Perry stood at the edge of nothing.

Inches in front of him was pure blackness. The sheer size of the dome seemed to swallow the horizon and blot out the sun when standing this close to it, demonstrating the sheer power of whoever, or whatever had created it.

“You know, you don’t have any family on the other side,” Perry said, glancing over at Heather beside him. “You don’t have to risk getting vaporized.”

“Shut up, nerd,” Heather muttered. “I’m doing this because I wanna…save the city or some shit like that.” She shot them a sneaky glance.

“How magnanimous.” Perry said, taking Heather’s hand and Natalie’s tiny one. Those two in turn took the hands of the supers on either side of them, who in turn linked with the hands of people further down the line, ensuring they would all land at the same moment, and hopefully not get separated in case the interior was more dangerous than they expected.

Every other super in the chain had loved ones inside the bounds of the black hemisphere, and they’d taken no urging to dive into possible death head-first.

Because if their families were dead, what would be the point of surviving? If they were alive, could they live with themselves for not doing anything about their predicament?

“Alright, on three.” Conducter Walther’s voice carried over the assembled line. Through his speaker.

“One.”’

Perry took a deep breath.

“Two.”

Perry exhaled.

“Three.”

“Perry closed his eyes and –

***

“Alright, Natalie,” The host of Hammers of Love said, holding the microphone close to his face and whispering conspiratorially, for the audience’s benefit.

Perry stood on platform three, his palms sweating like crazy. Heather and him were the only ones still suspended, while all the other dates had already descended back into the audience, sans-rose.

Heather was to his left on number one, sending Perry the occasional death-glance. The amount of roses they’d accumulated was equal, but this was the tiebreaker.

“We’re down to the last choice,” Gerome stage-whispered. “And because this choice is so important, we’re going to make the Companion bonus for your weapon much more powerful. Instead of a simple stat bonus, we’re going to add abilities.”

Gerome pointed at Perry.

“If you choose Perry, your creation will have a growth mechanic, and be repairable with any material. Even the dirt on the ground. Boring and simple, like our boy here, but undoubtedly powerful and utilitarian.”

He pointed at Heather. “If you choose Heather, your creation will have a transformation mechanic, allowing you to turn it into whatever the opponent is weakest against, along with a substantially higher critical hit ratio. Difficult to use, and high maintenance, but very high performance, like a sexy sports car.”

“So, who will it be?” Gerome asked, pausing as Natalie turned pale and clutched the rose in her hand until she began shaking.

“Umm…”

“Remember, this is the last time you can have someone help you out with your prototype before we move onto adventure mode. The winner of this round will automatically be assigned to your party, while the losers will be on their own.”

“I don’t want anybody to be on their own, though?” Natalie said, clutching the one rose to her chest nervously.

“In life, sometimes you gotta make a decision. You can’t choose two companions.” Gerome said with a shrug before turning to the audience, a few hundred people sitting in the bleachers. Here, let’s help Natalie out. What does the audience think? Who’s the better choice to ‘help out’ our contestant spirit smith full-time?”

Gerome held out the microphone towards the audience and people began to shout their names, the audience seemingly split between chanting ‘Heather’ and ‘Perry’.

“Come on, audience, you’re really gonna have to speak up if you want us to tell who Natalie should pick.”

The chanting redoubled, but it still seemed to be split, all the while, the tiny blacksmith was growing more and more nervous, wiping her palms off on her sooty apron as she glanced around between Perry and Heather.

“You can pick Heather,” Perry said over the audience with a shrug. “She would take rejection a lot worse than I would.”

“Bullshit!” Heather shouted. “That’s reverse psychology if I’ve ever seen it! Choose Perry, he’d the rest of his life moping otherwise. I’ll be the better person here and be selfless by suggesting you go with someone else…Making me the more appealing choice.”

Perry buried his head in his hand and laughed.

“Umm…” Natalie said, the flower twisting in her grip as she unconsciously wrung it out.

Perry’s attention was wrenched away from the situation by a high-pitched, ululating cry, as a woman dressed in a scandalously tattered formal gown and a huge velvet hat with a giant peacock plume in it swung down from the rafters on a pink rope studded with crimson hearts.

