Galateya failed to counter the unexpected lunge. The impact sent them both flying across the sandy shore.

  Maksym pulled out his phone, recording the action.

  This was gold! All of his dreams of robot girls mud wrestling action were coming true.

  The sweet, pretty, slightly awkward cyborg who'd been nervously asking him about human social customs forty minutes ago transformed into an absolute chaos gremlin the moment beer entered her system.

  "COMBAT HAS BEGUN!" Katherine’s mouth stretched in a pixelated grin. "ACCEPT YOUR... your inevitable demise, treasonous dragon!"

  "Woo! Go Kat!" Maksym cheered. "Take her down!"

  The dragon girl tried to shove Katherine off, but the cyborg's tail whipped around, wrapping around Galateya's ankle. Katherine yanked her tail, sending the Taniwha crashing onto the sand.

  Before Galateya could recover, Katherine grabbed her and lifted her clean off the ground.

  "Hey—put me—" Galateya squirmed uselessly.

  Katherine spun once, twice, building momentum like an Olympic hammer thrower, then launched Galateya toward the muddy shoreline.

  The resulting SPLORCH echoed across the lake. Mud exploded outward in a spectacular ripple. Galateya's scales immediately shifted to match the brown-gray sludge, turning to rough bark texture.

  "Ha! The mud claims its first victim!" Katherine pumped her fist in the air.

  Maksym was about to shout encouragement when someone slid up beside him.

  Smooth. Unnaturally smooth. Like silk wrapped around a gravitational anomaly. Like… oh.

  It was the fox. Sage, according to Ash's telegram intel.

  "Yo, you gotta send me that vid," Sage said, her sultry voice doing odd things to his nervous system. "S' quality fappin' material."

  Maksym's brain stuttered to a halt. Had she really said that or did he just hallucinate it? "Ah yea, sure, what's your gram ID?"

  "YeOldeFoxHol<3."

  He typed it into his phone, fingers moving on autopilot while his higher brain functions tried and failed to reboot. "Neat handle. Very... medieval meets internet culture."

  "'Das me!" Sage chirped. "Max Renaissance-internet-fox energy.”

  “Uh-huh,” he tried to output a conversation. “So what does a Skinwalker-babe like yourself do for work these days?”

  “I sell bottled sweat to weirdos."

  His fingers paused mid-type. "You what?"

  "Diluted… bottled juices," Sage revealed with a smug grin that did criminally-terrible things to his heart, blood rapidly rushing down towards his crotch. "And other artisanal fox-themed products. It's a whole thing. Very lucrative. Want a jar? I'll give you a freebie."

  Katherine vigorously shoved Galateya with her metal posterior into the mud.

  "No escapery! Stay down!" the cyborg declared. "Prevention is the best... the best... uhh… prevention!"

  Maksym attempted to focus on the wrestling match. He failed catastrophically.

  Sage was right there, and she smelled like... like forest leaves, warm cinnamon and sexy wildness that made his lizard brain melt into falling stars and detonating fireworks. It was like she was an isotope of love that radiated happiness, pure and absolute… an idea of lurid perfection baked into a cake of seductive lewdness.

  "So you're like... a juice-jar entrepreneur?" he managed.

  "Yep! A self-made fox!" Sage puffed out her chest…

  Which Maksym absolutely did not notice, he was assuredly a gentleman, he was just casually observing the general boob region for purely… conversational purposes.

  "Started from the bottom, now I'm here. Well, technically I started from a tower and then took over a spooki valley with my fox skulk. Long story,” Sage ranted on. “Involves muchly family drama and excessive wizard-isolation. The usual cryptid stuff."

  "Cryptid stuff," Maksym repeated, admiring her ridiculous shirt tag and logo. God, she was funny too. When did funny become this attractive? Even her ridiculous zoomer-speak accent was attractive. "Is that a technical term?"

  "Sooper technical!" Sage nodded sagely, and Maksym noticed that her fur was shifting. The red-orange fox coloring was bleeding into pale peach tones around her face. Human skin tones. "It's in all the cryptozoology textbooks. Chapter seven: 'Cryptid Stuff and How to Deal With It.'"

