Once upon a time, Daddy insisted I learn how to use every part of every animal. Squirrel or red deer, rabbit or fish—nothing wasted. Back then, I thought it was old-fashioned nonsense. Now I’m grateful. Survival isn’t about convenience; it’s about respect. And right now, respect is all that’s keeping us alive.

  The frog and the centipede were enormous—far beyond anything I’d ever dressed out. Too much, almost. Only a fraction of the crab-like centipede meat is edible, and Lenora vetoes most of what I pull free, shaking her head before I can even ask. Poisonous.

  The hide, though… that’s another story. A deep, blood-red armor nearly an inch thick once we’ve scraped away meat, fat, and whatever slime-laced layers clung to it. Heavy, stinking, stubborn. But if we can cure it, we’ll have leather enough for armor—maybe even a bowstring or two. It’ll take time. Luckily—or not—Tess still hasn’t stirred. No sign of waking.

  “Any sign of loot?” Jenny asks hopefully.

  “Yep.” I plant a boot against the carcass and yank at a sheet of frog skin while Frankie carves it free. Sweat pours down my neck, my arms slick and stinging.

  Jenny leans closer. “Where?”

  “You’re… looking… at… it,” I grunt between tugs and heavy breaths. The hide peels back with a wet, sucking sound that turns my stomach.

  “Frog skin?” She wrinkles her nose.

  “And bones, tendons, bladder—basically anything that won’t rot in a day. All parts are useful.”

  “Oh…” Jenny’s voice tilts halfway between fascination and revulsion. “But the system usually converts everything for us. Why the change?”

  I clear my throat and quote MIRA in my most pompous, official voice: “Order 27-009: Austerity and the lack of resources shall be used as a motivational tool to encourage colonists to develop essential survival skills.”

  Jenny blows a loud raspberry.

  I snort, wiping my brow with the back of my wrist. “See if you can find the brains for both monsters.”

  “Eww! Why?”

  “It’s part of the tanning process,” I mutter—then nearly topple as a massive flap of hide wrenches free, the sound like canvas tearing underwater.

  “Tanning? Isn’t that what you do on the beach?” Jenny flicks her ponytail of strawberry curls back and forth like she’s in a shampoo ad.

  I snicker. She knows better—we’ve sat through the same survival lectures for the last eighteen months. Still, her attempt at playing the clueless bimbo is so over-the-top it’s almost fun.

  Then Jenny stiffens her arms in front of her, wrists limp, and shuffles a step like a bad extra in a zombie movie. “Brains… brains…” she drones, deadpan.

  I can’t help it. The Queen Mother playing zombie while hunting monster brains is too much. I laugh, lose my grip on the frog skin, and topple backward into a puddle of viscera—splattering it all over Lenora.

  She wipes gore from her cheek, plucks the needle free from the frog’s poison gland, and brandishes it at me like a dagger.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” I giggle.

  “Keep splattering me with leftovers and I’ll spank you,” she fires back, eyes narrowing but lips twitching.

  “Promise?”

  “Children,” Frankie snaps in her high soprano, waving her belt knife as if Tweety Bird had been drafted to lead The Dirty Dozen on one last mission.

  I choke back a laugh behind my fist and only manage to smear frog fat across my cheek. “Yes, Mother.”

  “Sorry—Mom,” Lenora deadpans.

  Jenny groans, arms out like a bad zombie extra. “Mooom brainzzz…”

  “Three flies in my peanut-butter sandwich,” Frankie mutters in mock exasperation.

  We all freeze mid-breath, staring. “…Huh?”

  Frankie blinks, like she surprised herself. “…Did I say that out loud?”

  “Yes,” I deadpan.

  She shrugs, a sheepish grin cracking through. “Well, it fits, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t get it,” I say, playing dumb.

  “It’s a saying,” Frankie insists, jaw tightening as if daring anyone to challenge her. “Means you’re all being pests.”

  Lenora arches a brow. “That is not a saying.”

  Jenny bites her lip, then breaks into giggles. “It is now.” She points at each of us in turn, still laughing. “Fly number one, fly number two, fly number three!”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  A few hours later, seconds after we finish stripping everything useful from the carcasses, they vanish, dissolving into the floor.

  “Well,” I sigh, “that’s convenient.”

  The next week slips by in a kind of domestic bliss—our first real breather since this nightmare started. Instead of marching between battles, we’re dancing between buckets of gore. Turns out Jenny knows a jig that somehow accelerates curing time, so the two of us stomp barefoot across the hides like we’re crushing grapes for wine… if the grapes smelled like old gym socks and rotten fish.

  Jenny and Frankie twist thread from guts and sinew; Lenora trails behind me with her scalpel, tracing the patterns I sketch into the leather. I burn through a dozen frog-bone needles sewing pieces together before I finally get the hang of it. By the end of seven long, smelly days, we’ve managed it—Frankie, Tess, and Lenora stand kitted out in brand-new armor. Think Red Sonja meets The Flintstones.

  Frankie’s outfit was the first to come together, and I admit, it’s kind of terrifying. Think Roman legionnaire meets barbarian gym rat. The skirt starts as a tight, mid-thigh mini, then flares into overlapping strips of leather cut almost as wide as my hand. Each strip runs down to her calves, layered so they slap against one another when she moves, giving her both protection and freedom of stride. The tunic is crude but functional: frog-skin leather softened until pliable, stitched into a sleeveless shell with a shelf-bra panel sewn right in. She looks like she could wrestle a bear—and win. For her shield, she’s strapping one of the centipede’s blue-black plates to an armature of sinew rope. The thing is half her height and gleams like polished obsidian. And of course she’s still swinging the frog’s jawbone like a caveman’s cudgel. I tried to top it off with a matching cap, but she growled at me like I’d just insulted her mother. I backed off.

