I don’t like this place.

Charlotte’s voice whispered in the back of her head, and Yuju had to agree with her newly acquired familiar. An unexpected prize, cleverly won with the very obvious loophole she had caught instantly, to the point where she wondered whether the spirit had simply always intended this end.

Wouldn’t you like to know?

A sibilant chitter, and it was odd having an active voice lurking in her mind that wasn’t her own. But Charlotte had always been there, unnamed and unremembered, and it was better to define the unknown on her own terms. To name it, bind it, and command it as her own. 

In a way, the blood spirit was family, born of her blood and her will, now bound to her as an ally instead of latching onto her like a parasite and draining her dry. There were rules to this binding, and while it limited what Charlotte could effectively do, it also cancelled the worst of the side effects while it had been an uninvited guest.

Rude, you made me, you’re responsible for me.

If only it were a little less annoying. Yuju sighed to herself, pulling the stolen energy she had reaped earlier as a result of Charlotte’s little rampage around herself like a cloak. It was thinning rapidly, since she hadn’t been able to absorb all of it at once, but it also prevented the containment wards from draining her directly. It wouldn’t last forever though, so they had to be quick. 

Recursive wards, her brain analyzed distractedly. The anti-magic runes were powered by the energy it was leeching off them. It was cleverly done, and she couldn’t directly break the feedback loop without spending some time to unpick the underlying theorems that bound the lattices feeding the wards. And time was not something they had in abundance.

Had she the same power she once had access to, she could brute-force the wards and shatter them, but the imugi was long dead and she was mortal again. It was highly inconvenient, but she would just have to figure her way around it.

Or you could find a bunch of ers and sacrifice them to break the wards.

Yuju winced at the thought, mentally swatting at Charlotte for even suggesting it. Even if she had let go of some of her moral qualms when it came to directly killing people, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to get into the habit of casually using people as portable batteries to power her spells. It was an unfortunate side effect of binding Charlotte as a companion, even though she already had the first inklings of it while magically starved previously. 

Charlotte was a construct, a blood spirit born from the magic between life and death, powered by sacrifice. Yuju had sacrificed herself, in pain and in loss, and Charlotte had been the result. The imugi’s pact had been the only reason she survived that sacrifice, and thus was forged an unbreakable link between mage and spirit, even though it had never been formalized until recently.

As a spirit of sacrifice, Charlotte saw only energy in life and in the moments before death. It was a natural conduit for the art of blood magic, simply because of its nature. In binding it, Yuju gained the same sight, and it was somewhat disconcerting to look at people and automatically judge how bright their life force burned, and the potential energy she could draw from them as walking batteries. It made Yuju feel a little too much like a vampire, and the temptation was always there. It really didn’t help that her familiar was also completely amoral and only too happy to drain other people dry.

There were lines Yuju weren’t willing to cross, limits she set upon herself to retain what precarious hold she had on her humanity. She was willing to kill to protect her loved ones, and to wipe out anyone involved in the hideous experiments that had tormented her and Yerin in the past. Simply standing here in this place was making her deeply unnerved, and it was only by strength of will that she was able to resist the urge to lash out wildly, in this place that reminded her so much of the labs where she had been cut open in the name of research, day after day. 

Yerin never let go of her hand, and the steady presence of her lover was calming in itself. Yuju in a deep breath, pushing away the haunted screams echoing through her mental space. Both of them were in shambles on the inside, but as long as they had each other, it would be enough to forge on for now.

SinB led the way this time, the watch on her wrist providing directions as they entered service hallways off the main corridors. Yerin’s eyes flickered over to the gunslinger constantly, and Yuju sensed the assassin’s inner turmoil. Hayoung is alive? But how? I never saw her body. Impossible...she should be dead. Everyone’s dead… but what if she’s really alive?

“We save her, if she’s alive.” Yuju murmured, drawing Yerin’s attention to her. The assassin looked stricken, almost afraid to hope. Her grip on Yuju’s hand tightened almost painfully, as she struggled with her own emotions. Yuju leaned down to nuzzle at her cheek.

“No matter what happens, I am with you.”

Yerin closed her eyes, pushing out a frustrated sigh.

“For her sake, I hope she’s dead. I don’t want to imagine what they would have done to her all this time if she had lived.” There was a hopeless horror in her tone, a kind of blankness that spoke of experience in the same vein. Yerin of all people understood what Tristar did to test subjects, and if Hayoung had been declared dead to the outside, either she was really dead, or she was being recycled to other purposes. No one should have to go through that.

“We find out together. She’s your friend, she’s probably tough enough to survive.” Yerin smiled wanly at the quiet encouragement in Yuju’s tone.

“ always had an exit plan. I know her, even if she didn’t make it, she would have left a nasty surprise.” A smirk curled her lips. “She’ll make them pay for whatever they did to her.”

“Less talking, more walking.” SinB called out from ahead. Eunha was looking a little pale, and Yuju winced, remembering what the wards were doing to magic users like them. Despite her own shields fading, she extended them over Eunha anyway, knowing they couldn’t afford to be disabled so early. The fire mage glanced over gratefully, sweat trickling down the side of her face. She had reverted back from her dragon form and withdrawn all her flames to protect herself. To be honest, they were at a great disadvantage here, until they could either disable the wards or find a new source to draw from.

“Draw from me, if you must.” Yerin whispered, sensing the strain on Yuju through their Bond. Yuju squeezed her hand, shaking her head. It wouldn’t be enough, and Yerin wasn’t at her best right now either. They would just have to make do.

The service hallways were less draining to traverse in comparison, but they couldn’t stay there forever. The wards were much stronger outside, and it burnt like fire with every step. Charlotte hissed angrily in Yuju’s head, but continued hiding on the astral plane, tucked deep within Yuju’s soul. The mages at least had a physical form to contain their magic, a literal skin deep protection from the powerful wards, but as a spirit, Charlotte was made out of pure energy. It would be a near fatal experience to emerge right now.

These wards are meant to counter you. Yuju hypothesized, remembering how the blood spirit had shattered the original containment wards that had trapped them back in the past. Defensive wards weren’t much use against sufficient force, and Charlotte had a lot of force to draw on, with Yuju bleeding out willingly for it back then. Clearly, Tristar had learned its lesson from that disastrous experience, to their detriment now.

Bugger that, if you’ll just let me…

No. Yuju scowled, quickening her pace despite the searing sensation on her skin. She wasn’t sure she fully trusted the tricky familiar just yet, despite it having enough sense to not harm anyone she cared about so far. Melding with it required a trust she hadn’t built with it yet. Even if she could retain control, there was no telling what allowing Charlotte that much influence over her consciousness would do. Yuju still remembered fragments of when the spirit was active as the Spider. Things could get ugly fast, if she let the spirit out to play.

Spoilsport.

The only solution to the drain was no solution at all. They had to draw all of their mana back underneath their skin, allow no leakage, meaning no usage of magic at all. Which would effectively handicap them and make them useless in a fight. Probably the whole point of the wards, if Yuju had to guess. Of course Tristar would be capable of setting up such an intricate web of wards forming a continuous feedback loop that could sustain itself. The amount of precision and calculation involved was staggering, as were the resources needed to set it in motion to begin with. Not for nothing were they the premier magical research institute in this part of Asia. 

Yerin and SinB were less affected since any and all magic they had were already permeated through the body, hardening it like a shell and not expressed outwards the way Awakened mages like her and Eunha were. The ability to be a conduit for magic left them vulnerable to such wards, and reluctantly, Yuju was again forced to consider her familiar’s offer. 

But that also gave her another idea. Looking up at Eunha in front of her, Yuju frowned, wondering if her hypothesis would work.

“Eunha, try scaling up. Fully, this time. Don’t cast anything else, just use the dragon scales to protect yourself.”

SinB shot someone else foolish enough to get in their way even as Eunha turned around, puzzled. Yuju nodded at her, gesturing all around them at the thinning shield that was already stretched to breaking point. Eunha bit her lip and nodded, focusing as her eyes burned with an inner flame, iridescent scales crawling up her hands and face until she was fully armored, just like one of the dragonkin they had fought before.

Yuju withdrew her shields back to herself, watching Eunha closely to check her reaction. The fire mage held up an arm, confused. 

“I...feel better?”

“I thought so, dragon scales are resistant to magic. Stay that way, don’t cast unless you absolutely have to. These wards eat mana.” Yuju nodded decisively to herself.

“But what about you?” Eunha looked worried. Her eyes had a vaguely reptilian cast she wasn’t even aware of, but it allowed her to See magically even without filtering for it. Another side effect she hadn’t explored before this.

“I’ll manage somehow.” Yuju gritted her teeth, eyeing the hapless employee SinB had shot seconds earlier and reaching out, draining whatever was left to power her shields. It wasn’t a lot. Mundanes never gave much, except under very specific conditions. Conditions she didn’t really want to fulfill, not like this, not right now. 

