Chương 52: 51. We Have Choked On Our Arrogance

Fairy-Maria is surprisingly fast. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised by that; she's powered entirely by exotic matter, divine will, and dreams. The inability of her tiny little wings to generate sufficient thrust to lift her tiny little body is not terribly relevant to her ability to fly. I knew that, I guess. I'm just a little miffed that I spent so much time figuring out the best ways to fly and the best forms to take for speed only for her to be able to trivially match my pace.

"Who were you just talking with?" Orange asks, barely audible over the wind rushing by us.

"You could see them?" I ask.

"What? Yeah, I could see them," Orange confirms.

Hmm, okay. Well, that's Christine's theory deconfirmed. Just like In-Joke said.

"They're some asshole precognitive supervillain who's been stalking me," I tell her.

"It's not really important right now. What happened to you and the others?"

"A bunch of creepy tentacles grew out of the ground and grabbed me!" Orange says.

"Well, other me. Physical-body me! Ana and Peter fought them off at first, but they just kept coming until an Angel showed up and pushed them back."

No.

No!

"Omnipresence as Worship, did you just KIDNAP one of my people!?"

I roar into the air.

"No."

"No."

"No," the air echoes back.

"Then explain to me why part of my friend—a chosen of your own god—just told me that you attacked her!"

"Confusion. We did her no harm."

"Confusion. We did her no harm."

"Confusion. We did her no harm."

"Forcibly taking someone against their will is generally considered to be 'harm' in my culture, and I would hope in your culture as well!"

I snap.

"Give her back this instant!"

"Offense. You ask an absurdity," an Angel chimes in. The same one I spoke to inside the rift, I think.

"Even the ignorant should know not to request the faithful of Legion to abandon their own."

"FURY. No one is 'abandoning' anyone!"

I insist.

"You cannot abandon something that is not yours. That does not want to be yours! She has her own people, her own We, and you're taking her from them!"

"Reciprocal fury," the Angel hisses.

"We are to understand, then, that her condition is intentional? If Legion calls this blessed of your people to be by your side, We will not detain her. But you have left her a cripple! Trapped in a form unsuited to her position! Unable to hear or be heard! It is abhorrent. It is cruel enough that We are considering the termination of our deal."

"Your ignorance has crept so far through your brain it has blinded your eyes!"

I call back.

"She can hear and be heard just fine! YOU do not know how to speak or listen! Our people have our own language, but even a fool unable to comprehend it should be able to tell that her will moves against you! Does she not struggle and fight to leave your grasp? Does she not demand for release, if not with words, then with actions?"

"An understandable reaction from one so ignorant as to be unable to recognize her own people. The hold of this horrid place hides Our weight. She knows not where she belongs. You say your people have no Queens, but it is not so, Princess. You simply do not know where to find them. We will show her. She will know."

Oh, god, they're going to turn her into an Angel. Do they even know how to do that with human biology? There's no way they do, right? It's not compatible with alien cells! They're going to try to alter her entire biology with a system not designed to accept it. There's no way in hell that would ever work!

This is it. This is how she dies.

"Your ignorant actions will cause her death," I tell them, as confidently and resolutely as I can convey.

"Our people are not like yours in body or mind. You cannot simply treat her like any other freshly blessed and expect her to survive the process. Blessed of Legion, I implore you not to do this."

There's an agonizing pause, a few moments where I have nothing but the frantic beat of my wings and the terrified sting of my thoughts to keep me company.

"Your caution is duly noted," the Angel responds.

"She will be handled with wisdom and consideration."

"She will be handled with wisdom and consideration."

"She will be handled with wisdom and consideration," the Queen assures me.

No. No, no, no.

"I am no longer imploring you to cease your actions," I report.

"I am demanding."

"We will consider this a violation of Our agreement," the Angel tells me.

Fuck. Which means they might go back to killing fleeing innocents? I guess I don't actually know. They didn't seem super keen on randomly killing people in the first place, so that probably isn't what they're threatening here. Can I take that risk, though…?

