Sobon and the rest of the sur-vivors of the Iri-des-cent Rapi-er came out in a civ-i-lized part of the as-ter-oid belt, but rocks out-num-bered peo-ple by a fac-tor of thou-sands to one. In fact, it was a rock farm in-hab-it-ed by mas-sive as-ter-oid golems; their crip-pled troop ship ap-peared out-side a gi-ant stone win-dow, the met-al ve-hi-cle tum-bling through the open-ing com-plete-ly un-con-trolled.

  Alas, in-side, a ten-kilo-me-ter-tall stone woman was hav-ing a bath, and when she saw the in-trud-er, she screamed, and swat-ted it back out-side. It pin-balled off of sev-er-al dozen-kilo-me-ter-long rock sheep, fi-nal-ly tum-bling into the hy-per-space tran-sit lane just out front.

  Sobon bare-ly man-aged to get his bear-ings in time to see the head-lights of a de-liv-ery truck bear-ing down on them. But not be-cause the truck was mov-ing--in fact, it was completely stopped, parked just out-side the building. The troop ship tum-bled end over end, banged once into the hood, then plant-ed it-self straight on the delivery truck's wind-shield with a graceless thwack sound.

  The stone golem dri-ver, when he got back into the car from de-liv-er-ing a pack-age, glanced at the ugly smear on the wind-shield and just said, "Eww." He flipped on the wipers, and the trans-port ship was knocked away into open space.

  Three months lat-er, it would re-en-ter the at-mos-phere of Crest, un-no-ticed by the or-bital de-fens-es. It, and its last sur-viv-ing pas-sen-ger, even sur-vived re-en-try.

  At least right up un-til the mo-ment when it fell on a small-er, hu-man de-liv-ery truck.

  Mo-ments lat-er, a de-liv-ery truck woke up in the body of Jom, and looked up at the two nasty Bil-gs who had thought they had just killed the boy. And the de-liv-ery truck squint-ed at them, filled with righteous fury, and said, "I know kung fu."

  Ex-cept he was a truck, so it was re-al-ly just a very long, loud "HOOOONNNNK" noise.

  "...but more cu-ri-ousss-ly," the Bilg butch-er hissed, "I wasss told that you did not pos-ssesss the tal-ent for qi. I hear a great many liesss from a great many peo-ple, young street rat, but I too mussst live in fear of the great pow-ersss of the world." The man's back hand, by his side, ges-tured, and sud-den-ly, the knife that Sobon had dropped was in it again.

  "Ssso, I mussst know, who your massster isss, young ssstreet rat." The knife re-versed it-self, from a thrust-ing grip to a back-hand-ed one, and he moved the knife be-hind his body, as though to hide it. "I would not wis-ssh to in-ss-sult a great massster by dessstroy-ing hisss work."

  Sobon looked at the man, squint-ing, and said, "Chuck Nor-ris."

  The butch-er blinked twice. "What?"

  "Chuck Nor-ris? The leg-end?"

  "Nev-er heard of him."

  "Okay... what about Ran-did-ly Ghosthound?"

  "Is that ss-sup-pos-ssed to be a name?"

  "Uh..." Sobon cast his thoughts out into the aether, try-ing to find any-thing that sound-ed plau-si-ble. "Would you be-lieve... Maxwell Smart?"

  "I would not be-lieve you were re-lat-ed to any-one named Sss-mart, no.

  "What about the Calami-tous Bob?"

  "I am be-gin-ning to think you ss-sim-ply don't know how to lie."

  "Blue? Vi-o-let? Zo-ri-an? Quick-save? Look, just pre-tend that one of the names I gave you was in-tim-i-dat-ing."

  "You could have re-al-ly jussst giv-en me any name I didn't know and been mysssteriousss about it."

  "Shit. Can I start over?"

  "We'll be ship-ping out soon, he's wound-ed and a half-star, and I'm al-most out of leg-irons, so would you do us all a fa-vor and throw him in the pit? If he's go-ing to die, he might as well feed the bar-gles."

  "Sounds good to me!" The cheer-ful guard dragged him along by his arm into the bar-racks. "More's the pity, boy, but all for the best, you'll see. Open up the bar-gle pit, got a fresh one for you!"

  "Fresh one," replied a voice, also too cheer-ful, and there was a metal-lic scrap-ing.

  A mo-ment af-ter Sobon was thrown into the pit, he was caught by a strong pair of hands. He looked up, to find a very tall man with a wide and pro-found mous-tache glar-ing dag-gers at him. He wore all white, in-clud-ing a very large, poofy hat atop his head. Even as Sobon took him in, though, the man dropped him and be-gan shak-ing his fist at the hatch in the ceil-ing where Sobon had been thrown in.

  "Sacre bleu! 'ow am I to serve th' bar-gles when th' only 'elp you send is 'alf dead street rats?" He picked up a la-dle from the near-by stove and flung it up, but it banged in-ef-fec-tu-al-ly off of the iron grill. "Would it keel you all to send me prop-er help?"

  "Aww, shove it, you Fonch Nin-ny," the guard above sneered. "You work your helpers to death any-way, so who'd ever vol-un-teer?"

  To death? Sobon swal-lowed, but the chef sim-ply huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, turn-ing to glare at Sobon.

  "Al-right, you lit-tle waste of breath. We 'ave over two thou-sand huge, man-eat-ing pigs to feed, and if they get any-thing less than the finest cui-sine, they will turn into a rav-en-ous beast from which there is no es-cape. Your task will be to go to that meat grinder and keep turn-ing it un-til your arms fall off. If you stop, I will per-son-al-ly feed you into it! As I did your pre-de-ces-sor! Now go!" He snapped up a pan and banged it loud-ly with a spoon. "Hur-ry up, hur-ry up! I need one hun-dred pounds of ground meat in the next twen-ty min-utes, or there will be hell to pay!"

  Sobon lept at it, con-fused and con-cerned, all the while feel-ing quite cer-tain that he was al-ready in hell.

