Where the Predators Prowl [Ch 39-43] (Patreon)

39: The Real Mission

“My pack won’t fall apart,” I said. 

“You’re certain of this?” Ignis asked.

“I’m certain,” I said. “We’re bound together by Candace’s magic and a dungeon Quest of insanely high difficulty.”

“Truly?” The Instructor stared down at me.

“Yes,” I nodded. “This… Omnid takeover seems like really concerning shit, sure, but to me… it doesn’t make that much of a difference. Before I went into that damn office, high level prads delvers like you seemed like the toughest inhuman monsters around, someone to fear and hate. Now I discovered that delvers like you are actually on my side and that Omnids are the toughest inhuman things out there. However, overall that’s not relevant.”

“It’s… not?” Ignis blinked at me. 

“Not really,” I shrugged. “I thought that it was Prad corpos that were the biggest baddies out there, walling up dungeons and whisking away talented but dumb kids into perpetual delving slave labour. Now it’s honestly just… the same shit with a different name and face. Prads? Omnids? It doesn’t matter who’s the asshole in charge. There’s nothing I can truly do about the Omnid-controlled government at this point. Opposing what the Omnicorps are doing is as productive as yelling at the sky or emptying the ocean with a spoon. Like is there something you can do about these… Omnids?”

“Not really,” Ignis sighed. “Especially if Archmage Amadeus won’t do anything to help.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Therefore it’s not relevant now. Sure, it might become relevant later, if I can figure out how to leverage it for the good of my impossible mission somehow… but not at this juncture.”

“Then what is relevant… at this juncture? What exactly is your… impossible mission, Alec?” She asked.

“I… need you to be the best damn dungeoneering Instructor you can be for me and my team,” I said. 

“Why?” She asked.

“I have a quest from the Magnetic Lynx of Highway Sixty Nine,” I revealed. “If I don’t conquer the Infinite Highway—the Magnetic Lynx will murder everyone in Ferguson.”

“Everyone?!” Ignis breathed out. Her eye flickered at me, a Truth rune flashing within. “Hrm… you’re not lying.”

“No, I am not. Everyone in town dies unless I reach the heart of the Infinite Highway,” I said. “This whole shebang with the Principal simply showed me that while I cannot trust the local Pradavarian Administration, I can absolutely trust you, Instructor Fern.”

Ingis nodded.

“I need you… to push me and my delving pack to our limit, to train us as the best damn delvers in the world… because unlike the others, we cannot afford to fail,” I told her. “We aren't delving for money or fame. We're delving to save others.”

“Very well. This I can do.” She straightened, adjusting her suit jacket. "Return to your team. Prepare for the simulation. I'll join you shortly."

As I turned to go, she added, "And Mr. Foster? Be careful. You've potentially placed yourself on a very dangerous radar with the knowledge you carry.”

“No worries there,” I nodded grimly. "I'm always careful.”

With a snap of her claws, the barrier shield around us dissolved.

. . .

When I rejoined my team in the gymnasium, they were in the middle of a heated debate about who would be permitted to sit on my right side at lunch as the number two lieutenant. Candace was the first to notice my return, her silver ears perking up.

"There he is! Took ya long enough," she called out. "What did the Principal want?"

I hesitated, remembering Fern's warning about the walls having ears. "Got a corporate job offer," I said. 

“You did?” Kristine stared at me. “Damn that’s pretty fast. Did you…”

“I rejected it, obviously,” I said. “Someone needs to supervise you guys.”

"Just... supervise?" Candace fluttered her white lashes at me with a coy smile. "Not... rule? Command? Dominate?"

“Uhh, sure,” I replied, rolling my eyes at her insinuations.

Nessy's blue eyes narrowed as she studied my face. "You're hiding something," she said abruptly.

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"Your scent changed," she said simply. "There's a new layer of... worry. Plus your expression. You’re tense about… something."

I glanced at the others, who were now all staring at me with varying degrees of curiosity and concern. No point in denying it to these four.

"Fine," I admitted. "Yes, I'm hiding something. I promise I'll tell all of you about it after the sim... if you behave."

"Just for that, I'm not gonna behave," Candace laughed, her tail swishing mischievously. "In fact, I'm going to be extra naughty."

"More than usual?" Adelle commented. “Is that even possible?”

"I'll have you know that my naughtiness has no upper limit," Candace declared. "I'm basically the infinity of misbehavior!"

“That’s how you get coal in your stocking on See-Mass day!” Nessy snorted. "Hrmm. What's the square root of your naughtiness, then?"

"The imaginary number 'i' raised to the power of 'your mom,'" Candace shot back without missing a beat.

"Are we talking Cartesian or polar coordinates for this naughtiness function?" I asked, playing along.

"Oh, definitely polar," Candace wiggled her eyebrows. "Everything I do is polarizing."

"I have no idea what you dweebs are talking about," Adelle admitted. "But it sounds dirty so I approve."

Before our mathematical innuendo could evolve further, Professor Fern strode into the gymnasium, her scarred face set in a determined expression. She had composed herself remarkably well after our confrontation with the Principal, though I could still see a pitch of tension in her movements.

"Team Foster," she called out. "Approach."

“Is that what we are?” Candace commented, glancing at me. “I feel like we could use a funnier name.”

“Later,” I said. 

We gathered around the Instructor as she activated a holographic display showing a detailed map of what appeared to be a dense forest stretching towards the mountainside cliffs away from the edge of the school.

"This is your dungeon simulation," she explained, her burning eye scanning our faces. "The rules are simple: retrieve the hidden treasure from the forest and return to the gymnasium without being 'killed' by the monster students. The forest directly outside of the gym back doors has been temporarily modified by me to serve as the dungeon environment.”

"Professor," I said, "quick question: if we manage to capture or subdue monster students, can we turn them back into delvers to assist us?"

Fern shook her head. "No. Once designated as monsters, they remain so for the duration of the simulation. However," she added, "if you can drag them back into the gymnasium—outside the dungeon boundary—they will be considered 'permanently disabled' and removed from combat. The gym’s ward will knock them out into a deep sleep until 3:30, which is when delving class ends today. Tomorrow, all of the Sentinels you eliminated will be back to haunt the forest similarly to how most dungeons respawn their monsters.”

"Got it," I said with a nod.

"Also," Ignis continued, "you may procure equipment from the ‘Guild Shop’." She gestured to a wall featuring a display of various items. "Smoke bombs, flashbangs, knockout blackjacks, extradimensional bags, pacifier handcuffs and ropes—basic dungeon-delving supplies."

Candace bounced on her toes with excitement, pulling a bag from the wall. "Dibs on the extra-dimensional bags! I can totes bind them to hold more than their intended capacity!"

“Ehhh,” Adelle examined the wall weapons and cracked her knuckles. "I’d rather just use my… natural weapons."

Professor Fern gave us a final, meaningful look. "I'll be departing now to... manage the dungeon environment. Good luck, Team Foster.”

With that said, she strode out through the back doors of the gymnasium, heading toward the forest to take her position as the "dungeon boss."

Once she was gone, I gathered my team into a tight huddle.

"Alright, here's the plan," I said, lowering my voice. "First, we need to make the most of our talents. Nessy, I want you to empower Candace with your Riffweld. Can you sing something that boosts magical control of binding skills?"

Nessy nodded, her blue eyes lighting up. "Can do."

"Perfect," I turned to Candace. "Once Nessy empowers you, I want you to bind Kristi to the concept of 'invisibility' or something along those lines. Basically, make her harder to spot, easy to overlook."

The fox nodded.

"Candace—how many people can you bind to your control?" I asked the fox.

She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Two at most, if I want to maintain stable control threads. I can pilot one person at a time. I’ll need a partner to pilot the other bound person. You in?”

