Addy perked up. She’d gone from sulking over Medusahead being an ass to doing some shopping of her own. Currently she was busy doing one handed push ups in her weretanuki form. She had to get used to her new center of gravity somehow.
Because of the arm she lost. Because of me.
I did my best, but that’s what my best earns people around me. What if she hates me now? What if I misread her and the hugs activated some long-forgotten trauma? What if she leaves me too?
[Channeling: Fear]
I cringed. I just had to do better once I was all geared up. Now, it was time to prepare.
Seven hundred soulcoins was a lot of money. Like, a lot a lot. Spending twenty-five soulcoins on a laser pistol which, if it were available, would likely cost north of ten thousand dollary-doos on the open market was already pretty insane. Increase that by two orders of magnitude and… wasn’t I basically being offered a million bucks?
I… if I can ever sell anything from the system shop on the open market, I could buy my family a mansion. Or, at the current prices, a one-room apartment in downtown Chicago.
That was assuming that The Society fully revealed itself to the public and allowed for sale of magitechnical weaponry anytime soon. Which, now that I was thinking about it, probably wasn’t going to happen considering we’d be going from magical girl heroes to arms dealers.
Nobody likes arms dealers.
If I wanted to forego an essence and spend all my money on cool guns and gear, then this was a great option. I could probably flat out buy most uncommon essences with this much as well. But that would take even more time and energy to search, sort, and haggle. Also, there were the other two offers to consider.
The hellrazor essence was, at a +3 to Body and with no abilities whatsoever, a pure stat stick. When reaching the uptier thresholds, all this was able to offer would be another growth point in Body, or an extra ability from its rather meagre list.
Essences had spell lists! These were lists filled out by the trial and error of literally thousands of Custodians. An essence that gave a choice of three abilities wouldn’t always offer the same three ones. The pool they could draw from was most often larger than the ones being offered. The hellrazor was all about fireballs and cutting things, neither of which spoke to my low-magic run-and-gun style.
However, that itself didn’t make it a bad deal. I would nearly triple my current Body stat if I took this, and [Arms & Arms proficiency] scaled off of that as well. I wasn’t planning on taking flight anytime soon either — not that I even could if I wanted to. The foreseeable future held a lot of running for me, and being able to run for miles without losing my breath would also mean a steadier shooting hand. If I were Addy, I would absolutely take this essence just for the sheer scaling power.
But I wasn’t Addy. And increasing Body by that much meant I'd get my next pair of arms much sooner, which given my current difficulty controlling four was absolutely not a good thing. No matter how much Body I had, how fast I could run or turn on a dime, it would all be useless if my brain couldn’t process it.
So. Evidently my attention was a bit occupied by the last offer. It was a lesser Ur-mimic essence, similar to the type of mimic Addy had been hunting, but less powerful. Our Ur-mimic was powered by magic equal to a rare essence, at the very least. It was a sneaky, slippery bugger. Its abilities were centered around subterfuge and escape-tactics.
However, it was also tier 2. Some essences just dropped with a random upgrade. After a short dive into online guides, it turned out that if I started with a tier 2 essence, I would effectively skip that essence’s first uptier. While this made the uncommon essence as powerful as a rare one, that was because it was borrowing future power. Instead of uptiering in thirty levels, it would uptier in sixty levels, and then every thirty levels as per usual.
Immediate power was exactly what I needed. But what was the catch?
“I don’t think there is one,” Addy muttered after I explained it to her.
I remained skeptical. So, I messaged the guy in question via the system.
“Hello there —” I squinted, “— RalfTheElf. Are you aware that you’re trading a tier 2 essence for my tier 1?”
<>
“Okay. Why?”
<
“And if it doesn’t?”
<
Oh, the humanity, more magic stats for the wizard.
A wizard dropped Addy in my lap. This… is probably not the same wizard. Come to think of it, I don’t even know what exactly defines a wizard.
“Why are, rather, were you a wizard?” I asked, purely out of curiosity.
<
“Huh. Like witches are?”
