Are You Even Human

"You liar," Emily accuses. "You're always asking me to spoil things for you. It's the whole reason you keep me alive."

The smudge on the world that is The Forbidden Name laughs, its voice seeming to come from every direction at once, including inside our own bodies. The sound of it echoes in the cavities of our throats and lungs, subtly altered by the acoustics of a dozen throats unwillingly singing in harmony. It's a disturbing feeling, yet Emily is once again unfazed by it. If anything, she seems more calm than usual.

"And yet our deal is over, isn't it?" Name chuckles. "Both halves of it."

"Yep," Emily confirms, popping the P. "So you can consider this a freebie from me. Can you guess who's going to die first? I'll give you a hint: it's not them."

She indicates In-Joke, still rapidly bleeding out on the sand. Name tilts the twisted space that passes for its head.

"Aren't you usually the one guessing?" it asks. "It's no fun if I do it myself."

"Trust me," Emily says, except that's not all of what she says.

Trust me, name. She says its name. And this close, I suddenly understand that I could do so now, too. I know what the name is and isn't. I know what sounds I would need to make to convey it. It's not a super common name, but it is, in so many ways, a remarkably normal name. There must have been at least a thousand people who shared it in the USA alone. So many accidents would have happened as a result. So many summons. So many people would have stumbled into saying the name of their lover or child or friend, not realizing what that name had become.

Still others would have been saved, however, by trying to write the name first. Because despite the fact that I know it should be possible to write, I can't wrap my head around it. It feels like my first conversation with Possibility: incomprehensible and fragmented. There is something subtly divine about the name that transcends the fact that it's a mere superpower. Which is… madness.

This is a power that, in many ways, breaks the rules of how powers work. Not by a lot, but at least by a little. It cheats, ever so slightly. A name has become a domain. An idea, a concept, a sound, and an image have been scoured away and replaced by a shard of divinity. This domain isn't attached to an individual person at all, is it?

"Do you even have a body?" I ask Name. "Do you exist at all before people call you?"

Name and Emily both turn to me, both of them seeming surprised.

"Did Emily tell you that?" it asks.

And isn't that a whole revelation in and of itself. My sister knows this monster, this… thing. Knows it well enough to casually banter, entirely unfazed as In-Joke bleeds out on the ground in front of us.

"No," I answer. "She only told me you wouldn't physically appear at the location, just that your domain would. But I'm getting the feeling that was intentionally misleading."

"Well aren't you a clever one?" Name grins. "You're half right, I suppose. Emily, I have my first guess."

"…It's her, isn't it?" Emily sighs.

"No," Name answers. "It's you."

"W—" Emily's eyes go wide as she tries to speak, but she's cut off almost immediately by her entire torso unnaturally twisting.

It's like someone held her in place, put a crank in her chest, and started rotating it bit by bit. It's a dual horror watching it with both my eyes and my biology sense, the way her bones shatter into fragments and her flesh stretches and snaps.

Name takes its time with the act, reveling in Emily's expressions as they shift from surprise to terror to agony. It's like the incursion all over again. Watching my sister die such a gruesome death in front of me… everything I've done to help her, everything I've done to keep her alive, gone so suddenly that even she's surprised?

…Wait. Wait, no, I'm an idiot. She's surprised. She didn't think she was going to die!

"I told you our deal was off, didn't I?" Name laughs. "You've earned more than enough special treatment, sister."

Sister? Are they related? I don't think Emily had a foster home before the one we shared, so they might actually be biological siblings. Or, well, they were. Nothing about Name is 'biological' anymore.

Emily falls to the ground, Name's hold on her dropping as she loses consciousness from the pain. I feel a little stupid for being afraid she would die, honestly. Her brain is fine, and that means this damage is completely trivial to remove. I heal her in seconds and force her awake, and though Name already has its attention roving elsewhere, Emily wastes no time telling me what to do.

"In-Joke!" she hisses at me. "Sorry, but we need them!"

Ugh. Fine. I heal and wake them, too, as Name snaps its attention back to Emily.

"How the… hmm," Name muses, the tone of its voice seeming to be a conflicting mix of annoyed and excited. "I didn't know healing powers that potent existed. Which one of you is it, then? I wonder how much you can survive?"

"Guh," In-Joke says, hacking out another glob of blood and pushing themselves to their hands and knees. "Okay Maria, you're up."

Maria? What does Maria have to do with this?

"The hell?" Maria sneers at them. "You think you get to tell me what to do?"

"We're kind of in a crisis right now," In-Joke points out.

