"Idiot," Reimi hissed, the shotgun racking in her hands like a thunderclap. "Civilian on deck. Protect the luggage!"
"Luggage?!" Julian wheezed, trying to push himself up on his elbows and failing. His face was already a terrifying feverish red, veins popping out on his neck. "I'm the rescue party."
"You're about to be monster chow," Reimi snapped. "Stay down."
I stood there, frozen, hands pressed over my mouth.
The transition from the golden sunset of New Jersey to the rusted twilight nightmare of the Railyard was bad enough. But seeing Julian — my neighbor, my childhood best friend, the guy who let me copy his math notes and sometimes even his homework since the first grade — seeing him lying on the corrupted metal floor was too much.
"Jules!" I screamed, paralysis finally breaking. I scrambled over to him, knees hitting cold steel. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! What are you doing here?! You can't just dive into a dungeon rift like that! It's not a swimming pool!"
"Saw you…" Julian gasped, clutching his chest. His eyes darted around, wide and terrified, fixing on me.
He grabbed my wrist, grip surprisingly weak. "Get back… Maya… she's dangerous…"
I looked up at Reimi. She tilted her head, expression unreadable.
He glared at her, struggling to breathe. "Not… gonna let her… hurt your family…"
My heart broke a little. He thought Reimi was a thug. He thought he was saving me from a shakedown. He dove into literal hell with a baseball bat because he thought I was being bullied and extorted.
"You idiot," I sobbed, squeezing his hand. "She's not mugging me! She's helping!"
He coughed, a wet hacking sound that made my blood run cold. I looked at his neck.
The veins were pulsing, darkening to a bruised unnatural blue.
Reimi was already standing over us. She looked at him with the cold, clinical detachment of a butcher inspecting a side of beef.
"Entropic Saturation," she diagnosed, flat. "The chaos energy in here is too high for a civilian soul without mana cultivation to filter. He has maybe ten minutes before the ambient rot dissolves the sympathetic link between his consciousness and corporeal form. In layman's terms, he's going to melt and turn into a zombie."
"Melt?!" Althea shrieked.
"…Zombie?" Val croaked, blinking.
"Y-You're joking," Linda stammered, though her face was sheet-white.
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Reimi's eyes flashed with that crimson light. "He'll start bleeding from the eyes in about two minutes. Five, he loses motor function. Ten, he's a screaming puddle of viscera and bad decisions. The Miasma is literally un-making him."
"Reimi, fix him! Do you have a — I don't know, a potion? A sci-fi inhaler?" I shouted.
"I have bullets and bandages," Reimi said, straightening up. She looked at Althea. "Topaz. You have a barrier-aligned skill set, do you not? Seal him. Now."
Althea, pale and clutching her designer purse like a shield, nodded frantically. "I can do a containment field! But I need my focus! I can't exactly cast it in a blouse!"
"Then suit up," Reimi barked, turning her back to the darkness. "All of you. We have movement in the perimeter. You have ten to twenty seconds before the first wave hits."
"Right!" I jumped up, wiping my eyes.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Star Heart — a faceted pink crystal compact that fit in the palm of my hand. "Okay girls! Formation time!"
Alfie and Linda shared a giggle, and then they spread out to the ends, Val and me in the middle.
Reimi blinked at us. Then palmed her face, groaning. It was a long, suffering sound. "Just… hurry up."
"We need it for our full power!" I protested, holding the crystal high. The familiar rush of energy came through, the warm hum of the magic waiting to be let out. "Ready?"
"Ready!" Val, Linda, and Althea shouted in unison, pulling out their own gems.
"🌟 Star Prism Power… Make Up! 🌟"
For three seconds, the gloomy rusted horror of the Railyard was bathed in blinding rainbow light. Sparkles exploded outward. Ribbons of energy wove around us, defying the physics of the grime-covered world, replacing cargo pants and tank tops with the glittering frilled armor of the Starshine Prisms.
I landed in my pose, skirt fluttering, the Star Scepter gripped in my hand.
"The Pink Light of Hope! Star Morganite!"
"The Golden Shield of Justice! Star Topaz!"
"The Red Hammer of Passion! Star Ruby!"
"The Blue Sight of Truth! Star Sapphire!"
We posed. The light faded.
[Congratulations! By performing the full transformation sequence, all team members gain a +10% temporary boost to [Mana Affinity] and a minor [Charisma] boost!]
Reimi stood five feet away, leaning against a floating train car, checking the action on her shotgun. She looked at us with an expression of soul-crushing disappointment.
