When Lillian and Ace returned to their under-hill home, she immediately saw that the other four had just an exciting time as she did, if not more. A makeshift medbay was set up outside the stairwell, containing four beds, and they were all filled. Cassandra and Amos sat on the edge of the same bed, being looked over by Ansem. Isabella, a woman, and a child took up the next three beds, all asleep and attached to vitals monitors. The child's monitor was erratic, as if competing signals were each hooked up to it.

"You know," Ace said, gathering the attention of the four awake. "I was gonna have Ansem look me over, but I think a bruised shoulder is nothing compared to this. Who are these people? What happened to Izzy? Is that an IV drip?"

Nobody said anything for a whole second, which was enough to give Ace permission for his last question.

"What's her blood type?"

Ansem sighed an entire lungful. "Let me do my job, go be debriefed, and none. Her blood has no antigens nor antibodies. Lukhan collected donations from their superior."

"Of all things, you answered the blood type question?" Ace mumbled as he turned the other way, to where Lukhan was waiting in front of his whiteboard. He was mulling over various data: a hand drawn map, quick notes jotted along the side, and a summary of Cinraal biology.

"Welcome back," Lukhan stated. "Lillian, you may be dismissed, unless you saw anything Acero did not. I trust his judgement to include everything."

"He hit on me an uncomfortable amount of times," Lillian said before turning to leave.

"Not without good reason," Lukhan added. "You are very attractive. Call it a perk of working with someone so bold."

Lillian felt the crimson return to her cheeks as she made her way towards Isabella's bed, but not without catching an "I really did. Think it might have been too many times," from Ace.

Isabella was in some kind of terrible shape. Her face was a pale, harbor grey, her breaths were long and shallow, and her hands felt cold. Lillian glanced at her vitals monitor. Her limited health knowledge said that Isabella was 'alive', but that didn't look like much. The poor woman seemed to have gone through two different hells. Ansem came by, holding a large wrap of gauze.

"How is she?" Lillian asked weakly.

"Isabella lives, by what means, we don't have clearance to know." Ansem pulled back Isabella's blanket, revealing bandages wrapped around her upper torso. Her right shoulder was where the wound existed; its sickness spread throughout the bandages as it spread through her body.

"If you want to watch, you're welcome to, but it's not pretty," Ansem warned as he began to unwrap Isabella's coverings.

A small string of panic arose in Lillian. "Shouldn't a woman do that?" She asked.

Ansem stopped, as if he knew where this was going. "If it's any consolation, I've done this three times now, and my dead wife has been haunting me for years, so you can trust that I will stay professional."

Lillian could barely take the day anymore. What kind of revelation was that to casually drop on a poor girl? Pushing it to the back of her mind, Lillian focused on Isabella. "Can I do it this time? At least to pretend to preserve a woman's modesty?"

"Lillian, I have preserved her modesty. I could have done far less wrapping to achieve the same effect. If you want to redress this wound, then you better know how." Ansem's tone was sharp, yet he allowed Lillian this silly thing. Such was the way of the medical field, but Lillian wanted to be alone with Isabella, even in this small capacity.

As Ansem resumed his routine examinations on the other two, Lillian unwrapped Isabella's bandages. There was a deep wound just below her right shoulder, doing its best to heal. Her entire chest had turned charcoal grey, and thin white veins branched from the point of impact. Lillian stopped herself from looking through the gaping wound, and applied the damp compress. Her hand immediately felt sick, and she wasted no time in wrapping Isabella's new bandages around her.

"Thank… you," Isabella whispered.

Lillian startled. "You're awake?" She whispered back, then immediately asked herself why she kept so quiet.

"Always have been…" Isabella made a motion to cough, but no air came out. She convulsed another two times, then lay still. "I saw him," she said.

"Saw who?"

Isabella pointed a weak finger across the wide room. "Beautiful. Terrifying. Protected us."

"Your friend over there made a Cinraal turn tail and run, just by threatening him." The other woman was awake, and sitting up. "I'm Tia, by the way. You're Lillian?"

Lillian nodded.

