89. Crash

A/N: Hello! Chapter time! "Wow!" you must be saying. "Is Tuesday the new update day?" No, reader, no it is not. Please ignore the fact that I have updated on Tuesday two days in a row anyway, or else I will cry. But hey, this is a pretty big chapter! Around 1.5k longer than my usual chapter length goal, it's also (probably) the second to last chapter of Volume 3! Isn't that awesome? I think it's pretty awesome. I hope you all enjoy!

Fulgora, don't do this. Please.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

What are you even trying to accomplish, Fulgora!?

I'm bleeding out. I have been for a long time. That… is the true state of my soul.

Fulgora!

I don't have an answer for you, Antiphera. If I did, you wouldn't have so many questions. It hurts so much I can't even think. Maybe Anath was right. Maybe I'm nothing but a brute that wants to fight. So fuck it. Let's give her what she wants, one last time.

I'll apologize to her in the afterlife.

"Sᴏᴜʟ Fʟᴀsʜ!" I incant, wreathing my body in teal light. "Fᴜʟᴍɪɴᴀɴᴛ Sᴛᴇᴘ!"

With a burst of power and a quick teleport, I get behind Anath and swing my staff at the back of her head. I can't say I'm surprised when she blocks the blow with one of her crystal arm-blades, but the grin on her face startles me more than it probably should.

"I guess I'll have to drag you back, huh?" she says. "That's fine!"

"Just try it!" I snap. "Fᴜʟᴍɪɴᴀɴᴛ Cʟᴀᴡ!"

I bring my skeletal hand down on her, but she twists slightly to the side, trading a few gouges in her shoulder for a solid punch to my ribs. It's the same way she's always fought: a pure brawler, completely uncaring about how much damage she takes as long as she deals at least as much. It always bothered me before, but I don't mind it so much now. Let's both destroy each other…!

"Hᴇʟʟ's Hᴀᴍᴍᴇʀ!"

Again and again, I won't slow down! I'll keep attacking, keep hitting, keep going, keep hurting, keep fighting until one of us is down for good!

I'm sorry, Fulgora! I know it hurts! I miss her too! I'm no smarter than you, no less of a failure… but we don't have to give up, do we?

Maybe you don't. But like this, I can barely hear you. My staff comes down, a burst of thunderous wind keeping me in range despite the force of Anath's punch trying to knock me away. She cries out in pain, collapsing at my feet as my attack crumples her stance and knocks her to the ground. 

As she falls, I see Aurora behind her, staring at my half-skeletal face in abject terror. Her mouth is open in shock. Her body is recoiling in horror. She sees now, the monster I have become. It's not just my body that became this way. The ugliness goes all the way to my soul, and now she knows it.

At least she doesn't have long to sit with the knowledge.

"Rᴏᴀʀɪɴɢ Bᴜʀsᴛ!" Veritas shouts, launching an attack at Aurora's position and forcing her to jump back.

"Veritas!" Aurora shouts accusingly. "Don't you see this!?"

"Fᴜʟᴍɪɴᴀɴᴛ Tʜʀᴜsᴛ!" Veritas follows up, and that puts an end to the conversation before it really starts. I guess I'll finish things on my end, too.

"Hᴇʟʟ's Hᴀᴍᴍᴇʀ!" I repeat, aiming to crush Anath's skull before she can recover.

"Pʀᴏᴛᴇᴄᴛɢᴀ!" Luna suddenly shouts, and a shimmering, translucent hexagonal shield envelops all our opponents, tiled like a honeycomb. Veritas' thrust scrapes against it, deflected, and while my attack shatters it in one go, it slows down my attack just enough for Anath to bring up her arms and block. "Sᴜʙsᴛɪᴛᴜᴛɪᴏɴ Jᴜᴛsᴜ!"

With Luna's second spell, Anath suddenly disappears, Luna reappearing in her place as Anath is suddenly facing off against Nanaya and Thea is in front of Melpomene. Melpomene aborts her attack, and I stumble forward now that all the force I'm putting into my blocked attack is suddenly unsupported. Luna, crouching right in front of me, does not miss the opening.

"Mᴇᴛsᴜ Sʜᴏʀʏᴜᴋᴇɴ!" she incants, pulling yet another new spell entirely out of her ass. This one takes the form of a leaping uppercut, her fist connecting hard with my jaw and lifting me up into the air with her as she jumps back up into the sky. She keeps boosting higher even as I start to fall, making distance for herself.

"Get back here!" Melpomene demands. "Exᴇᴄʀᴀᴛɪɴɢ Tʜᴜɴᴅᴇʀ!"

Bolts of purple lightning erupt out of Melpomene's lance, the woman more or less ignoring Thea even as the girl prepares to attack her. 

