"Hold on, you two! We don't have the time to take this slow!"

  Aurora and Veritas both give me firm nods, their wrists clasped with mine, and I lift into the air as fast as I can without hurting their shoulders. We rapidly rise into the air above the alleyway we exited base from, each of them holding onto me with one hand and keeping their mask in place with the other.

  As relatively new magical girls, the two of them haven't learned how to manage their emotions well enough for sustained, long-term spellcasting, and that includes maintaining their transformed selves. It's dangerous and irresponsible to wait until a fight starts to transform, but as young as they are, they don't have a choice. My girls are strongest in the moments immediately following their transformation, and we cannot afford anything less than their absolute best.

  I am extremely unhappy about this mission, but worse than that, Uma'tama didn't look happy about it either. It can be a bit hard to read the Preservers sometimes, but Uma has been with me since I was first chosen. During the briefing they were tense, uncomfortable, disapproving. They don't want us to go on this mission any more than I do, but something is forcing their hand.

  I know exactly what that means. It means this is the kind of mission that gets girls killed.

  Fear hammers in my chest. They'll die. They'll die. They'll die, they'll die, they'll die. I'm not a leader, I'm not a good teammate, I'm going to fail these girls and they are going to die. I hold onto the panic, focus on it, let it permeate my thoughts and power my will. There's a trick to it, really. Lean into the spiral of panic like blowing warm air over an inferno, but soak up just enough of it as power to not let it overwhelm your thoughts. I channel the fear, believe its truth, and use my terror to focus ever harder on its source: the need to keep my team alive.

  I'll fail someday. It will probably be today. How can I stop it?

  That's the thing about using emotions as a power source. They are limitless. Emotions tend to build on themselves—especially negative emotions—so that the more you fear, the more you fear. And the more you rage, the more you rage. Emotions are created ex nihilo, spitting in the face of entropy as they pop arbitrarily into existence from fertile patches of the mind, where they themselves are their own fertilizer. It's incredible, but that is also their largest weakness.

  I consume my emotions to cast. When I transform, when I attack, when I fly, I am perpetually making myself less afraid. And if fear is the fertilizer of fear, what happens when I use it all up? It's certainly not impossible to simply feel more fear anyway and restart the process, but the momentum gets lost. It takes time to build up that spiral of panic again, and all the while you're still trying to use it, to consume the sparks before they can turn into flames. Both letting yourself feel an emotion too strongly and not letting yourself feel it strongly enough are fatal mistakes in battle, and that's not even considering how the battle itself is going to be constantly messing with how you feel.

  "Minerva," a voice in my ear rings out. "Can you hear me?"

  "Loud and clear, Uma," I answer, keeping my eyes forward as we rush over the rooftops towards our target.

  "We have finished our perusal of the archives," Uma'tama tells me. "As we suspected, there is nothing. There is no record of the Antipathy possessing an artifact of that nature."

  "What does that mean, exactly?" I ask.

  "Very little, but none of it good," Uma'tama answers. "Effectively, it means it was developed around a similar time to the great execration, at the height of the Antipathy's hatred. It was almost certainly built for war, though never fielded."

  "Alternate theory," I say. "It was fielded, and there were simply no surviving witnesses."

  "...It is not impossible," Uma'tama admits. "We fear the extent of your pessimism, Minerva."

  "It keeps me alive," I tell her. "So we're potentially dealing with something on par with whatever artifact caused the shattering of the Dark World?"

  "In power? Not necessarily," Uma'tama says. "In malice, however? Almost certainly. You face a weapon made not to end suffering, but to cause as much as physically possible. The how or why, we do not know. Please be careful."

  "I will, Uma."

  "I mean it," she presses. "Come back safe, Minerva. Promise me."

  "...Okay, I promise," I lie. A promise like that could never be anything but a lie. "If things get too hot, I'll pull everyone out. Worst case scenario, we gather some information and have to retreat."