I nodded, turning to the raptor. “Kristi, once Candace finishes binding you to invisibility, I need you to scout and capture two ‘monsters’—preferably ones who won't be immediately missed."

“Sure,” Kristi grabbed a blackjack and a pair of pacifier handcuffs from the wall.

We moved to a quiet corner of the gym. Nessy took a deep breath and began to sing, her voice carrying a strange power that seemed to make the air vibrate around us.

As she sang, her paws traced glowing patterns in the air that swirled around Candace. The fox's silver fur seemed to glow faintly, her gray eyes taking on an otherworldly luster.

"Shit, this is awesomesauce," Candace grinned, flexing her fingers as violet-silver sparks danced between them. "Like I could bind the whole world right now! Commer, raptor-bae!”

She turned to Kristi, placing her glowing hands on either side of the raptor's head. "Unbind notice," she murmured. "Bind obscurity. Make eyes slide past, attention wander, mute sound, obscure smell, memory forget…” she rumbled under her breath, pawing the raptor.

Kristi's form seemed to shimmer slightly, not truly invisible but somehow less... present. When I looked directly at her, I could see her but it was hard to think about her and my eyes kept sliding off her body.

"How do I look?" Kristi asked, walking around our group.

“Way hard to focus on ya,” Adelle said. “I’d probably miss you if I tried to punch your nogging.”

"Like someone I'd forget I saw even while I was looking at you," I replied. "It's working. Go gem em!"

Kristi nodded and flashed away, vanishing from sight completely as she took off.

While we waited, Candace and I prepared the extra-dimensional bags, the fox binding them to increase their capacity. Once the bags were ready, now featuring an interior space of about 2x2 meters each, we stuffed various weapons, potions, and tools into the enhanced extra-dimensional bags, preparing for every contingency we could think of.

It was nearly thirty minutes later when Kristi returned, slipping through the door with two unconscious pradavarians slung over her shoulders—a male and female pair of gray wolves.

"That was almost too easy," she said, carefully laying them down. "The monsters are all over the forest, but they're completely disorganized. No coordination, no leadership. They're just wandering around in small groups or alone. Elementals are helping them though—I nearly got caught when a wind Elemental blew my scent toward a group of cats."

"That's Yura Carriosh and Pire Wick," Candace said, examining our unconscious captives. "Good catch. Low level knobs, not particularly observant.”

I nodded in approval. "Perfect. Now for phase two."

Candace knelt beside the wolves, placing one hand on Yura's forehead and the other on Pire's. "This is gonna be tricky," she warned. "I'm going to create control threads from myself to Yura and from you to Pire. You'll essentially be riding in his consciousness while I ride in hers."

"How exactly does that work?" I asked.

"Think of it like... remote piloting," Candace explained. "Your body will go into a trance state while your consciousness inhabits Pire's body. You'll see through his eyes, feel through his senses, but you'll be in control. It's kinda like the ultimate infiltration technique."

"Is it dangerous?" Nessy asked, her ears flat with concern.

"Nah," Candace assured her. "Well, not usually. I've done this before.”

“With whom?” I wondered.

“I bound myself and Cap into Bark and Tequila,” Candace grinned. “While they were passed out drunk. It was fun making out using other people’s bodies.”

“I see,” I said, trying not to think too hard about the ethical implications of her actions. “How long can we pilot them?” I asked.

“If we stay super close to our own bodies,” Candace replied, “At least around 3 hours. Basically, the further away the body you’re piloting is, the faster the Astral binding decays. Alright, let's not kill daylight n’ do this."

Candace began the binding ritual, her powers making the silver threads appearing in the air that connected me to the unconscious wolf boy. I felt a strange pulling sensation, as if my mind was being gently tugged from my body.

"Lie down," Candace instructed. "This will be disorienting at first."

I complied, stretching out on the gymnasium floor beside her. The last thing I saw before closing my eyes was Nessy's worried face hovering over me.

Then darkness. A sensation of falling. Followed by a sharp snap—like a rubber band stretched too far and then released.

I opened my eyes, but they weren't my eyes. Everything looked... different. Colors were muted in some ways, especially in reds and oranges. Adelle appeared grey-ish to me. Scents bombarded me, thousands of them, each distinct and carrying information I couldn't properly process. I could smell everyone in the room, could pick out their individual scents with shocking clarity. Could hear… so many things in the directions my ears faced. I was taller too, which threw off my balance.

I sat up, looking down at hands that weren't mine—larger, covered in gray fur with black claws.

"Whoa," I said, but the voice was deeper, rougher. "This is so weird."

Beside me, Yura—or rather, Candace in Yura's body—was already stretching, tail fluttering.

"Mmm, not bad," she purred, running her hands down her borrowed body. "Yura's got some decent muscle tone. Yo, wolf-tato, how do you feel?"

"Like I'm wearing someone else's skin," I admitted. "But functional."

“Move around, get used to your new bod,” she said.

I stood up and nearly toppled over. Having digitigrade legs was weird. Nessy and Kristi offered me their hands and I grabbed on, wobbling around the gym close to my own passed out body, trying to get the hang of my new prad body.

Candace hopped behind and then moved around my slowly moving self, performing increasingly complex acrobatics.

“Hrm, feels like sooooomeone smacked me on the noggin’, pretty hard,” she commented, glancing at Kristi. She grabbed a small healing potion from the wall and chugged it and then offered another potion to me. It took away the headache that I didn’t notice at first since my senses felt so overwhelmed in general by being a wolf.

In ten more minutes, I got a better hold on walking in a prad body and only relied on Nessy to hold my hand.

“Kris, put our bodies into each bag,” I ordered.

Kristi carefully placed our passed out original bodies into the largest of the extra-dimensional bags. Candace-as-Yura slung the bag containing her real body over her shoulder.

I grabbed the bag with my own body. The expanded extradimensional space pretty much eliminated the bag’s internal weight, making the bag easy to carry as if it contained nothing at all.

"Nessy, Kristi, Adelle—you three need to hide in the bags. We'll carry you in, then release you once we're past the initial defenses if we run into trouble,” I said in about twenty more minutes of walking practice.

"Wait, what?" Adelle protested. "I'm gonna be stuffed in a bag? Like luggage?"

"Like a secret weapon," I corrected. “You’ll spring out when you’re needed and punch whomever in the face. Bam!”

“Ffffine,” she grumbled, climbing into the bag offered by Yura-Candace.

Nessy let go of me, allowing me to limp about for a bit on my own. Then she nuzzled into my wolf-cheek offering me a tight hug and climbed into my bag.

"Ready?" I asked, my wolf voice still sounding very strange to my wolf ears.

"Born ready," Candace replied with Yura's voice, grinning with wolf fangs. "Let's go infiltrate ‘dis ‘effin dungeon!"

With our packmates and our original bodies safely stowed away, we pushed open the gym doors and stepped out into the forest. The treasure-stealing game was on.

40: Dungeon Sim Date

As we stepped outside crossing the shimmering barrier between the gym and the forest, we were confronted with a dense forest.

Deep ravines and random towering walls of packed soil and stone rose fifteen feet high, creating an intricate maze that wound through the trees. Roots and vines clung to the earthen barriers crumbling in a bunch of places, as if the forest had been trying to reclaim this structure for centuries rather than hours. The scent of damp earth and vegetation was wildly overwhelming to my borrowed wolf nose.

“Damn," I muttered. "Fern doesn't do things halfway, does she?"

"Nope," Candace replied. "Earth and Plant Elementals have been busy. This is gonna be faaaar more elaborate than I expected."

I took a tentative step forward and nearly face-planted into the dirt as the elevation rapidly descended. These digitigrade legs were going to take more getting used to than I thought.

