---
Another man added, "You saw the Leader's face. It's real."
The third man said, "That face is tragic."
The most loyal one said, "Shut up."
Another man said, "If Big Boss says he won't abandon us, I believe him."
The cunning man said, "That is because he already hasn't."
The youngest man asked, "What if it makes us monsters?"
One of the men nearest the front snorted. "You say that like the world is full of saints."
That drew a few grim laughs.
Another man, younger, with sharper eyes than the rest, said, "A monster with power lives longer than man without it."
An older one answered, "Depends who owns the monster."
The first replied, "Looks like him."
The line of logic tightened from there.
They had already given Sekhmet loyalty in practice, even before naming it that way. They had fought his enemies. They gathered enemy information for him.
