Daniel appeared in a familiar space, recognizable from some of the most aggravating of his life. Bridge Space? How am I here?

  “Daniel?”

  His breath caught around the same time Daniel realized he was breathing again. “Hunter?” Appearing from the darkness, Daniel saw his friend walk forward. The sudden joy in his heart dimmed as he saw the approach was wary. “What’s wrong?”

  “You.” The tone was accusatory, and Hunter backed up as Daniel took a step forward. He didn’t know what was going on until he reached forward and noticed the fur on his hand.

  “It’s just a power, don’t worry. Hunter, I’m here to bring you back!”

  Hunter shook his head, the denial being the second time today Daniel had been stabbed in the heart. “Not here. There aren’t powers, only what defines you.” He looked Daniel up and down, muzzle still downturned. “This, what is this supposed to be? Me?”

  “I had to do it!” Daniel shouted defensively. “The moment I came back people were trying to control me like an animal! So I took the only power I had and clawed my way back up so I could get here and get you back. I almost died several times, but-“

  “You sound like Daniel,” Hunter interrupted, “But you talk like me. You said we shouldn’t become too much like each other, we shouldn’t push the Empathic Link. Then you do this.” He growled, but turned it into a sigh. “This isn’t you. Is there anything left of my friend?”

  “How could you ask…” Daniel’s voice trailed off as he felt what Hunter had from the beginning. The remnant of their bond, the thing that had always kept Hunter on course toward him, was flickering with uncertainty. “It’s not permanent, it just makes me stronger.”

  “Then why use it now? Why be this now?” It was a fair question. Daniel could remember making sure to be in his human form at the first rift for exactly this reason, so why had he appeared in this place differently? He felt no mortal tie to his real body, for this surely wasn’t it. Maybe it was that he’d been in that form when he’d touched the rift, setting his archetypes beforehand.

  No. Daniel lowered his head as realized why he’d taken this form here. It was something he hadn’t consciously registered, something that had been acted on by whatever logic this place ran by. “I thought this would help. You’re right, we were holding back. We hadn’t improved our bond since before you got yours with Tak. At first I thought it was because I was jealous of you, then it was because you hated the city and… I guess I thought if I could accept this it would make our bond stronger.”

  “Power is good. Strength is good. But this, showing here? No.” Hunter walked up to within a few steps of Daniel and then rested on his back legs, looking up at him. His voice became softer, but the will underneath it remained steady. “We weren’t bonded because we were the same. Whatever this is is strong, but it is not my friend. That is who I want to see.”

  He felt the tears on his face despite the chuckle. “You just couldn’t let me be stronger than you, huh?”

  Hunter watched as the man in front of him began to shift. “The tail was too much.”

  “What do you mean? You have a tail.”

  “I should have a tail.”

  The wavering bond grew more stable and Daniel, the true Daniel, dropped to a knee and put his arms around Hunter’s neck. “I missed you so much.”

  One of Hunter’s paws pressed against his back in his best attempt to return the gesture. “It was my fault. Didn’t try to dodge.”

  “Don’t say that!” Daniel backed out and flicked one of Hunter’s ears, eliciting a soft growl. “Casia, that woman… it doesn’t matter. She’s dead, we got her. Now, we’re going to bring you back.”

  Hunter nodded, no hesitation left in him, and they both rose to stand. “Good. Was getting bored of this place anyway. Too easy.” He waited a second and then furrowed his brow. “What do I do?”

  “Uh.” Frantically, Daniel looked around as their location fully hit him. “Oh no. Look, I brought your body to the rift, does it feel like you can leave here?”

  “The way I came?” Hunter replied, more as a question to himself. “It would take me back to the Astral.”

  “Fuck!” Daniel reached for his phone, but it wasn’t on his arm. He was only in the clothes he wore underneath the armor, which had no trace of blood on them. “The rest of the team’s probably fighting for their life right now. We need to figure this out and fast. If it dumps me out into the body I was just in…” Crap. Is there a body left to go to?

  “If you need to go-“

  “No! I’m not leaving without you. If I could use Moment of Clarity-“

  “Request accepted. Activating Power.” The voice that acknowledged his wasn’t Hunter’s. It wasn’t anyone’s, for it had neither source nor identifying features. The words were simply spoken into existence like some cross of speech and telepathy, the meaning transmitted cleanly through Daniel’s ears. “Time Dilation in effect.”

  “What is that?” Hunter asked, adding, “This doesn’t feel like that power.”

  “Who said that?” Daniel asked, though there could only be one, impossible answer.

  “???.”

