90. Time To Be Alien Jesus, I Guess

A/N: It's past my bedtime. Enjoy the chapter!

"Adamant declaration: she moved! Did you not feel that she moved?"

"Your nonsensical claims are as full of falsehoods as your reductive philosophy."

"Indignation! A Mirror Always Reciprocates, you have also beheld this change, have you not?"

"Affirmative."

"Obvious conclusion: both of you are possessed by Contradiction."

"Indignation!"

"Indignation!"

I approach the group of arguing Angels quietly, not really sure how to insert myself into their conversation. It's a little awkward knowing exactly why they're arguing but not knowing how to… what, say that I'm the new favorite of the gods? It just seems insane to me. No matter how true it is, I can't claim it without projecting arrogance.

Still… I should help extract the poor Reciprocation worshipers from dealing with Peter's colony. Simplicity Made Manifest is a better troll than my brother, and he's not even trying to be one.

"Hey!" Peter protests, and oh right, everyone can hear my thoughts, and now the Angels are staring at me.

There are… a lot of them.

All Torn to Dust has apparently gathered our alliance of Angels—as well as their escorts of what appears to be several thousand Wasps and Behemoths—around the shoreline of Lake Michigan, with an uncountable swarm of Raptors enjoying a productive swim doing one task or another. The unofficial Angel congregation on this beach has many people I've met before from the councils of Perfection, Reciprocation, and Division, but there are also many Angels I don't recognize. Groups from other colonies of allied gods, extra councils of Reciprocation and Perfection, and a terrifying horde of what I'm pretty sure are Legion devotees. They're all staring at me, now.

"It's you," A Vastness of Broken Pieces realizes, staring at me with dawning awe, tempered with disbelief.

They're the very first Angel I encountered after getting powers. I remember them well. They can teleport by splitting off parts of their body, shifting themselves across vast distances piece by piece. I was using a borrowed Raptor brain when we first met, barely having any idea what it actually meant and struggling to avoid obeying every order they gave me. 

Oh, how far I've come. Now, Division and I have an accord. They can feel it. I am greater than their council, greater than their Queen, in the eyes of their god. No worshipper of that god will ever question me again. Well, except Christine, probably. Thank goodness for that.

"Greetings to all of you, both blessed and unblessed," I say. "This unit's designation is Twisting Scars Reshape Fate. Today, and into the future, I request your assistance to save the world that has enraptured the gods."

The response I get is… cacophonous. As 'loud' as anything has ever been through the network. So many Angels, each of them quite accustomed to being one of a tiny ruling few, all shout their questions and exclamations as an overwhelming mass of scents and feelings. I was… somewhat ready for this, at least, and I do my best to parse what I can. 

Awe. More than anything else, that's what I feel. Amidst all the confusion and disbelief, that resonates above all. I am, in many of their eyes, something akin to divinity made flesh. They have been blessed by the gods, but I sit with them in heaven and argue as an equal. It's… a bit much for me. I don't like thinking of myself that way. I don't think anyone should be thought of that way. But in a situation like this… it certainly is convenient.

"What madness is this?"

The question comes from several Perfection worshippers, pushing their feelings through the din of exaltation. It would seem that I don't have Perfection's blessing yet, though it also appears that Agnus Dei doesn't have it either, which is what I had feared. I suppose it makes sense; Perfection probably isn't the kind of god that enjoys changing its mind. I wouldn't be surprised if they make their decision last, if only to ensure it cannot back a losing candidate.

"I am one of the candidates to become the new Grand Queen," I state simply. "If you already feel that, then you know this. If you do not, then your god is likely waiting for the conclusion of this battle to decide. If any among you feel that our human enemies have your god's current preference, then I request you depart this battle. I do not expect you to go against your god's decisions."

No one moves to leave.

"There was a colony of Failure on the path with us, but they departed in the night," one Angel reports, which I suppose makes perfect sense. I send an acknowledgement and continue.

