When the two teams of magical girls returned to the Last Light agency office, the lobby had been completely rearranged.

  All of its usual furniture had been pushed to the edges of the room and replaced with the folding chairs that typically littered the back office. Where the low coffee table once was now stood a white collapsible table like you’d see at a convention or career fair. With the number of chairs available, three people would still have to share the couch to accommodate everyone, but at least the height of this new table would save them from having to lean down to reach their playing area.

  Adah felt a twinge of embarrassment of the state of their agency’s accommodations, but that feeling was soon swept away by the Apex Vox members. Canto and Mari simply thanked Grace and Nora for their efforts and took their spots in a couple of the chairs.

  Sheffa looked to Adah and Rika and asked, “Do you two want to take the couch with me?”

  Of course, they agreed, and Adah found herself squished in the middle of the two other girls.

  The first game Grace and Nora had laid out was a simple card-based game called NameCodes. It was a team-based word association game at its core. Twenty-five cards, each with a random word on them, would be laid out in a grid. The players would split into two teams, each with a designated clue-giver. The clue-giver on each team would be shown a chart that assigned every card a color: red, blue, or white. The red and blue cards represented which cards belonged to which team, while the white cards were neutral. Only the clue-givers would know which cards belonged to which team.

  Once the clue-givers saw which cards in the grid belonged to their team, their objective was to give their teammates a one-word hint to help them select those cards. The game proceeded in rounds. First, the red clue-giver would declare their hint word and the number of cards in the grid associated with it. Since associating one hint with all nine cards belonging to your team would be incredibly difficult, limiting the number of cards you wanted your team to guess was necessary.

  Then, their teammates would deliberate over which cards to guess based on that hint. Once they came to a consensus, they would select cards one-by-one, hoping to pick only the ones their clue-giver had intended. If the red team, for example, happened to guess a blue card by accident, then the blue team would receive that card for free.

  Once one team went through a round of hint giving and deliberation, the other team would do the same. This would repeat for as many rounds as needed until one team claimed all nine cards in their color.

  “If that’s what we’re starting with, let’s put something on the TV,” Ami said. “I need a distraction during the downtime.”

  “You’re a shining example of your generation,” Grace said, but tossed the remote to her all the same.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Adah said. “Old people need distractions, too. That’s why they complain about people our age, so they stop thinking about how their knees and backs hurt.”

  Grace faced Adah and raised an eyebrow. “Speaking of old people, I wasn’t sure what to cook for dinner, but then I remembered that Ketzia had shared a few recipes with me. I know how you loved her cooking, Adah.”

  Recipes from Ketzia?

  “Obviously I wasn’t including our youthful manager in the group of ‘old people,’” Adah quickly backtracked.

  “Calling me youthful just makes me sound even older,” Grace sighed.

  “How should I feel about all of this?” Nora asked. “Being the oldest out of everyone?”

  The Apex Vox manager had come wearing the same sort of easygoing professional attire Adah had seen her in every other time they met. She had on a flowing tan midi skirt and sharp-looking white blouse, which she’d tucked into a woven leather belt. She wore her hair down, though its color was such a rich brown and brushed to such perfection that it gave off the same impression as if she’d styled it for hours.

  If Adah had to describe her style in a word, perhaps it would be “teacherly.” Nora had that same air that projected a confident professionalism while remaining soft and approachable. Her presence was reassuring in that way, like she would be capable of helping with any problem you ran into. She managed to maintain a friendly relationship with everyone around her, and never came across as too motherly or managerial. It was a quality she and Grace shared, which probably explained why they appeared to be getting along so well today.

  As the game got underway, Adah recognized the same kind of natural friendship forming between the members of each team. They set up the first board of cards and divided themselves into two teams while joking around like old friends who had reunited after high school. An outsider never would have guessed this was only the second time most of them were meeting each other. The atmosphere in the room made Adah wonder what a collaboration between their teams would have been like, as opposed to the headbutting that ended up being the “Unchained Underground” of Region 4.

  “You three on the couch are all gonna be on the same team, obviously,” Mari said.

  “Obviously, huh?” Sheffa repeated.

  “Then we’ll split the twins to prevent an unfair advantage,” Mari continued. “Emi can go with the couch team, then Canto and I will team up with Ami. That just leaves the adults.”

  “No matter how much some of you refuse to act like it,” Grace said, “you’re all adults as well.”

  Nora smiled and said, “Why don’t we swap managers, then? One team is mostly Apex Vox and the other is mostly from the Last Light. I’ll join the couch team, and you join the other?”

