"Shouldn't have found you? You told me to," Grim said.

"That was ten years ago; things have changed. It's too dangerous, and I'm too old and fat."

Grim felt that anger well up again, "No, no, no, you can't change your mind. I fucking found you; we just killed that thing, and I only had to because you told me to be here. Tell me what happened!"

Phil looked around, fear in his eyes. Valorant and Aegis were still far away, but that seemed to do little to ease his worries. "Fine, but it's not safe to talk here. Give me your contact information, and I'll tell you where to meet. Otherwise, forget you ever met me. For both of our safety."

Grim tried to ask more questions, but as soon as he got her contact, he shuffled away, refusing to speak to her anymore. By that point, the rest of the creatures had been cleared out, and she and the rest of the civilians were rounded up and brought to a team of paramedics. They were quite alarmed by the state she arrived in, but once they found out the blood wasn't hers, they relaxed.

She did have a couple of cracked ribs, so they gave her a painkiller, and before she realized what was happening, one of them held her shoulders while the other put their hand into her stomach. It was incredibly disconcerting, like someone was stirring a spoon in a bowl of soup, except the soup was her internal organs. He touched three of her ribs and removed his hand. The process only took a few seconds, but she could feel her ribs healing.

After that, they re-bandaged her injured arm and disinfected the cuts and scrapes she'd received. She’d tried to complain about the soup stirring they had just done, but they hadn’t cared. There was a long list of people they needed to help, and they would do it as fast as possible, so she dropped it. It wasn’t worth fighting over.

She was cleared after their conversation. Valorant and Aegis had left at some point, called in to deal with another incursion somewhere else in the city.

They'd be busy for a while; it was the season.

She walked past the Watch Cordon and several Stripes. No one went to take the spear; they must have assumed she was a higher rank than she was, and none of them were brave enough to push the issue. That was a good way of ending up on the wrong side of someone powerful.

It was uneventful as she walked home. She snuck in through the backyard this time, so she wouldn’t have to talk to anybody. It was pretty late by then, and she hadn't received a text from Phil yet, so she went to bed.

The next day was similar, so she spent most of the week recuperating; three life-or-death fights in the span of two days had left her thoroughly drained, and anger could only take her so far. She crashed hard and barely left her bed for three days. It took around that time for her to get a good reading on how Hazel was doing; it seemed dying meant it took a lot longer for her to heal compared to being severely injured.

On the fourth day, she was able to materialize, and Grim filled her in on what happened after she was impaled. Hazel explained that she could usually see what was happening, but while recovering, she was in a dreamlike state, and what she could experience was severely limited.

Hazel was quite upset about how close the two of them came to dying, and they both agreed that they needed to get stronger. They concluded that the best way for her to do that was to go up a rank and gain access to more Boon slots, as that was her biggest restriction. They’d gone into that fight with one free slot, and a utility skill had taken it up.

That had almost got them killed.

To advance to the next tier would cost four E-rank boon dice; she currently had one given to her by Louis, and she could probably trade the shards from the C-rank Lizardman for another two. The blue shards she'd gotten weren't enough for a boon, but she'd still be able to get a good price for them.

That left her with only one more to advance, which was where the real problem lay. She'd have to get the money together to buy one, which would take her around two years if all she did was work and save towards it. Maribelle and the gang were supposed to contact her soon, but at this point, she needed to try and extricate herself from them as quickly as possible; the kind of work they did, she had no interest in.

The last option was the fastest and the most dangerous. Break into a Gateworld and kill enough creatures to get enough shards for another boon. She could do it, but that had problems; most Gate worlds were locked down by the government or private covens led by high-ranked Boonwitches. Most of the time, they functioned like small corporations. A stabilized Gate world was worth a small fortune, exponentially if it was high rank. Most of the worlds had rare resources you couldn’t find on Earth that could be extracted. Not to mention the most important thing of all, the Boon shards you could get from the creatures that lived inside.

They were unintelligent and utterly hostile to humanity, but when they died, they all dropped shards, making them immensely valuable. Eternity ran off them, both figuratively and literally. They were an excellent power source and valuable to everyone with a pulse. They gave untold abilities and greatly increased humans' natural lifespans.

The only problem was actually killing them. Generally, a ranked human was stronger than a similarly ranked creature, and they could be expected to beat them. Humans were smarter and had the benefits of Boons to help. Two or more? Unless you had really good abilities or were very well-trained, you were dead.

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If they were higher ranked?

Thoughts of the Stripe’s broken bodies filled her head.

They got lucky it was a C-rank. They were still vulnerable to bullets. If it was a B? They wouldn’t have been able to even scratch it, and they would have all died.

Most people who went into Gate Worlds had a team, and a Witch coven was no different. The exact mechanisms behind their structure were archaic and rooted in traditionalism. Most covens aimed for thirteen members and consisted of family members, or if they had to, recruited from those who passed the Witching.

