Ride on, Shooting Star - 1.2

In my dreams, I was with my brother and his mom in Virtuoso, the capital city built around the base of a mountain, with a large white castle sitting high above a waterfall that pours out to either side. The grass was green, the trees were tall and sweet smelling, and everyone looked happy.

The royal guard was awarding Aaron for another feat of insane magic he performed at the young age of eighteen: an energy beam that could break a shield barrier, teleporting across the city without exhaustion. A real man with the stamina and magical prowess to match his body; muscular and strong, kind and gentle, the type of man anybody would want at their side.

Then, shadows rained down from the sky: monsters made of darkness shaped like animals cobbled together to form chimera beasts attack. The Queen has disappeared and chaos breaks loose. Panic takes over the ceremony, and the people scream and run, only to fall victim to the shadow beasts streaming down without end.

Aaron has to help the guard protect the city, but it’s too much for him.

He’s swallowed by the beasts, torn limb from limb right in front of me. Spraying blood, screaming bodies, and I, filled with a new emptiness that no amount of pain or torture could compare. My legs give in beneath me, pieces of the world fall off into nothingness below, and all I can do is watch the carnage go on.

They get his mother, they get the guards, and finally, they turn on me. Slowly surrounding me, creeping closer, taking their time, covered in gore and dripping from the slaughter. What can I do? Should I fight, should I run, is there any way I can get away?

Why… why bother getting away? Aaron is gone, my life feels so… without my brother, I—

“Dawn, dinner!”

I woke up in a drowsy haze.

With the sand in my eyes and the dryness in my mouth, the shadows dispelled from my head. They’d be back eventually. They always come back.

My body still hurt, but at least the headache was mostly gone, and I didn’t feel as bad as I did on the way home. I rose from our bunk bed at Dad’s call and put some pajamas on. Maybe eating something will wake me up.

At least, I hoped it would. The vague idea of all those people being ripped to pieces still lingered in the back of my mind, especially… No, that just can’t be right. Even if he wasn’t a trained soldier, he could still fight, right? He was better at magic than everybody here, he wouldn’t just go down like that—Ugh, get out of my head!

Trying to rub the nightmare out of my eyes, I made my way down the stairs and turned the corner into the kitchen. For a minute there, I thought I saw the Biker Bitch at my dinner table.

Then, after rubbing my eyes again, she was still there. Sitting at the table. Talking to Dad.

Why is she here? Why did he let her in? Does he know her? Does she know him?

Who is she? What the hell!?

“Aah! B-Biker Bitch!”

I found myself pointing my hand at her. I wasn’t even prepared for words to come out.

They’re eating noodles? Dad hates noodle bowls. Why would he be eating noodles?

“Oh, hi, honey,” Dad said, nonchalantly ignoring my exclamation. “This is… an old friend of mine. She’s in a bit of a bind, so I’m letting her stay with us for the time being.”

I couldn’t imagine how my face looked. There wasn’t one word for what I was feeling, and I was really bad at hiding my emotions under stress. This was more stress than anyone could handle.

My mouth struggled for speech. “An old friend!? What’s wrong with you!? She’s been running around all morning hitting people with a motorcycle!”

The giantess, expertly wielding chopsticks, sucked up some of her steaming noodles, then turned her eyes on me. Big green rings speckled with gold all along them, looked at me like she was the predator and I was the prey.

“Motorcycle, please,” she brushed the comment aside. “I ride only the best. That’s a custom Y2K edition Arian Classic, thank you very much. There’s not another bike in the world like mine.”

She pointed to the corner of the dining room, and I had to move closer to the table to see that she had actually brought her bike inside the house! “How did you even get that in here!? Who cares what kind of bike it is!? Why are you in my house!? She had to have hit you this morning too, didn’t she?” I moved over to the head of the table to make sure. “Dad, is your head okay?”

“No, no, we’ve known each other for years, Dawn,” he said, all jolly like somebody reminiscing about the good ‘ol days. “She uh… ya know, is in a bind, and we’re gonna help her out for the time being. Just because she has—” he searched for the right phrase “—eccentric hobbies doesn’t mean she’s a bad person. Come on, eat! It’ll get cold.”

“You call vehicular manslaughter eccentric!?” There’s no way I make it out of this evening without less hair on my head. By force or extreme duress.

