A/N: I'M BACK! I'M ALIVE! I'M ALIIIIIIIVE!!! God fucking DAMN IT I was sick for so long. It was awful. I probably should have gone to see a doctor. I didn't. I'm better now, mostly. And that means I finally get to write again! Oh, it's so good to be back. Enjoy the chapter!
"Julietta? Julietta, hey!"
I gasp in shock as I jolt awake, my body twisting outwards in a dozen different directions before pulling itself back together. It's fine, everything's fine. Christine's voice just startled me a little.
"Woah there," Christine says, stepping back from my bed a little. "Nightmare?"
"Something like that," I answer, sitting up.
It's the middle of the night, still. We holed up in some random house when it got dark; my power makes it easy to make sure there aren't any bugs or mold taking up residence, and Christine can clean up everything else. There's no electricity here, so it's pitch black outside. Which is… odd. Christine usually likes sleeping as much as possible.
"…What's up?" I ask her.
"We're planning our assassination or whatever while Emily's asleep, right?" Christine asks. "Well, she's asleep. Let's plan."
Oh. Oh! Right. I rub my temples, my head feeling bloated and slow. Power churns in my domain, hidden by Silhouette's blessing, and Legion's own additions fizz and boil in the back of my mind, eager to be tested. But… no. Not here. Not now. We have to do this right.
"We still need to find the last Angel in the colony, not to mention somehow communicate our plans to the others without anyone finding out," I say.
"Peter's on it," Christine says. "He just doesn't know it. I sent him off to shmooze with the other human groups. If he runs into someone with Failure powers, it's not like he won't tell us."
"It would be fairly trivial for them to avoid him," I point out. "The Queen always knows where we are, and can guide the Angel accordingly."
"Won't you hear that?" Christine asks.
"Only if the guidance is pheromone-based. The Queen could just as easily teleport the Angel away from Peter without saying anything, though."
"Maybe…" Christine hums. "But that doesn't mean she's going to. And what else is Peter good for, really?"
I manage a chuckle at that.
"Fair enough," I admit. "Still, the big problem is going to be getting everyone into position, given how absurd the Queen's power is at not letting us go where we want to go. We'll probably need to engineer a situation where she'll just let us gather everyone up, and I don't know how to do that."
It's not going to work. There's no way this plan could ever work. Sure, we have barely enough people to potentially pull off a simultaneous kill, but how would we coordinate it? How would we ensure all these Angels go down fast enough? We're all pretty dangerous, sure, but we effectively need to kill them all instantly, because if any of them start to run we'll be completely unable to chase them.
Hmm. Unless the Queen dies first, I suppose. That's the hardest kill of the bunch, but it's not completely impossible to do quickly. We just have to sneak someone close enough to the Queen's brain without her noticing to… okay, no. Nope, that's also impossible. She can feel everything in her domain and she can probably feel where they're trying to go. There's no way in hell we can do that. We can't kill the Queen because we can never reach the Queen. Once again, not unless she lets us.
"So we have to trick her in order to be able to stop her," Christine says. "You've tricked aliens before, haven't you?"
"Not ones that actually understand the concept of lies and subterfuge," I answer, shaking my head. "Even if they didn't have years of experience messing with humans and learning about their culture, they have Emily helping them now."
"Why is that bitch helping them?"
"Because apparently, I need to lose here in order to save the world," I say.
"Oh," Christine says slowly. "Uh. Should… I not be helping you, then?"
"Up to you, I guess," I say. "But personally I say screw fate, screw precognition, I'm going to save everyone."
"Of course you do," Christine sighs. "Alright then, I've got your back."
"You sure?" I ask.
"Hey, you apparently defied what Emily said about fate to save me," Christine reminds me. "Of course I'll side with you over her. I mean hell, you've given me everything I could have ever asked for, Julietta. You've saved my life in more ways than just preventing me from dying."
"Christine, I… I didn't do that much," I insist, because what else can I say to that?
