"...so anyways," Aphrodite said, continuing their earlier thread of conversation as she led Brock through a maze of cramped side streets packed with dubious goods overseen by a throng of shrieking merchants, "the pix do not like authority. Pathologically and violently so, you could say." Thin bone flutes echoed shrilly along the walls, weaving in and out of the noisy din.

"What, they're anarchists?" Brock asked, fending off a particularly aggressive vendor trying to shove a squirming horrorbeast with too many puppydog eyes into his chest. "No, thank you," he said loudly, trying to step around the pair. "I don't want your eldritch spawnling, just like I didn't want the previous five! Take a hint!"

"Anarchists wish they could despise order as much as the pix, and Lady Razoralia's family is the one in charge of keeping them in line."

"Oh. That explains a lot."

"It does, doesn't it? You should really just punch this junk back into non-existence," Aphrodite added as she kicked the merchant still accosting Brock straight between its two/three/eight? legs with a venomous glare, lifting it nearly four feet to the side. After it landed, the disappointed stall owner seemingly ignored her savage strike to its nethers and spat dark curses after them that fluttered on weakly-flapping batwings before withering back into surreality. A single tear trickled from each puppydog eye of the thing it held, and Aphrodite spat at it. "Primal brutality is the only language they understand. I keep telling the Council they need to clean up these degenerates and pin them down to one causal location instead of letting them infest our entire district, but god forbid they listen to a sekkie."

Brock looked around the shifty back-alley bazaar, trying not to let the itching sensation crawling under his skin manifest itself in a physical response. The piles of goods never seemed to be stacked the same way when he paid attention to them.

"...aren't all these people sekkies?"

Aphrodite let loose with a harsh laugh.

"These?" She paused her forceful stride, turning to stare at Brock. "These leeches," she yelled the word, causing a chorus of hissing chitters to rise into the air, "hanging around our borders are nothing more than pathetic posers trying to traumadump on unwitting immigrants."

"We have permits!" a cthonic mass of writhing tentacles barely hidden beneath a shapeless gray cloak growled from behind its ramshackle stand filled with gently squirming things Brock really didn't want to focus on. "The Council has consistently ruled this a Free Emporium Zone, which means we can spread The True Word without interference!"

"Oh, fucking spare me the legalese, Frank," Aphrodite snapped back. "You know as well as I do the only reason the Council lets you set up shop here is because we don't have the political clout to force you back to The Places In Between."

"We provide a service," Frank insisted, with a voice like the tolling of seaweed-encrusted bells fifty fathoms deep, "one no small number of your kind have been more than happy to avail themselves of."

"And you can bet your ass I'm going to get them back, causal violations bedamned," Aphrodite snarled. "You just see if I don't."

"The tides of uncertainty claim us all eventually, Councilor Softheart," Frank smiled suddenly, tombstone teeth gleaming madly beneath the shroud of its coverings. "Nevertheless, you have our support through all the Ages. We will see you at The End."

"Gah! Piss off with your fucking prophecies, Frank!"

Aphrodite stomped away, Brock's gaze still stuck on the amorphous reality of 'Frank' even as he followed her. The squamous being's limbs seemed to shift in size and number in between eyeblinks, but never so certainly that he could pinpoint when it actually happened. Maybe if he focused a little bit harder on the bigger picture, and tried not to think about those shrilling flutes...

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

A hand abruptly dragged his attention away, Aphrodite hauling him from the alleyway melting into... decohering around... a violating portal filled with...

"That's how they get you," she said, yanking Brock around a street corner, breaking his line of sight and slapping him firmly on the cheek. The stinging rush of blood felt like burning plasma pouring through his corpse-numbed flesh. "Lure you in with something innocuous, and then next thing you know, squid suckers for eyes and octopus ink for brains. Blech." She looked back thoughtfully. "Frank's usually not that aggressive about it though."

"...blhork."

