38. Contact

Holy cannoli I’m going to college again. I don’t even have crippling depression this time. This is surreal as hell.

Also surreal: I recognize some of these people. I’m technically signed up as a third year, which is the year I would have been in if I had actually completed my sophomore year and not been kidnapped by a crazy lady. I don’t know most of their names, of course—I never talked to people much—but the familiar faces and names keep ringing in the back of my head and reminding me of a time where I was so much less. That contrast is constant. I no longer feel dread trudging into classes, I’m no longer one long blink away from passing out at my desk, and I no longer start dying of boredom as the teachers hand out the same set of rules and rubrics as every other teacher on the first day of classes inevitably does. I just… work.

Gliding through the day with ease, I quickly finish my assigned reading between classes and end up with nothing to do once the final one ends. Castalia and I had one class together earlier, but while we sat next to each other there wasn’t really anything to do or say on the first day. I could seek her to hang out, but… I’ve kinda been procrastinating on my duties all week, so the pantry back at the castle is probably getting sparse. May as well take care of it all now.

Heading over to the parking lot and getting in the old clunker of a car Nana bought me, I double-check my own data with the incursion tracking app to confirm the portal to the castle is active today before driving to an out-of-the-way grocery store to minimize the likelihood I run into anyone I know. Hmm. Looks like several portals are likely to be active within the next few hours. Eliza’s going to have a busy day today.

I still feel awful about that. As much as Nanaya wasn’t acting her best that day, she still screwed over the people responsible for making sure no one in town gets eaten by monsters, and seeing the impact it had on Eliza rather than just hearing about the injured kids was… rough. That poor girl does not know how to take care of herself. Reminds me a lot of what I used to be like, honestly. It disturbs me.

Well, for now I have a job to do. I begin my rounds, collecting a hefty mix of fresh produce and nonperishables so Nanaya can make a big enough meal for everyone to have leftovers and pair it with a smattering of other foods to get the girls through the week. Everyone has their own preferences on ‘easy’ meals to chow down on between the big family dinners, so I make sure to get a variety. Thea is apparently a huge fiend for sugary cereal, Nanaya wants a bunch of stuff for making various kinds of cold sandwiches, Anath has specifically requested ‘peanut butter flavored protein meal shakes’ (which is a phrase that makes me incredibly glad I’m no longer capable of eating), and Melpomene…

Melpomene has not put in a request. I wonder if this was consideration on her part or merely guilt. Unfortunately for her, this doesn’t really help me with my whole thing for her, as now one of my background tasks is running through every memory I have of her eating something—literally every single one—and judging her reactions to it in order to establish a dataset to determine her preferred flavor profile.

Let’s see… she never complains about primarily spicy food, but she never reacts with much excitement towards it either. Similarly, she never goes out of her way to eat sweets. Both times Nanaya has made lemon pepper tilapia, she’s been particularly excited and happy before and during the meal. The pattern persists across foods with an emphasis on umami or sour flavors. She also has an above-average preference for salt compared to the rest of the Dark Rebellion, often adding more onto whatever Nanaya makes. I get her some citrus-flavored yogurt, frozen potstickers with a soy- and rice-vinegar-based sauce, some canned beef stew, pickles to snack on, and some Warheads candy, the last one mostly as a joke.

Despite her lack of requests, she ends up with more food bought specifically for her than anyone else I’m buying for. That feels wrong, but it also feels right. Ugh. Best to just let those emotions pass and move on, I think.

After checking out and loading everything into my car, I drive near the edge of the evacuation zone, park somewhere out of the way, and load up twelve bags of groceries into my arms at once. Thank god for sturdy handles. I used to do shit like this when I was human and I didn’t have superstrength, and it was a terrible idea, but my brain insisted it was better than taking one extra trip. Now it’s just actually efficient instead of trip-and-shatter-half-your-stuff efficient.

The liminal space is as quiet and lonely as usual, the monster-filled portals expected to open today likely still dormant for now. I make my way quickly through, pass into the Dark World, and rush to the castle, pushing my way inside. Hopefully the Dark World miasma doesn’t infect fresh produce. Now, where is everybody… oh, they’re all in the main room. A meal or a movie, I wonder? I head upstairs and poke my head in… oh! A movie. I’ll be quiet.

They all look pretty cute together, enraptured by the TV like that. Anath sits on her beanbag, clutching the edge with both her hands and feet, her tail sticking straight up behind her. Thea, Melpomene, and Nanaya all sit on the couch together, Melpomene in the middle, her huge ass barely teetering on the edge of the cushions to make room for her tail. It curls around to one side, taking an entire seat between her and Nanaya, who carefully avoids the sharp crystals growing out of the back to use it as an armrest. Her elbow is split into the three thinner arms to more easily wedge between the hazards, though they all join back up at the wrist into a single bigger hand. Thea leans against Melpomene, sitting on the intersection of two cushions to stick her tail between them, wrapping it underneath her so it sticks out from the couch behind her legs. It doesn’t look comfortable at all to me, but the bladed tip is wagging slightly as she pays attention to the movie, so I guess it works for her.