I know what she means, though. Back at the incursion, back at training, she was almost a different person. She couldn't function half the time. She was a danger to herself, prone to self-harm and self-hate. I'll never forget the time I found her in the bathroom, slamming her head against the wall of the stall as Ana begged her to stop. She was in a bad, bad way.
It's been months since then. Maybe not a ton of time in the grand scheme of things, but they've been pretty damn packed months. Things have gotten intense. Boot camp was painful. She nearly cracked under the pressure, but in the end she didn't. That wasn't me, not really. That was her. I helped out where I could, pushed her along when I had a chance, but ultimately every step she took was her own. She's an incredible person now—no, she was always an incredible person—and there's hardly anyone I trust more.
We can do this. Somehow, we can do this.
"You do enough," Christine says.
"Maybe," I hedge. "Do you trust me?"
She smirks, probably thinking something along the lines of 'were you paying any attention to what I just said?' I still have to ask, though. It's important to do this right.
"More than anyone," she answers.
"Okay," I say. "It's just the Queen that we have to deal with. She matters more than anyone. The others can handle themselves, but if the Queen wills it, we can't save anyone. Her power is just too good."
"And Queens are hard to kill," Christine summarizes.
"Very," I agree. "I… think I can get to her without her noticing, but I don't think I can stop her alone. Even with the two extra god blessings that I'm hiding thanks to Silhouette."
"I'm sorry, the what?" Christine asks.
"Blossom was right about the Grand Queen stuff," I say. "The other gods have been coming to me in my dreams. So far, Silhouette and Legion have given me their blessings."
"So what, you have three superpowers now?"
"No," I say, shaking my head. "No, definitely not. It's more that I just have… their unique flavors added onto mine, I guess. Silhouette basically just gave me better domain control. It lets me feel to others like I'm weaker than I actually am. I… think I should be able to hide my domain entirely, though that might have some uncomfortable consequences."
"Huh. Okay. What does your Legion blessing do?"
"I'm not sure," I admit. "I have a strong suspicion, but given that it's Legion I'd probably need someone else's help to test it."
"Ah. I see where this is going," Christine sighs.
"…Maybe," I admit. "But there's also just the fact that you have the strongest domain of any human I know. Stronger than most Angels. Even with how strong I am, I'm going to need your help to overpower the Queen."
"What's up with that, anyway?" Christine asks. "The hell did I do to make Division like me so much? That's how it works, right?"
"As far as I know, yeah," I say.
"You're the fucking future Grand Queen, there's nobody who would know this better than you," Christine says, rolling her eyes. "Quit being so humble."
"I… look, I haven't spoken with Division yet about anything. I didn't even understand how to speak the alien language the last time we saw a Division Angel, at least for the most part. I can only speculate as to why Division likes you. Maybe it loves how you separate all the peas from your soup?"
"Very funny," Christine pouts.
"I'm only half-joking," I admit. "It really could be something as silly as that. Humans are a novelty to the gods. Blossom compared the nature of divine love to a six-year-old kid playing with an action figure. Maybe Division just really, really enjoys the drama that is your life."
"Huh," Christine says. "Well, at least someone does."
"What does the concept of 'division' make you think of?" I ask. That will probably hold more insight than anything I could come up with.
"I dunno," Christine says. "That thing you taught me, I guess. Dividing problems into smaller problems. Doing everything one step at a time. I used to get so overwhelmed by the big picture that I couldn't do anything at all. I still can be, frankly. Anything more than whatever's directly in front of me is too much. But if I can just… break off a piece of it, and do that, and then keep going and never stop… eventually, I get there. And I usually don't even have a panic attack along the way."
"So… Division is part of your entire philosophy on how to best live life?" I say.
"I mean, I guess if you choose to put it in those terms, sure," Christine shrugs. "But I don't really think of it that way consciously."
Interesting. Well, at least it confirms that active worship is far from the highest priority for the gods. Or… it corroborates that, at the very least.
"I also think of Gunpla," Christine admits.
"What?" I ask. "Like those plastic robot toys you always talk about?"
"Yeah," Christine confirms. "They're awesome."
Well… sure, alright. Maybe god just likes Gunpla.
