From one moment to the other, the tenseness that had suddenly gripped several of John’s girls vanished again. Lee wasn’t quite sure what had happened. She got a rough idea when Rave asked, “Everything going well with John?”

“Master was approached by an unsavoury character,” Aclysia responded, “it appears to be solved.”

‘Ahhh, the mental connection,’ Lee unravelled the mystery. ‘That explains who tensed up and who didn’t.’

“Alrighty, just tell me where he is before y’all teleport over, if there’s trouble,” Rave reminded her fellow haremette.

They were in one of the many cellar rooms of Rave’s club. It was a decently large room, adequately populated by the harem and its guests, filled with leather couches and low tables. There was a bar in the corner, fundamentally self-service but currently manned by Beatrice. Everything about the floor and the walls had the glistening look of smooth plastic to it; neon light seeping out through the gaps between tiles and multi-coloured bulbs behind square shields softly pulsed in rough accordance to the techno music that played in the background.

It wasn’t Lee’s first time in a disco. She had tried the scene twice before, purely to hang out with some new acquaintances that tried to get friendly with her. The first time she had obliged them. The second time one of them had tried to feel her up. She walked out and went home to watch anime instead. That was a better use of her time. She had not much use for being molested or blaringly loud, trashy techno. Why the club had insisted on playing what was a glorified bone-rattler of a beat over some more intricate synthwave, Lee could never understand.

The music here was a lot more her style, the kind of techno she liked to have running on the side while she was gaming. Her company was also miles above hormonal adolescents.

John’s harem had all put on clothes that were appropriate for a rave and all of them looked incredible in them. Aclysia, Beatrice and Metra had all opted to wear the same shoulder free, one-piece dress, their skirts ending so shortly under their hips that Lee could see their panties whenever they took a step. The only difference between the three was the colour, the silky fabric being white, black, and grey for Aclysia, Beatrice, and Metra respectively. All three were also wearing black chokers.

Scarlett was honouring her name by wearing a fiery red combination of blouse and slightly darker leggings. She was currently speaking to Siena, the tailed elemental wearing something that almost left the realm of clothes and entered that of leather lingerie. By far the simplest clothes were those of Salamander: the red-skinned girl covered her massive tits with a black shirt and her spectacular legs with tight jeans. Sylph flew around her fellow elementals, the long skirt of her green summer dress fluttering around as she moved.

Far more daring than Lee would have guessed her to be, Gnome was wearing a top that, in its style, reminded the young Fateweaver of a virgin killer sweater. The material was closer to silk and not even a little bit see-through, but the side-boob remained a reality. She paired that revealing top with a short, pleated skirt and stockings.

Undine wearing something revealing was far less surprising to Lee, but the slime being in her human form was a new sight. A decently tall and deliciously shaped goth woman, she wore a black corset alongside full-arm gloves and black leather pants. Eliza mimicked the pants, even if her top was a simple black t-shirt. Rather than gloves, the adorable, white-blue haired woman opted for a choker for her accessories. She was currently busy cussing at Nia, who had traded her ever-present white dress for a blue blouse and black yoga pants.

Lee’s gaze travelled to the woman sitting next to her on the couch. Rave wore a baby blue crop top and spandex hotpants. They were so small that Lee could see a good half of the Lightbearer’s bare ass. When she angled her legs in a certain way, there was even a fair bit of camel toe. At every point, little Miss Magus could see the Lover’s will mark on Rave’s midriff.

“Like what ya see?” Rave asked and pulled Lee out of her mindless staring at Rave’s body. She looked at the glossy pink lips instead. They were curved into a seductive smile and closer than when Lee last checked. The young Fateweaver only now realized that Rave had put her arm on top of the backrest of the sofa, behind Lee’s head. It was almost an embrace. “Hmmm?” she hummed, insisting for an answer.

“I mean, how could I not?” Lee gave the honest one, blushing just a little bit. “You all look incredible.”

“Said the cutie to the host,” Rave laughed and eyed up Lee.

How the Lightbearer looked that hungry, Lee wasn’t quite sure. Possessing no true ‘going out’ clothes, she had just grabbed what looked like it went decent together. The result was a plain black shirt and black jeans. There hadn’t been many other colours to choose from in her wardrobe.

“Eh, I look okay,” Lee shrugged off. “Still got a flat ass.”

