I feel like, at least personally speaking, if I had stolen someone's agency and forced them into servitude to my will via methods I don't even particularly understand, I probably wouldn't let them stand next to me while I sleep. It just seems like a stupid idea to leave yourself vulnerable and guarded only by someone who hates you. The fact that this strategy has been working out for Melpomene anyway makes it all the more annoying. I guess she just has that much faith in the ability of the Antipathy to screw somebody over.

  It's not a huge deal, at the end of the day. My ability to control my own perception of time means I never have to worry about getting bored (at least not from waiting around and doing nothing). It's just that I would very much prefer to be doing something! I no longer need to sleep, my executive function issues are cured, and so I could hypothetically be using this time to do just about anything so long as it doesn't conflict with Melpomene's orders. I could be sparring with Anath, hanging out with Thea, or maybe even exploring our local fragment of the Dark World. But no, I'm stuck here watching a draconic demon queen sleep in the nude.

  I suppose there was a period in my life where I would have considered this an optimal use of my time, but even if it hadn't gotten old after the first few hours, I honestly don't want to be attracted to a woman whom I hate this much. I will have to regretfully inform my internet friends that servitude to a hot crazy lady is significantly sexier in theory than in practice. Attraction doesn't do me any good outside of being a very inefficient fuel source anyway. What am I even going to do if I get horny? Masturbate with the genitals and privacy I don't actually have?

  As inefficient as it is, though, I am burning all of my attraction as fuel, if for no other reason than the fact that I am very, very low on it. Ever since that big fight with the magical girls, my energy—

  My power reserves are currently at 22%.

  —yes, thank you, my energy has been steadily dropping. No matter what I do, no matter which memories I try to relive, it just isn't as effective as emotions generated naturally in the moment. Unfortunately, I can't really generate any strong emotions when I have absolutely nothing to do.

  And that's the funny thing: you'd think that, as a robot, the more I do stuff the more power I would use. And that is true, but unlike most robots I am not powered by an electrical battery or some other ever-dwindling fuel source. I am powered by my own soul, and the things my soul feels, and it's really hard to feel much of anything when I'm just waiting around, chatting with people, or sparring a bit. Yes, real combat is the biggest drain I have on my energy reserves, but it's also the biggest gain. If I want to stop running out of power, I need to put myself in situations that are as emotionally impactful as combat but not as draining. And while previously I was accomplishing that due the stress of, y'know, being turned into a motherfucking slave robot, that unfortunate reality has somehow lost a little bit of its luster. Maybe I should piss Melpomene off enough to get her to start beating the crap out of me again. That might work.

  …Oh no. I'm becoming codependent.

  That terrifying realization only manages to fill my reserves a little bit before a thunderous explosion rings out, shaking the walls of the castle. My mind flicks into overdrive, calculating the origin point of the noise as Melpomene shoots up out of bed, her wild eyes staring at me as if she expected me to be the source of the disturbance. Unfortunately, the real answer is far worse.

  "That came from Thea's lab," I report.

  "Damn it!" Melpomene swears, leaping out of bed and summoning clothes onto her body before unlocking the door and rushing down the hall. I follow her, doing calculations on the structural integrity of the castle (it's fine) and determining the likely force of the explosion to have caused a blastwave like that (substantially less than some of the spells Thea hit people with a week ago, so hopefully she's fine too). Soon enough, we rush down the stairs and burst into the lab; inside, we find a sheepish-looking Thea staring at a hole in one of her walls leading to the adjacent room.

  "Thea!" Melpomene shouts. "Are you alright?"

  "WHAT!?" Thea asks loudly.

  "Oh my god," Melpomene mutters to herself, grabbing Thea and quickly checking her over for injuries.

  "OH!" Thea says, squirming a bit as Melpomene grabs all over her. "HAHA! DON'T WORRY, I'M FINE! I THINK I JUST HURT MY EARS A LITTLE! BUT HEY, GUESS WHAT! I FOUND OUT WHAT SOME OF THESE ARTIFACTS DO!"

  Nanaya and Anath rush into the room at this point, Melpomene practically pushing Thea in Nanaya's direction. The red mage heals her without a word.

