"Hi, wele to the Kaleidoscope's Underworld. My name's Bck Star. Or Henry. And I'll be your host tonight," Bck Star joked. "First thing you o know, you're being tailed by some of Red Masque's men. More specifically, the silver-spooned brat over here has caught the eye of Arsenal's fa. The Crimson Order is in chaos with... ahem, Red Masque's designated sucissing."

  Stel's eyes narrowed, and the rest of us shifted unfortably at that remark. Bck Star smirked, his deep brown eyes dang with mirth.

  "And how, may I ask," Stel said coldly, "did you e by suowledge?"

  Bck Star rattled his electric kettle on the makeshift table, turning the heating pad off and p some water in his ramen. He dialed in a timer the table and started mixing the soup base. "You guys don't want your noodles? No? Ok then."

  He turo Stel and spoke up. "Well. Let's say Red Masque was a retive of mine and I was being groomed for a leadership position in the Crimson Order. And, let's say, I've done some soul searg and I'm not particurly keen on taking up the role of a supervilin. We had a big fight and I booked it to set up this hideout just a couple of hours before everythio shit and monsters starting p out of portals. So let's say I'm on a gap year and I want nothing to do with that shitshow."

  Albert raised his hand. "I have so many questions."

  "Me too," Ichigo nodded, looking at Bck Star in fusion. "Uh... what?"

  Stel raised an eyebrow at him, her expression still stony and unyielding as I stood o her and crossed my arms.

  "Man, you two have the exact same gre," Albert remarked, chug to himself as he turo me. "Uny. And a little creepy."

  Bck Star shrugged, a wry smile f on his lips. He turo me, his smile widening. "So. Long time no see, Sparkles. What've ya been up to tely?"

  "Not now, asshole." I scowled at him. "So, what's the pn?"

  "Pn's simple." Bck Star shrugged again, pausing.

  "I don't got one," he said. "Not really, at least."

  Albert and Ichigo both facepalmed. Stel's frown only grew more severe, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "You're joking, right?" She hissed.

  "his is gonna sound kinda cheesy but I was going to improvise," he grinned.

  "So what are you thinking? Run away? Fight? Call the authorities?" I asked.

  ''Pends. Dunno how many of you four are knights or have Arts or Skills and whatnot."

  He scratched his head. "But hopefully we won't hem." Because holy, that sounds like a recipe for disaster."

  Albert frowned, looking at the hooded boy. "Wait, why?"

  "Eeeeh. We've got some bad motherfuckers in this squad. Arsenal's right hand man is with 'em along with a couple of her lieutenants. His name is El Mago. He's bad news. I'm betting they've e here to abduct Matsudaira's heir and take her back with them. Anyone she's associated with will probably die if we're not careful. Especially when her little pet is involved."

  "Hang on. This seems a little too veo be random," Albert said. "What're the ces that these guys are here by ce? And why'd they choose today to attack? What's their game?"

  Bck Star shrugged. "They've had sentries up at major ercial districts for the past week. I'm betting one of them ID'd Matsudaira tonight and called it in. They probably thought you would make for an easy snatd grab, and I think I interrupted their first attempt with that little oh-so frustrating oopsie. I'd say it's just ce, but they're not leaving now. So. That's where your problems begin."

  "You think this'll go that far? Like, enough to make the news at a time like this?" Iurmured.

  "Oh yeah." He smirked. "Arsenal's goons were Red Masque's main enforcers and they're pretty damn scary. These guys arely known for their subtlety and the jefe only brought them out when he needed a mess ed up or wanted someone dead. Arsenal is a css 6 artificer and she has access to a lot of really dangerous toys and gizmos, so she's probably armed these men with some nasty gear."

  A person's total level resentation of their potential to impact the world and their surroundings. Normal, ordinary everyday Janes and Joes rarely achieved a level over 35, but it was not a very useful metric, practically speaking.

