The next day, Jihl woke up wrapped in the heated side of the blanket with Lightning's arms snug around her, her girlfriend's natural cold effect subdued by the padding between them. She wasn't often the small spoon between them, but she relished being held by Lightning. Even separated by the blanket, the sensation made her warm to her core.

"Jihl?" Lightning whispered, and Jihl leaned back against her. "We have another couple minutes," Lightning assured her. Jihl closed her eyes, enjoying them.

"Will Dysley send you back to Bohdum to cover the protests?" she asked eventually, recalling the near-riotous response the latest child-bearing laws had evoked.

"Probably," Lightning confirmed. "PSICOM shut down the protest quickly, but the Primarch suspects there's a base in the city. I haven't heard that they've found it yet."

Jihl considered it, and then said, "I was surprised he sent you on this assignment."

"I imagine he just wants them shut down quickly," Lightning mused, and then added, "Having me there projects the image… "

"Top PSICOM agent sent out to find and quell any remaining resistance against the new child birthing laws?" Jihl asked, raising an unseen eyebrow, knowing exactly the image it projected.

"Part savage, too," Lightning murmured.

Jihl felt cool fingers stroke through her long silken strands. She relished it, savoring every peaceful second.

"I can ask Angela for an appointment when I see her at therapy today," Lightning said after a few peaceful moments.

"Okay," Jihl agreed, opening her eyes once more. "But don't schedule it for tonight. The others are coming to visit again."

"I remember," Lightning confirmed quietly. Jihl finally broke their comfortable position and turned to face her girlfriend. This close, Lightning's breath chilled her lips as she stared into the most resplendent eyes she would ever see, those deep crystalline blues. Lightning smiled at her faintly, and for an entire moment, gazing into her lovesick eyes, Jihl's world felt whole.

"I love you," she said earnestly, already beginning to ache with a burning desire for her girlfriend. Unable to curb her lust entirely, she leaned in and closed the distance between them, capturing Lightning's cold and smooth lips with her fevered mouth. She tasted both the immediate chill and the faint sweet remnant of the lemon iced tea Lightning always took to her bedside table. Jihl didn't care about the cold, not when a mere touch could light her body aflame the way every contact with Lightning did.

Jihl prolonged the contact until a deep groan echoed up from the back of Lightning's throat, reminding Jihl that her cravings for Lightning were equally shared.

"Jihl," Lightning said in that husky tone she loved to hear.

"No fucking," Jihl promised, but reached an arm back for the Mini-Freeze ice bucket built into her nightstand. She wet her hand and pulled free a small handful of the rounded crystals.

"We'll be late," Lightning said, but Jihl didn't care a wit about that. She reached around the hot side of the blanket and took Lightning into her hand as she pressed their mouths together again.

She savored the sensation as Lightning grew and stiffened between her cold fingers. Jihl bit her cold lip while still able to kiss her, delighting in every second of Lightning's shuddering submission to her will and desires.

Lightning whimpered, and Jihl resumed kissing her gently. Her lips losing heat fast, she pulled back and whispered sweet things into Lightning's ear. Her girlfriend quivered and spasmed as she skillfully stroked along her length and Jihl loved every precious second of it. She only wished she could sit atop Lightning herself to finish her, but she had promised.

When Lightning finally came, Jihl's fingers were numb, but she re-wet them with Lightning's lust anyway. She watched her girlfriend's expression in pleasure, and then lifted her wet fingers to her mouth so it'd be the first thing Lightning saw when she opened her eyes.

Lightning gripped her around the back a moment later and Jihl giggled, the heat of her mouth warming her hands and fingers. She felt Lightning through the blanket, still gloriously hard and ready. Jihl licked her lips as she finally lowered her hand, regretfully back on the hot side of the blanket now as her fingers still burned with residual chill.

Lightning's half-dazed eyes followed her and Jihl bit her lower lip.

"I love you," Lightning echoed, rubbing her hand along Jihl's side through the blanket. A touch of sorrow reached her stunning eyes. "I wish I could touch you," she confessed with such yearning, it sent a shiver through Jihl. She bit her lip harder and her eyeteeth, sharper than that of a Cocoon citizen, pierced her lip and drew blood. It tasted warm and metallic on her tongue, and it fueled her desire.

Lightning must have seen it in her face because she lowered the blanket between them and reached for Jihl's breasts with a cold thumb. Jihl gasped as she made contact, pebbling her nipple immediately, and she reached between her own legs in urgent need to further her stimulation.

