Maeve's eyes didn't stray from Gael as he stitched up the girl's back, looking half-dead. He'd been supplying her with his blood this entire time using his Art, and the toll it'd taken on him was obvious. He was just barely functioning as he worked. She wouldn't be surprised if he dropped dead right after finishing his surgery, and… that feverish determination was almost maddening to watch.

A Plagueplain Doctor was doing his all to save an innocent life.

What about her?

Gritting her teeth, she thumbed the stop button on her umbrella. The constant swirl of blood ceased, leaving them exposed, and the wet garden around them felt suddenly oppressive, the walls of the orphanage barely visible through the mists of acid rain.

The three Myrmur hounds were still staggering around in the distance, clearly in pain from their severed umbilical cords. They were disoriented—like rabid animals trying to find their footing after losing their prey—but they were still dangerous. Too dangerous for her to ignore and let run away from the orphanage in search of prey to bring down with them.

But Maeve didn't move towards them yet. Instead, her eyes shifted to the other threats. The three-headed hounds—the ones that'd just finished eating Gael's giant man-eating flower—had their sights set on her. They glared at her with eyes full of malice, and the moment they finally caught clear sight of her with her blood dome down, they lunged.

She didn't flinch. She didn't hesitate.

Her grip tightened on the umbrella handle. She swung it, a sharp, controlled arc that connected with the first of the hounds, sending it flying sideways into the rusted wall of the garden. The force of the blow shook the ground beneath her feet, but she didn't stop there. Another strike, another hound knocked back. It tried to get back up, snapping its snarling jaws, but Maeve didn't give it a chance to regain its footing. She swung again in a two-hit sequence, and the second and third hounds flew sideways, crumpling into the dirt.

One left.

It came at her with a speed that caught her a bit off guard, teeth bared and claws reaching for her throat but she reacted on instinct. She raised the umbrella just in time to block, the force of its charge reverberating up through her arms, making her stagger back and almost lose her balance.

But she held firm.

With a low growl, she twisted her umbrella one last time, sending the hound crashing into the side of a garden pillar. It howled as it collapsed, its body crumpling in a heap.

Good.

Now… they're all out.

She exhaled, her breath shaky as she caught her balance. Her heart was still pounding in her chest, but there was no time to rest. She needed to focus. Her attention shifted back to the three Myrmur hounds who were still stumbling around in pain. They were different now. Disconnected from their host, their feeding grounds were gone, so it was only a matter of time before they either turned on each other or something else in their desperation to stay alive, futile as it may be.

But she didn't expect them to start lurching towards each other, bodies twisting.

Her stomach churned as her gaze slowly wandered up. After all, she could do little but watch in horrified fascination as they fused, limbs writhing, bones cracking, melding together into a gigantic, grotesque form. And the combined Nightspawn towered over her. Its three heads snapped at each other, its hound-like body was swollen and misshapen, large chunks of chitinous plates covered random patches of its skin, while three pairs of ragged cicada wings vibrated from its back.

Maeve's breath hitched.

Individually, they may have been D-Rank Myrmurs, but she didn't even need to see their interface to know they'd be classified as C-Rank unofficially. It was a singular Myrmur that seemed to resemble the three-headed hounds she'd just fought, but not quite.

… Her hands tightened around her umbrella once more. Tired and drained as she may be, she couldn't afford to show fear. Not now.

She had to be able to do at least this much.

Focus.

Before she could make a move, however, a blur of movement caught her attention. From the edges of the garden, five multi-armed shadows sprang to life.

Repossessors.

Fergal led the charge, his spider arms flailing wildly as he leapt onto the side of the massive Myrmur's leftmost head. Five other Repossessors followed him, leaping onto the Myrmur from all four cardinal directions and more, and these men had weapons in hand: giant knives, buzzing saws, and nail-spiked hammers, all of them equally crude and mismatched.

While the Myrmur screeched and stumbled back, evidently startled, Fergal and the Repossessors crawled, dashed, and jumped up and around the clumsy three-headed hound, their fists and weapons slamming into its body. Each strike landed with sickening force, cutting, smashing, and cracking deep into the creature's chitinous hide. They all had Advanced Jumping Spider Classes, if Maeve had to reckon. Their movements were lightning fast, a blur of arms and legs as they hacked away at the monster like buzzing flies.

And there were more where they came from.

Her gaze flicked around as more Repossessors charged into the garden. About thirty of them, all armed with harpoon rifles, sprinted through the open doors on all sides while shouting incoherently. There was no need for coordinated fire. Wherever one got a good angle, they pulled the trigger and fired a harpoon into a random part of the Myrmur's body before stabbing the rifle into the ground, keeping the Myrmur from thrashing too wildly.

