Chương 41: 40 - Lessons

Modern full immersion virtual reality was, by any reasonable measure, a marvel of scientific progress. And yet, despite all the advanced technology that went into it, the entertainment system had a flaw it couldn't hope to overcome – mankind wasn't built for it. The human body had evolved to chase animals while throwing things at them. It didn't know what to do with itself when a machine stimulated the brain and left the rest in a pseudo-comatose state.

This extremely sedentary lifestyle inevitably led to a bevy of physiological and psychological issues, with the full immersion tech adding a layer of potential neurological problems on top. The pods administered alleviating care, of course, but there was only so much the machinery could do. The good news was that avoiding all those complications was a simple matter of not overindulging in VR. Unfortunately, people had a bad habit of seeking immediate gratification at the expense of their long-term wellbeing.

Tobacco, alcohol, gambling – the examples were timeless and numerous. Put bluntly, the average citizen couldn't be trusted to use VR responsibly, hence the government-mandated real-world rest periods. For adults, that meant an average eight hours of actually moving about for every forty hours they spent plugged in. Exactly how they managed their offline time didn't matter that much so long as they hit that ratio.

Children under the age of sixteen faced harsher restrictions since their immature minds and bodies were at much greater risk of complications. They had a hard limit of three hours of full immersion per day with at least ten offline hours between sessions, and half of this allowance was eaten up by schoolwork. Furthermore, their nervous systems weren't robust enough to handle PnP implants safely, so their only way of logging into V-Life was through bulky, non-portable helmets.

The experience was nowhere near as seamless and suffered from minor issues like dulled sensations and input lag, but there was no need to root around still-growing spinal columns. Luckily for Amy, she wasn't old enough to worry about any of that stuff, so she could wholeheartedly enjoy herself in ways that would be impossible outside of VR. Indeed, nobody in their right mind would ever let a five year old handle an actual shotgun that was longer than she was tall.

Especially with the rough way the girl was handling that firearm. Lacking strength, experience, and hand-eye coordination, she struggled to load even a single shell. Still, with enough bashing and slapping she managed to get the round into the slot on the bottom. Amy planted the stock against the ground and pointed the barrel straight up. She wrapped her hands around the pump thingy – she didn't know its actual name – and lifted her feet so that her weight would pull it down for her.

The firearm was thus racked in a manner that would make any responsible adult immediately call Social Services.

"Oh! There's a clever girl!" Alas, the only one around was her father, and he was too busy egging her on to bother with all that lame 'gun safety' stuff. Not like he gave a damn, anyway. This was V-Life, for Queenie's sake. What was the worst that could happen? She'd pick up bad shotgun habits? As if Amy would ever need to handle a real weapon. Her learning to make effective use of her environment was far more important, though hardly the point of this virtual outing.

The girl hoisted the gun up to her shoulder, struggling to maintain her balance against its size and weight. She found her equilibrium after a few wobbly seconds and aimed it diagonally upward, one eye closed and tongue sticking out in an adorable display of concentration. Not that there was anything to actually aim at. The virtual space around Amy and Joe was a local copy of a publicly available map called Blank Room v1. 4, a name the father found mildly amusing. The blank part, he understood.

It was a seemingly endless space of pure white nothingness aside from the slightly gray and utterly barren floor. It was by no means a room, though. Furthermore, how could someone cock up a concept this simple enough to need multiple revisions? What, was the white not endless enough? As for why Joe, Amy, and that shotgun were even in here, it was because the girl wanted to try playing a new game with Itchy. The umbral hound was currently on standby right next to her.

It was currently in its dragon-headed pooch form, mostly because its otherworldly instincts didn't exactly agree with this kind of space. Not the virtual part. Though cosmic entities from beyond the veil often manifested physical vessels, they were originally creatures of pure thought, so this realm of distilled information felt quite comfortable. It was the lack of boundaries that bothered Itchy.

Its kind had a compulsion to fill all available space whenever they entered 'attack mode,' and the umbral hound wasn't even remotely infinite, so trying to do that in here was uniquely frustrating.

"Okay, think I'm weady," Amy called out.

"Itchy?"

"Horf!" it… barked?

"Fetch!" She yanked back the trigger and launched a couple dozen buckshot pellets into the air, the recoil instantly knocking her on her butt. At the same time the shadow-pooch by her side surged forward like an uncoiled spring. Its stumpy little body stretched out and snaked across the air in an unintentional imitation of an eastern-type dragon. An array of claw-tipped tendrils shot out from its flexible length and stretched out in all directions like a defoliated pine tree.

