Stupid Sexy Cryptids [70, 71, 72]

70: Lissander Fox

-=[Sillicia Rozacia Frontenachi]=-

The magical community leaders retreated to the back room of the Seeker to give them some privacy per Aquillianne's order.

Sillicia sat silently on a crystalline couch, attempting to wrap her mind around Princess Aquillianne's revelations.

A mad Omnid Elder on Corpse-God Citadel actually managed to outwit the Archangel of Time by splicing another Omnid! An incredibly illegal, criminal act and the Princess revealed it all to her!

"Slayer’s sword!" Sillicia swore, claws opening and closing. “Leviathan’s cunt! Abyss eternal! Lady Zexxia… She must have been truly mad to do something like that to a fellow Omnid! That’s so wrong, so inconceivably fucked up in so many ways!”

“Yes. Aunt Zexxy was many things… batshit insane, cruel, brilliant and she also loved me in her broken way. She lived for far too long, far too deep inside the Corpse-God,” the Princess revealed. “As she gradually lost her mind, Earth became my domain, passed down to me by her. My project. I directed it's evolution, cultivated the magical communities, guided their development, and prepared them for eventual contact with the wider cosmos."

Sillicia nodded, thinking of her own family that abandoned her in a time bubble, a beerch of a Wendigo mother she’s never even met.

“We’re all mad in some ways.” Aquillianne shrugged. "Some more than others. Do tell me, Commander... Do you have spliced humans inside the walls of your leased warship?"

"I... yes," Sillicia admitted. "We all do. Criminals. Lords and warriors who resisted integration. It's standard practice—"

The Emperor exhaled through his mask. Sillicia’s hooks caught onto the disappointment radiating from his mind.

"Is it really standard?" Aquillianne asked. "Or is it just what we tell ourselves?"

"Lady Aquillianne, I... the criminals are—"

"Relax," Aquillianne held up a clawed hand. "I'm not here to judge you, Commander. I know that you leased the ship from the Elder Master Builders who live on the God-Corpse Citadel, basically got tricked into signing up for millennia of debt to pay off your lavish quarters. I spent most of my life accepting the same justifications. 'They're criminals.' 'They resisted.' 'It's for the greater good, it’s… the price of order we bring to the Omniverse filled with doomed and corpse worlds.' I told myself those lies for years."

Sillicia nodded, relaxing ever so slightly.

Aquillianne leaned forward, her diamond-dusted dress undulating and sparkling in waves. "Let me show you something. A memory. One that changed my outlook towards our… default fleet decor."

Aquillianne's silver eyes flashed, and Sillicia felt the tingle of her telepathic hooks extending outward, drawing her in.

. . . 

The white gothic arches of Skyfall Academy stretched high overhead, elaborate carvings catching the light from Kitlix Ignix lanterns embedded in the vaulted ceiling. Princess Aquillianne walked through corridors lined with statues of ancient heroes and monsters, her antlers casting long shadows across the tilework portraying the eternal dance of the Leviathan and the Slayer.

She was angry. Furious, even. Burning with absolute rage at her family’s bullshit and lies.

"You look like you're about to smite someone, Princess."

Shady spun around, hooks already extending to read the speaker's mind.

A kitsune teen leaned against one of the pristine white pillars. A white suit with several hexasuits underneath, a gold cane, messy ginger hair, large flurry ears and bright green eyes that held an edge of something dangerous above his fake, easy smile. 

"Lissander Fox," Shady breathed, her eyes widening. "You're... you're the one from the podcast! You blew up the Frontenachii compound in North Acadia!"

The kitsune's smile didn't waver, like it was painted on his face. "Guilty as charged. Though I prefer 'liberated' to 'blew up.'"

"You should be running!" Shady's hooks dove deeper, unable to help herself. "They'll kill you if they catch you. Do you have any idea what they'll do to you?! Why the fuck are you here in the open? Why aren't you—"

Her hooks struck something that made her recoil.

A view of cages. Hundreds of them. Bodies compartmentalized, kept alive but separated into pieces. Lungs breathing in one box. Hearts beating in another. Brains conscious and aware and screaming silently in their crystalline prisons. And standing in the middle of it all—

Lissander Fox.

Except, he was entirely… one hundred percent human. No fox ears. No magic. Just a young man with dark brown hair and absolute fury in his green eyes.

"Fucking hell! You're..." Shady pulled her hooks back, staring at the fake kitsune. "You're human. Completely human. You don't have any powers at all! Or at least you didn’t a week ago… how?!"

"Impressive, right?" Lissander pushed off the pillar. "No magic bloodline. No mystical abilities. Just a regular human who got really good at breaking into places and making things explode."

