Atzi and Marco ran up the busy market street together, keeping a lookout for Hemm.

  As they approached the temple district, Atzi glimpsed purple hair just ahead.

  "Hemm. Hemm!" she called out.

  She reached the person, just as they turned around.

  One big eye looked at her. Atzi felt tension leave her body. "Atzi, Marco" - Hemm took a breath, clearly exhausted from running - "you're safe!"

  Atzi looked behind her to see if the thugs were currently following them. Seeing nobody, she motioned Marco and Hemm to walk with her.

  "Yeah," Atzi said. "But they did get me in the back." She groaned as she touched the tender spot where her scales were missing.

  "My nose," Marco mumbled, voice congested. His nose was already a deep purple.

  "Atzi, what… why did they...?"

  "I dunno. Some people are assholes. You alright?"

  "My nose..." Marco repeated, and then moaned in pain.

  "My back hurts... And my neck. And my bra snapped during all that," Hemm said.

  Atzi immediately glanced.

  Hemm covered her chest with an arm and glared at her.

  "Y-you brought it up…" Atzi coughed. "Anyway, I'm gonna ask a... friend, if you can hide out there for now. Follow me."

  -

  They entered the Serpent's temple. Several serpent-blooded were seated on the mats on the floor, eyes closed as though they were praying. Atzi ignored them, stepping towards the human priestess near the back.

  The priestess looked up at them with a playful smile. Behind her loomed the three statues of the Serpent, and behind that the stained glass impression of a giant wyrm. "Greetings. How may I assist?"

  "I need a favor. Some thugs tried to kill my friends here. Can they stay here a few days?" Atzi asked.

  "Of course." The woman's smile curled up further. "The Serpent's doors are open to all in need."

  Atzi gave a sigh of relief.

  "Um...thank you," Hemm said to the priestess.

  "Ow, my nose..." Marco mumbled once more.

  "Let me take a look," the priestess said. She took a step towards Marco.

  He raised his head, looking less pained.

  The priestess raised her hand to his face, hovering just in front of his broken nose.

  With a swift cracking noise and a scream from Marco, she set his nose back straight.

  "There you go," she said, smile not faltering.

  Atzi winced.

  "Let me know if you need anything else, handsome." She reached out with her hand, still bloodied from his nose and patted him on the cheek.

  "Huh?!" Marco staggered.

  "Lucky you." Atzi nudged him.

  Marco just stood there in stunned confusion, making noises of disbelief.

  Atzi took a second to recall what happened around this time. After a few seconds, she remembered the demon attack that would happen in a few hours. "Hey, can I talk to the Serpent?"

  "The Serpent is currently indisposed," the priestess said.

  "Okay, what about her prophet. Andrew?"

  "He is also indisposed."

  Why would- oh, is it the Spicy Blood? Shit. "Okay, listen." If I just tell her about the demons, I'll sound crazy. "Just, uh, if anything happens, make sure everyone here is safe, okay?"

  The priestess nodded. The way she never stopped smiling reminded Atzi a lot of Cory. "Of course."

  Atzi handed Marco the sack with the book in it. "Hold onto this. Don't open it."

  Marco, recovered from his embarrassment, nodded.

  Atzi then turned to Hemm. "I wish I could stick around, but I have something really, really important to go take care of. Just hunker down here, don't go out, you'll be alright. I'll be back."

  She turned back around, ready to leave, when suddenly Hemm grabbed her clawed hand.

  "Ah?"

  "It's not safe out there for you either, Atzi," Hemm said.

  "It's safe enough. You saw how good I was at dodging those goons? They had every unfair advantage they're gonna get and I was still fine. If they try anything out in the streets, they'll... well, I can run a lot faster than they can." Then Atzi's eyes went wide. "... Oh fuck, I killed that guy. I-I've never... fuck. I just needed to get him off of... I d-didn't mean to-"

  "...He deserved it." Hemm stared Atzi right in the eyes as she said those words. Her expression was dark, but resolved. "They probably would have killed us. Or worse."

  "He…" Atzi gulped. "He did. Right. He did." She nodded. "You're alright, at least..."

  "Thank you for that." Hemm hugged her.

  Atzi made a tiny cry of pain.

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  "Sorry." Hemm let go. "Be safe."

  "Y-yeah, I'll do my best." Poor Hemm... but I've gotta go out. There's a bank to rob.

  -

  Atzi made her way back into the street, heading directly for V's mansion. The streets felt a little emptier than usual, the groups of party-goers smaller.

  After a check over from the guards outside, confiscating her bloody dagger without so much of a comment, she was let in once more.

  Atzi turned right into the fancy dining room.

  Everyone besides Cory was already gathered, and looked up at her. In the center of the table was the familiar map.

  I've never made it this far before. Something always goes wrong. This is the moment I'd considered the most important thing in my life before...

  Paulina gave Atzi a glare that would kill her, if it could.

  "Who beat you up?" Fence asked.

  "Nobody, don't worry about it."

  Aelia looked back down at the map, paying her no more mind.

  Atzi wondered why Cory wasn't there. She was pretty suspicious of the job. But what does she do if I'm not around to ask about stealing the book...?

  Just at that moment, Cory walked in. She gave everyone in the room a once-over. Her gaze lingered briefly on V.

  Not on Atzi, want it as she might.

  V nodded. "Good. I will now go over the plan once more, to ensure it is well memorized by all."

  They pointed to the map. "The bank has an upstairs and a downstairs. The upstairs has four guards, the downstairs six. Of the four upstairs, two will be outside the bank and two inside, though they check on one another every thirty minutes. A pair of guards also swap between upstairs and downstairs every forty five. Of the guards downstairs, four will be patrolling the lock boxes outside the vault, and two will be on break in the office at any given time. The guards on break will swap every hour."

