Despite the protests and horror of a lot of the fully battle-armored guards, Frank soon has me sat up, wobbling and dead tired as I am, on a table. I look up at him, still panting, fighting to get my eyes to focus on his face.

"Aria, are you alright? These are serious injuries!" he's saying as he looks me up and down. And those are just the ones he can see. As he worries, Riko jumps down from above, to sit in my lap. She uses the chance to slip me the tiny bit of fire mana she carries, since I can't make any myself. It helps massively to keep me upright. Without my ignium, the best she can do is begin manually mixing bits of mana into it to make more fire, like I used to. It works, but it takes a really long time.

"I'm fine," I say, even though he clearly doubts that. "I'm here to help. I can tell you what's happening and where."

There's a moment of confused shock, then his face lights up slightly. "That would be invaluable. Are you sure you can do it though?"

"I can do it." I meet his eyes, and he finally nods.

"Alright then. How are things looking?" I can actually see when he switches - from looking at me as an injured child, to... however he sees me now. As someone blessed by the gods with knowledge I shouldn't have, maybe. He doesn't know I'm an angel at least...

Putting that from mind, I answer. "Bad. It looks like something from the deep forest scared out everything else. Animals and monsters. They've spread... more or less halfway across the city now, I think." I glance side to side, at the guards peering at me past Frank. Lowering my voice, I gesture for him to lean in closer so they won't overhear. "I can pretty much tell you... pretty much anything happening, in most places in town. What do you need to know?"

He blinks, clearly surprised that my apparent knowledge is that extensive. "Alright then... how are the guards doing at the west gate?"

"The reinforcements you sent are about halfway there. Right now, they have ten men at the gate."

"Only ten?!" he gasps, but I just keep explaining.

"Six fled, three died, and four have minor injuries. The ones left aren't doing too well, half have broken their spears and only have their swords to use. They are still holding back anything from getting straight onto West Main street, but a lot of stuff's making it into the central and northwest districts. Also, they're working with... uh, two powerful magical creatures, which seem to be trying to help. They're the ones from the rumors, that have been out in the forest. That's how they're still holding on as well as they are." They would have been crushed by now otherwise. I don't say that part it out loud though.

Frank blinks and gulps, but nods anyway. "Hurena really is looking out for us, isn't she?" he comments. That brings a tiny spike of annoyance, which I try to ignore, but still end up speaking anyway.

"Catherine Lundrum," I call out Hurena's angel, "and her people are currently defending the southwest gate with the castle guards," I say. I do manage to keep the irritation out of my voice, at his thanks to one of the other gods when it's really Reena and me that he should be thanking. Not the time for that, I scold myself silently. "They're doing fine, they have much better equipment than your people do," I finish, though a bit dismissively this time.

Frank doesn't notice. "Ok, that's the gates. What about the rest of town?" he asks.

"Also bad." I shake my head. "The streets are full of people already, they're getting attacked by the monsters. That's where the guards are needed most right now."

"Where? How much can you tell me?"

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, like I'm thinking. It's mostly to give Chisa time to scout over the northeast district, spotting all of the specific trouble spots. The northwest district is harder, since everything is smushed together and a lot of streets have cover above, so she can't scout nearly as well from the sky. Still with my eyes closed, I begin to speak. "Northeast district, four blocks north, two blocks east - some rechit... six blocks north, four blocks east - a bear... ten blocks north, one block east..." I continue listing locations and the dangers there, one after another, though I pause when Frank turns and begins shouting orders for groups of guards to head out, directing them to the places I'm giving him.

Things continue like this for a while, me giving Frank any information he needs, while he groups and directs the guards to deal with things. Even as I help him, I also keep an eye on my friends, all doing their own parts too. The reinforcements arrive at the west gate, mostly bringing the situation back under control and keeping as many animals out of town as they can.

The large force ends up pushing Myra and Gram to leave the area, since they might end up being more of a distraction than a help at this point. Without them there, the guards have to scatter now and then when monsters they can't fight break through, individual guards baiting them to trample off into town to avoid having their entire defensive line destroyed. I have Hilde focus on peeling any chasing monsters off the guards so they can get away, but it's up to the others to go after them when they have a chance.

