◆Tize◆

“So this is your life now, huh?” Tusmon finally spoke up after watching Tize clack away on his laptop for a while. “I was waiting for you to finish whatever you were working on, but I guess that won’t be anytime soon.”

“Yep, paperwork and oversight. That’s my job now,” Tize didn’t deny it and kept typing.

“And is that enough for you?” The Investigator couldn’t help but pry.

“Are you asking me, or are you asking yourself?” Tize leaned his head from behind his computer screen and stared down the detective, his eyes riddled with accusation. But he let it go a second later, back to his work. “Yes, to answer your question. I am very happy with where I’m at.”

“I’ve seen enough action in my lifetime, and my hands are drenched with blood. So I’m perfectly content with letting the next generation take the field. And it brings me a lot of joy to support them, help them be the best that they can be. I can’t deny, either, that I like being relied upon.”

“And even though I’m not running out with my gun in hand, I still see plenty of time on missions. Just now it’s when I’m needed to help, not when I’m looking for my own glory. Speaking of, if I vanish suddenly during this interview, wait a couple of minutes, and then ask for my help. Otherwise, you might be stuck sitting around for a while until I make my way back.”

“Uh, sure,” Tusmon agreed and then finally started the interview. Tize answered each question in well described detail, far more than the other Fiends who had mostly given The Investigator short answers. In fact, the detective would go so far as to say that he was genuinely a delight to talk with.

They discussed his day-to-day, how he oversaw the other Fiends’ missions, their schedules and work/life balance, and made sure they were staying active and on the right path. They debated a bit over the philosophy of what it meant for a Fiend to be a productive member of society, but that was when Tize did in fact vanish out of nowhere, dissolving into orange light.

Tusmon waited around for any word from The Refuge, but it never came. The Investigator kept staying at the door, but the man never walked back through it. Eventually, after enough impatient tapping on the table he was sitting at, the detective acquiesced. And after a deep, heavy sigh, he said the words he needed to say, “Tize help me.”

◆Nathym + Ahvra◆

Tusmon and Chiulu stepped off the elevator into the lounge of the secret lab. Nathym trailed behind them, having already given the pair a tour of his workshop. They’d decided to evaluate the two head scientists together, limiting the necessary trips to the lab, so that the science team wouldn’t have to keep working around special conditions—and at a time when Ahvra was awake.

“We have put the lab in nosy-snoop mode,” Ahvra informed them as her way of a greeting.

“Yes, as I said earlier, we’ve already hidden everything confidential,” Nathym reaffirmed. “You’re welcome to take a look in our labs if you like, but you won’t find anything useful. However, we do have plenty of blueprints and experiment notes that you're welcome to peruse if you wish. Actually, I’ll go get some now.”

A second later, The Engineer returned with an armful of large paper and sprawled the sheets on the open table. “This stack is our current medical advancements, these are consumer products, and here’s the spaceship we’ve just finished building.”

“Why did you build a spaceship?” Tusmon instantly dove for those specs, examining them thoroughly, not that he could really understand it.

“To go to space…” Nathym looked at the detective for a moment as if the man was completely stupid, but then smirked at his own joke. “We have a hope for it, but no concrete plans as of yet. It was just better to build it now so we have it when needed. But who knows. If this election doesn’t go our way and the Anti-Fiend faction wins, we might need to jump ship—err, planet.”

“Very funny,” Tusmon retorted, even though it felt less like a joke than it would have just a year ago. In return, he attempted to make one of his own. “I imagine you, Chiulu, would make a good astronaut with all your time in a similar suit. Can’t say that the rest of the crew or the shuttle would survive, though.” But after his joke didn’t get many laughs, he moved on. “And what kind of experiments have you been performing, if I’m even allowed to ask.”

“Mostly Fiend blood still,” Ahvra didn’t even try to keep it a secret. “As Fiends yourselves, it is my scientific opinion that you have the right and responsibility to know about your blood. Has special properties, similar to your Curses. Will act differently, yet familiar. Can be infused into items. Very dangerous in the wrong hands. If you ever spill any, please be sure to clean it up.”

