Kei was honestly kind of impressed with how hard the brick wall she'd just thrown up looked, like it would skip the bruises and just break your nose upon impact. Not that it actually could, being an illusion and all, but Ladden didn't seem to know that and never needed to find out. Considering he went around the wall as opposed to straight through, it seemed pretty safe to assume there weren't many fabri around here.

Drawing her gun, Kei darted through the wall and pointed it at Ladden, halting his approach towards a shaking Ari. "Ladden, stop. You know Ari's innocent!" She didn't really want to shoot Ladden. He hadn't done that many shoot-worthy things yet. Out of the corner of her eye, Kei saw Ari backing away nervously and decided to power up her gun. Scaring Ari was now officially a threaten-to-shoot-worthy crime.

Ladden looked conflicted, then made up his mind. "I'm sorry, hibri, caela, whatever you two are, but I don't have a choice. It'll be fine, I promise."

Kei was disappointed in him, and thus expressed her sentiments verbally. "I'm disappointed in you."

Ladden accepted Kei's disappointment without further comment, turning back to Ari and approaching the shaking caela like he wasn't also holding glowing handcuffs. She backed away rapidly, holding her hands out in front of her as a feeble defence. So Kei shot Ladden a couple times before cursing herself to the moons and back again. She'd forgotten to change the moons-damned settings and Ladden, despite the massive headache he had probably received, was still up and mostly-functional.

"Ari, run!" The sounds of whistling and useful shots being fired filled her with the kind of panic she hadn't really felt since the time she and Ari had mysteriously fallen and ended up suspended over a sinkhole in the forest. Taking her own marvelous advice to skedaddle with great speed, Kei darted back through the wall, just managing to shout out a panicked "Aidyn, I took care of Ladden!" Well, sort of anyway. "Let's go!"

And then, for the second time that day, Kei made an idiotic split-second decision and hesitated, turning back to see if Ari was following them. It was only for a second, but a lot could happen in a second, as evidenced by angry blonde police lady taking that second to grab Kei's arm, spin her around and stop her escape with a gun to the head.

Moons, she was on a roll today.

"She's not as fast as you, is she?" Angry blonde police lady gloated to Aidyn. It was kind of hard to see Aidyn's expression, but Kei was pretty sure he could feel the anger on her own face. She turned to Kei. "Undo whatever you did. Now."

"No, I don't think I will," Kei muttered to herself. Angry blonde police lady glared at her. Maybe she could lip-read.

Kei glanced at Aidyn. For guidance or support or newly-discovered teleportation skills, she didn't know, but knowing he hadn't poofed away made her feel a bit better. She saw him take a deep breath.

"Kei, do as she says."

Wait, what? Kei stared at Aidyn in incredulity. Maybe one of the shots had hit his head and fried his brain. "But Ari..."

"I'll figure it out," he assured her. "I promise."

"Put them down!" angry blonde police lady ordered, jabbing the gun into Kei's forehead with each word. "I'm losing patience, whatever you are."

Glaring daggers at her, Kei flicked her wrists and let the illusion disappear, revealing a rather disoriented-looking Ladden and a wide-eyed apparently-not-escaped Ari. Six tides.

Angry blonde police lady jerked her head towards Ari. "Ladden, arrest the caela. Now." She said 'now' a lot. Kei clenched her fists — not because 'now' was apparently angry blonde police lady's favorite word, but because she was still trying to arrest Ari. Wait, not trying, succeeding.

Six tides.

"Kei?" Ari's voice was high, panicky, which made sense since Ladden was fastening glowing cuffs around her wrists. "Kei, where are they taking me?"

Kei did her best to sound reassuring and keep her murderous intentions out of her expression. "Don't worry, we're not leaving without you."

"I'll figure this out, okay? Don't worry." Aidyn's voice was a little unsteady as Ladden gently herded Ari away. Turning to meet Aidyn's gaze, angry blonde police lady finally powered down her gun and lowered her arm.

"Try anything, and the caela gets it. Understood?"

In an attempt to avoid swearing out loud, Kei deemed it best to avoid answering at all. Taking their silence as confirmation, angry blonde police lady shot Kei a last superior glance before stalking off.

Six. Moons-damned. Tides.

｡･ﾟﾟ･｡

Kei struggled to figure out who she was most frustrated at.

