“You can do it,” I nodded encouragingly. “It'll be just. Just... friends, partners with a mission to bring Justice to humans and Omnids.”

  Galateya let out a bitter laugh. "Doctor Iowsh would find this poetically absurd."

  She closed her eyes and relaxed and the texture of her scales softened, exposed arm turning… pink and human, claws folding into clear nails.

  I looked from her hand up her shifting figure and then at her face. “What the hell… you…”

  A very tall human girl with jet black hair and violet eyes stared back at me. “My phase-shift allows me to look like anyone,” she explained. “This is… a human version of me, I suppose.”

  “Can you become a Wendigo?” I wondered.

  “I haven't tried,” she shrugged. “Maybe? It’s hard to shift into a specific magical being on your planet due to the Linearity. The shift is conceptual, not simply physical."

  She closed her eyes for a moment and then sliced into her palm, creating the same infinity symbol I'd carved. Her blood was red and human just like mine, but then slowly began to blossom into small, red flowers.

  "How do you even know that rune?" she wondered, looking at the symbol on our palms.

  "Saw it somewhere," I lied. “Infinity. Sideways eight. Seems like a cool binding pattern, right?”

  She didn't look convinced but didn't press further. "What do we say?”

  "You go first. Say exactly this…"

  I modified Shady’s words in my head, keeping the structure but changing the participants. I quickly typed out the words on my tablet, bleeding over the screen slightly: "By the ancient Omnid laws, I, Galateya [full name], claim Ashcroft Julian Clifford as my equal, bound by the power of my fractal engine heart, blood and soul, with the option for others to join our circle."

  Her dark eyebrows rose at the last part as she read the words on the screen. "What… others?"

  "Future-proofing," I said a half-truth, mostly thinking about Shady who will probably chew my face off for making pacts with other Omnid girls. "Just in case we’d want to add more… friends to your power base later, Miss Baroness. Strategic flexibility and whatnot. Maybe we can add Nexy, if she behaves, etcetera. Your grandmother wants you to have lots of kobolds, right?”

  “She does. That's pretty… Clever,” Galateya agreed, biting her lip in a far too human gesture.

  "Go on,” I encouraged. “Say the words before the gun and cat return.”

  Galateya straightened. When she spoke, her voice carried that odd, quirky auto-tune harmonic quality again, multiple tones weaving together. "By the ancient Omnid laws, I, Galateya Selene Belthys Frontenachii, claim Ashcroft Julian Clifford as my equal, bound by the power of my fractal engine heart, blood and soul, with the option for others to join our circle!"

  The air seemed to tense around us. She looked at me expectantly.

  I cleared my throat. "By the ancient Omnid laws, I, Ashcroft Julian Clifford, claim Galateya Selene Belthys Frontenachii as my equal, bound by the power of her fractal engine heart, by blood and soul, with the option for others to join our circle!"

  We pressed our palms together.

  "In every world," she added breathlessly, squeezing my hand harder, though I hadn't written that part down. I guessed that she must have learned it from somewhere else, possibly from her Thunderbird instructor. "Across eternity."

  "In every world," I agreed, squeezing back. "Across eternity."

  The effect was immediate and nothing like what happened with Shady. Where that had been warm and tingly, like pins and needles, this was like grabbing a live wire while standing in a puddle of liquid crystals. I felt something fundamental shift, not in my body but in the space around it. The world took on a strange shimmer at the edges of my vision, like looking through water. Violet stars ignited all around me, stretching far, far past the walls of the Clifford estate.

  The dragon girl underwent a bewildering shift, waves of textures running across her hand, face and hair. She stared at me with wide eyes, mouth open in an O.

  The back door burst open.

  I blinked and the eerie, violet, infinite stars were gone.

  Galateya’s glove rapidly crawled back on her hand. She shifted fully back into her dragon self, her snout lengthening, orange-red, semi-transparent, crystalline flowers blossoming from her hair.

  Nexxali strutted in, her sidearm dripping well water and pond scum. Behind her, Keiy skittered along, also dripping and covered in random well detritus.

  "My gun is retrieved!" Nexxali announced, waving her square weapon at me.

