Nexus Effect

Ch.127

“So you didn’t use illegal means to trespass on an island you don’t have permission to be on?” Demanded the bloodhound detective who was refusing to accept that Hunter, Bryan, Vinnie and Selene’s wings are not vestigial. Trespassing on an island was punishable with a slap on a wrist, but it was usually after reporting the means one used to trespass, according to the locals.

“They flew when asked, isn’t that enough?” Juneau asked in exasperation. “Look, detective Chow. I understand it’s hard to believe, but the hard evidence swooped through the air on request! They carried the rest of us here, there were no cartels, pirates or smugglers involved.”

“Hmph, fine. I guess this little trespass will just be more paperwork without any headway on local riffraff.” Detective Chow grumbled, as he skimmed through the file on the table again.

“Your police are incredibly paranoid and incompetant. They’d be asking different questions two sessions ago and let you go after a damn lie-detector test back home.” Hunter grumbled mentally to Juneau, whose ear facing him twitched in the only tell that he was speaking to her.

“Look. You and I both know that magic exists thanks to Sauria fragmenting without exploding and then being restored by mystical means. They have magic in their wings that lets them fly unaided.” Juneau stressed with a poke of one of Hunter’s feathers.

“Do you think we have someone to test that at this precinct? Ugh...just go. It’s clear you can’t help us further. I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday, Miss Fairbanks. Take your friends through the motor pool.” Detective Chow dismissed them at last and the officer at the door guided them towards the Motor Pool, ostensibly to get a boat ride back to the island they were supposed to be on.

“Sorry for this. Bullshit like this tends to follow us like a curse.” Bryan huffed in irritation, thankfully having managed not to blow up at the idiots.

“It’s just as well. I have to either go home tomorrow or...not.” Juneau sighed, catching Hunter on the back-paw and feeling the jaws of sudden-death closing in. He forgot to ask Juneau when she was supposed to be ending her vacation. Tomorrow? That was so soon… “Look, Hunter. I...I need some time. Would you mind either coming with me or giving me a way to find you? I live alone and you could crash at my place.”

“Well...sure. I don’t feel like going back just yet and being a homebody for a bit could be just as relaxing for all I know. I’ve never been someone who just...stayed home.” Hunter considered it. He would either go stir-crazy within a few days or he might find out being a domestic god was something he enjoyed. “I could also get us there much faster than any ship if you have a very clear memory of your home and I have time to focus on a long-range teleport.” The only reason Hunter was able to warp to Zoness from the Great Fox was because the locals had a very strong series of memories of this planet.

“Oh...well, mind if we go today, then? Normally I’d spend tomorrow packing and the next week on a charter flight for travel. If I can be home a week early, I could still spend time with you before I have to go back to work.” Juneau put a hand on his bicep as she leaned into him, stretching her head up to chastely capture his lips in a kiss that made his wings unfurl.

“Oo~ you two are so cute!” Vinnie squealed as she hugged her new boy-toy. The bunny boy blushed at the golden goddess pressing her epic chest against him. “C’mon, we’ll leave them alone, right Bryan?”

“Uh, where are we-?” Vinnie’s left eye flashed and the others all vanished, leaving Hunter and Juneau standing alone in the motor pool with officers all shouting in surprise, so Hunter swept Juneau into his arms, ignoring her adorable squeak, then took flight back towards the island where her stuff was being kept.

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“So, Death, what do you think of these mortals?” A tall pale man asked as he swung in next to the lady of entropy, happy to see her in her prefered form and not the skeleton most mortals saw her as. The teenager smiled and looked over the pond she was peering into.

“Well, Sandman, I certainly find them interesting and I had fun with some of them.” Death chuckled as she stood up.

“Ah yes, one of the wolves, Runner, mated with one of your avatars? This is not the same Universe though, which one is it?” Sandman said as he stopped swinging and walked over to the pond.

“It's the one the Current Displaced we’re following is in.”

“Ah, yes, the newest little dreams of the Void. Maybe I could visit them. It's rare I mess with the pages.” Dream chuckled as he two sat by the pond, the many faces of himself shifting about in the water. “Hm, seems the pages want me as male.”

“They prefer me as a female in this setting.” Death chuckled leaning back. “Being concepts is fun at times if we’re played with the words and images right.”

“Oh, yes, that one movie, Inception, such fun right.” Dream chuckled as he looked over the water.

“Hmm, how should we show ourselves this time?” Death purred.

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“-But we’re already halfway there! You’re sending us to Fichina, a frozen wasteland, when you suspect invaders on an inhabited planet?!” Peppy demanded irately, causing President Pepper to wince at his uncannily younger no-longer-old friend.

