Where the Predators Prowl. [Ch 66, 67, 68]

66. Daughter divided

The waitress finally arrived with our food. Her eyes darted between us and the agitated-looking Whitepaw parents as she set the plates onto our table.

"Perhaps," Kristi suggested diplomatically, "we could all sit down and enjoy breakfast while we discuss this calmly? Mr. and Mrs. Whitepaw, would you and your children care to join us?”

"We are not sitting down to have breakfast with the people who have corrupted our daughter!" Rex growled.

"Sir, we didn't force Nessy into anything. She chose to be in our pack. Your daughter is an adult who can make her own decisions," I said, receiving a supportive squeeze from Nessy’s hand under the table. 

"An adult who was supposed to become a monk by the end of this year!" Natalie countered. "Who has been planning for that path since she was fourteen. Who suddenly disappeared, abandoned her commitments, and turned up smelling like—"

"Like passion and freedom!" Nessy interrupted, hackles rising. "Mom, Dad, I know this is a shock, but the temple was never my choice. Not really. It was what I thought I had to do because my friends convinced me that my dreams and songs were meaningless. They were wrong! I remember everything now!”

"Remember what?" Rex asked, letting go of his daughter slightly.

"Everything," Nessy repeated, glancing at me with a soft smile. "The life I lived before in a previous loop. The people I care about and… love."

"What are you talking about?!" Her father asked. “Wasn't the whole ‘seeking a breakaway from the infinite loop’ merely a philosophical ideology of the Krishna temple?”

"No. The temple monks were infested with Astral parasites," Kristi explained. "They were feeding on emotions, particularly love and attachment. They were taking Nessy's memories, her songs, her dreams."

"That's absurd," Natalie declared. "The Krishna temple was part of Ferguson for decades. They helped many people find peace… Hosted events, volunteered and aided so many people in need!"

"Uh-huh. By stealing their joy, sorrow and love," Candace interjected. “They won't be ‘helping’ anyone anymore, on the account that we shut down the Krishna temple and helped to remove its infected denizens.”

Miles and Roxy got tired of standing around and migrated to our table, sitting next to their sister, eyeing our untouched food with undisguised interest. Nessy, Candace and I slid deeper into the booth to make room for them.

"Can I have a bite of your waffles?" Miles asked Nessy.

"Sure, kiddo," she smiled, sliding her plate toward him.

"These are really good," Roxy commented, already sampling Candace's hash browns.

"Roxy! Miles! Get away from that food!" Natalie ordered. "You don't know what they might have put in it!"

"Pancake batter and bacon chunks, mostly," Candace replied dryly. “Also, the hostess just brought this food, when would we have had the chance to poison it? I'd never poison my family, I love you guys.” 

“Aww yuss, we got us a cute fox sister,” one of the twins commented.

"Look," I tried again, "I get how alarming this must be for you. Your daughter disappears, the temple is empty, and suddenly she's with four people you've never met. But I promise you, we care about Nessy deeply."

"Oh, I can smell exactly how 'deeply' you care," Rex growled.

"Dad!" Nessy exclaimed with a mortified expression.

"I think it's romantic," Roxy announced, her mouth full of harvested hash browns and bacon. "Like a fairy tale. Nessy found her true loves and they all fought monsters together!"

"Don't encourage this, Roxy," Natalie scolded.

"But Mom, just listen to Nessy. She sounds and smells happier than ever," Miles pointed out, chocolate smeared around his muzzle. “Haven't you noticed? She's not smelling depressed anymore!"

“Yeah, mom,” Roxy bobbed. “She's happy. Lay off with the whole boss-cat attitude n’ smell her feelings. Haven't you been worried about her? The temple wasn't fixing her. It’s been alleviating her melancholy, sure, but it always returned in the mornings. We've been very worried about our sis.”

This observation gave both parents pause. They looked at their daughter more carefully.

"Yes. I am happy. I found my voice again," Nessy explained. "The Astral Phantom parasites inhabiting the Well of Severance were stealing my songs, my memories. I got them back. I got myself back. Also, I finally found the boy I've been dreaming about.” Her hands wrapped themselves around me, tail wagging.

“How could four prads and a human clear out the entire Krishna temple?” Nessy’s dad attempted to find a hole in our story.

“We didn’t do it alone,” I said. “Just call Instructor Fern, TA Marlena or Principal Kerberos—they helped us arrest the monks. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to bring down the barrier shields.”

Rex's eyes narrowed skeptically. "The Administration of Ferguson High was involved in... what exactly? Storming a religious institution?"

"It wasn't storming," Kristi interjected. "It was more of a... sanctioned extraction.”

"Of parasite ghosts!" Candace added. "Big, squishy, blobby, emotion-eating parasites that looked like squid-shrooms. They were piloting the monks like meat puppets!" She tried to illustrate the ‘parasite puppeteering’ by wiggling her slender, long, white fingers.

