‘You got everything?’ John asked via mental connection and got an affirmative, if hesitant, signal back. He had just confirmed what conditions he wanted Aclysia to present to the Lake Alliance. The biggest obstacle was less the terms and more the question whether or not they would even answer any calls.

Responding from the other end, Aclysia voiced her discomfort, ‘Master, is it truly wise to hold a press conference without me or Beatrice around? You are quite light on bodyguards at the moment, perhaps…’

‘I have Metra and the elementals with me, it’ll be fine,’ he responded. His mood had stabilized considerably since returning from the Embassy. Overall, he was still feeling pretty annoyed with the situation, but he had calmed to a level of acceptance by now. Repeating the Hollmey adage a couple of times in his head also helped. ‘I just need to get all of these talks out of the way. Then I can go help Jane and look after Eliza.’

A worried sigh filled his mind. ‘I am certain you know what is best, Master,’ the weaponized maid stated and reached out for the mental equivalent of a quick kiss. Their thoughts intertwined for a moment, then Aclysia distanced herself to see to the task John had given her.

“Alright,” John rolled his neck and took a cookie out of a nearby bowl. He snapped it in two, ate one half himself and presented the other to Sylph. Having respawned just a few minutes ago, the thunderstorm elemental was as busy babbling as ever. Right up until she full body hugged that cookie and started nibbling on it. To pass the time, and somewhat recompense the air spirit for dying again, he scratched her fluffy head with his index finger.

Not that her happy humming and trance-like eating didn’t pay him back with her adorableness. If it weren’t for Sylph’s reaction to sugar overdoses, he would have spent the next ten minutes in a state of patting and feeding her. It was like getting to see one’s dog or cat after a hard day of work, it just cheered him up.

Light fell into the tent for a moment, as Metra parted the slit cloth that made up the entrance to take a peek outside. “How long do they take to get done with this?” she asked, crossing her arms but remaining standing where she was. “The whole place is already standing, so why can’t you just immediately start your announcement thing?”

The berserker babe pointed with her head at the entrance and the large stage that stood not far away from their current location. It was the very same stage that John had opened the whole festivities on, that he used to broadcast the Tier 3 Guild Hall upgrade and that he had planned to hold the closing speech on as well. A closing speech that now had to double as his public response to the attack.

“Two reasons, one feeding into the other,” John told the First of Wrath. “Primarily, I just announced that this would be happening like half an hour ago. I don’t think most people have realized that the invasion was even a thing yet. By delaying the event, I give social media the time to spread these things. The announcement will have a bigger impact the more people see it live. To that end, I have told the technical crew to double check every cable, the excuse being that I am afraid the earthquakes from the volcano may have dislodged something and I don’t want to start with even the smallest risk.”

“Which,” Salamander chimed in, stepping behind John’s chair and pressing her boobs against the back of his head, “is an actually valid concern, so nobody can say a fucking thing.” She reached down and ran her hand through his hair. The weather was already warm, even though John had deactivated the Weather Tower now, but between her boobs and her palm John was grilling. The squishy and gentleness of the entire thing kept him in place though.

Along with his humour, it was quite clear that his Libido was returning to him now. Not completely. The events of the day put a damper on things, the loss of life and theoretic meaninglessness of that life in the face of reality being the dream of an incomprehensibly large deity. Not exactly a combination that resulted in a raging erection. Salamander’s care did get him to a solid half-mast though.

“Also, the journalists will be thankful that we gave them at least some notification ahead of time,” John finished the topic. “Also, also, Sally, any reason you’re being this nice right now?”

“You’re just so hot when you’re angry,” the endflame elemental confessed immediately. “Not to mention victorious. Turns me right the fuck on.”

“I’m with her there,” Metra said. Under other circumstances, this would be directly leading to a blowjob under the table. Instead, the topic sort of died off. The evening would contain a lot of lewdness, that much was certain. For now, they were just waiting for all the cables to get checked.

About ten minutes later, John was walking up the stairs of the stage. The crowd was a wild mixture of journalists and the few people that prioritized coming here over doing anything else. Presumably, mostly visitors from other parts of Fusion, who didn’t have to check whether their house had gotten away unscathed.

Cameras from private individuals and news channels were all directed at the stage. Overall, the crowd was smaller than at the opening ceremony. To very little surprise. “Hello,” John started basic and serious. “I will keep this short, as there are things to be done and people to talk to. Today, we were attacked by the Lake Alliance. It was a full-force invasion. As far as we could gather so far, its entire goal was to intimidate and deal as much damage to the infrastructure as possible. As for the why, I have engaged recently in attempts to sign a white peace with them. That is to say, I wanted to immediately have all warfare cease, with no losses of territory or other concessions on either side.”