“Give it a couple of weeks, it’ll get better,” Rave assured and got a little bit closer still. The side of her chest was touching Lee’s now. “Really happy ya decided to come in the first place. It’s hard enough to get John to parties and I can motivate him by sucking his cock.”

The image of just that happening flickered up in Lee’s memory. Rave had gone down on the Gamer with more delight than anyone should be able to experience by sucking a long phallus into their throat. Since first seeing it, the young Fateweaver had tried to emulate it. To moderate success.

“Can you motivate him with something you give him willingly all the time?” Lee poked fun at Rave, while cursing herself for not putting additional panties into her pocket dimension.

“Tiger is a very good man, he knows he should be thankful for things he gets daily,” Rave purred, gesturing with the beer bottle before taking a sip. There was nothing overly suggestive about the way she did it. Simply the way her full, bright pink lips pressed against the glass was enough to make Lee shift a bit in her seat. “Aaahhh… Tiger also gives us girls a lot to be thankful for, I should say. Not like this is a one-way street.” She winked. “Ya know, takes a very special guy to keep a harem.”

“He is pretty special,” Lee agreed instinctively, only to follow it up with some mild sass. “Special kind of a dork.”

Rave laughed. “Yep, exactly that,” she stopped and said, lovingly, “my special dork, that’s my tiger.” The usually teasing voice of the pink-haired techno-lover turned incredibly soft while she spoke those words. Heartbeat fluttering, Lee realized that she wanted to feel exactly like that. To be so deeply in satisfied love to say something honestly in that tone. “Oh, there she be!” Rave suddenly exclaimed and jumped off the couch. “Wait a sec, I need to introduce ya to someone.”

Following the hostess, while she strutted through the room, Lee had to **** herself not to look at that perfect bubble butt in motion. Instead, she looked ahead and at who Rave was approaching.

She was a tall woman. Granted, most of John’s harem was above average in height, but this particular female was above 1,80 metres. Her lips were ruby red, her auburn hair confined into a single braid, and her hourglass shape covered by a long-sleeved, golden shirt and practical, dark grey pants. The way she was dressed and moved gave the feeling that she was going to attend a business conference right after the party. Clashing with this was that Lee could clearly see the woman’s cleavage between the two opened buttons of her shirt. That and the way she and Rave greeted each other.

Casually, Rave walked up to the stern-looking woman and raised a hand to her chin. Despite being a fair bit shorter, the leader of the harem seemed in complete control, making the newcomer bow down and give Rave a kiss on the lips. Not a short kiss either. The moment they started, Rave wrapped her arms around the auburn-haired woman’s neck. Their engagement lasted a whole minute, during which Lee sipped on her drink.

It was only water, as she was careful around ****. Lee’s body had the habit of reacting incredibly strongly to ****, be it **** or anything else. Water was exactly what she needed at this point though, since it helped keep her cool in the incredibly hot room.

Eventually, Rave returned with the newcomer, who focused on Lee with interest. Her eyes were a mixture between the metal of sharpened sword and the summer sky, hard and beautiful. Of course, Lee already knew who this was before Rave introduced them. “Lydia, Lee – Lee, Lydia,” she simply said gesturing back and forth.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Lydia said, lightly lowering her head.

“Likewise,” Lee reciprocated the gesture, “honoured to be in your presence, really. I’ll just say that now, before I put a foot in my mouth sometime through the evening.”

“Fortunately, I am well acquainted with social norms being broken,” Lydia made a dismissive gesture towards Rave, “it is a side-effect of the company I chose.”

“Was probably a bad decision then,” Lee responded in her sarcastic dry tone. “Horrible, to be surrounded by attractive, fun-loving women.”

“Quite so,” Lydia nodded.

“Well, excuuuuuse me, princess,” Rave rolled her eyes in a theatrical fashion. “That I’m so attractive and fun-loving. I’ll remind myself to be less of both next time ya beg John to stretch out your backdoor.” Lydia sighed, shook her head, and finally yelped when she got a quick clap on her butt. “Anyway, I’ll leave ya two alone, and get me a new beer. Ya want the usual?”

“Indeed,” Lydia confirmed, evidently not minding the treatment of her butt. While Rave walked away, the monarch sat down next to Lee. The distance between them was appropriate, which almost felt odd after Rave’s closeness. “For all the years that I had business relations with your father, I never met you,” she started a conversation.

“Dad didn’t usually take me along on his business trips,” Lee responded, placing her empty glass of water on the table. “Thank Gaia, I would have needed more handheld games.”

