A chat with Artemis, sort of

Safiya embraces your body for a little longer, before she nods, standing up. "Let's have a quick talk, we can always return to what we were doing earlier. But first, a sitrep now that we've got a moment. How are you feeling? Any pain?"

You look down at yourself, shaking your head and tapping at your stomach. "Nothing, I feel fine. Should I feel something?"

With a shrug, Safiya strolled slightly away from you, looking down at herself as her riding outfit shifted into an orange dress, one that showed a massive amount of cleavage for the shapely body your partner inhabited. Seeing you look, she smiles deviously and shimmies her hips, putting her hand on her chest. "I know you want to meet the girls, you'll just have to be patient. I'd like to see you without that armor too, though I don't know how to get it off of you, there's no buckles or anything." Safiya's expression turns serious again as she steps over to you, sitting her plump rear by your head as you lay on the circular couch. "I bound you to Artemis in every way I could think of, so her body is like scaffolding holding you together and keeping you alive. I also patched up the wound as best as I could, but technically the bolt is still sticking through you. The moment I take you out of phase, you'll need medical attention, and it'll hurt again. But we shouldn't worry about that right now."

You blinked and sat up. "You're already able to bind me to another person, couldn't you have just patched me up?"

"I think you wouldn't have wanted me to try in that moment," Safiya said with a chuckle. "I know how to phasebind things together and I can do it really fast, I'll need to download some medical knowledge if I'm going to fix you. There are medical smart-gels that would be better suited to reconstructing damaged organic matter, I'm far better with living tissue when everything's in the right place. But the simple answer is that even if I could have patched you up quickly instead of doing what I did, you'd have still been injured and we would've needed a bargaining chip like these bodies to get out of there at all. We'll look at a proper recovery once we're done with these two."

With a nod, you rest back into the cushions. "So, you're going to chat with Artemis, I'll sit still, you get answers, then we'll go back to having a nice time for the day. A fair plan?"

Safiya nodded as well, putting her hand to your head, touching at your ear. "Just relax, I'm just making the necessary adjustments..." You felt the chill of the gel slide in, and then moments later you felt your face move on its own--no longer under your control. You flexed your hands and feed, just to ensure you didn't lose your grasp on the body elsewhere. Staying relaxed as you put your arms at your side, you moved your head to look in Safiya's direction.

"Who are you?" Safiya asked, crossing her arms under her massive bust as she tried to appear serious. "And who am I, for that matter? And the others, what were all of you doing at that facility?"

You felt the smirk form on your face. "You know who I am already, fools. Your friend takes my name as their own, but it shall not remain stolen long. I am Artemis, you are Safiya, you met Freyja and Jupiter. That's all you'll get out of me, save for this promise: if you make me kiss my supervisor again, when I am freed of these invisible shackles I will strike you both down with a rain of arrows. If Safiya does not merely turn you into bugs to crush under her heel first."

Safiya squinted. "So serious! Your companions seemed more fun." She looked your body up and down, trying to seem professional in the moment. "It's pretty clear you work for, what was it, 'Lady King'? What use does she have for a Geistknight? What even is a Geistknight?"

Artemis stared daggers at Safiya, but her lips remained sealed.

"I'm sure I could find out, though." Safiya stepped back to you, a finger running along your chestplate, causing you to shiver in anticipating of being yet again so close to the sexy form before you. "This gem is what catches my eye the most, it's beautiful. And... interesting. It's been phasebound to the body. Now, why would someone do that?"

You felt Artemis' face twitch when Safiya somehow said the magic words. The Tex side of your partner must have a sort of sense for when things are bound or not, which makes sense given their nature as being able to move objects in and out of reality.

"Let's take it out. Maybe the armor goes away then."

"Nnn--" Artemis started to say, momentarily panicked. She certainly believed that your partner was plenty capable of such things after what she's witnessed while her consciousness took a backseat in her body. She quieted down again, save for a few twitches. Of course, you held her body steady, so her protests barely registered. Safiya waited for a moment to see if Artemis suddenly felt more talkative, but she seemed fiercely loyal to her boss and thus remained quiet.

Safiya grabbed at the gemstone in the chestplate, plucked between two fingers, as some orange gel flowed from her to sever the phasebinding and disconnect the gem from Artemis's body.

The change that resulted came swiftly! The armor vanished, pulled into the slightly cracked gemstone, leaving you with no protective layer. However, your body shifted as well, as your form shrank considerably, losing nearly all muscle tone, and gaining a little bit of a plump rump in the process! Longer brown hair in a ponytail teased at your shoulders, and when you felt your eyes look down, your own slightly heavy chest and a slightly chubby tummy, clad in a long-sleeve shirt with a cartoon bunny on the front, were all you saw. If there was ever a mom-bod, this was it!

