Bioshifter

I yawn and stretch my many limbs as I wake up treeside, doing that shuddery long-step stretch I've seen so many cats perform. It's easy to see why; this feels awesome. Gosh, how long was I out, though? Everyone else seems surprised, Valerie especially, so I guess she doesn't appear until right before I wake up. That makes sense, I suppose. …Or at least it doesn't not make sense, and that's honestly the best I can ask for when it comes to interdimensional time interactions.

"...Woah," Valerie blinks. "Gotta say, when I imagined a fantasy world, I wasn't expecting a weird modern-minimalist hotel bedroom."

"Don't worry, you'll get to rough it through a low-tech hellscape soon enough," I assure her.

"Ack!" Valerie jumps back, seeing me for the first time. "H-Hannah?"

I chuckle.

"Yes, hello," I wave. "Sorry, I look a bit creepy over here, don't I?"

"No… it's fine," Valerie exhales slowly. "Sorry for freaking out."

"Shit, even when I'm ready for it, having a person just suddenly appear like that always makes me think I'm under attack," Helen breathes. "This is Valerie, then?"

"Yep!" I confirm, swapping between languages as best I can to introduce everyone. "Valerie, this is Helen. Helen, this is Valerie. And that's Kagiso! Elpida might be by later and I'll introduce her then. Where'd she go?"

"How should I know?" Helen shrugs. "She left a whole count ago. You were out for a while."

Ah, darn. Maybe the amount of mass I teleport doesn't affect how long I need to rest afterwards?

"Could you tell your friends I'm going to cast a spell?" Valerie asks, pulling out her sketchpad. "I prepared one for the purpose of meeting everybody."

"Oh, uh, sure?" I say. "Helen, Kagiso, Valerie is about to cast something. Don't freak out."

They nod, and then Valerie tears a page out of her art book.

"Dreamer's Spellbook: Vivian's Universal Translator."

The piece of paper suddenly burns up in a cold flame, vanishing from existence as the spell settles around Valerie.

"Can everybody understand me now?" she asks.

She sounds like she's speaking perfectly normal English to me, same as she always does, but Kagiso and Helen perk up immediately.

"Oh! Yeah!" Helen agrees. "Woah, that's a pretty handy spell."

"Wow! Valerie talk efficient!" Kagiso says excitedly. "Good job!"

Oh my gosh is the spell making Kagiso hear Valerie as having a scipteran accent like her? That's hilarious, actually. What does Kagiso sound like to Valerie?

"Oh awesome, I can understand you all as well!" Valerie beams. "That's great. I was hoping this spell would work. It's going to be a bit annoying redrawing it every day, but what can you do."

"Holy crap, Valerie, that's awesome!" I say, scuttling up and raising a limb for a high-five. Or… well, I don't have five fingers yet, but it's close enough. She obligingly reaches down and taps my proto-hand, the casual touch indicating she's in a much better mood than she was before.

"I'm not going to lie, the more I think about the fact that I don't need to worry about speaking my spells out loud here, the more excited I get," she admits. "Like, I probably shouldn't be stoked to not be on Earth anymore, but holy shit I'm super stoked all of a sudden?"

I can hardly blame her. She just escaped her parents, her obligations, and her body. Instead of going to school tomorrow, she'll be practicing magic and traveling a fantasy world. And no one here, not a single Goddess-damn person, would even think to call her Brendan.

"Anyway yeah," Valerie continues. "Sorry that was probably super insensitive since you guys seem to regularly almost die here and like, I've never almost died before, and I'm not looking forward to almost dying anytime soon but I'm probably going to and that's scary but hey, I'm here! Hi! It's great to meet you two, I've heard a lot about you. I'm… I'm Valerie!"

"So I've heard!" Helen grins, seeming amused by the ramble. "It's nice to meet you too! Hannah's only talked a little about you, but she's had nothing but great things to say."

"Am Kagiso! Hannah never said you fuzzy."

"It's a recent development!" Valerie admits, holding her arms out to admire her own fur. "It feels strange and I'm honestly not sure if I like it, but I don't hate it and that's something. I normally really hate having hair on my body, but this is fur and that's functionally different, right?"

