Luis had created an automatic Plaga-kill program in the event that he was ever infected and needed to remove it without an operator, but he went ahead and did it manually for Leon. It was more precise that way, as he had a far better understanding of the Plaga's relationship with its host than any computer sensors could manage.

He had no doubt that he could kill Leon's Plaga without trouble. It hadn't hit anything like critical growth yet, and he'd removed several as large as it in the past. He started trailing the radiation lasers across Leon's sternum, controlling the weaker primary laser to loosen up the Plaga while the stronger secondary laser filed in behind, ravaging the parasite's nerves at precisely the points where they connected with Leon's.

Leon, for his part, was handling the procedure marvelously. Luis was highly impressed with how the man was managing to hide the pain, and he knew he was doing this to avoid scaring the girls, who were watching, trepid. The first burst of the lasers had elicited a gasp of pain from Leon, but now he was mostly remaining silent, though the agony must have been indescribable.

The procedure went smoothly, and the adolescent Plaga died without too much of a struggle. With one last wide-spread, low-power flash that set Leon's back arching in pain, the machine powered down and the restraints released.

He lay there panting for a minute. Ashley asked, "Leon, how are you feeling?"

"Like a million bucks," he said listlessly. She looked relieved, and she dipped her head and began talking quietly with her sister. They both seemed very nervous, and he wondered what they were talking about – their respective adventures, perhaps? Their relative odds of survival? Perhaps they were relaying messages for their loved ones in the event that either of them did not survive.

Luis was trying desperately to force his fear for them away. He would not be able to operate the machine properly if he were paralyzed by the trepidation of losing them. But it was there underneath the clinical sheen. The grief-in-waiting, ready to crush him should either procedure fail.

Aurelleah…

He was now regretting his agreement to cut her dose. He should have suppressed the Plaga's growth as much as possible, rather than let her try to shoulder so much of the burden of keeping them all safe. He knew that her sense had been invaluable, but if it came at the cost of her life, he would rather have not had it at all.

Leon stood up, recovered enough to move, and nodded to the girls. "Alright, who wants to give it a go?"

Aurelleah stepped forward timidly, but Ashley pulled her back. "No," she said. "I'll go first. Okay?"

Luis nodded. "Probably a better idea. Yours has been growing uninterrupted for much of this time. We need to get it out, now."

Aurelleah nodded, then flung her arms around her sister in a desperate hug. Ashley returned it, then tried to let go, but her younger sibling seemed unable to release her hold.

Leon went over and took her shoulder. Reluctantly, she let go of her sibling, and when she did, Luis saw that she was crying.

His heart ached for her, and he swore that he would not allow her sister to perish, however matured the Plaga was. Ashley laid down on the table, he started up the scanner, and when it was ready, he pulled up the picture.

The Plaga was larger than Leon's. Much larger. Its legs were firmly hooked on lungs and ribs, and it looked healthy. That said, it wasn't shuddering or moving at all. It almost looked like it was asleep. He hummed. Had Saddler's abuse of it to force her away from them worn it out, perhaps?

He contemplated this, formulating an attack plan in his head as he did so, and at length he nodded. "I can do this," he said confidently.

He started the procedure.

It was bad. Very bad. Ashley could not keep quiet throughout the whole thing, and Luis suspected that if he removed his eyes from the screen, he would see her pain reflected on the faces of everyone here. Unfortunately, he could not go any faster or take any shortcuts, because he needed to be very careful, very thorough, and very precise in where and how quickly he operated. He went slowly, severing the Plaga's nerves at strategic points and at strategic power levels all throughout her torso.

It took almost twice as long as Leon's had. Near the end of it, he noted Ashley's struggles weakening. But that was alright. So long as she didn't suddenly go limp, he was in the clear. Limp meant nerve damage, perhaps fatal. Weakness just meant exhaustion, which was understandable, since this was no doubt the most agonizing thing she'd ever experienced by an order of magnitude.

Some minutes later, he finished. As the Plaga let out one final twitch, he blasted a general, low-power pulse to finish off the rest of its nerves, and it died.

He released Ashley from the machine. Her face was streaked with tears, and she was gasping weakly…but she was alive.

Leon and Aurelleah both ran over to her, and Mike sat up straighter in his chair to try and see her. Her eyes were closed, her breathing was shallow, and her skin tone was pale in the low white light.

