One of the little perks of being a bus driver's daughter? Sometimes, you get a ride home from your mother. It was also almost always a minor surprise; the MBTA's busses had standardized livery after all.

  Today it would be a surprise for my mother too, since I'd only gotten off her bus less than an hour ago. Because school was unexpectedly closed. Between me leaving home and arriving at the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, a bear or something had "suddenly appeared" and trashed a good portion of the school before eventually getting gunned down.

  So when I got to BFIT's campus down in Roxbury, I was confronted with a police cordon and a lot of loud noises. After a few minutes I'd managed to flag down Professor Anthony Brown (one of my instructors in the automotive technology program), and he told me that it would probably be a couple days before classes resumed.

  I groaned, thanked Professor Brown for the information, and started back for home. I had to wait for a good long while before a bus reached the stop.

  The bus arrived, and as I tapped my CharlieCard against the reader, I caught a glimpse of my first mother's red-blonde hair and slightly wrinkled face.

  "Hi mom."

  My first mother (Ruby) answered,

  "Didn't expect to see you until the afternoon. Did something happen?"

  I sat down on the seat immediately behind my mother,

  "Yeah, a wild animal trashed a lot of the school before I got there. Classes are canceled for a bit while they fix stuff."

  My mother put the bus into gear and started driving through downtown Boston.

  "Autumn, that's one hell of a story. And honestly, I'm going to want something more than just your word."

  I shrugged, and pulled out my phone, opening up BFIT's website.

  "I'm looking at BFIT's homepage right now, says right here that the school will be closed until Wednesday while it's repaired."

  Mom hummed, and returned all her focus to driving the bus. Soon after, we crossed the Harvard Bridge, and a little bit later we reached the Sidney Street bus stop in Cambridge.

  I noticed a middle-aged man angrily whack his card against the reader, and basically storm his way to the rear of the bus. He was clearly furious about something, but I sure wasn't about to draw his ire.

  As mom put the bus into gear again, I heard an argument start in the back. I looked back there, and sure enough Mr. Angry was glaring at an old muscular black woman who'd asked what his problem was.

  The furious man inhaled, and shouted a blistering stream of obscenities directly in the woman's face. She looked entirely unimpressed, but her little boy quickly broke into sobbing tears at the sight of someone being so mean to his (presumable) mother.

  Then things went to shit, as a shimmer of every possible color quickly converged on the space between Mr. Angry and the presumable mother. In half a second it had solidified into a scraggly gray humanoid creature with rags hanging from its frame, sharp features, and a vicious set of claws that it promptly used to slash a nasty wound across Mr. Angry's face.

  Mr. Angry stumbled flat onto his ass, leading to the maybe-goblin diving on top of him, digging its claws into his neck and biting his face.

  I shouted,

  "MOM!"

  Within a second, my mother had stopped the bus, stood up from the drivers' seat, and drawn the revolver she kept hidden under her jacket. I quickly covered my ears as mom spent another split-second lining up a shot, and fired. The creature shattered and imploded as the bullet hit, vanishing in another flurry of color.

  I was quickly broken out of my shock when my mother spoke to me,

  "Autumn, call 911."

  I nodded and called for emergency services, even as my mom went for the first aid kit.

  "911, what's your emergency?"

  "I'm Autumn Knight, currently on MBTA bus number 22 at Mass Ave and Sidney Street. Something attacked a man on the bus and now he's bleeding from the neck and my mom shot the thing and-"

  "Autumn, breathe. You said someone was attacked?"

  "Yes."

  "Understood, I'm contacting police and an ambulance. Is the attacker still around?"

  "I don't know, it vanished after mom shot it."

  There was a moment's pause as the emergency dispatcher tried to process that.

  "Autumn, is the man who was attacked still alive?"

  "Probably. Mom's administering first aid right now and- right my mom is the bus driver, I should have mentioned that."

  That's when I noticed my mom helping the man in the back up to a sitting position, his neck now sporting a thick bandage with a slowly growing patch of red.

  "I just looked back there, the man's alive, but seems pretty out of it."

  About then, I started hearing sirens.