  On this morn-ing, af-ter Ki'el set out in her boat to fish, she re-turned to find a squir-rel wan-der-ing around the ru-ined vil-lage, smelling things and paus-ing at each open door-way, as though con-fused why every-thing was emp-ty.

  When it turned and saw her, the two sim-ply stared at each oth-er for a long time. And then, sud-den-ly, the squir-rel turned and be-gan writ-ing in the dirt.

  Ki'el went and ex-am-ined the scratch-es, puz-zling over them un-til they fi-nal-ly seemed to make sense. "I... am... a... space... alien." She turned and looked at the squir-rel.

  It looked back at her.

  So Ki'el just shrugged. "Makes sense to me," she said. "Teach me mag-ic."

  The squir-rel gave her a very small thumbs-up.

  As Ki'el's feet fi-nal-ly reached the deck, the most heav-i-ly built man took a half-step for-ward, his greasy skin shin-ing in the ear-ly af-ter-noon sun. "What a lit-tle treat has worked its way up onto our deck. In-ter-est-ed in sign-ing up, lit-tle lady?"

  A roll of laugh-ter passed through the crowd, but Ki'el just grinned a fer-al grin, know-ing that none of them knew the tricks that Sobon had taught her, tricks that would let her fi-nal-ly avenge her fam-i-ly.

  "No," she said, her voice growl-ing, fer-al. "I have come to chal-lenge you all to a dance-off."

  There was a long si-lence, bro-ken when Ki'el flung her arms out to her side and slammed one foot in front of her, as Sobon's aether speak-ers be-gan play-ing a zesty latin melody, and his aether spot-light flashed down onto her from above, to let the en-tire pirate crew know that they were out-classed.

  But then, there was a thump. The whole crew turned to the cap-tain's quar-ters as the door was flung open, and a man with a big straw hat, strange noodly arms, and a goofy look on his face came out, blink-ing in the sun-light.

  "Did you say a dance-off?" He said, sound-ing un-rea-son-ably ex-cit-ed. "That sounds like fun! Hey guys, break out the in-stru-ments! We get to have a dance-off!"

  The crew scat-tered, fetch-ing brass and wood-en in-stru-ments from near-by bar-rels, and from the crow's nest, a man de-scend-ed, sur-round-ed by a full kit of drums held to-geth-er with mops and a nest of rope. Ki'el swal-lowed, and some-where, Sobon felt his heart drop. Both of them knew in-stant-ly that they were out-classed.

  "Al-right, guys! One, two, one two three...!"

  It was a few min-utes be-fore a strange face ap-peared in a glow-ing win-dow in front of him. The per-son in the com-mu-ni-ca-tions win-dow had skin that had once been smooth like a dol-phin's, and fa-cial fea-tures that had orig-i-nal-ly been stream-lined, be-fore tens or hun-dreds of thou-sands of years of se-lec-tive breed-ing had pro-duced a more hu-manoid ver-sion of the same. When the alien opened its mouth, the teeth were uni-form-ly sharp and point-ed, but small, used to eat-ing meat but not prac-ti-cal for a preda-tor.

  "Who are you?" The voice that came through was fil-tered, and Sobon sus-pect-ed that the AI was trans-lat-ing the words to the lan-guage of the Crestan em-pire, or else the lan-guage of the lo-cals, on his be-half. He chose not to spend the men-tal cy-cles fig-ur-ing out which. "How--why are you con-tact-ing me?"

  "I, uh," Sobon blinked at the screen. "Sor-ry, I wasn't ex-pect-ing you to be a fish."

  "I'm not a fish, you're a fish!"

  Sobon blinked, then looked down at Alas-si's body. It def-i-nite-ly was not a fish. "What?"

  "For-get it. Coro-na, just blow that thing up. Can-cel res-ur-rec-tion pro-to-cols."

  "Wait, I was just jok-ing--!"

  But it was too late. Sobon saw the red light of a tar-get-ting laser strike the win-dow, and raised her hand, find-ing the beam was trained straight on her fore-head. Some-where in the dis-tance, she heard a fe-male voice say, "Nu-clear launch de-tect-ed."

  "Nu-clear launch? For a joke? What did I--"

  And a in-con-spic-u-ous chunk of moun-tains west of the Djang em-pire ex-plod-ed, for no rea-son any-one else could de-ter-mine.

  The no-ble and his body-guard called their rid-ing beasts to a stop well into the clear-ing where the inn sat, and he sneered at Sobon, ini-tial-ly dis-re-gard-ing her. "Let the war-rior who slew the in-no-cent mer-chants I hired step forward! On my hon-or, I will see jus-tice done!"

  Sobon's spir-it re-mained even as she stepped for-ward. "They were no in-no-cent men," she said, ig-nor-ing the many and pan-icked in-stincts from Alas-si to bow down be-fore the man.

  "I don't care what you have to say! If I say they were in-no-cent, then they were!"

  But Sobon just shook her head. "Not if I say, 'nuh-uh.' You know that's how that works."

  There was a si-lence, and then the city lord cleared his throat. "That is, in fact, how it works, Lord Mofu. Once 'nuh-uh' has been said, it can nev-er be tak-en back."

  "Shit." The no-ble stopped for a minute to think, scratch-ing his chin. "What about pa-per-rock-scis-sors? That still works after 'nuh-uh' has been declared, right?"

  Sobon swal-lowed. The man was far more wily than she had an-tic-i-pat-ed.

  "Yes," the city lord said. "I believe that pa-per rock scis-sors will set-tle this dis-pute just fine."

  Sobon stepped for-ward, one hand closed on top of her oth-er, open hand, but sweat poured down her neck, soak-ing her blouse. With-out her cy-borg agili-ty, she would nev-er be able to form the 'scis-sors' hand sign, leav-ing her only with rock and pa-per. There was still a good chance she could win this fight, but what if he threw pa-per?

  What if?