"A crisis you intentionally caused!" Maria snaps.

"Then kill me afterwards," In-Joke says. "For now, we're on a schedule. I'm gonna need you to make like, a gazillion yous."

"Why?"

"Because Echo's too much of a pussy bitch to do it instead," In-Joke answers. "As usual."

"Fuck you!" Echo snaps, at which point she, for no apparent reason, becomes the target of Name's ire. Shit, I guess I should heal her too? She actually uses the last of her strength to stagger closer to me, so I extend my domain her way and focus on keeping her from completely kicking the bucket.

What is happening right now? In-Joke summoned this monster, and now they're ordering us around on how to survive it?

"I have to admit, this is a new experience for me," Name says. "Normally people are quite obsessed with me whenever I'm around. Begging, screaming, trying to run away. That sort of thing."

"Would that work?" Christine asks.

"No," Name answers. "But it's fairly natural behavior, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah, our group is well past 'natural,'" Christine says. "Might start freaking out in a bit, though. I think I'm just processing. You and Emily are related…?"

"Ah, yes! Of course she wouldn't tell you. Back when I had a body, we were siblings," Name confirms.

"And he was a total fucking sociopath then too, for the record," Emily groans, not having bothered to get up off the ground.

"Ha! Like you're one to talk. Our whole family was nothing but monsters," Name says.

"I'll concede the point," Emily admits. "But I mostly just manipulate people. You set out glue traps for birds and throw rocks at them when they get stuck."

"I haven't done that since I was eight!" Name protests. "Mother got very mad when it disturbed the neighbors."

"Oh my god, nobody cares about your comically fucked-up family drama," In-Joke says, wobbling to their feet. "'Mother got very mad when it disturbed the neighbors, wa wa wa,' like come on. We get it. You're an unambiguous monster. No one here is impressed by that; it's just the reason I set all this up to kill you, dumbass."

What? I am so whiplashed right now.

"Kill me?" Name says. "I'm not e—"

"—Even alive in the first place blah blah blah shut up!" In-Joke snaps. "Oh my god you are so boring. You never change! You just say the same thing every fucking time because no one has summoned you in a year because no one is that stupid and yes, it's been over a year, and you're going to get really petulant about that as if it isn't entirely the obvious consequences of your own idiotic actions! You're the one who got the power that makes you stuck in limbo if no one says your name, and you're also the dumbass that kills everyone who says your name! What the fuck did you think was going to happen!? Idiot! I am so tired of you!"

There's a pause.

"Right, well then," Name says, raising one ethereal hand.

"Domains around your brains!" Emily shouts, and then everything breaks.

Well, almost everything. I'm blinded at first, having not heeded Emily's warning fast enough due to my domain already being so spread out. And now I have to spread it again, catching and fixing just about everyone as they get torn to shreds (and pumping them with painkillers while I'm at it). Everyone is now having horrible flesh blender time, and everything is happening so fast that I just don't know what to do other than roll with it.

There are exceptions to this, of course. Blossom flashes into several different locations in the blink of an eye, ultimately ending up unharmed by the assault. Peter simply walks through everything and tries to punch Name in the face, though his fist passes through nothing but air. The body we see is just another application of the same space-warping effect Name is using to kill people.

Of course, I'm mostly focused on protecting my friends and family, leaving In-Joke's side of the field to fend for themselves. This unfortunately means I'm forced to feel the split-second of Anastasia being torn apart before I heal her, not to mention Christine, Maria, and the others. It snaps me out of the passive reverie I've been floating in, having not known what to do in this situation. My own brain's destruction, which usually makes it harder for me to think, instead acts like a splash of cold water, zeroing my focus in on my power, my domain, and what I can do about it all.

The problem is… what can I do about it all, other than keep repairing the damage?

Echo seems to have a similar reaction. As she gets torn apart, she copies my power and immediately starts to heal herself and the rest of In-Joke's squad at the same time I do. The main exception is the hazmat suit that had been standing almost entirely motionless for this entire confrontation. When Name tears that apart, it deflates like a balloon, a pinkish mist rushing out and diffusing into the air.

"Aw, shit," In-Joke swears as they get put back together for like, the fourth or fifth time in the past five minutes. "The dumbass let Rapture out. Coverup, Artifact, can you collect her?"

"Aaaauugh," Artifact moans in agony, a little too distracted by being reassembled to comply. I guess Echo doesn't know how to do painkillers. Most of the rest of that side of the field seems to be faring similarly, including whoever 'Coverup' presumably is. Maybe the guy who fucked with the windows back in Atlanta…?

