A/N: Chapter time. On schedule for once! Let's see how long I can keep this up. (Probably not long.)

I close my eyes, doing my best to ignore the rumbling of the van and focus. It's hard to exert intentional control over my meatspace while I have a conscious body in the real world, but it's a skill I need to get better at, and fast. Thankfully, it's far from impossible. I've just never really had a reason to try before.

Sinking into myself, letting my body fade away figuratively rather than literally (that was a problem the first few times I did this), I become aware of the world within. It's… vast. Larger than I can usually spread my domain, and all of it is me. It's not just my body, it's… me. The distinction is a subtle one, but the way I simply know everything that's going on inside me is just so much more visceral and direct than how I usually sense biology with my power, even if it's fundamentally the same sense.

I feel the people I've sequestered away inside myself the same way I feel the walls and floors of bone I constructed to give them something that wasn't damp and squishy to sit on. I have entire rooms full of bacteria and mold, sitting within walls of muscle and tendon. There are blank chunks in my perception, too, full of crystals and other inorganic waste. But when I form eyes out of the walls and make my insides glow, I can see it all. 

"Hello again, everyone," I greet, letting the sound reverberate within me. "Once again, you have my apologies for the discomfort I know you are all experiencing. We'll be coming across an abandoned town shortly, where we expect to find enough intact clothing in abandoned houses to provide for most of your needs. We're about a day out from human territory, so all of this should be nothing but a bad memory before long."

The response I get is… less than enthused. I can't blame them. Huddling in bone rooms, only some of them having accepted my offer of flesh-made clothes. I'm no weaver; even though I can make spider silk and the like, silk itself isn't a living thing, so I can't manipulate it directly. Even if I could, I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to turn it into a shirt. Something to look into, maybe, since everyone keeps giving me shit about clothes made of skin. I mean seriously, is it really so weird that they can't shut up about it? It's like they've never heard of leather.

…Okay, now that I think about it, I guess someone wearing nothing but leather would be kind of weird. But still!

"I don't think I can handle being in here for another day," someone says. "Not just because it's disgusting, but because it's too fucking hot."

Oh, huh. That's… actually a very reasonable complaint. It's not another 'what are you doing with us?' or 'let us go, you pervert!' or some equally asinine accusation. I must have had to calmly explain myself a dozen different times before people actually started listening, and like… yes, okay, in retrospect I may have come into this with a bit of a half-baked plan and only half an idea of whether or not it was going to work. I probably could have made this a lot smoother and more comfortable for almost everyone. I definitely could have spent a bit more time coming up with a better way to counter the Queen just teleporting everyone two hundred feet into the air than my plan B, 'fly up myself and try to absorb them before they hit the ground,' and what was honestly my plan A, 'hope really, really hard that she just doesn't do that.'

But I did it. I made it. We're out now. Emily is happily driving us the hell away from her newest friends, most of whom we didn't even end up killing, and while the humans aren't happy, at least they're alive. 

For now.

It is getting pretty hot in my meatspace. Living things, after all, generate quite a bit of heat. Humans especially. Overheating my own meatspace usually isn't a problem for me because I usually keep everything in there at like, the minimum metabolic levels required to keep it alive. It's not even a conscious choice; it's just the obvious one. Why would I waste energy on a pocket dimension I'm literally using to store energy? And mass, obviously. But yeah. Usually no heating problems. Now we have heating problems. I need to fix this.Fortunately, I have a good idea of how to do that. I don't think it'll even be that hard. I open my eyes.

"Can we stop for a second?" I ask.

"Sure," Emily agrees, pulling over on the empty road. 

It's kind of nice how nobody even questions my random requests at this point. I probably shouldn't get used to it, but I still appreciate it a lot. We all get outside and stretch a bit, the vast, untended plains of Nebraska stretching out in every direction. I stretch out my domain as far as it'll go, forming a massive dome of flesh in front of me, as big as I can make it. Then, like an exhaling lung, I collapse it, shrinking it in on itself and adding the air inside to my meatspace. I can feel things cool off immediately, the fresh air rushing over my guests and cooling them off. I release some of the hot air in my meatspace at the same time, cycling it in and out a few times to bring the temperature down.

"Okay," I say. "That should be enough air. Thanks."

