After the echoing sounds of gunshots the room had gone silent. A sprawl of various masked men lay in pain on the ground, most holding their sides or stumbling to find the door. I looked around, feeling pleased with a job well done; Abby, well Abby did not look nearly as much so.

"What did you just do!?" Abby yelled across the room, eyes wide with surprise.

"I shot him! He was coming right at me!" On the ground the man was still writhing in pain, moaning and clutching the space where the bullet had carved a path straight through his abdomen.

"Oops, one moment." I walked up and fired two more rounds into him, silencing him in a splatter of gore. "There, now we did it!"

"Jesus Christ Quinn, we're heroes for gods sake!"

"Yes, thats the spirit! We saved the day! So, how do you want to celebrate, drinks? Im buying." I winked.

Abby rubbed her temples in annoyance, the magical sparkles that always radiated from her like a drizzling rain now dried up, leaving her appearing almost normal. Almost aside from the bright pink dress and matching wizards hat. I didn't much understand the outfit, but I guess it made about as much sense in a fight as my suit did.

"Ok Quinn, listen, please just listen." Abby floated over, gliding over the piles of bodies until she met my face. "You are a hero now, so you can't just shoot people."

"But I just did. See that guy? I just shot the hell out of him and I feel great."

"Heroes don't shoot people!"

"Oh...so if I had beaten him to death I'd be more of a hero? Here get that guy." I pointed across the room to a black suited man stumbling for the door. "I'll try again on him!"

The man turned wide eyed, first to me, then down to the bloodied body at my feet, and finally launched himself headfirst through the doors.

"See! That guy will never commit a crime again, and all it took was me shooting a man to death."

Abby was no longer listening though, instead she was bent down besides the corpse pressing her hand gently to his wounds. And for a moment an unnatural feeling spread through the room. As if all the air, all the sound and the atmosphere itself had left. I felt that even if I could speak in this moment that if I tried then the noise would be pulled into the void, lost to the blanket of invisible snow that now encompassed me.

A rain of light fell down from Abby onto the man I'd shot as the blood was sucked back into his body as if through a series of straws stuck in his back. Then, with a final hand gesture from Abby, he rose.

"Get down he's back for round two!" I raised my gun, but Abby put herself between him and I.

"I- I'm alive..." The man stuttered, then removed his mask off his head.

"Yes. Now you may go, your death is penance enough I think."

He did not hesitate, turning toward me with fear filled eyes before running through the door. Abby shot me an angry look.

"Hey, the way I see it that works! I brutally murder the bad guys and you bring em back. Teaches them an important lesson in humility I think." I replied to her gaze.

Abby rolled her eyes. "If that's as close to a realization I'm getting from you then so be it. Now let's get drinks. You're buying."

Time slowed to a crawl as a single report echoed throughout the empty warehouse. The creature I had fired on slowly fell backwards, its featureless porcelain face and red flesh seeping a thick black oil. It felt like appeared as if everything was swimming through molasses; I was experiencing the world at the speed of thought, even if my muscles could only move in real time.

It always felt like this when we talked mind to mind.

"John," she said quietly, her mental voice shaking. "What did you just do?"

"He... he was coming right at me, so I shot him." I started to blink.

The fear coming across the link turned to panic. "We need to go, now. Don't bite your tongue, and don't make a sound."

Before my eyes finished closing we were in the rafters and I was naked. A subtle glow enveloped me -- one of Kimber's illusion spells.

"Get over it. You opened a hole in one of them; can't risk you spreading it. Besides, it's not like I haven't seen you before."

"Spreading it?"

"Why do you think we use flame and gravity magic against these things, dumbass? Bloodborne pathogen. My magic gives me some protection, but you? You get some of their juice in you, you become one of... them."

Time resumed and she pointed at the swarm. The humanoid creatures we were fighting had begun to swarm the one I had shot; ripping at its flesh. A larger one reared back and howled, its once featureless face a sickening mass of ichor-stained teeth. I heard Kimber take a deep breath and begin chanting quietly.

>Lord of the Forge, grant my prayer
>Grant me a blade to cleanse the land
>Hephaestus lend me your flaming sword #Laevateinn!

The world around me shuddered as a red circle formed underneath the creatures. A gout of white-hot flame erupted from the circle, consuming everything in its reach.

Kimber stumbled, the cost of casting so many powerful spells in a row finally starting to take its toll. As I caught her, I felt her cast an appraisal spell on me. "I'm ok. What's done is done. And you're good. Let's find you some some clothes before that illusion wears off."

