Waking up, I felt a pleasant buzzing in my head. The buzzing was substantially less jarring than half my body feeling like trail mix bouncing around in a blender though, so I considered it a net improvement. As I opened my eyes, I found Callie at my side, smiling gently. "Hey sweetie, how are you feeling?"

I rolled my arm in its socket to double check, and then nodded in relief. "I'm good. Between the heal burst and the nap I was able to fix up all the bones I cracked. Not sure if that's because they're not real bones or just proves that sleep is the best medicine, but either way, I'm good as new."

"That's very sweet." Drawled Abel. "But if you two are done, we've missed two rounds of this trial waiting for sleeping bratty fritters away all our time, and I kind of want to get going."

I flipped him off. "A. shut up, this is all your fault, and B. you work for me now, so shut up again we leave when I say we leave." My tone was firm, but after a minute of sitting around without any idea what to say next, I sighed and stood up. "And shut up a third time because I guess we should get going."

My mentor snickered, and I rolled my eyes as we headed for the exit. The squirrel, which had been napping happily in the center of the wooden tree room, snapped upright. It's eyes locked on Callie, and it bolted across the tree to hurl itself dramatically in front of the exit, spreading its arms to block her way.

She made a sad sound. "Awww, I know buddy. I wish I could stay too, but we need to find the flags." She leaned her head on my shoulder. "I named him Biscuit, because it seemed like something Bethy would do, but now I'm all attached, can we please bring him with us?"

"He's not real though." I said uncertainly. "Like we'll be leaving him behind when we exit the trial. Wouldn't it be better to make it a clean break now?"

The squirrel sneered at me (which is impressive for a squirrel) and glared menacingly, red eyes flashing. Abel chimed in helpfully. "It says you're not real. Your whole family isn't real. And then it devolved into a bunch of insults that I don't want to translate because they're graphic and weirdly specific."

"My life would be way less complicated if my family wasn't real." I muttered. "But fine, he can come with us."

The squirrel cheered, then ran a circle around is with dizzying speed and crouched down in front of Callie. She giggled and climbed on his back and he took off up the root tunnel. "Nah, we're fine." I called. "Again." Abel and I shared a sympathetic look. "Man, that squirrel is an asshole."

When we made it to the surface, the squirrel was waiting for us, hopping from foot to foot excitedly in a way that made me almost feel bad for calling it names. Despite the glowing red eyes and palpable bloodlust, it was actually pretty cute.

I looked around for a bit before realizing I was being an idiot. Glancing at Callie, I asked. "So...quick question. How long between rounds and how long since the last one?"

Snickering, Callie lounged back on Biscuit's fuzzy tail. "About four hours between the first one and the second, and six between the second and third. The third round just ended a bit ago, so we have probably eight hours until the next. We should head back to the fortress and check in. We've been gone for ages so I bet Bethy is worried." She paused. "Actually...where is Bethy?"

I froze. She'd been with us when Abel showed up. She'd killed Kellix, but then once the fight started she'd just vanished. "I...don't know? Do you think she just kept going and got the flag for the second round? She had a good heading. Honestly I hope so. If we didn't get it I'd prefer her to one of the others."

Things had been so crazy I hadn't had a chance to take stock of who was with us. Between the fight and all the damage, we'd all been kind of distracted. I felt kind of bad, Bethy had been with us and we'd just lost track of her. Still, she was basically a monster, and she had her cats. The chances of her being injured or killed in here by anything less than a concerted attack by several powerful Ascendants were slim.

"Let's look for her back at the fortress." I said sheepishly. "Abel, when we get there, you can stay outside with Biscuit. I'd prefer not to get you killed before we can get any use out of you."

A normal person would have been offended, but he just shrugged. Once we settled that, I used Eye of Revelation to orient us toward the fortress and we all set off as a group, doing our best to make good time. Being outside like this made us vulnerable to any random patrols, and I was pretty sure after realizing the flags were all over the place, there would be plenty of those.

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We had a short window of time because the round had recently ended, so it was best to get to cover within that time period. Luckily, we were all pretty damned fast, and going all out we made it back to the fortress within a half hour or so. We'd traveled further than I expected, and I made a note to watch that in the future. Without Eye of Revelation I'd have been screwed finding a way back.

When we arrived, we were greeted by the giddy form of Bethy hopping off a stump. I was about to mention how convenient it was that she found a good place to sit right near the entrance to the fortress, but after looking over to the side I realized she'd ripped the tree pretty much in half to make herself a seat.

Bouncing to her feet, she clapped excitedly. "You guys aren't dead! That's great. I was just telling Poptarts that it would be so boring in here without you. Donuts was out looking for you all, but I guess I can call him back now. Ever since I broke my mind shackle I've been able to let him wander way further away."