  Someone who was level 60 could be a solid, freshly graduated magical knights from sedary education. Or they could be a cadet like me — with highly skewed attributes like a magic score that drastically iheir overall levels. I may be able to level an small building by throwing magic at it, but I had pretty poor trol and efficy, all things sidered.

  Magical knights aside — Olympians and highly esteemed stists, philosophers, corporate executives, politis, ae soldiers also floated around level 40 to 70 without any World Skills ical abilities, and they usually had some of the incredible base attributes. Often, the refi of their crafts would lead to the creation of Personal Skills, and they had a ce to be identified as Pioneers by the World System.

  Pioneers were those whose personal skills transded the limits of normal people, and those with World Skills could usually reach a minimum of level 100. Average knights who pleted their training typically floated a level around 125 to 175 or so in their primes, and world-css Guardian Knights in charge of seg macrions floated around 250 to 325. Individuals who achieved 500 or 600+ were borderlihical.

  However, in a bat situation - which was on when supervilins were involved, evee normal soldiers were no match for even the weakest magical girl that could unlock their transformations. Or even a Piohat had refined a superpower they'd unlocked through pursuing their talents, dreams, and ambitions to the point of attaining abilities aowledged as World Skills.

  World Skills were personal skills that'd been refio a point the world itself aowledged their transdent properties, and they usually required the ability to el mana into one's own soul. Pioneers with World Skills were referred to as Superhumans by normal civilians, and the gover would often monitor and police their as and ehey didn't bee too unruly. Skills could be taught to others, but it took exceptional talents to refine ohat assed on to the same point a Pioneer had refiheir Personal Skill to transd it into a World Skill.

  In trast to Skills and Arts, which could be taught to another, a Depravity was a unique maion of the darkness and malice that existed within a human's heart, and the depravities that existed within a vilihe ohat made them the most dangerous. On individual had mastered their talents enough to be aowledged as a Piohe old System would actively guide their development to achieve mastery and refihem into World Skills.

  Some of the options for a Pioneer's personal development and goal seeking were dark aructive but incredibly powerful, and the System had identified and cssified them as Depravities. These people had beeed and corrupted by the darkness of their ows and the power of evil. It was a state of the soul that led to a plete and irreversible loss of one's innoce. Even if they returned from such a state of mind, their as could never be fotten and fiven.

  But the existence of Signature Talents from Knights, Depravities from Vilins, and varied World Skills from Pioneers made levels a poor choice to cssify the threat potential of an individual.

  Threat cssification ratings were a much more useful measure, ranging from the weakest of individuals who were a negligible threat at css 0, to a cssification of 10. Css 10 designations were incredibly rare and historically signifit, and only the likes of Arcadia and her aremesis Mortifera Nox were given that designation. Even individuals that could topple a try on their own without iional intervention such as Tesseract or Osmium Titan only had a Css 9 rating.

  on hen and w enfort had a Css 1 rating, magical knights cadets at the minimum of a css 2 rating, veteraes were usually css 5 or 6, the best heroes and vilins were css 6 or 7, and there was a signifit jump between 7 and 8.

  A Css 7 designation usually indicated that an individual was the greatest in their field or try and represented a major iional presence - whether as a threat or deterrent. A Css 8 was essentially a demigod, and Css 9s were truly in a category of their own. I'd once read about how Nox's heavy hitter Osmium Titan once defeated aire coalition of over three dozen css 6s through 8s selected to ter him.

  Superhumans were further segmented into categories such as Artificer, Shadoutor, Mentalist, Pyrokinesis, and other descriptors, but that was only a broad guideline of what an individual's powers and threat potential might look like. Usually, it was a bad idea to even eh a batant more than two css ratings above one's own, but a gap of three ranks was typically just enough not to be dead weight.

  "Not good, then. That's seven potential Pioneers with powers and the manpower and equipment to take out a small army." Ichigo shivered, biting her lip nervously.

  "And that's just their big guns." Albert added. "There'll probably be dozens of heoo. Even if we hypothetically had a knight or two in roup here ready to pop their identity, the normies like me would still get caught in the crossfire."

