"Still no sign of them?" Blossom asks.

"None," I confirm.

"We are running out of time," she reminds me.

"This was always a possibility," I assure her. "The people we're looking for might not even be in this base at all. They could have been transferred or recalled. They could be with the Queen of Legion or the Queen of Reciprocation. But we should do our best to confirm before we retreat. We've almost scoped the whole base. Just a bit longer, then we go."

"Agreement."

It is at that point, of course, that our stolen radios crackle to life and deliver a very unfortunate message.

"All powered troops, report for emergency deployment."

"Well, shit," I swear.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Blossom cheers happily.

"Blossom, please," I groan, already regretting teaching her another swear. How did they find us out so quickly? It must have been Rafflesia, I can't think of anything else we've done that would point to specifically powered involvement. I knew they'd act as soon as they found the guards we knocked out, but I didn't expect them to immediately try to gather all the supers in one place. It's probably time to bail.

"Why?" Blossom asks, tilting her head. "If here, then there."

Well… that's true. If they are gathering every super in one spot that's where Anastasia will be, along with everyone else. It's risky, but if we can stay undercover just long enough to meet up with them, all of us combined should be able to make it out alive.

"Risk acceptable. This unit votes in favor," Blossom says.

"Affirmative," I agree. "Let's go, then."

It's not hard to figure out where we're going; we just have to find another super and follow them. The staging area isn't anything more complicated than an open field at the edge of the base, so it's not difficult to find somewhere to blend in. I just scan the crowd for the newest-looking group of soldiers that seems to have the least idea of what's going on and cluster up with them. An entire group of people who don't know what's going on isn't particularly suspicious, it's just regular everyday incompetence. The military is plenty used to dealing with idiots, so it shouldn't raise any red flags.

Unfortunately, my friends are nowhere to be seen. It's possible we arrived here before them, but it's seeming more and more likely that they just aren't here. I guess finding them is going to be a bigger problem than I was hoping. I guess I'll have to kidnap and interrogate someone who works in the personnel department.

"Form up with your squads, dipshits!" an unfortunately familiar voice shouts. "Double-time it! We have runners!"

Agnus Dei herself touches down at the front of the field, barking orders at the gathered superheroes. I suspected she might be here, but it's still pretty bad. What she's saying, however, is even worse. I have a sinking suspicion I know exactly who the runners happen to be.

"The idiots are heading directly towards the Queen," Agnus Dei continues, and yep, called it, "so we don't have a lot of time on this one. I need fast-moving volunteers to catch up with them before they get themselves killed."

"Faster than you!?" someone asks her.

"We're not trying to kill them, we're trying to stop them from getting killed!" Agnus Dei snaps back. "I can't carry them all back by myself. Not to mention, we still need to find the morons. Anyone with a mobility power, step forward. We're on search-and-rescue."

Blossom elbows me in the side, wiggling her eyebrows when I turn to look at her.

"Are you serious?" I ask.

She nods repeatedly. Oh boy. This is a terrible plan. It's true that helping means we'll get informed the moment someone else finds them, which should allow us to converge on that location and get off a surprise attack, but every second we spend here is another risk that we need to fight an entire military camp's worth of superheroes. Blossom and I are strong, but I'm not sure we're that strong.

"I believe in your ability to win the upcoming social engagement," Blossom assures me. "It is what you do, isn't it? Encouragement: show me how victory is achieved, Teacher of False Words!"

Oh my god, fine. I direct Blossom to walk in step with me and advance forward, bringing us both to the volunteer area. Agnus Dei barely glances at us at first, though when Blossom's face registers she does a double-take, focusing intently on both of us.

"Who the hell are you two?" she demands.

"Blossom!" Blossom declares, her voice, at least, not sounding very much like Lia's.

"Ma'am!" I respond, injecting some nervousness into my tone. "Forgive her, ma'am, she doesn't speak English well. We're both teleporters. Self-only, but we've been trained to work together. I'm also her translator."

"Right," Agnus Dei scowls, turning back to Blossom. "Anyone ever tell you you look like Seraphim?"

"Ser-uh-fim," Blossom hums. I turn towards her, saying a bunch of vaguely foreign-sounding gibberish while giving Blossom silent instructions.

"Oh!" Blossom brightens up. "Yes! They tell me. Today."

"Show me your powers," Agnus Dei orders, which is honestly a pretty good way to figure out if the person in front of you is a shapeshifter, I'll admit. I say a few more nonsense words to Blossom, and she nods, teleporting back and forth a few times.

"Hmm," Agnus Dei considers, turning to me. "You too. Show me what you can do."

