Bindea of the Starlight Tribe sat atop a branch high in the boughs of a Bonny Blue tree and watched as the strange Consuls did battle with a Zone Keeper. It was the first such fight she had ever witnessed, and it was the second most exciting thing she had ever seen, just after the last time the volcano had erupted and spawned that quarrelsome family of fire elementals.

"Guys! Help!"

The older girl, the one who was armed with those twin swords that looked like she'd torn bone from the living flesh of her enemies, was pressed hard by the Bargathula's limbs. But even so, Bindea was very impressed. Not even the finest of her tribe's warriors could move so swiftly, even if the Bargathula was moving slow and sticky because of the Mind Reaver that had taken over its body.

She wondered if she should tell the Consuls about that, but decided… No. No, the Custos Naturae had summoned her and Peatey for one task; to break through the Bargathula's unnatural camouflage. Unnatural, because Bargathulas didn't usually have that ability. It must be the Mind Reaver, transferring new powers to its poor thrall.

She kind of hoped that the Consuls figured it out. Bargathulas were really sweet creatures, unless some idiot went around trying to poke them.

"Bel! Go left! Jump!"

"Scoot over, Toots," Peatey's grumbling voice came from beside her. She turned to see her rotund friend climbing up the trunk of the Bonny Blue with his big digging claws, and she obliged him by scooting down the branch so he could sit next to her.

"What do you think of these guys," the earth sprite asked her after he got comfortable, pushing his cap down to shade his eyes.

Bindea considered the question. "They're different," she finally settled on. "The last ones, they were…"

"Assholes," Peatey said bluntly, waggling his moustache.

"Yeah," Bindea agreed with a giggle. Then she sobered back up again, watching the battle below them.

"They move differently," she continued as the warrior women came at the Bargathula from different directions. "They fight differently. The other ones… They were like golems. Stiff, regimented, no flare, no flash. My friend Quinn once told me that he saw an entire cohort wade in to fight two Zone Keepers at once, and they lost over half of their soldiers, and the ones left alive didn't seem to care."

"They didn't ask me to distract it, even," Peatey grunted. "She could'a. They've got the Authority in 'em. You feel it?"

"I do," Bindea said quietly. And that, more than anything, was terrifying to her. "But they didn't use it."

"I ain't sure they know they got it," Peatey said, scratching his rump. "They asked me for help. The last guy, he'da just told me, and I would'a had to jump to it."

"Don't waste time on status-effect stuff! It's not gonna work! Just hammer it!"

"Roger!"

"Think they're going to win?" Bindea asked, gesturing at the battle. So far it had been fairly equal, and some of the weapons the new people were using were definitely a cut above what the old Legions had used, and even better than what the Technos used. And way better than the Oomphs. But maybe not better than the Wizzos up north. She'd have to see 'em side by side, though, because they were so different in how they were used.

"Yeah," Peatey said in a tone that brooked no dissension. "They've got the power. Even weird as they are, even with a mature Mind Reaver hooked onto it, that poor Bargathula ain't got a prayer. They'll rip it apart, and with the Reaver without a body to nick, they'll rip it apart, too."

Bindea nodded sadly. Peatey was probably right. It was too bad. But that was how the island worked. Or at least, that's how the island worked when Sojourners were around.

It had been really nice, not having Sojourners around for all this time. A few hundred years of relative peace, not having to worry about getting summoned every minute of every day, never having to wonder what weird request a Sojourner was going to make you fulfill after they'd summoned you…

The worst any of them had had to worry about was straying too far into the island and accidentally waking something up. But after hundreds of years, even that was an incredibly rare ocurrence. It hadn't been a great life, admittedly. Too few resources to go around to everyone that needed them, too little safe land to accomodate everyone… But it had been stable.

But now sojourners were back. And things were changing. Things were waking up on their own.

She sighed. She was going to have to break the bad news to the Chief, wasn't she.

[Harbinger Arts: MAKE A HOLE!]

"Damn," Peatey muttered as a massive blast rolled out of the older woman's weapon. "These ones have got some serious firepower behind them."

"Yeah," Bindea winced as the jungle behind the still-living Bargathula was incinerated by the blast. "Kinda indiscriminate, though."

"They think they're fighting a massive monster that wants to gobble them all down," Peatey pointed out. "I'd be blasting it with everything I had too if I thought that's what was going on."

"Mom!"

"Little help, daughters!"

Both fairies jerked at that, and Bindea felt her jaw sag.

"Mom?" she repeated, staring at the group.

[Berserker arts: BREAK]

"They're family," Peatey breathed, his beady black eyes suddenly as wide as saucers. "Wha–A whole family of Sojourners?"

The histories had taught that most of the time, Sojourners came in ones and twos. Occasionally, through some arcane deliberation process that no one really understood, whole groups of them would get summoned in. Those were usually the worst times, times of devastation and loss, of scourings and apocalypses across the face of Seroco. But bad as they were, groups were not uncommon.

