Chương 39: PR-Approved

I will say that, other than just being passively creepy, I don't have anything to complain about with Danielle. She's not rude, aggressive, or actively threatening. She doesn't seem to be of the opinion that I'm going to be a problem, and since I don't plan on being a problem we're coexisting rather amicably. She's taken me to a tent set up as a meeting room, and the two of us have been waiting there alone.

I wish we had a radio or something to keep up with information on the battle, but that's just what I get for letting mine be melted, I guess. Still not sure how that happened. I hope I didn't accidentally digest the stuff; I just figured out how convenient this part of my powers can be, I don't want to lose it already. And speaking of things I don't want to lose, I hope I'm still mostly trusted. It feels weird finally admitting my ability to communicate with the enemy, and it seems to have gone…

less than perfectly. More or less exactly how In-Joke said it would, in fact. It's frustrating.

"I wish I wasn't constantly mistrusted," I sigh out loud.

"You were trusted enough to be invited into the same room as Colonel Baker," Danielle comments to my surprise.

"That is better than many of us." I glance her way.

"Well, you were also allowed in," I point out.

"Allowed, yes. Invited, no. Colonel Baker was an acceptable sacrifice."

"Sacrifice for what?" I ask.

"For order," Danielle answers.

"For victory. For the human race." Hmm. I can't help but shift a bit, the wings on my head ruffling slightly to better cover my six facial eyes.

"I think," I say slowly, "that it's always a bad sign when the people in charge start talking about 'acceptable sacrifices.'" Danielle smiles primly, her glassy-eyed stare focused professionally on a camera behind my head that does not exist.

"You're dangerous," she says.

"They wouldn't have let me out for you if you weren't. Not many of us can kill an Angel in a Queen's own territory. Alone. Surrounded by the enemy. Without equipment. But you can. I can too. It's easier with a gun, though." Her slender hands, unblemished by the calluses my body knows to associate with weapon training, clench and unclench at her sides, gripping a memory before letting it go.

"... They have to 'let you out?'" I ask. Are they going to have to let me out someday, if we're as similar as she thinks?

"Of course," Danielle says, like it's the most normal thing in the world.

"I must always be monitored and contained. It's only right."

"You don't seem to be monitored or contained right now," I point out.

"I am monitored," she assures me.

"And due to the parameters of the mission, I must remain uncontained in case of emergency. I am doing my best not to enjoy it." Wow, that is a terrifying response on several levels. This woman seems rather psychologically unstable. Half of me wants to try to become her friend, since I doubt she has any and that'll make the process pretty easy. Buuut I think I've had enough frighteningly powerful and deeply insane people for one day.

As useful as it would be to potentially power-of-friendship this girl onto my side, she freaks me the fuck out.

"Well, hopefully there won't be any emergencies," I say, moving to conclude the conversation.

"Yes," Danielle nods in agreement.

"I'm doing my best not to hope for one, too." Yeah Command strapped a bomb to my ass and they don't even care if she needs to be set off in our own FOB. That paints a very clear picture of what their real feelings about me are. I see two possibilities for why Danielle is here: one, this whole offensive doesn't matter to them and we exist as a distraction, testing ground, or some other primarily sacrificial purpose where it doesn't matter if a loose cannon goes off and takes everything down with it.

I hope it's not that, because if it is I need to take my family and run, damn the consequences. And oh, there will be consequences. Possibility two, however, is that they want us to win really, really badly. Enough that Danielle, whose power is supposedly strong enough to solo Angels but dangerous enough that they don't want to use her to actually do that except as a last resort, is here as the last resort.

Considering her talk of 'sacrifices' I have a few vague suspicions about why someone this powerful is exclusively a last resort, and I don't want anyone I care about nearby if it comes to that. But here, at least, we have a solution: win the battle. Danielle is only going to do her thing during an emergency, so let's avert an emergency situation. Difficult, but straightforward.

The Angels of Blasphemy are laughably easy to manipulate, and some of their religious tenets discourage basic tactical sense like 'ganging up on people.' Victory should be a lot more likely against the St. Louis Cult of Counterculture than against the Chicago Cult of Cutting You The Fuck In Half. I just wish I could get back out there and actually contribute some more.

But instead, I'm stuck here in creepy lady jail, waiting for someone with enough balls not to panic at merely hearing the word 'Angel' to let me out.

"Seraphim?" a man with a clipboard says, sticking his head into the tent.

