Yuta brandished his sword.

“I should say the same to you!” Geoffrey yelled. “You’re no Chosen! You’re a Norm! A prince of demons! You aren’t even human.”

“Geoffrey!”

“Protest if you wish, Dr. Howle—if that is your true name… It will make no difference.”

“But—”

Beside me, Yuta sighed and shook his head. “—Dr. Howle, it is easy to find a stick when you want to beat a dog.”

Geoffrey pointed his halberd at Yuta. “And, as for you, Lord Uramaru… You will answer for your peoples’ crimes.” He nodded grimly.

Yuta raised an eyebrow. “You’ve heard of me?”

“Don’t play coy with me,” Geoffrey snapped. “Even deaf men know the tale of Sakuragi’s pet, the mulatto samurai.”

Yuta’s face turned as cold as plaster in the snow.

I turned to Yuta. “Please, there’s no need for violence.”

I glanced over to Brand’s face, but I couldn’t make out the numbers.

The inconveniences of pangolin eyes.

Well, at this point, I figured my best hope was to try to buy as much time as I could, and then hope Brand had enough juice left in him to help me bottle Geoffrey back up again.

Geoffrey placed a hand on his chest. “On my honor, I swear, you will not leave this place alive. Perhaps with that, I might be redeemed.”

Yuta shook his head again. “See the look in his eyes; I know it well. It is useless to dissuade him. He has already made up his mind.”

Geoffrey nodded. “You’re damn right I have.” And then he charged, propelling himself forward with his wings.

I rolled onto my belly and skittered away as Yuta and Geoffrey clashed. I tried to pick Brand up with my tongue, but retracted when one of Yuta’s ink arcs nearly sliced my tongue in two.

Geoffrey used his halberd’s long handle like a quarterstaff as he and Yuta traded blows. Yuta leapt back and lashed out with ranged attacks, flicking arcs of ink through the air. But Geoffrey dodged them effortlessly, hovering up and away, only to dart back into the fray, forcing Yuta onto the defensive.

I might have been in , but as went, I was still pretty squishy, especially compared to the wyrms. And Geoffrey had made mincemeat out of them. As long as Geoffrey stayed blinded by his rage, we had a chance, but Angel help us if he figured out that the giant pangolin made for an easier target than the ink-wielding warrior.

If it fell to Yuta to protect me from Geoffrey’s attacks, we were guaranteed to lose.

Dodging a downward arc of razor-sharp ink, Geoffrey hovered backward in a feint. Having failed to make contact, the momentum Yuta put into his downward slash kept pulling himself forward, forcing him to stagger back to keep from falling. Seizing the moment, Geoffrey dove forward and down, thrusting his halberd.

Yuta didn’t have time to jump back. He screamed as the halberd’s spear tip plunged into his right flank.

Scrambling, I casted new buffs for both of us, clasping my pangolin claws together in , following up with . Radiance sparkled around Yuta and I as our wounds were healed.

“You flit about like a child, Count Athelmarch,” Yuta said, steadying his grip with a grunt. “You said you wanted to fight, so fight!”

Above, Geoffrey hovered with murderous intent.

So far, it seemed Geoffrey knew what he was doing regarding the game mechanics. I just hoped he hadn’t been paying full attention when Brand and I had explained the core concepts to Yuta.

But then, Geoffrey closed his eyes in prayer and lifted his halberd skyward. His beating wings blurred behind him, forming a halo of gray and green. My eyes widened as that halo became more than a metaphor, shining with yellow green light that flowed around Geoffrey’s body.

That meant…

Oh no…

He was casting a spell.

I yelled: “Yuta!”

But it was too late. Thick, monstrous vines erupted from the ground. They wrapped tightly around Yuta and I, immobilizing us. I hunted my back, thrashing my tail as I struggled against the tightening bindings. My scales helped, With every squirming and twist, their sharp edges cut the bindings.

But it wasn’t enough.

“Cut them!” I said. “Use your !”

Yuta’s eyes widened in realization.

