The goblins and shades had us surrounded. There are at least twenty of them pointing everything from knives to guns in our direction.

I raised an arm to protect Rainy and Erica behind me.

This wasn’t good. If I was alone, I could probably fight them off. I don’t doubt that Rainy could escape, but Erica isn’t a magical girl.

What should I do?

***

I handed Valoria my only apartment key. “I’m going to be heading out today. So I’m leaving you the key should you need to go anywhere.”

She took the key and studied it for a moment. “But what if you return and I’m still out job hunting today?”

“It’s not a big deal. Now that I can teleport, I don’t need it.”

For those of you just tuning in after my battle against Roselle and equipping Valoria, I briefly opened my mind to all the knowledge and experience she had gained throughout her life.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think I could use something like Empty Void without having Valoria equipped. Teleporting and using simple magic is something I can manage.

“I’ll hold onto it, then. Thank you.”

I made sure to look at myself in the mirror before leaving. I decided to go a little shorter than Rainy. She’s taller than me usually, but I think adding a bit to my legs was a nice touch.

A white button-down that isn’t killing itself against my A-cups. From there, skirt, check; leggings, check; knee socks, check. I also really liked how the tail of my shirt was two pointed triangles. I’m not sure what the style is, but I like it.

“Here, why don’t you try this, too.” Valoria placed a poofy newsboy hat on my head with a cute angel wing ornament attached to the side.

“I hope I’m not overly dressed. People don’t exactly dress like this in the U.S.”

“You look adorable. But be careful while you’re out. The minions of Darkness have been rather active recently, targeting people they think might be magical girls.”

“I should be fine.”

“If you say so, I don’t doubt it. But you’ll be with Rainy today, and an ambush is still an ambush, and numbers are still numbers. It is—”

“Tactics that defeat the strong. I’m familiar with it. You be careful, too. While magical super villains are becoming commonplace, we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

“Maybe I should get a job at the special magical suppression division that governor Kennedy has been saying he’ll put together.”

“I hope you’re joking about that.” Valoria didn’t say anything to me and simply smiled. “Sigh. Well, I’m heading out. I’ll be home later this afternoon.”

“Take care. If everything goes well, I should get home before you.”

The sky is clear, and the air is pretty clean today. A gentle cool breeze made its way from the bay into the city—such a pleasant feeling.

I met up with Rainy in front of her family’s convenience store.

“Hey, sorry if I made you wait.”

She wore an adorable green dress that matched her hair. Lily patterns adorn her clothes, along with ribbons and frills.

Very cute. It wasn’t hard to see why Lily Mint was so famous.

“I wasn’t waiting long. I just stepped out because Dad asked me to open the shutters.”

“Did something happen yesterday that required you to close them?”

“It’s part of the city’s new ordinance. Storefronts with windows need to have their shutters down after curfew.

It's been a little difficult for the uncles in the neighborhood, but fortunately, we have separate shutters for the door. Anyways, let’s get going.”

The minions of Darkness have been a problem recently. Property damage, kidnapping, arms smuggling, and the problems go on.

“Your sister really can’t do anything about them?”

“They’re called the minions of Darkness, but they don’t work for Bridget or anything. Most of them don’t even know Darkness has an avatar.”

“I see. So they're supporting the cause, not the person.”

“Basically.”

It's a short walk to the station. We were heading into Crystal Gleam for an offline meet-up with some of Rainy’s friends. There was a cyber café that some of them wanted to stream from.

The agency already had the venue booked for the afternoon. Rainy wants me to make this my debut as another one of the agency’s girls. But I convinced her I was just coming as the raid mom since none of them had run the content before.

“I like the look, by the way.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.” It was still a little embarrassing knowing people would see me like this. I guess that’s what it means to put effort into something you usually don’t.

“Not confident in yourself?”

“Considering I don’t normally look like this. I’m kinda hoping that no one recognizes me from those pictures you uploaded.”

“They probably will. But the audience won’t. We already have a rig you can use, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Right. I almost forgot that the other girls would be VTubers. Are they all going to be in cosplay like you?”

“Some of them like to dress up, some of them don’t.”

“I didn’t even consider how I'll be seeing the real faces of a bunch of cute anime girls.”

“Bridget told me about how you feel. I don’t think you should be worried about that.”

“But isn’t it still unfair? I can basically shapeshift. I used to cope by telling myself there was nothing I could do. Now I’m lying to a bunch of people. And I don’t mean just being able to become attractive in different ways. But, like, what if I meet someone else who is trans or non-binary? How am I supposed to face them honestly?”

“Honestly, I don’t think it's anything to worry about. Hashtag blessed, am I right?”

“Quite literally.”

It's not as if I don’t know what she means. Just because I have an advantage doesn’t mean I shouldn’t enjoy it because the disadvantaged exist.

I want to think that with how old I’ve gotten, I wouldn’t be so phased by this sort of thing.

But maybe younger me wouldn’t have even cared about anyone else… not that I want to return to being that person.

“She also told me that you’re in the Mundo family.”

“Great, you gonna accuse me of being a crime boss too?”

Rainy giggles to herself. Which I guess is better than being outright laughed at. I can only imagine how my family would react to seeing me like this.

“I don’t think you’re a crime boss. I didn’t even know the Mundo family was a thing until Bridget showed me an online documentary on it.”

“Great, we have documentaries now…”

“I brought it up because we have someone with that same last name. It's not common, so I was wondering if you two knew each other.”

“I guess there is a chance we do, but she’s more likely to know me than I would her. I am the eldest of an eldest of an eldest.”