Dad shrugged, as if that was enough of a response, and then the Biker Bitch picked up some more noodles with chopsticks in her magic and fed them to Dad. He sucked them up greedily, but a green onion was stuck on his chin. The giantess eagerly leaned in and licked it off his face, going so far as to suck his lip into hers before she pulled away, leaving a trail of spit coming off of Dad.

If it was possible, my jaw would’ve hit the floor.

“Oh Ray, dear, you’re such a messy eater! I can’t trust you to keep clean, so maybe I’ll do it myself.” Her voice at that moment could only be described as the physical embodiment of a heart emoji.

What the fuck is going on?

“Solei, please, not in front of Dawn,” Dad said with a giggle.

This is not real. This cannot be happening. She cannot be real.

“What the fuck?”

“Come now, Sunset, I made dinner for everybody!” She handed me a carton full of hot soup. “It’s your favorite, instant ramen!”

“My name is Dawn! D-A-W-N! How many people have to tell you that before you get it!?”

“Sunset, honey, don’t get upset with Solei. She only wants to be friends with you.”

“Oh my Goddess, Dad, what the fuck?”

The giantess lulled her head to the side with an easy smile, pointed at me. “Dawn, don’t rain on Ray’s parade. What’s a lonely, thirty-somethings man to do when a woman like me runs him over?”

“He—!” My body stiffened. “You! Both of you!”

“Dawn, your dinner is going to get cold,” Dad began in some disapproving ‘fatherly’ tone. “Solei went to such an effort to make it for you. You can’t turn down her hospitality like that.”

“This is our house! She hit me in the face with a bass!”

“You mean… this bass?” The Biker Bitch snapped her fingers and a fish popped out of nothing in her golden magic.

Perhaps I was just having a stroke, and this was all some pre-death hallucination. Thirteen is old enough for cardiac arrest, right? This isn’t real, is it?

But, I couldn’t resist. The insanity had me in its clutches and it wouldn’t let go. “Just because the word is spelled the same…”

“Wow, impressive as ever!” Dad gave her a round of applause. “Where’d you find that, Solei?”

“Oh, you know, I just pulled it out of the Ambient on my way here.” She threw the living creature in the air for it to flail around, only to be snapped back to whence it came. “Can you believe the speed limits in this town? They want me to do less than sixty everywhere I go. That’s just ridiculous.”

I could feel my teeth grinding together. “It’s a safety concern so people like you don’t run over other people!”

“What?” Solei reared her head back and looked at me in disbelief, like there’s some world out there where I’m the odd one out. “How am I supposed to run people over if I’m not going fast enough?”

“Oh my Goddess.”

“You keep saying that, honey,” Dad added. “Maybe we should get you some extra materials so you can expand your vocabulary.”

“I have no words.”

“Speaking of my sister,” the Biker Bitch began, “how is the government these days?”

Dad put an elbow on the table and cradled his chin with his hand. “Oh, you know, space this, space that. The Queen is so concerned about space that she wants to start moving people to other planets within the next few years. Don’t know how she’s going to do that, but you never know what Luna will do when she’s got her mind set on something.”

Interested, even with a sort of devious look on her face, the Biker Bitch tilted her head. “Well, surely you’ve heard some details, Ray; I’d like to hear them.”

I had reached my limit and decided that it was best to just take the cup of ramen and go back upstairs while they carried on as if I was never there.

She’s an old friend? How did they meet? When did they meet? What business does a giant shapely blonde bimbo like her have with my father!? Goddess, this is all so absurd.

How come he’s never looked that happy around us? Their laughter is like a cheese grater shredding off my ears! Goddess, what the fuck.

I don’t understand her, I don’t understand him, I don’t understand anything.

I finished the ramen, which wasn’t really all that great but was still filling enough that I didn’t want to go back to sleep, even after I was so drained from whatever the hell has been going on today.

Nothing made sense. How did she even get that bike in here? Did she go through the yard and bring it in through the sliding door in the dining room? Even if she did that, it shouldn’t have fit; those handlebars are crazy wide—the back tire on that thing is almost as big as I am! It just shouldn’t fit!

I couldn’t focus on my homework and I couldn’t focus on the book I’d been reading, so I decided to turn on the Gamestation.