I nod, and with Blossom and I keeping our domains fully synchronous, it's easy for her to teleport me around as well. It's very disorienting, but she does a great job of adding a few additional effects whenever she moves me, sending me farther distances, at less frequent intervals, and causing a mild burst of force that shakes up the ground wherever I land.

"The jubilation of falsehoods consumes me!" she cheers happily.

"The two of you have pretty similar powers," Agnus Dei comments, poking at our domains with her own. She never extends hers very far away from her body, though.

"Uh, yes ma'am, I think that's why we were assigned to work together," I nod.

"I see," Agnus Dei says flatly. "Well, the two of you will do. You'll be taking the area westward out from point delta."

"Yes ma'am!" I say, saluting again. I then quickly direct the delighted Blossom away before she can give into any of her urges to cause trouble.

"Do we know where that is?" Blossom asks.

"No, but we're going to act like we do," I answer. "That's the strongest blessed the humans have in this part of the world."

"Yes, I can tell," Blossom answers, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "What a foul domain. I have never felt one so beloved by Blasphemy."

"Well, she's lying to basically my entire species about all kinds of things," I say, sending over the memory of her killing an entire field of soldiers in front of me. "That probably gives Blasphemy an entirely new toy to enjoy."

"Indignance! Are you trying to ruin the joys of falsehood for me? Shame upon you, Thief of My Fun."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," I say. "Lying is just as much a new possibility as it is a new blasphemy."

She hums, mollified for now.

"We should kill her now," Blossom concludes.

"What?" I ask.

"Your memories of her abilities are problematic," she explains. "Mainly her capacity for high-speed flight and long-range combat. There is nothing I can do if she simply attacks from outside the maximum radius of my domain. Therefore, since conflict is inevitable, we must take initiative. We cannot let her fight us on her terms."

"We came here to save people, not assassinate someone," I remind her.

"If we do not do the latter, it may preclude the former," Blossom argues. "I am more confident in our ability to take every other blessed here at once than I am in our ability to face her when she is properly prepared. Reminder: she ruined your bid for peace and slaughtered your kin in front of you for seemingly no productive reason. She will not be missed."

"Unfortunately, that's entirely untrue," I say. "Reminder: she can communicate in falsehoods, and she can do it well. The circumstances of her death and our justifications of it will be unknown. She is beloved, and we are reviled, because she controls what my kind perceives as truth. If we kill her, we are not heroes, we are public enemy number one. They will stop at nothing to destroy us."

"Can we not simply explain the truth?"

"No, Blossom. They would assume we are lying. Humans have no good way to determine truth, remember? So they judge credibility based on arbitrary social factors and circumstances, circumstances which would not favor us."

"…Acknowledgement. It is frustrating how that reminder was necessary," Blossom says. "It is so easy to forget how complicated your people are, even in the midst of my excitement over that very topic."

"We're kind of a mess, yeah," I agree.

"Reiteration: we should kill the Princess of Blasphemy."

"Confusion? She is a princess?" I blink. "How can you tell?"

"Reciprocal confusion. You were the one to refer to her as such. Consideration. Understanding. You were attempting to communicate a native concept with non-native terminology. I admit, I do not understand your biological roles that are not biological roles, nor your societal roles that are not societal roles."

Yeah, well, explaining gender to most humans is a lost cause, so I'm not even going to try explaining it to aliens. I suppose it's possible that Agnus Dei is a princess of Blasphemy, but I don't actually know one way or another. It's just that in English the pronouns we use for queens and princesses and the pronouns we use for women are the same, so I tend to conflate the two over the network.

"A cultural incompatibility," Blossom notes. "I will do my best to keep in mind what you intend; please make sure you are broadcasting properly to avoid further confusion."

Right, right, yeah. I'll do that. Sometimes I slip back into my old privacy habits, but I just need a quick reminder to return to the network, as small as it might be here. It's odd having everything just be Blossom and me, alone in a vast gulf of silence. At the same time, though, it's a lot less stressful to only be sharing myself with one person that I (against my better judgement) genuinely trust rather than an entire colony.

"Indignance! I AM your better judgement, Twisting Scars Reshape Fate!"

Not here in human territory, you aren't. You still want to try to assassinate Agnus Dei, don't you?

"Would save us much future trouble!" Blossom insists. "Why is your insouciance towards slaying my kind not matched with that of your own?"

Well, I was sort of taught from birth that aliens were evil monsters, so that makes it a bit easier.

"But you know this to be false," Blossom points out.

"Your kind barely even care when members of their own colony get killed," I say. "It's different for humans."

It might be a little different for our colony compared to, say, a council of Blasphemy, but everyone's still a little blasé about war and death. Killing a human, though… that's a very big deal. Even if we assume we can take out Agnus Dei if we catch her off-guard, and even if we assume we can survive the immediate retaliation, the entire country will hate us for it. Ultimately, I'd like to have peace, and this… wouldn't get that.

