The lion-faced Survivor let out one final gasp as Soul Essence left his body. His tendrils retracted back and he fell in a heap.

Hiro looked down, both legs covered in wounds from the man’s barbed tendrils. “Thanks,” he said aloud, even though he had yet to see Valeria. “That was fucked.”

“What were you thinking?” she asked as she stepped out of the dark, a blue NYC cap holding some of her thick hair back.“You could have run.”

“You were watching?” Hiro asked.

She approached, her crossbow still pointed at the dead Survivor. “More or less.” Valeria turned to Hiro and raised her crossbow. “Hold still.”

“Wait—!”

Thunk!

Valeria fired a bolt directly at Hiro. Rather than pierce his chest, the bolt enveloped him in a blanket of warmth, which soon healed the wounds on his legs. About the only thing it didn’t fix were the rips in his jeans.

Hiro even felt better after she was done. “That’s new.”

“An upgrade.”

“Next time, tell me what it will do before you shoot me,” he told her with a deep breath out. “I have gauze that could have handled it as well.”

Valeria crouched. “Heh. Sorry, bro. It was a bit more dramatic that way, I guess. Not my intention.”

“His loot is yours.”

“Nah, no loot. To the Doom System, we technically killed him together. Look.” She motioned to the man’s body, his weapons gone. “But we got SE and followers.”

Hiro had been so distracted by the proceedings that he had barely noticed the applause in his head that signaled more followers. He was now up over a thousand again. “You just happened to be lurking around here, huh?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to return,” she said. “Heard a commotion and I found you.”

“Yeah,” Hiro said as he scratched the back of his head. “Did I tell you thanks yet?”

“You did.”

“I need to get to a merchant. I need more vape cartridges.”

“I saw that. A Roulette Weapon?” she asked.

“Nope. I got it from killing Mercury near Grand Central. A Sentry.”

“I took out Hercules not far from there.”

“I bet that was a fight.”

Valeria grinned, her eyes obscured by her cap. “It was.”

“That means there’s one more out there, unless another Survivor got it.”

“How do you know that?” Valeria asked.

Hiro counted them out on his fingers. “Hercules, Minerva, and Mercury. They are part of the statue that used to be outside of Grand Central. You killed Hercules; I killed Mercury. They’re Sentries now. So that leaves Minerva, I mean, theoretically.”

“Great. More enemies.”

“Always.”

“And the cat attack? I thought that would do it. What’s that one called?”

“Kore Nani Neko.”

Valeria made a face. “Like the TikTok vid? I was wondering where I’d heard that before.”

“I got it from a merchant.”

“Ah.”

“But the throwing knife that turns into a Buster Sword. That’s a Roulette Weapon. And I have a mask in my backpack that’s Roulette as well.” Hiro stopped short of telling her about Chronokuma teddy bear.

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“Nice. I haven’t gotten any Roulette gear, sadly.” Valeria holstered her crossbow on her back.

“But that’s new.”

“Back holster? Hell, yeah. I bgrabbed it from a sporting goods store in the Bronx. Nobody needed that shit there, apparently.” She offered Hiro her hand and he took it.

“Thanks.”

“I’m guessing you’ve been going around too,” she said as they two turned away from the dead Survivor. Hiro spotted his vape pen and his Buster Kunai.

“Hold up.” After he retrieved the two items, he returned to Valeria. “Going around, yeah. There’s been some of that. A lot of that.”

“And your level?”

“Three. Yours?”

“Same.”

“Have you made enemies?” he asked.

“Fuck yeah, I have. Weird that a person’s first instinct would be to hunt other Survivors, but that’s how it has played out. I guess. And then there are the actual Hunters. There’s one closer to Battery Park. That fucker nearly got me.”

“I have something similar,” Hiro said. “A pair of nasty ones in Bryant Park. They’re teenage Hunters. I’ve been calling them the Bunny Twins because they wear dominatrix-looking rabbit masks.”

“For real?”

“Bunny masks with ears that morph into swords. I probably should have mentioned that.”

“God.”

“It’s fucked.”

“What about your Hunter?” Hiro asked.

“A giant woman. Maybe not a giant like some Lord of the Rings shit, but twice my height. Two heads. Four arms. Looks like a Hindu goddess named Kali, which is appropriate considering she’s the Goddess of Death.”

“You know about Hindu Gods?”

“Nah, not really. My degree is in Computer Science. I told you. But there’s this Linux distro named after her. So I looked it up one time.”

“Distro?”

“Operating system. What about that Survivor you mentioned?”

“I call her the Lady in the Yellow Raincoat. Older lady. She landed on a rooftop and opened her umbrella, releasing daggers that caused me to jump straight into the Zone of Influence of a Sentry.”

“Bitch,” Valeria said.

“She thinks she’s the main character.”

“They all do.”

“But she’ll be hard to find. Somewhere in the East Village, last I saw her. What about you?””

Valeria bit her lip. “I got one that threatened our sanctuary.”

“Our?”

“My girlfriend. Rena.”

“That’s your plus one?”

“For the gate opening? Yes. Sorry if I didn’t mention that. I didn’t know if I could trust you yet.”

“And you think you can trust me now?”

“After everything I’ve been through since we last saw each other? Trusting you is the least of my concerns,” she said.

“Rena doesn’t go out with you?” Hiro glanced around. “She’s not about to come out of the shadows or anything, is she?”

“God, no. She’s not built for shit like this. Not everyone is, you know, like us.”

“For the streets?”

A crooked smile formed on Valeria’s face. “Sure, for the streets. If that’s what you call the insane shit we are getting into, then sure.”

“I don’t really know what else to call it.”

“Nor do I. But Rena is adapting. She’s been out with me a few times. She has a dagger she can barely use and fire hands.”

“Fire hands?”

“A Roulette Skill. I should actually call them something like heat hands. The system called it Fire Ants, which sounds dumb until you see her use the power. But they’re really strong. Only problem is she has to get in close to use them. All of these powers are wild, and just trusting them?”

“I know the feeling,” Hiro said as he remembered what it had been like to {Bounce} from the top of the parking garage to another roof. “You and Rena. Did you meet before or after the Doom System appeared?”

“Before.”

“Wow.”

“We’ve been surviving together for nearly a year now. We make it work.”

“That’s commendable.”

“It’s also smart. Two heads are better than one, at least until you realize you have two mouths to feed. What about you?”

“Me?”

“Did you ever shack up with someone after the Doom System appeared?”

“Yeah, I did,” Hiro said, remembering Monica. “But that didn’t work out.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“It is what it is,” Hiro said, a phrase that he hated yet one that applied. “I found two people for our gate which might prove troublesome considering they’re brothers. Juan and Marcello.”

“We can’t possibly be the only people using the gate in the Financial District. There will be others to team up with. If we get proactive now, we can tell some more people to meet there.” Valeria pulled out her phone to check the countdown timer. “One day and roughly twenty-one hours. Joy. Then the gates open and who knows what happens.”

“Plenty of time to get stronger. So, what do you think?”

“What do I think?” she asked as she put her phone away.

“We team up. Wait, we team up, right? Take down our enemies? That’s what my guts telling me, anyway.”

Valeria smiled. “I was waiting for you to suggest that.”

“It’s smart, right?”

“Definitely. We can focus on the Hunters first. They’ll be easiest to find.”

“Agreed.”

“Which leads me to our final question: are we going after Kali’s lookalike in Battery Park, or are we going after your Bunny Twins? Your choice, Hiro.”