"Shit..." Varis loaded another ball into his hand cannon, huffing for breath. "That was a goblin down there. Lord Bleak was a damn goblin the whole time." He had seen some of their conversation from on high, and they had been close enough to hear snippets above the din of battle.

"We can deal with that later!" Illyana shouted. She whipped up from cover, so fast her body was a blur, and blew a hole through a distant attacker with a well aimed shot.

Varis turned his focus back to the edge of their current platform.

That scaly abomination was rushing Coin again, pouncing and lunging like a bloodthursty animal. Even Coin's blasts of magic did little toward off the charge, and the mimic was soon dodging and leaping away from the beast's talons.

"And that thing looks damn indestructible. But... If Coin dies, then we are truly up a creek." Huffing, he reached into is pack and pulled out a coil of woven rope. He hitched it tight to the crumbling wreck of wall serving as cover, and kicked the rest of the rope over the lip of the platform. The drop from the edge of the rope was just over a meter, nothing he couldn't survive. "We better go and lend a damn hand. Are the shooters down?"

Cricket poked her head up from behind the divide, her face smeared with blood. "I can take care of any others. You lot head down, help our friend down there! Freaky looking or not, that's my mate!"

They hurried down the rope, just in time to see Coin get smashed into the fallen iron ball of the statue, crushing much of it inward.

Varis took aim and fired mid-run, his ball striking Askyr in the shoulder and shredding a portion of gnarled scales away. He hissed and recoiled, blood oozing down his arm. Yet he had withstood the shot with worrying ease, flexing his muscles and dislodging the bullet.

"Gods," Scylla whispered, shadows churning on her upraised palms. "What kind of monstrosity is that?"

Illyana surged forward, sprinting like a charging steed, aiming to capture Askyr's attention before he could close in on Coin. Her claymore swept through the air toward him in a flurry of slashes. Askyr dropped to his haunches, hissing as the sharpened edge narrowly missed him.

His left hand shot up, striking the incoming claymore and snapping the blade clean in two, The edge cut the flat of his hand, summoning a fresh spray of blood, but Askyr scarcely noticed.

A hard kick caught Illyana in the stomach, crushing her breastplate as if it were cheap tin and flinging her backward. She gave an agonized wheeze, skidding across the scarred pavement but still keeping a grip on her broken sword.

"Shit," she wheezed, looking deathly pale.

Coils of choking smoke shot from Scylla's hands, swiftly forcing Askyr to scuttle back to avoid them. He was still quick, inhumanly so, and even Scylla's magic could not outpace him.

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Coin cursed, tearing great chunks of iron from the fallen statue and coiling them up the length of his arms as makeshift boxing gloves. "I'm fine!" he shouted, sounding on the verge of exhaustion. Which he was. "Keep back from him!"

"Can't be done, chum," Varis said, pulling a pair of glass baubles from his satchel, joined by a length of string. One was filled with red powder, the other black. "You're Illyana's mate. So I gotta keep your head on your shoulders." He whirled the makeshift bolas overhead and whipped them at Askyr.

The balls whirled at Askyr, who sunk to his haunches and prepared to jump away. But the two spheres collided and shattered mid-flight, kicking up a blinding flash that burst a foul sulphur smell into the air. Askyr shrieked and recoiled, giving Coin a chance to close the gap. His ironclad fists smashed into the mutant, kicking up a great tremor that uprooted swathes of the stony ground beneath them.

He pressed the assault, raining punches that echoed like thunder throughout the crypt city.

"What-"

THOOM

"Does it take-"

THOOM

"To kill you?!"

A hard blow caught Coin in the chest, crunching the crude breastplate he had formed for himself and knocking him back. Currents of wind came at his command, cushioning his fall and allowing him to flip down through the air.

Cricket had taken up a vantage point, the remaining goblins in the area either dead or retreating, and took to flinging great chunks of rock at Askyr. A few exploded off his body, forcing him to jump back before he could press the assault.

"Oi, ugly!" Cricket shouted, hoisting a lump of debris more than twice the height of her body overhead. "Crawl back into the mum's flaps! Ain't nobody here want to stare at your damn mug any longer!"

The beastly brain inside Askyr's skull took stock of the situation, serpentine eyes glancing all around. He was injured, tired, and outnumbered. But not willing to abandon the fight entirely. And, dimly, the last vestige of what had once been Askyr planted an idea in its head. An idea to even the odds. The creature hissed and turned, bounding away into the shadows of a partway collapsed building, and vanished swiftly into the darkness, dodging fire from Scylla and Cricket all the while.

"Damn," the witch huffed, slowly lowering her hands.

"Sorry about... all the destruction of your home, Scylla," said Coin, sagging his weight forward.

"This place hasn't been my home for a long time Coin. It is a tomb. The damage does not matter to me." She narrowed her eyes and scanned about. "That thing will come back, no doubt. Pounce on us when we least suspect it."

Coin huffed. "Bastard had a skull harder than diamond. But he was hurt." He looked up and glanced around. "Come on. We need to meet up with Essine and then loop back toward Colony."

He and Varis made for Illyana and yelped her upright. "Anything broken?" Varis asked.

Illyana shook her head. "Just the armour. Whatever they did to that man, he could tear an ogre in two like wet paper." She let out a shaky breath, unlatched her ruined breastplate and let it thud to the ground.

"Yeah. Felt that way to me too," Coin murmured. He had burned through a lot of biomass in their battle. He made a note to grab a few goblin corpses before they set off. For now he focused on the ask at hand and sniffed the air. Essine's scent, faint but distant, wafted their way from somewhere ahead.

Cricket clambered down Varis' rope to join the others, huffing for breath. "Happy to work for my pay, kanno, but maybe I ought to get a raise for all... this."

"If we survive. Come on, this way." He led on, his makehift armour clinking and clanking with every step. "I feel ridiculous," he muttered.

"For what it's worth?" Varis grinned at him, his eyes running up and down Coin's still-misshapen body. "You look ridiculous too."

The group pressed on, eyes and ears peeled for any sign of Askyr. Coin sent tendrils of flesh to snatch up a few corpses in passing (he couldn't afford to be too weakened), but the majority of his attention was fixed on the task at hand.

He had to find her. And soon.

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