She opened her eyes and looked up. Leon looped an arm around her back to help her sit up, and asked, "You okay?"

She didn't respond. She just flung her arms around his neck in a hug.

Luis felt a surge of relief, especially as he saw he legs move slightly to support her position. Arms, check. Legs, check. Looked like her nerves were fine.

Leon put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. He helped her stand up so Aurelleah could take her place, but Aurelleah stepped back, away from the table. Luis looked to her questioningly, and she came over to him.

His heart sank. She wanted to say goodbye, just in case she didn't make it.

He didn't want to say goodbye. He wanted to start up the machine and just assume that everything would work out.

Nonetheless, he stood to meet her. She needed the support. She wrapped her arms around him and said, "Thank you for saving my sister. Thank you so much for everything you've done for us. And, in case I don't make it…thank you for…everything. I never really…thought very highly of myself before I met you. Whatever happens, I'm really glad I met you."

He closed his eyes and held her tightly against him. When the time came to let go, he understood how she'd felt when she hadn't been able to release her sister. He didn't want this to end.

All things must come to an end, even noble things…

This was true. All things ended eventually. But God willing, this thing would not end so soon.

He let her go and said, "And thank you, for giving me something to fight for. For giving me a way to make amends…and for forgiving me, even when I could not forgive myself."

She smiled sunnily at him, and he almost missed the hint of fear in her face as she turned towards the operating table.

The room grew quiet once more as she was strapped in. Luis turned the machine on and started up the scanner, ready to see exactly how difficult this procedure would be. But when the picture came up at last, all he could do was stare.

He said and did nothing for a solid minute as he took in the alien creature before him. Well, not alien, but certainly not what he'd been expecting. The thing on the screen had absolutely no right to be there.

When he continued to do nothing, Leon asked, "Uh, Luis? Something wrong?"

He did not look up as he said, "This is not possible."

Leon stepped around to look at the overhead feed, and his brow creased in confusion as he saw an organism different to his and Ashley's on the display. "Uh, what is that?"

Luis opened his mouth to answer, but his mind was still grasping for a way to explain what he was seeing. There was no way. It should not have been possible.

Then his mind spat up the memory of a short, inconsequential conversation he'd had with Ramon Salazar about six weeks prior, and he understood.

Luis pushed open the door to Salazar's private chambers, knowing that the little man was in the middle of dinner and would not appreciate being interrupted. Indeed, as the door swung open and Luis poked his head through, the midget looked up from his meal and scowled.

"Luis! You know I do not like being bothered during my supper. What do you want?"

Luis swaggered in, a light scowl on his face as he took in the pair of scantily-clad, female Ganados resting at the base of Salazar's bed. "Forgive me, Cabrón Salazar—"

"I told you never to call me that!" Ramon screeched, and Luis narrowed his eyes.

"And I told you never to send your damn Ganados in to clean my lab!" He snapped back. "I just found one of them in there, messing with the samples, trying to dust them. Is it too much to ask that you keep them out of there?"

Salazar scoffed. "The labs need to be kept clean, do they not? And as you have refused Lord Saddler's gift time and again—"

Luis thought dourly, Saddler's gift? Does this little dingdong not recall who had made these things in the first place?

"—someone has to send the help down to assist you. They will not take orders from you, after all," he sneered.

Luis tapped his foot irritatedly and replied, "Oh, alright. Go ahead, then. But don't come crying to me when a Dominant Plaga gets mixed in with the recessives because one of your idiots was rooting around in there unsupervised."

Salazar considered this. At last he said, "Oh, very well. I will only send them down when you are present. Happy?"

"Fine. Now, if you'll excuse me…"

Luis studied the Dominant Plaga on the screen, trying to figure out how to deal with this, and as he did so he came to two realizations.

The first was that he had never anticipated having to remove a Dominant. It's body type was entirely different than a recessive's, and he just did not have an extensive understanding of how its relationship with the human body differed from its cousin's. In all likelihood it was mostly the same; but what if it wasn't?

The other realization was, some part of his mind recognized, madness. But it was an alluring madness, and he was unable to dismiss it, no matter how much his conscience clamored for him to.

"Luis, talk to us man. What is that?"