"Cool," In-Joke grunts. "Maria, can you do the thing I fucking asked for already? Like Jesus. This is a little much just to spite me."

Of course In-Joke can still talk. Name seems to be intentionally avoiding people's lungs and heads, focusing on blending limbs for maximum pain and minimum chance of premature death. While the lack of painkillers is completely crippling the rest of their team, In-Joke sounds more bored than agonized. I doubt it's because they don't feel the pain.

"I-It's not spite!" Maria snaps, though she's also quite a bit shaken.

I can hardly blame her. Even beyond the sudden violence, In-Joke asked her to multiply herself dramatically further. There are already a dozen Marias, and that's probably a lot to handle. What would happen to her if there were two dozen? Five dozen? A hundred? A thousand?

"Orange," In-Joke groans.

"Fine," Orange growls back, flying toward the main body. To my surprise, none of the smaller fairies seem particularly affected by the space-warping effect of Name. Who… seems to be getting a bit agitated.

"…Why won't any of you die?" Name asks. "Not even one of you? Really?"

"Your powers are boring!" In-Joke snaps, taking the monster's attention on themselves. "You're boring! The whole world thinks you're this big scary boogeyman, but you're just a child who hurts people for fun. It sucks. You suck! I hate having to deal with you every goddamn time!"

Name doesn't speak in response, just turning the full brunt of its malevolent attention on making In-Joke's body hurt. They finally react to the pain a little—if only with a slight grunt—but they spend most of the time just glaring at Name's avatar. And of course, of course, it fails to shut them up.

"You always fuck things up if I don't deal with you," In-Joke hisses. "Some moron always calls you at the worst possible time. And I'll give you this: you're really hard to deal with. You are just power, raw and formless. You can't be hurt. There's nothing about you to be hurt. Except, of course, one little thing."

Orange pushes past a few frustrated Marias and touches the main body, forcibly remerging herself into the gestalt. The other fairies look at each other and follow suit, and the body flinches, clutching her head as a month of completely divergent memory adds itself to the whole.

"Maria?" I ask. "You okay?"

"Oh," Maria says. Then, she looks down at In-Joke again, the anger mostly gone from her. "Fuck you."

"There's a future where you do," they smirk. "Ah, what a memory that was."

"Okay, so like, we're all picking up on the fact that In-Joke's power is a time loop now, right?" Christine says. "Does that mean we stop existing if they die?"

"No," Maria and In-Joke answer at the same time.

"Will everyone please stop ignoring me?" Name hisses. "You are all stuck here with me! If you had run, you would have found that out! I control everything in this area! I control space itself!"

"Specifically, you control everything in your domain," In-Joke says. "Now Maria, if you would, please? This is very uncomfortable."

"Fine," Maria scowls. "Everyone huddle up. I haven't done this before, so it might get dangerous."

And then, she starts to split. A kaleidoscope of fairies emerge from her body one after the other, the glow of her eyes and wings brightening further and further as she does.

"Ah, I see," Blossom hums. "A power fit for a Queen."

"What's happening!?" Name demands, his power focusing on Maria for a moment, yet… nothing happens.

She has every fairy I've ever met out and then some, and the more she makes, the more her power climbs.

"Thing is, you're not the only one who has a power that makes you functionally unstoppable," In-Joke says, looking meaningfully at me. "Some people's powers make them invincible, sure, but you can always push a domain around a little and damage the body underneath. Unless, of course, there is no body. Or at least no body that matters."

We all start to huddle together like Maria suggested, both In-Joke's team and ours converging in one place. We are, I suppose, past the veneer of violence that began our little meeting. None of us like each other, but most of us like being torn to shreds less.

I can't help but notice this is probably what In-Joke wanted all along.

"So here's a lesson for you kids!" In-Joke continues, raising their voice a little to be heard over the wind starting to whip around us, space twisting and churning as it tries to push through to get Maria. "A domain is always tied to something. Usually it's a brain. But sometimes it's something like a name, or a place, or an idea. But if you can't kill or destroy that thing, there's another option. If you destroy the domain itself? Then whatever it's attached to ceases to exist."

The swarm of Marias swells like the tide, pushing outward and forward as more of them flash into the world. Some are humanoid, some take Maria's current appearance, some assume the visage of her insane demonic body, and yet more fall somewhere in between. The main body glows brighter as Maria's mind fragments further, and soon the glowing wings, having long since reached full-size, are joined by more ephemeral limbs. Glowing likenesses of the crab-like legs of her demonic body start emerging from her waist, alongside shimmering impressions of extra heads. And all the while, the Marias synchronize their domains, combine their power, and grow ever further in strength.

