I found Angel at her workbench, planing wood to make gun stocks. She was surrounded by several new material storage boxes, and looked both excited and anxious while she crafted.

“Hey… Angel.” I nearly ended the casual greeting with ‘babe’ and checked myself. “What’s cooking?”

“Starting armaments for the mine breakout,” she signed. “Take a look in those boxes. And when you get a chance, sort out any loot you have and sort it into the right containers, if you’re donating to the cause.”

“Of course I will. Not like I can use most of the shit in those lootboxes.” I peeked into the first box, and my eyes widened. Iron, bronze, polished hardwood… “Whoa, holy crap.”

“I know, right? That’s me AND Lulu’s stuff.” Angel smiled shyly. “I might be useless in the field, but at least I’m a one-woman weapons factory. It would go a lot faster if Doc would get out of bed and help. He’s physically okay now, but he’s too depressed to move. Keeps saying that Merc is dead and we should just niner him.”

“You’re the opposite of useless in a fight. When it came to Karkinos, none of us knew we were gonna be expected to surf in the damn ocean against a Fire-element boss,” I said. “Anyway, I need to tell you something. Can you give me a few minutes?”

“Sure.” She signed with one hand while she set the latest stock down, and turned to face me properly.

I paused a moment, warring with the urge to just spill what I’d done and get it over with. But she looked so… hopeful. Inspired. I didn’t want to see that light in her eyes turn to storm clouds. “While I was out hunting, I got to do some spying on the Pigs. They’re headed for the southern warfront. A big army of them about fifty miles west, with Clive in the lead. I think he’s fixing to make a run on Oil Town to recapture it, maybe even Fortuna itself. They’re stirred up like a hive of wasps.”

“Was King Pig there?” Angel blinked a couple of times.

“Not that I saw. Looked to me like Clive’s doing his own thing,” I said. “But still, that means it’s a matter of time before our secret base isn’t so secret any more. We broke the warfront with the Karkinos defeat event, and now they're going all in. This could be our big chance.”

"An assault on Fortuna…? There's not enough of them. The Centurions still outnumber them and generally have better gear.” Angel frowned. “The Pigs will lose.”

"Of course they will. But we don't need them to win. All we need them to do is cause enough chaos that we can lead an assault from the east, from the mines." I sat down across from her, careful not to block the doorway. "Because it's not just the Maroons in there. A lot of those slaves are captured Pigs. They'll be keen to fight. All we have to do is break in and arm them."

Angel leaned back against the edge of her worktable. “And then hold off the entirety of Fortuna’s garrison while we hope and pray the Pigs conveniently assault the city?”

“Not a matter of hoping and praying. I overheard Clive whipping them up for that exact thing.”

“You must have gotten close.”

“I did. Also, Clive is really loud.”

“I definitely have that impression.” There was a flicker of interest in Angel’s eyes. “And well… I wouldn’t pin our hopes on it, but if we time things right…”

“Exactly.” I nodded. “We just have to figure out how to get into the mines without being noticed. And uh… maybe sabotage some trebuchets.”

Angel’s eyebrow arched. “That’s awfully specific.”

“I noticed them on one of Merc’s maps. And if we want the Pigs to have a fighting chance, we should probably disable the weapons that can take out fifty of them at a time.”

“Hmm.” She had definitely picked up something.

I beamed hopefully.

“We need to scout it out, but there's got to be old abandoned shafts, ventilation, all kinds of entry points. The Centurions don't have the manpower to protect them all,” she signed. “We need to go over the maps together and plan this very carefully.”

“Agreed.” I resisted the urge to sigh with relief. “Tell you what: how about I go shake Doc out of his funk so he isn’t completely worthless while you finish doing what you’re doing, and then we’ll sit down and figure out our strat?”

“Seems good to me.” Angel’s face flooded with a smile. A little shy, a little sly. “I can pause where I’m at. And I’ll cook us some dinner, if you’re not already full.”

“I can always eat.” I purred aloud, and got to my feet. “Also, I uh… I just wanted to say that you really held your own during the Karkinos fight. And I feel bad that you aren’t benefiting from the runes. I wanna change that, somehow. What if after this, I go back with you and Lulu to Vanara’s, and we fight the bosses again for you?”

