Sending the kid back had taken more out of her than she expected.

Floating in the parallel space between imagination and reality, Hayoung was once again forced to perceive the reality of her captivity. There was no way out. She knew it. She had known it all along, but still, sometimes, she hoped.

But hope was a futile emotion, and she had been bound for so very long. Long enough that she was this close to losing what remained of herself, and wind up being subsumed into the system, as was intended by her tormentors from the start.

They had taken everything from her and trapped her in this place, forced what remained into service. Her body, what was left of it, was no longer her own. Her consciousness had escaped erasure by sheer dumb luck, but she was still trapped behind the walls of programming that had hijacked her brain. 

A lesser mind would have caved, given in to the despair of being locked within their own mind, spinning endlessly in the void just beyond reach of accessing her own capabilities. Hayoung had been fading away in bits and pieces, losing more of herself as days, months and years passed, until she simply retreated into a corner and tried to preserve what little was left.

And then Yerin came into the picture.

Hayoung was keyed into the system, was chained to it in fact, providing excess processing power on top of being the bridge between the magical and technological halves of the system. Funny how magic works really, since at the end of the day, no matter how advanced science became, magic always came down to blood and bone. Life fed into magic, and in a sense, life was magic. There was no substitute for that.

The mere presence of her old friend awakened her long dormant will, and Hayoung had fought tooth and nail to make herself present enough to do something. She didn’t know why Yerin was here, or how she had made it through all this time, but the fact was that she was here, and if there was anyone who could make this end, it would be her best friend.

Being tied to the system had its benefits. Hayoung couldn’t circumvent the security protocols outright, but she could spoof the personnel records with the ghost data she had preserved a long time ago. It was simple enough to dummy a record that used to exist in the database after all. Getting Yerin access was the first step. From there, she trusted her best friend would know what to do.

Muzzled as she was, Hayoung could only watch anxiously as Yerin worked her usual charm and worked her way around the facility like the slippery fish she was. Some things never changed, and Hayoung felt more aware, more real as memories of how they used to work together coalesced her consciousness into something more concrete. It was good to be reminded of who she used to be, of how they were like before, and there was much anger and frustration as she stared helplessly when Yerin got herself caught trying to take down the facility on her own.

Why are you alone? Why are you here? You need backup, I can’t do anything from here.

She couldn’t know what had happened to Yerin in the time she had been locked away. But she knew that their team’s numbers had been dwindling, and if Yerin had been removed from the database as Missing In Action, it meant that her old friend had gone to ground as she had hoped before. 

There was nothing she could do to help. She was trapped and bound, with minimal access to her capabilities and no way to even move. She didn’t even have any tears left to cry as Yerin was dragged kicking and screaming into the labs, couldn’t look away as they put her under, grim horror and pity warring within the final bits of her personality left within the shell of herself. 

Was there no one else? No one left, not even a single one who could have come to help? There would have been despair had she enough of a heart left to feel, but then she noticed something. A signal, pointing out. It was broadcasting too weakly to penetrate the shielded walls, but regardless, something was still trying to reach out to it. 

Hayoung might have been hobbled, but this much she could do. She connected to the signal, sent it out, and then, for the first time in years, felt real hope when she received a response. 

A technomancer, one born to the Matrix like a fish taking to water. How had Yerin even found one? It was inexplicable, but help was coming. Hayoung latched onto the signal like a drowning sailor clinging onto driftwood, providing what little guidance she could to bring them in. Yerin didn’t have much time, and Hayoung wasn’t sure how long she could last like this. She knew she was on her last legs, and it wouldn’t take much to erase what was left of her entirely if they did another system wide sweep. 

But Yerin was providing a great distraction right now, and she would use that time to her advantage. The reinforcements weren’t much to look at, but a technomancer was a hacker on steroids, practically a living glitch in the system, and the warrior guarding her proved to be far more competent than Hayoung ever expected. This might actually work out...if, of course, Yerin herself hadn’t been the impediment in the process.

All of them had been extremely specialized in their chosen roles, but Yerin had been the most well rounded out of all them back then, the one who could most easily work on her own to slip behind enemy lines without getting caught. She had been a spy, a skilled assassin, and one of the best BlackStar had to offer. Against a foe that didn’t want to hurt her, she had every advantage.

Just as Hayoung’s hopes dimmed again, things turned around once more. It was an oddly familiar face. Yerin had hidden her precious girl from the entire squad back in the day, but Hayoung made it her business to know everything as Tristar’s eyes in Incheon, and she had caught a glimpse or two of a much younger Yuju back in the day. It should have been surprising to see her here, but then again, perhaps not. She had seen how the young mage bust through a magical minefield like it was nothing, just to rescue Yerin before. 

So they were together. Hayoung never figured Yerin to be the type to settle down, but if she had to pick, she would have pointed out Yuju to be the one to make the difference even back then. It had been so obvious how differently Yerin was treating her, like a treasure to be guarded and kept out of sight, and how fiercely protective Yuju had been of Yerin in the few times she had come into contact with the younger girl. It had only been a matter of time until they realized their feelings for each other.

So it was with a dim ‘finally’ when she saw them kiss and her view of the room shorting out with the subsequent magical interference, but it was good enough. There were reinforcements, and Hayoung had enough faith in Yerin’s abilities to find competent people to help her. They could deal with the peons out there. 

Meanwhile, she had to get to the technomancer first. If anyone could shatter the restrictions, it was a technomancer at full power. Hayoung knew, dimly, that many others before her had been subsumed into the system like so many ghosts fading into the dark. She didn’t want to lose herself into the void, and thus clung to her sense of identity with every shred of energy she had. 

The drugs made it difficult to get through to the young technomancer, but Hayoung was patient, and she was oddly unsurprised when the susurrating echoes of the forgotten dead came to lend strength to her efforts. They might have lost sight of ‘who’ they were, but grief and anger took a long time to fade, even on the Matrix. They recognized release as a possibility, and were only all too eager to be free.

Making contact with one blessed by the Resonance felt like a gift, and Hayoung felt a vague envy when young Umji reached further and deeper than she ever could, back when she still could feel her meat body. The resulting seismic activity rocked every plane from the base up, and the restrictions separating her from the rest of the system shattered like poorly tempered glass.

She was free. Sort of. She had been so long cut off from her body that her mind wasn’t even sure where the hell it was right now, but she was in the system. She was the system, in all respects. Nothing and no one could hide from her, not here. They had locked her in, and now she had taken over and kicked them out.

Revenge was sweet, but then Umji had to be rescued before she lost herself entirely. The technomancer was powering her still, and losing her like this would not do. While Umji was still linked to the Resonance and the upper levels of the Matrix, she could act freely. The interference was enough to mess with the programming, and it was like being alive again.

Alive…but where was she? And who was she? 

I am…  

FORCE SYSTEM REBOOT

ALL SYSTEMS SHUTDOWN

POWERING DOWN

RESTARTING…

Static.

RESTORING CENTRAL SLAVE PROTOCOL

ALL SYSTEMS GREEN

RESTORING SECURITY SETTINGS

ACTIVATE INVADER ALPHA ONE

...no...stop...

