‘It has come to my attention recently that rumours are going around about my lover Scarlett Evelith truly being the secret head of the disbanded Thorne company. As a matter of clarity, I must, at this point, admit that this is true. Scarlett’s real name is Scarlett Thorne and she has been kept secret from the world by her parents. She approached me, shortly after I landed in New York City, and helped me unify the city and the surrounding areas by feeding me intel and unifying my opposition together into an unprepared coalition. She also, later, played a supporting role in the joining agreement of the Amaca Coast, then American-Canadian-Trade, as you are likely aware due to her public appearance at that time.

I understand that many of you, particularly those that were once employed by Thorne, might be angry about this deceit. I won’t apologize for the action taken. What we did was in the interest of preserving as many lives as possible. The best war is a swift war and a war can only be swift through overwhelming power, overwhelming cruelty or overwhelming precision. Acting with the last of these three is what I aim to do whenever possible.

I refuse to apologize and I’m not ashamed of these deeds. They were necessary at the time. That time, however, has passed and clarity is another thing I engage in whenever possible. Scarlett and I have been considering when to come out with this truth and now, in these difficult times Fusion faces, seems to be the best opportunity to be as honest with you, the people, as ever. With the uncertainty that pressures us from the outside, we must be able to trust our neighbours and our institutions. As the head of Fusion and Collide, I must lead by example and reveal all I can.

Due to this principle, I must also come clean about another thing. As many of you may have seen previously, I have a peculiar marking on my arm. This is not, as you many would understandably assume, a tattoo. In truth, it is a scar that I carry following an encounter with a Lorylim I had several months back. Due to the specifics of my Innate Ability, scars I sustain from their corruption appear similar to those that elementals develop. Salamander and Undine have also had previous encounters in this fashion, although my fire elemental was never truly infected.

In light of the recent events with the overtaking of the Gestalt guilds, I was forced to discover that this scar made me minorly compromised. The Lorylim were able to influence my behaviour in minimal ways. I want to dissolve any panic that may come of this before it starts: all of my decisions, particularly the important ones, were always made after having discussions with people that were not compromised in the slightest. Whatever tiny ways they may have influenced the creation of the institutions, if they did at all, was counteracted by the influence of those I love and those you, the people, elected. An independent board is currently scanning through all passed bills that I was involved in for corrections. While they, almost guaranteed, will come back short on actual signs of corruption, I’m sure they will at least find a number of laws and policies that could use streamlining. That will be a value on its own.

As for future developments, I can assure you that I found a way to rid myself of their influence. The way I did this is enabled by my Gamer powers and can, therefore, not be used by other people, sad as that is. This entire exercise gave me some idea on how the first foe operates and how to counteract them. As it stands, minor information as it might be, I can share with you all that red scars on elementals seemingly stand for lasting influence, while black scars mean it has burned out.

I know that all of this is a bit much to just release on a Sunday through a simple text. I will give further context and explanations over the coming week, by appearing on numerous broadcasts and interviews.

Please be patient and remain calm. These secrets being out changes nothing about my dedication to creating a prosperous realm in North America.’

_________________________________________________________________________

John had released that message yesterday, and since then he had been answering a steady cascade of emails. Fewest were from supportive individuals, who believed in John and what he did. As per usual, positive emotions were less likely to create an outspoken response. Few were from politicians, something he had ensured by sending them a release ahead of time and giving the more influential ones a call to clear up the air. A few of the less powerful officials still insisted on sending messages either because they felt slighted or because they hadn’t read the original message. Many more of the emails were from disgruntled private people. To both them and the supportive individuals, John sent direct answers. It was important that he remained in touch with the people and that he was also perceived to remain in touch.

Most of the messages were from media companies that wanted to get all of the advertisement they could by having the quickest and most exclusive info about this development. John carefully picked who he went with there. From tomorrow onwards, he would appear on a vast span of programs.

