NOVEL NEXT Chapter 17: Recalibration
Augusta stared at Vivian as they stood in the goth oriented clothing store. There was confusion in the blonde’s eyes. There had been a lot of confusion in her eyes all evening.
“What do I do to summon the help, then? Whistle? Snap my fingers?” Augusta asked.
Vivian let out a sigh. “You look over. See if they’re looking this way. If they are, you can try to wave them over. If they aren’t, then you walk to them.”
Augusta’s eyes filled with horror. “I… walk to them? I… what if I ring the bell, but then give them a small tip to make up for it? Say a few hundred dollars?”
Vivian raised a finger, her mouth hanging open for a moment. She was realising she had to make at least a few compromises at this point. “Ok. Ok. Yes. If you’re willing to tip a few hundred dollars, then you can probably call them over however you like.”
“Excellent,” Augusta replied, raising a victorious fist.
She then produced a bell, ringing it and calling the store attendant over as ‘shop girl’. The goth woman looked half ready to murder Augusta until she saw the handful of crisp red fifties the blonde was offering her as payment for ‘help’. Vivian silently mouthed ‘they’re real, she’s loaded’ behind the French princess, and the attendant’s eyes lit up.
With Augusta temporarily busy, Vivian turned to check on Plynx. The alien princess had discovered a pastel pink choker with an oversized bell on it, and seemed mildly hypnotized by the jingling noise it made as she wiggled it back and forth. Perhaps more than mildly, with how dilated her pupils were.
“Going to buy that for Svetlana or for yourself?” Vivian asked, leaning forward.
Plynx blushed as she noticed how close Vivian was. “I… maybe I could get matching ones?”
“You would both look adorable in them,” Vivian replied, making the poor lynx girl’s blush worse.
Before Vivian could tease Plynx any further, she realised O’tmyil and Svetlana were at the entrance of the store. Svetlana looked apologetic, gesturing to O’tmyil.
Vivian simply smiled as she walked over to them, leaning in to kiss Svetlana and O’tmyil both on the cheek.
“Hey girls,” Vivian said.
Plynx had hurried over, and looked mildly concerned. “You-Vivian can switch targets quickly.”
Vivian shrugged. “It’s not my first polycule.”
Plynx nodded, looking impressed.
“O’tmyil needs to—oooh. That’s a super cute choker,” Svetlana said, getting distracted by the item in Plynx’s hands.
The feline girl got flustered, briefly trying to hide the item before realising it was too late. “I… it was meant to be a gift for Svetlana-dearest’s birthday.”
“Oh. I’d need to get some other pastel clothes to wear with it,” Svetlana replied.
“I will happily pay, if you let me see you model the outfits,” Augusta said, appearing beside Plynx.
Svetlana’s eyes sparkled at the offer. “I have work later, but we should definitely do that another day.”
“So, not that I’ll complain about having two more cute girls around, but what brought you two out?” Vivian asked.
“I require access to Lady Plynx’s vessel,” O’tmyil replied. “I need to plug into a proper power source while doing a system diagnostics scan.”
“Oh! Oh yes!” Plynx said, grabbing O’tmyil’s hand. “We-two shall get right on that!”
Plynx nearly hurried off immediately, before Vivian reminded her she needed to pay for the choker she was holding. She bought two, then hurried off with O’tmyil. Augusta, meanwhile, had dragged Svetlana off to the more lingerie end of the store, and seemed to be wavering between offering to buy some scandalous things for Svetlana to wear, or for Svetlana to see her wear.
Svetlana seemed equally excited by either option.
“So, um,” the cashier said, twirling blue-black hair around her finger as she leaned forward in her low cut goth top. “Your polycule… how open is it?”
“That… hasn’t actually been clarified yet. If you give me your number I’ll get back to you when I find out, though,” Vivian replied, with a wink.
Plynx fussed about, trying to get the settings right on her ship’s main charging port. Sure, the Issiod’rians still used the old imperial standards, but a few hundred years led to some drift. Still, the system was meant to be user friendly, and O’tmyil was plugged in soon enough.
