The inspection had been interesting, the dinner dull, the call informing and the paperwork a steady grind. He had learned about the tendency of elves to create certain tree formations, listened to a few basic economic proposals and learned about a newly discovered or formed crime organization. It was far from the first-time remainders of old slaver guilds organized themselves inside Fusion’s borders and was guaranteed to not be the last. The bigger Fusion got, both in terms of people and the raw size of territory, the more inevitable organized crime became. Every society had an underbelly.

As long as law enforcement kept a steady eye and didn’t get corrupted, those things should stay local. The interesting thing was that this discovered mana factory had been abandoned just recently. Either the people running it had picked a lucky time to migrate or they had gotten tipped off. Publicly, John believed in the former, privately, he was a more cautious fellow.

The paperwork was the same as always. “Oh, would you look at this?” John hummed, when he saw the signature on the letter he now held in his hand. “A request by ‘your best girl’ for ‘gimme money so I can finance a sick looking magical monorail,” he read out and then looked under the table. “You know I have to archive this, right?”

Rave chuckled, which was a pleasant vibration around his dick, and rolled her eyes. Perverted slurps accompanied her lips’ retreat up his shaft. With both hands wrapped around his massive member in place of her mouth, she continued to pleasure him. “Don’t be so stuck up about it, I’ve been working on this for months! The prototype is already going back and forth between the Trade Tower and the Shopping Centre!”

“Well, that particular one I hijacked to transport goods from the docks to the market,” John hummed. “I am not against public transportation at all, though. Especially not against monorails.” Maybe it was because John had grown up in a place that only had busses, but the idea of an intracity rail created a more charming image of a city in his head than cars did. There was an argument to be made that underground tubes would be more efficient.

His girlfriend, however, had already put a lot of effort into the monorails. It would have been rude (and against his aesthetic interest) to deny her the project now. Even though his agreement to her joke of a formal funding request was a foregone conclusion, he wanted to tease her for a little bit.

“Ya have all these people scattered across the city and they have to get everywhere by foot or by ferry,” Rave told him. “Not all that economic of you… face or throat?”

“Face, please,” John groaned and leaned back in his chair. Ropes of cum shot out and decorated the gorgeous face of his half-Asian bombshell of a girlfriend. It stuck to her hair, settled across her attractive features, spurted into her open mouth and dribbled onto her medium-sized tits. Rave moaned when the taste set a minor orgasm off. Searching with her hands, she picked up one of the Everclean towels and wiped off the cum that sealed her eyes.

Then she continued the handjob and the discussion. “Ya funding it or not?”

“I can’t really fund something that doesn’t have a price tag,” John told her, once more looking at the almost empty sheet of paper. “You need to give me some amount of money you need.”

“Why? So I can get it, work on it, then suddenly need ten times that?” Rave licked some cum from the corner of her lips when she finished saying that. “Isn’t that how all government projects go?”

“Not all of them,” he grumbled.

“Most big ones though.”

“Almost all big ones…” As he said that, John turned his mental eye towards the battleship project. As per schedule, his double was over there and delivering a short speech and some honours. That particular project had exceeded its budget about twelve times by now and was nowhere near completion. To be fair, John had just started the project to start the project and had absolutely no idea what it would cost. It had also been set back more than once.

“Just give me a lot of money and I’ll tell ya when it runs out,” Rave purred. Combining a pleading, cute look with a little lick of the tip of his dick, the Lightbringer finally brought down his artificial resistance.

“Only because it’s you,” he clarified. “I’ll spank you if I find out you spend it on something useless.”

“Oh no, the humanity,” she responded in the dry tone of sarcasm. Then she winked and said, “Thank you, tiger.”

“You’re welcome.” The Gamer scribbled a number on the paper, its purpose, his approval of the project and his signature. After scanning it, he got up and put it in the appropriate folder. Once the archival work was complete, he got back to the table. Looking at the clock, he decided to not sit back down. “I’ll call it a day here,” he told his girlfriend.

