Alice changed her location in existence, suddenly appearing behind Nia. Slinging her arms around the fellow pariah’s neck, she rubbed the side of her face against Nia’s, like some sort of overly affectionate cat. In response, the blonde did absolutely nothing. She just stood there, not even moving her head in a questioning gesture.

“This adorable success is emotionally stunted because of you,” Alice stated, squishing Nia’s face between the fingers of her left hand. While kneading the soft cheeks with circular movements, she continued, “I had to teach her how to smile. To smile. What poor girl doesn’t know how to smile?” The tone the first Maiden of Null used was smooth like polished glass. It was as if she was delivering a thank you speech, not a chastisement.

“I made her effective,” the Horned Rat dismissed, tilting his head. It appeared the god was genuinely confused about the situation. As far as John was concerned, that was already enough reason to be glad to have come there. Richard’s tail was upright and waved in a rigid fashion.

“Effective is no standard to raise a child,” Alice retorted and spread Nia’s lips out in something that resembled a smile. “When I told her to smile, she showed her teeth like a bare skull. Wherever could that have come from?”

Alice shifted her location again, now sitting on the desk behind which the Horned Rat sat. With a quick movement, she booped the god’s nose. Like Nia, the Horned Rat didn’t move whatsoever, just looking at the situation. “I fail to see any issue,” he spoke up. “She’s strong and happy now, is she not?”

“I am less emotionally stunted than she is. My ‘parent’ wanted to marry me when I was twelve.”

“I didn’t want to do that, so I think the comparison doesn’t really apply,” the Horned Rat stated.

“Can you please get the point already?” Alice hissed.

There was a ringing in John’s ears, a quiet whirring like a piece of metal getting dragged across a bumpy surface. Something pulled on the outside of his skin. Anti-magical energies swirled in the room, as the silver lines spread across Alice’s tanned face. Different lines appeared in the air. Similar to a heat haze in appearance, they drew an alien shape. The outline was just barely comprehensible, but already caused John to develop a headache. Cheshire’s croaking, crowing, meowing laugh underlined the silence in the room.

“I get your meaning, you overestimate the point you have,” the Horned Rat responded and stood up, his size increasing to over two and half metres by the time he was on his feet. A size that immediately diminished when he menacingly bowed down. “Put your Nevr’est away, your aggression is unproductive.”

“Your lack of reaction is infuriating,” the dark-haired blank answered.

“You expect me to admit a failure of parenting, when I never aimed to parent, I aimed to raise,” the Horned Rat’s amused tone echoed in the room with a dark undercurrent. “You are overstepping the boundaries of your understanding. Keep messing with the rules you understand and leave me to my business.”

“I am too involved with your business to stay out of all of it.”

“You made the decision to tangle yourself in it.”

“Given how vast your nets are, that isn’t a fair thing to say.” Alice narrowed her eyes and the vacuum of magic in the room grew. To counteract the effects, the Horned Rat increased the magic he exuded. John felt as if his brain was expanding inside a shrinking skull. The pressure rose and rose.

Until Nia appeared between the two of them and put a hand on both of their heads. The unpleasant energies originating from Alice and her alien companion ceased. The Horned Rat suddenly perked up in surprise. It was the first time he had seen Nia use this ability and, evidently, had not expected that she could.

‘Confusion and surprise… it’s nice to see that even the Horned Rat feels those things,’ John pondered, continuing to watch the entire scene in silence. It didn’t feel like he had anything to add. ‘Only Florida could coerce such things from that rodent… maybe I should make it a habit of inviting people that annoy me to this place?’

“This is unnecessary,” Nia stated, while petting the head of both the Horned Rat and Alice. “I liked my upbringing. It was full of read stories and physical activity.” Something told John that those were stories on proper conduct on the battlefield and activities that directly translated to training. “Also, cute rats. Lots of cute rats and black cats and fluffy dogs and crows. A lot of crows.”

Alice backed off. “If you say so,” the blank said and smiled her empty smile, before vanishing. “I’ll leave you to it,” she whispered into John’s ear. By the time the Gamer looked over his shoulder, she had already moved her position again.

‘I really don’t like the ease with which she can do that,’ John thought. When it came to assassinating him, Alice would have the best shot at it out of anyone he had ever met. Even the Metracana that could become almost entirely untraceable still had to punch through Particle Skin first. Alice wouldn’t have much of a difficulty in this regard.

“Is this over now?” Wendy asked with another yawn.

“Seems so,” John responded and stretched. Thanks to Alice’s little stunt, he was wide awake now. Getting up, he looked over to the Horned Rat and Nia. The two stood there in silence, Nia still having her hand raised and gently patting the skull of the Horned Rat. It was an oddly peaceful image. The aura around them wasn’t anything close to father and daughter. It was closer to the feeling between teacher and student. Yet, it wasn’t quite that either. It was a mixture of both, heavily slanted in one direction.

“So, you’ve become a genuine Maiden of Null now,” Richard remarked.

