When Levi emerged, he found Irene crouched over a visibly agitated Gordon and Drok assisting her in preventing him from causing trouble. Gordon only relaxed when he saw Levi emerge. “Oh, thank God! You're alive. I thought you went and got yourself killed.” His laughter was unsteady, verging on hysteria. “I guess I underestimated that cow thing a little.”

“You overestimated yourself. By a lot.” Levi's retort came out terse, barely controlled. “You may think it’s fun to keep secrets and act tough, but unless it’s actually important to keep something to yourself, you shouldn’t be hiding your plans from your teammates. Saying ‘I’ve got this’ sounds great, but when your ‘secret weapon’ is as ineffective as that little thing, you have no call for arrogance.”

“You saw how much damage it did!" Gordon protested. "If you, me, and Rene all had guns, we could have taken that thing down in thirty seconds flat. You’re ignoring a very valuable current resource because it’s ‘going’ to be obsolete later. I say no! Do you actually want to save the world, or do you want to prove you’re right about something? Do you want to use available resources to their actual fullest potential, or do you want to keep throwing away opportunities because you’re only willing to do it ‘your way’? You may know the future, but you don’t know everything.”

“I know! Alright? I know I don’t know everything. I’m trying my best here to avoid making the same mistakes, but if everyone around me thinks they know better, someone is going to end up dead! Do you want to die? Do you want Cassandra to die? Or Irene? Or Laurence? I can’t protect you if you lie to me about your abilities and try to sneak around being cool instead of being part of the team. If you have a proposal like this, the right thing to do is plan it out ahead of time, not wait until we’re facing deadly danger and pull it out like you’re in a movie!”

“I’ve tried to talk to you about it! Multiple times." Gordon was shouting now too. "You always shut me down without even pretending to listen. You’re so hung up on the future you’re sabotaging the present.”

“Because the future is what really matters here! None of what we’re doing now is going to matter in the end. All of this is just a stepping stone to get us to the very bottom of what we need to be. And you playing around with guns isn’t going to—“

“Levi.” Irene's voice may be gentle, but the look she gave him snapped his mouth shut mid-sentence. “Gordon.” More sternly.

“We lost half our team down there, and if we hadn’t retreated when we did we would have lost more,” Levi hissed. “This isn’t about who’s right, it’s about communicating properly!”

Irene put a hand on Gordon’s mouth to stop him from retorting, turning to Levi. “And we can discuss it later.”

"But--"

“Now is not the time. You both need to calm down.” She stared him down, and Gordon reluctantly closed his mouth, chest heaving.

“Fine. You can take the bodies in the car.” Levi tossed Three’s remains to the ground. "I'll run."

Becca gave him a reproving look, then gently laid Frosty and Flomper’s remains beside the gremlin, fluffy white snowball of a spider with her crystal legs, and the dead cynomis looking even smaller and more rodent like than ever in death, both their fur damp from being in the rift cat’s mouth for so long. Levi didn’t even know how or when Flomper had died. She must have been doing something under the kalvex’s feet and been drowned or trampled.

“I’ll take the ogres, they won’t fit.”

“Greg, Drok, yes!” Drok clapped his hands in a painfully naive attempt to lighten the mood. “Yes,” he repeated more sadly, then sighed, picked up Maggie, and trotted after Levi, the centipedes falling in on either side.

Becca bounded off to lead the way.

This time, Levi didn’t mind making the long trip alone.

However much he tried, he couldn't accept the reasoning that led to this outcome, couldn't stop stewing over the whole mess.

“Everyone in this timeline and their guns. Is it so much to ask that they practice using the weapons that will be effective against the invasion that’s coming in just a few months? It’s not like we have unlimited time to train, here. Every encounter they solve using a gun instead of gaining experience fighting is another reason they’ll be unable to survive when it matters.”

Skarm didn’t respond, but nodded along with a decidedly neutral expression.

“Don’t tell me you want a gun.”

