Curse Kiki’s Expert level in All Shall Be Revealed. She could see my Status now and it was obvious my demonstrated abilities did not match what she could see.

  “There is an explanation,” I said.

  Kiki looked at me expectantly. “You gonna tell me or what?”

  “I choose what,” I said, which made her pout and, I kid you not, actually stomp her foot. It was so adorable I figured I ought to toss her a bone. “Okay fine. My Status is a lie. Happy?”

  “No,” she said, still pouty. “How?”

  I sighed. We didn’t have time for this. Over Kiki’s shoulder I could see Tiff coming back. Well, over her head, really; Kiki was quite petite, or at least her frame was.

  “How about this?” I said, “I promise that all shall be revealed, but not now. We’re kind of in the middle of something, remember?”

  “When?” Kiki demanded, leaning forward and scowling up at me, arms folded across her chest. Well, under it. Her arms weren’t long enough to manage across comfortably.

  “Give him a break, Kiki,” Tiff said as she rejoined us. “I could hear you whining all the way over there.”

  Kiki scowled at me for a tad longer then exhaled and dropped her arms. “Fiiiine. But if you won’t answer that, can you at least tell me why you keep looking up?”

  “No idea what you’re talking about,” I said, which earned me another scowl. I was clearly lying. I had been checking the skies often, and I had a good reason to.

  But man, Kiki was being a real pill. Was it because she was worried about possible fallout from switching sides? Or was it because I’d given Tiff some neat stuff. Maybe she thought I was excluding her on purpose by not giving her a cool item too. Would Kiki chill if I gave her something shiny? It’d be nice to see her relax a bit and enjoy being part of the good guys for once.

  Hmmm, what would be good for her?

  I had a few prototype items lying around in storage she might like. I could give her a shield ring or a mana battery ring, either of those would be useful to her. It would be better if I had something specifically designed to work with her abilities, but I’d have to make her something later. For now, a ring should pacify her. Maybe I was giving women jewelry too much, but they’re such convenient items to enchant. Ah screw it. Kiki wouldn’t read anything into me giving her a ring, would she? But which one? Meh, better be safe.

  “Kiki,” I said, “I’m sorry that I don’t have a special item prepared for you either, but in the meantime, as a thank you for switching sides, and a token of friendship, please accept these.”

  I handed her the pair of rings and she took them with uncharacteristic silence. While she checked their Statuses, I had other business.

  “Where are Chuck and Greg?” Two hands went up from inside the crowd of Players who’d been pretending not to watch us.

  “He’s not your teacher,” Kiki snapped, glancing up momentarily from the rings to scowl at her boys. “Put your stupid hands down and come over here, dumbasses.”

  I supposed there was all kinds of leadership.

  I could barely recognize the two goons who’d inadvertently taught me my first new skill, Affinity Control, way back on Day One. Those cocky bros who’d tried hitting on Sigrid and Jane were gone, replaced by a couple of guys whose confidence was all but shot. I could only assume it was a byproduct of Kiki’s leadership style, what else could have shattered the bluster of these two egomaniacs?

  “So,” I said, “I wasn’t gonna say anything at first but, well, it has really been bugging me. Chuck, that weapon you’re using. Can I see it?”

  Chuck blinked at me, then reached down and drew a long, thin rapier, much like the one Jane used before she upgraded to the laser sword version.

  I double-checked its Status to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I wasn’t. It was a nice weapon, but...

  “Be honest: are you using this because it’s got the best stats of the weapons you’ve found so far?”

  He nodded like it was a dumb question and I nodded back.

  “Right, try this on for size.”

  I produced that huge, awful, anime-style sword I got from a prize box after helping Achmed with his quest against Ruka and her ants, and handed it to Chuck. He reached out to take it, then realized he already had a sword in his hand, and kept looking back and forth between the ludicrously large one and the painfully thin one as if trying to figure out how to hold both. Did he forget he had two hands?

  I sighed and reached out with my other hand to take the rapier and, his right hand now liberated, he took the big honking sword.

  “Go on, take a few swings.”

  He shrugged and made a few lame slices through the air, then a smile crept over his face and he swung it with a bit of pep behind it, then he outright giggled and started doing crazy sword katas with it.

  “Hey Mikey, I think he likes it,” one of his N3m3s1s teammates shouted and some people laughed.

  Chuck started out with abilities that made him a fast healer, a fast mover, and a frigging Werewolf. Plus the sword skill. Between then and now, he had gained another Gift making him extra-strong, but mostly all he’d done was raise his sword skill and fleet-footedness. For someone quick on their feet like him the rapier might have seemed a decent choice, as it was for Jane, but Chuck’s fencing style was all wrong for that approach. He wasn’t optimized. His huge physical strength boost combined with being able to dash around a battlefield actually made a massive two foot wide blade a much better choice. Plus, did you see how happy it made him?

  His unoptimized fighting didn’t stop with the sword. The worst travesty was that his amazing shapeshifting power was still only at Competent. Criminal negligence.

  “You like it?” I said. He nodded without missing a beat of his kata. “Keep it, it’s yours.”

  He stopped swinging the sword. “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s a nice sword, but I’ll never use it. It belongs in the hands of someone who can appreciate it, and you clearly do. Trigger its first power.”

  He checked its Status and his jaw dropped. Then the grin was back as ice began crackling from the hilt up to the tip of the blade, totally encasing it. “You’re really just giving it to me?”

  “Well,” I said, “there is one condition.”

  Chuck’s eyes narrowed and his jaw set at the mention of strings being attached to my gift of the big honking sword. “What?” he said warily.

