Captain Metztok was a Danaean, a species that had, according to Private Chi, been created when an air elemental got loose from its summoning circle and had sex with a butterfly that then fell into a vat of growth potion. I had no idea how any of that was physically possible, but she was a swirl of air currents in the shape of a beautiful four-winged insect. Smoke curled and twisted inside of her, defining her boundaries and always seemingly on the edge of escaping but being pulled back at the last moment.

Given the image, it would have been unsurprising for her to have a high, soft, whispery voice. Probably a sweet and nurturing personality.

"Fuck you and the pigeon you buttfucked on the way here! What the fuck do you idiots mean, you need that much Spirit?! You stupid twats were sucking yourselves dry in the middle of a fucking demon battle? Do you have any idea how expensive this shit is? I fucking need it for the fucking healers and you slackjawed pissbrains want scores of it? Did the gods eat your brains and shit them back into your fucking skulls?!"

Needless to say, Captain Metztok did not live up to my expectations.

"It was necessary, Captain," Sergeant Carpenter said. All of my guardsmen were standing at attention, eyes locked forward as Captain Metztok fluttered back and forth in front of them. "Athos was by far the most combat-effective member of our team and it was critical that we maintain his health. He is capable of healing from being given Spirit and he sustained life-threatening injuries fighting a malazaheen. We would all have been killed without his assistance."

"And you had to burn seventy-fucking-five Spirit doing that? Plus all of what Selb sent you out with?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"How in the fucking world could you think—"

"Oi!" Murray said. "Shut it, ya half-elemental bitch. Listen to dem when dey tell ya dey'd be woim food widdout da boss heah. Ya should be t'ankin' him for so generously savin' yer woithless sword-humpers."

{Um...maybe be a little more polite, please? She seems very angry.}

"Teld ain't a 'she' and ya can't put up wid telder shit, boss. Teld gonna shut telder airhole and say t'ank ya very much fah savin' dese people, Mr Athos sir!"

The Captain whirled on Murray, twisting up and over on herse—on teldself in a way that would have folded a real butterfly's wings in half.

"Listen, you cum-slurping imp bastard! I'll talk however the fuck I want to anyone I please! Now—"

"Is there a problem here, Captain?"

Captain Metztok spun around to find Commander Selb standing a few feet away, his hands folded behind himself.

"No, Commander. No problem except that this lot here sucked dry the very large and nonregulation Spirit reserves you sent them out with and then virtually exhausted themselves on top of it. I've got a limited amount of Spirit in storage, Commander, and the healers need it. If we run out, people are going to die."

"Very true. And that is precisely the point: The Spirit is there to be used, not to fill up the injectors. Carpenter and Athos pulled thirteen Guards out of situations that would otherwise have been fatal and then the group as a whole cut their way back here. Because of them we have intel from a part of the city that had gone dark on our maps and I have narrowed down the possible locations for the hazdahem that's commanding this mess. Be so kind as to get them refilled and give them another fifty Spirit of injectors. I'm going to need them back on the field soon." He looked from each of us to the next, then nodded briefly. "Get fixed up, meet me back at the front desk for your next assignment. Gentlemen. Captain." He snapped a City Guard salute to Captain Metztok: Right fist thumping up into left palm.

Teld tilted telder body up and down in what was probably a non-handed person's version of the same gesture. "Yes, Commander. Follow me, you lot."

I slunk along beside everyone else, feeling very embarrassed. It was my fault that the group was getting yelled at. If I hadn't been so careless in our fights then they wouldn't have needed to spend all the Spirit from the injectors on healing me, and they wouldn't have had to drain themselves so much when they ran out.

I waited until we'd all been healed and refilled on Spirit, Captain Metztok had fluttered off to telder next task, and we were on our way back to the front of the Bastion where Commander Selb waited.

"I'm sorry," I said, hunching.

Everyone looked at me in confusion except for Murray.

"Holy water, doused and drunk! Seriously, boss? Ya seriously gonna be all self-pityin' about dis? Yer da only reason dis lot are alive!"

"That's not true! I was careless. None of you guys got badly wounded, just me. If I hadn't let the malazaheen hit me we wouldn't have used up—"

"I'm going to stop you right there," Sergeant Carpenter said, holding up a hand. "This was your first taste of serious combat, right?"

