“Save this for future access,” she whispered.

  Save Complete.

  She longed to find out the capabilities of her other two questions. The risk of asking for further classification had paid off.

  Can I just keep includin’ considerations? Where’s the limit?

  She read through it again, tearing her attention away from the fascinating information before her and trying to focus on the tattoo she had now. It was a godsend that she was allowed planning time within the slowed-down time, but she was sure there'd be a point at which The System decided she was taking the piss and end it. She didn’t want to find out if there was a punishment for that.

  The theme of the flash tattoo event had been swords so there were all sorts of historically accurate ones, magical ones, and even references to swords from her favourite media. Her favourites were original designs, mixing swords with elements or other magic and imagining what they could do. It hit her once again the life she was living now, a fun thought experiment from months ago come true.

  She plucked some of the pages off the ground to fold again, dismissing any with fire, ice, or water. The hand pointed at a couple themed around lightness and darkness to discard.

  “Organic Matter,” Tanya mused, half to herself and half to the hand. “What counts as Organic Matter, then?”

  She wished she could just Google it. The hand shrugged, instead pointing at a large sword design. She inspected it. It was two-handed, with beams radiating outwards off it.

  “You think force instead?” She asked.

  The hand shrugged and pointed a finger at her.

  “Me? Hm.” She rubbed her chin. “Force is a common, true. But I’d be worried ‘bout Vitality intensity.”

  Tanya glanced at Mrs Eceer, her forehead wet with sweat and breath coming in ragged gasps.

  “I need to be able to use this alongside summons, so low Vitality usage.”

  She wished she could have added that into her question too, now. All she had to go on was Mrs Eceer and how Earth generally worked, which she didn’t know would apply here. Elements like fire and ice felt like low Vitality options, considering they could spread independently, but they weren’t in any of the weaknesses. She didn’t know the things that they were resistant to either.

  Shit, I should’ve asked that.

  She separated the force one from a couple she thought could count as Organic Matter. There was a water one she considered, but she still didn’t know its definition and water didn’t feel guaranteed to count. She spread the three out in front of her. The first design is the massive two-handed force sword. She’d focused on weight when drawing it, everything from the stone-like shading to the breadth of the hilt and the fine cracks along its blade. Its centre was a large diamond indent, no longer filled with a gem, just the smooth empty shape where something used to be.

  The second was like every D&D elf’s wet dream—curved wood as if grown into the sword's shape straight from the tree. A couple of leaves still poked out of the base, amidst the rings remaining from branches chopped off. Vines grew out of a gem on the bottom of the handle, swirling around the sword itself like a magical girl transformation. Finally, Tanya stared at the blood sword, and her heart quickened. With a jagged edge at the top and the red speckling of blood forged into the metal itself, this sword demanded attention. Tanya could remember the person who had chosen it—a scarlet-haired Chinese woman who wanted it up her shoulder blade. She hadn’t made a sound the entire time, having pointed it out straight away when she walked in. She was silent even as Tanya tattooed the fluttering ribbon from the hilt across her shoulder and collarbone. She bowed her head before she left, and Tanya never saw her again.

  Blood.

  She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t thought of it sooner. Blood was organic and as long as she focused on it being safe and not requiring any creepy sacrifice, she could maybe get something that grew more powerful through killing monsters.

  The vine one was another tempting option. If it was plant-themed, there'd be less chance of weird blood voodoo, but she had no idea if it would demand real plant care like water - something she was already worried about.

  The hand pointed at the blood one, shuffling its fingers like it was trying to find a way of miming what it wanted to communicate.

  “I was thinking that it might grow in power quicker, something that could absorb the weird black blood of the monsters. Is that what you meant?”

  The hand wavered a thumbs up, like a mostly but not quite.

  Tanya once again considered the similarity between their blood and her tattoos. She didn’t have time to think about it properly now.

  Normally, she’d at least sleep on a tattoo, but there wasn’t time. Mrs Eceer was lowering herself to one knee, her face tensed with as much dedication as she needed to push through.

  Tanya grabbed the stencil in one hand and a Sharpie in the other, deciding it would be quickest to freehand a version of it with this stencil's bottom transfer layer gone.

  Where’s best to unsheath from?

  Her arm was an option, but that meant she’d need both arms to summon it. She imagined reaching the arm with it on across her chest and then readying the other to catch it, one arm was more versatile.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  I can’t believe I'm ‘bout to give meself a tattoo in a random spot.

  She could hear her mum lecturing her already, it made her smile.

  Well, I’m right-handed, so…

  She held her hand by her side, imagining pulling it out of a sheath.

  Thigh?

  The next thing she knew, she was tugging down her jeans mid-battle.

  She hissed as the cold air hit her legs; the wind was slowed with everything else, but the air itself wrapped around her exposed skin, caressing her goosebumps.

  Holy shit, it’s cold.

  Pulling the string of her knickers out of the way, she began sketching. Instinctively, she covered her hip with the hilt. It was how she always thought of sword tattoos. They either needed to be small enough to fit on a section of the body or they needed to be somewhere that wouldn’t bend. That made the spine a great place for a large one, but she wasn’t sure about Assistant doing that with such little practice and also felt that she’d appreciate leaving that space empty for something bigger and better than Level 2.

