“Scan says there’s still a guard outside. He’s totally zoned out though,” Asika whispered.

  “Any chance you can share that with us?” Anza whispered.

  Asika screwed up her face thoughtfully, then flexed her fingers and a blue screen appeared in her hand. “Okay, good news and bad news. My authority to promote people to temp mods is really low, but not zero. I can’t upgrade your Scan to be like mine, but I can do this. Boop!” She tapped Anza’s nose.

  The older woman started, her eyebrows furrowing. “What was that for?”

  “Boop! Boop!” Asika did the same to Mikayla and Keldryn. “And now . . ta-da!”

  [GLOBAL MAP IS AVAILABLE]

  [IDENTIFY IS AVAILABLE]

  “That’s running off my personal System node. It won’t last forever, I don’t have unlimited data authority, but it should work until we get the Ataraxia Node going and can restore those permissions,” Asika rattled off.

  “So how do I actually use this?” Mikayla asked.

  “It’s pretty standard. To Identify an object or person, just focus on them and think or say Identify!”

  Mikayla raised a wry eyebrow, then focused on Asika and murmured, “Identify,” That was going to stop sounding like a word in the near future, wasn’t it?

  [ASIKA - LEVEL 33 - FAERIE - JUNIOR SYSTEM MODERATOR]

  While she’d been busy with that, Asika had turned back to Anza and shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, but as far as scouting goes, we’re just gonna have to rely on me to call out targets,”

  “I can work with that,” Anza nodded. “So, just the one guard outside?”

  “Yep!”

  Anza’s arms erupted with golden light again, and she threw herself against the door. It exploded off its hinges, and within the space of a second she’d located the guard, lunged at him, and smacked him into the dirt. Unprepared and half-asleep, the unfortunate man barely even realised what was going on before he’d fallen unconscious.

  Mikayla lowly whistled, awed by the sheer efficiency of the takedown. “Remind me not to get on your bad side,”

  “Hah. There’s nothing impressive about beating up chumps like this. Just wait until you see what I’m gonna do to Lahlee,” Anza growled a promise as she pulled the guard’s Core Controller off his wrist and tossed it to Keldryn. “Here, take this,”

  “Don’t you want it?” he checked, catching it and slipping it around his wrist.

  “It’s just an Amber Sentinel. It’d only slow me down,” Anza shook her head. “Asika, which way to our Cores?”

  “Follow me!” the faerie gestured, taking off towards the right-hand corridor. Mikayla followed, and Anza rapidly overtook her.

  Keldryn brought up the rear. His expression rapidly darkened as he fiddled with the Core Controller, until it finally lit up and wrapped him in blocky yellow Armour that had a spear and shield fused to his hands. “. . It’s better than nothing,” he admitted.

  Asika led them through more corridors and up several flights of stairs, then drew to a halt. “We’re almost there. They don’t have any guards patrolling, so yay, but they did leave a couple of guards outside the room where they’re keeping Cores. And these ones have multiple Cores on them,”

  “When Lahlee captured us, she had some goons using stolen Guardsman armour,” Keldryn reminded the group.

  “So some hired muscle with equipment they probably don’t know how to use. No problem,” Anza cracked her knuckles and made to round the corner, but Asika threw up a hand.

  “Wait! I wanna try something!”

  “Yeah?”

  Asika beamed. “I’ve had nothing to do but theorycraft for the past two weeks, let’s see if my upgrades to my Technique paid off!”

  Mikayla’s eyes widened. If Asika was about to do what they all thought she was about to do, Mikayla wanted to see it.

  Asika leapt into the intersection of corridors, spread her arms and did a rapid pirouette. As she did, motes of light appeared around her, a half-dozen pencils drawing a three-dimensional array of spiralling lines connecting forty-eight twinkles of pale blue light.

  “Hey! Who are you, how did -“ That was as far as the guards got before Asika’s Awesome Laser Barrage was ready to launch.

  Within half a second of completing her twirl, the first six tiny stars ignited into bolts of cyan energy. This was rapidly followed by the next six, and within the span of four seconds all forty-eight of the projectiles had fired off.

  Mikayla winced, hearing screams of pain replace the half-formed attempts to accost Asika, and nervously peered out at the corridor.

  Unfortunately, the guards had gotten their Armour Cores up in time. She recognised Afro Thief as he wrapped himself in the orange Armour that Keldryn had identified as having once belonged to his friend, and a slate-coloured battleaxe appeared in his hands. His partner was another goon she recognised from the ambush in Lahlee’s office, who was conjuring matted black robes around himself while clutching at his arm. Asika had at least landed a good hit.

