Kirin threw them off.

He thinks.

Maybe. Hopefully. He’s not entirely sure how unforgiving the gang would be with him, as deserters are generally rare. They weren’t nearly as bad as some of the other gangs he’s joined in the past, not by a long shot, but he knew better than to underestimate any.

Squeezed past a particularly tight alleyway, he was huddled behind a large dumpster. He doesn’t know exactly where he was at the moment, or how far he ran with all his winding circles, but he can hazard a guess that he wasn’t in the nicest parts of the city anymore.
Otherwise, there wouldn’t be dumpsters. Folks would just have some brand of a magical disposal system within their homes, instead of a communal one.

After a third, fourth time of listening in for any nearby footsteps, he slumped back against the brick walls of his confines.
Gods was he exhausted.

Physically, and everywhere else.

He always felt that way whenever he had to leave a gang or went through some sort of falling out with them. Not because he was attached to them really, or anyone in it. Only time that ever really happened was with his very first gang.

Maybe it was because the process of finding a new one unaffiliated with any of his previous gangs would be a bitch to rifle through. That was probably it.

Krrrk.

Kirin stiffened, hearing what he assumed to be.. claws scratching against brick? In any case, it was fairly close.

Rubbing his panging ribs (he never got an A in P.E., leave him alone), he was just about to stand up when a creepy ass voice rang out into the alley,

“I can smell you.”

What.
The fuck??

This wasn’t the gang, but Kirin couldn’t for the life of him guess who it could be.

His current (technically now ex) gang was based in Ragnar territory, as all his previous gangs had been. After his first, he naturally went for another one, but he wanted to get the hell out of Ragnar, and have a leader who would be perpetually distant.

After some hopping around, he finally found what he wanted in the form of this overseas faction in Irideen. The boss would only come around once in a long while for when they got hired out by a very important client; AKA what this mission was meant to be.
They were promised a very sizable reward for their cargo, which Kirin now knew to be Void-related.

All this to say… he doesn’t know anyone else in Irideen beyond the gang faction. Why would he? So the fact that there was apparently now someone new hunting him down, was downright upsetting to say the least.

“Come out. I only want a taste…”

A freaky someone, clearly.
Kirin looked around for an escape, but he seemed pretty pinned at the moment.

The alleyway either had a dead end, or the opening. It was obscure enough for Kirin to calculate he should have enough time for his teleport ability to recover before any of the gang he ditched found him, but evidently he didn’t take into account this–-

“Found you.”

-–this… tiefling?

Ohhh, it was the tiefling chasing him out of the blue from earlier.

..he was still confused.
“Who-?”

“You may call this body Calico.” They gave a toothy (and therefore fangy) smile.
Once the tracks devolved to a series of overlapping goose chases, it was easy to pick up on that new yet utterly appetizing smell they picked up on when everyone was chasing after the gang.

It wasn’t nearly as strong as before, but it was enough for them to find Kirin, blood pungently delectable with power.

“I.. ok, Calico...” Kirin was going to die. He was going to die in an alleyway of trash, cornered by a bloodthirsty devil. He’d be more mad if it weren’t so comically fitting.
“...I’m kind of really busy right now, fighting you will make a whole lot of noise, and I don’t exactly wanna get killed by either my ex-gang or you, so--”

“Who said anything about killing?” Calico raised their voice, knowing exactly what it’d do.

“Wh- you did–and shhh!!” Kirin waved them down, unthinkingly flagging them closer in a whispered shriek, “Not so loud!”

“I only said I wanted a taste. So how about this.” Calico shuffled forward on their haunches, “You give me a sip, and I let you alone. I’ll even help deal with the gang.”

Kirin warily eyed the tiefling, fairly sure they weren’t a vampire. Those were rare as fuck around here, but still, “Uhm.. you sure you’re not going to just chop me up and turn me into stew or anything?”

“I’m an excellent cook I’ll have you know. I always sample my ingredients before use.” Calico chuckled, “Oh no.. I’d only do that if you taste unforgivably delicious.”

Kirin gulped, rolling a figurative die in his head.
He was stranded, and he fought best in a group, so if letting this random ass tiefling drink his damn blood meant they would help protect him until he could get back to the university…

He gave a grieven sigh, rolling up a sleeve on the arm without his wrist gauntlet.
This is one of the crazier choices he’s made in his life, if not the craziest.

