A metal hand clad in an orange glow erupted from the surface of a puddle and smashed into the rocky lip that surrounded it. The superheated fingers dug into the bare stone, latching onto the edge like a clamp. Another hand mirroring the first followed suit, and together they worked to bring Fizzy’s head out of the water. The mithril golem then pulled the rest of her onto the shore - relatively speaking - and flopped down face-first onto the damp stone floor, right next to the oversized wrench with the circular end. She had used Magnetize to send the Iron Teeth up here ahead of her, as she needed both hands to climb out of that insufferable body of water.

Although it looked like a harmless puddle on the surface, the flooded hole she had just crawled out of was more like a well. One connected to a series of underwater tunnels that fed into a stupidly deep reservoir of some kind that Plus and Minus had stumbled upon while they fled across the bottom of that lake. It had taken the golem roughly seventeen hours of walking underwater before she finally found her way out.

The Engine of Destruction had been running the entire time to illuminate her surroundings and generate MP. But now that she was free of those depressing depths, Fizzy no longer needed to maintain her current state. She rose to her feet, turned off the Engine and activated Heat Exchange. This caused several jets of steam to erupt from her body and spread in all directions as she rapidly cooled herself off.

Once the cloud of hot air had dissipated, her mithril frame had been restored to its standard white radiance, albeit with a few vapor trails still coming off of it. Thankfully the cave she was currently in had a huge number of glowing mushrooms along the walls, floor and ceiling, which meant she didn’t need to act as a walking lantern. It was so bright that she was able to clearly see it at the bottom of the well she had just crawled out of, which was how she had determined it was a way out.

“I never thought I’d be so happy to see mushrooms!” exclaimed Plus inside the golem’s head.

“They don’t stretch out for very long, though,” groaned Minus. “Look - it’s nothing but pitch black just six or so meters ahead of us.”

“Well, yeah, but hey! At least it means this wasn’t a dead end!”

“Not an immediate dead end, at any rate.”

“Will you two shut up?” growled Fizzy. “I don’t need this deb-deb-deb-deb-deb-debate right now! Especially after having to-to-to fight through an entire swarm of those fuck-uck-uck-ucking crrrrrabs!”

Surprisingly enough, the krakens that lived in those murky depths had turned out to be a non-issue. The golem wasn’t aware of their reasons, but those massive molluscs had opted to ignore the hot lump of metal walking along the basin’s floor. However, they weren’t the only living things down there. Fizzy had run into a colony of monstrous crustaceans that were half her size, which appeared to be a variant of Murk Dweller. Those things were quite common to the swamps south of Erosa, her hometown for many years, so she was more or less familiar with them. That was how she knew they normally dwelled in the shallows, and why she had opted to plough through them in search of fresh air.

What she hadn’t anticipated was just how many of those blasted things would get in her way. The fact that she was fighting underwater was even more of a problem. Swinging a big heavy wrench around with all that water resistance interfering put a lot of strain on her before she managed to make her way up here. But physical effort didn’t mean much to a golem like her, so she soldiered through it. Unfortunately, it was the mental stress of it all that was really doing a number on her.

“Shit! I hope to neh-eh-eh-ever see another shellfi-fi-fi-fi-fish as long as I live!”

Although Fizzy had regained her senses about half an hour after the struggle with Katya’s device, the damage to her core went far beyond penalties to her Status. She had trouble forming coherent thoughts and there were lapses in her short-term memory. From her perspective, she had just climbed aboard a Knight transport with the intent of zapping some krakens, and the next thing she knew she was trudging along the bottom of a lake. Plus and, to a lesser extent, Minus had filled her in on what she was missing, but that only served to make her even more upset.

It was at that point that her stutter first became apparent. Her voice box was perfectly fine mechanically speaking, but her thoughts, and by extension speech and actions, would end up getting ‘stuck’ for a fraction of a second at a time. This happened a lot more frequently and with increased severity whenever she was agitated, to the point her motor skills would also suffer malfunctions. She’s had to deal with involuntary spasms or joints suddenly locking up, which hampered her ability to even smash a single shrimp. It was a good thing that Plus and Minus seemed unaffected and were available to help out, otherwise she would still be struggling to get past those crabby creatures.

In short, having her most precious part gouged out had crippled her not only physically, but also mentally.

“It’s not all bad, though. Killing those things got us to Level 50, didn’t it?” pointed out Plus. “We just have to Rank Up and we’ll be good as new!”

