Angel kept her poker face clapped on after leaving the Praetorium. The cracks in her blank, pleasant mask only began to show once we arrived at our assigned sub-camp, Block C. It was the cellblock - excuse me, 'barracks encampment' - closest to the camp's dog and dino kennels. The air was full of barking and giant parrot screeching, and not-so-lightly perfumed by the stench of urine and raptor shit. By the look of it, there were no other women in this section of camp, either. Block C was a sausage party from end to end.

"I already hate Captain Targent," Angel signed.

"Yeah. Guy is a Class-A dickhead." I kept my tentacles relaxed but extended to their full length, hovering over my back like a muscular cloak. I had to be careful not to accidentally hit people or drag tents away by accident. "Maybe find Prima Falks and see if she'll reassign you to the women's section. We don't have anything to lose."

"Sure. We can make a show of setting up here, then go find her and see if she's willing." Angel nodded agreement, signing quickly with her hands held low. "How's Lulu doing?"

Lulu was sound asleep, bubbling with little wheezy snoring sounds. She clung around my torso and the base of my tentacles like a gooey shirt. "She's fine. Sleeping. It's been a long day of sliming around."

"Hey babe!" Some random asshole hollered from the mouth of his tent. "You need to get out of those noob clothes and take a bath! Wanna use mine?!"

I growled, long and low, hunching my shoulders up as I paused and slowly turned my head back toward him. The guy’s face turned an interesting cream-coffee color, and he eased back down to rejoin his friends, who heckled him until we were out of earshot.

"Even with a transfer, we’ll be sleeping with one eye open," I muttered.

"We… or at least, I won't be staying here tonight," Angel signed. "Even if Falks transfers us to the women's area."

I glanced at her, curious.

"This asshole knows what he's doing. I'm exhausted, you're injured and exhausted, and we're inexperienced at formal gladiator battles. I lied about your level, but his Legions are still seven levels higher than you are. Past Level 10, leveling gets much slower. So realistically, we don't have a hope in hell of winning this."

I puffed my chest out, even though I was still limping along on one tentacle. "Chance isn’t a factor, kid. You've got Moron Thrasher Noodles on your side, so it’s a hundred-percent guarantee we’ll win."

Angel rolled her eyes. "We've got twenty-four hours. In that span, we have to heal your crippling wound, equip ourselves, and find out everything we can about his Legions. Then we have to get out into the wilderness and level.”

"You’re letting him beat you before we’ve even tried to win," I replied. “The first half of that laundry list, we can get done in an hour. Targent is weak.”

“You don’t level your Legions to Level 23 by being weak.”

“You do if you’re Targent. He’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, he’s entitled, and he’s easily angered. I have a mandala and Targent doesn’t, because he’s a coward. He wasn’t strong enough to beat Vanara, let alone any other Daeva.”

"How do you know he doesn't have a mandala?"

"Because he knew what the inside of Vanara's temple looked like, but when you said you’d gotten and used the mandala, he got an angry little gleam in his eye. He was jealous, pissed off that you’d gotten something he tried and failed to reach for. Once upon a time, he challenged that boss. For whatever reason, he couldn't beat it."

"That might have been before the Hell Pigs camped the City of the Apes." Angel drew a deep breath. "I pray you’re right. Targent had to have battled his way to his rank. All the officers in the Centurions have to win arena fights to rise through the ranks. That means it's not just a matter of leveling. It's experience. He probably fought and won a dozen PvP arena battles to reach Dux."

"Look, if you’re that scared of this loser, then walk out of here and never look back." I snapped my jaws at another man who stepped out into the road and waved to try and get Angel’s attention, sending him stumbling back into the front of his tent.

Angel grimaced. "I told you why were can't. Targent will declare me a deserter, and then the whole guild will be after us."

I shrugged the puds. "Then we don’t have a choice, do we? We win. The fact this guy doesn’t want to talk about Dimitri Solonov makes me want to beat his ass even harder."

