"You know what?" Candace huffed. "No. I'm not gonna bow to the damned Omnids nor bind myself to their fat ass floating Justice construct."

"So then…" Manny began.

"Unbind Candace, bind Loops," Candace grabbed her temples, silver fractals flaring from her paws. "Aight, scan me now babes."

Manny tapped Candace's wrist with her plastic fingers. "Huh."

A confused emoji appeared on her monitor:

(☉_ ☉)

"How?" Manny tapped Candace's white hand again. "You… you're Donutz Loops, a delver born in the wild Western Reaches?"

She pulled out another folder from the desk and flipped through the pages. A new expression flashed on her face:

(●__● )

"Not bound, nor owned by anyone. No pending lawsuits. Hum. Well then. That's… rather unexpected. I'm guessing that you've somehow fractalized your conceptual identity?"

"Yep."

"Impressive. The Lawsuit attached to Candace Rhineheart doesn't affect you."

"Yep." Candace made an extra-smug fox face.

Nessy's phone buzzed. She dug into her pocket and started typing on it.

"How do you have a phone network in this place?" Adelle wondered, glancing at the husky.

"Systemfall-net connects to all sorts of places," Calvin commented. "I've a router that amplifies the signal in the back, I get news from all sorts of quirky dimensions. Manny and I enjoy interdimensional cable shows."

"Yep," Nessy said. "Just my folks asking where we are on the account that we've missed dinner with them. I texted to let them know we'll come… over another day as soon as we get back home. Hopefully the messages gets through, the bars are looking all weird."

"Sometimes things eat outgoing messages," Calvin commented. "It happens."

"Hold up," Candace sniffed Calvin and Manny. "You two are… together?"

"We're… friends," Calvin said a bit too quickly.

Manny nodded.

"Just friends, eh?" Candace prodded. "Why not more?"

"Excessive entropy washes all away," Calvin said, "Manny is a conceptoid born in one of my drones from my love for my farm. Unfortunately, her level isn't high enough to survive the next wave. Unlike me, she is destined to come apart when entropy flood hits this place. Thus, our relationship is… strictly professional. It's just how things are."

Manny's monitor added an emoji to Mini-Mart Achmage's statement:

(╥﹏╥)

"So you've got no way to save her, hum?" Candace asked.

"Unfortunately, not really," Calvin said.

"Das' a shame," Candace tilted her head. "You two seem to get along well."

Calvin sighed. "When you've watched everything crumble around you a dozen times over, you learn not to get too attached."

"Nonsense!" Candace stated firmly. "The greatest weapon against excessive entropy or syntropy isn't tinfoil hats or sticky note eyes—it's love! Trust me, I've seen the end of time, and love's the only thing that keeps on chugging through it all. It's a conceptual idea persisting stronger than anything else."

Calvin considered her words. "What are you suggesting, Miss fox?"

"I could bind you two together," Candace offered. "Soul to soul. That way, when the entropy wave hits, her body will decay, but she will reconstitute as something else by your side. Perhaps something less fragile, more human-ish. Also, she will gradually remember you."

"Just like us, huh?" Kristi asked.

"Yep, yep," Candace bobbed. "Calvin helped Alec and Ness get home ages ago, I'm just returning the favor."

"You could do that for us?" Manny's monitor flickered to a hopeful face.

(◕‿◕)

"Sure!" Candace said. "It's just conceptual permanence reinforcement in the Astral. Fairly basic stuff for a Binder of my caliber, really."

"Yo Foxy," Adelle fired, "didn't you just get your butt kicked by interdimensional lawyers? Maybe chill on the binding stuff for like five minutes?"

"Nu. That was because I stole a Lawyer identity and sued an omnipotent conceptual entity," Candace argued. "This is just a… Dagaz pact between two willing participants who care for each other very much."

"Yo binding didn't do shit for adding Marlena to our… relationship star," Adelle pointed out.