Lightning thumbed over her erect nipple in practiced haste and Jihl pinched herself gently. She squirmed as her girlfriend migrated her attention to the second nipple quickly. Her other hand, still on her side of the blanket, stroked Jihl's thigh affectionately as Jihl gushed over her own fingers.

Jihl's breath caught as she increased both the pace and pressure, mesmerized with every perfect line of Lightning's face. After she withdrew her hand from Jihl's tender breasts, she gripped her bicep and the cool contact with arm only fueled her unending desire for her powerful and arousing lover.

"You're so beautiful," Lightning whispered as Jihl stroked herself furiously, her eyes locked on Lightning's flawless blues. "My Goddess."

Jihl spasmed at the possession in front of the compliment, and Lightning, ever the perfect girlfriend, knew what she liked.

"No one else's. Never anyone else's," she promised, sending a shudder through Jihl. "I'm yours."

Jihl kissed her and came, not caring that her lips were cold enough to hurt. Lightning suckled the open cut from her teeth gently and held Jihl firmly at the thigh by her blanket-covered hip. Jihl moaned as Lightning pulled back from her mouth, her heart racing as she panted out short, cold breaths in her aroused delirium. The pressure on the side of her hip didn't ease, and Jihl relished the powerful hold on her body.

When her racing heart and breathing finally slowed again, she opened her eyes to the lightest, most incredible sky blue eyes she would ever know.

"Mine," she murmured, heart fluttering despite having nearly exploded moments ago.

"Yours," Lightning vowed.

XXX

About an hour later, Lightning stood in the locker room with her squad, fully decked out in riot gear without the shields or helmets as the team pulled their gear belts and weapons free from the holdings.

"Someone was late today, weren't they?" Rob ribbed, elbowing her with the butt of his rifle. "Getting a little late morning something-something from the Misses, eh?"

From a few feet away at the end of the weapon's rack, Joe chimed in. "Hey, I'd be late every day if I had a woman as hot as Lightning's in my bed, too."

Dejul snorted. "You'd be late if you had a woman in your bed, period, Joseph. Late and unable to walk because she'd hurt your vag so badly."

The other guys laughed as Joe squawked. Lightning was glad to have the attention shifted, but Rob wasn't ready to give up the topic that easily.

"Tell us something about it, Light," Rob encouraged. "We're dying to know. I've got a bet with Rogers- "

"You can't tell her the bet, Rob!" Joe protested. "It has to be revealed organically."

"Does your cum give her brain freeze?" Dejul bluntly asked. "When you're getting head, he means."

Joe had the decency to blush scarlet and busied himself with his toolbelt, but ignoring her silence on the matter, Rob nudged her again, this time with his elbow. "Does it?" he prodded.

"Is everybody strapped up?" Lightning asked, fighting to quell her rising discomfort from coming out in her voice. They would just tease her about it more if she reacted, she knew. It was supposedly all in good spirits, but Lightning inwardly twitched whenever they poked a sore spot.

"That's a yes," Rob told Joe knowingly. "Pay up!"

Joe bristled. "She didn't say either way!"

"C'mon, you assholes," Dejule said, slapping his long-ranged battle rifle into the magnetic holster on his back. "Get your tampons in and let's go. I'm ready to shoot something."

XXX

Sitting behind her projection software desk, Jihl flipped through the dossiers of PSICOM's finest super soldiers. She needed a couple more superior choices to pair up with Lightning to combat the anti-government rebellion at Lake Bresha.

Before her, the projected dossiers of five agents materialized as she dismissed the last set. Jihl scanned through their histories and credentials. She paused over an agent named Viola, noting some undercover gang operation, and idly envied Sombra's ability to play with the holo screens directly via her integrated and updated software.

Jihl herself had no such body modifications as her savvy Pulsian friend did. Even if she had wanted a similar tech integration, her body did not allow it.

Like her friends each had, Jihl possessed a few unique traits of her own. Notably, she healed much faster than her friends or Cocoon citizens did. As quickly as Lightning recovered, in fact. Broken bones healed within weeks, rather than months, and even deep gashes mended at an exceptional rate. Angela had explained it to them many a time in her fascinated rambles, but from all of those, Jihl had gathered the simple fact that she and her girlfriend were incredibly adaptable, moreso even than the other Pulsians.