The creature's elongated mass then snapped back to its previous form with a resounding 'FWOMP!' All of that happened in fractions of a second, a literal 'blink and you'll miss it' situation. Amy, unfortunately, blinked. She couldn't help it since both the sound and the kick of the gun startled her something awful. The girl wasn't hurt, of course, but she was still upset she missed it. By the time she opened her eyes Itchy was already back in pooch form and falling to the ground.

The instant he landed he zipped back to her like a hyperactive ink splotch. He waited excitedly for her to stand up and hold out her hand so he could open his square maw and spit out a smoking clump of shotgun pellets right into her tiny palm.

"Good boy!" Amy threw herself at the creature, arms wrapping around its barely-there neck and cheek nuzzling into its snout. It let out a peculiar grinding noise, like stone dragging on stone with some walnuts in the middle. A purr, perhaps? Wait, dogs didn't purr. Then again, neither were they capable of snatching shotgun rounds out of the air. Joe decided to stop dwelling on the details and went over to address something far more important. He knelt beside the girl and put a gentle hand on her head.

"You didn't actually get to see the fetching, did you?" She looked up at him with amazement, as if he'd just read her mind, only to promptly turn downcast.

"No, but that's okay," she mumbled out.

"Is it? Then you're fine with never, ever getting to see it?" he probed.

"It was really something, you know. Even your mother would be shocked." It happened so fast he only saw it for an instant, but he wasn't lying. Well, aside from that last part. Maggie was surely aware that Itchy could stretch like that even if Joe wasn't.

"Nnnn!" the girl's face scrunched up with envy.

"I wanna see!" He smiled and tousled her hair with approval. Both him and his father had once been too considerate of others, to the point where it was detrimental to their own happiness. Joe would rather not have his daughter suffer the Mulligan Curse, as he privately called it, so he was trying to nip it in the bud by teaching her a tiny bit of selfishness nice and early. It was a lesson he taught bit by bit every time a chance arose, and this seemed like a good opportunity.

Plus, he was also quietly practicing what he was preaching.

"Then how about I do the, uh, the throwing next time?" Playing fetch with a shotgun shell was such a novel concept that he had to try it at least once.

"Okay! C'mon, Itchy!" Joe snatched the firearm from where it lay forgotten and loaded it with significantly more proficiency than the kid, having handled its type countless times across dozens of games. He was just about to take up a firing stance when he noticed Itchy seemed to be giving him the stink-eye. It was honestly kind of impressive it managed to do that. From what he understood, those wobbly white circles on its otherwise charcoal-coloured head were mostly decorative.

Umbral hounds neither had nor needed eyes, but Amy thought the pooch form looked weird without them, so the creature put on some fake ones. That it was able to control those blank spots well enough to form meaningful expressions was no small feat. Still annoying, though.

"What's your problem?" he called the yassari out.

"You don't wanna play unless it's with Amy? Is that it?" Itchy let out an audible snort, though Joe couldn't tell if that gesture was supposed to be bemused or derisive.

"No! Bad Itchy! Be nice to Papa!" Likely the latter, given his girl's reaction.

"That's right. You wouldn't want me to tell Maggie you snubbed your nose at me, would you?" The way it literally shrank a little made it clear that thinly veiled threat was effective.

"No! Bad Papa! Don't bully Itchy!" Only for Amy to then admonish Joe in turn, which stung a lot worse than the mutt's attitude. She'd gotten rather protective of the umbral hound lately, which was ironic considering it was supposed to be her bodyguard. The girl was like this ever since she taught the creature how to 'sit,' which piqued Maggie's curiosity in a rather invasive way.

Joe wasn't sure exactly what went on since he was asleep at the time, but he woke up to Amy screaming at her mother to 'stop bullying Itchy.' Things had been a little uneasy around the Mulligan household since, and the man would rather not make a mountain out of a molehill.

"Relax, honey. It's just a bit of banter. Right, Itchy?" He meant that. He wasn't going to bother Maggie with something this trivial. The umbral hound sensed the man's benign intentions and nodded its agreement even though it had no idea what he was talking about. It really didn't want to play with the man, but it wouldn't refuse if Amy told it to. Not because it was obliged to obey her. It just didn't want to upset her because that might mean fewer pets and less play time, equating to more loneliness.

