"We like to think tragedies only happen on other worlds when in reality, they happen on every world. Earth is no different and only the nature and scale of the tragedy is what varies." United Nations security council briefing on mass casualty events in other realms.

Kurt very much regretted his life choices the moment they breached the door at the top of the stairs. That is of course to say he regretted his involvement in this particular situation. He was pretty happy with his other life choices in general, especially Val and Kristi.

Immediately after they crossed the threshold of that doorway, he was hit with an overwhelming sense of dread that made him want to cower in fear. His elven mind naturally resisted the effect to some extent and that would have been fine, if that had been all that happened. The problem arose when his natural resistance to mental manipulation was taxed, and the other half of his unique biology took offense at the attempt.

He snarled as his body tensed and his muscles rippled under his skin before relaxing then repeating the process. His teeth elongated in his mouth and pricked into his gums before receding as he clenched his jaw. For what seemed like minutes, Kurt was stuck in a cycle of partly shifting between werewolf and human. He was caught in a loop of agony where his normal, half-elf mind was suppressed, and his wolf couldn't come to the fore. Unfortunately, the damn wolf was taking a chance and wouldn't let go to let him deal with the problem on his own.

So it was that Kurt was practically frozen in the middle of the proverbial 'fatal funnel' while his inner wolf raged against the influence, and he was busy trying to keep it from going feral. Val was struggling to do anything from just to his left, offering a token show of force as she fired the occasional round toward the vampire in the middle of the room. Thankfully, Kristi had no such problems and immediately set to work in dealing with the smug looking bastard. He didn't know if the vampire was smug but just made an assumption.

Brrrrrrt. Kristi fired a long burst from the shoulder after pushing past Kurt. A few of the dozen rounds hit the monster and broke the spell over Kurt and Val, causing them to stumble from the sudden lack of resistance. She swapped to her LAMG the moment the magazine ran empty on her sub machinegun.

Val landed on a knee and snapped her rifle up to fire a trio of rounds just as the vampire turned into a cloud of metallic black mist. The rounds passed through just before the vampire reformed back into its normal body.

Kurt landed face down and stretched out into a prone position, looking over the top of his optic and firing while aiming with his laser. Where Val had been a little too early, he was just on time and watched as his double tap struck the creature in the lower abdomen.

The vampire hissed and once again turned into a cloud of mist before darting thirty feet across the room and reforming near a large desk. The motion was followed by a row of bullet impacts that followed its path just in time to land a few hits on its chest. Kristi had tracked it while keeping the trigger pinned on her machinegun, a massive expenditure of ammunition but the situation required it.

Val and Kurt lurched upright, getting on their feet as the creature shuddered from the multiple impacts of Kristi's bullets. They both joined the fray, adding some slightly larger holes to the front of the vampire.

Looking around as he stuffed a new magazine into his gun, Kurt was beginning to wonder about a plan when the vampire once more turned into a mist. It was clearly not happy about being perforated like a pasta strainer and was trying to do something about that. The mist once more changed locations but it didn't move away from them, instead targeting Val while she reloaded.

"VAL!" Kurt shouted in warning. It turned out it wasn't needed as she already had a plan.

She abandoned the magazine, having less than a second to make a decision as the mist closed in on her. Instead, she gripped the rifle with one hand around the buffer tube and another at the back of the handguard. Choosing her moment, Val rammed the rifle forward just in time to catch the partly reformed vampire in the throat.

Her muzzle was slightly off center, and the blow caught the creature at the base of its jaw, rocking its head back and to the side. Regardless of where the hit landed, the blow staggered the vampire and it lashed out reflexively with one hand, catching her rifle and throwing both her and it to the side.

As Val fell, Kurt snapped his rifle back up and centered the dot on the vampire's neck and shoulder as he saw it from the side. He quickly fired several rounds, getting a few good hits to the face and neck. Those impacts seemed to stagger the monster and it once again chose to flee.

