Ari had not gotten Aspel's message to be safe until after she was already in the thick of things; she had been making her way to the Tower, thinking to pester Merri (she worried he was still secluding himself far too much) when the first of the flan had attacked her; from there, she had been swept along by the crowd, too rushed to think of finding a nice corner to Hide and wait things out (and, perhaps, too determined to help this time even if Aspel had not asked).
Fortunately, it seemed some of the flan could be Confused; she had left several clumps of them spinning in circles around each other, abandoning the field to someone who could (hopefully) finish what she had started.
Theodore Finch was a godsend -- she did not know the man well, but they had met once or twice, enough for recognition to dawn. With him, she thought she could ride out the attack -- at least, until he stumbled and cursed and started rubbing his eyes right as she approached and she realized the only thing worse than murderous flan was a very large berserker who couldn't see anything.
Soul Etude was not, by any means, perfect, but it was the best she had for this situation; she had spent some time drilling it into her fingers after several failures in the mountain caves, and now it came with a fair amount of confidence. First order of business, she thought -- make certain the fighter was functional. Then, perhaps, they could worry about the people streaming past -- and the slimy adversaries bearing down on them.