Nina stepped close and looked up at me.

With my size and my neck, it was like I was looking down at her from a second-floor balcony.

"Let me come with you, Dr. Howle," she said. "You could use my help."

Yuta and Ichigo materialized a couple feet away from her, dressed in dark haori artfully covered in bright, splendid patterns.

"Us as well, Genneth," Yuta said.

"We can fight," Ichigo added. He glared at Nina, who rolled her eyes in response.

"I know, but…" I had to stop myself from reaching for my lucky bow-tie. By the miracle that was its super-elastic straps, the darn thing had yet to snap off my massively enlarged neck. Even so, I was terrified so much as a single touch might change that, so I settled for clenching my fists—well… claws.

"Listen," I said, "if the Archive Suisei went into is anything like the Treefathers', I doubt we'll be able to keep our human bodies while we're in it."

"Couldn't you use your mind-powers to bring our bodies along for the ride?" Ichigo asked.

I shook my head. "Probably, but that would alert the AVUs, and, trust me, you don't want to mess with them. Those things are scary."

"Which is why I should go with you," Nina said. "You don't need to imagine my powers into existence. I already have them."

To illustrate, she conjured a ball of light in her hands.

Ichigo narrowed his eyes at Nina. "Sorceress…" he muttered.

For once, Yuta's retainer was right on the money.

"Would that even work?" I asked.

"It's worth a shot, isn't it?" she replied.

She had a point.

Before I said anything else, however, a thought came to me, and suddenly, the whole question was moot.

"Wait a minute," I said, "what am I thinking?" I pointed a claw at Yuta and Ichigo. "Yuta, Ichigo, I'm going to need the two of you out here."

"What do you mean?" Yuta asked.

"I got lucky this time around: I found a crashed Vyx module that just so happened to be turning into a wyrm. Not only that, but no one tried to eat or absorb my family while I was busy exploring the Network." My spines stuck up tall. The wind caressed them, altering me to its currents. "I want someone capable to stay out here and keep Pel and the kids safe while I'm trekking through the Network, doubly so if it turns out that I'll have to fight my way back into it."

Apprehension bubbled up in my gullet.

Yuta nodded in understanding. "Yes. You could give us access to your psychokinesis for when you are indisposed."

"But would those powers remain with you?" I asked.

"Yes," Ichigo nodded. "Karl was able to do that. Bever and I sparred with empowered weapons while Karl was journeying through Dr. Rathpalla's mind."

Lark clapped her hands together. "So, it looks like we're gonna be doin' an alien hunt. How hard can that be?"

"First things first, though…" I looked toward the lonely red L85 Rescue waiting for me in the distance. "I have a delivery to make."

— — —

I flew most of the way to the car, though I settled down onto the ground and slithered for the last few feet.

Waving my hand and pointing to my bow-tie, I softly said, "Hey," not that Pel or the kids had any chance of understanding me. I just wanted to get their attention, and had been worried that creeping up on them without prior notice might have led to… undesirable reactions.

I came to a stop a couple feet behind the car's trunk, which meant that the rear-view window gave me a front-row seat to Jules' and Rayph's astonishment at seeing the new me.

I'd made sure to weave my fishbowl helmet forcefield around my head. I would never be able to forgive myself if so much as a single one of my spores harmed them.

Rayph saw me first, staring at me through the rear-view window with fearful surprise. His startled expression lasted for only a moment before it melted into a smile and several excited nods. Even so, that moment of fear would be forever etched upon my abiding memory.

He tapped his sister on the shoulder; Jules turned to look.

I waved. Jules waved back, trying her best not to scream.

I flicked my claws toward my chest, signaling them to come out.

The passenger doors unlocked with a click. The smooth hiss of the doors as they swung away from the car streamed off it like newlyweds' garlands and tin cans. It made me think back to my own wedding day.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The kids got out of the car.

"Whoa…" Rayph plopped onto the road and sat down cross-legged, to gander at me. I was about to tell them it was probably not the best idea to sit there—what if &alon might somehow strike, or worse?—but then Jules sat down beside her brother.

I'd been outvoted.

Behind them, Pel swung the driver's-side door open. Coughing shot out like flak.

Gingerly, I set the bottles of painkillers on the ground, rolling them over to Rayph and Jules with a single claw-flick, using a kinetic helping hand to guide the bottles to their destination.

Jules and Rayph opened the packaging and gave some of the chewable tablets to their mother, and then took some for themselves. Meanwhile, I slithered up alongside the car until I was in Pel's view.

My wife leaned against the door and her seat. It was like they were the only things keeping her upright. She stared at me, eyes throbbing, lips speckled in black and green muck. She tried to speak, and I tried to tell her not to, but neither of us got our words out. Pel lost hers in a coughing fit, while mine were beyond what the human ear could understand. Also, they were trapped inside my fishbowl.

Gotta watch out for that.

Willing an opening into the side of my fishbowl forcefield, I drew out a stream of spores. I kept my psychokinetic grip on the current tight as I wove it into words.

I love you.

"Are… are you okay, Dad?" Rayph asked.

Physically? I guess so. But for everything else? No, absolutely not.