I glance at Orange, my mind spinning through possibilities fast enough to make me dizzy. How many people am I willing to sacrifice for her…? No. No, don't fall into that utilitarian trap. The situation isn't as simple as a trolley problem. These aliens need to be stopped not just to save Maria, but because if they aren't stopped, they'll keep making mistakes like this. They'll keep sacrificing people at the altar of their own stupidity. Their way of thinking is too rigid to adapt to a completely different universe.

They need to be stopped for the good of everyone, right? Right.

Yeah. That's a good justification for the burning rage in my chest that demands I devour them all. The boiling hatred in my veins for this next group of arrogant, dumbass idiots that I have to manage. Really, aliens aren't that different from humans after all. They all won't stop giving me reasons to throttle them.

I guess the biggest difference is that with aliens, I'm allowed to.

"Reiteration: your actions have already violated our agreement," I tell the Council of Legion.

"You risk the life of one I hold dear with your arrogance. Ultimatum: release her now or meet the weight of my world with your wings torn asunder."

"We will not do this," the Angel answers simply. And so, I have only one possible response.

"Target location request."

"Location given."

"Negotiations terminated."

"This way, Orange," I say, adjusting our heading towards the Queen.

"I know where they're taking her."

"Oh no," Orange whimpers.

"Can you fly faster than this?" I ask.

"This is my top speed."

"Um, a bit, yeah," Orange confirms.

"But I can't do anything there on my own!"

I flip overtop her, shift into a tiny ring of flesh, and wrap myself around her neck, keeping only a rudimentary insectoid nervous system active so I can keep track of our surroundings.

"…O-oh," Orange says, stiffening up beneath me.

"Okay, sure. Fuck it. Let's go."

We accelerate. Not a ton, but enough to make it worthwhile. The Queen isn't that far away, after all. She'll probably know Orange and I are arriving together since we were traveling together in the first place (again, yet another reason it should be obvious Maria doesn't want to be with them) but just in case I hide my domain inside Orange's own. Even a single second could make the difference, and if that second comes from an unlikely ambush I'm not going to turn it down.

I can't shake the feeling, of course, that we're already too late. Orange had to spend all that time finding me, and though she likely swept out alongside several other Marias to cover a bunch of directions at once, that's still a major time loss. The whole time I was chatting with In-Joke, the time I should have spent protecting Maria has been ticking down. I fucked up big time. I wanted to believe so badly that these aliens would be different, and it ruined everything.

These things don't even understand the concept of lying but they still don't believe me because they understand the concept of ignorance. They think I'm wrong because they just assume I don't know what I'm talking about. It's infuriating.

"…Something's coming," Orange says.

Yeah, I see it. I shift a few more organs so I can answer, quickly shifting them away when I'm done so I don't slow us down with the extra weight.

"Just keep flying towards the Queen," I tell her, my voice a little squeaky due to my size.

"I don't think they'll stop you, but if they do I'll rip them apart."

Maria nods.

"Close your eyes if you have any," she tells me, and I do so just in time for a blinding orange glow to damage my retinas through the eyelids anyway. I can feel her straining as she flies, her domain almost humming as she pushes the limits of her strength to be as bright as possible. I'm sure it'll make it difficult for any enemies to aim at her, but it'll also act as a beacon to the many other Marias that are doubtlessly still out searching for me.

They don't get access to each other's thoughts while separated, after all. They still need to be told.

A few minutes later, Maria's course hasn't changed, so I can only assume she was allowed to pass. She is, after all, a Chosen of Legion. As far as the Council is concerned, she's supposed to be here. That's the entire problem.

"Something's wrong," Orange says, a hint of panic in her voice.

"What?" I ask.

"I don't know! Something!" she insists.

"Something big! I just… something feels wrong!"

Did part of her just die? If her human body dies, would she know? Would she also die, or would she just continue to exist, unable to rejoin her other selves? Is it already too late?

"Just keep flying," I tell her, because that's really the only thing we can do.

"God," she swears, and it's a sentiment I somewhat reciprocate.

Somewhat. The more time I have to think about it, the more I find myself not really minding that I am a representation of some other being's divine will. The alien gods are, if nothing else, honest: they represent a particular aspect of reality and enjoy all demonstrations of it, completely detached from any kind of human morality. They do not claim to be good and they do not claim to be evil. They simply claim to be, and it's a claim I can verify.