Unfortunately, it decided that its best option was to be anywhere else but in that room, as it turned into a mist and vanished through the open door. Kristi was already charging after it, hot on its misty heels and leaving Kurt and Val to try and catch up.

They made it to the door just in time to see the vampire reform halfway down the stairs, likely having reached the limit of how far it could travel in its more vaporous form. It then took off on foot the rest of the way, headed for the landing below.

Kurt was amazed at how fast it was on foot, having assumed that the mist was a quicker form of travel but was proven wrong. He was also amazed at the bundle of sheer tenacity and vicious brutality that was his draconic lover.

Kristi decided to skip the stairs completely, dismissing her machinegun into her ring and diving through the air. She launched herself with arms and legs spread wide as her tail thrashed behind her, scales reappearing along her exposed skin as she dismissed the enchantment that hid them.

The vampire reached the landing where the staircase split and darted to the left, quickly running into a barrier. It bounced backward, like a mime doing a performance, only to be tackled by the caster of that barrier as Kristi wrapped her arms and legs around it from behind. The momentum of the tackle took them both over the banister and they vanished from sight.

"SHIT-FUCK!" Val yelled as she and Kurt raced down the stairs. "KRISTI!". While Val stopped at the banister, Kurt vaulted it, following after the raging pile of limbs and fangs that was Kristi and the vampire.

He had just enough time to look down and see where they had landed to push off the banister a little to correct his course. He landed within arm's reach of the thrashing limbs, ignoring the crunch that came from his ankle as he landed on the uneven surface. He was about to join the brawl but stopped when he saw the flash of steel in the light of the atrium.

Kristi had summoned her short sword and set her legs in as hooks, putting the vampire in a sort of rear naked choke. She rolled them both over, coming to sit atop the flailing vampire as she gripped it by the base of its skull and shoved it face first into the marble stairs while she sat atop its back.

Kurt watched in helpless amazement as she rammed its face into the steps hard enough to stun it and place her blade over the back of its neck. She pinned it down with the underside of her left arm as she gripped the still struggling vampire and then pressed down with her right hand that held the sword. In a motion like one would use a paper cutter, Kristi shoved the blade through the neck and spine of the monster, ripping it out and to the right after hitting the step on the opposite side.

The vampire went limp, and Kristi sighed as she stood up, taking a deep breath that suddenly turned into a shout as a suppressed gunshot rang out. Kurt put a bullet through the severed head that laid on the steps, just to be sure.

"The fuck!" She said, whirling on him.

"I should be asking you the same thing!" Val yelled, having caught up and was standing a couple of stairs above them. "What the fuck were you thinking! You can't just do that shit, Kristi!"

"He was getting away!" She protested lamely.

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Val shook her head and held her arms wide as she looked around. "To where? He was stuck in here and we could have easily followed him without you getting in a wrestling match with a very fast enemy that's know for snacking on people."

Kristi was about to argue when Kurt weighed in. "Enough!" He shouted, causing both girls to look at him. Their faces showed that they did not appreciate being interrupted and especially didn't like his tone. "We have a rift to finish and a core to break." He reminded them in a much quieter tone, not wanting to wade any deeper into the middle of an argument.

The looks of annoyance vanished from the girl's faces and they both looked up. It seemed they had finally remembered that they had a job to finish and exchanged a few muttered apologies. After a moment to get their act together, they made their way back up the stairs to finish out the rift.

*****

"So, where did we have some good strengths?" Kurt asked as he gestured to the whiteboard. After the rift, they had immediately commandeered Penny's office since she had a large, and most importantly empty, whiteboard on the wall. The only pause they had was to get some water and drop their gear in the house before trooping back out and through the Order portal.

"I think our infiltration went well." Val offered and Kurt gestured for her to continue as he marked the board with an 'S' next to where they had broken down that portion of the dive. "I think we had good formation and cover in the close quarters. But it kinda all went to shit with the vampires and them being able to break my illusion."

