Salazar was in the middle of cutting a length of cable from his spool with one of his quills when he heard a grinding sound come from the doorway. He sighed, clipped the cable back to his belt and stood up straight. “One more to take down? Alright. Bring it.”

A dull orange glow illuminated Waia’s face as she dragged one arm against the ceiling. The arm was notable in that it, alongside its left-handed partner, was not only considerably wider than it should have been relative to the rest of Waia’s proportions, but also appeared to be made out of red-hot molten stone. That was definitely new.

Wherever the ceiling was scraped against by Waia’s lava fingers, it began to glow with a dull red light and sink to the floor, collapsing behind Waia and sealing off the only exit from the roof that didn’t involve falling thirty feet to the ground.

Waia stepped onto the roof proper, the glow from her lava gauntlets drowned out by the light of the Pillar. She noticed the rest of the group lying on the floor. “Aw, could you four not handle a single guy? Well, thanks for saving him for me. I guess.”

Salazar took a step away from Waia, his quills bristling. “I-I thought you were a human. You… Yeah, you look like one.”

Waia snorted. “Sure, buddy. Whatever you say. Don’t much care, to be honest.” She shifted back into her true form, her eyes taking on the same orange hue as her gauntlets. “As long as I still get to pound you into hamburger, I’m happy.”

While her guard was seemingly down, Salazar took the chance to fire a quill into Waia’s chest. Right before the projectile made contact, her arm snapped forward and she caught the quill in mid-air. A slight thud shook a couple of gobbets of lava loose when the quill went off in her grip.

Waia chuckled. “Oh, I’ve missed doing that. This is gonna be fun.”

For someone weighed down by two huge chunks of liquid stone, Waia was terrifyingly fast. The distance between her and Salazar was closed in a matter of seconds, and she immediately turned her momentum into a ballet of spins and jumps Salazar. He barely had time after blocking one sweeping kick before the second one came sailing towards his head.

It did not take long for Waia to land a hit. Salazar was sent stumbling back, barely able to stay on his feet. Before he could regain any sort of footing, Waia grabbed his arm and spun him around, swapping their positions and sending Salazar stumbling away from her. Now that her back was only a few feet from the railing, Waia flipped forward with her hands on the ground, wrapped her thighs around his neck, then pulled back and threw him over her head. Salazar was sent hurtling through the metal railing and plummeted to the ground, out of sight.

Waia shifted back into her human form. The threat now gone, she let the lava coalesced around her forearms melt off and drop onto the ground, where it cooled and hardened in seconds, leaving her hands bare save for the fingerless gloves which had somehow not been incinerated yet. She threw both unadorned arms into the air and let out a whoop of exhilaration. “Waia shoots, she scores! The crowd goes wild!” She imitated the cheers of a crowd with her voice.

Mark struggled to get to his knees. “You don’t need to make the noise, there’s an actual crowd.”

Waia looked around. Sure enough, about half a dozen flying monsters were perched on the roofs of surrounding buildings, watching her with trepidation. A one-bedroom apartment was hovering about fifty feet away, its massive dragonfly wings creating a soft droning noise.

Waia helped Mark up. “Point being?”

“My point is that we should go before even more cops show up. We ended up on Yang’s radar by doing nothing, now we’re on everyone’s radar. Step one, get off this roof.” He walked over to Horan. “You still alive?”

Horan groaned softly and rolled on his side. While he moved, his eye flickered a little. “Pretty sure.”

“Can you walk?”

Horan chuckled. “Nope.”

Mark looked back at Waia. “You take him, I’ll take the twins.”

Quet shook her head clear as she got to her feet and put her finger to Omet’s lips, testing for breathing. “Really? You’re calling us the twins now?”

“It works.” Mark slung one of Omet’s arms over his shoulder. “Think you can split their load with me?”

“I’ll try.” Quet mirrored Mark’s movement.

Waia pulled Horan onto her back and pulled his arms across her chest, pulling his feet up with her arms. It was a cumbersome sight, since Horan was more than a foot and a half taller than her. “Up and at ‘em, big guy. I’ll melt all the stuff blocking the way down, don’t worry. Also, you might have to carry my backpack for me, I don’t really have much space anymore.”

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A half-formed laugh wheezed out of Horan. “I’m a backpack, and I have my own backpack? What’ll they think of next?”

Mark let Waia take the lead. “Okay, that’s… coherent. He’s delirious, but he’s coherent. That’s something.”

Quet noticed the blood spilling from the smashed flagstone she had flown in on. “Oh. Oh. Are those things alive? They’re filled with blood, I do- I do not like that.”

Horan’s head lolled backwards as he tried to look at what Quet was talking about. “It’s filled with strawberry, like those awful christmas cookies that don’t deserve to exist.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like those, but I can believe that they exist, and I agree with your assessment.”

