Lyn was mid leap when she felt her phone buzz in her hoodie’s central pocket. Well, at least the one that was located in this physical reality. Celeste had set up a mirroring system along with cloning her phone so that she didn’t have to keep leaving it on a tabletop whenever she transformed in order not to miss a message. Downside was getting double notifications after she transformed though. Celeste told her to deal with it and that she wasn’t in the mood to program a solution to that right now so Lyn let the minor irritation slide.

  Landing on all eight legs, she pulled up her baggy sleeve to check the communicator in her gloves, breaking out into a smile. Vandal had actually found Menace and he was still in the city! Hell, apparently he was still working as a villain too! She bit her lip, debating asking if the information broker could actually get her in touch with him. Was that too weird? Getting your number from an underworld spy? Or was that normal for villains? Should she just try and pass along a message through Vandal? Did Vandal even do that kind of thing or would it be insulting? Could she even do that? She was an information broker so would Menace even be able to get a message from her unless he sought her out? He probably would, since the Broker’s gone and all but who knows when that would be.

  A body went flying a few feet from her and caved in the duct work on the opposite side of the roof, interrupting her thoughts. Lyn pulled her sleeve down and looked back, seeing one of the heroes from the fight which had previously been contained to the street below beginning to extract herself from the crumpled metal. Lyn took a moment to place a name to the face: Crystal Crusader Celia, a magical girl who had transferred over here from Akitsu a few months back when her team had gone their separate ways. After a few of them graduated college, roughly half the group had decided to get out of the business of fighting monsters and kaiju for something a little more normal, leaving the rest of the team shortchanged enough that most decided to skip town. Apparently, it was pretty hard to try and form a new team of magic girls so a lot of those who ended up in these kind of situations moved overseas.1

  The young woman shook her head to clear away her confusion, stumbling forward only to lock eyes on Lyn with a snarl.

  “Terrorantula! You’re here too?” she spat in perfect Avalonian, without the slightest hint of an accent. A massive improvement from the last time she’d crossed paths with Lyn which probably was due to the magic gem.

  Huh… If magical girls hadn’t been around for almost a century and proved they weren’t the type of alien invaders that Lyn’s counterparts dealt with almost once a year, she’d worry that the whole “speedy integration of a new culture” thing reeked of alien invasion undertones.2 Those stupid mascot-like extra dimensional beings that kept pumping out teenage heroes on the other side of the globe seemed to be on the up and up though. Honestly, not counting the weirdness to their celebrity culture over there, most of the heroes they picked seemed to behave better than a good portion of the ones over here that randomly picked up a magic rock or stood too close to an improperly radiation-shielded reactor. Eh, still was 50/50 chance in this line of work that at least a few of their top brass were secretly evil and that would be what the next big superhero civil war was about.

  While Lyn was lost in thought, apparently her silent stare had been interpreted by Celia as some kind of nefarious intent some-fucking-how. The magical girl had shifted into a fighting stance and was beginning to circle her. Lyn sighed but before she could reply, Cluster Rocket flew over the roof’s edge, cackling like a maniac over the sound of rattling rivets, his bulky and aesthetically out-of-date mechanical suit belching fire and smoke behind him as he twisted in the air with more finesse than a man shaped like two barrels stuck together should.

  “A nice try, Crystal Failure! Are you ready to give up now or shall we- Terror?!” the man started at the sight of her. “What are you doing here?! This is our gig! Are you here to steal our rightful prize while we deal with these interlopers?”

  He gestured below where Celia’s new team, a rag tag group of other transplants who had the working name of Journeymen, were fighting an even less organized group of villains that Lyn doubted would even figure out a team name by the time they broke up. She spotted Crowmaster down there, fighting back some guy dressed like a medieval knight complete with a ridiculous tabard. Seriously, the villain stood her up for this? That looked like a simple smash and grab for some common commercial grade tech! Her job was way better than this!

  Her attention returned to the two other supes on the rooftop, both of whom were glaring daggers at the giant spider woman in between making sure the other didn’t make any sudden moves. She simply returned a bored look back to both of them before gesturing to the cheap oversized hoodie sporting the Victory Hawks logo she was wearing (admittedly worn over the Terrorantula costume but that was more to save on time if she did have to get into a fight in situations like these). The intense glares faded into confusion as she continued her charades by pointing at her bare face.