How long will you hold on to those useless emotions? You need more, and you know it.

Shut up. Next to her, Yerin looked on, worried. She could hear some of the whispers of Charlotte’s voice through their link, but it was indistinct and she had not the control to learn more. Of that, Yuju was grateful. It was bad enough having to deal with the annoying little brat in her head, she didn’t need her girlfriend listening in on its whining as well.

If I had feelings, I’d be hurt.

She was going to strangle the thing one day. Whatever made her think it would be a good idea to bind this spirit again? Then again, letting it wander free didn’t seem wise either. A wild spirit that could feed off life energy, left unchecked? Yuju didn’t want to be responsible for the kind of carnage that could possibly result. There had been no other option in her mind, and she had made the thing. The least she could do was to make sure it stayed exactly where she could keep an eye on it, limited by her will.

What’s a spirit gotta do to have some fun around here?

Yuju hoped it never had to get to that, but they were getting close, and this stretch of hallway had gone dark entirely. There was a hollow feeling to the place, punctuated by the incessant beeping from SinB’s wrist. Yuju drew her own knife, feeling out of her depth at being forced to limit her use of magic. She could brawl in melee, but that wouldn’t be much good against guns. It made her feel vulnerable, and she hated it. Meanwhile, Yerin and SinB both had mini flashlights out, and the high powered beams cut through the dark like twin scythes.

Distantly, the scent of something burnt wafted into Yuju’s nostrils. The stench of death, underneath it all. A light beam fell on someone. Or more accurately, a part of what used to be a person. The limb was sliced cleanly off, and Yerin knelt by it to get a better look. 

“Lasers. Automated defenses.” The assassin reported tersely. SinB’s beam found a few more scattered body parts, some riddled with what looked like bullet holes, but most had been eviscerated by the same lasers. 

“Let’s hope no one turns them on while we’re here.” SinB quipped a little shakily. None of them threw up at the body part bonanza, but they were hardened mercenaries. Death was part of the job. Yuju, during her unwilling stint as the Spider, had done worse to people. This was relatively clean despite the dismemberment. High powered lasers could be rather efficient that way.

“We’ve entered the testing chambers.” Yerin was studying the area around them. “It’s part of the labs.” There was a certain familiar disgust in her tone. She was no stranger to this place. A similar obstacle course was part of their training back in the day, and death was not an uncommon occurrence. Only the best survived, and she had been no exception.

“Why this route though?” Eunha questioned aloud, her eyes glowing faintly in the dark. Her voice was a lot throatier in dragon form, and it was just a little odd to see a scaly version of her lurking in the dark this way. More than once SinB had twitched nervously in response to her best friend moving on the edge of her field of vision. It might have been several months since they faced off against dragonkin, but SinB still had bad memories of the fight. Those scaly bastards had been tough.

“Shortcut to the labs. Must be where Sowon and Umji are held.” Yerin retraced her steps back to Yuju’s side, sensing the shaman’s unspoken distress. “How are you holding up?”

“I’ll be...fine…” Yuju muttered, choking back a wave of nausea as she gripped Yerin’s arm for support. The assassin looked worried, taking Yuju’s arm over her shoulder to better bear her weight. Yuju was pale as a sheet, and it was clear that she was not doing well. 

“Take from me, you can’t keep on like this.” Yerin urged the reluctant shaman, but Yuju shook her head. 

“It...won’t be enough.” Yuju closed her eyes, withdrawing all her senses with gritted teeth, feeling blind and deaf in an instant. Protecting herself was more important, but now she was effectively dead weight until they could either disable these damn wards or find a new source for her to tap on. 

Yerin propped her up carefully, letting Yuju lean on her as her free hand continued holding up the torch that lit the way. She had some form of infravision baked in, just as SinB did, but it wasn’t perfect, and neither of them could call upon their innate gifts as much with the restrictions. Even her glamour was weaker under the influence, but at least deception was the least of her concerns right now.

“They can’t have this  all over the place, it would totally interfere with their operations...of course!” Yerin bit back a curse as an idea struck her. “Babe, do you think you know how to break the wards if you had sufficient power to back you up?”

Yuju still had her eyes half lidded, trying to regroup her senses. She couldn’t actually see the ward lines that surrounded them like a pseudo Faraday cage anymore, but she could have them visualized in her head in an instant. Charlotte was very useful in that respect, that much she could credit it for.

“...maybe. It’d take more people than I’d like to sacrifice if I wanted to shatter it, but I need time to unwind it the regular way.” Yuju in a ragged breath. “Can’t do it if I don’t have anything to tap on while I’m working though, it’ll sap me while I’m trying to unpick it.”

Yerin’s mouth twisted into a smile that was half smirk and half grimace. “I think I know exactly the thing you could use. They probably don’t have the same type of draining wards in that place either, so you’ll have all the power you need and none of the drawbacks.” And then, half to herself.

“Better it feeds you than whatever Tristar is trying to do with it…”

Yuju blinked slowly, seeing into Yerin’s recollection of the giant chamber with people being harvested for their mana. formed a tiny ‘o’ of shock, pupils dilating in something akin to fury and horror. Yerin squeezed her arm comfortingly.

“I don’t think any of them can be saved if they’ve been there long enough.” Her tone was bitter. “I didn’t miss the expiry date mentioned in the data when I was trawling for info earlier.”

“We have to shut that down.” Yuju growled, pulling herself together with an effort as she shook her head to dispel the cobwebs that tainted her consciousness. Charlotte was whispering to her about frequencies and she didn’t have time to process what the spirit meant. It was probably important, but she didn’t have the energy to think it through right now.

This would be so much easier if you just let me take the lead for a bit…

No, I can do this. Yuju firmed determinedly, tugging Yerin forward with her as they made to catch up with the pair ahead. SinB had paused by a different door, trying to decipher the somewhat scrambled message that was coming through the watch. Clearly, there was some interference going on between them and their remote help.

“Something about a lockdown, it’s going to take a while to bypass the new layer of security I think.” SinB eyed the door blocking their way, then turned a speculative eye to Eunha.

“Think you can burn through it?”

“Normally I could try, but not with the wards active like this.” Eunha shook her head. Yerin snorted, pushing past the pair with a derisive eye roll.

“Please, I was breaking through these things since I was eight.” Behind her, Yuju smiled fondly at the same memory Yerin was referencing. Yerin had of course broken through a crap ton of security just to see her the first time. It was actually pretty impressive, thinking back on it.

“They probably improved on security since then.” SinB snarked cattily, but Yerin only bared her teeth in a shark-like grin, brandishing the Spartan-issue vibroblade.

“Don’t forget this cuts through metal. Did you leave yours behind?”

SinB stared at the blade. “. I did.” A pause. “Why didn’t you try cutting us out earlier when we were in that corridor?”

Yerin was carefully slicing into the control panel to one side, Yuju helpfully holding up the torch so she could see. There was a mess of wires revealed under the panel, and the assassin replied half-distractedly while she fiddled with them.

“That is about three feet thick and meant to hold up against blast damage. If I had Sowon’s big sword I’d do it, but my knife is only about six inches long. It’d take me forever and the gas would have gotten us by then.” Yerin carefully crossed a couple of wires and slipped a hairclip she had tucked away in her sleeve through the ID reader. 

The red light on the indicator flashed incessantly, and SinB was about to make a snarky comment when the lights changed to green, and the door slid open with nary a hiss. Yerin grinned triumphantly.

“Still got it. They never did fix the vulnerability in their door access, pfft.”

“Okay, I’m impressed. Did they teach you how to be a burglar or did you just always know how to do that?” SinB stared at the now open door with wide eyes. Yerin shrugged.

“Probably natural talent. I’ve always been good with my hands.” The assassin smirked roguishly, and Yuju flushed a little suspiciously next to her. If SinB noticed, she decided not to comment. The gunslinger tapped the malfunctioning watch on her wrist a couple times, but no new messages popped up. SinB frowned.

“I think we got cut off.” 

Yerin inclined her head, taking the lead with Yuju trailing placidly behind her. “Not surprised, they probably pulled a hard reset once they figured out someone was in the system.” She gestured at the carnage behind them. “Pretty sure our ally did that to cut off anyone trying to get away. Someone got smart and pulled the plug right then.”

“So which way do we go now?” Eunha wrinkled her nose, scanning the next room cautiously as the only person with working night vision right now. “Ew, what are those?”

“Looks like a brain...why would anyone even have random organs in jars for?” SinB went from deadpan to disgust in about two seconds flat. Yerin shrugged.

“Try not to think too hard about it, we’ve got better things to do.” The assassin took stock of her surroundings, trying to match her memory of the layout to where they were currently. “That way, I think.”

