Alex reached out before Phong could leave her side.
One hand caught his sleeve, the other pulled him down against her. Before he could say anything, she shifted, wrapped both arms around him, and dragged the blanket over them both until the world narrowed into warmth, dim light, and the steady sound of her breathing.
"Sleep," she whispered.
Phong opened his mouth to object.
Alex saw it before the words came out.
She was injured, tired, both of those were true, but she was not blind. The moment he leaned close enough, she saw them: The faint bulge at his temples, the strain in his face, the way his focus kept holding only because he refused to let go of it.
He was exhausted, maybe had not sleep properly in days. And somehow, he was still trying to stand upright on duty for everyone else. So, before he could turn this into another argument about her recovery, Alex shifted the whole battlefield. If he wanted to show her his pushier side, then she would show him her needier side.
Then Alex looked up at him with the most unfair expression she could manage, soft and needy and far too vulnerable compared to the strong, unshakable woman he was used to seeing every day.
She pouted.
The gap between that look and Alexandra Vogel's unshaken self hit him like a crit.
Phong's resistance lasted maybe three seconds. Then he sighed, and surrendered.
"Cheater," he muttered.
Alex's mouth curved faintly. "Sleep."
This time he listened.
He settled into her arms, still trying to hold onto some last scrap of awareness at first, like he might get one more thought in, one more plan, one more responsibility handled before rest dragged him under.
It did not work.
Within minutes, Phong was sound asleep against her.
Alex felt the exact moment his body gave up the fight. The tension eased out of him all at once, his breathing deepened, and the stubborn line in his shoulders vanished into sleep so fast it would have been funny if it had not also been a little sad.
She held him a little closer after that, just because she could.
In another room, Rico had finally realized the truth.
He stared at Emma with dawning horror. The can of energy drink was already gone, the second one sat within reach like a mocking promise. And somehow, in the time between one bribe and one "small favor," he had gone from valued combat innovator to glorified plushie.
Emma looked entirely too pleased with herself.
Rico pointed a shaking paw at her. "I was deceived."
Emma rested her chin lightly on one hand and nodded. "Yes."
"That is villain behavior."
"That is bargaining."
Rico looked betrayed down to the soul.
Emma, because she enjoyed this too much not to explain it, said, "It's called the house strategy."
The raccoon blinked.
She held up one finger. "First, you ask for something unacceptable. Like tear the whole house down." She smiled lazily. "In this case, seeing your other two forms."
Rico gasped. "Monstrous."
"Then," Emma continued, holding up a second finger, "you step back and ask for something smaller. Like open another window in the house."
Rico's ears slowly lowered.
Emma folded her hands in her lap. "That second request feels more reasonable in comparison, so people tend to agree more. Guess raccoon wasn't an exception."
The raccoon stared at her, then at the blanket he was currently trapped under, then back at her.
"…the true request," he said weakly.
"Was to use you as a plushie."
Rico made a noise like his soul had left his body and come back disappointed.
Emma smiled with unbearable calm.
"And you agreed."
"I agreed under false emotional weather conditions."
"You agreed under energy drink."
"That too."
There was no escaping it now. Emma already had him tucked against her side, one arm around him with the casual confidence of someone who knew the trap had fully closed. Rico, flabbergasted and deeply wounded by the elegance of the con, had no choice but to endure it.
So he tried to feel better.
He closed his eyes and imagined the future, a raccoon lying on top of two crates of imported sodas.
Cold... Fizzy... His.
That helped a little.
Around them, the elves had naturally flocked over.
Partly because Rico was there, and wherever Rico went, some degree of nonsense followed. Partly because they had already been taught one very important household rule: do not go to daddy's lodging when Alex is there.
The children did not fully understand why, but they did understand that violating the rule got them redirected very quickly by everyone in camp. So now they clustered around Emma instead, curious and energetic and perfectly willing to treat her like temporary furniture while Rico suffered in her arms.
Emma found the whole thing funny, especially one specific detail.
The elves called Phong "dad" or "daddy" with total certainty, like there had never been any room for doubt in the world.
But Alex?
Alex was just Alex.
No title, no parental instinct attached, no effort to elevate her. Alex to them was Alex, the dangerous woman sometimes slept in daddy's room.
Emma, amused by the pattern, tried once.
"You know," she said lightly, looking down at one of the little elves trying to climb onto Rico's leg, "you could call me mommy."
The elf looked up at her, then said, with perfect seriousness, "Emma."
Another elf echoed it immediately. "Emma."
A third one, not wanting to be left out, pointed and announced, "Emma uncle thief."
Rico made a weak sound of support.
Emma stared at them for one second, then shrugged.
Fair enough.
She wasn't some heroine in a harem fic, and didn't develop feeling for the farmer just because he had saved her once anyway. Well, she was grateful to be alive, that much was guaranteed. But it wasn't the same as romantic feelings. The title "elves mom" would have been funny, nothing more. If the children wanted to see her as Emma, then Emma she would remain.
She scratched Rico lightly behind one ear just to irritate him.
The raccoon sighed from somewhere deep and dramatic. "Humiliation complete yet?"
