Driving madly down the interstate, Helena loses her pursuers by offroading, performing death-defying feats, and generally driving the car into the ground. She knows that the spirit of the swamp will only manifest during the night, but manages to rush into the heart of the wilderness and beat the sun by an hour or two. Once there, she exhaustedly wanders the swamp, observing large swarms of bugs and crowds of rabbits that begin to follow her, and finds that she feels at peace by the time the swamp god grows up out of the mud to tower over her. The swamp tells her in its ancient, slow voice that there has been a prophecy among the local people that one day white people would come and destroy everything, and it is fairly certain that this is the time described by it, slowly shrinking the swamp and damaging its denizens, and now wreaking supernatural havoc as well. It tells her that she must be the Chosen One who is in charge of fixing everything, and tells her she must start with healing the damage to the moon, which is hurting the tides and every ecosystem that depends on them, and warns her that it senses that a new threat - some injury to the wind - is on the way afterward, so she needs to hurry. She agrees, renewing her pledge to defend nature from all harm, even divine harm, and the swamp embraces her before pulling her down underneath the surface of the muck. At the same time, in downtown Miami, Issy limps through the streets, hiding in alleys to shake the following soldiers from the moon cult. Before she gets too far, she sees the same mysterious birds she saw near her home, apparently leading her somewhere, flying a short distance ahead before stopping and obviously waiting for her. Something seems odd about them, however, and after a few blocks she suddenly realizes that they're not birds at all but baboons, haloed by some sort of strange illusion that makes them appear avian. She calls out to them, trying to approximate the language of baboons, but they refuse to respond, continuing to lead her across the rooftops, and more than once she almost falls or hurts herself and is very annoyed by the insistent chorus of baboons trying to hurry her along. She finally reaches a building with mysteriously shuttered windows, from which strange, luminous eyes seem to be peering out at her, and when she finally gains its roof is surprised to discover the original moon creature that she once rescued outside their apartment and protected from the cult's hunters. Now surprisingly articulate, it explains to her that it was unable to communicate last time because it was injured and disoriented from the violent ritual that dragged it down to earth; now recovered, it has returned of its own free will to thank her for saving it, and to pledge to come to her aid if she should ever need it. It lays a silvery moon tattoo on her flesh, telling her to rub it to call upon it when they are most tired and in need of recovery, and then returns to the moon while Issy takes notes in an attempt to learn this moon teleportation for herself. Her teleportation experimentation misfires and lands her inside the building - where she is confronted with Hathor, the overwhelmingly beautiful goddess who called her to become a Hero, and Thoth, the ibis-headed moon god of the Egyptian pantheon. While Hathor strokes Issy and tells her how amazingly she's doing, making it difficult to concentrate, Thoth informs her that the moon cult must be stopped in order to heal the damage to the moon, and she realizes during the conversation that there must be some sort of brainwashing at work to affect all the women involved, most likely coming from the colossus. They charge her to learn more about the religion as well as working on her skills of persuasion, and then she disappears and rematerializes in a wash of silver light back in her apartment. Valencia arrives at about this moment, and Helena heaves up out of the mud of the front yard, and the three of them decide to go get a hotel room since they're pretty sure the colossus knows where they live. They compare notes on the way and decide that they have to find a way to save the women of the cult, since other than the colossus they might very well be brainwashed innocents. They suspect that the protein shakes they helped provide ingredients for might be part of the brainwashing, but they don't know any details and need more information, so they decide the only thing to do is get into the gym and look for more. They head out to the site, and Helena and Issy disguise themselves as innocuous homeless women while Valencia remains down in the parking lot to coordinate as they try to get up on the roof and look for information about the rituals done there. Helena searches for clues and, after examining the ritual site, is reasonably sure that the shakes cause the brainwashing and that the sacrificial rituals extends its influence for long periods of time, keeping the women in thrall; they discover Greek letters in a mysterious message around the sacrificial altar, and Issy paints them on her skin to be studied later, using the silver dust of murdered moon creatures and vowing to help prevent this from happening agian. Unfortunately, they aren't used to all these action sports and make a little too much noise leaping onto the roof, leading Aldonza to come up from inside to investigate. She catches Issy cowering behind the elevator, but doesn't recognize her, and takes her inside with a promise to call the police, believing she has apprehended a homeless trespasser. Helena, undetected, manages to sneak down to the parking lot and rejoin Valencia, while they try to figure out how to help their captured friend. Inside, Aldonza forces Issy to drink one of the infamous protein shakes, obviously intending to indoctrinate her into the cult; Issy manages to fight off the effects, but can feel that it seems to make her want to strenuously work out, and when Aldonza lets her into the gym to do so, she climbs the equipment and swings off it to crash out the plate glass window into the parking lot, escaping at the cost of some serious injuries. Valencia rushes to help her while Helena smashes the window of the gym's Hummer and hotwires it, electrocuting herself some in the process. They pile in and attempt to escape, but Aldonza throws herself onto the roof of the car, leading to a tense highway battle with Issy and Aldonza grappling on the roof, Helena desperately trying to stunt drive to shake only Aldonza off, and Valencia hanging out the passenger-side window haranguing Aldonza about her terrible choices and trying to convince her that she needs to stop supporting the evil colossus. Aldonza is briefly conflicted by Valencia's master oratory skills, but Issy manages to land a punch that knocks her off the car, and as they speed away, Aldonza swears vengeance against Valencia for being her personal nemesis (one who apparently also has an endless army of followers, since she has completely failed to recognize Issy and Helena due to their disguises).
