Swarming Sovereignty

Izumi sat back on her bed, sighing slightly. It was strange; she was doing all the things she had done before she had been summoned as a Hero, but she felt…unsatisfied in a way she never had before. She had even taken to doing her homework in an attempt to stave off the ennui, but it had been futile.

She just…didn’t have the drive she had had when she was first summoned. Try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to feel like what she was doing mattered. She had considered spending more time on Ratha to combat that, but she knew it wouldn’t help; right now the war was little more than a façade, and her contributions wouldn’t make any sort of meaningful difference.

And, well, it just felt odd, going back to being a normal girl. Or…as normal as possible, given the circumstances; she had done a little egosurfing, and people had no shortage of things to say about her. Most considered her a naïve fool, pointing out her failure to properly understand Amelia’s strength as the go-to reason, but a loud few considered her a traitor of the highest order, which she found incredibly unfair.

She had seen the light after her conversion, yes, but it wasn’t like she had let herself be converted without a fight. In the end, she just had to tell herself that these people were just blustering from their positions of safety, unaware of what it was like to actually be on the front –

Her brooding was cut off by a knock on her door. “Izumi, are you busy today?” Her mother, Ava, asked.

Izumi got up and opened the door. “No, why?”

Ava gave her a smile. “Good. We’re going out on a mother-daughter bonding trip, we’ll leave as soon as you change into something more casual.”

“What?” Izumi asked, taken aback. “What happened to staying undercover? What if someone recognizes me?”

“We’re heading a couple hours away via hoverer.” Ava replied. “The chances of meeting someone we know out there is minimal, and as long as you’re not in your shrine maiden getup, people won’t bat an eye at you. This won’t trigger any of those information-leaking clauses, so it should be fine.”

“But…Players.” Izumi protested. “What if they have some sort of Swarm-detecting ability?”

“I’ve done a lot of research, and they don’t.” Ava said matter-of-factly. “Some people have been worried that the Swarm has infiltrated their communities and have asked Players to help, but none have been able to. The prevailing theory is that they won’t get abilities like that until the Swarm actually gets a foothold here.”

“Well…I guess, but…doesn’t this seem like an unnecessary risk?” Izumi asked.

“No.” Ava replied firmly. “I’ve noticed you moping about, and decided you need to get back out and doing things. This isn’t up for debate, get changed.”

Izumi sighed, but nodded. She knew there was no stopping her mother when she got like this, so hurriedly changed into a simple shirt and shorts her mother had bought online for her. She piled into the family’s hoverer with her mom, and looked out the window as they began to drive down the familiar roads of Izumi’s hometown.

“So…what are we doing?” Izumi asked. “I assume we’re not just winging it?”

“Well, I was thinking we could go see a movie, then go grab lunch.” Ava replied, engaging the hoverer’s autopilot and sitting back. “After that we could go get you a more comprehensive wardrobe; you’re beautiful, and it’s a shame you only have a few outfits.”

Izumi rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help but blush at the compliment regardless. “I’m not getting out of this, am I?”

“I’m glad you understand.” Ava said, chuckling. “But we still have a couple of hours until we get there, so…until then, why don’t you tell me what’s been on your mind?”

Izumi sighed. “I just feel purposeless.” She said. “For a while there I was doing something unbelievably important. The balance of an entire plane rested on my shoulders, and I had such a clear purpose. But now…it seems like nothing I do matters.

“The current war is a farce orchestrated to keep idiots from rebelling, and even when they start actually fighting again, my presence would make no notable difference. This whole thing has just made me realize how mundane I am. I’m not important on a cosmic scale, and it’s hard to find any sort of comfort in that.”

“While I may not have had the realities of life as harshly thrust upon me as you have, I grappled with many of the same questions.” Ava said. “Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the best I could do was make the lives of the people near me better. It’s not a grand or flashy life, but it’s a fulfilling one.

