The portal glowed with a playful pink as our team and Vanya gathered around it. While the color of a portal didn’t have any provable correlation to its contents, that didn’t stop heroes from developing their own hue-based superstitions. I tried not to engage in such fanciful nonsense, but I’ve been into far too many pink portals with emotional completion requirements. One required that I befriend a bunch of talking woodland creatures and help them with their animal related problems.

  While we waited for Professor Danger, Riena turned to me and asked, “Hey Mari, care to explain why I received a fine yesterday on your behalf for reckless flying?”

  “Commanders are liable for their team’s actions. Sorry, I didn’t think the Valkyrie recognized me,” I said. “Was it a lot?”

  She waved it off. “Barely a couple doubloons of our pirate gold. No, that isn’t the problem. Since when can you fly?”

  “I can’t, but consecutive jumping between the sides of buildings is considered effectively flight for zoning violations.”

  Vanya rolled her eyes. “And you did that while drunk?”

  “I…” The faint blaring of trumpets interrupted my excuses. “Finally! Compatriots, we haven’t known each other long, but each of you are dear to me. If I do not return, I recommend that Vanya take my place.” I pivoted on my heel and headed for the exit.

  Riena grabbed my arm. “Where are you going? What’s happening?”

  How can she not recognize the call? Was her household so insulated? Thankfully, Derek explained for me. “It’s a raid and not a defensive one either. The named are gathering to assault a high tier monster.”

  “Can we help?”

  Derek shook his head. “No. Regular heroes are barred from unnecessary raids because too many of us would die. All the named have survived impossible odds, so they are the only ones humanity is willing to risk. Offensive raids themselves are new. They only began after the Savior managed to kill a tier 7 monster.”

  I pulled out of Riena’s grip and patted her shoulder. “The danger is real, but do not worry. There is no nobler battlefield to die on.”

  “Exemplar.” Vanya glared at me. “You better come back.”

  I gave them one last wistful smile. “I intend to.”

  The stairs flew under me as I raced. Most of the named wouldn’t know when a raid like this was scheduled for operational security. High tier monsters had their own spies and means to be forewarned about attacks. The less our target knew of our plans, the better.

  Once outside, I spotted a large drone with its hatch open and slipped inside. Burn Bright, Maze, Dryad, Ironclad, and Gyro joined me moments later.

  Burn Bright groaned as he sat in the chair and pulled down the crash restraints. “I’m getting too old for this.”

  The door closed and the drone lifted off before Maze commented, “Is that why you are not flying yourself?”

  “Ha ha. Like I know where we are going anymore than you.”

  Maze rubbed his nails on his jacket and examined them without responding. “Who says I don’t know?”

  “Alright Mr. Know-it-all, do you think this is one of the Savior’s plans or Absolute’s?”

  Ironclad interjected. “Probably Art’s. He’s focused on winning. Absolute focuses on survival.”

  Burn Bright snorted. “Same thing.”

  “Regardless,” Dryad drawled. “Does everyone have their substitutes lined up? We wouldn’t want anything to disrupt the students’ education.” The collected faculty muttered affirmatives. “Exemplar? Even as a student, you have your duties to learning.”

  “Yes, my own replacement is ready, should it come to that,” I answered.

  Gyro had been staring at me and let out a long sigh. “It’s been a long time since I took a student to one of these.”

  “I can’t wait to apply all that I’ve learned!” I gave my teacher my best winning smile.

  Burn Bright chortled and lightly punched Gyro’s shoulder. “Don’t look so glum! At least she’s an adult this time.”

  My Crafting professor shuddered. “Exemplar, you should know that we’ve all agreed to never name a child again, no matter how worthy they are or how incomprehensible it is to view them as a regular child.”

  I knew that a large portion of the named came to regret my presence. My age was easier to ignore when I was encased in armor. After the raid I lost my arms and Healers had to regrow them, the illusion was broken. They all saw the kid, and many took umbrage with that.

  It cut at me to know that my proudest accomplishment was no longer possible. How long before they take the name back? Such thoughts haunted me when a peer like Gabriel threatened to eclipse my talents.

  “Understood.” I grinned and agreed amicably. Names were earned by the acclaim of other named heroes. If they all started calling you a nickname, then you were one of them. As one of them, my opinion on this mattered, but didn’t matter so much that I could refuse them all.

