I’m starting to believe that my life might have been completely directionless before I became a witch. Well, that’s not exactly true. I was going in a lot of directions, they were all just terrible. But we’ll get to that. The afternoon finds me lying on the couch that is also my bed, scrolling aimlessly down my social media feed. If I’m not with Sophia, I’m basically always on my phone. Checking socials, posting, getting in arguments, playing mobile games. I live on this thing. I tried thinking of something more productive to do, but I feel like that goes against the spirit of enjoying my weekend. I should be relaxing. I’m just not sure if doomscrolling counts, and I don’t have anything better to do. I could open my laptop and see if anyone is around for Halo or League. Or I could play more card games on my phone. It’s just, none of it really feels like it has a point. I don’t want to be relaxing, I want to be doing real magic, not Magic: the Gathering. I want to get stronger. I want to get closer to Striga. And everything I do at home, all the games and the forums and the socials, it’s all so petty now that I’m a witch. How many hours of my life have I wasted shouting at strangers on the internet? How much of my time has been sunk into needless things? It’s depressing, and I don’t want to think about it, so I keep scrolling until I get a message from one of my friends. Mordacity: new thunderclap interview That gets me sitting up and paying attention. I’ve been watching for any followup to our battle, but TC has been staunchly avoiding any news outlets these past two weeks, and Vanguard didn’t issue any kind of official statement regarding the clash—though they did issue a notice that they were investigating possible Catastrophe activity in western Washington. I open the link that Mord sent and settle in. I recognize the reporter who did the interview: Carol Green, who works for one of the local news orgs. Talking to magical girls is her bread and butter, and she has a good relationship with both Visage and Vanguard. Thunderclap hovers awkwardly next to her, the two of them in front of some kind of industrial center with piles and piles of logs stacked high. Carol gives her lines with rapid, practiced enthusiasm. “I’m here at the Mateus & Nelson Lumber Co. wood processing plant on the outskirts of Forks where Thunderclap and her Vanguard teammates just foiled an attack on the facility by the Coterie witch known as Sister Nature. While the numbers are still coming in, all signs point to a clean victory with no casualties and minimal property damage. Thunderclap, it’s safe to say that this intervention was a rousing success. What was the key to your victory today?” So it’s a puff piece. Got it. Despite being given such a lowball question, Thunderclap is still visibly nervous with public speaking. “It’s, um, it’s nothing we haven’t done before. When we work together and are determined, we can get things done. Teamwork is the key!” She strikes her signature pose, arms crossed and gaze focused just a little too far to the left of the camera. “Well said,” Carol lies, “and a far cry from your attitude a few weeks ago when you clashed with an unnamed witch outside the NCM.” Thunderclap winces, but Carol barrels on. “What brought about such a swift and dramatic change in outlook?” “Strix Striga,” the heroine answers without hesitation, and then she winces again. “Striga… after the battle was over, she pulled me aside and we talked about what happened. She has this way of speaking, you know? Like she always knows exactly what to say to make you realize where you went wrong. She reminded me that it’s not about me. At the end of the day it’s about the people we’re protecting, whether that’s the people of Forks or my teammates in Vanguard. We all have a responsibility to do our part. No one needs to go it alone.” “Except Striga,” I mutter to myself bitterly. Thunderclap looks a lot more confident now, though. There’s a self-assured certainty to her words that she must have picked up from Striga’s speech. I wonder if this was the roundabout goal behind Striga’s brutal dressing-down in the heat of the moment. Carol nods along. “You can always count on Strix Striga to live up to her reputation. Now, before we get back to today’s conflict, can you tell us anything else about the witch you fought? Although she’s been sighted in flight a few times since that incident, we still haven’t learned her name or what she wants. If she makes trouble for Forks, will you see it as your responsibility to stop her?” The heroine’s newfound confidence takes on a hard edge. “I don’t know who she is, and I’m not sure what she wants. But I do know, and she knows just as well, that Forks is under Vanguard’s protection. If that witch tries to harm the people of this city, it won’t be my responsibility—it’ll be my team’s responsibility. And when we work together, we don’t lose.” I glare at the magical girl on my phone screen. We’ll see about that, Thunderthighs. The video ends there, an excerpt from a longer interview. I’ll watch the full thing later. Alexandria: vid