Before he left, Aaron and I would always sit here and play together. He was always better than me at everything, but I never cared about that. I just wanted to spend time with him. I always liked Bash Bros, but I was never as good as him or Poppie. It was only recently that I started catching up to her in this game, but I suppose that’s because I have the time to practice now. Aaron used to hog the TV all the time, so I’d never—

A knock at the door broke my concentration.

“It’s unlocked!” I called.

Dad walked in and took a seat on my desk chair behind me. Maybe he’s here to apologize or at least explain what happened today. It’d be nice if he told me something for once.

“So... how’s the bruise?”

That’s not Dad’s voice.

I paused and turned to see much more of the Biker Bitch than I ever wanted to, sitting right in my chair. She was barely wearing Dad’s black bathrobe, and her gigantic hair was dripping wet and hardly contained by a full-sized towel. My towel, to be exact. I should’ve guessed by the ‘pillows’ shirt she wore, but, apparently, modesty was a foreign concept to her.

Wait a minute, bruise? What bruise?

Keeping a careful eye on the far-too-naked giantess, I opened the closet door and checked myself over in the mirror. I looked tired for sure, and today was definitely taking its toll on me, but I didn’t see a bruise. I turned myself every which way, lifting my bangs and checking under my hair just to make sure.

I went to unbutton my blouse when a flash of pain caught me right in the middle of my chest. Half-way unbuttoning the shirt revealed a big, splotchy, ugly purple-black diamond shape between my breasts.

“Good Goddess! Is it infected!? You did this to me, didn’t you!? What is this!?”

The Biker Bitch tilted her head and part of her wet hair fell over one eye. Not devious like with Dad, but malicious—that’s what this look was. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. I’ll at least tell you that infected isn’t the right word for what this is. One thing is for sure, however: you are the one I’ve been searching for.”

She had a smirk on her face and I didn’t like it. “Who are you?”

Amused, she raised her nose a bit. “You called me the ‘Biker Bitch,’ didn’t you? Crude, but not entirely untrue, no?”

I clicked my tongue. “That isn’t your name.”

“I am Solei.”

The way she said it was almost regal, like it wasn’t just her name but her title. It surprised me. After everything else, this odd elegance seemed out of character for her.

Though I suppose, if she’s in a question-answering mood, I might as well ask. “Why did you hit me?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She leaned over the chair back and crossed her arms. Solei lowered her massive head to meet me at eye level and smiled even wider. “Look at you. Somebody turned out pretty, didn’t she?” She moved some of my tangled hair out of my face, and her eyes locked on my neck. “Well now, someone’s been playing around, hasn’t she?”

Damn it, Poppie!

I slapped my hand over the mark. “I don’t have to answer to you!”

Even her one visible eye looked like it was smiling at me. Laughing at me even, just like Poppie’s when…

Pulling back a little and switching how her legs were crossed off to the side, she said, “How about we make a deal? You tell me the truth, and I’ll tell you the truth.”

Here, her expression and tone of voice had gone completely flat. I wasn’t sure if this was real sincerity or if she was playing a new game with me. If nothing else, she was very in control of the way she spoke; like every word had a purpose.

I don’t have any reason to trust anything she says. She could be just like that other woman, trying to take our money. “Why did you hit me?”

She raised a brow. “The chain has to be started somewhere. How can one build with no base?”

What does that even mean? Seriously, I cannot tell if she’s being cryptic or if she's being literal.

Whatever. More importantly, “What do you want with Dad? Are you conning him out of his money?” Heat rose in me and I clenched my fists. “I… I’ll fight you!”

Solei was completely stone-faced.

Then, she let out a chuckle.

Finally, she couldn’t contain it anymore and started laughing. It wasn’t mocking, but light and happy, like she was genuinely enjoying something enough to just laugh. “Good Goddess, you are just adorable! Too cute. Absolutely and utterly too cute.”

Before I realized it, I was enveloped in golden light and lifted away from the mirror and into Solei’s arms. “Woah! Hey! Let go of me!” She wrapped herself around me and squeezed me like a girl with a new doll.

Oh Goddess, she’s so strong! She didn’t exactly have defined abs on the midriff from what I could recall, but the muscles on her arms were massive. Even if she was a giant, women should not be this strong.

“I can’t believe something like you ever came from something like him. So darling, so precious!”

