Nexus City

Somehow, Alexander managed to make his way out of the point and into the massive city without slamming into the walls or windows too much. The sun shown high above, making the crystalline spires shimmer. It was also a little hot.
The avian broke into song once again, operatic high notes resonating throughout the city.
 
Kenny swam through the salty depths, glancing in wide-eyed wonder at the colorful coral reef. He ran a gentle hand down the soft plant, blowing a few bubbles. Some fish swam passed, a few bumping into him.
Suddenly, the current yanked him left and forward. He swam hard against it, but no luck. A bright light shown ahead, and as the hybrid was pulled closer, it almost seemed to be...a door? The current pulled him harder, and the next thing he knew, he lay prone on warm cement, taking in deep gulps of air. Kenny glanced behind himself to see the mysterious door gone. Confused and disoriented, he simply blinked and stared ahead, propping himself up on his elbows.
 
As it turned out, Feroz's first few successful meals were beginner's luck. The last six times he had tried to scare one of the very colorful creatures into being eaten, he had been attacked and left behind. Another couple of times, he was completely ignored and unable to hurt them. Then he had sneaked up to a terrifying sight, and fled the scene like a newborn pup. After that embarrassing display, he planned his moves around the city better, and learned that the denizens of the nexus weren't all that naive. The good part being that everyone, for some reason or other, was a liar. It was lucky he ate to satisfy a hunger and not for nutrients and sustenance. Otherwise he would have starved to death during the first few weeks of his new life.

A traveler, who looked at him and saw a pitiful dog, gave Lobo Feroz some kind pets, and led him to the Leaky Servo. Where he was quick to give away some facts he remembered about his world, in exchange for more than his weight in food. He ate and ate, for hours and days, until he was sad and tired. Because none of the delicious dishes and drinks he was given could actually help his growing anxiety. So he left in a hurry, and told himself he'd return to ask the AI when he wasn't feeling this awful. Because what he actually wanted to consume were the other patrons. He found himself prowling the streets, and laying to rest in between a bunch of cardboard boxes that smelled vaguely of blood, piss and mold. The Nexus was so overwhelming, he needed to be occupied. And so, he started his next hunt.
 
"Hiya little doggy," cried out a cheery voice, trailed by a petite figure stepping into the cardboard strewn alleyway. The dimness in the space was pushed back by the glint of various lights twinkling beneath the high-tech armor she wore. "I wouldn't go around prowling around here. There's this nasty runaway rift around that gobbles up passerby at random,” she cautioned, a pouting look of concern on her features. The svelte woman had pale pink skin, grey-blue hair in a loose bob-cut and piercing mother-of-pearl eyes. “My name’s Frey. Tell me, Mr. Feroz. What did you ask the food-giving robot that she couldn’t grant?”
 
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The few people that had tried to talk to him, for now, always wanted something. They were selling, or in need of help, or a kidney. This woman had at least asked him straight. Given him a word of warning, too. Was she a robot as well, like the food-giving one, as she had called her?. Feroz turned to face her, standing up on two legs. He stepped towards her and leaned in to sniff, sniff sniff...Her scent wasn't entirely unpleasant, but it was a weird mix. It didn't confirm or deny her nature, but she was alive. That was enough for his mouth to start watering.

The wolf let out a hum-like growl, nothing threatening, just to indicate he was thinking about her words. He liked his lips, and whined quietly. Speech was not his forté, yet. His tail was wagging, if slowly. He couldn't deny he was glad for the company.

"I... Asked for something to quiet my stomach permanently. Are you volunteering to try?" He said. His voice was deep and grutural, with some veiled musical undertones. If there were people here who could escape him, and there were many, he was bound to find some who wouldn't mind helping. Because of selflessness, or stupidity. But Frey, who smelled positively delicious, didn't look dumb.
 