vidded Alexandria: call or no “You gotta pick a name,” Mord says to me as soon as the call connects. “I’m already seeing nicknames for you floating around. They’re mostly fine right now, lots of Dark Angel and Firewing, but you just know someone’s gonna come up with something stupid that’ll stick if you don’t get out ahead of it.” I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll make the Archon reveal when I get a good opportunity. I don’t want to just fly up to someone with their phone out and say, ‘Hey, I’m Archon,’ y’know? It has to be grand. I need my debut to have weight.” “I give it another week,” Mord says bluntly. “Start planning.” “Fine, fine.” I wave her off, then realize I’m not on video so she can’t see that. “Okay, let’s get on topic here: do you think Striga set all that up? When she interrupted my fight with Thunderclap, she bought just enough time for TC’s powers to come back while goading her into picking a rematch with me. Was she intending for Thunderclap to lose, so she could turn that into a lesson and make her more useful to Vanguard?” If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. “First we have to ask if she could predict the sequence,” Mordacity points out. “You’re the Striga expert here. Do you think it’s possible?” I muse on it. “Striga’s scary good at prediction, but we know her power is analysis, not precognition. If she had been watching the fight before she intervened, she’d probably have a complete enough model to predict the outcome of a rematch. If she only appeared when she seemed to, though? It’d be the same as anyone else, a guess based on the fact that I’d managed the victory once. Not the kind of certainty she likes to operate on.” “Then let’s map what follows. In this world, Thunderclap gets her ass beat and Striga uses that as a teaching moment. In the world where you lose the rematch instead of winning, Striga still gets to chew Thunderclap out for endangering the pact while Echidna is making moves, and maybe uses some Coterie connections to sell the point. Is there a world where Thunderclap doesn’t pursue the rematch at all?” “No,” I answer confidently. “Striga’s model of Thunderclap should be near-perfect. The fact that Thunderclap chose the rematch is all the evidence we need that Striga wanted her to do that.” Mordacity is quiet for a moment, and then she says, “There’s one more variable: the world where you win your fight with Thunderclap and execute her, starting a pattern of three.” I frown. “That’s… I guess that’s not outside the realm of possibility. I mean, I wouldn’t do that, but Striga couldn’t know that for certain.” Mordacity whistles, which I’m amazed comes through over voice call. “Your hero’s pretty cold, A. Striga must have planned for that route, too.” “She makes hard choices,” I defend. “It’s not like I’d ever get away with completing the pattern on a Vanguard heroine. It’s a bit ruthless, sure, but it gave her information on what kind of witch I am.” Mordacity just laughs. “Simp,” she accuses. “Whatever.” I can’t exactly argue against that one. “So,” Mord says, changing topic, “have you thought about what this means for you?” I hum. “In the process of doing that.” “Thunderclap will be your opponent again,” she tells me plainly. “That was probably inevitable, but now you’re staring down Thunderclap plus two to three other magical girls, which is going to be a rough fight.” “But not as rough as fighting Striga,” I murmur. “The bright side,” Mordacity says, ignoring my comment, “is that she seems to have cooled down and won’t be chasing after you for simple revenge. At least not until the Echidna situation boils over and resolves itself, is my guess.” “Maybe. As far as she knows, I’m a small-time witch that got lucky. Better for some other hero to deal with. But I’ll try to be careful about what I get up to as a witch.” “You should also look into making allies,” Mordacity advises. “Securing backing from a major faction would make your situation less precarious.” I’ve thought about doing that. After that first day with Ferromancer, both Radiance and Lilith know my name—and they have reason to believe I’m more than just another sacrificial pawn being thrown into the blender. Visage appeals to me as a fangirl, the Coterie for their role in the pact bringing them closer to Striga—when a crisis shakes the region, the leadership of Vanguard and the Coterie work together to solve it. Then there’s the Syndicate, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a criminal empire ruled by witches. The Coterie’s anarchists and ecoterrorists might cause trouble for magical girls in their own way, but like the witches of Visage they’re willing to work with magical girls to limit casualties and defend against greater threats. The Syndicate, on the other hand, is a pack of opportunists that will happily run their operations in the middle of a Catastrophe incident, so long as they think they can get away with it. Most of Vanguard’s work—most of Striga’s work—is rooting out the Syndicate. In that, they’re a way to get closer to Striga. But I know what Striga does to