  “You see a suit? You see a mask on?” she asked rhetorically.

  “No…” Rocket’s voice crawled out of his built in speakers, cutting through the noise his suit was spewing even as it idled in the air. The Crystal Crusader simply shook her head, her posture betraying her to still be the more suspicious of the two.

  “That’s because I’m just passing through,” Lyn pointedly told them. “Don’t really care what you’ve got going on here. Not my businesses and I don’t really care about whatever you’re fighting over.”

  Ordinarily, Lyn wouldn’t go out during the day in her spider form precisely because it attracted trouble like this. Hell, she had thought after getting her new not-an-elf-princess-stop-calling-it-that-Cel form that she would prioritize making up for so much time lost being able to just walk around on two legs and not being constrained to alleyways and rooftops.

  But it turned out the bus sucked, and the moment the transformation pains had begun to fade she found out how much she missed the power and the speed this form had. Sure, her weird back legs could probably let her bounce around the city if Ned was anything to go by, but that was gonna be at least a few months of learning the ropes. Besides, she had almost ten years of experience in this form and wasn’t looking forward to scuffing the new skin trying to figure out spider-parkour again.

  She didn’t love the attention her familiar form garnered (okay, it was probably the criminal record linked to it, but still), however this past week had been perfect for going on strolls in it: every hero was too busy rushing off to a fight to bother her. Oh, a few would still try but they were often so ragged by that point that she could either get away easily or knock them out cold and move on. She tried to cut down on these kind of misunderstandings by wearing this hoodie that she’d stol- er, acquired awhile back and for the most part “dressing down” had worked. Even with it on, there were some heroes who still thought she was on her way to some job somewhere else and harassed her but most of those had someone shouting in their ears within a few minutes and had to run off.

  “You can’t seriously expect me to-” Celia began to protest.

  “Flee then!” Rocket’s taunt drowned out the magical girl with his speakers. “Do not interfere with our glory and I shall let you slink away!”

  Lyn rolled her eyes (at least the two that could roll) and turned to Celia, “Aren’t you gonna…?”

  The magical girl pivoted and finally pulled out a baton that seemed to be made of crystallized starlight and pointed it at the cackling villain, firing a sparkling blast dead center into his armored chest and sending him flying end over end. Her glare peeled away from the spiraling form of the bulky idiot with a the oversized conical rocket on his back to fix on Lyn again.

  “Seriously, just passing through,” she told her. “I’m off to go play video games, grab a smoothie, and chill.”

  “Damn…” Crowmaster materialized on the roof out of a flock of birds, clearly retreating from a fight he was losing. “That sounds really tempting right now. Got room for one more?”

  Lyn shot the guy a dirty look, “Fuck off, that was not an open invitation. You chose this stupid fight over my gig. Also smoothies are for winners.”

  Celia apparently had enough of the cross talk between her opponents and some random villain who had landed on the same roof she had and let out a howl as she leapt back into the fight, thankfully targeting the villain who was actually here for the brawl. Crowmaster scrambled away, his form disappearing into a mess of black feathers as he was chased by a half-feral magical girl clearly at the end of her rope. Lyn shrugged and continued her trip across the city, headed to the arcade.

  She checked her other messages as her body practically ran on auto-pilot. Oh shit, Velocity Val actually was in! That finally filled the last slot she wanted for the team and with a speedster. Well… she wasn’t exactly Hurry Harry or Ghost Image, barely above a psuedospeedster to be honest, but it still meant that plan A could work. Lyn quickly added her to the group chat. Before she could make a mental note to remind Celeste to do the same for her boss, she saw that Dust Devil and Turnabout were still at it and let out a groan.

  Celeste had let them know that her boss was looking for a new name – thankfully leaving out his current one, only telling them he was a tech villain in a supersuit she was building – and had been bouncing ideas off them. Unfortunately, the two had thought that meant it was free game to try adding their own suggestions to the pool and Lyn almost immediately closed the chat when she saw “Ruinatron” and “Ion Eradicator.” The worst part was that Celeste was absolutely sending all of these over to the soon to be former Tech Crash, having been laughing about it to Lyn earlier this morning.