"Anyway, it's not just the Queen we need to worry about, right?" Christine asks. "We need to make sure none of the Angels are near any human colonies."
"That's true," I agree. "We'll have to wait for Peter or someone else to find the Angel hiding with the humans, and form a backup plan for if he can't. Maybe I should just go scouting myself…"
"There's the other Angels too," Christine points out. "How can we tell the others to watch them without… y'know, telling the others to watch them?"
Well, that's the thing. We can't.
"We… just have to trust that they'll understand what they have to do," I admit. "They're smart. Blossom will figure out the plan, or at least enough of it to know what she has to do."
"Maria isn't going to want to kill anyone," Christine points out. "Even an Angel of Failure."
"That's true," I admit. "But she's not going to let any humans get hurt under her watch, either."
The two of us are quiet for a while, the dark room lit only by a bit of glow from my skin.
"We're so doomed," Christine sighs. "Are you sure you don't wanna just leave these people here and come back for them later?"
"It has to be now," I insist.
"Why?" Christine asks.
"Because these people are going to suffer for every second we wait," I answer. "And besides, if I'm going to be some kind of queen, I'd better do something worthy of the title first."
"That's… I don't know if that's a reason," Christine argues.
"We can do this, Christine," I say. "I promise. It's just going to be really, really gross and uncomfortable for a while."
"Uh… what does that mean?"
"You'll find out when we find the last Angel," I tell her. "Until then… let's head back to bed."
"Alright," Christine says. "But if we end up getting everyone killed, I'm going to be very upset."
Not as upset as I'm going to be.
"Duly noted," I say. "Good night, Christine."
"I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep after this," she admits.
"Want me to fix that for you?" I ask.
"Aw yeah," she agrees. "Hit me with the good stuff."
"Go lie down, and I will."
She heads back to her bed, and I fill us with an appropriate amount of sleep chemicals to quickly pass into unconsciousness. Almost immediately, I find myself floating somewhere, falling slowly to god knows where. And indeed, they do. The only question is which one I'm talking to tonight.
ALL anD EvERY, the universe answers, shattering me into a thousand pieces before returning me to existence.
Ah. Hey, Possibility. It's actually sort of been a while. How are you doing?
CaRE reTURNING cARE. infinITY IS joY, my mind explodes.
I… think that means something along the lines of 'I am doing well, thank you for asking.' So hey! That's nice. Always good when god is having a good time. Unless it's an asshole god, I guess, which is several of them. What's up with that, anyway?
JoY ALONe is NOt hoLY, the world throbs.
…Right, right. You like bad things just as much as good things. I can't say I'm able to agree. Would I be getting this much help if not for the impending apocalypse? Er, that's rhetorical. Obviously I wouldn't be. It's just desperate times calling for desperate measures, after all. You and I… we get along well enough, but we're not as compatible as we should be. I'm a means to an end. The others actually embody the gods they've been blessed by, but I don't care about trying to keep my options open.
IncOrRecT, my body shatters.
It takes a little while for me to exist again. That one… hurt more than usual. I guess I said something wrong.
To DefY PossiBilities is tO WorsHIP thEm.
That… makes no sense. I don't understand what you mean.
To RejECT fuTures is to EmBRACE ME.
But aren't you supposed to be the lover of all futures? Don't you care about life only insofar as it increases possible variance?
SeeK the UnlikeLY.
If you just wanted unlikely futures, or if you valued improbable acts over probable ones, then everything you've told my Queen and my Princess about who you are is wrong!
InCorrEct. NoT EduCatInG yOU. InstRUCtinG yOU.
…Oh. Oh. This isn't a revelation about the nature of my god. This is a command. Or… a request, at least. Well, I don't need you to tell me what to do, Possibility. I was going to seek the unlikely victory either way.
ThUS, my LOVE, everything sings.
Ah…! Ow, ow… but, wait. Now we're back to where we started. Why would you love me more for that? Why do you love anything more than anything else?
WhY WHY? It iS.
You're the god of Possibility! You're the god of everything that could ever be!