  “Listen,” Gyro continued. “The era where we need to throw children into the meat grinder is coming to a close. Artemis has a few projects cooking that should shut down the training schools and make the surface safe for noncombatants. Soon, no one will need to have lived the lives we’ve all had.”

  “Isn’t that every hero’s dream? We suffer trials so that others don’t. I’m content with the world moving on. Really, I am.” Why would I be upset at being a relic at eighteen? Every year, my fellow humans will understand me less. None will want to reminisce about the bad old days, the prime of my life. No, I haven’t peaked yet. “Not that there isn’t plenty of fight left in the world.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “And you’ll keep seeking it… Do me a favor? Outlive me.”

  I laughed. “I’ll try my best.”

  The banter died as we all contemplated our own mortality. While not all of the named shared my thirst for heroism, they all got it: that somber weight as we prepared to fight that which was invincible and—since we initiated this raid—kill it, a truly impossible task for people who did the impossible as a matter of course.

  [Gyro targeted. Initiating teleport.]

  The sterile electronic voice of the Savior’s Demiurge drone system cut through reality and seemed to be coming from every direction at once.

  “This is my stop.” Gyro gave us a salute before she was peeled layer by layer from the top down and whisked to another location to be reassembled.

  Burn Bright made an eye-rolling motion with his sightless helmet. “Of course the Savior wants his mentor close.”

  I scoffed. “He’s controlling our ride and coordinates all the named. We’re all his chess pieces.”

  “Back in my day, we threw ourselves at Titans and hoped humanity survived.”

  “I remember; I was there before the Savior formally took over.”

  “Bah, you’re too young to have such ancient memories.”

  “Six years is an eternity for raiding.”

  Dryad and Ironclad nodded to the sentiment. I’d been named before them. Most either held their name for a few years or decades with little in between. The latter were rare exceptions. Multiple impossible fights every year tended to be bad for retention.

  [Dropping Exemplar]

  A hole opened and my seat straightened, jettisoning me to the earth below. I rolled with the fall into an opened tent. It shut behind me as a green hologram formed of a woman in a suit with horn-rimmed glasses, a clipboard, and hair tightened into a bun.

  “Your raid gear will be arriving…” She checked a box on her clipboard. “Now.”

  A pod fell from the sky through an opening in the tan canvas. Supply earned her name by providing logistical support to the heroes of Last Stand. While she normally ensured everyone had what they needed through her ability-supported organizational skills, the quartermaster wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty or personally use the ordinance entrusted to her whenever ‘problems’ occurred. You didn’t want to be one of her problems.

  “The Savior reworked his entire line of raid gear and standardized the set for anyone with Exemplar. Don’t look disappointed. It’s tier 7.”

  I bubbled with excitement. At first, Artemis had thrown me impractical failed creations to use in raids. When that proved effective, he expanded the concept to specialized gear for all the named. The maintenance costs were too astronomical for everyone to hold onto these toys full-time, but they made a marked difference in raid casualty rates. If humanity’s best Crafter making gear for everyone seemed obvious, you don’t understand the difficulties of being the man that can do anything. He’s constantly pulled in thousands of directions, each world-shattering in consequence. Doing this delayed second abilities, reducing shade infection mortality, and shattering demonic armies. Nyla’s family may be dead because of raid gear.

  As I opened the pod, I tried to thank Supply, but she was no longer connected. The door rolled open and white light illuminated sleek black power armor that invoked the silhouette of a Valkyrie. Two beautiful wings made of long blades instead of feathers sprouted from the back. Countless interlocking plates covered all the joints between the thicker armor panels.

  Since the Savior normally enchanted with Draconic, I couldn’t even see the scripts, much less determine what it did. When I reached out to put this work of art on, it teleported onto my person. As the HUD booted up, I grabbed the zweihander in the back of the pod. The midnight blade was as large as my Gladesword. It had a single sharp edge that led to a slightly forward hook with a piercing tip. No guard protected the handle, and a rainbow effect surrounded where the sword was sharp enough to cut light.

  I gave the weapon a few test swings and flexed my wings while the HUD displayed the items’ abilities.

  [Hunter Squad Zweihander - Abilities: Durability, Sharpness, Impact Weight, Enhanced Momentum, Counter Magic, Counter Elements, Counter Psychic Assault]

  [Hunter Squad Armor - Abilities: Durability, Flight, Negate Magic, Negate Elements, Mind Shield, Enhanced Physique, Nondetection]

  I winced. Artemis had probably meant the names as an honor, but didn’t have time to switch them when I changed mine. My lasting legacy is an epithet I’ve discarded. Oh well, maybe my scythe will appreciate it.

