Chương 85: A Little Bit Evil, A Little Bit Good

Eric was having a hell of a time being a magical boy. It let him skip out on so many chemistry exams. And he didn't even have to wear a dress. His neat white shirt was stained green with plant juice. He'd lost two of the eight big round buttons that held it together. One of his snazzy suspenders was cut. On the plus side, he hadn't lost any hair this time, unlike Genny. He sent a silent prayer that someone out there had invented a magical remedy for acid-induced bald spots.

His shoes clacked on the pavement as he jumped and swung his baton right at the final remaining head of the giant maneating plant that had teleported onto this parking lot from the plant dimension, or something. The stalk bent and squished, and the plant didn't die. Of course, why would it? Plants didn't have spinal cords, or a brain that required a constant supply or oxygen, or anything else immediately critical.

They needed to be pulled apart, bit by bit, before they pulled you or some civilian apart, also bit by bit. He dashed back, flung a playing card charged with [Bomb touch] with gusto. It missed completely, annihilating a lamp post. Dammit. The plant tried to shoot him with another glob of acid and enzymes, but this time Genny was on it." Ice blast!" She shot an icicle as thick as an arm straight through the stem, blocking its one critical pipeline. The pressure of acid inside it built until it burst."

Ice blast, ice blast, ice— crap, I'm out."

"It's dead. I think." He huffed, a smile threatening on his lips as Genny gave the plant's root-tendrils a good kick.

"We gotta burn those or it'll come back."

"Goddammit, I'm an ice mage, not a fire mage," she said, kicking the car-sized thing over. The roots squirmed even as the top half of the plant twitched ineffectively, trying to burrow through the tarmac. Eric watched transfixed for a moment as a tiny tendril wedged into a crack, a crack that tore wider open by the second as the root surged in girth. Eric gulped.

"I think there's a shop with some lighter fluid inside the barrier. I'll go get some. Just keep the thing beached." He left, returned, and in minutes, they were enjoying a bonfire. Hopefully it didn't suck the good air out of the dome. The small dome barely went from one block to the other, but it was as necessary as udders on a cow. If these things became native then gardeners and farmers were going to have a bad time. His dad was a farmer. All the more motivation to do this the right way.

He poured some more lighter fluid while the thing crackled and popped. [Convergence event cleared] [Additional rewards: 10 Soulcoins]"Yusss," Genny pumped her fist, immediately buying a swanky tiara she'd been eying. The tiara gave physical projectiles a slight homing property that increased with range, as long as she pre-charged it with enough anticipation. Despite her lousy aim, she wouldn't have to jump into melee to guarantee a hit anymore. She swore as she noticed the bald spot at the back of her head.

"There. I think that's it for today," he said. Genny nodded.

"We should get back to school. Lucky me it was gym class. Miss Wheezer stopped bothering to grade me since she thinks I'm too superhuman to count. Not like I got any points in Body. I basically get to sit around and practice my magic against some decommissioned gym equipment."

"Lucky you." She hadn't had the time to switch out of her sports outfit. Eric gave her a quick glance before looking away and feeling guilty. He didn't even like Genny. But she was the only person his age active in this part of Chicago he could tolerate. The other four had made a superpowered ranger team, but they were toxic, and had way too many meetings to practice their victory poses.

"I was in the middle of a chemistry exam." He sighed.

"Gonna have to retake that."" I recommend you do," boomed a voice from above. Eric and Genny flinched, whirling around one second apart, staring above. There on top of a house stood a figure clad in a completely over the top dress oozing evil vibes. It had an unnecessary amount of frills, with reds and purple so dark even in the middle of the day that the dress seemed to absorb all light." Two lonesome pups, thinking themselves champions. My, how pathetic you look from up here."

"Oh god." A Custodian, dressed and masked like a cartoon villain. He'd experienced this before. That day ended with more skid marks than after his worst game of handball.

"Genny, play it cool. I'd rather not also get bad marks on—""Raaaagh!" His partner of course immediately blasted the woman with her entire newly regenerated stockpile of three [Ice Blast]s, missing each one because she forgot to feed her tiara. The one that did hit was condescendingly backhanded away.