"The Blasphemy Princess is actively standing in the way of peace, though," Blossom says.

Yeah. We might have to kill her, but we should try to do it in a way that doesn't make us look like the bad guys, if possible. Otherwise, we just find a way to bypass her entirely. She can't stop me from making a peace treaty if she's not even there when I do it. And if she tries, well, maybe that'll give us a chance to kill her and look like a hero for it.

"This is very complicated," Blossom complains. "Murder is very simple. I still vote for murder."

If we see an opportunity to get away with it, then… maybe. But for now, we need to find Anastasia, Maria, and the others. None of this matters if they aren't safe.

Blossom shudders, a small smile forming on her face. I suppose my particular desperation to ensure the safety of my family is somewhat alien to her, isn't it? She can understand it just fine, she can sympathize with the feeling, but it is not in the nature of her kind to cling to life, for themselves or others. Part of why she's so eager to take out Agnus Dei is because she's fully prepared to sacrifice herself to get that win if needed.

"And yet, knowing the desperation with which you need their safety is strangely pleasant," Blossom hums. "From someone so painfully cynical, it is a bright flower of naivete. That your soul sings with a need for others not even of your own colony, not even ones you can share yourself with in truth, is a beautiful thing. I am fairly certain that I am jealous."

I… alright, I guess. I'm not sure how to respond to that, so… let's just get going, already. Someone thankfully barks orders at us to get us where we need to go without asking any questions, and pretty soon we're heading towards Atlanta. I told the others to beeline it towards Omnipresence as Worship if things were getting bad, so it's easy to know where they're going. The hard part is going to be getting to them before any of the other search teams do. Blossom might be a teleporter, but she can't teleport in any single direction faster than she could have run there, at least long-term. We aren't actually as suited to this job as we made ourselves out to be.

"You could go ahead?" Blossom offers, but I immediately dismiss the idea. Having to turn around and go back after meeting up with everyone wouldn't be a good solution. We'll probably have to let someone else call out their location and converge on them. What we actually do, once we're far enough from base that no one is watching us, is that I pick up Blossom, modify my legs for overland sprinting, and book it as fast as I can, making sure to keep eyes on the sky in case Agnus Dei flies too close. That would be bad.

"Reiteration: we should just kill her," Blossom says. "This is optimal tactics. Her abilities make her unassailable only via her distance advantage."

We don't know for sure what her abilities are! We know she can fly at supersonic speeds and shoot death lasers that pretty much vaporize anything they touch, but there's no reason to assume she doesn't also have super durability or super strength.

"Confusion? There's no reason to assume she does?"

Yes there is! She can fly at supersonic speeds. Her body has to be able to withstand those forces. She can shoot death lasers out of her hands! Her hands have to be resistant to vaporization.

"This is entirely untrue!? Why would you make these statements?"

It's just physics. Newton's laws. The forces she uses to fly are also the forces her body gets placed under. If her lasers vaporize things they touch then they're transferring that heat to the surrounding air, and therefore she has to resist that heat. She's basically Superwoman. I'd give it even odds that if you try to stab her it just won't work.

"These cultural connotations are difficult to parse but it sounds like you're just stupid. A god does not bow to your laws."

I'm pretty sure it would be more difficult for her power to grant her some kind of weirdly specific immunity to its own consequences than a generalized resistance to all things.

Blossom sags in my arms, annoyed and unconvinced.

"Intentional subject change: the thin growths blooming from the top of my body keep getting in my mouth."

She spits out some of her own hair for emphasis, the wind from how fast we're going whipping it every which way. I guess I'll teach her how to braid it later. Heh. I guess Anastasia could help? God, I hope everyone gets along. I'm a little worried no one will be okay with having an alien for a friend, but I guess they are fleeing to Omnipresence as Worship, so they have to trust me to some extent still.

"We have contact with the targets," the radio suddenly crackles to life, the person speaking quickly listing his coordinates. I'm not really familiar with this operation space, but I know more or less the right way to go. The person speaking sounds like the guys who were positioned just north of us when we started our sweep.

I change our trajectory a bit, dodging past a few buildings as we move. I hope we get there in time, but I'm already going as fast as I can, so no picking up the pace for me. We haven't hit Omnipresence as Worship's domain radius yet; I suspect she's making good on her offer to keep it mostly retracted despite the fact that our deal with the humans completely failed. She's just straightforward like that, by my reading.

"Those of Legion are boring, but personable," Blossom agrees. "Bad for us, though."