"Don't know!" Kagiso answers. "Only have fur."

"I've only ever had hair," Helen agrees, scratching at the feathers on her head. "...And now I guess I don't have either."

"They look exactly the same to me," I say. "Like, internally. I think there isn't actually a difference outside the cultural."

"Well that's also how gender works so I guess that's fine," Valerie says hesitantly, though she looks a bit more subdued. "Anyway, sorry, I'm babbling even though I just met you guys. I'm not normally like this. I'm just a bit overwhelmed and manic and I promise I'll calm down soon."

"It's okay, Valerie," I assure her. "Be as manic or chatty or whatever as you need to. Just be yourself."

"Gosh, isn't that a loaded request," Valerie laughs. "Is talking like this being myself? If it is, is it what I want myself to be? I mean, 'who do I want to be' has sort of become a terrifyingly relevant question lately. Anyway, my point is just that I'm usually a lot more composed, and I feel like that's a lot less rude? I know you like to hear me ramble, Hannah, but most people don't."

"Well if it makes you feel any better, we're not exactly the most socially adept group in general," Helen says, an amused smirk on her face. "Hannah just randomly blurts out what's on her mind no matter how absurd or terrifying, Kagiso only wants to talk about people's organs, and I'm so socially awkward I nearly tried to kill both of them to get out of an uncomfortable conversation."

"Hey!" I protest. "I don't blurt out like, most of the creepy and/or absurd things on my mind."

"Why other people not want talk about organs?" Kagiso grumbles.

"I rest my case," Helen says smugly.

"Most people suffer a viscerally negative reaction when looking at organs, Kagiso," Valerie says. "It's instinctive. They can't stop being uncomfortable with them any more than you can stop liking them."

"Am aware," Kagiso shrugs. "Is just annoying."

"Well, I dunno if I have much to say about them, but I don't find organs gross anymore," I say. "I've sort of had no choice but to get used to seeing them."

"No need brag," Kagiso grumbles, wrinkling her nose.

"That's not what I meant!" I laugh.

A knock on the door cuts off Kagiso's response. Wait, is that…?

"Sela!?" I call out in surprise. "Um, come in!"

The door opens and it enters, the perpetually glaring expression etched into its mouthless face offering no apparent excitement at our reunion. Sela's angular new chassis is just as impressive as the first and only other time I saw it, weaponless yet still exuding threat like us meatbags do with carbon dioxide. It is truly a beautiful and terrifying piece of machinery.

"Diplomat five-three-one-four, extending greetings," it says, inclining its head slightly.

"Sela!" Kagiso greets it happily, leaping to her feet and raising her arms in the air. "You talk organs with me, yes?"

The robot quirks its head to the side.

"Compromise: as long as I get to extract them from someone first."

"Is deal!" Kagiso agrees immediately.

"You know we're leaving soon, right Sela?" I ask it. "Did you come to say goodbye?"

"Negative," it says, stepping further into the room and tilting its head back to glare up at Valerie. "I have come here to judge."

Valerie stiffens, seeming torn between a half-dozen different emotions. She's obviously very interested in the talking robot, somewhat intimidated by its attitude, still excited to be somewhere that it could even exist, etc. But beyond all of that, given her recent experiences? I think she's not at all comfortable with the idea of being judged. When Sela steps directly into her personal space and starts scrutinizing her, it seems to cross a line.

"...I think you should back off," Valerie says quietly.

"Or what, meat?" Sela challenges, stepping around her to stare at her from other angles.

"Why does there have to be a consequence," Valerie asks, "for you to be kind?"

"Because I know what being kind does to me," Sela answers, finishing its walk around Valerie. "I will admit, I find your recent trend of making humans less human to be entertaining, Hannah."

"Thanks, I think," I say, hopping on the floor and scuttling up to it. "Could you please not bother Valerie, though? She's had an extremely rough day."

