Tselatra was just dumping the expended cartridge from her catalyst as the third guard stepped into the room. This one was also female and she was raising her rifle to her shoulder.

Kicking towards the woman, Tselatra released the magnet’s grip in her boot. The decorative plate she’d picked up detached and sailed across the room. It wasn’t a motion Tselatra was used to though, so it collided with the woman’s shin rather than anything more damaging.

Dropping her catalyst back into its holster, Tselatra raised an empty palm towards this guard and activated the magnet. The guard lurched as Tselatra pulled on the gun, but the shoulder strap helped her keep a hold on her weapon.

Moving towards the guard, Tselatra used the last bit of Prism still in her system to activate the magnet in her other hand, aiming it at the previous guard’s Electrum baton. Increasing the Electrum flow to the magnet caused the baton to zip into her waiting hand. However, so did the discarded set of handcuffs, a set of keys, and several metal shirt buttons from the unconscious guard, all of which stuck to the back of her hand. She could feel the magnet trying to pull the objects through the glove and her hand, but with no more Prism, she couldn’t change the magnet’s strength.

The panicking guard managed to fire off a pair of shots before Tselatra closed the distance. Tselatra swung the baton in an arc, aiming for the neck to make skin contact, but the guard brought up her arm to block the blow, and the gun joined the mess of objects clinging to Tselatra’s hand.

They fought over control of the weapon for a few seconds. The guard tried to shoulder into Tselatra, and they both stumbled back though neither lost their footing. Fresh pain danced across Tselatra’s stomach as the guard raked it with the claws of her hand.

The guard pushed again, driving Tselatra up against the wall. Tselatra brought a foot up, kicking at the guard. It glanced off the woman’s hip, disturbing the guard’s own holstered Electrum baton.

The guard snarled, so close that Tselatra could feel drops of spit splash through her fur. “They’re going to lock you up Native, and throw away the key.” Then she drew back and punched Tselatra in the gut.

Not expecting the blow, Tselatra gasped, her body tightening as it tried to fight itself to breathe. A second punch landed as the guard released her grip on the gun. Tselatra compressed her core and this hit wasn’t as bad. It aggravated the fresh cuts, but didn’t knock the wind from her this time.

This situation was uncomfortably familiar. Her back to the wall while someone with a get-out-of-jail-free-badge beat her. She hadn’t thought about those days in a while, but the guard’s words had brought the memories back to the surface.

“They’re going to lock you up, Native, and throw away the key.” Yeah, they hadn’t been able to follow-up on that threat then either. She definitely wasn’t going to let them start now, just because she was older and her body less prone to forgive her for acting young.

Another punch landed, and instinct flooded back as she absorbed this blow too. With a growl of defiance, Tselatra drove her knee into the guard’s crotch. She wasn’t expecting it to be quite as effective as in the past, but it still hurt to get hit there, regardless of gender. She hadn’t accounted for the guard’s armor. Her knee collided with some kind of protective plating, like a cup. The guard smirked, hitting her again.

Tselatra leaned into the blow, reaching for the guard’s hip. She felt something snap to her palm as she found the guard’s baton. Ripping it from the holster, she jammed it up into the guard’s armpit. The woman grunted, then pinned the weapon under her arm. Tselatra twisted, and the baton activated. An electric discharge ran through the guard. A few moments later, she was unconscious on the floor.

Across the room, the original guard who found her was on his hands and knees, strings of saliva running to the ground as he continued to cough. Tselatra introduced him to the Electrum baton too.

It took stepping on the baton to pull it free from the magnet in her hand. Thankfully, its charges had been spent, so she didn’t have to worry about shocking herself.

The metallic bit of the strap on her bag stuck to her hand as she fished around for more Prism. A few moments and a deep breath later, and she was able to kill power to the magnets in her suit. Baton, gun, handcuffs, and everything else clattered to the floor.

Testing the fingers of that hand, she was pleased to find that she only had a few bruises after all that. Her stomach on the other hand, not so much.

The Snepard guard’s claws had torn right through her poncho and the climbing suit’s fabric. She’d missed any of the lines directing power from the Electrum reaction to the magnets in the palms and boots. Those lines all ran along the back of the suit, but she was still going to have to stitch it back together, and she wasn’t sure she had a matching thread color at home.

