Pinna was the first to snap out of the dreary sadness. "So where did the Immersion even go?

  The question eagerly yanked Contra out of his grieving. "Oh, you'll get a kick out of this. Turns out the Immersion thinks a lot like you and snuck out of the dungeon disguised as a human."

  Pinna burst into surprised laughter. "No way, seriously?!"

  "I couldn't believe it myself, but it turns out you're not the only crazy one with a fascination towards those humans," Contra replied, chuckling in half-disturbed humour.

  The thought of integrating stealthily into human society filled Pinna's mind with countless questions. "How do you suppose the Immersion works around the bloodlust?"

  Contra could only really shrug in answer, but he tried his best to propose a theory anyway. "It could be that since the Immersion was never meant to be a fighter, they don't feel the same urge the rest of us mokoi do. Or maybe the Immersion is like you—just... more extreme."

  Pinna tilted her head, unsure of what Contra meant. "what do you mean by like me?"

  "Well," Contra started, "didn't you say that it felt like the bloodlust had been lessening for a while? I mean, if not, then how have you managed to spare that human over there?" He gestured over to the corner of the cave, where a large, unarmored human man was curled into a trembling ball, crying.

  Once the terrified human noticed that the two mokoi had stopped feasting on his allies and turned to look at him, he froze in place; even his tears stilled as not even they were willing to test the mokois' wrath.

  "I don't know how I managed not to kill him on the spot, honestly." Pinna shrugged, her voice thoughtful. "It just sort of came to me, like an epiphany, you know? I just thought, what if I didn't rip his face off right now? And then I actually went through with the idea." She said the last part, surprisingly proud of herself.

  She then looked back to Contra contemplatively, tilting her head. "How about you? Why haven't you tried to push through me and steal his rich, succulent eyes yet?"

  "Don't tempt me." Contra jokingly replied, but the question lingered in his mind. Thinking the question over more sincerely brought about many odd sensations. The very concept of forcing himself past her and attacking the human had completely evaded his mind until she had forced him to think about it.

  He didn't answer her right away, thinking it through his own head first. "I don't know," Contra finally said, "I think it's easier to control the bloodlust since you've kind of marked the human as yours. It would feel rude if I just ignored your wishes and killed him. Besides… and if you tell anyone else about this, I'll deny everything, but I kind of get what you mean."

  Pinna sprang to her feet, causing the nearby human to release a pathetic yelp. "Really?!"

  Contra sighed, rubbing the back of his neck "Yeah… I think the bloodlust is starting to diminish for me, too. It's a really weird feeling, actually." He paused, considering. "What do you think causes it?"

  Unlike Pinna, Contra was much more disturbed by his increasing awareness during battle. Things had always been simpler when the bloodlust took over. He didn't have to think about right or wrong, friend or foe. Humans would just arrive, and the next thing he knew, the wrong people were dead, and the right people moved on. That being, the humans were dead, and the mokoi moved on.

  Pinna eagerly jumped onto the line of questioning, her excitement bubbling over. She was thrilled to finally be able to theorize with someone about these strange sensations. She idly wondered if the Immersion would have liked to partake in this discussion with them. "I don't really know, but I have been thinking about that a lot! Maybe that wretched self-proclaimed Queen Arete was on to something when she gave that weird speech about strings or whatever."

  "The one she gave right after the Khan's death? Like about the shackles of fate and how she was going to be a new virtuous ruler?" Contra scoffed. "You might be reading into that a little too much. To me, that speech sounded more like the mad ramblings of an authoritarian psychopath."

  He shook his head with disbelief then continued. "Something obviously snapped in that woman's brain. I think she was just trying to justify betraying her entire species. If you think about it, it's almost more her fault the Mokoi Khan died than it was the humans. I guess if you look like a human, then you have to act like one."

  Pinna shot Contra a disapproving look, though her voice was lighthearted. "Okay, if we're going to take a quick second to stoop down into the realm of full-on ad hominem, what is up with that? If you're going to look human, then at least act like them and put some clothes on. I don't want to be forced to look at a filthy human's body all day. What is even up with that whole naked thing?"

  Contra shrugged nonchalantly, though his tone was a bit more serious. "Well, pretty much the second I heard that Arete and the White Witch were taking over the Mokoi Badlands was when I noped myself right out of there and came to Ingress. So, I might not be the best to ask. But I heard from some of the later immigrants that she's compensating now by just being fully winter prepped twenty-four seven."

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  He dramatically mimicked covering himself with an oversized coat, adding a seductive flair to his movements. Unfortunately, the act caused him to toss some of his poisonous mucus around the room, creating an unpleasant contrast to his performance.

