The news reel was wilder and more active than it had been in baseline memory. Not even the great kaiju breach of 62 rivalled the absolute shitshow birthed by the guilds’ decision. Nestra watched it all unfold like a cow witnessing a derailing train because, as hard as she tried, she still couldn’t see herself as a guilder.

It was silly, really. It was just that at the same time the previous year, she’d taken a week off being a cop to indulge in her yearly drunk period while watching fencing scene compilations and the lamest dramas she could get her shaky hands on. The D-class guilder, family loved identity just didn’t register yet. At least not on an emotional, identity level.

The Alda roadster climbed up the ramp. Nestra had it on autopilot so she could safely wallow in self-doubt.

It was weird, really. Nestra couldn’t explain it. Even now, the temptation to avoid looking other gleams in the eyes still needled her. Only her supreme arrogance and the resting bitch face of an ice gleam allowed her to present as a normal scion of a mid-sized clan.

Maybe she needed more time?

A new ping alerted her. It had been two days since the strike had begun, and as befitted a city like Threshold, everything was moving fast. Hunnigan had predictably brought in strikebreakers in the persons of rushed in immigrants, mostly, as Nestra understood, from the Bazaar and nearby enclaves. The news announced that a second team was sent into a one-time C-class portal that had appeared at the top of an office building. The scheduled team was presumed dead. It was already the fourth loss in 48 hours.

Turned out, raiding the hardest portals on the planet couldn’t be rushed or improvised. For some reason, generational gleams raised from childhood to be raiders by the best of the best simply couldn’t be replaced by random newbies. Who’d have thunk it? Truly a surprise for the ages.

Nestra shook her head. Poor fuckers. To add insult to injury, the Big Four and a few of the more flush guilds were heavily recruiting from the more promising teams so every up and coming new blood was immediately paid off to stand down, leaving the work to the middle of the pack. There was also a finite amount of scabs who could hastily be brought in to break the strike. At least thirty people had died in two days to feed the feud between Hunnigan and the guilds. As usual, the powerful argued and the weak bled for scraps. At least Camille was safe. Hunnigan didn’t have the power to change an agreement made by the judiciary so he could throw convicts at the problem.

She looked outside the window. In a normal time, it would have been a formality, but Hunnigan had pissed off everyone. Her car was still driving towards the family compound. She needed to get distracted. Apprehension and hope mixed in a dangerous cocktail in her mind. It was going to be ok, right?

“News alert: clashes in front of the Wellington compound as police are refused access.”

“Riel,” Nestra breathed out.

Drone footage showed a wall of heavily armed guilders blocking the entrance to the megacorp’s arcology. Police gleams argued with a B-class frontliner Nestra thought she recognized from the kaiju attack. The captions rolled on.

“Wellington portal rights confiscation rescinded by judge’s snap decision. Face off in progress.”

Were they going to fight? Nestra sat straighter in her seat. If they did… No. Hunnigan wouldn’t be so stupid. If he ordered his officers to break the law, the battleground would move from the political to the physical level.

A suited guy came to the lead police gleam, gesticulating with anger. Nestra grabbed her visor like a lifeline. The raiders had that fixed immobility she recognized only too well while their hands rested by the handles of their weapons. Her breath hitched. This was live footage for Riel’s sake. Was it happening? Was it happening?

The police gleam grabbed his badge and threw it at the suit’s feet. A few of his subordinates followed. The others retreated to their cars. The suit was left standing in front of a hundred angry raiders. He backed off too.

“Woooow.”

Ok, so maybe things would come to a head before she left. Her car was going off the ramp now. She would be ‘home’ in less than ten minutes. Shit. Quick, a distraction.

“Threshold stock market crash spread to the commodity market, fueled by fear of supply chain disruptions. Raiders 20 index in free fall.”

“Wait. Fuck. My retirement funds?”

Nestra opened her savings app. Back from her police days.

“Dammit!”