  Lyn cringed but still did the professional thing and introduced the latest team member, only realizing halfway through her typing that she was apparently weaving through a fire escape while doing so. She paused and clung perpendicular to the wall to finish up her message only to watch in horror as Turnaround explained what the names clogging up the chat were about and was forced to witness Val add “Zero Out” to the pile. She sincerely hoped that they were better at coming up with stuff when there was an actual super power to center around and questioned how any of them had figured out their own monikers.

  Her eyes caught the time in the corner of the screen and she cursed, checking her navigation. Oh thank gods, she was close enough. Dropping to the floor of the alleyway she was in, she tugged on the phantom feeling of her other body and felt herself slip into existence and out of it at the same time. There was a light feeling of going through a toaster oven for half a second too, but it wasn’t nearly as painful as the first day of this.

  Lyn adjusted her clothes. She wore a simple wine colored turtleneck she’d discreetly modified to let her back legs poke through. Those she hid beneath a tiny jacket that barely did a thing to stop errant breezes from freezing her stomach, but it was more seasonally appropriate than any functional outerwear (and she was about to start murdering some of her colleagues if they didn’t knock it off with the weather machines already). Jeans hugged her legs, a sensation she was still getting used to again. She preferred baggier legwear for that reason, but despite this being a casual meet up, she still wanted to at least look like she didn’t sleep in what she was wearing.

  She hurriedly made her way the next couple blocks to Astral Arcade, a hole in the wall place owned by Al Arkham, formerly MechcanicAl before he retired. She doubted that most of his current customers knew he was the guy who had made half the death traps in the city for villains who still bothered with lairs. Lyn smoothed a few strands of hair back into place as she checked her currently existing phone to see if Emma had arrived, ignoring the notifications that filled up her top screen as this phone caught up to the other one now that it existed again.

  Lyn and Celeste had met up with the terribly disguised hero a couple times in the few days since they’d first met. She still had a habit of dressing like a walking cliché of some kind, clearly less used to civilian clothes than Lyn was, but had been surprisingly fun to hang out with. Celeste in particular had needed those outings herself after being stuck in the lab all day while Lyn welcomed getting a chance to enjoy her new secret identity, especially since she’d found that most of her associates in the business were too busy to return her calls right now. Plus it was fun to trick a hero, especially one who was so bad at pretending not to be one. Seriously Emma couldn’t turn off the gallant attitude unless she was playfully flirting and had nearly popped a blood vessel just watching Lyn miss a trash can when she threw away a cup yesterday. The woman had even invented an excuse to go back and pick it up after walking less than a block away.

  Ah, this was almost certainly going to end badly the longer she hung around Emma, but that was a problem for future Lyn, or rather Terri as she was sticking with for now.

  She spotted Emma pacing right in front of the place, hunched over her phone as her face twisted with worry. She’d ditched the biker girl look after no small amount of light teasing from Lyn and Celeste, though it felt like her entire wardrobe was some weird retro showcase. Today’s outfit had flared jeans and a loose leather vest with large buckles that she left open over a the baggiest sleeved blouse Lyn had ever seen.

  Oh gods, she kind of looks like what would happen if you introduced a medieval peasant to disco, Lyn thought with a smile and sent a text over.

  “You there yet?”

  She had to stifle a laugh as Emma actually jumped and began to furiously type away. While she did so, Lyn closed the distance as fast as she could without drawing attention to herself. She watched Emma clearly struggling to figure out what to say, somehow tripping over a simple confirmation.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Need help coming up with a response?” Lyn leaned over and asked, having successfully snuck behind her.

  Emma leapt away, raised her hand, and seemed ready to throw her phone at Lyn before she caught herself, her eyes wide with panic for the half second before she realized who she was about to brain with her telecommunication projectile.

  “Shit! Sorry!” she preemptively apologized before spotting Lyn’s malicious smile and realizing the surprise had been purposeful. “Never mind, fuck you actually. Don’t sneak up on me like that, Terri!”

