Description: French author éliphas Lévi opens his pivotal 1856 book, Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, with The Emerald Tablet’s most famous statement, Quod Superius… sicut Quod Inferius. Basically, a yin-yang thang from a guy who’s closest association with China was probably a silk scarf passed down in his family rumored to have once been a gift from Marco Polo to whatever Pope was not-so-shadow-ruling Europe at the time.

  Spoiler alert: The scarf wasn’t silk. It was recycled polyamide, mass-produced in an H&M Group sweatshop in Bangladesh. Like the garment, and the company’s statement that it ‘strictly prohibits any type of forced labor, regardless of the market or region,’ alchemy was all bullshit.

  And even if the Lévi’s alchemical furnace provided a steady, low heat for digestion, even if the author was adept in prayer, fluent in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, able to rattle off Exodus 3:2 and Ezekiel 1:5 in his sleep—Lévi was not going to be forgiven for the Yaldabaoth tramp stamp he got during France’s infamous Feast of Fools.

  And why would the Big Guy forgive him anyway?

  The Eleventh Commandment clearly states that Yaldabaoth tramp stamps are banned for the same reason all tramp stamps should be banned, even if they’re known to create unique properties for both tops and bottoms, which Lévi equated to the famous line previously mentioned in Latin that you clearly don’t understand, Survivor, because of poorly funded public schools and even poorlier paid teachers.

  I’ll translate it for you now: That which is above is like that which is below.

  Has a ring to it, right?

  Bubblegum Man thought so.

  He got the Yaldabaoth tramp stamp in his Gnostic-ass teenage years after jamming too much Nu Metal and taking Korn and Limp Bizkit’s lyrics way too seriously. One night, after living like a freak on a leash and doing it all for the nookie, he got bored on a daytrip to Iowa and made the last minute decision to get the tat and bleach his tips blond like Chino from the Deftones, only to be struck by horizontal bolts of lightning, transforming his head into a gumball machine and casting him in dapper attire.

  Now this godforsaken alchemically deficient Slipknot reject is your problem.

  The crank atop the Bubblegum Man’s head spun faster.

  Hiro’s instincts screamed at him. Move. Now!

  He grabbed a Munster energy drink from his bag, cracked it open, chugged it in one go and tossed the can aside. The boosted Strength surged through his system. His heartbeat kicked up as the Bubblegum Man cranked its head violently, and a red gumball launched from the slot at its base. Hiro bounced and twisted midair, barely dodging as it splattered against the building behind him—

  Boom!

  The explosion sent a wave of heat against his back. Hiro hit the ground in a roll and triggered {Kore Nani Neko}. Phantom cats raced ahead, their spectral bodies clamoring for the Bubblegum Man’s legs as Hachi rushed beside them.

  Bianca tried to use her tentacles to swat the next red gumball out of the air, yet it exploded on impact, which sent her hurling to the side.

  Boom!

  She slammed against the side of a rusted-out trash can and rebounded, her body bouncing once before vanishing into an open manhole.

  “Bianca!” Hiro barely had time to register before the crank spun again, firing a blue gumball.

  Hiro cursed, dodging sideways. The gumball struck the pavement where he had just been, expanding like molten taffy, stretching and twisting into a corrosive sludge.

  “Shit, shit, shit—” Hiro hit the ground, bounced again, and activated {Thoughts and Prayers}. He hissed as the skill failed yet again.

  The Bubblegum Man jerked forward, its stiff, mannequin-like limbs suddenly far too fast. The gumballs inside its glass dome shifted, twisting, melting into grotesque, shifting faces as it kicked Hachi away.

  A white gumball fired out.

  -50 Soul Cash!

  A crushing sensation clenched his stomach as his balance dropped to -938 Soul Cash. If I hit a thousand, I’ll lose a point in my stats!

  Desperate and frantic to win the fight, Hiro made the split second decision to trigger one of his {A La Mode} Roulette Skills. He mentally invoked the skill, and the prompt screamed joyfully in his head:

  Safe Mode activated!

  For the next three minutes, Hiro was indestructible.

  He surged forward, katana flashing in the neon glow of the ruined cityscape. His blade sliced clean through the Bubblegum Man’s arm, severing it in a spray of sticky residue. The dismembered limb barely hit the ground before it slurped back, the severed edge stretching, fusing, reforming as if the injury had never happened.

