Promises tested

Kay was true to her word.

Just in a very Kay way.

Mouth coated with pancake remnants, "Those rings let you use my healing, but only on yourself, sorta. Like you can't just go around patching up every little thing, you'll still need me or Mir for that, but if you get hit enough to really fuck you up, it'll active, hit you with one massive fuck off heal spell."

"Does yours do anything?"

"Nah, just acts as the bridge to get you the juice."

"Wait, does it pull from you to do it?"

"Yep. You two ready for another mission for we spending another day in bed, cause I'm more than happy to- gguhh! The fuck!"

Both me and Rox froze, comment about draining her too much likely on both our lips.

"Kay?"

"Yeahh, I just, something burned when on my chest." You could see that, there was a mark on her shirt. "It was... shit, guess that makes up our mind for us."

"Kay?! what's going on?"

"Ya'know how you described getting knowledge dumped in your brain?"

"uh huh, soo?"

"Mir?"

"Nothing to worry about, mother just under sold what she meant or maybe didn't know the method it worked through. Can't take days off, all the job perks comes with a demanding schedule." She lifted her shirt to show us a 'theta infelix' symbol burned onto her chest. "This little bastard will give me a sharp reminder if I take too much time off. Or 'forsake your divine mandate for the pleasures of the flesh.' as the vision put it."

"Kay, I'm sorry, are you ok?"

"Yeah, I knew there would be a catch, not getting to lay in late or have a lazy day off isn't the worst." The shirt goes back down, the serious nature of the conversation means neither you nor Roxy enjoyed the show. "So lets get our asses moving before this thing ruins more shirts."

"Between the three of us, we probably keep the whole textile industry afloat." It was a lame joke but it was all I had as we got our gear and left.

I still had to remind Kay to clean the food off her face before we walked out the door.

---

"So what do we need to do, just go on missions or special stuff?"

"Basically just missions will count, if Athena needs something special done, it'll let me know, hopefully with out the ruined shirt, maybe I should just get deeper plunging shirts, it looks great of Mir and you when I can talk you into them."

"I'd never say no to seeing more of you, but I thought you didn't like to wear stuff like that?"

"If its just you two for the most part, I don't mind showing off, besides I gave you so much shit about ripping the bandage off, I'd feel like a hypocrite if I couldn't handle that same."

----

Hunt and kill.

We'd done this type of mission a decent amount before, but this was the first time at this rank.

Something about it had Kay all tooled up and excited.

"It just feels like I'm doing exactly what I was meant to, no bullshit working around all these rules and restrictions!"

I actually understood, took me longer to come to terms with everything, but less had changed for Kay.

It still didn't give me any comfort, we were being sent to hunt something that had wrecked an outpost under cover of night then disappeared, leaving only two survivors, the cook and the a cadet not even inducted yet, both freaked out and giving a contradictory telling of the creature.

Poor Intel was what killed armies, I would not let it kill my girls.

"Civies, never remember what really happened, too scared, but almost never willing to admit they don't remember jack all, sorry I can't give you more." The poor officer stuck sorting all this out seemed to get how much this sucked.

"So its more area extermination than an H&K?"

"Unless you've got an Artemis follower or something, yeah, sorry, I'll make a note so there's a bonus for the extra work least."

That was at least something.

How far out we needed to clear for this to count was decided and we set out.

-----

We were two-thirds of the way clearing the area of home monsters and corrupted things when it happened.

My Tattoos lit up at the same time as Kay's mark.

'Another infection is near child, your lover will know the direction.'

"Kay, you got Intel for me?"

"Uhh, yeah, I think, feels like I'm being pulled this way" she pointed and started walking that direction.

" Both of you high Alert, goddess said another infection is near."

"Fuck."

"Understood Mir"

We creept closer that way.

Roxy with her strongest attack, me with that light crossbow, and Kay holding her fire dagger.

Like last time the sound is what let us know we were getting close.

*Yes yes! Come my creations, let make you more! *

Only there wasn't any screaming this time.

We entered a thick cloud of void fog likely only protected by our blessings and the light coming from the crossbow.

In there we saw the horrific thing, it looked like an arch if the individual bricks were made out of Rotting Flesh and the top of the arch had a face made out of pure blood dripping and reforming constantly.

Thankfully there were no human stuck in this one.

However the void fog screaming out of the archway and the parade of mutilated creatures walking into the arch holding a third member of their species but unmutilated.

Out the back of the arch walked three corrupted a mutilated creatures that then moved to sit behind another group of creatures.

" It's building an army, I would bet money it's planning a monster Rush past that Outpost towards the frontier towns, but instead of a natural monster Rush it's going to make one happen with these mutilated things." I whisper my thoughts to my teammates.

But it heard me anyways.

* And you would be right last knight of the enemy. Would you care to try your hand at stopping me or are you smart enough to turn around and leave. Maybe if you go now you can warn them enough to mount a defense. *

Kay seemed to have other Ideas, "Sorry you ugly bastard, new job says no can do." Before she finished the first word she had thrown the fire dagger.

It didn't reach its Target one of the mutilated creatures jumped in the way and was consumed by the conflagration.

After that I'll help broke loose, pandemonium.