  "Thank you, Minerva," Uma'tama sighs. "We will attempt to secure you backup. In the event of an emergency, we will contact Castalia."

  "Don't," I say firmly. "She's earned her rest."

  "You all have," Uma'tama insists. "And both we and she would want you to make it back to have yours."

  Then they hang up on me, leaving my instinctive protest with nowhere to go but a scowl.

  "Any intel?" Aurora asks, her voice loud to combat the rushing wind.

  "No," I answer. "Our target is an unknown. Fight defensively and try to lure it away from the Dark Worlders."

  "The Witches of Darkness!" Aurora insists. "They're the Witches of Darkness!"

  "They're the Monster Queens," Veritas grunts.

  "Okay, so fight defensively and try to lure the artifact away from the Monster Queens of Darkness," I say, unable to completely hide my smirk. "And rather than arguing with me on how to title our enemies, you should both be focusing your mind on your color."

  "I'm blue da ba dee da ba di—"

  "Veritas," I snap. "Listen to me."

  She shuts up.

  "This is not a mission in the liminal space," I tell my team. "This is not a fight against a bumbling billionaire who happened to nab some basic Antipathy tech on the black market. This is easily the most complicated and dangerous artifact that either of you have ever encountered, and the ones using it are exceptionally dangerous mages in their own right. If either of you disobey my orders for even a second, you will be running drills until you forget what week it is. Am I clear?"

  I feel them both shudder in my grip, followed by a pair of weak calls of "yes, Minerva." Hopefully that will hold back Veritas' disobedient streak long enough to get them both out alive.

  I'm focusing too much on survival. The problem with fear casting is that I keep forgetting to think about how to actually WIN.

  I shake my head in irritation at the thought. Surviving is the first step to winning. And I certainly don't win if Veritas or Aurora are dead or gravely injured, even if we capture the artifact.

  The first step isn't enough. Yes, survival is important. Obviously. Plan beyond it. Have backup plans. THINK.

  Think. Right. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what sort of plans I can make. Aurora and Veritas have been drilled on their formations and how to support each other in a fight; anything more complicated than that isn't likely to be within their ability without prior practice. Moreover, while they have significant experience fighting on rooftops because of city-based liminal zones, they don't have much experience fighting on Earth, in situations where civilians are likely to be nearby and in the way.

  They will need to get that experience, but I wish it wasn't in a situation as volatile as this. And that's the problem, isn't it? I can't make plans because the situation is too volatile. I don't know the degree to which Anath and the other monster woman will be in the fight. I don't know what the artifact we are after is capable of. I have barely seen it fight, but it seemed fully capable of outmaneuvering and overpowering Veritas. I have no idea if adding Aurora and myself will change that equation. I don't think I've seen anywhere close to the artifact's full capabilities.

  There isn't really any time to think about it anyway. Off in the distance, I see them. The once-human monsters and the artifact. I have no doubt that means the artifact sees us, too.

  "Prepare to transform!" I shout, though I have no doubt that it’s somewhat redundant to say. My girls know how this works.

  Anath appears to be lying unconscious on her back, her companion kneeling over her to cast a healing spell. Healing is not and has never been my forte; as much as the idea of being on a team absolutely terrifies me (not to mention leading the team) it is nice to work with someone who can do it, even given healing magic's countless limitations.

  Aurora is our team's healer, as most yellow mages tend to have some skill with that kind of spell. In fact, I would be surprised if there are any magical girls with love as their primary emotion who can't excel at healing magic. The emotion you burn to create mana greatly influences the effectiveness, capabilities, and extraneous elements of a spell. There's nothing more inherently effective than burning your love for someone as fuel to heal them. Love is one of the most difficult emotions to generate, but it is also one of the most difficult emotions to run out of. It's ideal for healing in countless ways.