A ’s link with their weapon deepened as they grew in power. Every new character level granted them more and more control over their Pactbound weapon’s special abilities.

Defeating those wyrms had given Yuta the boost he’d needed. Ink streamed out from his kanakatana, significantly extending its reach. The ink stream at its tip could be moved like a whip, as I’d seen Yuta do in his attempts to hit Geoffrey out of the air. Unable to move his legs—ensured by the vines, which, even now, were still crawling up his body—Yuta turned his waist like a cherry-picker motion. He curled the ink flow as his sword swung, slicing through enough of the bindings for me to tear them loose with a lunge to the side, freeing both of us.

“Nice trick!” I said, running alongside him.

“Hardly,” Yuta replied, using my scales to scramble up my back.

Geoffrey flew in pursuit. Raising his hand, three droplets of blue light coalesced in front of him, and then rocketed at us. The shrieked through the air as they spiraled toward us.

Leaping off my back, Yuta managed to bat one of the projectiles away with an ink-widened slash, but the other two hit their targets. Yuta groaned in pain as one of the bolts slammed into his chest, sending its blue energy sparking through his body. The other hit me in my left eye.

I screamed.

The pain was enough to screw up my gait. Stumbling, I crashed onto the ground, shattering hummingbird statues and flattening gardens as my tail and scales carved furrows into the dirt.

Worse: I was now blind in one eye!

“How is he doing this?” Yuta yelled. “You said warriors didn’t use magic!”

“He—“ I winced in pain. “He must be using a hybrid build!”

So, fudge, Geoffrey had been paying attention. Or worse, he’d read the manual.

“So much for your talk,” Geoffrey scoffed, holding out his weapon. “For all your bluster and booshee-dough honor, you run like the unchivalrous coward that you are!”

“You fight with a sorcerer’s tricks!” Yuta yelled. “Come at me!” He ran toward his enemy.

“Gladly!” Geoffrey charged at Yuta. But instead of diving down and stabbing with his halberd’s spike, Geoffrey swung his halberd in a wide sweep that flung gooey purple muck everywhere, puddling all over the ground.

It was the oldest trick in the spellbook.

“Watch out, Yuta!” I yelled. “That’s slippery !”

Given my sheer size, I figured this was the time to take one for the team. Scampering forward, I threw myself onto the grease, landing with a belly flop, my tail slamming on the ground behind me. The fur on my underbelly soaked up the foul-smelling goop, though I didn’t indignify myself further by trying to get back up.

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Feeling a trail of light pressure run up my back, I raised my head to see Yuta jump off me once more, leaping at Geoffrey. His kanakatana spewed out a whip of ink that snapped as Yuta lashed it at the oncoming hummingbird warrior.

The blow struck Geoffrey squarely in the chest. Sparks flew as the magic rasped along Geoffrey’s armor. The ink infiltrated the chinks in the armor. Yuta clenched his fist as he fell, causing the ink beneath Geoffrey’s armor to explode out. Several of the metal plates blew off altogether, revealing a trickling mix of ink and blood.

Geoffrey darted back as Yuta landed on me and crouched down. I’d slid forward along my greased-up underbelly.

“You can have your chivalry!” Yuta barked. “It means nothing! It’s a fairy tale men use to wave away their wanton cruelties.”

“Shut up!” Geoffrey screamed, sputtering with rage. “Shut up!”

Yuta’s words must have struck a nerve.

Swooping down, the winged warrior scraped his halberd along the ground, sending up electric sparks. Yuta dodged the blows, but not the electricity, which zapped both of us. My nose filled with the stench of singed, grease-soaked fur..

Yuta adopted a defensive stance, gripping his kanakatana’s hilt in both hands. Geoffrey stabbed down at the ground again and again, darting up and down in between each strike. But Yuta parried every one.

I tried my best to get a few claw-sweeps in, but my wasn’t built with dexterity in mind, other than my tongue. At best, I was just a distraction, but that was enough. Repulsed at the sight of my tongue hurtling toward him, Geoffrey dodged the wrong way, giving Yuta the chance to lash out with another ink-stream and rip open Geoffrey’s feathered flesh where his plate armor had been blown off.