Now all Plynx had to do was watch her for the next three to four hours as the android did her recalibration. A few hours to think some more about just who O’tmyil was, and what the other woman had seen. The fall of the First Dynasty. The campaign of Morric the Brave. The… just, every major event of the Second Dynasty.
Plynx envied Svetlana and the other Earthlings, able to just see O’tmyil for herself. Not as a walking embodiment of history.
Cartridge felt like a kid on Christmas as she looked over the things Thisbe’s friend had brought.
“Is this a first edition Japanese copy of The Myth of Olga?” Svetlana said, staring at the gold coloured plastic cartridge among other Famistation games.
The Jorōgumo nodded. “Thought I’d see what kind of cash I can get for the old stuff. It was just collecting dust, and I’d rather get some new games for my Yboy 5.”
Cartridge’s eye twitched. “You’re trading these for some… some new game?”
“I like realistic graphics,” the spider woman replied with a shrug.
“She’s always liked gory stuff,” Thisbe replied. “Don’t know how she does it… they make me so hungry.”
Svetlana nodded, carefully picking up the copy of MoO. “We’ll have to test to make sure it plays… darn. We sold our last Japanese Famistation last week, didn’t we?”
“Uhh… yeah. I think so?” Cartridge replied.
“I guess we’ll need to do the work around,” Svetlana said, biting her lip. “It should be safe for the game. And console… Mynx, could you get me two pairs of plyers?”
The feline girl nodded, running off upstairs and returning a moment later with plyers in hand.
“Thanks, Zyn,” Svetlana said, now able to see which colour their bracelet was.
Svetlana then turned back to the console, lining up the cartridge to make sure everything would fit. Then she slid the plyers in, to work around the localisation restrictions.
Only for there to be a flash of electricity, causing Svetlana to go stiff and fall backwards.
Zyn’s head popped up from over by the outlet, fear in her eyes. “Was… was the console not to be plugged in yet?”
“No,” Cartridge said, as Thisbe hurried over to Svetlana.
Luckily, the recently electrocuted girl blinked a few times, showing she was alive. She just looked confused.
“Are you alright?” Thisbe asked, a hand on Svetlana’s cheek.
Svetlana looked at her, then around at the room. “What is… where—am I in Crooked Giovanni’s?”
“…yes?” Thisbe replied.
Svetlana nodded, before looking down at her hands. “My arms… they are… what’s going on?”
“Um… you were trying to test if a game my friend was selling worked?” Thisbe explained, gesturing to the console and then her friend.
Svetlana turned, and the Jorōgumo smiled, waving at her. “Sorry about this.”
Svetlana gave a slow nod, staring down at her hands again, when Zyn—no, M’gnyz hopped over to her side, leaning in. Cartridge wasn’t sure when they’d switched.
“Wait. O’tmyil-friend?” the feline girl asked.
“I…” Svetlana mumbled.
“Did Svetlana-future-sister getting electrocuted lead to you-two switching bodies?” M’gnyz asked.
“She was electrocuted? How?” Svetlana—or, no… O’tmyil asked.
Svetlana was very confused, because she currently felt like she was a disk. Was this some sort of thematic trippy dream?
She tried to wiggle, only to feel like her body had burst back into being humanoid. Her hands were blue for some reason, though.
As were her ankles, under the poofy dress she was wearing.
Wait, why was she on Plynx's ship?
“O’tmyil-friend? Why are you awake already?” Plynx asked.
“I’m O’tmyil right now?” Svetlana replied, looking up and realising she could see antennae sticking out of her forehead.
She immediately became distracted by trying to figure out how to make them move. After a moment, she got the hang of it.
“That’s fun… wait. Why am I in O’tmyil’s body?” Svetlana asked.
“Svetlana-dearest?”
“Yep. Wait… How could you tell it was me so easily?” Svetlana asked.