"Never again!" Luna shouts back. "Mᴀɢɪᴄ Cʏʟɪɴᴅᴇʀ!"

Space warps around itself in front of her, a confusing and disorienting sight, but when Melpomene's attack reaches her it seems to disappear into a tunnel, firing right back at Melpomene from another.

The damn robot has gotten so strong. Throwing out spell after spell like this… it's nothing like the defensive, close-combat style I had to fight so many times. I can feel it, though, blooming within her. That seed of despair. She's prone to it, just like I am. The more it grows, the less power she'll have… and she's already hemorrhaging power as-is. It's only a matter of time until they lose.

They'd better start fighting harder.

- - -

My power reserves have been reduced to 8%. My master remains in danger. Emergency measures are necessary.

It was inevitable, really. In a situation this doomed, I was always going to start leaking power like a river leaks water. I need to run my mind at what is basically my maximum speed, and not only am I casting constant spells to keep my team alive, I also need to figure out a way out of this mess. And that means one thing, really.

I have to figure out how dimensional travel works. I have to figure out how to make an interdimensional portal while in a fight to the death. It's an impossible ask, but we simply have no other choice. The monster swarm is on us, and Aurora is their first target.

"¡Cᴏʀᴀᴢᴏ́ɴ Lʟᴀᴍᴇᴀɴᴛᴇ!" she casts, lines of magical flame emitting from each of her orbs, which sweep around her and keep the swarm at bay… for now. But with Veritas also attacking, how long is she going to be able to last?

Even with my swap, things aren't going a lot better. Melpomene is still trying to fight me, mostly ignoring Thea's relatively weak attacks, and while Anath is keeping Nanaya occupied for now, Nanaya is way too pissed for Anath's attacks to do enough damage to slow her down. I have to be the one to make a difference here. I have to win the fight and get us out safely. I might just have a bag of tricks deep enough to do it. I just need the joy.

I'm just… a little worried about essentially getting high as balls in the middle of a fight. Doping myself up on pure, concentrated joy might end up making me a little… loopy. But I don't have a choice, obviously. I summon my first LCI into my hand.

"Oh, no you don't!" Melpomene shouts at me, recognizing what I have immediately. But… come on, dumbass. I wouldn't have summoned the damn thing if I wasn't sure I was safe to use it. I plunge the injector into my thigh, which hurts like a bitch but finds whatever incarnate-form equivalent of an LCI port underneath my metallic skin. I hit the plunger with my thumb and dump the entire contents directly into my system.

My power reserves have increased to 83%.

God, it feels good. What was I even worried about? I have a whole case of these things. Everything is going to be fine. Dimensional travel? Easy peasy. I'm a hypertech super robot. Physics is just math. I'm great at math. We got this.

Besides, while I'm figuring all that out, I get to spend my time beating the everloving shit out of Melpomene. Christmas came early, baby. Now, what do I need to win? Speed is my best asset, both speed of thought and reaction time. I'm operating at maximum capacity for my body, sure, but… can't I use magic to go even faster?

Hell yeah. What a great idea. And while we're at it, three members of my team are all joy mages, right? Well, there's one tried and true way to keep morale up in the best of times. Let's get that hype playlist rolling! I am the boombox, baby!

"Oᴠᴇʀᴄʟᴏᴄᴋᴇᴅ Rᴇᴍɪx!" I incant, blasting my favorite kickass geek music as loud as possible as my perception speeds up even further, my body moving beyond its already considerable physical limits. The power drain is immense, but that's just the cost of business!

"Just stay alive, everybody!" I shout. "I have a plan!"

I do not elaborate on what the plan is, exactly, because it's kind of a shitty plan, and I'm trying to keep morale up. But more importantly, I want to keep the Dark Rebellion's attention on me. My defenses are leagues better than anyone else on my roster, so the more attacks aimed at me instead of them, the better off we'll all be. We have two supports and two frontliners; if those supports manage to stay out of danger, our odds go up considerably.

"Are you… are you showboating right now!?" Melpomene shrieks in disbelief.

"No, I'm winning!" I call back, pointing straight up at the sky. "You turned me into a war machine, you crazy bitch! It's time to have a taste of your greatest weakness: the consequences of your own goddamn actions!"

I pump over half the power I got from the LCI all into this one attack, excited beyond words at the prospect of finally getting to really hurt her.

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ!" I declare. "Zᴇᴛᴛᴀғʟᴀʀᴇ!"

- - -

An enormous golden magic circle shines in the air behind the artifact, glowing with a piercing light that illuminates the Dark World. Spiraling trails of energy gather into a ball in front of Luna's palm, a maddened grin splitting her face as she aims at Melpomene.

