Here we go. Last chapter.


The end begins with a tako.

It's sitting in atop Amelia's side-table like it's the most normal thing in the world. Not her side-table at work, mind you. The one in her apartment, outside the compound. It's there when she wakes up, and doesn't particularly react to her slack-jawed stare of horror, nor does it mind her frantically grabbing the phone to call Boss and report that containment has been breached.

"You're not the only one. The whole town has been put on lockdown and the roads in and out are blocked off." Boss says. "Bring it in when you come to work."

So Amelia goes about getting ready for work. The tako watches her patiently; its closed eyes following her around the room. It covers its eyes with its flaps when she gets dressed and when she goes into the bathroom to brush her teeth she comes out to find it's moved to the main room table.

The tako chirps at her when she pours herself cereal, so she finds a cracker to give to it. It happily munches on its meal while Amelia eats her own food and slips on her coat, and offers no protest when Amelia scoops it up and carries it in one arm down the street towards the compound.

She doesn't do much more than open her door before she sees yet another tako lazily floating down the hallway of her apartment complex. There's a middle-aged woman cowering against one wall, staring at it in terror.

The lady must not be an employee. Probably family of a worker. All the employees know about takos, and know that they're not really a problem.

With a sigh, Amelia walks up to the tako, lightly grabs one of its tentacles, and pulls it out of the air and into her arms. It doesn't protest this and nestles in happily next to the first one.

"They're not dangerous." Amelia tells the lady. "They're like dogs. Don't attack them and they won't bother you."

"Wh-What am I supposed to do if I find another?" The lady stammers.

"Push it aside." Amelia shrugs. "They don't mind. If you really want to be safe, give it food or something. They like food."

The woman gives her an incredulous look.

"Head scratches work too."

That doesn't seem to reassure her.

Amelia detours back into her apartment to grab a sleeve of crackers before getting in the elevator and punching the button for the ground floor. The second tako whines, so she is obligated to give it a snack to pacify it.

Her crackers prove to be very necessary when she steps out of the apartment building to see no less than five takos lazily hovering somewhere on or above the street. Two are in the air, one is resting on a street lamp, and two more have attached themselves to some of the buildings. Amelia tempts them all to her with crackers, and they allow themselves to be pressed onto her coat where they latch on like barnacles.

By the time she gets to the compound she has no less than two dozen takos clinging to her clothes, but that turns out to be the least of her worries.

There's a cloud hanging over the compound. Not a raincloud, or any cloud made of water vapour. Not a cloud of any gas at all. High in the sky, swirling slowly in a circular pattern, are hundreds of takos, maybe thousands. They're not dense enough to entirely block the light, but they cast a shadow all the same. They effortlessly blanket the whole compound, kept in check only by their own whims and the fighter planes corralling them to stay within the compound's airspace.

"I don't think they're going to let Kiara fly today." Amelia thinks numbly, staring up at the swarm of takos. "She's going to be disappointed."

One of the takos on her shoulders chirps happily.

"I should have brought more crackers."

Checking in is a bit more hectic than usual in no small part thanks to two dozen takos that do not want to get into a box and cling to her coat like their lives depend on it.

"Come on little things." She says, delicately removing one from her elbow. It's little tentacles grip her fingers. "You'll be fine. You're just going to join your friends."

They whine pitifully in unison.

After half an hour or talking each and every individual tako into getting in the box (and bribing them with more crackers) Amelia rushes to her office and turns on her computer to check her schedule. While her computer boots up she fishes her usual items out of her drawer... only to find her watch missing.

"Where did I leave it?" She frowns. "Calli's room, maybe? Whatever. It'll turn up again."

She scoops up her keychain (it feels heavier today, somehow) and stuffs it in her pocket. Her hands brush the feathers she's hidden in the drawer as well. They're still warm to the touch, even weeks after being shed. They make for a reassuring warmth as she opens her email and reads report after report of tako sightings and the compound's utter inability to contain them.

"Kiara's flight is cancelled, no surprise there." Amelia thinks, scanning her schedule. "Do everyone else quickly, then report to floor ten for a briefing on Eldritch. Fair enough."

First stop, Kiara.

The grounds of the compound are an even bigger mess than the city streets. Everywhere Amelia goes she sees a tako. The buildings are swarmed with the things, and if Amelia's eyes are seeing things right there are even some distortions popping up along the walls. She can see workers installing extra reality anchors in an effort to combat the distortions, but she has no idea how effective they'll be.

Kiara seems to have caught the frantic energy of the people outside her cell. She's pacing her room when Amelia comes in, and Amelia isn't even remotely surprised to see two takos hovering around her room in the background.

"Ame!" Kiara says as soon as she notices her. The phoenix rushes to the viewing screen and presses herself against it. She's wearing a dress today, though it's cut short and layered a dozen times around her stomach and chest until it looks like some sort of armour. "What's going on out there? No one will tell me anything!"

"You know I'm not allowed to say anything Kiara." Amelia says quickly.

"I can see something wrong!" Kiara protests, gesturing to her glass ceiling through which the swirling tako cloud is more than visible. "It's a bit too late to hide it from me!"

"That doesn't mean I'm allowed to talk about it." Amelia replies wearily. "You know I tell you anything I'm able to."

"I know, and that makes it worse." Kiara growls.

"I'm not in danger, Kiara." Amelia promises. "Probably. Those things you can see aren't dangerous."

That pacifies her a bit. "You're sure?"

"I've dealt with them almost every day since they came in. I'm sure."

Kiara nods and takes a step back from the screen. "Alright then. Stay safe."

"I will."

"If I can help, tell Cover I'm willing." Kiara says.

Interesting. Amelia doubts Cover will agree to anything of the sort, but... "I'll run it by Boss when I see him."

"Good." Kiara nods, head tilted back proudly. "I'll wait for his response then."

"Don't get your hopes up."

Kiara smiles, showing teeth. "I'll consider it when I see Cover's other options, because right now they apparently aren't using them."

Sometimes Amelia forgets how sharp Kiara can be. "I'll be back. Hopefully."

"Take your time."

Amelia rushes out of the room and moves to Gura's room. She can hear someone shouting off in the distance, and as she takes the stairs too at a time a faint song plays in her ears, whispering lyrics she just barely can't make out.

It's soothing, somehow, when it should probably be concerning.

When she arrives in Gura's observation room she yanks the lever to drain Gura's pool without giving her a warning (she's in a rush!) and spends the five minutes it takes to drain the pool to compose a quick message to Boss with Kaira's offer.

When Amelia lowers the glass and opens the holes so she can see and hear into Gura's cell, she doesn't see Gura anywhere. Instead, she sees a single tako attached to the ceiling, staring at the drained pool.

"Gura?" Amelia calls when the siren doesn't show herself after a minute. "Gura?"

"WaAatson!" Gura whines from out of sight. "BuuUg!"

"Bug?" Amelia blinks. Wait, the tako? "Gura, that's a tako. It's eldritch."

"It aaa wIIItch?"

"No, eldritch. It's from out of this world, probably." Amelia says. "It's not dangerous."

"LOOOk like oOoctopuus, but nOOOt!" Gura says. "BaAAd OOOctOoO!"

"It's harmless, Gura. It won't hurt you if you don't hurt it."

Gura peeks over the edge of her pool at the tako. "CAAAn eeeat?"

"I wouldn't. You'll make the others angry."

"Otheeers?"

"Yeah, there's a bunch of 'em." Amelia admits. "Don't eat it. You can pet it if it comes down though."

"Is pet?"

"Yes Gura."

"CaAan swIm?"

"I don't know, actually."

"Want seEE if cAAAn swIm."

"Go ahead, just don't drown it." Amelia says. "But I can't stay Gura, I have to go."

"Only bEEEn mInute!" Gura protests, scrambling out of the pool. "WaAatson! StAaAy!"

"I can't Gura, I'm busy. I came purely to make sure you're alright." Amelia says apologetically.

"YOoOU okaAAy?"

"I'm fine." For now. "Have fun with the tako, Gura."

She has to leave Gura in her cell, calling for her to come back. It hurts her heart a bit to hear the siren's pitiful whining as she pulls the level to fill the pool and seals the room with the press of a button.

Calli is next, and it's by far the shortest check-in. Calli takes one look at her, says "you have better things to do than stand there", and goes back to staring at some arbitrary point in her floor while a tako clings to her cape. Amelia doesn't question her good grace and leaves immediately.

Amelia does not, under any circumstance, want to check on Crystal, but she has to. It's her job. And if she says she wants to stop working with Crystal, that's going to send a red flat to Cover that something is wrong, and she doesn't want to do that to Crystal. Crystal hasn't really done anything wrong.

(Even if her singing is really distracting.)

"Heya-" Amelia's words catch in her throat the instant she steps through the door.

Crystal's, uh, crystal, is glowing. Light leaks out of it in rainbow beams, casting a wash of prismatic colors across the walls of her cell.

The song is loud in Amelia's ears and only slightly muffled, as if she's hearing it through a thin wall.

(How many things will I learn? / How many times will I say goodbye?~)

"Okay, no song hypnotism this time, alright Iris?" Amelia says. (Iris? No, she's Crystal. Why did she say Iris?) "This one has a job to do. They can't waste an hour listening today."

If she's not imagining things, Amelia thinks the rainbow light pulses in time with the song. Also, did she just call herself 'this one'? What in Baelz's name is going on?

