As Bath hovered over the battlefield, he quickly dragged the legally-dead kursi into the jerboa caverns just beneath the surface. He began, then, to revive them, though kept them comatose.

"Lepochim," Bath vocalized next to the alien's ear, "how did everything work out, by your estimations?"

Lepochim flinched, slightly startled, then sighed deeply, resigned, eyes rolling skyward. "Everything went well. What did you do to them?"

"The people of Basalith? I gave them boons for combat. What else did you expect?"

Lepochim now stared ahead, taking in the carnage below. Clustered in groups of three to seven or eight, with the largest strung out around dragonleaf ramparts and battlements, Lepochim tried to understand how any kind of biological enhancement could make humans naturally clump together and function as such smoothly-operating groups.

"How?" Lepochim felt heat gather in his chest, a swirl of anger and frustration. He didn't understand how Bath could do all these things--make a nearly impregnable shelter, form a fighting force exempt from traditional training--and so easily.

Bath now appeared in his human form before Lepochim. Olm, who had been listening to the conversation, bowed his head. "Dragon," he monotoned, though Lepochim thought his voice sounded deeper than usual, as though the devilbat were trying to sound reverent.

"Olm," Bath smiled. "How was your first battle?" They were high enough up in the air that Bath's form was difficult to make out; combined with the fact that Bath used essence to distort rays of light around his body, nobody human knew that he was still present.

The devilbat's ears rotated forward, then twitched excitedly. "Far too easy. We will meet fiercer opponents in the future, right?"

Bath placed his hand on Olm's rugged snout, exuding a gentle demeanor. "I have no doubts," Bath said, then looked at Lepochim. "When we reach Lepochim's world, I'm certain we'll be in for a fun challenge."

"You haven't answered my question," Lepochim butted in again. "Seriously, how? I refuse to believe you can just...pull biological miracles out of thin air."

Lepochim frowned as Bath's expression transformed to resemble one of pity. "Miracles...? Nothing I do is a miracle, Lepochim, unless you count my very existence as such. I'm not going to hide anything. What I do, is direct chaos."

Lepochim glared, while Olm had to restrain himself from biting Lepochim's arm for showing the Dragon such disrespect. "What does that even mean, directing chaos, within the scope of boons!?"

Bath chuckled darkly. "How do you direct a flowing river? You carve channels for it to follow. This kind of image comes close to describing how I intuitively visualize my boons...channels upon channels, logic and conditions, like a network of canals or trains...Something like that."

Lepochim's face lost its furor, his eyes now showing confusion. "That sounds similar to how data chips work."

Bath turned away, looking out towards the battlefield, his cape rippling out behind him. "Think of it however you want. I'll leave it to you to coordinate the return to Basalith. I'll be taking my leave."

Bath turned back, flashing Lepochim and Olm a smile full of teeth. Then, he disappeared, as though he had only been a mirage.

---

Dean was really surprised that Virigard had eventually decided to work with him.

"Where are you going now?" he asked; the fighting had clearly ended with the appearance of Bath. The two of them paced lazily along, Dean kicking at the ruined ground while Virigard leapt in zig-zags around corpses.

"Back through the caverns to our residence. Wanna come?" Virigard--a she, as Dean came to realize over their shared time together--bounded up and down excitedly.

Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Your...residence? Like, under Basalith?" The very same residence with all the other reaper rabbit-mutant assassins? He had to admit, he was a bit curious to see what a subterranean assassin hideout would look like.

Virigard's long tail thrashed behind her as she sprung into the air, spinning in an aerial pirouette. "Yes! You'd be our very first visitor."

'Hmmm...first visitor?' Virigard didn't seem like the most...responsible type. What if she wasn't allowed to bring in visitors? Was he even allowed down there?

Then again, would it matter? He didn't think Virigard would stand a chance against him in combat; his skin was simply too tough for her to slice through, even if she moved like lightning.

The deciding factor was simple: Dean appreciated Virigard's effervescent personality and carefree attitude. As Virigard led Dean through the caverns back to Basalith--slowing down every so often to let him catch up--Dean began to digest just exactly what had transpired in the hours previous.

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Dean had always shied away from violence before meeting Bath, and yet, as soon as somebody lashed out at him, he instinctively lashed back. As soon as Lepochim announced they were going to battle, he felt a powerful bloodlust. Now that he was out of the zone...his stomach felt like a nest of knots, reminding him of the time he'd gotten into his first car accident. The, "Oh, shit," moment, the feeling of no return and regret. He felt a strong desire to turn back the clock, to press undo, to wake up from a dream and realize that none of what had happened was real.

However, knowing the truth of the matter--he'd killed people for the first time in his life, savagely, because he'd wanted to--Dean could think of no other alternative than to box his guilt and self-revulsion away into a little box at the back of his mind. When they arrived at the base, the line between cavern and dwelling was loosely demarcated by a cloth shroud. He and Virigard rushed through, the dark cloth fluttering behind them.

The room they entered was spacious, with five couches and seven beanbag chairs as well as a reaper-sized bar and pool table. The place radiated an odd mix of dive bar and college dorm. As they entered, the twenty or so reapers in the room all turned towards Dean with their large, dark, spherical eyes. Dean had no idea how to react, so he just stood awkwardly while waiting for their response.