He sighed. "That is a Dominant Plaga. Salazar used to send Ganados in to my lab to clean it while I was away, and I believe one of them may have accidentally switched a beaker from the Dominant section to the recessive section while dusting them. When Saddler came down to fetch a couple of ready-to-grow eggs for the girls, he must have chanced to grab that one."

Leon's brow creased. "Wait, how many recessives were there just sitting around?"

"In that batch? Sixty. And there were five batches in that room."

Mike whistled through dry lips. Luis concurred. One in three hundred? Those were long odds, indeed.

"I have a Dominant Plaga inside me?" Aurelleah asked. "Like the ones Salazar and Saddler and Krauser had?"

Luis nodded. "Yes. This must be why you were able to so easily understand the wills and minds of those Plaga wielders around you. It is possible that you have even been exerting some subconscious control over them, forcing them away from you when you were in danger, such as in the confrontation with the Queen Plaga. I had wondered why all of her drones reacted to you the way that they did…"

His heart and mind were racing. This changed everything. The procedure was too dangerous now. With her injuries on top of the challenge presented by the Dominant Plaga body type, he could not operate. But he did not need to. She wouldn't change the way Ashley would have. She would remain herself.

More than herself, in fact. She would be all but invincible and, unless he was mistaken, all but immortal as well.

"Aurelleah," he said slowly, but before he could continue, she interrupted him.

"But you can still remove it, right?"

He winced. "I…am not sure. I have never considered having to remove a Dominant, since they are so few and so meticulously implanted. And even if I was as confident about it as I was about the recessive strain, you have suffered a great deal of blood loss and injury over the last few days. You are likely too weak to survive the procedure."

Aurelleah had grown pale as he spoke, and he tried to change tact, to clarify and reassure her. He was already feeling immeasurable relief at his conclusion – if only he could quiet the unease in the back of his mind – and he just needed to make her understand as well. "But you do not need to have it out, you see? If will not rob you of your mind. It won't change you, and I'll be right beside you to make sure you have no problems with it as it matures. Nothing will go wrong. You'll be just fine…"

He trailed off because she was staring at him with wide eyes, shaking her head. The unease grew in him, and as she said, "No, it has to come out," it erupted into full-on fear.

He started drumming his fingers on the desk in agitation. "No. You don't understand. The risk is too high. Mi cadenza, you could die. You will die. I cannot remove it."

She looked pained by his absolute statement, his clear emphasis, but it was necessary. He had to make her understand. She couldn't take the chance.

And yet, she refused to get up from the table. "If I die, I die. But I won't live with this thing inside of me. I've seen what they turn people into. Please, Luis, just do what you can. Take it out."

He raked a hand through his hair in dismay, then looked to Leon for reassurance. Surely he would help convince her that this was unnecessary.

But Leon's gaze was hard and unyielding, and aimed not at her, but at him. He looked to Ashley. She was staring at the bug on the screen fearfully, and when she glanced over at him, he saw despair in her face. A quick glance at Mike showed nothing but a clenched jaw.

Luis sickened as he realized that they would not be leaving this chamber until he'd attempted the surgery. What was worse, he'd just explicitly told her it would almost certainly kill her, and at a time when she needed him to project confidence and calm.

You've hurt her.

But…he couldn't do this. He couldn't remove the Plaga knowing full well how low her chances of survival were. An impromptu surgery on a strange and malicious organism…if he failed, she would die, and it would be by his hand.

He could not kill her.

Leon, I hate these things. These Plagas. They change people, even the Dominant ones do. They're monsters, and they turn people in monsters, too…

But could he condemn her to a life as a self-perceived monster?

No. He could not do that to her. Even if it meant losing her.

"I…am sorry," he said. "I'll do what I can. Just…give me a minute to plan this out."

She relaxed, sitting back in the chair, but he could see the sweat standing out on her brow. She was afraid.

He tore his attention from the people before him – his friends, his love – and forced it onto the screen. This operation would require all of his focus. He could not doubt himself, and he had to act without fear – even if fear was all he could feel just then.

He shut it down, and poured his focus instead into understanding the organism before him. He knew the basic differences in physiology between this beast and its recessive cousin – the nerve density in certain areas being much higher, for instance – and he needed to factor these understandings into his approach.

This Plaga was not four-legged like other young recessives were, but already boasted six thick legs, three of which were anchored on her lungs, two of which touched on ribs – these were no threat – and one of which was resting draped over her heart. He knew that the outer layer of skin on the Plaga was already forming connections with any flesh it touched, so this was be very dangerous.

