I was wide awake, no longer lulled into a false sense of calm by the ambiance, the hot women, the drinks, and the wallflower.

Mei did not respond immediately, but I repeated my question by keeping my calm as best as I could. That was to say, not jumping off the table like I was about to be in a knife fight. Very restrained on my part, I know, but something about being in this situation made it feel like a tensy bit of an overreaction.

“Mei, what do you mean when you say needles? I don’t like the kind of thing where I get stabbed repeatedly, no matter if it’s in a spa or not.”

There was a shift of the two multi-armed women who drew away, though not because of me.

Mei, her voice unchanged by the very obvious warning of my disapproval of recreational needles, spoke anyway.

“They’re not that kind of needle,” she said, totally missing the point that it was not the potential of drug use or the drawing of blood that made me weary. “They’re more like sowing needles, thin as a hair. They’re so small you can’t even feel them.”

Her words just confused me further.

First, why would I want to be stabbed at all, and second, what was the point of getting stabbed by sowing needles if you couldn’t even feel them? How the hell was I supposed to get relaxed when I was being stabbed without knowing? Half the tension in a knife fight was not knowing how, where and when your were going to get stabbed as you actively tried to stop people from stabbing you.

I mean… She probably didn’t know that, but it didn’t stop me from freaking out.

“I don’t think that changes anything,” I told her turning to face her in utter fucking bewilderment.

She looked back at me and said, “What? Are you afraid of some needles? Relax. Besides, if you had been listening, you would know that there extra special.”

“Extra special?” I asked her with horrified curiosity.

“Indeed,” she said with a small smile, “They’re made from a type of minor artifact, the material kind that’s been shown to reduce the likely hood of psychosis that’s commonly attributed to ghosts,”

I blinked at her while she yapped, nodding until she stopped, and then simply said, “What does that mean? My other… Er… Companion has found that small words are best.”

“Right. People attribute most of the spooky spontaneous stuff on Luna to the moon being haunted. Still, the current theory is that Luna being a moon has a mental, or ‘spiritual,’ toll that causes people to go crazy, and grants them a nice, padded cell in the amber tower.”

Huh. Yeah, I had to go with Pinky’s explanation on that one. That was not the case. There were lots of moons, satellites, and structures that floated in the void, and that idea did not fit. Good on them, though, for coming up with a way to explain away everything.

I had to wonder why Pinky didn’t care to mention that.

As if she could hear my thoughts, Lilly spoke up.

“She’s talking about the same effect you would have been subject to if you had gone through that hole without activating your shard,” Lilly told me. “Its official name doesn’t matter, but it was called strange sickness.”

“Never heard about it,” I told her.

“It’s a persistent issue. Especially for the Navy. Imagine the captain of a battleship going nuts and firing their main gun at something that isn’t there.”

She sighed, shaking her head as if in embarrassment.

“And somehow… Sticking needles in me, can stop that?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said with perfect sincerity before staring at one another.

Sitting there, she reached a hand out and said, “If you’re going to act so skeptically, you may hold my hand for some reassurance; I’ll even tell you when you get one so you know what it feels like. Now stop holding up the good ladies; they’re are waiting on you.”

I looked towards the lady who was holding an opaque plastic box.

She stared at me, her weird arms holding other things: more boxes, oil, and, with one hand, a cart on which she placed things she had gotten from a cabinet.

She nodded silently, and I felt terrible for the poor woman waiting for me to get over myself with perfect zen. I was also hogging the room, and no one else could use it properly while we were here.

My Peacekeeper form whispered as it did, telling me to either hop off or get on with it while also telling me that I was acting out of line. Its presence was alien and wrong. I could tell it came from me, but it was not a part of myself that I accepted. It was the part of me that I couldn’t accept yet. It was how we settled down after we were done.

I was still Bandit, even without the sword, and I wasn’t about to settle down now.

But I did if only to not be an asshole about it.

I shut up and lay down, only for the woman beside me to bap my hand with her own.

Embarrassed, but knowing it would stop me from being as tense to focus on something else, I took it. I mean, it made me feel like a total bitch baby, but considering everything, I supposed it was… Ok.

As soon as we were settled, they got our permission to roll our robes down and started paying attention to our backs, necks, and generally anywhere but our pelvis. Their spindly fingers carefully find invisible points along our bodies while we lay looking at one another, both of us doing our best not to stare.

I could see the woman working on Mei trace a finger down her back before making a taping motion with another hand that held a tiny crystal needle, so small it was mostly glare.

I awaited the prickle of a needle, constantly controlling my breathing to force my body from the tension… But nothing came.

Confused, I asked Mei, “Are they just not doing me yet?”