"Present," I nod at him.

"Ah! Jolly good. And… who are you?"

"I am Danielle."

"Oh," the man blinks, his cheer quickly dropping.

"Well, I've come to fetch Seraphim, so…"

"Feel free," Danielle says. He nods stiffly and motions me to follow him, so I do. Danielle, of course, silently comes with us.

"Anything you can tell me about what's happening?" I ask the man. No harm in a little polite information gathering.

"Oh, nothing too fancy, just shuffling your assignment around. It's taken a little longer than usual for a tactical situation like this. The precognitive recon corps can't seem to come to a consensus on what to do with you."

"I guess I'm just full of possibility," I respond flatly.

"Ha! I suppose so," he agrees.

"Precognitive abilities are notoriously unreliable, so I don't think it's anything to worry about. Here we are; in you go." Which means some people are worried about it. As expected, I guess. We head into another tent, where inside I find none other than Sí Gaoithe and his team of supers. He takes one look at me and groans.

"No, no, come on, no."

"Mr. Sí Gaoithe, I have a new addition to your squad."

"Are you kidding me?" he complains.

"You people always do this shit. She's not trained for this!"

"And she has two confirmed wing rips despite that lack of training," the clipboard guy argues.

"With proper guidance, she'll be quite the asset."

"This is not the time and place to give her guidance," Sí Gaoithe insists.

"We're mid-deployment! It's gonna be maybe ten minutes before they send us back out there! You're putting my entire damn squad in danger for a pet project." Yeah, it's kind of hard to disagree with that. This feels like a complete mess. There's probably a different reason they want to make sure I'm around one of the country's best wing rippers.

"I'm sure she'll be able to hold her own," clipboard guy insists.

"Now you should all get acquainted, because as you've guessed you'll likely be heading out soon."

"Could I have a replacement radio?" I ask before he can leave.

"And all the other equipment I'm missing, ideally."

"I'll see what I can do," comes the noncommittal response, and then clipboard guy just walks out, leaving me with four very annoyed superheroes.

"This fucking country," Sí Gaoithe swears, pacing around in frustration.

"This is absurd. Alright, Sera. Fast, practical rundown. What do you do?" Fast and practical. I can do that.

"I can heal from basically anything and if you get me close to grab something I can almost certainly kill it. Problems are that I have moderate mobility at best and not much capacity to threaten targets at range."

"Okay," he nods to himself.

"Alright, we can work with that."

"Also, please don't call me Sera."

"Sure, Sera. Now who are you?"

"I am Danielle," Danielle says.

"I will not be joining you; I was merely guarding Seraphim until she could be delivered to your care. Please watch over her." And with that, the spook departs. Sí Gaoithe scowls, staring at me for a moment before turning back to his team.

"Alright, everyone. Introduce yourselves."

"Waylaid," a thin, pale-looking man nods.

"Defensive specialist. My domain redirects and upsets attacks, among other things. If you feel my power on you, don't try to do anything too important."

"And don't break synchronicity," Sí Gaoithe adds.

"Just let the man work."

"Understood," I nod. Poking Waylaid's domain to get a feel for it, I notice an obvious similarity to Emily and Ed. A Failure power, then?

"Eruption," the next man introduces himself. He feels kind of like Ana. Reciprocation, I guess?

"I can launch directed heat-based attacks out of surfaces within my domain. The limit is that I can only launch shots out of locations that have been recently damaged, with the power proportional to the amount of damage taken." Shit, yeah, that sure sounds like a power a god named Reciprocation would grant.

"We work well together, since my power is all about destroying things," Sí Gaoithe says.

"Collecting more ammunition for myself gives more ammunition to him."

"Good to know," I nod.

"Do living things count as surfaces?"

"I… yes, in theory," Eruption frowns.

"Shooting a heat beam out of someone's body would do a lot of damage to them, though."

"Which would make your power more efficient, right?" I point out.

"I can heal off whatever you do to me, so feel free to use me as a firing platform if you see a good shot."

"What the hell?" the woman who hasn't introduced herself yet mumbles.

"I am… not going to do that," Eruption says, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Don't try to act tough, kid," Sí Gaoithe says.

"All powers have a limit. You might be strong, but you can't heal forever."

"I'm well aware of that," I tell him.

"My limit is based on the amount of food I eat. But I've been stockpiling food for months. I have enormous reserves at the moment. I'm not saying you should chew through them at will, but if you see a shot that burns a hole through my chest but kills the Angel? Take it. That's extremely worth it. I'll be fine."