Freyn’ja stayed still through the creature’s ‘inspection’. Instinct or ritual, she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t easy, however. She had to stay stock still, while keeping her biomechanics emitting the same steady and pleasant aroma that she’d adopted as her perfume. At the same time as she was inspected, her own systems were capturing the creature’s features, building a profile. She got molecular breakdowns on its saliva and breath, high-resolution imagery of his eyes and surface blood vessels. In the end however, she couldn’t resist herself. It was absolutely for science, she needed to analyze further…

“There, there,” Frey said soothingly as she confidently reached out a hand to pet and ruffle Lobo’s ears. Her fingers uncurled, stretching longer and thinner like a spring being uncoiled. The modified fingers let her get a more targeted grip through the fur to the creature's skin, and left her ready to capture some stray skin cells as she delivered tactically targeted scritches.

“I’m not volunteering in the way you think,” she clarified beneath a blanket of soft “Oh’s” and “Awww’s” and nonsense vocalizations as she continued to rhythmically run her hand through the velvety fur. “But I do have a soft spot for aberrant freaks, and I can maybe help you.”
 
It was even softer and fluffier than she could have been expecting. The wolf stayed very still at first, stunned by her actions. A bit reckless, wasn't she? or was her confidence backed up by- ooooooh... when she uncurled her fingers as she petted him, he leaned into her scritches with a whine. This was new, and very welcome! His tail wagged faster, with growing enthusiasm. But then she kept talking and he had to focus so her words didn't get lost to the wind as he melted under her touch.

"Hrrm..." He didn't want to answer, but he should. Unbothered by the, if he was honest, accurate description of him. "You would help me because I'm fluffy?, I don't have anything else to give. I take, that's all I've ever done." He moved a bit, so she'd scratch the back of the base of his ears in the perfect spot. When she did, his leg started shaking a bit, what?.
 
Freyn'ja kept her scratching localized for a moment, as she observed the effect it had on Lobo. She knew the perils of drawing iron-clad parallels, but still. Who was going to be able to not see the big puppy beneath the fluffy facade? So what if there were also lots of slaver, teeth, and sharp claws? Not to mention Xil's observation with the whole different forms thing. Irrelevant. He was fluffy, and Frey got what she wanted, always. Right now, that was a challenge ill suited to her compatriots. She'd get to lord this over Xil forever...

"The fluffy does add a point in your favor," she said with an enigmatic grin. Her tone was gentle and soothing, the carefully crafted throaty timbre reverberating gently to a sensitive hearing like extra punctuation. "But no. This is not charity, even if you don't need to give anything. The reasons and payout are mine to concern with. You're a layabout hungry void, that's hardly original around these parts. No, you can come to peace with what you are, and put it to willful use. My part in it is as simple as that I can try, and I try everything I can. Are you in or not?".
 
He sighed, and as perfect as it all was, as much as he liked her magical hands, he stepped away. He wasn't hunched, or showing his teeth. But he did look wary of her. Because this was too perfect, and he wanted to join her. Most likely, he would. But from what he had seen, this realm was full of beings with more power than his mind could dream of. Tricksters could be found at the turn of a corner. What if this was one of them?, disguised as a pretty little woman. An Artemis, or a venomous Aphrodite. His tail was still wagging, and he extended a hesitant hand. It was also fluffy, with dog-like claws at the ends, and -toebeans-.

"I want to be, I am... But you do get something from this?, I don't need to know what it is exactly. That, like you said, is your concern. What I do need to know, is that It won't harm me. Or keep me caged forever. Ties are fine, It'll be... fun, interesting, having ties with you. So what do you say, Frey?" He tilted his head and grinned, all teeth. His tail wagged faster.
 
"The experience," Frey answered simply as she tilted her head and looked into the creature's eyes. For a brief moment, her personality and the personality mask she wore above it synced perfectly. There really wasn't a way to properly explain the selfishness of the situation to him. The simplicity that was the fact that whether or not he was harmed wasn't really a concern of hers. It wasn't an aim, but it also wasn't a deterrent. She'd see him burn on the altar of novelty, just for the experience.

Still. She knew how to pick them, or so she thought. He was hardy enough to survive her best intentions. "Although, I am a deft hand with ties," Frey added, the timbre of her tone deepening even as the pitch of her voice rose higher. "But no. I was bored, and here is something I can do. I don't plan to cause you harm, and I feel like you're smart enough to avoid a cage of your own making. So what do I say? I say let's go get some 'dinner'," she said while extending her own hand towards the wolf-thing. The dense sensory receptors in her slight hand flared up, and she had to bite back a loud exclamation of childish glee upon contact with Lobo's 'beans'.