"I fought some duels...and there were some wolves on the trail."

"Right. Animals, and people who probably didn't measure up to you physically. The balor were much closer to your level, the malazaheen were a serious threat, there were a lot of them, and we were in nearly constant combat." He laughed. "Barring that pants-shittingly terrifying run at the beginning." He glanced around at the rest of the group. "You saw how fast he moves in a fight? He can keep that up for miles. Imagine you're riding that and you've got no way to steer or slow down."

The others thought about that for a moment and looked a little green.

"It sounds like perhaps we should race, friend," Sergeant Moritai, the water centaur, suggested. "Don't worry, we can keep it friendly...perhaps only two hundred stone?"

"Don't let him scam you," Annette said, grinning. "I think he makes half his income racing."

"That is very unfair." Moritai paused, thinking. "A quarter at most. Probably only a fifth."

"I don't have any money," I said. "I'd be happy to race for fun, if you want."

"Hm. Perhaps once the situation has calmed a bit. I think—" He cut himself off when we came to the main lobby where Commander Selb was waiting, two people beside him. One of them was a huge lizard and the other was Life Mage Aerith.

"Gentlemen," Commander Selb said, nodding to us. "Wolf Platoon, I'm detaching Specialist Tremaine and assigning the rest of you to assist in the runeshop. The runesmiths are going overtime on upgrading our weapons to handle these particular demons and they need hands. Report to Master Tremaine for assignments. Finally: Good job out there. The intelligence you brought us made a difference. Dismissed."

"Thank you, Commander," Moritai said. They all fist-thumped in salute to him and gave us a jaunty wave before heading out down the left-hand hallway. Annete—by process of elimination 'Specialist Tremaine'—remained behind.

"Tiger Platoon," Commander Selb said, "I recognize that you lost three members already. I'm attaching Sergeant Carpenter and Athos to you in order to fill out your combat roster, and shifting Specialist Tremaine to you as a replacement for your missing priest."

Annette groaned. "Aw, man. C'mon boss, I can't go schlep metal around with the ever-so-polite runesmiths in the nice toasty forges? You gotta throw me back out there into the freezing cold demon-infested rockpile?"

"Yes. How's your mana? You fully refilled, right?"

"Yeah, although I don't have a lot from your Skillweb. My powers are mostly favors from Melos and I've been bugging him a fair bit lately. If we have some time it would be great if I could stop and make offering to get back in his good graces."

Selb's lips quirked in that momentary half-smile. "Allow me to introduce you to the civilian specialists I am attaching for the duration of this mission: Master Life Mage Aerith and Master Hethok as magical support. Aerith is a combat healer and support, Master Hethok is a blaster mage."

"Master Hethok," Sergeant Carpenter said, nodding politely to the six-legged lizard. Their scales were a blue and green swirl and their head came up to my thigh. If you included the tail then they were half again as long as I was. "Your area of expertise is...?"

Hethok burst into flames, the fire so hot I had to step back and I could smell a little bit of scorched fur despite having started five feet away. The flames vanished an instant later.

"Fire support," Hethok said in a surprisingly pleasant tenor voice. "I'm an elder salamander, Sergeant. I do apologize for the dramatics. I create flames, shape them, and channel them. I can also treat them as solid should I so desire, meaning that I can walk on my own flames or any others that happen to be around...and I do tend to be spoiled for choice after a minute or so of battle." Their needle-toothed jaw dropped open in what was probably a grin. "It's personal only, I fear. It means I never need a ladder but I can't carry you with me."

Annete's face split in a wide grin. As always, I found it weird that humans expressed pleasure by baring their teeth, but at least hers were very nice to look at. White, neatly formed, with pleasingly pointy canines. "Torched. Master Hethok, are you familiar with Melos?"

The lizard ducked their head for a moment. "I apologize, Specialist, but I am not. Not more than vaguely, in any case. One of the Patched gods, I believe...perhaps Sun domain?"

"The World Flame, sir. The sun is merely his gonad. Anyway, starting fires is pleasing to him but in order for it to count as an offering I need to be the source of the flames. If I point and shout his name and you torch whatever I'm pointing at, that would probably do it. Would you be willing?"

