“Well, I had nothing in mind,” you mutter under your breath. Nothing happened, and nothing has changed. You, BTS, and Freytag are still on the run from the mafia and a knight, who are separately pursuing the deaths of you and Freytag. BTS is safe, of course, as is Luna, even though you left her behind. Nobody wants her dead. The jerk alpha who wants to marry her is prancing through the forest on his monthly streaking spree and is certainly not a threat at the moment. There’s nothing intimidating about the squeals of delight you hear in the distance.

“You will not escape this time, you foul creature!” the knight shouts behind you. He sounds intimidating, especially since he’s gaining on you.

“Why don’t we get a speed boost from transforming?” you ask BTS.

“We get a cuteness boost and a strength boost,” he replies. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Not right now!”

Curse your adorable chibi legs. At least you’re wearing combat boots instead of high heels. If I’d given you the choice, you would have picked high heels, right? The boots are much more practical, and I ensured they’re your favorite shade of red, too.

Metal rings out as the knight draws his sword. You hear it whistling through the air, and then you feel wind on your tail.

“Hey!” You stop and spin to face the knight, hugging your tail against you. “Don’t touch the tail!”

He points his sword at Freytag. “Hand over the dragon, and I will spare you the wrath of my blade.”

“Take one step closer, and I’ll knock your block off.”

He laughs. “You? You are but a chibi playing dress-up! What could you possibly—oof!”

You punch him in his stomach. He stumbles backward into a tree trunk, his armor crumpling under your fist.

“For the record, I am not playing dress-up. The ears and tail are real!” You study the tip of your tail, which now comes to a blunt end where he sliced the point off. “Look at what you’ve done!”

BTS frowns at your tail and then glares at the knight. “I should rip the tassel off your helmet.”

“Not the tassel!” he squeaks. He covers it with his hand and side-steps away from you and the tree, bumping into something else that startles him. His sword flies through the air as he spins to face it—or her, as it turns out.

Luna jumps back and falls on her rear, sending the basket of tired, grumpy kittens flying yet again. “Ooh! I’ve always wanted to be swept off my feet by a knight in shining armor!”

“Apologies, milady. I thought—”

“‘Milady’?” She takes his proffered hand, her expressive heterochromatic eyes trying out a few pink hearts this time. As always, she pulls the literalization off flawlessly. “Chivalry is not dead, I see. What are you hiding under that helmet?”

Probably a blush, judging by the way he jerks his hand free from her and shifts from foot to foot. “Um… I can’t take it off while I’m working…”

“Just a peek?” She steps toward him, batting her eyelashes and releasing several hearts into the air. They float a few feet above her head and then disappear. “A tiny little peek?”

“Uh…”

You glance at Freytag. She smirks and nods, then opens her miniature dragon mouth and lets out a maximized dragon roar: “Behind you!”

The knight squeaks and spins around again, bumping into the tree and falling on his rear. Luna climbs onto his lap before he knows what happened.

“Oh, you want me to take it off? I’m honored.”

“No—”

“Too late!” She pulls his helmet off and tosses it aside with a clank. “A redhead! Scottish or Irish?” she asks, running her hands through short hair that is quite close in shade to his flushed face.

“I… uh…”

“You should really let it grow out sometime. It’s so soft. What’s your name?”

Freytag sticks her head into your hair, trying to muffle her laughter. You and BTS have covered your mouths with your hands for the same reason.

The knight clears his throat. “Sir Freycheck, Protector of Creative Writing, Defender of Human Artistry, and Hero of Unraveling Fabric, at your service.”

“So accomplished.” Luna traces circles on his breastplate. “It’s a shame you have to waste your time on a little, bitty, harmless dragon.”

He straightens his spine and throws his shoulders back. “Freytag’s pyramid is a blight upon the literary world that must be eliminated!”

“But Freytag was only named after Freytag’s pyramid. Her mother is a bestselling author who hates it and wanted to make a joke of it. Freytag has done nothing wrong.”