She broke the contact, before she was tempted to draw a blood sample. "About 10 kilometers from here, is a forest clearing that moves around its forest. There's some bandits hiding there from the Guild. They hurt a friend of mine recently. Let's go, and show me how fierce you can be, Mr. Feroz."
 
He listened to her, and nodded by the end. Good enough. She didn't reek of lies and mischief, not yet. He made sure to test it, leaning in to sniff. The tip of his nose brushed against her ear as he did it. So whatever she said must be true enough that she believed in it herself. They shook hands, and he smiled.

"A forest picnic sounds perfect, little Ms. Freya." He thought that maybe, the way she kept addressing him was meant to be done in return. She wanted to see him hunt, maybe? Curious woman, eager to see blood spill. For a so called righteous, or convenient, reason. His stomach tickled a bit, becoming emptier every second that passed. So he'd take the tip to eat those bandits. How many, or what they were like, he could discover on his own. It was part of the fun.

"I'll follow you there? And in the way you can tell me what you think of messy eaters."
 
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Frey led the way, as they set off in a surprisingly wild run on the way to their destination within one of Nexus City’s many enigmatic forests. While she often made sure to cut loose as much as possible, she did not get out into the wilder parts of Nexus City often. She decided she might have to reconsider that. Out here, away from prying eyes and their expectations she could be a little bit more herself.

A raucously joyous expression shone on Freyn’ja’s face as she led the way ahead of Lobo, as they raced down the knife’s edge between the ethereal and the eldritch that was deep Nexus City. And race they did, Freyn’ja’s slightly altered physiology allowing her to run alongside Lobo as they sped down twisted alleyways and silently overgrown avenues at forty miles an hour.

It wasn’t quite a full release. The All-Mother knew when any of her children dropped their veils, and while not forbidden…well. No one could do ‘silently disappointed judgment’ like Nilin, so Frey avoided giving her more reasons to do the ‘stare’ than she already did.

So she looked mostly the same, just a bit more…herself. Her torso, legs, and arms had elongated slightly, with her armor smoothly shifting to accommodate. Tendons and muscles grew stretched. Bones and circuitry broke and knit anew in a slightly different configuration. Her feet had morphed, five toes and half of her sole melding together into three wide digits grasping the ground firmly as her femur stretched longer above. This gained her about a foot or so of height Her hands underwent a similarly drastic change as her fingers became talon-like, and claws materialized with a loud pop and the smell of burnt ozone. An extra digit on each hand formed from the space where her wrists met the bottom of her palm, growing into a pair of roughly 9-inch long tentacle-like flaps of skin; the black-copper blood glistened on them for a moment, before they twisted and undulated and shook the gore of their creation off. The smallest of openings adorned a wide area near their tips, but they were otherwise smooth and pore-less like the rest of Frey’s skin.

Her head did not change much, but thin and lightly tinted slits opened beneath her eyes. They stretched from the top of her cheekbones and down to just above her chin.

Freyn’ja left out a loud whoop as the street they were in changed from a smooth futuristic metal motif, to a game trail into the outskirts of a lush and ancient forest. All in the blink of an eye. “Still got it!,” she called out behind her. “Was only about 85% sure I was taking us down the right shift-plane. This place is weird.” She did not wait for a response, but rather picked up the pace slightly. She laughed a trilling and musical laugh as she lithely navigated around obstacles. She smoothly jumped over unseen gaps moments before they came across them. She ran up and around trees, not touching the ground for hundreds of yards whilst still keeping up her pace. At one point they came across a wide and shallow burbling brook, filled with archetypal storybook mossy stones. She skipped over them at speed without a look back, her footfalls barely disturbing the moss upon the stones.

“Are you doing okay back there, Lobo?” she called out to her fuzzy-shadowy-fluffy companion just behind. Her question echoed in the dense woods, ringing mischievously as they continued on through the forest's dense and twisting topography.
 