I don’t have a lot of reason to keep up with all the kids born so many years later.

“Well, her name is Erica.”

I shrugged. I wouldn’t doubt there was an Erica in the family. But if she is around Rainey’s age or younger, I doubt we would’ve met.

After the train ride, Rainey’s manager came to pick us up. We both hopped into the back—“You?!”

Myrian was sitting in the driver’s seat. She looked up at the rearview mirror to look at me.

“Gehk! You didn’t tell me your friend was Kyrie!”

“Did you two already meet?”

“She’s one of the people who tried to kill me!”

“What?! Don’t act like you’re innocent. We were trying to subdue you. If anyone was out for blood, it was you!”

“Like hell it was! Roselle exploded my neck before collapsing my body into a black hole! I seriously thought I was going to die!”

“Her majesty did what?”

“You act like that’s worse than your biblical angel stunt!”

“You did what?”

“Can we just get to the venue? I’m not in a killing mood today.”

“Fine, whatever.”

Myrian threw the car into gear and—

“No, no, no! What the hell happened!”

I told Rainy the story of how I met Valoria and Roselle. I tried to keep it light, but that only prompted more questions from Rainy.

Myrian stayed quiet, which only made me feel more anxious. I kept telling myself not to worry about it, but I couldn’t help but wonder what she must think of me.

I wanted to believe she was on edge and that I should be cautious, but I was just flattering my paranoia.

“By the way, Rainy. When were you planning on telling me that you were a spy working for the enemy?”

“Oh, right.” Rainy could only let out a nervous laugh while Myrian gallowed at me from the mirror.

“Keep glaring at me, and maybe I’ll blow up the venue and make all of you jobless.”

Myrian and I continued to glare at one another. I could see the look of concern on her face—wondering if I was bluffing or not.

Naturally, I was. Without Valoria, I have no way of knowing if I could battle Myrian and win.

“Don’t be like that. You know as well as I do that we’re not bad people.”

With a sigh, I ceased my hostilities and brought my mind to more productive endeavors, like preparing myself to meet more people and leading a raiding party.

I do everything from home, so I wasn’t sure what to think of the cyber cafe. I looked nice, but I’m not sure if it was usually this clean and organized or if they were on their best behavior because of Rainy and everyone else.

Myrian took the lead in gathering everyone around. The two brats who tried to kill me before were here. Chris and Elma, if I recall. I wonder if each of these girls were magical girls.

Chris made faces at me while Elma turned away in disgust.

“Alright, girls, we have this place for twelve hours. To start, let me introduce Kyrie.”

“Hello, my name is Kyrie. I’m new to VTubing and Streaming and will be in your care.”

The six other girls introduced themselves. I say girls, but it looked like two of them weren’t so much. Still, it was a lot of names to take in all at once—both their VTuber names and their real names. I hope I don’t get any of them confused.

I did commit one to memory. Erica Mundo.

While everyone here looked pretty attractive, I imagine they all decided to look their best for the meet-up. They were mostly pretty normal.

I wonder if the two guys were friends. They both were pretty well dressed, too. They stuck together for the most part and did vocal practice together.

The others, Rainy and Erica included, took to equipment checks and ensured their capture software was working. There was also the matter of hotkeys and the like.

Fortunately, the game we were playing let up download our client set up. But the capture program they used for their… rigs? I watch VTubers, but I’m just a millennial who doesn’t know how to keep up with all the new terms.

Anyway, those would need to all be configured.

“Rainy told me she already gave you the rundown, but I want to be sure you understand your role here today.”

It looks like getting into her role as manager has eased a lot of the tension I sensed from her earlier. Maybe it was just work nerves rather than anything to do with me.

“The rig I’ll be using will be the Café’s mascot, Cy-hime. I’m familiar with the mascot. Pretty generic nerdy hacker girl.”

“Good to hear. But I would like it if you looked at least a little bit more serious. Your role isn’t as important, but it would be bad for us if you somehow made the studio or the café look bad.”

“I was a game master for my tabletop group for almost seven years, so I’ll manage.”

Myrian worked closely with me to teach me how to use the software. It didn’t seem too difficult. A couple of tech engineers were hanging out to handle the stream itself, so I didn’t need to worry about anything on that end.

Honestly, between making sure the game volume was balanced well with your own voice, then trying to get all those different audios to the right levels so no one was too loud or quiet. I’d hate having to do that every time I wanted to stream.

The mics were also high-end equipment. Even when people were talking simultaneously, it wasn’t hard to tell who was talking.

“So, are all the people here magical girls?”

“Some of them are, some of them aren’t. Not that I’d tell you who is who.”

“You’ll trust me with their VTuber identities, but not their Magical Girl ones?”

“Don’t even joke about that. There is a difference between dealing with an online dumpster fire and the minions of Darkness kidnapping one of them.”

“Well, I’d just be happy if Angel and Han-wool were also magical girls. Then I wouldn’t feel so alone.”

“Hehe, are those the only two you noticed were guys?”

“Hm?”

“Looks like your eye isn’t as discerning as I thought it was. Still, how did you know Han-wool wasn’t… well, they are nonbinary, but it's important that I address all of them as female. Mainly to help them stay in character.”

“I could see the seam just passed their choker. It's a silicone breastplate, right? They’re growing quite popular with cosplayers.”

“Anyways,” Myrian finished the configuration on my setup, and we were finally able to run a check with myself included among everyone else.

“Alright! We’re going live in three, two, one!”