A/N: Woo. An AYEH chapter. Wowzers. Next Beachgoer image will also be AYEH, if you're part of that tier. Uh... yep. Enjoy.
"Hey guys, look who I found!" I call out, waving at my family as I approach.
"Hmm? Oh! Rafflesia, hey!" Anastasia waves back excitedly, blood filling her wings as she leaps over to us in one huge jump. "Are you joining the good guys!?"
"Ma'am," Maria nods to Raff. Heh, I guess she was our commanding officer for a while. "Hey, Julietta. Everything okay? We saw some flashes from Agnus Dei."
"Yeah, everything's fine," I say. "She's apparently the other Grand Queen candidate, so we'll probably have to duel to the death or something, but we kind of have a truce for now."
"You're so nonchalant," Emily huffs. "I don't get you. You trust me when I say it's safe to let the Queen rebuild Christine's body, but you don't trust me when I say there's a good chance we all die sometime in the next few days?"
"No, I trust you on both counts," I assure her. "It's just that I know you have far higher standards for safety than I do. That means when you tell me something is unsafe, I treat it as an expert advisement, but when you say something is safe, I pretty much take it as fact."
"…Trusting me that much is going to get you killed one of these days," Emily huffs.
"Seems unlikely, so while I appreciate you speaking your mind without querying your power, I also want to discourage negative thinking," I answer.
"No can do," Emily says with a shrug. "Self-depreciation is one of my best coping mechanisms for ASPD. I'd be way worse if I actually liked myself."
"I feel like there's got to be a better solution for that," I frown.
"Maybe, but I don't know what it is, and a coping mechanism that works is better than no coping mechanism at all," Emily answers.
"What… what is going on right now?" Rafflesia squeaks from behind me. "You… you're all…?"
"Your trainees, yep," I confirm. "Except for Emily over there; you don't know her. And Blossom, but she's currently taking a nap in my meatspace."
"Meat… space…?" Rafflesia whimpers.
"It's good to see you again!" Maria says cheerfully. "I know we probably look strange, but it's still us, promise!"
"She used to look way worse," Emily says, jerking a thumb at Maria.
"Yyyyes, I sort of got captured by the aliens in Atlanta," Maria confirms, tactfully ignoring Emily's abrasive wording. "They tried to turn me into an Angel but didn't know how, and it… did not go well!"
"They… tried to turn you into an Angel?" Rafflesia repeats.
This is definitely not the best way to be conveying all of this information, but everyone seems to be having a lot of fun teasing our former boss so I decide to roll with it.
"Yeah, speaking of, we figured out where demons come from," I chime in.
"Demons…" Rafflesia repeats again, her brain slowly chugging into functionality. "Do you mean Devils? The rampaging Angels that attack both sides?"
Huh? Devils?
"We call them Demons," I say.
"Well, the army calls them Devils," Rafflesia responds.
Wow, she's really caught on this. I guess I remembered it wrong? Whatever. 'Demon' just has a better mouthfeel. And besides, isn't there only supposed to be one particular devil? Whereas you can have a whole legion of demons. That's in the Bible, right? It's like, where the word comes from. Maybe. Anyway, it's clearly a more fitting moniker.
"Whatever you want to call them, they're humans who have been driven crazy because a Queen fucked up at turning them into an Angel," I say. "We've been fixing that so it won't happen again."
"You've been… fixing the alien ability to turn humans into Angels," Rafflesia repeats again. Not the most interactive conversation partner, is she? Well, I suppose this is a lot for her. It's good to reemphasize points when you aren't sure you understand something. It's a fair thing to be concerned about anyway.
"We're also educating alien colonies on why humans don't appreciate being kidnapped and shapeshifted against their will, but that's more of a work in progress," I say. "At the very least, if anybody does get kidnapped, the problem is reversible now."
"Oh, so you do know it's not okay to kidnap and shapeshift people against their will. That's good! But I now have other questions!" Rafflesia says, sounding slightly hysterical.
Huh. It's like she doesn't even trust us. And after I saved her life! How rude.
"Chill out, Raff, I get Julietta is creepy as fuck, but you're fine. Nothing's gonna happen to you," Peter chimes in. "Everybody else chose to look like a total weirdo with tentacle hair. It's not a requirement to join the club."
"It's a requirement to join the tentacle hair club!" Ana insists.