"Meat puppets?" Natalie blanched.

"Sounds baller!" Miles exclaimed. "Were there explosions? Did you guys use magic?"

"Lots of magic n’ SO many explosions," Candace boobed. “Kristi flew through the temple on the Nemesis glider belonging to her grandfather n’ exploded the library doors with her Decimator railgun! TA Marlena battled underwater prads using her seal skeels and water Elementals. Instructor Fern battered the temple’s ward with a thousand air, mental, fire and earth Elementals! And Alec dove headfirst into a psychic well of doom and got his throat sliced open and was stabbed right through his heart—"

"WHAT?!" all four Whitepaws exclaimed simultaneously.

"But he got better," Candace added quickly. "Because of his Reconstitution skill. Very handy in a relationship with four virile prad femmes. Can’t die from a heart attack, you see."

"Fox, will you please shut up?" Kristi growled, kicking Candace under the table. “You’re going to give these poor dogs a heart attack if you keep going.”

"Alas, I've never been able to be mum," Candace replied slyly, "it's one of my most endearing qualities."

"Right then," Rex said, massaging his temples, "I'm going to call Principal Kerberos right now and verify this... ridiculous story." He pulled out his phone.

"Great idea!" Candace beamed, harvesting a crepe from the cheetah’s plate and stuffing it into her maw. “You do dat’ while we nom.”

"Oi, quit nabbing my crepes," Adelle growled.

"Sharing is caring, kitty-cat." The fox girl laughed. “Guys move over here, so Nessy’s parents can have room to sit.”

Kristi and Addie slid deeper into the booth, scooching closer to Candace with nearly identical, sour expressions.

Natalie sat down into the booth beside Kristi, looking dazed. "I don't understand any of this. Nessy, honey, just a week ago you were talking about your initiation ceremony. You've spent four years preparing for monastery life! You told me that it was your life’s mission to be a Krishna guru to help people with all sorts of life problems!”

"Mom," Nessy said gently, "I’m still going to help people. Just in other ways. With my pack. We’re going to help Ferguson through delving!”

“Delving’s dangerous,” her mother muttered. 

Nessy sighed. “The temple was a dangerous dungeon too, just one hidden from sight. The monks were basically half-sentinels under its control. Every time I had a dream about Alec or wrote a song about him, they'd take it away. They called it 'cleansing' but it was actually the theft of my real passion and dreams! All of the songs I wrote were about Alec!”

"So, you wrote songs about this human before you even met him?" Rex asked, phone pressed to his ear.

"Yes! That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Nessy exclaimed. "I knew him in another life—literally! We got together, fought monsters, built a domain in an RV! We planted a magical tree named Bulwichu and… the Magnetic Lynx killed me in the Superstore—"

Nessy’s mother blinked at the husky girl.

“In another life!” Nessy added. “Before this one, obviously!”

"Hello? Principal Kerberos? This is Rex Whitepaw, Nessy's father," Nessy's dad spoke into the phone.

We all fell silent, watching him.

"Yes... yes, I'm calling about... Well, my daughter claims that she participated in some kind of... operation at the Krishna temple involving parasites and... What?... She was?... Under your authority?... The entire temple?... Really?"

Rex's expression cycled through disbelief, shock, confusion, and finally resigned acceptance as he listened.

"You’re rewarding her with an all expenses paid trip to your homeland? I see... Yes... Of course... Tomorrow at 3:30 PM would be… Fine for a meeting. Yes, I'll bring Natalie... Thank you, sir."

He hung up, staring at his phone like it had personally betrayed him.

"Well?" Natalie prompted.

"Principal Kerberos... confirmed it," Rex said slowly. "There was apparently a 'parasite infestation' at the temple and a dungeon core that was cleared by a pack of student delvers, one of whom was Nessy, and two Instructors. The monks have all been arrested. The temple is now under the school's jurisdiction."

"Told ya!" Candace said triumphantly, chewing on a bacon stolen from my plate.

"And he wants to meet with us tomorrow to discuss Nessy's... situation," Rex continued. "He seemed to think her involvement was... commendable."

"Yay," Roxy piped up. "Our sister's a hero! I always believed in you, Ness!"

“Aww thanks,” Nessy smiled at her sister.

"A hero who eloped with four strangers," Natalie muttered.

"We're not strangers," Candace protested. "We're essentially the same soul split across four prads bodies. Like a quantum subdivision of a singularity."

"Candace," I told her. “I don’t think that Nessy’s parents can understand your Astral Binding terminology.”

"Bah!” Candace waved a white paw at me. “You don't know them like I do, Alec! They’re clever cookies. It means they only have one daughter-in-law, not four. Very economical."

“What's economical? We still eat like four prads, ya knob,” Addie commented. 

