My mind was hazy, groggy, as my eyes slowly opened to an unfamiliar landscape. It was industrial and utilitarian; red brick and metal lined the walls and the floor had a mish mash of random carpets strewn about the place--a loose covering over the concrete ground.

The bed I found myself lying in was old and creaky--the antique metal ones. The mattress, however, was fine; nothing to write home about.

Suffice to say, I had no idea where I was. In my still sleep addled mind, I didn’t exactly put much effort into figuring out where this unusual place was. With no sunlight coming in through the window, my surroundings were half hidden under a cloak of darkness.

As I sat up, I realised that I was still wearing the same, sweat-stained clothes that I had yesterday and, to exacerbate that issue, I was hot and sweaty from sleeping under the blankets for the night. I desperately needed a shower.

At this point, my mind began to just run through the motions--although the environment was unfamiliar, there didn’t seem to be anything to put me on my toes. I stood up and took in the furniture.

There was a bed and two sets of drawers. Apart from that, nothing else. It was rather lackluster.

With that done, I headed out of the room.

I found myself in a small corridor, beset on both sides by two flimsy-looking metallic walls of some kind, probably creating rooms just like the one I woke up in. The doors were wooden and average. One end was a deadend I could see from here while the other led to a faint light flickering out of view. I headed down there.

Once I emerged from the catacombs, I was presented with a, thankfully familiar, sight before me; Luna’s warehouse.

I must've woken up in her living arrangements, then.

I wonder where Luna and her servants are, then?

The light that I had seen earlier turned out to be a small camping stove with a strange woman sitting around it.

“Hello?” I tentatively called out from my spot half hidden in darkness.

Abruptly, she raised her head at me. She reminded me of the servants; her pixie-cut grey hair and total lack of pigmentation in her eyes.

“Hello,” She responded after a few seconds of looking me over. Being stared at so intently made me fidget.

“Who are you?” Although her appearance was most likely strange and alien to many people, I found some sort of comfort with it, and began to inch closer.

“I am C1,” She answered without pause.

Good. Another servant.

I let out a proverbial breath I was holding and sat down on the floor next to her.

Not sure why we can’t sit on the sofa.

“So, you’re the new servant?” I probed.

“Yes.”

“How do you feel about your name?” Maybe without Luna around, they’ll answer differently.

“It’s a nice name, but a bit strange.” I was a little surprised at her answer.

“Would you have preferred another name?”

“What? No no no,” She panicked, withdrawing her hands and looking me in the eye. Her face presented far more emotion than when she was just laconically answering questions. “I love my name and would hate to have it taken away from me,” She spoke with clear adoration.

“You’re all the same...” I mumbled out, not caring much if she heard me.

“I’m the same as who?” She asked, seemingly intrigued.

“The servants. You, S1, and S2 all love your names even though they can hardly even be called names in the first place.”

“Um, well...” She began to reply, shyly, “A name is a very important thing. I’d rather have master name me anything rather than not having a name at all,” She finished.

I didn’t reply.

Is that how it is? I’m looking at it wrong? I’m comparing names to names when they’re just happy to have a name in the first place. Maybe I should stop being so judgemental about this…

“Why do you call her master? I thought that was just a thing Luna got S1 to do to sound more posh. Why not call Luna Luna?” She genuinely looked horrified when I brought that up.

“I could never do that to master! She was the one who created me and so she needs to be referred to with the correct amount of reverence.” Her voice was excitable but she still managed to keep it quiet seeing how it was still night.

“I’m sorry for suggesting that.”

A lull fell over the conversation after that. Without anything to do, I felt for my phone in my pocket, where I hoped it’d still be. It was. Pulling it out, I checked the time.

2 o’clock? I woke up really early. That explains the darkness.

Being awake with only one other person under the blanket of darkness made me feel nostalgic; it sent my mind back to when, nearing Christmas, I’d sometimes wake up really early from a nightmare and he’d just hold me and talk to me in the dead of night. I miss those times.

Without any prompting by me, I suddenly found myself wrapped up in the embrace of C1 unprovoked. She just held me against her bountiful chest, not really doing anything else.