Yeah. We won't be getting any help from the Legion colony. We can't even hear their network yet. Though on the subject of hearing, I should be optimizing that, shouldn't I? I reconfigure my head and ears to be as sensitive as possible, swiveling the large bat-like protrusions I've grown to try and pinpoint exactly where we need to go. Let's see… where's…

"Leave us alone!" Anastasia shrieks, and I feel the adrenaline flood into my bloodstream in an instant. There. There she is!

"Go!" Blossom shouts. "You're faster without me! I can catch up to you from here!"

I send her my thanks and appreciation, throwing her forward so she can teleport herself into a sprint and shifting my body into my fastest-moving flying form, a small, slightly-adjusted bird of prey. My stolen clothes and radio fall to the ground behind me as I take to the sky, streaking towards the scream faster than ever before.

But of course, there's someone far, far faster. Agnus Dei flashes past me, the air rumbling behind her, and a beam of searing white light erupts from her hand, scouring a line in the earth beneath her. No, no, no! Please please please please…

Oh, thank goodness. I see them. After so long, I see them again. Anastasia, Christine, and Peter have stopped in their tracks, the bubbling line of annihilation in front of them a clear warning to go no further. I guess they didn't manage to convince Ed to join them. That's unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected. Ed's old enough to have seen the start of the war. If he ever had any kids, they've almost definitely died in it.

I'm so caught up in the relief of seeing my friends alive that I almost don't have the presence of mind to watch Agnus Dei herself, though thankfully she doesn't seem to have noticed me. I'm not the only bird around, after all… but I'm definitely the only one flying towards the death laser fallout zone, so there's no guarantee I'll stay under the radar. There are also two Air Force supers on the ground in front of my friends, presumably the pair who found them in the first place. I have no idea who they are or what their powers could possibly do, so that's two dangerous wild cards to worry about as well.

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At least their guns are already in pieces, probably courtesy of Christine's power. Anastasia has a concerning collection of wounds, almost all of which are probably self-inflicted, and her collected mass of blood is reared up behind her like a cobra preparing to strike. She and Christine are standing closely together, tense for a fight, while Peter just has his hands nonchalantly in his pockets, staring up at Agnus Dei with a lazy smile.

"You got here pretty quick," he says. "Didn't think the three of us warranted personal attention from the white streak herself."

"Desertion is one of the only crimes still punishable by death, you know," she calls back down. "It won't come to that if you cut this idiocy out and obey, but you kids are in deep shit no matter what."

"Deep shit, huh?" Peter hums. "Funny you should mention that."

He removes his hands from his pockets, holding them out to the girls. Each of them takes one of his hands, and before Agnus can so much as open her mouth to threaten them again, the three of them drop, free-falling through the ground and leaving person-shaped holes behind.

It seems to startle her as much as it startles me, but… yeah, he can do that, huh? His power lets him not be affected by impediments, and the ground absolutely qualifies. That's why he normally has to leave his feet vulnerable, a weakness I attempted to exploit way back when we had our little tournament duel. But if he wants to, he can fall straight through the ground. The issue, of course, is how is he going to stop?

Normally, this wouldn't be a good idea at all, because in order to stop falling he has to stop using his power, and that means landing from freefall on entirely vulnerable legs. I realize the solution the moment I think of the problem, though: he has Anastasia with him. With all that blood, she can catch everyone and slow them down before Peter ends his power, so long as Peter makes her blood part of his power. Which… is actually a terrifying synergy, come to think of it. They could bore through the ground at a full sprint. Maybe more, with Christine there. I have no idea exactly what her power would do cramped underground, but I bet it's crazy.

Speaking of crazy, Agnus Dei growls with frustration and blasts the spot a nine-year-old and two teenagers were just recently standing with a vaporization beam, which causes my heart to skip a beat. Fortunately, while her laser can absolutely melt through the ground, it doesn't do it anywhere near as fast as a free fall. Peter and the girls are long gone. Then, of course, Agnus Dei flies above the hole and fires straight down, which is even more terrifying, but judging by her frustrated shout she didn't manage to score a kill.

The other two soldiers have frozen in place, apparently not wanting any more of this bloodthirsty insanity than I do, but unfortunately I still need to do… something. But what? If I'm assuming she's pierce-proof, what would I do if I somehow managed to get in range? Jump down her throat and clog up her lungs, maybe? That would be dangerous, though; her domain is very dense, so there's no way I could form flesh inside her. I'd have to either get creative or scrunch myself down small enough that my domain can actually break through, but then I'm left with no way out.

No time to think about it. Agnus just flew down the hole. I have no choice but to rush after her, diving down to follow her. Holy shit, how deep did Peter take them? This must be at least several hundred feet underground, and it's cramped. This could give almost anyone claustrophobia. The thin needle of a pit abruptly stops at the end, turning ninety degrees into a tunnel shaped like the outlines of my three friends for a few feet before turning into a more even circular bore, presumably when Anastasia managed to get her blood out in front.

