The clone squad sat around the dining room table, early morning sunlight filtering in through the skylights. Marie was laying out placemats and cutlery for breakfast, Mallmart was winding down the enormous spiral staircase from the second floor, yawning loudly and still dressed in duck-patterned pajamas, while Kava had already finished her fourth portion of scrambled eggs.

  The goblin smacked her lips in disbelief. “This really comes out of a bird?”

  Several pieces of egg dripped from her clumsy mouth to the table, and Marie swiped them away quickly with a napkin. “Please, if you could just eat over the placement,” she said, somewhere between a desperate mumble and a whine.

  “It comes out of a chicken, if we’re being precise,” Richard said for his own amusement as he flipped through a newspaper, licking his finger then using it to tab to the main story. The paper was today’s copy, fresh off the press; it had been thrown like a rocket projectile at their doorstep by the local newsboy, whose normal route had been abandoned in favor of biking at full speed away from any potential villains. “Here’s the good stuff. Today’s headline.”

  He shook the paper on his knee and pulled it apart, so he could read the full spread.

  “Oh,” he paused. Pushed up his glasses. “Huh. That’s not great.”

  All eyes went to Richard. With the exception of when he was ranting on and on about Patrick Rosemary, he was otherwise not a very provocative man. So even an utterance as simple and innocent as that’s not great was enough to garner the room’s full attention. Even Mallmart stopped acting like a human noise machine and tip-toed quietly down the steps to the table.

  “What is it?” Momo asked, already pre-nervous.

  “Er.” Richard scratched the back of his neck, then turned the paper to face them.

  Momo’s eyes scanned the headline.

  Human Extinction Looms as Villains Become The Norm! Exclusive Interview with local drunk guy in the parking lot who says he “predicted this ages ago, but one listened.”

  Past the sensationalist headline, and the extremely unnecessary interview, the article went into detail listing the major villains—as in, most prolific magical serial killers—across the United States and Europe. There was a small mention to China, but apparently the Chinese government had planned for this, somehow, and clamped down on the violence before it could really begin. How things were going in other countries went unmentioned and ignored, not really surprising for a C-list San Francisco tabloid.

  Another interesting detail—it appeared that the nether demons were congregating en masse around these villains. Where death lingered, they followed.

  Momo swallowed, thinking first of all this stupid, unnecessary violence—then of Kyros, and Morgana—and then finally of her parents. She had frantically texted her brother almost immediately after everything went down to check on them, and he had insisted they were fine, just confused. Dad was suddenly able to telekinesis the TV remote; Mom was now a pyrotechnic, and regularly burning the morning eggs and toast.

  As for Daehyun–he had chosen the Bard class. He’d snapped Momo a picture of him in the mirror, looking utterly ridiculous in the medieval musician getup.

  “Can I see your phone again?” Momo mumbled to Richard. In absence of her own phone, she’d been borrowing his. With a grunt, he threw the Blackberry over.

  She pulled out the ridiculously old analog keyboard on the device, and sent off another text to Daheyun. Here’s the address to our new place. Bring Mom and Dad.

  After that, she tucked the phone in her pocket. Not like Richard will even notice. He hadn’t even remembered he had a phone until Momo found it in his briefcase.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Momo cleared her throat, and turned the newspaper toward the rest of the table, so they could get a read on the headline. She wanted them to really soak it in, because this was exactly the situation they were about to dive headfirst into. There would be no more dawdling around some McMansion roleplaying as the Brady Bunch.

  “Do you see these names?” she asked. The group nodded. “I want you all to study them. Use the internet to dig up as much information as possible on each of them, their powers, weaknesses—all of it.” When she could sense Marie growing frightened, she added, “It’s not that I’m going to send you to fight any of them directly, don’t worry. I think it would be a waste of time, but it’s highly likely we’re going to run into them.”