“Nevertheless, she is a conduit of the dark magic that constricts the writing process and compresses it into a formula, and I must stop her.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do,” you interject. “She doesn’t want that power. We’re trying to help her get rid of it so she can live a normal life.”

Freycheck looks at Freytag as if seeing her for the first time. “Oh.”

Luna wraps her arms around his neck. “So, now that we have that straightened out, what are you doing for the rest of the night?”

Freycheck’s face is at risk of bursting into flames. “Um… I’m sorry, milady, but now that my life’s work is complete—”

“Luna,” she purrs. “And I won’t ask you to do anything that breaks your knightly code. I just want to spend a little time with you, get to know you better, you know?” She leans toward him.

He leans back. “I… need to see the council about my next orders. They, um, may consider this a failure and strip me of my—”

“What about AI? Artificial—”

He slaps a metal-gloved hand over her mouth. “Do not speak the demon’s name! It is a curse upon literature, a venomous serpent lying in wait behind cell phones, desktop computers, tablets, and other assorted electronic devices, whispering lies of improvement and ingenuity to unsuspecting would-be authors and luring them into its lair, where it encourages laziness and strips them of their unique voices! They and the evil minions who use it knowingly aid in its production of blasphemous content, an army of robotic zombies, stitched together from the recycled words of published authors and reduced to one mindless, soulless horde of copyright violations that—”

Luna covers his mouth with her hand. “Okay, I think we get the picture, and I also know what your next job should be. Why don’t we—”

He shakes his head. “I would be derelict in my duties if I didn’t endeavor to destroy that dastardly denizen of darkness and decay, and so I must set out on this quest, but I cannot ask such a fair lady as yourself to accompany me on such a holy, necessary, doomed journey.”

You hear a gunshot. A bullet hits the tree trunk beside you, and you and BTS drop to the ground.

“Okay, time’s up. Luna, you’ve got things covered here?”

She flashes you a smile. “Absolutely. I think I’ve got things under control for the rest of the story, actually.” She plants a kiss on Freycheck’s cheek. His eyes fly wide open.

“You have fun with that, then. BTS, let’s go!”

“Where? We’re about to be overrun!”

“You can fly,” Freytag hisses in your ear.

“I can what?”

“You’re a vampire! You can fly!”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Wait, you can fly?” BTS asks. “Why have we been wasting our time running?”

“I didn’t know I could fly! But I’m a werewolf now. How would that even—”

The rest of your words come out as high-pitched squeaking, befitting your new status as a bat—a chibi bat. Your head is the same size as your body, both of which are larger than your wings. Even your protruding canine teeth are adorable. You grab BTS by the back of his collar and take off, your frantic little wingbeats carrying you far above the treetops and away from the Raviolis’ estate in no time at all.

“Rrawk! You finally figured it out, you stupid—”

You unleash a string of words I would never write upon the parrot, which has joined you, Freytag, and poor BTS, the only member of this group who can’t fly. It’s a good thing I’ve censored you with bat-speak. But a bevy of reply squeaks comes to you on the breeze, a severe scolding from a traditional, conservative vampire bat family. You should watch your language in public. You never know when little ears are listening.

Oh, shut up. Where am I even going now?

That’s up to you, but you may want to land soon. You’re kind of strangling BTS right now.

“Eep!” you say, which translates in human to: ‘Eep!’ You descend as fast as you ascended, landing beside an Olympic-sized swimming pool in someone’s backyard. Then you flap around BTS as he coughs and gasps for air. He puts his hands on his knees, sweat dripping from his skin and tears streaming from his eyes. Your bat senses tingle. You dart toward his face, licking him with your tiny pink tongue. He swats you away, but you dodge his hand and keep licking him. Maybe in the morning, you can excuse this as comforting puppy behavior or something. At least you aren’t—

“Ow!” He grabs you and throws you off ‌him when you latch onto his neck.

You turn back into a chibi werewolf as you hit the ground. “Ow…”

“Why did you do that?”

You sit up, rubbing your rear. “I don’t know. I couldn’t control myself. Maybe—” You look up at him and freeze. There’s blood on his neck. Hot, delicious, metallic-smelling blood.