“You eat like four prads by yourself, babe,” Candace huffed. “I’m obviously talking ‘bout conceptual economy, not food savings. You know, like merging us all into a single body for ease of introductions and transport. Oh! Think of all the savings on train tickets!”

Nessy’s mother stared at us, her mind trudging through the molasses of Candace’s loopy verbiage. 

Nessy’s father grabbed a nearby chair, pulled it to the front of the booth and sat down with a deep, weary sigh, square glasses glinting with reflections. 

“Rex,” Natalie said. “What was that about a homeland trip?”

“Ah,” Rex chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “Principal Kerberos said that they’re going on a field trip to Omithornia.”

“Where is that?” Natalie asked with a look of suspicion.

"It’s a parallel Earth full of cryptids, crystal kittens, whack magitek, tentacle monsters and miscellaneous reality-bending horrors," Candace explained.

"WHAT?!" both Whitepaw parents exclaimed again.

"Candace," I groaned, "please stop helping."

"Never," she replied merrily, harvesting another piece of bacon from my plate.

"Ohh! I wanna go too!" Roxy bounced in her seat.

"Absolutely not!" Natalie barked. "No one is going to any... tentacle dimensions!"

"Aww, but Mom!" Roxy whined.

"Mrs. Whitepaw," I tried again, "It’s not a tentacle dimension, it’s just another Earth, one where Principal Kerberos was born. We all intend to protect and keep your daughter safe during this trip. Instructor Fern will be supervising us."

The prad girls around me nodded.

"It sounds to me,” Rex said. “Like my daughter is involved in some kind of supernatural danger that's well beyond what any teenager should be dealing with!"

"I'm not a teenager," Nessy protested.

"You're eighteen!"

"Chronologically, yes," she conceded. "But my soul is... technically much older."

"And divided," Candace added. “Half of you went to me.”

"Will you stop with the 'divided soul' nonsense?" Natalie snapped.

"It's not nonsense, Mom," Nessy insisted. "Why do you think Candace smells so much like me? Come on, you must have noticed our eerie similarities earlier, right?”

Natalie's eyes narrowed as she actually took a moment to study Candace more carefully. The silver fox sat there, grinning expectantly, her tail swishing back and forth. Despite the completely different species, there was something in the shape of her eyes, the mannerisms, even the way she tilted her head that echoed Nessy's movements, as if they were sisters.

"It… could be coincidence," Natalie finally said, but her voice lacked conviction. "Behavioral mimicry, perhaps, from spending time together. And you smell like each other because you… you know."

"Pfff, sure, mom. Why don’t you smell us properly," Candace challenged, extending her arm toward Natalie and grabbing Nessy’s arm to extend it across the table. "Really smell us. All of us. Beneath the surface scents of the physical. Smell our Astral imprint. I know that you can. Nessy got her Scrutiosmia from you. Dad, why don’t you look at us in the Astral?"

Natalie exchanged a concerned ‘what is this fox on’ glance with her husband. Tapping a white gem on her leather collar, the prad woman leaned in, sniffing Nessy’s and then Candace’s hand.

“Oi, raptor and cheetah baes,” Candace ordered Kristi and Addie. “Provide your hands to Mrs. Whitepaw for a review!”

The raptor and cheetah extended their paws to be sniffed.

Nessy’s father tapped his glasses and they ignited with silver hexagrams.

It took a moment for both of Nessy’s parents to fully engage their skills and artifacts and to examine each offered hand. In a few minutes of sniffing and staring, their faces grew long and then even longer.

This... this isn't possible," Natalie muttered. “They’re… the same.”

“Same frequency,” Rex nodded, staring at the cheetah, fox, husky and raptor. “Different species… but the same Astral imprint. Well not… exactly the same, since there’s a wide variety of damage at the edges, and different skill threads, but the core… the cores… are…”

“The heart of each soul smells exactly the same,” Natalie nodded, rubbing her temples. “Which isn’t possible because it breaks Matilov’s Theory of Animancy Principle Six—no soul is the same and…”

“No two souls can merge safely without devouring the weaker one,” Candace added. “See? We’re a paradox. An error in the cosmic equation!”

"Not just that," Rex said, his voice hollow as he stared at all four of my prad girlfriends through his glowing glasses. "All of you are connected. Bound together by some kind formation that’s folding into itself endlessly... Abyss eternal, I've never seen anything like this."

“That’s our Dagaz,” Candace grinned. “The self reinforcing [[[Love]]] Equation. Ain’t it pretty, daddy?”

“Self reinforcing magic without a Syntropic source isn’t possible,” Rex bit his lip, tapping a claw on the table. “Only a Dragonheart Engine can reinforce… Hrm. I do see a little dragonheart artifact on you, but it’s not powering this bond.”

“Hrm,” Natalie said, frowning. “I’m not smelling an endpoint of whatever this is.”