  Soon enough, though, they took a side road off of the Way of Sil-ver into one of the many ex-pen-sive, well-kept dis-tricts that Sobon had not-ed from a dis-tance. Close in, every house that they passed was con-tained in a walled court-yard, with aether in-scrip-tions of some sort pro-vid-ing ad-vanced pro-tec-tion. She tried to keep a frown off her face--at this point, she still wasn't en-tire-ly cer-tain whether she was be-ing gift-ed prop-er-ty or al-lowed rent, pos-si-bly free rent, but ei-ther way, this area seemed a bit up-scale for that.

  When at last their guide brought them to a stop, Sobon was fi-nal-ly able to re-con-tex-tu-al-ize. In the nar-row al-ley be-tween two hous-es was a set of four rather large card-board box-es. Dish-wash-er box-es, from the look of them. She glanced at the guide, who nod-ded in con-fir-ma-tion.

  "Okay," Sobon said, pulling a broomhan-dle from her pock-et. "Time to kill every-one and take over this city."

  Ki'el, Lui, and Mian just nod-ded their un-der-stand-ing, as the guide stood frozen, a look of ter-ror on his face.

  Sobon found her-self stand-ing in the mid-dle of the court-yard, con-tem-plat-ing, when she de-tect-ed a spir-i-tu-al pres-ence. That might have meant a num-ber of dif-fer-ent things--every-thing from an ac-tu-al lo-cal spir-it of some kind, to a lo-cal mage, to a plan-e-tary spir-i-tu-al god, or pos-si-bly one of the Ri'lef en-gi-neers, pro-ject-ing across the world with an ad-vanced aether mech-a-nism.

  She kept a men-tal eye firm-ly fixed on the spir-it, but couldn't tell much of any-thing from its form or aether sig-na-ture. It chose to ap-pear hu-manoid, but its pres-ence was bare-ly a shad-ow, hid-ing what-ev-er it was ca-pa-ble of. What-ev-er it was, it passed through Sobon's de-fens-es like they didn't ex-ist, and paused to look at Sobon, watch-ing her watch-ing it. Sobon didn't speak first, though she did pro-ject a gen-er-al, in-quis-i-tive spir-it wave.

  [ Crestan, ] the spir-it sent back. [ Do you know the muf-fin man? ]

  Sobon cocked her head to the side. [ The muf-fin man? ]

  [ The muf-fin man. ]

  [ Yes, I know the muf-fin man. He lives on the Way of Sil-ver. ]

  [ Could you please tell him to de-liv-er me two dozen fresh blue-ber-ry muffins? I'm ac-tu-al-ly a space alien pos-ing as the coun-try's leader, so I can't do it my-self. ]

  Sobon blinked. [ You're a space alien? But I'm a space alien! And I love blue-ber-ry muffins! ]

  [ Oh gosh! We have so much in com-mon. Let's be best friends! ]

  A quick pe-rusal of the Ri'lef notes on qi brought her to a sec-tion about the ac-tu-al geom-e-try of qi, which was fas-ci-nat-ing. Ap-par-ent-ly, qi was in-her-ent-ly shaped like a ba-nana, curved and with a lit-tle stem on one end of it. Ac-cord-ing to the notes, how-ev-er, it was ac-tu-al-ly more like sev-er-al dif-fer-ent fruits all with-in a ba-nana peel, and with var-i-ous gaps for peo-ple to in-sert spoons, forks, and oth-er tools in or-der to ex-tract the de-li-cious fruit in-side.

  Al-though the doc-u-ment didn't go into depth on ex-act-ly how to ex-tract the fruits, it did re-late them to Sobon's un-der-stand-ing of aether spins, us-ing the Ri'lef words for them: what Sobon knew as left and right spins they called Blue-ber-ry and Rasp-ber-ry, while In-ward and Out-ward spins were Or-ange and Ap-ple, On-ward and Re-verse were Pineap-ple and Wa-ter-mel-on. Strange-ly, both Su-pe-ri-or and In-verse were both la-belled 'Straw-ber-ry', ex-cept Su-pe-ri-or was 'Fresh straw-ber-ry' and In-verse was 'ar-ti-fi-cial straw-ber-ry fla-vor'.

  Sobon ab-sorbed all of the in-for-ma-tion greed-i-ly, al-ready en-vi-sion-ing the day when she could proud-ly smack peo-ple in the face with her gi-ant qi ba-nana. With her ad-vanced cul-ti-va-tion, she had no doubt it would be the best qi ba-nana in the en-tire world.

  She set-tled her-self down and be-gan to cul-ti-vate, her mouth wa-ter-ing at the thought.

  Sobon cut off her en-gine be-fore she was close enough to re-al-ly see any-thing aboard the ship close-ly. For her, all that mat-tered was res-cu-ing Ki'el. She flared her telekine-sis scripts to cre-ate a gi-ant air-brake, but by the time she was close enough to stop, peo-ple board both ships were clear-ly on edge and pre-pared to strike at her. She looked down, suit-ably in-tim-i-dat-ing, and am-pli-fied her voice with an aether wave. "You will give the girl to me."

  The fig-ure be-low cupped both hands to its mouth and shout-ed. "Nuh-uh."

  Sobon sud-den-ly be-gan to sweat. Once 'nuh-uh' has been said, it can't be tak-en back. But she shook her-self. She'd pre-pared for this. "I de-mand a dance-off."

  The woman be-low dropped her hands, and Sobon thought she heard her say, "Shit." They be-gan to mill around on deck, but then the oth-er ship, the one with the black sails, came clos-er, and Sobon turned to look at it.

  Only, Sobon re-al-ized sud-den-ly, the ship wasn't just a ship. On the front of its hull were two large, white lights, and with a sud-den lurch, the ship leaped into the air, hov-er-ing on an in-cred-i-ble surge of qi, one that seemed to come from the depths of the world.

  Sobon stared at the ship as it spend great amounts of qi to lev-el its gi-ant spot-lights on her, and heard a rum-bling voice.

  Al-though the ship it-self could only speak with a great, blar-ing "HOOOOONK," Sobon caught its in-tent. [ YOU! ] it screamed at him. [You're the one who killed me! The me-te-or from the skies! You trapped me in this shit-ty world!]