Syndicate witches she catches. I know how many she’s consigned to a final death. So I don’t think they’re a particularly live option while my goal is stability. “Damn, you’re deep in the tank. How’s the sauce, A?” Mordacity’s wry comment snaps me out of my contemplation. “I was considering my options,” I grumble. “And I will keep considering them after I eat something. Thanks for the link, M.” We say our goodbyes and I end the call. From the pantry I rummage some cheese crackers to snack on, and then instead of thinking about being a witch I open an app on my phone and start farming gacha girls. For those mercifully unaware, a gacha game is a form of legal gambling where you spend money on random rolls in the hopes of winning cute anime girls (or cute anime boys) that are technically useful in the game’s alleged gameplay, but everyone knows the only reason people play gacha is to collect pretty pictures to drool over. They’re usually mobile games, both because predatory economies are the norm there and so you can stare at your waifu hoard on the go. They’ve got titles for every niche: cute anime girl anthropomorphic warships, cute anime girl anthropomorphic guns, cute anime girl furry knights… you get the picture. Some people spend hundreds of dollars on gacha games every month. I’m not one of those losers, though; I make money playing gacha. See, there’s a sweet spot of people with just enough disposable income to splash a bit of cash on gacha but not quite enough income—or just too much self-control—to really whale out and keep spending until they get what they want. The solution is simple: just buy an account that already has the girl you want. Facebook is littered with groups for buying and selling, and you can make a decent buck if you have the drive or resources. I don’t have the resources—bot farms aren’t cheap—but I do have the drive. Free-to-play gacha is a horrible grind, slow and grueling and full of temptation to spend money to make it easier, but a lot of games like to throw a starter set of freebies at new players to get them hooked. I make lots of accounts, ditch the ones that get bad free rolls, and grind free-to-play until I have something worth flipping on the marketplace. Of course, it’s against the terms of service to do any of this, so there’s always the risk of getting slapped down by corporate and needing to rebuild credibility under a new seller account, and in the extreme cases you might get a credit card flagged. I try to play it safe. But, now that I’m a witch, why am I doing this at all? I haven’t leveraged my powers to get a fresh income stream yet, but I’m going to eventually, whether that’s robbing a bank or signing on with Visage or whatever else. One gig will eclipse everything I’ve done with gacha, and what I’m making from my porn scam. My days of needing to flip accounts are about to be over, and I should be happy about that, but instead I just feel… adrift. The main game I play, Magical Menagerie Ultimate, is one of those Visage-owned tie-ins where you can collect actual magical girls as characters in the game, and even a few witches. I have a personal account aside from my work accounts, which should have been a clear sign that the trading gig was just an excuse to engage with magical girls. I’ll probably keep playing, even once I don’t need to. But why? I could go out and meet the real versions of those girls. I could become coworkers with them. I could see my own transformed face in the game. It’s strange for me to have a sense of ambition. For so long, I didn’t feel like anything was possible. I was alive by virtue of inertia, nothing more. And now that’s not true. Now it can’t be true, because I am a witch. Everything is different. I groan and close the app. I don’t want to think about this. I’m supposed to be relaxing, not getting existential! Maybe I should get out of the house. I could slip down to the game store, pick up a smoothie on the way, crack some packs if I have the funds to burn. I frown. My finances won’t be a problem for long, but they’re still a problem right now, and last I checked my checking it was getting dangerously low. I should see how much I’ve got waiting for me on my main gig. I navigate to the site where I run my photo grift and am immediately met with bad news: AI content has been banned. That means no more sales for me, and the date for the announcement was actually last week. The meager portion I withdraw from my account is the last of my earnings from that gig, and not even enough to cover rent this month. Well, shit. My vague sense of unease is suddenly much worse. Making money as a witch isn’t a problem for future Rachel, it’s a problem for current Rachel. Rent is due in nine days. Sophie would cover it. The thought comes unbidden and I immediately dismiss it. Of course she would. She always does, every time I come up short, every time I fail her. And I’m sick of it. For once in my goddamn life, I’m going to pull my own weight. The next time I see Ferromancer, I’ll tell her: it’s time for my training to hit the field. It’s time for the world to meet Archon.