It seemed simple.

My girls had been returned to me

Fifteen ‘Eviscerators’ and nine ‘Purifiers’ that had been ‘sealed’ during our ongoing fight with the natives, all accounted for.

Only Ekaterina, the incredibly brave named ‘Ravager’ who volunteered and risked her very existence in an attempt to absorb the enchanted item, was missing. There was no one to threaten for her return.

There was no one to blame, only me - her ‘sealing’ was entirely my fault, a stupid gamble with the undeniably magical stave which showed we wouldn’t and shouldn’t experiment with the enchanted items until we fully understood what made them tick. Some were able to give my metal-absorbing ursine greater power, others were effectively toxic.

The fact I let her try weighed on me heavily.

A small band of formerly imprisoned ‘Eviscerators’ and ‘Purifiers’ were filled with joy, all demanding their share of attention, to be hugged, patted, or nuzzled, and I was blissfully drowning under the tide of fur.

There was fear and sorrow tightly mixed with an equal measure of exhilaration and euphoria, almost like a family reunited with their long-lost relatives in one tearful moment, it would be probably a strange scene to be witnessed from the outside, but meaningful to us in a way I never had thought possible.

My monsters were my girls, my people, my tribe, my family.

I greeted them all back, each and every one of them.

Even Miwah, Tama and Narita were forced to do their share of welcoming, making me wonder how the whole ‘sealing’ even worked to bring such a reaction into the girls who didn’t fear death.

“For Master! Master! Master!” They repeated the only line they could speak, yet not the only one they could express. There was no need for the looming telepathic link to understand what they meant, and why they behaved this way. They were, simply, hurting - or rather they weren’t hurting anymore?

I wasn’t going to press them about their experience unless they were ready to tell me. The knowledge it was as dreadful to them as it was dangerous to us was enough to know, a disruption which needed to be fought against, prevented, at any cost.

“Any reaction from the humans?” I asked, still holding the particularly insistent ‘Eviscerators’ close, my little werewolf girls, while the others still wanted to pile around, firmly set in their decision to not leave my presence for a while.

It seemed I would be stuck with them for the moment, as formerly ‘sealed’ girls hushed their sisters away in the unspoken avowal that they would take care of me from now on, or at the very least, stay within close proximity. Our house was far too small for this large of a gathering, yet, I wasn’t bothered.

My little, furry companions were all adorable. All mine.

“None, Master.” Miwah confirmed after a short moment spent setting, “No messages, no white flags.”

I didn’t respond, just silently patted one of the ‘Purifiers’ who accepted my attention with the typical girlish giggle. Miwah, Tama and even Narita acted like the permanent crowd of their sisters pushing in was quite a normal morning welcome, Miwah gave her kin a welcoming hug, Narita acted almost grandmotherly, and Tama simply thought of her small variants as maidenly assistants with grooming.

My mind, however, started to focus on the troubles we were about to have, as I was increasingly more sceptical about the humans’ ability to hold any meaningful dialogue and keep up any agreements.

It seemed simple, but it was anything but.

Appearances were very deceiving.

The humans may have released the captives, that much was true, but whether they were truly ready to make peace, or had some sinister plot in mind, remained to question.

I found it difficult to trust the natives, they felt like a completely different, alien species, no matter what my increasingly conflicting memories had to say, and I had no reason to believe that our simple, straightforward terms would be accepted at face value, with no deception and betrayal at a later date.

My people, despite their strong inborn misanthropy, felt like ones who would be more capable of upholding the bargain.

I leaned back, this time with the smaller ‘Purifier’ being the one who hung on my back, and considered my options.

“Send…” I replied, pausing before I ordered the ‘Eviscerators’ scouts to run into the unseen barrier, “Send for Fleshspeakers and all Displacers.”

Hurting more of my little adorable canines was out of the question. The ‘Displacers’ were the only ones who were actually able to see the invisible shield, likely because it represented a massive no-go zone in which their rifts couldn’t open, rather than their eyes being in any way different from the rest of my furry menagerie.

I welcomed another little canine monster girl that crawled into my lap.