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  "What?" Sobon blinked. "I didn't--"

  "HOOOOOOONK!" [Now it's time for my re-venge!] And with that, the de-liv-ery truck rein-car-nat-ed into a pi-rate ship ac-cel-er-at-ed sud-den-ly, smash-ing into Sobon and con-tin-u-ing up into the sky.

  Mada Rui, stand-ing on the deck of her ship, shrugged. "Okay, well, so much for sell-ing the girl." She turned to her first mate. "See if she's any good at cook-ing. That guy we got from the Bilg has been de-mand-ing more help."

  The base com-man-der was a Djang woman who, if Sobon didn't know bet-ter, would have passed for un-der-age, with shock-ing blue hair that per-fect-ly matched her vivid blue qi. Her fea-tures them-selves were soft and beau-ti-ful, the very pic-ture of health and youth; if her face had split into a wide smile and--

  "OMG!" The blue-haired woman sud-den-ly bounced for-wards, grab-bing both of Sobon's hands. "I didn't know that there were, like, space aliens around! This is, like, SOOOO cool!"

  "What!" Sobon pulled away in shock. "How did YOU know I was a space alien?"

  Rai Su Anin just gig-gled mad-ly. "I didn't! You just told me! Aau-ugh, Oh-Emm-GEEEE I can't be-lieve that worked!"

  "Wow," said the pa-trol-man who had brought Sobon in. "I've heard you say that, like, two hun-dred times. I thought it was all just a joke." He turned and shout-ed down the hall-way. "Hey guys! The base com-man-der ac-tu-al-ly caught some-one with her 'space alien' trap!"

  Sobon just buried her face in her hands, curs-ing qui-et-ly to her-self. She should have known bet-ter. She should have.

  Sobon found her-self pleased, to walk into Lai Shi Po's shop and find it well-stocked. Her eyes roved around the room, tak-ing in a num-ber of dif-fer-ent items, and she filed away var-i-ous rune com-bi-na-tions as she looked around.

  Sud-den-ly, an alarm blared. "ALERT - ALERT - COPY-RIGHT IN-FRINGE-MENT DE-TECT-ED"

  Two dozen armed guards poured out, half from from the back room, and half from the out-er door, al-though they had not been there when Sobon had walked in. In each one's hand was an as-sault ri-fle, and Sobon swal-lowed, putting her hands up.

  "Ah-ah-ah," Lai Shi Po said. "You can't just read my de-signs with-out buy-ing any-thing. They're pro-pri-etary." The woman be-hind the counter sud-den-ly leaped onto the shoul-ders of one of the guards, and then leaped again, catch-ing her-self against the wall and the roof and brac-ing her-self there, in one of the cor-ners, look-ing down. From there, her face fell into shad-ow, though Sobon could still see her eyes, and her teeth.

  Those wide, ter-ri-ble eyes haunt-ed Sobon, even as she re-al-ized that all of the guards had trained their guns not on her, but on Lai Shi Po. She turned and grabbed Ki'el, div-ing for the floor, as be-hind her, the thun-der-ous sound of two dozen as-sault ri-fles go-ing off at once briefly over-pow-ered even the shriek-ing theft alarm.

  Sobon didn't un-cov-er Ki'el's head un-til the shoot-ing stopped, but when she turned around, all she saw was a blood-soaked Lai Shi Po, back-lit and sur-round-ed by corpses. And all that Sobon could see of her, aside from her sil-hou-ette, was those eyes.

  Those eyes.

  Lai Shi Po ad-vanced slow-ly, her mouth open to re-veal rows of shin-ing teeth, and the last sound Sobon ever heard was was one word.

  "PRO-PRI-ETARY!"

  Now, in the mid-dle of the night, the spir-it that had come to speak with her be-fore was there, Sobon knew, in the court-yard. Sobon went out to meet it, half sur-prised that it main-tained its se-date be-hav-ior. [ (Spir-i-tu-al vis-i-tor), ] Sobon pulsed the greet-ing along with notes of cau-tion and in-quiry.

  [ Crestan. ] The en-ti-ty's spir-i-tu-al voice was clear, and Sobon not-ed, its in-quiry was care-ful-ly di-rect-ed such that the oth-ers sleep-ing near-by wouldn't hear it. [ Dude, we haven't hung out in like, nine chap-ters. Are we not cool? ]

  [ No, no, we're cool. I just... was busy. ]

  [ You haven't been re-spond-ing to my texts, though. ]

  [ I just, uh... ] In truth, Sobon had ig-nored the meme-heavy mes-sages. Worse, al-most all of them them were full of emo-jis. Like... a lot of emo-jis. Waaay too many of them. [ They... weren't get-ing de-liv-ered. ]

  [ Dude, you know I have read re-ceipts! Come on, what's the mat-ter? I thought we were cool! Or do you not want me as your girl-friend any-more? ]

  Sobon blinked. [ Wait, you're a girl? ]

  [ Yes! ] The spir-i-tu-al form re-vealed it-self to be that of the Founder, which was... still grey-skinned and sex-less, as far as Sobon could tell. [ What, you're telling me you don't think I'm pret-ty? ]

  Sobon found her-self sweat-ing. [ No, I mean, you're very pret-ty, it's just... ]

  [ It's just what? ] There was a pause. [ Is there... is there some-one else in your life? Some-one you love more than me? ]

  Sobon im-me-di-ate-ly thought of the most pow-er-ful per-son she'd met thus far. [ Uh... yes. Her name is Rai Su Anin and she's, like, so cool-- ]

  Sobon could feel the in-stant the nu-clear blast went off, as the port city where she'd met Rai Su Anin van-ished into flames in-stant-ly. And the spir-i-tu-al form of the Founder be-fore her had bare-ly even twitched.

  Then it took one step for-ward, and then an-oth-er. And Sobon could sud-den-ly see the form's eyes, and they were star-ing straight into her soul.

