Aurelleah grabbed Luis's hand as she reached the edge and he pulled her into a hug…as well as a quick kiss.

"You are unhurt, yes?" He asked when he let go, sounding genuinely concerned.

She nodded, calmed by his brief act of affection. "I'm great. Ada really saved my skin there."

"Yes," Luis said quizzically. "Though I cannot help but wonder why. Perhaps Leon knows, though."

Elleah tilted her head curiously as they began making their way back over. "You think Leon would?" She asked. "Why?"

Luis had taken Leon's piton cord and trailed it around the tower when he'd made his way over the first time, tying it off on anchor points on both ends so they'd have a safety line. As she started over, he said, "She left him a note earlier offering a warning about some of the things to come. Signed it with a kiss. He wouldn't say much about her, but I get the feeling they know each other."

She thought about that. Leon and Ada were pretty much the two coolest people she'd never met in her life. She wondered what their relationship was.

Leon was waiting at the other side to help her up. When she got to him, he lifted her carefully onto the bridge and said, "Elleah – I'm sorry. I should have stayed with you until you were across. It won't happen again. Are you alright?"

She gave him a quick hug and said, "I'm fine. You know Ada?"

His demeanor instantly became more aloof. "We've met before," he said offhandedly, like it didn't really matter.

Elleah watched Luis make his way over. He'd untied the piton and was looping it back up as he made his way across. "Are you friends? Do you like her? You two would make the most badass couple in the world."

Leon coughed and did not reply. She smiled. She was pretty sure that meant he liked her.

Leon helped Luis up onto the bridge and stowed his piton cord back on one of his larger pockets, but before they could continue the discussion on Ada, Elleah winced. She'd felt a twinge in her chest that she was pretty sure she knew the meaning of. The medication was beginning to wear off again, and she could feel the Plaga inside her stirring numbly. Almost numbly.

Luis noticed her discomfort and immediately asked, "Are you alright? Is it the Plaga?"

The nodded, then focused hard on the sensation inside her. She was pretty sure she could feel something nearby – the presence of a powerful Plaga.

Salazar?

There was something else, too. Something very large and just on the outskirt of her sixth sense. She tried to really draw them into focus, both of these presences…but the sensation slipped away, dulled by the medication. "I think there's something nearby," she said. "But I can't tell what."

Leon looked troubled, but said, "Gotcha. Luis?"

Luis looked up at the tower, the doors of which they were now just in front of. "This tower was repurposed for storage, but also had some renovations made to it. There are lifts and elevators in it, and at the top, the Queen Plaga."

Queen Plaga? That sounded…scary.

Leon whistled. "Fun stuff. And Ashley?"

Luis gestured for them to continue. "Let us find out, shall we?"

Elleah fervently hoped her sister would be behind this door…but when it opened, they saw at once that this wasn't the case.

Salazar and his remaining Verdugo stood in the middle of the tower's ground floor. Above them spiraled a walkway that looped around the edges of the room going up and up, ladders and lifts taking over in places where the stairs stopped. Dozens of crates and barrels and tarp-covered furniture items crowded stairs and platforms. Behind Salazar was a master elevator that went all the way to the very top, bypassing the whole mess.

No Ashley, though.

Salazar clapped slowly as they walked in. "So nice you could join us, Mr. Scott Kennedy."

His voice made Elleah's skin crawl, but though she shuddered, she refused to hide. They'd killed one of his Verdugos – they could handle anything he threw at them.

Except maybe his other Verdugo.

Leon pinched the bridge of his nose. "You again." He sounded moderately disgusted.

Salazar did not acknowledge the less-than-warm greeting. He began pacing and said, "The sacred right that is about to begin at this tower shall endow the girl with magnificent power! She will join us, become one of us…"

Luis leaned over to them and said covertly, "Don't worry. The ritual doesn't actually do anything. I've studied it. He just likes chanting and waving his arms around. Makes him feel special."

Leon snorted amusedly. Evidently, they weren't quite quiet enough, because Salazar's face, which had smoothed out to a serene and triumphant smile, scrunched up angrily. "Doctor Sera! How surprising that, after all your friends have learned about you, they still tolerate your presence in their group. Have you spun some silly little lie of contrition, perhaps? Have you managed to convince them to forgive your many and egregious sins?"

Luis shrugged casually. Elleah, not caring much for the banter, stepped forward. "Where's my sister?"

Salazar looked at her disdainfully. "She is above, being readied for the ritual. I don't suppose you would care to join her? This is your last chance, mi hermana – after this, I will sadly be forced to kill you along with your meddlesome guard dogs."

Elleah didn't respond. She just crossed her arms and stared at him defiantly.

He sneered. "Very well. Your sister alone will be tended to by our most magnificent Queen. As for the rest of you…we've prepared a special ritual for you."

He raise a hand, and Leon's reaction was startlingly fast.

Thunk.

Salazar stopped and slowly turned to look at his palm. In all fairness, so did Elleah. Leon, quicker than she could process, had pulled out his knife and flung it straight at the outstretched appendage. The handle of the blade now sprouted directly from Salazar's small palm, which was pinned to the wall behind him.

Elleah's lips quivered. The slowness with which Salazar turned his head, expression morphing from haughty disdain to brief shock to flat pain, was almost comical. But when he started shivering and whimpering like a frightened kid, she was honestly torn between disgust and hilarity.

Leon was not impressed. "Tch," he scoffed.

With speed equal to or greater than Leon's, the black-robed Verdugo stepped in front of Salazar, gripped the knife, and turned, flinging the blade straight as Leon's face with breakneck speed.

Elleah's heart skipped a beat, but Leon jerked gracelessly out of the way just in time. His knife hit a wall and clattered to the floor behind them.