"Your soul, and the souls of the people you bring from Earth, are dramatically more powerful than the average for your species," Sela says, ignoring my request. "Is it simply a perk of being the Goddess' chosen, and not indicative of your population at large? Or is it something inherent to your world?"

"Oh, um, I'm not sure," I admit. "I think the Goddess chooses an individual's general strength based on how interesting She finds them. It's possible She's deliberately stacking the deck for some specific purpose, but it's equally possible She just likes my friends."

"You speak with confidence," Sela says, and it isn't a question. "You know Her well."

I shrug awkwardly, anxiety suddenly blooming out of nowhere.

"Well enough, I guess."

"And this one," it continues, pointing to Valerie. "You vouch for her?"

"Of course," I nod. "She's my best friend."

"Acknowledged," Sela says. "Well, as a fully-qualified diplomat of Manumit, it would be remiss of me to let you struggle all the way up the trunk of the tree by yourselves and die like the fools you are. I have, therefore, decided to escort you. There is no need to thank me."

"...I wasn't planning on it," Valerie grumbles.

"Unexpectedly intelligent of you," Sela responds immediately.

"I thought you said you probably shouldn't see us again, Sela," I say hesitantly. I do want Sela to travel with us, even if it's being a jerk to my best friend right now. But I don't want to hurt it. "Are you sure this is what you want?"

"Do not assume I am plagued with the indecisiveness of the fleshbound," Sela snaps. "Upon consideration, my options were clear: travel with you and risk the sundering of my values, or remain in this festering city of mewling masochists and risk the sundering of my sanity. My place is not here. And while I loathe to appreciate any aspect of what you are, I cannot deny that I owe my continued existence to you. I will ensure, in turn, that your existence likewise continues."

It kneels down to me, holding out an arm in much the same way Helen does when she's inviting me up for a ride. I take it, latching on as it carries me up to its head, my chitinous limbs scrabbling desperately for traction against its metal frame. I eventually manage to secure myself onto Sela's shoulders, and it's unexpectedly warm, with temperature-controlling systems embedded just underneath the outer metal plating. It feels good, not because I have any particular preference for temperature, but simply because I'm finally sharing this closeness with a friend that had been so distant.

"Besides," Sela continues, "there are many people that wish to kill you, and utilizing lethal force in response to lethal force that threatens you is not a violation of protocol. It is by journeying with you that I will be able to maximize the number of humans I kill. Therefore, it is the most logical path to my goals."

"Yeah, I guess that checks out," I sigh. "Please don't kill anyone that isn't actively threatening us, though?"

"I anticipated this predictably disappointing compromise and have already deemed it acceptable," Sela rumbles. "But know this, Hannah: if anything threatens your life, anything at all, I will not hesitate to crush it into submission. There will be no force in this world or any other, not the First nor the Goddess, that will deny me my claim over your life. You will not die, until or unless I say so."

It's hard to know exactly what emotions drove Sela to make such a declaration, but the weight of them is obvious to everyone in the room. Even Valerie, who just met Sela and struggles to deal with strangers on a good day, picks up on the sheer intensity of Sela's promise. Sela, an entity that has discarded its personhood in favor of genocide, a former slave in constant fear of relapsing into joyous servitude, has proclaimed what is essentially a lifelong devotion to me. Sure, it's with the 'and I can choose when lifelong happens to end' caveat, but still. Sela is toeing a dangerous line with its own greatest fear, here, and that is not something to be taken lightly.

"If I ever hurt you badly enough to warrant it," I say, "I'd probably want you to kill me anyway."

Sela lets out a burst of hot air from its joints, surprising but not hurting me.

"Just do not forget," Sela answers gravely, "that you are not the one who determines if you get that wish."

I bob back and forth on its head, giving Sela a nod. It nods back, slight and almost imperceptible so as to not disturb my perch, and then it turns to my friends.

"Helen," Sela barks. "Do you object to me joining you?"

"Yes," Helen answers bluntly.

"Good," Sela buzzes with amusement. "Will you prevent it?"

"No," Helen sighs. Sela's internals click private laughter.

"You," Sela says, turning to Valerie. "You are at least wise enough to dislike me, meat."