“Now I would like samples from both of you. Please. You may think us as the wrong hands, but in return, I will show you the many experiments I am currently running. Sounds like a fair trade, yes?”

“Whatever,” Tusmon immediately rolled up his sleeve. “Some of your team has already injected questionable zjik into me. You might as well take some back out.”

With permission granted, Ahvra helped herself, practically lunging at the man with a giant syringe. “Interesting,” were the first words out of her mouth once the blood started flowing. “The color is stone blue. Same as the deceased one. Let me try the other.”

“Ah, this arm gives me lavender. Congratulations, you are a freak among freaks. Now I wonder if their properties match the Curse as well, or if it’s a mixture. So many new experiments to run. Now for the hazardous one.”

“Hmm…” The Widdle Witch frowned as soon as the needle punctured into Chiulu’s skin.

“What’s wrong, is it not coming out well?!” The Bureaucrat asked, refusing to look at the procedure. “I’m sorry, the doctors and nurses always told me I had really bad veins. It usually takes several attempts, and sometimes the needle breaks off in my skin.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“No, not that,” Ahvra was still annoyed. “It went perfectly fine. How odd. I expected it to shatter on impact or something, or for your reflexes to knock it away. Yet your Curse did nothing to save you from this intrusion. Hypothesis is that since you’re willing, then it is not seen as a negative outcome, no precautions taken.”

“But what if I try to dissect you without consent!” The small scientist jabbed forward with a scalpel pulled from her lab coat, trying to slice Chiulu’s stomach open. But the woman suddenly slipped out of her seat, the back of her hand knocking the scalpel away and deflecting it back at her attacker.

“Ah, I see,” Ahvra looked down at her own stomach, the scalpel’s handle protruding out as the blade dug in deep. “This is more the result I was expecting. Now then, I must measure the impact wound, if you’ll excuse me.” The woman waddled away, showing no fear or even response to the pain. Only the thought of losing her precious blood appeared to cause her any distress.

◆Egawo◆

“Tch, should have requested the other one. Wouldn’t have been so Cosdamned slow,” Egawo tisked her lips as she continued her steady hike. “To think you would be so easily encumbered by a slight incline. If you could be ever so kind as to hurry up. I can feel my hair cracking under this Cosdamned burning sun.”

“Sorry, uhh, it’s very hard to move uphill in this thing, and I’m really trying not to trip,” Chiulu turned around briefly in her suit, checking the progress they’d made up the marginally steep hill. It was a few hundred feet at least, though, so if Chiulu were to tumble, she’d likely roll all the way back to the bottom. And anywhere else it would be an average jaunt to regain their progress. But the two women were right in the middle of the Zjiksa desert.

It was a request from Nairen Dschuen, a merchant queen of Zjiksa, and one of Drim’s rivals in the upcoming secondary election. But just because they were the competition, it didn’t mean the Fiends For Hire wouldn’t take on a genuine request that made sense. And this job was specially tailored to Egawo’s skillset.

Zjiksa had been setting up new trade routes across the desert, under Dschuen’s direction. So far, it had expanded their reach by leaps and bounds, but the desert was also fraught with perils to overcome. And that included monsters who were a bit unwelcoming to the new visitors in their territory.

The mission was to clear out a nest of Rattlesnanglers, or just Snanglers for short. They’re a cross between Rattlesnakes and Anglerfish. Essentially, they were just snakes with already large mouths that could gape dozens of times wider to snag and swallow their prey.

However, the anglerfish side of them changed one of their most important traits. Instead of acting as a deterrent, their rattles now served as a lure. The Snanglers would bury themselves in sand but leave their tails above ground, to rattle in the wind or whenever they felt like being active. And the noise they produced was almost like a hypnotic chime—a tantalizing noise that drew in any who heard it.

