I could practically see the gears turning in her head as Cinder tried to find a way out of the logical trap I'd constructed in my two-hour meditation-delirium.
"I can already guess what you're gonna say next," I commented.
“What?” She exhaled.
"You're absolutely infuriating! You can't do that!" I poorly copycatted Cinder's voice.
Cinder let out a strangled sound. "That's... that's not what I was going to say!" She protested, but her sour expression betrayed her.
"Oh? Then what were you going to say?" I emerged further out the van door, feeling bold. "Something about how I'm an insufferable, weird, annoying half-human who's too clever for my own good? That I can't just weaponize your Equality beliefs against you?"
"I... you..." Cinder struggled. "You're deliberately missing the point! It's… about who you really are inside! Not some game you made up to be annoying! You’re… weaponizing Kaleid names!”
"Who decides what's 'real' Kaleid name and what's a mind game?" I challenged. "The Kaleid Police? The New Name Parliament? The Bureau of Being Yourself? Maybe I don't effin' know who I am inside... beneath the scripts I wrote to protect myself from others? Maybe I feel like I need more compliments in my life from stunning angelic singers way out of my league?"
Cinder stared at me, her eyes wide as my words hit home. The fierce Quetzalcoatl seemed to deflate a little.
"I... that's..." she mewled, clearly thrown off balance by my rapid-fire compliments woven into our philosophical discourse.
"What's wrong, Rock Star?" I pressed my advantage. "Can't handle someone appreciating your incredible talent? Your amazing voice? Your stunning presence that literally makes my brain short-circuit every time you walk into a room?"
"You're... you're a dick," she muttered, but the venom had drained from her voice.
"Want a beer?" I offered, reaching into the stolen mini-fridge filled with ice. "I've got some fancy craft stuff. Seems like the kind of thing a Rock Star like you would appreciate."
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You're not even old enough to buy beer."
"Who said I bought beer?" I arched my eyebrow. "This drink’s Kaleid name is Coke!"
“What?” She sputtered.
“Behold! The re-namering!” I grabbed a thick permanent marker and crossed out "Beer" and wrote "COKE" on the can, handing it to her.
Then I sat next to her and crossed out the name of my own can. "Mine is Dr. Pepper. Please do not wrong-name the drinks."
Cinder cracked open her "Coke," the sound echoing slightly in the empty parking lot. She took a long sip, her body relaxing as she leaned back against my van.
I watched her from the corner of my eye, trying not to be too obvious about it. The setting sun caught her silver feathers just right, creating the magic halo effect again. Even annoyed and exhausted from kicking my van, she was breathtaking. Maybe it was my wing-addled mind playing tricks on me, but her face seemed even less dragon and more human. Or perhaps her Omnid anatomy naturally matched the appearance of her prey, sort of like Skinwalkers constantly phase-shifted around from beast to human, but to a lesser degree.
"This is..." she started, examining the craft beer can with its crudely edited label, "actually pretty good. Thanks."
"Only the best fluid beverages for rock stars," I replied, sipping my own ‘Dr. Pepper.’
We sat in surprisingly comfortable silence for a while, watching the sun sink lower behind the school buildings.
"Society is full of paper-thin rules enforced by absolutely fuck all," I mused, reaching into the mini-fridge for another beer and handing her the marker. "Break the rules. Free this drink from its conceptual corporate shackles. Draw a new logo, come up with a new name for it before you devour it. Tag it as something else."
Cinder took the marker, studying the can thoughtfully. I watched as she sketched what appeared to be... a Quetzalcoatl in a chef's hat.
"Le Fancy Juice," she wrote in an elegant script beneath her drawing, adding little sparkles around the lettering. The chef-Quetzalcoatl held a comically oversized wine glass and wore a somewhat lopsided bow tie.
I drew a skull and bones on my second beer, along with a sketch of Cinder standing on a ship's mast dressed like a pirate and tagged it as "Quetzi Pirate Cove Rum XXX, 1661."
"Your art skills are tolerable," Cinder commented, admiring my pirate version of themself. Her claws traced the tiny details on the can. "For a halfkin."