  With that, the teams were settled. Adah, Rika, Emi, Sheffa, and Nora on one side. Ami, Canto, Mari, and Grace on the other. They were mismatched because of the odd number of players, but team size wasn’t much of a factor in this game. It could have been fun to have Seb join, but he had prior commitments. Although Michel was presumably free, Grace had assured everyone that this wasn’t his preferred form of recreation.

  Adah was selected as the first clue-giver of her team by virtue of being the oldest among the magical girls. For some reason, Nora didn’t count in that decision.

  Adah took a simple and safe approach for her first clue, choosing a word without any complex connotations. She told her teammates it was associated with only two of the cards on the table, which allowed her to get specific. Once she had a better sense of how Sheffa and Nora, the two people she hadn’t played this game with before, thought about her clues, she could get more creative. The funnest part of the game was always when you could connect otherwise wildly distinct cards with a clue that only your specific teammate would understand, after all.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Feline,” Adah said, aiming for the “Tiger” and “Cat” cards. Barring any extreme leaps of logic, her clue also couldn’t be associated with any of the other cards on the board, thus preventing a misplaced guess from her team.

  As expected, the deliberation period for her team was quite short, and they guessed both her cards without issue.

  “Ramp it up, Heartbreak,” Sheffa said.

  “Seriously,” Rika said. “Emi and I can keep us on track. Give us at least a triple.”

  “Losing is not an option,” Emi confirmed.

  “Okay, okay,” Adah said. “I didn’t realize we were being that competitive.”

  “Have you met a magical girl who wasn’t competitive?” Nora asked.

  She had a point there.

  Canto, the eldest among the other team’s magical girls, proved that point immediately during her turn. She set up the clue “Rhythm,” and told her team to look for three cards.

  Hers was a tougher clue, and therefore her team’s deliberation took much longer than Adah’s. This was the downtime Ami had referred to earlier. While it was useful for the opposing team to observe the board with this new clue in mind, searching for cards they thought likely belonged to their opponent, their suspicions would often be confirmed outright once the other team made their guesses. Having something on the TV to glance at was nice during longer deliberations.

  Eventually, Canto’s team did guess her three targeted cards correctly: “Dance,” “Beat,” and “Change.” Her associations already put Adah’s to shame in terms of complexity. She had even chosen wisely when considering all the cards she wasn’t targeting. The “Rhythm” clue defied association with the whole rest of the board. A solid clue.

  After that round, Adah also noticed that Mari had suggested splitting the twins up but not herself and Canto. They seemed to have a chemistry that rivaled Ami and Emi, and would surely put it to good use in this game. A trickster fox indeed.

  Adah gave “Finances” for her next clue, shooting for four cards: “Bond,” “Check,” “Shop,” and “Port.” The final card would be particularly tough to get, but she wanted to hit four cards to make up for aiming low last round. A lot of financial activity—shipping, receiving, so on—occurred at ports, so maybe her team would make the connection. The rest of the board was relatively disconnected from her clue, so it was a risk worth taking.

  Now her team had a proper deliberation. They reached a confident consensus on the first three cards fairly fast, but the fourth was giving them trouble. During their hushed discussion, Ami’s eyes drifted to the television.

  “Do you know these guys, Adah?” she asked, quiet enough not to disturb Adah’s teammates and their debate.

  Although she couldn’t say anything related to the game during deliberation, Adah was of course free to chat about unrelated topics. She glanced up at the TV as well, where a group of four boyish looking men were seated together for an interview. They all looked like slight variations of Ekki, which gave her a shock. But after a moment, she easily recognized them.

  “That’s Desiire,” she said. “They’re probably the only all-male team of magic users to reach the same level of popularity as the top female groups.”

  Ami had turned the television to the creatively named Magical Girl Channel, or MGC, which was the same network Adah had given her own interview on. Several networks dedicated to magical girls had popped up over the past few decades since the Cruelties first arrived. They had begun as a way to keep citizens informed about the latest developments in the Cruelty threat, learn about advancements in Cruelty detection and evacuation communications, and get to know their local magical girls.

  As humanity reached a point of commonly defeating Cruelty appearances without casualties, these networks and their programming became centered on entertainment instead. They aired interviews with magic users, battle highlights, competitions and concerts, and anything else they thought might attract eyeballs.

  The “Magical Girl Channel” name was a relic of the past, when all magic users were still young women. Even the network’s own branding referred to it simply by the initials “MGC” now, given the recent influx of magical boys working. Desiire was proving that magical boys weren’t a novelty or a change of pace, but that they could be just as popular as teams of traditional magical girls.

