Annelique awoke much sooner than she had expected. Her wounds and fatigue both seemed to be gone, however, so perhaps she had simply slept longer than she thought.

She looked around--apparently the sky had grown cloudy during the night, for she could no longer see the stars. Only a dark, billowing mist was visible, obscuring everything farther than ten meters away from her. Strangely, the ground near her was still well-lit. Even so, she could not see Gairanda or Sudvana.

"Gairanda? Sudie?" she said.

"They are not here," came a voice from behind the mist. A form began to appear--an ethereal woman, half-invisible, with faint, pale blue light emitting from the edges of her skin.

A ghost?

Suddenly a dozen others appeared, surrounding her on all sides.

She moved to put her hand on the handle of her blade, but it was gone--all of her weapons were gone.

"You are defenseless here," the ghost said.

"Who are you?"

"Who are we?" the ghost replied. "We are the ghosts of the mountain of shadows."

"Do you know where my friends are?"

"One is in a different dream," the ghost said, "the other is not here at all."

Well, that was uselessly cryptic, Annelique thought to herself.

"Never mind, I'll find them myself...unless you intend to attack me."

The ghost smiled. "The souls of angels are too succulent to resist," it said.

Annelique didn't need any more warning than that. She leapt into the air and took flight, soaring away from the ethereal creatures as quickly as she could. They took flight behind her, but she seemed to be faster than they were.

Until, that is, a blizzard appeared out of nowhere.

A powerful wind hit Annelique and forced her sideways, stopping her upward momentum. The ghosts, on the other hand, seemed completely unaffected by the wind and simply moved to intercept her. Thinking fast, she turned her back to the wind and flew with it, once again putting distance between her and the ghosts. Almost as quickly as she started, however, the wind reversed and she was blasted back towards them; at this point it became obvious to her that they were magically controlling the blizzard, using it to counter her greater speed.

She attempted to summon her own magic to build a sphere around her that would deflect the wind and allow her to fly freely. The energy never came, however--it was as if she had no mana, or any magical powers at all for that matter.

Suddenly, the wind began blowing straight down. Rather than futilely trying to fly against it, she dove straight down with it, shooting right through the pack of ghosts towards the ground at an almost blinding speed. She tilted back upwards as soon as she was past them, hoping she could pull up before hitting the ground, but it was already too late. She crashed hard and tumbled for several meters as the wind continually blew against her. It felt as though her body had all but shattered on the impact. Her spirit body had repaired the damage, but she knew she was weakened, and the ghosts were hovering above her now, forming a sphere that would be quite difficult to get through, especially with the wind.

As one, the ghosts all dove towards her, their mouths opening wide like yawning black holes.

There was a blinding flash of white light, and her ears rang as she heard every ghost screeching at once.

Suddenly Annelique bolted upright, wide awake and gasping for air.

"Annie!" she heard Sudvana's voice call. She looked to her left and saw Sudvana running over to her. "Thank Masalla! You're awake!"

"What happened?" Annelique asked between gasping breaths.

"When you sleep here, you get attacked by ghosts--I was worried that you were going to die, but just as I looked over to you, there was a flash of light, and your--"

Annelique felt a tingling at the back of her head. She reached back and felt her hair ribbon; the one the other angels from Golden Star Hall had made for her. It was warm to the touch, and it was casting a bright light on her hands.

"--your ribbon, it must have saved you from the ghosts," Sudvana said.

Suddenly they both heard the clomping of hooves--the centauress was galloping away at full speed.

"Who was that?" Annelique asked.

"Forget her--we need to save Gairanda!"

"What?"

"She fell asleep too! She's still asleep!"

Annelique got up and ran over to Gairanda. Pulling out her hair ribbon, she tied it quickly around Gairanda's hair, but it had no effect.

Annelique bit her lower lip. "I don't think it will work for anyone else...it's attuned to me," she said, untying it and placing it back in her own hair.

"Then we need to find Kaboom, or another faerie. They're the only ones who can go into dreams."

Annelique took her sword. "You stay here and guard her; I'll go look for Kaboom."

She leapt into the air, calling out Kaboom's name and searching both ground and sky for her. There was one thing that didn't take long for her to notice--there were a number of much taller trees in the area, which she decided to search.

She flew past several trees calling Kaboom's name, but to no avail. Suddenly, as she turned the corner around one of the trees, her ribbon flashed again and she stopped short in midair--illuminated and barely visible in the bright light of her ribbon were the thin strands of an arachne web. Had she flown even another foot forward, she would have hit it. Looking up, she saw a webbed alcove that could only have been the creature's lair.