“I’ll take point.” Eunha volunteered, knowing that her scaled form was nigh invulnerable to small arms fire and most bladed weapons. Plus, she could actually see in the dark while her comrades needed to rely on their puny lights. 

The others did not disagree, and fanned out behind her in a loose diamond formation, with SinB and Yerin on the wings and Yuju at the back. The shaman felt vulnerable without her magic, but she pursed her lips and said nothing as she clutched the shiv in her hands tightly. It was uncomfortable to be the magical equivalent of blind and deaf right now, and yet it was still impossible for her to not hear the haunted cries of the dead that lingered in the astral memory of this place. That was always there, because enough people had clearly died here for it to leave a strong enough imprint that anyone who was magically sensitive enough could hear.

Occasionally they came across people who looked like they had fallen asleep at their workstations, or were crumpled on the floor as if they had passed out on their feet. SinB checked a few, and they were still breathing. Yerin did not seem surprised.

“Looks like our ally turned the knockout gas on in these areas before we got here. Definitely been busy.” The assassin sounded neutral, but Yuju could sense her barely contained agitation and the hint of curiosity underneath the mask. 

“It’s kinda creepy though…” Eunha sounded disconcerted, though you wouldn’t be able to read it well off her face right now. Scales did a lot to hide her facial motions, though her eyes were as expressive as ever. “Why’s the power still out though? Wouldn’t a place like this have backups?”

A flash of incomprehension crossed Yerin’s face at that, and she bit her lip while scanning the path ahead as they moved forward. “I don’t understand either. Even a general system shutdown shouldn’t be like this. Something’s wrong.”

SinB cocked her head, sniffing the air cautiously. “Hey, something smells burnt.” 

Yuju swivelled her head in a particular direction, her nose twitching as well. “That way, I think.” A flash of memory, unwanted. Burnt flesh. She pushed down the queasiness that clawed up . Her escape from the labs back in the day had not gone peacefully. Many people had died, and half the place had burned down. She didn’t remember all of it, not even now. But bits and pieces surfaced on occasion, triggered by certain keys. She never did like the smell of blood for example, but she knew it all too well.

Eunha focused on the direction they were looking at. “I think I kinda sense Umji?” She sounded uncertain, her magical sight weakened by the interference in the area. “Don’t think anyone else is there though…” Yuju glanced at her, their eyes meeting. Eunha grimaced and nodded grimly. Anyone alive, even mundanes, could be seen on the astral plane. It’d take someone shielded or dead to not show up entirely. It was the first thing Yuju had guided Eunha to differentiate from the ambient magic of the background, and it was made much easier by the fact that the wards were actually actively up stray magic from the area. Anyone alive would shine like a beacon on the dark landscape the wards had inevitably created.

Sparks from malfunctioned equipment flashed and sizzled intermittently, the only illumination apart from the beams from their flashlights. The smell of burnt plastic and metal grew stronger since entering the next room SinB had detected, and none of them were surprised when one of their lights swept over an overturned trolley and the scorched flesh of some hapless technician collapsed next to it. Eunha, however, was the first to notice the prone form of their youngest teammate strapped to a table.

“Umji!” Night vision was very useful here. Eunha hurried forward, joined shortly by the rest. Yerin checked for a pulse professionally, before calmly sawing away the restraints holding the poor hacker down. 

“Still alive, but her pulse is weak. Erratic. Not great.” Yerin reported tersely, retrieving her flashlight from Yuju as she aimed it at Umji’s face, flipping open her eyelids to check her pupils. “No concussion or brain damage at least...no idea what they did to her, but she might be in shock.”

“What are all these things hooked into her goddamn…” SinB scowled as she looked over the disaster zone of the lab. Most of the equipment was fried, but one of the handheld tablets on the floor had fallen face up and was still functional despite the cracked screen. There was a notification light flashing on the side, and out of sheer curiosity, the gunslinger bent over and picked it up. 

The screen came alive at a touch, but the display was scrambled. The voice coming from it though, was most definitely not.  

“Took you guys long enough, you’ve gotten slow Yerin.”

SinB didn’t know the voice, but that didn’t mean no one did. Yuju paled, head turning instinctively to Yerin, who had frozen stiff at the familiar voice, no matter how hollow and disembodied it sounded through the tinny speakers of the tablet. 

“...Hayoung? You’re alive?” Yerin’s voice was barely a whisper, choked with emotion. The disembodied voice chuckled, low and dry.

“Enough to wreck some . Time’s wasting, old friend. The old bastard retreated to somewhere I can’t reach, you need to stop him…”

The voice started cracking, as if the signal was wavering. Yerin seized the tablet from SinB’s hand, shoulders tight with agitation. “Where are you? What do I need to do?”

“...not much time...shut this place down...don’t let…”

The audio cut out abruptly, and the screen frizzed, the tablet giving out a final gasp before it expired. At the same time, the watch that had gone silent on SinB’s wrist earlier finally phased back to life, a scrolling message finishing what could not be said.

NEED THE KID’S HELP FOR NOW, WILL GUIDE HER BACK LATER. GET ONE OF YOUR MAGES TO JUMPSTART HER WHEN I SAY SO.

“That doesn’t tell us at all where we’re supposed to go,” SinB noted critically, then flinched slightly when the message on her wrist refreshed as everyone crowded around her to read it.

DON’T GET LIPPY, KID. FIND THE HEART, YENNIE. YOU SHOULD KNOW WHERE.

“If she’s your friend I don’t think I like her.” SinB grumbled under her breath. Yerin snorted, the elation on her face clearly visible despite the situation. 

“We were going to have to head there eventually anyway.” There was a dangerous glint in Yerin’s eye as she turned to lock gazes with Yuju. “You’ll feel much better there, and I think we’re going to need it.”

“But what about Sowon!” SinB interjected urgently, gesturing vaguely in Umji’s direction. “We found Umji but we can’t leave without Sowon either!”

“The old man probably took her with him.” Yerin looked grim. She wasn’t a stranger to Tristar’s interest in the Immortal. With power mostly shorted out in this area thanks to Hayoung’s interference, and the implication that old man Han had gone beyond the hacker’s reach, it was clear that the director had retreated into somewhere with strong magical barriers. There was only one place that fit that description, and Yerin didn’t need to guess twice about it.

“You better be right, and we’re not leaving without her. You got that?” SinB didn’t look too happy about the circumstances, but the facility was big, and it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack without someone who knew the ground. 

Yerin inclined her head. She owed Sowon a debt for coming to her, despite her earlier betrayal. For all of her faults, she was not completely amoral. If nothing else, she was loyal to her own, and Sowon had always treated her as one of the team, despite her reticence. She owed something to that kind of loyalty, even though a part of her still clung to the teammates she had lost. She didn’t want to turn her back on them, even if they were dead. Especially because they were dead. She never wanted to forget them. They deserved better, all of them, and as the only one left alive, she had a duty to honor their memories, because they were her friends.

And yet, time and events moved on at their own pace. She was no longer alone. Next to her, Yuju took her hand, rubbing her knuckles comfortingly, sensing her inner struggle. Yerin met her shining eyes, still a safe harbor despite the trying situation they were in. The revelation that Hayoung was still around changed everything. One of her old friends still lived, and she had family now. Things weren’t the same as before, and she was taking the fight to her tormentors instead of constantly running away from the past.

Perhaps I can finally move on… Yerin pursed her lips, a tight expression on her face that solidified into determination. She could do this, and this time, she wasn’t going to be alone.

Tristar had taken away so much from them. It was time to take payment, with interest.

It felt like she was falling forever, but it was probably a shorter time than expected. Or longer. She could not know, not anymore.

Time didn’t matter in this place. Neither did space, or dimension. There was only binary. And who...who was she?

Kid, hey kid! Get a grip!

Was there even a bottom? Or if she fell long enough, she would start from the top again? Like a Mobius strip, coasting down one side like a never ending slide as she deconstructed into ones and zeros. She left a little more of herself with every slip, papering the cracks with thought and experience. 

And there had been others here, paving the way before. Flickers of memory, of personality, of people, before they were broken down into binary. Over and over, a hamster on its wheel, turning the gears as they smeared their essence on a moving altar to the Resonance.

Kid! You’re going too far! Stop riding the damn Wire and get off already! You don’t need to sacrifice yourself!

Why...was she here? What was she doing? There was only the fall, but then, briefly, a broken image of a chimera, a hybrid of flesh and metal that seemed all too familiar and…

Mom? Uncertainty, and abruptly, her descent slowed, and the loud voice trying to break through to her finally reached in and yanked…

Umji smashed face first into the ground. Or the simulated reality of a ground. It sort of felt like being jacked into a virtual simulator, but different somehow. For one, she didn’t feel connected at all, as if she had completely disassociated from her physical body. As a result, her avatar shifted constantly in response to her thoughts, and it was weird to see her fingers flicker in and out as her approximation of a body wavered without a point of reference.

