Mal’s words echoed through their head. “Take my hand,” he’d tried to say, and they’d only realized after the world had flashed every colour at the same time.

They stormed through streets and alleyways lit by neon light and luminescent graffiti. Their eyes had adjusted quickly to the environment, and, very quickly, a plan had formed. A guy stepped out of a shadow, wearing what appeared to be three quarters of a hoodie. He looked like he was about to say something, something possibly related to the knife he was pretending wasn’t in his right hand. 

“Do not,” Tee said with a growl, “and I repeat, do not fuck with me right now. I am not in the mood.” The guy blinked for a second, taking in the small person coming at him, all five feet of them, in confusion. “Bring me to whoever’s in charge,” Tee said, still advancing. Hoodie instinctively started to step backwards, much in the same way a large dog might be intimidated by a sufficiently ticked-off squirrel. 

“Hanzer Mike runs this block, little la--” he began, and his vision exploded in stars. Tee shook the stinging out of their hand. The man didn’t know what was happening, which was what they were counting on. The longer he was on the back foot, the more time it would take for him to realize he was almost a foot taller than they were and that he had a knife and that they did not. 

“I’m not one of those. Who does Mike work for?” Tee was about as calm as a big cat before pouncing, seeming perfectly still but coiled like a very angry spring. 

“How is that any of your bu--” Another hit, this time with a satisfying crunch. Hoodie grabbed his nose and swore. Tee was paying attention; most of the expletives were new to them. They took the opportunity to twist the knife out of the dude’s hand, and tossed it over their shoulder.

“You want to keep going or do you want to give me a straight answer?” This time, the guy tried to actually swing at them. They’d been wondering how long that was going to last. Ducking under the swing, Tee crashed their elbow into the man’s sternum, using his own weight and momentum to knock the air out of him. He fell to his knees, wheezing. “Okay, one more time, because I’m so nice.”

“Fuck. Bastard. Carp. Fine,” he gasped, clutching his chest. Tee resisted the urge to tilt his head up. They weren’t some kind of comic book villain, after all.

“Atta b-- hold on, did you say carp?” The man looked up at Tee with a confused frown. 

“What about it? You gonna be offended?” Tee returned the nonplussed expression, then shook their head. This wasn’t relevant, it was just weird.

“I… no. Just… fucking… talk.” 

“I’m not spilling shit about the Queen of Black-62, man. I don’t know crap from carp.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Fuck o--” was about as far the guy got, before Tee’s knee introduced the back of his head to the alley wall. He slumped over and Tee grunted in annoyance. It was going to have to be enough. They looked down at the crumpled up figure. It had been a long time since they’d gotten into situations like this, and while there was no real risk of falling back into old habits, it was unpleasant to be reminded of the kind of person they used to be. Finally, they sighed, a decision made, and quickly rooted through the man’s pockets, finding three wallets. They took out the bills, which seemed to be made out of a kind of plastic, as well as several of what they figured to be something akin to credit cards. The rest of the wallets were filled with little laminated cards that seemed to be a combination of private pictures and fake IDs, all of which they stuffed back into Hoodie’s pockets. The last thing they found was a small glowing crystal on a string around their neck. It seemed to pulse softly, and Tee’s hand seemed to tingle when they touched it. This world, Tee had quickly realized, definitely had some unexplained phenomena in it -- which they had reluctantly accepted to probably be magic -- and it would be stupid not to have any of it on them.

“Now, to find this Queen of Black-62,” they said, to themselves more than anything. Whoever it was, it was probably someone important -- gangbangers didn’t call themselves queens all that often. And whoever ran what they assumed to be Black-62 would know about any anomalies like the kind that had spat them out. If anyone had come out of those, this ‘Queen’ figure would probably know about it. 

Their last bit of thievery was probably the most egregious, they thought, as they stripped off their oversized, colourful shirt and threw it to the side and replaced it with the guy’s hoodie. They’d keep attracting the wrong kind of attention if they weren’t dressed like the locals. It was much too big for them, but the lack of sleeves made it look like a fashion statement more than anything else. There was a button on the collar which made it light up, which was cool for all of five seconds until it started to burn a streak of bluish light onto their cornea. They turned the LED lining back off, and picked up the little knife from the ground.

Flipping the hood up, they walked out of the alley. This city was weird, if one could even call it that. Buildings seemed to be in blocks that were as tall as they were wide, and then stacked on top of each other with street-sized gaps in between, bridged by walkways, elevators and sometimes entire skyscrapers, cars and bikes flying in between them. One advantage of this ridiculous system, which seemed to rely on a lot of flying, was that the streets were mostly free of vehicles, most traffic being limited to landing and take-off. 

They looked up at the next chunk of city above them, and wondered if there was a way to figure out where they were. Was this Black-62? Was it just this block? Was it the entire column, or the entire floor? They had a lot of questions, and all of them could wait, until things were fixed. And things wouldn’t be fixed until they’d found Ellis and Mal. 

They walked down the street, taking in the sights and sounds of carless streets. It was raining, which they realized had to be coming from an exhaust from somewhere above them. It at least smelled like water, so it was probably condensing vapour. They were still glad to have their hood, though. 

Wet streets reflected flickering neon signs, bathing Tee’s face in blues and greens and pinks. They had to formulate a plan, which was hard, their brain still a little addled by the wine from earlier. But they’d always been able to think through the haze. Ellis would probably need saving from some predicament, they figured as they walked past a stall that sold something that seemed to be macaroni in a cup. It smelled pretty good, but food was for later. They had a boyfriend to save, first and foremost. 

