"UGH!" Winny yelled. "This isn't even a stomach! It's a snot factory!"

There was no reply--only a mild ripple of muscle in the soft, pliant flesh around her.

"Where the hell are my hooks...!?" she muttered, rifling through her numerous hidden pockets and pouches, all of which were utterly soaked.

"They won't do you any good," came a muffled voice. "Nothing has ever gotten out so far, and neither will you unless you tell me where my bra went."

"Why the hell would I have even wanted your bra?"

"Our bras are the one thing of value we usually carry, thank you very much. We're monsters--how long do you think lace is going to last? And where are we gonna buy it? And how often do you think we shed a boob-shaped piece of shell? Those things are hard to come by, and if you don't beg, borrow, or steal one, you have to buy one, and they're expensive as hell! Even by human standards!"

"I didn't take your stupid bra, Ralier! Can't you just take a chunk of your armor off or something?"

"I only wish. This crap is bolted on. Which was not comfortable, by the way."

"Yeah, cry me a river," Winny said. "Is there any place you might have taken it off?"

"I never take it off!" Ralier replied.

"Eww! Doesn't it get all grody?"

"I'm a monster. Monsters don't get grody. We're used to being out in nature and stuff."

"Yet you can't live without your bra for ten minutes," Winny said as she felt the sudden warmth of a huge glob of gooey liquid flowing through her hair. "EWWWW!"

"We WEAR them so we don't accidentally knock people out with our HONEY," Ralier said indignantly. "You're WELCOME."

"Fine, whatever! But why would I even want it!?"

"Like I said, they're worth a fortune."

"Bullshit! It's an ugly piece of Kari shell and I DON'T HAVE IT!" Winny yelled before suddenly hearing another voice.

"Ralier, what's going on?"

It sounded like Annelique.

Winny scrambled towards the entrance to Ralier's stomach. "Annelique! Annie! It's Winny! She ate me!"

"I'll let her out as soon as she gives me my bra back," Ralier said.

"Um," came Annelique's voice, "If she has your bra, won't it be half-digested by the time you get it back?"

"If she has it with her, yes. If not, telling me where she hid it would be just as good."

"And what if I didn't steal it and you digest me to death?" Winny yelled. "You want that on your conscience for the rest of your life?"

"You won't be on my conscience. You'll be on my boobs."

"That's not funny!"

Ralier's first response to this statement, of course, was to laugh. "I'm sure you can survive stewing in there for a while longer," Ralier said. "Incidentally, for a thief, you taste great."

"For the last time, I am not a thief!" Winny yelled.

"I dunno about this," Annelique said. "We were treading pretty thin ice with Ushan..."

"Ushan? The succubus?" Winny said. "She ate one of you? Oh wait, she's a succubus, of course she did..."

"No, I ate her," Ralier said. "It's a long story."

"Actually, they both ate somebody..." Annelique said. "Ushan ate Ishiar and Ralier ate Ushan..."

"Sounds like you guys were great friends," Winny said before another warm blorch of God-knows-what erupted from the bottom of Ralier's belly, soaking her entire midsection. "Oh, for MASALLA'S SAKE, just LET ME OUT OF THIS PUKE-SACK!"

"You know, we karis digest pretty slowly. And you seem like a pretty resilient little girl so far. I could probably leave you in there for a whole day before you lose consciousness. Of course, you'll head into my intestines long before that..."

"Do NOT even KID about that. Your stomach juices are bad enough without your bodily *waste.* Speaking of which, whose bones are these!?"

"Oh, *those.* Those are from the *last* girl who tried steal my bra."

"Also not funny," Winny said firmly. "Ralier, listen carefully. If I survive this, I am going to plant a crossbow bolt into each of your EYES at least once a day FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Or better yet, I'll shoot at your nipples, so you'll need to get a new precious bra!"

"Ralier, let her out. I don't think she has it," Annelique said.

The next voice--Cassandra's--was considerably louder.

"Winny, Ralier, where the hell were you two!? Digest on your own time! That goes for both of you!"

"But my--"

"I checked. Kaboom was using it as a mixing bowl."

"Mixing!? For what!? Gunpowder!?"

"Yes. Along with several other kinds of explosives."

"See?" Winny said. "Not only were you wrong, but the Goddesses are punishing you for it. From now on, any time you wear that bra, your tits could get blown off."

"You win this round," Ralier said. "I guess you can come out now."

"Um, I've been trying, in case you haven't noticed," Winny said, trying to shove herself against the sphincter to Ralier's enormous lower mouth. Not only was the sphincter not about to go anywhere, but neither was she--Ralier's stomach was far too slimy for Winny to get any traction. "Kamaruga's tits!" she yelled as she squirmed uselessly. "Somebody get me out!"

Cassandra sighed angrily before walking up and ramming her hand down Ralier's throat.

"OWW!!!" Ralier yelled. "Hello?! Spikey gauntlet!?"

"Deal with it," Cassandra said.

Winny saw Cassandra's open hand--complete with it's alarmingly sharp-looking gauntlet--shoot out of Ralier's throat and into her stomach. She grabbed it with one hand while wrapping her other arm around Cassandra's, glad for the spikeyness as it actually gave her a way to keep ahold of it in spite of all the slime. Cassandra's grip was quite tight, and she yanked rather violently. Her arm slid back out, but when it came time for Winny to follow, the sphincter held tight, refusing to widen any further than it already had.

"OW!! OW!!!" Ralier yelled as several more yanks failed to free Winny.

"This would be easier for both of us if you'd stop clenching," Cassandra said.

"I'm trying, but there's this thing called reflexes--OW!!!--look, do it slower!"

Cassandra rolled her eyes and started to pull. She braced her other arm against the top of Ralier's mouth, but Ralier's throat just didn't want to seem to give up her meal.

"Annie--" Cassandra started.

"Yeah," Annelique said, grabbing Cassandra by the waist and pulling. Between the two of them, they finally forced Ralier's recalcitrant gullet to disgorge it's diminuative cargo. All three of them fell backwards onto the floor, with Annelique getting the worst of it by virtue of having Cassandra land directly on top of her. Winny would have argued that she got the worst of it, of course, simply because she was still covered in the former contents of Ralier's stomach.

"Yaugch!" she said as she slowly pulled herself up, making a disgusted face before turning up to glare at Ralier. She wasn't the only one.

"What?" Ralier said. "I thought she had it."

Cassandra sighed. "Where were you?"

"Where was I what?"

"During the battle, when the ship was overrun with Zadiians."

"You seemed to have everything under control," Ralier replied.

"Couldn't you have at least grabbed one of them with that fat maw of yours instead of eating my newest crewmember instead? At least she's a good shot, even if she is the size of a bran muffin."

"I didn't want to go into battle with my tits out!" Ralier said.

"Why!?" Winny said. "You just said you use them to paralyze people!"

"It's drafty out there. Especially with the way Cassandra flies."

More stares.

Ralier threw her hands up. "Come on, you're freakishly good, Cassandra! Anything that could threaten you would be shitting me out in less time than it took me to draw a sword! I was pretty good at hunting clueless villagers, but I'm not a soldier! Why do I have to explain this to every person I ever meet!?"

"You're officially affiliated with the most hunted people in this sector of space, Ralier," Cassandra said flatly. "If you don't know how to fight, you'd better learn, and learn quick."

Ralier made a pensive face, but it quickly melted into one of resigned surrender.

"She's right," Annelique said softly. "I know it isn't fair, but they're going to come after you just because you know us."

"I make no apologies for helping you guys," Ralier said. "And I do wish I could do it more, or better. But the truth is I suck. Aerothi didn't train me...they just nailed adamant to my legs and said 'go kill stuff.' Never mind that these things are so heavy now that those few combat skills I did have I suddenly couldn't use," Ralier said, slowly hefting her legs up for emphasis.

Cassandra looked Ralier's armored legs over and sighed impatiently. "Look, I can teach you to fight if you need it so bad. I know some tricks you can pull. But the first thing you're gonna have to change is your attitude. Get over this idea that you can't fight. Take Annelique here. When she's thinking like an angel, she's harmless as a bunny. When she forgets for a minute or she gets pissed off, she turns into a merciless hurricane of destruction."

Annelique stitched her eyebrows together. She definately didn't think of herself as a "merciless hurricane of destruction," but looking back on the havoc she had wrought in those few battles where it was important, she realized Cassandra had a point. Even if it was all the fault of Klayer's brutal training.

"Go into every fight planning to win," Cassandra continued. "If you don't know how, that *doesn't matter.* Just fight as hard as you can and learn as you go. The techniques will come to you. That being said, having some training and tactics going in certainly won't hurt."

"Okay...what kind of tactics can I use besides kicking people?"