Considering the ‘Eviscerators’ were normally the silent types, compared to their vulpine pyromaniac cousins, it served as the indicator that they didn’t like their off-time in - whatever prison ‘sealing’ conjured - a single bit. I dreaded the fact more of them would likely be caught in that damned spell, but it was inevitable as our conflict with humans wasn’t over as of yet.

“Get Sora or one of her Displacers to check the barrier from a distance. Just let me know whether they can see it.” I decided.

“Yes, Master.”

“Can Fleshspeakers fly in this weather?” I asked, realising it was the vision that suggested it was raining outside. It was barely noticeable in the commotion.

“It’s just a morning sprinkle, Master. There should be no issue.” Tama answered, likely translating the response from Arke. I wasn’t quite sure how my chiropteran girl would fit into the house, her wings had massive spans normally.

Technically, I didn’t necessarily require her here, but I would need to get all or at least most ‘Alphas’ around, in the camp, to coordinate. If I understood it correctly, my silvery vixen was merely forwarding the metaphorical calls, rather than actually giving the bats the flight orders.

There was no telling whether this was a trap, and I had even less of an idea of how to handle the official negotiation if the local ruler was indeed accepting the peace. Our ‘sealed’ may be back into our fold, but their release wasn’t accompanied by any message - someone simply broke the spell.

There was, in fact, no hint of what would happen next - a letter, an emissary, everything was possible. Maybe the ruler of this land would come out, perhaps the priestess would try different spells on a larger scale as they did back in the southern shrine.

I didn’t know.

“Master?”

Sora’s voice interrupted me from pondering and unwittingly cuddling with the monster girls who obsessively refused to leave my side.

This was the first time the teleporting feline didn’t abuse her ability to open rifts through space to arrive at my vicinity, but entered somewhat traditionally, through the doors. I suspected it had more to do with more than twenty little ones insisting on staying within the room.

“Yes, Sora?”

The ‘Displacer Alpha’ squeezed in between the crowd of her canine and vulpine cousins, acting like they were always supposed to be there, let two of my companions lean against her, and continued:

“The barrier is still there, Master.” She said, and then briefly shifted her gaze away from me, and added, “It is fading away quickly.”

“Fading?” I asked while the anthropomorphic cat squinted her eyes at the unseen prey, enough to make me wonder how she perceived the world around us.

After all, the ‘Displacers’ had an uncanny ability at navigation that allowed them to know where their rifts led with a small margin of error that bordered an unreliable, yet still very real precognition.

“The zone we can’t enter is collapsing, Master,” Sora said, “I can try to land on the main keep roof, but it feels like I will miss by twenty metres. A hundred. Then a ten?”

She seemed genuinely unsure, and her description suggested the castle appeared as a moving target to her senses, yet Sora was willing to take a jump, despite the risks involved, and enemies that might lie in wait.

“No.” I decided quickly. The fact that she instinctively used one ‘Eviscerator’ in the crowd for support made me assume that the malfunctioning barrier gave her quite vertigo, not unlike one we experienced by traversing ‘Displacers’ portals.

If the incident with the artefact taught me anything, it was that we couldn’t force through the magic intentionally designed to repel us, there were repercussions for that.

“Maybe the humans aren’t able to keep that thing up anymore, and that’s why they are considering the negotiation.” I mused, “Still I will need you, and all your sisters, available. Could you transport Ari to the camp, and bring the Fleshspeakers over so they don’t have to fly the entire way?”

“Yes, Master,” The anthropomorphic feline answered and rushed away, with the typical penchant of impatience she had displayed before quickly returning.

I scanned the room, still overcrowded, and decided:

“I will need my clothes.”

There was this underlying, unexplainable feeling, a hunch of sorts, or perhaps a glimpse of the vixen’s thoughts, and her inkling to flirt a little. I had no time to ponder about it too much.

“Business before pleasure, Tama,” I said. “I can’t lead the negotiation from our bedroom”

“Yes, Master.” The vixen replied, smirking.

My mind quickly returned to the matter at hand.

The barrier, the shield, a warding, whatever it was.

Was it collapsing, or did their spellcasters try to move it?

I never considered the option the barrier could even be mobile, or the circumstances under which it could be erected in the first place, but the fact that it was capable of killing any of my girls who found themselves within its domain made the seemingly immobile protection into an offensive weapon.

