The fox-shaped shark exploded out over the bubbling Jacuzzi water and claimed my lap with the supreme confidence of a flag planting conquistador claiming a new continent. Rainbow-nail tipped hands braced my shoulders and ocean-blue eyes struck me like a comet plummeting into the sun. Judging by the intensity of her stare, I wondered if her skulk was currently calculating the square root of my soul or somesuch thing that Skinwalkers did before they nommed someone’s soul.

  “Righty-o,” the Skinwalker leaned closer, nipping my earlobe. “My question time. We know why you picked T-bun. She was lonely and sad and made puppy-dragon eyes at you. We know why you picked me. I am irresistible and amazing. Shady is your childhood BFF. What about Nexxali? She's a bit of an oddball, not being an Omnid like us, yes?”

  “Nexxali’s a useful kitten,” I replied. “I guess I seduced her… on purpose.”

  “Ohhh. A tale of prad seduction! Tell me more,” the fox on my lap purred.

  “Seducing the invaders became my plan from the moment the Admiral dropped a chunk of the moon on us,” I said. “It was quite obvious from first sight on TV that the Frontenachii prad force was made up of thirsty female soldiers. It was also obvious that a certain segment of the human population would be naturally, irresistibly attracted to the… unique prad characteristics.”

  “Lotta fox girl appreciators out thar,” Sage agreed. "Ye."

  “Dax and I simply took advantage of the situation, organizing the people who would assuredly offer the aliens absolute, pure love and pushed them in the direction they would themselves soon go into,” I finished. "None of the low-end cells working for me know that they serve the Emperor of Humanity."

  Galateya pursed her lips beside us.

  “If I had a million bodies instead of just two,” I said, “I’d seduce a million prads myself.”

  “Really now? Four girls isn't enough for you?” Teya huffed.

  “Someone's a subscriber to the ‘humans are space bards’ geddit sub?” Sage asked with a playful tone.

  “I'm a subscriber to the ‘prevention of humans from getting chopped into wall art’,” I said. “For this goal I'm willing to do anything and everything.”

  “Hrmm. Do you even love… Shady?” Teya prodded.

  “Love,” I mused with a sigh. “Love is… a nebulous thing that's kind of hard to pin down. It's why it makes such an effective weapon, one that the Frontenachii failed to expect humanity to implement.”

  “Not hearing a definitive yes,” the dragon girl said.

  “It's been a week,” I said. “I definitely enjoy her company. There is certainly… something between us. She's absolutely my childhood best friend whom I lost thirteen years ago and re-gained this week. I... trust her with my life.”

  Galateya looked contemplative.

  “However,” I added, “her Omnid Wendigo-ness was a barrier of sorts between us which neither of us was willing to cross. Honestly, if it was just me and her, we’d probably get to making out in a month or two. Maybe longer. Shady’s a natural predator and I just feel like a piece of steak around her most of the time.”

  “We all arrrrrr,” Sage agreed, showing sharp foxxy chompers, “even if someone likes to pretend that she's a harmless wooden log.” She winked at Galateya.

  “When I’m with Shady,” I said, “I feel safe, but also she gives me the heebie-jeebies, like a spooky shadow that’s just waiting to pounce and bite me in half. Also, if it wasn’t for Nexxali, she’d still be a mindless, wild cryptid who rants about circles and chews on shiny spoons in my kitchen drawers. I suppose that the prad kitty pushed me and Shades into sleeping together waaay ahead of schedule.”

  “Like the ‘now kiss’ meme?” Sage asked.

  “Pretty much, yes.” I nodded.

  Galateya stared at me. I offered her my hand and a half-human, half-gold-scaled hand reached out and squeezed my fingers.

  “Human relationships are complicated enough.” I looked at the smug fox that was aggressively wiggling in my lap. “Relationships with Omnids are doubly as complicated. Sanguine, here, is a freaking love reactor, for example. If my mind wasn’t split in half I’d be declaring love for her left and right, drowning in her Charmchain radiance and obeying her every order.”

  “I do be super glad that you are not,” Sage commented, “the drooling love-obsession gets boring fast.”