  Pushing that out of my mind, I walked from the tent and leapt while flapping my wings. They were ungainly contraptions for the first few strokes, refusing to move how I wanted. My cerebellum quickly adapted to the new limbs and their coordination improved. After a minute swooping and diving, I moved through the more complicated maneuvers of a Valkyrie.

  My heart swelled at this partial fulfillment of an abandoned dream. I wasn’t one of them and would never be one of them, but on raids, I could emulate the elegance I had been so envious of.

  There is a joy to wings that other forms of flight can’t match. Nothing compares to riding the air currents. Harmony with nature is interspersed with moments of dominance. You massage the wind or beat it into submission at the whims of your will. It is primal, no matter how modern your means of achieving it. Welcome, sister. Coatlie congratulated through mindspeak.

  I tapped a hand to my throat to signal that I heard her before banking and following HUD directions to a rally point while reading the operations details.

  One by one, my fellow named heroes with Exemplar fell into formation behind me. The men didn’t look bad with wings, even if their armor had less curves than the women in our squad. This wasn’t a standard hero team. I was going to show them how to best leverage Exemplar in a raid, and then we would split off. Training my replacements.

  Deathglare, Galewind, Nebula, Spiritbreaker, Wrath, and Zealot formed this inaugural Hunter Squad.

  Zealot laughed. His voice boomed over the torrent of air and could be easily parsed with shade enhanced hearing. “To think one of my inquisitors would be giving me orders.” The high inquisitor seemed beside himself with mirth.

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  “Well, get teaching then,” Wrath growled out. The rank 6 hero wasn’t known for her patience.

  I switched to a lecturing tone. “Magic item abilities’ equivalent strength in shade percent follows a rough Fibonacci sequence. So even though we’re wearing unprecedented tier 7 gear, our Flight only has parity with heroes of 21% shade. Since our wings mimic a natural construct, we can dive and swoop at faster speeds like birds. Aligning your momentum with strikes will be critical to unleashing your full strength. For our first target, watch what I do, and then try it yourself. With Exemplar, you won’t need more instruction.”

  “Good.”

  The pronouncement proceeded a period of silence until our destination came into view. A vast plain was marred by a massive mound of wax that stretched halfway to the clouds. Orbiting it were eight smaller hives. Between them fluttered streams of insects with gossamer wings that sparkled in the sunlight. Their harmonious buzzing could be heard from here and would lure unprotected minds into a promise of order and prosperity. The insects would grant any creature a long life and many children. All they wanted was your soul.

  [Transmitting speech: “Today is the day we break through another threshold. Our quarry is a tier 8 hiveborn queen. With her fall, humanity will be one step closer to ascension. This is the pivotal moment. No more desperate survival. Now is the time to conquer and thrive. When history fades into legend and legend into myth, this battle will be remembered. Go forth my comrades, and seize back our world!”]

  The Savior tended to keep his speeches short. None of us needed to be motivated. The preamble was for the sake of posterity. Absolute loved playing clips over critical moments in the highlight reel for the rabble.

  More privately, Artemis spoke telepathically to my squad, “The biggest hurdle to slaying tier 8s has been their tier 7 guards. Today’s success will depend on your squad slaying one of the hiveborn princesses with minimal support. You will then need to split and busy the other seven until the queen is defeated. Again, with minimum support. Most of us will be fighting the queen. Good luck out there.”

  A deep thrill pulsed down my veins. Slaying a high tier monster without the Savior’s aid was already a tall order, but following it up with facing one basically by myself was downright suicidal. Awesome! A giddy giggle bubbled out of my throat and built into full-bellied laughter. Spittle foamed at the corners of my mouth as euphoria overtook me.

  The world was brighter and every sense expanded to catch any hint of danger. All the buzzing thoughts quieted. There was only focus and a deep joy of heroism. My heroic heart pulsed faster and faster, craving evil to vanquish.