"What's your range of motion on each of your legs?" Cassandra asked in an almost annoyed tone.

"Well, pretty good..."

"Good enough that you can do any damn thing you want with them, with the sole exception of picking things up or knocking things out of the air," Cassandra said as she strode up to Ralier. "And I've still seen some Karis pull off that second one." Stepping between two of Ralier's legs, she said "Alright. Assuming I'm standing here, what can you do to me?"

"I'd say nothing, since you're so close, but I'm guessing that's wrong?"

"You guess right," Cassandra said. "I am *extremely* vulnerable in this position, especially with your legs being heavier than normal. Lift this leg," she said, slapping one of them, "and use it to kick me in the back of the legs, either the calves or the back of the knees."

There was a shuffling clank as Ralier's armored leg lifted and swung into Cassandra's scale armor, sweeping her knees forward and causing the rest of her body to fall backward. With a swish and a thud, Cassandra spun off of Ralier's leg and hit the floor.

"Now was that so hard?" she said before standing up again.

"I'd just never thought of that," Ralier said.

"You can do even worse things."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You can twix them. Twixing is sort of the reverse of what you just did. I'll show you."

She stepped up again and pulled two of Ralier's legs out, once again positioning herself between them.

"Okay," she said. "Take the back leg and put it behind my ankles."

Ralier complied.

"Now lift the front leg to about the middle of my shins and just yank it back."

Ralier did so, not really sure what was supposed to happen. She was rather surprised by what did--Cassandra's knees locked hard as her shins were spun back and she was almost whipped to the floor.

"So that's your 'oh shit' tactic," Cassandra said as she stood up again, seemingly unfazed. "And once they're on the ground, what do you do?"

"My first impulse would be to stomp on them," Ralier said.

"Good girl," Cassandra said. "Your legs are plenty sharp; any time you can use them as a weapon, do it. If you're facing one enemy, stomp the neck. If you're against a lot, go for the shoulder or something else that will keep them on the ground. The rest of the time, use them to throw your enemies down, control their movements, or shield yourself."

"How do I control their movements?"

"If they're further away, you just jam your pointy little leg towards their face--that much you probably already know how to do. A kari who knows her stuff should be all but immune to anybody with a weapon shorter than a spear unless they're attacking head-on."

"What if that's what they're doing?"

"That's when you use the fact that you've got a maw the size of Crucia," Cassandra said. "But you've got to get them there first. The most important thing is to make sure you own everything within range of your legs. First of all, you need to get out of the habit of holding yourself up on eight legs, or even six. See, if I get inside your range again like this and I'm about to attack you, you can pinch your legs together and trap me, then point me towards an ally who can start whacking at my defenseless head. But I could be coming at you from anywhere. You need to be ready to do that with any two legs, not just the middle ones or the front ones. The same goes for the knockdowns..."

Curious as Annelique was as to the details behind Kari battle tactics, she was too uncomfortable to keep listening. It reminded her too much of her own instructions at the hand of Klayer. That had been a traumatic time, knowing that she would have to leave Brightwind when it was the only place in the omniverse she wanted to be. That and Klayer's training regimen bordered on outright abuse...

As she turned to leave, she was surprised to see that Winny was standing at the door, still soaked from head to toe, watching the pair.

"Didn't you want to get cleaned up?" Annelique said.

"It's not often I get a chance to see Cassandra get beat up," Winny replied.

"And you're hoping they might start sparring and you'll get to see Ralier get beat up too?"

"So it's true about angels," Winny said. "They do know what people want."

Annelique chuckled slightly and stepped out. Though she wasn't tired, she thought she had better get some sleep; even if she was becoming some sort of invincible turbocharged murder machine, she still wanted to be normal, and all she could think to do was act normal. And she felt like she needed some kind of rest, even if it wasn't for her body.

She headed for Cassandra's quarters. Since the very first night she slept in her bed, she had stayed with her. Some nights she seemed troubled; other nights she seemed better. Other nights she was just plain unreadable, but in any case, Annelique knew what her job was. She didn't go into the room very often when Cassandra wasn't there, but she had said that it was alright.

Without much fanfare, she slipped into the room, pulled herself under the covers and just let everything go. For a time there was just silence and a pair of open eyes...why she didn't close them, she couldn't really say. Maybe they were just keeping themselves open. Even after she fell asleep, she wasn't sure if she had closed them, if they had closed themselves, or if she was just dreaming through a pair of open eyes.

She slipped into a strange limbo...a dream that felt like the entire universe was nothing in particular and neither was she. She just stared, as if her strangely open eyes had indeed followed her into her dreams.

She eventually saw two forms; towers, from the looks of them. One was white, one was black. Some sort of war was being waged between them...but there were no soldiers. It looked as though the towers themselves were fighting, cannon blasts and strange flashes blasting between them like peals of thunder. Eventually she did make out some humanoid forms, standing on the roof of each tower. She seemed to move towards them--or perhaps they were moving towards her. They weren't fighting--they were just watching.

All of them were pitch black, like living silhouettes standing atop the towers. All but one. Atop the black tower was a single individual that stood out from the others. It was another angel, clad in white robes. As she drew close she realized it was her--or an exact duplicate of her. Soon she was hovering only a few meters away, watching as this other version of herself simply stared out towards the other tower.

The explosions were very close now--she could feel the shockwaves from them as though they were reaching up and rattling her very bones.

Something about this dream was very wrong.

Well...she figured she may as well take the straightforward approach.

"...Is this some sort of vision?" Annelique said to the familiar angel in front of her.

Her counterpart remained motionless--everything but her lips. When they moved, she had Cassandra's voice.

"No one can see the future, Annie," it said. "But that doesn't mean you don't know exactly what is going to happen."

It turned towards her. It's gaze froze her heart, and suddenly she felt like she had been hit by a cannonball.

She snapped awake. She wasn't sure how long it had been--it could have been a few moments or it could have been a few hours. For all she knew, it could have been days. Things were just as they were when they fell asleep--almost. There was one thing that was different, almost as though a piece of her dream world had followed her. It was Blast.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed. What little color had returned to her face over the last few days seemed to have been lost again; in fact, if anything, it looked like she had been stabbed through the heart a second time.

"Blast?" Annelique said. "What's wrong?"

She simply sat there, silent as ever and practically motionless. Annelique could barely tell that she was breathing. She was staring downward, but her eyes seemed to drift off into nothingness--just as Annelique's had.

Annelique got out of the bed and got down on the floor, sitting and hunching down until her face was directly underneath Blast's own.

"Blast?" she said, looking right into her eyes. Eyes which did not return her gaze.

Blast's body remained motionless--all except her hand, which raised and patted Annelique on the head. It was rather unsettling. It felt like she was being pet by a zombie; like Blast was reaching out from across some cold and distant universe.

Annelique took her hand and held it in hers. "Is something wrong? Is your heart giving you trouble?" she asked, gently placing her fingers on Blast's chest.

Blast shook her head. Her hair bounced back and forth as she moved, eerily framing the hollow stare that did not seem to move an inch.

"Please look at me," Annelique said quietly.

Blast's lips pursed slightly and her eyes finally seemed to settle on her.

"So what's bothering you?"

Blast's gaze moved down towards her other hand. It was simply hanging off of her knee. It took Annelique a moment to realize she was holding something--some sort of flat, transparent object between her thumb and forefinger.

She surreptitiously took it and held it up.

"Is this what's bothering you?"

Blast nodded.

Annelique examined it. Though it was small, it was also very ornate. It looked like a triangular piece of blue colored crystal or glass, less than an inch per side and a few millimeters thick. It's edges were etched with tiny golden runes and the center had a few simple celtic patterns woven out of precious metals. It didn't seem magical, nor infused with any particular sort of malice.

"What is it?" she asked.

Blast pulled out a gold coin and held it up next to it.

"It's gold? Er--it's money?"

Blast nodded again.

"Where did you get it?"

This time, it was Blast who took Annelique's hand, holding it between hers and holding them to her face as her head slowly bowed down--as though she were trying to console Annelique even as she was breaking down herself. This lasted only a moment, however. Before long Blast sprung abruptly off the bed and started walking towards the door.

"Wait!" Annelique said. "Please, don't be like this! I can't take it now! It's been going on for too long. Tell me what's going on, and use your voice."

Blast stood there for a moment. Silently at first, but soon she began to take deep breaths, as though she needed to prepare her lungs for the task ahead.

In the end, her breath stopped. Rather than speaking, she simply dropped something to the floor. It was a large metal pendant, engraved with a double-headed hammer.

It was Gairanda's.

Annelique opened her mouth to reply, but she was suddenly siezed by something--a realization that gripped her out of nowhere and held on like an iron fist.

For a split second, she understood.

