Samari’s Rendezvous with the Rottweiler squad happened in the town’s plaza, where she found them gathered by a bench, Brunhilda chewing on someone’s arm, Jagger sitting on the bench like a king, and Kalon playing chess against a sapling. The sapling was about win by timeout, and Kalon sweating profusely as he had managed to almost checkmate himself with half a move.

She had got paid for a job “technically well done”, but still felt the rat-shaped hole with scalding borders in her soul. She put in a fake smile and approached her… well, they weren’t exactly friends yet, and it was too soon to call them a found family. Granted, she ahd always wanted a pet hamster and with a bit of work Kalon could probably be trained to fit the bill, but…

“I thought the reek of cortisol was coming from Kalon… but no, it’s you,” Jagger greeted her in a very Jagger way. “I swear this boy is too dumb to suffer real stress.

Kalon swept the pieces to the side, sending them flying off at incredible speeds. The bishops, aerodynamically gifted, soared over the dick pond, where happy pawn shop owners with thermally disadvantaged scalps swam calmly, and then set in a collision course with a nearby woman. A millisecond before they skewered her face, she turned her head, eyes as wide as ducklings trapped on the dimension of breadcrumbs, smug smirk on her face. Her stare alone acted as a bulletproof shield, stopping the bishops, who, frozen midflight, began trembling in fear when exposed to her vital energy. The plastic bishops then exploded in small clouds of piss, because they had no pants and something needed to be wet.

Samari pursed her lips. Yes, they seemed to have gotten in trouble. She now had to plan for survival. It had been nice knowing Kalon and Jagger, but she fostered some egoistical interests, like growing up in one piece. So, deciding that running away would arise suspicion, she leaned over Brunhilda and began scratching the jowls of Kalon’s sensei.

Brunhilda, being a generous one, allowed Samari to carry on with her pathetic act without as much as a little groan. One day, she would ask for this favor to be repaid. “Cute doggie,” Samari cooed, faking childish stupidity.

The woman strode towards them, hands in the pockets of her jeans, thumbs out. Her back arched backwards, almost unnaturally, and a cowboy hat obscured her eyes. Jahgger Jumped from the bench and puppy-skittered to meet the woman.

“Aren’t you the mother of the catapult brat?” Jagger the Fearless asked, making Polvorina lean over and poke him in the forehead with a single galena-smelling finger.

“Oi, we had a talking puppy in Valelike Vale a few years ago. Is it you?”

“Yes, I died and, uh, got a new body.”

The woman scratched her calf with disinterest. “With or without cellulite?”

“Without,” Jagger dared, expecting Polvorina to Uzi him down.

The ethereal gun manifested into Polvorina’s hand. “Well, you are pretty fortunate, aren’t you?”

“If you are going to go full on Northern-Empire-High-School-Curriculum on me do it now.”

Polvorina squinted and tossed the gun in the air, sending it spinning upwards, to then catch it with a loose grasp as it fell. “I won’t kill a talking puppy.”

Jagger swiveled his head, looking for innocent bystanders around the park. His dog vision wasn’t cooperating. “That kinda looks reckless and dangerous.”

“That’s how I call my tits,” she stated with a contented smile.

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Jagger blinked twice. He had forgot that Kalon wasn’t that much of an anomaly.

Polvorina put the canon of her gun in her mouth, shot a few bullets that bounced against her palate, tongue, teeth and the inside of the cheeks making a ruckus, and then started chewing on the vital energy constructs. Samari couldn’t help but stare in disbelief.

“That cannot be good for enamel.”

Polvorina spat the chewed bullets into the grass, letting them disperse back into energy.

Kalon snapped his fingers. “You are Crusadina’s mom!”

She strode up to Kalon, who remained sitting on the debladed grass.

“Are you the brat that was exiled in the tournament two years ago?”

“No,” Kalon said his truth, which, for all intents and purposes, configured a lie. “I was exiled after the anti-tournament.”

