"Right. Thanks, Professor."

I hung up the phone and sighed. The tenants sitting around in the living room were at the edge of their seats, holding their breaths. Val held Isla tighter, who was still potted in Ivory like a houseplant.

"Well don't keep us waiting!" Cresta exclaimed.

"Isla's been granted permission and residency to stay as a tenant," I said to the raucous cheers and elations of the entire dorm.

While everyone was celebrating, a puzzled Isla glanced between the faces of her new dorm mates as they piled on her out of relief.

I continued. "Professor Markel used Ines as a precedent. Although she's a United States citizen and not a caretaker, by allowing her to live here should also extend to a naturalized netherfolk."

They also intended to rewrite some policies surrounding the Caretaker Act to account for Earth-born netherfolks going forward. While interspecies children between humans and netherfolk were expected in a few years, they didn't expect one to literally sprout from the soil.

"Look at you, Isla!" Ines picked up the alraune and grinned. "You're a citizen of the United States! Er… You probably don't even know what that means, but that's fine…"

"Happy?" Isla asked, tilting her head sideways.

Val nodded, stroking Isla's cheek which she leaned into the touch and giggled.

"That's right. This is a happy occasion. You're part of our family now."

I tapped Val on the shoulder and asked, "Can we talk?"

We left the living room to speak privately outside in the backyard.

"Is this about my request?" Val asked.

"Yeah. Professor Markel denied your adoption proposal. It's already tough for foreign citizens to adopt U.S.-born children, and since Weyeran netherfolks are under a special immigration status and after the whole mind-control fiasco… chances are infinitely slim," I explained.

Val's pointed ears drooped lower than they had ever been. She wanted so much to adopt Isla. To make things official and take responsibility, maybe to make up for what she believed were failures back in her world.

"I figured as much." Val sighed, turning her gaze to the localized forest of exotic plants and flowers at the back-right corner of the backyard.

There were some that were too difficult to describe. One particular flower curled like fingers with small, soft spines along the petals. Another was tube-like and whistled from the most gentle breeze. They were beautiful, yet mysterious and dangerous at the same time that Professor Markel and a team of specialists intended to come and excavate it all away in the coming days.

"That doesn't mean you still can't be like a parent to Isla. Right now, she's still a child. Give her all the love that you planned to give her had you become an officiated family. Just, uh… leave the haughty queen-like attitude at the door," I teased.

"Hmph. Treating her well is a matter of course." Val waved to Isla inside, who blossomed a flower in each hand like pom-poms to wave back.

After driving Cresta and Irapesha to work in the morning, I took a couple of us to the city park while Professor Markel and his team got to work in the backyard.

As part of efforts to make Vandice as green as possible, the city park amusingly served as the biggest red herring. Surrounded by trees at the edges, built with multiple courts for basketball, tennis, and soccer, the area also involved a scenic hike, playground, and lake with almost a zoo of wildlife. Smoke and mirrors to mask Southern California's biggest polluters. At least we had a great place to come and enjoy our morning under the warm sun and early chill.

Joggers up for an early start made laps on the sidewalk, children availed themselves of the jungle gym of a playground, and street vendors and ice cream trucks were aplenty making a quick buck on the weekend.

"Tamara, don't go too far with Isla! If you lose her, she might blend in with the trees to hide!" Val shouted as they raced off.

"We'll be fine!" Tamara promised, ferrying the Ivory-potted Isla away to the playground with Rakka chasing them close behind.

"Oh, I'm going to be worried sick." Ange rubbed the base of her horns.

"What's wrong with you two? We're just at a park. Helicopter moms don't make for great parents," I warned.

Both of them glared at me with such oppressive force that I sunk deeper into the bench. I definitely should have kept my mouth shut. They traded glances and agreed to follow after the trio to keep a closer eye on.

"Am I in the wrong?" I asked myself aloud.

"Doesn't matter what world, women's motherly instincts are always on high alert, right?" A middle-aged man in a peacoat walked up to the bench with a thermos in one hand and a newspaper tucked under his arm. "Seat taken?"

"No! Please, be my guest. And yeah, I feel you. Netherfolk or not. Even my mom used to hover over me no matter how safe a place was," I replied absentmindedly, thinking back to my elementary years.

