~~~Stanley~~~

Racial Evolution in progress. You must complete or abort the evolution process before upgrading further.

Stanley wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, or scream in rage at the system for doing this to him. It felt like a twist of terrible irony because, for the first time in his life, he wasn't too weak. In fact, he might actually be too powerful instead. He'd gotten exactly what he wanted, and only at the end did he realize he should have been careful what he wished for.

It hadn't come as a complete surprise, either. Not after seeing his weird attributes the night before. They looked closer to normal now, probably because his evolution progress was much lower...

Status

Name: Stanley Cascade

Race: [Wrathstorm](E-grade Human) Pending...

Racial evolution in progress: [Eidolon of Wrath](E-grade Eidolon) 25% Complete.

Titles: [Titan Slayer] [F-grade Source]

Traits: [Adaptable](57%) [Source Nexus] [Wrathstorm Unleashed] [Source Burned] [Ruthless Soul]

Class: Soul Psionic (Epic) - Level 150 (Expert)

Class Skills: Mind Over Matter (Legendary) - Level 150 (Expert) | Premonition (Epic) - Level 90 (Advanced) | Still Mind of the Psionic Beast (Epic) - Level 49 (Intermediate) | Harmonic Soul Meditation (Rare) - Level 99 (Advanced) | Mental Fortress (Epic) - Level 59 (Advanced)

Attributes:

Strength: 612(+20%)734

Vitality: 605(+112%)1282

Dexterity: 613(+20%)735

Wisdom: 821(+2373%)23981

Intelligence: 835(+2373%)24328

Willpower: 901(+9918%)103522

Twin-Soul: 127(+747%)1075

Non-Class Skills 2/6: Soul Awareness (Epic) - Level 49 (Intermediate) | Psionic Barrier (Rare) - Level 49 (Intermediate) | Psionic Soul Shield (Rare) - Level 24 (Basic)

Buff: [Soul-Link]

Debuff: [Minor Soul Wound(Unbroken Soul Binding)]

He was still missing a chunk of his physical attributes, and the numbers fluctuated wildly along with his evolution progress. Not that those attributes mattered to him. Well, aside from the whole not turning into a monster thing... otherwise, it was all good. More than good! He was unstoppable!

Which meant Nate was probably right about the undead not coming back... because they were no longer a threat. Not directly. If they showed their faces again, he would snuff them out like candles in a hurricane, and they knew that. After all, the damn thing had ripped out part of its soul to escape...

Stanley still felt amusement at imagining that monster's suffering, but it wasn't a happy feeling. It was cruel... and angry.

Racial Evolution Progress... 25%... 32%...

He dropped back into meditation and studied the stolen piece of soul again. It still yielded no connections back to its original owner, and unlike with his brands, Stanley wasn't detecting the greater whole through the smaller piece. He also couldn't feel its emotions through the piece... It wasn't a blank slate by any stretch. It felt like the undead's soul, but it also felt... static. Unchanging. Not dead, but more... in limbo?

Eve did something similar with the bits of her soul spread throughout her machines, where the bits no longer mirrored the rest. They used to, but not lately. Now she programmed them to do specific tasks... or so she said. He hadn't quite figured out the knack; otherwise, he could have made his brands only one way. Or so he suspected. Souls were weird.

He'd never tried to track Eve down from a spider, and he doubted it would work if he tried. There weren't links stretching between all the pieces, at least not that he could detect. Not even between him and Lee... Maybe it was some kind of quantum entanglement effect? Were quantum physics still a thing? The wizards might know... maybe they would even figure out how to track souls before him, and wouldn't that be nice?

Either way, the undead wouldn't be coming to him. Instead, as Nate said, they would try something else... whatever that meant. They might not even have to do anything if Zeke couldn't purge himself... a task Stanley could feel him currently working on nearby. His progress so far wasn't much, but it was only the first day...

I'll find them before it gets to that, Stanley promised silently. Maybe he could torture the undead into removing the corruption? Or at least for information on a way to remove it? That might even be fun... He didn't know the limits of his new power, but he imagined that inflicting pain had to be easier than altering the past. He could even start in on their souls if their flesh—or lack thereof—proved resistant to suffering.