“Well, that’s just it. I’ve been in talks with Oikonny-.” Pepper flinched when Peppy struck the console of his holocomm, causing the old war dog to remember how much of a firebrand Peppy was in his youth.

“Oikonny?! That simian slime?! What purpose could you possibly have to even consider speaking to Andross’s glory-seeking nephew?!” Peppy demanded with a snarl and Pepper cleared his throat while straightening his collar. He knew better than to shout when Peppy was like this. It only made things worse.

“Oikonny has occupied Venom-with our blessing. In honor of the laws invoked by the Nightmare Contingency, he is willing to aid us in any way he can without endangering the security of the system. One of those ways is lending mercenaries…”

“You can’t be serious!”

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“Hm...not as nice as my Redfang, but these ships are sexy!” Lois, the Fem-Wolf, complimented as she walked around the Wolfen provided for her while she was with them.

“So your own Wolfen is unique and higher quality, huh? I’d love to hear more about it.” Wolf said, having been freed from Lois within an hour and avoiding any transformations. The woman wearing her was a glorified janitor for the ship, so it was no big loss for her to get what amounts to an upgrade in her health as well as a fatter paycheck.

“Yep! Redfang has heavier weapons systems, a Smart Bomb storage bay for longer or stronger bombing runs and while slower than these beauties, he has a much stronger shield to compensate.” Lois casually jumped up into the cockpit of her temporary ship and leaned back in the seat, putting her boot-clad paws up on the dash. “Mm~. Good to see the cockpit size is the same.”

“If you damage anything outside of combat, you buy it.” Wolf grunted while he tried not to focus on how hot a female version of him was. She was essentially everything he looked for in a mate. Strong both in character and body, she took shit from absolutely nobody and was also crazy. He dug crazy. The crazy ones are the wildest in the sack.

“You can take that and shove it up your ass, Wolf. If I damage anything I’ll fix it, because I clean up my own messes.” Lois casually sniped back and if it was anyone else he’d have moved to put them in their place, but that’s just it. That was her place. She was as much an alpha-bitch as he was an alpha-asshole. If only she wasn’t literally him.

“Whatever. Don’t spend all day in there, dinner’s at 6 and lights out is at 9. We may be pirates, but we’re professionals.” Wolf stated as he left the crazy extra-dimensional wolfess to her own business. Partnering with Oikonny was already proving to be lucrative. They got a job from the Cornerian Government. Nothing in the Lylat system is more legitimate than getting big military contract jobs.

“Hello Wolf.” Wolf jumped away, his blaster pistol already in his hand and he fired at the unknown voice who snuck up on him, but his laser merely scorched the wall of the hallway. “Hm, hm, hm. So violent. No wonder you tend to be so good at sending souls into the afterlife.”

“Show yourself!” Wolf snarled, his hackles raised and his cybernetic eye scanning for any sign of movement as he warily turned around rapidly, checking both ways in the hallway for the intruder.

“I am everywhere, yet nowhere. I am a concept, yet I exist.” Wolf continued to search, but froze when he saw...himself.

Not just himself though. Back when he was a kid, too young to understand that he was a bastard because his father ran off, leaving his mom to take care of him and his shocking anger issues. Then he saw his teenage self, full of rage and nowhere to properly channel it, blaming everyone and the universe for his suffering just because he had the cursed name of O’Donnell; a family of pirates, thieves and murderers.

Then he saw himself, only he was coated in blood, his organic eye glassy and empty, soulless and heartless. “Is this who you are?” Wolf shot the image of himself, watching it fall with a hole blasted through its heart. He fired at it again. Again. Killing the thing that was not him. After burning the head and upper torso into a black char imprinted on the metal floor he finally stopped, panting and shaking.

“Wolf?” He snapped his attention to Gilda, who ducked in fear when he brought his blaster to bear. “Whoashitdon’tshootme!” Wolf gasped and tossed his blaster away, looking at the corpse-.

There was nothing there but the scorch marks.

“B-boss?” Gilda meekly questioned and Wolf uneasily looked at his subordinate. “Do you need to lie down?”

“...What I need is a drink.”

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“When you mentioned your parents had retired to their ski lodge, I figured that was the extent of your family’s opulence.” Hunter said as he followed Juneau up the path to her mountain home. He was starting to get used to speaking normally like everyone else, but still weirded him out.

“Pfft, no. This is our old family home. Mom and dad gave it to me when my brother decided he preferred living on base and I chose to not go full military.” Juneau informed him as she gestured around at the familiar yet unfamiliar evergreen pine-like forest around the home. These trees were tall, covered in spiny needles, had cones for dispersing seeds, but were decidedly alien. It was like someone hybridized a Saguaro cactus with a Sandbox Tree and decided it was a perfect species to make a forest out of.