"It’s a rune, yes, but... alive. Self-sustaining. They're all feeding into each other through some kind of... infinite loop. A… liminal rune connected to…" Rex muttered, then his glasses suddenly stopped at me. “What in the Abyss?!”

His mouth fell open. “You…”

“Yes?” I looked back at the confused husky.

“You’re a tree,” he said.

“I’m aware,” I said.

“Not a person,” he added. “A tree masquarading as a person. Liminality wearing a single linear human-shaped point like a skinsuit.”

Reality around me seemed to wobble for a moment like a glitch, like everything around me was fake, made from flimsy cardboard, two-dimensional decorations, holographic projections. 

I suddenly felt like I could see past everything, past the restaurant walls, past the current Ferguson to the end of everything where the ever-present emerald comet tail sliced across the black sky forevermore, twisting into itself.

67. Family, Upgraded 

Nessy’s hand suddenly squeezed mine hard and linear physicality reasserted itself.

“Oi,” Candace snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Let sleeping gods lie!”

I blinked, not sure if the fox was talking to me or Nessy’s father. The strange sensation of seeing beyond the walls, of perceiving Ferguson as a thin veneer over some greater, horrific cosmic truth, gradually faded away.

"What?" I asked, my voice momentarily sounding distant to my own ears.

Candace just smiled enigmatically and patted my hand. "Nothing for you to worry about, tree-boy. Just keep those roots firmly planted in this reality, 'kay? No floating off into the Abyss or whatever."

“Uh, okay,” I said, blinking at her.

Rex was still staring at me, glasses glowing with silver hexagrams. "I've never seen an Astral signature like yours."

“That’s just my rare skill,” I shrugged. “I can’t die.”

“Alec has a verrrrrry pretty liminal soul,” Candace confirmed. “I could totally stare at it forever. So handsome. Mmmmmmrrrr.” 

"Dad," Nessy stated firmly, "Alec is human. He's just... more."

"More what?" Natalie asked, her nose twitching at me as she tried to process what her husband was seeing with her Scrutiosmia.

"More everything," Candace replied with a shrug. "He's our anchor point. The reason we can simultaneously exist as separate entities and one soul when fused together. Without Alec we’d still be one girl."

"I don't understand any of this," Natalie admitted, looking mentally drained by our revelations.

“I kind of do,” Rex said. “Infinite things do exist, they’re just impossible to examine fully. The Institute of Dungeon Research has been fiddling with edges of things like the Infinite Superstore. If this boy has an infinite soul and an infinity-aligned skill, then… it can break linear reality in peculiar, mind-boggling ways.”

Miles suddenly piped up. “So I have… five sisters?”

“Yes and no,” Candace ruffled the teen husky’s mane. “The four of us are soul sisters, but physically we’re much too different to be genetic siblings.”

“Still pretty neat,” the husky boy admitted, smiling at the fox. “I like you, you’re funny.”

“Thanks darling,” Candace smiled back.

"But that still doesn't explain..." Rex began, then stopped, turning off his magitek glasses and rubbing the bridge of his snout. "No, you know what? I don't need to understand everything right now. What I really need to know is whether my daughter is safe."

"I am, Dad," Nessy assured him, reaching across the table to take his paw. "Safer than I've been in years. The temple was... it was killing me slowly. Taking pieces of me away. I didn't even realize how much I'd lost until I got it back. If it wasn’t for Alec and my soul-sisters I’d end up as just a shell of myself, another body infected and piloted by an Astral Phantom.”

Candace, Kristi and Adelle nodded in confirmation. 

"There was no actual spiritual path that the temple offered, only the death of love, of passion, and end to everything. My Syn-pack mates saved me from the Abyss, isn’t that enough?” Nessy insisted.

Her parents considered her words.

"They didn't just help," Nessy's eyes sparked with tears at the edges. "They fought for me. Risked their lives. Alec literally got stabbed through the heart, died to retrieve my memories!"

"That does sound... Heroic," Rex admitted reluctantly.

"Welcome to our world," Adelle muttered, "every day with these whack knobs is like this."

"There's no need to be rude, Adelle," Kristi chided.

"Not rude," the cheetah defended. "Accurate! My live’s been extra-fucking wild since I claimed Alec. Might as well be honest about it."

"Language," Natalie admonished automatically.

"Sorry, ma'am," Adelle replied, not really sounding sorry at all.

The waitress approached our table again. "Um, would the new guests like to order something?"

"Yes, please," Nessy answered. "My parents will have the Atomic Sunrise Specials, and my siblings would like..." She looked at Miles and Roxy.

"Chocolate chip and bacon-infused crepes!" they chorused.

"Coming right up," the waitress said, flitting away on her glider skates.

"We didn't agree to—" Natalie began.

