Where the Predators Prowl Ch 100 + song

Chapter 100: Chalkery

Nessy bounced back to the booth, panting and merry from the appreciation, black and white tail wagging like a hurricane. "Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all temporal paradox!" She slid back into her seat, once again sandwiching me between herself and the semi-stunned raptor.

"That was… Ummm," Kristi began, then stopped.

"Magnificent? Show-stopping? Worthy of seventy two Grammys?" Nessy suggested with a cheeky grin.

"I was going to say unexpectedly good, but sure, those too."

Nessy's ears perked up. "Really?"

"Really." Kristi let out.

Nessy leaned across me. "How about a lick then?"

Kristi stared at the offered snout like it might bite her. "You still smell like a trash bin.”

“Feh!” Nessy wiggled her snout enticingly. "Come on, one little lick. For pack bonding!"

"I don't lick people," Kristi said primly.

"Your loss!" Nessy shrugged, then proceeded to lick Kristi's entire cheek, leaving a visible wet streak.

"NESSY!" Kristi squawked.

“What?” The husky grinned.

The raptor suddenly broke out into a giggle. Then, to my shock, Kristi leaned across me, grabbed Nessy's face with both claws, and planted a quick, tentative kiss-lick right on the husky's nose.

Nessy froze. Her tail stopped mid-wag. 

"Did... did you just...?"

"Shut up," Kristi mumbled. "Don't make it weird."

"Too late!" Nessy squealed, practically vibrating in on spot. "Kristi kissed me! Alec! ALECCCC! Did you see?! The primliest raptor kissed meeee! Eeeeeeeeeee!"

"Please stop," Kristi groaned, hiding her face in her claws.

“Aleeeeeeec. Witness meeeeeeeee.” Nessy wrapped herself around me, squeeing and shaking me.

“Yes, I saw. You’re literally in front of my face, hard not to notice." I chortled.

"This is going in my diary! Dear diary, today the improbable happened! The ice queen of Ferguson High expressed an emotion!"

Kristi huffed.

"Okay, okay," Nessy said, growing serious. She pulled out all the items from our shopping cart, spreading them across the table. The clocks, markers, gems, CDs, everything laid out like she was preparing for surgery.

"What are you doing ?" Kristi asked.

Nessy stared at each item with intense concentration, her nose twitching. "Memorizing them. Every scratch, every scent, every tiny detail, every questionable deviation."

"Why?"

"In case we die," Nessy said matter-of-factly, sniff-studying the items. "If the loop resets, I might need to be able to find these exact items again. The worn edge on this clock. The way this marker cap doesn't quite close right. The fingerprint smudge on this CD case."

"That's... morbid," Kristi said.

"That's survival," Nessy corrected. "Death is temporary. Forgetting is forever. Also, I'm understanding them better so that I can bind 'em real nice."

I watched her sniff the clocks, then remembered something. "Nessy, when you were singing... I saw something. Like a silver fox overlapping with you."

Nessy's ears twitched. She sniffed herself thoroughly, then started snapping her fingers rhythmically, eyes closed. "One, two, three... come on... four, five... Who am I?... Why?”

She descended into whisper-muttering.

When she opened her eyes, her left eye was its normal blue, but her right blazed brilliant silver.

"Ah, there we go!" Her voice gained an edge of subtle, spicy confidence now. "Was wondering when you'd notice me, tree-boy." She grinned, then reached up to seemingly grab at nothing. Her paw disappeared into thin air flickering like a mirage, and when she pulled it back, she was holding a shimmering crystalline laurel with white metal leaves.

"How did you...?" Kristi gaped.

"Nullspace," Nessy explained, placing the laurel on her head. The gemstones began pulsing with inner light. "I bound it there earlier. Or later? Heh. Time crime makes verb tenses complicated."

She reached into the air again. "Unbind mirror form nullspace!” A small, round silver mirror appeared in her paw. “Oh my Slaya, look at me!" She squealed, admiring her reflection. "I'm absolutely adorkable! Kristikins! How adorkable do I look?”

“Uhm,” Kristi offered. “Very? Why is your eye glowing?”

