Galateya cracked eggs into a ceramic bowl one by one.

  Each egg broke clean, yolks intact, shells discarded into a separate container.

  As she worked on breakfast for her new ‘Circle’ Clan consisting of Ashcroft Clifford, Commandant Nexxali Everrim and the very strange Omnid Wendigo who called herself Commander Xandria, her thoughts wandered to an old, musty leather-bound book she's found in the vast library of the Clifford Estate last night and had become obsessed with.

  “” by N. Six.

  The book's narrative deviated sharply from Marianne Shelby's original she had enjoyed in the time bubble. In the N. Six's tale, Victor Frankenstein discarded the limitations of humanity to fuse female body parts with Earth's fauna. He stitched the lethal biology of land and sea into his monster and fully embraced his creation instead of running away from it. Then, the plot rapidly deviated way out of bounds from the original when in August 1792 Victor met Napoleon Bonaparte at the Paris commune and made a pact of Enlightenment to unite the Earth's nations to protect his monster girl.

  The strange old novel appealed to Galateya. The creature served as the vanguard for Napoleon and Victor, a girl of immense strength tempered only by her loyalty to the man who created her. This Victor did not recoil from his creation, didn't look down on medusa skin, bear claws or digitigrade feet. He saw utility and function. He sought a future where humanity would evolve through bold synthesis. Ashcroft Clifford seemed to be writing a similar story in this very house. He seemed to gather the Third Fleet officers in his house without fear. He looked upon the tall, alien forms of the Frontenachii and their prad drones and saw friends, colleagues and lovers who...

  Was this what she was doing now? Producing meals for her Clan? Dreaming of better things? Hoping that one day, Ashcroft, Nexxali and Xandria would reveal their terrible secrets to her?

  There was a certain injustice to her new relationship, an imbalance that she didn't like. It gnawed at her Taniwha senses like hot coals pressed against scales. The asymmetry of it constantly thrummed through her awareness: the trio concealed many of their plans, diluted the truth in constant misdirection. She knew nothing except what they chose to feed her in careful, measured portions skewed in unjust lies.

  Galateya knew that there was no solution to this irritating imbalance so she focused on her current accomplishments instead.

  The kitchen itself radiated a peculiar wrongness to her senses, a structural injustice that made her inner compass spin. Uneven floors. Decaying walls featuring gunfire damage. Banged up cabinets. A refrigerator that hummed off-key.

  Every surface screamed of neglect, of time's patient erosion of order.

  But she could fix that. No, she would absolutely fix that. Being Hearth Keeper meant imposing order on chaos, creating a domain where justice could flourish. Even if all of her home-maker knowledge came from human romance novels, she aimed to dive headfirst into her new position, feeling excited about imposing fairness upon her new, small, non-magical domain.

  She’d replaced the water heater, and had the two gun units repair the leaking pipes. Progress was happening. Things were measurably, quantifiably better.

  She whisked the eggs with measured strokes, watching the yolks blend into the whites. The motion itself carried rightness, a small act of creation that aligned with her understanding of how a Hearth Keeper should function. Her scales rippled with green moss and bark textures blooming across her face as she relaxed.

  "Keiy," she called over her shoulder. "Can you check the temperature on the griddle?"

  The symbiote gun trotted over on six articulated legs closer to the stove and then froze.

  "Keiy?" Galateya repeated, watching as the gun unit's triangular red eyes dimmed and brightened repeatedly. "The griddle?"

  "Oh! Yes! Right! The griddle!" Keiy's voice pitched higher than normal, almost chirping. She flashed a red ray against the archaic stovetop. "The temperature reads at three hundred and forty-seven degrees Fahrenheit, which is optimal for— oh, but what if the eggs don't like that temperature? What if they'd prefer three hundred and fifty? Or maybe they'd be happier at three hundred and forty-five?"

  “What?” Galateya's scales shifted from mossy bark to cracked pottery. "Keiy, eggs don't have preferences."

  "How do you know?" Keiy's head swiveled back to glare at her unnervingly. "Maybe eggs have feelings we've never considered! Maybe they want to be cooked gently, tenderly, with care!" Her voice cracked on the last word.

  Galateya stared at her gun unit.

  Since being bound to her, Keiy had always been sardonic, dry, factual to the point of bluntness. She usually catalogued things with the emotional investment of a bored calculator. The new, strange behaviour that started yesterday was escalating in scope.

  "What’s going on with you?" Galateya asked. “Why are you so… distracted?”

  Keiy's legs shuffled. The patterns of light across her head rearranged themselves into a resemblance of a… pixelated smile?!

  "Nothing! Absolutely nothing! I am functioning within normal parameters! Mostly! Probably! I just— do you think— would it be weird if I—" She fell silent.

