A/N: I'm back, everybody! Sorry for the long wait. I made a post about all this on my Discord, but the good news is that this time I'm truly, actually back. The situation that has been stressing me out for several months is finally, truly, over. In practical terms, this means I should be back to my usual writing schedule, no more constant delays and skipped weeks. I am... so relieved for this to be the case. I've missed you guys. Enjoy the chapter!

Oh, and we have a transformation theme this chapter:https://youtu.be/wHvnwxAg5ww

"Okay. What's the plan, Castalia?" I ask.

The kaiju roars, drowning any ability for her to respond for a couple seconds. The Earth Guardians closest to it reel back, one of them clutching their ears as blood leaks through their fingers.

"…I cannot land a killing blow until it is worn down enough," Castalia answers afterwards. "Do what damage you can and stay alive until it tires."

"That's it?" I ask.

"That's it," Castalia confirms. "What more can be done?"

I dunno, some basic coordination? We have a dozen other Earth Guardians already here. The three of us have no idea what any of them do. Hell, most of them probably don't know each other either; there has to be at least two cities' worth of warriors here, they aren't all on the same team. Sure, Castalia can probably fight a kaiju without a plan more complicated than 'survive until we win,' but these guys can't. 

Source: a child has already died. Potentially several children, since we don't know what happened before we got here.

The Guardians already surrounding the monster aren't faring well. A couple frontliners cut at its flesh like angry bees, only far less effective. They fly around its flailing arms, dodging what they can and responding with quick cuts to the hazy, shadowy flesh of the beast. The overall impact of their attacks looks more like they're splashing water in a kiddie pool than hurting anything; the black mist pouring off of it disperses with each cut, only to return just as thick as before. I don't think we've even seen the monster's skin, much less damaged it.

One of the frontliners, a red mage with a sword and shield, flies over a swipe of the monster's forelimb only to realize he's got no shot of dodging the follow-up backhand. He takes the hit on his buckler, and a spell surrounding the weapon shatters, alongside the incarnate weapon itself cracking under the force and launching its wielder a dozen meters away before he manages to fly back in, pain making his face tight. I think that fractured his arm, but he didn't even hesitate to jump back in. I can't even say I'm surprised.

It's up to us to make sure no more of these kids die here. Let's get everyone on the same page and let's do it now. I already have a communication spell running, and I'm a magical supercomputer capable of splitting my attention and thinking at hyper-fast speeds. This is the best way I can help.

"Guardian Luna here, tactical analysis and coordination specialist," I say into the communication spell, completely making that specialization up so people are more likely to actually listen to me. It's close enough to being true. "I need everyone to report their name and specialty and I need it now. Speak out loud, but it doesn't matter how loud. I'll hear you."

"What? Um, Nin One here, backline offense and team lead."

"Nin Two here, frontline defense."

"Nabu, I support the Nins."

Huh. That's weird. While it's probably not the best choice mid-fight, I look up local news on Earth Guardians to try and figure out the deal with their names. Ah, I see here. Their names are Ninlil and Ninhursag. I guess if my name was 'Ninhursag' I'd prefer Nin Two as well. Nabu, meanwhile, is one of the rare male Earth Guardians. Good for him. In the meantime, the other teams are calling out their names as well.

"I'm Adapa. Please don't distract me."

Another guy. The response is a bit clipped but he's the closest to the monster right now, so like, fair. He's also the one who nearly broke his arm.

"Sirtir. Barrier specialist."

She's backing up Adapa. I'm starting to figure out which people go with which team.

"Decisive Overseer Unflinching Metis."

Nothing but her full government name, huh? I guess if you think about it, the name explains her role. Her class, 'Overseer,' implies she's a leader. Metis is Greek, though, while Srtir and Adapa are Mesopotamian. It's my understanding that teams usually match names a bit better than that, which implies she's a transfer. Her old team is probably dead.

"Brave Vanguard Principled Kishar reporting! Are you the one who caught Aya? Is she alright!?"

…Speaking of, that's obviously a teammate of the girl I failed to save. Should I tell her…? Now's probably not the best time, unless… no. She's a green mage. I can't tell her yet. Not knowing will make her stronger; she'll be panicking about her friend's safety rather than mourning her loss. We need all the power we can get to keep Thea safe.

"None of that matters unless we can stop the kaiju from reaching land. Group up with Guardian Adapa and form a wall," I tell her. At the same time, I'm giving a personalized response to every other guardian as well.

"How do you expect us to 'wall' a freaking kaiju!?"

"Temporarily," I answer. "Castalia! We want this thing away from Hatteras! Can you shoot it from behind? Try to get it to turn around?"