“Gotcha.” Once more grabbing the towel, she began the usual post-blowjob routine of wiping down the surface under the table. John grabbed a spray can and spread some flower scent through the room. Although they kept things pretty clean, all things considered, the smell of sex would still stick to the furniture if they just let it. “By the by, how are your plans with Max coming along?”

“We got a date – a DAY,” John corrected himself, but not quick enough for Rave to not notice and snort with amusement. “We got a day picked out, this Saturday. Magnus found time to tag along, and maybe Ted will come along as well.”

“That’ll be a group,” Rave hummed. “The two young, proud charisma bundles and the two broody, older, stern guys. What’s the plan? Ya gonna go to a strip club again?”

“Not the initial idea, but who knows where we’ll end up over the course of the night.” John rolled his neck. “We’ll start playing some games in the saloons of the Palace and drink some whisky. After that, we’ll see.”

“Hmmm, if it’s this Saturday, ya can drop by my club, whenever ya want,” she told him. Rave was talking about the building in the redlight district that she owned. It had been John’s birthday gift to her and included a bunch of hobby facilities and a nightclub. The former saw daily use. Whenever she wasn’t around her boyfriend, which was true for about eight hours a day, the Lightbringer was either training or going after her several passion projects. Whether that was making music, sponsoring art or overseeing public building projects, she did it all from that building.

The club part of the building was seldom used. Part of that was because of all the organizing affiliated with throwing a party worthy of such a building. Booze, security, DJs, snacks, tracks and games all had to be secured in advance. Spontaneous as she was, Rave had a hard time arranging herself with all that work.

Another part was that local businesses were somewhat afraid of Rave’s club. The name recognition drove so many customers to her place, it sapped customers from everywhere else. This problem was slowly diminishing thanks to the hostess tightening the screws on who got in and who didn’t. Unpredictability of schedule and difficult access combined to make her club more of a local event than proper competition.

John thought about that proposal. “Doesn’t exactly mesh with the idea of a guys’ night out,” he stated.

“Yeah, I get that,” she nodded. “Regardless, I’ll be partying, so swing on by if ya feel like it.”

“I’ll think about it,” John responded. They cleaned up the rest of the office, got some things for the next day in order, and then teleported back to the Palace. There, they immediately hopped into the shower. It only took about two minutes for them to be joined by a very excited, green haired girl.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Sylph blabbered as she blitzed around the place. “It’s my day, right? My day to become concubine prime! Sylph is ready to absorb her siblings and attain her perfect form! Perfect Sylph! Misses Perfect Sylph!”

“You are not Cell,” John reprimanded, grabbing the enthusiastic thunderstorm elemental by the leg as she flew by. “Please stop charging the area.” With some difficulty, Sylph repressed the steady stream of electricity that escaped her body. It couldn’t hurt John or Rave, thanks to the anti-‘friendly fire’ Perk, but it was somewhat bothersome. Once she had that under control, Sylph started to tremble with her whole body. It was as if she was a sentient tuning fork. She even made a surging sound.

“Hmmmmmmmmmm, just so excited!” she declared. “What will I become?! Will I get a tail too? Do I get a new haircut? Do I stay cute current me? So many possibilities! Maybe I will become taller and get giant tits! That’d be fun! So much fun! I also like being tiny and adorbs-a-dorbs though and Sally’s boobs are so big she can’t even see her feet and that’s weird. Isn’t that weird? You look down and all you see is squish. Squishy, squishy squish-squish.”

“Never looked at it from that angle,” John pondered.

“Come here for a sec,” Rave suddenly chimed in, waving him closer with her index finger. Stepping out of the cleansing stream of the shower, he took the one step towards her. “Behind me,” she specified. Now John was starting to get confused, but he went along anyway. The second he pressed himself against her back, she said, “Now look over my shoulder and down.”

“What is… oh my God,” John finally realized what she was getting at when a shit-eating grin spread on his girlfriend’s face.

“Now you’re looking at boobs from that angle, tiger,” she joked and then screamed. Her mildly annoyed boyfriend had grabbed the shower handle and cranked it into the cold area. “Stop! No! No cold!” she shouted in a mixture of genuine displeasure and laughter. John did her the favour of putting the water off entirely. In the process he grabbed the bottle of shampoo.