The buxom woman was wearing a heart-shaped mask, but it was obviously Sophie.

“The Musketeer of Love has arrived!” Sophie shouted, swiping at the rose in Natalie’s hand with a rapier and severing it into two halves, swinging back into the audience on her rope before security could catch up to her.

Sophie landed in the bleachers and began running away full tilt, her shredded clothes and peacock feather fluttering behind her.

“Umm…” Natalie looked down at the two halves, in front of her, a stem with a minuscule amount of flower, and most of a flower. She picked them up and sheepishly stepped forward, offering them.

“I’ll have the head. You can take the bottom,” Heather said, snatching the flower portion out of Nat’s hand.

Does this count? Perry thought, inspecting the stem portion, which was practically ninety percent of the whole, albeit less pretty.

A moment later, Gerome was standing beside them, the dark-skinned host clearing his throat and straightening his immaculate suit. The man’s expression was clouded as he inspected the results of Sophie’s interference, running his fingers through his wavy hair.

“Hmm…That was unscripted. Several of my security team got sexily incapacitated by a scantily-clad vigilante. It violates several insurance policies, and goes totally against the rules of this show… you can’t pick two companions.” He loomed over them, his expression thunderous.

Suddenly the host broken into a huge grin, spreading his arms.

“But I’ll be damned if it wasn’t entertaining! You can both help Natalie with her task! Why not!? I’ll have to offset the boost in power with a little personnel reshuffling later, but improvisation is as natural to me as breathing!”

“Thank goodness.” Natalie said, breathing out a huge sigh of relief.

“I wonder if I should make that woman an actual contestant, or if she’d be more valuable to the ratings as a regular disruption. Maybe I could even make a role specifically for her…” Gerome muttered to himself for a moment before he noticed them watching him expectantly.”

“Ah, right. I think by this point, you kids all know your way to the forge, take the winner’s hand and guide them to the forge.” Gerome said, motioning to the hall that would lead to Natalie’s workshop.

Once they were there, they would pray over her work allowing her to imbue a little of their personality and power into the blades she created. Natalie was a Spirit Smith, after all.

Having gone through so many rounds together on the show, Perry knew that this last sword would be unlike anything she’d ever made before.

Perry was excited to see how it turned out.

Skin brushed against the back of his hand before Natalie slipped her fingers into his grip, blushing hard. She grabbed Heather’s hand too, and began awkwardly marching toward the forge.

Together, the three of them walked down the empty hallway in silence, approaching the forge, where Natalie would create a magical crystallization of the three of them.

Almost like a child, in a way.

Thump, thump, Perry’s heart began hammering like Natalie’s hammer on the anvil.

Squeak, squeak, squeak.

Suddenly Perry heard the squeak of plastic on rubber, and spotted a young man rolling a mop-bucket through the back halls of the game show.

He was easily six-foot-six, and built like a bunker, with huge meat-fingers that were almost as big as two of theirs. He was humming contentedly as he pushed the bucket along, dancing with surprising grace as he took the mop out of the bucket and began sliding it across the floor, treating it as his partner.

His ears were stuffed with a pair of earbuds.

“Hey Brendon,”

“Hey Perry, Nat, Heather.” Brendon said, as he mopped the floor, tugging the earbuds out of his ears. “How’s the new job?”

“What new job?” Perry asked, frowning.

“You’ve been on a lot of gameshows the last couple months. I was figuring you guys were like producers or some kind of professional contestant. The one where the whole city played king of the hill around all of Franklin was my favorite, I think. I love king-of-the-hill.”

“This Bachelor knock-off with Nat was fun, but I already knew the outcome the whole time, because, I mean, come on, it’s you three, and Sophie kept telling me she was gonna cut the flower in two because, and I quote, ‘those dating shows are a cruel mockery of real human relationships, and breed nothing but discontent and drama for the audience to feel pleasure at other’s misery’.”

“What?” Perry asked, frowning. “What do you mean the last couple months?”

