Where the Predators Prowl: [Ch 74, 75]

74. Fox Tricks

Adelle’s eyes moved up and down my body, as if she was undressing me with her gaze. 

“You wan’ me to get you a new bike while we here, Ads? Or are you planning to transmogrify Alec into a bike so that you can ride him all night lo…”

A violet raptor hand swatted Candace in the head, interrupting her provocative monologue.

"Nah. I’d rather fix my baby,” Adelle said with a chortle in the fox’s direction. “Fiddling with a new build is an effort.”

“Aight, I’ll text Goobs n’ order rune filler,” Candace said, rubbing the back her head.

“Oi,” she hissed at Kristi, rotating to face the raptor. “Why must you swat me?”

“Why must you inject inappropriate commentary into every second of my existence?” Kristi asked.

“Who made you the Lord Marshall of appropriated-ness?” Candace hopped around Kristi, her chest puffed out, trying to reach the raptor’s full height by stretching as much as she could. “You wanna fight bout’ it?”

“Maybe I do,” Kristi growled, muscles tensing up. “But I doubt that you could handle me.”

“Oh, oh!” Candace’s sideways wiggle-hopping intensified. “Big words for a big green chicken!”

“You’re acting like a fox who’s never been told no in her entire life,” Kristi’s growl deepened.

“Damn right! I’m the Rhinehart Prima!” Candace declared. “Nobody would dare to deny me my speaking rights! Want me to behave? How about a quick fighting round then? You win, I will be extra prim and proper forevermore as you desire. I win… and you’ll have to wear that semi-transparent diamond dust dress you got today… all day long… commando style!”

Kristi's feathers puffed up, eyes narrowing to slits. "You're pushing your luck, fox."

"Whassa mattah birb-bae, scared of getting yo shiny purple ass kicked?" Candace taunted, bouncing on her toes. "Afraid to lose to a smol, adorkable fox?"

"Hey," I interrupted, trying to de-escalate the situation before the two prads started a public brawl in the street. "Remember our deal?’ You're supposed to be supporting each other, not starting claw fights to win placement hierarchy."

“No claws,” Candace said. “Soft takedown only! First to pin the other down for seven seconds wins. This ain’t for hierarchy rights, is for fox-speaking rights. Also, this is supportive! Think of the morale boost you’ll get when Kristi struts around Dragon Alley only in diamond-dust. It’s team-building through public embarrassment. Very therapeutic.”

“How’s public embarrassment therapeutic?” I asked.

“It’s therapeutic for you,” Candace grinned. “Cus you get to enjoy the view of raptor pus–”

“I will therapeutically staple your ears to your tail!” Kristi barked, lunging at the fox.

Candace seemed to expect the attack. Something cracked between her fox chompers igniting her mouth with a red flash from within. I guessed that it was another Superstore acceleration candy. She blurred in the air, easily bypassing the swing and caught Kristi’s outfit from the front in her white paws. “Unbind visibility.”

“Ack!” Kristi yelped, blushing violet and covering herself as her top and bra turned invisible.

Candace flashed, appearing behind Kristi. “Unbind nerves.”

The half-naked raptor fell forward into the fox’s waiting arms. In a beautifully executed twist, Candace brought Kristi softly facefirst into the cobblestone street below and then sat atop her, wiggling happily.

“One,” she counted slowly. 

“You… that… what the fuck?! You cheating fuck!” Kristi snarled trying to bite the fox.

“Two,” Candace idly admired her white, shiny nails. “Foxes cheat at fights against birbs. Such is life. Four.”

“Alec!” Kristi’s face snapped to me. 

“Gonna cry to the Alpha about fairness?” Candace asked. “Is that really da raptor way? Crying to authority? Six. Seven. And I win.”

A phone flashed into existence in her paws and she took a selfie of herself and the blushing raptor below. 

“Bind visibility," she said and Kristi’s sporty outfit and bra appeared back on her. “Bind nerves.”

. . .

