"I got it!" Nessy declared after a moment of staring at us holding hands.

With a cheeky grin, she spun around and she advanced towards the doors that slid open for her with a whoosh.

She rushed forward and leapt onto the nearest checkout conveyor belt. Balancing expertly, she began walking atop it with an exaggerated swagger as it carried her backwards, her nail-bat raised triumphantly above her head.

Then, using the moving belt as her stage, she grabbed the employee-summoning loudspeaker microphone and began to sing and dance, her voice echoing through the abandoned-looking, empty store:

"Superstore beware, we're coming for you now, Soul-stealing spider, before us you'll bow! Got my bat of nails and my nose so keen, I'll sniff out your web, your secrets unseen!"

She spun on the moving conveyor, her tail swishing in perfect tempo as her voice gained power. The overhead lights flickered in response, as if the store itself was listening.

"My pack's got power, pack's got might, Raptor's claws in morning light! Tree-man walking, death defied, Strand sisters' souls we'll find with pride!"

The raptor sisters stared at her with wide eyes. Nessy leapt from one checkout to another with canine grace as she continued her performance. A halo of lights seemed to refract above her, lighting up her entire figure with silver sparks.

"Your aisles stretch toward infinity, My nose cuts through your trickery! Your discounts fail to catch my eye, Your membership we'll nullify!"

Kristi squeezed my hand hard as both of us stepped into the endless store, her sisters following behind us. The fox stayed in the car, guarding the entrance.

As Nessy sang, her expression suddenly changed. Her nose twitched rapidly, her ears swiveling as she detected something beyond our perception. The silver glow around her flickered and her movements became less certain, her balance wavering on the conveyor belt, tail twitching.

"Wait—what's this I smell? An ocean vast and deep, Endless shelves where shadows creep! Corridors that twist and bend, Without a beginning or an end!"

Nessy stumbled, nearly falling as her eyes widened with shock. She grabbed a register to steady herself, looking genuinely disturbed by whatever her enhanced senses were detecting. She blinked tears out of her eyes and wiped her face quickly, claws tapping on the bat.

"Divided by zero, my mind's astray, Lost in this impossible maze today! Too many scents on too many trails, My tracking wavers, my focus fails!"

Despite her clear disorientation, she stood taller, her determination visibly hardening as she continued her performance with a snarl. The silver glow around her stabilized, pulsing like a heartbeat.

"Yet I won't yield to your endless halls, I'll find those souls behind your walls! I'll breathe deeper, sharpen my senses clear, Push through endlessness without fear!"

Krysanthea and I exchanged worried glances as we watched Nessy's struggle playing out before us. Whatever she was sensing within the Superstore was clearly overwhelming even her enhanced abilities. But then, her expression changed again—this time to one of sudden clarity, her eyes lighting up with revelation as she hummed to herself, banging the bat against the registers to reinforce her catchy beat.

"There's order in this madness, I can tell, Rules that govern this retail hell! Work within the system, that's the way, To navigate this labyrinth today!"

She spun back toward us with newfound purpose, her tail wagging with excitement. She pointed back toward the RV with the nail-covered bat, her voice rising with triumph. An echo of something distant and inhuman resounded from the endless aisles wrapped in gray-white fog. Nessy shuddered and opened her mouth wide.

"I smell it now! The path unfolds! Bulwichu, our chariot of steel and gold! More than transport, she's our shield, Our fortress of logic to cross your shopping field!

We'll drive her through those sliding doors, Crash right through your twisting floors! Our mobile stronghold, crystal-heart, Will tear your limitless aisles apart!"

Something invisible seemed to echo her words as eerie female whispers from the shadows with "part… art..." Nessy's face became alight with manic certainty as she delivered another verse:

"Pack united, strengths combined, Those missing fragments we will find! Superstore, your time has come, Your spider web will be undone!"

She finished and swung her bat through the air. "Wooo-ooo-ohhh! Our deal swapping's done!!" She yelled and slammed the speaker microphone down and jumped off the moving belt, panting furiously.