"'Cus the patterns have to match perfectly," Candace huffed. "Marlena didn't really love Alec nor the rest of us for the Dagaz to latch on properly. These two, a man and a conceptoid match great. Their love is real. I can see it in the Astral. The connection is already there, just waiting to be reinforced more by me."

Manny's screen rapid-cycled through emojis: (°ロ°) → (♡‿♡) → (⊙_⊙)

"Would you... want that, Manny?" Calvin asked.

The monitor emoji changed to:

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

(≧◡≦)

"Yes," she voiced.

"And you, Calvin?" Candace asked.

Calvin rubbed his hands with a contemplative look. "I've been alone in this wasteland for ages. Having a permanent companion would be... nice."

"Then it's settled!" Candace clapped her paws together. "Let me do this one binding and then we can go home."

"Are you sure this one won't backfire horribly?" Kristi asked.

"Totally! Just look at these two! Technically, they're already partially bound through Calvin's sticky note art. I'm just gonna make their connection last when most of local reality gets wobbly," Candace assured. "Wobblier. Entropy-er."

She moved to stand between Calvin and Manny, placing one paw on Calvin's arm and the other on Manny's plastic shoulder. Silver fractals danced around her claws, swirling outward to encircle the pair.

"Bind souls in the name of Infinity Paradox Proxima!" Candace chanted. "Maximum bond! Limitless Dagaz!"

The fractals detonated across her figure rushing over the couple. Calvin's tinfoil hat glinted as light refracted off it, and Manny's monitor cycled through colors rapidly.

When the light of the binding faded, Calvin and Manny slowly turned to face each other.

"How do you feel?" Candace asked.

"Hrm," Calvin murmured. "Not much different. A bit… warmer, perhaps?"

"What bout you, girl?"

Manny's screen showed: (❁´◡`❁) "I can feel you," her electronic voice sounded cozy and warm as she grabbed Calvin's hand. "Even when I'm not looking at you!"

"The binding worked!" Candace clapped her paws. "Now you'll always reconstitute by his side, no matter what comes! Yay!"

Calvin turned to Candace, a smile crossing his face. "Thank you."

He hugged the foxgirl.

(♥ω♥) flashed on Manny's screen as she slid closer to Calvin, wrapping her plastic hand around the beardly man.

Nessy's phone buzzed again. She glanced at the screen and let out a squee. "Eeee! Guys! Bulwichu just added me on Pradstagram! She's found us!"

"What?" Adelle asked.

"Look!" The husky girl showed all of us the screen. There it was, a profile picture of a crystalline tree with a friend request notification.

"How the fuck does a tree have a Pradstagram account?" Adelle sputtered.

"Lots of things have internet access," Calvin commented.

"This is great," Candace smiled. "I can bind us to her network signal and open a door straight to our tree!" She made cheeky eyes at Calvin and Mannie. "So, guys… Can I has a door-making chalk as my reward for yo' soul-bindery-engagement?"

"Sure," Calvin dug into his pocket. What he pulled out was a pile of colorless dust, not pink chalk as I expected.

"Shoot," he said, digging through his pocket and producing more dust that fluttered around the office.

"What's up?" Candace asked.

"Chalk's decayed away," Calvin sighed. "Entropy's got it. I thought it would last a bit longer."

"But—" Candace choked indignantly, the giddy grin sliding off her fox snout. "Feh. Das inconvenient. What do?"

"I can give you instructions so you can make another dimensional chalk," Calvin said. "The components to make it exist in the nameless city at the edge of Eureka."

"The edge of Eureka?" Kristi barked. "The place we just effin' escaped from? The thing that almost dragged us to court?!"

Calvin nodded grimly. "Yes. The materials needed for dimensional chalk require a certain resonance that only exists where two realities bleed together."

"Details, my dude," Candace said. "Gib details, we'll handle it."