“Oh, they are. You have like twenty in your back already,” she told me smugly.

I stared at her in the face, first confused, then a little betrayed at her lie, and then just plain confused again.

I couldn’t feel it at all; the sensation of her fingers on my back drowned it out. I hadn’t even realized she had been taping.

My expectation of getting jabbed bled away in a moment as I tried to focus on my back and feel them, but felt nothing at all.

“Huh. I suppose you didn’t lie about that, at least,” I told her.

“I never said it was going to be the first needle,” she smirked.

I opened my mouth and then closed it.

She was coy, but she only told me that to get me to stop being such a winner, so I took it with a “Touche” and did my best to relax and wait for it to be over.

There was no point in seething. She didn’t even technically lie; she just tricked me. Sol, save me from clever women.

We relaxed while they poked us, and by the end, I found that my body had become liquid, and any sign of the physical stress that normally accompanied daily life was gone. Whatever it had done, however, was far more effective on Mei than on me.

There was a strange feeling of connection, though; my fingers seemed to tingle a little. A phantom sensation.

Mei was not only boneless but content to fall asleep, and I had to shake her awake to get her up and out of the room for the next set of women to come in.

She clung to my shoulder in a kind of boneless relaxation I could not comprehend. It was sort of freaky, in a, how did you even get that kind of relaxed, kind of way, but she seemed fine, so I brought her over to a sitting area and let her lie down.

Sitting down, Mei stuck to my side like some form of slime, her light breathing brushing my ear in a way that made me aware of just how close she was.

Anywhere else it would have looked odd, but here there were many women that just lounged around, leaning into one another, some sipping down drinks or admiring painted nails, some off in a kind of pool area further back, wearing basically nothing at all. There were ever some women that seemed to be entertaining others just for the hell of it.

We relaxed there for a while. I waited for Pinky, but after what had to be ten or so minutes with no sign of her, I started to get antsy. Mei had settled into snuggling up to me like I was a blanket, her hand still in mine, her cheeks flushing.

Deciding that I needed to do something and being unable to get Mei to let go, I decided to try to strike up a conversation.

“Are you just that relaxed?” I asked Mei.

“Mmh,” she mumbled, “No, not normally. Lots of work recently, its tense. You’re not?”

“My body’s relaxed, but I honestly don’t think anything can relax me as much as it has you. Your practically liquid,” I told her.

“Mhm,” she lightly moaned, “Very nice. Sucks your high-strung.”

“I’m not. I guess you're just easy to please,” I told her.

“Not so sure about that. I would have more of a life if I was,” she murmured, “Then again, maybe It would be harder to relax if you weren’t so soft.”

“I’m not that soft,” I told her, a queasy feeling in my gut that fell halfway between pride and disgust.

“You're very soft, smooth as a baby’s bottom,” she told me, scootching in to rest against me like I was a pillow.

Looking down at her, I couldn’t help but notice the flush and the signs, and I did my best to pretend they didn’t exist. I didn’t want to spook her, though I also couldn’t help but wonder if she realized what she was doing, pressing up against me like she was.

“You know… I can’t tell if you’re a wallflower or not,” I told her, avoiding staring at her.

“I wouldn’t say I’m wallflower. Most people would say I’m cold… But I’m certainly warming up to you,” she said coyly.

That just about made me blush, and it wasn’t just because she seemed to be coming onto me, but because of something I felt I had missed.

Why was this event free? Why only women? Why in the back of a sketchy bar on the edge of a redlight district?

I had spotted more and more women coming in, but while I vaguely remembered quite a few, there were also women here who looked like they didn’t belong in the environment doing many of the same things the ones that did belong were doing.

Stick those together with the way there were a bunch of half dressed women pressing and holding one another close and I suddenly had a very distinct impression of what was going on here.

“Mei… I feel like I’m missing a bit of context here… What does a girl's night around here entail exactly?”

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“What else? A night where mostly single women gather to have… Fun,” she told me, looking up at me, he eyes slightly lidded.

Oh, dear god almighty.

I had found myself in a powder keg of repressed women who were looking to have some fun. That’s all it took for me to start putting things together.

I had been missing something about Mei, but it wasn’t a physical thing, it was a social thing. She was hanging around in a bar full of strangers she might or might not have fun with and cared little for the lack of men.

At least I knew she was probably not just having some fun at my expense. She had stayed despite the women.

As for why Pinky had asked me to meet her here, I tried not to think about it. There was thankfully someone very distracting but she brought her own issues.

Or did she?

I had been pent up for a while, and this seemed like the perfect time to blow off some steam.

