Ever gotten into a situation where the person you love was staring daggers at you? It’s quite terrifying to be honest. And the worst part was that we’d skipped all the getting to know each other and the lovey-dovey stuff and went straight to this! Why was the world so unfair?!

“Uh… hi?” Back to my tried and true strategy.

“Who are you? What did you do to Shade?” her cold tone reminded me of the first time we’d met. Ah yes… the snake jaw about to trim my neck, it felt like it was just yesterday…

Wait, why was I reminiscing right now?! Focus!

“I’m… Princess Fox,” my modulated voice said with confidence.

Which actually made the wolf rider narrow her eyes and tighten her guard.

Noooo! I didn’t mean to sound challenging! Dammit! How do I turn this voice modulator off now?!

“She keeps hijacking my teleports! I can’t shake her off!” the teleporter growled.

“I--”

“Then see how you shake this off!” Iron Pack shouted over my meek attempts to speak and sent her pack after me.

The two wolves charged me and all I could do was panic and push random buttons again. This time though, I also decided that closing my eyes would be a great move when there were two dangerous summons charging at me. As expected of my amazing advanced mind.

There were some clinks and crashes and I went flying through the air as the rocket boots propelled me before I landed back down.

I carefully opened my eyes to witness the two wolves lying at the side of the alleyway as well as the shocked expression of Iron Pack. She stared at me as if she realized something.

“Aster…?”

“Yeah?” I said without thinking, the modulator giving it a smug tone.

Wait, she recognized me?! Yes! She still remembered me! I couldn’t be happier!

Wait wait wait, how did she recognize me though? I wore a powersuit and my voice was filtered by the modulator! What the heck?

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“I should have known…” Iron Pack whispered, grimacing. “Shade! Retreat! We stand no chance against her!”

Huh?

I heard hurried footsteps behind me and when I turned around I saw the teleporter sprinting away. Then I heard metallic footsteps in front of me and confirmed that Iron Pack was also running away.

I looked back at Shadeskip carrying the dragon poop of destruction, then back at Iron Pack, then back at…

Wait, stop. I needed to decide. Alright, priorities! Iron Pack! There was clearly some sort of misunderstanding going on here and I needed to fix that!

I once again pushed all the buttons and managed to activate my jet boots to chase after Iron Pack. I couldn’t exactly say my flight was graceful, but at least I was faster than her wolves. That said, she could steer around corners much more smoothly than I could. And by that, I meant that I kept crashing into walls and rolling off into the alleyways before recovering and blasting off again.

“Wait!” I tried shouting at her, but it was futile. She was determined to get away from me.

As she turned the fifth corner of the chase I heard my comms crackle to life again. “Fox! Can you hear me now?” my boss asked.

“Uh, yeah?” I said, successfully slowing down and avoiding slamming into a wall for the first time.

“Good! I think Shadeskip’s power messed with the communicator before. I’m on his heels now. Where are you going?”

“Iron Pack,” I breathed out.

“What? What is she doing here? Are they working together?”

“Uh, probably?”

Now that he mentioned it… what was up with this? I thought Iron Pack always worked alone, but now she had an ally? Argh, why was I starting to feel jealous?! This was not the time for that!

“Alright, keep going after her. Maybe we’ll get some answers.”

“Right.”

“And be careful. We might have woken up the two heroes as we broke in to provide support for you.”

Oh jolly.

“Alright.”

With that, the communicator went silent once again and the chase continued.

That annoying doubtful part of me couldn’t help but wonder… Iron Pack had apparently betrayed Fractal and stole from him, and now she was working together with someone who apparently had something that could cause a lot of destruction? Why? Was she evil? No freaking way!

No. For once, I needed to be reasonable and instead of assuming things, I should simply ask. I was sure there was an explanation for everything. Yes, there was no way Iron Pack was evil!

But for that, I had to catch up to her. Unfortunately, even though my maximum speed was higher, she still managed to slip away bit by bit. I wasn’t going to catch up to her. Heck, even if I were, what would I even do? She wasn’t going to stop on her own! And I wasn’t going to tackle her!

Somehow, my prayers had been heard as the villainess suddenly stopped in her tracks, staring at something in front of her. I did my best not to ram into her and instead rammed into a nearby building.

Once I got up, I saw the reason why she’d stopped.

“Dammit…” she whispered as she glared at the two heroes staring her down. Nova and Fissure found us somehow.

“You…! So it was you who stole it!” Nova shouted at the wolf rider. She then turned to me and continued, “And who the hell are you?!”

“Princess Fox.”

“Who?” She frowned.

“Nova, she’s on our side. She was chasing after Pack.”

Wait, what?

Oh my god, why was the situation getting more and more complicated?!