  "Also, there was no vampire in the well,” Keiy noted.

  "Alas, Wellington got away," Nexxali said with half-assed conviction.

  Keiy's trio of red eyes swiveled toward me, then focused on my hand. A red ray of light flashed out, scanning my bloody, closed fist. The beam swept up my arm, across my chest, then over Galateya.

  The gun went very still and then bounced happily on all six legs.

  "My congratulations, Galateya!" Keiy bobbed with a tone of pride in her mechanical voice. "You've successfully bound your first kobold. The pact Astral signature is deep and unmistakable." A pause. "Though I am disappointed I didn't get to participate as a witness of the ceremony. I had prepared twenty six different binding recitations sorted by formality level! I do hope that you will invite me to your next kobold consort binding ritual as your trusted… bridesmaid symbiote.”

  The countdown timer on Keiy's head flashed with [00:00:00] and then exploded into an animated display of colorful fireworks. Red display sparkles cascaded around the spider-gun's head like celebratory confetti.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Achievement unlocked," Keiy added dryly. "First kobold acquired. Legate Ixthia is very pleased with your rapid progress and sends her best wishes to enjoy your human consort to the fullest tonight."

  Nexxali's golden eyes darted between Galateya and me with the expression of someone who'd just watched their winning lottery ticket get eaten by a goat.

  "You... two actually did it? Seriously?" She stepped closer, sniffing the air. "Already? While we were fishing for guns?"

  "We… managed," Galateya said shyly, trying to sound casual while pink flowers continued to bloom in her crystalline hair.

  The Serval looked distraught. She turned to me with a betrayed look. "Ash! I marketed you to the Frontenachii as a hero! Is this how you repay me?"

  "Deal with it," I said, feeling exhausted by the entire situation and the future problems it was going to cause. "I'ma go wrap this up before I bleed all over my floor."

  I headed toward the kitchen, leaving the three aliens to process things.

  I rummaged through the kitchen drawers until I found the ancient first aid kit Grandpa had kept stocked. The gauze was yellowed with age but still sterile in its packaging.

  “I thought that you were cool, but you’re just like the others!” Nexxali loudly growled at Galateya. I heard her claws clattering across the floor as she appeared at my side.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  Nexxali caught my wrist before I could reach for the gauze. "Hold still, dummy."

  Without warning, she brought my bleeding palm to her mouth and began licking the wound. Her rough, wet, slightly sandpapery tongue scraped across the cuts, making me wince.

  "What are you—" I hissed.

  "Pradavarian saliva is antibacterial and antiviral," she muttered between licks. "Speeds up healing. Standard field procedure that reinforces pack camaraderie."

  She grabbed the gauze from the counter with her free hand and began to aggressively wrap my palm.

  "I'm disappointed in you," she grumbled. "Thought you were smarter than this. Becoming a kobold without leverage? You just... handed yourself over to that dragon girl like a complete knob? Just because she’s… inexperienced and probably won't boss you around too badly, it doesn’t mean that…"

  “Who do you take me for?” I leaned closer, lowering my voice.

  “A dumb human boy who…” she began and then fell silent as she observed my smug grin. “What did you do?”

  "What if I told you I could make a blood contract with you too?" I offered.

  Nexxali's hands froze mid-wrap. Her ears tilted back. "What?"

  "If you behave," I continued quietly, glancing toward the living room where Galateya and Keiy were having a discussion about establishing hoards or something. "My contract with Galateya is... open-ended."

  "Open-ended?" Her whiskers and ears twitched, eyes blooming wide. "What? How?! That's not... I've never heard of..." Feline eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Blood contracts don't work like that. They're exclusive. One dragon, many kobolds. That's the whole point of… inescapable servitude and empowering your owner."

  “Not servitude,” I said. “Friendship.”

  She stared at me for a minute, then let out a low whistle. "You clever, clever human." Her tail swished upright as she resumed wrapping my hand, this time with far gentler movements. "You actually convinced that clueless dragon girl to modify the binding terms?"

  "Maybe."

  "Does she understand?" Nexxali asked, tying off the bandage with a neat knot.