"… What's bantuh?" the girl asked dumbly.

"It's a thing grown-ups do. We talk mean but we don't mean to be mean. Sounds silly, but you'll get it when you're older." Amy didn't seem entirely convinced by that explanation, but decided to let it slide. Minor conflict averted, Joe remembered he still had a loaded weapon in his hands and promptly assumed that firing stance.

"Ready?" At his word, Itchy assumed the same 'poised to strike' stance he had earlier. The man also secretly operated a few menus to massively turn down the digital prop's volume. Wouldn't want to startle his adorable audience, after all.

"And… Fetch!" The shotgun discharged with a comically tiny pop, which left plenty of room for the aggressive FWOMP-FWOMP as Itchy instantly expanded and then contracted, much like before.

"That was so cool!" Amy cheered with significantly more enthusiasm this time around.

"Itchy went all zoop and zap and it was there and there and then… uh… It was cool!"

"I know, right?" Joe joined in.

"I think I managed to record it this time. Wanna see it in slow motion?"

"Please!" They spent the next few minutes studying that video frame-by-frame. Itchy included. Apparently even it wasn't sure exactly how it caught all those pellets in an instant, and seeing itself in action from an outsider's perspective was a profound experience. Naturally, things only escalated from there as the group played fetch with an increasingly irresponsible array of weaponry. Single-shot guns were no match for Itchy's explosive speed, whether it was a simple pistol or a straight up artillery cannon.

Sustained fire from assault rifles and miniguns was another story, as Itchy could only grab the initial burst of bullets before its form snapped back into its more compact dimensions. The eldritch pooch also managed to catch a laser pointer. Somehow. Joe had no idea how it pulled that off, and neither did Blank Room v1. 3, seeing as the map crashed due to a glitch with its physics simulation engine. That was honestly some good timing.

The father-daughter pair were getting a bit bored of fetch, so they instead loaded into William Wonksworth's Wonderland. This map was actually geared towards children, a fairy tale landscape with a sugary twist. It had cotton candy bushes, marshmallow flowers, sour licorice grass, a river of cream soda, and other delightfully nonsensical props. Now that there were other objects to orient itself, Itchy expanded to its normal house-sized shape with that ever-shifting number of legs and heads.

Amy didn't like this form much since it wasn't very cute, but her friend found it more comfortable, so she didn't insist. Nor did Joe turn this into another 'curse-breaking' lesson. The vibes didn't feel right. The girl merrily climbed onto the unleashed umbral hound's back – presumably – and the two of them ran off to explore and sample the sights. This wasn't really Joe's scene so he sat back on a gingerbread-and-toffee deck chair to keep a lazy eye on things.

He had to admit, watching a shapeshifting mass of darkness parade his half-alien daughter around this fever dream of a landscape was rather surreal even by his jaded standards. Clashing themes aside, there was something strange about how the candy cane trees bent at Itchy's touch, and it probably wasn't because the map's designer got a little lazy with the physics. Then he remembered. Umbral hounds didn't have mass, because they didn't actually have a body.

The only reason they were tangible at all was due to their Class-2 telekinesis, which manifested as a bubble of psionic energy that forced matter away from the space they claimed as their own. Though, perhaps 'balloon' was a more accurate analogy than 'bubble,' given how elastic it seemed. Indeed, all those games of fetch made it clear that Itchy was less like clay and more like rubber.

It couldn't maintain that bullet-like speed for more than a few moments at a time because it needed to coil and uncoil itself first, so it could at most zip around in bursts. How any of that nonsense could possibly be recreated in VR was a secret between Itchy, Maggie, and the shoggoth-possessed pod. Incidentally, this peculiar form of telekinesis was supposed to be entirely instinctual and not something a yassari would normally have conscious control over.

Hence Maggie's aggressive interest in Itchy's ability to 'sit' and her subsequent frustration at Amy's 'no bullying' protests. Even a Class-4 cosmic entity couldn't win against her daughter's earnest plea, but that concession did little to assuage the woman's burning curiosity. Fortunately for Maggie, she had Joe, and he was more than happy to run a few mild experiments under the guise of VR games.

That wasn't at all why he wanted to spend time with his daughter, but doing a little science on the side never hurt anyone. Joe was drinking in the sight of Itchy and Amy absolutely demolishing a boulder-sized biscuit when he heard a familiar beep at the back of his head.

