A/N: Kept ya waiting huh?
***
The tram rocked gently along its elevated track, carrying the three of them away from the outskirts and back toward the clean, bright streets of the city proper.
Sunny sat between Nephis and Cassie, which had somehow become the default arrangement whenever the three of them were together, and tried very hard to look like a man who wasn't being glared at by the other passengers.
Neither of them had made him wait for an answer about helping him form the Shadow Clan. Nephis had simply said 'Of course,' as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and Cassie had thrown her arms around his neck so hard she'd nearly knocked him into the tree.
That had been twenty minutes ago. Since then, the silence had settled into something thoughtful.
"So," Cassie said at last, turning her head toward him. "Now that we've all agreed to help, where do we start?"
"Funny," Sunny muttered. "I was hoping one of you knew."
"We have a goal," Nephis said. "That is the start of a plan."
"Thanks, Neph. Very helpful."
The corner of her mouth twitched. "You're welcome."
Cassie giggled and leaned back against the seat. "First things first, then. Who knows?"
"Just us," Sunny said immediately. He lowered his voice, though no one nearby was close enough to hear. "The three of us and nobody else. Not the Hunters, not Kai, and definitely not Effie."
"Not much of a clan with just three people." Cassie replied with a quirked brow
Sunny furrowed his brow. "Three people? You're both in the Immortal Flame clan."
Cassie nodded. "I can do both. So, you, me, and Rain."
Nephis leaned forward to look at her. "Wait, what about me? Can't I do both as well?"
The seer shook her head. "No way, you're the Lady of the Immortal Flame, you can't be beneath anyone."
Nephis slowly turned to look Sunny up and down. "...Are you sure about that?" She said in a sultry tone.
Sunny raised his hand to cover his blush. "Neph…" He groaned.
Cassie bristled as she whispered harshly. "In a subordinate role! You- you horndog!"
Nephis chuckled before her expression sobered. "It has to stay quiet. If the Sovereigns learn about our new Shadow Clan, they won't wait to see what happens."
The humor drained out of the air.
"Then we stay quiet until we can defend ourselves," Sunny said. "Which brings me to the next problem."
"Funding," Nephis said.
"Funding," he agreed, rubbing his temple. "Soul shards, memories, housing, salaries, equipment… a clan costs money, and I'm pretty sure a nice house and some contribution points doesn't cover it."
Nephis was quiet for a moment. "I can see if I can spare anything to fund you..."
"No, that won't work," Cassie shook her head, "Your cashflow is most likely being monitored extensively.."
Sunny sighed. "The Hunters and Artisans could produce things. Kido's people are already making decent gear for—"
"Or," Cassie interrupted brightly, "you could sell merchandise."
Sunny froze.
Slowly, he turned his head to look at her.
"What?."
"Think about it. You could team up with Kai and do some photoshoots—"
"No."
"Suits, swimwear, maybe some tasteful nud—"
"Cassie!"
"I'm just saying it's a legitimate revenue stream."
"It would be profitable," Nephis said thoughtfully.
Sunny stared at her in betrayal. "Not you too!"
"I'm only being practical."
"You're enjoying this."
She turned toward the window, but he caught the curve of her lips in the reflection. "Perhaps a little."
Sunny dragged both hands down his face and groaned.
'I'm surrounded.'
"Fine," he said through his fingers. "I'll keep an open mind about funding. Just not that. Never that."
"We'll table it," Cassie said sweetly.
"You'll bury it."
"We'll table it."
The tram slid to a stop, and Cassie rose, tugging them both up with her. "Come on. Mom's been cooking since noon, and if we're late she'll be disappointed."
Sunny's stomach dropped.
He had stared down a Fallen Terror. He had fought a horde of nightmare creatures. Somehow, none of that had prepared him for the phrase 'Mom's been cooking.'
***
Cassie's house was a tidy two-story building at the end of a quiet terrace, with a small garden out front and warm light glowing behind every window. It was bigger than Sunny's house, though not by as much as he had thought.
He stopped at the gate and tugged at the collar of his jacket.
"Is this outfit alright?" he whispered.
Nephis took his hand and squeezed it. "You look fine."
"You're just saying tha—"
Before he could finish, the front door swung open.
"There you are!"
