"I need to go with Scout Torch-"

  "You should stay here and-"

  Two voices and a box collide to what I can only imagine is Scout Torch's confusion. She looks at me open-mouthed, then back at Broom. Meanwhile, Broom and I are uncomfortably locking eyes, her expression judgemental at my sudden vehemence, and I have the unpleasant mental sensation that Box is doing the same.

  Okay, maybe Box is more pleasantly surprised than judgemental.

  "Sky, you don't have the training to-"

  "I have to do this to protect the village," I declare to both of them. "I'm the only one who can. Wires died to put me here."

  My cheeks flame up like twin furnaces.

  "...you're not an Idiot, Sky," Broom says, shaking her head. "You may have survived last night, but I can't let you go. You don't have the mindset to willingly endanger yourself in service to another. That's why we picked Wires."

  "I... you thought I was going to be an Idiot?"

  "You were a born Idiot, Sky," Broom scoffs. "You just ended up thinking books mattered more than people."

  I didn't think my cheeks could get any hotter. And all this time Great Grandpa was assuring me I was all but guaranteed to be the Memoriam due to my responsible nature! He at least has the decency to look a tiny bit ashamed.

  ...no, wait, he's just coughing again.

  "...Leader Broom?" Torch eventually manages. "What do we do?"

  "I'm going," I insist, trying to stare down Broom.

  "No, you're not."

  I don't think my intimidation tactic is working, so I try a different approach.

  "Look," I try not to whine, "if we're dealing with, you know," I hitch my shoulder at Torch unobtrusively, "then I'm the only one who can do it. You saw what it was like. You know that, uhm, the stuff, uhm..."

  I trail off, mouth flopping open and closed like a beached fish.

  "-astonishingly bad at this, Sky," Broom finishes, covering her face with one palm. "You're like a brand new Idiot reporting for their first day." Behind me, Torch stiffens to an upright posture, despite the discomfort it causes her, and snaps her hands to her sides.

  "I request an immediate update on any pertinent information, Leader Broom, especially if I am escorting a new Idiot trainee, Leader Broom!"

  Broom lets out a slow woosh of air that sounds like she's expelling a decade's worth of trouble.

  "...fine. Sky, you may accompany Scout Torch and her team on the followup investigation, because I just know you're going to find a way to tag along regardless of what I tell you, and I don't think I can stop you."

  "However," Broom admonishes me, unaware of my internal interruption, "if you... 'feel' like the situation has escalated into something untenable, you are to immediately inform the rest of the team so they can take proper precautions. Immediately."

  "Absolutely," I agree, heart thumping rapidly. Am I excited or scared? I can't tell. At least I'll be able to plant some more trees for Wires.

  "Scout Torch," Broom continues, shifting her attention past my shoulder. "I apologize for everything about this, but I am sending you out with the rawest, most supremely untrained Idiot to ever grace our self-destructive ranks. You and your team are to protect the Idiot unless there is a very compelling reason to do otherwise. You'll know what I mean when you see it," she adds, palming her face once again. I look back and Scout Torch seems to be frozen in her posture, her not-quite-a-grin focused slightly above Broom's head.

  "Understood, Leader Broom," she snaps out in a neutral tone. "Standard exploration team?"

  "Take whoever you trust," Broom replies wearily. "If I'm not mistaken, we're about to enter the Archives with guns blazing. Teach us what you can."

  Somehow, Torch makes her previous stillness look like the excited bouncing of a little one five minutes before lunch.

  "Understood," she says in a much quieter voice. "Remember what we find."

  "We will," Broom promises in the same solemn tone, and I look back and forth between them in confusion.

  ...what to the what now? Broom thinks she's sending us out to die?

  "You're sure this is necessary?" Great Grandpa asks Broom plainatively, and she gives him a firm nod.

  "Sky was the second choice for the generation, Axe. You know this, and you know we're down an Idiot with Wires' passing. Based on the demonstration," she tries not to shudder, "if Sky thinks it's important to be there, I'm willing to back it as a necessary risk. We've survived this long, right?"

  Great Grandpa clutches his blankets around himself tighter.

  "Then all I can do is ask you to be careful, Sky," he says to me in a quavering voice. "Listen to Torch, please, and don't risk yourself unnecessarily."

  "I will, I won't," I don't quite swear, still caught up in that body-thumping rush of whatever feeling this is-

  "-but I'll do my best to make sure no one else from the village gets hurt. I promise."

  Behind me, Torch lets out a long sigh that doesn't quite cross the line into overly insulting. I turn and glare at her, and she shrugs noncommittally.