"Ah, bollocks," he grumbled, then raised his voice.

"Amy! I need to step out for a bit! Call for your mum if you need anything!"

"Okaaaay!" A few seconds and some hydraulic hissing later, Joe emerged from his full immersion pod to find Jeeves hovering a respectable distance from it. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Pardon the interruption, Master Mulligan. There is a visitor at the door for you." He glanced over to the neighboring pod, the one with the pulsating flesh and unblinking eye. Amy was in that one, her helmet-clad head firmly held in Maggie's gentle embrace. The woman didn't need to be in there for any technical reason, but because she was still coming to terms with her daughter's unobservable nature. It was still too early to tell whether Joe's plan to 'hug the awkwardness away' would actually work.

At least it hadn't made things worse, which was itself a promising sign. In other words, Maggie was keen to keep snuggling with Amy, so she gave Joe a firm nod to go see his guest.

"Who is it?" he asked Jeeves.

"It's Mrs. Sarah Johanson, sir."

"Wait, for real? Took her long enough! Go put the ket– I mean, prepare some refreshments for us, would you?"

"At once, sir." Joe took a moment to make sure he was presentable. Meaning he glanced down to check he wasn't still wearing his PJs and confirmed the pod had clothed him in the usual T-shirt and jeans he liked. He sauntered over to the front door with a spring in his step and threw it open with a goofy grin. Standing patiently on the other end was a prim and proper female officer in her mid-30s, her ginger hair tied back in a no-nonsense ponytail under a classic military-style cap.

Her sour expression instantly softened upon seeing Joe's goofy mug, though she quietly braced herself for whatever nonsense was about to fall out of it.

"Well, bugger me with a balsa bread bin!"

"I will do no such thing," she chuckled.

"You're missing out! Nah, I kid. Welcome back, AJ." He threw his arms out for a hug, but got a bluntly forced handshake instead. Unlike him, the woman was keenly aware of his wife's obsessive tendencies and would rather not get turned inside-out because she got a bit too touchy-feely with the bloke. She was nevertheless genuinely happy to see him again.

"You know you're the only plonker who still calls me that, right?" The nickname made a lot more sense when everyone still called her 'Agent Johanson,' but those days were long gone.

"What? Want me to stop, Mrs. Psionic Operations Director, ma'am?" Joe teased with a hoighty-toighty tone.

"Don't you bloody dare," she hissed at him.

"I got enough of that over the past four months to last me a lifetime." Joe raised an eyebrow. Had it really been only four months? He could've sworn it was a lot longer. Ah, that was probably because of the VR time dilation. Their separation felt closer to a full year from his perspective.

"Anyway, don't just stand there like a stop sign. Come in, have a cuppa."

"Gladly." Sarah felt an imperceptible weight lift off her shoulders the instant she stepped into the mansion-like apartment. An odd reaction, some might say. This was the lair, or perhaps nest, of a Class-4 cosmic entity with the power to bend space and time to its will, and keeping monsters like that out of this reality was the Supernatural Eviction Agency's primary directive. In a certain sense, this dwelling embodied a failure.

Furthermore, it was unthinkable that anyone aware of the owner's true nature would dare to go anywhere near the planet, let alone her place of residence. That said, these walls held far too many fond memories for AJ to feel anything but warmth from them. It wasn't quite like coming home, but it was a close second. Glancing up at the hallway's ceiling, she could almost see the small dent where she pinned Officer Maloney with her psionics upon their first meeting.

Kind of unthinkable that the two of them ended up married after such a violent introduction. Things were really good for a long while, but their relationship had become rather strained of late. They were very busy people. Between her having to hop across the galaxy and Grant constantly chasing after people devious enough to be successful criminals in this day and age, their time together was in drastically short supply.

"How's our brave Detective doing, by the way?"

"Same old. Hasn't shot anyone new since the last time you asked. What about Amy?" AJ's marital troubles had nothing to do with her visit and she didn't want to make them Joe's problem just to make small talk, so she dodged the touchy subject.

"Plugged in. Maggie's keeping her company. They'll pop out in another ten minutes, if you don't mind."

"That's fine, I'm in no rush." The two of them settled into the dining room. Jeeves had already laid out some snacks on the table, though it would be a little while before the tea was ready.