  "Oh! Thanks! Anyway, check this out—"

  "Thea," Nanaya admonishes. "You punched a hole in part of the castle."

  "Yeah, that's crazy, right?" Thea beams. "The stone this place is made out of is super durable. I'm so curious to learn how the Antipathy made these cartridges."

  "Cartridges?" Melpomene prompts.

  "Yeah! Those Stormbreaker thingies we picked up. They're cases full of ammunition, basically. I mean, I guess 'cartridge' isn't really an accurate term, since they aren't bullets. I guess they're like… vials? Check it out!"

  Thea heads over to one of the thin boxes we grabbed from the Antipathy ruins, this one dismantled on her worktable. The inside of it is full of what looks like small glass tubes, each filled with a deep red liquid.

  "Is that…" Nanaya asks.

  "Hyperconcentrated red magic, yeah," Thea nods. "And I mean hyperconcentrated. If you crack one of these puppies it'll all burst out and disperse into the atmosphere fast enough to make a shockwave. But yeah, this end here deploys a little injector port—oh, maybe that's what we should call them, injectors—and you stick it into one of the guns, and then the gun shoots murder death lasers. You know, Antipathy stuff."

  One of my memory-trawling subroutines pings me, having found a relevant association. I know what these are. I even have an intake port.

  "No need to workshop new names, I recognize these things," I announce. "In English, the acronym would be LCI—Liquid Cardinal Injector. They're designed for both mechanical and personal use."

  "Personal use?" Thea repeats. "What, like injecting one of these into your own bloodstream or something? That sounds like a terrible idea!"

  "It probably is," I agree. "I'm under the impression that wouldn't stop the Antipathy, though."

  "…True enough," Thea admits.

  "I could see it working for an incarnate form," Melpomene hums. "They're as magical as they are biological. A direct influx of power like that could probably be used in a spell without too much negative consequence."

  "Shouldn't magic in that kind of concentration turn to crystal?" Nanaya frowns.

  "Yes!" Thea nods. "Normally. I'm not sure how they prevented crystal formation here—my best guess is that nothing in the tube was capable of acting as a seed—but the end result is even more space-efficient than crystal storage, if dramatically more volatile."

  "And you have a weapon capable of fielding this ammunition?" Nanaya prompts, staring at the hole in the wall.

  "Oh yeah, several. All but the one are still fixer-uppers, but I'm sure I can get them working in no time!"

  "It is terribly ironic and terribly infuriating that despite all the effort the Earth Guardians went through to stop us from getting our hands on dangerous artifacts, they somehow managed to destroy all the cultural data and leave us only with the guns," Melpomene scowls.

  "Uuugh, I know!" Thea groans. "I was really looking forward to having some Antipathy TV shows to watch!"

  Yeah, and I was really looking forward to actually having something to do. The data in the one tablet I interfaced with is all too corrupted for me to repair, but I probably could have repaired it if I had all those other tablets, presumably with similar data structures and copies of the installed files. But now I can't even crunch numbers when I'm waiting around. I'm tempted to do some music composition, but I would probably have to play the music out loud to make sure it sounds right and the thought of that is almost as mortifying as the possibility that I'll never get out of here.

  "There is some good news, though," Thea announces. "While it's hardly as much of a cultural goldmine as everything we lost, a good chunk of the stuff we recovered isn't weaponry. That huge thing I insisted on lugging home? I was totally right to. I'm pretty sure it's some kind of hyper-advanced 3D printer, so that's going to be awesome as hell if I can get it working."

  "That does sound awesome," I agree evenly, despite the fact that I am internally freaking out with joy. Thea can already make some insane stuff, I can't imagine what she could pull off with something like that. With Melpomene's permission, I could probably transfer information on my schematics to Thea, and if I transfer information on my schematics to Thea, she could probably build all kinds of crazy things for me. Maybe she could even figure out how to free me! Now I just have to figure out a way to get Thea to ask about my schematics in front of Melpomene without actually doing any of this on purpose. Uh. Hmm. Well, still, this is super cool.

  "Do you need any help with the software?" I ask. "I've been bored out of my mind lately and it's literally killing me."

