There was a knock at Will’s door, which woke him up.

He hadn’t realized that he had fallen asleep, or gone to bed for that matter, and he didn’t recognize the room he was now in. Deja vu.

“Coming, give me a second!” Will said, which in hindsight was a poor choice of words.

He was again naked, and still a satyr. Some part of him had been hoping this had all been some absurd, stupid dream. But no, it was his absurd, stupid reality.

Will opened a large wooden wardrobe and found the clothes he had been wearing last night, along with some extras of similar styles. The plain cotton clothes Glory had provided yesterday were nowhere to be found. While most of it was dark leather, a colorful aloha shirt stood out to him, and Will grabbed it to try it on.

It simply wouldn’t stick, as if blocked by an invisible barrier. After wrestling with it for an embarrassingly long time, he read the label.

‘Cosmetic Equipment: Wear only over armor!’

“I hate this so much,” Will said, tossing the shirt onto his bed. He was pretty sure the harnesses were what constituted his ‘armor,’ and so he struggled getting into one for, again, an embarrassingly long time. When he finally got it on, his brain helpfully supplied that it was called an “X” harness, which made sense, considering it was shaped like an X.

“I hate this so much,” Will repeated, putting on the aloha shirt, which this time went on with zero difficulty. It had no buttonholes and couldn’t be closed.

There was another knock at Will’s door. On the other side Virgil said “Will? Are you okay in there? Need any help?”

“No, sorry,” Will said, jumping to the door. He opened it quickly. “I’m alright,” he repeated. “Had some difficulty with my, uh, armor.”

“You’re wearing it upside-down,” said Virgil. “I respect the no pants, though.”

“Uhm,” Will said.

“Don’t worry,” Virgil, who was approximately eye level with his navel, said. “Nobody can see your bits.”

“Uhm,” Will repeated.

“Unless you want them too.”

“Uhm…”

“Anyway,” Virgil said, walking away. “I need your help with something. I can’t find one of my summons; Glory said you did something with it.”

The memory reasserted itself in Will’s mind. It felt less like his own recollection and more of a solid thing in his brain. “Yeah,” Will said. “I’m not sure what though. It just gave me weird… feelings when I grabbed it.”

Virgil led Will into the garden and had them sit down across from one another. “Recall those feelings: this is an ancient, primal force. More than a conjuration, it is a soul-of-souls.”

“In Eng-er-common, please,” Will asked.

“On all worlds there are prey, and so on all worlds there are predators. This is an incarnation of Predation, the apex hunter. A small sliver of it, at least.”

“Okay,” said Will. He focused on documentaries he’d watched in the past; hyenas taking down a zebra, a cannibal spider lunging at a relative, orcas stranding seals on land to trap them.

Floating in the air above his hands, something glowed blue. It seemed to be an amorphous blob, struggling to maintain a form. It pulsed with wiry veins like a slime mold in time like a heartbeat. It was copying his own, Will realized.

“Okay,” Will said. “What now?”

“Hm.” Virgil said. He reached out a finger towards the blob, and the blue turned purple as it reached out back to him. “I’ve never seen this. It’s bonded to you, but it’s still bonded to me. That’s not supposed to be possible for things like this.”

“I have no context for this,” said Will. “What do we do with it?”

“Its form is unstable, and it’s scared and confused,” said Virgil. “It should look like an animal. A predator, specifically. Something primal and raw.”

“Sure,” Will said. Again he remembered learning of the past; of the reptiles and dinosaurs that once ruled the earth. Then further back, amphibians. Then further back, fish. And then… furthest back, something older and stranger than all of those.

Will opened his eyes. There was a creature floating above his hands, pulsing purple and blue, about a foot and a half long. Waves of fins undulated in empty air. “It’s an anomalocaris,” said Will. “One of earth’s oldest apex predators.”

“Anomaloc-ah-ris?” Virgil asked.

“No, anomaloc-air-is,” said Will. “Rhymes with Paris.”

“What’s a Paris?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Will stifled a laugh. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I was thinking of something like a big cat,” said Virgil. “Or the wolf it had been before. Wolves are cool.”

“Is this one a problem?” Will asked. He loosened his metaphorical grip, and the ghostly radiodont circled around his head lazily.

Virgil blushed. “Oh, no, not at all. I love it! It’s very, well, you.”

“So, what does it do?” asked Will. “You sent it after one of those tainted creatures, yeah?”