  "And where do I buy that?"

  "From my GonlyFans shop, duh."

  In the mud pit, Galateya managed to twist enough to glare at them. Katherine responded by grinding her metal butt harder into the dragon's back.

  Maksym laughed. "So uh," he said, suddenly aware that his confidence was draining like water through a sieve. "Are you... I mean, is there like a Mr. Fox? Or Mrs. Fox? Or... other significant fox?"

  Smooth, Drzewiecki. Real smooth. Where did all my smoothness go?

  "OH!" Sage's freckles formed into exclamation points. "You're asking if I'm single! ‘Das so adorable!"

  She was even closer now. Definitely closer. Too close, within arm's reach, within kissing range. And her face… The furry fox muzzle was retracting, smoothing out into human-ness. Not completely human yet, there were still big fluffy ears and the sharp canines, but that only made her more desirable.

  Jesus Christ, she was gorgeous.

  Excessively so. The prettiest human with fox ears he's seen in his entire life. Like an anime girl that actually exists. No, not anime. Hentai. She was hentai material. Assuredly so. If one were to melt his entire hentai video collection and then pour it into a mold, Sage would emerge, all wet and...

  "As to your question, I'm currently working the T-bum and A-chad angle," Sage announced.

  Maksym blinked, trying to process words through the pink-red cotton wool naked Sage clouds filling his brain. "I genuinely have no idea what that means."

  "T-bum and A-chad!" Sage repeated as if this explained everything. Her fur continued departing, replacing itself with human skin dotted with freckles. Lots of freckles. Constellations of them. "You know! The angles and curves and shafts."

  "Still lost," Maksym admitted, taking a swig of beer to give his hands something to do besides wanting to reach out to touch the ever-shifting freckles.

  "T’s the dragon-butt getting smacked roun’ by yo shark-mud knight!" Sage pointed at Galateya, who was wiggling face-down in the mud. "And A-chad's the swole dude in the boat!"

  Maksym's brain sluggishly connected the dots. "Ah. You're pursuing both of them? At the same time?"

  That's right. That's what Ash told him. It was hard to think about Ash though. Very hard. There was only Sage, the gravitational-hentai-anomaly drawing him into her inescapable event horizon of ahegao-ness.

  "Yep!" Sage confirmed. Her red tail swished and vanished behind her as the rest of her body completed its transformation into a mind-meltingly stunning, perfect, redheaded teen. "Omnid ship dynamics are very flexible! 'Specially if you are a Skinwalker and can't have long term 'ships."

  "You can't have long term relationships?" Maksym asked, struggling against his libido's best efforts to terminate all higher cognitive functions.

  "Not really," Sage sighed. The dastardly small expression of vulnerability made her even more attractive. "My Fractal Engine heart fucks with humans way too much."

  "Fucks how?" He took another drink.

  Sage sat down on a nearby fallen log. The log was right next to him, and she was crossing her legs in a way that made his mouth go dry. Her legs were fully human now too, wrapped in sporty, tight pants that highlighted her curves.

  Perfect ass.

  It sounded so funny, so fake in the telegram chat. So that's what Ash was talking about! Maksym couldn't draw his eyes away from Sage no matter how hard he tried.

  "You'll see soon enough," Sage sighed. "Basically, my heart pumps out this constant psychic pheromone broadcast that rewrites people's desires. Makes me look like whatever they find most attractive. Makes them want to... you know." She waggled her eyebrows. "Bone me."

  Oh. Oh no.

  Maksym's mottled brain finally connected all the pieces. The shifting appearance. The gradually increasing attractiveness. The way his thoughts kept sliding toward her like ball bearings rolling downhill.

  She was doing it right now.

  "Sounds rough." His voice came out embarrassingly hoarse.

