At 18, she had been trained to be a personal guard of the Queen, able to stand up to and win over dozens of warriors. Chosen for her beauty, strength, dexterity and character. However, when monsters unknown before started attacking the border towns and villages, every able fighter was sent to protect them, even the trainees.

The village was a mid-sized one, she was dispatched there alone, among simple peasants, barely able to talk about their everyday existence. She was the only fighter there, their only hope against the monsters, and these were horrible, able to kill a peasant in an eyeblink. Every day a new wave was coming, every day she fought like it was her last one. And always managed to fight them off, even barely, to save the lives of her countrymen.

With the time, she learned that most monsters have valuable parts. The horns of a bullwolf were the best material for handles of knives and swords, the skin of the harpy wings would fetch silver coins on the local town's market, the gargoyle hearts were used in potions that could cure wounds before you could say your name... And the money bought her weapons and armor, better and better ones, making her able to take on more and more horrible monsters - and there was no shortage of these, every week some new horror was coming. She started making a name. Village chiefs had important missions for her, a couple of times messengers brought her King's gratitude for her service, and precious gifts from him. Despite being young, she had a great future ahead. Returning some day as a commander of the Queen's guard, or even of a King's army. Finding a worthy husband, having beautiful children, living a dream of a life...

Until the day when she killed this strange monster, as if sewn together from parts from many different ones. When she cut out its heart, to ask in the town if someone values it, there was in it a strange... thing. It looked like nothing she had seen, glistening like metal and gem at once, having its own light. When she touched it to her forehead, suddenly the air before her opened. And she somehow knew what she was seeing, despite that she had never seen it before.

He was about forty, fat and ugly, sitting in a soft chair and looking at her with the same fervor she felt during a battle. He could afford another half an hour of gaming, and was looking to it. What he never expected was that she will look at him, see him... and speak to him.

A lot she said, rabid from the knowledge that had filled her head, unable to comprehend instantly all of it. For could there be anything more humiliating than to learn that you aren't a savior of people, but just a character in a game? That her risking her life has been his entertainment and pleasure, while he was sitting in his cozy chair, protected from the elements, living a safe life, enjoying chips and beer? That he commanded her as he pleased, despite having never held a real sword or bow, being not a King but one less worthy than the peasants around her? That he fancied himself to be close to a deity to her, while he actually was a human refuse, good for nothing but a shitty job with abusive boss, to whom he doesn't dare to stand up?...

He could say nothing in response, and she felt his shock from her suddenly becoming aware of him and standing up to him. And she screamed at him everything she thought of him, in words she didn't knew before. Finally, angry like never in her life, she prayed to the gods to give him the life he fancied from his chair - to put him in her place, make him a monster fighter. And, as if someone else moved her, like in a dream, she touched the strange thing to her lips.

And suddenly there she was sitting, in the chair she had seen through the opening in the air, and on the computer screen before her a beautiful girl in a leather and steel armor looked around with bewildered eyes - the same eyes she had seen reflected in mountain streams while washing her face from the grime and the blood of the monsters. The girl turned towards her and tried to say something, but wasn't fast enough. A finger pressed the sensor pad, and the game link was broken. The girl was on her own until the link was re-established - which would never happen anymore. Some people deserve being given what they enjoy from afar, and then left on their own devices, to learn how to survive with it being real... or die.

Short was the joy from that justice, however. She was now male, fat and ugly. Not that she - he - resented it. He had a nice apartment, his job was paying enough to afford chips and beer and many other things, and with this body he had received all skills needed to do it. Monsters didn't even existed in this world, few people around needed even a hand to help them carry a heavy bag. It looked like a heaven of a life.

But it wasn't. Next to the computer was laying his wife, paralyzed by catatonic schizophrenia. Expected to live decades more, but waking up more and more rarely and for a shorter time - for a few minutes only in a day, then in a week... And while awake, the damaged brain would make her see him as a monster and hate him, scream abuse to him and wish him death, instead of the love she had for him before the illness struck. He would never anymore have even only a warm word from her. But that didn't meant much to him, he loved her as much as before. He would always respond with love to her hate, and would never abandon her, no matter what.

Every day he would lose the battle against the illness again and again, being pushed back more and more, but would never give up. Would care for her, wash her body, read her books that warm the soul, walk her outdoors in a wheelchair, secretly hoping that maybe she will feel for the briefest moment a small bit of his care, even if never realizing that it is him who gives it. He would endure the abuse of his boss, because keeping her alive costed most of the money he was making. He would ignore his own diabetes and subsist on cheap junk food, knowing that it kills him. And for an hour per day, while she slept, he would play a game - his only window with some hope in it.

When the former girl remembered all this, a dread filled his heart, darker than any she knew before. However, she was given nothing but what she had wished for. And she was a fighter who had never ran away before, who had never betrayed anyone. He wouldn't abandon now the woman he loved, of whom he had so many happy memories, despite never having seen her before. He would not betray her, even if that would cost him his life. For fat and flab are just an appearance, it is inside us what truly matters - being a fighter. And the former girl had long ago learned to be a real one.

A week passed before his hatred for the other one, whom he had traded places with, subsided. And his love and care for the peasants she fought so many times for spake louder and louder, despite that he knew now that they are just characters in a game. Like her before... With a reluctance, born out of a fear without a name, he finally opened the game again. The girl was there, in the middle of a fight with a harpy. He was surprised to see her fighting almost as well as she did before. Obviously the guy who commanded her before, and now was in her body, had learned while gaming, and since the exchange too.

Before long, the harpy was dead. The girl started quickly slicing her wings... and then suddenly slipped a hand inside the front of her armor. When she took it out, something flashed inside her fist and she turned to face him.

Behind her, there was the village, serene and calm, chimneys happily smoking, peasants working in the fields around it, loaded donkey carts moving on the roads, untroubled by monsters. There were bruises on the face of the girl that stared at him, and cuts on her hands and belly, more than ever before their switch, some of them deep and nasty, a hair away from being deadly in a fight with a monster. But she had fought and saved the people who relied on her, never running away, never seeking protection for being female. For a gender is also just an appearance, it is inside us what truly matters - being a fighter. And the former fat and ugly man had long ago learned to be one, in the hard way.

For some time they just stared one at another. Neither said anything - they didn't needed to. They were one, two avatars of the same human being, separate yet knowing each other as only one can know themselves. They understood each other completely, forgave each other's mistakes and felt together as a whole.

"Shall we exchange again?", said finally one of them.

"Maybe. Or maybe not. Does it matter?", replied the other.

"Or maybe we shall do it often."

"And shall again play together, as one. Always."

Both smiled at this, as one.