I shifted and let Viri jump off my shoulder to land next to Thorn, then pushed as many petal-scales into my hydra as I dared. One moment it was the size of my palm, and the next it towered over me like the beast I’d fought in the hazard. It breathed in and let out a keening cry of joy which was joined in by a second head that sprouted from the base of its thick, long neck.

“Uh. That’s a little bigger than I was expectin’, but I ain’t complainin’.” Okeria said. He tossed a small device to Viri, who stumbled backwards as it almost took her feet out from under her. “Hold that button down for five seconds, then press it again when it looks safe ta come down. And don’t think you’ll be able ta help us–you’d just be in the way.”

Viri looked down at the device and gulped. “Okay. You aren’t going to kill me after this, are you?”

Okeria shook his head. “Nah. Not unless ya decide ya want ta go back ta Endra and become one of her mindless thralls.”

“I don’t want that.” Viri said seriously. “Please don’t die, mister Okeria. You seem nicer than Scalovera.”

Thorn snorted in amusement. “Not much of a standard to compare him to, but yeah. Okeria’s a real good guy once you get past all of his uniquenesses.”

“Quiet, you.” Okeria snapped. “It’s comin’ quick, and five seconds is gonna be a lot less time than ya have in a moment. Go.”

“Right!” Viri nodded and shoved her shoulder into the button. “Good luck!”

“Won’t need it, but thanks.” Okeria said. The device whirred into motion, scythes of silver metal bursting free from the bauble and making quick work of the space around Thorn and Viri with a crackling whirlwind. And then they were gone.

And I mean completely gone. Either Okeria had camouflage that was better than literally anything he’d shown me so far, or he’d just teleported them out.

“You just sent them away. Where?”

“The facility. Juniper and Mortician will be more than enough ta handle them, and Thorn needs a whole lot more of that water if he’s gonna recover.” Okeria pressed his hand to his shotgun, then shook his head and exchanged it for a much slimmer model. One circular barrel, etched to the brim with crackling symbols, and a handle that had touch-pads for Okeria’s armored fingers. “I’ve got confidence in us, but if things go really wrong, we need ta run.”

I snorted and shifted my weapon into a spear. Then I thought again and shifted it slightly into a harpoon. “Not confident in your overwhelming power this time? Just like you haven’t been literally every other time we’ve fought? Why are you still hiding it?”

“I’ve got my reasons, and one of ‘em’s named Keratily. Like I said earlier, if we attract her, we stand so much less of a chance.” Okeria explained casually as he walked toward a wall. “We’ve still got Everduous, Antirrhi, and Belliscorn ta worry about from Endra’s main troops, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Scalovera called in more favours now that we’re a tangible threat ta him.”

Wonderful. I rolled my shoulder and shifted into a throwing position, then commanded my hydra to stand between me and the source of the greatest vibrations. Instead of obeying me, it turned one of its heads and chomped down over my shoulders.

“Hey! Get me the–” I started, but was interrupted by my feet leaving the floor. Something niped at the soles of my feet as I was ripped through the air, then deposited on top of my hydra’s other head. “Nevermind. Thanks, girl.”

My hydra growled in response, all of its attention locked on the singular person who’d just walked through the door. I recognized them from somewhere–short, thin, and forgettable to the point that I couldn’t remember exactly where I recognized them from. It could’ve been just from around the city, but I wasn’t going to make the Danday mistake over again.

{Okeria, is that one of Endra’s chosen?}

{Yup. Not one of the three left over that Dylan warned ya about, but she’s registered as one of those chosen. Name was Je-somethin’, but I didn’t bother rememberin’. Looks like I should’ve.”

I snorted and glanced down at my feet. One had barely been hit, and only had a few tiny pits on the sole, but the other was missing a good quarter-inch of metal. And it was completely smooth, as if Je-something’s attack had sanded it down. My armor began to knit itself together before my eyes, and Je-something backed up a step as sandy beige whirled around their hands.

A deep, rumbling question flared in the center of my being. One of the hydra’s heads turned slightly to look at me while the other remained completely focused on Je-something. There were no words in my function’s question, but the fact that it had enough sentience to ask was worrying. Maybe that was why it made such an instant connection to Mortician.

“Charge her and force her off-balance. I’ll give you cover.”

The hydra breathed out a stream of vaporized oil, then charged. The scales on its body lifted slightly and began to leak oil onto the ground while its speed continued to increase far beyond what I expected something this huge to be able to reach. And beyond what Je-something expected, from the way she dropped her function and turned to try and run.

My hydra crashed into her and didn’t even slow down. Its other head snapped down and ripped something off that dripped clear blood down onto me, then threw whatever it had bitten into a wall. A wall that shattered like glass to reveal an entire break room worth of guards who looked like they were either shitting their pants or readying themselves to fight to the death.