  “Sorry, force of habit,” Lyn laughed.

  That was the truth. Honestly she couldn’t look at a person these days without instinctively drawing up a plan to sneak around behind them. Considering half of her fights with Ned basically boiled down to cat-and-mouse ambush fights, she’d developed a habit of figuring out exactly where people’s attention was at any time, honed by having to do so against someone who kept his eyes concealed. Even fighting other heroes, that skill was pretty necessary when your giant spider body made you the biggest target in the room in any fight where you weren’t backed up by a big robot or a ten foot tall monster. Staying still got you bruises and breaking line of sight was necessary to keeping your fights one-on-one.

  Plus it was great for messing with her gremlin of a roommate.

  Speaking of which, the invitation to hang out had been for both of them, Emma abruptly shooting them an invite on a random afternoon out of nowhere and leaving the exact details up to the pair. Unfortunately, Celeste had been solidly in the zone and practically kicked Lyn out of the hideout with advice to check out this arcade after somehow acquiring some extra gadgets to stuff into Crash’s new suit.

  Apparently, the market was absolutely flooded with tech right now between inventors trying to show off for Overlab and lots of villain groups just stealing to work out the kinks in their team ups rather than to turn a profit. With Crash apparently willing to chuck cash her way and believing that Lyn’s plan later this week was golden, Celeste had been buying it up left and right. Lyn couldn’t complain either: the better Celeste equipped Crash, the easier Lyn’s scheme would be and the better a chance the whole team would have when the bounty dropped. It was odd to no longer be the recluse in the household now that the scientist practically lived in her workspace for the moment.

  Lyn apologized again as she led Emma inside. The double doors led into a small antechamber that helped block out all light from the outside, both sets of glass doors into and out of the room blacked out and covered with badly scrawled drawings (no doubt sourced from the patrons of this place) and some printouts of famous game characters. Lyn noticed those were already peeling off from their slapdash tape job even though this place hadn’t been around too long.

  When they got through the second set of doors, the huge dark room beyond, dimly lit by hundreds of screens, greeted them with countless overlapping sounds and a vaguely salty aroma. Dark walls and carpet, all of which were slowly showing scars of the abuses of the masses, greedily drank in the light, allowing the patrons to focus exclusively on the glowing screens. Outlines of stars, moons, and what were probably supposed to be asteroids were splattered across the ceiling and worked into the design of the carpet in faded primary colors. Rows of the dimmest lights Lyn had ever seen in her life hugged the ceiling, working with the lights from the games to keep this place from being pitch black.

  Several of the cabinets set up were actually computers and game consoles that the engineering genius had slotted into finished wooden fixtures and set up to play a plethora of different games, often confined to their own rows from the retro machines designed to play one specific game. There were a few side rooms, all seeming equally dark, that looked like computer cafes, and even a party room. It was incredibly odd to think about a former villain hosting children’s birthday parties, especially one known for making death traps and mazes. Lyn almost laughed out loud thinking of little Timmy getting dropped into a labyrinth and being told to find his cake or die.

  Meanwhile Emma looked over it all in awe, having clearly never been to a place like this, giving Lyn the opportunity to glance over a corkboard by the entrance. It was absolutely stuffed with pinned fliers, posters, business cards, and even a few plastic bags with some aspiring artist’s sticker samples. Not what she was looking for though, so she kept scanning it. Within a couple of seconds, Lyn locked eyes on a crappy flier on thick paper with several pin holes through it (whatever they’d belonged to having been relocated to keep this one visible) in the top corner advertising some club called Automotive Appreciators, Oldtown Veterans’ Division. An odd club to advertise in a place like this… had it been a real advertisement. To those in the know, the acronym it made, AAOVD, had a different meaning: Ask About Our Villain Discount.

  “Shame Selli couldn’t come,” Emma bumped Lyn’s shoulder to get her to look at a row of consoles lining the wall. “Hey, how does this work, Terri?”

  She pointed out a sign on the wall which explained that you used prepaid cards with magnetic strips to pay for time on the machines.

  “I’ll go get us set up. You go scope out things and meet me back over by that VR pod, okay?” she indicated a set of large machines in the corner of the room.