"Okay, yes, but joining that club isn't required to join this club," Peter corrects.
"What's 'this' club?" Maria challenges him.
"The 'hang out in Queen domains without anyone trying to kill you' club," Peter answers. "It's a convenient club to be in after being accused of treason."
Everyone really is in high spirits. Over the network we're all laughing at the facial expressions poor Rafflesia is making. It's a little mean, sure, but we had to live through all this transformation and horror. It's excellent stress relief to brag a little about how much we survived and see that, yes, everyone else thinks that fact is just as crazy as we do.
"I… think it's more likely that the government assumes I'm dead," Rafflesia admits. "Or that you kidnapped me. I'm… probably not being accused of treason."
Aw, the poor woman still sounds hysterical. I give her a pat on the head. She doesn't seem to know how to react to that.
"I'm sure that's true," I allow. "In the meantime, try to relax and make yourself comfortable. We should have a few days before the big fight, so take your time to decide if you want to stick around, retreat somewhere safe, or try and see if the humans still want you."
"If they still want me!?" she yelps, batting my hand away. Rude!
"She didn't mean it like that," Maria assures her. "We just want to make sure you're safe."
"Safe!?" Rafflesia blurts. "How can any of you feel safe? I've read your files! Isn't this colony the one that killed the families of nearly all of you!? How are you okay with this? With any of this!? These monsters have killed more people than any other group in the history of the planet, and you want to just… what, be friends with them?"
I glance at the others. Maria looks a bit awkward, having not survived the incursion with us. Emily shrugs. Ana… looks away. This is the issue, though. The one problem we have to make sure gets solved.
"Look, Rafflesia," I say. "The whole thing that makes the cycle of violence hard to break is that, at some point, everyone is an aggrieved party. It is the choice to forgive and work together in spite of others being in the wrong that resolves conflicts like this. Someone has to suck it up and be the bigger person. It's the only way for this to really end."
"We've been starting to push them back," Rafflesia says. "We've been starting to win, for the first time since the war began. We've refined our tactics. We've gotten huge amounts of supers. We have finally, finally figured out how to beat these monsters. We're regaining territory. This is the worst possible time to try and make peace."
"But how long will it take to win the war that way?" I ask. "Another ten years? Another thirty? We don't have that long. The world ends in three if we don't wrap this up. You've probably heard about that, right? Apparently, a lot of precogs are predicting it."
"It's less than three years now, actually," Emily says. "It was three years like, a few months ago."
"Sure. That," I say. "I don't really care if you hate the aliens and want them all to suffer. It is, frankly, an unfortunately reasonable position. But so many more people will die if we continue this war instead of end it. It's just not the right option."
Rafflesia doesn't look like she agrees, but she doesn't seem to have a good argument, either. It's a bit hard to argue with the end of the world, after all. And besides, if the ultimate reason you're fighting a war at any point becomes 'because they all deserve to die,' you're probably the one in the wrong. Originally, we were fighting this war for survival. That's self-evidently just. But when we have an alternative method of survival, when we have the possibility of cooperation, well… that justification doesn't work anymore. The war can end, and therefore it should.
"So you have… a solution to all that?" Rafflesia asks. "A solution to the moon falling?"
"Apparently, I am the solution to that," I answer. "But that's a long story, and we have to get there first."
One thing at a time. What else can we do? Having the fate of the world on my shoulders almost seems mundane these days. My whole life has been based around contorting myself for others. This is just… the logical extension of that, really. But it's fine. These days, I'm a lot more flexible.
"Can we play at the park again?" Ana asks.
"Sure," I agree. "Let's go."
Keeping Ana tired and distracted is probably for the best, since I worry that 'happy' might be too much to ask for until we leave this place for good. But the moments of joy we can give her are precious, no matter how much they rely on her being excited enough to forget, so I have no issues shrinking down and getting cast in countless roles in her imaginative adventures on the playground.
The whole group joins us, even Rafflesia, though she mostly just sits on the sidelines and stews in her own stress, watching us like she can't believe we exist. I suppose I can't blame her. At a certain point during our playtime, Blossom wakes up, so I vomit her out on the sand. The Angel yawns and stretches, shooting an amused smirk at Rafflesia when she's caught staring.
"Oh, it you," Blossom greets her. "What wrong? Never see naked lady before?"