Angel’s lips parted with surprise. “You’d delay ascending? To get copies of the mandalas for me?”

“The mandalas, yeah. Keep thinking of them as runes.” I laughed. Awkwardly. “But yeah. At Level 25, with experience and all three mandalas, me and Lulu can smash the bosses and farm ‘em for you. Then we can go and ascend together, you know?”

“We could just become an official team, too,” she teased back.

My tail drooped. “Look. I promise that I’ve thought about it, but I just… don’t think I can do the collar thing. Sorry. Even if you were more than just my friend, I don’t think I could do it.”

Angel drew a deep breath, then took a few steps toward me and threw her arms around my neck. I froze uncertainly.

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“It’s okay. I get it, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pressure you.” She voiced, and pulled me into a hug: full-body contact, her chest pressed against my shoulder, her sweet, woody scent hanging in my nostrils. “I think we’re doing great as we are. Plus, it frees me up to collar another pair of Legions if I get the chance, meaning we could fight with a team of four together. But if you would go back and farm with me, that would mean the world to me. I…”

Hesitantly, I reached around with a tentacle and used it to encircle her. It could have wound around her two or three times. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll do everything I can to help you get out of here, even if means fighting every boss in all five realms twice.”

Angel blushed. On her pale skin, even a slight blush turned her cheeks crimson. It was adorable. I was about to let her loose and maybe tell her that when she gripped the side of my tentacle with one hand. Pulling it in against her, as she leaned back into the curve.

“Thank you.” The sign for that was similar to blowing a kiss, a touch of her fingers to her lips before she flicked her hand out toward me. “I wasn’t sure about you at first, but… you’re a good person. No matter what they did to you, you’re less of a monster and more of a man that anyone else I’ve met here.”

Every word that came from her hands and lips made me feel like a piece of shit sinking in a septic tank. If I hadn’t felt bad about lying to her before, I sure as fuck did now.

“Well, don’t thank me until Kaban is dead.” I rumbled restlessly. “Him and Rachini.”

Angel sobered a little, and looked down. “Only a few people have ever fought Rachini and won. I don't think anyone has since I got here, maybe not even Kaban. Even if the Centurions weren’t camping the spawn with an entire city, she’s supposed to be really hard. I don’t even know what kind of monster she is. Some kind of bug.”

"Great." I uncurled my tentacle from around Angel and sat back. It disturbed me how good I was at lying… and it didn’t feel right to touch her. “Not looking forward to facing a giant bug in an arena, but we gotta do what we gotta do."

"You don't like bugs?"

I took a deep breath and shuddered. "Hate 'em. And know a lot about them, for some reason. Insects and the fauna and flora of South-East Asia. Something to do with my work, I think. I've started to put together a picture of why I'm here."

"Yeah?" Angel started for the main room, motioning for me to follow. “More memories?”

"Not really, just fitting the clues I already have. I was an operative for some agency. Private or public, I'm not sure. I was involved in countering smuggling or human trafficking. Maybe I started in the former and got accidentally wrapped up in the latter. I got killed driving out of a warehouse in Seattle, that much I remember... was injured, got run down by a fleet of black SUVs in pursuit of my car. Seattle's a port city, one of the biggest drug and people-smuggling ports in the country. I must have crossed the Solonovs in my course of my work and been killed for it. Then they sent me here to make money off me, I guess. As a monster, to humiliate me."

"Sounds like your life was a hell of a lot more interesting than mine." Angel drifted over to the hearth and sunk down in front of it. She pulled a pan, oil, and other ingredients from her Inventory. "Maybe you were CIA or something."

"No idea." But it was possible. I had worked for an 'agency' after all. And I didn't even dare to think out loud about Cold_Fox... whoever they were. "In any case, it took five cars of goons to take me out in real life, and I was just a plain-ass human back then. I'm looking forward to facing Kaban like this and maybe getting some answers.”

“I bet.” Angel smiled up at me from the floor. “Can you go and check on Lulu and Doc while I cook? If you can’t get him out of bed for my Gorditas de Chicharrón, then he’s a lost cause.”