  Contra's exaggerated acting made Pinna burst into laughter. "As much as it is fun to make fun of our Holy Tyrant Arete—"

  "And easy," Contra added quickly, grinning.

  "And easy it is to make fun of her. I still think of that speech a lot. Like, she just so happened to make it right around when I first started to feel changes in my human bloodlust. And it just so happens that the speech has all of these weird parallels to what I've experienced. You know, like with the Khan's cajoling cloud of the mind and her whole spiel on severing the strings of the self."

  At another time, Contra may have been infuriated that Pinna would even suggest the revolutionary had even an inkling of merit. But, at this point, he found her delirium entertaining. "Parallels? Really? It would take the full power of a team of the most wingnut conspiracy theorists to glean any semblance of sanity from what she was babbling on about." Contra paused, and his humoured face slowly morphed into horror as he thought about what she had said a little bit more. "Please spare me a heart attack and tell me you do not support her reign."

  Pinna practically shouted, her voice laced with offence at even the suggestion. "I would never!"

  Contra relaxed, relief washing over him. "Good, good."

  "No way, even if she was somehow right about everything in some weird alternate universe, I would still hate her just based on her methodology."

  "But she's not right."

  "Not in a million years. I do think there is something we don't know about going on in the background based on her speech. But it would have to be extreme to justify helping the humans kill the Mokoi Khan. The Khan was the only thing keeping the mokoi united. Look at history, pre-Mokoi Khan: war, post-Mokoi Khan: war, during Mokoi Khan: …well still war, but at least it was against humans instead of each other."

  Contra was about to make a joke about how the old adage that all conversations led to politics was still true when his attention was stolen away by the chime of a bell sound out from behind Pinna.

  It seemed the human in the corner of the room also noticed the sound and began making strange sounds with their mouth. "Um, Pinna, your human is doing that weird thing again."

  Pinna turned to face the human, worried that he was trying to kill himself again, but relaxed when she saw what her friend was talking about. "Oh, he's just speaking human to this new guy."

  Contra shook his head, trying to organize the information that had been suddenly thrown at him. "New guy? Is someone else here?"

  In fact, there was. Pinna's eyes were mesmerized by a small pink rhombus. It wasn't the fact that it was a rhombus that Pinna found enthralling, but rather that it refused to remain so, its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other forms.

  The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards Pinna holding a glowing parchment.

  Pinna, excited to flex her human literacy and perhaps even have a dialogue with what was clearly not a mokoi, happily took the paper. To Pinna's disappointment, the second she grabbed the paper, the pink entity repeated its strange morphing behaviour in reverse until it was eventually a pink rhombus again shrinking out of existence.

  Pinna frowned at the fact that the pink rhombus left in such a hurry. The human, too, was very disappointed, so much so that they were crying and swearing spitefully at the void where it had been. "Oh, the Chauffeur left."

  Contra's eyes boggled as he shook his head again, being struck by this new name. Pinna was rather large, so he was unable to see past her for any of the activities that had just occurred. "Chauffeur? Is there a third person here as well?"

  "No, the Chauffeur was the name of the new guy. At least that's what the human was calling it."

  "Oh. It doesn't seem like this human is a big fan of the Chauffeur."

  "He thought that it came here to save him." Both Pinna and Contra burst into a terrible fit of laughter. The human couldn't comprehend the language the two were speaking, but it could feel from the atmosphere that they should both be insulted and scared.

  Contra was kind of sad that he missed out on the event because Pinna's large body blocked his sight. Of course, he would never dream of saying that directly to her. "So why was the Chauffeur here? It would have been nice if you would have asked them. Why didn't you ask them?"

  Pinna's short ears drooped ever so slightly. "I wish I could, spent all that time learning their language just to find out I'm physically incapable of vocalizing half of their sounds."

  Contra chuckled at Pinna's misfortune, much to her great dismay. "Well, that sucks. Even if you can't speak it, you understand them, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, I must have a somewhat similar anatomy; can't you just translate what they said and then tell me how to respond?"

  Pinna let out an exasperated groan. "Oh yeah, of course, I can just teach you how to speak the language. All you have to do is make this sound that I can't replicate or explain to you because I am PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE OF SOUNDING IT OUT!"

  "Oh… yeah. I guess that would make it kind of hard. It's a shame we won't get to find out what the Chauffeur came here for."

  "Oh, that's easy; it came to give me this paper."

  Contra shook his head and turned his palms up questioningly. "And why did this Chauffeur character give you a piece of paper?"

  Pinna didn't actually think that far into it. She looked down at the parchment that was now stuck in her massive claws: It read.