"So how good are your whiskers? How much can you sense?" Nero asked as they followed the path towards Maqi. The night had been cold, but thankfully his new jacket provided some much-needed warmth. He had spent the night talking with his new companion, getting a feel for her personality and mindset.

"Don't know," the fox replied. "Never thought 'bout it." Much like many animals, Nero had talked to, Tamamo didn't really see things from a human perspective. Asking her about her whiskers was probably like asking a person to describe their eyesight or sense of hearing. It just was, and there weren't any words to compare it to. That said if Nero was going to assimilate that trait, he wanted a frame of reference.

"Alright," he tried a different tactic by stopping on the path. The pair hadn't been going very fast, they were still about an hour from their destination, and the sky was already brightening with the sunrise. That, unfortunately, did not help with the cold just yet, but the atmosphere was bright enough to promise a beautiful if chilly day. After noticing her partner had stopped, Tamamo did the same. "Try and focus just on your whiskers, see how far away you can get a feeling."

"Why?"

"I just want a frame of reference," Nero said to her and, though her head tilted cutely in confusion, the fox did as asked. Tamamo's eyes closed as she stood perfectly still, her whiskers twitching in the wind.

"There are a few bugs around, not many. There is some sort of animal in the grass a bit behind us." A gopher or something of the sort Nero had guessed as he felt it leave its subterranean burrow and the taste of dirt smeared fur in the air. "There is a bird in front of us in the trees, I think it has a nest." That was surprising, the forest was over fifty meters away, was further than Nero could read based on the vibrations of the ground, though he could get the barest hint of bark and sap on the breeze.

"What can you feel from the forest?"

"Not much," Tamamo said with a foxy frown. "It feels like a big blurry lump, the wind passes through the leaves and the trees, but beyond the first few I can't get nothing." Nero nodded in thought before responding, he also made a mental note to try and get her grammar up to par. If they were going to spend any length of time together, he didn't want to deal with the headaches that came with incorrect sentence structure, though that could wait for later.

"That enough, we should keep going." Tamamo opened her eyes resumed her walk beside him.

"What 'cha thinking 'bout?" The fox asked to her human companion after a few minutes of silent walking.

"Just comparing our various sense," Nero answered absently, his mind formulating what he knew into various categories. "My tongue can taste and smell various particles on the air but if I want any sort of cohesive idea it needs to be reasonably close or upwind. You seem to have a wider range but less exactitude, focusing more on the airflows themselves rather than what they carry."

"Never thought 'bout it like that."

"That's not all though," Kaiser continued, following that train of thought further down its tracks. "I can feel the vibrations in the ground pretty well, you probably can too to a lesser extent with your padded paws," Tamamo stopped for a moment to lift up her front paw and look at the pads covering it. Shaking it off, the fox resumed her walking a little faster to catch up. "But it isn't perfect when it comes to moving from one medium to another, say from stone to dirt or dirt to tree. You don't suffer from that because there is only one medium, the air, that the vibrations move through."

"That's good, right?"

"Outstanding even," Nero nodded in agreement which caused Tamamo to preen in pride as she rose her head high, her tail swinging behind her in delight. "Though I wonder if it would work even better with my enhanced sense of touch. But that'll have to wait for a few more days for testing."

"So what now?" Tamamo asked curiously.

"We could go straight towards Maqi, but before we do that, I want to see how you do in a fight."

"Oh," the fox responded with trepidation.

"What level are you?"

"Twelve," Tamamo said softly, her tail started to swing wildly in agitation.

"Lower than average for foxes in the area but considering your age that is actually pretty good. It is high enough for now though."

"What are you planning," the fox asked in worry.

"Nothing bad," Nero reassured her. "You'll definitely be able to handle it."

"Oh, ok then." She still sounded worried, but that was normal for those going into a fight.

"Come on, we need to get off the path for this to work," Nero said as he led her into the trees off to the side of the path.