Unfortunately, his violent thoughts weren't helping with being chill, so Stanley tried to focus on Caffeine's soul instead. It was much more pleasant, but even that reprieve ended when the children got rounded up onto a barge and the exhausted pug came running back for a nap. He still wasn't at a hundred percent... but on the upside, Stanley got him to eat a few cores before knocking out. Hopefully, he was actually absorbing them and not just destroying them...

There was a chance that if he fed enough cores to Caffeine and then convinced the pug to send him the attributes... well, it probably wouldn't work. The system wouldn't let him have a loophole like that, would it? Though even if it would, that still left him with the problem of getting Caffeine to cooperate. Adrian and Daryl might help with that... maybe even those kids with the bats. It was definitely worth a shot, and worst case, he might accidentally push Caffeine into D-grade. So, win-win.

One positive effect of him sitting in the shadow of a dead skeleton was that no one wanted to come close. It left him with a modicum of peace amidst the chaos of a thousand people getting ready to move. The downside came when he confirmed the glassy surface was indeed spreading outward... and dragging the divided halves of the skeleton with it.

It was slow, as in, he only knew because his domain told him it was moving. Even then, he couldn't actually see the movement. It was there, but too small to measure. The notification had said the rupture was contained... so hopefully this was just some residual effect? Maybe it was still settling? Or maybe it was simply how time magic worked. How the hell was he supposed to know either way!?

That god wanted a favor, so he presumably needed Stanley alive to collect. His notification also hadn't told him not to touch it... unlike Nate and Theo. Did that mean something? Were the wizards capable of undoing it? But then why wouldn't he be at least an equal threat? Did it just know he wouldn't try anything? After all, he had seen into the abyss...

Stanley shivered, then gave Caffeine some pets before slipping back into his meditation. Barring the Caffeine loophole, he needed to get rid of this evolution, and the best way to do that was probably through meditation. Based on what made the progress go up or down, he needed to be... calm. Well, calmer, at least.

Assuming he actually could abort the evolution...

The notification seemed to imply that it was possible, but it didn't tell him how. He'd already tried every mental command he could think of, and all he had left now was to push the progress as low as it would go. There had to be a threshold where it would let him turn it down... right?

If he couldn't... No, there had to be a way.

Stanley buckled down and kept focusing on Caffeine's soul as the pug slept. Caffeine dreamt a few times, but they were all pleasant dreams. Especially when Zeke ventured into the quarantine zone and sat beside him. Caffeine didn't wake, but he definitely seemed to enjoy the light... Meanwhile, Stanley meditated and thought all the stupid, happy thoughts until the gathered mass of humanity started moving away, Zeke going with them.

Racial Evolution in Progress... 19%...

That was the best he'd seen, and it gave him a glimmer of hope. He could beat this and get to D-grade! It shouldn't take long, a day or two at most.

In the distance, he saw the train of floating platforms drifting away above the trees, and true to their word, neither Nate nor Bernard had tried to recruit him into helping in the effort... so why did that bother him? It was a good thing. They'd improved enough that they didn't need his help... and that was bothering him?

The more he thought about it, the more he realized why. It bothered him because it was all too little too late. They hadn't won the fight! They had lost, and now he was stuck with this damn evolution! Now they wanted him to take a break!? Now!? When it was already too...

Stanley blew out a breath and let it go. As much as he could, at least. Nate's little dream about sidelining him was exactly that—a dream. Though he had picked a good time... if they didn't have to worry about the undead attacking again... well, maybe the weaklings could take over. Hell, maybe they could go really crazy and actually find the undead for him? He could take a day or two to fix this evolution thing... and they could feed Caffeine cores while he did that.

Then he could end this once and for all.

Zeke didn't leave. He came back with the whole team... and they lingered at the edges of the time field, waiting for him.

"I'll catch up," Stanley said after they continued not leaving.

"We will too," Nate said.

"Yeah," Silas said, poking gingerly at the glass with one of his crystals. "Those platforms are pretty slow, so take your time."

