“Kill it already!” the normie bystander shrieked as she pressed herself into the corner of the alley.

“What’s it look like we’re trying to do?” I retorted, loading another bolt into my crossbow.

Dim lights flickered from old lamps overhead, giving the monster a shiny oil gleam that belayed its foulness. I used [Scan] on the gelatinous glob of garbage muck, searching for a weakness. The readout of information dotted my vision with a green glow above the monster’s black jello body.

Gray goop shot toward my head from the formless monster and I jumped to the side. The “Sling Mud” ability splattered against the brick wall behind me, and covered my backside. A shiver shot down my spine as the smell turned my stomach.

“Yuck,” I whimpered softly as I shook the gloop from my horns.

“Raven, anything?” Piper asked, using my hero name in the presence of a civilian.

“Weakness is the Core Fragment, that’s apparently it. Try your rapier, Xebaria,” I replied, using her hero name, too.

I took aim with my crossbow arm as the monster moved closer to the trapped civilian. I hoped the Core Fragment was somewhere near the center… I was shooting in the dark, but I had to try. My thumb pressed the trigger with a hope and a prayer.

Twang!

The bolt zipped toward its target as Norah sidestepped another mud sling. The Refuse Pronicle swallowed up the bolt, its health staying strong at 100%. Elise slammed her mace down through the jelly muck with a crash as the filth-caked concrete below shattered.

The blob split in two, then wrapped around the weapon and started sucking it in. Elise growled as she tugged her mace free and splattered goop across the alley, landing in front of the normie.

“Help, please! Anyone,” the woman screamed, panic in her trembling voice.

“Lady, we’re right here!” Elise whined in her deep yet girly voice. Despite her hero form being a hulking male tree ogre, her speech patterns mimicked her human body, sounding comically feminine. It was one of the more hilarious side effects of our hero predicament.

“Hey, you big dumb slop!” Norah taunted and the monster stopped its slow advance toward the woman cowering in the corner.

“Groff, cover her!” I pointed to the normie as Norah’s foxtail flicked from side to side with excitement.

Norah struck the sparker on her chest and lit the fuze of one of her Black Powder vials. “Eat this!” She hucked the miniature grenade into the monster and it swallowed it up greedily.

“Get down!” I yelled and dove behind a pile of trash.

Boom, splat! The once red brick walls of the alley dripped with brownish gray goo, filling the area with an even worse smell than before. I poked my head over the black trash bags as I yawned to pop out my eardrums.

I used [Scan] again, and found Norah, Elise, Piper, the terrified woman, and a red pulsing Core Fragment on the ground, all covered in muck.

“See! We had it under control.” I bounded up and reached for the flashing stone. I examined its exact value, thanks to my passive ability, [Determine Worth]. It was only 150XP, and split four ways it was even more pathetic, but it was still something. Fortunately, the monetary payout was a bit nicer; two hundred and fifty credits.

“Get off me,” the damsel in broken high heels rose on shaky feet as she pushed Elise away. She pointed at me. “You are, without a doubt, the most impotent heroes I’ve ever been rescued by!”

“Impotent, sheesh, whipping out the vocabulary on us,” Piper scoffed. She walked up to me to inspect the Core Fragment and scraped goop from her black face mask with one of her many knives.

“This isn’t funny to me! I could’ve died!” The woman wailed.

Elise reached for her shoulder to comfort her. “We’re very sorry it took so long, but you’re okay, don’t worry. The worse it would’ve done is try to suffocate you, but it was so slow, we never would’ve let that happen.”

“Don’t touch me, creep!” The woman pulled away, tripping awkwardly from her uneven shoes. “It wasn’t the monster I was worried about. You—”she pointed angrily at Norah—“you could’ve blown me up!”

“I measured the powder carefully, it was barely enough to blow that monster apart!” She protested, her tall Foxian ears pointing back in annoyance as she snarled.

It was time to intervene. “We never would’ve allowed you to get hurt, I promise. We’re with the Stewards of Light. We’re the good guys.”

“You’re a disorganized group of buffoons, is what you are.”

I sucked in a breath through my mouth, trying to avoid the stink.

Elise grabbed the woman’s purse and held it out to her. “We’d appreciate if you’d report your successful rescue to the SoL website, or mobile app. Every four star or higher rescue gets us closer to our goals of joining the B rank.”

The damsel tutted loudly as she snatched the bag. “Get a job, you suck at this.” She strutted off awkwardly, every other step being lower than the other from the missing heel.

“We have jobs, thank you!” Norah shouted after her and the woman held up a one finger salute in return.

Piper rolled her eyes and waved away the rude gesture. “Whaddawe got here?” She pointed to the Core Fragment.

“About forty XP a piece,” I held out the object so they could all place their hands on it.

A fuming Norah crossed her arms as Piper and Elise put their hands on mine. “Since I could’ve killed her I shouldn’t take any XP. Better not help me level up and almost kill more people.” Her fluffy orange and white tail whipped angrily from side to side.

“I think it was a brilliant move,” I said trying to catch her downward pointed gaze.

Her eyes flickered toward me. “You think so?”

