Here they were, standing in the hallway that opened onto the huge space that housed the cell Liana had been locked up in, but Liana suddenly noticed that all Drotnira had left. She had a premonition again that something was wrong, but it was too late: several STC agents suddenly appeared from behind a corner and promptly held Liana, Izabel and Marah at gunpoint with their alien weapons. Behind them appeared John himself, who still seemed fused with the telephone in which he regularly yelled orders. Around him he had a number of heavily armed bodyguards combining the best weapons from three worlds.

Liana recognized one of them as the one who spoke Dutch, and who apparently had a personal hatred for her. The strange thing was that while John was visibly irritated at the events, he did not seem overly worried, it seemed that he expected that he would win everything. He gestured and they sent Liana and her companions back to the hall with the cell where she’d been locked up before. The CEO surveyed the space, which was now back in the hands of his people, and addressed Liana in English.

“Ah, we have our little traveller here! We went all the way to Europe to look for you, you know? It was so easy to track you using your smartphone. You could have given us a lot of useful information, but suddenly you were gone again. That could have been a problem in our plans, but luckily you resurfaced last night, here in our base so you were easy to catch. An unpredictable variable has now been cleaned up.”

He paused to check something on his phone, then continued.

“But I have to admit you're getting annoying… And I’m not so sure anymore you are that useful.” He laughed. "I'd rather you not kill too many actual people, that can give problems you know? But who is ever going to miss someone like you? Just a silly European girl..."

He looked at her with contempt, almost like Andira had done. In fact, the two looked more alike than they realised, Liana thought bitterly, and she felt a pang of anger rise in Izabel and Marah next to her too. She had already forgotten that the latter also spoke English. But she had decided not to let such a bloated windbag get the best of her.

“What do you really want?” she asked petulantly, using English.

The man laughed scornfully.

“I already have everything I want. And if I don't get any more help from our alien friends there, we'll do it all ourselves. It’s always easier to stay independent. Only the weak need help.”

He pointed to Marah.

“They are only useful as long as they are not too annoying. I cleaned up the base in the other world when I didn't need them anymore. And when necessary, I will do the same here. We have enough weapons from three worlds to take them out with now. Sure, they were useful as unpaid workers as long as it worked, who couldn't rat it out in this world, no problems with taxes and human right stuff, but yeah, apparently it's not a permanent solution. And they’re too unpredictable too and not really servile."

He looked around with a regretful look. “It seems that our relationship is not durable. Pity. Time to end things then.”

Liana felt a knot in her stomach. Why did she keep running into these unscrupulous killers? These kinds of personalities really irritated her. But it was also clear that these types of people were usually not very original. Like John had proven before, he loved predictability. Either he would soon order these death squads to mow her and everyone down, or they would be locked up for the umpteenth time first. She looked at her companions. Marah showed no emotions but Izabel next to her looked terrified, but was also remarkably calm. Liana felt guilty towards her. She had just appointed her as successor should something happen to herself, and now she was right next to her when her life was in danger again. It just wasn’t right.

She looked back at John who had returned to what he did best: yelling at his cell phone what his officers should do. That pretty much seemed like the main part of his job. Suddenly he put down his phone and she heard him curse. On one side of the hall a number of heavily armed Nummerfa came through the hallway she'd just been to, while on the other door a savage unit of Drotnira stormed up. They were clearly after John himself and came closer.

While John was a main target of the Nummerfa they also seemed to come for the cell block itself. One of the Numerfa opened the construction from the back and freed Andira, and handed her something. She stepped onto the battlefield now, with a Kavanderran beam weapon in hand and hate in her eyes. All eyes were on her now. Most of John's agents had their guns pointed at her now, but she barely paid attention to them and strode towards the leader of the STC himself.

“Ah, another one that I shouldn't have let live! So you're going to meddle too?" John said with much contempt in his voice when he saw her.

“I have to put things in order again, and to clean up the filth of the worlds!” Andira said with a loud voice in English. Liana saw the Drotnira looking uncertainly at each other and gesturing savagely at Andira. It was her who started the whole thing, and her status seemed uncertain.

“I should never have worked with Gorchboldi!” Andira said, pronouncing the slur in a very un-English way.

“And I now have to clean up the mess that I made. But first you will pay for everything, you worthless maggot!”

She aimed her beam weapon at John's forehead. Liana noticed that it was the same type of weapon most Americans were holding, though she still didn’t know why this particular weapon was so popular.

“I kind of underestimated you, John. You really are a hell devil and one even more diabolical than we could know, and you must surely be destroyed. Swept away from the multiverse!” She said it with great emphasis and contempt in her voice.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Bring it on. Do you really want to be riddled now?” John mocked, pointing at all his men who had their weapons aimed at her.

Andira let out a devilish laugh and suddenly every human in the room let go of their weapons and fell to the floor, writhing in pain. With a mental attack where she invaded the brains of all present humans at once. Only Liana remained motionless, although it took her some effort to keep Andira out, and protect Izabel from the worst hits at the same time. But the message that came with the attack was still clear, and it probably even reached Izabel somehow.