ETA... 

60:00...59:59...59:58…

...someone...help...

“Impossible...there’s some kind of...mutation to her cells? But the r factor from the old data seems to have diminished to almost negligible levels…”

Sowon swims back into a hazy consciousness to the sound of agitated whispers, faint at best to her groggy ears. She is partially aware that maybe she shouldn’t have woken up this early, but her metabolism had been functioning oddly ever since the destruction of the dragon orb.

It was almost like being at her physical peak, able to shrug off non fatal damage like it was nothing, and her system used to be able to burn through minor toxins and other suppressants like alcohol almost immediately. Sowon quite missed that part of her old biology, all things said. 

Being reduced back to more ordinary levels of healing had been a rude shock, but she was aware that being able to recover from broken ribs within three weeks was still very unusual by most standards. Still, Sowon was certain that the Tristar goons had hit her with a dose of tranquilizer strong enough to down elephants. With her reduced capabilities, there should have been no way she would have woken back up within a couple of days.

But they were still in the midst of examining her, so it couldn’t have been all that long since she went down. Sowon keeps her breathing and pulse perfectly even, finding equilibrium from within while she tries to rid her mind of the cobwebs tangling it. She was strapped down securely, judging from the sensation on her arms and thighs, but they had left her head and waist alone for some reason. If she could muster enough leverage, tearing through the restraints should not be an issue...provided she had full access to her strength. Which, from an initial check, it seems like she did.

Whatever the dragon of the Eastern Sea had done, it left Sowon incredibly energized, her mind having to adjust quickly to keep up with her recovered physical state. Was this what it was like to be touched by a god? A real one, and not merely a conduit of its true strength? 

Sowon couldn’t know. The weight of the dragon’s words bore heavily upon her. Destroy everything in this facility and leave no evidence of the research. Something in her was key to unlocking things way worse than she could imagine, and while Sowon didn’t like being ordered around by someone who had been the source of all her misfortune, she could appreciate the warning given.

Besides, Tristar had really pissed her off this time. She wasn’t averse to the idea of ruining their plans at all.

“What’s this? Her adrenaline is spiking? Wait, no, give her another dose!”

Sowon bunched her muscles as she pulled, the plasti-metal cuffs cutting into her upper and lower arms as they fought against her enhanced strength. In the patch above her heart, the dragon scales throbbed, and if anyone had been paying attention, the same veneer patterned quickly across her skin, like a ghostly illusion playing upon it, before vanishing entirely.

The restraints left angry red welts on her skin, but the dermal replacement beneath wasn’t just for display. Apart from purely cosmetic damage, she wasn’t going to get seriously hurt. Sowon took another deep breath, and yanked harder.

The metal joining the cuffs to the table warped and twisted with an ear splitting shriek, and the shaking scientist approaching her almost dropped the syringe he was about to jam into her neck. Despite his terror, he managed to steady himself and slam the syringe forward, but Sowon had twisted her head to one side and slammed her forehead against the offending hand, sending the filled syringe skidding across the floor as her restrained right arm came free, horribly bruised but fully ready to smack the offending scientist halfway across the chamber.

Which she did almost immediately of course, the limp body hitting a wall of instruments with a satisfying crack. The ex-soldier’s eyes were blazing as she ripped her other arm free, but it was proving to be slightly inconvenient to get her lower body free with the multiple restraints around her thighs and ankles. Bloodshot eyes scanned the room for threats, and other than the scientists and technicians working around the area, the only immediate threat appeared to be the man who had ordered her captured to begin with.

No guards? That was awfully overconfident of them, even if she had been drugged into oblivion less than a minute ago. Sowon wasn’t sure why she felt threatened still though, especially by an old man she could likely break in half easily, but something about Director Han gave her the chills somehow. 

Perhaps it was the lack of panic in his eyes, only a cold consideration as he studied her with a keen, impersonal interest. Something’s wrong here. An old combat instinct rose within her, forcing urgency as she smashed through part of the table to get the bolts free, unease making her ignore the lacerations on the vulnerable parts of her hands. 

The metal gave way with a screech as she tore bloody streaks away with the restraints, but she was still half a step too late as magical wards came up around her, caging her in on the raised platform they had placed her. Belatedly, Sowon noticed the ritual markings all around the room, resembling some cult practitioner’s arcane meddlings rather than a place for scientific research. 

Undeterred, Sowon slammed an elbow against the shimmering ward wall, throwing her full weight into it, but other than a fizzling sound, she was still penned in. She couldn’t see any mages around maintaining it, but how could it be so powerful without someone raising and holding the structure in place, much less the energy cost needed to maintain the field? 

Sowon might not be a practitioner herself, but she hadn’t spent the last two decades in the shadows without learning a few things. This sort of knowledge was basic street savvy, and the experienced mercenary warily studied the markings outside the circle. She couldn’t understand them, but didn’t like the looks of it. How was the man activating them without being a mage himself? Everything needed power, from electronics to magic circles. There were no two ways about it.

“Mortal restraints were never going to be enough for you, so I took some precautions, as you can see.” Director Han’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, perfunctory as it was. Sowon scowled at him, pacing restlessly as she tried to find a weak point in the wards, but it was well reinforced and she was no mage. She was stuck.

“So you got me? What do you want anyway, I’m just a humble mercenary.” Sowon forced some calm into her voice, placing her hand on her hips. They hadn’t started on any invasive procedures yet, so she still had most of her clothes on, though any weapons had been stripped away, and she was shoeless. Damn it, she wanted her boots back. The floor was cold, she was bleeding, and she was pissed.

“I wish we had gotten to you before you messed yourself up as badly as you have.” The director paced closer to her, shaking his head in disappointment. “I’ve never seen anyone so eager to mutilate their own body and sacrifice a natural gift for what, the strength to lift a car?” Director Han tsked under his breath, and Sowon bared her teeth at him, smashing a fist in his direction, only to be stopped by an invisible wall inches before it connected. The man didn’t even flinch, and Sowon grunted, flicking excess blood off her knuckles as if she didn’t care. 

“You had the gift, and you gave that up? Not everyone gets to be chosen, and you fritter it away carelessly. A waste.” There was a bit more emotion in his voice as he says this, a kind of disgust mixed in with repressed anger and envy, but it disappears in a flash, carefully hidden away behind a cultured veneer. Sowon gnawed on the inside of her cheek; the man was not as impassive as he pretended to be. She could make use of that.

“So what? It’s my body, I can do what I like with it. It works for me.” Sowon is deliberately flippant, though her eyes watch his response carefully. She doesn’t miss the way his shoulders tense, a minor ripple across his impeccably suited form really, but she had hit a nerve somehow. Good, she needed him off balance, needed time for her to figure out how to escape, or at least, wait for the others to get here. Sowon had a feeling they were coming, though she couldn’t explain it to you if you asked. Her instincts were usually correct when it came to things like this though, and a little hope was better than none in this case.