Stanley sighed and flew after the barges. Despite what Silas said, they weren't that slow. Maybe forty miles an hour? Which, once he thought about it, made the people running through the trees below and keeping up all the more impressive. For normal people, at least... They were all still pitifully slow compared to the real powers of this new world.

Not everyone was on foot—though they had loaded the barges with more luggage than people—but enough of them were, and they didn't seem to be enjoying the fresh air and exercise. The overall mood was... dim. Nate had said people would die... and going by the way some individuals were feeling, maybe some had. Not that he'd noticed any obvious missing persons...

He almost second-guessed his decision to join the caravan once he got in the thick of it, but it wasn't all bad. Not all the humans were miserable, and some were even enjoying themselves, particularly the children playing with the wolves and Barbie.

The pit bull stayed near the middle of the pack with his human, but the wolves roamed around the outskirts, never quite mingling with the mass of humanity, even if they would occasionally dart in. Usually to steer a child back toward the center... almost like they were herding the kids to keep them from wandering too far. Which maybe they were?

At least Barbie didn't seem to mind their presence. Hell, if anything, he was less wary of the wolves than the other humans. Smart.

Stanley followed the bits of Eve's soul to a barge carrying her equipment and made himself a seat by rearranging some of the junk that wasn't hers. Zeke was probably safe for now, but why risk it? And if he was going to tag along, well, he might as well get a free ride out of it.

Eve didn't protest his presence when she caught up and only went right back to work on building... something. Probably a weapon, if her soul was anything to go by. He watched her work—at least as well as he could without Soul Sight—and waited for a lull before asking about something nagging him. "Do you still have eyes at the stadium?"

"No," Eve said without looking away from her work. "Not since... well, it doesn't matter now, and besides, there's supposed to be a bunch of wizards down there now."

Of course. Nate had been planning to take over the stadium, hadn't he? Stanley went back to meditating instead of asking. Going after Sam now was a total long shot, and the odds of success were even worse since they didn't have Brett anymore... or did they?

"He's dead," Nate confirmed when Stanley flew over to ask about the mind controller, but there was something else there... something Nate didn't want to share.

"What about his core!?"

"He dropped it," Nate finally admitted reluctantly. "His domination skill."

Stanley would have become excited if he hadn't been able to see Nate's soul, so instead, his voice fell flat when he asked, "What did you do with it?"

"I gave it to someone to turn it into attributes," Nate said honestly, and Caffeine immediately woke up.

Racial Evolution Progress... 26%... 49%...

Buff Gained: [Still Mind of the Psionic Beast]

Warning! Skill: Still Mind of the Psionic Beast (Epic) is incompatible with Race: Eidolon of Wrath

Racial Evolution Interrupted.

"Why?" Stanley asked more than a few miles later, and after an extended bout of meditation. "Why the fuck would you..."

Racial Evolution Progress... 21%... 40%...

Buff Gained: [Still Mind of the Psionic Beast]

Warning! Skill: Still Mind of the Psionic Beast (Epic) is incompatible with Race: Eidolon of Wrath

Racial Evolution Interrupted.

Stanley sat back in the dirt while Caffeine licked his face, then meditated until he only wanted to hurt Nate rather than kill him. He kept meditating until Caffeine finally went back to sleep before flying after the others. Slowly.

Nate had to know what that skill meant. It might even be the difference between Zeke living or dying. Or a fate worse than death. Nate knew that and still destroyed it...

Stanley stopped before rejoining the convoy and before Caffeine could Still Mind him. This time Lee brought the extended family back into the mix so they could bombard him with their stupid love and affection!

It was... nice, and with their help, he could look at the situation more rationally. He was obviously overreacting. After all, it hadn't even been an hour ago that he'd thought the skill lost forever, and he hadn't been all that upset about the fact. Not until he found out Nate destroyed it.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

When Stanley next opened his eyes, he gazed upon the returned and waiting people with mixed emotions. "Did you all know about this?"

"I agreed with the decision," James said, but then he would agree with whatever Nate wanted.