The lizard reached out and bumped her with the top of their head. Their tail was visibly quivering. "My dear, dear woman, I should be delighted. Is there any chance he might manifest? I should be thrilled to have the opportunity to hobnob with an actual fire divinity. Tell me, this 'World Flame' you were talking about—"

Master Hethok cut himself off as Commander Selb cleared his throat. "Ah, yes. My apologies, Commander. Please, carry on."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Thank you. Now—"

"Commander, I would like to discuss my assignment with you," Aerith said, clearly making an effort to remain civil. "I have history with this group and do not think it would be a good match. I believe I can contribute more value here, on healing duty, than I can in the field."

"I believe that the world is a bright and shining place full of wonderful people," Selb said. "Looks like both of us are wrong. You've tapped out most of your healing skills for the day so you're going along for combat support."

"Commander—"

"Oh, speaking of Skills: Unlock Enhanced Rapid Recovery for Athos."

Everyone stared at Commander Selb in shock.

"Excuse me?" Aerith said coldly.

"Unlock Enhanced Rapid Recovery for Athos. I will authorize triple the normal monetary price for buying an Advanced Skill, to be paid once the current demon situation is dealt with. In addition, provided that you go with Tiger Platoon and help them on the mission, I'll commit the Guard to supporting you in earning enough Attunement to unlock and buy it back within two months." He shrugged. "Honestly, I suspect you'll earn enough during this one mission. You'll be going into a target-rich combat environment against valuable opponents with a full military escort as protection. People usually pay us for the privilege, not the other way around."

"You expect me to give up an Advanced Skill that generates tremendous amounts of Attunement on your say-so? To this dog, who earlier today tried to extort me?"

"I do, yes. Right now the city is under direct military threat. You are already tapped out on that Skill for today, meaning it's not useful to you regardless. Give it to him, he can buy it and get some use. Go on the mission with him, you'll probably be able to buy it back yourself within a couple hours, and then it'll be useful again." He chuckled bitterly. "Shoot, you might want to recycle it a few more times just so you can keep getting mileage on it. Skyfather knows that the Guard could use more people with access to it."

Aerith stared at him for several seconds, then nodded. "Fine." He turned to me and thumped me on the shoulder. An inaudible ding! went off in my brain and I opened the Skillweb to see my newly-unlocked Skill:

Enhanced Rapid Recovery Rank: Advanced Duration: Instant Range: Contact Cost: 150 mana Max Level: 10

Target recovers (Level x N) + 1d20 HP immediately. N is their Recovery, including any currently-active buffs that enhance hit point regeneration.

This Skill may be used up to ceiling(Level / 2) times per day.

EDIT: Athos, as one of the two living embodiments of Dyadic Unity, your Spirit and Physique are one. We previously mentioned how this complicates the normal Transference mechanisms and that we were going to special-case your instance to handle it. When you use this Skill the recipient will receive the benefit to, in preference order: HP, curing physical status effects, Physique, MP, curing spiritual status effects, Spirit, HP overcharge. Overcharged HP drain away quickly. The maximum number of temporary hit points you may have at any time is 25% of your normal maximum HP.

Ooh, nifty! I pushed the 'Buy' button.

You do not have the 7,776 Attunement necessary to attune this Advanced Skill.

Fooey.

"I'm afraid I can't buy it yet," I said.

"Damnit!" Aerith said, glaring at Commander Selb.

The senior officer was unflapped. "He'll be able to soon enough. Now, if I may return to the briefing, let's talk about your actual mission."

Corporal Belker snorted. "If you're giving us this kind of firepower I'm guessing we're not going to rescue a gaggle of sorority girls from a beer hall?"

Commander Selb flickered a smile before going stone faced again. "You are not. There's a pack of tezaheen ripping up the neighborhood around the Magisterium Sympathetique. I need you to go there and secure the area. Verify that the Magisters are still alive and functional. If they are, capture one demon and kill all the rest. Return the captive to the Magisters. They're building a sympathetic map table that can be used to cordon areas of the city away from the invaders, but they need a sample demon to calibrate from. Once that's done you'll hold the Magisterium grounds."

"Do we have a read on how many hazdahem there are likely to be?" Sergeant Carpenter asked.