"Oh shit, were you suffocating people?" Peter asks.

"No," I say, "they were just getting a bit overheated. Though suffocation is also a legitimate concern, so I should make sure to do this semi-regularly."

"Try to figure out a way to do it on the move, if you can," Emily says. "We're on somewhat of a time crunch right now."

"We are?" I ask. "Any guess as to why?"

"A guess? Sure, I have plenty of guesses. Nothing concrete, though. So let's pack up and get rolling."

"I refilled the tank while Julietta was making her horrible skin dome," Christine says.

"Perfect! Thank you, Christine," Emily smiles at her, face only slightly askew.

"Uh, yeah. Of course."

I close my eyes and focus again, struggling for a bit until I remove my eyes and ears entirely. I'll hear through the network if something important happens. With most of my body's senses gone, it's easier to shift my focus to meatspace and to check in on my guests.

"Did that help with the temperature?" I ask.

"Y-yes," someone responds. "Yes, it did. Thank you."

Ooh, a thank you! That's good, that means people are finally starting to calm down enough to believe me.

"Of course," I say. "Please let me know if there's anything else you need."

"Where… where should we use the bathroom?" someone else asks.

"You won't need to use the bathroom for the duration of the journey," I answer. "You won't get hungry either."

"Uh. Oh. Okay."

"I'll grant you that my power has its concerning quirks, but it's not all downsides," I say, trying to add a bit of levity to the situation. "Thank you all again for your patience. You'll have all the running water and fast food you could need soon enough."

"Wouldn't we need… I don't know. Money? ID?"

"There's a process for evacuees. I'll point you in the right direction, but you'll have to figure the details out yourselves."

"What? Why?"

"Because I'm busy," I say. "Also, I am technically a supervillain. Feel free to claim that I kidnapped you."

"You did kidnap us!"

"You're not entirely wrong, and I'm very sorry about that, but I didn't really want to leave you with the sadistic Angels. Hopefully you'll forgive me for the nonconsensual rescue, but I understand if you don't. You will be getting dropped off near Indianapolis. If you really want to go back to Angelville, just head west. I'm sure they'd be overjoyed by the prospect of taking you back."

Given some of the nasty things I know about a fair chunk of the people I'm rescuing, they're probably more upset that they won't be able to play warlord and force people to obey them than anything else. And like, the powered people are all getting drafted, so I can absolutely empathize with them there. Maybe In-Joke will save them or something.

Whatever. Ultimately, the important thing is that they won't be trapped inside a sadistic funhouse. If all goes to plan, the war will be over soon enough to stop the draft, and if things don't go to plan, we probably go the way of the dinosaurs anyway.

Probably best not to tell anyone that, though.

It's not long before we reach another abandoned town, this one empty not because a Queen dropped on top of it, but simply because enough Queens dropped east of it that the US had to abandon protection for the area and evacuate, pulling back the front lines. There are probably thousands of these sad, empty ghost towns these days. 

We all work together to scour the towns for clothing, mindful of our apparent time constraints. I mostly just run past houses with my domain out, grow flesh inside anything that might be a dresser drawer, and if it is one I eat the entire damn thing and drop it in one of the bone rooms. I have a lot of people to clothe, and we don't have time to be picky. A quick glance back inside myself (and isn't that a weird thing to try to get used to) and I see just about everyone either clothed or in the process of becoming clothed, so I guess it's time to move on.

At least with all these people to manage, the drive is less boring than usual. Every so often someone works up the courage to kick one of the walls and shout at me, at which point I usually form some eyes and a mouth nearby and try to hear them out. One guy actually punches me in the eye as soon as I make one, so I warp the flesh around his fist and hold it in place as I make a full-on body, glaring at him until he reconsiders his life choices and apologizes. There's always something dumb like that, so that helps pass the hours between playing with Ana and cuddling Maria to the extent I'm capable of either inside a moving vehicle.

Emily's really putting the pedal to the metal for the final leg of this trip, shooting us down the empty highways at over a hundred miles per hour. I'm a little worried this shitty old van isn't going to last much longer, but I suppose I can now carry everyone myself if it comes to that, just pulling them into my meatspace and shifting into a bird. 

"Okay, we're pulling over here," Emily says. "Everybody out. And I mean everybody."