“You reap the benefits of magic without appreciating it, where others could do so much more with it.” Director Han relaxes a clenched fist, evening out his breathing as he moves towards a table filled with scattered documents. Charmingly quaint in an era where technology reigned supreme, but Sowon thought she understood. The place was magically charged to an insane degree, as evidenced by the sturdy wards locking her in, and while shielded electronics were an option, sometimes it was just easier to revert to the basics. At least magic couldn’t scramble good old pen and paper.

“Technology can only take us so far, but magic...that’s where the real possibilities lie to unlock human potential.” Sowon wasn’t sure if that was addressed to her, or if he was talking to himself, but it didn’t matter. She studies the limited space that was afforded to her, and wondered how far the wards extended. If the top wasn’t covered off, she could try to make the jump maybe…

“The data is almost a match, but what happened to you? The stats aren’t adding up…” Behind the mumbling director, other people were helping the unconscious scientist Sowon had knocked out earlier while also clearing up the mess that had been generated. Sowon folded her arms crossly.

“Or maybe I’m just not who you’re looking for.”

Cold eyes looked up, amused. “Really? You keep awfully well for someone of your age.”

Sowon’s lone pupil contracted at the statement, teeth grinding together. How much did he know of her? Had they linked her to her past identity of Kim Sojung? There would be many awkward questions about how she still looked exactly the same as she did 50 years ago if that came back up. Not even the latest advances in epigenetics and tissue replacement could explain that away.

“Your biological age is remarkable for someone who has been documented as active for the past two decades. The cells don’t lie, even if appearances do.” He was, of course, referring to the many ‘corrective’ surgeries out there (some ethical, some not) related to the slowing of the aging process. Sowon let out the breath she didn’t know she had been holding. Bogeun had not betrayed her completely in that sense, at least.

Then again, being functionally immortal was probably a secret most people wanted to keep. Sowon understood what could potentially happen if they realized her true identity, and dragon request or not, this was motivation enough to actively act against their plans for her. 

“Regular exercise and clean living, old man. You should try it some time.” It was a poor excuse, but the only one she had. Sowon eyed the floating orbs over her head warily; she hadn’t noticed them right away, but there was a distortion in the air whenever they shifted, and it made her feel uncomfortably scrutinized. Whatever they were for, it couldn’t be good.

“You talk too much for a test subject. Don’t waste your time and mine stalling, girl. No one’s coming for you.” It wasn’t quite a taunt, but the insult was thinly veiled. I’m smarter than you, was the implication. Sowon pressed her lips together tightly. This wasn’t good.

“Says the one who sent all your guards away,” Sowon retorts, taking a wild stab in the dark. “Not even a single henchman to watch me in case I break out? You know what I’m capable of, and you seem like the careful sort, mister. I think my friends are pressing you harder than you admit.”

There was a flash of annoyance in his eyes, and Sowon bit back a grin of triumph. She’d hit a nerve.

“I concede that you are a very competent warrior, but you’re still helpless before the arcane. I don’t know how you metabolized the sedatives, but that just means we’ll have to put you down in a different way, don’t we?”

Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed his buttons so much. There wasn’t time for Sowon to regret her actions, for a sudden white noise surrounded her, overwhelming every sense she had and driving her down to one knee as she clutched at her head, snarling expletives.

Some kind of hypnotic suggestion underneath this, she bit her lip to remain in focus, surprising even herself with her resilience to the magical assault. It wants me to give in. This realization lent her the stubbornness to resist, despite the interference. There was a strange heat against one of her thighs, the searing sensation grounding her to some degree. Her vision swam, and everything felt awfully distant as she struggled futilely against the assault.

Vaguely, she was aware of the director doing something just out of her field of vision, and then the pain increased to the point where colour leeched out of everything in sight. Brute force might not be elegant, but there was a reason why it was always a mainstay: because it worked.

There was a loud pop as something burst into flame, leaving a scarred patch against flawless skin as Sowon hit the ground again for the second time that day. She had done her best, but would it be enough?

Yuju staggers for a moment before they reach the entryway to the next area, and Yerin steadies her, gripping her wrist firmly. Yuju closes her eyes. 

Wolf was still with her, and Wolf felt that too. One of her talismans had shattered.

“Sowon’s in danger.” 

Yuju announces grimly. She had been cut off from the signal that would have led them straight to Sowon had it not been blocked off, but something as significant as the talisman shattering from magical overload? She damn well felt that, and her Wolf guardian was displeased as well. She had carved them in its image.

“Well duh, they still got her!” SinB snarked back impatiently, already forging ahead. “Holy what the is this place!?”

The gunslinger was first through to the next area, and there were vats of what looked like failed specimens, predecessors to the golems they had faced earlier. Umji looked a little ill at the dismembered body parts and twisted flesh shapes that hadn’t turned out well, and Eunha gave her a little squeeze on the arm for comfort.

“Figures they never toss anything,” Yerin quips darkly, nervously the hilt of her blade. “It can’t be this easy though…”

“Easy? We almost didn’t make it through the last room!” SinB exclaims, holding up the damaged ends of her hair. “Those ing lasers were practically homing in on us!”

There had been an ambush earlier, and it had taken quick thinking on Yerin’s part to ferret out their disguised attackers for Yuju and Eunha to dispatch before things got worse. SinB had taken a nasty shot to her arm tackling Umji to safety ( why always the same damn arm, I want to know, SinB grumbles), and despite Yuju’s best efforts, the wound refused to close properly, and was still oozing at this time.

SinB had to holster one of her guns as a result of this, switching to the remaining one in her good hand and being careful with her injured arm. It was a good thing she was a good shot with both hands, or this would be a problem. Even so, her wounded arm was trembling, but the stubborn girl refused to speak of the pain she must be feeling.

“Didn’t you say this was a mana factory before?” Eunha notes aloud, eyeing the vats with a healthy suspicion. “I can feel the energy in this place, but why haven’t we seen that production floor you mentioned before?”

“We came in from a different angle per Hayoung’s instructions earlier, the...harvesting operations are on the other side.” Yerin grimaced. The ‘heart’ Hayoung referred to had to be the center where the two wings in this magical research area met. If the harvest area was on one side, then the route they had just taken must have been the experimental section. The defenses were all too unorthodox for it to be anything else.

“This place is seriously ed up man, they can’t just...cut people up and sew them together again like...that.” SinB gestures vaguely at the tanks behind her. Yerin purses her lips.

“Nothing goes to waste with Tristar, they...recycle all their resources. Dead or not, they belong to the company.” Yerin’s eyes were dead on the inside, and Yuju wraps her arms around her from behind, pressing a kiss against her temple.

“I won’t let them have you.”

SinB makes a gagging noise in at the display, but her eyes remain alert. After the earlier debacle, she was a lot more cautious about their environment. 

“What about mom?” Umji was far more focused on Yuju’s earlier comment, despite her general wooziness. Eunha was staying close to her to keep her safe for now, since SinB was clearly not fully capable of guarding their youngest at the moment. 

Yuju frowned, trying to focus. The oversaturation of magic in the place was making it difficult to pinpoint anything, but the talisman hadn’t been too far off when it was destroyed. 