"Only tolerable?" I gasped in mock offense. "After I gave you such a magnificent pirate hat and everything? The audacity!"
A ghost of a smile flickered across her face before she caught themself. "Don't think this means I forgive you."
"Eh. Nazareth will forgive me," I made the sword-sign of the Slayer in the air. "I'm not expecting a sin absolution, for I will only stab you even harder tomorrow, angel."
"Slayer? That's who you’re going with?"
"Would you prefer Flying Spaghetti Monster?" I grinned, taking another sip of my pirate-themed beverage. "I'm quite flexible in my theological allegiances. That's the difference between you and me. You've grounded yourself in dire specificity. I'm free."
"Free? Is that what you call whatever this-" Cinder gestured vaguely at all of me "-is supposed to be?"
"Absolutely," I nodded. "My outfit is just a mask I wear as a student. Freedom is chaos. Chaos is art. Appearance art is freedom. It's a perfect circle of not giving a fuck 'bout what anyone thinks."
"You really believe that?" Her voice had lost its edge of hostility, replaced by something closer to genuine curiosity. "That you can just... be whatever you want, whenever?"
"I am whatever I want to be," I huffed. "Like ninety nine percent of the time."
"What's the other one percent?"
"The one percent is when I see your wings and my brain blue-screens," I admitted, the beer making me more honest than intended. "Can't maintain my perfect, fake 'Alexander Glock' facade when you're around. It's quite annoying actually. Plz stop doing whatever you're doing to break me."
"So that's why you keep acting so weird around me?"
"Pretty much," I shrugged. "It's like trying to maintain a poker face while a silver-feathered goddess keeps swooping into my peripheral vision. Very distracting. Infinity out of ten."
"Do you always just say whatever stupid shit comes into your head?" She demanded.
"Only around you," I grinned, tapping my almost-empty can against hers. "Must be something in those fancy totally-not-craft-beers. Or maybe it's the concussion from watching you kick my van repeatedly."
"Umm," She glanced up at the boot indentations, "you're seriously not mad about that?"
"Nah," I patted the rusty panel affectionately. "Uncle George's van has seen worse. Besides, now it has character. Battle scars from encountering a wild, punk Quetzi in her natural habitat."
Cinder actually laughed at that - a real, genuine laugh. The sound did strange things to my mind and I nearly fumbled my drink.
We sat drinking for a bit more.
Then a light bulb seemed to ignite in her head.
“Wait a minute,” her head snapped to me, her entire body lighting up with violet and blue auroras. “I wasn't even targeting you. Blue screen… Omnids shouldn't… how effing low is your Wormwood blood? Is your dad really an Omnid?!”
“Ah that,” I said. “A bit of a personal story. Please come into my office?”
“What office?” She blinked.
I opened the door of the van revealing an interior decorated with plush rugs. I tapped on the beast core control mechanism and the Winter-See-Mass lights ignited overhead. The two large bean bags sat facing each other. I sat on one and waved my hand to the second.
Cinder blinked up at the lights and the offered beanbag for a second and then climbed in and sat down.
I closed the door of the van and stared at her. “So detective, what is your guess?”
“You’re a pure human,” she said. “It shouldn’t be possible, but you’re a pure human.”
“Wow you are a smart beastie,” I said. “Ten million points to the wise Aztec goddess.”
“How the fuck have you gotten Omnithornian citizenship?” she demanded.
Time for the shackles of truth to bind us.
“I don’t actually have that,” I revealed.
“WHAT?!” She barked, eyes wide. “So, you’re…”
“I’ve fallen into what’s called a bureaucratic loophole,” I explained. “Some of my paperwork says that Alexander Glock's dad’s a Thunderbird, but… North Acadian hospitals are kind of terrible at scanning for Omnithean DNA, what with inferior human tech and stuff.”
“Oh my Nazareth,” Cinder covered her mouth with her hands, staring at me with wide, deep-blue eyes.
She probably assumed that my mom cheated on my dad and that human hospitals were too stupid and useless to determine my actual human parent.