"Aren't we still a couple miles from the safe zone?" I ask.

"They're gonna have to walk," Emily says. "I got here as fast as I could, but we need to head for Chicago now."

"Are they going to be okay?" I ask.

"I dunno, I can't feel them right now. Vomit them out, and I'll check for you."

I sigh and close my eyes.

"Okay everyone, we're here!" I announce to my guests. "You're going to have to walk a good ways, but I'll make sure you're in perfect health before departing. The transfer might be a little gross, but I think it'll let you keep your clothes on this time. Apologies again about that. Don't panic!"

And then I wrap them all up in flesh cocoons, trying to disgorge them the same way I disgorge inorganic objects. Honestly, 'vomit them out' isn't a terribly inaccurate descriptor. It sort of feels like pushing them out through an ethereal esophagus. I form the 'other side' of the flesh cocoons here in the real world, out ahead of us on the road, and shift them from one to the other with a heave of willpower. Then I remove the cocoons, leaving people stumbling or, in some cases, screaming. Everyone is just so dramatic about any living thing that isn't covered in skin, I swear. No, scratch that. People get weird about skin, too.

"…Yep, they'll live," Emily sighs. "Congrats, I suppose."

"Okay, there you go," I say. "Sunlight. Freedom. You can see Indianapolis in the distance over there. This is as far as we can take you."

"So you are one of them! You're with that Angel!" somebody accuses, and I have to hold back an exhausted groan.

"I do not have any more time to explain to you all what's really going on here, okay?" I say. "Possibility knows I've tried a lot on the way over. What matters is that you all are now free. Human civilization is right down this road. Walk it or don't. Believe whatever you want about me. But we have to go save the world, so… buh-bye."

Ungrateful jackasses. I know they're just stressed, and I know my rescue was far from particularly pleasant, but my god am I tired of people not just shutting up and listening to me for once. I'm clearly deficient at that aspect of communication; in retrospect, the problem resolution skills I've developed are pretty much entirely for one-on-one situations, or small families at best, and about half of it was trying to give people good ideas on what they should do without seeming like I'm ordering them around. Now that I have a strong reason to order people around, I'm a bit lost.

Whatever. We have to go. I'll probably never see any of them again.

"Seraphim!"

The shout startles me for a moment, since I haven't been called that in a good while. Is the military…? No. No, it's just Samatha, the old greenhouse lady in charge of one of the groups. I guess I did tell her my old codename, in hopes of making me seem more reliable. What does she want? I turn to stare at her.

"Thank you," she says simply.

Oh. Uh. Not sure what else to do, I give her a nod.

"No problem," I say awkwardly, loading myself into the van along with everyone else. Emily turns us around, and then we're back on the road.

"Okay, so, do we wanna set up a betting pool?" Peter asks.

"What on?" Christine asks.

"What has Emily's powers freaking out?" Peter says. "My vote is that Failure is pissed off about getting owned."

"That's not how my powers work," Emily says. "Hopefully."

"Yeah, I'm not changing my bet," Peter says. "Alright, what you got, Christine?"

"Well, it's probably Agnus Dei or something, right?" Christine says. "She's apparently doing a whole governmental coup, and she's probably one of the only people left in the world who could reasonably kill us."

"There's also that 'Rapture' girl," I chime in. "The one In-Joke brought because she could apparently kill me?"

"Oh yeah, the one who like, dissolved In-Joke's arm and then got put in a glass bottle after turning into mist? Or something?" Peter says. "That's a good pull, I like that."

"I get that none of us like the Defenders of Nothing, but I'm at least pretty sure In-Joke is on our side now," Maria says. "Well, I guess they've always been on our side, but I'm pretty sure they're done doing horrible things to us because they've convinced themselves it's the best way to save the world."

"Right, Orange spent a while with the Defenders of Nothing, right?" I ask. "What was that like?"

"Jarring," Maria answers, her eyes flashing orange. "In-Joke needs a billion years of therapy and it shows, but everything they said was gonna happen happened, and everything they told me to do worked. Plus, the other members of the Defenders are mostly chill. It wasn't awful."

"So we're thinking, what, eight-to-one odds on the Rapture killing us thing?" Peter asks. "I'll put a thousand on it."