I don't bother trying to do anything about it. I don't really care if Melpomene gets killed.

Look out, Mel!

…She'll probably be fine anyway. I mean, it's Melpomene. I spare her a glance out of the corner of my eye just in time for a giant death beam to engulf her. It's rather reminiscent of Castalia's attacks, frankly, though this one has arcs of red and purple lightning that crackle around the yellow beam and enhance its strength. Melpomene takes the attack shield-first, and though her incarnate form's shield is absolutely massive, it's not massive enough to cover all of her at once. When the attack finally ends and darkness returns, I can see that Melpomene's tail, wings, and the arm holding her lance are all badly burned.

…Just burned, though. They all still work. Melpomene looks more pissed than anything else. See? She's fine.

Okay, good…

We have a more important target to worry about. If Melpomene isn't going to fight Thea, then we may as well do it for her, right?

I don't know if—

It was rhetorical! Shut up already! Maybe Melpomene will stop fawning over you if we fuck up her favorite pet enough. 

I launch myself up into the air at Thea, swinging wildly towards her head with my staff. She yelps, ducking under the swing, and there's no doubt in my mind that she's about to try and knock me away to gain space. 

"Pᴀɴɪᴄ Bᴜʀsᴛ!"

Fucking easy. I can't dodge the omnidirectional burst, but as long as I don't care about taking damage I don't really need to. I manage to grab onto her arm right as her spell completes, and the force of the knockback yanks her shoulder out of its socket as I use it to halt my momentum, staying in range to attack.

"Fᴜʟᴍɪɴᴀɴᴛ Cʟᴀᴡ!"

One hand gripping her hard enough to break her wrist, I bring down the other on her flank, digging gouges deep enough to elicit a scream of agony from my prey. But it's not enough, it's still not enough! I smash my knee into her gut, all the while bringing my claws in for another—

Agh…!

I got… hit… by something…? It's black, again. I can't see! Am I… no, there's something holding me. Something pressing my head into the dirt! But I was just flying? Who here is that fast!? Is…

Is Castalia here?

It's a thought that doesn't make any sense, but I can't imagine that the crackling sun of joy and rage I feel pressing my head into the dirt could be anyone else. But… no. No! I feel fingers wrapped around the back of my head. Someone grabbed me, tore me away from Thea, and slammed me face-first into the ground. And that annoying music is so much louder…

"Take a nap, Fulgora," Luna growls from above me. Luna!? Really? "You can work out your death wish in therapy when we get you home."

Burning magical power concentrates right above me, more than enough to take me out of the fight if a clean hit lands… but probably not enough to kill me. How… precisely calculated. Unnatural fucking thing. I can't stop fighting yet! I can't! It's too soon!

Just let it go, Fulgora. We deserve this.

No. You let it go, Antiphera. Let it run wild.

Never! We deserve this and you know it!

No! WE DESERVE SO MUCH WORSE THAN THIS! 

I tear into myself with magic, ripping apart the power Antiphera was using to hold the kaiju in its docile state. The unnatural, piercing roar that rings out over the battlefield is immediately enough for me to know that it worked. 

"Shi—!" Luna starts to swear, and I immediately feel the grip on my head release, the sensation of something vast and dangerous swiping above me as the artifact is forced out of the way.

I start to laugh, choking on dirt, and I keep laughing as I rise to my feet again. My whole body is in pain, even more than usual, but it's still not enough. The kaiju above me roars its challenge to the universe, and the rampage begins.

- - -

I barely dodged the first leg sweep, but the next leg is already on the way. I try to jump over it, but the world warps around me and I suddenly find the trajectory of the leap to be in exactly the wrong direction. Shields up…!

I optimize my defenses as best I can, but the kaiju still hits me like I'm a goddamn baseball and launches me far enough for a home run. Was Fulgora the one keeping the kaiju sane? Shit! I am doing nothing but fucking up today! At least being blasted off into the skyline has its upsides. Now far removed from the battlefield, I pull out my next LCI and slam it into my thigh. Mmm-mmm, delicious intramuscular euphoria! That brings me the fuck back!

A grin pulling at my lips as my power reserves top themselves off again, I take a split second to survey the battlefield from a distance, cataloging as much information as I can to optimize my fight plan. Anath doesn't look very happy to be fighting Nanaya, but that just means she's taking it seriously. She even has what looks like a wand in her hand? Dunno what that's about, but her fight seems to be going okay so I can only assume it's some spell or incarnate weapon she's never told me about before because it doesn't involve punching someone in the face.

