Are You Even Human

In-Joke's little delegation doesn't react much to our approach, the whole group just politely waiting for us. Many of them are visibly nervous, though several others aren't. In-Joke themself is grinning the same irritating grin as usual, Lia's mother is as stone-faced as the last time I saw her, and a couple of the presumably superpowered crew are eyeing us more like potential targets than people.

The teleports-when-people-can't-see-him dude I almost arrested in Atlanta is relatively relaxed, at least, neither particularly worried nor particularly aggressive. I guess he has the experience to know that just because I can kill them doesn't mean I'm going to. Or… maybe he's just like that. He handled my eldritch flesh wall deal pretty professionally, all things considered.

Our group makes it to the beach without incident, though when we arrive I scoop Ana up to carry her in my arms rather than transform her legs back. I can do it pretty quick if we need to, but now really isn't the time to help a ten-year-old get dressed. I do not trust a single one of the people in front of me.

"Hey again, Jules," In-Joke greets me, since nearly murdering my girlfriend apparently didn't get me angry enough for their tastes. "And hey to the rest of you. Ana, Peter, Christine. …Maria. And Blossom! I'm so happy you finally get to meet me. Hello, hello!"

"Hello, person we hate," Blossom answers blandly, she and Maria flanking either side of me like an honor guard.

"Aww, so cold!" In-Joke pouts. "And I put all that effort into making sure Julietta would get to meet you, too. No hard feelings, Maria, but you know what they say about the greater good."

"…That anyone who starts talking about it is trying to bullshit themselves into believing it's okay to do whatever they already wanted to do anyway?" Maria ventures.

"Hmm. No, actually, I don't think anyone says that," In-Joke responds. "But they should, that's a pretty good one. Doesn't flow off the tongue super well, but I hope it catches on."

"You make sure we meet?" Blossom asks. "With future see? Hmm. Why? You say you hate Julietta."

"Oh, I do," In-Joke confirms. "Don't you hate her too? Just a little? For being so much more important than everyone else? Our god loved you a lot more before she came into the picture, and you know it."

I feel Blossom tense beside me, a snarl forming on her face. I'm not sure what to say. I know that she knows that she needs to avoid letting the precog get under her skin, because they're always going to know exactly what would infuriate her the most. But it doesn't feel right for me to be the one to remind her, not when the attack was using the one thing she can't help but resent about me.

Fortunately, I don't need to calm her down. Maria actually reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder, tendrils on her head squirming. She hasn't bothered to hide her new body at all, not in front of these people. She turns to glare at In-Joke.

"So you're why I'm like this now, then?" she asks. "I'll admit part of me wants to thank you, but most of me wants to tear you limb from limb. So how about you get to the actual point before we decide to do just that?"

"Oh-ho, the freak has claws," one of the other people with In-Joke butts in, instantly earning several glares from our side of the standoff. He's a fairly large man, with muscles that strike me as more of a bodybuilder's than a soldier's, and bare arms proudly displaying complex geometric tattoos. He has tan skin and mid-length curly hair bound up in a short ponytail. And—because fuck it, why not—I reach out to make contact with his domain, along with everyone else's on his side of the field. Silhouette, huh. Interesting.

Even more interesting is that, in addition to In-Joke themself, there's yet another Possibility-blessed opposing us. He's about the polar opposite of the silhouette bodybuilder, wiry and nervous-looking with large glasses that seem almost as out of place on a battlefield as the fancy business outfit that Lia's mother is wearing. Possibility Nerd (as I will call him until I learn otherwise) is pale-skinned with light brown hair, and is wearing just… a profoundly normal outfit. Khaki pants and a polo shirt. It's like his mom told him to dress up nice, and he didn't want to wear a tie. How remarkably out of place.

Anyway, we of course have the teleporter guy and his accomplice, who at least had the excuse of needing to blend in with middle-class tourists the last time I saw them wearing khakis. Like bodybuilder, they're each blessed by Silhouette. Teleporter guy himself specifically makes portals that link two locations that no one can currently see. My power counters his very easily. His buddy… I'm not a hundred percent sure on, but he used it to grow concrete out of more concrete and block off windows. Maybe something about making copies of materials…?