Skarm waved a hand as if to dismiss the thought, with great insincerity.

“Really? You too?”

Skarm shrugged.

“Drok,” Drok pointed out, helpfully.

“See? Drok’s with me here, we don’t need to waste time with guns.”

Skarm nodded along blandly.

“If Ward and Two were here, they’d agree with me.” The other gremlins would ride in the car with the shadevines and Henry the dilo, all small enough to fit in the vehicle, while Skarm refused to be parted from Centoo now that they knew there was no need to keep close watch on Peter’s minions for unexpected betrayals.

Skarm shrugged.

“Well. Fine, you’re probably right that Two would want one, if only to show you up, but that’s just because he’s jealous.”

Skarm shrugged.

Becca padded over and batted at Levi’s belt.

“Now what.”

She batted his hand with her paw, pushing it toward the belt, then stared at him with a haughty look of disappointment.

“Oh!”

In his hurry to escape, and the later argument with Gordon, Levi had forgotten to inspect the treasure Becca had retrieved from the kalvex’s lair. He'd stuffed it in his belt and immediately started fighting.

“Thanks, good reminder.” He rubbed the back of her ears.

Becca began to purr and rubbed her head against his leg, then abruptly sat down and stared at him.

“I’m going, I’m going. Miss Impatient.”

Levi fished the item out and stared down at it. Though they’d been forced to retreat, it hadn’t been a total loss.

It was a small pale orb, the size and shape of a power stone, connected by thin metal tracery to two clawed open metal brackets also linked to one another to form a triangle. The bracket section looked about the right size to fit dungeon tokens. He estimated it would take three tokens stacked together to fill in each side.

Convergence Array, Very Rare

Combines the powers of two elements to create a more powerful hybrid element.

Elements: 0/2

If he was understanding this correctly, it could be inserted into a weapon or armor like a normal power stone, but would combine two different powers. This wasn’t just rare, Levi had never even heard credible rumors of anything like this. There were always the ridiculous rumors, about people combining all ten elements and becoming superheroes or somesuch nonsense, but they were the sort of wishful make-believe that no one gave serious credit to.

Real element combining was done with augments, but the augment was always significantly weaker than the core power stone. You could add a Destruction augment to a Light Spear, and it would add extra corrosive damage, but not change its core nature. The base element always controlled the outcome. The reverse would be true of power upgrades in a weapon, which reshaped the form of the ability but not the element. A Destruction form of Beast Bite would carry elements of both, but the form was clearly defined entirely by the upgrade's element.

Both element combinations had the balance tipped firmly in one direction or another. He couldn't even imagine what a perfect blending of both would look like, since all the obvious combinations were already covered with existing options.

Which meant, unless he was wildly mistaken, hybrid elements would mean hybrid powers. Not a Beast Bite with a corrosion effect added or a Destructive Slash with a more jagged toothy impact form, but something entirely new.

He had to try it.

The only way to remove a power stone from an item was to shatter it completely, rendering it inert and useless, but he had more than enough Destruction tokens on hand, and he could bet that adding Destruction to… pretty much anything would only be an improvement. It would be worth sacrificing the stone currently in his sword.

He already had his sword out, ready to start start smashing things, when its common status reminded him of the stakes. It was a struggle, but he stopped and forced himself not to get ahead of things.

Though the temptation to amp up his Destructive Longsword was strong, he forced down his impatience. He'd be better served saving the hybrid stone for something better. His current weapons couldn’t be upgraded very much and would end up obsolete before too many more months. He really shouldn't waste something this rare on a common sword from a low-level dungeon.

Reluctantly, he returned it to his storage belt for now with the other special items.

He couldn't wait to unlock crafting and have the chance to start making items worthy of all these upgrade items he was collecting. The hidden treasures he'd already collected alone would be enough to outfit someone in more rare gear than Levi had ever seen in one place, and that was before they went on a longer trip across the country.

Who knew what else they could find?