Now for Melpomene… she's flying towards me, fury on her face. Speed, it seems, is not her strongest suit. Like she's crazy fast, make no mistake, but compared to how fast I am right now I can fly circles around her. The problem is her dramatically better endurance and comparably dangerous offensive power. She wasn't her team's tank for nothing, I suppose. I need to make sure I keep her focused on me and occupied for as long as possible so she doesn't kill anyone while I figure out dimensional travel.

…Speaking of, uh, hey math me? How goes figuring out dimensional travel? Oh, hmm, I appear to be reading through downloaded Wikipedia pages on theoretical physics. That's probably not good. Gonna give that part of myself a bigger percentage of my processing power.

The problem, it seems, isn't the math, but the theory. I can do lots of math very fast, but I don't actually know what the right math problems even are. How could I? Humanity doesn't know how dimensional travel works, and if the Antipathy did they didn't program me with that knowledge. I need someone who does know, and that means Thea. But… what? Am I supposed to just ask her to explain the theory in the middle of a fight? Does she even know the theory, or did she cobble together something that works based on Antipathy scrap parts she didn't fully understand? 

It doesn't matter. There's no way we have enough time to go over it, especially not with her cowering under the kaiju like she is right now. Thankfully, the kaiju doesn't seem super interested in attacking her, instead charging up a powerful death blast to shoot at me. I'll deal with that in a sec. The person on our team in the most danger right now is Aurora.

Our youngest teammate has done an impressive job of surviving a swarm of monsters working to take her down alongside Veritas, but she requires swift intervention. I don't think Veritas is so far gone that she'd actually let Aurora be killed, but with a kaiju on the loose now an errant blow could turn those children into paste. I boost to the side, evading the kaiju's pitch-black death beam, wondering what the best course of action is here. Should I just grab everybody and start running…? No, that doesn't work. Based on how poorly I'm doing regarding the dimensional travel question, I need to prepare for the very real possibility that I'll run out of power before solving it. If that's the case, I need to do as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible, in order to create a situation where we could potentially survive after I'm forced out of my incarnate form.

I guess that makes things relatively straightforward, doesn't it? As much damage as possible… yeah. I take a deep breath.

I… am thankful for the life I have now. It's far from perfect, and it's full of uncertainty, but even without a heart that beats I feel more alive now than I ever have before. I'm thankful that I've had the opportunity to get so close to Castalia, whom I've idolized for a long time. I'm thankful that I've been rescued from Melpomene's control. I'm thankful that Bean is alive and safe and with people who can care for them. I'm thankful that I can believe in a future where the fears, worries, and dangers of today have finally passed. I'm thankful that I have been given the power to protect the people I love. I'm thankful that I have so many people who want to help me, who want to hold me, and who love me as much as I love them.

But most of all… hah. I know this is wrong, but I can't deny it. I won't deny it. Even if it makes me a little bit like her, I won't hide from the truth. Most of all, above everything else… I'm so very, very thankful that I can beat Melpomene's smug face into a goddamn paste!

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ!" Melpomene roars as she flies towards me, extra arms reaching out for me with hatred. "A Hᴇᴀᴅ Fᴏʀ Aɴ Eʏᴇ!"

Empowered by the burns I gave her before, her magic rushes towards me and surrounds me, vengeful lightning erupting all over my frame. It hurts, I'll admit, but I'm above such human things. I grin through the pain, joy and mania filling me to bursting. I start to draw an enormous spell circle in the air behind me with lines of golden light, layers and layers of calculation and specification joining together as my spell core and transformation stone work in harmony. 

Let's see you block this, you smug bitch!

"Cᴀᴛʜᴀʀsɪs!" I shout, my unnatural voice loud enough for the whole fragment to hear. "Fᴜᴄᴋ Yᴏᴜ, Mᴇʟᴘᴏᴍᴇɴᴇ!"

For one beautiful moment, a moment that I will save as the desktop background of my mind, I get to see genuine fear on my tormenter's face. Fear of me. Of the power she gave me, and of the power over me she wasted. But the moment passes, and her face hardens with hatred once again.

"Wait in line," she growls back, hunkering behind her shield. "Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Uɴʙʀᴇᴀᴋᴀʙʟᴇ Hᴇᴀʀᴛ."

Her shield emits a massive energy field, shaped to appear like the shield itself has quadrupled in size. I accept the challenge gladly, laughing at the absurdity of it. The arrogance. She thinks she can stop me with a badly-named abreaction. But arrogance is all she is, and all she's ever been. She's never had a real plan. She's spent her days in the dark world coasting by on bluff and bluster, hiding her fraying sanity from half the people she cares about and silently stalking the other half while wondering why they don't fucking talk anymore. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic! She's such a piece of shit that it's funny!

