Addy was a child soldier. In the very best case she was simply raised under the impression that she was one day going to fight aliens for a living. That was less bad, but it was still grooming a kid for violence. She didn’t look like she had any plans to un-child-soldier herself. I couldn’t convince myself that it would be for the best; here she was, a magically enhanced weretanuki sitting slap-dab in the middle of a disaster zone that needed people like her. People like me.

  Once again I am surprised at how much out of my depth I am. Story of my life.

  I was feeling a bit unwell as we made our way past burning wrecks and crunched car-hulls, my arms returning to their normal state of dysfunction as the joy was slowly transmuted into nervousness and terror. Psychologists say fear in battle is a good thing; it stimulates the adrenalin glands and loads the blood supply with oxygen. Personally, I would liked to have stopped shaking by now, but alas, one emotion was certain to stay.

  [Fear conversion efficiency: 27%]

  [Warning: No spells with matching emotion found.]

  Apparently, I was over twice as proficient at channeling fear than I was channeling joy. What a sad capstone.

  Thanks Tanya, thanks Elise. I hope you two got away so you can apologise. Not that you ever would.

  I swallowed heavily as we walked past the corpse of the first giant spider-crab… er, huntsman mimic. The solidly bisected creature from half an hour before was nowhere to be seen. In its place, dark smoke wafted off of a black puddle of chunky goo.

  “There are still mimics out there, right? Are they going to come at us again? Are they hiding?”

  Addy rolled her shoulders. “The latter. The eggheads categorize coral creatures as a eusocial hivemind organism. During the initial waves they rely on instinctive behaviors, reacting to stimuli depending on their caste. The large ones murk every threat in the immediate area, the smaller ones disperse, waiting to strike from a blind spot or gather new shapes to mimic. They realized that loud and proud got their biggest hitters killed, so they’re pulling back for the time. They’ve probably got a trap or four ready for us.”

  “Oh. Ok.” There was another dead body around the next wreck. I tried not to look while Addy just kept on yapping. “Should we do something about those?”

  “Hm? I mean, they’re dead. In a convergence event this large, there will be casualties. Anyways, the mimics are interesting because as far as we understand—”

  “Addy, I don’t think people literally dying is something you can just ‘anyways’ away. These are people.”

  “And?”

  Right. Child soldier. “Dying is bad?”

  She stopped in front of me, continuing to stare ahead. “Objectively, I understand what you’re saying. Pragmatically, there’s nothing we can do. I fucked up, I got surprised and cornered by two of their heavies and a swarm of little ones in a crowd of people. They don’t care about collateral damage. They just care about acquiring information by engulfing and copying things and removing threats. And we need to kill them, but we also have to ensure people are evacuated at the same time without any large-scale protection spells, short-range teleports, or…”

  She paused before turning back towards me. “I’m bad at… showing emotions. I don’t feel nothing. But if it isn’t clear by now, then yes, I’ve seen people die. A lot.”

  Makes sense considering one of our primary abilities as Custodians is coming back from the dead. Only if you have extra lives though. Which I don’t.

  Haha. I’m in danger.

  Something rustled in the near distance. I swiveled on my feet, gun arm held half outstretched. Was that a real loose tire, or a fake one? It was partially on fire, but that wasn’t a guarantee. Nothing was, not anymore.

  Addy looked at me with one raised eyebrow. “You look ridiculous.”

  “You said they could be anywhere. Anywhere. God, I feel like my heart is going to kill me. Ever seen The Thing?”

  “Yeah. That was a smart monster. These things, on the other hand…”

  She nodded to a stop sign and the nearly identical, slightly pink sign with garbled text right next to it.

  “Ah.” That one was rather obvious.

  “They need some time to adjust, which gives us an opening window where they’re less effective. Lesson number one: The early bird gets the worm, and he who strikes first doesn’t need to worry about defense.”

  “Let me guess: Sun Tzu?”

  “I wish.” She materialized her katana from who-knows-where and after two lightning-quick steps cut the sign in half. It spilled its black tarry insides everywhere, filling the air with an acrid scent. I kept my head on a swivel in case this was a distraction, but no other mimics were forthcoming. “Lesson number two: All mimics bleed black.”