I AM WHAT IF, my soul screams. If nO DESire, theN WOULd not CREATE!
Oh. Oh, I've been… thinking about you all wrong, haven't I?
nO. TwiSTINg ScArs ReshAPE FATE. Not A NAMe. a ProMISE. to mE. AlWAys kNEW. AlwAYS lOvEd. my DEFIER of emPTy fUtUres. DefY. DefY. DEFY. DEFY!
Reality shakes around me, the quake rattling my thoughts around until nothing remains but paste. I don't know how long it takes for me to be put back together, the rumbling words repeated again and again unto infinity, but somehow, eventually, infinity passes. I slowly become myself again, though I find I have very little incentive to continue a conversation that so often tears me to shreds. Still, despite the danger, Possibility is a comforting presence. I curl into a ball and enjoy their world for a while, at least until I feel myself waking up. Then, I remember I have a job to do.
Possibility… if I'm truly that important to you, why is the power I get from you so much less than what Christine gets from Division? Why has my domain always lagged behind hers? I suppose it's probably stronger now, given the help from two other gods, but still. I'm no Queen, so how can I be a Grand Queen?
I am NoT inFiniTy, the universe rumbles, though thankfully this time it's much quieter. It only takes me a couple minutes to live again.
Not infinity, huh? You only have so much power to spare, then. I wonder where that power is. I've heard that Possibility has fewer chosen than most other gods. Is its power stuck on the moon, with the current Grand Queen? Is it busy composing the universe the aliens hail from? Or perhaps it is the power that all the other gods use to exist and embody themselves. I guess the answer is ultimately not important. One way or another, I know what I have to do.
"Wake up."
I open my eyes, once again finding Christine looming over my bed.
"Heh," she smirks. "When did you become the sleepyhead between the two of us?"
"When gods started bothering me every night, I guess," I grunt, sitting up and reshaping my musculature structure a couple times in lieu of stretching.
"One of these days I'm going to tease you and you're going to respond in a way that isn't terrifying, concerning, or deeply sad," Christine says. "Mark my words. We'll get there."
"I look forward to it," I deadpan. "Any word from Peter?"
"How should I know? You're the one in the hive mind," she says, which… okay, fair enough.
I'm still not sending anything into the network, but I can hear it just fine and Peter is clearly awake, given his quiet mutterings. Nothing to indicate he's found our Angel, though.
"Let's just wander around today," I decide. "Visit some of the other communities. Make it seem like we're deliberating our options."
"So… we're stalling for time?" Christine asks.
"Yep," I confirm.
"Cool. But if we run into roving marauders or something, I am going to make them stare at their own intestines for five minutes per rape threat."
"Weirdly specific, but sure, I'll help," I offer.
"You're a good friend, Julietta."
"Thanks?"
"Hey, wait a minute," Emily says, poking her head into the room, an errant fleshy tentacle briefly visible slithering back into a crack between two puzzle-piece sections of her face. "How come when Christine wants to torture a bunch of people you're all for it, but when I want to torture a bunch of people it's suddenly 'no way, I am going to defy you even if it kills them all?' I call double standards."
"Tell you what, spaghetti head," Christine says. "Let's make a deal: your colony gets to keep only the rapists, and I'll get Julietta to stop whining about it for you."
"Hmm! No deal, but noted for the future," Emily grins. "Mind if I accompany you two today? I overheard you were stalling for time, so surely you're not doing anything important?"
"Nope, we're not," I confirm. "Feel free to join us. We were just going to try and meet some of the other communities and get their thoughts on all of this."
"So the thoughts of the local communities aren't important, huh? You're getting into the Queen mindset already, sister! Good for you!" Emily teases.
"Y'know Emily, I wouldn't say this to most people, but maybe you should still mask a little bit," Christine says flatly.
"Oof," Emily says, wincing. "Alright, alright. I'll walk it back. I can't afford to fumble the most available baddie now that I've lost my last one."
"E-excuse me!?" Christine stammers.
"You heard me!" Emily says, flowing into the room and wrapping one mostly intact arm around Christine's shoulders. "Come on, we both know you had a huge crush on me while we were escaping the incursion."