She was upset that the stall owner hadn't done more. She was disappointed in Ladden for not being able to stand up for himself and the justice he was supposed to enforce. She was, inexplicably, mad at Aidyn and Ari for not being very helpful at all, which was hypocritical since Kei herself hadn't been very helpful either. But most of all, she was frustrated at — actually, she wasn't sure who she was most frustrated at. It was kind of a tie between herself and angry blonde police lady. Angry blonde police lady for being a racist tide bringer, and herself for being an idiotic tide bringer.

Aidyn summed up all those sentiments nicely by punching a (real, not illusion) wall. It seemed satisfying, but it also seemed to have hurt him.

"So... what do we do now?" Kei asked cautiously, just in case Aidyn decided she would hurt less to punch. "We're not going to leave her."

Aidyn sighed and faced the wall, resting his forehead against his arm. "Of course not. I'm not losing anyone else."

Kei considered his response for a moment. "So what do we do then?" She sounded frustrated. She was frustrated. She just still hadn't figured out at who.

Aidyn shoved himself off the wall. "We're breaking her out. I don't know how, but we're doing it."

Kei had so many questions, but most of them were irrelevant. Who cared that you generally weren't supposed to break people out of prisons, you generally weren't supposed to put them in either. "When?"

"In a few hours, after the sun goes down. We'll stay low until then." With that, Aidyn started walking off. Swallowing her other questions, Kei scrambled after him.

｡･ﾟﾟ･｡

"Are you being serious right now?"

"Well, we need a distraction to get Ari out, and this one should be pretty distracting," Aidyn said.

"And your only idea is to set off a gigantic explosion?"

"Not an actual one. I doubt they have any dynamite, sadly, so it's going to have to be an illusion. You can do that, right?"

"I mean, yeah, but..." Kei sighed. "Okay, fine. When should I do it?"

Aidyn glanced at the sky, judging the position of the sun. "No better time than now, I guess."

"We are so going to get arrested too," Kei grumbled. Turning away from Aidyn, she focused on an abandoned-looking house across the town, and tried to shut her mind up so she could make it explode.

You need to visualize it clearly in your mind, sound and all. Kei thought back to when some random tuber had exploded while cooking, sending out a large puff of smoke and making a loud 'pop' sound, startling everyone. Then she imagined the house as that tuber, but the explosion was a few hundred times larger.

For a few seconds, imaginary flames licked across the base of the house before it collapsed in a shower of sparks, sending a ginormous mushroom cloud of smoke into the air and a deafening boom ricocheting through the town. All over the area, even those who had been nowhere near the explosion, there were screams and panicking crowds.

Keep half a mind on your illusion at all times, you don't want it disappearing at the worst moment possible. Kei glared at her mushroom cloud, almost daring it to disappear on her. The supposed wreckage of the house was clouded by smoke and burning merrily. Aidyn looked impressed.

"Come on, we've got to go!"

Kei tried to run after him, but stumbled and almost face-planted onto the cobblestone ground. "Six tides!"

Aidyn spun around. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"My foot's gone!" Kei scowled at the offending limb. That happened sometimes to fabri who put up too-intense illusions for too long. Bits of themselves became illusions too.

"What?" Aidyn yelled over the thrum of the crowd. "What do you mean your foot's gone?!"

"I mean it's gone, disappeared, past perfect tense of went!" Kei yelled back, attempting to put weight on her left leg and stumbling again when her foot went straight through the cobblestone.

"What in all the moons..." Aidyn took in Kei's condition.

"Yeah, my foot's gone," Kei repeated. Just in case she hadn't been clear enough. Aidyn made it clear she had made it clear by ordering her to stay behind and hide in an alley.

"No way am I doing that," she protested.

Aidyn raised his eyebrows. "Walk towards me."

Kei huffed and looked away in defeat. "Fine. I'll stay here. Just don't forget to come back once you get Ari."

"Thank you." Aidyn sighed. "Ari's already arrested, and who knows what they did to her — I don't want you getting more hurt than you already are."

"I'm not hurt, just partially truncated."

The look on Aidyn's face more than made up for having to hop into an alley and wait there.

｡･ﾟﾟ･｡

Locals were flooding into the town square, most of them panicking. Some of their conversations were loud enough for Kei to overhear, and many featured the words "attack," "war," and "oh six tides what are we going to do a house just blew up is it even safe here six tides."

Kei tested her foot cautiously. Part of her foot had come back, thank the moons, but her ankle was still intangible. Which made zero sense, but at least she was mobile now.

Suddenly, a figure passed by the entrance to the alley. Kei shrank back, then realized the figure had what looked like wings, which was odd in a mostly anguis town. A flash of green caught her eye, and she realized the wings and green eyes belonged to the same person. Cool.