"Why don't you come down and say that to my face, bitch?"

"Very well." The figure walked down the side of the building, spine perfectly perpendicular to the ground while six baleful eyes stayed locked with his own two. Two of her six hands warped, their fingers turning into spiked claws." Allow me, the Evil Queen Arachnia, to test your mettle." +++ Sam?

"The Evil Queen Ariachna?" Addy shot me a discredulous look.

"... I had to make something up on the spot the first time I played the heel. The name sorta stuck. I mean, look at her, she's evil, and queenly." I gestured to the block in front of us, where two adorable new Custodians were busy getting their butts kicked by Smooth Sam wearing a domino mask and the fae dress. She seemed to be enjoying herself. Her victims, less so.

"And this is fun?"

"Oh, absolutely. I mean, when else do you get to use your powers creatively without having to kill something? Outside of training, I mean?" Addy didn't seem convinced.

"Sure looks like training to me."

"It's an evaluation." I plonked an orange hard-hat on her head and on mine before handing her a clipboard.

"There, this makes us look professional."

"I just don't get what the point of this is."

"It's a test. An unofficial exam. Custodians are always in high demand, and there are only three Academies in the entire world that can effectively train them."

"And?"

"Addy. Adelaide. Dearest, girlfriend, love. Not everyone is allowed into The Academy right away. They've got a waitlist. There are over a hundred-thousand active Custodians, and some of them wait months to years, time during which they're still acting as effective Custodians since the domes need a source of magical energy inside to keep them standing for longer than a couple hours."

Her gaze followed the two younger Custodians as they flanked Smooth Sam, not front and back, but in an L-shape the way we taught it at the Free Poker League. It was a good habit to learn early. If either one missed with a ranged attack, they wouldn't hit their ally, and the target still had to contend with needing to dodge in two dimensions simultaneously.

The Evil Queen Arachnia pretended to fall for it, but ducked under the followup attacks by freakishly bending her spine backwards, then swiftly closed the distance to the ranged girl in melee. Then the evil queen slipped on a streak of ice. Interestingly enough, the spells didn't just lodge themselves into a target, they temporarily froze the area around their target after impact.

Being a body double of me, Smooth Sam caught herself with a backwards cartwheel that made her fall look just so incredibly intentional, but icing up the ground in front of her was definitely a point in the girl's favor, tactically speaking. It wouldn't help against a murderbot trying to laser her apart, but against mimics or the lizards it would do well. The fight went on for three more minutes, which was entirely fine by their standards.

The kids were level fifteen and seventeen respectively, they didn't have the stamina for drawn out, back to back engagements. I finished my report, then hopped on over.

"Heya Eric, heya Genny." An icicle shot passed me. Addy caught it out of the air before it could do any more property damage.

"Right. So, were it not for that, you'd have gotten a decent score. Eric, you need to be less timid. Less thinking, more acting. And Genny, you're too trigger happy. Tone it down before you hit your neighbor's cat, or a civilian." They grumbled and protested as I handed them more detailed report cards. The two looked nothing like big heroes and more like the scrappy teenagers they were. I went easy on the marks for image and marketability in favor of the basics.

Once they had the skills, they could start adding flourishes for the crowd, charging off of their emotions for additional spell fuel.

"Can't believe the Custodian called 'Trigger Happy' said you should learn some trigger discipline," Eric said as they walked away.

"Oh shove it!" said Genny. I returned to Addy. The Evil Queen Ariachna had already returned to her mild mannered civilian alter ego, Sam the Custodian. Her evil grin was all but disappeared behind a demure mask. She wiped a splotch of green plant goo from her cheek, and then turned to Addy with a sly smirk, chest still heaving.

"So, what do you think?" Addy chewed her lip.

"This isn't recreation. It's an additional burden you've placed on your back."