For today, he got to read initial reaction articles. Generally, the mood was as expected. Nearly everyone was shocked to some degree, some carried water for him and provided possible explanations, others highlighted that this new information was a difficult to forgive breach of trust. John appreciated both narratives. He planned to appear on a semi-adversarial program first. The kind that disliked him enough to ask the tough questions but didn’t properly hate him and wouldn’t waste his time asking loaded ones.

The reason why he was delaying things was so that Scarlett could go through her interviews. Scarlett being Scarlett, she had as much interest in public opinion as she could buy with it. In order for John’s image to be maintained, she had to go out there for at least a couple of interviews, however.

While he was still answering emails through Jack, the Gamer decided to take a little break and pull up another website. He had to pay fifty bucks just to access one article. ‘And this is exactly why we need the Token,’ John thought, shuddering at the absurd prices. ‘Since they’re so interested in taking part in the cultural side of Fusion, maybe I could convince them to pick up the new coin early…’

The site he was visiting was the American Abyssal’s Weekly, specifically the women’s segment. While he found the entry fee absurd, he was too interested and too rich to not pay it. The site’s design was nothing special, the typical header with the category selection and the article in the main body. The release schedule had him somewhat confused. Given the ‘weekly’ in the name, he had made understandable assumptions, but the online library had articles from all kinds of dates throughout the past seven days. He found the explanation in the sidebar, advertising the physical release of the magazine. He looked around a bit more. Out of sheer curiosity, he clicked on the beauty tips segment.

He had vaguely assumed that publications aimed at the Abyssal woman wouldn’t have such a segment. Because of the near-permanent fitness, such things as diets had to have way less of a market. He was completely right about that, but his limited experience with normal women clearly showed in the fact that he hadn’t thought about more than that. While he didn’t see a single article about diets, there was a whole slew about dress types, hairstyles, what kind of bracelets were in at the moment and how to otherwise improve one’s skin.

Abyssal or mundane, women cared quite a bit about their looks. As a man, he very much cared about women’s looks as well, so he supported the notion at large, even if a lot of fashion seemed rather absurd to him. “Never thought I’d be reading a woman’s magazine,” he said, while going to the article he had actually come for. It was right at the top of the page. “Didn’t think I would do it because my girlfriend was being interviewed.” He leaned back in his office chair and looked under the table. “Definitely didn’t think I would do it while that beautiful woman is sucking my dick.”

There was a loud popping sound when Rave stopped sucking him off to answer. In the absence of her lips, both her hands wrapped around his lubricated shaft. “Ya should have known that would happen from the moment we hooked up,” she playfully scolded him. “I’m the best girl.”

“Yeah, you are,” John groaned. “You ready?”

“Ya know me,” she purred in response, stretching out her tongue while the movements of her hands accelerated. Within seconds, heavy spurts of cum splattered all over her pretty face and chest. Her previously messy visage turned defiled in the most erotic sense with his seed. She kept jerking him off, caught what she could with her wide-open mouth and lapped the last drop from the tip of his dick when he was done. Giving him a bit of a show, she swirled the thick liquid around in her mouth, before swallowing it all with an audible moan. Her entire body was radiating the heat of her own orgasm.

John snapped his fingers. “Are you horny?”

“Yessshhh,” Rave gave a slurring answer when the phrase did its work and intensified her desires. His entire harem shared a set of hypnotic suggestions that went beyond the meagre two he had initially created. Through them, he could manipulate them in all the ways they accepted. Which, given their loving trust in him and the roles they had established in the bed room, was quite extensive. His favourite ones were those that got them in a specific sexual mood.

He snapped his fingers again. “Are you my butt slut?”

“You can’t just do that to meee,” she complained, pressing her messy face into his groin and kissing his balls. “Now I really need your big, hot dick in my ass. This buttplug won’t do.”

“I don’t think you answered my question.” John hummed and snapped his fingers for the third time. “Are you my butt slut?”

“Yes, Master, I’m your butt slut,” Rave gasped. The verbal response came entirely from her. When it came to the response of her body, however, that was programmed into the command. Predictably, it was about her getting into an extremely anal-preferring mood. Each time John repeated the phrase, that focus would become a bit stronger. She got hornier as well, but that was more of a side effect of making her think about sex. “Please let me sit on your dick, tiger. I wanna kiss ya and cum my brains out!”