  As the 911 call ended, I looked down at the floor of the bus, noticing a weird iridescent marble on the floor, shining like the stuff that had become the maybe-goblin. I picked it up and looked at it for a bit, slightly perplexed by what it was doing here. Then the paramedics and police started climbing into the bus, and I quickly stashed the marble in my pocket to figure it out later.

  The next few minutes passed in a blur, with the police and paramedics making everyone except my mom get off the bus as soon as they'd gotten Mr. Angry out of the way. I was no exception, seeing as I'd legally been an adult for about two weeks now.

  After about ten minutes, my mom got out to talk to me, looking distinctly bedraggled.

  "Autumn, I'm going to be here for a while talking to the police. Even once that's done, I'll need to drive the bus back to the repair depot to get the blood cleaned up and the bullet hole fixed before it'll be fit for passengers again. You'll need to get home another way, sorry."

  I sighed,

  "I guess I'll walk. It's only an hour and a half on foot to home from here."

  The walk home was long and tedious. And as I made my way, I found myself wondering what in the world even happened there. Monsters didn't just appear out of thin air like that.

  But that one did.

  Come to think of it, no-one had a good explanation for that "bear or something" that trashed Ben Frank Institute either. Did it also suddenly appear out of nowhere like that creature on the bus?

  I briefly took that marble out of my pocket to look at it again, the shimmering iridescence still being quite perplexing. Stashing it away again, I tried my hardest to think about other things for the rest of the way home.

  But a monster had literally materialized right in front of me. It had factually attacked someone, and mom had to shoot it to protect her passengers. Mom one hated having to use her gun in an actual fight, too many bad memories from her army days. And then there was all that blood.

  My thoughts kept swirling around and around that whole scene until I finally got home. I trudged my way up to the second floor of the Harvard-adjacent apartment building we lived in, opened the door, and stepped inside.

  By happenstance, my second mother (Anne) was here at the moment.

  "Autumn, are you alright? Ruby called me about what happened on the bus."

  I hesitated for a moment, briefly registering the concerned expression in Anne's brown eyes.

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  "Physically? I didn't get hurt, at least. Mentally, I'm kind of shaken up."

  Mom two twirled a lock of her dirty blonde hair around her finger for a bit as she thought.

  "Maybe getting yourself clean could help, at least in the short term? The shower is ready to use, after all. But please be quiet; Rachel is still sleeping after her late night shift at the arcade."

  I nodded and quickly made my way to my room. Sure enough, there was Rachel on the lower bunk, gently snoring with her blonde hair splayed out around her. Satisfied that my older sister was doing ok, I fished my wallet and phone out of my pockets, put my clothes in the hamper, and then headed for the bathroom.

  Just before getting into the shower, I took a quick look in the mirror. The same slightly tilted brown eyes, brown-red hair, tight cheeks, and zit-marred skin as before greeted me.

  As it turned out, mom two was correct; the warm water and scrubbing did a lot to make me feel better. I'd just gotten done with drying my hair and getting dressed in clean clothes when I noticed Rachel stirring.

  "Autumn, what time is it?"

  I checked the time on my phone.

  "A bit before noon"

  There was a pause as Rachel hauled herself up to a sitting position.

  "You're home really early."

  I nodded,

  "Yeah. A lot of shit happened while you were sleeping and…"

  I broke into tears, the compounded stress of the morning's horrors and indignities breaching containment. A split-second later, Rachel had pulled me into a tight hug.

  "Autumn, I'm here. If there's something going on, you can tell me."

  I sat down on the bed.

  "It sounds absolutely impossible though. Promise you'll believe me?"

  Rachel blinked.

  "But Autumn, I already know you're gay."

  "I mean, yes, but it's not that."

  "Then what is it?"

  I took a deep breath, and told my sister the whole story about what happened this morning. Rachel's expression was one of concern the whole time, her blue eyes widening for a flicker when I got to the part with the maybe-goblin.

  "Autumn, that's… You're right, that really does sound impossible. Can anyone corroborate that?"

  I answered immediately,

  "Ruby can. It happened on her bus. She's the one who shot the monster. And it happened in plain view of the bus's security camera. You can probably watch the footage later today."

  Rachel hugged me again, the warmth of her embrace lending weight to what she said next.

  "Autumn, I believe you."

  As my sister gently released me from the hug, she continued.