Having all three of my friends moving about the city, we manage to get a lot more done than just Avara alone. I mostly try to give Frank places that the magical creatures aren't already covering, but a few guards end up crossing their paths anyway. Thankfully, they can mostly ignore the men and continue doing their own work, though it slows them down a bit.

I open my eyes. "They're calling for a draft," I tell Frank. I have to think a bit, to remember my lessons about this. Modern emergency drafts can only be declared by the highest power in the region, which would be the duke - Roger Brennen. Whatever that thing was, that Frank sent off with a guard earlier, it must have been some kind of message to the duke to call for a draft. I... think Claire got into some of the details in our lessons, but the point I remember now is that point of an emergency draft is to call all Warriors - members of the warrior's guild - and any 'able-bodied men' to raise a militia, to help protect the city.

Currently, Chisa is seeing groups running through the street, pulling wagons piled high with spears behind them, while others scream at the top of their lungs that there's a draft and that monsters have been spotted at the west end of town. And as I watch through her eyes, people start to run. The first group grabs any man they come across, thrust a spear into his hands, and point westward, and he goes running that way. Everyone else, all the women and children, run the other way. East and north.

The streets fill with even more activity. Chaotic and near panic, but with the smallest bit of organization to it now. Having so many more armed people running around the city does not help my magical creatures, though. A portion of my attention is diverted when Avara, currently hacking at a huge monster with such a thick shell that her claws don't do much against it, gets hit from behind by a few men with spears. When she glances back at the broken weapons, the men are unarmored, and look terrified. She has to turn sideways, taking the monster as it charges, to keep it from trampling over the militiamen.

Then she pushes back and pounces, using her full weight to slam down on top of it and crack its shell, so she can sink her claws through. A little while longer hacking at it, and tearing apart the monster core inside, and it's finished, most of the beast withering away to nothing. I'm about to push the situation from my mind when a scream catches her ear.

Whipping around, she spots four more men, all circled around a small girl and trying to hold back a similarly horrible monster, with no luck. It claws across most of them and opens a huge toothy maw, to nearly swallow one of the men whole. Avara's eyes search the street as she runs, but the only other people around are the men that tried stabbing her earlier, now cowering against the side of a building.

Avara barrels into the side of the monster, but unlike so many times before, its own weight somewhat rivals hers, and it only skids back a few meters. When she glances back to determine that despite all of the men dying, the screaming little girl is still alright, the monster shoves her right back, teeth and claws biting into her fur, further than they should.

That makes Avara dig in and get serious. She hacks and slashes at the monster, trading blows with it in a blur that sends them crashing straight through a nearby building. Despite its best efforts, and its horribly misshappen body, it still can't overpower Avara, and she cuts it down. Although, she feels kind of battered, bruised underneath her fur from the massive impact of its blows. She staggers out of the wrecked building.

Avara jolts in surprise when her snout bumps straight into the child, maybe five or six years old. She shouts, "Kitty!" and wraps her arms around Avara's neck, face pressed into her fur. With a long sigh and a release of tension, Avara licks the tears from the crying girl's face, and looks around. She doesn't see the girl's parents anywhere. The couple militiamen from earlier are the only ones around.

Despite the terror on their faces and their only weapons being broken, those men are screaming and charging at her anyway. "I get the bravery, but it's no help if you're dead..." she sighs to herself. When the men run into her side, she gives a step so they won't hurt themselves too badly. With obviously pained grunts, one of them tries grappling at her, while the other grabs for the little girl, who starts screaming again, and clutches tighter around Avara in panic.

With a growl, she swats lightly at the man who's scaring the girl, to stagger him back a few steps, and presses closer around her. She continues to scan the street, while reaching out to the girl with telepathy. The first thing she senses from the girl's soul is the fear of the strange shouting men. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from anyone scary," she says as sweetly and gently as she can. "Where are your parents, little one?"

