Play Test: Stuck in Another World as a Reality TV Contestant

(Part 3)

The gulls were relentless, divebombing her again and again with a single-minded obsession rarely seen in humans. Their hunger could not and would not be tempered by failure or strain. They would keep at their pursuit until they were fed, or their plaque-laden arteries finally gave way. I had to hope it wouldn't last that long. Annie's last workout of the day was fun viewing at the moment – it would be considerably less so when she was surrounded by the gory spectacle of seagulls ghoulishly devouring their cousins.

My senior student had been so smug minutes ago. Her task was simple: hold one order of fries behind her back, balance another on the top of her foot, stand in the open on the boardwalk, and eat. In her mind, it had been closer to a game and a reward than a serious exercise. I'd let her drop her training weights – it wouldn't do for our reputation if a bird was accidentally splattered by a swinging kettlebell – and her balance and flexibility would not be impeded by the occupied foot and arm. How hard could it be?

There had been dozens of gulls loitering in our immediate surroundings when Annie first stepped away from the outdoor food court's protective awnings and umbrellas, but their cacophonous screeching calls had summoned more, much more. Hundreds were now menacing my senior student, a living tornado with her at the center, raining loose downy feathers like snow. The challenge was becoming less and less possible by the second, fast spiraling out of her control.

Equally a problem were the many phones pointed her way. No street performers or carnival attractions could match my scantily clad apprentice and her ever-growing swarm of frenzied seagulls. Annie had by now emptied the beach and every nearby store of visitors to form a circle of onlookers around her – a unique obstacle considering the nature of our art. As the senior student of Black City Kung Fu, she was now obligated to make this look good; anything less than a stylish victory would be a failure, and even a failure might be preferred. A spectacular loss was better than a dull win.

I had to wonder if I could have pulled it off without knowing the trick to this little game. Any quick jerks threatened to spill the fries balanced on her foot, and any exaggerated ducks or weaves threatened those behind her back. She could have focused on shoving the fries down as fast as possible and/or parrying the gulls as they bombed her, but ending this too soon or hurting one of the animals would have been gauche. And both outcomes were beneath our school's firm, if at times strange, concept of dignity.

Annie transferred the basket of fries to her other foot with a hop kick, already twisting to protect her back. She'd adopted the strategy of constantly moving her body between the birds and their targets early on, mimicking as best she could the erratic movements of a candle flame, but she was slowly being overwhelmed. The seagulls were terribly clumsy, but they were many, and their inability to aim only made them harder to predict. And worse, their lack of control meant that a not insignificant fraction of thrusting beaks were landing in flesh, slowly staining her red.

There was a very simple solution to this, but Annie's kindly soul would never come up with it on her own. I'd almost given her a hint, but I wanted to leave open the possibility that she would surprise me in her own way.

Kaycey winced as a gull's beak tore open a line of red across Annie's shoulder. "Is this really how you guys train?"

"It is today!" I said cheerily, sniping a bit of her funnel cake while she was distracted for my own amusement. A cruel part of me was enjoying her discomfort. I pitied the girl, but she was still complicit in the exploitation of Harbor Hill.

"It's very, um…"

"Fun, right? For now, at least."

"I was going to say 'unique.'"

"I know, it's great. Environmental training for our environmental fighting style! Although I have to admit, this was modified from two of my dad's training methods."

Ma never let Dad teach us his larceny-based martial arts for obvious reasons, but he found ways to sneak it in every once in a while, particularly towards the end of their marriage. Divorce had a way of making philosophers out of even the saddest and most cynical men. To a normal man, that might mean lengthy midnight texts to their children. To Dad, it meant waxing poetic about the bestial guile of seagulls while three sheets to the wind.

"Your dad made you do this as a child?" Kaycey sounded horrified. I don't know why; her ex-boyfriend had recorded himself doing far worse.

"Not quite this." I chuckled, shaking my head fondly. It was kind of funny in hindsight. "For my thirteenth birthday, he told me he was taking me to the boardwalk as my present and that I could eat as much as I wanted. When we got here, he clarified that I could eat whatever, as long as I stole it away from a seagull."

"Oh my God. That's awful. I'm so sorry."

"Is it?" I scratched my chin in thought. My Alan-half sighed, too tired to put words to his answer. "Maybe for someone with less skill, I suppose. But we had a pretty strict diet growing up, and I managed to leave the outing with a stomach full of greasy, sugary goodness. Black Harbor's seagulls are excellent thieves, you know. You can learn a lot from watching them. Once I got the hang of it, I had my pick of whatever I wanted."

She looked at me with undeserved pity – my Social Feats clouding her judgment, I assumed. "What about the other training thing? You said you combined two."

My smile made her shiver and turn away. "Just keep watching. You'll see."

It didn't take long. One of the gulls, diving for the fries behind her back, accidentally bit down on a lock of Annie's red hair. Mistaking it as victory, the bird tried to fly away, ripping a few strands off her scalp.

Annie grimaced. She'd played off the previous inadvertent attacks in her devotion to the performing arts, having felt worse in our training sessions. This, though, cut through the act and drew some real fighting spirit from the woman. It was just a quick burst, but before she could pull it back, the flock reacted.

"There," I said, standing and grabbing two cardboard baskets of fries off the table. My smile was gone, confronted with a vivid flashback to my fifteenth birthday, which hadn't been nearly as fun as my thirteenth. I prepared to intervene. "Watch."

