Sheer adrenaline pulled me to the side as a second shot rang out, then a third. Angel’s suddenly headless body slumped to one side. Behind and beside her, bullets ate up the floor. The deafening explosions drowned Lulu's shrill, hysterical cry of terror as she threw herself over Angel, taking the next two rounds like a giant sphere of ballistic gel. But something was wrong. She screamed as they exploded inside her. Explosive rounds. They ripped through the Limne like she was made out of flan.

"Well, well, well. I had a feeling I'd find you here." Kaban's educated, accented British public-school accent rang out from across the room. He shimmered into view from complete invisibility, cradling a very modern high-powered rifle in his hands. And behind him...

"Clive. Well, if this isn’t literally the opposite of a surprise." My hackles lifted and my tentacles split and arched, rattling like giant rattlesnake tails as I put my head down, fixing them with a baleful predator’s stare. "Nice of you two lovebirds to show up together. Saves me the effort of hunting you down individually."

While I spoke, I urged Lulu to move out to my side, and stepped protectively over Angel's headless corpse. Her respawn counter was ticking down from a minute, head progressively reassembling out of pixels. She’d get back up, but still… my chest tightened with deep, pure rage.

The Hell Pigs commander swaggered out to join Kaban, spine ram-rod straight. He had two Legions with him, following along just behind. Kaya the Runtina. The white stag hadn’t gotten his hero’s death. He was hollow-eyed but obedient as he clopped along the hard floor, Guinevere the Driado following right behind him. Targent's Cute? Something told me Targent had been personally relieved of his lives and Legions.

Behind them, as if on cue, dozens of mixed Pigs and Centurion grunts began to pour into the temple. They stank of fear and sweat, even as they spread out around the edge of the arena circle and leveled guns, bows, and crossbows at us.

"Don't get me wrong, Reaper. Our deal was rock-solid," Clive drawled. He was feigning relaxation, but the smell of fear roiled off him, too. And Kaban. "Right up 'til the point that you sicced a million billion fucking insects on the whole fucking island. Hundreds of people got eaten alive out there. Thousands, maybe. Killed near my whole damn army."

I lashed my tail, sighting down at Kaya as he came to a stop alongside the humans, just outside the challenge circle. "Damn, almost like there’s consequences for spawn-camping the third island boss and guarding her like a fucking dragon. The only person on the entire island who knew about the swarm is Kaban, Clive. He hid that information to keep control of this place, and if you think any differently-"

"We protected this place because we knew the Swarm event amounts to a server wipe, and if civilization was to ever flourish here, we had to keep people from fighting the second and third Daeva,” Kaban retorted. “Fully sixty percent of Malae’s population lost at least one life because of your little stunt. Fortuna's crops are gone. The entire western half of the island is being defoliated as we speak."

I bared my teeth. All of them. “Sounds like a you problem to me.”

"It is very much everyone’s problem. There is a process for elevating talent to the next server. Everyone here has an equal chance to audition." Kaban replied. He still had the rifle trained on us, switching from me to Lulu. "Thanks to you, the entire island is thrown out of balance. Contrary to what you believe, the way we do things aims to preserve life. Life and civilization, which only exist here because of me and my organization."

Lulu made a strangled noise of disbelief. “Thu audacitoo!”

It took willpower not to lunge forward and start tearing through the thirty or so men arrayed against us. As long as Lulu and I were in the circle and he wasn't, we were reasonably safe. "Buddy, the only reason anyone’s here is because your organization fucking murdered us. Great, you run an orderly concentration camp. It’s still a fucking concentration camp full of people who didn’t sign up to be your pets."

"Depends how you define 'people'." Kaban replied. "Personhood, like respect, is earned. Your pet slime and the girl are prey. Human trash. Drug addicts, hookers, little doe-eyed lambs too stupid enough to avoid the wolves. That's how the real world works, 'buddy'. That's how the world is."