"Easy there, Bambi," Candace laughed, grabbing my elbow to steady me. "Left paw, right paw. It's not rocket science."

"Try walking with completely different leg joints and tell me how that goes," I grumbled, leaning on her for support as we approached the labyrinth entrance.

"You're overthinking it," she said. "Wolves are born to run. Just let the body do what it wants to do naturally."

"Mkay," I admitted, trying to relax and let the borrowed muscle memory take over. It helped, though I still moved with the awkward gait of someone who'd had too much to drink.

As we entered the maze, the walls seemed to close in around us. I could hear Candace's breathing, the soft pad of our paws on the ground, and not much else. Thankfully, my wolf eyes adjusted very quickly to the dim labyrinth.

"So," Candace broke the silence, her borrowed tail wagging. "You smell that?"

"I smell about a billion things right now," I replied, overwhelmed by the barrage of scents. "Be specific."

"That sickly sweet scent to the east," she said, nodding her wolf head in that direction. "Like sweat and wet fur? That's fear. The ‘monsters’ are scared shitless of something in that section of the maze."

"Fern, probably," I guessed.

"Most likely. Which means that's probably where the treasure is."

I nodded, impressed by her deduction. "Then that's where we're headed. Lead the way.”

We navigated through the winding passages. Despite my initial clumsiness, I was gradually getting the hang of walking on wolf legs. The body's natural instincts were indeed beginning to assert themselves, making movement less of a conscious effort.

We turned another corner, finding ourselves in a small clearing within the maze. Candace stopped, her ears twitching as she scanned our surroundings. There was a fire elemental hovering above the clearing, but it didn’t target us at all as we ran under it. It seemed that our body snatching had fooled Fern.

"Coast is clear," Candace said after a moment. "No others nearby."

I nodded.

"You know what I just realized?" she asked, a mischievous glint in her wolf eyes as we crossed the clearing, entering another labyrinth section. 

"What's that?" I asked, wary of her tone.

"We're all alone in a big scary forest maze," she said, sidling closer to me. "Just you and me. No Kristi to get all huffy. No Nessy to give the sad puppy eyes. No Adelle to make unhelpful commentary."

"So?"

"So," she drew the word out, "this is basically a date."

"It's not a date,” I nearly tripped over my borrowed paws at her words. “We're on a mission."

"A mission date," she countered, wrapping her tail around me. "The best kind. Danger, adventure, borrowed bodies. Verrrry romantic."

"There is nothing romantic about this situation," I protested.

"Speak for yourself," she winked. "Two souls trapped in borrowed bodies, seeking treasure in a magical maze... It's like the setup for a really kinky romance novel. Mmmm… so many roots I could trip on… for a big bad wolf to ravage me.”

I shook my wolf head, wondering for the hundredth time what went on in Candace's mind. "You really don't have any boundaries, do you?"

"Boundaries are for people who lack imagination," she replied cheerfully, squeezing my hand.

"Or maybe they're for respecting other people's comfort zones," I suggested, following her down another earthen corridor.

Candace stopped, turning to face me with an expression that looked surprisingly serious on Yura's wolffish features. "Have you actually set any boundaries with me, wolf-tato? Because I don't recall you ever saying 'Candace, please stop doing X' or 'I'm uncomfortable when you do Y.'"

I opened my mouth to retort, then closed it again. 

“I did tell you that I’m not interested in a relationship with you in the hotel yesterday,” I finally said after a moment of consideration.

“On the account that you were pining after a particular tail. We’ve had much more bonding since then and I’ve totally helped you get your doggo back,” she reasoned. “Are you… interested now?” Candace asked, her borrowed wolf eyes studying me with unusual intensity.

I hesitated, the question hitting me more deeply than I expected. Was I interested? Candace was beautiful, confident, hilarious and wildly unpredictable—qualities that would normally be appealing. But something held me back. Perhaps it was the fact that she held me as her friends beat me up, perhaps it was something else entirely.

"I don't know," I admitted. "You've helped me and our pack in a bunch of ways as Binder, but..."

"But what?" she asked.

"But I'm not sure IF you actually helped me 'get Nessy back' like you're implying," I said. "It feels like you're taking credit for something that was going to happen anyway."

Candace huffed, her wolf nose wrinkling. "Yes, yes, you’re bound by some cosmic bullshit, always were. That’s not what I mean…”

We turned another corner in the maze, finding ourselves in another small clearing patrolled by a wind elemental. Candace paused, checking for threats before continuing our conversation. 

“Yo doggo is clearly a virgin,” she whispered. “Those crafty human-hating friends of hers, plus the Krishna temple, plus her deep dreams caused by the Dagaz loop between you two built a giant wall around her emotions. I’m helping her tear it down, helping her express her feels. Ain’t I the bestest wingbae?”

I snorted, carefully navigating around a twisted root with my oversized, claw-capped wolf legs. "Who appointed you as my official matchmaker?"

Candace rolled her eyes dramatically. "I don't need an appointment! I'm a self-starter. Just… like… Urgh, come on, I'm literally throwing myself at you, and you're just... deflecting. Gimme some juice!”

“Juice?” 

"Love, appreciation, pawagery! Is it just because of the doggo? Or is there something else?" She pressed, stopping to face me directly. “I want answers!”

"Look, Ca—," I began and then corrected myself in case we were being observed by our enemies. “Yura. You’ve got many qualities that tempt me, sure. But—”

"But what?" she prompted when I trailed off.

"But I feel like you're not... stable."

“Wut,” she crossed her arms. “Wat u mean? I’m a purrfectly stable… wolf-babe! Why won’t you date me… Pi? Is my wolf tail not fluffy enough for ya?”

"I mean," I continued with a sigh at her over-the-top roleplay, "I feel that you might just vanish as quickly as you appeared in my life. You remind me of… clubber girls back in Memphis. They'd make out with me at parties when they were slightly drunk, act like I was the center of their universe for a bit, then spend the rest of the night dancing with other guys. By Monday morning at school, they'd barely acknowledge my existence."

“Come on, babes,” Candace's ears flattened against her head. "That's not fair. I'm not like that. I’m a great… partner for ya! I bound my soul to yours extra hard, not just once, but twice now! I accepted your impossible highway quest into my heart. Wat else do you wan’ me to do?!"

"Magical bindings don't guarantee emotional ones," I countered.

Candace's stolen wolf eyes widened slightly, a hint of genuine hurt flashing across Yura's features. "You think I'm just playing around? That I'd bind myself to you and then just... what? Run off when something shinier comes along?"

"You disappeared from school for months without telling anyone. You ran away from home. You joined a gang,” I pointed out.

"That's different," she protested. "I was running away from being sold off to some corpo, not from emotional attachments."

“You use T-dust to escape from what you see in the Astral. You seem like someone who's mentally running from something," I said gently. "And I don't know if I can compete with whatever you're running toward. Or from."

She was quiet for a long moment as we carefully navigated through more winding passages of the earth and root labyrinth. The only sounds were our padded feet on the earth and distant shouts of other "monsters" elsewhere in the maze.

"What if I promised to stay?" she finally asked. "What if I swore not to run from you?"

"Could you keep that promise?" I asked. "Even when things get hard? Even when you start seeing those things in the Astral that terrify you?"

Her wolf face looked pained. "I... I don't know," she admitted. "Sometimes the things I see in the deep are so overwhelming that I feel like I might drown in them. The Topaz helps me... distance myself."