They would even try to move it in our direction.

“Sora?” I asked, pausing, trying to formulate the question, then spoke again: “Is the edge of the barrier moving in any direction?”

The ‘Displacer’ was still trying to query the rest of her breed through their mental link, verifying with her sisters in the field.

“Towards us? Away from us?” I insisted, expecting a positive answer, but the opposite seemed to be true.

“No,” Sora replied after the longest minute of consideration, then continued with rising confidence: “It is almost gone. We can move in. The walls are fuzzy for some reason, but the courtyard, and the main building, I can take us in.”

“Hold,” I said before my feline companion, known for her over-eagerness, tried to teleport us into the fortress, or something equally unsafe.

I barely had pants on, and even then it was mostly due to the fact that the number of freshly released ‘Eviscerators’ and ‘Purifiers’ were more than happy to assist in dressing me up, their interest ranging between amusement and obsessiveness.

Their experience with the ‘sealing’ apparently made them more clingy than they were ever before.

“Have one of your kin keep an eye on the castle, Sora, and let me know if anything changes,” I said

Even if I suddenly found it too difficult to simply trust the humans after so many failed attempts to communicate, there was still a certain small chance they were finally willing to change their ways.

Trust, but verify, I told myself, then added a little bit to my order:

“Sora, keep the rest of your sisters on standby to bring reinforcements for the meeting, or to pull us out. I’ll need you close too, as an emergency transport.”

“Yes, Master.” The feline meowed in approval

The most logical, or at very least traditional, option seemed to be simply to greet the emissary on the open field, roughly halfway through our lines and the walls of the fortress walls. It was, however, also the most dangerous, as I wasn’t able to estimate the range of the bows the humans used.

I didn’t even know if there were any customs to follow either.

Either way, it required Arke - and a puppeteered human - to translate, which required knowledge of the ‘Fleshspeakers’ effective control radius, which was something I didn’t really test either, albeit I was reasonably certain that it would be at the very least visual range once the target had been infected.

The pair of helpful canine girls tried to get me into another set of clothes, and I stood up.

“For Master!” One of them suggested adjusting the tunic for me.

“You are good-looking as well,” I responded to the compliment without much thought, my mind preoccupied with the question of how, and more importantly where, to hold the talks.

I paradoxically wasn’t that afraid of the danger it represented as I was wary of the next stupid move from my side, being painfully aware of how horribly wrong it went every time I tried to step forward to do the talking in the language I didn’t know, although Tama and Narita did not fare much better when they tried to do the same.

There seemed to be only wrong choices.

“Girls?” I asked, “Could you please dress up for the conference and meet us outside.”

“Yes, Master.”

While Tama was the only one of my companions who was notably interested in aesthetics, with her desire for a nice dress, Miwah and Narita were more practical sorts opting for the protection of the local scale armour.

I bet there was a certain, basic decorum, expected at the peace negotiation, maybe with a process to follow, or rituals to conduct, but without any real understanding of the local customs, I was more interested in simple practicalities over bling.

However, in the light of constant failures, perhaps simply inviting the human spokesman into the camp, or rather the former village, wasn’t as bad of a choice, but I wasn’t quite sure what I would do to inspire the required level of trust. Maybe Ari, our only friendly human, needed to be present, as a token sympathiser.

I adjusted the cloak I was offered and went to stay at the house’s door, looking at our current camp, then stepped outside. Although some of my stalkers followed, some remained inside to help my mates.

The canopy of thick branches overhead combined with the spreading creep under my boots made the issue of the rain almost entirely moot, even if the cover didn’t reach everywhere.

Some of my girls weren’t particularly keen to get their fur wet, but others were milling around without a care in the world, and looking at the perimeters they even continued the effort by erecting watch towers and fortifying the place.

Absent-mindedly, I inspected my clothes, the tunic and the cloak were once again of different colours, dark with red lining, even slightly differing in style from the previous.

Where, and how, it was procured was going to remain a mystery - I was not going to ask, considering the range of the ‘Displacers’ they could have ‘borrowed’ it from anywhere within the valley, and the only thing I could hope they weren’t needlessly cruel about it considering their penchant for looting.