  The crank whirred violently and another red gumball launched, too fast to dodge. Hiro had no choice but to take it head-on. The napalm splattered across his hoodie, burning through the fabric, but thankfully, Safe Mode held.

  Hiro doubled back, sent his katana away, and drew his odachi from the air, gripping the handle with one hand as his other morphed into the huge face of a bear, which he used to swat away incoming gumballs, explosions sounding off all around him.

  Once he had an opening, Hiro swung with all the power he had, triggering {Blade Whirlwind.}

  The massive blast of sword-y wind tore through the Bubblegum Man’s glass head, shattering it into a glittering spray of sugar-coated shards. Hiro staggered back, catching his breath, watching as its health bar dropped.

  Is it…?

  The Bubblegum Man’s body convulsed. The broken shards melted together, the mass growing bigger—its body bulged as melted gum bubbled out of its head and fused onto its frame. Its uniform ripped apart, the gumball mass now extending down its arms, its torso, its legs. The crank at the top of its misshapen head spun wildly, faster than before.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Second form, Hiro thought as his mind jumped back to a potential key to all of this, one he hadn’t fully processed with all the sudden explosions. His description.

  Bianca, who had just crawled out of the sewer, launched herself toward Hiro and looped around his arm.

  “Where are we at, Big Bro?” she asked frantically.

  “I used Safe Mode! Try to pin him from behind—”

  “Got it!” Bianca skittered away before Hiro could finish his instructions.

  The Bubblegum Man lunged forward, its swollen limbs quivering with unstable elasticity. Its uniform was now shredded, exposing a sickening brain-like gumball mass that extended down its arms, torso, and legs. The crank atop its deformed head spun wildly, sending ripples through its gelatinous body. The glass dome had repaired itself after Hiro’s last attack, but it was larger now, filled with more swirling, melting gumballs.

  Hiro tensed, his jaw tightening as his mind ran through the Doom System’s batshit description.

  His odachi was already slick with the syrupy residue of his last strike, but slashing through this thing wasn’t working. The description had hinted at something—a potential weakness somewhere on the Bubblegum Man’s body.

  His eyes bulged. “Aim for the tramp stamp!”

  “Do what?” Bianca cried back to him.

  “Does it have a tramp stamp?”

  “How the hell should—yes, it has a tramp stamp of a dove!”

  “That’s our target!”

  With a staggering lurch, the Bubblegum Man spat out a cluster of gumballs from its core—dozens of them, rolling onto the pavement in every direction littering the air with explosions. Hachi yelped and tried to get away, only to be torn to shreds by a red gumball.

  I need to get behind the fucker. Hiro jumped to avoid a gumball that burst apart in a searing explosion, neon-red napalm splattering the asphalt.

  Boom!

  Another red gumball detonated nearby, leaving a sizzling, cratered hole where the pavement had been.

  “Keep moving!” Hiro shouted to Bianca as he dodged a glob of blue that hit the ground and instantly expanded into a sticky, tar-like sludge. He sent his Odachi away by simply dropping it and drew his katana again.

  The Bubblegum Man moved faster now. Its limbs stretched unnaturally, and as it swung a massive, candy-coated fist, Hiro barely managed to sidestep in time. The sheer force of the blow shattered a trash can beside him, sending bits of metal clattering onto the pavement.

  “Bianca, I need an opening!”

  “You got it, boss!” Bianca’s tentacles shot out, coiling around the Bubblegum Man’s left arm. She pulled hard, dragging it sideways, forcing its torso to twist.

  Hiro saw his chance and sprinted. He flourished his katana and activated Rune of the Reverse Blade. After ducking under his opponent’s next volley of gumballs, he pushed off his heels, and drove the katana into the small of the Bubblegum Man’s back, right where his tramp stamp should be.

  The enemy’s health bar dropped to just a sliver as the crank atop the Bubblegum Man’s head spun violently. It ejected a white gumball, which shattered midair with a shrill, ear-piercing jingle.

  -50 Soul Cash!

  Hiro stumbled as the message flashed across his vision. He was just twelve Soul Cash away now from permanently losing a stat point. He swiveled again, moving in like he was a trained shinobi. The Bubblegum Man twisted violently and Bianca lost her grip, sending her tumbling backward.