“I hope I taste fucking terrible then.” Kirin slowly raised up his arm, “And- if I start to feel dizzy, I will smack a bitch, don’t test me.”

Calico didn’t respond, grabbing him by the wrist and getting right to–

“Ow!” Kirin’s face contorted as several pricks of sharp teeth gnawed at him, the animal.

“Huh.” Calico drew back surprisingly quick, licking their lips. “..Your blood is a lot darker than it should be.”

Kirin shrugged an arm, yanking his wrist back to survey the damage.
He wasn’t mauled or anything, but that won’t stop him from disinfecting and wrapping the area in bandages twice over.

“I can’t say what the taste is… I’ve never-” Calico froze, and Kirin looked up after patching his arm up.

“What?”

Calico gasped suddenly, feeling down their torso, “Fuck.”
They could feel the diluted extracts of power they smelled earlier, begin to spread in a static-like sensation. It wasn’t entirely evident on their taste buds, but now they realize it’s because it simply sank into their flesh.

It was dissolving them from the inside out.

“Hell's sake.” Calico stumbled backwards, landing on their seat in a cry, “I’m allergic!”

Kirin’s eyes widened, wildly unsure of what to do, “Uhp- oh no, shit. Er, what do you need me to do??”

The tiefling was acting like this was more of a massive inconvenience than a life or death situation, whining, “Ugh! And I really liked this body too, yellow eyes totally match my personality!”

This was getting out of hand, and fast. Kirin had hoped his blood wouldn’t taste good, not that it’d flat out kill them.

“I don’t know what you’re saying, what-what do I do?!” Kirin didn’t have anything on him that could stop an allergic reaction to blood. Hell, he didn’t even know that was a thing.

“You can hold still.” Calico’s voice became the slightest bit more unraveled, flaring into multiple hissing chords, “I’ll need another body for when I die.”

Kirin wanted to scream, “You’re going to die???”

“It’s literally disintegrating me as we speak.”

“Fuck!!” Kirin harshly rubbed his face, “You were supposed to help me!”

“No, I was supposed to consume your happiness!” Calico doubled over, now lying on the hard stone ground.

Sure, they wanted to savor his blood a bit as an appetizer before asking him questions and draining some happiness for a well overdue snack; smelling richly power-dense and unlike anything they’ve ever come across.
And heck, they still planned on keeping their word to help him for his troubles after.

But noooo. They just had to be allergic to the stuff.

“Hey-!” Kirin felt the mildest bit betrayed, if not utterly confused. Then again, he was pretty much just confused this entire time,
“Well, maybe I should just let you keel over then!”

“I wouldn’t advise that boy.” Calico’s voice was growing more faint, delirious, “If I die here, I’ll either have to devour your soul, or possess your body as my own.”
Either way, they needed a person. Which there was currently only one other of.

Kirin just wanted to take a nap honestly. “Please, I don’t even know what the fuck is going on, give me-”
A break, he was about to say, but fate seemed to have other plans.

Because right as Calico slumped over flat on their face to conserve energy, coming right around the corner to stumble onto this rather hysterical yet depraved scene, was motherfucking Jaimie.

Kirin felt his soul leave his body, and it wasn’t because Calico was trying to discreetly siphon off his life force.

“Woah?! Hey, guys I found–!!”

Fucking. Jaimie.

Before Kirin could even stop himself, he dashed to yank Jaimie in from the alley entrance,
“Dude shut up!! You're gonna blow my cover.”

“Huh?” He stumbled back as Kirin shoved him toward the dead end, “Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?”

Oh ye gullible narc, “No, no of course not. See- this is all just a big misunderstanding!”

Jaimie furrowed his brow, suspicious, “Grayson said you turned traitor and ran off with some tabaxi and–”

He faltered, finally catching sight of the crumpled over tiefling on the ground.
They twitched, and Jaimie jumped up a foot,

“W-who’s that? Are they dead?? What hap–”

“Relax man, come on.” Kirin placated, one hand slowly inching to his back holster,
“Don’t you get it? This is all part of the plan!”

“It..” Jaimie blinked owlishly at Kirin, “Is it?”