I'm not usually one to enjoy accepting help, but I'll give Possibility a pass. The fact that the power it gave me is mine helps a lot.

But it's times like these when I almost wish there was a god of goodness and justice, a higher force I could pray to and receive salvation when all other hope is lost. Possibility can and sometimes does act its will upon the world, but would it reach out and save Maria from Legion's grasp? No, of course not. Why would it care? Alive or dead, either possibility is a possibility, and it is Possibility. Even if it would prefer Maria alive, getting everything it wants all the time would be to deny other futures.

It will not intercede.

That's what I'm for. Or maybe… that's what In-Joke is for. Why are they working against me? Why do they want Maria to die? What future could that possibly make better!? How does her end save the world!? There's no way. They're just fucking with me. They've been fucking with me, all this time, and my stupid ass let it happen. I'm a complete failure! This whole trip I had one job, and I fucked it up! I tried to do everything and ended up screwing the one thing I needed to do most!

Protect Maria!

Without warning, the air around me becomes a chaotic wail of scents, like some twisted, broken alien just vomited every pheromone they could make into the air at once. Multiple ear-piercing screams add auditory noise to the wretched cacophony, overwhelming my hearing, smell, and sight all at the same time. Some part of me expects it to end (How could any living thing maintain this for so long?) but it doesn't. It escalates, growing louder and louder and louder, the smells ever more pungent.

Orange freezes up, halting in the air and trying to say something to me, but I can no longer hear anything but the screams.

Hearing and smell no longer work. I need to be able to see. I grow around Orange, wrapping her gently up to block the light before growing eyes all over my body, my domain reaching out to assist my search. Where is… oh. Oh, god.

Maria.

I don't recognize her on sight. I can't. But her domain remains the same, so the body housing it must be hers. One of the Queen of Legion's many bulbous, fruit-like sacks of flesh is being torn open from the inside, and Maria's shrieking new form is thrashing its way out.

From the waist up, it looks like several different humans fused together, back to back to back. It's a radial mess of arms, faces, and torsos, the brilliant wings of light Maria generates with her power emerging from between the seams of the thrashing bodies. The bottom half of its form, meanwhile, completely abandons any semblance of humanity, turning into a tangle of multi-jointed crystal-tipped legs.

The newborn Angel stumbles as it drops from its torn cocoon, collapsing to the ground as its legs criss-cross and trip. All the while it continues to scream and thrash, its many arms grabbing at its many faux-human faces, locked in varying expressions of madness and horror.

I release Orange and drop to the ground like a stone, my heart racing a mile a minute as I land next to the screaming mess of a creature, taking a familiar humanoid form. Something that she might recognize. Something that might give me a hint on whether she's still in there. After all, that's very much in question. Her brains—plural—have all been completely remade, a crude reconfiguring of human mental architecture with alien biology.

I feel her mind misfiring, signals twisting and arcing between otherwise-separate nervous systems, seeking relay points that no longer match up. How did they even do this to her? It doesn't seem like there's any chance she could have survived all of this.

But… her domain is still here. That's something, right? It must mean something!

"Maria," I say desperately, approaching her and kneeling down in front of one of her faces.

"Maria, can you hear me?"

Her eyes snap to my face immediately. It seems like a good sign at first, but then she lunges, leaping up from the tangled heap of limbs on the ground and swiping at me with clawed fingers. They tear through my chest, and though the physical damage is easy to heal, the emotional wound might end up scarred forever.

"Maria!" I say, a bit more loudly.

"Hey, it's me!"

"It would seem your companion does not desire your company after all," the spokesangel says, floating down from the air nearby.

"You wretched monster," I send back to it, dodging another swipe from what used to be Maria.

"Did you not say we should judge actions? New sister! It is a pleasure to—" One of Maria's heads whips to stare with the same maddened rage at the Angel as she seems to hold towards me, and her body abruptly changes direction to attack it almost the instant it says 'new sister.' It doesn't feel like a coincidence. She reacted to that, specifically. She can, at least to some extent, recognize the pheromone network.

