“This is Hana the Gossip coming to you live!” The woman speaking was positioned in a small square in the bottom corner of the screen. It was a typical livestream setup. On her shared computer screen the homepage for the American Awakeners’ Association was dispyed. “As you can see, the Association has updated their lists!” She opened the public list of high-ranked awakeners. The subcategory showed ‘S-Ranks [33]’.
“Now you might be confused,” the woman continued, “You might be asking: there were already 33 S-ranks so why are you clicking on that?” She grinned and adjusted her strange Sherlock Holmes hat. “That’s because two things have changed! One of the old S-ranks has been removed and a new one has been added!” The chat dispyed on the right side of the screen exploded with activity.
“The hero Bdelight,” continued Hana, “Has been removed! During the Hoax yesterday he got scared and took a pne overseas! There are all kinds of reports from China saying he’s joined their country’s high ranks!” On the screen she pulled up an international news channel on another tab and circled it with her mouse. The chatroom followed her presentation with fun banter and jokes.
—he ran away not knowing it was a fake!
—I heard they’re revoking his license
—[Emoji of a shining bald head that resembles the Association President]
—how does Hana always find this stuff first? mainstream news hasn't even picked it up yet
“Aaaaaand in his pce a new profile has been added to the Association’s list! The Returnee Princess Scale!”
On the screen a profile picture of a dragon-woman appeared.
“While the gate might have been a hoax double S, it appears the returnee this time is quite impressive! It seems America now has its first S-rank healer! To think she’s a rare non-human type too.”
“Alyssa, they're talking about Jacoby on my favorite stream!”
“Scale. She’s quite adamant about the new name, Dad,” said Alyssa as she walked into the living room.
“Gah, I’m trying, okay.” He paused and scratched his head. “It’s just hard to get used to.”
“It’s fine,” said Alyssa. “Just try to do better when she’s around. By the way, how are you feeling?”
“Better than ever now that my kid’s back.” He grinned and motioned towards the empty cans. “I don’t even have a hangover. It’s crazy. I haven’t felt this good since the day Martha left.”
“Dad.”
“Yeah yeah, I won’t talk shit about your mother. Sorry.”
“Still, it’s good to see you so full of energy,” said Alyssa. Her stern expression melted like spring ice. “Did Scale say where she was going? I overslept and missed her.”
“Overslept? Come on, kiddo, you don’t have to lie to me. I don’t know how Sarah sneaks in and out so quietly but you two—”
“Dad.”
“Jaco—Scale took off first thing in the morning. Said she wanted to take a walk to think about some things.”
“She doesn’t even have a phone,” said Alyssa with a frown. “It’ll be impossible to track her.”
“You think she’ll get into trouble?”
“I mean, I’m worried but not for her sake. You might not understand, dad, but if someone messes with her it could end really badly for them.”
“They were saying she’s S-rank on the stream but I thought they said she’s a healer—”
“That’s the problem. She can make it seem like nothing happened after.” Alyssa clicked her tongue. “There are a lot of second-rate vilins in this city but even they don’t deserve… Well, maybe a few do.”
“If she’s strong enough to handle herself then I don’t see the problem,” said Henry as he leaned back into his chair. “But that image.” He paused the live stream while it zoomed in on Scale’s half-transformed state. “If she’s some kind of lizard, why does she have tits?”
“You really are scum, old man.”
Meanwhile certain online communities, upon seeing the profile picture of a half-transformed Scale, collectively lost their minds.
Scale arrived at the riverbank. Behind her a pile of human bodies were stacked like bales of hay. They were all wearing the same cringey bck uniform and had been harassing people on the riverwalk, but their true sin was annoying Scale. She didn’t care what their weird protest was about, but the moment one of them tried to grab her hand she decided to uniterally handle the scene.
“Excuse me, young dy!” A man wearing a bright-colored skin tight costume appeared from the sky, skidding to a stop. His underwear on the outside made him look downright odd, like some kind of hero cospyer. “Are you the one who took down all these people?”
Scale sighed. She had something important to do but people kept bugging her. “Yeah,” she replied. “You gonna pick a fight too?”