<
“Alright mister ‘I went to hogwarts’.” I added some laughing emojis afterwards. He either didn’t pick up on my sarcasm or it went straight over his head.
<
I paused and gave it one final thought.
“I—”
Addy shushed me.
“You’re not even going to haggle?” she asked with shock apparent on her face.
“It seems like a good trade? And he seems nice for an elf.”
“First of all, he’s not an elf because he hasn’t cursed you or insulted your bloodline yet. Secondly, that could just be a veneer, a facade.”
I blinked at her. “You’re telling me someone would just go on the magical internet and lie?”
“Yes.”
I stared at her for a moment. This weretanuki didn’t seem like she kept up with memes and online culture all that much.
“And thirdly…” she said.
“Thirdly?”
“Wizard families are loaded. They’re like, the best paid profession there is short of, I dunno, being the pope.”
“The pope,” I deadpanned.
“He probably has a lot of money!” Addy said defensively.
“The pope. Sure. Makes sense to me.” I ignored her flustered weretanuki noises and gave RalfTheElf my final offer. “Add two hundred soulcoins to that and the essence is yours.”
“Deal.”
With the transaction concluded, a small timer popped up, telling me that my essence would arrive in two minutes.
I stared at the screen for a disbelieving moment before breaking out into giggles. “You’re right, Addy. He didn’t even haggle.”
“Told you so,” she grumbled. “Now eat. Choose your ability, then buy your gear so we can get out and — will you please stop hugging me!?”
“No,” I countered, trying and failing to tackle Addy over.
“Why!?” she cried, trying to get me off of her back as if I was some sort of tick.
“I can think of many reasons.” I began counting on one hand while holding on with the other three. “Because you look like you weren’t hugged enough as a kid, because you want it but can’t be honest with yourself, or maybe just because you helped me out here. And you did help me there, instead of running away like the last time.”
Her body tensed. “I… okay? It’s nothing special.”
“It was special for me,” I whispered and gave her a sincere hug. “Thank you. Really.”
“...Eat your damn essence already,” she growled, but beneath that growl she was probably appreciating my sincerity. Maybe.
“Will do.” I shot her a salute and dropped off her back. “You know, the essence has great stat growth, but I didn’t pick it just for that.”
Her eyebrows arched as she finished brushing herself off.
“We’re looking for an Ur-mimic. I was thinking of fighting subterfuge with subterfuge.”
The moment the essence appeared in my hands I popped it in my mouth.
Lesser Ur-mimic Essence
Tier 2
Rarity: Uncommon
Growth: +2 Mind, +1 Soul
Choice: [1] out of [3] Abilities
[Minor Environmental Adaptation] - Fear
Charges: 0/1
Charge cost: Moderate
Channel constantly to adapt your body to your environment. Gain gills and flippers near water, reduce water loss while traversing a desert, etc. Depth of changes scales off of Body.
[Illusory Double] - Fear
Charges: 0/1
Charge cost: Moderate
Creates an illusory double that looks exactly like you from your body, or from another double. The double is non-corporeal, and will mimic your actions unless ordered otherwise. Gain an extra maximum charge every [30] Soul. Ability to control multiple illusions scales off of Mind. Does not require a chant.
[Mindjack] - Disgust
Charges: 0/3
Charge cost: Major
Consume a brain to learn parts of its memories and lived experience. Amount gained depends on amount of brain consumed. Clarity of experiences scales off of Sense. Length of individual memories scales off of Spirit.
“Well, that certainly tells me something.”
“Does the mimic eat brains?” Addy asked.
“It does.”
“I knew it!” She shot up before, embarrassed and put on the spot, slowly sat down next to her cot again. “I mean, yes, of course it does.”
“Well, I’m definitely not taking that ability, no matter how useful it is.” Or how useful it wasn’t. Did mimics even have a central nervous system? Did I have to eat the brain raw or could it be cooked? And what did my spider instincts have to say about it?
Brains. Very tasty.
Don’t listen to spider instincts when making life changing decisions. Noted.