My second word was lost to the storm of gull cry. The birds closest to Annie had screamed in reaction to her fighting spirit, and the noise had been amplified a hundred-fold by those circling. The flock began to swoop and dive at her directly, pecking, scratching, and beating her with their wings. They were now less interested in stealing her fries and more in driving her away from their food and territory.

Annie tried her best to dodge and weather the storm, but she was too content-brained to do more than that. There were dozens of cameras on her, and it was far better to be seen being humiliated by seagulls than it was to be caught on the internet killing a few in response. Our school would have been judged villainous and unhinged if that was how we reacted after deliberately antagonizing the animals. She rightfully decided to play the fool instead, kicking one basket of fries away and throwing the other far in the opposite direction – too little, too late, unfortunately. Many broke off, but dozens were still occupied with attacking her, forcing her to cover her head with her arms and start running away.

I stopped her with a hand on her forehead. If there weren't so many witnesses, I might have let it go on for a bit longer, but heat lines were starting to rise from Annie. We didn't need this to become a defining incident for Black City Kung Fu. Her evaporating a flock of seagulls would undercut the image we'd been working toward.

She gazed up, first grateful to see me, and then terrified by the two uncovered baskets of fries, worried I was going to make her repeat the test. "Shifu?"

"Not bad, but you expended way more energy than necessary. The trick's simple once you understand it."

"I…" Her eyes darted to the many hundreds of birds still screeching, still circling us, and then back to my untouched fries. None of the flying rats dared to get too close. "I definitely didn't understand the assignment, then."

I included her in the bubble of killing intent I was exuding as an explanation. She gulped, my oppressive Qi crashing down on her like a wave. I nodded down the way at one of the long piers hosting a Ferris wheel and a line of carnival games. "Over there is where my dad stuffed my shirts, pants, and shoes with anchovies to teach me how to manifest killing intent. Tied my arms around the Test Your Strength pole – his idea of symbolism. Ma was pissed. I think she had something a bit more dignified in mind."

Looking up at the cloud of gulls above, I wondered if any of them remembered me from that night. They could live for decades, and in the grand scheme of things, it hadn't been that long since this body's fifteenth birthday. "They're miserable creatures, aren't they?" I asked, launching into the same dumb speech Dad gave me. He'd force-fed me versions of it drunk out of his mind on multiple occasions. "Every one of them is absolutely ruled by hunger and greed, like living manifestations of Gluttony. Seagulls are all, to a one, hateful, spiteful, cruel little tyrants. They will freely attack, steal from, and bully their closest neighbors. If one scores a particularly large meal, the others will harangue it until it vomits and then fight over the regurgitated remains. They'll attack others' nests and eggs, will kill other gulls who nest too close, and will even cannibalize their own young."

"And yet," I continued, "they're intelligent, cunning, and cooperative. They'll work together to steal, of course – thieves all of them – but, paradoxically, they'll share food and defend each other's nests at times. And, as you've noticed, they'll mob predators and intruders. Just like people, eh? Annoying, inconsistent assholes." That was my father's line, and I didn't feel right excluding it from the speech. It played a pivotal part of his personal philosophy, after all. For my own touch, though, I added, "But never boring, at least."

I lifted a basket to my face and scooped up a fry with my tongue slowly, taunting the birds above. "The reason they aren't attacking me like they were attacking you is because you presented as a threat."

Annie licked her lips, throat dry. I hadn't let up on the killing intent. "And you don't?"

I smiled. I'd spat that same question at Dad while he stood over me, shoving down fistfuls of popcorn in between sips of bourbon. Her tone was much more polite than mine had been. "No, you're a threat. I am death."

I carefully tapped into the destructive urge that lingered in mine and every fighter's heart, and let it flow out and through me while keeping my eyes and focus on Annie. Intent mattered with this sort of thing. This was not me giving in to hate, I told myself. This was me instructing my beloved student.

All the same, it was a raw and malignant psychic energy that exploded out of me. The killing of Alpine and his men had warped my hatred, given it an edge that it had lacked before. For a moment, the sun seemed to blister, bleaching the world in a desert haze. I could hear the cracking of bones on an ethereal wind.

The flock scattered immediately, squawking in a panic as what had been a cloak of dread was now a second sun rising from the earth in a dome around me for hundreds of feet. Other birds, mice, pests, and even simple insects joined the gulls in their flight, their simple brains responding to my primal decree.

"It takes a special kind of animal to face certain death."

I gestured to our voyeurs. While most of the crowd around us were quickly finding reasons to be elsewhere, not all were leaving. The low-wage workers of the food stands, for example, had put some distance between them and me, but were still here. A few of the more clout-brained remained as well, pointing their cameras in awe at the birds and whooping and hollering as if this was all a part of the show.

"This is where Dad added, 'A very stupid kind of animal,' but, me, I don't agree." I jabbed a thumb at a man in a fitted Divers cap laughing his ass off while filming mice jumping out of a trash can, fleeing for their lives. "Where would we be without idiots like these recording moments like this? That's prime Jersey culture, right there."

I retracted my killing intent and handed Annie one of the baskets of fries. She stared at my extended hand for a few beats before the dread fully faded and she was able to react. I rolled a Finesse to sleight-of-hand some of her fries away as she took the basket from me. They tasted better stolen.

