I watched with growing amusement as Kristi adopted a strategy of weaponized hospitality. The raptor girl had apparently decided that if this was going to be a contest of "taking care of the pack," she was going to demonstrate her superiority through the most passive-aggressive feeding routine I'd ever witnessed.

Upon having fed me and Candace, the raptor proceeded to pat-smack Candace on the head, "There, there! Everything a growing fox needs to maintain her… energy levels."

"Growing fox?" Candace giggle-sputtered. "I'm eighteen, not eight! The only direction I can grow now is spherically, like this chubmonster." She waved a paw at the snoring cheetah.

"Age doesn't matter," Kristi commented relentlessly. "What matters is ensuring pack members receive adequate sustenance. Here, have some fruit salad. The vitamin C should help with your pale complexion."

"I'm not pale, my fur's silver," Candace laughed.

I gave Kristi an 8 out of 10 for execution. The passive-aggression was masterful, the delivery flawless, and the way Candace couldn't stop snickering suggested it was having exactly the intended effect.

A knock at the door interrupted our spectacle. Goebel Sartre entered the room, looking impeccable in his long gray coat. Several large equipment cases were floating beside him in the air.

"Miss Rhinehart," he said with a slight nod. "Your armor order, as requested."

"Goobs!" Candace lit up. "Perfect timing. Just set everything down wherever."

The bloodhound Scrutimancer rapidly unfolded the cases into magitek hanger shelves, revealing three sets of delving armor. Even to my untrained eye, the equipment looked expensive, featuring sleek, form-fitting designs with subtle runic patterns etched into the dark material.

"Top-tier gear I could acquire on such short notice," Goebel stated. "Hexamesh fabric with integrated protection matrices, adaptive sizing, and standard delver enhancement packages with magisteel and celesteel plating. The total came to—"

"Don't care," Candace waved dismissively. "Daddy can afford it. Shoo, shoo. Gett-out-ta-here ya mutt butt."

As the Scrutimancer departed, she quickly undressed me down to my underwear and pulled the hexamesh lining and the rest of the armor on me, clipping the belts together and linking and empowering the various runes. Then she spent about twenty minutes twirling around me and huffing, hands and eyes flashing as she bonded the armor set fully to my body.

"There," she panted, flopping onto a seat. "The armor's properly bound to you now. Check yo stats, it should provide decent boosts across the board."

I pulled up my stats, curious to see the changes.

| Name: Alec Benoit Foster

| Species: Human | Level: 3 | Core Affinity: Reconstitution | Health: 74/100% | Reconstitution: 2/100% | Depictomancy: 36/100% | Syntropic Fusion: 27/100% | Strength: 14 (+8) | Agility: 4 (+12) | Dexterity: 12 (+6) | Vitality: 36 (+15) | Charisma: 9 (+3) | Foresight: 2 (+5) | Intelligence: 37 (+5) | Wisdom: 30 (+5)

| Skills: [Reconstitution], [Depictomancy], [Syntropic Fusion] | Dagaz-bound packmate of Candace Rhinehart and Adelle Dallia.

"Damn!" I breathed. "That's amazing! Thanks, Candace."

"Yep, yep. Shower me in praises and pets. Quality gear makes all the difference," Candace said with a tired look, accepting the head pat from me with a smile. "Shame I'm too wiped to bond the other sets properly. Me n' sphere-cat will have to make do with unbound armor for today's… activities."

"If you're this wiped out, the other teams are going to be completely dead," I said.

"Yeah," she nodded. "I pray that maybe Fern will take it easy on us, but suspect that she most likely won't."

She turned to where Adelle was still snoring in her chair. "Ads! Wake up, mah pregnant beauty!"

The cheetah's eyes cracked open, unfocused and grumpy. "Wha... few more minutes, Candy…"

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"Do you want food?" Candace asked, wiggling an orange slice in front of the cheetah's nose. "Still got some leftovers left."

"Ugh, buzz off," Adelle groaned, wincing and shoving the fox away with a dark padded-paw. "What I want is anti-food. Need to reverse this bowling-ball swallowing disaster."

"Anti-food?" I chortled. "That's… a thing?"

"It might be," Candace tapped her chin. "Oi, nurse!" She yelled in the direction of Redstriss. "Got something to help this orange beast not be so rotund from overeating?"

"Yes." Nurse Redstriss emerged from her office with a steaming mug in a minute. "Here. Weight-loss digestive tea," she announced. "Accelerates metabolism and aids digestion. Should have her feeling normal within an hour or less."

"Bless you, wonderful medical mistress," Adelle said gratefully, accepting the mug and downing its contents in one go.

In twenty more minutes, we slowly made our way to the gymnasium, now properly armored and ready for whatever Professor Fern had planned next. Thanks to the school nurse, I was no longer horrifically sunburned. The weight of the enhanced gear felt reassuring, and I could sense the magical enhancements humming just beneath the surface.

