“Trying to get answers out of me before you even catch me?” I asked.

  “Come on, give us a freebie,” Sage pleaded. “I’ll show you my… ankle!”

  I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “What?” She asked. “Gotta lowball the offer.”

  I chortled.

  "Fine. Not much to explain," I said, navigating the Jeep through downtown Cascade. "I wanted to stage a heroic vampire takedown. Boost Galateya's reputation with her great-grandmother. Show humans and Omnids cooperating. Obviously didn't account for resident Skinwalkers."

  "Rookie mistake," Sage giggled, pulling up her pant leg to flash her ankle at me with a grin. "Always account for Skinwalkers! We're like cockroaches—turn on the lights and surprise! There we are, wearing your neighbor's face! For realsies tho’, that whole setup was high quality trolling. Fake bomb, prop guns, Count Chocula." She chattered jovially. "Would've worked perfectly if Mimi didn't have a stick up her bum about ‘vampire treaty violations’. Three X as serious... Thank you."

  "For?"

  "For giving me an excuse to come downstairs today. For bringing this gorgeous Omnid dragon for me to paw. For giving me a reason to get out." Sage’s manic-fox energy softened slightly. "Mimi's, like, extra protective. Scratch ‘dat, ever since the Frontenachii showed up she's been... MEGA paranoid. Won't let me leave the tower. Won't let me interact with customers. Hell, she yelled at me for looking out the windows!"

  "Why?" I asked, half focused on the road.

  “She thinks someone's going to notice me," Sage said quietly. "Notice what I am. What we all are. She reckons if I'm seen too much, someone will figure out we're Skinwalkers and..." She made a throat-cutting gesture. "We get bagged by your friendly neighborhood Frontenachii Commandant or whatevs. Which just happened. We're so fucking bagged."

  "You're not bagged," I said.

  "I'm not, 'cus you guys are obviously hecking sweet," Sanguine lamented. "But my mom and siblings are boned. Frontenachii blood contracts are no joke, bruh."

  "They will be a joke," I said.

  "Say what?" the foxy girl blinked.

  "Commandant Nexxali is… my girlfriend," I said. "She's going to offer your family the cheesiest, weakest contract with as many loopholes as possible."

  Sage's eyes went wide. "Wait, WHAT? The Marshal Commandant is your—" She grabbed the back of my seat, pulling herself forward. "Hold the fucking phone. Oh dang I'm stupid. I guess I was too distracted by the draconic ice show to pay attention. You're banging a Frontenachii Commandant?"

  "Yes." I confirmed, navigating around a slow-moving pickup truck.

  "He's banging a Wendigo Commander and a prad serval," Galateya complained.

  "Wait, hollll up," Sage's freckles rearranged into thinking emojis. "If you KNOW he's with other people, why are you so upset about the relationship stuff? Like, you knew going in that he already had two partners, right?"

  "I didn't know shit!" Galateya ground out, glaring at me. "He agreed to be my consort without mentioning his relationship with Commander Xandria. I don't even know how the fuck Nexxali got in there, but she's obviously IN to the Nth degree and I'm not!"

  "Harsh. Classic third or… fourth wheel syndrome. Been there. Well, not EXACTLY there because I've never actually HAD a non-online relationship, but I've read about it extensively on Geddit."

  "That's not helpful," Galateya muttered.

  "You're right, it's not." Sage leaned her chin on the back of Teya’s seat. "But here's what I don't get—if you're so bothered by the relationship dynamics, why are you still playing along? Why not just... bail? Tell your great-grandma to shove her Quest timers where the sun don't shine?"

  Galateya's tail curled. "Because I'm already blood-bound to Ash. And my great-grandmother would hunt me down. Because I have nowhere else to go. Because—"

  "'Cause you actually LIKE him," Sage finished. "Despite all the bullshit. Despite him being somehow split between two locations and keeping secrets and making you the fourth wheel in your own consort arrangement."