Blast didn't want to say it. Annelique didn't want to hear it, and whether it was true or not, she wouldn't want to say it to anybody else.

For one brief moment, she found herself bound in Blast's world--and looking back on all the horrible things she had spoken of or heard in her short lifetime, she realized she never wanted to speak again.

It took her a few moments to recover her voice. "Blast..." she said quietly, "what happened to you? Back when you used to sing? What made you stop?"

Blast closed her eyes. She was about to leave, but Annelique leapt off the bed and took her by the arm.

"Wait, don't go yet..." she said as she gently led her back. "I don't want you going off to some corner to cry by yourself. If you're gonna do that, you should at least have someone with you."

She sat Blast down on the bed next to her, gently wrapping one wing around her slender shoulders before curling her arms around her.

"Don't be embarassed," Annelique said. "This is something that we angels do. Especially for the people we love."

Blast seemed to pause for a moment, looking at her questioningly.

"Of course I love you, Blast."

The distant look totally left Blast's eyes--but what replaced them wasn't happiness. It was pain. Her face pinched itself into a mask of anguish. Her right hand slowly balled into a fist which she held tightly against her heart. Soon her left hand followed suit and she crumpled over, both of her arms crossed over her chest like she was freezing to death inside.

"It hurts, Annelique!" she suddenly cried. "It hurts so much I can't even stand it! It never stops hurting, and the more I think about it the more it hurts!"

Her words came in broken sobs. Her every word rent at Annelique, like a thousand broken spikes were slowly tearing furrows through her chest and into her heart. It was like the sounds themselves were spears. Her breath caught in her chest. In spite of herself, she clenched her eyes shut as her face involuntarily wrenched and contorted under the sudden onslaught as Blast's words continued.

"I didn't want to speak before," she said, "and now if I do everyone will hurt! I can't let it out! It won't heal! I can't sing it away! Singing hurts so much! I don't know what to do!"

Annelique clenched her teeth and held as tightly as she could--it was the only thing she could do to fight the terrible sensations that were shooting through her.

"I feel like I should be dead," Blast said slowly, "but I can't die. And it's all that sword's fault!"

Her voice cracked. "Why would someone make something like that? Knowing that it would hurt someone so much?"

The answer stung Annelique even more than Blast's words, because she had heard it used to many times to justify so many atrocities.

Not everyone is an angel like you, Annie.

And yet Annelique couldn't even bring herself to hate the people who committed those same atrocities.

And though Blast's words had stopped, she felt one final pang when she realized Blast didn't either.

"It's all that sword's fault," she had said. Nothing about Rea. Nothing about Aerothi. Nothing about all the hate and ruthlessness and warmongering. Nothing about the people who had hurt her.

And for the first time, it made Annelique realize something. She finally had an answer.

"Not everyone is an angel like me..." Annelique whispered, "but you are, Blast. You are."

******

The first person Annelique found was Ishiar; she was in the galley munching on an apple, not looking particularly concerned about anything.

"Ishie," Annelique said, "have you seen Gairanda?"

"Since when?" she replied.

"Since...I don't know. When was the last time you saw her?"

"Uh...I saw her on the deck when we landed in Ecilix...haven't seen her since then. Maybe you should ask Elvet. She's usually the one who pulls her out of her comas."

"Blast...well...she's really worried. I think she thinks..." she paused, "well, she's really worried," she finished apprehensively.

Ishiar looked up at her, her expression suddenly grave. "Why?"

"She didn't say."

"Cassandra?"

"What?"

Ishiar looked around, then stood up. She walked in so close to Annelique that their bodies were touching slightly.

"Annie, I'm suspicious," she whispered. "You know her reputation. We know the Orchids are after us. And just before we found that out, I saw Cassandra drop off a fistful of demon money. Where do you think she got it?"

"What? No...she couldn't have done something like--well, for one thing, why just one of us?"

"Because Gairanda was the mindreader, Annelique! The two of us have fate marks, and she might not want to take the risk of fighting all of us at once. But if she's going to do anything else, she would need to get rid of Gairanda first!"

"Is anyone else missing?"

"Not that I know of..." Ishiar sighed, pausing momentarily as she pondered something. "How much do you trust Elvet?"

"Well...she's basically Cassandra's second in command, isn't she?"

"I don't know. Something doesn't seem right on this ship, and it's not Cassandra--it's her. The rest of these girls are treasure hunters at best and brigands at worst. Cassandra doesn't hire people like Elvet. I'm starting to wonder if Cassandra wasn't speaking out of personal experience when she said the Orchids need someone they can trust. The question is, can we trust Elvet as much as Cassandra does?"

"I don't think she would lie to me..."

"But would she tell you the truth if it meant selling out her own captain?"

Annelique's stomach was turning. "But if Cassandra was planning to do something to Gairanda, wouldn't Gairanda have noticed?"

"She couldn't stray far from Elvet. That meant Cassandra could keep her away if she played her cards right."

"Well, I don't think we should accuse her of anything yet. We should at least ask Elvet first."

"Either way, it will tip them off that we know Gairanda's gone."

"Well, we don't know that for sure. She might have passed out in a storage room or something."

"I might think that was possible if it was anyone other than Blast. She lives in the nooks and crannies, Annelique. If she says Gairanda is gone, she's gone, and if she thinks something happened to her...I'm inclined to believe it."

"I don't want to have lost another friend...I'm running out," Annelique said, fixing an almost pleading look at Ishiar.

"Then let's make sure we don't. We ask Elvet, then we corner Cassandra. One way or another, we'll get an answer."

It wasn't difficult to find either of them; as it turned out, Elvet and Cassandra were both on the main deck speaking to each other.

"Elvet, can we talk to you for a sec?" Annelique asked.

"Of course," Elvet replied. Annelique and Ishiar turned to head below deck, and Elvet obligingly followed. Thankfully, Cassandra politely stayed where she was. Even so, as they took Elvet to an out of the way room, Annelique couldn't help but focus her every sense on trying to determine whether Cassandra was secretly following them.

"Something seems to be troubling you," Elvet said as they went into a storage room and shut the door.

"Yes, something is troubling us," Ishiar said bluntly. "Where is Gairanda?"

Annelique bit her lip--she had hoped to be a little more delicate than that.

Elvet paused for a moment, a look of concern crossing her face. "Have you...I haven't seen her since Ecilix." Her concern seemed to turn to worry. "Are you certain she boarded before we took off?"

"We were hoping you would know that, seeing as you're her caretaker," Ishiar said.

"Well, I was trying to help her as best I could, but I wouldn't call myself her caretaker...in any case, I was busy seeing to the re-crewing of the Starslicer. When I disembarked, Gairanda was still onboard. If she left, I would not have known."

"Were you with Cassandra that whole time?"

"No, no...I...wasn't."

Annelique noticed something.

Elvet was biting her own lip.

"Is there something you want to tell us?" Annelique asked.

"I hold no secrets from you," Elvet said earnestly, "but I do not know of Cassandra's activities prior to the incident with Blast and Kaboom."

Ishiar looked tellingly at Annelique. Annelique's stomach was turning so much now that it felt like her heart was being wrenched along with it--or the other way around.

"She supposedly gave some money to the Meckis..." Annelique said as she placed her hand on her chest, trying to control her breathing. " ...What did it look like?"

"They were Orchid Faiths. They are triangular crystal coins with assorted patterns and symbols inset within them," Elvet said. To their surprise, she reached into a pouch at her belt and withdrew one--it was identical to the coin Blast had. "This is one such coin. Their colors and patterns vary, but they are fairly consistant in their overall design."

She handed the coin to Annelique.

"So where did you get this?" she asked.

"It was left over from the budget I was given to hire replacement crew," she said.

"Out of that budget, how many of the coins were Faiths?"

"A significant portion," Elvet said. "Perhaps a fifth. We have a wide variety of coins in the vaults; the majority are silver and gold coins, but we have a large number of Moon Crescents, Firebirds, and Emperesses, along with many forms of demonic currency, including Faiths."

"Can we look in this vault?" Ishiar asked.

"There are several vaults," Elvet said. "None of them are actually aboard the Starslicer. I'm afraid I cannot say much beyond that, for fear of placing their security at risk."

"Can you look in the vaults?"

"Perhaps. If I may ask, what are you looking for?"

There was a silence. Eventually, Elvet answered her own question for them.

"You're looking for Gairanda. And you believe this may have to do with the Orchids?"

"Yes," Ishiar said guardedly.

"It may well," Elvet said.

"It probably does," came Cassandra's voice. The door swung open as she walked in. "If you figure I sold her out, that's good thinking, but I didn't. At least not yet," she said with a wry smile. "On the other hand, if you figured I'd be coming along to eavesdrop on you eventually, you were mostly right. I figured Elvet would tell me if it was something important, so I went ahead and finished up top first. And since she would tell me anyway, no harm in eavesdropping. So what's this about Gairanda? Is she hiding or is she genuinely gone?"