Looking down at her I asked, “And of all the people here, Including what I can only assume are some courtesans doing a bit of paid entertainment, and quite a few nock outs, you want to have some fun with little old me?”

“I don’t see why not, and besides, you came up to… You didn’t know, did you?” She asked as she looked into my face.

“No, I was waiting for a friend and had no clue. I didn’t even mean to break the ice; life just put me in the right place at the right time to bumble my way here. Though I certainly don’t mind meeting you,” I told her, letting an arm wrap around her hip.

“Charming? My, my, what a turnaround. I almost thought you were about to pull back,” she said, her hand moving to rest on mine.

“Mostly, I want to make sure about something first, and I think it’s important to know how seriously you take this kind of thing. I don’t want to break a girl’s heart over a one-night stand,” I told her.

“Charming and thoughtful? You’re going to make me second-guess myself. I won't get disappointed with some casual fun, although maybe I should be looking for someone easier?” she teased.

“Maybe. We could always check with one of the girls who seem to be selling their time for a second opinion,” I told her.

She looked up before waving for one of the girls who was walking around with drinks from before, and she strutted on over to us.

There was a look she had that I didn’t think she expected anyone to notice, but she looked like she was a cat that got the cream. I could imagine why, but when we asked about the services, we could acquire it became obvious that some of the women were set.

We were both on budget, but she told us we could ask for a room upstairs once the lights dimmed.

At least it finally made sense why there were no prices for anything. They were here to get us in the mood for big spending. Why nickel and dime girls for a few thousand when the main source of revenue was the girls ready to make you moan like a pipe organ for 10k an hour?

We, the two frugal, waited as the girls' lounging started to get rowdy. The lights dimmed, and a few girls started to make their way upstairs. We stayed talking it out, but soon after, I made a joke about working with my hands, and she brought me upstairs.

We climbed into a bed, twining together, getting ready for some fun. Lips and fingers questing for spots where the other might enjoy. Foreplay before the main course that we were both ready for.

About thirty seconds before we were about to start taking off our robes when Lilly chimed in.

“Jacklyn, Pinky is on her way. She says its urgent.”

“What? Now? What does she mean urgent?” I asked her, with no way to hide it.

“Yes, now. I don’t know what she means by urgent, but I would assume she believes immediate action is required by both of you,” Lilly informed me, cooly.

“Well, how long will it be till she gets here?” I asked her.

“About a minute from the distance of the transmission,” Lilly replied.

I sighed. Pinky was cockblocking me.

“What’s going on? Who are you talking to?” Mei asked, confused at my sudden and schizophrenic action.

“Sorry, I’m talking with a friend,” I told her, backing it up with showing her the comm ring. “It’s like a-”

“A comm ring,” she finished before her eyes widened, and she took my hand in hers.

It was a look of manic understanding. The same kind of look that accompanied a talent, like how I could look at some metal and see bullets.

She looked up, her eyes drawn down to the ring, before pulling her gaze from the ring.

“You said you're heading out early because of an emergency? If you swear to come back tomorrow, I’ll forgive you for skipping out and leaving me like this today.”

I was intrigued by her sudden interest, but it was hard enough to explain your talent, let alone explain something like this. Far more curious would be how I was leaving her.

“By leaving you like this, do you mean intrigued… or-”

She cut me off, slipping a finger under my chin, and that same feeling was there, that connected feeling that had tingled through my fingers earlier. She pulled me in and kissed me.

That was a tame description because kissing didn’t often combine tongue, moaning, and a gentile touch, but it could be used. It was a good enough word for it… Probably.

It was about ten seconds after we started ‘kissing’ that Pinky, without warning us, flew through the window on her flying sword.

She fell off the sword, tumbled into the room, landed on the bed, rolled like a comic character, and knocked me off the bed before landing on me.

“We need to go B-” she started

“HA! Hi Pinky, I know we need to go do something-” I tried to say.

Pinky interrupted, pressing my cheeks.

“We need to go now,” she said emphatically before reaching under me and trying to lift me up like a person-shaped sack of grain, and I let her, catching her and helping her up when she overbalanced and almost pulled me on top of her, placing her down.

I caught a blush and a pout, but with Pinky, there was no telling what she was pouting over.

Pinky looked over to the woman and seemed to recognize her, before turning to me and then my neck before puffing up her cheeks even more. I reached over and pulled her sword out of the wall before handing it to her.

“Don’t even think about telling anyone,” Pinky told her, “No one will believe you! And the owner already knows about the window.”

“I don’t intend on it,” she said before turning to me and saying, “See you soon… Amber.”

“See you soon, Mei,” I told her before walking over to Pinky, who had the sword hovering and hopping onto the deathtrap without complaint because I didn’t want to look like a pussy.