“I disapprove of such a lax work ethic,” Lydia shook her head. “I hear you have formidable talent.”

“And yet I don’t use it, yes, yes,” Lee waved off, “Mom likes to say all of that, in a bit of an angrier tone. Don’t worry, I’m stepping up my game. If I can convince my dad that I shouldn’t be in school.”

“By ‘stepping up my game’ I assume you mean in the Fateweaving regard?” Lydia asked. “Rumours reached me that you were going to chase an e-sports career.”

“Uh, dunno who told you that, but I wasn’t really chasing anything. I just looked into some low-level tournaments because I was bored out of my mind in school.” Lee shrugged. “Don’t know how you feel about it, but I think school is raw ****. I could be a lot more useful if I was allowed to learn things on my own.”

“Is that so?” Lydia asked, sternly mustering the young Fateweaver. “I’ve met many people that chased self-study, only to procrastinate completely outside the bounds of duty. It takes a rare mind to do that.” Lee opened her mouth in retort, but stopped when the queen raised a hand. “Let me complete my statement. It would not surprise me if you possessed such a rare mind. You seem interested in many unusual pursuits.”

“I mean, I guess?” Lee quizzically looked at the queen. “Was that supposed to be a compliment.”

“No, it was an observation.” Lydia shook her head. “If you work hard for the good of Fusion, the two of us won’t have an issue with each other. As the greatest talent in Fateweaving John can hope to find in the next generation, your worth should not be diminished by a lack of self-discipline.”

“…Hey, if you’re going to mimic my mom, could you stick the landing and tell me that slacking off is bad for me?”

“If you slacking off only hurt yourself, I would not concern myself with it,” Lydia responded directly. “It is you being not as good as you could in service to the man I love, that I take issue with.”

“Don’t ya worry, I got reasons to work hard for Fusion that I didn’t have when it came to doing my homework in time.”

“Is Lydia giving ya a hard time?” Rave asked, arriving back at the couch with one bottle in hand and two more dangling from between her fingers. She placed all three on the table. “If she behaves like she got a stick in her ass, ya gotta ask why she didn’t choose a smaller butt plug.”

“Jane, I am attempting to interrogate her.” Lydia shook her head disapprovingly. “Listening to all of your accounts, it appeared you were not properly investigating the stability of her character.”

“Stability, shmability,” Rave dismissed and plopped down on the couch again, incredibly close to Lee. “I like this gal and I got good people skills. I’ve only been horribly wrong twice and one time the guy in question fooled literally everybody, so I can hardly be blamed.”

“Why would you even care about my stability?” Lee wanted to know.

Lydia took her bottle and looked at Rave. The Lightbearer nodded. Lee was confused, then Lydia started speaking, “As Aclysia revealed to you, your interest in John has been noticed. Similarly, it did not escape our attention that you attempted to get to know us.” The queen gestured at the room, where the harem spoke with each other and a number of other women that had been invited. “As you got to know the harem, so did we talk about whether you could fit in with us, should it come to pass that John reciprocates your interest.”

Quietly, Lee blinked rapidly in confusion. No, confusion wasn’t quite the right word. None of this surprised her and she could comprehend all of it. She had known that something like this was going on. It was just that, hearing it so directly, her brain refused to acknowledge information that had been so obviously true already. “And?” she asked the only important question.

“Ya have the confidence of most of us,” Rave opened up to Lee. “I really like ya, the other girls like ya, Nia and Bae basically love ya, Lydia here doesn’t really know ya and she is a mood killer.”

“I am cautious,” Lydia disagreed.

“Whatever ya wanna call it, princess,” Rave giggled and clacked beers with her fellow haremette. The two of them drank. “Anywayzels…”

“”That is not a word,”” Lydia and Lee pointed out at the same time.

“Look at that, ya two will become the greatest of friends,” Rave laughed, putting her legs on the low table. “Like all of us in this fantastic horny group are. Anywayzels, I brought ya a mixed beer,” she tapped the third bottle with the side of her foot, “if ya don’t want it, that’s fine, just thought I’d offer something light.”

“So… wait…” Lee was still churning through the intel she had just been given. “You’re giving me the green light for joining the harem?”

“Essentially,” Rave nodded.

“I prefer to know more about you before I give my word on this. However, I do trust everyone else enough to admit you on their recommendation,” Lydia added and shrugged. “I see potential in you. You may try.”

“Wanna toast on that?” Rave asked.