"Yes," Castalia answers, blasting off to do just that and dropping me in the process. I fire my jets a couple times so I don't totally drop like a stone, though it would be way too inefficient for me to try to fly outside of my incarnate form so I need a solution. Actually, this could help a lot of people, potentially.

"Thea!" I shout. "Give us a final boss platform!"

"A what!?" she calls back. Bah. I need to get this girl some JRPGs.

"Make a platform at like, chest-height of the big guy so we can stand there and smack him!" I clarify.

"I don't know if that's a good idea!" Thea whines, though thankfully she does it anyway. A shimmering, translucent barrier appears in front of the kaiju, angled parallel to the water so I can boost over there and land on it. 

"Keep your distance and circle around to support Castalia!" I order the other ranged fighters. "Keep behind her so she can protect you! Melee fighters, group up with the robot! Supports, keep them alive!"

I don't really wanna bring attention to the fact that I'm the robot right now, that would just be needlessly distracting. All they need to know is that there's a robot and it's on their side. As for whether or not this is a good idea, well… I don't think it'll hurt. If the melee fighters can't take or dodge at least one hit from the monster, they're dead anyway. 

"The kaiju is just going to go after the ranged fighters!" Nabu shouts.

"I know, that's the point!" I say. "We're herding it into deeper water! Thea, keep us on it when it moves as best you can!"

It's far from a perfect plan, but it's at least a plan and that's better than what these kids had before. The water may or may not be able to slow it down (I'm guessing not, but I'm open to pleasant surprises), but getting the fight further away from any humans could potentially make the difference for a lot of lives. I trust Castalia to be able to lead her squad with actions if not words, so I'm not too worried. 

It's not lost on me that the strategy I've chosen in the heat of the moment puts Thea in the most defensible position, of course. The supports are behind the people who aren't trying to get the monster's attention. Protecting supports is normal strategy, of course, both in video games and presumably real life. You don't stick your medic tents directly on top of the front line of a battlefield. But still, to what extent is that optimal strategy and to what extent is it just impossible for me to put her at risk?

It's… strange. Very strange. With Melpomene, I wouldn't have this problem, since Melpomene is easily the single most qualified person on the planet for the job of not dying to kaiju and also not dying in general. Thea, on the other hand, is a squishy little cutie pie. Like yeah, she's objectively pretty darn powerful, but she's not 'frontline a kaiju alone' powerful! She'd go splat!

…Speaking of. I should figure out a way for me to not go splat. I can't protect Thea if I'm dead.

"Sᴛᴀʀʟɪɢʜᴛ Sᴘʟɪᴛᴛᴇʀ!" Castalia incants, several thin, cutting lasers scouring the kaiju's back. Several more attacks join hers, the mist so thick it almost seems to boil against the multicolored beams of the Earth Guardian firing squad.

The monster leaps a full one-eighty in an instant, its impossible speed once again leaving the impression that we're watching something that isn't quite real. It charges Castalia and the others, Castalia quickly grabbing her wingwomen and yanking them out of its path.

"Now!" I call, and Thea shoves our attack platform after it, letting the melee fighters launch off of it like a springboard at the kaiju's back.

"Dɪᴠɪɴᴇ Tʜʀᴜsᴛ!"

"Vᴏʟᴄᴀɴɪᴄ Sᴍᴀsʜᴇʀ!"

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Cᴀᴛᴀᴄʟʏsᴍɪᴄ Sʟᴀᴍ!"

"Adapa, no!"

Shouts and spells call out all over the battlefield as our frontline smashes into the kaiju, the clean strikes into the monster's back still mostly glancing off the roiling mist surrounding it. The one exception to this is Adapa's abreaction, the red mage receiving several buffs despite his protesting team as he slams his shield down into the space between the kaiju's shoulder blades like a roaring meteor. Finally, finally, it looks like we landed a blow that might actually hurt the thing.

The force of the impact blows away the mist surrounding the beast, giving us our first glimpse of what it really looks like. Dark fur grows from what little of its skin is visible, so perhaps one might have at some point been able to describe it as 'fuzzy,' but that certainly isn't the case anymore. Crystals, tons of crystals, cover almost every inch of what we can see, uneven and jagged in their unrestrained growth. They're mostly dark, fusions of several emotions into muddy browns, near-black grays, and midnight purples, but the colors follow no particular pattern and there are small patches of bright blues, greens, and even a speck or two of yellow. 

The attack detonates with enough force to blast several of those crystals free, Adapa's shield managing to break all the way through them and hit genuine flesh. It's exciting for only a split second, because I'm then forced to watch in slow motion as an instant later, the crystals regrow at impossible speeds, skittering across the thing's back to converge on Adapa, growing up the side of his arm as if it were just an extension of the kaiju itself. And right behind them, the mists reconverge as well, swallowing him like a wave.

