It was a good thing that we were getting magical practice trying to help Zeb seem approachable to squirrels, because not much else was getting done. She was still far too enthusiastic to befriend the creatures.

  I was becoming rather bored. People were not meant to spend so much time outside, or if we were we should be hunting or gathering or something. I had no need to obtain food or supplies from the wilderness, which was good because I would be terrible at it.

  I wanted to get back to experimentation. There were still many things to learn. I did not resent Zeb’s need for any ally to help her out, but I hoped she would accept the impossibility of her task sooner rather than later. Whatever modifications she made to her methods were insufficient.

  My eyes roamed. There were a surprising number of animals that could be found hanging out in a forest, and with sufficient time I managed to find a decent number of them. Birds were the easiest as they tended to announce themselves. I saw a couple deer, some snakes, and of course insects. There were often other squirrels within sight of whichever one Zeb was after at the moment.

  “We’re being spied on,” I commented to Midnight.

  “I just noticed that too,” he said. “They’re off in the distance, pretending to be birdwatchers. However, their eyes are focused right on us.”

  “... who?” I tilted my head, turning towards Midnight as he turned towards me.

  “Don’t look now,” he said, making his way from the log where he had been sitting onto my shoulder. “We’ll find a moment to naturally look at them.”

  “... Alright. Until then, look at that squirrel. It’s totally watching us, right?” Or more specifically, it was watching Zeb, and we also happened to be an occasional target of attention.

  “I would too,” Midnight said. “If there was someone going around and harassing people in my neighborhood for days. I just thought of a better option. Take out your tablet and take a picture of that squirrel.”

  I’d just have to trust Midnight that it made sense. So I pulled it out of Storage. It was relatively cheap, given the relative mass. It was also extremely convenient to not have to carry around a large bag or something. I’d be constantly worried about it getting damaged, even if I didn’t get attacked every day.

  The squirrel had a tan belly and dark gray fur over the rest of it, with lighter gray interspersed in the tail. The fluff of the tail was moderate. I didn’t know what kind of squirrel it was, but Zeb probably did.

  “Good. Now look at the pictures I’m sending you,” Midnight said.

  “... How did you get these pictures?” I asked. In them, a few birdwatchers stood around, with hiking equipment and binoculars.

  “My suit. Obviously. Do you think Celmothians pull out cameras when we want to record something? Humanoids aren’t the only ones interested in preserving images for art or practicality.” Right. And he’d gotten special modifications to interface with human technology. “They’re definitely watching us, right? Who do you think they work for?”

  I frowned. “That is a pretty direct line,” I agreed. “But I don’t know if they’re working for someone. Tell me, if you were birdwatchers and you saw a flying dog… wouldn’t you temporarily change your focus?”

  “That’s… a really good point.”

  “It’s entirely possible they recognized us,” I commented. “I know we are not famous in the super mercenary scene, but we are distinct. And we’ve been involved with a number of public incidents. There could be so many reasons they might be watching us.”

  “Right,” Midnight agreed. “I feel much better.”

  “Do continue monitoring them, though.”

  -----

  Zeb had no luck that day… and we cut off a bit early to make sure we could get back to the city at a reasonable time. It wasn’t a short drive to a proper forest. Teleporting back would be fine, but with us being watched I didn’t want to. That power wasn’t public yet, so far as we knew. Even if someone was aware of my full potential, they wouldn’t necessarily know what spells I actually had, so I might be able to surprise potential foes.

  Which did mean taking a ride to an unrelated destination along the way, in case someone was expecting to ambush us somewhere along the way back into the city. It would be silly to try to plan for future issues without thinking about the current one.

  We reported the incident- it was agreed that any of the interpretations were possible. If we saw the same group again it would be a sign of trouble. Either way, if we encountered some villain after vengeance or whatever the plan should be to run. We couldn’t expect backup far outside the city, not even from speedsters or teleporters.

  Maybe Shockwave could make it, but only if we were there to empower them to move at maximum speed with Haste and Physical Freedom, which kind of defeated the whole point. Bolster would be able to do that eventually, but she was still working on early improvements to Haste. It was a massive difference between that and the 11 upgrades Midnight and I had, both in terms of duration and power. Plus the whole Physical Freedom part was necessary for Shockwave to not annihilate every glass surface in the city when they ran at that kind of speed. Probably a lot more than glass, actually.

  -----

  “We’ve been followed since the parking lot,” I commented to Midnight.

  “Wait, really? How did I not notice?” Midnight put his paws on top of my head to look past me. “Were they on the blind side?”

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  “You were looking in the wrong place,” I said, gesturing upward. “Behold, our pursuer.”

  “... That’s the same squirrel as yesterday,” Midnight commented.

  “Really?” I asked. “I mean, it’s obviously the same kind of squirrel but I don’t see anything distinctive enough…”

  “I’m better at recognizing small fur patterns. Like humans are good with faces. Obviously I’m best with felines, but I can tell. See how the light fur loops just above the nose?”

  I pulled out the picture from the day before. “Look at that,” I said. I took another picture- the camera was high enough quality that the zoom would be better than my eyes. I believe Midnight that he recognized it, but it was nice to confirm for myself. I couldn’t be fully certain until we saw another of the same type, which was sufficiently different.

