Karl had been in a lens-grinder's shop, once. When the sunlight struck the glass at just the right angle, the sunlight's inner sanctity showed itself: the beam split into all the colors of the rainbow. It was a thing of wonder, then. But now, that same miracle played out in the prismatic flames blazing in Sir Larry's eyes, and Karl could only shrink away in terror.

Jonan's spirit staggered back. "What the hell is that!?"

Larry moved forward slowly, in fitful undulations. His scutes scraped against the old pavement.

The wyrms scattered, slithering out of the tunnel and onto the hillside's sloping road.

"Larry? Larry!?" Dr. Rathpalla said.

Larry responded with incoherent stammers. As if pumped up by a bellows, the flames on his eyes flared as he slunk forward, low to the ground. Oily, burning fluid trickled down his flanks.

He sank his claws into the road, making the pavement buckle and crack.

Wyrms hovered away in caution.

Geoffrey! Karl said, yelling in his mind. Geoffrey!

The Count of Athelmarch materialized beside him. Holding his arm outstretched, he stepped in front of Karl. Geoffrey's halberd materialized in his hand a moment later.

"Oh, shit!" Jonan hissed. The doctor clambered over Karl's body to hide behind him, only to phase through to the other side.

Geoffrey glanced back at Karl. "Karl, get back!"

Yuth slithered toward Larry, reaching in desperation. "What's happening to him?!"

Dr. Rathpalla held her back, grabbing her hand and weaving a force-field to block her path.

Dr. Nowston stretched out his body in front of Larry, making himself into a wall. "C'mon man," he yelled, "snap out of it!" The pathologist spewed spores from his many nostrils. "Snap—"

—And snap, Larry did.

The wyrm pushed off the ground and bolted forward like a Mewnee throwing knife, flying low to the ground with his claws extended. Karl wasn't even directly in his line of attack, but he still yelped and ducked down and dodged.

Larry attacked Nathan and Bethany first. They barely had time to scream. He tore through Nathan with his rainbow-burning talons, erasing Nathan's flesh from existence wherever his claws touched, leaving deep gouges in Nathan's flanks.

Roaring, Bethany flailed, trying to fly out of Larry's path, but the corrupted wyrm shot toward her like a twisting torch, grabbed her by the tail, pulled her back and ripped her in two. Spores and black ooze spilled out from the break in Bethany's body, trickling over the wound's ragged edge. Bethany's filaments writhed as they struggled to knit themselves back together.

Drs. Nowston and Rathpalla, and Mr. Clawless and several others attacked Larry with their magic. The blast knocked Larry back. The wyrm hit the pavement and skidded backward, while both halves of Bethany's body rolled down the road.

Keeping their magic flowing, the other wyrms approached. Blue and gold poured off them in streams, crushing Larry from above and pinning the wyrm onto the pavement.

"Hold him down!" Dr. Rathpalla said.

Hoping to make himself more useful, Karl sped up his thoughts.

He hated being slow on the uptake.

The other wyrms gathered around Larry's supine form.

Through the slowed time, Karl's wyrmsight showed him something he'd never seen before.

What's that? he thought-said.

Dr. Derric ran up alongside him. "What is it?"

Larry's aura was… well, Karl didn't know the words for it. It was as if he was wearing a robe made from fire and light. Worse, the threads of blue and gold pouring onto Larry's body seemed to be interacting with it in—

—Oh no.

"Karl, what's happening?" Geoffrey asked.

Suddenly, the blue and gold rings and filaments thickened. They licked at Larry's surroundings. The colors shifted as hints of black and green splattered onto the weaves.

Even in slowed motion, Karl saw many of the other wyrms were already flying away. Karl joined them, levitating Jonan and Geoffrey's spirits off the ground along with him.

"Fuck," Jonan said. "Are the wyrms' powers… feeding him?"

But it was too late.

As Karl let time resume, he watched Larry flip onto his belly, swing his arms, and gather the magic flaring around him.

"Mov, Karl, move!" Geoffrey said. "He's about to use it to attack us!"

If experience had taught him anything, Karl was pretty sure this one was going to hurt.

Larry launched the attack.