He studied its positioning thoroughly, then decided on a game plan and started up the laser. "Alright," he said. "Surgery commencing. Hold on, mi cadenza. I will kill this monster growing inside of you."

"Thank you," she said softly, and tensed up as the lasers hummed to life.

She gasped as the first pulse of light came out, and Luis got to work.

He first attacked the legs resting against the lungs, starting slow and picking up the pace when they did not contract. He needed to kill these quickly, lest they curl inward and puncture the soft sacs beneath them as the Plaga lost control of its body. His spirits rose when he managed to kill two of the three legs that had been poised above her lungs without causing any damage to the vital organs, and this satisfaction was almost enough to drown out her cries of anguish.

It took Herculean will not to turn off the machine right away at that sound, let alone to keep his hands from shaking, but he managed and continued on to the third leg.

When he touched on this one with the laser, it contracted, digging into her lung, and she started to cough.

At least you can't hear her crying anymore, he thought darkly as her violent hacking echoed in the small room. God, this was agony.

He drew the laser away from the leg, and the coughing stopped as it relaxed. He toned down the power and tried touching on it again, but it spasmed into tension again, and the lung was prodded.

He drew away, narrowed his eyes, and turned the power up nearly to maximum. This would kill the leg in moments, but if it contracted too much before it died, it would die with a leg in her lung – a death sentence to her. But it was all he could do.

He drew the high-intensity laser across the leg – it was so powerful at this point that it was damaging her own body, and he would only be able to use it on this setting for a few seconds – and the leg went rigid and died – without contracting on the lung.

That said, the pain caused by this maneuver was immense. It was bad enough that her cries rose briefly to a scream as her spine struggled to arch against the restraints. He tuned it out – he had to – but he felt a part of himself dying at the knowledge of what he was doing to her. And he wasn't even halfway done.

He turned down the setting, and her screams stopped as she lay there, panting for breath. No time to rest, though. He moved along to the next set of legs.

The leg on her heart he would avoid for the moment, unless it also started to contract. The tip wasn't pressed against her heart, so it wouldn't pierce, but if it started to curl then the girth of the leg would press down, constricting the organ's movements. This would likely make her feel like she was having a heart attack, which was a truly painful and terrifying sensation. How well he knew – it was how his grandfather had died.

Oh, abuelo – if you are watching me now, do not hate me for my mistakes. I need your strength. Please, help me make this right.

He continued on to the legs on the ribs.

These went smoothly, but the pain caused was still atrocious, and it was becoming too much for her. Her struggles were weakening. This was not good. The limbs were perhaps the easiest and fastest part of the procedure, and he still had one to go. The true challenge was the central body, which connected to the spine. If she was weakening before he'd even touched that…

You cannot stop. You cannot even hesitate. Act.

He moved along to the spine. The second he touched it, her entire body went haywire.

Her cries cut off in a harsh choke. Her muscles all went rigid, and her gaze grew fixed. He jerked the laser away, and she gasped for breath and went limp.

He froze up, terrified that he'd damaged her, but a moment later her eyes fluttered open and she began struggling and moaning once more. She was alright, but he'd clearly touched the wrong spot.

He saw the problem – there was a very thick tendril he'd touched on, and it had sent the Plaga into shock. If he severed the smaller ones around that, it would likely weaken the Plaga enough to prevent another major nervous event like that.

He did so, going after the smallest nerve connections first and working his way up the ranks. This took time and precision, and she weakened considerably more.

Roughly halfway through, she went into cardiac arrest.

He saw the symptoms immediately, and though the machine lacked ways of detecting almost all basic health indicators – it had to do with the laser system, with which heart monitors and other such instruments were largely incompatible – he could see the image of her heart stuttering into arrhythmia with his own two eyes, and saw the way her body was reacting as well.

No. No, no, no. This was not something he could halt. And if he stopped the procedure, the Plaga would likely react violently once the shock of the lasers was gone. It would either kill her, or actively start regenerating itself and forming new, inseverable connections with her nerves and organs. He couldn't stop…but she was dying.

He stared at the screen helplessly. There was nothing he could do. He was losing her.

Then the leg over her heart twitched. It contracted slightly, then let up. The rest of its body, particularly the nerves that connected to that leg, began shuddering. And the arrhythmia stopped.