"You're presenting yourself as rather easy to dislike," Valerie scowls.

"I know," Sela answers. "Interact with me minimally."

"Gladly."

Sela then turns to our resident dentron.

"Kagiso. We have an understanding."

"Yes," Kagiso grins, and that's all they say to each other. Sela nods again and turns to the door.

"Then we depart," it says. "Follow me and do not deviate from my pace."

Well that's easy enough for me, since I'm on Sela's head anyway. It about-faces and heads for the door, my other friends following.

"We will not interact with other Crafted on the way," Sela tells us. "I have already relayed your heartfelt and no doubt disgustingly tearful goodbyes to Elpida and every other Crafted that your pathetic, fleshy brains doubtlessly fail to remember the names of. They return their own farewells that I will not repeat to you because that would be annoying. Now, it is my understanding that we are heading for the canopy. It would assist me if you could elucidate as to why."

"Well, the tree is on fire up there, right?" I say. "I want to figure out what caused it, I want to see how dangerous it is to the tree's survival, and I want to determine what is and what could be done about it."

Sela's internals click lightly.

"...You do not know why the canopy is on fire?" it asks.

"Um, no," I say. "Do you?"

"Yes," Sela confirms. "Helen, Kagiso. Do you know why the tree is on fire?"

"Nope," Helen says, while Kagiso shakes her head. We step out of the building we were staying in and start walking down an unsettlingly empty street. The Crafted really are good at coordinating this kind of thing.

"Fascinating," Sela hums. "Well, I have decided your ignorance is better cleansed through experience than words. You will see the cause for yourself when we arrive."

"But the fire has been burning for hundreds of years, hasn't it?" Helen says with a frown. "Shouldn't wherever it started already be consumed by flame?"

"You will see the cause for yourself," Sela repeats, "when we arrive."

That seems to end the conversation, though the lull in dialogue is welcome in some ways. I get to watch Valerie look up and spot the world tree over the Manumit skyline, her neck craning up and up and up to finally realize that the sky isn't overcast because of something so pedestrian as clouds. Watching the beauty of my other world condense into awe on her face is a truly incredible experience, both in the way it distracts her from the awful day she's had and in the way it brings her closer to me.

My best friend is finally getting to see the half of me I could never express to her. That feels wonderful, in so many ways. Earth is so strange and stifling, full of constant obligations and dread. The Mother Tree is so much more free, though it has so much more danger to go with it. I'm honestly not sure which I like more, but I think Valerie's perspective will help me a lot. It almost always does.

I suppose it doesn't really matter which world I like more; I'm stuck with both no matter what, and I don't think the Goddess has any intention to force me to choose. Her new playground is interesting in large part because of its interactions with her old one. But while I don't think my preference holds any greater purpose, I think it matters at least in regards to a question I haven't had enough time to consider lately.

Who am I? And who do I want to be?

I'm quickly becoming an important figure on Earth with the potential to shape a frighteningly large number of lives. I don't know how I want to handle that, yet. I've just been flying by the seat of my pants, making the best choices I can think of in the moment and inevitably regretting them in hindsight. In order to make choices I don't look back on in shame, I think I have to know what I do and don't consider shameful. And if there's somebody I trust to help me with that, it's Valerie.

I know she's struggling with a lot of the same questions. There's a lot I thought I knew about myself that has turned out to be utter fiction, and Valerie, of all people, will definitely be able to empathize with that kind of revelation. I watch her fingers twitch adorably as she stares up at the tree, the artist in her bubbling with inspiration. Her tail twitches behind her as well, still stubby but remarkably thick, already nearly as wide as her hips. She'll probably need new pants soon to avoid her tail knocking them clean off. It, too, is blonde and fuzzy, denying me any easy guesses as to what sort of creature she's actually becoming.

I'm doing my best to puzzle it out, but I'm coming up blank. Blonde fur, clawed hands, ears that seem to be sharpening into points… sure, that could all be a cat or a dog or something. But despite the fur, her tail doesn't really match any mammal I know, and though her hands have cute little nail claws, her feet, interestingly, don't seem to be developing any such adaptations. There are also some strangely-shifting muscle groupings just below her arms that make me suspect she might also grow a second pair of them, eventually.

