Johannesburg. Evening.

Agents Y and Z are being chewed out again. Another evening for the South African Secret Service.

“You let Solbourne get captured, and you didn’t even know about it?!” Director A screams.

Agent Y bowed his head. “Pathetic, don’t you think?”

“Right on the spot. It’s pathetic, and now we have to send our two best targets into hiding just to keep them safe.”

“Three targets, actually,” Agent Z corrects. “We found a kid who’s got Homo Sparus in her.”

“Is that really what we’re calling it? Is that really the name of these pink people?”

“I guess so, don’t you think? The U.S. military has adopted it in their internal papers, don’t you think?”

“Shut up, Agent Y. Don’t talk to me ever again unless you get rid of that tic.”

“Sorry, don’t you think?”

“Now, to much more important matters... Are you completely sure that safe house isn’t compromised? Are our targets safe from America?”

“Absolutely sure of it,” Agent Z says. “If not, we’ll send backup to extract them and bring them here next week.”

“And probably get them all killed in the process,” Director A says. “The U.S. is right on our heels! Didn’t you hear Biden’s address on TV?”

“What?” Agent Z hadn’t heard anything of the sort. She had been waiting in this office for Director A to show up and possibly fire her, so TV was the last thing on her mind.

“Joe Biden said something about a bombing in South Africa,” Agent A says. “A big one they’re using to justify invading other worlds.”

“...Uh, what bombing?”

Director A shrugs. “We don’t have any info on a bombing. Our agents are scouring the country to try and figure out what’s going on. No luck, because we suck.”

“We really are the worst,” Agent Z says. “How in the world we found out about the system first...”

“I don’t think we were actually first.”

“Oh.”

Suddenly, a form appears in the distance outside the window. The hazy view of Johannesburg is beautiful and uninviting at once. It begins as a speck, but grows larger with every passing second.

Agent Y takes off his sunglasses and drops them to the floor. Agent Z and Director A are confused and glance his way, but then the object grows close enough for them to make out, and they, too, stop everything they are doing.

They are unaware of the fact that the creature headed straight to their headquarters is a Maw Dragon, one of the most fearsome beasts of Mystix. But they already know they are dead without any of that context.

“We’re fucked, don’t you think?”

President Biden’s speech comes true.

***

Francis can’t take his eyes off the TV. His Discord channel flashes by so fast he can hardly keep up, and people beg him to start streaming already, but he can’t. Won’t.

A whole city block of Johannesburg, destroyed, razed to the ground. More destruction incoming, thanks to a massive magical dragon apparently sent by the evil Mystix overlords.

He knows none of it is true. He knows, thanks to his telepathic emotional bond with Eryk, that the U.S. military has been planning to invade Mystix for a really long time, to help Biden win reelection or something like that. It made so much sense that he could barely believe it.

They want everyone to believe that the good of the world is coming from this. But he knows that the good of this world comes at the cost of another.

Only one way to stop these guys... And he’s the only one who can pull it off.

So, with a sudden determination in Francis’s heart, he decides to stream today after all. As soon as he does, thousands of people flood into his Discord Server and his Mixer chat.

“Hey Bac Nation,” he says into his webcam. “Short stream today. I know all of you are creepy internet stalker sleuth guys with parasocial obsessions, but I kinda want to ask something along those lines. Anyone know how to find secret U.S. military bases?”

He gives a few details, and within thirty minutes, someone’s found a ping. The internet taketh, but it giveth as well, and sometimes in disturbingly effective ways.

Francis thanks these amateur detectives with a few emojis and logs off the computer for the day. Probably forever, honestly.

He zips up his backpack, puts on his leather jacket, and steps out of the cabin. “Goodbye, old friend,” he says, waving goodbye to it just in case he never sees it again.

Because he has a higher calling. And that calling is finding the man he loves and rescuing him from certain doom.

***

Keitou sits and meditates over in the corner of the bunker.

