At some point, Xan should have stopped feeling anything at all. His senses had given out in the span of a couple minutes, the numbness fully setting in to let him do little else but lay back and die. But Dyré wasn't anywhere near that generous. Another syringe flooded his body with energy, vision and pain returning in spades. The spider tossed the empty container aside.

“Not yet,” she said.

She grabbed him by the throat, lifting him up and laying into him with her extra arms. The sharpened webs and fists made him want to keel over to make it stop. It took everything he had to choke back the screams he knew the spider wanted to hear. As much as it hurt, he refused to let her get that last bit of satisfaction.

“Beg,” she said. “Beg for me to stop, panda. Beg for your death.”

He endured the pain, spitting in the spider’s face. That earned him a one-way trip to skewer town as she made sure to bury the needle in his chest this time around. He almost faded the moment she yanked the web out, but another syringe ripped him back from the brink.

“How many times have I killed you now?” Dyré asked. “Eleven? Twelve? What’s your number, panda? At what point do you finally succumb?”

Her hands squeezed his throat, the panda glaring at her through the haze of pain.

“Make it fifteen." Xan smiled. "Maybe then I'll give ya' a grunt."

Dyré's frown deepened.

“Fine,” she said. Her needle extended under his chin. “Then shall we call this thirteen pan-”

A blaster shot landed next to Xan’s head.

“Crap! Sorry, Mr. Xan!”

He blinked. Even Dyré’s expression turned to confusion. They both turned to the shooter, who gave a nervous smile, her blaster trained on the both of them. Dyré's grip fell away, Xan dropping to the ground and coughing for air.

“My child,” the spider said. “What are you doing here?”

Sasha’s smile fell, her gaze shifting from Xan to Dyré. She looked a lot more banged up than usual, her face bruised with a split lip and black eye. But considering the gunfire from the drones overhead, he could only assume she got off easy.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Dyré continued, her voice growing softer. “I thought you and Gabriella-”

“Gabby’s down, Madame.”

Dyré’s eyes flashed. Sasha kept the gun steady.

“You’re trying to kill my liaisons,” she said. “I won’t just let you do that.”

She looked to Xan, her gaze softening. He simply stared back at her, unsure how to react to her sudden presence. A part of him still wanted to punch her for getting them locked up on Dyré's ship in the first place. The other part wanted to punch whoever hurt her.

“Won’t let me?” Dyré asked. "Is that so?"

“Y-yes,” Sasha said. “That man there is…He’s really important to me. I can’t just let him die. Even if it means disobeying you.”

She raised the gun, which Dyré simply stared at with her usual piercing gaze. Xan considered attacking the spider while her guard was down, but moving was still a chore and half with his injuries. Between the stab wounds, the blowback, and his many brushes with death, his body wanted nothing more than to stay rooted to the ground.

But he found his voice again when the spider moved towards her.

“Kid, get the heck outta here!” he snapped.

Sasha didn’t move, blaster at the ready even if her finger was nowhere near the trigger. A fact which he knew Dyré could see as well.

“To disobey me means to disobey the Black Web, child,” the spider said. “Is that truly so wise?”

She stopped directly in front of Sasha, the gun only a few feet from Dyré’s chest.

“If it means I can travel with him again,” the kid said, “then yes.”

Sasha locked eyes with the spider, her own wavered gaze making Xan even more desperate. Dangit. He tried to get up, but his limbs refused to respond no matter how much he growled at them. Get up, panda. Get up! The blowback ignited across his frame, his teeth gnashing against it all.

“I know it’s stupid,” Sasha said. “Like you said, the AIC wants to use me like a pawn. But I can’t be against them if it means I have to watch those two die. I just can’t.”

“Choose your words very carefully, child. I won’t take treason lightly. Not even from you.”

The spider’s needle web lingered at her side, the kid refusing to pull the trigger despite the obvious threat. Dangit! Xan tried to pull himself up again. Body, stop being a useless sack of crap and work for me! He felt residual feeling in his hands. His fingers moving if only slightly.

“Please, don’t get the wrong idea, Madame,” the kid said. “Just because I wanna save them doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven the AIC. They're still a bunch of shady tail brains, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not going back to being their pawn. Or anyone's. But I do trust Mr. Erin and Mr. Xan enough to not use me like that. I'm not a toy to them.”

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Xan fell on his stomach, fingers digging into the grass. He pulled himself forward, ignoring all the wounds he felt reopening. Move faster, panda! He dragged himself inch by inch.

“Fine.” Dyré took a step forward, the tip of the blaster touching her skin. “But if that is the path you choose-”

Her web sliced through the gun in one clean motion, Sasha moving backward as it fell apart in front of her. Dyré raised the needle, her softer voice returning to its usual cadence.

“Be prepared to face the consequences.”

Sasha’s ears fell. But she still refused to run.

“Sasha!" Xan cried. "Get out of here!”

The panther shook her head. She raised both arms in front of her.

“Not without you, Mr. Xan,” she said.

Dyré raised the second web needle, both more than sharp enough to cut the kid in half. Xan tried to lunge but fell on his face. Son of- He looked up to see the spider charging.