  [ So, ] the founder said. [ I'm your girl-friend, and we're cool. Right? ]

  Sobon nod-ded, word-less-ly.

  [ And you're go-ing to re-spond to AAAAL-LLL of my texts from now on, right? ]

  [ Right, ] Sobon re-spond-ed, her men-tal voice very small.

  The spir-i-tu-al pres-sure re-ced-ed. [ OK! Cool. You should come over in an-oth-er, what, twen-ty chap-ters or some-thing. We'll have a sleep-over! It'll be so fun! ]

  God, if there is a god out there Sobon prayed, word-less-ly. If it looks like that might ac-tu-al-ly happen, just... like... kill me. I don't care how. Tear me limb from limb. Just don't let that woman have me.

  Sobon's prayer was heard... but even the gods' best ef-forts could not save her.

  Sud-den-ly, Mian un-der-stood in his spir-it what he had rec-og-nized in his mind once or twice, that Sobon was not ad-vanc-ing her qi to some great height. No, Sobon Alas-si was re-cov-er-ing. If she only ful-ly healed, she would be a war-rior per-haps as great as the Di-a-mond Lord, per-haps even greater. She had been dis-mis-sive of slavers and cal-lous to-wards the city lord, had ca-su-al-ly of-fend-ed a no-ble Young Mas-ter and his body-guards be-cause like those Star Mas-ters she spoke of, she had held the stars them-selves in her hands, and con-sid-ered them only warm.

  And some-where in-side of Mian, a small part of his spir-it that had been en-tire-ly dead be-gan to move.

  "Oh god!" he sud-den-ly shout-ed, jump-ing to his feet. "I'm re-al-ly, re-al-ly into pow-er-ful women step-ping on me!"

  There were sev-er-al sounds of dis-gust around him, and he dim-ly heard Sobon say, "TMI," but he didn't care. He had dis-cov-ered his place in the world, and it was be-neath a re-al-ly, re-al-ly hot woman's feet.

  "Hey, do any of you know any hot, rich, des-per-ate women? Tell them I'll do any-thing they want! Any-thing!"

  For the Ri'lef, the con-cept was sim-ple--once you had at-tuned a sig-nif-i-cant part of your body, your core would un-con-scious-ly emit a sig-nal, which the lo-cal spir-i-tu-al gods would pick up on, and one would mon-i-tor you. If one sig-naled such a god, they would be smit-ed, and forced to de-fend against a sig-nif-i-cant aether at-tack. But the point wasn't sur-viv-ing the at-tack. Buried with-in the dense aether would be a key re-quired to un-lock the next tier of ad-vance-ment.

  It's cute, Sobon thought. Ad-vanc-ing by fac-ing a tribu-la-tion. So Sobon walked out of the city, punched the near-est spir-i-tu-al god in the throat, and was struck by light-ning. Only... the key she re-ceived wasn't the one that un-locked her qi core, but rather, an old-fash-ioned iron key.

  She frowned at it, im-me-di-ate-ly rec-og-niz-ing the iron key for what it was. She took it, and went im-me-di-ate-ly to a lit-tle-no-ticed door on the side of a bridge along the Way of Gold, glanc-ing around to make sure no one was watch-ing, be-fore turn-ing the key in the lock, and step-ping in-side.

  She took a long se-ries of met-al stairs down, emerg-ing in a sub-way tun-nel, where a ma-tron-ly old woman was wait-ing in a near-by door frame. "I'd heard of this place," Sobon said. "Nev-er thought I'd find my-self here."

  "Some things are best kept un-der-ground," the old woman said back.

  "An aban-doned sta-tion for aban-doned agents."

  "It's been a long time, dou-ble-oh Sobon." The head of the Crestan In-tel-li-gence Agency glared at him. "But we're re-ac-ti-vat-ing you. We need you to take down the leader of the Djang Em-pire."

  Sobon just nod-ded. "Do you have any gad-gets for me?"

  "A stealth car. A ring that will break glass floors. A laser built into a watch. A VR head-set for train-ing."

  "Man, those are ter-ri-ble." Sobon shook her head. "You know, if you want to keep your as-sas-sins, you re-al-ly ought to give them bet-ter tools."

  The woman just scoffed. "If you think those are bad, you should see what the guy we re-placed you with has to work with. Some-times we don't even give him the things we have. Q makes a game of it. We just watch him on the satel-lite and say, 'Oh yeah, we have a thing for that.' But he doesn't."

  Sobon shook his head. "Fine. Where is this... stealth car?"

  Sud-den-ly, there is the noise of an en-gine revving up. And be-fore Sobon can do any-thing, an in-vis-i-ble de-liv-ery truck smash-es into her, and con-tin-ues straight into a wall.

  "HOOOOOONK!" [ Ha! I got my body back be-fore you did, suck-er! ]

  "Please don't do that, Dou-ble-oh Truck-kun."

  "HOOONK." [Sor-ry, ma'am.]

  Weird-ly enough, Sobon's quest for ma-te-ri-als had her cross-ing paths with Kibar, and not in any of the usu-al places. He was sim-ply walk-ing by, when he spot-ted Sobon look-ing rather cross as she left a shop.

  "Lady Alas-si." His words were for-mal, if a bit sullen. "You look per-turbed."

  Sobon might have snapped at him, but so far, the man had been harm-less. "I am search-ing for ma-te-ri-als," she said. "Un-suc-cess-ful-ly."

  "Tru-ly?" Kibar glanced at the shop, seem-ing-ly con-fused. It wasn't ex-act-ly a world-class shop; Sobon had gone to the shops in the Ways of Gold and Sil-ver first, and end-ed up in more of a back-al-ley shop-ing dis-trict by the end. "If I may ask, what is it that you are so des-per-ate to find?"

  "Plu-to-ni-um."

  "Ah, fas-ci-nat-ing." Kibar tilt-ed his head to one side. "As it just so hap-pens, I have about six kilo-grams of plu-to-ni-um lodged up my ass right this very mo-ment."

  "Re-al-ly? That's con-ve-nient."