A ‘Ravager’ resting near the closest campfire rose to greet me.

“Kuma,” I said, greeting the large ursine, my hand outstretched.

She kneeled, to compensate for the massive difference in height, and I gently touched the side of her snout.

“I am sorry for Ekaterina, but I would need your sisters again.” I decided, “All who can put together a decent armour would make a guard for us.”

“There is no need to worry, Master.” Kuma said, quietly: “In you, we are forever. Ekaterina would return once you harness the power that made that stave.”

She shifted her gaze to the unseen horizon, an unmistakable sign of a telepathic conversation with her sisters, arranging them to assemble, her seemingly permanent tick of tiredness gone for the occasion.

“We will need to catch a ride with the Displacers, Master,” Ursine reported, and I nodded, giving her a gentle touch.

“Thank you.”

“We are here for you, Master,” Kuma replied.

“I appreciate it.”

Leaving Kuma to gather her ursine siblings, I watched as Arke landed on the camp clearing along with a few of her sisters, while others were brought in through the ‘Displacers’ portals.

Then they deposited a few puppeteered humans who were going to facilitate the conversation once the human delegation arrived.

If they were going to arrive in the first place - we may prepare all we like, but if the humans weren’t ready to make a deal, it would be for nought.

I made a step forward to greet Arke, my chiropteran followers gathering around.

“Arke.” I nodded

They apparently eschewed the concept of human fashion opting to use their power to create their own outfits of skin and bone, perfectly fitting their purposes, bypassing our need to secure sources of metal and cloth. Yet their solution to it was somehow more distressing to behold and I was almost certain that the apparel the ‘Alpha Fleshspeaker’ shaped for herself was alive.

The puppets were, in a way, equally terrifying, pale, fleshy creatures, with enlarged eyes struggling with the light, with bodies disfigured by abnormal growth. At least, they brought only two enthralled humans, but whether the puppets - drones as the system referred to them - would be still classified as such was a stretch.

A brief moment of regret swept over me, realising that the whole process was probably already creating a stain on the relationship with the locals we were already on mostly hostile terms with.

There was still a certain aura of worldless assurance from my still cute bat girl, maybe her ‘mind’ element was at work, or perhaps my own connection with my people grew stronger.

I was still going to hug Arke.

My thoughts were interrupted when the swirling rift deposited Ari nearby before I had a chance to exchange words.

The human girl, dressed in one of the better local outfits, was about to kneel, but I stopped her.

There wasn’t any need for any of this, with Kuma being the only one from my companion who did it for purely practical reasons to keep eye contact.

“You don’t need to kneel,” I said before realising the girl didn’t really understand the language.

“For Master!” The human said and opted to bow deeply instead, apparently comprehending the words as there was no language barrier, an impossible obstacle that held me back for that long. I shot a look towards Arke, figuring out she was translating, telepathically, and at a distance. This was quite convenient, but I still had to remind myself it wasn’t the be-all, end-all, solution to our problems.

Ari raised her head, shyly, but without fear and hatred the other natives had towards us.

It was almost ironic she served as a reminder to me of how humans were even supposed to look. The crazy girl - a term which I immediately chastised myself mentally for using - was the strongest connection between us and humans.

Vaguely Asian features with black hair, and medium-toned skin, there weren’t any visual changes that would stand out among natives that would indicate she was somehow genetically divergent from them to give her immunity to our powers.

“I expect a delegation from the local lord. Could you be present for the negotiation? You represent the human's peaceful relation with us.” I said, and then immediately paused realising I was still speaking with the local girl who doesn’t speak our language, and came from a different society. It, however, didn’t seem to be a hindrance now as it was before.

“For Master!” She answered, accompanied by a couple of words in their native tongue.

“She understands, Master, and is ready to show the humans the way.” Arke readily translated in speech when she made a few steps closer. It was almost eerie that it worked, after so many missteps there was a way.

Ari, though the only human in this entire camp, wasn’t frightened. She just bowed to Arke when the bat girl came close and didn’t show any sign of real distress, giving me some hope that if she was going to stay with us, others may as well.

The voice of Helmy suddenly interrupted my thoughts on the matter.

“Master. The humans opened their gates and the small group headed here.”