Saving up the money or joining a team wouldn’t happen for her, at least not for a while. So she'd have to break in. That would be the easy part; she could always return to the one with the monkey things. Surviving it would be the hard part. Arcadia and the other guides were the only reason she had a chance last time. They organized big groups so the creatures were spread out, letting people have a chance without getting swarmed.

She’d go once she talked with Phil, hell, he might even come with her.

The other way she could get stronger would be to get a prosthetic for her arm, but that had yet to go well in the past; mechanical augments... didn't work for her. Doctors said something about her brain being messed up, and once that happened, it was only a matter of time before they were politely kicked out.

A Boon augment was something they hadn't tried before and was worth a shot, but that would get in the way of her plans to advance as soon as possible. She'd put that on the back burner; once she was strong enough to raid Gateworlds regularly, she'd get one. She lived most of her life without an arm, and a couple more months wouldn't hurt.

With the options gone through, she and Hazel decided on a fitness routine for right now to build up strength; after some cursory searching, they settled on a simple calisthenic workout. Squats, sit-ups and modified push-ups. She was starting from a disadvantaged position and was forced to go for one-arm push-ups from the start. So she did them on her knees and lowered herself as slowly as she could while Hazel held her. She was able to do three push-ups and fourteen squats before her muscles gave out.

After that, she went for a run. Louis had looked surprised she was going out, but didn’t say anything. Things were still a bit tense between them, and she wasn’t going to be the one to fix things. If they could even be at this point,

Hazel came with her for the run but resigned to stay in her shadow. Grim had tried to protest, citing they should do it together, but Hazel had pretended she was getting a phone call and unsummoned herself.

That bitch.

She only came out to hold Grim’s hair back while she threw up. There was a reason she didn’t run.

The next day, after running without throwing up, she went to a broker who exchanged the C-rank shards for E-ranks. Going there, she was a little worried the process would be more complicated, but after explaining she got them from the incursion at Centennial Park, everything was fine. The teller, a middle-aged man, explained that someone else had managed to kill one as an E-rank as well, and they’d come in a couple of days ago. He hadn’t explained how and the teller didn’t pry.

The man gave her some paperwork to fill out, which was pretty standard. She was pleasantly surprised when she found out she’d been off in her estimates, and after getting enough for two boons, she elected to take the rest in cash.

Two days later, she received a phone call from an unknown number.

"Phil?" Grim said.

"Who's Phil?" A woman voice asked.

Grim’s stomach dropped.

"Oh… Maribelle."

A laugh came from the other end, "Don't be too happy to hear from me, you knew we'd call."

"What do you want?"

"There's a car waiting outside for you, get in it."

Hazel shook her head from across the room in big, exaggerated motions, making multiple Xs with her arms.

"I'm not home right now," Grim lied.

"Don't play games with us kid, we know you haven't left since this morning. Do I need to remind you what happens if you don't?"

"No."

"Good girl, and don't worry, you'll get paid for this."

The line went dead.

"We can't go out there," Hazel said as she paced across her room.

Grim sat, thinking, "We don't have a choice."

"They could have changed their minds and just want a nice location to kill us, secondary locations! Remember the warnings at school about kidnappers? We have to go to the Watch."

"You know we can't,” Grim paced. “We have to go, but we don't have to go unprepared."

"Like what? Leave a note or something?"

Grim went underneath her bed and took out the box she held the shards in. Inside, there were sixty, which was enough for three dice. She took them out and held the pile in her hand. They vibrated, and she could tell they wanted to be melded together into a boon. She clenched her hand and crunched them together.

Fuse x20 E rank Boon shards?

She accepted, and they coalesced into dice, but this time, instead of throwing them, she crushed them again and let them absorb into her hands.

Grim almost fainted.

It was one of the best feelings she had ever had, as straight vitality rushed into her body. She felt the aches and pains of her previous injuries wash away and felt new power rush into her muscles, but just as she was expecting more, it ended. The sudden loss of that feeling left her craving for more, as she felt a new hunger awaken in her body. A reservoir of power had appeared and only just started to fill. She figured that was a counter to keep track of her advancement.

1/4

"Woah," Hazel said, she'd been knocked on her ass.

"Yeah," Grim said. "Again?"

"A million times, yes.”

2/4

3/4

The second time wasn’t as euphoric, and the third time even less so. That internal reservoir also ticked up until it was almost full. She looked in the mirror and couldn’t tell for certain but she thought she saw more muscle definition. She definitely felt stronger.

“Are we ready?” Hazel asked, very stressed out.

"Almost, we need to replace your temporary boon before we go out there."

"With what? We’d need someone to copy from."

"We're gonna take a boon from Louis."