The light was dying.
The jungle swamp bled colour slowly — gold pulling out of the canopy, green deepening to black at the edges, the sky overhead going the soft bruised purple of something that had given up on the day.
"It's getting dark," Lenora said. "We should set up camp."
Lewd nodded and started moving without argument — quiet, efficient, the kind of tired that doesn't complain.
Lenora didn't move right away.
She stood at the treeline and listened.
Something was out there. Not close — far, actually, hanging at the edge of her perception like a shape half-seen through fog. Watching. Patient. She could feel the weight of attention the way you feel eyes on the back of your neck in a crowded room.
But there was no threat in it.
That was the strange part.
No danger. Just... presence.
She noted it. Didn't reach for it. Filed it somewhere quiet in the back of her mind — the kind of thing that would matter eventually, just not tonight. Tonight there were other things to pay attention to.
She turned it over quietly. Once, her instincts had been calibrated for war — for the particular silence before an ambush, the way air tightened before violence. But that had been before. Before Derpy. Before the squad. Before everything she had done and couldn't undo.
Is it him that changed me? Or is it the things I've buried?
She couldn't tell anymore. That was the honest answer. She wasn't sure which version of herself was reading the world right now — the one who had survived the squad, or the one who had started to believe, quietly, that survival didn't have to be the only thing she was good at.
She closed her eyes.
"You seem like a fine warrior, Lenora."
Her eyes opened.
Celica stood a few feet away — not manifested fully, just present enough to be seen. Her red and blue dress caught what was left of the light. Tears streaked her face, unhurried, like they'd been falling long enough she'd stopped noticing. Her dragon legs were visible beneath the hem, scaled and still.
She was watching Lenora the way someone watches a locked door they've already found the key to.
"Quite the secrets," Celica said, almost gently. "I wonder what would happen... if Derpy found out. That the girl who likes him killed her own squad member."
Lenora's fists closed.
"Shut up."
It came out flat. Not loud. The kind of voice that doesn't need volume because it has already decided something.
Celica didn't flinch. She just looked — calm and wet-eyed and infuriating.
"Lenora?" Lewd's voice came from behind her, careful. "Are you okay?"
A beat.
"I'm okay."
She turned away from Celica and crouched down by the firewood, hands moving on their own — stacking, arranging, giving herself something to do that wasn't standing still with a secret sitting on her chest.
Across the camp, Mia had already solved dinner.
She shifted forms without ceremony — chibi to Cerberus between one breath and the next, three heads swinging toward the water with the focused interest of something that had been waiting for an excuse. One head snapped down. Water exploded sideways. A small cascade of fish arced through the air and landed heavily on the bank.
Then she shifted back.
The Cerberus folded inward — bones resettling, three heads becoming one, the enormous form contracting until she was small again and perfectly composed. A soft pink dress had formed around her waist at some point, neat as though it had always been there. She padded over to Sphinx, turned twice, and lay down beside him with a sound caught between a sigh and a whine.
She looked at him.
Does master not like us anymore? she sent, the thought pressing against his mind like a paw on a door. Since we came to this world, he's just been chased around by these harlots.
Sphinx rolled onto his back.
His red top hat slid sideways and fell into the dirt. He didn't appear to notice or care. His paws folded over his stomach and he laughed — a long, full, completely unbothered sound.
Oh my god, he sent back, are you for real? All master needs is my fur against his neck and my purring. That's it. That's the whole solution.
Mia sat up straight and barked. A small tongue of flame escaped with it.
He only lets you do that because I'm not always there. She lifted her chin. When I'm present, he much prefers me on his lap. Receiving pets.
Sphinx's claws began to emit a soft, idle crackling — electricity threading lazy between his toes, the way it did when he was thinking very hard about not agreeing with something.
Across the camp, Lewd leaned toward Lenora.
"What do you think they're talking about?" she asked, watching the two animals with genuine curiosity.
Lenora glanced over. Mia was sitting very upright and looked deeply offended by something. Sphinx was on his back with his hat in the dirt, visibly delighted with himself. Electricity flickered between his claws.
"Not sure," Lenora said. "Sounds like a dispute." A small pause. "It's very cute. They'll figure it out."
It was, from where they were sitting, just mewing and barking.
They had absolutely no idea.
Lewd turned her head, hands balling slowly into fists at her sides.
"So, Lenora."
Lenora glanced over. "What's up, Lewd."