"Don't go throwing up on me here. You do not want to leave any sort of personal information for the Outsiders to collect," Aphrodite exclaimed, clamping a warm hand in front of Brock's mouth. "C'mon, we're almost to Chad's. Forget about those assholes. Back to the pix."

"Bleaurgh?"

"Yeah, the pix hate the Outsiders. Ironic, considering they come from the same place, but that's relatives for you I guess."

"Bnrght?"

"Oh, no, never bring that up with a pix, trust me. If you're lucky they'll just kill you. No, your best bet is to think of them as two sides of the same, extremely weird, non-Euclidean four sided coin."

"Snrkh. That doesn't make any sense."

"Well, yeah, nothing from Outside makes sense. That's why it's the Outside. Honestly," Aphrodite leaned closer to Brock, "I'm glad the Director's in charge of dealing with all that shit most of the time. Trying to advocate for those of us worth saving from Earth takes up a lot of my mental bandwidth, if you know what I mean, and living with Lady Razoralia takes up a lot of the rest."

"You still haven't explained who she is," Brock complained as they entered a slightly more normal-seeming street, albeit for a value of 'normal' that included a hamburger stand juggling bowls of ramen noodles, a pair of mirror creatures engaging in a musical duel bouncing visible notes off each other in concerto crashes, and a werewolf getting a shave and a haircut mani-pedi on an excitably chattering barber's stool ambulating slowly up the avenue.

"Her... 'family,' for lack of a better word, has been tasked with keeping a bunch of twee eldritch anarchists unwillingly summoned from another reality from breaking this reality ever since they took the shackles of their oppressor and did something unspeakably horrific with them." Aphrodite gave Brock a long look. "Her family also led the initial charge against the dipshit edgelord who summoned them here, which is the only time the pix have ever worked as one." She grabbed his chin in a death-grip. "Don't. Fuck. With. The. Pix." She released him. "Especially Lady Razoralia."

"Okay, okay, I got it," Brock whined. "They punch way above their weight. Mikael said the same thing when we showed up at your place last night. Wait, you employ mind-melting-bouncers at your sexhou-"

"Hah. Gotcha, you sneaky fuck," Aphrodite crowed, suddenly bending and raking her hand across Brock's shadow. She dragged her fingers back like a fisher pulling a net, and a snarl of curses split the air. The shadow of Brock's head swelled and bulged, then peeled away from his silhouette like an inky tumor. A familiar swordsman rose from the dark blob painting the pavement, dragged unwillingly into existence.

"So glad to meet you again so soon," Mikael ground out angrily, hand clenched around the cherry-blossom hilt at his waist. "Councilor Softheart."

"Oh fuck me, and here I thought I found who was fucking with the kid's mind." Aphrodite didn't rise out of her half-crouch, hands held as if to yank and grab again. "Seriously? You couldn't have warned me that you were on close security detail?"

"Pursuant to the Manford-Hawlings-"

"If you quote that stupid exception to me after the Director personally brought me on board to your stupid little conspiracy, I will disintegrate your wrinkled old balls."

"...it wasn't need to know."

"Well, I think I need to know if you're going to be haunting the kid's shadow and you want me to verify his mental state."

"...you should clear it with the Director."

"...you clear it with the geezer."

"...no, you."

Aphrodite's eyes narrowed.

"How are you so childish for someone so old?! It's like someone gave a goddamn toddler ninja lessons!"

"...not a toddler."

"Oh for sure, you're the epitome of well-balanced manhood, constantly waving your sword around!"

"Well you're a poopoo head and I'm leaving... damn, you're good."

"...oh shit. Oh shit." Aphrodite turned pale, hands dropping into an instinctive palms up defensive position. "Operator Thorne, I apologize-"

"Nothing to apologize for," Mikael said, deliberately letting go of his katana hilt. "You were protecting Brock, you got me, and you pulled back when you realized what happened. I'm not reporting a Limiter violation."

Brock stared at Aphrodite's heavily panting form, Mikael reaching a hand for her shoulder to stabilize her.

"...whut?"