Kaya's eyes glazed over as the collar flared around his throat. He honked with confusion and sudden terror. Meanwhile, Clive visibly steeled himself.

“NO!” Angel let out a raw scream of rage and unloaded three rounds into Clive’s chest. And he let her - laughing a horrible, snide laugh that clicked in his throat as the blood rose in it. He stumbled down to his knees, still laughing as he coughed and choked. For the first time since the fight started, he was absolutely in control. Guinevere made a hissing noise of distress as Kaya stiff-leggedly turned and charged the nearest wall, ramming his head into it with his full strength. Again, and again, bellowing in pain every time his head crunched into the marble. One horn snapped and fell away on the second blow. His brilliant white-gold blood sprayed across the black stone.

"Kaya!" Angel shouted.

"Chief! Grab him, pull him away from the wall and into the air!" I surged toward Clive from behind. He watched me bear down on him, eyes dark with savage triumph - then confusion, as instead of ending him and leaving Kaya doomed to repeat his final order while he waited for Clive to respawn, I wrapped a tentacle around Clive's waist and hucked him straight at Rachini's altar. Clive hit the stone cube and slid down it in a bloody smear.

“Never… take me… alive,” he wheezed. “Fucking… bleeding… hearts.”

"Screeee!" Chief seized Kaya by the haunches, dragging him away from the wall as the panting, bloody Runtina struggled to fulfil the imperative. Guinevere, also confused but no longer under any specific order, fled onward Lulu. She crumbled to the ground in front of the Limne, shoulders shaking with racking, hollow-sounding sobs. Lulu moved in front of her protectively.

"Confirm or... whu...?" Clive paused to cough. "Chorus!? Forfeit? Forfeit what?"

"Your one and only remaining life, asshole." I wrapped my tentacles around Kaya's front legs as he bucked and struggled. He screamed that haunting elk bull cry into the arena. "So die, or fight Rachini with a pair of sentients who hate your guts. That'll be fun, given you didn't actually fight Karkinos or Vanara. There was no eruption after you cleared Karkinos because you stole your mandalas, right? Like the piece of shit you are."

"My..." Clive's eyes flew open. “My lives! They’re gone!”

He let out a hoarse choke of sudden terror. Then started frantically downing potions.

"Bring him here! I can take the collar off now you've captured him!" Angel waved frantically at me and Chief. "Quickly! Before he summons the Daeva!"

The Anzu and I didn't waste any time. We dragged the kicking, honking stag over to her, avoiding his sharp flaming hooves. His eyes were white and wild as Angel ran over to him, full of mixed human and animal terror. She reached up and wrenched the mechanism on his collar, and. The pink light flared, then slowly faded away as the exhausted Legion slumped in our grasp.

"God dammit. Kaya, I'm so sorry," Angel whispered. She sunk down with him, throwing her arms around his torn and bloodied head. Kaya bleated weakly: his HP was in the pits, and he had half a dozen debuffs in a cloud around his head. But he was alive. And he was finally free.

[The Storm Queen comes.]

"Sticks! Get in here!" Clive hollared at Guinevere. "If I'm dyin' today, then I'm takin' your ass out with me!"

"Oh no." My hackles lifted as I turned to the Cute.

Guinevere was shaking, the leaves wound through her wooden body trembling as she took one halting step toward the arena, then another, reaching up to grasp at the band of metal around her neck. Lulu made a strangled sound of horror.

"Oh god," Angel signed. "We can't take it off without killing her. He has to die first. Lulu, can you hold her?"

“Uuhoo!” Lulu slithered toward the Driado, preparing to engulf her.

"I SAID GET OVER HERE, YOU DUMB BITCH!" Clive yelled, swaying up to his feet.

Guinevere's head snapped toward us. She didn't have eyes, just slits in the wooden mask that passed for her face. Somehow those holes bored into me with an intensity that took my breath away.

“No.” A new psionic voice - delicate but fierce, faintly French accented - pushed against my mind as Lulu grasped Guinevere by her arms and legs. “No no, I will no longer live like this. They take everything. My life, my name. Everything. I do not want to be this way. Take the collar, kill me.”

“Are you sure?” I locked my gaze with the gnarled wooden pits where her eyes should have been.

“I was a flight attendant from Cameroon, from Douala. My man, him a real badluck boy. He played me, he beat me, then he sold me to a gang.” She kept speaking as Clive ranted and screamed at us from inside the circle. Her body was struggling to join him, the collar sparking and flaring, but her mind was clear. “I knew, from the first time we fought, that you'd make these boys suffer. I see’d you'd be the ones to stand up against them for us. So you go. You find these men and you make them go see. Now let me join God, before he forgets how I really look."

My ears pinned back as I wound all four tentacles around her body, restraining her so she couldn't walk to Clive. "God ain’t forgetting anything about you, lady. And if I ever learn your real name, I'll carve it on Solonov's forehead."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Driados couldn't smile, but I could have sworn Guinevere somehow projected a big shit-eating grin as Angel rose. With reluctant, trembling hands, she unlocked the collar. The slender Legion spasmed as a violent shock of energy pulsed through her. She slumped in Lulu’s grip like a cut-string puppet.

"Fuck you! Fuck all of you! I don't need you! I don't need anyone!" Clive went from cussing to slurs as he turned to the altar to grab one of the hilts, pacing with agitation.

Angel covered her eyes, while Lulu tenderly lay the Legion’s body on the ground. Kaya bowed his head. Above us, the sky darkened with storm clouds for a second time that night. I wanted to grieve, but when I tried to take a moment, all I could think about were the Maroons. Beyond the temple we could hear the distant sounds of battle.