If not for the horror of the present situation, I might feel some smug satisfaction as the pseudo-Maria grabs onto one of the Angel's limbs with three different hands, ripping it off of their body. Her brute strength is absurd, granted partly by her new body but mostly through her power. Orange watches the entire scene in front of her with wide, terrified eyes, and out of a few of my peripheral eyes I can spot other dots of color converging towards our position as well.

"Wh…! Fellow of Legion! Cease this aggression!"

the Angel pleads, doing its best to fly up out of reach before Maria yanks another leg off of it.

"Has there been an issue with your rebirth!?"

"Of course there has, you ignorant moron," I hiss.

"You don't have even the most basic understanding of my people. Why would you ever think something like this would work!?"

"The gifts of change have never before faltered!"

the Angel whimpers, barely managing to evade another swipe.

"They are given by the Grand Queen herself!"

"Yes, well," I say flatly,

"they faltered today."

And I think, perhaps, they may have faltered several times before. I vaguely remember, back when I first got picked up by the military, that Agnus Dei initially thought I was something she called a 'demon.' A fallen Angel, consumed by madness and violence. Is this what the Angels of Division wanted to do to Christine? Did they think she just needed a new body so she could understand them and live with them normally? That she was just some poor cripple that needed fixing?

Would she have become something like this if I never saved her, some broken, brain-damaged monster?

Would she… become like Maria? Part of my head can't even comprehend the question. There's a numb wall between this ravenous monster in front of me and my friend… my girlfriend Maria. Like I can't quite make the mental connection between the two. Perhaps, for now, that's the best. I don't think I would handle it very well. But of course, now that I've started thinking about it, I can't stop.

Maria. She's gone. She's gone.

Not all of her, perhaps. Orange hasn't started attacking everyone in a mindless rage. But this part of her has.

Her human form has been violated and lost forever. Her brain is a complete mess.

She has been killed.

The prediction came true after all.

No.

No.

It can be undone, can't it? It must be possible.

Anything is possible!

"Omnipresence as Worship," I growl.

"Fix your mistake."

"We do not understand."

"We do not understand."

"We do not understand," the Queen laments.

"Oh my god, what is happening!?"

Maria's other fairy-selves start to trickle in, Blue crying out in horror as she watches the monster that she knows on some level to be her fighting with an Angel like a rabid beast.

"That's us, isn't it?" Green gasps.

"That's us!"

"W-which one of us did we leave in the body?" Pink stammers.

"It was White, right?"

"What happened to her? White! Oh god, say something!"

"Help her fight that Angel, you idiots!" Yellow shouts.

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"Oh! R-right!"

"No," I growl.

"I've got it."

"Come here," I order the Angel.

"I have a plan to help calm her down."

"Understood," the Angel says, because they're all just so goddamn trusting.

So straightforward and passionate and refreshing.

They juke by Maria, who in turn summons a pair of energy-fairies… though they don't look very much like fairies anymore at all. They're miniature representations of her new flesh rather than the old, twisting with chaotic, monochrome coloration that exudes both brightness and darkness. They rush towards the Angel in tandem, working together as if through a single will. I barely even pay attention to how the Angel fights them off, my mind churning with preparations and plans.

As usual, everyone around me is worthless. I have to do it all myself.

"What do you need from me?"

the Angel asks when they finally reach my position.

"Practice," I answer, lashing out an arm and grabbing onto them so they can't escape when I start overwhelming their domain with my own. They panic, recognizing my lethal hostility for what it is, but I'm not going to make the same mistakes they did and test this out on someone I actually care about.

For the longest time, I've struggled to hold the mindset that anything outside of my physical self could count as 'me,' let alone any other person. I've known for a long time now that the limits of my power are purely mental, entirely self-imposed through either outright ignorance or years and years of thinking a certain way refusing to break just because I want it to. Taking another person and deciding I'm allowed to own them? That's just not who I am. It's wrong. I know that, and it holds me back.

But there's something I have now that I didn't before. Something that makes it very, very easy to slip into the mindset of a monster. Something that lets me decide with my heart of hearts that yes, this person in my hand deserves no more autonomy, no more individuality, no more self.

