Fight the ocean and you will drown.

That's something Boggs said to me when explaining our condition. I didn't believe it then, and I still have a hard time swallowing such lame reasoning now. As Carol spasms about, vainly trying to force out the halo she had just absorbed, my eyes drift back to Debra's headless corpse. Carol claimed that she never intended to hurt Debra, making our erstwhile companion exhibit A in supporting Boggs's theory. Even this confrontation with Carol seems to back Boggs up. If I had never tried to run, I wouldn't be dueling with Carol right now. Neat and simple.

Also complete rubbish.

Carol can claim what she wants, but her pack had also killed Debra's friend back in the piss pit. And this battle was going to happen sooner or later, as long as Carol remained obsessed with vengeance against me. Intentions don't matter at the end of the day. Facts do. And no amount of ignoring can change a fact. Only action can accomplish that.

So the moral of the story should be, "don't fight the ocean, learn to swim instead."

The pack raise their voices, howling into the night sky and signaling the start of the duel. I'm being thrown right into the deep end of the pool right now.

"This is justice!" Carol snarls while falling into a crouch, muscles tensed for action.

"And this is lead." I droll back, opening fire with Love without hesitation.

Carol leaps into a somersault, dodging my burst of gunfire with ease. Landing softly on the ground, she bounds forward, seeking to tear my face off with her teeth and claws.

"Damn, you're fast." I mutter, sending more shots Carol's way. Carol jukes and weaves, aborting her attacking in favor of keeping an intact hide. With her class skills augmenting Buddy's body, I'm having a hard time keeping up with Carol. Carol's constant movements throw my aim off and I'm nowhere quick enough to maintain a bead on her.

Slowly backing up, I keep firing Love at Carol, keeping her at bay even if I'm not managing to score any hits. But the fox woman keeps circling me, like a boxer maintaining a clinch on her opponent. The unwashed stench of the pack hangs heavy over the air, a reminder that there's nowhere to run. For either of us.

A cast of Soul Fire erupts from my focus, tracking Carol as she darts low to the ground. But no matter how fast she is, Soul Fire never misses. Its the big selling point of the spell after all. The purple flame punches hard into Carol's side, setting her fur ablaze. And to my surprise, Carol is sent sprawling to the ground, panting hard for breath. In her current state, Carol should be more than strong enough to tank a single cast of Soul Fire.

As Carol rolls back up to her feet, small wisps of golden light evaporate from the surface of her fur. Carol's still fighting it. She's refusing to reconcile with Debra's potential, trying to force it out of her. And from the tired panting coming from that muzzle, that internal battle has begun to cost Carol.

"Still denying what you are now?" I snort, "No matter how much you run, you can't run from what you are."

"I'll never become like you, Adam." Carol snuffles, her body shrinking slightly as she manages to expel some of Debra's potential from her, "This hunger, it doesn't matter. And I'll beat you while fighting it at the same time, if things comes to that."

With Carol too distracted to put out the Soul Fire, it spreads all over her body, turning Carol into a living, burning totem. Twitching jerkily, Carol's frame hunches, becoming more animalistic. Getting on all fours again, Carol paws the ground, jaws slavering in anticipation. A wheezing yiff is all the protest she can muster from being set on fire.

"That's not looking like a good bet from where I'm standing." I comment, staring Carol down, "Buddy's already becoming dominant. How much longer can you hold out?"

"You still don't understand," Carol shakes her head wearily, uttering a sad laugh, "the difference between us. That's the real tragedy."

"Quit your moral grandstanding." I snort, "Its impossible to deny what we are. What we need."

"Impossible? For you maybe." Carol chuckles, "But you see Adam, I've made peace with myself a long time ago."

"Yeah, right." I roll my eyes, levelling Love at Carol again, "So says the animal denying its instincts."

"Wrong." Carol's jaws break into a leer as I open fire again.

She doesn't dodge. Every single shot strikes home as Carol barrels her way toward me at full speed. I keep pulling Love's trigger as Carol sucks up each bullet without flinching.

"I mean I've made peace with dying!" Carol shouts and in an explosive burst of movement, lunges straight toward me.

Carol bears down like an out of control freight train, her jaws opening wide. Love's mag runs dry and the gun coughs almost apologetically. No time to cast. No time to even dodge.

But just enough time to call upon the single moment of invulnerability, just like how the visions taught me.

Putting all my weight into it, I swing Love as hard as I can just before Carol's jaws close in on my neck. The gun's buttstock slaps Carol's head to the side, saving me from a messy demise. And with that, the moment of invulnerability passes.

Leaving me at the mercy of the momentum from Carol's charge.

I'm sent flying into the ground with Love twisting free from my grasp. Both of us land hard and before I can cast Fortress, Carol's clawed hand closes in on my wrist and breaks it in a single motion. Screaming in pain, I watch as the casting focus slips impotently through my fingers. With a grin Carol straddles me and raises both hands high, bringing them down in vicious swipes on my flak jacket. The light armor is torn apart, leaving bloody furrows on my chest.