“Ughhh,” Kristi slumped into the ‘boyfriend waiting couch’ next to me. 

I tried very hard not to stare at her chest and abs. The slightly-transparent diamond-dust dress clung to Kristi like a second skin, every violet scale beneath catching the boutique’s crystal dragon lights in ways that made my brain short-circuit sideways.

"This is all your fault." She let out.

"My fault? I didn't start a street brawl with a sneaky fox Binder."

"You could have stopped her!" Kristi growled, arms crossed.

"And deny Dragon Alley the most beautiful sight it's seen in a thousand years? I think not." The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Kristi's scowl melted into something softer. Her scales flushed a deeper violet. “A thousand years?”

“I… don’t know how long I stayed in the Supercenter,” I admitted. “Time there is fucked up and wrong and I stopped counting the days, stopped looking at the date on Nessy’s phone after everyone in Bedshire died.”

“Oh,” the raptor’s expression softened further. 

Her clawed hand reached out and rested atop mine. “I shouldn’t have rushed headfirst at the Magnetic Lynx… I should have been there for you. I’m sorry.”

“You would have died from old age or been subsumed into the Supercenter as a shelf or tiles like Vivianne,” I said with a shrug. “Either way I would have lost you. That damned place broke, corrupted, killed everyone… I was the last human there for a long, long time. Reconstitution stopped me from aging, stopped me from becoming a shelf or a lamp.”

“M’ sorry.” Violet-scaled arms wrapped around me fully. “I didn’t realise… it was that long Alec. You’re… you’re strong for having endured that.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m fine. I don’t remember most of it. I spent a lifetime here on Prad Earth, grew up in SUSA.”

“It’s not fine,” she hugged me tightly, resting her head on my shoulder. “You’re not fine at all. I remember you jumping off a cliff and breaking your neck when we first met and from what I learned thus far, your life in Little Rock Citadel wasn't in a good home.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “The cliff jumping was a pretty stupid move on my part, I must admit. But then again, I thought that you were going to destroy Bulwichu if I didn’t do something dramatic.”

“Exceptionally stupid and dramatic,” she said. “But… it actually defines who you are. I get it now.”

“Oh?”

"You." Kristi shifted, dress sparkling. "The way you charge headfirst into danger. How you refused to back down from the Advanced Dungeoneering class. Why you casually walked to the edge of Highway Sixty Nine and taunted the Butcher of Delvers till she gave you an impossible Quest." Her amber eyes met mine. "You've never been afraid of death."

"Yeah, I suppose so," I replied. “Since I woke up in that bath tub, I haven’t been the same.”

“It seems like out of our fucked up pack of absolute knobs, you're the most broken one.”

“Gee thanks. Gonna tell me I need a thousand years of therapy?”

“I don't know what you need,” Kristi sighed. “Maybe a conversation to start?”

“Converse away,” I offered. “If you want. Unless you’re up for more shopping.”

“Nah,” she said. “I've got enough overpriced outfits as it is.”

She fell silent, seemingly not sure what to say, so I decided to break the ice with some questions of my own.

“So… what do you think of our packmates?” I asked, nodding toward the muffled giggles coming from the direction of the changeroom.

“Ah.” She smiled softly. “Well… I like Nessy. A lot. Too much, if anything. It’s like she’s a pivotal part of me that I didn’t know I was missing. Her music makes me smile. I’m immeasurably happy that she’s back, no longer being sucked like a prune by that damned Well of Severance.”

"And Adelle?"

"When I first met her at school, she was constantly picking fights with everyone like a hooligan, smoking in corners, getting drunk, skipping classes. Stank of cheap booze and aggression. Now in your pack she's almost... tolerable, calmer. Not constantly drunk. She makes sense in a weird way. It’s like… she just needed someone to tell her what to do as her Alpha, I guess?”

"And Candace?"