It was a struggle just to breathe, but eventually, I managed to slip away from her on account of her still being wet.

Great, now my pajamas are soaked. One of these days, I need to get Poppie to teach me that wind spell. It’s something her family uses in the mines a lot, and it’s a pretty obscure trade-specific spell from what I remember.

Finally free, I pointed a finger at her face, primed with magic and a beam spell in a slight violet glow just waiting to burst out. “What is wrong with you!? Keep your hands off me, and keep your slutty face away from my dad!”

Nothing could break that condescending smile she had. Solei got out of her chair and stood in front of me. I don’t know how she even made it into the house in the first place; her head was inches from the ceiling, and this room was at least ten feet high.

She took a step forward, and I took a step back.

She took another step forward, and I felt my back hit the wall.

Trembling started to fill my bones; the spell wavered in my fingers. Why is she so damn big!? E-even if I let this thing loose, is it gonna do anything?

Smiling somewhere between cruelly and sweetly, she tilted her head to the side. “Come now, put that unsightly little spell away. You’ll only hurt yourself if you cast it in here.”

What? Only… b-but it’s a beam spell! This is a weapon in my fingertips, this could kill somebody! She… she can’t mean it! “Y-you said you’d tell the truth!”

She took another step forward and leaned her neck down, bringing us face to face. Her eyes… such a vibrant green with little flecks of gold all along the irises. Something is nagging me at the back of my head about them, but I couldn’t figure out what.

“I came back home for the second time in a thousand years just to chase after your father. Is there something wrong with that?”

She kneeled and pushed my shirt out of the way to get a good look at the bruise. This time, the smile almost seemed excited or expectant, expectant like a child on Christmas Eve. Like one who doesn’t know the truth.

Satisfied, she buttoned me back up and turned to the bunk beds. A strange sort of ‘clown comes out of a tiny car’ scene played out as the giantess tried her best to climb up a ladder made for people half her size, to then curl up in a bed she certainly wasn’t going to fit in.

She then crashed down on the mattress, and it almost looked like the frame was bending with her weight.

Now that my heart had climbed down from my throat, I found words again. “A thousand… hey! Get down from there!”

Solei attempted to sit up a bit, and her head hit the ceiling before her breasts made it off her knees. She was practically doubled over. “Hmm? Why? Don’t you sleep on the bottom?”

“That bunk is my brother’s! Nobody sleeps up there but him!”

She twisted to her side, feet spilling over the end of the bed, propping her head up on her elbow, and still nearly touched the ceiling. “And your brother is… where, right now?”

I looked away. Well, he was definitely not anywhere near here. “He’s in Virtuoso with his mother.”

Solei shook her head. “Oh, you poor thing.” A look unlike anything else I’d seen on her face made me almost embarrassed.

Before I knew what had happened, she snapped her fingers and warped beside me, taking me in her massive embrace and falling onto my bed. Her grip was steel, but her chest was soft and warm.

For a second there, I’d forgotten everything. It was nice. Warm and soft, tight and secure, gentle but strong. I felt… safe—

The absurdity of it all was too much, and I struggled my way out of her grip. “No, no, no! This is my bed! You can’t be here! I don’t even know you!”

“So where will I sleep?” Solei asked so innocently.

Why does it feel like I’m the bad guy here? “Go sleep with Dad! He brought you in! Go bother him and do whatever slutty women like you do!”

“But I didn’t come home to see him. I came home to see you.”

Completely baffled, I was absolutely lost now. How am I supposed to respond to that? The sad look on her face like she was talking about something she regretted, the genuine sincerity I heard in her voice, or… or the longing I felt when she said that. Like seeing a toy in the window that I’d lost once when I was a child.

Frustration overflowed and I scratched at my hair. “Why… I just don’t understand any of this! Why would you want to see me?”

Deep in those blazing green eyes, I caught something real, something truthful. “Because you’re precious to me.”

I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything.

Why do I feel like crying? Why is she looking at me like that?

I hate this. I hate all of it. I’m just so tired.

I broke away from the accusing eye of the blonde giantess and climbed up to the top bunk and hid under the covers.

“I don’t care what you do. I’m sleeping here tonight.”

“Geez, Poppie, it’s way too late to be outside right now,” I said, approaching the railing on the bridge.