Serenity and Olivia both nodded, and while Silas shifted uncomfortably when Stanley's gaze landed on him, he still nodded his own agreement.

"I would have used it rather than destroy... it," Eve said, finally looking up from her nonstop crafting, only to trail off after meeting his gaze. She found her courage a heartbeat later. Not a lot, but enough to surprise Stanley. "Well, I would have... but destroying it is probably better since we didn't know what you were turning into. Or if Caffeine could stop you again..."

She shrugged at him before turning back to her work, and Stanley stared back at her for a long moment before he could decipher the jumble of her soul. She wasn't unafraid, but she'd moved on into a sort of fatalistic courage. Or maybe... acceptance? Whatever it was, he almost liked it. Aside from the implication in all of their souls, even if they weren't stating it explicitly. "You didn't want me to learn it."

Damning silence followed his statement, and Stanley meditated some more. It wasn't their fault... not really. Well, probably not. They were afraid of him, and he couldn't blame them for that. Especially with his current... situation.

So he sat still and thought happy thoughts. It helped, and the longer he waited, the less upset he felt about the betrayal. Because it wasn't a betrayal. Questionable decision-making, sure, but not a betrayal. After all, he'd never come out and said he wanted the skill... though they probably would have destroyed it sooner if he had. Besides, he hadn't even wanted the skill until that monster put Caffeine into an extended nap. Caffeine was better... but of course, now Zeke was the one in trouble...

"That skill might have been what we needed to find out how to remove the corruption from Zeke," Stanley said without opening his eyes. "But I get it. I'm an unstable luna..."

"I didn't do it to protect us from you," Nate interjected. "I did it to protect you from yourself."

Stanley opened his eyes.

"Let me clarify," Nate said, voice steady despite his nervous soul. "It wasn't fear of you that stopped me. It was fear of who you might become. Not now or anytime soon, but eventually. Power like that changes people, even if they don’t mean for it to. Brett was bad enough, but he had limits. Hard ones. His reach could only go so far."

He hesitated, eyes narrowing as if searching for the right words. "But you? I don’t know what your limits would be... or if you’d have any at all. That’s what scares me. Not the person you are today, but the one you might become when there’s no one left to say no to you."

It wasn't a terrible argument... or one Stanley hadn't already had with himself. "You know," Stanley mused aloud. "I once turned down a class skill that would have let me read and manipulate minds."

Nate didn't even try to hide his relief. "So you get it?"

"Yeah, yeah," Stanley said, rolling his eyes. "I don't trust myself either. Of course, that still leaves Zeke..."

"I believe in him," Nate said with a pat on Zeke's back. "He's got this." Of course, he was still lying, but it made the kid feel better, so there was that.

Stanley picked everyone up and flew them after the convoy. It was later, after some more meditation, when he caught a snippet of conversation between Nate and Theo.

"Dale is at the stadium!?" Stanley asked the duo incredulously. "Isn't that the self-serving fuck who left you hanging? I assumed you'd have killed him by now..."

"Not yet," Nate said. "And he didn't go himself, but he sent a lot of his people... Though it's definitely suspicious that he's suddenly willing to help us."

"It's not suspicious," Theo said. "He simply heard about the magic we found in the pit and doesn't want to be left out."

"Maybe." Nate shook his head. "Unfortunately, we need his help, since whatever was protecting the stadium from the miasma is gone, and the logistics of taking over that place are... problematic."

"Just give 'em an ultimatum to fight or die," Stanley said. "We can clear out some extra skyscrapers easily enough..." They were already drifting into view of downtown, and while most of the buildings were lairs, they weren't all thriving. Maybe Zeke moving into the area would help with that?

"We're not to that point yet," Nate said. "At least not if the wizards can keep them going... but I've also been recruiting anyone willing to fight. I won't complain if Dale's people can keep even a few more people alive long enough to come around."

Nate and his grand dreams.

"I should go check on them," Stanley muttered. "Just to be safe..."

"Not that I don't enjoy seeing Dale knocked down a peg," Theo said. "But his help is useful. Don't worry; we have enough people down there to monitor him. He won't be able to get away with much of anything."

