“Bob! Bob are you okay?” Rita asked, holding his arm in concern. The young man was coughing up more and more spatters of blood.

For a moment, she had been worried she was going to go berserk again, but a quick check revealed Alice still screaming bloody murder in her head – she had completely blocked her out and did not even hear her anymore unless she paid attention - and no sudden impulse to decapitate him. So that was good.

“I’ll be okay, Miss Rita” he managed to croak out between coughing fits. “Just give me a second to catch my breath.”

“Bob, no, you’re not okay. We must get back to the others. Come on, the creature showed me a back entrance. We can go around.”

The creature in question was still lying in the middle of the floor, a pool of blood slowly spreading around it. She had killed it, and on some level, she was completely freaking out about it. Right now, however, Bob took priority. She could be traumatized later.

“Can you walk?” she asked.

He nodded, but promptly stumbled after his first step and fell heavily against Rita. If she had still been limited to her two original legs, they would both have gone sprawling across the ground, but eight legs were much more stable. She swayed from the sudden impact but managed to catch him.

“I’m sorry Miss Rita” he mumbled, before launching into another coughing fit that sprayed blood all over Rita’s shoulder, the red droplets a stark contrast to the filthy brown of her sweater.

He needed healing. Fast. And he could barely walk. Rita glanced backwards at her thorax and abdomen sticking out behind her and had an idea.

“Get on my back, Bob. I’m getting us out of here” she commanded and forcefully ducked her rear under his legs and scooped him up until he was sitting on her thorax side-saddle, his arms clinging around her shoulders.

Immediately she sagged under the weight. Damn, he was heavy! Bob was only about seventeen, but he was from stout farmer stock. If she had still been fully human there was no way she would have been able to support him, much less carry his full weight. As it was, even with six extra legs it was a struggle.

“Miss Rita, I…” he mumbled, trailing off into another cough.

“Hold on, Bob, I’ll get us back to the group” she promised, heading out the back door, moving as quickly as she could.

“Thank you, Miss Rita” he said weakly, before coughing again. “The big plant hit me with a big leaf, knocking the breath right out of me. And I didn’t know where anyone was…”

“Shh, it’s okay. Just breathe, Bob. Just breathe” she said.

At the back of the building was a rectangular, back garden courtyard area. Dead plants in broken pots adorned several stone benches scattered around, and dead grass crumbled under her feet. It seemed like almost every apartment in the surrounding building had a door into this shared, communal space. Thankfully, apart from her and Bob, it was empty.

She set off, parallel to the street where she could still hear fighting. She could just about move at the pace of a slow jog with Bob on her back, but her legs burned as she strained to squeeze every bit of speed out of them.

Her plan was to keep going until the far end of the courtyard, then slip back through the apartment there, hopefully coming out outside the cloud of pink death and in front of Gora and the others. Then she could always go back to meet them from the safe side if they were trying to wait for Bob.

When she passed by an open door, a hiss made her jump and nearly drop Bob. Inside was another Droopy, glaring at the injured young man with hate-filled eyes.

Rita did not stop. She kept pushing as hard as she could, but it was clear there was no way she would be able to outrun the thing while carrying Bob. Dropping him to fight it was an option, especially if it ignored her again and she could just kill it, but she was no keener to fight than she had been before. Instead, she slowed for just a moment to tap the rear of her abdomen against the wall next to her, leaving behind one end of a sticky, white web that strung out from her rear as she kept running.

The Droopy came charging out of the apartment after only a few moments, hot on her trail. It did not step on the web, as she had hoped, but instead ran alongside it.

Good thing she had a backup plan.

She grabbed the web with one of her rear feet, neatly snipping it off with her sharp toes to create a little bit of slack before flicking the cord in the direction of the approaching monster. The impulse travelled along the strand until it struck the creature’s leg, where it stuck fast.

The sudden anchoring of its leg to the wall yanked the thing off balance mid run, the elastic webbing yanking it back a short distance. At the same time, Rita let go of her side of the strand, which itself snapped back, colliding with the Droopy and hopelessly entangling it.