“Pick a fight? Heavens no! I’m here to thank you!” The man smiled and his teeth literally shined. He spoke in a hammy tone like a 1950s radio host. “These guys are members of the Gate Liberators, a crime syndicate! By taking them down you’ve done a service for the community.”
“Oh they were criminals? That’s a lucky coincidence.”
“That’s right—Wait, you didn’t know?”
“They were annoying so I hit them.” Scale held up a closed fist and posed for a moment, feeling oddly influenced by the ‘superhero’ in front of her. “I made sure they weren't hurt.”
“Ah, well, anyways, my name is Starlight Man! I clean up the streets of the North side with my radiant light! Would you be willing to come with me to the police station to give a quick statement and to receive a reward for your good deed?”
“No. I’m busy.” Scale’s reply was curt. She turned towards the river. A tall fence was put up to keep people from falling in and the banks were quite high off of the waterline. With a quick jump Scale perched herself on top of the fence.
“W-wait miss! The river is dangerous here, even if you’re an awakened—”
“Unless you want to go to sleep,” said Scale as she released mana to hopefully make the annoying wannabe superhero shrink back, “Stop bugging me. I really have something important to do.” Without any additional fanfare she leaped from the fence and dove into the water.
“Ah dammit,” said Starlight Man. Several police cars pulled up behind him and he turned towards them. “Sarge, I’ll leave the cleanup to you. Someone just dove into the river and I’m going to make sure they don’t drown.” Without waiting for a reply, Starlight Man jumped over the fence, pausing midair, and then dove down into the water with a fsh of colorful light trailing behind him.
The police sergeant nodded, already used to the local hero’s oddities. Just as the police started putting handcuffs on the piled vilins a pilr of water ripped upwards from the river. A fsh of light shined in it and then, a moment ter, a body nded on the concrete by the police officers’ feet. It was a twitching, unconscious Starlight Man with a prominent fist imprint on his right cheek. The officers checked on him but realized he had no serious injuries; he was in the same state as the captured vilins.
Scale cpped her hands up and down past each other and had an annoyed expression on her face. She warned that Sunbright guy (or whatever he said his name was). She turned back around and looked down into the depths of the water. A serious expression crossed her face as dark trails of magic stretched towards her. It was a familiar bck magic that targeted and entwined souls.
When Scale used her healing light on her father, trying to untangle that magic illness from his soul, she realized that it originated from an entity. While she wasn’t the most skilled with intricate magic works, Scale was still able to track that bck magic to the Lewis River.
However, even Scale wasn’t quite prepared to find a rge underwater dimensional gate on the river’s bed. She had assumed she’d find a monster or even a consteltion creating the magic disease. She frowned as she swam closer to inspect it. The shimmering dimensional magic leaked bck mana and was infecting the waterway around it.
“This gate needs to be closed asap.” Scale spoke to herself, her voice unhindered by the water. The magic radiating from it was intense but it wasn’t like she hadn’t faced stronger mana before. Clearing the source of her father’s illness was important lest he just get sick again once she healed him. Judging from the situation, she assumed this gate had gone undiscovered for a long time. Briefly, Scale wondered how many people had come down with the same illness as her old man.
She didn’t hesitate. She swam to the front and tried to enter only to be stopped by a tentacle grabbing her leg.
“What the f—” Scale was suddenly dragged backwards in a whip-like motion and smmed into the riverbed. She cursed at the sudden attack and climbed out of the mud with fire in her eyes. In front of her a massive squid cwed its way out of the nearby muck, emerging from the ground like a volcano.
“So the gate had a guardian?” A vein popped on Scale’s forehead. “Good. I was just thinking of letting off some steam.” The water around her exploded. She moved forward so fast that the friction vaporized the liquid behind her, creating a colpsing tunnel underwater.
The giant squid didn’t even have time to blink. A human-shaped projectile barreled through its body and came out the other side clean. The sudden heat trail following Scale's path caused the monster to expand twice over before it popped like a balloon, the rupture shooting up a second geyser to the river's surface.
"What is going on?" Asked one of the officers on the scene when a rge chunk of monster meat fell from the sky and nded in front of him. It was a still-twitching piece of squid tentacle. "Oh shit it's an underwater gate! Someone get on the radio! Report!"