Stanley wasn’t buying it, but then again, he could always kill the guy later.

They didn't get much further before they started seeing hunting parties from the tower, which might explain some of the weaker lairs in the area... Not that the teams Stanley saw were anything impressive. Well, one team stood out, or rather, one person.

It was Kira wielding her blood-red spear. Samantha's spear... It looked different now, more like Kira... but he would always recognize that weapon.

Stanley really thought he was over that loss, but seeing the spear again... it hurt. When she started approaching the convoy alongside Adrian and Daryl, Stanley took the coward's way out and flew away. He wasn't supposed to help anyway... right?

Instead, he flew ahead to the tower.

It felt like a long time ago that he'd flown away. So much had happened... and Stanley felt a little bad about how he'd brushed off Walter earlier. Sure, he'd been under the influence of Still Mind and... other things, but he still felt bad. Which made him angry...

Stanley could see Walter's soul waiting in his room, so he went that way, flying in through the open balcony doors and into the room. He could at least apologize for...

"Welcome home," Walter said, turning away from the wall with an apron draped over his ever-present tuxedo. He held a tray covered in plaster in one hand and a spade in the other. "If you will pardon the mess, the renovation of your quarters is nearly complete."

Stanley stared at the butler, then around at the room. There was an open bucket of paint atop a sheet, and he could see more than a few spots of fresh plaster where Walter had patched holes, some of them larger than others... and all of them probably caused by his... outbursts. No, not probably. Certainly.

The sight shouldn't have come as such a surprise, considering, but he'd never actually stopped to think about it. He'd always assumed someone was fixing what he broke, because it was never still broken when he returned, but he'd never really had to consider who was repairing it or how.

"Walter," Stanley said, feeling even worse than he had. "I'm sorry for..." He glanced again at the half-patched wall. How many times had Walter fixed this room? How many times did he never even notice? "For everything."

"Nonsense," Walter said, his voice as droll as ever, even as his soul beamed. "You have nothing to apologize for."

"But..."

"Seeing you alive and well is reward enough for my efforts. I could not ask for anything more." He meant it. Utterly and completely.

Walter was too good to him, and it wasn't merely him trying to be nice to the crazy, powerful guy. He actually cared... and worried. Stanley could feel it in the man's soul... and it made him furious. With himself. So, despite wanting to thank the man, or apologize again, or anything else that he should have said or done, Stanley could only sit on the floor and meditate.

It came hard to him, but he managed. Walter didn't mind, accepting his sudden silence as he returned to repairing the wall. Of course, that wasn't all he did. The butler vanished often, and his soul briefly reappeared in various places below before returning to his work. The absences only increased as the mass of approaching souls grew ever closer outside.

Stanley mostly stayed in his meditation and watched through their souls as the two groups of humanity merged into one. It took a while, and Stanley only took a few breaks. He timed each break intentionally when Walter wasn't present and tried his own hand at repairing the holes Walter hadn't gotten to yet. For some annoying reason, it was a lot harder than it looked, and he abandoned his efforts after making a small hole into a much larger one...

He stayed in his meditation when Walter next returned and felt it when the man noticed his... efforts. As before, there was no recrimination from him. In fact, he might have even been smiling while he fixed Stanley's latest mistake.

It wasn't until Nate and the others appeared upstairs that Stanley gave up hiding inside his own mind. Even then, he only emerged when Adrian's soul started acting weird.

Soul Sight through the walls was enough, and before he even left his room, he knew what was happening. Adrian was evolving to D-grade.

The sight of the man lying on a couch with Cheesesteak sitting protectively beside him reminded Stanley of what Nate had said earlier. "Walter, did Nate give you a core for me?"

"Of course, sir." Walter held out a white-gloved hand, and a core that hadn't been there before lay in his palm. "Pardon me, but I had intended to mention..."

"Keep it," Stanley said, ignoring the surprised looks from his friends as he did so. "You can use it."

"That is not necessary..."

