The House of Exceptionals was the upper house of Fusion’s parliament. The Dome of Power was a building on the southern tip of Manhattan, the area still covered by the Hudson Barrier. It had been stomped out of the ground in the past two months. With magic and modern understandings of architecture, something pretty impressive could be erected in such a timeframe. Even with a surprise attack setting back a lot of the foundation work.

The Dome of Power was a building in the neoclassical style used for the White House and the United States Capitol. What this meant was a lot of pillars, surrounding the circular body of the entire building. About two metres away from the actual outer walls, they were spaced so a pillar was between every one of the large windows, which gave view of the empty offices inside. An impressive dome topped the entire structure.

Unlike the aforementioned buildings of the same style, the Dome of Power wasn’t painted completely white. Instead, Gnome, provider of the majority of building material and designs, had gone with stones of a dark grey and red instead. That made the building a bit sinister, but also grounded a sombre and serious aura. John very much liked that.

The Dome of Power itself, although an impressive building, was surrounded on the left and right side by the end of the donut-shaped, second government building that completed the district. It had the same style and colouration, although it missed the dome in favour of having many more layers to it. There was the base floor, freely accessible at most points, with large stone staircases placed at the end points of the interrupted circle and opposite of that gap. The stairs led up to a large terrace, created on the roof of the base floor by the stories further up being about half as wide. Both that terrace and the flat roof that ended the building proper were decorated with luscious gardens that housed all kinds of plants, from simple decoration to proper food crops. Only that the main colour of everything remained green was of John’s concern. Among the plants, pathways and springs stood a number of empty sockets, for statues and the like. They waited eagerly for something historic to happen, worthy of being eternalized into stone.

It was the Fusion Capitol, in it were the facilities to hold the gathering of the House of Commons and the Parliament. Two broad walkways connected the Dome of Power to the Fusion Capitol, cutting through the green strip that started north of the dome and ended in the shared courtyard.

There was a lot of symbolism going on between those two buildings. Esoterically, the idea was that, even though the exceptional people were separated from the common, they were still part of the same circle and should never forget that they were surrounded by them. Which was also why the members of the House of Exceptionals were forced to enter the domain of the House of Commons to partake in government, rather than the other way around. Fusion was a place where the reality of the strong was acknowledged, not one where they got to dominate.

On a humorous note, John had instructed the architect to make it so the grass strip in combination with the gardens on the roof would create the image of a giant, green power button from a bird’s eye view. He thought that would add a bit of charm to the overly serious ensemble. Life was a comedy and a drama, as far as the Gamer thought about it.

A more comedic bit had just ended elsewhere.

“Aclysia lost the bake-off,” John informed Metra, as the two of them entered the Dome of Power through the north entrance. Over in Florida, his real body activated the desyncing. There was remarkably little difference. He had almost expected some sort of splitting of his consciousness (and feared some signs of developing dual personalities because of it), but virtually nothing changed.

“Aclysia can lose when it comes to baking?” the ancient weapon asked honestly, while they walked through the empty hallway towards the exit to the central chamber.

The floor was polished, black marble and the walls empty, making every step echo. As complete as the buildings were and as furnished as the important rooms were already, the majority of this place was empty. It was new, after all. The seat of a completely new government, with nothing to pull from in the past and no great accomplishments or commissioned pieces of arts to hang from the walls yet. Those things would accumulate slowly.

As long as they continued to exist.

“Well, one of the categories was ‘creativity’ and her enemy made a pie that talked, so that was the deciding factor,” John summarized the situation for her, while strolling right on through another open door and into the circular chamber at the heart of the building. It claimed a rough fifty percent of the entire floor’s surface.

Where the offices making up the outer layer of the building went three stories high, the House of Exceptionals chamber went all the way to the dome. Six diamond shaped windows let daylight fall in, mimicking the shape of Fusion’s simplified emblem. John had to resist tinging the glass in the proper colours. It would have been style over substance in a giant fashion. Too much style over substance.

The chamber was separated into three areas. First and most importantly there was the floor, where the regular members would sit in whatever configuration they wished. The many rows of seats and tables were set on rails, so the layout was flexible and parties could easily gather up in clumps. People could also sit wherever they wanted, so that helped on that front.

