Aidan and Raven were sitting on the couch watching the light screen when she walked out into the main room. They both looked up, acknowledged her presence, and then went back to loafing. The strange look of peace on their faces and the way they were sitting quietly gave her pause.

“What’s good?” Amelia asked after a moment.

Aidan patted the space between him and Raven. Amelia graciously accepted the space and plopped down without any thought beyond sitting. Raven brought her knees up and swung them around, sticking cold toes under her legs, causing her to squeak.

Neither of them gave her so much as a look, still being total zombies to the light screen.

Confused, Amelia looked up and saw that they were watching a feed being streamed from MKC Online. It looked like there was quite the pitched battle going on at the Royal Palace Grounds. Watching it without sound was eerie. There were subtitles, but at the moment they were being very descriptive by saying things like explosions, boom, fwish, screams of joy and agony.

“Why are you weirdos sitting in the dark watching this with no sound?” Amelia finally asked.

“Shh.” Raven shushed.

“Why am I being shushed?! There’s no sound!” Amelia laughed.

“You came in at a part where they weren’t showing her,’ Aidan said. He leaned back on the couch and his eyelids drooped somewhat. He looked very tired. “We both agreed that it is too bizarre to hear her words spoken. They’re somewhat disconcerting as subtitles, too.”

Raven nodded and then lowly added, “for real.”

“Who?” Amelia turned back to the light screen. “What’s going on?”

“Elisha apparently lured a really big strike force into an ambush area using the big Imperial contributors as bait. It’s a little astonishing, but I think there are so many rebels pushing in that they can’t get organized enough to stop. A sort of stampede. Elisha’s group has been carefully controlling the funnel they created and are funneling them to death. For the last three hours.” Aidan explained slowly.

“Wow,” Amelia was suitably impressed. She was sure that Aidan was simplifying it a great deal, but now that she had some context for the scene she was witnessing it was easier to make sense of the crush of bodies and names.

“Wow,” Aidan agreed, and then nudged her as the scene shifted. “This is why we turned the sound off.”

The studio had cut to Elisha, standing on top of a box near the fringe of a group of lancers controlling the front of the funnel. Khiafin stood beside her looking absolutely bored to tears. Rarely had Amelia seen someone look so depressed. Just before Amelia could ask what the big deal was, Elisha’s mouth stopped moving and then a weird grin overtook her face as the enemy Rebels who had just come into the mouth of the trap realized they were being pressed against their own people into a meat grinder. Her hands went to her hips and she threw her head back without looking away from the doomed Rebels. As they were cut down, the silent picture showed Elisha’s shoulders moving up and down while she laughed at the slaughter.

“Wow,” Amelia said again.

“I took a screenshot. I’m gonna make a huge poster of Elisha just laughing while being a murder hobo.” Raven’s eyes gleamed, and then she seemd to remember that Amelia had just arrived. “How was your day?”

“Anything good happen?” Aidan didn’t tear his eyes away from the laughing despot, drunk on her own power, on the screen.

“About that. I think I should like to leave the Research Facility.” Amelia said carefully.

“How would you like to do that? Surrender? Have us come get you?” Aidan inquired.

“Cans and cans of flammable liquid and a match.”

Raven looked over, suddenly interested in the conversation. “Ooh.”

“Do you have a plan for that?” Aidan raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

“Well, I can’t surrender, and I’m not too keen on the whole waiting for rescue. So I guess there’s only one real solution.” Amelia said firmly.

“Quit?” Raven asked, her beautiful head empty.

“Beat up the entire facility in an afternoon with some sort of god power you learned in the last few hours?” Aidan guessed.

“God power!” Amelia clicked her tongue and pointed at Aidan.

“You’re a god now?” Raven’s eyes practically shone.

“...no. But I KNOW a god.” Amelia tried not to let the fact that Raven deflated get to her too much. “I’ll get a hold of Gabriel tonight and see if he can do the pray thing and get the ball rolling, let her know to at least keep an ear out. Couldn’t hurt. Then I’ll try to get her to come grab me in the Research Facility.”

“What if she doesn’t come?” Aidan wanted to know quietly.

Amelia snapped her fingers and looked triumphantly at him. “I already thought of that, and I don’t know!”

“Should we tell Elisha that you’re coming back?” Raven asked, eyeing the lightscreen with respect.

“Yeah, probably for the best.” Amelia nodded. “I’ll try to get Vienne to drop me off at the Royal Palace Grounds or near the dragon statue.”

“Will you ask Elias to make an announcement?” Aidan shifted in place, trying not to kick her as he repositioned his legs.

“Feel like that would be a bad idea. Mordred would just shift the whole army to grab me as I came out, I think.” Amelia decided.

“What about the quests and the dungeon? Will they go away after you leave?” Raven’s face darkened, suggesting she was worried that people might be angry.

“I don’t care.” Amelia shrugged nonchalantly. “I can’t care about everything, or control everything. I’m just going to try and leave and see what happens.”

“It’s doubtful the system would close the dungeon for everyone if Amelia decided to depart,” Aidan tried to reassure Raven. “It’ll just open a door somewhere else to let people in.”

Aidan’s comment made Amelia’s expression cloud over. He was probably right. More entrances would likely open. Aspiria’s version of the obelisk, no doubt.

“Yeah, until I get aforementioned cans of flammable liquid, anyway.” Amelia stretched, trying to let go of the stress that was starting to cling to her. “How was your day?”

“I murdered a bunch of people with Forsythe and Hunter until I got tired.” Raven smiled. “It was nice. Low-key relaxing.”

Amelia tried to imagine that being relaxing and just decided to press her lips together in a smile. “Oh. That’s nice.”

“I killed Mordred. He gave me quite a lot of contribution points. It was such an easy kill. Like squashing a little bitty baby.” Aidan sighed contentedly.

Raven leaned in and stage-whispered, “I saw the footage later and he was on the ropes the whole time and only got him because he knocked him off a building.”

“Raven,” Aidan’s face fell. “You wound me.”

Raven looked at him for a moment then resumed looking at Amelia. “He made so

many embarrassing cheese puns. It was awful.”

“I’m surprised,” Amelia said, eyes widening. “I wouldn’t have guessed cheese jokes. He’s such a big ham.”

“Oh no, Amelia, no, no, no.” Raven closed her eyes and put a finger to Amelia’s lips. “Don’t do that.”