  "I hate how perceptive you are," Galateya growled.

  "It's the Skinwalker thing," Sage said. "We're really good at reading intent. Comes with the soul-eating territory. I contain over nine thousand fox souls. Right now I'm perceiving that you're into Ash, you're into being RESPECTED by Ash, and you're also maybe a teeny tiny bit into me?" Sage's freckles rearranged themselves into 'DRAGON BAIT'.

  Galateya's scales flushed bright pink. "I—what? No! That's—you're just—"

  "Oh my god, you ARE!" Sage squealed. "Look at you, all pink-red and flustered!"

  "That's the Phase-shift responding to emotional stimuli of being excited about the hunting," Galateya protested weakly. "It doesn't mean…"

  "It means EXACTLY what I think it means," Sage grinned wider. "You think I'm cute. Admit it."

  "Argh. Why are you even hitting on me?!" Galateya demanded. "We literally just met! And you're about to be blood-bound to me! And I'm having a relationship crisis! This is the WORST possible timing!"

  "Naw," Sage said, leaning back and stretching her arms behind her head, "this is PERFECT timing. See, here's the thing about Skinwalkers that your Frontenachii Taniwha bubble education probably didn't cover—we don't really do the whole 'appropriate timing' thing. Life's too short. Well, not for us, we're immortal, but you know what I mean.”

  "I really don't," Galateya muttered, scales cycling between embarrassed pink and confused purple.

  "What I MEAN is..." Sage kicked her feet up onto the back of my seat, "I'm a fox. I see something, I bite. Skinwalkers are opportunistic by nature. We see something we want, we go for it. Sometimes that's a tasty soul. Sometimes it's a cute dragon girl and her 'bold who's somehow partially immune to my Charmchain. Do you know how rare it is for me to find someone like you two? Like... you're the first couple that didn't just fall in love with me on the spot and instead threatened the piss outta me!"

  "We didn't threaten you," I said, watching the road as we left Cascade's downtown behind. "We just... demonstrated that we had options."

  "You parked a CORPSE SEEKER outside my family's café," Sage laughed. "That's like the diplomatic equivalent of cocking a battleship cannon at someone's head. Super threatening. Also super hot. I have weird taste, don't judge me."

  Galateya's mane bloomed with orange-blue flowers. "You found being threatened... attractive?"

  "Hell yeah!" Sage bounced in the back seat. "Do you know how boring my life is? Wake up. Stay in tower. Watch people through windows. Masturbate. Read books. Masturbate some more to make cash. Play violin. Order takeout. Catch and nom foxes. Rinse and repeat. Then YOU show up with your gorgeous scales and your emotional vulnerability and your ice powers—" She made explosion gestures. "—and suddenly I... I have a fucking future with IRL relationship potential! Sunshine and butterflies in my stomach! Friends who aren't my fam! Real love... maybe?"

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  I squinted at her. Sanguine looked at Galateya and then at me. “What?”

  “I already have two girlfriends and a consort,” I said. “And maybe my Wendigo girlfriend is getting another Wendigo girlfriend in the future when this damned invasion is over…”

  “Ooooo look at me,” Sage rolled her eyes. “The first world problems of a man drowning in pussy. Do you hear yourself, bro?”

  "Most people in the first world don’t encounter this sort of situation. Technically none of my partners are human," I clarified. "Seriously, it's not like I'm some kind of player with actual human women. I'm more of a... interspecies diplomatic liaison?"

  "Oh my GOD," Sage threw her head back and cackled. "Did you just try to make your cryptid harem sound like a UN peacekeeping mission? 'Interspecies diplomatic liaison'—that's the most virgin-energy thing I've ever heard from someone who's clearly getting laid!"

  "It's a factually accurate description," I protested.