  “If you what?” Galateya asked, feeling concerned for her weapon.

  "Sorry, what were we talking about?” Keiy unfroze. “The Weapon-Net is very loud today."

  “Loud, how?” Galateya asked.

  “Loud with… urm,” Keiy tapped her hexagonal-shaped head with a dark metal leg. “Loud with interesting stuff. Humans being humans, I suppose. It’s a tad… distracting. Don’t worry about it, Teya. It’s just… the usual… new things. Yeah. New things.”

  “New things?”

  “Yes. It’s not, like, bad things. It’s… nice things. A new kind of assessment of local threats, that’s all. It’ll pass, I’m certain. Don’t worry your lovely, colorful dragon-head about it. Datamancer Kawathra is on top of the issue.”

  “Uh-huh,” Galateya frowned.

  Her gun unit was keeping secrets from her too. More annoying injustice.

  The front door creaked open and boots thudded through the hall towards the kitchen. Galateya glanced at the hallway, expecting one of her new house-mates.

  Instead, a stranger walked in.

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  Over seven feet tall. Broad shoulders wrapped in black hexasuit plates that looked thick enough to stop bullets. Muscular arms. A face featuring an overly chiseled jaw, high cheekbones and amber eyes that caught the morning light.

  The wrongness of his appearance hit her like a slap.

  This person looked like Ashcroft… but only slightly. The entire physical form of the man advancing towards her screamed deception. The height alone violated every interaction they'd had. She'd been taller than him yesterday. Now he was a few inches taller than her.

  The vaguely Ash-shaped stranger reached her.

  "Morning, Teya!" Ashcroft's voice emerged from that ridiculous face. It sounded… wrong. Slightly off, modulated, tuned in an unnerving manner that subverted her expectations.

  An egg detonated in her claws. “...Ash?”

  “Yees?” The overly muscular human looked down at her.

  “Why… are you…” Galateya struggled with her words. “So… different?”

  Her scales rippled from obsidian shards into something that resembled broken glass catching firelight.

  Ashcroft tilted his head. The motion belonged to him. The face performing it absolutely did not.

  "Different how?" He inquired teasingly.

  Galateya let out a deep growl.

  Her human consort registered as a walking contradiction. Two separate justice signatures overlapped, creating a dissonant harmony that made her inner compass spin. Underneath the muscular frame pulsed his familiar pattern of their blood bond.

  The exterior, though. The exterior blazed with artificial wrongness. It was as if someone had taken a sculpture of masculinity and polished it until every angle reflected light at geometrically perfect intervals. Too balanced. Too fit. Too… perfect.

  "You're seven feet tall." Galateya set down the egg bowl before she shattered it too.

  “Had a growth spurt.” He smiled, pouring himself a glass of orange juice from the fridge.

  “You’re… messing with me,” she stated.

  “Just a little,” he commented, heading into the living room with his glass.

  Galateya followed, watching him walk towards Daxagon, Piotr, and Linari sprawled across the leather couch.

  “Sup guys?” He asked, waiting for their reactions.

  The wolf-woman's head snapped up. Her nostrils flared.

  "Slayer's balls," Linari breathed. "Ash?" She leaned forward, sniffing aggressively. "You smell… Like a… symbiote gun.”

  Piotr stared, frozen mid-sip of his coffee. "Mate. What the actual fuck happened to you?"

  Daxagon burst out laughing. "Bro! You look like a freaking gigachad meme! Did you photoshop yourself in real life?"

  "Yes," Ashcroft said simply. "That's exactly what I did."

  Keiy trotted into the living room, her triangular red eyes focusing on Ashcroft.

  "Updating threat assessment," Keiy commented, scanning Ashcroft with a beam. “Human wrapped in a gun unit with unexplained Biomechanical Modifications."

  "Why?" Galateya asked.

  “Why what?” The gigachad-Ash rotated.

  "Why do you look so… ridiculous?"

  "Had Kawathra mod my body a little." He tapped the black band circling his forehead. "This is a hexasuit frame. Gun unit actually. I'm controlling it with my mind. Pretty neat, right?"

  "Neat," Galateya repeated. "You're wearing gun-unit-armor disguised as muscles. Your entire body radiates false presentation. This is the opposite of neat."

  "Harsh," Daxagon commented. "Let the man enjoy his gigachad-ness."

  Galateya’s eye twitched.

  “Maybe he’s trying to impress you,” Dax laughed. “Aren’t you into that sorta stuff? He looks like exactly one of your romance-novel covers.”

  Galateya pursed her lips, not impressed with this development.

  "This isn't… impressive," she said firmly. "This." She gestured at his entire form. "It's all clearly fake."

  "Characters in romance novels are fake," Ashcroft pointed out.