"You can survive getting a hole burned through your chest?"

"I'm pretty sure I could survive getting my head blown off," I say.

"I haven't tested it, for obvious reasons, but I've had basically everything less than that happen."

"When? How?" Eruption asks.

"Didn't you just get out of basic?"

"She did her first wing rip before basic," Sí Gaoithe explains with a frown.

"Extenuating circumstances. No point getting into it right now."

"She was a supervillain, wasn't she?" the yet-unnamed girl scowls.

"What? No," I deny.

"Not that we know of," Sí Gaoithe sighs.

"Though with powers like hers, who can say. Anyway, introduce yourself, newbie."

"... Rafflesia," the woman says.

"Temporary member. Here for resonance and dissonance support, mostly." Resonance and dissonance support? So she's supposed to empower our domains and weaken theirs, which means her god hates our gods and loves Blasphemy. Which… almost certainly means her god is Blasphemy, right? If In-Joke is correct and resonance happens because the gods are fighting and want their chosen to win, dissonance happens because the gods don't want us to fight each other, so they make us weaker.

The Queen and her Angels have synchronicity with each other, so Blasphemy knows they aren't trying to kill each other and doesn't do anything, but when one of our Blasphemy-blessed is involved, Blasphemy quietly discourages them from killing each other. … The problem with this theory is, of course, that this has the complete opposite effect in practice. In order to get optimal domain usage, you'd want to team up with people your god hates and beef with people your god likes… with friends as backup.

If the gods don't want their chosen killing each other, the current setup makes no sense. There's no way a chosen of Blasphemy would be the optimal choice for a domain support to kill Angels of Blasphemy. I reach out my domain and prod at Rafflesia's. She pulls back, but I still feel it. Rot, corruption, disgust for the sake of disgust. It is, without a doubt, a domain of Blasphemy. Huh. Maybe it's a Blasphemy-specific thing?

Part of Blasphemy's whole deal is being an intentional outlier, but that seems a little too convenient of an answer. Maybe the gods don't really understand the consequences of their actions. That… might honestly explain a lot about the world.

"Tell her your actual power, Raff," Sí Gaoithe orders.

"I make meat plants," she sighs.

"I grow fleshy vines out of things. They are very gross."

"Oh, that's handy," I hum.

"How much can you make at a time? Are they edible?" She squints at me.

"…There's something wrong with you." Rude.

"Many things, I'm sure," Sí Gaoithe agrees. Rude!

"Do you want me to be less gross or more dangerous?" I ask, a bit of my irritation slipping out.

"You get to pick one or the other."

"What I need is for you to focus on protecting Eruption," Sí Gaoithe says.

"That's going to be your job. We haven't worked together enough to not get in each other's way on offense, but you're dangerous up close and he's in danger if anything gets close. His power is a bit too indiscriminate to be used for self-defense." There we go, back on track. I nod.

"I can do that," I confirm.

"That means no going off on your own," he presses.

"Got it," I confirm.

"Trust me, I didn't detach from my squad to duel an Angel out of any particular love for it. I'll follow orders."

"Good," Sí Gaoithe says firmly.

"I have a question," Rafflesia chimes in.

"Why are we just ignoring the bit where she screamed at an Angel to go away and it just did that?"

"Because it was batshit insane and we probably don't have time to get into it," Sí Gaoithe says.

"The important part of the answer is that the alien communications network is biological and I can therefore tap into it," I explain.

"Angels are surprisingly chatty."

"Tap into… you yelled at it in English!" Rafflesia says.

"I was speaking out loud for your benefit. Alien communication is entirely nonverbal, so I just did both at once."

"Are you claiming that Angels are smart enough to have a language?" Eruption asks.

"Yep," I confirm.

"All aliens, actually. They're a bit weird, but they're definitely people. I can translate for you, if you like."

"If this is true, why the fuck are you with us and not some intelligence corps?" Sí Gaoithe asks. That is an extremely good question. I grow an extra pair of arms so I can shrug twice as hard.

"Hell if I know." Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Before anyone can respond with more than a weird look, the radio in Sí Gaoithe's helmet crackles to life and delivers our orders. I don't hear much of it, but I feel my new squad leader's domain wrap around me so I let him in. An invisible force grasps my body, holding me stiffly in place as it lifts me up into the air.

