The afternoon XP-farming went by in the blink of an eye. Team Natsuko racked up about 18 million points each by the time they were ready to pack it in for the day. This was around six o’clock: As late as Natsuko wanted to put off drinking and as early as Boulanger was willing to quit grinding.

“Not bad. Not bad. Good work gang,” Natsuko said, walking with her hands behind her head.

The echoing hustle and bustle of the Selenian Capitol building massaged her ears with a break from octopus squelches and swinging swords and fire blasts. If she didn’t strain to hear any particular conversation, it sounded like a burbling brook. And it was infinitely preferable to the depressing quiet of Vermögenburgh.

“We could’ve made 20 million if you weren’t screwing around,” Boulanger said.

“But then I wouldn’t have gotten to screw around, Balls,” Natsuko replied, using the nickname he hated.

“I think we’re doing fine,” Ailing said with a stretch and a yawn. “Team Windwalker is our main competition and his total stats are in line with mine. He’s not beating our Natsuko and Koyon here.”

Ailing pat the two of them on the back. Natsuko smirked. Gods-damned right they weren’t. She was custom-built to stay on top. Was it cheating to have outside help? Maybe. But anyone who was in the Top 30 had that same outside help, except she’d also saved the world from a homicidal psychopath with a messiah complex while being at the bottom of the Use-Rankings, so maybe she deserved a little more of a reward than most.

Since Sunday was the only day they could get Boulanger to relax and take things easy in the afternoon, they put up their gear and Natsuko made everyone a cocktail (just the one!) before they headed out to a shared dinner. She had been experimenting with “anti-cooking” cocktails for a while longer than food, and since it was mostly about getting the flavors right before stirring/shaking, she’d come up with a few cocktails that were not on the Yishang’s set menu. Tonight, in honor of the season, it was a pumpkin spice espresso martini. Once it was poured out into everyone’s glass, Boulanger raised the dainty glass of rust-brown liquor to his nose, sniffed, and took a small sip.

“It’s good,” he said quietly.

“See? I told you ,” Natsuko said after spiking her own with an extra shot of moonwater.

“The drinks work a little better than the food,” Ailing said, sipping hers with a pinkie out.

“Mmm. Oh damn. This is good! You gonna make it for the Halloween party?” Koyon asked.

Natsuko snorted. “As a pre-gamer maybe. But the Yishang’s events are all dry, so if I’m sneaking anything in it’s gonna be the strong stuff. I’m not wasting flask space.”

“Pity,” Boulanger said.

After their evening drink, Team Natsuko went out to the fanciest restaurant in Selenia. A place called The Dark Side. It operated out of a moonbase on the far side of the moon, requiring about an hour of travel out from the Capitol Building, but it was well worth the trip. For one thing, the ambience was incredible, being lit solely by candlelight beneath an open ceiling that faced the stars. For another, the food was delicious, experimental stuff that wasn’t available for Heroes to cook themselves. Even Ailing, who was ordinarily not a fan of Selenian food, found something to enjoy.

As the four of them dipped into a seemingly-impossible dessert of little frozen balls called “Moon Ice Cream,” Boulanger finally loosened up enough to become chatty.

“So, what were you two talking about during lunch?” he asked. The moonwater aperitif he'd had melted the hard creases around his eyes.

“Ah, hehehe, umm… girl stuff,” Natsuko said. “Typical girly things.”

Koyon had a look of utter confoundment. “Girly things? You? Natsu you must think we’re mor—”

She put on a tight smile and kicked his shin under the table. Koyon hissed in pain, trying to keep his voice below the piano player’s soft melody. Natsuko was satisfied with that until she glanced over to see Boulanger wearing his “searching for competitive edge” look. Leave it to him to think the secret was about something as meaningless as experience points and levels.

Ailing rolled her eyes and reached out a hand to touch the small of Natsuko’s back. “She was telling stories about her former team. Nothing to do with you two.”

“Jeez, did that really deserve a kick in the shin?” Koyon said, rubbing his leg.

“No, I just wanted an excuse,” Natsuko said.