She flew up to it, holding one of her small lanterns up to see inside. She saw a very startled arachne, dressed in a frilly dress made of grey silk, her hair in--strangely enough--braided pigtails. The arachne simply stared at her, taking a few subtle steps back with it's furry legs. The lair actually looked surprisingly well-furnished, with a soft-looking bed and small brass lanterns embedded in the wall; there was even a bookshelf along one side.

"Have you seen a crazy-looking faerie around here by any chance?" Annelique asked.

"Um...no, I haven't seen any faeries," the arachne said, stepping sideways slightly in order to hide the small stash of faerie jewelry and half-digested dresses she had piled in one corner.

She was obviously lying, but her belly and abdomen were too small to have eaten recently, and Annelique was in a hurry. She flew off again, this time actively looking for arachne webs. Indeed, she found many webs and many arachnes, most of whom were wearing the same sort of black or dark grey robes or dresses. Most of the Arachnes simply scurried away from her in fear, some simply looked on with curiousity, and a few even smiled and said hello, but none of them looked like they had eaten recently.

Finally, one particular tree caught her attention--not because it's web was unusual, but because there seemed to be noise coming from the nest.

She flew up and shined her small lantern inside. There was an arachne with a bloated backside, sleeping on a pile of pillows. How she could sleep through the racket and the obvious kicking was a mystery, for Kaboom was very obviously inside her, and she was swearing up a storm about it, too. She was throwing out cusswords that Annelique's angelic ears had never even heard before, and she didn't really want to know what they meant. The Arachne's body lurched back and forth as Kaboom essentially threw a never-ending tantrum inside it.

Annelique hovered quietly over the arachne. Whatever she did would have to be quick, which more or less ruled out negotiation. Instead, she flew down and stomped hard on the back of the arachne's abdomen, hoping physics would be on her side and squirt Kaboom out. Sure enough, there was a blurping sound and Kaboom was shot halfway out of the arachne's body.

This actually managed to get the Arachne's attention and it awoke. It simply laid there for a moment, a rather confused expression on it's face, Kaboom's top half sticking out of it's mouth.

"Finally!" Kaboom yelled as Annelique grabbed her slime-coated arm.

"Come on," Annelique replied, flying quickly out of the arachne's lair with the faerie in tow.

"...What just happened?" the groggy arachne said as they left.

As they flew, Annelique asked "Do you know how to dreamwalk?"

"Do I? Uh...probably," Kaboom replied. "Never tried it, actually."

Annelique winced.

It didn't take long for the two to reach Gairanda. By this time, even Sudvana was growing pale, but in her case, it was out of worry.

"What happened to you?" Sudvana asked when she saw Kaboom.

"I went looking around to see if there were any predators nearby. Obviously there were. So--wait, what happened to *her*?"

"She's in some sort of dreamworld," Sudvana said, "and a ghost is killing her."

"Oh, is *that* all. Well, time for me to go to work, then."

She started rummaging through her pockets.

"Um...what are you doing?" Sudvana asked.

"Stupid...where's Blast where you need her? Well, looks like I don't have a sleeping potion, and I'm not sure how the hell to do this when you're awake...so...um..." Kaboom grabbed one of the larger hammers off of her belt and held it in front of her forehead. "Here goes nothing..."

*THWACK*

*thud*

*****

Kaboom focused as well as she could, for someone who had just nailed themselves in the head with a sledgehammer. She knew she'd only have a few moments to find her way into Gairanda's dream before she fell into her own, so she felt around the ethereal landscape as best she could. Finding what she was hoping was Gairanda's essence, she drifted into a dreamscape that--whether or not it was the right one--was definately not hers.

Hovering not ten feet from her was a ghost, patting it's obviously full belly. Though the creature was half invisible, Kaboom could not see what was inside of it.

The ghost seemed startled by her presence.

"Who are you?" it said.

Kaboom smiled brightly. There was already a machinegun in her hand. "I'm your worst nightmare," she said merrily.

*****

"What's happening to them?" Annelique asked.

"I don't know..." Sudvana replied.

Gairanda's body had begun thrashing back and forth, and Kaboom was muttering in her sleep and occaisionally grinning. It wasn't quite what they had expected, but obviously Kaboom had managed to get into Gairanda's head one way or another.