“Why-Why are you holding me?” I asked her after it became clear she wasn’t letting go any time soon.

“You looked like you could use a hug,” She answered.

As much as I appreciated the sentiment and the nice, warm hug, I began to feel awkward about being embraced by this, frankly, stranger.

“You can let go, now,” I told her, trying to keep emotion out of my voice.

“Do I have to?” She pleaded back, her voice small and quiet. I felt a slight bit of guilt pull at me.

“Yes, you do,” I reluctantly responded.

Gingerly, hesitantly, she slowly released her arms from their grip around my body.

Now that I could look at her face, she seemed genuinely saddened a little.

“Were you making anything in particular with the camping stove?” I asked, trying to change the topic of conversation.

“Oh, I forgot,” She quickly replied, pulling up the lid of the stove to look inside. She nodded her head as a smile stretched out onto her face as she pulled up the top portion of the stove, took out a bowl by her side that I hadn’t yet seen, and poured the contents into the bowl.

“I was making soup,” She replied happily.

As soon as the bowl was full, she picked it up and put it into my hands before standing up and walking to the kitchenette.

Needless to say, I was confused as to why I now had a bowl of soup in my hands.

She arrived back only a minute later, plopping herself down next to me without much grace and began unloading a silver, metallic packet into the saucepan as well as pouring water from a bottle of water into it as well.

With that did, she gently replaced the saucepan back on top of the camping stove and began to wait, ignoring me and my confused face.

“Why am I holding this?” I eventually asked, drawing her gaze to the soup.

“To eat it? Do you not eat?” She asked, genuinely not understanding what I meant.

“But it’s your soup,” I held out the bowl to her.

“I gave it to you; I’m making my soup right now,” She was utterly serious in her reply.

“So I can drink it?”

“I made it and gave it to you.”

Well, that seemed pretty clear cut.

“Do you have any spoons?” I asked.

To my surprise, instead of responding, she actually stood up and returned with two spoons in hand, presenting one to me. I expected her to be more like Luna, telling me to look for myself.

“You didn’t have to go get a spoon for me; I could’ve gone myself,” I said as I took the spoon. It felt uncomfortable, being so overtly catered to.

“It’s fine; I had forgotten to prepare a spoon for myself,” She replied.

As I began to eat my soup, my mind and eyes wandered over to C1.

She was a fair bit different to either S1 or S2. S1 was rather stoic while S2 was rather bubbly--C1 seemed to be somewhere in between; she was calm and quiet for the most part but had cute little moments of emotionality. Much more my level.

The only thing now was that I had a sinking suspicion about the fact she was also a woman, but I’d have to talk to Luna about that.

Eventually, C1 poured her own soup into a bowl and began eating as well, silence descending upon us once more.

Even though she was a relative stranger, there was a level of familiarity I felt I had already had, purely because she was a servant of Luna’s. Like how you see a dog as the pet of someone rather than their own intelligent being.

In hindsight, it’s probably disrespectful to think of the servants as dogs. They’re their own humans. I think.

About two hours passed since I woke up, eating soup or quietly talking with C1. We talked about rather mundane and inane stuff but, even so, it was nice and relaxing. It was just what I needed after such an eventful day yesterday.

However, surprisingly early--to me--Luna walked out into our little session. I had not expected her to be awake so early but if I had fallen asleep to have woken up when I did, I couldn’t see why the same couldn’t have been said for Luna as well.

Her lack of surprise at seeing C1 and me sitting together, on the floor, practically confirmed that C1 was made yesterday and Luna already had a handle on her personality.

Without any prompting on our part, she plomped herself down opposite C1 and me as if it was the totally normal thing to do.

Has everyone just forgotten that there’s a perfectly good sofa right here? Maybe I’m not one to complain, seeing how I didn’t sit on it myself.

“Good morning, Luna,” I greeted in a reserved tone. I hadn’t met her when she had just woken up; she could’ve been really cranky in the morning for all that I knew.

“Hello Charlotte, C1,” She replied, leaning her back against the sofa, throwing her head back and spreading out her arms as if stretching.