"Did you bring the little one out to the park yet?" she resumed the chat.

"That we did," he nodded.

"Let me tell you, that was an eye-opener for me. Really didn't sink in until I saw her playing with the others, but our Amy's a weird kid."

"You will note this is my unsurprised face," she said in a dry monotone.

"Still made some friends, though," he glossed over the remark.

"Couple of boys her age. They got her into some superhero cartoon and she's been bloody obsessed with it. If not for Itchy that's all she'll talk about. I swear, I haven't seen a single episode of Lightspeed Patrol but I already know everything about it."

"Sorry, Itchy?"

"Oh, right. It's… kind of her new dog, I guess. Maggie got it for her."

"Mmm." Sarah nodded sagely. Definitely not a dog, then. Knowing how Mags operated, how Joe's brain worked, and being intimately familiar with the short yet disturbing list of cosmic entities known to the SEA, it didn't take long for the seasoned soldier to figure out what Itchy actually was.

"A Class-2 umbral hound, I'm guessing?"

"Yep."

"And how's that going?"

"Well, it used to just take naps in Amy's shadow. Then it got lonely, so she started teaching it tricks. It only knows 'sit' right now, but it's really good at playing fetch with guns, apparently. You would not believe how stretchy that thing is. Or how crunchy its purring sounds. It's kinda cute, honestly. Once you get past the whole… psychic predator thing." Though all of that sounded like utter nonsense, there was not a doubt in AJ's mind that Joe was both honest and serious.

He didn't joke around whenever his daughter was concerned.

"I'll take your word for it. Speaking of pets," she remembered, "I should probably give this little guy back." She lifted her military cap to reveal a tiny ball of speckled brown curled up atop her scalp. Azgod'Kalar the Calm looked to be every bit the scaly little noodle he was when Maggie first brought him home. Joe greeted the orb python with a wave and he returned it with the tip of his tail.

"Was he of any help?"

"Like you wouldn't believe!" AJ leaned in.

"I would've been court-martialled ten times over if he wasn't there to keep me sane." She was exaggerating, but not by much. Her recent deployment had been a purely administrative affair. Nothing but meetings, speeches, and lectures. She just wasn't cut out for that kind of white-collar work after nearly two decades of throwing her considerable psychic weight around in the field.

To make matters worse, she was representing both her organization and her nation at a huge transgalactic conference that was held every eight years. Well, huge in the sense that nearly every human government participated. The actual number of people in attendance was barely a few hundred, so at the very least there was no danger of overcrowding. Except that this was the Planar Security Summit, a top-secret, high-level event that focused entirely on the persistent threat of cosmic entity incursion.

This put the recently-appointed Psionic Operations Director Sarah Johanson in a rather unfortunate position. Not only was she the foremost expert on the emotion-based Mags-Burst technique, but the Third British Empire was also the first and so far only government to successfully strike a bargain with a Class-3, let alone a Class-4. To say that the entire galaxy's eyes were on AJ would be an exaggeration, but only in the sense that this was a human-centric summit.

The other races of the Federation of Allied Governments had no formally recognized presence there other than a handful of observers. And thank goodness for that. If a whole gaggle of aliens started crowding her with questions and demands on top of everyone else, the woman would've probably thrown herself out the nearest airlock. AJ had a hunch this summit might drive her crazy, which was why she asked Mags if she could borrow Azgod'Kalar the Calm. That name truly wasn't just for show.

Even the veteran psionic wasn't sure if any mental shenanigans were at play or this was an entirely natural reaction, but it was an undeniable fact that the tiny serpent had a profoundly soothing effect on her. Whether it was curled up on her head, wriggling around on her shoulder, or coiling between her fingers, the orb python seemed to suck the stress right out of her.

Granted, she probably looked profoundly unprofessional whenever she gave a presentation with that beady-eyed noodle lazily snapping at loose tufts of her hair, but if anyone who took issue with that could piss right off.

"Sounds rough," Joe offered sympathies.

"You're sure this promotion was worth it? Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like you've aged a few years already."

"Don't have much choice right now," she sighed.

"Contracts and whatnot. Besides, someone's gotta do this job, and I'd rather it be me than Millington."

"No argument there. Whatever happened to that greased weasel?" Now that he thought about it, it had been a very long while since he'd last heard anything about the SEA's regional director for this star sector.

"Oh, he got sacked."