Seriously, how did nothing instantly die just wandering between these thorned trunks? Do they explode like Sandbox Trees too? Do they explode in winter like pine and maple trees on top of that? Do they maybe have hallucinogenic fluids like many species of cactus? Is this a Death World and people are just ignorantly colonizing it because the Cornerian Government says so? Is this Pandora and giant predators are about to spring out of the ground because a fuck-long hibernation cycle is about to end?!

“Hunter, are you okay?” Juneau asked the frazzled-looking celestial wolf, who was looking around like something was going to happen. “If you’re looking for predators or weak-looking branches, it’s fine. The local hunting society keeps the Prowlers in check and the local foresters make sure no flora is endangering infrastructure or private property.”

“Uh...okay?” Hunter blinked at that, how can these people live like this? Well, he can’t judge too harshly. Some back on Earth lived in similar situations like this.

Suddenly, his mind was assaulted with images, his body froze up and his eyes glazed over as he went through the ordeal. Hunter realised that he was having a vision or visions while they showed him many events. Most of them entail him and his siblings. There was one thing they all seem to share: Power. Hunter doesn’t understand why the notion of Power keeps popping up, but if they must take this Power into their hands and make use of it for their own. He also felt worried, because Power was their wife Urta’s divine aspect. Hopefully she wasn’t involved.

“I’m guessing using your magic to teleport such a distance is really disorienting.” Juneau crooned with concern and took Hunter’s hand to lead him into her lovely home, which looked almost like someone parked a freighter here and converted it into a house. For all Hunter knew, that was exactly the case. “You take a load off on the couch while I get some coffee. Would you like any main relievers?”

“Um...no. I’m fine. I’m just receiving prophetic visions. I could use some coffee though, thank you.” Hunter smiled gently at her and she softly returned it, turning to head for the nearby kitchen and her big fluffy white and black tail was wagging so hard she was casting happy-smelling pheromones everywhere. Hunter took a deep whiff and let the soothing scent allow him to relax and parse the visions again with a more restful eye.

That was when he was struck by another vision, one far less ominous but no less serious. It also triggered all sorts of nostalgia in him. It was the scene of the invading Aparoid Ship arriving over the captured outpost in the hinterlands of Katina. However, the vision then split. In one instance, the Cornerian military tries their best to defeat it, only to fail and Katina is soon overrun by the Aparoids. In the other, by some means the ship is defeated and Pigma Dengar makes off with the core like the greedy swine he literally was.

Hunter rubbed the bridge of his snout and sighed. ‘So much for my vacation. Now how do I break the news to June that I need to go save her planet without freaking her out? And I’m gonna need to call in backup, a lot of it.’ That was until he remembered what his wife said to him and his siblings. ‘...Fuck, I can’t. Urta told us not to interfere.’

“I’ve got some fresh dark roast, but I forgot to ask how you liked it.” Juneau said as she poked her head through the wall-window from the kitchen, her breasts squishing into the top of the window’s counter and she pouted down at it, clearly still not used to being extra-busty yet.

Hunter nodded his head and made his way to the kitchen.

“Hunter, what’s wrong?” Juneau asked as Hunter’s quiet and grim demeanor told her something was going on. “Honey, it’s okay. You can tell me.”

“June, I have some bad news. The Aparoids are returning.” Hunter told Juneau with a sigh of regret, while she looked confused. “My siblings and I can’t do much since we were told specifically not to by our wife. Plus your government wouldn’t like interlopers getting in the way, even if it helped.” He then played a recording of Urta telling them what to do and what not to do in regards to having a vacation.

Juneau huffed and booped his snoot. “Did you miss the part where she said that if you felt you absolutely had to, that you could intervene? I mean, okay, yeah. You and your sibs are on vacation, no work, only fun, but that was before any of us knew about the Aparoid threat!” The husky groaned in annoyance before leaning her head on Hunter’s shoulder. “And yeah, you’re right. The Conerian Government would get huffy about receiving outside help without knowing who they are, or what they want.”

“I can still get into contact and tell them about it.” Hunter concentrated as he sent a telepathic communication to Urta and the others. “There. Hopefully they can deal with this.”

“Good. Now, do we have time to have some fun? I was getting all riled up bringing a guy home for the first time too.” Juneau huffed and rested her chin on her interlaced fingers, squishing her bowling-ball boobs between her arms and the countertop, making her sports bra scream in stitch-stretching agony.

“Yeah, I think we got time. I was shown what may happen, but not when it will happen.” There was a key difference between knowing what’s going to happen and knowing when it will happen. Precognition is not the same as Clairvoyance, the former is unreliable while the latter only covers what is currently happening.

“Good, then we better get started, I’m horny, you’re hot, we’re home. Let’s get naked.” Juneau cheerily declared and hurried towards the bedrooms, causing Hunter to snort in amusement.