They watched for several minutes, concern growing on their faces as both of them still failed to wake.

Finally, Kaboom's eyes opened and she stood up as though nothing had happened.

"That's right, bitch!" she said with a proud smile, pointing at Gairanda's sleeping body. "You mess wit' da Kaboom, you get da Kaboom!"

"What's wrong? Why isn't Gairanda awake?" Sudvana asked.

"Her? Oh, she's awake, she's just a bit...um...fucked over, that's all. Having a half-digested soul will do that to you."

"WHAT?!" Sudvana screamed, looking over Gairanda's prostrate body in a panic.

"Don't worry, she's still alive. Can't say much else for sure, though."

"What happened to the ghost?" Annelique asked.

Kaboom smiled.

"Did you know faeries can eat ghosts when they're in the dreamworld?" she said. "I didn't. Until now, anyway."

Sudvana pulled Gairanda to her feet--she was practically dead weight, though her eyes were slowly opening. Her hair and skin were both almost pure white. The only sign of color left on her face were her lips, the white of her cheeks encroaching on their normal blue like a thin coat of dust.

"Gairanda?"

Gairanda's body remained almost completely limp, but she managed to speak in a hoarse, barely audible whisper.

"Where am I?"

"It's okay, you're with us," Sudvana said. "Uh, a little help here?" she said, struggling under the weight of Gairanda's body and armor. Annelique moved to the other side of Gairanda's body and held her up.

"What do we do? Can we heal her?" Sudvana asked.

"Her spirit's been damaged...I don't know," Annelique replied.

Both Annelique and Sudvana cast several healing spells on her. As they did, her muscles gradually seemed to come back to life, but only barely. Gairanda took a few careful steps away from Annelique and Sudvana, then wavered and collapsed onto her knee.

"We need to get this armor off of her," Annelique said.

They removed the heavy armor plates from Gairanda's body and threw them aside. This allowed her to stand again, and she looked at the three women in front of her.

"You..." she said slowly. She put her hand to her head as if it were pained. "I can't remember...Goddess...I can't remember any--"

She stopped for a moment, and seemed to notice the ironbelly emblem around her neck. She took it into her hand and looked at it, as if she were searching it for something.

"Gairanda? Do you remember us?" Annelique asked.

Gairanda looked back. "I...I don't know. You're...you're an angel, I know I know you...but I don't know your name."

"It's Annelique. How much do you remember?"

There was a pause.

"Nothing...I can't remember anything except the dreams..."

"The dreams?"

"The ghost's dreams. They're in my mind, like they're my dreams...like I was dreaming right now." She looked around, suddenly looking as if she was confused. "I'm not, am I?"

"No," Annelique answered.

"This is bad," Sudvana said. "How can we expect to beat Aerothi if we keep losing every battle we get in with things that aren't even half as strong as her?"

"Simple. We need to get stronger," Annelique replied. Reaching into what was left of her robes, she pulled out the small crystal she had recieved from Charlotte, the demon seer. "And we need to find the fourth person who shares our fate mark. But first we need to get off this mountain."

"Well, two of us can fly," Kaboom said. "And now at least one of us has the good sense to stay above the damn trees. I figure both of us can carry someone."

"But which way do we go?" Sudvana asked.

"It doesn't matter," Annelique replied. "We just need to get somewhere safe."

*****

"Any sign of them?" Leiasell asked.

"No," Rea said. "And I doubt we'll find any, so long as we're trying to track flyers."

"I can magically sense them," Leiasell replied.

"But you haven't," Rea replied. "Look, just send me to Phaesili like I asked, and we'll be able to take them out all the faster. The longer we both spend titting around here, the harder it will be to track down the other group."

"Fine. If you're so eager for blood, Rea, then go," Leiasell said. Rea wasted no time in moving through the portal that Leiasell summoned--she was through it practically before it had finished materializing.

Leiasell clenched her teeth. She was willing to let them go if they didn't pose a threat, but she knew quite well that Rea just wouldn't care. In fact, she was practically hoping Rea would lose.

Unfortunately, she knew there was no way she would.

*****

"We've been walking forever! Where are we going?" Ralier said.

"I don't know, but Blast seems to have an idea, and I don't, and so I'm following her," Ishiar replied.

Several hours ago, after spending quite a while watching the group trying unsuccessfully to resurrect the portal, Blast had given a loud whistle and started walking off, motioning for the others to follow. Having no better ideas, they had followed her.