Sadly, he had never really talked about these plans in public. This whole announcement would have carried a lot more weight otherwise. Everything that made the Lake Alliance’s attack seem even more unjustified would be good for his cause. As it was, those that already believed him would say he had indeed done so and those who didn’t like him would simply state that John was simply saying this to look good. It would take Lake Alliance administrators to come forward and confirm this, but it would likely get lost in the stream of news even if they did.

“Needless to say,” John continued after a long pause, “that offer is off the table. While it is true that they managed to deal considerable economic damage, Fusion will recover. They, however, left with considerable losses to their forces. More importantly, fundamentally even, if they think they can waltz in here, during my fucking birthday festivities, ruin our homes, kill our soldiers and get away with it, they have severely underestimated the character of this Federation!”

John was a tad uncomfortable with this bit of the speech. He was now generalizing the tens of thousands of people under his rule, direct or indirect. However, this was a necessary bit of collectivizing. If he didn’t lead them in a unified direction, made them feel their anger was justified, there was no national action that could be taken. If he didn’t take a stance, that would mean this was an issue up for debate and he would have none of that.

As such, he had to prescribe the people what he wanted them to feel. Their confusion and frustration over this event would have to be taken somewhere. Best John decided where that was, as much as it irked his fundamentally individualistic principles. “However,” now that he had fired things up, he needed to calm them back down, “I also have no interest in spending yet more lives on this. The white peace will no longer happen, but peace itself, I am still willing to offer. On my terms. Fusion’s first priority is to ensure prosperity and safety. The meek, those that have their power under control and don’t use it needlessly, will inherit the earth. I have no interest in engaging in a long campaign to crush the Lake Alliance. I will do what I need to. What that turns out to be is in their hands now. I expect this to be resolved in 24 hours or I will start taking measures.”

He stopped talking to gauge the reactions in the crowd. For the most part, he liked what he was seeing. Most people seemed pleased with this course of action, but, as always, there was a subset that looked angry. John guessed that there were equal parts those that just wanted peace, no matter the situation, and those that wanted to just skip the fair treating of the enemy and just utterly crush them all. To either of those factions, John looked in the wrong. Either he was a warmonger or a spineless coward. Always interesting how people taking a middle position could be assigned either extreme position.

“For now, this is what we will do: the festival, as much as it pains me, is over. Everyone who has the time and strength, I would ask to help in the clean up efforts. I’ll see to it that you will be provided food for the duration of your work, but I cannot guarantee you will be paid immediately. We are still estimating costs, so you will likely be given an IOU that you can exchange for a sum at a later date. In case you have lost your home in the fights, please contact an official. As you are all aware, we do not lack housing space, having copied so much of New York City and New Jersey. However, most of those houses have not been connected to any sort of infrastructure yet. While you won’t exactly need heating in this weather, life without internet or electricity sounds like hell to me, so…”

He took a little pause to let the joke land. It got a fair number of giggles. Abyssals were used to sudden, turbulent changes in their life and could take a bit of humour even in times like these. Which was good, otherwise John may have gotten in trouble for that one.

“Yeah, until your homes are fixed again – or a new place is built – you’ll be allowed to live here in the Guild Hall.” While that didn’t fit with either of his two current plans, having those houses be used for rent income or as a place for the army to stay, using them as emergency shelters wasn’t the worst idea ever. “And before anyone asks: No, you don’t have to worry about the Hudson Barrier breaking. We have things under control. For anything else, Fusion will release the details to the public on our website as we verify them. That is all. I hope you can make the rest of this evening a pleasant one.”

With adequate applause, John turned away and walked off. The second he took the microphone off his collar, a window opened.

‘Pretty unsurprising,’ John thought. He had half forgotten about this Quest. Now that it was in front of him, however, he could only shrug and accept this outcome. He handed the microphone and everything else he was tangled up in over to one of his tech guys and then quickly began walking elsewhere. Metra walked next to him, on his right, and Gnome materialized to his left.

“So…” the soil elemental carefully asked. “Why did you not tell everyone who actually… you know… died?”

“I was afraid I would word it too aggressively or sound gleeful, so I opted not to do it in such a public setting,” he responded. “Especially because I have no idea how beloved Lakamun or Helene were. I could conceivably talk about Theron being captive, but that might collide with immediate other plans. As it is, we might let him go fairly soon, and I don’t want that to cause any widespread confusion. Best to keep this under the rug. At least until tomorrow.”