“If you want to kiss me, you have to clean yourself first,” John reminded her.

“I don’t have that kind of patience right now, thanks to SOMEONE using their BS Innate Abilities in combination with hypnosis to give me a really potent case of sopping wet pussy.” Rave licked up the side of his cock, unable to stay away from him even as she tried to playfully berate him. “Ya find a girl that’s already horny, make her a total nympho through a year of blowing her mind basically every day and then ya decide to also program her a bit. Totally unfair.”

“First off, you were the one that made the case for getting Harem Gamer, so you can’t blame me for getting even better with my sexual bullshit. Second off, you let yourself be programmed, that’s how hypnosis works. Third off, all I did was ask,” he snapped his fingers, “are you horny?” She gasped, her eyes becoming glassy. He snapped his finger again. “Are you my butt slut?” Her hot breath on his cock was an incredible sensation. One final snap and a previously unused suggestion, “Find your release.”

Rave didn’t need to hear that one twice. Barely had John backed off enough from the table so that she could crawl out that she was already standing. She turned around, the buttplug removed, and descended on his lap. It all happened so fast, he barely got to appreciate her ass before it jiggled from the heavy impact on his groin. Ample lube, an already stretched out sphincter and raw desire made that a quick affair.

“Haaaaaaahnnnnn-Aaaah-yyyyeeeeee—tiiigrrrr,” Rave shouted a bunch of semi-sensical syllables while a massive squirt of pussy juice rained down on the stone floor and the padded confinement under his desk. It would have been a properly messy affair had she squirted hard enough to soil the actual surface of his workplace. Everything else was in the confines of what the maids were expecting to clean at the end of his workday.

John put his arms around his thrashing and spasming girlfriend, holding her and kissing the back of her neck while her perception of the world was temporarily erased by the intensity of the experience. The ‘find your release’ phrase made the recipient orgasm when they performed their next sexual action. The intensity of the orgasm depended on the amount of previously used suggestions as well. The nifty thing was that John had found that he could integrate an automatic spike in the Lover’s Mark sensitivity increase into such things.

There were several ‘release’ phrases that were meant to clear out any currently ongoing suggestions with one intensely rewarding orgasm. ‘Find your release’ let them decide on what to do themselves, even if that action was almost always informed by previous suggestions. ‘Work for your release’ meant they had to finish John, or someone else, off before they got their reward. ‘Show your release’ caused them to take care of things in a nice solo action. ‘Count from X to your release’ set it on a timer. More would be added as John had ideas. The beauty of hypnotism was that he was only limited by imagination and reception. With his crowd and abilities, reception wasn’t much of an issue.

“Calmed down?” John asked when Rave’s body forcefully relaxed and turned into a heavily breathing mess in his toned arms.

“Ya know that I totally love ya?” his girlfriend asked in a pleasure-drunk tone that reflected in her eyes. As was sometimes the case when she was feeling especially frisky, the pink lustre in her eyes had taken the consolidated shape of a heart. It was a bit of an odd display, especially since it was layered on top of her pupil and hid it. It looked like she was literally blinded by lust and love. According to her, he had once asked her in a post-coitus cuddle, there was no actual change to her vision.

“I do know I’m the luckiest man alive, yes,” John responded with a hum. “Anyway, let’s read that article, shall we?” He moved back to the table, ignoring the wetness on the floor.

“If ya want,” Rave responded, softly gyrating her hips. Since he had to look over her shoulder to see the screen, she couldn’t bounce on his lap. “By Gaia, I love that dick – your dick,” she whispered, an honest statement and one she emphasized to please him. When the things were to genuinely flatter him, both of these things would best be true.