A woman with honey-colored hair tied back in a loose braid swept Cassie into a hug,
She looked at Nephis with a smile. "Oh my, the posters don't do you justice Lady Nephis."
"Ah, please no formalities ma'am." She replied a bit bashfully.
Cassie's mother clapped her hands together. "Wonderful! Please, feel free to call me auntie, Nephie."
Nephis tilted her head. "Nephie..?" She whispered to herself.
Then the woman's gaze landed on Sunny, and he straightened like he'd been caught stealing.
"And you must be Sunny." She beamed. "Cassie hasn't stopped talking about you. Come in, come in, shoes by the door!"
The smell hit him before he was even through the entrance. Roasted meat, fresh bread, something buttery and herbed. His nose led him into the dining room before his brain had finished panicking.
A tall, quiet man with a neat, graying beard sat at the head of the table, hands folded, watching Sunny with a calm, assessing gaze.
"Dad," Cassie said warningly.
"I haven't said anything."
"You're about to."
Her father ignored her retort and just kept looking at Sunny.
Sunny bowed hastily. "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."
"Likewise." The man's eyes flicked to Nephis, then back to Sunny. "I understand you carried my daughter up a collapsing tower."
"I had help," Sunny said carefully.
"And I understand you are dating Changing Star."
Sunny's ears went hot. "…Yes, sir."
He leaned forward.
"And what exactly are your intentions with my daughter?"
"DAD! I told you we're not like that!" Cassie yelled out with a faint dusting on her cheeks.
Sunny's mind spun incomprehensibly. "I-intentions? Sir?"
The man's eyes narrowed. "That's right, your intentions, I've seen your type before, dark and brooding playboys, you're even dressed up like one, " The man looked over Sunny's outfit, one Kai had bought him. "What? Was one girl not enough? You had to pursue my daughter too?"
Sunny's mouth gaped. 'What the hell's going on!? Why is Cassie's Dad interrogating me!? I-I need to come with an answer, think Sunless! Think!'
He looked to his sides, Cassie had buried her beet red face in her hands while Nephis was looking away, trying, and failing, to stifle a laugh at his misfortune.
The pain of his flaw was ramping up, swallowing he answered. "O-one girl is more than enough for me sir." He managed out, taking another breath and looking at Cassie as he kept answering. "My intention with Cass is to protect her, she's- Her and Neph are two of the three most precious people to me." He looked back to her father. "So, no, I'm not pursuing your daughter."
Cassie beamed at him and Nephis gently squeezed his thigh as he kept eye contact with the older man.
Eventually Cassie's dad relented and looked away.
"Honestly, dear," Cassie's mother said, setting a steaming pot on the table, "you've scared the poor boy."
"That's the idea." He grumbled.
Dinner was braised beef and root vegetables in a rich, dark gravy, a loaf of warm bread, a salad with actual tomatoes, and a creamy sauce that Sunny was fairly certain had been invented by a god.
He took one bite and forgot about the interrogation.
He took a second bite and forgot his own name.
By the time he looked up, his plate was empty, Cassie's mother was already ladling more onto it, and a fork was sneaking toward the last piece of beef.
He moved his arm over it.
"Neph."
Nephis, the fork frozen an inch from his plate, tilted her head with wide, innocent eyes. "Yes?"
"Don't."
"I wasn't going to do anything."
"You have a fork."
Cassie snorted into her water glass. Her mother laughed outright.
When the meal was finally done, Sunny set his fork down with reverence and turned to Cassie's mother.
"Auntie… that was honestly the best thing I've ever eaten." Even his Flaw didn't object. "Would you mind sharing the recipe?"
She blinked, then lit up like he had handed her a medal. "Of course I wouldn't! Do you cook, Sunny?"
"Some, I'm still learning."
"Everyone starts somewhere," Cassie's father said.
"He wants to cook for Neph," Cassie said, far too casually.
"Yes," Sunny said, before he could stop himself, and then wished the floor would swallow him.
Nephis stared hard at the tablecloth. The corners of her mouth curving up.
Cassie's mother sent the recipe to his communicator before he'd finished stammering his thanks.
***
Cassie's room was large, warm, and very tidy, with a bed, a thick quilt, and shelves of audio chips arranged by touch. A small speaker sat on the nightstand.
