“She always says that.”

  “I do not,” Momo refuted with annoyance in her voice. Her former mentee was very quickly becoming her biggest adversary. “Also—not helpful.”

  Younger Momo crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow provocatively. “Then tell me how to be helpful, Big M,” she said mockingly.

  Momo glared at her.

  “Passing my self confidence on to you was a huge mistake,” she muttered.

  Younger Momo grinned.

  But the mouthy clone had a point. With Momo’s team assembled, there was only one thing left to do: dig into the heart of the plan. As quickly and painlessly as possible, to minimize the amount of deaths on Earth, and take the fight where it needed to be.

  To Kyros.

  But these kinds of things take time. No team is born overnight.

  As the gears in Momo’s mind turned, the clones—and Richard—began to talk amongst themselves. She was drawn out of her thoughts as Goblin Momo’s voice got louder, and the red-painted woman began debating fiercely with Young Momo.

  “Kava vaka ova vaka kava kava!”

  “Girl, seriously? You just let him do that to you?”

  “Kav, kava kava.”

  “That’s unbelievable. You really need to break up with him. Like, stat.”

  Momo groaned, staring at Young Momo and Goblin Momo as they conversed animatedly. Well, conversed wasn’t actually the best word.

  “Momo,” Momo said, and god—they were going to have to get nicknames soon. “Stop pretending you know what she’s talking about when you can’t understand a word out of her mouth. It’s rude, and culturally insensitive.”

  Goddess Momo scoffed. “I’m being rude? I haven’t even said anything.”

  Momo slapped her hand over her forehead.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “Oh, ok.”

  Actually, Momo decided, the time for nicknames was now.

  “Alright,” she said, clapping her hands together and drawing the group’s full attention. “First step. Before we get into the details, we’re going to decide on a naming scheme, so we know what to call each other. Young Momo, what do you want to be called?”

  Young Momo hopped from foot to foot, excited. She responded way too eagerly with, “Ooh, can I choose a spy name? Like they do in the movies?”

  “Sure. Go for it,” Momo sighed. A loud rattling noise rang out in the distance. Momo saw smog lift up from a nearby building. Wonderful. “Come on, we don’t have all day.”

  “Okay. Fine. Hurry the creative process,” Mallmart Momo muttered. She narrowed her eyes in focus, then said, definitely, “I’ll be… Bald Eagle.”

  Momo blinked at her, almost stunned by the stupidity of what she just heard.

  “We’ll come back to you,” she said, unwilling to hear her out.

  She turned to Goblin Momo, who was currently chewing on an exposed red wire she’d found on the ground; her eyes flashed around like an alarmed animal.

  Momo gently got her attention by snapping her fingers. The goblin stopped chewing on the wire momentarily, quirking her head in Momo’s direction.

  “How about you?” Momo said. “Have a name in mind?”

  The goblin made a low grumble sound that seemed to echo from its stomach. The creature—or, wait, person? Was creature dehumanizing?—seemed to communicate primarily through a clicking mechanism located deep in its belly, and supplemented by a pretty rudimentary tongue that just involved the sounds ka and va.

  Momo twisted her lips, frustrated. I’m a literal god now. How am I not able to just understand every language? This seems ridiculous. There must be a way.

  “Kava kava,” the goblin said, then continued chewing.

  Momo nodded. “Beautiful. Simple. Pronounceable,” she said, then turned to the younger clone. “Follow Kava’s lead, alright?”

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  Bald Eagle, pending a better name, grumbled to herself.

  Momo turned to the scientist clone, who had remained silent up until now. She had been playing with the fraying edges of her lab coat, her fingers trembling, chewing anxiously on her ballpoint, and looking around occasionally like she was weighing the idea of bolting towards the nearest airport. Momo couldn’t blame her. It was probably exactly how she looked when Valerica dragged Momo into her world.

  But when Momo’s eyes landed on her, she immediately went rigid like a startled cat. She blinked several times in terror, her eye and lip twitching in unison. Momo wondered how much sleep this woman had gotten in the last month.

  “You can— can call me Marie, if you’d like,” she said nervously. “Like Marie Curie.”

  “Like the chemist?” Bald Eagle asked eagerly.

  “God damn it,” Momo agonized. “Why am I referring to you as Bald Eagle in my head?”

  Bald Eag—Mallmart Momo giggled. “Because it’s a great spy name. That’s why.”

  “Can I go now?” Goddess Momo asked. “Also, you don’t need a codename for me. My name isn’t even Momo. It’s Ariana. I’m just playing the part in the television show.”

  Momo didn’t have the words to describe how confused she was becoming.

  But what was incredibly clear was that this actress/goddess version of herself—if it was even herself—did not want to be there. She also had a bit of an attitude problem. Not great qualities in a potential Earth-protection force teammate.