Undergoing a self-evolution was like being reborn. Therefore, it was a safe assumption that Ranking Up would fix Fizzy’s core. In actuality, she had already convinced herself that doing so was the only way to repair it. The only enlightened craftsman that might have the ability to fix that part of her up the ‘traditional’ way was also the one who put her in this mess in the first place. Not to mention that a Rank Up would massively improve the golem’s base abilities, which would massively raise her odds of finding a way out of this hole.

“Yeah, assuming some goddamned monster doesn’t show up and trash us while we can’t move,” scoffed Minus.

This was the argument that kept Fizzy from undergoing the process while she was still submerged, but there was only so much she could take.

“I don’t caaaaare anymore,” she said in a defeated tone. “I can’t go on like-ike-ike this. Even if it’s risky, I ha-ha-have to try.”

“Well… could you at least close up the hole so nothing weird crawls out of it?” suggested her negative self.

“Y-yeah. Let’s do that, first.”

Aside from the glowing fungi, the cave she was in had quite a few stalagmites jutting up from the ground. The golem smashed up a bunch of them with her bare hands and tossed the resulting rocky debris down the ten meter deep well. Once she noticed the water level was starting to rise and spill over, she was confident she had sufficiently blocked it off. She then walked over to the cave wall and sat down, leaning her back against a boulder that was jutting out of it.

“Rank Up.”

Rank Up - Metal Golem (Mithril)

Requirements: Level 50 Metal Golem Job The Requirements have been met. You may now Rank Up by using one of the following options: Blessed Orichalcum Golem Mithril Dynamo Golem Cancel Rank Up

A window that Fizzy had been obsessing over for quite a while appeared at the forefront of her consciousness.

Blessed Orichalcum Golem

Additional Requirements: Divine Beast, Holy Mastery Level 5, Mithril Golem variant

Effects: Species will become Metal Golem (Blessed Orichalcum).

The Level Cap on the Metal Golem Job will be increased to 75.

The Holy Affinity Skill will be awarded at Level 5.

This was the first of her two options, which still boggled the mind no matter how many times she looked at it. Setting aside the fact that the Metal Golem Job could apparently go beyond Level 50, it was the orichalcum bit that confused Fizzy the most. It was not a metal that could be found naturally, but a mithril alloy produced only by the most skilled of Blacksmiths. A ‘wild’ golem made out of the stuff was rather… improbable to say the least, but at the same time made a certain degree of sense.

Which wasn’t to say it was a bad option. Orichalcum was, as one might imagine, quite a bit tougher than mithril. Crudely put, the relation between the two metals was like that between steel and iron, but what truly set orichalcum was its potential for handling magic. Depending on how it was mixed, it could be made to massively amplify a specific magical element. In Fizzy’s case, she was being offered the divine ‘flavor’ of the stuff as a direct result of her occupation as a Paladin.

However, even though it was definitely appealing, in the end it was just a material upgrade. Much like the time she transitioned from steel to mithril, she would not change at her core. Which was precisely the part of her that she needed to change right at this moment. She had no evidence to prove it, but part of her suspected that going this route would not, in fact, regenerate her most vital part. Not to mention that if her time spent with Katya had taught her anything, it was that one should never underestimate the benefits of superior technology.

Which was precisely what her other option offered.

Mithril Dynamo Golem

Additional Requirements: Heat Exchange, Excessive exposure to lightning

Effects: Species will become Dynamo Golem (Mithril).

The War Golem Job will be awarded at Level 1 and will become the Main Job.

The Static Field Skill will be awarded at Level 1.

The Lightning Affinity Skill will be awarded at Level 1.

Fizzy had never heard of either war golems nor their dynamo subspecies, so trying to inspect either terms gave her a bunch of garbled information that she had no hopes of comprehending. She would therefore be unable to tell exactly what it was she was becoming. It was the exact same dilemma that Boxxy also faced back when it was about to graduate from being a mimic.

And much like that murderous box at the time, Fizzy was able to glean quite a bit from the requirements involved. The fact that it required Heat Exchange said quite a bit about it, as that Skill had both Engine of Destruction and Advanced Joints as its prerequisites. All three of those involved complex mechanisms that would give even Automata Artificers a run for their money. The naming involved was also quite telling, as ‘war golem’ sounded like something fine-tuned for combat, as opposed to the violent statues or docile servants that most golems aced as. Even the subspecies Fizzy was being offered shared a name with a device that converted mechanical energy into electricity.