My Catharsis fires, a giant beam of annihilation as wide as a building. Melpomene grits her teeth and braces herself in the air, ready to take the attack head-on, because she has always been a goddamn idiot. Before reaching her, my attack bursts into hundreds of individual beams, each of them twisting through the air and snaking around her defenses entirely. Some of them rush towards Nanaya, targeting Mel's firmest ally with criss-crossing bursts of incinerating light. More of them converge on Fulgora as she tries in vain to target my master, and many more go after the kaiju and the swarm of monsters endangering Aurora, carving swathes through the horde laid against us. 

But most of my attack, naturally, goes for Melpomene. It curves around her attempts at defense, striking where she's weak with pinpoint precision. I spent so long learning everything I could about her, after all. I spent so long with an obsession for her that bordered uncomfortably close to love. If she had been just a bit kinder to me, a bit more apologetic, a bit more human and a bit less mad… things could have been very, very different. But they weren't, and here we are. She used me for stupid, trivial things, wasted my potential, and let me get away. Now, she pays for all of it with interest.

My Catharsis crashes into her from every direction but the one she was trying to shield, peeling her apart with force, heat, and power. 'Unbreakable heart' my ass. I never had to break it. She's been nothing but the shattered fragments of her former self since before I ever met her. I laugh louder and louder as I watch her face tighten with pain, my attack digging into her body's absurd defenses with unrelenting obsession. I can't kill you, Melpomene! My master won't let me kill you! But let's see how close I can get!

Suffer, suffer, suffer! Suffer, you wretched slaver and tyrant! You're just a moron parading around what you think is a just cause because it's the only thing that keeps you moving! I've wanted to hurt you for so long, the least you can do is scream for me!

And she does, kind of. It's more of a yell, a cry of fury and hatred rather than pain. For all her flaws, even I can't say Melpomene is lacking in persistence. She's one of the most experienced magical fighters in the world, and unlike Castalia her job from the start has been to take hits no one else could. She reinforces her body with magic, pushing forward through my onslaught to try and reach me. I divert some of my attack to hit her head-on, striking the shield just to push her back, but it barely even seems to slow her down. As her skin and scales fry, as agony races all over her body, she still pushes forward. Nothing stops her.

"Lunnnaaaa!" Melpomene shouts at me. "You think you can kill me with hate!?"

Well, it's more like schadenfreude. The difference, see, is that I enjoy feeling it. My cheeks are so sore from laughing and grinning that I don't really feel the need to answer her, though. She pushes closer, and my attack scours her deeper.

"I'll tear her stone back from your corpse, you rotten thing!" Melpomene continues ranting. 

That, I'll admit, earns another laugh from me. She's getting closer now. Every ounce of purple she has is going into holding me off, and she wasn't Castalia's teammate for nothing. I see now why Castalia thinks Mel is stronger than her, but I know better. Unlike Castalia, Melpomene's strength is a fragile thing. She keeps pushing, keeps fighting, and she gets close enough that I don't need to raise my voice anymore. Close enough that, if both of us reached out, we could probably clap hands.

But instead, I speak. I stop projecting my voice so everyone can hear. These words, just for the two of us.

"It's three stars, in a triangle," I tell her. "One red, one blue, and one yellow. They're near Orion, but they're faint enough that you can only see them from space."

She doesn't understand at first. It takes her a second to work through the meaning and all the implications. But when she does, the color drains from her face.

"Why would you deserve this stone," I ask, "when you don't even know how to visit her grave?"

It's the cruelest thing I could have said, and I said it for no reason but that alone. It's enough. The moment I speak, the burning, roaring fires of Melpomene's self-hate, stoked endlessly to keep their heat, finally choke on their own fuel. And without that flame, it all grows cold enough to be her own personal Cocytus. 

Roaring hatred becomes silent despair, and as my attack consumes the last embers of Melpomene's defenses, her incarnate form shatters.

I did it.

I beat her.

All it took was a few hundred death lasers, some deeply personal emotional warfare, and very nearly one hundred percent of my maximum battery charge, but I finally kicked her ass! The damage to her incarnate form was so catastrophic that there was likely direct feedback into her soul and, consequently, significant internal damage in her body. And sure enough, though she is capable of fighting outside her incarnate form, she certainly isn't making any attempt at it. Despite her strength and despite her wings, her physical body falls from the sky, plummeting unsupported towards the ground. 

I watch only for the short moment it takes to see her take a breath, and then just let her fall. If all that didn't kill her, terminal velocity with the ground won't either. Right now, I need to stabilize myself. A Catharsis, kinda by definition, is an outpouring of all the emotion a person has. Supposedly, it leaves you drained and emotionally empty for a while after you finish one, but I don't exactly have time to slow down and rest right now. Dealing with Melpomene swings the fight dramatically closer to our favor, but it's not over yet.