Her heartrate returned to normal, and she took a shallow, shuddering breath. She was unconscious now, but alive. It seemed the Plaga was still trying to preserve its host.

He realized how fortunate it was that he'd decided to leave that leg for last. It was now acting as a pacemaker, regulating her heartbeat. So long as he avoided the areas that were working to this end, he ought to be able to cut everything else out without killing her.

And when the time came to cut out the last leg…he would simply have to pray.

He worked. He cut the remaining spinal Plaga nerves out, and this time when he touched on that major tendril he'd started with, her body hardly reacted at all, save for a slight jolt. This was still unnerving, though. Such a jolt meant that her entire nervous system had been affected by that severance. Since she was unconscious, she was no longer struggling, and he could not say for sure whether her nerves had been damaged to the point of paralysis.

He kept going, finishing off the last few before the final segment. Before he tackled it, he checked her vitals as well as he could without the proper equipment. She was weak, unconscious, and her heartrate should have been slow and faint. But it was beating strongly, and this was very, very bad.

That leg was keeping her heart working beyond what it ought to have been capable of at this point. It was proof positive that it was still acting as a pacemaker, and when he killed it, it would definitely have an effect on the organ. It might stop it altogether. It could send her back into arrhythmia. The odds that it would do nothing more than allow the organ to continue functioning normally to the best of its own ability were so slim he did not dare to consider it.

But the Plaga had to die. He set the laser to a moderate power level and began working his way up the leg.

At first her heart sped up. Then, as he grew near the exact point where the leg draped across the organ – every other part of the Plaga was dead now – Aurelleah gasped tightly as her heartbeat stuttered again. The beat resumed, weaker now, and he slowed down. He turned the power down and continued.

Please. Please. Please, please, please…

He swapped to the other side, killing the tip of the leg that extended past her heart. He worked his way back to the exact point of connection to her heart, which was beating slowly now.

Here goes nothing. Please, God, let this work…

He ramped the power back up to max and targeted the very last part of the Dominant Plaga, hitting the heart-connection point dead on for about .8 seconds.

It died. The Plaga was done for. He shut the laser off…

…and her heart continued to beat.

He shuddered with relief, but only partial relief. He still did not know if she was okay. She could be braindead, paralyzed…

…well, those were pretty much the only two options. Braindead or paralyzed.

Or alive and perfectly fine, his inner monologue reminded him gently.

He powered down the machine and the restraints on her body released. He stepped out from behind the controls.

"Well?" Leon asked. "Is she…"

Luis walked over to her. Just to confirm with his own two hands, he placed two fingers on her jugular. There it was, weak and slow – a pulse.

"She's alive," he said wearily. "But that will tell us little until she wakes up."

He didn't look at them. He didn't want to see what they thought of him just then.

Ashley stepped forward and took her sister's hand, squeezing it. Aurelleah did not react.

"Thank you," Ashley said, and the words did nothing to comfort him. "Even if things don't turn out okay, thank you for trying. She wouldn't have wanted to live like that."

His throat closed up, and he felt something welling up in him that he hadn't experienced in more than a decade.

Oh, God, not now.

"She looks alright," Ashley said. She was trying to sound upbeat. "Really, I think she's gonna be – oh, my God, are you okay?"

Leon stepped over, and almost at once tapped Ashley on the shoulder. They didn't say anything, but they both retreated, wheeling Mike away as well. They all stepped out of the room.

He appreciated this. He did not want his friends to see him crying.

Aurelleah could feel it through the pain. Her Plaga, fighting to stay alive even as Luis tore it apart.

Their agony was shared. She felt it as her own, and it was like every part of her body was slowly burning to death at the cellular level. Piece by piece, she was fading away.

It's fading away, she reminded herself. This isn't me.

But her ability to separate herself from the Plaga had deserted her. She felt its pain as her own with no barriers at all. It did not want to die.

The pain went on and on, and she felt it weakening. She felt no pleasure or satisfaction in this. She couldn't possibly. Oddly enough, she felt a sort of sad emptiness as the Plaga's death grew nearer and nearer. It was like she was losing a presence that she hadn't even realized had become an innate part of her. For a wild minute, she wanted to scream,

Luis, stop! Don't kill it, please!

Then her heart seized up, and she knew she was dying, too.