A few lines of blood trailed down the front of the suit, wounds stinging in their exposure to open air. Having fresh Prism in her system just made it even more noticeable. With a sigh, she loaded her catalyst with a Curum cartridge and took a few minutes to treat her stomach. Her knee was bruised enough to make walking uncomfortable, so she treated it too. She had to restore her Prism again after she finished.

Tselatra checked her stores. She’d used up a quarter of the Prism she’d brought already. Checking the reaction window in the climbing suit’s glove showed that it was a few minutes from needing to be replaced. She had two spares for that. She had plenty of crystals left…probably. It was the Prism that would run out first. Since that was the only way to cast magic within the Bulb, she just had to live with the limitation.

She glanced at the discarded rifles, but immediately dismissed them. She wasn’t here to shoot people. Well, she wasn’t here to shoot innocents…she hoped.

She grabbed the Electrum baton she hadn’t discharged. The one she’d used had been rather effective, but as she turned it over in her hand, she saw that the reaction was almost spent. Rats. She had no way to recharge them herself, as they were designed for batteries, not her custom crystals, but she might be able to get more from other guards as she went.

Exiting the office, Tselatra checked out the window again. Dollohan was still giving her tour, and workers were still toiling away. The active guard presence on the main floor was strikingly noticeable from up here. It had easily doubled, and they were actually watching their surroundings now instead of just chatting with their buddies. Yeah, they definitely knew she was here.

Stepping into the stairwell the guards had come from, Tselatra took two steps and froze. The air smelled wrong. There was a lingering stench of corpses. Necrum. It was coming from below her. In fact, the air above smelled clearer. Leaning over the banister, she glanced up to see the roof access door for this stairwell. It was open.

Glancing downwards, her fingers gripped the banister hard. She blinked twice to make sure her eyes weren’t playing a trick. At the bottom of the stairwell, two guards were resting beside each other. She could smell the blood from here. She could smell a few other unpleasant odors too. Those guards weren’t just resting. What had happened here?

She descended to the fourth floor and was heading towards the third when she heard the shout.

“Man down! Man down over here!”

The cry echoed up the stairwell, and Tselatra picked up her pace.

“Go warn the boss!” someone else called. “Our intruder’s already killed two!”

Oh, Fahnina. If they hadn’t intended to shoot her on sight before, they certainly would now.

According to the instructions, Dollohan was likely to retreat to a safe house if the guards felt there was an emergency. A pair of dead bodies likely constituted an emergency. Indeed, a glance out the window showed a swarm of guards gathering around Dollohan, separating her from her guests as they ushered her towards an exit.

A gunshot rang out on the factory floor, though Tselatra couldn’t see who had fired it. The area below dissolved into panic. Several more gunshots followed, and Tselatra tried and failed to spot the muzzle flashes. Dollohan’s little group was slowed, but kept moving. Tselatra took off in a sprint.

Her knee twitched to remind her that it wasn’t fully healed yet, but it didn’t slow her pace. Dollohan would be heading for her car, which meant Tselatra needed to get to the roof. Running for the staircase she’d entered by, Tselatra fished through her bag for one of her spare Electrum crystals for her suit. She was going to want a full charge for what was coming.

Remnants of the previous crystal crunched underfoot as she slid the new crystal in place. Torquing the lid down cracked this crystal, and she saw the familiar blue glow appear in the reaction window.

She shouldered into the door as she reached it, bursting into the stairwell. A cry of alarm echoed through the space as she collided with someone on the other side. Her momentum carried her and this new guard over the banister. Tselatra called on the Prism inside her, activating the magnet in one of her gloves. It snapped to the banister, leaving her dangling several stories up, but stopping her fall.

The guard she’d run into was not so lucky. His scream continued until he hit the ground. Stairwells were turning out to be far more dangerous places than Tselatra had realized. She hoped the guard had survived, but she didn’t have time to check. Gripping the banister in both hands, she deactivated the magnet and hauled herself up and over.

To her surprise, she was not alone on the stairs. Another guard stood with his back in the corner, rifle raised to his shoulders. Tselatra reached her hand towards him, preparing to activate a magnet, but the guard squealed and let go of the gun, raising both his hands high.