“Just my foxy side showing!” The husky spun the mirror around, checking herself from different angles. "No wonder everyone falls in love with me. I'm basically weaponized cuteness in a sundress!"

Before I could respond, she pounced on me, peppering my face with rapid-fire kisses. "Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! For being patient! For believing me! For having that sexy tree-soul and reaching the end of everything and cutting me into existence!"

"Nessy—" I gasped between the assault of affection.

"CaNessy!" she corrected, then whirled on Kristi. "Your turn!"

"Wait, what—" Kristi's protest was cut short as CaNessy launched herself at the raptor, covering her beak and cheeks with enthusiastic kisses. "Mwah! For finally admitting you love me! Mwah! For the nose kiss! Mwah! For being mega-repressed but still trying!"

Kristi sat frozen, feathers fluffed out in every direction, looking like she'd been struck by lightning made of pure canine affection.

"Now!" CaNessy announced, reaching back into nullspace. "Time for show and tell!"

She pulled out five movie tickets that flickered between different times and titles, five pairs of star-shaped glasses that showed different realities when you looked through them, and finally, the pink chalk stub from her pocket.

"These," she said, laying them out, "are our keys to escape. But first..." She held her paws over the Superstore items we'd bought. "Time to unbind you from this narrative and remember what you really are!"

Silver fractals danced from her paws. "Unbind from ticket-generated dimensional fold-dream! Reveal your Nameless nature!"

The items on the table began to warp and twist. The alarm clocks grew extra hands that moved backward. The cubic zirconia gems clouded with swirling… something within their innards that looked like odd flickers of faces and places. The markers radiated rainbows. The CDs twisted and warped, unfolding into weird-looking, semi-transparent vinyls.

"Holy shit," Kristi breathed.

“Das’ right, le magic,” CaNessy bobbed.

The husky removed the laurel from her head and placed it on mine. The moment it touched my hair, I felt the surge of… something that made my fingertips tingle with potential.

"Your turn, tree-boy! Fuse them all together while I provide minor Astral binding and a… motivational soundtrack!"

I reached for the warped items, feeling the Syntropic Fusion skill eager to work. As my hands touched the first clock and gem, CaNessy began to sing:

"Take the clock that counts in reverse,
Each second stolen from time's own purse,
Backward ticking, forward bound,
Where lost moments can be found,
Mix it with that gem of yearning,
For the past that keeps returning!"

The backwards moving clock arrow snapped off the clock. It and the gem merged in my hands, becoming crystalline. I repeated the process with other gems and arrows, fusing the resulting five crystalline arrows. 

Next, I reached for the markers.

"Rainbow markers bleeding dreams,
Writing futures, or so it seems,
Each color holds tomorrow's maybe,
Each line drawn makes time go crazy,
Paradox in every stroke,
Words unwritten that were spoke!"

The markers dissolved into the crystalline arrow fusion adding swirls of whacky colors. 

I grabbed the vinyl records next.

"Songs that no one can remember,
Music lost since last September,
Or was it never played at all?
These phantom albums rise and fall,
Forgotten bands that might have been,
Playing concerts never seen!"

[88/100 Syntropic Fusion]

The fusion was taking all of my effort and focus. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I combined the disparate elements together into a questionable-looking mass. CaNessy hugged me from behind, paws wrapped around my hands.

"Crossview glasses, dimensional sight,
Showing what's beyond the light,
Five perspectives, five realities,
Five different possibilities,
Look through one and see another,
Where you're stranger, friend, or brother!"

[62/100 Syntropic Fusion]

"Movie tickets, stories trapped,
Where beginnings and ends have overlapped,
Five admissions to the show,
Where the audience doesn't know,
They're the movie being played,
In this temporal masquerade!"

It felt like items were fighting back somehow, not wanting to become one thing. CaNessy's voice rose, pounding behind me, helping make the fusion permanent.

"Grind them down to dust so fine,
Powder of space and powder of time,
Every memory, every dream,
Every possible in-between,
Mix them in the reality blender,
Make them smooth and make them tender!"