  "Well. I've got some good news and some bad news," Bck Star said. "Bad news is that there's a bunooks out here looking for us right now, so they probably have a vague idea where we went. And they're gonna keep looking. They have numbers on their side, and if they caty one of us alone, well. I think it's safe to say that the whole kidnapping pn will probably happen a lot faster and more effitly than they anticipated. They won't stop till they have what they came for."

  Bck Star stirred the ramen again. The timer beeped, and he grabbed a fork, stabbing at the block of instant ramen and stirring it up into a mush of noodles. "You guys sure you don't want one? I make another kettle worth of water real quick."

  He shrugged when we shook our heads and began chowing down, scarfing down a forkful of instant ramen in one gulp.

  "Uhm, so, uh. What's the good hen?" Ichigo asked hesitantly.

  "The good news is that I'm pretty good at what I do and uand this crew of bozos, so I'm fident in our ces. I could probably be vio get put under a tract if anyone wants to tip their hands about their skills."

  "tract? You're kidding." Albert scoffed.

  "A magical vow of silence, yes. Red Masque operated a lot with these involved, so I vouch that I get you something to put your mind at ease." Bck Star said.

  Albert suddenly looked at me. "Yo. Is this kid for real?"

  "Yup," I answered, shrugging helplessly. "He's an asshole, but he's trustworthy."

  "Okay, just cheg. Um..." Albert trailed off.

  I took a deep breath, pulling out my phone.

  "If it's all the same, we just skip straight to calling for backup through the group chat? Or are we just going to assume nobody else has anything to hide here?"

  The others shifted nervously.

  I quickly tapped a few messages into our chat with the group that'd gohrough Tesseract's exercise, expining the situation and asking for backup or a way to evacuate us.

  "That's... surprisingly sensible, but El Mago's got a Scryer with him." Bck Star frowned. "They're gonna find us before your cavalry es."

  My phone vibrated as Aurora chimed in immediately with an armed emoji, saying she was with a bunch of older students at a club, but she'd put together a team ahere as fast as possible. I'd mentiohat Strawberry was with me, but that didn't mean much. We were outnumbered by supervilins, but hopefully we could get more on the way. Hopefully.

  A few more seds ter, an at with a cute blue-eyed magical girl anime profile picture sent an emoji and a brief message that was a mix of abbreviations ais. More names I didn't reize chimed in a mier, all promising they were on the way.

  "I've called for backup from the others," I said. "They'll probably be a while, but that just gives us more time to prepare, right?"

  "Yeah. Hopefully we won't have to wait for them to arrive. Or worse, have them die in a heroic, desperate attempt to save us." Bck Star snarked, smirking at me.

  I nodded, staring down at my phone. Everyone here knew who I was, so there was no point keeping my identity hidden.

  I eled my mana into my Nexus, transf my phoo a heart-shaped device, a my magivelop me, transf into my magical girl identity. A swirl of red and gold mana enveloped me, my clothes dissolving and being repced with my red dress.

  Stel sighed, stepping forward as a piece of paper appeared in her hand in a swirl of blue. She shoved it into Bck Star's hands, pulling a pen from her purse. "Draw blood with that and swear on it. I have a feeling we don't have time to spare. I want you to promise you won't sell us out, share or disclose anything we've talked about, and that you won't use any of what we tell you to hurt us. That's my magic paper, and it binds you. So be very specific with your vow."

  I chuckled. I guess that answered whether Stel was going to transform or not.

  Bck Star winced, prig his finger with his knife aing his blood pool onto the paper.

  "Alright, but you guys seriously better buy me dinner sometime for this. This isly fortable." He grumbled as the blood flowed into the paper and tur red, and then white.

  He muttered an oath under his breath, and then ha back to her.

  Ichigo stared at Stel in shock, gaping. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

  Finally, after a long moment, she spoke. "What the actual fuck. Matsudaira, of all people?"

