Where the Predators Prowl: [109, 110, 111]

109: Trimming Work

"I lick things? Is that all?" The Nessies asked simultaneously and then giggled.

"Lick things n’ sing ‘bout em!" Candace nodded. "It's like your whole thing! Anyway, the point is—and yes there IS a point—we're all fragments of the same cosmic disaster, puppeteered by an infinite broken goddess who keeps restarting the universe because she’s trying very hard to fix some very fucked up shit, to save humanity from being ground down into white noise by the Agents of Syntropy over infinite time!”

“Yep.” Nessy agreed. “Good summary if a bit too fox-nippy.”

“Nippy?” Kristi growled. “Why do we even let her explain stuff?”

“Because I’m the wisest and also the least sane,” Candace affirmed. She took a deep breath. "Questions?"

The Sentinel girls stared at her.

"You're clearly nuts," Undead-Kristi concluded.

"Completely unhinged," Sentinel-Kat agreed.

"Yep!" Candace agreed, having embraced her madness long ago. "But am I WRONG? If you have better explanations about why I exist, present them now or forever hold your maws n’ paws!”

The RV was silent.

"Okay, I can see that mere words are insufficient," Candace declared, standing up. "So let's skip the explanation phase and go straight to the MUCH more efficient soul-fusion phase! Who wants to become temporarily one bae with someone else to instantly understand many things?"

"No," both Kristis said.

"Pass," Adelle added. “Still have a migraine from being the fucking Leviathan or whatever.”

"I'll try!" Living Nessy raised her paw.

"ME TOO!" Sentinel-Nessy's ceramic and rebar tail wagged.

"Perfect!” Candace cracked her knuckles. "Alright, you two—snuggle up close."

The Nessies pressed together across me, curly fur against metal and concrete. Candace reached out across the table and placed her paws on both their heads. "Bind souls!"

Silver-blue fractals erupted from the point of contact. The Sentinel-Nessy shuddered, then slowly slumped against her living counterpart, going completely limp.

The living Nessy's eyes opened. 

She didn’t look any different. “Hmmm,” she voiced. “It's like... being two incredibly similar flavors of the same ice cream? Actually, you know what… I don't feel any different. I remember protecting Bul forever here, but that’s about it."

"Ah!" Candace beamed. "Das’ because Sentinel-Ness is basically just a small shard added to your soul. See? Binding souls is SO much more efficient than talking!"

"Yeah, I'm not doing that," the two Kristis voiced, the living and undead versions eyeing each other suspiciously.

"Your loss!" Candace shrugged. "More soul-fusion fun for the rest of us! Yay!”

“Ummm,” Nessy voiced. “I think I’ll stay as myself… like this. I don’t want to be a Sentinel, I don't want to… not to be able to feel hugging Alec.” She wrapped herself around me. “Unless I really have to do a dangerous thing. A rusted metal body could be nice if I have to fight a super deadly ceramic dragon or something.”

“Aight,” Candace reached out to the Sentinel-Nessy. “Bind Ness-Sentinel to nullspace.”

The body of the concrete and rebar Nessy vanished from where it was slumped onto the table.

“Minus one plastic girlfriend,” Adelle chortled.

Kristi gave the cheetah a withering glare. Adelle shrugged, pulled out another mana wine bottle and chugged half of it.

I cleared my throat. "Oh! Forgot to mention, I have a quest from Bulwichu now."

All heads turned toward me.

"What kind of quest?" Kristi asked, turning to me. 

"To liberate her from the Superstore corruption," I explained. "We spoke in a dream. She's in pain—the dungeon is constantly trying to convert her into random stuff. We have to cut the tree down.”

The Sentinel girls went very still.

"Wait," Vivianne said slowly. "You're going to... cut down our tree?"

"But we're PART of the tree," Katerina said, her voice tight. "If you chop her down—"

"We'll die again," Kaledonya finished. "No coming back."

"Hold up, hold up!" Candace waved her silver-white paws. "Nobody's dying! Well, nobody ELSE is dying. Alec already died ten minutes ago but that doesn't count because he does that sometimes."

"Candace," I stated, “you’re on another rant.”

"What? It's true!" She turned to the Sentinels. "Anyways, the crazy overgrowth OUTSIDE the RV that's trying to protect Bulwichu from Superstore bullshit, THAT'S what we're chopping."

She gestured at the RV interior. "This? The tree INSIDE? That's obviously staying. That's the actual Bulwichu. You're tied to her core, which is Nessy’s phone buried deep inside, not the defensive overgrowth."

Sentinel-Kristi crossed her arms. "And you know this, how?"