Between the other two [Minor Environmental Adaptation] promised minor changes scaling with Body to the point that if I really wanted to fly, then I could probably grow wings once I had enough stats. But honestly, the idea of magical-girling in an environment non-conducive to magical girling (see: the bottom of the ocean) was not appealing, and Creektin didn’t exactly have extreme environmental conditions.
The wind whipping through the dome was picking up, but not enough to justify the investment.
Sadly, that left me with only one real choice. [Illusory Double]. Though I was anything but disappointed. Having an extra spell to cast during combat would be nice, especially since it used the emotion that was most efficient for me. Fear was always in supply while fighting eldritch mimic monsters, and I wasn’t casting [More Spider Eyes] with any regularity due to how much it disoriented me.
Having an illusory double for them to chomp was definitely going to have its uses. Ooh, and since tricking the enemy was joyful, did that mean I could use [Arms & Arms Proficiency] more often?
I chose [Illusory double] with glee. The wash of stats that hit me sent my head spinning. I had to lie down as the memories of the past days solidified and became more real than when I’d lived through them.
I had spent four days drifting in and out of consciousness while the mimic did what it wanted with my body. A few times I woke up to the feeling of something trying to saw a hole into my head. The mimic didn’t eat my brain, or I would’ve died, and then revived with my remaining extra life. Maybe it thought that if it took one of my lives, its whole plan to pretend being me would go up in flames.
I shivered. I think I screamed a bit. Probably a lot. Terrible, terrible memories.
Slowly, a second change washed through my neurons. All the conflicting information of having four eyes were sorted and integrated into a single cohesive whole. Additionally, I understood which arm was moving when, and why. Arm #1 was rubbing my head, but discovered a stray hair that it was brushing out of the way while arm #3 was trying to boop Addy’s cute button nose, but failed to find it since I wasn’t looking in that direction.
“You good?” Addy asked as I blearily blinked at her from where I was lying on a cot, clenching the sides with a white knuckled grip.
“Yes?”
“Is that a question or an answer?”
“Yes. I mean, yes, I’m good.” She was holding my hands while sitting next to me. It was warm. “That was… rough.”
“Change is rough.” She stared at me for a while before making an appreciative huffing sound and nodding. “Get some new gear. Do some stretches while it takes its time to arrive. Then we’re going out.”
“On foot?” I stuffed Foggy in my backpack. She was awfully happy to find that the thing went deeper than expected, the little tunnel-rat. Moe was going to have to share his space in there with her for a bit. I bought some cat snacks to distract her, and a special surprise.
“I have requisitioned a car, a pickup, because—”
“...because even though you’re fast, you can’t carry people at full speed without hurting them, and we’re here to help people get from wherever they’re stuck back to the evacuation zone. Got it. Do you have a license?”
“I don’t need a license to know how to drive a car,” she shot back.
“Yeah, well, I do, so I’m driving.” I stuck my tongue out at her.
She squinted at me. Then she stuck her tongue out too and left through the tent flap.
Meanwhile, I was squirming happily in my cot.
She said us, us! She’s not going lone tanuki this time. Progress!
Right. Time for gear.
I need a new main weapon since the old ones are falling off. They can stay as side arms, so I’ll need some ammo as well. Need to repair my bazooka since it sort of exploded. And then some armor, maybe some weapon augments. Need to spend my ivory coin on upgrading something too. And assign my last free points — probably to Soul.
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It was a lot of stuff. I suspected that I wasn’t going to be soulcoin-rich for much longer. But hey, at least my stats were looking snazzy.
Samantha Rubens
[Lvl 13] - Transformation Locked
Body: 22
Sense: 26
Mind: 27
Soul: 16
Free points: 0
Silver Soulcoins: 661
Average emotion-crystal-core efficiency: 27% (Expand List)
Essences (3/3): Coral Huntsman, Coral Leaper, Lesser Ur-mimic Essence
Passives: [More Arms]
Spells: [Arms & Arms proficiency - Joy], [More Spider Eyes - Fear], [Illusory double - Fear]
Augments: [Minimap I], [Calendar]
+++
The mission was simple. The only people left in all of Creektin that had to be evacuated were those living in my neighborhood, and those that were missing. Addy had done a good job getting everyone else to safety in the past few days. Now we had one to complete the job.