Not important. Neither of them are a huge threat. In-Joke has the densest domain out of all of them, but the runner-up goes to a girl who looks like she dressed up as a goth but got caught in a rainstorm until all her clothes tore halfway off and her makeup all washed away. Except I think her clothes are supposed to look like that, for some reason. She has a tongue piercing, anyway, and I pretty much take that as a sign that I will never be able to understand a person's aesthetics, and I should never try. Her power is Reciprocation-based, and though she's a bit small and wiry, I can tell she's in damn good shape. Definitely a potential threat.

The last person in the group I can't tell much about at all because they're completely encased in a hazmat suit. Their domain feels Bliss-based. I could figure out more about their body with my powers, but that would be weirdly intrusive and frankly, I don't need to know.

Finally, of course, we have Lia's mother herself. She is, to put it lightly, not dressed for the beach. Pantyhose, pencil skirt, high heels that by all rights should be breaking her damn ankles on this sand… everything on her body screams 'I am delaying my four o'clock appointment for this, so it had better be good.' And yet I happen to know her teleporter doesn't have that long of a range to work with, so is it a power play? Who knows. But when In-Joke starts to respond to Maria, she steps in front of them and speaks first.

In-Joke's grin flashes particularly brittle when she does, like flint struck on stone.

"Our guests have requested we move things along, so you can all save the repartee for another time," she says sternly. She speaks like a woman used to having her orders obeyed without question. And yet, I can't help but note that very few of the people with her act like someone used to obeying orders without question.

"Did you kill my daughter, Julietta Monroe?" Mrs. Morgan asks plainly.

"No," I answer just as plainly. "A Behemoth killed her. Maybe I could have saved her, and I certainly tried, but she was a victim of the incursion, and I had only gotten my powers minutes ago. There was only so much I could have done."

The woman nods, the expression on her face remaining totally static.

"I see," she says. "You impersonated her for several months. Did quite a good job at it, even. You fooled even me."

"I think that says more about you than it does about Julietta, ma'am," Emily snidely cuts in.

Mrs. Morgan simply ignores her.

"However, you also saved my husband's life," she continues, "so overall I believe I owe you gratitude more than anything else."

"…I did?" I ask, confused. "When did I do that?"

"When you pretended to be our Lia," she answers. "You warned my husband of a tumor that would have grown to threaten his life."

"Oh," I say. I… suppose I vaguely remember that. "Is that… it? Somehow I doubt you brought this entire procession to thank me."

"Indeed," she confirms with a nod. "I would like to extend you and your friends a proposition. As I'm sure you know, the military is after you. My associates and I specialize in protecting people from them. There is strength in numbers, after all."

"And in exchange for your protection, you'd want us to work for you," I conclude.

"Compensation is only natural for services rendered," she answers, "but we are flexible as to the form that compensation takes. If you believe your greatest asset is the work you can perform, we would gladly accept it."

"Right," I answer. "And if we decline?"

"Then you decline," she says. "And the military hunts you to the ends of the Earth. If at any point during that you decide you need the help, you are welcome to return to us."

"I see," I answer. "Well, I'm afraid that deal doesn't work for me at all."

"Please allow me the courtesy of having time to convince you," Mrs. Morgan says. "I do not think our offer will turn out to be as unpalatable as you seem to presume."

"That's not what she means," Anastasia says before I can respond, her tone smouldering. Behind Mrs. Morgan, I see In-Joke's expression subtly shift to a softer, fonder smile. It's honestly a little disgusting.

"Pardon me?" Mrs. Morgan asks.

"That's not the part of the deal that doesn't work," Anastasia says. "After everything you did, you don't just get to walk away when we say no."

I feel a shiver run through me, my little one's words almost painfully cold… and just as painfully accurate. She's talking to In-Joke more so than their so-called boss, and even though I know it's somewhat irrational, I can't disagree with a word of it. They don't just get to walk away. Not after everything they did. Everything they just admitted to doing, right to our faces.

Bodybuilder and the washed-out goth both react to our aggression with aggression of their own, stepping forward and flanking Mrs. Morgan in much the same way Maria and Blossom stand protectively on either side of me. But In-Joke, standing safely in the back, just laughs. They lean down and retrieve something from a bag at their side, lobbing it underhand toward me. I reach out and catch it with one hand on instinct more than anything, looking down to see… a towel, wrapped up to hold clothes for Anastasia within the bundle.

"Get your daughter on her feet," they say. "We wouldn't want her to get hurt if things go bad."

I toss their gift to the ground and manifest the clothes I've been carrying for Anastasia, the container having kept them safe from whatever digestive process gradually destroys things inside me.