"Don't keep everyone waiting too long, babe." What the fuck is coming out of her mouth right now? "Stage is set, actors are in place. I've been waiting a literal millennia for another kiss."

WHAT. NO. She doesn't even know what Crystal is like! Besides, Kiara wouldn't be happy about her kissing someone else first!

"Alright, gotta go before this one has a panic attack. Love you." She says, the words tumbling out of her mouth without any influence from her. She practically throws herself out the door before she can say anything even weirder.

She would love to take a moment to sit and digest whatever the hell that was, but she does, in fact, have a job to do. Eldritch still awaits.

With the time saved from Calli not wanting a talk, Amelia has a minute or two extra. Taking a detour to check on her egg probably isn't the best use of her time, but she doesn't technically have anything else on her schedule and there's no one to tell her not to.

Well, actually there's a lot of people that could tell her not to, but they're busy corralling takos to do that. She's free to walk over to the anomalous item storage wing and look into the box with her egg.

She was not expecting to see her watch there, propped up against her egg. She didn't realize the box counted as location that belonged to her. That's going to be a hassle to get open and retrieve. She can imagine the paperwork involved already.

"At least it's an excuse to get in the box at some point." Amelia sighs internally, peering through at her egg and checking it for any sign the watch might have moved it. She feels reassured that nothing seems to have changed. "At least there isn't a tako in there."

She has to force her gaze away from the egg a minute later, and the brief sense of calm that had washed over her vanishes. Time for Eldritch... probably. Maybe. Technically it's just a meeting.

Each floor Amelia descends past the seventh is swarmed with takos. She took the stairs precisely to see what was going on, and it's the most subdued sor t of chaos. She can see takos coating every open surface, and distortions warping the walls and the floor and spawning more takos every minute.

The takos watch her as she descends the stairs. They part to make a path for her, and for anyone else she crosses (most of whom are in the process of evacuating floors nine and eight). They make no noise for the others, but mewl at Amelia as she descends. Their voices echo through the halls in a way that sounds so close to speech that Amelia's ears register it as one garbled voice rather than a chorus of a million eldritch beings.

Amelia wouldn't say she's scared, exactly. No, takos aren't threatening enough to scare her. Worried, absolutely, but not scared. Not yet.

The meeting is taking place in Eldritch's observation tower. The one that once overlooked Eldritch and Crystal when they were both housed here, and is now only here to look at the wall of takos obstructing the glass of Eldritch's cell.

It also turns out to be less of a 'meeting' and more of an argument. Amelia steps inside to find Jay and another overseer shouting at each other, Jenma staring tersely out the window, and Boss scowling at his phone.

"Uh, hi?" Amelia says when the door closes behind her. A few takos are attached to the ceiling or tucked in the corners of the room away from the occupants, but gravitate towards her the instant she's noticed. They noiselessly latch onto her coat, flaps wiggling contently. "The email didn't exactly specify what the meeting was about, so..."

"Eldritch." Jenma says curtly.

"Well yeah, but what exactly about her?"

"We can't get to her." Boss says brusquely, closing his phone and looking to Amelia. "Her minions won't let us through."

The takos are providing resistance? "Did someone antagonize them?"

"Not that we're aware." Boss says. "They aren't fighting us, they simply won't let us through."

Well that's... good?

"We need to use force!" The unknown second overseer insists, pointing to the wall of takos. "These things have already taken over half the site!"

"Start shooting and they'll tear us apart in seconds!" Jay hisses back.

"So we get extermination teams here! Flamethrowers, gas, whatever it takes!" The overseer continues. "Evacuate, burn them out, come back and rebuild. It's the only option!"

"Like hell it is!" Jay snaps.

"I'm not hearing any other ideas!"

"We have her." Jay says, pointing a finger at Amelia. Amelia blinks rapidly. Her? What does that have to do with anything? "The takos like her. Send her in."

"What's she supposed to do about it?" Jenma asks. Her tone is challenging, but not negative. Her head has turned from the window to pay proper attention to the conversation.

"I don't know! Something that doesn't involve us all getting eaten by tiny eldritch monsters because someone tries to shoot them!" Jay says, throwing up her hands. "Fuck, maybe she can talk to them! They listen to her more than anyone else. Worst case, she gets more info and we go from there!"

"That's too slow!" The overseer argues.

"Too late now!" Jay argues back. "We're going to have to evacuate the entire site if you start turning it into a battleground. At least with Amelia there's a chance we don't have to fight!"

"I'm willing." Amelia cuts in before the argument can continue in circles. She looks at Boss. "We don't have much to lose by trying."

"Your life. Time." Boss says shortly.

"My life isn't in danger." Amelia insists, hoping to Baelz that's true. "And we still have time. The takos aren't hurting anyone. As soon as we start shooting that guarantees we're out of time."

Boss regards her for a moment, then sighs. "Alright, fine. Jay, hook her up with a mike and a camera."

Jay does just that (for all it's going to help, because both of them fully expect the tech to be of no use whatsoever with all the distortions fucking with signals and... everything really. Nothing goes through a distortion and comes out intact). Amelia refuses the hazard suit because it's really not going to help if the takos decide to attack her. She's not strong enough to fight two thousand tiny eldritch monsters with fangs that can chew steel with or without a thick suit.

She does insist, however, on another sleeve of crackers. Boss gives her a look, but Jenma pats him on the shoulders and puts in a call. She might think Amelia is too nice on her charges, but in this case they need every shred of endearment they can get.

So that's how Amelia finds herself walking through a tako-infested room towards a big steel door, clutching a full box of crackers with a microphone and a camera attached to her ear. She feels like the focus of some sort of first-contact scene in a sci-fi movie, except she also has crackers. Saltines, actually. Gluten-free.

"I don't think they realized I'm not the one whose going to eat the crackers." Amelia thinks absently. Anything not to think about what's going to happen behind the door. She doesn't even know what she's going to do when she gets through the tako wall.

The door opens for her just like it usually does. A living wall of takos greets her not even a meter beyond the threshold. She steps into the room, and the door closes behind her.

She hesitantly eyes the wall of takos a step away from her, opens the box of crackers, takes some out and offers some to the stone-faced takos. "I come bearing food?"

A moment of nothing. The takos regard her through unopened eyes. Amelia holds her breath.

One of them breaks off from the wall, floats up to her, nibbles on one of the crackers, then turns to the tako wall and chirps.

The other takos hold their composure for about ten seconds before breaking forward and swarming around her, chirping and pleading for food. Amelia hands out crackers, emptying the whole box until she only has one left.

"Ah-ah, I can get more, but I need this one." Amelia scolds, holding the cracker to her chest and fending off the hungry takos pawing at it with their tentacles."This is for your angel."

The takos whine, begging for the food.

"No, bad takos." She says, clicking her tongue. "For your angel. Not you."

The takos pout, but give way. A dozen of them latch onto her coat, pulling her into the cell.

The cell is nearly unrecognizable on the inside. The stone staircase leading up to Eldritch's bed is riddled with distortions, and Amelia can't tell which ones are purely visual and which ones have stuck. A sphere of takos are around the bed itself, completely obstructing it from view just like it has been for the last week.

And then, there's the rest of the cell. A mess of twisted metal that almost looks more like an architect's carefully crafted horror world than random chance. The once silver metal has been tinted purple, or maybe it's the reflection of the takos swarming over it. It juts out in arcs and twisted spires from the floor and wall and ceiling.

Just behind the pillar the bed is suspended upon, Amelia spots something that shouldn't be there. Not another tako, not more metal, no. Something else.

It looks like some sort of urchin, if urchins were five feet tall, dark purple, had tentacles instead of spines, as well as two hundred eyes and a squid beak the size of her forearm. It stares at her from behind the pillar, and Amelia stares back.

She's always known Eldrich could manifest other sorts of creatures aside from takos if her distortions got bad enough, but Amelia never thought she'd have to get within a hundred meters of one. She also knows that these other creatures were described as 'highly aggressive' and took several clips of high-calibre bullets to put down, and that she definitely does not have an assault rifle on her right now. Instead, she has a cracker.

The creature eyes her, but doesn't approach. It's tentacles slowly slither along the floor, curling around the warped metal of the floor. Some takos are nestled on its body, almost invisible among the tentacles and only visible due to their slightly brighter coloration.

It looks slightly less intimidating when a tako hovers over to it with a half-eaten cracker in its mouth and offers it to the creature, and it delicately manoeuvre's it's beak to pluck the cracker out of the tako's mouth so it can scarf it down without hurting the smaller creature.

Amelia cautiously keeps moving to the stairs, hoping that the creature's lack of reaction equates to acceptance. She's versed in tako psychology, not giant tentacle urchin psychology, so she can't be too sure.

Navigating the staircase is difficult. The stone is warped, albeit not as badly as the rest of the cell, and Amelia finds herself climbing steps bent at a forty-five degree angle, with no guardrails, or over entirely missing steps.

Takos float alongside her as she climbs. The first time she misses a step and wobbles, they swarm over her and used their combined strength to lift her in the air, and from then on Amelia has a tako safety net for every missed step.

She's fairly sure the takos would fly her to the top if she asked, but she wants to show her commitment, so she doesn't. She climbs the rest of the steps herself, slipping only once or twice.

Something crackles over her earpiece (she didn't realize the camera was an earpiece), but it's worse than indistinguishable. She can't tell who's speaking, much less what's being said. Also, it's hurting her ear, so if the person on the other end could please cut it out she'd be grateful.