"We don't know," Annelique said.

"Well, we should probably find out," Cassandra said. "I'll see if any of the crew saw her leave when we were at Ecilix. You guys might want to talk to Winny--she's explored every nook and cranny of this ship, trying to find new ways to hide from me so I won't keep confiscating the weapons she steals. It's possible she just passed out in a corner somewhere." Her expression turned serious. "If not...we obviously have a problem."

"We?" Ishiar said.

"We," Cassandra repeated. "Apparently Admiral Kaleta is at least a little serious about keeping you alive after all. She has officially hired me and my crew as your personal bodyguards. Losing one of my charges on the first day would be most unprofessional."

"Bodyguards?" Ishiar asked incredulously. "You don't strike me as the bodyguard type."

"Hey, for the right kind of money I'd work in a Flesh Fane brothel. And that's about how much she's paying. I must admit I was rather surprised; typically, you can either hire me for a month, or you can buy a small civilization forever."

"How small?"

Cassandra tapped on her chin. "I dunno. About half of your homeworld," she said.

"If you're worth half the money on our planet, then by definition there's no way she could afford it," Annelique said.

"She's exaggerating, Annie," Ishiar said.

"I know..." Annelique said sheepishly.

"But not by as much as you might think," Cassandra said, her face suddenly serious. "I don't think Shannon's war fund is the sole financier of my contract."

"Who else would be? Assuming she's not in bed with the Flesh Fane already," Ishiar said.

"She's not," Cassandra said. "That much I can give her. She is honest in her contracts. So are they, for that matter--you just need to make sure you're very specific in how you word your documents and you know the list."

"List?"

"Yeah. There's basically a boilerplate of disclaimers you need to put at the beginning of any contract with the Flesh Fane--or any other Fane, for that matter--that more or less tells them that you're not a sucker, or that you're at least smart enough to have hired a professional contract writer. It's things like 'Text which is invisible, microscopic, illusionary, erased, altered in conscious memory, or in any other way obscured or absent conceptually or literally in the document or conscious mind of either party at the time of signing or anytime henceforth is wholly null and void, and in all cases of ambiguity or contradiction, interpretation of this contract will be in favor of' and then your name.'"

"Holy--they try that stuff? No wonder nobody makes deals with demons," Ishiar said.

"No, plenty of people make deals with demons," Cassandra said. "It's just that only the experienced ones get away with it."

"Then where is the rest of the money coming from?"

"The ASP, as near as I can figure."

"Asp?"

"Allied Star Protectorate. Also very surprising, considering they're the ones who impounded my ship and said they'd sooner feed themselves to a Bile demon than let me out of their prison. Like they had a choice in the matter..." she said with a wolfish smile. "But it shows how desperate they are that they'd be willing to hire me, even by proxy."

"Why did they arrest you?" Annelique asked.

"You know the 'Corsair' part in 'Cassandra the Corsair?' It means 'one who plunders ships for fun and profit.' Like you said, I'm not exactly the bodyguard type."

"Well, yeah, but it sounds like they're a government. You know. With battleships and stuff."

"Yeeaaahhhhh...let's just say I hit some pretty high-profile targets," Cassandra said. "I needn't tell you that it takes a lot of ships to get me to surrender...I was almost flattered when they actually went ahead and sent that many. I think their flagship was there, actually..." She momentarily pondered to herself. "I had momentarily considered cloaking and hiding in one of it's gun barrels. But I decided that it was *slightly* more suicidal than it was brilliant. Weird how blurry that line sometimes gets. But anyway...back to Gairanda. I'll try some of my contacts in Ecilix; in the meantime, everybody look for her. And while you're at it, somebody find Winny. When you do, handcuff her to the floor and come get me...I'd like to have a *word* with her..."

A few hours later Ishiar and Annelique did stumble upon Winny, but they decided against taking Cassandra's orders literally. Instead they got straight to the point.

"Winny? Have you seen Gairanda?" Annelique asked.

"Gairanda? Is that the redheaded girl who never talks?" Winny asked in return.

"No, Gairanda's the one who is always passing out," Ishiar said. "We can't find her, and we're hoping she just passed out somewhere obscure. She's got greyish hair, built like liquid murder, but tends to wobble anyway? Ring a bell?"

"Uh...I'm not sure I know who you're talking about. The only one I see sneaking around is the redhead. What is her deal, anyway? She seems so...emo."

"She was stabbed through the heart with a weapon forged by the goddess of the death of worlds," Ishiar said.

Winny nodded. "That would do it."

"She was really very happy before," Annelique said. "I wish I could help her..."

"Well, if she got smote by a Goddess, I'm pretty sure you're outgunned there. Best of luck, though."

Ishiar huffed with frustration. Nobody they had talked to had seen Gairanda, and they had scoured every square inch of the Starslicer at least twice, and the fact that they had actually found Winny first essentially destroyed any remaining hope that she was just asleep in a corner.

"Was she one of the ones that everybody is after?" Winny asked.

"I don't know," Ishiar said. "As far as we can tell, the person with the most to fear from her is actually Cassandra."

"Why?"

"She sometimes picks up on people's thoughts."

"Really? What species is she?"

"Human. It happened after she got half-digested by a ghost...don't ask me how that's supposed to work. Pissed me off, too...she was one of the best fighters we had. But any emotions or thoughts as intense as combat always knocked her out."

"I wouldn't put it past Cassandra to have arranged for another ghost to finish the job," Winny said, "but I'm new on this ship, so if she did, I didn't get a chance to see it. You want me to keep an eye on Cassandra? See if she lets anything slip?"

"Can you keep yourself hidden?"

"Let me put it this way," Winny said as she pulled out a gigantic pistol--the same one she had taken out of the armory. "This is hers. She still doesn't have it. And probably never will again. But I'll be taking a risk...and technically she's the one who's paying me."

"You're saying you want something in return."

"Well, it certainly wouldn't hurt. I'd definately be more motivated."

Ishiar's face turned red as a strange expression crossed it--one of resigned frustration.

"What is it?" Annelique asked her.

"I've got dick for money, but so far everybody I've met has wanted a different kind of payment from me anyway," she said.

"What do you mean?"

Ishiar closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose. After exhaling and pausing for a moment, she turned back to Winny. "Winny, if you spy your guts out for us, I'll fuck you crosseyed."

Winny and Annelique's eyebrows shot up simultaneously.

"Seriously?" Winny asked.

"Yes. Seriously. I did it for Ralier, and she's not even human," Ishiar replied.

"Really? What did you want from her?"

"I don't even remember," Ishiar said honestly. "I just have this vague image of laying on top of her as she hauled me back, desperately clinging to what little consciousness I had left."

"Wait a minute, when did this happen?" Annelique asked, shocked that she wouldn't have noticed a budding romance between the two.

"It was back at Ushan's house, when you were in a coma of your own," Ishiar replied.

"Well, we know she's not on the ship," Annelique said, her face clearly worried. "Maybe she just went shopping in Ecilix and passed out somewhere...?"

They had no choice but to go back to Cassandra.

"No, she didn't leave..." Cassandra said. "I talked to the deck guards. When the rest of us left she went below deck. Somehow somebody got aboard the Starslicer...either that or they teleported her out. Either should have been very hard to do, but between the battle damage and the fact that we were so severely undercrewed..." Cassandra looked indignant--almost insulted. "Well, in any case, I've dealt with this kind of situation before. We have procedures."

"Like what?" Ishiar asked.

"Find out who took them, find out where they're being held, burn the place to the ground, and make a rescue raid in the confusion."

"Um...while I'll admit that that sounds more satisfying than just rescuing them, it also sounds a hell of a lot harder," Ishiar said.

"You'd be surprised," Cassandra said. "Think about it. They're going to build their entire defense around a rescue attempt. That practically gives you free reign of the rest of the place, provided you know what you're doing. So you go into all of those areas and plant explosives. If every alarm in the whole place is going off already, troops are vanishing left and right and half of the security measures are physically destroyed, who's going to be in any position to stop a group of heavily armed professional intruders? Sure, I don't do it that way every time, but I have yet to see it not work. Well, except for the times when security was too tight to do it in the first place..."

"But what if she's been killed?" Annelique asked.

"She hasn't. Trust me."

"How do you know?"

"Annie," Cassandra said, leveling a dark gaze at her, "you are their target. You and Ishiar. Whether she's under the weather or not, it takes some serious dedication to get aboard the Starslicer undetected. They wouldn't have wasted an operation like that on a secondary target like Gairanda unless they planned to use her to get to you."

"How do we find out who took her?"