"Not complete," Emma said. "You still haven't shown me the other two forms."
Rico opened one eye. "I demand compensation in caffeine."
Emma smiled.
Around them, the elves settled into a loose pile of limbs, blankets, and light chatter, comfortable in the kind of impossible safety Camp Stymphalian had become. Somewhere deeper in the camp, the plants rustled softly under the ground. The scorched land from a far continued its slow healing, the wars above and below still waited.
But for this one stretch of evening, Phong slept in Alex's arms.
Emma held a raccoon plushie while six little elves climbed over both of them like they had been born for exactly this kind of chaos.
The night before the planned skirmish, Team Nemean came back to camp. They were neither loud, nor triumphant, just tired in that specific way only people who had spent too many hours escorting frightened fungal civilians through dungeon territory could be tired. Even Dominic was quiet. For anyone who knew him, that was enough proof of how taxing the escort mission was.
Rico saw them first.
He was perching on a crate like a self-appointed sentry, one of the elves leaning against his side and another trying to braid a bowtie with the fur on his tail. The raccoon lifted one paw the moment Dominic came into view.
"Bad news," Rico announced gravely. "Farmer already lost to cuddle abyss."
Dominic stopped mid-step.
Jake blinked. "What?"
He was not surprised by their farm boy being abducted by Alex. That was Tuesday for them by now. Everyone in camp knew Alex loved to roleplay a succubus whenever she was near her lover. He was more surprised by the raccoon picking up his vocabulary.
Rico pointed toward the lodging area. "Alex swallowed him with blanket. No recovery."
Joanne snorted, Jack looked deeply unsurprised, Janet only shook her head. Nyx and Bruno immediately went to look for Little Fireball, because for them, this was normal for the farmer.
Dominic let out a breath and then, because he was Dominic, made the obvious call.
"We assume cooking duty then."
That got immediate approval.
And because everyone there had suffered enough for one day and nobody wanted to think too hard about war, politics, or fungal migration while hungry, Dominic declared pizza was on the menu. So that became the camp's project.
They used leftover beefo, tmato sauce they had hauled back with the fuel earlier in the month, plus the fresh tomatoes Phong had grown - which strangely, had yet to show any signs of mutation. Cheese too, because Phong's pantry had changed a lot since the year he had spent living mostly alone. A year ago, he did not stock cheese at all.
Unlike his aunt and uncle, he wasn't lactose intolerant, Phong just had no craving for cheese whatsoever, and neither knew how to use nor appreciated them properly.
Now Camp Stymphalian had enough people passing through it, living in it, trusting it, and the pantry had grown with them.
Flour got mixed, dough got stretched, topping was prepared. It was a joined effort. Rico stole some cheese and stuffed them into a moletato. Bruno happily helped slicing the beefs and nearly got away with eating some raw meat had it not been for Dominic's watchful eyes. Nyx lay lazily on the countertop, letting Little Fireball scratched her head with those tiny talons.
Jack handled heat, Joanne took over sauce distribution with the same concentration she had when aiming her spell. Jake stole toppings and got hit for it twice by the French girls. Emma, still recovering, sat and supervised in the exact tone of someone helping while doing very little. Dominic observed a basil leaves on his palm. Those and the dills had not mutated too. The elves clustered nearby and watched the whole process like it was the latest entertainment. The Mushroomires stayed farther back, timid as always, but curious enough not to leave.
By the time the pizzas were baking, the whole camp smelled like cheese, tomato and warm bread.
That was what woke Phong.
He surfaced slowly out of sleep, still wrapped in Alex's arms and the blanket she had trapped them under, and for one blissful, confused moment his brain decided that nothing say "good morning, welcome back" as clearly as a growl from his stomach. Then, Phong blinked his eyes open and remembered where he was.
Alex had already woken before him. She was watching his face with that quiet look she got when she was pleased with herself and not even pretending otherwise.
Phong looked at her. "Pizza."
Alex smiled faintly. "You woke up for pizza."
"You say that like it's unreasonable."
"It's very you."
He sat up slowly, rubbed at his face, and then paused long enough to realize something important. He had slept. Actual, proper sleep. He did not passed out from exhaustion, not collapsed in the middle of a planning session. That alone made the world feel less sharp around the edges.
By the time they stepped outside, the camp was already gathered.
The pizzas had been cut into rough slices and passed around on boards and broad leaves. People sat in loose circles near the fire and the common tables, eating in the sort of comfortable mess that only happened when everyone was too tired to care about neatness.
The elves loved pizza immediately.
That became obvious after the first bite.
One of them took a mouthful, froze in total revelation, and then made a sound of joy loud enough that three others rushed in to steal from the same slice. Within minutes every child had cheese on their face and absolute devotion in their eyes.
Rico pointed at them with offended authority. "No stealing my crust."
One elf looked him dead in the eye and stole his crust anyway. Another took a bite and bit off half of Rico's stuffed moletato. The raccoon shrieked in disbeliefs, while Phong quietly laughed. Someone finally had a taste of their own medicine.
The Mushroomires were there too.
Still timid.
Still quick to flinch at sudden movement or loud voices.