  "That's not a joke, is it?" Anath speaks up for the first time since we all gathered here. She's quiet, nervous, twitchy. Definitely in the middle of a depressive episode.

  "What do you mean?" I ask, because it's actually pretty hard for me to complain directly while everyone is in the room.

  "Well, you're always using up magic, right? It's basically like always being in incarnate form. So having nothing to do would burn you out pretty fast, wouldn't it?"

  Thanks, Anath. I can explain now.

  "Yeah, I maybe might be slowly running out of power," I admit as nonchalantly as possible. "But I'm always in a state of nearly running out of power, I'm pretty used to it. I've never even hit fifty percent charge level. I'm a sad, sad cellphone, whose owner always forgets to plug me in at night and so has to rapidly charge between spare moments of the day."

  The girls all stare at me, varying degrees of concern on their faces.

  "…What's your current charge level?" Melpomene asks.

  "Twenty-two percent," I report to my master.

  "What charge level were you at when we fought together?" Thea asks, her eyebrows furrowed with worry.

  "Around thirty percent-ish," I answer. "Although those 'Gift of Terror' spells you gave me worked as an extra temporary reserve for a good while, so that was really useful."

  "And what happens when you reach zero percent power?" Nanaya asks.

  "I dunno. I die, probably. I mean, I'd definitely lose consciousness, and I don't think I'd be able to dream, so I wouldn't have any way of feeling more emotions and therefore no way to get more power. …Although, I do have an LCI intake port, so maybe you can just inject me with magic Jamba Juice."

  "Mmm. Do we have enough of those vials to test it, Thea?"

  "Oh! Yeah, I mean, we even have some blue vials, so those will probably work extra well. You know, assuming they're still functioning properly after the apocalypse. Which they should be! I just, y'know, don't really know a whole lot about them yet."

  "Eh, let's try it," I shrug. "The worst thing that could happen is that I explode and die."

  "But that's terrible!" Thea gapes.

  "Kidding! Sorry, the years of suicidal depression have left my sense of humor a little morbid."

  Again, I get The Looks?.

  "…Well, you're doing better now, right?" Thea asks softly, a pleading look in her eyes. And well, it's an easy question to answer, since I have no choice but to say yes.

  Although… huh. That isn't actually a lie, is it? I am doing better. Even counting the motherfucking slavery, I am doing better. Damn. Robo-antidepressants got hands.

  The more I think about this, the more fucked up I realize it is. I mean, I kind of have friends now. Like, actual real in-person friends whom I can touch. I've been hugged for the first time in years. Everyone around me addresses me by my real first name (at least most of the time) and some of them are even consistently happy to see me.

  And I'm a robot. Just a straight-up actual battlebot that can jump over buildings, beat superhumans in hand-to-hand combat, and do complex physics calculations inside my mind in milliseconds. I can cast spells, at least sometimes. I can get blasted through a brick wall and stand up without a scratch on me. I'm possibly the last remaining cultural repository of a dead civilization. I'm awesome. I've been worried about this for a while, but it really is true: if I were offered a path to freedom that involved returning to my old body, I would not take it. I'd actually rather continue fighting children.

  I'm a bad person.

  My power reserves have increased to 23%.

  "Yeah, I'm doing a lot better," I answer, and from everyone else's perspective there was no pause to think about it and no hesitation in my voice. Thea manages a soft smile.

  "Well, that's good at least. Are you sure you want to test these vials for us?"

  "Yeah, I'm sure I'll be fine," I confirm.

  "Okay, let me find one of the blue ones," she says, rummaging around the mess of her workshop. "Ah! Here we go."

  She hands me a blue LCI and I accept it, opening up the plating on my left thigh that covers my intake port. A swift jab inserts the LCI and locks it in place, part of my mind opening up to interface with the device. A quick handshake and query informs me that this full vial holds about an equivalent of eleven percent power reserves. Which… wow. That's a lot. More than I tend to expend or gain in a fight.

  "It seems to be working," I report. "Drinking the Gatorade now."