And soon, they hit a breaking point. The sheer density of her domain stops competing for dominance with Name's and starts outright forcing it aside. Maria's domain wraps around the entire area like a cocoon, and slowly, it starts to compress. Name's domain has nowhere to go, so it can only shrink, getting denser as it does so… but Maria's strength continues to swell. Twenty of her, thirty of her, forty of her…!

"Wait! You don't need to do this!" Name insists. "I have to appear whenever anyone summons me. You could use me as a weapon!"

"Eh, that's kind of the thing about war, though," In-Joke butts in. "If there's one thing we've got in abundance, it's definitely weapons."

"And we're not trying to go to war," several Marias comment. "We're trying to stop it. And you have no place in a world like that."

"Damn you…!" Name hisses, searching around for another avenue to try. "Emily!"

"I'd give you another guess," Emily says, "but I don't think you'll like the prize."

"Did you know this whole time?" Name demands.

"Uh, yeah, dumbass," she says. "That's kind of my whole thing."

"You're just going to let me die!?"

"Good point," Emily grimaces. "That's actually my whole thing."

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And so the bargaining stage ends, and Name resorts to screaming and lashing out with wanton violence. I protect people as best I can, and then I no longer have to, Maria's domain passing over us and offering synchronicity so we don't get crushed out of existence. There are so many of her now that I can't see her real body anymore at all, completely enveloped as it is by her other selves. With us free now from Name's domain, there's nothing left for him to take his anger out on… not that he's long for the world anyway. The ball of Marias condenses, crushes, and then soon… there is silence.

Afterward, more flashes of light herald Maria's many selves recombining with her, her power waning as she once again returns the totality of her personality to her own head. The extra glowing body parts fade away, leaving just the flesh she helped design. She collapses to her knees, clutching her head. I quickly run over to offer support.

"Maria?" I ask.

"I… I'm okay," she hisses. "I'm okay."

"Hey Emily. You remember?" In-Joke asks, cracking their neck.

"Uh, remember what?" she asks hesitantly.

"Your brother's name," they respond. "You knew him best. Do you remember it? Can you say it anymore?"

"Oh," she says. "I… no. I can't remember it."

"Great, then he's dead forever," In-Joke sighs, brushing off their sand-covered pants. "Welp, that's all I came here to accomplish today. We did it. Good job. Everybody go home."

Everyone, including their own allies, stares at them in disbelief.

"What, do you expect me to pull out another tea set?" they demand. "That's Artifact's job. Artifact! Tea set!"

"O-oh, um! Watcha!" Artifact says with a flourish, summoning a ridiculously overcomplicated… glass pitcher? Of some kind? It's more like a bunch of interconnected tubes than a jar, stylized to wrap around a thick central cylinder in what might be the most overdesigned container of all time.

"Wow, that sucks," In-Joke says. "This is why I usually set those up in advance."

God, I hate this asshole.

"Wait, wait, just hold on!" Echo demands. "Was this your plan from the start!? You just told us we were here to recruit Seraphim!"

"Sweetheart, everything is my plan from the start," In-Joke says like they're talking to a child. "Except for the stupid stuff or the stuff that doesn't work."

"Does this not count as stupid stuff?" Absorbs Guy grunts. "Because I think it counts. This is exactly the kind of shit you agreed to stop springing on us without telling us first!"

"Right, yeah, I lied about that," In-Joke shrugs. "I mean seriously, if I had told you all 'hey, I have a super convoluted plan to maybe trick Seraphim's murderous mutant girlfriend into killing The Forbidden Name, but I need you all to get tortured repeatedly for it to work' I feel like you probably would have said no."

"Yes, you crazy bastard, we would have!" Absorbs Guy snaps back. "That's why I'm pissed!"

"Yeah, exactly," In-Joke nods. "Look, I don't need you anymore, you can quit or whatever. Hey Maria! Do you still wanna kill me?"

"I don't even know anymore," she groans.

"Good enough!" In-Joke says cheerfully.

"No, no, not good enough, you still owe us an explanation!" Echo insists.

"Yeah, I'm with the hot goth, what the hell just happened?" Christine asks. "What is your deal? Are you seriously time looping? There are time-based powers?"

"Ugh, fine," In-Joke groans, rolling their eyes. "Does everyone want me to explain my master plan?"

"Yes!" at least five people, including myself, all insist.