"What made you go from your battle tactics suit—" Lewd's eyes tracked her up and down, "—to a bunny girl maid outfit?"
Lenora's ears went red.
"Well — um. You know." She let out a small laugh — soft, girlish, the kind that only happens when someone is desperately hoping the conversation moves on. "I thought it was time for a change."
Lewd stared at her.
"You're a terrible liar. You know that."
Lenora said nothing.
Lewd's ears drooped slightly. Not sad — knowing. The look of someone who had already worked it out three sentences ago and was just waiting for confirmation.
"You were hoping you and Derpy could go on a date. In that kingdom. The one holding him prisoner."
Lenora exhaled.
"...Yes." A pause. "I can't hide anything from you."
Your rival is stepping up, Celica murmured into her mind, quiet and pointed as a needle. Are you going to let her hold you out in the open?
Lenora's cheeks burned.
"He did promise," she said, more to herself than Lewd. "When we got to the next town — a date. Just the two of us. Getting to know each other properly." She looked at the fire. "I thought the kingdom would let him go after the misunderstanding."
Lewd's face went red.
"After he gave that kingdom a scare." Her voice came out flat. "Really, Lenora."
I'm not one to take sides, Phantasm's voice moved through Lewd's mind, smooth and unhurried. But little rat — be careful. She's holding my sister. The strongest of us all. Let's try not to upset your friend.
"I'm not a rat," Lewd snapped out loud. "I'm a mouse."
She clutched Phantasm — the book pulsed once, warm and immediate — and the power answered her without hesitation. Gauntlets formed over her hands, heavy and glowing, the same silhouette as Derpy's, like the book had been waiting for her to ask. She was breathing hard. Her finger leveled at Lenora like an accusation.
"You're my rival." The words came out certain. Absolute. Hearts flickered at the edges of her eyes — bright, involuntary, utterly sincere. "And I won't lose to you."
The camp went quiet.
Lenora looked at her for a long moment.
Then she stood.
She reached down and set Celica's Embers carefully on the ground beside her — deliberate, like she was drawing a line.
"So that's what this is about." Her voice was even. "Lewd. I like him just as much as you do. But I won't use Derpy's Calamity book unless it's critical. That's not a line I'll cross lightly." She met Lewd's eyes. "We're not enemies."
The bracelets on her wrists flared.
Celica's Embers moved on its own.
Lenora hadn't reached for it. The book rose from the grass — she hadn't asked it to — pages fanning open, heat rolling off the cover in slow deliberate waves. She looked down at it.
I put you down.
The gauntlets came anyway. Slimmer than Lewd's. Precise where Lewd's were blunt — lady-like, the way a blade is lady-like, because it chooses to be.
Lenora exhaled through her nose. Apparently Celica had opinions about restraint.
You don't have a choice, Celica said into her mind. Her voice had dropped — not angry anymore. Something older. Something with weight behind it. I have a score to settle with Phantasm. She is part of the reason I am no longer with Derpy.
A beat.
He was my partner.
The fire crackled.
Lenora didn't move. Didn't breathe for a second too long.
Lewd's hands loosened at her sides — not relaxing. Just losing the shape of whatever she'd been holding onto.
Neither of them said anything. There wasn't anything that fit.
Mia and Sphinx looked at each other.
Should we step in, Mia sent, or should we join the fray?
Sphinx considered this with the gravity it deserved. We could use this, he sent back. Settle it once and for all. What does master prefer — you on his lap getting pets, or my fur against his neck while I'm purring?
Mia's tail lifted. Exactly what I was thinking.
But, Sphinx added — his claws still crackling faintly, we can't let this get out of control. Chibi forms only. No giant forms. No masked jester forms. A pause, very deliberate. We support the ones we side with. Is that fair?
Mia considered him.
That's fair.
They stood at the same time and padded toward the standoff — unhurried, certain, each moving to opposite sides of the camp with the quiet coordination of creatures who had already decided everything before they got up.
Mia stopped beside Lewd.
Sphinx stopped beside Lenora.
Lenora looked across the fire at Lewd.
"Seems like you're over your head." Her voice was even — not cruel, just honest. "You may be my rival for his heart. But we're not the only ones." She let that sit for a moment. "Vambasta. Queen Vaeloria. The girls from the world he was in before he came here." A pause. "And then there's Celica. Phantasm. Blight. Those Calamity books don't just serve him — they're drawn to him. You have a very long list ahead of you, Lewd."