"Wow," she deadpanned. "Are all of you done?"
"Every bit helps," I huffed, adjusting my tiara.
"Topaz," Reimi ordered. "The boy."
Althea nodded, stepping forward. Her golden armor clinked softly. She raised her buckler, the large amber gem in the center glowing warm and bright as she scooped Julian up under one arm.
"Golden Sanctuary!"
A structure of translucent golden hexagons materialized around Julian, locking together like a puzzle until they formed an airtight geode. Julian slumped against the golden wall, chest heaving as the filtered magic stabilized into breathable air.
"He's stable," Reimi said. "But he's not safe. That dome filters the entropy, but it runs off her Mana."
She pointed at Althea. "If you run dry, the dome pops. If the dome pops, your baggage dies."
"How long do we have?" Linda asked, voice tight. Already sweating.
Reimi eyed the thickness of the fog. "At her level? Maybe twenty minutes before she passes out from exhaustion."
"Twenty minutes?!" Linda shrieked, clutching her glaive. "We can't clear a dungeon in twenty minutes! The exploration guide says finding the core of a standard D-Rank dungeon takes three hours!" Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
"Then we don't explore," Reimi said, turning toward the dark maze. "We hunt. We find the Core, we shatter it, and the dimension collapses. Move."
She started walking.
"I'll take point!" I announced, stepping forward.
I felt powerful in my magic dress. I was a Magical Girl. I could handle this. Totally.
"I'll lead the way!"
Reimi's hand clamped onto my shoulder. It was like being grabbed by a hydraulic press. She spun me around.
"Look at me," she commanded.
I looked.
And I stopped breathing.
Reimi's eyes — they...
The irises were gone. In their place, burning jagged rings of red light, swirling against a burning sclera. They didn't look like eyes. They looked like holes burning through paper, staring into a furnace. The eyes of a wolf staring at a rabbit.
She scanned me up and down. It felt like she was stripping the skin off my bones, reading the marrow.
"Soft," she murmured. Her voice sounded distorted, like gravel grinding in a mixer. "Porous. Low density. This is why your level is so low relative to your baseline."
"W-what?" I stammered, shrinking back.
"Your Aura," she said, tapping my chest plate with a gloved finger. "You haven't learned to reinforce yourself properly. You're coasting on passive enhancements."
She physically shoved me behind Valentina.
"You are not a duelist," Reimi growled, the creepy red light in her eyes fading back to normal dark brown as she blinked. "You are Artillery. Artillery does not stand on the front lines. Artillery stands behind the armor and rains hell. Do not let anything touch you."
Then she dragged Valentina to the front by the ear.
"Hey!" Valentina protested, flailing. "I usually watch Topaz's six! That's our formation!"
"Not today," Reimi barked. "Topaz is the ambulance. She can't move fast. You are the bumper. Morganite blows them up. Sapphire keeps overwatch. Move."
We moved.
The Gloom got thicker as we went deeper. Heavy oily fog, copper and old batteries. Massive rusted train cars floated weightlessly a few feet off the ground, chained together by glowing red veins.
"Movement," Reimi said softly. "Three targets. Nine o'clock."
I looked. Shadows peeled away from the rusted metal.
They looked like wolves, but wrong. Twisted rebar, jagged scrap, dripping black oil. Their eyes were burning red LEDs.
Linda's Sapphire Lens overlaid my vision.
[ENEMY: SCRAP-HOUND (LVL 16)]
Three of them.
The lead hound lunged — a blur of metal and claws.
"I got it!" I shouted. "I'll blast it!"
I raised my wand, the Prismatic Lens humming. I started the chant for my strongest spell.
"Oh, Starlight that guides the —"
Something hard wrapped around my waist.
My legs buckled. I fell, my aim jerking skyward. The spell fizzled in a shower of harmless sparks.
The hound snapped its jaws exactly where my head had been a second ago. The sound of metal teeth slamming together made my stomach flip.
"Too. Slow!" Reimi yelled. She stepped over me, picking me up. "That chant is too long! That hound covers twenty meters in two seconds! Do the math!"
"I —"
"Don't use the finisher!" Reimi barked, clubbing the hound away with the stock of her gun. "Use the basics!"
"Right! Basic! Fast!" I scrambled up.
I pointed my wand again. No poetry. No flowery chant. Just panic.
"Prism Bolt!"
Pew-pew-pew!
Three shards of pink hard-light shot out. They weren't massive beams, but they were fast. They slammed into the hound's metal flank — ping, ping, ping — staggering it.
"Ruby! Crush it!" Reimi ordered.
