I thumped my tail against Perzy's hull and yelled. "Slow down! Slow! Down!"

The ship responded, only to swerve into a swift loop-de-loop to dodge a stray death ray. I reflected the beam at the hydra with the Sword's magic, taking care not to hit Merritt and the others.

"What's going on!?" Tal demanded.

"We have company!" I said. "The good kind!"

"Holy shit," Brand said, "Genneth!"

Dr. Nowston was the first to fly up alongside Perzandebilis. That also made him the first to see the Sword of the Angel in my hands.

I have to say, it was pretty darn weird to see wyrms making the Bond-sign, especially as a group.

"Genneth…" Merritt sang, "…is that?" She looked me in the eyes. "Am I dreaming?"

I sang everything they needed to know directly into their minds. Karl immediately picked up on what I was doing and returned the favor by sending a stream of pre-packaged information directly into my mind. The information quickly unwound itself, and then I screamed and everything around me froze into motionlessness as I sped my thoughts like mad.

With my consciousness recentered, I appeared in my Main Menu on my hands and knees.

I screamed. "No!" I slammed my clenched fist onto the film of water beneath the mental realm's endless blue skies. "No!"

I fell onto all fours, panting for breath. "Ibrahim…"

He was gone.

I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it, but how could I deny it when, using what Karl had shared with me, I could—and did—instantly experience it through my own eyes?

I was so shaken, I barely noticed &alon popping into existence right beside me. Her bare feet set down on the watery floor, within my arm's reach. Her wings trailed behind her, sending up steam where they touched the ground.

"I'm sorry, Daddy Genneth."

I looked up at her in shock.

Did she actually understand my grief?

&alon shook her head. "I hate it when wyrmehs die." Tears welled in her eyes. "I don't want them to go away."

&alon's obliviousness was as earnest as her sorrow, which made the rage that flared in my chest all the more bitter.

"Dammit, &alon!" I howled. "No!" I sat back on my knees. My gesticulations were spitfire; my arms, swinging flails. "I'm not upset because you lost wyrms!" I shook like a rabid dog. "I'm upset because I lost a fudging friend!" I wept. "Oh, to heck with it! You don't understand! You'll never understand!"

All the information Karl shared with me left me swooning: Larry's decline, his corruption and madness, Ibrahim's vivid fears as the same darkness claimed him; the nightmare in the Imperial palace, and the surreal visions of the three-headed beast—the Moad—and the world it had left behind.

The melting wyrm-trees.

Verune.

I slapped my hand on the flow's thin coat of water. "Sacrifice! That's what you don't understand, &alon, sacrifice! That's what it means to save someone. That's what you need to save someone. You give them kindness without expecting anything in return. No judgment. No conditions. No expectations. You do it because you don't want others to hurt. It's not about you, it's about them!" I stabbed my finger at her. "It's about them!"

"Dr. Howle?"

Inhaling sharply, I turned around to see I had company.

Karl. Merritt.

"Genneth…"

Brand.

More and more souls percolated into my Main Menu. Yuth Costran. Heggy Marteneiss. Jonan Derric. Jess Kaylin. Storn Elbock. Mistelann Sorkbinka.

And so many others.

"How are you all here?" I asked.

"They're sharing by singing," &alon said.

Oh, right. That.

Brand's face hardened into a scowl. "&alon…"

Little Miss Fungus let out a frightened "Eep!" and scuttled behind me. She shrunk down to pixie size, cowering against the back of my loafer, in the shadow of my leg.

"I…" Merritt stepped forward and looked me in the eyes. "I don't understand. How can &alon be your—"

I shook my head. "—I don't get it either, Merritt, and I'm too hurt to care. Yeah, it makes no sense, and it's not right. None of this makes sense. None of this is right." I rose to my feet with a groan.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm so, so sorry. I should have been there. I should have helped you. I—"

"—Don't apologize," Karl said, softly. His puffy cheeks were slicked with tears. "I don't think Dr. Rathpalla would have wanted you to."

"Where is my sister?" a young voice said.

Paul.

He was still pushing that, after everything that had happened.

Nurse Costran cried out as Nina's younger brother stepped forward. Gasps spread through the crowd as he emerged.

I took a wary step back.

"What's wrong with him?" voices muttered.