“Did you both wake up early?” She asked.

“Yeah; I did,”

“I have not yet slept.” Luna raised her head to look at C1.

“Are you not tired?”

“You only made me nine hours ago; I’m still wide awake.”

“Hmm. That’s a good point.”

At least that explains why only C1 was awake.

“How are you, Charlotte?” She asked, looking at me. “Feel better than before?”

“I’m no longer feverish, if that’s what you’re asking. I do need a shower, though.”

“Good to hear, though I can’t help you with a shower,” She replied. I thought for a second before asking my question.

“How do you shower, then?” It would probably have been too impolite to just doubt she washed in the first place.

“Decentralised living. There are plenty of places you can shower for free. Just not here.” To my relief, she did wash herself.

It seems I’ll have to stay like this until I get home.

“Shit,” I audibly let out.

“What’s up?” Luna asked immediately, straightening her back, assuming a more serious demeanour. It was nice that she responded this way for just a curse.

“My grandparents are probably furious that I didn’t come home last night.” I answered. I felt comfortable telling Luna this personal information about me; it wasn’t exactly hidden who I lived with.

“Well, fuck ‘em,” She responded flippantly. “Who needs them?”

“I do? I sort of live with them,” My tone was uncertain.

“Live by yourself. Be free!” She said jovially. Admittedly, the way she was taking this made me instantly less worried about the situation.

“Please, don’t tempt me; I’d rather not have to deal with the trouble it’d bring.”

“Fuck. Well, I’ll bring you under my control soon enough,” She answered cheekily, a smirk on her face.

“Speaking about that,” I took the opportunity to change the topic, “C1’s a girl.”

“Yep,” She nodded.

“So are S1 and S2.”

“Yep.” She wasn’t giving me an inch.

“Are they all purposefully girls?” I asked my hypothesis.

“That they are,” She affirmed.

“Why?”

“Why did I make all my servants girls?” She asked for clarification.

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t it obvious? If I’m gonna be living with a bunch of servants, I want to be surrounded with cute girls rather than men.”

Well, that was certainly more blunt than I was expecting.

“So… You’re a lesbian?” I asked, unsure whether this was ground I should be treading.

“Fucking hell, it’s not that hard. I like girls so I made all my servants into cute girls. Admittedly, S1 was an accident; I was just hoping she’d be a girl. S2 and C1, though, are purposefully the way they are.” She answered with characteristic shamelessness.

I would’ve applauded how she could say all this with confidence, unafraid of who she was, if something else wasn’t on my mind.

“But S2 is based off me?”

“Yeah. Your point is?” She smirked. I suspected she was taking immense joy in my confusion and tip toeing around this topic.

Not all of us can be so confident in themselves!

“You said you made all your servants into ‘cute girls’.”

“Connect the fucking dots, Charlotte.” She physically leaned over towards me, gripping my shoulders with her hands.

By now, I’ve noticed that C1 is merely looking on with interest, not deigning to speak up.

“But-” She cut me off rapidly.

“You are attractive. There is nothing more to say,” She spoke the words with such force that combined with her firm grip on me, I couldn’t find the ability to refute how wrong they were.

She let go and fell back to the base of the sofa.

I felt awkwardly silent, unsure how to respond to that blunt and blatant revelation.

Eventually, however, I found a good topic to steer the conversation towards something I was more comfortable with.

“What’s C1’s System Specialisation?”

“Temporal Loading,” C1 chose this moment to speak up.

“Temporal? To do with time?” Luna asked.

“Yes. I take all the energy my body would build up in a set period of time and compress to only a fraction of the length.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Luna said factually.

“Do you mean that if you would build up, say ten units of energy over ten seconds, you could instead make it so you build up ten units of energy over one second?” I asked, using a concrete example to help understanding.

“There about, yes.”

“So, in that case, a ‘loaded’ punch would be ten times stronger than a regular punch but would take the same amount of time?” I clarified.

“I haven’t tested it, so maybe.”

“You mean you could make a single punch as strong as ten punches? As strong as a hundred punches?” Luna asked, trying to understand.

