The Spotlight Sunbright team spent the week after the collaboration photoshoot going stir-crazy.

  They still had plenty to do, including more circuit workouts under Grace’s direction with a couple of long runs added in for good measure. They also were asked by a representative of the Department of Magic to share certain graphics and photos on social media as part of this whole “Unchained Underground” campaign. They had churned out media from that photoshoot fast, and were eager to use it everywhere they could. At Seb’s suggestion, the girls also tried to post something personal every day, lest their accounts start to look like nothing but mouthpieces for the regional government.

  Although they were technically busy, the whole team was growing antsy by the end of the week. They had only one thing on their minds: the duo mission. That was the next step in their collaboration with DreamRise, and all four girls felt like it would be their best chance to get ahead of their rivals. They weren’t the best in front of cameras, but they were confident in their abilities on the battlefield.

  So, they found themselves engaged in a new daily routine. The girls took turns waltzing past Grace’s desk throughout the day and asking her a seemingly unrelated question, hoping for some hint on when they’d be sent out on the mission. They thought if they conducted their reconnaissance in a rotation, Grace wouldn’t catch on to their true objective, but of course she did. The desk drive-by was met with indifferent silence from then on.

  Adah then suggested a new tactic: stalking the DreamRise team’s social media. Surely if their manager had given them a heads up, one of them would leak it or drop a hint online. However, all this plan ended up yielding was boredom. Clair only posted about songs she was listening to, Ekki’s feed was either posts Iris had clearly written for him or his thoughts on whatever movie he saw that day, and Iris was just plain insufferable. It didn’t matter how many times a week she posted about dragging Ekki to go shopping or get bubble tea, their fans ate it all up. The only thing Adah learned from Iris’s feed was that she needed to start putting Rika to work.

  What they didn’t know, however, was that it wouldn’t matter how much they pestered Grace or stalked DreamRise. Their managers, likely at the behest of the region at large, were waiting for a specific opportunity—a mission ideally suited for two cooperating teams. After a week of waiting, such an opportunity arrived.

  “What the hell is a K-Rank?” Ami asked through a mouthful of food.

  About halfway through that night’s dinner, Grace’s phone had rung. As soon as she saw who the call was from, she had popped out of her chair and sprinted to her front desk computer. Her eyes widened whenever she saw what was on the screen. A few mouse clicks later, she took a deep breath and looked over at the girls, all of whom had put together what just happened.

  It was time to fight.

  “Stop eating, you’re going to cramp up or barf mid-mission,” Grace scolded Ami. “K-Rank is a rare designation. It’s a coordinated pair of Cruelties.”

  “Wouldn’t that fall under an N-Rank?” Rika asked.

  “If they were both the same variant,” Grace said, “but K-Rank is reserved for unique pairs of Cruelties. Together, they have some kind of synergy that’s greater than the sum of their parts—that’s what makes it K-Rank.”

  “So that’s why we were waiting,” Adah said. “Somebody wants to show that two teams of humans can work together better than two Cruelties.”

  “You’ll have to if you want to win,” Grace said. “These Cruelties won’t fight like anything you’ve gone up against before. We’re closer to the interception point than DreamRise, so you’ve got five minutes to check out the mission details. Make sure you actually read them this time.”

  Grace glared at each of Adah, Ami, and Emi in turn. The trio looked at each other dumbfounded, then back at Grace.

  “Don’t just look at us,” Adah said. “Rika’s stupid, too.”

  That earned her a finger jab in the gut, but it was worth it.

  “You’re all stupid, just in different ways,” Grace said, then lunged over to grab Ami’s glass out of her hand. “Don’t chug milk either! Are you trying to get sick?”

  “I’m hungry!” Ami cried.

  “At-home Cruelty,” Emi added solemnly, shaking her head at Grace.

  “I’ll reheat your dinner when you get back!”

  With a last couple of jokes out of their systems, the girls all adopted more serious dispositions. They each pulled up the Magiapp to view the mission details and learn what this K-Rank had in store for them. They reviewed the info as seriously as they had the C-Rank mission, though not exactly for the same reasons. Rather than maximizing their preparedness for the sake of the Cruelty, they all wanted to maximize their ability to outshine DreamRise.

  Maybe this was a cooperative mission on the surface, but DreamRise were surely treating it like a competition. It wouldn’t do for Sunbright to underperform when the two teams were sharing a stage like this.