Rage. All-consuming rage. With enough anger, anything is just.

The Angel is strong. Very strong. I can't just overwhelm its domain like it's not even there. But I can shrink mine down to the bare minimum size to cover my own head, extending pseudopods of power to jab and penetrate their defenses. They have to shrink their own domain to match my density, but that inevitably leaves some parts of them open for attack. I technically have the same weakness.

The Angel can use its power on the rest of my body with impunity, and their Queen backs it up, growing tendrils out of my own unprotected flesh to choke the life from me. But the difference between us is that my body does not matter, whereas every bit of control I seize over my opponent's is a step closer to their death.

I start, as I promised, by stealing its wings, shrinking them down into nothing and adding them to my reserves. Next, I reshape its legs, pulling away those gaudy crystals and replacing them with familiar ankles and toes. I take its other limbs next, replacing them with two lovely arms, dusted with freckles on the shoulders. The torso is next, letting me form her heart, her stomach, her genitals and breasts, until finally, the mutilated remains of my former body little more than tatters, I seize the Angel's brain.

The moment I do, that overwhelming headache of controlling two bodies returns, and the Angel's domain vanishes.

"What have you done?"

"What have you done?"

"What have you done?"

the Queen whines, as if she didn't just do the same. Her domain alone is too spread out to truly challenge me, so I claim all the tentacles she grew out of my old body as free mass before returning to my finishing touches on Maria.

Because this should be Maria, right? Hypothetically. A person is their brain, their thoughts, their biology and chemistry and fundamental physical makeup working in harmony with itself, and I have an exact perfect copy of what Maria's body was just a few hours ago. If this works, it won't even be a big deal that she died. She'll have been rewound. Restored. Returned. I put the finishing touches on her brain, making it exactly as the template dictates, and I release her from my domain, revoking my claim.

Immediately, the new Maria I have created faceplants into the dirt, utterly motionless. Then, the old Maria tears me in half.

"What the fuck, Julietta!?" Orange shrieks at me, but I ignore her, allowing Demon Maria to continue venting her stress on me in hopes that it will make her feel a little better. Why didn't that work? Seriously, I am going to be so pissed if souls are real. A quick scan from my domain indicates that the Maria body I created is alive and functional, but basically in a coma.

Totally brain-dead, except for the fact that when I drop control of the me Demon Maria is using as a chew toy and put my domain only in Homunculus Maria's body, I take control of it as if nothing was wrong at all.

"What the hell," I mutter, sitting up.

"White!?" Yellow calls out.

"Is that you?"

"No, it's me. Julietta," I say, waving her off as Demon Maria continues tearing my former body apart like it's full of catnip.

"What the hell! Get out of my body!"

"Right, sorry," I allow, shifting into my Seraphim form. What happened with Maria's brain? I need to do more testing. I patch myself into the pheromone network using the credentials of the Angel I just killed and summon a group of Raptors to my position. While I do, Orange and Green float closer to their former physical body, hesitantly approaching the freakish fairies now orbiting around her like moons.

Demon Maria freezes, angling itself so that two different heads can both stare at the ones approaching.

"H-hey," Orange stammers.

"White? Are you in there at all?"

Demon Maria doesn't respond, but for once, she doesn't attack, either. She just silently continues to stare, her screaming on both the auditory and olfactory spectrum finally halted.

"Hey," Green hesitantly greets her.

"You can feel it's us, right? You know we're part of you. It's going to be okay."

Again, Demon Maria doesn't attack. Instead, she reaches out one of her many hands towards Green. Just as hesitantly, Green matches her, putting her tiny palm over the tip of her physical self's forefinger.

In the meantime, my Raptors arrive. I'm honestly kind of surprised their Queen didn't overwrite my orders, but she seems to be quietly having a breakdown of her own, the air in her domain stinking of directionless fear and confusion. I don't really have the time or inclination to help her with that, so I order the first Raptor close, place my hand on it, and make them into a second fake Maria, paying very close attention to what happens with the brain.