"Usually they come to you...but you can't fight them on a battlefield that they choose. I'll find out who's in charge and we'll hit them on their home turf, where they don't expect us."

"Find out who's in charge? How are you gonna do that?" Ishiar asked.

Cassandra grinned. "I have my ways. Sufficed to say, I'm a seasoned professional in both arenas."

"What arenas?"

"Kidnapping people *and* getting them back," Cassandra said as she walked out.

******

It was less than a day later when Cassandra quietly motioned Ishiar into a side room.

"They didn't waste any time," Cassandra said, tossing a sheaf of paper down on the table. It was addressed to Annelique. It's writing was elegant cursive, penned in golden ink. It read:

~~~

Miss Annelique,

First, allow us to offer our warmest greetings and our regrets that our first contact must be under circumstances as this. We are writing regarding a friend of yours named Gairanda who has come under our care. We fear she has been injured, and due to some strange condition she bears our healers have had difficulty resolving the issue. We know of specialists who can perform the service, but we fear contacting them because--as we're sure you are aware--there is a bounty on Gairanda's head, and those who are willing to work descretely and under such circumstances are prohibitively expensive. We believe the safest option for all concerned would be for us to remit her to you. Please come in person; we do not know whether this letter will be intercepted by others who might attempt to capture her.

Sincerely,

Lady Bataen, Leerin Court of the Orchid Fane

~~~

"...She was dumb enough to tell us she's from the Orchid Fane?" Ishiar said.

"Shannon keeps tight security..." Cassandra said. "This may sound odd, but I don't think the Orchids know that we've been told about their plans."

"They don't think the mighty Cassandra the Corsair could have figured it out?"

"They probably don't think anybody has figured it out," Cassandra said. "Publicly they've joined the Alliance, and the Orchids aren't stupid about secrets. I guarantee that 99% of the Orchids on this planet don't know what the master plan is, and the remainder aren't going to squeal on their own plans."

"So how did Shannon find out?"

"Shannon is sharper than you give her credit for..." Cassandra admitted grudgingly. "She doesn't protect her employers and attack her enemies. She protects her employer's interests and attacks her enemy's interests. So she always makes sure she knows both. And I'm sure she is keeping her knowledge of their plan secret as well...if word gets out that she knows, that knowledge becomes useless to her. She only told us because you are one of the alliance's top priorities now."

"What? Since when?"

"When they found out why Aerothi was after all of you," Cassandra said. "Shannon told them everything."

"So this Lady Bataen expects Annelique to be dumb enough to buy this crap, knowing she's a demon?"

"Not as such," Cassandra said. "This is standard procedure for Orchid ransom notes...tt's sort of a game Orchids play. They hide their threats in flowery double-talk, but they fully expect you to see through it. They tried to send it to Annelique because she's the one who's sentimental enough to try to go out there alone, knowingly trading her life for Gairanda's."

"Which we aren't going to let her do."

"No we're not. Bataen made one big stupid mistake, and it wasn't the fact that she used her real name--it's that she wrote the letter personally."

"You can analyze the ink or something...?"

"If I had to, I'm sure I could find somebody," Cassandra said. "But in this case it's much simpler. Elvet was taught how to read mental imprints on objects, and she's one hell of a detective when she wants to be. She was able to pick up what Bataen was seeing and thinking when she wrote the letter. We analyzed the room, and I'm almost sure I know where she was when she wrote it and where Gairanda is. And we've got a perfect opportunity to hit them."

"Which is?"

"Elvet caught a glimpse of Bataen' plan. They were going to arrange for an ambush in a spot in the wilderness and then contact Annelique directly, telling her to fly to their location. But they haven't moved yet. We can get there first and ambush them," Cassandra said.

"I'm sure you're enjoying this," Ishiar replied.

Cassandra looked back at her and half-grinned, but it seemed to be competing with a somber mask for control of her face. Soon the mask took over and her expression turned serious.

"Ishiar...how many Orchids do you think you could take on?"

"I don't know...I've never fought one before. How many will there be?"

"Probably two dozen, plus Bataen--assuming we wait until they're set up. I'm guessing they'll have four people escorting Gairanda herself--if we can drop them fast enough we can make off with her and Elvet can come pick us up. But we may get bogged down and have to fight until she gets to us. We'll still have better odds than if we did things their way, but there are no guarantees."

"So why don't we just take the whole crew?"

"They're not dumb. If they see even one of us they'll scarper. I do have some tricks up my sleeve," there was suddenly a clattering as three objects--rings, from the look of it--literally fell from her sleeve onto the table, "...but only so many. These will keep pretty much anyone short of a top-notch sniffer from detecting us, but I've only got the three. One for me, one for Gairanda, and one for whoever comes with me. I need Elvet to stay to fly the ship, I can't trust any of the new recruits with something this important, and none of the old guard are up to this--they're mostly the crew who stayed out of the battle because they weren't fighters. When you were fighting the Zadiians, you seemed to be blasting through them pretty efficiently...I'd say you're the only other person onboard who could break out of there if things turn south. I obviously can't make you go, and we'd both be taking a risk...well, I wouldn't so much, but you might be..."

"Where is this spot that they plan to take her?"

"It's a clearing in a forest a jillion miles from anything even remotely resembling civilization. They don't want anyone wandering in while they were setting up all of their traps and hiding places. And they know nobody will, because the forest is supposedly the hunting ground for some terrifying mythical beast; it's in Dire Star territory and even they won't go near it."

Ishiar did her best to hide her suspicion--Cassandra was asking her to accompany her to unknown destination alone. And, while Cassandra hadn't come right out and said it, she had been furnished with an excellent excuse not to tell Annelique that she was doing it. Everything Cassandra was saying made sense, but she had a feeling that it would be a bad idea to assume Cassandra couldn't trick her. In fact, if Cassandra lied nearly as well as she seemed to do everything else, she could have been a hydra in disguise and Ishiar wouldn't have been able to tell. Things made a little too much sense.

Especially that last part--a giant mythical monster that Cassandra could conveniently blame when only one of them came back.

"I think we should bring someone else with us," Ishiar said. "We have three rings. We should press the advantage."

"I'd love to, but you have to remember--we not only have to get Gairanda, but we have to transport her out. We can't assume she'll be able to defend herself, and even I can't fight all that well if I'm running through a forest carrying another person on my shoulder."

"We can bring Annelique. We grab Gairanda, put the ring on her, we three run, and Annie flies. Demons are shitty fliers--they'd never catch her."

Cassandra thought for a moment. "That's true..."

There was a long pause.

"...Well?" Ishiar asked.

"I'm just trying to measure the odds...they'll have equipment to bring Annelique down, because she's the one they expect to fight. They'll have nets, harpoons, crossbows, and possibly some dark angels...they, unlike most demons, are just as good of flyers as angels. And you can bet they'll be bringing the fastest they can get their hands on for exactly that reason."

"But will they have enough to beat Annelique in combat?"

"...I don't know. Just between you and me, I think she could fight her way out if worst came to worst, but that's the kind of assumption that you don't get a second chance to be wrong about," Cassandra said. "Honestly, I'd rather not have both of the Orchid's main targets in the same place at the same time--especially if the one they're prepared for is the one they can see."

"Can we at least see what she thinks about the idea?"

"I suppose, but don't go blurting it out right away. We don't want her flying off to get killed."

"...Whatever."

Meanwhile, Annelique herself was walking along the deck of the Starslicer, slowly pacing back and forth as something continued to gnaw at her. Her angelic instincts, once again giving her a formless warning...she felt like she needed to leave. But it wasn't just that...there was somewhere she needed to go. Somewhere specific.

Every time she tried to think of where it was, she got an image of Eronmar and of Gairanda--but that much was obvious enough. Of course Gairanda would be on her mind. But there was something...wrong about that interpretation. That wasn't it. But every time she tried to think of what else it could be, that's all she got.

She was pacing for an hour before it hit her.

Eronmar.

Not *just* Gairanda. Eronmar itself. That's where she needed to be.

She considered asking Cassandra to take them there, but she was seized with a strange sense of forboding any time she did...like a stormcloud hovering near her head.

But then, she had been feeling that a lot lately.

And it wasn't exactly hard to explain why. As far as Annelique knew, Aerothi was still using Eronmar as her headquarters. Landing the Starslicer in the middle of the fortress might be a tad suicidal.

Then again, Cassandra had already snuck them in once...

...and Annelique's mind stung her when she remembered her original plans for sneaking them back out again.

It felt like everyone had become suspicious of Cassandra. Only Elvet seemed unaffected; she seemed to trust her captain implicitly. That was what ultimately gave Annelique her faith in Cassandra's good intentions. If Elvet believed in her, so would she.

