Elias swirled his glass of dark amber liquid absentmindedly. Yet, he sat down his glass without drinking any of it, causing the ice within to clink against the side of the glass. He sighed and stared into the liquid, knowing no answers awaited at its bottom.

It had been a long day. The longer-than-expected cleanup efforts and subsequent dressing down by the higher-ups had taken their toll on his nerves.

He glanced at the television playing the local news behind the bar and couldn't help but sigh as he watched a man riding on a giant wolf run through the streets of East Lake City. The camera panned back to show a crowd of dented car roofs and running bystanders.

A reporter stood on the sidewalk as the camera panned over the scene, reporting to the camera, but the television was muted. The close captioning provided the narrative instead.

"Panic ensued today in the streets of Easy Lake City as what appears to be a giant wolf ridden by an unknown individual caused an untold amount of property damage-"

Elias felt his irritation rising and shook his head, again reminded of his failure.

"Hell of a thing, huh?" the bartender said, making the rounds and noticing Elias' attention on the television. "I've lived here forty years, and nothing like this has ever happened."

"Yeah, a hell of a thing," Elias said with a forced nod. He wasn't in the mood to chat, so he grabbed his drink tightly and took a swig. The sharp burn of the whiskey helped numb his sorrows, and the bartender left him to it as he went back to brooding.

Elias could only blame himself for it. The target had proven extremely capable, far more than he had expected. He should have worked harder to shut down the individual quicker. Had he known it would come to that, he probably would have just let them go and caught up with them later.

Between the fire in the hotel and his unusual method of transportation, the entire situation had ballooned into a major mess. This was the most significant breach in the Magic Proliferation Treaty in over a decade. Even the spooks were now paying attention to East Lake City.

He had managed to recover an arcane slate from the construction site. Still, it was a net zero, considering that Noctua had lost hers.

Elias checked his phone and found that his ride had arrived. He upended his drink. Setting it down, he extracted some cash and left it next to the empty glass. He stood up and pulled on his long coat.

"Heading out?" The bartender asked as Elias passed by.

"Yeah," Elias nodded.

The one bright spot of all this was his meeting with the Kitsen. In retrospect, her disguise had been relatively poor. Her eyes were the obvious giveaway. In addition, her ears were poorly hidden under a cheap beanie, and the bulge that had run down the back of one of her pant legs was rather apparent. He wasn't sure how he had almost missed it, as he had trained to recognize every monster on sight, and there were at least a dozen known Kitsen within the cards.

But her appearance couldn't have been much worse for him. With him in hot water over his bungled capture attempt, there were whispers of him making the entire thing up to save face.

Elias left the bar, found the waiting robotaxi, and grimaced but got in anyway. His thoughts went back to his target. If nothing else, he needed to pay that bastard back for the damage to his bike.

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"So, then, 'James,' what brings you by?" Paul asked as he walked into his living room, emphasizing James' name and even using air quotes as he said it.

"Do we have to do this?" James asked as she followed behind him.

"Yes," Paul said. "We definitely do. My old friend of twenty years has suddenly appeared at my doorstep as a cute girl. Which is very impossible."

"It was magic. A card specifically. Here, look." James said, pulling off her beanie and revealing her fox ears. See, I am the Illusionist Trainee."

"Yes, and it is an impressive bit of kit. I applaud your cosplay skills," Paul said, clapping lightly.

"It's not fake," James said as she fished her tail out of her pants. She turned and pointed to where her tail was connected to her body. "Look, see, there isn't a belt or anything. It's-"

"Uhm, can you not pull down your pants," Paul said, turning away with a slight blush. "I mean, it's a very nice butt, I mean tail. But I have a girlfriend."

James squeaked in surprise and yanked up her pants, only to catch her tail in an odd position, causing her to whimper. Had she really just shown her ass to Paul? Why was she making so many weird noises?

"T-th-that-that's not what I meant to do!" James called in dismay. But Paul's other words finally caught up with her. "Wait, you have a girlfriend?! Since when?! You said you didn't have one!"

"Since several months ago," Paul said, still looking red. "I also said I had a thing, not that I didn't have a girlfriend. It was nice of James to send you by, but I have all the companionship I need."

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"I'm not... shut up!" James yelled. "Just let me prove it."

"Prove what? That you're James?" Paul said with a sigh. "I think you should go."

"I am James," James insisted. "Look, it was all caused by the magic of the cards. I can prove it."

"You have thirty seconds."

"Right," James said as she pulled the slate from her pants pocket and looked through the handful of cards. Most of them were really scary stuff; she hadn't thought to swap them out for anything less deadly.

"Here," James said as she placed a card on the device before the green mist swirled around the room and formed an enormous bird, an empty look in its eyes. "There see, the Emperor Osprey."

"Holy shit," Paul said, suddenly looking excited as he took in the giant bird. "Is this some new deck tech? It looks so real. Full sized. That stuff is usually limited to the finals, and they need an entire arena."

"It's not a-" James started but saw Paul's hand reaching for the monster. "Wait!"