“You are officially banned from driving,” Addy declared as we bombed down an alley that smelled of grease and rotting fast food, my newly bought video-drone following close behind.
“I’m sorry, I froze up! And it’s not my fault that the rearview mirror was a mimic,” I shot back. “Medusahead had that pickup sitting in her parking lot for three days, how did anyone miss that!? Did she miss it on purpose? Is she legally blind?”
The mirror hadn’t even been reflective, instead showing a static view of shapes and blobs that could be mistaken for a reflection at first glance. But what was done was done. That mimic barely got a nick in before Adelaide speared it on awfully sharp fingernails. But then there’d been a whole bunch more mimics on the road, a veritable swarm, and, well, things escalated from there.
For once, I was glad that I’d spent my soulcoins nearly to the last one. I had extra armor now, a flexible wire-mesh fabric thingy protecting my chest and abdomen like a set of modern chainmail. It was enough to protect me from anything shy of a huntsman mimic spearing me through the gut. I also had fingerless gloves to match, as well as protectors on my elbows, knees, shins, and forearms, all in a sort of beige that reminded me of a brown recluse’s carapace. Beneath, I’d bought a full body suit of the tear-resistant black fabric to replace my acid-melted thigh-highs and sleeved gloves. I looked less like a random girl who’d been interrupted mid BDSM session and more like a professional skater, except instead of skating my craft included handing out love and violence.
I ducked as a leaper leapt down into our alley, turning around just long enough to blast it with my Toothpick #1. I had two of them now, hoping that switching between the two would forestall any overheating issues. And it worked, as after blasting a few holes into the leaper, both were only comfortably warm instead of scalding.
Addy stabbed the downed leaper as she ran past, meaning I got only half the soulcoins.
“Addy,” I gasped in shock, “you stole my leaper kill!”
“Not a leaper!” she shot back.
I watched in horror as what I thought was an eight legged, arachnid-like leaper split in half along its waist, turning into two distinct creatures. Thankfully, one of them had sustained lethal wounds.
[You have slain: 15kg Centi-pair mimic. Soulcoins: 22->28]
The other one wheeled in place, two of its legs missing thanks to Addy. I could see the annoyance on her face. She’d been aiming to kill it, but it had twitched at the last second.
“What are these things?” I asked.
“Have you ever seen those commercials with those building blocks that have those little nubs on top?”
“You mean LEGOs?” Piles of discarded cardboard boxes were moving in front of us, stacking front to end in a massive tower.
“They’re like that,” Addy said, “except evil.”
Oh great, they’re a build-a-mimic.
A tower of cardboard boxes flashed pink, crashing down on Addy, who sidestepped only to set one foot in a bundle of 1.5 kilo mimics. The distraction was enough for the cardboard centipede to twist and wrap around her, its body constricting like a snake trying to squeeze her dry. I didn’t have anything that would be able to get them off without risking friendly fire.
“I’m fine,” I heard a muffled Addy yell. “Give me ten seconds.”
As if to challenge her, I saw a swarm of 1.5 and 3 kilo mimics come barreling down the alley where we’d just come from. It was a lot of them, like, a lot a lot, skittering over radiators and trashcans like an army of faceless ants.
O-ok Sam, you’ve got this.
“Summon: Bazooka!” A long rod of death fell into my waiting hands, even as I emptied a vial of Slime gun acid into their path. The acid built into black bubbling mounds, tearing limbs off of every mimic that stepped onto it. I cast [Arms & Arms proficiency] — pre-charged before we even started on this ill-fated expedition —, the magic whispering to me where to aim and shoot to reduce possible harm to myself.
Then, I sighted the bazooka, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
The high explosive grenade detonated, overpressure liquifying the insides of all mimics within ten feet and shrapnel killing everything else within thirty. I’d aimed to their back in the hopes that most of it would have to travel through mimic bodies, but that just meant I was pelted by pink and black giblets instead of metal shrapnel.
It worked though.
[Soulcoins: 28->64]
Mission success.
