The moment the scream left Dragan's throat, a Skeletal-armored Ruth leapt down from the ceiling - she'd clearly been clinging there - and landed right on top of the creature, slamming down on it with all her strength.

The beast screeched as it was forced flat on the ground, the stone floor underneath it cracking from the impact. It was only brought down for a moment, however - it rolled over with myriad clicks from its legs and swiped at Ruth with its scythe-stinger.

Ruth was off-balance from the creature moving underneath her, and in the moment before she landed back on the ground she couldn't maneuver herself to avoid the attack. The scythe surged through the air, cutting wind with a high-pitched whistle as it headed straight for Ruth's neck...

...and then the blade bounced right off thin air.

The creature cocked its head in an almost comical expression of confusion. For a moment, Dragan too was equally baffled, until he looked up and saw Bruno del Sed in the shadow of a nearby pillar.

Purple Aether crackled around his arm as he thrusted a palm towards Ruth. His face was red with exertion, sweat running down his brow. He was a few meters away, but it seemed like he could project his forcefields from that distance with a little effort.

Landing on her feet, Ruth instantly spun and struck the fly-creature with a devastating roundhouse kick, catching it right on the side of the abdomen. With another screech, the thing was sent flying up into the air, limbs flailing - and there it was struck by three Heartbeat Shotguns sent out by a still-concealed Skipper.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

With each resonating noise, the creature twitched in the air, suspended there temporarily by the sheer force of the attacks. Dragan almost felt sorry for it, except he didn't really because it was horrifying to behold.

He took a deep breath. He had to put in some obligatory effort, now, after all.

When the creature fell back to the ground, Dragan was ready for it - he plunged a fist full of sparking blue Aether directly into the side of its face, taking care to avoid the maw of fangs and proboscises. He probably did just as much damage to his own hand as the creature - it recoiled from the impact with an angry shriek, but Dragan's fist ached as if he'd slammed it into a wall.

Dragan winced; he'd really expected to do more damage than that. The thing had been getting a pummeling over the last thirty seconds or so, but it didn't seem to be impacting it too greatly.

The beast reared back, limbs and stinger held high up above it. Just one of those legs could be plunged right through Dragan without much difficulty. He knew that. He couldn't look at them without knowing that. He had to act.

Dodge towards it, he told himself. It'll use its other legs to block escape from the left and right, so dodge forward. Right underneath its head so, so it can't bite your head off.

Seemed like a plan. Dragan tensed his body, waiting for the moment when the creature would commit to an attack, when he could dodge without being cut off.

The legs came down. Dragan blinked at the blur of movement.

Oh. They were much faster than he'd expected.

"Move, please!" said an airy voice, and Dragan found himself flung backwards, just out of reach of the spider-fly. Serena had jumped in, shoving Dragan backwards and blocking the attack with a brickwork broadsword in one smooth motion.

Violet Aether danced around Serena's arms as she held the creature back with her block. Dragan could see tiny cracks spreading in the surface of her sword - it was brick forced into the shape of a sword, after all, not an actually forged weapon. For attacks it would suffice, but defense was another story altogether.

Before the sword could shatter, however, another three Heartbeat Shotguns rang out. Skipper was charging out of cover on the other side of the room, pointing at the creature to direct his shots.

The beast squealed and was sent rolling over onto its side - and as it did, Ruth came in again, pummeling it with a series of devastating strikes. Fists rained down on every inch of exposed flesh, and Serena joined in, smashing her sword into the creature with such force that the weapon shattered.

The creature, thrashing and twitching in rage, opened its maw and hissed at its attackers, a strange orange fluid rising inside its mouth. Some kind of venom, without a doubt. The Gene Tyrants wouldn't have created a guard without enough contingencies to keep it around.

Ruth noticed it too - and with a flash of movement, she chose to end the fight there and then. One fist came in from the left. One fist came in from the right. They smashed into each side of the creature's head and plunged deeper, compressing the things skull until Ruth's fists met each other in the middle.

There was a sickeningly loud crack, and then the beast was still, its legs falling limp.

"It, uh," panted Dragan, still out of breath. "It sure took a beating."

"Well," said Ruth as she wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. "I guess that was what it was for."

Dragan glanced at Skipper, still approaching from some distance away. He offered a mute thumbs-up, mercifully sparing them from the sound of his shouting.

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Serena frowned. "Is that it?" she said, pouting. "I was hoping for a big, cool fight. I wanted it to shoot lasers at us."

She tapped the corpse with her foot. It twitched.

Everything that happened after that happened all at once. The surface of the creature's skin began to warp and shift, as though a river were running underneath it. Skipper's eyes turned wide, his leisurely walk over transformed into a desperate run. Ruth leapt backwards with such force that her clawed boots left twin craters where she'd just been standing. Serena looked around, innocently confused - before Bruno took control, tried to form a forcefield around himself.

But it was a second too late.

The creature popped, it's body bursting into a shower of sickly orange gas. What remained of the corpse shrivelled into a pile of skin small enough to fit into a pocket.