  No matter how seriously they took their preparation, there was only so much they could glean from some notes in a mission brief. Details about a Cruelty’s capabilities were based on analyzing its magic signature in comparison to previously recorded variants, but the monsters were evolving and adapting all the time—even in the middle of a fight. Especially in the higher ranks, you couldn’t truly know what you were going up against until you started fighting.

  Adah and the twins would never forget that these briefs could also be mistaken. Very mistaken.

  With all the levity that had filled the room a few minutes prior thoroughly cleared from the air, the girls looked up from their phones and nodded in unison. They were ready to put on a show.

  ☆☆☆

  By the time Adah and her team arrived at the interception point, a darkness had spilled over the landscape. The sun had already sunken below the horizon when they left the agency office, and an army of clouds marched in to fill the sky and blot out the moon and stars. The world was encased by an impenetrable cumuliform dome. Thick shadows covered the slopes of the rolling hills below, and every patch of forest in the distance appeared like a solid sheet of black.

  They were out in the countryside again, far away from streets or neighborhoods that might spill some light out into the darkness. In every direction, there were only miles of grassy fields, bordered by blackened woods.

  While transformed, Adah and her teammates glowed with a faint light the color of their magic, which helped them keep track of each other in the darkness. Even Adah’s smoky magic, thankfully, stood out as a shade darker than the night. On their way here, Adah had played with her [Parietal Perception], watching the trails her teammates left behind one at a time. If she ever tried to follow two of them at once, her mind quickly lost track of both of them. It felt as chaotic as trying to listen to two songs of a different genre at the same time.

  The girls had all only worked on a couple of night missions in the past. Fighting Cruelties in the dark was significantly more dangerous than during the day, especially if you had to interrupt your sleep to do so. The larger regions had special teams of magic users dedicated to responding to nighttime emergencies and, like usual, these external teams would typically cover for Region 4 as well.

  With that in mind, tonight’s mission was yet another example of the region putting all its effort behind DreamRise and Sunbright. The same went for the news crews Adah and her team had flown past on their way to the interception point. The conditions were too dangerous for them to get close to the battle while it happened, but surely they’d rush in with their cameras as soon as the Cruelties were defeated. Adah made a note to prepare for their questions ahead of time, if she could.

  As she surveyed the shadowy landscape for their target Cruelties, she caught sight of three other magical lights approaching from afar: yellow, gray, and white.

  “Our friends have arrived,” Adah said to her teammates.

  Half a minute later, the DreamRise team rushed in, carrying a nighttime wind with them. Adah couldn’t help but notice that each of them maintained their magical ornamentation—Iris’s flowers, Ekki’s fog, and Clair’s tattoos—even in a combat situation like this. She didn’t have to guess whose idea that was.

  “Long time no see, girls,” Iris said. “Did you enjoy your vacation?”

  “What vacation?” Ami spat back. “We’ve been training nonstop.”

  Iris raised her eyebrows, her face illuminated by her gentle yellow glow. “Oh, how dedicated. I can’t wait to see if you’ve improved.”

  Ami looked ready to provide Iris with a firsthand demonstration, but before she could respond, Clair spoke up.

  “They’re here,” she said, nodding her head to the east where the moon would be shining, had it not been hidden behind the clouds.

  Adah couldn’t see what Clair was talking about at first and, judging by their squinting faces, neither could anyone else. But a few seconds later, two gray figures emerged from the shadows. The pair of Cruelties made their way down a hill and onto a nearby stretch of flatland. That field was tonight’s interception point.

  Each of the Cruelties was roughly half the size of the scorpion Adah and her team had fought a few weeks ago. As the monsters came into clearer view, some of the more confusing notes Adah had read in the mission brief began to make sense.

  The leftmost Cruelty resembled a turtle—it walked low to the ground on four legs, most of its body hidden within a protective shell. However, instead of a proper head, three gangly eyestalks popped out of the top of the monster’s shell. The eyes were like those of the teleporting whale Cruelty, though they clearly served a different function. The mission brief had mentioned “target acquisition,” which was a phrase just vague enough to not be helpful.

  The second Cruelty was stranger. It didn’t walk but rolled toward the magical girls and boy. At first glance, it looked like a balled up armadillo, but was ultimately too inorganic for such a comparison. Instead of some kind of plating or shell like the turtle, this monster’s outer layer consisted mostly of spikes that jutted out about as far as Adah was tall. Even in the darkness, Adah could see chunks of earth uprooted and flung into the air as the spikes dug into the ground and rolled away. That must have been what the briefing meant by “aggressively mobile.”

