My hand flies to my face as the force of Beaker’s punch spins me out, and I’m so caught off guard that I end up down on the ground. Outrage on my behalf, from Nancy and Ryder, erupt behind me.

  Shit, that hurt. I’ve been bitten and clawed and knocked around by monsters, but I’ve never actually been punched in the face before from a fellow human, and I’m a little surprised with the kick. A fresh wave of metallic blood trickles over my lips. “I think you broke my nose,” I say, more incredulous than angry.

  Nancy drops onto her knees in front of me, her hand going to my face. She knocks my hand aside and prods, which makes me inhale a sharp breath. Is is actually broken? Does the bone need to be set properly or it’ll be crooked? I always liked my nose! Does Nancy even know how to reset a broken bone? She’ll need to learn that before the next time—

  She pulls on my nose, causing a fresh wave of blood to course over my mouth, and then the warmth that I associate with her healing washes over me. The pain is gone, but in its place is a strange phantom pain, and my hand returns to my nose to make sure everything seems okay. It… feels normal.

  I look up at her and she gives me a smile. “Back to your pretty self,” she says. Then her smile drops and she jerks her gaze back to Beaker. “What the fuck, dude!?”

  Savannah is in front of Beaker, her tiny hands wrapped around his thick wrists, trying to hold him back. He’s not trying very hard to break out of her grip, which I’m not mad about. Nancy helps me to my feet.

  Ryder is standing in the middle, his head whipping between us like a tennis match spectator.

  “She kissed her!” Beaker shouts.

  “What!?” both Nancy and Ryder shout right back.

  “Cool,” Ryder says with a giggle.

  Meanwhile, at the same time, Nancy says, “Really?” She glances back at Savannah and Beaker, then back to me. “Why?”

  “Hey,” Savannah whines, like the why was a personal affront to how kissable she is.

  “She was catatonic,” I explain. “Middle of a panic attack. I had to change her breathing pattern, snap her out of it.” They’re all looking at me, so I shrug. “I saw it on a TV show, years ago. It worked on the show, and I couldn’t think of another way, so I tried it.” I scan the group again, and my eyes narrow back on Savannah. “And it worked, so you’re welcome.”

  The fight goes out of Beaker, and he looks down at Savannah. “You didn’t mention that part.”

  “I didn’t?”

  I roll my eyes. “Next time you two have a lover’s tiff, keep me out of it,” I say. “Now come on, we have to collect all the corpses.”

  “What!?” Again, both Nancy and Ryder react at the same time.

  “I’ll explain later. For now, go get every dead body of every killed monster and make a pile. Start it around the horse—that’ll probably be the hardest one to have to move.”

  Nancy and Ryder grumble, but they diligently head off, and I stand for a moment of silence with the lovebirds.

  “Sorry,” Beaker says, sounding genuinely sheepish. “You know, for the whole… punching you think. And the accusation. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with, you know, a girl kissing a girl. You’re free to do—”

  “Oh shut up, Beaker,” I say, running my hands down my face. “I don’t want to steal your girlfriend away.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “Go help the others,” I command, and with another sheepish nod, Beaker heads off. I’m left alone with Savannah. “I’m sorry if I insulted your womanhood, or something absurd like that,” I say, trying for some levity. “I really was just trying to break you out of it.”

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  Savannah nods. “I know, I understand. And truthfully, thank you for that. It was a much scarier experience than I was prepared for.”

  I had a nice moment with Beaker, both in the leather and knife store and more recently, on the battlefield. Is this my nice moment with Savannah? “I know it seems… dangerous and reckless.” Words chosen very much on purpose. “When we go running into fights like that. When we put ourselves in scary situations. But what we get out of it makes it worth it.” I tilt my head, watching her. She fidgets under my gaze. “Have you pulled up your profile? How many Rank Tokens did you get, from the surge?”

  There’s a way for me to pull up my Party Members’ profiles and check myself, but I want to see her see her first earned Token.

  Sure enough, her eyes widen and her face breaks into a smile. “I have two! Ohmigod, I got two!” She lets out a giddy laugh.