"Okay, sure, whatever," they concede. "It's really not that complicated. Maria over there is low-key one of the most powerful people on the planet, but only if she breaks herself hard enough. So, y'know, I had to kinda…"

They mime smashing something with a hammer.

"…Because otherwise some bozo inevitably summons Emily's brother to mess everything up later down the line. Also, it gets Jules on track to go full alien mode way sooner, which is important because she's missing like half of all the important information until she does. Most of Julietta's other friends don't matter that much, but just so we're all acquainted… Emily foresees when people die, Peter is invincible in a mildly more interesting way than normal, Anastasia is the personification of the child protective services hotline, Blossom is literally a motherfucking Angel so do not mess with her unless it's funny enough, and Christine does… that wacky-ass thing you saw her do."

"It's basically an exploded view diagram," Christine offers. "Like in mechanical assembly instructions."

"Sure. That," In-Joke dismisses. "On our side we have Blink and Coverup, with whom you are already acquainted…"

"Seraphim," the teleporter nods at me. Blink, huh? That's actually kind of clever.

"But just in case, Blink can make portals but only where no one is looking, and Coverup can create matter but only if it's attached to—and remains attached to—preexisting matter of the same type. They work really well together. You'd think they have some gay thing going on, but no matter how hard I try I can never get them to fuck."

"I have a wife," Blink says flatly.

"Yeah, sure buddy. Anyway, they're just here to get us the hell out of dodge if things go wrong but mostly to surprise you with Orange, since things don't really devolve into an outright fight if she's here at the start and if I don't have a believable excuse to summon that jackass without warning anyone you all get really bitchy about it."

"You cunt," Echo spits.

"Yeah, exactly like that, thanks for the demonstration," In-Joke nods. "Anyway she's Echo. She copies powers, but she can only copy ones that are either currently in use or were the most recent one to have been used in her domain. Which is why I've also brought this man whom I believe I overheard you name 'Absorbs Guy,' which, I mean yeah he sure do be fuckin Absorbs Guy actually so that's his name now."

"My name is Barry," Absorbs Guy protests.

"Anyway he's here to make you think that I think his power counters Seraphim's because, to be fair, he does a better job than most. What he's actually here to do is make Seraphim constantly use her power to fix people so Echo can copy it and save our asses when we inevitably start to lose. Meanwhile, Rapture is here to actually kill Seraphim if she ends up being crazy and/or unreasonable. Which, um, by the way, who is she currently possessing? Does anyone know offhand…?"

As they say this, In-Joke's left hand and forearm fall clean off the rest of their arm and splat down onto the sand.

"Ow," In-Joke says. "Okay, you got me with that one, Rapture, that was pretty funny. Arti, clean her up, would you? Jules, do you mind…?"

They wave their bleeding stump at me.

"Maybe when you ask people for favors, you should use their actual name," I say flatly.

"Ugh, fine.'Twisting Scars Reshape Fate,' would you please ever so kindly heal my hand before I bleed out and die for like the fifth time today?"

"…Did you really just use the English translation of my alien name to avoid saying 'Julietta?'" I ask.

"Hey, it's your 'actual name,' isn't it?" they argue. "Come on, hurry it up. I don't have as much blood as your nine-year-old."

Well, if they're going to be pointlessly spiteful, then I will too. I seal up the wound and heal it, but I don't give them their hand back.

"I'd call you a bitch, but this is honestly fair," In-Joke sighs, looking at their healed stump. "Echo, fix me."

"Hell no," Echo snaps.

"Bitch," In-Joke scowls at her.

I ignore their byplay. What's this about Rapture being the super they brought to kill me, anyway? Artifact wanders over to the discarded hand, thick gloves forming on their hands as they carefully pick up the severed limb, drop it into the weird glass jar they made earlier, and seal the top. They discard the gloves on the ground and create a permanent marker next, with which they draw a large smiley face on the jar and write the words "My Friend Rapture" below it. The limb inside, meanwhile, starts to rapidly dissolve into pink mist.

God, Bliss powers are always so creepy.

"What does Rapture do exactly?" I ask. "What's her blessing?"

"Why the hell would I tell you that?" In-Joke says. "I just told you she's my backup plan in case I need to kill you. The less you know about her the better."

I frown, staring at the glass container. The pink mist leaves none of In-Joke's arm behind as the flesh sublimates away. It curls throughout the inside of the jar for a bit before gathering up near the inside wall in my direction, almost as if noticing me staring. Slowly, it slides into the shape of two letters: 'H' and 'I.'

Hi.