"Oh," In-Joke blinks in uncharacteristic surprise. "I… thought that would be dissolved already. Interesting."

God, I have no idea if they're being honest or just lying to my face to make me think they know less than they actually do. It's all just a game with them. I ignore them. Setting up a curtain of flesh for Anastasia to change behind, I grow her legs back and put her down so she can get dressed. She pouts a little at the end of mermaid time but doesn't complain. If nothing else, Anastasia has never complained about needing to fight.

"Are you threatening me?" Mrs. Morgan asks.

"Not you, no," I say, pointing at In-Joke. "Just them. Give them to us as a goodwill present, and I might consider a partnership."

"Oh hell yeah," the washed-out goth says. "Best deal ever. Do it, boss."

"Yeah, do it!" In-Joke agrees. "It'll be awesome."

"That one is more valuable than the rest of you put together," Mrs. Morgan says to her bodyguard, ignoring In-Joke entirely. "As infuriating as that fact may be, it remains true."

"Knowledge is power!" In-Joke chirps. "But, you know, there's a pretty classic response to that one, too. And I think we're about to get a veeeeeery thorough lesson in it, everyone, so pull out your pens and make sure to take notes."

"Er, sorry, what are you talking about?" Possibility Nerd asks. "I don't… know a 'classic response' to that. Unless 'G. I. Joe' counts."

"Artifact you impenetrable fool, that's 'knowing is half the battle,'" In-Joke admonishes, clicking their tongue. "God, you fuck up that joke every time."

"I know the response to this," Bodybuilder says, cracking his knuckles. "Knowledge isn't power. Power is power."

"And we know what all your powers are," Damp Goth taunts.

"No, that's knowledge again," In-Joke groans. "You're all terrible at this."

"Okay, I'm a little lost," Christine says. "Are we fighting? Are we not fighting? What's going on here?"

"I guess that's up to you guys," In-Joke shrugs. "We're ultimately on the same side here, like it or not. None of us want the moon to fall."

"Alright, since it apparently isn't getting through to you, allow me to make this very, very clear," I say, my body writhing with impatient hate. "Conspiring to drive someone I care about insane is not the sort of behavior someone on 'my side' does. It's not something that anyone on any side should do. It is completely fucking insane."

"Yeah, almost as insane as what you ended up doing to fix her," In-Joke answers. "I can't imagine what could have possibly motivated you to do all of that! There couldn't have been more than one very specific sequence of events that would ultimately get us to this point."

"And you think that justifies anything!?"

"Oh my god, Jules," In-Joke says, rolling their eyes. "Look, I get that you need to feel like you have the moral high ground on every single little tiny baby thing, but none of this is about justice. It has never been about justice! It's about survival. Seriously, did the mutually genocidal war not tip you off!? I don't care about your precious little feelings. I don't care about how you feel responsible for every single woman who tries to crawl into your gaping octopussy. Your personal tragedies just… don't matter. You are important. But you are not special. Now try to kill me or don't. I really do not care."

What the hell…? Where do I even begin with that? Nothing matters in the face of the apocalypse, is that it? The ends justify the means… or, no. It's not about justice. In-Joke was never trying to be the good guy. So are they actually trying to save the world, or is that just another lie?

"Query: why does this matter, and why must it be determined now?" Blossom asks. "The question presented is straightforward, and so is my answer. I vote kill."

"Really? Even though they're blessed by Possibility?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Consideration. Agreement," Maria sends. "I also vote kill."

"Surprise! Happiness. Together, then?" Blossom hums, inviting synchronicity with Maria.

"Hold on," I say. "This person has powerful precognitive abilities. There is a genuine chance any fight we start here is something we'll lose."

"Agreement," Maria says. "But after this last month? I really do not care."

"Yesssss," Blossom hisses with delight, and then faster than a blink, she and Maria are on either side of In-Joke, both of them extending hidden wrist-blades into their neck. The network guiding their motions, they move in perfect synch, ripping their blades out at the same time and sending In-Joke's head tumbling through the air like a watermelon.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

There is a fragment of a moment, as the head seems to fall in slow motion, where everyone freezes to process what just happened. And then, the moment shatters.

"Holy shit!" the other enemy Possibility-blessed—'Artifact,' I think In-Joke called him—shrieks in terror. And then, it all begins.