Elleah ran back to retrieve it for him – she knew how much he used the thing – and while she did, Salazar clutched his palm, beginning to cry outright, and ran doubled over to the elevator.

"Stop!" Leon barked, running after him, but much too late. The elevator doors closed heavily, and at the same time, cultists began popping out from their hiding places behind all the stored goods.

The fight was on. They regrouped quickly and headed towards the only venue of pursuit – the stairs.

Elleah passed Leon his knife. "Thanks," he said, quickly wiping it off and sheathing it before they started up. They made it just a short way before…

Clunk.

BAM…! BAM…! BAM! BAM! BAM!

They all looked up, and even Leon exclaimed loudly when they saw the giant barrel bouncing towards them. Elleah didn't hesitate, and thankfully neither did Leon or Luis. They all jumped over the railing and clung to the outside as the barrel flew past.

"What is this Donkey Kong shit?!" Leon snapped, hopping back over and starting up again. Another barrel came bouncing down promptly, and they all jumped back over to dodge.

"Donkey Kong?" Luis asked, confused.

"It's a game," Elleah explained as they jumped back over, continued up a ways, then jumped back out. "With a giant monkey that throws barrels."

"But where does the donkey come in?"

"Talk later! Move now!" Leon barked, and they all heard a very unpleasant sound just then. The heavy metallic click of a crossbow being loaded.

Leon whirled around and drew his Red. Elleah, still on the outside of the rail, turned her head as best she could and saw the shooter. He was aiming at Luis.

"Luis! Move!" She yelped, and he whirled to the side, letting go of the rail with one hand and swinging around before grabbing on again. The bolt flew by him, barely missing.

Leon fired once at the guy, who was staggered, but had to dodge out of the way of another barrel before he could take him down completely.

Elleah hopped up as soon as the barrel was past and pulled out her slingshot. Leon followed suit with his Red, and together they managed to put a few more lumps of metal in the guy. He went down. They dodged another barrel.

"How the hell many of these things do they have?" Leon yelled exasperatedly as they started up again in the wake of the last barrel.

"Beats me," Luis shrugged. "But that's the lever they're using to drop them up there. Let's see if we can't appropriate it, eh?"

Elleah saw what he meant. A quick look down showed them that more Ganados were streaming in the door, and if they could send a barrel or two their way, it would make life easier.

Leon saw the cultist pulling the lever, and he managed to get a bead on him from their angle. He shot the guy in the knee, and the cultist toppled to the side…yanking on the lever again as he fell under the chute.

The barrel crashed down on him, and his legs jerked before he fell still. They three of them hopped out of the way as the barrel bounced past, and ran up to man the lever.

"I can't see them from here," Leon said, frowning, ready to pull.

Elleah stepped up to the plate. "Why don't I keep a hand on that while you two move around and clear out the rest of these guys? You can keep an eye on the stairs from different angles and tell me when to pull it."

He and Luis looked at each other, then nodded. "Just wait 'till we give the word or one of them is about to reach you, okay?" Leon said.

"We'll want to time this well," Luis advised. "Odds are good we're only gonna have one barrel. They won't keep loading them in upstairs with their buddy gone."

Elleah nodded, and the guys took off. They hopped onto a makeshift catwalk that had been strung up from this side of the tower to the other, and Luis paused halfway across to check the stairs beneath her. He gestured to her to wait. She nodded.

They reached some stairs and climbed, vanishing from her line of sight as they mounted more stairs, and she hoped they could still see well enough to send her a warning about when to pull. One of the cultists, a purple-robed guy carrying a heavy flail, had just reached her level and was running steadily up towards her. She watched him get closer and closer, feeling apprehensive, but the call to pull the lever didn't come. Going by the gunfire above her, her guys were distracted.

Elleah pulled out her slingshot and shot the approaching enemy in the knee. It took two shots to get him to fall, and he started to stand again almost as soon as he was down. Not all Ganados were created equal, and it seemed like the farther along they went, the tougher they got.

She shot him once more, and two more cultists came into her line of sight. When they reached her, she'd have to pull the lever – she couldn't hold three of these guys off at once, not in such a confined space.

Still no call from Leon or Luis. The first cultist was on his feet and the other two were on his heels. Nothing for it. She pulled the lever.

The barrel fell and flattened all the cultists before rolling down and out of sight. Thankfully she was sure she heard at least two more get hit by it before it crashed at the bottom of the stairs.

It occurred to her that Leon hadn't mentioned what she should do once the lever was thrown. She figured she ought to follow them, so she ran onto the platform they'd taken and nearly fell off as it wavered beneath her. She dropped to her knees and crawled over to the ladder, climbing up it to the top. When she got there, she saw something very troublesome.

Leon and Luis were both trying to push some heavy crates off of a lift, Leon doing the shoving while Luis covered him, but neither of them seemed to notice a bald cultist with a tattooed skull grinning on a platform just above them, a stick of dynamite in his fist.

Elleah pulled out her slingshot and took aim just as the guy lit the stick. It was far for her, and a bad angle, but she couldn't afford to miss. With a hope and a prayer, she let fly.

The bearing hit exactly what she'd been aiming for – the cultist's hand. He dropped the lit dynamite with a yelp, and the stick landed at his feet.

Elleah covered her head and yelled, "DUCK AND COVER! DYNAMITE ABO—"

BOOM!

It went off, sending stones flying everywhere, but Leon and Luis had heard her warning and, rather than look around, had ducked down behind the remaining crate and covered their heads, Luis with his backpack, Leon with his attaché case. They were fine. The aspiring demolitionist wasn't, though.

Leon and Luis both looked down at her. "Gracias, amiga!" Luis called.

She gave a thumbs up and began running up the stairs towards them. She looped around once and jumped onto the lift.