  "Not for me, I as-sure you."

  "Can I bor-row it? Like... all of it?"

  "Ab-solute-ly."

  Two hours lat-er, for rea-sons the lo-cals would never dis-cov-er, the Di-a-mond Lord's palace van-ished into an enor-mous fire-ball.

  If Mofu Gin hadn't locked on to that sense of the oth-er qi user, he might have been in-sult-ed when Shi-da Ken took him to-wards one of the less-er quar-ters of the city. It in-censed him, to think that the one who had harmed his son had tru-ly been of less-er sta-tion, but when they turned the last quar-ter and found four peo-ple curled up in-side card-board box-es, there could be no more deny-ing it.

  "This is ridicu-lous," he said, charg-ing his [Gold-en Sun Shot]. "They aren't even peo-ple. They're un-housed!

  He threw the small ball of nu-clear fu-sion for-ward, but sud-den-ly Sobon leaped from one of the card-board box-es with a base-ball bat, and smashed the ball straight back at him. Gin, tak-en en-tire-ly by sur-prise, raised his hands and opened his mouth to shout, but the ball of fire went straight into his mouth and down his throat.

  He only had a mo-ment to look sur-prised be-fore the ex-plod-ed from with-in.

  Sobon just raised his bat and yelled. "Home RU-UUUN!"

  "Of course not," the man said, straight-en-ing like he'd just been paid a com-pli-ment. "Any of my de-signs would out-class some-thing a woman could do. I'd stake my name on it."

  A cold set-tled over those peo-ple near-by who, un-like this man, had ac-tu-al-ly been pay-ing at-ten-tion. Sobon could feel eyes flick-ing be-tween her and Lord Pan, won-der-ing just how she was go-ing to re-solve this.

  "You stand be-hind your weapon de-signs, then? You'd con-sent to, say, a friend-ly duel, each of us with a weapon of our own de-sign?" Sobon had no heat in her voice, though she heard in it a very dry amuse-ment.

  "Of... of course!" The man nod-ded, try-ing to keep a sales-man's look on his face, still ob-vi-ous-ly un-aware who he was speak-ing to.

  "You with your best sword, and me with, say, the weapon that I de-signed just this morn-ing." She paused, then just as the man would have replied, added, "The one that killed Lord Mofu Gin, at the peak of Mithril Qi, in a sin-gle blow."

  The man thought for a minute, then nod-ded, smil-ing bright-ly. "Yup!"

  So Sobon pulled out the can-non, and as every-one else around be-gan to flee, the man pulled a knife out of his pock-et, hold-ing in di-re-clty in front of him. Sobon frowned, but true to her word, aimed straight for the knife and fired.

  When the dust cleared, Lord Pan stood un-touched, two long trench-es dug, one to ei-ther side of him. The knife glowed red-hot, but was oth-er-wise un-scathed.

  "Well, I'll be damned," Sobon said, low-er-ing the can-non. "That's a pret-ty good knife."

  "Oh, it's not a knife," the man said, and turned it to face Sobon, so that she could see the switch on top of it. And when he flicked the switch, it sud-den-ly changed forms, from a knife, to a fork, to a spoon, and then to a leather whip. "It's just my best omni-tool ever. I like to call it the 'I'm se-cret-ly the main char-ac-ter and no-body even no-ticed!'"

  Sobon blinked, and then re-al-ized it was true: she wasn't the main char-ac-ter. How could she be, when she was fe-male?

  And I, the se-cret self-in-sert sex-ist misog-y-nist prick of an en-chanter, then went on to save the world and get all the chicks with my awe-some mas-culin-i-ty, be-cause that's what men do: they win and get all the chicks.

  End of sto-ry.

  Lui scram-bled to her feet and checked on the urchin, but the girl was look-ing out from be-hind shag-gy bangs, an in-tense look on her face, her teeth bared in a snarl. She... Lui paused. Al-though Lui wasn't ex-act-ly great at de-tect-ing wounds, or most oth-er things, what she felt from the street urchin was more than sim-ply an un-harmed girl. She had care-ful-ly masked depths of qi, such that Lui couldn't be-gin to guess what her strength was.

  Still, she smiled at the girl. "Come on," she said, and Popo glanced at her, still scowl-ing, but turned and, some-what rude-ly, scam-pered into the al-chemist's shop.

  Lui glanced at Lady Fau and Kan Fen, but they re-mained stand-ing and fac-ing one an-oth-er, so she fol-lowed the oth-er girl. She stopped, though, as soon as she walked in the door--be-cause the girl had dived onto the counter, her head dis-ap-pear-ing down be-hind it, her torn and loose short pants fac-ing the door and af-ford-ing the poor girl no dig-ni-ty at all. Lui let out a shocked gasp, but rushed for-ward, grab-bing the girl's legs. "What are you do-ing?"

  For her ef-forts, Lui was kicked in the face. When she re-cov-ered from the blow, she saw the woman was hang-ing from one of the planters near the ceil-ing, brac-ing her-self against the wall. From the woman's mouth, she heard a strange hiss.

  "What--what are you--"

  But then the woman's head sud-den-ly snapped around, to a pot-ted plant that Lui had been work-ing on her-self. And the woman leapt over to the pot, study-ing the in-scrip-tions around the edge. Lui... Lui had re-paired the in-scrip-tion, at Fau Mide's di-rec-tion, and she won-dered just what the woman was look-ing at.

  The hiss just got loud-er, though. And then, Lui heard a word that made her blood run cold. "Copy."

  "W-what?"

  "Mod-i-fi-ca-tion." The woman's head snapped one hun-dred and eighty de-grees around, its eyes wild with ha-tred. "PRO-PRI-ETARY! MOD-I-FI-CA-TION! PRO-PRI-ETAR-RRRYYYYY!"

  Lui screamed, and the grem-lin leaped at her, but noth-ing struck her. When she opened her eyes, she found Fau Mide shield-ing her with a sin-gle piece of pa-per.