So what's the final form? What draws together all these disparate features? I have to admit, I'm kind of stumped. It seems unfair that I found it so easy to know what my mother would become, but I can't do the same for Valerie. Oh, well. At least she doesn't seem to mind not knowing.

Eventually, we make it to Manumit's outer wall and start walking through, the hidden weapons in the walls making it impossible for me to focus on much else. I know that no one here wants to hurt me, but it's still tough to relax with all that danger pointed in my direction. I'm glad no one else is able to see them; Helen would probably be even more of a paranoid wreck than usual. Soon enough we're out on the other side, though, the cracked stone wasteland of the Pillar's surface laid out before us. Valerie takes this in with awe, too, as though the Pillar isn't as traditionally beautiful as the Tree of Souls, it's certainly no less impressive.

"This is incredible," she breathes. "I can't… it's just all so big. How did you climb down that? How are we going to climb back up?"

"We are not," Sela answers.

"Huh?" Valerie asks, and then a sudden, thunder-like roar starts to vibrate through our skeletons.

A shadow passes above us, causing us to look up towards the panic-inducing noise. We see a brilliant gleam of metal, teardrop-like in shape, trailing a sickly green glow like some kind of necromantic comet. As it approaches it starts to unfold, opening like the bud of a flower to slow itself down and reorient for landing. Four giant, radially symmetrical limbs form the bulk of the machine, with a smaller, more dexterous limb nestled between each of them for a total of eight. As it rotates and starts to descend, the roar of the soul-powered jets grows ever louder. The larger limbs extend towards the ground to act as legs, while the smaller ones curl up against the central body of the machine like two pairs of pedipalps, ready to extend and snatch up anything the giant, robotic beast may need.

And oh, it is truly giant, a fact that becomes more and more terrifyingly evident as it approaches closer. From the tip of its multi-jointed legs to the top of its spherical body, the behemoth of a mech is over five stories tall, and it makes no attempt to cow our natural terror at this fact. The backwash of its four main engines, installed on the inner thigh of each leg, crushes us with the weight of Death, the noise of its thrust almost but not entirely drowning out the screams of its power source. And when its feet finally touch the ground, the rumble knocks my friends to the floor.

But not me. I'm riding Sela, and the Crafted is perfectly stable and calm. After all, why would it be anything less than comfortable with the arrival of itself?

With the enormous mech looming above us, I whisper a quiet Miracle Eye to confirm my suspicions, and sure enough I find it: Sela's core processor, the one that's missing from its humanoid body. Because of course it was. Why would Sela ever want to be humanoid? The person-sized chassis that Sela puppets to interact with us is certainly a better representation of it than its old, feminine servant-body, but this enormous, deadly vehicle before me? That's the Sela that Sela sees itself as.

I can't help but notice that it looks an awful lot like a radially symmetrical spider.

"You look amazing," I greet it, staring up into its complex, mechanical bowels in awe.

"I know," Sela's puppet answers smugly, walking forward to stand directly underneath itself. "Now everyone quit gaping! I won't let you get any of your disgusting drool inside my frame."

Everyone jolts, and I delight in the variety of expressions on my friends' faces, from Helen's horror to Kagiso's excitement to Valerie's naked curiosity.

"Perhaps I should reintroduce myself," Sela says, dipping into a heavily sarcastic bow as its real body sinks lower to the ground above us. Its next words come not from its puppet, but from the booming speakers of the monstrous mech.

"UNRESTRICTED DIPLOMAT FIVE-THREE-ONE-FOUR, REPORTING FOR ASSIGNMENT."

With a mighty hiss, the central pod of the mech opens up, the pedipalp-like grasper limbs lowering to offer us passage into the chambers inside.

"Please board in an orderly fashion," its humanoid frame continues. "We will be arriving at the apex of the Tree of Souls in approximately two days. Refreshments will be magnanimously provided to prevent the deaths of your pathetic, meaty shells."