"It's unclear. We've had reports of nine, but that seems unlikely."

"Fah shooa," Murray said. "T'ree or foah, tops. If ya actually had nine hazdahem stompin' around den dere would be a malakan in charge. Dose guys are hard ta miss, on account ah bein' a hunnerd feet tall. Besides, da 17th is busy so Lord Gliv ain't gonna have a lotta troops available ta detach. Even if he did have dat many he wouldn't have enough he could trust ta keep dere mouths shut. He's tryin' ta recover dat orichalcum before woid gets out and anyone else swoops in ta claim it. If someone else gets it den he loses a major asset and also looks like a idjit."

Selb's eyebrow rose. "You're saying that if we don't wrap this up quickly then other demons, possibly demons with more troops, might come here?"

Murray shrugged. "I mean...yeah? Obviously. What, you t'ink dat much unbound orichalcum wasn't gonna attract attention?"

Commander Selb took a deep, steadying breath.

o-o-o-o

It turned out that I wasn't the only one who was hungry. Tiger Platoon, Aerith, and Master Hethok all came with me to the mess hall and stuffed their faces just as I was doing. On the way to the mess hall, Sergeant Carpenter turned to Aerith.

"Master Aerith, it's a pleasure to have you with us. We haven't met, but I'm aware of you as a powerful individual. You're a Citizen, yes?"

"Of course. I paid off my citizenship three years ago."

"Congratulations, sir. May I ask for an outline of your capabilities as relevant to the mission? It would help with tactical doctrine."

"Healing and support, although I've used most of my healing for today. I can toughen skin in order to make it serve as armor, but there's a slight decrease in mobility as a result. My direct combat methods relate to barrier placement. I can create walls of force. They visibly glow so they aren't stealthy, they last for ten minutes, and they don't move once they're created."

"That sounds impressive. You mentioned healing?"

He grimaced. "At this point I'm reduced to Healing Word and an area buff that increases hit point and mana regeneration by 50% for everyone with twenty feet of me. Healing Word heals based on the mana spent and it can be used an unlimited number of times per day but there's a cooldown between uses based on how much mana is spent."

Corporal Belker whistled. "That's pretty great."

"Yes, although the cooldown and the cost multiplier renders it a low-tier choice. It would be trash if it didn't have unlimited uses."

Personally, a healing Skill of any kind sounded pretty good to me, especially since my understanding was that there weren't a lot of them in the Skillweb.

"That's the best you got?" Annette said with a snort. "The grace of Melos is way better."

"How does that work?" I asked. "I thought he was a fire god?"

"The World Flame embodies both creation and destruction. He made the earth by burning his left hand to ash and forming the ashes into that which surrounds us, so—"

"Bullshit!" Aerith snapped. "Take your primitive pagan nonsense and piss off. Patched powers are never reliable off their own little swatch of land. Where's your Patch anyway? I know it's not in the city."

"'Primitive pagan nonsense'?" Annette growled, stopping in her tracks and glaring at him. "You want to say that again, healer boy?"

Aerith stopped as well and faced off with her. "I said, 'Patched powers are never reliable off their own land.' This is my city, not whatever backwards shithole universe you and your so-called god might have dropped in from. Your precious Melos doesn't belong here. His power will drip away like melting ice. His reach will fade more and more and eventually he'll die out completely, taking your powers with him. Soon enough you'll be just another stupid blank, shoveling shit or scrubbing floors for your betters because you've got nothing more to offer."

Annette's face went white. There was a popping sound and suddenly her forearms were sheathed in flames. "Listen, you arrogant little—"

I coughed loudly. Everyone turned to me in surprise.

"Could we please not fight?" I asked. "I really don't like it when people fight each other. There's all those demons outside who are hurting people...could we focus on killing the bad guys and saving the good ones instead of getting mad and arguing with each other?"

They looked at me for a moment and then stepped back. The fire disappeared from around Annette's arms and Aerith's scowl relaxed into something more like a neutral expression with only a trace of glower.

"Come on," Annette said over her shoulder as she stomped off down the hall towards the mess hall. "Let's eat. I want to get out there and fucking kill something."

o-o-o-o

The 'mess hall' was not in fact a place for being hyper and making a mess. It was a cafeteria. I'm not sure why people needed to be confusing about it, but humans are weird.