  "Yeah you've told me lies before, but outright listing one of our moms as a source like that would backfire massively and you know it. No way you'd fake something like that."

  That's when mom two opened the door to our room.

  "Autumn, Rachel? Your other mother is on the news."

  The both of us promptly scrambled for the living room; legacy media had taken quite the beating in recent years, but that had just left room for new networks to crop up.

  As it turned out, Rachel and I got there just in time to see the security footage of Mr. Angry getting tackled by that sharp monster. I didn't look; I didn't want to be reminded just yet. But I could clearly hear Rachel mutter in the background,

  "What the fuck!?"

  "Told you so."

  The only other part of interest from that news video was that apparently, reports of suddenly appearing monsters had been happening worldwide since May. But this was only the third time the actual appearance of said monster had been caught on video.

  Lunch passed in stunned silence. Then I went back to the bedroom to study in lieu of my classes. Meanwhile, Rachel and mom two opted to play video games together for a bit.

  After a few minutes, I opted to open the window so I could hear the birds while I studied. Another forty minutes passed in relative peace, then I heard something from the window I never expected. A voice.

  "I saw you attacking on the bus. My name is Berro. Who are you?"

  I whirled around, and there on the windowsill was what looked like the weirdest squirrel I'd ever seen. White fur with green spots all over, tall enough to come up to my knee, piercing green eyes, and it talked.

  "It's hard to watch. I introduced myself, you can do him a favor."

  After a moment, I replied.

  "I don't think you have the best grasp of english."

  Somehow, the squirrel made am image of Earth appear in the air, along with an image of a planet I didn't recognize. An arrow pointed from the alien world to Earth.

  "You are right. I come from far away. Tell me your name, please."

  I was immediately suspicious. I didn't put much stock in fairy tales, but this morning I didn't think monsters could appear out of thin air either. Better safe than sorry.

  "Just to be clear, I won't lose my name if I tell you it?"

  There was a split-second pause, this 'Berro' seeming both shocked and confused.

  "What? No, why would you think that!?"

  "Old stories of fairies that could steal your name to enslave you."

  There were two seconds of awkward silence, then Berro facepalmed (facepawed?).

  "Magic doesn't work like that. Nothing works like that. I can't steal your name from him."

  There was another awkward pause, then Berro spoke again.

  "I tried to introduce myself. I am Berro. I want to know who you are."

  ...Fine.

  "I retain full and complete ownership of my name, which is Autumn Knight."

  Berro breathed a sigh of relief,

  "Good, good. Glad to meet you, Autumn. I want to talk to you about the attack on the bus."

  An image of mom's bus appeared in the air, with a caricature of that monster getting shot by mom one visible through its window.

  "A monster appeared out of nowhere and attacked someone, and my mother shot it. I'm not sure what else there is to say about it."

  "There will be more attacks and they will get worse."

  I blinked.

  "Could you please elaborate? How do you know that there will be more monsters?"

  Another image, this time of every-color clouds diffusing throughout a city and collapsing into single points.

  "Magic is new on Earth and its level is increasing. Loose magics turn into monsters, that's right."

  Ah. That made some amount of sense, I guess.

  "Thank you for telling me at least? Though I'm not sure what to do with that information, aside from just getting a gun."

  "I can give you the power to protect your loved ones from monsters. Ability to be a hero."

  And there went the alarm bells again. I'd watched enough old Magical Girl anime to know that I had to be very suspicious of this sort of offer.

  "Please describe the exact process of becoming a hero. I'm worried about traps in your offer."

  Berro leveled a distinctly unimpressed stare at me.

  "It's another paranoid fear of your old stories, isn't it?"

  "I mean, yes? But I still want to know you won't be stuffing my soul in a gem or something."

  Immediate facepaw. Then Berro projected a stick figure and an octagonal silver medal with a blue gem in the middle. The illusionary medal pressed to the stick figure's forehead, and there was a blue flash. The images came apart, and now there was a dotted line between the medal and the stick figure.

  "The medal pairs, but does not take."

  Berro projected a smaller version of the stick figure inside its own head. It stayed there even as the distance between medal and stick figure increased, the dotted line quickly fading to invisibility. Then the medal reappeared on the stick figure. I asked,

  "Does the medal teleport back to me on its own?"