"Sorry about that," Leon said roughly as he finished shoving the last crate off. "We were trying to keep an eye on the stairs, but we got a bit distracted."

He motioned to the sides of the platform, where three different crossbowmen lay dead. "No worries," she said. That was an understandable distraction.

With the last crate gone, Luis hit the button and they started up. "This will take us most of the way to the top," he explained. "It has a maximum weight limit, so we needed to clear off the crates before we could use it."

Leon opened his mouth to add something, but before he could, he shoved Elleah and Luis roughly back. They both hit the metal railings in the corners, thank goodness, and right in front of them fell a couple of red-robed cultists.

The elevator beeped loudly at them and ground to a halt. The weight must have been too much with the two extra guys.

"Damn." Leon drew his Red. Elleah ducked around the cultists and got to Leon's side so he wouldn't risk accidentally hitting her. Luis also ducked, and Leon fired a couple shots before the guys – both of whom had flails – could strike.

They were staggered, and he stepped forward and kicked one of them off. Elleah shot the other in the knee before he could recover, and he dropped, making it easy for Leon to send him off as well.

The lift beeped again and began rising. Not ten seconds later, two more cultists hopped on. The lift stopped.

Leon growled, and Elleah sympathized with his frustration. Ashley was up there somewhere, and this was gonna be a long trip if this kept happening. As he set upon the cultists, Elleah looked up to see if she could maybe smooth things out for them.

There were several catwalks ringing the lift's path at half a dozen more levels before the top, all of which were lined with Ganados. That wasn't great. But she noticed that each one was held up with a combination of chains and heavy cords. The chains were beyond her, but maybe if she could hit the cords…

She aimed a bearing at the nearest one, which was about fifteen feet up, and fired. It missed by a couple of inches. That wasn't much of a surprise – she was trying to hit a target that was about a centimeter in diameter, and she was used to aiming straight, not up.

Still, she tried again. This time she nicked it, but it didn't seem to have an effect. Hopefully this wasn't some crazy durable type of cord she couldn't shoot through. She aimed again and fired.

Twaaaang!

The cord snapped, and the entire catwalk shuddered. The three cultists on it stumbled, and two of them fell as their section of flooring jerked loose beneath them. Thankfully they fell outwards, not inwards, and therefore not on top of Leon.

"Nice!" Luis praised, and she flushed with satisfaction.

She kept aiming for the cords as the elevator traveled up, but it was hard. She managed to hit another one, but this time it spilled the cultists inward. Stopped the lift, but it also stunned them, and Leon was able to shove them off fast.

"Really wish I had my shotgun right now," Leon growled, firing several consecutive rounds at the next set of goons and kicking one of them off. Elleah focused on shooting the next ring of platform cords.

"Tell me about it," Luis said. "Hey, Aurelleah, think I can get a smoke after all this?"

Leon glanced at her strangely. "You smoke?"

Elleah winced, and Luis hissed in embarrassment as his mistake dawned on him. "Uh, sorry."

She didn't reply to him. "Please don't tell my sister," she begged Leon.

Just then, a Plaga erupted from one of the cultists with a hideous squelching sound, and she gasped at the sight. It was nothing like the other Plagas she'd seen so far – it was much thicker, and had a leech-like beak.

It swayed heavily, and Leon said, "Watch out!"

It lunged for Luis. He jerked back, out of the lift, and grabbed onto the railing to swing around the outside. Leon, meanwhile, took advantage of the missed strike and put his hands on the railing behind him to brace himself, kicking out at the Plaga-cultist with both feet and sending it falling heavily out the back.

Luis hopped back on. "Dios mio, I hate those things. Could probably take a person's head off."

"They can," Leon said gravely. He looked up to see if he could help with shooting the chains and cords. "I watched it happen once."

"Gruesome," Luis said.

"Very."

They all began firing at the cords and at the cultists about to jump on, and they managed to keep all but two more from getting on, and both of these at different times. The lift continued all the way to the top, and they at last hopped out onto the uppermost catwalk.

Just as they did, they all paused as they heard a loud metallic crash echo towards them from somewhere outside. It was a ways off, and Leon looked curiously at Luis, who shrugged. It was anyone's guess what had crashed, but hopefully whatever it was wasn't important.

Elleah walked by a final cluster of crates, and spotted a little red treasure chest among them. She glanced over at Leon and Luis, who were continuing on to a ramp on the outside of the tower, and she took a quick moment to dart over and open it. Treasure chests were always fun.

Inside, on a pretty purple velvet cushion, was the most beautiful little bangle she'd ever seen. It was delicately wrought gold ringed with a stunning cobalt enamel, golden flowery patterns worked into the whole thing.

She slipped this onto her wrist and resolved to give it to Ashley when she saw her. She'd just love something like this.

"Elleah?" Leon's voice called tightly, and she popped back out from between the crates.

"Coming!" She called as she caught up with them.

Leon scowled at her. "Don't disappear like that."

"Sorry," she said contritely, ducking her head, then held up her wrist. "But lookit what I found!"

Luis whistled. "Beautiful. And it compliments your eyes better than ever I could, mi cadenza."

She blushed and looked away, smiling and telling herself she shouldn't be smiling while her sister was in danger, but smiling anyways. Maybe she'd hold onto the bangle herself. Ashley had enough jewelry.

They made their way to the doors at the top of the tower, Luis smoking a cigarette Elleah had passed him. She'd decided to just give him the whole bag, since he really needed them more than she did and she didn't want Ashley to catch her with them. "Really, though, don't tell Ashley I smoke," she reiterated to Leon. "You won't, right?"

Leon rolled his eyes and ignored her. She hoped that indicated apathy rather than disagreement.

