Collide Gamer Charitable [Jane POV]

“Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!”

“Stooooooooop!” Moira put a hand between their lips, preventing the leader of the harem from getting the kisses she was so justly owed.

“But why?” Moving left, then right, the Empress of Fusion (capitalized because she got to be the only one with the official title) attempted to get around the barrier. Proving herself the Shield Warden once again, the redhead blocked every attack upon her sweet lips.

“Because everyone is looking at us!” Moira hissed.

Jane turned her head halfway towards the gathered gala. The event had been planned since the end of the Lorylim War, the first in a chain of huge gatherings of Fusion’s wealthiest – with the exception of Scarlett. The technomancer had given the pinkette a blank-check because she was just that charming.

The galas were not events for the purpose of the wealthy insulating themselves, quite the opposite. Rather than fancy dresses and sparkling suits, those present wore anything between standard business attire to actual worker’s clothes. The venue provided wasn’t a marble chamber lit by crystal chandeliers, but a simple series of tents placed in a devastated parking lot of an East Coast mall.

The purpose was to coordinate. John had a lot of trust in the private sector and Jane did not know enough economic theory to question any of his talks about macro economics, supply chains and the ripple effects of governnt interventions into markets. What she did understand was that even the smartest people were often aimless in their efforts. They would sit on their butts until sothing gave them a direction.

Jane would provide that direction. Previously, her charity organization had focused on connecting the scattered population centres that the anarchistic lay of the land had created over the last 300 years. All of those roads had collapsed, most of the population centres wiped clean through either annihilation or mass relocation.

People were currently packed into specific population centres, a state of affairs that few liked. The people did not like it because they were used to having more space and the elites didn’t like it because it ant they had to compete with each other in those tight areas. Everyone wanted to spread out. No one could agree on how to do it.

Enter Jane ‘Rave’ Holly, charismatic Empress of Fusion, a figure everyone respected for whatever reason. Jane wasn’t sure how she had ended up being so popular across all strata of society. Sure, she was hot, sure, she could be very talky, but she definitely wasn’t soone with brilliant ideas.

But if all they needed was a talky cat woman, then who was she to deny them that?

Though she was still annoyed that she sacrificed her Hawaii trip for this.

Hawaii!

She could be dancing in the tropical sun with a flower necklace around her neck right now!

Instead, she had to steal kisses from a prude!

Jane turned her head back to Moira. The hand remained in her path. She dragged her tongue across Moira’s palm. The redhead gave her hand a confused look. “You’re so weird,” she groaned. “Why do I like you?”

“Ya don’t like , ya love ,” Jane said with a grin. “The day of the dual pregnancy approaches.” It wasn’t actually that close, them being in Wave 2 and all, but it was getting closer by the minute all the sa.

“You don’t need to remind constantly.” Moira averted her gaze, blushing, her lips twitching slightly upwards. All of her denial was useless! Jane knew that her forr rival turned lover (and rival) was way into the idea.

“You’re just afraid that I’mma have the bigger baby,” Jane purred.

“Wha- No, you will not! I an… no, I am not afraid!”

“You tots’ afraid that my kid will beat your kid in all the cool things.” Jane grinned. “Ya watch have twins.”

“Screw you, I am having twins!” Moira responded, her competitive side coming to the surface.

“Can the Warden even have twins on her first pregnancy?” Jane wondered.

“You two have the weirdest priorities!” They turned to the speaker. Jane tried and failed to have her eyes not snap to Delicia’s cleavage first. In her maid outfit, the alchemist’s tits were just way too popping to be ignored! “Yeah, drink it in, drink it in.” The shortstack pushed out her chest. “I know you can’t stop yourself! Bwahahaha!”

The mocking laughter was endearing in its own way. Jane silenced it by getting her next kiss from the bratty maid! A muffled sound of surprise was imdiately followed by the shortstack practically lting under Jane’s tongue. ‘Gaia, I love my submissives!’ she thought, asserting her dominance over the maid with every passing second. When she broke the kiss, she did it on her terms. “Now, tell what ya ca to report?”

“Yes, Mistress.” Delicia’s smug tone was wiped away, replaced with a placid, happy servitude. Once, Jane hadn’t cared much for the title, but that had been before she had discovered how much fun it was to be the top cat. “There’s a heated conversation between Charles and Jones. You might want to intervene.”

Jane picked her own brain for those nas. She had gotten astoundingly smart over the last two years, in ways that often surprised herself. If she had wanted to, she probably could understand all of that political theory John always read or listened to. She just didn’t care. Kissing cute girls was so much more important.

