Aranea blinked with her good eye, recognizing the familiar face with a scar over the nose. The brown hair was cut short, the former fire gone from the woman’s blue eyes, sweat ran down her face, and the markings on her uniform indicated that she had received quite a few promotions since that time when the wolf hag last saw her in the basement of the fortress.

"You!" Aranea released her claws, jumping toward the woman. Geldi, she remembered her now. The last one who was there when Blaguna was torturing her people.

"Feel free to kill me, I am so done with everything." The regulator said in a dead voice, not even trembling when the wolf hag landed before her, crushing the stone beneath her legs.

"Why is she here!" Aranea retracted her claws, forcibly calming herself down, "Captain, this woman was involved in the torture of my soldiers!" The regulator shuddered at these words, looking down at her own feet and avoiding meeting eyes with Aranea.

"Now, now, settle down, wolf hag," Scorpio said, coming closer to them, "Up until now it was kept secret, but it was young miss Geldi who contacted the Resistance’s leadership about your capture. And it was her who later contacted us, requesting our help in saving some of the prisoners. As a matter of fact, we owe the swift and mostly bloodless resolution of today in large part to her persuasion skills," He noticed the look that Geldi spared for Blaguna’s remains, "Worry not, miss. Your former leader will have a proper funeral, a simple grave somewhere around here."

"Honestly it is too good for her… Wait what was that about the help?" Aranea looked at the woman in surprise.

"It’s irrelevant," Geldi replied, "All irrelevant. Just kill me."

"No one is going to die, miss Geldi," Scorpio smiled and spread his wings, "Aranea, please follow our dear ally to the fortress. Geldi will bring you up to date about the matter. Just…" The wyrm looked to the west, and Aranea followed his gaze. A storm cloud was gathering on the horizon, created by the wheels of several crawlers moving toward the fortress, "Hurry up. Ivar and inspector Javenika are coming. Her bodyguards are undoubtedly with her, and they were… asking about you, Aranea."

****

When she heard the story from Geldi, she called Sly. How could she not? The thought of keeping this secret never even crossed her mind.

Right now, she and Sly were following the regulator through the narrow corridors of a series of caverns beneath Dresgen fortress. Geldi formed her own small resistance, breaking into these caverns in secret and making their secret camp here. Here they prepared flyers to spread throughout the lands, stocked weapons, and hid deserters from the ranks of regulators, waiting for an opportunity to take down Blaguna. Tonight, they got their chance, and right now the caverns are nearly empty of people. Everyone was above, either swearing fealty to the state or simply busy in preparation to return to their families.

But above all, this was the place where the rebels hid the prisoners from Blaguna. Those among the prison guards who joined the rebels were able to smuggle quite a number of people from the torture chambers, blatantly lying to Blaguna about their demise. The war distracted the madwoman, forcing her to split her attention, and the soldiers used this chance to save whoever they could.

They found her in one of the remote parts of this cavern system, the small space was dimly lit by a blinking yellow light of an electric lamp. She lay to the side, too weak to move. Geldi explained that they turned her from side to side to avoid causing bedsores. Horrible scars ran all the way from her fingers to her elbows, even covered by bandages, the bloodstains were visible to the eye. Tendons were cut and, in some places on her body, were outright torn away. The ears were cut in two, and several ugly scars now marked the scalp free of all fur. Countless burns were seen even despite bandages, a mix of acidic and burn traces, Blaguna was getting "innovative" with her torture. Fingers were broken several times, along with bones in her legs and arms, despite all the efforts of medics among the rebels, whatever poison Blaguna injected into her caused the limbs to become swollen. The broken edges of her ribs protruded through her skin, nearly piercing it, and the patchwork of her veins was visible to the naked eye. The stench of rot coming from her was barely tolerable, the simple bed beneath her was stained with pus, piss, and blood.

"Sly… Aranea…" The eyes filled with pain opened, allowing the nearly dead wolfkin to look at the newcomers, "You are alive. Thank Spirits."

"Yuki!" Sly shouted, dropping on his knees before the bed and reaching out with his trembling paws, not daring to touch the ruined body out of fear of causing even more pain.

"I am tainted now," Yuki said, her voice barely a whisper, "Ari… my body hurts. Please, call a sha…"

"No," Aranea replied sternly, forgetting about her own and calling the medics, cursing to herself at their slow approach, "No, don’t you even dare to say it, Yuki. You will live."

"But my claws are gone. My fangs are…" When she opened her jaws, Aranea saw that each and every one of her fangs bore numerous holes. The cruel bitch ruined even this, "Now Sly and I can’t even…"

"I will build you a new set of claws!" Sly shouted, wiping out tears from his eyes. He reached out, taking Yuki’s head into his palms, speaking passionately, "Claws made of steel, capable of rendering anyone and everything! Abyss, I can even replace my own claws, so we share the set!"

"But my legs, my…"

"All will be repaired! All, I swear to you!" Sly looked her in the eyes, "You will run faster than anyone, you will hunt like no one ever did, you will fight with no equals! Just live… We… I need you. Just live. Please, Yuki, let me take care of things this time, I… I love you."

Aranea allowed Sly to keep on whispering words to Yuki, almost pressing his snout to hers, gently holding her head in his paws. His shoulders shook and the fur around his eyes became wet, but the small wolfkin sounded genuinely happy. Geldi sat on the floor, leaning against the wall and hugging her knees.