  Ok, not what I was expecting, Daniel thought, somehow hearing the string of question marks. Cautiously he looked up. “Me?”

  “No. Creature: Daniel Brant - Earth is not present in this space.”

  “Oh fuck.” He hadn’t been able to hear the slight inflection before, but from that sentence he could tell the voice was emphasizing certain words as if they were surrounded by brackets. It would also explain the odd gap in one of the responses. “Octyrrum?”

  “No. The Entity speaking is ???”

  “You’re… my Spoke?” Daniel ventured, as Hunter lowered himself as if to pounce on an invisible enemy.

  “Octyrrum records updated. Entity: Corrupted Spoke is the correct designation.”

  “Corrupted?” Hunter asked.

  “It’s fine, this is a good thing. Probably.” Thoroughly taken out of his previous conversation with Hunter, Daniel had to ask, “Why, how can I talk to you? How can you talk to me? And how did I just rename you?”

  “The location currently occupied is a convergence of Astral, Reality, and Soul. Entity: Corrupted Spoke is wholly contained in the Soul of Entity: Daniel Brant - Octyrrum, allowing manifestation in ways unavailable in pure reality. Bond with Creature: Hunter further allows communication to be relayed similar to the benefits of Feature: Identify Creature and God Power: Universal Translator.” There was a brief pause in the Spoke’s explanation, as if to signify it had moved to what was effectively Daniel’s second question. “Identification of Entity: Corrupted Spoke was previously removed from Octyrrum records by God: Torch through use of Domain Manipulation. Direct impartment of knowledge from Entity: Daniel Brant - Octyrrum has allowed for the previously removed record to be restored.”

  Daniel had to sit with that, which slightly relaxed Hunter. He had thousands of questions, though while the pressure from the oath bond was completely gone, he wasn’t going to ignore the real reason he was here either. “Can you clarify something? The outside world is affected by time dilation right? Is there any time limit here that would prevent me from reviving Hunter?”

  “Incorrect. Time Dilation is solely affecting this area.” Daniel began to panic, though this was quickly resolved. “However, outside Reality is relatively suspended from this perspective.” Another pause before it moved on to his next question, making Daniel feel his own Spoke was judging him for the barrage he was throwing out. “Entity: Daniel Brant - Octyrrum and Creature: Hunter may remain in this space for an indefinite time given unique circumstances triggered by Bond Reforging. Clarification: the full premise of your last question is incorrect. Resurrection of Creature: Hunter is currently impossible.”

  “What? No, no, I have his body. We’re at a connection with the Astral. Hunter is right there!” Daniel shouted. “What are we missing?”

  The Spoke’s non-voice didn’t change at all when Daniel’s bordered on hostility. “Assessing… Sufficient Power: Astral to return target Soul is absent. Additionally, the nature of the injuries to the target’s body would prevent durable connection between body and Soul, leading to premature failure of any attempted Resurrection. These two insufficiencies cannot be corrected without departure from this space.”

  Daniel was silent for a moment, feeling the weight of everything he’d done to get here suddenly turn to crush him. Hunter brushed against him eventually, though the feel of his fur did nothing to help. The Spoke had said this mixture included reality, but once they both left Hunter would be disincorporated again. “It’s fine. Live first. Find what you need and come back here. It’s safe for me. I can wait.”

  “It’s bad out there, Hunter. I don’t know if we can make another attempt soon.” Mentally, Daniel ran over the two ‘insufficiencies’. Maybe Willow’s thing will work, but repairing the body? Healing potions won’t work on it until Hunter’s alive. Damn it, why didn’t I ask Star to have Hunter’s body come out clean? “We have to figure this out now. Spoke, you can activate my powers here right? Can Regeneration be shared with Hunter’s body during the process to fix one of those problems?”

  “Correct, Powers belonging to Entity: Daniel Brant - Octyrrum can be triggered by Entity: Corrupted Spoke due to the intrinsic connection.” Another pause. “Assessing… No. Underlying dependency issue. Granting shared Powers to the body possessed by Creature: Hunter is dependent on a living body. Viability of Resurrection in this case is dependent on a body resilient enough to survive the process. No sequence of events allows for Feature: Regeneration to be shared in time to fortify the body before the attempt is made.”

  “Is there anything we can do?”

  “No.” There was a tone of finality there, and Hunter was probably about to say something comforting, when the Spoke spoke again. “Assessing new variables… Yes. Inherent will of Entity: Daniel Brant - Octyrrum and Creature: Hunter is continually influencing Bond Reforging, opening potential avenues for successful Resurrection.”

  Daniel and Hunter looked at each other as if either had been holding out, Hunter then saying, “I don’t feel anything like that.”

