“It was hard being the leader of my squad. I wasn’t a commander, I was just a sixteen year old girl with no training whatsoever. Most of my teammates were older than me, the only exception being that cute little girl. I still felt a bit bad, being adapted at twelve years old and being turned into a ten year old must have been so hard. She felt like a younger sister to me, I’d do anything to protect her.”

It started in a small human settlement in California. It wasn’t a particularly large settlement, in fact it was quite small and unnoticeable at the time. The Luminescent seemed more focused on the major cities for the first few years, so it was largely unnoticed. It was a far cry from where I was when the Coming of the Light happened. 

My family had fled our original home, putting a sudden end to my schooling. I lived with my little sister, mother, and father. We had a nice little home, it was small, and my sister and I had to share a bedroom, but it was where we lived. What was that saying, ‘home is where the heart is?’ Sure it wasn’t sustainable, none of our situation was, but we still tried our best to survive.

You remind me of my sister, Cherry. Her name was Aricella and she was the sweetest girl in the world. She was so innocent, and kind. She was also born male but was really female on the inside. Though I guess that’s more like Princess Kittenberry, as she’s more firm on that. I’m sorry. I’m not trans, and I’m not the best at this.

Anyway, there were only eight families living there, including my own. It was hard to even call it a settlement, it was more like a church picnic at best. It was a pretty simple set up, we had a butcher, a carpenter, a tailor, and a mayor. We also sort of had a doctor—technically a nurse who was just starting pre med before everything went to hell. She hadn’t finished her training but she did do her best.

The way the village—if you could call it that—survived, though, was the butcher, mostly. He was extremely good at cooking and making sure meats were free of any poison or bacteria. I suspected he may have been a professional chef before the Coming of the Light. He couldn’t really do his job, though, without volunteers for the Hunt. Which really just meant we went out into the wild, found some animals, killed them and brought them to the butcher to feed the town with.

”This time I had volunteered to go on a hunt. No one protested, we didn’t really have rules separating genders or queer people or any of that nonsense. If anyone helped the settlement they didn’t care what you were, because the entire settlement focused on only one thing. Survival. I went with my then best friend. She was paler than a ghost with blonde hair, and the kindest emerald green eyes you’d ever seen. She was a hard worker, worked harder than any of the boys, and was very good with weapons. Secretly, I admired her. I was nowhere near as strong as I am now, but I was very good at tracking. My father was an outdoorsman, and even though I hated his lessons as a little girl, after everything that’s happened I am extremely grateful.

With my tracking skills I was able to locate three fully matured Columbian black-tailed bucks, which would hopefully feed us for a while. I also found a few rabbits but lied and said I didn’t see any. I really liked rabbits and couldn’t bear to eat any. An incredibly stupid thing to do when you think about it but, well, at the time I was really adverse to eating or killing small creatures, especially rabbits.

We set out for our trek home. It’d only be about twenty minutes, but halfway in, just as we were about to exit the forest. I spotted another buck, this time a Californian mule deer. My friend didn’t seem to notice and continued to pull the cart with me. I should have just left well enough alone. I should have been happy with the three bucks we had. Hunting on its own was dangerous, but if you saw a Luminescent you were done for. It wasn’t wise to risk it, but we’d never caught four in a single trip before. I could only think of how proud of us everyone would be. I called it out to my friend and said we should get it and she was all too happy for another triumph. It only took her about five minutes to kill it. Five seemingly insignificant minutes. Five minutes that changed our life.

We were loading our cart when we heard her. That sweet and melodious southern belle voice. I’ll never forget it.

“That looks like quite a lot of food. Would you mind giving some to me?” The voice came from behind us. It was sweet and melodious but also had just a pinch of venom. The voice belonged to a young woman with dark skin, the strangest lilac eyes, and snow white hair tied in twin tails. She wore a frilly cream dress with a knee length multi tiered skirt, which was under a brown multi tiered overdress that was decorated with faux gold lace on each tier. Holding it all together was a brown double belted corset, pulled tight to give her a slim waist. Brown fingerless gloves, white stockings, and brown boots with golden buckles finished the rest of her outfit. It was completely impractical for the woods, and looked like something out of an anime or video game. Growing up in the settlement, I’d never seen such opulent fashion in person. Stranger still was her most defining feature; her teeth were all canines, like some kind of shark. I wasn’t sure how it happened, probably some kind of birth defect caused by inbreeding was my thought at the time.

“Uhh, sorry, this is for our settlement. We’re a bit low on resources, miss,” I said, my voice lacking confidence.

She looked at our load. “Do you really need that much? Can you not even spare a single leg?”

“Look, lady, we’re barely surviving as is. Surely you can go find your own food,” my friend remarked.

She tsked, and shook her head. “A pity. You two seemed like such reasonable girls. I do so hate being disappointed.” She held out her hands, and a yo-yo as large as a person’s head appeared in them. “Mother ordered me to purify all in this area. Now that I know such a selfish town exists, I will do so, gladly.”

“Who are you?!” I was freaking out. What could she mean by purify? She couldn’t be a Luminescent, could she? I’d seen a Luminescent only once, when we had escaped our first home. They looked like some kind of weird dinosaur, nothing like this woman. Well, of course, as you know I was wrong. Royals aren’t really public knowledge, however.

“My name is Lampina Allbright, daughter of the Glimmering Queen.” Her words sent a shiver through me. “And you have been most inhospitable.”