Unlike Machy which had started off as a military outpost to keep an eye on the Bonewall in the south and Maki which was the northernmost outpost of the Sarra kingdom and acted as a vanguard against the monster in the Ishval jungle, Maqi had started off as a small logging outpost. After the Rupture, Sarra had lost its supply lines to its old capital. At the time the three sons of the general of the keep, who later became king, were dispatched into various territories to secure land. Machy and Maki were both military men and were thus sent to secure the borders whereas Maqi was focused more on administration and development and therefore was sent to gather wood and clear up farmland.

Interestingly enough Maqi would be the one to inherit his father's throne not even a decade later and institute the adventurer and pioneer system which allowed the military to focus on internal stability while the adventurers risked their lives as explorers.

Before that, Maqi would found the town in the southern woods as they were more hospitable than the Ishval jungle. It would slowly but surely expand into a massive clearing in the forest, separated from the hills that neighbored Sarra by only a relatively thin stretch of wood that was being whittled away, piece by piece. Until such time though, goblins use that stretch of uncleared forest as a staging area for ambushes on unsuspecting caravans. They were rarely, but they proved enough of a nuisance caution had to be taken when crossing that particular bit of road.

All this Nero had learned from the grumblings of Furu. The old man would moan about guard duty for hours while simultaneously cursing the 'Green Pigmies.'

While interesting to Nero, who always enjoyed history, the useful info had come from one of his discussions with Medea on the cultures of various humanoids. She had mentioned off handily that goblin scouts were more often than not the weakest and most incompetent of their group. They would operate by themselves because nobody else wanted to work with them. And when they inevitably died, they would respawn and make their way back to their camp where they would tell others about what had killed them and then get sent out again. It was an inefficient system but one that

played to the goblins strengths of fast respawn rate and high numbers.

By combining these to factoids together, Nero theorized that the stretch of woods separating Maqi from Sarra should be filled with weak goblins acting alone. Not very good for leveling or farming for bounties but an excellent place to put Tamamo into a somewhat fair fight to see how she did. Nero had been about her level when he had hunted goblins with the party from The Bank. Though he had numerous advantages over goblins, such as height, strength, and such, he believed Tamamo wouldn't have a problem with one weaker than those Nero had fought.

All that said, it took a surprising amount of time before they managed to find one of the humanoids. It could have been the cold or the early hour, but by the time they had seen a valid target, Nero was half convinced his theory had been wrong. Thankfully Tamamo had managed to pick up movement in a clearing a ways away. They had snuck close enough to get a good look at it before stealing away again. By then the sun had fully risen and started to warm the air slightly.

"Alright, you should be able to handle this one no problem," Nero told Tamamo quietly.

"Right, right," the fox repeated to herself anxiously. She had calmed down in the hours they had been searching the forest, but upon seeing the goblin, she had gone back to full nervousness. "I can do this, I can do this. I'm awesome, I'm great, nobody's gonna kill me. I'm gonna kill them. I'm gonna kill them all!"

A bit psychopathic but Nero didn't really care, whatever helped psyche her up. "I'm going to be in a tree nearby, keeping an eye on things. If you get the drop on it, you'll be fine."

"M'kay," Tamamo answered softly.

That was probably as good a response as Nero was going to get, so he snuck off to get into position. The clearing they had found the goblin in wasn't huge only a big stone in the middle that the scout was using as a seat set it apart. The scout wasn't anything impressive either, just wearing a fur loincloth and holding a large stick as a club.

Because the green humanoids didn't have senses any better than the average human, Nero felt safe enough to climb a tree that was pretty close to the clearing. The season meant that most of the foliage should have disappeared, but this area was mostly filled with species of evergreen and the needles of tree Nero chose, a fir if he wasn't mistaken, provided excellent cover. Perched as he was above the clearing Nero could see Tamamo slink nearer the rear of the goblin.

"Hm, what's going on?" A voice asked next to Nero's ear. Thankfully he didn't scream in surprise, but he did jump a bit. The tree swayed slightly with his weight, but Nero managed to hold on.

"Keep it down," Nero whispered to Jorry. The snake had woken up, finally, and had slithered its way onto his shoulder.