  “Me neither. Hey, Spoke,” Daniel said in a particular way, about to do something he’d longed for for quite some time. “Explain what bond reforging is.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Bond Reforging is a Concept tied to the process by which established Bonds improve or change, and former Bonds are re-established. This occurs according to the Fundamental Law: Karma due to designated inter-relation of System: Octyrrum with the Fundamental Laws. As a result of a successful Bond Reforging, Benefits derived from the Bond may be improved, worsened, changed, removed, or added depending on the nature of the change in the relationship. The thresholds for activating Bond Reforging and further determination of their result is beyond the auspice of System: Octyrrum.”

  “We remake our bond, it gives us a way to bring me back,” Hunter summarized, though this was specifically addressed to Daniel. He still seemed resistant to reply to the non-voice, and Daniel realized it might be because for the first months of his life his Spoke had been suppressing Hunter.

  “Sounds like it,” Daniel replied, evening out his tone to try and reassure his friend. “But it also can’t help us with it.” Fundamental laws. I’ve seen references to those before, back when Hunter awakened. Cloak said once that bonds were beyond the system, are they too? Questions for after we’ve solved this. “Spoke, can you tell us if we’re heading in the right direction with the bond? I don’t want to solidify stuff that won’t help. Or do something that will make us end up sharing a body. We want us to both go back the way we were before Hunter died,” he added after reminding himself of one of Lograve’s sarcastic comments.

  “Request acknowledged.” He waited, but that was it.

  Breathing out, Daniel moved to put a comforting hand on Hunter again only to find the ringcat still tense. Oh. Oh fuck. He didn’t know. “Hunter, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this sooner. I should have, but it started talking and I had to know.”

  “What is this?” the ringcat asked, with a hint of relief that this was finally being addressed.

  “The Thormundz Spoke. I still don’t know how, that’ll be one of my questions once we settle this, but when I came here I got fused with it. It’s not me, it’s just inside of me. You heard what it said about my soul.” Daniel gestured around. “When you died, I managed to tap into it somehow. Another question. But it helped me kill Casia. It’s not here to hurt you, if anything it sounds like I have some control over it, at least here.”

  “Ok.” Hunter gave another unsteady look up before directing his full attention to Daniel. “Should have expected you to have more weird things.”

  “Hah,” Daniel laughed. “Just wait until you see Spinner.”

  Hunter furrowed his eyebrows. “Tlara’s pet?” he asked forcefully.

  “She’s changed. Well, sorta. Her sister’s helping make her not a completely terrible person.” The restraints of honesty made Daniel add, “She’s kind of the only reason I got across the finish line and made it here.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “You will.” Daniel sought out the connection between them, returning to the matter at hand. It still felt uncertain in a way, but not because it was wavering. Their relationship was malleable, in flux. On his end he’d labored under an oath for months to get here, while Hunter had been in exile. Would things go back to how they were? Could they?

  “How do we do this?” Hunter asked as he fell silent. “I can feel it changing, but it goes nowhere.”

  “Not sure. There might not be hard and fast rules, but I doubt kindness and understanding alone will work this time.”

  Hunter grunted, before closing his eyes and furrowing the furred brows in concentration. “There is potential, like an open plain. We could run anywhere.”

  “Not if we go somewhere that stops you from coming back. I’m not going to be like Willow and ride around with you in my head.” Hunter opened a confused eye at that and Daniel waved him off. “I’ll give the whole story later.”

  “Ok. Do what is easy first, then. Friends?”

  “Fr-“ Daniel cut short of finishing the word and Hunter rocked from the recoil in their bond by that disagreement.

  Astonished, he said, “Do not joke now, not about that.”

  “I’m not. Hey, it’s not like that.” This time, Daniel knew exactly what was driving his actions. It was no oath bond or subconscious insecurities but something he’d already decided. “I’m being serious. Our bond’s already moved on from friendship. I’ve had this oath thing that may or may not have been a mistake, but that’s not important. What we call this will shape what it is.”

  “What is wrong with friendship?” Hunter asked, offended by what Daniel was saying. Perhaps a little scared too. From his perspective, Daniel would say that the ringcat hadn’t changed too much from his ordeal in the Astral. Thankfully, but he knew he couldn’t say the same for himself. The bond was becoming unstable again. “It is how I feel, how I see you. We do not need to change it.”

  “Hunter, I just spent the last few months upending my life just to get you a shot at getting yours back. And you, you held on for so long here after everyone told me you’d have a week at best.” He was going to ask how exactly later, but it wasn’t the time for it now. “I’m not saying I don’t want to be your friend, I’m saying after what we’ve been through, what I’ve done, friendship isn’t enough to describe what we are.”