The thing is, I don't really know how brains work. I know a lot about what happens when I do certain things to brains, but they've always been my brain. And my brains, I can't help but notice, have infallibly fallen into a coma the moment they leave my domain. This Raptor-turned-Maria is no exception; it collapses just like the Angel before it, so I quickly reclaim the biomass to not upset the rainbow any more than necessary.

So that didn't work. I know it's not a problem with Maria's body, so it has to be her brain. What about her brain am I making wrong? I take the next Raptor and turn them into some random other person, just one of the soldiers I've met, and they end up just as comatose. I turn the next Raptor into a cat. Comatose. I turn the next Raptor into a different Raptor. Comatose. I take one of the transformed Raptors and turn them back into exactly what they originally were. Comatose. Never dead, but always comatose.

I seize control of a Raptor's body, its brain, its every organ and function, and I do absolutely nothing. Then, I let it go. It collapses to the ground, comatose. My headache from controlling more than one body at once starts to linger from all the repeated experiments.

What the fuck.

"That's better, yeah?" Green says softly, catching my attention.

"We're all here for you."

With my ears and my nose, I hear the same word hissed at the same time.

"You…?"

My head snaps up. She talked! One after the other, her other heads repeat the word.

"You… you… you…"

"Me," Green agrees, squeezing Maria's finger.

"I'm right here."

"You… me… you… me…"

The words repeat over and over, cycling between the Demon's many heads, raspy, quiet, and just slightly off-scent. Like someone trying to speak after inhaling enough smoke to leave themselves delirious.

"You… want me back inside of you?" Green asks.

"Woah, no," Orange cautions her.

"Green, that's crazy."

"I might be worth a shot," Green argues.

"Maybe with us both in there, we can figure this out a little easier."

"They turned her into an alien!"

Orange insists.

"You're talking about fusing with the body of an insane alien."

"Julietta turns into aliens, and we all love her," Green says.

"God, don't pull that shit," Orange growls.

"Julietta can turn back. We have no idea what will happen to you."

Green turns to me, as if she expects me to argue for her side.

"I'm with Orange on this one," I tell her frankly.

"It's an extreme risk. You could die. You could end up so fundamentally changed you may as well have died."

"Hey," Green admonishes me.

"First rule of discontinuity of consciousness club."

Oh, shit. She's really going to do it.

"Green, no," I beg.

"Come on, we have to try," Green answers firmly.

"I mean, that's part of me in there. I don't wanna just float out here watching her scream in pain when there's something I could do about it. And if I do die, well… what of it? There's plenty more of me where I came from."

"Jesus," Purple swears. It's the first word I've ever heard her say.

"Look, it's just sensible, okay?" Green insists.

"I absolutely think it's worth trying at least once. And I'm not going to try to convince someone else to do it for me, so… I'll do it. If it works, great. If not… well, I trust the rest of you to finish the job."

"We could just call her dead and leave, y'know," Pink says, her voice hollow.

"I guess we could," Green agrees.

"But I don't want to. So… goodbye for now, everybody. Wish me luck."

"Green, wait—" Orange starts, but Green just squeezes Demon Maria's hand a little tighter and vanishes in a flash of light. We all hold our breath, even though none of us need to. At first, nothing happens. The Demon just remains stationary in the same pose it had been in before the merger. But then, one pair of its arms reaches up towards one of its faces, grasps its cheeks, and starts to scream.

The endless sensory noise resumes, as if it had never left, and one face's eyes glow green.

"No," Blue whimpers.

"I'll fix this," I declare.

"How?" Orange snaps at me.

"By making more creepy fucking copies of us?"

"I'll figure it out," I growl. What is the matter with all these bodies I'm making? Why can't I make one that's autonomous from me? I seize another Raptor, carefully adjusting its brain, carefully making sure it works, abandoning my old body to move around in it a little while before releasing it, and again, it immediately collapses. Why? Why can't my brain still think outside of my domain? Everyone else can do it! Their brains control their domain.

They can separate the two as much as they'd like, because the brain is in control and the domain is what's being controlled. Right? That much is obvious.

I don't work that way, though. I'm the opposite. My domain controls my brains. But ultimately, I'm not trying to make one of 'my brains.' I'm trying to make someone else's brain.