  I spied a pink mailbox. Past it were the piles of dissolving dead mimics on the football field, all slashed apart. I only killed two of them. This was my sign to step up.

  “Addy, uh, the other mailbox.” I pointed it out, not letting it out of my sight - literally. “May I?”

  A pair of earplugs materialized out of thin air. My gun was fairly quiet for a pistol, but with ears like a radar station that was probably still enough to hurt. But how did she get them on demand like that?

  “Do you have an inventory power?” I asked.

  “Something like that.”

  That’s so cool! Eee, I want one.

  “Can you still hear me with those on?” I asked.

  “Selective dampening. It’s good shit.” She plugged them in and gave me a thumbs up. “All yours, newbie.”

  I took aim, loosening my trigger finger.

  Dad had always said not to shoot with a gripping motion but more of a pull; some of his guns had a hair trigger that were so fine-tuned you’d barely need to flick it, but I never got to try those. Aiming still presented an issue when every adjustment of one arm jostled another one, but I had a way around that: A visible-spectrum laser pointer, for only ten soulcoins.

  He’d have an aneurysm if he saw me using laser pointers. He was an iron-sights purist, vanilla to the core.

  I slapped it onto the piddle pistol, which I’d kept since it seemed safe and effective for now. Its ammo was cheap, and against the small mimics it was decently effective.

  This attachment is more expensive than the weapon, haha.

  I pulled the trigger twice. The shots hit the mailbox-mimic slightly above where the laser was pointing. It fell over, screeching and twisting and turning as its faux-wooden stake split into four thin limbs. Limbs that were too thin to support its weight. It proceeded to flop pathetically like a beached fish before bleeding out.

  [Soulcoins: 46->48]

  Ok. Still freaky, but a whole lot less scary when dealing with them from afar. You can do this, Sam.

  I opened up my channel slightly and felt the tiniest hint of joy trickle through.

  “A mailbox is… not a very optimal shape for combat,” I commented with a nervous chuckle.

  “Sure isn’t, up until you reach your arm inside to take out a letter.” She eyed my gun for a couple moments. “So, are you staying with firearms?”

  “Probably. I can’t exactly rely on spells I don’t have and couldn’t charge anyways. I’m also not exactly trained in swordfighting, or… any fighting, really. And I don’t hate guns. What about you, do you like your katana?”

  “This is not a katana,” she said, presenting her size-shifting sword-knife with a flourish. “This is Hōcchi, my giant tuna knife. He’s been with me ever since I was little.”

  “He’s beautiful,” I said. “Buuut, I think a machinegun might be more effective.”

  She paused, turned to look at me. “My lodge promotes growing into melee combat since a lot of human or other Custodians can’t really do melee against something as dangerous as a horde of mimics. I could fuck you up.”

  “In a fight, right?”

  She spluttered. God, teasing her was so easy. Fun too. It would be a great hobby if we weren’t, y’know, in a warzone.

  “I’ve thought about getting a sidearm,” Addy said with a sigh. “But reloading with one hand is a pain, and racking the slide with my teeth isn’t comfortable or safe, unless I want to blow a hole in my cheek. I just don’t have enough arms.”

  I preened as I reloaded with only half of my total hands.

  “You should be on the lookout for some soulbound gear or cybernetics,” Addy commented. “You can beam a whole suite of aim-assist software into your brain once you have enough points. Aiming reticle, ballistics, x-ray vision.”

  “You’re telling me I can download an aimbot and a wallhack into my brain? But that’s so… lazy.”

  “It’s not lazy if it saves your life.”

  I paused. Right, this wasn’t about what I want, but what I need. I needed to be alive to help Addy, and to stay alive I needed guns, gear, and magic.

  I hummed thoughtfully. “It would take some of the fun out of shooting though, and since I need joy to fuel my spell, that would be less than ideal.”

  “Oh.” She grumbled something unintelligible before kicking away half a mimic corpse. “Friggin’ joy mages.”

  “Happy to share,” I said with a singsong voice.

  She watched our flanks as two points made their way into my soulcoin purse. “We should move. These little suckers need time to change, and the small ones especially don’t have the mass to create complex internal mechanisms, like surprise spears. They’ll get stronger the longer we keep them around and the more information they get from the things they consume, so better to nip them in the bud here before they start growing razor-blade tentacles.”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  I shivered. “Yeah, let’s not go down that route.”