  "Let's go then, rookie." She shrugs her thin backpack and rifle into a more comfortable position. "We've got our orders. Try and keep up, if you can. Otherwise you're off the team."

  She swivels on one heel and sprints out the door, ignoring her earlier exhaustion. I spend a couple seconds swearing, then I'm scrambling up after her.

  "Good luck, Sky," Great Grandpa and Broom call as I barrel out of the Archive room, but I'm too focused on chasing the flash of legs in front of me to answer. If I can't catch Torch before she leaves the Archives, I'm pretty sure I'll lose her.

  Fortunately, my body moves more fluidly than I've ever felt and I track her down as she's about to burst out the front entrance.

  Wait, my current capacity? I nearly stumble rounding the Archive's tree trunk, feet flying across the village's interior forest floor.

  I'm not sure how to respond to that yet. I never though of myself as inferior.

  ...that doesn't sound very encouraging. Torch looks over at me as I draw even with her, and her eyes narrow. She puts on a sudden burst of speed and I keep pace effortlessly.

  "Well... aren't... you... the... over... achiever..." she huffs out, arms pumping next to her sides. Bemused, I look back at her. It feels like I'm barely jogging.

  Knife-edged memories slide out of my recollection, ambushing me mid-stride. This time I do stumble, but an unnaturally graceful step saves me from face-planting in the dirt.

  ...who's the one making hero speeches now?

  ...combat options?

  Why do I need to know this? It sounds overly complicated.

  Torch leads us to the northern outskirts of the village, now examining me carefully in between measured inhalations.

  "You... don't... run... right..."

  I ignore her, focusing on my conversation with Box.

  ...infinite possibilities aren't enough? Also, I don't like this assumption that me losing my mind is a guarantee.

  ...and this is the dumbed down barbarian version?

  This is a lot to think about. I turn my attention back to Torch.

  "So what are we supposed to do, then?" I ask as she staggers to a halt in front of a neatly kept cottage on the village limits. She glares at me, gasping for air, hands on her knees.

  "I'm... going... to get... Dirt... as soon as... I catch my breath... and then... we're going to run... more..."

  She stops talking, her exhaustion outweighing her pride. Weird. I don't feel tired at all.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  ...makes sense. I don't like getting hurt.

  ...what's a 'moon?'

  But you said you're the one who's going to be attacking everything. All I have to do is keep us alive.

  Torch bangs wearily on the door of the cottage.

  "Dirt! You there, you piece of shit? Got something really spectacular for you today, so come on out. You're going to love it."

  A lugubrious face peeks out at me from beneath one of the hedges bordering the sides of the cottage, melting into existence in a chaotic swirl of leaves and soil. If it hadn't moved, I never would've known it was there.

  "Tell Torch I'm not here, okay?" the face whispers. "It's my day off."

  "Dirt Idiot," Torch howls, unaware of my interaction with the ambulatory bush now scuttling towards the corner of the cottage, "you get your sorry ass out here right now. I'm calling in my favor!"

  The bush pauses, then seems to wilt. In sad slow motion, it wobbles back towards us. "Really, Torchie?" it complains, sidling to a halt next to me. "This is my day off."

  "Gah!"

  I try not to laugh at Torch's sudden exclamation of surprise. Wasn't the moving bush obvious to her?

  "I told you not to sneak up on me, Dirt," Torch complains, rubbing a hand across her bloodshot eyes. "C'mon, grab your gear, we need to go be Idiots. Say hi to the rookie," she adds tiredly, waving a hand. "Rookie, this is Dirt. He's good at hiding."

  "Nice to meet you-" I begin, but the bush is somehow gone.

  "What the fuck, Box?" I sigh under my breath. I'm pretty sure it was unnoticeable, but Torch's eyes linger on me for a bit longer than seems normal as she scans the cottage grounds for Dirt.

  "He does this all the time," she says unconvincingly, still peering around. "I'd trust him with my life though. He's really smart, even among the Idiots."

  "Awww, thanks, Torch," says a gently mounded patch of grass next to her left foot.

  "Gah!"

  As Torch is busy trying not to collapse on her fatigued legs, the pile of grass rises up, revealing itself to be a short, slightly pudgy man with gently rounded cheeks. He reminds me of a chipmunk wearing an oversized green hooded coat made out of moss.

  ...of course, most chipmunks don't come with as impressive an array of killing devices strapped to their body that are visible beneath Dirt's grasscloak. There's at least three pistols, five knives, some sort of heavy rifle I haven't seen before, and his backpack is bursting at the seams with-

  "Got my gear. Hi, I'm Dirt," he says shyly, waving at me. Hesitantly I wave back.