Kristi sighed. "She's… Nessy on steroids. All the mischief, the invasiveness, the constant prodding, none of the restraint. Every rule exists for her to break it. She pushes every button she can find just to see what happens. And she can see the buttons using her cleverness and Astral gazing or whatever better than anyone. It’s like she wants to embarrass me all the time on purpose and is motivating everyone around her to act out."

"I should get a spray bottle," I joked. "Keep my 'harem' from pawing each other at inappropriate times."

Kristi rubbed her face. "Please don't call us that. I never thought I'd be part of a... whatever in the Abyss this ridiculous relationship star is. Candace naming our group chat 'Yo Harem' is absurd enough."

Candace popped out from behind a rack, wearing a swimsuit that consisted of little more than a few strategically placed strings. "Spray bottles won't work on me! I'm not a cat—foxes are fine with getting wet."

"Where are your clothes?" Kristi demanded.

"Back in the changing room, duh," Candace tapped her phone. "Wanted to tease Alec and you with this one,” she jiggled her chest at us, making Kristi growl. “Also, I’ma change our group name per your commentary."

“To what?” Kristi asked warily.

Candace tapped on her phone, then held it up triumphantly. "There! Group name updated!"

I glanced at my phone as it buzzed.

[Kristi's Harem 🐾✨🐆🧑]

“You cheeky…!” Kristi lunged to grab at the fox, but Candace flashed into the changing rooms, cackling as she slammed the door shut.

"I'm going to strangle her," Kristi muttered.

"Will you really?" I asked.

“Feh, I probably won't," she said reluctantly. "But I can’t stop thinking about wanting to smack her.”

“I think that she wants to be smacked,” I said. “She’s being a tease on purpose.”

“Yeah.” Kristi settled back next to me, her tail curling around my foot. "The worst part is how much I'm starting to like her. She's infuriating but... she makes things less dull, I guess? Mostly, I like that she makes Nessy happy, complete, less wrong.”

Both of us fell silent for a moment. Kristi studied me. "Hey… Alec… How many times have you died?"

"In total? Across two livetimes?" I paused, trying to recall. "Honestly, I've lost count. Hundreds, maybe thousands of times. The G Supercenter is an exceptionally hostile territory. If the interdimensional ‘shoppers’ don’t kill you, random products or the corrupt employees do.”

She winced. Her tail snaked around me higher, feathers tickling my side.

"How many times have you killed yourself?"

“Lost count,” I shrugged. 

Kristi’s stare intensified. “Why?”

“Sometimes it was the only way to reset,” I explained. “When the Supercenter got into my head too deeply, when I started forgetting who I was, or started to become infected with ‘otherness’, I'd... end things. The death would shock my system back to reality, remind me I wasn't just another product on a shelf. Plus, it kept me from suffering like Vivianne did. She died… slowly. Became immobile, turned into plastic tiles over the week.”

“Wait, wait,” Kristi blinked at me with orange-gold eyes. “If conceptual conversion infection got inside you, how did you fully reset yourself? Surely just slicing your throat didn’t reseat all of you back to being human.”

“Ah,” I said. “That. Vaporisers.”

“Vaporisers?”

“A type of product. The Supercenter permitted a ‘freebie’ as a demo per single product,” I said. “I killed myself a bunch of times until I found a vaporiser that hurt the least and bought it.”

“What?” she let out. 

“I had to experiment for a while until I settled on the ‘Extra-Extreme hair dryer’ for 899’99 credits that atomized 99.99% of my physical body at the highest setting when pointed directly at my own head,” I explained. 

Kristi's jaw dropped, her scales paling to a shade of violet-gray. "You... vaporized yourself? Repeatedly?"

"Yeah" I nodded. "Quick and… mostly painless. Reconstitution would kick in, rebuild me from the some minute bone particle that remained behind.”

“Fuck,” she said, hugging me tighter. “Alec… what the fuck? How many times have you done this?”

“No idea. It all started to blend together after some point,” I said. 

“Shit,” she shuddered, eyes wet.

