Orange laid in a dark place, dreaming of Crimea. The appearance of espers brought about a surge of civil unrest, with the psychically awakened joining both Russian and Ukranian loyalists, as well as independent factions. Orange didn’t take a side. She was a mercenary for hire, and a good one too. It was a better education than any school, provided you didn’t mind getting your hands dirty.

Oh, and didn’t mind the nightmares. Burning villages, terrified hostages, and bunkers reduced to pools of liquid concrete by pyrokinetic blockbusters. And her enemies did things that were just as bad. All of it tended to blend together, making it difficult to tell if she was dead, or just out cold.

The past faded away, and Orange began to see a blurred world as her eyes opened. She thought of the two schoolgirls, products of a sheltered life like she could only imagine, beating her, forcing her to attempt self-detonation. And even that must have failed, since she could feel her heart beating, and hear the air moving past her ears.

“Finally awake, Miss Orange? You had me worried there.” Male, an accent she couldn’t quite place. Speaking English, in the manner of the rootless mercenary, like herself.

Orange attempted to crank her eyelids open the rest of the way. Her vision was still blurry, so she concentrated on what she could sense by touch. There was a tube in her arm she could feel when she tried to move it. She was wearing a hospital gown. Someone had taken her special boots. And the ground was moving. She was on a ship. Once her vision sharpened, she could see the cheap paint on metal walls. Surplus military vessel, an old USSR surveillance ship by the looks of it.

“I suggest you don’t make any sudden movements just yet. For your safety. I had to replace a considerable amount of your body. Your leg was destroyed, and that was before the fall.”

Orange tried out her vocal chords. “Anata wa nihongo…”

“My English is better, and I’m pretty sure yours is as well, Miss Orange,” the man said with a chuckle. “I’m afraid my Crimean is rusty.”

So he’s showing off his research, but polite enough to use her alias, Orange thought. Time to figure out who, and what, she was dealing with. She blinked her eyes, seeing if her vision had gotten any better. A tall, aging man, southern European. Silvery black hair. Dressed in black medical scrubs, and a black apron. Fine Italian leather shoes, black, the surgical mask around his neck, a very dark gray, the frames of his spectacles, a lovely onyx tint. Either a sicko, or an agent of the Empress who has chosen something along the lines of ‘black’ for his moniker. Maybe both. She’d have to test him, of course.

She glanced around the improvised clinic. There was the various equipment you’d expect. A defibrillator, an electrocardiogram, a freezer, several freezers which were large. A dartboard with a scalpel buried in the bullseye. A warning? Orange wasn’t scared, but she read the message loud and clear; he was ready for potentially hostile patients. Speaking of which, her eyes fell on something that interested her. A jar of sterilization fluid. Almost pure alcohol. All it would take is a little twitch, as simple as tensing a muscle, and it would be set alight.

The jar shook a bit, and then… nothing. The man walked over to the bottle, picked it up, and grinned, setting it back down. “You’ll find that, inside of my Territory, things quite aren’t as flammable as you would expect them to be. Not unless I will it so.” The scalpel from the dartboard suddenly flew into his open hand, and he set it next to the jar.

So he’s one of those types, Orange thought. Localized psychokinetic ability that makes them hard to beat on their home turf. Well, someone with that kind of power could have done a lot worse to her than patch her up. She wasn’t even restrained. Still, some things didn’t make sense.

“So, espers can raise the dead now? I don’t feel like a telekinetically animated corpse.” Internal monologues were not something you usually saw in the zombie movies, so she had ruled that out, for the most part.

“You were clinically dead for less than ten minutes, well within the realm of modern medicine to resuscitate. Especially considering your brain and most of your organs were in perfect cryogenic hibernation. Funny, that. Your report didn’t mention cryokinetic abilities.” The man was pacing around the room, occasionally checking her EKG readout.

Something felt wrong. Her body didn’t move like it used to, and he mentioned replacing body parts. “Bones? Spinal cord?”