  The faerie had an aggrieved look on her face. “Guess it’s still too slow,”

  “Still wasn’t bad. My turn!” Anza roared, launching herself forwards. Keldryn followed, and orange energy mounting around his feet - a telltale sign of the new Heel Propulsion Technique they’d been gifted - let him overtake the older warrior. Anza recognised that he was targeting Afro Thief, and went for the other one.

  Mikayla hesitated. She’d never killed a person before. It had been easy to rationalise killing Kaijus, Keldryn and Nocturnus had helped with that. But she’d never killed a person before. While sitting in the cages, she thought she’d come to terms with the fact that people were going to die, bad people who probably deserved it. But right now, watching Keldryn and Anza assault the guards, she didn’t feel anywhere near as ready as she wanted to be.

  A flash of cyan energy drew her attention, and she saw a Psychic Bolt fly from Asika’s fingers, across Keldryn’s shoulder and into Afro Thief’s face. He spasmed, and Keldryn drove a spear into his gut. Asika glanced at her and misidentified the source of her distress. “Yeah, holding your fire’s probably smart, you don’t have built-in aim assist,”

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  “What? Um. It’s not that. I’ve never killed someone before,” Mikayla admitted with a faint whimper.

  “Oh, gotcha gotcha. Um. Erk,” Asika’s smile turned into a grimace. “I, uh, I think they’ve got it handled?”

  They looked back at the two duels just in time. A forceful elbow from Afro Thief had Keldryn stumbling back, and while he was regaining his balance on the unfamiliar Amber Sentinel’s legs, their opponent wound up a killing blow with his axe.

  “No!” Realising in a flash that it would be fatal to her friend, Mikayla threw an arm up and her Mana seemed to act on its own, twisting into a spiral that sucked energy from her brain and disgorged it in a ball of blue light. Her instinctual Psychic Bolt was only a second slower than Asika’s stronger one, and the two projectiles streaked down the corridor and struck Afro Thief in the helmet, one after another.

  He spasmed, arms going slack, and Keldryn capitalised, the tip of his spear finding Afro Thief’s neck and putting a hole through his throat.

  [YOU HAVE EARNED XP POINTS FOR KILLING A HUMAN!]

  Mikayla gasped. It had been so fast. She’d reacted without thinking, and the Technique had come so easily, so instinctually. “That - that - that was - I didn’t - I just - he -“

  Asika gripped her in a tight hug, stilling her half-formed sentences. “Hey. Hey. It’s okay. Sometimes there’s just no choice,”

  Shivering, Mikayla nodded, returning the embrace. Asika was warm, she realised. Like hugging a heater. The thin fabric of faerie-made clothes - basically spandex - did nothing to retain heat, but the faerie still radiated warmth from every pore.

  “This is a really bad time to get emotional. Do you think you can just put these feelings away until we’re safe?” Asika gently asked, patting her back.

  Mikayla forced out a jerky nod. “Yeah, I’m . . I’m fine. I’ll be fine,” She rubbed away the dampness in her eyes with her sleeve, then lifted her head to look back at Keldryn and Anza.

  “First time’s always the hardest,” Anza said in a way that was probably intended to be reassuring. Keldryn just stared, worry settling into his face.

  “Come on,” Asika gripped Mikayla’s hand, pulling her towards the doors. “Just stick it out a little longer, then we’ll get you home. Or at least into therapy,”

  “Can I get both?” Mikayla weakly chuckled.

  This is just like a game, she quietly insisted to herself. Just like one of those historical action games her brother had gotten her hooked on for a bit, a few years ago. Even though she’d spent this whole time telling herself that Termania was more than just a medieval fantasy setting, right now it was a comforting little lie to tell herself that they’d merely won an encounter, that Afro Thief had just been an obstacle, a moving object whose only function was to briefly impede their party, rather than a person who had his own reasons and story that had gotten him here, today, for Mikayla to help end his life.

  She didn’t even know his real name, and she couldn’t imagine that she ever would.

  The group finally entered the Core storage room, with Mikayla bringing up the rear, and her eyes widened.

  There were hundreds of Cores and Controllers, arranged on shelves and racks, each Controller with a cluster of stones grouped around it, as well as dozens of loose Cores that had been meticulously categorised according to some system which Mikayla couldn’t decipher.

  “Seed of Chaos,” Anza lowly whispered. “That guy wasn’t kidding about being a collector. This many Cores has got to be worth a few hundred thousand gold,”

  “It’s enough to equip an army,” Keldryn agreed with furrowed brows.