"The gods love humanity," I say. "But so too do the gods love you, as they always have. It is, ultimately, our goal to establish a lasting peace between all sapient beings. But to do that, we will have to destroy the forces that desire war. Ideally, we will destroy as little as we can, killing only when necessary, but the unfortunate reality is that our enemies will be creating many such situations. I am here to talk about the strategies they are likely to employ and discuss with you the responses we shall develop."

If I wasn't committing treason before, I absolutely am now. I am training and educating an enemy army based on tactics I learned from the US military for the purpose of defeating the US military. I have always been the furthest thing from a nationalist, but this is still enough to put a bad taste in my mouth. 

This is not a just war. By basically any measure, the humans are the good guys in this scenario. The humans were attacked first. Civilians were slaughtered indiscriminately. Multiple nations, multiple cultures, have almost entirely ceased to exist as a consequence of unprovoked invasions from a hostile power. I can't be mad at anyone who just wants all the aliens to burn. I can't be mad at anyone who finds the concept of ending this war in negotiations revolting. The peace I seek will not provide justice for the fallen. It will not satisfy the righteous indignation in humanity's heart. But even if the aliens are the unjust party… they aren't evil. And whether we want them or not, they're here to stay. 

So I'll fight for them. I'll defeat humanity once and for all. And then, I'll slowly replace our hate with acceptance. Maybe even love. It's a task that will probably take generations, but… I'm starting to realize I'll likely have the time.

Gotta whip everyone into line to stop the moon from killing us first, though. Unfortunately, trying to manage close to a hundred Angels from different religions is a little bit of a clusterfuck. One I anticipated, certainly, but it's still… a lot.

"This is baseless Legion favoritism!"

"Negative," I insist. "This is basic tactics. The humans will be pairing up multiple blessed of different gods to provide domain security to unblessed troops. We must also work in groups to be able to counteract this."

Humans are going to die if I keep pushing this point.

"The blessed of Perfection require no support to overcome our enemies."

Aliens are going to die if I don't.

"As mentioned, there will be blessed of Perfection on the opposing side, and they will also be using these tactics."

It's not that I prefer aliens to humans. It's not.

"Because they are ignorant. Deaf to the network, you said."

It's just that I need the aliens to win in order to stop Agnus Dei. And I need to stop Agnus Dei to save the world. Everyone that dies today will be her fault, not mine. I know that. It's not a stretch to put blame on the woman who killed her own troops to prevent peace talks. 

"And yet they remain loved by your god, in spite of their willingness to cooperate. You will as well," I say.

It's just difficult looking out over an army of humanity's biggest nightmares, knowing that they march on my command, and not at least wondering if somewhere along the line it all went horribly wrong. If I fail here, I will be one of the greatest traitors in all of history. I will have committed treason not just against my country, but against mankind.

"You do not have my god's approval, Twisting Scars Reshape Fate," the Angel of Perfection reminds me. "You do not speak on their behalf."

Shit. That's true. I don't want to be the Grand Queen, but I'm already too used to playing that card to get what I want. I'm going to be so terrible at this job. I'm really not cut out for leadership. I get too focused on just getting people to do what I want.

"Okay, well, I have our god's approval, and I did all of those things, so I think it's fine, and you are being a newborn fool," Peter chimes in to support me. "Let's just get out there and team up with everybody else to prove how much better than them we are."

"Consideration… this is a much more palatable proposal. Proving the superiority of Perfection's choices is appealing…"

Right, yeah. I almost forgot. I don't have to do this alone.

I don't have to do this alone. 

I don't. Get it through your head already, Julietta.

"Hey," Maria says out loud, walking up and bumping me with her hip. "It's gonna be alright. You're doing just fine, Julietta."

I could be doing better.

"And it's good that you're always trying to be. I know how much that means to you. But there isn't anyone in the world who can do this better than you. You can spare yourself a bit of your usual self-confidence, in that light."

"Right," I agree absently. And then again, more purposefully, I repeat it. "Right. Of course. Thank you, Maria."

"Love you, Julietta."

"Love you, too."