Considering Donuts was a living creature who had only been stuffed into her shadow recently I tried not to think too hard about that. Or the fact that she'd broken her first shackle, which I hadn't known. "Bethy." I said with a smile. "Glad you're ok too. Where did you go?"

"Oh I saw you guys making new friends and figured it would be better to do my own thing. " She said with a shrug. "Good thing too, because I totally got the next flag!" She glanced at Abel. "And you brought back that guy. With you. Hey...you. Glad to have you onboard."

Abel just gaped at her. "What? What do you mean new- do you not KNOW me?" He sounded genuinely offended. "I'm Abel. Appolyon. Shane's mentor, a Master Candidate and one of the toughest people in his group."

She looked at him quizzically. "That doesn't ring a bell. Are you sure we've met? Apple did you say your name is?"

"ABEL!" He shouted, more agitated than I'd pretty much ever seen him. "You KNOW my name isn't apple. You're an F-ranker!"

She gave him a sympathetic smile. "Don't be sad Adelle. I meet a lot of people. I'm sure you'll do something impressive enough to warrant my attention soon. You just have to try your best. Oh! Gabe could teach you how to be more impressive! Do you know Gabe?"

I honestly couldn't tell if she was fucking with him at this point, but I was having too much trouble not dissolving into gales of laughter to interrupt. Callie looked just as amused, so we both watched out mentor try to resist pulling his hair out in outrage.

Honestly, if she was doing this on purpose it was brilliant. I wished I'd thought of it, except we couldn't have pulled it off. Deciding we had bigger problems, I took pity on him and stepped between them. "You can get to know Axel later Bethy." I couldn't resist getting his name wrong just to rub it in. "But we were hoping to head inside to talk. He's team one, though he's defected, so he's going to stay out here with-"

I had just enough time to realize how close I was standing and that I'd just brought her attention to Biscuit when her eyes locked on the giant squirrel and my ear drums were shredded by the high pitched squeal of. "SQUIRREL!" As she blurred across the clearing to hurl herself onto the big fuzzy animal.

Touching my face, I found actual blood coming from my ear canals and sighed. I didn't trigger a heal burst because I was really low until I could meet up with Jessie. It was minor damage. I could still hear. Kind of.

"Bethy!" I called (probably too loud). She didn't respond, too busy nuzzling Biscuit and cooing to the giant squirrel in a baby voice. "BETHY!" Her head jerked up, expression guilty as she refocused. "Thank you. Now as I was saying, Biscuit." I winced as another squeal tore the air. Yup, I could definitely still hear. "BISCUIT!" I derailed any more cuteness overload. "Will be staying out here with Abel for a while."

She sat up sulkily, brushing fur off her dress. "Awww, I wanted to play with him. Well, we at least have until whoever that is gets here right?"

I choked back a laugh as Abel made a strangled sound, but I caught a flash of mischief in her eyes when he did. She WAS doing it on purpose, though gods knew why. I decided not to give her away, because his reaction was hilarious. "Anyway." I continued. "We wanted to go in, can you take us to see those two guys you mentioned that are running things? I'm hoping they have a map or something. Adrian and the one with the edgy name."

"Bloody Billy." She snickered. "It IS dumb. But don't say that to him. He smells..." She trailed off, her eyes becoming troubled. "Wrong. Off. Like he's been bathing in a lake of blood. He's also strong, and he shouldn't be. He entered without a faction that I know about. Daddy says anyone who manages to slip in between the big factions is either very scary or very lucky. Usually both. He keeps to himself though, and isn't really in charge."

She'd completely left her ditzy spaz impression behind, and her formal tone made it clear that she was being deathly serious. I nodded gratefully, and her face brightened back to its usual guileless grin. Abel had been right back in the glad. She scared the shit out of me too. I kept forgetting that for some reason.

After saying our goodbyes to Abel, who decided to station himself off the path in a clearing (he insisted it wasn't hiding, and that he just wanted to avoid any unnecessary fights with teammates) and we filed into the fortress again.

Since this wasn't the beginning or end of a wave we had plenty of company. I saw a few familiar faces. The emo guy who had been talking to my sister, Chelsea's bodyguard Callen, and a few others I recognized from the temple outside. Bethy led us into the depths of the building, toward the middle tower where the flag had been on the other stronghold.

She took us inside, and then down into an office below ground, where a short, tanned guy with messy hair who looked about two years younger than me was talking to a tall dark skinned man with plate armor and amber eyes. When we entered, they both looked up, taking us all in. "So." I said into the silence. "Who do you have to kill to get a map around here?"