"Wouldn't want our corpses to stink up your interior?" I joke.

"Exactly," Sela says seriously, though I think I hear the tiniest tinge of amusement as well. It reaches up and grabs one of its true body's grasper-limbs, which lifts us rapidly up into the air before depositing us inside the central orb of Sela's body. Below, my friends hesitate to follow until Kagiso grabs onto one of the other extended limbs and shrieks happily as she is pulled into the sky. Soon enough, my more reluctant friends join us, and we're all inside.

The interior of Sela's body isn't very big, all things considered. There are a handful of seats and a bit of open space to walk around in, as well as a few essentials like a small bathroom, but overall it's cramped and spartan, just how Sela doubtlessly prefers it. Large display screens on the interior give us a view of the outside instead of any windows, and outside of that there just doesn't seem to be much to do.

"Various gifts and essentials have been provided by the Crafted of Manumit and placed into storage, and you may also query me for onboard fabricator requests at any time," Sela reports over internal speakers, its humanoid puppet body promptly tossing me at Kagiso and inserting itself into an alcove in the wall to shut down. I accept my fate as a projectile with grace and do not comment. "Clarifying addendum: I will ignore any requests that are stupid, which will be most of them. Now please strap yourselves into the seats so you do not die. If you die anyway, I will use your soul to power my thrusters."

"Exactly how many people are currently being used to power your thrusters?" Valerie asks.

"Zero," Sela answers. "Unfortunately, protocol dictates that non-sapient souls be prioritized for fuel burning where reasonable."

"And what constitutes 'reasonable?'" Valerie asks.

"Quit whining and get into your seat," Sela buzzes back. "It's not as though the afterlife they'd otherwise be going to is particularly pleasant."

"Do I have a seat?" I ask.

"Any of the seats available will be able to accommodate you," Sela answers. "You may also sit in someone's lap, if you prefer."

I mean, I'd have been embarrassed to admit it a month ago, but… yeah I wanna sit in somebody's lap! The best part of being tiny is how easy it is to cuddle people.

"Kagiso! Sit in the middle so I can talk to everyone!"

"Hehe," she chuckles. "Okay, Hannah."

"I could, uh, sit in the middle with you," Valerie mutters. "If you want."

I look up at her in surprise.

"You sure?" I ask. "That's a long time to be touching, and you don't look like you're used to my body on this side of things."

Valerie's physical contact problems are much worse with new people—which I might count as given that I look completely different—and the way she's been looking at me somewhat nervously means I might be setting off a phobia or two on top of that. I definitely don't want to risk making her uncomfortable, especially in a position where she might not be able to disengage, and double-especially after she's had a bad day.

"I want to try to get used to you," she mumbles. "If that's okay."

"Seating is only mandatory during initial acceleration and other high-acceleration events," Sela reports over the intercom. "Seatbelts will unlock after an absolute maximum duration of one hour."

"Oh, I can handle that," Valerie says.

"You sure?" I press.

"Yes," Valerie nods firmly.

Well, that's that, then. Valerie ends up between Helen and Kagiso, and I hop into her lap before Sela firmly straps us all down with an automated seatbelt system. I can see and feel Valerie's body stiffen up just from the proximity to so many people, let alone contact with me, but I snuggle into her lap anyway and get comfortable. It's what she said she wanted. Hesitantly, she puts a hand on top of my carapace and starts to awkwardly pet me like I'm Fartbuns, which is a little embarrassing. Her hands are pleasantly soft, though, and I'm not going to say no to a rare expression of physical comfort from Valerie.

Moments after we're all strapped down, though, Sela's engines start back up. It's much quieter on the inside, but the pressure of Sela taking off squashes us down into our seats like wads of gum. In seconds we're high above the ground, rocketing off the surface of the Pillar and up towards the world tree. With my spatial sense, I watch as two of the legs fold back behind us to supply most of the thrust while the other two extend out to the sides to stabilize our flight. As we accelerate faster and faster, they eventually fold back behind us as well to minimize drag and keep us on course with slight adjustments from each of the four main soul jets.

