Blue didn't understand what she was talking about. Ate their friend? What did that mean? They'd never eat any of their friends. It took a moment for the realization to suddenly hit them and make them abruptly come back to their senses. Where was Astrid? She'd been here, fighting with them, but now she was nowhere to be seen. That thing that had hit them and made them feel all energized. It couldn't be. They didn't feel anything inside them. They also didn't feel that source of electricity anymore. It couldn't mean...

Blue looked horrified as the reality of what just happened sunk in. They'd been out of their mind, berserk because of that weird gas. They could barely remember what happened since then, but the memories of them taking on monstrous forms and becoming a living flood flashed through their mind along with Astrid being launched into them and disappearing into their gooey form.

Blue's form shifted, finally returning back to the armored knight except for the slimy tendril pinning Ceena to the ground in front of them.

"Why?" Blue choked out, their voice breaking. They looked at Ceena smiling on the ground victoriously and suddenly felt all the pain and horror they were feeling turn to rage just as strong as they'd felt when they breathed in that gas that did all this to them in the first place.

"WHY!?" Blue yelled, lifting Ceena up and slamming her back down again. Blue kept flailing Ceena around, slamming her into walls, the ground, letting out their anger and grief the only way they had available at the moment. They didn't give Ceena a moment to attempt to free herself before she was slammed down again. They didn't even care if she answered their question or not. No reason for doing this would make them feel better.

As much as Ceena wants to continue to goad Blue, she can’t get a word out. Each slam against the ground causes more bruises and broken bones. With each lift into the air, she attempts to reach into a pouch that holds her potions and poisons and with each impact she does her damnedest not to lose her grip on them. Finally, she draws out a vial filled with a murky clear liquid and decides to hail mary it and tries to shove it directly into the oozey appendage holding her in hopes of things loosening up enough to free herself.

Another slam against the ground, and through broken ribs, Ceena laughs painfully at Blue’s desperation, almost as if she’s feeding on the anger. Blood seeps through her mask and runs out of her ears, but still, there is a grin in her eyes as she’s lifted and rummages through her pouch again for something, anything.

“Because,” she coughs out, “that little half-breed brat doesn’t deserve to live. She should have died by my hand months ago.” Her raspy voice comes between wheezes, and she braces for impact again. “Besides, you caught the attention of the wrong people. I know what you really are now, creature. Masquerading as a man, trying to fool them with a faked death, then stealing from them? Lady Gray and her Frostbitten won’t let you go so easily, and I’m more than happy to deliver them your corpses. Or at least… what’s left of the kid.”

It’s about then that Astrid reappears in the same place she disappeared from. Reality bends and twists and spits her out suspended a couple of feet before she collapses onto the cobbles and coughs a painful cough. There are burns on her skin, pock marks in her armor, and frayed holes in her clothes. But she’s alive. “Bl-Blue?” she says blearily. Her war hammer appears in her hand and a warmth envelops her body and heals her wounds. It gives her the strength to stand up again, though she’s breathing heavily. There's no telling what she heard from Ceena's rambling.

As angry as Ceena is at this turn of events, she takes advantage of the distraction and grabs a healing potion out of her bag, pulls her mask down, and downs it. Her face is bloodied under the mask, but she’s quickly feeling refreshed as the potion takes effect. Then she grabs another potion, one that shifts colors as it sloshes inconsistently, and drinks it. The muscles of her right arm ripple and flex while her entire form grows to be twice as large to a height of nearly ten feet tall. With extended reach, the huntress slams her strengthened arm into the wall beside her, smashing through bricks and causing the structure to falter.

---

Ceena:
Sleep Poison
Major Healing potion
Beist’s transmutation tonic - giant heart and baloth muscles

Astrid:
Spell blade - sharing essence

"What does that even mean!?" Blue asked angrily. What was this crazy lady even talking about? They didn't understand what she was saying. Whatever it was, it didn't matter at the moment. They just wanted to end her and avenge Astrid before melting into a sad, lonely puddle in the middle of this alleyway to mourn. Eating her didn't even feel like it would help anymore. They weren't sure they'd want to eat someone so vile.

Things took an unexpected turn for both Blue and Ceena though as Astrid suddenly rematerialized nearby. Not miraculously uninjured, but still alive and breathing. That was enough for Blue to lose focus on Ceena long enough for her to down her potions.

"Astrid!" Blue called out, voice quivering like they were about to burst into tears, which they might have if they weren't an ooze.