The three of them have taken a pretty twisty path to prevent Agnus Dei from getting a clear shot, but they can't have gotten far. She's probably already on their asses, so I speed through the tunnel, shifting back into the form I was using to infiltrate—complete with fake versions of the clothes I left behind—as soon as I see her trademark glow, skidding into view of her and my friends facing off.

"End of the line, kids. It's time you—no!"

Christine cuts her off in the most spectacular way possible, ripping the earth around us apart and turning the cramped cavern into a massive sphere of open space. Agnus' light illuminates the scene as Christine's power yanks my friends away from the threat, pushing me back along with it. Of course, it can't hold America's strongest, and Agnus Dei breaks free and launches her devastating beam attack directly at my friends. Ana's blood and Peter's body take the shot head-on, Peter visibly wincing at the onslaught despite his powers bolstering everyone. But then, Christine rebuilds the scene, shoving all the hyper-compressed dirt and rock into our faces, sealing the tunnel between us. Agnus screams in fury, but her attacks still can't burn through the ground fast enough to catch up.

"Damn it. Damn it!" Agnus Dei swears before turning to me. "You! You can teleport, right? Can you catch up with them?"

Hmm. I… probably could. Which would be excellent, if it didn't leave Blossom behind. I don't want her in human territory without me, and ultimately I know where my friends are going. We can meet up with them there.

"I can't, sorry," I lie. "But they just sealed off their air supply, didn't they? They'll have to dig up to the surface or they'll suffocate. We can still find them."

"Right… right! Good thinking, Private," Agnus says, flashing me a practiced smile before clapping me on the shoulder and flying back out of the tunnel. Good. I was hoping she would buy it.

There's air in soil. Not a ton, but with Christine's ability to pull it in from anywhere in her domain, it should be enough. They don't need to break the surface, they just need to be close enough that Christine's occasional explosion and un-explosion can fill their tunnel with oxygen faster than they can use it up, without showing the army where they are. Considering that Christine has actually intentionally trained to use her power to make safe breathing air, I have no doubt she'll think of the trick.

Anyway. Now I need to figure out how to get out of this hole without revealing that I'm Seraphim. I have plenty of ways to get up, but none of them are particularly inconspicuous… hmm. I guess I'll just do my usual teleport somewhere out of sight, and then walk back to the others? In the meantime, I can hear Agnus Dei briefing the soldiers up top about the new plan that won't work.

"…So keep an ear to your radios, because it'll most likely be the fliers that see anything," she concludes. "Any questions?"

"Yes," someone says, and oh my god that better not be who I think it is. Blossom! Don't you do it!

"Suggestion rejected. If an opportunity is given, it will be taken."

God dammit Blossom! We can just go! I quickly teleport up into what I'm pretty sure is a nearby building and start rushing towards them both.

"Why kill so many?" Blossom asks.

"…What?" Agnus Dei asks.

"Humans. Why you kill so many?" Blossom clarifies. "Kill and hide and kill and hide. Why?"

This is not the sort of thing you ask a human, Blossom! She's not going to answer, she's just going to freak out! And sure enough, once I rush out the door of the building I ended up in, I can tell Agnus Dei is looking anything but calm.

"What exactly are you accusing me of?" she manages, despite having every right to just ignore her 'subordinate' and fly off.

"Ack-use?" Blossom hums, doing her best to parse a concept foreign to her as I silently translate. Aliens never accuse each other. They've either done something, or they haven't. There's no need for something like that. "Not ack-use. Ask why."

"…I knew you looked too much like Seraphim," Agnus says, raising her arm to fire. And then, her blood flies everywhere at once.

A bone blade extending from Blossom's wrist is impaled in and through Agnus' throat, completely severing the carotid artery. And while that's the only wound with any visible cause, it's far from the only wound that blooms on Agnus' body. An identical wound mirrors itself on the opposite side of the throat, as do dozens of others all over Agnus' body, spearing through organs, puncturing lungs, and ripping open her heart. Blossom herself stands behind her target, out of her line of fire, hand soaked in the blood she just drew. Agnus Dei chokes, unable to say a word as Blossom tears her weapon out of the woman's throat, splattering yet more blood across the ground. The two other supers are shocked at first, but they quickly rally to engage… only to similarly explode into gore, heads flying off their bodies.

"Lying make fights easy," Blossom complains, wrinkling her nose with distaste.

"Oh my god," I hiss. "Oh my god, Blossom! You can't just…!"

"Can. Did," she says, shrugging. "Enemies of colony die."