  Those pink little monsters hadn’t just rained down over here. By this point they must have been everywhere in and around Creektin. The one right here was obvious to the untrained eye, but what if you were running past one? What if it was night? The recommendation to stay indoors suddenly made a lot more sense, but lockdowns couldn’t last forever and were rarely followed by everyone. Mimics would break into people’s homes, turn into flowerpots, kitchen appliances, toys. Given enough time, they might even mimic people.

  “So these things… evolve?”

  Adelaide shrugged. “One thing’s for sure: that fucker didn’t know what a mailbox was until a few minutes ago, and it’s already got the rough shape down.” Addy sampled the air with a sniff. “You getting the other one too?”

  “Other one?” I asked. Then I saw it: a short pink limb slipped right into the real mailbox, carefully shutting the lid behind it. I lit it up. It let out a tinny wail before the mailbox started bleeding black smoke and bodily fluids.

  “Lesson number two: Always expect more than you can see. We’re in a convergence event. Always second-guess everything.”

  “Y-yes! Sorry.” I reloaded my pistol and took one step forward.

  There was a blur the moment my foot hit the asphalt. I only noticed afterwards that there was a third mimic, wriggling where it was speared about two feet in front of my face. It was flat, like a pita bread, and colored and textured just like the tarmac beneath my feet.

  Addy didn’t even look at it or me as she wiped it off her tuna knife.

  “You’ll learn. Or not. Can’t all be made of weretanuki power.” She flexed her muscles, and while they weren’t as incredibly buff as in her weretanuki form, I was impressed at how much corded muscle she could fit into her rather small human body.

  “I think I’d rather be a vampire,” I joked. Sleeping all day, coming out at night dressed to the nines and hosting lavish parties at one of my mansions? Sign me up.

  Addy was not impressed, judging by the incredulous look on her face.

  “Your loss, dorkula. Weretanukis are way cooler.” She shook her head before nodding towards the underpass. “Let’s go check in there.”

  Right. Because she wanted her phone and her phone was on her body which was also where my body was and the only way to get anything was to loot… our corpses.

  There was smoke coming out of the corridor, from Clem’s car. Crap, Clems car.

  “Can we maybe… table that for later?” I asked. “Indefinitely?”

  “No.” And then she walked down the smoke-filled corridor.

  I stood there as if my feet had grown roots.

  “Fuck. Move, dammit. What’re you afraid of, a bit of carbon monoxide?”

  Now that I said it out loud, I was also afraid of that.

  “I was expecting you to follow, y’know,” Adelaide called from the entrance.

  “R-right. Coming.”

  The air in the tunnel smelled acrid and dry. Head kept low, I crouched in after her, trailing past torn bathroom tiles on the wall and skid marks on the ground. The end of the hallway was crammed with a pile of scrap, the remains of Clem’s car. Just looking at the dangling taillights hurt my heart.

  What a great friend I am.

  “Hey Sam, over here.” Addy was squeezed around one side, rummaging around under the guts of the giant pink monster squished against the ceiling. “Almost got it… there!”

  She pulled a rather drenched and oily rag from underneath. It took me a moment to realize that it was a vest, then another to connect the dots.

  “You really did come here just to loot your old clothes?”

  “Yeah?” She blinked at me, then grabbed a spray bottle straight out of the air and applied it to the thing, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. The stains disappeared like magic. Then she did the same for her miniskirt. “I got this vest from my mentor, who got it at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig. All these pins are from places he’s been to. I’d like to visit them one day.”

  “But you haven’t so far because killing alien invaders isn’t profitable?” I asked.

  Addy snorted. “I haven’t had the time. Also, the only things you can buy that you are also allowed to resell on mundane markets don’t have high margins. Illegally dealing in magical arms would be incredibly profitable, if it was possible, and legal. Though, I suppose we are in a sort-of broken mask scenario given how big this convergence event is, so maybe sharing a bit of tech with outsiders would be alright?”

  I watched her rummage around for her crystal belt. Right, I should probably get some of my stuff as well.

