The barrel of the gun stared Richard down. Momo flung a hand up protectively, but it wasn’t necessary. The guard didn’t shoot.

  The people at the restaurant went as quiet as mice. She had expected them to run, to cry, to flee—but they just sat there, petrified like stone.

  Just who are these guys?

  “Citizens,” the grunt said measuredly. “This zone is now under the control of Rosemary's Central Forces. Clear out immediately, or…” The gun lowered just slightly, and a red light appeared between Richard’s eyes. “Face the consequences.”

  Momo blinked, a faint buzz of recognition occupying the back of her mind.

  Rosemary Central Forces.

  …Rosemary.

  “Holy shit,” Momo mumbled. “As in—”

  “The pride and joy of San Francisco himself,” Richard spat. “Patrick Rosemary.”

  Richard’s personal nemesis.

  The one who’d tried to have him killed back when this all began.

  “The one who stole Laura’s tech company?”

  “One crime amongst many.” Richard absentmindedly picked up another salt shaker, and raised an eyebrow provocatively at the guard. “Looks like he finally arrived at the peak of his ego trip. Renamed Laura’s company after himself and turned it into some proto-fascist-military. I have never been less surprised at anything.”

  Customers began filing out like nervous ants, curling in streams around the guards. Momo gave Marie the signal to do the same, mouthing I’ll be right behind you.

  The scientist didn’t take much persuading, nodding quickly before nervously sputtering her way back onto the boardwalk. Kava stole a half-eaten set of waffles from a nearby table and followed suit, chewing the end of a metal fork as the restaurant doors wheezed shut behind her.

  A grim silence enveloped the restaurant as Richard and Momo remained. When they showed no signs of leaving, the guard took a step forward.

  “Citizens.” Nostrils flared inside his helmet. “I will not ask you again. Disperse.”

  Richard barked out a laugh. He leaned into the bar, and took a sip from an abandoned Sam Adams. “Yeah, I don’t think so.” He set it down, and widened his eyes. “How about instead, you tell me where I can find Patrick Rosemary, and my little friend here won’t stomp you all like a bunch of ants. How’s that for a deal?”

  A guard from the back spat. “Just shoot him.”

  It didn’t take much encouragement. The guard’s finger pressed down on the trigger, and time slowed. All within the span of a second, Momo stepped in front of Richard, pushed him to the ground, and enveloped the gun—and the bullet—in a thick layer of nether.

  The bullet was already speeding out so quickly, though, that it took the gun with it. The firearm, congealed in leathery black, jumped from the man’s hands and slapped against the bar. Momo could see the man’s eyes go impossibly large behind his visor.

  “What the hell?”

  Momo smirked.

  And then the bullets showered upon them.

  Or, they would have if she’d given them the time to. Instead, she jammed the barrel of every gun with nether in one quick flourish. The bullets rammed into impossibly thick black puddy. The guards growled, shaking their firearms uselessly.

  Richard hummed, taking another sip of his beer. “Not bad.”

  A walkie-talkie buzzed. One of the guards near the back shouted into it. “Call for backup, guns are jammed!”

  Momo flicked her finger up, controlling the nether inside the barrels, and all the guns flung upward, out of the guards’ hands, then downwards, scattering onto the floorboards. The guards dove for them, but she yanked them again, unable to stop herself from giggling at the way they floundered like grounded fish.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Richard stalked over to the main guard where he flailed on the ground, and stuck his boot under the guard’s chin. “Momo, would you mind?” he asked, nodding his head.

  “Oh. Sure!”

  She spread her hands, and a flurry of nether goo spread out in a wide arc around her. The guards on the floor were fastened there, webbed down. The ones still standing got attached to pillars and booths, their bodies bolted to plates of breakfast food.

  As for the guard on the floor, she wrapped him in a nice little nether cocoon, then levitated him upwards. He roared, struggling against his confinements, but it amounted to a fly trying to claw its way out of a venus fly trap. Buzzy, but ultimately useless.

  “Good, good.” Richard grinned like a wolf, wrapping his hands around the guard’s helmet before yanking it upward with a pop. The man’s puffy, enraged face revealed itself. He looked like a hotdog stuffed in a pastry. “Hm. Disappointing. I don’t recognize you. You must not be important. Be a good boy and tell me who your boss is.”

  The man spat at Richard’s face, the lob of spit settling right on the tip of his nose.

  Richard’s eye twitched. Momo saw his hand rear backwards, and she sighed.