"Alright, we're deploying," he declares.

"I guess you don't even get a gun, Sera."

"I'm starting to get the impression the upper brass doesn't like me," I admit.

"Couldn't imagine why," he says sarcastically.

"Up we go." I'm telekinetically pulled out of the tent and into the sky, and while it freaks me out a little at first I figure my new lead knows what he's doing. I force myself to relax and let him yank me along, the five of us rising into the sky as one. Ahead of us I can clearly see our new front lines, successfully solidified on the far side of the Mississippi. That bodes well. I hope the trend continues. I wonder which of the people I chatted with today we'll be killing.

It's a bit of a morbid thought, but I suppose that's war for you. I can't bring myself to be too sad about slaughtering the worshippers of Blasphemy, but it's still a little melancholy. They're weird and evil, but this is still genocide, right? Is there really no better way?

"Looks like Command is sending us after the bastard Sera scared off before," Sí Gaoithe says.

"Fucking damn it," Eruption grumbles.

"That thing is a brick wall."

"Nonetheless, we can't let it do what it pleases to the ground troops. We'll have to overwhelm it, one way or another."

"Its power looked like some kind of defensive portal thing?" I press for information.

"It's called Swallower of Virtue, so I imagine it eats stuff. Feeding it might be a bad idea."

"The Angels have names?" Rafflesia asks.

"Of course they have names," I frown.

"Hell, the Queen has a name, albeit a rather pretentious one. But I guess she's a queen, so…"

"Cut the chatter. Sera, if you think you have reliable, relevant intel, share it. I'm not interested in anything else."

"Yes sir," I tell him, shutting up. We break into the Queen's domain soon enough, and as we get closer to the front lines I start smelling more and more alien chatter. Soon enough, the Queen greets me herself.

"THIS UNIT ADDRESSES THIEF OF TORN WINGS: WELCOME ONCE AGAIN TO OUR BANQUET."

"I am unhappy to be here and intend to slay you."

"THEN BE WELCOME AND MERRY. WE OBSERVE ONE OF OUR GOD'S BELOVED RIDES WITH YOU. IT PAINS US THAT WE ARE UNABLE TO CONVERSE WITH ONE OF OUR OWN. REQUEST: DELIVER OUR CHOSEN TO US THAT SHE MAY BE PROPERLY REBORN." What? They must be talking about Rafflesia.

"Unknown concept: 'properly reborn,'" I respond.

"CONFUSION. CONSIDERATION. UNDERSTANDING. YOUR PEOPLE LACK QUEENS. I WILL EXPLAIN. CONSIDER: ARE NOT ALL CHOSEN BORN UNTETHERED? IT IS MY DUTY AND PURPOSE TO GRANT A FLESH WORTHY OF BLASPHEMY TO THOSE LOVED BY BLASPHEMY." Oh, that's interesting.

"It had been the assumption of my people that the bodies of chosen were crafted in advance, and blessed in response to their forms. Clarification request: this assumption was false, and Angels are given their forms after being chosen?"

"CONFIRMATION. THIS UNIT BEARS THE CHILDREN OF OUR GOD, AND BEARS THEM ANEW IF BLASPHEMY SEES FIT TO GRANT THEM A BLESSING."

"Understood. Unconditional denial of request."

"YOUR RESPONSE IS LACKING IN TACT AND CONSIDERATION TO A DEGREE THAT SHOCKS AND UPSETS ME, CONSIDERING OUR PRIOR INTERACTIONS." Translation: what the hell, girl. I thought we were cool.

"I disregard your traditions as I would any other, when it suits my purposes," I remind her.

"I am unable to relinquish the chosen you desire as I intend to use her to assist with your demise."

"COMPREHENSION DAWNS LATER THAN EXPECTED. CONTINUE AS YOU WILL WITH OUR ETERNAL SUPPORT." Translation: oh, that makes sense now that you spell it out. Gosh, I just can't stay mad at you.

"Your support baffles me but will not be rejected, insofar as it is understood that I still intend to slay you."

"YOU MAY, IF YOU CAN."

"Coming up on our target, team," Sí Gaoithe announces, pulling my focus back to the battle.

"Stay sharp." Right, okay. Focus, Julietta. I doubt most of the team can fly without Sí Gaoithe's support, so we're either going to be yanked around all mission or set up nearby on the ground or rooftops. Probably the latter, so our main offense doesn't have to micromanage us. Since my job is to protect Eruption, it's also possible we'll get dropped off while the others stay in the sky, depending on their effective ranges.