He tried to ignore the posters of 'dark and brooding playboys' on her walls.
Cassie flopped onto the bed with abandon.
"Alright," she announced. "I have Kai's entire discography, so we're going to go through it all and get your opinion Sunny"
"Why me?" Sunny asked warily from the doorway.
"Because you can't lie."
"That," Nephis said, "is the main reason."
"I hat-." He grimaced. "Dislike that you're making me do this."
That didn't stop him from climbing onto the bed when they patted the mattress, though it did take him a moment to figure out where to put his limbs. The bed was big enough for three, barely. Nephis lay on his left, Cassie on his right, and Sunny stared at the ceiling and wondered how exactly his life had come to this.
The first song started: bright, driving, with a hook that lodged itself in his skull within ten seconds.
"Well?" Cassie asked.
"…It's good."
"Just good?"
"It's annoyingly good." He grimaced as his flaw forced an answer.
Cassie made a noise of pure, delighted triumph.
They made it through the first four songs. Sunny gave honest, grudging reviews of each, and Nephis said very little. But then that song came on, NQSC, Never Quitting Super Cupid…
He shuddered as the song played, the beat was catchy, but the lyrics, the lyrics were awful, easily one of the worst songs he's ever heard. He looked to the girls, hoping that this was some sort of sick joke, but no, they were both happily lip singing to the song.
"…Neph."
"Hmm?."
"Is this song popular?."
She nodded. "It's one of Nightingale's most popular songs, yeah."
Sunny looked through the window forlornly. 'Has the world gone insane!? Scratch that, the world has gone insane, I just didn't know I was the only sane one left.'
Cassie turned onto her side to face him. "So~? What do you think? Great right?"
He looked at her with hollow eyes. "It was the most horrendous, atrocious, terrible piece of so-called 'music' I have ever heard in my entire life."
She looked at him blankly. "...Huh?"
Nephis suddenly sat up and looked down at him "WHAT!?"
Cassie sat up and joined Nephis as they grabbed his shirt and started shaking him. "Take that back right now!"
Sunny didn't resist as he was shaken. "No, I cannot lie, it was truly awful."
Nephis made a disgusted face as she let go of him and crossed her arms under her chest. "Ugh! I can't believe you! It's the best!"
He gave a helpless shrug. "I disagree."
Letting out a disappointed huff, Cassie also let go of his shirt and looked to Nephis.
"Hmm," Cassie said, a dangerous smile spreading across her face. "I'd like to test a theory."
She jabbed Nephis in the ribs.
Nephis made a noise Sunny had never heard before, a sharp, helpless squeak, and jerked so hard the whole bed bounced.
The room went very still.
"…Ticklish," Cassie whispered with satisfaction.
"Cassia," Nephis said, in a voice like a drawn blade. "Do not."
Cassie did.
What followed was the single most chaotic thirty seconds of Sunny's life, and that was counting the Crimson Spire. Elbows. Knees. A pillow in his face. Someone's heel in his stomach. He tried to lift his communicator out of harm's way and failed. Cassie shrieked with laughter. Nephis, who had apparently decided that the best defense was a merciless offense, retaliated with fingers that found Cassie's sides and did not let go.
"No! No, wait!" Cassie gasped, writhing. "Neph! Mercy! I yield!"
Nephis, flushed and laughing, did not yield.
"Sunny! Sunny, help! She's gonna kill me!"
Sunny sighed, slid his arms around Nephis's waist, and hauled her off Cassie in a single motion.
Nephis stopped mid-laugh, caught off guard by the sudden grip. Then, instead of struggling, she went soft and leaned back against his chest, catching her breath, her silver hair tumbling over his shoulder.
'She's… laughing.'
He had heard her laugh before, but never like this, bright and unguarded, her whole body shaking with it. Something in his chest turned over.
Cassie, meanwhile, was collapsed on her side, gasping. "Okay. Okay. I'm fine. Truce. Truce. Let me tell you about this next song, because the bridge in it is actually really clever, Kai said he wrote it after a conversation with his agent about-"
Nephis tilted her head back.
Her lips brushed his jaw.
Sunny stopped breathing.
"Neph," he whispered, barely moving his lips. "Cass is right there."
"She's busy," Nephis whispered back, her fingers drifting down across his shirt. Her mouth found the spot just beneath his ear.