"Maybe I'm biased," I continued, "but I think laughing in the face of Death is pretty cool. He's a total chode, frankly, and has got it coming. Anyway, enough of that. My dad kept me tied up until I manifested my killing intent, but he's hardly a role model. Come on, food's getting cold."

I took the girls for a leisurely walk down the boardwalk after we finished eating. I knew of a convenient beachside luxury hotel not far from where we were headed that we could drop Kaycey off at. Annie had recovered quickly after a hearty meal of fries, pizza, chicken strips, and ice cream, and was back to her usual bubbly self. I suspected a badly failed Willpower roll on my end had been responsible for that overgenerous caloric allowance. My senior student had batted her pretty blue eyes at me, and, covered as she was in bleeding scratches and feathers, I didn't have the heart to tell her no, completely forgetting in the face of the charm offensive that she had access to healing magic.

Kaycey laughed at something on her phone, showing it to Annie. Our rescued influencer had been in a slump since her eventful breakup, but her mood turned around once the notifications came rolling in. Braxton Chads' calamitous stream was making the rounds and not just amongst his dumbass fans.

"Wait, James, this is too good." Annie took the phone and passed it to me. There was a GIF of me firing the gun into my temple, looking at it with a shrug, and then emptying the rest of the magazine. Above, someone had written: 'Me, 3 minutes into my shift:'

I chuckled, handing the phone back. "Nice. Knew that would play."

Most would have been mortified to learn that I'd nearly shot myself for a clippable moment, but not the girls. Kaycey looked impressed, and Annie proud.

"Wow, Braxton did some crazy things for attention, but never anything close to that. How did you know those would really be blanks?"

"Yeah, James, how did you know you'd be fine?" Annie added, a hint of dread in her voice. She already knew the answer. "Please, don't say—"

"I didn't, of course. How could I?" My student groaned and palmed her face. I slung my arm over her shoulder and laughed. "Relax. I pooled and hardened my Qi under the barrel. It would have probably been fine even if it was a real bullet."

"Probably?" muttered the little blonde to herself.

Annie pursed her lips in thought before relaxing. Our frequent dual cultivation meant she understood intimately just how much power I could bring to bear. "I guess that's fine then. Dang, imagine how cool it would have looked if you'd bounced a nine mil off your skull point blank. Gun-guy internet would lose its collective mind over that."

I snapped my fingers. "Missed opportunities, eh? Still, glad my next would-be assassins won't be guaranteed to have armor-piercing bullets. Probably not worth the acclaim."

"Ugh, jerks, ruining a perfectly good stunt." Annie turned to the girl at her other side and frowned. "What's wrong, Kay? You don't need to worry about James. He's much more cunning than he lets on. No dumb gang assassin's beating my shifu!"

The blonde gave her a weak smile. She had paled at my remarks, but not from fear as Annie suspected. I recognized the emotion – existential crisis. Both my personalities had been dealing with it a fair bit for a while now. If I had to speculate, the image of me firing an actual bullet into my skull had reminded her of her earlier emotions during the robbery. Her shallow, miserable life had probably flashed before her eyes more than once today.

"I know. Some random commenter caught James' eyes glance at the camera and his thumb twitch right as the stream unmuted. Thanks, by the way. I'd bet Braxton could have salvaged things if you hadn't done that."

I sipped my teeth and grumbled a "You're welcome." I couldn't believe someone had the ability to catch my telekinesis but not the decency to keep it to themselves. It was common courtesy to keep another martial artist's secrets from the public, even if it was only to taunt them with your knowledge in a later fight.

"You want to talk about it?" asked Annie, still concerned with Kaycey's dismay.

The influencer made a face, clearly struggling with her thoughts. Annie opened her mouth to say something soothing, but I quieted her with a hand on the shoulder. After a few moments, the girl said, "It just feels…pointless and stupid. Like, everything I've done, not just the collabs with Braxton, but also the stuff that led up to those, I guess."

"Aww, sweetie. Don't say that. Millions of people love your shopping hauls—"

I scoffed. I'd planned on remaining civil for the rest of our relatively brief interaction, but I couldn't help myself. "Don't lie to the girl. She makes slop, and a million morons can't change that fact."

"James!" hissed Annie, mortified.

"What?" I shrugged. "I'm not telling her anything she doesn't know."

That drew a bitter laugh from the blonde. "I knew you didn't like me."

I looked at her like she was crazy. This infant child had lived a truly sheltered existence. I'd rescued her for the same reasons I would rescue a burglar from a burning building he was robbing. One, it was the right thing to do, two, it felt nice helping people, and three, I believed in proportionality. Kaycey hadn't deserved the same fate as her psycho boyfriend and her traitor friends, but that didn't mean we were suddenly cool.

"Of course, I don't like you. What did you expect? How many times did you stand around tittering in the background of one of that dirtbag's deranged videos? You're a millionaire or close to it, not some helpless waif."

"James!" sputtered Annie again, her voice higher in pitch.

"What? What am I supposed to do, lie to her like all her friends did?" They both winced. "She's short and stupid, but that doesn't literally make her a child. Someone's got to treat her like an adult."

Annie glared at me. "It's not babying her to be nice."

"I am! Look," I pointed at Kaycey's face, wracked with painful introspection, "a successful influencer is actually contemplating her life and decisions. This is a rare and beautiful moment, one-in-a-billion maybe. We should be facilitating this, not sabotaging it with surface-level niceties. She has a real chance to be a better person."