  “Then, best friends?” Hunter asked, unsure. The ringcat was clearly out of his depth. Whoever he’d been before his soul had been broken the first time, there was little if any trace. Daniel did have to wonder who Hunter could have been, but it wouldn’t matter. All he knew of humanity, relationships, was what he’d experienced with Daniel. Hunter couldn’t find the words to describe what it was Daniel felt, perhaps he couldn’t conceptualize it given his history.

  “I had to remake my Focus,” Daniel said, in what seemed like a complete non-sequitor. “After the fight that you died at. The reasons… it’s too much to go into. But when I did, I had to select something to use as the connection to my soul.” He looked up and implored the heavens, “Spoke, can you use Flash Craft to make a copy of what I did? I just need the background image.”

  “Request acknowledged. Flash Craft.” The world shook with the incantation, and what amounted to a brick with a picture on the front fell from the sky.

  It’s not using my mana for this, Daniel realized as he took the object in his hands. Should I make it give me a second blast bow? No, I probably can’t take anything from here. Daniel tilted the fake device in his hands so Hunter could see, and the ringcat saw himself standing by the rest of Daniel’s family.

  “This is your world,” Hunter said slowly. “I told you I wouldn’t go if you couldn’t come with me.”

  “That’s not my point. Hunter, out of everyone I’ve met here, you’re the only one I consider family.” The word struck a chord in the bond between them, the same as friendship had, and like before it went unreciprocated. Daniel read the confusion on Hunter’s face and soul and explained further. “Have you ever heard someone say someone else was ‘like a brother to them’? That’s how I feel.”

  He could tell before Hunter spoke the words it wasn’t working. “I understand, but the bond, it isn’t right. You are more important to me than anyone, other than Tak, but this…” he shook his head.

  At least it could be said that the will to create a bond deeper than friendship was there, but there was a disagreement on what exactly should be made between Hunter, himself, and the world at large. “Spoke, do people have to be biological brothers to make a bond of brotherhood?”

  “No.”

  Huh. That would have been the easy explanation for the world’s reluctance. “So what’s going on?”

  “Assessing… Caveat, the following analysis is based on historical trends. The deliberation of Fundamental Law: Karma is beyond the auspice of System: Octyrrum. Bond: Brotherhood requires either biological connection in accordance with traditional values or a sufficiently strong Soul Resonance mimicking this link. The strength of the Karmic Link between Entity: Daniel Brant - Octyrrum and Creature: Hunter is sufficient, however the nature of it is not.”

  Essentially, for all his feelings on the matter it wasn’t enough. Daniel couldn’t blame Hunter either, though he did ask, “Do you not want that kind of bond?”

  “It is not that I don’t want it, it is that it is not right,” the ringcat put simply. The two were facing the bane of all relationships that didn’t end in betrayal or disinterest, wanting two separate things. If Daniel had known bringing Hunter back would require arbitrating their connection he would have tried bringing Quala along for the ride.

  “Ok. Alright. Fuck.” Daniel paced in a circle for half a minute, thinking. “It’s fine. We have time. Spoke, you’re sustaining Moment of Clarity, is that going to run out soon?”

  “No. Ambient Mana collection is currently severely restrained, however reserves will be sufficient to sustain this Effect for at least one relative year.”

  “Hunter, we can figure this out, we just need to think.”

  Hunter rumbled in a way that would suggest his stomach was upset from overeating, if there was any chance he’d had something to eat recently. “Friends, brothers, why does the word matter? We can just be us. Make a bond of hunters, or exploring. We both like that.”

  “There’s meaning to what we chose. This law of Karma may not have written rules, but there’s a logic to it. If we made a vengeance bond instead of a friendship bond, what we’d get out of it would be completely different.” There was something there, a hazy idea, but it hadn’t fully formed. “It has to be a bond that gives us a way for you to live. Making a bond of hunting like Farthest Run’s would just give us a bunch of combo attacks we couldn’t use. Brothers share, brothers help and look out for each other. We can use that concept.”

  “Not if we can’t use brotherhood.” It was the stone in the path neither Daniel nor Hunter could shift. Weigh their history and you could perhaps justify it in Daniel’s case, but not Hunter’s. There wasn’t enough there, as the Spoke had helpfully pointed out.