I twirled my bazooka, bonked a mimic trying to jump me from behind with it, and channeled some of that joy into the next casting of my spell. It was already halfway charged when suddenly the brick wall to my right bulged outwards. All I could do was tense up into a ball before I was showered with pieces of bricks. Dust clung to the air as I frantically looked around for what just hit me.
The wall was gone. The shadow of a four-legged figure stood tall in the cloud of particulates.
Huntsman!
I rolled to the side, dodging a spearing strike from one of its spiky limbs. A trash bag exploded, the pavement beneath me cracked. My bazooka was useless this close up, my goop gun was dangerous, and my Toothpick only tickled its hide.
“Moe, secret weapon, now!” I yelled.
My back hit a wall, squeezing the entrance to my backpack shut. The huntsman reared back for another strike.
“Overcharge: Get off me!”
Centi-pair mimic chunks and bits exploded everywhere, shredded, smashed, torn and split. The impact knocked the huntsman’s aim off by a hair; its first strike embedded itself into the wall behind me.
Suddenly, it shuddered as a bloody stick — no, a sword — dug its way through its body. The thing split in two, drenching me and the figure standing beneath it in black blood.
Addy huffed and chuffed as she looked at me, in some sort of half-weretanuki form with fur covering half of her arms and legs, a thick mane pouring out of her dark shirt, straining it to near tearing. One eye looked human and the other one bestial.
My heart skipped a beat.
“C’mon, let’s move it,” she barked as she nearly single handedly flung me to my feet.
“T-thanks,” I stuttered. “I can’t help but notice that you’re neither fully big Addy nor small Addy.”
“It’s a hybrid form. It’s supposed to be bendy and strong. I’ve been working on it since last year, but it’s not really ready.” She stopped and, as if to support her argument, vomited into a dumpster. Her vomit was a stream of rainbows, as was the rest of her body as it shrunk down into her normal human form.
I blasted a mimic that was trying to ambush her from the rooftop before turning back to her. “Are you okay — you know what, stupid question. Something’s wrong. Can I help, somehow?”
“You can help by not mentioning it ever again,” she groaned.
“Well dang, that just sounds like you’re trying to avoid approaching your issues,” I shot right back. That particular comment earned me quite a glare, and an annoyed flick of her tanuki ears.
“Tanuki’s are by nature cowardly creatures, so it’s fine if I’m avoiding them. It’s kind of my thing.”
“Oh no, you don’t get to pull the ‘it’s normal for me’ card. You’re keeping way too many secrets.”
“Well you’re way too nosy!”
“I damn well deserve to be nosy after you left me in the dust!”
Maybe it was the sheer honesty with which I said it, or maybe it was the crack in my voice, but Addy froze in her tracks, a clear show of guilt appearing on her face for just a moment.
“Well, I’m glad you can keep up now.”
The absolute gall of this, this… grah!
I felt my eyebrow twitch. Before I could even form a coherent idea on what to do, I had already lifted her up — two arms beneath her armpits, two holding her face in place so she would have no choice but to look me straight in the eye — and pinned her against a wall. Addy squeaked in surprise.
“Now listen here you squeaky mutt. If there is anything on your mind, I hope that you trust me enough to tell me. I will not judge you for it. I will listen. That is what friends are for.”
Addy froze. “... even if it’s something you can’t hope to understand or even help with?”
“Even then. I will listen, I will ask stupid questions. In answering them, you might learn something. You will grow more confident. And then we will destroy Medusahead together.”
“W-well. It’s not a big issue. I’m just… trying out if the ECC can help me with my transformations. Emotions seem to color my transformations, and since transforming isn’t a system spell it’s a lot more flexible.” She swallowed heavily, avoiding my searching gaze. I couldn’t help but notice that her two tanuki ears were still present despite being in her human form. “Well, I’ve got enough anticipation-charge, so you can drop me now.”
“You were using me as an emotional battery!” I gasped in affront.
“That’s what friends are for?”
I squinted, feeling my words being turned back on me. “You cheeky little tanuki you.”
“It’s called thinking on your feet.”
