The blows came quickly, one after the other, raining down on Rita’s head and shoulders despite her best efforts to ward them off. She sheer ferocity of the attack threated to overwhelm her.

“I can’t believe you tried to get a demon to fix me! Are you a complete fucking moron?” Alice shouted while smacking her with soft, bandaged arms. It was like getting whacked by pillows. Very stiff pillows.

“How was I supposed to know what was going to happen?” Rita protested, desperately trying to protect her head with her arms.

“It was a demon! What were you expecting?”

“There’s no reason stories from back on Earth should have any bearing on people here.”

“You said everyone told you how dangerous it was! Even the demon!”

Rita looked at Alice’s furious face. She’d told her everything about what had happened while she’d been unconscious, from the first meeting with the Inquisitor to the reason she’d been at Gora’s apartment in the first place.

Alice had stayed mostly silent during the whole story, only nodding occasionally at the appropriate times, but when Rita told her what had happened between her and Ixxy, she’d absolutely freaked out.

“Well… it worked, didn’t it?” Rita protested. “You’re okay!”

Alice scowled.

“You are so lucky the thing even bothered trying to fix me! It could have just gobbled your dumb ass up had me for dessert! It should have! You would have deserved it for sheer stupidity!”

“I had to do something! It was my fault!” Rita argued.

“No it wasn’t, you moron! Stop blaming yourself! It was that stupid Tree!”

“I’m not talking about the Tree!”

“What are you talking about then?”

“Eh…” Rita hesitated. It’s not that she didn’t want to tell Alice, she just… really didn’t want to tell Alice. Thinking about it brought up a whole bunch of guilt she hadn’t really had time to properly process yet, what with the whole Ixxy fiasco.

Now it came with the whole additional guilt of that mess nearly killing both of them.

“Tell me!” Alice insisted.

“Can I rather not and we just leave it at that I’m an idiot?” Rita tried. At least that way she’d save herself any further embarrassment.

“Not after all that, you can’t!” Alice glared at her.

Rita sighed. Figured. Honestly, though, she probably should tell Alice. She owed her that much.

“Well, see, it’s kinda like this,” Rita said, scratching the back of her head. “Do you remember right after the Tree? When you were in terrible pain and I didn’t know what to do? I tried something. I… tried putting a bit of myself in you. I thought that would help fix you up or something. Well, it kinda did the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“I kinda… started absorbing you.”

There was a moment of shocked silence.

“You… what?”

Rita nodded, feeling dreadful. “I know, I’m sorry!. If I hadn’t done something, you would have fused with me completely. You would have been gone! At least, assuming Ixxy told the truth. Originally, after she’d betrayed us, I assumed she’d been lying but since you woke up… well, looks like she was probably being honest about something. Which means, I royally screwed up. You almost died and it was all my fault.”

“You didn’t… I mean…” Alice muttered, staring at Rita with wide eyes. “You were reabsorbing me?”

“And I’m so terribly, terribly sorry, Alice!”

She just stared at Rita, eyes wide. Shock clearly evident on her face, despite the bandages.

Then tears began to sparkle in her eyes.

“Alice? Say something,” Rita finally prompted when she couldn’t bear it anymore.

Alice shook her head, turning away from Rita and wiping her eyes with the back of her bandaged arm. When she spoke, her voice sounded like it was cracking. Like she was on the verge of crying.

“No… I don’t… you… we could have…”

Strong, solid, dependable, practical Alice, on the verge of tears.

She cleared her throat. When she continued, her voice sounded almost normal, except for a faint quiver.

“Can I have a bit of privacy?” Alice asked. “Sorry, I know, not really a thing here,” she said, gesturing around her at what was, technically, the inside of Rita’s mind. “I just got some stuff I need to… I mean, I need to think.”

Rita blinked in surprise. This was not the reaction that she’d been expecting. Anger? Rage? Another attempt at physical (haha) violence? Sure.

But… this? This was so much worse.

Rejection.

“Yeah… yeah, of course,” she said, getting to her feet and taking a few steps away. “So… I’ll just go?”