Mal, on the other hand, was much more likely to be in trouble of his own making. He was just kind of like that. Criminally incapable of self-preservation. Tee would’ve been a lot more annoyed with him if he wasn’t so damn sweet, if he didn’t give them good and safe vibes. If he wasn’t so damn attractive, in that cute, disarming kind of way. Not many people over six feet could pull it off, but Mal did. Tee and Ellis had agreed on that a long time ago. It had just come up naturally one day and they’d both agreed that they wanted Mal to have a place in their lives.

Tee spotted two men on the other side of the street, both obviously tough and mean in that very deliberate way, trying to be seen, and trying to look tough and mean. They were even wearing body armor. It wasn’t exactly uniform, but they seemed to be going for a similar aesthetic, at least. And, most importantly, both of them had a shoulder patch that had the number “62” in black on a white background, stitched to their uniform. Tee crossed the street, past a sign that seemed to be advertising beer-flavoured meats or meat-flavoured beers, one or the other. Perhaps both. Ideally, Tee would never find out. The two men were walking with determination, one of them talking with a finger pressed to his ear. 

Wherever the both of them were going, it seemed like the men would at some point be going in the direction of whoever ran Black-62. Tee stuffed their hands in their pockets and tried to follow them from a distance, and considered the absurdity of the current situation. They’d always prided themself on their ability to adapt to new situations, but this was both completely alien and surreal and entirely too familiar for comfort. 

The two men stopped to talk to a man on the corner of the street and slipped him something, and the man ran off. To avoid attracting suspicion, Tee turned to a nearby stall and ordered the first drink that seemed to possibly be some kind of softdrink, and paid with one of the bills. They got a handful of plastic chips back, half of which were see-through. The other half swirled with different shades of red and purple. They’d figure out later what was what, the men were already moving on. So as not to look like they bought a can just for carrying around, Tee took a swig and nearly spat it out immediately. 

The drink, which apparently was called Tazer’s RED, tasted like red-streaked-blue. The sensation of experiencing a whole colour with their mouth was almost overwhelming, let alone two, but they forced themself to swallow it. The two men turned a corner into an alley, and Tee gratefully trashed the can of synesthesia, before following them in. 

Immediately, they realized that only one of the men was visible, walking slowly down the dark alleyway. Ambush, Tee thought with a sigh, and tensed up, listening intently for the telltale sound of shuffling feet, the rustling of cloth. There, to the back and to the right. They ducked and twisted right and heard the frustrated grunt of someone grabbing and missing, followed quickly by a much more pained grunt when they kicked the attacker against the back of the knee. In a flash, Tee had drawn the little knife and held it to the man’s throat, and was about to interrogate him. 

Clearly, he’d underestimated them initially, but he wasn’t making that mistake again, his hand clamping around their wrist like a vice and twisting the knife out of their hand. Tee kicked him in the small of his back and he let go, but a haymaker to the chest caused Tee jump back to catch their breath. Simple underhanded backstreet tactics weren’t going to be all that useful against two armed and trained men. Which meant that Tee was going to have to resort to Advanced underhanded backstreet tactics. 

“Who are you?” the man asked, his hand going to the holster on his belt. The other man had started to approach, but hadn’t drawn his weapon yet. Tee sighed and held up their hands, and took a breath to answer, then turning the next step into a kick that connected with the man’s hand. He shouted in frustrated surprise, dropping his gun, and grabbed for their leg. Tee followed up with a second kick to the man’s chest, and a third to his head. The man stumbled backward into the other one, giving Tee the time needed to roll forward to grab the gun from the ground. They hoped that it wasn’t that different from the weapon they’d fired exactly once in their life before, and, at the time, the sheet of paper had posed only the threat of papercut. 

The second man pushed the first aside and raised his weapon. No time to shout warnings, Tee realized. It was him or them. Or… Tee lowered the weapon and fired twice. The man sank to his knees, both of them hitting the ground with a wet thud and an accompanied scream. The kickback from the gun had been intense, but the realization that they’d shot someone -- twice -- was worse. First time for everything, Tee thought to themself. At least he’ll walk away from this. Well, not walk. Hum. At least he’ll live. The armed man had dropped his gun, and the other froze when Tee aimed his own gun at him. 

“Take me to the Queen of Black-62,” they said, keeping their voice level.

“We were already going to do that, you crazy bastard,” the unperforated man said.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” the man said. The other one just groaned, finally having fallen over. His knees were a mess.

“Well… go ahead then.”

“You shot Sterrick!”

“He was going to shoot me!”

“You were following us!”

“I’m looking for the Queen!”

“Then why didn’t you call?”

“I didn’t know that was an option!”

“How do you not know?!”

“I swear to god,” Tee said, annoyed, now that they were no longer being fueled by adrenaline and pure survival instinct, and pulled back the hammer with a threatening ‘click’, “I’m going to start putting holes in you if you don’t take me to the Queen.”

The man seemed to stew on this for a second, and then nodded. “Let me call Sterrick a medicab first, and I’ll take you to her.”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“Okay.”

Elamimax

Tee is very adaptable!

If you like this story, there are 34 chapters already up on my patreon. Subscribers will get access to every single chapter right now. Other than that, I will be posting a chapter (maybe even two) every other day. If you're in the mood to catch up on my other stories, feel free to check them out. Additionally, Horns in the Library 1 is now available as an ebook! 

I also want to point people at the discord server of the ever-prolific QuietValerie (right here) where you can find her wonderful stories, like Ryn of Avonside, Falling Over and The Trouble With Horns, as well as other authors' works, and talk about them with fellow fans, and even the authors themselves! I heartily recommend joining it and reading their works! (Also check out Walls of Anamoor. It's rad as heck.) 

Thanks again for reading, and I'll see you all in the next one. 

<3