Domains bloom outwards, all fighting for dominance at once. Mine reigns supreme, but these people would know it would, so I have to assume their powers are all low on the ODoP scale. God, that brings me back, and not to fun times. What did that even stand for? Optimal Degree of Penetration? Point is, raw power isn't everything. Depending on factors likely known only to the gods, they might still be able to use their powers on me even if my domain is stronger.

But I suspect this usually means the power has some other hidden weakness, whereas my power has no such thing.

My musings make me react a little slower than I would have liked, the people around me bursting into action while largely irrelevant thoughts flicker through my head. How very human of me. I fix that, the cold, task-driven clarity of alien brain structure quickly taking hold. In front of me, Bodybuilder steps forward to block my way as Damp Goth turns around to handle Blossom and Maria. Artifact rushes toward In-Joke's body, and the matter-copier guy starts building a wall between us and the sight-restricted teleporter. The weirdo in the hazmat just stands there and does nothing.

On our side of the field, Anastasia reacts first, bringing her arms together so each set of claws can dig into the opposite wrist. Then, she tears them apart, ripping gouges in her own flesh from which gouts of blood pour, reaching around me toward our enemies. Emily reacts next, stepping back and away from the fighting as Peter starts to move forward, Christine being the last to react.

But not, by a long shot, the least impactful. As Anastasia's blood spears toward the closest enemy from six different angles, Christine's domain detonates damn near the entire beach, shoving Mrs. Morgan away from the fight and suspending her helplessly in midair while simultaneously shattering the barrier created by that matter-copier, his wall of sand disintegrating into nothing the moment it gets separated from its real counterpart. It's still a second too late, though, because when the wall disappears the teleporter is nowhere to be seen.

In his place is a small fairy with a glow that matches the sunset.

"Orange!?" Maria gapes, stuck in the middle between shocked, betrayed, and ecstatic. But before even a single more word can be spoken, the battle has moved on.

The detonation of the very ground beneath them staggers most of the opposing forces, and Ana's blood spears seem to strike true, reaching the bodybuilder's skin. Yet only the one that looped around behind him pierces his skin, eliciting a grunt of pain. The other five seem to be stolen from Ana's control entirely, their cohesion lost as they swirl towards the man and suffuse themselves into his body. I'm on him a second later, a crystal blade of my own thrust toward his neck… when I feel a pull on my entire body as his domain yanks it from my grasp, sucking it toward him like it was nothing more than smoke moving through a fan.

I abandon the flesh and form a new body elsewhere, evading the rest of the invisible attack. My eyes grow back just in time to watch my flesh getting slurped up like taffy and vanishing to nothing. The wound Ana scored on him earlier is already gone.

"Absorbs Guy," I mutter.

"Fucking what!?" he snaps.

Lia told us about this man. Which very nearly proves that 'fake' Lia had access to unique knowledge that only the real Lia would know, so that's disturbing. I shove the thought away, though, and resume thinking about the best way to fight this guy.

"Hey, monster me," Orange responds to Maria. "You really did get messed up, didn't you? Never thought we would murder someone in cold blood."

"They're the one who did this to us!" Maria snaps back. "Why are you with them!?"

Orange shrugs and sends a bright ray of light directly into Peter's eyes, causing him to flinch back and stumble on the uneven sand. Blossom, meanwhile, suddenly has her entire arm sticking out of the front of goth girl's chest, having not even bothered to use her blade to impale the woman from behind. Abject terror and onset shock rush through the woman's system, and then in a sudden flicker she's standing right next to Blossom with a fully intact ribcage and already swinging a punch. Her fist connects with Blossom's cheek, but then of course it suddenly hasn't, because Blossom is now behind her, snagging the woman's hair.

"Another Thief," Blossom purrs. "How fun."

I burst toward Absorbs Guy (that's his name forever now because fuck him) as a raw tide of flesh, aiming to wrap around him from every angle and see if I can make Ana's flanking maneuver stick. With her first volley of blood out of play, she'll have to wait a bit to let more of it flow out of her… or I could just give her more, but there's no time to figure out if this is a situation where Reciprocation would find it justified. The moment I do, the goth's captured hair turns to needles, and a gaping maw opens up on the back of her head, snapping at Blossom enough that the amused Angel lets her go.

"Echo! The plan!" Absorbs guy shouts furiously as he begins to devour some (but not all) of my newly-formed body. Hmm, what determines it, I wonder? I stab directly into his body, but he devours the intruding weapon almost immediately, repairing the damage I dealt.