"Oh, uh, hello," I nod at her. Can she see and hear me…?

One letter at a time, the mist spells its response.

"Don't… be… mean…?" I read out. "Uh, alright, I guess. I try not to be."

The mist forms into a smiley face that matches Artifact's drawing on the glass. Well. Okay then.

"Right, where was I?" In-Joke asks themselves, tapping their chin. "Oh, yeah! Artifact! He's actually one of yours, Blossom. Or one of your Queen's, anyway. I mostly just used him to find you, but he's also pretty damn useful like, maybe thirty percent of the time."

"Council member?" Blossom asks, perking up excitedly and suddenly teleporting next to poor Artifact, who yelps in surprise and ends up dropping Rapture's jar. It lands in the sand softly and without any apparent damage, but the mist inside shifts to an angry emoticon instead of a happy one.

"Yeah! That thing, or whatever," In-Joke confirms. "He can create arbitrary objects that could possibly assist with solving whatever problem he specifies when making them, but it doesn't guarantee the solution will be good, likely, or even feasible. If a bear suddenly attacked him and he wanted to survive, his power might give him a gun, or a handheld teleportation device… or it might give him a stick."

"Probably like, a big stick, or at least a pointy stick, but yeah I would, um, die," Artifact confirms. "H-hello, by the way? Ms. Angel?"

"Blossom is Blossom!" Blossom asserts. "You feel The Divinity of Wonder? Point!"

"Oh, u-um, you mean the pull, right?" Artifact says. "Thataway."

He points out into the ocean and slightly down, exactly in the same direction I feel my Queen rests.

"Eeeee!" Blossom squeals excitedly, scooping up Artifact into a huge hug that lifts him up off the ground. "Council member, council member! Two so soon! We are so blessed!"

"Yeah also that," In-Joke says, jerking their thumb toward both of them. "That also happens. S'another good reason to keep him around. Flower girl is fucking scary if she actually tries."

"Am I going to die!?" Artifact squeaks in terror.

"Nah, you have a super-powerful Angel bodyguard now actually," In-Joke says. "And/or friend with benefits, if you want."

"Ooh…?" Blossom grins wider.

"Sorry Bloss, he could, but he's way too much of a coward to ever ask," In-Joke clarifies.

"Aww…" Blossom pouts.

"What is going on right now?" Artifact whimpers. "Please put me down!"

"O-K, O-K," Blossom allows, enunciating each letter as she drops Artifact back onto the ground. Artifact immediately picks up Rapture and scurries away, holding her between him and the Angel. Rapture forms an H, followed by several S's.

"So anyway yeah, that's it," In-Joke says. "That's my team. The Defenders of Nothing. I spent like, the last several months getting all these idiots together in one place just for this moment and we uh, we did it. We're done. Yahoo."

"What's this about any of you being done?" Lia's mom hisses, limping back over to us. "In case any of you forgot, I am your employer."

"Oh, right, yeah," In-Joke says. "This is Mrs. Morgan, her superpower is money, and she's really fuckin' easy to manipulate if you know how to deal with narcissists. And that's the Defenders of Nothing."

"Excuse me!?" Mrs. Morgan hisses.

"Look lady, you don't want me anymore anyway," In-Joke shrugs. "My powers are increasingly useless from here on out, and I've never devoted any time after this point to making you money, so I certainly won't start now."

"What do you mean by that?" I ask, trying to reassert some semblance of control over this conversation. "You haven't explained your power yet."

"Wh… huh? Why would I have to? Christine already did," In-Joke says. "It's a time loop. Or like, a really shitty fake time loop, I guess. What, have you not read any time loop stories? You read books, right? Or listen to them, or whatever. Oh! Groundhog Day! You must have seen that, your most recent family made you watch all kinds of old ass movies."

"I'm familiar with the concept, but powers are rarely that simple," I say. "I've never heard of one that exerts direct control over time, let alone one that creates and potentially destroys alternate timelines."

"Well yeah, it doesn't," In-Joke confirms. "Like I said, it's one of those shitty coward time loops that don't actually loop time, it just simulates possible futures over and over and over in a really realistic way. It's a power that, y'know, allows me to experience a ton of possibilities. But the thing is, I only got to do that once. Or… I was only forced to do that once, more accurately. I got to live countless—as in I literally cannot count them—possible future lives, and nearly all of them ended at the apocalypse, so it was about three years of time. Over and over and over and fucking over again. I wouldn't be surprised if it was millions or billions of loops. Most of them were recursions, which is to say me doing a loop with memories of the previous loop, but a ton of them weren't. I got to experience the time loop for the first time probably thousands of times, and have thousands of runs on each of those first times, and on and on. It was a miserable experience. My power sucks, it's bad, and I hate it, but somebody has to save the world, and none of you chucklefucks are going to do it on your own."