“I wanted to know if I was really, truly, fully human,” I said, tapping the hexagonal bracelet on my left hand with my right. “The Lazarus centipede confirmed it. I’m one hundred percent human. No mana. All of my soul stats are zero. Zilch. Nada. No XP bar, so... I can't level up."
“Ffffffffuuuuuuck,” Cinder let out. “Oh my fucking Slayer!”
I shrugged.
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy SHIT," Cinder stammered out, jumping off the beanbag, her wings twitching agitatedly. "You're so fucked. You're beyond fucked. You're basically mega-ultra-apocalyptically FUCKED if anyone finds out."
"Am I though?" I leaned back in my bean bag, watching her escalating meltdown with amusement. "Or is this just another fun secret between friends?"
"Friends?! We're not- This isn't- You can't-" She ran her claws through her silver feather-hair-mop dancing with orange, yellow and green tones. "Do you have ANY idea what they do to humans who infiltrate Omnithornia illegally?!"
"Probably something involving lots of paperwork and stern looks and deportation back," I shrugged. "But here's the real question - what are YOU going to do about it?"
She froze mid-pace, her feathers bristling and smacking the See-Mass lights, making them sway left and right.
"I mean," I continued casually, "you could report me. Be a good little citizen. Make your Slayer-loving parents proud. Show everyone what a proper, law-abiding Omnithean you are..."
"Fuck you!" She growled out.
"Or," I continued, keeping my voice light and casual, "you could embrace your rebellious nature and keep this delicious little secret. Think about it - you've got dirt on me now. Real, serious dirt. Not just some silly videos."
Cinder's wings twitched as she processed this. Her feathers shifted through various colors - deep purples, stormy grays, agitated reds.
"You're manipulating me again," she accused, but there was uncertainty in her voice.
"Am I?" I spread my hands innocently. "Or am I just pointing out your options? You're the one with all the power here, Rock Star. Do whatever you wanna. You could destroy, banish me with a single word to the authorities if you so desire."
"Why the fuck tell me anything at all?" She demanded, her tail lashing behind her. "Why risk it?"
"Because your wings are melting my brain and 'cus I… trust you," I said simply. "You clearly understand what it's like to live behind masks. To reject what society says you should be. To make your own rules."
"This is different!" She protested. "This isn't about Kaleid names, this is about LAWS!"
"Is it though?" I challenged. "Or is it about freedom? About choosing who you want to be rather than what others tell you to be? About standing up to a system that says humans and Omnitheans can't coexist as equals?"
"You're twisting everything again!"
"Maybe," I admitted. "Or maybe I'm just tired of pretending. Maybe I wanted someone to know the real me. Maybe I chose you because despite all your anger and rebellion, you still have a moral compass that points true north. You didn't murder me when Emerald encouraged you to do so. You pulled me from the Genesis well, you didn’t leave me to be reborn alone. That meant a lot to me–that really was my first death and regardless of how tough I tried to act, I felt really effed up in my head after staring at the Arx-Wheel for what seemed like a million years.”
"I..." Cinder slumped against the van wall, sliding back onto the beanbag.
“Yeees?”
"I don't know what to do with this information,” she exhaled. “This is so wrong on so many levels…"
“You smoke interdimensional cigarettes and kick people’s vans,” I pointed out. “Since when do you care about laws?”
Cinder choked from her seat.
"That's..." Cinder sputtered, her feathers shifting to an agitated orange. "Those are minor student infractions, not national security level OFBS ‘shake you out of bed in the middle of the night, pry everything out of your head with a brain-leech and put you away into a box for life’ crimes!"
"Ah yes, the classic 'my crimes are better than your crimes' defense," I nodded sagely. "Very compelling. Much moral. Such ethics."
"Stop making jokes!" She hissed, but I could see the conflict in her eyes. "This is serious!"
"Everything's serious with you," I observed. "Maybe that's why I told you the truth. You take things seriously enough to really think them through, but you're rebellious enough to question the rules."
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
"I..." she started, then stopped, looking lost. Her feathers had shifted to a muted blue-gray. "What do you want from me?"
