Svetlana winced as she pulled herself out of the reinforced concrete base of the SkyNi tower. She really wanted to know who had decided Kobarians needed power armour. Weren’t they strong enough already?

 

Rolling pain out of her shoulder, glad O’tmyil had protected her from the worst of it, she turned to look at the slightly spooked looking FETMA agent hiding behind a bush.

 

“You guys going to help with this?” she asked, pointing to the alien warriors and robots charging her way.

 

“We are a monitoring agency,” the agent said. “Also, I think I will monitor from over there instead.”

 

Svetlana shook her head as the agent scurried up a tree before she bounded off the base of the tower to slam (fists first this time) into one of the approaching androids. The ensuing melee turned into chaos as she scrambled between the legs, around the fists, and over the tails of her larger attackers. 

 

The combat androids didn’t last long, with her using them as shields. They didn’t seem programmed for that being an option someone would try, and simply got battered by their allies.

 

She also managed one particularly skillful dodge that saw the tail club of one alien collide with the head of another, knocking the warrior out cold. The moment she took to fist pump in celebration was a mistake, however, and she was sent flying through the air again by the fist of another opponent. 

 

She ended up flying out over the gorge of the Niagara River, slowly rotating to be facing the sky long enough that she lost her bearings before slamming into the dirt and rolling until she hit a tree. She was close to the falls, she knew that much by the sound, but she didn’t know the city well enough to figure it out past that. Especially not at night. All she knew was that the lights of the main strip seemed a bit far away for how close the falls sounded.

 

She also didn’t have much time to think about that, though. Her opponents slammed down around her, having followed via rocket boosted jumps.

 

[That’s a new feature,] O’tmyil chimed in her brain. 

 

“Oh, wonderful. They have new armour,” Svetlana grumbled, before having to dodge the strikes of one of her opponents.

 

Apparently they’d realised she was good at crowd fighting (trained from fighting their android swarms) and had decided to move in one at a time now. She struggled to dodge and swerve without the distractions and chaos of the usual fights, but she was still much nimbler than any of them. 

 

One overreached, stumbling slightly in the assault, allowing her to slip around and throw an energy boosted strike into the main power relay on the back of their armour. That was something unchanged from the previous armour types. With the power down that warrior wouldn’t be able to move very easily and was effectively out of the fight.

 

She was getting tired, though, and had to pant as she looked at the three remaining Kobarians fighters. At least they seemed tired too. She remembered O’tmyil mentioning one time that human endurance wasn’t just exceptional compared to most Earth species, but was on the higher end for any of the galaxy’s peoples. So, maybe she could tire out these three before she was too exhausted herse—

 

Or the ground in the middle of them could explode. Her mind was briefly filled with pain, and she could tell that O’tmyil was in an even worse state. Struggling back to her feet, Svetlana turned to see dozens of soldiers emerging from the shadowy woods nearby, rifles pointed at them. She was confused until a few tanks rolled out with American flags painted on the sides.

 

“Oh… We crossed the river,” she muttered, before sticking her hands up as best she could. A sharp pain shot through her one side as she did.

 

Not a good sign.

 

The Kobarians seemed confused by her action, as much as she could read their body language through their power suits. Presumably they expected her to see other humans as allies.

 

“Hands where we can see them!” a man who looked like an officer shouted through a megaphone.

 

Apparently deciding tanks did indeed look threatening, the Kobarian’s complied, copying Svetlana’s raised hands posture.

 

“Helmets off!” the officer barked.

 

Svetlana complied, pressing a button on the side of her helmet with the arm not on the side that hurt. There was a delay, and she felt O’tmyil wince at the movement, but her helmet was off soon enough, and her hair fell down over her shoulders. The Kobarian’s complied as well, their removed helmets revealing long hair in various shades of green, their skin tones various shades on the border between khaki and olive.

 

“Those horns are real?” one soldier said, concern in his voice.

 

“They’re all women?” a second soldier muttered.

 

“Those are big alien ladies,” another added, sounding more than a little distracted by the revelation. And not with fear.

 

“Quiet, soldiers!” the officer shouted.

 

---

 

Svetlana stared blankly at her reflection in Agent Lee’s sunglasses as he lectured her about having ended up in US custody. She wasn’t even sure what his main objection was, as it seemed he was as annoyed about her crossing the border without a passport as he was about the way it could have turned into an international incident if the Kobarians had been cockier. Then there was the tangent about her having gotten dangerously close to breaking the laws to prevent people from going over the falls for fun.

 

“What happened to the Kobarian soldiers anyhow?” she asked, interrupting… something Lee was discussing.