Paul's hand landed on the feathers of the Emperor Osprey. A blast of wind blew through the small room as the bird flexed its mighty wings. The wing struck Paul and batted him across the room and into the nearest wall, causing him to slump to the floor. The wall was left with a significant dent in the drywall.

"Dammit!" James said as she rushed over to him. "Are you okay?"

"Ugh... fuck," Paul said, rubbing his head. "Yeah."

James thought he looked okay but couldn't be entirely sure. The Emperor Osprey was only a tier three monster, so it wasn't her deadliest. But it had still sent Paul flying.

"What the hell is that?" Paul asked, his eyes slightly unfocused.

"It's... an Emperor Osprey."

"Right. Okay. Can you get rid of it?" He said, looking at the creature warily.

James nodded and quickly returned to the Arcane Slate she had used, removing the card. This caused the bird to disperse back into the green mist, which slowly began to dissipate.

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Paul sat on the couch as James handed him an ice pack, which he gratefully accepted. He had been silent for a few minutes as he nursed his injury but finally spoke up.

"Okay, so I might be open to the concept of card magic," Paul said as he held the ice pack to the back of his head. "But why do you keep calling yourself James?"

"Because I am," James said, tapping herself on the side of the head. "I mean, inside."

"So... are you stuck?" Paul asked, looking James over with a different expression this time. "You could have done worse, but can you change back?"

"Yes, but I am a bit severely injured," James said. "I mean, in my normal body."

"You're... What happened?" Paul said. "Where are you?"

"I'm right here. It's a long story," James said. "Do you have any kind of healing card?"

"Yeah," Paul said, standing up, and then winced. "That was one mean bird. Do you think it could help me with this as well?"

"Probably," James said as she followed Paul to one side of the room, where an assortment of significant card cases were strewn about haphazardly.

"Does the set matter?"

"I don't think so," James said, shaking her head. "Just avoid any that destroy themselves or things like that."

Paul simply nodded, opened the case on top, and started to sort through the cards. James felt awkward standing there as she saw him poke through the cards, pulling out a few before putting them back. Eventually, he settled on one. "Celestial Wish. It's recyclable."

"You have Celestial Wish?" James asked, unbelieving. "Isn't that like-"

"Yeah, I traded for it. Got a few good pulls I didn't need," Paul said as he handed it to James. "Do your magic."

"It's not really my magic, but okay," she said, taking the card, moving over to the table, and picking up the slate she used earlier. "This is an Arcane Slate, or at least, that's what they called it."

"They?" Paul asked as he went over to where she was sitting.

"Yeah, it's a long story. I'll tell you later. Let's do you first," she said, handing Paul back Celestial Wish. "Just put it on the slate. Well, maybe you need to touch it first?"

"You don't know?" Paul asked, looking at the device and then shaking his head. "No way. What if it only works once?"

"Fine," James sighed as she pulled a few cards from her backpack. She had wanted to put off the pain for as long as possible. "Try not to freak out."

"No promises," Paul said as he watched her summon a few Wandering Pixies. "Pyx set?"

"Yeah, using Rewind," she said as she placed the card in question on the slate.

"That's a powerful—" Paul said but stopped as the scene changed. One moment, the girl was in front of him, and the next, James was crouching on the floor, a different slate in hand. The one with Pyx's Rewind clattered to the floor next to him, accompanied by a swirl of green from where James had been standing, and was now kneeling.

Paul blinked in disbelief and stook a step back from the scene as he saw James' leg. "Shit, what did you do?!"

"Card!" James said through clenched teeth as the pain shot through him. The adrenaline that had kept it bay had fled despite his body not being present. Paul grabbed Celestial Wish from the other slate and handed it to James with shaking fingers, who took it with a bloody hand.

James swept the slate in his grasp clean and slapped the card down on it. Soon, eddies of gentle white light surrounded him, and he screamed as his foot began to twist around. The white energy lingered briefly before fading as James sat there panting.

"Oh shit," Paul said as he looked at the restored flesh and averted his eyes from the mess. Trying to keep his stomach from rebelling. "A-Are you okay?"

"Yeah," James said as he laid back on the carpet, still recovering from the ordeal.

"Mind if I... uhm..." Paul said, glancing at the two cards that were on the floor. He wasn't really sure what to do, and he wanted to do anything but look at all the blood. Even the coppery smell was proving to be too much, he needed to do anything else.

"Have fun," James said with an idle wave, not bothering to sit up. "I'm gonna need a shower."

"Yeah," Paul said as he picked up the two cards and examined them. "You can use mine... I've never seen a card like this before," he said as he looked over '???'.

"Yeah, it's... bound to me or something," James said as he closed his eyes in exhaustion.

Paul turned to look at the Puppeteer next. "Oh, I have one of these. Well, I have a real one anyway."

"What do you mean by real one?" James said, opening his eyes and turning to stare at Paul.

"Oh, this is a fake," Paul said as he turned the card over in his fingers.