"I'm Jeremy." He put the thermos down and extended a hand.

"Akira." I shook his firm, gloved hand.

"Caretaker?"

I nodded.

"It's as difficult as it is rewarding," I answered.

"I bet," Jeremy followed up with a chuckle. "I'm just a postal worker. You, your whole job description is about making sure they stay safe. Makes sense to be worried, you know?"

Holy shit, this guy was right. At some point, I'd just taken the dad role stereotype of letting my kids do whatever. Maybe Val and Ange's worry was to pick up my slack. But things had been perfectly fine.

My eyes wandered to Jeremy's newspaper. The headlines on the frontpage warned of increased kidnappings across the country. I really didn't need to see something like that right after five of my tenants ran off.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Made a friend, Akira?" Ines asked, returning with four splits of Remmy from their trip to grab some ice cream.

"Oh, don't let me be in the way. I'll get going. You folks have a nice day, you hear?" Jeremy rolled up his newspaper and smiled at me before taking off.

What an odd man. Coming from Japan, it wasn't exactly normal to strike up conversations with strangers. Maybe this was an American thing.

"Well, well. Did you buy all those for yourself, Remmy?" I noted an ice cream cone in each hand, totaling eight between four of herselves.

"For the others." All four Remmys shook their heads and pouted that I could think she was a glutton.

It wasn't looking like the others would come back in time before the ice cream melted. When I searched for them, Ivory and Tamara were pushing Isla on a swing. The alraune girl's arm roots clung tightly to the chains, but her smile was wide and bright. The petals and leaves that decorated her head swayed wildly as she swung.

On the other hand, Val and Ange were being confronted by a group of parents with nothing better to do, keeping them from getting any closer.

"Again?" I sighed. "Ange is wearing a turtleneck this time. What cleavage is there to complain about?"

"Just being netherfolks, I bet. Not everyone is okay with them being around. You wanna go tell them off? I'll come with you and put on my angry Mexican lady voice," Ines offered.

We were about to go when Ines picked up the thermos from the edge of the bench. She pointed it at me, thinking it was mine.

"I didn't bring a thermos— Wait, I think it belonged to the Jeremy guy who was just here," I said.

"Holy shit, this thing is getting really hot!" Ines let go. The thermos hit the ground and popped open the lid. Smoke spewed out like a broken hydrant, obscuring everything.

"Akira!" Ange called out in panic.

A gust of wind cleared away the smoke from Ange flapping her wings in our direction, pushing the thermos away. She and Val raced over, their brows knitted with worry.

"What happened?" Val asked.

"I'm not sure, I—" My eyes snapped to the swingsets.

Tamara and Isla were gone. The swing that Isla was on swung without her on it, and Ivory was on the ground rubbing the back of their head.

Two men were sprinting across the park towards the exit, to a van in which the side door swung open to receive them.

"Isla!" Val cried furiously, her eyes glowing with magic.

Ange, too, with fangs bared, had taken flight.

"Wait, wait!" I shouted. "If either of you use magic, then it's over. You're gone! Do you understand me?"

"Then what do you want me to do?!" they yelled at the same time.

The van was too far away. I might lose them going to it.

"Shit… Ines, get the van and follow my GPS." I tossed her the keys. "Val, Remmy, go with her. Ange, go after them from the sky but don't use magic!"

We split from there, and I went to check on Ivory and Rakka, the latter of which was about to fire a beam of ice magic at the two kidnappers.

"Rakka, stop! Down, girl!" I got there in time to press her mouth closed.

"Ughh… Someone clocked me over the head…" Ivory groaned.

"Get up, Ivory! Tamara and Isla are being taken away! Can you turn into a bike?" I asked.

Without another word, Ivory transformed into a road bike and rode after them.

"Baa!" Rakka bleated from the basket in the front.

"Akira, Ange!" Tamara cried right before she and Isla were thrown into the van.

They sped down the street just as Ange and I got to the sidewalk. While chasing after them, I put a call through to Professor Markel and gave him the short.