I quietly put away the groceries, using a pad of sticky notes and a marker to denote which items I intend for each person, since I ended up getting everyone a couple things they didn’t ask for, just in case they might like them. I manage to finish getting everything organized and start to clean the kitchen before Anath finally notices me, perking up and pointing my way.

“Luna’s here!” she shouts over the movie, leaping off her beanbag and scampering towards me on all fours.

“Careful! Careful with your sharp edges!” I caution her as she leaps forward for a hug. “No stabbing the skinsuit!”

“Awww!” Anath whines, settling for a more subdued hug than she prefers. “Take that thing off so I can give you a real squeeze!”

“Hey, Luna!” Thea says, also getting up to greet me. “Everything still going well? I’ve thought of a few potential optimizations, but I don’t want to mess with anything without your input.”

“Hello, Luna,” Nanaya sighs, pausing the movie and rewinding it ten seconds before getting up and stretching her back. “You could have spoken up earlier. It’s just a movie.”

“You all looked like you were having fun!” I wave her off. “I’m just doing chores anyway. It’s what you pay me for!”

“Mmm. That is true.”

Melpomene, somewhat predictably, does not say hi, instead turning away from me and remaining on the couch. My presence makes her uncomfortable. I should head to a different room. Or should I finish cleaning first? It might be more annoying if I leave my work half-finished just because she’s around.

“Anyway, I’m just here to drop off some food and pick up the empty emotion batteries,” I say. “Also any artifacts you want to sell, if you have any.”

“Oh, oh, even better!” Thea says brightly. “I have original tech to sell! Let me go grab it!”

She patters off, heading down to her lab. Original tech, huh?

“Have you guys ever sold Thea’s tech before?” I ask.

“We have not,” Nanaya answers. “For several reasons. The materials are hard to come by, as many of the more exotic components need to be salvaged directly from artifacts. Her creations tend to be mainly useful to us rather than anything that would particularly interest our buyers on Earth. And finally, we suspect that the Preservers may consider us a greater threat if we begin manufacturing and distributing our own magically powered artifacts because it will prove that we know how to make them, and aren’t just using salvaged tools, which we believe to be their current assumption.”

“Buuut none of that really matters anymore!” Anath says happily.

“Indeed,” Nanaya nods. “The Antipathy printer Thea uncovered is capable of taking mundane inputs like scrap steel and converting them into more advanced, magically significant alloys, giving us a renewable source of materials. That means we don’t need all her efforts to be towards things that enable our survival, and can mix in other goals. And finally… well, the ship where the Preservers considered us a non-threat has officially sailed. We are at the point where we must make good on our lofty ideals and produce results.”

Huh. Yeah. Come to think of it, the ‘Dark Rebellion’ hasn’t really done a whole lot of rebelling against anything for most of its existence, has it? I imagine the early days of its formation involved a lot of touch-and-go desperation, with a focus on finding a safe place to live more than anything. They’ve probably only recently stabilized enough to look into things like recruitment. Which is how I got here, I suppose.

“Man, things have really turned around for you guys since I showed up,” I joke.

“Yes,” Melpomene suddenly chimes in from across the room. “They have.”

Oh. Uh. Well. Um.

“Thank you?” I manage. Anath gives me a weird look, glancing between me and Mel. Uh-oh.

“Okayimback!” Thea blurts as she rushes back into the room, holding what looks like… a gun? Double uh-oh! “Here it is!”

She hands it to me and I accept it gingerly, not having any idea what to do with the damn thing. It looks like a small rifle, about a foot and a few inches long, with a simple, boxy construction, no magazine, and a rectangular barrel bore. It looks simultaneously very sci-fi and very boring.

“You made a magic gun?” I ask. “I thought we had magic guns. You blew open a wall with one of them.”

“Yeah, but those ones were injector-fed, and we don’t have the tech to make injectors so we can’t go handing them out,” Thea answers. “I wanted to make a rechargeable firearm that humans could use!”

“Isn’t that… I don’t know. Really dangerous?” I hedge.

“Well… yeah,” Thea blinks. “It’s a gun. It’s supposed to be dangerous. If anything, I’m worried it might not be dangerous enough.”

“Are you guys seriously planning on arming people to fight magical girls?” I ask. “What part of any of this seems like a good idea? Selling salvage from the Dark World is already the main thing that puts us in the Preserver firing line, and you want to start making custom-built weapons? They’ll flip. Whose idea was this?”

“Mine,” Melpomene snaps, finally standing up. “And before you continue disparaging it I encourage you to remember what our actual goals are here.”

“…Protecting people from the Preservers?” I ask. “You want to arm people to fight the Preservers? Yeah, that seemed to go really well for the last universe that tried it.”

“No, Luna,” Melpomene growls. “Not to fight the Preservers. To depower them.”

“What, is it like a special magic-slurping gun?” I ask, seeing how long I can keep this going.