I spot Swallower of Virtue's disgusting form, hovering above the front lines and slaughtering forces on the ground by creating portals over the heads of troops and dropping them down, leaving nothing behind. The 'portals' may or may not actually be portals to anywhere in particular; they simply look like floating, two-dimensional discs that hold some hard-to-perceive darkness within them. What matters is that the things that go in them don't come out.

Even the domain coverage of the connected supers doesn't seem to protect the soldiers below, the slow form of Swallower's mass leaving death below wherever it flies. A dozen are devoured in the bare moments I spend gawking.

"Greetings, favored guest," Swallower of Virtue says.

"It disappoints me that you have brought others to assist you."

"Then die disappointed," I respond, unfurling my wings in preparation.

"Ready to be dropped."

"Dropping," Sí Gaoithe says, and I feel the invisible force vanish, though of course all my momentum remains. We were going really damn fast, so I just direct my fall, reinforce the shock absorption for my cranial cavity, and remove any unnecessary bones before making impact, my body splattering, rolling, scooping itself back up and reforming me on my feet all in one motion. Eruption gets dropped much more gently onto the roof next to me, so I leap over and form up with him.

"Jesus," he says.

"Doesn't that hurt?"

"I guess so," I admit.

"There's worse things than pain, though. Heads up."

"I see it." One of the void-portals flies towards us, so I ready myself to grab Eruption and leap off the roof, if necessary. Thankfully, Sí Gaoithe scoops a huge mass of rubble into his control, firing some of it at Swallower and forcing them to block. The battlefield below is a mess. Huge chunks of people got slaughtered as the Angel floated through, the standard power support not enough to handle Swallower's massive offense and defense.

Not needing to keep their domains on themselves for protection against their own Queen, they can focus down targets while remaining relatively safe from retaliation. I don't even want to know how many squads got taken down before we got here, but thankfully we seem to be filling the gap with new troops before the enemy can rush in and attempt to flank us.

"How much damage can you do to the things around us?" Eruption asks.

"Plenty," I answer, turning one arm into an acid cannon.

"Right. Where I direct you. There!" I vomit acid onto the ground, and as the splashes hit, cylindrical glowing beams erupt upwards from the impact zone, converging towards Swallower. Sí Gaoithe harasses with shots of rubble as well, but most of what he fires gets twisted into something largely harmless by the Queen's power and the rest gets eaten by portals. What a fantastically annoying power. I'm honestly not sure how we're going to beat it.

"Waylaid! I'm getting you in close!" Sí Gaoithe shouts.

"You too, Raff! We're not gonna get that thing unless it fucks up!"

"Makin' him fuck up, sir."

"Ugh." Sí Gaoithe launches his entire payload—including Waylaid and Rafflesia—at the Angel. As Swallower sends portals towards them to intercept, the ones heading towards Waylaid jitter and curve slightly off course while Rafflesia's mere presence reduces their range and power. Eruption expands his domain over as wide a range as he can, relying on me to protect him as he maximizes his possible angles of attack.

I launch more acid, and between all of us we saturate the air around the Angel with an overwhelming number of attacks. In response, they shrink their domain and focus entirely on defense, still managing to avoid injury under the unrelenting onslaught.

"Keep up the pressure until he cracks!" Sí Gaoithe orders, telekinetically circling Waylaid and Rafflesia around Swallower to preemptively avoid retaliation. The complex dance ensures a constant stream of rubble is sent towards the Angel, all of which barely misses Sí Gaoithe's own teammates in order to attempt contact. I'm a little worried we're letting the Swallower swallow too much, but I suppose that's a complete guess on my part.

Maybe his power is actually less likely to build up a charge to retaliate just because that would be so similar to what Reciprocation gifts its chosen. Perhaps the Blasphemy that the Swallower of Virtue represents is that of infinite endurance, a refusal to retaliate in kind. But he also just straight-up eats people with weird floaty portals, which could definitely be classified as retaliatory, so I'm probably just overthinking all of this.

The good news is, barring some unknown aspect of his power, we are at the very least stalemating him. That is much better for our forces than it is for theirs.

