Welcome, I suppose. In this corner we only worship Mommy 4th. No woman, monster or animal is above her glory. We also denounce Ella on principal. The only exception to the rule is Lexi and Dani. You're also allowed all of the human, superhuman and monster booty you can handle. As long as you accept and know that Goddess 4th is best Monster Mommy.
I can't remember exactly but if my memory doesn't fail me, the first dead end where she just outright kills us she hasn't evolved to level 5 yet, so she probably kills us to consume us and let her get the trait while evolving. The second dead end she has, but it's interrupted by something that's likely to be the seventh/lord of dark/apostle devourer. This also falls in line with the way I see Ella, a schemer, but very much someone who only has a goal, minutiae/details are planned on a whim and when fancy strikes her.
So canonically she probably found out about our memory power after we joined HERO and now she needs to find a way to both hit HERO where it hurts, which would be the base and their resources/research material, along with getting their posterboy away from them at the same time. For that to happen there needs to be some serious revelations that would make the MC actually likely to defect (maybe that HERO failed to prevent/inadvertently caused his moms death or something, maybe they wanted the research material and were willing to wait until the monster struck, like that Minyak with Clark.
As for her not working with Nyx and with Deus, personally I think she's not necessarily working with either, Nyx likely just transactions for personal gain on both sides, Deus more him allowing her to do what she wants and not actively helping to stop her because he knows that will lead to whatever he wants. In any case, I'm looking forward to the next couple updates or until we get to see how Ella's actually going to get us to join her, not SIN mind you, that's so clearly not her scene, just her and her closest posse of dumbarses.
I want to break her past her limits, doubt it's possible though, but sure would be sweet if it was, she needs some comeuppance.
Both of those dead ends were before the MC evolved to level 2. For me, I'm of the opinion she found out about his Memory Trait when he reached level 2. Around the time before he really fought Jake. The reason for that is because he started using it a lot around that time and because Deryl was on Ella side since the beach. He also likely had Zara's mark with Charlie's oath and told her everything about the MC.
As for the helping part, I've pretty much said the same, with Deus. His "help" just amounts to allowing her plan to succeed.
More serums would be one option to get balance between HERO and SIN. But with Ella's plan to summon the Apostles there's not much reason for her, effectively these 12 Apostles would be just as good or even better as the 12 5th evolution HERO's.
So if Ella is "dead" and in HERO containment, there's still the matter of how to escape that room where her powers are suppressed. Possible gain; a bunch serums, Oscar and Klaus bodies, perhaps even Kenny or some others...
Maybe the last 4 hearts she needs, but that's just speculation, she managed to get 8 hearts without much problems...
The only thing i can think of is the body of the "uncategorised", that's unique... Overall there's not much gains and high risk.
Now if Ella just made an extra body again and escaped? That means she can work on summoning the Apostles...
The marked HERO agents could be traded or even used in order to get those bodies... But most importantly Ella would not need to depend on others... So it seems to be the logical choice... At least for Ella it would be. And she would still have her "dead" body inside HERO...
Lets face it, why would you hide in a crack of another dimension, when you know it's just a matter of time, the battle itself only had one outcome... Even if SIN would have won some fights, the battle was already lost to begin with...
With the help of the hexenring they could have simply relocated right? Malik was neutralised for some time just so the battle would not have ended too soon, Ella never really went for the kill, she mostly was stalling and turned Duncan into a tree...
Breeding Aglaecwif, marking a bunch HERO agents, the Duncan Tree, de-monsterfying Deryl, 20k human soldiers dead, 36 superhumans dead/MIA... And Ella presumed dead, HERO has the body.... What did Ella gain here? And it was really mostly Aglaecwif that paid the price... It was her sons getting slaughtered and some other monsters, but no SIN members..
We know Langdon needed Ella to distract HERO... So that one worked, but knowing Ella there must have been more gains.
And if breeding Aglaecwif was worth her offers and her loyalty to Ella, the fight against Junior might be very hard...
The serums aren't for Ella. They're for the people she has on her side that are stuck. The dangerous superhumans, monsters and so on are worth the effort. Especially because they'll likely join her side and fulfill her needs. It's not about Klaus or the others bodies. They're completely irrelevant actually and have no benefit. She won't be summoning the Apostles anytime soon so it's not an either or choice and it's not like this action wouldn't contribute to the act itself.
She likely did struggle to get 8 hearts, especially since she complained about the purity of them. So why take the extra time to gather more of the perfect purity when you can just get the "uncategorized" bodies from HERO that have guaranteed purity? Her body is also not contained in the power nullification room. As far as I know, the Negative Energy is still flowing through her. Malik and the others are confident that she's dead so they likely don't have her in that room. If they did, they wouldn't have to wait until it wore off to dissect her.
Ella stands to gain a lot from this infiltration. Serums, monster gear, information on HERO's superhumans, possible Apostle corpses and the locations of others that were found by Deus and Zack over the years. Then there's the new imprisoned allies and the MC. That's all worth it. Especially since she didn't lose a damn thing during HERO's infiltration of her base, like I pointed out. None of her students really did anything besides standing around. Hex, Goliath and Aglaecwif all got away so nothing of value was lost.
Why would Ella play around and not escape if it wasn't intentional? If her failure was set in stone from the start and she knew it, why would she willingly do the dumb thing and make herself large enough to be hit by Nyx? She already knew about Nyx's power. Why didn't she escape after ordering the others that they're retreating? She was still busy fighting with Nico. Unless you think her ultimate goal was to kill Nico so she can trap Malik and them in the collapsing dimension but she would've known that would fail as soon as he broke free so why would she continue to stall?
Using your own thought about Aglaecwif against you, why didn't Ella leave after she got bred then? If getting her loyalty was one of the goals then she completed that earlier on. In fact, she completed all of her assumed goals, minus killing Nico, so why was she still there? Why didn't Hex teleport her away? We know he can do it, even if Nico is there because he escaped with Cole and them during their fight.
So for me, I'm thinking her goal was always to use her own body as a trojan horse to get back into HERO. She intentionally got herself hit by Nyx. All so she can gather resources and beings for her own side, outside of SIN. I don't see my stance changing on this until we get further info.