"It's optional as long as you don't join a team."

"Okay. Probably not my thing."

"Fair enough. I don't fight recreationally either, I just watch the fights. The cool fights, at least. Nobody watches the Underdogs versus... whoever they put the Underdogs up against, once again I don't watch their matches."

"They named themselves that?"

Ethan speaks up. "Oh, yeah, they're one of the really old legacy teams. Been around since the 80s. They're the scrappy kids with shitty powers - the kind of thing that rates maybe a 1 or 2 on the power scales. They're surprisingly good actually, usually if they're angry enough to be on the combat team they're dedicated enough to really hone that one little thing they can do. There's also an Underdogs social club, the social club is bigger than the combat team because most of them don't want to fight people with their shitty powers."

"An understandable preference."

"Yeah," Ethan says. "We've gone up against the ones who do in the sims, though, and they're surprisingly vicious. Nothing says just because you can't bench-press a pickup truck you also can't pack a handgun."

Isaac raises his eyebrows. "Who the fuck on the Underdogs carries a handgun?"

"Hazzan. He's all happy-happy in person, but the son of a bitch shot me in the leg during capture-the-flag."

"Damn. Note to self, don't fuck with Hazzan."

"I don't know what that is."

"Launches small lead bullets at astonishing speeds. A powerful enough gun can punch a bullet right through you. He had a little one, though, it just went a couple inches into my leg. Still hurt like hell, of course."

"Charming. Uh, what do these look like?"

Isaac thinks about it. "Basically like a crossbow without the bow part. -do you have crossbows, or are they too techy?"

"We have crossbows."

Ethan furrows his brow. "I wonder what the development process on that was like. I guess most of the surviving inhabitants of your world would probably end up with some kind of instinct of where the world starts biting back?"

"Yeah. And it's usually safe to try something that seems like it should work once."

Ethan shudders. "You're probably going to get tired of people saying this, but I would hate living in a world like that. Science is cool."

"There's a reason I'm not going back! I mean, that and it might kill me if I tried for having touched the science."

Ethan nods and absently pushes back his hair with one hand. A couple of little sparkles fly up from his scalp and then settle back down.

"What was that?"

"Oh, those are sprites - little magical pollinators, basically. Since my hair's made of plants they sort of stay in there, and I've got a familiar bond with them where they get nectar from my flowers and drink a little bit of my blood and in exchange I get control over nonmagical plants. Not very strong control, mind you, but I can make them grow quicker and in certain patterns and such."

"Oh, I see. Is that wise? Letting them drink your - fluids?"

Isaac snrks. Ethan makes a so-so hand motion. “It wouldn’t be safe without the familiar bond - giving something your blood gives it some power over you - but the bond means they won’t hurt me.”

"Okay. It sounds really weird given where I'm coming from for pretty much exactly that reason so I assume you know what you're doing in local terms."

"Yeah. The sprites like me, I like them."

"I've considered getting a familiar," Isaac says, "but it's a big decision. You're basically externalizing part of your soul."

"It doesn't sound appealing to me, but familiars the way wizards back home do them didn't either and I think it's less of a commitment."

"How do they do them back home?" Ethan asks predictably.