"Greetings, Thief of Torn Wings. Please look over here." Huh? I glace over to where I hear the indication coming from, and spot an ethereal blue flame spreading from building to building a couple blocks down. It dances across the wood, spreading greedily as it devours fuel in abundance. The flame's cerulean fingers flicker and flash as they grow ever larger, an unearthly beauty demanding my attention. Though the fire roars across wooden buildings, they don't seem to be consumed or burned.

The buildings don't wither away into charcoal, gasping their last breaths as the whole of their beauty is used up in a short, glorious moment. There's something profoundly, overwhelmingly sad about that. That's not how fire should be. I need to go. I need to let the flame burn me properly. Wait, what? I have to! The fire could be so much more. It could be a worthy end to everything! Beside me, the flames catch Eruption's gaze, and he is similarly transfixed— Wait hold on, I'm not transfixed, right?

—as he starts to approach the pyre. I follow… and then I force myself to stop, because what the fuck is going on here? My body twitches and rebels against my commands, some part of me yearning to leap into the flames more desperately than I've ever yearned before. But another part of me, the sane part of me, feels detached from it all. My brain wants me to go kill myself.

However, I'm pretty used to telling my brain to stop being a dumbass at this point, so I command it to shut the fuck up and grab Eruption before he does anything stupid. To my surprise, my body only thrashes helplessly in response to the conflicting commands. That's annoying. I guess I'll just have to do this directly. I bypass telling my brain to tell my arm to grab Eruption and straight-up shapeshift the arm into a new position.

The clumsy limb fails to get a firm grip and Eruption continues walking, so I drop the pretense of needing fingers and extend a tendril long enough to wrap him up and pull him back. He seems to snap back to attention when I accidentally cover his eyes, so I unshift my own as well, returning my body to my full command.

"What the— oh, shit!" Eruption swears, toggling his radio.

"This is Eruption, we've got a line-of-sight mental compulsion in C-11, requesting smoke on the area. Compulsion effect in C-11, requesting smoke on the area. Over." He turns to me and clasps me on the shoulder.

"Good shit, kid. Now get the others!" I can feel him point up with my domain, but I of course do not see anything he's pointing at since I have temporarily blinded myself. I reform eyes in that direction, making sure not to look towards the flames again, and sure enough the rest of our squad seems to be having trouble. Sí Gaoithe has clearly gotten entranced. The good and bad news is that this has caused him to drop Waylaid and Rafflesia.

This is good because it ended up breaking both of them out of the trance; it's bad because it has left them relatively defenseless against Swallower of Virtue. Rafflesia and Waylaid have both been caught before hitting the ground by giant growths of what appears to be human skin and organs. If you saw only the outline of the mess of flesh it would look like a twisting beanstalk, the kind a fairytale character might climb up into the clouds. But it is very much not a beanstalk.

It is an enormous, squishy tube of meat with drooping leaves of skin. I really, really want to know if it's edible. That would be beneficial to my power reserves and for the inevitable cleanup that using this power likely requires. The flesh stalks are doing their best to shift and move their occupants out of the way of Swallower of Virtue's attacks, so my focus needs to be Sí Gaoithe.

I leap off the roof and thrum my wings, taking to the air to try and intercept him, but even while entranced he is significantly faster than me. I just need to break his line of sight for a moment! I shift into a falcon, dive down at an angle, and shift into a cheetah shortly before touching the ground. I break a leg on impact, but that's easy to repair, and then I'm sprinting as fast as I can down the street, overtaking Sí Gaotihe from below.

Once I have a bit of distance, I jump and shift back into a bird, using my momentum to quickly gain height and interpose myself in front of my squad leader. Launching myself right at him, I do one more shift into an octopus midair and smack right into the front of his face, latching on and blocking his eyesight. His reaction is instantaneous.

At first, his power instinctively tries to tear me to shreds, ripping into my body and pulling in every direction at once, and while that is exceptionally painful it stops almost as quickly as it starts. Sí Gaoithe turns around and faces away from the flames, then taps me lightly twice on the tentacle.

"Good save, Seraphim," he says.

"Give me my eyes back." I unfurl my tentacles from around his face, secure myself to the top of his helmet instead, and then grow myself some air-breathing lungs because it's easier than manually oxygenating my blood. Oh yeah, I should give myself vocal cords while I'm at it. I am now an octopus with a weird human mouth where my beak should be, which feels a bit wrong but it gets the job done.

"Figure I should stay close in case you accidentally glance that way again?" I ask.

"Sounds good," Sí Gaoithe confirms.

"Did you see that coming from their comms?"