Calculations fly through my mind, and I incant.

"[H ʏ ᴘ ᴇ ʀ s ᴘ ᴀ ᴄ ᴇ]"

I teleport into the mist, the black emotional sludge churning like a storm and blinding all my sensors, but that's fine. A perfect memory is all I need to find someone stuck in place, and find him I do, the crystals having scrabbled all the way up his torso on a quest for his head. No time to do this gently.

"[M ᴇ ɢ ᴀ B ᴜ s ᴛ ᴇ ʀ]"

A point-blank shot right into the Earth Guardian I'm trying to save shatters most of the magic rocks holding him down, and a yank with all my strength does the rest. I don't get the momentum I want as I kick off, the crystals trying to grow on me, too, though they thankfully struggle to find purchase on my specially treated and shielded frame. I can't risk opening my plating to deploy thrusters, so I just toss the guy as hard as I can and let gravity carry me the rest of the way out of the mist, plunking down in the water between the kaiju's legs. 

Hmm. Water, huh? I can work with this.

"[F ᴜ ʟ ᴍ ɪ ɴ ᴀ ɴ ᴛ B ᴀ ʀ ʀ ᴀ ɢ ᴇ]"

Configuring my shielding to be maximally resistant, I go ahead and let out the strongest lightning attack I can copy, the electrical currents overjoyed to take the kaiju's four legs as express trips to the ground. The water boils and churns around me, and—

High-velocity impact imminent. Optimizing inertial dampening. Calculating most likely trajectory. Optimizing directional shielding. Bracing.

—everything goes wild, my sensors screaming as I'm flung through the air like a toy on a trampoline, launched clear out of the water and rapidly away from the combat zone. Did it punch me? Kick me? Doesn't matter. I deploy thrusters, arrest my rotation, orient myself, and…

"[H ʏ ᴘ ᴇ ʀ s ᴘ ᴀ ᴄ ᴇ]"

Back in the action.

My power reserves have been reduced to 36%. I was near full when this fight started. Jesus. I do a quick scan of the area, and… oh thank god, there he is. Adapa is being held by Sirtir, her orange outfit and stone matching his quite nicely as the two gulp for breath in shock. Without warning, she grabs his face and kisses him. Wow, lady! Not the time!

My power reserves have increased to 39%, though. I'm glad he's alive. Speaking of, I need to try to stay positive in general now, don't I? I'm yellow-aligned, but that was a decision I made to try and keep myself power-positive in my daily life, not during a freaking kaiju fight. Green would definitely be optimal here, but I can't just change my configuration right now, that would be idiotic. 

I… don't really know how to force myself to be happy right now, though. Play back happy memories? Be really extra super appreciative of how alive everyone currently is? Except that one girl, obviously. Wow I'm bad at this. I won't withstand another hit like that. Not unless I get way better shielding, way fast. …Which is doable, actually. I just need to make a named spell for it.

"Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ! Gʀᴇᴀᴛᴇʀ Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ!"

Attempted power reserve influx detected. I instinctively open my plating and absorb it, as per my master's wishes. Since, y'know, she just cast that spell. Still, convenient! Her spell gives me a weird, temporary reserve that rapidly depletes even if I'm not using it, but somehow I doubt it's gonna take me long to use it.

"Thanks, Thea!" I call out, already trying to figure out what to do with this. "Adapa, Sirtir, fall back! Thea, get me in front of it! Supports, circle around behind the ranged units! We've got it turned around, let's keep its attention away from land!"

Adapa, having learned exactly zero lessons, immediately tries to jump back into the fray anyway, but thankfully his probably-girlfriend yanks him back and forces him towards shore. The third wheel of their team hesitates a little, but she quickly starts circling around to back up Castalia like I ordered. Honestly, all the Earth Guardians are taking surprisingly well to some random person they've never met ordering them around by yelling in their ears with magic. Such good little soldiers they are. 

Before we can get in its way, though, the kaiju decides it's had enough of getting spray-nozzled by Castalia beams and makes a sudden leap towards her, arm whipping out to slap her straight out of the sky. Before I can calculate an optimal teleport, another frontliner gets there first, interposing a massive shield in the way of the attack, one that only gets bigger as she casts a defensive spell.

"Gʟɪᴍᴍᴇʀɪɴɢ Bᴜʟᴡᴀʀᴋ!"

Again, my mind moves faster than my body can. Again, I see something impossible. I feel the world around the kaiju pulse with intent, space itself warping the face of its aimless rage. It does not want to get blocked. It wants to hit its most annoying enemy. And so the world itself shifts to make this reality true.

