~~~Stanley~~~

Stanley glared at the wolves. He hadn't even seen the black wolf's soul until it appeared from the suspiciously dark shadows. Yet another monster that could hide its soul...

He glared more at the fucking tiger, who had also hidden its soul. Of course, Caffeine wanted to be friends with the thing... or he would have killed it this instant. Its blatantly false relaxation didn't fool him in the slightest. It had wanted to kill Caffeine...

The wolf had wanted the same thing, but it felt simpler. Innocent. Like a puppy. It didn't know what it was doing; it wasn't truly bloodthirsty, whereas the tiger was a stone-cold killer. He caught its eyes as it lounged about, pretending to be cowed. I will fucking kill you if you come near him again.

It stiffened, its eyes rolling in opposition to its posture as it tensed to flee. Caffeine bounded into his lap, and Stanley had to crane his neck to maintain eye contact with the cat past the licking tongue. You make him mad, sad, or anything unpleasant, and I'll skin you alive. Alive and screaming!

The tiger fled.

A nice perk of his leaking soul was that he didn't need much effort to get his intentions across.

"Stanley?" Nate asked nervously.

"Where the fuck does a damn tiger come from in Boston?"

"A zoo?" Nate said. "At least, that was my first guess."

"I..." Stanley sighed. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Just another reason zoos are bad... Does that mean we're going to see a whole zoo's worth of weird... animals?" He was tripping. The world was already full of worse things than tigers. Besides, the tiger probably ate everything else at the zoo...

"Why didn't you just kill it?"

"I'll give you one guess," Stanley said while looking at the pug, who'd ricocheted off his lap and was currently sniffing Nate's hands and pockets, probably in search of some chicken.

"Right." Nate stared down at the pug, then burst out laughing. "A tiger cowed by a pug. I love it!"

Stanley chuckled, but his heart wasn't in it. "I know. It's crazy. I'm just tired of stuff trying to hurt Caff."

"As if it could. Seriously, Stanley. I get it bothers you, but he's the beast lord. That cat never had a chance." Nate turned to the wolves. "Did they start shit, too? I thought they were on our side."

"You knew... of course you did. No, just one of their puppies playing with Caff. Well, Caff was playing with the puppy..."

"Good. They helped us protect Zeke. I assumed they..." He paused, studying them. "No, she. I think she understands Zeke is the one purifying the area."

Stanley studied them himself. The gray one felt smart... or at least it had more complex emotions in its soul. As for being a she... "How do you know it's a female?"

Nate shrugged. "A feeling?" Then he nodded slightly to the wolves. "Thanks for the help. Not sure you can understand me... but... do you want some chicken?"

That was a mistake, because Caffeine got really excited. "He knows that word. Now you have to feed him."

"I know," Nate said while smiling at the dancing pug. "Come on, Caff. I'll get you more chicken. Maybe your human will come with?"

Stanley sighed. "I guess I can..." He had been planning to spend the day improving his soul shield, and it might be easier to see what worked or didn't with other people around. People. Ugh.

The wolves declined the offer of chicken and ran off into the woods while Stanley flew away.

Plenty of people were not only outside the building but also outside the walls when he arrived. Zeke was among them, and it looked like they were fighting.

Mock fighting.

Zeke wasn't taking part, just lingering at the edge of the crowd... among his own little host of bodyguards and familiar faces. They turned almost as one at Stanley's approach, and one face stood out. Emotionally.

Eve was lurking behind her brother, and her head snapped toward Stanley. Their eyes met, and a spike of terror erupted in her soul... Something popped up on her shoulder and shot a silver beam straight for Stanley's face.

Time slowed as Stanley flinched away. It slowed enough that he had a moment to decide how to respond to her blatant attempt on his life. Blatant, but weak. The only impressive part was how fast the magic traveled. Not quite a laser moving at light speed, but close. Fast enough that he didn't have time to dodge.

Of course, that didn't matter when it was so weak.

The light entered his domain, and Stanley bent it aside. Into his arm. He wanted to test its damage before deciding on an appropriate level of response.

It struck his arm with bruising force and... nothing more. Stanley moved straight towards her. He could break her arm as an...

Time sped up abruptly as Caffeine canceled Still Mind, and Stanley blinked angrily at the girl, now only a few feet away. He didn't attack her. He was angry, yes, but he wasn't sure why...

Because she attacked him? No, that wasn't it. Her attack was so fucking weak that it barely counted as an attack... or was that it? He was mad at her for being weak?