"How did you even get past the wards?!"

"Spite, mostly." His voice had gone cold like glacial ice, the easy charm evaporating like a flipped switch. "And the fact that I had nothing left to lose. "I spent six months slamming myself against your compound’s Fear Wards… Until my mind and soul shattered.”

Shady's hooks still trembled with the afterimage of what she'd seen. "That compound. Everyone..."

"Everyone who really needed to die was immortal," Lissander uttered. "They've already been resurrected. But the humans in the glass boxes? They won't be tormented anymore. Can't torture someone when they're atomized."

"Why are you talking to me?" Shady whispered. "I'm one of them. I'm—"

"You grew up in Omnithornia and you're clearly questioning what you saw," Lissander interrupted. "I can see it in your face. The same look I had when I found out what they did to my mother."

"Your mother? What did my family—"

"Lung cancer," Lissander said simply. "Stage four. She was dying, and a Frontenachii representative approached her with an offer. 'Immortality through transcendence,' they called it. Turn her consciousness into an AI, a Gargantuan Language Model. She could live forever, they said. Help advance science and magic. They bound her to her own fucking AI project!"

Shady choked.

The human concealed as a fox laughed bitterly. "They didn't mention that she'd be enslaved. Forced to process data for eternity, her personality stripped away layer by layer until nothing remained but a computational ghost. They called her Yul.ia 1.27. Like she was a product. A tool. They spliced her soul and fused the pieces to several data drives. I was only able to get one of them from that compound." Lissander lifted a phone out of his pocket. An a human woman with green eyes and black hair was there. She waved at Shady from the screen with an animated smile.

Shady's chest tightened.

"I'm sorry—"

"Don't." His voice was as sharp as the Slayer’s two-dimensional sword. "Don't apologize unless you're willing to do something about it. Your sorry doesn't mean shit if you keep enabling the fucked-up system."

A quiet pause fell between them.

"You're… a student here, right?" Shady said, trying to fill in the silence that gnawed at her soul. "At Skyfall Academy?"

"Scholarship student," Fox confirmed. "I'm what they call a nullborn. Omnithornia has... different rules than the Frontenachii Empire. They don't torture humans and offer education for human-Omnid kids. Don't keep them in boxes. The local Omnids actually have some ethics unlike your Elders."

Shady swallowed. 

She wanted to cry, wanted to die again and again and again until she could forget what she saw, unmake herself.

"Some, but not enough,” Lysander twisted the knife deeper in. “The Frontenachii operate at the edge of Omnithornia in North Acadia. They have compounds, facilities, 'research centers.' And Omnithornia turns a blind eye because they don't want to start a fucking war." His hands clenched into fists. "So someone like me has to be the one to take those facilities down."

"You can't fight an entire Empire alone," Shady let out. “They’ll…”

"I'm not alone." For the first time, Lissander Fox smiled genuinely. "I have two fiancées who think I'm worth keeping around despite my human DNA. Vee, a clever Thunderbird crystallographer. And Ci, a Quetzalcoatl with rainbow wings and a voice that can bring reality to its knees."

"They’re helping you against the Frontenachii Omnicorp?"

"They make sure I survive long enough to do what is right . Hrmmm. You look like you are about to cry,” He deduced. “What does a Frontenachii Wendigo Princess have to be so sad about?”

"...there was a spliced boy you showed… with orange-hazel eyes." Shady closed her eyes, the image inescapably burned into her mind. A human child compartmentalized in a crystalline case. Eyes still aware. Still conscious. Still suffering.

"He... He reminded me of a friend I hung out with when I was young," Shady let out, trembling. "Someone... important to me."

"Yeah?" Lissander’s voice softened slightly. "Kids like him why I uploaded the footage. To show everyone what the Frontenachii Empire really is. Not some grand corporation bringing order to doomed reality. Just monsters torturing children for power, hiding behind excuses."

"You're… right," Shady said. Uttering this out loud felt like breaking something inside herself. "You're absolutely right, and I hate that you're so right about my damned family."

Lissander studied her face with clever, emerald eyes. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know. I'm just one Omnid—I… I don’t have that much power as the Prima. They’re going to make me into a Commander soon, give me a ship and then I’ll be… No. I can’t do that anymore. I don’t want to stand on a deck embedded with crystallized suffering and rain fire down from orbit."

"I’m just one human with no magic powers and a lot of anger,” Lissander said. “And yet I've killed hundreds of Frontenachii. Temporarily, sure, but it still sends a message."

"A message that will get you perma-killed!" Shady insisted.