"That's what I thought," I said. "But, I can't build a relationship with someone who has one foot out the door. I've been abandoned and fucked too many times already. I don’t know if I can trust you if you keep taking T-dust. You’re nice as a friend, great as a supportive packmate, but you taking that shit is my line that I will NOT cross,” I said, my voice coming out harsher than I intended. “I’m not going to date someone smoking that stuff. I’ve seen what it does to people and prads. You might float around longer than the average idiot because of your skill, but you’re still drowning. You’re still burning away any chances for a future, a family, poisoning yourself, running away.”

Candace flinched as if I'd struck her. For a moment, her confident persona cracked, and I caught a glimpse of something vulnerable beneath. She fretted beside me and then suddenly reached out to me, grabbing my wolf paw in hers and pulling it to her chest, pressing it against her borrowed heart.

"Feel that?" she asked, her voice soft. "It's beating like crazy right now. Not because of the mission, not because we're in danger, but because of… you."

I felt the rapid thudding beneath my paw, strong and fast.

"I know I'm not perfect," she continued, keeping my paw pressed firmly against her chest. "I'm a mess. I'm unstable. I take T-dust. But when I'm with you..." She paused, searching for words. "When I'm with you, I feel like maybe I don't need to run anymore."

I opened my mouth.

"No, let me finish," she interrupted, leaning close, brown eyes sparkling with tears. "You think I'm just playing around, but I'm not. I might be flirty and ridiculous, but that doesn't mean I'm not serious about you. I've never met anyone like you. I've never felt this weird fluttery thing in my chest before.”

She drew me even closer, her wolf-breath washing over my face, her eyes igniting with silver spirals. “Unlike the others, I saw you tree, I saw the real, liminal you in the deep. I still see you. Let me be with you, let me rest under your branches! Protect me from the Folding Forest… have your winged doggo sing to me, have your raptor-storm smack me when I misbehave. Save me from myself. Please! I don’t think that anyone except for you could do that!”

I didn't know what to say and half of her words sounded like Astral diver gibberish. However, there was an earnestness in her eyes that made it hard to dismiss her rant.

"I can't promise I'll never mess up," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, wolf-claws scraping against armor that didn’t belong to me, pulling me into an embrace. "I can't promise I'll be perfect. But I can promise I'll try. I'll try to be better, to be worthy of whatever is between us. And if that doesn’t work… if I’m still addicted… then…”

“Then what?” I asked.

“Then I will lead us across the Omnid dimensional gate to the Folding Forest,” she hissed, eyes flaring even brighter with wild abandon, wolf claws digging into me, pushing me down and sideways onto an earth-wall, her mouth frothing. “And we’ll burn the Heart of all Topaz to the ground. You, me and our pack. We will destroy the Well of Severance! We’ll go to the Superstore and find the crystal tree you, me, we, us… planted there. We’ll get your doggo back, as she was once, full of life, laughter and love. Your silly lovable goofball with no concept of personal space, the tornado of a husky sweetheart, the song of your heart! As she was last time around, not as she is, slightly nibbled on and cleaved in twain by your all-dividing sword, my Slayer!”

“W-what?” I sputtered, feeling utterly befuddled by the increasingly mad waterfall of rabid nonsense pouring out from her.

"Ahem," a sharp voice cut through our moment. 

Candace let go of me, the brilliant, silver light winking away from her eyes. She blinked and wiped her wolf-mouth and we sprang apart, turning to face the source of the interruption. A patrol of raptors stood at the entrance to our little clearing, led by none other than Kirra Strand.

"Hi K-Kirrss!" Candace barked. "How’s it raptoring?”

41: Division

Kirra Strand stared at us, flanked by two of her Firestorm teammates.

“What are you two low level knobfolds doing here?” Kirra growled. “Pretty sure that Fern assigned you to watch the Eastern edge of the labyrinth by the entrance.”

“Pfff. Fern?” Candace waved the raptor girl off. “She ain’t the boss of us.”

"Yura and Pire," one of the raptors smirked. "Canoodling in the bushes while you're supposed to be patrolling. How utterly predictable."

"Canoodling? What is this, the 1950s?" Candace-Yura scoffed. 

"We were just... strategizing,” I said. 

"Horizontal strategizing?” Another raptor snickered. “Come on, get back to your post. I don’t want to fail this class ‘cus you two can’t resist pawing at each other.”

"Ye,” Kirra agreed. “If those delvers get past our defenses because you two couldn't keep it in your fur for five minutes, Fern will have all of our tails for lunch.”

"We weren't just fooling around," I said quickly, stepping forward. "We were making out ‘cus we were... celebrating our victory!”

"Victory? What victory?" Katherine asked, emerging from behind the other raptors.

"Oh, nothing much," Candace-Yura said with exaggerated nonchalance. “Ke ke ke.”

“What are you knobs hiding?” One of the raptors demanded.

“Yeah. Where’d you get those bags?” Katherine demanded. “Those look like… delver equipment that was hanging in the gym.”

"We just captured two delvers from Team Foster!” I declared, pulling my extradimensional backpack off myself and slowly unzipping it. “The human and the husky! Good eye, bird. That’s their bags with all of their delvin' shit! They’re knocked out inside! Behold!”

I unzipped the bag even more, turning it so Kirra could peer inside.

Inside, visible through the small opening, was my unconscious human body and Nessy. The husky heard me through the opening in the bag and clearly understood my game. She was pretending to be unconscious, her tongue cutely lolling off to one side.

Kirra’s eyes widened. "Slayer's Sword," she breathed. "No friggin’ way! You actually got them."

I zipped the bag closed quickly pulling it back on. "Yep. Two down, three to go. We were heading to Professor Fern to claim our A-grade and MVP status."

"How in the Abyss did you two idiots manage to capture Foster and the Bard dog?" one of the raptors demanded.

"Skillz, baby," Candace purred, slinging an arm around my shoulders. "Pure, unadulterated talent. Right, Pire?"

“Damn right babe,” I high fived her. “Skeeels. The dumb-ass human and the husky thought they were being all clever and sneaky. They basically got their Binder fox to make them invisible and split up their team. Their invisibility doesn’t work against wolf noses though.”

I tapped my large nose. 

“Ahh sheet.” Kirra looked jealous. “Damn it, you guys got lucky.”

“The level three human was real easy—no combat skills to speak of,” I boasted with a laugh. “The dog put up more of a fight, knocked me down hard so I can barely walk straight now. Luckily, Yura here has a mean right hook that brought down that dumb husky."

“Damn right.” Candace flexed her muscles with a canine grin. "What can I say? I'm just that good."

Katherine narrowed her eyes at us, looking skeptical but clearly impressed with us capturing two delvers. "And you two are just... bringing them to Fern?"

"Hell yeah we are," I nodded enthusiastically. "First come, first serve, baby! You snooze, you lose. We're not sharing our glory with anyone. Me and my packmate bae captured em fair n’ square."

"Besides," Candace added, "those other three losers from Foster's team are absolutely tracking us right now with their sniffers, trying to rescue their packmates."

"What do you mean?" Kirra, feathers flaring up with sudden alertness.

"Like I said before," I lowered my voice conspiratorially, "their silver fox Binder is good at invisibility spells. They're using stealth tactics. But they def’ can't hide from a superior snout like yours, Kirra!”

Kirra beamed at the praise.

"Here's a tip,” Candace purred. “They'll absolutely be following the scent of our trail, trying to get their Alpha back. So if you want to catch the rest of Team Foster knobs, just hang around here and use yo raptor senses. Listen for breathing, sniff things, watch for disturbances in the undergrowth. Pretend that you don’t see them and then BAM! Right to the noggin when they don’t expect you!” She punched her left palm with her right fist.

I nodded sagely. "Yeah, we'd stay and help, but..." I patted my bag. "We gotta get these two to Fern and get our A’s. I got tackled pretty bad, so I’m more of a sad impediment at this point than anything, but you guys are still fresh.”