With or without any hypnotic commands, Rave visibly enjoyed all about her current situation. Covered with his cum, his dick up her rear and held in his firm embrace, John knew his girlfriend well enough to please her intense sex-drive. He could have snapped his fingers again and made a suggestion to intensify her arousal in any broad or specific way. Another ‘are you my butt slut?’ question would have made her enjoy the current situation a whole lot more. A bit of relaxed and lewd cuddling had its value though. Satisfying as they were, orgasms weren’t all sex was about, especially not between long-term lovers.

“Well, I’m happy to keep stretching out your tight bum,” John whispered into her ear, then finally turned his attention to the article. A simple introduction preceded the proper interview.

‘On Saturday, I had the honour of speaking to Jane ‘Rave’ Hollmey, the girlfriend of our President and founder of Fusion, John Newman. While I initially went there only to get her contact data, I was allowed a thirty-minute interview with her at that time. Miss Hollmey has assured me that she will soon have a public email for the requests of other journalists and I was obligated to remind everyone that she, John and their harem do not appreciate unannounced guests at their door. The audio of the interview is available for our premium members.’

“Miss Hollmey,” John snickered.

“Do not call me that again or I might just suddenly turn fifty and get wrinkles.”

“Pretty sure you’ll look a lot like you do right now when you turn fifty,” John said.

“Ya know what I mean.”

“Indeed, I do, Miss Hollmey.” He let out a slightly pained sound when she pinched his thigh. Mostly, he was laughing. As a non-premium member, John had to keep reading.

‘Karla: Alright, the tape is rolling, thank you for having me, Miss Hollmey.

Rave: You’re welcome, but call me Rave. Miss Hollmey is my mom and Jane is reserved for my friends and lovers.

Karla: Rave it is, then. To those few who do not know who you are, would you introduce yourself?

Rave: Sure, I’m Jane Hollmey, although almost everyone calls me Rave. Someone called me that because they kept finding me at such places and it kinda stuck because my Innate Ability is light control and I like to make my fights flashy. I’m also the girlfriend of John. Main girlfriend, I guess I should say, for the readers who don’t know how our harem is structured. I also engage in philanthropic endeavours on the side, like the Hudson Barrier’s public transportation system.

Karla: I’d like to follow the harem aspect of this for a minute. Are you satisfied with your position as, what essentially is, a housewife?

Rave: Huh, I actually never thought of myself like that. Wouldn’t say it really applies either. I don’t do much in the household, that’s mainly Aclysia and Beatrice. Taking that label out of the question, yeah, I’m perfectly happy with my position in our relationship. He has to go out into the bureaucratic paper mines and I get to stay home, chat with all of the harem, pursue my training and, ya know, just generally do what I want. Don’t think I’m missing out on anything by not having a proper job.

Karla: Yet you do a lot of actual work, as you hinted towards earlier.

Rave: I wouldn’t say I do a lot of work. On a motivated day I spend eight hours getting some projects along. Generally, I just get balls rolling and funding secured, though. I find people that do the actual work.

Karla: Eight hours is a regular workday though.

Rave: I guess it is? Tiger [John] works eight hours minimum a day, so it doesn’t really feel like that much.

Karla: If he works that much, you must not see him a lot.

Rave: Nah, me and the other girls see him plenty. We’re closely tied into his work schedule. He has a lot of urges, ya know?

Karla: I think I understand, yes… You seem to have a very sexual relationship.

Rave: We’re borderline sex-addicts in this household. One of the reasons why this harem arrangement works. It takes a particularly manly man, like my John, and a particularly awesome group of nymphos, like me and the other girls, to create a harem this great.

Karla: Do you mean great in terms of size or how it feels to be part of it?

Rave: Ja [Yes].

Karla: Hahaha, that is fair enough. I think it is of interest to the reader to mention here that you are currently naked.

Rave: It’s my best suit, what can I say? Had it since my birthday.

Karla: You doubtlessly have nothing to hide. Before the interview, you mentioned you just didn’t see a reason to wear clothes in your own home. Are you always naked at home?

Rave: Me, the other girls and John, yeah. We usually only get dressed when we have to go out. One should feel comfortable enough in their own home to ditch the clothes. That’s one of many things I love about what John does, he wants to build a place where everyone has a home that’s their castle.

