“Here's the bunkhouse. That room over yonder has lockers where you can stow your stuff, once you get any.” Nautical Wedding Manyana pulled out an Anchor Sliver and held it out to Vanna. “Here's one to get you started. I always keep an Anchor Sliver or forty on me for good luck. Everybody else keeps them around because they can't be bothered to get rid of them. Ah, what a beautiful sight was that Cadmos Dome made entirely out of anchor-related items. Too bad it's gone. Who knew Gold and Dynamite had so much dynamite?” She lowered her voice and sidled closer. “They say that if you hitch your horses to a wrought-anchor post outside for to spend the night, make sure you sleep soundly. Because one traveler woke up and heard a voice saying, 'Water . . . need water . . .' Well, in dry lands like that, of course he didn't see anything strange about being asked for water, but when he reached for his canteen . . .”

“Did October sneak up on me while I was napping? Not likely. It's early July. A little early for that kind of talk, eh?” Crown After Crown cantered in, passed the pair, and curled up on a cushion in the corner.

“The spookiness is less expected that way. What's wrong with that?”

While Manyana and Crown discussed the etiquette of horror, Team Plushy piled into their luxurious club. The ruling aesthetic was “cushy,” and everything lived up to that. Initially some argued for “plushy,” but Lynissia's koala costume made anywhere she went satisfy that requirement, they judged. With a complete set of triple-stuffed pillows, quadruple-stuffed cushions, and a few beanbags for the adventurous, the bungalow offered comfort not to be found in the regular lounges and certainly not the Outer Darkness for non-humanoid officers, which was appointed with stalls and piles of sad hay.

“Well, now that most of us are here, let's all agree that I'm right, why don't we, and break in our new initiate? Vanna. Jad. Albrulin. Did I get that right?”

“Yehuh.”

“Great.” Crown After Crown relaxed, not that the others noticed. Only he must ever know how nervous he had been about the possibility of whiffing that one. “How'd you like to try a little spar with Lynissia, right here? Just a couple of exchanges so we can see what's what.”

“I'm only level 1. That's the thing.”

“Won't matter.” Crown grinned. So did Manyana, and Wilma Greenhill, and Crusher Domingo, and everyone there except Vanna and Lynissia.

“All right.” Vanna took up her iconic one-legged fighting stance that had made her a legend among Commandment of Hero's foot-centric community before she even came out and waited. But not for long. Lynissia sprung out of her chair and lifted her sign into guard position, her knees bent, feet spaced, and koala head drooping over her real face. She tried to blow it away, but she might as easily have blown away the ocean to reveal the ruins of sunken Atlantis.

The combatants stood facing each other, motionless save for the tensing of muscles and for their eyes that darted every direction so as not to miss a single twitch. Sweat trickled from Vanna's forehead. She licked her lips and tasted salt. “Aaaaaah!” She released that window-shattering war cry and dashed forward to rub her nose in artificial koala fur. “Just so adorable!”

The rest of the team laughed, giggled, or snorted. “That's the usual reaction,” Crown After Crown said. “And what a hitch in our training plans it is, since we haven't found a good sparring partner yet. Cadmos claims he beat Lynie in the Enzet Games, but I don't believe him. May have been that it happened in a cutscene. Regardless, that's our worry these days, eh?”

“Have Cadmos do it. Or have you tried that? Did he turn you down? He must be a heartless individual if he can fight seriously against Lynissia.”

“Hahaha! Gyuck! Oh, I think I broke something.” Spenito Niu collapsed. Amid all that, Crown After Crown assured Vanna they were laughing not at her, and not really with her either, and that she, too, would laugh if she remembered what she just said in a few months, give or take.

Then the least-laughingest officer strode through the door, though not before he opened it. A stern mien and the savage furs of conquered beasts told all that Otsk V. Zops was there, and he held a pamphlet he lifted high for everyone to read. Not too high, though. He was aware how his height compared to theirs. The observational skills of hunters!

“OUR CHANCE is YOUR CHANCE! Furious Galaxy will soon be turned into A MOBA and we need help to practice for it! All characters are invited to play the role of common enemies. WE THINK THESE ARE CALLED CREEPS. No insult intended. We will feed you! Details at the spaceport. HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!”

“Do we want to . . .” Xentas got that far before everyone else aside from Otsk made it out the door. “Otsk V. Zops. Sometimes I begin to think that I'm a bit slow-witted.”