  Iris flew over to hover beside Adah. Her mascot, as always, floated by her side.

  “I’m sure you’re not thrilled about fighting together either,” she said. “So let’s make this easy on ourselves—we each handle one Cruelty. You take the turtle, we’ll take the armadillo. Then we can all smile for the camera together after.”

  “No complaints here,” Adah said.

  “Good. Feel free to take your time. We wouldn’t mind getting credit for both kills.”

  “Fat chance.”

  Now that they had both made themselves clear, the girls smiled at each other and flew off in opposite directions. They each gathered their team and explained the plan. Predictably, everyone was on board with it.

  “We’ll want to focus on taking out those eyes,” Adah said to the other girls as they maneuvered toward the turtle Cruelty. “Last time I fought a Cruelty like this, that was the key to killing it.”

  “Easy enough,” Rika said. “This thing moves pretty slow, I should be able to snipe it no problem.”

  “We’ve got my chains if we need ‘em, too,” Ami added.

  Thinking through their plan, it did seem that easy. Although the turtle could walk, it didn’t appear to have much more offensive capability than the whale had. It certainly couldn’t compare to the scorpion. On its own, it’d probably be classified as D- or even E-Rank.

  Of course, it wasn’t on its own. It was a K-Rank.

  Rika began charging her [Renova Railgun] with Ami hovering nearby for potential defensive support. Adah and Emi each took up a position twenty feet or so out from each of Rika’s flanks, ready to charge forward and run interference if the need arose.

  As the red magic around Rika’s body glowed brighter, the turtle Cruelty took notice of her. One of the eyestalks pointed directly at her. Then, it lit up.

  A beam of light shot out at Rika from the pupil of the monster’s eye. The beam was like a supercharged searchlight shining down from a police helicopter, and even at a distance of hundreds of feet, the luminosity of it nearly blinded Adah. Her eyes had grown so used to the dark of night that the sudden burst of light was overwhelming. Surely Rika, in the middle of the beam, couldn’t see a thing.

  “Damn it!” Rika yelled, canceling her spellcasting.

  She wasn’t hurt, only temporarily blinded. This was only a light, not an attack of any kind.

  But it was perfect for target acquisition.

  From the right, the spiked Cruelty suddenly turned in Rika’s direction as if intending to roll toward her, but didn’t yet move. The monster paused for just a moment. Faceless as it was, Adah struggled to sense its intention. Luckily, Ami did not.

  “Move!” she shouted.

  Though, she didn’t bother waiting for her voice to register in Rika’s mind. Ami summoned her [Aspis Meniscus] and slammed into Rika from the side. The impact knocked Rika out of the searchlight’s cone of vision as Ami took her place. At the same time, the air was filled with an echoing sound like that of a knife being honed against ceramic.

  A single spike shot out from the armadillo Cruelty’s body and bulleted toward where Rika once hovered and where Ami now braced for impact. Her shield withstood the strike, the water swallowing the spike and absorbing most of its velocity—what force remained propelled Ami out of the searchlight. As her shield dissipated, the spike fell to the ground below.

  Their team’s formation had split apart as a result of the sudden assault, but the girls had no time to regroup. That first eyestalk, as well as a second now, immediately began shining more searchlights at them. Adah and Emi were the new targets. They quickly dodged away, but the eyestalks had no trouble tracking them to new locations, and they soon found themselves endlessly attempting to outrun the lights lest the spiked Cruelty find a chance to shoot another bullet their way.

  “Hey!” Ami yelled to the DreamRise team. “Are you gonna handle your side or not? We’ve got both of them on us!”

  A short distance to the right, Iris and her team maneuvered in a similarly erratic formation. The third eyestalk had set its sights on them, and was currently tracking Clair through the sky.

  “If you haven’t noticed,” Iris yelled back, “you aren’t keeping your end of the bargain either! When do you plan to do something about these eyes?”

  No sooner had she finished yelling than did she thrust her hand in Clair’s direction and utter a spell.

  [Bulwark Bud]

  Petal-like leaves the size of a person appeared in a star pattern below Clair, then curled upward to form a protective cocoon around her body. The bud had barely finished closing when another spike struck its shell and ricocheted off. Then the bottom of the barrier vanished, and Clair slipped out and away from the searchlight.