“Oh, yes,” Virgil said proudly. “An avatar of Predation is very useful in a fight, and can contribute without too much direct command, which I appreciate.”

“For now, though, it should rest,” Virgil said. “The process of reassembling a form is exhausting for creatures unbound by flesh.”

Virgil attempted to return the spirit to his protection, but something caught within Will; like a chain was being tugged in a direction he didn’t know existed. To avoid metaphorically slipping, Will metaphorically pulled back. The creature vanished. He felt it again in his mind, and again in Virgil’s.

“Is it in… both of us?” Will asked.

“I suppose so,” said Virgil. “There’s no rule saying it can’t be.”

“This is weird.” Will said blankly.

“And everything before this hasn’t been weird?” Virgil asked.

“Touche. It’s weird in a different way than everything else.”

“You get used to it,” said Virgil. “Now come on. I want breakfast.”

The kitchen was directly adjacent to the bedrooms, so Virgil and Will backtracked. Dio was tending to a brick oven which had a series of clamped, pan-shaped metal implements roasting in it; with his bare hand he picked one up and turned it over.

“I’m making waffles,” Dio said. In a kindergarten teacher's voice, he asked “Do you know what a waffle is?”

“What?” Will replied.

“Oh, it’s a type of pastry made by baking dough between shaped plates to create a—”

“I know what a waffle is,” Will said. “I just don’t like that tone.”

“Please, Dio,” Virgil said. “Be civil. Will is nice, and he’s staying to help us.”

“Uh, actually—” Will attempted to cut in again.

“I’m sure he is, which is exactly why I got left behind all day yesterday so you could ease him in.” Dio said, venom dripping from the last three words.

“It’s a process, okay,” Virgil said. “We just needed time. It’s already so much to take in.”

“Please just—” Will attempted yet again to cut in.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dio snapped.

“It means…” Virgil paused to gesticulate. “Well, you know you can be a lot to handle.”

“So you don’t want me around, is that it?” Dio asked, smacking a waffle iron against the floor of the oven.

“No, Dio.” Virgil sighed. “Seven Scribes, I want you around. But after the last times we tried this, I needed you to not overwhelm Will. So please, calm down. You’re going to burn the waffles.”

“Sorry I’m soooo fucking much to handle, Virge,” Dio said, his eyes literally smoldering angrily. “‘Dio, don’t break into my room and use my private bathroom. Dio, don’t run around with your dick out when there’s company from the prude dimension. Dio, don’t ruin our last chance to save the fucking world by being such a fucking faggot all the time.’”

“You have to admit you weren’t exactly welcoming to the other candidates,” Virgil said diplomatically.

“So suddenly it’s my fault we’re stuck with the square?” Dio asked rhetorically.

“I’m right here you know,” Will said. “The waffles are on fire by the way.”

“You threw one of them off a cliff!” Virgil countered.

“He shouldn’t have pulled your tail like that!” Dio countered.

“He died!”

“HE GOT BETTER!”

“The waffles are on fire!” Will said again.

“You just want him all to yourself so he can fuck you stupid all night!” Dio said. “I can fucking smell it on you you little weasel, acting like you’re soooo much more levelheaded than me. Well maybe I wanted him to fuck me stupid all night!”

“Again, I’m right here!” Will said. “And the waffles are still on fire.”

“The what?” Dio asked. “Ah fuck, the waffles are on fire! Why doesn’t anyone tell me anything!?”

Dio ran off and dunked the reddening waffle irons in a fountain, causing a hiss of steam to billow forth.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that, Will,” said Virgil, looking towards the steam cloud. “Dio has been doing poorly since we first started this whole plan. He shouldn’t be taking it out on you. And I don’t… just… keep you here for your looks. I’m a—“

“I know you have a crush on me,” said Will. “Glory told me last night.”

Virgil made a squeaking noise, every muscle in his body tensing instantly like a fainting goat’s. “When?”

“It was a bit after we talked about fireflies,” Will said. “I’m flattered, but…”

“You’re not interested?”

“I’m not gay, Virgil. I’ve never been interested in men. And I just… I don’t know. I have my old life to get back to.”

“But it doesn’t have anything to do with… me? Besides the obvious.”

“Do not get the wrong idea here, Virgil, seriously. I think you’re a great guy. Anyone else here would be lucky to have you. But not me.” Will said. After a pause, he added “Again; do not get the wrong idea.”

“Right,” said Virgil, who wasn’t getting the wrong idea but also wasn’t getting the right one. “Thank you, Will. For understanding.”