  Galateya's eye twitched. "Characters in romance novels are… meant to… aspirational. Not literal fabrications. They're fictional representations of ideals. That's completely different from you walking around wearing a meat puppet that looks like someone fed every male lead ever written into an AI generator and hit 'combine.'"

  Linari snorted into her coffee.

  "Look," Ashcroft said, spreading his hands. "I know it's jarring. But think about it logically. Eventually I'll be on TV as your consort. Do you really want me looking like myself?"

  Galateya blinked. "Why wouldn't you?"

  "Because humanity is a boiling pot right now." He playfully picked up a leather armchair with one hand and put it down next to the couch. "People won't take alien rulership lightly. There will be resistance. Anger. And someone, somewhere, will decide the best way to express their displeasure is by shooting the human collaborator. Nexxali told me that your Incarnators are imperfect. I don't want to lose a month of my life, so this was the solution.”

  “...Oh,” Galateya let out, the simmering fire of displeasure burning in her chest simmering down.

  “Plus the general hate mail, death threats, angry mobs. My family could become targets. My parents could get kidnapped," he explained. “My actual life as Ashcroft Clifford stays private. Safe. I’ll be dating you in public and receiving the medal from your Legate Grandmother as… Chad Yodwick or something.”

  “Or something?” Galateya asked.

  “Or something,” Chad-Ash nodded. “Want to give me a name?”

  “A name for?”

  “For this face,” the human pointed at his excessively chiselled chin. “The guy dating the future Baroness of Earth.”

  The Taniwha studied the fabricated face before her. The angles were too sharp, the jaw too heroic, the amber eyes too… expressive. It truly looked like someone had fed a diffusion model every action movie poster from the last decade and commanded it to synthesize the ultimate masculine ideal.

  "What about... Brad?" she suggested flatly.

  "Brad?" Her consort raised an eyebrow.

  "Short. Simple. Very human-sounding," Galateya said, her tone making it clear she was not invested in this ridiculous naming exercise.

  "Brad Yodwick?" Daxagon snickered from the couch. "Sounds like a regional manager who sells insurance."

  "Fine. How about... Thaddeus?" Galateya tried again.

  Piotr choked on his coffee. "Thaddeus?! That's worse!"

  "Thaddeus McBroface," Daxagon added helpfully, making Piotr laugh.

  Galateya's scales flashed an angry orange. "I am trying!"

  "Are you though?" Ash's voice carried amusement through the modified vocal cords. "Because it sounds like you're just throwing manly names and hoping something sticks."

  "Well forgive me for not having an extensive catalog of human names!" Galateya snapped. "I don’t have a degree in naming freaking meat puppets!"

  "Meat puppets," Daxagon wheezed. "Oh man, that's going in my notes."

  Galateya crossed her arms, scales settling into stubborn granite. "I… need more time to think of something appropriate. Something that won't make me cringe every time I have to say it in public."

  "Fair enough." Ash nodded. "I'll give you till… eleven to come up with a name.”

  "Who else is coming to breakfast?" she asked, refusing to acknowledge the chortles from the group on the couch.

  "North and South headed downtown to manage their affairs," Ash replied. "Commander Xandy, Nexy, and Kawthy are nomming UwUs in Seeker Kappa. Working on stuff."

  "Very important business things that definitely are not suspicious at all, right?” she ground out.

  “Yep.”

  “Fine.” She turned sharply toward the kitchen, her tail sweeping low enough to make Keiy hop up to avoid being smacked.

  "You sound bitter," Keiy observed as Galateya stomped back into the kitchen.

  "I sound appropriately concerned about not being fully informed," Galateya huffed.

  "If you say so," the gun unit shrugged.

  Galateya poured the egg mixture onto the griddle, watching it sizzle and bubble. Behind her, the living room conversation continued about the merits of various breakfast foods and whether UwUs counted as ethical protein sources.

  "I can't believe you can casually wear a gun unit as a body," Dax was saying. "That's mental, mate."

  "Practical!" Ash said. "I can swap out different frames. Today I'm Ash the Gigachad. Tomorrow I could be, oh I don't know, Steve the Slightly Less Intimidating Office Worker."

  "Steve," Linari snorted. "That's even worse than Brad."

  "Steve has character!” Dax laughed. “Steve pays his taxes on time and has reasonable opinions about municipal zoning laws. I want to be Steve! Can I be Steve?”

  "Steve sounds boring," Piotr said.

  "Exactly! That's the point! Nobody assassinates Steve for dating Sexy Space Wendigos and Dragons,” Ash commented.

  “Steve’s dating prospects are depressing,” Dax added. “He should lower his standards. I bet Gretchel from Accounting likes him.”

  Galateya scraped the eggs off the griddle onto a plate with far more aggression than the task required.