"Uu had a loofe! Med schoo! Familoo!" Lulu surged forward, her gelatinous form swelled by another foot around. "Uu wuu a persoo!"

[You have a new private message from Mercy B: Hey, you guys alive in there??]

Kaban let out a harsh huff of laughter. "You were some naïve little savage from a second-rate country no one cares to invest in. At least now you're worth something. Oh, wait. You're an E-ranked Legion. So I guess you're trash here, too."

My heart skipped a beat. I quickly wrote Merc a blank message, all info in the header. [Angel dead, stuck with Kaban and goons in the temple. About to turn them into meat milkshakes.]

“YUUUUUU!” Lulu turned an ugly shade of crimson, quivering with fury. I’d never felt her that angry before.

[You have a new private message from Mercy B: Oh fuck. We're in Fortuna. Headed your way]

“Mister Kaban, can you quit with the damn speech and get on with the shooting?” Clive spat a wad of chewing tobacco onto the floor with a ‘splat’.

"Lulu... " I didn't want to, but I exerted control on the collar, because she was about to lose her shit. "Stay frosty. He's your kill. But we need to take these guys out the smart way."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Her deepest desire, in this moment, was to put this putang ina into the dirt. But I felt her connect with me, trust me. She began to slowly edge toward the group of men and Legions. More than a few of them edged back.

“Go ahead. Open up.” I sneered at Kaban, prepared to launch back-to-back AoEs. A blast of concentrated Psionic force ahead, Misdirection to scatter the crowd and break them up. “Because me and Lulu here, we're not trapped here with you. You're trapped in here with us."

"I am not trapped at all, because I am alive, jacking into this server through an immersion pod." Kaban acted like he hadn’t even heard Clive. He shrugged. "Kill us, and we will return with more men. Better ones than Vade and Targent. Mister Solonov knows you’re here. It's a matter of time until you are overwhelmed and caught."

I had to keep his attention off Angel. Lulu's HP was creeping up, almost back to full. Angel's respawn timer was down to thirty seconds. "So, it’s Solonov’s cock you’re sucking. Thanks for confirming that for us. My handlers are loving every word. That one lead, that's all they need, you know. They already know I'm here. They're already tracing you. You and Dimitri and the rest.”

Kaban's eyes narrowed. His scent shifted, souring as I spun this wild, violent scenario on the few clues I had. His expression turned blank, stony. “Liar. You don’t remember them, and they don’t remember you.”

"I remember enough." I leered at him. "You still in Thailand?”

“No.”

I could smell the lie. There's... what? Five million people watching my feed right now? Have to wonder how many of them are people I know. You know what a strike team can do with a body in a neuropod? You might just log out of here and wake up in a Thai black site interrogation room with no arms and legs.”

“I told them they should have just killed you. I warned them." Kaban’s nostrils flared as he swung the rifle toward Lulu. He was twitchy, afraid. Even the strongest human here was only as strong as their gear. Max-levelled, even a relatively weak Legion was capable of biting them in half. "As soon as I saw your player ID, after you broke my trap in the jungle, I knew the Society had made a mistake. There are only a few rules in the Bratva. One of them is to punish traitors and spies with death. Actual death, not this... overwrought virtual revenge bullshit. But you are bluffing. You have no contacts and no real power here."

Angel would wake in fifteen seconds.

"The hell are you doin!’” Clive raised his voice to a sergeant’s bark. “Stop the fuckin' yakkin’ and just shoot the damn son of a bitch!"

"Shut up." Kaban snapped back over his shoulder. He turned back to me, eyes gleaming maliciously. "These 'handlers'. Your organization. You don't even remember their names, do you?"

“Never learned any real names.” But he had me there.

A crooked grin twisted his mouth. "Of course not. You weren't that important to them, Brukov."

Brukov. The second half of my name.

I lifted my eyes to the ceiling. “Hey, Chorus, do me a favor and overlay my video feed with some music to massacre by. Happy hardcore. And pulsing rainbow lights or something.”