  As our squad banked to the first target, the queen’s armies began to swarm. This piece of the Greater Arthropoda Collective possessed its complete diversity of demonic bugs. Giant isopods tumbled out of the main hive ahead of massive spider spellcasters, tier 6 centipedes, castle destroying beetles, and countless hordes of smaller—but no less deadly—insects. The eight smaller hives released clouds of humanoid wasps and giant dragonflies ferried more terrestrial demons to the ground. Wards sprouted around all the hives in a multicolored display of overlaying hexagonal shields. The bugs clicked and hissed together in war song.

  [Power, Monarch, and Eviscerate, to the front.]

  Like a meteor burning up on reentry, Power dived from the stratosphere. The pocket of superheated air glowed brighter and brighter as she neared. Spells and spines from our foe deflected harmlessly or burnt to cinders on a shield made from nothing but raw might and speed. When she hit the ground, the earth shook and the main hive cracked as a cloud of dust exploded into the air and darkened the sky. Pyroclastic flows spread from the impact and consumed those not pulped from the blast. Power floated in the middle of ash, death, and fire with one of the hiveborn heroes in her hands. The ant-like creature flailed helplessly as Power ripped him in half.

  Humanity had arrived to take our due.

  A new sun appeared in the sky, and it was angry. Rays of light coruscated through the hiveborn army to herald the descent of the Savior’s personal drone armada of tier 6 killing machines. The mechanized tide of death ripped apart and blended anything that survived incineration. When one fell, two more replaced it.

  [“Knock knock.”]

  The sun erupted with a rainbow beam more than twice its diameter that drilled through the defenses of the main hive. As the hiveborn mobilized their counters, dozens of other named heroes took to the field. While that glory unfolded, I turned to my battle.

  Formicoids rode giant flies in formation. While the humanoid ant riders aimed bows, guns, and spells at us, the flies moved to ensnare us with nets of magical spiderwebs. In front of them flew a vanguard of Waspers. The humanoid wasps clutched their spears tightly and charged with single-minded determination.

  I zipped ahead of the squad and spun through the first wave. The tips of my wings severed attacking weapons and decapitated any foe within reach. My sword lashed out at the incoming salvo and bounced the effects back to their senders. Unlike the natural variants, the Counter abilities on my weapon required manual direction, a skill I had plenty of practice with.

  Several of my attackers burst into acid, crumbled to dust, or turned on their allies. Magical slugs pierced gunmen and bugs behind them as my blade returned the attacks at greater velocity. When the flies dived in with their nets, I jerked to the side with a flap and cleaved one in half. My blade passed through the mid tier monster like it was butter. The momentum altering properties of the weapon meant I moved faster after the swing instead of slower.

  I charged the next fly, and the next, and the next, and the next… Each strike had less time between them. My arm moved like lightning while my armor yearned to torque the limb out of its socket, a standard downside to power armor that was only mitigated with skill. This rapid slaughter stretched my perception to the limit until I found myself cleaving through the last foe and into the magical protections of the satellite hive.

  The rest of my squad joined me in moments. A brief lull had descended our portion of the battlefield as enemies rushed to fill the gap their dismembered comrades had left. The other hunters had refrained from using their primary abilities during this initial assault on the fodder to better master what I was showing them. They were all quick studies. Almost as good as me after one skirmish.

  Said ‘fodder’ were nearly all mid tier monsters. They would be reborn by their queen almost instantly. The deaths we dealt were fleeting, but our target was unlikely to be reinforced during this battle.

  After a few more swings, we broke through the defenses and flew down the nearest tunnel. This wasn’t my first time in a hive. I knew how to navigate the warrens and avoid dead-end traps. My foreknowledge didn’t prevent the enemy from releasing Cave Worms into the critical path. The conical maw lined the edges of the passage and invited us in to be ground and digested.

  I wanted to say something witty about not refusing an invitation, but the rictus grin contorting my face made announcing words difficult. My attempt came out as “I never re—hee-hee—HAHAHA!” and more unintelligible noises from there.

  Eloquence wasn’t needed to twirl through the creature’s insides and dance in the gore. The dazzling rain of ichor grew more intense as the insides converged to pulp me and were only minced faster. My blade punished the worm for bleeding by sending its fluids hydro jetting back into its tissue. The brain was lobotomized, the five hearts were punctured, and the intestines were reduced to a slippery meat tube.

  I burst from the back of the creature and crashed through a squad of giant termites. My feet kicked off the walls and sent shock waves into the structure as I bashed a bug with the flat of my blade, popping it like a balloon. My precious, ephemeral students followed in my wake and added their own destruction to this canvas. Red wisps of pure rage wafted off Wrath, who was barely containing herself.