The girl's response isn't so much an answer as an automatic wonder, that the giant cat can talk, mixed with the thought that her parents should be... somewhere. At least it helps her calm down again. But since that's not descriptive at all, Avara huffs out, and picks the girl up. She gives a little nudge at her soul, just to get her to loosen her grip, so Avara can turn and set the girl up on her back. She turns and runs down the street, away from the men, who stumble in their panic, and lose her when she rounds a corner.

"Hold on tight," Avara advises, with another nudge to have the girl hug nice and close into her fur. She continues to look around as she goes. The militia is scattered all over now, fights breaking out on every other block, everyone doing their best to defend the town. It's easy to spot anyone with actual training among them, but trained or not, having so many people to throw at the problem is clearly helping to contain the smaller animals, even if they can't do much against the large ones or monsters.

Among the people she passes, most are in the middle of a battle, desperately stabbing at the beasts, with a dozen others just like them, or flailing their spears around as they try to defend themselves. With the little girl still clinging to her, Avara can't risk jumping into any more battles. The ones who aren't fighting, she considers briefly, but isn't comfortable dropping off the girl with a complete stranger. So, she winds through streets and alleyways, straight toward the closest place Frank sent guards, to deal with a small monster that broke through the gate recently.

She pops out of an alleyway, just as seven men in full armor finish skewering the monster. I'm glad they could deal with it, since none of my other friends are nearby. It's only a bit larger than Avara is, with a shape indicating it may have been a rechit or fox, but even at a glance, it was clearly a hard-fought battle. Probably thanks to the stony spines spraying up from its back, which must have made things difficult. While Avara's looking across the scene, the men notice her and jolt, dropping their stances to prepare for another battle.

That's when she notices - Francis! Both our hearts light up when we see him. With everything going on at the guard barracks, I totally missed him earlier! She barely recognized him with all that armor on. Just, something about the look in his eyes through his visor is immediately familiar.

Avara walks leisurely toward them, despite their wariness and the weapons leveled at her. If it's Francis, she can definitely trust him to take care of the little girl.

"Go with the nice guards," she coos gently, "they'll keep you safe and find your parents."

"Mmph!" the girl grunts, holding tighter to Avara's back, and thinking that she doesn't want to go. After all, the big kitty is nice and safe and comfortable. That makes Avara chuckle lightly.

"See that one? His name is Francis. He's really nice, you know." The little girl looks up at him, half suspicious, half curious because of the way Avara said it. But she also thinks he looks kind of scary with all the armor on, not to mention the spear he's pointing right at them.

There's still a good deal of road left between Avara and the tips of the spears, when the men waver, clearly unwilling to harm the little girl on her back. The weapons begin to raise, the guards backing away.

That's when she notices how a few of them are injured, stony spines punched straight through the metal plates of their armor. And... our hearts begin to sink. The blood dripping from those wounds, why is it black?

The moment Avara stops, wary of the uncertain situation with the guards, one of them accidentally steps on the monster's corpse.

All at once, there's practically an explosion of dark spines. Avara can barely even follow the movement. It's like the spines from the dead monster shoot up through the man's leg, linking with dark blood from the wound in his side, spikes exploding from his wound. His scream is turned to an awful, deathly gurgle not a moment later, when the spines stretch further, tearing through his body at once. The others flinch and duck, most barely avoiding the spray of spikes which jut out of the guard's thrashing form. Two of the six get clipped though, one of which is also injured, and the whole process repeats. All at once, the two mens' bodies are torn, their limbs thrashing and their metal armor shredding off much of them like paper.

Avara is already running. By the time the second man has been warped into a screaming monstrosity, she has already slid in front of Francis, and takes the first blow that comes out of the newly revived, much larger monster, shielding him and another two guards, while doing the best she can to keep the girl low and covered too.

Just looking at it, this feels just like the monster that attacked us in the forest. After it died, that evil stone inside tried to latch on and consume anything it could, using that evil mana to spread.

With so many people nearby, Avara knows she can't fight here, or she risks them getting hit and turned into monsters themselves. Especially the little girl on her back. But there's no time to get her off, or deal with the terrified guards either, because the freakish, joined-together monsters are already beginning to lash out. They all move together, like one being spread over all three bodies, even the dead thing from the ground being pulled along behind.