“Funny you say that,” Angel signed. “Me too.”

We finally reached our assigned tent. It was at the end of a row right across from the dog kennels, and the selection was definitely not an accident. It was made of stretched, weather-worn brown leather, a little saggy in the middle. When I hovered over it, I got a tooltip. This [Leather Tent] was at 32% durability. Angel didn’t complain. She pulled an awl and catgut from her Inventory, and began to follow a complex crafting dance in the air, following a virtual minigame I couldn't see. As she worked, the tent straightened and lifted until it was more upright.

"There." She ducked in, and looked back out at me. "I'll make it look like I'm here, but you and me should camp in the wilds tonight."

"Sure. No problem." I flopped down like a hound at the entry, grunting as my shoulder twinged. Lulu was keeping it from getting infected, but it was inflamed from the long run. "Also, just so you know? Crippling wounds can go to hell."

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Stay here. I'll go find the quartermaster and see if I can get some cadet gear and Legion heals." Angel stepped back out.

"Alone?" I looked warily down the row.

She hesitated, then gingerly patted me on the neck. "I’ve got weapons. Do you have any coins you can spare?"

The tip of my tail lashed in agitation as I raided my inventory and handed them over. "Iron and copper. Here."

"Iron?” Her eyes widened slightly. “No, no. Hang onto those. They’re too valuable for me to carry around here. We might be able to make an ingot from them. I don’t know what I could possibly trade you for them, though… but I need ten ingots to make a rifle. Anyway, hang tight."

I was about to finally just up and tell her that we already had a rifle, but Angel gave me another friendly pat and trotted off, heading around the barracks row for the wider, less troublesome boulevard that led to the quartermaster's tent.

"Ugh." I lay my head down on my foreclaws, narrowing my eyes at the soldiers who filtered past. Nearly every one of them gawked at me. Lulu and I were the only Legions in the row.

Lulu gave a little yawn, and gathered her mass back into a ball of slime before she rolled off me and plopped to the ground.

"Morning, sunshine," I said.

"Muunuu!" Lulu chirped back. She formed a vaguely humanoid starfish shape, and began to stretch her little arms from side to side.

"You know, I didn't realize this, but legions are actually pretty rare," I remarked to her, gaze sliding to a pair of cadets whispering to each other as they stared at us. "When I heard the rules, I figured it'd be like Pokémon or something, and everyone would have one."

"Nuuu." Lulu twisted from side to side, like someone shaking their head. “Ruru.”

"Not a bad thing. I’m fine with being the big shark in the prison yard. I worry about Angel, though. Whatever happened to land her here, it was bad."

Lulu cooed in agreement.

“Maybe she’ll open up about it someday.” I opened my inventory and squinted at the mandala hovering at the top of the list of items. “Anyway. Guess I should do this mandala thing while we got some downtime, huh?”

“Oohhoooh.”

I selected it, and got the same prompt I’d gotten when we’d first picked it up.

[HRIDAYA, the Heart of Earth. Meditate on this mandala to gain new abilities and learn its meaning.]

I withdrew the mandala into my claws. It was a round stone with a complex raised relief. It was pretty, like art you'd find in some New Age artist's garden. As I looked at it, the design began to crawl with flecks of green light.

"Lulu: watch my back." Clutching the tablet, I turned around so my head and chest rested in the opening of the tent. Only once the mandala was out of sight did I gaze at it. I wasn't sure how to use it, exactly... but as I stared, the green lights became brighter, steadier, the flecks merging into rippling green pinpoints. If I stopped staring, the light faded.

I tried to relax. Took some deep, calming breaths. As my mind settled and my gaze grew more distant, the green light swelled, bathing me in a gentle emerald glow. The design came to the fore of my vision in sharp relief, the rest of the tent darkening as it seemed to float off the tablet.

The green light faded, leaving me blinking stars in the gloom of the tent.