All the sa, her mory did drag out who Delicia was talking about. Charles was the representative of a chain of masonry workshops in the area while Jones was the owner of one of the Lake Alliance’s big architect shops. One was powerful on the East Coast, the other had more sway across Fusion but less so locally. Both had interests in monopolizing certain markets.

Groaning, Jane stepped away from her cute won and ventured back out into the political arena. ‘That’s the end of my recharging ti.’

Finding Charles and Jones wasn’t difficult. Their voices were subtly raised, which was more than enough to find them in an otherwise civil environnt. A small group of people was forming around them. All parted around the approaching Empress.

“You fucking idiot!” Charles declared in a Boston accent. “We gotta get the stones first!”

“You do not,” Jones responded in a calr choice of words, but was all the sa agitated. “We have to inspect the stones to know which ones to have cut. It is integral to our architectural ambitions. Ambitions that are, may I remind, explicitly sponsored by John Newman?”

“Leave the talking for my husband to , please,” Jane entered the fray with a joke on her lips. “What’s the hubbub?”

“My Empress,” Charles imdiately turned to her. “This fuckwad-“

“Rein it in, we’re all on the sa side here,” Jane interrupted. Egos were overflowing at these events. Everyone wanted to be the big na to be rembered as the one who rebuilt Fusion’s infrastructure. “Tell what’s going on calmly.”

“It is simple.” Jones crossed his arms. “We talked about laying a railroad track through an Illusion Barrier, going to an old Appalachian quarry. Natural Barriers appear there reliably enough to be a source of magical stones. He insists that the masons should be the first drop-off points for the arrivals.”

“Because of course we should be,” Charles said. “We’re masons!”

Jones groaned. “Are you cutting stones to cut stones or are you cutting stones to be part of sothing? Obviously, the architects need to inspect the goods first so we can tell you what to make out of what.”

“We got more clients than you.”

“We are rebuilding and I want to reiterate…” Jones turned to Jane, “…that, unless I’m misunderstanding sothing, John Newman has sponsored the architectural style of the Lake Alliance because he wants to see it all across the nation? If we don’t have first picking on materials, that will slow down our ability to design, create and thus accelerate the creation of the towns and cities we so desperately need.”

Jones was absolutely correct. What Charles expressed may have been correct for his business, but Fusion currently needed to favour the construction sector. The crater-marked parking lot they were currently in was practically the last intact structure at the centre of what had previously been a Type 2 Abyssal city.

Stomping new cities out of the ground wasn’t just a matter of getting the economy reinforced, it also was about giving the people places to live that weren’t copied hos of others. Everyone yearned for their own safe place. Supplying those for the Awakened was one of the best ways to get them to truly align with Fusion. The culture shock of having a monarchy was a lot easier to swallow if they upgraded from current day renting arrangents into a cool house that looked like it could co from an Atlantis movie.

Saying all of that to Charles was bound to ruffle so feathers though, so Jane had to be more charismatic about it. “I totally get all of that, from both of ya.” She gave them her best radiant smile. They were visibly disard by it. “How about this: stone goes to the architects first, but ya always have at least one mason present to give advice and stuff? Obviously, ya want to have soone there who knows what ya can actually do with a stone?” Her blue eyes dashed from one man to the other. “Gotta work together for the empire, right?”

“For the empire!” Charles agreed verbosely. “This can work for .”

“Sa here,” Jones said.

They began talking about the details of their arrangent. Once it was clear they wouldn’t shout at each other again, Jane stepped away. Delicia received her at the edge of the tent. Moira had walked away, using her religious authority to put out so other fire.

“You very nicely took advantage of Charles’ loyalties,” the shortstack comnted.

“I did what now?” Jane asked.

“…You didn’t know he was a big donour of the Crowning Party?”

“Ooooh! Nah, didn’t know, but he sounded like he wanted to hear he’ll do stuff for the empire, so…” Jane just shrugged.

Delicia gave the first of the Imperial Choir a respectful side-eye. “I’ll bless you with my rare nicety: your social intuition is super scary.”

“Calling scary is no complint!” Jane complained.

“It’s the best you’ll get out of .”

Jane rolled her eyes. In her periphery, she caught a familiar blonde, the dark roots of her hair covered by the ever-present trucker hat. Hailey was chatting with another important person, one that the feline Lightbearer needed fresh input from. Swiftly, she moved on over.

“…and if a Con-3 rune gets boxed in like that, it ain’t doing any conductin’. Ya need to use Zoroastrian glyphs in this corner, rather than the Roman standard. They conduct the mana a bit differently. That’d create a little void here, and then the whole thing oughta flow.”