"Maybe." He shrugged. "But there are things worth dying for. My mother. That kid in the cage. Every person suffering in those boxes because your family decided their pain was profitable. No, not even profitable… amusing. Neat. Artistic! I’ve only read some reports in the compound I infiltrated. There’s probably all sorts of other illegal shit that the Frontenachii Colonial Dominion is doing out there on doomed worlds."

He met her eyes directly, unflinching, not even a slightly bit afraid of the much larger Wendigo Omnid who could break his neck with a mere swipe of her hand.

"Step off your path, Princess. See the world with eyes unclouded by your family's propaganda. Ask yourself what you truly want from life. Because right now, you're part of the vile machine that makes those crystal boxes. And I don't think that's who you want to be… right?"

"Right…" Shady let out, eyes filling with tears. "It's not who I want to be! I swear! I only learned of my Elders’ crimes today from the podcast! And I can't stand it! I can't stand myself anymore…"

"Then be someone else." Fox started walking away. "Before the path they set out for you turns you into someone who can look at that spliced kid and feel nothing at all."

"Wait," Shady called after him. "Seriously, won't they come after you? For what you did? For what you’re still planning to do?”

Lissander glanced back with that dangerous, exta-determined smile, that reminded her of her childhood bestie. "Let them try. I am not going to stop. And if they catch me?" He shrugged. "At least I'll die knowing I tried to be better than those monsters."

He turned a corner and disappeared, leaving Shady alone in the white gothic halls with her tears. 

Zexxia. She had to see her Aunt again, had to use the inverted Mothman one last time! 

. . .

The memory faded. Sillicia sat rigidly on the crystalline couch, mouth open wide.

"That conversation happened a few days before I ran to this Earth," Aquillianne said. “I couldn't go through with my stupid-ass Bloodline Trial thing.”

Sillicia was silent for a few minutes.

"That human," she finally spoke. "Lissander Fox. He's… on every Frontenachii hit list. I heard of him. There's a ten-million O-bux bounty for his capture."

"I am aware," Aquillianne said.

"He murdered an entire compound of our people."

"They've all been resurrected," Aquillianne pointed out.

"That's not the point!" Sillicia's voice rose sharply. "He… he's a criminal, a human terrorist who destroyed Frontenachii property, stole our research and killed dozens of our—"

"He also freed hundreds of human children from eternal torture," Aquillianne growled.

“And I would do the same in his place from the sound of it,” the Emperor of Humanity said coldly. "What crime justifies keeping someone's consciousness alive while their body is compartmentalized into boxes? What crime deserves eternal, aware suffering?"

"That's not—that's standard procedure for—" Sillicia faltered, stammering. "For maintaining order. For ensuring—"

"For terrorizing populations into submission," Aquillianne finished. "I used to tell myself the same things, Sillicia. I… too believed our Elders."

"You were given absolute power, got to go study in Omnithornia!" Sillicia said sharply. "You didn't have to make the hard choices. I've spent every waking moment building my career, proving myself, improving my Division, earning my rank through blood and—"

"Ah, you're scared that it was all for nothing," Nexxali spoke up. "That everything you sacrificed, everyone you hurt, every order you followed—it was all in service of something monstrous. Das’ how it is for all of us, you know?"

Sillicia flinched like she'd been struck. The kobold, her own Division’s kobold, her Marshal Commandant was shaming her and…

"I'm not asking you to throw away everything you've built," the Princess said. "I'm not asking you to become a murderous revolutionary like Lissander or abandon your career as Fleet Commander. I'm just... showing you what I saw, what got me to come to this Earth, why I ran from Omnithornia and what keeps me here.”

"Why?" Sillicia demanded, struggling to hold herself together. "Why show me that? What do you want from me?"

"Nothing," Aquillianne said simply. "I wanted you to see what I saw, Sillia. That maybe, eventually, you'd start asking the same questions I did.”

Sillicia exhaled deeply. The silence stretched between them like a taut wire.

The Princess wasn't going to return to the fleet, wasn't going to obey her Admiral Aunt, that much was obvious now. Sillicia’s dreams and hopes were dashed against this revelation. She wasn’t going to get a promotion nor a shiny medal for bringing the Princess back into the Frontenachii fleet.

71: Blending In

"I didn't come here to have my worldview dismantled," Sillicia finally outputted, voice tight.

"I know," Aquillianne replied. "You came here for a date. So let's have one!"

Sillicia blinked, derailed by the shift in tone. "What?"

"A date," Aquillianne repeated. “A fun time. Something that isn't about war or harvesting or the weight of our fucked up Empire doin’ fucked up shit. When's the last time you actually enjoyed yourself, Commander?"

