The forest canopy above the abandoned mansion was thick enough to blot out the twin moons completely.

In the underground laboratory buried beneath twenty meters of reinforced alloy and bioengineered rock, machines never seemed to sleep.

Banks of holographic displays lined the curved walls, their blue-white glow casting long shadows across a floor of polished composite.

’Helena’ sat in a swivel chair near the central observation console, one leg crossed over the other, her posture was lazy and clearly bored out of her mind.

She turned her own light brain holographic display loosely upwards, its screen angled just enough for her to watch the group chat scroll by without appearing to care.

The messages rolled past, and ’Helena’ smirked.

"Look at them, losing their minds." ’Helena’ murmured, scrolling lazily with one finger. "All that military shits that they learned went up to smokes once a problem arrived."

From across the lab, hunched over a molecular sequencing console, Ethan didn’t look up.

"You’re not going to join the chaos?" he asked in a flat tone as he waited for the new results to come out on the holographic display after injecting another dosage of the adjusted formula.

’Helena’ snorted and said, "Why would I? Let them worry until they shit their pants."

A sharp, vulpine grin split ’Helena’’s expression.

"That would be fun."

"Crazy," Ethan muttered.

"Talking about yourself, asshole?" ’Helena’ fired back without missing a beat.

Ethan didn’t reply as his fingers moved across the holographic display, adjusting the formula on the screen in real time. The molecular bonds rearranged themselves in a slow, silent dance.

Behind them both, in the center of the laboratory, stood a huge tank. It was three meters tall, two meters in diameter.

A cylinder of reinforced transparent alloy filled with a viscous chemical solution that glowed a faint, sickly amber, then quickly turned bright green.

Tubes were fed into it from the ceiling and floor, carrying nutrients, stabilizers, sedatives, and half a dozen other compounds that Ethan alone could name.

The liquid inside was thick enough to distort the shape of the figure floating within it, but not thick enough to hide her completely.

’Lilianna’ floated in the center of the tank. Her body was curled in a fetal position, knees drawn to her chest, arms limp at her sides.

But it was the wings that drew attention when you see it. It was a massive, membranous thing that shouldn’t have existed on a human frame.

It folded tight around her body like a chrysalis, their surfaces catching the bright green glow in iridescent flashes. They twitched occasionally, involuntary spasms that sent ripples through the chemical solution.

’Helena’ turned off her light brain and turned in the chair to look at the tank with a scrutinizing eye.

"Is that brat still fighting for ownership?"

Ethan’s hands paused over the holographic display. He leaned back, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.

Then turned to face ’Helena’ with the weary patience of a man explaining astrophysics to a toddler.

"Don’t be too arrogant, Keres." He said with a deliberate warning.

Keres, who was wearing Helena Popova’s body, scrunched his face. "Don’t call my name so loudly, I’m not deaf."

"Don’t be dramatic," Ethan said, then turned towards Keres, who kept on adjusting his sleeves that were falling off the sides of his shoulder. "Are you having fun playing with that female body?"

"Excuse me, I’m also a female in our species," Keres said, annoyed as he adjusted his bra. "Your human and beast females are the weird ones for having excess fat on the chest and no extra organ down there."

Ethan took out an obviously newly bought bag from the side and threw it towards Keres. "It’s not weird. It’s part of being in a certain species."

Keres caught it easily and saw what was inside. He raised an eyebrow and said in a seductive tone, "I can also give birth like your male omegas here. Do you want to give it a try? I can make an exception?"

Ethan raised a syringe that seemed to glint deadly against the light as drops of water spurted out of it. He said, "Keep your hands to yourself."

Keres turned around and removed his clothes. He murmured as he pouted and changed to a new one, "Tsk, you also like a male omega, so what’s the big deal?"

Ethan shook his head and continued to nag Keres.

"You didn’t have it easy when you took ownership either, didn’t you? Without my medicine, you couldn’t have woken up. Couldn’t have suppressed the real Helena. Couldn’t have held control of that body to this day without me." He tilted his head, and the lab light caught the edge of something hard in his expression. "How about a little respect and ’thank you’?"

Keres’s eyes—no, it was Helena’s green eyes, but then for a split second it turned into bloody red eyes narrowed to slits.

"Don’t get arrogant yourself, Ethan," Keres said as he finished changing and turned back to face Ethan. This time, he had a cold smile on his face. "They wouldn’t need to wake me up at all if you had just done your job properly in the first place."

Ethan’s hand clenched tight, but he didn’t show it on his face. He swallowed whatever retort had risen on him and turned back to work on his formula.

"That’s just how life is," he said after a beat, his voice carefully neutral. "If everything went smoothly, do you think we’d still need a backup plan?"

A pause. Then his face had a maniacal smile as he carefully said, "That would be too boring."

Keres scoffed at him, "Is that your excuse for falling in love with a mere human?"

The question landed like a stone in still water.

Ethan’s hands stopped—a full stop.

His gaze went distant, unfocused, staring at something in a holographic display that couldn’t be reflected.

"Human?" he whispered, almost to himself. "I wonder..."