She breaks through the sphere of takos without having to resort to a bribe (which is good, because again, she has only one cracker left, and if she's going to bribe anyone it's going to be Eldritch). They part like a curtain to grant her access to the inner sanctum.

And Eldritch... isn't there. Amelia sees only an empty bed, and a note scrawled on the surface of the table in black ink.

Hello, dear.

I'm sorry I couldn't be here to greet you in person. Today is a big day and we're all quite busy, and I know you likely made a not inconsiderable effort to get here. I hope you don't feel you've wasted your time.

That said, please, relax. Consider this room your home for the next several hours. The group you work for have been frankly terrible hosts, and my takodachies don't tell me any more positive things about the conditions of their other 'guests'. While some of them absolutely deserve their imprisonment for the safety of all, there are just as many that I think you would agree are guilty of no crime.

You don't need to fear for anyone's life, as long as they don't fire the first shot. I consider myself a reasonable woman. I'm merely going to force an evacuation and reclaim this prison for us of the supernatural disposition. No blood needs be shed.

This cell will be safe. Please, remain here until I have dealt with everything. I promise to bring food when I return.

Love, Ina'nis "E" Ninomae.

Amelia stares blankly at the note. Her earpiece is buzzing again, and she wonders if the camera is working. Can Boss and Jenma and Jay read this? What would they do if they did see it? Would they escalate? Bring in the flamethrowers?

"I have to make sure the others will be okay." Amelia thinks. Kiara, Gura, Calli, Crystal, her egg. She doesn't want to lose them in the chaos of an evacuation. They might end up assigned to different locations, and she wouldn't be able to talk with them anymore. They might end up in worse hands than her's. Their situation here at the compound maybe wasn't the best, but as long as she had her position she could guarantee some level of comfort and safety.

She can't stay here. She's tempted, of course, but she can't. She has people she's responsible for.

"I told Kiara I'd be back." She reminds herself, squaring her shoulders. She leaves the cracker on the table next to the note as a preemptive apology. "I need to figure out which side I'm taking."

Because it's clear that Eldritch, that Ina, has made this a battle. Not a violent one, maybe, but a battle all the same.

She turns around to leave, and is met with a wall of takos barring her way. She gently tries to nudge them aside, but they rebuff her, and attempt to herd her to the bed.

"I have to go." Amelia tells them. "I have other charges, I need to make sure they're safe. You have to let me out."

The takos whine as one. The echoing noise sounds pleading.

"I'm sorry, but I have to. I have a job." Amelia says. "They need me."

The wall of takos shift uncertainly.

"Please?"

With extreme, obvious reluctance, the takos give way. They don't force her down the stairwell again, instead making a staircase of their bodies down to the door. Amelia traverses them carefully, not used to having such a squishy floor and not wanting to hurt the helpful takos.

The urchin creature has moved. It's positioned itself near the door, and Amelia has to delicately step over its tentacles to exit. It stares at her the entire time, and makes a low clicking noise when she passes through the cell's threshold back out into the main room.

The voice in her earpiece instantly becomes understandable as Jenma. "-son, can you hear me?"

"Yeah, I hear you now." Amelia responds. "I'm fine."

"What happened in there? We weren't getting anything from the mike or the camera."

What does she want to say? Does she tell the truth? Feign ignorance? She doesn't know what side she's on. "The distortions in there are really bad. Bad enough that there's more than takos spawning from them. There's some big, tentacled, urchin thingy. It didn't seem to mind me."

Jenma curses. "Worst than we thought; and 4-8999?"

Amelia frowns. "She's called Eldritch."

"Not the time, Amelia."

No. No. Amelia thinks it is the time. "They're people, Jenma. We need to treat them like it."

"Not when they're responsible for ransacking the entire site."

Amelia's mouth thins. "I couldn't see her. The takos let me in the cell, but not to the bed. That said, they were still hovering around the bed in a ball, so there's probably still something they're protecting."

"We still have a bit of time then." Jenma mutters. Amelia closes her eyes. There's her lie. She's committed now. It's a lie Jenma can't disprove without camera footage, but a lie all the same.

"What's going to happen?"

"Boss is organizing an evacuation, top-down. We've detected anomalies messing with the site's foundations. We're worried about a collapse. Boss wants you up there to help keep the near-humans in line."

Right. She can work with that. "Gotcha I'll be right up."

She hurries up the stairs, weaving through takos that watch her worriedly until she's out of their territory and running up to the surface again.

Evacuation is top-down. She needs to do something about Kiara first. She's not sure what she's going to do exactly, but she has to do something. Amelia checks her email as she runs, hoping beyond hope that Boss actually responded to her suggestion to get Kiara's help.

He has not. Amelia curses.

When she gets to the surface, she can already see armoured trucks. The humanlikes are being loaded in. Amelia ignores them completely and beelines for Kiara's cell.

There's no one outside Kiara's cell. All the guards are too busy picking takos off the trucks. Amelia can walk right in the door without anyone questioning her.

"Ame." Kiara smiles. "Has Boss made a decision?"

"There's going to be an evacuation." Amelia says in a rush. Her hands hover hesitantly over the controls for Kiara's cell. The button to open the roof is right there. She only needs to tap it. "Everyone's getting out, and I have no idea where they're going to be relocated to. Different anomalies might be sent to different locations."

"Ah." Kiara's smile grows tense. "I see."

"And I have no idea what to do." Amelia admits. "I can't lose you, or Gura, or Calli, or Crystal or Eldritch, but this is sort of out of my hands and we don't have much time. The evacuation is top-down, and you're at the top."

"Well." Kiara says with a click of her tongue. "If they think I'm going to leave without my egg or my caretaker, they're sorely mistaken, and I don't think they can afford to fight a phoenix right now."

"Let's hope they're that understanding."

The sky visibly darkens through Kiara's ceiling, and both of them look up. Amelia doesn't have a clear view, but Kiara does.

"Looks like the little octos are coming down to say hi." Kiara smiles viciously. "How unfortunate for your group... maybe you should go check on the egg, hmm? After all, I won't be leaving without it... and if you happen to get detoured along the way, well, that's just terribly unfortunate. We wouldn't want to get left behind."

"Right." Amelia nods, mind racing. "Wouldn't want that. Nope. Gotta get the egg."

"Go." Kiara urges, glancing up at the ceiling again. "I think the little octos are causing a bit of chaos out there."

Kiara turns out to be one-hundred percent correct. When Amelia opens the door, she's met with a plague of takos filling the air. There are so many in some places that she can't see more than a dozen meters in that direction.

Somewhere to her left, a van revs up, and she can hear it's tires squeal on pavement as it barrels out of the gate, and see takos being flung off its body. Nearby stands Boss, and Amelia immediately ducks her head to avoid eye contact and moves for the anomalous items storage area.

Something groans under the floor as Amelia takes the stairs down into basement level 1. She has to stand aside for a group of employees carrying a heavy box, and her heart clenches at the thought that her egg might already have been taken.

She breaks out into a sprint, weaving around a tako and another employee in her rush to find her egg. She can hear someone shouting a few rooms over about flooding, and someone else asking where the hell Enma is. She ducks past a security guard who shouts something at her and bolts down the hallway that leads to her egg's containment box.

And then, in a moment of horrifying stillness, Amelia hears a gunshot.

She doesn't know who did it, or why, but she knows that this evacuation has just turned into a battle. She can see it in the suddenly alert posture of the takos around her, and the abrupt manifestation of distortions on the walls and a groan from somewhere deep in the facility.

Amelia did not, however, hear the security guard's warning. When she opens the door to go into the containment room, she's instead met with a two meter hole between herself and the rest of the room, completely cutting anyone and everyone off from the containment boxes.

She eyes the hole, trying to guess if she can jump the gap. She might be able to, but getting back safely would be near impossible with the egg in her arms. From within the hole, she can hear noises. Shouting, running water, a song...

A song, beautiful, beckoning. Not Crystal's song. No, something entirely different. Something that tickles her ears and demands her attention. Something that asks her to peer down into the darkness to try and hear more.

Something that causes her hand to slip, and send her falling headlong down the hole. She's falling for only half a second before she meets water and is plunged into a dark void.

The next minute is spent trashing, trying to figure out which way is up with only the barest amount of light to guide her. The song is even more powerful under the water though, and the shock of being beneath the surface only temporarily returns her senses. Soon, the song has taken hold again, and her mind fogs as it compels her to swim down, down, towards the source.

The source, apparently, is behind a fan (currently offline) and a grate. Amelia worms her way past the fan and sticks her hands through the grate, hoping to find whatever is making that wonderful sound before she runs out of air.

She's only half aware of the individual staring back at her through the grate; large red eyes watching in alarm, and she's even less aware when the song abruptly cuts off, the grate is torn from the wall, and she's pulled through the new hole and up, up, up until-

Amelia breaks the surface with a gasp and a sputter, coughing up water as something pushes her to a tiled slope and onto dry land.

She's soaked and she's out of breath, but she's alive.

"Watson bad at swim." A childish voice says from behind her. "That why no join in pool? Bad swim? No learn?"

It's a voice she's heard before. Never directly, always through a speaker, but one she recognizes. "N-No, I-" Amelia coughs, spitting up water. She doubles over, hacking and wheezing until she's coughed up enough water to not feel like she's choking anymore. "I-I can swim okay, Gura, just can't hold my breath."