It's a long day after that. A long and frankly kind of miserable day, working with Angels and making strategies to deal with everything we know is coming and countermeasures to hopefully deal with everything we don't know is coming. The anti-Agnus-Dei squad is probably the biggest deal of the whole bunch, and it's significantly more challenging to form than I was hoping. I didn't know exactly what powers we'd have access to before today, but there's a startlingly small list that might actually be effective at fighting a hyper-dense domain that flies around at supersonic speed and fires giant, sustained-fire death lasers. 

I suppose she wasn't always this strong. The war might have been over sooner if she was… but even then, Queens tend to be able to protect even from power like hers. The upside to Agnus' attacks being independent from her domain is that she can focus her entire domain on protecting herself. The downside is that her domain isn't available to protect her attacks from enemy powers, or allow them to pierce those powers directly.

So… mobility, durability, redirection, protection… these are the kinds of powers we need to stack. As for actually attacking her, we need to either be able to surprise her from long distances or actually catch her when she's moving at high speeds. The former is much more doable than the latter. Agnus Dei seems prone to arrogance, too, so we can potentially use that against her.

The real difficult part about all of this isn't coming up with a plan, though. It's getting all these Angels of different gods to actually agree on a plan.

"The groups you are assigning us are too large," The Wholeness of the Severed complains.

"No, they are not large enough," an Angel of Legion insists. "But we are nonetheless lowering ourselves to placate your foolishness. The least you can do is accept the compromise."

"You would dare speak to me this way in my own council's domain? Your kind claim to love the many. I do hope you will revel in the experience of becoming it."

"A threat? How foolish of me. This unit should not have expected worshippers of Division to understand the concept of an alliance."

"Enough," I say. "Cease this argument. Focus on our objectives."

"Negative," The Wholeness of the Severed denies me. "This unit should not have expected worshippers of Legion to understand anything at all. An alliance is born of respect. It is not something you are simply owed."

"It is certainly owed once the agreement is made. Have you not registered the countless thoughts around you? We must move as one to counteract the human strategies."

"I said enough," I repeat. 

"Declaration: you are a simpleton."

Okay. Well. Clearly I am not being listened to. It's fine. It's not like I'm basically one step away from being part of their fucking pantheon or anything. This isn't working. I start to grow.

"Agreement: this unit (An Evil Divided Approaches Zero) also believes you are a simpleton."

Flesh boils out of me in rapidly-expanding pockets, bubbles and tendrils and eyes and legs. The nearby Angels step back, and then run back as I continue to grow larger.

"This unit (More Blades Pierce More Foes) believes you suckle your workers' waste disposal rather than their regurgitations."

"ENOUGH!" I roar, wrapping a formless ooze of flesh around the offending Angels and locking their limbs in place. "DO YOU WORSHIP FOOLISHNESS? IDIOCY? ANNIHILATION? I HAVE NOT GATHERED YOU UNDER MY BANNER TO TRADE WHAT YOU INCORRECTLY DEEM TO BE CLEVER WITTICISMS. YOU ARE HERE TO PREVENT THE ANNIHILATION OF ALL THAT YOUR GODS DESIRE. TAKE IT SERIOUSLY, OR I WILL PULL YOUR BREATH FROM THE NETWORK AND REPLACE YOUR POSITION WITH A WORKER UNTIL THEIR ACTIONS REMIND YOU HOW TO STAY ON TASK."

This is my first time actually using Queen biology on this scale. I tower over them, now, though I'm kind of tiny by Queen standards, only a bit larger than an elephant and nowhere near as impressive to look at. I'm little more than a betentacled blob, size being my only real objective so I could be large enough to use the same network connection Queens have that makes their voices so impossible to ignore.

"A worker? Absurd!" The Wholeness of the Severed protests. "And you truly expect us to ignore such insults from despicable heathens? You truly are a corrupted mouthpiece of Legion."

Well, every threat needs a good example to follow through on before it really becomes effective. I reach inside the Angel's body and steal their ability to speak, then reach over to the closest Raptor of Division and pull them apart, teleporting them in front of their now-crippled council member.

"NEW TASK DESIGNATION: EXPLAIN TO ME IF YOU BELIEVE MY ACTIONS DISPROPORTIONATELY REVERE LEGION."