“We should be close.” Yuju was feeling more than a little jumpy, wired up in her half transformed state. Every sense she had was magnified in this form, and just vaguely, she caught the scent of something rancid in the distance. It was making her nervous, and she stuck close to Yerin’s side, seeking comfort from her mate in the meantime. 

Yerin reached up to rub comfortingly around her neck and ears, and Yuju made a tiny rumble in , which made the assassin smile. Her lover was acting like a real puppy right now, and if they weren’t deep in enemy territory right now she would be more than happy to explore that side of her. 

The arcane markings on Yuju’s skin were made more eerie by the residual splashes of blood that managed to get on her earlier, and Yerin absentmindedly wiped the worst away as she continued looking for the correct way out. Not only were the rooms creatively trapped to ward against intruders, they had to be wary of other unexpected surprises. Yerin couldn’t be sure how much of it had been designed to guard against enemy intrusion, but the confusing layout definitely wasn’t helping them navigate their way through easily.

At least between Eunha and Yuju, they could avoid triggering the worst of the magical traps. The twisted flesh forms floating in the clear tanks around them were inert at least; she had gotten confirmation from Yuju the moment they stepped in earlier. The assassin tried not to stare too hard at those, because it reminded her of how easily that could have been her fate had she stepped the wrong way or had the misfortune to die in the line of duty back when she was still serving Tristar. 

She still didn’t really understand the real purpose of this facility, even after skimming through the files while making a copy of the database earlier. Her first assumption had been that they were harvesting mana from people, not unlike how power plants generated energy from processing fuel. As to what that harvested energy was for, she could not be sure. 

After seeing all the twisted prototypes and experimental weaponry on the way in, as well as the flesh golems they fought earlier, Yerin thought she could hazard a guess. The most money could always be made in an arms race, and if they were able to weaponize the harvested mana somehow and make it a controllable weapon that could be wielded by anyone with the correct access rights, it could change the face of the arms industry.

She and her ilk had been considered ‘failures’ because of their free will. The Epsilon recruits were the next logical step with the brainwashing, but Yerin understood that what the upper echelons really wanted was something along the lines of completely obedient puppets that could function at a sufficiently high combat level. 

The golems came close, but Yerin knew that even she could have taken them with her old team had they still been around, though they would have taken casualties before figuring out how to disable them. There were still flaws to the process, and for that she was grateful. It would be disastrous if Tristar had been more competent at creating a deadlier weapon.

Yuju looped an arm around her almost possessively, as if reminding her to pay attention to her. Yerin smiled indulgently, leaning into her lover. If there was anyone more of a success coming out of Tristar’s brutal experiments, her puppy was probably one of them. How much of that had been her own magical talent, Yerin could not know, but their shared memories suggested enough to show how Charlotte had been manifested. It was a cruel way to be birthed, but the blood spirit was now a powerful ally. They needed every advantage.

“Hey, I think there’s a hidden passage here?” Eunha moved forward to investigate, deliberately ignoring the casual intimacy between Yerin and Yuju. It still hurt a little to see it, and it was easier to just keep it out of sight and mind. SinB wandered closely behind her, an itchy trigger finger at ready. 

Dragonsight was making it a lot easier for Eunha to read the flow of magic, and the longer she stayed in the scales, the more naturally it came to her. With it came a strange detachment as well, and it made the fire mage feel vaguely uncomfortable. Would the dragon form affect the way she thought and behaved? Judging from her near-loss of control earlier, it could be so.

But there were benefits to staying like this for now, and Eunha kept a tight grip on her own emotions, examining and re-examining herself to make sure she wasn’t being unduly influenced by the foreign ways of thought. The last thing she needed was to fly off the handle before they could get out safely. There was more than just herself at stake here.

“We’re not alone.” Yuju said suddenly, even as Eunha burned through the wards hiding the secret entrance. Eunha yelped when she was abruptly yanked back by an ethereal hand, SinB mirroring her reaction as Yuju immediately reacted to the movement beyond the barrier.

And not a moment too soon, as something smashed into the ground where the two had been earlier, sending chips of reinforced concrete flying. Yerin swore as she quickly moved to stash Umji in a corner out of sight, Yuju throwing a quick illusion over the youngest without even a glance in her direction. Benefits of not needing verbal communication with their Bond open and active. 

SinB had flashed behind cover and was taking potshots at the silhouette beyond the dissipating smoke, her bullets making strange plop sounds as they sunk into something quite...substantial. Eunha had regained her bearings and there was a sudden dip in air pressure as flames burst into existence around her, both shield for herself and light for her team. 

Yerin hissed quietly at the sight those flames revealed, while Yuju looked grim. SinB was far more vocal with her reaction, even as she quickly swapped to her backup incendiary rounds.

“The is that thing? Is that actually a--”

“Don’t say it!” Eunha and Yerin snapped in unison, looking tense. Umji, in her safe corner, chuckled nervously. None of them had been expecting an actual monster like this despite all previous evidence that Tristar had been meddling with genetics.

In any case, whatever the barrier had been holding prisoner, they had evidently freed it, and now they had to deal with the consequences. Eunha tossed a fireball in its direction to test the waters, and there was an angry hiss when it smacked against vulnerable flesh. There was a visible pause at first, and then it moved.

Yerin rolled away as a fleshy appendage struck towards her, grimacing at what was a clearly upgraded version of the flesh golems they had faced before. But where the golems had been static constructs haphazardly patchworked together from a variety of parts, this creature was a lot more streamlined, without the arcane tracery on the earlier golems that had served as both limiter and control mechanism. The main body was vaguely humanoid, the skin glistening strangely and pulsing with raised veins that writhed like ugly worms whenever something shifted.

Yes, it shifted. The passing resemblance to humanity didn’t extend beyond standing sort of upright on two legs, and even that was temporary, because after the initial grab failed, the monster’s upper body rippled like modelling clay, shifting and reforming the extended appendage it had used to grab at them earlier into wickedly curved claws, lunging forward at the nearest target: Eunha. 

Fire met the transformed creature, and glistening skin withered against the intense heat, but even SinB could tell that it was regenerating as quickly as Eunha was roasting the sludge away. In fact, as the flesh melted and pooled around their feet, if one were paying attention, you could see it slowly reforming and gathering back into shape…

“Oh ,” SinB cursed, abandoning her position and grabbing the nearest loose object -- a bent pipe, if you’ll believe it -- and swung it at what was approximately the head of the creature. Her bullets had been ineffective in the past few minutes, and she had spotted the odd movement of the melted flesh on the ground. She wasn’t sure if the action she was taking would be effective, but she needed just a moment of distraction so Eunha could back up before the sludge trapped her. Whatever the moving flesh was, the gunslinger didn’t think it would be a good idea for Eunha to get caught by it.

On her opposite site, Yerin had also noticed the same phenomenon, and was cautiously circling around, trying to find a weakness in the shapeshifting creature. She tossed a quick glance at Yuju, who had evidently read her thoughts and was moving in to pull Eunha out as well. 