"I know. Make joke." Gura replies. Amelia turns around, sitting on the tiles, to see Gura's head half in the water so her mouth is just below the surface and she speaks in her siren voice and not as a screechy harpy. The one tako that was in her room previously is still there, lazily bobbing on the surface of the water like a pool floatie."Am sorry. Song make Watson swim. Didn't know could hear. Watson not be behind grate. Bad place be."

"Yeah, no kidding." She must have fallen into the main tank of the filtration system. "Thanks for the save, Gura."

Gura's tail flicks happily, and she smiles. Her lips stretch further than possible on a human, distorting her smile into something that triggers the uncanny valley, which is not at all helped by a few now-broken lights in her room casting most of her face in shadow, giving her predatory red eyes and highlights. "Is different do save. Usually human in water is food. Watson probably taste bad though. Too much bone. Crunch fun, but not fill up."

That's slightly morbid. "Hey, keep your hunger in check and you could be a great lifeguard."

"Lifeguard?"

"You save people in the water. People who are drowning. You need to be really good at swimming for it."

"I good at swim!" Gura says eagerly. "I save you! I know how save!"

"Then you could be a lifeguard!"

"I be lifeguard!" Gura says. "...but Cover not let. Cover mean."

"Yeah." And speaking of, "Gura, I need your help."

The siren perks up and her eyes sharpen. "What need?"

"I need to ensure people are safe. There's been some flooding in the building, and there are holes in some floors. That's how I ended up in your tank." Amelia explains. "We need to get out, and make sure no one is stuck in the water."

"Be lifeguard?"

"Exactly."

"Understand." Gura nods. "We go now?"

"I... don't think I can open the door from the inside." Amelia frowns. "I don't have the clearance. We need another way."

"I know. Have other way. Other hole." Gura says, pointing to her den. "Something make wall look strange, twisty. Broke. Is water on other side too."

So a distortion cracked open the back of Gura's den. Convenient. "Right, let's go then."

"Is dark." Gura warns. "Watson see in dark?"

"...no."

"Watson hold then. I pull along. Know where lead. Take two minutes." Gura says. "Didn't go further on own. Saw people. Scary."

"As long as you're with me we should be fine." Amelia says, having no real idea if that's true. She tentatively wades into the water again, a bit unnerved by the way Gura's eyes track her movements and eye her neck. This is exactly why she didn't want to interact with Gura in water. Too dangerous. All of Gura's hunter instincts are at the front of her mind right now... or maybe that's her paranoia speaking. Gura saved her, after all. "Alright, I'm ready."

She carefully reaches out and wraps her arms around Gura's frame. The girl looks like she'd be a scraggly thing with her loose rags, but it becomes clear to Amelia very quickly that there is some serious muscle hidden under those rags. She can feel some firmness that is definitely not bone.

"Take breath." Gura instructs, and Amelia does. A moment later, she's under the water again. She can feel water rushing past her face as Gura swims, as well as the side-to-side shaking of Gura's tail to propel the both of them. Soon everything goes dark, as light doesn't penetrate into the hall beyond Gura's den and the emergency lighting is equally broken.

"Don't breathe." Amelia tells herself as they rush along. She has no sense for how much further they need to go, and her lungs start to protest. She's entirely untrained for this. "Don't breath. Don't breathe. Don't breathe. Don't-"

They break the surface again, this time is a half-flooded hallway. Amelia notes (with no small alarm) that the entire hallway is tilted, meaning some part of the support structure is entirely broken and the whole upper building is probably sinking into the ground on one side.

Amelia can hear shouting, and there's faint illumination somewhere from a working emergency light. Amelia hauls herself out of the water and can hear Gura getting out behind her. The shadows of a few takos cross the light down the hall.

"WheeEr gOOo?" Gura asks, her voice screechy and inconsistent now that she's out of water. It feels surreal to actually have Gura next to her, able to be touched rather than separated by a pane of glass. If only it were under better circumstances.

"This way." Amelia says, not actually knowing where they're going. Is Eldritch trying to bring down the whole facility? That can't be right. She said her own cell, which is on the tenth floor, would be safe. She can't do too much damage or the tenth floor wouldn't be accessible.

Unless, of course, that was the plan, and 'safe' means 'trapped'.

Amelia leads them towards the shouting, down a water-slicked hallway and around a bend, until they find a group of three men trying to open the door to a stairwell; a door which has been partially crushed by the weight of the wall next to it, and is mangled and not at all inclined to open. Water leaks from a break in the wall, flowing down one side of the hall in a soft trickle.

"Hey!" Amelia shouts to catch their attention. "What happened?!"

"Door won't open! Crushed!" One of them shouts back. "One of those weird space twisting things wrecked it!"

The distortions really are messing with everything, aren't they? "That the only way up?"

"Elevators aren't working, other stairs are underwater!"

Amelia looks to Gura. "Can you go find the other stairwell?"

"CaAAn." Gura nods. "BAAAck soOOn. StAy heErE."

The siren runs and leaps into a nearby pit of water, and is instantly out of sight. Amelia turns back to the men. "How long have you been stuck here?"

"Five minutes." One of the men growls, trying to pull the door open. "Whole building moved and now we're fucking trapped down here."

"Hopefully not for long. Gura will find the other stairwell and swim us out."

"Gura?"

"Siren."

Another man gives her a look that indicates he thinks she's crazy. "She's more likely to eat us than help us."

"Well that's not true." Amelia frowns. "She helped me."

"Of course she did. You're the weird caretaker all the inhumans like for some god-forsaken reason." The man grumbles. "Doesn't extend to the rest of us."

With that sort of attitude, it's not wonder why. Also, Amelia didn't realize she had a reputation outside of her department. "Sure it does. You just have to be nice to them."

"Before or after they tear out my throat?"

"They won't do that without reason. We do feed them." Amelia snaps. "I would know. I've spent enough time watching them."

"One of them is literally a man-eater." One of the men argues. "She ate someone less than a month ago!"

"Yeah, she ate a child predator and let literally everyone else go." Amelia retorts. "So unless you're implying-"

"Watson. I found it." Gura's voice, sonorous once more, wafts out from a pool of water a few meters away. If she squints, Amelia can see Gura's red eyes lurking beneath the surface. "Short swim. Weird climb. Goes up to another hallway."

"Is it a climb a human could make?"

"Yes. Stairs. Strange angle." Gura says. "Possible, just strange."

"Thank you Gura." Amelia says, and turns to the men triumphantly. "So, do you want to get out of here, or are you going to keep pulling on that door?"

The men glare at her, but she can tell by the set of their shoulders that they know they don't really have another option. "Fine."

"Alright. Gura." Amelai says, turning to her charge. "One person at a time. Three people. Can you do it?"

"Can. Easy." Gura says, eyes popping above the surface of the water to look at her passengers. One of them gulps visibly. "Who first?"

They all exchange looks, and the biggest of the, the one that's been arguing with Amelia the most, sighs and steps forward. "Me, I guess."

"Okay. Hold." Gura says, holding out her arms. "I swim. You hold."

The man grimaces and steps into the water, and very cautiously puts his arms around Gura. Once she's sure he's secure, Gura dives underwater, and the two of them vanish.

It takes a few minutes to ferry each man over, and Amelia is relieved when Gura shows back up after taking the last. "All done. Watson come now?"

"No." Amelia says, as much as she wants to. "We need to go deeper. Down."

"Down?" Gura repeats, frowning. "Watson not breath water. Down bad idea."

"There might be more people trapped down there."

"I go then. Watson go up." Gura insists.

"But-"

"Watson stupid. Swim down when not breathe water. Stupid Watson. Bad Watson." Gura pouts. "Dead Watson if go down in water. Watson go up."

She can't really argue with that, even if she really wants to go looking for more people. "Fine, okay, bring me up."

With another brief underwater trip (and a thorough soaking from it), Amelia surfaces in a flooded stairwell leaning at an uncomfortable angle. Climbable, yes, but just barely.

"Stay safe, Gura." Amelia says. "Come up when you can't find anyone else."

"Will. Watson stay up. Watson bad at swim." Gura says. "Not want see in water again. Bad, bad, bad."

"Alright, alright, no need to rub it in." Amelia groans. "See you later, Gura."

"Bye bye Watson."

Gura vanishes beneath the surface once more, and Amelia starts her climb up the stairs. The hallway she finds at the top is a bit less wrecked than the one she came from. There are also people there, including a squad armed with rifles escorting the three men that Gura helped a few minutes ago. One of the soldiers notices her and rushes over.

"I'm fine." Amelia waves them off. "Try and keep someone stationed here if you can. Gura is going to keep looking for more people in the lower levels and ferry them up if possible."

"Gura?"

"The siren." Amelia says. Why do no one know her name? Actually, that's a stupid question. Amelia is pretty much the only person who calls her charges by their names. Still, it's rude.

"I'm not so sure that's safe." The guard says bluntly.

"Either that, or leave people trapped down in the lower levels." Amelia shoots back. "We're not in a position to turn down help."

The guard nods reluctantly, and shouts towards his commander. Amelia doesn't stick around to hear what he says, because she frankly has more important things to deal with.

Egg. Calli. Crystal. Calli and Crystal are both potentially on lower levels, though depending on how the flooding has been contained they may or may not be in danger from it. Calli will be fine even if she dies, on account of being a spirit, and Crystal... Amelia has no idea what to expect from her, but she has a vague feeling she'll be fine.

She doesn't know why she has that feeling, but she does. Totally not anomalous. Nope.

Fine, whatever. Her egg is her priority.