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

My student sucked in a breath to defend her brokenhearted new friend, but paused to think about my statement. That was what I loved about Annie – she put thought into her decisions, a shockingly rare character trait on both of my Earths.

"Do you really think that?" asked Kaycey, her voice small and hopeless, shoulders slouched in on herself. I didn't regret my words, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like an asshole in the moment.

But we were in New Jersey, so I kept going. Such was the custom here. "Which part? That your shit's slop?"

"That I can be better."

"Sure. If I didn't believe people could change for the better, I'd be a hermit, not a hero. And if I didn't believe you could change, I would have left you with the rest of those jackals."

"I-I tried other formats and tried to get Braxton to try different ideas, but they never really popped off, and he never wanted to take the risk with his own platform." She sounded equal parts defensive and seeking, like she wanted advice.

I had none for her, not really. Or not regarding content, at least. "If your only measure of success is what other people think of you, you will forever be a failure."

She didn't respond, sinking deeper into her thoughts. The cloud that hung around her grew greyer, her expression more bleak.

We spent the rest of the walk to the hotel in uncomfortable silence, our morose atmosphere clashing badly with the bright lights and pumping music of the boardwalk. Or, at least, the girls passed the time in awkward silence; it didn't bother me at all. I was more consumed with anticipation. The Quest notifications for the viral videos had come through, and I was quietly dying to get somewhere I could explain to Annie what she was feeling. The redhead was busy chewing her lip anxiously while scanning our faces, but she'd definitely noticed her share of the Rewards. She kept rolling and shrugging her shoulders, obviously confused why the heavy chains weren't bothering her as much.

[Recurring Quest Complete!]

Star in a viral video.

Reward: 15XP, +1 Intimidation, Annie receives +1 Strength, +2 Intimidation

[Recurring Quest Complete!]

Star in a viral video.

Reward: 20XP, +1 Performance (Acting), Annie Receives 30XP, +1 Finesse, +2 Craft (Pornography)

Bonus, Pornography: You and Annie receive 20XP, +1 Sensuality

I sighed as we neared the entrance to the beachside resort, our group slowing to a halt outside its arched pedestrian side entrance. It was a terraced and stuccoed Spanish-style building with a walled courtyard and view of the harbor that had originally served as a manor for some eccentric businessman in the 1920s. The rooms started at $800 a night, but I had no doubt Kaycey would be able to afford the best they had. Annie and I were meanwhile headed for the paddle board rentals just down the way.

"Look," I ran a hand through my hair, not wanting to leave things as they were, "I meant every word of what I said. As cheesy as that shit might sound, I do think you can be better."

"I know," she said meekly, eyes on the ground.

I glanced to Annie for help; she crossed her arms and raised a brow at me. A single Social roll could have salvaged this, but I rejected the idea. There was an aspect to using the system here that felt as fake as everything I'd just criticized the girl for.

"I liked when you threatened to ruin Braxton Chad's life earlier," I said, throwing her a bone. "It takes courage to openly threaten a powerful sociopath to his face."

She muttered something that sounded like, "Thanks."

"If I were training you to be a martial artist, I would hone the things inside you that let you stand up for yourself in that moment." In the absence of the system, I had nothing but my instincts and earnestness to guide me through this. "You should sharpen your pride and sense of self-worth; they'll act as buffers against temptation. They're what I use."

Kaycey looked up sheepishly at me, probably confused by the sudden shift in tone. I held her gaze, demanding a response with my body language. "Th-thanks. I'll, um, try." I narrowed my eyes. She jumped a little and gulped. "I mean, I will! I can…I can do that. I've been telling myself I need to stop people-pleasing at my expense for a while."

I nodded approvingly. "Good. You got any non-shitty friends back in LA?"

"Not really. Maybe. No."

"Well, you've got two in Black Harbor, if you'd like. If I didn't put you off too badly, that is."

She paused, blinking at me, and looking to Annie for clarification. My student shrugged helplessly at her. "Really?"

"Sure. I've got plenty of scumbag friends." I grinned to take the bite out of the words. "You should meet my buddy Cory – well, no, you shouldn't. But the point stands. Plus, once you cultivate your fighting spirit, I bet you'll be pretty cool. You should try following along with some of our instructional videos. It'd be interesting to see how far you could go with those and a few video calls with us alone."

A hint of a smile reached her lips. "Thanks. It would be awesome to pull an Annie on any future ex-boyfriends."

"Aww, that's so nice," said a cheery Annie. "See, James, turning Braxton's entire pelvic floor to jello was super inspiring. I'd call that light-hearted, wouldn't you?"

"Jesus Christ, woman." She laughed. "Well, what do you say?"

Kaycey blinked at me. "About…"

"You want our numbers or not? We can text and shit, keep you sane while you're out in California."

Annie added, "It'll be nice to have someone to bounce video ideas off of."

I nodded. "Our intentionally leaked sex tape just popped off, so we're in a transition phase for our content, too."

The blonde began to respond, but the words caught in her throat, her eyes watering with emotion.

"Want a hug?"

Kaycey nodded, her tears starting to flow openly. I scooped her up into my arms and rolled a Charisma to calm her down. It was hypocritical, perhaps, but if you couldn't use your out-of-context eldritch abilities to soothe crying women, then what good were they?