  “Where is the royal bitch?” she barked.

  “Nooot faaar!” A slight hysteria edged my words as I gleefully took our flight down the last few twists and turns to this hive’s main chamber, a massive cavern of wax and enchanted silica lights, stretching dozens of stories in height.

  Parasites buzzed around my armor. The small flying insects sought any entry point to infest my flesh and lay body controlling eggs as evidenced by the giant eagles and tengu attending the princess’s court.

  In the flanking rookeries, they twitched and jerked through their tasks. Chitin bubbled from their scalps as tiny workers crawled to other holes, constantly ‘improving’ their host. The xenophilic arthropods truly loved all the species of the world—as incubators.

  Beneath barless nursery cages, the micro infester species of the collective had built a metropolis from repurposed bodies. Amphitheaters fit in skulls, entrails lined subways, and ‘skyscrapers’ were made from spines. They writhed with tiny sapient life.

  In the middle of this charnel pit, the princess sat and petted pupa. She had four arms and two legs. Her chest was covered in black carapace and yellow fuzz that extended around a bee-like head with two antennae. An ambient light shone from her wings as two crimson orbs shifted to face us.

  “Be at peace, travelers. Our species wage needless war on each other, but we need not. Come, lay out your grievances so that I may raise them through proper diplomatic channels."

  Despite the Mind Shield, the creature projected its lies directly into our heads. Deathglare glanced about the room and every lesser insect fell dead. The death effect from his eyes could slay any mid tier or weaker monster. Galewind flapped her wings and tornadoes ripped through the miniature city, dragging any hiding creatures from their holes. Wrath howled. Her rage visibly bubbled and melted the surroundings before she charged. Against a high tier monster, none of my peers would hold back.

  “It seems negotiations have failed again.” A deep sigh vibrated the room. “Perhaps your descendants will be more open minded.”

  The creature raised a hand and erupted in a blast of fire. Wrath smacked the spell back to the bug and caused her to stumble. As her sword swung to decapitate the creature, the princess’s other three spells finished. Lightning bolts bounced around the room and harmlessly around our armor. A fog of acid filled the air, and space warped around the princess in a skintight protective shield.

  Wrath didn’t care about such paltry notions of spatial consistency. She wanted that creature’s head, and the world bent to accommodate. Red rage sheathed her blade and spread across the gap in space. Wrath cleaved along that line through the princess’s neck.

  Four insectoid fists punched Wrath in the stomach and sent into the walls of the chamber. The princess’s body then calmly reached down and reattached her head.

  “You may flee. All you can do here is die.”

  Zealot, Spiritbreaker, and I flanked the creature. I went for the legs, Spiritbreaker went for her wings, and Zealot stabbed at her side. The princess pivoted and pushed Zealot’s blade into mine before deflecting Spiritbreaker’s attack with two hands. The final four-fingered manipulator reached for my face.

  I ducked under it, folded my wings close, and slammed my head into her throat. The move surprised her enough that Spiritbreaker freed his weapon and sundered a wing.

  “Insolent mongrels!”

  The princess blurred and grabbed each of us by the throat at the cost of receiving all of our blades in her torso. She let the weapons twist in her and throat-slammed us into the ground while shaking with fury. Spiritbreaker always did know the best ways to harm a creature both physically and emotionally.

  Nebula conjured a miniature starfield and dove with them onto the bug. With Exemplar, she avoided striking any of us as her blade sheathed into the back of the princess.

  The creature’s remaining hand reached back and tossed the woman over her. Her antennae pulsed purple as hundreds of rocks and crystals were flung to intercept the starfall. From her position on the ground, Nebula kept conjuring her projectiles to both continue the assault and block our foe’s telekinetic counter attacks.

  Deathglare and Galewind kept moving to join us, but were pulled away to slaughter more incoming enemies.

  Before the royal bug could squeeze the life out of us, she coughed black bile, loosening her grip enough that I could twist my legs around the arm holding me and pull until I ripped the forearm out of the elbow.

  My peers saw the maneuver from the corners of their eyes, but the princess flung them all away before they could mimic me and continued to hack. White lines of venom spread from Zealot’s blade. He could poison any of his weapons with species-specific toxins, a technique he often used to kill hidden elves.