When I fell gobsmack in the middle of nowhere, I was surprized I retained all my memories, like seriously, I even had my favourite gun, not like I'd even get to use it here. The flowering feilds, the berry bushes, the shiny, pretty, rainbow everything, the woodland creatures and amazingly dressed adventurers, townsfolk. It's like I just entered a game, well I sort of did, seems I have a luxury item, the gun spell! I collect some berries and put them in my backpack, so I miight be a doomsday planner, so what? No zombie apocolypse here, no siree, just light, happiness, rainbows and a huge mound of shadow coming towards me, wait what? Running on adrenaline and instinct alone, I fire three shots head, heart, balls, I know it's improper, but hey, I panicked.

A sparkly 12 year old runs up to me, looking quite mad, her eyes are pink and shiny, who is she, walmart chibi moon in a larger dress? "What in the seven goddesses are you doing? We had the guy, and you destroy him before we can ask for information! I don't even know what spell you used, are you a wizard of the dark arts or something, an artificer way ahead of our time, an other worldly traveler? Explain yourself stranger!" WOW, she talks a lot, clearing my throat, I start rambling.

"For starters, he looks extremely terrifying, I have a thing, it's called a gun, it shoots and it keeps me safe, I am from another world, and am very disorientated, everything is weird, there is seemingly no doom, and I think I might have infinite ammo, what is going on?" I think I said more that moment than the last few months on earth! I think my hair is a little more wavy now, and my build more muscular. Discount Madoka Kaname stands up on her toes and starts talking even more, in an extremely high UWU voice, what on earth?

"You killed a guy we were tracking for days! At least join the resistance before doing that!"
"A resistance?" It seems this place isn't as safe as I thought, standing in an action stance and keeping my guard up I watch alertly, "Yeah, a resistance against the evil sugar fairies, they are stopping everyone else from being happy!" That- seems majorly less problematic than a zombie apocolypse, ah well, might as well join. "Sure, I'm in, you guys will feed me, give me shelter, maybe pay me, and give me water and like other basic needs right?"

"Uhhh, sure! Whatever you want funny man, just don't shoot anyone else pleaseeee?"
That seems reasonable, I nod my head and start following the skipping fake glitter heart. After a good five minutes of walking to town I start seeing traces of civilisation, garnering a lot of weird stares I see stalls selling all sorts of goods, as if my stomach was also seeing the sights, it grumbles. "Oh, it seems it's tea time, huh, neato, you don't have gold, silver, or things to trade do you?" What, isn't it obvious I'm broke, I fell out of the sky for goodness sakes! Don't tell me, she's broke too. "Are you also broke?" She looks at me, eyes wide, like when she saw me commit a major crime, but somehow worse "What, it's just a question." She seems to be shocked, "You have the audacity to assume a high ranking PRINCESS is broke, moneyless, and on the same level as a commoner? No offence, if you are a commoner though... yeah-"

"So, we both have no money, the only goods we have are your dumb sparkles and some tiny berries that I picked."
"Yeah, wait, berries? I have a duplication spell, let's do this! We can sell the excess too!"
"That's actually not a bad idea little anime girlie." Hopefully they have anime in this world.
"Anime? Either way, get those berries out forger!" Oh, no anime, well fake Taito, here are your berries, I am momentarily blinded by bright as the stars pink, until I see the berries growing out to split into more berries, she readies the spell, I put my head down and cover it with both my arms. "Done! let's trade and eat fellow brokeness"

We walk into the market stall after eating some somehow sweeter berries, we somehow managed to get a Shifu looking red panda to buy some in exchange for some gold, "OH MY GOSH, WE'RE RICH!!!" ow, my ears "Why are you yelling? Doesn't everyone here use that stuff?" "Yeah, but like gold is a huuuggeee deal here, its worth like half of my castle!" What- maybe the monarchy is failing here, or everyone is a princess with a castle, "Ok, how much is a gold actually worth though?"
"Oh, right, you don't know, around 3 thousand berries, 100 silver, 1000 copper, 10000 tin."
This system reminds me of some fantasy ones for some reason, but eh, not the worst way for an economy to work, we walk the market hoping to find me some clothes and her a new spell book or something.