After the blonde had made her teary, bittersweet goodbyes with many promises to keep in touch, Annie turned to me with her hands on her hips and an unamused expression on her face.

"Do you only have the one speed, James?"

"I could have handled that better, sure. But forgive me if I don't weep when the powerful get confronted with the consequences of their own actions."

She sighed. "You don't get it. I'm not giving her a pass either, but you don't know what it's like in this game. The internet's only ever been a hobby to you, but if you're even a little successful – and especially if you're a woman – everything is designed to push you towards trends or to get more extreme with your content. Kaycey had her first million followers at fifteen. I can't even imagine what that would do to someone—what?"

I'd leaned in, wide-eyed and incredulous. "Annie, there's a sliver of the Carrion King in my soul constantly whispering in my ear – I think I know a little something about temptation. And for the record, if I ever give in and start wantonly slaughtering people, you have my permission to be as judgmental as you'd like about it."

The image brought a frown to her face. She didn't like thinking about that possibility. "Well, okay, but you were still meaner than you had to be. She practically idolizes both of us, maybe even literally. We could have totally helped her mature with a few text conversations. You didn't have to call her short and stupid."

But I enjoyed calling her short and stupid, I remarked in my head. Still, I could see her point. "Fair. Like I said, I could have handled it better. They just get on my nerves, I guess, influencers. They're like modern day snake oil salesmen, except they sell bullshit cures for loneliness and despair to millions. It's lowest common denominator shit."

She looked hurt. "You know, it wasn't that long ago that I was an influencer. A lucky brand deal paid for all of my Christmas shopping last year."

I waved her off. "Don't be silly. It's nowhere close to the same thing. You were never an influencer; you were an athlete and an actress with a social media presence. For better or for worse, and mostly for worse, that's just how things are now."

"If you say so."

"They're talentless hacks, Annie. You and I are artists, in more ways than just martial. We live interesting lives and make interesting content out of it. They make dogshit content to look like they're living interesting lives. It's the exact opposite – the polar opposite! You were a college cheerleader with a freakish ten-foot vertical and a genuinely charming personality, and then you were a young woman in a new city pursuing a professional stunt acting career – those are classic, fascinating human stories about someone with rare talent. They would have worked at any time in history!"

Her lips wobbled, fighting off a smile. "I've done plenty of try-on hauls over the years, too, you know."

"The point stands. Those are art when you do it. They should be playing videos of your thighs and glutes in the Louvre."

She laughed and looped her arm through mine. "Smooth save. You know, Kas warned me you were a bit of a diva before we met."

"That's rich coming from him."

"I think he meant it as a compliment, if it makes you feel better. Did the leak really go viral, by the way, or were you just guessing people would find it next?"

"I was being serious, something to look forward to when we get back home. If I'm not mistaken, it's popping off more than the clips of the stream." In order to get the Viral Video Recurring Quest, the video had to be more popular than the last. Though there was a possibility that the Producers had thrown us a bone on account of the pornographic nature of the 'leak'.

Annie furrowed her brow, clearly trying to think of how I could know any of that.

"Soon," I said to her unasked questions. "But we need to get a move on. That took more time than I was expecting, and no way do I want to be on the harbor when it gets dark."

I rented us a paddleboard big enough for two, leaving the chains and kettlebells behind in the sand by the rental place. In my initial conceit for today, I'd planned for Annie to test her ability to balance by making her run alongside the board, using surface tension alone to hold her afloat. But the sun was getting lower, and the black waters of the Harbor, those areas where the underwater chasms split the Atlantic seabed like mighty roots growing out from the Beagle River, were some of the few places in the city that I truly, viscerally, feared. When the sun was high and the sky was clear, I could put the dread out of my mind enough to enjoy a quick passage over them, but if not, then I wanted to be nowhere near. I didn't have any bad experiences in the Harbor, never knew anyone personally who did, but only a fool could look into the milky darkness of those trenches and think that they were merely the result of the lack of light. If a superstition was a belief without evidence, then this was my one and only: the rifts at the bottom of the bay were not meant for mortal eyes. That blackness existed only to spare us the horror of those sights.

"Lie back, rest, and get some sun. I'll paddle," I told Annie, rolling a Deception to hide my intentions. I didn't want to risk her glancing over the edge. "You've got some tan lines from the chains on your back."

"Sure, thanks!"

Ringing the bay, in between the great chasms, were a number of small islands, many of which were semi-artificial. The Army Corps of Engineers dumped gravel and stones on them every year, planting trees, and pouring concrete breakers when needed in order to form a protective barrier. Without them, the mouth of the bay was wide enough that large waves could menace the many commercial vessels that had kept the city's economy afloat after the death of American manufacturing. Even en masse, the islands could only absorb so much of the energy, and it was a constant fight against the ocean to keep them above sea level.

We left from the boardwalk far to the south of the main shipping lanes, the path chosen deliberately so that we'd spend as little time floating over the true darkness of the underwater canyons as possible. Fires and camping were forbidden on the ring islands, but it wasn't otherwise illegal to make the trip out to them. Regardless, outside of the absolute height of the summer rush, when tourists filled the beaches, they were rarely visited, and it was an easy trip for someone with my abilities. They were perfect for a discreet heart-to-heart, and I was tired of hiding in my apartment whenever I wanted privacy.

