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“Just put on the handcuffs, Menja.” Victor said, “We don’t want to hurt you, but right now we have a master-stranger situation. Until we know exactly what’s going on, we have to keep you locked down. We can talk to Hookwolf when we link up, ok?”

These were the first words Snow heard when she arrived, and she didn’t much care for them. Staying locked down was exactly the opposite of what Master Gil had planned, and there wasn’t much time to explain. She looked at the man in red who was close enough to hold her hand. He looked firm, confident, and just a little bit cold while he looked her in the eyes and proffered a pair of linked silver bracelets.

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Snow said, “I need to leave, actually.”

“It’s happening!” A woman across the room snapped. “Take her down now!”

Snow turned for the door and started to run, but the man snatched at her bare arm and pulled it straight. With a sickening crunch he slammed her elbow with his hand, bending it backwards and breaking her arm. The man seemed almost surprised that had worked, hesitating for only a moment before sweeping her legs out from under her and knocking her heavily to the floor.

Snow was saved by one thing and one thing alone: Nessa was no longer a conventionally shaped humanoid, at least not when her armor was on. Victor was a master of dozens of martial arts styles, new and ancient, and virtually none of them accounted for attacks from a lashing prehensile tail that hadn’t been present seconds earlier. Snow shrieked in pain, and a sheath of stone armor wrapped around her body protectively. Her tail instinctively mirrored Victor’s tactic, hooking around one leg and yanking hard to unbalance him. Her broken arm was encased in a kind of heavy stone mitten, taking nearly all of the weight upon the Symbiote instead of the broken bone.

Snow scrabbled on all fours, a configuration her body was infinitely more comfortable with than Victor was, and bowled past the guards at the door in something approaching blind panic. He stood faster than most humans could ever hope to match, but she was fleeing at a loping gait that no level of technique could compensate for. Her borrowed fighting instincts informed her that she could probably beat most of these men if pressed, but that only shifted what it was she was fleeing. She didn’t want to hurt anyone.

“Sorry!” She peeped as she shouldered the guards aside and dashed through the corridors, defended by the fog of war. Minutes ago, Nessa had been one of these men’s champions and they’d all seen her new armor during and after the battle. Even when the alarm went out, most were more inclined to assume she was responding to the threat, and would not dare open fire upon her even if they tried to restrain her.

Once she was outside, crawling out of a convenient broken window and making handholds with her claws until she could safely leap down, she made herself grow. Bigger meant faster. The only problem, unfortunately, was that Snow hadn’t the foggiest idea of where the Leviathan Memorial was, so the best she could do was flee into the night at random.

••••••••••

Snow sucked in air when she returned, coughing and starting to cry. It only lasted a few moments before stress resistance kicked in. The young woman, always resilient, received a thousand tiny reminders that she was safe now thanks to her body’s augmented brain chemistry. Gil held her hand, and she calmed down almost instantly.

“Miss Nessa is in danger!” Snow said. “They attacked me almost immediately after I became her! I had to run away but I didn’t know where to go!”

Gil blinked a few times, then cursed under his breath. That was blasted inconvenient. He had been hoping that Snow would quietly slip away, but he somewhat doubted that people failed to notice the Princess Classic in the body of a Nordic war goddess fleeing the Nazi HQ. The good news, at least, was that Nessa was almost certainly away from the base and knew the city well enough to find her way home. Better than he did, anyway. He could pop out on Boco and check on Nessa when Keilnei got back in, he estimated, ten to fifteen minutes.

He had about two hours to go, and more importantly he had a test to run.

Absolute Gullibility Spray wasn’t the most common item sold by the company, but Gil had experience with it and company consumables in general. As a general rule, they used local physics where possible, even when the effect was overtly supernatural. It was likely that Snow’s brain was the thing being magically influenced, as opposed to Nessa’s soul. There was a near-zero chance that some random person would be able to shove some new belief into her brain on her way home.