A fact slithered in her mind, one that wasn’t exactly comfortable. Nestra wasn’t going to retire anyway because she was an infiltrated alien who would be exiled to parts unknown upon reaching B-class, provided she wasn’t found out beforehand. And now the car was going through the main gate which recognised her and opened automatically because she could show up at her parents house all the time and how weird was it now and here was Helena looking all happy and oh Riel oh fuck it was happening so she opened the door, put on her best fake smile, and forced words out of her lips.

“Hey.”

“Happy birthday!” Helena chirped. “Twenty-six! And we get to celebrate it this time! Yay!”

Nestra accepted a hasty, and slightly sweaty hug — Helena had been training.

“Right! I’m going to take a shower first. They’re waiting for you in the living room.”

“For the love of all that is olfactory, don’t spare your armpits.”

“Yah yah yah.”

Nestra followed her into the main hall.

“You look better…” she observed.

Helena looked a bit more hale than usual. Even her cheeks were fuller instead of their usual gaunt paleness.

“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Mom has said that since I wasn’t raiding, I should focus on strength mana. When I don’t channel void it makes me much hungrier.”

“Oh.”

Well that fucking sucked.

“But hey don’t worry. Apparently, my body’s slowly getting used to void mana. I’ll definitely manage by the time I reach B-class. If that total muppet of a brother can do it before he’s 30 then obviously I’ll do it by 25.”

“I heard that,” the aforementioned numpty said.

Ulysses walked down the stairs dressed to the nines. He was holding a present.

“I’m sorry I can’t stay,” he lied. “I have an important meeting. I’m still… pleased that you get to celebrate with us.”

Though clearly he wasn’t happy about it. At least the truce was holding.

“Here, a gift.”

He shoved the package in her hands.

“You shouldn’t have,” Nestra replied in a flat voice.

“I know you asked for no gifts so we decided to get you…. symbolic gifts. All cheap. Here. I’m off now. Toodaloo.”

Nestra watched him strut away. Helena rolled her eyes, then she was up the stairs in a single jump.

“No gleam moves inside the house!” Mom yelled from the reception room.

“Sorryyyy.”

Nestra opened the package. It was a book. An honest to god printed book. It has to be fairly expensive. She checked the title.

Threshold etiquette for idiots: a tourist guide to proper manners.

“Asshole,” she whispered under her breath.

***

“Happy birthday!”

Nestra did that little dance where you smile and wave while other people sing and the unspoken rule is that you can’t move during the process. But that was fine. She was having fun. The living room, also called reception room because it was pretty big, had been decorated with amateurish care and that, more than an expensive display, showed how much effort had been poured into it. The garlands and lights were blue and yellow which were Nestra’s de facto color. Finger food and refreshments waited on a nearby table — no alcohol which gave Nestra middle school vibes. Only toys and paper cups were missing.

It was like mom was celebrating one of the birthdays they’d missed.

“Stibbs!”

“Nestra!”

The short drone operator had been in deep conversation with Vassily. Nestra was swept into a big hug.

“You have grown so much,” the tall man told her, eyes a little wet. “Oh yes, you do not like hugs.”

“It’s alright. I’m no longer a teenager trying to act cool.”

“Hey!” Helena complained from the stairs.

“Ah, it warms my heart that you have returned to us. It took several years of experimental research and a lot of money but… it was worth it.”

He smiled, eyes going towards Claire who had found a bottle of coffee liquor in a nearby cabinet. Sanae stood nearby, fingers clasped on a small gift. The firespark gleam was just as shy as Nestra remembered. The discussions took off after that. This was more of an old people casual birthday, just an occasion to meet and talk. Nestra was happy to see Stibbs hit it off with everyone. Even Mazingwe, Valerian and Kim showed up, though briefly because it was a working day for them. Gorge hadn’t been invited. She didn’t feel like they had that sort of relationship.

Camille was sadly still in prison.

Nestra went through the motions. She tried, really tried, to just enjoy the love of her family. Maybe it was the mood in the city that withered her happiness, or perhaps things were just too calm. She just couldn’t get out of her head that she was lying to them. Helena and Claire knowing just made things worse because they were just being so normal about it. She could just tell her parents, right? They would get it, right?