Ever since, they had been wandering seemingly aimlessly through Phaesili. Blast would walk in one direction for a time, then stand in a random spot and play a tune on her flute. Then she would humph to herself and start walking in a different direction, find another random spot, and so on.

Even so, Ishiar had to admit that it wasn't merely a lack of an idea that kept her following Blast--Blast walked as if she knew something, and the music she played was no normal dancing ditty. When she played it, the forest itself seemed to respond--the air felt strange, the grass moved, and the wind blew in strange directions.

She wasn't sure if it was something magical about the flute, the music, or Blast herself, but there was magic there, and from the look of things, Blast seemed to be searching for the right place to use it.

What would happen when she found it, however, was anybody's guess.

The group was now walking near the edge of a deep ravine, overrun with moss. At the bottom of the ravine raged a torrential river. It was impossible to say how deep it was, but they couldn't see it's bottom. Rocks jutted out of it like spires, looking more like they had been carved than eroded. They hadn't encountered any way to cross it, not that they knew whether Blast even planned to.

They had run into a few faeries here and there, but nothing dangerous. No one seemed particularly interested in them.

No one, that is, until they reached Rea.

She made no attempt to hide from them; she was simply leaning against a tree when they found her.

On her left arm she was wearing a set of shouldered arm plates and gauntlet that matched the color of her copper eyes. Her crimson hair fell in frayed patterns down the black leather shirt she wore; it had a sleeve only on the side with the gauntlet, the other exposing bare skin. An ivy-like tattoo wrapped around her bare wrist. She had a pair of silver greeves and iron-scaled boots, while belts crossed both her waist and her chest, holding up several different weapons. Two completely mismatched swords were strapped at her waist; both were full-length weapons, two-handed from the look of them. One had a jet black handle resembling a scimitar with no crosspiece, the other a white and gold handle and crosspiece in the style of a longsword. A giant crossbow was strapped to her back, almost as tall as she was.

The group didn't actually recognize who she was until she reached down and pulled out the white longsword. It's blade had a perfect sheen, and she held it in one hand as though it were light as air.

"Wait a minute. You're--"

Ishiar didn't get to finish her sentence. Rea was already charging at her. She raised her shield just in time to deflect a flurry of blows from the woman's blade--in fact, it was all she could do to evade the attacks, such was their speed and unerring accuracy.

"It's another one of Aerothi's little toads!" Ishiar yelled as she leapt back, moving her sword into attack position. She didn't have a chance to attack, however, for Rea's blade was already slashing at her feet--she had to lift her leg and take a broad step back to avoid it. The next attack came almost instantly, rising up and slashing Ishiar's body just behind where her shield was. The next few moments were a blur--she felt the sword cut through her her several times and then her her body hit something hard. Lifting herself up, she realized she'd been thrown into a tree. Again.

There was a crack as Ushan whipped at this new enemy and a staccato clattering as Ralier charged towards her. Rea simply leapt upwards and landed on the kari's backside, driving the blade through her chest from behind before Ralier could even react.

"EEEEEEEEEE that doesn't feel good..." Ralier croaked, staring at the now-bloody blade that was protruding from her. The blade twisted before it was pulled out, and Rea slashed it through Ralier again as she leapt towards Ushan. Ralier gurgled a bit, clutching her chest as she dropped down to her equivalent of her knees.

"So this one's thing is she's really fast, huh?" Ishiar said, picking herself up off the ground. "Hey Blast, you got any glue?"

Blast stopped and thought for a moment before shaking her head.

"Shit. I guess we'll have to do it the old fashioned way."

Ishiar charged at Rea shield-first, hoping to knock her over while she was busy fighting Ushan. Rea simply twirled and with one fluid motion she grabbed Ishiar's shield, twisted it away, and stabbed her sword towards Ishiar's belly. Ishiar tried to twist out of the way but it still caught the edge of her body, stabbing through and causing no small amount of discomfort.

"Okay, bad idea," Ishiar grunted. Ignoring the pain, she wrapped her shield arm around Rea and stabbed her own sword into her. This seemed to catch her by surprise and she withdrew, pulling out her sword and baring her teeth at Ishiar. Only a moment later she was forced to give up more ground as Ushan's whip cracked against her shoulder, splitting the leather of her shirt where it struck.

Ishiar ran around to flank her--between the ravine below, Ushan on the one side and Blast on the other, she would be surrounded. Even Ralier was slowly getting up, though she wasn't too happy about it.