  "It's a NIGHTMARE!" Sage threw up her human hands, colorful painted nails sparkling in the sunlight. "Do you know how hard it is to make genuine friends when everyone you meet instantly wants to jump your bones? I can't go to the grocery store without causing multiple divorces! I can't have a normal conversation without people proposing marriage! Last month some guy tried to tattoo my face on his ass!"

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Maksym snorted beer through his nose. "He WHAT?"

  "HIS ASS!" Sage confirmed with a huff. "Full color portrait! Right cheek! His girlfriend caught him at the tattoo parlor and there was this whole screaming match in the parking lot behind our café!" She shook her head. "I just wanted to buy energy drinks, Dax. Ugh. Instead I destroyed a relationship and became immortalized on someone's buttcheek."

  Even knowing that he was being magically manipulated, Maksym found himself feeling sympathy for the Skinwalker. "That's... pretty awful."

  "Thank you!" Sage gestured emphatically. "Everyone online is always like 'oh boo hoo, you're too hot, what a terrible problem to have! They don't understand tho’! I can't have ANYTHING real! Every relationship is just people addicted to my Fractal Engine radiance reinforcing my appearance! I don't even know if Teya really likes me for me! On one hand I'd love to spend one whole eternity with her, on the other I am concerned that both her and Ash are going to become obsessed, drooling veggies in a week or two or that I'll start to chew on their souls accidentally at night!"

  Maksym stared at his beer, trying to organize his thoughts. "Hey, umm, does seeing you through a webcam change things? Like, do your GonlyFans fans act like natural simps or do they all turn into crazy stalkers?"

  "Webcam's safer," Sage admitted. "Definitely less crazy. Gets them a little obsessed, but not the full mind-break. Unless I actively suppress it… this happens.”

  "So you're basically constantly flexing your personality?"

  "Exactly!"

  "So what happens when someone turns into a stalker?"

  "I have to spend a whole lotta time and mana carving their memory of me outta their head," Sage lamented. "I'm not like a pro memory deleter. Bleh. Wish I had one of those Man in Black flash pens."

  "That sounds exhausting," Maksym said, sitting on the log next to her.

  “Yus. Are you feeling it?”

  "Oh, I'm definitely feeling... some effects. My brain is screaming 'MUST IMPRESS FOX GIRL' very loudly. But I'm Polish, see? We're naturally suspicious of things that seem too good to be true!" he boasted.

  "Smart!" Sage slid close. Their shoulders were almost touching now. "So what do you do, Dax? Besides hanging out with Ash n’ enabling his shenanigans?"

  "I'm uh... a… a robotics engineer. I currently work at POLSKA…" He was acutely aware of how close she was. Of the warmth radiating from her body. Of the way her red curls caught the light, throwing up pretty rainbows.

  "And what else?" She whispered, whiskers tickling his cheek and ear.

  "I'm also kind of... running the entire resistance movement? Against the Frontenachii?" he said, drowning in her radiance, lost in her closeness. "As his second-in-command."

  Sage's freckles rearranged into surprised Os. "Resistance movement? Like with guns and stuff?"

  "Nah. With memes and stories and love bombing," Maksym revealed. The words were spilling out faster than he could stop them. "We're weaponizing human culture. Fiction. Entertainment. Relationships. We're getting the Frontenachii Commanders, prad soldiers, tanks and guns to fall in love with humans, with Earth, with our movies and books and food. We're making them want to protect us instead of harvesting us."

  "What?!" Sage's ocean-blue eyes widened.

  "It's Ash's great, clever plan," Maksym continued to whisper, unable to stop. The beer, the pheromones, the sheer relief of telling someone, it all combined into an inescapable verbal avalanche. "He figured out that the Frontenachii commanders need fear to power their abilities. They harvest it from kobolds on their ships. But what if we could replace that with voluntary fear? Entertainment fear? Horror movies, haunted houses, consensual scary experiences?"

  "Holy shit," Sage breathed out. “And that works?”

  "It does. Not just fear!" Maksym whispered. "Every emotion mixed with fear works. Love, joy, excitement, anticipation. We're turning Earth into the multiverse’s most addictive emotional buffet. Free samples for everyone. Get them hooked on humanity. Make them dependent on us being happy and alive and creative."