75. A Foxy Doggo

“I had to do what I had to do to get to this point,” I said. “To get you and Ness back. I followed Nessy’s insane instructions, reached the end of time, made a wish on the Leviathan, became the… Slayer. All to find you.”

“Why me?” She asked. “I mean… you didn’t even… like me that much… Did you? You… weren’t really my boyfriend or anything. You weren't the Alec I dated.”

“My life on human-only Earth was pretty shit,” I explained. “Shitty brother, uncaring parents, no friends, nobody that I trusted. I was already in a hopeless place before the gangsters drowned me in a bathtub. After Systemfall, Nessy found me and became my first real friend. Then… you became my second friend. Our relationship was… complicated and odd, sure. I saw you as this tall humanoid raptor, an alien being from an alien world. But, even so, you were my friend Kristi. In the few days we spent together in our RV domain, I felt… like for once I was living, like I had something to wake up for everyday. The Magnetic Lynx took that away from me and so I spent one whole eternity getting you back. Dying, killing, reconstituting, dying… ad nauseum."

The raptor girl began petting me fiercely, blinking tears out of her eyes.

“H-how m-many times have you killed yourself in this lifetime, Alec?” She pushed the next question out of herself with a struggle.

“Seven,” I said. “A few were accidental.”

“Tell me,” she said.

"Sure you want to know?” I asked.

“Yes, Alec, I want to know.”

“Right. The first time," I began, "I was seven. Damian set me on fire… ‘accidentally’ when he got mad at me. It hurt… something awful."

Kristi's breath hitched. "Seven? Abyss, Alec..."

"I couldn’t handle the pain and had no visible skills at all. I was told to endure it by my parents. I couldn’t. I ran away… I jumped off a railway bridge as the train was coming… woke up in the morgue a few days after," I continued. "Terrified the pathologist. They called it a miracle, said I must have been in a coma or something. Reconstitution had kicked in for the first time when I died."

"The second time?" she prompted after a minute of silently staring at me.

"Eleven. Damian began ramping up his 'experiments' with his Pyrokinesis. He'd burn my homework, my clothes, once even my hair while I slept. Parents always took his side—the prodigy couldn't possibly be at fault. I was so angry, so helpless… nobody would listen to me. I swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills from Mom's medicine cabinet. I wanted to scare them, make them realize how bad it was."

I felt Kristi's hand tremble on mine. "Did it... work?"

"The scaring part? No. They found me in time, pumped my stomach, restarted my heart. But Reconstitution would have brought me back anyway. I figured that out later."

She nodded, urging me to continue.

"Third time, thirteen. Accidental. I was practicing parkour on the roof of an abandoned warehouse in Memphis. I was trying to get stronger, faster, like the delvers I read about. Misjudged a jump between beams. Fell several stories, landed wrong. Snapped my spine."

"The fourth?" Kristi choked.

"Fourteen. Intentional. Dad caught me drawing—using my Depictomancy skill. He called it a 'useless waste of time', ‘disgusting prad appreciation’ and burned my sketchbook of prad girl images imbued with motion. I think that I was… drawing you and Ness. Can’t remember exactly. That night, I slit my wrists in the bathtub."

More sobs escaped Kristi. She pulled me closer, her feathers brushing my cheek, caressing me.

"Fifth, fifteen. Accidental. Car accident. I was riding my bike home from school when a drunk driver swerved into me. Crushed my legs, internal bleeding. I didn't bother healing myself. Died on the way to the hospital."

"Sixth. Intentional. Damian started using me as target practice for his fire spells. One day he went too far—burned my arm so badly the doctors talked about amputation. Reconstitution was at zero. I… tried drowning myself. It didn’t work. Woke up half-alive, floating on the water, rotting and bloated. Crawled to the shore. Died. Lost a few months in a liminal state of undeath. Eventually… woke up fully alive."

Kristi was holding me tight as if afraid I'd disappear. "And the seventh?"

