Welcome to Gaia! ::

She was in. Good.

Wouldn't have to wipe her memories for the next part to work. The Negaverse would still find its uses in a fully moldable brain, but for his sake, it was easier if she still remembered. It was easier if the Crystal connections and the Pruitt connections remained.

Willingly joining a magical cult? Well ... he wouldn't say it wasn't a magical cult. It probably was, to some degree. Borax, for his part, didn't necessarily care what it was. The power was what he desired, and he would do whatever he had to do to get more of it.

Including step just a bit closer to Cressida, dismissing his trident for the moment.

"Depends on how you see it. You could also see it as a secret society, really. The Negaverse--I know, I agree--has its hands in just about everything." Borax didn't give Cressida time to question how his hand slipped into her chest, gripping the starseed. "Including people."

... Good, the starseed wasn't resisting.

"Not a sexual thing, Ms. Pruitt."

Perhaps there was something odd about the fact that the Negaverse happily recruited teenagers. Best to start them out early, right?

"You know secret societies, right? Stories always talk about an odd initiation process. This? Is the same."

Best to get this done before she started questioning too much.

He let the chaos flow from his body into his hand, into her body, into her soul.

There was something almost intoxicating about the fact that he could do this. By himself. Without assistance. Without being a conduit. Without getting on his phone, rolling his eyes at Headache and wanting his boss to just get there already. No need for permission. No need to chase up the chain.

If only there wasn't a chain at all.

Borax couldn't help admiring his work. He had transformed her. He had done that.

General Borax.

It tingled through his fingers and his toes as he withdrew his hand. There was an element of it that was exhausting, but not exhausting enough for him to falter as she asked him if it worked. His smirk might have been slighter than it was before. Perhaps part of it looked fond.

Of her, though?

"It did. Welcome to the fold." Borax chuckled easily. "We have a monthly stipend for our members. I would say you don't need it, but you can add to your savings account with it." And her mother wouldn't even know. "The new wardrobe is part of the deal. It's part of why I wear this fustanella."

... Borax wouldn't have chosen the outfit himself, but he digressed.

"Lieutenant Thulite is what you'll go by as this." Best to advise her now. "Don't share your real name as this." And yet, Borax felt more real than Adam. "Secrecy, after all."

"Essentially."

Would Borax argue that it was, in fact, similar to Superman? Perhaps. Superman would have had to be a much different story for General Borax or Lieutenant Thulite to be walking in its footsteps, but for the sake of argument, the comparison worked here. Anywhere else would have been... questionable.

There were some rules and regulations, but Borax had found that they were few and far between. A bit of an energy quota was not terribly much effort for everything it offered in turn. "There's a quota," by Metallia, she had created an MLM, "which isn't terribly much for the exchange, but all that's really asked is that you draw energy and bring it to the Negaverse. You can do that with the same magic that allows you to touch people's souls, just ... less of it. I can show you that when you're ready."

He paused for a moment, fishing in somewhere unseen in his bag--using it as a conduit for his subspace--and pulling out a tablet pen. Easily, Borax held it out to her.

"This is yours. Expands to a tablet. The guidebook is inside, along with everything else you may need."

His response was an easy nod. If she was going to be his underling, of course he would answer questions. Her performance would be part of his own metrics, after all.

It was the same for Tincalconite, and to some degree, the same with Hestia--though his relationship with her was a bit dicier than just relating it to her being his underling. After all, while he had recruited her, she entered the fold at a higher rank than him.

... a*****e.

"You can ask me whatever you need to. Important to you and to me that you ease into the society, right?" He kept leaning into the secret society reference because, for their mutual background, it was apt. They were both rich enough to be the types of people tapped for secret societies.

"But I trust you'll understand it."

Borax realized, quickly, how much he loved it. It became easy to learn the ins and outs from there.

Perhaps they would stare or perhaps they wouldn't. His outfit stood out a bit more than hers, but putting away the trident did help it blend in better. He could move in the shadows with how dark his outfit was, and how soft his steps could be under the right conditions.

"You will it. Simply let go of the form and think of being Cressida again."

In demonstration, Borax did the same.

Adam faced her again in just a second's time.

The exhaustion felt deeper when he did not have the boost of his general form, but he tried his best to ignore it. At least, until he could get get somewhere by himself, he couldn't let himself show any weakness. "Just like that, I'm Adam the Bank Manager again. Simple enough." Just not obvious.

"Correct. I would do it again to demonstrate, but I think you get the jist."

To be called an expert was definitely a bit of an unintentional way to inflate his ego. His back straightened out, the confidence boost counteracting the exhaustion for now. "I am. General is one of the highest ranks." He wouldn't lie; that would look bad on him, later. He was envious of Faustite, however.

That, he would keep to himself.

"Training, for one. I do have associations with quite a group of people who may help with that." Borax could think of a few quickly. Perhaps he could tap his other lower level underling to spar with her. He'd have to compare Tincalconite's schedule... "Reading up. Aligning yourself with an operation, like InFo or Special Ops. Keeping the quota. Everything will start to click into place the more you do it."

"Yes. You get a monthly stipend depending on your rank, and sometimes you get bonuses." Considering how similar this felt to an MLM, perhaps he could try recruiting some single mothers next. Couldn't hurt to try, so long as none of them were secretly Order. "I can certainly invest that for you."

Honestly, perhaps he should have been doing the same. But she was right, neither of them really needed the money. He had already created several investments from his own money. This money, that he was getting for free essentially, he was using to spend on more fun things that he didn't necessarily want connected to his own money.

(After all, it was hard to tell when something would be hung over his head later.)

As he explained that, he turned his phone out to show her his number. Adam didn't necessarily mind giving out his number to his team members. Cressida would count as the same. "Text me if you want to verify it." And so he could add her number back without the same effort, of course.