SMASH or PASS

Night. Patchwork district.

I looked at Fenra. She looked at me. Her eyes caught the moonlight and reflected it back amber-bright.

"Ready?"

Fenra descended silently from the underground grate.

I followed three seconds later. There was a sound. It couldn’t be helped, the grille was rusty.

Landing on stone floor, damp air. A mixture of tobacco, cheap liquor, and catkin body odor rising from below.

The basement was larger than I expected. Just as Pixia had reported, it was a space created by knocking open the basement of the pawn shop. Several wooden pillars stood there, and at the back, piles of boxes and cloth that were obviously stolen goods.

I counted roughly sixteen. All catkin.

Four gathered around a card table. Three counting money by the wall. Five sorting stolen goods. Two drinking and laughing. Two on guard near the stairs at the entrance.

And every one of them was looking at us.

Well... To be precise, they were looking at Fenra.

I’m here for emotional support and free SP~

◇◇◇

Fenra was standing.

She just stood there.

Her claws were long, her teeth were sharp, and her eyes gleamed golden. But she didn’t bark or growl. She didn’t even assume a threatening posture.

She was just standing there.

And that was enough.

The noses of sixteen catkin all twitched at once.

Smell. From what I’ve heard, Catkin smell reads rank by scent.

At this very moment, everyone in this basement was receiving the same information.

A predator above them was standing at the exit.

The atmosphere changed.

The hands of the four at the card table stopped. The three counting money slowly turned their heads. Two of the five sorting stolen goods instinctively reached for the daggers at their waists and then immediately let go.

The two guards were already pressed against the staircase wall. They wanted to run, but Fenra was at the exit.

I put the club on my shoulder and took a step forward.

"We are Bronze Ledger bounty hunters. it’s just great meeting you all~"

Silence.

One second... Two seconds...

And then someone moved.

◇◇◇

One of the women at the card table kicked her chair, stood up, and bolted for the back door.

Fenra did not move. There was no need.

The woman stopped after three steps. She saw Fenra’s shadow at the end of the corridor leading to the back door.

...No, Fenra was still at the entrance. Only her shadow had gotten ahead.

No, that’s wrong. Fenra was just too fast for my eyes. She was already standing at the end of the corridor, arms crossed, tail completely still.

The woman’s knees gave out. Literally. Her strength drained and she collapsed right there.

"...Damn. Second Rank."

Someone muttered it. Correct.

That voice triggered a wave of resignation through the rest. One-on-one, some of them might have a chance. But with a Second Rank wolfkin blocking the exit, all sixteen noses were saying the same thing--

Escape was impossible.

"Put down your weapons. Don’t resist and you won’t get hurt."

I lied. Whether they get hurt depends on Fenra’s mood, not mine.

A catkin near the wall grabbed a club from a rack of stolen weapons and charged at me. I sidestepped. She swung wide. I hit her wrist with my own club. She dropped hers. Fenra appeared beside her. The catkin looked at Fenra from one foot away and sat down on the floor with her hands up.

Soon, others followed her too.

The sound of weapons hitting the floor came one after another.

A dagger. A short sword. A throwing knife. One of them had an iron pipe. What the hell can she even do with that?

Well, it’s not like I’m in any position to talk about weapon choice...

The catkin that seemed to be in charge stood up from her chair. Her hand went to her knife. She looked at Fenra. Looked at me. Looked at Fenra again. She was doing the same calculation every other catkin in the room had done. The math didn’t work.

"...Bonded wolfkin. Second Rank." She said it flat. She took her hand off the knife. Slowly. "Alright. You’ve got us."

"Smart."

"I’m a businesswoman. I know when the math doesn’t work." She sat back down. "What do you want?"

"I want everyone to stay where they are until I’ve secured the scene. Then I’m turning in apprehensions to the guild for the bounty."

"And if we cooperate?"

"You cooperate because the alternative is her." I nodded at Fenra. Fenra bared her teeth a little wider.

She looked at Fenra. Looked at her gang. Fifteen catkins, all frozen.

"Yeah." She put both hands flat on the table. "We’ll cooperate." She looked at her gang. "Nobody moves. Nobody runs. Nobody does anything stupid."

She looked back at me. "For what it’s worth, kid, this operation’s been running for three years and nobody’s ever had the balls to walk in here. I’m almost impressed."

"Almost?"