Another glance at Boulanger told her he wasn’t buying it, but he didn’t have enough to press with so he returned to his frozen ice cream balls. The matter did not come up after that, nor in the week that followed, where Boulanger pushed for them to get as much grinding and dungeon-clearing in as they could before the Halloween event to prevent the other team’s seasonal costume boosts from turning into permanent Use-Numbers. And Natsuko was concerned enough about the same possibility that she let him drag her along.

By the following Saturday they were 129 million experience, 13 million Ying, three accessory levels, and two quests up over the start of the week and Natsuko was feeling unusually peppy. Not quite at the level of her original archetype, but enough that she was actually—and this pained her to admit—somewhat excited for the arrival of her Halloween costume.

“Tada! Here they are!” Zhidao announced as he floated in through their open balcony door with four boxes bobbing in the air behind him.

Natsuko set down the pestle and mortar she’d been using to grind cloves and walked over to the living room where Zhidao placed everyone’s costumes on the floor. Koyon’s was exactly as he had asked for: A butler costume complete with gloves, bowtie, and bows for his bunny ears. Ailing was done up as a witch with a pointy hat, dress torn at the hem to show even more thigh and orange swirls going up the length. This was paired with thigh-length black boots with orange laces that had a teetering seven inch heel. To tie it all together she had little bat earrings too.

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“Wow. It looks good but damn, your poor feet,” Natsuko said as Ailing looked over the contents of her box.

Ailing shrugged. “It’s a one-off. And once I’m drunk enough I won’t notice anyway.”

Ailing giggled and Natsuko looked at Zhidao to see if he’d heard her, but the Pengwu fox appeared to be willfully deaf. She supposed the “no alcohol” rule had more to do with appearing pure to the Celestials when it came time to translate their emanations more so than actual sobriety. With great trepidation, Natsuko opened her own costume box. Inside she found a cloak of crimson red feathers along with a surprisingly modest yellow-and-orange dress patterned like flickers of flame. On top of both articles lay a porcelain mask shaped like a phoenix’s head with plumage atop it.

“Oh… This is… actually kinda cool, Zhidao,” Natsuko said, not quite sure what to make of an outfit that wasn’t just a checklist of fetishes.

“I thought you might like it,” Zhidao replied.

Natsuko ran up to her room to go throw it on. As far as compromises went, it was pretty good. There was enough elegance and sex appeal that the Celestials would be happy, but aside from the fact that she had suggested “chicken suit” as a joke, the feathered cloak and masquerade mask genuinely looked pretty badass. She could’ve done without the high heels that went with it, but again, compromises. Once everyone was dressed up in their costumes—Boulanger in a vampire outfit that leaned more sparkly than macabre—Team Natsuko downed their pre-game cocktails and set out for the Halloween party event.

All of the Heroes had guessed the theme ahead of time. The newest region being on the moon, there was no chance it would be anything but alien-themed. Sure enough, the decorations in the Selenian Dome where the Halloween event was taking place were all spaceships and blacklights and green ooze and stuff. The party was already going when they arrived as most of the Top 30 and some lower-ranked Heroes had filled up the floorspace of the geodesic dome. Within seconds, they were swarmed by the other Heroes.

“Whoa, Natsuko, your costume looks so good!” said Alice, leader of Team Imperia. Last time Natsuko checked she was somewhere around #12 or #13 in the Use-Rankings.

“Thanks. All my idea,” Natsuko said.

“What is it, like, a fire bird?” asked Cornelius, a member of Team Nuxalk and rank #20.

“A phoenix,” Natsuko corrected.

“Hey, the flames are shining under the black light!” said Yesui, a member of Team Yesugen and #7.

Natsuko looked down to find that the flame lines on her dress were in fact shimmering in the black light. The crowd around her followed Natsuko to the punch table where there was some electric green juice that tasted distinctly of a flavor. It was pretty good though, and better with a shot of moonwater from her flask added to it. As the party continued, it segregated itself into concentric rings outward from Natsuko and her team at the center. It was the most fun she’d had in a long time. Being the oldest in the room by several years, she had the most stories, and all of them had everyone laughing hysterically. The pie-baking misadventure was a particularly big hit.