"-so there's this key change in the second verse that sounds like it's going to resolve and then it doesn't, which is apparently supposed to represent-"
Her fingers reached his waistband, and dipped beneath it.
'Damnation. Damnation. Damnation.'
"-which is really… hm."
Cassie's voice trailed off.
The room had gone suspiciously quiet. Sunny's breathing, on the other hand, was not quiet at all.
Cassie's head tilted, slowly.
"…Why," she said, "is it so quiet over there?"
"No reason," Sunny said, far too fast.
Her fingers were nearly there.
"Sunny, your breathing is very loud."
"That's… that's from the tickling."
"Is that-"
She sat up.
Two quick hands shot out and smacked them both on the nose like a cat batting at a string.
"NOT. IN. MY. BED!"
"Ow! We weren't-"
"I could hear you!"
"I was only-" Nephis tried, rubbing her nose, her face a spectacular shade of crimson while withdrawing her hand.
"I don't want to know!" Cassie flopped backward, pulled a pillow over her face, and screamed into it. "I love you both, but this is a sacred space!"
Sunny stared at the ceiling. His whole face felt like it was on fire.
Nephis, still pressed against him, shook silently with laughter.
Eventually, Cassie lowered the pillow. She was still pink, but the scowl had melted into something warmer. "…It's late," she said. "You should stay."
"Stay?" Sunny echoed.
"Sleep over. I don't want you taking the tram back at this hour anyway."
Nephis, however, had gone quiet. When she spoke, her voice was low. "Cass… our bodies will be unguarded. Anyone who wants us dead knows what we are now. If something happens while we're in the Dream Realm—"
"I looked," Cassie said gently.
Nephis hesitated.
"I checked before we left the park, and again at dinner. Nothing is going to happen tonight. Not here." She smiled, though it didn't quite hide the thread of worry underneath. "I wouldn't risk Mom and Dad. You know I wouldn't."
Sunny frowned. 'She did say Fate was a mess these days…'
But Cassie's face was calm, and her voice was steady, and Nephis, after a long, careful moment, let out a breath.
"…Alright."
"Wonderful!" Cassie clapped her hands. "Besides, Dad will sleep better knowing Sunny is in reach."
"That does not sound reassuring," Sunny said.
"It isn't meant to be."
***
Lazy looked down at the sleeping form of his young master and sighed inwardly.
'Truely, his carelessness knows no bounds.'
Its form was tattered, still recovering from the last time it had acted. It looked at its hand.
'Supreme maybe? Hm, no, that won't hold for long enough, I'll have to settle for transcendent.'
Sighing again, it used the shadows in the room to manifest a transcendent shadow construct in the shape of a person. Focusing on controlling the construct it sent it to face the approaching enemy.
'Just like playing with a puppet…'
***
Saint Jest of Clan Valor crouched on a rooftop in the quiet terraces of NQSC and watched the last lights go out in the house in the distance.
He had come here for one specific reason, to draw out the Shadow Clan. He had killed Awakened in the waking world and the Dream Realm for decades. The girls didn't matter. The boy didn't matter. They were bait, nothing more.
'It may go against my orders, but I'm sure Anvil will forgive me, afterall, even if I fail to draw them out I'd have removed a thorn from that boy's side.'
He extended his senses through the walls. Three bodies tangled in a bed on the upper floor. Three slow, steady heartbeats. Nothing between him and them but a mundane wall a few dozen meters of air.
He rose, stretching his back with satisfying pops and stepped off the roof.
A chain whipped out of the shadow beneath the chimney and wrapped around his ankle.
Jest unsheathed his cane-sword and cut it in half without looking.
The shattered links crumbled to black dust. A second chain lashed from the next patch of darkness. He cut that one too, and a third, and then he stopped, because someone was standing on the roof ahead of him.
Or something shaped like someone.
It was a figure cut from the same darkness that pooled beneath the streetlamps, featureless but for the lean suggestion of a body, leaning on a long spear of shadow like a sentinel.
It yawned.
Jest felt his lips curl. 'So. They are real.'
His gamble had paid off faster than he expected.
He charged and leapt. The blade in his hand came down in a clean, brutal arc that would have split any Master in two.