"Sasha!"

His scream was drowned out by the blaring siren above.

Dyré stopped dead, the web seconds from cleaving through the waiting Sasha's head. Xan twinged as a voice echoed across the garden.

“Attention! Attention! Hey? Can everybody hear me?”

Xan rose his head to the sky. As if he could ever forget that high-pitched voice.

Saturn?

Almost in response, several beams of light fell from the ceiling, forming a flat static image that hovered through the sky. Xan watched as a shimmering green hexigian appeared in projection form, eyes moving around the garden in all directions.

“Woah, this is trippy,” the commander said. “Now where’s- Ah! There you are, you evil witch!”

Dyré raised an eyebrow, looking from the screen to Xan, who was equally confused. Sasha scratched her head at everything, her arms lowering.

“Hello there, Black Death,” Saturn said. “Remember me? I hope you do because I’m about to end your whole empire in one mighty blow!”

She moved from the projection, gesturing behind her. Xan’s eyes grew as he spotted the large assortment of grenades, flares, and refurbished material the commander had piled on top of what looked to be the ship’s warp core.

The pulsating white sphere of light was protected under layers of reinforced glass stronger than titanium. But Saturn had put so many bombs around it, the shield may as well have been for show. She waved at the collection proudly.

“See this here?” Saturn continued. “This here is a 20-kiloton nuke waiting to happen! My agents push that button and everything - you, me, all these pirates, your kids - it all goes kaboom!”

The screen switched over, showing off the much too eager members of Saturn’s team gathered around the ignition box. One was pointing threateningly at the screen. Another hovered a hand over the detonation button. Another was holding up a sign depicting the ship exploding into pieces. Or at least that’s what Xan assumed it was. The squiggles and circles didn’t do much to convey the message.

Saturn appeared back on screen, her skin becoming dark red as both eyes locked on Madame Dyré.

“Unless you want everything you built to be reduced to a pile of cinders, you’ll follow our demands. Namely, you and all your men are to stand down immediately. You’ll relinquish the child you’ve brainwashed and return her to her liaisons promptly.”

Both Xan and Dyré looked to Sasha, whose whiskers twitched.

“Brainwashed?” she asked.

Saturn turned bright green again.

“Operation: Save the Cat never dies! Isn't that right, Xan?"

Xan could only stare back in response. Was she always so crazy? Yes. Was she ever suicide bomber crazy? Debatable. Xan held his wounds, body and brain in sync pain-wise thanks to Saturn’s intrusion. Was this her idea of a rescue?

“Now give us the child, spider!” the hexigian said. “Don’t think we’re bluffing. We’ll all gladly die for the cause. Isn’t that right men?”

There was an echo of cries from the other soldiers. But as that all happened, Xan finally noticed the lack of response on the spider's part. In fact, the Black Death had one hand over her mouth the whole time.

“Don’t you ignore us, spider!” the commander shouted, turning dark red again. “Oh, I see. You’re trying to stall while your men surround us, is that it? Well, keep dreaming, because we’ve barricaded ourselves in. We aren’t coming out until we see the kid and a shuttle. And our fellow comrades Erin and Xan, too.”

Dyré finally took her hand away, Sasha instantly running up to her despite having just been threatened moments ago. She grabbed her hand, which Xan noticed was stained with blood. Both the web needles fell to the ground.

“Madame, are you okay?” Sasha asked. She looked to Xan, her concern magnifying. “Oh god.”

She ran over to Xan, the spider, much to Xan's surprise, not stopping her. In fact, Xan realized as the kid was fussing over him that she couldn't.

As weary as he was, the Black Death wasn't completely unscathed. Her wrists were all swollen and red. The needle-like webs on the ground were thinner than any he could remember her making. And then there was the blood she kept coughing up. Xan knew signs of blowback when he saw it.

Sasha rolled Xan on his back, ripping off pieces of her already tattered clothes to try to stop the bleeding. She moved to Dyré, who had fallen to her knees in her coughing fit.

"Madame, you're really hurt."

Dyré wiped her mouth. “Injuries tend to happen when people fight, child.”

"Not like this."

Dyré looked down at her. It might have been his eyes playing tricks on him, but for a moment, Xan almost saw sorrow in the spider's gaze. He quickly shook it off as a pain-induced hallucination.

"I'm at my limit, child," Dyré said. "As much as I would like to drag this out, I fear any more would kill me. And possibly everyone else if that maniac is to be believed.”

She reached out to stroke Sasha’s cheek, the panther staring up at her like a lost kitten even after all the attempted assassinations. Dyré turned her attention to Saturn, who had been shouting at the top of her lungs the entire time.

“Alright,” she said, cutting through the hexigian’s voice. “We will accept your terms.”

Saturn turned bright yellow.

“Really?”

Her tone quickly switched.

“I mean- Yes, of course you do! A wise spider, you are!”

Xan felt a little less relieved over Saturn’s reaction, but Dyré showed no signs of retracting the statement. She was too busy coughing up more blood.