"Fair point. I usually handle this part while Scar-y Sam over here is dealing with the big convergence events." Scar-y Sam? Really? I had the rare pleasure of observing Addy as she watched my other body double gulp down a bottle of dogwatah zero. Moving around that much in the fae dress when it was in full-frill mode got hot quickly. A trickle of the new, definitely cocaine-free energy drink was running down the sides of her mouth, dripping down a bobbing Adam's apple. Don't be jealous, think non-jealous thoughts.

"The point stands: You're burdening yourself unnecessarily again." Addy licked her lips.

"That being said… can I try?" I swiftly handed her a black domino mask, which she donned after a moment's hesitation.

"You look even more like a tanuki than usual."

"Hm."

"That's a bit low-energy of you. You're a villain now, Addy, you have to rail against the world with all your body to get in character. I abjure this tepid society, and curse all vending machines with stale cheese-flavored cheetos!" I let out a truly diabolical laugh, loud enough that Smooth Sam craned her neck to check on me.

"Now come on, give me your most villainous laugh."

"Muhaha?" My disappointment was immeasurable.

"Addy." Addy frowned.

"I've never been a good actor. Didn't see the point. Still don't." I eyed the minimap on my system interface.

"Tell you what. We'll toss you into an encounter and see if that holds up. Worst case, you can be the strong, silent type." +++ It took minutes to find our next victims, er, testees. They were a quirky team of two boys and two girls dressed in spandex. They wore necklaces that could expand into helmets with a full sensor suite and various assistant software that could interface with the system, as well as expand into a cape. The capes were cut short just beneath the shoulder, and thereby within regulation.

A pair of studies published last year correlated long, flowy combat outfits with a nearly thirteen percent higher likelihood of losing a life in every engagement.

"Those are our rangers," I noted.

"It's an alternative motif to frilly magical girls in dresses. They're somewhat similar to the superhero style spreading on the west coast, but with more focus on teamwork and dramatic finishes."

"Rules of engagement?" Addy asked.

"Nonlethal is preferred, though don't make it too obvious that you're sandbagging. Push their discomfort zones, give them an idea of what they can realistically expect. Here, your illusion wand, in case you want to menace the crowd of onlookers with a fireball. Oh, and be aware that just because you're going nonlethal, that doesn't mean the newbies will know how to extend the favor."

"I'll use the flat side of my katana," Addy said. Somehow that did not inspire confidence. She squinted at the fancy spandex with our FPL logo on it.

"How do you pay for all this?"

"Speedrunning convergence events seven days a week helps a lot. Also sponsorships and ad-revenue." I pointed at my camera drones.

"We upload the footage to various streaming and video sites for mundane funds. Non-magical tools and equipment needs to be tailor-made and bought, rent needs to be paid, and this helps keep membership fees low."

"But you still have membership fees," Addy noted. Judging by her frown, she didn't like the idea. Not enough to stop her, but still, protest noted.

"Some things can only be bought with soulcoins." With a shrug, I turned to Smooth Sam.

"You're wearing Poker League standard sportswear underneath that, right? The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Yeah, why — oh, you absolute jerk."" Summon: Fae Dress." In a quick show of teleportatory excess, the villainous dress disappeared from Smooth Sam and materialized right around me. The masterpiece clothing article fitted itself to my body as if it were alive, though it didn't need to do much since she had the exact same proportions as me. I froze. Smooth Sam grew a smile as she crossed two pairs of arms in front of her.

"Have fun running around in that sweaty trap!"

"Oh my god." Addy sniggered.

"It's not funny! Ew, ew, ew. Aw crap, they noticed us. No time to get changed. Masks, light, camera, action!" I rappelled off the building with a line of spider web trailing from my cybernetic arm, landing on the sidewalk with the grace of a butterfly. Moments later, Addy slammed into the dirt behind me. She was in her hybrid form, but even then, she shouldn't weigh enough to make that much of an impact.

The quartet of rangers reacted quickly, variably gesturing or verbally commanding their helmets to unfold around their heads. Their levels ranged from early twenties to mid thirties. This wasn't going to be an easy bout.

"Halt, evildoers!" said their leader, a woman wearing a magnificent royal blue suit.

"What devious trickery has led you to the… LuvPets parking lot?" With an evil grin, I spread my hands.