  Anger, conversely, is horrible at it. I know that firsthand. And yet I watch as a red circle hums around the healer's inhuman arm, pushing power into Anath's mangled body. How? How does she do it? What sort of magical secrets have these dark witches—or whatever they are—teased out of the corpse of the Antipathy? How are they so strong?

  A fresh flash of fear pulses through me as I recall my fight against Anath, most of it feeling muddy and indistinct except for the moment of sheer terror immediately preceding my escape from the artifact's grasp. My desperate leap off its body, twisting through the air as I aimed Fulgora's staff like it was my rifle. It was like I had completely forgotten which body I was in, completely forgotten which weapon I was holding in my hands, because the rush of fear was so potent I couldn't imagine being anything but Minerva. Anath has attacked me close to a dozen times over the past year or so, but she's never fought this hard before. I never knew she could. I always considered her somewhat of a nuisance, bothering me by making empty threats that I had no choice but to respond to so she could presumably get her kicks having her butt kicked over and over. Today, she proved willing and able to bring us both to the brink of death, and I have no idea why she never showed that power before, nor why she chose to show it now.

  If that red-aligned healer has been similarly holding back, we are officially on a time limit that ends the moment she finishes healing. We haven't fought her much beyond quick skirmishes that she retreats from, but the ease with which she escapes doesn't give me confidence about beating her while she has her back to a wall.

  No time to think about it now. We're close, close enough that I have to think about where to throw. The monsters ignore us while the artifact stares right at us, waiting as it always does for us to make the first move. Again, never acting, only reacting.

  To capture it, we're going to have to take advantage of that.

  "Veritas, hornet! Aurora, barrage! Box it in and take it down hard!"

  I shout my orders and toss my girls with all my might, aiming Veritas straight at our target while directing Aurora to an adjacent rooftop where she can better take advantage of her range. The moment I let go, they both engage their transformations.

  "B? M? R?s????!"

  "?L?s P?????????!"

  The artifact reacts immediately, thrusters emerging from the back of its frame.

  "H??????? V??????? D??????? V?????s!"

  "L????? S????? P???????? A?????!"

  And though I've already transformed, a pulse of sympathetic resonance compels me to match their words as their leader.

  "B???? P?????ss D?????? M??????! Earth Guardians, engage hard and fast!"

  As I speak the words, I'm already summoning my incarnate weapon and moving to track a bead on the artifact. Before I can fire a shot, though, its thrusters ignite, launching it slightly to the side and then rapidly bursting it directly towards Veritas. Its jump takes it on a path to not only collide with her in midair, but to knock her towards where Aurora is about to land. I fire off a quick beam to intercept it in midair, but I don't have time to make it powerful enough to knock the artifact off course. Veritas fails to summon her weapons in time, and the artifact wraps an arm around her shoulders and yanks her in the direction it wants her to go.

  Without anything to brace against, Veritas stands no chance at resisting the force of a rocket-powered hunk of humanoid metal. She manages to slip away before the artifact can get a firm grip on her, but she still tumbles onto the roof next to Aurora, rolling once before managing to get back to her feet and summon her weapons.

  I think the artifact's intention might have been to try and throw Veritas into Aurora, but Aurora is quick and already retreating to a better position by the time Veritas hits the roof. Her own fist weapons are summoned and ready, the glowing orbs they remotely control already launching towards the artifact to strike. It weaves between them, narrowly avoiding damage while Veritas charges forward to follow up.

  Throughout it all, I keep one eye on the monster women. The healer isn't even looking at us, all of her focus seemingly on keeping Anath alive. Good, that's exactly what we were hoping for. Now we just have to do this fast.

  I level my weapon and start charging energy, flying to a spot above the battle as fast as I can move without disrupting my aim. The artifact responds immediately, twisting to keep itself out of my line of fire in the same movement it uses to avoid Veritas' thrust, keeping Veritas between itself and me. As I thought, it's the exact same strategy that it used the first time we fought. I adjust my aim to track it and it moves accordingly, as if my gun had a laser sight and it was fleeing from the dot. It can just see exactly where I'm aiming, from the opposite end of the barrel, and move to avoid that spot. It's exceptionally impressive.