  “You know what, sure. You can go,” Momo said, biting down on her lip. The actress looked visibly relieved. “I think I have one more charge left in this spell.”

  “Thank god. Bye weirdos,” Ariana said.

  With a snap of her fingers, Momo took Ariana out of existence. Then, with a sigh, she pressed her fingers to her mana gem again. She tried to hold an image in her mind of her ideal teammate—someone strong; someone capable; someone not annoying.

  “Not sure what your codename is supposed to be,” Richard interjected, punching Momo on the shoulder. His voice sounded a bit strained. “But I think we’ve got a problem, Boss. Might have to delay that summoning more versions of yourself thing.”

  The pavement shook suddenly underfoot, as if a giant had stamped its foot down onto the streets of San Francisco. Momo’s eyes snapped open, and she grabbed the younger Momo’s arm to hold her balance. The pair of them looked up, toward the Golden Gate Bridge, to find exactly that. A giant. Only it wasn’t the kind of mythical creature from the fairytales. It was a teenager.

  A huge, three-story building tall teenager.

  And he was currently gripping the top of the Golden Gate Bridge like it was a toy in a playset. Nether Demons circled his head like a cloud of malignant flies, hissing and snapping, and he was using the bridge’s iron beams as makeshift clubs to swat them away, sending sparks and twisted metal flying with each swing.

  And sending every car and pedestrian flying into the ocean.

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  RANKING: #4/#808,437 (San Francisco Bay Area)

  “Oh, for the love of—” Momo sighed. “Ok, you know what. Glass half full mindset.”

  She grabbed younger Momo’s wrist, and started dragging her forward, toward the bridge.

  “You wanted a lesson plan? Okay,” she said, feeling a bit insane. She should never, ever become a mother. “Let’s start with some real field work.”

  ***

  A bed of Nether swirled beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, stretching out like a dark sea of sticky webs for miles. Trapped within its black strands were both cars and people—all caught as if glued mid-flight. They couldn’t leave, but more crucially, they couldn’t drown. They were just suspended there.

  Above the muck of captured civilians, the bridge hung in two broken sections. One side remained intact, with cars parked in tense silence as a god, or maybe an angel, or perhaps just a girl with stark white hair, held her own against a colossal, webbed-up giant pinned to the other side of the bridge. The giant squirmed in his sticky prison like an entrapped moth, held fast in her webbing.

  “God. She’s amazing,” Marie whispered, leaning in toward Mallmart Momo as they watched their leader flit around the sky. “I can’t believe I—we? Us? Are capable of that.”

  Mallmart Momo couldn’t disagree. She got goosebumps just seeing the way Momo handled herself. The way she flew through the air like a bird; saved hundreds of people without even having to really think about it. God, not to mention she could produce enough magic in a few seconds to web an entire city in black goo.

  It was inspiring—and it was also kind of enraging. Seeing all Momo was capable of and knowing that at the end of the day, she, herself, was just an insignificant clone in the grand scheme of things. One of the least impressive variations by a mile. Even Ariana had been an actress. Marie was a scientist. What was she? A minimum wage employee.

  A minimum wage employee with a smoking habit.

  She curled her hands into fists, and shrugged. “I guess she’s alright.”

  “Just alright? You’re not very fair with her.”

  “Fair with her? She’s the one who dragged us into all of this dangerous mess and still hasn’t explained a thing. I mean, she literally placed us on a floating piece of steel with a bunch of monsters and said—I’ll be right back. Stay safe. Have fun.”

  Mallmart Momo turned around and gestured to their surroundings. The two of them, plus the goblin, stood at the edge of the broken bridge, surrounded on all sides by dozens of subdued Nether Demons—black, writhing figures without faces or mouths. Momo had tied them up so they couldn’t move, but that didn’t mean they were any less terrifying. The kind of sounds emitting from their mouths were not human.

  “Well, she did give us one instruction,” Marie said, then frowned, remembering what it was. “Purify them. With an accompanying hand gesture.”

  Marie expanded her palm forward, then crinkled her fingers, mouthing kapow.

  “But none of us can do magic,” Mallmart groaned. “So her plan is useless.”

  The strange man in the suit of armor who had been trailing Momo finally cleared his throat, breaking his five-minute stare-down with one of the Nether Demons. Apparently bored of that game, he now loomed over Mallmart Momo, fixing her with a gaze so piercing it sent a chill straight to her bones. His expression held an unsettling intensity, as though he were sizing her up with every flicker of his steely eyes.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Mallmart Momo noticed Marie make a strange, squeaking noise. The scientist flailed her hand in front of her, as if attempting to swipe something away from an invisible screen. A moment later, her entire body began to blur, and her clothes shifted, replaced by long, flowing robes that billowed around her like those of a magician.

  Mallmart craned her head in confusion. “What the hell—”

  Then a blue screen fell over her eyes.

  Welcome to the System.

  Please start by picking a class.