  “So… do you think we should tell Zeb?” I asked eventually.

  “We might need to eventually,” Midnight agreed. “But if one is interested in us, she might just scare it off…”

  “It’s an interesting situation,” I agreed. Zeb would have been able to hear us, but she was so focused on her current target. Her barking was still kind of frantic, even if it wasn’t as loud as before. “Good news, it’s not Beastro.”

  “It’s not what now?” Midnight asked.

  “Some guy who hates Shockwave. Beastro doesn’t actually transform to any relevant extent. It could be some other shifter though.”

  “Are you serious?” Midnight asked.

  “I’m just saying, I don’t know why a squirrel would leave their territory to follow people around otherwise. Or… one humanoid, a canine, and a feline.”

  “Maybe we should have Zeb check it out?”

  “Can you smell shapeshifters?”

  “I don’t know,” Midnight admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever encountered one? I’d probably scare a real squirrel off just as much as Zeb, though. Even with the suit hidden.”

  “Can you c-” I stopped myself before I suggested Midnight climb a tree. “Maybe keep watch to see if it runs along the ground somewhere and you can pick out its trail.”

  “Good idea,” Midnight said.

  The rest of the day was continuing uneventfully, until we got far enough off the trail that we actually ended up on another trail. Zeb was ranging far and wide to try to find new squirrels, without much luck. Or rather, it seemed that luck wouldn’t be the main factor in her success or she would have managed it by now.

  A few hikers passed us by with simple greetings. Some stopped to look in curiosity at the sometimes-flying dog, but we were still close enough to New Bay that such things were, if not common, at least not unknown.

  Something about the second group put me off. “Weird,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I just kind of thought cyborgs would all be city folk? But realistically lots of mods aren’t relevant in the city and would be way better for hiking.”

  “Cyborgs? Do you think they might be from the Mod Squad?”

  “No profiling!” I said. “Most cyborgs aren’t with them.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I should have gotten a picture,” I said. At some points in time, supers were made to walk around with cameras active at all times. Privacy concerns had shut that down- not privacy for the supers in question, but for the general public. Now it was a wrestling match between two competing public needs. I had no interest in it, I just followed Brigade regulations, which in our current circumstances meant not having constant cameras.

  The squirrel followed us back to the parking lot. There weren’t any other cars waiting. If they were a shifter, would they transform into a bird and fly back to the city for the night?

  If they were a shifter, would they be eating pine seeds? Watching Zeb had been entertaining the first couple of days, but I’d found it more interesting to stare at the one curious squirrel. Or whatever. I had no idea how squirrels were supposed to behave, except for the not following people around thing.

  -----

  Zeb wasn’t incompetent at interacting with animals. She got along fine with Cel and Bun, and she’d tamed Fluffy and Miss Flutter in astounding time. Especially since one of those wasn’t even intentional. No, she wasn’t bad at it in general. It was a squirrel particular problem. Perhaps being a canine didn’t help, but I couldn’t imagine that most squirrels actually had experience with dogs in the forest. Maybe wolves or foxes?

  Regardless, failure after failure built up until during one lunch break Zeb just collapsed onto the ground with her face in her paws. “I’m a terrible beastmaster! I might as well be a beast… loser.”

  That… didn’t really work.

  Was this a situation where I was supposed to give advice, or sympathize? I was only competent at one of those, but I went with something like a mixture. “You’re not terrible. You’ve already tamed two magical beasts,” I pointed out. Well, technically rust moles weren’t magical at all. Dire bats were just an exceptionally big version of another animal. But the point stuck. “Maybe you just need to figure out what worked there, and how that might not work on something like squirrels.”

  Zeb seemed unable to maintain a depressed state. “That’s right! Of course this is difficult. I’ve only ever tamed magical creatures. Never anything with the mythical status of a squirrel!” That was the complete opposite of what I meant. But it made her tail wag, so it was probably good. “I’ve just got to treat this task with a deserving respect and devotion. I must work harder!”

  This wasn’t right at all. But Zeb began looking around eagerly.

  “Maybe eat lunch first?” I suggested. Zeb’s lunch was like the filling of a burrito- with minimum spicing. Much better than dog food, I imagined, but a similar amorphous mass.

  Zeb scarfed down what she had in the tupperware- helpfully opened by my hands so that she didn’t risk spilling it as she wrangled it open- and then began sniffing around. “I’ll find one, I’m sure of it!”

  I watched her go directly towards the wide tree where our resident watcher had been hanging out. I didn’t see it right then, until Zeb made her way around the backside of the tree. The squirrel was keeping pace on the ground, poking its head around to see Zeb’s tail as the two of them moved around the tree.

  “I’ve found one! No, two! Maybe three?” Zeb said excitedly. “I just have to catch it… but not scare it off. Hmm, this is hard. I’ll walk carefully.”

  Midnight and I shared a look. We could just tell her to turn around… but that could wait at least another minute, right? “You’re recording, right?” I asked Midnight.

  “Obviously.”