Next was the government’s seat. That was a series of desks on an elevated platform where John and his ministers could take their seat. Those seats were assigned and most of John’s cabinet was there. People that the Gamer had barely any personal ties with, mostly promoted for their ability in their fields. Some of which, as he had found out, didn’t seem to like him much as a person, but were paying the necessary respect, if nothing else. At least Magoi was present as someone who would have his back.

Last in the list of places in the chamber were the watchers’ seats. Accessible only from the second level and overlooked by security, those were seats for journalists and interested people. John was a tad surprised to see a good amount of people in there, even if they were mostly of the news seeking variety. He even saw Worlina and Harilia, the catgirl he had gotten to know intimately during the Small Lake Pact affair, up there. He did his best to ignore both of them.

It had to be said that the chamber was way, way too large for the amount of people actually meant to sit inside it today. Fusion had a total member count of roughly 120’000 people. Without the children, which weren’t counted for the sake of district drawing, and those that were too poor to pay taxes that went down to about 100’000 people. There was a seat per district in the House of Commons, and a district was currently meant to hold 1000 people. In other words, the House of Commons, at this point in time, had 100 seats, which was a nice, even number. It also meant that the House of Exceptionals had its maximum set at 25 people.

The chamber could have held up to 500 seats easily and probably twice that if they used tables that were less spacious.

John stepped towards the government’s seat and looked at the wall behind it. A large, proper depiction of the Fusion emblem had been mounted onto it, each bit made out of painted metal. It looked impressive, which it really had to, given the amount of money he had paid to have it there. Among the elevated positions of the government’s seat, his was the highest, for obvious reasons. It was a little tower in the otherwise fairly flat room. Taking a little staircase up there, he plopped down in the supremely comfortable armchair and swivelled around for a little bit.

There was more than enough room for Metra to stand behind him. A large mahogany desk, integrated seamlessly into the rest of the wood coverings that made the elevated position less of an eyesore, was currently empty of anything. John reached into his inventory, dumped a few papers with topics to discuss on the table and then leaned back. They had arrived thirty minutes early and John was just getting used to things.

He looked down at the chamber before him, at the wooden tables, the red-cushioned chairs and the marble floor. It was too large, it had that almost artificial feeling that only brand new things could have and nothing bore the mark of history, but he was pretty happy with it.

Down below were the six Exceptionals sent by the state guilds, as well as some other members appointed by John or members of his governments as favours or due to necessity. None of them had a level lower than 50. That didn’t sound like a lot to John anymore, but even the lowest among them was the strongest in a thousand Abyssals.

The maximum number of members for the House of Exceptionals was 25 right now, but they hadn’t managed to fill even that. There were only fifteen, which meant that there were almost more people in the room that John had appointed for the Fusion Cabinet than there were members of the upper house of the legislature. The awkwardness of a state that was formed recently, out of nowhere and with a fair bit of force behind it.

Nothing to be worried about, today was only a gathering for practice anyway. John turned away to chat with Metra, in an effort to pass the time. “You know, I was thinking about putting a giant quote above the emblem.”

“Really?” Metra turned around and looked up, crossing her arms. “I mean there IS space. I find it kind of blasphemous to put a quote above your government symbol though. Makes it seem like the king is beneath what some text says.”

“We call that a constitutional monarchy and those did pretty well,” the Gamer responded. “Well, some still do, which is more than I can say about feudalism.”

“Yeah, yeah, message received, I’m primitive and my morals are backwards,” Metra waved off in a dismissive fashion. “Eat my ass, Master.”

“Rimming is among the things I’m not really into, I have to say,” he retorted and she snorted with amusement. “Anyway, I do get what you mean. While making the head of government subordinate to the rule of law has been a pretty good development, having myself sit under a quote could send the wrong message. Particularly with the one I was thinking about.”

“Which one would that be?” Metra wondered.

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” John responded and looked for something to occupy his hands with. Without a keyboard or something else for his fingers to fidget around with, they were growing restless. The obvious solution to this would have been a pen or his smartphone. The Gamer (and also somewhat obvious) solution to this was the light-brown ass of Metra. Since she was still wearing her usual, skimpy clothes, and this was the centre of John’s power, it wasn’t like he had any reputation to lose. He rolled up to Metra and grabbed her chocolate behind.