"Crazy bitch!" I curse, weakly punching Carol with my good hand.

"I don't mind dying, Adam." Carol growls, small geysers of golden halo spraying out from her wounds, burning embers showering down on me from her fur, "And I would rather die than extend my life at someone else's expense."

Carol leans close as she continues, saliva dripping from her mouth on to my cheek.

"That's the difference between us. I'm not an animal eating just to survive. I still have principles. Unlike you."

Carol's arms pin me down securely, prepping me for the finishing blow with her jaws.

"This is goodbye." Carol says solemnly as she shifts her weight. And as my skin makes contact with her fur, what happened in Winter Rift repeats.

The halo escaping from Carol's wounds begins seeping into my own body.

Now.

"Yes. Now." I grit out, agreeing with the voice of my heart.

My heart opens, sucking in the potential and -

------------

Reconcile

I blink, realizing I'm back at Crossroad City's Bus Terminus, right in the middle of loading my suitcase in the luggage compartment. Debra's beside me, struggling with her extra large suitcase. One of the wheels breaks off from overuse and Debra's suitcase slams to the floor, spilling out its rather surprising contents.

"A fur suit?" I mutter, surprised at the sight of the man sized tiger costume scattered all around Debra. What's the deal with this vision?

"Right. Laugh it up, won't you?" Debra gives me an ugly look as she hurriedly begins repacking her luggage. With my own bag stowed away, I bend down to give Debra a hand.

"Wasn't laughing." I say, helping Debra with the fur suit's headpiece, "Just surprised is all."

"Sorry I snapped at you just now." Debra sighs as she accepts the headpiece from me, "Not everyone likes, or even respects, the furry community."

"I knew a few guys like that at the Academy. Furries I mean." I remark, "Something about having the heart, maybe spirit of an animal?"

"Well, roughly that's the idea." Debra nods as we finish loading her bag into the bus, "I'm a tiger. Tammy the Tiger's my real name. I was just born in the wrong body."

I feel Debra's potential wriggling about, waiting to be accepted. To be absorbed. No way I'm going to miss this opportunity.

"We had a furry club back at the Academy." I say, opening my heart to Debra's potential, welcoming it into its new home, "But living the lifestyle can be inconvenient for an adult."

"I hear you." Debra nods, "That's why Fur Con's so important. This year its being held at the Pay 2 Win casino. Its probably the only chance for everyone in the community to gather in a year."

"Sounds fun." I reply encouragingly as Debra's potential floods into me, "I used to be involved, but human life started getting in the way."

"Really? Wow!" Debra gushes at the sight of a kindred spirit, "What's your fursona?"

"Big cat. Just like yours." I grin.

"Well then! Here you go!" Debra pulls out a pawprint sticker from a pocket and applies it to Love's holster case.

"This is?" I ask curiously, examining the sticker with its copious amounts of glitter.

"A pride print!" Debra smiles, "Big cats have to stick together, don't we?"

"Indeed we do." I happily affirm, "Indeed we do."

There's a swirl of warm energy building around me. I did it. Debra's potential starts to stabilize, allowing me to drink deep -

Reconciliation failed.

"What!" I shriek in alarm, as a sour feeling spreads throughout my body, like milk gone bad.

Your answers to Debra's questions were not acceptable.

"She wants to be absorbed by me!" I object, "You feel it too don't you? Debra wants this!"

Debra is a disturbed woman. What she wants is beyond her reach.

"That's nonsense!" I press on, as cracks begin to spread across the entire bus terminal, "I don't feel her resisting me!"

You persuaded Debra to surrender to you by entertaining her delusions. Debra is not a tiger. Neither does she possess the soul of one. She is merely an autistic woman that believes she is something that she is not.

"And what does that have to do with what's going on now?" I groan in pain, sinking to my knees as the entire station dissolves into grey formlessness.

Debra wants to actualize her delusions through you. Her potentiality lacks the ability to do so however. So your own potential is being drained instead.

"Fuck!" I scream in horror, as my body grows transparent. The curdling feeling spreads, as Debra invades my heart like a virus.

You must do something.

"How is this possible?" I curl into a fetal position, strength leaking through every pore, "Carol became a beast woman thanks to Debra, right?"

Carol already inhabited the body of a fox. Debra was a regular human. A simple merger. Nothing more, nothing less.

Desperately, I try to tear off the sticker Debra had gifted to me, but it won't budge. It might as well have become part of Love's holster.

I cannot hold her off for much longer.

"Send me deeper." I say, grasping at straws.

Deeper?

"Debra became part of Carol and Buddy." I sputter, black spots forming all over my vision, "So there must be an overlap. Send me there."

Deeper. Into the overlap.

"Its our only chance." cold sweat drips from my forehead, "If we reach the overlap and I can find Buddy's potential, then we can salvage this."

Very well. I will push through what's left of Debra to get you there. But doing so will force us to absorb Debra completely.

"Meaning we've only one chance." I mutter grimly.

Correct. Do not waste it.

And with those words from my heart, the world shatters.