But they were never established groups. The world always summoned them seemingly at random, sometimes from completely different countries. Sometimes from completely different worlds.

To have a family of Sojourners?

"Has that ever happened before?" Bindea asked, watching as the battle got even more frantic. "In like… ever?"

"Once," Peatey said, turning to look at her. "Exactly once."

Bindea felt her heart catch in her chest.

"You don't think–"

"No," Peatey said, and this time his gruff voice was forceful. "And neither do you. Not until we know more. Not until we're sure. Don't say it, don't even think it real loud."

Bindea nodded dumbly, but she couldn't help the thoughts flashing through her mind.

A family. A family of Sojourners.

That could change… Everything.

"It's the lure! Guys, it's a zombie caterpillar! It's not in control of itself! The Keeper is the white thing!"

"Well they figured it out finally," Peatey said, back to his usual gruff grumble. "Took her long enough."

"Oof!" Bindea winced as one of the other girls didn't hesitate, just shot the Mind Reaver in its gut with her advanced smokethrower. "Well, that should be just about it then. Hey, maybe they'll manage to keep from killing the Bargathula… After… All."

She trailed off and her eyes went wide as the Mind Reaver's primary eye opened up.

"Oh damn," she whispered.

"No way," Peatey grunted, staring. "That's a Matriarch. That's a Matriarch Mind Reaver. That's way too high-rank for this kind of fight."

"The system really is broke," Bindea breathed. "It would never throw something like that at a Sojourner this soon if it were working right."

"We need to help them," Peatey said suddenly, standing up on the branch and moving back towards the trunk.

"I thought you said they'd be fine?" Bindea said, blinking in surprise at her friend's sudden shift.

"They will be. But that Matriarch could kill one or more of them. And we want them all alive."

"We do?"

"If they're really family, yes we do." Peatey turned back, his beady black eyes snaring her with the intensity of his stare. "You know why."

"I thought we weren't supposed to think it?"

"We're not. But doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can."

Bindea stood up. "Right. This is going to suck."

"Yes it is," Peatey agreed.

Then the sky exploded.

* * *

Dinah Costigan watched as the lure-thing morphed from a chubby little child parody into something from one of her weirder Tim Burton nightmares. The single cyclopean eye in the middle of its little head, the tentacles suddenly sprouting from every visible inch of its flesh, and the wide fanged maw splitting open its torso…

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"I am never eating pizza before bed ever again," she muttered as she jacked another round into her rifle. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, just like they were when she was on a hunt and there was another predator around.

She saw the abomination twitch, saw its flesh ripple, and her instincts screamed at her. She was already diving to the side when a dozen tentacle lashed down at her, each one a blur of black flesh and spiked blades. The razor-sharp tips thudded into the earth just where she'd been standing, and more tentacles came down, chasing her like a cat might chase a mouse. She ducked behind a tree, and one of the tentacle claws pierced all the way through the trunk. She rolled behind a boulder, and two tentacles cleaved the whole thing in half.

Not good. She tried to change directions, but her feet hit a patch of moss and she was suddenly slipping and sliding to her knees. Another tentacle came right towards her face–

And then the sky exploded.

Noise and light roared out over their heads. Every eye, including the abomination's, jerked skyward, staring at the miniature supernova that had just erupted over them.

Every head except Mrs. Albright's.

A stream of tracer fire slammed into the abomination and stitched up and across its torso. Gouts of black blood erupted from where the magical bullets struck, and an unearthly shriek ripped out from its torso-mouth, and the shriek was echoed by the Bargathula.

Dinah's grin showed teeth.

The thing could be hurt.

Good.

* * *

"Bel! Buff incoming!" Olivia yelled, grabbing for the coins within her–And jerking when a mental alarm went off in her head. She had five coins remaining. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew.

But that was a worry for later. She brushed aside the warning and yanked on the coins remaining within her, activating one of her Arts.

[Manager Arts: Find Your Face]

"Thanks Liv!" Bel hollered as her movements were suddenly faster and more precise. Three of the Bargathula's hands swiped at her, and she practically danced around them, her limbs glowing golden as Olivia's buff settled over her.

"Hoolio, scroll," Liv said. They'd entered this fight with bad information–or rather, the wrong information. They'd assumed the Bargaleth was the Zone Keeper, and she hadn't done any kind of identification on the parasite thing that was actually controlling it.

"Hoo." Hoolio smacked the needed scroll into her hand, and she began to speed-read.

Mind Reaver Matriarch

Class: Zone Keeper

Description: Mind Reavers are bad news no matter where you are. They are a race of parasitic fungoid monsters with the ability to usurp the free will of almost any creature they can get their control limb into. They use this ability to keep their own relatively frail bodies safe from harm, and to drain nourishment and sustenance from their host being.