In summary, a dynamo war golem was surely a type of highly advanced ass-kicking machine. One that was attuned to the elemental properties of lightning, which would surely be of use to an Arclight Artificer in addition to its obvious combat applications. Being offered such a specialized Rank Up was no coincidence, either. The ‘excessive exposure to lightning’ mentioned in the requirements surely referred to Fizzy’s habit of relying on her electrical charge pack. Well, before it got trashed, at any rate.

But most importantly, unlike simply upgrading her frame to a higher tier of metal, there was no way that changing her base species wouldn’t restore her nucleus to its fully functioning state.

“Okay. Is everyone ready-dy-dy-dy?” she asked aloud.

“I still say we should stick with what we know rather than risk on something unknown,” said Minus. “Also, we’ll be missing out on becoming even shinier if we skip out on this chance to become orichalcum!”

It would appear that, even if her first waking moments had made her rather pessimistic, the youngest personality still had the instinctive need to appear as fabulous as possible. It was the one thing that all three of them could instantly agree on. And indeed, orichalcum was nothing to scoff at in that regard. Being based on mithril, it had the same white radiance, but would adopt a different colored luster whenever light bounced off it at specific angles. The exact hue depended on the material, but in the case of blessed orichalcum it would have a radiant golden sheen to it.

“We’ll probably get a chance to upgrade to it at Level 25, though,” pointed out Plus. “So don’t think of it as ‘missing out,’ but as ‘temporarily delaying it.’ Besides, being able to shoot lightning out of our eyes is way too cool to pass up!”

“You know there’s no way that would happen, right?”

“Hey! A girl can dream, can’t she?”

“… Are you two quite fi-fi-fi-finished?”

“R-right. Sorry for getting carried away, Fizzy,” apologized Plus.

“Let’s just get this over with,” chimed in her counterpart.

“Alright! Here we g-g-g-go!”

Declaring that, Fizzy selected the ‘Mithril Dynamo Golem’ option in her head, after which she experienced something she really did not want to go through again.

She had blacked out.

When Fizzy woke up, she found herself in a world of darkness, where no sight nor sounds reached her. The reason for this was that, judging from the lack of any notifications, her body was still undergoing the Rank Up process. Fizzy called out inside her head, but both Plus and Minus appeared to be unavailable for the moment. Thankfully, her Metallopathy Skill seemed to be functioning, which she immediately used to verify her body’s condition.

The first and most important thing she checked on was her core, which had undergone a radical metamorphosis. It was now more than 50% larger in volume and while it was still shaped like a sphere, its surface was made up of a huge number of tiny hexagons that fit together flawlessly like a multi-layered puzzle. Clumps of those miniature panels shifted around and clicked against each other all on their own, almost as if her ‘heart’ was constantly reconfiguring itself. The seamless changes came and went in waves as the mechanical organ circulated the magic it generated through the rest of the golem’s frame.

Most important of all was the fact that it was whole, and that Fizzy’s thoughts had regained their former clarity and alacrity.

Now that she was sure her most important part was chugging along strongly, Fizzy turned her attention to the rest of her still changing body. The Rank Up had already transformed the area immediately around her core, which was to say her torso. Her front was covered by a series of mithril plates that formed something of a semi-collapsible breastplate that would allow her to twist her upper body around without limiting movement.

It was probably worth noting that while the new armor plating had preserved the overall feminine shape of her torso, it had also more or less removed any semblance of breasts. Fizzy wasn’t all that sad to see them go, though. Strictly speaking, those white domes were highly impractical as far as armor went. If she were a meatbag wearing, then body armor with that sort of shape would have probably killed her with a single good blow to the chest since it would have focused the force of the blow to a single point.

Her upper back had also undergone significant change due to the mithril plating jutted out from it as if it were a type of backpack. The hollow space was still in the process of being filled with a series of tubes, pipes and fans that were hooked up to her new core, likely making up a robust air-cooling system. Which was good, because if Heat Exchange was a necessary Skill, then it was a good bet that a dynamo golem would generate ridiculous amounts of heat even without Engine of Destruction.

Once her back was finished was when her Rank Up really went into high gear. A thick mithril collar popped up from her shoulders, collarbone and upper back, forming a defensive layer around her neck. Her ‘hair’ began to shift and bend as if it were a living creature, forming an open-face helmet that added extra protection to her cranium. Her signature pigtails, on the other hand, smoothed out into perfect spheres with a pair of mechanized trenches that ran all the way around, dividing each one into four equal sections. The mithril globes were attached to her new helmet by a pair of short, mithril cylinders.