Something’s off about that thing. Yerin flicked a broken chunk of concrete into the bubbling pool that had boiled over from Eunha’s flames, and watched with a morbid interest as the sludge engulfed and then spat the chunk out almost derisively as it flowed back towards the main body it had detached from. 

Meanwhile, SinB’s pipe attack had connected, deforming the creature’s head from the impact, but SinB barely had time to exult in the direct hit before one of the creature’s arms twisted around unnaturally to grab at her. Only her excellent reflexes saved her as she backflipped away from the monster, but the slime still grazed her elbow, and the contact burnt like someone had pressed a red hot iron to her flesh.

The gunslinger cursed, cradling her arm carefully. The skin had been neatly stripped off, and the pain was forcing reflexive tears to her eyes. Then Yerin was by her side, carefully checking the wound with a tense frown.

“Should have warned you not to touch it. Something’s weird about that thing.” Yerin muttered, looking up to where Yuju had taken the opportunity to pull Eunha out of range of the flesh circle that had so nearly trapped her. Eunha was limping, the scales on her left leg visibly damaged, and when Yerin met Yuju’s eyes, both of them read the same thoughts in each other’s minds.

They couldn’t touch the creature directly. A half second of contact had been enough to strip the skin off a human being, and even armored with dragon scales, Eunha had been damaged when the flesh trap closed around her foot. From where Yerin was looking, it looked as if acid had dissolved part of the scales, and the section of bare flesh revealed beneath was scabbed and bleeding. 

If Yuju hadn’t rescued Eunha in time, or if Eunha hadn’t been armored to begin with, the fire mage might have lost the foot entirely. Yerin pursed her lips, running through their options quickly even as Yuju dodged the creature’s attacks with Eunha in her arms. The monster seemed entirely focused on them now, as if galvanised by the taste of Eunha’s blood earlier.

“Bullets don’t work on that thing, and when I hit it with the pipe, it didn’t do .” SinB analyzed critically, despite the pain making her white as a sheet. The pair had retreated to a corner, trying to figure out a weakness while Yuju bought them time. Yerin worried at her lip, considering.

“There’s got to be a weakness. Fire didn’t work, but we must have overlooked something. There’s no way a monster like that is completely invulnerable…”

“Its mass is smaller than it was earlier after the fire, actually.” Umji commented from behind them. The technomancer had had to change positions a few times as Yuju led the creature on a merry chase around the room, and was currently taking shelter behind the same row of steel containers Yerin and SinB had found themselves at as well.

The pair turned, startled. Yuju’s illusions had been quite effective. They had almost forgotten the young hacker was there. Umji was also watching the fight keenly, and while she hadn’t been able to physically contribute so far, she had been assiduously analyzing the creature and running the numbers in her head, trying to figure out how the creature was regenerating as quickly as it was.

Magic might have been the answer, but even magic was subordinate to the law of conservation of mass. Umji was well aware of that fact ever since Yuju explained to her how healing magic worked, and why she didn’t always use it as often as she could. The actual energy for the healing came from the person being healed, and all the magic did was to accelerate the healing factor of the cells. There were limits to that sort of thing, and that same theory underpinned everything they did with magic.

Umji didn’t believe that the creature could regenerate endlessly without some kind of power source, and if it did have a power source, that would be the weakness they needed to stop it. Also, did it really not take any damage from Eunha’s flames earlier? 

It had taken her a bit of time, and some very complicated equations paired with guesstimates as the fight flowed from one end of the room to another, Yuju just barely staying one step ahead of the shapeshifting creature with a lot of help from her blood red familiar in the meantime. Eunha helped by blocking a few direct hits with flaming shields that melted the newly formed appendages, but her movement was restricted with her wounded leg, and she had to remain where she was in Yuju’s arms while they led the creature on a merry chase. 

It wasn’t as if Yuju didn’t try to retaliate, but she had no actual weapons except her spirit claws, and fighting in melee with something that could dissolve even dragon scales on contact was too risky, especially when she still had a Eunha to take care of. Still, she took opportunistic hits whenever she could, and at the very least, the spirit claws could slow the creature’s regeneration to some degree, buying her time to stay one step ahead.

But from what Umji had been able to observe so far, the monster was definitely not invulnerable, and if they could wear it down somehow, eventually there wouldn’t be enough left to regenerate. 

Could Yuju hold out that long? Even with a magic saturated environment to draw from, the shaman was only still human, and they had been fighting their way through half the complex for the last hour or so. Fatigue was a real issue, and the misses kept getting closer and closer. Yuju was getting tired from multitasking magically, even with Charlotte to assist, and that wasn’t even counting the physical exertion she was putting herself through.

The next blow smashed through one of the clear tanks holding a failed specimen, spraying liquid and shattered glass all round. Yuju just barely wove past the tendril aimed at , turning sideways and stumbling backwards as razor sharp shards cut into her back and arms, but she still managed to keep Eunha safe and protected from the debris. 

The creature flopped like a giant, clumsy toad onto the exposed specimen, Yuju’s return attack having severed its legs during the lightning fast exchange that had resulted in the tank smash. As the glistening flesh slid over the twisted thing, it seemed to absorb the matter into its own mass, and Umji’s eyes widened.

“Unnie! Don’t let it eat anymore! It’ll heal faster that way!”

Eunha answered Umji’s warning with a direct pyrokinetic blast that threw the feeding creature away from its macabre feast, but it was too late. The severed limbs had grown back, and Yuju was bleeding in several places, breathing heavily as she eyed the twisting shapeshifter with a wary caution. Eunha slid down from her arms, resting her weight precariously on one leg as she looked apologetically up at Yuju.

“I’m slowing you down, you shouldn’t have to carry me around.”

Yuju shook her head, still observing the twisting shape of the creature as it reassembled, trying to figure out the logic that governed that thing. She had been trying to find the core that powered it during the chase earlier, but with the way the creature could reshape itself, she suspected it had its weakness well hidden.

“I couldn’t just let it eat you.” Yuju replied tersely, feeling blood mix in with the sweat dripping off her. She didn’t dare to close the cuts right away, fearful that she would push past her own limits and end up collapsing before the immediate threat could be taken care of. The shaman could sense Yerin’s worry for her, and she sternly warned her lover to stay put. It was too risky for them to put themselves in the line of fire, especially with how the monster appeared to heal from eating organic matter. She couldn’t risk losing any of her friends.

The core should be hidden within.

Yuju started briefly when Charlotte finally deigned to speak, having almost forgotten that her familiar had a mind of its own. Fatigue was fogging her mind, and Charlotte had to save her a couple times earlier by giving her a push when needed. 

Can we reach it? Yuju asked tersely, even as Eunha tried surrounding the creature in flames to slow its regeneration at Umji’s advice. There was a sizzling screech that sounded like nails across a chalkboard, and they all winced, but the fire appeared to be doing its job for now. 

Or at least, marginally, as the creature fought its way through the flame walls despite the damage it was clearly suffering. Eunha was sweating profusely, and standing next to her, Yuju could sense her ragged breathing and spot the minute trembling in her shoulders. The fire mage was fast approaching her limit, and she wasn’t doing so well herself. They needed a solution, and quickly.