"Ooh, wow! I didn't know you could do that," said your mouth, talking nothing like the fearsome Artemis and more like a nasally woman from Wisconsin. "Goodness, though, what a rush! It's sure been a day, huh? Wow, just, wow. First of all, please don't hurt me, I already get the vibe you don't plan on it but I just want to cover my bases and just get that right out in the open, and just ask whatever you like!" Where Artemis responded to a stressful situation with silence, it seemed this new person had the opposite approach! "First off, how do you do, my name's Tracy, I'm a thirty-eight-year-old mother of three precious little boys who all live with their heartless cheating dad, but I guess that gives me a lot of time to work in my garden, huh? Hahah!"

You saw the smile form on Safiya's lips, before she covered her face with a hand to stifle a laugh. She turned around for a moment, to compose herself, before turning back. Even then, her words occasionally fluctuated as she held back a laugh. "Tracy, how lovely to meet you. You've been with us this whole time, you're the Geistknight?"

"Oh yeah, I've been watching, we're a bit of an onion right now, huh? People inside other people, I got kinda used to it after a while with me and Artemis. I'm not actually the Geistknight though, I'm just the vessel since I'm blood-related to the original Geistknight! Artemis gets summoned by Miss King, she does her thing, I get a paycheck when I go back to normal so I can get the extra-fancy stuff to feed my cat. That stuff is expensive, don'tcha know? But Purrcival loves it, just--"

Safiya cleared her throat, and Tracy stopped talking. You crossed your arms, getting a feel for a far squishier body--it was a far cry from the muscular shape you'd adored, though you admitted there was a cuteness to this one when you saw her reflection in the glass. Still, cute wasn't what you'd planned on! "So she phasebinds a gem to you, and then Artemis does her bidding?"

"That's what Geistknights do, whoever summons them can command them, usually by saying something like 'Geistknight, I summon thee'. Though usually they have to be dismissed by the same person to go away, it seems you, um, found a bit of a loophole there, huh? If the gems weren't cracked and broken, the phasebinding wouldn't be necessary, but they're just gems without a vessel now."

With a tilt of her head, Safiya looked at the gem again. "So, I could summon Artemis back and she would work for us now?"

"If you pop the gem back into me with your phase magic, then I suppose so." Tracy smiled up at Safiya, a bit of red forming on her face. "If you do that, are you planning on more kissing? I mean, I don't tend to think of myself as attracted to the ladies, but the way you were kissing, it felt amazing, really. I, err, wouldn't mind more of that. Let's just say my online dating profile isn't pulling in the catch of the day, huh? And Artemis keeps to herself, she's not like the party animals Freyja and Jupiter... those two get wild after a pint of beer, I've got some real stories there!"

"Another time," Safiya said, again trying to stifle a laugh as she sat next to you, gazing deep into your eyes. "I appreciate your cooperation, Tracy. And I think you're lovely as you are, you deserve a proper catch of the day." She leans in for another kiss, this time meant to help establish a stronger bond to this talkative woman. You could learn probably whatever you wanted from her about the whole operation with how she spills details so easily! And you felt your lips respond in kind, helping the process by wrapping your arm around Safiya's waist. You felt your body begin to heat up again, shivering as electricity seemed to course down your spine as clearly Tracy responded favorably to this touch.

"Ohhhhh gosh," Tracy said as Safiya pulled away, her eyes remaining closed for some time before blinking wide open again. "I don't know who you all are, but I think I need to be taken hostage more often!"

Safiya bit the bottom of her lip. "I suppose one might call it that... but I promise we'll let you go later."

"And, um, what if I like this arrangement better?" Tracy said with a blush. "With all of this. Do you have to let us go? Safiya's body looks good under new management! You all can keep doing what you do, Artemis will be on your side, just... I don't know that normal's what I want to return to, not with the people I, or I suppose Artemis works for. I've seen good sides in Safiya and the Geistknights, but I've seen some real bad sides too. I don't get the sense you all are bad or anything, I just think maybe this situation's better how it is now. Your friend can stay in control of me, that's fine, I'm used to it, I just see you two wanting to get cozy with each other and I am here for it."

The silence that followed Tracy's admission lingered for some time, before eventually Safiya nodded. "Tell you what, I'll talk it over with my partner and we'll... we'll see. For now, I'm going to test your theory on how Artemis will react to being summoned again, and then we'll see how the rest of the day progresses. Fair?"

"Okey-dokey, artichokey." You clenched your fists a little, feeling the immense mom energy Tracy exuded in stark contrast to what you'd expected when first entering this body.

Safiya affixed the gem back to you, using phasebinding techniques to weave it back into Tracy's body. Satisfied she'd returned it to how it was, Safiya stepped back and looked right at the smiling Tracy and yourself to begin the next experiment.

"Geistknight, I summon thee."