Paul's presence in my mind was tenuous at best. He flickered and twitched, like a signal on its last legs. The young boy's impeccable dress oozed in places, white buttoned-up shirt, slacks, plain tie and polished shoes blurring like runny paint.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Several other wyrms' avatars were suffering the very same symptoms.

&alon flew out in front of me, little bigger than a butterfly. She glanced back at Paul and the other afflicted avatars, but only briefly.

"&alon, what's happening to them?" I asked.

She wept. "The Darkness has got them."

Nearly everyone stepped away from the afflicted, staring at them in horror.

"There has to be something we can do…" Merritt said.

&alon merely lowered her head in shame. "No. I've tried so hard. So so hard. But there's nothing!" She shook her head. "There's nothing we can do!"

There was a sound of shattering glass and accompanying particle effects as Nina's spirit broke out from her afterlife and stumbled into my Main Menu.

"Lopé!" she yelled.

Her little brother stared at her. They regarded one another with dread.

She stammered. "What—what's… what's happening to you?"

Breaking out in tears, Paul turned away from his sister and faced me. Spirit-lights winked into being all around him and flew toward me like fireflies.

"You have to take them, Dr. Howle," he said. "I…"

He was giving me his spirits…

The souls of the Broliguez gravitated toward the two youths of their own accord. All it took from me was a single flash of thought to give them human form.

Garço, Miyali, and Qatémo.

Mrs. Broliguez spread her arms toward her son. "Lopé, Lopé, what's going on? Where… why are we—"

"—I'm so sorry, Mama," the little boy said. "But…" his gaze trailed back over to me. "I can't be with you anymore."

"What are you saying, mijo?" Mr. Broliguez asked. He looked around the room. "What is this place?" He turned around in place until making eye-contact with Nina and I.

He pointed at me accusatively. "You! I remember you, you—"

—Meyali Broliguez screamed as her youngest son's left arm dripped off his torso like a gob of wet concrete.

"I want to work for the Angel's glory while I still have time," Paul said.

Nina stepped forward in a fury, widely sweeping her arm. "Didn't Dr. Howle tell you, you idiot? The Angel is dead!"

Paul wept. "Not if I believe, Nina." And then he vanished.

"Lopé!" Nina screamed. "Lopé!" She ran to where he'd been standing, as if it would bring him back. But it couldn't, and didn't.

I bottled up her family's souls and transferred them into Nina's soul crystal.

There were tears in her eyes. "Dr. Howle, you have to—"

I looked up at the roofless ceiling and its endless skies.

"—I'm so sorry, Nina." I shook my head. "There's just no time."

Other wyrms' avatars flickered and disappeared. I recentered my consciousness into my body and set a doppelgenneth to help clean up the pieces of the Broliguez family's broken bonds.

Outside, the Lodestars had begun to stir.

— — —

Energy swept out from the Vengeance in a two-dimensional disk that sparkled as it faded. More circular waves rippled after it, pulsing in a steady rhythm, which was already beginning to accelerate, slowly but surely. No doubt, it would only get faster the closer the Lodestars' came to being fired.

"Dr. Howle!" Twiggy screeched. "I'm getting manic—crazy!—signals from the hydra!"

&alon screamed.

The dark hydra ran was a broad road to a dark infinity as it ran alongside us, to my right. Its thin lining of prismatic fire effervesced and fluctuated. The distortions only grew more intense as the Vengeance's energy ripples approached.

"Genneth," Suisei said, "it's reacting to them!"

"I can see that!"

The ripple struck. Shadow-fiends bubbled up from the slick, dark surface; silhouettes, swathed in many colored flames. They budded all across the points of contact and spewed out in sprinkling streams that rapidly rushed toward us.

&alon squeezed me in terror. "Daddy, do something!"

I narrowed my eyes on the Sword.

Whatever is going on with you, I need your help, now, more than ever.

I didn't know if the presence within Azon's blade could hear my thought-speech, let alone understand it, but at this point, it didn't hurt to try.

Grabbing the hilt with both hands, I hoisted the Sword over head as I funneled &alon's power into its depths. Its weaves gyred and pulsed.

I gave it my all.