Caffeine appeared among the sparring people in a rush of wind while barking happily and sprinting around the combatants. Those happy noises turned Stanley away from the terrified girl before he did anything mean. She already knew very well how weak she was. It would explain the terror in her soul every time she looked at him...

"Sorry," Eve said before he could leave. "It's supposed to detect threats, and you..." She ground her teeth. "Startled me."

Stanley looked back at her, finding an expression on her face that was anything but sorry. Frightened, sure. But beneath that was a lot of hostility...

He smiled. "It's okay, Eve. You got a little too excited and popped off early. Happens to lots of people. Nothing to be embarrassed..."

Confusion filtered through her as he spoke, before fresh anger rose to replace it. "Fuck you!"

This close, he could see what had shot him. A smaller version of the gun-like device she'd pointed at him—what felt like so long ago. A little laser auto turret on her shoulder. Impressive, if too weak.

"Stanley!" Zeke interrupted the moment by leaping into the air straight for him, arms outstretched for a hug. Stanley drifted aside from the grasping arms and watched the boy fall back to earth. He almost regretted the dodge when he felt Eve's horror at her brother's actions.

"I'm so glad you came back!" Zeke exclaimed, not at all put out by his failure to land the hug. Then his exuberance waned. "You didn't let me apologize before... I’m sorry I couldn't heal you while you were sleeping." He really meant it, too.

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"It's fine."

"But they attacked you because of me! You saved me, and..."

"No!" Stanley snapped, then moderated his tone and said, "It wasn't... because of you."

Not directly. That monster had wanted the source. His source.

Sure, the accidental rescue of Zeke had been the event that revealed the source and most likely prompted the next attack... but the undead hadn't been after the boy. They wanted Zeke, but not like they wanted the source... otherwise that D-grade would have come here and done whatever it wanted to them while Stanley was away.

There had been plenty of time to think during his long soul repair efforts, and he understood a few things he hadn't before. Or at least, he thought he did.

Nate's so-called intuition felt far too close to seeing the future when it sent him up there... Then Stanley used the source and got a dream visit from an alien afterward.

That conversation he'd had... while watching Caffeine in the past... seeing Caffeine growl at the alien. Had they gone back in time to see that? It hadn't changed the present if so... or would he even know if it had? Would Caffeine remember growling at the thing?

The alien thing had talked about predicting the future... their future—and how hard it was. Then it had whispered something to him. Something hidden in static inside a memory he'd been unable to recall until... until his soul got ripped open.

"A bleeding soul will hide nothing."

It was an odd thing to tell him. Especially when combined with not being able to remember—not until his soul was literally bleeding. Had it known this would happen? Why warn them now? It claimed it didn't want to give them advice, but that sure sounded like advice. Useless advice. He knew his bleeding soul was a damn beacon!

Which meant Lee's soul was a damn beacon... Shit. Hopefully Lee heard the message as well? Stanley's shield lowered the debuff, but did it lower Lee's as well? Did it make Lee less of a beacon?

Their soul was also abnormally strong compared to anyone else. He'd asked, and Nate was literally the next highest at eighteen. That was after Stanley lost hundreds of soul attributes to destroy an immortal skeleton that came after him with a source shield of its own...

Somewhere, somehow, he and his twin had made their soul stronger than it had any right to be... He recalled Caffeine's status and the matching soul attribute. All three of their souls, then? It had to involve the source and that day in the mountains, and whatever they'd done there was the only reason they still lived now.

He didn't understand what a soul really was... only that it was a kind of energy. A kind of energy that also contained all the hopes and dreams of a person. And the emotions. And probably everything else.

It was a lot. Not to mention that it seemed they were containing the source using their soul.

Was the source empowering their soul in return? He'd used the radiation from the leak, along with Soul Awareness, to increase his soul attribute while in Still Mind... he just wasn't sure if it was the skill or the source that actually did the deed.

In his mind, that meant working on his soul was the best thing he could do to get stronger. It seemed obvious... so fucking obvious that he didn’t need some damn alien’s creepy whispering!

He felt no remorse for the restored memory of himself cursing the shit out of that freak. It dragged him through that dream, memory, or whatever it was, just to spy on them and offer useless advice. Snooping fuck!

Stanley put the annoying thoughts he could do nothing about out of his mind. "I'm hungry. Let's eat, Caff."

"You..." Zeke tried to protest, but Stanley's comment made Caffeine perk up and start dancing in circles. Zeke sighed. "Okay. Have a good meal. I have to stay here in case anyone needs healing."

That was just as well. Stanley didn't need Zeke's hyper emotions right now. Nevermind his sister... who was still glaring at him.

