"Vie, Vel, and Vue are so cute!" Charlotte squealed. "Yes. Name them that! I don't see why you guys needed my help."

"Great," Ibnoxe said, looking happily from one vul to the next. He was holding the two female kits, so he determined one was Vie and the other was Vel. "Which one is your favorite?" he asked Lottie.

"Vel," she said.

Ibnoxe dangled the baby vul by her face. "Here you go!"

Vel's adorable front paws draped in front of her fluffy chest. The ears pulled back as Vel split her mouth in a big yawn.

"Aw," Ibnoxe and Holoxe said in unison, but Charlotte was unresponsive.

Some of the color had drained from her face. A nervous laugh prattled past her lips. "Ahaha…. Thanks! I appreciate the offer, but they're your pets. I think you guys should learn how to take care of them yourselves." Her hands were extended, palms up, as if she was not interested in taking the vul.

This was the sort of reaction that had been expected from the Disco Menace—not Lottie. eX-0281 slowly withdrew Vel back towards his chest. "You don't want her?"

"I don't wanna take care of it," Charlotte admitted. "I already have my expensive hobbies. Do you realize how much vuls cost?"

"No…" eX-0281 said slowly. The vuls' tiny, triangular heads received gentle pats. Their owners were left to wonder how much these little guys could possibly cost.

"Here." She pulled her phone from her back pocket. In the search bar, she typed the following query: 'vul daily food prices'. With a grim look on her face, she showed them the screen.

250 credits

"Wait, that much?" Both brothers gasped and had their mouths hanging open, flabbergasted by the exorbitant amount just for its basic food needs. A single vul would cost as much to feed in a day as the two sub-dragons did for a week.

"That's if you feed them properly. As mutated creatures, they need especially high levels of mana in their diet. They won't starve if you don't give them mana-infused food, just they'll never turn into el'vuls either…."

Terrible news had just fallen over eX-0281. "Ugh. Why did we buy all three vuls?" This was probably why bartering with the pawn shop owner had been so easy. They had paid large sums of money in order to take a financial burden off his hands.

"Maybe we should've just gotten one or two," Holoxe mused.

It was the price of their impulse pet purchase: the cost associated with taking care of the animals.

"We'll still make sure Vel is well-fed," Ibnoxe said. "If you don't have to pay for her, would you want her then?" He lowered Vel back into Charlotte's face, pushing the ball of fur closer to her nose the second time around.

"Sure. Why not?" Lottie eagerly grabbed the vul in both hands and rubbed Vel against her cheeks. "She's so fluffy!"

Ibnoxe and Holoxe looked to each other with happy tails. They were glad that they had chosen to give the third vul to Charlotte.

The sun had risen in the sky, directly overhead. This was the peak time to bask in the sun, however Victoria had already chosen this as their meeting time. The Disco Menace had just walked outside and witnessed the scene with the vuls. Her eyes pinched up in slight contrition, but the usual, serious expression quickly settled back over her face. "Lizard boys! Time to get going!"

"Would you watch the vuls for us?" Ibnoxe asked Charlotte. Young as they were, he did not want to put them in peril like what had happened at the hangar.

"Gladly! Make sure to bring some food back for the vuls. You can provide for them yourselves if you learn how to hunt." Charlotte waved them off. "Good luck guys!"

The brothers reluctantly abandoned the sunny rocks and approached Victoria. They stood in front of her in their dragon forms, indistinguishable from the other.

"Which of you is Liz?"

"My name is Holoxe now," he corrected Victoria. "And my brother is now known as Ibnoxe." They were proud to announce their new names, both their horns lifted high and their chests puffed out a little.

Upon hearing them, however, Victoria burst into a curt laugh. "It sounds like you just got named by a nerd for an RPG campaign." She pretended to wipe nonexistent tears from her eyes.

Her assessment was correct. A nerd did help come up with their names, but Ibnoxe did not see that as a bad thing.

"I'll admit," Victoria said. "Holoxe is pretty cool. I dunno about Ibnoxe. The name is totally ib-noxious." In a dramatic display, she slapped her knee and laughed.

If an ice elemental could produce heat, Ibnoxe swore that he could feel his blood boil.

When neither of them joined her, Victoria's laughter slowed in an awkward pitch. "Get it? Ibnoxe kinda sounds like the start of obnoxious…?" Her face fell in a bit of shame at the failed joke.

"The only obnoxious one around here is you," Holoxe snapped. "I would appreciate if you did not make fun of my brother's name," he said sternly.

"Oops. Sorry." Victoria brushed off the offense in the least apologetic manner possible. "Anyway, we have a lot of ground to cover today. Let's get moving."

They stopped briefly to gear up. Holoxe and Victoria both went without their helmets, broken from the previous night. Ibnoxe was grateful that Charlotte had been able to disable the tracker properly so he could keep using the battle assistant. They concealed the GPC company logo on their armor till they could find a way to permanently remove it. They walked across town in their human form.

The trio left Purity Grove and stepped into the polluted landscape beyond the [Filtration Net]. Safe to shift into dragon form, they did so and stretched their wings. Ibnoxe and Holoxe took off in a sudden sprint with the aid of their wings.

"Wait—!" Victoria called. In their haste, they had already left her far behind.

Ibnoxe and Holoxe doubled back and asked her, "Can't you keep up with your [Charged Dash]?"

"Maybe if I wanna join Marcel with a chronic case of manzy," she said with a huff. "My mana system is overworked and my bike was trashed, and I'm still feeling jittery as heck after that mana replenisher. Give me a break!" Victoria sounded unduly upset by such a small remark.

"Uh, is it a good idea for us to be going out here if you're not prepared?" Ibnoxe asked.

"I'm fine—just gonna save myself for when the monsters appear. Let's walk."

The dragon brothers marched side by side, while Victoria led them closer to the site of the old battle. "I'll teach you more about magic. Hopefully, the two of you can handle everything we run into today. It'll be good training."

The wilderness gave way to the ruinous, urban landscape. The party made their way back to the site where the real disco menace had fought the stalker behemoth.

"Perform a [Scan] on the area for us, would you?" Victoria asked.

Target: Beheflea 1

Vitality: 100%

Discrete Parts: Abdomen (100%)

Mana Reserves: 100 Mu

Element: Nature

The brownish bugs could be seen dashing through the air, swarmed around the behemoth corpse like hungry flies. Much of its flesh had already been eaten away.

Beheflea 2

Beheflea 3

…

Beheflea 106

…

Beheflea 500

"There's so many," Ibnoxe whispered to his comrades. "System topped out at counting five hundred flies."

"Did it get a [Scan] on the beheflea queen?"

Ibnoxe initiated a query for 'queen', but nothing came up in the log. "Nope."

"Well, it'll be around here somewhere," Victoria whispered harshly. "I doubt it found a new behemoth to infest so quickly. Let's fall back."

Confusion swept over Ibnoxe and Holoxe. "Are the flies that hard to clear out?"

"The queen is," Victoria remarked. "I just wanna teach you guys a magic trick before we charge into the fight," she said with a wink.