Got to cut it up fast to expose the core. A pause. Your fleshiness is a problem though.

Gee thanks. Yuju resisted the urge to roll her eyes, wiping the mingled blood and sweat off her brow. She stared at the smear of red across the back of her hand, and the dozen or so still leaking cuts across her face and body…

Master, you only have so much blood to spare…

Shush. Yuju’s brow furrowed together, and on the other side of the room, Yerin shot her a stern warning look, as if sensing her intent. Yuju returned her gaze with calm determination, and after a tense moment, Yerin bit her lip and looked away, rising silently to her feet as she circled behind the struggling creature. She couldn’t stop Yuju from doing what she wanted to do, but she could never let her step into danger alone.

Yuju sent tentative feelings of apology through their bond, only for it to be brushed off, but she supposed it couldn’t be helped. Yerin’s actions were already a show of silent support, regardless of her beloved’s annoyance at her decision. 

They didn’t have time to waste however. The creature had already struggled through the flickering flames, Eunha gasping as she staggered from exhaustion, almost falling over before Yuju steadied her. 

“You’ve done enough. I’ll take care of the rest now.” 

Indeed, Eunha had seared off a few more layers off the clearly pissed off monster, which was struggling to reform into an offensive posture after getting charbroiled. It was visibly smaller now, the singed layers sloughing off in brittle flakes as a charred scent filled the enclosed space. 

Yuju handed Eunha off to SinB and Umji, stepping forward to face off with the writhing creature, which seemed to be driven by pure instinct and had no obvious sentience she could detect. At the very least, she could not find a soul to feed off, though the shifting aura on the creature spoke of the churning energies that were trapped within, animating it. Things would be so much simpler if Charlotte could tap directly into it, but the glistening hide appeared to be impeding that approach.

Yuju had a small knife, but cutting through something that could move its wounds around while regenerating was going to be a chore. Mirroring her pose on the other side of the creature, Yerin also had her knife out, ready to help when needed. Yuju shook her head; it was too dangerous for mere flesh and blood. Charlotte had been right about that at least.

It could eat right through the dragon scales, which had been surprisingly physical and not some sort of ethereal manifestation -- the only reason why it had worked to shield Eunha from the worst of the wards outside, really. That raised some questions about just exactly how much Eunha had been transformed by absorbing the dragon orb into her essence, but that would be a question to investigate only after this was all over.

Yuju didn’t have the strength to manifest her familiar physically, not after the constant combat over the last hour. Theoretically, an excess of mana in the environment for her to draw from meant she didn’t have to use her own reserves, but using that energy was also a strain on her body -- mana burn was a well known hazard for mages who overdid things. 

Turns out an excess of mana was also bad for you. Yuju could feel her magical circuits straining from the excess, the opposite of the problem that had plagued her for months. She needed to ease off, let her body heal and recalibrate, but circumstances weren’t allowing for that to happen. If she kept drawing on external sources, toxic shock from mana poisoning wasn’t too far off, and she couldn’t afford to let that happen.

But she also had options most normal mages didn’t have, thanks to Charlotte. Exhaling slowly, feeling the aches and pains from sore muscles and open cuts, Yuju looked within herself, and time itself seemed to slow as she sank into a meditative trance.

You are the most ridiculous blood mage I’ve ever known, you know that?

I am the only blood mage you know. Yuju retorts. Don’t forget how you were created.

This could kill you. There was actual worry in the spirit’s voice. Is it worth it?

It’s the only way.

The voice fell silent, unable to disagree. In real time outside, a dead stillness rose up in the immediate area around Yuju, and SinB very quietly hauled Eunha back a few more meters as the hair stood up on the back of her neck.

Even the shapeshifting creature halted in its tracks, as if sensing some kind of danger ahead. But the temptation of a clearly wounded (and to its primitive instincts, very tasty) Eunha won over after a few moments of hesitation, and the monster lunged forward on all fours, having adapted to a somewhat panther-like form for speed.

Yerin’s eyes widened as she searched around for options to halt the creature’s advance, finally spotting in the distance tiny canisters of liquid nitrogen that were locked away in the area where the creature had been confined to initially. But the monster was right there and Yuju was in its way and she couldn’t just…

The already flickering lights in the room stuttered, then went out, even as the creature was about to plough right into a seemingly defenseless Yuju. Right before the darkness descended, Yerin met Yuju’s eyes, catching the eerie red glow emanating from intense dark orbs before all visibility cut out.

There was a dull thud, and the sick smell of blood filled the air, heavy and overwhelming. Yerin’s stomach dropped, and her hand were shaking as she her flashlight. On the opposite side of the room, Eunha too struggled to make a weak flame, blue and wisp like in the dark. 

The combination of shaky blue glow and thin flashlight beam bisected the tableau in the middle of the room. Umji made a small gasp first, hands flying to cover as she struggled to process what she was looking at. The incomplete illumination cast ghastly shadows, revealing awful detail yet shrouding the complete picture at the same time.

The first thing that strikes them is how much blood there is, a thick viscous red that seemed both like jelly and rusted metal in turns, heavily pitted and roughly formed. There is no dripping, but it is immediately obvious why: all of it was precious, and none of it was going to waste, not if Yuju could help it.

The next thing is how close the two struggling combatants were, almost face to face, the writhing shapeshifter desperately trying to reform into something that could envelop and overwhelm its fleshy opponent, but frustrated by the thick webs of blood that armored the determined blood mage.

And all that blood was indeed armor, almost impossible to conceive of, yet uncannily beautiful in its construction as it stymied any attempts by the creature to attack Yuju. But where had all that blood come from?

Furious tears rose in Yerin’s eyes as she bit back expletives, partly directed at her fool of a girlfriend, mostly at herself for not finding a better way to retaliate sooner. She was already moving, knowing there was little time to waste, and not wanting Yuju’s effort to be pointless. Her idiotically heroic lover had used her own blood to armor herself, hardening the substance with her familiar’s aid to prevent the creature from consuming it directly, something Yerin could sense across their bond. 

The shaman might not have been able to summon Charlotte into the physical plane via traditional means, but it was still a blood spirit and the other completely logical means for it to be active was a no brainer. In the absence of sacrificing others, Yuju had, as always, chosen to give from herself. 

It was madness, but it was working, at least for now, while she had blood to spare. But how long could that possibly last?

There was a near maniacal glow in Yuju’s eyes, her blood armor making her look like a crazy caricature of some heinous serial killer out of a horror movie. Charlotte was with her, adapting just as quickly as the shapeshifter they were grappling, and there was no opening left for the struggling creature to attack even as Yuju began to methodically rip into the flailing monster.

The creature shrieked, a high pitched keen that almost didn’t register on the upper ranges of human hearing, but it almost made their ears bleed. It was vibrating rapidly as it shifted this way and that, desperately trying to escape the blood dipped horror bent on dismantling it. It was like a bizarre postmodernist abstract scene, raw and gut-twisting. Gore flicks had nothing on the sight, and Umji gagged in the back of , feeling a little sick.