She let her yo-yo down by its string. She began to twirl it so fast that it seemed to form a blurry ring around her arm. She threw it outwards and it completely destroyed a nearby boulder. A demonstration of her strength, I suppose. After retracting it back, she turned towards me, and let it fly. I closed my eyes. Would there even be anything recognizable left of me? A second passed, then another. Realizing nothing had happened I opened my eyes to find something I never expected; a teenage girl with long teal hair in twin tails hanging behind her clashing against the yo-yo with a sword made of black ice. The most unusual thing, though, was that she had fae-like wings. She was wearing an outfit I’d never seen before that was called a hanbok, a traditional Korean garment. It had a short teal jeogori with translucent sleeves and snowflake embroidery, then a high waisted light blue chima with snowy dust as its pattern. On her feet were teal beoseon socks with a snowflake embroidered at the top, and light blue gomusin. It was beautiful to behold.

“You will not harm those girls, Royal. Leave now of your own will, or meet your end.” Her voice was heavily accented. It was obvious English was not her first language.

“What makes you think I’ll just back down? You think I care what you think, just because you’re an Umbra Girl?” The southern cosplayer said. It had finally clicked inside of me, of course the newcomer was an Umbra Girl. She had an unusual outfit, unusual powers, and an unusual physical appearance.

“My name is Ice Dust. I am one of the First Squadron. I have killed far stronger than you. Leave now and I may consider sparing your life.” She spoke with commanding authority. If I had been a Luminescent, I’d have been peeing my pants.

The girl seemed to grow afraid at the mention of her name. “F-Fine… let that awful town and those awful people continue to starve their fellow humans with their own greed.” The shark-mouthed girl turned her tail between her legs, then ran into a glowing yellow portal that appeared behind her. I was in awe, just the mention of this girl’s name had sent shivers down that monster's spine.

A dark portal opened up behind her, and I watched as a little pink dog on two legs walked out, its paws behind its back. I nearly squealed, it was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

“Ice Dust, what happened here? I smell the scent of a female Royal, but I don’t see her anywhere.” The dog speaking definitely caught me off guard. I had seen a lot of things in my lifetime but talking dogs were not among them.

“She fled. I was busy protecting these people.” She responded.

“Am I drunk or something? Is that dog talking?” my friend asked. I nodded.

“Oh, right, humans. Though, this could be an opportunity.” Her cute little face suddenly took on a sinister quality.

“Opportunity?” I asked.

“Yes, how would you like the power to fight back against the Luminescent?”

“Power, to fight back?” I asked. I thought of that girl and how she had single handedly defeated the Luminescent without even trying. “Absolutely!”

“Wait, are you… are you the Goddess Raftilia?” The legend of Raftilia the Goddess who created the Umbra Girls was spread far and wide. Supposedly no one had ever seen her. Hell, no one I knew even knew anyone who had even seen an Umbra Girl, but everyone knew stories about how they fought tirelessly against the Luminescent and how Raftilia created and guided them.Though, I admit at the time I didn’t expect the Goddess to be a dog. That was a shocker.

Her eyebrows raised. “Yes, I am. Do you want the power, or not?”

The rumors said she recruited young girls to join the Umbra Girls, so I was a little surprised that I met the requirements, but my confusion was quickly replaced with excitement and possibility. I could protect my family! My friends!

“Yes, a thousand times yes! We would love to join the Umbra Girls!”

“Good, let me see if you are worthy.” Her third eye opened up, and scanned me and it was just as invasive as you all know. I still shiver at the thought of how deep she scanned my entire being, my entire soul. Then she did the same to my friend. Afterwards she jumped up and down and did a little dance, it was … adorable. “This is wonderful! Two in one day? What wonderful news! Ice Dust, go on ahead and tell Lamp Flower they’ll be arriving.”

“Of course, Raftilia, I'll let them know,” she said solemnly. I later asked her why she was so silent during this. Why she didn’t warn us. She explained it was unwise to stop the recruitment process for Raftilia. Besides, she had always seen being an Umbra as preferable to being a normal girl. I guess most people would after what she had been through.

“We’re gonna be Umbra Girls? Omigod!” I was so excited, and I jumped up happily and hugged my friend. She nearly picked me up with her own strength and swung me around. Our celebration, however, was interrupted with an ‘ahem’ from Raftilia.

“All you have to do is shake my paw and then the deal will be sealed.” She held out her paw to each of us, I shook it immediately, my friend following a moment later. The shock was unexpected, I wasn’t even sure what had happened. I thought it was static electricity. “You’re going to feel a bit of nausea, and some minor discomfort. You probably will lose consciousness. Don’t worry, this is completely normal. See you soon.”

As the dark portal swallowed us, what I felt was definitely not ‘minor’ discomfort. It was agonizing pain. Mercifully it ended with me passing out in the darkness. When we woke up together, I found I wasn’t even afraid. I was so excited. After our Ceremony—of which I don’t need to go into the details I’m sure—I couldn’t wait to get out into the field. Oh wait, why is my name Princess Bunberry instead of Princess Rabbitberry or Princess Bunnyberry? Raftilia explained the reason is that the most popular term for rabbits in human media was to call them simply buns. It was a bit silly but luckily she never heard the one my mother used to call rabbits, because Princess B-N-U-U-Y berry would have been hella awkward and impossible to pronounce.

I made a secret promise to myself while I slept. I promised that like Ice Dust, my name would strike fear into the hearts of the Luminescent. If only I had known that simple, careless wish would have doomed me to a life of suffering, because it would come true and it would cost… everything.