  "Nice to meet you, Dirt."

  He beams at me, then turns to Torch.

  "What's the disaster?"

  "Potentially hostile super-Glowbeast fauna excursion with an assumed Archival records level rating, and," she tosses her head at me, short black hair swishing across her brown eyes, "unknown variables."

  Dirt's face falls slightly.

  "Oh my."

  "Yuuuuuuup. Now c'mon, lets go, we've got about an hour at a heavy trot and there's no way this rookie is making me look bad again."

  "Oh my," Dirt says again, this time giving me a considering look. He smiles genially as we move away from his cottage into a steady run through the forest, his heavy pack and weapons bouncing slightly beneath the cloak. "You made Torchie mad. I like you already. Just know," he leans in closer, smiling wider, "If you can't keep up, I'll have to kill you. It's not personal, but Torchie wouldn't use her favor unless the world was ending. If you're supposed to be here, you better not leave us hanging."

  I gulp nervously, still not feeling any exertion from the pace.

  "...I'll be fine," I try to reassure the both of us, leaping nimbly over a tree root. "You don't have to worry about me not wanting to do this."

  Dirt regards me thoughtfully, then turns his attention back to the run. I feel like his lack of answer is probably the strongest indictment of this plan yet, but I try not to read too much into how grimly they're both regarding our chances of survival. Maybe they're just trying to scare me with how much they've seen as Idiots. Yeah, that's probably it.

  The next forty minutes-

  -pass in relative silence, the only disturbances Dirt and Torch's steady huffs of air. The latter's grow increasingly more strained, until I finally demand that we call a halt.

  "Scout Torch. You are not okay. Why haven't you said anything?"

  Torch rolls her eyes, wheezing like a bellows as she all but collapses against a slender outskirts tree, one of the wild growth ones. Even Dirt is panting hard, but I feel like I'm just getting warmed up.

  "Sorry... it's just that... pulling an emergency run... in full gear from the Final Pass... back to town... then doing it again thirty minutes later... is slightly taxing." She forces herself upright with an obvious effort of will. "I don't know... what your secret is... but unless... you're offering to carry my gear... there's nothing else to do... except keep running." She moves abruptly, lurching back into a wobbling gait. "I'm an Idiot. There's no way I won't make it. Try and keep up."

  As we set off from our impromptu rest site at the edge of the forest towards a distant foothill, I contemplate the idea for longer than I probably should. Picturing Torch's uptight face screaming as an undefinable intrusion hoists her alongside us like a bouncing sack of potatoes, gradually withering away her sanity beneath an open sky of endless stars does have a certain appeal.

  ...no, no. That wouldn't be fair to Torch.

  I look over at Torch's laboring form, the gradually rising slope an obvious torture for her exhausted frame.

  "Torch."

  "...nghhh... hnghhh... yeah... what... want? 'lmost there... keep... going..."

  And just like that she collapses, eyes rolling back into her head, body toppling forward like deadwood.

  As fast as she falls, as fast as Dirt lunges to try and catch her, my limb is even faster, plucking her away from the stony ground an inch before her face would have impacted; a grotesquely defiant gesture of reality that makes me burp at the sudden taste of rotting fish.

  "...bleagh. That tasted horrible, Box."

  "...no, no. Saving her is fine. What's the problem, Dirt?" I ask, one of Box's nerve-deadening cocktails pouring through my veins as I carry the unconscious Torch beside me with my limb. Dirt is focusing intensely on me, one of his pistols out and steady at my head even as we continue our run, but it doesn't rattle me.

  "Unknown variable. Explain."

  I give Dirt the basics as we work our way up the hillside, warning him not to look at the limb holding Torch unless he likes drooling catatonia. Thankfully, he's one of the smartest Idiots I've met, which means he's probably one of the smartest people in the village, and he heeds my warning while asking a minimal amount of questions. I convince him to put the pistol away after Box lets me know I can do backflips while carrying Torch at the same pace Dirt is running, and I demonstrate it to him.

  Turns out he just wanted to know if I was capable.

  After that, Dirt's more than happy to discuss leaving any potential close encounters to me, preferring the role of something called 'overwatch,' and is absolutely fine with me talking to myself. "I do that too," he confides before ranging out ahead, leading the way to where Torch claimed she spotted the causal violations. Apparently the Idiots have an entire coordinate grid planned out for the valley, and quite a bit of the unknown past it, which makes traveling to exact locations easy for them.

  "A scrumble's always been the length of a scrumble, Box. Why would it not be a scrumble?"