“Of course, I think you should still decide for yourself whether or not that’s enough for you, but I need to remind you that you’re still just a kid. You briefly had a taste of adult responsibilities, but you have time to figure yourself out. You were planning on becoming a consulting mage, right?”

“I was, but…I don’t know if that’s feasible anymore.” Izumi admitted. “I love magic, I love the idea of spending all my time doing it, but I think the demand for freelance-type work is going to go down dramatically once the Swarm takes over. People will be able to take care of a lot of that sort of stuff themselves thanks to conversion.”

“Nonsense.” Ava replied. “Demand might go down, but isn’t the point of the Swarm that you’ll be able to do what you want without worry? Someone will always want unusual magic, and with your unique situation I’m sure you’ll have plenty of people wanting your work. You might need to change your angle a bit, but it’s not unreasonable at all to think that there would be all sorts of new opportunities for a freelance mage. Worst case scenario, you know the Queen; just ask her, I’m sure they’d have some work for you.”

“That’s…true.” Izumi said, perking up slightly. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

“For now, just keep honing your talents. By the time the Swarm is ready to start on Yasato, you’ll be in a much better position to figure out what you want to do.”

Izumi was silent for a few moments. “And…what are you and Dad thinking about the Swarm?” She asked quietly. “Will you join immediately, or will you fight back?”

There was another pause. “We don’t know.” Ava admitted. “We won’t be fighting back, but we’re not sure we’re going to just go join, either. In an ideal world, we’d be able to just live with you with none of that baggage. I suppose…as things stand, we’ll just hold position and if the Swarm gets to our home, then we’ll let it happen.”

“I don’t know for sure, but there’s a chance that our home is the first place the Swarm visits here.” Izumi pointed out. “Even then, are you fine with it?”

“It is what it is.” Ava replied. “But we’ve been assuming the Swarm will likely want to start somewhere more defensible than our house. But…nearby, almost certainly.”

Izumi couldn’t help but feel a little guilt. She wanted so bad to just convert both her parents, to relieve them of this worry they felt, but, even if it wouldn’t kick off the war on Yasato or cause other problems, she wouldn’t. Not yet, not until conflict was upon them. It would happen eventually, so she could afford to wait and help maintain their relationship. Still…she wished it didn’t have to be this way.

“Enough of that talk.” Ava said. “Why don’t we pick out which movie we want to see? I have a list here…”

Hope frowned down at her phone for what seemed like the millionth time. She just didn’t know what to think of Faelyn’s most recent publicity stunt; had the fool actually gone through with it, or was he just playing it up for the camera? She hadn’t had time to watch his stream lately and just wished she could talk with him, but he was no doubt fully immersed in his role. That often meant that contacting him was tough, if not impossible. But…maybe it wasn’t? She’d have to message him via stream later to try and make contact.

“Hah, she’s worried about her boyfriend.” A text-to-speech message said. “Or is it girlfriend now?”

“Shut it, losers.” She hissed, glaring up at the invisible camera. “He’s not my boyfriend, and anyone who thinks I’d stoop to that level is delusional. We have a professional relationship, nothing more.”

“Yeah, because you’re being a brat; maybe you should think about correcting your attitude first. I know of a pretty easy way to start. Go check your Titles, it should be obvious.”

Hope sighed internally. The chat had their relationship all wrong, but that was purposeful. Faelyn, the content-obsessed maniac he was, was her mentor. Few people remembered her from before she met him, the meek, barely-noticeable girl that streamed to less than a dozen people. He had noticed her while they were part of an expedition, and he had seen the latent talent within her and offered some advice.

She had worked with him for a while, taking classes and crafting a persona that had caught on like wildfire; she was the brat who always spoke her mind and never minced her words, even to her friends. It was a surprisingly liberating role to play; she did her best to make people aware what they would be getting into by collabing with her, and made her apologies afterwards when necessary, leaving her feeling emotionally free to let it all out.