"Maeve!"

Maeve turned just in time to see Cara, rushing into the garden alongside the rest of the Repossessors. Her voice was familiar and comforting, but more important than that, there was something else in her tone: encouragement.

"Finish the job!"

Her chest tightened at the sound of Cara's voice. The Repossessors were buying her time and space, and she wasn't going to waste any more of it.

She leapt.

Heated blood rushing through her veins pushed her forward. She shot across the garden, jumped over the writhing Myrmur's heads with her enhanced strength, and mid-air—vaulting over its back—she trained her umbrella on its leftmost head.

One, two, three—each blood shot pierced through a skull with deadly precision. Its heads were surprisingly weak as well, no doubt because the three Myrmurs weren't actually biologically combined, but she wasn't going to complain about that now.

The Myrmur let out a dying screech that rattled the air, and she landed lightly on the ground behind its tails, umbrella slowing her descent, as the monster crumpled.

…

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, as the Repossessors around her began to cheer.

The battle was over.

Her legs immediately buckled beneath her, and she dropped to a knee, her umbrella planted in the wet earth for support. Her head spun, blood loss making her vision swim. The steady beat of her pulse throbbed in her ears. She'd been relying on Gael's blood for too long, and now, with him no longer feeding her, the exhaustion was catching up with her.

Cara's voice cut through the haze, urgent and concerned as she rushed to Maeve's side.

"Maeve! You alright?"

"I'm… fine," she muttered, though the dizziness was evident in her tone. "I just… I just need a second. Let me get up."

Cara eyed her with clear worry, but Maeve refused to let it show. She was an Exorcist, after all. She wasn't some fragile thing to be pitied.

As she steadied herself, breathing deeply to regain some semblance of strength, Cara spoke again. "I went to fetch Fergal and the Repossessors after you and Gael left. Something did feel off about that letter after all. Who could've guessed it was the Flighty luring you guys out?"

Maeve tried to respond, but before she could get a word out, the garden erupted into chaos again.

The four three-headed hounds that'd been lying unconscious around them began to stir, groaning as they slowly regained consciousness.

The Repossessors, who'd been cheering moments before, suddenly turned on the three-headed hounds with their weapons at the ready. Their faces may be covered by their patchwork leather masks, but it was evident they were unsure whether to attack or retreat. The hounds were oversized, after all—injured, but still terrifying—and yet they didn't immediately strike. Thirty Repossessors with Spider Classes were quite a large number of people to contend with, and they knew it.

One wrong move could set everything in motion once more.

Before anything could escalate, though, the girl whose back Gael was still stitching suddenly shot to her feet. Her movements were shaky, but despite the blood still dripping from her open back—despite the stitches that hadn't been finished—she launched herself toward one of the larger three-headed hounds.

Maeve's eyes widened as the girl, pale and sickly, stood between the beast and Fergal with her arms outstretched, her body shaking but resolute.

The three-headed hound growled lowly, its three heads snapping and snarling at Fergal in warning, but the girl didn't even flinch. Her fangs bared as she cried, her voice cracking with desperation.

"Don't… touch them!" she hissed. "I'll… I'll kill all of you if you even think about it! They're all I have left!"

The air around them thickened with tension. No one dared to make a move.

And then, of course, Gael decided to start laughing.

He staggered to his feet, wobbling like a drunkard as he lurched toward Evelyn.

"Relax, kid," he muttered. "Nobody here's gonna kill anyone or anything. These hounds aren't Myrmurs, right?"

His gaze shifted from the girl to Fergal and the Repossessors, his words pointed as if he was trying to make sure everyone understood the situation. But as he looked over at Fergal, Maeve noticed the flicker of hesitation in the Repossessor's eyes. The gangsters weren't sure what to make of this, after all, and for a brief second, Maeve thought she was going to have to fight again.

But Gael sighed as he took a step toward the girl, his hands raised in the air as if trying to soothe her.

"Alright then," he continued slowly, "I'll take a look at your hounds. See if I can fix them and get their original bodies back. That's all I can do, okay—"

"You lie!" the girl shouted, her face twisted into a snarl, her eyes flashing with fury. "You're a Raven! You—you're all the same! Just like the doctor who treated my hounds!" Then she gasped, tears spilling from her eyes as she choked on her words. "He said he'd help me! He said he'd fix them after this, but even back then, I knew… he didn't say he'd turn them into this!"

