The world had been a dark place since she had returned to the tall-nest.

  It did not feel like home, not that her chicks were dead.

  None of the powers that the blue box offered would let her bring her chicks back, so they were all worthless. None of them stopped the itching, so they were all pointless. She could only pray that, if there was a next time, if someday, somehow, her chicks needed her again, that she would be fast enough.

  The blue and the black in the sky had fought as they always did, trading places several times. She could not muster the energy to care. The empty feeling in her chest was a foe that she did not know how to fight against. The itching remained, as it always did. If only she knew how to kill the itching. Then, maybe, she could rest.

  A strange blue flier approached the tower. The tower was hers, no one else could have it as a nest. She would need it, if the blue box gave her chicks again. So she attacked it.

  It had disappeared - it was one of the two-legs' big shells? - and spilled out some two-legs.

  She recognised those two-legs.

  It was the two two-legs who had killed her chicks. There was a third one with them now. They had survived her killing them. They had come back to finish her off too.

  Maybe that was okay. Maybe she didn't want to live in a world that her chicks were no longer part of. She wasn't sure.

  BUT THE BURNING-CRACKLING INSIDE HER SAID THAT THE KILLERS DID NOT DESERVE TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD EITHER.

  She attacked them again. But they had the big shells. That didn't matter. She'd killed the big shells before. If she killed the two-legs, the itching would stop for a time. The blue box might appear to her again. It might offer to bring her chicks back. Things might be okay again.

  But it was different this time. The big shells came together. They became some kind of . . biggest shell.

  She fought the biggest shell. It fought back. She hurt it. It hurt her more.

  Her wing wasn't working properly. It had been torn by the biggest shell. She could hold it together for a bit with the burning-crackling in her skin. But it would be a while before she could hunt properly.

  The biggest shell hit her again. And again. She couldn't stop it from making her crash into the tall-nest.

  She knew what the tall-nest did when the wrong part of it was touched. That was what had made it such a good nest.

  The tall-nest attacked her too. She didn't blame it. She was losing. She had become weak. If their positions had been reversed, she would have betrayed the tall-nest too.

  It was just so hard to keep fighting. Everything hurt so much, both on the outside and on the inside.

  The two-legs had taken everything from her. Her chicks, her nest, her strength.

  There was nothing else she could do, she realised, as everything went black.

  . . . The itching was gone. For the first time since she'd hatched . .

  . . never before had she been able to just exist . .

  . . without pain . .

  . . without anything to fight . .

  . . she . .

  . . felt . .

  . . free.

  <=====}—o

  The Black Knight Triplex hovered over the corpse, sword at the ready, just in case it here was one final nasty surprise in store. "Is it dead?" Mikayla asked.

  At long last, notifications filled the viewscreen of their control centre.

  [YOU HAVE EARNED XP FOR KILLING A STORMWRATH GIANT ROC!]

  [LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP! CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 24!]

  "Whoa! Four whole levels? That's insane!"

  "I got three! I'm Level 28 now!" Keldryn gasped.

  "Of course we did! This combination thing is exploiting a loophole in the XP distribution equation. As far as the System can tell, two Level 20s and a Level 30 just miraculously killed something three times as strong as them!" Asika laughed. "Hahaha . . wait, damnit, I'm gonna have to fill out a glitch report form. That's the sort of thing the Admins will call too overpowered,"

  "So that was a one time thing? Aww," Mikayla sulked.

  "I'll see what I can do," Asika promised her. "Even if they fix the equation so that next time you do this, you just get the XP that, say, a Level 75 would get for killing a Tier 13, that'll still be a lot for a Level 25. After all, this is a demigod power, right? They're supposed to be kinda broken. Just usually in the 'really strong attacks' sense, not the 'really fast levelling' sense,"

  Mikayla sighed a bit as the Black Knight Triplex touched down. "Yeah, well, as a demigod of a dead god apparently that Blessing is all I can do,"

  Asika's brow furrowed. "That shouldn't be right. You should at least get some Divine Techniques . . unless there just wasn't time for him to transfer them, or something happened to the files . ." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "I might have to look into that,"

  "Really? Good to know," Mikayla mused. "Okay, everyone brace yourself. I think I figured out how to turn this thing off safely,"

  She could sense the connections between the Blessings that she had given out, she'd realised during the fight. So surely it wouldn't be that hard to just reach out and turn them off?

  "Wait!" Nocturnus interrupted.

  "What is it?"

  "We have not performed a victory pose!"

  That statement did not merit a response.

