Not too long ago ...

The large Bioform alpha snarls at Carol, the tendrils that extend from his canine body lashing the ground furiously. The other members of the giant pack, quickly understanding what's going on, form a circle around the alpha and the red fox upstart. Excited bellows from the Bioforms fill the air, mingling with the scent of bloody meat.

Carol's stomach growls as she paces on all fours, making a slow loop around the impromptu fighting ring. The freshly slaughtered corpses of the caravan the pack just attacked lie scattered at her feet, the prospect of an easy meal almost irresistible to Carol's animal senses. A lifetime ago, Carol was human. A freshly minted Ranger with a fox companion.

And that lifetime ended when she met with Adam Everett.

A Ranger's companion is more than a pet, or a well trained beast. Enhanced intelligence, strength and toughness allows the companion to tower over its peers. All thanks to the companion being able to draw from their master's class skills. But there is always a price to be paid. And for the companion, that price is sharing its very soul with the master. An arrangement that allows Rangers to command absolute obedience from their animal companions. Carol might have kept Buddy on a loose leash, but the leash was always there.

And its that leash that made all the difference for Carol.

When Everett pinned Carol to the ground all those nights ago, it felt like her soul was being smothered with a blanket. Carol wasn't strong enough to resist, but she didn't need to in order to survive. Buddy just needed to get away.

Carol slides back into the corner of Buddy's mind, letting the fox deal with the fight. It was an arrangement that had worked well so far. As an animal foreign to Winter Rift, Buddy eventually attracted the attention of the Rift Bioforms. The locals originally saw Buddy as prey, but with full access to Carol's power, Buddy easily outclasses any low tier Bioform. A series of messy beatdowns later, Buddy had amassed a large pack slavishly following their new leader.

Buddy tenses, jaws at the ready. The Alpha lunges. But to Buddy and Carol, the Alpha might as well be moving in slow motion. Buddy gracefully flicks his head to the side, easily dodging the Alpha's attack. And in a flash, the fox's jaws tear out the Bioform's throat. In the background, the spectators howl raucously, cheering Carol's victory.

Carol's shuts her eyes in frustration, the taste of Bioform blood still on her tongue. Another duel won. The result was never in doubt. But what gnaws at her was how unnecessary the whole thing was. And Carol had only herself to blame.

Animals hunt. That's simply what they do to keep themselves fed. And with such a substantial pack at her back, Queen Carol could easily bag the juiciest prey of all, human caravans. Peel away the handful of guards the caravan has and you have prey that's slow and can't fight back. A huge score for the collection of weak Bioforms that attached themselves to Carol. Too bad for them that Queen Carol had only one iron clad rule. No hurting humans.

There were objections of course. And it was impossible for Carol to maintain order over such a large pack by herself. It was a losing battle trying to force animals to ignore their fundamental nature. And that was what led to the current situation. A rebellious Alpha had taken control over part of the pack and led an attack on the caravan. It was a mutiny, plain and simple. And Carol had put the mutiny down with decisive force.

This dispute wasn't over though, not by a long shot. Carol could see it in the eyes of the other pack members. They would try again, no doubt about it. But that didn't matter. Carol just needed to keep her position for just a bit longer. From the corner of her eye, Carol notices one of the caravanners slowly dragging himself along the ground, weakly trying to escape while the Bioforms are too preoccupied to notice. Blood flows freely from the man's wounds, marking him as close to death. But that's not what really caught Carol's attention.

A crumbling halo had formed around the caravanner, wisps of golden light melting away.

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Electric tension locks Carol in place, every fiber of her being demanding that she absorb the halo. But just like before, Carol resists. This isn't the first halo Carol had encountered. And she would never let herself become like him. That would make a mockery of Carol's mission to claim justice for herself.

Carol lets loose a low, throaty growl, controlled aggression radiating off her in waves. Resisting had become more difficult than ever. Her instincts scream, telling Carol that absorbing the halo is not a matter of choice. Its necessity. To resist is to deny her true nature. Just like she demands her pack to deny theirs.