Wait. Wings and green eyes? In this village? Then that must be — "Ari!"

The winged-and-green-eyed figure who was indeed Ari stepped backwards into the alley. She looked relieved, and a little worried. "Kei!" she whispered, though her tone made it more of an exclamation. "Are you okay? Where's Aidyn?"

Kei rolled her eyes at the slight idiocy of the situation. Less than a minute after Aidyn left to find Ari, she showed up. "He went to go find you and made me stay here."

"Well, he didn't find me, clearly, so where is he?"

"I don't know — oh! Who are you?" Belatedly, Kei realized Ari wasn't alone, she'd brought an anguis boy who'd chosen to stand by and watch the exchange.

"Kei, this is Jared," Ari said, gesturing towards him. "Jared, this is my friend Kei."

"Nice to meet you," Jared said cheerfully, giving her a deep bow. Kei snickered and bowed back.

"Where did you two meet? I mean, Ari, you were in jail! Were you in jail?"

Jared looked slightly nonplussed at the random question. "Uh, no, I was not. Ari ran into me while I was picking flowers in the forest over there."

"He means it literally," Ari interjected. "I knocked him over while running from the jail."

"How did you get out?"

"Ladden let me escape, and according to Jared, it's not the first time he's done it," Ari explained.

Kei was impressed. "Wow. A human voluntarily helping a patria? That's new." 

Ari nodded and looked around. "So where is Aidyn?"

Kei groaned, tempted to roll her eyes again at the idiocy of the situation. "He went to the jail. He's going to get himself killed one of these days."

"We better go find him, then," Jared said. 

Kei and Ari looked at him in surprise. "You're coming?" Ari asked.

Jared shrugged. "Why not? This town is boring. This is the most interesting thing that's happened in, like, years."

Kei glanced at the bustling town square. "If we hurry, maybe we can catch him before he blows up the jail or something." Then she realized Aidyn didn't have any explosives, otherwise she wouldn't have had to temporarily misplace her left foot. But he could still do a bunch of stuff that would get him jailed too, then they'd have to plan a jailbreak (again).

Jared seemed to miss her point. "Eh, he can blow it up if he wants. Saves us a lot of trouble."

Kei glared at him. "Yes, but it would also get him into serious trouble, and we'd like to avoid that."

"Boring."

"Okay, okay, stop," Ari interrupted before it escalated into an actual argument, because those could really escalate. Into wars and stuff. "Let's just go find Aidyn."

Using Jared's memory and Ari's vague directions that mostly involved left, right and "I passed some trees," they headed towards the jail and paused once it was close enough.

"Aidyn! I'm okay, we need to go!" Ari called out. A few moments passed, then he emerged from behind the jail's front door.

"Thank the moons — " Aidyn gave them a visual once-over, then noticed Jared and gave him a strange look. "New guy."

"I'm Jared, and I assume you're Aidyn?" Jared said.

"Yeah. Ari, Kei, are you ready to leave?" Aidyn asked. "Cause we gotta go."

"Definitely," Kei replied after glancing at Ari.

"Great. Are you coming with us?" Aidyn said, looking at Jared.

"Might as well. Nothing's keeping me here. Where are you going?" Jared asked.

Aidyn started leading their group away from the village while saying, "It's a long story, so I'll explain as we walk. Have you ever heard of the sources?"

｡･ﾟﾟ･｡

The humans were staring at their group. Well, not all of them, just the one group that had been staring for the past few minutes. The attention definitely wasn't a passing curiosity at the peculiar quartet wandering through town, and it was starting to make Kei uncomfortable. There were about five of them, including a tall guy with purple hair. Kei wondered if purple hair was common among humans. "Uh, Aidyn?" she called, interrupting Ari's explanation on how the three of them had gotten into this mess.

"Yeah?"

"The humans are still staring at us."

Aidyn glanced over to the group Kei was staring back at. "It should be fine, as long as they don't try anything. And if they do try something..." He shrugged. "Sucks for them."

It seemed either the humans had heard and taken offense, or Aidyn just jinxed them. Not even two seconds after the words left Aidyn's mouth, one of the humans left the group and sidled up to them.

"Excuse me, but your group seems unfamiliar. Are you from around here?"

"Depends on your definition of 'around here,'" Aidyn said casually.

"Are you from this village?" curious human lady pressed.

He hesitated for a second. "Not officially, no. Why?"