  With three quick flicks, Mikayla dissolved the intangible conduits connecting her to the others in a way she couldn't quite articulate. And then all the blood rushed to her head.

  The Black Knight Triplex broke into pieces, wings and shoulders sloughing away and splitting back off into Kagura-no-Shibu, legs and torso falling out to let Skyward Grasscutter land in a crouch. The Black Knight itself stumbled forwards, Mikayla's head too filled with vertigo to keep herself upright.

  There was a crash that shook her whole body, and by the time she'd focused clearly enough to look out through the Black Knight's visor again, it was full of grass.

  "Armour off, Mikayla. Get some rest. Well done," Nocturnus murmured in her ear. If he resented being reduced once more to a disembodied voice, he didn't show it.

  "Mana Assistance, armour off," Mikayla repeated, not even minding falling back on the 'crutch'.

  A second too late, she realised that might not have been smart, because the Armour's disintegration dropped her face-first into the dirt. But that wasn't so bad. It was comfortable dirt.

  Hands took hers and dragged her to her feet. "C'mon, get up, get up! We don't have time for you to take a dirt nap," Asika cajoled Mikayla, shaking her until she opened her eyes.

  "Okay, okay, I'm awake. Yeesh. That was a head rush," Mikayla massaged her temples, brushing away her dark hair. "Still, everyone's okay?"

  Keldryn and Asika were both watching her with concern in their eyes, so she smiled and nodded reassuringly. "Totally fine, no problems here!" Asika assured her.

  "Same. Though, where did those seats and controls come from?" Keldryn asked. "We didn't have those while fighting Flyreh,"

  "I gave it a try to stop our minds from mixing like they almost did back then," Mikayla explained. "I think it worked,"

  "Oh, I get it, super smart," Asika's face lit up with dawning understanding. "The psychic interface of a Core is omnidirectional and doesn't have any built-in segregation, so leveraging Willpower and imagination to define regions within the resultant shared mental space through the metaphor of separate terminals at a console is an effective way to make it safer," Her motormouth was back in full force, nodding along as she rattled off technical terms. "I am curious about the aesthetic, though?"

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Mikayla flushed a bit. "In my world we have cartoons - uh, fictional stories for children - about combining robots with multiple heroes working together to control them in cockpits like that. My kid brother likes them," she deflected.

  Neither of her friends seemed entirely convinced. "Uh-huh. Your little brother," Asika repeated. Keldryn just folded his arms and raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  "Whatever. The Giant Roc's dead and we've wasted enough time. Let's get going,"

  "Or we could stay here, clean up and rebuild the ruins of Balmwind, and declare ourselves a new sovereign nation!" Asika punctuated her statement with jazz hands. "What do you say, Queen Mikayla?"

  Mikayla cast Asika a flat look. "Absolutely not,"

  "Yeah, okay that's fair. I'd probably get sacked if I ran off to play royal advisor anyway, the Cosmic Scales hates when that happens," Asika rolled her eyes and didn't even try to hide a playful smile. "Alright! Let's go hit up that rift!"

  She gripped her friends' wrists in each hand and once again the internal walls of Kagura-no-Shibu rose up around them. Wings outstretched and arms tucked backwards, Asika's enthusiasm meant the two passengers barely had time to settle in their seats before the pod was rocketing back into the air.

  It was barely two minutes until a familiar landmark came into view. The pit that Mikayla had landed in, the Cavemaw Spider's nest, and the decaying corpse of the first monster she'd killed in this world. There wasn't much left of the body, merely a stain of viscera surrounded by bony legs. Clearly some other Kaiju had appreciated the free meal.

  It had been less than three weeks, yet it felt so long ago that Mikayla had blundered her way into killing that horrible creature. She'd come so far since then. It was baffling to think about.

  "And here we are," The landing was much smoother this time, as Asika set them down gently and dismissed her Armour Core, depositing Mikayla and Keldryn on the topsoil. Kagura-no-Shibu immediately reformed around her at minimum size, and Asika spared them a brief glance. "This is gonna take a few minutes. Be patient,"

  "Is the rift still there?" Mikayla couldn't see any sign of a spatial anomaly, but she had no idea what to look for.

  "We're not looking for a rift, we're looking for an echo," Asika absently corrected her, raising one arm towards the sky and unfolding her Armour Core's gauntlet into some kind of radar dish, while the other toyed with a System screen. "Give me a few minutes,"

  "Hey, what's that?" Keldryn asked, pointing.