"Peter, you don't have any money," Emily grouses. "None of us have any money!"

"I'm not actually sure if that's true," Peter says. "Do your bank accounts get frozen if you commit treason? Superheroes get pretty big salaries, don't we?"

"Even if they don't freeze your bank account, they are definitely going to be tracking it," Emily points out.

"I mean, that part's fine. What are they gonna do, put me behind bars?"

"No, they're going to send Commander after you and turn you into a mindless drooling slave who has to obey her every whim," Emily deadpans.

"Cool, win-win," Peter and Christine say at the same time. Peter looks at her in shock.

"Jinx, your bit is predictable," Christine says. "Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not withdraw two hundred dollars from your tracked bank account."

"Fuck!" Peter swears. "Damn it, that one actually hurt."

"Am I allowed to say fuck yet?" Anastasia asks.

"No," Maria and I say, while at the same time Peter and Christine say "Yes."

"You're not allowed to say it until you're allowed to know what it means," Emily says.

"Wait, what does it mean?" Anastasia asks.

"Emily!" I snap at her.

"It mean like Blossom get naked and jump into Bliss hole," Blossom chimes in.

"Oh. Ew," Anastasia says, wrinkling her nose.

"Blossom save day again," Blossom nods smugly. "Also, three thousand dollar on Failure being bitch. Easy money."

"Okay, your Angelic ass has never even been employed," Emily says. "You've never had a single dollar in your entire life."

"About to, though. Because win bet."

Emily grumbles, her whole body so tight with stress that I can see her tendrils squirming and writhing underneath her skin, a few of them occasionally slipping out between the cracks and thrashing at the air. Whatever this is, it's obviously serious, though I suppose we all knew that. All of us can hear her power ticking away in the back of her mind now, guiding her actions with frightening little nudges of up, down, up, down.

"Your power marked all the people I absorbed as dead, right?" I ask.

"…It did, yeah," Emily confirms. "Which honestly makes me kind of terrified of ever getting absorbed by you."

"Way back when I first got my powers, and we initially got picked up by the military, I was put in an interrogation room with a truth-telling guy, and his power said I was four days old," I say. "And, you know, I had gotten my powers four days ago."

"So what you're saying is that I am now officially a member of the Discontinuity of Consciousness Club," Christine says, "given that you Star Trek transportered me. Full disassembly and reassembly, right? That's how it works?"

"That's how it works," I confirm. "Which means I was technically gambling with your life a little."

"Eh, we've yet to bust so far. People on winning streaks never stop winning, right?"

"…I really am sorry," I emphasize, even though I can tell she's joking in good faith.

"Look, it's fine," Christine waves me off. "I still have my powers, right? So at the very least my god doesn't think I died. Given that the entire concept of death is a little bit existential by default, that's about the most ringing endorsement we could possibly get regarding me still being, you know, myself."

"If anybody has a right to judge something like that, I suppose it would be a god," Maria agrees.

"Well, I don't know about that," Christine says. "My anti-authoritarian tendencies extend to divine authority. That's what I keep telling the bitch in my dreams, anyway."

"Of course you're a Princess too," Emily grumbles.

"…That not obvious to everybody?" Blossom asks. "Christine made of ninety-five percent divine love by volume."

"Look, my point is, right to judge or not, a sentient disembodied concept has, at the very least, a unique and relevant perspective on the matter of personhood and consciousness," Christine says. "People are infinitely divisible. We're the consequence of an uncountably large number of things, building blocks that can be taken apart and put back together. As long as we're put back the same way, we're the same person. Even if there's some point in time where I'm in so many pieces I couldn't possibly ever be considered myself, it just makes sense that I'd be myself again if everything is put back, right?"

The van is quiet for a while, nobody seeming to know how to respond at first. It's Emily who ultimately breaks the silence.

"This superpower stuff seriously messes with our heads, doesn't it?" Emily grumbles.

"Eldritch entities are literally talking to us in our dreams," Christine says. "It's a miracle that the only apparent change to our personalities is a tendency to look at the world through a slightly different lens."

"Maybe it's good I'm not a Princess after all," Emily sighs. "Anyway, back to the point at hand: yes, Julietta, it's entirely possible that my power is screaming at me that we're all increasingly likely to die because you're just going to end up eating us. But frankly, any situation that might force you to do that is more than concerning enough that I think it's worth being appropriately terrified of. Okay?"