He said all of this wary of the large crowd of reporters looking in his direction. Nobody was staring directly at the trio, those people had mastered the art of following everything that was in the corner of their eyes. As much as they stood over there and he remained where he was, the risk of them catching anything was minimal. If a few people with extra sensitive ears did, he would still have enough plausible deniability.

Doing a quick mental check, he found Beatrice unchanged in her position and mood and Aclysia occupied with a phone call. She had managed to get someone of the Lake Alliance and was now working her way up the ranks fairly quickly, it appeared. Things progressed smoothly, as far as John was concerned.

“We’re going to need to get you a new weapon,” John stated, looking to Metra. “That Marathyu is gone right now is a bit ill timed… Still, we should start planning this now. What do you want, a new halberd?”

“Optimally, yeah,” Metra answered, folding her hands behind her head as they continued to walk. The motion stretched the fabric of her grey, partially translucent mini-top to a dangerous degree. “Although I can wield whatever weapon you offer me anyway. I am not picky.”

John nodded and automatically looked down at her delicious midriff and the way the clearly visible muscles shifted with every one of her steps. The half-mast from earlier returned and went up to three-quarters risen. With every task done, it seemed that more of his lust returned to its rightful place.

Putting an arm around him, Metra leaned over. “I am happy to serve you as the sex slave you made me, my king,” her teeth snapped together next to his ear in an oddly sultry, if primal, sound. “Whatever way you want, I will serve.”

“Not quite yet,” John stated, not for a lack of conscious desire. His dick just refused to go the rest of the way. If he had gone the full erection, he would be stomping towards the nearest tent immediately. As it was, he put his arms around Metra and Gnome and was happy with his life, fondling their round butts. “I’ll see if I can repair Lakamun’s axe for now. A bit more axe than Qiada was halberd, but the closest thing of quality I can get in the short term. Once we gather some new materials and Marathyu is back, we’ll get you an upgrade.” He grinned at Metra, “How would you like to have a weapon forged using all six supreme elemental metals?”

“Fuck me sideways, John,” Metra laughed, grabbed his chin and mildly forced him into a sudden and wild kiss. Her tongue was on the aggression, right up until John fired back, grabbed her by the ponytail and got on his toes. The few centimetres he had grown since acquiring Metra put him on eye-level with her, so that combination allowed him to claim the loving high ground. Eventually, he ended the kiss by pulling the blonde berserker babe away from his lips. “You really know how to please a woman.”

“More like a tomboy battle enthusiast,” John retorted, let go of her hair and put his hand back on her ass with a nice smack. “Which, given who my girlfriend is, should surprise nobody. Anyway, you said you lost some other materials along with Astrotium, right? Small parts of gods?”

“Yes,” Metra responded in her usual carefree manner, although her breathing remained a bit heated. That John’s fingers skirted dangerously close to the valley of her bubble butt didn’t help. Neither did that her extremely small hot pants left her brown flesh free to the greedy touch. “As you know, us Metracana were highly experimental and Sargon decided to just throw the highest quality shit at the wall until something stuck together. Scales of Tiamat, teeth of Abzu, eyes of Marduk, tools blessed by Enkidu. I doubt you can find any of these things today. Astrotium is at least found sometimes, even if we have no idea how the fuck it is created.”

“Mhm…” John would have scratched the back of his head, if his hands weren’t occupied in more pleasant places. “What about Lyoste’s Rest? Could there be something there?”

“…Huh,” Metra let out a grunt after a few seconds of thought. “There might.”

“Do you remember exactly where it is?” John wondered, as he formed the procedure to this situation. Shaking her head, Metra denied this and the Gamer continued, “Then I’ll see if I can convince Momo to tell us or meet with you in the area. Once we have peace, you’ll have a few days to take a flight down there and check things out.”

“Its really not impeding me in any way,” the First of Wrath reminded him. “No need to send me to the other side of the earth.”

“Metra,” he looked her deep in the green eyes, “you should know me better by now than that. When would I ever leave any of my loves hurt in the most miniscule manner? That aside, modern aircraft makes this less than a week of a journey, so it’s not that much to ask. We’ll have to hire some private machine though, otherwise we won’t get you through security…”

“Seriously, fuck metal detectors,” Metra grumbled.

“We hopefully won’t have to deal with them much longer. Once this whole peace thing is done, Fusion is unofficially going into a period of internal focus. We have expanded a lot recently and its time to order things properly. Plus, the whole birthday has given me the wish to spend some time just with all of you and less with my desk or foreign diplomats…”

“M-more time for cuddles?” Gnome asked, hopeful.

“Among other things,” John responded with a lewd smile, then kissed her on the cheek before she could place the tiniest, cutest of complaints. “For now…” he sighed afterwards, as Newman Shire came ever closer. “…more work.”