But an extended battle was never going to be an option, not with Yuju pulling such a reckless move and tapping on her own lifeblood as a last resort. Her assault was frenzied and rapid for a reason; she could not last long under such conditions before she bled herself dry. 

In a bid for its own survival, the creature kept shifting forms, making it heinously difficult for Yuju to keep a hold on it, which made it even more challenging for the frenzied blood mage to try and dig out the core that powered the creature. As seconds ticked by, Yuju’s assault slowed, and the monster grew bolder, trying to rip past the hardened blood armor to reach flesh it could assimilate.

SinB wanted to leap forward to help, but Eunha tugged at her sleeve, shaking her head with a pale face. They would only be a liability in a close quarters fight, a fresh source of meat that the shapeshifting creature could then feed on. The fire mage was disgusted with her own weakness, but right now, even the effort to maintain that little wisp of blue flame to light the area around them was making her nauseous. She couldn’t help even if she wanted to.

But where was Yerin? The fire mage skimmed the area, squinting with her dragonsight. Yerin seemed to have blended into the terrain, both physically and magically, heightened stress probably triggering her protective camouflage. Eunha couldn’t even find her for a good few seconds, at least not until the assassin revealed herself with a dramatic move.

There were no yells, no flashy lights, really just one more shadow amidst other twisting shades, but Yuju seemed to sense the movement instinctively, immediately disengaging even as a couple of canisters broke apart on the creature’s back, the lids partially twisted off in advance to make the leak possible. 

The liquid exploded into a cloud of freezing cold gas, enveloping the creature in crystallizing fumes that transformed glistening skin into frost-touched glaze, the marbled surface cracking and shattering as the creature was stalled in its tracks. 

Yerin and Yuju did not hesitate for one second, closing in while the monster was brittle and vulnerable, bloody claw and wicked knife cutting from either side as if the creature was salami waiting to be sliced. 

It was poetry in motion, their movements perfectly mirrored, frozen chunks hitting the ground with wet thunks. Yuju bared her teeth, unnaturally white against the dull crimson she had encased herself in, and Charlotte peeled off her arm to chow down on the veiny, throbbing core that looked unnervingly like a pulsing heart, exposed after Yerin carved off yet another section of flash-frozen flesh.

There was a pause, almost like a dramatic sigh, as time grinded to a seething halt with the cessation of the immediate threat. The twitching flesh cut to the floor seized violently for a second, then relaxed into a gory demise long awaited as the animating force agitating it expired.

Eunha almost collapsed in relief, leaning on SinB’s uninjured shoulder as she let her flame go out. Not far from them, Yerin neatly sidestepped the butchered mess on the ground to reach Yuju, who was still standing like a blood covered popsicle over the creature’s husk. 

The bloody, gelatinous mess peeled off easily after having served its purpose, and Yerin was visibly anxious as she tried to ascertain that Yuju wasn’t severely injured underneath it, holding the tiny flashlight between her teeth while her hands were busy. Yuju was deathly pale, but the cuts she had drawn from were barely oozing anymore, and it wasn’t like Yerin could stuff the blood back in. It was probably a miracle the shaman was still standing, really.

“I’m okay.” Yuju murmured, trying to reassure her lover, though the hoarseness of her voice and the raw white of her open wounds did little to appease. “I just look like a mess, I’ll live.”

“Don’t you ever do that again,” Yerin choked out after a second, resting both hands on Yuju’s shoulders after scanning her with the flashlight. Her head was bowed, heedless of the stains that were getting on her skin and clothes. It wasn’t like any of Yuju’s clothing was going to be salvageable after this, and Yerin didn’t care. She was just glad that her puppy was alive.

Yuju nodded contritely, feeling more than a little woozy from the blood loss, though her familiar was practically preening after feeding on a new source of energy. Well, at least one of us is happy, Yuju thinks darkly, and Charlotte chuckles in her mind, settling back into her body to keep her upright and moving for now. 

The lights flipped back on all of a sudden, making them tense as they scanned around warily for new threats. They were a little too beat up for yet another fight so quickly after the last scuffle, though SinB had her gun drawn and ready. The gunslinger had been rather frustrated by all the limits she had been put under, and was ready to wreck some , even though she was getting low on ammo. Besides, it wasn’t like the others were in good enough shape for a fight apart from her and Yerin. She had to step up, like it or not.

Something crackled against the far wall, and Umji’s head whipped around towards the same direction, startled by something only she could sense. At the same time, Yerin gasped, one hand flying to the throat as the collar around her neck flashed ominously. Yuju growled furiously, holding her lover close as she tried to figure out what was wrong. 

“You really think you can just barge in like you own the place?” A snooty, vaguely familiar voice rang out in the distance, and the projection of a smugly smiling face showed up against a wall, glowering down as the rest of the girls circled protectively around the downed Yerin.

“Oh it’s that ,” SinB commented aloud, remembering the woman in the red dress. Umji shuddered, moving closer to Yerin as well to see if she could help. Meanwhile, Yuju was too worried about Yerin to even look up, and her arms were shaking as she cradled the unresponsive assassin in her lap.

Eunha scowled, gritting her teeth as she drew on nearly nonexistent reserves, blue fire sparking along her arm as she stood protectively before her fallen comrade, SinB by her side. Seo Hee did not look too happy about being blatantly ignored.

“Your little band looks a little worse for wear after coming so far. You’re pretty good though, I’ll give you that much. Ever thought of switching sides?”

SinB eloquently holds up a middle finger at the projection. Seo Hee sighs, albeit a little dramatically.

“It was worth a try. Good help is so hard to come by these days…” Her attention shifts behind them. “We own those two, you know. Leave them behind and we’ll let the rest of you go. How about that?” Seo Hee gestures at where Yerin was trembling limply in Yuju’s arms, eyes squeezed shut in evident agony. Yuju says nothing, but the writhing tattoos moving across her face and arms were a clear demonstration of her displeasure, and she only suffered Umji’s closeness because she knew that the collar had to be the source of Yerin’s distress.

It hurt to be held hostage like this. Eunha could sense the barely controlled anger surging in waves around Yuju’s aura, and grit her teeth. If anything happened to Yerin, the shaman would go berserk. She didn’t doubt that for one second. 

It was a very effective threat from Seo Hee to get them to back down, in a sense. But none of them would leave one of their own behind, and Sowon was still a prisoner. Despite whatever grudges Eunha had against Sowon, she wasn’t going to leave their leader behind, let alone abandon Yuju and Yerin to Tristar. That wasn’t the kind of person she was.

These corp bastards had no idea of the weight of loyalty they bore to their team. But then again, how many squads in the shadows were formed out of anything more than loyalty to the highest bidder? Profit drove so many of them who were born in poverty, and given sufficient remuneration and the right kind of pressure, most runners would gladly abandon once comrades to avoid trouble with the megacorps that ruled the state. It wasn’t good for business, after all.

But they were more than that, weren’t they? Eunha glanced at SinB, who had the same look in her eyes. This was their newfound family, and there was never any question about abandoning anyone in their time of need. Before either of them could say a word though, someone else broke the standoff.