"No, I just shook it off," I answer honestly. I'm not sure how I did it, frankly. The whole thing was kind of like being under Commander's power. Maybe my weird relationship with my own brains naturally makes me resistant to mental effects? I am tempted, very tempted, to look back at the flames to test my theory. And I give into that temptation, my large eyes swiveling back in my head to once again see that dazzling blue.

Immediately, my body wants to detach itself from my squad leader and throw itself into the fire, but I'm expecting it this time and force my eyes away from the beauty with my power. And then, again, my mind is fully my own. Well, at least the trick is reliable. But nonetheless, I thoroughly regret taking that backwards glance. I didn't need to see the dozens, possibly hundreds of people rushing forward to feed the pyre with their bodies.

Sí Gaoithe starts picking up rubble, scraping chunks of road free from the ground as we fly overhead, his speed picking up all the while. The rest of our squad is struggling to survive against Swallower of Virtue without us, so we need to resume the stalemate as quickly as possible. It's frustrating, horribly frustrating, that even with the five of us working together that's the best we can do. I feel like I've barely even contributed, but what am I supposed to accomplish against a power like that?

At any given moment, Swallower of Virtue only has the tiniest gaps in his defenses, their portals appearing and disappearing out of nowhere with startling speed, capable of intercepting nearly anything. A projectile would need to do an enormous amount of course correction mid-flight in order to even have a chance of breaking through. … I really shouldn't do this.

"Throw me at them," I tell my squad leader.

"What? No!" he shuts me down immediately.

"Are you crazy?"

"I'm flexible, maneuverable, and exceptionally dangerous at point-blank range," I say.

"I can do it."

"You're a cocky moron is what you are," he fires back.

"We have no idea what those portals do, we just know that nothing that goes in ever comes back. They could cause instant disintegration. They could teleport you to the fucking sun."

"They're always circular, and he can only make them so big," I say.

"He only blocks everything by creating multiple layers of shields, but there are still gaps. If I'm fast enough, I can slip through."

"And if you're not fast enough, you die," Sí Gaoithe counters.

"Look kid, I'll admit you have talent, but that's all the more reason we need you to not throw your life away doing stupid shit. You can't get stronger unless you live."

"I'll live," I promise him.

"He can't kill me." The words come out of my mouth before I've fully processed them, but I'm surprised at how confident I am in the claim. He can't kill me. Right? Why can't he kill me? Why do I feel like there's something he lacks? Am I under another mental compulsion? Out of the corner of my eye, I spot something on the ground. A human figure, leaning nonchalantly against a wall. They turn to me, and with a smile, In-Joke gives me a thumbs-up.

"Boss, I promise you, I will not die," I insist again.

"Nothing that thing can do can kill me. It wouldn't be enough. Get me in there, give me a good shot, and I won't let you down. I guarantee it."

"Are you crazy? There's no way I'll—" A portal opens up too closely to one of Rafflesia's flesh plants, devouring the stem and causing the woman on top to tumble towards another portal. Another plant grows out of the earth to redirect her, but not quickly enough. She falls partway into the portal, her right arm landing inside the boundary, while the rest of her body topples past. The arm is consumed by the power. The rest of her just keeps falling as if it never made contact with anything at all.

Blood gushes from the wound, painting her plants red.

"Sir, please." Sí Gaoithe grits his teeth, but I feel his power peeling me off of his helmet and into the air, so I give him control.

"Fine," he says.

"Get it done, wing ripper." He thrusts me at the Angel, and I curl up into an aerodynamic ball of flesh. Portals appear to intercept me, but Sí Gaoithe maneuvers me around them, getting me closer and closer to my target. Soon enough, I'm at the same distance Rafflesia and Waylaid were orbiting around the Angel before, and I, too, am given a part in that dance as Sí Gaoithe lifts up Waylaid to join me.

Rafflesia is pulled away from the Angel instead, moved onto the roof with Eruption so he can try to give her first aid. I'm spun around at incredible speeds, the g-forces enough to make it hard to think before I reorganize my internal structure to better accommodate. This close to the Angel, the portals overlap like a solid wall of scales, tracking our rotation and trying to box us in to carve off more body parts. Yet the Angel can't create a perfect defense.