But before she could ponder longer over that, she had to deal with the fact that she was not exactly alone.

“You’re a real handful, you know that?” Umji thought she knew this person. Sort of. It was hard to focus in this place. She never knew how difficult it was to exist as a person, with toes and fingers and every strand of hair having its own physics and how was she supposed to maintain all that and think at all?

“Don’t overthink it, kid. I see it in your eyes, you’re trying to figure out how your own damn body works here and trust me, it doesn’t ing matter. You could be a lizard, a squirrel, or a pile of goo for all the Matrix cares, it’s just a representation. You’ll lose yourself in a loop if you try too hard.” A smirk, and for some reason, that prompted a memory from Umji. Hayoung, Yerin’s friend. She had seen the woman before, but only on video. 

Hayoung was not the harried, gaunt shadow she had seen then. There was a hyperreal quality to her here, as if she was more than the binary realm that wove its fabric in ones and zeros around them constantly. Umji felt like a pale shadow next to her, a ghost in the Resonance, as she struggled to maintain her form and focus enough to remember who and what she was. 

“...what, what is this place?” Umji stuttered, finding her voice while trying not to think about how she was forming words with her completely nonexistent vocal cords. Hayoung chuckled, shoving her hands into the pockets of her ripped jeans.

“In between, kid. You’ve fallen too far and disconnected from your own damn body, but it’s not too late.” A flash of something akin to envy, but it was gone in an instant. 

“Keep falling, and you’ll run yourself down into the Wire, one more sacrifice to ex nihilo. ” She shook her head. “Damn glad I pulled you back in time, you were shaking the whole damn place down like no one I’ve ever seen before...might be that you could tip the balance and turn the key in the door…”

Umji stared mutely at Hayoung, confused. The older woman sighed. 

“Never mind. That’s not important now. You ripped up a good storm when you Reached earlier though, gave me a chance to actually do things to the system. Too many protocols before, and I…” Hayoung hesitated, as if unsure how to phrase it.

“Just...I was stuck before. You let me out, and I got rid of the people holding you down before I noticed you kept falling.” The other hacker wrinkled her nose. “Don’t do that again, okay? It’s bad for you. Most people don’t come back from that, it ain’t worth it.”

“You’re… whole.” Umji interrupted, still focused on Hayoung’s form before her, as if she had completely ignored everything else the older had said earlier. “Why does it feel like you belong?” Umji trembled, trying to hold herself together. “It’s so hard to focus...but you’re all here. How?”

A tired smile from the other hacker, though on closer examination, she looked even younger than she had during the recording. Which made no sense at all, of course, if Umji were thinking straight. But that was only a minor detail, and it was more of a feeling that guided Umji’s instincts more than anything else right now.

“You noticed huh? Damn technomancers and their natural ability. Can’t hide from you. If only I had half that talent, maybe I wouldn’t have...” She shook her head, a bitter smile crossing her lips.

“Of course I’m all here. I’m all that’s left.”

Sowon did not tend to dream. If she ever did in the last twenty years she had been active since awakening from her coma, she never remembered them.

She used to dream though, before the war, in the moments of comfort even during the war, but after being locked in a magical sleep thanks to the dragon orb? It seemed to have reached deep into her, changed her in ways she never imagined or expected. 

Now, when she sleeps, she shuts down entirely, not unlike a machine powering down. Before she started replacing bits and pieces of herself with machines, there had been moments when vivid nightmares haunted her, silenced only by the mechanical parts that she willingly put into herself to quiet the voices. 

Was she more machine than human then? What makes a human? Sowon had been slowly losing sight of that until she found and rescued Umji over ten years ago. Caring for the younger girl helped to connect her back to living as a human, instead of slipping slowly into becoming an emotionless robot. 

Umji always said that she owed her life and everything to Sowon, but Sowon too owed a debt of gratitude to the young technomancer. Community meant so much to her, and though it could be said that it was Sowon taking care of Umji all this time, was it not also true that it was Umji’s company that kept Sowon in touch with her humanity?

Sowon did not usually dream, but there are always exceptions. Now, drugged into an unnatural sleep, trapped by the enemy, Sowon was dreaming.

But was it really a dream?

She was back in the ruins of the underground temple where the imugi had been held, but to call it ruins might be an insult to the grandeur that had been intended at its inception. This was the temple at its best, except different somehow, more solemn, with a living presence to it the imugi’s prison never had. The layout was similar enough, but Sowon sensed, perhaps instinctively, that it was not the same.

It had to be a dream, because here, she was stripped of her mechanical enhancements, restored to the self she only vaguely remembered before their final, fateful mission as soldiers in a war no one wanted. Long dark hair, both her eyes intact, only natural flesh on her body and not the hardened plating that only simulated the texture of real skin. It made her feel oddly vulnerable, even, and Sowon was not sure she liked the feeling.

There was an unreal quality to this place, this dream that brought her here, yet a part of her was entirely certain that this was real, though she could not tell you how or why that was the case. Flickering lights illuminated the vast hall, but Sowon still felt claustrophobic. Odd.  

Dimly, she thought she caught the faint scent of brine on the wind, and her skin crawled with an eerily familiar sensation. She was alone, at the mercy of whatever had brought her here. She was not safe, and a part deep within her remembered her circumstances. They had caught her and Umji, and the rest were facing the enemy alone. Yuju might be a lethal weapon, but she was still only human, and humans make mistakes. Someone could potentially blindside her, and no one was invulnerable.

She should be worrying for herself, but yet here she was, worried about everyone else instead. Sowon caught herself in mid-thought, biting back a hollow laugh. Best to try and wake up. She had no time for dreams right now.

AND THUS YOU HAD BEEN CHOSEN, FOR THOSE WHO ARE ABLE ALWAYS BEAR THE GREATEST BURDENS.

“Who’s there?” Sowon snapped in agitation, looking around as her body readied into a fighting crouch. She was unarmed, and hated it, but she was not going to go down easily either. Dream or not, she was a fighter, and no one was going to take that away from her

I HAD HOPED MY SON WOULD LEARN THE ERROR OF HIS WAYS, BUT NOT EVEN CAPTIVITY COULD BLUNT HIS RASHNESS. FATE, IT SEEMS CANNOT BE DENIED.

A mirage of a ghostly figure, draped in ancient robes, appeared at the far end of the great hall. Or had he always been there? The chamber they were in was vaguely oval, Sowon realizes now, and as she stepped closer to the ghostly figure, she was suddenly aware of an underlying hum of running water ebbing and flowing amidst the cavernous gloom.

The ghost stood before a raised platform, and Sowon did not recognize the carvings on the stone tablet erected on it. They seemed old, far older than anything she had ever seen, except maybe on illustrations in long forgotten textbooks during her school days. She could not remember clearly, but the smell of sea salt and the slapping of waves all around them suggested the impossible. 

She was never the best student of history, but Umji had turned up a lot of old myths and legends about dragons during their investigation of the dragon orb. She couldn’t be sure, and she didn’t like the way things were looking, but this was beginning to resemble the rumoured final resting place of the legendary King Munmu, he who was said to have become a dragon to protect Korea from invaders.

YOU SUSPECT CORRECTLY. I AM THE DRAGON THAT SLEEPS IN THE EASTERN SEA.

“The imugi is your son?” Sowon scowled despite herself, though she was appropriately shaken by the implications. History and myth were tangled in this instance, and the dragon cult Mireu had also taken advantage of the same myth to establish themselves despite the longstanding dominance of Christian denominations in the nation. It played to an older tradition, rejecting the outsider religions, building on a nationalistic identity in a time of turmoil. Even now, despite the imugi’s demise, remnants of the cult still clung on to that identity, a way to figure out how to belong in a world that no longer abided by the rules of the old world.

I HAVE MANY SONS. BUT THERE IS ONLY ONE THRONE, AND ONE SUCCESSOR.

“That doesn’t explain the imugi at all.” Sowon’s eye twitched. If anything, the legendary king had to have been at least human once, if the history books could be believed. Could humans even become dragons? Or was he always just a dragon playing at being human? She could not know the truth, at least, not without clarification.

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO POWER. SOMYEON WENT DOWN A DARK PATH, AND I HAD TO CHAIN HIM FOR HIS OWN SAKE. ALAS, HE DID NOT LEARN, DESPITE ALL THE TIME I HAVE GIVEN HIM. EVEN NOW, I GRIEVE.

“What has that got to do with me? Are you upset I helped to kill him?” Sowon asked cautiously, eyes narrowing. If the dragon intended her harm, he could have moved anytime now, but here he was talking to her instead. Sowon could not be sure whether he was actually benign, or just having a villain monologue. It was always better to err on the side of caution when in doubt. Not that she could escape anytime soon though, with things being the way they were right now.