Amelia spares a peek through a window (a tilted window that's half in the ground, but still) and spies guards at the door to the viewing room of Kiara's cell. They're not fighting yet, but that's not a good sign. Someone is in there trying to convince Kiara to leave, and sooner or later there's going to be a firefight over it.

(She sees someone get torn apart by takos not too far away. Their gun flashes as they try to fire on the little monsters, but they swarm him and pick the meat from his bones in less than a minute. Other guards look on in terror, but the takos ignore them. They only have an interest in those that directly attack them.)

Amelia weaves through the building again, finding that same door with a hole beyond it and her egg's containment box beyond that. A tako floats lazily on the other side of the gap, and turns to look at her while she tries to figure out a way across.

Even without Gura's singing, Amelia knows she isn't getting across on her own. She's not that good.

"I don't suppose you can help me across?" Amelia asks the tako.

The tako wiggles its flaps and chirps. A chorus of other chirps answer it, and seconds later, Amelia has two dozen takos flooding in from behind her to fill the gap in the floor and allow her to walk across.

"Huh." Amelia mutters, staring at the tako bridge. "Ask and you shall receive, apparently. I owe you all cookies."

The takos chirp as one.

Amelia carefully steps across her tako bridge and moves to the box with her egg. Despite the angle the building is now at, the egg hasn't rolled out of it's spot. The foam nest it's resting in is more than enough to keep it in place. Her watch has rolled to one side, but that's fine. Her watch doesn't actually do anything anyways.

"Now just..." Amelia mutters, tugging on the handle. The door, predictably, doesn't open. She tries swiping her card, and that doesn't work either. She doesn't have clearance for this. "Where's a baseball bat when you need one?"

A baseball bat wouldn't be enough to open the door. She's just frustrated.

She looks to the takos again, which have gathered on the floor to watch her. "I don't suppose you little guys can open the box?"

As one, their left flap droops and their right flap curls up. Confusion, Amelia thinks. Like cocking your head.

"The egg is important." She tells them urgently. "I need to keep it safe."

That seems to get their attention. One of the takos floats forward, inspects the door, then latches it's mouth onto the handle and starts gnawing. A few more takos join the first, chewing away at the metal to undo the lock.

It's not a quick process, exactly. It takes a few minutes. A few minutes of listening to rushing water, the grinding of metal in tako teeth, and the sounds of shouting outside, but the takos do eventually get the door open.

Amelia can't grab her egg fast enough. Just like Kiara's feathers it's unusually warm to the touch, and sits comfortably in her arms. It's surprisingly light, barely weighing more than an actual football. Amelia has no idea if the sense of relief that washes over her when she grabs it is anomalous or real, but she doesn't much care either way.

"Thank you." She tells the takos. They make a chorus of happy noises at her, cooing and chirping and wiggling their tentacles. One of them nudges her to also grab her watch, and she does so without complaint.

They help her get back across the gap, and escort her out of the building. They seem extra protective now that she has her egg. Even the slightest misstep has half of them pressing their bodies against her to restore her balance or latching onto her with their tentacles to pull her upright.

"Hey, hey, I can walk!" Amelia complains as the takos baby her all the way to the building's exit. "Like, thank you, but seriously."

The noise the takos make almost sounds scolding. One of them gently pats the egg with a tentacle and coos at it. They must know what it is.

"I'm holding an egg, not pregnant. I can still handle myself."

The takos look thoroughly unimpressed, and Amelia doesn't try to argue with them anymore. She can't complain too much give how much they've helped her.

With egg in hand, she moves back towards Kiara's cell. She doesn't quite know what the plan is. She still doesn't want Kiara to leave. Is she supposed to hide the egg so it can't be found and Kiara has an excuse to refuse to leave? Is she supposed to bring the egg to Kiara?

"WATSON!" Boss's voice interrupts her thoughts. She turns to him. "Where have you been!?"

"Phoenix made it clear to me she wasn't going to leave until she knew her egg was safe." Amelia says, opting for something like the truth. "So I went to get it."

Boss doesn't look very happy about that, but he doesn't scold her for it either. "You were supposed to help evacuate the near-humans."

"And that's exactly what I'm doing." Amelia says indignantly. "I've got Phoenix's egg, and I ran into Siren and now she's helping get people out of the lower levels. I've been doing my job."

Boss's eyes narrow. "You let 4-8467 out?"

"She could get out on her own. There was a hole in her wall." Amelia explains. "All I did was encourage her to help rather than sit and wait."

"That's a dangerous precedent, Watson."

"With all due respect sir, there are more pressing issues than precedent right now." Amelia says curtly. "Lives are at stake, and if Siren can help, I'd be foolish to not encourage it."

Boss clearly disagrees about encouraging her, but he at least agrees there are more pressing issues. "Go deal with 4-276. She's being uncooperative."

"Yes sir."

Boss marches off to deal with something else, and Amelia beelines for Kiara's cell. She doesn't have a choice now. She can't go somewhere else without it being obvious she's become insubordinate. She jogs with her egg to the cell, and argues her way past the guards to get inside.

Kiara is standing on the other side of the viewing screen, arms crossed, and dress-feathers flared out in irritation the same guard captain that tried to argue with her during her 'fall' a month and a bit ago is now trying to convince her to get tranquilized.

"It's protocol." The captain says firmly. "We cannot otherwise transport you safely."

"Yeah, and it's also protocol to keep your 'guests' locked up for their entire lives." Kiara snarks back. "Don't care. I'm staying. Go 'help' some other girl who doesn't mind being a lifelong prisoner."

"Hey, Kiara!" Amelia shouts, interrupting the captain. "I got our egg!"

"Good!" Kiara shouts back, a victorious smile crossing her face. "And you're sure it's the right one?"

"As sure as I can be!"

"I want to make sure it isn't damaged." Kiara says forcefully. "Knowing it's been in Cover's care instead of yours like it was supposed to be."

"We don't have time for that." The captain snaps. "She has your egg, so just accept the tranquilizer and-"

The heat in the viewing room suddenly skyrockets, and fire flickers across Kiara's arms. Her smiles has turned to something dangerously neutral. "I don't think you understand the situation, captain. I will see my egg now. You are in no place to bargain. You need my cooperation, not the other way around, and in the interest of getting that cooperation, I suggest you let Amelia in with our egg."

"Now see here." The captain growls. "We have your egg, so you do need our cooperation-"

"Only because you took what wasn't yours." Kiara hisses.

The captain continues like she hadn't spoken. "So you'll come along without a fuss if you don't want anything to happen to it."

Kiara stills, and Amelia can feel a chill go down her spine that has nothing to do with the temperature. "Is that a threat, captain?"

"Whatever it takes." The captain says coldly.

Amelia has nowhere to go. The exit is blocked by guards, and the two doors to Kiara's cell are locked. She looks to Kiara with wide eyes.

"I see." Kiara says quietly, her eyes dead. "Whatever it takes."

The roof promptly melts onto the captain's head, burying him in molten metal. The guards shout for help, and one tries to open the door, but leaps away with a burnt hand. The captain has already gone unresponsive, his corpse slowly burning on the floor.

"I've played nice for half a decade." Kiara says quietly, staring at the rest of the guards. "And I'm quite done with it. If I see anyone more guards step foot in that room, or mine, they die. You're welcome to evacuate everyone else, I won't stop you, but either leave me be, or I will burn whatever remains of this place to the ground. Am I understood?"

The guards nod.

"Leave. You can touch the handle now."

The guards don't need to be told twice. They rush out of the room, leaving only Amelia and the captain's burning corpse. As soon as they're gone, the temperature drops steeply, and Amelia smacks the buttons to open the doors to Kiara's cell as well as the roof. Just in case. A few takos float in, and Kiara pays them no mind.

Amelia cautiously makes her way into Kiara's cell, half expecting guards to burst through the main door at any second, but none do. She walks up with the egg, and Kiara quickly lays her ear on it, listening.

"Not even started to grow." She mumbles, stroking the egg's surface. "Now that you have it, though, it should begin. In a few months, it will hatch."

"Only a few months." Amelia mumbles in awe. She doesn't know if she's ready to be a parent, much less what circumstances it will be happening under. "Oh Baelz..."

"Don't worry, I've raised kids before." Kiara says. "They mostly turned out fine."

"If they're anything like Clara, they're a bit too much like you." Amelia grumbles.

"You met Clara!?" Kiara gasps.

"Uh, yeah. That was the 'new friend' I met on my trip." Amelia says. "She... may or may not have propositioned me."

"That's my girl!" Kiara smiles proudly. "She knows a snack when she sees one."

Amelia fights a blush. Now is not the time.

"So, now we just wait, I guess." Kiara hums, arms wrapping around Amelia's waist and pulling her close. The egg rests between the two of them, warm even through Amelia's coat.

"Actually..." Amelia hates to ruin such a romantic moment, but she does have other worries. "There's a few more people I need to make sure are alright. Gura, Calli-"

Kiara perks up a the mention of the Mori.

"-Ina, and Crystal." Amelia recites. "I know where Gura is, but I haven't seen the others since the main detention building sunk."

"Sunk?" Kiara blinks.

"Yeah. Half of it is in the ground right now. Ina collapsed part of it with her distortions."

"I think I like this girl already."

"Good, uh, because she's probably taking over the entire site."

Kiara beams. "Perfect!"