  They took a short breath. "Any questions so far?"

  Nobody spoke up. All focused on V and the map.

  V continued, "Aelia shall be the first to approach with the tools to disable the sensory spells. She can disable the ones upstairs from outside, but will need to get downstairs to disable those. Once they are disabled, Atzi and Paulina will get onto the roof opposite from the outdoors guards."

  There were no nearby buildings marked on the map, but Atzi remembered them from when she scoped the place out… was it months ago now? She wondered if that's how they were getting up.

  "They will sneak to the ledge and use the sleeping poison on those two guards. It is vital to use the poison without being caught, as to not have them shout. To this end, you are expected to use the utmost caution to apply the poison. It is fast acting, but not faster than a shout."

  "What kinda poison is it?" Atzi asked. "Gotta touch their skin for it to work?"

  "Touch skin or ingest. Their armor isn't air tight, so in enough quantity you could just pour it on them. However, their heat would evaporate it quickly. This works in our favor, as it removes the evidence. The tricky part is pouring it on both at the same time without missing, splattering any on the ground, or getting caught when they look up."

  Atzi nodded.

  "Once they are asleep, you will need to take off their armor and don it. Once in gear, Fence and Aelia will retrieve the guards and drag them to a nearby alley. When the swap to downstairs happens, you will then be expected to patrol downstairs. Remember all codewords, you will need them to verify during the swap and during patrols."

  Atzi winced. Will that even work out?

  V looks at her expression. "Do you have another question?"

  "W-well... it's just... aren't the guards pretty tall? N-not to mention trying to hide my tail, won't it be obvious I'm not a guard?"

  "The armor is bulkier and taller than you, yes. For the issue of height, we can provide you padding to provide you lift inside the armor. It will be awkward walking around, but you only need to do it for at most two hours, and making noise in such armor is expected."

  "As for your tail..."

  V raised a piece of thin but sturdy rope onto the table. "You will need to tie it to your back."

  Atzi let out a small groan, but nodded. "Alright." Humans! They have no idea how uncomfortable that is!

  "After patrolling for an hour or two, you will get a chance in the break room. At this time you can poison the cups for the next guard break. Once those guards are out, there will only be six left. At this point, you are on a time limit."

  Just then, one of V's private guards entered the room. They walked over in their bulky armor and bent over, whispering something in V's ear.

  V nodded along, their eyebrows twisting in a look that was rare on their face - concern.

  Uh oh. Maybe it's cause I stole the book before? Atzi fidgeted in her seat.

  The guard left. V spoke up, "We will need to be careful on the way. Apparently, there have been a few demons sighted on the streets. None in this area yet, but in the more populated ones."

  "Demons?" Aelia asked.

  "You expect us to do the job while there are demons outside?" Paulina looked in disbelief. "And get ourselves killed?"

  "A few," V repeated. "And I expect our collective abilities to be enough to handle any such thing. Their biggest risk factor comes from potentially interrupting the plan. It is no reason to delay."

  Sure hope you're right about that.

  Cory rocked in her seat, but didn't say anything. V nodded to their guard, and they left.

  With no more interruptions, V tapped the break room on the map. "You will need to discreetly slip out of your patrol to hide the bodies. Then you will need to appear normal in the break room before the next group enters, so they don't notice anything amiss. Time it wrong and they'll either notice there aren't two guards on break, or two guards on patrol are missing."

  Paulina grunted.

  "Once this second group is out, with only four remaining, both upstairs, during the swap with upstairs you can poison the two remaining guards while we on the outside poison those guards. Aelia will be able to monitor the sensors to tell when the time is right." V raised a finger. "However, this isn't foolproof. If you make any mistake in the timing and delay the plan, Aelia might receive a false positive, busting the job."

  No pressure, though.

  "Once all guards are out, we can enter and have Coraline release the vault, and collect the gold. Then we leave before the next shift arrives. Any questions?"

  Atzi shook her head slowly.

  "Again, why am I working with her?" Paulina spat, pointing at Atzi. "I should-"

  "If you mess up the plan due to your grudge, I will leave you for dead in the sewers," V said coldly.

  Paulina looked like she'd sucked on a lemon, and didn't say anything more.

  Phew. She won't kill me until after the job.

  "Then let's do this!" Cory gave a bubbly shout.

  Atzi felt excited. Nervous. But less nervous than she might have been if she'd made it here normally.

  She felt like things had a high chance of going wrong, though.

  "Then we move."

  There's too many parts, too many breakpoints where a little fuckup could go completely wrong. Was Cory right? Is this all a trap and I'm actually a decoy for the real plan?

  Together, they left the safety of the mansion.

  -

  As they traveled through darkened streets towards the bank, Atzi walked behind Cory. She was trying to figure her out. Also it meant she could stare at her ass.

  When we were given the same job, she came to me with the plan to steal the book. She said at the time she was certain V was going to betray us, but now she's going along with this? It's strange!

  She tried to work out how she could ask Cory about it. I can't figure her out at all. She likes me, right? It's just that she's dating someone and has important stuff going on that I don't know about.

  How do I get her to be honest with me?

  Because Atzi was paying so much attention to her, she noticed a fractional movement of a sewer grate as Cory walked by.

  A clawed hand reached out, glinting dark green.

  "Cory, get away from the grate!" Before she knew what she was doing, Atzi rushed forward, her own clawed hand outstretched.

  Cory jumped back just as something leapt out of the sewer in a blur, heading straight for her.