"Stand down, Akira. We don't have military vehicles readily available on the city streets. I've patched through to the police, and they're sending multiple squad cars now," the professor said.

"I'm not going to just sit back. We're going after them!" I yelled into the phone.

"We? Who's we? Aki—"

I hung up and gave chase anyway.

My heart was racing so fast it was on the verge of exploding. Everything was fine one moment, then went to hell the next.

As I sped down the bike lane, the van was getting further and further away. They had the advantage of no traffic on the weekends. If only Cresta and Irapesha were here. Those two could have caught up in a second. No. Neither of them would have let Tamara or Isla be taken to begin with.

Now I ran the risk of Val and Ange doing something reckless to save them. I could tell from down here how close Ange was, too.

Spikes suddenly sprouted out of the van and wrapped around the vehicle, crushing it like a can. Whatever happened sent the car screeching to a stop as it hit a traffic light.

Ange landed next to me. Sweat caked my entire body. Biking that long and that fast was the most I'd ever worked out, but now I was running on adrenaline. As soon as I got off Ivory, they transformed into a flanged mace in my hand.

"What the… Ivory, I don't need something like this!"

"Of course, you do. Show 'em who's boss. Beat them up for kidnapping our friends!" Ivory exclaimed.

Two men emerged from the van from the sliding side door, each holding my tenants hostage. One of them I recognized as Jeremy from the park.

Ange stormed forward, but I grabbed her hand.

"They have Tamara and Isla! Just let me charm them!" she growled, losing her temper at me for the first time.

"They aren't going anywhere like that," I said, then turned to them. "Going after netherfolks is about as stupid as tax evasion. The police are coming, and then the military after that. Is this really a fight you want to take?"

"Netherfolks don't belong in this world! They should stay in theirs where they belong. It isn't our problem they fucked up their own!" Jeremy shouted.

So they were against netherfolks coming into this world? What the hell were they trying to achieve by kidnapping some? Neither of them had weapons, so it didn't look like they intended violence. Police sirens were growing louder in the distance.

I clicked my tongue. It didn't matter. Tamara and Isla were in danger. I needed to think of something in case those guys did something rash.

"Ivory, I got a better idea than fighting them. Turn to a frisbee for me," I whispered.

Ivory did exactly as I asked, startling the men across the streets. I tossed the mimic-turned frisbee towards them, and—

"Tamara, Isla, shield your head! Ivory, turn into a bookshelf!"

The living mimic did just that, crashing into them as a whole ass shelf and knocking both to the ground. Just then, Ange swooped in to carry Tamara and Isla back to us.

Ines pulled up behind us, followed by a squad of police cars from behind the kidnappers' van. They poured out of their vehicles to restrain them. Val came running out to check on Tamara and Isla.

"Are you two okay?" Val asked, kneeling down next to them.

"I-I was so scared!" Tamara broke down crying, rubbing her face into Ange's chest and holding Rakka so tight that her knuckles turned white.

"Shh… You're safe now, dear." Ange quietly cooed.

They were shaken and in shock, but otherwise just fine. With their safety confirmed, Val raised a furious glare to their kidnappers.

"Val, no!" I held her back as she tried to confront them.

I saw why now. People were beginning to gather from the commotion. From the buildings, sidewalk, and behind the police tape quickly being rolled out, they came from everywhere. Had Ange and Val used their magic, there would have been no hiding it.

"Isla? Isla, are you okay?" Ines' frantic cries drew our attention back to the alraune girl.

Isla's breathing was shallow. Her roots sagged more than usual, the vibrant colors of her petals dulled, and leaves were beginning to wilt and fall off. Val pushed us aside to get to Isla, cradling the girl in her arms.

"What's happening?" I asked, my own worry growing.

"I don't know…" Val shook her head. "Water? Is it water?"

Ines fetched a bottle of water and tossed it to me. I hurried to unscrew the top and poured some on top of her head, but she didn't soak the water. They cascaded down her face instead. Isla's youthful vigor was gone, replaced with pain that contorted the previously happy demeanor into a weak struggle for breath. Yet even in her sickly state, she coiled thin roots around mine and Val's fingers in a plea for help.

Something was very wrong with Isla, and we had no idea why.