“So, who’s your new friend?” Sam asks as she, Nathaniel, Frank, and several of the others make their way over.

Looking over my shoulder at the still catatonic wasp, I turn to show it off to everyone.

“Live sample for the researchers to play with. Seemed like the best choice out of everything else that was here.”

“Ehh, that thing is seriously ugly…”

“Well, I mean ya. It is a giant fucking wasp. Still, I’m just glad that we don’t have anything like this living near the base. I could see this thing flying away with a kid or something.”

Nathaniel raises an eyebrow as he looks at it before turning to me, “You’re not going to turn this thing into a person, are you? Please say you’re not…”

I just wave away the question. “Nah, I’m waiting for now. Besides, I can’t turn this thing. It’s just a mindless drone. I could have turned the queen, but I killed her.”

“Ha! Queen on Queen violence. Does that make you Queen of the Wasps now?” Jokes Sam.

“Well, considering that I killed a rat king a couple months back, and these giant mutated rats aren’t bowing to me... I’m going to say, no.”

“What about your little rat people?”

“They don’t count. They’re Gremlins, that’s completely different.”

Frank walks up and puts a hand on Nathaniels shoulder. “So, we all done here boss?” He asks in his deep voice that seems to resonate up from his core.

“Yup, just waiting for everyone to gather.”

Damn I made a good decision when I changed him. Just a couple of words from him and I feel like we’re in the country with guitars and some smokes. Need to get him a cowboy hat and a horse… No wait, a monster horse! A regular one probably wouldn’t be able hold him and would look like he is riding on a donkey. Something nice about being called boss though… Much better than queen...

An idea comes to me, so I snap and point towards Sam. “Sam!”

“Yes, Demon Queen?”

“Rgrrrr… You know I don’t like being called that!”

She just gives me a smug smile, “And you can ‘order’ me to stop at any time. Or, you could always give me that kiss I’ve been asking for. Then I’ll call you whatever you want~”

I look her over and take in the layers of bloods and guts that is covering her armor. Some is even on her face and in her hair. Everyone else isn’t faring much better and is dire need of a bath.

“Mmm, as tempting as it would be to kiss you, I have no plans of cheating on my girlfriend, plus… You’re sort of smelly right now.”

She just smiles, her entertainment coming clearly across our connection. “Then I guess you’ll just have to order me to call you Lain then. Hmhmhm~”

I have honestly no idea why she is so insistent on having me order her. I don’t think she is trying to test me. Her feelings don’t feel like she is wary of me or untrusting. She’s just having fun… Who knows, maybe she is just a weirdo and gets off to the idea of it or something. Well, if that is the case, I’m not going to judge, considering how bad Sky can be sometimes…

Giving her a bright smile, I say, “Nope! I’m not going to order you to call me Lain. I want you to call me by my name because you want too. Not because I forced you to do it.”

“Well, then I guess I’m just going to keep calling you- “

“Sam, this is an Order. If you attempt to address me as anything other than Lain, you will instead use the word, Boss.”

“- Boss. Huh…? Boss? Wait, seriously?! Boss! Uh, Booooo--sssss… Oh my goodness I can’t actually say it! Ah, Boss, I can’t believe that you could be such a Boss person! Ehh? I can’t even say cruel? No, wait, it worked that time… Boss is a Boss? Shit, fuck, damn, bitch… No, those still work. Boss you’re a big Bossing Boss… Really? So, literally anything that refers to you just comes out as Boss… How about-”

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While Sam is figuring out how her new personal curse works, Nathaniel asks me, “I thought that you wouldn’t use your orders to make us do stuff we don’t want to do?”

“I didn’t. She can still think of me as whatever words she wants, it’s just that if she tries to speak them, it will come out as Boss. I’m not forcing her do or think anything she doesn’t want, I just installed a filter, like censoring curse words in a children’s game.”

“Still, that feels dangerously close to pushing it.”

“Don’t worry Nathaniel. I’m not going to abuse this. The things I could do horrify me, and besides –“ I lift up my left arm for him to see, the golden markings of my promise that I carved into my flesh and soul showing a little under the sleeve of my sweater. “- I can’t push my orders too far anyways. I can’t make any orders that would violate your freedom too much, even if I wanted too.”

“But having her call you, Boss, isn’t going too far?”

“It would be if I forced her to think of me as Boss, or Lain for that matter. She is still free to call me whatever she want’s, it’s just going to come out as Boss.” I tell him with a smug smile.