I summon another LCI to my hand, staring out at the wider devastation my Catharsis wrought and updating the status of every threat in the area. The monster horde is basically gone, leaving Aurora and Veritas to work out their differences alone. Nanaya has broken off from her fight with Anath and is currently rushing towards where Melpomene is going to land, and Anath is just letting her go. I don't see Fulgora anywhere near Thea anymore, and Thea is staring pretty much directly at me. Shouting something?

Oh.

Right.

The kaiju.

I… somehow I missed it getting this close to me!? No, I didn't miss it. The kaiju made me miss it. The damn thing warps reality just by existing; any discrepancy I can't explain is genuinely likely to be its will just pressing into the world until the world snaps in the monster's favor. I can't worry about how I missed this. The only thing I need to worry about is the enormous beast right towards me, leaping up into the air with its fangs outstretched towards me. I haven't injected the LCI yet; in this moment between moments, there is no time. It's moving too fast.

I don't have enough magic to cast a spell, but I can still dodge, or at least try to. As absurd as a kaiju's reality-warping abilities are, they aren't gods. They can only alter and retcon so much, and there's at least a hope that whatever it did to put itself in range of this attack means that it can't force me to get hit the way it did last time.

I'm running on fumes, but I'm still running. I push as much power as I can into my thrusters and twist my body out of the way, clearing well above the snapping maw trying to swallow me whole. My arm comes down, LCI plunging into my thigh. One injection, and I've made it.

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Wᴇᴇᴘɪɴɢ Sᴋʏ!"

It takes me one tick too long to realize that Fulgora's muffled shout is coming from directly below me, hidden within the mists surrounding the kaiju. She leaps up off its head, claws outstretched towards me, and smashes the LCI halfway through my attempt to inject it, leaving me at barely twenty percent power. A giant explosion of yellow occurs as the highly compressed magical liquid bursts out in every direction, immediately vaporizing as it disperses into the air. The miasma of the Dark World itself sucks it up almost desperately, stealing it away as the shockwave from the burst knocks me and Fulgora apart. I'm very surprised at the size of that blast, honestly. I didn't think that much magical power was compressed into a single LCI, but… wait.

Is… is that my skinsuit falling through the air? But how could… no!

Fulgora's attack cut not just through the LCI I was trying to inject, but through my entire extradimensional storage space, ripping a hole in every spare injector I had remaining. I didn't even know that was possible, I thought that… wait. I'm such an idiot. Anath was so convinced that Fulgora could get us out of here. She had the key to dimensional transportation all along! Is that what her abreaction does? Is that where the bullet-rain comes from? Is she making a portal to another universe? Because if so… LCIs gone or not, she might have just saved all our lives.

I've seen her cast that before. I have a mental screenshot of the spell circles. This is our ticket out of here! If I just first calculate how I can copy and modify the spell, then… shit. Shit. Shit!

I don't have enough power!

The bullet-like rain from Fulgora's abreaction crashes into me, and I'm forced to fall to the ground and try to find cover. There's nothing here, though, this part of the Dark World is mostly just wasteland. The only cover from Fulgora's attack is underneath the goddamn kaiju, and I don't think that's going to be any safer! Not that I really get a choice, though, because before I land the kaiju swings another leg at me and this time I can't dodge. My sensors go haywire as my whole body is rattled by the blow, sending me head-over-heels into the ground where I bounce twice before skidding to a stop. It's all I can do to keep my incarnate form intact until I stop to prevent damage to my real frame, but then that's it. I've got nothing left. I drop out of incarnate form and push myself up, looking around for my team.

"Gʀᴇᴀᴛᴇʀ Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ!" Thea enchants me, and while that's very welcome I fear it's too little, too late. At least I've been knocked back to the others, and with the Dark Rebellion largely distracted and the monster swarm destroyed, the four of us manage to group up. Veritas is nearby, but not wanting to take all of us on at once she stays at a distance, shield ready. She looks… angry, certainly, but still at least a little conflicted. Maybe I can sway her to our side…? No, it wouldn't really matter. She's not enough of a force multiplier to let us fight the kaiju. 

"So I don't normally do plans, but… do we have a plan?" Anath asks hesitantly.

The kaiju bounds over to us, Fulgora leaping off it to land in front of us first.

"…That Catharsis was way too early," Fulgora chides me hollowly. "Rookie mistake."

"Thea, how much more power can you give me?" I ask.

"That's… pretty much it," she huffs. The poor girl is exhausted, and even considering how terrifying the situation is I know she's had to burn herself out to stay alive in a situation this bad. Aurora isn't doing much better, and while Anath is at least mostly intact she's far from fresh herself. Escape isn't an option, fighting isn't an option… so we need to hide. There's nowhere to hide, but I haven't been trying to figure out Melpomene's stealth magic for nothing, right?