  The design was mostly the same, but there was something ghostly about the way it morphed in her mind.

  Intention 1: Consume material to grow faster

  Intention 2: Organic matter to harm the monsters

  And most importantly, Intention 3: Keep me and me allies safe

  The bloody, jagged blade and waving tatters of fabric were still there, but rather than feeling like a blood-forged sword, it became more and more ghostly as she drew. The jagged edges reminded her of a key, the tatters floating even more as the creative process took over her. Her crop top left her midriff exposed, and she instinctively swirled the tatters up her side, around her waist, torso, and back. They felt so central to this new idea, the intentions latching onto the design as much as she was deciding herself.

  Is this what me new Ability feels like?

  The hand flicked her leg, and she looked up, still curled over her own body to see places behind her.

  “Ow, what's that for?”

  She scuffed the hand back with her boot, more of an annoyed warning than anything painful.

  The hand turned to come hither her. Tanya blinked a few times, struggling to focus her eyes. It felt like a dream, like the unrealness of leaving a cinema after a movie that took you to another place.

  “What? You want the pen?”

  The hand stomped once. She dithered before sitting down and passing the Sharpie over. She wouldn't have to tattoo over it if she didn’t like it, and getting her Assistant good at each step would be important if she did ever want to use canvas’ like her back.

  The hand gripped the pen as it had the knife in the stairwell, ambling over to her hip with it and then hovering just off the floor to draw.

  Tanya was still struggling to pull herself out of it. Each time she looked down at the tattoo, the lines swam in her vision, vertigo pulling her closer and closer to the design. She could almost see a mirage of the final product, something three-dimensional to hold in her hands.

  It hit her that she’d not be able to wear jeans anymore. She looked down her arms and legs at the tattoos she already had. With each new tattoo, more and more of her would need to be on show to utilise it. She’d never been very conservative with how she dressed, so it didn’t bother her, outside of the horror she’d need to wear shorts in London weather anyway. But even then, it was a new way of thinking about the world, and a weight accumulated in her chest. Bit by bit, her skin was going to be covered in more and more magical in,k and the person she was before would be further and further away.

  The hand scrambled backwards off her top. It had been using it to hold itself up whilst doing some lineart on her back. Tanya looked down and her breath caught in her throat. It was a bit shaky and dark in places where the hand had gone over and over areas for it to look right, but Tanya could see exactly what it imagined.

  Another blade had been added on the other side from the handle up halfway to the other side. It gave that part more of a utility feel with the Ability to saw at things or chop rather than only being useful as a sword. Tanya could imagine using that as an easy way of batting away something close to her right side, because the serrated edge could swing and cut them, allowing her more time to prepare the jagged side. The hand had taken the otherworldly presence even further, giving it double lines in places like something more spectral. The tattered fabric around the hilt had changed too. It was still flapping tatters crisscrossed around the base and then flying off rather than fully tied, but rather than ending, they faded out into nothingness.

  The hand was beside her, looking smug and leaning on the pen like a suave flirter leaning against a wall.

  It took Tanya a moment to work out what she was looking at because the more ghostly design felt further away from the organic matter than even the previous design had been. She could see the blood integrated still, that wasn’t different, but why would ghosts be related to organic—

  “Oh my god, you’re thinkin’ of possession?!” Tanya exclaimed.

  The hand finger clicked and finger gunned. Tanya grinned, twisting her body to inspect the design better.

  “Oi, now that’s really fuckin’ cool. Possessin’ the monsters? People? Creatures?”

  She stood upright, smiling as she pictured the sword in her hands. How would it work with so many different concepts? The smile vanished.

  Over the head of a monster rearing on its back legs, she could see a boy in the distance. Looking up reminded her where she was—the tall terraces on either side, graffiti tags on the corner of the shops, and tarmac under her feet.

  Wait, a boy?

  She looked again. The door was wide open, and a figure leapt out, light building around his hand as he summoned something. It was Fahad.

  The world sped up slightly. Ishita bellowed his name at half-speed from somewhere further inside the doorway. Fahad looked over his shoulder, back inside. His voice was slightly faster.

  “I need to train Mum!”

  The world sped up more. A monster lashed down Mrs Eceer’s arm, more monsters peeled away from the pack towards Fahad. Even on their four legs, they towered over him.

  Tanya’s heart pulsed inside her head.

  “No, no, no…”

  It was all falling apart too fast. The world quickened around her and she swore she could feel each beat as her heart sped up towards normal levels. She had time, but it was running out. She turned to run and help him and then stopped, scuffing her shoe. She turned back towards the tattoo gun set up on the floor next to Assistant. Her head whipped backwards and forwards between the grinning boy and the readied tattoo gun. Fahad’s expression was changing now, his grin turning into unsureness and then fear, his mouth dropping open.

  Maybe between Fahad, her, and Mrs Eceer, they could hold them off, but she doubted it. Mrs Eceer had blood down her good arm too, and Tanya had a fence post and a few kitchen knives. With the sword, they’d have a real chance.

  She turned away from Fahad and picked up the tattoo gun. In her head, the world slowed slightly again as she began the first line, but she wasn’t sure if that was just wishful thinking.

  She turned on the gun and began the first line down her hip.

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