"Affirmative," the Raptor answers. "Unity of purpose has been your emphasis since the beginning. Further, you take a blessed of Legion amongst your most beloved, relegating actions of Bliss to be with her and no other."

"We have been saying this since the light has risen!" An Evil Divided Approaches Zero speaks up. "You listen to a worker, but not to a blessed?"

I feel like I'm in a fucking biblical parable. This is so surreal. Whatever. Whatever! Time to be alien Jesus, I guess!

"FOOL!" I snap back at them. "WHO AMONG YOU HAS BEEN BLESSED AFTER BECOMING BLESSED?"

"Absurdity! No one has!"

"I HAVE. THE GRAND QUEEN BEFORE ME HAS. BUT NONE ELSE, BECAUSE IT IS THE UNBLESSED THAT RECEIVE A GOD'S BLESSING! THE BLESSED ARE LOVED, BUT IT IS THE UNBLESSED WITH WHOM A GOD FALLS IN LOVE. THEY ARE NO LESS THAN YOU."

"They are they, and we are we," the Angel presses. "We each have our roles, our tasks, our Divisions. You push them together and make us as one. You push each of our colonies together to be as one! This is an act of Legion."

Oh, please.

"YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN YOUR PLACE. IT IS NOT BY MY POWER THAT DIVISION AND LEGION BOTH POINT YOU TO ME. IT IS BY THEIRS. DO YOU NOT FEEL ME!?"

I collapse around them, surrounding them in flesh and letting them feel the omnipresence of their domain's constant pull toward their Queen, a feeling they've likely never felt since being reborn as an Angel.

"LISTEN WELL, FOOL OF DIVISION: WE GATHER TOGETHER NOW AS ONE. WE COMBINE MANY PURPOSES INTO ONE. BUT THIS WOULD ONLY BE BLASPHEMY TO DIVISION IF THIS IS WHERE WE STAYED. I WILL DIVIDE YOUR COUNCILS. I WILL GROUP YOU WITH BLESSED YOU DO NOT KNOW AND DO NOT CARE FOR. BECAUSE TOGETHER, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO FIGHT FAR HARDER THAN YOU WOULD APART. I WILL MAKE UNITS OF WARRIORS. I WILL MAKE DIVISIONS OF LEGIONS, PERFECT FIGHTING FORCES, SHADOWS MIMICKING THE SAME TACTICS OUR FOES USE AGAINST US, WHICH WE WILL RETURN TO THEM IN KIND! EACH OF YOUR GODS SHALL WORK THROUGH ME, AND UNITED TOGETHER WE WILL CARVE A NEW POSSIBILITY FOR THE FUTURE OF THIS WORLD."

That's everybody here, right? Reciprocation, Legion, Possibility, Division, Perfection, Silhouette… yeah, I think I got everybody in my Grand Bullshit. Oh shit, I'm not thinking this out loud, right? I'm not. Okay, good, I'm not. God, this is so exhausting.

I was not expecting the roar of approval I receive. Perhaps I should have been. I've been shamelessly manipulating Aliens for so long I've almost scammed my way up to being their messiah. How did it come to this? I never could have expected this. I never wanted this. But… I suppose that's what makes it such an interesting possibility.

The approval isn't universal, of course. Many Angels are grumpy with me, and The Wholeness of the Severed's opinion of me doesn't change even after I give them their voice back. That's fine, though. Possibly even ideal. I need to make it clear that it isn't dissent that I'm punishing, just inefficiency. We are on a time limit, after all.

A distant crack like thunder catches my attention, and the following drumbeat of what sounds sort of like artillery fire sets me on edge. Are they trying to shell us? No, they'd already know All Torn to Dust's power makes that impossible. The Queen of Division could carve a bomb out of the sky before it got close enough to harm us. Bullets become dust before they get an inch out of the barrel, slowing down to nothing through air resistance alone. 