Interestingly enough, her face was left almost completely untouched.

Her arms were next on the list, beginning at the shoulders where a pair of mithril pads jutted out from her neck. Overlapping mithril plates then descended down her upper arms like a set of shutters, wrapping her limbs an additional defensive layer. Her elbow joints transformed to be more doll-like, and the vulnerable area was wrapped in a series of three mithril plates seemingly held together by a single large bolt. Her forearms then expanded and unfolded, wrapping the area from her elbow to her wrists in bulky cylinders that, unfortunately, looked rather comical. Her hands and fingers were then encased in elegant armor, giving off the impression of a pair of expertly crafted metal gauntlets rather than the statue-like fingers she had before.

Over on her left side, the cursed shield-gauntlet she was so fond of was undergoing a massive change of its own. The arm itself was perfectly symmetrical to the other one, but the Artifact-grade item permanently affixed to it had expanded to cover a significantly wider area. It had adopted a roughly four-sided diamond shape that went down past the knuckles of her new hand. The shape of it was such that if she tried to punch anything with her left arm, then the pointed end of her shield would slam into her target before her fist did. The upper end of it also reached quite high up, going past her elbow and nearly touching the lower end of her left shoulder. Speaking of which, the shoulder pad on her shield-bearing side was also expanding greatly, becoming much bulkier and heavier than her right one. Its upper end stood so high above her actual shoulder that its upper end nearly went up to her eye level.

With her upper body more or less complete, the transformation moved onto Fizzy’s lower body. Her nether regions were wrapped in a V-shaped metal plate that encompassed the lower end of her torso, finally getting rid of her purely decorative genitalia and non-functional butthole. She never used those things anymore, so she was glad they were replaced with sturdier and more structurally sound parts.

Her thighs were then wrapped up in an extra layer of armor, much like the rest of her. However, they seemed oddly ‘naked’ as there was a gap between the armor around the lower end of her torso and the outer side of her rather flared hips. It left her hip joints exposed, although that wasn’t too much of a worry since, much like the rest of her, they too were made of solid mithril. Still, it was possible something might get stuck in there and limit her movement, so Fizzy made a mental note to take extra care of that potential weak point.

As for the rest of her legs, ‘weak point’ was not a word that one would use to describe them.

Her knees especially were where her new body began to deviate wildly from her mostly person-like shape. The pads protecting those vital joints jutted out several centimeters in front as if they were the bows of a ship. The area around her calves stretched out to the rear, which gave the impression that the golem was wearing funnels for boots. Fizzy briefly wondered why they were like this, but she soon got her answer as her knee joints began to bulk up enough to fill up most of their new home. Her new frame looked to be much more top-heavy than the old one, so it stood to reason she’d need a fittingly sturdy lower body to support it. She wouldn’t know for sure until she actually got to try them out, but she had a feeling her new legs would let her stay on her feet even if she took a mountain to the face.

Speaking of her feet, they suddenly folded in on themselves and retracted somewhere inside her wide shins. What popped out to replace each of them was something completely unlike anything that would appear naturally on a flesh-and-blood creature. It was a mechanism made up for four very distinct parts, each of which was essentially a solid piece of mithril. It had a hollowed-out square for an ankle, a rectangular lump of metal where the bridge of her foot would be, a single, solid block of mithril attached to the front of it instead of toes, and a similar armored platform for a heel hooked up to the rear end of her ankle piece. All of which were connected to each other and the rest of the leg by a total of four heavy-duty hinge-like joints.

Overall, her new limbs didn’t look like humanoid feet at all. A much more apt comparison would be some sort of double-ended hoof. Even the prints she’d leave with those things would look like a pair of horseshoes facing opposite each other. And she’d definitely leave a lot of tracks, because those were not feet that followed the curvature of the terrain. Those were feet that made their own terrain.

With her outward appearance seemingly completed, Fizzy was sure it wouldn’t be long before her internals finished upgrading themselves as well. She was, however, mistaken, as the final phase of her Rank Up would take the longest time. It began with the appearance of a component she’d never seen before. It was a rectangular box made not from mithril, but silver and copper, which had appeared in her chest cavity directly beneath her shiny new core. She tried to peek inside it, but the presence of non-metal components made it hard for her to grasp its construction and purpose.