“It’s called being a brat.”
Addy spluttered like a helicopter. “W-what? I’m not I, you…”
I flicked her ear. She tried to bite my finger off. But my fingers were too many and my hands merciless.
Ignoring me, she glanced over her shoulder. A cloud of rising smoke was all that could be seen of our borrowed car.
“They sent a lot after us,” Addy commented. “Means we’re threatening something important. Might be their leader. We could end this now if we play our cards right.”
“If it were that easy, you’d have beaten this thing a while ago.”
She frowned, before bouncing back with grim determination. “If there is a chance, I will take it. But we’re dancing to its tune. Gotta disrupt that, make it commit more reserves.”
“Any ideas on how to go about that, oh glorious magical senpai?”
Addy snorted. “I’m thinking of a diversion. You got a new spell for that, no? Then start spelling.”
I rolled my eyes, shoving away my slight annoyance, my confusion, and all the other emotions in favor of the mission.
[Illusory Double] was another fear-based spell. Even though it took as much charge to cast as two big jumping spider eyes, I had saved up enough to cast it once. I wasn’t using [More Spider Eyes] constantly, and on top of that fear was my most effective emotion. Currently, no matter what I was doing, returning to the terror of the past few days was frighteningly easy.
“Illusory double,” I said.
“You don’t have to say it out loud,” Addy commented. “The description says it doesn’t need a chant.”
“Yeah, well, nobody needs to know that. That is part of the illusion and trickery. I am a tricky spider pretending to be a boring normal spider, like a yellow crab spider sitting on a yellow flower. And saying the chant makes me feel like more of a magical girl.” I mumbled that last part mostly to myself. Joy was hard to come by these days.
A see-through, ghost-like image of myself peeled itself off of me. I shuddered, the process feeling like shedding my entire skin at once. But it was as simple as that, and now there she stood, illusion-Sam, hooked up to my mind with a connection I could only describe as intuitive. She looked a bit grainy from up close, like a poorly compressed video in 720p. When I leaned forward to touch her, she did the same towards me. My finger went right through her as if she wasn’t there while hers sunk into my chest.
Despite testing it multiple times back at the evac zone, I couldn’t help but marvel at my first truly magical spell. Growing eyes and arm-related competencies was magical, but it didn’t feel magical-magical.
“It’s like a hologram,” I said.
“Hologram, holoshmam, can you make it move independently?”
“Oh, I can do more than that,” I shot back with a grin. “Now, lessee here. Turn around.”
The hologram turned one-hundred–and-eighty degrees, mimicking the right body movements to do so. The way her muscles moved and the weight of her armor settled was awfully realistic. I punched her through the chest and the illusion flickered for a moment like an old tv screen before mimicking being pushed back by the impact.
Definitely doesn’t hold up to closer scrutiny. But from far away, or when pitted against a bunch of dumb mimics, she is perfect.
She reacts to verbal and written orders. What about mental commands?
Do a backflip.
She did a backflip, or at least she tried. I didn’t really know how to do one while standing on even ground, and so neither did the illusion, landing badly on her neck with a crunch.
The illusion dissipated. I stared at it with a gaping mouth.
“Congratulations, you made it kill itself.”
“Realistically, that couldn’t happen to me, right?” I asked.
Addy shrugged. “It’s your spell. Feel it out.”
Right. Instinct stuff.
The illusion is weaker than I am. Now, how does it interpret vague commands?
It took over a minute to recharge and recast the spell.
Attack me.
Immediately, illusion Sam pulled out her Toothpick and emptied three shots into my forehead. The laser shots stopped where they hit a solid object, but as expected there was not a single sign of heat nor hurt where they hit. I did feel some strain at the back of my head, a strain that ever increased as I gave her more complex commands.
When I ordered her to give me a perfect rendition of Romeo & Juliette's closing scene, she twitched, fizzled out of existence for a moment, then returned where she was standing in a t-pose.
“Okayyy, can’t take too complicated orders,” I muttered.
But the orders she could take were more than enough.
I turned to Addy, who had finished digging through her own backpack only to surface with a chest-sized mechanical contraption.