  “Only use the sword half the time. It’s what you do best right now, but it’s not all you can do. The other half of the time, use that awesome power you have but never seem to use.”

  “How do you?” he said, then as soon as the words came out he figured it out. “Right. You can see, like Kiki.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s why you tried to kill me the first time you met me, remember?”

  He winced, then saw my smile and smiled back. “You think Bushy Tailed is that good?”

  “Hell yes.”

  I knew it was good. I’d followed Chuck around for the longest time waiting for him to use it, but he never did. He just kept swinging his thin little sword. Then, one night, just as I was about to give up, he used it. After that, so could I. Oh man. If I thought turning into an elf felt weird...

  For someone like Chuck, it was an awesome power. Having the option to wade into a fight and run rings around the enemy either while swinging a stupidly large sword or as a big scary Werewolf was terrific. Not to mention that the impressive physical speed and strength of his shapeshifted form were also amplified by his gifts.

  Hell, in lycanthrope form he could still be swinging the sword if he didn’t want to render people to shreds with his teeth and claws. Not needing a weapon is always nice to have in your pocket. Either way he could let loose, safe in the knowledge that whatever he chose to use he wouldn’t have to worry about taking a few scratches himself because he’d heal them quick enough.

  To let him go on not using Bushy Tailed would be criminal.

  He seemed strangely reluctant. Ashamed, even.

  “I’ve always been a bit...I don’t know if I want people to see,” he said meekly. “Plus it feels weird, and besides, I can do a lot of damage with a sword just fine.”

  “I’ve been telling you all along it was a great power, man, you just need to level it up,” Greg said. “I can’t believe you’re scared to use it, you big pussy.”

  An awful lot of eyes shot towards Greg when he said that. All of Team Spice. Half of Team Player. One of Team N3m3s1s. None of the looks were what you’d call friendly.

  Pussy is one of those words, you know? It originally meant cat, and over time the meaning extended to refer to girls in an innocent way. Pussycats. Eventually the meaning got stretched to refer to female genitalia before taking on the misogynistic use Greg had just employed: weak, cowardly, and not masculine. I’ve always found it puzzling how euphemisms for female genitals are considered so much more offensive than those for men’s, but that’s the patriarchy for you. Weaponized language is an insidious thing.

  Here’s some random trivia for you, too: back in the 19th century a group of sisters had a vaudeville act called Do You Want To See My Pussy? They’d stand on stage in a row and teasingly raise their skirts to reveal real live kittens hiding between their thighs. Pretty edgy for Victorian sensibilities.

  Anyway, Greg may have raised some hackles with his word choice, but nobody chose to call him on it. Bigger fish and all that.

  Chuck seemed unable to decide whether or not to use Bushy Tailed so he turned to Kiki with a questioning look. She nodded once, firmly, decisively. Dang, but she had them well-trained. He took a deep breath, then his bones crunched and his skin stretched and he sprouted a thick coat of fur as his body grew larger in every direction. His head stretched and his face extended into a snout and his ears grew and his teeth multiplied and sharpened as everything about him took on a distinctly canine appearance. And yes, the tail he grew was quite bushy indeed.

  Wolfman Chuck slouched there looking extremely uncomfortable, like we were all about to smack him on the nose with a rolled up magazine and call him bad. Then from within his team someone said, “Whoah! That’s so cool,” and another said, “Dude, have you been able to do this all along?”

  Chuck turned back into a human; it was a much faster, albeit less impressive transformation. Thankfully, his clothes changed with him and we were spared that horror movie moment when the shapeshifter’s left naked or wearing tatters after shifting shape back.

  “Think you can handle learning to fight as a kick-ass werewolf?” I said.

  Chuck looked around sheepishly, then upon seeing the supportive looks on his teammates faces he grinned wolfishly. “It’s a deal,” he said. “And, uh, thank you Daniel. You’re actually a pretty good guy. Sorry about all that stuff before.”

  “Thanks,” I said, holding out his rapier.

  “Nah,” he said. “I don’t need that anymore.”

  I pushed it toward him. “It’s a good sword. You take it and give it to someone else who could use it.”

  “Yeah, I can do that,” he said, and took the rapier.

  He and Greg started to make their way back to the group. “Not so fast, Greg.”

  They stopped in their tracks and Greg slowly turned around. He had a half-hopeful, half-worried look on his face.

  “About that sword you’re using...”

  You can guess the rest. Greg’s starting abilities gave him improved resilience and resistance to poisons, as well as a power that increased the damage he dealt depending on how much mana he pumped into it. He walked away from me with a much more suitable weapon for his abilities and style: a scimitar that could exude several different types of toxin. In return, I hoped another lucky Player in the city would find themselves given the perfectly good sword Greg had been using but didn’t need anymore. Everyone gets stronger.

  Two more members of Kiki’s team were looking at me strangely. One was Derek, the guy whose dangerous shadow ropes had both been a pain to fight against and had also served me well as the basis of several cool synthesized powers, like my razor floss. With their unwitting tutorial in Affinity Control, Chuck and Greg had started me down the path that led me to where I was, even if they didn’t know it. I figured I owed them something. Derek...not so much. He was also the guy who killed me with a thrown knife to the heart. Sure, he’d been aiming for Jane at the time and it was my own fault I got in the way, but I still didn’t owe that back-stabbing arse a thing.

  The other one giving me a strange look was Kiki herself, fists clenched and eyes blazing at me. When I made eye contact she stormed over to me, like she was waiting for me to notice her as her cue to start moving.

  Uh oh. What did I do this time?

  Up next: You are mistaken