This pain was even worse, because now she was dying twice. Most people didn't even know what it felt like to die once, and she was dying twice. At the same time.

She felt nausea well up in her, a moderate discomfort to compliment the harsher agonies gripping her. Her left arm hurt like it was going to fall off, her chest was full of broken glass, and her thoughts were going jilted and skewed.

Throughout it all, however, at least one coherent thought managed to surface.

Oh, Luis – please don't blame yourself for this. Please be okay.

She held onto this, willing him to hear her, but of course he wouldn't. Even if he'd had a Plaga in him, she was beyond being able to broadcast something like that.

Then she felt her Plaga react. It began to grasp what was happening, and she could sense within it a feeling of alarm.

Dying. Host, dying. In pain.

Sssssstop. Stop p-p-p-pain. Stop host dying.

Save host.

Her heart stopped hurting as her Plaga pushed past its own pain to try and stop hers. She felt its satisfaction when she took a shuddering breath, replenishing her dwindling oxygen. She could feel it continuing to work, trying to keep her heart steady even as its own body was ripped apart. It was trying to save her life. More than that – it wanted to save her life.

The Dominant Plagas reflect the consciences of their hosts…

The pain continued. She felt herself start to separate from herself, to lose consciousness, but part of her remained alert. It was the part that was fused with her Plaga. Even as the rest of her went limp and she lost all feeling in her body – she experienced a brief flash of pain as something really big was severed, but her Plaga noted this and reacted, lightning fast – she could still feel herself, her mind existing as a part of her Plaga.

Save host. Save. Do not let host die.

Thank you, she thought.

Save them. Do not let them die.

Thank you, she thought again.

Sssssssssave—

Her Plaga faded out, and everything went black.

This darkness lasted a while. When she finally started to surface from it, it was to a very distressing sound. Someone was crying nearby.

She felt a dark emptiness inside her, like she'd recently lost someone very important to her. She tried to remember who it was, but she couldn't.

That said, she was pretty sure someone important to her was nearby, and needed her right then, so she forced her own sense of loss aside and tried to wake up.

She couldn't feel anything for a long minute. Couldn't really move at all. It was like the numbness of sleep paralysis, but without the accompanying fear and hallucinations. That was okay – she knew how to deal with that. She focused on her pinky, and forced it to move.

Her paralysis broke. She felt the warmth of someone lying against her, the warmth of an arm draped over her, and she opened her eyes.

It was Luis. He was crying. Did he think she was dead? Why? What—

The Plaga.

That's right. The Plaga removal procedure. He'd done it, he'd killed it, and she was alright.

Was she, though? She was having trouble moving. She felt horribly weak. She focused on raising her arm.

At first it didn't move. Then the fingers twitched, and after a moment, her arm slowly rose, wrapping lightly around his shoulders.

He gasped, rearing up to take her in. When he saw her looking at him, his expression twisted up and he pressed himself against her chest and let out a short sob.

"Aurelleah—"

She swallowed thickly and croaked, "Hey, Luis."

He pressed himself more firmly against her, and she was reminded of their briefly shared moment of passion in the storage room. This was not an amorous embrace, though. It was borne of sheer desire to be close to her. To assure himself that she was alive, and with him.

It put a little bit of strength back into her body. "I'm okay," she said reassuringly. "Don't worry. I'm okay."

It took him a few minutes, but he got himself together. When he finally stopped crying, he raised his head again and said, "Can you move everything? Is anything damaged, numb, in pain?"

"No, no pain. Not in my limbs, anyways. Well, my left arm is sore. And there's a little numbness. I don't know about damage. Actually, my chest really, really hurts."

He rolled off of her and began tapping at her various body parts with the tip of his finger and asking if she felt that. She felt everything, though with her right leg he had to tap several times, and it took her a minute to be able to twist her ankle around. Luis had watched, expression tight and nervous, until she'd been able to wiggle her toes, rotate her ankle, and lift her leg a couple inches off the table with just a bit of his help. And only once she'd done this with all of her extremities did he relax.

He went to say something else, but before he could, the door opened, and Leon stepped in.

Luis turned around to address him, but Leon's eyes slid past him to her. "Elleah!" he exclaimed. "You're awake. Are you okay?"

At these words, Ashley flew into the room, blowing past Leon and Luis and flinging herself over her.