  Sage stared at him.

  Then she started laughing. Genuine, delighted, almost hysterical, seductive laughter.

  "That's," she wheezed between giggles, “that's the most brilliantly mad thing I've ever heard! You're trying to seduce an entire alien fleet?!"

  "We're already succeeding!" Maksym grinned. "We've got wolf soldiers going on dates with furries. Gun units joining book clubs. A Datamancer who's abandoned her blood contract to help us. And..." He leaned in to smell her scent and added quietly. "Our most important piece is Commander Xandria aka Princess Aquillianne who started it all with Ash."

  "Commander Xandria… is Princess Aquillianne?!" Sage whispered, freckles rearranged into shocked emoticons.

  "Yeah, she's," Maksym paused, suddenly realizing he'd just revealed supremely classified information to a Skinwalker he'd met ten minutes ago. "...uhm. Can you... Pretend you didn't hear any of that?"

  "Never," Sage gulped, blushing and grinning like a loon. "Never ever ever. Holy shit. Ash... Ash is the Emperor of Humanity and you're his second? Really?"

  Maksym's brain experienced a brief moment of pure panic, the kind that makes you realize you've said something incredibly stupid at exactly the wrong time, but that panic was submerged within the radiance of the perfect girl in front of him, lost in the depths of her infinite, sky-blue eyes.

  "I… uuhm…" he started, trying to backpedal.

  "Relax!" Sage patted his shoulder. The touch sent electric shivers down his spine making his brain flip upside down. "I'm not gonna sell you out to the fleet, bro. I'm like, the LAST person who'd snitch to the Frontenachii command." She leaned in once again. "Besides, if A-man IS really pulling off what you just described? That's fucking beautiful. Weaponized love and creativity? That's MY kind of warfare. I'm so in..."

  Maksym felt his shoulders relax. "Yeah?"

  "Hells yeah!" Sage's grin widened. "You know what? I wanna help. I could be SO useful to your... little resistance. The usefulest fox!”

  "It's not little. We've thousands of operatives now and... POLSKA funding some of it and… That's like… super classified…" Maksym's mouth ran a thousand miles ahead of his brain. "...would you maybe want to discuss this over dinner? Like, going-out-dinner? Not during forest-mud-wrestling-supervision?"

  Sage's freckles rearranged themselves into "YOU ARE / SO COOKED".

  Oh no. Oh god. Had he really just asked her out? While actively being Skinwalker-pheromone-bombed? This was the worst possible…

  "Aww!" Sage cooed loudly, pulling away from him. "You're asking me on a date! That's adorable! But here's the thing, Daxxy," She stood up, brushing off her fox-themed shirt. "Let's determine how cooked you are first."

  "How... cooked?" Maksym repeated stupidly.

  "Yeah!" Sage circled around the log like a hungry predator evaluating juicy prey. "Like, on a scale of 'perfectly functional human' to 'would walk into traffic if I asked nicely,' where are you right now?"

  Maksym's brain tried to assess the question objectively. His heart was racing. His palms were sweaty. He was rock hard. Every fiber of his being was screaming at him to agree with whatever Sage said, to please her, to make her smile, to…

  "I'm fine," he said, with fake confidence. "Totally functional. Very much in control of my faculties."

  "Uh-huh." Sage rolled her eyes. "Prove it."

  "How?"

  "Do a thousand pushups for me."

  The words hit Maksym's brain like a hammer drill. For exactly three seconds, his rational mind fought against the command.

  A thousand pushups? That was an impossible job. His arms would give out after maybe fifty, and that was on a good day with proper warm-up and…

  His body was already moving.

  He dropped to the muddy shoreline, hands planting in the wet sand, back straight, core engaged.

  The first pushup felt easy. Natural. Easy.

  "One," he counted aloud.

  "Two."

  "Three."

  Sage was… walking away, not looking at him, her attention shifting back to the mud wrestling match.