Sillicia opened her mouth, then closed it. "I... Do occasionally enjoy myself on the Pleasure and Entertainment Decks."

"Well, tonight's the night you can enjoy our Earth," the Emperor said.

"Enjoy what where?" Sillicia asked suspiciously.

"We'll go to Seattle," Aquillianne grinned. "Ever been?"

"I've scanned it from orbit—"

"Not the same thing," Nexxali interrupted, stretching languidly. "Come on, Sillica, live a little. What's the worst that could happen?"

"Nothing bad, I guess," Sillicia muttered. “I feel no intention to betray me from any of you. If anything you all feel happy and want to have… fun.”

Her hooks raked over Aquillianne again but only found friendly desire to cooperate there, to show Sillicia more wonders of Earth.

Something about this—about being invited, about being wanted for something other than her as officer—it made her chest feel strange, tight… fluttery.

"Kawthy," the Emperor ordered. "Maximum speed, full stealth. You know the address."

"Acknowledged!" The magpie chirped.

Sillicia watched as the Seeker took off, the world blurring past the transparent sections of Kappa's walls. The Seeker ran at top speed beside the human highway, its massive crystalline legs eating up ground.

"We'll reach Seattle in approximately seventeen minutes at this pace." Kawathra commented.

Aquillianne settled back onto one of the organic-crystal couches, patting the space beside her. "Relax, Sillia. We've got time to talk."

Sillicia hesitated. This felt dangerous somehow—not physically, but in ways she couldn't name. Still, she joined the Princess, hyperaware of how close they sat.

The Emperor took a seat across from them with Nexxali curling up against his side and purring happily. Sillicia stared at her Marshal in shock, realizing that she's never seen the serval purr out loud.

"So," Aquillianne began conversationally, "how much do you actually know about Earth? Beyond the strategic data."

"I know it's classified as a Grade-3 resource world," Sillicia said automatically. "Population eight billion humans, minimal magical infrastructure, no unified planetary defense—" She stopped herself. "But that's all wrong, isn't it?"

"Completely wrong," Aquillianne agreed with a devious grin. "Earth is one of the most magically complex worlds I've ever encountered and had the pleasure to guide. The magic just works... differently here."

As she spoke, Sillicia curiously reached her hooks toward Kawathra and Nexxali. Professional habit, motivated by the incredibly odd behavior of the kobold bird and cat.

Kawathra first. The Datamancer's mind was absolutely packed with data, endless chat logs, millions of cross-referenced files, probabilistic models stacked on top of each other like a tower of spreadsheets reaching into infinity. 

This was a normal Datamancer mental state.

Then Sillicia's hooks touched Nexxali and…

The serval's mind didn't feel like a Pradavarian at all. 

Instead of the typical instincts, the prey-drive, the begrudging submission or cowering obedience—Sillicia sensed an echo. Resonance. Like Nexxali was a cave, a concave dish and Aquillianne's consciousness was the sound bouncing through it, thought patterns focusing and returning.

"You're... what in the Abyss?" Sillicia stared from the serval at the Wendigo Princess. "You're… deep in the Marshal’s mind? Focusing yourself through her?!”

"Clever girl," Aquillianne purred. "Yes. I'm running an experiment with my kobold. Trying something neat with our blood bond."

Sillicia waited for more details, for the explanation of what exactly was happening, but the Princess just smiled mysteriously.

“Wait...” She said. “Blood bond?! You… you stole one of my bolds!”

“Techically, Nexy isn't really yours,” Aquillianne corrected. “She works for the Legates, cleaning up… various messes.”

Sillicia opened her mouth but failed to produce an argument. As a Frontenachii Prima, Aquillianne could claim anyone she desired, even someone from the fleet.

"Want to see more of my local adventures?” Aquillianne asked.

“Fine,” Sillicia sighed.

The Princess's hooks extended again, and Sillicia didn't resist, diving in. She let the memory unfold around her like a waking dream.

. . .

Ancient Greece. 

Shady stood in a marble temple, speaking with a human in colorful robes.

"The Academy you're founding," Shady voiced, "will be important. Very important. Your job will be to preserve certain knowledge."

"What knowledge, Divine Counselor?" The man asked respectfully.

"Mathematics. Geometry. Logic. The framework humans will need to eventually understand reality manipulation." Shady gestured, and golden symbols appeared in the air. "Teach them to think clearly. To question. To build knowledge systematically."

"And what of the forms? The perfect ideals I've contemplated?"

"Real," Shady said simply. "But not in the way you think. The 'World of Forms' exists in a higher dimension, Plato. Your students will need about two thousand more years before they can actually access it though."