The magic was more powerful than anything Karl could have imagined. Even with his wyrm body, the upwardly angled column of force Larry blasted at him and the other wyrms hit them like a mallet to the bones. But, as extreme as it was, Karl had still been expecting it. What he hadn't expected, however—what he couldn't have expected—was the light and the sound that rippled out from Larry's spell, sharp and bright as a thousand thundering rifles. It blazed and blizzarded through Karl's senses. He had to shut his back two pairs of eyes just to make sense of what was going on and recover from the impact and reverse his fall.

Larry roared, firing off several more blasts. The wyrms scattered.

Karl kept his back two pairs of eyes closed as she slowed his perception of time to try to understand what was happening. With his third eyes closed, he couldn't see the flailing column of blue and gold threads that gave Larry's attack a visible presence, and he was thankful for it. The brightness was almost too much to bear—even more so, when he was suffering the stabbing, twingeing pain across two different sets of eyes.

But it turned out Karl didn't need his wyrmsight to see what was causing the flashes and bursts. Right as the invisible beam flared and hurtle bits of trash and broken pavement up at the wyrms, a bubble seemed to form in the middle of the air, pushing back against the weight of the sky. Then it collapsed, causing the light and the sound. It happened so quickly, Karl had to slow his perception of time as far as he could just to catch a glimpse of it.

Geoffrey flew up beside Karl.

"Do you understand what's happening here?" he asked.

Unable to shake his head, Karl let time flow normally and focused on dodging Larry's attacks as best as he could.

"What's going on!?" Mr. Twist yelled, swerving about. "How is he doing this?"

"I think he just made a fuckin' cavitation bubble in the atmosphere!" Dr. Nowston said.

A cavitation bubble? Was that what he'd seen?

"Is that even possible?" Valentine asked.

"You're asking that now?" Charles said.

"Everyone, just get out of here!" Dr. Rathpalla said.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The psychiatrist soaring upward in a sweeping twist.

"Does he intend to fight him on his own?" Geoffrey said. He shook his head and stared.

No!, Karl thought.

Just like Geoffrey, Dr. Rathpalla had helped Karl, and in a way too precious for him to ever repay it. He'd go to the ends of the earth to help him in return

The man was kind, patient and understanding—a lot like Geoffrey, in fact, even if it wasn't in quite the same way. He'd helped Karl weather the darkest Night of his life.

You didn't abandon someone like that in their time of need.

Karl knew he'd spend the rest of eternity wishing he'd been able to save Fink's spirit. Having failed, the best he could do was to pray that the horse found peace and comfort in the hereafter.

Karl refused to let Dr. Rathpalla suffer the same fate. He had to do more for him.

And I will!

He swore it.

Much like Geoffrey, the man was like the kind of father Karl wished he could have had.

Other wyrms shot up and away, fleeing Larry's barrage; even Bethany, piloting her broken body's upper half, the tear slowly beginning to knit itself shut.

But Karl didn't join them. Instead, he wove from side to side, dodging the blasts, keeping his back four eyes squeezed shut.

"Karl!" Dr. Rathpalla yelled.

"I'm not abandoning you!"

Dr. Rathpalla soared past him, air currents swirling around his body. "I'm not abandoning me, either!"

"Kid," Jonan said, "when he told everyone to scatter, he meant everyone!"

Karl swirled a sheath of pataphysics around his body and flooded it with power. The next thing he knew, he was speeding upward, the hill and its fungus-ravaged streets and parkways shrinking below him.

Jonan grabbed one of Karl's spines and crawled onto his back. "He's following us!" he yelled.

"Everyone," Karl cried, "watch out!"

More blasts fired up at them from below.

Dr. Rathpalla and Mr. Clawless were both grazed, but even those impacts were strong enough to send them spiraling off course. Some of the wyrms fired force blasts down at Larry to slow him down and give Ibrahim and Kurt time to recover, but the wyrm dodged them, clawed Dr. Rathpalla in the back and slammed his body into Dr. Rathpalla's spine, knocked him toward the ground.

Urgency bulged in Geoffrey's eyes. He swung his halberd in anger.

"Karl," he said, "can the others hear me?"

"Yes, yes!"

