NEW LOCATION, THE SAME start to our morning. By the time I woke up, Nasilain was already sitting on the beanbag, reading on her tablet. There was something familiar and right about this as if every day should begin with this view.

“Morning, beautiful. Wanna go take a shower with me?” I asked.

Nasilain lifted her finger to show me little sparks of electricity playing across her skin, but her smile ruined the threat.

“I found so much information about the effects of radiation on animals. I think that’s what happened to the fairies if you’re right about being able to find them with the Geiger counter.” Nasilain’s eyes still scanned the text.

I got closer and looked over her shoulder. “Is that Gamera fanfiction?”

Nasilain tore her eyes from the tablet and frowned. “What do you mean, fiction?”

I took the tablet from her and checked the file. Turtles In Love: A Tale of Leonardo’s and Gamera’s Undying Love. There were more books like that in the same folder.

“Where did you find this?” Why did I even ask? The internet was a disease. “None of it is real. Radiation is more likely to kill you than make you fart rocket fuel.”

“Well... I…” Nasilain snatched the tablet from me. “How was I supposed to know? No one knows about your stupid radiation in this world.”

She was deleting those atrocities, right? Not saving them for a future read? Just in case, I said, “If you want to find good science fiction to read, I have a bunch at home. These aren’t even halfway decent.”

Nasilain shot me a dirty look and got up. “I don’t want to read fiction. I need to know more about the way the world works, so I can use it in my magic. Knowledge makes me stronger.”

“Alright, alright, but can I please go over everything you downloaded? There is such a thing as pseudo-science in my world. I don’t want you getting confused by faith healing.”

She pursed her lips and walked with me out of the room. We still had a lot to do before heading out for our first fairy hunt. After a short argument the night before, we had assembled a team of four people, Nasilain to shield us, Ricci to drive the car, and Bralazin and me to use the flamethrowers.

By the time we were done eating breakfast, elves had already set up our car. They had even mixed napalm. Maybe I underestimated how much help we could get around here.

With the Geiger counter to lead the way, we headed out toward the spot where we had first encountered fairies. Hopefully, the other swarms wouldn’t be far from it, although judging by the attacks on the caravans, we might have to sweep a much larger area.

Without the generator with us, we never would’ve made it far enough, but after three hours of driving, we finally started picking up higher levels of radiation. As the Geiger counter began to beep uncontrollably, the song reached us, then the sound of flapping wings.

The various colors of their feathers reminded me of parrots, until they flew close enough for me to see their faces. Rows of jagged teeth bared themselves as, one by one, the fairies opened their jaws past anything any human would be capable of.

Nasilain watched them get closer. I couldn’t tell if she had summoned the shield or not until the vicious creatures slammed into it. A little closer. Last time, they kept on coming for a while, so we could only guess how many more would approach. If we didn’t get them all now, they might not get near us the second time. Worse, they could tell their buddies in the next swarm over to stay clear.

Everything around us looked like the inside of a colorful ball. Bralazin and I fired up. The flames shot out through the mess of teeth and dislocated jaws, filling the air with the smell of burned feathers and flesh.

The fairies took a few seconds to understand what just hit them, but by that time, most of them got toasted. The few remaining dashed away from us. With a couple of bursts of the hundred-foot flame, their charred remains joined the rest of the swarm.

Ricci let out a long breath of relief. “I’m never calling myself a fairy again.”

I wiped my sweaty hand on my cargo pants. With all the fire, it got pretty hot in here, but while we could drive away from the heat, this damn smell would be stuck in my nose at least for the rest of the day.

“Are you actually gay?” I was really confused on that point. Back in Harrisburg, he had acted like the walking, talking stereotype. In this world, he completely flipped the switch.

“Yes.” Ricci eyed the corpses all around us. Some of them weren’t burned enough to hide their hideous mouths. “When Jill told me I should keep my dick away from fairies, I thought she was messing with me.”

“We should probably count how many we killed,” Nasilain suggested. “Maybe we can figure out how many more hives are out there. We don’t have books that would describe the exact patterns of their hive formations, but it’s still better than nothing.”

“I hope they are all gonna be willing to leave the forest. I don’t wanna risk frying them with a hundred-foot flame when everything around us wants to catch fire.” I started making piles. Ten fairies in each to make it easier to count.

“I can control the direction of the fire,” Nasilain said. “I can’t make a brand new one as easily. Energy has to come from somewhere, so if I make a single fireball, it will make everything else colder. If you are already making a fire with the flamethrower, I can guide it around the trees.”

I had never been into science nerds, but damn. Maybe I could find some way to show her how much I appreciated her. It would probably have to start with some good furniture. If she thought a bean bag was comfortable, what would she think about a recliner?

With everyone pitching in, we soon got everything counted and split into eight piles, seven of them containing a hundred fairies each and the last one with a hundred and two. I turned the flamethrower on and started cremating them as best I could.

“This isn’t right,” Nasilain said. “That’s too many. A few days ago, there couldn’t have been more than maybe three hundred in the swarm I had nuked. They are reproducing too quickly.”

“Abundance of food and no natural predators.” It better be that simple, but there were probably tens of thousands of them now. Not even bunnies could reproduce this fast. “What about the radiation? Can you sense the atoms you split on all of them?”

Nasilain shook her head. “On about a third of them. It’s not an integral part of their bodies. They have this residue on their wings.”