  “Enough, enough.” As his fist streamed forward, it was all of a sudden weighed down by a pure cube of nether, and Richard fell to the ground, his cement block fist taking him there. He glared up at Momo with fire in his eyes. “Don’t start,” Momo said, giving him a small, amused smile. She pulled her sleeve up and wiped the spit off his nose.

  “I wasn’t going to punch him,” Richard said, all faux-innocence. “I was just going to gently impart the importance of personal space on his face.”

  Momo snorted. “Sure you were.”

  Thump. Thump. Momo’s eardrums vibrated. Something was encroaching. Through the windows, she could see the crowds of people on the pier begin to part in anticipation of something. Marie was standing on the other side of the glass, looking at Momo with wide, alarmed eyes. Mouthing something indecipherable.

  “Looks like backup’s here,” Momo muttered.

  The door of the restaurant exploded off its hinges. The wooden walls shredded apart, and an exoskeletal leg crunched into the floorboards. A meaty metal arm, black and shiny, followed, until the giant’s full figure had emerged into the low bar-lighting.

  The man’s head, the only thing that lacked armor, stuck out like a pasty thumb—pale and red-cheeked, his forehead veiny, his eyebrows two large bushes.

  It was like one of the guards from before, but three times the size.

  NAME: CHRIS “THE ACOLYTE” BISCO

  RANKING: #13/#808,437 (San Francisco Bay Area)

  Momo’s eyes scanned over the man’s information.

  “Oh great.” She blew out a breath. “They’re starting to give themselves supervillain names. Come on though man, the Acolyte? You’re literally defining yourself by being someone else’s henchman? That’s pretty depressing. Actually, wait.”

  She held up a finger. “Pretend I didn’t say that. I would have totally named myself Valerica number two if I hadn’t come up with The Ripper beforehand.”

  The man’s face grew increasingly red until he was almost indistinguishable from a tomato.

  He’s less powerful than that Nicholas kid, Momo thought, eyeing his ranking. But not by much. Shouldn’t be a problem either way, I’ll just…

  She whipped her hand forward, burying him in a cocoon of nether like she’d done to the smaller guard. He snarled and roared, fighting against it, but, as she expected, he couldn’t escape the nether with strength alone. As materials went, it was like a very hefty gum. You couldn’t just willpower your way out of it.

  But then he stilled. His distorted scorn faded into a quiet focus, and a faint red glow emanated from inside the nether blanket. Momo’s eyebrows furrowed.

  From the way the air was rapidly heating up around them, it seemed pure heat was coming out of the arms and legs of his suit. Like an exhaust fan.

  “Huh. This is interesting,” she mused aloud, tapping her lips. “Can you somehow—”

  Overheat the nether, was what she should have said, if her mouth hadn’t been abruptly doused with her own medicine. She gagged on it, nearly choking. Her eyes were covered too. Blindfolded. On instinct, she switched her view into her Demon’s Eye, and caught a brief glimpse of the Acolyte barreling toward her.

  With no time to defend herself, she took that single moment to throw Richard to the side again, out of harm’s way, and braced for the full brunt of the Acolyte’s attack.

  The giant slammed into her with no remorse. The two of them cratered over a table, then through the bar—wood snapping, metal hissing—all the way into the kitchen, where they hurdled through a sink. She heard her human bones crack in time with the plaster, blood springing from her skin just as easy as water from the tap.

  Pain blew her ears out. Everything rang and spun. She had the faint sense that she was dying. Well, no. Her body was dying.

  And she could change her body now.

  She muttered the spell under her breath. As it moved through her body, she peered forward with hazy eyes. She saw the kitchen floor filling with water. She saw the glow of red around the Acolyte begin to fade. It seemed he couldn’t stay molten hot forever.

  Indeed, he was using mana to do so, she observed, looking with her Eye. Under his armor, a complex layer of wiring bit into his skin, hooking directly into his muscle. A frankensteined masterwork of mana and electricity. But that was the thing—it still required electricity. She could see the battery there, buried near his ab muscles.

  His body was still wrapped around hers, his lungs heaving. He had hit his head somewhere along the way, and he was still reeling. Momo took the opportunity to reach her bloodied finger forward, and watched as her hand transformed into something entirely different—a drill. Precise, sharp, unstoppable.

  With a whirr, she furiously punctured the armor of his stomach. His head snapped down in confusion, but Momo had already hit the epicenter by the time he noticed what was happening. The exposed underbelly of the exoskeleton, blue and vibrating. She crashed her hand into it, and it splintered. The entire suit dulled.

  Momo grinned, wide and stupid.

  “Would you look at that,” she giggled. “I’m an engineer.”

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