  I tell the LCI to start dispensing its payload and watch as the blue liquid drains out of the vial and into my systems. It strikes me, suddenly, that I shouldn't really be surprised about the whole 'bad person' thing. I can blame my depression for the fact that I've never contributed anything of value to anyone, but it doesn't change the end result. I spent my whole life disappointing the people around me, myself included. The fact that being a child abuser is a step up is only strange without that context. I'm hurting people more than I used to, but there are things I'm good at now. Ways I bring value. Of course I would cling to a life like this if it could help fool me into believing I am helping as much as I'm hurting. I… wow. Let's chalk up liquid sadness as 'not a good recreational drug.' I burn the feelings away.

  My power reserves have increased to 34%.

  "Well, that wasn't the most pleasant experience but it definitely worked," I tell the others. "I imagine the yellow juice will be like mania in a bottle, though."

  Anath's eyes go wide.

  "Gimme!" she insists, holding her arms out and stepping forward.

  "No!" everyone else shouts, moving to hold her back.

  "We only have one case of yellows anyway," Thea says. "To no one's surprise, the Antipathy didn't use happiness very much."

  "How much power did that get you, Luna?" Nanaya asks.

  "About eleven percent, which is pretty good," I admit. "Most combat spells seem to take one or two percent to cast and three or four percent to absorb with my shields."

  "So it's several spells' worth of magic all at once?" Nanaya says thoughtfully. "That is quite a significant amount of magic. However, we don't have enough of these to use them as a reliable source of power for you, I'd imagine. We will need a different strategy to keep you engaged."

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  "Then I need stuff to do," I tell her simply. "I feel like I'm finally capable of being productive for the first time in my life but I no longer have any way to make use of it."

  "You could work as my assistant!" Thea interjects quickly. "Um, you know, if you want to."

  "Sure! I can probably help with that," I nod. Yes yes yes let's do that! I mean, I don't actually know if it'll get me any more energy since working with Thea probably won't make me sad, but it honestly does sound kind of fun.

  "Considering the fights you've participated in so far, I'm personally inclined to deploy you for solo missions," Nanaya says. "You, Melpomene, and I can all navigate Dark World fragments without assistance. As long as we can keep the Earth Guardians occupied, we could potentially split up to cover several different fragments and start to assemble a more complete picture of the Dark World."

  Melpomene gives Nanaya an odd look, and even I am a bit leery about the suggestion, as much potential freedom as it might grant me.

  "I doubt I could fight off the entire local Earth Guardian squad if they happen to run into me," I point out. "Aren't they going to try and capture me and yeet me into another dimension or something?"

  "Your offense is sorely lacking," Nanaya agrees. "There's no way you would beat them in a fight. I am, however, confident in your ability to escape a fight. You have considerable spell resistance and exceptional dodging capabilities. Additionally, most Earth Guardians will not follow you into a Dark World portal. Only the young ones could do so safely, and considering her injuries Minerva is almost certainly currently out of action. You could handle Veritas and Aurora alone."

  "Wait, what?" I ask. "This is the first I'm hearing about only kids being able to go into Dark World portals. How does that work?"

  "This happens faster if you're older," Thea says, holding out her mutated hand. "We don't know why. Nothing really prevents the older girls from going into portals—it's not like they'd instantly transform into a werewolf if they're above a certain age or something—but being an Earth Guardian is kind of a full-time job, and since no one really knows exactly what causes this, the Preservers take a 'better safe than sorry' approach."

  "They claim that my objections against them arise from 'Dark World corruption' rather than reasonable complaints," Melpomene scowls. "The actual transformations gifted by the Dark World are far too slow to be a concern for most missions, so personally I believe that the Preservers only send in children because the children are much less likely to question what they see here."

  As much as I don't want to agree with her, the general preference the Preservers seem to have for children is definitely the biggest point against them. Even if there is some incredibly practical reason children make for better magical warriors, I feel like 'being a better warrior' is still less important than 'not abusing children.' But instead, the Preservers almost exclusively target kids, and best I can tell they usually target orphans, specifically—people with no other sources of adult supervision. The government can't exactly force a magical girl into the foster care system if she doesn't want to go, and why would a child take the word of a government agent over a magic talking cat that gave them superpowers?

