The last time Hiro had been in this area of the city, he had been ambushed by Mercury. Be on the lookout for statues, he reminded himself as he scanned the streets for any wayward Sentries. Finally, and only after heading to higher grounds to scan the area once again, Hiro hopped down into an alley and found the cash-only merchant known as Penny.

The woman simply stared at him for a moment, chewing gum. She blew a bubble, let it pop, and motioned for Hiro to come forward.

“You’re back,” Penny said, now dressed in a bloodstained cheerleader outfit. “Did you bring cash?”

“I did.” Hiro offered her a grim smile. The way her mascara was running made it seem like she had recently been crying.

“A little over a thousand bucks, huh?” She popped another bubble. “Won’t get you much, if we’re being honest.”

“What about my followers?”

“What about them?”

“Don’t they count for something? I thought they multiplied my dollar amount.”

“They do count for something, but they don’t count for something here. Look, I don’t sell the same kinds of items as other merchants. I sell unique skills.”

“Fine,” Hiro said, not wanting to argue. “In that case, can I afford anything?”

“You can afford one thing, and that’s only because I’m giving you a discount for not trying to haggle with me. I hate haggling.” She popped another bubble. “It’s not my thing and it never will be.”

“What can I afford?”

“I’m glad you asked.” Penny turned and grabbed a silver clutch off a trash can. She zipped it open, and a prompt appeared:

One Hit Wonder: {A La Mode}

Grade: B

Description: Face it, you know your world is on a course for the damned when broligarchs in Gruebel Forsey watches at live masculine energy events are dictating the course of your world through data mining and echo chambers.

This was exactly what went through the minds of a group of humans forty-eight thousand years ago, when they fled their homelands for the unpopulated Pleistocene supercontinent of Sahul—modern-day Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea.

What do we do now? Should we wait it out? How much stupider can it get? Are there forty of us willing to cross open waters filled with Odessian sea monsters like Scylla, the multi-headed terror with a yeast infection, or Charybdis, the ever-sucking whirlpool with a harrowing case of vorarephilia? And what about the Sirens? All the noise-canceling headphones in the world wouldn’t save them from a torture as uniquely grating as Mariah Carey during the Christmas season.

Luckily for them, their leader (I forget her name) had a One Hit Wonder that was actually a Three Hit Wonder known as A La Mode.

A La Mode allows you to change modes three times in total, just like your seafaring antediluvian forefathers did to avoid sea monsters. You get one Incognito Mode, one Safe Mode, and one Viral Mode.

What do the individual modes do? I’m glad you asked:

* Incognito Mode lets you turn invisible for three minutes—long enough to get away from something or spy on your ex.

* Safe Mode makes you invincible for three minutes. Any hit you take will be repelled, and any damage you’ve suffered will be reversed.

* Viral Mode draws massive attention to you for three minutes. Use it if you’re really looking to make an impression, but be warned: going viral can be incredibly dangerous.

To use A La Mode, simply say or think which mode you want to activate, and the effects will kick in—just like they did for the lucky souls who reached the unpopulated Pleistocene supercontinent of Sahul forty-eight thousand years ago.

“This is incredible,” Hiro said. Even if the Doom System’s explanation was angsty as usual, it actually gave me something useful. There are so many ways to use these three powers, and the fact the buff lasts for three minutes…

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

“Good, right?” Penny asked.

“Better than good. You have a deal.”

Hiro heard the sound of a cash register, followed by someone running their fingers through a wad of crisp bills. He checked his status and saw he now had less than a hundred Soul Cash to his name.

“So that’s it?” Bianca asked.

“I think so,” Hiro said.

“Come back when you have more cash,” Penny told him bluntly.

“Will do.” Hiro moved to a rooftop to regroup, where he paused behind a billboard. He could see the purple beacon in the distance, indicating he wasn’t very far from the Revenant.

All it needs is a little rain to make the place weirdly gloomy…

The rain picked up, startling Hiro.

“Ugh. Rain is going to ruin my shield body,” Bianca said. “And poor Hachi. We really need to break into a pet store and get him a cute little raincoat.”

Hiro reached his hand out to catch a few raindrops. I’m not the main character, he reminded himself, even if I just summoned the rain. Okay, if I summoned it, maybe I can make it go away. Stop, rain. He peered up at the sky, willing his thoughts forward. I said stop.

The rain continued.

“Good,” Hiro said, not sure if this was actually good or not.

“What’s good? The fact you spent all our money back there? You really need to learn how to budget better.”

“That skill was worth it.”

“You think?”

“Safe, Incognito, and Viral Mode. We might need them all. Maybe not the last one, but the first two for sure.”

“I always wanted to go viral.”

“Yeah?”

“My friend almost went viral when he fell off the bleachers during a choir performance. He got like three thousand likes.”

“No small sum.”

“You should have bought a level,” she said as she shifted a bit to protect herself from the rain.

“She wasn’t selling levels, and my follower multiplier—whatever that number may be—didn’t seem to work with her. Trust me, this will be helpful. I have a feeling we’re going to need everything we can get in the Second Interim.”

Hiro approached the edge of the roof and confirmed Hachi was below. He whistled to the dog, got his attention, and pointed toward the Revenant beacon.

“What about visiting the past again?” Bianca asked. “We should do that.”

“Later.”

“Promise?”

“Let’s keep moving.”

Hiro bounded to the next rooftop, noticing its sudden slickness due to the light rain. He scanned the gloom beyond. “I would use apartments if I could, but these are mostly office buildings,” he said as he eyed the next logical rooftop. “It might be harder to get into them.”

“You aren’t a quitter, Big Brother Hiro.”

“To my detriment. Hold on. Yes! I see one there.” Hiro landed on a lower rooftop and jumped to a private third story garden from there. He broke into the place and stepped into a ransacked living room. Graffiti covered the walls, most of it abstract figures, but some included religious text. One in particular caught Hiro’s attention, the letters jagged and uneven:

For the great day His wrath has come, and who is able to stand? —Revelations 6:17

“You’re a Bible guy?” Bianca asked.

“No. My dad was, though.”

“Because he’s American and from the Midwest?”

“I never thought of it that way. But that would explain some of it.”

“And your mom wasn’t Christian?”

“No. She tried with my dad. It didn’t make sense to her.”

“So she was into some Japanese religion?”

“Sort of.”

“What’s it called?”

“Shinto.”

“So you’re into that?”

“I liked some of it, but I was too young to remember really getting into any of it. I grew up there, and then did my teenage years in America. My dad tried to get me into youth groups, and I made a few friends that way, but it wasn’t for me.”

“Then why are you still standing here in front of this quote?”

“It just has me thinking. What if Revelations was about this?” He motioned around.

“About the gates opening and all the shit that happened after? I don’t remember there being a cute fuzzy pink shield in Revelations.”

Hiro couldn’t help but grin at Bianca’s statement. “You’re a character, you know that?”

“Should we check the bathroom for pharmaceuticals?”

“The place has already been looted.”

“Good point.”

Hiro walked to the floor-to-ceiling window on the opposite side of the space, where he could see the next rooftop.

Wait… His heart quivered as he noticed a familiar figure. The teenager was in a shiny black leather bodysuit, her long, sharp rabbit ears coming alive immediately.

“No way.” Hiro took a step back as a green, translucent dollar symbol appeared over the Bunny Teen’s head.