“Hell yes,” Piper said with admiration. “I wish I could blow shit up. I mean, my rapier is cool, and I’ve got like a million daggers—

“And you can disappear into shadows,” Elise added.

“Yeah and that, but your grenades are the tits, my dude.” Piper reached for Norah with her other hand and the angry Foxian stepped closer.

“Not like it’s much XP, I still need another eight hundred to level up.” She shuffled her feet, kicking at a bit of garbage.

“And every little bit counts! C’mon, we’re not going to absorb it without you.” I jerked my head down at the Core Fragment pulsing with fear in my palm. At least, I imagined it was afraid. We were about to absorb and convert its essence to feed our own hungry Fragments.

“Fine, just because I don’t want to spend another minute in this nasty alley.” She slapped her hand down on the others and I opened my hero menu with a blink.

The green glowing charts, stats, and menu layers projected out in front of me for the other three to see, and I selected the [Absorb Fragment: Party] ability. The others could absorb Essence on their own, but I was the only one who could share it with them because of the [Determine Worth] ability. I could also divy it up any way I liked, which made it a lot easier to get everyone near the same level.

I could feel the Essence flowing into me through my palm, and at the last second, diverted my portion up to the others. Smoky gray wrapped up their hands and arms until it flowed into their Fragments. Piper’s lay in her chest, just shy of her heart. Elise’s was lodged awkwardly in her left bicep, and Norah’s was buried somewhere deep in her gut.

They closed their eyes as they processed the Essence, converting it into fuel for their Fragments. Elise’s shoulder pulsed a soft yellow that swirled with deep purple, Norah’s exposed midriff emanated blood red, and Piper’s chest a cool blue.

I smiled as I felt the used power shard tremble its last, then stuffed the stone into my pocket. We could turn it in at SoL HQ for a few Credits for taking a monster off the streets.

“Wait, what’s this all about?” Norah snapped open her hero menu as she looked at me pointedly. She could’ve looked at it herself, but she wanted to show everyone else too. She had an extra ten experience that she assumed shouldn’t be there.

I shrugged. “I didn’t really do much in that fight, didn’t feel like I’d earned anything.”

Piper punched my shoulder. “You have to stop doing this, Claire. You’re already two levels behind the rest of us.”

Norah shook me. “Seriously, we want you to be the same as us. It doesn’t matter who did more work, we’re a team.”

Elise smiled kindly. “Plus, you yelled for us to get down. That helped.”

I looked down the alley where the woman had disappeared around a corner. “Yeah, well, more encounters like that one and we’ll be on our way up and out of the C Rank, am I right?”

“That’s the spirit,” Elise said as she clapped me on the back and sent me careening into Norah.

I pulled myself out of Norah’s corset and spit a few times. “Bleh, hair in my mouth.”

“Oh shut it,” Norah growled. “I do not shed… that bad. Plus, there’s no hair on my chest, so you’re full of shit.”

Elise winced, showing off large lower canines. “Sorry, I still forget how strong I am sometimes.”

“Ugh, let’s get outta this dump,” Piper said as she waved her hand in front of her goo covered mask.

I grimaced. “Something tells me the smell isn’t entirely the alley.”

“Yeah, the poop goblin nailed all of us with its slime,” Norah grimaced as she scooped some of the gunk off her bandolier.

“Garbage Pronicle,” Elise corrected with a raised finger and Norah rolled her eyes.

“I call the shower first,” Piper blurted and we collectively groaned. With only one shower, we had to develop rules around usage… the rule was you call it, you get it, which wasn’t very fair, since obviously Elise, who was absolutely covered in the crap, really needed the shower first.

We turned for the end of the alley where we’d parked our scooters when Elise paused. “Shall we transform back?”

“I wanted to turn this in,” I said as I held out the emptied Fragment.

“But we stiiiiink,” Piper whined.

“Fine, guess we won’t have the budget for thai food tonight.” I slipped the rock back in my leather dress-vest pocket. I knew Piper was good about delayed gratification, but not when it came to thai. I looked around at the others as they deliberated, exchanging glances that communicated more than words could. They were sizing up one another’s willingness to go into SoL headquarters smelling like rotten corpses.

I started the return chant. “Monsters slain and evil—

“Wait.” Piper held up a hand, a hungry gleam in her eyes. “I think we can take a fifteen minute detour for some Pad Thai.”

I smirked. “That’s what I thought. Elise, piggyback?” I smiled at my oldest friend in her Groff form and she couldn’t contain her own grin.

“Of course.” She knelt and I moved her long, goop covered black braids from her shoulder so I could get a better grip on her green, bark-like skin. It was like holding onto a warm, semi-fleshy tree that breathed. It’d been weird at first, but after a thousand or more piggyback rides, her strange skin was just as normal to me as was her huge, masculine appearance.

“Ready?” She asked as she grabbed ahold of my legs.

“Ready. To the victor goes the extra gyoza?” I asked as the others started up the mint and coral scooters.

“Extra gyoza and first shower.” Piper amended the reward.

I locked my hands together at Elise’s collar bone. “Let’s race!”