Imani: Check in! Check in! Elle got turned into a goblin! Jacobus is a starfish! I had to drop splooge on him to keep him alive!

Elle: This is so goddamn weird.

Florin: We’re all good. Looks like Louis and Britney are the same, too.

Prepotente: Neither Jurgen nor I were changed, and we both received a notification that we were protected. My theory was correct. Just like the high elves in their castle, my Apito memorial crystal protects me and anyone in the same building or mount as myself. My Apito crystal now says it’s 11.1% charged.

Chris: I got turned into a werewolf, but I’m in human form.

Donut: A DACHSHUND! CARL GOT TURNED INTO A DACHSHUND! THIS IS A NIGHTMARE!

“Carl, put that thing away! Why is your wiener hanging out! It’s disgusting! We don’t have time for you to be disgusting!”

I had, indeed, turned into a long-haired dachshund. A wiener dog. I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to start licking my own balls, but I snapped myself out of it.

“Oohh, I like you as a doggy, Carl,” Samantha said.

“Samantha! You’re not listed as a mercenary!” My voice sounded ridiculous. It was more high-pitched, and I suddenly had a German accent for no goddamned reason. “You won’t be allowed to pass over the starting line!”

“You better add me, then. Who else is going to drive? Jamal is not very good.”

“Jamal is most certainly ready to drive!” Jamal said. “I would wish for someone to turn Jamal around, and I will attempt driving with my legs. Maybe my mouth.”

“You’re too big, Jamal!” Donut said. She turned to Samantha. “I added you as a driver.”

“Scheiße,” I said.

I couldn’t drive. I didn’t have goddamned thumbs. My legs were ridiculously short. This felt so weird. I felt strangely woozy, the scent of everything was suddenly overwhelming, and, like Donut had noticed, my wang was just hanging out of its sleeve for no reason. It dangled out the leg of my boxers. I had no control over it.

Like with the kangaroo costume, I still wore my boxers, but they had resized themselves and sat awkwardly on my hips. My kneepads remained, tiny on my back legs. My jacket and cloak also remained, as did my bandanna, which hung around my neck. None of my rings remained. My xistera had unequipped itself, as had my gauntlet.

“Donut, get your driving apparatus out!”

Neither Osvaldo nor Dwight appeared to have been affected. Neither had their mounts. It didn’t appear that any mounts had been hit with the attack.

During all of this, a notification had appeared, almost lost in the chaos, but I saw it now, saw the implications, and then I finally did have an idea. I now knew why the AI had made this last heat four hours. I knew why it was allowing us to leave the starting blocks. It knew. It anticipated. As terrible as this was, it was giving us an out.

Your Mercenary Pontiff has left the playing field and is no longer considered a mercenary. You will no longer be charged.

I started to type in chat, but the interface was different, and when I first tried it, all I did was start furiously barking.

“Carl, I will not have you doing that!” Donut shrieked as she pulled the driving system out of her inventory. It clicked into place. I had not practiced with this. This was a terrible idea.

“He is a dog,” Samantha said. “I hope it’s permanent. We’ll have to change his name, of course. And get him neutered.” She gasped. “Or maybe not. It’s too bad Orthrus is also a boy. Maybe we can talk that bitch Diwata into doing a gender change on one of them. Can you imagine how cute the puppies would be?”

“Samantha,” I said, trying to wrangle the accent away, “grab the steering wheel with your mouth. Donut, you work the pedals. I’m controlling the weapons! Dr. Metcalf, I’m gonna need your help. But wait a second. Don’t worry about actually driving yet. Donut, plan Hurry Up!”

“Plan what? What plan is that? Carl, you turning into a dog has made you an idiot!”

“Goddamnit. Plan Hurry Up! No, not ‘hurry up.’ ‘Hurry Up,’ but in German.”

“Oh, you mean plan Mach Schnell? Why didn’t you say so?”

“Yes, that one!”

Donut was suddenly all business. “Okay, Carl, I’m ready. Roll down the window. Wait. Someone with thumbs roll down the window! Why isn’t this an automatic window? It won’t let me break the glass until the heat starts! Jamal!”

“I cannot reach!” Jamal cried. “I am quite snug!”

I cannot roll down the window. It is manual.

Donut’s chair suddenly unhooked herself and an arm appeared. It grasped the handle and start quickly rolling it down.

“Thank you, Dorota!”

While all this happened, I finally figured out the messaging. We only had seconds. The way the mental typing worked was a little different, but it was actually easier than the old system.