“Huh. Wait a second, girl.” I said and gently patted my hydra’s head. One guard activated a function that whipped a vibrant yellow rock at my face, but a single petal-scale stab reduced it to harmless rubble. {Okeria, I found all the people who were here. They’re not part of the ambush. Can you make it so Scalovera can’t listen in for a little while?}

{‘Course I can. I’ve been doin’ it for a few minutes now. But you’re askin’ for the cameras ta be turned off, and everyone else’s bootleg communicators ta stop workin’ for a few minutes, right?}

I nodded to myself. One of the guards whimpered so loud that I could hear it over the sound of Okeria’s shotgun blasts. {Do it. I’ve got an idea.}

{Wait for your drone ta flash blue, then go ahead.} Okeria informed me. {It’ll take about ninety seconds, so help me take out as many of these infected rotfeeders as possible. And tell that hydra of yours ta stop takin’ attacks and start dishin’ ‘em out.}

Taking attacks? I turned and flinched as a disc of sand shattered against my hydra’s scales. It broke into a deadly spray of sand that pelted against my armor like acid rain as a thousand damage notifications went off like a storm. Apparently my hydra hadn’t killed the sand-core like I’d thought.

Jesand. That’s what I’ll call her.

“Take the fight with the sand one somewhere else. I’ll deal with this.” I ordered my hydra.

It bellowed in confirmation and barreled into the break room, through a mass of cowering people, and into the sand-core that was using them as cover.

Uh. Maybe I should’ve been a little more specific. Or remembered that it had thrown Jesand into the group. I had a bad feeling that this would make what I wanted to do a whole lot harder, what with all the murdered Staura that my hydra left in its wake.

“Gods help us!”

“I’m dying! I’m dying! I’m… dying?”

The cries of pain and terror bled away to confusion as Staura picked themselves up from my hydra’s oily trail. Some of them had scratches or a little worse from the scales scraping over them, but the worst damage had come from the blowback of Jesand’s attacks. A few people were barely moving, and more than a few were missing chunks of their body, but only one or two were obviously dead.

Now that was something I could capitalize on. “People of Rainbow Basin! I am here on behalf of the true leader of this city, Okeria Perek, to grant you your freedom! Don your armors and join me as we fight our way through this prison of a mansion!”

Stunned silence met my decree. At first, nobody moved to put on their armor. Nobody moved at all, actually. They looked between me and Jesand, who wasn’t exactly winning her fight, and seemed to consider if my offer was actually real or not. But something was wrong. These people didn’t feel like soldiers. None of them twitched like they had Endra’s parasites in them. And none of them had reflexively gone for their armor when Jesand crashed through their safety wall.

And as one woman stepped to the side to reveal a terrified child, I understood why. Their fear took on a new flavour–these weren’t the people who’d taken the brunt of Scalovera’s invasion. These were the house staff, the civil servants, and the civilians. Hell, they might not even know how Scalovera took over the city in the first place.

“...You don’t even know there was a coup, do you?” I sighed and shook my head. My oil flared and pushed a notification that there was another core-bearing entity a few feet away from me. A perfect sacrificial lamb to get my message across. “Scalovera unjustly took this city from Okeria Perek. He enslaved the guards, murdered their families, and enlisted the help of mercenaries who work for an Embodiment that forced her way to the all-world by murdering one of her chosen. If you stay here, you’ll all become Endra’s pawns when Scalovera realizes I gave you this offer.”

The same woman as before stepped back in front of the child with a face twisted in anger. “Then you killed us just by being here!”

She wasn’t wrong. But she also wasn’t right. “No. I pushed your death forward by a few weeks. If I hadn’t shown up, you would’ve lived a few weeks longer in blissful ignorance. But you would’ve died nonetheless.”

I hadn’t meant to be intimidating, but the entire group of Staura shrunk away at my words. Or maybe not at my words. A knife slid against my throat as the camouflaged attacker broke his stealth, but my inner layer of oil bit into and grabbed the coppery blade before it even came close to my skin.

I grabbed the attacker by the elbow and twisted. They let out a scream of surprise, then squeaked as my harpoon rested lazily against their forehead. I looked back at the group of Staura, expecting to see nothing but an increase in fear, but instead I found turmoil. Some of them glanced over at my hydra, who was happily munching on something very crunchy and wet, and none of them flinched away. Then they focused on me, and at the attacker I had at my mercy.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d wager they wanted me to kill them. “Do you feel safe with cloaked assassins running around your city? How about Jesand over there who hurt you far more than my massive fu… drowned hydra? Okeria might not have been the most present leader, but he didn’t bring death into your city. That was all Scalovera. And now it’s our job to rid you of that plague.”

My harpoon met the floor through a very crunchy middle. Fluids drained out onto the wooden floor, and the attacker under me convulsed for a few seconds before they went very, very still. It was a gambit, showing these people incredible violence as a sort of peace offering. Paradoxical, even. But these people weren’t stupid. They’d seen things, and they were questioning things. All I’d done was give them a truth to latch onto.

Cheers rang out through the group. Disgust and victory melded together to form an emotion I wasn’t exactly proud of. And throughout the crowd, the Staura finally started to don their armor.