Lewd's eyes didn't waver.
"Then I'll go through every single one."
She brought her gauntlets together — the same motion Derpy used, sharp and deliberate, like she'd been watching him long enough to have it memorized. Ice mist bloomed at the point of contact. Cold crept outward across the ground, crawling through the grass toward Lenora in a slow, spreading wave.
Lenora brought her gauntlets together.
Heavy flames surged up — not wild, not sloppy, but dense and controlled — and met the ice head-on. The two fronts collided between them with a sound like a held breath breaking, steam rising in a curtain where fire and frost cancelled each other out.
The camp settled into silence again.
Neither of them had moved an inch.
Lewd took a breath.
"When you, Ace, and I travelled to rescue Derpy—" she started, voice steadying, "—and it ended in failure. I thought about it. For a long time." Her gauntlets hissed, ice threading slow patterns along the knuckles. "I wanted to learn how to fight. And you trained me." She met Lenora's eyes. "So now it's my turn to train you."
She started moving — side to side, light on her feet, the way Lenora had taught her, weight never fully settled.
Lenora blinked.
Lewd was gone.
Her ears moved on their own — twitching sharp to the left, rotating with the precision of something that had learned to read the air before the body arrived. She turned exactly in time. Her hand came up and caught Lewd's fist from behind before it landed.
They held there for a second.
"I appreciate the lessons," Lenora said. Not unkindly. She released Lewd's hand. "But I've been doing this longer than you've been alive." She rolled one shoulder back. "I don't need a Calamity book to take you on."
Her gauntlet came down on Lewd's right — not a punch. A precise, controlled strike at the joint of the power, exactly where it was weakest.
The gauntlet shattered.
Lewd sucked in a breath.
"Your footing's wrong," Lenora said. "Try again."
Lewd scrambled to reset — and then something moved at the edge of the firelight, low and fast, coming in from the left.
Lenora didn't look.
She turned on her heel and her foot connected with Mia mid-lunge, clean and flat, sending the small dog sideways. Mia hit a tree trunk, pushed off it with practiced ease, and landed in the dirt with her eyes narrowed and her dignity visibly wounded.
Lenora turned back to Lewd as if nothing had interrupted her.
She brought her gauntlets together.
The heat that came off them wasn't wild. It was dense — deliberate, the kind of warmth that precedes something much worse — and it rolled outward in a wave that pushed all three of them back a step without her moving at all.
"Let me give you a lesson." Her voice was conversational. "If you're going to fight — give everything you have. Otherwise you're just wasting both our time."
She looked at Mia. Then at Sphinx.
"That goes for you two as well. If I'm going to use Celica's power here, I want you to hit me with everything you've got."
Silence.
Not the comfortable kind.
Mia went still first — the way animals go still when something inside them has decided. The playfulness drained out completely. Ears flat. Eyes fixed on Lenora with a focus that had nothing cute in it. Sphinx's claws stopped their idle crackling and started crackling with intent.
No sound. No warning.
They didn't need either.
Lenora had spent enough time with them to read it — the set of Mia's shoulders, the rigid line of Sphinx's tail, the way they had both stopped blinking. She'd pressed on something that mattered deeply, and they had just made a decision about it.
Mia dropped to all fours.
And then she stilled, which was worse. The pink dress settled around her as the air changed quality — the way it changes before something irreversible happens. The mask came slowly — not dropped, not sudden. It grew, rising through her fur like it had always been there, dark and carved and patient, runic script brightening at the edges as the horns curved out from either side. Her eyes disappeared behind it. Two points of purple light took their place, burning steady.
Purple flames rose without sound.
A heart drifted up through them.
Then another.
She rose — all fours to two feet, unhurried, the pink frilled bow at her collar the last soft thing about her — and she stood.
Sphinx was already changing.
The red top hat stayed level. Of course it did. Everything else fractured — his face splitting along lines that glowed deep red, cracks spreading like a map of somewhere terrible, runes carving themselves into the surface of the mask forming beneath. His mouth pulled wide. Too wide. Full of teeth. The bow tie at his throat remained perfectly straight.
His eyes opened gold and burning.
Lightning cracked between both sets of claws and he spread his arms wide, chin dropping, the grin stretching wider still.
Lenora looked at them both.
For the first time since the standoff began, she went quiet.
Then — slowly — she smiled.