The girl's voice broke, and she shook her head as if trying to keep her thoughts together. But she couldn't. The words came faster now, the curses spilling out like they were second nature. She threw her words at Gael like knives, and Maeve could see the girl's face contort with a mix of pain, frustration, and anger. She had no understanding of half of what was being said—most lower city slang eluded her, still—but she could tell just by the tone that they were filled with disgust and deep, angry resentment.

Still.

You're throwing grass at a brick wall, girl.

The Plagueplain Doctor won't… even…

When she glanced at Gael, she expected the usual. A cocky grin. Maybe even a self-satisfied smirk.

But that wasn't it.

For the first time, even with the raven mask covering the top half of his face, she could tell it was like a crack had formed in the armor he wore. There was something Maeve couldn't quite place. Hurt, maybe? It was quick, fleeting, and gone in the blink of an eye, but it was enough to catch her off guard.

It unnerved her.

The girl suddenly charged. She shot forward with a speed that Maeve hadn't expected her to still have. Her claws were out, sharp as daggers, and her eyes were filled with rage as she headed straight for Gael's neck, but Fergal was already there. He slammed a hand into her face and then sent her crashing into the mud, her body instantly going limp with a wet thud.

The three-headed hounds began to agitate again, their instincts kicking in as they prepared to attack. Likewise, the Repossessors raised their weapons and reared their grafted limbs back, ready to kill.

This is bad.

At this rate—

"Calm the fuck down!" Gael snapped, and all eyes went on him. He was holding something up in his left hand. A small, greenish-purple vial that glinted in the moonlight.

"This is a supremely poisonous vial! It'll blanket the entire orphanage in ten seconds flat, and it's a one-drop kill with no cure! If anyone even touches a hair on those hounds, I'll crush it before you can even blink!"

His threat hung in the air, heavy and final. Maeve's stomach twisted at the seriousness in Gael's tone. The Repossessors, for all their earlier bravado, hesitated as well. Even Fergal's expression shifted, a frown pulling at his face as he eyed the vial.

For another long moment, no one moved.

Then, slowly, Fergal's voice rang out. "Put up a perimeter, boys. Nothing comes in, nothing goes out. We don't kill the hounds if we don't have to."

The Repossessors reluctantly lowered their weapons, but it wasn't until Fergal snapped at them again that they scattered, positioning themselves around the orphanage to keep everything contained. Maeve felt the tension in the garden release just a little, but Fergal shot Gael one last look before calling a few Repossessors over to tend to the girl he was still pinning to the ground.

At long last, Gael was done.

He staggered forward and made his way toward Cara. Tried to, at least. Maeve watched him for a second before he tripped, his body pitching forward like the weight of the world had finally caught up with him.

She zipped towards him without thinking, catching him just in time. They both collapsed to their knees, her arms wrapped around him to keep him from falling further.

"... That was just a bluff, Exorcist," he mumbled, resting his chin on her shoulder. "Like I just so happen to have a poison vial that can cover the whole orphanage in ten seconds. Haha. Wouldn't that be great to have—"

"I knew you were bluffing."

Gael was quiet for a bit, his chest rising and falling against hers. But of course he should've known she would've known he was bluffing. It wasn't the first time Gael had threatened someone to get what he wanted, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. There was just one thing she could always count on: he wasn't the type who would kill without good reason.

He was still for just a beat longer than she expected when he scoffed, softly, alongside a final mutter.

"Even still, I am a Demonic Plagueplain Doctor."

With that, his head fully sagged against her shoulder, and before she knew it, he'd slipped into unconsciousness.

For a while, Maeve didn't say anything either. She wanted to push him aside and escape the emotions that kept clawing at her, but… she couldn't.

Not now.

So she whispered, so quietly that it was almost like she wasn't speaking at all.

"I still hate Plagueplain Doctors."

The words slipped out before she could stop them. She didn't look at him. Didn't need to. The bitterness in her words was nothing new. The Plagueplain Doctors had taken her mama and papa from her and left her with nothing but fury she couldn't outrun. She wasn't interested in them. She didn't care for who they were, why they were the way they were, and what their real objectives were whenever they chose to do what they did.

"But if it's you…" she whispered, "Maybe… I am slightly interested.

"Who are you, Gael Halloway?"

The thought didn't settle easily. It churned inside her, uncomfortable and unfamiliar, but as Cara rushed in to check on Gael as well, she felt a strange heat rising in her chest.

Embarrassment, maybe.

Or just sheer old fatigue.

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