  Adah must have slowed down as she observed Iris’s spell, for she was the next to receive a saving slam from Ami as another searchlight fixed on her position. Thankfully, Ami’s water shield handled this bullet as well as the first. After a silent thank you, the two girls flew around together like gnats dodging a flyswatter.

  “Any ideas, Captain?” Ami asked her.

  “Link up with Emi,” Adah said, channeling her voice to the whole team. “We don’t have time to aim long range shots, but maybe the two of you can get close enough to take out an eye or two.”

  The twins shouted in the affirmative, giving a little unified battle cry before flying toward their enemy.

  With their speed, they had no trouble outrunning any lights that shone their way. Even as the sound of spikes firing grew more frequent—the spiked Cruelty seemingly unleashing its full offensive now that the teams were alerted to its targeting system—the twins zoomed through the air unscathed. For a while, it looked like they might make it to the turtle without any trouble.

  However, the armadillo soon proved it had more tools at its disposal than simply firing off stray spikes. The monster began to roll again, flinging great chunks of earth into the air as it rushed between the twins and its turtle partner. The girls had been making a straight shot for the nearest eyestalk, but were forced to split off in wild directions as the spiked Cruelty attempted to roll into them head-on. All the while, it continued firing spikes anywhere the searchlights shone.

  Ami and Emi peeled away from their target, which allowed Adah to breathe a sigh of relief. The twins’ speed and maneuverability made them excellent at scouting out the capabilities of a Cruelty, but Adah had grown acutely aware of how often she was assigning them a dangerous job.

  Although the twins had been cut off a good thirty feet away from the turtle, Adah noticed a cloud of gray magic forming just above its shell. From the glimpses she could catch as she dodged stray lights, a similar cloud also surrounded Ekki’s body. A moment later, the Ekki who hovered to Adah’s right vanished, then reappeared at precisely the same time within the cloud above the turtle.

  Adah had been waiting to see this in action—his makeshift teleportation magic. [Vanishing Vapor]. While spells weren’t confidential information, most magic users didn’t announce their arsenals to the world. There were benefits to maintaining an air of mystery around your abilities, especially if you planned on entering a competition like the IndieMagie.

  The details she had found about Ekki’s teleportation online made it sound more confusing than it truly was. All he had really done was create one portal at his destination and a second on his body, then transferred magic between them. That said, there could have been more to it than what Adah could detect by watching.

  His plan was clear, though. The twins had created a suitable distraction for someone else to attack the eyestalks, and Ekki was the most mobile among the rest of them. Once he set up his portal, he could close the distance immediately.

  Unfortunately, creating that portal gave the turtle Cruelty more than enough time to react.

  The trio of lights vanished all at once, shrouding the world in darkness once more. The eyestalks had seen the fog of Ekki’s destination portal gathering above them, and shrunk back inside the turtle’s shell to hide. Ekki had succeeded in reaching the monster, but had no target to attack but an impenetrable shell. He retreated back to his team before the spiked Cruelty could shift its focus back to him, and the twins rejoined Adah and Rika.

  “Are you trying to pick up their slack?” Iris asked with a strain of irritation in her voice. She made sure to channel her words to Adah and the other girls as well. “We’re handling these separately, Ekki.”

  “We might not have a choice,” he said. “The Cruelties aren’t respecting our little agreement.”

  “We can figure—”

  Whatever Iris meant to say was interrupted by the full weight of Ami’s body traveling at near-max speed. The eyestalks had popped out of hiding and were eager to return to work, so Ami had taken it upon herself to help Iris dodge their light.

  Their collision sent Iris flying—she was small like Adah, and Ami had surely held nothing back in this particular slam. Everyone else resumed their erratic dodging patterns, but Adah flew straight to the dazed Iris. Once close enough, she spoke to her without channeling her voice through magic.

  “I’m not about to be outdone by a couple of Cruelties,” she said. “If they can work together, surely we can cooperate for just one night.”

  “Your idea of cooperation is having your braindead bulldog tackle me out of the sky!” Iris yelled, her bubbly facade cracked wide open.

  “That’s right,” Adah said. “And I’ll ask Ami to be your personal bodyguard for the rest of the night if we don’t deal with those eyes. Don’t you think that’ll be more embarrassing than some teamwork?”

  Iris rubbed the shoulder Ami had slammed into and bit her lip.

  “Fine,” she said as though swearing. “Put your mutt back on a leash. What do you want from us?”

  A spotlight suddenly shone on each of them, forcing them to break apart once more.

  “First,” Adah said, “let’s run.”