“Please, don’t hurt me!”

Something about his voice, his scent was familiar. Then she saw the name badge pinned to his breast pocket.

“Bryce? The kit from Lortran Tower?!”

He nodded stiffly, like he was afraid if he moved his head too far up or down it would explode. “I was trying for a fresh start, you know? Security work’s what I know. It’s what I trained for. I’m not here to cause you problems. I’m so sorry! Please, don’t kill me!”

Tselatra groaned, lowering her hand, “I’ve no desire to kill you.”

“But they said some other guards had already been killed, so when Henry told me to come with him away from the bodies, I thought that was a great idea. I thought we’d be safe on this end of the building. But you burst through the doors and killed him too! Oh Anima’s coming for me next.”

Tselatra sighed, “Look, I’m not the devil herself, alright? And a fall from this height– three stories so that’s, what, thirty-six feet? As long as he didn’t land on his neck, your friend can probably be healed. If he’s not dead, proper Curum treatment should fix whatever I broke.”

“Are you going to throw me down too?”

Tselatra pinched the bridge of her nose, “No, why would I– Look, me running into him was an accident. I didn’t kill those guys in the other stairwell, I don’t think I killed this guy, and I’m not going to kill you. The guys upstairs? They’ll be fine in a little bit—probably.”

“Upstairs? You did something upstairs? To multiple people?”

Tselatra cut off his blathering by leveling a finger at him. “Deep breaths kit, you’re going to be fine, provided you let me leave. You are going to let me leave, right?”

His tail hung completely limp, and he nodded with an energy his tail lacked.

“Then you’ll be fine.” Something about this kit activated something in Tselatra. She knew why immediately.

He reminded her of Ryndal.

So she did what came naturally. Stepping forward, she patted Bryce’s cheek. She’d meant it as a comfort, but from the smell she’d only made things worse.

“You should probably go check on your friend,” Tselatra called as she charged up the stairs. Then she paused. “Bryce?”

He hadn’t moved, and his eyes said that he was worried she’d changed her mind. “Yes, Alchemancer?”

“The other guards, when they were running Dollohan off, did they happen to call out any numbers?”

Bryce frowned, then nodded. “Something about a…code 14? I think? It was loud, and there were gunshots and maybe I misheard, but–”

Tselatra had what she needed, so she left him there. By the time she reached the roof, she couldn’t hear him anymore. She kept running until she reached the side of the building with the garage. Dollohan kept three armored vehicles inside.

In the case of an emergency, she’d be stuffed in one of them. All three would be loaded with guards, then head out in separate directions to make it harder to find her. However her instructions had extensive notes on this. Each of the vehicles had a designation. “96” for the one on the right. “53” for the one in the middle. And “14” for the one on the left.

Trusting the instructions, Tselatra positioned herself above the appropriate garage door. The metal ground spread out some six stories below her. Not much time for reactions.

Just to be safe, Tselatra took another dose of Prism. The previous one was still in her system, and she felt the beginnings of a high. That would go away as she used it. Prepping for the inevitable jump, she packed several Aurum cartridges in her cheeks for emergency use. Then she grabbed an Aurum Crystal the size of an apple from her bag.

She tapped it against the roof’s edge, gauging how much force it would take to crack. From just the one tap, spiderwebs were already spreading. So—not much force.

More gunshots rang out from the factory. Frowning, Tselatra turned and jogged over to a nearby skylight. Down below on the factory floor, several guards were taking shelter behind large equipment and taking shots at someone across from them. The figure was moving quickly, taking shots with a gun of their own. One of the guards dropped, and his neighbor tried to pull him behind cover.

What was going on? Then she noticed what was trailing the figure–a brown and black tail. Had one of the workers taken the opportunity to grab a gun? The figure wasn’t wearing factory garb. In fact, there was some green and white design on their back, though she couldn’t make it out from this distance.

Below her, Firum engines roared to life. She stayed at the window long enough to see another guard collapse, then rushed back to her post. Crouching by the edge, she watched the doors below her roll open. Her fingers tensed on the Aurum crystal in her hand, her legs ready to spring like she was back in track and field.

Three large horribly boxy vehicles emerged. Cracking the Aurum crystal against the roof, Tselatra flung herself forward and entered free fall...