You have more trouble paying attention to class than usual today. Not that it really matters, but it’s the principle of the thing. You’ve just been full of ideas for weird prosthetics and shit, which really isn’t terribly productive. You kind of wish you did have a test subject. Like Tharja would do with Robin in the RP, just turn him into a girl and test hexes and curses on her.

(Probably doesn’t help that Alicia’s been showing off at track practice again. Jeez, does she know what guys think of her and her exposed midriff?! Or maybe that’s the idea.)

(Although, thinking about it, maybe she’d look good with a tail –)

“Hey! Rick!”

Oh, god.

You sigh, turning around to see Priscilla F. Murakumo’s ever-smiling face. That weirdo and semi-stalker or whatever who’s always riding your coattails…

You honestly don’t know what it is she has to be so happy about all the time, especially with all the weird rumors surrounding her. But as usual, she never misses a chance to get close to you, or suck up to you. Worse, since she’s the daughter of some Sunset executives, people are always talking behind your back about you and her together.

Maybe it’d be cool if she weren’t obviously a lesbian, by every rumor you can manage, so you can’t even assume she’s into you or anything. If she were, she’d probably be a ‘yandere’ or something, so you’re not really sure that’d help if she planned to stab anyone who looked at you funny. Admittedly, maybe that would be kind of hot, white-haired murder girl obsessed with her love interest, but this is the real world, not some anime –

“Rick?”

“Uh, hi,” you say, quickly closing your locker behind you. “What’s up, Priscilla?”

“Oh! I was just thinking, Celina told me you were doing some suspicious research or something?” Ugh, and she’s always got this way of being so blunt, too…damnit, Celina, did you have to give up the goods?

“Just some old white papers,” you mutter, playing it off. “Nothing super interesting unless you’re a geneticist.”

“Weeeeeeee~ll, I was fishing around my family’s stuff when cleaning last night, and I found something you might be interested in!” Priscilla fishes into her bag, and takes out a teeny tiny little flash drive with a heart sticker plastered on it. “Here, take it!”

“Uh, thanks,” you say, taking it out of Priscilla’s fingertips and having a look. Seems like a fairly normal drive to you, but you’ll have to use a honeypot for it just in case it’s got something suspicious on it. Her family does work for Sunset, after all. “What’s on it?”

“I dunno, it was just in a file with other gene therapy stuff.” Priscilla shrugs. “I thought you might like it, that’s all~”

“…sure.” God, this is going to have malware on it, isn’t it.

At least, that’s what you thought. Part of you hoped there might be something juicy on there, maybe, but there was absolutely no way.

And yet.

And yet.

When you got home, and carefully examined the files on an airgapped machine…

Holy hell. You knew Priscilla’s family was important, but you didn’t know they were this important. And Priscilla could just dig this up? Either they’ve got lax security at her place, or Priscilla’s got talents she isn’t letting on about. You know she hangs around those anime cultists in the Electric City sometimes, though in that case…how she decided to give this to you instead of sell it on the black market, you’ll never know.

This might be worth millions. It’s a whole ream of current gene therapy protocols used in Sunset clinics and labs. Some speculative stuff, too. Hell, even Special Division stuff. There’s even some bionics on the side. You couldn’t have asked for something better.

It’s still not like you can use it, but in purely scientific inquiry matters, it’s obviously worth having. You might have to be nicer to Priscilla from now on. She is kinda cute…in a ‘creepy yandere stalker’ kind of way…

(Like Tharja? some part of your brain reminds you.)

(Shut up, you tell the seductive-sounding part of your brain.)

It’s later that evening when you finally take a break from everything.

…well, by ‘later that evening’ you mean ‘well after you should’ve slept’. Admittedly not the first time you’ve gotten in too deep on all this, but you’ve had quite a few nights like this. And yet, all this, and the tail, and everything else is just so invigorating. You can’t remember the last time you were this inspired!

But still, even you can use some fresh air sometimes.

It’s a clear night in Southern Sun now, and your condo’s pretty fucking high up. It might have one of the most gorgeous views in the city; as you step out onto your balcony, you can stare out for miles across the islands and reclaimed land, the countless districts stitched together from architectural styles of the world’s nations, all those little points of light.

Southern Sun was built to show humanity the way forward into new frontiers. In a world of uncertainty and strife, four decades after the Collapse, it’s a sustainable city that becomes more and more self-sufficient by the day. Would that it would be enough on its own, but sadly the rest of the world can’t get its shit together in time, so you’re always living in the vague fear that tomorrow will be the day the planet can’t bounce back from, thanks to the chucklefucks from your parents’ homeland who love burning dinosaur juice.

But it isn’t just about the city. They brought the finest minds of a generation here to find new ways for humans to go forward. To reclaim Earth’s limited resources, and grasp new ones in places humans could never before reach. To explore the world’s oceans, and to reach out toward humanity’s golden age, in outer space…

or at least, that’s what it was supposed to be.

But all you can think of when you look out at the eternally half-finished frame of the Kaguya mass driver over the ocean, the supposed centrepiece of Southern Sun, laid over the equator to launch payloads into space at a fraction of current costs…

is that it’s all a fucking waste.

It’s not been taken seriously in your lifetime. Even now, it’s all experiments and halting research, never willing to commit the level of infrastructure needed to live up to the Reiwa Accord. Seems like when Southern Sun and the other new cities worked out so well, they slowed down…

Solar power satellites, extraplanetary resource gathering, all of these wonderful things that the powers that be have decided just aren’t that important! God, it’s not like humanity is facing extinction or anything! Fuuuuck.

The further ambition to colonize space was always a distant one, stretching forward potentially a century, but as usual, politicians just give up when anything takes longer than an election cycle. And Sunset’s all too happy to convince people that they can keep living in Southern Sun forever, and that they’ll somehow solve everything without effort, no matter how bad the rain gets or how they can’t even keep the shoreline of the resort districts from receding.

Even you know science can’t solve all ills of living on the planet Earth you fucked up. Are they all just waiting to die?

Tch. The joys of liberal democracy…

and of the Sunset Corporation, pulling the strings under a southern sun.

Maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on it all, though. It’s not like it’s easy. But don’t we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard?

Still. Humans just…weren’t built to live in space. Then again, they weren’t built to live on most of the Earth either. Human beings adapt their environments to suit them; adapting to space is still a challenge to this day. Adapting outer space to the purposes of human habitation is a monumental task that might take longer than you’ve got left.

If humans could adapt themselves, to suit their environment, though…

maybe they wouldn’t leave Kaguya half-finished, and you might have a chance of surviving this fucking greenhouse of a planet after all.

That night, you dream. This time of Priscilla.

Sweet, lovely Priscilla, your obsessed little lesbian pet.

Her eyes are rolled up into the back of her head in bliss as your tail is attached over her mouth and lips like a mask. You fill her lips and nostrils with a cocktail of drugs and toxins designed to make her utterly addicted to and dependent on you.

Not that she needs much help in that regard, of course. Just standing near you is enough for her to lose all rational thought and devote herself to you. One look at your lips, your breasts, your slit, your tail is more than enough to melt her mind.

With this form, you’re no longer human. You’re no longer limited by evolution. You can change to suit the environment…as can everyone else. Even outer space is possible, with this perfect body, improving ever forward. Who needs a planet, anyway?

A demon. A monster. Something that makes humanity obsolete.

Only beautiful things should exist.

Now, what sort of monster will you turn Priscilla into? Maybe a kitsune…or maybe a dragon? Decisions, decisions~