Bruno's half-formed shield kept out most of the gas, but not all of it, and with a mistimed breath he took in a significant amount of the poison. Instantly, he heaved forwards, eyes wide and bloodshot, gloved hands clutching his chest - purple Aether weakly circulating throughout his fingers.

He'd die if he took another breath. That was obvious to anyone watching.

Dragan was just inside the blast radius - with just a step or two backwards, he'd be home free. It'd be the smart thing to do. Get himself out of danger before deciding upon a plan.

He took the deepest breath he could and stepped forwards into the smoke, marching forwards until he reached Bruno's spasming form. With a suppressed grunt of exertion, he seized Bruno by the back of the collar and, securing his other hand over Bruno's mouth, he began to drag the afflicted boy out of the smoke.

Skipper and Ruth's muffled voices came to him from outside the cloud. He had absolutely no idea what they were saying. Calling him an idiot, probably, which under the circumstances they had every right to.

Entering the smoke had been easy, leaving with Bruno was another story. The additional weight, along with the fact that Bruno was thrashing around, meant that every step was a struggle. Each time his foot came down, Dragan felt the traitorous urge to take a long breath of sweet air. He had to resist. It was just a few steps. How could just a few steps take so long?

The smoke stung at his eyes. He closed them.

He stepped backwards, and backwards, and backwards, not even sure now that he was going in the right direction. Without his vision, he wasn't sure when he was out of the cloud. He knew the second he opened his eyes again he wouldn't be able to resist taking a breath.

The stinging in his eyes eased, just a little. Did that mean he was out of the cloud? Could he trust this? He had to.

Dragan snapped his eyes open - and at the same time, involuntarily, he took in a deep breath.

His lungs tasted fresh air.

-

Mila yawned as she straightened the various medical instruments she'd managed to scavenge over the years. The last time she'd had a patient in her tent, her shelves had been thrown into such disarray. She liked things tidy, and yet the world seemed to conspire against that kind of thing.

They were clean, at least. Mila turned a scalpel over in her hand, inspecting it closely for any signs of rust or grime. If the Humilists knew anything, it was how to clean things up. A knife that had been decaying in a junkyard for years could be made sterile as the day it was made, if you knew what you were doing.

"If I'm distracting you," said Helga, sitting across from her at the little table. "I can come back another time."

Mila shook her head. "No, no. It's just … a lot of work, you know? Everything."

Helga cocked her head, smiled in that knowing way. "You're always complaining about hard work, but you do more of it than anyone. If you want to relax, you shouldn't volunteer for things."

"If I don't volunteer for things," said Mila, taking a sip of her tea. "Someone else will - and they'll mess it up. I know they will."

"That's perfectionism talking."

"Am I wrong, though?"

Helga smiled again, took a sip from her own cup. The tea had been brewed from the paler strains of glass on Yoslof's surface - it was surprisingly tasty. "You should have more faith in people."

Mila scoffed. "I save my faith for God. People are on their own."

That was a decision she'd come to a long time ago - back on Serendipity, when her superiors at the hospital had made that request of her. She'd seen then the true face of people, and it wasn't something she wanted to see again.

People were sacks filled with greed. The only way to avoid that was to be like the Humilists, and actively dodge desire. Even then, you couldn't be sure...

"You're worried about something," sighed Helga, leaning in close as if inspecting her. "What is it?"

Mila looked down, straightened the scalpel once again, moved her cup into a satisfying position on the table. "It's the outsiders. I'm not happy having them here."

"Why not?"

"No offense," Mila said, still looking down at the table. "I know you say you trust them - normally that'd be enough for me, too, but … I dunno. There's just a bad feeling there."

Helga put her hands on Mila's reassuringly. "You trust me, right?"

Mila nodded. "Of course." If nothing else, that was true.

Helga grinned: "And I trust them. Their leader helped me out, a long time ago."

"Helped you out how?"

Helga booped Mila's nose, smirking mischievously. "That's a secret."

Mila looked away, embarrassed. No matter how suspicious she tried to be, Helga could always detail her train of thought with a sly look and a wink. She could perform surgery without a bit of anxiety, but when she was with Helga, everything was a worry.

Was she staring too much? Would she say the wrong thing? Would Helga laugh at that joke, or would she not get it?

Keeping her hand as steady as possible, Mila took another sip of tea. It really did taste good. It wouldn't be for long, she knew that, but for this moment, in this place, she really was content.

A shout rang out from outside the tent.

The second one that day. A cold chill settled over Mila: had Dian's condition taken a turn for the worse? She should have been with him, damn it, not lazing around drinking tea.

She stood up with such force that the chair she'd been sitting in toppled backwards to the floor - and at the same moment she went to open the tent flaps, someone else beat her to it. Aiden, the new recruit with the mismatched eyes, gaped at her from the entrance.

"What happened?" Helga said, voice curt. She went from flirt to leader in a second flat.

Aiden panted for breath - he'd obviously run all the way here. "It's - um, it's the outsiders, ma'am," he said, stuttering and halting. Anxiety was written all over his face. "O-One of them's been poisoned!"