"Did you not listen to anything I said!?" I snap.

"Yes? Of course. Listened. Understood. Disagreed," Blossom says. "Vote tied. I do what want. Told you this."

"You…!" I growl incoherently, burying an urge to strangle her. It's fine. It's fine. This might still be good in the long term, it's not like she's wrong that Agnus was a threat. As long as she's dead, then… wait.

"Blossom, she's not dead!" I hiss, Agnus' domain firmly blocking me out as I try to investigate her body. "Cut off her head or something!"

"Can't," she shrugs. "Bones too hard. But human need blood, yes?"

As if in protest, Agnus' wounds start to glow with that same brilliant light she uses to scour the world of anyone she desires. They do not heal, per se, but as the light fills her she no longer bleeds. I quickly form an acid cannon and launch a glob at her, but the shot burns up before ever reaching her, the air around her crackling with furious power.

"Okay, guess not," Blossom sighs, though I can tell she's worried now. Even if I couldn't hear her saying it, I'd know that the fact that she isn't attacking Agnus right now means that she can't. In this moment, there's no reality where that's successful.

"You. Would. Dare!?" Agnus Dei hisses. "I was chosen by God!"

Blossom blinks.

"…Yes?" she says. "We all were?"

Agnus' only rebuttal to that is an incoherent scream and a deadly laser blast, which means it's time to teleport the hell away. Blossom and I both get into cover, desperately trying to work a way out of the situation that I explicitly warned her about. Now things are really bad and we're probably both going to die, but hey! Good news, Blossom! You got your question answered!

"Confusion?"

She said she was chosen by God. While that could just mean she's your average everyday bargain bin zealot, given how powerful she is there's a good chance she actually, genuinely, talks to her god. And while that god happens to be Blasphemy, well, how is she supposed to know that? Humans don't know any of that shit, and considering that her superhero name is basically straight-up declaring herself to be Jesus Christ of Nazareth, she probably thinks she's talking to the Christian god. So when Blasphemy tells her to go Old Testament on some peacekeepers who want to make nice with the unholy plague upon the land, who is she to argue? Because like, come on. Of course Blasphemy wouldn't want the war to end.

"Comprehension," Blossom sends back. "Blasphemy is, indeed, a non-Queen reproductive organ."

What?

"HE A DICK!" she shouts, causing Agnus to immediately turn and blast her hiding spot. Blossom teleports away, of course, but we can only keep this up for so long. Agnus can and eventually will level the entire area and leave us nowhere to run if we don't get out of here fast.

Thankfully, while Agnus is stubbornly refusing to die, it doesn't look like Blossom's attacks were just completely shrugged off. She's barely flying, and the way she presses her hands into the wounds implies that if nothing else, they really hurt. Peeking a little more carefully, while the searing white light glowing inside her wounds looks very similar to her lasers, there's something more… ethereal about it. Almost ghostly.

"Proposition: we should take this opportunity to retreat as far as possible," Blossom suggests.

"Not interested in fighting her anymore?" I send sarcastically.

"Correction: I was never interested in fighting her. I was interested in assassinating her. It just didn't work."

"Told you so. I doubt she would have survived this long if she was that easy to kill, Blossom."

"It doesn't make sense, though!" Blossom complains. "What is blasphemous about flying, shooting beams of light, and regenerating from injury? These things are straightforwardly beneficial and completely unrelated to each other."

Hmm. A corruption of the Superman mythos, maybe? The whole idea of superheroes comes from comic books, after all, and the military stole all their marketing ideas from that industry. Superman is like, the guy when it comes to superheroes (it's in the name), and his stories are usually about him being a paragon of justice. So setting up someone with similar abilities who is actually an asshole murderer would sort of be blasphemous to that cultural mythos. …Except for all those comics where he was evil, I guess, but that's the kind of edgy crap Blasphemy would probably like.

"Uncertainty. Association still seems weak," Blossom hums. "I believe there is something we do not understand about her abilities. Can we run now?"

Yeah, yeah, follow me. We teleport from cover to cover, Agnus Dei lashing out more or less at random as she deliriously screams vengeful obscenities in our general direction. We are approaching Atlanta, Georgia, so there are plenty of houses and other buildings to hide in as we slowly slip farther and farther away. It's good to know that injuring Agnus slows her down, even if it doesn't kill her.

It's sluggish and stressful, but we eventually make it to the Queen of Legion's domain, which is the point where Agnus probably won't try to chase us even if she knew where we are. Or at least, she won't chase us without the rest of the Air Force behind her. And also…

"Shock! Celebration! You have returned!" "Shock! Celebration! You have returned!" "Shock! Celebration! You have returned!"