"I know, I know!" the goth presumably known as Echo shouts back, the panic in her voice suggesting that she may in fact have forgotten whatever the plan is in the heat of the moment. Reaching out toward In-Joke's recently decapitated body, she focuses her domain, and all of a sudden the splattered blood and leaking sinew starts flowing back where it's supposed to be, the head and neck of the world's most annoying precog sealing themselves back together. With a full-bodied spasm, what I had been certain up until just now was a corpse begins moving once more. I quickly stop shapeshifting and back away from both Absorbs Guy and her domain, immediately suspecting Echo to be some kind of power copier, but In-Joke still manages to roll over on their stomach, prop themselves up on their elbows, and promptly vomit out what would be a truly concerning amount of blood coming from anyone I was even the slightest bit concerned about.

"God damn my plans suck!" they choke. "Ow!"

Can my powers bring back the dead!? No. No, wait. In-Joke had been decapitated for like, five seconds, tops. That likely isn't enough for total brain death, but to rely on that…? What an insane strategy.

"Oh, hell no!" Maria shrieks with rage, exploding into a dozen different fairies and lighting up the quickly darkening sky with a constellation of selves. Her main body glows with a ghostly pale fervor, the ethereal wings at her back finally looking large enough to carry her main body.

"And here's the best paAAAARH!" In-Joke screams in agony as Infrared interrupts their quip by descending on their face and pumping up her invisible glow to flesh-boiling levels of heat.

"DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!" the network churns with her fury.

"Oh, no no no no," Echo hisses, clutching her forehead. Spikes and teeth still emerge from the back of her skull. "Not this one, not this one! Do something!"

"I know!" Absorbs Guy snaps, rushing toward Anastasia.

Oh no you fucking don't! I abandon my plan to make space entirely, coiling every last drop of strength I can into my legs and launching myself at him like a cannonball.

"That works!" Echo says, fixing her head and buffing up her size and strength with her powers barely a second before Blossom teleports behind her and impales her again.

"Oops," the Angel grins, and Echo only has a moment to look shocked before she vanishes too, teleporting what I suspect is her current maximum distance away from Blossom. Damn it, what is Blossom even doing? I'm not stupid! This would be over already if she went all-out!

"A Blossom of Wilted Chances, take this seriously!" I order her.

"Anger. Do you think me some common worker, Twisting Scars Reshape Fate?" she snips back at me. Possibility damn it, now is not the time!

"Is this about what the enemy Chosen said!?" I ask desperately, to which I only receive a jumbled emotional mess in response. Cool! One of our heaviest hitters, taken out of the fight with one sentence. Incredible.

"Right right right right, my turn," Artifact mutters to himself, terror in his words and on his face as he makes it to where In-Joke is currently being boiled alive. "Here weeeee… go!"

Out of nowhere, a generic-looking glass bottle with blue goop inside of it appears in his hand. He seems pleasantly surprised when he looks at it, but any flicker of happiness on his features quickly vanishes when he looks at Infrared.

"Oh, uh… you wouldn't mind getting off of them, would you…?" he tries.

"Oh, I've got it," Orange says, flying in and socking Infrared in one of her faces. "Been wanting to beat up something that looks like this for a while now!"

"Oh no you don't!" Blue and Yellow both say, coming to Infrared's aid in a manner that quickly devolves into an all-Maria brawl, Orange clearly losing but taking advantage of the fact that the others don't really want to hurt her to fight as dirty as possible, even biting anyone who tries to get a hold on her.

I try surrounding Absorbs Guy again, but it feels like all I'm doing is rapidly feeding him my flesh reserves. It feels like I'm stabbing him pretty consistently, but anything I put inside his body gets stolen from me, and when I try to move away the results are similar. But while I'm surrounding him, and before I hurt him, he doesn't take anything from me at all. What the hell is his power? Silhouette, right?

I form a new body away from him, letting him suck up the remains of my old one after another attempt at cutting him to pieces. Anastasia now has enough blood on the field to keep him away again, so now is my chance to figure him out and take him out of the fight for good.

"He can only absorb something if his shadow is cast on it or on its shadow," Blossom reports. "It is simple enough to deduce given the possibilities available to me."

Oh! That makes a lot of sense. He is 'casting a shadow' on everything inside his own body, after all. There should be plenty of ways to damage him permanently, if we can get a clear angle on him. Unfortunately, his power is about as powerful as it could ever be right now, because every single Maria is emitting light and causing shadows to grow every which-way in the twilight dusk. With a dozen sources of light, he has a dozen angles of attack. It's an incredibly favorable power matchup for him.