“You are monsters. You hell devils have cheated on us. You are going to pay for the death of so many of our sacred nawa! Monsters from hell!.”

Liana noticed that Andira still had a tendency to preach at these crucial moments in a very long-winded way.

“You're all going to die. I will destroy all of your weapons, and then I will take over this world myself. The days of your despicable kind are numbered. You all have only proven that the legends were right, and that your species is too dangerous to be allowed to exist in any world at all.”

Liana saw the scene, and something told her that this was going to end badly, and that history was going to repeat itself if Andira would lose herself in her contempt for humanity again. Why were moments like these so predictable? She only sighed when she saw one of the STC agents with more mental strength than the others point his weapon at her with enormous effort.

"Beware," Liana sent telepathically to her enemy in a fit of undeserved courtesy, that would have far-reaching consequences.

Andira reacted very quickly and sent the full load of her mental attack to that one soldier, while having less attention for the others. From a corner someone else suddenly fired a weapon, which bounced off on the walls of the cell behind her, but the spell was broken.

The second shot didn’t miss Andira, and when she fell down a pandemonium erupted. The leader had fallen, and now everyone started to fight back in all directions. The Americans were trapped on one side by Nummerfa and on the other by a furious Drotnira mob, and fell like flies, until they received reinforcements from more STC agents storming in at both doors. Meanwhile, John had scrambled back to his feet and was yelling orders into his phone again. Still one constant left in this chaos, Liana thought laconically.

Seeing a fight on TV or reading about it in a book is completely different from being in the middle of it yourself, especially if you can't really fight yourself. Liana winced. She didn't want to be here with all these creatures taking each other down, when there probably would have been a better solution if their leaders hadn't been so full of hatred and hadn’t let everything escalate. She grabbed Izabel and pushed her into the open door of the cell to protect her from the worst of the battle.

Meanwhile the whole platoon of Drotnira fell down one by one with the beams of the Americans, but not before they took down a number of Americans themselves, including the Dutchman. At the moment that the last dwarf fell, a whole new troop of them appeared, larger in number and fiercer even, but there also seemed to come new Americans. Liana on the other hand had found some sort of shield, which turned out to be quite useful as it seemed to be made to block the rays, and possibly even bullets. Finally something useful!

The leader of the onnobolda still lay motionless on the ground, again. Liana had seen at least one beam hit her, and probably more as she fell. Which had been her own fault anyway. In fact, had she not been hit, she would never have stopped her attack, probably with devastating consequences for almost all humans present. To someone who had to rely on their eyes she looked like she was dead or at least unconscious, but to those who had more senses than a regular human she still had other means of communication that her human opponents couldn't intercept. Her heavy telepathic field might be gone by now, but that didn’t mean that she was completely powerless yet, and she still was able to reach Liana.

Liana was taken aback first, but she allowed Andira in for just a little bit, just enough to communicate but she kept enough distance to be safe.

“Little Orranderranan, this fight must be stopped now.” she said telepathically.

Liana was surprised and irritated.

"You're wasting your time if you just want to let me know again how bad my species is and how you're going to wipe us all out. Your little friend John is equally after me and Izabel, by the way. We're in this together right now, you and me," she said back.

“No time for that now. You are getting me wrong again, Oranderran girl, just like I’ve underestimated them again. You know I can’t win this anymore. And there have been too many deaths already, and at least you have consistently chosen the side of life. We will all lose in this way. And they have too many dangerous weapons now, that is a danger to all worlds, not just yours. You must help me stop this battle and defuse the STC. My Nummerfa here have another weapon from the ancient monsters of Kavanderra. I feel that it shouldn't be that far from here. The Tech Corp itself does not know it exists. It's something that isn't going to kill anyone but can instantly stop the struggle here. Something in line with your own dangerous abilities, by the way if I remember what you did in that cell on Kavanderra. I don't have the strength to get it now. But it would stop this fight without any more deaths… And it would stop the STC from taking over your world.”

Liana couldn't help but be interested now.

"Where's that thing then?" she asked.

“I have to reach Marah, but she shuts herself off.”

Liana caught Marah's attention, and shared her thoughts.

Marah stared at her. “Liana-dinn é, that's Andira, the worst enemy we have here except for John. She betrayed my people. She betrayed both of our worlds.”

Liana sighed. This could still be difficult. “I can feel that she is finally honest now, and she doesn’t have anything to lose. We need to find that weapon.” she added.

But Marah wasn't convinced, "Don't trust her! Are you sure that it isn’t the thing she wanted to use to eliminate your whole species?"

Liana wanted to start a discussion but they weren't in the right place for that. The battle around them was fiercer than ever. Gun beams and sporadic bullets flew in all directions, and Liana had already had to use her shield several times during the conversation alone to deflect beams, but she didn't see this one coming. She couldn't even see anything when she fell.

The last thing she heard was Izabel invoking the only deity she still acknowledged in her ironic atheism: "Oh, Flying Spaghetti Monster, no!"