They stopped outside the door to the final chamber, and Luis said, "Alright, this will be tough. If Salazar has woken up the Queen Plaga, we'll need to go through her to get to him. I have a good understanding of her physiology, and frankly, she'll be tough to beat. Tougher than the Verdugo…but also far less dangerous, as she is very slow and not really designed for combat."

"Fill me in," Leon said. "But quickly. We need to get to Ashley."

Luis cut to the chase. "She has two major weak points – a large eyeball on a stalk, and a sort of brain-like organ. I intentionally engineered this organ to be on the outside of her body to ensure she had a weak point should she ever get out of control, much to Saddler's fury, but something I did not expect was that she would mutate her vestigial legs to cover this organ. I do not know how we'll get past this," he admitted. "Another thing – watch out for her mouth, which is on the same stalk as the eye. If it starts to open…be ready to dodge. I've seen her eat Ganados before. It's not pretty."

Leon nodded. "Elleah, stay out here. If more cultists come up, fend them off as best you can, and only come in if there are too many for you to handle." As an afterthought, he pulled a grenade off his belt and handed it to her. "Only use this if you really, really need it. It has a full four second delay, and the immediate blast radius is about seven feet. Try to maintain double that in distance, at least. Do not hold onto it once you've pulled the pin. Just throw, and throw it as far as you can. Take cover if possible. Okay?"

She nodded and took the grenade gingerly, putting it in her largest pocket. She did not want the responsibility of a grenade, but if Leon wanted her to have it…

Luis touched her shoulder and smiled reassuringly. "We'll be out in a flash. Stay safe for me, eh, mi cadenza?"

She nodded, and her throat tightened. It sounded like this Queen Plaga was gonna be bad. "Be careful," she pleaded.

They both nodded. Then they pushed open the doors and went to face Salazar.

Leon stepped into the chamber, Luis at his side. Torches burned all around the room, and the entire chamber glowed with hot, earthy colors. A colossal wall decoration, dark reddish-black, stretched perhaps fifty feet from end to end. It was like a huge, grotesque plant, roots branching out here and there, a massive, four-petaled flower smack-dab in the middle. He had no idea what it was supposed to be for. Probably another culty-symbolic thing.

A large semicircular balcony took up almost half the room, several ladders leading down to the empty pit below. Jutting out of the balcony before the wall fixture, clearly a more recent addon, was a large platform boasting a marble slab draped with red cloth, around which burned four shimmery lilac flames.

The slab was empty. At its base stood Salazar. To his left, the Verdugo.

Luis said quietly, "Damnit. I would have hoped that they would have moved on if Ashley was not here. It seems they are staying to defend the Queen Plaga."

"So that means…?" Leon ventured, heart sinking.

Luis swallowed and nodded. "The Verdugo."

They paused, but there was nothing for it. The stepped forward to begin the confrontation.

Leon was looking around for the Queen Plaga. It must have been below them, in the pit. "So how big is this Queen?" He asked as they approached. He couldn't see it from here.

Luis looked at him strangely. Then he grimaced…and nodded at the titanic wall decoration.

Leon looked back at it. For the first time, he noticed it pulsing.

Shit, he thought as his chest twinged and his stomach twisted.

Salazar turned around upon hearing them and chuckled. "Ah! You just missed her. The ritual is over. She left with my men to the island," he said, slicing the air with his hand in emphasis. Unfortunately for him, it was his damaged hand, and he winced in pain.

"Damn!" Leon hissed. Who knew how long it would take to get her back now?

As they watched, Salazar stepped up onto the slab and said, "I think it's time I paid my due respect towards your impressive and stubborn will. Mr. Kennedy…Welcome."

As he said this, the flower in the middle spread its petals and began sprouting tentacles. At least a dozen, maybe more, shot out and wrapped about him sinisterly, and he spread his arms and stepped back into their embrace, head tilting back as a look of rapture came over him. A few also snaked out and began entangling the Verdugo, which did not resist, but did chitter nervously.

Leon didn't like the look of this. "Luis, man – what's going on?"

He was staring, dumbfounded. Then his eyes widened in horror and he pulled out his rifle. "Kill him! Now! Do not let him fuse with it!"

Leon didn't know what this meant, but he wasn't about to question it. He pulled out his magnum and took aim, but before either of them could fire at the little man, a tentacle as thick as a tree trunk shot out of one of the walls to cover him, blocking their shots.

As Ramon Salazar was drawn into the flowery organ on the front of the Queen Plaga, he began laughing maniacally…a sound which was cut off abruptly as the petals snapped closed.

"Shit," Luis said, stepping back and looking decidedly nervous. The Queen was now twitching and pulsing, and another super-tentacle snaked sluggishly out of the wall on the other side. "Salazar…I did not believe he would ever go so far. He is truly mad."

"What's going on?" Leon pressed. "What did he do?"

"He's fusing with it," Luis answered. "He is becoming one with it, body and mind. He and his Verdugo will have total control over the Queen's body. The Queen is not made for combat – she leaves such a thing to the smaller, more agile Plaga. But with Ramon in control—"

Leon finished for him. "Her body will become his weapon."

The petals had swollen up and were pulsing rapidly now. They'd turned from blackish red to seething purple, and, as they watched, spread abruptly open and spewed out a sickening construct.

It was a tentacled appendage as thick and gnarled as an ancient oak tree. Ridges of hard white bone stuck out of it in odd, asymmetrical places. It sported one glaring yellow eye the size of an exercise ball with a red iris, a pair of bony mandibles underlying it all.

It coiled up and shook out its thick, heavy flesh, then lowered its head to reveal something even more disturbing.

This must have been the organ Luis had mentioned, the one covered by its mutated, vestigial legs. The legs had spread wide, revealing a fairly horrifying sight within. Salazar's upper body had emerged from the mess, pale and unclothed and distorted almost beyond recognition. The left side of his body was taken up with a huge, tumorous mass, and his eyes had turned bright crimson.