  No, come back, perfect girl! Pay attention to me!

  "Four."

  "Five."

  Maksym’s remnants of rationality observed Sage’s abandonment of his pushups from a distant, horrified corner. She wasn't even watching. She gave him the command and immediately lost interest, like someone tossing a ball for a dog and then going back to their conversation.

  "Six."

  "Seven," his mouth counted.

  His arms didn't hurt. They should hurt. After seven pushups in wet sand, his shoulders should be burning. They felt... fine though. Great, even. As if his body had been waiting for permission to do this.

  "Eight."

  Oh god. Why can’t I stop? Stop! I have to stop!

  "Nine."

  "Ten."

  This wasn't normal human behavior. Normal humans didn't immediately comply with absurd commands from attractive strangers. Normal humans had self-preservation instincts. Normal humans would have laughed it off, made a joke, maybe done ten pushups as a gag before stopping!

  "Eleven."

  "Twelve."

  He wasn't stopping. Couldn't stop. His body was executing the command with utmost devotion, and the worst part, the absolute worst part, was that it felt good. Right. Like this was exactly what he should be doing. Like he was a genie fulfilling a wish of his master, a robot set in motion with a press of a button.

  "Thirteen."

  "Fourteen."

  He saw Sage crouching sexily at the edge of the mud pit, cheering on Katherine and Galateya. The Skinwalker was focused on the wrestling match, her human appearance melted away, fox tail back swishing excitedly.

  He would do anything for that butt. He would die for that butt. An absolute unit of butt.

  No! I like Katherine! What the fuck is happening! Wake up!

  "Fifteen."

  "Sixteen."

  She'd forgotten about him already.

  "Seventeen."

  And he was still doing pushups. Inescapable pushups.

  "Eighteen."

  "Nineteen."

  Polish cynicism, my ass!

  All that mental resistance he'd been so proud of? Completely worthless. He'd lasted approximately five minutes of conversation before turning into a drooling simp who'd do a thousand pushups in the mud because a pretty fox girl told him to.

  Damn you, dastardly alien pussy! Damn you to hell!

  "Twenty."

  "Twenty-one."

  The truly horrifying part was how little this bothered him. His conscious mind was screaming about dignity and self-respect and autonomy and revenge, but those concerns felt... distant. Theoretical. Like worrying about rain while standing under a perfect blue sky. Like they weren't really happening to him right now.

  "Twenty-two."

  "Twenty-three."

  In the mud pit, Katherine got Galateya in a headlock. The dragon was thrashing, scales shifting through funny, frustrated red and gold shades.

  "Twenty-four."

  "Twenty-five."

  His breathing was steady. He could do this all day. Would do this all day, if Sage asked. Would do anything she asked. Forever.

  My breathing isn't steady! It's a lie! I'm going to pass out if I keep at it! Nooo!

  "Twenty-six."

  "Twenty-seven," he far-too-calmly counted out his doom.

  I should be demoted for this. I just spilled classified resistance secrets to a cryptid with pretty eyes and a nice smile.

  "Twenty-eight."

  "Twenty-nine."

  Ash is going to kill me. Or worse, give me a disappointed look that says: "Dax, buddy, I expected better from you."

  "Thirty."

  "Thirty-one."

  Although, to be fair, Ash had also apparently been affected by Sage at the comic con. Had gotten her number. Had... failed to call her because he thought she was too hot to be real.

  Wait no. Ash wasn't affected at all! Ash was immune. Unlike me, Ash was able to walk away from Sage!

  Ash got a forest-hunt-date with her!

  The rational part of his brain tried one more time to assert control.

  Stop. Just stop. Stand up. Walk away. Prove you have free will.

  His arms kept moving. Stars danced in his eyes, wobbling with colors of exhaustion.

  Yep. Cooked. Absolutely, thoroughly, completely cooked. Like a well-done steak. Like burned toast. Like…

  "Thirty-two."

  "Thirty-three."

  At least Katherine was winning the mud wrestling match.