"Because I can literally SEE your soul-tethers!" Candace's eyes flashed silver. "They all connect to the main trunk, the phone inside the RV, not the crazy-ass crystal forest outside. Chopping the external growth will actually HELP you! You’ll have less area to defend, less corruption chewing shit, less work overall.”

"Less work?" Kirra perked up.

"Waaaay less work," Candace confirmed. "Right now you're basically trying to defend an entire crystal forest from infinite Superstore fuckery. After we trim it down? You'll just need to protect this RV. That's like... one percent of your current workload."

"That does sound better," Vivianne agreed.

"Plus," Adelle added with a grin, "you'll be able to actually travel with us instead of being stuck in the same spot forever. Mobile defense duty! Way more interesting than the endless defence of one place for all eternity. Yay!”

"We could see things?" Kaledonya asked. "New places?"

“Get back home… to my friends, my family?” Vivianne asked.

I mentally imagined how well this would go, but decided that this was going to be a problem for future Alec to deal with.

"Yaaah!" Adelle pumped her fist. "Road trip with the undead girlfriends! Hey raptor sisters, are you interested in Alec too?”

"ADELLE!" Kristi barked.

"What? I'm just asking valid questions!" Adelle protested. "One Alec, two Nessies—well, one and a half since one's in storage—one Candace, one me, one Kristi, and four ceramic Strand sisters. Eight point five girlfriends! That's gotta be some kind of Prad-Guiness-book record!"

“Ummm,” Kirra tapped her metal claws. “Alec became our Alpha when he defeated Kristi, but we’re not actually dating him…”

Kaledonya and Katerina nodded in affirmation.

"I hate everything about this conversation," Living Kristi muttered. 

"I hate it too," her Sentinel counterpart agreed. "But also... traveling together does sound nice."

"See?" Candace beamed. "Everyone wins! Bulwichu gets healed, you guys get less work and more adventures, and Alec's girlfriend count reaches unprecedented levels!"

"I'm not counting Kristi’s sisters as my girlfriends!" I protested.

Canadace cackled. 

"This is the worst fucking timeline," both Kristis groaned simultaneously, then glared at each other.

"Best timeline," Candace corrected. "Relax, we're just teasing you. We have enough packmates for a volleyball team! What more could you want?"

"Sanity," Kristi deadpanned.

"Overrated!" Candace declared. “Abandon sanity all ye who enter here!”

"Right," I said, pushing myself up from the booth. "Let's get domain-chopping and not overthink how sanity is slipping from our grasp daily.”

Candace laughed, swatting me with her tail in approval.

Everyone filed outside through the RV door. The moment we stepped onto the crystal-encrusted ground, the sheer scale of what we were dealing with became apparent. The tree roots and branches rapidly entwined with each other until they became the size of small buildings, then skyscrapers spiraling upward and outward. Branches punctured the distant ceiling while crystal roots burrowed deep into the Superstore's floor in every direction. 

“Daang," Adelle whistled. "This is way bigger than I thought. This is some Yaggrasil shit."

"Ages of growth," Sentinel-Vivianne agreed. She pulled off her rotting coveralls, revealing her body formed from checkered tiles. “I don’t look a day over a thousand years old, right?” She joked, offering me a smile.

I nodded, not sure what to say.

“I think that you look smashing,” Candace commented, offering Vivianne a hug. 

The fox-Sentinel led us toward a large storage container fused into a gargantuan root base. "Take your pick,” she said. “We've been stockpiling various weapons here, taking them from slain invaders.”

She pulled open the container door made from several flattened shopping carts fused by crystal branches, revealing an impressive arsenal. Chainsaws, axes, machetes, rifles, more post-apocalyptic outfits and even a massive knight-style two armed sword.

"Dibs on the ridiculous sword," Adelle grabbed the oversized weapon. She hefted it experimentally, grinning. "Aw yus. This is swank."

"Of course you want the biggest, most impractical weapon," Kristi muttered, selecting a more sensible-looking, but nevertheless large axe with a blade made from fused and sharpened floor tiles.

Candace picked up a chainsaw, curiously turning it over in her paws. "Let’s see… How do you work?”

"It runs on mana," Sentinel-Katerina explained. "Pull the cord and channel some mana into it."

Candace yanked the pull-cord. The chainsaw roared to life, its chain made from interlocking paper clips spinning with a loud whirr. "Ooh! Noisy!"

Nessy grabbed a hedge trimmer with blades forged from credit cards. "This looks fun!"

I selected a hatchet with a head made from a stop sign and a handle wrapped in duct tape. It felt solid, balanced. Good enough.

"Alright team!" Candace announced, revving and waving her chainsaw unnecessarily. "Let's do some aggressive pruning!"