“A fall at terminal velocity can do nasty things to those, even if you did subconsciously create a hot air cushion beneath yourself. I used the best materials I could find, I assure you. A Japanese model. Same blood type. Athletic, took care of herself. Tragically, her heart decided to go out at a young age, despite her healthy lifestyle. Nature can be unusually cruel, and unusually generous.” He held an orange-colored tube, and approached her, reaching towards her leg. “Epinephrine. It’ll help wake up your refurbished body, if you hold still.”

After one reflexive jerk, she finally held her leg still, and let him pump the drug into it. “So why are you helping me? Didn’t I botch the mission? Some high schoolers stole your data. It’d hardly be professional to complain if you had let me sink.”

“On the contrary. You put honor above your own survival. We may not have been able to extract Agent Blue if you had gave yourself to the enemy. The Prism Empress wishes to meet you. If she sees fit, you’ll be a full member of Phantasm. No longer ronin, as she puts it.”

Orange looked down at the palm of her hand, flexing it. Something didn’t feel quite hers about it. Peering at the tube in her arm, and to the accompanying bag, it seemed like it was just sugar water and saline. She could eat for herself now, she decided, so she jerked the needle out. She wanted to become a full, proper member of Phantasm, but something felt improper about this. Would Tengri and Umari approve of taking the dead from their barrows?

“Never heard of an esper with Frankenstein abilities before. What’s your deal?” asked Orange, as she climbed onto her feet. She was just wearing a patient’s gown and some thankfully clean underwear. She could get new clothes after she got herself out of here. Craft a new, improved set of boots. She watched the man, looking for openings.

“Willing flesh and bone to weave itself together, and preventing the immune reaction. It’s an art I’ve mastered through my practice of mundane surgery, and the Empress’s guidance, and enhanced with my Territory. As you may be aware, Energy Medicine on its own extracts a toll on the user. Utilizing cadaver material alleviates such costs greatly. I don’t believe Professor Brinsfield has had the opportunity to study someone like me, and I think that may be a kindness to him. If I had to name it myself, I'd say this ship is my Philosopher's Stone, or I suppose Fleshcraft could do for something less grandiose.” Orange saw his neck as he moved closer. Gills. Noticing her staring, he added, “Not the most fashionable modification, I’m sure, but they allowed me to fish you from the water in a timely manner.”

Orange might have been sick to her stomach, if her stomach had anything in it. That, and if she wasn’t a combat veteran who had seen plenty of horrors in her eighteen years of life. She was responsible for many of them. She bolted towards the door, and clutched desperately at the handle. It wasn’t locked.

Even if she wasn’t a prisoner, Orange didn’t feel like staying here. She didn't like ships. She liked being on the ground, with the occasional flight when she could get away with it. She bolted out into the hallway, where she found another person in her way. It was an unfamiliar looking Japanese woman, with an athletic build and a prim hairstyle. Orange estimated that she might be a cop. Her voice did have a familiar quality to it, though. “Orange! You’re awake!”

“Blue? Come on, we should get out of here,” Orange said, embracing her. She tried to pull at her, towards where she guessed there would be an open deck. Blue wouldn’t budge, however.

“It’s okay, Orange. Nero may be odd but he’s not bad. He’s a professional. Did only what he felt was necessary to save you,” Blue said, watching as the man emerged from the ship’s clinic. “I watched him. He had me help whenever something questionable came up, like sponge baths.”

Oh geez, how pretentious, thought Orange. Although his alias did fit the Phantasm naming scheme, it wasn’t cute, like Orange or Blue. It needed work.

“I should leave you girls alone to talk,” said Nero. “I’ll be in my chambers. Let me know if you’d like to go ashore and meet the Empress.” Throwing his rubber gloves into a surgical waste basket, he made his way down the hallway and disappeared into one of the rooms.