With bristling spines, it swipes at the guards, who flee out of range on one side, and Avara on the other, who weaves away to avoid. She can't let anyone get hit...

Without any plan for that though, she hesitates, and it costs her. The monster lurches the other way, toward the fleeing guards, and another attack launches a spray of black spines at them from behind. The men don't stand a chance, they don't even see it coming. Both receive the attacks. They stumble as the stone bursts straight through the back of their plated armor, but keep their feet and continue running, wounded.

But now, they must have that evil mana inside of them. If something isn't done about it...

There's no time to deal with that though. The monster is coming right at Avara, and she has to keep dodging away. It's not too fast, so she manages, but she has to keep repositioning to place herself in front of Francis and the other two guards, or it'll have a clear shot at their backs, like the other ones who ran off.

While she's desperately trying to protect everyone, I tell Frank that he needs to send guards out that way, to bring back the wounded men. I need to deal with that mana, before they either die, or get taken over and turned into monsters too.

Avara does her best, keeping pace with Francis and the others as they run, all while blocking and dodging attacks from the monster. However, it's not stupid, apparently. It soon realizes that it can't actually hurt Avara through her fur, and despite the fleeing men behind her, it gives up the chase, and retreats. All three of its bodies, still bound together by clumps of reaching, vine-like stone, turn aside and crash through the side of a nearby building. Just like that, the monster disappears.

Avara remains shocked, terrified, and oddly thankful for a few long moments. Hilde is already on his way to help, and together they surely would have been able to do something, but the whole situation was a coin-toss, whether she managed to take it down before it killed anyone else. Especially Francis, or the terrified, tiny girl clinging and sobbing on her back.

No - if it isn't engaged with her, it will tear through everyone else it goes after! Jolting back into motion, Avara dashes after the fleeing guards, cutting in front of them to stop them. She bats aside their spears, and they draw their swords. Ignoring them, she pushes up against Francis, pinning him against a building. It creaks badly under the fraction of her weight against it, as she paws at his armor, in search of skin. Of course, the full armor is really good at stopping her from finding any. Avara silently curses, thinking how she needs to practice speaking Ternian aloud to deal with things like this.

Francis struggles in terror, while Avara fights with his armor. She manages to push up the visor of his helmet, so she can touch his face, and finally use her telepathy.

"Francis!" I practically shout through her, which finally gets him to stop.

"Aria?" he pants, almost delirious, clearly expecting to die not a moment earlier.

"Shh!" I shush him, silently adding to think back instead of speaking aloud. The other two guards are grappling and stabbing uselessly at Avara in an attempt to free Francis - I can't risk them hearing too much. I also add in an apology for scaring him out of his mind like that.

"I have to deal with that monster before it hurts more people," Avara comes in at the same time. "Can you help this child? I can't fight while I'm carrying her."

"No," I jump in, "Francis, can you help Avara? If anyone gets hurt, the poisoned mana is going to kill or change them I think. Can you tag along, and send the injured to the garrison where I can treat them?" If Avara has to keep pinning people to cleanse the poison herself, it'll take way too long, and scare a ton more people in the process. She'll never catch up to the monster like that.

Francis blinks, clearly overwhelmed by all of this, then nods anyway. I can feel his determination solidify inside him. Having seen the results himself, he knows the absolute nightmare it will be if such a monster is given free roam of the city for any length of time. "Guys!" he calls, just as Avara pushes back off of the building to settle all four paws on the ground. They pause, clearly shocked by the abnormal situation, but he goes right on. "I need you to get this girl back to the barracks, alright?" Even as he speaks, he reaches for the girl, who clutches tighter at Avara.

"Come on now, little one," Avara soothingly pushes her thoughts at the girl this time, directing her to look up at Francis as he shows her a warm smile, the visor of his helmet still raised. She lets a few fleeting memories of mine trickle through, little glimpses of the happy times we've had together. She loosens her grip, so he can take her up in his arms, one gloved hand patting her head.

Moving around Avara, Francis goes to the man who isn't currently injured, while Avara sizes up the one with a nasty chunk taken out of his pauldron, the metal plate sheered clear away, to reveal a bleeding gash beneath. While Francis works on transferring the girl to the other guard, Avara scoops a paw around him. He staggers sideways at her touch, then when she pins him just like she did Francis, he freezes up.