I paddled us to my favorite of the islands, one where a true forest had taken root atop the gravel and dirt hills. The dense vegetation muffled the sounds of the city, and the heavy winds–or something else–had bent and twisted the trees into an entrancing tangle. A bald eagle eyed me from a knotted branch as I took us to shore on the ocean-facing side. I returned its glare with my own, and it wisely fled with four loud, thumping beats of its mighty wings. The great bird of prey was a majestic sight, but I wanted no witnesses to our discussion, not even animal. In this world, who was to say if the eagle was not a confidant of Zeus or a shapeshifter in disguise?

After focusing on my Scoposthesia to double check we were alone, I woke Annie from her cat nap, and the two of us pulled the paddleboard up a hill past the tide line.

"Wow," she breathed, staring out into the horizon. The Atlantic sprawled before us, lapping at the gravel shore with a hypnotic lullaby. The distant sounds of ships echoed over its white-peaked surface, but they were almost peaceful played underneath the constant wash of water and the cries of birds.

I echoed the sentiment, plopping down with a sigh to sit at the base of a tree. For the first time since the show began, both my halves as one felt privileged to be in Black Harbor. In the heart of the city, you could almost forget the ocean was here – forget the world entirely, for that matter. But for as benighted as life on the land could be, it was worth enduring for this sight alone.

"My friends are on the other side of that; at least four of them, I'm pretty sure. Part of me feels like I should just…start swimming."

Annie's face crinkled into a wide smile, eyes still locked on the horizon's beauty. "That might be the sweetest thing I've ever heard a man say."

"I'd probably just end up passing out," I mused, "get picked up by a boat, and roped into a lengthy Odyssey to find them."

"That sounds like your luck—" She paled on turning to look at me. "James? Are you…okay?"

I patted the ground next to me. "Sit. There's some things I've been keeping from you."

"Oh…" She bit her lip and knelt facing me, sitting on her heels. "How worried should I be?"

"Whatever you're thinking, I promise it's not that."

"Well, that's no help. Now I'm thinking of weirder stuff." She gasped. "Did a witch curse you to slowly turn into a bird!?"

"What? No—"

"You're actually your twin, and you two have been doing the Prestige to me!?"

"Why would I—that was for a magic trick in that movie—"

"Loki seduced you as a woman, and now you have to move to Norse heaven to be a dad?"

I looked around nervously. "No! And don't say that out loud, you're going to jinx me!"

"You're a fairy prince hiding from Queen—"

"Annie! Stop! I'm about to explain."

"Sorry. Panicking is one of my coping mechanisms."

I shook my head. "Listen. You probably noticed you got stronger out of nowhere while we were walking Kaycey to the hotel, right? There's something about the source of that power you should know."

Her worry deepened. "Oh, no, James, what did you do?"

"Good instincts. That's an appropriate reaction." I took a deep breath. I'd spent some time thinking about how I wanted to frame this without lying or angering the Producers, and had settled on one I thought would fly. "But it's not what I did, or not this incarnation of me."

Her eyes widened with understanding – bingo. Women loved talking about past lives.

"In another time," I continued, leaving out the 'another world' part, "I was tricked into making a pact with forces I didn't understand and…into selling my seven friends on the idea." I grimaced, the shame of that fuck up twisting my guts painfully. "I can't go into the details – those forces have bound my tongue – but we paid a heavy price. Our lives ended the moment the deal was sealed."

Annie nodded. "You sacrificed yourselves for power in your next life! That's horrible. I'm so sorry."

"Huh. You picked up on that pretty quick."

"It's a trope in the Past Life Romance genre!" She blushed, embarrassed by the admission. "Um, my roommate is a connoisseur."

"Ah…kind of cheapens my whole deal."

"Sorry."

"It's fine. Anyway. The pact was made with some pretty grim to neutral-at-best beings. I receive power from lust, primarily, and mayhem, secondarily. The powers and rewards themselves are somewhat related to what I did to earn them and somewhat random—"

She leapt in, seeing where I was going. "Which is why our training sessions are so horny! That was your way of making sure I'd receive some spillover effects. Or, no…they made you super good at teaching, but only if you did it all sexy-like! Jeez, that's insidious. I'm guessing a lot of your powers encourage degeneracy, then? Oh, what's wrong?"

I was rubbing my face in my hands. In retrospect, I probably should have assumed Annie would find this all intuitive and be supportive. We'd been very deliberately introduced my first day on this Earth. By now, I was positive the Producers had arranged that. "Just feeling very stupid for not telling you sooner."

Annie cooed and sidled in against me, hugging my arm to her chest. "Don't feel stupid! It's normal to feel like no one will understand your problems or will judge you for them, especially since your problems are really strange and messed up."

"Thanks," I said dryly.

"I don't think you should feel ashamed for bringing your friends in on your pact either. First of all, it's a past life, and second, you got tricked by gods and/or devils, it sounds like. Would you be upset with me if I got tricked by a literal god?"

If Annie got tricked by a spam email like I had, I would probably be upset, as a matter of fact, but then there was no chance she'd be so stupid. "There's nothing you can say that's going to lessen what a bozo I was. They really didn't have to try very hard. But, thank you, I appreciate it. It's…nice to get this off my chest."

She kissed me on the cheek. "Thanks for trusting me. Does Maki know?"