They would get that she was a parasitic species?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Hey, are you alright?” Mom asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Nestra lied. “Just. Feeling a bit surreal. And maybe like an impostor.”

Fuck fuck fuck what was she saying? On the other side of the room, Claire gave her a look, then she stared at Vassily and Sanae. Nestra couldn’t tell them. Far too many people were already aware, and she didn’t know them that well.

“Hey hey.”

Her mother grabbed her in a side hug, then her father awkwardly patted her head once which really just made things worse.

“You’re really a gleam and a raider now, which is good, but you were always our daughter, right?”

“Right…”

“We’ve all made decisions that hurt us as a group. It’s just… It’s not because we’re good at killing monsters that we’re good at people.”

Her father nodded in such a confident way that it made Nestra smile despite herself.

“But that doesn’t matter right now. Just forget about it. Live in the moment. We’re all here, happy, alive, and it may not last. So let it all go. Enjoy the moment. Make memories while we still can.”

Nestra frowned, then she looked up. Her mom’s expression felt very brittle, like anything could break it. Somehow, the room emptied in only a few seconds as all the other guests found their way to the kitchen. Tactful.

Dad hugged mom from behind. She remained unyielding, a very intense stick of a woman staring Nestra down with love and ice.

“There’s only three of us left of the team of ten we started as. Just three. You’re all blessed that you won’t live through the same thing. I will freeze the world before I allow it to happen to all three of you.”

The room grew colder. Mom’s original American accent was piercing through the Threshold standard, losing all of its adopted Aussie influence.

“Sorry,” Nestra said.

“Don’t be. I’m not educating you. I’m just trying to say… it’s better now, but it’s not because we’re no longer aging that we’re not going to die someday so you need to make memories now. Enjoy this time we have together. We’re safe. The world’s significantly better than it was fifty years ago.”

“Low bar,” her dad said.

“Nevertheless. Be merry. Let’s have some cake.”

Nestra breathed out.

She couldn’t feel better but she could certainly act better. After all, this was her last birthday. At the speed she was growing, she would be B-class long before next December, and then she’d be gone. One way or the other.

“What’s the cake?”

“A French cake called a Napolitain. Layers of meringue and chocolate butter cream. From a newly famous patissier called Seth. We had to preorder it and everything.”

“Demand was high!” her dad confirmed.

Nestra forced a tiny smile back. Finally, Sereth had made it to the big leagues. That helped dispel a little bit of the sadness and the guilt. Perhaps one day she’d find the courage to tell them.

Actually, Sereth might have some advice there.

***

Nestra let the car’s AI drive again. Her pile of gifts waited on the passenger seat, each one sillier than the other just like she’d asked. No expensive gifts. Helena had gotten her squeaky shark socks to wear at home. Why would someone design squeaky socks? She had no idea. Her dad had given her a gaudy sword toy based on a famous Moroccan gleam’s artifact. Her mom had gotten her a dedicated gaming visor with only gacha traps installed which had to be some sort of felony to be honest. Vassily had gotten her a spatula with a gray-eyed blonde face painted on the blade. For when she felt like cooking by herself. It was a nice touch that he’d remembered her true eye color.

Those people were hilarious. Her people. Presumably.

Nestra sighed at the bittersweet thought before her attention returned to the news. Even though the city had stockpiles, the cost of mana crystals of all qualities was already skyrocketing, hurting the businesses that didn’t have supply contracts. Pundits and politicians were going absolutely hog wild on every news source. The only one who didn’t talk much was Hunnigan. Or rather, he had made a short speech, but now his words were drowned in criticism and interpretations. The usual wit and friendliness had melted into a more acerbic tone like he couldn’t believe he would be questioned. Nestra checked the more opposition-aligned channels. They didn’t feel very supportive.

Hunnigan had dropped the ball so hard public opinion was shifting against him. He had been in power for less than a week. It had to be a record. Nestra wasn’t sure what to think. Maybe it was an experience thing, or he was in some sort of information bubble that blinded him to the obvious. Well, it looked like the strike might end sooner than expected. He was only the representative of the opposition by their blessing. If they believed he could be a liability, they would have him replaced.

