was 'studying' in his room.

The little clock in the corner of the headset eventually flashed 8, and James braced himself for whatever would happen next.