Then she waddled over to me, gave me a peace sign and collapsed into my arms.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Noppers. Negative fitty outta elevenses," Nessy mumbled, sagging into me. "Trying to smell infinity gave me brain big ouch."

"What the hell was that?!" Katerina snapped, gesturing wildly at the now-silent supermarket loudspeaker system. "Did you seriously just announce our presence to whatever bullshit lurks in this place? With a goddamn musical number?!"

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"You know what they say... go big or go home," Nessy murmured weakly from my embrace.

Kaledoniya stared at Nessy with a wide open raptor mouth. "That was... kind of amazing, though? How did you do the echo thing with your voice? And the music in my head? And the spotlights?"

"Skeeeeells," Nessy replied vaguely. "Like your zoomies bracelet."

The youngest Strand sister touched her glass-eye bracelet self-consciously.

Kirra stepped closer, eyeing Nessy with new interest. "I've never seen anything like that. It was like she was... Musically negotiating with the store itself."

"Precisely what we should NOT be doing," Katerina growled, checking her weapon with swift, agitated movements. "We don't negotiate with Systemfall-altered buildings. We take stuff from them. Stuff our town needs to survive!"

Krysanthea had been silent since Nessy's performance, her amber eyes fixed on the endless aisles visible through the entrance, that fearful quiver still present in her scaled fingers intertwined with mine. Now, however, her professional demeanor reasserted itself like armor sliding into place.

"Everyone, back to the vehicles," she ordered, voice sharp with authority. "I have a new plan."

"But we just—" Katerina began.

"Now," Krysanthea cut her off, leaving no room for argument. "Alec, bring Nessy."

I lifted the husky-girl into my arms. She wasn't particularly heavy, but she made no effort to help, instead dramatically draping herself across my chest like a swooning damsel.

"My hero," she whispered with a weak grin, though I could tell she genuinely wasn't well. Her usually bright eyes were unfocused, pupils unevenly dilated.

I whispered "Stats" and glanced at her stats, noticing that her Riffweld was at zero.

Dang.

Krysanthea opened the trunk of the RV. Inside was what looked like a small arsenal—several blocks of putty-like material, detonators, and various tools arranged in foam-lined compartments.

"That's the C4, right?" I asked, eyebrows raised as she began removing packages.

"Mhmm," she replied with a shrug. "Good for starting avalanches to bury invaders. Though today, we're creating an entrance big enough for the RV."

"You're going to blow up the Superstore entrance?" Kaledoniya asked, eyes wide.

"Yes," Krysanthea confirmed, expertly attaching detonation devices to the plastic explosives.

"And what if it attracts attention?" Kat asked.

"Like I give a damn," Kristi said, getting into the police cruiser. "The husky already made too much noise here."

She drove the police car to the entrance, got out and placed charges around the entrance doors. Then she jumped atop of the hood and attached the explosives to the overhead frame. Nessy had recovered enough to stand, though she still leaned heavily against me. Meanwhile, Kristi quickly rushed inside and decorated the checkout area with explosives too.

"Get into the cars," Krysanthea ordered when she returned, driving the cruiser back. "This will be loud and some brickwork and glass might rain down."

We retreated to a safe distance, Nessy and I climbing back into the RV while the raptor sisters took positions inside their respective vehicles. From the relative safety of the Airstream, I watched as Krysanthea joined us, closed the door and raised a detonator.

"Fire in the hole!" she called over the radio, then pressed the button.

The explosion was a sharp crack followed by a plume of smoke and debris as the entire entrance structure disintegrated, leaving an RV-sized hole where the sliding doors had been. Glass and metal fragments rained across the parking lot, some bouncing off the RV's aluminum exterior with loud pings.

Before the dust had even settled, Krysanthea grabbed the second detonator.

"Is this really necessary?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "These stores are designed to funnel people through specific paths. We need a direct route in and I'm making it."

Another loud detonation and a section of the checkout area became vaporized, creating a clear path wide enough for vehicles to enter the store itself.