All at once, the group charged at her. A whip cracked and Ishiar's blade sliced through the air while Ralier maneuvered into position to block Rea's escape. Though Rea managed to avoid both Ushan and Ishiar's attacks, she was not able to avoid a bottle that came out of nowhere and shattered against the side of her head. As it did, the liquid inside burst into a raging, blue fire. Rea screamed and recoiled, her gauntleted hand instinctively moving to her face. This was their chance.

Ishiar went into her own flurry of attacks, half of which Rea still managed to deflect, but only at the cost of being hit several times by Ushan's whip. By the time the flames had died down, they had struck her several times. They weren't sure if she was weakened or just pissed off, but as she staggered back, she sheathed the silver weapon and drew the blade with the black handle.

Curiously, though the handle and handguard were jet black, the blade appeared to be made of solid gold. Runes were inset into it's surface, and it seemed to be a thin, sabre-style blade.

Rea's attacks slowed down somewhat when she started using this new weapon, but it didn't take long for Ishiar to find out why. The very first successful strike was against Ishiar's shield arm--there was a feeling of deep, penetrating cold, and suddenly her arm went partially numb and stiff--though her flesh was still warm. Undaunted, she redoubled her efforts, determined to win against this woman at any cost, but without the use of her shield, it became very difficult very fast.

Rea seemed just as determined, despite the four to one odds. Blast started whacking her with a small hammer, doubtless "borrowed" from her sister. Each time Rea would attempt a counterattack, Blast would be just out of striking range again, and the distraction would have given one of the others a chance to attack.

Finally, they managed to push Rea right to the edge of the Ravine. She pulled out both weapons now, and that's when the battle turned ugly.

In only two strokes, Ishiar's shield and sword were knocked away from her body. In two more she was dazed, and Rea took the opportunity to send her crashing to the ground with a hard kick. Then Rea ran right over her, straight towards Blast. Blast dodged her attacks at first, but this woman was faster than anyone they had ever seen and her combined attacks seemed impeccably calculated. Blades flew through the air with blinding speed, and for the very first time, Blast truly looked afraid. It was a miracle that she still wasn't getting hit...

...too much of a miracle. Rea was intentionally herding her.

"Blast!" Ishiar yelled, but she was too late. Rea made a lightning-fast feint with her silver longsword, forcing Blast to dodge backwards and slam directly into a tree. The point of Rea's golden blade was an inch from her chest, following her momentum perfectly as she moved back. There was a thud as she hit the tree and her body abruptly stopped.

The sword did not.

There was a wet sound as the blade pushed through Blast's heart, slowing down only slightly as it continued through Blast's body and deep into the tree behind her. Only when the hilt had nearly reached her chest did it stop.

Blast made absolutely no sound--there was only the sound of her hammer falling into the grass, along with something else: the golden nameplate that she had been wearing since the day they met fell from her neck, split cleanly into two pieces. Her hands still hung in the air where they had been moments before, her fingers slowly curling as she looked down at her own blood trickling down her belly.

Her face was frozen in a single expression--rather than pained, she looked afraid--helpless.

The sight had frozen Ishiar in her tracks. At this moment, she felt no anger, no hunger for retribution--only fear. But it was not fear for herself.

She charged.

"Bitch!" Ralier yelled, running towards her as well.

This is when they learned that Rea was also a mage.

Rea flung her hand upward and a giant pillar of rock shot upwards directly under Ralier, knocking her onto her back.

"DAMMIT!" she screamed as she scrambled to right herself. "STOP DOING THAT!"

"Oh darling," Ushan yelled, a crack of her whip accentuating her voice. "Why not come play with a real woman? I promise, I'll make you feel things you never thought possible."

Rea ignored her, striking instead at Ishiar. Her sword attack was deflected, but apparently it was also a feint--a powerful side kick followed it almost flawlessly, catching Ishiar in the shin and knocking her to her knees. Rea's second sword stroke met it's mark, as did the third, while Ishiar was unsuccessfully trying to stand up and defend herself at the same time.

Finally, Ishiar stopped trying to defend herself.

She began an all-out attack, knocking Rea's sword away as she tried for a forward stab. Rea deflected the attack with her gauntlet, but suddenly fell flat on her face as Ushan's whip wrapped around her leg and pulled it out from under her. Ishiar thrust downward and stabbed Rea square in the back, causing the woman to growl. Ishiar's victory was short-lived, as Rea swept her powerful arm outward into Ishiar's legs, sending Ishiar falling onto her side. She turned and slashed the whip off of her and rose quickly, only to be met with a faceful of fire from Ushan's outstretched hands.