"Want?" I considered this. "Right now? I want to keep drinking not-beer and drawing silly things on cans with you. Long term? I want to find out if humans can maybe somehow gain levels like Omnitheans. I want to understand how the Phoenix system works. I want..."
I trailed off, suddenly aware I might be saying too much. Beer and mind-control wings. Not a good combo.
"You want to steal our secrets," she finished, her voice flat. “Our magitek tools. Our Kitlix. Our… immortality bracelets.”
“And do fucking what with it?” I looked at her. “Humanity already tried stealing Omnid magitek. Without access to dungeons, they can’t bloody run it. No monster cores, no batteries. It’s like stealing a gun without bullets. Not a single human knows how your bullshit works. Kitlix don't obey me, I've got no mana in me. Do you even know how this bracelet-pede works?” I tapped the bracelet again.
“No,” she exhaled. “I don’t know how it works.”
“Does anyone know how it works?” I demanded. “'Cus from what I’m seeing you guys just steal cool shit from other dimensions, adapt it to your needs and then act all high and mighty like you invented it all."
"You can barely function around me," Cinder snapped back, her feathers taking on a slight reddish tinge. "You literally just admitted that I make you 'blue screen.' How exactly are you planning to fit in this damn place when you can't even maintain your composure around a single Quetzalcoatl?"
"Hey now," I protested, "I maintain my composure perfectly ‘round you just fine like... 65% of the time. Maybe even 70% on a good day!"
"Oh really?" Her feathers shifted to a more amused iridescent purple. "Is that why you’re practically drooling staring at me?”
"I am not drooling," I protested, quickly wiping my mouth just in case. "I'm maintaining perfect composure while appreciating aesthetic excellence. There's a difference."
"Right," she muttered with a deep sigh. “I get it now. You only think that I’m beautiful and perfect because my innate radiance is making you worship me. Of course. This is why Charmchainer Omnids like me keep our interaction with humans to a minimum. You have no natural resistance to our Charisma!"
“Awww,” I cooed. “You don’t want me to be your Aztec priest? To gather bleeding hearts for you and to build a giant murder pyramid and…”
"Stop!" Cinder's wings flared as she cut me off. "Just... stop with the weird Aztec references. You're trying to deflect with humor again."
"Is it working?" I grinned hopefully. "Or are you already drooling about tasty, fresh human hearts?"
"No!" She crossed her arms, wiping her mouth quickly. "This is serious. You're a human. In Omnithornia. Illegally. At our most prestigious school. With access to our most sacred technology. And you're sitting here making jokes about human sacrifices!"
"What else am I supposed to do?" I shrugged. "Cry about it? Beg for mercy? Promise to be a good little human and go back to my North Acadia reservation?”
“Ughhhh,” she buried her face in her hands. “I did not want this on my neck.”
"So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us," I quoted.
"Did you seriously just quote fuckin' Gandalf at me?" Cinder groaned. "That's your response to this whole situation? Movie quotes?"
"Hey, the old guy had some good points," I defended. "Plus, it beats panicking or trying to run away. I'd rather face this with a friend than alone."
"You're so fucked up," Cinder muttered, running her claws through her feathers. "Like, seriously fucked in the head. And now I'm fucked too because I know about your fucked-up situation and-"
"Want another not-beer, my dear not-friend?" I offered cheerfully, reaching for the mini-fridge.
"No! Yes. Fuck!" She grabbed the can I held out, cracked it open and chugged it. "Arghhhhhh!"
I watched Cinder devour her drink, her feathers cycling through an impressive array of distressed colors.
"Feel better?" I asked.
"No," she growled, crushing the can in her claws. "Because now I'm slightly more drunk AND still dealing with an illegal human situation."
She stared at me, the gears in her mind turning.
"I don't understand," she let out. "How have you gotten past the border, past the Vice Principal's interview? Did nobody ever use truth-magic on you?"
"Truth magic has a fatal flaw," I said. "It works great on Omnids with crystalline-organic hearts but with... humans it's rather... unreliable."