Geoffrey spun around him in the air, cape fluttering behind him as he swung his free arm in a wide arc. "Scatter, everyone! Make yourselves into difficult targets!"

"Of course…" Jonan muttered. The words tickled Karl's mane.

"Divide and conquer!" Dr. Derric yelled, cupping his hands at his mouth.

The wyrms scattered every which way.

Larry fired several more blasts of magic. Everyone flew around him, the mad wyrm spinning around and around, a crazed sentinel, desperate to keep up, firing seemingly at random.

The furor in eyes…

Angel's breath…

Just looking at it made Karl's spine tingle. It was like his first battle against the Mewnees. The Mewnees came at them in droves, so many. The gun-smoke got so thick that Karl came to dread when a patch of it cleared, because that meant another one of his fellow soldiers had dropped dead, scattering the clouds with the weight of their bodies.

He'd been so helpless then, just a boy with a gun in hands that wouldn't stop trembling, desperate to survive the musket spray and the silver, smoke-cutting steel. Karl had always thought having a gun would make him feel strong, but it hadn't, and it wasn't until Geoffrey taught him better that he finally understood why.

Strength without confidence or control was little more than piss in the wind.

Karl had come so far since those days, but now he felt like he was right back where he started.

Was there anything even left of the kindly janitor inside the beast down below? What had done this to him? Karl didn't know which was worse: if it had been &alon's doing, or if it hadn't.

So much was happening, and he could barely keep up with it, even with a mind that could move faster than rainfall.

Would this happen to Dr. Rathpalla, too? Was he going to become a mindless monster?

Was this going to happen to all of them?

Karl wanted to run; he wanted to fly away as fast as his thoughts, but—

—No!

He had to be brave.

No more running away!

Suddenly, the other wyrms' songs changed. Their many voices became a single, syncopated choir.

Jonan pushed up from where he rode on Karl's back, amidst his mane. "What the hell is going on?"

They… they're sharing their spirits! Karl thought-said.

All at once—while the rest of the world was in slow motion—souls began to appear around the other wyrms. Some were clearly the soldiers that had fought at the hospital, while others took on such fantastical shapes and forms that Karl couldn't tell what they'd been before. He saw wolves that stood like men holding saws whose sharp-teeth snarled around and around. He saw muscled men and women wearing costumes as bright as a harlequin's, with masks and capes and incredible weapons, from flame-shrouded fists to a massive axe with crescent moons for blades.

Squinting his third eyes, Karl saw magic surrounding the spirits like bonfires.

They're lending them their powers…

More and more souls kept appearing, gathering in a mighty host.

"Karl," Geoffrey said, "let us join the fray."

"Us? Uh, no, thank you." Jonan held up his hands in a defensive gesture.

"He means me, lad," Bever said, chuckling as he appeared, clad in his polished blue plate armor, with his trusty battle-axe in hand. Bever turned to the wyrm with a sly grin. "Karl?"

Karl would have nodded if he could. He focused for a moment, and then thrilled as Geoffrey's halberd and Bever's axe ignited with magic that made them bite.

"This—this can't possibly work," Jonan said. "It's too awesome!"

Geoffrey raised his weapon high. "Charge!"

The warriors screamed as time sped back up again. Pulling their weapons back, they flew down at Larry. The mad wyrm fired his cavitation bubble spells at them, but the magic passed through them without effect, and Karl and the other wyrms easily dodged the rest.

To Karl's amazement, the spirits' attacks worked! The ghosts struck Larry with guns and blades and more, their weapons woven from pure magic. The attacks flayed off sections of Larry's hide and cut long lacerations across his flanks. Bits of flaming, melting flesh dripped from the wounds, running through the channels between Larry's minute scales. The burning ichor moved oddly as they fell off the wyrm's body, drifting like leaves in the wind, and evaporated into nothingness before it ever hit the ground.

One of the costumed men flew up at Larry from below and struck the wyrm's underbelly with his super-powered fist, stunning the wyrm and flinging him upward.

"Karl," Geoffrey yelled, "widen my blade!"