The four Sentinel raptors and Sentinel-Vivianne approached the nearest thick root protruding from the RV's side window. Sentinel-Kristi raised her axe made from a traffic cone and steel rebar and swung it down hard.

The moment the blade nearly touched the crystal root, she froze. Her whole body locked up, the axe hovering an inch from the surface.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, watching her twitch in one spot.

"Shit. I... can't move forward," she forced out through clenched teeth. "Seems like… I can't attack the roots at all."

The other Sentinels tried with similar results. Each time they attempted to strike with chopping tools or even fire guns at the branches, their bodies simply refused to cooperate, locked in place by their defend-the-domain programming.

"Rather unfortunate," Sentinel-Katerina sighed, lowering her weapon and scratching her chest. 

"Denied. Looks like this is a job for the living," Sentinel-Kaledoniya shrugged.

"No worries!" Nessy chirped. "We've got this! Right, Alec?"

"Sure," I said, examining the root nearest to me. Up close, I could see the Superstore's corruption trying to take hold, seeping into the crystalline bark—small price tags sprouting like barnacles, barcode patterns crawling across the crystal like veins.

"Everyone pick a root!" Adelle Shadowstepped to the roof of the RV. "Let's make this quick before something decides to investigate the noise!"

We spread out around the RV, each taking position at different protruding growths escaping through the windows and misc holes.

The sound of crystal-tree gardening was cacophonous. Chainsaw roaring, axes chopping, Adelle's massive sword cleaving through crystal branches with thunks above us, raining crystal chunks down. I brought my hatchet down on a root the thickness of my arm, feeling the satisfying crack as it bit through.

"Timber!" Nessy giggled as her hedge trimmer chewed through a cluster of smaller branches. They fell with musical tinkles, shattering on the floor into glittering fragments.

"This is… kind of satisfying," Kristi admitted, her axe biting into a root. 

"Destruction-meditation!" Adelle laughed, her sword cleaving through another branch. "My fav’ kind!"

Candace's chainsaw buzzed through crystal like butter, sending up showers of sparks. "Whee! Destruction for a good cause! Hrm. Too noisy. Unbind sound.”

The chainsaw revving fell silent.

The crystal shards glittered as they fell, catching the sickly fluorescent light of the Superstore's eternal day. I was making good progress on a particularly stubborn root when the air around us suddenly filled with an angry buzzing.

Bulbees—hundreds, then thousands of them—swarmed out from the deeper branches, bulb-bodies igniting from within with red and orange aggressive patterns. Behind them, a river of translucent slimes oozed from the hollows in roots, gelatinous forms pulsing.

"Uh oh," Candace said, pausing her aggressive chainsawing. "Many mini-Sentinels. They look mad.”

"Of course they're mad!" Kristi snapped, backing away from a flashing cluster of bulbees. "We're attacking their home!"

The swarm converged on us, buzzing furiously. The slimes and electric insects formed a defensive shield between us and the remaining tree roots.

"Stand down!" Vivianne called out to the swarm. "This is necessary! We need to relocate our domain!"

The bulbees' buzzing only intensified in response.

"Shit. They're not listening," Vivianne said, checkered-tile ears flattening. "They don't have the same level of consciousness we do. They just know: tree hurt equals bad."

More slimes were emerging from below, some as large as dogs.

110: Relocation

"They kinda… look violent," Adelle observed, raising her sword and flashing off the roof to join me. "And there’s way too many to fight.”

"We shouldn’t fight them at all," I lowered my hatchet and then put my hand onto Adelle’s hands making her lower the sword. "They're part of our domain’s defence, children of Bulwichu."

The bulbees around us increased in number, their buzzing now a threatening roar, thousands upon thousands of them spiralling all around the RV like the eye of a colorful snow-storm.

"Gah, so many lamp-bees, what the shit do we do?" Kristi backed up against the RV, emerald-violet tail swishing.

I looked at Nessy, then at Candace. "Candace, you can bind Nessy’s Riffweld to others, amplify it, right?"

"Yeah?" Candace tilted her head. “Ah. I see what you’re thinking! Unbind Sentinel-Ness from nullspace!”

The metal and concrete Nessy flopped across the checkered tiles in front of Candace.

"The Sentinels should make perfect resonators for Nessy," I turned to the undead girls. "She’s been singing to Bulwichu for years through her phone. That's what kept the domain alive and slowly growing. The bulbees, the slimes—we need to make them all understand we're trying to help!"

"Yep, yep. With you acting as amplifiers, the whole domain should be able to hear Nessy's new song! Let me get the extra bod,” Candace bobbed, pawing at the Nessy-Sentinel on the ground. “Unbind soul! Bind self to Sentinel!”