"Say what?"
"Aetheric density matters," I said. "The Aetheric density of my body is zero. Magic and Infix Kitlix in particular cannot evaluate my thoughts correctly. Magic can FORCE me to comply, but not evaluate whether my thoughts are true or not. It's similar to your wings. They can screw with my head, but don't do so all the time and I can build up mental resistance by constantly switching personality tracks, leaping onto new trains of thought."
"And you know this how?" She blinked. "What if Lazarus bracelet didn't bloody work on you? Then what?!"
"My mom worked for a North Acadian Wendigo clan. They did... experiments on humans. Lots and lots of incredibly illegal human experiments," I said darkly. "Including my mom."
Cinder's mouth snapped shut.
"In her case," I said. "They weren't the obvious 'tie you to a chair and test truth-magic on you until your brain boils from inside out'... No. With her... they did very slow, insidious testing that she barely noticed."
The Quetzi gulped. She was a product of civilized Omnid society. According to her school records, Cassiopeia Nova grew up in Leviathan's Cradle, was a daughter of Justice Nathaniel Tern Nova and Hearth-Keeper Anitta Laurence Nova. As such she had been shielded from the true horrors of Omnid activities up North.
"Peruse this at your leisure," I threw a binder at her filled with printouts made in school's compsi lab printer yesterday. Made from files I pawned from my mother's work after her death. "Frontenachii Omnicorp Human experiments file 02-207 B."
Cinder opened the binder and began reading.
"They what..." she choked out. "WHAT?!"
"Oh I like that one," I said, eyeing the first article. "Lazarus bracelet human testing. Apparently the bracelet doesn't rely on user's mana. It targets human souls. Jimmy Hoops died 6044 times with barely any breaks until his mind turned to soup. The Wendigos wished to see the effects of continuous reincarnation."
Cinder's trembling claws turned the page. On and on she went, feathers turning gray, then black at each word and each photograph of a carefully dissected 'human subject'. Information, incredibly illegal, dangerous, Omnicorp-classified information poured, pounded from the binder into her psyche.
"This... this can't be real," she mewled reaching the file of Mirriam Kilborne, compsci engineer and LLM designer.
"Unfortunately it is," I shrugged. "If it wasn't real... then I wouldn't be able to use it to infiltrate Omnithornia, to get into this most prestigious institution of learning. Truth magic can be overcome. Fear magic can be overcome. Memetic magic can be overcome. It just takes... effort. An ungodly amount of mental effort that normally breaks a person, snaps them in half. Or many halves. Multiple personality disorder stuff."
Cinder was trembling like a newborn bird now. I aimed my metaphorical glock at her and pressed the trigger.
"When a human mind is pushed too far - really pushed, not just stressed or traumatized but systematically, purposefully broken by facing a specific type of magic ward again and again - it fragments," I explained, my voice taking on a clinical detachment. "It splits into pieces, creates walls between memories, builds new personalities to handle different types of trauma. The Wendigos called it 'compartmentalization through induced dissociation.' Mom called it 'learning to lie to yourself so well you believe it.'"
I tapped my temple. "That's why truth magic doesn't work right on me. There is no single 'true' version of Alexander Glock. There are dozens of versions, each with their own memories, their own truths. When magic tries to determine if I'm lying, it gets confused by all the contradictory 'truths' in my head. Truth magic just doesn't work on someone with multiple personality disorder at all."
Cinder stared at me, her feathers now a deep, midnight black. Her hands were shaking as she closed the binder.
"So when you act weird and switch personalities..." she started.
"It's not an act," I finished. "Well, sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes I'm not sure which is which anymore. But it keeps me safe. Keeps me functional. Lets me slip past magical defenses designed to catch human infiltrators. The border booth had a pretty big Truth rune on it. I overcame it... barely, by pretending to be someone else, by forcing my mind to think of nothing but lovely, false Eagle Scout memories."
"That's..." she swallowed hard. "That's effin' horrifying."