Ashamed, Poppie looked away. “I know. I just… I wanted to get away.”

It was one in the morning. I’d gotten a text from Poppie saying she wanted to meet me at the bridge and that it was important. It was cold at night in Downbeat. Temperatures here get low enough for snow to happen as early as late October, and with as humid and wet as this area gets, we definitely got a lot of it.

Normally, getting out of bed to go see Poppie in the middle of the night would make me cross with her, but I’d come all the same. This time, however, I wasn’t all that upset. Knowing that she was sleeping in the bunk just below me was more than I’d bargained for, and I couldn’t even begin to fall asleep. If anything, being out here in the cold with Poppie was more relaxing than being in my bed. Or Aaron’s, anyways.

When the fog wasn’t too bad, you could see across the river to the Arian Air Force base. It wasn’t very big, and it mostly served as a hangar for repairs, but planes would land here occasionally with new goods for town to keep the few soldiers stationed here working.

The southern suspension bridge leads from the main roads and branches off to the Stone family mine southwest, and the base southeast. We used to spend a lot more of our time here: together, the three of us. This was always the place we’d meet up when Poppie had a bad night, or I was just feeling…

Anyways, there’s a radio tower out there by the base, and there’s a big air strip with little red lights lining it all the way down. Even with the fog, you can usually see them from here, slowly blinking in succession, like the air base itself was breathing. It was quiet here, a calm place where we could really rest deep within the fog.

Poppie took a lighter and a cigarette from her black coat’s pocket. She lit it and took a deep puff, sighing as she blew shapes in the air: a balloon, a tiered cake, a party hat. I could never figure out how she was doing it, and the one time I tried it, I didn’t like it. It burned my insides and clogged my lungs, made my mouth dry and taste like ashes.

I let out a breath, watching it fade away like Poppie’s smoke. “You know, your dad is going to catch you one of these days. Those aren’t good for you.”

Poppie rolled her eyes. “Who cares? He’s always got some reason to be mad at me anyways. One more thing I do that he hates isn’t going to bother me.” She took another hit, sending out a smokey image of a star, letting it blow away with the faint wind.

I always liked the cold. Downbeat doesn’t have much of value, but when the river freezes and it snows, I always like to imagine this place as an untouched wonder, a stretch of land that gets wiped from existence a few times a year. So many memories of the three of us playing in the snow, building snowmen and igloos, secret tunnels under the white.

It’s almost winter again. Will you come home for the holidays this time? Or was it really goodbye?

Poppie had nearly finished her cigarette and stood to lean over the guard rail. “Do you miss him?”

She stared at the moon and let the butt drop from her mouth, into the water below. The river would take it away and nobody would ever know she had it.

A phantom feeling of my hair being rustled and a ghostly warmth at my side gave way to the reality of the cold. “I do.”

Sometimes, I wonder who was hurt more when we found out he was leaving. He’s my brother; I spent all my time with him—playing cards, learning video games, building models and painting figures. Anything I could think of, we did together. Poppie though… she lost some of her color that day. She’s the only one in her family with red hair, but as it happens, she’s a twin. However, even though they came out at the same time, Marianne had the same black hair and dark eyes as the rest of her family, and Poppie didn’t.

It must not have been a good night, and that made me wonder if it started this morning with the pencil case. “So… who did it?”

Poppie laid her head on the railing and let out a final smoke ring. “Who do you think?” She spat a gray glob into the water and watched it float away. “It’s never anybody different. They’re all the same. I wish they would just fucking die.”

“Poppie…”

I went to put my hand on her shoulder, but she bristled and threw it off.

“No. You know what? No. Just don’t. I didn’t come here to hear another fucking lecture, and I certainly didn’t come here to hear you complain about me!” She got off the rail and stepped up in my face like I was attacking her or something. “Aren’t you my friend?”

I pushed her back and stood my ground. “Don’t go off on me; I just want to help! If I wasn’t your friend, would I be here at one in the morning on a cold October night just so you don’t have to smoke alone?”

Her scowl quivered. Liquid started to pool in her eyes.

She latched on to me and poured her tears in my hair. I wrapped my hands around her and slowly rubbed her back. Despite everything, I can never stay mad at her when she gets like this. Oh, you poor thing.