By the time Rita reached the doorway at the other end of the courtyard, the creature had slashed the cord anchoring it to the building, but in the process had gotten both its legs and one of its claw-hands stuck together. It had settled to crawling over the ground towards her with one arm like a slug, still hissing. No way it would catch up to them now.

That had been even more effective than she had hoped. She would have to remember that trick.

***

Rita burst through the front door of the building and frantically looked around. Back along the road where she had come from, the pink mist had all but disappeared. Only a few stray puffs were still floating about.

The others were still fighting the plant creature. Well, Gora was. She looked a bit worse for wear, with deep crimson blood streaming down several cuts on her arms and chest where the creature’s thorned, whipping vines had managed to slice her and she was absolutely covered in cuts and scratches.

The plant monster looked far worse. The big tubular stalk that had breathed the gas was just gone, with nothing but a charred stump left, and large sections of its foliage had been sliced off and lay scattered across the street. Similarly, it had only a single, frond left with which it was ineffectually trying to keep Gora at bay. It was clearly on its last… roots.

Samual and Ava were on Rita’s side of the battle, outside the radius of the cloud. Samual was standing, weapon in hand, watching them approach, while Ava knelt on the floor next to something small and furry.

Rita’s heart turned to ice. Zaxier. The cat was lying on his side, unmoving.

“Oh no…” she gasped and rushed over as fast as she could while carrying Bob.

“What is it, Miss Rita?” Bob asked as she peered over her shoulder. Then his eyes grew wide. “Mister Zaxier, Sir!”

He tumbled off Rita’s back before she could catch him, but he managed to stay on his feet long enough to collapse to his knees next to Ava. He reached out for to master, but Samual grabbed him by the collar and dragged him roughly out of reach.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Rita demanded.

“Don’t touch. Ava’s busy” was all he said.

Bob tried to speak, but began coughing instead, spraying droplets of blood all over Samual’s metal boots.

“Busy with what?” Rita demanded again, trying to move closer but blocked by Samual holding out his weapon.

“Fixing him. He’s not dead, just suspended. Calm down” Ava said without looking away from him. Her hands hovered over the cat and faint purple and green flickers were visible in between.

In the distance, Gora finally hacked through the thick stem attaching the bulk of the plant to its ball of roots and dirt and the entire thing collapsed to the ground. She kicked it once for good measure then came jogging back. To Rita’s surprise, her wounds had already started closing.

“Oh good, you found Bob” she rumbled as she approached, wiping her sword on her pants. She looked covered in grass stains.

“Bob got a lungful of that pink gas; he needs medical attention!” Rita exclaimed. “He’s coughing up blood!”

Gora raised a single blood-stained eyebrow then casually walked over to the young man before roughly grabbed the backpack he was still wearing and reaching her hand inside. When she withdrew it, she held a tiny flask of bright green fluid with glowing yellow runes engraved along the sides.

She handed the bottle to Bob. “Here.”

“Thank you, Miss Gora” Bob croaked and drank it down. Immediately his breathing steadied and his coughing lessened.

“What was that?” Rita asked.

“Healing shot” Samual answered. “Good for minor injuries.”

“You mean he could have saved his own life at any time by just reaching into his backpack?” Rita asked, aghast.

Gora snorted. “Oh please, that was nothing. The idiot would have been fine if he’d just sat down for ten minutes or so.”

“Then why give him the healing thingy?” she asked.

“Because I don’t feel like sitting around for ten minutes” Gora said, taking another two flasks from the pack. She downed one herself, before handing the other to Ava, who took it with one hand without looking.

“Thank you. I’ll give it to him after he wakes up” Ava said calmly.

“What’s wrong with Zaxier?” Rita asked, still creeped out by how still he was lying. It really looked like he was dead.

“He’s suspended. Think of it like being dead but without the commitment” Ava replied.

“He took a nasty fall when the thing slapped Bob” Gora said, her eyes already starting to roam the surrounding buildings, looking for any further threats. “Broke a few ribs.”

“And you killed him for that??” Rita asked, shocked.

“Not killed, suspended” Ava replied. “I’ll bring him back after I reattach the bones.”

“But why did you have to ‘suspend’ him?” Rita insisted.

This time Ava turned to look at her with annoyance.

“Because I can’t fix living things. I’m a necromancer, not a fucking priest.”