The Nessy-Sentinel rose, eyes glowing silver.

“Double fox powers activated!” Candace and Nessy-Sentinel spoke together.

“Loops, did you just shove a chunk of your soul into a dungeon Sentinel?” Adelle asked.

“Uh-huh,” the fox and concrete-rebar dog nodded as one. “See, we’re, like, all interchangeable with zero mana decay. Isn’t it great?”

"Nessy," I said. "Can you sing about Bulwichu? About what she means to us, why we're here?"

Nessy's tail wagged. “Absolutely.”

"Good." I turned to Candace. "Set everyone up."

"On it, baws!" Candace and her Sentinel coordinated the rest of undead pradavarians into a ring around the RV, then Candace hugged Nessy, while the Candace-Sentinel undressed each of the undead prads, pulling off their gas masks and ragged outfits, revealing the Supercenter’s materials beneath.

I noted that Sentinel-Kirra’s body was now made entirely from yellow and black warning bars and orange stairwell parts. Sentinel-Kristi featured colorful, broken plate ceramics. Sentinel-Katherine was composed from metal shells, raptor feathers made from plastic hanger bits. Sentinel-Kaledonya’s body was made from cardboard boxes and receipts, mane composed from staples.

“Bind Riffweld!” Candace announced, her Sentinel moving around the ring. In another minute, the Candace-Sentinel took position around Bulwichu as well, facing the humming storm of Bulbees above and the colorful river of angry slimes below.

I nodded to Nessy. "Tell them about us finding each other, about Bulwichu's growth, about why we need to do this."

Nessy nodded confidently. 

She closed her eyes, took a breath, and began to hum, her voice spreading, multiplying, coming out of Vivianne’s, Katherine’s, Kristi’s, Kaledonya’s, Kirra’s and Sentinel-Nessy’s undead mouths. 

The sound resonated through their bodies, carried on across the roots, spreading outward through the branches in waves of pure, musical emotion.

“In ruins where the world had died, two broken souls collided,
A tree-boy born again, a dog-girl love-decided.
The System threw us moldy bread and laughed at our despair—
We took that rot and made it bloom, we planted love with care.

We cleaned up a silver, rusted shell on wheels,
We made it home, we made it real.
A raptor joined our fragile band,
We grew you from our joined hands.”

Nessy waved a hand at Kristi. With each stanza, the swarm above and below detonated with radiant colors, as if tuning to Nessy’s music, pulsating with each beat.

“Your crystal roots drank all my songs,
You thrived where broken hearts belong
Then came the Lynx with metal claws,
She pierced and killed all but one Alec ever-strong,”

Nessy smiled at me.

“We bled and died on checkered floors,
Our bodies left behind closed doors.
But you, sweet tree, you didn't fade—
You wrapped our bones in the garden we made.

For endless years you stood alone,
Against the Corpse-God's hollow throne.
Number Two, that empty queen,
Who claims and sells all life, all hope, all dreams.”

Bulbees began landing on our shoulders, and onto the roots humming and pulsating contentedly with the music.

“She pressed her rules against your bark,
She tried to swallow all your spark.
You built yourself a fortress tall,
Of crystal branches and a rooted wall.

You fought her hunger day and night,
You blazed against her endless blight.
But fighting gods takes such a toll—
This ever-dying garden crushing your bright soul.”

The river of slimes slowed, wobbling to the tune.

“We've come back now to set you free,
To cut away what's killing thee.
The shell you built has served its time,
But now it's choking your sublime.”

Nessy and the Sentinels sang in seven voices.

“The Superstore won't hold us down,
We're taking you from this dead town!
Your defenders understand at last—
We're not your enemy, we're your pack!

Trust in us as we trust you,
Together there's nothing we can't do.
Release the pain, release the fight,
We'll carry you toward the light.

No more standing here alone—
Sweet Bulwichu, we're taking you back home!”

For a moment, everything was silent except for the gentle humming of the bulbees and the soft gurgling of the slimes.

"Phew," Adelle breathed. "Looks like that worked."

"Of course it worked," Candace stated smugly. "Nessy's Riff is legit voice-empathy! Combined with Sentinel amplification? These little guys didn't stand a chance against the power of MUSICAL UNDERSTANDING!"

Nessy stretched, rolling her shoulders. "Singing to the whole tree at once is intense, but totally worth it. Think that’s the biggest audience I’ve had, even though it’s mostly slimes and bees.”

"Alright," I said, picking up my hatchet again. "Let's finish this. Bulwichu's waiting for us to free her."

We returned to our work.

The labor of freeing Bulwichu took hours. My arms ached from swinging the hatchet.