  The woman dressed like a disco serf cracked a weak smile that betrayed something heavy but after a moment’s hesitation she quickly moved on to go look through the rest of the arcade. Lyn wondered if she should’ve asked about whatever was clearly on her mind before they went inside. This sudden invite with no real plans in mind and her pacing out there screamed “Something bad just happened that I need to talk about” now that she thought about it. Sighing, she headed up to the counter.

  Al reclined in a recess behind an outcropping about three and a half feet high and smothered in the same paint as the rest of the walls, a thick deli sandwich in one hand while the other absently tapped away at a nearby computer keyboard with all the lazy motions which befitted a man who truly had all the time in the world. His hairline had moved back an inch or two since Lyn had last seen him and he’d graduated from barely straddling an average physique to a full dad bod. Still, he kept himself neat and Lyn spotted some muscle hidden under the few pounds he packed on as he set down the sandwich to eye her. He exuded the aura of retirement but it sat well on him. Definitely not the type to toss back on a mask and jump back into the life like some of the types she’d met who cashed out, but Al clearly had walked away happy and kept the slow life from disintegrating all traces of the villain he once was.

  Next to him was a fully stocked snack bar, no scratch that, a full on concession stand, complete with a popcorn machine, half a dozen different types of drink stations ranging from soda to coffee to teas, racks of prepackaged snacks, and of course his famous blender, the sign above proudly declaring “Smoothies Are For Winners.” Several machines around the place had signs stuck to them with little challenges Al cooked up that if you managed to complete, you’d earn his fabled prize.

  It sounded dumb but apparently everyone vouched for whatever concoctions Al was making back there. Considering that he’d once bragged that he had a secret recipe that would knock your socks off while booby-trapping the Evil Eight’s lair one time, Lyn had to admit her curiosity had been properly piqued.

  “Can I help you?” the retiree asked.

  “Yeah, I’m here about the discount,” Lyn smiled.

  Al shook his head dismissively, “No discounts. Don’t know what you’re on about.”

  He started to turn towards his computer, one hand reaching for the sandwich again when Lyn huffed and held up a hand over the top part of her face.

  She’d stared at herself in the mirror for hours in both her forms and was convinced that her chin looked different but for some reason this trick kept working. Celeste was working on a face mask for this form so she could help conduct meetings for Starsilk without immediately giving away her identity. The scientist had thrown the designs together and was waiting for an opening on her machines once she finished up with some of Crash’s parts to get that started.

  “What are you- Holy shit,” Al chuckled. “Lost a couple legs and finally found some pants that would fit, huh?”

  Lyn laughed it off and the two swapped a few quick stories before he tossed a pair of preloaded cards her way that would give her some free plays on any of the machines, wiggling his eyebrows as he claimed “the first hits are free” like he was a drug dealer from forty years ago, then telling her to have fun with her date. She waved away his words and walked away with her prize in hand but only got a few feet into the rows of machines before she paused.

  This probably wasn’t a date. At least Lyn didn’t feel like it was one. Emma had for the most part eased off her flirting since the Slam, at least towards Lyn, and to be honest the more Lyn hung around her the more that felt like equal parts playful attempts at banter but also equal parts a raised defense against anyone getting too close. While it probably took being a villain to spot all the do-gooder traits that clocked her as a hero, Lyn doubted you needed any sort of background to tell Emma was still hurt from a previous relationship once you caught her touching one of her mementos when the subject got anywhere close to talks about dating. Two days ago, a waitress had mentioned her boyfriend in passing and you’d have thought Emma was at a funeral for the burger in front of her.

  And speaking of dating, there was that whole thing with Menace. That text from Vandal crept into her mind. She didn’t really know if she knew him enough to be this hung up on him, but being informed he was still in the city and that he had been interested in her… it just felt like she needed to see where that led, especially since it had been the catalyst for these past few weeks. And it wasn’t like Emma didn’t know about that either. Hell, it felt like immediately after she’d make what felt like a joking pass at Lyn, she’d follow it up by digging for details on how her hunt for Menace was going.