"And… you're sure this isn't a simulation?" Christine presses.

"No," In-Joke says. "I mean, I'm pretty sure, but I'm never sure of anything, and the world exists to torture me. But I think this world is real. Probably. I think what happened is that this body is my real one, and all the possible paths it could take got downloaded into my brain at once. It felt pretty damn different to every other loop, so I think this is the one."

"That's… very powerful," I admit. "You get infinite tries to do anything you want?"

"What? No," In-Joke says. "I got infinite tries. Past tense. But now I'm out of them forever. The further we get from the starting point of the loop, the less accurate my predictions become. We're in stormy waters from here on out, and there's nothing I can do about it. So, y'know, I'm gonna go retire or something. Good luck eating the Grand Queen."

"Wait, what?" I say. "Is that how I save the world? Do I have to eat the moon?"

"I dunno," In-Joke shrugs. "Maybe. We usually died before we got that far. Are you currently planning to wander around and try to form some big multi-Queen alliance?"

"…Yes," I confirm.

"Great," In-Joke says. "Keep doing that. It's pretty much the closest we get to forming a solution in time."

"What happens exactly?" I ask. "You've mentioned it's the Grand Queen, but…"

"She de-orbits what's left of the moon," In-Joke answers. "And herself, which is probably her main goal unless she just really hates rocks or something. They start getting closer to Earth, the tides get turbofucked, there's earthquakes and volcanoes and stuff, and eventually the moon hits the Roche limit and breaks apart into pretty rings and nasty meteor showers. The Queen herself is made of sturdier stuff, though, so she makes it to the atmosphere and soon after we all say hi to the dinosaurs."

"Jesus," I grimace.

"Yeah, it seriously sucks ass," In-Joke says. "If we make it that far and fail to stop it, I honestly recommend just killing yourself early and not suffering through the agony of the apocalypse. Not that you literally ever take my advice on that, you insufferable optimist."

That… is not something I've ever been accused of being before. I suppose optimism and pessimism are relative, though.

"Why would the Grand Queen want to destroy Earth like that?" I ask, turning to Blossom.

"Hrm. Disconnected from network long time. Very bad for thoughts," Blossom says.

"So you're sure she's insane?" I ask.

"Killing all people bad," Blossom shrugs. "A little confused, though. What is 'Roche limit?'"

"Um… so remember how I told you about gravity?" I ask.

"Yes," Blossom confirms. "I do not believe in gravity."

"So it… wait, what?" I blink.

"Gravity stupid idea. Not exist. There probably just some Grander Queen in the middle of Earth," Blossom asserts confidently.

"Or perhaps a god?" In-Joke grins.

"I… no, gravity is very real," I insist.

"But it so stupid!?" Blossom complains. "Invisible force that not powered by anything or any god that like to move people toward ground and make balls go spinny around each other? Dumb. Stupid idea. Our universe no have."

"Wait, wait, you've told me about this," I say, rubbing my temples. "Your universe doesn't have gravity, or even like… natural laws in general, maybe? Because it's made of gods. So when you talk about experiencing a pull toward Queens…"

"It literal," Blossom says. "If not for this stupid thing—"

She kicks the ground.

"—All you need to do to find Queen is nothing. Just float, and blessed fall to where they are supposed to go."

"So… okay, so what if the Grand Queen agrees with your theory?" I ask. "What if she doesn't understand gravity? What if she also thinks there's some kind of 'grander queen' that she's religiously obligated to approach?"

"Are you trying to say that you think we can stop the apocalypse with a middle school science lesson?" Peter asks. "Because that would be fucking funny."

"Eh… maybe," Blossom hedges. "She probably also insane. But… maybe."

"Also, gravity is still super real," I say. "Just to throw that out there. You mentioned that only blessed get pulled toward their Queen, right? Unblessed just float without any pull. But people without powers still don't float into the sky on Earth."

"Birds do," Blossom says. "Maybe only birds unloved by god."

"Blossom, you know how birds work, it's the same principle as Wasps," I groan.

"Or maybe," In-Joke says, "there is a Queen in the middle of Earth, and she's of a god that blesses everyone. Some kind of ur-god. A god of this universe, rather than yours."

"That is blasphemy," Blossom protests. "With small 'b.' Even worse than big 'B.'"