“Is that a beartrap?” I asked, peeking down the alley.
“This is Sir Chomper.”
“And how, pray tell, is he going to help?”
“By chomping things. He’s soulbound, so I’ll call him back once he’s out of charge.”
With a grunt she drew the two teethed halves apart until they gave a satisfying clack. There were weird symbols etched into the metal, faint enough that I probably wouldn’t have seen them with human-level eyesight.
Gently, she leaned down and whispered a single word as if it had ears to hear.
“Mimics.”
The bear trap snapped shut with a heavy clank. Then it tugged itself open again, and shut. Every snap made it bounce, and every bounce moved it nearly three feet towards the nearest mimics. Like the world's most degenerate mix between a rubber ball and pac-man, it fell on a leaper that had just left the safety of a nearby flat-top roof.
I watched, half in horror, half in fascination as the trap bit it in half.
“That ought to buy us a few minutes of distraction,” Addy said, already turning to run again.
“You can never have enough distractions,” I said before turning to my body double. “Run around and skirmish with some mimics, please.”
The illusion fizzled, then turned and jogged down the alleyway, Toothpick in hand. Soon enough the cracks of laser pistols rang through the distant air. We ran in the opposite direction, out of alleys and into alleys, ducked under and jumped over fences, zipped left and right and over roofs in the hopes that we could lose our pursuers.
We booked it until my lungs were burning, eventually finding refuge in the clothier shop down Bookman’s Road. Addy stalked through it while I sat on my ass, panting and keeping an eye out for any pursuers. Every few steps she stopped, sniffed some of the merchandise, then continued on with a suspicious look about her.
“I think we’re clear. There shouldn’t be any—”
A screech right next to my ear slowly petered out. I yelped, then groaned as Addy plucked another tiny mimic off of her sword.
“Now we’re clear.”
“How do I keep on falling for that?”
“Dunno. Not enough Sense. You’re also not nearly paranoid enough,” Addy said, stabbing a wooden stool before allowing herself to sit on it. A whirring sound heralded the little drone I’d bought to document our excursion into the north of Creektin. It was both to pretend that I was trying to fulfill Medusahead’s sidequest and to hopefully gather some footage that would allow us to fight back.
Worst comes to worst we would just post this stuff to our social media accounts the moment the ban on spreading Society info is lifted. Addy claimed it ought to be any day now. The global convergence events were clearly not something they could keep hidden even with the power of the glamor and the system combined.
“Medusahead wasn’t kidding, this place is loaded with all kinds of dangerous mimics,” Addy muttered.
“Think she’s going to try and screw us over somehow?”
“Definitely. I saw her snake-drones flying about. She’s a support build, a zone control specialist.”
I noticed her looking at me as I poked my drone. It was a little red octocopter barely as large as my outstretched hand. It had a face drawn on it, complete with eight angry spider eyes and a fanged grin.
“How the heck do you keep on finding this stuff?” Addy muttered.
“I don’t know, I just add ‘spider’ to the end of my search and somehow the system shop always has something that I like. I’m going for a theme you see.”
“Heavy assault arachnid?”
“Friendly neighborhood magical arachnid girl.” I licked my lips, tasted some of that absolutely vile mimic blood, and took out a spraybottle of TidyBlank. “I’m still workshopping the name. But assault arachnid does have a nice ring to it. Maybe I should outsource all my name-giving to you.”
Addy blinked at me. “As a sapient tanuki I didn’t know all the words for the things I encountered. I just started giving things nicknames, and now do it out of habit.”
I chuckled, then tried to force it down when Addy gave me an insulted look. “Sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just so odd, but it also makes total sense in hindsight. Out of curiosity, what’s the name of your katana?”
“Hocchi. It means ‘little knife’.”
“Ooh. And what about your big weretanuki form?”
“Big-Addy.”
“And the human form?”
“Mini-Addy.”
“Adorable. What about me, do I have a nickname?”
Addy paused, taking her time to look at me up and down.
“Grabby Sam.”
