I ripped my shield off my back and shifted it into a spear that pierced the attacker who was unlucky enough to be the closest to me. A plume of sickly fire roared over my shoulder as I pulled my spear up in a crescent, cleaving Endra’s lackey from the stomach through their left shoulder. A slash of petal-scales blossomed in the gore, and I pivoted while continuing the slash to create a second one that blocked a simple overhand sword-strike infused with some sort of off-yellow energy. It stuck to my spear like glue, but sheared away easily as I shifted the petal-scales that covered it.

“Kill them or leave them alive?” I asked Okeria, who still hadn’t moved from where he stood. His two attackers hadn’t moved, either. My unspoken question was answered when their armor crackled with Okeria’s electricity, and liquid metal began to seep through their joints. “Does that mean kill them?”

“It means ya saw what Acasiana did. So follow her lead.” Okeria quipped in his normal voice. His two attackers fell to the ground completely motionless, and pillars of metal erupted through their bodies like preemptive grave markers. “Unless they ain’t got Endra’s parasites controllin’ ‘em, then we take ‘em hostage and get as much info outta them as we can.”

The one who’d launched sickly fire at me seemed to perk up at that. I couldn’t tell if it was hope or fear, but it was definitely something, which they tried to cover up immediately after. A quick flick of my wrist split the glue-wielder’s head from their neck, and I used my scales to keep it separated from their body until their battery ran dry. The twitching and pleading stopped after less than twenty seconds.

“That was a weak one.” I noted casually and turned to focus on the fire-function who didn’t look like they’d been taken over. Their armor had barely started to knit their wounds together, and my slash undid whatever work they’d done.

Their screams were horrible as I leaned in and held their flesh apart. Their fingers scraped at my armor, growing ever weaker by the second as pain took over their mind, until they eventually stopped. I clicked my tongue and pressed their flesh together, then summoned a vial of the healing waters from the facility and poured it into the wound.

“So?” Okeria asked as I wiped the clear blood from my hands. “Any signs of infection?”

I shook my head. “Nothing I could see. Do you have any other ideas, just in case their parasites haven’t hatched yet?”

“Hadn’t thought of that. Ick.” Okeria shuddered and stepped up next to me. He stared down at the Staura who barely clung to life, then clicked his tongue. “Guess we either risk it or kill her now. Can ya think of anywhere safe enough that we can talk ta her, but not so safe that we’ve already taken it over?”

“You’re asking me?”

Okeria shrugged. “Hey, ya might’ve picked somethin’ up I hadn’t. ‘Cause my only idea ain’t a really good one, and it’ll put whatever kids are there in some real danger for now. Or we can sit out here in the open for another half-hour and hope that both Endra and Scalovera choose ta ignore us outta the generosity in their cold, shriveled hearts.”

I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t need to think for more than a few seconds to get what Okeria was thinking. Moricla’s temple. Somewhere Scalovera might want to avoid, where Keratily definitely wasn’t at the moment, and where Endra was very unlikely to have a foothold. It was safe enough to stay in until Keratily came screaming back, but that would mean putting whoever was in there in serious danger. Which, as Okeria had pointed out, was most likely a bunch of kids.

“So no temple, got it. Can you put up some defences that are a little stronger than what I have?” I asked. Okeria waggled a hand with uncertainty, then spread his fingers and arced electricity between them. Eight thin pillars of silvery metal sprung up around us, and an audible hum of electricity bit through the relative silence. “So was that a yes?”

“It was a ‘depends on who comes after us’.” Okeria said dryly. He pressed his hand to the woman’s chest and delivered a jolt that caused her body to twitch something fierce, and then a wet gasp escaped her helmet. “Start talkin’, pawn of Scalovera. Or else we might not have any more use for ya.”

The woman looked between Okeria and I multiple times, and eventually settled on staring at me. Probably because I wasn’t the one that had just threatened her or killed her comrades without lifting a finger.

“I don’t know anything.” She blurted out. “They don’t tell me anything!”

“Right. Nothin’ at all.” Okeria drawled and took a step back. “Ya know, my friend here might not look like the violent sort, but he’s more than capable of separatin’ ya from the rest of this world. If ya catch my drift.”

She glanced over at the corpse of her ally and gulped. “I… that doesn’t suddenly make me know things. BUT I can tell you whatever I do know!”

I shot Okeria a look when her tone suddenly changed to a panic, and even though he couldn’t see my face, he shrugged and lowered a fucking huge sniper rifle he’d pulled out of his inventory.

“Just tryin’ ta expedite things.” He chuckled. “We’ve got till Scalovera and slash or Endra send more soon-ta-be-corpses after us. So how ‘bout it, miss garbage fire? Ya start talkin’ and we tell ya when ya get ta stop.”

“I… I don’t know where to start!” She argued. “They only hired me a few months ago, right after they took this city from the guy who used to rule it! And they don’t tell me anything!”

Okeria snorted and crossed his arms. My communicator crackled to life, and his voice echoed through me helmet to ensure whoever this was didn’t overhear.

{If she don’t know what I look like, then she really don’t know anythin’. Shift from tryin’ ta get any real info outta her ta the process how she was hired and if she’s seen Thorn.}

I didn’t give any sign that Okeria had just talked to me, but the woman seemed to grow suspicious at even a moment’s silence. So I gathered my thoughts and leaned in with what I hoped was intimidating friendliness.

