Svetlana had decided to try focusing in the quiet of the top floor, away from the noise of Thisbe and the Mynx girls playing games. The attic also felt like a good place to work on her connection with O’tmyil since it was where she’d first met her android girl. Someone having mistaken her disk form for a piece of old game hardware and sold her to the shop, only for Giovanni to stick her in one of the ‘we’re not sure what this is’ boxes. Svetlana had been sent to sort through the boxes and O’tmyil had woken up when she’d touched her. 

Which was when her life properly turned to chaos. Sure, she’d known Thisbe as a regular customer before that, but all the aliens only showed up after.

After an… unclear amount of time spent staring, and thinking about the mental bond between them, Svetlana felt like she had a hint of how to change. A string to pull on that she was sure she could figure out if she tried.

She got up and headed downstairs, finding O’tmyil in her body staring blankly at the tv. Thisbe and… Feyr (going by the bracelet colour) were playing a beat’em-up of some kind. Svetlana ignored that, focusing O’tmyil. She wasn’t looking good, if Svetlana knew her own face well.

Which, ok, she didn’t really. It was a new face. But still, she knew the basics. Clearly O’tmyil was finding being flesh and blood more unsettling than Svetlana was finding being a machine… hologram? She didn’t really understand the specifics, and it did feel weird to be as light as O’tmyil was, but that wasn’t important right now.

“I think I can do it,” Svetlana said.

O’tmyil turned to her, a slightly pained smile on her lips. Well, Svetlana’s lips. 

Whatever.

“That’s good, though… I am worried you might be seriously sick,” O’tmyil said. “Your midsection seems to have become rather painful recently.”

“My midsec—have you eaten?” Svetlana asked, looking at the time. It had been a while since breakfast.

“No… I… do you think this is hunger?” O’tmyil asked, her eyes going wide.

“Uh, probably?” Svetlana replied.

O’tmyil stared down at her stomach, paling. “Terrifying. To feel this every day…”

“Well, hopefully I’ve got this transformation all sorted, so you can get away from it, and then I’ll eat a pizza or something,” Svetlana said, holding out a hand.

O’tmyil stood up, standing taller than Svetlana currently was and reached out, grabbing Svetlana by the forearm. Svetlana closed her eyes, and let herself release, mind on her own body. 

She felt a shift of some sort, and so tentatively opened one eye… only to find herself staring at her own face still.

But, she was staring straight ahead? How did that… and why was O’tmyil smirking like that.

“Well, you made some progress,” the android in her body said.

“I did? But I…” she noticed that her nose wasn’t blue anymore.

Looking down, her body looked human again.

“It’s not what we were after, but it’s not something easy for a human to do. So you’re making progress,” O’tmyil said.

“What did I transfo—why are you two blushing?” she asked, turning to Thisbe and Plynx, who were watching her and O’tmyil with surprising intentness.

“Just a very nice view,” Plynx said, letting out a happy sounding sigh.

“It’s a fascinating symmetry,” Thisbe added.

“Symmetry?” Svetlana started, before looking down at her body again.

Wait, that was the clothes she had been wearing. That O’tmyil was wearing right now. And they were the same height…

“Oh! I look like me again?” Svetlana said.

“Indeed,” O’tmyil replied.

“You know, I can really tell how M’gnyz told them apart now,” Cartridge said. “They hold themselves very differently.”

---

After a few failed attempts to either change back into O’tmyil’s normal appearance or her power suit mode, Svetlana switched focuses to getting O’tmyil food. Which meant heating up a frozen pizza in the toaster oven. Her android girlfriend was thrilled by the way hunger made the food taste better, even if she held the pain of hunger wasn’t worth that. 

Svetlana couldn’t really argue, not having to eat had perks. She gave into curiosity and nibbled on a bit of the pizza they’d made, however, and found the taste rather… odd. She could tell there were tomatoes and cheese and all that involved, but it felt almost more like she was being told what it tasted like rather than tasting it. 

It reminded her of something else that was bugging her since the swap, though. “Why does everything seem a bit more purple right now?”