  More explosions sounded off as Hiro bent his knees, coiling every ounce of strength into his next move. He rushed toward the Bubblegum Man, the wind surging with him, Hiro realizing only after he had stepped past his opponent that he had triggered {Blade Whirlwind} while holding his sword in a reverse grip.

  For a split second, nothing happened.

  Then, a horrible, bubbling shriek filled the air as the Bubblegum Man convulsed. The Hunter ruptured, spewing out gumball-colored ichor like a burst water pipe. The crank on its head spun wildly, faster, then faster, until it snapped off entirely, shooting into the air like a missile.

  [A Hunter has fallen.]

  You have new followers!

  You got cash!

  +2000 Soul Cash!

  Hiro let out a slow, steady breath, his entire body shaking with adrenaline. He had little time to process the victory before Bianca let out a whoop of excitement. “Holy shit, you did it!”

  “Looks like it.” Hiro sheathed his katana and hastily checked his stats to see he was no longer in the negative. Just over a thousand Soul Cash and pushing closer to twenty-thousand followers…

  He exhaled, letting the tension in his shoulders ease slightly, which naturally recoiled the bear face that had grown over his arm. After searching for a moment, he reached down and picked up a sliver of Hachi’s flesh, the piece still warm, pulsing faintly with latent energy.

  The moment he set it on the pavement, a low, guttural rumble vibrated through the air. The strip of flesh twitched. It spread outward, expanding like ink in water. Muscles knitted themselves together, bones snapped into place, sinew stretched and twisted until a paw took shape—then a leg, then another. The process was grotesque yet mesmerizing, like watching a time-lapse of a wound healing in seconds.

  Hachi let out a low growl as his head reformed last, eyes flickering open like twin embers. He shook himself violently, sending stray wisps of residual energy scattering into the night. His fur bristled, ears flattening, as if even he was disturbed by what had just happened.

  “Yeah, I don’t like it either,” Hiro told the dog. “But hey—you’re back.”

  Hachi sniffed the air, then licked his nose, adjusting to his reformed body.

  “But wait, there’s more,” Bianca said as she cautiously approached a single red gumball that remained. “I always wanted to say that.”

  “Careful—”

  “The gumball would have blown up by now. It’s an accessory.”

  “Probably,” Hiro said as he cautiously approached.

  The description appeared:

  Accessory: {Red Gumball}

  Grade: B

  Description: Agis II, Eurypontid king of Sparta and eldest son of Archidamus II and half-brother of Agesilaus II, loved the letter A the way the singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson loved writing about points. Truth be told, Agis would have despised Nilsson’s Me and My Arrow, even if he never quite realized it was about a dog and not a projectile weapon, but that’s also because he was never a big fan of music.

  Centuries later, historians—always eager to romanticize war for the patriarchy—claimed that King Agis was once shown a catapult capable of launching a killing dart nearly two hundred meters. Instead of nodding in approval and saying something cool like, “Hell yeah, bro, that’s some next-level Spartan shit, for real, though,” he wept, full-on tears.

  “Valor is no more,” Agis proclaimed, his head hung in shame, erection at half-mast.

  If Agis thought that was bad, he would have had a full-blown existential crisis over modern warfare. The Excalibur 155mm artillery round? The RS-28 Sarmat otherwise known as Satan II? Something out of Quantum Hughes’ notorious inventory list of kablooey? No-freaking-thank-you. Agis would have packed up his spear, taken his ball, and gone home.

  Which brings us to this little gumball. Chew it quickly. Set it. Get the hell out of the blast zone—you have all of one minute. Then, enjoy the fireworks.

  But don’t expect a boom.

  This isn’t your granddaddy’s explosion.

  “Anything good?” Bianca asked.

  “To be determined.” Hiro put the red gumball in a pouch on his backpack and turned in the direction of Central Park, where he saw a purple beacon. “Let’s keep moving. We have Revenants to hunt, and we will kill anything along the way.”

  “Look at you, so tough.” She squeezed his arm with her pink tentacle.

  “It’s not that.”

  “I’m teasing you, Hiro. Lighten up. Also… can I get the price scanner from you again? Shooting babies is fun. Oh my god—never take that last statement out of context.”

  “Sure.” He unholstered the weapon and handed it to her.