Amelia abruptly feels something pull at her mind, and her head turns to stare up out of the roof. A pillar of white, black, and purple light shines down out of the tako cloud to land somewhere not too far away. Amelia isn't sure if she hears the voice with her ears or her voice, but she hears it loud and clear all the same.

"HOPE HAS DESCENDED!" The voice, female, strong and clear shouts. Music suddenly roars to life, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It's music Amelia recognizes. "AND IS COMING FOR YOU!"

"About damn time." Amelia says in spite of herself.

"You know who this is?" Kiara asks.

"Eh, I do, Amelia less so. She calls her Crystal." Amelia finds herself saying. Why is she referring to herself in the third person? "I've been hitching a ride for a while, waiting for the wife to wake up. Divine interference laws and all that. Can't come see her myself."

"Who are you?" Kiara probes.

"Got a bunch of names. Baelz is the most common." Amelia says. "This one met my former carrier a long time ago, made a deal. Probably doesn't remember it. Pact magic is a bitch like that sometimes. Nothing dangerous though. She agreed to help me reunite with my wife in return for a gift upon completion, though I doubt she remembers."

"What sort of gift?"

"We never specified." Amelia says. What the fuck is going on? Is this 'Baelz' puppeting her body? Wait, Baelz as in the god? The First Real Thing? Is her god speaking through her!? "Still thinking about what to gift, honestly. She's done a great job, so I can't be cheap."

"That's great and all, but I'd prefer my Ame didn't have someone hitching a ride in her body." Kiara says bluntly.

"Your Ame and everyone else's." Baelz laughs through Amelia's mouth. "Kid endeared herself to pretty much all her charges."

"I can't say I'm surprised." Kiara says with a dramatic sigh. "I guess I'll just have to share."

"Probably. Also, I'm not sticking around in her body much longer." Baelz says. "Soon as we get to my wife, I'm out. Just gotta hand off the dice."

"Dice?"

Amelia feels herself taking her keychain out of her pocket and showing Kiara. "Dice. It's what lets me keep track of her. Kinda hard to keep your eye on one mortal among millions when they don't have a distinct mana signature or anything."

A flash of purple lights up the sky, and Amelia feels herself grinning despite the roar of the fighter jets overhead and the sound of an explosion.

"Oh, they better not be trying to fight her. She'll kick their asses." Baelz cackles. "Ahh, stupid humans."

"They haven't impressed much." Kiara agrees. "Except Ame, of course."

"Naturally." Baelz says. "Oh, and by the way."

"Hmm?"

"I wanna kiss my wife, but I don't think Ame here would be too happy about my wife being her first, so... might wanna get in beforehand, if you know what I mean." Baelz says cheerfully, as Amelia frantically tries to stifle the words coming out of her mouth in sheer embarrassment.

A twinkle enters Kiara's eye and a mad grin crosses her face. "Don't mind if I do. Give me the egg and get the fuck out of my Ame for a second."

"Aye-aye." Baelz says, handing over the egg. Amelia can feel control return to her limbs the instant the egg leaves her arms. "Ugh, that's a weird feeling..."

"From what I've heard, possession is usually quite a bit more unpleasant." Kiara says cheerfully, and gently sets the egg down on her bed and wraps some blankets around it. "You're lucky she likes you."

"Yeah, lucky me." Amelia grumbles.

"You are, just for different reasons than that." Kiara chuckles. She walks back over to Amelia, grabs her by the arm, drags her over to the loveseat, and pushes her into it.

"Uh, Kiara, what are you-"

"You heard Baelz." Kiara says, standing over her with a sharp grin that Amelia would have to describe as predatory. "She wants to kiss her wife, but there's no way I'm letting her get you before I do."

"Wait." Amelia's heart starts pounding. She tries to sit up, but Kiara very firmly pushes her back down. "You mean-"

"I'm sure you've heard this from Clara before, but it really is an amazing line, and I'm the one she got it from." Kiara says, leaning in close, eyes alight with glee, licking her lips.

"Kiara, as much as I want to, this really isn't the time-" Amelia tries to argue, but even she can hear how feeble her words are.

"I've been waiting years for this. I'm not passing it up." Kiara chuckles hungrily, looming close, and radiating heat like a furnace. "Now... let me show you what a few millennia of experience feels like~"

As it turns out, a few millennia of experience feels like drowning in heated pillows, just below the threshold of overheating and discomfort, while extremely drunk... and that's just from a kiss. By the time Kiara is done with her, she's lying limply against the back of the couch, panting and staring up at the sky, with a very smug phoenix sitting in her lap.

"What the fuck?" Amelia thinks, mind swirling. "That was just a kiss. Why am I so out of it? Are Kiara's kisses anomalous?"

(As it will later turn out, no, she's just really good at it.)

"And that's just the appetizer." Kiara whispers, leaning against her Ame and taking up her vision. "I promise the main course is so much better~"

"Are you trying to kill me?" Amelia thinks in awe. How in Baelz's name did she earn Kiara's affection? "I'll take you up on that when we're not in the middle of an emergency."

"I'm not hearing much noise anymore, so I think our emergency might be almost over." Kiara hum, tracing a finger down Amelia's cheek to her neck. "Let's go find your other girls, starting with Crystal. I want Baelz out, no offence to her."

Amelia is a bit apprehensive about just walking out the front door after Kiara threatened all the guards, but Kiara herself has no such reservations. She throws open the door with utter confidence and struts out with Amelia in tow.

"Are we sure we should just leave the egg...?" Amelia asks, peeking out into a surprisingly empty courtyard. There are still some people here, but the vast majority have disappeared.

"The octos will take care of it." Kiara says dismissively. "They promised."

"They did what now?" Amelia blinks. "They can talk?"

"Well, less them and more their representative." Kiara shrugs. "Some pale girl with purple hair. She offered protection without anything in return. Something about me having a good reputation. Nice girl."

Ina was here, somehow. Teleportation? Probably teleportation. "So you've met Ina already."

"That was Ina? Interesting. You have a knack for finding cute girls, Ame."

"I didn't 'find' her, I was assigned to her."

"Details, details."

Finding Baelz's wife isn't hard. She's hovering in the sky amidst a cloud of takos, music blasting around her, while she chases a small squad of armed guards away with a rain of crystals. Apparently Cover is already on her bad side.

"Hi honey!" Amelia feels herself shouting as soon as they get close. "Having fun?"

"Plenty!" Crystal responds, sweeping her hand in a horizontal arc and sending out a wave of crystal spikes. "I only wish I wasn't so late to the party!"

"Ah, you're fine. Ina pretty much had it handled." Baelz says using Amelia's voice. "Humans got in way over their head this time. They had one good thing going for 'em and wasted it."

"Typical." Crystal descends from the sky, landing lightly upon the earth. She eyes Amelia approvingly. "I should have figured you'd attached yourself to my caretaker."

"That was dumb luck." Baelz says. She steps forward and grabs Crystal's hands. "But good dumb luck. She's a sweetheart."

"Oh I know." Crystal chuckles. She leans forward and nuzzles Baelz (who is Amelia, so Amelia can feel it just the same). "My song resonated rather strongly with her."

"I thought that was because of Baelz." Amelia thinks in surprise. "Apparently not?"

"That might have been a bit of me too." Baelz says. "I had her listen in for a minute... or an hour."

"Honey..." Crystal sighs fondly.

"What? I like your songs!" Baelz protests, wrapping her arms around her wife. "I've waited centuries! Cut me some slack!"

"You're hopeless." Crystal complains, and then, for the second time in an hour, Amelia is kissed by a powerful non-human entity (albeit this time there's a lot less tongue). She barely registers when the dice are slipped off her keychain and into Crystal's hand, though she does notice when Crystal separates the dice and attaches them to her ears as earrings. "Well, now that you're not hosting my wife anymore, I think a proper introduction is in order."

The woman clears her throat, strands straight, then strikes a poke while flashing a peace sign in front of her face.

"Hirys! It's Irys!"

Amelia stares owlishly. Kiara giggles.

"Come on, I practised that pose for weeks." Irys complains. "Nothing? Not even a smirk?"

"I thought your name was Hope." Amelia admits after a moment.

"That's my job title." Irys shrugs. "And I'm fairly sure you thought my name was Crystal, not Hope."

"Crystal is just what I called you." Amelia mumbles in embarrassment. "I knew it wasn't your name."

"Details, details." Irys waves it off with a wink. "Now, Bae tells me you're busy, so I won't hold you up. I've got humans to scare."

"I thought you were Hope."

"I am." Irys grins, showing teeth. "To the anomalous. Not to humans."

Ah.

"Go find your friends. I'm more than capable of keeping a few humans busy." Irys chuckles. "Especially with my wife's help."

"But first, your reward." Baelz says through Irys's mouth. "You still have that watch of yours?"

"Yeah." Amelia fishes it out of her pocket. "What for?"

"A boon." Baelz says, and leans Irys forward and taps the watch with her finger. The gem in the watch's centre flashes brightly for a second, and Baelz nods. "Might as well give it a use, right?"

Amelia can't see anything different about the watch. "What did you do?"

"Gave it a fancy trick." Baelz says proudly. "Go on, point it at someone and press the button!"

Amelia does so, pointing it it Irys/Baelz and squeezing the button on the top. The hands abruptly spin forwards until they hit 5:38. "What does that even mean?"

"It tells you the next time you'll see the target again after leaving their company." Baelz explains proudly. "Just the time, not the date, but still useful."

Fascinating. "Thank you."

"No problem. Now go, shoo, find your friends."