 

“Oh. They’re being returned via the embassy in Area 51,” he replied flatly. “I’m sure the Kobarian embassy staff will be giving them a similar dressing down shortly.”

 

Svetlana blinked. “They have an embassy?”

 

“Yes? Most major galactic powers have embassies or consulates in Nevada, but that’s hardly the main concern of this morning,” Agent Lee replied dismissively. “Do you realise the fine for the amount of littering you did? Even if your fiancee Plynx is covering it that’s—”

 

Svetlana went back to tuning him out.

 

In hindsight, she’d probably admit the painkillers she was on were probably helping her zone out better. She’d cracked a rib (along with some lesser injuries) and one of the army medics had given her some good stuff to dull the pain.

 

---

 

Plynx had emerged from the fight in better shape than she had, and so had helped Svetlana with getting home. O’tmyil was in an automated repair mode in disk form, so was easy enough to bring with them on the train as well. 

 

When they’d gotten back to Hammer City, they’d decided to head to the nearest hospital, rather than Svetlana’s apartment. While the US army medical staff had dressed Svetlana’s wounds, they hadn’t been able to give her a real prescription for painkillers. Plynx could have given her some Issiod’rian ones, but they had… odd side effects, unless O’tmyil was able to monitor and calculate her dosages. (And she did not want to turn orange again.)

 

So the hospital emergency room was the place to go. 

 

Svetlana nodded off a few times while they waited to be called, but woke up when a nurse called out ‘Kevin Fujikawa?’. She winced, having not remembered to fix her health card yet, but got up with help from Plynx. 

 

There’d been some slight misgendering, but the first nurse had written down her pronouns and preferred name when corrected, and the x-ray technician had gotten things right for her whole time there. The way the hospital gown she’d been given hung on her probably helped with the gender side, at least.

 

She was then led to a bed in a side room, to wait for a nurse practitioner to give her a proper prescription. She slipped in and out of sleep again, until she heard someone enter the room. 

 

“So, Ms. Fujikawa, how are you feeling?” a soft spoken voice asked.

 

Svetlana adjusted her position to look over, and had to do a double take. The young male nurse, with his fluffy light brown hair, gentle face, and broad shouldered solid build was very familiar.

 

“Noah? Noah Heartwright?” she said.

 

“Yes? I… wait, Fuji—oh, are you Kevin’s cousin… Elizabeth, was it?” Noah asked, clearly recognising her to a degree at least.

 

“No, no. Eliza’s last name is Haliwell, she’s my cousin on my mum’s side, not my dad’s. Either way, I’m not her, I’m… um, me,” Svetlana realised, stumbling a moment before feeling weird about giving her old name. “I, uh… transitioned while you were up in Nunavut.”

 

“Oh… OH! Kev—you look good. I didn’t think it worked that fast,” Noah replied. “Also, a lot like your cousin, but… well, she looked good from what I remember.”

 

“Good? I remember you were planning to ask her out, only to catch her kissing your sister,” Svetlana said, laughing at the memory, before regretting that as pain shot through her. “Oww…”

 

“What happened, anyhow? An accident?” Noah asked, gently nudging her to lay back down.

 

“American artillery,” Svetlana replied.

 

He stared at her.

 

“Things have gotten… interesting since you left up north,” she explained.

 

“Apparently,” he replied, with a gentle smile.

 

---

 

A bleary-eyed Cartridge cradled the coffee Plynx had handed her while the feline princess gave a quick explanation of what had happened last night, as well as why she had to go to Toronto. Svetlana and O’tmyil had both been hurt. Nothing life threatening, but enough to make a future fight harder. Plynx wanted to try to ask Augusta for help.

 

Cartridge didn’t like the idea, but supposed someone with a private armoury big enough to equip a small nation was worth asking for help in a situation like this.

 

So she agreed to wait for Svetlana to get out while Plynx negotiated.

 

She just hoped no one in the emergency room had anything contagious.

 

---

 

Plynx stepped off her train in Toronto, and was immediately glad she’d asked Vivian to guide her. Toronto’s main train station was a maze of construction induced detours and poor signage. They went down and up and down again in a winding route through corridors that seemed like they shouldn’t be open to the public yet, but were crammed with a stream of humanity. 

 

Finally, though, they escaped the claustrophobic wood paneled hallways into an area that actually looked finished, and Plynx took in a breath of air. She wasn’t built for the tight spaces humans could handle with their ancestry in dense jungles. Issiod’rians needed space.

 

“Huh,” Vivian said, pausing in the food court area. “This wasn’t finished yet the last time I was here… which way is… ah! I recognise that pillar. The subway’s this way.”