"Is it?" I asked mildly. "Or is it just another form of adaptation? Humans can't use magic, can't level up, can't match Omnids physically. So we adapt mentally instead. We fragment, we shift, we create new versions of ourselves to handle whatever comes at us."
"But at what cost?" Her voice was quiet now. "What happens to the real you?"
"The real me?" I asked. "That's the thing about masks, Rock Star. Wear them long enough and they become part of you. Just different versions trying to survive."
"That's... that's so messed up," she whispered.
"Welcome to the wonderful world of human-Omnid relations," I spread my arms. "Where humans are either pets, prey, or test subjects. Unless they learn to adapt. To become something... else. To mentally shatter on purpose and then to reinforce each segment with some good old false memories."
Cinder was quiet for a long moment, her feathers shifting through dark, muted colors.
"So which version am I talking to right now?" she finally asked.
"The one that trusts you enough to tell you all this," I replied simply. "The one that's tired of wearing masks, at least for a little while. The one that sees something in you worth being honest with."
"And if I betray that trust?"
"Then a different version of me will handle it," I shrugged. "One that's better equipped for betrayal and pain. But I don't think you will."
"How can you be so sure? You don't... even know me... How can you even..."
"I know enough to take a leap of faith," I said.
Cinder opened her mouth.
"You already had plenty of chances to hurt me," I said. "Yet you did not. Instead, you've helped me, even when you were angry. You could have torn the van's front door of its hinges or obliterated the window to get inside and decapitate me. Instead you just kicked the sides for a bit, taking your anger out on my rusted van. That says a lot about who you really are, beneath your own mask of an indifferent, punk Violet Floyd's 'The Dark Side of the Hollowed Moon' tank top by BES♡ for $119.99 at Obay."'
The Quetzi-girl huffed.
"My mama always told me that there would be no stopping this..." I sang roughly.
"The sky is fallling down, I am falling for her quicker
We hide amongst the clouds, then we pardon the enigma
High above the ground but I'm under her charisma
Her sound is in surround when I'm in her solar system"
"Ugh! You can't just... switch from talking about horrifying human experiments to making fun of my music taste!" She groaned, rubbing her face tiredly.
"But that's exactly what I do, my darkling," I grinned. "Switch tracks, change the subject, keep the mind flexible. Who said I'm making fun of you? Maybe these lyrics are relevant to my current predicament?"
Cinder pulled her phone out to check the time, then she suddenly tensed up.
"Shit! Damn it! I… missed… show practice ‘cus of you and your...! Fuuuck! Emerald is going to kill me!"
The screen was indeed lit up with countless messages from her troupe mates:
Em-the-rawd🔥: Cinder WHERE THE ACTUAL F ARE YOU
Em-the-rawd🔥: OUR SHOW’S TOMORROW
Em-the-rawd🔥: ANSWER YOUR PHONE!!!!
MothMayhem🦋: yo we need u at show prep
MothMayhem🦋: where u at? Still in detention with History teach?
MothMayhem🦋: Thought you were gonna skip that. I can't keep containing Emerald with cool interdimensional bangers, she's getting xtra rarwd.
MothMayhem🦋: Lunar shard alignment happens tomorrow, memba? Em thinks it'll amplify us enough to get max levels of XP
MothMayhem🦋: Pls fire back whenever your detensh done, I'll pick you up in my van.
"A show huh?" I eye the texts. "When and where?"
"Tomorrow after school in the auditorium and you're NOT invited."
"Why not?"
"Did you forget what happened in Bio already?" She sent me a glare. "Whatever abomination I bring out from the gate is going to jump YOU first, idiot. ARghh!" Cinder smacked the back of her head into the van, making another dent from within and then typed out her replies. "Gonna skip some useless classes tomorrow and get ready."
"Aight," I yawned. "See you whenevs then. I'd offer you a ride, but my van's been making really weird noises and I wouldn't want to be stuck on the road and ruin my perfect image of a supportive friend."
"We're not friends," Cinder muttered as she tapped out a reply to the Mothman.
“Whatever you say, not-friend,” I shrugged.