“Let’s test this first,” I answered before C1 could respond. I got up and walked outside.

The good thing about an abandoned warehouse was that there was a bunch of scrap material just dumped here. I collected some wood and some bricks and brought them inside, but at the other end of the room--half of the main floor was the ‘living area’ while the other half was empty space.

The other two joined me as I wandered in. Now that C1 was standing, I could see that her height was fairly similar to Luna’s--taller than S2 but shorter than S1.

“So, I suspect that the System Specialisation of the heart and the System Specialisation of the Heart’s Manifestation are the same. Am I right?” I asked C1.

“It’s literally a Manifestation; it has the same System Specialisation.” She honestly answered.

“Good. Well, we know--rather, I know--that the Manifestation yesterday had the destructive capability to punch holes in the wall and tear the whole room down.”

“Wow! That’s a lot stronger than either S1 or S2.”

“Let’s not go comparing servants right now,” I proffered.

“I could probably do that,” C1 stated, ignoring Luna’s comment.

I had finished arranging the bricks into a cube. I had also taken wood that seemed to be from a pallet.

“For a preliminary test, can you punch through this?” I asked C1, holding the wood up and to my side.

With unexpected speed, she complied, her fist smashing through the wood like it was nothing.

“Even I could’ve done that,” Luna said afterwards.

“Well, I couldn't. I thought it’d be a fair test to establish that she’s strong.” In reality, I was just weak; comparing people to me wouldn’t give an accurate representation of strength.

“Next, could you punch this stack of bricks and try to break them? Without using your spec.” I felt like I was at a martial arts tournament.

Just like before, with incredible force, C1 launched her fist directly down onto the stack of bricks, shifting them out of place and blowing dust into the air. To my amazement, she actually managed to break a single brick in half.

“Could you have done that?” I asked Luna smugly.

“...No,” She reluctantly replied. I rearranged the bricks to make it nearly a cube again.

“Okay, how much awareness do you have over how strong you need to punch things?” I asked.

“None,” C1 replied succinctly.

“Are there any limitations?”

“I’d probably break my arm after a certain strength.”

“Do you know what that strength is?”

“No,” C1 responded, slightly disappointed she couldn’t prove to be more helpful with my questioning.

“Well, trial and error. Let’s just hope we don’t figure it out in the midst of battle. Anyway, let’s start with compressing ten punches into one punch.”

“I’ll try,” Was the confirmation C1 gave. Next, just like before, she drew her arm back for the punch except, this time, rather familiarly--and resembling that monstrosity--her arm hung in the air for only a second before crashing down on the pile of bricks.

An avalanche of dust erupted and both Luna and I started coughing, trying to clear our mouths and throats of the foreign particles. Eventually, the dust died down and we were both presented with the shocking sight of the top row of bricks having disintegrated; they were nothing but dust now.

The next row underneath them wasn’t intact either; there were cracks over numerous bricks and two of them had been sundered as well.

“That’s quite impressive,” Luna coughed out, staring at the sight. C1 had a neutral expression on her face.

“Did you break any bones?” I asked, worried that might’ve been the case; no regular human should exhibit that much strength.

“Just my fingers but they’ll be fine in a few minutes.” She responded nonchalantly, like it was nothing.

“That’s goo-Wait. You broke your fingers?” I asked, having taken a moment to actually parse what she said. I was reminded of that one time when S1’s arm nearly got torn off. That was actually real?

“Yes. Nothing too serious.”

“It takes you a few minutes to repair broken bones?” I was astounded at this revelation.

“Yes, though it takes longer for larger bones.”

“Is flesh easier to repair than bone, or is it about the same?” I decided to focus my mind on investigating practicals, quantifying the ability, rather than rethinking my perception on my memories.

“They should be about the same since they’re made of the same stuff. Only mass should affect how long it’d take.” C1 replied adeptly.

“My servants get to be invincible and all I get is to live through my fantasies...” Luna grumbled off to the side

Looking down at myself, I was sweaty and now covered in dust. I was in an entirely unpresentable state.

“I really need to shower.”