  "Understand what?" I asked innocently.

  "That you've left the door open for... additions to your little partnership."

  "Obviously. The words were very specific about 'others joining our circle,'" I said. "She agreed to them."

  Nexxali's grin returned. "Oh, you devious little primitive. Playing multiple angles like a Highborn Frontenachii courtier." She patted my bandaged hand. "Fine. I'll be nice. For now. But only because I'm curious like a cat to see how spectacularly this mess progresses into an even bigger and funnier… mess."

  "Such confidence in my plans."

  "What plans?" She snorted. "You're totally making this up as you go. I can smell the panicked sweat under all that false bravado."

  I shrugged. She wasn't wrong, but I wasn't about to admit it to her.

  . . .

  "We should head into town," I announced, grabbing my car keys. "Grocery store first, then that bookstore café as I promised Galya."

  "I'm not sitting in the back," Nexxali declared immediately.

  "You are," Galateya stated. "I'm his… uhhh… employer now. I get the front seat… next to my… consort."

  Nexxali made a bothered-cat noise.

  “Also, I need the front seat because I'm taller," the dragon insisted.

  "That's heightist discrimination!" Nexxali protested. “I’m your superior! I demand the front seat!”

  Five minutes of arguing later, and getting Nexxali, me and Galateya extra Voicecast rings from the Corpse Seeker, we'd all piled into the Cherokee.

  Galateya won the front seat through sheer draconic stubbornness. Nexxali sprawled across the entire back seat, deliberately taking up as much space as possible while Keiy perched on the backseat edge behind her like the world's most dangerous bobblehead.

  "This vehicle is incredibly primitive," the gun observed as I turned the ignition. "No dragonheart fusion core, no gravitic stabilizers, not even basic ward shield generators."

  "It has cup holders," I pointed out, pulling onto the main road. "And fuzzy dice."

  "The dice serve no functional purpose," Keiy said.

  "They're lucky," I explained.

  "Luck without Precog-type wards is not a quantifiable—"

  "Keiy, shut up and enjoy the ride," Nexxali interrupted, lifting and positioning one of her clawed feet against the back of my head.

  Galateya watched the forest blur past. "Your Earth has so many trees."

  "What did you expect?" I asked.

  "I don't know." She touched the window glass. "My entire life was five rooms. The bubble's arboretum had about hundred plants, engineered to maximize oxygen and magic production. Here..." she gestured at the endless forest, "there must be millions."

  "Billions," I corrected. "You never left the time bubble?"

  "Not until recently… I inhabited five rooms for twenty subjective years. The classroom, the dormitory, the training hall, the cafeteria, and the arboretum." Her voice became bitter. "My prad instructors and caretakers made sure I understood how privileged I was to have my own nook with a door within the dormitory."

  "What were your instructors like?"

  Her scales flickered to defensive grays. "Three Pradavarian wolves. Veterans who'd died way too many times. They were... efficient educators."

  "Efficient?"

  "They believed in corporal punishment. Every mistake earned a reinforced wooden sword strike. Every question they deemed stupid earned two." She absently rubbed her arm. "Commander Vossir was the worst. She'd lost most of her memories to repeated resurrections, but she remembered how to hurt without leaving permanent damage."

  "That sounds like abuse."

  "Just… Frontenachii education," she said flatly. "Though I suspect they might have been harder on me because I wasn't a pure Wendigo. My Taniwha traits made me 'soft,' they often said. ‘Too concerned with fairness’."

  The Cascade town sign appeared ahead. Population: 1,447. Though, after the invasion, who knew how accurate that was anymore.

  "Yumland Groceries first," I announced, pulling into the parking lot.

  "Alright," I turned to face everyone. "Nexxali, Keiy—you two are on grocery duty. Get enough food for everyone for a week."

  "Why do we have to shop?" Nexxali whined.

  "Because Galateya and I have a date," I said. "As commanded by her great-grandmother. Right Keiy?"

  “Correct,” the gun bobbed. “The Legate expects me to send her relationship progress updates.”

  "It's not a date," Galateya protested, white scales igniting with pink moss.