"Thank you," Aranea said to her, standing on her knees, "I am sorry for my words before, if I only knew…"

"We barely managed to sneak her away," Geldi said in the same dead tone as before, looking at Aranea with empty eyes, "We tried to feed her, but she simply threw up the food back. I knew a little about treating medicine, and we had a few field medics, but… Whatever Blaguna did to her was too big for us to fix. And all the others… Blaguna made me a chief officer, you know? The fucking bitch thought that I was getting high on the suffering of others, she made me watch each and every one of her sessions, and I just stood there, while people died again and…"

"Calm down," Aranea took the woman’s hands, feeling how her fingers were trembling, and said, "Look at me, Geldi. The nightmare is over."

"I wanted to be a hero," Geldi’s voice broke, and she cried, "Someone who saves lives, who protects others… Like the original Regulators! Why in the hell did it have to end up like this!? Why did I have to stand aside and watch others die, too scared to do what was needed!"

"You saved lives," Aranea drew her in closer, forcing her to look her in the eyes, "Don't you fucking dare to diminish what you did. You saved Yuki, you saved other prisoners, thanks to you, so many people were left alive, and the monster is dead. You know what? Yasen was one of the original Regulators, and you are a far better person than this coward could ever hope to be. You are a hero, Geldi."

"This place fucking stink, make sure to relocate all wou…" A voice said from the entrance, and Hekanta, the combat medic assigned to Alpha’s pack, stepped in, pinching her nose with two fingers, followed by a few medics from the regular forces. The moment her eyes fell on Yuki, her eyes turned round, "The fuck is this shit!? Step aside, lovebird, we have a job to do."

****

Scorpio pushed both of his arms into the side of the mountain, creating a crack. The mountain shook a little, and a shower of stones fell from above, cracking helplessly against his scales. The black wyrm surveyed the tight crack, nodding approvingly.

The open surface of the Ravaged Lands suffocated him, causing irrational fear in him. Wyrms preferred confined spaces, having their bodies squeezed between several layers of stone felt like heaven to them. Before the war, his people spent their entire lives in the hollowed-out catacombs of his homeland, only leaving them for hunting or war. After the war, they preferred to live in a spacious city built for them by the state, but almost all of them preferred to have their bedrooms be as tight as possible. Scorpio had to make some sacrifices when building a home for himself and beautiful Ofelia, but right now he planned to pleasure himself with a proper place to sleep.

"I can see that you finally captured the place. Without losing a warlord this time, I trust?" Ivar asked, swooping from the skies and landing silently on the mountain slope above Scorpio, turning his head to the side to glance at the black wyrm with one eye.

"Have you had any doubts? When I am fully in charge of the operation, everything goes according to plan. Give my best regards to Martyshkina the next time you speak with her. Tell her that her pack will be safe under my leadership." Scorpio smiled, pushing his arms deeper and using his claws to make the edges of the new cave smooth.

"The pack is quite safe under Olesya as it is. Your inability to adapt to sudden changes does you no credit," Ivar continued, "And now you plan to sleep instead of working."

"Not all of us need to personally oversee every single detail for the operation to work. Sleep deprivation leads to slipping when it matters most… Speaking of, how is King?"

"Alive and humiliated. Our bickering aside, I came to you to hear your advice, captain," All the poison in the world could be heard in the last word, and the blue wyrm turned his head, looking at the black wyrm with both his eyes. Scorpio felt his gaze but refused to return it, preparing his sleeping place instead. He was born to rule this army. One day, Ivar and even Wyrm Lord himself will bow to him. So let the fool seethe with spite, what difference does it make? "About Yasen’s pup… And Blaguna’s spawns… They might be a problem in the future, don’t you agree?" Ivar said, tapping with the tail’s claw on his chin.

Scorpio turned to face him, moving with the fluidity of a dancer. For something so enormous, he produced no sound when he leisurely walked up the mountain toward the blue wyrm, locking his gaze with Ivar’s. The blue wyrm responded with a bored look.

"Ivar, my dear, surely you don’t suggest what I think you are suggesting," Scorpio purred, feeling a tingle of rage within, "No doubt you just worded your words most unwisely. Dangerously even. The living are a possibility."

"Possibility? Like Jekaterina was?" Ivar’s voice sliced through the night like a knife, and the blue wyrm moved, circling around his fellow captain, extending his neck and whispering into Scorpio's ears, "A possibility to lose another warlord while dealing with a rebellion? Think about it. Can we truly take this chance? Incidents happen in prisons all the time. We can use them to fish out any warden who slacks on their j…"

"If you know one such warden, then remove such a warden immediately," Scorpio closed in on Ivar, pressing his own snout against his, like a lover. The blue wyrm stopped, his tail raised for a strike. Purple eyes looked right into the blue eyes, "I afraid of no risk, Ivar. If some prisoners happen to disappear or to suffer, say, a sudden stroke, I will challenge you, captain. We both know what this means."

"Indeed, and one might wonder why you would seek death so soon," Ivar replied calmly, maintaining unbroken eye contact for a few minutes, "You pass the test. As disgusting as this admission is, I may just have to start to rely on you to win this minor war. The faulty cog was removed the moment I learned about her."

"Must you always test others like that?" Scorpio growled, understanding the reason for Ivar’s quick surrender.

"The system and its servants must always be tested, lest we want rot to have a place to bloom. Scout Leila is coming back, by the way." Scorpio cursed, quickly burying himself inside the crack as Ivar responded dryly.