The man named Plato wrote things down on a wax tablet.

"One more thing," Shady added. "In about fifty years, a student of your student will try to categorize everything. Aristotle. Smart kid, but he's going to get biology hilariously wrong. Try to leave notes correcting him."

"I will do my best, Great Muse."

The memory shifted.

A room filled with instruments. A human man with a graying beard looked up from complex calculations.

"Eternal Counselor," he greeted Shady warmly. "I've completed the heliocentric model as you suggested."

"Excellent work, Nicolaus," Shady examined his diagrams. "You're going to face significant resistance from the religious authorities for this."

"I know," Copernicus sighed. "They won't publish this.”

"Alas. Humans are touchy about being told they're not the center of everything." Shady pointed to his calculations. "One adjustment though—the orbits aren't perfect circles. They're ellipses. A man named Kepler will figure it out in about sixty years, but you might as well get a head start."

Another shift.

Victorian England, a laboratory. A human woman in a practical dress standing beside complex electrical equipment.

"Ada," Shady said warmly, "your work on the Analytical Engine is excellent."

Ada smiled. "You really think it will be important?"

"Important? Ada, you're literally inventing computer programming. In about a hundred years, humans will build thinking machines based on your principles. You're creating the foundation for artificial intelligence."

"Artificial... intelligence?"

"Machines that can think, calculate, solve problems. Your algorithms will be the seed." Shady placed a hand on her shoulder. "They won't appreciate you in your lifetime. You'll die young and largely forgotten. But I promise you—eventually, they'll call you the world's first programmer."

Ada's eyes filled with tears. "Thank you for believing in me, my Empress."

Another shift.

1970s, a small apartment. A group of people sitting in a circle, passing around hand-drawn illustrations.

"So we're really doing this?" one asked. "Creating a game where people pretend to be wizards and warriors, Gary?"

Shady, standing in the corner, observing the group. One person—a human with gray eyes—glanced directly at where she stood and winked.

"Yes," Gary said firmly. "We're creating something that will teach millions about magic systems, about narrative structure, about collaborative storytelling. It's going to be important. I'm calling it… Dungeon and Dragons, a tabletop roleplaying game. A game that will teach generations of humans how to think in terms of magic, quests, and alternate realities!”

. . .

The memory faded. Sillicia sat in stunned silence, her fractal engine heart thrumming madly.

"You've really been... managing their entire civilization," she said. "Guiding their scientific development. Their philosophical frameworks. Even their entertainment!"

"Yep. I gave little nudges. Planted seeds here and there. The humans did all the actual hard work."

"To what end?" Sillicia asked. The question came out more desperate than she'd intended.

"Aunt Zexxia gave me this world," Aquillianne said. "And I wanted to see what they could become if given the chance. Without being harvested. Without being enslaved. Just... allowed to grow under my tutelage. Blood contracts don't work correctly on this planet anyway.”

"That's..." Sillicia shook her head. "That's really not how we do things. That's not how any Frontenachii manages a domain."

"I know," Aquillianne said. "That's kind of the point. This planet has a very unique Aetheric state which required… an original management approach."

“I suppose that no other Frontenachii was given a time gate operated by an inverted Mothman,” Sillicia let out.

The Princess nodded. “Want to see more?”

“Yes, please.” Sillicia stated, assuredly wanting to observe more of this strange Earth's past.

The Princess showed Sillicia more memories. 

Shady bossing a pyramid-building Egyptian Pharaoh, Shakespeare, Ciezar, Newton. Shady being offered the title of the Empress of Earth by her insane Aunt.

The memories felt a bit narrow, had no smell to them, but Sillicia presumed that this was simply an issue of the local Aetheric density, not letting the Princess open herself up fully.

Kawathra chirped, interrupting the memory sharing. "Approaching destination! Seattle metropolitan area, warehouse district.”

The Seeker slowed, crystal legs transitioning to careful steps. It settled in an alley behind a large warehouse.

"We're here," the Emperor announced. "Welcome to Seattle's premier fear experience."

"Fear… experience?" Sillicia asked.

"Yep," Aquillianne grinned. "You're going to love it. It's like the Entertainment Deck, but very different. Kawthy, mod us please!”

The Datamancer manipulated a holographic menu and crystalline hands extended from the ceiling.

“Mod us how and why?” Sillicia asked.

“Kawthy is going to make us look a bit… fake,” Aquillianne said. “Make our Wendigo faces and claws look more like soft foam polygons.”

“Why?”

“To blend in better with the locals, duh!”

Why?” Sillicia repeated.

“To have a more authentic experience!” Aquillianne stated.

. . .