His jaw dropped open, and Leon expected a threatening taunt or taunting laugh. Instead what came out was a shriek of rage, utterly void of humanity or self-awareness. Salazar had taken up residence in the Queen's body…but unless Leon was mistaken, the Queen had, to some degree, taken up residence in Salazar's mind.

He really was mad.

Leon shook his head. "Monsters," he said disgustedly. "Guess after this there'll be one less to worry about."

Luis popped off a shot with his rifle, and part of Salazar's head exploded in a burst of yellow gore. He clutched at his face, his cry turning significantly more human, and the legs snapped closed.

The head rose again, and the fight began in earnest.

Aurelleah could hear some pretty horrific noises coming from inside. She didn't want to go in there. Unfortunately, if things kept up like this, she might just have to.

A few minutes after Leon and Luis had gone in, a cultist had stumbled out and began making his way up towards her. She was pretty sure she could handle one or two with so much room available to her, so she didn't call for help. She just started shooting. She got him down with no hassle…then two more had come out.

She'd started off shooting their knees out and had moved on to peppering their heads once they were grounded, but two more had come out shortly after, bringing the count to four. Still, she had the upper ground and plenty of ammo and had thought maybe, just maybe, she'd be able to handle them.

Then a Plaga had burst out of one, and now she was really thinking over her options.

She wasn't going to use the grenade. That was just way too much power. She didn't know what Leon had been thinking, giving it to her in the first place. She didn't even like the feel of it in her pocket. What if the pin got caught on a loose thread and pulled out without her even knowing it?

Then you'll die instantly when it explodes and be none the wiser. Focus on the cultists.

She kept shooting the knees out from under them and shooting the Plaga when she could, but things were going downhill fast. The guys got up as quickly as she could put them down. It was like they didn't even care about their shattered kneecaps. An idea occurred to her. Maybe if she could damage their legs at multiple points, they'd stay down?

She tried this. She didn't just go for their knees, she also pegged their shins, and then their ankles. Just as one of them was about to reach her, she got his second ankle…and he dropped and didn't get back up.

Well, he still kept crawling, but she could deal with that. Okay, now she knew how to take them down. She could work with this.

She kept shooting out the legs of the cultists, starting with the Plaga one, and before long they were all dragging themselves towards her, no easy feat on an uphill slant. She had a perfect shot at their heads this way, too, so she was really able to mess them up. She did so with wild abandon, and just as she got the Plaga down…

Two more burst out of fallen cultists, and three more cultists appeared behind them on the stairs.

"Crap," she said, and kept firing as the Plagas forced their hosts to their shattered knees and started crawling up towards her.

Luis ran at the tentacle that was sweeping over the ground towards him, jumping high at the last moment and bracing one hand on its trunk as it flew by under him. He leapfrogged over it and saw, thankfully, that Leon had dodged it just as effectively.

They'd had to do this a few times now. It wasn't hard to see when the blows were coming, nor were they terribly dangerous to jump or dodge…but the problem was, they were getting tired.

Salazar was not.

Luis had noticed that the Queen's movements had started out slow and ungainly, but they were starting to pick up as the fight went on. He'd pointed this out to Leon, who had asked, "What does that mean?" As he'd fired at the Plaga's wet, glistening eye.

"I think it means Salazar is gaining better control over the Queen's body!" Luis had replied. "We need to get him down fast, before he becomes totally comfortable in it!"

Salazar had let out a shrieking laugh and renewed his efforts. They were still getting faster and more frequent.

Now the eye turned to look at him, and the Plaga's head jiggled alarmingly as it split down the middle. Its jaws opened side-to-side, revealing a dreadful sight – rows and rows of jagged yellow teeth. The head reared back, and Luis threw himself to the side as it shot forward with all the force of a cannon blast.

It missed him, putting another crater in the stone behind him, and he heard Salazar grunt in discomfort. "I want you to suffer…just like Ashley did!"

Leon paused at this, glaring daggers at the sealed maw that contained their real enemy. "What did you do to her?" He roared.

The maw opened up as the head retracted, shaking itself off. Salazar poked himself out, grinning widely. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Luis lifted his rifle and fired at him, and he once again shrieked and covered his face before the maw snapped closed once more. This was never going to work – he'd wear them out before they were able to kill him. They'd need to do massive damage to Salazar, who seemed to have fused entirely with the Queen Plaga's brain, but he was only popping out once every few minutes to taunt them.

The left-hand tentacle – Leon was dealing with the right side – slammed down abruptly at Luis, and he barely juked out of the way in time. But Salazar seemed to have gotten much better control over his body, because the tentacle quickly swept to the side, a move it hadn't been able to do up until then. Luis's legs were swept out from under him and he went crashing to the ground.

Salazar's pained wail turned into another laugh. "My left hand is enjoying itself, doctor," he purred behind his wall of iron chitin. "It is pleased with the prospect of avenging its brother. It looks forward to feeling your body give way to our powerful jaws, to feel your bones crack and your blood seep from between our lips."

Leon pulled out his Red and tried firing at Salazar through the cage of legs, but to no avail, and the tiny man laughed once more. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy, did you leave my dear little sister outside? I do wish you'd brought her in with you. I've been dying for a taste of her."

Luis snarled furiously as the Plaga's maw opened once more, turning this time to Leon. Leon dodged again, but this time he barely made it out of the way before the great gullet swept past him. He was weakening. They both were.

"Why not simply give up, Mr. Kennedy?" Salazar drawled. "You know you cannot defeat me. You will suffer and die. Dr. Sera – you will suffer and die. And Aurelleah…?"

He howled with wicked mirth once more, and said, "Well, she will certainly suffer!"