"Okay," I concede. "How long do we have?"

"Maybe a day, at most?" Emily hedges. "Maybe just a few hours, though that's less likely. Something's definitely happening when we get to Chicago, though. I hate that it's all leading back to this place. This is going to suck."

"I hope we get to kill them," Anastasia says quietly.

Eyes turn to her. I reach over and squeeze her shoulder. The words aren't a surprise to any of us. Even Christine, who isn't in the network yet, can easily feel the storm cloud of anger and despair that has been growing ever larger as we approach our old home.

"I know why they wanted Christine, now," Anastasia says. "And I know we already killed one of them. And I know that they didn't understand what they were doing when they killed my family. But I also know they didn't try. The Failure colony tried. It's not fair."

"No," I agree. "It's not."

"It should be fair," Anastasia says. "It needs to be fair."

"There are a lot of different ways to make something fair," I say. "Revenge is only one of them. They took something from us. All of us. We could take things from them, yes, but we could also make them give something instead."

"I know," Anastasia says.

And she does. I know she does. It's why all I have are gentle reminders and calm words. I know Anastasia has already decided to put aside her revenge, if at all possible. I don't blame her for having a part of herself that hopes it's not.

I think this situation clearly calls for Tiger Time. Slipping out of my seatbelt, I shrink down and hop onto her lap, curling up as she idly strokes her fingers down my spine. Her striped tail slaps irritably against the seat, so I reach out and gently wrap my own around it to help calm her down. I'm incredibly proud of her, and I push that feeling as hard as I can through the network, only stopping when I get slightly distracted by ear scritches.

…They feel great, okay? I'm slowly figuring out how to actually enjoy having a functional body. Physical sensations are all still a bit muddy and similar, but I can confidently say that the pleasurable ones are, in fact, better than the painful ones.

"Maybe thing not so doom for Maria, yes?" Blossom grins at my thoughts, reaching over to scratch the base of my tail.

"Shut uuuup," I complain, though I think my words get slightly drowned out by the sound of my own purrs.

"Oh, are we ganging up on Julietta again?" Maria asks cheerfully, manifesting a half-dozen eager fairies as she reaches out with both of her own hands, too.

It's probably good that I don't really need to breathe anymore, because everyone seems too occupied by smothering me to remember to let me. It's… well. It's not the worst way to spend a long drive. Not by a long shot.

"Okay, we're almost there," Emily eventually announces. "Everybody do whatever meditation exercises or other weird bullshit you need to do to not scream bloody murder at the bloody murderers we're about to try and befriend."

"Suggestion: this unit can do most of the talking this time, since I have no particular aversion to the chosen of Division," Blossom says.

"Not a bad idea, but in the likely event that we're recognized, we might not have a choice but to address them directly," I point out.

"All the more reason to present me as the one in charge of our excursion, the one to have repaired you of your ignorance and convinced you to return the wayward princess to her rightful place," Blossom says.

Huh… yeah, that could work. It is, after all, technically true. We wouldn't be doing any of this if not for all the help Blossom and the rest of my colony gave me.

"Agreement," I vote.

"Agreement," Maria adds.

"Agreement," Peter says.

"Agreement," Anastasia votes.

"Begrudging agreement," Emily says.

There's a moment where we all pause, expecting something that never comes. The Queen, after all, usually announces the conclusion of a vote.

"Let us not make levity of ourselves at this juncture," Blossom says. "Do the honors, Twisting Scars Reshape Fate."

I sigh. Yeah, that… okay.

"Motion passes," I announce. "A Blossom of Wilted Chances will assume elevated authority for the negotiations with the Council of Division. Additional suggestion: A Prism of Refracting Selves acts as emotional liaison to soothe tension."

Another round of agreements pass, and I confirm them as well. Maria wasn't trapped in the Chicago invasion with the rest of us, and she's never mentioned any family members getting killed by incursions, so she's probably the next best bet. Plus, she loves talking about theology, and if there's one thing I've noticed is common between every single Angel it's an intense desire to discuss religious philosophy.