Geoffrey flitted above us, dripping with blood.

“Have you satisfied your bloodlust?” Yuta said.

“Beat me down all you like, Mewnee,” Geoffrey snarled. “Hardship only makes me stronger.”

“What do you know of hardship, you pampered aristocrat?” Yuta said, gripping a wound on his chest. He spat. “You know nothing!”

I used another for us both. My damaged eye healed, bringing back the missing half of my vision—and just in time for me to see buildings starting to crumble all over the city.

The fungal sky had been getting closer and closer this whole time. It was near enough to the ground that the upper reaches of the city’s tallest structures had begun to be crushed. The thing was like a spiked wall trap in an ancient tomb, only it was as vast as the sky, and there was no way out.

“Geoffrey! Yuta!” I screamed. “Stop this madness!” I pointed up at the encroaching fungus-world. “We have to get out of here!”

“Is your memory as bad as your morals, Dr. Howle?” Geoffrey said.

He plummeted, stabbing his halberd onto the ground as he landed, sending out a wave of crackling electricity. Yuta leapt back to dodge, cleaving his sword through the air by spinning around in an ink-propelled strike, but Geoffrey just darted out of the way with a rumble of his wings.

“I swore you would not leave this place alive!” Geoffrey yelled.

“You’ll be killed!” I screamed.

Geoffrey smiled. “But so will you.”

As I ran, I glanced over at Brand’s motionless form.

Desperation really had a way of lubricating the brain. Nothing gets the creative juices flowing quite like impending catastrophe.

Brand was a robot, and as far as I could tell, he ran on electricity.

Who else used electricity? Geoffrey did. He was putting out a heck of a lot of electricity right now.

Put it all together, and what does it spell?

Well, I was about to find out!

Dodging one of Geoffrey’s lightning bolts with a leap, I curled myself into a ball as I fell, doing my best to arc my path toward the big pit Brand had made with his . I rolled down the depression’s sides, then up the other side, then back again, and back again, rocking left and right as I slowly came to a stop at the pit’s base.

I wretched as I uncurled myself. I had to keep my tongue from shooting onto the charred earth. Shaking out my head, I wrapped my hand around Brand’s robot body and scampered forward in a rocking, three-legged gait, pushing myself up the depression’s incline with my spare claw.

I trundled a couple of steps forward as I got out of the pit, and then sat on my haunches. I pushed my tail on the ground to keep myself propped up.

Next, I yelled something stupid.

“Munine swords are better than Trenton swords!”

Yuta’s sandals skidded across the ground as he and Geoffrey turned to stare at me. For a brief moment, they both looked at me like I was crazy.

That was all I needed. Cringing inwardly, I ran toward the dueling warriors, right into the path of Geoffrey’s lightning-wrapped strike.

Figuring “what-the-heck?”, I started shouting, “It’s pangolin time!”, only to get cut off mid-sentence as Geoffrey’s enchanted halberd bit into a gap between my scales. Electricity bolted through me, making me roar in pain.

Curling into a ball, I rolled back down into the pit, uncurling right as I hit the bottom. I held Brand tightly, even as I landed with a painful belly flop. I glanced down at Brand as I pushed myself back up.

Power Depleted.

Recharging.

Time until charged: 14:45

When last I’d checked, there’d been nearly twenty-four hours remaining. My hunch was right: Geoffrey’s electrical attacks were recharging Brand’s batteries!

I just wished I had time to sigh in relief!

“Is that the best you can do, Geoffrey?” I said, as sardonically as I could manage. “Or are all Athelmarches as hapless as you?”

In all honesty, it was a shoddy effort at bullying, but luckily enough, it did the job.

It’s funny how you can be both proud of yourself yet also terribly ashamed.

I didn’t need to see the world through Geoffrey’s eyes to know that he was seeing red.

The Count of Seasweep let out a blood-curdling shriek, as if I’d just ripped off one of his limbs..

“Genneth!” Yuta yelled. “What are you d—”

—Electricity cracked overhead.