"We've got some clothes for you over there," I say, pointing at a nearby bench.
"Will consider it," Blossom allows, though thankfully she does at least start heading in that direction.
Rafflesia puts her head in her hands and lets out a distressed groan. I… guess I should try a little harder to help her adjust. I walk over, still in my kid body. Maybe it'll make her more at ease. Maybe it'll creep her out, too, but that wouldn't be any different than normal so whatever.
"Hey," I say. "Really, it's gonna be okay."
"Eight, six, nine, one, nine, nine, one," Rafflesia says, her voice hollow.
"Huh?" I ask. Is she speaking in code?
"It's your official fucking STRATAS ranks," Rafflesia explains. "Strike eight, Transit six, Recon nine, Artillery one, Tactical nine, Armor nine, and Sapper one. And I think they're lowballing you. I'm like, Armor two, Sapper four."
"You're wondering if you belong in this conflict in the first place," I guess.
"I don't know," Rafflesia says. "I guess I'm wondering if I matter in this conflict. You and Agnus Dei are basically gods."
"What are her numbers?" I ask out of curiosity.
"Nine, Nine, three, ten, two, six, one," Rafflesia answers.
Ugh. Of course they give her a ten. Not that I care or anything.
"They might be lowballing her too, depending on what her powers actually are," I hum.
"Huh? Her powers are to fly faster than a fighter jet and shoot lasers that turn earth into glass."
"I have my suspicions that it's more than that," I say. "But yes, she's fairly straightforward and effective. It makes it ironically pretty difficult to think up a counter to her."
"I assure you, being unfathomably complicated is also an impressive strength," Rafflesia says flatly. "I can't count how many times I got asked for tactical analysis on you. They asked me if I thought they could kill you with acid. Like seriously? Acid? You've probably killed a billion Wasps."
"Yeah, I told them I was weak to acid," I say. "I figured telling them I had a weakness would help them calm down. I said I was weak to fire, too."
"Well sorry, Seraphim, but I'm afraid exactly nobody calmed down."
"I very much prefer Julietta, if that's okay," I request politely. "And no, I imagine not. Especially not once I defected. Apologies for whatever hassle that likely caused you, but it was a necessary step to save Maria's life."
Rafflesia looks over to where Maria and Ana are currently playing, watching as they giggle and run through the park.
"…You are all alive, still," she says, as if that's some major revelation. "You're still… you. I heard you flew into an incursion scar. Into one. Like, to the other side. We haven't even been able to send drones through. They just get pushed away."
"It's incredible in there," I admit. "Like an entire galaxy's worth of beauty condensed into something probably smaller than our solar system. It's shrinking, though. Dying. Bit by bit. All the matter in their universe is moving to ours. It's why they need to come with it."
"Not just invading for the hell of it, then?" Rafflesia sighs.
"They are not," I confirm. "They can't go back. But the deaths they've caused are still on them. The vast majority of them were just… utterly pointless and unnecessary. I don't plan to just let them keep doing as they please on that front. We will have a ceasefire on all fronts, one way or another."
"It's scary that you can just say that," Rafflesia says. "Rulers of nations sometimes say things like that, and we don't believe a word of it. It's all posturing. But you? You weren't voted into power. You're just powerful, by random fucking chance, and you might actually not be bluffing about this. Our whole society is fucked, isn't it?"
"It's not, because I intend to preserve it," I say. "But I don't blame you for being scared. You're not entirely wrong. My powers aren't fair. I don't have them because I somehow deserve them more than anyone else. But I do have them, and I have a responsibility to do the right thing with them."
"Yeah," Rafflesia says. "I just hope your idea of 'the right thing' actually ends up working out well for people. It's not reassuring that you regularly hang out with Angels."
"And what wrong with that?" Blossom challenges, walking up to us. "Maybe complain to Angel face?"
"Huh?" Rafflesia blinks. "Oh. Oh. You're…"
"An Angel," Blossom confirms. "My name A Blossom of Wilted Chances. Am from The Divinity of Wonder's Council of Possibility. We live in ocean. Never killed humans before. Except one time, but you started."
"…The aliens in the ocean smash and destroy our ships," Rafflesia says.
"My colony too deep to care about ship," Blossom says, wrinkling nose in offense. "You stupid. There sooooo many of us. Only few kill humans."