Maybe if they shot something fast enough it would still be dangerous, but that would have to be… well, dramatically faster than a bullet. Famously, bullets are pretty fucking fast. Biological or nuclear weapons could be a problem… but those are against war doctrine because there's no point in reclaiming land we can't use. Plus, y'know. Biological weapons could get past All Torn to Dust, but they wouldn't be very helpful against me. Still, those sounds definitely came from behind the human lines, so what…?

"Al ert: incom ing proje ctile s are bl e ssed. Br ace."

They're what!? I spread my domain out over the gathered Angels just in time for impacts to rain down all around us, my still-huge body catching one of the falling projectiles and bursting me apart. It's absolutely massive, substantially larger than an artillery round or a missile, and that alongside my power confirms my biggest fear here. 

There are people inside.

Or more specifically, there's one person in each… god, they're not really artillery shells. They're manned cannonballs, and there's only one person I can imagine being in each of them. I can't confirm, yet, because so far none of them have survived impact, but they only really need one to survive in just the right place.

"It's Danielle!" I shout, trusting the others to communicate what exactly that all means to the aliens. Namely, it means 'stick together, don't let non-powered individuals confront her.' "All Torn to Dust, this unit needs updates on any Perfection domains that manage to survive impact."

"Th ere ar e too man y doma ins with in me."

What do you mean there are too many domains in you!? You can't track the location of enemies? That's the sort of thing you need to mention earlier!

"Focus your domain to cut any slowing membranes!" Maria calls out. "Blood Returns Wrath and Love, stay with Twisting Scars Reshape Fate!"

"This unit can cut them down!" Ana protests.

Slowing membranes…? Oh! She's seeing parachutes! Shit! Flowing back down to my usual size, I keep several eyes on the sky, cursing my shortsightedness. We gathered together too visibly. Of course we're an obvious artillery target, I just didn't think the military had anything that they'd be willing to use! I didn't think they'd load entire people into cannon shells and launch them at us! But that was idiotic. Of course they don't think of Danielle as a person.

But… what about all the people who died to become her? Did they care about those people? She can't multiply without a host to take over. She needs someone to become her. They aren't just sacrificing Danielles to make this ammo. They're sacrificing people to become Danielle. And I should have seen it coming.

"The groups I outlined earlier will be our formation," I declare. "There is no time to vote on this. Move now, in accordance with your future Grand Queen's will."

I receive a satisfying rush of affirmatives, the scent of power freely given like a delusion in my nostrils. I never wanted to lead an army either. I never even thought I'd be in the army, since my old disabilities were so bad I'd be the one person they didn't actually have any use for. …Except maybe to be turned into a Danielle. But still. The me of just a year ago couldn't have ever imagined any of this. 

"No time for nostalgia, sis!" Peter snaps at me. "Create matter on my position, as high a wall as you can!"

One of the Angels I had assigned to him does just that, erecting an enormous wall that Peter covers with his power, intercepting the rest of the shells headed for our position. I force several broken bodies back together, my many eyes tracking the impacts falling around us, trying to judge if any of them could possibly be survivable. Some of them shred to nothing in the sky, Danielles ejecting mid-flight and trying to paradrop in… or in several cases, not trying to paradrop in. There's no way those could ever survive, but… oh, no!

"Get the Workers away!" I command, rushing up into the sky to get a better view. God, there must be hundreds of her! Why didn't Emily warn us about this!?

"You know why," Emily answers. "It doesn't matter what losses we take here. What matters is if we save the world or not."

Damn it, Emily!

"I wish I could say I'm sorry," she says. "I truly wish I could."

How does this even help in the long term!? Does it help? Shit, is Failure messing with Emily's power?

"Amusement! Maybe it is. You pissed it off fierce, Twisting Scars Reshape Fate." Emily laughs. "I guess you'll need to work your miracle without me, then. The best I can do is point you toward where Evil and Shiny is."

Right… with Failure supporting Agnus Dei, Emily always knows the general direction toward her. Not that it's likely to do us much good; Agnus Dei is many things, but she's certainly not stealthy.

"Focus, Twisting Scars Reshape Fate," Emily warns. "It's time."

Time for… oh, shit. I see it, moments before it's too late. A Danielle falls from the sky without parachute or support, streaking down headfirst at several hundred miles per hour. Her target? A group of Raptors, doing their best to scatter but just a little too slow. 