“Time to cleanse you of your sins,” he declared. He proceeded to give her the most aggressive hair washing he could without hurting her. Then he continued to slather up her body. By the time he got to her tits, he had stopped being mad and was instead inside her. Sylph joined the fun immediately, licking Rave’s pussy and then getting fucked herself once John had cum once more inside the naughty Lightbringer.

“Last time having sex in this body!” Sylph declared, when they were finally out and on their way to the roof.

“I don’t know if you’re the best one to ask this, but I always wondered how you elementals can be so happy about changing so heavily in such a short amount of time,” the Gamer said while they climbed the stairs. Today, he didn’t have an erection that was getting in the way.

“Uh, well, you see, it’s kinda like, it’s just not important?” Sylph struggled to put it into words. For a few more moments, she continued to stammer nonsense, then a little arc of electricity in the shape of a lightbulb flashed above her head. A doubtlessly conscious decision. “Would you be complaining about suddenly putting on muscle? Like, BOOM, now I am the ripped - destroyer of bench-presses!”

“I suppose not,” John admitted. His own Stat-caused transformations had been sudden by human standards, but he still didn’t see it as an equivalent to having his entire body reworked within a few minutes. To the elemental psyche, the increase in magic that caused these transformations must simply be seen as natural. That Sylph likened it to muscle increase indicated as much.

They emerged on top of the roof, where the rest of the harem was already waiting. Bar Lydia, everyone was present. “Can’t believe we’re doing this not even a week after I had my final evolution. Wasn’t there like a month between the two of us reaching Tier 4?” Salamander asked the second they got up there.

“Booo!” Sylph complained and zapped over. Waving her arms around in wild gestures, she returned with a torrent of words. “Mean Sally, silly Sally, fiery ball of mean! Why you gotta ruin my day with logic stuffs! Logic stuffs is meanzies!” Suddenly, she shrunk down and dove between the apocalypse elemental’s breasts. “I take tribute for the mean question in the form of titty baths!”

“I never agreed to give you that,” Salamander responded, stemming her hands into her hips. Her tail extended past her shoulder and wrapped around the tiny chatterbox. Since evolving five days ago, the fire spirit had learned to use her tail with a lot of accuracy. Part of that was thanks to Siena, who had helped her get used to the new limb, and the rest was instinct. Interestingly, Siena had better conscious control of her tail but Salamander was much less prone to wave hers around when she was agitated in any fashion.

“Boo! You are no fun since you got long hair!” Sylph complained.

“Should I make it even longer just to spite you then?” Salamander cackled and ran a hand over the top of her head. Her orange glowing hair, black strands included, increased in length as the motion continued. Unlike other elementals, she could freely adjust the length of her hair. Everyone else could put it into different styles, even Gnome whose hair came naturally braided, but trying to change the length was impossible. Because their bodies were purely manifested magic, hair regenerated to its natural length as long as they received new mana and had a bit of time.

“People with long hair are stupid!”

Salamander stared at the fairy-esque elemental; the tip of her tail still coiled around her. “…You have the longest hair here… your hair is longer than your body…”

“Yeah and I am a moron! Point proven!” Sylph retorted.

“A-zbh-gr—grhmmm,” Salamander made a series of odd sounds and then sighed in exasperation. “Yes, you proved your point.”

“Yay, victory for Sylph!” the thunderstorm elemental declared. Blitzing into the middle of the forming circle, she enthusiastically raised an arm, “One evolution for reward please!”

“Coming right up,” John mused and pressed the necessary buttons.

“To actually answer your question,” John said to Salamander while he read the options, “I think it’s because Elemental Unity maxed out, or it’s just because my mana spending ramped up with time. Or the Skill Levelling system is just a bit broken.” With that said, he looked up to Sylph, “Any preferences?”

“No, you can decide if I should go ‘swoosh’ or ‘zap’,” Sylph told him. “I’m fine with either or… uh, is there a version of that saying that goes for three choices? If there is, pretend I said that!”