NO, KARMA HAS COME TO HIM, DESPITE MY BEST ATTEMPTS TO DELAY IT. IT IS RIGHT, AND JUST. I HAVE SEEN THROUGH YOUR EYES AND WATCHED YOUR HEART. THERE IS NO BETTER BEARER I COULD HAVE CHOSEN AT THE TIME.

“I did not ask for this.” Sowon clenched her fists, shoulders shaking. More than once, she had questioned how and why it was that she alone had survived the carnage at Gyeongju. Survived, and not aged a day from fifty years ago. She never had any chance for answers until today, and now the source of her constantl angst was standing right before her.

I AM BOUND TO MY OATH AND MAY NOT INTERVENE DIRECTLY. YOU WERE THE ONLY SUITABLE VESSEL, TO OVERSEE THE PACT THAT WAS MADE. SOMYEON COULD NOT LEAVE UNLESS HE AGREES TO A BARGAIN, AND MY ORB WAS TO ARBITRATE. 

“Just so you know, we broke the damn thing, and your son lied anyway.” Sowon spat, justifiably furious by the almost condescending attitude from the dragon. So much pain and suffering endured over the years, all because one father showed unjustified mercy to an unrepentant son. 

Sowon didn’t know all the details, but she could guess the gist of it. Some tragedies were a familiar cliche, doomed to repeat over time. The imugi had probably done horrible things in life, and had been imprisoned by the dragon, his father, as both punishment and a chance for him to reform. Obviously, that had not worked out at all, and her team had paid the ultimate price for it.

A pause from the dragon, almost apologetic, even as Sowon seethed in silence.. 

I BEAR YOU NO ILL WILL, PAST OR PRESENT. MY SON HAS CAUSED YOU GREAT SUFFERING. IT IS FITTING HE HAS MET HIS END WITH YOU AND YOUR COMRADES.

“I’m glad you noticed,” Sowon growled, knuckles turning white from the strain. She hung her head, noting with ironic mockery the dark strands of hair that existed only in memory. The ex-soldier could not know how deeply the transformations went after having borne the dragon orb for so long before Yuju shattered it. Her hair had gone ash blonde in the real world, and she hadn’t been dark haired in decades. And that was but the most cosmetic of the changes. Deep down, Sowon knew the orb had changed more than just her appearance, but she could never be sure just how much. This was an opportunity, truth be told, and yet, here and now, she was afraid to bring it up. To ask was to confirm, and she had reason enough to fear the answers.

Glaring fiercely at the source of all her existential crises, Sowon bit the inner wall of her cheek, studying the distant figure of the dragon as he hovered by the stone tablets. She couldn’t help but also notice how the dragon’s form was particularly see-through, as if he were truly a ghost, and not a god worshipped by her distant ancestors as the protector of the land. If the dragon orb was truly linked to him, there must have been consequences for that shattering, and from her point of view, he deserved every last one of them.

I HAVE SUMMONED YOU HERE FOR A PURPOSE. PER MY OATH, I MAY NOT INTERVENE UNLESS THERE IS A THREAT TO THE LAND, AND THAT MOMENT IS NOW.

“Go find a different stooge. I’m no hero.” Sowon folded her arms, knowing she was being petulant, and not particularly caring. She was done being someone’s catspaw. All she wanted to do was go back to the real world, reunite with her team, and hopefully live an uneventful life after all this was over. Was that even too much to ask?

I WOULD NOT ASK IF THERE WERE ANY OTHER CHOICE, BUT IT IS THROUGH YOU THAT THE THREAT COMES. I WILL NOT ALLOW ANOTHER SOMYEON TO COME TO PASS. ONCE IS ENOUGH.

“What?” Sowon looked confused. A sigh from the dragon’s image.

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE PATH TO POWER, AND MY SON CHOSE PERSONAL GLORY OVER DUTY. I SERVED MY PEOPLE IN LIFE AND WALKED THE DRAGON PATH IN DEATH TO DEFEND OUR LANDS. BUT HE DECIDED HE WANTED A DRAGON’S POWER AND NONE OF THE RESPONSIBILITY THAT COMES WITH IT.

“And I’m involved somehow because…?” Sowon asked cautiously, a  bad feeling creeping up her stomach. The dragon turned, and he looked so very old then, ancient eyes weary with the weight of years.

YOU BORE A DRAGON ORB FOR MANY YEARS. FOR BETTER OR WORSE, YOU ARE AN INCOMPLETE EXAMPLE OF THE DRAGONKIN TRANSFORMATION. I FEAR THEY WILL USE YOU TO MAKE MORE OF THE TWISTED CREATURES MY SON CALLS HIS SERVANTS. THAT WAY LIES THE ROAD TO MADNESS.

That shook Sowon up more than a bit, but something didn’t feel right about the whole situation. Call it instinct, but she felt as if the dragon was holding back. Dragons always lied. What were mere mortals to them other than playthings? She couldn’t trust it at all.

“It’s more than that, isn’t it?” Sowon met the dragon’s eyes boldly, a sudden hunch striking her, and she made that leap boldly. Guessing cost nothing. “It changed me while I was linked to it, but it also linked me to you. That’s how you brought me here in the first place.” A sneer twisted her lips, as the links came together in her mind. 

“You’re afraid they’ll find you.”

The dragon inclined his head, not denying her words.

I BEAR THE LIFE AND MAGIC OF THE EASTERN SEA. ALREADY, THEY ARE DOING WHAT HAS BEEN FORBIDDEN. THEY TAKE AND TAKE WITHOUT END. YOU MUST STOP THEM, BEFORE ALL IS LOST.

“And what happens if I don’t agree?” Sowon knew she was being stubborn, and if anything she would have to break out of captivity anyway, so agreeing would literally cost her nothing, but she still held a grudge over the whole dragon orb debacle. And could you really blame her?

DESTRUCTION. WITHOUT MY PROTECTION, THE SEAS WILL RISE AND SWALLOW HALF OF MY BELOVED SILLA. YOU KNOW IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING. THE PUNY WALLS HUMANS HAVE BUILT ARE NO MATCH AGAINST NATURE UNLEASHED.

“It’s Korea now,” Sowon corrected absently, even as her brow knitted together in thought. She rarely paid attention to news in that area, but she was not blind to the great tidal walls that had been raised in the last few decades to hold back a rising sea level. If the dragon spoke truth, then he had been responsible for slowing the tide all this time. 

She knew she would have to agree, eventually. Tristar was the real enemy here, and while she had no friendly feelings towards the dragon, he had inadvertently saved her life by making her the bearer of his orb. The forced changes wrought upon her still stuck like a thorn in , but she had also lived with it for the last twenty years. Her unaltered form in this dream was merely a sentimental illusion from the past. She was Sowon now, not Kim Sojung. That old soldier had as good as died with her squad in the past, on the fields of Gyeongju.

The rest of her team now, in this lifetime, was waiting for her still. She couldn’t afford to dawdle.

“You knew I would have to fight them anyway, so why did you bring me here at all?” That was an honest question. There had been no need for the dragon to reveal himself at all, not with Sowon already having marked Tristar as an enemy for taking her captive and trying to kill and imprison everyone she ever cared about in this life. After having been manipulated by an old comrade, Sowon was a little less trusting now. Clearly, this dragon wanted something.

I HAVE GROWN WEAKER OVER THE CENTURIES. PEOPLE FORGET, AND MY POWER WANES WITH IT. MY SON, FOR ALL HIS FAULTS, REVIVED A WORSHIP THAT GRANTS ME STRENGTH, BUT IT CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH. 

An audible pause, as if the dragon was struggling to decide what to reveal. Sowon waited. It wasn’t like she could do anything else.

MY ORB IS GONE. IT WOULD BE THE WORK OF A THOUSAND YEARS TO FORGE A NEW ONE. I CAN WAIT, BUT I NEED TIME. YOU CAN HASTEN THE PROCESS.

“What do you want, my life?” Sowon asked suspiciously. She had not forgotten her unnatural youth and apparent immortality. It was still a problem that plagued her thoughts, kept her uncertain about her commitment to SinB. It didn’t feel right to get involved with someone who would age and die before her while she remained. Sowon didn’t think she could stand the heartbreak. Bad enough that she had already outlived one team in the past.

ONLY YOUR WORD. THE GIRL WHO TOOK MY ORB INTO HERSELF, YOU KNOW HER?

“What do you want with Eunha?” Sowon tensed, cautious. Eunha was a friend, the only other person who remembered her as Kim Sojung from the past, and even with the split they had over Yuju before, Sowon still held her in good regard, though she believed that the fire mage’s obsession with the shaman needed to be curbed. If the dragon sought to harm her, she would end him herself, incoming natural disaster or not. She was many things, but disloyal was not one of them.