"Really? That's surprising. You'd think bringing Maggie on board would've made him untouchable."

"Well, he certainly did. Tried to push his luck. FAFO'd right quick," she smirked.

"Do tell." Joe was never fond of that greased weasel, much as the spiteful nickname would suggest, so he was eager to hear all about his downfall.

"Sorry. Confidential stuff," she shrugged.

"Let's just say he made the higher-ups take a closer look at his handling of Mags. That's when they realized she didn't sign up with us because of him, but in spite of him." At the end of the day, Maggie was the one who initiated that historic agreement. Millington just happened to be the closest to her with the authority to make it happen. The shady stuff he pulled around that deal – bloating her contract, instigating a cult, making her train AJ – was deemed unnecessary at best and against protocols at worst.

The rest of his track record hadn't been exactly spotless, either. Once they caught wind of all this, the Agency's top brass decided to replace him with someone squeaky-clean who wasn't stupid enough to poke the well-behaved calamity on their payroll. Sarah Johanson fit that bill. Granted, her new post wasn't quite on the same level of authority as Millington's, but it was close enough to make her responsible for Maggie.

"Serves him right. Still, I do hope they weren't too harsh on him," Joe sat back.

"Everything else aside, I owe him big time for Jeeves." He nodded at the floating robo-butler, which was on its way over with a fully loaded tea tray. The former regional director had his flaws, but his taste in brews was absolutely impeccable. Even a decade later Joe still looked forward to the special blends Millington programmed into his hand-me-down servant. AJ was in full agreement. The two of them kept an eager silence as this morning's refreshing beverage was served and promptly sampled with great delight.

"By the Queen, I've missed this," Sarah sighed sweetly.

"Proper tea, I mean."

"What, you didn't bring your own leaves abroad?""'Course, I did, but it wasn't that simple. Did you know those yanks didn't have a single kettle on their entire conference station?"

"The hell? Then how do they boil water for their coffee or whatever?"

"In the bloody microwave."

"That…" he slowly shook his head.

"That just ain't right."

"Tell me about it. Felt like I needed a shower afterwards. Worst part? It didn't matter. The water itself tasted weird. Ruined the tea."

"That sucks, but it's good to know. We were planning to take a family trip over there, actually."

"Really? What for?"

"Sightseeing, mostly. Maggie always wanted to tour the galaxy, but never really got the chance. Now that Amy's old enough to tie her own shoelaces, we figured we'd start chipping away at that, and MURICA seemed like a good first stop."

"What about your cult pals? They coming with?"

"Good question," he stared down into his cup.

"Might be good for a laugh, but there's a lot of 'em." The Cult of the Gazing Star, which Joe had revived with the express purpose of summoning Maggie from her interdimensional time-out, had over five hundred members at the moment. And this was despite the fact that they were very selective about who they allowed to join.

As it turned out, having their chosen entity of worship not only physically present but also actively posting on online message boards did a lot for the Gazing Star's credibility and popularity within the occult community. That aside, it would obviously be a bit much if all of them came along on what was supposed to be a family trip, but letting a few of the core members tag along wasn't the worst idea. Not the best, either.

The topic was temporarily shelved when a set of tiny yet rapid steps could be heard running down the hall.

"Aunt Sawah!" Though Amy meant it in the best way possible, AJ still took a tiny bit of psychic damage from being called 'Aunt.' It made her feel… old. On the upside, any harm done was instantly overwritten by the healing properties of the girl's enthusiasm as she ran over with arms stretched out. The woman had recovered fully and then some by the time the little one drew close enough to make good on that offered hug. Unlike Joe's, AJ eagerly accepted it.

She even got off her seat and went down on one knee just to feel those tiny hands wrap around her neck and have their cheeks press together.

"It's so nice to see you, Amelia!" she cooed.

"You've already gotten so big!" The wholesome reunion was briefly interrupted when the lady of the house stepped in a moment later, her swirling eyes drilling into Sarah's momentarily steeled gaze.

"Mags."

"Director Johanson." It didn't take a mind reader to realize there was a good deal of friction between them. For her part, Maggie was actually quite fond of the psionic. Put bluntly, she knew her place. In less harsher terms, her new liaison to the Supernatural Eviction Agency performed her assigned duties with perfect adequacy. On a personal level, Sarah was a good friend to Joe and a crucial female role model for Amelia – a role that her mother was fundamentally incompatible with.

