Anna forgets how to breathe for a minute, as the light engulfs them, too close too burning, everything roaring in her ears. Her arm aches in ways it hasn't for five years. She bites her tongue and waits it out. Finally it does end. It does end, and she's still here, and she's still conscious. Cool. Bad. What just blew up.

Mithos is screaming and Sheena goes running and. Oh. Oh no.

She straightens herself up-- the blast knocked her to her knees-- peering to watch Sheena find Zelos' core crystal (at least that is fine) and gets about that far before Malos plops himself down next to her, clinging to her arm. She reaches over and squeezes his wrist, sending him a tentative smile. The emotion bleed is still tight with sick panic, and Anna's pretty good at compartimentalizing shit when she has to, but she understands if Malos' balance is nowhere near as good as hers is, right now, after that.

"You good?" she asks him.

"Fine, I'm fine," he says back. "I'm-- fuck. We're all here, right?" He sits up tall so he can look over their little crowd, and Anna watches as his lips move as he does a headcount under his breath. "Oh, Architect," he hisses, finally, face scrunching up.

Anna sends a nervous glance at the kids-- Lloyd has joined Sheena, and part of Anna wants to go over there, go check on them, but what even is there for her to say? What can she even do for them? She's not sure there is anything...

"Yeah, Zelos is dead," Mithos snaps, pacing back and forth on his feet. "And I know he'll be fine as soon as he reconfigures himself after that, but-- If Father wanted to blow this place up, he should have used me as a conduit, the irresponsible bastard." He shoots a glare up at the sky, eyes fixed more towards the twin moons that hang near the sunset (had it been sunset, earlier? Anna really has no way of knowing, but she doubts they were all unconscious that long) than immediately above him and he gestures wildly as he keeps shouting. "I know how to channel his power! I would have been fine!"

Anna blinks. "Your father-- The Architect-- he can just...?" she begins, old scars still aching, especially as Malos tightens his grip on her arm.

"Just?" Mithos presses, spinning around to face Anna. But in that moment as their eyes meet over Kratos' head, they both take stock of just how not well Kratos is doing, at the moment. He's trembling violently, his breathing erratic as all the stress he'd been clinging onto up until now starts leaking out of him. "Kratos," Mithos says.

"Hey, hey, Kratos, it's okay," Anna begins, about the same moment, trying to aim for soothing despite how tight the emotion bleed from Malos still is, despite the pit in her gut where her knowledge of Zelos' death sits. Here-- here she knows what to do, for the most part.

Kratos shoots her a half-hearted, withering glare, and then briefly, sharply, signs something with his hands. He's taught her a little bit of sign, but it's been five years since she last practiced, so it isn't until Mithos says "You don't look fine," that Anna has more than a half hearted guess at what Kratos was trying to say.

Kratos signs something else, and Anna thinks she sees a 'where', at which Mithos immediately drops to his knees in front of Kratos, and though his expression is still tight, frustrated, his tone is gentle. "It's okay, Kratos," Mithos says. "It's okay, we're safe. You're free. Not much of a building left for them to trap us in, anyway." He laughs, nervous. "You can see the stars-- over there. You're alright, Kratos. Just-- take your time."

And Anna realizes that maybe she isn't needed here, right now, actually. Mithos has it handled, and Kratos is probably going to respond better to him, anyway. Swallowing, shoving down how useless she is and strangling it with her decision to do something useful somehow, Anna squeezes Malos' hand one more time and makes to get up. She still has no idea what she's going to say to the kids, still quite certain there's nothing she can say. (They both know that this isn't permament for Zelos, right? They have to. They have to, and bringing it up is a dick move, because-- this still sucks, and it's not going to suck any less until Zelos is back, so--) But she wants to say something, anyway, wants to check on them somehow, wants to...

She doesn't get to.

There’s a shout, a rush of movement, one more guard that had gotten caught in Mithos’ shield getting to his feet, sword drawn from his belt. Before Anna can get up to meet him, stop him, there’s a crack of a whip, a flash of blue flame, and--

Ah.

“Morag,” Anna greets, getting to her feet. “Fancy, uh, seeing you here.” As if she isn’t Sylvarant’s goddamn Special Inquisitor, the second highest rank in the entire empire, as if her being here isn’t potentially a very very bad thing. Or maybe a very very good thing. The guard is dead, but neither Morag nor her blade, Brighid, make any effort to make another attack.

“What do you want?” Mithos demands, on his feet and sword blazing, very deliberate about moving so he can step between the new arrivals and Kratos and, by extension, everyone else.

Brighid definitely tenses, but Morag remains still. Military training, Anna guesses, mouth curling in distaste. "Truthfully, I just want to find out what the hell is going on here," Morag says, icy.

