Chimera felt their shuttle begin to dock as the commotion from the passengers' pheromones in the air tipped her off to their approach.

  Joy unbidden was running through them all, some even bordering on mania as they crowded the doors to be the first ones off.

  Chimera, not one to wait in line, shifted passed them all and popped out the otherside, taking flight as soon as she got enough open air to do so.

  She noticed a few waving at her, pointing at her and some even screaming out to thank her.

  Strange, most of them shoudn’t even know it was me.

  Chimera chalked it up to the little girl telling them, the one with the knowing eyes. Something about that girl…

  Well it didn’t really matter if they knew or not.

  Chimera was just happy that those people could come home to their kids now.

  Landing near the main forge near the center of Anvilage, Chimera was almost immediately surrounded by a wall of Elfari Harriers, some she recognized from her earlier meetings on the Meras.

  Bargo was standing with a smirk on his face while Rose had her guns trained on Chimera, only to realize who it was and awkwardly put them away.

  Out of all the Harriers, those two took the ‘upgrade Chimera gave them to the extreme, being lithe but also stronger than before, giving off an energy of barely restraining power.

  Chimera gave them a nod, a giant grin on her face as she noticed the other Harriers follow Rose’s move.

  “Captain, since when could you fly?!” She spoke with a bit of indignation, maybe a bit of jealousy if what Chimera sniffed was right.

  “A few hours ago? It takes a bit to understand the gravity of a moon, go figure.” She smiled slyly at her ‘co-worker’.

  Bargo snorted as he approached, “High Generals’ been looking for you Captain, needs you with the ornery one.”

  Chimera felt all the wind in her sails flop as she was reminded of the Chieftain Kass of Anvilage.

  The thought of that forge hammer smashing her head in and then burning it was taking all of her good feelings away.

  “Tell her I’m busy, no, that I’m dead and busy!”

  “Too late,” Bargo smirked as he pointed behind Chimera.

  Chimera turned to see what could only be an angry fire giant and the sister of the Empress with a fully charged containment lance.

  Chimera turned to leave, only for Meras to hug her and rub her head against Chimera’s.

  “I’m so happy you're back!” Her green friend spoke, her words articulate and concise. Chimera figured she must have learned to speak better while hanging out in the town. A subtle transfer of information between the two of them confirmed this, letting Chimera know that they needed to speak about Bayleaf once they got back to the ship.

  Confused, Chimera was about to ask her aloud when the High General Lysandra Elderbloom proceeded to grab her by the back of her clothes, pick her up and turn her to face her.

  “Where the hell have you been?” the low tone coming from the general giving off murderous vibes.

  Chimera had the decency to look sheepish as she turned her eyes away slightly, “findoutaboutaplottokidnappeopleandsavedthemthat’sall.”

  Lys narrowed her eyes, her mouth opening to retort just as a group of parents from the shuttle arrived in town, a gaggle of children meeting them and hugging each other. Chimera let a small smile grace her face as the General stared at the gathering with a dumbfounded expression.

  “See? Turns out a spy was in the guard, and I found out they were hiding in a mineshaft a few hours from town.”

  Chimera bent her head to smile at the Chieftess.

  “A ‘thank you’ will suffice.” Chimera grinned wide as she saw the seething leader start to cool down at the site of her people embracing each other.

  “Momma! Papa!” a familiar voice rang out to Chimera as she turned her head a whole hundred eighty degrees to see Pares unite with her mother and father, her siblings climbing over her to hug each other.

  Chimera forgot her smirk and genuinely took in the moment when Pares’ family embraced, crying, hitting them with their little fists.

  “Where were you?!”

  “Sweety, we didn’t mean to-,”

  “No excuses!” Pares said, her face smiling even as she cried.

  The Harriers moved to start helping people find their loved ones as the crowd grew to become a bit too large for the small trading corner.

  Finally lowering Chimera to the ground, Lys stared down at her, anger replaced with a conflicted look as she motioned for Chimera to follow her.

  Chimera looked back at the embracing people, watching Pares’ family wave at her as she waved back.