They also saw eye-to-eye on a great many topics. By all accounts the two ladies should have gotten along like a house on fire. Unfortunately, Maggie's mere existence had always made Sarah's job harder, and it had only gotten worse since her recent promotion to Director. It was only natural the woman would hold a grudge, and pretending otherwise helped no one. Some of that resentment was bound to be directed at Amelia, even if subconsciously, and neither of them wanted that. So, they reached a silent agreement.

AJ would direct all her frustrations at Maggie, who would in turn make herself an easy target for them.

"Ah! Azzy's back!" That happy little squeal broke the momentary standoff as the girl reached for the orb python on Sarah's head. Azgod'Kalar would usually not respond to anyone who failed to address him properly, but Amy was clearly an exception. It gracefully slithered onto her outstretched palm and lightly coiled itself around her thumb and wrist. She broke off the hug and brought the miniature serpent to her face so she could rub her nose against its tiny snout.

Amy then suddenly raised her eyebrows as a look of shock dawned on her round face.

"Itchy!" she gasped at her shadow.

"That's mean! Be nice to Azzy!" Sarah stood and squinted at Joe with an unspoken question of, 'Do I want to know?' The man winced back as if to say, 'Probably.' Maggie, meanwhile, let the tiniest of smiles float onto her lips. She was looking forward to this interaction ever since Ic'thagrig started surpassing his programming. Azgod'Kalar seemed entirely unbothered, as per usual.

"Hey, Amy?" Joe spoke up.

"Why don't you get Itchy out here for a second?"

"But… we have a guest."

"I know, and I'm happy you're keeping that in mind, but I want to introduce him to Azgod'Kalar and your Aunt Sarah, so it's fine just this once. Just, uh, make sure you tell Itchy to sit. Sounds good?"

"Yeah! Let's go, Itchy!" She thrust her little fist out and the umbral hound exploded from her shadow, filling the room with its many-limbed, multi-headed, telekinetically-wrapped self just as AJ expected. She'd taken a moment to reinforce her mental defenses and discard her common sense, so she wasn't the least bit shocked or surprised. At least until Itchy collapsed into its potentially marketable dragon-pooch form with a quick fwomp. Even with her preparations the Director had to do a double-take on that one.

"AJ, this is Itchy. Itchy, AJ," Joe casually introduced them.

"Charmed, I'm sure." A significantly less sarcastic response than the wording might imply. Mags-branded weirdness aside, she genuinely appreciated the Class-2's attempt to make itself less threatening. It reinforced the idea that it was thoroughly under control and therefore undeserving of her animosity.

"Horf!" The creature both sensed and mirrored her amicable attitude.

"And this is Azgod'Kalar." One set of introductions out of the way, Joe gently pulled the unflappable serpent from Amy's hand and promptly plopped it on Itchy's oddly rectangular head.

"Play nice now, yeah?" His actions and words earned him another snort and a fresh dose of white-dot stink-eye, but the yassari dared not act out otherwise. There was an odd moment of tension as the orb python slithered up and down that broad cranium, seemingly seeking a comfortable place to stop while Itchy shook and quivered with either aggression or discomfort.

Things came to a head when Azgod'Kalar suddenly coiled itself like a spring, bounced off the Class-2's head, and landed on the floor between it and Amy with a soft thud. It then curled up on the spot, right on top of the unnaturally black strip of shadow that connected the girl to her guardian. Itchy's attitude drastically softened, as did its shape. It seemed to melt for a few moments before rapidly expanding to fill the entire dining room once more.

This time, however, its silhouette was not of a monstrous hound, but a wobbling blob. That 'crunchy purring' Joe mentioned filled the room moments later. To say the Class-2 let itself go would be a monumental understatement.

"See? Friends!"

"Indeed."

"Itchy's funny!" Joe cheered, Maggie smiled wider, and Amy giggled as harmony was restored to the Mulligan household. AJ was the odd one out as she let out a tiny whine of frustration. It would appear that, despite her best efforts to turn a blind eye, she now had no choice but to add Azgod'Kalar the Calm to the Agency's list of known anomalous entities. Not to mention she'd also have to explain why she thought bringing such a thing to the Summit was a good idea.

The thoroughly domesticated umbral hound was its own can of worms that she, unfortunately, had to dig into. If there was such a thing as a God of Paperwork, then Magh'rathlak the Observer was surely its strongest soldier.