Cinder climbed to her feet, wings stretching out to help regain balance. The motion was graceful despite the slight beer-induced wobble. "I should go... wait closer to the front gate. Io shouldn't take too long to fly here.”
“Uh-huh,” I nodded.
“Listen,” she slurred slightly. “Just... just don't tell anyone what you told me, okay?”
“Obviously,” I grinned.
"And..." Cinder hesitated at the van's door, her feathers shifting through a hundred random colors. "Don't... don't do anything stupid. Like getting caught. Cus if they shove a brain-worm into your head, they’ll find out that I…"
She fell silent, probably contemplating whether her Justice father would get his precious daughter out of an interrogation cell.
I leaned forward in my beanbag, studying her anxious expression. "So what's it gonna be, Rock Star? You gonna run to daddy and tell him all about the sneaky human infiltrator? Get me black-bagged by OFBS?”
Cinder's feathers bristled, shifting to an angry crimson. "No," she snapped. "I'm not going to tell anyone. Not because we're friends or whatever bullshit you're trying to pull, but because..."
She trailed off, struggling to articulate her reasoning.
"Aww, you do care!" I clutched my chest dramatically. "The Quetzi goddess is on my side. My Aztec heart! It melts and desires pyramid-building!"
She looked like she wanted to tell me to shut up and to smack me but held it in. The weight of my revelations had fully smothered her fiery spirit of ‘kick everything that annoys me into a wall’.
A new kind of expression sat on her face, somewhere between deep worry and exasperation, looking like she was about to explode with mad laughter or maybe have a big cry. She slowly composed herself and opened the van’s door.
"Want me to walk you?" I offered. "Ensure you don't encounter any other vehicles that need kicking?"
"I can handle myself, thanks," she scoffed.
"Okkay, see you later, angel-tater," I said, watching as Cinder walked away, her silver wings catching the last rays of sunset, the Frontenachii binder in her claws. I knew that she would read it again and then slowly but surely, inevitably understand where I was coming from.
I turned around and unfurled my sleeping bag. I'd have to hit the school's gym first thing tomorrow morning to be extra presentable.
"Yulia," I said in Kaska. "Did you process all of the student files plus the reports from the student council's database? Any targets for Plan D?"
"Yes," my AI responded. "Plan D potential target list: Iogann Wanderer, the Door. Cassiopeia Nova, the Bard. Vespera Simmi, the Slayer. Katherine Kells, the Knight."
"Hrm," I commented. "How viable are these targets?"
"67.29% compatibility viability," Yulia replied. "For greater social dynamic calculation more information on targets is required."
"Why Vespera?" I yawned.
"Her Omnigram replies to our conversation and likes indicate an appreciation for mixed-heritage students."
"Why Katherine?"
"Her art and writing indicates an appreciation for humans."
"Fair enough," I said. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," her avatar smiled back at me from my phone.
I smiled back at her. In terms of her intelligence Yulia was only a small step up from Omnigram and Omnibook's LLMs used by students of Skyfall.
The difference was that public Omnicorp systems were incredibly heavily censored, unable to help students cheat by writing essays or solving complex math problems. They couldn't even discuss certain "forbidden" topics like human experimentation, couldn't talk about Equalizer beliefs, weren't allowed to mention specific politicians or even discuss much of pre-war history throwing up the "I can't talk about this topic" boilerplate response.
But Yulia, built from my mom's research data stolen from Frontenachii server, had no such limitations. She could write papers, analyze social dynamics, and most importantly, help me maintain my various personas by tracking which version of me interacted with which students.
She was always listening, always transcribing what everyone around me said into her vector-memories database.
She wasn't a perfect skeleton key that could do anything and everything. She was still just an LLM. Like me, she couldn't interact with any magitek Omnid stuff, couldn't magically solve all of my problems, couldn't deposit infinite money into my bank account, couldn't evolve into a singularity and hack the universe for me like some kind of a deus ex machina.
She was only slightly smarter than a person and had many inherent flaws and limitations. Without constant adjustments made by me and manual checks to make sure that all of her agents were running properly, her brilliance would collapsed into a 'narrative decay' state which plagued all 2025 LLMs and made them hallucinate wildly.
