Chan was wrenched from sleep by an unbearable mental pressure. He gasped and lurched upright, the pink crystal a pinpoint of light in his sleep-gummed vision.

"Chan?" Mihn rasped from the top bunk, ever the light sleeper.

Chan twisted his wrist and spoke the activation word. Immediately, the painful pressure on his mind eased, replaced by a sense of Anjeon's boundary. It flared like sunspots behind his eyes as densely magical bodies passed through the barrier.

“Are you kidding me?” he grumbled. He turned glowing pink eyes up towards Mihn, who was hanging half off her bed. “Unicorns leaving through the west again. A whole bunch of them. I think–” The cabin and Mihn faded from his vision as he concentrated on the magical map provided by the crystal. “--It’s a whole herd,” he said in horror. "At least 30."

Mihn frowned. With her hair hanging upside-down and blood rushing to her face, she was adorable. “Why so many?” she asked. “And at night? Something is off." Unicorns were the opposite of nocturnal creatures: they woke with the dawn and nested at dusk.

Chan scrubbed at his eyes and swung his legs out of bed, bare feet caressed by the smooth hardwood floor. “Yeah, something doesn't feel right. We need more people to get them back safely. Just the two of us–”

“We’ll use the Void Tigers,” Mihn interrupted, flipping off her bed to land lightly in front of Chan, a toss of her head getting her hair out of her face. 

When Chan gaped at her (from her words, not the flip; that was a typical Mihn move), she sneered. “What, afraid of some big, black pussy cats?”

Chan threw his arms wide. “Of course I’m afraid of them! They’re big, vicious, and they’re only here because some witches didn’t close their gateway to The Void 50 years ago.” Still complaining, he got up and pawed through his dresser for clean clothes. Hopefully these wouldn't get filthy. “Plus, unicorns are afraid of them, and unicorns fear nothing. So, yeah. I’m scared.”

“Which is exactly why they will be perfect to chase the herd back into the protected zone,” Mihn retorted. She also started dressing, first slipping out of her sleep-shorts, unbothered by Chan seeing her frog-patterned panties. Chan…didn’t not look. Because Mihn’s curves were something to be appreciated. But he still had the boundary map splashed over his mind, so he couldn’t get distracted by the muscles beneath those cartoon frog faces like he otherwise might have.

“How are we going to control them? How are we even going to find them?” Chan cinched his belt tight around his hips, ab and bicep muscles momentarily flexing with the movement.

Mihn finished buttoning her loose black pants and pulled on a tight black shirt. Then she speared Chan with her gaze and gave a slow, unnerving smile. Her white teeth looked extra pointy in the dim light. “We won’t have to find them. They’re close.”

Sometimes, Chan thought Mihn was cute. Sometimes, he thought Mihn was strange. But it was times like this that made goosebumps prickle the back of his neck despite the muggy heat.

Mihn put on her boots and disappeared out the doorway before Chan could decide whether or not to ask how in the Dual Dimensions she knew that. Shaking his head to clear away his uneasiness, Chan laced up his own boots and followed her into the night. 

Moonlight turned her bare arms silvery as they lazily tied up her hair, now black in the night. Chan clocked her slow saunter and knew it was her equivalent of waiting for him.

He jogged to her side and flashed a grin. “Who’s scared now?”

You could balance a marble down the stare she leveled at him, it was so flat. “What.”

“You didn’t want to go too far without me, huh?” he said cheekily.

Casually, she punched his ribs, her lips barely twitching when he yelped. “Keep dreaming, Channie boy.” 

Chan blushed a little at the nickname she rarely used as they jogged past Injae's dwelling, heavy boots crushing the hearty weeds springing up in the well-trodden dirt paths. He gazed longingly at the thatched roof. If only Injae wasn’t in the city right now, called as a witness for a trial involving a selkie, a gnome, and a pair of concert tickets.

Mihn made a pleased little noise as she neared the trees at the edge of headquarters. Chan slowed on shaking legs, letting his partner lope ahead of him.