  Bargo and Rose took to her sides as they walked into the forge with the Chieftess and Lysandra, the banging of hammers and sizzle of smelting coating much of the roaring sounds of happy reunions behind them.

  It only took a minute to get to a room in the back of the forge, an office from the looks of it, but also a personal forge and an array of tools lined the walls of this place. It made Chimera think that Kass was more of a forgemaster and less of a leader.

  That is, until Kass turned to sit in a chair that looked like it fit in a throne room, complete with different motifs of gold and brass, along with a cup holder for a tankard that was about as big as a small child’s head.

  It was clearly a leader’s chair made for a giantess.

  With a hand placed on her chin to hold her head, she glared down at Chimera with a look of annoyance mixed with something else, like she was trying to decide if she should allow this small thing her time.

  Chimera, feeling a bit petty and annoyed herself, shifted to match the chieftess’ height, her tongue sticking out as she finished.

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  Contrary to her assumption, the chieftess smiled.

  “You only pretend at being a child then? Good.”

  “I remember saying it’s just more efficient for me to be smaller. More mass is more energy lost.” Still sticking out her tongue.

  Lysandra stepped in between the two of them, her smaller lithe form a contrast to the now two giants.

  “Enough, there are things we must discuss, and this back and forth between you two is only slowing down our response to this threat.” She turned to glare up at Chimera.

  “Chimera, you said that you encountered the Verdant Hood on Torsca?”

  Chimera nodded as she began to explain what she saw in the mineshaft, along with the Verdant Hood’s presence, their strange pheromone food and her encounter with the superpowered male scalekin.

  “...He was stronger than anything I’ve ever faced, including you guys. He had this green shield I couldn’t break through, and that was the least of the crazy shit I saw. Did you know they could grow freaking wings?! Because he did, he grew wings in the middle of our fight and surfed on freaking magma like it was water!”

  Chimera looked at the floor, an image of the male serpentman tearing after her even as she fired ship grade munitions at his face, and only looking mildly annoyed by it.

  If only I got a bit of his DNA, I could figure it out!

  Sadly, keeping the people alive and not burning in liquid earth was the priority.

  Next time though…

  Chimera shook her head as Lysandra and Kass began to talk to each other.

  “A male of their species…” Lys spoke with a worrying look in her eyes.

  Kass on the other hand, “a scaly with aura, that should be a fun fight!”

  Chimera watched as a red glow appeared around the chieftess, a similar looking bubble of glowing energy. It was almost identical, save for the tinge of red mixing with the features of Kass’ stature, giving her a look of being on fire.

  Aura?

  Chimera wanted it, she wanted it so badly it was like her body was screaming to know this and study it, to make it hers!

  “Gimme!” Chimera said, her hands stretched out at the chieftess. Mania was radiating off of her as well, much to the increasing worry of the High General.

  “Enough Mera, explain more about this ‘male’ Hoodian.”

  Chimera turned to stare, “there’s not much more than that. He was a taller, bigger, buffer serpentkin. No legs, just a tail for a lower half of his body. His arms were massive and his head was longer, like a… crocodile. Not sure you guys got those here, but it's long and it's made for snapping. Like this.”

  Chimera mimicked a crocodile’s features with her head, showing off the snapping motion.

  “Not something to let close then,” Kass said with a smirk.

  “Definitely, these chompers won’t let go of you if they close. The ones from my world also had this nasty habit of spinning when they did. It rips you apart as it does the spin. My people call it a ‘death roll’.”

  This only seemed to make the giantess grin harder, “oh what a worthy battle he will make. Tell us child, where did he go?”

  Lysandra also seemed to be waiting for Chimera to explain, but Chimera only shrugged.

  “No idea, hopefully dead already. I did set off a missle in his face, but I also shot him full of cannon fire and he shrugged that off too. If I'm being honest…”

  Chimera stared out a window in the room.

  “He’s probably still out there.”

  …

  Commander Lesrack felt an itch in his ear as he landed near the Verdant Hood’s hidden base on Torsca, taking care to follow the tunnel that led to its entrance.