"Hey!" Peter shouts, finally having shaken off the disorientation from Orange's earlier attack. "Absorb this."

Completely ignoring the many shadows cast on him, Peter simply steps forward and socks the man in the shoulder as he tries to step back, completely obliterating his left arm. Ah. Well then. Favorable matchups go both ways, it seems.

I leave him to it and focus my attention on the power copier, Echo, changing my trajectory to rush at her instead. I reach out to grab her and find my hand simply ceases to exist where it passes through her. A copy of Peter's power. Well, that's fine by me. I already know how to beat that.

"So, um, I think maybe you're supposed to drink it…?" Artifact says as In-Joke snatches the power-summoned glass bottle out of his hand. Completely ignoring his advice, In-Joke pops the bottle open and simply pours the viscous blue ooze all over their own horrifically burned face. There's a popping sound and a smell like raw meat, and the wounds begin to heal. Noticing this, Maria's main body turns to them, rage still singing through the network.

"Would it help if I said sorry?" In-Joke tries, though Maria's only response is a furious shout as her arm whips forward to try and grab their skull. To this attack, finally, In-Joke dodges out of the way, avoiding the grab by a hair.

I collapse on Echo again, though when I try to smother her, this time my grapple works without a hitch, meeting no resistance from a copy of Peter's power. Instead, Echo's own body starts shifting in response, many-ringed eyes splitting open on all sides of her head, tentacles bursting out from where her hair used to be, arms splitting apart as fingers grow crystalline claws and legs simply melt into a chaotic, amorphous mass with no logical composition, just raw shapeshifted flesh. The sudden horror of it startles me for a moment until I realize she's just changing herself to an exact copy of my current body.

And here I was hoping to pick up some interesting templates today.

"God save me I hate this I hate this why did that stupid smarmy bastard assign me to fight her!? Terror terror terror but I have to I have to do this she'll kill me if I don't stop her!"

"Oh, your brain is starting to change," I comment back to her through the network. "Well good news, it'll stop being quite so scary soon."

"Confusion!? Oh god is that her!? Nope fuck this nope nope nope FUCK this!"

She breaks away, and I let her, shapeshifting into a perfect copy of her old body to help her do the same. She does indeed copy the change, probably not because she has to do whatever I'm doing, but because if she's copying my powers she's probably getting all the instincts I have to mirror people without any of the experience learning to not do that.

"Did you just turn into me!?" she shrieks once she's back to normal.

"Yes?" I say, tilting my head. "You're welcome?"

"Put some fucking clothes on!!!"

I roll my eyes. We're fighting to the death here, there are more important things to worry about than boys seeing you naked. But whatever. I'm going to assume she's out of the fight for now, mostly because she knows what'll happen if she's not. That's one down.

"A-ha!" Artifact shouts triumphantly, having moved away from the brawl between In-Joke and Maria's body to check up on the bleeding stump of Absorbs Guy. He is now inexplicably holding an entire robotic prosthesis. "This looks like it'll do the trick! Here you go!"

"How do I put it on!?" Absorbs Guy hisses, gripping tightly to his open shoulder in a desperate attempt to keep the blood inside.

"Oh, uh…" Artifact blinks. "I have no idea."

Right, I'm just going to consider both of them out of the fight, too. I have way too many eyeballs for their teleporter to be able to do much, and the matter-creator guy looks like he recently got perforated several times by… Anastasia, probably? So he's not doing so hot. And the hazmat guy still hasn't done a single thing, so maybe combat isn't their forte.

"Surrender," I order all our enemies. I think it's clear how this fight is going.

"I… agh! Never wanted to fight in the first place!" In-Joke snaps, barely dodging another strike from Maria. It's genuinely quite impressive, considering how outclassed they seem to be physically. "Call off your trained attack girlfriend!"

"Maria?" I ask, right before she finally manages to snatch In-Joke by the neck and lift them up into the air.

"I'm thinking," she growls, glowering at them while gripping hard enough to start a bruise. In-Joke claws at her fingers, desperate for breath.

"Look, we both hate them," I say. "I'm not going to stop you if you want to kill them. But is that what you want? Are you going to regret it?"

"Yes!" Orange snaps before Maria's main body can answer. "Yes, we will regret it! I don't like this asshole, but boot camp didn't break our brain so badly that we wouldn't feel awful after murdering some person in cold blood! Did the alien shit do it then, huh!? Are you all just gonna let yourself be monsters for real!? We're better than this!"