  "Li-cense," Fau Mide said, open-ly glar-ing. "And terms of use."

  The grem-lin hissed back. "No. NO! Pro-pri-etary!"

  Fau Mide stomped hard on the floor. "Right to re-pair!"

  The Lai Shi Po hissed back at those words, as tan-gi-ble burns ap-peared on her skin. "Don't say that! NEV-ER say that!"

  The al-chemist just grinned, wag-gling the pa-per back and forth. "Right to repaaaai-iii-iiir."

  "Noooooooo....!" With one last shriek, Lai Shi Po with-ered into a gaunt skele-ton, then crum-bled into dust.

  Sobon shrugged. "I heard from Lord Shi-da that you only ac-cept a small frac-tion of the ring blanks giv-en to you, but it's hard-ly a sur-prise. The var-i-ous ma-te-ri-als and the way they in-ter-act with qi are fussy, af-ter all."

  "Fussy," Lai Shi Po said, as she rolled the ring be-tween her fin-gers, peer-ing close-ly at the in-scrip-tions. "Yes, you can call ab-solute mad-ness fussy. But I sup-pose you know all of these things? All the whys and hows of the ridicu-lous re-stric-tions that I have had to learn by tri-al and er-ror?"

  "No, I don't know them," Sobon said, and wait-ed a beat, know-ing she ex-ud-ed a sense of smug-ness. "I had them all writ-ten down, but un-for-tu-nate-ly ne-glect-ed to bring them with me."

  Lai Shi Po squint-ed at her, as if try-ing to fig-ure out just how se-ri-ous Sobon was.

  "Oh, also, I talk like every day with a star-ship. I mean, the AI that con-trols it. I bet it could prob-a-bly give me the plans for its sub-space dri-ve, and maybe it's hy-per-drive as well."

  "You're fuck-ing with me."

  "Also I'm to-tal-ly just sit-ting on full knowl-edge of how qi works, and the math-e-mat-ics of space time, time trav-el, fate ma-nip-u-la-tion--"

  "You can stop mak-ing fun of me now."

  "--oh, how much do you guys know about bi-ol-o-gy and ge-net-ics? A lot less than me, I bet! And sure a lot less than the ship's AI, since they cre-at-ed all the star-beasts!"

  "That's just not even plau-si-ble."

  "Oh man, do you know...? I know how to cre-ate por-tals, so I could to-tal-ly just turn this plan-et to ash by cre-at-ing a por-tal straight into the cen-ter of the sun. In fact, let me show you!"

  And then the en-tire plan-et ex-plod-ed, and Sobon felt at peace for the first time in a very, very long time.

  Lai Shi Po shift-ed her over-size sword and thrust, cre-at-ing an im-pos-si-bly dense stab of pres-sur-ized wind qi that hes-i-tat-ed a mo-ment be-fore leap-ing for-ward. Again, cir-cles ap-peared and van-ished, and the en-e-my at-tack nev-er got close, and again, the oth-er woman's spir-it shift-ed, more qi leak-ing out.

  "Since you're tak-ing your time," Sobon said, "let me show you what kind of at-tacks my de-fens-es were meant to han-dle."

  She snapped her fin-gers, and a man sud-den-ly ap-peared from nowhere, his fin-gers on his fore-head. He was wear-ing a strange or-ange fight-ing out-fit and had a blue belt tied around his waist.

  "Oh, hey Sobon, what's up?" The man waved cheer-i-ly.

  "Hey, G-man. Give me a full pow-er blast, would you?"

  "Oh, man. Full pow-er, are you sure?" The man, at least, had the de-cen-cy to ac-tu-al-ly ap-pear con-cerned for Sobon's safe-ty.

  "Yup. Show-ing off for my friend here. Don't wor-ry, I'll use my 'se-ri-ous' shields."

  "Oh, okay." With that, the man sort of crouched in midair, go-ing strange-ly qui-et.

  Sev-er-al sec-onds passed, and Sobon stage whis-pered to Lai Shi Po. "Don't wor-ry, he's hav-ing a flash-back. He'll start here in a sec-ond."

  And then the man start-ed clench-ing every mus-cle in his body and shout-ing. And sud-den-ly, his black hair turned yel-low, and be-gan to grow longer, and longer, and longer still. And he kept shout-ing, loud-er and loud-er, and loud-er.

  Sec-onds turned into min-utes, and sud-den-ly, it was an hour lat-er, and Ki'el, Mian, and Lai Shi Po were all bored out of their minds, but still the man con-tin-ued to shout, his gold-en hair con-tin-u-ing to grow. It was now ex-pand-ing out into a floof ball dozens of me-ters across and five times as long.

  Sobon just yawned, though. "Yeah, sor-ry," she shout-ed over the noise to Lai Shi Po. "I should have warned you this part takes a while."

  Sud-den-ly, the man stopped yelling and moved his hands close to one an-oth-er. "Kaaaaaaaaa...."

  "Oh good. See? We're al-most done."

  "...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam-mmm-mmm-mmmeeeeee..."

  "He'll fin-ish his at-tack in... about an-oth-er five min-utes or so. So get ready!" Sobon gave Lai Shi Po a thumbs up.

  Sobon was... not im-me-di-ate-ly im-pressed, to find that the Ap-prais-er was an obese man with spec-ta-cles and qi firm-ly stuck at two Gold stars. Not like Man Gai, who was only mild-ly chub-by; this man looked like he didn't com-mon-ly like to stand or move around, and lounged in an ex-ces-sive-ly or-nate chair with only a sin-gle wood-en table to his side, where a plate of food, a bowl, and a large carafe of wine all laid out be-side him. His fin-gers were fes-tooned with rings, and his hair hair hung long and straight be-hind him.

  And yet, once the crowns crossed with-in per-haps ten paces of him, the man leaped to his feet nim-bly and rushed for-ward in a grace-ful bound. The ser-vant, though Sobon saw her jolt, pa-tient-ly stopped and held the tray for his in-spec-tion.