"…Talking with all the different colonies and coming to a full consensus will take quite some time, but as long as we don't run out of space in the ocean, a long-term peace should be totally possible," I add.
"Why do you look human?" Rafflesia asks. "Did Julietta do this to you?"
"Huh? No. Queen did," Blossom explains. "Julietta helped teach how, though. Used to look like… what you call it?"
She glances over at me.
"A big jellyfish," I answer.
"Big jellyfish," Blossom repeats. "Also beautiful and sharp and full of stab."
"…Yep, that's you," I sigh.
Blossom nods, grinning.
"That me!"
"She's weird, but she's a good person," I insist. "They're… all like that, honestly. Weird, but mostly good people."
"Mostly?" Rafflesia challenges.
"Well, they're still people," I say. "They have free will, and that means some of them decide to be assholes."
"…Fair enough," Rafflesia concedes.
"Julietta! Stop talking grown-up stuff!" Ana shouts at me from across the park. "It's playtime!"
"Okay, coming!" I call back. "Anyway, let us know what you want to do, Rafflesia."
"I think I'll just stay out of it," she says. "I'm not going to fight humanity, but… I don't really want to fight you, either."
"You should probably head to the west side of the city, then," I say. "We'll find you a place in a bit. For now, though, I've gotta go."
"Julietta," Blossom suddenly stops me. I turn her way. "Tonight, yes?"
"Failure, if I can," I answer. "But I can't consider that the only valid option, for obvious reasons."
"Okay," Blossom nods. "I pray for you."
"Thanks, Blossom," I smile.
From there, the rest of the day is for Ana. We play, and when she's finally tired out, we cuddle together and read books we find in someone else's house. We could probably visit her house, find her childhood books still untouched after the tragedy, with only the corpses of her parents mysteriously gone but for a stain on the floor. The Raptors would have found and eaten all that meat clean long ago. But… I don't suggest it. Someday, we will pay our respects and appreciate old memories. Today, it seems, is not that day. And that's fine.
When it's finally time for bed, though, I suspect I would have a hard time sleeping if not for my ability to force it on myself. I'm practically vibrating with stress, not sure if my plans and attempts will ultimately work in the end. I do, after all, have to try and convince the god of Failure to let me win. And I'm not sure if it'll go for that, no matter how well I spin it.
Still, when I close my eyes, I end up opening them within a familiar, formless void, Possibility's guiding hand pushing me to where I need to go to make my case. My plan for the meeting is fairly simple; meeting Failure today may be my preference, but if I'm being honest, it's probably optimal to try and speak with one of the gods I suspect is currently backing Agnus Dei. Not Blasphemy, of course; even though a Queen of Blasphemy has publicly declared me 'forever loved' by her god, I doubt that's enough for Blasphemy to go against their own blessed in my favor. Like obviously, they must like Agnus Dei at least as much. So instead, it's probably best for me to meet with Contradiction.
…But if I want to meet Contradiction, that's going to make meeting with them intrinsically harder and meeting with Failure intrinsically easier. It seems like a good gambit. Or, I guess two good gambits? No, wait, it's four good gambits. Eight? Wow, I can't count, it's sixteen, it's… oh.
"Isn't that technically multiplication?" I ask as the world splits in two.
Planetoids float around me, each of them burning fractal infinities into my eyes. The more I stare at them, the more I realize they're just a cluster of smaller spheres, each of which are themselves only a cluster of smaller spheres, and so on until I give myself a headache for looking at sizes smaller than I can actually conceive.
"Multiplication is Division."
I… guess it kind of is, if you look at it that way. If you take a rectangular cake, cut it in half, and box each half up separately will anyone who sees you with two boxes think you have one cake, or two? The total amount of cake has not been multiplied, but the total number of cakes has. Hmm. I wonder why so many people use cake as an example when discussing fractions. …Wait, no, focus.
The important clarification Division is making here is this: it does not care how small the cakes are. Er, metaphorically. Any multiplication that isn't performed via the severing of something else is irrelevant. Of all the gods, this one might be the hardest for me to grasp. Maybe that means it's best I start by asking a question I've been wondering for some time.
"Why do you love Christine?" I ask. "What makes her represent you, in your eyes?"
"Categorization is Division."