That had become something of an issue in recent months, though; she had quickly obtained a Title called “Masked One” that allowed her to play the role more naturally, and even altered her thoughts and emotions to match, while leaving her “real” mind free to “take off the mask” whenever.

It had also made her “persona” become obvious whenever her status was shown. Of course, people had known it was a persona, she emphasized that during offline meetups and had even had to briefly mention it on stream once to quell some doubts after a particularly notable “incident”, but she tried to keep the illusion up as much as possible. And right now, that meant leaning into the Title and keeping her status from showing whenever possible. But, the more she used it, the more she started to worry that she was being more extreme than she would normally be because of it.

Thus, her thoughts turning to Faelyn. Normally, she’d call the fool off-stream and talk through her worries with him, but he’d selfishly made that choice…no, she was letting the Title get the better of her again. He’d made his choice, and that made it harder to contact him. It wasn’t her place to get involved in that sort of thing.

“She knows she doesn’t have a counterargument so she’s staying quiet lol.” Her text to speech said, interrupting her thoughts.

“And who’s the one who’s sitting there watching me, huh?” Hope snapped back. “You’re probably just trying to provoke me into insulting you, right? Well, as much as you deserve it, I won’t give you the satisfaction. Stream’s ending, it appears that I have business to attend to, and I can’t have a bunch of noisy people like you ruin it.”

“She’s running away! She can’t–”

Hope ended stream, but didn’t yet return to her normal state of mind. Instead, she opened Faelyn’s stream, and began to use her moderator text-to-speech privileges to send messages. “Hey, stream-brain, haven’t you been forgetting something?”

Faelyn, who appeared to be in some sort of wooden house, smiled slightly. “Ah, Hope, I was wondering when I’d hear from you.”

“My chat won’t stop pestering me about you, and since you’ve apparently forgotten me, I thought I’d have to come on and clear the air myself.”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just been busy.” Faelyn replied, chuckling.

It was odd, hearing his familiar chuckle come out in a feminine voice, but Hope ignored the sense of wrongness that she felt watching the stream. “Will you tell them there’s nothing going on between us?” She demanded.

“By the way, she just said she had important business to take care of and ended stream.” A text to speech message added.

“Shut it!” Hope responded. “I’m on my way, and thought I’d stop by while I was in-transit to clear this idiocy up. Everyone knows you’re married to your stream, but they still insist with these ridiculous claims.”

Her inbox, set to friends-only, dinged with a message, and she quickly took a look. “This means you want to talk, right? I can talk with you after stream.” It said. “I still have internet access, so we can do a video call if you’d like. Say…ten your time? That is, if I’m not wrong. If I am, sorry!”

Hope deactivated Masked One and typed out a quick reply. “No, you’re absolutely right. That’d be wonderful, thanks, Faelyn. I’ve missed talking with you.”

“Well, whatever the case, she’s right, we’re not in any way romantically involved.” Faelyn told the stream. “I mean, she’s not into girls, for one.”

Hope quickly turned off the stream and logged out of World Saviors. It was still a few hours until ten, so she set out to make some food and shower before their video call. And, as the time approached, she couldn’t help but feel a sort of nervous anticipation. She really hoped that when she picked up the call, she’d see him as himself, that he didn’t actually go through with this, but…what if she didn’t?

And so, even though she’d been the one to initiate contact, she couldn’t help but feel anxious as she called Faelyn at ten on the dot. And, to her disappointment, when he answered, it was as his game avatar. “Um…hi.” Hope said. “Is…is it true, then? It’s not a publicity stunt?”

Faelyn sighed. “It’s true.” He…she said. “I’m past the point of no return. Judging by the look in your eyes that’s not what you wanted to hear, but I really do think it’s best for me. I don’t have qualms with how the Swarm is run and I think that, in the long run, the benefits will far outweigh the drawbacks.”

“Oh.” Hope said quietly. “I…don’t know how to feel about that. You’re going by…Fae now, right?”

