"Ha!" the Thunderbird laughed. "He did, didn't he? Come on what'd he do? Deets, my kitty-dude, I want all the deets!"

"He called me his art nemesis and bugged me and wouldn't leave me alone... so I pulled him into the deep to scare him away," Katherine said, smiling ever so slightly now. "And he didn't run away... even after I blasted him with pure undiluted fear... he just stood there and took it. No idea how.”

"You fear-aura slammed him?" Cinder demanded. "What the hell, Kat? That stuff is brutal. I've had nightmares for weeks after you hit me with it three years ago!"

"In my defense, he was being incredibly annoying," Katherine huffed.

"Kaaaaat," Cinder whined. "You can't use that stuff on humans. It's like a PTSD bomb, even for Omnids!”

"I didn't know that he was a friggin' human!" Kat defended herself. "When I pulled him into the deep... he didn't react like you or anyone else. Most break instantly, begging me to stop. But he... he didn't even try to run, didn't cry. He was shaking, yeah, but he just stared right back at me. Like he was analyzing the situation. It was..."

"Hot?" Vespera suggested.

"I was going to say 'freakish'," Katherine growled, her emerald eyes flashing. "Don't make this weird, Vee."

"Making it weird is my specialty!" Vespera cackled, electricity dancing between her talons. "So you're telling me this human stood up to your ultimate attack and didn't piss himself? Oi, pinkie, how'd you do that?" She turned to me.

"A song," I said.

"A song?!" Vespera sputtered. "What?!"

"Want to see how it works?" I asked.

Everyone nodded. I went to tether my phone into the presentation system that was usually used by team captains to display the delve plans to their delvers.

“Protocol xj-8!” I said in English out loud. "Single instance. Public version."

Yulia's Vroid avatar rearranged itself to resemble my mom on the big screen in front of the room.

Cinder slid to my side on the bench as I sat down. Soft violet-pink-gold colors ignited across her wings when she recognized the avatar from the photos in my pouch.

“I love you, my little fox, you are stronger than all of them,” Yulia said in my mom's voice. “Stand your ground!”

A haunting melody began to play, a composition blending traditional Kaska Dena rhythms with modern instrumentation. The song wove together sounds of wind, rivers, and distant drumbeats - a complex tapestry of musical storytelling that felt both ancient and contemporary.

The music carried an almost tangible quality of resilience, with underlying tones that spoke of survival, of standing firm against overwhelming odds. It wasn't just a Kaska song, but a sonic representation of defiance and inner strength.

Katherine and Vespera listened intently, their expressions shifting. Katherine's emerald eyes widened, her tail twitching slightly. Vespera's electrical charge seemed to calm, her crackling feathers settling. Cinder leaned on my shoulder, her hand sliding atop of mine. Our fingers entwined.

Everyone listened as the song rose towards a crescendo and then ended.

"How..." Katherine started, then stopped. "But... that's just a song? I mean it's a nice song but I don't understand how it could..."

"It's a song that's incredibly personal to me," I explained. "It won't work for anyone else. It's sung in my late mom's voice. The composition is designed as a memetic shield against fear-based magic. I made it using fragments of my mother's voice and traditional Kaska resistance songs."

"A memetic shield," Katherine repeated. "You... designed a musical defense mechanism? Against fear-based attacks?"

"Apparently, powerful enough emotional resonance can break through magical fear," I shrugged, enjoying the warm presence of Cinder beside me. "Personal connection trumps supernatural manipulation."

Vespera was staring at me, her gray eyes wide, beak half open. "You... composed this? With an AI? Using your dead mom's voice? How long did it take? If I remember things correctly music composing AI models are pretty quick, ye? Like thirty seconds per song?"

"Six months," I said.

"Six months?!" Vespera sputtered. "Why so long?"

"Trial and error," I said. "The Omnicorp my mom worked at had magical fear-based wards set up around the perimeter to keep outsiders from entering on the property. The ward kicked in whenever I tried crawling under the fence. It was impossible to do. But I kept trying. Everyday. Adjusting the song, testing what works and what doesn't. For six months I optimized this song and training to fight magic-fear itself."

"You spent six months getting your ass kicked by fear wards just to perfect an anti-fear song?" Cinder asked.

"Yep," I nodded.

"Not gon' lie, that's pretty metal," Vee commented. "Also, here's ya lighter back. It's basically an ordinary lighter, structure-wise. No hexagrams on it. It's saturated with mana to an insane degree though, both the metal and fuel have the highest aetheric density I've seen. More magic than Genesis fluid. Basically, a finite use artifact, sort of like the stuff you'd get by beating a high level dungeon Sentinel on Arx near a dungeon core."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I accepted the lighter from her.

"Wait," Katherine held up a hand. "Why were you trying to break into your mom's workplace?"

"To steal research and administrative data," I admitted. "Frontenachii Omnicorp tried to claim ownership of Mom's work after she died. Including her personal compsci and LLM work. I wasn't about to let them take that away from her... from me. I wasn't going to let them get away with her murder scot-free."

"Did you get it?" Io asked quietly.

"Eventually," I nodded. "Once the song was perfected, I could withstand the wards long enough to go through all of the fences and reach the servers. Downloaded everything. Absolutely fucking everything, including Frontenachii Clan's work on... LLMs."

"Holy shit," Vespera breathed. "You stole data from the Frontenachii Wendigo Clan? And lived? Wait... how are you still alive?"

"What happened after you took their AI?" Cinder asked as my hand trembled.

"And then I… blew up the Frontenachii Clan sky-high," I revealed. "A thermite bomb set in the fertilizer storage within the compound on the day they were meeting at according to the admin records. A few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate went up like a small nuke, destroying the entire fortified compound."