Karl willed the energy enveloping Geoffrey's halberd to stretch out, broad and long. The magic took effect right as Geoffrey pounced down at Larry, swinging his halberd in a double-handed downstroke that sliced clean through the wyrm's midsection. The two pieces plummeted, landing wetly on the hill below, and then tumbled down the slope for a few seconds before finally coming to a stop.

"Let's finish him!" someone yelled.

"Stop!" Yuth shrieked. "Stop!"

Everyone turned to the sound of her cries.

Many of the spirits darted back to their caretakers, though just as many hovered in the place to keep watch over Larry's broken body down below.

Yuth undulated, slithering down toward Larry. "No," she yelled. "Please, stop!"

"Why!?" Maryon asked.

"You're hurting him!" Yuth shook out her arms.

"Are you mad, woman?" Bever barked. He gesticulated with his axe. "His mind is gone! He's a lost cause!"

"I refuse to believe that!" Yuth said. She turned to the man she loved. "Larry, please," she pleaded, "listen to my voice! When &alon nearly had me in her clutches, everyone was ready to give up on me, but you didn't! You persisted, and you got through! You broke the silver spell over me. Now listen to my voice, and let me do the same for you! Fight it, Larry! Fight it! I know you're in there!"

Karl trembled with the force of Nurse Costran's emotions. He wanted it to work. He wanted there to be a happy ending.

The longer, front half of Larry's body reared up and floated off the ground. The wyrms pulled away, while Yuth and the spirits moved in.

Larry's severed body trembled, and then let out a roar, only to bend forward and clutch his head in his claws. He thrashed about.

"Is it working?" someone asked.

"I—I think it's working!" Kurt said.

Karl flew up in excitement.

Larry thrashed around, whipping his tail to and fro. Two of his rainbow-flame eyes smoldered back into gold. He sang a shattered song. The tones were stretched and dissonant, as if a scream could melt.

"It burns!" He looked up at Yuth, trembling in pain and terror. "It burns!"

"Larry!" she cried.

"Help me!" he screamed. "Oh God, help m—"

—The prismatic flames blazed in his eyes, and then his body flickered and vanished, only to reappear further up, fully reformed, right where the spirits had attacked him.

"What the fuck?" Jonan said.

Karl looked down in shock.

The other half of Mr. Luxenderf's body wasn't there anymore.

Larry let out the energy pulse that destroyed the lower two-thirds of Yuth's body.

Desperate to understand what was happening, Karl opened his third eyes wide just in time to see the brilliant aura around Larry's body spread like opening wings. Energy shockwaved out in a scintillating sphere that slammed into the wyrms too quickly for them to dodge, crashing several of them onto the hillside and the road by the tunnel.

The spirit army rushed at the corrupted wyrm while Karl and the others recovered, but it was only as Karl blinked the shock out of his eyes that he realized that Nurse Costran was already speeding back to Larry.

Wyrms' faces were a far cry from having a human face's expressiveness, even Karl could clearly see the horror, disbelief, and yearning in Yuth's eyes.

Rings of power rippled out from Larry's body; strange-colored energies swirled around his snout, and then flared and fired a beam of energy so bright, Karl could see its echoes flashing in his third eyes.

Yuth bore the full fury of the attack. The lower two-thirds of her body just disintegrated; not even ash remained. Armless, her head and neck plummeted to the ground, her golden eyes wide in shock.

Dr. Nowston launched himself after her, phasing through the spirit-horde, making a beeline for Nurse Costran's falling head. He managed to grab her and pull up and away right as the spirits fell on Larry.

The same deadly ray that had turned most of Yuth's body to ash cut through the magic that kept the spirits' weapons solid. Their attacks phased through Larry without effect, and while they scrambled about in confusion, the corrupted wyrm flicked his tail and rocketed up at the other wyrms, energies swirling all around him—and not just his snout.

Everyone fled in panic, soaring high and away—bodies undulating, tails thrashing—as they fled from the massive power gathering behind them. Karl kept his eyes trained on Larry. He counted the body lengths between them, even as the corrupted wyrm's magic painfully stung his wyrmsight.

And then Mr. Twist shot up and yelled. "Gentlewyrms! I believe we have company!"

Karl looked up and ahead. All his snout holes constricted.

Four flower-ships were racing toward them.

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