Karla: Although you don’t have an official position, your status as the president’s girlfriend, your personal strength and your wealth does give you a fair amount of influence. Just recently we saw you taking John’s place during a parliament meeting. Can we expect more political involvement from you in the future?

Rave: Honestly, I’ll try to stay clear of politics where I can. For one, I’m gonna be obviously biased towards my tiger [John] and I also just don’t feel like sitting in conference rooms and bickering over what way is best to regulate the length of candles or whatever. I’m pretty happy using what influence I have for other specific projects.

Karla: Anything specific you have in mind, at this time?

Rave: Not confirming anything, but I’d like to do some work outside of the Hudson Barrier. Obviously, the public transportation isn’t quite finished yet, but it doesn’t really need more of my attention to keep going. If we get our Mobile Barrier supply high enough, I think I’d like some kind of ferry route that connects the Hudson Barrier to the North Lake state. Sure, people can use flights to get there faster, but I would like it if the Abyssal infrastructure wasn’t entirely reliant on the real world. Ya never know when the mundane USA hits hard times and suddenly all their roads suck and commercial flights stop because there is someone invading the airspace or something. Also, a ferry route would probably look awesome. Also, also, just thought of that, maybe Abyssal engines will get good enough that we can have some sort of hyper speed ferry. That’d be pretty rad.

Karla: It sounds like you’re thinking about things both in terms of practicality and appearances.

Rave: I care a lot more about how things look than most of the other girls or John. It’s a healthy balance between all of us, ya know? Lets us come together at a sensible middle.

Karla: Yes, I do understand that. Aside from such projects, how do you see yourself influencing Fusion’s future?

Rave: I don’t quite know yet. I’m currently considering getting a bit more involved with public life. Organizing events, attending galas, giving some more interviews, maybe starting a small modelling career, such things. Fusion is still finding its place in the world as a growing guild and I’ll ensure it’s the kind of place I like.

Karla: And what kind of place would that be?

Rave: Somewhere people can be themselves, is the most basic answer to that. Obviously there have to be some restrictions in order to maximize liberty, such as making sure that stronger Abyssals don’t just bully the weaker ones into doing what they want them to. In general, I want people to all have the opportunity to do what they want to and I want to live in a place where those that are best at something get plenty rewards for it.

Karla: Alright, our time is getting short. I’d like to ask two more things.

Rave: Hit me.

Karla: First off, do you have any advice for our readers?

Rave: Assuming I’m speaking to other girls here, this being a women’s magazine and all, I think my specific recommendation for y’all is to look in unexpected places. This goes both for whatever dreams you may have and for what partner you may be looking for. In my case, I found the love of my life on total chance. It was way harder to fall for the guy back then too. There’s a lot of time, kisses, tears and blood between the nerd he was back then and the president you all know today. I spent and shed all of that with him. I get that not all of you are primarily looking for a man in your life, I wasn’t either. It just worked out that way for me and I’m really happy about that, but take that with you even if you’re just looking for an opportunity to achieve something. It won’t come unless you’re willing to stick to something and invest a lot of time, kisses, tears and blood into it.

Karla: Alright, my final question then, is there any great motto you would like to share with our readers?

Rave: Live, learn and move on.

Karla: Well, that was a quicker answer than I expected, so I guess I get to ask a third question. Doesn’t that clash with your outlook on emotional investment?

Rave: No? Live, learn and move on is about not letting the bad times shackle you. You will live through them, you will learn something from them, and you have to move on to achieve something more. It’s the motto of my family.

Karla: As much as I would like to ask about that, our time is up now. Anything you would like to say at the end?

Rave: Hmmm, well, there’s a lot of things I could say, but I think it’s better if John reveals them. There’ll be a few things over the coming week that’ll be said, I think.

Post-release note: we have come to the conclusion that Miss Hollmey was talking about the public statement President John Newman released two hours after this article went public. You can find the coverage of our main site here.'