"Th-that was a long time ago. And you were just using that to manipulate me!" Christine insists, a blush deepening on her face.
"What can I say? You were in desperate need of a little friendly manipulation. Your will to live had to come from somewhere, so it may as well have been between your legs."
Emily pokes Christine playfully in the cheek, which only makes the poor girl's face redder.
"You are a squirming pile of tentacles, eyeballs, and strips of skin barely held together in the shape of a human," Christine insists. "Is there even anything between your own legs anymore?"
"Uh, duh?" Emily confirms. "What sort of idiot would make themselves a body that can't have sex? I even kept my boobs mostly in one piece. They're no fun to play with if they just break apart."
"…I should not have asked," Christine mutters, doing her best to look away. This, of course, only encourages Emily, who cackles with delight.
"I mean come on, you've got a sick new body too, right?" she asks. "Don't you want to put it through the paces a bit?"
Christine turns to me with a desperate look on her face.
"Julietta!" she whines. "Help!"
"Hey, yeah! Be a good wingwoman for me, won't you Julietta?" Emily calls out as well. "Tell her about the many, many advantages of a girlfriend with tentacles."
"Nnnnnope," I shut down immediately, stepping past them to leave the room. "I am staying entirely out of this. You two are adults and you can figure out whatever is going on here for yourselves."
"But Julietta…!" Christine begs.
"Christine," I say, turning around and giving her a flat look. "If you don't like it, just say no. Or use your crazy superpowers to shove her a hundred feet away."
"…Hrk," Christine says, looking away from me immediately.
Yeah, I thought so. I can feel her biology. Who does she think she's fooling?
"I'm heading out. Follow me or don't," I say, leaving the room and heading towards the exit to the house.
"Poor Maria has her work cut out for her, huh?" I hear Emily comment as I depart. Ugh. Is it really such a crime to not want to listen to my sister hit on my friend? What does Maria even have to do with that? I'm pretty sure I'm not the weird one here, for once.
Fortunately, I don't have to speculate too much about what the two of them get up to alone, as they join me soon afterwards. Emily is no longer hanging off of Christine, though Christine is still red as a beet.
"If you're coming with us, Emily, can you just lead us to the next closest group of humans?" I ask. "Make yourself useful?"
"I am always useful," Emily protests, looking mock-offended. "But sure, yeah. This way, ladies!"
We follow her down the empty, crumbling streets, looking out at the familiar way grass overgrows the lawns and weeds bloom up from cracks in the street. Even a lot of populated areas are like this, these days. With most houses abandoned, most property isn't really taken care of. Even a lot of occupied houses wouldn't bother making their property look lived in from the outside. What would be the point, when you don't have any neighbors?
"Are you really siding with your colony on this, Emily?" Christine asks.
"Hmm? Oh, no, not really," Emily answers. "They're fun, and I appreciate how at home they make me feel, but I like you all more. I just have to do what I think is the right thing to do, you know?"
"You don't feel guilty about it at all?" Christine presses. "Your colony tortures these people for fun, right?"
"Of course I don't feel guilty," Emily says, rolling her eyes. "I have ASPD. Guilt never factors into anything. But it's not like I enjoy being evil. I don't want to torture everyone here. Anything worse than messing with them a bit sits with me the wrong way. Unfortunately, we have a world to save. It might be a little utilitarian, but it's honestly a little hard to not be a consequentialist when you can predict future deaths."
"So you think the ends justify the means," Christine says.
"Duh," Emily confirms. "Everyone thinks the ends justify the means. At least, to some extent. It's not a binary question; morality isn't about if ends justify means, it's about which ends justify which means. You can draw a hard line and say that for you, personally, doing this or that will never justify anything… but the only people you'll ever meet who don't think there are any edge cases where a little bit of wrong is okay to create a little bit of right are people who have never actually had to think about a hard question in their lives."
Huh, there was some passion behind that one.
"I wasn't expecting you to have such strong opinions on moral philosophy," I admit.