"Fair enough," Katherine said, her tone becoming more authoritative as she addressed her team. "You heard them. Spread out, keep your senses sharp. We'll catch them for sho’!”

"Good luck!" Candace chirped, already tugging me down the path leading deeper into the maze.

As we rounded the corner and moved out of earshot, she leaned in close. "Not bad, wolf-tato. Not bad at all."

"Thanks," I whispered back. "That should keep them occupied for a while. Are you… feeling okay?”

“Peachy,” she fired back, entwining her hand around my elbow. “Just… looked into the Astral too deep… again. Sorry.”

“You can use your Astral gazing skill as a wolf?” I leaned in closer to her to whisper the question.

“A skill is inside of a soul,” she whispered back. “And our souls are inside of these wolf noggins now.”

“And where are… their souls?”

“Bound to our bodies, duh,” Candace clarified. “Which I put to sleep.”

“This is all sorts of weird,” I commented.

“Welcome to my life,” she shrugged. “Also, I just learned that it’s actually way easier to see shit in the Astral when I’m not in my own brain meat.”

“Hang on,” I said. "So if you’re in another person, that’s... beneficial for your Astral Sight somehow?"

“I can see more shit, yes,” she nodded. “'Cus my soul don't fit as well into 'dis bod'. I’ve only been outside of myself once before and spent the entire time drunk-making out with Ads, not Astral gazing at your tree branches.”

"Hey, um, so that stuff you were saying before the raptors showed up," I pressed. "About the Folding Forest, the Omnid dimensional gate, the Heart of Topaz... Were those actual Astral visions then?"

Candace's wolf face scrunched up. "Ye. But, it's like... hearing fragments of a conversation through a wall. I catch bits and pieces, but the context is missing. Sometimes it's snippets of things that haven't happened yet, or maybe happened in a different version of reality."

"So you can see the future?" I asked.

"And the past. Sometimes both at once, like a Möbius loop." Her voice took on that distant quality again. "It's... unnerving. Like watching a movie play forward and backward simultaneously while someone keeps changing the script."

"And you saw me as... a tree?"

"An Astral tree, yep. With branches that reach everywhere, across realities. I don't know what it means exactly, but I know it's important. More important than most things I've seen."

I mulled this over as we carefully made our way deeper into the maze. "And what did you mean about… Her being 'cleaved in twain'?"

“Oh. That. You’re going to think that I’m completely insane,” she let out.

“Try me,” I said.

“I’m her,” she said.

“What,” I stared at the fox in the body of a wolf.

“I… am dancing around you endlessly because I’m her,” she repeated.

“Whom?”

“Her.”

I rubbed my wolf snout with my elongated fingers. “I don’t understand.”

“Slayer, you thikk knob,” Candace growled. “I’m…”

She trailed off, frustration visible on her wolf face. She looked around frantically until her eyes landed on a fallen pine tree branch nearby. She snatched it up, holding it out in front of me.

"This," she said, gripping the branch. "Is… Her. The original her."

She suddenly snapped the branch in half with a sharp crack and held up the two pieces separately.

"Nessy," she said, wiggling one half. "Kristi," she added, waving the other half.

I blinked at her, trying to make sense of her strange demonstration. Before I could ask what she meant, she combined the two branches together and snapped both of them, producing four pieces.

"Nessy. Candace. Kristi. Addie," she said, presenting four branches to me one by one.

“What?” I felt utterly bewildered. "What are you trying to say? That you’re…? Come on, that’s absurd. The four of you are completely different people with different personalities!”

“I did tell you that it was insane,” she shrugged, dropping all four branches back onto the ground.

“Okay but why?” I demanded.

“You tell me, why!” she suddenly growled, eyes flashing silver. “Why is there one of you and four of me?”

“I dunno. Maybe because I mathematically converge into a single point of me and you divide?” I tried to get into her crazy mode of thought with my own wild guess.

“I divide?” She laughed with an angry undertone. “You think that I divide? What, on my own, like a cell? Or maybe… I'm like a worm someone keeps chopping up?” She growled.

“Come on,” I huffed. “I’m not… chopping you.”

“I think that you are chopping me and you should consider stopping that,” she said. “Because we’re going to run out of bed space. Poor Addie had to sleep on the floor!”

I opened and closed my mouth. “What?”

She suddenly grabbed and shook me, frothing at the mouth again, eyes burning bright silver. “Stop dividing me! STOP IT!”

"I'm not dividing you!" I protested, trying to break free from her femme wolf grip. "You're not making any damn sense! I'm not dividing anyone!"

"You are! Every time! Every cycle!" She panted, radiant silver fractals dancing in her wolf eyes. "The blade, the wish, the crystal tree, the Leviathan! I keep getting split apart! Stop cutting me up into different versions of myself, you jerk!"

"Ca... Yura, I think you're having some kind of... episode. Maybe it's withdrawal?" I stammered out.

"It's not withdrawal!" she hissed. "I get it all now! I see it clearly! Every time we reach the end, you make a wish and reset everything. Then I come back in pieces! Abyss! There’s going to be eight of me next time isn’t there? How’s that going to work out?”

She clawed at her wolf face, twitching. “They don’t make beds for that many prads! That’s more than there are days of the week. We’re going to kill each other and then kill you! Why are you a tree?” She shook me, frothing even more at the mouth.

I didn't know what to say to her mad declarations.

"Where the fuck does it stop?! Eight, sixteen, thirty two, sixty four… n’th hearts all wanting the same thing but never getting it because you keep slicing up my soul! Why are you the tree? Why am I the one who gets divided? Am I not enough for you?! Is that it?!”

Wolf claws dug deeper into my shoulder pads, her eyes wild with something beyond mere anger or confusion—a primal desperation, abyssal madness that seemed to come from somewhere far beyond rational thought.

"Candace, please," I whispered, trying to reason with her, "you're not making any sense. There's no soul chopping, no time loops, no division—"

"THERE IS!" she howled, the sound echoing through the maze. "The loops, the resets, the fragments! I see it all! I SEE US!”

Her breathing came in ragged gasps, her entire body trembling. "Topaz doesn't create these visions, it just makes them bearable! Without it, everything's too awful, too horrible!"

I glanced around nervously, worried that her outburst would attract attention from the ‘monsters’ patrolling the maze.

I needed to calm her down before she blew our cover completely.

42: Multiplication

Suddenly, there was movement from my bag. The zipper slowly opened from the inside, and Nessy's head emerged, her blue eyes taking in the situation with one quick scan.

"What's happening?" she asked, climbing out of the bag completely.

"I think Candace is having some kind of... breakdown," I explained, still trying to free myself from the fox-in-wolf's-body's grip. "She's talking about time loops and being divided into pieces and—"

Nessy's expression shifted from concern to dogged determination. Without hesitation, she moved to Candace's side, gently placing her paws on the wolf's shoulders.

"Hey," she said softly, "Candace, look at me."

The fox-wolf's head snapped toward Nessy, her silver-lit eyes wide and unfocused.

Nessy began to hum—a gentle, soothing melody that seemed to fill the air around us with warmth. As she hummed, her paws moved to either side of Candace's head, just as she had done back at the farm when Candace had her first episode yesterday.

The effect wasn't immediate, but gradually, I felt Candace's grip on me loosen. Her breathing slowed, and the wild light in her eyes began to dim.

"That's it," Nessy murmured between notes. "Just breathe. Follow my voice."

Candace's body sagged, and she suddenly lurched forward, burying her borrowed wolf face against Nessy's shoulder. Her body shook with silent sobs.