"I don't care!" Stanley snapped. "Take it!" He closed his eyes and took a few breaths to calm down as much as he could without meditating, then glanced at Nate. "You'll have more soon enough, right?"

"We will," Nate said slowly, his soul surprised and suspicious.

Stanley considered sharing his current predicament regarding cores and how he couldn't absorb them, but he didn't. The mood was actually fairly pleasant in here, and he didn't want to ruin it. "The core is yours, Walter. It's a..." He almost said repayment but caught himself in time. "It's a gift."

"Then..." Walter floundered for a second before regaining his composure with a shallow bow Stanley's way. "I thank you."

Stanley could feel where Walter's soul was going, and he glanced at Daryl with a smile. "I won't mind if you also want to give it away..."

Walter was already handing the core to Daryl before Stanley finished speaking. He probably could have skipped straight to giving it to Daryl in the first place...

Of course, neither of them was expecting Daryl to turn immediately and offer the core to Cheesesteak. Though maybe they should have...

"You don't mind, right?" Daryl asked Stanley, his soul far more wary than Walter's.

Stanley shook his head, then watched the core dissolve while clutched in Cheesesteak's beak... maybe birds didn't like to chew up cores like Caffeine?

The others trickled away after that, though Daryl remained at Adrian's side. Nate gave Stanley some strange looks, but he still left to go deal with all the bullshit that arises when humanity gathers in large numbers.

Caffeine slept through it all, which Princess probably appreciated, though Stanley thought he saw the pug's nose twitching more than once. He stopped sleeping when the two new D-grades woke up, though that was probably because of the deafening screech the phoenix unleashed rather than anything else.

Red-gold flames bathed the penthouse, emanating from the pair in a torrent, and Stanley wasn't the only one who had the same idea following their evolution. Zeke appeared upstairs almost immediately, and both bird and man poured their fire into the corruption in his chest without prompting. Maybe they'd talked about it earlier?

Stanley watched with anticipation... anticipation that slowly morphed into helpless despair.

The corruption retreated at first, with many of the rotten tendrils pulling back into the little nugget of darkness in Zeke's chest, but that was as far as it went. Amid the raging phoenix fire, that knot of corruption didn't shrink. It reacted to the flames, but not in a good way. Instead of burning away, it condensed into a brighter blackness, then exploded back out, forcing its way through the flames to entangle itself even deeper throughout Zeke's soul once again.

That was when Zeke started screaming... and Stanley's despair turned into murderous fury.

Racial Evolution Progress... 27%... 53%...

Buff Gained: [Still Mind of the Psionic Beast]

Warning! Skill: Still Mind of the Psionic Beast (Epic) is incompatible with Race: Eidolon of Wrath

Racial Evolution Interrupted.

He could go right now. He could scour the entire dungeon, could tear up the ground, and destroy every lair. Nothing could stop him... especially not if he finished evolving into an Eidolon. Once that was done, there would be nothing stopping him from getting to D-grade... other than the fact he'd just given away his only core...

No, the D-grade lair queen was still down there. He could kill it instead of waiting for more to be born. He would...

Buff Removed: [Still Mind of the Psionic Beast]

Stanley retreated to his room and missed whatever was said after that. He didn't want to leave them, but he had no choice. It was that or go hunting, and he would not start down that path. Not yet. Not until all hope was lost. Not until he had no other choice.

So he hid in his room—where he couldn't see or hear anything—and felt like a coward the whole time.

Not that hiding really helped. The walls of his room still sheltered him from the souls outside, but they didn't block the soul brands... Mercifully, Zeke didn't suffer long, at least not physically. Honestly, he took the pain better than the disappointment that followed. Especially since it felt like he was blaming himself...

It sucked. A lot. Lee came to his aid again, and it was the only way Stanley maintained his meditation. From that slightly calmer place, he watched the aftermath as best he could through the brands.

Adrian tried a few more times by the feel of things, but each attempt ended with the same result, until eventually they gave up, and Stanley watched bitterly as their souls receded downstairs.

He didn't follow. There was nothing he could do to help...