"Sixteen. Accidental, mostly. I was free soloing a cliff face outside Little Rock, pushing my limits again. Rock gave way, fell about fifty feet. Multiple fractures, internal injuries. Then a rock slide buried me alive. I stayed in a liminal state when I died, dreaming of other lives, other places, other Alecs. Nobody found me. Days, weeks, months… thought that that was it, that I would never wake up.”

“How did you…?”

“Another rock slide when the weather got warmer,” I said. “Woke up in a muddy creek covered in bruises.”

I fell silent, the weight of my confessions hanging between us. Kristi's embrace tightened.

"All those times," she whispered. "And no one knew?"

"No one cared enough," I replied. "Damian was the golden child. I was a useless disappointment. I think that they were annoyed that I came back at all, called me an idiot for injuring myself."

"Not useless," Kristi said fiercely. "Not to us. Not to me."

I managed a smile. "Thanks."

She pulled back slightly, wet amber eyes meeting mine. "Promise me something."

"What?"

"No more," she said. "No more... intentional ends.”

“I don’t have a reason to do that now,” I said. “I have my memories back and I'm with my… pack, with you, Ness, Addie and Candace. I have a reason to keep going. All of you.”

Fox hands suddenly wrapped around both of us, Candace burying her face into Kristi. “Nuuuu… no tears… only hugs.”

"Fox," Kristi muttered. "Not now."

"Yes now," Candace insisted, squeezing tighter. "Pack hugs heal everything. Scientifically proven."

"By whom?" I asked.

"By me," she declared. "Doctor Rrrrhinehart M. Pawsome, PhD in Hugology with a minor in Cuddle Sciences."

Her silver tail lightly brushed against me as she pressed into our embrace. “Never alone,” she whispered to me. “Never ever again, Alec. No matter where you are, I’ll be by your side. Inescapably bound with my Dagaz.”

“What? Even if you…” I said.

“Even if I spontaneously combust,” she said. “Even if I’m murdered by an angry raptor bae. Even if the Lynx pulverizes my head again! I’ll be there. In the Astral. By your side. As a Phantom… till I infest a golem body or somesuch.”

“You can do that?” I blinked.

“I can do a lotta things when I’m… motivated,” she said. “And I’m super motivated now.”

Kristi huffed. Then she stared at the fox’s face. Candace’s left eye was sky blue.

“Nessy?” Kristi asked, “are you in there?”

“I am,” Candace-Nessy replied. “Wanted to be a fox for a bit.” She licked me and then licked Kristi. 

“Ugh,” the raptor deflated. “I just can't hate on you when you are… yourself.”

“Don't hate on anyone, Krissykins,” the fox with a husky soul said. “Only love. Only cherish. The universe is an uncaring engine of creation that sees us as annoying dust in the wind interfering with her game.”

“What?” Kristi blinked at the foxgirl.

“Sounds like Binder speak,” Adelle emerged from the changeroom with a passed out Nessy on her shoulder. “Don’t overthink this shit or you’ll blow a gasket.”

She turned to Candace. “How you enjoy being in a foxbod?”

“It’s… interesting,” Candace-Nessy replied. “I can see many things in the Astral as this body is better at Astral Gazine, but…”

She sighed deeply. “This body wants Topaz so badly. It's like an annoying scratching at the inside of my skull."

"You need to get clean,” Kristi said. “That stuff will rot your brain."

"I know, I know," Candace-Nessy grimaced, rubbing her temples. "But it's harder than just deciding to stop. Topaz isn't normal dust. It's crystallized sap from the Folding Forest trees."

"Folding Forest?" I asked.

"Andross," she said. "Another world. Another reality… a dungeon where the trees fold space. I think that the Omnids are bringing it to our Earth. Cryptid bastards.”

She growled. 

“Why are the Omnids peddling Topaz on our planet?” Adelle asked. 

“Money,” Candace replied, squinting and staring at nothing. “Power. It’s easier to keep control of rich Prads if they’re addicted to that shit.”

We exited the boutique, our purchases either sitting atop of the girls or stuffed into our dimensional bag.