“Oh shit, I just realized. I could have won so much money if I’d bet on this happening.” Brendon then shrugged. “Ah well, I guess that would be me taking advantage, and Sophie says that’s bad, so easy come, easy go I guess.”

“What was that about a couple months?” Heather asked.

“I can’t talk,” Brendon said, stuffing the earbuds in. “Gerome is paying me a grand to clean up the entire studio before the transition, and that’s a hell of a deal, but I’m on a tight schedule.”

“Wai-“ Nat’s voice died in her throat as Brendon began dancing away from them, pushing the mop in front of himself, walking like an Egyptian.

“Can anyone remember what we were doing before we started this…dating…smithing…game show?” Perry asked.

Heather and Nat shook their heads.

“Does anyone know why we care so much about winning this stupid contest?” Heather asked. “I mean, aside from getting Nat as the prize.”

“How do I know how to blacksmith?” Nat asked. “I don’t…remember how I learned.”

“Penguin soup,” Perry muttered scratching his head.

“Penguin soup,” Heather said, nodding.

“Penguin soup.” Nat sighed.

“How do we know we actually like each other, then?” Heather asked, pointing at Perry. “Something in my gut tells me that he’s more suitable as a punching bag than a love interest.”

“You’re okay, though,” She said, patting Nat on the head.

“Nah, nah, Brendon knew all three of us, and treated us like friends. I think we all know him, at the very least, and he didn’t seem surprised to see the three of us hanging out.” Perry said.

“So? What if he’s the Minder?” Heather asked.

“Well, then he wouldn’t have let it slip, would he?” Perry said.

“He said something about a transition.” Natalie said, rubbing her chin.

“He also mentioned a bunch of previous shows.” Heather said.

“Which stands to reason there’s going to be a next one.” Perry said.

“So if we’re getting mind-wiped, how do we send a message to ourselves?” Natalie asked. “And more importantly, how do we get out of…whatever is going on?”

“If everything’s getting reset, there’s no way. I mean, there’s the possibility this mysterious Minder can either reset our bodies entirely or bring us to an entirely different location each time, making leaving a message extremely difficult.”

“The sword!” Perry said, snapping his fingers. “We can leave a message on the sword! Gerome said he would have to shuffle personnel around to accommodate for the sword’s power ‘later’, meaning that whatever happens in the ‘later’ will include the sword.”

“You think Gerome has something to do with this?” Heather scoffed. “Not too freaking likely. He’s harmless. He fixed up my parent’s relationship. You can imagine how hard that was.

“Yeah, I don’t think Gerome would do this, Perry.” Natalie said. “He literally saved my life and my parent’s lives, like, a hundred times.

“Hey, I’m not saying that either.” Perry protested. “There’s no way I would ever distrust Gerome. I owe him just as much,” Perry held up a finger. “But. His words indicate that ‘later’ includes the sword. Maybe he’s being manipulated too, but it’s the only thing we have to go on.”

Heather raised a brow and glanced between Perry and Natalie.

“I guess it’s worth a shot.” Heather said.

“Agreed.”

“Alright,” Perry said, leading them in a trot towards the forge. “Heather, you pour your anger and bitterness about being manipulated into it, I’ll pour my stubborn will to resist having my destiny chosen for me.”

“I’ll add how much I like you guys!” Natalie said brightly. When they all looked at her, she shrugged. “You gotta offset all those negative emotions you’re talking about or it’ll come out cursed, obviously. This isn’t my first Spirit smithing rodeo…although it might be.”

“How do you know liking us is real?” Perry asked.

“Oh, it’s real. I can tell,” Nat said as she adjusted her apron and grabbed a pair of tongs. “Hand me that ten-sixty bar of mithril, and the springwood, and the Form-steel, please. We’re going to focus on corrosion resistance, toughness, healing, resurgence, freedom, and resilience rather than simple sharpness, to fit with the theme of breaking free of control.”

“Alright, ladies,” Perry said as he handed her the materials and Heather heated up the forge. “Let’s pour our heart and soul into making this sword the most excellent Mcguffin that has ever been devised.”

Now I just need to think of a message to send ourselves, Perry thought, thumbing his chin.