Matriarchs, however, are a fish of a different odor.

Where basic Mind Reavers are not truly sapient, Matriarchs are those that have survived long enough and consumed enough minds to achieve true sentience and gain extra abilities above their base kin.

They also have an absolutely vicious cruel streak. Taking great pleasure in causing pain, especially of the mental variety, to those creatures they've subsumed. For instance, forcing an ordinary herbivore to bite, chew, and swallow whole a predatory creature that was very definitely made of meat.

Abilities:

- Weaponize: A Matriarch can at any point force their host creature to grow claws, fangs, spines, and all manner of natural weaponry. Growing these abilities is extremely painful but not ultimately harmful to the host creature.

- Strength Of Multitudes: A Mind Reaver Matriarch can control as many creatures at once as it has tentacles. The more creatures it has under its control, the stronger it becomes.

Weaknesses:

- The Prime Number: Severing the tentacle connecting the Matriarch to the first creature it controlled will sever all other connections and severely weaken the creature.

Well, that seemed easy enough.

* * *

"We've got to cut the tentacle!" Liv yelled from where she was crouched in a clump of trees, the little owl on her shoulder handing her scroll after scroll as fast as he could pull them out from the Somewhere. "The one that it's hanging on, I mean!"

Isabel glanced up, still weaving her way through the storm of razor-spiked limbs the Bargathula was hurling at her. Her swords tucked in close to her body as she spun through the maelstrom, her feet guided by an internal melody and her body moving with precision that she knew was not her own. Her sister's Art really was something.

The tentacle jutting from the back of the Bargathula's head was thick around as her bicep, and a good ten feet off the ground. She could probably jump for it, but there was no way she'd be able to get to it before one of the Bargathula's limbs caught her. And there would be no way to dodge once her feet left the ground.

"I can't get to it!" she called out, side-slipping another spikey limb. "Not without getting rid of a bunch of these stupid spider-leg limb things!"

"Don't hurt the Bargathula if you can help it!" Dinah yelled from where she was dodging and weaving away from more stabbing tentacles. "It's an innocent!"

She changed the rules of engagement during the engagement, Bel growled internally, then threw herself backwards as a spike-limb slashed at her.

"Well figure something out! I can't keep this up all day!"

"Bel! Help incoming!" called Dinah.

* * *

Dinah brought her rifle up to her shoulder again and took aim–and had to dodge aside again as another bladed tentacle came at her. The abomination thing had dozens of them, and it was like they were freaking bungee cords, able to stretch out and retract both insanely fast and over insane distances. It wasn't as fast as the Bargalest, but on the other hand she wasn't as fast as Bel was right now, so it probably worked out about the same. Long story short, she didn't have a shot, and every time she tried to get one, the dang thing tried to make her into Shish KaDinah.

Mrs. Albright kept firing at the Matriarch, but Dinah could see from here that any wounds that the rifle shots inflicted sealed up almost instantly. And, she realized, opened up again on the Bargalest. The Matriarch was somehow transferring any incoming damage to the critter it was controlling.

Well shoot.

"We need a way to cut that dang tentacle," she growled to herself, bringing her rifle up again and firing a snap-shot that missed by a mile as the Matriarch launched more bladed tentacles at her, forcing her to dodge like a madwoman. "Be nice if we had a breather to get that done," she growled.

"I can help with that, toots," said a voice from somewhere around her feet.

Dinah's eyes jerked downwards. The weird earth fairy was there, just his head peeking out from a mound of dirt where he'd tunneled his way up.

"You can help?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We both can!" said another voice, this one feminine and squeaky right behind her head. "But we've gotta move fast, before the Matriarch sees us. If she knows we're here, she'll stab us with those tentacles and everything goes up in smoke."

"Tell me how," Dinah demanded.

"Magic," the fairies said together.

Dinah's eyes narrowed.

"I can use a skill that will slow down the Bargalest," Peat said quickly.

"And I can make her fly! With your other sister's Art on her, she should be fast enough to get around the Bargalest's strikes and get to the Matriarch's control appendage!"

"Might actually work," Dinah said. "Do it. Guys! Covering fire for the fairies! Bel! Help incoming!"

* * *

Bindea of the Starlight Tribe fought the reflex to clap her hands over her ears as noise and light suddenly exploded into the clearing. From the older woman came blasts of red energy that ripped through the air, forcing the Bargalest to dance back or get ripped into. From the youngest sister came fire and lightning, scorching the air with their passing and forcing the matriarch to twist and turn to avoid getting immolated. And from the other girl came shots that struck out like a fencer's blade, missing half the time but forcing both creatures to dance as the shots sought their marks.

Through the hail of gunfire and magic she flew, until she was next to the eldest sister. The one called Bel, who wove and danced her way through the Bargalest's attacks to a music only she could hear. Bindea dove right down and grabbed onto the back of her shirt, pinning herself to the big woman.