"Priority target designation!" I announce, indicating the threat through the network.

"Got it!" Anastasia declares, a thin whip of her domain lashing out with a blade of blood to intercept the Danielle's fall. 

She hits, but it's just a little too low. Danielle is cleaved in half at the waist, easily a lethal blow, but it's not lethal fast enough. Danielle was only planning to survive another second anyway, and every other attack is just a little too late.

She gets close enough to one of the Raptors. She uses her power. She hits the pavement and splatters like a water balloon. But while the new Danielle she created might now be covered in the gore of her clone, she's no less alive and no less capable for it. And the other Raptors are still too close.

A second after we have two Danielles, we have twenty, and they all dive for cover in different directions. All over the city, similar things start to happen. Pretty soon, there won't be anywhere for the workers to hide.

"You should order all the workers to kill themselves," Emily suggests. "She needs living bodies to convert."

That is fucking horrific! I'm not doing that!

"Wasn't talking to you anyway," Emily says.

"Al l unbl ess ed tro op s: fl y if yo u are ab le. Di e if y ou are n o t."

No, don't do it! It's… damn it. Damn it! They're already starting! Around us, Wasps and flying Angels take to the air, while Raptors turn their blades into their own chests, bleeding out on the ground.

"The human forces are advancing!" someone calls out.

And they are. I can see it from here, the formations I've been taught spreading into the city like the rising tide. And above them, waiting for us, is her. The shining beacon of liberty herself. Still miles away, Agnus Dei catches my eyes and returns my stare with a grin. She holds out a hand and my view erupts with light.

A brilliant white pillar of death streaks toward me, but before it can get far at all, it is cleaved in twain, redirected into two streams that pass far to either side. She looks annoyed but not surprised. Instead, she aims her next shot diagonally down at the ground, sending out a sustained lance of energy that scours a pit into the earth. 

It's not aimed at any of us, so All Torn to Dust doesn't even try to divide it, but then Agnus Dei starts to adjust her aim. She sweeps the beam left, forward, right… back and forth across the ground like she's drawing scribbles with a pen. By simply lifting her arm, the shot shifts from melting a hole in the ground in front of her to crossing the several miles between her troops and our own. All she has to do is the equivalent of jiggling a laser pointer, and the whole city is smeared with scars.

The beam splits and rejoins a hundred times in a single second, parting before invisible blades in the air that redirect the stream away from our allies. It's easy to feel that All Torn to Dust is struggling with the effort, though, each cut in Agnus' constant attack only moving the devastation, not truly stopping it. A flying Angel of Perfection swoops down and lifts Peter into the air, telekinetics bringing together rubble to form into more sturdy shields along with his power. I order our strike squads forward. We have to stop this now.

"I will bring you her head," Blossom promises, brimming with excitement for violence. "Forward! For the Most Beloved!"

Nearly half our powered troops vanish or rocket forwards, appearing in staggered waves around Agnus Dei. When the first group reaches her, Agnus Dei just lifts her other arm and fires a second beam in conjunction with the first. It meets with Peter's invulnerability, and like all things, breaks against it. An Angel launches him towards her like a bullet, but she twists and dodges without a care, stretching her arms out in either direction and turning the horizon blinding white as she sweeps destruction across the entire battlefield. Steam belches out of Lake Michigan as her attack cuts across it, likely killing several of the aliens hiding under the water.

…I can't focus too hard on her, though. As satisfying as it would be, taking her out isn't actually my job. I rush towards the front lines alongside my escort, Maria and two dozen of her fairies on my left as Ana stays close on my right. Failure knows where Emily is, and Christine…

"Is she ready?" I ask All Torn to Dust.

"S o o n."

I guess she'll be here soon. No idea what we'll have her doing, to be honest, but it'll be nice to know she's not a stationary target anymore. 

"Remember, stay close to me!" I shout out loud. Not all of Maria's fairies can hear the network.

"Remember not to underestimate us," Maria's main body fires back, her eyes blazing with light as her ephemeral wings propel fast enough to easily keep up with me. 