Without any apparent indicator on how it happened, the defender is suddenly twenty feet away from where she was an instant before, now behind Castalia rather than in front of her. Her eyes don't even have time to widen in shock before the woman she thought she was protecting is hit dead-on. 

Castalia isn't caught unaware by this. A barrier of her own flickers into place at the same moment the other Earth Guardian is teleported away, several layers of shielding stacked on top of each other now separating her from the incoming attack. Each one of them breaks in sequence, and in my heart I'm sure this is about to be the end, but after the final barrier breaks and right before the monster's arm comes down and splatters the strongest girl into paste, it hits a thin, barely-visible bubble around her instead. Castalia is slammed into the water with the force of a bomb, a giant splash splattering water in every direction as she's forced under the waves. 

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Sᴀᴛᴇʟʟɪᴛᴇ Cᴀɴɴᴏɴ!" Thea screams.

A giant green pillar of death drops on the monster from heaven, engulfing the beast entirely within its radius. The monster staggers, its knees bending as the weight of the blast forces it down. 

Then, its ever-twitching head suddenly snaps her way, twisting far further than a head ever should, and opens its mouth. A pitch-black beam of energy lashes out, accelerating oddly as if it were a snake lunging for its target. I don't have time to marvel at the odd way it moves, however, because Thea is in danger and nothing else in the world matters.

"[H ʏ ᴘ ᴇ ʀ s ᴘ—"

"Hʏᴘᴇʀsᴘᴀᴄᴇ!"

Castalia appears in a flash of light, interposing herself between the attack and Thea. Twisting in the air, she kicks the blast as hard as she can, deflecting the attack off to the side. It curves through the air, arcing majestically like some kind of tricky baseball pitch as it flies far past Thea and impacts one of the thin, connecting lines of Hatteras Island. The shot condenses on impact, squishing in on itself before detonating in a spherical burst of annihilation. Ocean quickly rushes in to fill what was, luckily, just a highway between two towns rather than a major population center.

Castalia herself is not so lucky. The skin on her leg from the mid-thigh down is gone, alongside a fair bit of the muscle. The stark white bone of her tibia is visible for about a second before bright red blood pours in to obscure the view. Of course, I'm already finishing my spell at that point, which is good because the kaiju was not polite enough to stop there. Leaping out of the rest of Thea's attack, it once again swipes at the strongest Earth Guardian.

"—ᴀ ᴄ ᴇ]"

…But I'm there. And I've been busy. To some extent, I feel like we could have gone into this a lot more prepared if Castalia had just been able to explain some of this stuff earlier. The sheer weight of magical power the kaiju has access to allows it to break the laws of physics more or less at-will. That's somewhat standard to magic in general, but not at this scale. By all rights, this thing should be dead just from walking around. It should be crushed under its own weight. It shouldn't be able to stand on legs that thin. But it does it all anyway, because it more or less has local control of like, the universe.

That's its biggest strength, by far. And the first step of any successful strategy is identifying a method to counter or circumvent your opponent's strengths. 

Magical control this all-encompassing requires two things: absurd power, and at least some degree of focus to that power. It doesn't matter how well you can control reality if you can't decide how you want reality to be controlled, yet despite seeming completely insane this thing seems to exert some level of consistent, specific will. Given the chaos of its emotional state, how is that possible?

To be honest, I don't know. But what I do know is that the mists surrounding this beast are almost certainly what's giving it all this power. Mists that I've watched Melpomene subconsciously control. Memories I keep locked in perfect fidelity, alongside all the data that comes with them. She resonates with the mist, somehow. Embodies it, perhaps. And if I do the same, I might be able to usurp some of that control, if only for an instant.

An instant should be all I need to keep my master safe.

My spell core roars into overdrive, spinning the calculations together as I summon the energy necessary for the spell. This can't just be any old emotion. At lightning speed, a glowing purple spell circle starts to draw itself in the air in front of me. To handle the mist, I need hate. Unlike joy, it's a very easy emotion to summon in a fight. 

The people I'm protecting with this spell were once in danger from me. Because someone forced my hand. Someone who knew better. Someone who loved them, once. Someone who might still love them, but is so twisted with madness that even love can't stop her from lashing out at every opportunity. She hates because she wants to hate. Hate is easy. Easy to feel, easy to justify, easy to cultivate. The more you hate, the more right hate feels.

And god, I've never been more right than to hate her. Melpomene. You mad fucking monster. One day, you'll pay for everything you've done. I hope you suffer for your sins before you die. Because you're already so close, aren't you? You have to stay insane, because if you let yourself actually understand the totality of what you've done, it will crush you. Someday, though, it'll be waiting for you, and you're gonna hit it like a truck hits a mountain.

