"This is insane," Erin whispered as she, Wen, and Jean stood in an alley, looking at a nearby house. "What in sha-om are we doing out here?"

"Hah." Jean chuckled, shaking his head. "I get the feeling we say that often enough."

"How?" Wen asked, cradling a revolver in her jacket pocket in a very obvious way.

"It just feels right."

Erin shook her head, leaning closer to the wall to peek around the corner. The building she was looking at had what looked like a store on the first floor, but it hadn't been opened all morning. The large display windows were closed, and no one moved around inside. To Erin, it looked like it was out of business.

"How long are they going to take on the distraction?" Erin whispered.

"We could run over ahead of the distraction." Jean leaned over her, casting a shadow over her against the rising sun. "There are so few people out on the streets now. I doubt anyone would notice."

"Stick to the plan." Wen sighed, leaning against the far wall. "We need to give them every advantage we can. If the distraction works, they're going to get swarmed with spiders and bad guys."

"Bad guys?" Erin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't have a better word for it." Wen shrugged, resting her head against the wall and looking up. "But that sounds like what we deal with."

"I thought we were outlaws." Jean stepped away from the corner, taking a similar pose with his arms crossed.

"You talked with him more than any of us," Wen said.

Erin didn't stop her watch on the shop, but she perked her ear to listen. The letter Alex had found had tempted her to follow along. Still, like everyone else, she had no real memories of their time together. Aside from the dream, she was only going on a hunch.

"We definitely skirt a line." Jean nodded. "Our goal is the Core, and we face many troubles. We've sparred with the Military Police more than once."

"But why are they after this crew?" Wen asked. "What did we do? What did Alex do to deserve a million-doler bounty?"

That was a big question. You could do a lot with a million dolers. That was enough to buy your way into nobility on some islands, though Erin had no idea how she knew that.

She frowned. The haze was still there, ever-present in her mind. Yet, that piece of information wasn't that different from a memory. How did she know that but also not know who she was?

"He didn't say." Jean shrugged. "But we've all done something to earn our titles and bounties."

"Doesn't that make us the 'bad guys?'" Erin asked.

"Now that's a question I can answer." Jean smiled. "How we see good and evil depends greatly on where and who we are. The first question to answer is whether the Military Police is good."

"We don't have to worry about that, do we?" Wen asked. "We have the Hell Knights here to enforce order. The Military Police only handle problems that are outside the island."

"Yes, but if we're outlaws from outside the island, the Military Police are a great concern."

"I don't know if 'evil' is the right word," Erin said. "But I don't trust them."

"A feeling, right?" Jean asked. "I'm afraid that I must say the same about myself. This dampening of memories only seems to leave vague remnants of who we were. As a scholar, I should know much about the Military Police, but they are blocked from my mind."

"You could say the same about being outlaws," Wen said. "When you're away from the routine, the missing pieces are easy to see."

The haze tried to claw its way back into Erin's mind from the conversation. She grabbed the side of her head as a wave of dizziness shook her. She placed a hand against the cold stone of the wall beside her and used it to keep her balance.

However, that only made her mind fight back harder.

"I hate this," she said. "I love my garden and life, but I hate this feeling."

"Going off hunches instead of hard evidence isn't fun," Wen nodded. "Every time we get too deep into an idea off the island, it just comes in and claws back at our memories."

"It's a lot of trust to put into Alex," Erin said.

None of them disagreed with that, but they didn't voice it. For all they knew, they could all be pulled into something much worse by cooperating with him. What if he was the one who took away their memories, to begin with, and was now trying to get them to attack their home?

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However, that didn't change the nature of her life. The monotony was there, impossible to hide. The same day-to-day activities. The same customers every day, buying the exact same amounts.

That definitely wasn't right.

"There it is again,' Jean sighed. "It clawed back at me again."

"The repetition is what hurts," Wen said. "I can live a boring life, but it just can't be the exact same every day. Every time it tries to claw me back in, I remind myself that I'd have the same conversations tomorrow if I went home."

"That's one way to look at it." Jean smiled before chuckling. "Though I do appreciate my current roommate. I'll have to talk with him after this is all over so we can keep being friends."

Erin shook her head. With everything on the line in front of them, he had chosen to focus on that. There was a time and a place for that kind of worry, and it wasn't when you were getting ready to storm a base the moment a distraction went off.

It would be like her worrying about getting Emma's contact information. The worry was there, but she pushed it to the back of her mind. Some things were just more important.

Boom.