"Why are we whispering?" The snake whispered back. In response, Nero nodded down at Tamamo who had stopped at the edge of the clearing. "We're watching a fox fight a goblin? Why?"

"That's Tamamo," Nero explained, but Jorry just looked at him blankly. "The fox from last night? The one I introduced you to? The one I recruited?" Jorry just continued to look confused. "I literally waved you in front of her face, how are you not remembering this?"

"I'm sorry," Jorry snapped back sarcastically. "I'm sure you always remember everything that happens when you are half asleep. So excuuusssseee me!"

"Whatever," Nero was really starting to regret teaching the snake about sarcasm, the little bastard was way too good at it. "She's only level twelve, so I decided to pit her against a weak goblin to see how she does."

"All right then," Jorry said merely as he settled down to watch as well. The pair sat quietly while they waited for Tamamo to pounce.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

"What's taking her so long," Jorry finally asked after a quarter of an hour passed.

"I don't know," Nero answered with a shrug. "Maybe she's waiting for the goblin to move."

"Fine, but if this keeps going, I'll go back to sleep." It did, in fact, keep going. The clearing remained the same for another half hour, the only movement was the occasional swivel of the humanoid's head. Nero understood why goblins failed so often if this is what they considered scouting. He told himself that if nothing happened at the hour mark, he would go down and kill the goblin himself. Jorry meanwhile, had gone back to sleep.

Something finally changed after fifty minutes. The green humanoid stood up and made its way towards the tree on which Nero was perched. He tensed, ready to drop on the creature if he thought he was spotted. Fortunately, or not, the goblin remained oblivious to the human ready to end its life. It merely was relieving itself on a nearby tree.

Not only did Nero get a closer look at goblin anatomy than he had ever wished, but the wind also carried particles of urine into the air and Nero had to stop himself from gagging at the taste.

Once the monster was done, he returned to his rock to grab his stick-slash-club. Nero spared a glance for Tamamo. He would have thought she had fallen asleep if it weren't for the way her ears were pressed against her skull. The goblin seemed to have decided to do some actual scouting, imperfect as it was. It wandered the clearing, poking things with its stick. Eventually, it started to walk close to Tamamo.

Nero tensed. This was probably what the fox had been waiting for, a chance for the enemy to get close enough for an ambush. Any moment now Tamamo would burst from her hiding place in the bushes and pounce on her unfortunate victim. But as the seconds ticked by and the goblin got closer and closer to the fox, nothing happened. Tamamo remained stationary. Until she couldn't anymore.

"FFFOOOODDD!" With a startled yet happy shout, the goblin noticed the hidden fox and jumped forward, ready to beat the fox to death with its club.

"WWAAAAAHHHHHH!" Tamamo let out a war cry of her own and pounced on her enemy.

At least that was what Nero had initially thought, but Tamamo did not attack the humanoid, instead dashing past it and into the open clearing. The goblin gave chase.

Now that he thought of it Nero realized that Tamamo's shout sounded less like a battle cry and more like just plain crying.

Nero stared, nonplussed, as he watched the goblin chase the fox around the clearing in circles, waiving its club-like branch ineffectively with repeated shouts of 'FOOD.'

Enough was enough, Nero thought. With a whisper of 'evolve' he dropped from his perch and onto the forest floor. The clearing's inhabitants didn't notice, so caught up in their game of chase were they. The goblin only saw Nero when the back of his hand, covered in bone spikes, smacked it in the jaw. The backhand was brutal enough that the creature went flying into a tree where it lay unconscious or dead.

Tamamo continued to run around the rock, unaware of the dispatch of her attacker until she rounded it and caught sight of Nero. She dove for him, jumping into his arms as she continued to cry.

"Wahh," she blubbered, though Nero's wasn't even sure if foxes had tear ducts. "I don't wanna die! I don't wanna die!" She cried.

Nero held back a sigh. Others might have their heartstrings pulled at the pathetic sight. Nero's only thought was if he should abandon the fox if she continued to prove this useless.

*****

"Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me."

-Carol Burnett