Nathaniel brings his hand up to his chin to think, but quickly stops as he sees the mess on his gloves. “Still, not sure how I feel about it…”

“That’s fair.” I say with a shrug.

Frank pats Nathaniel on the shoulder to get his attention. “To be fair. She has been asking for it. Sam’s been messing with Lain for almost two weeks now with this stuff. Personally, I believe Sam had it coming and Lain has been very patient with her. A harmless prank like this in revenge is rather justified I believe.”

Nathaniel looks up to him, and eventually nods. “Yeah, fair enough, I guess. Honestly, it was even starting to bug me some…”

Frank looks back to me and asks, “And this is temporary, right?”

“Of course. I can remove it at any time. Once she promises to stop calling me Demon Queen, that is.”

Sam looks up from where she is trying to write in the snow. She has a bunch of B’s everywhere and a couple of Boss’s in the snow around her. “I refuse! Boss is the Boss. She is the Bossest Boss that ever Bossed which is why she is the Boss, and not Boss, Boss, Boss, or Boss, but is instead, Boss! So, I shall only call her Boss, because she is my Boss!”

Nathiel, Frank and I all stare at her as she stands proud in the snow with a shit-eating grin plastered on her face, her sharp teeth on full display. I don’t even have to check our connection to know that she is practically radiating with entertainment and pure childlike joy.

Frank scoffs, “Well, that backfired, now didn’t it. Hahaha…”

I just put my hands to my face and sigh.

More of my Demons start to show up as they walk over the rubble of the destroyed town. Tyler looks over what’s going on and asks, “What you guys doing.”

“Sam’s being a troll and Lain put a curse on her. Didn’t work and just fed the troll.” Nathaniel tells him with a shrug.

“Ah, cool. We good to go now? I smell like shit.”

Sliding my hands down my face with utter exacerbation, I look around and confirm that everyone is back, and that everyone is, in fact, looking filthy. Almost everyone is caked in blood and bits, with their faces being mostly spared from the mess because they wore helmets.

“Ok… Did everyone have a good time leveling a town? You guys learn to better handle swarms? Good! Remember this experience and get used to it. For the foreseeable future, we are all basically glorified exterminators. Especially with that horde of Goblins coming… Regardless! There is a river nearby, let’s go clean up and get going. I want to get back home to Sky already.”

“Boss, if you’re lonely, you can always cuddle with me!” Sam calls out.

Moving some shadows, I throw a wave of dirty snow at her, burying Sam up to her shoulders. I get a few giggles and snickers from everyone at Sam's expense, so it makes me feel a little better.

…

Washing up in a frozen river ended up being a rather fun experience. With as harsh and cold as the winter gets now, the river was mostly a thick sheet of ice.

A few of the guys decided that they wanted to swim and cannon-balled into the river, plowing straight through the ice and into the freezing water. Thankfully, my Demons share my resistance to extreme temperatures, so the idiots are having fun splashing around in the river without a care in the world.

For the rest of us, I simply removed all the ice from a section of the river with my shadows so that everyone can wash most of the gore off from the armor and wherever else.

As everyone is removing parts of their gear to wash in the water, one of the guys that’s swimming starts to freak out as something bites his foot. Kicking whatever it was, he reels back and falls into the water, a large shadow surfaces and a large open maw bursts from the water, trying to clamp down on to the guy.

I point and scream from the shore, “Catfish! Revenge!!!”

The big fish ended up getting a punch to the face by one of the guys and sent reeling back into the water with a big slash. As its shadow disappears under the ice, I launch myself for it and attack the ice with my shadows to try and catch the damn thing.

“Get back here you damn thief! I will have revenge for the shirt you ate! Get back here so I can eat you!”

…

Regretfully unsuccessful in catching the fish, I return to shore with my pantlegs wet, and my mood soured.

“So, what’s the story with the fish, Boss?”

“Damn thing ate my shirt…”

“You sure that it is the same one?”

“I know it is. I could recognize that fish from anywhere. I swear, I will avenge my shirt! Someday!!!” I scream to the heavens as I shake my fist with rage.

Sam just wraps my head up in a hug and gives me a pat. “There, there, you’ll get it eventually. I believe in you…”

“If you’re going to hug me, could you at least do it when you’re not wearing gore covered armor…?”

“Does that mean that you want me to hug you without my clothes on? Boss, what would your wife think?!” She asks like a secretary fooling around with her employer.

“Haaaaah…”

Why did I have to go and turn this weirdo again? Oh, that’s right, because she volunteered. Hopefully, I’ll get less weird people in the next batch. Surely there has to be some normal people in the Army and Marines, right?