In the second-and-a-half of conversation Yuta and I had just shared, the half-hummingbird had taken advantage to fly up high and barrel down on us with his halberd’s spear-tip pointing down. Geoffrey beat his wings, boosting gravity’s pull. Cone of fractal lightning roared into being, swirling around his weapon’s blade.

I screamed. “Look out!”

I barely managed to slam my shoulder into Yuta in time to knock him several yards away before Geoffrey struck. My little maneuver had probably saved Yuta’s life, but it had come at the cost of putting my upper back directly in the path of Geoffrey’s attack. Electric arcs ran amok. I could smell my fur burning inside the sounds of my agonized screams. Pain tore upward through my neck.

If I didn’t know any better, he’d just pierced my spinal cord.

And then, I realized I couldn’t feel anything below my neck

Fudge.

Everything hurt, and then hurt more as Geoffrey ripped his halberd out of me, while screaming something about the Honor of his House.

But I was paying attention to that. No. All of my attention was on the soft whirrs and beep-boop chimes coming from the robot sorcerer I held in my claws.

Darn it!

The underlying mechanics of Greg’s RPG system required a to perform certain gestures along with the incantations for their divine spells. Though my perk took care of the incantation problem, my newfound quadriplegia prevented me from going through the necessary motions, which sucked, because I needed to perform those motions for the spell that would heal my severed spinal cord.

I guess I had no choice. I had to shift back.

I shrank back into my humanoid form, exiting my . I doubted I’d ever get completely used to the feeling of all that extra mass slurping back into the non-existence from which it came. It was especially weird, given that sensation was also returning to my body at the same time

Brand yelped as he clattered to the ground, his cloak falling on top of him.

I fell to my knees.

“Yuta!” I yelled. “Help!”

The good news was that specific injuries didn’t carry over between my forms. Unfortunately, the damage did carry over.

I keeled over in agony. Sticky wetness kept my overcoat fastened to my back as blood spewed from the wound.

I had one casting of remaining. I spent it, making the appropriate gestures with my hands as I intoned the necessary prayers, trying not to fumble the words as I coughed up blood.

I knew I’d succeeded when comforting light blossomed all around me, sending trails of milky radiance flowing into my mouth and nose and all of my wounds. I inhaled sharply as broken flesh stitched back together. The wound on my back tickled as it closed.

Geoffrey pulled up and then plummeted in another dive-bomb attack, but Yuta leapt in the way just in time, twisting his body as he slashed at the handle of the oncoming halberd. The two warriors rebounded off one another.

Yuta skidded across the ground, having landed back-first, but he was back on his feet in the blink of an eye.

I turned to Brand.

“Cast spell!” I yelled.

Overhead, the fungus loomed ever closer. Debris was falling all around us.

“Got it!” he replied, a wink flashing on his display-face. “Just cover me! It takes a second to cast.”

“Got it!” I said. I stood in front of Brand, making myself into a half-pangol shield

Geoffrey screamed “No! I won’t let you escape!”

Magic circles spun around his halberd as he zoomed toward us, readying to cast a lightning spell.

A blue bolt zapped at us, only to swerve around me. I screamed in panic, but then flinched as a black object flew through the air, right at the magic lightning.

It was Yuta’s kanakatana. He’d thrown it!

The magic lightning crashed into Yuta’s blade. Sparks flew as the spell discharged. The energy made the black kana glow red-hot.

The sword crashed into the dirt.

Geoffrey continued flying forward, ready to rend us limb from limb. I reached up, but he zipped by too quickly.

I turned to see Yuta hold up his hand, his fingers outspread.

Thwump thwump thwump.

The kanakatana spun round and round as it hurtled through the air, flying back to its master’s hand. Geoffrey just so happened to be directly in the weapon’s path, and it did not move out of the way.

Athelmarch screamed as the kanakatana struck him, slicing through his damaged armor. He crashed onto the ground, his halberd scraping through the charred earth.

“Ápore errant!” Brand yelled.

There was a big grin on Yuta’s face as the was cast.

“You lose,” he said.