"Yeah!" Ana agrees. She, too, is a better flier than me now, her own movements not limited by the need for mechanical thrust. 

"I can save you from death if you stay in my domain," I answer. "Or at least your main body, in Maria's case. I trust you, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take advantage of what I can do."

"You'll be on offense, Julietta," Maria reminds me gently. "It's not your job to support us, it's our job to support you. As long as you want to minimize casualties, you'll have to be the one to scoop everything up. Ana and I will handle their power support. I don't want you slowing down just to make sure we're alright."

"Fine," I agree begrudgingly. "Ana, you ready?"

"Yeah!" she confirms.

We're almost there. I form a massive sphere of Ana's blood in the air in front of her, and she dives into it, taking control and swirling it around herself. She changes its shape, elongating it in front of her, spreading out wide wings to either side, shaping it into limbs and claws and a tail, each ever-flowing. The three of us crash into the human front lines with a blood dragon at our helm, and the effect on enemy morale is as swift as it is predictable. 

The first squad goes down in seconds. Maria saturates the area with her fairies, smothering the domains while Ana's blood constructs force any more stubborn supers closer to me so I can absorb everyone without issue and move on to the next area. We've gone wide from the main fight, starting in the south and flying up north through the enemy line, devouring it one person at a time. Agnus Dei takes a couple potshots at me, but All Torn to Dust has us covered. A couple of her shots end up getting split into her own front lines, not that she seems to mind. 

Overall, though, Agnus Dei has more to worry about than the three of us. Nearly fifty Angels are hounding her all at once, Peter included, and she's having to perform a constant fighting retreat to stay far enough back to keep from being overwhelmed. The fight is moving around enough that the human wing rippers can't keep up, but our hit squads are having a rough time of it as well, even with teleportation support. 

My fears turn out to be right on the money. It's that speed that ultimately gets us, not her overwhelming destructive might. 'Overwhelming destructive might' is, after all, relatively common when it comes to high-powered blessings. A comparable amount of defense is only to be expected. But speed of the kind that Agnus Dei is capable of, paired with the reflexes and senses to match it? That's harder to deal with.

It happens the next time Peter is used as a projectile. The strategy the Angels seem to have settled on is using the one teleporting group to flank in whatever direction Agnus Dei tries to flee to, then unleashing whatever abilities they have to try and hurt her from both sides. The telekinetic we paired with Peter is the only one we found who can actually move him while his power's still active, rather than piercing through his power like I usually have to. This lets the Angel more or less swing Peter's body around like a flyswatter without sending him so far away that he can't protect the squad. Just a few seconds is all they need to buy before the chasing team starts up the two-pronged attack and forces Agnus to try and find a way to flee again before she gets surrounded.

This time, the way she finds to flee is through someone. It was only the tiniest gap, an instant where Peter moved too far away to cover one of the Angels on the fringe of the group. A dozen things could have stopped it, a dozen different powers all overlapping to try and keep everyone safe, but each and every one of them fails to react in the fraction of a blink that they have to stop her. Agnus grabs one of the Angels as she flies out of the formation, her fingers blowing into the chitin with the force of a gunshot to secure her grip. A flash of white later, and nothing remains of her victim.

Even from this far away, I can read her lips.

"One down," she hisses to herself, staring at the remaining swarm of Angels like a high-class buffet. 

At least a dozen different colonies are working together here, united in purpose for perhaps the third or fourth time in all of alien history. But after our first mistake, it all goes downhill from there, and all just because of one woman. It's completely beyond reason.

"This is what it feels like to fight YOU!" Blossom complains at me, barely shifting herself and her mobility-enhancing partner out of the way of Agnus' next attack.

But even I would be useless against her! I'm not fast enough or deadly enough, I'm just hard to kill. Another Angel dies, and then another. The more she fights, the more comfortable Agnus Dei seems to get, as if knowing exactly how to strike in order to get a kill. 

Exactly how… to get a kill.

"Hey, don't act like this is my fault," Emily grumbles. "You could have just sacrificed a town to prevent this, but nooooo. You always have to take the hard way."