  I leaned through the shattered window since the frame was too crapped to open the door and pretended that that dead body belonged to someone else. And heck, might as well take the plushy Clem forgot anyways — the real one. It fit into one of my cargo shorts’ pockets. Maybe ferrying it to her would cushion the blow of my latest fuck-up.

  I leaned in until only my legs were outside of the car, squeezing and brushing past something that wasn’t the seat’s upholstery.

  My body’s not even cold yet — nope, think of something else, anything else.

  God, touching a corpse was an awful feeling. I kept any and all contact as brief as possible, gathering only necessities. With phone, keys, and the Takamura knife in hand, I wiggled back out and brushed myself down with a shudder.

  Addy grinned. “First time?”

  “Hmmm, let me think. Did I have a chance to dissect a dead human body in high-school biology class? No. No, I don’t think so.”

  Her smugness turned bitter. “Well, good for you. Looks like general education is doing something right then.”

  I blinked at her. “You didn’t go to school?”

  “I dropped in and out for a couple years. I kept on getting older while everyone around me stayed the same. It got awkward and the lodge was short-staffed… I dropped out. I didn’t belong.” She sighed wistfully. "School seems like a nice place.”

  My high school life mostly consisted of lonely lunches in a corner and scathing remarks by my personal bully-squad, but maybe it was a perspective thing. I’m sure Tanya and Elise enjoyed their time at least. “It’s not all rosy.”

  Addy looked at me, then back at my corpse, then back at me.

  “... I suppose everything is relative,” I muttered.

  “Alright, Dorkorella. We’re heading out to sweep for some mimics and get you some levels so you won’t die on your way to the evac zone. Consider this my last welcome gift. Lesson number three: Slackers get left behind.”

  I did my best woodpecker impression and then jogged after her when I realized how literally she meant that.

  Watching her transform from girl into weretanuki-combat-mode mid-run threw me for a loop entirely. Instead of announcing it with some magically enhanced words that vibrated down to your soul, plus some transformation music, it was as if her fur had decided to burst from a confined space on its own, her muscles swelling out of a cage that was never meant to hold them for long.

  Her hands elongated, her tanktop stretched but didn’t tear, and she grew almost tall enough to scrape her head on the ceiling. Like a quarterback charging at the opposing team she ran right towards the exit. I only then realized it was plastered entirely by a horde of small mimics, interlocking limbs making a net bristling with sharp ends for catching unfortunate magical girls like me.

  Addy barreled right through. A few links snapped as the entire net contracted around her, causing her to stumble.

  They caught her.

  My heart stopped for a moment as I imagined exactly what kind of tactics they had used to get her onto my car hood just a short hour ago.

  Addy snarled, Addy gnashed. One of the mimics was caught in her mouth and popped like a black balloon, no doubt filling her with the most acrid taste imaginable.

  Her sword-knife cut upwards, a streak of disembodied spiny limbs in its wake. Then she opened her mouth and for the first time I heard her cast a spell, a spell that was violent, immediate, and so, so her.

  “Get off me!” A blast of spiky purple energy expanded away from her, blasting small mimics in every direction and skewering half of them with the shearing force of a hundred little cuts.

  I ducked under a lanky tentacle and gave another a good kick as I ran past. By the time I was outside, it was raining mimics. They splatted and cracked onto the asphalt like sacks of meat and eggshells.

  I shot. God, I shot a lot. Stabbed a lot of them too. They were crippled in large parts, but not all of them.

  [Level up! You’ve reached level 4]

  [+1 Body, +1 Free stat point]

  I barely took note of the notification, frantically trying to reduce the number of threats when there were just more and more. One of them suddenly leapt at me. Instead of using my knife or gun I just batted it away with a shriek.

  It sailed through the air where Addy cut it in half, drenching her in black gore. A snarl was followed by the high-pitched laugh of a madwoman. She was in her element.

  “Come on, come on,” she yelled, “What are you waiting for? I’m right here, C’mon!”

  Is she talking to me or the mimics, or me? Am I not fast enough? Not good enough? Should I cover her flanks, should I get a new weapon so I can better help out at the front?

  [Channeling emotion: Fear]

  [Warning: Mixing undesirable emotions in a spell may result in unwanted effects and negative backlashes.]

  Crap, I was still charging [Arms & Arms proficiency]. Gotta find something to be happy about. Easier said than done when — ow! Get off me!