Carol had become many things in both her lives. Ranger. A fairly good cook. A fox. And regardless of the skin she wore, Carol would never let herself be a hypocrite. Forcing her urges back, Carol yiffs to signal the pack to fall in behind her as she leads them toward their destination.

A nearby stable Rift Portal. This one leading to a town dominated by a casino. Popular choice among holidaymakers and the most likely intended destination of the recently murdered caravan.

Carol's original body being dead didn't mean the Ranger companion link died with it. The link was merely transferred to someone else. Someone who had taken part of Carol away with him. And that was why she wanted the pack behind her. Carol had underestimated Everett before. She wasn't taking any chances this time. The companion link told her that Everett had left Crossroad City. The Rift portal would let Carol and her pack close much of the distance. Their animal endurance would handle the rest.

Yiffing out another command, Carol orders the pack to begin trooping through the portal. The sudden appearance of so many Bioforms from a stable portal would immediately draw attention. But no one would be stupid enough to challenge such a massive pack either, giving Carol free passage to Everett's location.

A grumble rises from the Bioforms, unhappy at being ordered to leave their native Rift. A stern glare from Carol is all it takes to silence the pack and the line begins unenthusiastically shuffling through the portal. Staying by the sidelines to supervise, Carol's attention is distracted from a glint coming from deeper within the snowy woods. Her willpower exhausted, Carol breaks into a loping run, resigned to investigating the glint.

And what Carol finds only mystifies her. A housecat sits between the trees, looking at Carol with a steady, almost unrepentant gaze. Perhaps another animal lost in the Rift. Carol cautiously approaches so as not to scare off the stranger. She knew from personal experience how difficult surviving in a Rift can be, even one as forgiving as Winter Rift.

But the cat instead raises its right paw, revealing a set of bloodstained claws. Carol scoffs, shaking her head. That housecat would be lucky to survive the week if that set of claws are all it has. But when she turns back to the housecat, its gone. No scent. Not a single pawprint in the snow.

The housecat was never there.

Shaken, Carol allows herself to recede again as Buddy joins up with the last members of the pack leaving the Rift. The stress of living as a wild animal was getting to Carol. In many ways, it was a relief to treat Buddy as a kind of autopilot for their shared body. Buddy could communicate well enough with the Bioforms and faithfully carried out Carol's instructions. It would be fine to let Buddy handle things until the pack closed in on Everett.

Emerging from the portal , Buddy is jostled by the mass of Bioforms gathering under the wasteland's night sky. The pull of the companion link had grown much stronger, the sensation now almost palpable. An irradiated zone separated the pack from Everett. but Carol's class skills would let them navigate the zone easily. The moment the pack set off on the chase, it was only a matter of time they caught up with Everett.

Nevertheless, an unseen force pins the pack in place. Casting desperately about, the only thing that draws Buddy's attention is a white van parked some distance away with a man standing by the side. Dressed in a roughly made cassock, the man stares blindly into the distance, his face completely covered by a burlap bag. A completely ridiculous sight, if not for the overwhelming sense of menace emanating from the unknown man. Buddy and the rest of the pack stand rooted to the ground, unsure of how to proceed.

"I breathe, and through it, I breathe in the cosmos." the man sing songs, silhouetted by the distant bright lights of the Pay 2 Win casino.

Buddy crouches low, holding his breath. The rest of the pack trembles, barely holding it together.

"I know you're here." the man simply states, "There's no need to hide."

As he signals the pack to depart, Buddy's insides are suddenly torn apart by a rising tide of hunger. As if his stomach had ruptured and drenched every organ in gastric juices. A miserable sound wells up in Buddy's throat as he struggles to regain control of himself. Wobbling on quivering legs, the roar of a bus departing the town barely manages to register. A haze had suffocated almost every thought in Buddy's head. Time no longer had any meaning.

"You've unresolved business. I won't keep you any further." the man says, his voice echoing across a chasm.

Buddy blinks, his senses returning to normal.

And he sets off in pursuit of Carol's prey.