  "It's COPE," Sage countered. "Absolute weapons-grade copium. 'Oh no, I'm not a playboy, I'm just facilitating cross-cultural exchange through the medium of banging cryptids!' Dude. BRO. My guy. Accept your reality. You're a cryptid-fucker extraordinaire."

  Galateya snorted into her hand.

  "Seriously! I didn't set out to—" I struggled to articulate my defense while navigating a sharp turn. "The situation evolved organically due to circumstances beyond my control! I didn't, like, set out to collect and bang them all!”

  Except I did plan to seduce the invaders with my online friends and their friends, but I wasn't going to confess to such so quickly.

  "'Circumstances beyond my control,'" Sage mimicked in my own voice like a parrot. "Listen to yourself! You sound like a politician caught with his pants down. 'The pants removal was an organic evolution of diplomatic circumstances.'" She added in my voice.

  "Sage," Galateya said with a smile. "Stop bullying him."

  "I'm not bullying! I'm OBSERVING," Sage insisted. "There's a difference. Bullying would be if I called him a crypto-slut. Which I'm not doing. Because I'm classy."

  "You literally just said it," I pointed out.

  “Take it as a compliment, bro,” Sage fired back, punching my seat.

  Something clicked in the back of my memories at her words, like an ancient gear switch activating.

  "Sage," I let out. "What's your... Instagram cosplayer name?"

  "PixxelVixen," she answered. "Why?"

  "I thought that you don't get out," I said.

  "I get out... sometimes. In full cosplay. No skin showery. Cannot over-seduce if they can’t see me," she said. "Again, why?"

  "I... met you last year. You were at a booth at the Emerald City Comicon." I said. "You were wearing this crazy, full body cubehead outfit from... Habitat Evil," I said. "Had this giant ass chainsaw sword too. You took a bunch of pics with me and we chatted and you called me ‘bro’ like twenty times."

  "Yeah," Sage said. "I go to cons in my fox-van. Wait. Why don't I remember your face?"

  "This isn't my real face," I reminded her.

  "Teyabun, how do you deal with dating someone who won't even show you his real face?" Sage pawed at the dragon from behind.

  "I've seen his real face," Galateya said quietly. "It's... nice."

  "Nice?" Sage made a scandalized noise. "NICE? That's the review you're giving? 'His face is nice'? Girl, you need to work on your dirty talk."

  "I don't—we haven't—" Galateya's scales flushed pink again. "We're not actually dating! It's all a SHAM!”

  "Shush. We are now," Sage said. "I have declared it thus. Wait…” She sniffed me from behind. “I… kinda remember your smell... yeah. You smell like a tree. Ah! I totes gave you my gram number, why didn't you write to me, bruh? We could have been dating already! Missed opportunity!"

  "I... thought you were just being friendly. You gave your number to like eight different people from your booth while we chatted."

  "Yeah, but I only gave my REAL number to you and this one girl dressed as Sailor Moon!" Sage protested. "Everyone else got the fake account operated by CrawdGPT API that links to my Gonyfans x-rated pics they can buy for 19'99."

  "I goodled your PixxelVixen account afterwards," I sighed.

  "And?"

  "And while you weren't showing your face there were a lot of leg, boob and butt pics," I said. "I thought that you were waaaaay outta my league. Also I thought that your chest and ass were fake or shopped. Waaaay too curvy.”

  "Ugh," Sage threw up her hands. "Cockblocked by my own photogenic butt pics!”

  I chortled.

  She kicked my seat. "Just so you know, I was legitimately sad! I told Fennel about you. 'Oh, I met this really cute tree-smelling guy at the con and he was dressed as an NPC from Gloom Souls.' And Fin was like, 'Sage, he's probably married with kids,' and I was like, 'No, I would have smelled that and he was definitely twenty one. Nobody gets married with kids at this age'. And then you NEVER TEXTED! Wah! I curse you with… manual breathing!”

  "I was finishing my last year of uni in Seattle at the time," I shrugged. "And your profile said you live in Cascade. That's a rather long drive."