“Hm?” O’tmyil asked.

“Since we switched.”

“Oh. Yes. That is because your sun is on the blue end for supporting life. Most intelligent species evolved around dimmer and redder stars than yours, so the average galactic visual range is shifted towards what you consider ‘infra-red’,” O’tmyil replied.

“Cool… so I can see heat right now?” Svetlana asked, staring at the pizza to see if it glowed at all.

“You can see heat normally, that is how incandescent lights work,” O’tmyil replied. “The cut off has just moved down a bit.”

“Oh. Right,” Svetlana replied, blushing.

---

With the Mynx girls and Plynx taking a cat nap, Thisbe had decided to head home before the sun rose. She wished Svetlana and O’tmyil the best of luck for switching back before she left.

That left the main floor quieter, and so Svetlana could try to focus on figuring out how to unlock the other transformation in the comfort of one of the lounge chairs. She felt a shimmer, and was sure she’d managed some sort of change, so hopped up.

“I—wait. Am I still the same height?” she said, before also realising her voice sounded funny. “I thought I managed to turn back…”

Cartridge and O’tmyil looked up at her, Cartridge’s eye twitching while O’tmyil’s expression shifted to being compassionate.

“Oh… dear… you did change ‘back’, but…” O’tmyil said.

Svetlana hurried over to the off TV, bending over to look at her reflection, and paled at what she saw. 

Her old face.

Well, ok. On the bright side, it actually looked closer to her new face and more feminine than she’d ever been ready to think, but, still. It was angular in ways she didn’t like. Her jawline seemed heavier, somehow. And—and—this was definitely dysphoria. How had she lived with these feelings before?

She felt a shiver run through her as she scrambled away from the reflection. As she did, she felt another shimmer. Landing bum first back onto the chair, she felt a wobble in her chest and looked down to see the girls were back.

“Oh, thank goodness. I’m me again,” she said quietly.

“Not quite,” O’tmyil replied, staring over at her.

Svetlana blushed. “Right. Right. But, closer.”

---

Work had ended and they’d gone back to the apartment. Svetlana still hadn’t managed to change modes, only appearances in O’tmyil’s ‘humanoid mode’. Now, part of that might have been due to her and Cartridge getting distracted after Svetlana accidentally transformed into one of her favourite anime characters and she ended up running through a few ‘cosplays’ for fun, but, also… as she tried to concentrate again, it was hammered home that this was hard.

Her brain wasn’t designed for this.

Closing her eyes and honestly trying to meditate, she focused on the idea of becoming hollow, like a power suit surely had to be.

“Hollow. Hollow. Empty. Empty,” she repeated to herself, trying to get the feeling down. “Realise hollowness. Realise emptiness.”

“Working on obtaining enlightenment, are we?” Vivian’s voice asked, causing Svetlana to jump and break her meditation attempt.

“When did you get here?” she asked, blinking.

“Thisbe told the group chat. I was curious how you two were handling things,” the tall woman said, sitting on the arm of the couch. “I think you’re actually doing better than O’tmyil, surprisingly.”

“I am?” Svetlana asked.

“She’s trying to see if she can watch your fingernails grow or not,” Vivian said, gesturing to the kitchen. “She also insists she can feel her intestines moving.”

“I guess being a bag of meat is rather disconcerting if you grew up an android,” Svetlana replied.

“I guess s—” Vivian began, before a crashing sound in Cartridge’s bedroom distracted them. 

The pair, joined by O’tmyil, rushed into the redhead’s bedroom. The fact she was wearing a maid outfit served as a brief blip on their radar, but was clearly a secondary issue next to the four armed ceramic-looking android that had clearly just burst through the window. Especially with the robot having large horns on its head and bladed weapons in each arm.

“Where is Kevin Fujikawa?” the machine asked with a harsh voice.

“You missed him,” Svetlana replied, with a flash of casual finger guns. “Hasn’t been here for weeks.”

The machine paused at that, a head gesture indicating it was processing that. Then there was another head movement. “You are pretending to be a human, but you still have the same energy signature. You are O’tmyil, and the secondary target.”