  Mikayla followed his finger, and her eyes widened. "That's my car!"

  Indeed, her vehicle was still there at the bottom of the pit, looking not much the worse for wear for having spent three weeks abandoned in the taiga. The Cavemaw Spider's nest had sheltered it from the wind, and though there was some clear damage, she was pretty sure that it was still fixable.

  "It looks like that transportation Core Lahlee was using. But not as a Core?" Keldryn's brow furrowed. "How does that work?"

  "I dunno, it's internal combustion or something. Ask an engineering student. I'm a historian," Mikayla shrugged a bit, looking around. Fortunately, it didn't seem like any new Kaiju had moved into the Cavemaw Spider's nest yet. "I wonder if we'll be able to get it back through the rift?"

  "Shouldn't be too hard. I could throw it," Keldryn speculated.

  Mikayla winced. She wanted to say no, but if the rift appeared in mid-air, that might actually be a good plan. ". . be gentle?"

  Keldryn nodded, continuing to examine the car with ears pricked up.

  Leaving him to it, Mikayla looked around, seeing another familiar sight. Her Mana surged and conjured the Black Knight Armour as she made her way to a particular thicket.

  "What's the matter? Another fight? Or is it time to . ." Nocturnus trailed off as Mikayla bent down over an aged, yellow skull.

  "I, um. Thought you should . ." Mikayla trailed off. She hadn't really thought it through at all. She'd just remembered that Nocturnus' bones were nearby and thought the old knight should see them.

  "Where is my ribcage?" the former Black Knight frowned, and Mikayla blinked. Sure enough, the skull, arms and everything below the waist was all there, but . . "Oh, right. I forgot," Mikayla mumbled.

  "Forgot what?"

  In a small voice, she plaintively offered, "I tried to use your ribcage as a flail before I figured out Mana Assistance," It had been pathetic and desperate. She didn't deny that, and could only blame the state of panic she'd been in on her first day in the Kaiju Coast.

  Nocturnus' silence spoke volumes.

  "I'm sorry," she added, shamefaced.

  "For what? That is brilliant! Even in death, the Kaijus fear my very bones!" the old ghost crowed.

  Mikayla didn't know why she'd expected any other reaction.

  "Do you want us to bury you?" she asked. "Lay your bones to rest?"

  "Why bother?" The warmth faded from Nocturnus' tone. "I'm the Black Traitor. No one would visit my tomb, none will sing songs of my valour. I might as well just be dust on the wind. Perhaps then Balmwind might heal from the suffering I inflicted on it,"

  "Well . . I'm grateful. I know it doesn't mean much, but . . if you hadn't been here, I'd never have made it this far," Mikayla assured him with a gentle smile. "Whatever else may be, to me at least you've been nothing but a blessing," She chuckled. "No pun intended,"

  "Thank you, lass," Unfortunately, it didn't sound like her words had soothed Nocturnus' conscience much. "On a different topic, why are you over here and wasting time on me, anyway? You should not have left the faerie alone,"

  Mikayla raised na eyebrow. "She said opening the rift would take a few minutes,"

  "And if she can only hold it open for five seconds? Being over here and needing to run back to her might cause you to miss your chance. Do not waste time on me, I do not deserve it. Go, get back over there!"

  Her eyes widened. Nocturnus was right. A sudden panic filled her body as she span and rushed back through the undergrowth.

  Her heartbeat only slowed when Asika was back within sight, still toying with an ever-more-complicated array of System screens and wires formed from pixelated Mana. Phew. She hadn't opened the rift yet.

  As Mikayla got closer, though, she noticed that the faerie wasn't smiling. Her eyebrows were furrowed, and flickers of pink light kept shooting out of her screens and into the satellite dish, but with no response.

  "How's it going?" she asked, dreading the answer.

  Asika didn't respond, too wrapped up in whatever arcane mechanisms she was using. Mikayla doubted she'd even heard, and decided not to interrupt.

  For several minutes, Mikayla just watched Asika work, her hopes sinking lower and lower as Asika's face grew progressively more frustrated. Keldryn rejoined her his ears drooping as he took in the two girls' expressions.

  Finally, there was a deep sigh, and Asika's conjurations all dropped away, leaving the faerie standing there with slumped shoulders. "It's no good," she mumbled.

  "Asika?" Mikayla's heart fell, all the warmth seeming to sink down to her feet and leave her body. "Is . . is it . ."

  "We took too long," Asika shook her head, burying her face in her hands.

  "The rift is gone. I can't send you home,"