After training with Kass for a week’s time, Chimera was feeling as though she was being broken and rebuilt from her constant fighting. It was something strange, because she didn’t really have a bone structure to speak of, as she was amorphous, a blob didn't have bones or structure.

  Yet, when she took blows, when she fought and bled and felt her body become beaten and weary from the constant battle, Mera felt as though she was being… forged.

  Heh, guess that really is a blacksmith’s hammer.

  The blows felt harsh, and the pain was very real, but as they neared the end of the week, Chimera could only think that all of this was intentional, that Kass was building her up for her next fight.

  Well duh, that’s what training is.

  She chastised herself as the day ended with another feast for a long days work amongst the smiths, Kass joining them as she heard the men complain.

  “Chief, not that it hasn’t been entertaining, but you haven’t worked at all this week! I and the other’s had to cover for your orders.”

  “Yeah, what the hell chief?” one of the smith’s said with a smile.

  The rest jabbed at her as well, but Chimera could sense no heat from them, merely the affectionate poking of a family on a sibling.

  “I’ve been working, but the materials are stubborn, hard to bend and mold.” She smirked over towards Chimera's direction as she took a massive bite from an animal that reminded her of a lizard that was feathered like a chicken.

  Mera smiled back, “I don’t break easily, sorry to say.”

  A loud laugh broke from the other smiths around the table, “she doesn’t break easy, you hear that Chieftain?”

  Kass brushed it aside, “already done with this one, now it’s got to temper.”

  The jolly atmosphere was nice, and Chimera allowed herself a moment to enjoy it before she headed back to her ship, saying her goodbyes to the blacksmiths of the central foundry.

  The walk was nice as well, many of the people pointing out to her, or making the Empress’ sign with their hands, a simple motion that reminded Mera of the tree near the Militarum Arboretum.

  She made the same gesture back, polite and hopefully unoffensive, but many of the people simply smiled and waved back at her as she passed them.

  A city of people saved, or at least for now.

  Mera took a look up at the sky, the blackness of night coating the lights around Anvilage. She wasn’t looking at the lights or even the stars, but rather the glowing lights beyond, showing the cannons that were even now coating the sky above.

  With a few more shipments, could we make enough to fend off the capital ship… would it even matter?

  She shook her head.

  Focus dummy. You’ve got snakes to stomp.

  Chimera walked to the star port as the night’s lighting began to turn off, slowly fading and dispersing as she slowly stopped walking.

  The forges and the lights from the city were all powered, they ran the entire day to light up for those working and those going home for the day. For the two weeks she’s been there, Chimera has never seen them shut off, not once.

  The starport’s lights flickered back on, some sort of emergency power generator likely.

  Chimera didn’t waste time though wondering if that was the truth or not.

  Instead, she took off into the air, her wings shifting as she activated her powers and spread them across the entirety of Anvilage, starting in the area where the blackout began.

  Shifting to a sort of night vision, Chimera made it out almost immediately.

  A wave of slithering bodies came through an open gate, grabbing Elfari left and right and funneling them through the gate to what looked like a tunnel that popped right outside the city.

  Being so late, Chimera could almost believe the serpents made it through the garrison, until she remembered the person she found to be brainwashed that led her to the mines in the first place.

  How many did they take, and how many others are working for them that we missed?

  Chimera snarled, launching herself towards the Verdant Hoodians and sending a message to Meras and Bayleaf as she approached the raid.

  All she got was pings that they had received her message just as she landed and blasted the ground with a wave of geomantic force, throwing the snake-kin to the ground and smashing their formation.

  “If you can, Run!” Chimera shouted to the dazed Elfari, rushing towards the serpents with an axe tendril in her hand and a spine launcher in her other, all while tendrils launched from her back to spear and grab serpents as they came.

  The Verdant Hood recovered quickly, some trying to grab hostages as Chimera rushed forward to plant herself between them, taking blows from green energy spears and sickly green laser blasts.

  Chimera quickly healed the wounds, stabbing her own tendrils into her enemies to syphon energy. Healing while fighting, bleeding while reconstructing, Chimera fought as many as a hundred of the serpents, who despite their injuries did not go down easy.

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  She soon found herself surrounded, the serpent women surrounding her with shields as they blasted her with their ranged weapons.

  “Argh!” She screamed as the green energy drained her and burned her at the same time.

  Just what the hell is this stuff?

  Chimera exploded her body outward, grabbing as many as she could and spinning them around to break off the firing squads and provide her some cover.

  It worked well for a while, as some of the snake women were hesitant to shoot their allies as Chimera was spinning them around. Others, those that wore robes and had the eerie glowing green sigils over their faces, fired and attacked regardless, determined to harm her despite the damage they did to their allies.

  Chimera blocked as she could, but the blows began to mount and soon she could feel the drain on her Pegs increase with the din of combat.

  How long has it been? Fifteen minutes and no sign of reinforcements?

  Chimera looked around, noticing the Elfari that she saved earlier hadn’t left, and were waiting around in a daze.