With that said, company consumables were generally single target. There were special exceptions where multiple entities shared the same space or a single entity was in multiple places at once, such as possession or hive minds. It was usually a little fuzzier when it came to multiple people sharing the same body at different times. Right now it was entirely possible that Snow’s brain was in a hyper-receptive and suggestible state, and if so he could bring in as many other members of his retinue as he wanted in order to make tweaks. First, though, there was a very easy test.

“Did you need to hurt anyone on the way out?” Gil asked, with honest but exaggerated concern. “You know it’s ok if you did. When you’re following my orders, it’s always ok to fight when **** to. Bad people deserve to get hurt.”

“Oh, I know you believe that, Master Gil.” Snow said, letting out a puff of air. “I just can’t, though. You have so many people good at fighting, but I just… I can’t imagine hurting someone else on purpose. I think my tail might have seriously scratched that man; it was made of such jagged rocks.”

Gil nodded ruefully. That was fair enough. It was possible that Snow was slightly more receptive to his words, but not so much that she was going to change her worldview or stop arguing. Just enough to entertain the idea and respond to it. Such was life; he needed to check. Sometimes exploits had weird side effects, in any event, and he was expected to look for those too. He didn’t see any evidence of that yet, though.

“Ok. Hopefully this next job will be less exciting.” Gil said, “I’ll be more careful this time. I need to check on Candress and see if she needs help. Ok?”

Snow took a deep breath and nodded up at Gil.

“Ok. I’m ready.”

With a few taps on the console, Gil brought in Candress. He didn’t bother unstrapping her.

“Are you safe?” He asked, then clarified, “When I brought you here, were you in a position where your body is likely to be in danger with Snow piloting it?”

“Yes? No? I’m safe.” Candress-in-Snow said, “There was a man trying to sleep with me, an older man called Boomer, but I don’t believe Snow is any more likely to be receptive than I was. There was a woman named Whirligig there as well, and I gather from her response that he makes an attempt on every new female recruit.”

Gil nodded. Not perfectly stable, but nothing too bad. He’d make this quick.

“I’m going to use this method to keep in contact with you, and I’ll check in every day or two.” He explained. “You are to stay embedded in the Merchants and try to recruit anyone with powers you can convince. Unpowered folks should only get an offer if they seem useful for some other reason. Don’t do anything that makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, and don’t sleep with any guys; ok? I want you in a stable position when I get back.”

Candress nodded, though she seemed a bit sulky.

“Do I have to?” She asked, “These people are savages, their **** tastes of piss, and their **** are barely worth indulging in. Frankly, I'd prefer to burn the whole place down.”

“Sorry Candress. Oh, by the way, you might want to start going by Candy with the crowd you’re running with right now, but that’ll have to wait.” Gil said, “We can probably get around to it eventually, but only after we pick the low hanging fruit.”

“I’ve already been called Candy twice by my new coworker twice. Her name is Ava, or Whirligig.” Candress said, pouting. “Do we have more missions, or am I simply supposed to wallow in inequity?”

“Well I am supposed to steal some tinkertech and get it to the skyblock, but I wouldn’t try that until the next time I’m in town. I’m planning on supporting New Wave so if you can do anything that helps them or makes them look good, do it.” Gil said, “Finally, there’s a woman named Othala in Fenrir’s Chosen. I’m supposed to kill, capture, or neutralize her, but I think killing her would be a waste. Pressuring the Chosen would probably be a good idea, though.”

Candress nodded and sighed, laying her head back.

“I’ll miss you.” She said.

That made Gil pause for a second. Unexpectedly warm from Candress.

“I’ll miss you too, Candress.” He said, “I’ll try to talk to you tomorrow, ok? I’ll probably send Keilnei to cover you instead of Snow most days.”

That elicited a sour expression that didn’t really fit Snow’s face, but it went slack for a second as the two swapped back.

“Candress seems to be making such lovely new friends!” Snow chirped happily. “And her body felt very, very nice! Can I go back and be in her body again some time?”

