I pulled away from Paul as soon as I was back in my body, using plexuses to push myself back and lift myself into a low hover, my tail undulating around and beneath me. Paul took flight as well, exploiting his smaller size to zip around me, trying to bash into me to force a link, but the forcefield I'd erected kept him at bay.

He breathed out angry plumes of spores, but I caught them in my magic, bundled them up and, in the spur of the moment, palmed the twitching green mass and tossed it down my throat.

Honestly, it tasted pretty nice, like sweet-n-sour pixie dust.

Though Paul's religious zeal gave him an advantage when it came to willpower, I had much more pataphysical experience and know-how than he did. And I told him as much.

"Enough, Paul. You're not going to get your way."

He swiped his claws across my forcefield, sending off sparks.

"I've been in one-on-one contact with the Moonlit Queen all this time," I said. "She's trained me to use these powers. You're no match for my skill."

He put some space between us.

"Look on the bright side," I said. "You two have all of eternity to work out your issues."

He stared at me for a moment, and then flew off down the hall.

I sighed out spores as I landed and dismissed my various spells.

Within me, Nina wept.

— — —

I set a doppleganger to work helping Nina deal with her grief at losing the rest of her family. This wound was going to take a long time to heal, but, as I'd told Paul, we really did have eternity to spend trying to make ourselves better.

"You'll see each other again," I told her, "I promise."

Meanwhile, I had other fish to fry.

The elevator ride was a short one. Coiling myself to fit in it was equal parts fun and frustrating, but I definitely benefited from the practice.

Finally, I arrived at Heggy's office—and just in time.

I should have known something was wrong when I noticed the band music wasn't playing.

Like Cassius, Heggy was one of the few doctors here at WeElMed important enough to have an office of her own. The door to her office was ajar. I pushed it open with my powers as I slithered toward it.

From within, Heggy barked. "No! Don't—don't you dare come any closer!"

Dr. Marteneiss' words had the affect of an iron cloud bursting at the seams, spilling out rust and tears. It went against everything I expected of her.

It made my scales crawl.

She hollered. "You're not gonna stop me!"

Finally, I slithered into view.

No. Holy Angel…

I had to speed up my thoughts just to give myself enough time to calm down. I needed to use my powers right now; I couldn't risk being on edge.

The last thing you ever wanted to see was a beloved friend and mentor with their mouth around the barrel of a pistol.

Heggy was little more than a discarded bullet casing. I couldn't call her a shell of her former self, because she'd had a shell—her PPE—and had shed it. The color was sapped from her skin, and her messy, golden locks were now chalky and brittle. The dark filaments creeping up the side of her neck stood out like ink against her sunken, weeping complexion.

Her office was almost unrecognizable; the regimented order was nowhere to be found. The family portraits on the wall had been either shattered or ripped off their mounts and cast onto the floor. One of the chairs lay on its side, overturned. At least a third of her prized models of ships and tanks and planes had been flung to the floor. The rest were scrunched together on tables, echoes of her arms raging sweeps.

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I'd frozen time between the moment her eyes saw me and the moment her brain processed that sight in her visual cortex. Her console was atop her desk, covered with text.

Whatever it was, she'd been reading.

I wanted to scream and sob, but I couldn't. I needed to focus, because it was up to me to keep her alive. But just as I was about to begin the delicate work of weaving a plexus to safely disarm the gun in Heggy's hands, an urgent pressure pushed at the front of my mind. I instantly knew what it meant.

I duplicated my surroundings into a daydream alley in my head and teleported my recentered consciousness there, along with the soul that had risen within me, demanding to be heard.

Vernon.

We stood in the disaster that Heggy's office had become, facing one another. I hadn't brought a copy of Heggy into this mind-world yet; I had a feeling that Vernon wouldn't take kindly to me wyrmhandling his big sister.

He wasn't the biggest man, but he had the look of one: broad shoulders, strong hands, and a jaw grizzled in stubble. He wore dark slacks and a white, buttoned up shirt with the collar button undone. It matched nicely with his buzz-cut, dirty blond hair. Unfortunately, he wasn't the least bit happy to see me. His jaw was clenched—his brow too—and he held his arms back, as if to strike.

He was irate.

"Did you just see what I think you saw?" he yelled, shaking his arm at me.

"Heggy, holding a gun to her head?" I asked.

"Yes!" He spattered. He shook his fist like a god of pagan thunder. "What the fuck did you beasteaten shits-for-brains do to my sister!?"

"I didn't do anything!"I stuck out my palms in a defensive gesture.