  “I think that there’s something similar going on between me, Nexxali and Shady too. Like an invisible line that connects us. An ocean of violet stars,” I revealed. “I’m not really sure what it is. Maybe the blood pact, maybe something else. On one hand it’s nice to feel like there’s something connecting us together, on the other… It concerns me, as for all I know, it could be an invisible, magical leash messing with my genuine feelings. Like, is that something influencing how I feel about them, nudging me in a specific direction like Nexxali’s Charmchain orders?”

  “I could try to see what it is,” Sage suggested. “Understand it. The skulk is good at figuring things out. Many eyes and many noses get the job done faster than one.”

  “Sure.” I shrugged. “Feel free to dig the Astral or whatever. Let me know what you can find.”

  Sage rubbed against me, eyes flickering with thousands colorful stars in their depths. I glanced at Galateya who looked thoughtful.

  “I smell… muchly dwagon ponderage,” Sage pawed at Teya.

  “Urmm,” Teya let out. "My… books always depicted romance as a less complicated… thing. Love at first sight. Eternal devotion to each other,” she said. “A guy and a girl. Sometimes one guy and two girls. Hearth Keeper Shield for love, Prima Hunter Sword for business and family connections. The Omnithornian standard that emerged from the Omnid population skew of two females for one male. Three Omnids plus one human plus one prad all on equal relationship terms is… unusual from my point of view, I suppose. Not sure how I feel about this.”

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  "Your books were probs jank wanderlustery written by knobby humans n' Omnids," Sage said. "Real life is messy. Real life is hoarding the batteries for when the lights go out! Which they always do! Gotta be prepped. Collect all the cool people who can tolerate you!”

  “Having this many girlfriends is pretty wild for me,” I added. “I reckon that the Frontenachii invasion is going to send mundanity careening sideways for lots of people with this many female invaders looking for husbands.”

  “Yus,” Sage agreed. “Immigrants are coming from other worlds too! That'll really make a big mess of things. Some of the Frontenachii doomed colony worlds have a skew of twenty females for one male due to dungeon Sentinels constantly hunting down n' eating the far magically weaker males.”

  “Jeez,” I said. “That's messed up.”

  “It is what it is,” Sage shrugged. “Boys statistically die faster when there's dragons and dungeons everywhere. Humans become super-mega rare on worlds drowning in dungeon bloom.”

  “When are the immigrants coming?” Galateya asked.

  “I dunno. Soon!” Sage expressed and fell silent, eyes closed. “Listening in on the general Astral chatter now. Will let you know what I catch.”

  “Historically speaking, monogamy is a bit of a luxury for humans,” I said. “It usually requires a stable society and abundant resources. When things get grim, or when there's a massive disparity in status, we revert to... well, this, I suppose. One man with landlord status with many women orbiting around him.”

  “Nerd,” Sage booped me with a smirk.

  "There was a genetic bottleneck in human history about seven thousand years ago," I resumed, recalling a Gotube video I watched on the subject. "For every one man who passed on his DNA, seventeen women did. Seventeen to one! The bronze age collapsed, tribes warred, and the few guys who had the cows, the walls, and the bronze axes got all the girls. It was called… hypergamy. Women married up to ensure survival. Men married across or down."

  “Ah yus. Patrilocality!” Sage added. "Ashy’s our bigly man with the bigly axe of being the Emperor of Earth. How did that come about anyways? ‘Gib me the juice. All the juices please. I want to know everything. So does the T’, I bet. Right, T-bum?”

  Galateya nodded in agreement.

  “That’s a lot of juice to go over,” I said.

  “Eh, we got time,” Sage glanced at her wall clock. “S’too early to sleep.”

  “Very well. It all began on August 11... I was aimlessly staring at the deep cracks in the oak ceiling beams when the large clock on the stairwell behind me struck one. I glanced at the time and date ”

  It took me somewhere over three hours to narrate my wild, wild week to Galateya and Sage. I kept nothing back, putting my trust in the two Omnids.

  Eventually we got sushi snacks from Sage’s fridge and I moved onto the floor mattress surrounded by pillows, sitting between the girls. A large digital clock on the wall showed that it was 11:44 PM when I finished ranting the tale of ‘Stupid Sexy Cryptids or How I Became the Emperor of Earth’.