But somehow, maybe due to the mutated plants, they were calmer here than down in floor 2.
Phong noticed it the moment he sat down with his slice. The closer the Mushroomires drifted to the Sympathy Enoki and the Relaxing Shiitake set near camp, the less tense they seemed. Their little bodies stopped bunching so tightly, their caps eased, and even the larger ones, although still wary, did not seem ready to bolt at every shift of shadow.
He noticed another thing too.
They liked the elves.
Or at least tolerated them more easily than humans.
Small Mushroomires sat close to the elf children and accepted pieces of crust or soft bread with only mild uncertainty. The larger ones hovered in protective arcs around them without taking offense at the closeness.
And for Phong himself?
He seemed to be the only human who did not trigger the Mushroomires' flinch response when he walked near. They watched him, closely, and still a bit wary of him. But they did not recoil.
He filed all of that away without comment.
Let left all of that discoveries for later.
For now, Dominic sat down nearby with a slice in one hand and looked at Phong over the firelight.
"So," he said. "You figured something out about the White Tiger."
Phong nodded.
"At least one thing."
The others quieted down enough to listen.
Phong took another bite, swallowed, and then said, "She's simple minded when it comes to politics."
Emma raised a brow. "That is a dangerous thing to say about a floor boss."
"It's also true."
Alex glanced at him, interested now.
Phong gestured lightly with his food. "She thinks in sides. Who fights who. Who stands where. Who is allied with who. Direct conflicts." He looked around the circle. "She saw that keeping Team Nemean on Floor 2 meant you wouldn't be on Floor 1 when Josh's war started. That part is true."
Dominic nodded once.
"But," Phong said, "she didn't think through the bigger political picture."
Emma's eyes sharpened before he even finished.
Because she saw it too.
Phong went on. "Even if Team Nemean had been on Floor 1, there was no way you could openly join the trolls against Josh."
Emma continued in Phong stead. "Because that would be public suicide."
Phong pointed at her. "Exactly."
He looked back to the others.
"The moment you openly side with trolls against human divers, Josh gets everything he wants. He gets to pin you as traitors to humanity. Doesn't matter why you did it. Doesn't matter what he's actually after. Publicly, he wins that framing."
Jack grunted. Joanne muttered something rude about propaganda. Janet's mouth tightened because she knew it was true.
Phong leaned back a little.
"So Bai Hu thought she was removing a major player from the board. In reality, she mostly removed a player that couldn't have moved the way she imagined anyway."
Alex and Emma both looked dissatisfied. They had both been maneuvered, and their egos had clearly taken a hit from that realization.
Phong saw it and laughed lightly.
That earned him matching looks from both women.
"You two were probably too tired from the Berserking Strawberry to think straight," he said.
Emma narrowed her eyes. "I hate that you might be right."
Alex folded her arms. "I hate that you're enjoying being right."
Phong smiled. "A little."
Then his expression shifted, growing more serious.
"Actually, that brings me to something."
That changed the mood faster than any lecture could have.
Because when Phong sounded like that, it usually meant practical consequences.
He looked at Alex first.
Then Emma.
"Berserking Strawberry has a bigger weakness than just the backlash," he said.
No one interrupted.
"It only buffs the stats. Not the body's actual durability."
Emma frowned. "Explain."
Phong held up his hands a little as he searched for the simplest version.
"It's like doubling the amount of water in a balloon. If the original amount is still within the balloon's threshold, then fine. It holds." His gaze settled on Alex. "But on Floor 3, you were getting dangerously close to bursting."
Alex did not argue.
That alone told everyone enough.
She had felt it too.
Phong continued, calm and blunt in the way only he could be. "The problem isn't just surviving the weakness after. The problem is that at a certain point, your body would destroy itself from the buff."
Emma leaned back slightly, thinking hard now.
Janet looked from one woman to the other and grimaced.
"So," Dominic said, "your ruling."
Phong nodded once.
"Either Team Nemean finds a new way to increase how much buffed output the body can safely take…" He let the sentence settle. "Or I ban the Strawberry entirely for a while."
That landed hard.
Jake groaned first, Joanne looked offended. Emma did not protest immediately, which was telling, Alex's jaw tightened, but she still said nothing.
Because they had all seen what happened.
How close the edge had been.
How little room there was between miracle and disaster when that fruit entered the picture.
Phong looked around the fire, at the pizzas, the elves, the Mushroomires, the camp they were all trying to protect, and finished in the same steady tone.
"I'm not letting one minute of power turn into a funeral."
Phong knew that the strawberries alone didn't push them to "bursting", stacking it on top of Emma's ability did. He also knew that the strawberries had saved his friends multiple time, and taking that away would be silly. So, in actuality, he didn't really mean what he said. But for Phong, that was necessary to show where he drew the line. If the team would be that reckless with buffs stacking again, then he'd rather taking away the strawberries entirely than seeing them destroying themselves with his overdrive fruit.
No one had an easy answer to that.
So for a while, they just ate in the firelight, with cheese and tomato in the air, elves happy and messy at their feet, Mushroomires calmer near the right plants, and the reality of the next day waiting just beyond the warmth of dinner.