"We have a lot of practice negotiating with ourselves, so we're fairly confident in our ability to negotiate with others!" Maria chimes in.

Heh. Not sure if that's a perfectly transferable skill, but it probably helps. Still… almost there, huh?

I glance out the front window, trying to keep myself calm as I stare at the massive, ever-replicating 'cells' that compose the Queen of Division. She has almost entirely replaced the Chicago skyline, and several of her protruding bits have slithered into Lake Michigan as well, meaning the whole of the Great Lakes are effectively enemy territory, an extremely dangerous position for our country to be in. I doubt Canada's happy about it, either.

I'll never forget the horrors I saw here. I'll never forget the time I spent with my family, either. I'll never forget the sight of my brothers' corpses, and I'll never forget how this brought Christine and Anastasia into our group, changing our lives for the better. My first deaths, my first kills… everything started here. 

To the east of the city, we can see the human side of things as well. A fully-equipped FOB has been constructed a few miles from the edge of the Queen's domain, a truly massive collection of military hardware ready to move out on a moment's notice. America wants Chicago back, and they want it bad. Somehow, I suspect Agnus Dei is waiting somewhere on the base, biding her time until everything is ready.

"Alright, I'm slowing down," Emily says. "Crossing into the Queen's domain in three, two, one…"

"Dir ecti ve: pe r ish."

The Queen's voice in the network is halting. Choppy, even. An instant after we hear it, our van is sliced to ribbons, ripping apart around us while we're still going over forty miles an hour. Immediately, I start to move to save everyone, but I'm beaten to it. Christine shoves her arms out to either side like she's yanking open double doors, and we all halt in place, the destroyed pieces of our van freezing along with us. Then, with a clap of her hands, the van is put back together with us inside, all the damage repaired.

"Hoh, shit. Thanks, Christine," Peter breathes.

"Sh ock. Wa s tha t…?"

"Requesting ceasefire," Blossom announces over the network. "Announcing multi-god ambassador group entering your territory, Council of Division. We have retrieved your wayward Princess."

The network rumbles with confusion and disbelief, slowly flowing more and more into excitement.

"Vot ing on ceas ef ire: agr ee ment."

"Agreement."

"Agreement."

"Disagreement."

"Agreement."

"Mo tion p a sses. Amb assa do rs, res ume yo ur ap proa ch an d sta te any ad dit i on al bu si ness."

And so, Blossom explains. She details our mission here, the alliance we'd like to form, the peace we want to make with humanity, and the dangers of the Grand Queen's incompatible designs. She translates for Christine a little, and promises to teach the colony how to grant her a reverent form regardless of their other decisions. Eeeeverything is going great. By the book. Just as planned. But of course, it can't last long.

"Accusation: you are the three that took our Princess in the first place," an Angel says, finally recognizing us. "You slew Two Halves can Both Grow."

"Confirmation," I supply simply. It was inevitable. No point trying to hide it.

"As mentioned, your Princess would have been in grave danger had you succeeded in capturing her earlier," Blossom reminds them. "And it is your colony that killed many of their beloved ones first."

"Acknowledgment… and yet, there are grievances that must be paid."

Anastasia tenses up beside me. Emily and I have been here with her, keeping her company and intentionally avoiding any of the places we went during our escape. We've just been… walking around, mostly, listening to Blossom speak with the others. But now, it seems, it is our turn to speak.

"Restrained malice. Are you entirely certain that you wish to discuss a balance of the scales?" Anastasia asks.

"Co mma nd: id enti fy."

"This unit's designation is Blood Returns Wrath and Love. Command: identify."

We've already heard their names, but the three of us have honestly been doing our best not to listen too hard. Thankfully, aliens aren't particularly touchy about repeating themselves.

"This unit's designation is A Vastness of Broken Pieces," the angel who identified us says.

"This unit's designation is The Wholeness of the Severed."

"This unit's designation is An Evil Divided Approaches Zero."

"This unit's designation is Pruned Branches Reveal Truth."

"Th is u nit's desi gna ti on is Al l T orn to Du st."

"A fitting name for you, Queen," Anastasia says, seething her words into being. "For that is what you did to my life. Loves you have no concept of were torn to dust, and their number far exceeds the damage we were forced to do to your colony to escape the death you brought us."