It was on that note that the doors leading below deck swung open, revealing Cassandra and Ishiar.

"Annie, we need to talk," Ishiar said.

"I know. I think I...well, I have this feeling about something we need to do."

Cassandra raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Ishiar asked.

"We need to go to Eronmar."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"That's...not very convincing," Ishiar said. "You need to be sure. That's Aerothi's fortress, remember? The one we've all nearly died in at least once? Well, everybody except me..."

"Well, I--I know it's not really--I just--" she stammered for a moment. "You know, sometimes it's frustrating being an angel," she said as she ran her hand through her curly hair.

"You don't have any idea why?" Cassandra asked.

"It...I feel like it has something to do with Gairanda, but...it's not where she is. Or something. Like, she's not there, but we need to go there before we can find her."

"I don't mind telling you I'm a bit wary of this idea," Cassandra said. "On the other hand, your hunches tend to be right..."

"Can you sneak us in there?" Ishiar asked. "Without eating us this time?"

"Probably. The Starslicer has very solid stealth, and I can fill up on donuts before we get there," she said with an evil smile. "The question is, can you do whatever it is you're going to do there without getting killed."

"Um...I think so..." Annelique said. "I hope so..."

Cassandra drummed her fingers on her hips for a moment before responding. "Okay. I'll fly you there and watch your back. Just don't do anything that could be construed as courageous, alright?"

******

The trip to Eronmar was quite short--so short that Annelique didn't actually know how long it was. Cassandra insisted that they both disguise themselves, and while she was a fast and sometimes reckless pilot, she was apparently a very slow and methodical disguise artist. Annelique was a little frightened when she looked in the mirror; her hair curled in the wrong direction, it crowned her head like a wave rather than simply framing her face, and it was suddenly reddish brown instead of black. Her wings were no longer white; they were striped in spots and ended in grey tips, more like a bird than an angel. Blush and makeup had been applied to her face, giving her cheeks a rosy appearance. That was probably the most disturbing thing. They had already been rosy, but now they were rosy *in the wrong place.* It was quite convincing--she saw all of those characteristics in angels at Golden Star Hall--but it shocked her slightly to see herself that way. She truly did look like a different person.

Cassandra was even more extreme. She apparently was only interested in making sure no one recognized her--she didn't seem to care how much attention she drew to herself. She had made herself up to look like some sort of voluptuous love-goddess, geared like a warrior but clearly intended to provoke a carnal response. She had not recolored her hair, but had pinned it up instead--that single act seemed to change her entire appearance from cocky pirate to regal noble--and she had removed her trademark black scale armor in favor of a blue adamant breastplate that was clearly padded to ridiculous proportions. (Annelique knew from sleeping with Cassandra that her breasts were NOT naturally capable of producing that kind of cleavage.) The breastplate vanished into a set of armored leggings that seemed almost strategically designed not to cover any of a girl's important curves. In fact, they seemed designed to accentuate them, and even take their place when necessary.

Ishiar was the first to comment on this. "Um, Cassandra," she said, "not that *I* mind, per se, and I'm certainly not eager to cater to your already enormous ego, but I think that outfit is going to cause everybody in the whole city to leak honey at prodigous rates. Don't you think it'd be better to go with something a little more...subtle?"

"Do I look like myself?" Cassandra asked as she applied a layer of ruby-red lipstick.

"Not really."

"And are you looking at Annie?"

"...No."

"Mission accomplished," Cassandra said with a flirtatious smile. She blew Ishiar a kiss before leading Annelique out of the room, every step bouncing with enthusiasm as though they were going on a date. Apparently she was just as comfortable reinventing her personality as she was her appearance.

They had been gone for less than a minute before Ishiar started cursing herself. She had let her guard down when Cassandra agreed to follow Annelique's suggestion, but now she realized it just meant that instead of going off alone with Cassandra herself, she had inadvertently let Annelique do it!

She scrambled out of the room, but made no attempt to intercept the pair that had just left--instead, she made all haste to the last place she had seen Blast. The skinny redhead was sitting cross-legged on a bench, listening to one of the new crewmembers tell stories about the last ship she had been on. (Apparently it had been eaten by a giant squid.)

"Blast," Ishiar said quickly, "can you make me look different?"

Blast simply stared back at her for a moment, but only for a moment--her lips quickly turned into a broad smile, and Ishiar suddenly felt like a mouse that had just asked a Naga for directions to the nearest toilet. Meeting Blast's gaze was like the mouse staring up at the Naga's eyes and realizing just what an incredibly stupid thing it had just done.

But it was too late. Blast was already nodding, and while the motion of her head was slow, it only seemed to intensify the incredible enthusiasm that Ishiar could feel like heat on her skin.

As Blast hopped off the bench and started pulling out beakers, Ishiar steeled herself for the mayhem she was sure she was about to experience.

******

Annelique really had no idea what she was looking for. She hated to admit to herself that all she was really doing was wandering the streets hoping something good would happen. If this aimlessness bothered Cassandra, however, she certainly wasn't showing it; she was wandering around flirting with everything that was capable of speech. Incredibly, no one ever took her up on it; she always had a way of making the idea seem horrible at the last minute. "Oh, my other lover is a Thaegon, I just wanted to make sure you were cool with that before we get home?"--"Oh, you are so gorgeous I could just eat you up! *sudden guilty look, followed by very quickly changing the subject*" "Sure, I'd love to see your place! You live alone, right? Yeah, I just figured we'd be more...*comfortable* that way. And, um, nobody ever comes to visit? It's just that I wouldn't want someone to walk in on us...also, just out of curousity...how big is your bathroom?" "Oh yes, please! I'd do anything to get away from my current girlfriend...she's *crazy.* And not 'throw a tantrum because you didn't fold the sheets' crazy, she's like 'I'll only burp you up if you solemnly swear to stop looking at other girls that way' crazy...I just hope she's not following me like she was last time..." "Oh, I don't think I've ever felt this way towards a Naga before. I just might be in love...heh, my grandmother freaks out every time I say that. What? Oh, it's just this crazy story about a curse, the last daughter of each generation being doomed to eat their first lover or something like that...just because my mom did doesn't mean everybody's going to! Jeez! No, I'm not the youngest, I'm an only child. Heh, no, I doubt I'll ever have a little sister, seeing as my mom got eaten by a giant clam. Why?"

There were so many stories and so much repartee that Annelique could barely focus on trying to figure out why she was there; it was all she could do not to stare at Cassandra. Not that it would have mattered much; it's what pretty much everyone else was doing. Which was probably not only Cassandra's intention, but a source of incredible personal satisfaction for her. For someone supposedly renowned for her stealth, she sure seemed to enjoy being in the spotlight.

She was so distracted trying not to look at Cassandra that she almost jumped out of her skin when Cassandra came to her, bearing news.

"I don't know if this is why you're here, but I just overheard that a monster called Gehenna is being held in a high security cell here in Eronmar."

"So?"

"So, the place that our little friends plan to stick our other little friend is in a spot where they figured they could count on having their privacy. They figured this on account of the fact that all of the locals were scared to death of a monster called Gehenna that supposedly prowled the region."

Annelique felt a little tingle. "You think we should check it out?"

"Yes. Yes I do."

******

Ishiar wasn't sure how to feel about the job Blast had done. Though she was thankful she still had arms, at least. And a head. Most of the rest of her had been changed into a gigantic snake's tail.

As it turns out, Blast had only fed her one potion, and it was fairly simple--if still a bit shocking. She hadn't been sure which was more disorienting--looking in the mirror and seeing a naga, or having all of the sensations of her legs vanish, replaced with a plethora of new ones; a seemingly endless tunnel of strange muscles rippling beneath skin shifting beneath slick scales as they slid along the ground. Within this strange mass was an unbelievably long stomach that stretched from where she figured her knees should have been and further back than she could really wrap her mind around. She had fallen over at first, thinking Blast had turned her lower half into a tree root or something. She got the hang of it quickly enough once she realized what had happened, but it was still very odd.

She was so busy looking back at her tail in shock that she didn't even notice Blast braiding her hair until she was halfway done. When she noticed she just let her work, letting her gaze settle in the mirror; she looked exactly as she had before, except that her hips now vanished into a naga's tail.

Blast didn't bother with makeup; she just produced a top hat from who knows where and pulled it down over Ishiar's head. That seemed strange enough, but Blast's hands didn't stop there. They dissected and removed Ishiar's clothing with frightening speed, replacing it with a single bow tie before Ishiar even had time to object.

"Hey, wait--I can't just go in there with my--"

Her arms shot up to cover her breasts. Even as they did, her eyebrow raised in the mirror.

"Wh...these were NOT that big..."

She looked down at Blast, who was sitting cross-legged on a nearby bench. She seemed to think she was done.