  "Right?" I chuckled.

  Stel giggled, stepping back from Bck Star.

  "Hi. I hope I am not incorred being presumptuous. You are Cw Strawberry, correct?" Stel smiled, turning to her.

  Ichigo's face went pale. "Wait. You already know?"

  "I'm not blind. You literally picked a hat was a direct transtion of your civilian name. I figured it out in like a day, and that's because I wao be sure," Stel rolled her eyes.

  Ichigo flushed a deep shade of crimson, her cheeks turning a dark red. She coughed awkwardly.

  "Okay. So, that would make you..."

  Stel beamed, pulling out her own phone and morphing it into a snowfke shape.

  "Take a guess," she smiled, turnitention to me. "Sienna?"

  She gave me a sly wink, and I stared at her, scratg my head.

  "How good are you at maintaining your illusions on the move?" she asked.

  "Depends," I frowned.

  "Excellent. We'll discuss more soon. I'll need your help with something ter." She smirked, her eyes glinting mischievously. "But for now, I believe we should focus oter at hand."

  Albert leaned back, whistling nontly as Ichigo's head whipped over to him.

  "You knew!?" She scowled.

  Albert grinned sheepishly. "It retty funny to watch, holy. I didn't know for sure, but I was like eighty pert sure about you. Stel here is a shock, though."

  "I hate all of you." Iuttered.

  "Well," Stel tinued. "You might know me as Elysia, but I think I have a pn. We o buy time, right? In the event we ot defeat them in a straight fight. So, I'll start us off with this. We should run a misdire py."

  I grinned, a pn f in my mind.

  "Well, you do seem like you have the perfect personality to throw them for a loop," I teased.

  Ichigo frowned, slowly pulling out a phoh a cat's paw charm on it. "You guys gonna fill me in or not?"

  Stel's expression suddenly shifted as the snowfke shifted into an edgy bck smartphone case with red runes. A crimson mist started to gather around her as her face took on a cruel, sadistic look.

  "Oh, you adorable little kittens," she chuckled. "Let me expin to you all the intricacies of my master pn."

  She grabbed onto her face with an exaggerated gesture of surprise, a cruel, maniacal grin f on her face as her eyes seemed to glow a menag red.

  "I am. So lost." Ichigo said, shaking her head.

  She yelped as Albert stepped in, throwing his big, heavy arm around her in a friendly, f squeeze. "Wele to the club!"

  "I don't like this," Ichigo whimpered, crossing her arms but not protesting Al's hug.

  "Oh, I'm loving this." Bck Star ughed.

  "I see you're fused! Don't worry your little hearts. I, the Goddess of Chaos, shall bless you with the knowledge you so crave!"

  "Ok, this is officially extra." Albert chuckled. "She's really a ibyou, isn't she?"

  I sighed. "Just go with it."

  A crack of red lightning sparked in Stel's hair. A gust of wind seemed to e out of nowhere as she raised her hands dramatically. A sinister aura began to surround her. I couldn't tell if it was just for dramatic fir or aension of her transformation.

  Albert and Ichigo exged looks with me. Then, the two exged stunned looks and nodded.

  Ichigo turned back to Stel, who was cag like an old woman while stroking her like some sort of cartoon vilin. She raised an eyebrow. "So, uh... she's supposed to be Elysia, huh?"

  I shrugged, smiling.

  "NYEHEHEHEEHEHE!" Stel cackled. "NOW! GAZE UPON PERFEORTALS!"

  A fsh of red light filled the alleyway, and the hing I knew, Stel stood in a bd red goth-lolita dress, with her hair dyed raven-bck, streaked with blood-red highlights.

  Ichigo stared like her brain had short circuited.

  ...

  A long moment of silence passed as Dark Princess Eris held a long, fident pose with one hand on her hips and the other framing her face with a wink and grin. You could practically hear a pin drop as she held the pose.

  And then, Ichigo finally broke the silence.

  "...What. The fuck?!"