The question was: how much damage would he do before he got stopped, and why? It just felt too erratic.

***

The Aszhii reclined on his pillow pile, fingers twined. For once, his thin ears didn’t move, revealing nothing. There was little sympathy to be seen in his demeanor.

Nestra wilted under that gaze. She felt stupid, suddenly.

“You remember what I am protecting you from, correct?”

“Technology,” Nestra mumbled back.

“Specifically, I am protecting you from dying due to being found out by technological means, and by that, I mean surveillance footage, DNA tests and the likes. I am under specific orders to let you die if you perish in a raid, or if you do something stupid. Can you guess what category confessing your nature to your parents falls into?”

Nestra leaned forward, feeling caught.

“They’re not like that. They’re not going to kill me.”

“The most common cause of death for young Aszhii is to get their mask killed because of hubris. The second most common cause of death is to trust a dear friend or relative with the truth of their nature. I know this because we talked about it back home, and so, against my better judgment, I share this knowledge with you. You have the advantage that I am here to explain the unfortunate truths of life to you, one other do not have. I told you about hubris and you listened. So listen to this as well.”

His voice rose. It was rare when Sereth lost his patience like this.

“You’re not special, Nestra. You’re not exempt from the rules just because your species is good at bonding and the reason for this is: they are bonding with a deception. Your mask. No one likes to be deceived. No one enjoys having their love thrown back in their face alongside the fake body they raised from birth. You’re going to… to waste your life for something that’s unnecessary.”

“I can’t keep lying to them.”

“Yes you can!” Sereth roared.

Nestra was pushed back by the emotional intensity of it.

“Yes,” the older Aszhii forced between teeth. “You can. You can wait until you grow to the third ascension and then leave them an apology video. You can write them a letter. By the endless void, you can even return later, so strong that even Shinran will not be able to face you, and then talk to them when they can hurt nothing but your soul. You are female. Portals are yours to play with. You can ask for forgiveness for existing instead of asking for permission to keep breathing. When you’re an adult. When you know who we are, what we are. Not when they can kill you in a heartbeat.”

“But… some humans already know!”

“And how did your revelations turn out so far with raiders their age?” Sereth growled. “Mazingwe would have sent you to a prison or a lab. How did your aunt react?”

Ghostly fingers closed around Nestra’s throat. She remembered being slammed into a stone, drowning into it as it melded to restrain her. Claire had looked so… so different.

“But… they were cool with it. Afterward.”

“You only get one chance at this. You are of Claire’s blood. Your mother might go over the fact she was violated without her knowledge. How about your mask father? How do you think he will feel to have raised the child of another?”

“He… ah.”

Sereth closed his eyes.

“You will do as you wish as usual. Stubborn thing. Just remember, I am to report to the covens about the nature of humans. If I must inform them that your strong bonding means you cannot possibly keep a secret even if it kills you, then they will know what to expect from your species.”

There was an undercurrent of finality in his words that Nestra didn’t really like. She remembered the first encounter between a ‘gray demon’ and a raider squad that Mazingwe had mentioned.

“Not ripe yet.”

Ashzii would hunt humans for sport, likely the same way they hunted other species.

***

“So, you ready?” Gorge asked.

Nestra was. She signaled, and the three moving trucks left the now empty warehouse behind. The small convoy moved on at a sedate pace. It was 9PM. The roads were rather deserted.

“It won’t protect you from the government if they are determined,” Gorge warned. “They can still track you by using AI to see where your vehicles spend the most time in, then extrapolate the location. Or they can just follow the money back to us.”

“If Threshold really wants me, there’s fuckall I can do anyway.”

As in, Sereth will do something drastic.

“My goal isn’t to disappear completely since it can’t be done here. I just need to avoid getting house invaders again.”

“Alright.”

The trucks moved to another peripheral, half-abandoned district, this one not too far from her parent’s compound. In case she needed to run. They stopped at another warehouse not far from the wall. A dusty gate opened on an empty space.