“Yes.” Nia tilted her head, only stopping with petting the god when he straightened up and his head went out of reach of her arm. Slowly, she lowered it to the side. “Are you upset to have lost me?”

“The value between you as my direct pawn and you as one of the queens of my knight comes out as about equal.” Halfway through saying that, he looked over to John. Not that there had been any doubt about who he meant by knight there.

“I have never heard of the variation of chess where the knight rules over several queens,” the Gamer joked back in a pedantic fashion. “Also, why would I be a knight?”

“Because you’re more valuable than a pawn but you’re not yet a rook,” the Horned Rat responded and looked over to Wendy when she yawned again. “Perhaps you shouldn’t stay up and party until three in the morning every day of the week,” he advised.

“Oh great, another stalker,” the redhead sassed back and rolled her eyes, also getting up. The entire room was ready to dissolve the meeting. “Look, I know my ass is fantastic,” she spanked herself just for emphasis, “but I have enough studs around me as is. Speaking of stud, can I gobble up your prime beef already? Staying here is entirely unnecessary.”

“Hmm.” John was tempted to agree, but had something else to think about. It wasn’t every day that the Horned Rat was around, so he naturally went through a lot of things he considered to do. There were a number of questions he had, but none of them he expected to get an answer for. What he could do, however, was perhaps do the Horned Rat a favour. “Richard, I would guess you have planned in a bit more time?”

“I had estimated this meeting would take at least two hours, so my flight back is indeed a while off,” the Horned Rat responded, looking at John with mild interest. “Why do you ask?”

“How about Nia shows you around the upgraded Guild Hall?” the Gamer suggested. “Maybe you can see Marie while you’re at it, talk to your ambassador.”

“Oh?” the Horned Rat looked to the pariah he had raised, then back to John, and scratched his chin. His skull creaked when his teeth parted slightly. The sound accompanied the forming of a smile. “What an interesting suggestion from you.”

“As much as you cost me patience, I do benefit from our partnership.” John shrugged and finally got up himself. “I can be nice to you every now and again. You two should catch up.” He winked at Nia. “Don’t tell him anything I wouldn’t.”

“So, I am to remain silent for the entire tour?” Nia asked, an incredibly weak smile indicating that she was joking.

John laughed and half-turned towards the door. His good mood was being dampened by the surroundings even at this point. “You’ll find one or two things, I’m sure. I’ll see you later.” He waved his goodbye and his beloved pariah waved back mechanically.

John lost absolutely nothing in this engagement. Through Marie, as well as his anonymous spies, the Horned Rat could find out most of the obvious and barely hidden things about the Guild Hall anyway. There would be some press about the Horned Rat appearing on Fusion turf, but nothing that would dominate the news cycle. Relations between John and the patron god of the illuminati were already well known. It could even be to John’s advantage, as it would remind people that Fusion was more than just a quickly growing local power. Foreign relations were a shield against stronger organizations that may have wanted to meddle in the Gamer’s ascend.

He was ready to leave the room when the Horned Rat suddenly said, “Catch.”

John’s body reacted to the dominating word almost without his input. Turning on his heels, he plucked the flying item out of the air before it could collide with his chest. After an unappreciative glare at the god, the Gamer looked down and smiled. In his hands was a black mirror, an exact replica of the Vision of the Ashen Lands that had allowed him to have a talk with Nathalia on his birthday. That was more than enough to make him forgive the minor instance of body control there. “Thank you, Horned Rat,” he earnestly expressed his graciousness, as he put the mirror into his inventory.

“Don’t waste it. Who knows when I will give you the next one,” Richard responded and then made a dismissing gesture, as if allowing John to leave. “I will let you go first.” Deciding that having anymore play fights would be a waste of time, he just went along with it.

The moment John was out of the classroom, he felt better about himself. Although the corridors and their many different doors annoyed the Gamer on a perfectionist level, they were infinitely preferable to the recollections of past bullying that swam around at the back of his mind while inside the room. No longer held back by any distractions, John’s eyes immediately wandered to Wendy’s lips and his hands to the butts of Aclysia and Beatrice. His pants pitched a tent.

Wendy picked up and seemed to forget the fact that she was tired for a few moments. “You’re still packing,” she said and hungrily licked those full lips. “Wanna go right here or…?”

“Depends,” the Gamer said, while checking in on Jack. While he had been busy over here, his double had gone elsewhere. First, he had done the usual things of his morning routine, checking for emergency emails and such. When nothing turned up, he had decided to go see if he couldn’t find the other two girls that had been missing from his bed that morning. Metra had been in the gym and Scarlett he only now reached inside her office.

While he was busy appreciating the three beautiful girls he had right there with him, his double was flirting with Scarlett and staring at her bubble butt. For some reason, likely John’s bad influence, the androgynous redhead had decided to work in only her bright red underwear.

“Depends on what?” Wendy asked the distracted Gamer.

“Whether or not you want me to just fuck you right here or if you think you can stay awake for something a bit more tantalizing,” John responded with a growing smile.

“How tantalizing are we talking here?” Wendy wanted to know, clearly weighing her choices.