“You know we could just fuck right over that table?” Metra suggested.

“Look, I know this doesn’t come across as believable while I’m groping your butt…” the Gamer said. He let go of the round cheeks to watch them jiggle for a second, before continuing with the fondling and the speaking, “…but I do have a minimum of respect for political proceedings.” Then he kissed her deliciously defined abs.

“I only have respect for you and you’re making me really fucking horny,” the First of Wrath growled. “So either stop or fuck me over the table.”

“You’re my sex slave. If I want to take you, I will; if I tell you that you have to wait, you’ll patiently stand where I want you to,” the Gamer flatly stated and looked up, waiting for her to challenge that. “Isn’t that so?”

He felt a rush of rage and amusement through their mental connection. Basically, everything that Metra felt came along with a rush of rage. Her entire being was programmed to find something to be mad about in everything. That she managed to control herself regardless was as remarkable as ever.

“It is so,” she conceded and sighed when John got back to solving his idle hands problem. Likely to distract herself, Metra continued the conversation. “Anyway, doesn’t that quote from the Melian Dialogue go against this entire structure you’re trying to build?”

“You know where that is from?” John was at least distracted from caressing her abs with his lips. With a raised eyebrow, he exchanged a glance with her. It certainly wasn’t the case that he believed Metra was stupid. Aside from Sylph he would guess everyone in his harem to have above average intelligence. All of the levels and magic developed their brains in a purely physical way (well, magical physicality for most of them) that simply lent itself to thinking quicker and in more elaborate patterns than the average person. Not necessarily more logical or with less bias though.

“I was there,” Metra responded.

“Oh… which side?”

“Do you really need to ask?”

Given that one side had ground the other to dust, he didn’t really. “You need to tell me more about the Peloponnesian War, whenever you have the time,” the Gamer stated only to pivot back to where they had left off. “Anyway, yes, the entire dialogue is about how might makes right, which is a reason why I didn’t use that quote, but the sentence itself never sounded that way to me. I think the original meaning gets sort of lost in the translation.”

Metra, maybe having enough of standing or of only receiving attention on her behind, turned around and sat in John’s lap. “You’ll have to tell me what you mean by that, because I don’t get it,” she stated. Meanwhile, John moved his hands all over her, squeezing her toned thighs, midriff and small breasts.

“It’s the way it’s worded. ‘The strong do what they CAN and the weak suffer what they MUST’,” he began his explanation. “Why would it be ‘can’ and ‘must’ if the intended message is ‘might is right’? Shouldn’t it be: ‘the strong do what they want and the weak obey’? The way it was translated sounds to me like a rebuttal of the idea that the strong can do what they want. It’s a sentence that closer describes that the strong nudge the world in certain directions and that the weak will band together and crush them if they take it too far. The strong only do what they can. What they can depends on what the weak must suffer to keep the paradigm working. After all, the weak and the strong need each other.”

“Do the strong really need the weak?” Metra asked, purely for the sake of continuing the conversation. Her voice had a horny undertone and she moaned when John pinched a nipple through her thin top.

“Well, unless you want to live in tents in the wilderness, hunting for your meal every day, I would say so,” the Gamer whispered into her ear.

“Don’t think that’s such a bad world,” the First of Wrath lustfully grunted. “Nothing to do but eat, sleep and fuck.”

“And die of papercuts while not having access to videogames.”

“The first sounds like a problem for those weaker than you. The second, I’m sure we could distract you from, you eternal lover.”

“Okay, let me find something you would miss… right, no technology to forge advanced alloys with. That would mean no advanced weaponry, you would have to stay with stone knives.”

“That would be a prrrrr-,” she took a rattling inhale, “a big problem.” John wasn’t sure if she was still in the conversation or if she was talking about the erection grinding against her butt.

“Mister Presideeeent,” Magoi shouted up in a half-singing voice. “Do control yourself a little bit, alright?”

“Good call.” John gave a thankful nod and stayed his hands before anything more could happen. “Alright, Metra, you just watch over me for the duration of this session. Once we’re home, bend over and beg for my cock.” He made a command out of all of that, so she was compelled to obey and he had something to look forward to when he got back.

The first session of the House of Exceptionals began a few minutes after Metra took her position behind his chair again.