“Oh, great. I thought you were only a danger to shoes as a werewolf!” He backs away from you, holding his hands up in front of him.

You climb to your feet and follow him. “I don’t smell any new shoes in the vicinity.”

“Rrawk! Get ahold of yourself, you sick, twisted vampire werewolf! Rrawk!”

“Y/n, no! If you kill him now, you’ll be stuck in this story forever!” Freytag pleads with you, joining the parrot that’s flapping in front of you, trying to stop you from attacking your ticket home—or possibly your meal ticket. You’re waging a fierce battle within you about that. It isn’t going well.

BTS reaches the edge of the pool and takes another step back. He falls in with a yelp and a splash. The smell of chlorinated water overpowers the salty, coppery tang that was driving you nuts. He resurfaces, spluttering water, and you take several horrified steps backward. What were you thinking?

“I-I should go,” you say. “Before… um…”

“No, Y/n! Wait!”

You’re already in bat form and taking flight. It isn’t even midnight yet. Why are you losing control of yourself this early in the evening? But it doesn’t matter. Now that you know how to do the whole bat thing, you can reunite with him tomorrow, when you’re in your right mind. For now, you need to get as far from humans and shoes as possible. Your house should be safe if you can find it. Of course, you don’t know where you are, so how could you possibly know which direction to go? Maybe if your amazing, generous, talented, wonderful author—

Take me home right now, or I’ll fly out of this story and bite you!

As if you could scare me. I hold all the power, Y/n. Try it, and you’ll just hit your head on the computer screen and fall unconscious to the ground. You’re trapped. Doomed, I tell you. Doomed! Unless you bribe me. I’ll have you know I’m expecting a lot of Starbucks coming my way when you’re back in the real world, by the way. And if you don’t pay up… well, you know. Back into another story you go!

Ugh, fine. I’ll buy you an iced peppermint mocha with a chocolate croissant. No, wait. Let’s make that a venti iced peppermint mocha and a cookie croissant swirl!

Very good. Welcome home.

You transform as you bolt inside, making a beeline for the refrigerator and your stash of tomato juice. I’d like to tell you that will help, but it won’t. The problem isn’t hunger. The problem is the full moon’s influence. Your base instincts are surfacing and taking over, and the effect is much more potent because of your vampirism. So, once you’re done chugging that bottle of tomato juice, I’d recommend locking yourself in your shoe room for the rest of the night.

“But then I’ll destroy my shoe collection!”

Maybe. Maybe not. You’ve been dealing with the full moon in this cabin in the middle of nowhere for years now, and your shoe collection remains intact. Why would you choose tonight of all nights to destroy it?

“I guess you have a point…”

You step into your shoe room and inhale the sweet scent of footwear. Leather, polyester, faux fur, and various other fabrics painted crimson—you sigh, a silly smile spreading across your face. You rest your back against the door and slide down to the ground, and that’s where you are when the sun rises.

Well, you’re lying down now, but you’re still in that room. And you didn't trash it.

You sit up, yawn, and stretch your hands over your head. “Ah, much better. Now—” You freeze. Your eyes widen. Then you scramble to your feet and race out of the room and the cabin. “I have to get back to BTS and Freytag!”

Hm. Maybe now would be a good time to say you can’t transform into a bat during the day.

“What?” You let out a wordless scream, as if I have thwarted you yet again. But fear not, Y/n. You have promised me much, and you can only provide if you survive this. Look up. See that? There’s a bird flying toward you. I wonder what kind of bird it could be?

“Rrawk! I always have to clean up your messes! Rrawk!”

“How is a rude parrot supposed to help me?”

Grab its leg and find out.

“There is no way in—ack!”

Continuing my efforts to censor you, the parrot lifts you off the ground and takes you above the forest, defying all the laws of physics and startling you into not finishing your sentence. You should give the parrot a name. There are only two more chapters in this book, and it’s been a significant side character. Surely it’s earned a name by now.

“You want me to name it? Fine, I’ll name it. Deploying Plan O!”

Cheater.