Alice barely nodded.

“Okay. If you wanna talk… well…”

Well what? She’d know where to find her? No shit, they were literally occupying the same brain!

“Bye.”

Rita sat in the dark, trying to figure out what had just happened. For some reason, it felt a bit like she’d just gotten dumped. By herself.

She shook her head. That was no way to think about it. Alice was her own person! That had been the entire point! And if she was going to be mad at Rita for nearly killing her, well, then that was her right to do so.

On the other hand, it had been an accident! How was Rita supposed to know what was going to happen? She’d been trying to help!

She sighed and dropped her head into her hands.

Now, after everything she’d done to bring her back, Alice hated her. Probably rightly so. Why did everything she tried to do turn out a disaster?

She didn’t know how long she just sat like that, thinking. Feeling sorry for herself. The passage of time was impossible to measure in the dark.

In the end, it was a feeling that drew her attention. A slight, squirmy feeling in her mind, like she wasn’t alone.

“Alice?” she said quietly.

“I’m here,” Alice replied in her head.

“I’m sorry,” she rasped out.

“Shh, you’re going to fuck up your throat even further. Let it heal.”

“No… really sorry…”

In her head, Alice sighed. “Rita, I’m not mad at you. Or rather, I am mad at you, but probably not for the reason you think. And I’m not even sure if it’s a good reason.”

Rita furrowed her brow in the dark. “… why?” she rasped.

“Look, for my entire existence as something apart from you, things have been simple for me. See a threat? Run or fight. Feel hungry? Eat. There’s a path? Follow. And all I had to do was push you in the right direction.

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“Now, suddenly, you’ve dumped some really complex feelings in my lap that I am not equipped to deal with.”

“… help?” Rita croaked.

“No, I don’t want your help. Not for this. Not yet. I need to figure out some feelings and I need to figure them out for myself, ironically enough. But I realized maybe not right this second. I’m exhausted and in pain and we’re very much in danger still.

“So I’m going to do the responsible thing and put this whole emotional… mess aside for the moment, repress the shit out of the whole thing and get on with the business at hand. Which is keeping the two of us alive, okay?”

So Alice… didn’t hate her? Maybe? It was all very confusing. But she understood dealing with things later. She was right. Right now, while they were still here, in the dark, was not the time.

“Without speaking, can you explain to me what exactly you were trying to do with the spear. Break the wall, somehow?” Alice asked, back to being serious business.

Rita waggled her hand in a so-so gesture, pondering how she could explain to Alice how the spear worked without impaling herself or having to speak more than a couple of words.

She reached out and ran her hands gently over the curling flanges at the tip of the spear, while making sure to hold the whole thing very still with her other hand. Last thing she wanted was to slice her own fingers off.

“This is what the tip is like? Wow, that’s a really shitty spear. I mean, I saw a bit of it while we were fighting the old guy…”

“Inquisitor,” Rita croaked out.

“Inquisitor? Really? What did you do to piss off the local religious nutters then?”

Rita shrugged. “Exist.”

There was a moment of quiet from Alice. Then: “This place is just as much a shithole as the Tree, it seems.”

Rita just shrugged again. It wasn’t all that bad. Mostly.

“Right. Anyway. What I wanted to say is that I saw a bit of your spear while we were fighting, but I didn’t realize it was this garbage. You’re going to struggle to pop a balloon with this thing. It feels a bit… springy.”

Rita nodded. Then she twisted the haft of the spear and again reached out towards the tip, this time even more carefully than before. She was well aware of the venom or whatever it was that Samual had found there, and the last thing she wanted was to get any of it on her. Who knew how that would go.

For a moment, she wondered how the Inquisitor was doing. She’d stabbed him in the leg. He’d have gotten a nice, solid dose of the stuff. What was it doing to him?

“I’m not sure I follow what it is you are trying to… wait, is the tip different? I can’t feel the flanges.”

Rita nodded profusely.