Amelia doesn't need to be told again. She runs off to where she last saw Gura, with Kiara following lazily behind.

There's still an ongoing evacuation effort in the collapsed building. There's a small group of soldiers helping people into vans as they file out of the building, and while the takos watch them carefully, no one is fighting, and Irys ignores them in favour of targeting those trying to take away near-humans and humanlikes.

At some point, someone blew a hole in the floor (or maybe it was another distortion) and lowered a ladder down to one of the lower levels, so there's a greater stream of people coming up than before.

Several people shoot Kiara nervous looks, but no one dares mention her or keep eye contact for very long.

Rather than ask permission to go down, Kiara simply grabs Amelia and jumps down the hole, landing hard on the level below with no apparent injury at all and scaring the hell out of one of the guards at the base of the ladder. Following the line of people leads them down yet another level and yet another ladder, which gets her to basement two, and then again, to basement three, which is exactly where she needs to be. If they can't find Gura, they can at least locate Calli.

"Looks different on an angle like this." Amelia mumbles to herself, leading Kiara through the hallways. A lot of the water has disappeared somehow. Maybe it drained to an even lower level? "Second left, door three ninety six..."

Stepping into her observation room, Calli's cell is wrecked. Most of her furniture has slid to one side of the cell, her guitar is broken, and her television has fallen from its perch. Calli herself is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, back to the door, staring up at the ceiling.

"CALLI!" Kiara shouts before Amelia even starts opening the door to her cell.

"Wha- oh, hey Kiara." Calli says in dull surprise. She rises to her feet and dusts herself off while Amelia fights with the door controls. Something is broken and it's not cooperating with her. She'll have to open them manually. "Figured you'd show up eventually. Wasn't sure if it was going to be before or after I drowned, but hey, details, right?"

"Drowned?"

"These levels were flooded not that long ago." Amelia supplies, finally forcing the cell doors open.

"Yeah. Girl called Ina stopped by and helped out with that." Calli says, gesturing to a new hole in the corner of her room. Kiara rushes in and tackles her with a hug. "Drained the water away before it got too high." Calli looks to Amelia while rolling her eyes and gesturing at Kiara. "Ina's that sleeping presence I've been feeling. The one that was waking up."

"Yeah, I figured as much." Amelia says dryly.

"And the gaze on you is gone now, by the way."

"Yup. Baelz took her leave about ten minutes ago."

"Baelz? The old god? You keep weird company Ame."

"Don't I know it." Amelia grumbles.

"You could at least greet me properly Calli!" Kiara pouts, interrupting their conversation.

"I said hi."

"No hug? Nothing!?"

"Fine, fine." Calli sighs. She leans forward and gives Kiara a chaste peck on the cheek. "Hello dear."

"Hello my beloved!" Kiara coos in response, and nibbles the reaper's ear. Calli huffs and tries to play if off, but Amelia can see the blush on her face.

"Right, now that I'm free, I got a lot of shit to take care of." Calli groans, and squirms out of Kiara's grip. "Sorry Kiara. I'll be back."

Amelia points her watch at Calli and clicks. 8:00 on the nose. "Are we talking hours, days, weeks, months...?"

"Shouldn't be more than a few days at most. I'm already technically on vacation; that's the reason I have a host." Calli shrugs, gesturing to her body.

"Right." Amelia nods. "But, uh, before you go, would you mind helping us find Gura and Ina?"

"Ina's teleporting around. Mostly scaring the shit out of people, sometimes making new passages to let people escape." Calli says, making a vague gesture towards the lower levels. "And... who is Gura?"

"Has a charm-powered voice, but only in water." Amelia says. "Short, sharp fingers, shark tail, jaw opens to the ears."

"A siren." Calli mutters. "Right, give me a sec'..."

She squints and stares through the walls, then points down in the other direction from where she said Ina was. "There. One level down. Rummaging through some metal boxes in a water pool."

"Right thanks." Amelia nods.

"Okay, I'm gonna-" Calli is jerked to a halt by Kiara grabbing her arm and whispering in her ear. "I- what? Yes, I like her, why- this isn't really- okay, okay, fine, a small one, I should really go."

With a long-suffering sigh, Calli summons her scythe.

Without warning, Calli abruptly uses her weapon to pull Amelia close, pecks her on the lips with a mutter of "Kiara insisted, but I guess you are cute" before slashing the air to create a portal and stepping through before Amelia has a chance to respond.

Amelia sputters at the empty air in front of her while Kiara laughs.

"That brings back memories." Kiara giggles. "She used to be like that with me too. So shy."

"What the fuck Kiara!?" Amelia yelps, finding her voice. "Why did you tell her to do that!?"

"It's a trend!" Kiara says cheerfully. "First me, then Irys, now Calli! You're collecting kisses!"

"I'm not trying to!"

"Even better!"

Amelia groans while Kiara smiles smugly. "We're in the middle of an emergency you know."

"That's Cover's problem." Kiara shrugs. "Besides, I'm sure Ina is handling it. Plenty of time for kisses."

Amelia grumbles while marching out of the room. "Let's just get Gura already..."

With a vague direction in mind, Gura isn't too hard to find. There are enough distortions creating holes (and takos crawling everywhere that they can ask) that finding a way down is easy, and from there they just have to find a pool of water, which is just as easy through following the slope of the rooms.

The 'metal boxes' Gura is searching through turn out to be refrigerators. Specifically refrigerators for meat. The water Gura is swimming in is tinted slightly red from the blood and juice that melts off whatever she eats.

Amelia rolls her eyes and whispers to Kiara. "I am not kissing someone who tastes and smells like raw beef."

Kiara just laughs.

With a sigh, Amelia finds a loose scrap of metal to throw into the water pool to grab Gura's attention. The siren eagerly surfaces a moment later.

"Watson!" Gura says happily. "I did job! Lifeguard! Help people and find food! Not need help anymore, so go back to food! Eat food! Like be lifeguard! Get good food!"

That's not exactly the lesson Amelia was trying to impart, but there are worse things Gura could have learned. "Good job Gura."

Her tail wags happily. "Also see purple girl. Say name Ina. Say hi. She know Watson. She thinks Watson stupid, running around building. Danger. Smile when say stupid. Funny stupid Watson. I agree."

"I resent that." Amelia huffs, smiling herself. "I had people to help."

"Funny stupid helpful Watson."

"You can't just keep adding adjectives to my name Gura."

"Funny stupid helpful wrong Watson." Gura says, turning up her nose a little.

"Ooh, she got you there." Kiara giggles.

"Who this?" Gura asks, latching onto Kiara's presence.

"This is Kiara. She's a phoenix. Fire bird." Amelia says.

"She smell like meat." Gura says matter-of-factly.

"Are you sure that's not because you're in a giant pond of meat juice right now?" Amelia asks dryly.

Gura glances down at her red water, then squints at Amelia. "...maybe. I not say."

Amelia shakes her head. "Well, either way, I'm gathering up everyone if I can. You can Ina are the last ones I need to find."

"She's collecting kisses." Kiara cuts in, and Amelia glares.

"I am not."

Gura has already perked up. "Kiss Watson?"

"Yep!" Kiara grins. "I already have. So has Calli. So has Irys."

Gura scrambles out of the water. "Iii foOOuUrth? NooO faaAIIir!"

"This wasn't exactly planned." Amelia complains. "And I am not kissing someone who tastes like beef!"

Gura whines. "WaAatson..."

"Brush your teeth first Gura."

"I can help with that!" Kiara says cheerfully. She flicks her fingers, brandishing a few feathers. "Open wide!"

"Baelz sake Kiara..." Amelia groans.

"One can never go too far for a kiss." Kiara says simply.

"That's a dangerous way to think."

"Good thing I'm immortal."

There's something slightly surreal about watching Kiara brush Gura's teeth with feathers, but it's fascinating all the same. Kiara has clearly done this before, considering her speed and accuracy even with Gura's large, pointed teeth.

"Why do you know how to do this?" Amelia asks in exasperation.

"I raised over fifty kids." Kiara says simply, and finishes with a flourish. She allows the feathers she used to go up in flames. "You pick up some strange skills that way."

"That..." ..is weird to think about. Kiara is old, and Kiara has kids that are older than Amelia is. In fact, the more Amelia thinks about it, the more uncomfortable she gets, so she decides to stop.

"Now kiss!" Kiara says gleefully.

"You're having more fun with this than I am." Amelia gripes, but doesn't put up a fight when Gura latches her hands around Amelia's shoulders and tugs her down and basically smacks their faces together.

It's very clear Gura has no idea what she's doing, and has only ever seen a kiss from afar, and that despite her enthusiasm she's being very careful about her teeth. Their kiss is short and a bit roughshod, but Gura seems very happy by the end of it.

The fact that Kiara is applauding makes it all the more embarrassing.

"WeEE shaAare WaAatson?" Gura asks Kiara.

"That's the plan!" Kiara says cheerfully.

"Did anyone think to run this plan by me?" Amelia grumbles.

"Oh I'm sorry." Kiara smirks. "Amelia, did you not want three women, possible four depending on Ina, fawning over you?"

"...never said that." She is absolutely expecting four at this point, considering Ina's message directly called her 'love'.

"Didn't think so. Stop complaining."

Rather than try to track down the teleporting Ina'nis Ninomae, they opt to go back to Kiara's cell, as it's easily the most comfortable place they have access to. With the majority of the human workers gone, the site is oddly peaceful despite half of the buildings behind distorted or collapsed. Takos float lazily through the sky and chirp greetings to one another, and the generally frantic activity from earlier in the day has entirely died off.