This made me genuinely surprised - I was expecting a message, an emissary, even an entire delegation - and when it arrived, I didn’t feel ready for it at all.

At least Helmy seemed ready, fitted in armour, her signature helmet tucked under her arm, another hand on the sword handle - I was proud of my not-really-little foxy.

She was more ready than I was.

“Any sign of her priestess?” I asked, forcing my brain to focus, as it was their priestesses that represented the largest threat towards us so far, and while the diminishing strength of the barrier could suggest that they weren’t able to sustain the spell for too long, I was in any way certain.

“No, Master.” Helmy replied, “Mounted warriors struggle with their horses right now.”

“Any female in their group?” I followed up, acknowledging that so far the spellcaster caste among the local humans was compromised exclusively of women.

While I couldn’t rule out that the magic worked along with gender roles of any kind, our only possible identification of casters was the fact they were all female, with the trademark colourful robes of office.

Helmy, now taking a position at my side, still answered while her eyes switched to unseen horizons as she telepathically queried the ‘Purifiers’ at the front.

“I don’t think so, Master.” She answered, with confidence in her voice.

I was not so certain - I still didn’t know for a fact whether their greatest weapon against us, the barrier, or any large-scale ‘sealing’ magic, would work on the whim, yet I didn’t want to walk onward to possibly more mundane methods of attack.

“Helmy, alert your little ones. If they brought the priestess into the meeting, the deal is off and we blast her to oblivion.” I decided, albeit hesitantly.

“Those who disobey you shall burn, Master.” Helmy declared.

I was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the situation and found more and more holes in my entire planning, but there wasn’t any option to step back anymore, and the circumstances forced the haste.

“Arke, you meet them in the middle, and tell them to meet us at the edge of the camp.” I decided hastily and headed there, my mind too focused on the possibilities to pay any attention to the surroundings, and the whole entourage of the monster girl that made up the self-appointed honour guard.

I almost ran - in fact, it would have been more comfortable to let myself be teleported by the ‘Displacer’ rather than make the trip on my own legs, but I used the opportunity to clear my own thoughts for the event I was not prepared for.

How I would play this role, I didn’t know.

So consumed by my thoughts I even failed to notice that the soft, morning rain had passed already.

Briefly looking up, I noticed the ‘Purifiers’ in the branches, and the swirling air as now cloaked ‘Eviscerators’ lurking in the shadows, with occasional ‘Defiler’ distributed between the spaces for healing.

I gave them a brief nod, and they answered with a cheer - I was so proud of my girls.

At the outer wall, an orderly line of ‘Ravagers’ stood up, arriving there much faster through the assistance of their teleporting cousin, with their ‘Alpha’ already ready.

Strangely enough, even Narita, Tama and Miwah took the shorter way in, probably through Sora’s spacial rifts. It was probably for the best since they were much more imposing than I would ever be.

A small group of humans were already passing the cleared fields in between, forcing them to abandon their nervous horses and leave some soldiers behind, while their delegates continued forward.

I was certain there was the local lord among them - while I had never seen the man, his status was evident by the fact he opted to wear an opulent, colourful robe complete with the hat that stood up, making them easy to recognise.

Despite the fact his escort, now reduced to merely a single warrior in the complete set of armour, and what I believe was the scribe from before, strode towards us quite confidently.

If there were any ‘elite’ left in the castle, there was a good chance he would take one of them as the bodyguard, not to mention that the lord of the land could be a formidable warrior on his own.

He wasn’t even disquieted by the hulking puppet already spouting the words in his direction or the winged form of Arke, who spoke of either the lack of fear or a very good self-control.

Ari, despite her humble origin, seems to be quite capable of presenting herself.

The lord’s bodyguards, however, were more discomforted, and the rest of his men, around ten armoured riders, remained at the distance still struggling with horses, leaving me at least a sliver of certainty that we could handle the fight.

However, if this was a true diplomatic meeting, it was not the numbers who decided it, but my words - and I was, for the first time, experiencing stage fright.

I stepped forward as well, flanked by Narita, Tama and Miwah, all kitted out and looking quite official.

It made me feel proud of my girls.

Now, I should do to make my girls proud of me.