"It's not my fault I'm like this," she whimpered, her voice muffled against Nessy's chest plates. "It's not! Why won't Alec love meeeee like he loves youuuuuu? Why did I have to get divided so far he can barely toleeerate meeeee…"

The raw vulnerability in her voice struck me like a physical blow. This wasn't the confident, flirtatious Candace I'd come to know. This was someone broken, desperate, and deeply afraid, not taking my rejection well.

Nessy's eyes met mine over Candace's shaking form, her expression questioning, concerned, but not judging.

"Shhh," Nessy soothed, stroking Candace's back. "It's okay. Whatever you're seeing, whatever you're feeling—it's okay."

"It's not okay," Candace mumbled, crying into Nessy’s side. "Nothing's okay. We're all going to die again and again and again and it never stops. I don’t want to be an N’to the power of two number of me! We keep going around and around in a loop and nothing ever changes except I get more broken more and more each time!”

Nessy glanced at me, looking like she wanted me to help out too.

I crouched down beside both of them, placing a tentative paw on Candace's shoulder. "Candace," I said quietly, "I don't understand what you're seeing or experiencing. But I do know this—you're not alone. You have us now. All of us."

"But you don't loooove meeee," she cried, her eyes finding mine.

I hesitated, unsure how to respond to such raw emotion. "It's not about not loving you," I said carefully. "It's about... trust. Building something real. We barely know each other and you hurt me with your actions when we first met.”

"I'm sorrrrryyy," she cried. “I didn't mean to hurt you, I swear… I just got lost in your branches.” 

Candace sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her paw. "You all prolly think I'm crazy. I’m not crazy, it’s reality that’s broken! Damn it, I really need some T to stop coming apart at the seams!”

"No, no more topaz," I said firmly, gripping her shoulders. "That's not the answer. It's just masking the problem, not solving it."

Candace's eyes flashed dangerously. "You don't understand! You can't possibly understand what it's like to see what I see! To know what I know! This shit is killing me!"

The commotion of her weeping had drawn more attention. Her bag rustled as Kristi and Adelle emerged, climbing out and immediately taking in the situation.

"What's going on?" Kristi asked, looking between us and the sobbing wolf-fox. "What's happening?"

"Candace is having an episode," Nessy explained quietly, still holding the trembling wolf. "Something about time loops and being endlessly divided."

"Damn it, not again," Adelle muttered, moving closer. "Last time she got like this, she nearly clawed her own eyes out. Said she wanted to stop seeing the 'liminal fractals approaching the infinite edge' or something."

Without warning, Candace suddenly went rigid. Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed to the ground, her wolf body convulsing.

"What's happening?" I asked in alarm.

"She… must have snapped back to her own body!” Nessy declared, looking back into the bag containing Candace's real body. “She's stirring awake!”

The wolf's body stopped shaking. The silver light that had been flickering in her eyes faded completely, and her expression shifted from sadness to blankness and then to confusion.

Yura blinked awake, looking around with complete bewilderment. "What... where am I? Wha—"

Before she could finish her question, Adelle's fist connected with her temple in a precise, controlled strike. The wolf slumped back to the ground, unconscious once more.

"Adelle!" I whispered harshly. "What the shit?!"

"What?" The cheetah shrugged. "You want her raising the alarm? She's fine. Just taking a little nap."

I turned my attention to my bag. Unzipping it further, I saw Candace in her original silver fox body, thrashing wildly, her eyes unfocused and blazing with that unnatural silver light. She was digging frantically through her bag pockets, pulling out a slim blue cigar-like object and a metallic lighter.

"No!" Adelle growled, diving forward. "Candy, don't!"

"Piss off! I need it!" Candace shrieked, her voice high and desperate.

"Adelle, grab her!" I ordered. "Don't let her light that damned thing!"

The cheetah lunged into the bag, wrapping her strong arms around the thrashing fox and bodily lifting her out. Candace twisted and bucked in her grip, silver fur standing on end, eyes wild.

"Let me go!" she wailed, clawing at Adelle's arms. "You don't understand! It's too much! The System, the loops, the divisions! I need the T-dust to blur the edges, to not be sad about being forever alone and being endlessly divided!”

Adelle grunted as a particularly vicious fox claw swipe caught her cheek, drawing blood.

Kristi moved forward, her raptor reflexes allowing her to snatch the blue cigar and lighter from Candace's grip. The fox let out a sound of pure anguish, redoubling her efforts to break free.

"No! No! Give it back!" she sobbed, tears streaming down her face. "Please! I'm begging you! I need it!"

I stood frozen, watching this breakdown unfold, feeling utterly helpless.

"What do we do?" Kristi asked, looking at me expectantly. "We can't let her freak out like this—she'll bring every monster in the maze down on us."

I approached carefully, trying to make eye contact with the frantic fox. "Candace, look at me. Focus on me. Whatever you're seeing—it's not happening right now. You're safe."

"Safe?" she laughed bitterly, still struggling against Adelle's hold. "Nothing is safe! We're all trapped in the loop! You'll divide me again at the end, just like always! I can see it all—the sword, the Systemfall, the Wormwood Star falling, me shattering to infinity!"

"Maybe we should just knock her out too," Adelle suggested grimly. 

I shook my head. "No. There has to be another way."

Nessy sniffed the air and stepped forward, her blue eyes filled with determination. "I think… there is."

We all turned to look at her.

"What if..." Nessy began, then stopped, gathering her courage. "What if I offered myself?"

"What?" I blinked at her.

“I want to give Candace… my body.”

What?!” All of us stared at the husky.

"Not as a switch like with the wolves," Nessy clarified, her gaze steady. "But as a fusion. Two souls bound into one body. If her soul is tormented by what she sees, maybe sharing a body with another calm soul would... I don't know, dilute it? Give her something to anchor to? Reduce the need for Topaz?"

"Are you insane?" Kristi hissed. "What if you both end up trapped or… worse what if your souls fuse permanently, dilute into each other, make you into an Astral Phantom?!"

"She can do it," Nessy insisted, pointing at the struggling fox. "She's an amazing Binder. She can bind our souls together temporarily, until she feels better!"

"It sounds too too risky," I protested, the thought of potentially losing both of them making my stomach twist. "There has to be another way."

"Like what?" Nessy challenged, gesturing at Candace, who was now biting at Adelle's arms. "She's going to hurt herself or Adelle if this insanity continues!"

“Candace, do you want to share my body?” Nessy leaned down to the snarling fox.

Candace suddenly went still, her attention caught by Nessy's words. "You... would share?" she asked, her voice small and childlike.

"Yes," Nessy said firmly. “I would. Let's multiply instead of dividing, yeah?”

"Nessy, no," I began.

"It's my choice, Alec," she cut me off, her expression resolute. "I'm offering. Voluntarily."

I looked at Candace, who had stopped struggling, her gray eyes wide with hope and disbelief. Then at Nessy, whose determined expression left no room for argument.

"How would this even work?" I asked finally.

"I will create a binding between our souls," Candace explained, her voice steadier now. "Temporary, but complete. We'd share Nessy's body, consciousness, memories."

"And your body?" Kristi asked.

"Would remain in a sleep state," Candace replied. "Alive but dormant until I return."

I rubbed my temples, weighing the risks against the troubling situation. "And you're sure you can undo this later? Separate yourselves safely?"

“We’ll snap apart on our own,” Candace replied. “When the mana powering the binding spell runs out.”

“And you won't perma-fuse together?” I confirmed.

“No,” Candace shook her head. “The Dagaz pack pact will actually help keep us apart–the rune formation is impossible to break and it reinforces each of us as separate points.”

I looked at Nessy one more time, silently asking if she was certain.

She nodded. "I want to help her, Alec. And maybe... maybe this will help me too. I've always had these dreams, these feelings of something missing."

The decision weighed heavily on me. As pack Alpha, I felt responsible for their safety. But I also needed to respect their decisions.