 

Plynx looked around, no idea which pillar Vivian had used to find her reference. They did make it to the subway in the end, though, and Plynx was glad that the cars of this subway were much roomier than those in Hammer City, even if she hated how it was all underground still. 

 

They returned to the surface after a few stops, and grabbed a bus that took them the last leg to a rich neighbourhood within the greater Don Valley ravine system. The houses here were much larger than anything in Hammer City, and, when you considered the way more of the surrounding portions of Toronto were filled with glittering condo towers, she supposed that spoke to the wealth of the people who lived here.

 

Personally, she preferred the view of a space station, but, to each their own.

 

Finally, they reached Augusta’s address, a modern home that stuck out both by architecture and size from the surroundings. They were let in by a man with slicked back grey hair and led to a living room with a sunken couch-lined space in the middle. The two women sat down and waited.

 

Plynx was beginning to get annoyed when Augusta finally entered the room, wearing a shimmering silk house coat decorated in what Plynx had learned as an Art Nouveau patterning. The blonde sat across from them, her eyes red.

 

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” she asked, staring at the space between the two women.

 

“Svetlana-dearest and O’tmyil-dear were hurt in a fight with Kobarian-enemies. There is reason to believe another attack is quite imminent. You-Augusta have tools to help defend Svetlana-dearest. We-all need your help,” Plynx said, swallowing her pride as best she could.

 

“Mmm,” Augusta replied quietly. “Have you asked Svetlana? Does she want my help?”

 

Plynx felt a noise of confusion escape her. Augusta had accepted Svetlana now? But she hadn’t come back?

 

Apparently her confusion was easy to read as Augusta gave a nod, before leaning back into the cushions of the couch. “I have kept some tabs on what happened when I left. I learned that your theory about the ray affecting her mind was wrong. That Svetlana was indeed truly a woman. That she was, in fact, yet another temptation away from my duties to ma famille.”

 

The blonde paused, letting out a sigh. “I gave my confession of the temptation, and the Bishop advised me to avoid her. It may hurt as much as when papa let go dear Marcelline after—but I will stay focused. I must find an actual husband. I will be returning to France shortly, to earn forgiveness for going astray. I can not stay here, especially with the temptation terrifiant of that ray of yours to—”

 

She closed her eyes and whispered something in a language that sounded a bit like her usual French, but… older, somehow.

 

She turned back to them, a dead look in her eyes. “I hope you understand.”

 

“No?” Plynx replied, turning to Vivian. “Do you-Vivian?”

 

“I might… and I’m not very impressed if I’m right,” Vivian muttered.

 

“It is my duty to give my dynasty an heir. To continue the bloodline. I will not give into distractions and temptations, however beautiful they might be,” Augusta replied. “Eve’s heart belonged to Adam, not Lilith…”

 

This time it was Vivian’s turn to let out a sigh, before the tall woman stood up and walked around the coffee table to where Augusta was seated. She leaned over, placing her hands on the couch to either side of Augusta, who shrank back with fear in her eyes. Plynx could only watch in confusion.

 

“You don’t really deserve this, but it’ll get you to smarten up, and Sveta does need your help,” Vivian said.

 

“Deserve wha—” Augusta began, before Vivian leaned in and kissed her.

 

There was a moment of confusion, a twitch of resistance, and then Augusta was clinging to Vivian with a desperation that seemed almost more like a starving animal than romance. Vivian pulled her away after a few moments, the blonde’s eyes still hungry as Vivian held her in place.

 

And Plynx had thought she’d been weird after kissing Svetlana at the beach, but this was a whole new level.

 

“Better?” Vivian asked.

 

“I—I—je…” Augusta began, before bursting into tears, burying her face in her hands.

 

“I-myself think that you-Vivian broke her-rival,” Plynx said, still seated on her side of the sunken couch.

 

“I’ll admit, she was more repressed than I realised,” Vivian replied with a shrug.

 

“But… self sacrifice… penitence…” Augusta mumbled through her tears, mixed with half formed words and other things in Earth languages Plynx hadn’t yet learned. Finally she ended with a single word that sounded like a question. “Enfants?”

 

Vivian shrugged while Plynx was unsure what it meant.

 

“If they’ve got those gender bender rays they can probably help a same sex couple have a kid together,” the tall woman replied.

Plynx stared at each Earthling woman in turn. “You-two mean Earth does not yet have that!? It is so basic! The technology to have interspecies children, such as Svetlana-dearest and I would need, is a bit expensive, but same species… this planet’s primitiveness terrifies me at times.”