The figure shifted lazily, the blade slashed the empty air.
Jest recovered mid-swing and struck again. Then again. Then from the side, and from below. The fourth strike hit the spearman leaving a vicious gash in its flank, only for the shadows around them to surge and fill in the wound.
The spear moved.
It was unhurried, almost lazy, and it still nearly took his throat. Jest twisted away, and chains erupted from the rooftop beneath his feet, coiling around his legs, his arms, his sword. He tore the first set apart. A second set took their place. He snarled and burned through those too, but the figure didn't wait. It charged and Jest barely managed to move, the spear cutting into his side but missing his organs..
He swung down at the spear, binding it in place as his free hand grasped the Shadow saint's neck, crushing it violently. Only for the shadows to once more heal the wound.
His eyes widened and he leapt back out of the spear's reach.
He chuckled to himself. "What's up with this? You're like an evil Sir Gilead!" Shaking his head wryly he picked up his cane's sheath and put his sword away. "How about we call it a draw?"
Seeing the shadow just stand there he nodded to himself. "Strong silent type huh? Never understood the appeal myself but you do you, well, till we meet again!" With that he pulled on his tether and vanished from the waking world.
***
Sunny woke on the altar island of the Sanctuary of Noctis to the quiet creak of old stone and the smell of cold air.
Nephis was already waiting on the steps and they set off through the sleeping citadel as she slipped her fingers between his.
They walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence until they reached their dwelling, once inside Nephis surprised him by instead of heading to the desks she pulled him towards the door in the back of the room and up the narrow stairsHe followed her up the narrow stairs.
Upstairs the whole floor was a single room, there were only a few chests filled with soul shards, a small table, a barely used tub, and a never used bed.
Sunny swallowed as Nephis let go of his hand and strutted to the bed. Tearing his gaze away, he walked to the window shutters.
"Leave them closed." She said when he turned his back, a faint light shining in his periphery when she said those words.
'D-did she just…' With a dry mouth Sunny slowly turned back to Neph, the shadows of the room doing nothing to hide her nude figure from his sight.
'Damnation…' was his only thought as his gaze devoured her form.
"Sunny," she said as she held out her arms, her face and chest flushed. "Come."
Without needing anymore encouragement, he stalked towards her, his armor disappearing into motes of silver light as he dismissed it.
***
"The Obel readings have stabilized," the analyst at the head of the table said with the large bags under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept in weeks.
A graph glowed above the conference table. The jagged line had climbed and spiked for the better part of two months, then flattened out like a heartbeat monitor after bad news.
Jet slouched in her chair, one boot propped against the table leg. "Stabilized as in stopped?"
"Stabilized as in returned to baseline. Slightly above what it was four weeks ago."
"Which," another analyst added, "coincides with the reports of anomalous shadow behavior across NQSC."
Murmurs rippled around the table.
"Master Kurt," the first analyst said. "You were assigned to the shadow anomalies. Have you determined the cause?"
Jet didn't look at him. She felt him stiffen anyway.
"No," Kurt said evenly. "Nothing conclusive."
Her eyes flicked sideways. His jaw was set, his hand flat on the table and perfectly still.
'Well, well.'
She opened her mouth.
Then she closed it. Because the next question would be where she had been when Kurt dragged her to a certain house in a certain terraced district, and the owner of that house was exactly the kind of person Saint Cor would prefer to keep out of any report.
So Jet said nothing. The meeting stumbled on, and she let it.
When it was over, she caught up with Kurt in the corridor, grabbed his sleeve, and hauled him into an empty office, shutting the door behind them.
"You lied."
"I did not."
"Kurt."
He straightened his uniform and gave her a long, level look. "You were sitting right next to me, Jet. You didn't say anything either."
Jet opened her mouth.
She closed it.
She opened it again.
"…Touché," she muttered.
They stood there for a while in the quiet office, two government Masters who had each, for reasons neither wanted to examine, decided to look the other way.
"We're going to talk about why," Jet said finally.
"Not today."
"Not today," she agreed, and Kurt nodded, and they went their separate ways.
***
A/N: I feel like I owe you guys an explanation, well, long story short, my work sent me off to the good ol' USA. there were a couple other reasons but moving countries was the big one. But I'm back now, so enjoy! As always feedback is welcome.