“I hate it here! I hate them, I hate school, I hate this town, and I want it all to go away! He was the only one! He loved me, and then… and then…”

Pain sparked through my chest and I staggered away from Poppie.

“Oh Goddess, it hurts!”

A burning, stabbing sensation, pulsating right from my heart. My vision became blurry; my balance was off; nausea gripped me from every angle. I grabbed at my chest with everything I had—it was all I could do to keep standing.

“D-Dawn!? Dawn, what’s wrong!?”

“M-my heart! It’s… it’s… it’s gonna explode!”

Like too much magic used for a spell or too much pressure put in a balloon—

A bubble popped inside my body.

Something was exiting my chest, something big and black that rolled like fog and screeched like a wild beast. It looked nearly human, but more feral, more carnal.

Towering over us, it was even bigger than the giantess, rolling like the black smoke in the dark corners of my mind, but fully formed like a living breathing thing. Like the creatures in my nightmares, it moved in the light as if it were some kind of giant black rabid werewolf.

Then, another black fog creature, this one much less like an animal and much more like a man, lunged out from inside of me and tackled the werewolf to the ground.

Poppie and I fell to our rears as the monster and the man crashed to the ground, each fighting for the upper hand in a desperate struggle.

Bewilderment set in when my brain tried to make sense of this. Hairless, faceless, featureless, and muscle-bound, the shadow-man was kicked off the beast, spinning in the air to land firmly on his feet. The beast got up from the ground and charged after him, throwing its claws at him, swiping left and right in large arcs, only to miss both times and get a hard upper to the jaw for its troubles. The monster twisted and corkscrewed away, and as if we were inconsequential to this scene, the shadow man gave us a thumbs up and charged after the beast.

“What the—”

“—hell is going on!?” Poppie finished for me.

The werewolf made of darkness rushed to slam the shadow, but he stepped aside and flipped in the air, landing a kick on the monster’s head like an acrobat mixed with a martial artist. The werewolf’s thick legs staggered as the new wound on its head leaked dark ink onto the bridge’s blacktop. The liquid-like substance was so black, it ate any and all light that threatened to pass through it, putting holes like voids on the road.

It was a little hard to tell them apart because they were both so dark in the streetlight, near featureless and without a way to distinguish who was what when they were near each other. The little light that did reflect showed me that neither creature really had any eyes, and that was unnerving. I couldn’t tell if I should be afraid, run, watch, or call for help. All things considered, I should try and get this on camera.

Suddenly, my ears twitched. A growing, rumbling sound was coming closer, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say it sounded like rock music.

“Is that the Biker Bitch?” Poppie asked.

I turned my head away from the fight just in time to see the giantess on her cruiser, wielding her white bass by the neck again and heading straight for the shadows. Somehow, the big wolfman beast was even bigger than Solei on her massive bike, and it was still leaking ink from its wounded jaw.

“Gotcha now, bitch!”

Solei leapt from the bike, letting it crash and roll off the bridge into the river and took her bass in both hands to swing it at…

The shadow man. Not the monster, but the thing fighting the monster.

“Uh…”

“Did she miss?”

A tone rang out like a wind that splits the fog, a sudden burst of sound in the night-time silence. The shadow guy went flying across the bridge, and seeing a new target, the wolfman charged after Solei.

“Oh, that’s not the right one.”

“She did miss!”

The monster charged after her. Ink-dripping teeth and claws clashed with the white bass again and again. Dissonant chords crunched out one after the other as the giantess tried to keep up with the wolfman. She sidestepped and whipped around to slam the body of the bass into the monster’s face, but it caught the bass in its fangs.

As if she’s spilled something on her shirt, Solei said, “Well. That’s unfortunate.”

The monster leapt in the air and hurled the bass, with Solei still attached, to the ground.

The giantess slammed violently into the concrete, only for the monster to land on her stomach and punt her into the railing beside us. Blood flew out of Solei’s mouth when her body bent the rails, but she never let go of the bass’s neck.

The ink-leaking monster prepared to charge, and before I even knew what I was doing, I ran to protect her.

“Don’t touch her!”

I stood between them, but nothing changed. I should’ve had a spell ready, I should’ve been able to fight back, but my thoughts were so jumbled, I couldn’t think.