"We're here to steal some shopping carts."

"No."

"And then we'll abandon them in the parking lots for disabled people."

"You monsters." She flourished a pair of daggers that appeared out of thin air.

"Don't think that the Aegean Argonauts will allow such villainry — oh shit!" She barely parried Addy with the unnatural movement of a [Trigger] spell, who rocketed forward mid setup. Interrupting the introductory banter was a bit of a faux pas, but then again I didn't exactly lay out any ground rules, nor was she versed in the implicit code of honor held between all Custodians of Chicago.

"No headshots, no groin shots!" Smooth Sam called, herself now wearing two stacked orange hardhats.

"Since you can heal broken bones with your spell, I'll allow those for now!" The other three rangers tensed and, after a short exchange likely contained inside their helmets, two of them peeled off to engage Addy from behind. My girlfriend was now outnumbered three to one. And still she was tearing them apart. Every lunge on the leader's side was punished with the flat of a blade to wrist, elbow, or butt.

The first guy joined the fight, trying to strike Addy from behind with a living asian-style dragon made of what looked like bubblegum, but was actually a type of rubber that could get nearly as hard as concrete. Addy ducked under it, making herself impossibly small — and sunk into the dragon's shadow, only to pop out behind the caster. The one behind shot at her with what looked like metal boxing gloves with tiny submachine guns attached to it.

Judging by the ballistics and how Addy parried a few shots before stepping into his comfort zone, they were using subsonic rubber bullets. A point towards fair play, adaptability, and situational awareness. The third ranger was running after his sword after Addy batted it out of his hands and then kicked it half a city block away. Which left the last remaining ranger standing next to me, fidgeting nervously. She was rather short, and gave me less of an impression of a Custodian, and more that of a terrified mouse.

She was the lowest level among them, and she was a sadness monocaster. Good at debuffs, terrain manipulation attacks, and so on. [Coralie, Tortured Artist, Level 21] Oof, what a moniker.

"Let me guess, they left you behind to slow me down while they focus on the main threat?" The girl shrunk back. For a moment, she reminded me more of a fear monocaster, like Orianna. She had a bit of a french accent, swallowing h's and spitting out extra vowels.

"P-please don't beat me too hard."

"Eh, I'm more annoyed that they'd leave a teammate behind just like that." I mulled over how many points I wanted to deduct for that before remembering that that was technically Smooth Sam's job right now.

"Then again, we are Custodians. I suppose it'll depend on if you can paint me to death."

"Me!?" she squeaked before sagging in on herself.

"I'm the weakest in the entire team. Last time, the others all got twenty mimic kills, and I got two!" I blinked.

"Well, maybe you're more of a support build. Show me what you can do." There was a long, awkward pause.

"But you're… evil?" I crossed my arms.

"Girl. Spells. Now." She summoned a floating canvas and a thick horsetail brush dabbed in ink. The canvas was see-through, more of a floating golden picture frame surrounding a pane of glass.

"Let's see, I can draw a little hill." The ground rumbled. Beneath me, a man-sized lump of dirt and asphalt rose up through the parking lot. A small crowd had assembled some ways away during the fight. They'd been entirely focused on Addy the other three rangers, but that bit of tangible magic led to a couple oohs and aahs.

"... I should probably not do that in the open." She unsummoned, then resummoned her glass canvas. When she drew a flat line, the lump sunk back into the earth, leaving only a bit of disturbed and dusty asphalt.

"I-I can also cut things, b-but that takes a lot of charge, and I don't see anything super cuttable — oh, wait." She leaned back, a black slash of paint cutting from top to bottom of her canvas. I followed her gaze in confusion, only to notice that a low-flying cloud had a tiny gash running through it. A cloud that was at least a mile away. Coralie cleared her throat.

"T-that's about the extent of what I can do." I whirled on the girl, grabbing her with all six arms, eliciting a tiny 'eep'.

"That is so cool."

"But it's useless against moving targets since there's a delay! I have to clearly envision what I'm trying to accomplish o-or it doesn't work."