Rea charged, Ushan's fire suddenly parting around her like water around a stone. Ushan did a back handspring, quickly followed by another, but Rea was too quick to get away from. There was a blur of attacks, looking like a cyclone of silver slicing through Ushan's body. She had no way to stop the storm of razor-sharp metal--all she could do was scream as she staggered back and fell to the ground, too bloody to move.

Suddenly, Rea screamed as she was lifted off the ground by Ishiar's blade, buried through her own chest. "Forget about me, bitch?" She flung Rea to the ground and tackled her, pinning her and pounding her over and over with her shield.

Rea grabbed the top of Ishiar's breastplate and simply yanked her sideways, flinging her to the ground alongside her. Switching her grip to Ishiar's neck, she stood and lifted the smaller girl into the air with her mighty gauntlet.

"I tire of this," Rea growled. Pulling back her silver blade, she began to stab it into Ishiar's gut--like her previous attacks, it looked like a blur of metal was being rained into Ishiar's body as she screamed and twitched helplessly against the barrage. Finally, Rea impaled her upon the silver blade and, with an enraged yell, she flung Ishiar into the ground near the ravine. She didn't get up.

Suddenly, Rea leapt up into the air--just in time to avoid Ralier's arm-spikes. She sailed up through the trees and landed on one of the branches. The great black crossbow that had lain dormant on her back was drawn.

"Oh shit--" was all Ralier got to say before a long black crossbow bolt buried itself in her chest. It hurt, but it was not crippling. "What? Just one? I would have th--"

Suddenly Ralier began to feel it. Poison, spreading through her from the barbed bolt's edges--and fast.

"Oh, for the love of..." there was a thud as she fell to the ground.

Rea hit the ground, strapping her crossbow back into it's place. "To think, Aerothi feared you," she said, looking over her four targets with disdain. "I suppose there's nothing left to do but dispose of your corpses," she said.

She walked over to Ushan and knelt down, lifting the succubus by the chest and stuffing her head into her mouth. The rest could only watch as Ushan's body was slowly glomped down--first the head, then the shoulders. A blob of drool rolled down Ushan's back just before Rea repositioned herself and held the succubus above her, causing gravity to push her body down her throat. There were several more loud gulps; her hips disappeared, then her legs. Rea's stomach bulged, growing slightly larger with each gulp. She had clearly eaten many people in her life--her stomach didn't even need to stretch very much to accomodate the massive meal. Finally, Ushan's calves began to slide down her throat on their own, and her boots disappeared past Rea's lips. There was one final gulping sound. Now only Rea remained, the bulge in her stomach the only evidence that Ushan had ever been there.

Ishiar struggled to move, but she could not. Her body just refused to respond. All she could do was watch as her companion was swallowed whole. Unconsciousness threatened to overtake her at any moment. Ralier just twitched against the ground, and Blast was still pinned to the tree, a small pool of her blood soaking the roots and grass beneath her.

Rea walked towards the center of the three, her stomach already gurgling. "Well, you're not going anywhere," she said towards Ralier's weakly wriggling body. "I think I'll take you next..." she said, looking at Blast. "As for you," she said to Ishiar, "I imagine the river creatures are hungry."

With a hard kick, she sent Ishiar plummetting into the ravine.

Something tumbled from Ishiar's belt just before she fell. Rea looked down with curiousity; it was large, ovoid, and black. It appeared to be an egg. A demon egg, no less.

"So, you two planned something special for one another?" she said, rubbing her distended belly. "Pity, neither of you will live to see your daughter. But I think I can find a home for this," she said with a wicked smile. She placed the egg in a bag on the back of her belt.

As her stomach lurched and burbled, it began to shrink at an almost alarming pace. Nonetheless, Rea's impatience still got the best of her, and she began to walk towards Blast. "Time for you to join the succubus, little one."

She reached for the black hilt of the golden blade. Before her fingers reached it, she felt something slash against her hips in between her flesh and her belt, slicing the belt in half and causing her silver blade to fall to the ground. Before she could react, she was impaled from behind on a long spike.

"You really should know better than to think you can paralyze a kari," Ralier said from behind her.

"And here I thought your kind were incapable of cunning OR stealth," Rea said, her voice only slightly daunted.