Walter appeared in his room later—only for an instant—and left something behind when he vanished. Caffeine's abrupt awakening and scramble across the room was all that Stanley needed to know exactly what the man had left for him. Dinner.

He would have kept meditating and let Caffeine eat all the food, but he needed to eat something if he didn't want to go find Zeke... Also, Caffeine only sat beside the table and cried instead of stealing the food...

Stanley yeeted one bite of fish into his mouth and dumped the rest into Caffeine's maw. He assumed correctly that Walter was watching, because the man knocked on the door with more food the moment the last scraps vanished into the pug.

The man said nothing as he cleared the dirty plates and replaced them with fresh, steaming plates he pulled from nowhere. He'd probably talked with the others... so he likely knew everything already. His soul sure felt concerned enough... though that might have been about something else, because he broke the silence first.

"I..." Walter hesitated but was clearly itching to get something out while also trying to be delicate about whatever it was.

Stanley said nothing but pushed an extra chair out from the table as an invitation.

Walter sat primly, an extra plate appearing before him as he did so, but he didn't start eating. Instead, he finally mustered up the will to say what was on his mind. "I would like to introduce you to someone. Would you mind if I invited her to join us?"

"Who?" Stanley asked, a bad feeling tickling at the back of his mind.

"A Ms. Marie Lennon. She was a... psychologist..." Walter trailed off, and Stanley reined in the flash of rage his words had incited.

Instead of lashing out, Stanley only laughed bitterly. "You know what? Why not? Bring on the shrink!"

Walter had either been expecting his answer or the man had been planning to bring her in either way, because there was a woman waiting outside the door when he opened it. "Ms. Lennon," Walter said after stepping aside. "Please, allow me to introduce you to Stanley Cascade."

"It's nice to meet you, Stanley," the blonde-haired and blue-eyed woman said while smiling genially, and that was despite the fact she had to be feeling his soul. She wasn't lying... or was that just some kind of professional thing? Caffeine seemed happy enough to see her... so that was something.

Walter turned into a whirlwind as he escorted her to the table and piled more steaming dishes atop it from out of nowhere. Of course, once they were seated, Walter abruptly apologized that he was needed elsewhere and vanished... leaving Stanley alone with the shrink.

Obviously his plan from the start.

The woman smiled at him, her calm demeanor unshaken by Walter's abrupt departure. "I must say, I've heard quite a bit about you. It's nice to finally put a face to the rumors."

Stanley shifted uneasily, feeling a strange and unfamiliar flutter of nerves. "What... what have you heard?" he asked, his voice catching despite himself. "W-what did Walter tell you about me?" He had to remind himself that she was E-grade—literally harmless. There was no logical reason to feel threatened. So why did his palms feel clammy? What did shrinks even do? Was she a magic shrink now? Did that mean she had... mental powers?

The woman tilted her head slightly, studying him in a way that felt both disarming and invasive. "Walter has spoken little of you," she said, her tone light and matching her soul. "And besides, I prefer to hear the truth from the source rather than relying on hearsay."

Stanley frowned, his unease deepening. "Why?"

Her smile softened, and for a moment, there was a flicker of something almost like empathy in her eyes. "Because people are more than the stories told about them, Stanley. And because I think the truth deserves to be heard in your own words, not filtered through someone else's perspective."

"And that'll help you fix me?"

"Do you believe you need fixing?"

Stanley laughed bitterly. "Why else would you be here? I mean, you can feel my soul, can't you!?"

She nodded, her expression calm. "I can. Will you tell me about it?"

"Tell you about what!?"

"Whatever you'd like to talk about."

Her tone was too even, too measured, and it grated on Stanley in a way he couldn’t fully articulate. It wasn’t just the words—it was the way she said them. She was too calm about... well, everything! He wanted to shout, to break the silence with something loud and forceful. Instead, he sighed, stabbing his fork into the fish on his plate. He took a bite, tossed another piece to the eager Caffeine, who caught it midair, and then stared at the woman across from him.

"I have an identical twin brother," he began, his voice quieter than he’d intended.

He told her about Lee, about how strong his brother was, and once he started talking, he couldn’t seem to stop.