  It's kind of annoying that my leash-holders have a point. I am slowly being transformed into an official, card-carrying member of the Dark Rebellion and I don't like it.

  "Back on topic," Nanaya hums, "now is likely the time to solidify our position. From here on out, enemy resistance will be increased. We've played our hand and there's no avoiding it. So we need to act while the damage we have dealt is still being recovered from. By distributing some of the weapons we have acquired, we can keep our enemies busy and force them to remain on the back foot, but we'll need an influx of said weapons and other artifacts. Our fragment reconverges with Earth today, and if our calculations are correct the same can be said of at least three others. Anath isn't fit for combat today, and Thea has her own duties. The three of us should handle the fragments."

  Melpomene sighs, glancing at me out of the corner of her third eye.

  "…Alright, you've convinced me. I'm worried about letting Luna off on her own when she's such a desirable target for the enemy, but if you say she's ready I trust you."

  "We're just there to pick up artifacts, right?" I ask. "Is it alright if I steal Thea's transport spell for that again?"

  I vaguely direct the query towards Thea, though I'm sure Melpomene knows the question is for her.

  "I don't mind!" Thea agrees happily. "I think it's super cool that you can copy other people's spells! Honestly, I'd love to experiment with it sometime. A better understanding of magical theory would be invaluable."

  "Yes, don't hesitate to use whatever spells you need for the mission," my master authorizes. Nice! That's pretty broad-spectrum permission. Of course, there aren't any spells necessary for my mission that are relevant right now, so I still can't currently cast anything, but that's a helpful order to have for later.

  I can convince myself quite reasonably that Melpomene's first priority is me returning to the castle alive and with a collection of other artifacts. I shouldn't have any trouble taking actions as long as they further that goal.

  I probably shouldn't be as excited about that as I am, but oh well. I'm sure it's just a coping mechanism.

  "Then I will prepare supplies for everyone," Nanaya announces. "Thea, please do not destroy any more walls. In fact, please fix that wall. Otherwise, however, excellent work as always."

  "Aww! Thanks, Nana!"

  Nanaya nods and departs Anath shuffling away behind her, leaving Melpomene and me to stand around awkwardly for a moment before the demon woman speaks up.

  "I suppose we'll leave you to it, then," Melpomene says. "But please get some sleep, Thea. Don't think I haven't noticed that you've clearly been up all night."

  "I will! Promise!" Thea assures her and Melpomene nods, walking off. I follow her, because 'I suppose we'll leave you to it, then' is enough of a dictation of my future actions to count as an order. I'm not entirely sure Melpomene intended it that way, since she gives me an odd look as I follow her, but when in doubt I must err on the side of obedience.

  Our path takes us back up to Melpomene's room, where the woman starts looking through her various stacks of notes for something.

  "I… don't believe I ever thanked you for protecting Thea," Melpomene says awkwardly. Which… what? I was not expecting this.

  "It's not like I was capable of leaving her there," I remind her carefully.

  "No, I suppose not. But would you have, if you could?" she asks. And, well, I can't lie to her.

  "No," I admit. "I definitely would have protected her."

  "You care about her, then," she states.

  "She's a good person," I answer. "If there's one thing I think you and I can agree on, it's that Thea deserves the best."

  Melpomene nods. She's still looking at the notes on her desk, but she pretty clearly isn't reading anything.

  "I've been thinking about what you said," she admits. "About Thea being a source of my power."

  "Well, it is my job to make you more disgusted with yourself," I remind her sweetly.

  "I'm… not sure what to do about it," Melpomene continues, seemingly ignoring me. "Maybe she would have been happier on Earth. She's so brilliant. She could have done anything. But it's too late now, isn't it? She wouldn't go even if I tried to make her. And really, she was doomed to a life of violence the moment the Preservers chose her."

  "Looking for a way to shift all the blame to them, then?" I ask. "Classic narcissism. I like it."

  "Am I wrong though!?" Melpomene shouts, slamming both hands against her desk. "I… no, I know you're right. I did this, I'm at fault. But every other child taken by the Preservers suffers the same fate. We either work for them forever, or we die."