Kirin nodded, unnoticeably backing up bit by bit, till he was behind Calico.
“Yep. This game of tag for the cargo.. it's all just to negotiate a higher price. If we tell our client that a different party stole it, we could charge an additional fee for us to retrieve it. Everybody wins.”

Calico lifted their head again, eyes sharp and.. amused somehow. They must’ve been listening in on Kirin’s unfiltered bullshit.

Jaimie seemed to have marginally calmed down via confusion by now.
To Kirin’s absolute delight, instead of picking up on the numerous discrepancies in his lie (why not just lie instead of running around, no way the client would trust them to retrieve something they lost, etc.), Jaimie fixated on one thing, and one thing only.

“...How’s the tiefling figure into all this?”

Kirin unholstered his one and beloved gun from his back, slipping it downwards to hide behind a leg,
“Hey Calico?”

They rose to their knees shoddily, limbs jerking this way and that, as if they were slowly losing control. Jaimie took a step back, puzzled on whether he should holler or not.

Kirin revealed his rifle, readying it. He’d no clue if it was going to be used on Jaimie or Calico (or both, who knows), but if things went his way, he wouldn’t need to fire at all.

“Here’s your body.”

Jaimie yelped incoherent exclamations as Calico vaulted toward him in a snarl, landing on him heavily as Kirin sighed and lowered his gun. He can’t say he didn’t feel the teensiest bit bad for Jaimie, but hey, better them than him.

Calico ruminated for a moment over what exactly to do with their prey. There were really only three main options here.

The easiest and quickest method would be to just exchange hosts and possess Jaimie’s body.
However, they really liked their current one... they’d be damned if they had to give it up after only a few days of use (plus, no WAY were they going to take on the form of a teenage boy, no matter how well they could morph it, are you kidding).

The longest method would be to slowly and carefully consume just the soul for healing, so that the physical body wouldn’t be absorbed in the process too. Yes, the victim would be left as a lifeless husk or corpse (it was a coin toss), but at least Calico wouldn’t have a whole new 120 pounds of body weight to juggle around with.

But.. they could feel their current body getting dissolved fast, and being picky enough to absorb just the soul could take hours to work, volatilely delicate as it was. If Calico truly wanted to keep this body intact enough for further use, they needed a soul NOW.

So, third option it was.
Devour.

Calico let their body shift and morph to be more fluid, hurriedly sinking into Jaimie as they somewhat fused into one.
It was a painless and far less messy way of absorbing someone (as opposed to ripping and tearing them apart. but Calico wasn’t some debauched creature, they had class).

Jaimie shouted nonetheless,
“Agh! Kirin, wha- help me out!!”

Kirin opted to keep watch by the opening of the alley, whistling a tune.

“Okay seriously, this isn’t fu–” Calico got to his face, completely consuming the yapping youth in no time. Once this happened, the body and soul were able to be simultaneously taken in an internal, amorphous spell.

The deed was done, as abruptly as it began.

Now all that there was left to do, was digest.

Kinda.
Maybe it wasn’t “digestion” in the most traditional sense, but whenever Calico had absorbed an entire body like this, they’d need a moment to recover and adapt to the new mass. Stabilize.

Kirin turned to see Calico, slumped over on the ground again in what he assumed to be a bout of intense food coma.

“Uhh, Calico?”

“Hngrnm.”

“Sooo… can you like, still help me?? I just need to get back to the university undetected.”

Calico rose a brow, “I just ated your friend, and that’s what you’re concerned about?”

“Why does everyone keep assuming we’re friends!? The gang isn’t like some great big happy family y’know.” Kirin huffed before pointing out,
"Plus, I kinda just knowingly sacrificed him to you."

“In any case,” Calico waved a weak hand, “I’m down for the next several minutes. I can’t guide or protect you, but I can give you directions if that’ll suffice.”

Eh, that worked.

Calico managed to relay their pathing from when they were tracking Kirin, just before they finally conked out and fell into a heavy nap.

Kirin considered briefly that, hey, maybe he shouldn’t just leave this random tiefling he met knocked out in the middle of an alleyway.
But then he reconsidered the fact that they had just absorbed a whole ass person, and probably weren’t just a random tiefling, so they should fare just fine.

Maybe. Hopefully.

Before he could think further into it, Kirin was off, sprinting as quietly as he could and making his way back to the university.

…

Gods, what a day.