“Well I tried,” Svetlana muttered before the machine lunged her way. 

On her own, she’d have dropped and scrambled into the hallway, but Vivian and Cartridge were both there to worry about. So she dove forward, slipping under the machine and scrambling towards the window. The alien assassin turned, focused on her, as was the goal, even if it was terrifying.

“Sorry gang, stream’s over!” Cartridge shouted to her computer before scrambling out the door.

Svetlana dodged and swerved around the machine’s blades a few times, buying the others a few more seconds to get to safety. It was going well until she tripped on a controller Cartridge had left on the floor, leaving her to fall onto the bed. She managed to spin around, but couldn’t dodge before a blade slammed down on her leg.

And she felt nothing more than a slight tingle?

Scrambling back with her free leg and arms, she blinked as her leg seemed to grow out of the blade as she moved away from it.

“Riiiight. I’m a hologram-thingy right now,” she said, realising she also wasn’t panting despite the exertion.

“True,” the machine said. “You are quite annoying to damage. Perhaps a hostage is easier.”

The robotic assassin then turned to where O’tmyil was still standing in the hallway, and charged forward.

Svetlana paled, charging forward herself, mind overwhelmed with the need to protect O’tmyil. There were no thoughts about O’tmyil being in her body, and she didn’t feel especially concerned about that. Only about O’tmyil herself.

Svetlana threw herself forward, not really thinking about what she’d do after pushing O’tmyil out of the way of the attacker’s blade.

Only, suddenly her entire perspective changed. She was facing the robotic assassin. Though, also aware of what was happening in every direction? She also wasn’t really sure if what she was seeing right now counted as ‘sight’. It was more like an instant and omnidirectional 3-D scan of her surroundings? With some sort of energy detection overlay?

Oh, and she was moving. Or, being moved. She’d… was that a forcefield emitting from her arms as she caught the blade aimed at her head? She felt a request to push all power to her arms, and complied, the blade snapping in her hands. 

She was jumping back next, as she felt another request. Something about a sword?

She went with it, and soon an energy blade had formed around her right hand. She found herself charging in again, slicing through another of the assassin’s blades with it. 

It was only as she dodged another strike that she got her barings enough to realise she’d done it. She was in power suit mode. Which meant O’tmyil was piloting.

And, yep. O’tmyil was as efficient in combat as she was with sparring matches. Svetlana decided to go with the flow, trusting her girlfriend’s greater experience. She didn’t even know some of the things O’tmyil asked for were abilities she should have, but she felt something akin to her subconscious guiding her whenever she was confused and she was able to handle everything asked of her.

Within a few minutes, the assassin was literally disarmed. And dislegged. 

They sliced the robot’s torso open, then peeled the metal-like ceramic away to reveal it wasn’t actually an android assassin. It was a mech, but for a very small species that looked like a mix of a cricket and a gecko. They grabbed the pilot, who was yelling profanities in it’s tongue. They carried it to the kitchen, before digging out a large tupperware container to put it in, closing the lid for the moment.

They had to let fresh air in eventually, but first…

Svetlana felt things go dark for a moment, her senses shutting off. Then she was herself again. 

And she felt a soft sigh of joy from O’tmyil.

[So glad that’s over,] the android girl said. [That was unsettling.]

“I didn’t know you could do an energy blade thing. And some of that other stuff… can you teach me?” Svetlana whispered.

[I think I just did,] O’tmyil replied.

Svetlana blinked, before looking down at her hand and trying to will the sensation she’d felt before. To her surprise an energy blade did indeed form. “Cooool… Uh, what are we going to do with the grumpy little cricket-lizard?”

[Plynx can likely have him sent to the relevant Issiod’rian authorities when she arrives,] O’tmyil said.

The pair then separated, O’tmyil returning to humanoid form. She smiled as she wiggled her antennae.

“You know, those were fun to have. I think I’ll kind of miss them,” Svetlana said.“Hmm… perhaps it’s a genetic memory. I am modelled after the Second Dynasty’s species,” O’tmyil replied.