  And naive.

  "F????????…!"

  I speak the first word of my spell slowly, leisurely, taking time to prepare my shot. I'm floating high above the battlefield, positioning myself almost directly above our target, around fifty to sixty feet up. The artifact can't try to hide behind my girls without grabbing them and lifting them up like an umbrella, and Veritas is keeping her temper in check and refusing to give the artifact an opportunity. I adjust my aim left, and the artifact moves right. I adjust my aim right, and the artifact moves left.

  If I miss, I could hit Veritas. I'd never forgive myself. It's a terrifying thought, and I pour it and countless others into the spell, the artifact once again moving to dodge. Not that I’ll let it.

  It might be fast, but it's not faster than lightning. If it wants to dodge, it has to do so preemptively, but no degree of precision of movement can let it outmaneuver my gun. I only need to make tiny adjustments to my aim in order to substantially alter the ultimate trajectory of the attack, and I can slightly twitch my arms until its attempted dodge inevitably intersects with my target line.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  I don't even have to predict it. It might be able to react instantly, but it can't move instantly. The moment it overcommits, I speak the final word of the spell and let the lightning crash down.

  "T??????!"

  It's a satisfying direct hit, and against any normal opponent I would be happily celebrating a victory right now. Unfortunately, today is clearly not a day of normal opponents. The lightning strikes hard, full of my magical intent to harm just as much as it is of electricity, but the attack still falls across its frame like water, forcibly dispersed by some kind of shield despite no evidence of a spell being cast. There isn't even any visual sign of damage, but I just put the fear that this battle is hopeless directly back into another spell.

  We are going to capture this thing. We can't let the Dark Worlders use it for whatever horrible scheme they're cooking up next.

  My power reserves are down to 17%. This is starting to make me a little nervous.

  I don't want to be here. I don't want to be fighting these children. I don't want to be fighting any magical girls, but the fact that they're little kids is an extra kick in the tit. I have never been great with kids, but I do like them. I babysat for my neighbors in high school a little. Their twins would run circles around me, leaving me exhausted by the time their parents finally got home. This is kind of starting to remind me of that, except that the children are actually trying to kill me and the longer this goes on, the more I start to feel the urge to respond in kind.

  I don't want to hurt them. I don't. But I physically, literally cannot allow them to get closer to Nanaya. This isn't the sort of weak compulsion that's open to my personal interpretation. I have witnessed Melpomene express deep trust in Nanaya, I know for a fact that Melpomene would want her allies to be safe, and I cannot convince myself that my desire not to harm these children is in any way more in line with my master's wishes than my need to disable their ability to harm us.

  And that's fucked up, isn't it? It's so depressing that I would definitely be giving myself a net increase in power during this fight if not for the damn lightning bolts. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to avoid them. I might be able to react in slow motion, but I have to commit to my reactions in ways that the flying artillery child simply doesn't. She's good. Really good. A way bigger problem than her two allies. She keeps adjusting her aim in ways that force me to move into bad positions, enabling her teammates to score glancing blows that wear me down whenever I try to dodge. But if I don't dodge, she just shoots me with a lightning bolt! How am I supposed to—

  Assuming I minimize thruster output and continue avoiding damage from most other sources, target three ('Minerva') will reduce my power reserves to zero in less than two minutes. It is unknown if this will be enough time to heal Anath, but the affirmative cannot be assumed. The answer to the question 'how am I supposed to stop these children without hurting any of them' is 'I can't.'

  —win this fight while inflicting as little damage as possible?

  "F??—"

  God fucking damnit.

  "—??—"

  I smash my foot into the ground, breaking up the roof into chunks.

  "—????—"

  I lean down and snatch some of those chunks out of the air, hurling as many as I can hold towards the target above me. Each finger holds a different hunk of concrete and releases it a split second apart during the arc of the throw, resulting in a wide shotgun spread of debris.