[... We only have Eurobeat. Will that suffice?]

“Sure. Eurobeat works.”

A jolt rippled through my skin, a flinch of movement that triggered me to leap to the side - just as a huge winged blur shot down from the sky. Kaban's Anzu. A bolt of fire smashed into the floor where I'd been only seconds before, nearly striking Angel as she gasped her first breath of air.

“FIRE!” Clive screeched.

Instant chaos.

"Lulu! Defend Angel!" I roared and swiveled my head to track the Legion, emitting a burst of white noise at it as I charged toward the pack of mixed Pigs and Centurions. The Anzu veered away, disoriented. The humans opened up with everything they had. The primitive weapons - bows, crossbows, thrown spears - didn’t even scratch my new armor. The guns hurt, but there weren’t enough of them to stop me as I waded into the pack. Ribs crunched and snapped between my jaws. Men fell screaming to the ground, limbless, or ragdolled into their friends as I crushed and threw them. They ran at me with swords and spears and shock batons. They fell like wheat under a harvester.

There was a reason my kind were called Reapers.

[Fun fact,] Chorus drawled in my head while I violently beat a Hell Pigs brave to death with one tentacle, using someone’s armored torso like a hammer to pound him into the blood-slick floor. [The arena entry rules apply only to the first entry into the challenge circle. In other words, you and your team retain all lives unless you leave the circle, then re-enter it. You will have to fight the Daeva or once again be reduced to one life, if you do.]

“In other words, if any of these jokers cross that line, they’re automatically down to one strike.”

[Correct.]

“Even if they’re thrown over it?”

[Indeed.]

“That’s fucked up.”

[Of course it is, darling.] Chorus sounded nonchalant, as if he were examining his nails. [But like I told you: we don't make the rules. However, my purpose within the gestalt of ‘Chorus’ is to inform Gladiators of the rules. And heaven forbid we be derelict in our duty.]

I began to laugh. It started as a sort of snorting, horking sound, then built to a terrifying, bestial bray as I helplessly lost my shit in the middle of this slaughter. Kaban was yelling at his Legions as Lulu held them off Angel - groggy, already brandishing her rifle and shotgun - with blasts of acidic water. Clive was yelling at his Legions, who couldn’t get to me as the surviving infantry turned tail and fled for the door, accidentally kettling Guinevere into the entry hall and blocking Kaya’s path. I hucked the torso over the edge of the golden line, then hurled three more Centurions - still alive - in the same direction. “Angel, Lulu, if you step past that golden line, then do not under any circumstances go back over it. But grab Kaban and Clive and anyone else, and pull them in or throw them in.”

“Got it!” Angel barked aloud, firing both barrels at the Anzu, then Kaban as he snarled and ran from the strafing fire.

“You fucking cowards!” Kaban ranted at his fleeing men. “We’ll find your fucking families! We’ll kill them all!”

In his mockery of Lulu, he had forgotten that Limne were also predators. She melted across the bloody, slippery floor, gliding across it, camouflaged by the gore. Kaya charged in right over her toward me, not even noticing she was there.

[New Message from Mercy B: Bunch of guys rushed out, about to ambush them + Kaban’s reserves. They got Legions but so do we. Stay alive in there.]

“It’s over, Kaban. You don’t know it yet, but you’re already dead.” I hit Misdirection and forced him to flee, chasing him toward the challenge circle.

“The fight hasn’t even started!” Kaban spat. He blurred out of sight, then fired three rounds at Angel as she reloaded on the run. Each one of them whiffed past her. I couldn’t see the man, but I somehow felt the movement through the air as he backed up and leveled his rifle at my face. He pulled the trigger - and sent the next frag round at the ceiling as Lulu’s pseudopods THWAPPED onto his invisible armored ankles.

He came back into view as she hauled him off his feet and into the ring.