Countless strands of metal thread then started growing out of this box, weaving together to form rope-like cables that seemed to come out of thin air. Curiouser still, these weren’t made of mithril or silver, but a combination of both. It was an alloy that seemed oddly familiar, but Fizzy couldn’t quite put her finger on it. These new cables snaked their way out of her chest cavity and began wrapping themselves around her frame, taking up the tight space between her outer and inner armor layers. They hooked themselves up to her shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles, even reaching up into her neck and mostly empty skull.

All of those points were thus plugged into that odd box in her chest through those metal cables. The connections ran underneath her outer armor plating whenever possible, but the segments on the sides of her waist and the ones going through the gap around her hip joints were left completely exposed. Two of them even broke through near the edge of her bulky left shoulder, climbing halfway up the armor to hook up to two tiny metal cages that popped up seemingly out of nowhere.

She wasn’t sure what purpose these cables served quite yet, but hoped they weren’t too important. While definitely sturdier than they looked, those woven metal threads were nowhere near as durable as her actual armor, and were vulnerable to being severed with pinpoint strikes. It wasn’t a big deal since they’d probably fix themselves back up the instant she healed herself, she just hoped it wasn’t something super vital like an artery or nerve cluster.

And then, after a grand total of 95 minutes and 20.157 seconds since starting her Rank Up, the long-awaited notification popped up in her consciousness.

Rank up complete.

Congratulations! Your species has become Dynamo Golem (Mithril).

Level up!

Congratulations, you are now a Level 1 War Golem! STR +4. END +4. FTH +2.

The War Golem Job is now your Main Job.

Proficiency level increased. Static Field is now Level 1. INT +4. WIS +2.

Proficiency level increased. Lightning Affinity is now Level 1. AGI +3. INT +3.

Maximum HP has returned to normal.

The effectiveness of the INT and WIS Attributes has returned to normal.

Automatic HP and MP recovery have returned to normal.

Her new internal components then began spooling up in the next instant. Her core pumped magic through her body at a rate that would make her previous self seem like an outdated model. The strange silver box that was hooked up directly to it then began sending out an electrical current that flooded her entire being through those cables. This allowed Fizzy to finally remember the significance of their material. A mithril-silver alloy could carry an electrical charge of absurd magnitudes without melting, a superconductor of sorts. It was so robust that it could be used to catch and redirect actual lightning, and there were a few high-end Arclight Artificer inventions that demanded such a thing in order to function.

With raw magic and high-voltage electricity coursing through her in equal measure, the newly reborn dynamo golem practically leapt off her back and landed on her feet, causing a minor seismic event in the process. Now that she finally had use of her eyes, she was able to confirm that all the cabling on her body was glowing with a bright blue color reminiscent of a clear sky - a sign that the superconductors in question were brimming with power.

Those weren’t the only things currently giving off a light from her body, however. Her transformed shield had gained a rather large blue crystal right smack in the middle of it, which hummed with power as it illuminated her surroundings in a bright blue light. The small metal cages on her left shoulder and the circular holes in the sides of her thighs as well as the one at the base of her throat were all the same. Her formerly black irises were not excluded from the show of power, as they now had the same sort of violent spark raging within them.

And the source of all this juice flowing through Fizzy’s new-and-improved frame was the strange generator in her chest cavity. Which, incidentally, could be regulated thanks to the first of her new Skills.

Static Field

Description: A dynamo golem is characterized by its ability to generate electricity at will.

Requirements: Be a Dynamo Golem variant

Type: Passive

Activation Time: N/A

Cost: N/A

Range: Self

Effects: Passively generates a constant electric current.

The output of this Skill can be amplified by expending MP.

Reduces the MP consumed by this Skill by 2% per Level of this Skill.

As for the second Skill she had gotten, it would ensure that she would never have to worry about electrocuting herself no matter how hard she pushed the first one.

Lightning Affinity

Description: Fighting lightning with lightning will only breed more lightning.

Requirements: Be a Dynamo Golem variant

Type: Passive

Activation Time: N/A

Cost: N/A

Range: Self

Effects: Nullifies all Lightning damage taken.

Increases Lightning damage dealt by Skills, Spells and Martial Arts by 4% per Level of this Skill.

But before she started playing around with her power output, Fizzy first tried simply moving her new body around the mushroom-lit cave. She did some stretches, bends and exercises to get a feel for it, and quickly made three very important discoveries.