“So the tip changed when you… twisted it? Wait, you just turned it in the air. It couldn’t have been some kind of internal mechanism unless it’s activated by a shift in weight or something and I didn’t feel that. Do you seriously just need to twist it around for this… speartip to pop out?”

Rita nodded again.

“And since you were pressing it against the wall… wait, can it dig, somehow? Through solid stone?”

Once again, Rita nodded. “Supposed to,” she croaked.

“But it’s not working. It either blocks your spear or the wall seals up immediately. Have you tried it on one of the side walls?”

Rita’s eyes widened and she jumped to her feet. She hadn’t. Even if she just broke through into the neighbouring building itself, it was logical that it would have some kind of exit back onto the street.

Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t quite get it lined up. The spear was too long to fit in alley horizontally, but not by much. She managed to get it almost wedged in before she twisted.

Faint light, clearly visible in the pitch black, poured in through the small hole Rita had punctured.

It worked! This wall didn’t close up on its own!

There was a sudden, loud grinding sound as the wall opposite to the one she’d entered by unzipped itself, opening from top to bottom as the stone slid sideways. Bright sunlight blinded her.

She squinted, trying to pick out the shapes standing there against the blinding daylight as she fumbled to ready her spear.

“Hello?” a strangely familiar voice called out. “You will drop the weapon and come with us?”

It took her a few moments to remember where she’d heard it before: It was the mage. The one that had cornered her outside the Delver’s Guild. So he was the one that had trapped her here!

“You…!” was all Rita could rasp through her painful throat as she brandished her spear menacingly.

As her eyes adjusted to the sudden presence of light again, she could make out the same tall, lanky, bald man that she’d seen before. What she hadn’t seen before were the four armored guards next to him who casually pointed long, sharp halberds through the opening.

“Please?” the mage added. The four halberdiers advanced half a step.

“Uh, Rita? I don’t know who this guy is, but he seems to have a very compelling argument for why we should do what he says.”

Rita swallowed. No reach advantage for her this time. Those halberds were almost half as long again as her spear. They could skewer her long before she could get close enough, never mind the fact that there were four of them.

Perhaps going with him wasn’t such an unreasonable idea after all?

Patrus was in pain.

He could feel the Spider-monster’s venom coursing through his veins like molten lead, burning as it pulsed around his body to the rhythm of his heart, beat by agonizing beat. Every nerve ending felt like it was on fire. Every bone felt like it was about to shatter. His very blood hurt.

And all of that was nothing compared to the deep, empty, agonizing pain inside of his heart.

Step by anguished step he limped mindlessly through the streets of the city, not knowing where he was nor caring, his mind racing with only a single thought.

Mitla had abandoned him.

He didn’t know how the spider had defeated him. It should have been impossible. She’d fought like someone who’d only had a few basic lessons with the weapon. An amateur.

She’d also been timid at first. Afraid of him. He should have been able to drive her back until she could retreat no more, then slip past her guard and use the awkward length of her weapon against her. That had been his initial plan.

Except, suddenly, she’d turned on the aggression. Like a cornered rat, she’d struck out with reckless abandon. It had been wasteful, burning energy without getting anywhere near striking him. She’d left openings in her defence, and if he’d been willing to accept the risk of a harmless glancing slice from that thoroughly impractically tipped weapon of hers, he could have ended the fight on at least two occasions.

Unfortunately, the dishonourable creature wielded a poisoned weapon. He knew that from what had happened to Junior Inquisitor Davaad. A ‘harmless’, glancing slice could have been anything but.

Taking such a risk against someone so obviously inept seemed foolish, and so they’d been trapped in a stalemate. Him unable to close within striking distance of the monster without taking undue risk, and her lacking the skill to actually hit him.

He could have just waited. Let matters continue until she inevitably wore herself out with that frantic aggression before pushing his advantage. But that would have taken too long. Every moment he fought inside that narrow alley, he risked another foe coming up behind him, trapping him between them. Like a recovered Samual or that blasphemous, muscular demon woman.

Instead, he’d decided to dip into Mitla’s power to finish the fight immediately. Or tried to…

Mitla had abandoned him!