Kristi relocated to the driver's seat and drove the RV into the store.

The other vehicles followed in.

"The RV will function as our mobile base of operations. We stay together, maintain a defensible position, and push forward methodically," Kristi declared.

"Fort Pack road trip, yay," Nessy commented weakly from atop me.

Kristi parked at the front end of the store, positioning the RV so that its door faced away from the endless aisles stretching into the distance.

"You should try negotiating with it too," Nessy commented at the raptor.

"Hrm," Kristi said. "Think it's gonna listen?"

"It might. I sniffed that it's… alive." Nessy said.

"Fine." Krysanthea stepped out of the RV and grabbed a megaphone from one of the tool boxes. The other vehicles pulled in behind us, forming a loose semicircle of protection.

"Attention Superstore management," Krysanthea's voice boomed through the megaphone. "This is Chief Ranger Krysanthea Strand of the Ferguson Valley Authority. You have illegally acquired soul fragments from Ferguson citizens."

Her words echoed strangely in the vast space, seeming to travel much further than they should have before fading.

"Return what you've taken immediately," she continued, "or the Ferguson City Council will declare this structure condemned, with demolition to begin immediately."

Beside me, Nessy made low whining noises, shaking her head slightly as she leaned against the RV doorframe.

"Furthermore," Krysanthea added when no response came, "You are to cease all predatory pack-binding merchandising practices targeting Ferguson residents, or face immediate closure under Municipal Code 7.11, which prohibits commercial operations without proper permits."

I watched the entrance where we'd blown our way in and noticed something disturbing – the edges of the destroyed doorframe were... growing. Tiny crystalline structures were forming along the broken edges, fractal patterns of glass and metal slowly extending outward like a time-lapse of frost forming on a window.

"Uh, Kristi?" I pointed toward the self-repairing entrance.

She followed my gaze, her feathers rising slightly in alarm. "Well, that's bloody unsettling. It's growing the doors back."

Nessy opened one eye. "This place can't be destroyed by mundane means," she said wearily. "It's a dungeon aligned to Infinity."

"What do you suggest then?" Krysanthea demanded, lowering the megaphone. "Can you smell where my sisters' soul fragments are? Or the core of this place so we can destroy it?"

Nessy winced, rubbing her temples. "I tried exactly that. That's what knocked me on my tail. This place is... it's like trying to smell the entire ocean at once. Or like ten bazillion oceans. I can't pinpoint the core or the soul fragments because everything leads everywhere. It's paradoxically both infinite and contained concept-wise. It's limitless… but has rules."

Before Krysanthea could respond, a strange rustling sound drew our attention. From behind a partially destroyed customer service counter, something was rising – a humanoid figure composed entirely of what appeared to be constantly printed receipt paper, its body folding and unfolding as it moved with jerky, unsettling motions.

The paper creature's face was blank except for a price scanner where eyes should be. A mouth-like opening emitted a horrible, electronic screeching noise. In its hand was what looked like an oversized invoice.

"What the hell is that?" Katerina demanded, raising her rifle.

The paper construct screeched again, then began advancing toward us, waving the invoice threateningly.

"UNAUTHORIZED DEMOLITION DETECTED! PROPERTY DAMAGE. INVOICE #69420-7," it screeched in a voice like a malfunctioning credit card machine. "PAYMENT DUE IMMEDIATELY!"

"Chief!" Officer Lavros glanced at Kristi. "Permission to engage?"

Krysanthea nodded grimly. "Light it up."

The fox-girl manning the machine gun on the pickup bed didn't need further encouragement. She opened fire, the heavy weapon spitting a stream of bullets that tore through the paper creature, shredding it into confetti that scattered across the floor.

"Like shootin' fish in a barrel," Kirra remarked.

Nessy moved wobbling side to side. She dropped to her knees beside the scattered remains of the paper creature. She picked up fragments and examined them.

"No, no, no," she muttered. "This is very, very bad."

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