  The princess ripped it and the other swords from her body. Her carapace snapped shut over the holes. I then stored the forearm and rushed through the storm of colliding fire and rocks to kick the weapons to my allies before retrieving mine. The creature sent chains of force to ensnare me while a prismatic bubble formed around us. I wrapped the chains with my weapon and wrestled for control with the princess at the other end.

  “Sorry young one, you must die first.”

  One hand summoned a spear made of folded dimensions while the other one wound the chain around the arm holding it. I shoved my sword in my storage for a moment and then resummoned it free of chains. When she tried to whip them at me again, I countered the spell back at her and immobilized her two arms.

  Unfortunately, the spear was free. It flurried in my direction. I tried to block one blow and retreated after the fold in space dug a millimeter deep groove into my weapon. That’s neither sharp nor strong. It’s a column of tortured physics.

  Given the bee’s speed and no means to parry, the creature slowly backed me into a corner. I had options. I could Exemplify a property of my sword or pull out one of my new tools, but the harder fight was after this one. Any stamina I burnt now would be needed later. That left taking a huge risk, gambling with my life to earn my life, a rigged game for losers, but no other victory tasted so sweet.

  I let her push me to the dome of whirling colors. This weaker version lacked the instantly lethal indigo and violet swirls, but the other parts of the rainbow were more than strong enough to punch through my gear’s enchantments. Between it and her indomitable spear, all directions led to death.

  With a desperate lunge, I slashed at her face. She jerked her head back, letting my sword swing wide and tipping my balance. My chest was exposed, and the bug took the opening. It wasn’t a feint. A desperate flap of my wing sent me just far enough to the right to avoid the spear, but a followup would run me through. Her spear tip brushed the shield before reeling back for the kill, but that was enough.

  During the instant of contact, the colors flickered and became transparent. Wrath kicked off the ceiling, shattering a hole behind her to outside the hive. She hurtled through the magic and crashed her sword into the princess with enough force to split a handful of atoms. A small nuclear blast sent me rolling clear. I recovered in time to witness Wrath pulping the bug with her foot. Her roar sent shock waves that shattered crystals and cracked rock supports in the wax of the hive.

  Before she could calm down, a ripple in space formed next to her and a version of the princess wreathed in spectral armor clocked Wrath across the face and sent her skidding along the floor. The princess’s other body faded away as though it never existed.

  “What is space but an arbitrary series of relations between objects? Why shouldn’t any possibility or possible version of myself be here? Ah, I’ve lost some of you. To put it simply, there is no defeating me. I will regenerate from nothing, and I can always switch with a parallel self who is more perfectly prepared to face you.”

  As she boasted, seven blades of folded space formed around her and flew to each of us. I dodged mine, and the rest copied my tactic, except for Wrath. She grabbed hers and crushed it. The red glow of her aura seeped into the walls and floor around her, bending reality to her will.

  The princess waved a hand. “Be calm.”

  Wrath batted the spell back to her, but the hero wasn’t the primary target. The red rage faded from the objects around Wrath before the bug finished another spell. All the pieces of stone and loose crystal around Wrath shattered as the hero was driven to her knees by enhanced gravity.

  None of us could get past the conjured blades to help her. Nebula dropped more stars, but those were intercepted by telekinetically thrown objects. Galewind tried to push the bug back with wind, and the royal compressed the space between her and Wrath before conjuring a headman’s axe of distorted space in her hands.

  “And then, there were six.”

  “No.” The chilly word was spoken without malice as frost covered the chamber, briefly encasing the princess in ice. Absolute floated through the hole Wrath had made on a small glacier. Sheets of ice covered every centimeter of her skin. Each plate had razor-sharp edges and pointed spikes in a graceful pattern that spoke of elegance and murder. Six large blocks ringed her person along with countless smaller defenders. They morphed into shields or weapons at her will.

  The glacier melted into the floor as Absolute strutted to the princess. She lifted one heeled leg and sliced the stiletto down. The creature broke out of the ice just in time to teleport to the center of the room. Her bottom left hand and left antenna fell to the ground, leaving behind frostbitten stumps.

  Absolute clenched a fist and the blades assaulting us froze long enough for us to shatter them. We received a slight nod of approval from the President of the Hero Union before she bore her gaze down on the princess. “Our target is being uncooperative. Make it suffer.”

  I heard and obeyed.

  Changeling!

  Exemplary.