  In the chaos of combat, Chimera didn’t take note of the smell coming from the serpent kin, the women around her gritting their teeth and looking fine despite so many different wounds being inflicted on them.

  It’s like an army of him. What the hell is going on? Did they hit them with pheromones?!

  Chimera shifted her priorities, knocking back the ground of Verdant Hood so that she could begin extracting the citizens.

  “Stop, Abomination.”

  Chimera saw something land behind her, a familiar shadow of a tall serpent man wielding a halberd wreathed in green energy.

  Said halberd hovering over the neck of another familiar person.

  “Pares!” She shouted, watching the slack face of the child she came to know, being held at blade point by the Hoodian General.

  “Move and she dies, along with all the others behind me.” he spoke. No cruelty colored his voice, no rage, and no emotion.

  Just a certainty that if Chimera moved, they would die, as though it was a forgone conclusion.

  For the first time since she became a hero, Chimera felt powerless as the Hoodian General directed his people to grab the remaining Elfari. Her body was holding back, even as tears streamed down her face, and an abundance of fear and rage threatened to spill out of her.

  Focus…

  Chimera honed in on the General, his eyes never leaving her own.

  “If you harm them, you know what I’ll do, right?” Chimera found herself saying, despite knowing it might push him to make an example.

  The General only shook his head, “I wouldn’t know what a war machine thinks.”

  Lifting her eyebrow, Mera spoke, “I’m no machine, not of war. I’m a hero.”

  For the first time since he got there the General showed an emotion, and it almost sent Chimera over the edge.

  He smiled mockingly, “a thing that thinks it’s sapient, calling itself a hero?”

  The Hoodian General laughed, “foolish. There’s no heroes in a war, abomination.”

  Chimera felt her aura screaming at her to be released, to break this mocking monster and crush his body within her, to subject him to pain and despair for the innocents he sacrificed, for his twisted view of war and combatants.

  Pares’ face flashed in her mind, staying her transformation as the last of the Elfari were herded into the tunnel, the General never showing his back to her even as he joined them in the tunnel below.

  “Goodbye, abomination.” He turned to leave.

  “My name’s Chimera, you fuck, and you better hope I don’t catch you again. It won’t go down like last time!”

  This stopped the General, who turned to stare back at her, “very well. I am called Lesrack, High General to her holiness, the Prophet Myna. When next we meet, let it end in death for one of us.”

  Chimera gritted her teeth as she heard the sound of people approaching behind her, reinforcements from the ship arriving just as Lesrack dove below, the tunnel sealing behind him.

  Before he could escape completely, Chimera let out a pulse of Druidic magic, latching onto Pares’ life signature and sending a tendril deep into the soil.

  Her tendril reached the girl, but she didn’t have enough length to pull her back. So Chimera did the next thing she could think of.

  She placed a piece of herself just below the girl’s skin, with a bit of the pheromone blocking cocktail within her flesh.

  Mera pulled the tendril back quickly, finally feeling the ground seal beneath them for good.

  “What happened? Where’s the guards?!” Chimera heard the voice of Lysandra as the rest of the Harriers branched out to check the remaining homes. Chimera didn’t have the heart to talk at the time, trying her best to feel the part of herself she placed in Pares.

  She would find that son of a bitch, and next time, Chimera was going to make sure that the only one getting hurt was Lesrack!

  …

  Lesrack felt a twinge of fear coat him as the closure of the tunnel signaled his forced retreat, the controlled masses of Elfari running behind them.

  She lived… as I feared. Had I not been there, she would have…

  Lesrack looked ahead to see three women breathing heavily as they were carried away by others of his kin, exhaustion plain on their faces as he approached.

  “Big brother… good to… see you.” Mara, the middle child of their clutch, smiled as she drifted into slumber from her exertion.

  His two other sisters Lesa and Media were in similar states, being carted away by their Hoplites and their Commanders.

  He sent a silent prayer to the Verdant Goddess, thanking her that he was there this time to prevent a massacre. While they did not get the full amount of Elfari, with enough time their forces could be replenished enough to complete the ritual to locate the Elementalist.

  That abom-, Chimera she called herself, she was so close to exhausting the geomancers and causing their only way to escape to collapse, with them inside.

  The rage, the fury coming from the beast…

  No, he knew. Despite his earlier assumption of it being a weapon, that creature was sentient. Nothing could have stopped it had he not chosen the girl as his hostage.

  No heroes in war…

  Even as a General, holding a child hostage to save his people felt like a sin he could not take back.

  Even so, for my kin I would damn myself. Let the monster come for me, and let either she or I fall, and leave it at that.

  His prayer would reach his Goddess, he was certain.

  Shaking off the adrenaline from the recent events, Lesrack turned his head one last time to check the entrance, worried of the being above deciding to forgo their agreement and just bury them all.

  Please let me be wrong.

  With that silent prayer in his mind, Lesrack turned to corral their quarry, the biting fear of the abomination's wrath sitting in the back of his mind like a splinter.

  …