The gym looked like a medieval arena with raised platforms, weapon racks, and ominous magical barriers crackling at the edges of the double doors leading to the outside. Only six other delving packs were present, each centered around a human leader with their newly-acquired pradavarian teammates.

From the general chatter, I learned that most of the other students were apparently still in the nurse's office or with their family doctors, recovering from their various injuries and magical strain from the morning's brutal practical.

"Hey gals," a familiar voice sneered from across the arena. "Look what crawled out of the medical ward."

Katherine Strand entered the gym with five other raptor girls, still tagged with red triangles that marked them as "dungeon monsters". By the looks of things, the remaining Ferguson Firestorm teammates had clearly decided to embrace their villainous roles with great enthusiasm.

"Pff," one of the raptors called out, pointing a dark claw at Kristi. "A Strand Prima who declared a human her Alpha! Have you no shame, Krissy?"

"Ignore them," I advised, as Kristi's feathers began to bristle.

"Look Kirra," Katherine laughed, her voice carrying across the arena as she elbowed her sister. "I couldn't imagine such a ludicrous scenario in my wildest dreams! Our eldest, following a level-three human like a lost puppy. How the mighty have fallen!"

"Ha ha," Kirra nodded. "What the heck dude, you like him or something?"

Kristi's cheeks flashed violet.

"At least she didn't get an F, like you losers," Candace fired back.

"What was that, junkie fox?" Katherine called out. "Did the Topaz addict say something?"

"Keep yapping shit 'bout my new pack and I'm going to rip your beaks off," Kristi growled, her claws extending.

While the Strand sisters continued to escalate their taunts, I walked over to the other human captains.

Unlike the red-tagged pradavarians who seemed to be reveling in their "monster" roles and looking ready to tear us apart, the newly elected human Alphas appeared haggard and worn.

The six human leaders bore visible evidence of the morning's trials—burns that hadn't fully healed, bandages peeking out from beneath hastily-donned armor, some featuring the unmistakable thousand-yard stare of a traumatic experience.

I approached a tall, lanky boy with sandy brown hair and square glasses. His armor hung awkwardly on his thin frame, like he hadn't had time to properly adjust it.

"Hey," I said, extending a hand. "Alec Foster."

"Yes, we know. You're da man that got us all out. Thanks for that, by the way. I'm Mark Chen," he replied, shaking my hand. "This is my team." He gestured to a female wolf and a fox who stood close behind him, both looking weary but alert.

"Rough morning?" I asked.

Mark laughed hollowly. "You could definitely say that. Never thought I'd have to drag Lirra and Alice off an obstacle course while they tried to claw my face off." He rubbed a taped up line of claw-made deep scratches on his cheek. "Nurse Redstriss said I was lucky they didn't slice through a vein."

"Tell me about it," said another human leader, a girl with short-cropped black hair and determined eyes who approached us. She quickly introduced herself as Lisa Wright. "My teammates were ready to kill each other over who could run the fastest."

"I definitely don't know what I'm doing," admitted another human captain who introduced himself as Owen Wayland. "My prad teammates aren't cooperating or listening to me. Instructor Fern threw off their prad hierarchy or whatever and they've been at each other's throats for the past hour."

"Yeah," a blonde boy with bandages wrapped around his forearms commented. "Eric Copperfik," he shook my hand. "My 'team' spent the entire lunch period arguing about whether they should listen to me at all. Urik finally agreed, but only because he said I 'smelled determined.' The others are still busy sniping each other."

Similar complaints came from the rest of the human leaders. I shook my hand with each, learning their names.

"So," I asked Owen, making smalltalk. "What's it like to be owned by a prad lioness?"

"Pretty nice," he shrugged. "I mean, she's hella irate now, but in general, Linny is a yuuge sweetheart."

"Hey, I was wondering—what does that collar actually do?" I asked, eyeing the gold collar on his neck. "Sorry if it's a dumb question, but I come from human territories and…"

"Ah, ah, don't fret," Owen waved a hand at me. "The collars are basically personal runic shields. Protection against injury, dampening runes, magitek repellent against other prad femmes in cycle. It doesn't have mind control or whatevs shit idiots online say. We're not prad property, if that's what you're wondering. It's more like an engagement ring."

The other collared humans nodded.

"Lin genuinely loves me," the human boy continued. "Got down on her knee when she offered me this swank runic collar. It was hella sweet. She'd totes tear up anyone for me. She's irate at herself today, because it's the first time she's hurt me by accident, that compulsion track really got into her head. She's not even like actively fighting with me over this sudden captain thing, most of her prad aggression is currently targeted at our other packmate Polara."

"I see," I said, reconsidering my dark opinion on the collared humans in town.

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