A heavy silence fell over the room. Even Vespera stopped crackling with electricity.

"You... what?" Katherine whispered.

"I blew them all up," I repeated. "The board members who ordered my mom to keep working even after her cancer diagnosis. Who denied her medical leave. Who denied her magitek healing. Who watched her deteriorate and die at her desk because they needed her to finish their LLM, to meet a set release deadline. Who claimed full ownership of her research after she died. I found out when they'd all be meeting in the office building, and I made sure they never left it."

"Were there... people working in the compound that day?" Io asked, staring at me with deep, dark gray compound eyes.

"No," I said. "The Clan Heads met on a Sunday since they didn't want lowly employees getting in the way. They relied on their own Wendigo senses and heavy fear wards to secure the place. That's what done them in, they trusted their magic anti-fire wards which I simply disabled with a very large hammer to the crystalline hexagrams. They really didn't expect common fertilizer to be triggered by common magnesium. Honestly, I didn't think that I could get away with it and yet here I am, five thousand kilometers south across the border."

“So…” Cinder's hand dug into mine. "That's why you told me revenge isn't enough."

"I sort of got my revenge against the bastards that killed mom," I nodded. "It wasn't enough. Yeah, they died... yeah they lost their biggest compound and all of their LLM research, but they all had Lazarus bracelets impervious to fire, so they were all eventually found and brought back by Corpse Seekers via the incarnator. In the end, I only cost them a few hundred million o-bux on the illegal stuff that wasn't insured plus... the flesh-research projects they kept in their basement. As a human without clan backing, I'm just a small irritation to their accountants." I sighed.

"So the North Acadian Wendigos are going to come looking for you?" The Quetzi girl asked with a worried look.

"Their Scrutimancers will catch up to me eventually. Yulia expects them to arrive in Cradlefall come Monday. I hope that the trip to Arx will make them lose my Astral trail," I shrugged. "I delayed and confused the Wendigos somewhat - when I got into their system, I transferred a bunch of their digital assets in a very obvious 'hostile takeover' move into a competing clan's accounts, which triggered a clan war that's still going on right now. The two clans are now too busy murdering each other to figure out that a human was behind it all. After all, how could a mere human teenager overcome absolute Wendigo-designed fear-wards?"

"Sheeet," Vespera let out. "You're like a legit fugitive from the law then. No wonder you came across the border. Baller!"

"The fuck you mean baller?" Katherine growled. "He just confessed to even more crimes!"

"Eh," Vespera shrugged. "My dad's done way worse stuff to his competitors' assets. If anything this makes Lex even more impressive as an asset manager on our side. The Frontenachii are a bunch of falki snobunts 'nways, eff 'em."

"Okay sure, but..." the Stollwurm began.

"The eff have you done at eighteen, Kat? Make some pretty paintings? Have a fight with other dum' teenagers over your book? Blowing up an enemy compound as an act of revenge is honestly pretty good shit for a resume! Would totally hire!" the Thunderbird insisted. "I know you sit on yo ass in yo dark hole, but there ain't nothin' wrong with what he did. This is da Omnid way. Justice for family!"

"I'm just concerned he's going to blow up the school next," Katherine said.

"Mmmm... nah," Io said. "I would have sensed that sort of a local disaster a mile away. The Academy is safe."

"I like you guys and I like Skyfall, I've no reason to do anything like that here," I pointed out. "My plan is to climb up the ladder as an Omnid and don't stop until all of Omnithornia accepts humans as capable equals."

"A man with an impossible mission," Vespera clapped. "I like the sound of that!"

"Now you all know why I'm here," I nodded. "Why I infiltrated Skyfall. Why I need your help. I'm not just some random human trying to play student. I'm here to change the system itself from within. To make sure what happened to my mom never happens to anyone else. The way Omnids treat humans as a low-caste cattle - it's wrong. The way half-bloods are treated at Skyfall - it's wrong. Someone has to stand up and say enough is enough…”

I fell silent for a moment. “And now that all of you know the truth about me... are you still with me?" I asked.

"I'm... with you," Cinder squeezed my hand, not letting go.

"Hell yeah!" Vespera laughed. "Count me in on the mayhem n' vengeance!" She placed her steel-covered talons on top of our joined hands, small sparks dancing between her claws.

"Is your doom-sense getting hard 'bout this development?" She grinned at Io.

"Disaster sense is going crazy," Io added. "There will be a huge catastrophe ahead. But in a good way, I think. Whatever happens next, I want to be there with all of you."

He laid his gray, fuzzy paw atop of our three hands.

We looked at Katherine. Katherine stared at our joined hands, her emerald eyes flickering with uncertainty.

"This is insane," she muttered. "You're all bonkers. Following a human revolutionary? Helping him continue to infiltrate Omnithornia's most prestigious school? Do you have any idea how fucked up this is?"

"More or less trouble than letting Zalimar continue murdering half-blood students?" I asked with a grin.

"Or letting Em push everyone around like kobolds?" Cinder added.

"Or pretending to be dum' 'cus everyone else is hella boring and dumb?" Vee chimed in.

"Or hiding in your dark burrow because you're afraid to challenge the world?" Io added.

Katherine's blue tail lashed through the air.

"Arrrghhh! Fine!" She let out and rolled toward us placing her large, gloved hand atop of Io's.

"One for all and all for one," I declared as our hands broke apart.

"I just got an email from Quint. He will be taking over as class substitute for the week of delving. He's got the ward key to activate the delve-transit gate! Team 'I love you' is going to Shandria!" Yulia declared from the screen.

Everyone cheered. Vespera let out a thunderous whoop sending a deafening thunderblast into the prep room's ceiling that completely blinded me as Cinder hugged me tight, her snout nuzzling into my cheek.