  "—T???—"

  She dodges anyway, swaying her aim on purpose to make it unclear where she's actually going to fire. Physical projectiles simply can't keep up with her at this distance, at least none that I can throw. I have no choice but to choose a direction at random and jump.

  "—???!"

  God I hate that spell. It's like it's mocking me. 'Fulminant' means 'severe and sudden in onset,' like a flash of lightning. But every single time she starts to cast it, my mind slows down and makes me suffer through every last syllable at the pace of molasses. I suppress an urge to shudder as the attack slams into my shielding (suboptimal movement; significantly increased chance of dodge failure) and try not to think about how much I wish I could just lose on purpose.

  My power reserves have been reduced to 14%. The depression is doing a pretty good job at trying to refill the metaphorical tank, but it's just not enough. I'm pretty sure that without an effective ranged attack, there is very little I can do to stop this strategy.

  Aurora stays far away from me, pestering me with her remote-controlled attack spell while Veritas serves as a physical wall between me and her… except unlike most walls she is also trying to stab me with a big lance. She has, unfortunately, learned her lesson from our last battle, and while it might be possible to goad her into attacking more recklessly I of course cannot talk, so that's off the table.

  If I fought more aggressively, I might be able to take them down through force, but I'm so low on energy right now I doubt I would be able to pull it off before getting shot with so much lightning that I die. Or… you know, whatever happens when I reach zero percent power. I'll fail the mission, anyway, and that's worse than dying so whatever.

  Confirmed. I will fail the mission if I do not access a sufficient ranged attack. If only I could cast—

  Magic is something I only have limited knowledge of. I have significant records of the magical circles that are generated immediately before spoken spells are cast, and sometimes when silent spells are cast. What causes some magic to need flashy glyphs to appear in the air? What causes some magic to need people to talk out loud? I don't know the answer to that, but unless I can figure out how to do both of those things—

  Conscious magical access affirmed mission-critical. Initiating manual control.

  —Which I have apparently just done okay oh god. In retrospect, it is suddenly obvious I can cast spells. I'm literally partially made out of the crystals that magical girls used to control theirs; mine have linked with my soul in the same way that theirs links with their own, and through this ability to store and channel power I can guide the magical energy with my will. I create my emotions. My emotions create my magic. The magic I create is mine. No one else's. Never anyone else's. I can cast.

  —That damn spell back at her.

  I dodge Veritas's next thrust towards her off-hand side, purposefully putting myself open for her to bash me with her shield. She takes the opening, but I'm already moving to do the same, jumping to plant my feet on that shield and use her as an unwilling springboard to make myself some distance. It's a big movement, one that leaves me open to attacks from the other two girls, which Minerva notices immediately, preparing to discharge another lightning bolt. The spheres of power that Aurora controls fly towards me as well, ready to smack me out of the sky, but I grab onto one of them, using it to twist in midair to dodge the other. Just touching the orb starts to drain my power as it discharges magical energy into my shield, but I don't need to hold it for long.

  I bring up my free hand, palm first, and aim it towards Minerva. Her eyes go wide as copies of her own magical circles bloom around my arm, my will writing them into the air. Three different circles, all with dozens of glyphs detailing the shape, direction, composition, target, but most importantly the source of all this power and the intent behind it. Though close, my spell is not an exact copy of Minerva's; adjustments must be made simply for the fact that I am not her, and the spell she fires at me is not the same sort of spell that my soul resonates with.

  I could not possibly power the spell with my fear, because the thing I fear most right now is killing her, and that could never properly guide a spell meant to harm. Most of the energy I'm currently using to maintain myself comes from regret, depression, and self-hate. I don't want to be here. I don't want to hurt them. I wish I could go back and change all my decisions that led me to this point. Please, god please, I don't want to hurt them.