  "Oooo-hhh..." the man bub-bled. "Do I smell... MON-EY?" He tip-toed over to the box, and be-gan do-ing strange dances around the box and the woman hold-ing it. "I do! I do! Mon-ey mon-ey mon-ey mon-ey mon-ey..."

  "Uh..." Sobon looked at him, con-fused.

  "Mon-ey, mon-ey, mon-ey! Ooh! I want to lick it. Can I lick it?"

  "Please don't." The man turned and gave Sobon pup-py dog eyes, but she weath-ered the at-tack suc-cess-ful-ly. "No."

  "Oh, al-right." How-ev-er, the obese man still put his nose right up to the box, and sniffed very loud-ly. It was ac-tu-al-ly quite im-pres-sive--the man sim-ply kept breath-ing in through his nose, for up-wards of a minute, all the while pro-duc-ing enough suc-tion to be au-di-ble from quite a ways away.

  When he let his breath out, all at once, the ser-vant was blown clean out of the room, the blow also knock-ing the box-es into the air. Sobon leaped at them, catch-ing them in midair, and just stared at the fat man in rich cloth-ing, as he stood there with his eyes closed, think-ing about what he'd smelled.

  "That's enough," he said, wav-ing dis-mis-sive-ly. "I've got-ten all I need to know. I'll write up a de-scrip-tion for you."

  "But I... haven't said any-thing." Sobon stared at the man, who sim-ply re-turned to his chair and start-ed writ-ing.

  When the ser-vant re-turned, the sil-ver tray bent in half from what-ev-er she'd hit along the way, Sobon just looked at her, pa-tient-ly hold-ing the tray out in front of her, and then placed the box-es on the tray care-ful-ly, turned, and walked out of the room as fast as she could.

  The less she in-ter-act-ed with that man, the bet-ter.

  "Hon-ored cus-tomers!" The man who en-tered the stage was thin and an-gu-lar, ex-tra-or-di-nar-i-ly well dressed, and ex-ud-ed a sense of joy that was in-fec-tious. "We have a love-ly col-lec-tion of only the finest ar-ti-facts in store for you to-day, in-clud-ing a new col-lec-tion from our fa-vorite pa-tron, the Hon-ored Lai Shi Po, as well as a mys-te-ri-ous sub-mis-sion by a per-son she has per-son-al-ly vouched for. But our first items up for bid are, of course as al-ways, slaves! Lots of slaves! We've done our ab-solute best to make their lives as mis-er-able as pos-si-ble, de-meaned them and bro-ken their spir-its! Every-body, let's give it up for ssssslav-ery!"

  Ki'el felt her-self freeze as every-one in the en-tire au-di-ence hall be-gan to ap-plaud, in-clud-ing Lui, Sobon, and Lai Shi Po. She looked around, feel-ing small, and shrunk back against the wall.

  "And up first are a whole bunch of peo-ple from the is-land na-tion of Il-lan! These peo-ple were all in-no-cent vil-lagers un-til a cou-ple years ago! Now they've been bru-tal-ly beat-en and are no longer even aware they used to be hu-man. Let's all give an-oth-er warm round of ap-plause for slav-ery!"

  Every-one ap-plaud-ed again, and Ki'el could hear peo-ple whistling and cheer-ing from some-where be-low the booth. Lai Shi Po, for her part, sim-ply shout-ed, "Yay cap-i-tal-ism!"

  "Re-mem-ber once again, since we're sell-ing for-eign-ers, you have to say what you'll be us-ing them for and it's the low-est, most de-mean-ing bid that wins. We're short on time, so let's start with the butch-ers down in the front row. What's your bid?"

  Ki'el clasped her hands to her ears, col-lapsed against the wall, and start-ed to cry.

  "But you have to un-der-stand how fate works. The Crown can only ever see its own fate, and that fate is least clear when the per-son see-ing it can change that fate. While wear-ing it, you can only see parts of the Crown's fu-ture that you can-not, or will not, change. The more in-ter-est you have in ma-nip-u-lat-ing fate, the less clear it will be."

  "I don't un-der-stand," Lai Shi Po said, sound-ing frus-trat-ed. "Does time trav-el work or not?"

  "What? No, of course time trav-el works. It just doesn't work in our time stream, be-cause I al-ready went back in time to stop us from hav-ing this con-ver-sa-tion."

  Lai Shi Po had an an-swer for that, in a dif-fer-ent time stream, but in this one, her head sim-ply turned into a crab and walked away, leav-ing her body be-hind, be-cause writ-ers just get to freak-ing de-cide how time works, and if the writer says time trav-el turns peo-ple's heads into crabs, then it does.

  "What? No, that's not how time trav-el works, at all." Sobon turned to face the nar-ra-tor, con-fused, only to have her head turn into a crab too, on ac-count of her be-ing a smar-tass.

  Lui just looked away, and Sobon knew she was un-sat-is-fied. She let the girl think for a mo-ment, un-til at last Lui spoke up again. "Tell me about your home," she said. "You nev-er talk about it."

  "Home," Sobon sighed. "Well, I might as well start at the be-gin-ning. At age six, I was born with-out a face."

  Lui felt a se-vere headache come on in-stant-ly, and she looked at Sobon, baf-fled.

  "My fa-ther told me that I would be ac-cept-ed as I am, as a true man. Lit-tle did he know that that wouldn't be the case, ac-tu-al-ly. He didn't lie, he just didn't know."

  Lui stared at Sobon. He turned and looked back at her.

  "Okay," she said. "Let's not talk about your home. What about your job? You were a pro-fes-sion-al sol-dier, right?"

  "Yes," Sobon said, look-ing away. "I was called off to war to join the di-nosaur laser fight."

  "The... di-nosaur laser fight?"

  "In space. With sharks." He paused. "Did I mention that our army was made up of fairies and robots? I was a robot. Well, half robot, on my dad's side."

  Lui, who did not know what any of those things were just buried her face in her hands, ac-cept-ing that she would nev-er un-der-stand this weird space thing that had tak-en over her grand-moth-er's body.