Ceena slammed a hole in the wall, bricks falling down on top of Blue's extended arm and nearly cutting it off. They felt her grow larger and escape their slimy grip. They lost track of her behind the pile of rubble. Their anger at her escaping again could wait. Blue ran over to Astrid and picked her up into a hug that would have threatened to shove her right back into the ooze if not for the armor providing a solid surface to smush Astrid against.

"You're still alive! I thought I ate you! Are you okay? What happened? Where'd you go?" Blue shot rapid fire questions, their voice filled with relief and still shaking with the ooze equivalent of tears. Their human face morphed back into blue goo as they lost control of their shapeshifting, the ooze too emotional to keep their disguise up.

It’s hard to get her bearings about her, and no sooner than the bleariness clears does a smattering of dust and debris fly through the air as Ceena smashes the bricks of a nearby wall. Astrid coughs as the dirt stings her eyes and sticks to her tongue, and even if there weren’t a thick haze, she wouldn’t be able to see anything because Blue immediately smushes her against themselves in a tight hug.

She quickly notices the quivering, something unusual for Blue, at least in her experience, and she hugs them tight, unaware of whatever danger Ceena might pose to them in the moment. “Blue? Blue, hey, it’s alright… Ya did eat me, but I… I got out somehow. I’m alright. I was in… a dark place. Now I’m here, but…” With Blue’s mighty grip, she can feel the damaged armor crunching in their strength. “I don’t think me armor is doin’ so great,” Astrid admits. “Don't worry about it, though. I can fix it. ...Where’s that lady? Where’s Ceena?”

Cursing her situation and seeing that the sleeping poison did nothing to the abomination knight (probably because she couldn’t uncork the bottle), Ceena weighs her options. She has an escape path, no one can see her, and they’ve drawn a lot of attention. On the other hand, these two are half-defenseless right here, and she could smash them with her temporary transformation.

This is her best opportunity to–

The sound of heavy footsteps approach in tandem with the clanking of armor. The guards are on their way. She can’t be caught here. Fucking brat. I’ll get you. One way or another. Pulling her hood back up to cover her horns, Ceena silently rushes past them before the dust settles and disappears into the shadows of the alley. Lady Gray is not going to appreciate her report, especially not since she so stupidly revealed her current employers to her targets. What difference does it make for them to know or not in their last moments?

Rookie mistake.

When the guards make it to Astrid and Blue, Astrid looks at them. This is about to be messy to explain, especially when they immediately start asking questions about some sort of monster seen rampaging through town. Baan is certainly not going to like them for making a mess of his city.

"I DID!?" Blue shouted in dismay. They were relieved to see Astrid alive and assumed that meant they'd been mistaken about eating her, but it felt like a splash of freezing water over them when she told them they actually did. The question of just how they'd managed to escape from the ooze's stomach remained, an answer Blue would be genuinely curious about since nothing had ever done so before, but that wasn't the first thought on their mind at the moment.

"Buhuhblblbluhubuh..." Blue made incomprehensible noises that sounded as if a bubbling pot of water was crying. The blubbering ooze hugged Astrid tighter, which didn't help the already damaged plates of metal at all. In answer to Astrid's question, their tail limply gestured at the crumbling wall Ceena had escaped through.

Blue finally stopped slowly doing further damage to Astrid's armor when the sounds of metal boots on stone echoed from around the corner of the alleyway. They pulled their helmet out and quickly placed it on their head just in time to stop one of the arriving guards from seeing the blue ooze's exposed lack of face. They retracted their tail and extra pair of arms back into their body.

"What happened here? Have you two seen a huge blue monster?" One of the guards asked. They looked down at the two with concern. Some of the guards saw the broken wall and approached it cautiously.

"Uh, yeah. It was a crazy lady with a potion. She went through that wall." Blue, in a shocking moment of intelligence, pointed to the broken wall and pinned their own rampage on Ceena.

It wasn't the most convincing statement, but none of the guards were about to accuse a clearly injured and distraught duo on the ground of lying. Some of the guards even recognized the two as the nobles who had embarrassed Baan. Whatever could harm one of them so badly must be a serious threat.

Blue didn't wait for the guards to start questioning them more. With Astrid scooped into their arms, they started walking out of the alley. They completely forgot why they were even in this place, heading back the way they'd entered to leave and head back home instead of going toward Baan's home.

