“Try them…” Mallmart stuttered. “On you?”

  The ludicrous expression on the younger clone’s face tore a laugh out of Momo. Was this seriously how she looked when she was surprised? She really needed to work on her poker face if so. Or her whole poker body. Everything inch of her down to her feet was a dead give away. She could see Mallmart’s toes wiggling with anxiety inside her sneakers.

  “Yep. On me. It’s not like you can kill me, anyway,” Momo said, trying to assuage the clone’s anxiety. “And given the power differential between us, I don’t think any damage you can inflict will hurt more than an ant bite. So don’t worry about holding back.”

  Mallmart scoffed, her disbelief quickly replaced with her usual front of annoyance. She stretched her arms and cracked her knuckles.

  “An ant bite, huh?”

  Momo didn’t remember ever being this stubborn at her age—so opposed to the idea that someone could be stronger than her. At sixteen, Momo had assumed everyone was stronger than her. Mentally, physically. All of the above. It was practically her main worldview. Mallmart seemed allergic to the very suggestion of a hierarchy.

  Momo sniffled.

  I’m so proud of her.

  While Momo was preoccupied with a fit of almost parental emotion, Mallmart skidded towards her, taking her by surprise. Her right fist flew up to Momo’s chest with an impressive fluidity; her strike wasn’t coordinated, but it did have a ferocious speed to it. It was impressive, especially for a kid who had only earned her system five minutes ago.

  But to Momo, the clone’s impossibly fast punch looked like a slow motion film. Choppy frames of clay descending with the speed of a snail towards her collarbone. She took her sweet time in lifting her own hand to catch the punch, firmly capturing Mallmart’s fist in her own and sending a ricochet of power through Mallmart’s body.

  The clone balked, finding all the wind taken out of her punch.

  “How did you—” she sputtered.

  “You’re quick,” Momo said, then laughed lightly. “But you’re a bit too obvious.”

  Momo twisted Mallmart’s fist, causing the clone’s entire body to flip in the air. But—like Momo knew she would—Mallmart caught herself like a cat on all fours when she landed on the pavement, not a scratch on her. She glared up at Momo in grave offense nonetheless.

  “What was that for?” she seethed.

  “I saw a teachable moment,” Momo said with a shrug. When Mallmart’s expression just darkened further, Momo smiled innocently. “So, did you learn the lesson?”

  “What lesson? That I should have punched you harder?”

  Momo rolled her eyes.

  “No. That defense is much more important than offense.”

  “Oh. Of course. Thank you, Mr. Miyagi.”

  “Do you want to learn to master your skill set quickly or not?”

  Mallmart quieted. With the words hanging in the air, Momo began to circle the downed clone like a hawk, pacing slowly around her as Mallmart reluctantly got back on her feet, wiping the dust off her pants with a grunt.

  It went a bit beyond Momo’s natural instincts, this abrasive style of teaching—but, speaking of lessons, she had learned one invaluable one from Valerica.

  “I know you’re capable of hitting me,” Momo said. “You just have to figure out how.”

  Tell people their potential, then wait for them to find it.

  Momo smiled when she saw a glint of determination shine in Mallmart’s eyes. The clone rolled up her sleeves and stalked towards Momo, rolling her shoulders.

  “So, you’re saying,”—Mallmart swung again. This time, she did it mid-sentence. It was a good distraction technique, Momo would give her that—“You have a weakness?”

  Momo ducked, Mallmart’s fist going high. The clone tripped over her feet, stumbling a few steps before catching herself. But she didn’t sit with her failure for long. She whipped around almost instantly, a fist following the rest of her body’s motion.

  The attack slung for Momo’s gut, and this time it actually came close to hitting its mark.

  Emphasis on close.

  Momo grinned wolfishly.

  “There you go,” she said, side-stepping the attack with ease. “You’re starting to get it.”

  Mallmart stumbled forward, Momo’s body rippling to the side like a mirage. This time the clone caught herself with more aggravation. She had clearly expected that one to connect.

  “Getting what?” Mallmart snarled.

  “The element of surprise, darling.”

  Momo couldn’t help but laugh at herself once that word slipped out.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  She was getting a bit too into the method acting of it all.

  But hey, you either die the Momo, or live long enough to see yourself become the Valerica.

  Or however the saying went.

  “Okay, so you can punch fast,” Momo said, then tilted her head. “What else?”

  “What do you mean, what else? Punching fast is like, a whole powerset in itself.”

  Momo snorted. “Hardly.”

  With a huff, Mallmart raised her fists again, but instead of moving quickly to strike, she just just kept them there in the air—her eyebrows knotted tightly in thought. After a long moment, in which Momo was about to pepper her more with Valerica-isms, she finally broke the silence, uttering a command under her breath.

  “[Shadow Step]”

  The clone vanished. Momo’s eyes widened, recalling that spell from a very different source. Nia Nightsbane. It was a pretty straightforward incantation—one that allowed the woman to step through shadows. Only with the bright California sun shining over them, there weren’t many shadows to step through on the bridge. Momo glanced around, her eyes flicking over cars and debris and tied up demons, trying to find where the clone could have jumped to.

  Momo felt goosebumps climb suddenly up her neck.

  Something’s behind me.

  Instinctually Momo closed her eyes, and she saw Mallmart’s soul chain appear two steps behind her back. She could see the clone’s mana, wound like a spring, all concentrated into the palm of her hand, preparing to strike.

  Momo lifted her hand, and a wall of Nether rapidly burst from the ground at her back, erecting a barrier between her and the clone. The clone’s fist clashed against it with a resounding thunk, and Mallmart groaned out in pain like she’d punched a brick wall.