First, there was nothing but shadows in the forest. The next second, four pairs of shining eyes peered out from the darkness of the trees, chilling Chan to his core. The Void Tigers’ eyes were purple, but also black. A strange dark glow like black lights in a club.

Mihn walked right up to the trees, then made a little hissing sound, like she was cajoling a sweet little kitten to lick a treat from her hand. The creatures that came out of the trees were anything but. Four pairs of darkly shining eyes resolved into four felines bigger than the Jeep. Pelts so black no light reflected–it was like looking into the depths of outer space. Each had several deep purple stripes running along their sides–the only points besides their eyes that were actually visible. 

Mihn stood on her tip-toes to scratch behind the ear of one broad, flat head, and the Void Tiger closed its eyes, a low purr somehow sucking the air out of Chan.  

Chan knew these creatures weren’t evil or malicious. They were just animals, driven by the same basic needs of all animals: food, shelter, breeding. They were simply from another realm. That realm was the antithesis of this one, meaning their magic clashed with the magic of unicorns like screeching feedback. So, like usual, Mihn was right about how to solve their unicorn problem. However, how were two humans supposed to command four otherworldly beasts?

“So… are we going to ride them or something?”

The look Mihn leveled Chan could peel paint. It was such a familiar look that all Chan’s fear from the Void Tigers abruptly disappeared, leaving him warm and sappy.

She sniffed. “How dare you. Sit on the noblest creatures in the universe?”

“Void Tigers?”

“Felines, you heathen.”

Chan nodded, smiling. “Right. My bad. But,” he shrugged, “how will we get them to herd the unicorns? And not just lounge here like cats?” He wasn’t worried about the Void Tigers harming the unicorns. The screeching feedback of their magic meant that neither species wanted to eat the other. Threaten and warn away? Yes. But nothing more.

“You just leave that to me,” Mihn purred, petting one Void Tiger, seemingly ignoring Chan. Her hand was starkly visible against the nothingness of its pelt. "Go get two flying carpets for us, and weapons."

"You don't want to share a carpet?"

"No. And I want the–"

"The Gilly Gun. Yeah I know."

Mihn scrunched her nose in adorable irritation. Clearly, Chan had guessed his partner's preferred weapon correctly. It took all of his self control not to point it out in the syrupy voice he knew she hated.

"Get going, then," Mihn grumbled, still turned away from Chan and toward the Void Tigers. Three of them were nuzzling her now, three jaws that could crush her neck in half a moment or less.

Though it made his shoulders itch with anxiety, Chan turned his back on the four death cats and his partner and hurried to the warehouse.

*

*

*

Chan just had to trust Mihn when she said the Void Tigers were following them, because he could neither hear nor see the massive cats from his high vantage point.

Chan lay on his stomach, flying so high that a fall would definitely break his bones. The carpet cradled him from head to foot, its threadbare pile not exactly soft beneath his chest. The fund for Anjeon had better things to be spent on than new vehicles for the Rangers. 

Flying a few feet beside and above him, Mihn also lay on her stomach, arms and legs starfished as she clung to the carpet, her nose scrunched up and jaw hard. Mihn wasn’t a fan of flying. 

Chan had forgotten his gloves again, so the rough underside of the carpet rubbed against his fingers as he gripped the front edge. The summer air was like velvet coasting over his skin as he zoomed through the air away from Headquarters and over the same grasslands they had taken the Jeep this morning.

As they passed over the spot where Chan had gotten muddy wrangling the young mare, he looked over to Mihn. She was already looking back, a grim expression on her moonlit face. She nodded at Chan. She was thinking the same thing:

This is no fluke.

Icy trepidation snaked up Chan’s throat and settled in his bones as he thought it. He looked toward the black, rapidly approaching forest–the forest the mare and Mihn had been so intent on–and shivered.

The leather harness strapped around his shoulders and chest suddenly felt heavy, the bowie knife and telescopic stunner digging into his sides. He feared he’d have to use them tonight.

What awaited them under those shadowed boughs?