“So how did they hire you? Put out a call to all the scum of this world, and told them that there’d be a cash infusion for people who could set their piddly morals aside?” I asked with saccharine sweetness that made the woman flinch back. “Oh, don’t tell me you got cold feet. Yet you’re still out here doing their dirty work, pretending that all the horrible shit they’ve done isn’t your fault. Did you see the people Dylan turned into empty husks?”

I leaned in a little further. The woman turned to look at Okeria. “How did you justify that, you spineless coward?”

Okeria raised his hands, then gestured at me. “Hey, don’t look at me. He’s the one askin’ questions.”

“And she’s the one not answering me.” I stated coldly. “Talk.”

She winced as if I’d just held a blade to her throat. Which I guess I was, in a metaphorical sense.

“Okay! I saw what they did, and it was horrible, but they didn’t do it to us! None of us! Only these people they told us to get, and a few of the guards who were too strong for their own good! But you weren’t there. You didn’t see their eyes go blank, and feel the unspoken promise that the same drowned thing’s going to happen to me if I go against him!”

“Hm.” I grunted. Apparently she didn’t know Dylan had gone the way of the dodo. And it was strange to know that Scalovera didn’t even make an example from his own people. “So you’re dead if you go back, and you’re dead if you aren’t useful to us. Looks like you’re in a pretty tight spot, aren’t you?

I tapped her on the visor with one finger, and spread a small flower of petal-scales from the impact. “Maybe you should try a little harder to be useful.”

“I am trying! But I don’t know what’s useful to you!” The woman sobbed. I was really terrifying to her. Good. That was a sign she would do almost anything to keep herself alive.

“Start with how ya got hired, just like he asked ya. It ain’t hard.” Okeria prodded. “Was this a real public thing, or did it go through private channels?”

She choked back a breath that caught in her throat, then nodded. “Scalovera didn’t do any of the recruiting. It was Danday’s group; they’re the ones that hired the rest of us. Scalovera hired them, though, so he technically hired them. But something’s wrong with a lot of the people they hired. They’re all… twitchy, and like they’re on drugs even if they haven’t eaten anything for days.”

That would be Endra’s parasites. “Were they twitchy from the start, or did they become twitchy at one point?”

“Some of them were twitchy from the start. But some of them started to act like that after they met with Danday’s boss. Not in person, though–over some kind of video call.” She said in an avalanche of words that didn’t seem to be stopping any time soon. “I thought that they were at least alright people, who were doing what they were doing for money, but when they started blanking people I knew I’d screwed up. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a good person, but I’m not the kind of person who’d kill innocent people just because I didn’t like them. Or whyever Danday and Scalovera decided to kill them.”

I leaned back a little and gave the woman some room. Seems we’d broken the seal on her mouth, and I wasn’t about to ruin it by asking for clarification on something I could remember for a few minutes.

“The pay isn’t even all that good. We were supposed to get houses here, some kind of new development Scalovera was going to set up, but apparently that’s put on indefinite hold until the old leader’s gone. You two are working for him, right? There’s no way Danday would send me after you if you weren’t working for Okeria. One of the others, actually. Not Danday. I haven’t seen him for a while, but he talked to his boss before he went, and they had some kind of a falling out. Did he betray her? I don’t get it. I don’t get anything.”

She hung her head in shame and confusion. I shared a look with Okeria, then raised my weapon to take her head from her shoulders. She wasn’t of any use to us, and there was a good chance that she would be dead within the week anyway.

“If that’s what ya think is best, I ain’t arguin’.” Okeria shrugged. “But maybe we can use her somehow? My broadcast must’ve caused at least a little schism between the people Scalovera and Endra hired.”

The woman pushed her neck towards my spear. A gesture of absolute subservience, or a plea for a quick death. Something inside of her was broken. A puppet following orders she didn’t understand, dancing to a song played by two separate entities. And all she followed was money.

I gently pressed my spear to her neck and leaned in uncomfortably close. “You are going to help us get rid of both the plagues on this city. And then you’re going to go on a broadcast with Okeria and tell the world exactly what Endra and Scalovera have been doing to Rainbow Basin.”

“Endra?” The woman whispered in confusion. She shook her head and pulled her neck away from my spear. “The Embodiment? What does she have to do with this?”

Okeria raised a hand to his face and chuckled. “Girl, ya should really work on your observation. So, Blue, where do we go from here? I ain’t riskin’ any of my safehouses for this one, and I doubt ya want ta shove her back where we just came from.”

“If she isn’t infected with Endra, then it doesn’t matter where we take her.” I stood and brushed off my knees, then walked over to the corpses. “I’ll get the cores, then we wait to see what the fallout’s like from your broadcast. Maybe Scalovera will give us an opening to save Thorn.”

The woman perked up at the mention of Thorn. “Thorn? Is that the big guy with really spiky armor?”

“It is. Ya saw him?” Okeria asked nonchalantly, but I saw the change in his posture.

“I did.” She confirmed eagerly. As if the prospect of being useful had instantly shuffled off everything else she’d just shown us. “Danday was watching over him personally, but now he’s missing. If you want to get him, now’s probably the best chance.”