The entire street shook in the distance, interrupting their conversation. Erin leaned against the wall, and Jean silenced his laughter. That was the distraction. Now, it was time to see what happened.

Erin peered around the wall and saw someone falling on the street. They scrambled to their feet, gathering a few dropped items as they searched the street before running further down the road. In moments, they were out of sight.

The shop hadn't changed in the slightest. Except for some dust stirred in sunlight breaking through its windows, it was the same. Erin frowned. They hadn't accounted for the possibility of Alex being wrong.

Boom. Hiss.

A second tremor shook the street. As it did, the sound of hissing escaped from somewhere nearby. Erin looked behind her and saw Wen and Jean looking down the alley. Neither of them could pinpoint the location.

Boom. Hiss. Skitter.

The sound grew louder after each shake. Erin's eyes roved the alley. It sounded like it was coming from all around them. She flattened herself against the wall, not knowing what the sound signified. However, she had no doubt that it was not a good sound.

Skitter. Hiss.

From down the alley, through small holes in the streets she had never questioned, the creatures exploded out and up the walls. Their eight legs carved a path up the buildings without a moment's pause, and they spilled from the holes like water spilling from a flask.

There were too many.

They were spiders, but roughly the size of small dogs. They crawled on eight legs and had massive, sharp mandibles with several shining eyes. Each one's abdomen glowed a different color, and it didn't take long for part of Erin's mind to process that they were gems. The other part of her mind was too busy screaming.

Then, the flood was over. The spiders were gone and out of sight over the rooftops. Erin looked up from where she had crouched down. Jean and Wen hadn't flinched, but Wen had her gun out, and Jean held his fists closed. They turned back to her together as she stood up.

"Is there any change?" Jean asked.

Erin held onto the wall, peeking out again, the steadiness of the wall keeping her up. A light now glowed behind the curtains in the shop. It was occupied.

"Did you hear anyone go in?" Wen whispered, crossing the alley to stand over Erin.

"Could anyone hear during that?" Jean clicked his tongue. "I don't think anyone could move during that."

"Agreed," Erin stammered out.

"So, what are we waiting for?" Wen asked, stepping out into the street and crossing. "Come on!"

Jean followed first, and Erin took up the back. She kept looking down the street, expecting to see a massive wave of spiders, but none came. Whatever Alex had done to distract them was definitely working.

"Let me handle it," Jean said as he reached the door.

Crack. Clatter. Bang.

With one kick, he knocked the door in half and off its hinges, sending it to the ground in pieces. Jean led the way inside, with Wen following, gun drawn. Erin took up the rear, pulling her black dagger from her hand as she opened her gate.

Twining power crawled out from her stomach and through her chest. It wrapped around her muscles and through her arms and legs to the tips of her fingers and toes. In moments, she had the power of growth flowing through her, and in her pockets, she had the seeds of various garden plants.

They weren't too powerful, but she could change their properties slightly with her curse. It would let her do what was needed as they rushed into the sewers. With Jean and Wen to support, she thought she would be okay.

"What are you—"

Crack.

Turning the corner, she found Jean standing over a man in odd clothes. He didn't wear the typical tunic and pants of a resident of Grim Aegis but a leather jacket and pants. A black hat rested next to him on the ground as he lay there unconscious.

"There's a tunnel here," Wen said from the corner of the room where she had pulled away a rug.

"Exactly what Alex said we would find." Jean nodded, stepping over to the hole. "Are we ready?"

There was no turning back from this point, and the three knew it. Erin gulped down the fear that was bubbling up in her stomach. Before today, she had only been a herbalist. After they were done, she didn't know what she would be. An outlaw? A revolutionary? The dream and the letter scratched at the back of her thoughts, even as the haze came to suppress her memories from escaping.

Boom.

The building shook around them. The hole rested in the ground. Erin nodded as she gathered up all the courage she could. They were waiting for her. It was a kindness, but at the same time, it was an acknowledgment of her weakness. She had been the only one to hide when the spiders had come out. She would have to be the first to move forward for them to proceed. If she didn't, how could they trust her to fight with them when they ran into trouble down below?

"Let's go," Erin said, stepping forward and sitting down in the hole.

Her foot found the first metal rung of the ladder that led down, and she put her weight on it. Her boots hooked into it easily, and she lowered herself to the next rung, catching the first with her hands. The room's light above faded as she climbed down into darkness.

Erin looked down and saw the same kind of light below. She could at least hold that as a relief as Jean and Wen climbed after her. At least she wasn't climbing down into a pitch-black sewer.

She kept that in mind as the darkness closed around her through her descent.

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