Again, not something I'd ever consider appropriate to say to a human we're trying to make peace with, but Ana's words—and especially her emotions—actually start to calm the situation down considerably. I suppose that when a Princess of Reciprocation tells you to your face that you're the asshole, it's probably best to listen.

"…Objection," An Evil Divided Approaches Zero says. "We have not known peace since our arrival. Your kind attacks our territory viciously and with great fervor."

"Because you stole from them and killed their people," Blossom says, pushing back into the conversation. "In ignorance, perhaps, and out of necessity now, but their rage is justified. It is, however, our hope that we will be able to end it. So to that end, may we continue our lessons in peace?"

"Continue your lessons. But this unit must also speak," Pruned Branches Reveal Truth says. "A great doom is coming, correct? Your chosen of Failure hums of it to our workers. I see it, too."

"Are you also capable of discerning the future?" Emily asks.

"In a sense," Branches answers. "My blessing allows me to see visions of the future that will never come to pass, for the act of witnessing them renders them impossible. Yet no matter how many times I witness the great light of death, another path to it opens."

"Well, that is the thing about trying to make things impossible," Blossom jabs happily. "You can't."

"Perhaps not as such," Branches says. "But if I know a choice will lead to doom, I will not willingly choose it. Thus, it is eliminated, for the future I see is one where I do. It remains possible only in the broadest sense, such as a future that is possible only if I choose to tear my own head off immediately."

"What about futures that are good?" Maria asks.

"This unit cannot see any," Branches answers simply.

"That's a little sad," Maria says.

"Negative. It is a blessing."

Hmm. I get the sense that they mean that mostly in the tautological way, but it's probably not worth investigating how messed up a power some Angel we just met has.

"How much time would you say we have?" I ask, trying to get us back on track.

"Unknown. A few cycles of light and dark, at most."

"If you join our alliance, we will defend you from this doom as best we are able," Blossom says, ever the mercenary. "Our capacity to oppose doom is quite considerable."

"W e wil l cons ider thi s," the Queen answers neutrally.

It only takes a day before the Queen is ready to practice on me. Having done this several times before now, I'm a lot better at my part of things, giving more specific advice and corrections as well as generally guiding the learning process better. Still, I'm in there for two days before she's done with me.

Miraculously, no one has tried to kill each other in the time I've been away. That's good. I was pretty worried, honestly.

I've been doing my best not to think about this situation any more than I have to. All of it has been passing by in a dissociative blur for me, and I don't think I'm the only one of our group to be handling it similarly. Anastasia is grumpy, but largely subdued. A Vastness of Broken Pieces clearly doesn't seem to like me, but we've been amicably ignoring each other regardless. I'm pretty sure they were the weird teleporting Angel we encountered before the one I ended up killing, the one whose orders I almost followed when I was first getting used to using alien brains. That kept me up at night for a while, but at the same time the fact that I did manage to snap myself out of it the first time it happened helped a lot regarding my confidence re: being able to stay myself between shapeshifts. In some ways, I guess it was kind of good that it happened.

Other than that one Angel, though, the colony is quite amicable. It's nothing like the headache that was the Failure colony we just left. The situation here is perfectly straightforward, and the colony means well, overall. They just… don't like us. And we don't like them. Hopefully, Christine can change that.

"You ready for this, Christine?" I ask her as we all walk to the chamber where she'll be reborn.

"I think I am, actually," she answers, and though her confidence is shaky, it is confidence. "I've been thinking about what I'd want from a custom body ever since we knew what the plan was, and… honestly, I'm not sure how possible my first idea is, but I have a plan B if it's not."

"Oh. Well, good. I'm glad to know you're prepared," I tell her honestly.

"Are you gonna join the tentacle club with the rest of us girls?" Maria asks, half-jokingly.

"Hey, don't lump me in with you," Emily complains. "I've got more of a flesh vine vibe going on, thank you very much."

"Spaghetti," Peter corrects. "You have a flesh spaghetti vibe going on."

"Yeah, whatever mister Most Boring Choice Possible. You've got sooooo much leeway to critique the rest of us."

"Hey, I knew what I wanted and I went for it," Peter shrugs smugly. "I'm not like the rest of you. There was never anything to improve on."