She tousled Kalon’s hair, making him grimace due to the smell of gunpowder she exuded. “Good. I guess the chess pieces thing was an accident, so forget about it. Have you seen my daughter around?”

Kalon crossed his arms. “Only in dreams where I beat her.”

This sent Polvorina reeling with laughter. Once she fell to the floor, Jagger climbed on top of the woman’s side, and, paw pointed at Kalon, laughed too. Samari shrugged, crawled to Kalon, patted him on the shoulder, and then laughed meanly too.

Why did they mock him so? He would reach Crusadina one day. His road was just longer and his brain… well, low-grade. But he had the will and the determination to progress. “Just because I am stupid, it doesn’t mean you have a right to laugh at me.”

A beat of uncomfortable silence passed and then his puppy, his new companion and his auntie began guffawing even louder. Brunhilda stood beside Kalon and began snarling. They would not mock her pupil like that. Nor other things that share names with eye anatomy.

Kalon hugged Brunhilda for defending him. She was a way better Rottweiler than Jagger, even if Jagger was his little special puppy. “Everyone is mean to me.”

“Don’t be delusional, Kalon: I am mean to everybody because I hate life,” Jagger tried his paw at comforting him. “And life hates me back, don’t get me wrong. It’s a mutually consented hatred.”

“I am mean to you because you aren’t my daughter, boy. It’s not personal.”

“And I am mean to you because you are painfully stupid,” Samari concluded the round of bullying apologetics.

They weren’t on Kalon’s head. They liked to live in a world without shortages of cognitive energy, the elitists.

“Thanks, but I’d prefer if you weren’t mean at all.”

“Subject change!” Jagger announced, making good use of the shamelessness expected of a puppy, and the women present were delighted to follow.

“So, uh, missus, you are looking for your daughter, I take?”

“Yes, her chocolate milk has gone cold at home,” she said, her expression souring like the milk had long ago.

“Ah, well, she must be close by, no?”

“Yes but the milk is befouling the air of my living room and I refuse to clean it up until she returns. I will search every last corner on Cabaret to find her!” she said, and I am not going to footnote what Cabaret is. Think about it: doesn’t it make sense to call the only planet with whores on the solar system Cabaret? Search your soul and you will find that it cannot but make more sense than calling a planet “Earth”.

“Excuse me, since when is thaty milk there? Yesterday?” Samari asked. Milk didn’t go bad that fast.

She pointed at Kalon with the gun, disregarding any notion of trigger discipline. “A little more than a week before his exile.”

Samari’s frown went from grape to raisin in record time. “Wait, you replace her milk every day, waiting for her to return?” She asked, noticing they were dealing with a mother that couldn’t accept her daughter had disappeared.

“Hell no. Putting that glass of milk on the table took my blood, sweat and tears, and I am not letting it go to waste. When I find my daughter, she will drink her chocolate milk, even if it is the last thing she does.” She crumpled her weapons like they were made of paper, as if fury dripped out of her pores.

Samari swallowed, ignoring the part of her brain that was telling her that the milk of that glass would already be the most cultured individual in the whole continent. “And what if your daughter is… well, dead?”

“Ah,” Polvorina recovered her easygoing attitude, taking her hands to her hips. “Then someone will owe me a daughter, and that someone better be male!”

“Well, good luck finding your daughter, then,” Samari said, her politeness reaching her limits,

“Or let’s hope she was killed by a sexy one.”

Samari steepled her fingers. “Well, I wish you good luck, missus. I am going to the market; I have five hundred diamond pieces to spend. Kalon, do you want something?”

“A friend.” He sniffed, stare fixed on a pebble.

“Come, everyone, we are buying Kalon something nice,” She said, ignoring that Polvorina was still there, biting her lips as she fantasized about… Samari didn’t want to know exactly about what, that’s for sure.

“Oh, heavens,” Jagger exclaimed, suffering from pre traumatic stress disorder.