  "Castalia retired," I remind her.

  "No she fucking didn't," Melpomene hisses, an unexpected amount of vitriol in her voice. "Not her. She might be trying to step away, but she's trapped like all the rest of us. The Preservers will never let her go."

  I'd frown if I could, but I can't think of a great argument against the point.

  "You might be right," I reluctantly admit. "She was getting pressed into more fighting literally the last time I saw her."

  Melpomene turns to me with wide eyes.

  "What!?" she snaps. "Where did you see her? Why didn't you tell me!?"

  "Uh… it was before the whole slavery thing," I say. "I went to class with her, Mel. I didn't know her that well, but I saw her pretty much every day."

  She's still for a moment, and then slowly nods to herself, turning back to her desk.

  "Right," she mutters. "Right, of course. College."

  Uh. Huh. Okay.

  "Super normal response," I comment.

  "It's just hard to imagine her hanging out with regular people!" Melpomene says defensively. "She's not even particularly good at hanging out with Earth Guardians."

  "Well, it's been six years since you left, right?" I ask. "She's probably changed."

  Melpomene barks out a laugh.

  "No," she says confidently. "There's no way that girl has changed a bit."

  I don't really have anything to say to that, so I stand in silence as Melpomene finishes gathering whatever it is she was looking for and starts walking back downstairs. I realize, in retrospect, that I was wading through very dangerous territory here. If that conversation had gone differently, I may have at some point been compelled by my programming to admit that I had a massive crush on Castalia. There's absolutely no way saying that to Melpomene's face would go well. I have no idea how she'd take it, but she would definitely take it some type of way.

  "—prepared these communicators for you in case you—"

  "Thea," Nanaya's voice can be heard from the other room, trying in vain to interrupt the otter girl.

  "—need to get in contact with each other in an emergency—"

  "Thea," Nanaya presses.

  "—because I know communications don't really work between Dark World fragments but it could help if you run into someone in the liminal space and—"

  Melpomene and I enter the room, causing Nanaya to glance up at us.

  "Please help me, oh Queen of Darkness," Nanaya deadpans.

  "Yes, yes. Thea dear," Melpomene says, walking up and accepting the collection of electronics from the girl. "Thank you very much, we will be sure to use it if we need it."

  Melpomene hands one of the devices to Nanaya, who accepts it and stuffs it into her coat with an unamused expression.

  "Hey, where's my magitech doohickey?" I ask.

  Thea beams at me and walks over, rummaging through her pockets with one hand while she taps on one of my stomach plates with the other.

  "Open up!"

  "Hell yeah, aftermarket mods!" I exclaim, dutifully exposing my innards. She digs her fingers into the space above my hip and clicks something into one of my ports, securing it where it won't mess with any joints. Handshake successful! Drivers… weirdo garbage. I can fix this real fast. Yep, there we go. Oh shit, a radio transmitter!

  "Hey, this is awesome!" I compliment her. "I've been wanting one of these. What frequency is…?"

  I wave vaguely at the device Melpomene is holding, and Thea quickly rattles off the right numbers. The next time I speak, it comes out of Melpomene's radio instead of my tits.

  "Testing, testing, one two three! Hey there, Mel-Mel! How are you doing today? Man, this is great! Now I can talk to you aaanytime I want!"

  "Oh, how wonderful," Melpomene says flatly.

  "Yes, I am sure we will be getting much use out of these devices," Nanaya lies, one hand surreptitiously reaching inside her cloak. There's a soft clicking noise. I attempt to transmit, and yeah. That bitch just turned her radio off.

  "It's like you guys want me to be ganked by magical girls," I accuse.

  "Huh? Wait, did I miss something?" Thea asks.

  "No, everything is fine," Nanaya lies again. "Here, Melpomene. A lunch, if you need it."

  Nanaya hands Melpomene a plastic bag containing an honest-to-god peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Like my mom used to make for me to eat at school when I was six. That's honestly kind of terrifying somehow. Though come to think of it, I guess Melpomene hasn't eaten breakfast yet. I forgot that people have to do that.

  That might not be a robot thing. I used to forget it when I was human, too. I missed meals a lot.