In result, her body did not accept technological implants, but over time, purged the technology out of their bodies. She knew because she had tried once before; both she and Lightning, along with the other halflings and the rest of Cocoon, had received injected nanobots that tracked their vitals, location, and other important bodily functions and statistics. Within a week, both their adaptable bodies had destroyed and discarded the tech.

Which was also why, when her door down the hall creaked open and someone began to enter her secretary's office, Jihl knew who it was before she even saw him.

Galenth Dysley had a particular scent that she recognized even at a distance. It was hard to describe as well, because unlike others, it wasn't so much a smell as it was an energetic aura he had that defied his years. While certainly not elderly, Galenth was an older man at 64, though he had the stride and youth of a man in his late forties.

If his powerful aura hadn't given him away already, his footfalls would have. Jihl was accustomed to both. She distantly heard her assistant grant him passage and swiped away the dossiers with a hand on the Intelli-table before he arrived in her office.

"Primarch Dysley," Jihl greeted, rising to her feet to give the emperor of Eden his due respects. Though she hadn't bowed as most of the citizens did in his presence, Dysley waved a dismissive hand, indicating for her to sit once more. She gestured towards the chair at the opposite end of the desk. "What can I do for you today?"

The Primarch entered the room, his rich purple robes flowing out behind him as he crossed to the indicated seat.

"I actually wanted to discuss the protests in Bodhum that occurred the day before yesterday after we implemented further tightening of the child-bearing restrictions."

"Ah, yes," Jihl demurred, "Lightning told me you were seeking out their headquarters. Do you suspect a connection to the Lake Bresha insurgency?"

"I knew you'd catch on," the Primarch said, his expression pleased. "At the rights' protest, PSICOM pinpointed several Nora s agents throughout the crowd. There were probably more we didn't identify. We reckon they initiated the protest for the sole purpose of recruiting sympathetic individuals to their cause. Finding the base they're operating out of within Bohdum gives us the greatest opportunity to discover their headquarters at Lake Bresha. And this protest is the best chance we're going to get to weed out a weak link or new recruit before they go underground again."

"I see," Jihl said, typing in a few commands to the Intelli-desk until a projection of the squad operations in Bohldum lit up the screen. She transferred feeds from PSICOM's illuminated signatures on a map directly to Lightning's feed off her suit's chest camera, but didn't turn on the sound. "You must have expected backlash from the new one-child law. Is there significantly more than you expected?"

"Much more, I'm afraid," the Primarch reported with a sigh. "These rebels have armed themselves to the teeth with the best our technology has to offer. Not just guns or explosives, but mech units and bio weapons. They'll stop at nothing to destroy us out of sheer spite and ignorance. As if overthrowing us would solve anything!"

Dysley shook his head, his expression conveying regret. "The fools do not realize that there's not enough space on the planet to support the population they want to have. Even with the latest developments and advances we've made in building up, there simply isn't enough room. It would be a different story if those savages in Gran Pulse had afforded us even a fraction of their vast land to settle upon, but alas, the barbarians were too wild and uncultured for anything but warfare."

He glanced at her then, as if remembering her heritage on the spot.

"Not to speak ill of you and the other cultured Gran Pulsians with us, of course. Growing up in our civilized society, you and your friends have overcome your savage lineages remarkably well. I am quite proud of you all for achieving such an incredible feat. You especially, Jihl."

Jihl didn't visibly react at the initial insult of her bloodline. Though it was true that she had no particular love for Gran Pulse or knew anything out of the ordinary about their fathers, she had long ago realized the superiority of her bloodline. Not only did she have faster healing, reflexes, and keener senses than anyone else she knew besides Lightning, her friends all had incredible abilities of their own that far surpassed any Cocoon citizen's.

In her opinion, the Sages, the various Primarchs across the lands of Cocoon, had been very wise to sign a peace agreement quickly after the initial foray into Gran Pulse. Though the people below might not have their technology and be primitive, their bodies had clearly adapted much better than Cocoon citizens' had. If an all out war were forced against the gigantic planet, Jihl did not have very much faith in their ability to take, let alone hold, any foreign land on the planet.

She carefully worded her response to the Primarch, aware he would be looking for a specific type of answer, and one that seemed natural.

"Thank you, Primarch," she said with a shake of her head. "You have been very generous to my friends and I, and I am quite happy with my life here as well."

It wasn't a complete lie, either. Jihl was quite pleased with her life, but she chalked much less of that up to Cocoon society than the Primarchs did.