"[R ᴇ ᴀ ʟ ɪ ᴛ ʏ C ʜ ᴇ ᴄ ᴋ]"

A crackling purple shield blooms in front of us, and the monster's jab hits it dead-on. The mist covering the kaiju's arm explodes off of it, the effect cascading all the way up past the shoulder and over the rest of its body. The beast roars in agony, its entire monstrous frame having a less-than-cordial first meeting with Newton's first, second, and especially third law. The impact from its own blow rocks up its arm, crystals shattering and thick, black blood spraying into the sea. 

As quick as it all leaves, the mist starts to return. Castalia, however, is even quicker than that, immediately understanding the full extent of this opening for what it is.

"Cᴀᴛʜᴀʀsɪs," she incants without the slightest hesitation, moving only barely far enough to avoid having me in her line of fire. "Sᴜᴘᴇʀɴᴏᴠᴀ Bʀᴇᴀᴋᴇʀ."

The world goes white. Even with the highest level of optical shielding available to me, I can't see a single thing. Perhaps there's nothing to see. Perhaps, at the height of her power, Castalia's magic controls the nature of reality just as much as the kaiju does. Perhaps, in the end, this is no more an attack than the swipe of an eraser, a higher-dimensional force removing something from the canvas and leaving the world like it was never there.

…Or maybe it's just a really, really big laser blast. I dunno. One way or the other, in the aftermath of it all we're left with less than half of a kaiju, the head and most of the body simply gone. One by one, the legs start to topple into the ocean as well. 

"Oh my god!" Thea yelps. "Castalia, your leg! Are you okay!?"

"I've been hurt worse," Castalia answers simply, not even bothering to look down. Her eyes are locked on where the kaiju fell. 

"Is it dead?" I ask, fearing I already know the answer.

"It is not," Castalia says. 

Damn it! This is bad. I can barely feel Castalia's reserve of joy anymore. 

"Wait, what do you mean it's not dead?" Thea yelps. "We have to get you out of here!"

"No," Castalia says.

"What do you mean no!? You just finished using your Catharsis! How can you even still fly?"

"Because," Castalia answers, "I haven't won yet."

"This is no time to be stubborn!" Thea insists. "Luna, help me out here!"

Help you with what? No, best not to think too much about it. She means help her beat the kaiju and keep everyone safe, probably. No reason she wouldn't want that.

"Castalia, can you keep fighting?" I ask.

"Yes," she answers.

"Okay. Trust her, Thea," I advise my master. "She's Castalia."

"But I can barely even feel—ah!"

Thea cuts herself off as Castalia closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, the once-crushing aura of joy normally surrounding her winking out entirely. And then suddenly, in its place, there is sorrow. Grief, deep and overwhelming, floods the air around her thick enough to deepen the blue of the sky. 

"Okay," Castalia says, a tear starting to pool in the corner of her working eye. "Be careful. It'll be angry now."

Oh, only just now!? Great!

"Thea, can you give me more power again?" I ask. "That block took everything you gave me."

"I need to recover first!" Thea answers. "It's draining for me too!"

The surface of the water starts to thrash, the toppled legs of the mostly-obliterated kaiju seizing beneath the waves. I can sense them, and in glimpses see them. They're regenerating. 

"Thea mentioned you do not like your incarnate form," Castalia says quickly.

"Uh… yeah, I only used it the once," I say.

"Ah," Castalia says, understanding immediately. "Well. I might be able to win alone…?"

Alone? Why's she discounting all of the other—no, doesn't matter. I don't need her to explain, I just need to trust her. She's saying she thinks she'll have to do it alone. That's not just a worry, it's a warning.

"Everyone get back!" I shout through the communication spell. "Towards shore, go, go, go!"

A surge of miasma erupts from beneath the waves, obscuring the form of the regenerating monster in a torrent of burning black. A roar reverberates from within, the shockwave from the sound alone blasting back the retreating Earth Guardians as Castalia, blood still gushing from her leg, gathers an immense amount of power in front of her.

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Dɪᴠɪɴᴇ Sᴛᴀʀʟɪɢʜᴛ Cᴀɴɴᴏɴ."

A familiar blue beam of destruction fires at the cloud of miasma, but before it can connect the miasma fires back. A matching beam bursts from within the mists, blowing them away enough for us to see the now-reformed beast beneath, its furred form rapidly getting re-covered with multicolored crystals as they crawl up its legs and burst forth from beneath its skin. The black beam, fired once again from the beast's maw, collides with Castalia's Abreaction head-on, each of them shoving against each other and trying to overpower the other for a second or two before the entire conflict of power just detonates in place, lightning erupting from the resulting explosion and crackling across the waves as the air flash-ionizes on the spot. 

I practically tackle Thea out of the sky in my haste to get her away from ground zero, my shielding protecting us from the worst of the backblast as Castalia glides back to follow us, already gathering power for her next attack.