"Oh, for sure, useless against small targets. But big ones? Against a kaiju? How does it work, what spell are you using? I bet you're using some fae spell as your base, then modifying and empowering it with essences from other stuff. Well, am I right?" I wanted to shake the answer out of her. I held myself back, if only for a bit.

"It's like five different effects working together. See here, the ink is an expensive blend that increases magical effects, and the brush is summoned by a spell that increases all other spells' ranges, and the…" We spent a good long while going over her ability together. By the end, I was convinced that this girl was wasted on this team. She had built herself a unique ability for manipulating reality with ridiculous scaling, but tragically poor output early on.

Once she hit around the mid forties, she'd become a real tactical threat, and if she made it to above eighty, she would become a strategic asset for the entire world. I earmarked her for recommendation to the Academy. Not that the system would listen to the words of just one magical girl, but every bit counted. Maybe I could drum up enough people to file a petition— [Don't worry gurl, I gotchu]"Oh my god," the girl stared to the right of her canvas.

"I just got an invitation to The Academy." Uh… huh. Nice? I was moments away from congratulating her when a second sun floated down to land in front of me. It wasn't a sun, just a Custodian wearing so much gold and polished silver bling on her dress that the reflections in this sunny weather had an effect similar to a flashbang grenade.

"Halt, villain! Step away from that helpless newt and face me, Bit-nara!" [Bit-nara, Radiant Queen, lvl 67] I squinted at her.

"Aren't you a bit high-leveled to be asking for a friendly bout?"

"Pah! What are levels in the face of evil? What is a number in the face of passion? What is — actually wait, cut that last bit out. Cut!"

"Only if you don't bother me. I'm sorta busy." Her shoulders sagged.

"But who shall I do battle with then?" A fireball, a real one, exploded in the air above us like fireworks. From somewhere in the distance, there came a dark cackle. Another Custodian in a domino mask joined the fray, large, bulky, with some pain lizard essences that gave him a sheen of protective scales along his arm.

"Bit-nara, my erstwhile teammate, how goes it, my eternal rival? The day has come where I shall fertilize the fields with your cadaver." Bit-nara seemed delighted. They took off, shooting spells into the air and posing for various cameras as they went. The scattered smattering of onlookers was growing ever greater. Every few minutes, another Custodian came by to join the chaotic sets of melee that occasionally bled over into each other.

"Where are all these people coming from?" I yelled. I got a text from Smooth Sam. <<I sent out a notice. Turns out, bored Custodians need entertainment too. And this crossover event is going to look so good on our social media channels. Tanya is having a field day. >> A small girl and her mother walked up to me.

"Hey, um, can I get an autograph?"

"Well, I'm supposed to be evil right now… but fine, one autograph." Outwardly I was calm. Inside, I was squeeing like a little girl that got a pony for her birthday. I was being recognized. People thought I was autograph-worthy!

"I want an autograph from the evil queen arachnia," the little girl said, grinning much to my confusion.

"Not Trigger Happy? Don't you like her? She's funny and spidery and a, uh… a good friend who'll let me give autographs for her too."

"Nuh-uh. She's too goofy." The girl's grin grew wider.

"You're much prettier." I. Uh. Huh. I'm going to need some time to process that. When I returned to the ongoing fights, the three Rangers were lying on the ground, panting and groaning. Addy stood there, hands on her knees, hair disheveled in a way that framed her feral grin magnificently. She only had one thing to say.

"More." +++ The day was long, and felt as long as two by the time the sun was setting. I had so much more planned for today that we didn't get to. But it was fine. We got some good work done. <<On the one hand, I'm glad my girlfriend was having fun. On the other hand, I'm a bit concerned at how good she is at being a villain. She destroyed like half a dozen Custodians, some of which were near her level. >> <<Brag some more, why don't you? >> Tanya sent back. Then came a followup message.

<<These camera angles are ass. I told you you need to get someone with professional know-how instead of… whatever AI program is making the drones exclusively give shots over the shoulder of the person they're filming. And the lighting! I'm going to have to fix so much in post. >> <<We were mock-fighting the entire day. >> <<Oh yeah, we've got material for months now. This is great. Some of it looks a lot more real than it probably was, with how many fake spells were flying about.