Kurt marked that by drawing an arrow from the S to a T. "And we were completely caught off guard." He said, nodding along. "What can we do to prevent that?"

Van and Kristi both frowned at the question before Kristi offered a suggestion. "Is there any way we can test her illusions of different paranormals and see what is effective against who?"

"Oh, that's a great idea." Kurt said. "How do we make that happen?"

This time Penny raised her hand. "I can leverage some of the Order assets and see if some personnel would be willing to help." She had been a little surprised at the sudden after-action review being conducted, given that they normally relaxed immediately after a rift. But she didn't make a fuss and didn't even mind their still dirty clothes.

"Please and thank you." Kurt said. "That leads us into an opportunity. Any others?"

Once more Penny spoke up. "You, Kurt, could do some training." Seeing his confusion, she continued. "I was watching on the cameras and noticed a few times where you were trying to guide the team but neither Val nor Kristi knew what you wanted."

"Yeah, I felt like I bumped into you a lot." Kristi said. "Also, I didn't know where I was supposed to be half the time and just guessed at the best place to support."

Val piped up with her opinion shortly after and said she didn't know when to go fast and when to go slow. Given that she was in front for the illusions, it was forcing her to split her attention between the direction of travel and him.

Kurt went back to the board and talked as he wrote. "You are a hundred percent right. I was running like I had a squad of rangers with me and not Order agents. I didn't even consider that you might have different training than me."

"Opportunity for some training?" Kristi half asked, half confirmed.

"Oh, most definitely." Kurt said as he added it to the opportunity section of his board.

Their debrief continued on for another half hour as they pinpointed what went right and what went wrong over the course of the dive. He did have to say that the rift having nothing interesting in the top floor beside the core under the desk was not a weakness but just circumstance.

After they finished, everyone seemed much less tense at how the end of the rift had played out and they were able to rationalize and address what Kristi had done. It was also helpful for them to analyze 'failures' from the perspective of fixing something rather than playing the blame game. Kurt considered it to be a rather successful AAR and they all decided to call it a night after wrapping up.

Kristi sat heavily on the couch with a huff, still slightly damp from the shower. She looked over to Val as Kurt began pulling out some things to make a quick dinner. "I'm sorry." She said. "I have a lot of bad memories from undead. Vampires and their thralls were the main source of it, so I think I got a little overly upset when that was exactly what we encountered in there."

"Why? What happened?" Val pressed while sitting next to her and grabbing a hand.

Looking up, Kristi saw that both of them were looking at her expectantly. She debated if it was the right time to talk about her history before the Order but caved and decided to share. "I didn't come right from the hoard to the Order. I had a few years on my home world where I wandered and tried to make a life for myself."

Kristi then began telling the story of how her mother had set her down one day and explained that the other guardians had asked for her to leave the hoard. She made it painfully clear that, while she loved her daughter, the feeling was not shared among the others in the community.

With a bag of supplies and a few items that nobody else wanted, Kristi left the only home she ever knew. The only one to see her out was her mother who had tears in her eyes as she said goodbye and wished her the best of luck, promising to write her.

For a few months, Kristi had wandered her world, putting the mountains and forest of the hoard behind her. Eventually she found a small, frontier city that didn't seem to know what she was, assuming she was a variant of scale kin or lizard folk. She ended up working odd jobs in the city, everything from hunting and gathering to helping at the local school. She especially loved working with the children and often spent her free time helping with community events.

One day, years after she had first found the city, she was out on a trip, running some correspondence to another nearby town since the normal courier was sick. When she got there it was to find that the town had been attacked and most of it burned down. The only movement amongst the debris was wild animals that had come scavenging and ghouls. Both of which were feasting on the dead.

Naturally she had rushed in to try and find any survivors but everyone she found had either been turned or had their blood drained. She knew the culprit the moment she saw the bitemarks on their necks and the way the bodies were left.