His connection, as tenuous as it was, should have been sufficient for that, at least. His fight with Samual had been less draining than he’d thought it would be. There should have been sufficient capacity left for one last channeling of Mitla’s Holy Fire to burn the spider-woman to a vaguely heretical pile of ash.

But something had felt wrong the moment he’d started drawing on that power.

In the battle with Samual, it was as if Mitla’s power had been eager to assist him. As if Mitla himself was holding the connection from His end, preventing it from suffering undue strain.

When he’d fought the spider, however, it had been different. Mitla had been indifferent. Uninterested. Unconcerned with what was happening. Focused elsewhere. Drawing on his God’s power had been a struggle. As if he had to carry the entire burden of pulling it through the connection with nothing but his own force of will. A burden too heavy to carry for someone who was but a man.

And when he’d asked, begged his God to provide him the power necessary to annihilate the one being he thought he’d been tasked to destroy, it was as if… as if Mitla had been annoyed by him for asking.

As if he’d… disapproved.

MITLA HAD ABANDONED HIM!

Patrus’s shoulder struck something as he stumbled along, sending him sprawling across the road.

“Oi, watch where you’re going!” someone yelled out, but Patrus was beyond caring. Beyond seeing.

He just lay there, the agony in his limbs and in his heart consuming his every waking moment, like a feverish nightmare he simply could not wake from. Dimly, he was aware people walking past, giving him a wide berth, and his leg leaking blood onto the ground beneath him.

He cared about neither.

At some point, hurried, rough fingers rifled through his pockets, taking what little belongings he still carried on him. They took the time to pull the boots off his feet, but neglected to slit his throat. Refused to put him out of his misery.

He was beyond caring, either way. He was cut off from his God, his every attempt at reforming that connection castigated by the searing pain in his veins and the icy desolation of silent rejection.

Death would have been a relief, but never before had he been this afraid of it. To die knowing that his God had turned His back on him.

He was forsaken.

A new, oddly gentle touch barely penetrated the haze of pain and anguish in his mind. It didn’t try to rifle through his pockets or steal his clothing. Instead, it focused on his leg, where the accursed spider had pierced his flesh.

A sharp sucking of breath through teeth. The rip of clothing.

“Don’t worry, Old Guy! My ma taught me how to make a bandage!” A new voice. A young voice. Concerned. Innocent.

Pain, as something is wound tightly around his leg where his wound is still leaking his life onto the stone below him. Trying to stem the tide.

The soft pitter patter of small feet. An oddly cultured voice.

“Bob! What do you think you are doing, young man? I just bought you that shirt!”

“But Mister Z! Old Guy is bleeding bad! I had to help him!” The first voice again.

“If you must stoop to soil your hands with the detritus found on the street, why in Aer would you not use his shirt, you silly boy?”

A moment of awkward silence.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t think about that, Mister Z.”

“No matter. You should not be touching things you find in the streets regardless, Bob. Now leave him and come along. I am sure he shall expire forthwith.”

“But he’s Old Guy, Mister Z! And he’s really hurt!”

A weary sigh. “Bob, you really do have a good heart. And one day, when you perish, I will make sure to remove it for study before I turn your remains over to the Animancers. But you simply cannot rescue every stray you find on the street.”

“Please, Mister Z! It’s Old Guy! Please, can I keep him? We have space!”

Another sigh, even wearier this time. “Do you promise to feed him and clean up after him?”

“Yes, Mister Z! I promise!”

Silence. “Fine. But he’s your responsibility, understand? If you grow bored of him, I’m not going to take care of him for you.”

“Thank you, Mister Z! I promise I’ll take good care of him! You’ll see! I’m ready for respos… respin… repso…”

“Responsibility. Yes, Bob, I am sure you are. Now pick him up and bring him along. I will ask one of the Magelord’s Fleshstitcher apprentices to take a look at him. Goodness knows they can use the practice.”

Strong arms gripped him, hoisting him off the floor.

He barely made out the next words, muttered under the other voice’s breath.

“He might wish you left him there by the time they are finished, though…”