"You're talking about the God of Nothing," I say. "Which… by your theory, you're basically saying is Earth."

"Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm," In-Joke nods eagerly, their biggest shit-eating grin yet on their face. Which means… what, are they setting me up for something? What's… oh.

Oh my god.

"'The Defenders of Nothing' literally just means 'The Defenders of Earth,' doesn't it?" I realize. "That's it. That's the whole joke. The aliens think Earth is a god because it has gravity and their universe doesn't."

"Yes!" In-Joke cheers happily. "You got it! You got the joke!"

They begin to happily dance around, waving their remaining hand in celebration. We stare at them, utterly lost for words for a solid half-minute.

"That… that's not funny at all," I ultimately break the silence. "I thought you were some kind of nihilism cult. Do you have any idea how much easier this would have been if you didn't act like some crazy villain and just told me all of this from the start!?"

"Well… yeah, of course I have an idea," In-Joke says. "I'm pretty intimately familiar with that idea, in fact. But, y'know. I hate you, remember? I went through like a million goddamn years of torture for you. So. Hey. Suck it up and go save the world, champ."

They pat me on the back as I press my face into my hands.

"Well," they continue, "I guess I technically hate the P-zombie simulation of you with all your memories and personality traits that your god made specifically for me to fuck around with, but she got like, really annoying after a while, so you're kind of mostly catching her strays I guess? But I think it counts. Hey, can I kiss you?"

"No," I answer firmly, not having the energy to be surprised.

"No!?" Maria also answers on my behalf, apparently feeling somewhat better than before.

"Eh, that's okay. You're not very good at it anyway," In-Joke sighs wistfully. "Never enough tongue. You'd think the literal tentacle monster wouldn't be quite so squeamish about penetration."

"Can you please just leave me alone forever?" I groan.

"If I say yes, would you believe me?" they ask brightly.

I don't answer. I just sigh. This… I don't know what to think about this anymore. Should I pity them? If what they're saying is true, they've done this a thousand times before. They've lived every possible life they could have. They know things about me that even I don't know, because they've experienced me as a best friend, as a mortal enemy, and maybe even as a lover. They got a power that drove them insane, ate away their morality, and convinced them that they're required to act like a monster in order for the world to make any meaningful progress towards safety. Maybe they're even right about that. What do you do in a situation like that? What could anyone do?

Well. Besides plan out a bafflingly specific assassination strategy for an ephemeral demigod, completely chumping it before I even really had the time to process any of it.

"I'm starting to think the gods don't understand humans very well," Maria says flatly, staring at In-Joke with a mixture of irritation and pity.

"Within fairness," Blossom says, "do humans understand humans well?"

"Oh yeah!" In-Joke exclaims, snapping their fingers and turning to their allies. "That reminds me. Who wants a fancy new body?"

The Defenders of Nothing all stare blankly at them, except for Rapture's jar which now reads 'Me me me me me me me!'

"Except Rapture!" In-Joke clarifies. "We do not need her acting out her namesake again!"

Silence. Again.

"Look, at least one of us has to volunteer to be transformed into a fucked up Angel monster, and it's not going to me be," In-Joke says, hand and stump on their hips.

Once more, there is a pause, though this time the quiet is ended much more swiftly.

"I quit," Echo says.

"We also quit," Blink agrees.

"Yeah, I'm done," Absorbs Guy nods.

"Wait wait wait wait wait!" In-Joke insists, running off after them as they all turn and start walking away.

My friends and I let them all go, far too dumbstruck and/or exasperated to pursue them any further. Only once they've all left do I start to wonder if this, too, is something In-Joke planned. Just… fast-talking us all into letting them get away. I feel a bit like an idiot, but… I don't know for sure. Maybe that was off the cuff. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Maybe I just feel too sorry for them for my own good.

We got information. We killed one of the most dangerous supers in the world. And then we got told to just… go keep doing what we were already doing. That's it. But can we trust that?

"Affirmative. We can trust it," Blossom says.

"How can you know?" I ask.

"Because our god blessed them, and our council member follows them," she answers simply. "This is part of Possibility's plan. Our god does not wish to see a world it loves so much die."

"…I'm surprised you didn't forcibly drag our new council member off to meet the others," I admit.

"Next time, perhaps," Blossom smiles. "We will see him again."

Ugh. We will, won't we?

"Whatever," I groan out loud. "Let's just go. To Peter's colony, wherever that might be."

In-Joke is right about one thing, at least. It's time to suck it up and go save the world.