"The dimensional chalk components exist in a Nameless Mall guarded by incredibly deadly conceptual predators," Calvin explained. "First person hunters."

"The… what now?" Kristi frowned.

"Entities that feed on first person observers," Calvin elaborated. "They detect and consume anything perceiving reality through a first person perspective. Since their nest is quite large, I didn't bother making more gateway chalk recently and focused on concept farming instead."

"Have you tried strapping cameras to yourself to observe yourself in third person?" Candace asked.

"That wouldn't work," Calvin said. "If you did that, you'd still mostly think of yourself in first person. The hunters don't have eyes. They observe and are drawn to thoughts of 'I'."

"Thoughts of I, huh?" Candace mused. "What if I bind ourselves conceptually to observe things… differently?"

"Hrm," Calvin rubbed his lush beard. "Yes. That would hide you from the FPH beasties."

"Aight," Candace turned to me. "Alec, I'ma bind you to second person."

"Second person?" I asked. "What?"

"Think of it as a computer game," Candace clarified.

"Most games I played as a kid back on non-prad Earth were either first or third person. Second person observation seems rather confusing as a concept," I said. "Is that even a thing in games?"

"It just means experiencing yourself as 'you' rather than 'I' or 'he/she/they'." Candace stated.

"And that's going to work?"

"Your fox is the most talented concept Binder I've met," Calvin said. "I reckon that if she does it, it'll work."

"Worth a try," Candace shrugged. "I wanna procurrr' da chalk n' rescue our tree-bae RV ASAP. Calvin, can we borrow five of your drones?"

"Sure. I got plenty of extras to spare. Come on."

Calvin led us back through his domain to a storage shed where several mannequin drones stood inactive. He selected five and brought them out.

"Here they are," he said.

"Are you going to come with us?" I asked.

"No." Calvin shook his head. "This is your Quest to undertake, Sir Alecai. The chalk will last much longer and work best if you procure it without my aid, and win the components through a fair battle at the Nameless Mall. I didn't help you bloom your crystal tree, remember? You planted it yourselves from your reward sandwich!"

"Mkay. What do we need to fetch to make the door-drawing chalk?" I asked.

"You'll need seven components," Calvin said. He pulled out a colorful binder from Manny's desk and flipped it open. "Here's the map of the mall."

He handed Nessy a yellow piece of paper.

He then flipped through the binder and pointed to a sketch on a random page that depicted star-shaped glasses. "First, you'll need 'Starscape Crossview Spectacles' from the optometrist on the second floor. Particular lenses there are broken along dimensional lines. You can differentiate between those n' regular Star spectacles by trying' em on. The Crossview ones will show a view of places that don't exist locally. You will need five pairs."

"Easy peasy." Candace bobbed.

"The optometrist has woven a devious, invisible spider web across the glasses shop," Calvin said. "She will not permit easy lens procurement."

"This reality sounds extra fucked with a side of fucked," Kristi commented.

"Second," Calvin flipped the binder to another page. "Five-times dimensionally-sheared Movie Tickets from the theater. You'll need to look for the ones with dates and showtimes that shift around five times. Grab five."

"From a ticket booth?" Nessy asked.

"Not exactly," Calvin shook his head. "The ticket booth sank into elsewhere. What bloomed in its place is a ticket tree that will defend its ticket-leaves, especially the rare, extradimensional film ones. This tree permeates and controls the entire Nameless Mall dungeon, folding it whichever way it desires due to excessive entropy."

I frowned at the escalating complications.

"Third," Calvin turned the page, revealing a sketch of jewelry. "You'll need Nostalgia Gems from the jewelry store. The crystals contain emotional resonance dust. It's a most essential ingredient for dimension-hopping which helps the chalk target the destination based on your feels."

"What's guarding it?" Kristi asked.

"The Jeweler. She steals nostalgic facial expressions by peeling off faces to grind them into more Nostalgia Gems."

Adelle barked a laugh.

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