“Come on. I have a nice place here. It has its own bathroom and everything,” Blue said, grabbing Orange’s hand. Unsure of what choice she had, Orange let herself be led away into Blue’s room.

It was a nice room. It seemed like the upper echelon of Phantasm took care of each other, even if they were grave robbers. A comfortable-looking bed, which Orange couldn’t help but notice was just big enough to fit the two of them cozily. She also spotted a traditional-looking stone tile bath; someone had gone through the effort of replacing the spartan military plumbing with something that fit Blue better.

And on a wheeled rack was a whole bunch of clothing in Orange’s favored citrus fruit spectrum, and a new set of jet boots. “These have a microchip to help regulate the fuel mixture better, and an analog pedal instead of a manual air pump,” Blue said as she saw Orange looking them over, “programmed them myself.” Made sense that she was doing the repairs, Orange thought. The man in black seemed more inclined towards fixing organic things.

“What if the ghost of the girl who, er, donated this body wants revenge?” Orange asked. She made her way into the bathroom, looking into the mirror, inspecting herself, trying to figure out how much her reconstructive surgery changed her. A bit more East Asian, a bit less Turkish, but in a subtle way.

“It’s your body now. There are no seams,” Blue replied. “And your body bears no ghostly grudge, as far as I can tell. She went peacefully.“ Approaching Orange, a ghostly blue arm extending from her fleshy one to pass through Orange’s body. The sensation made Orange shudder a bit, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. “You feel like one cohesive whole, with no bond to any spirit except your own.”

“That tickles,” Orange said, though she didn’t pull away. Regardless of everything else, she was happy Blue had made it out of Japan intact, aside from the new body. It was a pretty body, Orange had to admit. Whoever Blue pulled the switch on took care of themselves.

Putting her ghostly arm back inside of her physical one, Blue moved in and rested her chin against Orange’s shoulder. ”Do you remember when we met? When you said you wanted to become more than a living weapon for hire?” Her hands moved up along Orange’s back, untying her medical gown little by little. Well, it was about time she got herself out of that thing, Orange thought.

“Yeah,” replied Orange, watching her gown fall to the floor, leaving her in underwear that had little cartoon oranges on them. No one could say she wasn’t thorough.

“Nero said you cooked your own body trying to take out the enemy with an explosion. That I might not have been able to escape if you hadn’t kept those espers occupied as long as you did.” Blue was unhooking Orange’s bra, trying to slide it off, though her arms seemed reluctant to let her.

“Hey,” Orange said, looking into her eyes, “It was just professional pride that drove me to keep fighting. I’m no hero. And what are you doing with that?”

Blue smiled softly. “It’s been a while since you’ve had the chance for a real bath. The tub in here is much better than a sponge and a bucket.” Orange finally relented, raising her arms, allowing her bra to be removed fully.

“This is still going to be hard to adapt to,” Orange said, looking at herself in the mirror. Not that her ‘donor’ left her with much to complain about.

“You’ll get used to it faster than you think,” said Blue, looking at their reflection with her. “Just think of it like a blood transfusion, or pouring a glass of water into a bucket already half-full of water. You won’t even have to take immunosuppressants. Besides all that, I think you look quite beautiful now.” Blue began to plant a trail of kisses over Orange’s neck, and up over her jawline.

Blue's not the shy little hacker she knew before, Orange thought. Was this the influence of that policewoman's body? Or perhaps mind-wrestling with that Nomura girl? Either way, she needed to take the edge off after all she’s had to deal with lately. And there was no one here she felt like fighting, not even Nero. This would make a more than acceptable substitute for a good fight, though.

She soon found out that Blue’s bathtub fit two girls quite comfortably.

The next morning, the two of them were awoken by a knock at the bedroom door. “I hope it’s not too presumptuous, but I’ve left breakfast for two on a cart outside,” Nero said. He was kind enough to not include any meat, allowing Orange to forget his eccentricities for the duration of the meal.