I CAN NO LONGER WALK THE EARTH MYSELF, BUT I NEED ONE WHO CAN SPEAK FOR ME IN THE MORTAL REALM. YOU ARE NO DRAGON AND CANNOT TAKE MY PLACE, BUT SHE HAS TAKEN MY ESSENCE INTO HERSELF. BRING HER TO ME, AND I WILL TEACH HER EVERYTHING SHE NEEDS TO REALIZE HER FULL POTENTIAL.

“And the price for that? Dragons make no deals that don’t benefit themselves.” Sowon could not help but be cynical. She had heard the stories from all over the world. Make no deals with a dragon, that was the old saying. Every bait came with a hook. She would not sell her allies to anyone for any price.

KNOWLEDGE FOR POWER. I NEED STRENGTH TO SUSTAIN MYSELF. IF SHE CAN SPEAK WITH MY VOICE, SHE CAN CONTINUE WHAT MY SON HAS STARTED.

“You know I would never let you take control of her to do as you wish.” Sowon’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t like the sound of the deal. It sounded too much like a long term scam. What his son had started? Did he want Eunha to become some sort of new figurehead for the dragon cult? That didn’t sit well with Sowon at all. In her experience, the kind of people who got involved in a cult were never the sort she would associate with. Too much potential for extremism, and Sowon didn’t think Eunha wanted the hassle of dealing with people like that either.

REGARDLESS. I HAVE SPOKEN. THE OFFER STANDS. I CAN WAIT.

“I would never…” The room started to blur before her eyes, and it was then, belatedly, that Sowon remembered that she wasn’t actually there. All dreams end, and she did not look forward to awakening in captivity. An old, familiar rage rose within her, even as her consciousness faded slowly to black.

They won’t hold me forever, and when I get out, there will be hell to pay.

Umji was light on her shoulder, and Yuju pursed her lips as she carried the unconscious technomancer, the others leading the way and protecting them. It would have been vaguely insulting to be relegated to being a pack mule, but with her more potent abilities sealed from use at the moment, Yuju had taken on the job of transporting their comatose comrade since there was no other way for her to be useful. 

The facility was in some sort of lockdown, but Hayoung’s little rampage had damaged many key systems and sealed off most of the regular employees in their own quarters. That left the field mercifully empty for them as they made their way to the heart of the facility unimpeded.

The heart, which was also where the nexus of the operations at this facility laid. Yerin had given them a quick briefing as they hurried to their destination. Eunha and SinB had been appropriately horrified by the brief description of what Tristar appeared to be doing at this facility. Human experimentation was never ethical without proper oversight and consent, and what they were doing was far from right.

It didn’t take much to get everyone to agree on a plan of action. Save Sowon, wreck the place, get out. Hopefully not die. It was not the most well laid out of plans, but they didn’t have the luxury of coming up with anything perfect. Improvisation based on their circumstances would just have to do. 

For someone like SinB, making things up as she went along was right up her alley. She was fully prepared to trash the place to get Sowon out. That Tristar was an evil corporation didn’t surprise her one bit. A slum rat herself, she had never trusted any of the megacorps growing up. This was just one more atrocity in the daily grind of their lives, and she couldn’t save everyone. It was unfortunate, but it was just the way things were.

Yuju did want to save people, but even she understood that they might not have the luxury of time and resources to do so. She hated being so helpless right now, divorced from use of her magic. She couldn’t even check on Umji magically, and it worried her to see the young girl comatose like this. Despite her faith in Yerin personally, she didn’t know Yerin’s friend at all, and the little that had slipped out over communications earlier concerned her. 

Why would there be a need to guide Umji back? Was she lost? The technomancer had been close to her in the past year, engaged in their little side projects trying to make technomancy work with the hermetic tradition. Yuju knew more than a little about how Umji’s abilities worked, because they had been trying to understand how their powers interacted with each other while working on creating a hybridized alarm network. 

Not a technomancer herself, Yuju was nevertheless able to relate to Umji’s description of how she interacted with electronic devices to give herself a frame of reference to understand how her ability worked. It was similar enough to astral projection in a sense, and within that context, it justifiably worried Yuju that Umji needed help getting back. The shaman understood all too well the dangers of being severed from your physical body. That had been the chief concern during Eunha’s out of body experience as well, but unlike with Eunha, Yuju did not know how to reach out and pull Umji back. 

Yuju could not know if the same dangers awaited Umji in this respect. What if whatever came back wasn’t actually Umji, or in similar fashion to her own case, she might come back with an unwanted passenger? (Hey that’s rude.)

It was just one more thing to worry about, but it had to be shelved for now since neither she nor Eunha had the extra juice to give Umji a magical boost, or even perform simple diagnostics under the circumstances. The world seemed strangely flat and dull with her physical eyes, the darkness an encroaching disease. Long used to the shifting colors and vibrant palettes that defined life as viewed through a magical lens, Yuju felt like a beached whale stuck on shore, marooned outside her own comfort zone.

Yerin was her only anchor right now. Not even the wards could mute the link between them, and the physical proximity only amplified it. She could read the quiet hope and joy Yerin felt upon realizing that Hayoung could possibly still be around, and was happy for her as well. They all had too few links in this world, and every relation preserved was something to be treasured. 

They were all orphans, one way or another, and family found along the way was all they had. Yuju treasured the connections she had built, and while Yerin was her top priority, it didn’t mean that she didn’t care about the rest. On the contrary, she cared too much, and hurt others without meaning to, because she had been too kind and didn’t know how to draw boundaries. 

Eunha was a difficulty for her in this respect. Yuju cared a lot for her fellow mage, finding in her someone else who could see the world in the same fashion, and took joy in teaching as well as in learning the different ways magic could be done. The tiny fire mage was important to her, but things were complicated with Eunha’s feelings for her. Yuju didn’t know how to respond to it very well, and truth be told, she sometimes didn’t even know how to respond to Yerin either, had the assassin not already spent several years wearing her down prior to them actually getting together. 

For Yuju, there were the people she cared about, and then there was everyone else. She was kind to everyone, because that was the right thing to do, but only so few people walked into her heart. She had been raised in a sterile lab environment, breaking out of confinement as a child, and then proceeded to literally live with wolves for years before Yerin found her in the woods. It was always going to be difficult for her to learn the proper responses in human relationships.

But she was willing to learn, and she had been blessed with people who were patient with her. Yuju sighed almost inaudibly, and was rewarded with a squeeze on her arm from Yerin, who had drifted back to walk by her side, letting SinB and Eunha take point again as they traversed down eerily silent corridors. Sparks fizzled from faulty lights, and there was occasional evidence that Hayoung had taken very extreme measures to cut people off from escape.

The defense systems locking down the facility had been turned against its owners. Hackers could be very nasty once they managed to hijack a system, and clearly Hayoung had taken full advantage of her earlier control before someone forced a shutdown to lock her out. Oddly enough, the systems had not come back online yet, and they had to physically cut through a few entryways that were sealed shut on their way to the production floor. 

As they approached the central area, Eunha slowed, halting in her tracks to squint cautiously at the sealed doors before them. Yuju came up beside her, even as Yerin and SinB went ahead to check out how to jimmy the doors open. 

“Don’t touch the door, guys. I think it might be warded.” Eunha called out before anyone could do something they might regret. Yuju grimaced, it to be magically blind in a situation like this. Eunha wasn’t very good with ward breaking, and Yuju had a feeling they didn’t have much time to waste if they wanted to get to Sowon in time. 

Hayoung had to have been trying to keep the director and his goons from escaping, and if they had fled to this place, the odds of there being either a way out or some way for them to retaliate against the unseen enemy was pretty high. Yuju couldn’t be sure which was the case, but this was where she had to step up if they wanted to break in quickly. 

“Puppy, you sure you want to try now?” Yerin looked concerned as Yuju laid Umji carefully down by a different wall, motioning for SinB and Eunha to step back in case of accidents. Yerin didn’t back down, and Yuju inclined her head.

“We need to hurry, this is the fastest way.” Yuju winced, rubbing at her arm uncomfortably. “I might need a little help.” The shaman looked apologetic, shaking her head. “You might...want to sit down for this. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Yerin gave her a long look, reading the resigned determination in her lover’s eyes before she nodded and backed up, taking her advice and sitting down next to the still unconscious Umji. SinB raised an eyebrow, and Eunha took in a sharp little breath, guessing what Yuju was going to do next.

She was not wrong. Yerin paled suddenly as Yuju drew from her. The shaman was being incredibly gentle for what she was doing, but it was still a dizzying experience, and Yerin quite literally had her vision black out for a second or two, a great weariness settling over her body. 

SinB was still looking on in concern at Yerin when a small gasp from Eunha drew her attention back up to Yuju, and she almost drew her guns on the shaman in response to the sight before her. 