  It was an unfortunate fact of their plan. If they wanted to purify the nether demons as quickly as possible and turn them into a mini army to turn back on Kyros, then Momo and the rest of the clones had to travel to where they existed in big numbers. Which was dangerous, sure, but straightforward enough. Only there was one other problem—

  She had so far had zero success in teaching her Purify skill to the rest of the clones.

  If only Valerica was here.

  She knew from Valerica that there was a class skill that made it so someone could pass on skills. She also knew that theoretically she could make a skillbook. But despite being a god, she was still no professor—or writer—so she had zero idea how to start on either.

  But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.

  ***

  A week passed. The Lim parents moved into Momo Headquarters, and Momo shuffled them quickly into the basement. Not in the horror movie kidnapping kind of way, just in the sense that she did not want them to have to undergo the psychological mindfuck that would undoubtedly result from witnessing the clones.

  Gaining serendipitous superpowers was one thing, watching your daughter and her younger doppelganger fistfight in the living room was another.

  “Stop—moving—so—fast!”

  Momo ducked. Felt Mallmart’s punch fly past her, missing again—but it took a single strand of her hair with it. Momo grinned. “You’re getting better.”

  While Mallmart and her boxed, Marie spent most of her time online. In absence of any historical texts on magic, the scientist was forced to study the world wide web. Reddit. Twitter. Even Wikipedia, after it dropped its editorial standards. Plenty of like-minded people had set out to start categorizing magic, tying together personal stories with news articles and amateur recordings of people beating the shit out of each other.

  It was like nothing Momo had ever seen. She had experienced being thrown into a world of magic face-first before, sure, but she’d entered Alois so late in the game—she’d never gotten front row seats to its premier; its global introduction. It was like watching the birth of something. Like all of humanity was suddenly children again; messy and violent and excited, splashing around in the mud pits and the mines trying to strike gold.

  Momo could imagine for Marie, the scientist, this was like every birthday wish she’d ever had combined into one. Her dedication to the research was commendable, but it also meant that Momo had to regularly remind the girl to eat and shower. All that excitement without much movement had made her a little bit… err, cultured. In the yogurt, kombucha, bread left open in the middle of the kitchen, sort of way.

  “I think I did it,” Marie said to her one morning at five AM. It was clear from the circles under her eyes that she probably hadn’t slept all night, but her voice was as excited as Momo had ever heard it. The clone had knocked three times at Momo’s door at the break of dawn, and shuffled her into her own den, turning the bleary laptop to face her in the darkness of the room. “I found someone.”

  Momo blinked painfully as the light from the computer fried her eyeballs. She was never a morning person, and it appeared she wasn’t a morning goddess, either.

  Slowly, as her eyeballs adjusted, the headshot of a woman came into frame. She was blonde, with one of those overly trusting faces that told you she was a prime victim for phishing scams. She had a nametag pinned to her shirt, and she was wearing a baseball cap that said Luther Elementary. A teacher. An elementary school teacher, of all things.

  “She posted on Reddit last week for the first time,” Marie said breathlessly. “About how she’s been able to distill spells into books. She’s calling them mana textbooks. It hasn’t gained a lot of traction yet because she keeps getting downvoted. People aren’t believing her. But the pictures…”

  Marie scrolled up, her mouse wheel clicking softly.

  And there it was. A blurry photo of a composition notebook on a dining room table. A messy plate beside it; some kid eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the corner.

  Momo could understand very easily why no one would believe her. This photo could have been taken a year ago, when the world didn’t know magic, and it wouldn’t have even caused a blip of attention.

  But there was something Momo recognized.

  The skeletal koi fish, the swimming snakes—all dancing along the side of the notebook.

  Momo took Marie by the shoulders and shook her, a wide, insane smile spreading on Momo’s face.

  “Marie, you wonderful genius. I could kiss you.”

  Marie turned beat-red.

  “Please don’t.”

  Momo laughed, releasing her. This was it. This was the moment the tides changed.

  “Find her address. Now.”