…Oh. That's it, isn't it? Of course I can't do that. Conceptually, that's kind of nonsense. If it is a brain my domain controls, it is, definitionally, my brain.

The moment I even try to shapeshift it, it ceases to be anyone else.

I cannot shapeshift anyone else. I cannot use the fullness of my power on anyone else. Not because my power is 'shapeshifting myself,' but because powers, in general, don't work that way. You can't exert control over other people's things. If it's in someone else's domain, it's theirs. If it's in my domain, it's mine. And if something is mine, it is me.

The moment I use my power on a brain, it inflicts instant ego death. That's what I think is happening here.

This is testable. I know I can scan people without controlling them. Encompassing someone with my domain is not the same as claiming them with it. For the next Raptor that volunteers its life to me, I make a thorough scan, saving its template without doing anything to its body. Everything seems to be in order. The Raptor shifts its weight with something almost like nervousness, the knowledge that its task involves its own likely death failing to deter it, but not leaving it entirely unaffected.

It moves under its own power, its own will, because I have yet to claim it. I carefully watch its brain, not relying on my power's intrinsic sense of what biology is and isn't, but forcing it to feed me exact details, specific characteristics, an entire clear mental picture of precisely what I'm looking at. I don't understand it. This much detail, without my power's assistance, is difficult for me to hold in my head all at once.

But the human brain is good at seeing patterns, at noticing changes, and so it is just barely enough when I consciously make the switch to seize control.

There it is. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but there was a change. It wasn't conscious on my part, but it's there. Yet when I try to remove it, to revert it to whatever it was before, the body doesn't just fall comatose. It dies.

Damn it. Why? Why doesn't that work? I try it a few more times, leaving a few more dead Raptors at my feet to eat later. For my final test, I attempt the inverse: I carefully collect my domain and spread it through every part of the Raptor's body except the brain, leaving it unclaimed and untouched. It feels very strange collecting only part of a template that I could claim in whole, but I keep my focus and start making changes to the Raptor's body.

Slowly, carefully, I turn it into a Wasp, leaving its brain untouched. When I release it, it falls over, but not because it's in a coma. The Raptor has simply lost its balance on its new legs, flailing its wings in confusion.

Okay. That's something. It doesn't help me here, because Maria's brain has been completely fucked up, but it's something.

"Queen of Possibility, We do not understand."

"Queen of Possibility, We do not understand."

"Queen of Possibility, We do not understand."

Oh, yeah. I still have this idiot in my audience.

"Don't call me that," I demand.

"We do not understand."

"We do not understand."

"We do not understand."

"It is not my purpose to free you from your ignorance," I snap.

"But if you wish to donate more biomass, you are welcome to form yourself nearby."

Countless tendrils bloom into being all over, startling the hell out of me. I snap out my domain, claim them, and unform them, absorbing the corpses I've made directly while I'm at it. I guess I never needed to do the flesh bubble thing?

"Why did you do that?"

I ask.

"We wished to donate more biomass."

"We wished to donate more biomass."

"We wished to donate more biomass," the Queen explains.

Well. Now it's my turn.

"I do not understand."

"Your word was true."

"Your word was true."

"Your word was true," they say.

"Your wrath was just."

"Your wrath was just."

"Your wrath was just," they insist.

"We have sinned before Legion."

"We have sinned before Legion."

"We have sinned before Legion," they lament.

"We have failed our duty."

"We have hurt our own."

"We have choked on our arrogance," they all wail as one, speaking over themselves, the many, the Queen.

"You understand what we do not."

"You understand what we do not."

"You understand what we do not," they say.

"Guide us."

"Guide us."

"Guide us."

I… don't know what to say at first. They're… apologizing?

"You want to make this right?"

I ask.

"Affirmative."

"Affirmative."

"Affirmative."

It's hard to accept their help, just because I'm so goddamn angry. But… god, it would be stupid to reject them. I know things they don't, but they definitely know tons of things I don't. And alone, I'm stumped. Together, maybe we really can fix this.

"Can you reverse what you have done?"

I ask.

"Return her to what she was before?"

"No."

"No."

"No."