>> Except for the one spell that wasn't fake, and wasn't caught by any of the many layers of defense Custodians around our level already had. That was an emergency that stopped everyone in their tracks. I could still remember the look in Bit-nara's eyes as a lance of what looked like pure air whiffed from a nearby fight, then burrowed an arm-thick hole through her chest within seconds. Addy had leapt over, and casted an overcharged [We'll be fine].

The wound closed in seconds while the wounded Custodian stared at it with wide eyes. She'd kept conscious throughout the entire procedure somehow. She still seemed shocked after that, excusing herself shortly after.

"Doesn't have any extra lives," Addy had noted.

"It's why she's up here instead of down at the Cauldron despite being so high level." The implication was clear. The Cauldron was hungry and it required a steady drip feed of superpowered individuals that could cut through a kaiju with a single brush stroke, or jump into a catastrophe and turn it into a mere setback, just to upkeep the status quo. That had been Addy's life for these past one and a half years. I spent barely two months down there. Most of that was with Pom-Pom and Parsnip.

Come to think of it, Parsnip wanted to go down to visit her mother, but the system flat-out denied her the last time she tried. She'd probably get the go-ahead once the forward expedition team made contact with and built a teleporter in bugsrest, but still. It was one of the many odd things I'd brushed away for a while now, just another idiosyncrasy of an unfinished system that was constantly improving and changing itself.

It made more sense now, given how that reckless bug always yoyoed between two and zero extra lives. But it was a cruel calculus. If my word can get a junior Custodian invited to the Academy, then I'll use that word to get Parsnip a vacation with her mom. No matter that I don't know why exactly my word means so much to the system. Back in the present, I stopped my exchange with Tanya right there and turned to a truly energized Addy.

"I didn't know you could do portals." I said.

"I didn't know you could turn into a chibi version of yourself."

"A what?"

"A little you. A gummy spider. It's cute." Addy nodded to herself, unaware of how happy that little bit of praise made me and Smooth Sam.

"I feel like we need to set aside a day for just trying out new wacky ideas with our magical spells. Like, my transformations are cool, but they only last for minutes, and need a day each to recharge. I can barely practice with them, and I've just started touching on the limits of what they can do."

"Yeah." Addy paused.

"On that topic."

"Magic?"

"During my downtime in The Cauldron, I've done some thinking. Magic is an energy, and it's flowing towards where it is less abundant, towards Earth. Most Earthborn wizards need to use reagents from other planets for casting unfamiliar spells. Eventually their bodies become in tune with the spell and they can cast some spells with little to no sacrifice needed.

The same applies to a planet; the more spells are cast, the more the earth sucks up those magical patterns and turns them into simply how things are, into physics."

"Hence how every person born on faeworld can use fae magic," I added and Addy nodded.

"The history of Earth's magic until today was characterized by a patchwork of magic from other worlds reinterpreted through a human lens. The thing is, Earth is long past the threshold where we ought to start seeing our own flavor of magic start to materialize."

"Oh. And because it isn't materializing, that's… bad?" Addy nodded.

"It means one of two things is true: Either some force is stoppering the spread of magic across the globe, or our models of magic and the universe are incorrect, which also implies our methods of divination are incorrect, and thereby we don't know when the apocalypse is actually coming. It could come tomorrow. It could come in a decade, or a century."

"Whatever triggered all the seer's alarm-signals, I sure hope it's not yet another world-threatening alien force."

"I've got a hunch. But I'd rather not say what it is until I am absolutely sure." Ah. Well. She's talking about the System. We walked together in silence for a while.

"I would not want to be the first obstetrician to deliver a baby that can cast a fireball."

"Or that has a crown of horns that grow when it's afraid." I winced. Not a fun image.

"You think that's a possibility?"

"Of all the magic being cast, Custodian emotional magic has been both the most widespread and impactful for over two decades. Thanks to us, there are currently more fully realized magic users alive than there have been in the last millenium put together. I've had some friends look into it, and they've all but confirmed it."