“She’s talking about soft power,” Nanaya butts in before Melpomene can yell at me. Darn. “Think. What makes the Preservers a necessary force on Earth? Why does our planet tolerate them housing and training their own private army of magical soldiers? It is because we have no alternative to them. Conventional weaponry is exceptionally poor against the reality-warping effects of magical defenses. Human armies would take unsustainable casualties from monster forces, and would be entirely helpless against kaiju. They’re nothing more than a liability in magical combat. But what happens if that paradigm shifts? What happens to the Earth Guardians if the military can do their job?”

“…They become obsolete,” I answer, my mind flittering between the various implications. “Even if it’s ultimately less effective than magical girls, governments will want to hold that power and society in general will want adults handling things instead of children. At minimum, we get specialized military forces backing up magical girls and reducing their casualty rates. At best, we get anti-kaiju weapons and replace the Earth Guardians entirely.”

“Exactly,” Nanaya nods. “Believe me, Luna, I am not becoming an arms dealer out of any particular love for it. But humanity must be able to manufacture magical weapons in order to deal with magical threats on their own terms. It is a necessary step, and Thea can not only make them, she can instruct people how.“

“I’m drafting up documentation for it already!” Thea agrees proudly. “It’s harder than expected, I’m not really good at like… explaining this stuff. It mostly just comes to me naturally.”

“We still have the issue of materials being manufactured only by a single blackboxed device in our basement as well,” Nanaya says. “But we will not be the only people who understand the importance of these weapons. We will soon have many others working on the same problems we are. We will start a magical technological revolution.”

“But… isn’t that insanely dangerous?” I ask. “Like, if the Preservers are what we think they are, they are not going to let this happen, right? They’ll crack down hard. There’s a reason they’re suppressing the artifact trade on Earth and refusing to share any magical knowledge or technology.”

“Then this will force them to show their true colors,” Melpomene spits, “and we can make progress that way, too. The more people that understand their evil, the easier our job will become.”

Hnngh. Callous, but I can kind of see it. As wary as I am of provoking an obviously dangerous species, it’s less of an ‘if’ and more of a ‘when.’ And given what I’ve seen of Uma’tama, I doubt their answer when we ultimately do provoke them will be to blow up the planet or whatever. They might blow up us, but that’s a much more comfortable risk to be taking.

Still, there’s one more big problem here.

“Part of me wants to start this question with ‘aren’t you worried about,’ but I know that would be stupid,” I say. “I know you’re worried. So I guess my question is… what are we going to do about the possibility that these weapons end up getting used in a war? Like… not a war with the Preservers, but a war between humans.”

Nanaya sighs, crossing her arms across her chest. When I first met her, I probably would have thought that was a gesture of irritation. Now, I can tell she’s nervous.

“…We’re aiming for a sweetspot,” she says. “Magical weaponry is not necessarily more dangerous than bullets and bombs in a vacuum. It is merely more effective against magical defenses. A spell designed to negate unwanted applications of force simply isn’t going to buckle against a purely physical projectile, not without a truly absurd amount of power, but it can’t manage anywhere near that level of energy efficiency against opposing magic. Most monsters have relatively weak magical defenses, but they’re still magical defenses. Our weaponry should be very effective against them, while not being more damaging against non-magical targets than conventional firearms.”

“…Until someone figures out magical shielding,” I point out. “Which is also something I know you’ve sold.”

“I doubt they would be able to reverse engineer it, but yes,” Nanaya admits, “it is a risk. A terrible, unfortunate risk. But it is not as though this weaponry does not exist elsewhere. It is merely being monopolized by foreign powers to impose their will. So in that light, I find it quite infuriatingly familiar.”

“No doubt,” I frown, looking over the gun with my full sensory package, trying to map out its internals. “Do you want me to test it before I sell it? There are some other convergences today.”

Hmm. Crystal-powered. With a chamber for inserting loose crystals? Oh! Does she intend to power the gun with shards of crystal scavenged from monsters? That’s pretty clever, actually.

“Oh yeah, it definitely still needs testing,” Thea nods. “We were gonna go out after the movie, but if you wanna take care of it your sensors are probably better than anything I could use to get data anyway.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Sure, I’m down,” I shrug. “I pretty much blocked off the rest of the day to help out. Let me take this skinsuit off and I’ll go shoot up some monsters.”

There’s definitely a chance I’ll run into an Earth Guardian or two if I go looking for monsters, so I’ll need to be in full robot mode the whole time. It would be kind of an embarrassing way to break my disguise to just walk up to Eliza with a magic gun.

“Well make sure you come back when you’re done!” Thea insists. “I wanna download your logs and talk to you about it and hear about any flaws you’ve found and—”

“Thea,” I cut her off. “Of course I’m coming back. I just said I’m leaving my skinsuit here. Did you expect me to just wander back into the dorm I share with Castalia in full artifact-mode?”

“What!?” Melpomene suddenly snaps, startling the hell out of almost everyone. “You’re rooming with Castalia!?”

“Kehehehehe! Oh my gosh, that’s hilarious!” Anath laughs.

“Wh—Nana!” I accuse, turning to her. “Did you not tell any of them!? This is her fault, I didn’t choose this on purpose!”

“That’s even funnier!” Anath howls.