  “What the hell!” she cried out. “Not fair!”

  “Hey. Language.”

  Momo turned around with a small, beaming smile on her face. The wall of Nether disintegrated, and Mallmart shook her red, inflamed knuckles.

  “You used my own shadow to get behind me,” Momo said. She put a hand on her clone’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’ve never been more proud, Mini Me.”

  Mallmart blinked, briefly stunned by the praise. She didn’t let it show for long though, her cheeks reddening as her mask of indifference found its way back to her face.

  “Whatever. I still didn’t actually hit you,” Mallmart grumbled, then she brightened slightly as the reflection of a system screen fell over her eyes. “But I did seem to get a level up out of it. No thanks to all your taunting.”

  Momo laughed. “If you had hit me on your first level, I would have had to retire from godhood.” She was serious. That level of embarrassment would have been unrecoverable. She was sure her ego would have found a way to shrivel back down to mortal size.

  But Mallmart Momo was already eager to begin again, rolling up her sleeves with a new bounce in her step courtesy of the level up. Momo stopped her with a flash of her hand. Mallmart winced, newly traumatized and ready for another wall to erect itself in front of her, but Momo just laughed. “No wall,” she said. “It’s just not your turn anymore.”

  “Not my—huh?”

  Turning on her heel, Momo came to a stop in front of Marie.

  She grinned. “Your turn, lab coat.”

  Mallmart crossed her arms, not hiding her childish frustration as all the attention turned to the newly robe-clad Marie.

  Judging by her outfit, and the class name Chaos Scholar, Momo assumed Marie wouldn’t be particularly combat-focused. That was fine by her. Any class that was good at picking up other skills would be the most beneficial after all. Momo’s end goal was to teach them all Purify. But any bonus qualifications were worth unearthing either way.

  “I just want to see what skills you have,” Momo said softly, decidedly taking a gentler approach with the lab scientist. Despite being older than Mallmart, Marie was clearly less developed in the self confidence department—and Momo herself knew better than anyone how fragile a person could be at that stage. Careful handling was required.

  Marie nodded slowly, and then unexpectedly reached for Mallmart’s hand. The younger clone raised an eyebrow in consternation as light blue magic passed from Marie’s palm to her own, and the angry redness spread across Mallmart’s knuckles dulled.

  “Healing magic?” Momo said, a question in her voice.

  That seemed to be the obvious answer—but it also seemed too easy a conclusion. There was something else going on there. She could tell by the vibration in the mana. It was unstable.

  Marie meekly held up her own hand. It had started to redden in the exact same place.

  Momo’s eyes widened.

  “Mana transference,” she whispered. Mallmart’s injury had become Marie’s. “I’ve never seen that before. Do you feel the pain, too?”

  Marie shook her head back and forth.

  “No. For whatever reason, I can’t feel a thing,” she said. Her eyes had lit up with something that wasn’t quite the fear Momo was expecting—they were wide with something closer to feverish curiosity. “But I do get the sense that the damage is still being inflicted. The skin exhibits all the same qualities. Broken blood vessels and the like.”

  With a hum, Momo strolled up to her and silently asked to inspect her hand, which Marie obliged with a blush. Momo turned Marie’s palm over in her own, inspecting not the skin, but the mana lurking beneath it.

  The researcher was correct. The damage was there, but it had been contained.

  She had stolen Mallmart’s wound without any of the attached suffering.

  “Very interesting,” she whispered, returning the clone’s hand.

  “I have an inkling,” Marie began, then swallowed, as if unsure if she should divulge the information. “That this spell can also be used to transfer wounds from one person to another. As in, I could have taken her wound and put it on someone else. But that seems like a terrible thing to do—misplacing injuries like that.”

  “Or an incredibly powerful thing,” Momo returned, eyes wide. “Putting your wounds back on the enemies that gave you them. This is a potential bombshell of a skill, Marie.”

  Marie swallowed, flushing deeper under the compliment.

  “It certainly has, by my rough estimates, some potential. But there are limits to it,” the scientist said carefully, pushing up her glasses. “The skill requires that I understand how to inflict the wound in order to transfer it. The knowledge requirement is a critical part of the Scholar class. It’s only because I’ve studied blunt force trauma back in med school that I was able to undo the wound on her knuckles. If it was an injury inflicted by pure magic—is that the right technical term?—I’m not sure I’d be able to replicate it. I’ll have to do a lot of reading in the area in order to get up to snuff on it all.”

  Marie seemed the opposite of upset by the idea of doing ‘a lot of reading in the area.’ In fact, her monologue, which had started with a deep grimace, had ended with a tepid smile growing up her cheeks. The class was obviously the right fit.

  “Well, I’m not sure what books on magic they have here on Earth given that the system landed, well, this morning, but I’m sure we can find you some research subjects if nothing else,” Momo said. “So, any other skills you want to show off? Or should we move onto—”

  “Uh, Momo?”

  Mallmart’s hand had clasped tightly around Momo’s shoulder. Confused, Momo looked back at her, and found the younger clone uncharacteristically stricken. Following her gaze, she looked at the other side of the bridge, where the giant had long since vanished from. She expected there to be nothing there except a few fallen steel beams, but that was not the case.

  Goblin Momo was standing in the center of a scene of carnage.

  Black puddles of Nether goo splattered across the pavement.

  And in the goblin’s mouth, being chewed on absently while she picked at the black under her fingernails, was the unmistakable arm of a former Nether demon.

  “Oh boy,” Momo mumbled. “Maybe I should have let her go first.”

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