  [Soulcoins: 48->50]

  [Level up! You’ve reached level 5]

  [+1 Body, +1 Free stat point, +1 Essence slot]

  … hey, that felt kinda good. More points into Body please.

  The feeling of a satisfying workout filled me again. This time, the joy it brought was immediately put to use.

  [Arms & Arms proficiency: Charged - 89% Joy, 10% Fear, 1% Anticipation ]

  My arms twitched. A painful twinge went through as if I’d hit my ulnar nerve — the one on the elbow — on a solid surface. I missed a shot that ricocheted into the forest as a result.

  Come on. Get yourself together arms. Work, dammit!

  A pair of mimics jumped me. I jumped to the side, rolled on the tarmac, ending up in a crouch with a perfect shot.

  [Soulcoins: 50->54]

  Ye-hes, my arms were mighty, my armaments too! More mimics fell, more mimics were turned into black puddles of dead goop and dust. Suck on that, mimics! I am a magical girl proficient in violence!

  I sure do wish I had something stylish to protect against their sharp claws.

  I barely even had to think of it before the shop popped up in the corner of my vision, sorting through based on a number of subtle wants, needs, and desires.

  [Arm coverings! Leg coverings! Skinsuits! Enchanted indestructible nylon, many designs. Can’t be torn, shorn, cut, or pulled apart. DO NOT put into contact with our series of blades that can cut everything. Price: 8 coins per limb]

  They’re pricing it by the limb; That’s so unfair! Boo!

  But I didn’t have much choice unless I wanted to die of a thousand cuts. A full body suit wouldn’t work. What was I going to do, cut arm and leg holes into the uncuttable fabric?

  “Legs and arms, please.”

  ‘Here are our design choices and’ — that one! I NEED that one.

  [Soulcoins: 52->4]

  And thus I was poor again.

  The mimics were all mostly dead by the time the box arrived, and I was entirely out of breath. My hands were shaking, the yellow enveloping energy around them dissipating as I unboxed it. Shirts didn’t fit me anymore with how many arms I had, so in their place were two sets of two fingerless gloves reaching all the way to my shoulders. Accuracy and haptics were non-negotiable for a gunslinger, so the fingers had to stay free. They were black, as were the tights which I ordered to fit with them.

  I sidled up behind a panting Addy thoroughly drenched in the goop. “Cover me for a sec, I gotta change.”

  “Again?” She asked, her frustration coming out in a growl. Pointedly, she did not turn around as I got my pants off, tights on, pants back on again, then did the same for my top and my four arms. The glove-sleeve had two rubber bands that connected the left and right pairs past my shoulders, preventing them from ever slipping too far down.

  “There, done. What do you think?”

  I turned around and smiled as Addy took me in from top to bottom. It was a killer look. The cute little spider stickers that looked like they were happily chewing my thighs were my personal highlight. Addy seemed entirely entranced, or maybe envious.

  “You’re slobbering.”

  “I’m a weretanuki. It’s how I sweat.”

  “Oh. So, any comment?”

  “You look like a spider-themed minor villain for some sort of kids cartoon called Coco’s First Supervillain or something.”

  “Aww, thank you. Tights and cargo shorts are so 2020, but it’s also kinda timeless, and I do feel kinda badass while wearing it. Y’know, black arms and legs, like a black widow. Not that I want to scream ‘I eat my bed companions’ out loud, and not that black widows always do that unless the male literally cannot escape, like, say, in a glass box in a lab. The sleeveless gloves might be a bit too bdsm for me, and the straps are awkward around my shoulders. Do you think I should buy a vest to cover it up? I’m buying a vest. Maybe something with fur so that we match. Spider and tanuki, saving the day—”

  “Don’t.” She raised a hand to pinch her forehead. “It’s great. You’re giving off mad spider vibes.”

  “Excellent.” I sighed, accepting the spray bottle she handed me to get the acidic blood off. “Still, mimics though. That was… a lot. Like, a lot a lot.”

  “These mimics were way too coordinated,” Addy spat, clearing her nose of tarry blood as she looked out into the woods. Suddenly, her ears perched forward and her yellow eyes narrowed into tiny pinpricks. “We’re being watched.”

  not covered in tiny cartoon spiders?