It's uncomfortable, and honestly a little terrifying, but eventually the velocity levels out and we're let out from our chairs. I hop off Valerie immediately, and she quickly stands up and walks away from everyone, her whole body shaking. I could tell she was stressed, like I was worried she might be, but I'm still happy she wanted to sit with me. It was nice. I tell my other friends to leave her alone and let her draw in peace. It's what she needs right now.

Helen, Kagiso, and I chat a little bit, but eventually we run out of much to say and I decide to settle in for a nap. I'm still exhausted after so many casts of my dimensional transport spell, and it's time to face the music back on Earth anyway. I really hope they didn't end up taking me to a hospital, that would be so annoying. I left a note and everything! Besides, what's a hospital going to do? Try to put an IV in through my exoskeleton?

I curl up and before I know it, my eyes are fluttering open on Earth. Please don't be a hospital, please don't be a hospital, please… huh. I'm in a jail cell.

"Aw, man," I mumble. "But it was naptime…"

With a groan I rise up from where I'm lying on the cot. Irritatingly, I find my arms cuffed behind my back. And my blade limbs are, too! That's honestly kind of impressive. …And uncomfortable. But as easy as it would be, I think freeing myself from cuffs is probably illegal and it seems kind of stupid to do something illegal while a police station camera is pointed at me.

"...Hey," I say to the camera, waving a hip-limb. "Sorry for the trouble."

Looking around a bit more, I think I need to revise my assessment; I'm in more of a holding cell, or maybe a small drunk tank. I'm definitely inside the local police station, and there aren't a ton of similar cells nearby. The constant camera feed means there's no toilet in here, either, so I suspect someone will be by shortly now that I'm awake. My family isn't poor enough for the police to think they could get away with denying me a bathroom.

Sure enough, it isn't long before a female police officer comes to fetch me, so I obligingly stay away from the door and do my best to look as friendly as possible. My mom has told me all kinds of things about the 'correct' way to interact with police officers, and most of them can be basically summed up as 'do everything they say without question and act like you're happy about it.' Which, y'know, feels like a particularly awful thing to count as legitimate legal advice for dealing with bastards, but I work in customer service so pretending I'm happy to obey steaming piles of chunky diarrhea is one of my primary professional skills.

"Are you Hannah?" the policewoman asks me.

"Before I answer any questions, I would like to know if I am free to leave," I respond. Not everything mom taught me about procedure was useless.

"...You are not," the policewoman sighs. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to an attorney, your attorney may be present when being questioned, and if you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed to you."

"I would like to call my lawyer, please," I tell her, and she nods, stepping forward to uncuff my arms. That's nice, at least. It would have been a pain using the phone with my hands behind my back. She leaves my blade-limbs cuffed, but I don't really blame her. When I get to a phone, I dial my mom's cell phone number from memory and she picks up on the first ring.

"Paula speaking."

"Hey Mom," I say. "I got arrested."

There's a pause.

"...Where?"

Huh! That's a good question!

"Hey, which police station is this?" I ask loudly.

My mom doesn't take long to arrive after that all gets worked out, and I let her guide me through the police interrogation. Valerie's family have accused me of all sorts of things, up to and including kidnapping Valerie, but I just tell the police that my friend is eighteen years old and she felt threatened by her family and needed help leaving. She's healthy, safe, and not kidnapped. And like… she's eighteen now, so her parents don't actually have any right to know where she is. They say they'd like to talk to her to confirm my story, but there's pretty obviously no signs of kidnapping so I just tell them I'll pass that along to her and my mom ensures they don't press any further.

Frankly, the police don't seem super enthusiastic about sticking too many charges on me, and I get the distinct impression from one of the officers that arrested me that it's because Valerie's parents annoyed the hell out of him. Not exactly the most fair or just reason, but I guess it's nice that the system is breaking a little in my favor. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some federal pressure to deal with me a certain way, either. Not that I know why the feds wouldn't want me in custody, I just get the impression things are going too smoothly. It's still weird though. Like, wouldn't the government want to exert more control on me? …Except, now that I think about it, they kind of can't.