"Huh. Nice." I breathed in deeply, and as I did, I felt my body shift and grow. My lungs seemed to have more capacity than before. I looked - and felt - slightly bigger.

Then, behind me, Lulu suddenly roared in perfect mimicry of a t-rex.

[Lulu uses King’s Roar!]

"The fuck-!" I jerked my head up, almost taking the tent down on top of me. I backed out to see Lulu reared up into her serpentine form, looming over a Tribune who was sprawled on his ass in the dirt. Angel stood back from him, her face flushed red with anger.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" The soldier squeaked. "I didn't mean anything by it, I was just kidding around-"

"BRRROOOOOOARRRRR!" Lulu flared her mass like a cobra and bellowed at him again. Her roar drowned out the yapping and howling dogs.

"AHHHH!" The guy - some barely-adult ghetto punk who barely looked the part of a soldier - scrambled up and ran for his life.

"The fuck was that about?" I blinked and squinted as Angel stormed over.

"That guy literally grabbed me by the ass." Angel fumed. She was now dressed in the Iron Centurions cadet uniform: a flappy leather skirt, a leather breastplate reinforced by bronze studs, a round hardened leather cap, and sturdy sandals. The breastplate had a loose tunic pinned over the top. She looked less than comfortable in it. "He came up behind me as I was walking, and suddenly, YOINK. Right under the kilt."

Lulu hissed and swayed, daring anyone to come near us. "Agoo! Hisssss!"

"You'd think these guys had never seen a woman in their life." I groaned, watching as Angel conjured a yellow potion out of her inventory.

"Ugh.” Angel bent over me, scowling as she examined my wound. “You’re right. We have to win. I’m going to rip Targent a new asshole.”

"Yeah, it was a shit move. Bad enough for a straight woman, but you don't like men, right?" I asked her.

"Huh?" She looked up, blinking a couple times.

“You’ve not-so-subtly implied that Sam was your girlfriend.”

“Oh. Yeah.” A shadow passed behind Angel’s eyes. “We hadn’t been together long, but… no, I’m not gay. I like men as well. Just not creepy grabby assholes."

“Right.” I lay my head back down, and huffed a sigh through my many nostrils. "So, about that potion?"

By way of reply, Angel uncorked the bottle in her hands, and offered it for me to drink. It was too small for me to grasp in my claws, so I had to just open my mouth and let her pour it in. The brew tasted kind of lemony. It went down easy. Within seconds, the throbbing pain in my shoulder subsided. The hole sealed over.

"Nice." I signed at Angel just before I got to my feet. I could put weight on my leg again. "You got any more of those?"

"I bought six heals for you and six for me," Angel replied. "I know you’re probably exhausted, but if you feel like going for a walk, I want to find Falks."

"Sure." I looked down at Lulu, who was back to being an adorable silvery blob instead of a horrifying flatworm-looking thing. "Say, I think I might know how we can teach Lulu to talk."

"Oowuu?" Lulu 'looked' up at me.

"You picked up that t-rex roar from eating the dino we took down, right?"

"Yuu!" She bobbled up and down.

"Well, what if you absorbed a human?"

Lulu made a retching sound.

I snorted, and reared my head back. "C'mon. You'd be able to speak to me if you did."

"Nuuuu!" Her surface twisted almost into a scowl. “Cuu-buu-usm!”

"Cannibalism? It's not cannibalism if you're a great big ball of snot.”

“Nuu! Nuu nuu nuu!”

“Jeez, fine. Forget I said anything." Part of me just wanted to command her to do it, but I crushed that impulse like a bug. "But I’m telling you… our lack of rapid three-way communication is going to make this much fight harder."

"We could teach Lulu sign?" Angel suggested.

"Not in 24 hours, we can't," I sighed. "Besides, Lulu doesn't have a face. Or hands. Those are kind of important."

"Oooh," Lulu agreed sadly.

"Well... we'll sort something out," Angel gave us both a tired smile. "Come on, guys. Let's go see if Falks will cut us a deal."