  “I know that your Ability isn’t combat-related, and I do hate to put you into the heat of the battle. Ideally, we won’t have to, but right now I need to get you as levelled up as I can. So that you can help feed those of us whose Abilities are combat-related. So that we can help protect you.”

  “Like one whole twisted circle of life moment.”

  Didn’t I make a reference to Simba to Beaker earlier? Did he mention that to Savannah, or are she and I more alike than I realized? I decide not to bring it up. “Hakuna Matata,” I say insdead. “Let’s go move some bodies. It’ll help us get even more Tokens, if all goes well.”

  She grins at the Disney reference, but she doesn’t argue anymore, just skips off into the battlefield and starts picking up some small, dead critters.

  ***

  It’s hard, gruelling, backbreaking work.

  It takes me and Beaker working together to get some of the larger monsters over to the horse, and we’re all sweating and panting an hour later. We didn’t quite finish, and I hope that’ll be enough. I don’t know how long it’ll take for these guys to turn into the magical ash. The man with the light said one time it took nearly three hours. Do we keep piling up the monsters? Or do we say we’ve got enough in front of us and wait it out? I take a few steps into the pile, taking careful pains not to step on any of the bodies. And I turn back to the rest of my Party. “Okay, so this is what I learned.”

  “The animals are evaporating,” Ryder interrupts. I turn my attention to him, and he’s pointing to the other side of the pile.

  What was it the dude with the light said? The magic is easier to see in the daylight? He was right. My description of ash off a bonfire was pretty accurate, with small dark flecks of something climbing up over the pile. “That’s it, that’s the magic release!” I say. “Get closer!”

  The others move around the pile, taking tentative steps in, until we’re all ankles-deep in dead monsters.

  Savannah looks a little green. Nancy is steadily looking into the sky.

  “What do we do now?” Beaker says, scanning the area around him.

  “I’m not sure,” I admit. “I’ve only seen this happen once, and it was at night, so it was dark. But if we can be exposed to enough of this stuff, it should add another Rank Token to our collection.”

  “Wait, so we could have been doing this all along?” Ryder asks.

  “Yeah. I know, it’s a shame.”

  Nancy’s turn to ask a question. “And how, exactly, did you learn about this?”

  “I met someone. Who showed me.”

  “At night. By yourself. When, exactly, were you out at night by yourself?”

  My gaze shoots over to Savannah and Beaker. “Last night,” I admit. “Just did a bit of a neighbourhood sweep.” I look over at Ryder, but he’s too distracted by the magic rising into the sky to hear my fib. To mention that we had done a little walk around the block, and we hadn’t seen anything. I wondered if he’d be mad that I went out again without him. Glad he’s distracted.

  Nancy’s eyes go wide, and I realize she just put two and two together. I just nod at her.

  “Do we need to… collect it?” Savannah asks, oblivious to the silent conversation Nancy and I just had.

  “Dunno!”

  “So we just wait around?” is Beaker’s question, and my reply is just a nod.

  “It feels weird on my hands,” Ryder calls out, and we all turn to find him having moved through the pile, his hands stuck right into the ash. And then he yelps. “The monster it was coming from just crumbled apart!”

  “Yeah, it’ll do that, too,” I say. “When the magic in them isn’t holding their monster form together anymore…”

  “Fascinating,” Nancy says, and I have to look over at her to decide if she’s being sarcastic or not.

  My decision: not.

  Another animal in the pile starts releasing its magical ash, and Savannah’s the one to point it out. “Come stick your hands in it,” Ryder instructs, so the rest of us pick our way over and do just that.

  After the first few, the corpses start releasing their magic a few at the same time, then a lot at the same time, and we stop moving around the pile and just stand amongst the fluttering magic. The soft movement of air blows up the cuff of my pant legs and I can feel it on my skin, but it’s not enough to blow my hair. It’s like standing in an upside down snowfall, and I pull up my profile to look at my Rank Tokens again. That weird symbol is gone, and now it says I have thirteen unused Tokens.

  As I stare at it, dumbfounded, the number ticks up to fourteen.

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