  It was a simple hole, but to him and his kind, any hole in the dirt could be made into a base of operations with the right tools and the Earthshapers.

  The three they currently had just happened to be his own broodsisters as well, so Lesrack wasn’t worried about the integrity of the structures. Their clan were elites among the Goddess’ chosen, and all had received her grace when they pledged themselves.

  It also helped that his sisters loved playing with dirt when they were young, much to his dismay when he woke up finding himself in one of their ‘sand castles’.

  Lesrack still remembered trying to find his way out of one of their creations. It took him a full week, and he had to survive on the crabs that found their way inside.

  Such was the scale they would go to annoy him.

  He sighed at the memory as he made his way below, the doors splitting open to allow his arrival. Two of Inquisitor Zala’taz’s moved to shadow him as he slithered past the quartermaster’s quarter, who even now were handing out spoils from the downed destroyer.

  It was simple to redirect those foolish Elfari, once the pheromone bombs made them pliable, and now most of the important salvage could be redirected towards the mission.

  It was a shame to redirect them back to that village, but taking them would bring too much attention, and after the Abomination ruined their intelligence gathering at the mining colony, stealth was preferable to discovery.

  He shook his head, an image of that mad devil firing ship rounds at him, a face filled with glee and mania staring back at him in the form of one of those Elfari’ children.

  Except its form… it was clearly not anything truly made of blood and bone.

  Abomination was the only way to describe such horror!

  His teeth grinding, He moved to find his war room already moving to gather data slates and intel that was sorely needed, placing them before the scrying crystal in the center so that the device might paint them a picture for their next steps.

  Only a few Elfari remained in their control, basked in the glow of the Goddess’ power and pledged to her cause, but such indoctrination was slow and inefficient to help them find the key to controlling Torsca and driving back their enemies.

  They needed to find the one that was tied to the land, the Elementalist of this world.

  He closed his eyes, letting his rage fall from him and be replaced with calm.

  Rage will not find him his answers, only tact and cunning will open the way.

  As he was about to give his orders, he felt her presence enter the war room.

  “I hear that you lost our indoctrination site to a spawn of evil? Truly Lesrack, after talking about the mission, is this all you can muster in our Goddess’ defense?”

  The rage he worked so hard to let go of clung to the edges of his mind with barbed hooks, intent on making him rip the Inquisitor in half.

  No, calm yourself. This religious fanatic will only welcome the chance to end you and take this mission for herself. Think of Lesa, Mara, Media. We can’t leave them with her in charge.

  Lesrack turned to stare at Zala’taz, “do you have anything of note to say Zala’taz, or do you simply wish to point out flaws in others? Surely the Prophet must be proud that you are here to berate your comrades.”

  Zala’taz turned the slightest bit of red on her green colored scales, her fury only barely restrained.

  “You… if anyone has failed in our mission it is yo-”

  “I faced an Elfari bioweapon in the depths of our facility. An Abomination with the ability to shift its form and create mechanical structures in mere moments. Its mission appeared to be about recovering the prisoners we obtained there.”

  Zala’taz grit her teeth, “as one of her chosen, surely you could have destroyed anything those lesser beings had created? They do not even compare to our metal beasts.”

  Lesrack shook his head, “Were it not for the Goddess’ gifts that I received, Inquisitor, I’m confident it would be able to kill me all on its own.”

  At first a look of incredulous malice coated his co-commander’s features, as if the words he spoke were the most elaborate ruse.

  When he only stared back at her, allowing the worry he felt to cover his face, only then did she peer at him.

  “You’re serious?”

  “I am.”

  It gave Lesrack a moment of hope to see this fanatic seriously consider his words. Perhaps they could figure out a strategy to deal with this new threat.

  “S-Surely the Goddess will deliver us a way to defeat our foes. Your words are that of a coward Commander. It is clear that you are not as strong as I was led to believe, if something like an Abomination was enough to delay you.”

  Of course…

  Lesrack sighed as he reached for a drink of water, wishing that it contained some alcohol to soothe his now pounding headache.

  …