Seeing, or rather hearing, the dismay in Blue’s voice, Astrid quickly tries to calm them. “I-It’s alright, Blue! Ya didn’t mean to! I– Ceena’s explosion kinda pushed me into ya. I promise, it’s alright, I do.” The juxtaposition of Astrid’s pockmarked armor and freshly healed wounds with the words coming out of her mouth aren’t a great confidence boost. She can stand though.

“Blue, Blue, don’t… wobble– er, cry..?” She really does her best to comfort them, patting their armored back as much as her short arms can reach around their very large torso.

When she hears the heavy boots approaching, she checks that their helmet is on right, a little panicked in the moment because what if someone saw them?? Oh, this is such a mess. She quickly backs up Blue’s statement about Ceena, explaining that the two of them were attacked, coming up with some reasoning that it must be because they’re nobles traveling away from home, but she’s careful enough to avoid any wording that might point an accusation towards Baan considering they’re in his city. Before she can really say more, Blue scoops her up into their arms and gets the heck out of the alley, leaving the guards to start searching for Ceena and examining the destruction she and the big blue monster caused.

Astrid finds herself very tired from the whole debacle. Not being in control of her emotions or thoughts, being groggy from the toll the rage took on her body, heck, being exhausted from the full panic of the situation. None of this is very good at all. Gods, Cantio is going to worry so much when they get home too. They can’t keep worrying him like this, even if they didn’t intend for any of this to happen.

“Um, Blue, maybe we don’t tell Da exactly what happened,” she says quietly while fishing the House Key out of her pockets. “But… We gotta figure out what to do about Ceena. Did she say somethin’ about a group she’s workin’ fer? Did I catch that right? I wonder if… Wonder if that’s the folks that’ve been harassin’ us an’ gettin’ their butts kicked. If they hired her….” Astrid dreads to think what might happen if this goes on any longer.

“Maybe we should ask someone fer help.”

Blue nodded. Telling Cantio about situations where either of them almost died never ended well even if it was a good story. He got really upset the last time they told him about an encounter with Ceena. Telling him she came for them again would definitely bring on the tears and hugs. Blue didn't mind the hugs, but they hated seeing Cantio cry.

Astrid seemed alright enough. Her wounds had healed and she'd had a moment to rest as Blue carried her away from the scene of the fight before the guards started asking too many questions. They put her back on her feet for her to use her magic key they forgot she had. It would be a lot easier to use that than flying all the way back home.

"Mmmmm..." Blue hummed as they wracked their brain for what Ceena had said to them. They'd been too upset by hearing of what they'd thought was Astrid's death to listen fully, so it took a moment to try and force the memory to the surface. "She said something about being bitten... by frost...? Or biting frost...? And a gray lady. And that... I'm a fake man with a fake death..." Blue repeated what they could recall the best they could.

Blue slumped a bit, disappointed in themself and feeling useless. They hadn't been able to beat Ceena, keep Astrid safe, or even remember the probably really important information said right to them.

With some of her wits about her again and energy back, Astrid stands when Blue sets her down and takes a deep breath. Heck, they don’t want Cantio to cry? She also doesn’t want to cry. This has been so frustrating. Why can’t Ceena just leave them alone? All of this because she lost in some arena fight and feels cheated out of her championship? If that matters so much, then Ceena can have the title back! Astrid doesn’t even care about it! She did that fight for the Fighter’s Guild, and she’s not even in the Fighter’s Guild anymore and that fight is what started Vikram’s–

She stops herself before she gets too caught up in the spiral of negative thoughts. They need to get out of here, so she beelines for the nearest door, focusing instead on what Blue can remember. “Bitten by frost..?” she repeats. “Frostbitten is a thin’ ya get when yer too cold. An’ the lady in charge had ice an’ summoned a devil, right? She was… Well, I guess she was kinda pale or gray or whatever.”

Before she slots the key into the keyhole of the nearest door, she pauses. “Fake man with a fake death?” Astrid looks up at the distraught knight. “Well, yer not fake. Ya were pretendin’ ta be someone else fer a long time, but yer yer own person now, Blue. Yer Blue Raspberry ta the people ya care about an’ Geoffrey Wolfe ta everyone else. Yer a noble a’ Dragon’s Cradle. That’s all you an' yer hard work.” She leans over and pats their arm in some effort to comfort them.

“Yer me best friend. I love ya, an' that’s all that matters.” Finally putting the key in the slot. “And we’re gonna ask some of our other friends ta help us outta this mess.”