  I can't power the spell with that either, for more or less the same reason. So while it converts at a loss in my engine of blue, I'll go ahead and spend all the annoyance I've built up into this retaliatory strike. It's an intrusive thought, not one I particularly wish to entertain or legitimize, but who hasn't wanted to punt an annoying kid, at least for a moment? I of course have some pretty strong feelings against child abuse, for a lot of pretty personal reasons, and I don't think it's acceptable to hurt a child even if they’re shooting lightning at you. But it still kind of pisses me off, and I can use that.

  I have to use that. I don't have a choice.

  Maybe I would have a choice if I was just better at doing what I was told. If I was stronger, smarter, faster, maybe I wouldn't be in this position. I know better than to fool myself into blaming a kid—not to mention a hero—for the pain I'm about to inflict on them. This is my fault, my sin, and no one else's. I am so, so sorry.

  But also, stop fucking shooting me with lightning. I shove the feeling into the spell, and the glyphs glow red.

  "[F ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? T ? ? ? ? ? ?]"

  My body says the words on its own, my first hint at something that could be my new voice ringing out through the air. I don't know how it made the sound; I don't seem to have access to whatever system said the words. My body sounds vaguely feminine, but in a way that is unmistakably artificial, undeniably robotic. Like an ancient text-to-speech program, the sound is devoid of human intonation or emotion, nothing but a changeling's cry trying to lure humans into believing that a monster can talk.

  I don't hate the sound, honestly. The problem is just that I was not the one speaking the words.

  I don’t have much time to think about my voice, though. My spell crashes through Minerva, leaving her with no time to form a proper defense. Her flight sputters and she falls backwards out of the sky, her outfit singed and smoking as her tiny body plummets towards the earth.

  I watch the sight in slow motion, and my power reserves rise to 18%.

  "Minerva!" Veritas shouts, turning away from me and giving me an opportunity to attack that I cannot bring myself to ignore. Aurora, fortunately, is also moving to catch Minerva, but what matters now is taking out the next obstacle in my way. I don’t think I’m angry enough to blast this kid point-blank with lightning, so I have to settle for punching her in the gut. Saliva splatters over my frame as air is forced out of her lungs, though at least it isn’t vomit or blood. I suspect that punch would have killed a normal human child, and for a moment before it impacted I feared that’s exactly what I was about to do. How fucked up is it that holding a choking kid in my arms is the relieving outcome of this situation?

  My power reserves have increased to 19%.

  Okay that question was rhetorical but thanks. A solid one percent fucked up! It’s so nice that I can measure this now.

  My power reserves have increased to 20%.

  Oh my god, I was kidding, fuck off.

  "?A??????? C???????!"

  I tilt my head slightly, focusing on the source of the spell to see Aurora pouring power into Minerva's body, undoing the damage I just did. Okay, so the Spanish-speaking girl is a healer. Actually, is that Spanish? I think it's Spanish. Anyway, this kind of puts me back at square one, but I never actually wanted to win so that's not a big deal.

  It does mean I'll have to hurt her again, though.

  "Boost me!" Minerva orders, and Aurora obligingly tosses her back up into the air. I don’t think I can let that happen, so I hit Veritas again and throw her away before leaping up to intercept Ms. Lightning Artillery. I swear I hear her click her tongue in annoyance before swinging her gun at me like it’s a baseball bat. I bring up my hand to catch the attack, but that turns out to be a mistake as Minerva starts talking.

  "F???? B??s?!"

  A shockwave explodes out from her weapon, knocking my arm away and sending me head over heels back down towards the ground. I steady my momentum with a shot of thrust and land on my feet, but Veritas is ready for me despite the damage I inflicted.

  "G??? T???s?!" she says, a whirling tornado covering her weapon as she smashes it into me, the tip failing to bypass my shielding but still doing substantial damage in the attempt. Again, I am thrown off balance, and again, I am attacked as I attempt to recover.

  "?C??????? L????????!"