Yuju had placed one hand directly on the warded door, but that was the least of their concerns. The reason for SinB’s response was directly related to how the shaman looked right now, a vivid crimson bleeding from the roots of her scalp and inking her hair with a fresh, rich red; at the same time, angry red lines writhed out of her flesh like living tattoos, covering both her arms as the tendrils seemed to sink into the door itself, and the entire sight looked way too much like something out of a nightmare.

Of course, it really didn’t help that Yuju’s eyes were glowing red as they had when she had been the Spider, and SinB flinched instinctively to glance over at Eunha, who was biting her lip nervously, but made no move to stop Yuju or even put on a defensive response.

“I thought you solved that problem!” SinB tried very hard not to sound accusatory, but it was difficult, and she was fairly sure she sounded a little shrill in the process. A flash of something akin to guilt flickered in Eunha’s eyes, but it was gone in a second and the scales on her face hid the rest of her expression well enough to keep her childhood friend from noticing.

“She has it under control, don’t worry.” This was as much to reassure herself as it was for SinB. Behind them, Yerin pushed out a slow, labored breath, not trusting herself to get up just yet. Normally, she could barely hear Charlotte’s voice through her link with Yuju, but right now, the familiar was coming through a lot more clearly than usual.

Ooh, these wards are tasty, let me eat them.

Just get it over with. Yuju’s voice sounded irritated through the link, and a part of her attention drifted over to Yerin, worry and concern leaking through the open connection. Yerin smiled wanly, trying to reassure the shaman that she was fine, though her open curiosity about Charlotte’s voice was also quite evident. Before Yuju could say anything though, the spirit cut in first instead.

Oh hello again, so you’re the mate huh, thanks for the boost by the way.

Charlotte. The note of warning was evident enough without Yuju making any obvious threats. Yerin bit back a grin. It was… interesting to hear someone else’s voice like this. The assassin could sense Yuju’s nervousness about this whole situation, as if afraid that she would judge her for it. Yerin smiled indulgently. Yuju could do no wrong by her, and if this spirit could protect her beloved, it was more than welcome to stay.

See, she gets it. You need to get with the program, Master.

“Has it been listening to SinB all this time?” Yerin murmured out loud, drawing a startled glance from SinB herself next to her. From the other end of the Bond, Yuju snickered at the comment, and then there was a sudden surge of feedback through the link, making Yerin shudder as warmth flooded back into her limbs, what she had given earlier returning tenfold.

“Door’s safe now,” Yuju’s voice rang out, sounding strangely layered with Charlotte’s voice merged into her own. The red lines had subsided somewhat, but the crisscrossing patterns glowed dimly still across her arms and face, giving the shaman an eerie cast in the darkness. 

Eunha hesitated, and Yerin nudged past her, having gotten up after Charlotte had given her a boost after shredding the wards for sustenance. Yuju did stiffen slightly as the assassin approached her, turning her body aside as if to hide the signs of how she had borrowed the blood spirit’s power, but Yerin didn’t allow it, embracing her without hesitation and giving the awkward shaman a quick peck on the cheek. 

“It’s a nice look. Exotic.” Yerin purred softly, knowing exactly what Yuju needed to hear. She could feel Yuju vividly through their bond, and she trusted her pup to know what she was doing. Yuju relaxed into her grip, and Yerin could sense the relief oozing off her. 

Almost impishly, Yerin nipped playfully at the taller girl’s ear, whispering a completely inappropriate suggestion for later as Yuju’s eyes widened, scarlet unrelated to her glowing tattoos adding a different tone to her pale skin. In the background of their Bond, Charlotte was laughing, even as Eunha and SinB looked completely lost behind them.

Yuju coughed nervously, elbowing Yerin in the side to make the assassin stop teasing. Not only was it not the right time, they truly had better things to do right now. Yerin smirked, but let her girlfriend get away this time. She had only wanted Yuju to be comfortable in her own skin. The methods didn’t matter, as long as it worked. 

The assassin slipped one hand into Yuju’s, tangling their fingers together. She was buzzing with a taut energy from the boost Charlotte had given her, and she could feel Yuju b with the same energy. Both of them could almost taste what was beyond the door, and in the background, Charlotte was humming in excitement at the feast to come. 

“I can sense Sowon ahead,” Yuju reported, her magical senses reopened and reaching ahead, empowered by the energy leaking through the shattered wards on the door. Yerin had been right, the production facility could not afford to have the draining wards inscribed within, for it would have interfered with the processes. This meant that once Yuju and Eunha stepped through that door, they would be in a mana-rich environment. A veritable playground for them. 

SinB was still tense from Yuju’s physical transformation, but those words did a little to settle her nerves. Undoing the safety on her guns, the gunslinger bared her teeth.

“Well, what are we waiting for then? Let’s bust their asses.”

“Eunha, would you like to do the honours?” Yuju grinned, shark-like, as she extended a hand to the smaller mage, and Eunha’s eyes widened at the sudden power surge that transferred over when they made contact. A blue fire burned within the reptilian irises of the dragon mage, and buoyed by the burst of energy, flame wreathed around her hands as she stepped forward, ready to melt the door down.

Meanwhile, Yuju shuffled back over to the still unconscious Umji, scanning the girl cautiously as she fed the energy stolen from the wards into her. The watch on Umji’s wrist bleeped furiously for a second, then a great shudder ran through the unconscious technomancer’s body, spasming as Yuju held her in place, using magic to restart her weakened heart. 

She hadn’t known until that moment that Umji was practically in hibernation with how slowly her heart had been beating. It wasn’t normal, and it worried the shaman. Charlotte took care of the energy transfer while Yuju focused on the healing, repairing burnt skin and keeping her pulse steady in the process. Yerin stood guard over them, watching cautiously as Eunha set the door aflame, melting it down with a fire that burned hotter than any mortal flame. 

Umji took a breath even as the door ceased to exist, coughing weakly as Yuju held her up, her eyes fluttering open as she shook her head, still disorientated. The young hacker blinked nervously up at the stylized tattoos adorning Yuju’s face, but to her credit, didn’t freak out immediately. She wrinkled her nose, trying to regain her bearings.

“What happened, I was...somewhere, and then...not here?” Confusion laced her tone, a sharp pain needling her temples. Yuju her back comfortingly, running a quick diagnosis to make sure the hacker was functioning as intended. The shaman had repaired what she could, but she was still a little concerned over exactly where Umji had gone in the meantime while...disconnected from her body. There was only so much her magic could do, when there was so much she did not understand about how Umji’s powers worked.

“We’ve got company, guys!” SinB called as she reflexively pulled Eunha out of the line of fire she was suddenly exposed to when the door vanished in a pool of melted metal, returning fire with her rapidly diminishing ammo. Eunha didn’t budge for a second though, eyes widening at the flood of ambient magic that seeped through the threshold. Bullets pinged harmlessly off her scales, and as Eunha exhaled, lightning and fire rippled across her armored flesh, further neutralizing the enemy’s frantic attempts to gun her down. 

“Don’t overdo it, if you get drunk on that much power we’re in trouble.” 

Yerin popped up abruptly from the side, motioning at Eunha to get her attention. The dragon mage felt a brief surge of irritation, buoyed by the rising fire within her, and she almost scorched the assassin reflexively, a clear signal that she needed to back the hell up before she let her instincts take over. 

Eunha shuddered, a sudden fear coming into her eyes as old, familiar concerns crept up on her. She remembered when the fire had first come to her as a child. She had nearly hurt SinB by accident back then, and a part of her was always nervous about exercising her flames in any major way because of that. Yuju had given her a lot of tips on how to control and channel it, and it had been quite a while since she let the fire get ahead of her. Lapsing was not a good sign.

The fire mage ducked behind cover, taking deep breaths as she tried to resist the urge to let everything burn. A cool flow of energy tipped into her suddenly, and she felt a strong pressure on her shoulder. Yuju. She looked up into glowing red eyes, softened by the genuine concern that was all the shaman and not the blood spirit whose power she was borrowing. Umji was tottering precariously next to her, half supported by Yerin as well.

“You’re up!” Eunha offered a weak smile to Yuju first, then shifted focus to the youngest of the group, who still looked awfully pale and unsteady on her feet. Umji waved weakly, eyes vaguely unfocused as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. Yuju only had a little time to give her the briefest of explanations, but the technomancer understood they needed to move quickly to get Sowon out from the enemy’s clutches. 

So, despite her feeling wobbly and far from her best, she was up on her feet and moving. Her head was still spinning, whispers from the data stream echoing at the back of her mind. Umji felt like she was forgetting something terribly important, but her brain wasn’t processing information rapidly enough for her to remember it. 

But it didn’t stop her from reaching out to check the electronic collar still locked around Yerin’s neck, and the mechanism made her wrinkle her nose instinctively. The thing was wicked, and trapped to boot. In her current state, she was afraid of making missteps that could get Yerin accidentally killed. The assassin just shook her head in understanding; they could deal with the thing later, after everything had calmed down. First, they had a fight ahead of them.