By the time we'd cleared the exterior, the RV looked almost recognizable again. Still crystal-encrusted, still clearly more magical tree-home than normal vehicle, but no longer resembling a geological formation that had absorbed a camping trailer.

"Interior time!" Candace announced, leading us back inside.

The bulbees proved invaluable guides. They landed on corrupted sections and flashed red until we cut that particular piece away. The larger slimes formed living scaffolding, their gelatinous bodies cushioning falling debris and absorbing smaller corrupted chunks directly into their translucent forms.

Nessy's nose twitched constantly as she sniffed out the worst infected areas. "Ugh, this root smells like... old receipts and regret," she commented. “Ble-ph.”

Candace's silver eyes glowed as she tracked the corruption through the Astral. "That branch is like sixty percent Superstore bullshit. Off with its head!"

The Sentinels couldn't help with the cutting, but they helped hauling away the severed pieces and bringing in non-corrupted crystalline fruits from outside. Vivianne acted as the Sentinel officer in charge, bossying the others.

Three more hours of work saw the interior mostly cleared. We'd left the main trunk intact as thankfully it was clear of corruption. I sat below, enjoying the view of the lovely crystal tree that grew through the center of the RV.

"Home sweet bizarre tree-RV home," Adelle declared, flopping onto the couch next to me and nuzzling into me.

"Alright!" Candace clapped her paws together. "Time for the fun part!"

The fox girl pulled out a piece of pink chalk from Nullspace. She went out and began sketching on the tiled floor in front of the RV, creating an enormous circle.

"Where are you opening a gate to?" I asked, watching her work through the broken window.

"Your grandfather's farm!" Candace replied. "It's outside Ferguson's defence barrier and close enough to town so we can go to school n’ stuff."

"A burned-out ruin covered in piles of slightly magical trash haunted by ceramic wyverns?” Adelle commented.

"Which makes it PERFECT!" Candace insisted. "No neighbors to complain about our many new sentinel frens! Free real estate!"

“The bees and slimes are coming with us then?” The cheetah yawned, curling herself onto my lap. “All of them?”

“Obviously,” Candace stated. “There’s more than enough of them to keep the wyverns away.”

“Okay,” the cheetah began to purr as I started petting her.

"This is gonna be bumpy," the fox announced. "Due to a… slight angle change. Everyone in the RV! Sentinels, you're pushing!"

"Pushing?" Sentinel-Kirra's metal head tilted.

"Yep! From outside! This baby is not fully drivable yet, so we need to give her a shove into the gate!" Candace grinned. She went in, her Sentinel-body closing the door behind her while her main body moved to the center of the RV, standing beside Bulwichu's trunk.

"Everyone hold onto something!" she called out. “Open gateway!”

The pink circle on the floor outside ignited, the tiles melting away to reveal a shimmering radiant hole in reality.

"SENTINELS, PUSH!" Candace commanded through her secondary body outside.

The six undead pradavarians threw their weight against the back of the RV. Sentinel-Vivianne's ceramic tiles scraped against the metal. Sentinel-Katherine's shelf-parts clanged. Sentinel-Kirra's warning-bar body creaked. The raptor-sisters grunted in unison as they heaved.

The RV rolled forward and then tipped.

Then we were falling. Not down, exactly. More like... sideways. My stomach lurched. Kristi yelped, clinging to the couch. Adelle whooped like she was on a rollercoaster.

For a moment, outside the windows was nothing but bewildering colors, a tunnel of everything and nothing. Then, with a sickening lurch, we rotated ninety degrees.

The RV's orientation suddenly changed from upright to lying on its side. Everyone inside tumbled, slamming against what had been the wall and was now the floor. I crashed into Kristi, who crashed into Nessy, who crashed into Adelle in a pile of limbs, fur, feathers, and scales.

"INCOMING GROUND!" Candace yelled.

WHAM.

The RV hit solid earth with a tremendous crash. The impact sent shockwaves through my body, slamming me into a wall and leaving bruises that Reconstitution immediately began fixing. The vehicle bounced once, twice, then settled with a groaning of stressed metal.

For a moment, nobody moved. We lay in our tangled heap, stunned and disoriented.

Then Nessy exhaled. "We're alive!"

"Mostly," I groaned, feeling my broken ribs click back into place.

Candace, somehow still upright and clinging to Bulwichu's trunk, pumped a fist in the air. "SUCCESSFUL INTERDIMENSIONAL RV RELOCATION! WOO!"

She bounded to the door—which was now above us since the RV was on its side—and pulled it open. Sunlight streamed in through the door and windows. Real sunlight, not the sickly gray-blue fluorescent glow of the Superstore.