"You sent Mason out on errands, didn't you?" Smooth Sam asked.

"I have other friends!" Addy pouted, crossed her arms.

"Okay, it was Mason, but I bet he had help from other people as well." Fair point. The werehedgehog always seemed the more personable between the two of them. The three of us walked back to the HQ in what I hoped was companionable silence. The office building was quiet and lightless, people having already retreated to the safety of their rooms or homes for those that lived nearby. Abandoned except for one small cubby with a beanbag and a catgirl trying not to let the world hear her crying.

"You okay?" I asked, poking in behind the blinds. She just continued crying. A laptop on her beanbag showed pictures of Gale Lightning, a Custodian with a mobile mage-slash-scout archetype. He died his final death three weeks ago when he was the only one available to enter a convergence dome barrier rated for three people ten levels above him. The time he bought allowed a team to be assembled and deployed, though it was too late for him. I didn't know that Hissy Fit knew him personally, or what he meant to her.

"You want a hug?" She shook her head.

"... do you need a hug?" It took her much longer to answer that. I wrapped her in a gentle embrace that left every avenue for deepening it open. She practically lunged into my arms, the crying intensifying as a wet spot formed on my shirt. I let her bawl her eyes out, whispering small encouragements until Smooth Sam returned with a blanket and the precise flavor of energy drink that littered this cubby like gravel on a beach. She took a few large gulps and paused.

"Is this chocolate milk?" she asked.

"You're not getting much sleep by drinking more caffeine," Smooth Sam said.

"Gale always rewarded me with a hot chocolate when I completed a training exercise." There was a second round of bawling. By the end, she'd fallen asleep in my arms, still clinging to my shirt. Smooth Sam offered to swap with me, both as reparations for sneakily monopolizing Addy the day before, and because she could feel that Addy had something to say to me in particular. I could feel her gaze burning holes in my back as we moved along.

"Is that another official service of the Poker League?" Addy asked by the time we entered the couch room.

"If I could be here for everyone all day, it would be."

"I shouldn't be jealous." A short pause.

"You know, I think I get what people were saying about you on that day of your final fight with the Pactmaker."

"Oh god, they said something about my hair, didn't they? I swear I ducked that laser, but it got singed, and I—""They said you looked like an angel." For the longest moment I couldn't find a way to answer that.

"That's… just the light coming off of my Soul form. Which honestly doesn't do much besides glow and share my emotions."

"Feeling someone else's joy so viscerally can be an enrapturing experience for some," Addy noted.

"Speaking from experience."

"Yes." Our eyes met. And beyond naked desire, I felt the pressure of a much deeper and more whole attention hovering over my shoulder as she continued to stare.

"I lost my mentor when I was around Hissy Fit's age. After that, I didn't care about much. Now, there are exactly two people I care about in the world, you, and myself, in that order." She took a deep breath.

"I want you to hold me like I'm still that girl that lost her mentor. Just for one night, I don't want to think about anything or anyone but how your hands feel around my back, how I can tell by the heat and rhythm of your breath that you're awake. I might tell you some secrets, some thoughts I've held back because they were too embarrassing until today.

But I want you to know them, to know me inside and out, and if after that you still love me, then I will know all will be well, because there still is goodness in this world, and that goodness is you." +++ We started the day early. Addy volunteered to get up first. We shared a look and despite nothing having happened throughout the night, I felt myself blush. Holy shit, nobody deserves to be adored like this. I especially don't deserve it. She knew that I felt that way.

She was past the breakpoints in Sense and Soul for seeing emotions. And she was using it to tease me, slowly pulling her shorts up and down, up and down. The tension rose while we got dressed.

"I have to tell you something—" I said, only to be interrupted by Addy.

"I need to— wait, you too?"

"You first."

"No you." Addy gave me a penetrating stare.

"... we're not doing this. Same time on the count of three. One, two, three:""I told your parents we'd be coming by for a visit."

"The system is running out of compute — wait, you told who!?"