“I am not… okay, maybe with the extra hands I can see it… and I did pin you to a wall, twice. Heck, maybe I am a bit touchy-grabby? But I don’t want to be known as freakin’ Grabby Sam. Pick another one, please.”
“Gabby Sam.” She grinned. She knew exactly what she was doing.
I gasped in shock. “Rude. So rude.”
“It’s hard to get you to stop talking. All the time it’s just yap-yap-yap. And when you stop, you’re practically vibrating with all your unsaid internal monologue.”
I don’t internally monologue a lot I just… well, dang. You caught me, Addy.
“About what you said before,” Addy muttered. “That I left you in the dust. You’re right. I did, and that was my fuckup.”
Slowly, my eyebrows rose as she took out two identical objects and handed me one of them. It looked like a pink bracelet of sorts. Gasp, was this a friendship bracelet? This. Was. Amazing.
“Aww, thank you,” I said, drawing her into a hug that she swiftly dunked under, dodging to my left. “I will cherish this bracelet forever.”
“It’s an XP share.”
“... what?”
“I’m giving you half of my XP so you can level quicker, because…” she mumbled something under her breath that I didn’t hear, even with my enhanced senses.
“Come again?”
“It’s almost fun. Running around together with you, alright?” She pulled the strap tight around her neck, then looked to where I had attached mine to my wrist.
“Oh, it’s a choker. Sorry, I can put it on—”
“No! No, this is fine,” Addy said, blushing slightly as she stared at my hand. “My spells charge faster this way.”
And what does THAT mean? Addy, hello-o, more communication please.
I squinted at her as if trying to laser away her layers of deception and duplicitous deceit with my piercing gaze. Alas, I didn’t have laser eyes yet, nor did I really understand the empath part of getting more points in the Soul stat. There was no convenient popup saying that our friendship had just advanced from three to four heart levels out of ten, nor a happy, sad, or embarrassed sound, nor a smell representing whatever emotions smells could. Maybe hot smells were related to anger, and sour smells to disappointment and fear, but then again ‘hot’ wasn’t exactly a smell, and maybe someone else would interpret sour as anger, or disgust, or anything else because smell was really not a human specialty and—
I blinked as my eyes focused on an object that had slowly been creeping closer behind Addy. It stopped in place a second after it noticed that I was looking at it. As I read the warning sign, I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit.
“Hey Addy.” I gestured behind her with my chin. “Look at what zone we’re in.”
Addy turned around, stiffening. There was a sign standing right in the middle of the boutique, misspelled and completely out of place.
“Dagner zone. Get it?”
Addy looked at me with a confused stare. “I get that it’s a reference to the hit single accompanying the 1986 hit movie Top Gun, but we are neither in a fighter jet, nor would a mimic even have any concept of what a fighter jet is, or music, or a title.” She pointed her sword at the sign. “That is a distraction. There is a second one around. There always is. And it also doesn’t know what music is.”
“Oh. I see.” I looked around, trying to see if I could spot it. “So, you like old action movies?”
“Maybe.” There was a hopeful pause. “Do you?”
“I… only know it through memes. There’s this one with a flying cat where—”
A sudden clatter from somewhere else sent both of us into high alert. Addy stepped forward and cleaved the sign mimic in two before it could even react. She followed my gaze as I looked over to where the door to the bathroom rattled shut. We exchanged a wordless glance before readying weapons and stalking up to the door. I sidled up to the right of it while Addy turned into her big Super-Addy form.
The door creaked as she grabbed the knob from the left. I counted down from three on one hand.
Three. Two. One.
She tore the door off the hinges. Not the most subtle way to enter, but hey, it did give me a completely free field of fire.
The bathroom was a tiny affair, a toilet, sink, and trashcan crammed into maybe fifteen, maybe twenty square feet. Crouched there between the wall and the toilet seat was a girl roughly my age, frazzled blonde hair torn and crumbly in places, eyes wide as she held the toilet brush in one hand and a bunch of clothes in the other.
“Tanya?”
Her voice was hushed, breaking in parts as she stammered a response. “B-beanstalk, b-be quiet. There’s a werewolf right behind you.”