SinB swore creatively when something blasted her cover down, and she rolled away to find a different wall to duck behind. Her eyes narrowed at the debris, mind working quickly as she assessed the damage done with experienced eyes. 

“Something’s wrong with those blasts, don’t get hit if you can afford it!” The gunslinger called out in warning to the rest, mostly directing it at Eunha, who was being entirely too nonchalant about wandering into the line of fire after confirming that most bullets pinged more or less harmlessly off her scales. 

Yuju caught whiff of something arcane to the sizzling bits of wall that crumbled away a few feet from her, and nodded in agreement. Magitek was the epitome of most magical research, the blending of the best of magic and technology to create something more powerful than both individually. It would not surprise her if Tristar had been working on something related in that field and trying to weaponize it. While she could repair most physical damage, it was still too dangerous to risk getting damaged by forces unknown.

“We can’t break through like this, can you neutralize them?” Yerin turned to Yuju, who was studying the area ahead carefully in between finding cover that wouldn’t be destroyed in seconds. This was just the threshold, but she could sense more people beyond the first layer of defenses, which was semi automated with bound spirits and flesh golems. 

The presence of those golems was...unnerving to say the least. They might as well be soulless puppets, zombies even, bound by a magical contract and programmed to serve like robots. There was nothing much for her to rip out in terms of a soul, and she would have to shatter the bindings to make them stop functioning, or just tear them apart physically until there was nothing left to animate. 

Yuju couldn’t be sure about the second option either. If it were her, she would have added a protocol to reanimate the broken parts as long as they were in proximity to each other. Her suspicions were confirmed when SinB’s bullets had torn through flesh that quickly regenerated. The odds were against them, and they couldn’t take them with the usual means. 

The blasts SinB had been so worried about were strapped to their arms, distance weaponry on already formidable physical opponents. These golems may have been human once, or parts of many human beings once, cobbled together to form a modern day Frankenstein monster. It was an unnerving display of science twisted to unnatural means, empowered by magic that further bent natural law. 

Let me at them!

Well, at least someone was enthusiastic. Yuju sighed inwardly, noting that Eunha’s fire had a lot more effect in pushing the golems back, but the wards inscribed on their skin made it less than fatal. The shaman could sense Eunha’s hesitation in wielding her pyrokinetic powers, and didn’t want to push her. She would have to do something about their seemingly unkillable foes at this time. 

Yerin gripped her hand reassuringly before Yuju let go, nodding at her and waving the others back. SinB took the hint and grabbed Umji first, backing up even as Eunha shook her head, standing her ground. She would not be afraid of what Yuju could do. If Yerin could accept it, why couldn’t she? A part of the fire mage was ashamed by her own hesitance, but she was going to work to overcome it. And that had to begin now.

We gotta end this fast. Yuju pursed her lips, not wanting Tristar to gain even more combat data between her and the golems. It was enough growing up as a lab rat. She didn’t want to serve as some kind of specimen even in adulthood. A small, but growing fire raged within the shaman. No more pain, no more sacrifice. This ends here.

When she stepped into full view for the first time, she knew the researchers would be watching. Enough magical eyes lingering around, in lieu of electronic ones. That was the first thing she crushed, reaching with ruthless efficiency as she devoured the occult ‘eyes’ that floated semi invisibly around the loading dock that was the threshold to the production facility. She couldn’t do anything about the eyes on the golems, but there weren’t going to be any golems soon once she was done. 

Eunha shielded her with solid flames to block stray blasts, and it allowed Yuju a moment to catch her breath, framing what she needed in her mind to prevent Charlotte from overtaking too much of her. The blood spirit was restless, strengthened by the ambient energy of the place, the psychic screams of the unwilling dead sacrificed here an endless font of power for it to tap on. Yuju could hear it, and it pained her with a grief she had never fully left behind.

I too am the sole survivor of the restless dead. I carry their voices with me. I am their vengeance untaken. Yuju closed her eyes, stilling the distress stirring within, and reached.

There were three golems in total. There was no soul to devour, not anymore, and any mana empowering its movements were sealed by the arcane underpinnings that enabled their construction in the first place. Yuju could not rip out the energy from them like she did from unprotected beings. Thus, she had to get physical.

Blood spirit or no, Yuju was a shaman first and blood mage second, whether Charlotte liked it or not. Wolf smiled on her like a favored daughter, and she had fought the imugi to a standstill in a berserker trance. Calling out to a natural tradition while hosting a different spirit felt like a betrayal of sorts, but Yuju felt in her bones that this was right. Her call would be heard, and she still had the moon’s favor. There was a confidence that she could not explain, and Charlotte could only be subordinate to her here. She was in control, and that would not change.

The red accents that spoke of Charlotte reinforcing Yuju’s physical body remained in place, but from the side, Eunha could see a visible shift as an ethereal howl filled the space, a ghostly apparition of a wolf settling over Yuju’s slender form. There was no actual change in her physical form, but on the magical plane, Eunha could see Yuju bulk up, teeth and claw of the wolf remaking the shaman as she accepted the transformation into herself. 

It was a shamanic tradition, not often called upon, and not often heard even if it were, because not everyone could be fully in tune with their chosen totem. Yuju had rarely done it as well, the most recent example having been the fight with the imugi. Seeing this, despite the risks that went with the shift, Eunha felt her heart settle. 

Yuju was still Yuju, and not even her secondary status as a blood mage could change that. The dragon mage smiled viciously, calling up the blue fire that came so easily to her in this form. The wards kept her from incinerating them outright, but she could still harry the golems while Yuju pressed the offensive. 

Even as the shaman launched herself at the once human creatures, great fiery chains locked the other problematic elements in place, Eunha making sure nothing else could attack her fellow mage while she was busy. Wild elementals were an unpredictable factor, but they were something Eunha could fight while Yuju tackled the meatwall that was the golems. 

Rip, tear, kill. Wolf was a predator, swift and cunning. Bear would have wrestled head on, but Yuju, blessed by Wolf spirit, moved like greased lightning, metaphysical claws manifesting on the physical plane to wear the foe down with a thousand cuts, each swifter than the last. She was running on adrenaline and a magical rush provided by her familiar, and time seemed to slow to a crawl as she jumped easily over stray firebolts from Eunha and hamstrung another golem, using Charlotte as a blade whenever she had the opening. 

The blood spirit ate through magical bindings like acid through metal, and though her claws tore through unresisting flesh, what really made it fatal was her familiar feeding on the bindings that held the golems together. She had to cut deeply enough for it to work, hence her lupine transformation, and it hid how exactly Charlotte was devouring the arcane bindings from the eyes that remained. 

Always, Yuju was conscious of them. She couldn’t help it. She knew them. They would be watching, always watching. Bad enough that they had seen Charlotte manifest earlier. She would give away no other secrets if she could. It was no secret the berserker rage of shamans, and that much, she could safely show. 

That it made her feel good to be physically tearing apart her foes was an emotion she didn’t want to examine right now. Yuju hated hurting people as a rule, but this didn’t count as people, and she had a lot of buried anger to work through after regaining her lost memories. In a way, it was almost a relief to invite Wolf in. Wolf was a hunter, but Wolf wasn’t cruel. Wolf understood vengeance, understood defending the pack. Things made sense like this, and in this state, Yuju had a sudden, startling clarity over her purpose.

She had only ever wanted to protect those important to her. Sometimes, that necessitated violence. Some people could only be stopped by death. Reason only worked with people who would listen. And when that failed, sometimes, only the most direct means were sufficient to protect that which was important. 

She had been so wrapped up in mercy and giving everything she had to save others that she had forgotten that nature’s greatest mercy was the ability to die. Suffering could be put to rest, and the wicked punished. Death was an ending, but also a beginning. Bared teeth glinted in the magical lights that strobed the area, and Yuju howled in triumph as she tore into the final golem in a spray of blood and bone, adding to the red that already stained her.

There would be vengeance, but also justice to be served. She would not forget this lesson. She was a human still, and no beast. There was a straightforward clarity in a beast’s mind, and she appreciated that purity of emotion. It reminded her of the more important things in life. 

What had been done here was abhorrent to both humanity and nature. Yuju snarled at the way ahead, now open after all obstacles had been swept away. This had been a long time coming, but she was finally here. Old ghosts could be laid to rest, and she had more than one bone to pick with her old tormentors. 

The only mercy here would be via tooth and claw. Nothing more, nothing less. It was everything they deserved, and more. She would no longer hesitate.

A hand landed on her arm, one on each side, and the shaman was flanked by the women who loved her as much as she cared for them. The beast growled, but the human within calmed with their presence. She was not alone. That was the greatest gift of all.

It was time to put an end to things.