  Jenny and Lenora insisted on matching sets. Mini skirts again—shorter this time, with narrow panels cut for more flare and swing than Frankie’s heavy armor strips. They cinch at the hips with braided sinew cords, and I left deliberate gaps to give their legs freedom. Their tops are cropped half-shirts—long strips of leather cut on the bias, crossed at the front, stitched at the back. When the light hits them just right, they look like improvised sports bras crossed with fantasy bikini tops. Honestly, they look more “post-apocalypse cheer squad” than “battle-ready,” but they squealed with approval when they tried them on, so I’ll call that a win.

  But Tess… Tess was my masterpiece. I used every scrap of the darkest green frog leather, stretched and softened until it gleamed like wet emerald. The corset is fully boned with frog ribs—don’t laugh, they worked—cinched to hug every curve. It pulls her waist in sharp and flares at the hips, with a plunging neckline that, frankly, makes me jealous. The pants were my first attempt, stitched panel by panel with tendon thread. They’re tight, seamless, and hug her legs like a second skin, ending in flared cuffs that drape over her ankles. It took all four of us to wrestle her unconscious body into them, but when we finally snapped the last tie… oh goddess. She looked like a warrior queen sculpted out of jade. For the first time, I felt my sewing skills level up—literally. The system pinged me from Novice to Intermediate Sewing and added Novice Leatherworking. My fingers still ache, but I’ve never been prouder of anything I’ve made.

  I glance down at myself and sigh. Once again, I’m the one “blessed” with the scantiest outfit. Sure, my armor protects me, cleans itself, even scrubs me spotless after every fight. All very impressive. But why does it insist on reinventing itself every few days like some cheeky fashion designer with a grudge?

  For the past week, while I was hunched over stitching hides and sewing outfits for everyone else, it had the decency to resemble a practical top and boy shorts. Comfortable. Modest. Normal. Today? Back to my corset—strips of fabric laced together with smug little knots—and tanga shorts that might as well be a wink and a dare.

  How is this practical armor?

  I huff, tugging at a strap that refuses to stay where I want it. Then I catch myself, half smiling. Maybe it’s not meant to be practical. Maybe it’s meant to force me to stop hiding.

  I glare down at my corset. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

  The strips of leather tighten around my ribs, smug as a cat.

  I tug one of the side ties lower, trying to coax it into something resembling a shirt. The cord stretches obediently… then snaps back, cinching tighter and leaving me with more cleavage, not less.

  “Oh, for—seriously?”

  I grab at the shorts next, hauling the fabric down toward my thighs. The material sighs against my skin, silky and pliant—until it shrinks back with a mischievous snap, climbing higher than before. My backside is now laughing at me.

  “I am not walking into battle half-naked!” I hiss.

  The corset ripples. A strap slithers up my shoulder, pretends to behave… then thins itself to a teasing ribbon.

  My fists clench. “You’re doing this on purpose.”

  The armor pulses once, smugly, like a heartbeat under my skin.

  We lock in a silent standoff: me glaring, armor gleaming. I yank. It retreats. I adjust. It readjusts. By the end of our duel, I’ve gained exactly nothing except a sheen of sweat and the creeping realization that my own clothes are out-stubborning me.

  I throw up my hands. “Fine! You win! But the second you flash me in front of the others again, I swear I’ll—”

  The corset snugs itself just enough to give me a comforting hug.

  I blink, caught between outrage and a laugh. “Oh, no. Don’t you ‘hug’ me. You’re not forgiven.”

  Still, the warmth lingers. A silent promise. Not practical. Not modest. But mine.

  I turn and meet the smirks of my friends. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Lenora deadpans.

  “Don’t pick fights ye canna win,” Frankie advises with a grin.

  Jenny doesn’t answer. She’s staring—hard. Not at me, but past me. “Lizzy… did you—”

  I follow her eyes down to Tess. A glint of gold catches my attention, drawing me to Jenny’s side. Lines shimmer over Tess’s armor. Gold, blue, red, green, white—every new Inanna tattoo now burns in blazing color across her leather, bleeding light as if her very skin had set it aglow.

  “I didn’t do that,” I whisper. My throat feels tight. “I don’t know how.”

  Frankie and Lenora step closer. The four of us stare as one, awed and uneasy. My gut flips, my heart hammering. What does this mean?

  “I hate to bring this up,” Lenora coughs, breaking the silence, “but…”

  “It’s Tess’s turn to tickle the leprechaun,” Jenny blurts.

  I sputter, heat rushing to my cheeks. “What? No!”

  “The last time we skipped her, the centipede attacked,” Frankie reminds us grimly.

  “Forget it,” I snap. “We’ll fight whatever comes.”

  “Lizzy!” Jenny gasps, her hands balling into fists. “We almost died!”

  “I will not touch her that way without her permission—period.”

  Jenny groans in frustration. “But our luck—”

  I slap her arm hard enough to sting. “No.”

  The word echoes between us, final.

  Then the obsidian hall answers.

  A low rumble rolls through the stone, too deep to be wind, too steady to be chance. Dust trembles from the ceiling. The water in the pool ripples, widening circles spreading out from Tess’s still body.

  We freeze. Listening. Waiting.

  Something is coming. Or someone.