Its tentacles reared up once more, as did its head. It roared, and they all prepared to strike at once.

Behind them all, the door opened, and Aurelleah ran in. The eye locked onto her and she froze, jaw dropping as she took in their foe.

Luis paled. Things were about to get very bad.

Aurelleah stared at the giant, hideous thing that was glaring down at her with its titanic red and yellow eye. She only stared for a moment, though. She had other things to worry about.

There were five cultists shambling after her on shattered legs and knees, and she needed to get away from them. As she watched, though, the thing – and something else, behind the thing – began screaming in a sort of high, furious ecstasy, and a mouth appeared on the creature's head as it split in half down the middle.

Her eyebrows shot up as the serpentine head reared back, and she realized just what was about to happen. The Plaga in her chest was positively thrumming with this thing's presence, and she could feel a blunted desire to devour.

She could use this. She held still for another moment, not wanting it to adjust its aim, and flung herself out of the way just as her Plaga echoed an impulse to strike.

Leon yelled her name as the head came rocketing forward, but his cry of alarm was moot. She dodged alright, and the head shot past her, jaws sweeping through the air and snapping up the five cultists who had been right behind her.

She felt the super-Plaga surge with an odd combination of emotions – furious dismay and dim satisfaction. Satisfaction at the meal in its teeth, dismay at…at…

Her death. Wanted the girl alive. Wanted to—

She winced as her chest sang with pain, but she forced the pain away. She needed to focus, otherwise this thing was going to kill them all.

The read reared back, blood dribbling from it in a crimson rain, limbs sticking out of it at odd angles as its cheeks and eye bulging with the effort of getting five men – including two Plagas – down, and as it worked a few of them down its throat its eye swiveled about and locked onto her.

More satisfaction. It was pleased that she hadn't been killed. It wanted her.

She didn't understand why, though. Why did this thing – it must have been the Queen Plaga Luis had mentioned – want her alive? What did she have to offer it?

Then its head lowered, and she understood.

Ramon Salazar had somehow been consumed by the Queen, and was fused with it. He grinned madly down at her, hands outstretched, fingers grasping, and she felt a whirlpool of violent and conflicting emotions rippling out from the amalgamation before her in powerful waves.

Hunger. Pain. Lust. Rage.

Kill. Take. Defile. Devour.

CRACK!

A set of thin, spider-leg jaws snapped closed around Salazar like a clam as his right arm exploded in an ichorous explosion under Luis's rifle-fire. He and the Queen howled in pain, and the tentacles wavering on either side of them shuddered and slapped down in an attempt to crush Leon and Luis.

Elleah felt a surge of alarm at this. Both men dodged, but only just, and Luis was actually clipped by one of them when it swept by. She watched them for only a moment before realizing what the problem was – they were tired. They'd been fighting this thing for a while now, every minor movement from their enemy requiring a huge burst of movement on their part to counter, and they were getting worn out.

She ran over to the edge of the platform, desperate for something that might help, but looking down showed her that there would be nowhere to hide down there – the Queen seemed to have spawned at least two dozen large, skittering, spider-like Plaga. These were surging over the floor and scrabbling at the wall, trying to get up to them, to devour them. No going down there.

The eye was watching her again, and the mouth opened up. She stumbled back, swallowing thickly, but she felt the Plaga twitch in her chest again as she caught the echoes of the impulses around her.

The Queen wanted to eat her. Salazar wanted to catch her, to preserve her. The two were fighting for dominance.

Salazar won. The mouth did not close, but it did wrench itself away from her and turn towards Leon.

"Leon!" She yelled. "Watch out!"

Leon had been focusing on a tentacle, and saw the head as it reared back to attack him. He got out of the way in time and gave her a quick thumbs-up.

He was getting slow. Luis was getting slow. And she could feel, deep within her, that Salazar and the Queen were only going to get faster. They weren't even close to done.

They were hurt, though, and Elleah could feel why. Each time Salazar exposed himself, they took damage. Salazar's body seemed to be their weak point. If she could destroy that somehow…

But how? Maybe a grenade, like Leon had given her, but she couldn't throw that far. Not even Leon could, she was pretty sure. And if Salazar saw a grenade flying at him, he'd clam up anyways.

Leon yelled, "That's it! I'm done with these things!"

He pulled out his magnum and began unloading into the tentacle on the right. He tried to shoot it at its base, and to Elleah's surprise, his attack was highly effective. It only took four shots to cripple the tentacle, and the Queen screamed in pain and sucked the limb back into her wall-bound carapace.

Luis fired at the other tentacle, but it took only one hit before retracting as well. Elleah felt a decidedly strange sensation within her. The Queen was doing something, but Elleah wasn't sure what.

Then she felt Salazar's will pressing down. Many. Many small. We will finish this faster if you do many small—

The trio regrouped as the head curled back on itself, growling softly. Leon asked Luis, "What's going on? Is it hurt?"

Luis looked hopeful. "Yes, I think so. I did not think the tentacles worth attacking. That was a good call."

But Elleah shook her head as she felt the next surge of intent. "No, it…ugh…it's not damaged. Not badly. It's just…changing its strategy. Salazar is making it—"

She broke off as the head reared back up, roaring in triumph. The tentacles reemerged…but this time it wasn't just two thick ones.

Small, thin tentacles, nearly dozen on each side, shot out and began wriggling lazily in the air like seagrass in the tide. They all began drifting towards them, and Leon and Luis both looked at this in fleeting dismay before their expressions hardened and they split off again.

"Elleah!" Leon barked as he began dodging tentacles left and right. They were coming slowly, one or two at a time, but they were coming for him. "Get out of here! We'll take care—FUCK!"