Mark nodded along with Quet as she spoke. “Yeah, good, keep him going. If he’s talking, he’s awake.”

“Understood.” Waia nudged Horan’s chin up with her ear while she put both hands to the collapsed ceiling that she had created to block off any escape. Within seconds, the obstruction had been reduced to a river of molten slag that spread out down the stairs and quickly hardened into a safe ramp of obsidian to walk down. “Y’know, Horan, I had all these one liners prepped to say to you guys. I came up with them on my way up here. But then that cowboy hedgehog guy ended up being the only one left standing. I had this whole ‘Why’d you leave me behind? Don’t you know what my Domain says about me?’ thing ready to go. So next time I get taken out of commission at the start of the fight, make sure you don’t suck so hard that you’re all dead by the time I get back up. Capiche?”

Horan’s head bobbed up and down slightly more than usual, which was probably the closest to nodding that he could come to at the time. “I’ll put a pin in that.”

The group arrived at the entrance to the building, which required going down an extra flight of stairs that they had skipped the first time round by going through the massive hole in the building. Speaking of, numerous monsters with massive, ladle-shaped hands were scooping the rubble away and ferrying it somewhere else. Foot traffic was also starting to resume in the area, though the passing monsters gave the group a wide berth when they emerged from the shattered building.

Waia picked up her backpack and slung it over Horan’s shoulders with some help from Quet. She looked around at the monsters walking past, as well as the buildings surrounding the street. She paid particular attention to the ones with eyes. “Hey, Mark? How about while you still try and get your head straight from having it get pounded into the dirt, I take over the reins? See if I can actually find a place for us to hole up and not go through all that again?”

Mark looked at Horan, who was still struggling to keep his head upright. “...Well, you managed the cops pretty well. Give it a shot, I guess.”

“Awesome.” Waia loudly cleared her throat. “Hey! Whole bunch of gold for whoever gives us a place to hide from the cops!”

In a matter of seconds, a small crowd had formed around the group, all trying to draw attention to themselves. Mark sighed. “Seriously? That was your plan?”

Waia shrugged. “If it works.” She looked among the people trying to maintain the vague idea of a plight distance. “Eeny, meeny, miny… Oh, hey, Salamin. Okay, everyone else loses, I’m talking to the porcupine now.”

Mark and Quet’s attention snapped to focus on the fact that, yes, Salamin was right in front of them.

Salamin gave a small wave. “I figured the four Primoi blowing up a building would have something to do with y’all. Are we having a good time in Tragnil?”

Quet piped up. “Actually, the demon who just took over the entire city has a personal vendetta against us and the police attack that just happened was most likely a sanctioned hit, with the distinct possibility of more hunters being sent after us in the immediate future. And my sibling is unconscious. So there’s room for improvement.”

Salamin paused and blinked. It took her a few seconds to process everything that had just been unloaded on her. “...Is this normal for y’all? Are Primoi just like this?”

Horan wheezed with laughter. “A few months ago, I would’ve said no. Now..?” His head slumped against Waia’s.

“Okay then…” Salamin cleared her throat. “Well, if you’re looking from a place to hide out, me and my crew are staying in a Sinker, I think they’ve got rooms to spare.”

“You can explain the fancy new word on the way.” Mark patted Omet on the head with his free hand. “They’re not getting any lighter, but my head sure feels like it is.”

Waia nodded. “Lead the way.”

“You got it.” Salamin turned and started walking. “Y’all weren’t the only ones who got a bad draw from that Yang character.”

“Maybe your sky-whale’s cursed, and bad luck befalls any who set foot on it,” mumbled Horan.

“Maybe. Anyway, we all came to Tragnil to sell some magic weapons to enterprising regime-topplers, Ka-Sala’s got a good rep in that market. But when some random outsider shows up and blasts anyone in front of her into ash, most folks don’t have much of a want or need for what we’ve got. But we’ve only got a day to unload our cargo or else we traveled three weeks here and back for nothing, so we had to shift to a different market.”

Mark nodded. “Criminal underworld?”

“‘Underworld’ is right.” Salamin tapped the ground with the toe of her boot as she walked. “It’s called Sinkhole, and they’re always in the market for what we’ve got. I asked around and found a place to stay that lets us head down there, I’ve got a few of my crew setting up as we speak. I ain’t paying for any of your rooms, but I’m alright with giving y’all a place to hide out from any more attention.”

Waia shrugged, a motion which was barely impeded by the 300-pound body draped over her shoulders. “Fine by us. Given the reaction to my offer earlier, I’m assuming we can buy stuff with gold?”

Salamin looked over her shoulder at Waia. “It’s a little weird, but yeah. Y’all just carry gold around with you?”

Quet nodded. “In a manner of speaking.”

“...If you say so.” Salamin decided not to pry and walked the rest of the way in silence.