This went on for several more seconds, before Deadhead raised both arms, and slammed them onto the ground. The resulting shockwave sent the centaur flying in every direction, most of them having died before they even hit the ground.

Louise watched whole thing with a wide-eyed look that bordered somewhere between horror and awe.

“I'm starting to see why you keep this one around…” she commented.

“He's doing a good job of distracting them. We need to get back down there!” you demanded.

Shaggy shook his head at you profusely.

“Are you mad!? I thought the whole point of having the brute make a noble sacrifice was so that we could escape with our lives! It'd be a lot less noble if we all went and died now, wouldn't it?”

“There are people down there! They need our help!” you snapped.

Shaggy's face fell, and he gave you a serious look.

“How do you know that?” he asked in a gruff-sounding voice.

“Kumiho powers. I think they're letting me sense other sources of life energy.”

Shaggy hummed and nodded to himself.

“You've only had them for a day. How do you know that you can trust them?”

Now it was your turn to shake your head at him.

“I don't. But I've still gotta try.” you pleaded.

The two of you locked eyes for nearly a minute before Shaggy broke off the staredown by squeezing his eyes shut. It was very obviously a mark of frustration.

“Right. No…you're absolutely right.” he agreed. “You go. I'll try and find them a way out of here.”

You gave him a determined nod and patted Harpy’s leg. Having heard the entire thing, she flew over to a nearby building and set both you and Shaggy down. Louise was still being held firmly in her clutches, however.

The french vampire hunting vampire waved politely at her.

“Miss? Hello, miss? I would like to be let down as well.”

“She can help.” you offered. “She's a friend of the Huntsman.”

At that, Harpy gently set the woman down and took several steps back.

“Where victims?” the big bird asked.

You opened your mouth, and then closed it again as you were just now starting to realize that you had no easy way of translating what you were seeing to these people. There was an awkward pause, and you pointed at the closest life signal that you could perceive.

It was at that moment where Mercy’s bandages began to unravel, and lines of ink slowly started to coalesce into…a crude map of the building's exterior?

No…wait! Mercy was drawing maps! Maps indicating the rough location of the civilian you had just pointed to.

It wasn't very detailed, and neither of you had any way of knowing the interior layout, but it was at least a decent visual aid that would allow them to track down each person using their own skills.

Louise snagged the cloth map from your arm and examined it curiously.

“Petit Cindy…how are you doing this?”

“Let’s just say that we've got a lot to catch up on later.” you said, giving her a sheepish grin.

—----

(Cont.)