The monster charged with its massive claws carving the ground on its way toward me. I tried to raise my arms and cast a barrier, but then I noticed the mannequin. I don’t know where it came from, but the animate, featureless porcelain-looking man flew at the shadow beast from the side, landing a hard foot right into its ribs. The monster screamed loud and furious in pain as it tumbled and rolled; pieces of its chest went flying all over, covering more of the bridge in the void black ink.

The barrier spell faded from my consciousness, and all the magic I’d tried to build up fizzled out. I’d lost focus on the spell entirely when the faceless white mannequin man gave me a thumbs up, just like the shadow soldier earlier. Maybe this was the shadow soldier. Why is he white now?

As if he’d remembered his original goal, he turned and raced after the shadow beast.

The black monster struggled to get back up, and its broken ribs leaked smoke on the ground, the very life in its veins pouring out. The white mannequin leapt into the air with his hands raised like he was about to grab something.

Then, I felt a massive body step from behind me. I hardly had time to notice the giant hand on my face as Solei used my shoulder like a springboard. Despite her mass, she was surprisingly light in this instance, almost like she didn’t weigh anything at all.

“It’s about damn time!”

She met the mannequin man’s open hands, and the moment it had a hold of her, it swung her down like a weapon while she swung her bass like an ax. The white instrument sang out a resonant chord and the beast released its final faltering screech as the bass smashed its skull.

The rest of the monster shattered into a million pieces and evaporated into black smoke, twisting and swirling like chaotic energy, disappearing into the night sky.

Solei flipped out of the mannequin’s hands, spinning in the air with her bass till she landed upright with her arms spread, like a gold medalist who’d just performed her finishing trick. Putting the bass on her shoulder like it was some kind of weapon, she turned to Poppie and said, “Well, I think we did pretty good, don’t you?”

She was smiling the same way she was when she first showed up today, and I couldn’t decide if that was just her natural smile or some wild, crazed face she makes when she beats the hell out of something. Poppie looked to me for help, but I just shook my head. Thinking had gotten me into this mess in the first place; at this point, I was ready to call it a day and move on.

“I, uh... what?”

Solei slid her arm through the strap on her bass, then held a staring contest with Poppie while her mind worked. “Still too early,” she decided. “You should probably go home.”

Poppie started getting up—

Only for Solei to snap her away.

Gone, vanished, reduced to sparkles.

“Wait, where did she go!? Did you just teleport her away!?” A second of terror passed before the more important question came to mind. “Do you even know where she lives!?”

Solei frowned and rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Dawn, don’t you think I at least research the people I plan to use? I didn’t make it this far without having more than two brain cells to rub together, you know.”

I put my fingers on my temples and closed my eyes. I should be asleep. This is far worse than any nightmare I could conjure.

A moment later, Solei whistled like she was calling for a dog.

From far down the river, I saw water splash up in the moonlit fog, like something was riding through it. Despite all the things that have happened today, I was still surprised to see her cruiser driving down the river, just above the water, on its own. The bike wheelied and jumped up on top of the bridge, swinging into a J-turn and stopping right beside Solei—completely undamaged from when she crashed it onto the bridge, not even wet from the river, as if nothing ever happened in the first place.

“Good boy,” she said, affectionately rubbing the gas tank, again, like a dog.

She mounted the bike and turned the key, then the mannequin nonchalantly took up the passenger seat behind her. He’s… still a thing I guess. She turned her golden flecked greens at me, then patted the seat between her legs.

“I… have no words.” It was either this, or walk the rest of the way home in the cold and dark, the same way I came. With this scene in front of me, I figured I was better off walking.

Solei rolled her eyes and shook her head. Warm, easy, welcoming greens found mine, and she formed a soft smile. Her helmet held out to me, she said, “It’s late, Dawn. Let’s go home.”

In that one moment, in that single look, I saw something I wished I’d never seen. Not the deviousness, not the malice, not the regality, but something different. It was warm and sweet, familiar and comforting. Something I’d always wanted, something I’d never had in my life, something that filled me with a familiar desire and longing.

Why, oh why, did it have to be her?

Against my better judgment, giving into that stupid idea I had earlier this morning, I took the helmet and got on the bike. For now, I’ll let that dumb idea live in my head. With any luck, I’ll wake up tomorrow and this will all have been a dream.

A good dream, but a dream all the same.