"You look great by the way," Candace-Nessy smirked at Kristi. "Don't pretend you didn't enjoy the breeze."

Kristi made a strangled noise but didn't argue further. We meandered down the street to the edge of Cascade facing Lake Eerie. 

The wind from the continental-shearing lake picked up, carrying the scent of salt and rain. Storm clouds rolled across the horizon, cumulonimbus clouds looming over the half-submerged skyscrapers of Old Denver.

Lake Eerie stretched in every direction, vast and choppy. Large waves crashed against black volcanic sand and weathered pylons. Dragons circled the half-drowned towers, fluttering in the wind, their forms small against the massive structures.

Candace-Nessy led us to an old observation platform built on metal beams extending over the water. She climbed over a barrier fence onto a narrow metal beam that extended further over the water. The beam swayed slightly, but she moved with pradavarian balance, her tail acting as a counterweight.

Then, facing the distant ruins of Denver with storm clouds gathering behind them, she began to tap her foot against the sand-covered metal. A rhythm emerged, building slowly as she swayed.

Her voice, mostly Candace's but partially interwoven with Nessy's, rose above the crash of waves.

"Blue crystal dust from distant lands,
Wraps my mind in silken bands.
Rainbow prisms trap my soul,
Happy dreams take their toll."

Her paws stretched outward as she danced and swayed along the beam. The wind whipped her silver hair, making it glow against the darkening sky.

"Topaz whispers lullabies,
Paints false joy behind my eyes.
Pradavarians fall like flies,
To ghastly bliss that brings them highs."

Dragons circled above, drawn by her voice. Small ones at first, then larger specimens, their wings casting moving shadows across the observation deck.

"Infinite dungeon hides the source,
Folding Forest without remorse.
Trees that bend reality,
Feed on our vitality."

Her movements became more intense, feet tapping harder against the metal, creating deep percussion.

"Crystal fingers in my brain,
Fantasy replaces pain.
Smiling corpses, breathing still,
Slaves to Topaz, robbed of will."

Kristi moved closer to me, her arm wrapping around mine. Adelle held Nessy's body, eyes following the dancing fox.

"Pack threads weave through blue haze,
Four souls form a shield that stays.
Your warmth melts the crystal frost,
As Topaz's hold is slowly lost."

She spun, balanced on one foot, arms outstretched toward the sky where more little dragons now gathered, circling in synchrony with her movements.

"Love burns hotter than the dust,
Grinds the crystals into rust.
Your touch breaks what Topaz made,
Wakes me from the blue cascade."

Her voice grew stronger, more defiant:

"Hear my oath, now loud and clear,
Andross forest, feel my fear.
I'll cross worlds to find your trees,
Burn them all to set prads free."

Lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the ruins of Denver for an instant. Thunder followed, a bass note to her soprano.

"Rainbow prison turns to ash,
As our souls together clash.
Dagaz strength flows through my veins,
Real joy replaces phantom pains."

The dragons responded, small ones diving and spinning around her, larger ones roaring from above. A blue-scaled dragon the size of a fat cat landed on a beam nearby, watching her with deep green eyes.

"Blue temptation fades away,
As I turn to face the day.
No more dreams of false delight,
Love's the flame that wins this fight!"

As the last note faded, Canadace-Nessy stood motionless, breathing hard. The dragons hovered, their wings creating gusts that tousled her fur. The blue dragon bowed its head slightly before taking flight again.

"Damn yo," Adelle broke the silence. "That was intense. Doggo gave you serious musical talents."

Candace-Nessy turned, jumping gracefully back to the platform with a smile.

"Thanks," she smiled. "Music helps. Dragons help too, I think."

"The dragons responded to your song," I observed.

"They ain’t fans of Topaz either," she said. "Conceptually, they're opposed to anything that enslaves minds. Lawyers, Topaz, binding contracts, these are things along the similar conceptual range. I... like Dragon Alley, we should stay here tonight."