  Aurora punches both arms towards me, crossing them in the process, and the golden orbs she controls quickly flank me and belch out geysers of fire in my direction. I need to incorporate an attack into my defense here or I'm going to get overwhelmed. And, well, I only really have one attack, so…

  "[F ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? T ? ? ? ? ? ?]" my body declares as I leap away from Aurora's fire, springboarding off the roof with one hand while I aim the other. This is one of my big advantages, after all. I'm never really on the back foot, because I don't have the human ability to be mentally unable to keep up with the fight. It doesn't matter how many things I am dodging, I can still aim perfectly while weaving between them. I unleash the spell directly back at Minerva, once again intending to knock her out of the sky.

  "S???? B??????!"

  Well, shit.

  She was ready for me this time. A spell I recognize from Fulgora's fight with Anath pops into existence between us, fully absorbing my attack. Fulgora also used Fulminant Thunder, didn't she? Is Minerva her apprentice or something? It would explain why she seems so pissed off right now.

  Well, that's okay. It's probably smarter to take out the healer first anyway. I should have done that already; it's like I've learned nothing from video games. I jump away from a wide swing of Veritas' lance (my power reserves have dropped back down to 18% after her last attack, so I can't afford to be hit again) and aim my next shot towards Aurora.

  Wait. I'm not mad at Aurora.

  I'm not really mad at any of these girls anymore; knocking a child out of the sky with a bolt of lightning pretty much took all of my irritation and turned it right back into pity and regret. I need to use my usual blue mana, but I still can't power the spell with my own lack of desire to hurt people.

  But maybe I can power it with my regret over having to hurt them anyway.

  I let the spell crackle to life again, aiming my arm at Minerva to catch them off guard, the magic circles now glowing blue. Immediately, the spell feels a dozen times easier to cast, and I'm worried that I'll put too much power into it, but I still can't convince myself to stop. I am a weapon. Melpomene's weapon. I cannot protest being used that way.

  I'm sorry.

  I speak the words and re-aim at the last second, unleashing my shot towards Aurora. To my surprise, though, Veritas actually manages to jump in the way before the bolt fires, absorbing the attack with her shield, but getting knocked off the rooftop in the process.

  "Veritas!" Aurora yelps, making the mistake of taking her eyes off of me as she watches her teammate tumble off of the edge. I jump right at her, weaving to barely avoid a shot from Minerva as I get in range to take the healer down. I swing a fist, intending to clobber her in the cheek and knock her out of the fight in one blow.

  Don't think about what head injuries can do to a person. Don't think about the sort of accidents that can happen in a fight like this. Don't think about the mistakes you could make that end with blood on your hands. Thoughts like that can only make me stronger, and that's the last thing I want.

  My fist moves forward, aimed precisely at one of her many blind spots, calculated to have the best chance of hitting exactly where I want to hit. But Aurora moves without even looking at me, dodging the blow and responding with an uppercut from her magic brass knuckles.

  Right. She has those. I guess they're not just control devices for her weird little orbs.

  "?F????? A???????!" she shouts, a golden aura of heat radiating off of her body as she follows up with another punch. This one I dodge, but I can tell as it swings past my head that she's now moving a lot faster and her attacks are a lot more dangerous. Why is the healer significantly more dangerous up close!? Curse you video games, you have taught me nothing!

  Veritas takes this opportunity to jump back onto the roof, shaking off a bit of dust and otherwise appearing unharmed from the fall. I'm surrounded now, with very little room to maneuver and Minerva still overhead ready to pump me full of lightning. I'm forced back on the defensive, trying to make distance between me and my targets, but they keep cutting me off like sheepdogs, herding me farther and farther away from Anath and Nanaya. Which isn't the worst thing, I guess; my specific orders are to keep everyone away from them, after all, but unless I can attack some more I won't have a way to replenish my power reserves.