Karl: Mordecai, quick. Is the garden still intact?

Mordecai: Who is this?

Donut: ANSWER HIM FAST.

Mordecai: It’s still there. All plants still alive.

Karl: Guys, forget about the damn transformations. Everyone who suddenly found themselves with multiple opponents, I have an idea, but I’m not gonna lie. This idea is fucked. Contingency three. Three!

Louis: Wait, who is this Karl-with-a-K guy?

Donut: THAT’S CARL. THE SYSTEM IS SPELLING HIS NAME WRONG BECAUSE HE’S A STUPID DOG NOW.

Thirty seconds. Ahead, the starting lights appeared. The giant cannon started to pop out of Dwight’s vine, but it stopped. I’d deliberately parked too close to him for it to fully deploy. The gun retracted, and I heard it pop out the other side.

Karl: Osvaldo, please. Please. We can all get through this. Please don’t force this.

Osvaldo: Go fuck yourself, Carl. I’m glad we worked together when we could, but it’s now too late.

Karl: Damnit, man. At least answer this. Did that Ysalte crystal protect against the Scolopendra attack?

Osvaldo: No.

Goddamnit. We were out of time.

Ten seconds.

Five seconds.

“Forgive me,” I said.

The light turned green, and in less than a minute, they were all dead.

We were, after all, the veterans of Faction Wars. We were hardened. We were survivors.

We were crawlers, and we weren’t going down without a fight.

No matter how strong these NPCs were, the only thing that had kept any of them alive up until this point was our attempts at minimizing crawler-on-crawler fights.

That was no longer an issue. Our backs were against the wall. We no longer cared about collateral damage. And we were fucking pissed.

We were crawlers, and they were not.

It wasn’t even close to resembling a fair fight.

For Dwight, it went exactly as planned. The light turned green, and Dr. Metcalf reacted. Dwight burst off the starting line, dragging his missile cart he would never get to launch.

His cannon fired directly into Bruna, whose shield was already activated.

Before Bruna was finished staggering from the blast, it was done. The hole punch did its job. The newly redesigned vine-killing potion balls did their job. The GPS-frying potion did its job.

Donut, too, did her job.

Before I could blink, she was out the passenger’s-side window, turning to smoke. By the time she was on the roof of the truck, the vine was dead, the GPS was shorted out, and the shield was fully down.

Before Bruna, on the other side of Dwight, had even managed to let out a bellow from the point-blank blast, Dwight’s head had been removed from his body in a single swipe of Donut’s claw.

Before the notification even arrived, Dwight’s magical horn had been removed from the unicorn’s head and placed into Donut’s inventory.

Team One, Team Sparkles, has been eliminated because. . . Holy shit, that was pretty badass.

Across the way, similar scenes were playing out all across the lobby. A few racers managed to get away, but they appeared to all be just the NPC-on-NPC races. The AMC Pacer of team Yokai cast something and moved right through the closed door in the hallway and disappeared.

Good for them, I thought. I hoped they’d make it. I wondered if the AI would keep its promise if they finished their heat. I wondered if they’d be “free.” I wondered what that meant, what it looked like.

It didn’t matter, I decided. That wasn’t to be our fate. Not now.

Next to us, Bruna fully recovered. Osvaldo was crouched on the back of his gnu, and he took a few steps forward, moving into the lobby. I gritted my teeth. This was going to be tricky.

He couldn’t make his move until I blew the hole. If he moved too soon, he was dead. If he moved too late, he was dead. If we moved too soon, it was possible we’d kill Bruna and not him. If that happened, we were fucked.

Osvaldo was the fastest crawler in the dungeon, and he knew it. This was going to be dangerous.

“Dr. Metcalf, the hole punch ready again?” The vine had shriveled where it stood, leaving a goopy black stain on the floor. All that was left was the missile cart.

It is ready. However, it appears he has removed the shield from his creature. The crawler himself is covered with many, many shields.

“Yeah, we figured. He’s hoping we’ll attack him before we blow the ceiling. Wait until the moment I drop the roof.” We had to do this quickly. Already, I felt a slugpox boil starting to form on my back.

Karl: Donut, ready?

Donut: Ready.

Karl: Okay, guys, I’m blowing the ceiling in ten seconds. Be careful. The roof is coming down.

I took a breath, and I hit the detonator. My tail started to anxiously wag.

Ten seconds.

Five seconds.

Bam!