I put more spores into the letters for the word "absolutely", so that it appeared as if in bold font. I'd considered using italics, but after doing a test run in my mind, I decided bold would be easier to see.

Worried, Jules' gaze wandered over to the town of Springfield behind me. "Dad… what happened back there? I heard… things…"

Had I still been human, my lips would have been trembling, because I'd have been fighting back tears.

Jules… Daddy made a boo-boo.

Jules blanched. "Fuck, that's not good."

And then her coughing fit only made it worse.

You know how &alon wanted my help with dealing with "the Darkness"?

"Yeah," Jules nodded, "but it turned out &alon was the very thing she was warning you against."

I nodded.

So, about that…. It turns out the Darkness is actually a totally separate thing from her. &alon is the fungus, but the fungus is not the Darkness.

"Oh shitsky," Jules said, with a groan.

"That's the thing with boss fights," Rayph said, nodding in earnest, "there's always another one waitin' for you when you least expect it."

And he was absolutely right.

"On a scale of 1 to totally, how screwed are we?" Jules asked.

I pyramided my claws together.

Well… let's just say things aren't looking good.

Jules shuddered. "I was afraid of that…"

"What are you gonna do?" my son asked.

By the Godhead, was she really going to make me spell it out?

Jules furrowed her brow. "Dad…?"

My sigh turned my fishbowl into a sporey snowglobe.

As much as I hate to say (well, write) it… I need to help &alon. We need to clear the way for her to take us away from our world, before the Darkness destroys us all.

— — —

I took to the air, my body threaded tight around my precious cargo. Clouds had blown in from the sea, mottling the afternoon with a somber, patchwork blanket. I couldn't help but notice that several of the clouds were thick and dark, like storm-clouds, but worse. A quick glance through my third eyes revealed the cause.

Jeepers Creepers, even the clouds were infected!

The clouds were densely cluttered with &alon's multicolored, magenta-dominated aura. That, of course, meant that fungus was growing inside them like crazy. If I squinted and zoomed in a little, I could make out hyphae strands and bark-like growths proliferating like fuzz at the clouds' edge.

I wondered how long it would be until the floating fungal islands forming within finally revealed themselves and joined their siblings already populating the skies.

Rising up over the rolling hills, I headed inland, while still following the coastline all the while. Based on what I remembered of Suisei's memories, I was a little over halfway to the beach where he'd buried Azon's Sword several months prior.

On the one claw, I had to find the Sword (for all the obvious reasons); on the other, I needed to find an infected Vyx to hook up to ASAP. Unfortunately, the latter was easier said than done.

Using anything beyond the weakest, thinnest setting I could manage with my wyrmsight made the battlefield above the clouds become almost unwatchably bright. Even if I selectively turned off my wyrmsight wherever I saw a fellow wyrm, the Vyx starfighters glowed like strobe lights in my field of vision.

Ugh!

It seemed like I'd have to get close to the ships in order to figure out which, if any, of them, were infected. Obviously, I wasn't keen on doing that, especially with my family in tow.

If only there was a safe haven where I could set them down…—not Springfield, though, Angel forbid.

Out of nowhere, a torrent of sound waves cascaded down from overhead. The noise cataracted down my back, tousling my spines. Slowing my perception of time, I glanced up.

Fudge.

A Vyx death ray was barreling down toward me like the thumb of an angry god. The clouds overhead evaporated in the ruby ray's heat.

I dodged, veering off to the left, spinning around in a corkscrew. At the same time, I added a branch to my consciousness, setting a doppelganger to work on implementing the pataphysics needed to counteract the effects of my evasive maneuver's g-forces on Pel and the kids. With a flick of my tail, I unraveled myself from the L85 and, smoothing out my undulations, levitated it into a safe position underneath me. Then, I tensed my ludicrously long body and gave myself a major speed boost. Wind snarled at my fishbowl. Streaming through the hole in the weave, the current yanked spores out of the forcefield, scattering them in a long trail behind me, like clouds off a bullet train.

I'm gonna do a barrel roll, I thought-said.

Go for it! I told myself.

My doppelgenneths kept the L85 gyroscope-stable as I pivoted a half-turn around. It was just enough to give me a view of what was happening overhead.

Riceroni sandalfish!

A Vyx starfighter burst out from the underside of a cloud. Bits of shrieking, burning fungus rained around the spaceship, no doubt sliced off from the growths mushrooming inside the cloud. Leveling out its path, the starfighter strafed toward us. It fired its death ray in several rapid bursts.

I veered left and right, dodging as best as I could. One of the first volley's shots seared my tail when I failed to pull it out of the way quickly enough. To dodge, I had to coil and strafe, which necessitated slowing down, which only made me an easier target.

The frantic scene stirred something in Ichigo. His spirit roared inside me with audacious battle-lust. "Lend me your power, Dr. Howle. I'll stop them!"

"No, Ichigo," Yuta's voice countered, "remember what happened to me earlier! Even with Genneth's powers, our attacks couldn't get through the starfighters' shields."

I darted down, barely dodging an extended death ray blast. The beam seared off some of the bioluminescent bulbs at the tips of my spines.

I roared in pain.

What should I do?

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