Nate caught up on the way to the kitchens. "Think that tiger will come back?"

"I think it was only after Caffeine... but I also think it knows I'll kill it if it tries anything again."

"That's... I guess that works."

Lots of people approached Nate on the short trip, all of them asking for something or complaining about something else. Or both. Enough of them that Stanley considered doing the man a favor and breaking some of their limbs. He settled for glaring at the most obnoxious people while dropping his soul shield. It helped keep their bitching short.

Jerry was waiting with large portions of hot food when they arrived, including more already pre-wrapped for later. How very thoughtful. Maybe there was something to being a big beacon everyone could feel coming.

Stanley sat on the roof and ate while Caffeine made the rounds. Then he went looking for the wand guy Nate had mentioned before. Sure, he was already powerful, but that was no reason not to reach for more.

He found his target in the large room Eve had used as her workshop before. There was still a mess of random appliances, but now they were confined to a corner rather than filling the room. They weren't all machines he recognized; Eve had been busy.

Since she was still outside, Stanley took the chance to poke around. Despite the weakness of her laser gun earlier, he was curious about what else she might have created, and one of her machines drew his attention.

It looked like a ridiculously over-engineered antenna with doodads and pointy bits. It also felt like Eve, or rather, like her... soul? He could even feel something happening around it.

Only after he got closer did he realize it was sucking up mana.

The mana drain skill I gave to Zeke... The kid must have given it to his sister. Which... Well, he had told him to do whatever he wanted with it.

Stanley had thought Zeke could use it to drain mana from people he was healing... but hadn’t the kid mentioned something about not using mana? Just as well. Considering Eve wasn't actually here and her machine seemed to be draining mana anyway, maybe she'd make good use of the skill?

That didn't explain why she was so hostile. Not only had he saved her life, but she had to know this skill came from him. Or had Zeke not told her? Or did she not care? She'd been acting that way since they met... though Stanley wasn't sure why. He didn't really care, either. She was no threat, and the only thing she could do was annoy him with her grating soul.

He left her stuff alone when he heard voices at the other end of the room talking about channeling mana through a staff. There, he found a man surrounded by hundreds of sticks of varying sizes, ranging from staffs taller than Stanley to twigs shorter than his forearm.

Stanley watched and waited while a girl finished receiving instructions on how to use her new staff. Something about channeling mana in a certain way. She barely listened, her soul bubbling over with excitement and impatience, plus some nervous looks Stanley's way, before she bolted from the room.

The man talking to her seemed to have come to the same conclusion about her listening skills, because he sighed and shook his head while watching her go. "She's going to break it," he muttered, then turned to Stanley. "Alright, let me get a look at you."

Stanley wasn't sure what that meant, but he had time to kill and so spent it looking over the man's creations. Most of the sticks were just that, sticks, but a few held fancy carvings in finely polished wood.

"What are you?" the man asked, frowning. "Your mana is strange..."

"I'm a psionic. I don't use mana."

"Bah!" he spat while waving a hand dismissively. "Everyone uses mana! Though... not everyone sends that mana outside their body... hmm."

In an attempt to speed things up, Stanley levitated a stick off the table in front of the man. "That help?"

The man frowned at the stick, then at Stanley, then back at the stick. "Hmm." He rubbed his chin. "Psionic... wood won't work."

"Wood won't... what?"

"Metal. Not in your hand either... a headband, perhaps? A circlet... yes, that might work."

"I also use my soul," Stanley added belatedly.

"Hmm."

Stanley waited, but the guy just kept staring at him. "So..."

"Bring me metal."

Stanley pulled an oven door from Eve's side of the room and put it in front of the guy.

"No, no! Not any metal! I need something you've used before... ideally something you've used a lot. It'll have soaked up some of your essence."

"My..." Stanley sighed. He hadn't used a weapon in a while, but there might be a knife lying around... somewhere. "What will it do for me?"

"Don't know. Won't know until it's done."

"That is..." Stanley shook his head. "Maybe some other time." He was curious, but currently had higher priorities than looking for a knife he might have dropped somewhere in the city. Maybe he’d look around once his soul was doing better.

On that note, he left to keep working on his soul. That extra ache he'd felt this morning was already fading.

He left Caffeine at the base to squeeze in a little more play time. The pug would find him when he'd had enough, and it was plenty easy to monitor things while working, since he had to drop the shield to meditate.

As expected, Caffeine returned to their house sometime later, coming in like a rocket and bringing a cloud of dust with him. Stanley stopped his efforts long enough to drive away the dust and give a thorough belly rub to the panting pug, then got back to work.

He was making progress.