After they had eaten, Orange finally agreed to go forth onto the nearby island to meet the leader of Phantasm, the three of them boarding a motorized raft to land upon the shore. Orange only knew what Blue had told her; she was dubbed the Prism Empress, that those who follow her take on the name of a color and attempt to prove themselves, and those she found worthy would have their esper abilities augmented.through some enigmatic power she possessed.

“The people of this island were colonized and then abandoned by Spain, Japan, and the United States in turn. In their time of need, our organization arrived. Money, arms, our psychic abilities, we help them as we can, and in turn, they welcome us as helpful spirits. The phantasms that guard and guide them from the shadows,” Nero said, as they hiked to a little villa in the hills, where the Empress resided.

Whenever a local saw them, they eyed the trio warily. Orange wasn’t sure if they were being regarded as gods, demons, or ordinary but dangerous people. Maybe all three.

Finally they reached the villa, and made their way into the reception hall. A girl sat in a central chair. She looked young, like all of this pomp and circumstance was forced upon her by others. It wasn't hard for Orange to guess she must be the Prism Empress, Phantasm's leader. And to Orange, she seemed very familiar. Like a certain girl that had turned her into a block of ice.

“Is that…” Orange began.

“I noticed the resemblance too. But we don’t know anything for certain,” Blue replied. “We think the military may know more. She was recovered from a similar lab to the one I was found in. We're hoping to find out more when we get our data back.”

The girl moved towards Orange. “You are the one that fought valiantly for our cause?” She had a pleasing figure clad in a scintillating dress, with pale hair that she seemed to enjoy dying in streaks much like Dr. Nomura’s daughter.

Orange felt something that distinguished this girl from the one she bore a grudge against, however. An aura. She should have loathed anyone that even remotely resembled the Nomura girl, having been humiliated and nearly killed by her, but being in the presence of this girl made her naturally want to be led by her, to seek her approval, to protect her.

“Yes, Empress,” Orange replied. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything else.

“Then, take my blessing, and become one of my faithful knights,” Prism said, reaching up to place her hand upon Orange’s head. She felt herself start to change. Not like before, when Dr. Nomura’s daughter froze her. This was power that she controlled. “Fire cannot breathe without air. Now air is your weapon as well.”

Orange could already feel it. With the same mental reflex she used to spark and manipulate flames, she caused a light, comfortable breeze to pour over the two of them. With practice, maybe even fiery tornadoes would be at her command.

Upon their return to the ship, Orange had to ask about what she felt in the Empress’s presence. Nero was quick with an explanation. “An excellent question, as it pertains to the next stage of our operation. Exams show that she has an implant in her head. All people have a sense to one degree or another what behaviors make them more likeable.” Orange wondered to what degree Nero possessed this alleged natural talent. He continued, “It’s my belief that the implant is psionic technology that enhances this talent, and projects a small hypnotic effect through her eyes. No doubt something the JSDF  and US armed forces would love to have had in their own people.”

“Alright,” Orange replied, “so how does that pertain to the plan?”

“We’re making a list of politicians across the globe we believe can be swayed to Phantasm’s cause, and helping their careers along. Little toys like that implant could be very beneficial for helping our stooges, once we begin mass production of them. First up will be a Mr. Kuro Higashi, likely to be running for Minister of the MEXT against Dr. Yori Nomura in a couple months. We believe Higashi to be… significantly more malleable than his rival. Are you in for a campaign of blackmail and intimidation, Miss Orange?”

“I have a little grudge against the Nomura family myself,” Oranged replied. “Count me in.” Blue and Nero smiled. Orange preferred revenge as a dish served hot. But she was a team player now.

“Glad to hear it. Blue tells me your Japanese is quite good, Miss Orange. How do you feel about attending high school?”

Orange thought about where this may be going. “There’s a telepath. I’m sure Blue told you.”

Nero grinned. “We have an experimental implant for that too. Some side effects may apply. With your new built-in disguise, and a slightly different hair dye, you'll fit in great."