“I will,” John promised and looked at the choices. It was actually rather easy. Sylph was not responsible for battlefield domination, that was Gnome and Salamander’s job, neither was she a support, that just didn’t fit her personality, so Arcvolt Elemental was the way to go. A click of a button later and things went into motion.

“Ooooh, this tingles,” Sylph giggled, as she started to dissolve into fizzling bits of lightning. The words faded, just as her entire body had vanished. John looked around, waiting for something to happen. In typical air elemental fashion, he didn’t have to wait long at all. The sky was overtaken immediately by massive, black clouds. They didn’t slowly grow, as it had been the case with Undine, instead appearing all over and blotting out the sky in a matter of seconds. Lightning visibly bounced around inside and around the clouds. Each time, the electricity arched back into the roiling mass. Even without striking the ground, the steady drum of thunder was deafening.

All of the arches fed into one central point just above them. Scarlett stepped behind Metra and ducked. A decision taken just in time to avoid the massive lightning strike that descended where Sylph had stood about thirty seconds earlier.

The lightning didn’t fade, its incandescent brightness jumping between segments of the clouds, but never forking out and never leaking its energy into the ground. Instead, the energy was channelled into the slowly manifesting form of the Arcvolt Elemental. Small, naked feet, legs that were long and nicely thick for the body they belonged to. Moderately wide hips, right along a cute, round butt, a narrow waist and breasts of a middling size combined into an hourglass figure of the petite variety. Her midriff was nicely defined, on the less muscular side of his harem but flat and with the little trench that ran from the sternum down the division of her abs nicely visible. Her arms were smooth and slender, her fingers pleasingly formed, with no outstandingly thick joints or other oddities. The face that came into view was somewhere between round and heart-shaped, a mixture of adorable and sexy. Red lips, a fine nose, long, pointy ears, like a traditional elf, they all manifested in the previously known configuration.

Black eyelashes parted when Sylph opened her eyes. Out of the golden amber of her irises bounced a couple of electric sparks. The visual effect aside, the look of them was unchanged. Same was true for the massive torrent of green hair that was created from the last of the descending lightning, running all the way past her feet and only being saved from touching the ground by virtue of it floating weightlessly.

John expected something new, something odd, but was treated to a largely unchanged Sylph. The lightning ebbed away, leaving Sylph with the same naked body she had before. There was absolutely nothing to complain about, she had been sexy before and continued to be so. No extra appendage or change was needed. The Gamer hadn’t even wanted any, but he had just come to expect something.

Only her clothes, when she manifested them, were slightly different. The silver pendant with the blue gemstone was now more of a choker. The rims of her clothes were now silver rather than gold, but green was still the sole colour of her leotard and dominated the lightning-decorated, shoulder-high gloves. Decorative strips of cloth covered her lower calves, which was new, but not a great change, all things considered.

“I am still cute!” Sylph declared in victory and threw her hands up in the air.

“Yeah, congratulations for being the same old thing for three evolutions in a row, great achievement,” Salamander mocked.

“Yeah, I know right?” Sylph blabbered, making it sound as if she didn’t understand she was being made fun off at first. “Turns out you don’t go through massive changes if you don’t mess with some weird horror from the outer layers of reality. You just stay adorable, super adorable!” She posed around a little bit, looking cute or ridiculous depending on the moment. “You even get to go sma- I CAN’T GO TINY ANYMORE! Audible gasp!”

“Huh,” John blinked a few times. It wasn’t a huge loss; Sylph had gradually changed to preferring to be big most of the time anyway. The arcvolt elemental didn’t look too sad about it herself.

“Orgy time!” the air spirit suddenly declared.

“You don’t want me to give you a special evening?” John asked.

“No, orgy time! It’s evening!” she responded swiftly. “I wanna be pet and I wanna be fucked and I want to be all around you wonderful people. You are wonderful people! I love you and you and you and you and you I really like, but I also love you and you and…” Each time she said it to someone, she zapped over in front of them and booped them on the nose. Not even Siena was quick enough to react.