Welcome to

The air in your apartment tastes stale. Pizza boxes tower like cardboard stalagmites on the coffee table, and the flickering blue glow of your laptop is the only light. Another night, another marathon session of Stellar Conquest, the 4X game you’ve been grinding for a week. You, Mike Allan, are a master of digital galaxies. The real one? Not so much.

A sudden, searing green light floods the room, burning through your eyelids. It’s not from the screen. It’s a solid column of emerald energy, humming with a bass frequency that vibrates your teeth. Before you can scream, you’re weightless, yanked off your stained couch and into the light. The last thing you see is a half-eaten slice of pepperoni spinning lazily in the air beside you.

Consciousness returns with a nauseating lurch. You’re not in your apartment. You’re strapped to a cold, metallic surface in a dimly lit chamber that hums with low power. The air smells of ozone and something faintly sweet, like antiseptic. In front of you stands a being that looks like a bipedal, hairless frog with luminous yellow eyes and grey, pebbled skin. It wears ornate, obsidian-black armor.

“The neural symbiosis is complete, Lord Zegnu,” the frog-alien rasps, its voice like gravel in a tin can. It bows deeply. “Your consciousness now inhabits the selected host. The human vessel is strong, aesthetically acceptable to the local species, and its previous neural patterns have been… archived.”

You try to speak, to say what the fuck, but your mouth won’t obey. Your body feels different—stronger, more alert, but also strangely not yours. You can feel a presence, a cold, calculating intelligence squatting in the back of your own skull like a spider.

Excellent, a voice thinks, using your own internal monologue. It’s arrogant, cruel, and utterly alien. This form will do nicely for the infiltration phase. Now, to survey my—

The voice cuts off with a sudden, wet gurgle that echoes in your mind. A spike of psychic pain, sharp and final, lances through you, then… nothing. The cold presence is gone. Vanished. A profound silence fills your head, broken only by the hum of the ship and your own frantic heartbeat.

The frog-alien looks up, its yellow eyes wide with concern. “My Lord? Your bio-signature spiked erratically. Is the transfer unstable?”

You open your mouth. “I… uh…” Your voice is your own again. You blink, looking down at your hands—your hands, tanned from all those delivery shifts, the familiar scar on your knuckle from a biking accident. But you’re wearing strange, form-fitting black garments that feel like liquid silk.

Before you can formulate a coherent lie, the chamber door slides open with a hiss. A woman walks in, and your train of thought completely derails.

She’s stunning. A young brunette with a playful pixie cut that frames an intelligent, sharp-featured face. Her eyes are a piercing hazel, currently narrowed in assessment. She’s wearing a version of the black uniform, but it does nothing to hide a jaw-dropping physique: generous, stacked breasts that strain against the fabric, a cinched waist, and hips that flow into a truly spectacular, bouncy-looking ass. You spot a glint of metal—a stud in her eyebrow, a ring in her lower lip. This is a looker, but her posture is all military precision.

“First Mate Va’lor reporting,” she says, her voice a smooth, confident alto that doesn’t quite match the youthful face. She gives a curt bow. “The planetary scan is complete, Lord Zegnu. Primary infiltration vectors mapped. I have also compiled a dossier on key political and cultural figures, as ordered.” She holds up a sleek, transparent data-slate.

She looks at you, waiting for a command. The frog-alien technician is also watching, head tilted. They both believe, without a shred of doubt, that you are Lord Zegnu, the evil alien overlord who just… died inside your head.

A torrent of panic floods you. But beneath it, something else stirs. A hazy awareness, like a forgotten password floating to the surface. Knowledge that isn’t yours. You feel a connection to the ship, to the devices in this room. Specifically, your eyes are drawn to a console to your left. On it rests a single, unassuming bracer made of the same obsidian material. As you look at it, you know what it is. The Neuro-Dominion Bracer. Zegnu’s personal tool for direct control.

You know, instinctively, that with a thought, you could activate it. You could turn the frog-alien into a mindless drone. You could… you look back at the breathtaking woman, First Mate Va’lor. The knowledge whispers to you: Possession. Full synaptic override. The process is… intimate.

Your mouth is dry. You have no idea how to run a starship or overthrow a planet. But you have a room full of aliens who think you’re their god-king, and a piece of tech that can let you control people. A slow, dizzying, utterly inappropriate grin starts to tug at your lips. Maybe your luck is finally changing.

Quick Actions:
1. Play it cool. Give a vague, overlord-like order to Va’lor and the technician to buy time.
2. Walk over and put on the Neuro-Dominion Bracer, testing its connection.
3. Focus on Va’lor. Use your new, instinctive knowledge to probe her current status—is she already possessed?