Chapter 135: The Sweetest Venom

“How is my disguise?” asked Amorra to Chozen. The young princess paused in her own rush to make herself unrecognizable, taking in the young queen’s appearance as she glanced over her shoulder. The frown that took over her features was due to the terrible ensemble Amorra wore, but Chozen didn’t know how to respond as her rival waved her hands about in a presentational fashion.

“Is the head scarf too much? Shades are a definite must, but the ascot over my mouth feels a little armed robber,” Said Amorra with a slightly muffled voice.

“There is no way I am going out with you anywhere dressed like that, armed robbery or not,” answered the stunned princess. She’d been invited to the BHC grand spa opening, and offered Amorra her plus one ticket, slightly regretting the decision as she looked over Amorra.

“What, it can’t be that bad?” Chozen crossed her arms and glared at her. The young queen sighed and started to take off all the extra clothing she’d piled on before she spoke again.

“Does this realm not have a fashion surgeon?” Chozen froze before she could turn back around, smacking a palm to her forehead .

“Why didn’t you say that earlier, we don’t have to waste our time trying to disguise ourselves, we could just show up looking completely different,” said Chozen waving her hand at the wall screen within her rented apartment. Amorra rolled her chair up beside Chozen, watching her swipe through advertised Fashion Surgeons in the local markets within Maelstrom.

“Wait why did you pass up that last one, it had the highest rating in our area?” Chozen rolled her eyes and swiped a hand back through the air showing Axis and her high profile team.

“Wouldn’t make much sense to try and hire a group of people that will most likely be at the event we are going to.”

“Well that sucks their advertisement looks like a whole lot of fun to experience, I wonder who does their ad work?”

“The up and comer Lane, she’s Carter’s Idol—“

“You mean Arson,” Amorra said with enough conviction for Chozen to be bothered by the intensity of the queen’s tone, and forced down the urgent want to slap Amorra.

“Okay, I guess that is important right now, but here is a perfectly good option…” Chozen trailed off in an attempt to dismiss Amorra’s need to prove she knew Arson longer. Chozen didn’t care what his name was, it wouldn’t change her feelings, and the two had bonded relating their differences to one another.

Chozen had been surprised by Amorra’s admission within the depths of the dump, finding herself more than willing to share the growing fondness for the young scion within Maelstrom known as Carter Gestalt.

Before she knew it, the two were back at the apartment she’d rented. They’d been roaming the dump together since, Chozen training, while Amorra searched for her fellow lost nationals.

It was during this time that the pair had begun to use one another. Chozen wanted to learn about a young Arson, while Amorra needed help stopping Arson from using the power and renovating the ruins of the Ikarus family.

Both young women were quick to pick up that the other was infatuated with Arson, but neither had truly spoken on it beyond Amorra’s initial admission. Chozen felt that this one commonality or shared interest would soon affect their blooming friendship, but so far it hadn’t, to her surprise, with the exception being that it grated on Chozen that she’d spent so little time with Arson unlike the queen.

Forced to push those thoughts aside, Chozen and Amorra finally selected the service they would use, and their plan to crash the party as strangers to the BHC began in full force. Amorra needed to hack their security grid to further crush Arson’s progression within the ruins of Ikarus, and Chozen used this as yet another opportunity to learn as much as she could about the young man she was also convinced would become the king of her own realm if the decision truly landed on her shoulders.

After their initial wait, a group of young women entered Amorra’s apartment, laying two hovering surgical tables in the center of the large living room. Half the group setting up, as the other half closed the drapes and turned all privacy functions on within the room that were available.

Windows turned black, blocking out all light from the outside. The majority of the lights within the room dimmed, not including the lights directly above the table, and runes of silence flashed across the walls of the room.

“Sooo…. Darlings, how may we help you?” Amorra and Chozen both looked at one another, and back toward the masked woman who spoke with a lilting voice. Her surgical mask and scrubs filling both young women with a slight fear in regard to what they were about to have done to themselves.

The woman waited patiently, while the rest of her team unpacked clothing, makeup, surgical instruments, and even minor illusionary instruments disguised as jewelry.

“Umm, we need to look like completely different people, although we don’t want to have to go through anything invasive,” Chozen said speaking for them both, Amorra’s vigorous nod furthering the notion. The surgical tools were put away so quickly that both the royals momentarily wondered if they’d ever truly seen them.