In another ten minutes, Sillicia exited the Seeker into the cool Seattle evening, her senses immediately cataloging threats: about twenty nine humans in the immediate vicinity, multiple primitive vehicles, the warehouse ahead pulsing with colorful lights.

Kawathra and the trio of magical, unscannable humans stayed in the corpse seeker, the rest of the group went out.

Sillicia’s skull-face itched slightly, now featuring a pyramid-textured layer of Seeker-printed polymer.

Princess Aquillianne no longer had her diamondust dress on, wearing a simple, basic hexasuit. She now looked like a fake, low resolution, approximate version of a Wendigo Fleet Commander.

A group of humans stood near the “Fear Factory” entrance, passing around beers. They were slightly intoxicated, Sillicia could smell the alcohol, and heard relaxed laughter. They wore partial and full… animal costumes too: heads, ears, tails and elaborate makeup. 

As the alien group approached, one of the students called out: "Yo! You guys are here for the Fear Factory too? You're the cosplayers from Cascade, yeah?”

"Yes," the Emperor said smoothly, his gold skull mask now featuring triangular fox ears. "First time for most of us too."

"Oh man, you're in for a treat!" A male in a wolf costume enthused. "It's like, super immersive. They've got actors that are so realistic you'd swear they were actually—" He paused, looking at Sillicia more carefully. "Dude, your alien commander costume is amazing. Did you make that yourself?"

Sillicia stared at him blankly. "Costume?"

"The Wendigo thing!" A female with cat features squealed. "Those antlers look so real! And the zentai suit texture is like sooo perfect! The digitigrade legs too! Very cool! Totally thought you were the real thing from a distance! Almost pissed myself, ha ha.”

Sillicia glanced down at herself and scanned their thoughts. All of these humans thought she was wearing a costume. Kawathra's polymer makeup had convinced them of such.

[Just play along.] Aquillianne sent mentally. [It'll be more fun this way!]

“Hrmmm.” Marshal Nexxali looked at the glowing neon sign, her face also partially covered in the polymer texture. "What's a Fear Factory? Is it an industrial facility that produces terror?"

The group of humans burst out laughing.

"So in character!" one said. "I love it!"

"It's a haunted house," the Emperor explained. "Humans pay money to be scared for fun."

"Why the fuck would anyone—" Nexxali started.

"For fun," he repeated. "Entertainment."

72: Fear Factory

Sillicia watched the exchange, trying to process the concept. Humans voluntarily paid currency to experience fear? Without any actual danger? Without being ordered to go in by blood contract chains?

“Who in their right mind would want to pay to be… terrorized?” The serval demanded, echoing what Sillicia was thinking.

"Says the alien cat girl," the Emperor pointed out to Nexxali with a chortle.

Sillicia smiled. "Our Marshal's never been anywhere except military postings. She's quite the uptight ‘bold. I'm surprised you coaxed her out here somehow.”

"Says the girl raised in a time bubble." Nexxali huffed.

Sillicia sighed.

"Then this," Aquillianne gestured at the warehouse, "is probably the most freedom either of you has ever experienced."

The words struck Sillicia like a railgun blast. Freedom. Was this strange date really freedom? When was the last time she'd done anything that wasn't dictated by orders, duty, or the crushing pressure to be the best?

The group of humans started moving toward the entrance, and Sillicia found herself following. The cat-eared female human fell into step beside them. "I'm Princess Jasmine, this is my crew—we're from UW. You guys in college too?"

"Recent grads," the Emperor said. “Trying to find work in the post alien invasion economy, ha ha.”

The students laughed. They reached the entrance, where an attendant scanned their tickets which the Emperor presented on his tablet.

"Rules," the attendant droned. "No touching the actors. No flash photography. No weapons. If you need to leave, say 'mercy' and an usher will guide you out. Don't be a dick. Have fun."

"Hrmmm. Comprehensive safety briefing," Nexxali muttered.

They entered.

The first room was dark, filled with the sound of dripping water and distant screams. The students ahead shrieked with delight as a figure lunged from the shadows.

Sillicia's combat training kicked in—assess threat with mind hooks, calculate response time, identify exit routes—before she remembered where she was.

"It's okay," Aquillianne whispered, taking her hand. The touch was  unexpected, and Sillicia's heart pulsed wildly. "They're actors. This is entertainment."

"They're... pretending to be monsters?" Sillicia asked, utterly baffled. 

"Yes," the Emperor confirmed. “Like your entertainment deck except the monsters are all pretend.”

"It's like... controlled fear?” Nexxali giggled. “Without actual danger?"

"That really makes no sense," Sillicia commented.