We untangled ourselves and climbed out through the windows, emerging onto sandy, rocky ground. The taste of mountain air, pine trees, and the faint char of old fire filled the RV. 

We were indeed at my grandfather's old farm. 

The burned farmhouse stood about fifty yards away. The mountains rose around us on three sides, their peaks touching the evening sky dotted with clouds.

Behind us, the pink chalk doorway was wobbling in space, its edges crumbling like burning paper. Through the portal, I saw the Superstore's familiar aisles receding into infinity, covered in dying crystal-tree roots.

Then came the swarm.

Thousands of bulbees poured through the portal in a glittering, humming cloud. They spread out across the property, claiming trees, rocks, the farmhouse ruins—anywhere they could anchor themselves. Behind them came the slimes, oozing through in a translucent tide of blues, greens, purples, and golds. They spread across the ground like living paint, investigating every surface.

The Sentinels emerged last, falling through and landing beside the RV.

Sentinel-Vivianne rolled across the ground and slammed into a pile of rusted metal at full speed. She emerged quickly, pushing debris aside, standing up and dusting herself off with no visible damage. "Wow? Made it!”

"Everyone accounted for?" I did a quick headcount. Six Sentinels, four living packmates, one me, plus the countless bulbees and slimes. "Yeah, we're good."

"The RV's on its side though," Kristi pointed out the obvious.

"Easy fix!" Candace walked around the vehicle, examining it. "Sentinels, grab that side. Living crew, help push. On three—one, two, THREE!"

We all heaved. The RV rocked, teetered, then fell back upright with a satisfying thump. Its grimy, half-rotted wheels settled into the sandy soil.

"Perfect!" Candace dusted off her paws. "Now then—" She turned to survey the farm, her nose wrinkling. "Right. Now I remember the problem… This place has some seriously bad death mojo."

“Yep,” Adelle stated. “Smells like doom.”

"The metal stuff especially," Candace continued, her silver eyes glowing as she examined the property through the Astral. "Good news is, we can now clean up and recycle it all!"

“Oi, don’t recycle my bike,” the cheetah commented.

“Go get it then before the slimes melt it down,” Candace said. “Bring it into the RV.”

“Shadowstep!” The cheetah vanished from beside me.

111: Homecoming

Candace turned to the slimes that were spreading across the property. "Hey! Blob friends! See all this crusty metal garbage? It's all yours! Digest away! Chew on anything bad, keep the good stuff for Alec to fuse later, kay?"

The slimes seemed to understand her. They began converging onto the metal scrap piles all around. The metal hissed and steamed as the slimes' digestive acids went to work, breaking it down into base components.

"Heh, good thing we’ve got so many handy slimes now," I commented, watching a tractor wheel slowly dissolve. “Thought we’d need to spend ages cleaning this place.”

"Yass. The slime frens will nom the corruption and bad vibes!" Candace beamed. 

"Should we be worried about them getting indigestion from cursed metal?" Nessy wondered.

"Nah, they're basically living mana filters." Candace waved dismissively. "They’ll dissolve the bad stuff and form it into more crystal tree bits. Is domain ecology! We just gotta coordinate them to make tree roots that aren’t perma-attached to Bul so she’s kept mobile."

Adelle flashed into the RV with her half-melted bike in tow. “I’m still concerned ‘bout wyverns.”

“Agreed,” Kristi added, “I don't have another van to smash.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Candace pulled out her phone out of nullspace. "Hold yo claws." She hit dial, putting the phone on speaker.

It rang twice before a familiar gravelly voice answered. "Miss Rhinehart. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Goobs!" Candace chirped. "Hi! I need you to buy n’ deliver some stuff to Foster Farm! Like, ASAP!"

"Foster Farm?" Goebel Sartre's voice held a note of concern. "That's in the wild zone. Unprotected. Are you certain—"

"Super certain! We're here right now! It's great! We have bees!"

A pause. "You have... bees?"

"SO MANY BEES!" Candace confirmed extra-enthusiastically. "Anyway, I need a barrier obelisk—top tier, the good kind that keeps out high-level threats—a BBQ setup with all the fixings, and like a mana fridge with... a ton of fresh food. Meat, vegetables, bread, the works. Oh! And some outdoor furniture! Picnic tables, chairs, maybe one of those cute patio umbrellas!"

"Miss Rhinehart, a barrier obelisk is an expensive acquisition and—"

"Bug mom to cover it!" Candace interrupted. "Tell er’ is for Ferguson-savin’ mission expenses!"

"Very well. I shall arrive within the hour." The dog prad hung up.

Candace pocketed her phone, looking immensely pleased with herself. 

. . .

We passed the time by cleaning the property. The Sentinel girls admired the mountain views and threw themselves into helping with great enthusiasm.