I'm tempted to snap back, but Emily is probably well out of the way of the fight, and ultimately? She's right. I made this choice. I will live with it. I will win in spite of it. Once again, Agnus Dei catches me staring, glancing back at the trail of lifelessness I've left in her front lines and rolling her eyes in irritation. She flicks her radio to life and says two simple words.

"Do it."

I don't understand at first. Nothing seems to happen for a while. It's only when I absorb the closest squad and fly up in the air to find the next that I see it. A shift in color along the front lines. City camo vanishes, replaced one by one with flight suits. Occasionally, one of them pulls a helmet off to reveal a blonde-haired woman with too-perfect eyes. 

Danielle consumes the human forces like a wildfire, roaring brighter with every bit of fuel consumed. She reaches critical mass in seconds, the entire human battle line close enough to chain one conversion into another with minimal effort. The powered members of the human squads let her do it, because none of them have enough time to figure out that granting their 'backup' synchronicity will be the last thing they ever do. 

"…Ana, go back to the Queen," I order her.

"What!? No! I'm not—"

"Right now, young lady!" I shout at her. 

Is it the first time I've ever done that…? She reacts like it is, recoiling a bit in shock before quickly turning to obey. I feel horrible, but this is a matter of life and death now. I will make it up to her later.

"I certainly hope you aren't going to try anything as stupid as forcing me to leave," Maria says dangerously.

"Of course not," I say. "You're the best counter we have to her power, given the kind of domain strength you can output. But… how many of you can you make?"

"I guess we're going to find out," Maria answers. "This might be a little… unpleasant, but it's better than dying. What are they all doing over there, though?"

More fairies start popping into existence as I look closer at what Maria is pointing at. It looks like all the Danielles are gathering together before moving directly at us, which just makes sense as basic tactics. There are thousands of them now, maybe even tens of thousands. Were all those Raptor deaths for nothing…? 

No. Not important right now. Maria is right; something looks a little off. They're not just gathering together, they're… all holding hands?

Oh, fuck.

"Up!" I order. "Get away from the ground, go go go!"

I'm almost too late. The Marias and I rise as quickly as we can, but a couple of them aren't quick enough to get away from the entire mass of Danielles teleporting underneath our feet. With how huge the mass of bodies is, I can even pinpoint the split second where it exists in two places at once, back at the origin spot and now here, directly beneath us. It's easy to spot the only man out, being the only man left at all: Cross-Country has his power wrapped around them all, and as soon as he teleports again we're probably all dead. 

Or… well, we're probably all Danielle. The fairies that were caught in range fall gracelessly to the ground, now being wingless and, of course, entirely different women. This is very, very bad.

And despite the threat, I'm still distracted when all my eyes are blinded at once. The remaining Angels have cornered her again, but Agnus Dei starts to glow like a second sun, power gathering like never before.

"Cut this, bitch!" she manages to shout over the roar of battle, unleashing an omnidirectional blast of annihilation.

The expanding sphere of white flashes outwards to consume all our troops, but for the briefest moment the light reflects a glint of blue, like a gemstone floating stationary in the sky. Behind it, a white and teal-green streak rockets towards it like a meteor. Enhancing my eyes against the glare of light, I can barely make it out. It looks like… a suit of armor, almost, but made of chitin rather than steel.

The figure in the air reaches the floating gemstone, but they keep going, their supersonic momentum carrying them onwards as they retrieve what now seems to be part of that armor. They extend an arm towards the expanding ball of annihilating light, heading right for it, and suddenly… they stop.

The light stops.

Then, it splits apart into a hundred pieces. A hundred motes of burning white. They explode outwards in every direction, surrounding Agnus Dei on all sides, now perfectly stationary. Like a diagram in a book. Like… like Christine's power, really.

Oh. It is Christine's power. Agnus Dei almost has time to scream as her own light collapses back on top of her, engulfing her from every direction at once. 

And I almost have time to send her my appreciation before Maria and I are surrounded by wide blue eyes and cease to be Maria and I at all.