"Greetings, Omnipresence as Worship. This unit, Twisting Scars Reshape Fate, formerly known as Thief of Torn Wings, greets you and asks your status."

"Greetings, Omnipresence as Worship. This unit, A Blossom of Wilted Chances, brings fair tidings and well-wishes from The Divinity of Wonder's council, in service of Possibility. This unit accompanies her fellow council member on her quest."

"We greet the Princess candidates of The Divinity of Wonder's council with honor." "We greet the Princess candidates of The Divinity of Wonder's council with honor." "We greet the Princess candidates of The Divinity of Wonder's council with honor."

"Thoughtsmellsleepain. Tiredatawake. Hurthurthurtfear. What is? Help."

"Your beloved rises. Please, come." "Your beloved rises. Please, approach." "Your beloved rises. Please, be careful."

God. Maria. I'm so sorry. Just a little longer, and you'll be okay.

"Are the natives I told you may be arriving here?" I ask.

"Yes. They refuse contact and do not allow us to approach." "Yes. They do not speak and do not hear." "Yes. We do not know what to do with them. Request: help."

"Guide me to them," I order. I want to see Maria, I want to see her so bad, but the same goes for Anastasia and she's… probably more dangerous to everyone around her. Giant grapevines of flesh sprout from the ground and guide my way to my friends, so Blossom waves me off with only a few sardonic taunts and I sprint towards them. They're okay, right? They've gotta be okay. It's been so long!

"Stay back!" I hear Christine snap. "Fucking hell, why did we agree to this!?"

"Because it was this or a very long interrogation in a very dark room, and we might not have come out of it," Peter summarizes succinctly.

"They're surrounding us," Anastasia says. "If they get closer, I'm ripping them apart."

"Hey!" I shout, finally rushing into view. "It's okay! They're not hostile!"

There they are! Oh god, there they all are! Their uniforms are caked with dirt, Peter's hands look singed, and Anastasia is even paler than usual, but they're here and they're alive and they're okay!

"Julietta!?" Anastasia shrieks with startled delight, the blood floating threateningly in the air around her all rushing down at once to scoop her up and carry her into my arms. I collide with her at full speed, scooping her up and giving her an entire month's worth of squeezes.

"Ana! You made it!" I say, allowing a few tears to roll down my face. I think I've earned them. "You all really made it!"

"Yeah, uh, great to see you again," Christine says. "Can you do something about all these Raptors that look like they wanna eat us?"

"Disperse," I order them. "Avoid being seen."

"Already on it," I assure her, the Raptors scattering away from us in every direction. "They aren't going to eat you, though, they're just trying to figure you all out."

"Forgive me if they set me on edge regardless," Christine says flatly, though when I shift Anastasia over to one arm and get close enough to hold out the other to her, she accepts the hug. Which… oh. OH! Oh my god. I feel so stupid.

"What?" Christine asks. "What's that look for?"

"Uh… I'm really sorry Christine, I didn't mean to but I just scanned you with my power," I tell her. Is my domain really that much stronger than it was before?

"Oh," she says, wincing. "Please be cool."

"Uh, I mean, yeah I don't really… care or anything. Though if you do, I can shapeshift other people now? Anything except brains, really. If you want."

That seems to surprise her, and she manages a small smile.

"I might take you up on that," she says. "Later. Now is… definitely not the time."

"Where's my I'm-so-glad-you're-alive hug?" Peter asks, holding his arms out to either side. "Anything for 'ol Peter? Anything at all?"

"Yes, actually," I say, letting go of Christine and pulling him into a hug in her place. "I'm glad you're alive, Peter. Thanks for keeping everyone else alive, too. You did great."

"Oh," he blinks, awkwardly hugging me back. "Well, uh… thanks."

"So… where's Maria?" Anastasia asks.

"She's… a little ways that way," I answer hesitantly. "It's probably going to be hard to look at her, everyone. She's not doing well. Prepare yourself for that."

"Oh my god, guys!? Is that you?"

A glowing yellow fairy flies into view, practically bursting into tears at the sight of us and flying straight into me.

"You're back!" Yellow sobs. "You're finally back. Oh god, I thought I was going to go insane."

"She looks pretty alright to me," Peter quips, but I give him a stern look and he quiets down. That's not what I meant and he knows it.

"We're back," I tell her. "And I have a solution. It might be a little difficult to get working, but I have one. We're just going to need to go on a trip."

"A trip?" Yellow asks.

"Road trip!" Blossom calls out excitedly, finally catching up with me. Everyone turns to stare at her, to which she responds with a happy smile and an extremely uncoordinated wave.

"Rude! I am coordinating exceptionally! You try using a brand new body better than this!"

"I do," I remind her. "Regularly."