She had spent the next few days finding all the dead and putting them to rest while giving last rites to them so their bodies wouldn't rise into more monsters. Afterword, Kristi had run back to her home city to tell them what happened but found that when she arrived the same fate had befallen them. This time, it wasn't over, and the perpetrators were still in the process of committing the atrocity.

Kristi described the horde of undead that had followed in the wake of the fallen vampires. She told them how she had fought through them and made her way to the vampires to fight them. The scene she was describing was horrible and it was only half of what had actually happened given how she omitted some parts.

"The frustrating part was that they never came to fight me. The vampires just let me wade through the masses of ghouls while they finished their macabre work." Kristi said in a hollow voice.

"I'm so sorry." Val said while holding her hand. Kurt rubbed her back, having abandoned making dinner while trying to be supportive.

"The worst part was when I found the last two." Kristi began in that numb voice. "They had found the schoolhouse and gotten inside…" She choked and sniffled. " i-it w-w-was to-to-to la-late." She began sobbing and Val just pulled her down into her chest and cradled her while tears streamed down her own face.

After a few moments, Kristi sniffled again and pushed on. "It was so-so… hard."

"Why was it hard?" Kurt asked in a soft voice as he hugged her from behind.

"Be-because…" she had to take several rapid breaths to try and calm down while getting the words out. "… I raised them. Because they were s-s-so innocent." Her voice was growing to have a little edge in it and her breathing was becoming rapid and shallow. "And because you always c-cherish what you c-can n-n-never have yo-yourself."

"What do you mean sweetie?" Val said while trying to calm the borderline hyperventilating woman.

Kristi looked at both of them as her lip began to quiver and her eyes filled with fresh tears. "I'm barren." She forced out between choking sobs. "B-because of my heritage." The look on her face was one of fear as she looked at Kurt.

He just opened his arms to her and pulled her into a hug while stroking her hair. She flopped against him, hands gripping at the front of his shirt. "Shhhh. Hey. It's ok. We are here. We are right here." He said while rocking her.

She sniffled and cried into his shoulder, unaware of the sympathetic expressions on her lovers' faces. After a few moments she turned her head, exposing her face again while she rested against Kurt with her legs on Val's lap. They both had wrapped their arms around her in as comforting a way as possible.

Several minutes went by before Kristi was able to speak again. "M-most dragon newts reach maturity after fifty years." She began to explain. "Apparently angels m-mature very fast since I became fully mature after twenty. The prob-pro-problem…" She began but stopped as she began to get overwhelmed again.

"Angels don't age." Kurt finished for her and saw the recognition spread on Val's face. "You have been stuck in this body for decades."

Krtisti nodded and gripped tighter at his shirt. "I-I thought something w-was wrong." She sniffled. "I didn't have a cycle after years. Neither a period nor did I become gravid like other dragon newts. F-finally m-my m-mom found a healer to e-examine…"

"Oh, Kristi." Val said as tears began streaming down her own cheeks. "I'm so so sorry."

"Th-that's why you get that way around kids?" Kurt asked while forcing himself to swallow the tightness that was creeping up his throat. He wished he had known sooner. While he didn't blame Kristi for not telling him, it would have helped him to understand a little better and be more supportive.

Nodding, Kristi looked up to him. "I un-understand i-if you do-do-don't…"

Kurt didn't even let her finish the thought. "NO!" he said with a little too much force as he stared at the beautiful green eyes looking up at him. "This changes nothing." He said with conviction, though in a softer tone. "I still love you and not having kids doesn't change that." He kissed her on the forehead.

"I lo-love you t-t-too." Val added while leaning in to kiss her cheek and nuzzle into her neck. She was also getting choked up over the situation. "No matter what, we are going to be together and here for you." She whispered.

After several minutes when they all quietly shed tears together, they retired to bed, dinner forgotten in their shared sadness. Together they all piled in and cuddled, seeking comfort in their loving embrace. One by one, they drifted off to sleep, each to their own dreams, nightmares and visions.

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