"Nuh-uh," Anastasia argues. "You could have given yourself wings! Flying is cool!"

"Ehhh, maybe, but no thanks," Peter says. "I tried out my fair share of Spooky Monster Time. It wasn't for me. It's cool that you all want to have fun embracing your wild side, but I'm quite happy with just good old 'me but better.'" 

"It's a classic," Christine agrees. "And I'm probably not going with tentacles or wings. I have something even cooler in mind."

"Tiger!" Anastasia guesses.

"Again, no," Christine smirks. "Though also again, I don't know if it'll work."

"You could run it by me, if you want," I offer.

"Nah," Christine says. "I'm about to join the hive mind. I want the last surprise I'll ever pull on you to be a good one."

I smile at that. Fair enough, Christine.

"I look forward to it," I tell her.

Everyone else stays back as Christine undresses, hands me her clothes, and enters the Queen. I return to the others, handing her clothes off to Maria for safekeeping, and we all head back to the house we've been using together, our conversation now mostly silent. There's not going to be much need to talk out loud at all pretty soon, is there? We'll all just… know. Our communication with each other will be silent, near-instant, and complete. What will happen to us if we win and try to reintegrate into human society? Will we even be able to, after all this?

"We're certainly never going to be normal again," Maria agrees. "But I'm sure we'll be able to make human friends, at the very least. Even if most people are scared of us, or angry at us, there will be some people who aren't prejudiced."

"Agreement. I shouldn't have much trouble either," Peter says. "It's part of why I wanted to keep my appearance. I think I like humans more than the rest of you."

"I don't really care if I can make friends with people," Emily says. "I'm fine as long as I have all of you."

"Aww, Emily!" Maria coos out loud, scooping her up into a big hug. 

Emily squawks indignantly, her human-ish outer layer quickly falling apart as her tendrils flail around. This only causes Maria to laugh and double down on the bear hug, which encourages Peter to join in. Anastasia, never wanting to be left out of a group hug, follows closely after, leading Blossom to do the same, and… well. Yeah.

I also join in on the hug. It's a bit hard to hug everyone at once, but with powers like mine I have several ways to pull it off. We hold the embrace for a while, nothing but quiet contentment and love flowing between us, until I'm forced to interrupt it when I hear a concerning report.

"Scouting division thirty-four has not reported upon request. Scouting division thirty-three, reroute and investigate."

An entire group of Raptors, unable to make network reports? That sounds… wrong. Even if Raptors are killed, we'd hear their death throes. I feel as though something like this has happened before, though… oh. Oh, fuck!

"Urgent request: belay order, withdraw all troops from the area. All Torn to Dust, please scan carefully for traces of Perfection-based domains," I say, quickly packaging up and sending all the relevant information I have.

"Woah, what's going on?" Peter asks, all of us breaking out of the hug.

"It's Danielle," I answer. "Probably."

"Fear. Isn't that the Chosen who killed our Queen?" Maria asks.

"Tactical assessment requested," The Wholeness of the Severed says to me.

"Send me in to investigate, with one other council member at most," I say. "Kill any other living things in the area on detection. If it moves, slaughter it."

"If su ch a targe t is pr esent then i t ev ades my dete ctio n," All Torn to Dust responds.

"Can you not feel anything move?" I ask.

"Affir ma tive. No livi ng t hings de tected in th e are a." 

So if it's Danielle, it's not just Danielle. There's probably someone with a stealth power supporting her. Or I'm just completely off base. Better safe than sorry, though.

"Okay, I want all of you to get as far away as you can," I say. 

"Are you serious, Julietta?" Maria complains. "We can help you!"

"Danielle isn't a threat unless she hits critical mass, but once she does she's functionally a power-immune walking death aura."

"So am I!" Maria insists.

That's… true.

"Emily?" I prompt, looking for a second opinion.

"We are listening to our fledgling Queenie," Emily backs me up. "I'm not sure if it's because she's right or because we're needed elsewhere, but… come on, everyone. Follow me."

I give her a grateful nod, swapping back to network-speech to coordinate with the colony. Hopefully, this will convince them to work with us. Whatever this is, we need to take care of it now. We can't run away this time. Not while Christine is in the middle of getting her body dissolved.

We are so close to the end, here. I can't screw up now.