Jane caught the tail-end of a lengthy explanation. The motions of Hailey’s finger were closely followed by the scratching of Magnus’ pen. “Ya two are discussing the exact thing that I wanna ask about!” the Empress of Fusion chid into the conversation. “How’s the railroad coming along?”

Magnus had been gradually perfecting the new type of Illusion Barrier he had partly discovered, partially invented. He called it the Magus Rail, which was fancy and fitting. Between him, Lee and Magoi, that one very much had been a family project. Jane wouldn’t even pretend she got the chanics behind it. All she knew was that it had two end-points and that anything with a Mobile Barrier Generator could travel end to end without a Fateweaver, once it was set-up.

It was a massive upgrade over previous Abyssal roads, which were just Protected Spaces on top of existing roads. Not only were those limited in scope and usefulness, taking a car from one into the other required a Fateweaver and, at that point, one might as well just have a Mobile Barrier Generator under the hood to drive anywhere unopposed.

The Magus Rail could stretch across kilotres. It was a line between two points that could then be used by traditional trains. Endpoints could be placed in clusters, effectively creating train stations and supply hubs. Though Fateweavers were still needed to maintain this infrastructure, they weren’t needed to operate it, which allowed much greater scaling.

“Thanks to Hailey here, I just figured out how to set the endpoints into an already existing Illusion Barrier,” Magnus responded, his stoic tone compromised by excitent. “It will be expensive, but the plan can now go forwards.”

“I’mma make sure ya get everything ya need sponsored by the Imperial Choir,” Jane promised. She didn’t care if it wouldn’t pay off with a clean profit, giving people the ability to get around fast was vital. If Magnus really had just managed that little miracle, then they could now load, transport, and deliver Abyssal goods all without interacting with mundane space.

Stuff was about to go north – fast!

“Any ideas yet where the Guild Halls will be placed?” Magnus asked. That was the one part of the infrastructure planning that was complicating things. They were ‘blessed’ with a mostly clean slate of townships after the Lorylim War. Jane wasn’t big on planning the entire Fusion transportation network from the top down… it was a whole lot of work she felt like was better handed over to the people who would actually use that network.

That being said, they had to lay the skeleton structure, both to prove to everyone that it would work and to give people stuff to attach to. The obvious starting point would be to connect the existing Guild Halls. So far, only tra’s and Lorelei’s were in a permanent position. One was by DC, the other by Salt Lake City. A bit much of a distance for a proof of concept.

“Nope,” she had to answer all the sa. “Test rail will connect DC to the New Hudson Barrier.”

Magnus nodded and rolled up his blueprints. “I will get right back on the plane. Just needed Hailey’s input on this.”

“Always happy to be helpin’,” the enigma engineer drawled.

Magnus disappeared from the gathering as quickly as he had appeared there. “Did he say anything about how Eliana is doing?” the first of the harem asked her fellow ‘ya’-sayer.

They put their arms around each other’s waists without even thinking about it. Jane only noticed once she was side-boob to side-boob with Hailey. A fantastic feeling, especially since they were out in the sticks in the winter months.

“Oh yeah,” Hailey laughed. “Ya ready for this one?”

“Did she call her supporters a bunch of retards?”

“Ya know, hon’!”

They laughed about the absurdities of their beloved psycho. “She’s so brave for doing what she’s doing,” Jane said after they were done giggling. “Love to see it.”

“Sweetest drop in the honeycomb, she’s gonna do just fine,” Hailey agreed. “How’s stuff going so far? I was distracted with Magnus.”

“Eh, usual charity event but on a bigger scale. Bunch of individual egos needin’ the comb-over,” Jane reported. “So far it’s all about getting the wealthy onboard with paying for the housing projects.”

“How’s that going?”

“All things considered? Not the worst. They’re trying to get a bunch of favours and privileges outta and the other gals, of course…”

“Of course,” Hailey drawled a quick agreent.

“…but it ain’t so bad. Most of them are recognizing they gotta give up a slice of their wealth to integrate the Awakened and help everyone recover.”

“What about the ones that aren’t?” Hailey asked quietly.

Jane just flashed a sharp grin. As Empress, she had a lot more levers she could use than as First Lady. If soone was so determined to keep their money that they wouldn’t even do their civic duty of helping the country recover from a war… well, then Jane saw no reason why she would give them the privilege of any of her social clubs – as a first asure.

John loved his free market. Jane had no such determination. She believed that good things should happen to good people and that bad people could use a reminder that this was still the Abyss. Nothing lethal, of course, and nothing covert either. Jane gave them a smacking personally when she t these people at her events.

“If people didn’t want to get punched, they shouldn’t behave so punchable,” she said.

“Ain’t that right?” Hailey agreed and put a kiss on the pinkette’s cheek.

What other validation could she possibly need?