I brought up a new message. “Merc, if that’s you out there, your forces need to retreat and find shelter. Second swarm event incoming.”

[The arena has been sealed for the duration of the battle.]

Sure enough, the bugnado was reforming above the altar, a whirling twister of slithering black bodies. Wordlessly, all of retreated toward the exit, clustering in the entry hall to watch the show. Clive had most of his health back by now, and whirled on Rachini as she manifested. Nine feet tall, imperious, she gazed down her nose at the ragged man with an expression of mild disbelief.

"Come on, you cunt! I'll fuckin’ gut you!" he howled.

The first bolt of lightning struck the ground near his foot, sending him fleeing away with a squawk of surprise. He nearly ran right into the next two, veering at the last second and almost ashing himself as the arena split into five.

"You know, this is pretty entertaining when you're not the one in the middle of it," Angel signed from beside me. "Good thinking on the Anzu. Is he aware?"

"No. Not a sentient. Less humanity than Kaya, even." Ahead of us, Clive managed to figure out the pattern and started dodging instead of panicking. “He seems chill though.”

“Even so, he might have been human once. And whoever did this to us needs to pay." Angel frowned, watching as Clive vanished into a forest of blazing lightning. "All of them need to pay."

I glanced at her. Her pale eyes blazed, reflecting the light as she made herself watch the hell raining down on the center of the arena.

Clive somehow managed to survive the tidal wave of lighting. The glare cleared, leaving him on his feet: panting, pouring sweat, his armor scorched in places but still mostly whole. Rachini drifted down from her pedestal, her sword blazing in her hand. For just a split second, her face turned toward us with a knowing look. And then she was off, flying at Clive with deadly speed.

To his credit, he matched the first of Rachini's sword blows. But with no Legions to protect him and no way to reach the Daeva's support turrets, all Clive could do was run down the clock. He was so focused on Rachini that he didn’t notice the cloud of insects swirling down behind him like a fist of doom. I bit down the urge to warn him.

“Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU!” Spittle flew from his mouth as he attacked Rachini. She easily parried each savage swing, drifting backward and studying him as if to observe how he moved. He finally sensed something behind him, spinning half-around just as the insects plunged over him like an open mouth. The cloud of bugs didn’t even slow as they tore the flesh from his face, his upper arms… any exposed skin, before they burrowed into his clothing. He screamed over and over again as the swarm devoured him alive.

[A sacrifice has been made. Rachini is sated. Malae shall be spared the Swarm.]

[The Temple will open in sixty seconds.]

"Thank fuck," I said. "It's over."

"Not quite." Angel signed. She looked exhausted, careworn... bitter. I couldn't feel her emotions any more, not directly. But I knew she was thinking of Sam and all the suffering the Hell Pigs had caused them. I was about to say something when an inquisitive buzz thrummed from behind us.

"The hell...?" I whirled with a hiss, and turned to see... the Electrosprite. It had come out of invisibility and was now trapped between us and the sealed door. But it wasn't making any move to attack. I tapped Angel with a claw, and pointed.

"What the... oh. Well, hello there." Angel warily feathered the trigger on her rifle, but didn't aim. "You uh... you okay?"

"Bzzzzt. Hisssss." The laced plasma that made up the Electrosprite's ring spat and flickered.

"Kaban's Cute. Guess your collar fell off when he died." Angel frowned slightly. "Can you understand me?"

The Electrosprite gave no sign of doing so. It drifted to the doors and tried to phase through them, humming as it pressed into the metal. It accomplished nothing. It hurmmed and spun its wheels in frustration, then made an oddly robotic squeal of alarm as two of my tentacles darted through the middle of it and thunked into the door.

"Thanks." Angel strolled over, and almost casually snapped her lesser legion collar around the Electrosprite as it fussed and spit. Once the collar was on, it settled with a sullen hum. The iron band absorbed into it, a barely visible strip of metal. Without further complaint, it went to hover behind Angel's head.

"Hey, neat," I said. "You finally got your halo."

"Huh?" Angel blinked - then laughed. "Oh! You're right. Angel with a halo."

"Bzzt." The Electrosprite sounded mildly irritated by this revelation, spinning and pulsing jets of energy around its rim.

"How smart is this guy? You get an empathic read on him?" I eyed it dubiously.

"Also not sentient. But he’s definitely smart, and sure has a personality." She paused to lay a hand on the stag's neck. Kaya lowered his head, his little deer tail flicking happily from side to side. "He feels... fussy. Like an accountant or something. I think he liked Kaban."

"The Chief here looks like he couldn’t give a shit." I motioned with my head back toward the Anzu. Chief was busy preening, grooming the base of his tail like a cat licking its ass. Wings fanned. One back leg stuck up and out. When he noticed me looking at him, he paused nibbling one of his feathers with his tongue blepped. "Or maybe he did, and he's just forgotten Kaban already because his brain is as smooth as a fucking egg."

"Is that his name?" Angel asked. "Chief?"

The Anzu nibbled the feather-scales on the inside of his stuck-out leggie. "Yeah. Chief works. I know eagles and other raptors aren’t the geniuses of the bird world, but I gotta be honest with you. I figured one of the best Legions in the game would be, uh... smarter."

"Intellect stats vary from individual to individual, I think. Dumb Legions aren't as strategically independent, but they do follow orders better. Kind of like cops, right?” Angel’s smile turned smug as she signed back. “I'm sure you and him will do fine with Lulu as the brains of Team Himbo.”

"Oooh!" Lulu blobbed up and down. She still felt sad and tired despite the outward perkiness.

I narrowed my eyes at them both. "Har har."

[The doors to the arena are now unlocked.]

[Proceed to the Circle of Ascension to claim your rightful rewards.]