"Uh, Blast, I can't go out there like this. First of all, except for the tail, I still look like *me,* and second...I'm hanging out all over the place."

Blast looked indignant for a moment before grudgingly hopping off the bench and scampering into the next room.

"HEY!" Ishiar heard Ralier yell. "Not you too! Come back here with that! Don't think I won't eat you just because--"

Blast skipped back in with Ralier's bra and tied it around Ishiar's breasts. Ralier was hot on her heels, but she stopped short the second she saw Ishiar.

"I...uh...wow," she said. Her eyes were wide. "Um...welcome to the family?"

"Thanks," Ishiar said as Blast tied a dark cloth around her face, making her look like a masked bandit. A very ridiculous masked bandit, what with the top had and bow tie.

While she was still nervous about being recognized, she wasn't sure she wanted any more help.

"So...um...thanks, Blast. I guess I'll just go now..." she said. "Wish me luck..."

Blast gave her a thumbs up.

Ishiar slithered out of the room as best she could. As she was leaving, she heard Ralier make one final comment towards Blast.

"This is your fault, isn't it?"

Blast just giggled.

Since then Ishiar had ditched the top hat and bow tie, deciding they drew more attention than they were worth, but she grudgingly kept the makeshift mask. It may have been slightly suspicious, but less dangerous than someone seeing her face. In either case, once she caught up with Annelique and Cassandra, she still had to keep her distance. She didn't want to bet on Cassandra not recognizing her, and sure as hell didn't want to place her bets on Cassandra not realizing someone was following her, so she followed them entirely by the sounds they were making. Cassandra was making this fairly easy, since she was apparently trying to draw attention away from her angel companion by being as loud as possible. Or maybe she just saw it as another opportunity to be boisterous. In any case, they seemed to simply be wandering around the city. Ishiar actually had to double back or head down another street several times because they had randomly turned around and were heading towards her. They didn't seem to spot her...for a while, at least. She wasn't sure if it was because Cassandra had somehow noticed her, but both she and Annelique eventually went quiet. She couldn't hear Cassandra speaking to anyone. After a minute or two she chanced a look down the road they had been on; she glanced at them just in time to see them turning a corner. It was quite a ways away from her; far enough that they could be anywhere by the time she reached it.

"Shit!" she compulsively hissed to herself. Looking around and rifling through her mental map of the city, she did her best to improvise a shortcut that would give her a chance of catching up with them a bit...assuming they kept heading in the same direction. She started to slither as quickly as she could; it was faster than she had expected, but slower than her human body could run.

She turned through several streets and alleys, looking frantically for her quarry. She reached the end of her supposed shortcut and there was no sign of them. She was about to leave when she spotted them in the corner of her eye. They were heading down another street and into one of the stone-paved tunnels that led underground.

She recognized it well; it was the one that led to the dungeons.

"Cassandra, you whore, I knew it!" she growled to herself.

She reached for her sword, but her hands grasped nothing but air.

Then she remembered--she was wearing a kari's bra and half of a ninja mask. And nothing else. No sword, no scabbard, no belt. Her hips had nothing but skin and scales.

"DAMMIT!" she yelled.

Well, she *was* a Naga, as far as she knew...if all else failed, maybe she could just eat her.

Doing her best to push her new body along, she powered her way down the road towards the dungeon entrance.

******

Cassandra did the brunt of the work of talking their way into the dungeon, though ironically she was often honest--"I want to see if this Gehenna is really as scary as everybody says!" she would say, rubbing her hands together and fidgeting with excitement.

"Okay, it's your funeral," they would say. "Pity to let such a hot ass go to waste. Hell, if all you want is to get eaten, I can do that myself."

"Oh, you!"

It wasn't until they had nearly reached the cell block that Cassandra finally dropped her facade. "Wow," she said quietly. "I haven't had so many overt offers to eat me since I ran silver adamant for the Gurglemeisters."

The dungeon was about two thirds full, and only a handful of the prisoners were human. There were several large monsters, but one of them immediately stuck out simply because it seemed so...mutated. It was a massive creature that looked like a scorpion, a phoenix, a lion and a human had shared a bed for far too long. While most of the monsters were simply sulking or complaining about how hungry they were, this monster was spinning grandiose tales of her own exploits with broken, dishevelled speech.

This was, without question, Gehenna--if nothing else, the fact that she referred to herself in the third person made it pretty easy to tell.

In front of Gehenna's cell was an even stranger creature; a humanoid with smooth, light skin, a stark contrast to the raven-black hair that cascaded freely down it's shoulders. It practically vanished into the sheen of black silk that covered most of her body. Those parts which were not covered by the silken robe revealed a hint of a black leather bodice beneath. She had talons like glittering crystal and eyes that gleamed in a way that could best be described as unnatural. What was most unsettling, however, were the small black tendrils that wafted off of her, the most prominent being a large set coming out of her back that resembled wings of a sort. She was simply sitting quietly, not confined by any cell. She was completely motionless. Whether she was merely transfixed by Gehenna's stories was difficult to tell; her eyes were not particularly revealing, and her expression was calm and distant.

A few feet behind her, Annelique heard Cassandra whispering to the guard.

"Who's that?"

"The giant thing or the weirdo?"

"The weirdo."

"I don't know. They unlocked her a few hours ago and she's just been listening to the monster tell terrifying stories since then. I wish I could say the stories are exaggerated."

"What makes you say that?"

"That's Gehenna. Apparently *the* Gehenna."

"That's...odd..."

"Tell me about it. What I don't get is why they didn't just kill her."

"GEHENNA UNKILLABLE!" Gehenna yelled with a smile; it didn't seem defiant so much as proud. "Humans could kill stars before they could kill Gehenna!"

"It's interesting that you should say that," Annelique said. "The one who took you captive is trying to keep this planet from being eaten by a monster the size of a planet."

"Ahh...maybe that's why they capture Gehenna! They want Gehenna to hunt planet-eating monster for them!" Gehenna smiled again. "Gehenna like angel. Angel smell good. Angel come closer, Gehenna not hunt you today," the creature beckoned.

Annelique's heart fluttered nervously, but she took a few cautious steps towards the cell. She was almost as nervous about the monster's would-be companion, and she made sure to keep a fair distance between them.

"So, um, my name's--"

"*HI,* I'm Tanya and this is Rachel!" Cassandra interrupted rather loudly, bouncing over to where Annelique was. Annelique's breath almost caught in her throat as she realized she had almost told them her real name without even thinking.

"Human smell like perfume and makeup," Gehenna said. "Not as good as angel."

"Thanks, it's lilac!" Cassandra said with a stupefyingly ditzy smile.

"So what are your names?" Annelique asked.

"Gehenna!" the monster boomed.

"Liliandra," the strange person on the floor said plainly.

"Oh, you're--" Annelique started, before realizing she had no way to finish that sentence.

"...I'm what?" Liliandra asked, still motionless except for her eyes, which idly flicked towards Annelique.

"You're...um...Liliandra."

"Oh, Rache, you're so dumb!" Cassandra said with another ditzy smile, rubbing her knuckles into Annelique's head for emphasis.

"Thanks, *Tanya.*"

For a moment, Liliandra's gaze moved from Annelique to the guard. Then it returned to Annelique, and her lips pursed into a smile.

"Rachel..." she said, as if to herself. "You're a very pretty angel, Rachel."

"Th...thank you," Annelique said. "You're pretty too," she added, not sure whether she was telling the truth or not--the woman was a bit too unnerving to evaluate. She was like Ushan in a way--on the surface it had always seemed that she was physically beautiful, but she had always been too estranged by the fact that she was a succubus. And an eccentric succubus, at that.

Something about that thought stuck. And struck. As she looked at Liliandra, she realized she wasn't just reminded of Ushan by her odd nature; she actually looked like her. Her chin was less angular and her curves weren't quite so extreme, but overall she had many of the same features. Those that didn't still seemed eerily familiar, but not because they looked anything like Ushan. If anything, they reminded her of the faces she saw in Brightwind.

"Liliandra, d--do you...did you have a mother?"

"Many," Liliandra said. "Some in body, some in spirit."

"Which...who were the ones in body?"

"I never learned their names," Liliandra said, the slightest hint of sorrow in her otherwise inflectionless voice.

"Wh...do you know what they were?"

"In body, an angel and a succubus. In spirit, a warrior. Her name I remember, for it echoed within my egg like a song as I grew."

"...What was her name?"

"Ishiar."

Annelique bit her tongue.

"Is that why they tossed you in this cage? Shah! Rude!" Cassandra said.

"No...I was born in this cage," Liliandra said. "I was returned to it for reasons unknown to me, and released for reasons unknown to me."

"Maybe they scared of Liliandra, like they scared of Gehenna!" Gehenna said. "So scared they let her go!"