"This one will be tricky," Castalia reports.

"…I don't have the power to transform, even if I wanted to," I say.

"Then gather power," Castalia answers.

"I'm not like you!" I say. "I can't just choose to feel like everything is wonderful and happy and giddy in the middle of a fight to the death! I fucked up aligning north, I should have been a fear mage or something."

Castalia fires off another shot, tight and controlled, intercepting the beast as it leaps towards one of the fleeing Earth Guardians.

"No," Castalia says. "I'm not always happy. I'm not usually happy. It's enough to simply be thankful."

Then she rockets forwards, several thin beams lashing out at the kaiju from a glowing blue circle she summoned behind her. She dodges around a swipe from the monster, finds herself teleported in front of the attack regardless, and then somehow barely dodges again, arcing her back to spiral around its arm and carve it up as she moves.

Thankful, huh?

"Luna," Thea says softly. "She needs help."

"It'll make things really obvious," I protest.

"I know," Thea says, her terror clear. Yet still… "This is more important than that."

"I don't know how to gather power like that," I say.

"You do, though," Thea says. "There's no way you just had all that purple magic just saved up in advance."

"That's different," I insist. It's so much easier to hate. "Besides, what if I can't control myself?"

"You'll be in control of yourself," Thea says. "I won't let you not be."

Fine. Fine! This conversation is already too indulgent. In the seconds we've spent chatting, Castalia has already avoided death three more times. I'm being a child. 

…No, that's the thing, isn't it? Children are better at this than I am. They don't hesitate to risk themselves for the world. That's what makes them Earth Guardians. And the strongest Earth Guardian of all has told me what to do.

Thankful. I don't need to be happy. I don't need to be giddy or joyful or excited or drowning in pleasure. It is enough for the strongest in the world to simply be thankful. To be thankful that she is alive and she is loved. To know pain and death and loss and to still feel, at the end of it all, that her life is something beautiful. 

That my life is too. 

It doesn't matter whether or not I'm even technically alive. I'm here, and I'm me, and looking forward I can see a real future where I can be happy. So much of my life has involved repressing or waiting or suffering, but it's not a state of affairs that needs to remain. It is, in fact, a state of affairs that's already changing. Castalia is right. There's a reason I swapped to joy as my primary emotion. There's a lot I have to be thankful for.

I'm thankful to be past the worst of it, certainly. I'm thankful that I'm no longer in Melpomene's grasp. I'm thankful that Thea is free from that place too, able to grow and live out in the sun like she's always wanted to. But it's not just about the bad things we've left behind. Thankfulness is about the good. It's about the love I have for the people who care about me. It's about the sheer, unmitigated joy I feel from looking back at my worst moment, staring into death at Castalia's hands, and seeing now in retrospect how the determination in her heart had always been pointed towards saving me from the start. 

I'm not completely free. I know that. But I'm thankful that I'm going to keep getting freer, that Thea and I will continue to work towards ending the grasp of the Antipathy's curse on my soul. I'm thankful that Bean is safe and living with someone who can help them. I'm thankful that Chloe is exactly the sort of friend all of us need when we're struggling. And I'm thankful, I'm so, so thankful, that in the end, I never had to kill any of the Earth Guardians. They may all be upset with and suspicious of me, but it doesn't matter. They're alive. They're okay. And I can make sure they stay that way. That is a beautiful, beautiful chance.

I'm thankful for the body I've been given. I'm thankful for the power I have to make a difference. I'm thankful that, if I have to serve, I at least get to serve someone I love. I'm never going to be a prisoner in my own flesh again. I get to make sure everyone lives.

Perhaps it's that feeling in particular that makes her the strongest. Perhaps not. I'm still learning about who Castalia is, learning to love and trust her more and more, and I'm thankful that I get to do that, too.

Okay. That should be enough. I can feel it clearly, even in this chaos. That warm bloom of love.

"Fᴏʀ Yᴏᴜ, Aɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ," I incant, and the change begins.

The first time I transformed, the thorns in my soul tore at me, twisted me, and clawed me open until I was nothing but a blade. The ache of them is still present, but the change no longer aggravates them, the wounds still healing around them as power surges through me. The chains wrap around me, but the places they pierce my flesh are no longer quite so cold. The way they hug my chest and spiral around my body feels more like a warm embrace than a true impediment. An embrace that, perhaps, I can never let go of… but so long as I don't want to, that's fine, isn't it?

My incarnate weapons flash into being around me, each still chained to not be able to travel far. The glow of their power and my pseudo-crystalline tattoos are now yellow instead of blue, but I otherwise look the same as I did the last time I transformed. The chains are even still the only things protecting my modesty, though this time it's less because I'm an object unworthy of clothes and more because I suspect my master will enjoy it.

