Thomas had practically kicked down the door to Edith’s Bed and Breakfast. “Piotr! You decided to make the smart choice and come back! Was the cold getting to you? I made—oh, who are you?” Edith said, looking down as she tip-tapped down the stairs, her eyes widened upon seeing Thomas.

“It seems you’ve already become acquainted with my good friend Piotr. He says things have been weird since you two met, though. Care to explain that?” Thomas’s arms were crossed, and his body language was harsh and apathetic. Whereas Piotr had communicated a sort of “lost puppy” demeanour, this Thomas person had more of an “I will fucking eat your hand if you give me shit” demeanour.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edith asserted.

“All right, time to stop using big words like acquainted. We’re getting to the meat of this issue here. Piotr is a very nice person with a child he loves very deeply. He’s nice, you see. I am not. And I can get real mean if I suspect someone of trying to hurt my friends. And right now, Piotr Ivanov is freezing out in the cold, which gives me a perfectly good reason to suspect you.”

Edith backed up into the kitchen. “Please, Mr. Thomas. I’m just a grandma who wants to make the world her grandchildren! I’m not a Civ user!”

“I didn’t say you were,” Thomas replied, before immediately stomping on Edith’s wooden table and crushing it to bits. Edith flinched, terrified. “I don’t care if you’re a sick puppy dog, nobody fucks with my friends! NOW STOP WHATEVER IT IS YOU’RE DOING BEFORE I CURBSTOMP YOU!” Thomas screamed.

“You wouldn’t dare hurt an old lady, would you? Somebody who just wants to make cookies and brownies and—” Edith Matria felt a fist fly into her face, breaking her nose and sending her flying back into the kitchen. A look of shock had crossed her blood-spattered features.

“Don’t try to play cute with me, Edith. You might be able to get sympathy from Piotr, and maybe you could get some from me if you weren’t my enemy, but right now, a man who has saved my life is sitting out there freezing and confused because of you! And so my sympathies lie elsewhere.”

“I just wanted a friend, Thomas. That’s it. It got so lonely here. You must know about loneliness right?” Edith was slinking back into the kitchen, keeping eye contact with Thomas. “I was never going to hurt him. He’d only get hurt if he left! And I was being oh so nice to him. I truly was!” Edith had fully stepped into the kitchen, vanishing from view.

“GET BACK HERE YOU COOKIE GREMLIN!” Thomas shouted, jumping into the kitchen, before feeling a sharp pain in his side. Edith had grabbed a large kitchen knife and stabbed Thomas in the side of the abdomen. “W-what?” Thomas said, sputtering on the ground. Edith was crying as she dropped the knife and ran upstairs. Clearly, she wasn’t comfortable with violence the way Thomas was, and she was also remarkably fast for someone so small and elderly. Thomas stood up, clutching his side. “I-I h-have to save . . . P-Piotr. And I’m not . . . going to die . . . b-by getting stabbed . . . BY AN EVIL GRANDMA!” Thomas shouted. She had dug the knife remarkably deep into his organs. “PHANTRANA!” Thomas shouted, and a phantom hand and eye appeared from his body, proceeding to fly upstairs to follow Edith while Thomas limped behind, clutching his side.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sauro was slowly walking towards Piotr, his rat bite wounds looking swollen and infected. He seemed a tad angry. “Man, that Thomas guy sure does care about you, huh? He was so concerned with making sure you were all right that he led me right to you.” Having gotten this out, Sauro spat. Then, he made a phone call. “Hudson, I need you to turn on the rain,” he whispered into his Unit’s screen. Suddenly, it began to drizzle from the sprinklers in the cavern’s ceiling. “Do you want to know what my favourite part about Umbrella is? Well, you’ll get to see it soon anyways, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

Then, the light drizzle became a bona fide storm. Everyone rushed off, holding objects above their heads as they hurried for cover. Everyone except Piotr, who was currently suffering from hypothermia, lying in the middle of the now-empty footpath, and Sauro, who was smiling like a clown.

“It’s this,” Sauro said before a series of raindrops stopped moving right in front of him, forming a small, clear platform. Sauro stepped onto it and soon rose above Piotr’s limp body. He could hardly see anything with this torrential downpour, and the cold of the water combined with his mysteriously dropping body heat was making movement even harder as both he and the water froze. Piotr could hardly make even small adjustments anymore; he was solidifying like an ice sculpture. He couldn’t even do anything by the time Sauro had ascended into the upper area of the cavern, walking across the raindrops. Then a heat bullet struck Piotr in the shoulder, somehow not even burning him, just piercing through his skin and bone.

Piotr knew what the game was. He was going to need to dodge Sauro’s heat bullets—bullets from an enemy he couldn’t see in a situation where he could hardly move. Piotr had managed to flip onto his stomach and began army-crawling away. Then, his eyes started to swell. And he realized he couldn’t get close to Sauro either, or the water in his body would flow to a different position and make him explode. How the fuck could he stay out of Sauro’s way without knowing where he was? And how could he stop the bullets without moving?” Another bullet flashed through the air, striking the concrete and barely missing Piotr. Then, he had an idea.

“Move the Headstones,” Piotr whispered, straining to open his mouth. Then, the torrent of raindrops falling on his head and back filled with kinetic energy and were sent flying in every direction Piotr could think of. And only a handful of them, in the orientation of about 3 o’clock in relation to Piotr, stopped moving. A shot rang out from that direction, and Piotr had just enough time to gather the debris from the previous blast and place it under his hand, filling it with kinetic energy and sending it upwards, pushing his hand fast enough that it flipped him onto his back, giving him just enough room to dodge the shot. Next one. 6 o’clock. Piotr gathered the debris again and flipped himself over. But the cold was slowly becoming too much for him. He knew he couldn’t keep this up; even if he could sense where the bullets were coming from, all it would do was tell him which of his organs would be torn to shreds first if he couldn’t dodge them. He needed whatever this was to stop if he wanted more than a snowflake’s chance in Hell of killing Sauro Beaudoin.