"You brought a wolfkin to a catkin den. That’s not bravery. That’s just a sneaky tactic." She shrugged. The zip-ties I put on her wrists didn’t seem to bother her. "You’re efficient. Quick hands. You’ve done this before?"

"No."

"Natural talent, then." She watched me move through the room, tying wrists, confiscating weapons. "The Patchwork has a long memory, you know~ The girls you’re tying up have families. Friends. People who’ll want to know why their sister didn’t come home tonight."

"They can ask the guild."

"They won’t ask the guild. They’ll ask the street. And the street will remember your fucking face." Rather than threatening me, I think that she was informing me.

◇◇◇

The suppression ended faster than I expected.

With Fenra just standing there, nobody dared to move. I went around collecting weapons and sitting them against the wall. My entire job was basically "walk around holding a club."

Combat SP was...

[Combat SP: +1]

Huh, only one. Just the runner who got stopped?

Well, there wasn’t any sort of battle to call it combat. Suppression and combat are apparently different categories.

But here’s where it starts.

The system had fired on all sixteen catkin sitting against the wall.

[SMASH / PASS] [Target: Soot Claws Member A] [Common] [SP: 6]

[SMASH / PASS] [Target: Soot Claws Member B] [Common] [SP: 5]

[SMASH / PASS] [Target: Soot Claws Member C] [Common] [SP: 7]

A whole row of prompts. All Common. 5 to 8 SP.

All PASS. Fewer heads handed to the guild means a lower bounty. Tonight’s goal is gold.

...But then I got curious about the back.

Beyond the pile of stolen goods, in the very back of the basement, two more people were hiding there.

◇◇◇

Twins?

Identical faces. The same shade of gray-brown fur on their ears. The same sharp jawline.

Even the angle of their cat ears was the same. But their postures were the complete opposite.

One was sitting with her back straight. Ears pointed forward, glaring at me. Her mouth was twitching, hissing at me. Her posture was aggressive, territorial, her body angled to shield the person behind her.

The other was crouched in her sister’s shadow, ears completely flattened, tail tucked between her legs, she was trembling, making herself as small as possible.

The system fired.

[SMASH / PASS]

[Target: Sable]

[Tier: Common]

[Race: Catkin]

[SP Cost: 10]

[SMASH / PASS]

[Target: Silk]

[Tier: Common]

[Race: Catkin]

[SP Cost: 10]

Names. The other members were "Member A" and "Member B," but these two had names. The system recognized them as individuals that are important enough.

And then one more thing.

The display changed.

[PACKAGE DETECTED]

[Bonded Pair: Sable + Silk]

[Combined SP Cost: 15 (25% discount)]

[Accept package? Y/N]

...

A discount.

Buy two together, get a discount.

For acquiring both at once. The system recognized that they were connected. Sisters. Bonded. And it was offering me a deal for taking them as a pair.

The twins were in the back corner. Nobody was watching them. Every eye in the room was on Fenra. The chaos of the raid had reduced the den to a single focal point: the wolfkin standing in the center of the room being terrifying. Nobody was tracking who was where in the shadows.

I accepted the package.

SMASH.

Both catkin vanished from the pile of stolen textiles. The textile pile sagged slightly where their weight had been. Nobody noticed. Fenra was still commanding every atom of attention in the basement.

◇◇◇

The two of them disappeared.

From on top of the stolen goods pile. Silently.

In the confusion, nobody noticed. Fenra was still standing in the center of the room and all sixteen people’s attention was locked on her.

SMASH. SMASH.

I also SMASHED two more gang members during the confusion. Common tier. 6 and 7 SP. Unnamed. Faceless. They vanished from the edges of the room where the lamplight didn’t quite reach. Bulk inventory. Stat padding.

The ones who disappeared get processed as "escaped." In a dark basement, nobody remembers the exact headcount.

Fenra held the room for twenty more minutes while I zip-tied the remaining catkin with guild-provided restraints and documented the apprehensions. Twelve confirmed captures. Scratch included.

We left through the cellar grate. The Thornguard night patrol would collect the prisoners in the morning based on my guild report.

Pixia was on the roof across the street.

"That," she said, landing on my shoulder, "was the most entertaining thing I’ve seen in forty years. Your wolfkin is TERRIFYING. I love her."

Fenra’s tail gave one small wag. Then stopped. Work mode wasn’t done yet.

We walked home through empty streets.