“Your inbox and official address will lead right next door. If anyone checks the plates of your roadster, they will see nothing weird,” Gorge explained.

“Nice.”

“There is an old maintenance tunnel access here. I still recommend you park your car there and continue on foot. It’s not a long walk. Three hundred meters or so.”

The moving trucks drove down at a slow speed. The maintenance tunnel had seen better days but like most of Threhsold’s underground facilities, it had been built to last.

“There is a security gate midway I recommend you keep closed when you’re out. We’ve installed a full surveillance suite in the warehouse and another around the living space itself. There is also a sealed access to Threshold’s underground tunnels. I could have it opened?”

“No, but show me where it is later.”

Nestra could go through thin walls while most other people couldn’t. She would have a personalized, hidden ingress and escape spot.

They soon arrived at what looked like a buried bunker with sunlight streaming in from roof windows showing the blurry shapes of nearby trees. The large open space was Spartan but still fully equipped with a bathroom, kitchen, and central heating. It was clean and smelled vaguely of soap.

“On the outside this looks like a transformer station. Used to be that, at least,” Gorge kept explaining. “It was mothballed when people moved deeper into the city. All water and electricity are redirected from a nearby spot. Same for ventilation. There is a full surveillance suite around here as well. Now, where do you want your pillow pile?”

“Over there in the corner?”

“And the cannon?”

“Central piece. By the windows. In the entrance’s axis.”

“Aye, good idea.”

Gorge signaled his sons, who got to work moving boxes. Nestra had packed them herself since she would rather get stabbed than allow Gorge to see her favorite stuffed animal. Meanwhile, the old asshole gave her the rundown on how to manage her security system. The boxes were halfway in before they were done.

“Thanks for doing this for me on a short notice. And… for giving me time to pay.”

The truth was, Nestra had barely just repaid the wall modification for her old house, the very same she’d abandoned in a total waste of money.

Gorge gave her a measuring look. The bald fucker still had this bossy, jaded demeanor that made her feel she was a MaxSec rookie about to be chewed up.

“Look, bitch, you saved my boy. And you started my trading career. I will never forget that, so don’t sweat. Makes me want to ask though. Is it related to, you know…”

He mimed horns coming out of his forehead.

“There’s a bit of an issue with transformation gleams and a bit of an issue with masks right now,” Nestra whispered. “I kind of want to avoid bad surprises.”

“Alright. Let me jailbreak your bike just in case.”

“I’d love that. Listen, just pile everything up. I gotta go.”

“Sure thing. Don’t worry, I won’t touch your cooking stuff.”

“You’d better not even think about it.”

“And, uh, any chance I could convince you to throw a few goods my way? With the commodity market taking off like a naked lover?”

“I can’t. Too many eyes on me.”

“Ah, yeah. Figured.”

“Don’t worry. Something’s telling me it won’t last.”

***

To hide her fuck off bag, Nestra had selected one of those desolate valleys west of the city barely out of range of the Bazaar’s favorite hunting grounds. If it did happen she had to run, and if old B-rank monsters were not after her, then there was a reasonable chance she could escape and this place wasn’t a bad spot to be. She had a change of clothes there, a spice rack, hygiene products, a hair dye set, and the world’s most reliable currency: mana stones. Threshold didn’t even use cash anymore but mana stones were impossible to mark and valuable everywhere. It was perfect.

From then on she had options, although all of those would be ships. The safest option would probably be to find one of the westernmost enclaves and sneak on one of their smaller ships.

With that, she had finished her preparation for when things would go tits up.

It felt weird to… accept it. She was still clinging to the present with the belief there would still be good times ahead. The shadow of her departure hung like a cloud over her prospects, however. It wasn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when. In a way, preparing made her feel better, more in control. She was facing doom like she’d always had and that was a familiar territory.

“Only thing I can do is to make sure things go as smoothly as I can.”

***

This portal was definitely on the large side.

“Hello, Crescent. My name is Sergeant Yu. I will be the coordinator this time. It’s nice to meet you.”