Ha. Who am I kidding? As powerful and dangerous as my body is, it's still me piloting it. I can't pull a no-leakage invisibility spell out of my ass. I need true magic for something like that, but it's denied to me alongside any other real freedom. Circles, equations, and formulae are all chains to hold magic in a specific shape rather than letting it free, and I can't do anything that isn't chained.

Fulgora holds up a hand, and the kaiju behind her bounds to a stop instead of crushing us into a paste. The monster is still bleeding—or maybe leaking would be a more accurate term—from the leg I cut off of it at the beginning of the fight, but with five more to spare the wound clearly hasn't slowed it down much. Even that wound seems to be slowly repairing itself, a new leg coalescing out of the swirling vapors. That giant explosion of yellow magic Fulgora turned all my LCIs into seems to have accelerated its healing considerably, the leg now almost halfway regrown.

"Should I kill them?" Fulgora suddenly calls out, causing Veritas to tense in fear as she stares at her former leader.

"…We need Thea, Anath, and Aurora alive. But we don't need Luna."

Damn it. Damn it! That voice… was Melpomene's. Sure enough, I glance over to see Nanaya helping her walk towards us, both their faces twisted with fury and hate. I should have prioritized Nanaya first! Always take out the healer first! Why did I let myself get so distracted!?

"We sure don't," Fulgora agrees, the half of her face that still has skin forming a cruel grin. The skeletal half, of course, has always been smiling. That's what it means when you can see a person's teeth, right?

"I won't let you hurt her!" Thea shrieks, stepping in front of me, but I grab her by the shoulder and yank her back, stepping forward in her place.

"…I won't let you protect me," I tell her. "I'm sorry. I can't."

I really can't. Not even if she orders me to. My master's survival takes priority over even their own will. I wonder if that's a loophole prevention measure, or something. Guess I'll never find out. I won't just let them kill me, but… that's probably how this ends.

I'm way too proud to beg for my life. Not to her. Never.

"Okay," Fulgora says. "Then die!"

She leaps at me, and I step forward to meet her. It feels like old times. I dodge her first blow, just barely, but I don't have time for a counterattack. We're both more dangerous than we were when all this started. We're both more experienced. But right now, she's the only one that's more powerful. I used everything I had, thinking I had an out, and she saw right through me. I should have predicted it, but I didn't. No matter how fast I am, no matter how good my reflexes are, I'm still lacking in the combat skills that really matter.

The first blow to my shielding knocks out half the power Thea gave me. The second takes the rest of it plus interest. I'm under ten percent, now. I can barely spare the extra energy to use my thrusters to dodge. I can't win here. I don't see any way out. The others all try to help me, Anath leaping forward, Aurora starting to cast, Thea stumbling as she screams my name, but the Kaiju smashes down a foot and they all have to scatter or die. We lost. I gave the fight everything, but we lost.

At least I got to hurt Melpomene before the end. If only I got to see her die.

One last hit to my shields, and I collapse like a doll thrown across the room. My defenses deactivate, my shielding moves exclusively to essential internals, and my limbs stop receiving power. The only thing my body can do now is try and preserve itself. Soon, I'll be forced into slumber, but I fight to stay awake for no reason in particular. Maybe I want to make sure Thea is really going to be safe before I go. I'm not sure. I guess… it doesn't matter.

Fulgora approaches me, raising her staff to finish me off, but then… she suddenly stops. Quirking her head like she heard something odd, she glances at me and then turns around, squinting at something in the distance. If I had the power for it, this would be the perfect opportunity to launch an attack, but I don't. All I can do is watch.

"Do you… feel that?" Fulgora asks.

"Feel what?" Nanaya responds.

"…I feel it," Melpomene confirms, turning to look in the same direction as Fulgora. "What… what is that?"

"Holy shit," Anath whispers under her breath, and to my complete surprise I feel hope welling up inside her. Our enemies feel it too, though, and it immediately sets them on edge.

"What is it?" Nanaya demands. "What's happening?"

"I don't know, it's…" Melpomene starts, but then we start to hear something. A low, rumbling roar… and behind it, what sounds like a scream.

Not a scream of terror, or a scream of rage. It's a scream of… determination, of effort, of unrelenting will. The kind of scream that comes out when you're putting absolutely everything you have behind something, pushing yourself to and beyond your limits to achieve an end that no one thought would even be possible.

I'm embarrassed at how long it takes me to recognize the voice, but in my defense I've never actually heard this much emotion from it in my entire life.

"Castalia…?" Melpomene gapes. 