"Mom," Nessy interrupted softly, "please. Let's just have breakfast together. As a family. An... expanded family. This here is my pack, my new family and there’s nothing either of you can say or do to make me leave them. I love them all!”

Her words felt like a warm, cozy blanket to my ears. 

Family. Something I hadn't had in any meaningful way since my parents sent me off to Ferguson. Something that had been nothing but a source of pain and misery for most of my life.

When I arrived in Ferguson, I had assumed this mountain Citadel was a human-hating magitek fortress full of rude speciest jerks. But, over the past few days, this town and its prad inhabitants were once again starting to grow on me.

"Alright," Rex finally conceded.. "Breakfast was why we came here after all."

"Great," I smiled. "We'll be happy to answer any questions you have."

"Within reason," Candace added with a wink. "Some things are private, you know. Unless you bribe me with hugs. Then I’ll reveal all my secrets. My kingdom for a hug from parents who love me! Anyways, just think of me as your Nessy, but if she was taken from you at birth and raised by rich, uncaring, fox snobs." She added. 

. . .

Candace’s exaggerated tale of her fox-kit upbringing seemed to obliterate the remnants of tension at the table. Her description of the Rhinehart Estate as a "soul-crushing dungeon where hugs cost extra life" sent Miles and Roxy into fits of giggles and made Nessy's parents frown.

Breakfast arrived carried by the waitress and a pill droid.  

Time passed quickly in a blur of food and conversation. Nessy’s father questioned me about my background growing up in human territory, my grandfather’s farm condition, where we were currently staying at, and my rare skill.

Afterwards, Rex put the raptor, the fox and cheetah through rounds of grilling interrogation. 

Through it, I learned about Kristi’s struggle with her family who constantly expected too much from her as the firstborn Prima. 

The raptor girl told us about the constant pressure exerted upon her from every side of her life. From her father—to excel, to be the best at everything, particularly politics, leadership and cleverness. From her siblings—to be the most violent, fastest, strongest, fittest. From her mother—to present herself as the most beautiful person in the room, to constantly look perfect from every angle.

She complained of the said pressure being enforced by cameras, security and butlers monitoring her at every turn within the Strand Estate, compiling reports about her behaviour and rating her constantly.

She snarled that all of her hobbies and passions had been crushed thoroughly, from her appreciation for carving wooden art, to her passion for aviation and of her parents ‘not giving a fuck about what she wanted’.

From that, the interrogative conversation shifted to Adelle, who reluctantly admitted that her family is ‘piss poor trailer trash with far too many siblings for her to even bother naming’. I learned that the cheetah grew up babysitting her younger sisters while her father got pass-out drunk or vanished on hunting raids and that her mother constantly left to gamble at the Strand casino. 

Adelle revealed that the mantle of ‘babysitter’ had been passed to her younger sister when she ran away from home to create her delving gang, otherwise there would be a pretty high chance of her murdering both of her parents in a fit of feline rage.

When Adelle fell silent, having run out of the few words she was able to push out of herself, Candace filled in the conversation gap.

The fox admitted to running away from her home four months ago. She revealed unable to take the pressure of social dinners where she was constantly shown off to corporate CEOs, Senators, Administrators and misc wealthy prads as a ‘wonderful business asset’ by her mother.

Unlike Kristi’s sharp diction and Adelle’s angry muttering, Candace chatted on like falling rain, explaining how her parents threw overpriced Binding, Seer and misc other magic tutors at her, focused on maximizing her market value rather than nurturing her as a person.

Nessy's mother became visibly distraught upon hearing the stories of our teenage misfortunes and rebellions, her maternal instincts gradually extending from Nessy to me and our packmates. Rex seemed to soften too, initial hostility replaced by concern.

The twins, for their part, peppered us with endless questions about our adventures, particularly fascinated by the temple raid. Roxy declared about five times that she wanted to be a delver when she grew up, causing her mother to send concerned glances her way.

The husky twins also pestered Adelle, Candace and Kristi about their combat abilities, begging for demonstrations. The raptor refused to show off her skills at the breakfast table. The cheetah performed a mini-shadowstep cast, sending food from her hands across the table into Candace’s mouth, who snapped it out of the air. Candace fused a fork to a spoon to show off her skill, laughing as the twins tried and failed to pry the cutlery apart.  

By the time we finished eating, something truly remarkable had happened. The Whitepaw parents no longer looked at us as corrupting influences but as troubled young adults who had found each other through unusual circumstances and became each other’s support.

I felt a sense of appreciation that at least one of us had loving parents. 

Nessy too practically glowed, her family's acceptance warming her from the inside out. Her tail thumped a steady, happy rhythm against my back.  

"You must all come to dinner," Natalie announced. "Tonight. I want to get to know my daughter's… Syn-pack… properly. Without making a spectacle of ourselves in public."

We voiced our noises of agreement.

"Excellent! I'll make my famous pot roast," Natalie smiled.