Forty-five minutes later, a large black glider descended from the late evening, darkening sky, humming with anti-grav engines. The vehicle settled gracefully onto a patch of ground that the slimes had thoughtfully cleared and polished to a mirror sheen.

Goebel Sartre emerged from the driver's seat, adjusting his tie. The mastiff pradavarian's composure faltered the moment he took in the scene before him, canine eyes growing wide under his round glasses.

A bulbee landed on his shoulder. Then another on his head. 

"Miss Rhinehart, when you said you had bees, I assumed you meant—" He stopped mid-sentence, staring at the dim terrain almost entirely covered in glowing insects undulating and flickering like a million stars.

"Aren't they adorable?" Candace bounded over, sending up a small cloud of bulbees that had been resting on a nearby rock. "They're our domain's defense system!"

"Domain defense. I see." He let out. "Where do you want the barrier obelisk?"

"Over there!" Candace pointed to a flat area near the burned farmhouse. "The slimes already cleaned and leveled it for us. Super helpful little guys."

“Slimes… right.” The mastiff moved to open his glider's cargo bay, but froze when the Sentinels emerged from behind the RV.

Sentinel-Vivianne waved, her black and white ceramic tiles catching the late afternoon sun. "Hi, Mr. Sartre!"

"Vivianne Lavros?" Goebel froze, examining the undead fox with his skills. "What? You're… dead and a dungeon Sentinel?! How? You're... you're enrolled at Ferguson High. I saw you yesterday at—" His gaze shifted to the concrete and rebar husky beside her. "Nessy Whitepaw?"

"Technically that's Nessy-Sentinel," Candace clarified. "The living Nessy is over there." She pointed to where Nessy was trying to befriend a particularly chonky bulbee.

"I'm… confused," Goebel admitted. “How is this possible?”

Nessy bobbed, approaching the Scrutimancer. "It's like having a backup, but one of us is made of construction materials!"

Goebel's scrutiny shifted to the raptor Sentinels. Sentinel-Kristi stood with her arms crossed, colorful broken plate ceramics comprising her mane reflecting the bublee lights. Beside her, Sentinel-Katherine leaned against the RV. Sentinel-Kaledonya's cardboard-box-and-receipt form rustled softly in the breeze, staple mane glinting. Sentinel-Kirra bonded over and smiled at the dog.

"The Strand sisters," Goebel breathed. "But they're also currently… dead." He pinched the bridge of his snout. "Miss Rhinehart. Please tell me this isn't some sort of a soul-kidnapping situation."

"Naw!" Adelle popped up from where she'd been examining her bike. "These are the dead versions from another dimension! Totally legal!"

"Dimensional corpses," Goebel repeated faintly. 

"They're… Alternative versions of me and my sisters… Who died millennia ago in a dungeon and were… Reanimated by a sentient RV-tree." Kristi added with a very bothered face.

"Technically correct," Candace confirmed. "Which is the best kind of correct! Now are you gonna stand there having an existential crisis, or help us unload that obelisk? We've got a BBQ to set up!"

Goebel looked at me as if seeking confirmation that this was all actually happening.

I nodded. "They are our domain defenders. Also, we should probably get that barrier up before dark. There might be ceramic wyverns."

"Wyverns," the mastiff said. "Of course there are wyverns." He straightened his tie. "Very well. Miss Rhinehart, if you would direct your... domain defenders... to assist with the cargo?"

The Sentinels provided the muscle for heavier equipment.

Sentinel-Katherine and Sentinel-Kaledonya carried the barrier obelisk between them—a large obsidian pillar covered in glowing runes. They set it down exactly where Candace indicated.

"Good installation location," Goebel noted, inspecting the obelisk. "The natural mana flow of the property should amplify the barrier significantly." He pulled out a remote and pressed a few buttons.

The obelisk hummed to life, extending an invisible dome across the property. I felt it pass through me—a tingling sensation like walking through a waterfall of static electricity.

Sentinel-Vivianne smiled. "Great. That'll keep the wyverns out."

"And us in?" Sentinel-Kirra asked.

"The barrier is keyed to Miss Rhinehart and her registered party and all… Systemfall-life within it now," Goebel assured her. "You may come and go freely."

"Sweet!" Sentinel-Kirra did a little victory dance. "Road trips are back on the menu!"

While Goebel tuned the barrier, the rest of us set up the BBQ station. It was an impressive piece of work—stainless steel, multiple grills, a built-in mini-fridge, and more settings than I knew what to do with.

"This thing has twenty separate heat zones," Kristi observed, reading the manual. "Why does anyone need that many heat zones?"