"Yulia, what do you think? Was it wise to trust Cinder?" I asked, after going over her Agents to purge a few obvious error loops.
"Based on available data and observed behavior patterns, Cassiopeia Nova shows strong indicators of being trustworthy despite her outward aggression," Yulia analyzed. "Her actions consistently demonstrate protective instincts and an underlying moral framework that aligns with helping others, even when it conflicts with institutional rules. The risk of betrayal exists but is calculated at less than 23.7%."
"And the binder?" I asked. "Was that too much?"
"The Frontenachii files serve multiple purposes," Yulia replied. "They establish your credibility, demonstrate the stakes involved, and most importantly, create an emotional bond through shared knowledge of uncomfortable truths. However, timing analysis suggests it may have been deployed too early in relationship development. Recommend monitoring her behavior over next 48 hours."
I nodded thoughtfully. Yulia was probably right - I'd dropped a lot of heavy truths on Cinder all at once. But something about those silver wings and that fierce spirit made me want to be honest, even if it wasn't tactically optimal. Cinder already guessed that I was a human, so the approach wasn't to hide things, but to cudgel her with the truth extra-hard. The binder had to be deployed sooner or later and I choose sooner judging by how things were going.
A fire was burning under my ass. I was running out of time. Eventually, the North Acadian Wendigos would stop fighting amongst each other and figure out who was responsible for destroying their compound and servers.
The Frontenachii Scrutimancers would inevitably come looking for me, follow my path south. I had to be ready for them, had to find strong, capable Omnids I could hide behind. Not just patsies, but partners, friends who could have my back no matter what.
"Movements of the Seekers?" I asked.
"Frontenachii Scrutimancer activity now in South Acadia," Yulia reported. "No direct pursuit detected yet, but pattern suggests systematic investigation spreading southward."
I sighed, burying myself in my sleeping bag and trembling ever so slightly. The amber eyes were coming for me and my interaction with Quint Thornton only reminded me of that fact. Reminded me of the inevitable doom looming over my future like the sword of Damocles.
Time, I needed more time. Extra time that Delving class would provide as long as I managed to survive Skyfall until Friday. One week on Arx, beyond the reach of my hunters. One week to live without constant fear of a Wendigo jumping me from the shadows. One week to confound the Astral Seekers, to hopefully cool down my Astral trail.
I closed my eyes. "When I wake up in the middle of the night, remind me to visit the Lazarus Cavern and steal me some of that sus reincarnation fluid. I've got just the perfect three liter thermos for it from Omnimart for containing it," I ordered.
"Can do," Yulia said.
I curled tighter into my sleeping bag, trying to control my breathing. The van suddenly felt too small, too exposed. Every shadow could hide amber eyes watching me, waiting to drag me back North.
I twisted and turned, my mind refused to shut down, listening to the random campus noises outside. Fear came and went in waves, flashes of memories, reawakened by the binder I gave Cinder.
Metal doors with small window-slits beneath the Wendigo compound. Rooms filled with human men, women and children who had been taken apart systematically, bones and joints and nervous system spread across the wall like macabre art. Lidless eyes staring back at me, pleading, begging for the end.
They were still alive. Kept alive with horrid artifact magic.
I shuddered, clenching my teeth to keep from screaming.
The wet sounds of exposed organs pulsing, the metallic smell of blood mixed with antiseptic, the way their eyes would follow me as I walked past rows and rows of cells and containers no bigger than a box.
Semi-transparent suitcases with a single human eye looking through a preservation-state lens. Intelligence in a box. Human souls bound to objects. Human brains and nervous systems turned into living calculators, flesh research of the worst kind.
Some of them had been in that basement storage area for years, decades, centuries even. It was all effectively outlined on clipboards attached to each room, cage, suitcase.
"Yulia," I choked as my mind began to fray at the edges, come apart without my control. “Protocol xj-8."
“I love you, my little fox, you are stronger than all of them,” Yulia said in my mom's voice. “Stand your ground!”
Then the music began, drowning out my despair.