"We intercepted a communication that said this checkpoint had two Aegises captured and ready for transport, even though the Emperor gave no such order to begin with," Brighid elaborates, her tone sharper than Morag’s. "So he sent us to check on the situation."

“Oh great, politicians,” Mithos sneers.

“Worse,” Anna tells him, sidelong. “Military.”

“Yeugh.”

Anna laughs, lightly, well aware of Morag’s and Brighid’s eyes on her, but not really caring. “Yeah,” she says, and then raising her voice back to normal speaking volume: “Well, we’ve got it handled, so you can. I dunno. Fuck off?”

Brighid looks about ready to set them both on fire, but a look from Morag keeps her from doing anything more than glare. (Anna would kind of hate that, the whole driver-not-letting-their-blade-do-shit thing, except Morag’s expression was the gentle, loving kind of save-your-energy-it-isn’t-worth-it look that Anna’s received from Kratos time and again, so.) “Tell me,” Morag says, clearly, and Anna unfortunately admires how she’s managing to remain completely and utterly calm and lowkey intimidating (n- not that it’s working!) despite the circumstances and the fact Mithos could literally cut her in half in between one blink and the next. “Did you manage to gather any information at all, or were you too eager to blow this place up? We suspect the traitors here had ties to the rogue cannon facility…”

“Rouge--” Mithos scoffs. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Gonna blame the torture of my sister on someone else huh? Humans.”

“The last thing the Emperor wants is war with Tethe’alla,” Brighid insists hotly.

“And how can we trust that?” Mithos counters, though if he hadn’t said it Anna would have. She kind of hates that they’re on the same page, right now. Mithos spends so much time at odds with her that actually agreeing on something feels… Weird.

“I suppose you do only have my word,” Morag says, with a sigh. “But trust that I would not lie about my brother’s wishes.”

As soon as she says the word brother, Mithos relaxes an inch or so.

“Well, what do you want with us, then?” Anna demands, because even if Sylvarant didn’t want the cannon to fire that doesn’t change that Morag is here and has the authority to have them all arrested again, even if she doesn’t have quite the manpower to see the endeavor through successfully. (But then, they don’t call her and Brighid the most powerful driver and blade in Sylvarant for nothing.) “Because quite honestly if you aren’t planning to just turn around and pretend you never ran into us, we may have to do something drastic.”

She turns to send a look at Mithos, and he grins. His sword, for a moment, glows brighter.

“How about a truce?” Morag asks.

“A truce?” Mithos repeats, disgusted.

“We all want to see that the cannon doesn’t fire again, don’t we?” Brighid says, terse. “Even if for different reasons, it only makes sense for us to join forces, doesn’t it?”

“And what exactly would we gain from a truce?” Anna asks, wanting to get the terms settled before they make any kind of decision.

“Safe passage to the facility,” Morag answers, without hesitation. “Faster passage to the facility, along with as much of the Sylvaranti military you think you need to pull off your rescue.”

“We won’t need it,” Mithos says, and you know what? That’s fair. Anna doesn’t want to involve a bunch of military troops that could theoretically turn on them any minute, either.

“The Emperor’s full pardon,” Morag says.

“Don’t need that, either,” Mithos says.

“Actually, it wouldn’t hurt,” Anna argues. At Mithos’ glare, she adds: “I’m serious! Politics are a bitch, and-- listen. If the Emperor himself endorses us blowing up Sylvarant’s cannon, that’s... I mean that’s at least worth maybe talking to him about, if you can arrange that, Morag?”

“I can try,” she says.

“We can also provide you with somewhere to rest, if you’d like,” Brighid adds. “You look like you could use it.”

“Pass,” Mithos says.

“No, we’ll take it,” Anna interjects.

“Wh--” Mithos grabs her by the arm and yanks her both towards him and down so she’s more his height. “What are you doing?!” he hisses. “Why are you trusting-- oh.” He drops her arm, glaring. “Because you’re human, that’s why. Of course you just trust unthinkingly--”

“If you don’t like it, you can sleep outside,” Anna snaps at him. “But I think the rest of us could use a goddamn bed after what we just went through.”

“What we really need is to be somewhere safe,” Mithos counters, and maybe he’s got a point there, actually, but.

Anna nods over to where Lloyd is, still. She doesn’t need to say anything. Mithos follows her gaze and… his expression softens.

“Fine,” he says, then turns to Morag. “But if I even think there’s funny business going on I’ll kill the whole lot of you.”

Morag chuckles. “That’s understandable,” she says, then turns and makes her way out of the rubble. “When you are ready, let me know. Take your time.”