  Again, I'm starting to lose. Again, I wouldn't really mind losing. But I no longer get to make decisions based on what I want. Yet as I try to figure out how to go back on the offensive while fighting one-on-three at low power, I notice something that changes everything.

  Nanaya stands up.

  She stares at Anath's still-unconscious body for a few lingering moments, and then turns towards our fight, walking leisurely in our direction. No, 'leisurely' isn't the right way to put it. Her steps are slow, devoid of any particular urgency, but Nanaya does not look like the sort of person who has any concept of leisure. Her sedate pace is as deliberate as a horror movie. The many fingers on her unnaturally long arms clench into fists so tight that I can hear the joints crack from two roofs over. The glower on her face is so utterly condescending, so done with this entire situation that I struggle to believe this fight isn't exactly as over as she wants it to be.

  Minerva notices her approach first, breaking off to interpose herself between Nanaya and the rest of us. She aims her rifle threateningly, silently commanding Nanaya to stay back, but the red-eyed woman deliberately takes a few more steps before deigning to stop. She stares up at Minerva as if the gun isn't even there.

  "I'd rather you didn't kill yourself like this," Nanaya says flatly. "They'll just make some other girl take your place."

  Minerva's aim slacks, the gun pointing towards the ground. I can't see the look on her face from this angle, but I can feel the torrent of fear weighing down the air. Minerva turns and flies at full speed back towards me and her teammates, her gun disappearing from her hands.

  "Retreat!" Minerva orders. "Full retreat!"

  "What!?" Veritas snaps, but Minerva swoops down and scoops the girl up with one arm, latching onto a much more obedient Aurora with the other and flying off. I step back and let them do it, my orders apparently completed.

  I glance back towards Nanaya, who stares at me for a moment before giving me a slight nod and walking back to pick up Anath. I watch the heroes fly away, a couple more percentages of power ticking up in the back of my mind as I think about all the ways I hurt them, before moving to Nanaya's side. I flank behind her the same way I do with Melpomene, waiting for new orders.

  Nanaya tosses Anath over one shoulder and rummages through the backpack of things Anath recently stole, pulling out the cellphone. She taps through it briefly before letting out an irritated growl and putting it back away.

  "We're too late," she scowls. "Our way back has closed. We'll have to find a place to hide on Earth for a few days. Come with me, artifact."

  I nod, my mind automatically trying to think of a way to help. Actually, while I'm not really an expert on illegally smuggling myself and others around the country, that doesn't mean I can't spend this time optimizing my ability to help in the future. I follow Nanaya over the rooftops, letting her lead me towards a run-down part of town, presumably to find some condemned building or unlocked warehouse to keep a roof over our heads while we wait. Hopefully she won't kick out any homeless people we find already living there, though I guess realistically we wouldn't have to because they will almost certainly run like hell when we arrive.

  Thankfully, the abandoned factory we break into appears to be empty when we get there, and though there are signs that other people have slept here recently I guess they're all out and about for the day. Nanaya drops Anath onto one of the cleaner parts of the floor and sits down, grumbling unintelligibly to herself as she pulls out the phone again and starts poking away at it. I squat down next to her, making sure I can see the screen, and after Nanaya checks the weather and the local news and a couple other things, I hold my hand out to request access as she moves to put the phone away again.

  She squints at me suspiciously, but thankfully hands me the phone, leaning over so she can watch what I do with it. To my absolute delight, the person we stole this from appears to have the Wikipedia app, letting me poke that with my metal finger, hit random page a few times, and eventually start a wiki walk of links to get to where I want to go without having to type anything in the search bar. Ever since I got to Earth I have been in desperate need of looking this up, because despite my probably absurd processing power, I am starting to suspect brute force attacks just aren't going to cut it.

  Being a robot slave, rather unsurprisingly, has been a somewhat horrible experience. But I have to admit, I do feel a little bit of giddy excitement as I successfully pull up the page on TCP/IP protocols.

  the CAPTCHA.

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