"Okay," I said finally. “Do it. I trust you both.”

Nessy smiled gratefully, then approached Candace, who had been released from Adelle's grip but remained uncharacteristically still.

"How do we do this?" Nessy asked.

Candace took a deep, steadying breath. "We need to be in physical contact. And you need to be completely willing—no doubts, no hesitation, no pushing me out.”

Nessy nodded, extending her paws. Candace took them, their fingers intertwining.

"Close your eyes," Candace instructed. "And... think of yourself as an open door. Welcoming me in."

Nessy complied, her expression serene as she closed her eyes. Candace began to murmur under her breath, words in a language I didn't recognize, her paws beginning to glow with that same silver light.

The air around them seemed to shimmer, as if heated. Candace's body began to tremble, then sway, and finally slumped backward, caught by Adelle before she could hit the ground.

Nessy remained standing, her eyes still closed, her body perfectly still. For a terrifying moment, I thought something had gone wrong—that both of them were now lost in some in-between space.

Then Nessy's eyes opened. But they weren't just her blue eyes anymore. Her right eye remained that familiar sky blue, but her left eye now shone with Candace's silver-gray.

"Whoa," Nessy's voice said, but with an inflection that was somehow both hers and not hers. "Smack me sideways, it worked!"

"Nessy?" I asked cautiously. "Candace?"

A smile spread across Nessy's face—familiar yet somehow different. "Yes," she replied. "I'm… here."

"Are you both okay?" Kristi asked, her voice tight with concern.

43: Double Trouble

"Yep," the heterochromatic Nessy nodded. “Better than okay. I’m great!”

She stepped to me and hugged me tightly. “Alec, I… Hi.”

“Hi,” I said, not sure how else to reply.

"Hrm," Adelle commented, still cradling Candace's unconscious body. "What should we call you? Nandy? Cessy?"

"Nessy is fine," Nessy shrugged. She returned to sniffing me. “You know, I missed you more than anything in the world, Alec. Heh. You’re just as cute as a wolf.”

“How do you feel?” I asked.

"I feel... Lighter. More... bouncy? Happier. Almost… complete.”

“Almost?” I asked.

“Just gotta get my stolen songs and dreams back from the Krishna temple,” she said, flexing her knuckles. “Those monks took what doesn’t belong to them. Don’t look at me like that—I’m fine, see?”

As if to demonstrate this newfound energy, Nessy suddenly began hopping from one foot to the other, her tail wagging with almost comical enthusiasm. She circled me in a playful dance, her heterochromatic eyes sparkling with mischief.

"I feel like I could run for days! Everything's so bright and clear and... alive!" she exclaimed, her voice carrying Nessy's warmth with undertones of Candace's playfulness. She spun in a circle, arms outstretched, then flashed away from me before pouncing right toward me with unexpected agility. 

I barely had time to brace myself before she collided with my wolf self, sending us both tumbling backward. I managed to catch her, finding myself suddenly with an armful of enthusiastic husky.

"Whoa there," I laughed, steadying us both. "Easy."

"Sorry!" Nessy giggled, but made no move to extract herself from my arms. Instead, she nuzzled against my neck with uncharacteristic boldness. "You smell so good behind the wolf. Like... like a memory I can't quite place. Like home. Like our tree. Like our… RV.”

"Um, thanks?" I replied, acutely aware of Kristi and Adelle watching us. “What RV?”

“One we parked in the Superstore.” She replied with a soft, heartstopping smile, her face leaning close to mine.

"Guys, we should probably focus on the mission," Kristi pointed out, her feathers ruffling slightly as she watched Nessy practically drape herself across me.

"Right," Nessy agreed, reluctantly pulling away but not before giving my cheek a quick lick. "Mission! Treasure! Adventure!"

She bounced on her toes, looking more like an excited puppy than the usually reserved, shy husky I'd come to know.

"Is this... normal?" I whispered to Adelle, gesturing at Nessy, who was now sniffing the air with exaggerated movements, her tail wagging so vigorously it was practically a blur.

"I dunno," Adelle shrugged, shifting Candace's unconscious body in her arms. "Never seen her do a soul fusion before. But if I had to guess, I'd say we're seeing Nessy without… inhibitions. Candy is a rather uninhibited critter."

"Great," Kristi muttered. "Just what we needed—a disinhibited, hyper husky with the impulse control of a dumb fox."

"I heard that!" Nessy called out cheerfully, not sounding offended in the slightest. She laughed. “You two are much too square.” She quickly grabbed the knocked out wolfgirl from the ground and stuffed her into the bag. “Gimme my fox bod,” She gently grabbed Candace's body from Addie's hands and stuffed it into the other backpack.

She twirled again, her movements fluid and graceful. "Everything is so clear now! I can smell and see the connections between things—like little silver threads tying everything together! Terrible things and good things. Let's ignore the terrible things though. Yep.”

She seemed to agree with herself, tail wagging. She approached Addie with a swagger.

“I could fuse me to you, you know, Ads,” she offered. “Three pawsome souls in one body. Thrice the power and skills.”

"Hard pass," Adelle said quickly, taking a step back. "I prefer having just one soul per body, thanks."

"Your loss," Nessy singsonged.

"Come on, Ness, we should keep moving," I interjected, pulling my attention away from Nessy's strange new behavior that was somehow unnervingly familiar.

"Right, right," Nessy nodded, her ears perking up. She looked down at herself. “Hrm. I will need a disguise. Hold on.”

She suddenly stopped fluttering around us, her ears perking up as she tilted her head, listening to something none of us could hear. Her expression shifted through a series of micro-emotions—surprise, confusion, delight, determination—before settling into a mischievous grin that was pure Candace despite being on Nessy's face.

"Oh. Oh! That's brilliant!" she exclaimed to herself.

"What is?" I asked warily.

Instead of answering, Nessy climbed into the bag standing beside the unconscious wolf girl. She pried a few armor bits from Yura, strapping them to herself and then placed her paws on either side of Yura's head, her fingers glowing with that now-familiar silver light.

"What are you doing?" Adelle asked.

"Borrowing a look," Nessy replied cryptically, her paws moving in intricate patterns as she worked. 

"You can do that? Borrow someone's appearance?" Kristi asked skeptically.

"With Candace's binding abilities combined with my Riffweld? Absolutely," Nessy confirmed, continuing to work her magic over the unconscious wolf. "It's not a full possession like what Alec's doing with Pire, just a surface-level glamour. A song bound to my soul. No actual change, more like the invisibility thing I did on ya.”

“And that’s… better?” Adelle asked.

“It’s worse in terms of tricking clever prads,” Nessy shrugged. “But it’s better for me. I can focus much better with twice the soul. I was definitely going insane, losing myself to the Abyss in a wolf body. Let's not do that again.”

The silver light intensified, flowing from her paws to envelop her entire body. For a moment, she seemed to shimmer, her form becoming indistinct, wavering like a mirage in desert heat. Then the light faded, and where Nessy had stood was now what appeared to be a duplicate of Yura—a female gray wolf with a white streak in her fur in gray and black armor.

"Ta-da!" she announced, climbing out of the bag and doing a little twirl. "What do you think? Convincing?"

“Kinda,” Kristis niffed. “If I focus really hard on you and sniff ya, I can tell that something is off.”

“I’m pretty convinced,” I said. 

“You’re a low level human,” Kristi huffed. “This ain’t gonna trick higher level prads.”

I glanced at the husky disguised as a wolf again. The only giveaway for me was her eyes—still that distinctive mismatched pair of blue and silver—and the unmistakable cheeky and positive personality shining through her expression.

"It’s good enough for a glance, I ain’t planning to come near anyone," Nessy-Candace-as-Yura winked. "I can smell prads like two clicks away now. N’ways, we need to hide the rest of you. Back into the bags, you two!"