Otsk shook his mighty head. “Too polite. That's all.”

“I don't believe there's any such thing. After you.” Xentas waited for the hunter to pass through, exited, and closed the door softly.

Furious Galaxy! The galaxy part displayed itself in countless stars visible in the clear night, each one of them a hundred battlefields where powerful fleets and talented crews contested every space inch. The furious part came when players gave battle to the gacha. There was only one field for that, and only one victor.

The Furious Galaxy spaceport had been expanded into the largest in the pan-ludic empire as a point of pride. Its terminals had sub-terminals and its shuttles had connecting flights. Tankers circulated ceaselessly to fuel up a Lepanto-class carrier scheduled to transport a single slayer who wanted to see if Calamity Online lived up to the name or a Borgia-class stealth ship slated to smuggle oranges out of Furious Galaxy and back into Paradise the Enchant where they had been grown in the first place. Artificial activity is still activity, the Vosok Collective's most-published economists assured the rest of FG.

Among all the disembarking passengers from a million games, which the upper chamber of the assembly had adopted as the official count rather than the forty-ish non-dead games in the cluster, Team Plushy saw a familiar art style. Besides Metatron's, that is. “Blow me down with a fan, isn't that one of our, uh, what do you call them? The weak ones but not the weakest?”

“Rares?”

Crown After Crown clapped Yutak Zvolo on the shoulder. “Rares, yes, that's the term. Isn't that one of those there? She stands out because of her, uh, I'm not sure what it is, but she's distinct somehow.” Ragnel pointed at her own head, and Crown slapped his. “That's it! She's the blonde one.”

“Is she the only blonde among the silvers? That's all the more reason not to be one,” Spenito Niu said as he played with one of his glorious yellow curls.

The other Plushies shrugged. “Regardless, let's make contact.” Crown After Crown trotted forward, calling out, “Hey! Rare! You with the bow and the hair!”

An archer twirled about in response, her long, blonde hair framing her like a radiant, whole-body halo and her smile as dazzling as somebody shining a light in your eyes so his accomplice can pick your pocket without being noticed. “I hope you're talking to me, since I have both of those things,” Sindze U. Radalo answered.

“I'd never want to speak to anyone else as long as you're around. Heh. Did you come here to take part in the MOBA trials too?”

“I most assuredly did!”

“Neighborly of you, very community minded. We're here for selfish reasons, I'm afraid, aren't we? To find out if Lynie can't get a little battle experience against some opponents too busy denying and last-hitting to have any scruples. Never thought I'd say officers have too many scruples! Ha ha ha!”

“Ha ha!”

Somewhere, fifteen other Rares suffered assaults of goosebumps, chills, and dawning epistemological crises out of the blue, but none of the officers there knew to be disturbed by Sindze's merry laughter, as light as a fairy's footstep and as genuine as envy for Hilliarde Feablas's overstuffed Skill Star. Instead they invited her to join them as a fellow Commandmenter of Hero. She did so and guided them through the nest of terminals and customs stations as if she were a native.

“And thiiiis, if you're not too sad about leaving the port already, is the special terminal for the helixtrain route that's been extended to the test site they just set up, which was fast work if you ask me. Really, don't you think the entire Construction ministry is just the best? We should declare a pan-ludic assembly just to praise it!” Sindze U. Radalo bubbled all over the place as she herded the group over to the platform.

“I've seen trains before out past the warehouses, but never have I seen a track like that.” Crusher Domingo gave the rail before them the squinty eye, as any traditionalist would. At no point did it touch the ground; steps wide and tall led to the platform that served the midair track. Even less to his taste, the rail shunned straightness, the one advantage of land so far as he reckoned, in its preference to spiral through the air like an ill-made paper airplane.

“Just a thought, but maybe that's the helix part. Just kidding! I knew that the whole time. I can explain how it operates if you think that might ameliorate your anxiety. I know how it is to get worked up about things and be surrounded by just the most awful, self-indulgent, incapable, moronic . . . Oh! The train's here!”

The sleek, futuristic vehicle screamed in at an unreasonable velocity and stopped dead in less than half a second, all with no damage done to its own structure or that of the helix. As for the passengers, well, they should have known better. A few scattered visitors saw that and decided to check when the next flight out of Furious Galaxy would be, but the greater part of the crowd on the platform, less timorous, shoved them inside to use them as extra padding, proving once again that a course once chosen is difficult to abandon when social pressure is involved.