The convoy was an imposing display of military might. The heavy tread of armoured vehicles sending vibrations through the crowded streets, a stark reminder of the World Defence Directorate’s (WDD) overpowering presence.

The WDD had two military institutions: the TerraGuard, and the GSA (Global Security Authority). The GSA were essentially enforcers of the law and peacekeepers, while the TerraGuard was Earth’s first line of defence against invasion.

After carefully hiding her tail behind her back and keeping her helmet on, Luna’s voice soon crackled through the radio again. Her playful tone had suddenly become far more cautious, and a little anxious. "Do you think a new rift has opened, Master?"

"Probably..." Kane mumbled back while carefully eyeing the massive convoy moving through the city. "Certainly would explain the amount of manpower on display here. We were about due for one, I guess."

Since the beastling rift closed, smaller, shorter-lasting rifts had continued to plague Earth, each leading to different, unknown places. These smaller rifts, though less catastrophic than the original beastling rift, still posed a regular threat, opening unpredictably across the globe.

Plus, a chance remained there might be a repeat of the beastling rift.

Over the years, the WDD had discovered methods of finding these rifts through global scanning. Whenever they found one, they would set up a perimeter to guard against any possible invasions.

At the same time, Mystic guilds and certain private companies would actually travel to the other side in order to find techniques, resources, or sometimes even advanced technology.

They had long since realized that these rifts led to other worlds. The debate was still out on whether these places were other dimensions, or if they were actual planets that could, theoretically, also be found by traveling the stars.

As might be expected, these expeditions came with vastly different results. Sometimes they found nothing, other times a treasure trove. Occasionally, they might find themselves in the middle of a city of some kind, surrounded by a perimeter set up by the local residents.

Obviously, that meant these rift explorations were a high-risk, high-reward endeavour, which is why the WDD only participated in expeditions when the risk was minimal.

The focus of the WDD and the TerraGuard remained on keeping the planet safe from invasions, which occasionally appeared from one of these rifts. Fortunately, no invasion had made it past the TerraGuard’s perimeter since its founding.

Unfortunately, with the WDD’s focus on extra-terrestrial defence, they didn’t have the resources to keep both the TerraGuard and GSA properly staffed and funded.

This meant that the TerraGuard was getting most of the attention, while the GSA was forced to ignore many laws in order to at least enforce those they deemed most important.

For example, Mystics at the third stage, Core Linking, and equivalent Cybers, like Father, were not allowed to fight in the city due to the massive damage that would do. If they did anyway, the GSA would interfere, investigate, and punish. The same went for those of higher stages.

On the other hand, beastlings were technically only allowed to live in the interment camps the WDD had set up after the invasion was over, but this was one of those laws that the GSA didn’t bother to enforce. Mostly because that went counter to the interests of several companies and syndicates.

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Because of that, Luna was usually free to walk the streets.

Well, more or less free. She didn’t actually have any rights, so if she was walking the streets on her own, rather than with Kane, someone might decide to simply drag her into a car and sell her to the nearest brothel.

The TerraGuard, however, wouldn’t simply ignore Luna. They didn’t have the time or resources to go actively hunting for free beastlings across the planet, but if they happened to encounter one, they wouldn’t leave her be. She'd be lucky to get deported back to one of the camps.

Their entire dogma was quite xenophobic and focused on keeping Earth safe from outside influence, after all. The fact that a beastling like Luna was actually born on Earth didn’t seem to matter to them.

Finally, fifteen minutes later, the TerraGuard had passed, and the duo was able to continue on their journey.

“Phew…” came a relieved sigh through the radio in Kane’s helmet. “That had me nervous for a moment.” Despite the lax enforcement, the law’s existence hung over every beastling’s head like a sword, and Luna was no different.

They were now traveling through the streets towards their destination at a far slower pace.

“I would have liked to see that,” Kane chuckled back. “you look cute when you're nervous.”

“Shut up!” Luna growled menacingly through the radio, a surprising amount of emotion in her voice. “I was worried, okay?! What if they had taken me away from you! I don’t want to leave you!”

“I don’t want you to leave me either, Luna,” Kane sighed softly at the catling’s rare vulnerability while feeling a pang of it himself. She was the only person he trusted absolutely, and the fear of losing her was a constant struggle.

On the one hand, his determination to be free and not allow others to determine his future rose exponentially due to that fear. On the other hand, he never thought he would get this attached to someone.

Regardless, neither of them was capable of holding a conversation about their feelings for very long, so Kane’s smile suddenly turned into a grin, “Should we stop and hug it out?”

Luna giggled as she could almost see the shit-eating grin on his face while they weaved their way through traffic. “Shut up! Try it and I’ll bite! Don’t doubt me!”

“Promises, promises,” Kane responded while his laugh echoed through both of their helmets.

After Luna laughed as well, they quickly started picking up the pace again.

A few minutes of racing through the streets later, Luna broke the silence, “By the way… can we pay a visit to the Opal Oasis on the way back?”

Under his helmet, Kane frowned and pursed his lips. It’s not that he didn’t want to, but there was a problem. “You know we need every credit we have right now for the techniques tomorrow, Luna…” he told her with a sigh.

“I know…” Luna responded with a pout that was so large Kane could hear it through the radio. “But what if these hackers have some money lying around? Can we use that?”

“If they have enough, then we can go,” Kane relented. “But are you sure you want to do this now? It hasn’t been that long since our last visit, and every time we go is another chance for Father to discover that we’re not going there for the usual reasons.”

Falling silent for a moment, he chuckled, “Well, not only that, anyway.”

Kane was a reasonably accomplished engineer for his age, particularly due to his upbringing with the Cyberkins, which allowed him to find listening devices and bugging software that Father tried to stick the two of them with.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t go too far, otherwise Father would strike back. Thus, he had to leave the trackers intact and allow Father to track their movements.

It was just another one of their games. Kane knew that Father planted listening devices and trackers on them, and Father knew that Kane knew.

Father also knew that Kane disabled the listening devices, and Kane knew that Father knew. At the same time, Kane knew that removing the trackers would result in serious blowback from Father, and Father knew that Kane knew that.

Lastly, Kane knew that Father would continue to try and plant listening devices, which means Kane was forced to keep up by finding and disabling them at the same pace.

Just like everything else Father forced Kane to go through, this particular game was extremely nerve wrecking for him. Failing to find every method of listening in or on them even once, would result in Father finding out all their plans.

Still, to the best of his knowledge they were currently clear to talk, and thus in a delicate balance, where Father was able to track them, but not listen in on their conversations.

“I know,” Luna sighed. “I just have this weird feeling that if I don’t do it now, I won’t have the chance for a long time…”

“Well, that’s not ominous at all… I hope you haven’t just jinxed us.” Kane mumbled wryly and stepped on the gas.

Next stop, breakfast.