  “Oh, this interview must be about the S-Rank they want to do,” Mari joined the conversation.

  “Did they claim the next one?” Adah asked.

  “Sure did,” Mari said. “People want to talk about our teams growing fast, but look at these guys. From debut to S-Rank in a year. It’s crazy.”

  Just then, Adah’s team finished their deliberation. They had even managed to guess the long-shot “Port” card. It seemed everyone couldn’t help overhearing this sidebar discussion about Desiire, so the game paused for a moment as they continued the conversation.

  “What makes an S-Rank an S-Rank?” Ami asked. “And why can you claim one ahead of time?”

  “It’s not that you ‘can,’” Adah explained, “it’s that you have to. S-Ranks are like super Cruelties. They break past anything you could classify as an A-Rank, like you can’t even compare them. People say an A-Rank is exponentially tougher than a B-Rank, but S-Ranks are an even greater leap beyond A-Rank by comparison.”

  The S-Ranks didn’t appear until after humanity had stabilized against the Cruelties. Once magical girls could consistently neutralize everything the monsters threw their way, these new variants showed up, stronger by degrees than anything before. There had been theories that S-Ranks were a last ditch effort by the Cruelties to regain the upper hand in this war. Now that Adah knew more about the monsters—and what they were doing with those portals—she was convinced those theories had merit.

  “That’s why you need to reserve them,” Sheffa said. “The team or teams that agree to take on the next S-Rank dedicate all their time to preparing. They don’t take other missions, they slow down all their media work, and they focus on training for battle. When an S-Rank does come, they have to be ready at the drop of a hat.”

  “They gain the support of every apparatus in our industry, as well,” Nora added. “I imagine this interview was recorded some weeks ago, and is being aired now to keep this team in the public eye while they train. Any team committed to an S-Rank will need to be elevated by the government and private sector alike. Everyone will do their part to make sure the team has the fans on their side when the day of battle arrives.”

  “Sounds like a cheat code,” Emi said.

  Mari chuckled and said, “You gotta get to that point first. These guys have been smacking around A-Ranks for months. They don’t need anyone’s help at this point—they’ll probably top the fan rankings by the end of the year.”

  At first glance, it’d be easy to attribute Desiire’s success to their looks. That was what had reminded Adah of Ekki, after all. They all shared those unassuming facial features that could flip so effortlessly between innocent and alluring. With four of them on the screen at once, they took advantage of that malleable look to define roles for themselves.

  One was the cool and handsome leader, who always gave a strong look to the camera and a flawless smile.

  Another was the baby of the bunch, who leaned into his youthful appearance through bratty expressions and extreme reactions.

  The third, Adah couldn’t see as anything other than a puppy dog. If Ekki had been on this team, he would fill this role without trying.

  The fourth and final member of Desiire was perhaps more cold than cool. His appearance was the most stylized of the bunch, with his fluffy bangs obscuring much of his eyes, but he retained an approachable air. He looked as though he might catch you if you tripped near him, but would say nothing and walk away after.

  “Then next year, I want to claim an S-Rank,” Ami declared.

  “One goal at a time,” Grace said, rubbing her eyes.

  “Teams can request to reserve an S-Rank together,” Nora said. “That may be something for us to consider one day, if your team would be interested.”

  That comment got everyone fired up, and it took some time before they properly returned to the game at hand. They finished up the first match in just two more rounds, with Adah’s team emerging victorious off the back of her successful four word hint.

  Ami and Sheffa were chosen as the clue-givers for the next match. Each team correctly guessed a three word hint in the first round, but Ami’s clue in the second had her team stumped.

  She had given the clue “Nostalgia” for four cards, with a warning that it was a difficult but doable guess. With the options on the grid narrowed down after the first round, four word hints like this could be successful, but they usually required some assumptions from the guessing team.

  In the end, Ami’s team only managed to snatch up one of their own cards, “Snowman,” before guessing the incorrect card “Teacher” second and prematurely ending their turn.

  Though the hint wasn’t for her own team, Emi had stared intently at the grid of words during the other team’s deliberation.

  When the match ended, Adah’s team had claimed victory once more thanks to Sheffa’s clues. As Adah reached out to stack the cards and prep a new grid for a new round, Emi spoke up.

  “Nostalgia,” she said. “Snowman, Swing, Skate, and Pool. Right?”

  She looked across the table at her sister. Ami looked back, a small smile on her face.

  “Bingo.”