"I told you, I don't want to be a bad person," Emily scowls. "Since I don't really have a conscience, I have to figure out how to do that some other way. Fortunately, there are a lot of very smart people with very big consciences that I can steal ideas from. Maybe too big, for some of them. I'd be really worried about moral philosophers if they weren't all long dead. We're almost there, by the way."
Makes sense. In front of us, there's something of an unnatural clearing. The houses ahead have been stripped and cut down to nothing like the very trees that supplied their lumber. A forest twice culled, the dense construction of suburbia has returned to a wide, flat plain, a ring of visibility surrounding a cluster of intact dwellings a couple blocks down. Next to the still-remaining houses, a small lake supplies a rare bit of untouched nature to contrast the vine-covered man-made structures common to the rest of the town.
"Those houses by the lake are where the next group lives, I take it?" I clarify, just to be sure.
"Yep," Emily confirms. "We're the ones keeping that lake healthy, by the way. My colony, I mean. My Queen uses her power to help clean the water, and if any birds and stuff fly overhead she usually sends them here. These people pretty much rely on that lake to stay alive."
"It's… kind of small to maintain a makeshift village by itself, isn't it?" I ask. "It'd probably only take you an hour to walk around it. Maybe less."
"Hence why we're carefully tipping the scales more in their favor," Emily says. "Honestly, for how much they need it, they don't do a very good job taking care of it. I guess that's humans in a nutshell for you, though."
"Apparently we were killing the planet big time before the aliens showed up," Christine comments. "But I guess culling the global population down to a fraction of what it used to be was great for our carbon footprint."
"What's a carbon footprint?" Emily asks.
"Something people worried about before there were horrible aliens dropping from the sky to worry about instead," Christine answers.
"Well that doesn't narrow it down much," Emily sighs. "Whatever, doesn't matter. Point is, it's not all bad stuff that we do here. We help the poor little guys out, too. Nobody here wants them to die."
"You're not going to get me to change my mind, Emily," I say.
"Come on, Julietta," Emily sighs. "Why can't you just take the L? These people barely even deserve help. You're crazy if you expect a quaint little fishing village. Everyone here would be doing a lot more raiding if they didn't have to worry about other groups raiding them first."
"I'm not going to just give up and let these people suffer by the hands of people that you know are monsters," I scowl. "You know I won't."
"Yeah, I do," Emily confirms. "Which is why I can feel all of their life expectancies slipping shorter and shorter. You aren't going to win here, Julietta. You're just going to get all of them killed because you're too stubborn to admit when you're beat."
"We'll see," I say simply. "Come on. Let's go introduce ourselves."
"Don't say I didn't warn you," Emily sighs.
I won't. I know full well that all the consequences of my decisions are my fault and my responsibility. I'm not going to act like they're anyone else's.
As the three of us approach, we notice some people on the roofs of the intact houses, watching us carefully. Enhancing my eyes, I can see they're all men, and two of them have bows, of all things. I suppose it makes sense. There's plenty of materials out here you could make arrows with, but there's no way to replenish spent bullets. While I'm sure there are stockpiles of them somewhere in one of these basements, that's still a finite supply.
I wave at the roof-sentries. They don't respond, just keeping a careful watch on us as we approach. One of them leaves the roof, presumably to go inform someone that we're coming. Once we're in comfortable shouting range, the remaining sentry calls out.
"That's close enough!" he says. "Who are you three? What are you doing here?"
"We can just ignore him, if you want," Emily offers. "I mean, what's he gonna do? Shoot us?"
"He could shoot me," Christine points out.
"You'd live," Emily dismisses. "I mean, Julietta's right here."
"What if I got shot in the head?" Christine asks.
"Wouldn't penetrate your skull," I answer. "I made sure to design you without that kind of obvious weak point."
"What if they shot me in the eye?"
"Wouldn't penetrate that either," I assure her. "Still, no sense being rude. Hey, up there! I'm looking to talk to whoever's in charge here!"
"You sure you ladies know what you're getting into?" he calls back down. "Turn around while you have a chance."
"That counts," Christine says. "That's five minutes."