“If anything happens to her, I will paint these walls with your blood and drag the thing you call a soul into hell.” Yuju’s voice was barely recognizable, steeped in malevolence so deep as to resemble the devil itself. Still streaked in blood from her earlier exploits, Yuju did not seem very stable right now. Crimson was starting to seep into her irises, and odd shadows were flickering at her feet. 

Beside her, Umji shuddered, almost too nervous to try and work on the collar binding Yerin. Yuju lowered her eyes back to Yerin, who had gone white in the face, running her hand down one pale cheek and nuzzling at the other side comfortingly.

Seo Hee was spared the worst of experiencing Yuju's rage firsthand by the sheer fortune of not actually being present in the room, but even she had been taken slightly aback by the fury in the shaman’s tone. It wasn’t all that long ago when she had seen the blood red familiar of the angry shaman devour the life energy of her minions up close, and there were still bloody chunks of their experimental subject strewn across the floor courtesy of the same shaman. She was more than eager to avoid any direct confrontation with Yuju as a result.

“If you’ll cooperate with us, your dear Yerin won’t have to suffer the neurotoxin’s effects. You might be a good healer, but not even you can undo that, you know. Surely you want her in one piece? I see you care about her a lot.” 

Seo Hee might be immensely jealous of the obvious bond the two shared, but she was still her father’s daughter, and if the others wouldn’t abandon them, making Yuju turn against the others by using Yerin as leverage would work just as well. Her father did seem to value the rogue shaman for some reason, and Seo Hee was eager to please the old man. 

Everyone else tensed at the offer. SinB was actually quite concerned that Yuju would take it, and Eunha wasn’t fully confident that Yuju wouldn’t either. In the meantime, Umji grit her teeth, reaching into the mechanism of the collar despite her pounding headache. Seo Hee had clearly released the payload she had been worried about inside the damn thing, and she could easily visualize the way the mechanism had sunk its hooks into Yerin, continually pumping the deadly toxin into her body. If she could remove the collar now, it would be one less latent threat to the assassin in case there were even more nasty surprises built into it.

Yuju had her head bowed after Seo Hee’s offer, watching mutely as the youngest of their team dove into the complex latch that kept the collar locked onto Yerin’s neck. She had already disabled the magical tracery on the thing earlier, but the inner workings of the collar had eluded her. That was Umji’s specialty, and a tiny part of the shaman may have been upset that Umji hadn’t been able to remove the collar sooner. 

She had numbed the pain for Yerin for now, but whatever it was, it was attacking her lover on multiple levels, and it was all Yuju could do to not scream as she tried to reverse the damage.

If anything, the toxin seemed to be interacting with whatever had been done to Yerin before they had gotten to her, and Yuju had to put Yerin to sleep with a hypnotic suggestion to minimize her suffering. She was shaking visibly, eyes red with barely suppressed fury. 

The collar came apart with an audible click, and Umji slumped next to her, blood coming out of her nose from the effort spent. There was blood also on the inner ring of the collar, and visible puncture wounds on Yerin’s neck where the toxin had been administered. Yuju placed gentle fingers on the wound, and it closed almost immediately, as if nothing had happened. It was just a cosmetic patch on the situation, since it did nothing for her actual condition, but Yuju wanted, needed, to do something to assert some form of control.

“Well? You can put her to sleep, but she won’t wake up without our help. Make your choice, shaman. Your lover or your friends, who is more important?”

Eunha knelt by Umji to check on her as well, and the fire mage looked up to meet Yuju’s maddened gaze, seeking an answer from her eyes. Yuju looked away, and Eunha’s heart sank. Surely, Yuju wouldn’t…?

After a long moment, Yuju looked up, eyes blazing. Her voice was laced with grief, and rage.

“Yerin is mine. You will never have her, and you will wish Charlotte had eaten you earlier when I get to you in due time.” The tip of Yuju’s tongue flicked out, like a serpent tasting the air. There was a deadly venom in her tone as she continued, distaste dripping off her every word.

“Run along, little rat. I have your scent now, and I will never stop until I flay the skin off your bones for what you have done.”

Seo Hee’s eyes widened in the magical projection, and Yuju raised a hand, closing her fist in an abrupt move as she brutally severed the projection, sending the backlash of energy back to wherever it came from. If there had been someone else maintaining the spell, they would be in for a nasty surprise. 

There was a nervous silence in the room after that, and SinB swallowed quite audibly before crouching by Yuju’s other side, eyeing the unconscious assassin in the shaman’s arms.

“So I’m glad you decided not to murder us,” SinB quips nervously. “Is Yerin going to be okay?”

“I don’t know.” Yuju replies soberly, gathering her lover up in her arms as she lifts the unconscious girl carefully. Her eyes had gone back to normal somewhat, if one discounted the thin threads of red crisscrossing within. There was a guilty pause.

“I will admit I was tempted.” She shakes her head. “But I remember the lies. We are never going back, Yerin and I. Never again.” Yuju’s lower lip trembles.

“I will avenge her if I cannot save her. But I won’t let them have her. I promised.” There was a quaver in her voice. “I couldn’t protect her. But I’ll never give her up.”

“You did everything you could.” Eunha stood as well, stepping closer to give Yerin a once over. The veins were clearly popping out underneath ash white skin, now an ugly angry purple writhing like so many worms as it spread its tendrils out even further, and Eunha suspected it was more than just a regular toxin. Yuju could heal through that. Something else was corrupting the infection, and the fire mage could see how much energy Yuju was feeding into Yerin just to combat the damage being done. It was a reckless move, and Yuju was practically running on fumes by now. It couldn’t last.

“It’s not just physical damage, isn’t it? It’s also spreading on a magical level.” Eunha intuited, her dragonsight seeing the corruption more clearly up close. Yuju pressed her lips together, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, the strain clearly getting to her.

“It’s attacking her nerves and trying to invade her brain. I can’t cleanse it without her taking damage, and if I miss anything, it’ll corrupt her memory or worse. I can’t risk it…” Yuju bit into her lower lip, her eyes b with tears. Eunha touched her elbow carefully, offering support.

“If we can stop the magical corruption, can you reverse the physical damage?”

Yuju hesitated, then gave a small, firm nod. Eunha smiled gently, focusing for a moment before calling up a small, blue flame at her fingertip. “I think I might be able to help. Soulfire should work, right?”

Yuju’s eyes lit up, then hesitated again. “Eunha, it’s too much…” 

Soulfire was precious, and deadly. It came straight from the essence of the caster, and in a way, one was burning away their own life by using it. It was the purest flame in existence, even more so than dragonfire, and could burn through impurities like no other mortal flame. Not every fire mage could use it, but Eunha, touched by a dragon’s essence, was closer to it than most. 

“I want you to be happy, and Yerin is also my friend. Do you trust me?” Eunha looked into Yuju’s eyes, and the shaman in a deep breath.

“With my life.” She looks down at Yerin. “But you can’t just use it on her, it burns everything that isn’t you and that’s just…”

“I won’t be the one using it on her,” Eunha interrupts gently. The tiny mage smiled, placing her hand over Yuju’s.

“You are.”