Eventually some Pengwu came out and made the assembled Heroes go through the performance of some kind of murder-mystery, social-guessing game where the premise was that some of the Heroes were secretly aliens. Natsuko was terrible at these kinds of things and so died quickly on the first round and then again on the second round when she was picked to be an alien because she accidentally let slip that she knew what role someone else was. Ailing however, an alien both times, won both rounds for her team.

“Jeez, I don’t know how you keep a straight face,” Natsuko said to her afterwards as she munched on mooncakes.

Ailing gave a vague smile. “I’m good at misdirection, what can I say? It also doesn’t help that you’re glow-in-the-dark, dear. You have a target painted on your back.”

“Well, try not to spend the reward money all in one place,” Natsuko said, clapping Ailing on the shoulder. That was a joke. The reward was five million Ying and they made ten times that every Sunday.

“Hey, Natsu, can we talk a moment?”

Natsuko blinked, not certain she’d heard the voice correctly. But turning to her left, there was Daisy Corduroy, leader of Team Daisy and rank #26, dressed like a sad-looking cowgirl. The Yishang had clearly not put as much effort into her outfit.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. One sec guys, be right back,” Natsuko said, waving off the group surrounding her and Ailing.

Daisy took Natsuko off towards a secluded part of the dome. Daisy wasn’t pleased until there was no one within earshot and no cardboard rocket ship cut-outs to hide behind. Once they were truly alone, she exhaled.

“Natsu, I think we’ve put on this charade for long enough. We really need to go back to Shui and figure out what we’re gonna do, cuz the numbers are going down and I’m startin’ to worry Hemiola was on to something,” Daisy said.

Natsuko pinched the bridge of her nose. “Man, did it really have to be now that you hit me with this? I was having the most fun I’ve had in gods know how long and—”

Daisy grabbed her by the shoulders. The wide, whites of her eyes looked ghostly pale blue in the light of the dome. “Natsu, if we don’t push each other, we’re gonna get stuck here! I know what you mean, I’m back to being comfortable too. I don’t even wanna get back at the top that bad. I’m happy being B-tier. But if you don’t pull me outta here, I’ll stay, and the same is true for you, right? It’s intoxicating. I forgot that when I said I was just gonna come back for a little bit. And it doesn’t even feel that good but it’s just— I can’t give it up! So please, Natsu, let’s both go together, okay? We both need this. And the only way we get out is if we hold each other accountable.”

The moonwater sloshing around in her veins had Natsuko feeling like a distant satellite being slingshotted from party planet to party planet. Now Daisy had appeared like a black hole out of the void, dragging her towards oblivion. She took Daisy’s hands off her shoulders.

“Listen, Daisy, I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to see Shui, I don’t want to fight the Yishang, I don’t want any of that! This life has good parts and bad parts, but I still remember how I was when I was at the bottom, and I can’t go through that again. Not again,” Natsuko said. It was selfish and stupid, but it was the truth.

“No. No, no, listen!” Daisy said, panic creeping into her voice as she reached out to grab Natsuko’s hands. “We’ll make it work somehow! But we can’t let things end like this. Please! We can’t give up and let the Yishang wipe us—”

Daisy broke off as a figure came towards them.

“Oh, hello Daisy, it’s been awhile,” Ailing said with her wide, perfect smile.

Daisy pursed her lips. “Yeah. It has.”

“Please don’t mind me, I was just wandering over to see if Natsu was doing alright,” she said, clutching Natsuko by the arm. “She’s been drinking a lot so I wanted to make sure she’s feeling okay. So? How are you feeling, Natsu?”

“I’m… fine. Just a little dizzy. Daisy, I’m um… I’m gonna go back to the party now, okay? I’ll think about what you said,” Natsuko said, sharing one last glance with Daisy.

Daisy’s gaze shifted to her former teammate, chatting happily with Natsuko as she led her away by the arm.