  "Where's my peanut butter and jelly sandwich?" I ask. Nanaya side-eyes me with an expression that communicates how thoroughly done she is with shenanigans for the day. But alas, my programming is sixty-nine percent shenanigans by volume.

  "If you wish for me to smear peanut butter within your internal systems, I can certainly do that," Nanaya threatens. I take a step back, raising my hands in surrender.

  "Nope, fully retracted, you win," I tell her. "Dust alone is bad enough."

  "Come home safe and I can clean up your systems for you when you get back!" Thea offers brightly.

  Oh! Um. Why do I feel like I should be blushing right now? That sounds awesome, though.

  "I'd love that!" I tell her, my awesome robot powers allowing me to not only say the words but also do so without completely stumbling over them like a flustered moron. Hell yeah.

  "Let's just get going then," Melpomene says, seeming irritated. "We have a lot of ground to cover today."

  "Aye-aye, boss!" I affirm, snapping a salute. "Magical girls, transform and roll out!"

  My response ranges between vague confusion and complete bewilderment.

  "Why would we transform?" Nanaya asks. "There's no need to waste that kind of energy."

  "Never mind," I sigh. "Remind me to torrent a bunch of essential media once I figure out how to get on the internet with my brain."

  "I got the reference," Thea whispers quietly.

  "What's a torrent?" Melpomene mutters.

  "I'm not gonna tell you because I think you'd rather we just get going!" I tell her cheerfully. "Dark Rebellion away!"

  Out of the castle and through the fog to grandmother's house we go! And by 'grandmother's house' I mean 'other shattered fragments of a dead universe.' I've churned through enough data to have a good idea about how the layout of the liminal space works now, and navigation is surprisingly easy. The liminal space is a direct overlap between Earth and the Dark World. It basically functions as a big sphere around the portal into the Dark World proper: that portal marks the point where the overlap stops and the Dark World exists alone, whereas normal Earth marks the space where the overlap ends from our side. There is always a portal near the exact center of a liminal space. If there happens to be more than one portal to the Dark World in a given chunk of liminal space, it's just because the individual liminal spaces surrounding each portal happen to overlap. Therefore, finding the portals is pretty easy as long as I read the currents of magical energy flow.

  "As the most vulnerable member, Luna will take the closest portal," Nanaya declares. "I assume that's no problem?"

  "None at all," I nod. "I'll head out then."

  "Mmm. Best of luck," Nanaya says, not really sounding like she means it. But she always sounds like that, so maybe she's secretly rooting for my victory.

  …No, that's probably the Stockholm syndrome talking. Although if I recall correctly, the concept of Stockholm syndrome might just be complete bullshit? I think I read something about how the term came about during a hostage negotiation between cops and criminals, and the police were just so confused about why the hostages wanted to cooperate with the criminals more than them that somebody just came up with Stockholm syndrome to explain it. But when interviewed after the fact, the hostages said that they genuinely thought the criminals were more concerned about their safety, because the police kept refusing deals offered by the criminals to release them. Which is, you know, a perfectly logical reason to not be cool with somebody.

  Is it acting rationally or irrationally to enjoy the company of my captors just because they're the first people I've really communicated with in way the fuck too long? Do I have Stockholm syndrome? I don't know. I'm probably at least a little insane, all things considered. I'm literally using magic mood manipulation on myself right now. …Except, when I was a human, I was probably supposed to be taking antidepressants, and magic mood manipulation is basically explicitly what those are for. So do I—

  Pausing thread. I'm just going to spiral about this if I keep thinking about it this way. Seeking new thought process… hmm. I leap from building to building as I move towards my objective, countless equations in the back of my mind optimizing the force put into every motion. I decide where I want to jump from, where I want to land, and the path to making it happen blooms in my mind, my limbs obeying my will in perfect harmony. My joints whirr, the soft vibrations complementing the hard impacts of my every footfall, quantified and summed and ran through predictive algorithms on wear and tear. I push off of a rooftop, and for the next one point five four seconds I am flying, soaring through open air and moving exactly as I please.