“Well, you-dearest have a mental link with O’tmyil-friend, so it seemed the most likely switch. As well as the… well, the way you got distracted by having antennae seemed very you,” Plynx explained. “Plus, I am used to picking up who I am talking to with my sisters.”
Svetlana nodded. “That makes sense.”
O’tmyil massaged her forehead after everyone explained why Svetlana had gotten herself electrocuted. She seemed to briefly get distracted by the lack of antennae on her forehead, but it lasted no more than a moment.
“She got electrocuted during the middle of my diagnostic scan. I didn’t think she’d… I suppose I should have said something,” O’tmyil said, letting out a sigh as she stood up.
“So, you’re really an alien robot?” the spider yokai asked, while O’tmyil stretched out her, or, rather, Svetlana’s back.
“I am indeed, Miss Jorōgumo. It is nice to meat you,” O’tmyil replied, grinning.
Only to not get any laughs.
“Surely that’s a good pun? Since I’m meat right now?” she said, slowly getting nods from the others.
“It, uh, it’d probably work better written down?” Cartridge offered.
“True,” O’tmyil said.
Svetlana hurried after Plynx, feeling weirdly light as she ran through the streets of downtown Hammer City. While many other women would likely be nervous, running around the rougher northern end of downtown after dark, Svetlana was far more concerned with an odd feeling in her gut.
A feeling like she’d just missed a delightful pun.
O’tmyil pouted in one of the lounge chairs as the others moved back to the transaction. After she’d assured them switching back was relatively easy they’d decided it was just another bit of ‘Svetlana Chaos’. O’tmyil could accept that, though.
No, the thing that had her pouting was the pain in her side. Svetlana’s ribs still hadn’t quite healed. Worse, though, was the fact O’tmyil couldn’t turn the pain receptors off. It was highly inconvenient to be left with a constant pain like that.
Then there was the way she’d accidentally thought about how her tongue sat in her mouth and now she couldn’t get it comfortable. Were human tongues too big for their mouths? That seemed questionable.
Did other species have that issue?
This was her first time being turned to flesh and meat, so she didn’t know. All she could say was that it was overstaying its welcome. Why would anyone want to be organic, if this was what it was like?
Were there any tranquilizers around? Maybe she could sleep through the bulk of this unpleasantness.
She’d gotten up, ready to ask, when the door burst open, revealing a panting Plynx and… O’tmyil’s body.
“Dang! I look—could you do a 360, O’tmyil?” Svetlana, in her body, asked.
“Of course,” O’tmyil replied, doing a twirl.
“Oooh. I’ve got more booty than I realised. Nice,” Svetlana said, hurrying over.
“Mhm. You have a quite good figure,” O’tmyil replied.
Svetlana’s eyes had glossed over, and O’tmyil could feel the euphoria flooding through their connection. She noticed that Thisbe seemed to also be getting mildly intoxicated off of Svetlana’s joy.
Svetlana turned to Cartridge, pointing happily at O’tmyil. “I really am a babe!”
“You’re handling this whole ‘body swap’ thing waaay too well,” Cartridge replied.
“Not the first time I’ve suddenly had a new body in the last month,” Svetlana countered.
“Fair,” Cartridge replied.
All eyes then drifted to O’tmyil. Or, well, almost all eyes. Thisbe’s arachnid friend was checking some of the new games the store had, apparently willing to play a few games from the previous console generation and uninvested in which body O’tmyil and Svetlana were in. But everyone else clearly wanted to hear from O’tmyil how switching back would work.
Svetlana felt pale as she sat down on the couch. She had to learn how to turn into a power-suit to get her body back. She’d tried asking O’tmyil if they could just do the electricity thing again, but there was apparently a high risk of it simply severing their bond next time. Which was… fixable, but likewise required her transforming into armour mode to re-establish it.
She looked down at her (accidentally borrowed) hands, and tried to picture what being hollow might be like.
Well, she supposed she’d still be humanoid, at least?
She decided to calm herself down a bit by focusing on making her antennae wiggle. That was fun.