One of the tentacles wrapped around his leg, and he was forced to drop his gun and draw his knife to cut it off. As he did this, another snaked around his arm and squeezed. He swapped the knife to his other arm, finished off the limb on his leg, and tugged himself out of the second one's grip. Three more were coming after him now, though, and soon there would be four, five, six, ten, all of them as Salazar gained control over this new form of multi-limbed movement.

Luis was in an equally bad situation, and Elleah realized that this fight was nearly over. There was no way to defeat the Queen. She was unstoppable. Indominable.

But Salazar wasn't.

A plan had begun brewing in Elleah's mind as soon as she'd seen Salazar in that mess in the base of the Queen, but she'd been shying from it. But now it looked like there was no other choice. She'd have to give it a go.

She quailed at the thought of what she was going to have to do, but she forced her body to move anyways, first making sure the grenade Leon had given her was easily accessible. It was, so she stepped forward to stand before the Queen.

She waved both arms over her head, trying to draw the attention of the thing's massive eye. She knew Salazar was watching them through it. It had been focusing on Leon's struggle, but as she yelled, "Hey! Salazar! Over here!" It turned to look at her instead.

The mandibles on its jaw clicked heavily and it hissed. She could feel the interest of both Salazar and the Queen upon her as a few of the tentacles paused. The Queen wanted to eat her, but Salazar wanted something else. She'd have to make Salazar an offer he couldn't refuse.

She'd never had much experience with men, but she tried to dredge up some of the things she'd seen Ashley do around the boys in Boston when dad wasn't around. The body language she used when she saw one she liked, and was trying to invite him over to flirt with her.

It was unnatural to her, but she put one foot forward and shifted her weight onto it, cocking her hips at a bit of an angle. She arched her spine just slightly in an attempt to emphasize her curves…what few she had. Finally, she tilted her chin down and looked up at the Queen's shuddering maw with wide eyes, struggling to keep the revulsion and terror welling in her stomach off of her face.

It worked. She felt hot, fetid desire spike through her Plaga, and half the tentacles from each side of the room broke off from their targets and began creeping slowly towards her.

She didn't flee from them, though it took every ounce of willpower she had not to. Instead, she stood still and let them approach.

Her leg spasmed away automatically as one of them prodded at it, but she forced it to stay still as the questing limb shot out and wrapped around her thigh. Another tentacle poked clumsily at her waist, then snaked up under her shirt, pressing against her skin. She almost retched on the spot as it slipped around and trailed up her back.

Ugh. Stop, stop, please stop, please—

Touch, touch, must touch, more, more—

—more tentacles were wrapping around, caging her in, cutting her off from Leon and Luis, who were both now shouting their alarm. She desperately prayed that Salazar would just pick her up already. Finally he did, to her horror and relief.

One tentacle wrapped snugly around her waist, another maintained a grip on her thigh, and one looped around her arm – the left one, thankfully, leaving the right one free. As they began drawing her towards the shell that covered Salazar, she reached carefully down and put her hand in her pocket, wrapping it snuggly around the grenade.

She didn't know what would happen to her when the thing went off. For all she knew the tentacles would rip her in half, drop her into the Plagas below, bash her into the wall or floor, crush her…but none of that mattered. What mattered just then was killing Salazar, and the Queen. Everything else was secondary.

She was secondary.

She always had been.

The cage opened up, and Salazar grinned up at her. His crimson eyes were mad with lust, and she could feel his excitement thrumming through the Plaga Queen's body as Aurelleah was drawn closer and closer to the most human part of the construct. She could feel his cravings, what he would compel her to do if she ever became fully enthralled by the Plaga.

Touch me, kiss me, whisper grand praises into my ear, prostrate yourself before me, bare yourself to me…

She shuddered in disgust. Well, he had bared himself to her, and he was going to regret it.

As the tentacles lowered her even closer to him, just outside the range of his quivering shell, she pulled the grenade out, brought it to her face, and yanked the pin out with her teeth.

His eyes locked onto the grenade and widened. Alarm spiked through him, but because the Queen did not know what a grenade was, she was delayed in understanding the danger. The split-second of hesitation gave Aurelleah time to throw.

The shell snapped closed just as the grenade flew past Salazar's ear, wedging itself in the fleshy mass he'd grown out of. She almost had her hand taken off, but she jerked it back just in time and the carapace slammed shut inches in front of her face.

The tentacles thrashed in pure reaction in the seconds before the blast, and for a moment it seemed inevitable that she was to be torn in two. The tentacles tried to retract with her still in their grip, but two of them were from the right and the other was from the left, so for a moment her arm – her injured arm – was violently stretched.

Oh, Luis said I needed to be careful of that arm, she thought disjointedly as the pain flared up. But just before it got to be the searing pain of a wound reopening, a deafening sound thundered through the chamber.

The shell containing Salazar exploded in a burst of gore and fire, breaking the legs that had covered him, and the tentacles spasmed…then relaxed. She found herself slipping. Not wanting to fall, she hugged the tentacle on her left arm fiercely as it began swaying drunkenly around the room.

Gunfire sounded as Leon began firing slowly and steadily at the gaping wound she had created. Salazar was still inside, but he had been seared red and black by the burst and was screaming in pain and terror. His agony was so great it was flowing over into her, and she felt like she was going to be sick with it.

"Aurelleah! Aurelleah!"

She forced her eyes, which had closed with the rush of input she'd been processing, open again. She looked around and saw Luis on the platform, which was nearer than she'd thought.

The tentacles were all out of control, some slapping against the ground, some slapping against the walls, many waving around arrhythmically, void of purpose. She was on one such tentacle.

"Wait for it to come back around, then let go! I will catch you!" He yelled. He was dodging tentacles himself, but it was no longer a hassle for him, as they weren't even really aiming.