Many of the Fashion Surgeons that could be hired in realms within the realm layer Maelstrom was in, weren’t licensed, nor were their practices legitimate by any means. So Chozen had picked from the only legal option left. Yet the deft movements displayed just then gave both young women pause.

“We have a minor illusionist on staff that can give you a topical skin made from pure light, this is more a glimmer than something that will stand up to actual scrutiny, and because of how cheap it is, most of our model clients use this to accentuate their finer features, this is not what I would recommend for you however…” The woman glanced between the pair both still wearing sunglasses inside in the middle of the day.

“What would you recommend? Price is no issue, wait… is price an issue?” Amorra spoke without thought, used to being flush with credits at all times, yet now that she’d been forced to buy an astronomical amount of parts for her ship in a lower realm not accustomed to her people's more advanced and natural based sciences, she was broke, and gaining debt quickly. She glanced both between the surgeon and Chozen, both of her questions hanging in the air.

Chozen felt nearly every set of eyes fall on her in that moment,, and glanced toward the nervous appearance of Amorra only to roll her eyes in the end. She waved a dismissive hand through the air, folding her hands behind her back in an imperial pose.

“Money is no issue. What would you recommend for us? I wouldn’t mind knowing your reasoning for your choice if you don’t mind explaining.”

The woman smiled at Chozen and snapped. Another young surgeon stepped forward, alongside the only young woman there without surgical scrubs on, the gorgeous young lady in a minimal amount of clothing, which both Chozen and Amorra understood the reasoning behind as the head surgeon began to speak once more.

“I get a sense that you need a more durable option,” said the head surgeon. The woman’s assumed second and the model began their work without prompting. Chozen and Amorra amazed at the models ability to show off her co-worker's skills.

The surgeon beside the model lifted her hands, and the light above them was twisted. The pure white turned into an array of colors before the young royals' eyes. A literal instant’s worth of work changed the young woman’s skin color, hair color, eye color, and even the designs of the simple clothing she wore.

“This hardened light is indiscernible from reality,” started the head surgeon as the pair in front of her gasped in awe. Neither had ever seen such a thing, and the skilled woman next to the model was able to shift the model’s appearance with each breath they took.

Northern, southern, and even foreign realm genetic traits fluttered into existence. The woman even made the model look exactly like Chozen and Amorra for a brief moment, dazzling the pair even further.

“This process is the most expensive, and has several options to keep the timeline of the change to be extended.”

“It also can include a voice modulator that dissolves on the tongue,” said another one of the surgeons before she put a tab on her tongue and cleared her throat.

“This option is rather cheap, but can make you sound practically however you’d like through the use of nano bot technology, and will only be offered at a lower price if you decide on the top tier package,” said the surgeon who’d taken the tablet, her voice now mirroring Chozen’s.

“Just make sure that your mental focus is strong if you take this option as it will result in an instant change of voice with a single thought,” said the same woman, her voice changed to now sound like Amorra.

“I suggest this package as Cultivators like you, I assume, will be around Cultivators with the potential to have high discernment abilities or skills, or even incredibly high perception or sensory abilities that would see through anything below this option or outright surgery,” said the head surgeon, receiving nods in response from both the young royals in front of her.

The discussion of their options was slight and before either of the young woman knew it, they floated at the center of the room, holograms above them. With the use of a simple character generator, both young woman were able to create named aliases that could be saved and used again if necessary.

The seemingly infinite selections allowed them to design exactly what they wanted. One feature at a time. After a while, both Chozen and Amorra had found what they wanted, saving the new identities with names of their choice.

“Are both of you ready?” The surgeon stepped between both young women and smiled at both of them with her eyes alone, her mask never moved from her face for any reason.

“Yes,” spoke both young women and before either one knew what was happening they were waking up, both sitting on the couch in the room. The entire fashion surgical team gone.

“Woah, that was a little mind blowing,” Chozen said, her voice now a tad huskier. She looked over at the young woman beside her and knew something was off. She hadn’t looked to her side during her creation process, but knew that she felt she was looking in a mirror. She closed her eyes in frustration and began to speak slowly, doing her best not to erupt.

“Amorra, where did you get the influence for your character template?” asked Chozen.

“I didn’t know where to start, but after a peak at yours I thought of something rather cool, what if we were twins, and then I decided you probably wouldn’t like that so I looked up a picture of Troy and went—“

Amorra gasped as if she’d seen a ghost, and Chozen opened her eyes to see her identical twin.