There are takos littered about Kiara's bed when they return, crowding around but not quite touching the egg. Kiara thanks them and shoos them away, and they slowly lift off like a flock of lazy birds... or maybe hot air baloons.

Gura stares at the egg with wide eyes. "Is bIIIg Eegg."

"A very special egg." Kiara says, laying down next to it and wrapping her arms around it's surface. "Ame's egg."

"WaAatson lAy eEEgg?" Gura asks in a hushed whisper, as if talking around a sleeping baby.

"I made the egg, but it's for Ame." Kiara explains. "It will hatch a beautiful half-phoenix."

"BaAaby."

"Yes."

Gura's tail wags. "Iii tEEEAach swIIim?"

Kiara glances at Amelia. Amelia shrugs. She hasn't exactly given much thought about what's going to happen when their egg actually hatches. She never planned to be a parent. "We'll discuss it. They won't be old enough for proper lessons for a few years anyways."

Lessons. Childcare. Amelia is not ready for this in the slightest.

Amelia takes this chance to collapse onto the bed next to the egg and pull her hat over her face. It hasn't even been half the day and she's exhausted. She leans her head against the egg, and closes her eyes.

She doesn't realize she's dozed off until Kiara nudges her awake. The sun is past the midday mark, and the site is truly quiet. There are no truck sounds, no gunfire, no yelling, no fighter jets, no collapsing buildings, no rushing water, and no singing.

Kiara is sitting on the bed with the egg in her lap, and Gura is curled up in some of the other blankets on the edge of the bed. The reason Kiara woke Amelia up, however, is the person walking through the cell door.

Amelia is so used to Eldritch being asleep it feels almost wrong to see her walking around. Irys looked imprisoned in her crystal, whereas Eldritch was simply lifeless. It's like seeing a doll come to life, except Amelia knows that doll just caused an entire top-secret government facility to be evacuated.

Eldritch (or Ina, Amelia supposes she should call her) moves with all the grace of a ghost, barely seeming affected by gravity and appearing to glide as she walks across the room towards the three of them.

Amelia decides to take initiative here. She raises a hand and tries to act casual. "Hey Ina."

Ina's eyes, purple, bright, and alien, bore into her. "Hello my love."

Right. No pressure or anything. Just a declaration of love as her first greeting. "Finished cleaning up the site? You've been rather busy."

"The undesirables have been routed." Ina says. "We are free of them."

"That's... good. I think." Amelia says. "And what about all the anomalies?"

"Some remain in their cells. Those that displayed violent or aggressive tendencies were not freed, as well as those that were known to be manipulative or malicious." Ina conveys. "The others have been released on probation. Their protection is guaranteed by me so long as they remain within the boundaries of the site."

Amelia nods. Fair enough.

"That said..." Ina murmurs. "Should I be awaiting a reprisal from my former hosts?"

Amelia isn't exactly sure about the protocol for a potentially hostile force taking over one of their sites. "Maybe. You did just use a small army of octopi to take over one of their bases and half-raze it to the ground. Most organizations don't respond well to that."

"I see." Ina frowns. "Is diplomacy out of the question then?"

"It might have been better to lead with diplomacy if you wanted it."

"I needed to establish our freedom first." Ina argues.

"I don't know what to tell you then. I don't have much knowledge of Cover's military protocols."

Ina visibly forces herself to relax. "I see. Is there a way I could contact Cover then?"

"As long as you didn't knock out all the power, there's probably a computer or a phone somewhere that you can still use." Amelia offers.

"You will have to help me with such contact later then." Ina says.

"Sure."

"Good." Ina nods imperiously. Her entire posture then changes. Her hands come together nervously, her shoulders hunch, and she looks at Amelia shyly through her bangs. "So, erm, as for other matters... am I too late to get my kiss?"

Amelia blinks, then groans, Kiara laughs, and Gura peeks out of her blanket pile with bleary eyes.

"WhaAAt gooo on?" Gura asks.

"Amelia's collecting her last kiss." Kiara says firmly, and shoves Amelia to a standing position. "Go on!"

Well, she doesn't exactly have a choice now, does she?

###

There's a former prison complex in the west of the UK, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a forest, some farms, a tiny town, and a perimeter fence lined with cameras facing both in and out.

The town and farms are very real. It's host to all sorts of colorful characters, each with their own set of strange abilities. One of the farmers can summon squirrels, and another is a sentient lion with human hands; the local pastry chef can make her store loop infinitely until you find the right codeword, and the head of the book club is rusts any metal he comes into contact with, even if that metal isn't capable of rusting, and can create javelins (and only javelins) out of whatever he corrodes.

The former prison is a curiosity more than it is a place to live. It's a ruin overflowing with twisted metal and flying eldritch octopi. If one were to step into the ruins, they would find them strangely traversable, as despite the twisted nature of the ruins there are smooth paths made of warped metal, stairs made out of former walls, and barely a jagged edge to be found. Once riddled with distortions, the layout of the ruins are now fixed, albeit mazelike. It makes a fun field trip for the children every once in a while, and the mayor is always happy to lead such a trip.

The mayor, incidentally, is one Ina'nis Ninomae. Five years ago, she razed the prison to the ground with her reality warping powers, and scared off Cover, the former owners with her army of eldritch octopi and established her authority over the remains. The next half a year contained many a tense negotiation between the two factions until an agreement was reached.

Ina'nis would allow Cover to return to the site and extract the dangerous anomalies still within it, for Ina'nis did not have the capabilities to contain all of them for an extended period of time, and in return, Ina'nis and her newly-freed citizens would contain themselves to the boundaries of the town, where Cover would set up a perimeter to keep them secret. Cover would leave them alone so long as they did the same in turn, though they expected regular contact from a trusted agent to ensure that nothing dangerous was brewing in the town of anomalies.

Amelia Watson would and continues to fill that role, keeping in regular contact with her employers (for she is still, by some miracle, considered a trusted employee of Cover) to help mediate between the two sides. She is one of precious few non-anomalous humans in the town, alongside family of some of the other anomalies.

While relations between the two sides are still somewhat tense, there is little concern of an imminent conflict anymore. Cover conducted an internal investigation after the incident, and found its ethics in the handling of humanlikes and near-humans lacking in regards to the (former) site, and so avoided further conflict by accepting diplomacy from the faction that had just attacked and conquered one of their facilities.

Entering and leaving the town is difficult. Most of the anomalous beings within are not allowed to leave at all, as they are incapable of easily hiding themselves from the general public, but a few select individuals regularly come and go. Amelia Watson is one of them, and another is Clara Takanashi. However, there are talks of granting the citizens of the town some greater freedom, if it can be done safely and hidden from the world at large.

There are many more peculiarities of the town that could be expounded upon. The abundance of eldritch octopi perhaps, or the unusual number of birds, but the center of most people's attention, or at least the mayor and her close friends, is a little girl by the name of Kathy. A girl with bright pink eyes, hair as golden as the sun with natural streaks of orange, and a very unusual family of a phoenix and human for as direct parents, a reaper as her 'uncle' who sometimes sneaks her out of the facility through teleportation to play at a park somewhere, and four aunts, one of whom gives her swimming lessons in an old pool deep in ruins, and one of whom is the mayor and her educator, and two of which share a body though usually only the singer is in control and spends most of her time composing or singing songs.

The girl has had a strange life so far, but the same can be said of most people in the town. At the very least she isn't privy to the mistreatment most of the other residents had to go through in the past as she was hatched months after the initial takeover. She lives in a time of strange peace with a strange family, and with any luck, she and they will be able to enjoy that life for many years to come.

(Amelia still gets mobbed by half the takos in the site whenever she comes back from a trip, and she has to spend a lot of money on crackers and cookies now that there's so many of them, but she wouldn't have it any other way.)


There's a lot I could say about this story. Things I could have done, things I could have changed.

The watch ended up being a non-factor. It was always intended to just be a cool tidbit, just a little side-story element that would get paid off at the end, and is that… but I think people were expecting it to be a bit more than that lol.

That 'Amelia is collecting kisses' joke came out of batshit nowhere as I was writing this chapter. I just sort of mentally went 'yeah, Kiara would totally say that' and then rolled with it. I also adore the idea that Kiara taught Clara how to flirt, and her reaction to hearing her daughter tried to sleep with her love interest is 'hell yeah, that's my girl!'

This entire story, everything about it, stemmed from that one scene where Amelia falls in the water and Gura pulls her out. That was the first scene I thought of for this fic. Well, okay, it was a bit different. Originally the idea was going to be that you weren't really sure if Gura was in control of herself. It ended up playing out a lot differently here, but it's still the inspiration for the whole story.

Ina taking over the whole site was always the plan as well. That's the one thing that played out almost exactly as I originally envisioned. A terrifying tako takeover. No, the crackers aren't free. On a slightly related note, I had no idea what I was going to do with Ina herself, even if I knew the takeover was going to happen. I wasn't sure if she was going to wake up when Ame was around, if she was going to be an invisible presence until the last minute, and if she was going to be cute, creepy, or anything else. I had no idea what I was doing with her until I got to the scene where Amelia steps up to her bed… and I decided she wasn't going to be there.

I could say more, I want to say more, but I also don't want this author's note to last forever. This fic isn't perfect, but it's solid. I'm content with it.