Of course. I wasn't expecting it to be that easy.

"Why not?"

I ask.

"Her body was untouched by Legion. We cannot make bodies untouched by Legion."

"Her body was untouched by Legion. We cannot make bodies untouched by Legion."

"Her body was untouched by Legion. We cannot make bodies untouched by Legion."

"I need you to explain in greater detail what that means," I tell them simply.

"We do not know how."

"We do not know how."

"We do not know how."

Okay, now I'm getting annoyed again.

"Try," I order them like they're a common fucking Raptor. The Queen hesitates, but after a short delay, they continue to speak.

"The world is Legion."

"Our world is Legion."

"All worlds are Legion."

"Our body is Legion.

"Our people are Legion."

"Our words are Legion."

Another pause, through which they transmit hesitance, uncertainty, fear. An indication that they do not hold confidence in their following words, that they could be false but no more accurate truth is known.

"Your world is dust."

"Your world is barren."

"Your world is nothing."

"We cannot craft with nothing."

"We are not made of nothing."

"We may not make her nothing."

Again, another pause. This one even less certain than the first.

"But you can."

"But you can."

"But you can."

Okay. Alright.

"I still don't understand," I admit.

"What do you think I can do, exactly?"

"Queen of Possibility, we would never dare claim to know your limits."

"Queen of Possibility, we would never dare claim to know your limits."

"Queen of Possibility, we would never dare claim to know your limits."

"Displeasure. I thought I told you not to call me that."

"Apologies, Thief of Torn Wings. It is what you are."

"Apologies, Thief of Torn Wings. It is what you are."

"Apologies, Thief of Torn Wings. It is what you are."

No, I have to nip this shit in the bud.

"I told you already, my people have no Queens," I insist.

"I don't even know what being a Queen means to you. I don't understand what makes your people think of me as one. Is it just because I can turn things into other things? Is it because I speak with Possibility when I rest?"

Again, they hesitate.

"We are young."

"We are inexperienced."

"We are foolish."

"We do not know what being a Queen of Possibility means."

"We do not know what being a Queen of Possibility means."

"We do not know what being a Queen of Possibility means."

"But if any could save your precious one,"

"But if any could save your friend,"

"But if any could save your love,"

"A Queen of Possibility is what they would be."

"A Queen of Possibility is what they would be."

"A Queen of Possibility is what they would be."

"For that is who you go to in times of crisis."

"For that is who you go to when all hope is lost."

"For that is who you go to when you need the impossible done."

"If you are no Queen, then seek one, Thief."

"If you are no Queen, then seek one, faithful."

"If you are no Queen, then seek one, Princess."

"They will welcome you with love."

"They will welcome you with love."

"They will welcome you with love."

That's… insane. Would that really work?

No, that's not the right question. Do I actually have any other options, beyond sitting here and killing Raptors with my mind until I figure out how to edit someone's brain without killing them?

"Where can I find a Queen of Possibility?"

I ask.

"If you are not one yourself, you will know where to find yours."

"If you are not one yourself, you will know where to find yours."

"If you are not one yourself, you will know where to find yours," the Queen of Legion answers.

"Even here, in this lying place, can you not feel her weight?"

"Even here, in this empty place, can you not feel her weight?"

"Even here, in this heavy place, can you not feel her weight?"

And somehow, I realize I can. I have been for a long time now. Northeast. That pull, that tug, up and into the ocean. She's there. The one whose council has a seat waiting for me. My Queen.

I shudder, my body rippling and twisting through a dozen forms. Am I seriously considering this? This is crazy, right? This would be straight-up actually betraying the entire human race. I mean, I guess it's not like I have to kill anybody. Hell, it probably means I have to kill less people, since I won't be part of the goddamn Army. And I've basically already defected, what with not returning to base like I was ordered to do.

I glance at the various Marias, nearly all of them gathered around their demonic body, trying to calm it down. Its screams have calmed down into mournful wails of confusion and pain. It's suffering. Anyone could tell that at a glance.

She's suffering. And yeah, I'd betray humanity for her. Honestly, at this point, I'd do it for a lot of people. Humanity is kind of a bunch of assholes.