  “Maybe, if you could train them all,” Anza murmured. “Split up, everyone. Find your equipment,”

  Mikayla ignored all the shining and well-crafted Core Controllers. She only had eyes for the rusted and eroded piece she’d ripped from Nocturnus’ skeleton, and the two crystals near it. She was also surprised to see that an oblong of black glass had been left with them. “Huh. Did they mistake my phone for some kind of weird Core? Hope they didn’t break it,” She slipped the phone back into her pocket and strapped on the Core Controller, screwing the two Black Knight cores into their slots.

  She drew breath to invoke Mana Assistance, but paused and thought better of it. Wasn’t this the perfect time to test her post-Schema Lock Mana control? A red glow wrapped around her wrist, her Mana flowing through the warped and damaged channels that she had practically memorised by now, until it was pouring into the Armour Core. She knew the pattern, it had been etched into her nerves by her constant use of Mana Assistance.

  Inch by inch, the Black Knight’s gauntlet grew around her hand, spreading up her arm and conjuring its spiky shoulder pads. Its vambrace grew down into leggings and greaves, coated her other arm, and finally the helmet wrapped around her head.

  Silence.

  “Nocturnus? It’s me. I got your Core back,” Mikayla whispered, guessing that he was wary after being separated from her. “But keep it down! There are new allies here who don’t know about you and now is not a good time to explain that I’ve got fantasy Napoleon haunting my armour,” she hastily added before the ghost could say anything.

  “Understood. I’m happier than words can express to see you again, lass,” Nocturnus hissed in her ear, too quiet for his words to reach outside the Black Knight’s helmet. “So, is it a jailbreak? Are we to slaughter villainous thugs in droves while fighting our way to freedom? Brilliant! I’ve always wanted to break out of a prison!”

  Mikayla bit her lip. “Yeah. That’s pretty much exactly what we’re doing,”

  “All good? No issues?” Anza seemed to have mistaken her muttering to herself as using System commands to check her armour.

  Mikayla poured Mana into her sword, and it sprung to life in her hands. She nodded. “Yeah, no problems,”

  “Good. Be right back, mine’s got to be somewhere around here,” Anza vanished into the racks of Cores.

  Asika followed her, commanding, “Let me know if you find any guns! They’re probably mine!”

  Mikayla paused. “Did that faerie just say she owns guns?”

  “Huh. Never took her for a gunslinger,” Keldryn mused.

  “Hold on, hold on,” She cast incredulous looks at Keldryn and Nocturnus’ gem. “We have guns in this world? Why did you want me to faff around with a bow and arrow if we have guns?!”

  “They’re too loud. If you feel like killing one Kaiju while telling twenty others where you are, then sure, use a gun,” Keldryn rolled his eyes.

  “They are unmanly,” Nocturnus sagely elaborated.

  “Okay, one of those was a good answer,” Mikayla grumbled. “Well, fair enough. But why were you acting like you didn’t know what a gun is when I showed you that handgun on the container ship?”

  Keldryn frowned. “Huh? You said that it was a weapon that shot pieces of metal. Guns fire bolts of energy,”

  “What - okay, that’s interesting, but. Come on. Handgun. Hand, gun. You didn’t make that connection?”

  The foxkin considered that for a second, then hs eyes widened in realisation. “Oh, so in your language, the word for gun is gun, and the word for hand is hand, so when you were saying ‘handgun’, what you were trying to say was handgun,” Keldryn digested, then tilted his head. “That must have sounded really stupid when it translated into your language,”

  Mikayla giggled. “Yeah, a little bit. So the System’s translation had a hiccup, that explains that at least,”

  “It does sound like you and I think of different things when we hear the word ‘gun’, though. Bows are ranged weapons that focus on firing slow and powerful projectiles, sometimes even shooting special Arrow Cores, while guns fire lots of weak projectiles very quickly, or several times in a row. Does that line up with your experience?”

  “No, not really, guns both shoot faster and deal more damage than arrows. They’re kinda just objectively better,”

  “Well now I want to see the guns of your world,” Nocturnus rumbled.

  “It’s not here!” Asika screamed, interrupting their conversation.

  Anza had just finished strapping her own Core Controller back onto her wrist. “What’s wrong?”

  “My Core Controller. My customised Armour Core. My guns. They’re not here!”

  Mikayla winced. “That’s a problem,”

  “More than you realise. It’s not that big a deal to me if I lose them, they’re replaceable. But without them, I can’t open the portal to send you home!”

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