  I neatly vault over the head-high boulder, continuing my momentum into another sprint up the slope. Dirt is pulling away from me a bit and I can't have him leaving me behind.

  "Hey, this Power stuff is kind of fun, Box," I exclaim as I launch myself into a darting run that avoids the loose gravel dotting a steeper slope, my limb still cradling Torch at shoulder height. She's snoring softly. "What's that like?"

  "I like Avoidance, Box. Getting hurt is dumb."

  "...Box, I no longer wish to focus on Avoidance."

  "...dumb choice," Dirt mutters from the top of the hill, his green moss cape somehow now transformed into a brown and grey mottled pattern that's indistinguishable from the hillside rocks and withered scrub. I crawl up next to him in a spider scuttle, following his flicked hand signals to lay Torch down somewhere below the summit. Hand cant is a requirement for anyone even thinking of leaving the village outskirts, and I was always a good student.

  "...why's that, Dirt?"

  "Avoidance is me up here."

  He smiles as he points down the other side, and I gaze down at the hollow boiling with unnatural shapes. I notice he's not looking directly at the seething mass of wrong, and I revise my opinion of Dirt up yet again.

  "Avoidance is support."

  He pats me lightly on the shoulder.

  "You are not avoidance. You are the one who attacks the throne of god to ask why things aren't better. Good luck."

  I want to protest, but as I look down at the disgusting stain spreading across the hollow beneath us, I realize Dirt is right.

  I am the one who attacks. Wires should still be alive.

  Box and I descend on the oily horde of violations like a storm, and I'm not sure why I'm charging into a mass of dead-flesh serpentine horrors, I just know that it needs to happen. My limb whips into existence next to my right arm, fuzzing bone-chitin impossible edges holding the pistol like another part of my body and already firing. Dirty ichor spurts into the air, impossible shots from this range but they're happening.

  "...Box?"

  A glistening pseudopod flashes at my face, and I instinctively trigger dash. The world flickers, and then I'm in the midst of the monsters, Box unloading our pistol at regular intervals. The initial strike misses, but another lashing whip catches me as four of the creatures surrounding us squirm and fall still.

  Burning pain erupts across my left side, hot wetness pouring down my side.

  Box keeps firing the pistol in our limb and dropping monsters without surcease, buying us a brief window of time amongst the thrashing nightmares. I try to ignore the gradually fading pain in my side, along with the flush of inadequacy at Box's words. Maybe Broom was right. I don't have the instincts for this kind of slaughter.

  Another chthonic not-tentacle hammers towards my face, and this time I dash towards an open space, trying to claim Box some time to clear out the nearest targets. Viscous blood flows from irrational corpses, then both disappear, leaving the brief memory of a perfect gunmetal sphere before it's sucked into my chest.

  A howling wall of madness descends from all sides, the entire hollow collapsing on us in a spasm of squirming brutality. I scream my terror as I try to dash to ever-shrinking sanctuaries, the boom of Box's pistol overwhelmed by the otherworldly sounds of reality's hounds, but no matter how many horrors Box takes down, there's always five more to take their place.

  Trying not to hyperventilate, I point my finger at the heaviest collection of nightmares currently threatening to rip my soul from body.

  The god of thunder replaces Box's pistol shots, and eye-wrenching holes of gnashing teeth tear open the writhing mass of creatures, quickly replaced by blinding spheres of obliteration that dissolve anything caught within their gravitational pull into a fine mist. The spheres contract, then pulse once in an overwhelming burst of force and light that jolts the ground like an earthquake that somehow leaves me unaffected. When I can see again, that section of attackers is completely gone, and half the hillside is on fire.

  I dash towards the gap as Box keeps clearing the space around us of thrashing monstrosities, looking frantically for the next safe spot to move to. However, it quickly becomes clear that whatever it was Box used earlier wiped out most of the creatures, and the ones left are moving slower now, easy pickings for the pistol. I dodge the few that manage to get close enough to make me worry, but I don't end up needing to dash again, and finally the pistol falls silent.

  Aside from the charred craters dotting the hillside, the hollow bears no trace of the swarming tide that just infested it. I find myself gasping for breath even though I don't feel physically tired. I feel... untethered, as if the violent maelstrom I just charged through is only now sinking into my awareness. I drop my hands to my knees, trying to still my shaking legs. Saliva wells up in my mouth and I spit, then again, trying to keep it from turning into full-blown puking.

  I spit one last time, then force myself upright. I need to check on Dirt, and Torch, make sure they're okay.

  I may be the only one who can handle these things, but I'm starting to understand why Box thinks I'll lose my mind.

  I stagger away from the invisible carnage. Will I ever get used to this?