"Most of it. I'll expand on the details tomorrow." I could feel Annie's blush, her cheek growing noticeably warmer against my shoulder. Her question had been asked innocently, but it still made her feel special to learn she knew something Maki didn't. I went on, happy to reinforce the feeling. "It's been a rough adjustment. I've only had my memories since the day we met."

Her cheek grew hotter, enough to burn a lesser man. "Wow. It really is like a Past Life Romance story." Annie sat up and rested her chin on my shoulder. "Hey, when you said at least four of your friends were on the other side of the ocean, were you talking about those friends?"

"Yeah. Can't get into the specifics, but four should be in Europe or Asia, two should be in Lost Mythical Cities – I don't know what that means either, so don't ask – and one is probably in—"

"Crucifixion," she whispered, the name spoken with some dread.

I nodded. I hadn't told Annie why I needed to go to her hometown, just that it was important and it would also give us an opportunity to investigate what was going on with her bizarre biology. There hadn't been much of a plan, or even elements of one, about how I'd justify looking for Victor when we got there. I'd still been fully living for a theoretical future then, in which everything would work out once I'd found the others. I figured I could come up with some plausible lie once I learned more about the area.

"If I'd known the name of your hometown was Crucifixion, Missouri, the first time we met, I wouldn't have let you out of my sight. Black Harbor, Crucifixion, they both have an undeniable menace to them, you know? It's all too perfect. My mentor introduces me to the ideal student and friend the day I 'arrive', for lack of a better word, and she happens to be from a town with a storybook name – that has to be fate. I know that one of my friends is supposed to be at a sort of 'crossroads', which aligns with Saint Christopher's College, the patron saint of travel. I'd bet my life he's there – if he's still alive when we get there."

She gulped. "Great."

I took her hand and squeezed it gently. "Don't let my worries become yours. This particular friend is, or was, good at keeping his nose clean. I'm just in my head, you know?"

Annie attempted a chuckle. "Same. It's not that, though, it's, well, it seems really dumb in comparison."

"Do I need to give you your own advice?"

"No, I was half talking to myself earlier anyway." She sighed and rested her cheek on my shoulder again, gazing out at the ocean. "It's just, I was already stressed about introducing you and Maki to my parents. Like, hi, mom, I'm here because I'm going through a second puberty, and my friends think it's because you cheated on dad with a monster. Oh, here they are, by the way, the man everyone with eyes can tell I'm sleeping with and his super-genius girlfriend. Please don't say anything racist about Asians if you could, thanks."

I laughed. "Yeah, that'll be awkward, alright. But I'm sure Midwestern politeness will get us through it."

"Get you through it maybe," she grumbled. "I'll be fully aware of all the shitty subtext and backhanded remarks."

"Mine and Maki's Jersey charm, then."

"Surely, you're joking."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean? It worked on you, didn't it?"

"I'm special."

"True." I leaned down and kissed her on the lips – an easy and casual gesture she readily accepted. We'd long blurred the boundaries of student and lover, but this was pure romance and couldn't be interpreted in any other way. "Honestly," I said, turning back to the Atlantic, "I'm surprised to hear you've been worried about this. You struck me as someone who was exceptionally sure of yourself and your decisions. But I guess we all regress a little when family is involved."

"Ha. James, until recently, really recently, I was constantly obsessed with what other people thought about me. It's like I said, being on the internet, being a woman, growing up with super judgmental Midwestern parents in a small town – they get to you. I saw a lot of myself in Kaycey; I could see how she'd sort of drifted slowly into being a worse person. Before I met you and Kas, I woke up every day feeling like I must have lost my mind, breaking up with my NFL boyfriend and throwing away my engineering degree to work as a waitress. Everything and everyone in my life was telling me to make right with Damon, move to Princeton, get married, pop out kids, and go full super mom. I probably would have ended up starting a lifestyle brand, with the only acting jobs I got being the result of nepotism. I would have been rich, famous, unfulfilled, and miserable."

"But then you met some other lunatics and figured out that insanity was way more fun?"

"Exactly." She laughed. "But, seriously, it wasn't until I started seeing results from our training that I really got over myself and stopped caring so much about what other people thought. It's just harder to be self-conscious when you know you could feasibly fight a horse."

"We should put that on our flyers."

Annie grew sheepish, her tone chagrined. "It's silly, but before I trained with your mom, I was actually debating if I should ask you to fake date me just for the meeting with my family. I thought polyamory would be easier to explain to them than the closed-door student thing."

I grew wary. "What changed after meeting Ma? What psychotic advice did that maniac give my precious senior student?"

She giggled. "She was perfectly wonderful, actually – brutal, but you know me. I like a good workout. And it was exactly that, the senior student thing. I know you told me how big of a deal that was, but it wasn't until I met your mom that I started to really get the significance. She treated me like her granddaughter. It was super sweet."

"Hmph, she must be up to something." Never in my life had I heard Lily Li described as 'sweet'.

"Your mom's just proud that you took a student. I think she was worried you were trying to reject the Martial World. She talked a lot about that, about how it would drag us in one way or another. When she talked about your style, she said she originally thought it was your way of deliberately making yourself weaker to escape the pull."

I considered that. I had a feeling Annie missed a lot of the backhanded jabs my mother had probably layered into this conversation of theirs. There was some merit to what she'd said, though.