Pinky lifted up before murmuring, “See you soon,” in a way that could only be mocking, though it took her till a few seconds after we left the room, once again via the now shattered window, for her to catch the second bit.

“Wait, Amber?” She asked, turning to face me. She was gobsmacked and pointed the finger at me.

“I needed to give her a fake name, so…” I started.

“You came up with a magical girl name, and you did it without me!” she shouted despondently.

“Um… Yes?” I asked, not getting it.

Pinky stopped talking for a moment before she seemed to deflate a bit, mumbling to herself.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” I asked.

“I wanted to be there for it…” She mumbled more audibly.

Oh.

“I’m sorry, Pinky, I didn’t know it was important. We could come up with a better one-”

“No… No. What's the full name? Tell me that, at least.”

“Amberlyn Aki, after that yellow-orange girl in-”

“Battle Witch San San? You picked the dorky yellow from Battle Witch San San?” She asked, “No wait, that makes complete sense. Of course, you would pick a magical girl who uses guns instead of a wand.”

“I… Yeah, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” I told her.

She made a small noise then that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle, and I was worried that she was going to cry midair on a flying deathtrap before she kept doing it. Each ‘sniffle’ got a bout louder as she started to cackle.

I was unsure of what set her off, but at least she didn’t seem like she was crying anymore; whether tweaking out in the same position was any better was rather up in the air if you’d pardon the pun.

It was the kind of laugh that put fear in the hearts of lesser people, and I was definitely one of the lesser people.

“You- You picked a- Oh my goodness, that is too funny. Do you know what Aki means? When you give people names like they do in the show?”

“I, uh, no?” I replied, holding close while she took a hard turn.

“Magical Girl Sparkling Amberlyn,” she choked in a laugh before cackling her ass off like an evil witch, “A sparkling gemstone instead of bubblegum, HA!”

I could feel my cheeks flush, and I muttered, “At least mine is a gem; you named yourself after bubblegum!”

“I know. I thought it was funny, and it was. I’m a funny bubble gum girl. And your name is even funnier because you’re so serious, he- HA!” she said with an even more pained laughing streak.

I hadn’t heard her breathe in since she started, close to a minute before; she just kept laughing and laughing and laughing.

I started to get worried while we zipped through the air, not for myself but for Pinky, who was tweeking out, which was never a good thing for a pilot to be, ever.

Huffing and puffing, Pinky eventually regained control over herself, settled down, and breathed. I gave her some back pats because I had never seen that level of laugh from anyone. She had kept going until she had been coughing, and it hurt.

Carefully, I asked, “So does that mean you forgive me for picking the name without you?”

“I would, but you also went to girls' night without me. No matter how funny a name you picked, going with Miss Naval Research instead of me means you have committed a grave sin that must be rectified. You owe me one, basically,” she said wistfully as if she were doling out the law.

“Well, I’ll try, hell I could afford it once my account gets unfrozen… Whenever I get to that, Even if I don’t get it.” I told her.

“Don’t get it? It’s a spa day, basically for free! Do you have any idea how much that would cost? And the rest of it, too. I felt like, five years younger last time I went.” She griped.

“Oh? And you make a habit of it do you?” I asked her.

“Hey, don’t use that tone with me. You’re the one with lipstick on her shoulder and neck and a suspicious wet spot on your thigh. At least you got my message and remained clothed,” she said defensively.

“Careful, pinky. You almost sound je—” I started before she cut me off with a squeak.

“What did you find out? During your patrol?” she asked.

I explained the findings, mostly just the unwillingness to help out while also making curly cues in her hair while she slapped at my hand. I tried to get past six curls, but I couldn’t quite make it with my pudgy fingers.

“That’s not all that uncommon, and stop that,” she said, slapping my hand again, “Most people around here don’t exactly like outsiders all that much. Our society often shuns most of you in the name of ‘maintaining our culture.’”

“So you're xenophobic? Damn Pinky, as a xeno myself, I don’t know how I feel about that,” I told her.

“You damn well know I’m not that way,” she huffed, and I gave her a pat on the head.

“There, there, I know you don’t think that way. You're one of the good ones, Pinky.”

Agile, she bent her arm around and gave me a chop to the head that had a bit more effort.

“Do not call me a good girl like that, jerk.” She griped, “And we're almost there, so keep your eyes out for anything weird, spooky, or otherworldly.”

To be fair to Pinky, I had no clue what I was looking for. I kind of doubted that monsters, or aliens or whatever, were just going to be running through the streets, baying for the blood of the innocent or whatever.