"Castalia!?" Nanaya repeats. "How could Castalia possibly—"

A crack opens in the world, and blinding light pours out, scouring away the miasma. My Catharsis lit the Dark World, like a beacon illuminating the night. But this light… is the rising sun.

The crack in the world explodes, a beam of golden power crashing into the kaiju from behind. Emerging from within the beam, however, a familiar set of wolfish ears leaps into the sky. Amaterasu jumps out of Castalia's attack, sharp eyes focused on the battlefield, and holds her incarnate weapon at her hip, ready to be unsheathed.

"Cᴀᴛʜᴀʀsɪs!" she shouts immediately, her entire body blazing white. "Nɪɢʜᴛsᴘʟɪᴛᴛᴇʀ!"

With a single, brilliant cut from above, Amaterasu draws a single line that hits Fulgora, Melpomene, Nanaya, and the kaiju all at once. Fulgora screams, the blow burning her straight out of incarnate form, and the kaiju howls in agony alongside her. Melpomene summons her shield, she and Nanaya both hiding behind it, but this time Amaterasu's Catharsis bites into it with enough force to crack, chip, and ultimately break off the side of the shield that took the hit, scoring a glancing but still very much wounding blow on the exhausted Melpomene.

"Thea-san! Aurora-san! Luna!" Amaterasu shouts at us all. "Run!"

Castalia is here. We are being rescued. Castalia is here! She's here and we're going to be okay!

My power reserves have increased to 7%. Full functionality restored. Let's get the hell out of here!

"Come on!" I say, immediately getting up and starting to run. "You heard her, let's go!"

"Hup!" Anath grunts, scooping Aurora up and just chucking the screaming girl towards the hole in the world as hard as she can before grabbing Thea and booking it herself.

"W-wait!" Veritas calls out, starting to follow. I have no idea whether it's to chase us down or follow us home but right now, I don't really care!

"No!" Fulgora growls, dragging herself forward on her hands now that her legs have reverted to their non-incarnate state. "Not yet!"

"Agreed!" Nanaya growls. "Melpomene!"

"I know, I know," Melpomene hisses, clutching her newest wound as she glowers at our exit. "Just… give me a moment…!"

I, of course, have no intention to stick around and find out what the hell she's up to. I book it as fast as I can towards the hole that just got blasted into reality, and as I look through it I see Castalia panting heavily on the other side, stub arm still raised from where she was using it to somehow aim her blast through multiple dimensions. She's not even flying right now, actually standing on the ground after all the overwhelming effort she just put in. I can only imagine it's taking everything she has not to drop out of incarnate form and fall unconscious on the spot. But still… when our eyes meet, she manages the tiniest, slightest, most perfect smile in the world. Just a twitch of her lips, and I feel so overwhelmingly loved.

"¡Voy a depilar a esa ardilla estúpida!" Aurora shrieks as she tumbles out of the throw and quickly starts running down the tunnel. 

"Haha! It's fun, right?" Anath grins, catching up with a hyperventilating Thea slung over her shoulder.

"That is not what she said," I inform her.

"Wait, what did she say?" Anath asks.

"You'll find out."

"What did she say!?"

"Less talking, more running!" Amaterasu shouts, sprinting up the tunnel behind us.

"Joy mage!" I counter. "More talking means more running! I am so fucking low on power you have no idea."

"Right! Gomen ne!" Amaterasu apologizes. "Close the tunnel, Castalia!"

And what an incredible tunnel it is. I have no idea how Castalia made this with a goddamn laser beam. I'm doing my best not to even look at the walls because my core heats up trying to figure out what the hell they're even made of. 

"…Close?" Castalia asks breathlessly.

"Yes! Close!" Amaterasu confirms.

"I don't know how to do that," Castalia answers.

God, I love her. That's really bad, though. We make it back to the liminal zone, leaping once again onto more Euclidean ground, and turn to face off against our incoming pursuers. Sure enough, I see Melpomene fuming at us from the opposite end, but she doesn't look like she's chasing us. At least… not yet.

"I know how to close it," she growls. "But how about I open it more, instead?"

She raises her arms, magic pouring out of her—I don't know where she gets the power after I whooped her ass, but I guess I can just eat shit about it—and the tunnel starts to creak and shake and pull itself apart, expanding to be dozens of times its original width. Large enough… to fit a kaiju through.

I glance over at Castalia, who is still gulping for air. Amaterasu, who just used her Catharsis, is also on borrowed time. And the rest of us, well… we've gotten our asses pretty heavily beaten already. This whole battle has done a number on literally everyone. Even the kaiju looks like it's in pretty bad shape… but even then, it's still a kaiju, and it's coming right for us.

"This isn't over yet!" Melpomene shouts, and the Dark Rebellion charges at us all at once.

It's not over, but one way or another, it will be soon.