Chapter 59

I stared at the cat for a few long moments. There was something about it that didn't make sense. It was obviously my cat, but at the same time, something just seemed off.

"Charm?" I asked Karen doubtfully.

Karen nodded as she continued to glare at the cat. "It cast some kind of spell on us. I was able to resist it. Grace didn't." she explained.

"Grace?" I asked.

"My mind was kind of foggy, but it just wanted me to pet it and scratch at a spot behind its ears." Grace replied.

"Doesn't matter, it shouldn't have used a power on you." Karen replied angrily.

I agreed with Karen on this one. It might have been harmless this time, but what about next time.

Unfortunately something still seemed off to me, and I wasn't sure what it was. I stared down at the sopping wet cat, but I couldn't figure out what it was that was off.

I gave Caly one last pinch then put her on her feet. She groaned then glared at me as I stood up and walked towards the cat.

There was a pool fence separating us, not that it prevented me from reaching the cat, but I stopped at the fence and stared down at it unable to shake that feeling.

"What?" the cat asked, backing a little farther away from me.

Caly walked up beside me and pinched my ass in return. I grimaced and barely kept myself from yelping. "So are we going to take this cat in too?" Caly asked looking down at the cat. "It's a cute cat but it would have to agree not to use any of its mental powers on us."

"Huh?" I said, then I realized what it was she said and what it meant. As soon as I did the cat in front of me no longer resembled the cat we had already made an agreement with. Now it was a mostly black cat with white paws. "Well shit." I cursed irritably.

"What?" Caly asked.

I glared down at the cat, my anger rising.

A shadow jumped down from the roof and landed a couple of feet away from the cat. The shadow turned out to be my cat.

"You pick a name yet?" I asked grumpily, given the timing he had to have been watching the whole time.

"Don't get grumpy, I needed to see how you were going to react. Agreement or not." My cat replied.

I could understand that, if I was being reasonable, but I didn't feel like being reasonable right now.

Caly pressed into my side then reached up and pulled my head over towards her for a long thorough kiss.

"Better?" she asked once she let me go.

I was still a bit breathless from the unexpected kiss, but once I recovered I realized I wasn't as angry anymore. "Yeah." I said then looked back at the cats, but both of them were gone.

"They took off while you were distracted." Karen said, still seeming a bit irritated. "Ours said he would come back once he convinced the female of the benefits of bonding to you."

"Female?" I asked.

"Yep, I think our cat might be a bit of Tom." Karen replied.

"I was thinking Felix." I replied.

"I like that one." the cat's voice came down from the roof.

I looked up to find both cats looking down at us.

"I didn't say they went far." Karen told me with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes, "Fine, we will call you Felix then." I told the cat. At least the female hadn't been aggressive towards us. If she had been, well I wasn't sure what would have happened. We weren't on guard, and while Felix had noticed. I wasn't sure when he noticed. There was also Delilah out there, but she hadn't said anything. So I had no idea if she missed that, or refrained because we weren't in danger.

"Did you get anything to eat?" I asked Felix.

"Yeah, caught a nice fat pigeon an hour ago." Felix replied.

I nodded. "As long as you've eaten. Let us know if your hunts don't go so well, we have food we will share." I told him.

"Fish?" Felix asked, his eyes brightening.

I checked in my space, there were a lot of cans, and after a couple of moments I found a pile of canned tuna and salmon. "I've got cans, tuna or salmon?" I asked in return.

"Not now, but put some aside for us." Felix replied.

"Fine." I replied.

I looked back to my girls. Before I said anything else I checked the time. It was only seconds from one. So I waited and let it countdown. As soon as it hit one I sighed then looked to my girls. "We have an hour now. We should head in and let the others know."

"An hour till what?" Felix asked from the roof.

"Trouble." I replied. "We are expecting something bad to happen today. Grace feels like it will happen around two, which is an hour from now. I recommend staying close until we know what it is." I told him honestly.

Felix just stared at us. "No idea what kind of trouble?" he asked.

I took a few moments to explain the gates that released the energy, our expectation of four of those today, and how it caused humans to turn into the twisted.

"I see, that explains a lot." Felix said then looked at the black cat beside him. "I will stay in the area. Hopefully she will agree to it as well." he told me. Then both cats disappeared.

I sighed but before I could look back at my wives I felt it. A gate opened. The energy flowed over and into me. It was the same as the previous gate. Electrical shocks traveled through my body as the energy was absorbed into my core.

"Shift your consciousness into your core and think about pulling the mist in away from your core's border." I told them as I saw the pain reflected in their gazes. Caly and Grace had already withdrawn into themselves, but Karen and Megan followed my instructions. Seeing that I allowed my own mind to shift into my core.

As soon as my mind settled into my own core I began to draw the energy in like I always did. As soon as the mana mist wasn't pressing on the boundary of my core the pain lessened significantly.

Shortly after I began to draw in the mana mist, my abilities flared signaling the formation of wisps inside them. Then I noticed that one of my abilities was drawing in a lot more mist than any of my other abilities. After a few moments I realized it was my bond ability. As it had reached the second stage it drew in a whole lot more mist than it had previously. It flashed more often than the others but those flashes were duller and muted than the ones the other abilities gave out. That confused me for a while, until I realized that my bond ability was probably flashing every time it generated a wisp, not an ember.

Besides that, I felt that there was a lot more mist flowing into my core as a whole, but after a few moments of observation I realized that was because there was. With the fundamental change to my core when it became a true metal core, it now drew in a lot more mist. I wondered what that would mean for generating wisps between gate openings, but pushed the thought aside, it didn't matter, not when the gates were going to open multiple times a day. My natural wisp generation wasn't likely to make much of a difference until after the gates stopped opening.

Eventually the mist slowed then stopped altogether. Once it had I took stock of what had changed. Most importantly I noticed that the color on my mana heart hadn't shifted at all. It had the same mix of gold and platinum swirling over its surface.

Besides that I looked through my abilities. I couldn't find any new abilities, but that was fine with me, I already had a lot of them. Each of my abilities had gained at least two wisps, but I would check exact numbers for each later. My bond ability on the other hand, had gained five wisps. Twice as many as most of my other abilities.

I looked into my mana heart and counted out twenty four wisps. More than I have had at any one point in time. Remembering Caly's request I pulled out five wisps then combined them while trying to gain a new element. The wisps started to circle around, then then circle shrank in size until the wisps touched. The combination of the wisps glowed for a moment then a new ability formed. I stared at the image for a moment before I recognized it as a mountain. Then the flood of information came from the ability confirming the ability was earth.

Having been successful in gaining earth I tried again and formed water. My third attempted successfully formed light, leaving me with only nine wisps left. I considered dumping two wisps into the abilities so I could summon those elementals, but I stopped myself. Instead I decided to wait and talk with Caly. I might need those wisps for whatever ability she wanted me to gain. It seemed like it would make a huge difference, so I didn't want to miss my chance at getting it. With the three new elements I had fifteen abilities. I would have to ask Caly what the limit for abilities was for Metal cores.