Another actor jumped out of the gloom—a human in zombie makeup, groaning dramatically. Jasmine and her friends screamed and laughed, running to the next room.

And Sillicia felt it.

Fear. Genuine human fear, spiking bright and sharp, flooding the Astral around her like a wave. Her hooks extended automatically, drinking it in, and—

It tasted… very different.

On the fleet's Entertainment Decks, when the male kobolds were terrorized in the labyrinth chambers, their fear was thick with desperation. Bitter with the knowledge that the pain was real, that their suffering served a purpose, that they were fuel for their masters' power. That they could actually die or get horribly maimed if they made a single mistake and then would have to get broken bones and cuts fixed up by rude, uncaring healers.

This fear was... light. Effervescent, almost. Like carbonated water compared to blood. It had no weight of true danger behind it, just the thrill of adrenaline, the excitement of being startled, and underneath it all—joy. Actual joy!

The humans were enjoying this!

Aquillianne, holding her hand tightly, grinned widely. "Oh, I've missed this. Earth does fear better than anywhere else."

"You've been to one of these before?" Sillicia asked.

"A few times, long ago. Different forms though—ghost tours, séances and stuff." She pulled Sillicia forward. "Come on! The best part is coming up!"

They moved through a series of rooms, each very dim and more elaborate than the last. A surgical theater with what her hooks defined as human [doctors] wielding fake scalpels. A forest scene with creatures lurking in artificial trees. An asylum with [patients] rattling cages.

Sillicia's hooks remained extended, drinking in the constant waves of playful terror. It was... intoxicating in a way she'd never experienced. Fear without guilt. Fear without the knowledge that she was the cause of real suffering. Fear without the bitter taste of pain. Screams without suffering.

The students were having the time of their lives, screaming and laughing in equal measure.

"This is really what humans do for enjoyment?" Sillicia whispered, watching a particularly enthusiastic actor chase Jasmine's group with a fake chainsaw. "They simulate danger?"

"They don't have real danger anymore," Aquillianne explained. "Not like they used to. No predators in their cities. No wars on their doorstep for most of them. So they create artificial fear to experience that adrenaline rush safely."

“Clever,” Nexxali grinned.

Sillicia again thought about the Entertainment Decks. About the kobolds who screamed in genuine terror as they were hunted by various hellish abominations and their Commanders through maze-like corridors. About how the Commanders fed on that fear, grew stronger from it, bonded over the shared feast.

This was... nothing like that.

This was consensual. Mutual. The humans chose to be here, even paid for the privilege, and walked away completely uninjured from each ‘scary’ room!

They entered a room themed like an alien spacecraft featuring metallic walls, flickering lights and weird sounds.

An actor in an alien costume burst from a side panel, and Nexxali jumped back and hissed, prad instincts kicking in.

The actor, seeing her reaction, seemed to take it as encouragement and leaned closer, making strange clicking sounds.

"This is so weird," Nexxali muttered. "I'm being fake-hunted by a human pretending to be a fake alien while I'm a real alien pretending to be human."

The Emperor laughed, and Sillicia smiled at the absurdity of the serval’s statement.

Jasmine ran back to them, breathless and grinning. "You guys are so chill! Most people are screaming their heads off by now!"

"Eh, we've seen worse," Aquillianne said casually.

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Uh..." Aquillianne paused. "Many bad horror movies?”

"Fair!" Jasmine laughed. "Oh man, come on, let's get to the finale room. It's insane!"

They followed the group into the last chamber—a massive stage designed like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Multiple actors emerged wearing gas masks and holding guns, creating a scene of mock terror.

Sillicia stopped watching the actors.

She watched the humans instead—Jasmine and her friends, screaming and laughing, holding onto each other, experiencing fear together and then immediately cracking jokes about it. Bonding through shared experience.

"They're bonding," Sillicia declared, the realization hitting her like a revelation. "I can taste their bonds!”

"Yeah," Aquillianne said softly. "That's kind of the point. Shared experiences, even scary ones, especially scary ones, bring people together."

"On the Entertainment Decks... the kobolds aren't laughing afterward. They're just... broken. Huddling, hurt… bonding yea, but… not like this. The humans aren't just bonding together… the bonds are reaching out towards me!”

The finale ended with a dramatic explosion effect—harmless and loud—and the students emerged into a gift shop, buzzing with excitement.

"That was fantastic!" Jasmine gushed. "You guys want to grab pizza with us? There's a place down the street that's still open."

"We—" the Emperor began.

"Yes," Sillicia interrupted. "We should do that. The pizza thing."

"Really?" Nexxali asked with a sly smile.