Definitely a powerful C-class world. It was also a temporary one that made it more dangerous since the raiding team wouldn’t know what to expect. She looked down towards the short soldier standing at attention. He was stupidly buff which made him look like a rectangle. Nestra could respect that. What was weird was how he was clearly a gleam, but with no unlocked aspects. She refrained from commenting.

“Hello to you too. What’s the situation?”

“The raiding squad entered the world four hours ago. I performed a scheduled check half an hour ago, at eighteen hundred. The distress beacon was activated. I immediately alerted Central.”

The man paused to see if she had something to ask. She nodded to tell him to hurry it up.

“The world is C-class, ice biome.”

Oh, that was rare around those parts.

“Expected enemies are category red-three — sorry, I mean large and few in numbers.”

“I’m familiar with the nomenclature.”

“I’ll add that the terrain is mountainous and there was a storm. The squad consists of four people under the direction of senior sergeant Dale. You are to take the emergency bag and link up with the squad as your first priority. If feasible, or more convenient, you are to close the portal. The final decision is yours. Here are the team member’s profiles.”

Nestra memorized the details. Classic formation, to be honest. Usually, a training mission would have two trainees for two more experienced soldiers but this didn’t feel like a normal training mission. For one, they usually stuck to repeating portals. This was definitely a consequence of the strike.

“Before I finish, I need to repeat that since you’re scheduled for an important operation in two days, by law you may refuse this mission with no impact on your record.”

“I’m here as a volunteer,” Nestra replied.

Those soldiers needed help and she could sure use the money. The man nodded.

“And we really appreciate it. Now, for the question you asked. We confirm that Special Affairs has no jurisdiction over you. Your identity is protected under military law. Second, yes, Portal Management will be notified that you are going in.”

Nestra expected that much.

“Alright, I’ve had a run in with them and they absolutely insisted that I was banned from raiding until I removed the mask. It’s not happening for obvious reasons.”

She still looked like a transformation gleam. It wasn’t obvious in Threshold but people were mostly still aware discrimination could happen.

“I’m having a pretty bad week and I would like to avoid making it worse. So just in case,” Nestra continued, “Could you do me a favor?”

The sergeant smiled. Smiling sergeants were always a calamitous omen.

***

It was abysmally dark here. The starless sky was filled with powdery ice and the howling of a powerful wind that sent Nestra’s hair aflutter. The portal led to a narrow path on a mountain’s cliffside, one side leading to a ravine so deep it would take seconds to reach the bottom, the other leading up towards a jagged peak. Sometimes, shards of basaltic rock carved through the ice cover like skeletal fingers. Beyond were mountains as shiny and black as the one she stood on. There was nothing to smell except the dry, rare cold.

Nestra took a deep breath, then she released it. Pressure and concern left her, followed by her anxiety. There would be time for anxiety later. Now, she was back being an Aszhii with nothing to consider but the path forward so she could save some humans. Or avenge them. Stress poured down her back like water to be replaced by a sort of grim serenity.

“Fuck, I think I needed this.”

Reality felt thin here. This was definitely an abnormal portal world. Something that had slipped through the usual thematic net like a viper hidden in a basket of fruits. Finally, some good, old-fashioned fun.

Something jumped out of the ice behind Nestra. She’d felt its mana crawling through the ice. In a swift motion, she drew and swung behind her. The arcane strike carved through crystalline bones in a clink of shattered glass. She dodged low. A circular maw bit through the air above her.

The creature was some sort of ice worm with an armor of frozen spikes. Cold resistance filled her. Her skin hardened. She pushed through the slowly bleeding meat to find a small core. It was delicious, like fresh mint with a bite.

A familiar dark shape swam out of the mountainside. Nestra threw the decapitated carcass up. It was snapped by inky teeth, then the sound of tortured crystals broke through the deafening cry of the gale.

“You were fast,” Nestra commented.

This place was going to be fun.

“Right. Let’s go rescue ourselves some grunts. Sashimi, no eating the humans.”

Like that was going to work.