"But since we can't invade Pulse again, we'll have to deal with these rebels and continue our city redesigns to continue building upwards. They have all proven very successful thus far."

"They have indeed," the Primarch agreed, his brown eyes boring into her. It was his eyes that unnerved her most, Jihl had reasoned long ago. There was something powerful behind them, frightful even, like the eyes of an older man much beyond his years who had been scarred again and again over time.

"Jihl, I must confess something to you," the Primarch confided, and Jihl quirked a curious eyebrow to the admittance. "In the utmost confidence, you understand. This has been discussed between my brethren over and over and it is of a disturbing nature, classified in only the highest ranks of our people. Not even Lightning may know yet. Shall I proceed?"

Very intrigued, Jihl answered. "Yes, I understand. What is it, Primarch?"

The wizened Primarch gave her an estimating look, and then began, "Our population is too great, as you know. The other Sages across Cocoon and I have decided to start executing prisoners who are beyond redemption. Murderers, rapists, those serving life-long sentences who can no longer contribute to our thriving society. We are aiming to implement their death sentences and relocate other prisoners to smaller facilities so that we can remodel and make use of the old prisons for our actual citizens."

"Oh? I haven't seen this bill in the docket," she noted, quickly scrolling through another page on her Intelli-desk idly because she knew she would have never missed such a law.

"That's because it's still being drafted," the Primarch replied. "We will wait a couple of months for the current political strife to settle before releasing it as an emergency solution to the overpopulation crisis."

"But you have begun the culling, I presume?" Jihl asked, and those hardened brown eyes seemed to stare through her.

"We will shortly," the Primarch lied. Jihl knew they had already begun. "What do you think of this plan of action?" he asked her, and Jihl frowned because the Primarch never asked for her opinion on a decision that had been made among the Sages already.

"I think it's the right choice," she reported honestly. "Citizens should take priority over convicts in a time of crises. I've agreed with most of the recent laws that have been passed over the issue, and I support the effort to clear out and repurpose facilities. I might even have gone a step further, were it my choice."

"Would you really?" the Primarch asked in an intrigued voice, and suddenly, he stood right next to her with her hand in his. She turned to him to find his eyes pure white and glowing, and then an alien, invasive presence touching her, invading her, absorbing her.

A moment later, Jihl stared at the Primarch from across her Intelli-desk as she finished giving her approval of the decision to cleanse the prisons.

"-I might even have gone a step further, were it my choice."

The Primarch looked at her, intrigued, and gestured. "Would you have? Tell me how."

Jihl rubbed at her temple absently where she could feel a strong headache taking root. Her stomach hurt, too, feeling knotted, and she had to swallow a couple of times to fight back a sudden, awful nausea. She steadied herself, gripping the Intelli-desk discreetly and focused her eyes on a spot on the wall behind the Primarch.

"I would pass laws that authorize stricter punishments. Even threaten the death penalty against the Guardain Corps faction. Many are willing to support and take up the cause, but not everyone is willing to die for those beliefs. Control the media releases and immediately execute any second-time prison offenders. The people may react at first, but harsh deterrents will stop others from committing crimes or from turning towards the rebel factions themselves. Eventually, our crime rate will even drop and we'll have balanced the population."

The Primarch smiled at her, seeming immensely pleased.

"Jihl, this is why I trust you," he said as Jihl fought back another dizzying wave. The Primarch hadn't moved, but Jihl could almost draw strength from his powerful aura. She struggled to retain the contents of her stomach as he went on. "You have excellent judgement and do not hesitate when action is needed, even when that action needed is extreme or difficult. It is why you are my first choice for Fleet Admiral of the PSICOM division."

If Jihl had been holding anything, she would have dropped it. In her present state, she had trouble registering his words.

"Primarch," she finally forced herself to say, finding it difficult to focus past the rapid pounding in her head. She fought to hold herself together, though, unwilling to appear weak in front of Eden's leader. "That's… three ranks higher than my present position."

The Primarch stood, smiling down at her. Jihl didn't dare stand.

"Official word isn't out, so keep it to yourself for now, but congratulations, Jihl."

"Thank you, Primarch," she gasped out as another wave of nausea rolled through her. She could almost feel her body reacting to something; it was the most unpleasant feeling she'd ever experienced.

"No need to thank me," the Primach bade as he left her office. "You do excellent work, Jihl. I look forward to working more closely with you."

The door closed behind him, and Jihl didn't last a second longer. She retched.