I grabbed the reality mixer. After CaNessy’s unbinding, the blender now looked less like a Superstore-sold pink blender and more like a klein bottle that made my eyes water. I shoved the fused crystalline thing inside and pressed the button, holding onto it. It whirred with a sound like warped, twisted thunder. CaNessy made whooping noises behind me.

"Pour the mixture, pink and bright,
Liquid doorway, liquid flight,
Neither here nor really there,
Substance made of if and where,
Chalk to draw upon the world,
Where dimensions come unfurled!"

[41/100 Syntropic Fusion]

“Grind ‘errrrrr!” Nessy ordered as I held onto the mixer, tail beating against the seat.

"This is the chalk of many paths,
Of science mixed with aftermath,
Of entropy and syntropy,
Of you and her and also me,
Five souls united, five apart,
One ending bound to one start!"

I poured the glowing pink liquid into the chalk mold, which had transformed into something that existed in more than three dimensions. My hands shook from the effort.

"Set the shape and hold it true,
This key for me and him and you,
To draw doors that shouldn't be,
To walk through possibility,
From bubble time to real space,
From no when to every place!"

[22/100 Syntropic Fusion]

"Almost done, just hold it steady,
Soon our chalk will be ready,
To escape this funnel's solid grasp,
To break free of time's tight clasp,
Draw a circle, make it round,
Step through where we won't be found!"

The chalk solidified with a sound like reality hiccupping as my hands guided its final evolution. 

[13/100 Syntropic Fusion]

A single piece of dimensional chalk lay in the mold, looking like perfectly ordinary pink chalk now.

I slumped back into the seat, exhausted. "And. It's... done. Damn, thought that I was going to run out of fusion for a bit there."

“Yass!” CaNessy snatched up the chalk from the mold, holding it up like a trophy. "Perfect! Absolutely perfect! Go team!"

“I didn’t do nothin,” Kristi commented.

“You believed in us! Das’ very important!” The husky patted the raptor’s head. Kristi pursed her lips.

"So we can go home now?" I asked hopefully.

"Nope!" The husky declared, drawing a slightly lopsided, hobbit-style, round door on the table's surface. "Home is in another time and place, and I'd really rather not fuck this up by ending up somewhere that’s like home but also not really. We're going deeper into the funnel first."

"Why?" Kristi demanded. "We have the damn chalk!"

"Because," CaNessy said, finishing the circle, "this funnel is MINE now. I bound it, I broke it, and I'm claiming it all for me. But first, we all need to understand dimensionality better. We need practice."

"Practice with what exactly?" I asked.

"Practice with using the chalk, duh! Our minds keep getting scrambled every time we die here or in any other dungeon, really. That’s not a good thing. We must understand ourselves across multiple dimensions simultaneously, to persist mentally even if we die horribly, even if the dungeon fucks with who we are by screwing with our linear narrative," she explained. "Right now, you're thinking much too linearly. Alec then, Alec now, Alec future. But you're also tree-Alec, sideways-Alec, all-Alecs-at-once-Alec. Same for you, Kristi. You're not just you—you're you-plus-Adelle, you-that-was and you-that-might-be!"

“Ugh,” Kristi voiced. “This magic nonsense is already giving me a headache.”

“How ‘bout a kiss to make it better?” Nessy offered and then leaned forward to maul-kiss Kristi before the raptor had a chance to produce a reply.

Kristi batted the husky girl away in a minute, entire face burning in every shade of violet. “Why are you like this?” She growled.

“Why not?” CaNessy laughed. “At what other time would we get a chance to make out as our younger selves? Hmmmmmm?” She jabbed Kristi with an elbow making the raptor yelp and grabbed the drawn door handle, somehow pulling it off the table and opening the chalk-drawn door.

Behind the open chalk door, there was nothing. Or possibly everything. I suddenly recalled seeing a door just like it before... in Calvin’s Mini-Mart when Nessy and I were escaping from the Magnetix Lynx. It had the same unnerving texture that ticked my soul sideways.

“So! Who wants to go in first?” Nessy grinned.