"Mom's pot roast is legendary," Miles whispered to me. "She only breaks it out for special occasions."

"Seven o'clock,” Rex stated. 

"Can do," Candace licked syrup from her claws.

Of course, the universe just had to roll a cloud over our moment of sunshine.

Nessy’s and Candace’s heads snapped to the diner’s front door before it even opened, sensing the arrival of doom with their future-smelling and seeing skills.

A tall, silver-white vixen, resembling Candace in a multitude of ways, in a tailored silver business suit entered first. Behind her came a massive, gray-skinned shark pradavarian woman in a black suit and sunglasses. Scrutimancer Goebel Sartre shuffled in last, looking like he didn’t want to be here.

Candace’s fork dropped to her empty plate with clatter, her spine straightening out, lips curling up in an ice-cold, half-smirk, half-snarl. 

“W-aah-fuck,” Adelle’s eyes snapped to the trio. She attempted to hide her furry orange bulk behind Kristi, which worked poorly.

"Language," Natalie chided on autopilot, oblivious to the approaching storm.

The elegant vixen’s eyes slashed across the room and landed on us. Silver eyes, exactly the same as Candace's, narrowed. She gracefully glided through the diner with her security detail and Scrutimancer in tow.

"Candace Ian Rhinehart," she declared, voice undulating between TV-announcer diction and mercurial poison.  

"Sup Mom?" Candace fired back, the mask of Donutz the rebel sliding onto her face with an invisible snap. "Fancy meeting you here. Love the suit. New Arcane Couture?"

"Don't you ‘sup’ me, young lady," Mrs. Rhinehart snapped. "Your father is beside himself. We had to postpone the board meeting today because he couldn't focus. And I had no choice but to track you to this diner.”

“Uh-huh,” Candace rolled her eyes.

“And now I see you having breakfast with—"

She stopped, gray eyes flashing with radiant flares from within and rolling over in the rest of us like a tank with no breaks. Her nostrils flared as she caught our scents. With that, the perfect composure she wore cracked, her entire face twitching.

"Mother, these are my lovely packmates," Candace stated. "This is Alec, our Alpha, and—"

"Your what?" Mrs. Rhinehart cut her daughter off, her voice jumping an octave. Her stare zeroed in on me, hot and intense like a laser. "Candace, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

68. Aelianne Rhinehart

“Bondery,” Candace replied with a feral grin to her mother’s demand. “Elopery.”

“A LEVEL THREE human? You've bound yourself to a human?!" The older-copy of my fox girlfriend snarled.

"And a raptor, a husky, and a cheetah," Candace added. “As you can see n’ sniff.”

Barely concealed shock, disgust, and then fury boiled beneath Mrs. Rhinehart's pristine features. "This is unacceptable! Absolutely unacceptable. You will unbind yourself from these prads and… human at once! I did not raise you to—"

"You didn't raise me at all," Candace fired back. "The nannies did. And the tutors. Sometimes security like Miss. Anatolia’s shark pack sisters. And sometimes Goobs. Mostly Goobs. Sup, dawg?"

The shark bodyguard shifted her weight, muscles rolling under the suit. Goebel pursed his lips offering the fox a small nod.

"How dare you?" Mrs. Rhinehart hissed. "After everything we've done for you? The opportunities we provided? This is how you repay us? By binding yourself to some… some commoners?"

“First of all, one of them ain’t a commoner. Kristi is a Prima of the Strand Estate. But, yes,” Candace stated, tail bristling, ears drawn back. “The bindery has happened. It’s irreversible and liminal, reinforced with Infinity I stole from the Superstore. Too bad, so sad.”

“You WHAT?!” Her mother’s glare intensified to nuclear levels.

“TOO BAD. SO SAD.” Candace roze from her seat, heckles going into the stratosphere.

"Excuse me," Rex said, getting to his feet, seemingly choosing to be a shield between the two increasingly hostile arctic foxes before they started tearing out each other’s throats. "I'm Rex Whitepaw. I don't believe we've been introduced."

"Aelianne Rhinehart," the elder vixen answered automatically, looking down at the shorter male prad. She glanced at the Scrutimancer.

“Rex Borrik Whitepaw is a proprietor of the Whitepaw Mini-Mart and car wash on 764 Main Street,” Goebel clarified for his mistress.

"That I am," Rex confirmed. "And this is my wife, Natalie, and our younger children, Miles and Roxy."

“Quaint," Aelianne nodded to Nessy's family. "Mr. Whitepaw, my apologies. Your husky daughter appears to have been ensnared in my daughter's... experiment. I assure you this binding will be dissolved immediately."

"Actually," Natalie spoke up, "from what I understand, the binding was mutual and consensual."

“Why thank you, mom,” Candace beamed at Nessy's mother. "See, Aelianne? Even Mrs. Whitepaw gets it, and she just met us like an hour ago."