A massive spherical shockwave of fractal brilliance expanded out from the Sword. It was slow, at first, so much so that, for a moment, I thought it wasn't moving at all, but then it rapidly accelerated. Its swirling, ever-shifting symmetries shot out like a race-car to the stars, sweeping past Perzandebilis, the wyrms, and other nearby rebel forces, slamming into the darkness' oncoming legions like a wall of spikes. The sphere knocked the darkspawn back, forming eddies at its exterior as the twisting space shunted the fiends into unseen dimensions. As the blast wave faded, I noticed that even some parts of the great hydra seemed to have receded, though not by much.

On the plus side, the Sword's magic did seem to have dispelled—or at least, ameliorated—the dark hydra's strange gravitational pull.

&alon chanted in exultation from atop my back. "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

Wyrms broke free from the hydra's snare, darting about as they dodged the oncoming Vyxit death rays.

"Genneth!"

Hearing EUe's voice, I looked down at Perzandebilis.

"EUe?"

"The final countdown has begun!" EUe said. "It's only a matter of minutes before the Lodestars are fired!"

"I figured as much," I replied.

"We're broadcasting the data now, in wyrmsong," Aldoumadwod said, "but let me tell you the old fashioned way, just in case something goes wrong."

"I'm all ear-eyes."

"Short of blowing the flagship out of the sky and killing everyone on board," Al continued, "the only way to stop the Lodestars from being fired is to take out the main power junction. It's like the nerve center for the ship's various power conduits."

"I know all about nerve centers," I said.

"Unfortunately, it's more than just one center," Al replied. "Though the power gets routed through the main junction, the Lodestars have an independent power supply—"

"—So that the Vengeance doesn't, y'know, explode," Tal quipped.

"Will that power supply be a problem?" I asked.

"N-negatory," Twiginix said, "not if the main junction is rendered in-noperable."

"If &alon's forces can destroy it," Al said, "that will break the connection between the Sacred Blade and the Lodestars."

"Great," I said, "but what about the trick hUen-dE is using to block &alon from forming our escape portals?"

"O-Once the power supply is filleted—s-severed, that effect should cessate—s-stop—too."

The words were music to my ear-eyes.

"And what about the Vyxit on board? Will they be okay?"

"Each clanstead possesses an independent—redundant—power supply. They should be f-fine."

"Nerve centers tend to be located deep inside an organism," I said. "How are we supposed to get to it?"

"The ships' internal and external structures can be rearranged on the go," V explained. "Presently, Vyx modules within the Vengeance who are sympathetic to our cause are risking their lives and identities to reposition the junction so that it's up on the flagship's exterior. They'll hold out for as long as they can, but you have to act quickly. They won't be able to keep hUen-dE at bay for much longer."

"Understood." I looked over my back to my most unlikeliest of children, "Tell the wyrms, &alon! Tell them everything that we just heard! We need their help. It's all hands on deck!"

"Yes, Daddy!"

It really was like magic. All of a sudden, dozens then hundreds of wyrms peeled away from the fight against hUen-dE's forces and swam into the Night's, toward the Moon and the Vengeance.

"Dr. Howle, the rebellion is with you!" Qua'loc said.

Excellent.

We were gonna need all the help we could get!

Seeing all these allies gathering around me gave me the confidence I needed to take the next step.

Loosening my coils, I unraveled myself from Perzandebilis and shot up with a flick of my tail, passing in front of the Vyx module's nose.

"Dad, what are you doing?" Rayph cried.

Jules shouted. "Dad? Dad!"

"Jules, Rayph, your lives are already in enough danger as-is." I glanced at hUen-dE's flagship. The Vengeance loomed in the distance. With the great, slowly fading disk of ripples expanding from it, it seemed like a boulder at the center of a dark, wind-stirred pond.

"We're about to enter the lion's den," I said. "I need you to be safe, away from this battle. In this dark time, you're worth fighting for. You give me strength, and I can't risk jeopardizing that with the chance of losing you."

"I love you guys. I love you beyond words—and your mother does, too."

How I wished Pel's spirit was there to stand beside me. It wasn't meant to be.

"Please," I said, "keep my children safe."

"As one doctor to another, you have my word, Genneth," Qua'loc said.

Then I turned around and shot forward. I flattened out my flight path and stuck my right arm out ahead of me, brandishing my war saber: Azon's Holy Sword.

I yelled:

"Everyone: we march on the Vengeance!"

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