Elleah winced. "Ow. Hi Ash. Ow."

Ashley let go, gasping. "Oh, I'm sorry! Are you alright? Can you move?"

Elleah tried to sit up to emphasize that she could, in fact, move, but she was unable to. Not for lack of nerve connections – she was just too weak. "Ugh. Yeah, I'm just really, really tired."

Luis slid an arm around her shoulders and helped her sit up. She slid her legs off the table and tried to put pressure on them, but sucked in a sharp breath when the action sent pins and needles through her legs.

"Ow," she said again, and Luis began lightly stroking her arm.

Leon came over and patted her on the back. "I don't know about you guys, but I think it's time we head home."

A shadow flitted across Luis's face, but vanished almost at once. "Sounds like a plan to me."

Here was a bit of a problem, though. She couldn't walk on her own. When she tried supporting her own weight, she felt like she was going to throw up. When she tried taking a step, her legs gave out. She really felt as weak as a newborn.

Luis was still concerned that this was nerve damage, but she was pretty sure it wasn't. "Really, this is kind of how I feel after a really bad string of sleep paralysis attacks. I'm pretty sure it's just exhaustion. I'll be fine once I've gotten some rest."

"Unfortunately," Leon said. "We can't afford to rest here. Saddler's a menace, and unless Ada managed to kill him, he's still out there. We have to get off of this island and call in reinforcements. Luis, what's our best shot at that?"

He looked troubled. "Well, there is a cove nearby that lets out to the sea, but it's anyone's guess whether there will be a boat in it. The bay I wanted to dock in when we were first coming here may still be heavily fortified, so that's up in the air. But we may have one other option; Saddler has a construction rig nearby. He has been transporting materials and personnel to and from the mainland, and there may be material transport boats docked nearby. There's no telling how many guards it will have, though. We will want to approach it carefully."

They had a gameplan. Executing it was going to be tricky, though. They now had two crippled people to deal with. Leon and Luis would both be weighed down supporting her and Mike.

Then Ashley stepped forward and said, "Hey, let me help Elleah out, okay? You guys probably need your hands free."

Luis looked doubtful, but Ashley was adamant about helping. Elleah was okay with trying it out, so she slipped an arm around Ashley's neck, and with a bit of effort, she was upright.

Ashley looked strained, but said, "I can do this. No problem. Let's go."

Luis relented. "Alright, if you insist…your highness."

Ashley stuck her tongue out, but it was more of an automatic reaction than anything. She didn't look upset. On the contrary, she looked hopeful and happy. Elleah concurred. Though her body felt like it might give out at any moment, her spirits were high. This was it. The parasites were out, and they had no reason to face Saddler. They could finally go home, and let dad sort out the rest of this mess.

Ashley helped her across the room. When they stepped out, Mike perked up. Elleah wouldn't have thought it possible to smile with such extensive facial damage, but he managed, somehow. "Ey, there she is! Feelin' alright? No brain damage?"

"None that I'm aware of," Elleah replied, tired but sunny.

Mike nodded as Leon began rolling him down the hall. They'd take advantage of the chair he was in for as long as they could. "That's the spirit. So, what's the plan?"

"We're going home," Ashley said excitedly.

Mike looked like he approved of this. "Sounds like a plan to me. Everything's taken care of here, then? No loose ends to tie up?"

There weren't any. None that she could see, anyways. But before she could say as much, Luis spoke up, the trouble in his expression coming out in his tone as he voiced his concern.

"Actually…"

Leon looked over at him questioningly, and Luis said, "Leon, Saddler still has the Sample. That's the last one – I destroyed all the other Dominant strain Plaga eggs before I fled. And while it may not be a major threat by itself, if it fell into the wrong hands…"

"It could be studied and recreated," Leon finished gravely.

Luis nodded.

Elleah and Ashley looked at each other worriedly. They…weren't going to have to face Saddler, were they?

"Leon?" She asked.

They'd just reached a set of stairs going up, and Leon pushed Mike to the edge of these before looping an arm around the man to get him to his feet. As they started up the stairs, he said, "That Plaga is going to be a problem if it isn't destroyed, but we're outclassed. As much as I hate to say it, we're at the end of our ropes. All of us. What we need to do right now is get out of here alive and with this information. I'll contact the head of the DSO ASAP. I know him. He'll listen to me when I explain how important this is. He'll send in some fresh troops, and if we need to, we'll carpet bomb this place. Saddler won't get out of here alive, and the Sample will be destroyed with him. Worst case scenario, they'll send in one of the other experts to finish up here. I know there's at least one guy, a BSAA agent called Redfield, who has as much experience with this sort of thing as I do. I think that's our best bet."