"Hi," she squeaked, "I'm Bindea, and I'm going to make you fly in a second. Please keep moving so we don't get squished."

"Huh? Uh. Okay?" The towering woman spun around, almost flinging Bindea away from the force, then ducked under a thorned fist. "When?"

"As soon as I tar up the Bargalest," said Peatey from where his head emerged from another tunnel he had just dug. "I can only do this once, and it'll only last for a few seconds. You ready?"

Bindea felt the woman tense, and then take a breath and let it out. "I get it. Do it."

"Right. Hey, Bargy. Suck on this!"

[Fae Magic: What In Tar Nation]

"Go get her!" Bindea said encouragingly, activating her own magics.

[Fae Magic: Flight On Your Feet]

"I hate this world!" a young voice howled from somewhere off to her left.

* * *

War coursed through Alejandra's veins as she pulled the trigger on her rifle again and again, spitting out lines of red tracers at both the Bargalest and the Matriarch in equal measure. Every so often her hand would twitch, old reflexes demanding that she eject the spent magazine and slap home a fresh one before resuming fire… But her rifle didn't work like that anymore. She felt like Rambo, blasting out a stream of unceasing death without ever having to worry about reloading.

It was fun.

She didn't know what had caused the explosion over their heads, but as no more had followed it, she put it out of her mind, focusing instead of keeping her kids alive. And doing that by putting as much lead–or whatever her rifle shot nowadays–down range as possible.

She didn't know exactly what was going on. She saw Olivia talking to fairies out of the corner of her eye, heard the girls as they called out to each other, and saw the fairies zip across towards Bel.

She wanted to ask what was going on, but she didn't dare let up on her suppressing fire. It was keeping the Bargalest just off balance enough that it couldn't turn Bel into paste. It was keeping the Matriarch dodging and weaving just enough that it couldn't spear Dinah with its tentacles.

It was just like being in the War again. You did your job, and trusted your squad to do theirs.

"I'm going in!" Bel shouted suddenly, raising her swords over her head. "Cover me!"

Alejandra instantly shifted fire, pouring all of her effort and energy into the Bargalest. Dinah had said to not hurt it if possible, but if Bel was going to try and get the tentacle out of its head, then that meant making the Bargalest as little a threat as possible.

Tracer fire ripped through two limbs at their base, and they popped off with an audible 'snap' from the main body. The Bargalest wailed.

And then a pair of skills fired off, and suddenly the Bargalest was moving as if it were forcing its limbs through molasses.

And her daughter flew.

* * *

Bel let out a whoop of sheer exuberance as her feet left the ground and she ascended at speed. The air felt like solid ground beneath her feet, but when she tried to run her entire body flew in that direction. She barely had to think about it, and the spell from the little fairy sent her skidding around the Bargalest's suddenly much-slower attacks like a figure skater around a hockey goalie.

It was awesome.

The Bargalest swiped a massive hand at her, but she pirouetted around it and drove forward and up, skirting the forest of out-stretching limbs and going straight for the back of the thing's head, where the single massive tentacle was impaled right at the base of the poor creature's skull. Most of the tentacle was sinuous and pulsed like a blood vein, but the two or three feet at the very tip was solid-looking and looked almost brittle.

Perfect.

[Berserker Arts: BREAK]

Bel drove forward, swung both her swords, and struck the tentacle with every ounce of enhanced strength she possessed.

The tentacle shattered.

The Matriarch screamed.

* * *

"That didn't suck nearly as much as I thought it would," Bindea said, back sitting on the limb of her favorite Bonny Blue.

"They're even stronger than I thought," Peatey agreed, watching the women pick over the clearing and the corpse of the Matriarch. They'd already found the cache of resources the Zone Keeper had been guarding, and were now apparently deciding what to do with the Bargalest.

"Remember the last guy?" Bindea asked, watching as the massive creature approached the one called Dinah hesitantly, eyeing her outstretched palm with suspicion. "He would have killed the Bargalest for its flesh and bone and never thought of it."

"Yeah, I remember," Peatey said, watching the holy guardian nuzzle its snub-snout into Dinah's palm like a puppy investigating a new scent. The big creatures limbs, the ones that had been shot off by the older woman, were already starting to grow back. By the end of the week, it would be as if none of the damage had ever occurred. The older woman, the one called Alejandra, was speaking into some sort of device, and receiving communication back through it. Some kind of far-talker, then.

"They're not like him, are they."

"No, they're not."

"Do you really think–"

"I don't know," Peatey said heavily. "But I think we'd better get back and tell the chief. She needs to know."

Bindea watched the women for a long moment before nodding. "Yeah, she does. And when she does, all kinds of things are gonna change, aren't they."

"Bin," said Peatey. "They already have."

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