  Lyn and Celeste had ironed out a story of Lyn’s legs not working for years and “Mikey”, as the two had officially agreed to call him around Emma, had been one of her friends at the time who they’d hung around with. There were a couple of stories about how they’d hit it off on some jobs they’d freelanced on together but hadn’t really hung out much outside of it, the telling of which kind of stirred some butterflies that Lyn hadn’t realized were in her stomach.

  It had been hard to dance around details of the confession, since you really don’t want to let a suspected hero know you were part of a big battle against their coworkers or maybe them, and who knows when someone has lie detecting powers these days. They’d still risked a story about it happening on a train and hoped that was convincing. It let them explain how Lyn’s “bulky wheelchair” abruptly left the guy behind. Emma had gotten a few honest details scattered in some lightly touched up stories about what happened next: seeking some back alley magician to fix her legs, losing touch with Mikey after his boss died, and his coworkers being drunk assholes who deserved more bruises than they got.

  Something about reconnecting the two really seemed to spark something in Emma, who kept pressing for details to see if she could help out. The two villains opted quickly to seek Vandal Eyes’ help before they accidentally helped the heroes arrest the guy Lyn might still be crushing on.

  Gods, is this a crush? Am I crushing on Emma as well? Am I just so desperate for something after ten years as a giant spider lady that anyone who expresses the slightest interest in me causes me to become some weak kneed cutesy romance novel protagonist? Lyn’s thoughts spiraled as she clenched her teeth. And what if I like them both? How do I even begin to choose?

  Why should I choose? I can have everything I want.

  Lyn took a deep breath and began strolling through the arcade, looking around for a specific sign. The glossy sides of cabinets shimmered as she moved past them, dozens of flickering screens illuminating her as she breezed past them all. She saw a flicker of movement as a few other patrons milled throughout the walkways, but no one was in her way so she paid them no heed.

  The restroom was easy enough to find, and she pushed her way inside. It was sizable enough, with four stalls and an equal number of sinks, all mounted individually of one another with their own mirrors hovering over them. Al kept it rather clean for a place this large, though he also kept it dimly lit so that the door opening didn’t ruin the ambiance of the arcade. It gave it a slightly sinister edge, even without being dingy.

  That was fine, Lyn wanted it that way.

  She didn’t spot anyone in here, though one of the stalls was closed. Whatever, let them hear this.

  “I am a very greedy woman,” she told the nearest mirror as she stepped up to it. “But I know my own thoughts, the taste of my own greed. I don’t need anyone’s encouragement there. So let me be very, very clear.”

  She leaned over the sink, her red eyes piercing the reflection, not bothering to search the corners.

  “I am here to have fun today. I have earned that. I’m not here for you and I don’t want to hear you or see the slightest hint of you out there. Not even in the corner of my eye,” she growled. “If I do, if I even spot a flicker of you in the reflection of one of those machines…”

  She peeled back her coat and all four of her pointed legs ripped into the wall next to the mirror and carved a path towards it, leaving a set of inch deep furrows behind in the uneven paint job, “I will find a way to crawl in there, rip whatever qualifies as your spine out through your fucking throat and beat you to death with it. Understand?”

  There was a moment of silence before a choked up whimper came from the closed stall, “Yes…”

  Lyn’s gaze remained fixed on the mirror. She felt the presence that had subtly wormed its way around her without her noticing retreat, rapidly, and smiled.

  “Good.”

  Victorious, she folded the legs back against herself and hid them before she left the bathroom and the small sounds of sobbing behind to go find Emma.

  1. Most Magical Girl teams are intentionally formed by the Guardian that gave them their powers, often intended to synergize with one another. Due to how teamwork naturally formed and corporate sponsors prioritize complete teams, most have trouble joining a new magical girl team. Tian and Samhan traditionally tended to welcome “orphaned” magical girls, but it’s become increasingly popular in recent years to relocate to the Amera Union for those who wish to continue their career when their teammates do not.

  2. Not an undue concern considering the Solemna crisis which took this strategy to infiltrate multiple nations. The Council of Stellar Guardians has been investigated by at least three interplanetary agencies which believe it adheres to its stated intentions and the advanced learning powers are simply there to ensure the younger heroes can make the most of their schooling while fighting threats.