"What?" Adelle protested. "I'm not getting stuffed in a bag again!"

"Do you have a better plan for sneaking past a multitude of hostile students, Fern and a bazillion Elementals, Ads?" Nessy challenged, hands on her hips in a pose that was remarkably Candace-like.

Adelle opened her mouth, then closed it again. "Fine," she grumbled. "But this is the last time. Next dungeon sim, I'm staying out and punching things."

"Sure, sure," Nessy agreed cheerfully. "In you go too, Kris."

Kristi hesitated, looking between us. "Are you sure about this? You’re… okay?"

"Absolutely, Kristikins," Nessy nodded confidently. "Don’t fret. Two wolves wandering the maze together is much less suspicious than our whole pack."

After a moment's consideration, Kristi reluctantly climbed into the bag with Adelle. Nessy secured it carefully before slinging it over her shoulder. I picked up the second bag.

Once our packmates were safely stowed away, Nessy turned to me with a grin that transformed Yura's wolfish features into something unmistakably... Nessy-and-Candace.

"Ready for our date to resume?" she asked, extending her paw toward me.

I stared at her.

“What could be more romantic than us kicking ass and taking names?” she added, grabbing my paw without waiting for me to offer it.

I had no response to that. 

With her paw warm in mine, we set off deeper into the maze. Nessy seemed to have an uncanny sense of direction, leading us through the twisting passages with near-absolute confidence. 

"So where's the treasure?" I asked.

Nessy closed her eyes for a moment, sniffing the air, her head tilting as if listening to an internal conversation. "That way," she finally said, pointing down a narrow path to our left. "About... mmm, nine hundred meters. Through the heart of the maze."

"And Fern?" I asked.

"Is waiting at the center," Nessy confirmed. "I can smell her fire signature. It's... impressive. Dangerous." She shivered slightly, though whether from fear or excitement was hard to tell. “She’s got about thirty eight students with her and a hundred Elementals. Follow, follow.” She bobbed.

"So," I asked quietly as we navigated a particularly narrow passage, "how exactly does this fusion thing work? Can you... hear each other's thoughts?"

"Nah," Nessy replied, her mismatched eyes flicking toward me. "Just me. Me and many various clever and nice thoughts. Being together as one seems to... buffer the Astral madness. I mean it’s still there, but it’s fine. A problem for a future me. The current me is just happy.”

“Happy about what?” I asked.

She looked at me.

“Happy to make devious plots of how to trap you in a relationship with me,” Nessy giggled.

I opened my mouth and wasn’t sure what to say. 

"You know what's funny?" Nessy continued. "I've never felt this... free before as either Candace or Nessy. It's like there's been this invisible weight pressing down on me for years, this gnawing emptiness and suddenly it's gone, all gone!"

"The Well of Severance?" I guessed.

"Yes!" Nessy nodded enthusiastically. "All this time, like an idiot, I was listening to Sage and Viv, thought it was helping me—purifying my desires, making me more spiritual or whatever. But it was just... Grinding me down. Making me forget important things. Making me forget who I am."

"And who are you?" 

“Your doggo,” she grinned. “Your best friend. Always and forever.”

“I see,” I said. 

"So," I said after we'd been walking for a few minutes, "about what you were saying earlier—about past lives and cosmic loops..."

"You want to know if it's real or if I'm just completely bonkers," she finished for me, glancing sideways with a smirk.

"Something like that," I admitted.

She was quiet for a moment, seeming to consult with herself.

“It’s…” She smiled. 

“Shhh…" she whispered suddenly, pulling me behind a large root that protruded from one of the maze walls. "Someone's coming."

We pressed ourselves against the earthen wall, barely breathing as footsteps approached. From our hiding spot, I could see a patrol of three pradavarians—a dog and two cats—walking past, their eyes scanning the maze warily.

"Any sign of Team Foster?" one of the cats asked.

"Nothing yet," the dog replied. "But Kirra reported that the wolfpack captured the human and the husky, so that just leaves the fox, the cheetah, and the raptor about."

"The fox is the dangerous one," the second cat commented. "Effin’ Binder. Could be anywhere, disguised as anyone. Even a tree."

"Let's just hope we find them before Fern gets impatient and burns the whole maze down," the first cat said with a nervous laugh.

“We will,” the dog said. “Binder or not she doesn’t have infinite mana.”

Once they had passed, Nessy tugged me out of the root alcove.

"That was close," I whispered.

"Useful though," she grinned. "The ruse with Kirra worked great. They think they're looking for the rest of the team, not us."

We continued our careful progress through the maze, occasionally ducking into hiding spots when patrols passed nearby. There was something exhilarating about it all—the shared adrenaline, her paw in mine, the thrill of outwitting our pursuers together.

"You know," Nessy said during one of our brief rest stops, "this is actually the best date I've had in... well, ever."

"What, really?" I laughed softly. "Being stuck in a magical maze with hostile pradavarians hunting us down is your idea of a good time?"

"When it's with you? Absolutely." Her mismatched eyes sparkled with sincerity. "Adventure, danger, outsmarting everyone together... It's perfect!"

"You're setting the bar pretty low for future dates," I teased.

"Oh? So there will be future dates?" she countered with a grin.

I felt warmth spreading through my face. "I'd... like that."

"Good," she said simply, squeezing my paw. "Because once we get out of here... I'm going to take you on a proper date. No borrowed bods, no dungeon sims, no panic attacks. Just you and me."

"Just you and me," I repeated. “But you’re…”

“I’m me,” Nessy-wolf fired back. “The friendly and playful me. The cheeky and supportive me. The me that binds and the me that sings.”

“And when the binding runs outta mana?” I asked. “When you split back into two?”

Nessy's mismatched eyes softened as she considered my question. 

"When I split back into two..." she began thoughtfully, "we'll figure it out. Maybe we go out in Candace's body on Tuesdays and in mine on Thursdays." She grinned mischievously. "Or as a triangle trio—dinner, movie, ice cream. It's all good. It's all nice."

"You make it sound so simple," I said, shaking my wolf head. "Earlier… the fox was having a complete breakdown about cosmic loops and being divided. Now you're talking about scheduling date nights like it's the most natural thing in the world."

"Because it is natural," she replied with surprising certainty. "Being together feels right, regardless of what form it takes. The details are just... details."

"And the time loops and cosmic cycles?" I asked.

Nessy smiled.

"That doesn’t bother me anymore," she said simply. "Because I'm with you, dummy. The loops, the cycles, the resets—they're only scary when we're apart." She shrugged, as if the concept was self-evident. "When I am by your side, everything just makes sense. Like puzzle pieces clicking into place. The here and now matters more than the fact that everyone dies in the end. Hell, maybe this time we’ll get over that bump! Maybe this time there are enough of me to save you. Enough of you to shield me.”

“You think so, huh?”

“I do,” she nodded. 

Before I could respond, she suddenly froze, nose twitching as she scented the air. "We're close to the goal," she whispered. "Very close."

We crept forward more cautiously now, following a path that wound around a particularly dense section of roots and earth. The passage opened into a vast clearing—easily the largest open space we'd encountered in the maze so far.

At its center stood Professor Fern, imposing in her charcoal suit, the flames dancing across her scruffy mane casting eerie shadows across the clearing. Behind her, on an elevated platform of packed earth, sat a gold treasure chest. Surrounding her and the chest were at least thirty "monster" students, arranged in a defensive formation, and hovering above them were dozens of Elementals—wisps of fire, twisting columns of air. Earth mounds were concealing Earth elementals in irregular intervals around the treasure chest.

"Well, shit," I muttered. "That's a lot of opposition."