"Listen… to them please…" In-Joke wheezes desperately.

"Oh my god, do you not know when to shut up!?" Orange and three other Maria fairies shout at them at the same time.

"They do not," I and Maria's body confirm, also at the same time.

"Someone get me down from here!" Mrs. Morgan shouts, still suspended by Christine's power.

"No," says Christine.

"Look, I just… this is not worth it," Orange insists. "It's not. We aren't actually on opposing sides. They helped me when I couldn't take living with myself anymore. They aren't all bad."

"I don't care," Maria's body snaps. "And it's only because you bailed out and left the rest of us that you can even think of forgiving this piece of shit. We remember it now. We remember being what they made us. Violated does not even begin to cover what they did to us. They deserve to die."

"Boy do I," In-Joke comments, their shit-eating grin returning as they manage to claw themselves another breath of air. "I wish I could let you do it. But I can't. So let's just go with the forgiveness route, yeah? Kiss and make up."

And then the insane bastard actually makes kissing sounds at my girlfriend. It's so unbelievable that nearly everyone has to take a quick second to process it. Only Echo and Emily seem to have not been caught completely off-guard, the two of them rolling their eyes with the tired cynicism of women all too familiar with unwanted flirtatious remarks.

Maria's reaction is not nearly so composed. As In-Joke's hands continue to barely claw open opportunities for their trachea to function, she decides to simply cut out the middleman as literally as possible and extends the hidden blade in her wrist. For the second time tonight, the organic spear carves through In-Joke's neck and pops out the other side.

There's a moment of silence. But with In-Joke, it's always just a moment.

"New at this, aren't you?" they wheeze through the pain. "Didn't even nick the vein."

And then, they say… something else.

My ears are quite good, but I don't hear it. Not really. I feel it. Not with my body, but with my power. Like the word itself is a domain. Or… no. Not a word.

A name.

Blasphemy. A crushing domain descends over every single one of us, the metaphysical weight of it almost forcing me to my entirely physical knees. I retract my domain to cover nothing more than my body, shrinking it down to make it as dense as possible and protect myself against this… force. Everyone around me does the same, which does finally cause Mrs. Morgan to drop from the sky, along with quite a bit of sand. It piles up underneath her, giving her something relatively soft to land on and, hopefully, not hurting her legs so much that she can't run.

Because she is going to need to.

Between us all, something starts to form. It's invisible at first. Intangible. But the echo of the name reverberates through this place, through our minds, and the presence begins to solidify. Before us is a swirling mass, increasingly in the shape of a man, and as it moves it feels as though the world moves with it, like every step it takes doesn't propel the man forward but instead pushes the earth back, tossing the ground out from under us like an unsecured rug.

Without speaking, Peter, Christine, and I all move to surround Anastasia, ready to protect her from any angle. Maria is frozen stiff, unable to move simply for being at the epicenter of the spoken name. Even Blossom seems intimidated for once, the nonchalant carelessness she was treating the battle with before having vanished in the presence of a nearly Queen-level domain descending on us out of nowhere. But one of my eyes makes sure to never stop tracking the last member of our group. And where I expected to see fear, I instead see resignation.

The indistinct figure of the man, like a smudge on the world itself, ceases to grow more solid. Instead, he looks around, invisible eyes passing over each and every one of us. Until finally, eventually, they land on her.

"Emily," The Forbidden Name greets her evenly. "It's been a while. Here I thought you'd never call me again."

"I didn't," Emily answers flatly, pointing at In-Joke. "They did."

The Forbidden Name turns his (its?) head to stare at In-Joke.

"Huh," it says. "Who the fuck are they?"

Maria's body suddenly jerks, whether from her own terror or from something the overwhelming aura of Blasphemy did to her. In-Joke falls from her grasp immediately, the blade that passed cleanly through their neck once again ripping open a gruesome hole on its way out. In-Joke falls on their hands and knees, one hand coming up to futilely brush against the waterfall of blood now leaking from their neck.

"Okay," they gurgle, the air from their lungs pushing blood up and out of their mouth as they speak. "That one hit the vein."

They promptly pass out, the sand once again getting painted red with their blood.

"Well, that's new," The Forbidden Name comments. "Always interesting with you, isn't it Emily? So who's next? No, wait, don't tell me. It's more fun when it's a surprise."