Survivors of Rattlesnangler attacks likened it to the sound of being called home, to somewhere safe, far away from the scorching desert. And in addition to the already enchanting melody, apparently the hypnosis also made the Snangler rattle look like a decadent and bountiful berry, one that would quench any thirst and satiate any hunger—a dangerous combo for people so desperate.

But since Egawo could either silence or drown-out specific noises, she had no reason to fear the temptatious reptiles. While the exact location of the Snagler den wasn’t specified, it had been at least narrowed down to a specific knoll and outcrop. So at the very least, the two women didn’t need to comb a large patch of desert. But even such a simple climb was rough for Chiulu, especially given its sandy covering.

“Ah, do you hear that?” The DJ held up a hand to her ear and used the other to halt Chiulu in her tracks.

“Uhh, no, I…” Chiulu started but then suddenly went quiet. The woman began to march forward suddenly, with far more renewed vigor than she’d displayed on the entire hike.

“Damned fool,” Egawo could only shake her head in disappointment, watching The Bureaucrat’s mind be so easily hijacked, wilfully marching to her own demise, following the trail of the rumbling rattle. “Fine, I’ll save you.”

The DJ mimicked spinning a dial, like she was turning down the volume, and all of a sudden, the world went quiet. Not every sound was gone. There was still the light wind, the shifting of the sands, but the rattling had been silenced.

“Huhwuhhuh?” Chiulu snapped back to attention, confused by her own deliriousness. “I guess the sun is getting to me. Somehow… in this temperature controlled suit.”

“The monsters took hold of you,” Egawo glared like a disappointed mother. “I am going to turn them back up slightly, so that we can find them. Try not to let them capture your mind again.”

“Err, okay, I’ll try,” Chiulu didn’t sound confident in herself, but still braced her body the best she could.

The rattling picked up again, a lot weaker, but enough to identify them. After a few more minutes of climbing, Egawo hunkered down, and Chiulu attempted to squat behind her. “I’m fairly confident they are just on the other side of this outcropping. Go take a look.”

“Wha, me?!” The Bureaucrat was baffled by the suggestion. “But I can’t fight those things!”

“You don’t need to fight them,” The DJ assured her. “But you have protection that I do not. They can’t harm you in there, correct? Otherwise, what is all that padding for.”

“Urgh, fine,” Chiulu finally agreed. “We did say we would do whatever we could to help.” The woman only took a few steps forward until the ground quickly cracked underneath her heavy feet. A second later, she was falling into a pit, and before Egawo could try to grab her, the woman had vanished into the sandy knoll.

“Aha, you were good for something after all!” Egawo sent the collapsed woman down in the hole with a beaming smile from up above. “You found the whole nest.”

“Wagh, help me!” Chiulu writhed in panic as dozens of Snanglers slithered over to her, some wrapping around her to try and constrict, but more biting at her suit, attempting to paralyze and consume her.

And then, one particularly massive Rattlesnangler lunged at her legs, gorging her lower-half and swallowing up to her waist in one bite. But then it seemed annoyed that it couldn’t go further, blocked by its kin and Chiulu’s flailing arms.

“Fine, fine, I’ll save you just once more,” Egawo couldn’t let the pitiful creature suffer any longer. She held out both hands and clapped them together, sending forward a blasting wave of sound. It was so impactful, that it cut into the hides of every Snangler. The smaller ones died outright, but the larger of the bunch only sustained minor injuries. So Egawo began to applaud herself, or that’s how it would look as she repeatedly clapped attacks into the pit.

“W-wait, hold on, gah!” The Bureaucrat cried out. “Your attacks are making the speakers spark in my suit.

Egawo stopped her uproarious assault briefly just to calmly mention. “Can’t you disable the communications in that thing to stop the sound.”

“Oh, uhh, right. I can!” It seemed the woman suddenly just remembered. “Disabling comms!”

The DJ gave it a few seconds to ensure that The Bureaucrat actually had enough time to find the right button, but then she resumed her bombastic blasts until everything but the deeply unsettled woman was dead.