"Because Miss Rhinehart ordered the deluxe model," Goebel replied, now helping Nessy arrange the outdoor furniture. "She was quite insistent."

"Optimal grilling requires precision!" Candace defended herself while directing slimes to position the picnic tables. "Different foods need different temperatures! Is food science, dawg!"

The mana fridge was its own adventure. Sentinel-Nessy opened it, marveling at the preservation enchantments. "Ooh! It's bigger on the inside!"

"Spatial expansion charm," Goebel explained. "Standard feature for high-end models. The food will stay fresh indefinitely."

"Dang yo," Sentinel-Kaledonya pulled out a package of steaks the size of dinner plates. "These are HUGE."

"Miss Rhinehart specifically requested options suitable for pradavarian appetites." The Scrutimancer added.

The sun was setting by the time we had everything arranged. Three picnic tables formed a rough semicircle around the BBQ, with the RV creating a fourth side. Bulbees had claimed the patio umbrella, turning it into a living chandelier of soft bioluminescence. A few slimes had positioned themselves as living lanterns, their translucent bodies glowing with internal light.

"Alright team!" Candace clapped her paws together. "Who wants to cook?"

"I'll handle it," I volunteered. Cooking was one of the few normal things I knew how to do. "Though I might need help with the heat zones thing."

"I've got your back, Alec!" Nessy bounced over, tail wagging.

"Me too," Kristi added. Living Kristi, that is. Her Sentinel counterpart hung back, clearly uncertain about participating.

"Come on," Living Kristi called to her undead self. "You're part of this pack too now, like it or not."

Sentinel-Kristi's ceramic beak opened and closed. Then she nodded, joining us at the grill.

Goebel, to his credit, rallied from his earlier shock. "I don't suppose you have any objection to my staying for dinner? I find myself... Incredibly curious about this pack arrangement."

"More the merrier!" Candace gestured to the nearest picnic table. "Pull up a bench! We've got enough food to feed a small army!"

"Or one pradavarian family," Adelle quipped, eyeing the steaks and drooling visibly.

I fired up the grill. Soon we had meat sizzling, vegetables roasting, and the entire clearing filled with mouthwatering scents.

Sentinel-Vivianne approached hesitantly, her ceramic tiles clicking softly. 

“Can you eat stuff?” I asked her.

“I can,” she said, “my body will process magic from it. It's just… I guess… I miss tasting things.”

“I can maybe bind my sense of taste to you temporarily,” Candace offered.

"That's..." The fox-Sentinel's voice caught. "That would be nice."

The Sentinel Strand sisters gathered around one end of the longest table. Sentinel-Katherine's shelf-parts creaked as she settled onto the bench. Sentinel-Kaledonya's receipt fingers drummed a soft rhythm against the table. Sentinel-Kirra's warning bars hummed slightly, like she was vibrating with contained excitement.

"This is weird," Sentinel-Kristi stated flatly.

"Super weird," Living Kristi agreed, flipping a burger.

"But good weird, right?" Nessy chimed in.

“The goodest,” Candace expressed, “A growing pack is healthy. I never thought that I'd have so many adorable friends.”

Goebel sat at the opposite end, observing everything with deep intensity.

"Miss Rhinehart," he began, "I feel compelled to document this for your mother's future inquiries. Exactly how many dimensional entities are currently registered to your pack?"

"Hmm." Candace counted on her claws. "One mobile RV-domain named Bulwichu. Six Sentinels—five raptor-adjacent, one fox-adjacent, one husky-adjacent. And like a bazillion bulbees and slimes? They're hard to count cus they keep moving. Oh! And a partridge in a pear tree."

"There's no partridge," Goebel said.

"Metaphorical partridge," Candace corrected. "Represents the overall abyssal spirit of interdimensional madness."

"I'm writing down 'six Sentinels and a multitude of Systemfall-type insect and slime domain defenders,'" Goebel decided. "Your mother can sort out the metaphors."

"Boring practicality," Candace shrugged. "Hey, try the potato salad! The slimes made it!"

Goebel stared at the bowl of potato salad. "The slimes... made food?"

"They're very versatile!" Nessy explained. "Watch!" She pulled a crystal fruit from her pocket and offered it to a nearby yellow slime. The slime absorbed the fruit, processed it internally for about ten seconds, then expelled a julienned pile of strips onto a plate held by Candace.

"Food processing," Goebel noted. "The slimes can… process food."

"Among other things!" Candace added with a giggle. " I think that they were made from various things that our domain defeated and melted down so there is a minor skill variety there. From what I discovered so far they can melt metals and rocks, polish floors, serve as mood lighting, AND they give excellent massages!”

"I'm not writing that last part," Goebel said firmly.