  Maybe there’s something else that would work, but then I’d be the problem. I want this to work too much. Why does it have to be biological, there are other types of brothers like… There it was, from the tip of his mental tongue. It was, frankly, a stupid idea. The practice might not even exist on the Octyrrum, but did that matter? It was about meaning and mutual intent, and if the problem was that society on the Octyrrum had defined brotherhood too restrictively in past bonds, they’d have to use a loophole.

  “What?” Hunter asked when a strange look crossed Daniel’s face, but Daniel ignored the question.

  “Spoke, there are oath bonds. Are there blood oath bonds, like oaths sworn in blood?” Someone had to have done this in the past, there had to be a precedent.

  “Yes. Blood: Bonds are a subvariant of several Bonds that are currently unrestricted by System: Octyrrum. This subvariant typically involves a ritualistic affirmation of a designated agreement or course of action, such as a Blood Bond: Pact surrounding a plot of betrayal, or as a means of ensuring a more durable Blood Bond: Contract. These Bonds are more difficult to break, often inflicting retaliatory penalties on those who violate them. These can range from minor injuries to death depending on the nature of the formed Bond.”

  “Not good,” Hunter growled, at least giving Daniel the benefit of the doubt that he hadn’t meant that.

  “Spoke, make me a knife.”

  “Flash Craft.”

  Hunter showed his teeth at the small dagger that floated down into Daniel’s hand. “This is a bad idea.”

  “It’s something from my world. Blood brothers. It’s specifically a way to bond people. We don’t have those as a source of magic and we still came up with this.” He could have asked the Spoke to chip in on whether it would work, but he was afraid of the answer this time. “You heard what it said, these kinds of bonds are stronger. I’m willing to do this, Hunter. It may be just words, but they’re important to me.”

  Still looking at the knife, Hunter sighed. “Brothers… It is hard for me to accept. Family, packs, since I abandoned my old life I knew I would never have them. Friends were good, that was enough. I knew I would never have anyone like me to be with. Love…” he shook his head. “Not worth thinking about.”

  That touched on a fairly sensitive subject that he’d gladly let Tak handle in the past, but if he was going to make this work he couldn’t flinch from Hunter’s insecurities. “Of course it is. Even if it’s not…” Possible? “Something you can find now doesn’t mean you should give up on it.”

  “You did.”

  “I-“ Daniel was wholly unprepared for Hunter flipping the tables on him, but he recovered. “I haven’t given up, I’m just waiting for the right time too. But you know, I still love my Mom and my sisters. My Dad too, wherever he is. I think about them the same way I do you.”

  Hunter’s tail flicked in the direction of the knife. “So what does that change?”

  “I was thinking about it the wrong way. We were friends before. We want to change our bond, we make this about the future.” Praying that he could still bleed in whatever altered reality this was, Daniel committed a cinema sin by slashing across his palm. It hurt, and it definitely bled. “This is my choice. I can’t put it any better than this.”

  Hunter looked at his paw. “I don’t know what this will change.”

  “You were afraid of that before you awakened, remember?”

  “Growth was natural. This, I don’t know if I can. If what my heart says can match yours. I want to live, to remake what we’ve lost. But this way?”

  Hand still bleeding and now aware that he might not be currently benefiting from Regeneration, Daniel got down and put the knife on the featureless floor. “I’ve said all I can. The rest is up to you. If you feel there’s any chance you can call yourself my brother, then you know what you have to do. If not…” There wasn’t any going back to friendship after this. They could divert the bond to something new, like hunting as the ringcat had suggested, but they’d be discarding its foundation in part or whole. It’d be like walking backward, to say nothing of the chances it would give Hunter’s revival.

  Daniel didn’t know how long it took for Hunter to think. His blood fell freely but never reached the ground, and for all that he lost, there was no lightheadedness. The conviction remained, visible to all who witnessed it. Eventually, Hunter scoffed and pushed away the knife. “You don’t-“

  “Like I need this,” he said over Daniel chidingly, before bringing one paw to his mouth and opening a line of blood with the point of a fang. “I betray myself again. I kept running further away from what I was, what I knew. Because of you. I must, because of what you’ve done for me.” Hunter flexed the paw and watched his blood fall for a second. “But I choose to because of who you are to me. If I cannot be your friend anymore, then let me be your brother.”

  “Brother.” The two grasped hand and paw, fulfilling conditions of something not even the Octyrrum could grasp.

  But it could observe, measure, and report as asked as the changes to the two souls took root. “System Alert: The prerequisites for the requested action: Resurrect Creature: Hunter Brant have been met, pending System assignment of Blood Bond: Brotherhood benefits. Dissolution of the immediate area to follow.”

  “Wait!” Daniel called out, looking up as the wound on his hand instantly healed. “Pause that. I have questions for you.”