The wolf had grown to enjoy his runs through Nexus. Weird was part of the fun, nothing remained the same for long. He was just a bit speechless, though, at how light and happy he felt. It's hard to recognise something as bad when that's all you know. In his little time as an individual, the wolf hadn't had a pack, or much company at all.

Despite being made from negativity, he thrived off of that happiness and the lines between his shapes blurred as he felt. Sometimes he was literally running behind Frey as a common animal, but more often than not he was... something else. A swift cloud of darkness that swirled after her and laughed, mirthful. It squeezed through cracks and between walls, taking similar or parallel ways to keep up with her. Lobo wasn't paying much mind to what he was, but he was looking at who he was with. In all his time on this world, which was little, he had not seen anyone else this beautiful. She changed and howled, made of flesh and metal. Whatever she was, it added to his fantastic mood. It made his stomach rumble but not with hunger. Sometimes when she jumped, he ducked and slid across, or temporarily switched paths, but he always ended up right behind her in the end. When she skipped accross the moss covered stones, he splashed all over the water. Even deviating from the path for a moment, just for fun, splish splash as a common wolf, then he shook the water off. Never once did he stop running.

"Having the time of my life, Miss Frey!" He barked back at her, laughing in the end. But if this was the magical forest, then dinner time must be close. The void within him stirred, and he licked his lips.
 
The pair of creatures continued their frolicking passage through the forest for a few more minutes, before Frey’nja suddenly held up a hand as she suddenly paused. She raised an index finger to her lips, cautioning Feroz against speaking just yet. The Va’nyrian woman stood stock still for a moment, a forest breeze gently ruffling her hair as the wind flew through the clearing ahead.

The varied lights on her armor dimmed into nothingness, and she tilted her head to the side slowly as she darted out her tongue, tasting the air. Her skin and armor glimmered for a fraction of a second before the edges around her blurred while the texture and color of her shifted to
match their surroundings.

There’s five men in the clearing past these last few rows of trees. They are traffickers of the worst sort. Indiscriminate, cruel, and entitled. They’re currently feasting and drinking the spoils from their ill-gotten gains. The one with the red tattoo on his face is the leader, and he is mine. Dispose of the others.

Frey’nja’s lips didn’t so much as twitch, yet Feroz could somehow hear her voice whispering in his ears. She darted forward and above, finding a vantage up a tree at the edge of the clearing. Her movements were fast, but not a footfall sounded out of place.

Up ahead of her, stood a medium sized forest clearing, complete with storybook stream flowing through it. Large, rough men laughed and shouted as they celebrated atrocities they had no qualms about loudly reminiscing about. Most carried small arms of some kind upon them, but armor and heavier weapons laid in neat bundles within one of many elaborate and technologically advanced tents in their little encampment.
 
The lady hadn't said she was in a hurry, so Feroz didn't. She made his pupils dilate while going dark and his ears twitchy while mind-speaking. Red-face was special, was for her, good. He still had a sweet bundle of four to feast upon.

The beast moved through the shadows, investigating the edges of the camp. Like a stain of darkness. Their silhouettes reminded him of a distasteful memory, the lumberjack. His axe, that shone in the moonlight, ready to split him open. It was weird, because it hadn't happened at all. It was an old tale, a fable. But there were parts of it that felt real and true when he thought too hard. His stomach growled, complaining about the hard material he was nomming on. Because it was dead, and it continued to be as he slid into the weapons' tent and started eating those too. He hadn't known it would be weapons. He just knew it was important, because the tent was different. So he ate away and made some noise while he was at it. A few inoffensive crunches that could have been a lot of things. That was the idea. He knew what that would do. One of his victims got up and wandered closer. Yesss he could smell it. Smell the man, sweaty and angel faced and a little smoky. Full, stuffed, with wine and expensive meats that had been roasted in the fire.

The wolf's mouth watered and his teeth grew sharper. When he arrived, small, blue eyes scanning the interior of the tent for their belongings, he let him scream before he pounced. Feroz didn't know what the man had seen in him that made him fall back to the ground after shouting. But it sure made a good job of planting doubt and worry in his friends' minds. He left a single detached hand, holding a magical dagger, for the next one to find. And burped, licking his lips after, as he returned to the shadows that danced at the rythm of tongues of fire.
 
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