Liliandra's eyes narrowed in thought. "That would be a pleasant truth. But truth it is not. I proved inferior to their warriors."

"Warriors of this place strong," Gehenna said with a nod. "Warriors strong enough to hunt Gehenna must frighten Goddesses themselves. Maybe that why they put Gehenna deep underground; they afraid that if Goddesses see that mortals have defeated Gehenna, they will have to attack mortals, or run from mortals!"

Liliandra smiled.

"I...didn't know monsters knew about Goddesses," Annelique said.

"I totally didn't either!" Cassandra tittered. "Isn't that crazy?"

"Many Goddesses. I have heard many Goddesses names, as humans and monsters beg them to protect from Gehenna's hunt!" Gehenna made a set of sounds that were half laughter, half growl. "But Goddesses know better than to try to stop Gehenna!"

Annelique half-smiled. She knew she needed to talk to Liliandra, but she didn't want to do it in full view of the enemy.

"Uh, Liliandra...I'm glad you think I'm pretty...uh...would you like to...come back to my place?" she said in a way that was as unconvincing as it was awkward.

"Oooooo!" Cassandra sung coyly. "I hope I can come!"

Annelique meekly clung to the hope that Cassandra's acting skills were enough to make up for her own...

Liliandra looked unmoved; neither excited at the prospect, nor dismissive of it. In fact, her gaze was in the direction of the guards when she replied.

"I suppose," she said.

She rose with a strange, fluid grace--one Annelique had seen before. Now there could be no doubt--if all she had seen were a silhouette, she would have sworn it was Ushan herself. Even her posture was the same; the way she held herself on one leg, allowing the other to rise as though she were lying on her back, beckoning a lover to her.

But the white skin and black tendrils reminded her very firmly...this was *not* Ushan. While she felt a kinship with her, she was also a little bit...afraid of her.

"Come back soon," Gehenna said. "Gehenna wants to eat jailors much less when Liliandra here."

"Yeah, come back soon," one of the guards said. "Because I think she's got a point."

*****

Ishiar was almost flabbergasted that no one had tried to arrest her. She had been caught by several guards, asking what she was doing.

"Uh...going down to the dungeon?" she had said, for lack of a better idea.

Somehow that seemed to be good enough. They all seemed to have their own little bizarre responses, though, ranging from "alright, but don't touch anything" to "okay, but be warned, it actually is *the* Gehenna, so don't do anything stupid." She vaguely suspected Cassandra had given them stupid pills of some sort, but she wasn't about to complain.

Though this gave her more or less free reign, Ishiar had been wandering around the dungeon for entirely too long by the time she finally heard Annelique's voice. Following it, she ended up heading towards the deepest part of the dungeon. Strangely, she seemed to be having a normal conversation--she wasn't cursing Cassandra for betraying her or anything.

She decided to remain hidden; she just waved to the guards on her side of the door and they nodded, not seeming to care when she moved next to one of them so she could hear what was going on inside. It was largely nonsense to her; she seemed to have arrived a bit too late in the conversation. It grabbed her attention quite firmly when she heard her name, however:

"...What was her name?" Annelique had said.

"Ishiar," an unfamiliar voice replied.

She was suddenly seized with an almost irresistable curiousity as to who was on the other side of that doorway, but she wasn't willing to reveal herself to Cassandra--not yet. Though it seemed she hadn't stabbed Annelique in the back yet, Ishiar figured she would feel a lot better knowing Annelique had made the entire round trip.

Soon Annelique had asked the stranger--"Liliandra"--to come back with them. Ishiar headed down the hallway and turned a side corner, not wanting Cassandra to see her as they left. For the guards' sake she did it as casually as she could, but she still hustled.

She turned the corner and waited. She heard the sounds of the others leaving. She waited a few more moments before coming down the hallway again.

"Are they gone?" she whispered to one of the guards.

"As far as I know. Why?"

"Ex-girlfriend," Ishiar replied. She glanced into the prison; neither Annelique nor Cassandra were there. She started heading back up to the city, hoping to get back to the Starslicer before Cassandra did--or at least before she took off.

She didn't make it far. The second she reached a hallway that was out of earshot of the guards, she got jumped from behind--literally. Someone leapt onto her back, wrapping their legs around her waist and using one arm to wrap around both of hers, them back. One of her attacker's hands gripped her hair and pulled it back even as the other brought the point of a dagger up to Ishiar's throat. She flailed around with her tail and her arms, but her struggles were basically useless--her tail couldn't do much to someone who was already clinging to her back, and both of her arms were pinned to one extent or another. As she squirmed she felt the dagger being pushed into her throat and she grudgingly stopped.

She heard a voice just as she recognized the smell of lilac perfume.

"Ishiar?" Cassandra said from behind her.

"Cassandra, I presume?" Ishiar grunted from beneath her grip.

Cassandra got off of her, looking at her in what seemed to be genuine bewilderment.

"Wow...What the fuck?" she said, her eyes darting back and forth between Ishiar's body and her tail. She knelt down to poke at it. "This thing's real!" she said, half chuckling. "Who the hell did *this?*"

Just then, Ishiar heard Annelique's voice, coming from a nearby stairwell.

"Is that Ishiar? What's going on?"

Annelique came trotting down the stairs. She didn't seem surprised at all when she saw Ishiar.

"Who's that?" she asked.

Cassandra sighed--amused as much as anything else--and pulled down Ishiar's mask with one finger.

Annelique's jaw dropped and she almost fell backwards. "Ishiar!?"

"Yes," Ishiar said, a hint of frustration in her voice as she glanced back at Cassandra.

Annelique jogged over, looking at her body in obvious astonishment. "W--what happened to you?"

"Let's just say my disguise artist's methods differed from yours."

"Your disguise artist?" Annelique said in an absurd tone. "Who are you even--" She stopped. "Blast did this, didn't she."

"Blast?" Cassandra repeated. "Blast turned you into a naga," she said incredulously, turning to Ishiar.

"Yes," Ishiar said. "You wouldn't be surprised if you had been around her for as long as we have. In retrospect I'm lucky I still have a face."

"True enough--if you hadn't, I probably would have killed you," Cassandra said.

"How did you know it was me so fast, anyway?" Ishiar asked. "You obviously didn't know when you attacked me, unless you were just doing it for funsies."

Cassandra rapped her knuckles on the kari-shell bra she had "borrowed" from Ralier. "This sort of struck me as familiar. Then I got a better look at your hair, which made me lean a bit closer...and that's when I realized you were wearing one of my nightshirts on your face."

"Figures..." Ishiar said.

"That's really sharp work, though," Cassandra said. "Have you been following us this whole time? I honestly had no idea. And that's *hard.*"

"Well, I knew you'd recognize me anyway, so I just followed your voices..."

"Good call. That's one of the things I train my crew to do...Marion could pick out a whispering pixie at a Ruby Chord rock concert," Cassandra said. "Pity she got eaten by one of Mnokugura's little fucking death monsters..." she added with a tinge of annoyance.

Suddenly, all three girls turned as Liliandra's voice came from the end of the hall.

"Mother..." she said. She was standing next to the stairway Annelique had come from, staring at Ishiar.

Ishiar looked back at her. "So you're the one who they were talking to in there."

Liliandra had a very different look on her face now; she seemed childlike. Innocent. Almost...vulnerable.

"I...didn't think I would ever see you," she said.

"Wait a minute. You..." Ishiar's voice became quiet. "...you're Ushan's daughter."

"You know her name..." Liliandra said with a faint smile. "Ushan..."

"How do you know her?" Annelique asked emphatically.

"I don't, but...look at her," Ishiar said. "She's..."

She stopped.

"What?"

"I...hell, I dunno. Lucky guess, I guess..."

"Well, she does look a lot like her," Annelique said.

"Yeah, but I didn't even realize that until after I said it," Ishiar said. She had a strange look on her face, as though she was unnerved by her own reaction. "And she's definately not a succubus."

"Yeah...what exactly are you?" Cassandra asked.

Liliandra looked down. She raised one hand, studying her fingers and their shining talons. She closed her eyes and felt along her back; the ethereal black wings that had been there before had vanished. The two enigmas that she felt were uniquely hers, even if she did not understand them.

When she opened her eyes again, they seemed distant, as though she was contemplating something. A warm smile came to her lips, and her arms moved across her as though she were embracing herself as she answered:

"I am Ushan's daughter."

As they looked at her, they realized she wasn't being facetious or evasive; if anything, she was relishing that moment, as though she was discovering it for the first time herself.

And indeed she was.

"Okay...so are we done here, then?" Cassandra said plainly.

"Yes, I think so," Annelique said with a smile. "Welcome to our family, Liliandra."