She nodded, more to herself than to him, and waited. Her ride carried her over the pit, dipped low, rose again, and abruptly changed direction. It swung towards the wall, and before it slapped into it, Elleah pulled her feet up and braced for impact. When she hit, she pushed off the wall with her feet to keep herself from being stunned and scraped off, and she and the tentacle both rebounded – straight towards the platform.

She was still at least ten feet above it, but she didn't care. A broken leg was better than being eaten by Plaga spiders, which were all going mad on the floor of the pit. It was also better than being eaten by the Queen's maw, which was currently trying to get Leon but would probably go for the easy meal if it noticed her.

It's like someone holding a fork full of food but trying to smash their face into their plate. And their plate keeps moving.

The tentacle headed towards the platform, dipping lower and lower, and Luis held his hands out hopefully as she drew nearer to him. She got ready to drop…

…and drop she did. But not into Luis, nor onto the platform – she dropped straight down as several tentacles suddenly and inexplicably shut down. Mere feet from the platform, she fell down into the pit.

She swung back away from the platform, and was forced to let go before smashing into the wall. She only ended up falling a few feet, but a rough landing wasn't the problem. The problem was the thirty or so furious Plagas that were already turning to take her in. She could feel them all focusing on her, and she could feel the desire they'd been instilled with – a desire to feed.

She stood up and backed away, but there was nothing behind her that could help her. The only way out of the pit was the ladder across from her. And between her and it, the Plagas.

Her chest hurt as her own Plaga once again twitched with reaction, the reaction of having thirty of its brethren coming to devour it, and Elleah let out a small cry. Part of her wanted to scrabble at the wall behind her, try in vain to escape the approaching flood. Part of her wanted to curl up and try to keep them off of her vital parts until Leon and Luis could save her.

She listened to neither of these impulses. Instead, she latched onto her anger and defiance, ran straight at the Plagas, and screamed, "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

She jumped as she reached their front line, and her feet crashed down on them. She could feel them squirming in confusion beneath her, but she paid the riot no mind as she kicked and stomped and desperately waded through the small, alien army. She felt a handful of legs and mandibles scratching at her ankles, but she kept jerking her legs away before anything could get a really good grip on her.

She waited for them all to leap up and bring her down to their level, but they did not. They just kept wriggling and squealing and clawing fitfully at her legs, and before she knew it, she'd broken through and was grabbing desperately at the rungs of the ladder.

A few of them ran after her, but they looked almost crippled, as though their bodies weren't one-hundred percent sure what they were supposed to be doing. Two of them jumped at her and one of them latched onto her leg, but she kicked it off with a harsh cry. It fell and curled in on itself and did not move again.

She climbed the ladder and the first thing she saw when she reached the top was Luis's boots. Looking up, she could tell at a glance that he'd been a heartbeat from jumping in after her. He was staring between her and the Plagas with a look of amazement on his face, but when their eyes met, that amazement morphed into sheer relief.

He pulled her up, hugged her close, then shoved her behind him and began firing once more at Salazar.

Elleah watched the final attack. The shell kept trying to close, but it was too badly damaged. Salazar was incoherent with the pain, and the Queen Plaga, being unable to rely on his combat experience, was only able to thrash about impotently. Its attacks were slow and easy to dodge, and in a matter of minutes, Leon and Luis had blown its most vulnerable part to pieces.

Strangely, the Queen's death happened all at once. One last blast from Leon's magnum, and it gave up the ghost. Its head reared up in a final, pleading scream as Salazar simply burst within the shell behind it. Slimy green and yellow ichor poured out of the pair of them, and, as though they were all just falling asleep, the tentacles and head of the Queen Plaga relaxed and trailed gracefully to the ground. They did not move again.

Salazar continued to wail for a long moment after the Queen had died – and Elleah had felt the Queen die. The sound he made was frail and unmistakably human, a cry for mercy, for pity, for help, for—

CRACK!

Luis stood with his rifle over his shoulder, the barrel smoking, and Salazar's wail stopped.

His upper body slumped forward and suddenly detached, falling to the ground below with a sickening splat. Elleah thought that maybe the spider-Plagas would go to eat him, but a quick look told her that they were all dead. They'd been under the direct order of the Queen, and with it gone, they'd all simply shut down.

Luis put his rifle away and sat down heavily on the ground. Elleah felt a small stab of alarm, and went to sit beside him. "Are you okay?" She asked.

He nodded, breathing heavily, head tilted back. He looked horribly tired.

Leon came over. "Hey," he said. "I see you used that grenade."

She looked up at him, then over at the remains of Salazar, then nodded. "Rest in peace, Kevin McCallister."

Leon frowned, maybe trying to place the name. He sat down beside them and took a long drink of water.

They all sat in silence for maybe thirty seconds, then Leon got the reference. He choked, spraying some of his water as he started laughing.

Luis looked over at him tiredly. "What's so funny, eh?"

He just kept laughing. Elleah asked, "Have you ever seen Home Alone?"

"Nope."

She shook her head, a small smile on her face. "Nevermind. We'll watch it this Christmas."

He was sitting cross-legged, and she scooched over, laid her head in his lap, and closed her eyes. She needed rest. They all did.

Too bad they couldn't really afford it.

OoO

I love it when you get a really interesting comment from a reader, and it ends up changing your mind on something in the story. Steele, you made this a lot more interesting and fun to write. If you don't believe I listen to the comments, just wait for the next chapter. ;)

Man, I'm almost to the end of the game where I am right now. Just finished writing the Krauser fight. Looks like the story will end up being close to 700 or 800 pages total. Not my longest, but I'm glad it's almost done. I really want to get back to my other stuff. Did not expect this one to be this long.

Many thanks, as always, to my readership :) I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I start these stories for myself, but I finish them for you. Hope I did that epic boss fight justice. Love you all ^_^

Sincerely,

The Topaz Dragon