Still. While arguably a change in class, I don't truly feel much different than I did before. Simply… happier. But that, I think, is enough to be thankful for.

"Eɴʀᴀᴘᴛᴜʀᴇᴅ Wᴇᴀᴘᴏɴ Uɴsʜᴇᴀᴛʜᴇᴅ Mᴜʀᴀᴍᴀsᴀ!"

The shockwave gets the attention of the kaiju, though it's too busy trying to swat the world's strongest fly to pay me all that much mind. Behind me, I hear Thea take in a choked breath. I turn around to see tears in her eyes, her hand covering her mouth as she tries to hold in an urge to sob.

"God," she whimpers. "I'm so sorry."

What…? Oh. This is the first time she's actually seen me like this, isn't it? She left right before I transformed in the other fight. I give her a reassuring smile (since I can do that now, my incarnate form has lips!) and float over to put a hand on her cheek. I can't just ignore the fact that the truest representation of my soul has made my master sad.

"There is absolutely nothing you need to apologize for," I promise her.

A spike of power blooms within her, and she reaches up to touch the hand I've placed on her face.

"Gʀᴇᴀᴛᴇʀ Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ," she incants, granting me a significant amount of extra time in this form. More power is always welcome. Still…

"I thought you were nearly out of spare magic," I say. "Where's all this fear coming from? We're going to win."

"I'm scared that you really believe that," Thea answers softly.

"…That we're going to win?"

She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head.

"Go help Castalia," she orders.

"You got it," I answer on instinct, turning away to do just that. It's so strange, feeling the wind and smelling the ocean. I do have to admit, I miss it in part.

"Mᴀɢɴɪғʏ Sʜᴏᴛ!" I command.

My six floating guns aim their shots at a point in front of me, combining their energy into a single ball of power that I fire towards the kaiju before rocketing after it myself. The monster jerks forwards, combining its dodge with a wild leap towards Castalia that she teleports away from while I prepare my next spell. 

"Aᴍᴘʟɪғʏ Sʜᴏᴛ!"

My incarnate gun drones reconfigure, each unleashing a sustained, cutting beam that carves through the water towards the kaiju, covering far too much space between them to be dodged. Its defenses absorb the blow with only minimal damage, but I can still tell the thing feels it because its head whips my way, rage redirected away from the world's strongest. Big mistake.

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Dɪᴠɪɴᴇ Sᴛᴀʀʟɪɢʜᴛ Cᴀɴɴᴏɴ."

The shot spears through the monster's back, evoking a roar so loud that it seems to boil the surface of the ocean, steam hissing upwards from the waves before the kaiju lets out an omnidirectional shockwave of raw magical destruction. I borrow Castalia's Hyperspace to teleport in front of her, summoning a shimmering spherical barrier in front of us both to absorb the attack

"Mɪʀʀᴏʀ Fᴏʀᴄᴇ," I cast, twisting the aimless violence behind the attack back towards its creator and launching it as a black beam of my own. I catch the monster on the side of the head, though unfortunately it doesn't do as much damage as I was hoping.

"Luna…?" Castalia says hesitantly, staring intently at me.

"It's me," I confirm. "I'm in control."

"Okay," she nods, and the next words out of her mouth happen at lightning speed, my own perception of time slowing down to keep track of the conversation. "We will need a very decisive hit to take it down."

"More decisive than vaporizing its entire head and torso?" I ask, matching her pace.

"Yes," Castalia confirms. "But also no. It's weakening. Healing that much mass required an enormous amount of energy. I doubt it can do that again."

"And if it can?" I ask.

"Then we strike it even more decisively the third time," Castalia answers, "and so on until it stops."

"Straightforward," I concede. "I wish I had a better plan, but I don't."

"There is only so much one can plan against raw power," Castalia nods, and well, I guess she'd know.

"Let's do this fast, then," I say. "I can only maintain this transformation for a few minutes, tops. And, uh, I can't risk a Catharsis. I'd completely pass out."

"You're almost as strong as me," Castalia says, "so an Abreaction should be enough, if you can manage."

Hmm. An Abreaction would eat up probably a quarter of my full tank?

"I can do one," I say.

"Then we'll finish this with one," Castalia says, and that's all the time we have left to talk before another beam attack from the monster forces each of us to dodge to opposite sides.