"I don't care if it was mutual, consensual, or blessed by the Pradavarian Senate itself!” Aelianne snapped, “It's not happening!" She turned to Goebel. "Get out your nullifier."

The Scrutimancer sighed with an uncomfortable look. "Ma'am, I'm not entirely certain a nullifier would work on this particular binding. If it's reinforced by a Superstore artifact aligned to infinity, it cannot be nullified.”

The elder-fox’s eye twitched. “Just do it! I’m not paying you to stand around!”

“What about…?” The scrutimancer glanced at the other cafe patrons.

“Secure the perimeter,” Aelianne growled.

The shark pulled out some kind of a sphere artifact and pressed a button on it. A view and sound-muting barrier shield manifested around our group engulfing about six meters of the restaurant and three nearby empty booths.

“Now Goebel,” the fox barked.

With a metaphorical thousand-ton weight of unwieldy work, the dog stepped closer to our booth and pulled out a magitek railgun out of his long coat. The black, sleek railgun was far too big to fit into the pocket. I saw the letters E.V.A burned into its hexagon-textured surface. The weapon made the husky family tense up.

“Bringing out Eva, are we? You’re gonna regret it, Goobie,” Candace commented.

The Scrutimancer dog stared at her from his dark, round glasses. “I have to do my job.”

“Go on then G’,” Candace said with a feral grin. “Do it. Witness me.”

Goebel pointed the gun up and pressed the trigger and the entire booth and a section of the restaurant around him suddenly turned black and white.

Candace raised an eyebrow, radiating a radioactive fusion of smugness and devious malice.

Reality between us wobbled. Lines of static manifested themselves between five of us, connecting chest to chest. With each passing moment, they thrummed louder with a sound that wasn’t quite a sound, buzzing without a buzz, singing without voices.

The roots of my soul sang back. 

I saw it again then, beyond the gray edges of the nulliefier’s bubble. Endless silver-blue eyes peering down at me. A green tail devouring itself. A laugh of something vast and unending.

Goebel choked, releasing the trigger.

Colors returned to the world.

“Are you satisfied? You saw her, didn’t you, Goobie?” Candace purred. “Infinity Paradox Proxima. That which does not desire to be nullified. That which is already divided by zero and cannot be silenced. The song of the end and the beginning and the shearer of all.”

She snipped her fingers like scissors. “Choppity chop chop chops.”

The Scrutimancer stepped back, his expression slack and then cast into an ocean of pure horror.

“Well?” Aelianne demanded, not bothering to look at the Scutimancer’s aghast face. “Did the nullifier…?”

Goebel slid the railgun back into his extradimensional pocket and took another step away from our table.

"The nullifier failed, ma'am," he said. "The binding between them is... beyond a null-shard’s ability to silence. It is a liminal soul-blood-pact, bound with an infinite wish. It cannot be broken."

“Don’t give me this shit, everything can be broken for the right price,” Aelianne began. “Maybe an Animancer can…”

“No,” Goebel shook his head. “You’d have to kill all four of them to separate them from your daughter.”

Aelianne opened her mouth.

“Which cannot be done because this boy is immortal,” Goebel pointed a dark claw at my head. 

Candace’s mother seemed to mentally consider how I could be killed.

I decided it was time to speak up, the cold anger boiling the surface into blossoming, blue fire engulfing my endless branches.

"Mrs. Rhinehart," I said, "Candace is safe and happy with us. She's part of our pack now. Your Scrutimancer is correct, I’m immortal. Also, if you attempt to break up our pack, or attempt to mess with me, or stop me from my Quest, everyone in Ferguson dies.”

“What?!” Her grey eyes struck me.

“Everyone dies,” I repeated. “The Butcher of Delvers will walk into Ferguson Citadel, tear off the magisteel blast doors and use them to smash the border guards into blood puddles.”

Mrs. Rhinehart's silver eyes narrowed

"You must have read about her, seen the articles. The Magnetic Lynx doesn't just kill. She dismantles. She will pull apart this city's defenses rune by rune,” I spoke, letting all of my anger pour over the woman. “She will rip the celesteel-woven obelisks from the ground and use them as spears to impale the guards. She will compress cars into metal cubes with people still inside them, screaming as they're crushed. She will tear the limbs off anyone who tries to fight her and punch through prad hearts and heads with superheated nails travelling at supersonic speed. I know this because I faced her before."

“You… WHAT?” She barked.

"The Butcher of Delvers will shatter every storefront on Main Street. She'll demolish your corporate headquarters floor by floor. She will pull the iron struts from the Gurrwulf & Rhinehart Industries Mill silos and use them as rolling pins to flatten whatever stands in her path.”

The fox woman stared at me.