“Yes I am, and that’s fine to feel that way, it’s normal to feel confused about something like this.” Fae responded.

“I’ll…unpack this later.” Hope said. “I was hoping to talk to you about something else, actually.”

“I’m always open to talk, and that hasn’t changed.” Fae said, leaning forward like she always did when these talks got serious. The movement was familiar, but the effect it had was slightly different, given her changed anatomy.

Hope shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Well…I’m worried I might be getting to into my role while I’m using Masked One.” She said. “I’m unsure what to do about it, it’s been a great boon for keeping me consistent and allowing me to focus more on making the content better instead of keeping the role consistent, but…I don’t want it to consume me.”

Fae nodded sagely. “I understand.” She said. “It’s a tough balancing act, and it’s hard to know when enough is enough. Tell you what, give me a couple of days and I’ll scrub through your clips and recent archives, and I’ll tell you if I think there are any major problems. Are you still making sure collab partners and civilians know you’re teasing?”

“I am, and it’s a bit easier now that I have a telepathy Skill.” Hope said. “But I still worry.”

There was a brief moment of silence before Hope continued. “Um…what’s it like?” She blurted out. “I haven’t had time to watch your streams lately.”

“What part? Being part of the swarm, being a woman, being griffinkin…?”

“All of it.” Hope replied. “It just seems so…different from how you used to be.”

“It is, but it feels amazing.” Fae replied. “Part of the conversion process makes you feel comfortable in your new body, and to actively prefer it to your old one. That helped me get around my hangups about being a woman, and the fact that this body is so much more capable than my old one made the choice of which I would rather stay in easy.”

“It’s better than your normal body?” Hope asked, bewildered. “But…you were one of the strongest people I knew.”

“And I was converted with incredibly strong materials, even the corpse of the Lord of Monsters. This body is so much stronger it’s like night and day. My mothers were actually the one to make the suggestion that I switch full-time, since they saw how much I preferred this body and the effects it was having on my mental state. I actually just finished getting them converting now, the Goddess of Hearth helped them spawn near me when they logged in for the first time.”

“They joined you too?” Hope whispered. “Was it really that alluring for them?”

“I…don’t think so?” Fae replied. “They decided that they would make whatever choice I did, and they’re not actually full-time part of the Swarm yet, not until they have a way of watching my stream. They trusted my judgement, and my judgement was that this is the best option going forward. The mental changes, in my opinion, aren’t egregious, and the rulers are genuinely determined to make a better world, so it wasn’t that hard a choice.

“Since you don’t have time to watch my streams, I would highly recommend checking out the highlight videos on my channel. You’ll get a much better idea of what life is like and my reasons for making this choice.”

“I’ll…do that.” Hope said. “And…do you mind if we talk more? Maybe even meet up on Yasato?”

“I would love to talk more with you, Hope.” Fae said, flashing Hope that smile that always put butterflies in her stomach. “But I’m afraid Yasato is out of the question right now. I’m not a Player anymore, so if I die, I die for real, and I’m something of a target at the moment. Otherwise, I absolutely would.”

“Oh.” Hope said, more disappointment than she would have liked creeping into her voice.

“It’ll be okay.” Fae said soothingly. “I have internet access and we can chat this way. Current estimates put the Swarm’s arrival on Yasato proper in a couple of years, so we’ll be able to meet up before you know it. Just think of it like the time I lived without civilization for a year.”

“But, if we meet up then, won’t it be war? Wouldn’t you be forced to convert me?”

“Not at all.” Fae said. “There’s no overpowering urge to convert people, and we won’t be ordered to or anything. The marketing for World Saviors dramatically misrepresented the Swarm.”

“I…see.” Hope said. “Well…you’ve given me a lot to think about. I’m going to go watch those videos, give me a call when you’ve made your decision about my recent behavior, okay?”

“Will do. It was nice talking to you again, Hope.”

“You too…Fae.” And with that, Hope ended the call, feelings a mess.