She swooped us down above the rooftops as we came toward a structure that looked familiar. It was an old Voidrome. Out of use, with what looked like a rail line leading toward the current Voidrome in the distance.

Carefully, she touched down in an alley next to an old warehouse. Despite its age, it showed obvious signs of use.

“What brings us out here, Pink? Is someone smuggling ghosts?” I asked her ironically.

“Someone smuggling something, alright. This warehouse is run by the red light district’s Dam. She rents it out, but it's mostly for smuggling; this far from the main voidrome, it's easy to rig inspections,” she told me.

“So it's for smuggling, so what? What's wrong that has you in a tizzy?” I asked.

“There are goods inside that were supposed to be moved a week ago, and the renter claims they sent people to pick them up, but they never arrived; the people went missing, and the Dam wants them to move the stuff out. I’m here because they claim weird stuff is at play, and no one wants to come here.” She told me.

“And you trust that?” I asked her.

“Yeah, she wouldn’t do me dirty like that. I helped her a while ago, and she hasn’t forgotten about it. She’s the honourable Dam; setting me on a goose chase isn’t in her nature.”

Well, I guess I would be the one on alert then; despite the former mood, getting cockblocked wasn’t so bad for this. All that tension was helping, if anything. Pinky didn’t quite drag me along to another warehouse, but she sure did hold my hand and walk quickly.

The warehouse was marked as holding goods from orbit, apparently, and had a security latch, but it was disengaged. Making it very easy for us to skulk into the warehouse.

It was dark in the warehouse, the only light coming in from the opaque dusty windows. The whole place was greyscale, but we got in, closing the door quietly behind us.

There were boxes and shelves with crates on them, dividing the place into a labyrinth.

We stepped in and to the side, and our shoes squelched.

Both of us looked down, and I kneeled, touching the dark floor and found goo.

“What the fuck is this?” I whispered.

“I don’t know, what does it feel like?” Pinky asked.

“It feels like… Like slime.” I told her.

“Spooky Ghoul Goo,” Pinky said, emphasizing each word, “There are total monsters about.”

“Gross,” I said, flicking the goo off my fingers before standing, “Why do you talk about monsters like you're excited to find them?” I asked her.

“I am excited. I get free stuff for fighting them; always fun to get free stuff, and I help people while I’m at it; why wouldn’t I want to fight them,” she said.

Leave it to Pinky not to be horrified by horrifying monsters while also calling them ghosts, ghouls, and other spooky names.

We stalked through the goo-slickened boxes, the sticky floor growing at first sticker, then harder, losing the stick and growing firm like dry glue. I felt around, looking for open wounds, but found none, or none that I could feel; all of them were sealed up tight.

We stalked into an open area, the slime spreading like grasping fleshy spiderwebs. They grew thicker before they pulled out and away, spreading up from the ground up along the stacks and then up to the ceiling in a kind of ball shape.

“It’s a… A nest?” I asked.

The word came unbidden, like an itch at the back of my mind. The dogs from hell had been living in the halls like a cave or a den, but this was constructed.

It fit.

“Sounds about right, so gross. Here out here, its open.” She said leading the way inside the ball.

Inside, there was very little. It had obviously been an open area like a loading bay of some kind. Round shapes covered in growth resembled people, cocooned inside the nest's walls. A few more were half-covered like they had been trapped in the roots of a tree. Four or five would be able to be removed with little effort, but god knew how hard it would be to remove the rest.

All of them were quiet; the room was still, but it was not dark.

Despite the thick growths that blocked out the light from the windows, it was well lit, almost bright, though the quality of the light made it hard to see anything regardless.

I suppose otherworldly light did that.

Because at the back of the spherical nest lay a gaping wound that I could not feel.

I had compared the open wounds to a gaping hole, my dirty mind colouring my thoughts, but this… This was something else entirely.

If a wound could be closed or open, this was… Shattered.

The wound had been forced open, yawning wide like it was about to birth, but if it had, the baby was long gone. In its place was a fleshy tube of nesting material that seemed to lead into a winding maze. I could feel a shudder run down my neck and back just staring at it and the off, sepia tinted light that filtered from it.

At first, it could be misconstrued as a circular hallway, but it was not. There was a wall behind it, and once you saw it, the hole popped, as if you were seeing through an illusion. Something moved once I did, light shining in the corner of my eyes, but there was nothing there when I checked.

“That is… Not good,” I told her.

“An open flesh hole in the middle of the city? No. That is not good. It is, in fact, the opposite,” Pinky confirmed.

Yeah, that was an understatement.

“Well, you cockblocked me earlier; I’m sure we could block this hole up together and pull the people out. Easy.”

What a poor choice of words.