"Lɪɢʜᴛᴡᴇɪɢʜᴛ! Aᴍᴘʟɪғʏ Mᴏᴍᴇɴᴛᴜᴍ! Sᴜᴘᴇʀɪᴏʀ Fʀᴇᴇᴅᴏᴍ! Iᴍᴘᴀᴄᴛ Rᴇᴘᴇᴀᴛᴇʀ! Assᴀᴜʟᴛ Aʀᴍᴏʀ! Oᴠᴇʀᴄʜᴀʀɢᴇ! Eᴄʜᴏ Sᴘᴇʟʟ! Iɴᴇʀᴛɪᴀʟ Bʀᴇᴀᴋᴇʀ! Mᴀɢɴɪғɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ Wᴀʀᴅ! Fᴏʀᴄᴇ Cᴀᴘᴀᴄɪᴛᴏʀ!"

I glance back at Thea, her spellbook rapidly flipping through pages as she casts spell after spell, each one targeting either Castalia or me, according to our specialties. I'm getting all the buffs intended for up-close melee combat, I see, so… I guess that's what I'll do. 

I charge in, my incarnate form thankfully more than capable of flying under its own power, dodging the furious limbs sent my way with the same precise movements I used to run circles around the Earth Guardians. After my first dodge, I find reality warping around me as I attempt my second, but I can detect the currents of the power, feel the intent behind them, and start compensating for the warped space before it even finishes moving me. My sensors, along with every other part of me, are running in overdrive, calculating hundreds of possible angles of attack the kaiju could attempt all at once and determining the best responses in advance. As I fly, my incarnate weapon drones keep burning away at the miasma with laser fire, all while repositioning themselves into a new configuration.

"Cᴀᴛʜᴀʀsɪs: Oᴍɴɪʙᴏᴏsᴛ!" Thea screams out, power surging through my body.

Oh-ho, that's the good shit! I can't let myself disappoint my master now! Holding out one arm, three of my drones start to reconfigure and combine with each other. All six of them can't reach due to the chains holding them close to me, but three are enough to combine their bladed edges into a much larger weapon.

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ:" I declare, the drones igniting with yellow light and forming an energy blade longer than I am tall. "Cᴜʀsᴇsᴘʟɪᴛᴛᴇʀ!"

With one more boost of thrust, I bring the sword down on the kaiju… but it dodges, leaping back away from the attack.

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Sᴛᴀʀʙʀᴇᴀᴋᴇʀ."

A giant portal opens up above the spot the kaiju leaps towards, and a brilliant sapphire beam hammers down from within it, catching the monster's landing. At least, it catches it in part. Somehow, the beast is already on the ground and jumping in a new direction long before the arc of its jump logically should have allowed, and as a result the attack only blasts through a couple of its legs. Still, though, not a killing blow. They're already starting to regenerate. We both missed.

"Luna!" Castalia shouts. 

I feel another bloom of power directly in front of me, and intuitively I understand what I need to do. Pouring yet more power into my already-failed attack, I continue my swing, the nature of flight meaning there's nothing whatsoever stopping me from accelerating into a full rotation—other than, perhaps, the fact that it wouldn't be a particularly good idea. At least not in any other situation, but as I accelerate, as my magical energy blade starts to grow even longer, a portal opens up in front of me, too, and it swallows me up.

I drop out of the sky above the kaiju, my thrusters roaring almost as loud as the monster, and my attack strikes it dead in the face. Putting in everything I have left, I keep up the momentum until my strike completely carves the monster in two.

The kaiju goes rigid and falls, flesh from each side of the cut writhing as it attempts to heal, but a final, decisive blast from Castalia drains the last of its power. Finally, after everything, the mists leave the body of the kaiju, and it all starts to dissolve.

We did it. We won.

My power reserves have been reduced to 2%. Exiting incarnate transformation and activating power-saving mode.

My alternate self disappears. My mouth is gone. I can no longer feel the wind as I plummet towards waves. I'm caught by nothing at all, Castalia's telekinesis arresting my fall before I get soaked. Two percent, huh. That's… low. At least I'll probably get to dream of happy memories this time.

…No, wait. There's one more thing to do, isn't there?

"We did it!" Thea says, flying up to us and collapsing out of incarnate form the moment she reaches Castalia's telekinesis range. "Oh god, we did it… we did it… woo!"

Heh. She sounds almost drunk. I guess she's completely out of fear right now.

"Castalia," I say. "Can you take us to the local branch? We gotta… we gotta find out where Aya lived."

Aya. A name I've only heard once, and one I'll never forget. Castalia, the poor girl, understands what I mean immediately. Even more painfully, she has advice born of experience.

"No, we should take her to the hospital," Castalia says. "It's better that the body gets seen to by a coroner than for us to just show up on her family's doorstep with her in our arms. That… is not usually appreciated."

"Right," I agree. "That makes sense."

We won, and I didn't even have to pull out a Catharsis. Yet after everything, I still don't feel like I can be happy.

Castalia's right. Being thankful has to be enough.