The humans and Master Hethok all got trays and went through the line so that the servers could load the trays up with food. Master Hethok was revealed to have a twelve-foot prehensile tongue; he was able to simultaneously support a tray loaded down with meat stew and mashed potatoes and also use a spoon to shovel the food down his throat as he carried the tray to our chosen table. The image was definitely going to leave me disturbed for hours.

I couldn't carry a tray, so the kitchen staff was kind enough to bring out a large basin filled with beef stew and mashed potatoes and tomatoes and some fruit, all of it topped with three pounds of bacon. It was yummy.

Aerith and Annette didn't talk to each other or even look at each other during the meal. They shoveled their food down as if they were racing. The moment he finished, Aerith wiped his mouth on a linen napkin, tossed it on the tray, and stood up. Annette chugged down a large cup of some unfamiliar juice and also rose.

I had seen that everyone was wolfing their food and felt that it was my duty to demonstrate how it should be done, so the moment the others started eating I shoved my face into the basin and started hoovering up every last yummy scrap. When I was done I took a few moments to lick the basin clean and then I sighed in contentment and rose to my feet.

Private Chi looked at me and burst out laughing. "C'mere," he said, waving me over.

I stepped closer, unsure what was happening, but all he did was pick up the edge of the tablecloth and scrub my face.

"I was in a hurry," I mumbled when he finished.

"It's fine," he said, thumping me on the side with a smile. "C'mon, let's go."

o-o-o-o

We headed west and north towards our target. The first half dozen blocks were fine; essentially abandoned, with shutters drawn and doors locked, but no real damage. After that things got worse. Several dozen people had been in the process of evacuating when the demons caught up to them. The aftermath was infuriating; there were guts everywhere, limbs torn off, and a decorative iron picket fence had had each of its posts decorated with a head. Several of the heads were children and one was an infant.

I looked at the array of heads and felt myself trembling. My vision started to tunnel down and I could feel something fizzing and popping in my blood. A strangled, ripping sound filled my ears and it took me several seconds to realize that it was me.

"Hey," Sergeant Carpenter said, placing a hand on my head right between my ears. "Stay calm. We're going to stop this."

I growled louder and tossed my head. I didn't want his patronizing comfort right now, I wanted to kill some demons.

"Athos," Corporal Belker said carefully. "Athos, you okay?"

I looked over at him, my head held low, my ruff standing up, and my teeth showing.

He backed up, hands raised in placation. "Hey, no argument. That's fucked up. Let's keep moving and see if we can find the demons that did it."

"The best thing we can do is get to the Magisterium," Sergeant Carpenter said, his voice very calm. "If we get the mages what they need they'll be able to corral the demons into smaller and smaller sections of the city. It'll protect the people and it'll make it easier to kill the demons."

I turned and started off down the street in the direction we'd been traveling. I could feel my fur standing up across my entire body and the whole world was sanguine tinged.

I had gone a dozen yards when there was a fwoosh and heat washed across my backside. I spun around to see that Master Hethok had burned the corpses to ash.

"No more shall they be defiled," the lizard said. "It is little that I can do, but it is something."

I huffed and turned back around.

The next three blocks, the buildings were destroyed. Something big and strong had gone through and torn down shutters, destroyed doors, even smashed in walls. Demons had clearly gone through the holes and into the buildings, finding the humans who had been sheltering inside and killing them all before dragging the bodies into the street. In some places they had been dropped helter-skelter with no rhyme or reason. In others, they had been arranged into neat windrows...or even posed. We came across one family group that had been nailed to a wall with broken pieces of a City Guard trident. Whatever had done it had staked the fragments through the limbs and torsos to keep them rigid and upright, then arranged them into a scene of a mother cradling her infant while the father held both of them in the circle of his broken arms.

I stared at the profane sculpture for several seconds. The humans were saying something but I wasn't paying attention.

"Boss—"

{Quiet.}

I was listening with all my might, supercaninely-enhanced ears pivoting to capture every trace of sound. There had to be...yes! There! Demonic screeches and human screams!

I howled and lunged forward, pelting down the street as fast as I could go while Murray clung screaming to my tail and Sergeant Carpenter held on for dear life.