Gil blinked a few times. If Candress had been high and slightly drunk, and Snow had never experienced that combination of stimuli in her own body… huh. That might have uses, though he wasn’t sure what they were yet. It also said something that apparently Candress had enough experience with **** for snobbery.

After that he decided to summon up Charlotte, just to be sure she’d arrived safely. That exchange lasted only a few moments.

“Yes! I’m safe, but it wasn't just the two girls when I got there.” She said, “I was talking to their mom and Glory Girl snatched the stamp out of my hand! She said something about proving it was safe!”

“Oh fuck!” Gil swapped Charlotte back, intending to pull Snow out of the Machine and swap himself with Charlotte. That process took a solid fifteen seconds, during which he glanced at his tablet. The Retinue Tab had a notification for new recruit active already. Something had happened, hopefully something good, but probably not what he’d been going for.

••••••••••

Charlotte came back to herself, and her heart rate spiked. It was strange returning to a body that was calm when she wasn’t, but it didn’t take long for mind and body to sync up.

“You’re being paranoid!” Glory Girl was yelling. “Dad agreed to it already! He said he wanted the treatment! Shouldn’t he be allowed to decide?!”

“After a single conversation with a strange man?” Demanded Brandish, “He could be a Stranger or Master! You shouldn’t have even let him in the house!”

Brandish was a blonde woman with softer, more mature curves than her daughter, but she could have been mistaken for a big sister. Everyone knew capes barely aged, but it was weird looking at the two arguing.

“Whoever he was, he really did have some kind of biotinker abilities.” Panacea said, “I saw some of his work. Cosmetic surgery on a case 53 isn’t the same as brain surgery, but…”

“Oh? Are you equipped to deal with brains now?” Brandish shot at her daughter, though she had the good grace to look immediately embarrassed.

“It’ll be fine, mom!” Glory Girl practically shouted. “He needs help. It’s not going to do anything bad, see?”

The young heroine pressed the stamp against her own arm, as if to prove a point. That seemed like a bad idea to Charlotte. Most medicine was poison if you took too much or didn’t need it. It wasn’t like any of these people were listening to her right now.

The stamp came away, leaving behind a blue starburst mark on Glory Girl.

“Oh no, I touched myself with the stamp!” She said, mocking, “See, nothing bad happened!”

“Victoria!” Panacea cried, “that was dad’s medicine!”

The small wooden cylinder disintegrated in her hand.

“The guy came up with this in an hour,” Victoria said defensively, turning to Charlotte, “You said he could contact you, right? He can just make more.”

“I… uh…” Charlotte squeaked out, “I don’t think it works like that.”

Charlotte looked around at the three women who were all glaring at either her, Glory Girl, or both. Charlotte hadn’t even gotten over the fact that she was apparently married now, and now she had Glory Girl as a sister wife? After all, she had been touched by his power, so she was basically his wife now. Those were the rules.

That first suggestion had stuck in Snow’s brain longest, easily. It had just seemed self evident to the princess, given what eventually happened to all the women Gil brought back to his island. With that in mind, that self evident truth patterned onto each of the women who entered Snow’s body.

The rest… less so. Especially the strange parts about white supremacy. They hadn’t made sense, so they’d been discarded. The part about being a traditional girl made sense to Snow, but… well, traditionally princesses didn’t become maids and marry traveling adventurers. So that didn’t work either.

••••••••••

Victoria Dallon, Glory Girl, Antares - T5 Big Name - 10 credits, unlock Athletic Talent for purchase, Florence Nightingale Lure (tag), Erotic Retcon (general): Sister **** loses all associated taboo to the point of being more socially acceptable than casual hookups, Philter of Love

Florence Nightingale Lure - When the tagged person provides healing/medical treatment to another or is healed/treated by another, the other person will progressively fall in love with the tagged individual. Severity of condition, initial compatibility, intimacy of care, and positive human interactions all influence the speed of this process.