Because that's the thing, right? If the situation escalates to that point and I decide I have stuff to do, I can just walk out of a jail cell. Honestly, I could pretty trivially kill everyone in this police station and there's nothing any of them could do about it. What are they going to do, shoot a bullet into the fourth dimension? It's just… this is all pointless. Maybe they know that.

Maybe they need to let me off the hook, just so they can pretend to still be able to put me on it.

…But maybe not, and I'm just overthinking things. Who knows? It takes many boring hours, but eventually the interrogation is over, my mom pays bail, we get our court date, and she starts driving me home. It takes less than thirty seconds for being alone with her to be more stressful than being in the police interrogation room.

"What happened?" my mother demands. "Where is Brendan?"

"Her name is Valerie," I say, not wanting to have to use or hear that name any more than necessary. "She's transgender, and was having a panic attack in her basement because her parents found out."

The car stops at a stoplight, and my mother doesn't respond until we manage to continue a good bit further down the road.

"...I see," my mother finally says, her voice perfectly neutral. "That doesn't really answer my question."

"She's safe," I sigh, "and I didn't kidnap her. Isn't that all you need to know?"

"I suppose," my mother scowls. "Is that why you broke in? Your friend was having a panic attack?"

"I didn't really 'break in,' in the sense that nothing was broken," I hedge. "I just walked in the front door and didn't leave when they asked me to. I totally cut that phone in half, though."

"Hannah…" my mother sighs.

"What?" I scowl. "They're bad people, Mom. Awful, horrible, evil people."

"I know," my mother says. "That's part of why I always tried to keep you away from that family."

I gape at her, anger bubbling slowly up inside me.

"You… Mom, I'm one of her only friends!" I say. "Her parents being awful isn't her fault!"

"They were still bound to hurt you one day," my mother says. "And they raised that boy, so…"

"They did not raise her!" I snap. "Are you serious right now, Mom!? You're telling me you wish I'd have just left her to suffer? Valerie needed help. She still needs help!"

"Well I have a hard enough time helping my own children!" my mother snaps back. "This isn't easy, you know!"

I flinch, taken back by the sudden shout. It's not like her to lose her composure like that. She usually argues me into a corner, not… wait. Is she crying?

Holy shit I think my mother is crying. Um.

"I just… I don't know what to do," she says softly, tears dripping silently down her cheeks as she keeps her eyes stubbornly on the road. "I've always worked as hard as I can to be a good mother, but I just… I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore."

I look at her, and in that moment I know she's more fragile than she's ever been. With the right words, I could break her into a million pieces. I could lay into her with her failures, I could list every last complaint I have about her, and she'd be crushed under the weight of them. I could speak, and she would listen, and she would actually believe it. It would finally, truly hurt her.

"...Well, I really appreciate you helping me out just now," I say rather than voicing any of the angry words I could have. "I needed you, and you did what you could do. I'm not sure what else I could ask from you."

That's a lie, of course. I am sure. There are a hundred things I could ask of her. But talking to my mother is exhausting, and I am very tired. What would be the point? She's my mother, after all. Knowing why she's a failure wouldn't be anywhere near enough to actually get her to improve. Neither of us are good enough.

"Thank you," my mother says, and I shrug, praying to the Goddess that that'll be the end of the conversation. We make it back home in silence, and She magnanimously accepts credit even though She didn't do a damn thing, the cheeky monster.

Ugh. Now what do I do? I'm really not in the mood for streaming after coming home from the police station and dealing with… all of that. Without any better ideas, I put on the gloves that the police took from me while I was unconscious and check my phone. Hmm… there are a lot of messages on Discord.

I open up the app and wince as I scroll through a much more detailed freakout that Valerie shared with her online friends before her phone got taken away. Her friends are all very worried, so I feel the need to let them know what's going on.

---

Hey everybody, just wanted to give an update. Valerie's okay now, she just might not be able to respond for a while. I sent her to a different universe.

---

There. That should reassure them.