***

Angel and Lulu had moved Doc from the front living area to a smaller, more private bedroom. When I pawed the door, there was no response. "Hey, Lulu: are you in there? Unlock this so I can talk to Doc. We’re getting ready to abandon ship, and we can’t leave him here like this."

"Uuu-woo." Lulu made an agreeable sound from the other side, and unlatched the door to peek around. "C'moo."

I entered, conscious that I filled nearly half the room, and went to sit behind Doc’s bedside. He was a miserable curl under the covers, the blanket pulled tightly over his head.

“Okay, sport,” I thought to him. “Up and at ‘em.”

Doc didn’t seem to realize what my psychic voice was. Or maybe he did, because his response was to groan and shrimp up more.

I nipped the edge of the blanket in my teeth, and hauled it and Doc off the bed.

Doc squawked as he hit the floor with a thump. “Hey!”

Lulu squeaked in alarm as I growled, advancing toward him. Doc’s eyes went wide and white and round, and he scrambled back in alarm. He was physically better, at least. “P-Please, I didn’t do anything, why- “

“Get up, Doc. I’m already tired of the pussy act,” I said, projecting the thoughts with more volume so he could distinguish my voice over his own inner monologues. “Angel tells me you’ve been begging her to kill you. Not only is that unfair to Angel, who insisted we pull your dumb ass out of Eden, but it’s unfair to your wife. Merc’s going through hell right now, and you know what would actually destroy her? Learning that her husband fucking killed himself instead of growing a pair and riding to her rescue.”

Doc looked up at me in shock. “You… you can talk.”

“Yeah, I can talk. I can sing, pole dance, and do the tarantula, too. I’m a real talented guy.” My tail lashed, accidentally scraping the wall behind me. Lulu squeaked and ducked. “Now get up.”

“Noodoo…” Lulu radiated a mixture of apprehension and disapproval, but didn’t try to intervene.

The man’s sharp brows furrowed. He was a good-looking guy, though he seemed older than I remembered. Early fifties instead of forties. “Look at me. I’m aging in this place, and fast. I’m nothing but a burden to Mercy, and I’ve been telling her that for months. What am I supposed to do? Ride into Fortuna, waving a sword and demanding the mobsters that run it release my wife? I am… was… a doctor. A surgeon. Not a combatant. I never was. I should have died, and Elijah should have survived. Or even Hong.”

I pulled my lips back from my fangs, baring three-inch rows of serrated locking teeth. “Hong’s the one who betrayed you. We saw him talking to Kaban’s woman in the Centurions, Prima Falks. Guy wasn’t even squeamish about selling you out. He’s been working for them for fuck knows how long.”

Doc, still tangled in his bedsheets on the floor, turned an ugly shade of red. He dashed his hand against the floor. “God dammit! I knew that man was a snake! I tried to warn her about him so many times when he first joined, but he went out of his way to ingratiate himself.”

“Then you’re a good judge of character.” I forced myself to sit down, reined in the hostility a bit. “We don’t need you to be a combatant, but you DO have to put your big boy pants on and stop trying to take the coward’s way out. We’re going to go liberate the surviving Maroons. In all likelihood, Merc’s among them.”

“And if she isn’t?” Doc was starting to get angry, which was better than depressed.

“Then what you do it up to you. But if she’s alive, the news that you’re alive will fire her up no matter what they’re doing to her right now,” I replied. “But if she finds out you’re dead? It’ll break her spirit more completely than any kind of torture she’s suffering. And let’s be real. All the people who were captured, they’re suffering.”

To his credit, Doc listened. Really listened, his expression shifting from helplessly enraged to resigned to determined. At the end, he rubbed at his eyes, flashing the gladiator lives count tattoo on the underside of his wrist. He was down to three.

“A deaf girl and two sentient Legions… what a team. You really think you’ll be able to do it?” Doc regarded me intently.

My tail started twitching again. “Angel’s a wholeass woman, not a ‘girl’. And yeah. We will.”

“Then I suppose they will need a doctor,” he sighed. “Alright. What can I do?”