This time, all she has to do is gently touch on the bleeding wound, so she can reach inside. She dumps in all the earth mana she's carrying, just for now, then uses the rest of her mana to search through him. It doesn't take long to find the evil, poisonous mana, already in the process of tearing the man apart inside... But that's not all.

Avara's eyes widen when she finds the tendrils. They bore through the man's barrier in all directions, stretching and winding all throughout his body, and they're spreading. It's so fast, she can actually see it happening, moment by moment. Immediately jumping into action, she wields her mana with all her might, thrashing straight through the poisonous mana, scattering and destroying it, then does the same with the vines. The grabs and grinds and tears them out, even as it wrecks a good portion of the man's barrier, and she pulls away everything closing in on the man's mana well, keeping it as safe as possible.

The man trembles and flinches, with a sound in his throat like he's going to throw up. Yet, once he's clear of evil mana, he still relaxes anyway. Like despite the pain he must be feeling from his torn up barrier, he feels much better now that something isn't actively killing him. With that done, Avara pulls back her earth mana. It probably wasn't enough time to help the man heal much - still better than nothing, she figures. Then she releases him. He sags a little, rolling his injured shoulder and blinking, like he's confused. The blood still running out of it is a much healthier, red, rather than black now.

Avara turns back to Francis, who's finished transferring the girl and talking to the other guard. They share a nod, then run off to follow the monster, leaving the other guards behind with the girl and their instructions.

Dealing with that only cost a handful of ticks, but even that is far too long. There's a clear trail of destruction following the monster, buildings damaged and people injured all along the way - anyone that crossed its path, really. As Avara and Francis enter the next street over, just one man, clearly a trained warrior, remains unhurt, crouched and panting, broken sword gripped in front of himself with eyes that say he just looked death in the face.

While Francis sends off any injured men he sees, directing them toward the garrison, Chisa spots the monster a few blocks down. Avara jerks her head to show him the way, and they keep on after it.

"Frank," I call out as they're running. "There's a poisonous monster out in the city, way more dangerous than the others." What if there's more than one...? I keep that thought to myself. "Francis is sending anyone it hurts here. I can help with the poison once they get here." That's all I really have to explain for Frank to help. There's still a bit of a crowd around the garrison, just women and children now that the men have been drafted, but they're still being kept out so they don't disrupt the guards' operations. So Frank directs a few more guards outside, specifically to receive the poisoned people who need help, and to bring them in past the crowd.

I call out a few more places in town, continuing to help Frank, while half of my attention stays on Avara and Francis. Francis is sprinting down the street to keep pace, tearing around a corner. Then a little way down the next street, he practically slides into another group of militiamen, downed and injured, with two more dead nearby. Then there's one spot, conspicuously bloody, though there's no body in sight.

"Hey!" Francis calls, barely managing to draw the men's attention as they stare in horror at the magical creature just a few meters away, searching the surroundings for what might be another monster on the loose. "The monster's poisonous, run to the garrison for treatment, go!" Without another word, they keep going, leaving the men to stagger off on their own.

Chisa makes a pass over the nearby streets, but can't find anything that looks like another monster. All our minds race, trying to figure things out. If the monster can poison people and turn them into monsters too, can those turn even more people? Is it like a sickness, that can just keep spreading? Then she spots the monster again, and we know what happened. It's made of four connected bodies now instead of three. Does it have to keep them connected? Then what about those poisonous vines spreading through the other man it injured?

I don't have enough information to figure anything else out, so I just keep directing everyone around the best I can, while Avara and Francis close in on the rampaging monster, Hilde finally catching up to join them. When Francis sends a worried look up at the magical creature overhead, Avara also jerks her head up in a way that she hopes gets the point across that he's there to help. Whether she gets that across or not, it doesn't really matter, since they just keep running, despite their chase constantly being interrupted by the victims they find along the way.

They still make rapid progress, a few blocks further into the middle of the northeast district when they catch sight of the monster again.