The first of which was that her new body was terribly well balanced, despite its somewhat unconventional shape and added mass. The tech in her legs in particular was great at compensating for the extra weight, so she could do everything she could before without much difficulty. Even her momentum control and running seemed largely unaffected, as her new feet had a lot more grip on the floor than her old ones. Admittedly they also left much of said floor in ruins, but that was besides the point.

The second point of interest was that, much like she’d hoped, her overall dexterity, agility and hand-eye coordination were the same as ever, despite the extra bulk. That thought did raise another question though - where did all this additional material come from? On the whole, her body had increased in mass by about half, and even incorporated materials that weren’t a part of it before. She wasn’t about to complain, of course, but she had some difficulty getting over how her Rank Up seemed to play fast and loose with the laws of both physics and magic.

The third deduction she made regarding her new self was that she could now exert a lot more physical force. The combination of an upgraded golem core and additional body mass meant her strength had undergone a massive change. The Iron Teeth that she had some trouble controlling before due to its weight now felt incredibly light. She could swing it around with just one hand without any of the balance issues she had before.

Having obtained a grasp on her physical capabilities, Fizzy turned her attention towards her Static Field Skill. Strictly speaking, she was now having some doubts about this entire setup. Boxxy wouldn’t be able to lavish her with its adoration and sincere praise if she was constantly electrified. As much as that greedy box loved shiny things, it would probably not want to touch anything that was overflowing with its Bane.

She therefore gradually willed her internal power generator to a halt. It was a superbly natural action, not too dissimilar to holding one’s breath. The result was that all of her glowing bits suddenly went dark, but she didn’t feel any discomfort from that. At least not until she tried moving around, at which point she realized her body had become sluggish, clumsy and somewhat uncooperative. Even the wrench in her right hand suddenly felt much heavier than it used to be.

It would appear that dynamo golems required an electrical current coursing through them to operate at peak efficiency. The sensation of being deprived of that was similar to the low-power mode Fizzy’s previous body would enter whenever she continually exerted herself for extended periods of time. It was ill-suited for combat or tinkering, but it meant she would be able to enjoy Boxxy’s attention without worry.

Well, that and she wouldn’t completely lose her bodily functions if one of her exposed cables was severed.

Having concluded her experiment, the golem allowed her Static Field to assume regular operational levels. She then began cranking it up as high as it would go, curious to see just how much juice this thing could produce. The twin metal orbs that were once her hair showed the first reaction, as thick arcs of electricity began leaping between them. Her shield, hips and left shoulder all began discharging in a similar fashion almost immediately afterwards. Bolts of unbridled energy lashed out at her surroundings, covering the area immediately around her in a deluge of crackling sparks.

“Woah! That was trippy!” shouted Plus out of nowhere.

“Ugh… Am I dead yet?” groaned Minus immediately afterwards.

It would appear that the golem flexing her mystic muscles had woken up her mental companions.

“Well! Good morning, sleepy heads!” said Fizzy in high spirits.

“Boss! You’re not stuttering anymore!” exclaimed the elder one. “Holy shit! Would you look at us go!”

“I know. It’s awesome, isn’t it? I’m like a walking thunderstorm!”

“We literally have lightning coming out of our eyes! Wahahahahahahaha!”

“… We won’t melt or anything, right?” asked the more pessimistic one.

“Nah. It’s totally fine. I need to watch the mana consumption on this thing, though.”

Even though her new Skill reached an output noticeably higher than her original power pack, it was also extremely taxing. Using her entire MP pool would only give her about 5 seconds of uptime, so controlled jolts was definitely the way to go.

“I can’t wait to see what our new body can do! Let’s go find us a meatbag to pummel into paste!”

“Great idea, Plus!” replied Fizzy in high spirits. “My plates are practically itching for some action!”

“Uh, could we not?” chimed in Minus. “We just barely avoided a fate worse than death, followed by a slog through a fucking lake that went on forever. I think we should just take things easy for a while and-”

“Now you listen here, Minus. We just Ranked Up. Okay? It’s kind of a huge deal, especially since it fixed my core. So you can either get hyped or shut the fuck up, but you will not ruin this moment for me with your incessant moaning.”

“… Fine, I’ll be quiet. But I reserve the right to go ‘I told you so’ when you do something stupid that gets us in trouble.”

“Good enough. Now then…”

*CLANG*

Fizzy smashed her fists together while a vicious smirk dawned on her face.

“Shall we go for a walk?”