"Then why is my sister about to blow her brains out!?"

"I don't know, Vernon! I'm just as horrified by this as you are!"

"Why should I believe a damn word you say? You ate me, goddammit!" he bellowed. "You fucking ate me!"

"Vernon! I'm trying to save her life right now, but I can't do that if you keep screaming at me! If I screw up this spell even a little, Heggy will end up with a bullet-hole in her head! Is that what you want?"

The fire in the General's eyes dimmed, but only slightly. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. "Just shut up and take me to my sister!"

Nodding, I closed my eyes, banished the daydream alley, and recentered myself in my body, where time was still frozen.

Seeing his older sister with a gun in her mouth doused Vernon's rage.

"H-Heggy… no…"

He stared in abject horror.

Please, be quiet, Vernon, I thought-said. This is life or death!

He bit his lips shut.

In the stopped time, I carefully wove a plexus around the gun in Heggy's hand. As I wove it, I channeled my memories of all the times Heggy had given me a monster handshake or a congratulatory shoulder-pat; I needed to match the strength of the shimmering blue and gold threads to my best guess of the force with which Heggy held the gun.

If I made it too strong, I could seriously injure her; too weak, and she'd probably succeed in her suicide attempt.

"W-What are you doing!?" Vernon stumbled forward in shock.

Saving her life!!

Vernon's posture crumpled in genuine shame. He looked down at the ground.

Ignoring Vernon's presence as best I could, I double-checked my plexus, just to be safe.

Getting screamed at didn't exactly improve my mood.

I briefly recentered my consciousness into my Main Menu, so I could take a deep breath and scream my lungs out for a couple seconds before returning to my body.

She's not just your sister, Vernon, I thought-said, she's my dear friend and mentor, and don't you ever forget that.

Vernon stammered. "I…"

Quiet!

He went mum.

Ugh…

I found myself getting angry at Heggy for putting me through this, but, as with my feelings toward Vernon, I had to set my anger aside.

Now was not the time to assign blame.

After doing one last check, I let my power flow. I let time do the same, but slowly.

Nothing less than surgical precision would suffice.

Heggy yelped as the pistol flew from her grasp. The gun went off as I pulled it away, but it happened slowly enough that I was able to use my psychokinesis to twist the firearm to the side so that the barrel was pointed at the wall as the bullet shot out. It went right through the face of the portrait of her grandfather hanging off-kilter on the wall.

The gun clattered to the floor as time flowed once more. Our eyes met. Seeing me, Heggy shuddered. She staggered back, propping herself up against her desk.

I could only imagine the emotions roaring through her: anger, hurt, guilt, terror. It was all there as she stood, shaking in place, gasping for breath.

Her eyes flicked back and forth between the gun and I.

I stammered. "H-Heggy…" All the timbres of my voice cracked.

She shook her head. "No. Don't… don't you start, Dr. Howle." She Marteneiss trembled as she spoke. "I'm gonna have none of that neuropsychiatric bullshit of yours. Not now."

She kept staring as she sank to her knees, eyes aflame with a cold, all-consuming fire.

"Sis!"

Vernon ran up to embrace his sister, only to phase through her, which left him standing awkwardly in the middle of her desk.

"What the Hell?"

With a cough, Heggy lunged forward and reached for the pistol. Fortunately, I plucked it up with the hand of my mind's shimmering music and tossed it back out into the hall before she could touch it. The gun smacked against the wall and went off a second time.

I flinched.

Through my ear-eyes, I watched the soundwaves rocket past me. They buffeted me from the front as Heggy roared.

Vernon screamed. "Heggy!"

I sent Vernon to my Main Menu; he was not helping.

Wait there. My voice echoed through my mind.

As Vernon yelled within me, Heggy pushed off the overturned chair and got to her feet. She swung her arms over her desk and clambered over to the other side, sending a wave of model vehicles crashing to the floor.

She made a beeline for the antique firearms in the display cases by the window in back.

"No!"

I rushed in through the doorway, only for my flank to get jammed in the doorsill. I wasted a precious second pointlessly squirming before I managed to push myself through.

Heggy yanked a model battleship off the floor and used it as a hammer to smash through one of the glass cases.

I broke my fall on a cushion of invisible force.

"Heggy!"

Inhaling sharply—and sick to my stomach—I whipped my psychokinetic cushion out front of myself, flung it at Heggy and lassoed her. I pulled her up and away, jerking her over her desk like a tossed sandbag, her flank smacking across the desktop before I brought her down and pinned her to the floor, belly up.

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