Categorization…? What does it mean by… oh! Oh! It… it's both definitions! Division as a noun refers to the concept of dividing things, certainly, be that physically or mathematically, but it can also be used to denote 'a division' of something. As in, a group of things. Certain segments of the military are called 'divisions.' Certain segments of government are 'divisions.' It's not just physical division that the god appreciates, it's mental and conceptual division, too!
Methods of organization are acts of worship! Holy shit, this must be one of the gods most excited about humanity in general. If you stretch it enough, you might even be able to define pattern-seeking behavior as a form of division. Which could arguably mean—
"Learning is Division."
Yeah. Yeah! Maybe not all forms of learning, but… oh, wow. This is incredible.
"Julietta?"
Huh!? I freeze in shock, twisting toward the unexpected sound of a human voice in the middle of my dream-communion with a god. Beside me, looking just as surprised to see me as I am to see her, is Christine. Or… a fuzzy, shifting version of her, anyway.
The Christine here in the dream world seems to blur at the edges, her outline jittering and shifting between different… versions of her, I suppose. There's the body I had given her, which flickers back to the one she had beforehand, which flickers into a disorderly, liquid mess, and finally into a barely-perceptible outline of a person, more concept than form. They shuffle between each other naked and confused, none seeming fully real.
I wonder what I look like to her? Can she see my original body, if she squints hard enough? Or do I, in this dream, change shape even more than I do when awake?
"Hey," I greet her. "Sleeping well?"
"I think my brain is still getting reconstructed," she answers. "So… I have no idea. I guess I might be?"
"You probably have most of a brain by now," I tell her. "If you're having this dream, the reconstruction is likely going well."
"Are you… real?" she asks me.
"Yeah," I confirm.
"Huh. Weird. Anyway, hi god."
"Hello Christine."
"I guess it's finally happening!" Christine says awkwardly, hugging her knees up to her chest and angling her body away from me.
"It is."
"I've had more time than anyone else to plan my reverent form," she says. "I hope it's as fun to live in as I expect it to be."
"You will embody Division."
"Uh, yep," Christine confirms awkwardly. "Glad you approve."
"Is there a reason you brought us both here at once?" I ask the god.
Its power pours over us, surrounding us in a singular bubble. Ethereal images of our friends and traveling companions phase into view around us: Blossom, Peter, Emily, Maria, Anastasia. They're not really here, not like Christine and me, but they're in the bubble of power with us.
"A Division."
The bubble pops, walls rising between each of us in its place.
"A Division Divided."
The walls vanish, leaving just Christine and I alone.
"A Division of a Divided Division."
I wrack my brain to try and interpret that, but Christine beats me to it.
"You want us to work together more closely?" she ventures.
"Just so."
"Is that… your condition for making me your candidate?" I ask. "You don't want me to leave her behind?"
"Not so."
"You want to consider us the same," Christine interprets. "You'll support Julietta on the condition that she and I are a singular unit."
Huh? What's the difference, practically speaking? I mean, I'm fine with it either way, but I feel like I must be missing something. Christine is my best friend. It's a position that, admittedly, she doesn't have a lot of competition for given that everyone else in the group is a family member, romantic partner, or member of my council, but it's certainly not a position she doesn't live up to. She's grown so, so much over the course of our journey, and I one hundred percent trust her to be part of 'my division' or whatever.
"Bless the Division," the god rumbles, its words like knives. "Empower the Division."
"…Oh my god," Christine sighs. "I get it. Really, Division? You're lucky you're cute, or else the constant lovebombing would feel like stalker behavior."
"What?" I ask. "What is it saying?"
"I think it's saying that it will support you as Grand Queen, but it doesn't want to give you the fraction of its power normally owed to you for that," Christine explains. "It wants to give that power to me."
Wow, really? I still don't quite understand why Division likes Christine this much. Before I started getting blessings from multiple gods, she had the strongest domain out of anyone I've ever met that isn't a full-on Queen. Now Division wants to make her even stronger? It's kind of crazy, but… well, there's really only one response here.
"Sure," I agree. "Go for it."
"Really?" Christine asks. "Just like that?"
"Yeah. What do I care?" I ask. "I'm not becoming the Grand Queen to become powerful, I'm just doing it to save the world. You're helping me, so any power you have is just as helpful as more power for me. Basically, your god is right. We're part of the same division. I see no downside here."
"Huh," Christine says. "Well… okay. That's that, then."