  "No. Only showing the next thing."

  A red stick figure appeared and tried to grab the medal, which retained the dotted line connecting it to the first stick figure. The red stick figure shook the medal, cartoony lightning bolts appeared, and the red figure dropped the medal.

  "Paired medal only works for paired user."

  The image reverted to a single stick figure wearing the medal. There was another flash of blue, and now the stick figure was wearing a helmet and holding a spear.

  "Medal gives combat form for hunting monsters."

  Berro added an hourglass to the image, which drained away before the stick figure reverted to normal. A caricature of Berro appeared in the image and took the medal, which began emitting blue sparks.

  "Power runs out with quarter-day of use. We Sponsors fix medal."

  Then the image reverted back to the regular stick figure with the medal. A multi-colored cloud drifted across the image, and the medal started blinking blue.

  "Medal alerts where monsters can form."

  Then the image showed the bus monster caricature again. It died in a flash of every color, leaving behind a multi-colored marble.

  "Killed monsters drop pearl."

  Another image of an hourglass, then the pearl turned back into the bus monster.

  "Monster pearls hatch after day or two. Bring to us for safe disposal."

  In retrospect, Berro was very obviously referring to the "marble" I'd collected from the incident on mom's bus. But at the time my brain simply didn't make that connection for whatever reason.

  "That is basics of hero. Will you become?"

  "Yes."

  Berro quickly dug an actual octagonal silver medal out from somewhere, then pressed it to my forehead; there was a flash of blue as it paired with me.

  Then I heard the bedroom door creak open, and I turned to see Rachel with her jaw hanging slightly open. My sister quickly whipped out her phone and took a picture, then hollered,

  "Mom, you need to come see this!"

  then asked,

  "Autumn, what's going on?"

  I pointed to Berro, who had evidently been rather startled.

  "This is Berro, he just gave me a medal to become a hero in case more monsters show up. Berro, this is Rachel. She's my sister."

  Rachel raised an eyebrow as mom two also entered the bedroom.

  "Autumn, you didn't just sell your soul to become a magical girl, right?"

  I shared a glance with Berro as we both realized that we were going to have to explain all this again.

  We ultimately only learned a bit more than Berro had already told me, thanks to the translation problems. Just about the only notable piece of information we got that we didn't have already is that Sponsor was Berro's job, rather than his species. Berro's actual species called themselves cono, and most weren't involved with the Sponsors.

  As soon as my family had caught up on that entire situation, Anne asked a very important question.

  "Berro, why are you telling untrained teenagers to go hunting monsters? Surely adults with some training on similar jobs would do better at staying on top of the situation."

  Berro raised his left paw with three toes(?) extended.

  "Three reasons."

  Berro counted off the first toe.

  "I can't hunt; medals work best when building on what's here. Humans hunt so better than cono."

  Berro counted off the second toe while looking meaningfully at me.

  "Autumn is old learning quickly while being at full strength. So she becomes hero fastest."

  Berro counted off the third toe.

  "Conventional forces do not work on some; the bus driver was lucky. Trained warriors have prejudices that can get them killed."

  There was a pause before I spoke.

  "Berro, that bus driver is my mother."

  Berro blinked and pointed to Anne,

  "Is Anne your mother? Do you have two mothers? How?"

  Rachel answered immediately, her voice dripping with (truthful) sarcasm,

  "We're adopted, obviously."

  Understanding dawned, as Berro quickly dug out a notebook and wrote something down in his native language. Then Rachel asked a rather important question.

  "So, how much time do you expect Autumn to spend hunting monsters? Because if it's more than a couple hours a day, you'll need to pay her."

  Berro took a moment to parse what my sister just said. Then he sighed and facepawed.

  "We don't have Earth money. I know we forgot something important."

  That's when I spoke up,

  "If you're still in touch with the rest of your people, maybe the Sponsors could import stuff to Earth to sell? Anything that can help people get a handle on how magic works would be really valuable here."

  Berro blinked.

  "That Autumn is a great idea! I need to go tell my boss now!"

  And with that, he was gone.

  Anne spoke up then,

  "So, that just happened."

  Rachel nodded as we all went back to the living room,

  "Really glad I was recording that whole conversation."

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  - The next chapter will release February 14, 2026