  “Wozah,” Sage commented from my left, chewing on a package of seaweed she unwrapped. “Quite the rad tale, Emperor. Very catch-me-if-you-can-nanigans.”

  “Mmm-yeah. Thank you for sharing,” Galateya let out from my right side, looking half-asleep. Her eyes were closed and she looked like a content, moss-covered dryad. “I… appreciate it. Really. I'm… happy now.”

  “Did you determine anything of value in your Astral gazing?” I asked the fox.

  “Sure did. Lotta things,” she replied.

  “Such as?” I asked.

  “The Seekers are seeking me out,” she replied, stuffing more dry seaweed into her mouth.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Lots of Astral chatter happening,” she added, offering me a seaweed square to snack on. “In the present and future. It’s a lot brighter and clearer now that the Frontenachii Seers are actively pawing at me, trying to locate me.”

  “The future?” I asked. “How exactly does Omnid precognition work? Keeper Morrígan ranted to Admiral Evely about us breaking the Slayer's Sword before we even did anything. If you have precognition on your side why not ask specific questions to a Seer and prevent certain doom? Seems like a no brainer to me.”

  “Ah,” Sage swallowed another seaweed square. “Precognition aka Astral gazing isn't always clear. If you suck at foresight, or if you move between dimensions and your body's not ready for Astral variance shift, the future sight gets mega-fucky and unreliable. In this case, asking more questions only provides more ludicrous and nonsensical answers. Keeper Morrígan is totally watching me watch her right now. She, like the other Seers, wants to know what and where I am, but all she's doing is exposing her innermost dreams to me, since she's not really trained to scry good in this dimension. Most Seers aren't trained to fight in the local Astral, it's super easy to push them over the edge and into the big, wobbly hole some cute Emperor punched in the moon.”

  “That's good for us then?” I asked.

  “Ye,” Sage bobbed, finger-walking her claws over my shoulder. “The harder they try to see me, the more of their plans I see. Feels like a thousand spiders walking on my neck. Easy to squish tho'. Squish, squish, squish.”

  She squished the imaginary spiders on my shoulder.

  “Can you see everyone who's trying to find you?” I asked.

  “Almost everyone, yep,” Sage said. “I can see the Third and Sixth Fleet Seers quite clearly. And... the Stabalists too. I can taste their self-righteous Omnid bureaucracy on the Astralwaves. They are pinging the entire planet, looking for the source of my broadcast. Seeking the ‘Wizard of Darkfall’."

  "Can they find you?" Galateya asked, opening her eyes, green moss mane slowly turning blue and red.

  "They can find... parts of me," Sage said. "Darkfall's a dimensional anomaly. Unless you know how to get there you'll just pass through it, get confused and lose track of your spatial position in the fog. Omnid Corpse Seekers are already scouting the valley and haven't found shit."

  I relaxed slightly.

  "The Seers can basically see my eyes all over the place. They are looking for a lighthouse. A single, powerful mage in a tower casting a spell. They don't understand how I work. I'm not a lighthouse."

  "What are you?" I wondered with a yawn.

  "I'm a virus," Sage grinned, shivering slightly against me. "I'm a network. They can scan Cascade, and sure, they see a hotspot approximately above Darkfall valley where the broadcast spire went up towards the moon. But then they look closer, trying to locate the root, the beginning of where the spire originates… They also see Tokyo. And London. And Berlin. And Moscow. And some basement in Idaho."

  "How?" Galateya asked.

  "My gonelyfans," Sage stated. "My customers. My gwitch followers. Every lonely dude who bought a 'Sagetopia' mousepad, fox-themed socks and shirts covered in eyes. Every girl who downloaded my 'Foxxxxy_Screensaver.exe' or got a collar of mine with fox eyes on it. Every person wearing my merch. One hundred thousand fans act as dimensional anchors. Tiny little windows I can peek through. My fourteen thousand souls aren't just hanging out in the shack. I spread them out. I have eyes in a thousand bedrooms."

  "Sooooo… You are spying on your customers?" I arched an eyebrow.