"That was not a… look, let's just give them a chance, okay?" I groan, calling back out to the sentry. "We can handle ourselves better than most. This is important. I need to see how things are going here."
"I don't think you—" the sentry starts, but he's interrupted by a man jumping onto the roof, seemingly from ground level, and coming up behind him. Which startles him, obviously, but not for long. He and the obviously superpowered man chat at a normal volume with each other, which wouldn't normally be audible from this distance but naturally I adjust my hearing so I can listen in anyway.
"…out by themselves. At least one of those girls obviously has powers. That or they're Angels."
"We'd know if there were superhumans matching their description, wouldn't we, boss?"
"People can just wake up with new powers out of nowhere," Boss Jump Guy says. "I'll talk to them."
"You gonna 'recruit' them?"
"We'll see."
He beckons us over and jumps down from the roof, crossing his arms and waiting for us to approach. Seeing no reason not to, I do. Reaching my domain out to brush against his, I feel a familiar aura of the many standing together, the power of unity made manifest. Though it has a distinct… flavor, I suppose, compared to Maria's domain, it is unmistakably Legion, and that by itself relaxes me a little.
He, of course, doesn't seem to relax at all when our domains connect, all his muscles tensing up in preparation for violence. He's a pretty big man, with the sort of broad shoulders and thick arms that make you think of a lumberjack. His beard is thick but well-trimmed, and his posture is ramrod-straight. While his eyes are narrowed with displeasure and his entire body language indicates he does not want us here, I don't think he's going to attack. If nothing else, the man can clearly feel the difference in our strength. His heart hammers a mile a minute as we get closer, and when his gaze settles on Emily he looks resigned.
"…You freaks aren't even trying to hide anymore, are you?" he growls.
"Be polite, Matthew," Emily chides him. "These two are our guests."
If his hackles weren't quite raised before, they're on high alert now. How does Emily even know this guy's name? Some of her fellow Angels must have told her, but unless they have a way to communicate English names over the network it would have had to be in person, right? I can't imagine she had time to go talk to one… and I guess it's not impossible they've worked out some pheromone equivalent of the alphabet. They've had humans with them for years now.
"The hell do you mean they're your guests?" he demands, looking at Christine and me suspiciously. "Who the hell are they?"
I, currently, look completely human, and Christine always does, at least for now. It seemed like the better way to introduce myself after what happened last time. Emily, of course, makes any good first impression rather difficult, but that's alright. I'll manage.
"It's a very long story," I say. "Ideally, I'm your ticket out of here."
"This shit again?" Matthew groans. "Look, I don't know what game the Angels are playing this time, but I don't want any part of it."
"Are you saying we can't come in, Matty?" Emily says, pouting theatrically.
"…I'm not stupid. If you want to come in, then come in."
He steps aside and motions us past him, clearly wanting to walk behind us if he needs to walk anywhere with us at all. Seeing no reason not to oblige, I go ahead and step by… but when I do, his breath catches, his stress spikes, and he stares at me like I just walked over his grave.
"…What?" I ask.
"You… nothing, never mind," he says.
Oh. Wait, I think I know.
"I feel like the moon used to," I guess.
"…Yeah," he confirms. "Have I been feeling you moving around?"
"I guess you have," I sigh.
"She's god's favorite," Emily says, patting me on the head.
That's annoying. It kind of ruins the whole stealth aspect of my powers if everyone has a mental compass pointing directly at me. I wonder if I can use Silhouette's powers to… ah! Yeah, this should work. I just have to take my domain and… there. The man nearly jumps out of his shoes.
"Is that better?" I ask.
"Twisting Scars Reshape Fate?" Maria suddenly calls out for me. "What happened? Are you okay?"
Well, that answers that.
"I'm fine," I tell her, briefly reconnecting to the network and sending off a pulse of love. "I just figured out how to turn the locator thing off."
"Lamentations! I liked the Twisting Scars Reshape Fate detector!"
"I'll turn it back on in a bit," I promise.
"Okay, seriously, what the hell is going on?" he hisses. "Are you messing with my head?"