"Taking you as a student was a turning point for me, I suppose. Calling yourself a master of a new style is like a standing invite for other masters to try and test you, call you on your shit. And it's not a 'new style' until you start spreading it; before that, it's a personal project."

"That makes sense." She tensed and then sat up straight with a sudden realization. "Oh. That makes sense. Gosh." Annie sucked in a breath and grabbed my arm, excited. "James, that made sense! The rules for the Martial World are finally making sense!"

"Right? They're pretty intuitive, aren't they?"

"No! They're completely insane!" she said, smiling wide. "But they make sense to me!"

I scratched the back of my head. "Uh, that's…good?"

"That's great! So much of what you've said is finally falling into place. God, I've been so confused!" Annie froze, suddenly guilty. "Oh, jeez, I just remembered—" She sucked in a breath and moved back into her kneeling position facing me, but sat with her back straighter.

"Shifu, I have a confession to make, too."

"Alright, shoot. Now's a good time. Can't be worse than my thing."

She shook her head seriously. "It's much worse."

"Than admitting my life has been held sway by dark powers beyond our ken since we first met? Annie, I, I just don't think that's possible."

"It's—" She took a deep, calming breath. "James, I…only joined Black City Kung Fu because I was trying to seduce you into becoming my boyfriend."

My jaw dropped. I scrutinized her face – her shame seemed legitimate. "Is this a bit?" I said slowly.

She looked down at her hands, gripping her knees tightly. "I wish it was. I also…lied the first time we had sex when I said it would be no strings attached. I actually secretly wanted a lot of strings, as many as possible. Also, I do think it's good content, but the porn suggestion was mostly so we could have more sex."

"No, seriously, is this a bit?"

Annie chewed her lip nervously. "I know it's bad. I," her breath hitched, "even lied earlier in this conversation when I said I wanted you to fake date me for my parents' sake. That was just going to be my excuse—"

"Annie, I have to stop you. I didn't think I needed to tell you this, but you do know that you're a terrible liar, right?"

"James, I'm telling you the truth!"

"Yes, Annie," I said, annunciating my words like I was explaining something to a child, "I know. I always know when you're telling the truth because I always know when you're lying. You're a bad liar. It's one of your more charming features."

She looked up, confused. "Wait. So…you knew all of that? Why didn't you say anything!?"

"I didn't know that you didn't know that I knew! How is this the first time anyone's ever mentioned how bad you are at lying? I thought we were mutually deciding to let things play out with time. I thought you'd figured out that I'd been deliberately flirting with you that first time we trained."

"I did, but I just thought you were like that – that you liked to tease women by pretending to be a himbo."

I pinched my brow. "Christ, maybe I am an idiot," I muttered. This was what the invisible thing between us had been? That Annie was feeling mounting guilt over her prolonged 'deception'? Holy shit. "You know, honestly, your level of guilelessness is pretty endearing."

Annie turned pink. "Oh. Thanks. But, anyway," she added quickly, "it doesn't matter anymore. If I had known, truly known, what it meant to be the senior student for Black City Kung Fu, I never would have thought I was just settling for that while waiting to be your girlfriend."

She looked up at the swaying branches above us. Their leaves were beginning to turn for the season. The wind would strip them bare within a few weeks. "I felt like the best version of myself today, you know? I used magic to film a scene I co-directed that's going to be seen by millions, and when we were flying across the rooftops, it was like I was suddenly living in a totally different, more fantastical city than anywhere outside of a movie. And then I got to beat the stuffing out of a cartoonishly dickish loser I've hated for years! Even the part where I got humbled by seagulls – it all felt like I was a young hero from a story. I don't know. I don't know if I'm making sense. I don't know if that's what it feels like to be a youxia, but my heart is telling me that's what it means to be the senior student for Black City Kung Fu."

"I'll be honest," she continued, "or more honest, I guess. I can't really imagine dating someone else, and I was a little hurt when I learned you had started dating Maki. Not surprised, of course, you two have crazy chemistry, but it did hurt. You said you didn't have time for relationships, and then—well," Annie shook her head, "it's not important."

I put my hand over hers, still clamped to her knee. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking straight back then. That's my bad."

"No, it doesn't matter. I should have focused on what I have, because what I have is incredible." Annie met my gaze, her blue eyes shining with determination. "Being the first student for a future legendary martial art, being the right hand of its master – that's for life, right?"

"If you want it to be."

She frowned. "Is that how it works in the Martial World?"

I grinned. "It really is intuitive for you now. You're right, I should have said, yes, it's for life. Whether you want it to be or not, that's a legacy you'll carry until the day you die. I thought I made that clear when I first took you as a student, but our concepts can be hard to explain to normal people. You'll learn that in time."

"Good." Annie made a fist. "I'm ready, Shifu. If there was any part of you that was holding back in our training on my account, out of compassion or pity, I want you to kill it. I want to commit to being your senior student, for real this time, knowing everything that entails. If that means whatever love we can have is forever the love between a master and his student, then so be it. I heard the call today, James, and I'm ready to answer. I want this. I want to define the story of our school with you. I want to see how far this goes."

I hummed noncommittally. I'd never been prouder of Annie, but she'd asked me to play my role, and this was the part of her story where her master ominously said, "Today was just a taste. It's going to get a lot more fucked up than that. There's going to be blood."

Her fighting spirit flared, smile growing vicious. The sun shone a bit brighter and hotter around us. The deal was sealed.