Curious human lady frowned. "Well, you see, we're looking for a group of hibri not from this area and thought you fit the description."

What was it with all the random human ladies wandering up to them today?

"If you were from around here, you'd know we're not the only hibri. Better luck next time?"

Curious human lady looked satisfied with herself, like Aidyn had just dug his own grave and now she got to put him in it. Which was a bizarre and incredibly morbid metaphor, but it fit. "Well, then, I'm sure you wouldn't mind following us to answer a few... questions."

Well, if that wasn't the epitome of welcoming. Kei was tempted to smack curious human lady. Come on, couldn't the universe give her a break already? The rest of the human group was starting to approach as well, their fancy robes fluttering in what little wind could survive in the rainforest. This was bad. They did not have a plan for humans questioning them. Even if they did, there was a high chance it wouldn't work.

Aidyn nudged Kei and took a step back. The message was clear: Time to go. Grabbing Ari's hand and leaving Aidyn to drag Jared along, Kei sprinted into the forest. Judging by the annoyed shouts and loud crashing, the humans were chasing them.

"Run!" Kei wasn't sure who yelled it, but when she turned around to yell back and see where Aidyn and Jared were, she saw angry humans and orange bolts being fired. Okay, less yelling, more running. An orange bolt hit the tree next to her, and Ari shrieked a bit at the near miss. Kei dragged her to the side, losing her in the panic to avoid another flurry of bolts.

Moons, she really was on a bad-decision roll today.

Smirky human guy smirked at her, probably because Kei's dodge-swerving had led to her almost crashing into him before she'd skidded to a stop. "Well, today turned out better than I'd hoped for." Something in his smile made her skin crawl, and she took an involuntary step backwards. Smirky human guy suddenly wasn't so smirky anymore. He raised his gun and pointed it at Kei's head (moons, why were so many humans pointing guns at her today? First angry blonde police lady, then smirky-but-not-anymore human guy...), and when he spoke his voice was more of a growl.

"Listen up, hibri — thing — whatever you are, I'm not going to repeat myself. Stop your search immediately." He spoke slowly, enunciating each word clearly. Then he tilted his head and frowned at her. "Heterochromia? That's interesting."

Kei frowned. She wasn't entirely sure what that long word that started with 'h' meant, but he'd been referring to her eyes so maybe it was the human word for having different-colored eyes.

Both the smirk and the smooth voice were gone, but they made a reappearance when he said, creepily calm and composed, "Otherwise, your, hm, unique heritage will make you a valuable trophy. Those heterochromic eyes of yours? Priceless. Just like your caela's odd green eyes."

She backed away further, refusing to take her eyes off the glistening gun and the man who wanted to kill her and Ari, harvest their body parts and keep them as trophies. They weren't people, or sentient beings with thoughts and emotions, they were things and trophies.

Smirky human guy was back to his usual smirky self, but he wasn't pulling the trigger. He was waiting for something.

Kei decided not to stick around and find out what. Ducking her head and spinning around, she sprinted away and prayed his shock would buy her enough time. A frightened sob threatened to escape her lips as she dodged and weaved, plants around her wilting from the bolts.

She imagined herself being diced up and auctioned off as she slashed her hand through the air, visualizing herself morphing into undisturbed leaves and woody trunks, vanishing into the foliage.

"What unique coloring. This would be a lovely present for my sister. How much for the set?"

"Aidyn!" She choked out, seeing scales up ahead. Aidyn looked frantic.

"Kei! Thank the moons. Come on, we really need to go!"

"Where's Ari and Jared?"

"Your caela's odd green eyes."

"They plucked his scales off and made them into jewelry."

"They're up ahead. Come on!" Aidyn sprinted away, leaving Kei with no choice but to follow. She couldn't stop internally panicking till they were running with Ari and Jared.

"Valuable trophies."

Somewhere behind, a human yelled in frustration. 

｡･ﾟﾟ･｡

Don't you just love humans? We do. We just love humans.

Anywhoo, thank you for reading! This chapter was written by the fabulous wewannabeus, so thank you Kate!

Also, if you haven't already, here's your reminder to go check out our extras book once you've finished reading! There's some spoilers for later chapters in there, so proceed with caution — but also please proceed because bonus stuff is fun. (Also we have a Tumblr linked in our bio. Go check out the Tumblr linked in our bio.)

With virtual hugs, purple Google features, and an absurd number of alignment charts,

Grandmotherly Ferret Clowns

(G.F.C.)