"Y A Y."
And then, she vanishes. So does the presence of Division. The two of them have probably gone off for a private chat, or perhaps just a private admiration period. This is a good outcome, objectively speaking. I'm a little peeved I didn't get to talk to either of the gods I was actually looking for, but I suppose I knew that was a likely outcome from the start. Annoying, but I suppose I can try again another night.
…Then again, it seems that for some reason, I'm not waking up. Instead, I find myself surrounded by crumbling planetoids, creations that seem to have been genuinely attempted yet are still utterly worthless.
Hello, Failure. Satisfied with my attempts after all, then? Good. I have a few stern words for you.
I wonder if this thing finally showed up because of my original gambit with Contradiction. Maybe because I believed the gambit failed for a while there? That's the beauty of it, I suppose; it draws in Failure either way.
The response I get does not come in the form of language. It is pure feeling. A loathing, raw and primal. But what, exactly, does the feeling loathe? I'm used to using twisted logic to get what I want; it's more or less how I've befriended all the gods I've spoken to, and even most of the aliens. The trick comes from believing it. From knowing that, even though I'm aware I did want to be here, I can change my own priorities to something else entirely. Failure probably isn't a fan of the trick, but honestly?
"That's what you get for being the god of a subjective concept, I'm afraid," I say aloud. "Failure is intrinsically self-determined. Having your nature manipulated by other people's perception is what you signed up for."
The world rumbles with disgust, but again… is that bad? Does that actually mean I'm displeasing them? It's tough to tell. The painful, self-loathing feeling you get when you make a grave mistake… that's just what the god represents, in the end. That's what it is.
But I doubt it's truly this easy. No, the best way to deal with Failure, almost without a doubt, is to establish a shitty compromise. A situation where no one is happy. If I lose as much as Failure does, it will agree with me. But I'm trying to avoid that, if at all possible.
I don't want to lose to failure.
"You are kind of a paradoxical piece of shit," I tell it. "You bless those that bring failure to themselves, those that bring failure to others, and even those who consider themselves a failure regardless of what they do. It's never anything worthwhile. You empower the evil people to hurt others, and you empower the good people to hurt themselves. You're more of a god of suffering than a god of failure."
Okay, it's definitely mad at me now. Roasting a god might not be the smartest thing I've ever done, but it's certainly one of the most satisfying. If I pull this off… well, I don't know if it's a good idea, but ultimately it's the only one of my ideas that I'll accept.
"I'm not going to lose to you," I tell it. "You're not going to accept me because I'm a loser. You're going to accept me because I will make you lose. That's an acceptable form of worship, right? I've done it once already. I've ruined your plans for me. Reject me all you want, but that will just make your failure all the sweeter."
Again, I've upset it. It's not particularly against helping me in concept, given my close association with its blessed… but it can't just give it to me for free. Especially not after rejecting its offers so many times. But this time, I've come with an offer of my own.
"I don't need you," I say. "And I'll prove it. Back my enemies, and if I make you lose again, then you give up and join me. Go help Agnus Dei. You hurt my sister, so I want to be able to kick your ass myself."
The world hisses and writhes. My challenge has been accepted. The human army will have Failure's blessing, and it will not be the sort of double-edged kind that Failure so often gives. If I truly think I can overcome the wrath of a god, then Failure looks forward to forcing me to experience its namesake, as brutally and finally as possible.
I wake up wondering if I've made a mistake. It's certainly possible that I have. I'm banking on Failure only being able to put so much weight on the scale, something that I'm fairly confident on—gods really only seem to interfere so much, and the extra Grand Queen blessings I've gotten from them have been handy, but not overwhelmingly powerful or anything. Hell, Division isn't even doing anything for me, it's just giving yet more domain strength to Christine. She's gonna be a princess as strong as a Queen. Which will be funny, and certainly useful, but probably not that crazy.
Still. This is a pretty important battle coming up. I hope everything works out as planned.
"I have one set of good news for that, at least," Peter chimes in unexpectedly. "They made it. My council is here. Ana's too. And more Blessed should be on the way."
…And there it is. Good. The military, after all, has its entire structure based around converging overwhelming force onto a council, ganging up several supers against single Angels and crushing them with numbers. But if that number advantage is gone? If I show them how powerful a united force of aliens can truly be?
I'm sure surrender will be just around the corner.