"No," I answer. "But honestly, I doubt you'd find the truth any more believable. How about you just show us around?"
"There's nothing to show," he grumbles. "Just do what you want."
"If you insist," I allow, passing through the gap between two houses to find a rather chaotic cul-de-sac in the middle. In the center of it all, there's a large fire pit, with a few ramshackle wooden structures like a long table with over thirty chairs scattered more or less around it, though several have been knocked over or, in at least one case, smashed. There are rather rowdy communal dinners, it seems.
More notable than the outdoor furniture, though, are the people. At least two dozen of them are in front of us, almost all of them male and all of them adults. A few are chatting in small groups, two of them are wrestling while a couple others cheer them on, and most of the rest are crowded around a young man curled up on the floor, who is currently getting the absolute shit kicked out of him.
"What did he do?" I ask, indicating the crowd.
"Fuck if I know," Matthew answers. "People are always mad at that moron. It'll sort itself out."
"No way he doesn't at least break a rib from all that," I point out, moving my domain over him. Yep, already cracked. "He might even die."
"One less mouth to feed," Matthew grunts. "If he's too weak to survive that and too stupid to not end up in that situation, I don't want him around anyway."
"Ha!" Emily laughs. "I always forget how many people like me there are in the world. Funny how people are always afraid of us being serial killers when they should just be looking towards their own bosses."
I can't see the humor in it, myself. I start to approach the group, but Christine beats me to it. In an instant, everyone is flying away from the man in the middle. Makes my path to him easy, at least.
"People like this are the majority of who you're going to be 'saving,' Julietta," Emily says. "Assuming you even win, which again, you won't. But seriously, is saving these assholes worth the risk?"
Kneeling down next to the injured man, I make him a not injured man with just a touch of willpower. Fixing wounds is second-nature to me at this point, I barely even need to think about it. He gasps as his bones knit back together and the cuts on his body seal back up, and he looks to me with wide eyes.
"Hey," I greet him. "I want to try to get everybody out of here, but if I fail, everybody dies. Does that sound like a good gamble to you?"
He stares at me in silence for a while, clearly needing a minute to process everything up to and including my words. But once his brain catches up to everything that just happened, he chokes out a laugh.
"Gamble?" he asks. "Lady, that sounds like a win-win."
I nod.
"Alright then," I say, standing up.
"Oh, come on, Julietta!" Emily groans. "Seriously? You're going to listen to the suicidal guy just because he agrees with you?"
"It's because this place is making someone suicidal that I'm listening," I snap at her. "Thank you for showing me this place. But whatever odds you thought it was going to optimize, I'm going to break."
"Julietta…" Emily groans. "Fine. Fine! I tried, okay? I tried! If you really want to kill every single person here, I won't stop you!"
"Great," I say. "Then I think I'll do just that."
Emily's eyes go wide as I spread my domain out over the entire camp, and a moment later, everyone dissolves. A couple people manage a cut-off scream moments before I absorb their flesh into nothing, and then there's only silence. Emily, Christine, and I are the only people left. More than that, they're the only living things left at all. The plants are gone, too. The grass, the insects, the fungus in the shadows… even the ground itself rumbles as I consume every last bit of biomass within the soil, forcing it all to resettle.
"Shock," the network thrums, the Queen herself feeling the sudden loss of life within her domain.
"That's… this is a trick," Emily insists. "You wouldn't do this!"
"Really?" I ask. "Tell me, Emily. Did they, or did they not die? What did you feel, in their final moments? You said yourself that they barely deserved to be saved."
"No," Emily says, her face hard. "No, I know you, Julietta. I don't care what my power says. You did not just kill those people. You're trying to smuggle them out, somehow. And that means you lose."
"Agreed," the Queen declares. "Let the Culling Begin. We Shall Not Let Our Guest Steal the Satisfaction of Murder."
Fine, then.
"Let's see if you're fast enough, A Web of Squirming Hopes," I say. "Everyone, this is officially war."
Blossom's sheer exuberance is the last thing I feel before I make Christine and myself disappear, too.