“She will pull all gliders from the sky with a flick of her wrist,” I resumed. “She'll use her magnetic powers to tear the fillings from people's teeth and the implants from their bodies. When she reaches your personal fortress, she'll peel it open like a tin can. The walls won't protect you. Your high level guards won't save you. She'll find you cowering in your panic room and pull you through the ventilation shafts by the metal buttons on your fancy suit, by the metal in your blood, shearing, folding, reshaping your body into a broken, twisted, half alive mess.”

“You,” Aelianne choked. “You’re mad… you…”

“You will be sniffed out just like everyone,” I finished. “So don't try to mess with me.”

"He's not lying," Goebel stated flatly. "The Magnetic Lynx touched him a few days ago. I can see her echo in his Astral imprint. She watches him, waits for him."

“W-WHAT?!” The fox woman spun to her Scrutimancer, her face aghast.

The Whitepaws looked just as horrified.

“If you attempt to unbind Candace from me,” I said. “Everyone dies. Your daughter is a brilliant Binder. She’s potentially the only prad in the world who can help me stop the Butcher of Delvers. The Lynx permits groups of five to enter her domain. Five.” I repeated sharply, waving a hand at our group. “She’s chosen me and my pack to face her in the future. If we fail to show up, fail to get strong, she will obliterate everyone in town.”

Aelianne looked at Goebel, clearly desperately wishing for him to tell her that I was just a liar, a child making up tall tales. He did not.

In that moment, something snapped within her. Wetness flashed at the edges of her eyes. 

“Candace…” she let out. “You… you can’t… You can’t delve into that cursed place! P-please. We can move to the New New York Citadel. We can…”

“The Lynx made it pretty clear that running away won't save anyone. She stated that she will hunt every last person down, starting with those I care about and ending with anyone that I’ve interacted with,” I said. “This includes you, Aelianne."

The fox trembled in my gaze, white claws digging into her palms.

"Goebel," she hissed, "verify the Quest binding."

The Scrutimancer nodded. He walked over to the back of the booth and put his paw on my head, followed by everyone’s eyes. I felt a gentle pressure against my consciousness, like fingers sifting through sand.

"It's genuine," he confirmed after a moment, letting go of me and stepping back. "Level: Impossible. Objective: Navigate Highway Sixty-Nine's temporal maze and reach the end. Failure: Death of all Ferguson residents."

Rex and Natalie gasped in unison. The Scrutimancer’s confirmation hammered Aelianne like a truck crashing into her at top speed.

Candace raised her hand, making a finger gun. She pretended to shoot her mother. 

"Boom," she mouthed, blowing invisible smoke from her finger-gun. "Checkmate."

Aelianne stared at Goebel, her body going rigid. The perfect, composed business fox came apart before our eyes like a shattering glass chandelier.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head. "No, no, no."

Her silver claws shot up to her face, digging into her cheeks hard enough to leave red marks through her white fur. Goebel stepped toward her, worry etched across his canine features, but the shark bodyguard moved faster.

"Ma'am," Anatolia said, trying to sound gentle. The shark security carefully guided Aelianne toward an empty booth within the barrier shield’s effect. "Please sit down."

Aelianne allowed herself to be led, her eyes glazed over and distant. She sank into the booth, her trembling hands fumbling inside her tailored suit. After a moment of frantic searching, she pulled out a small silver flask.

Without a word, she unscrewed the cap and tilted the flask back, gulping down whatever was inside. When she lowered it, her eyes stared straight ahead at nothing, seeing something far beyond the diner walls.

Then the tears came.

They spilled silently down her cheeks, cutting glistening trails through her white fur. She made no sound at first, just sat there leaking tears, her shoulders beginning to shake.

"My daughter," she finally choked out. "My only child. It can’t… she can’t…"

The shark bodyguard stood awkwardly beside her, looking unsure as to what to do about her boss’s outburst of emotions.

Candace watched her mother cry. Vindication traced itself over her features, then surprise, then a shadow of something that might have been guilt.

"Wow," she muttered. "I didn't know she could do that."

"Do what?" I asked quietly.

"Cry," Candace replied. "I've literally never seen her cry before. Not once in eighteen years. You’ve actually made my mom cry. That’s like… Damn. Okay yeah. I loved you as Ness before, but now I’m pretty sure that I love you as myself. Mega hard. Thanks, Alec.”

She wrapped me in a hug.

Across the table, Nessy's parents and siblings exchanged troubled glances.

"Perhaps," Rex suggested carefully, "we should give Mrs. Rhinehart some privacy."

"Good idea," Natalie agreed, gathering her purse. "Children, let's go. We’ll see you all tonight and talk about… all of this Quest business. We’ll pay for your breakfast too, everyone."

She sent a glance at us. Then, the Whitepaw family departed quickly, vanishing through the shield.

Aelianne's sobs grew louder, less controlled. She hunched over, one paw clutching the empty flask, the other pressed against her mouth to stifle the sounds.