"The truth is irrelevant when inconvenient to my objectives!!!"

"Uh… Julietta?" Christine says hesitantly. "Did you bring Lia back to life as some kind of weird homunculus?"

"Nope, much worse than that," I assure her. "Everyone, I'd like to introduce A Blossom of Wilted Chances, Angel of Possibility and member of my Queen's council. Which… I promise is way less bad than it sounds."

"Hello!" Blossom says brightly. "I Blossom! I fuck!"

"No you do not, do not say that," I insist.

"Wait, so you are an Angel!?" Christine groans. "You've been lying to us this whole time!?"

"No!" I say. "I mean, I'm kind of an Angel now I guess, but I never lied to you! Outside of the whole pretending to be Lia thing, I mean, but… no. I'm Julietta. Alien culture doesn't really care whether or not I was born a human, though. Being part of a Queen's council is not hereditary. It's divinely ordained."

"Okay. Okay. Alright," Christine groans. "But she's an Angel?"

"I Blossom!" Blossom confirms.

"Yes," I confirm in a way that makes sense.

"So. You're saying there is an Angel infiltrator pretending to be human. And she does look like Lia Morgan, who is, in fact, actually dead. But it's just… not you. Totally different girl."

"Uh… yeah," I say. "Basically."

"What the actual fuck, Julietta!?" Christine summarizes.

"I nice Angel!" Blossom insists. "Never kill human. Successfully."

"You killed two humans on the way here," I point out. "When you tried to assassinate Agnus Dei."

"Oh!" Blossom blinks. "Sorry. Forgot."

"I repeat: what the actual fuck, Julietta!?" Christine demands.

"She's on our side!" I insist. "She helped me with a lot, actually. I know this is weird, but please try to keep an open mind? We'll need the help of our colony to fix Maria."

"…Wait, you're going to get aliens to clean up the mess made by the aliens?" Yellow asks. "That sounds like a terrible idea. Can't you help her?"

"I can't change brains without inflicting ego death, and the main problem is your physical body's brains," I explain, noting Yellow's phrasing for later. Help 'her?' Not me or us? "But my Queen can do it. We worked all month to make sure it was possible."

"That is so not reassuring, Julietta," Christine says, and… to my surprise, hearing that really… hurts? It hurts. She doesn't trust me. Why doesn't she trust me?

I know why, of course. People can't trust each other as a general rule. There's no way to be sure I'm not insane, and by the standards most people use I certainly sound insane. They can't know I'm telling the truth, they can't know I'm not compromised, they can't even know if I'm really still me. Of course Christine doesn't trust me. That's just the expected outcome.

…So why does it hurt? Have I really gotten used to unconditional trust so fast that I can't even handle basic reality anymore?

"Are you sure?" Anastasia asks me, her big eyes staring right at me from where I'm still carrying her in one arm. She's big enough that I have to beef up my musculature quite a bit to do it, now. Unlike Christine, she's not asking out of skepticism. She's just asking because the answer is important.

"I'm sure that this is our best shot," I say. "Possibly our only shot, but I don't think it's a bad one. The Divinity of Wonder, my Queen, can heal Maria."

"Will she be human again?" Anastasia asks.

I sigh.

"…Sort of," I admit. "But she'll be herself again. She'll be able to think."

"'Sort of?'" Yellow asks.

"We'll talk about it on the way there," I say. "But at the very least, she won't be insane anymore, right? We'll get her back."

"…Yeah," Yellow says softly. "Yeah, okay. Can we really trust all these aliens, though?"

"Well I think we still haven't answered the most important question," Peter butts in. "Why does Blossom here look pretty much exactly like a secret time traveler child of you and Maria?"

I open my mouth to answer, but Blossom speaks up before I can say anything.

"Because it really funny," she says.

"Hmm," Peter considers. "So aliens were truly wise all along. Well, I'm completely down for this plan. I think the evil Angel assassin and I are going to get along swimmingly."

"Funny you should say that," I say. "Have I mentioned we'll be heading to the mesopelagic zone?"

"Isn't that… underwater?" Christine asks.

"And I've definitely mentioned I can shapeshift other people now, right?" I press on, and in my arms Anastasia's eyes sparkle.

"Mermaid time…" she whispers excitedly.

"…I guess I don't really have any other options," Christine sighs.

"Do we get seashells or starfish?" Peter asks. "I don't want any peeping toms to see my tits."

"Hehehehe! More road trip! More humans!" Blossom giggles.

"Why is everything always so insane around you?" Yellow groans.

"…I love you guys," I tell them all, a goofy smile spreading itself unbidden across my face at their various comments. "It's good to be back."

I finally, finally made it back. Now we all just have to leave alive.

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