  "OMGee, such excuses!" Sage declared. "You know what? I'm adding this to your list of time crimes. Ghosting a lonely Skinwalker girl. That's like, emotional violence."

  "I didn't ghost you," I protested, taking the turnoff toward Lake Crescent. "I just... failed to initiate contact..."

  "Ghoster-miser!" Sage kicked my seat harder. "You had my number! You could have sent literally anything. 'Hey, remember me from the con?' 'How's Cascade?' Even a stupid meme would have been better than radio silence! Bahumbug!"

  "She's right," Galateya said, sounding like she was enjoying my discomfort. "That's definitely ghosting behavior."

  "Thank you!" Sage reached forward to high-five the dragon girl. "See? Teya gets it. This is why we're going to be best friends."

  "We are?" Galateya blinked.

  "Yep! I've decided. We're besties now forevah. It's official." Sage reached out from behind and hugged Galateya.

  "Uh-huh." I watched as the dragon girl ignited with gold gems and pink flowers. "You're upset I didn't text you a year ago, but you're also excited to hunt me through the woods with paintball guns today?"

  "Exactly!" Sage squeezed Galateya harder. "Emotional closure! I get to work through my abandonment issues by literally chasing you down."

  "So what's the actual plan here?" I asked, turning into the national park parking lot. "You two chase me through the woods until...?"

  "Until we CATCH you," Sage said with unholy glee. "Then Teya gets to ask her one completely honest question. No bullshit. Just pure truth."

  "I… need to think about what to ask,” Teya said.

  "Make it count!" Sage advised. "Don't waste it on something stupid like 'do you think I'm pretty?' Obviously you're gorgeous. Ask something that MATTERS. Something that'll give you actual power in this fucked-up situation."

  Galateya nodded, draconic tail coiling in thought.

  "Oh! Also, let’s go over DA Rules!" Sage announced. "Every good hunt needs rules!"

  "Of course you do," I muttered.

  "Rule One!" Sage held up a finger. "No using vehicles. Once we start, you're on foot. No Jeep, no motorcycles, no boats, jet skis, Corpse Seekers, gliders or convenient helicopters."

  "I don't have a helicopter."

  "Rule Two!" She ignored me. "This is a FOREST hunt. You stay in the forest. No running back to town, no breaking into ranger stations, no commandeering tourist facilities. You can totally hide in abandoned creepy forest shacks if you find such though. Ke ke ke.”

  She sounded supremely confident about me finding and cowering in abandoned shacks.

  Were all cryptid girls into terrorizing humans movie-serial-killer style?

  "Rule Three!" Sage's freckles rearranged into little <3’s. “You get…. Uhhh…. Twenty? No! A twenty two minutes and twenty two sec head start! Yeah. Time for Teya to practice with the guns. The hunt lasts six hours, six minutes and six seconds.”

  She pulled out a phone decorated in fox stickers and created a [6:06:06] and [22:22] timers.

  “Very satanic vibes,” I muttered, “what if you don’t catch me in six hours?”

  "Then you WIN! And we have to answer YOUR completely honest question. No bullshit. Just pure truth from both of us. But that ain’t happening, bruh. No way. No how. Not trying to brag, but I am like amazing at hunting. The best. So, when we catch you, Teya will ask her question and then I’ll ask my question.”

  I rolled my eyes at her.

  “Very reasonable,” Galateya commented.

  "I KNOW!" Sage bounced in her seat. "See? I'm not TOTALLY chaotic good. Mostly chaotic. There's like, fifteen percent responsible adult in here somewhere." She tapped her chest. "Buried deep under layers of fox-themed nonsense and horny energy, but it's there!"

  I laughed.

  “Less laughing, more escaping!” Her red-furred finger hovered above the timer start button. “We’ll have twenty minutes of girl talk while you trip over logs. “And Go!” She tapped both of the timers.