Valentina dashed forward, gauntlet glowing. "Molten Impact!" She smashed the staggered hound into scrap.
The next two hounds were on us.
"Azure Stun!" Linda chanted, firing a thin blue laser from her lens. The laser cut through the fog and struck one of the hounds in its LED eye. The hound whirred and sputtered, stumbling.
Val followed up immediately, leaping into the air and drop-kicking it into the ground.
"Nice!" I cheered, trying to find a target.
The last one jumped.
It sailed through the air, claws outstretched, heading straight for Linda.
She screamed and threw up her hands.
KA-THUNK!
The floor shuddered.
Reimi put her boot on the hound's head, aimed her shotgun, and pulled the trigger.
KA-BOOM!
The hound's head exploded in a shower of sparks and shrapnel. The body twitched, then went still.
Silence.
"Anyone hurt?" Reimi asked, calmly reloading. A fresh red shell slid into the chamber with a satisfying click.
She glanced back at Alfie.
"Four minutes gone," she said. "The moron is running out of air. Pick up the pace."
We went deeper. The landscape twisted. The floating trains started to look like they were breathing. The red veins connecting them pulsed, and the air got thicker, colder. Like we were walking into the stomach of some giant mechanical beast.
"Status?" I snapped, head on a swivel.
"No visual on the Core," Linda reported, her Sapphire Lens glowing against her face. "It's buried deep. The weird energy is messing with my scans. It's like… static."
"K-keep looking," I said. "We're running out of —"
Something pulsed.
I stumbled, catching myself on a floating rail. The metal felt slick, humming with energy that made my teeth ache.
A deep red mist bled from the veins in the space around us. It seeped and pooled, coalescing in sickening clumps.
"Agh…" Reimi grunted.
"Reimi?" Valentina spun around, red gauntlet raised and glowing. "What is it? More monsters?"
She didn't answer. Her shotgun fell from her hands, clattering to the metal floor with a deafening clang. Her whole body went rigid. Her knees buckled, and she crumpled to her hands and knees.
"Reimi!" I shrieked, rushing to her side.
"Whoa, whoa, okay," Althea said, voice shaking. "Easy there. Did something — I dunno — bite you?"
I grabbed her shoulder. Her muscles were locked, spasming under my touch. "Reimi, what's wrong? Talk to me!"
She tried to push herself up, arm trembling violently. She collapsed again, forehead hitting the metal deck with a sickening thud.
"Is it the Miasma?" Linda asked, voice a high-pitched squeak. "Is it affecting her too?"
I looked at her. A cold dread crept into my stomach.
Her face was pale, forehead slick with sweat. Shaking. Entire body trembling uncontrollably. She looked like she was in agony.
"Reimi…" I whispered. "What's wrong?"
"Get… back," she gasped, pushing me away with a weak hand.
"Hold the line, Akane," she muttered. Her voice was unrecognizable. Soft. Terrified. Young. "Don't let them flank… Kaito, get back…"
"Reimi?" I took a step toward her. "Who is Kaito?"
She whipped her head around.
I gasped.
Her eyes were wide, blown pupils swallowing the iris. She looked through me. Past me.
She looked like she was seeing a ghost standing right behind my shoulder.
"Get out of my head," she hissed, clutching her temples as a pistol manifested in her hand in a swirl of shadows.
"Holy shinies," Althea whispered from inside her barrier. "Is she okay?"
"She's not even here," I said. A cold knot forming in my stomach. "She's seeing things."
"Why is it hitting her so hard?!" Linda shouted.
A foghorn blast shook the ground.
The mist ahead parted. Blocking the tracks was a massive construct. A golem made entirely of railway signals and crossing lights, all glowing a hateful burning red. Four arms made of twisted track. Hovering silently in the fog.
It turned its main light toward us. A beam of red scanned the group and landed on the golden geode where Julian was trapped.
Reimi swayed again.
"Unit Zero-Zero-Four…" she mumbled, knees buckling. "Reporting…"
She slumped against a floating shipping container, sliding down until she was sitting in the dust, breathing hard, her gun hanging limp in her hand.
We were alone.
Julian was trapped in a bubble running out of battery. Our invincible escort was hallucinating in the corner.
I gripped my wand. My hands were shaking.
"Ruby," I shouted, voice cracking. "Intercept! Topaz, keep that shield up! Sapphire, find me a weak point!"
"Maya?" Valentina yelled back, terrified. "What about Reimi?!"
"Reimi's down!" I screamed, stepping in front of the golden dome. "We have to hold the line!"