There are gaps between the layers, tiny delays whenever he has to react to an unexpected assault, and though the imperfections haven't been enough to hurt him so far, we simply haven't had the right ammo yet. Waylaid makes my opening, a pair of portals shifting just barely in the wrong direction, but it's enough to give me a gap. Sí Gaoithe sees the opportunity, launching me at my target with such a sudden and violent acceleration that I black out for a split second before forcing my body back into functionality.

A portal appears in front of me, but I'm already taking the form of a swallow, a twitch of my tail careening me off into a different direction, barely making it around the shield. I dodge another barrier, and then another, but suddenly a portal appears far too close for me to possibly avoid. So I don't try to avoid it. I grow larger. I extend tendrils out in every direction, and then the core of my body impacts the portal and ceases to exist. Disintegrated or teleported, that matter is no longer my own.

I feel it as my body hits the edge of that tear in space, the vast majority of my mass getting swallowed up all at once. My eyes, my ears, my mouth, my nose, and my entire brain. The pain is gone. Sight is gone, sound is gone, smell is gone, touch is gone, everything is gone because the flesh in my domain no longer possesses any way of perceiving it. But my domain itself can perceive the flesh, and the little tips of my tendrils that survived annihilation are still my own.

I know their biology, and though it is worthless, possessing nothing that could possibly sustain its life for more than another few seconds, it is still mine. And so, I make it grow. I can't see, feel, touch, or taste, but I recognize the Angel's flesh within my domain and record its template as my own. Why do I need to see, when I can simply know? Each cast-off fragment of tendril is commanded to extend, to burrow, to impact the body of my foe and dig into its heart with roots of bone.

My power detects the Angel's olfactory systems churning in response, releasing countless chemicals in a silent scream, but I can neither hear nor smell it. It is simply a fact of the flesh that I consume from within, a footnote to a rapidly breaking template, devolving into a more and more suboptimal state as its organs fail from punctures and lacerations.

My target thrashes, still not my own for its domain holds strong, but not strong enough to keep out the many thin needles the Thief of Divine Love taught me to penetrate with. As I reach my roots within, and my prey begins to fall from the sky, I extend around the outside of it a cage of bone on which I will grow around to swallow it. We impact the ground, and while the damage that deals to me can be fixed, the Angel is not so fortunate.

My prey can no longer even twitch in its death throes, its hydraulic fluid leaking all throughout the inside of its broken form. I grow deeper and deeper within, and finally find my prizes: the heart, and the brain. I tear them apart until the cloying, desperate domain of Blasphemy dissipates to nothing, and all at once the flesh becomes mine in totality. What a suboptimal form.

I repair it in moments, but this body is not built for practical methods of traversal, only sturdiness, so with a shudder of displeasure I twist it into something more pleasing. Stronger legs, a sleeker core, limb-mounted weapons with which to stab and tear and devour. The heart should be stronger, the lungs should be bigger, and the brain… Ah, yes. I should have a working brain. Awareness returns to me all at once.

Copying the totality of the Angel's nervous system without any modifications would be suboptimal, and so with my hybrid brain I can immediately recognize the humans as what they are, my allies and squadmates who are neither food nor foe. They appear to be extremely concerned. I suppose all of that might have looked a little strange from the outside. I should try to reassure them.

With a shudder, I swallow most of my new flesh back up into my domain, returning myself to two legs, two arms, and only a couple other limbs. I keep the Angel's skin, since it's a much better defense than anything the human body could offer, let alone the feathers I usually cover myself with.

Making sure to have plenty of weapons ready in case of attack, I finish my shift by looking up to where Sí Gaoithe is staring at me and snapping him a crisp salute, a wide-mouthed grin on my face so he knows everything is okay. The humans staring at me all flinch in fear. I guess I'm doing something wrong. That's annoying, I'm usually good at this. Consequences from not having a brain for a while, maybe? Probably. Come on, think, what am I… oh, I kind of look fucking terrifying, don't I? Right. Right right right.

I shift back to my PR-approved Seraphim form, folding my wings tight up against my back for good measure. A little sheepishly, I clear my throat.

"Um, wings ripped, sir," I announce.

"Holy fucking shit," Rafflesia hisses, a smaller version of one of her flesh plants growing out of the stump of her shoulder. It seems to be stemming the bleeding.

"And I thought my power was nasty." As my squad continues to stare at me in horror, I make sure to stand still, not wanting to spook anyone into shooting me. On the wind, I can still smell my most recent meal's dying screams, and of course, their last words.

"Report: this unit (Swallower of Virtue) is dead."