Today was one of those special days I assumed I would wake up from later. I had seen, in the span of fifteen seconds, some sort of lobster man crash through the window, an unsuspecting middleaged man get disembowled by the aforementioned monster, the untimely demise of the murderous bastard, and now a pink haired girl floating a few feet off of the ground, strange wand thing in hand, clad in a sparkly, frilly fairy princess dress I'd expect my five-year-old niece to wear out for Halloween.

She looked to the lobster corpse on the ground, then to me. I shifted uncomfortably, which apparently she took as an invitation to scream at me, "What did you do!?"

It had not been a great day leading up until this point, honestly, and my nerves had been frayed well before I saw another guy just a little older than me have his guts torn out of his torso. I confess that I shouted back at the strange, hovering teenager, "What does it look like? I shot him! He was coming right at me! He fucking clawed that other guy in half!"

As I waved at the balding, besuited man with my free hand - I was not about to shoot Marvin in the face - he tried to reach for me, "Help... help me please..."

At that point, the girl disappeared from my consciousness and I knelt down, grabbing the guy's hand. I was only trained for first aid and I was fairly certain this was in the realm of seventy-eigth aid. I don't know if a surgeon could have saved him if he was already on an operating table in a hospital. "What's your name?"

"D... Daniel. My name is Daniel."

"Okay Daniel, I need you to hold on. Stay awake for me. There's going to an--"

"Excuse me!" A voice interrupted.

I tried to ignore it and restarted, "There's going to be an am--" A slap to my face stopped my promise and I glared up. "WHAT!?"

Pink princess sparkle whatever glowered at me with her hands on her hips, "Killing is wrong!"

I blinked. I looked from the dying man on the floor to the dead monster. I touched a thumb to my temple and rested two fingers on my forehead as I trembled. "Ohmyfuckinggod," I half-sighed, half-grumbled before bellowing, "DO YOU THINK THAT I DON'T KNOW THAT!"

She floated back, eyes wide with shock. I guess people didn't tell off fairies or hallucinations very often. I waved back to lobster McGee, "Maybe you should have educated that fucker and I wouldn't have had to SHOOT HIM."

"I was tryi--"

"Please... mom... I need to call..."

My mind became a string of profanities as I knelt back down and tried to comfort the dying man, was his name David? Fuck. I fished his cellphone out of his pocket, "Okay buddy just hold on. What's her name?"

"Sparksong, what is wrong with you!?" I heard another voice, another teenaged girl, maybe older. This was getting tiresome. I didn't want to be here. I held up the phone to D... d... Daniel's - there we go! - to Daniel's face to try and unlock it.

"I was going to call you, but that man with the gun stopped me!"

"Bullshit!" The other girl spat before she dropped down beside me. I didn't really get a good look at her. "Sir, I'm going to need you to move if I'm going to save this man."

I looked to Daniel and pressed the now unlocked phone into his hands, "All yours, buddy." He turned his head to me, eyes lacking focus. It was hard to step away, but I did. I'm not sure why I listened, but at least this newcomer sounded reasonable.

I shuffled away and watched, tired, as the blue ponytailed, slightly taller, clearly older, and also dressed like a fairy princess girl formed a glowing green ball of light in her hands. She pressed it to the dying man and the magic began. Viscera slithered back inside him and flesh reknit in moments. Daniel fell asleep, but he was breathing regularly now.

Blue hair turned to me and smiled, "Thank you for helping. We're sorry we got you involved with this."

"What do you mean!? He killed Cancer!" Protested pink.

Wait, cancer?

"Sparksong, I know you got stuck with the love element, but Christ Almighty you need to stop it with this trying to change every last villain shit. I almost didn't get here in time to clean up your mess."

Lobster guy actually picked the name cancer? He wasn't even a crab...

"I could have saved him from himself, Angel."

And like, of all the names to pick, cancer? Really?

"Maybe if he wasn't actively trying to kill people. Sometimes, more times than I'd like, you've got to shoot the Joker."

I came out of my stupor to realize everyone but the girls and I had fallen asleep, "Uhh... what's going on?"

Blue girl, Angel I guess, looked at me, "Oh, that's right. You're immune to this spell."

"Well I guess that's an answer to my question, but why is everyone passed out?" I chalked up my strange calm to the fact that my adrenaline probably called it quits sometime during their argument.

"It's a spell to help uh... smooth our mistakes over. Mystery is working her magic and everyone so they forget. You'll remember, though."

I decided not to ask who Mystery was, "Why?"

She smiled sadly, "It's one of the ways into the magical world. Some of us get keys, wands, or trinkets to help us in. Killing a monster is another way. Welcome to the good guys."

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