“You went with a black haired version of Troy? Why would you do that? I did that!”

“I thought that if I tried something like this, I’d gain his attention tonight at a bare minimum, lead him aside, and speak to him alone, send your regards as a distant friend that is really more on his side than yours. You know, really play the part!”

“What!”

The pair battled verbally for so long about who was in the right, or how they would solve a minor issue made overwhelming, that they arrived later than most guests. The grounds and spa packed with visitors.

“Is that a store, my twin?” asked Amorra, her bell like tones foreign to her normal clip.

“Yes, my distant cousin, it is.”

Amorra frowned, but quickly wiped the scorn from her face and smiled once more, seeing her target, wiping the hurt from her features easily with her goal in sight. The pair apparently needed to make it inside the large villa over the storefront that had been, according to rumor, nothing but a warehouse originally. Now, however, the market being tested for a larger occupancy had been changed from large doors to a limited access entry for the day.

The building looked as if it had been graffiti tagged from top to bottom. The only solid colors on the storefront were the black pillars of marble that lined the warehouse. The incredibly large villa set perfectly on top of the pillars that lined the warehouse with the exception of two areas.

The pair had seen an aerial view from Amorra’s scouts. The hologram showed a large yard where the stairs met the rooftop on one side, which the large spiral of stairs that started at the buildings northwestern corner led up to at the building's southern middle.

While the rooftops opposing corner offered a pool that took up a third of that corner of the roof. A waterfall shot from the tip of that corner, seemingly filling a series of waterways below.

The girls were distracted along the way, but found their way through a garden set up like a maze. A water fountain that was set up like a massive pool, different canals leading off toward various areas within the compound, ended up being what the rooftop waterfall rushed into.

It wasn’t until the royals were closer that they saw that the pool on the roof was also being kept at optimal levels by floating watering pots topped with miniature trees that drew clouds toward their canopies.

“How long do you think it took them to do all this?” Chozen asked the question aloud, and wanted Amorra to respond. When the queen’s voice wasn’t heard, Chozen looked over and saw Amorra floating her chair toward one of the boats next to the fountain .

“You hear me? This wasn’t like this recently, right?” Chozen rushed onto the boat, Amorra’s eyes still taking in their environment when she muttered a reply under her breath.

“You’d know if you'd read the information I sent you.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Amorra pointed where they needed to go, and then toward the paddles.

“Either get on and press the buttons, or press the spa button for me, please,” said Amorra still looking into the distance. She had her own objectives and wouldn’t be slowed by anyone. What Arson had already been able to achieve in the few days since the tournament was astonishing, and growing more unfathomable by the day.

“I’m coming,” said Chozen. A sense flooded the princess’s mind, she knew she was sensing some sort of agitation from Amorra, but her normally abrasive personality had never affected the queen in front of her, so she wondered at what she could have done.

“You okay? You seem somewhere else, is there something on your mind?”

“Amorra glanced away from her target, and then back toward the buttons on the boat, starting to reach for them, struggling because of how far from the boat her chair hovered.

Chozen bent down and pressed the buttons necessary for the self paddling gondola to move and stared at Amorra. The more they moved into the compound the more serious the queen’s face became. Chozen realized by the eye movements that she was breaking down every section of each area, having watched her brother Orbit do the same thing countless times.

“Fill me in, Amorra,” whispered.

“There are too many guards for us to hit the stairs. I don’t know how we are going to get where we need to go without a large distraction, and with what they’ve done with this fountain and canals, easy and direct escapes are nearly impossible.”

Chozen nodded. Her eyes beginning to take in the strategy put into every aspect of their surroundings. The security systems constructed were integrated into the scenery with such fluidity that Amorra realized only after they’d passed into the outer limits of the space that held the spa, she was in the center of a potential kill box.

“Hey, you sure that we should do this?”

“Ha, with every breath, I have more and more doubts,” Amorra said, her voice so soft it could have been nearly silent.

“What is the plan?” asked Chozen her mind set on high alert, noticing the rails at the bottom of the fountain meant for channeling large amounts of electricity making her want to get off the gondola immediately. She looked over at Amorra as she pulled a large stack of papers from the side of her chair, nudging Chozen to get her attention.

“Help me hand out these flyers…”