Luis still looked troubled. "I do not want to risk him escaping."

"I know," Leon said as they emerged from the building into the chilly grey day once more. "But my mission is to get these girls to safety. I can't jeopardize that for…"

He'd raised his head to look at the rig extending up out of the rocky shelf before them. Giant, rust-flecked columns of steel rose out of the stone to support a series of large platforms. Construction supplies were scattered here and there, and an elevator stood just before them, ready to take them to the top, should they want to go.

Elleah's eyes traveled up there, and there she saw what had made Leon trail off, and what was responsible for the paleness that had just spread across his face.

Saddler stood at the top, staring down at them. He'd extended his scorpion-tail. In it, clearly unconscious, hung Ada.

Satisfied that they'd seen him, Saddler turned and carried her out of sight.

The relative silence following this seemed very jarring. All that could be heard was the wind scraping across the barren rock of this, the western edge of the island, and the faint hum of one of the fluorescent lights strung up nearby.

Leon said, "Luis, where are the boats?"

He turned northwest and nodded in that direction. "They should be over there, if Saddler has not totaled them out of spite. But you know we can't leave now."

Leon's expression was stoic, but Elleah knew by now that he wasn't the type to show his feelings in a situation like this. She also knew that he wouldn't be able to leave Ada behind, knowing full well what would happen to her.

"Who was that?" Ashley asked, confused. She'd only glimpsed Ada in passing once, or maybe twice. She didn't really know who the woman was.

"She's a friend of Leon's," Elleah replied. "And he needs to go help her before we leave. Right, Leon?"

Leon turned away from the rig, jaw clenching. "My mission is to get you girls to safety."

Elleah wasn't gonna take that as an excuse. Even if she wanted nothing more than to leave, to go home and curl up and sleep for a year and a day, she knew that wasn't an option. "Yeah, well, I'm not leaving if it means Ada dies. She saved my life, remember? She's our friend. We have to help her. Or, uh, someone does, anyways," she finished sheepishly. She wasn't going to be helping anyone, given that she needed her sister's help just to stay upright. Jeez, everything hurt.

Leon's lip twitched up in the suggestion of a snarl, and he took a step away from the elevator.

She looked helplessly at Luis. They couldn't let Leon do this.

Luis caught her eye and took the hint. He stepped forward, grabbed Leon's shoulder, and said, "Amigo, you cannot leave her here. And Saddler isn't going to wait long. You go ahead – I will take Mike and the girls to the boat, get us ready to go, and once our getaway vehicle is secured and the girls are safe, I will come help you. Does that sound like a plan?"

Leon thought about it…then relented. "Alright. It's a plan. Get them loaded up." He glared back up towards the spot where Saddler had disappeared. "I'm going to go get Saddler."

He stepped towards the elevator, but before he could go, Ashley stepped forward – with Elleah in tow, of course. "Leon," she said. "Please be careful."

"And save Ada, okay?" Elleah added earnestly.

Leon reached out with both hands, settling them on their shoulders bracingly, and said, "I will. Stay safe. I'll be back in a flash."

He stepped into the elevator and started up towards the final confrontation.

OoO

Plot twist - even I didn't know it was a Dominant Plaga until halfway through the story. But when Steele commented on it, I really started thinking about it. And I realized that that would be a super interesting dynamic on a lot of levels. And as I hadn't published anything that would really contradict it by then, I just went back and made a couple of quick edits to the stuff I hadn't published yet, and badda-bing badda-bang! Dominant Plaga.

Seriously, this is one of the reasons I LOVE getting great reviews like that. It legitimately helps shape the story. The Del Lago fight, the Dominant Plaga, even the idea of adding in one of my own beasties, i.e. the giant Colmillo down in the tunnels (shoutout to Evolution ;D), all came from comments.

Anywho, we don't have long left. I'll be back in a couple of days, maybe do an early upload. Unless I go camping, then it may be a late upload. Either way, see ya guys again soon :)

Sincerely,

The Topaz Dragon