Virigard hopped up and down in place. "Everybody, this is Dean. He's fast and strong and totally rips the hell out of targets. He says he's called the Knight." She beamed up at him, exposing long, white teeth.

"..." Silence.

Dean coughed. "I'm good at mixing drinks." The basketball team often had parties with other sports teams; at these mixers, Dean had often been saddled with the somewhat-deprecating role of mixologist. It was somewhat deprecating because, of course, these mixers usually only had vodka, rum, and various sodas as reagents--no true mixology was involved, not that Dean or anybody on the team knew any. Considering, however, that all these quasi-sapients were little rabbit monsters, Dean figured whatever experience he had mixing drinks had to be superior to their own.

"Mixing drinks?" one of the reapers said from a beanbag chair. "Selly, what does that mean?"

"Yeah, whazzit mean?" numerous reapers all called out.

A reaper standing behind the squat counter twitched its ears. "I believe that mixing drinks involves combining different alcohols to create a new alcohol."

Virigard now looked expectantly to Dean.

Dean shot the reapers a questioning glance. 'This wasn't how I expected things would go when I entered the assassin base,' he thought to himself. "Usually, mixing drinks means combining one type of alcohol with a few non-alcoholic ingredients. Like, oh, a rum coke." Rum coke was a true college staple.

"..." Silence once again.

"Have any of you ever had a mixed drink?" Dean asked. The reapers all rapidly shook their heads in the negative, so fast that Dean almost missed the twitchy movement. "Okay. Wait, where did you guys get the rum on the counter?"

"It was just here when we first came into being!" Selly stated proudly. "Provided for us from the Creator!" All the reapers twitch-nodded and hopped in place like hyperactive children.

'Bath gave his assassin rabbits...alcohol?' That seemed like a recipe for disaster. Dean could envision the reapers getting drunk and then rushing around in a manner even more reckless than the zig-zags Virigard preferred.

Suddenly, Bath appeared at the center of the room with seven unconscious, bloodied figures. Without hesitation, the reapers all bowed their heads in reverence. "Dragon!" the collectively cheered.

"How was training?" Bath asked, completely ignoring Dean's incredulous and deeply confused expression.

"Wonderful!" a random reaper called out. Soon the rest called out in a similar chorus of cheer.

"Splendid. Do you have any requests of me before I get down to business?"

"Coke! We'd like some coke" Selly shouted.

Bath cocked his head. "Who told you about coke?"

"The Knight, behind you."

Bath smirked. "Fine." Dean wondered how Bath was obtaining outside goods; what did Basalith trade in return for alcohol, or coke? Or anything else that couldn't be made by dragonleaf?

"Now, for the real reason I'm here: these seven are prisoners of war with mind manipulation abilities. I've received intelligence that if you torture them enough, they won't be able to properly use their powers. I want your interrogators to flay them until they speak about what organization they're from. I'll heal the prisoners from afar whenever they're close to death, though don't intentionally bring them to that point."

Once again bearing witness to Bath's cruel savagery, Dean could only question the motives of his former roommate...could only bottle his rapidly increasing anger over Bath changing not only his physical body but also his mind. He didn't feel different now, at least, but Bath had violated him by influencing his desires.

"Bath," Dean called out, his voice tinged with fury.

Bath turned around and raised his eyebrows. "Yet another subordinate who's displeased with me."

"You said you'd give me steroids," he stated quietly, with sharp intensity. "And you told me not to get caught up on losing control over myself, being unable to control my power. You told me...I just needed practice, "think higher." And then, today, I was unable to control my own mind. That's not a me problem, but a you problem."

Bath held Dean's piercing stare. "How else would you have been able to wipe out half the northern front? You would have been held up by your fragile morality."

Dean's jaw dropped. 'But what if I didn't want to wipe out the fucking northern front? What if I didn't want to kill anyone?' In the end, he could only ask, "Is winning worth it? This violence, death? Wouldn't it just be better to take everyone alive and integrate them into COTD? We're powerful enough to dominate without using lethal force."

"Would Earth's governments still fear us?" Bath sounded genuinely curious.

Dean gave a small half-shrug. "Wouldn't they be more scared, since your army will have increased in size? Moreover, they'd also realize capturing is harder than killing and might respect you more."

Bath now turned towards the rest of the room's eyes. "Lovely jerboa, what do you all think?" Jerboa? The hell was a jerboa?

"I think killing them is okay and easier," one of them piped up, soon to be joined by assenting nods and hums.

"Hmmm...So, keeping them alive would be more of a challenge, correct?" Bath reasoned out loud. "Dean, brilliant idea. Our collective objective for the next battle will be to have no enemy or friendly deaths, focusing instead on incapacitating all enemies for imminent indoctrination into COTD."

Dean looked on in shock. He hadn't actually thought that Bath would listen.

"Oh, a challenge!" Virigard beamed. "I love challenges!"

A jerboa who had been sitting in the back, reclining on its own bean bag chair, made eye contact with Bath, then spoke: "I approve this decision...and leave the seven to us."

Bath smiled broadly. "Wonderful, Amalo. Continue to lead them well."

Then, without warning, Bath disappeared in a flash of chaotic light.