  I am a slave. Objectively, I am denied the freedom owed to all sapient beings, and that is unacceptable. Yet right now I feel more free than I ever did before these chains wrapped around my soul. There can only be one reason for this: I had far, far more chains as a human. I just couldn't see them. They were even wrapped around my eyes.

  Resuming thread.

  —count them as the same? No. Magical emotion burning is basically like taking antidepressants you bought illegally off the street with no idea what dose you should be using. I can't allow myself to think I'm properly taking care of my problems. But I can say with certainty that happiness and sadness are not mutually exclusive: the joy I feel now is not simply because of the sadness I avoid experiencing.

  Likewise, my feelings for the Dark Rebellion are not absurd. My empathy for Anath's condition is reasonable. It doesn't take a mental condition for me to sympathize with having a mood disorder.

  My amusement with Nanaya is reasonable. She's fun to mess with, and used to being around people who mess with her, people she likes and cares about. She's callous in many ways, but caring in many others. I can acknowledge both.

  My deep appreciation for Thea is reasonable. She's genuinely kind and caring. She was the first person to realize I was a person, and it feels like she's been helping me almost constantly ever since. Her only flaw, if it is even a flaw, is a perhaps-inadvisable loyalty and devotion to people who don't deserve it. And can I even say they don't deserve it? They do their best to do right by her, the only one being screwed over is me.

  Which brings me to Melpomene. My hatred of her is reasonable, obviously. There's not much to interrogate there. And my attraction to her is also reasonable, if only because I don't really get to control it. My… sympathy for her, I think, is also reasonable. I'm allowed to know her, to empathize with her, to acknowledge the bad hand she's been dealt while still condemning her for how she's chosen to play it.

  I'm allowed to feel many, many different things. It's not madness to be complicated. It wouldn't be madness to be complacent here, either. To decide that because this is better, it is enough. I could be happy in this life, I think. I could create a situation where my servitude is tolerable. I'm already growing to like the people around me, and with Thea's help I think that castle might genuinely work as a home. I could live this life, and I think I could be happy.

  That's not madness. I just have to decide if it's enough.

  I'm genuinely, truly happy for the first time in recent memory? Great! Fantastic. But why stop here? I can get more. I can be more. One more chain, that's all I need to break to have any life I want. I'm not going to let my newly working mind be wasted in the service of a bitch like Melpomene.

  For the first time in my life, I can see a future for myself. And thanks to what I am now, I'll never have to worry about forgetting it.

  If my current emotional state continues, it would be optimal to swap my crystal configuration to north.

  I'd laugh if I were still human. Really? Wow, it would be. I've been seriously lacking in sadness lately. That doesn't sound like me at all. I'm not sure how I feel about trying to use my happiness as fuel instead, though. I really, really like just being able to feel it.

  But we'll see. Maybe I'll have enough to spare if things keep going well. First thing's first: the mission. I'm almost to the portal now, I can see it peeking over the rooftops ahead. I just need to get there and… oh. Uh. Wow.

  That's a lot of monsters.

  Three-toed quadrupedal beasts step out of the portal one after another, their heads like wolves and their tails like lizards. Blue and blue-green crystals sprout from their skin like vegetables, wild and untamed across the bodies of their hosts. They sniff at the ground and the air, plodding away from the portal and therefore towards Earth with unhurried gaits. One, its crystals growing deep enough into its own nostrils to plug its nose entirely, habitually scratches at its muzzle every few steps, staggering around and letting out mournful howls.

  One of them looks up and spots me, but it looks away and returns to its business as if I were no more interesting than the nearby streets. Mid-jump, time slows down. I could ignore them and leave them for the magical girls to fight. The monsters aren't relevant to my mission, after all. I don't want to fight. I don't like fighting. And even still, beating up monsters probably wouldn't make me sad enough to pay off the expense.

  But it's still my choice. My master certainly wouldn't object to me taking out a horde of monsters and stopping them from wandering onto Earth. And that's enough freedom, at least for now.

  Time resumes, I adjust my fall, and a beast's skull shatters beneath my feet. Now, the pack sees me as a threat, and as one they move for me.

  Feeling quite good about myself, I intercept.

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