It is not a very pleasant place to live. Dark, small, cramped, and the same three faces every single day. The Esther girl is wonderful, and Julie has honed her powers to a magnificent degree, but she is quite unsure about the Delta woman and why she really must be here. If they are system users, magicians with ties to another world who must be protected, then all measures must be made to keep them down here as long as possible. This Delta woman has no powers, so she is merely a drain on resources, and a rude one at that.

Keitou glares at her, and then continues to meditate. She wishes to harness her powers, to unlock the magic that her systemless body cannot yet control. But—

That Delta woman’s crinkling potato chip bag ruins her concentration.

It’s as if she is doing it entirely on purpose.

All this time down here, and she is honestly surprised she has not strangled her yet.

When are those South African Secret Service agents returning, anyway? It has been so long, and with no internet or news down here in the bunker, they cannot—

“Wow!” Her eyes pop open and her whole body starts to levitate off the ground.

Esther and Julie do too, a second later.

“What’s going on, Mom?” Esther asks calmly.

“What’s going on, Master Keitou?” Julie asks with decidedly less calm.

“What’s going on, you ask? I don’t know. A massive surge of energy, or something or another. It’s as if...”

The surge dies down and all threee touch the ground.

“An aura,” Esther says. “It’s in San Francisco. I can feel it.”

“Ah. Me too,” Julie says. “It’s almost nostalgic, kind of like...”

At the same exact moment, all of them say, “We have to leave the safe house.”

Delta lifts her arms into the air. “Yeah, that’s EXACTLY the right thing to do when you feel a massive energy surge that is probably the beginning of an alien invasion. Leave the safest spot and go find out the source of the surge. Perfect idea. Not idiotic whatsoever.”

“You may stay down here if you wish,” Master Keitou says. “I would prefer it that way.”

“...Oh, fine. It sucks in the bunker anyway.”

***

Right in the middle of the Miller Lite Memorial Convention Center.

A gathering of candy vendors in a small industry convention. The latest topics in candy vending and the vending of candy are being discussed by the top minds in the field, and many graphs on Powerpoint slides are giving many interesting ideas to those who are in attendance.

A flash of light. Shines down so brightly that all bystanders are temporarily blinded.

And then, suddenly, right in the middle of the convention center is a half-human, half-robot standing there, completely naked.

She looks around, then down at herself. Feels around at the skin and hair and lack of a TV head. All of it completely changed.

The Goddess realizes that she has been reincarnated on Earth, and the only thing she can think to say is, “Ah, fiddlesticks.”

***

The Demon Queen Mestopholees drops her weapons, tosses off her Amaranth helmet, and bows her head.

“I surrender,” she says.

“Very wise decision,” says the pink-eyed man in front of her. Mayor Pete, he calls himself. But he is no jovial mayor; he is a general of the U.S. forces. And he, along with his elite commandos, have just defeated the head of the New Slayers.

With this surrender, Mestopholees gives up the last claim she has to the world of Mystix. The New Slayers are over. The main resistance to the U.S. is over. Her entire existence the past century is over.

It should feel good, in a way. But honestly, nothing ever feels good to Mestopholees anymore.

“Will you end me here? Or in public?” Mestopholees asks.

Mayor Pete shakes his head. “No. We don’t do that kind of thing in America. We’re the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are a melting pot and we will accept you into the fold.”

“So you mean...”

“We need the New Slayers, and we need you, Mestopholees. In order to destroy the last of the Anti-Mages, in order to secure the last remaining Sorting Scepters, we need your help.”

“I see... Then I must.” Mestopholees keeps her head bowed.

“All I need you to do is repeat the oath after me. ‘I pledge allegiance, to the flag.’”

She cringes, but complies. “I pledge allegiance, to the flag.”

“To the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands.”

“To the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands...”

“One nation, indivisible.”

“One nation... indivisible.”

“With liberty and justice for all.”

“With liberty and justice for...”

“For all.”

“For all. Yes.”

“Good,” Mayor Pete says. “Welcome to the United States.”