"Sounds like you've got a LOT to learn," Ralier said.

Rea ground her heels into the grass and dragged herself forward and off the spike. She tried a grab for her sword but Ralier had already used one of her legs to kick it backwards. Ralier stood firmly in the way of it now, both arm spikes ready to impale her again.

Rea knew she no longer had the advantage--with the succubus still in her belly it would be awkward to fight, and backpedaling while firing with her crossbow would not be a good tactic--the Kari would be on her before she could even fire.

She tried casting a spell, but Ralier never gave her the chance. She reared up and lunged forward, knocking Rea to the ground and pinning her beneath her enormous bulk. Before long Ralier was stabbing her arm spikes into the woman's body, first right, then left, then right, then left. Suddenly Rea vanished from underneath her, reappearing in a flash of light some 10 meters away. There was blood trickling from her chest now--apparently they had been whittling her down after all.

"This isn't over, Kari," Rea said with a glare.

"You're damn right it's not," Ralier said as she began to gallop towards her.

There was another flash of light, and suddenly Rea was gone. Ralier looked around to see where she had teleported to, but couldn't see her.

"Come out, you yellow piece of shit!" she screamed. "I want my succubus back!"

There was no answer. Ralier ran around the woods for a few moments, but it was no use--the woman was either long gone or very good at hiding.

Ralier galloped over to Blast and grabbed the hilt of the golden sword with both hands. Bracing her two front legs against the tree, she began to pull the sword out inch by inch. The moment it was free of the hard bark it slid out of Blast's body with a spurt of blood and the small girl began to fall forward. Ralier dropped the sword and did her best to catch her, cradling her downwards until she was lying on the bluish grass, held up slightly by Ralier's right arm. Her eyes were still open, the look of shock and sadness still frozen on her face. She did not look at Ishiar--she simply stared emptily into the canopy above as if her eyes had died inside their sockets. Her lips were trembling slightly. Her usually-flush face was pale.

"Blast! Blast, baby, come back to us..." Ralier said, placing her hand gently on Blast's face as she continued to hold her with her other arm.

Blast slowly turned, her lower lip disappearing beneath her teeth as her entire face collapsed into an anguished look. Tears began to roll down her cheeks as she buried herself into Ralier's chest and cried.

Ralier held her and hugged her. The girl's whole body shook as she sobbed, making more noise than Ralier had ever heard her make. Ralier knew how she felt, but did not cry herself; Blast was doing enough for the both of them.

By the time the sobs finally died down, Ralier's chest was practically soaked with tears. Blast began to cling to her as if she were hanging over the edge of a cliff.

"It's okay," Ralier said as she held her. "It's okay..."

She knew she was a bad liar. She wasn't even convincing herself.

*****

Ushan writhed slightly as she sat helpless in the hot dark of her enemy's belly. She had to admit that this woman had exceptionally strong stomach acids, especially for a human. Her skin had began to burn almost instantly upon entering it, and her enchanted leather clothing had already dissolved completely.

She knew they had already lost the battle before Rea ate her, and she did not expect she would be saved this time. She felt a brief glimmer of hope as the stomach started lurching around violently, being compressed and thrown around as though Rea was in combat once more, but it had lasted only a short time before once again being replaced by more calm, controlled movements--walking, stopping, turning, and other, less readable motions.

The woman's digestive tract seemed as hard and ruthless as she was--her stomach walls did not seem like flesh so much as cords of muscle with a thin film of slimy skin over them. They had been kneading her with no small amount of force since her arrival and she knew she wouldn't have long.

Though she tried, she could not gather enough strength to attempt escape. She could only wriggle weakly; just enough to reaffirm that Rea's stomach was firmly in control of the situation.

She knew it would come to this someday...everyone became food in the end. But somehow she thought there would be more. After meeting Ishiar, she had begun to share something of a sense of destiny with them.

But it seemed that destiny was theirs, not hers. As the few remaining hours of her life rapidly drained away under the onslaught of Rea's digestive system, it was all Ushan could do to think of her egg...the one she had secretly given to Ishiar the night before they came to Phaesili. It gave her some small glimmer of hope as she felt her flesh begin to melt and pour into Rea's intestinal tract. She felt the narrow, winding tubes of the woman's intestines all around her, her consciousness merging with Rea's body as it was absorbed into her bloodstream and packed into her organs.

And thus ended Ushan of the Flesh Fane.