"I'm glad to meet someone else remotely normal. The doctor's as cold as can be, she's been almost catatonic, and your Cinraal ally is, well, not even Human." Tia laughed in spite of her situation.

"I hate to remind you that we're pretty normal, too!" Amos called from Isabella's other side.

Tia laughed again, this time with a warmness of familiarity. "Sure you guys are."

"Know each other?" Lillian asked.

"Know her? We're practically family!" Amos cheered. "I was so relieved to see that someone else had escaped."

"It's good to see you, too," Tia said with a beaming smile.

Lillian glanced at the furthest bed, the one containing the boy. "Who would that be?" She asked.

"A Host." The new voice was Malachi, who had seemingly been standing over the boy for longer than anyone had noticed. "Not all Cinraal are able to exist outside of our homeworld. The atmospheres are vastly different. These Cin, affectionately referred to as En in their native language, are called Possessors by those of us who are able to grasp more than one syllable."

"Nice to see you, too," Amos called to Malachi.

"But they don't possess," Malachi continued. He walked around the boy's bed, observing him with disdain as if looking at the Cinraal instead. That word is a slang, but the more commonly one used. They are symbiotes, and form a contract with their host before joining in body and soul."

"We fought the Cinraal version momentarily," Cassandra explained. "He overwhelmed us with one move each, then collapsed."

"It seems that manifesting takes too much energy out of the host," Malachi concluded. "This bonding was a long term investment. To this day, Israsil's machinations still baffle me."

The boy shot up at the mention of Israsil.

"Good afternoon," Tia warmly said. "How are you feeling?"

The boy rubbed his temples and groaned, slouching. "Not good," he replied. "He says that the outcast will not use his Lord's name." Then the boy fell back over, still awake.

Malachi stared at him, unable to process what he had just heard.

"I'm sorry, 'outcast'?" Amos said.

"And who, dare I not repeat his name, is the symbiote's Lord?" Cassandra added.

"Is it so hard to put together?" Malachi shot. "He is one of the three Cinraal Lords, brother of the Chaos assaulting this world." Malachi turned on his heel and left, brushing past Lukhan on the way.

"Those who are well, disperse," Lukhan said, his authority ringing in the silence that followed. "I must speak with Isabella. Now."

Lukhan sat on the edge of Isabella's bed, facing away. "You saw," he softly said, almost ashamed.

"I've wanted to see since I heard the stories," Isabella replied. Speaking hurt almost as much as being impaled with a Cinraal lance, but she didn't care. Every word that escaped Isabella's mouth was a blessing to her, and each carried meaning.

"I loathe to use that form," Lukhan said. "Every second I stay in it, I feel the weight of what I did to earn it. What I did with it. The sins I committed using it."

"You were a different man then," Isabella attempted to console him. She knew it was fruitless. She heard the stories her comrades told. Stories of two relics, how they were forced to work in tandem, destroying the user.

"Everything is irreversible," Lukhan said. "The illusion might work on the eyes, but I can still feel every single hand trying to pull me apart."

Isabella glanced at Lukhan's waist. During his transformation, two tomes had hung by a cord. She struggled to recall that the stories said their names were. Those tomes, the two relics, they plagued Lukhan's existence. Subservience to Lady Paran was his only escape from what he had become.

"I'll still follow you," Isabella said. From somewhere within herself, she felt her strength returning.

"Yours is a loyalty I would not ask of even myself." Lukhan hung his head.

Isabella felt more of her strength returning. The pain had even gone away. She opened her mouth to ask Lukhan what was happening to her, but he was no longer sitting by her. Lukhan was on the floor, kneeling, head bowed.

The flowing white and green robes Isabella knew all too well were before her. The staff, a thin pole of ruby holding a tiny bronze bell, stood proudly in its owner's hand. The halo with a thousand rings hovered elegantly in its place. Her soft face, the face of a mother, a caregiver, a unifier, smiled radiance on Isabella. Her alabaster skin was reminiscent of one of Lukhan's inner demons. Isabella wondered which came first, and if her Lady modeled this form after her pride in Lukhan.

A Goddess stood before Isabella. Her love radiated throughout the entire home.

"Isabella, I would speak with you personally," Lady Paran said, her voice an infinite song.