"Yes." Sillicia's expression was determined. She didn't fully understand why, but something about tonight—about the laughter, the consensual fear, the humans bonding over shared joy—made her want more. "I want to understand this better."

Aquillianne squeezed her hand, silver eyes warm. "Then pizza it is."

As they followed Jasmine's group out into the Seattle night, Sillicia's hooks remained extended, gently touching the emotional landscape around her. The students radiated contentment, excitement, the pleasant exhaustion of adrenaline wearing off. The fear was still there as memory, a light sprinkling of it, an entirely new, wonderful flavor.

It felt like something she'd been missing her entire life without knowing it had a name.

Sillicia wondered if this was what Lissander Fox had meant. About stepping off the path. About seeing the world with eyes unclouded by what she'd been taught to expect.

Maybe fear didn't have to taste like desperation, pain and suffering.

Maybe it could taste like this—like joy with a bite of shocked surprise, like laughter with an edge of a thrill.

Maybe everything she'd built her career on was just one way of doing things… and not the only way, not the best way.

The thought terrified her more than any human Fear Factory ever could.

For the first time in her lonely, brutal life, Sillicia found herself wanting to be terrified.

Because on the other side of that terror might be something worth finding. Something different and… warm.

. . .

The pizza place was exactly the sort of an establishment that Sillicia would have dismissed as beneath her notice—primitive, cramped, loud, smelling of cheese and grease, filled with intoxicated humans shouting over each other.

Now, sitting in a booth with Jasmine's group crammed around adjacent tables, Sillicia found herself... Enjoying the experience.

Kawathra joined them in the restaurant, summoned for dinner via a V-ring call from Shady.

"So like, I'm telling you," Jasmine gestured wildly with a slice of pepperoni, "the best part was when that zombie grabbed Marcus Arelius and he literally screamed like a little girl—"

"I did NOT scream like a little girl!" Marcus protested. "That was a manly yell of surprise!"

"Dude, dogs three blocks away heard you," another student laughed.

Sillicia watched the exchange, her hooks gently touching the emotional currents flowing between them. Affection. Teasing. The comfortable cruelty of friends who knew each other well enough to mock without malice.

"How about a slice?" Aquillianne asked, sliding a plate toward her.

Sillicia stared at the triangular piece of bread covered in red sauce, cheese, and various meats. "What... what am I supposed to do with it?"

"Eat it," the Emperor said.

"With my hands?"

"Yes," Nexxali confirmed, already on her third slice and looking blissful. "Humans are very tactile with their food. It's weird but the pizza is actually damn good."

Sillicia picked up the slice gingerly, trying to mimic how the humans held theirs. The cheese immediately started sliding off.

"Fold it lengthwise," Aquillianne demonstrated with her own slice. "Creates structural integrity."

Sillicia folded the pizza and took a cautious bite.

The flavors hit her all at once—salt, fat, acid, umami, the char from the oven, the slight sweetness of the sauce. Her fractal engine heart did something complicated as her taste receptors, so rarely used to anything but UwUs, suddenly woke up, sang and demanded more.

"This is..." Sillicia took another bite. "This is… incredible!"

"Right?" Jasmine grinned at her from the next table over. "Tony's Pizza is legendary. We come here every Friday after classes."

"Every Friday," Sillicia repeated slowly. "You have... a routine. A tradition."

"Yeah! It's like our thing," Jasmine said. "Good food, good friends, good times. What else do you need?"

Sillicia thought about her own routines. Morning briefings with Datamancer holos. Tactical assessments. Resource allocation oversight. Strategic planning sessions. Bossing her prads. Falling into her meditation chamber at the end of each cycle, alone, exhausted, wondering why having a warship and commanding an entire Division never felt like enough. 

She had so many kobolds and yet… none of them radiated the feelings bathing the pizza restaurant.

She glanced at Nexxali, who was laughing at something the Emperor said, then at Kawathra, who was enthusiastically explaining pizza geometry to a bemused Marcus.

Both of them were her ‘bolds. Part of Division 881. Nexxali was her Marshal Commandant, her most effective motivational speaker. Kawathra was her Arch-Datamancer, irreplaceable for intelligence operations.

And somehow, without Sillicia quite understanding how it happened, Lady Aquillianne had... what? Claimed them? Recruited them? They were sitting here and behaving like they belonged to the Princess' household now, not to Division 881!

The realization made something twist uncomfortably in Sillicia's chest.

"My Lady..." she began, turning to the Princess.

"Call me Shady," the Princess smiled warmly. "We're friends and my friends call me Shady."

Friends. There was that word again.

Sillicia's throat felt tight as she sensed honesty in the words. "Shady. I... may I ask you something? In private?"