Bipeds and tripeds and quadrupeds and hexapods scrambled across the battlefield, firing into the fungal hordes, loosing blaster rays and lightning arrows, and gravity bombs and acid tides and plasma swords and flying ice.

Battle mechs trudged out from landing pods the size of houses, gatling laser fire into fungal swarms. Swarms of aerial warriors tore through the fungus with piranha-like ferocity, frying and splattering &alon's children with bolts of fire and spears of thunderclaps. When spore-flak and twitching mycelium spewed from the slain monsters, the Vyxit shot gouts of wind and gravity and electromagnetic torque to shunt it away.

"No! NO!" &alon shook her head, lashing tears side to side. "Why, Daddy? Why don't you want to be with me!? I love you Daddy! Love me! Love me!"

"This isn't what love is, &alon!" I yelled.

She descended toward me with tears in her tragic eyes.

"No—Daddy! Don't go! I don't want to be alone!"

"That's what happens when you do evil and show no remorse. Everyone goes away!"

"No!" she cried. "I won't let you! I can't let you leave! I can't let you die!" She pointed at me and yelled. "I'll make you silver!"

The process was as terrifying as I'd expected it to feel. The instant &alon spoke the words, my body defied me, trapping me in a motionless hover mid-air. I felt &alon's will seep into my mind. It grabbed my limbs, ensuring them in puppets' strings.

I tried to use my pataphysics to strike back, but threads of blue and gold simply splurted out from me in effectual sprigs. I tried to coil and turn, and while I could move, it was only a little, and every effort was more difficult than the one before it.

I was going numb. My body seemed to recede from me. I realized that, in a matter of seconds, my eyes would cloud over with silver, My body would no longer be mine, and there'd be nothing I could do to stop the Vyxit, or help them. There'd be no chance of anyone getting justice.

After all, I was the only one with the Key.

I tried to fight the takeover, but my willpower made no difference. My body was made from &alon's flesh, and unless I could interrupt that connection somehow, it was hers to do with as she wished.

I had to fight to keep my grip on the Sword.

&alon glared at me. "Let go of it!"

"No!" I roared.

"Let go!"

Then Suisei's spirit cried out within my mind. "Genneth! Use the Sword!"

What?

Light pulsed through the twining blade in sync with the flux of my thoughts.

"It can make wards," Suisei said, "even if you can't! Take the knowledge from my memory, and see what you can do!"

I did.

It was one of the first pataphysical skills that people from Suisei's world would learn: a ward. You set one up to choke the power out of others' weaves. A good ward would negate any current for as long as it held up. I guess you could say it was like a rest, or a fermata, when a musician was supposed to pause until personal taste or the conductor's baton told them otherwise.

I focused on the Sword's power and drew it out. I didn't need to make the magic. It was already there, in the Sword, just waiting to be deployed. And though &alon had stopped me from making my own weaves, she couldn't stop me from using those that were already formed. She'd have to stop me from thinking to do that—and that, she couldn't do.

Even now, my thoughts were proof of that. My thoughts were my own, and she couldn't stop them, even if she wanted to.

The Sword responded to my request. It was as easy as flicking a lever. I just plucked a thought on one of the Sword's "tabs". Suisei's memories told me exactly which one to trigger.

In that moment, The Sword was no longer a weapon, but a baton. I pushed my thoughts down on that tab and pulled out my imaginary fermata. It took the form of pale—half white, half-translucent—sheets of cottony energy. I pulled the stuff around my body in the blink of an eye, cocooning myself in its staticky gauze.

The instant the cocoon sealed, my body was mine again. The hands of &alon's will were lopped off from my mind.

I almost couldn't believe it.

I was free. I was free of her influence!

Granted, I was also cut off from the flow of energy she continuously sent to her wyrms to replenish our pataphysical powers, and, not to mention, my hunger reasserted itself, too, but the benefit of being free of her more than outweighed the drawbacks. Heck, even the hunger was reasonable; it was no more or less intense than what I'd experienced as a human being.

I just wished I could have shared this freedom with my wife.

&alon flicked her wings in shock. She screamed in disbelief. "W-What!? No no no no no no! Wyrms can't… they can't do that! They can't!"

"I guess I'm the exception that proves the rule," I said.

I wanted revenge. But, more than that, I wanted justice—and the Sword was my ticket to it.

She pointed at the Sword in my claws. "It's 'cuz of the Shiny Stick!" her wings of blue fire flared in consternation. "Let go of it, Daddy! Let go!"

"Hell no!" I yelled.

"But then you won't be with me!" she cried.

"EXACTLY!"

I expanded the currently invisible energy cocoon. For a moment, I fell as the white, staticky threads passed through my flight weave, but my levitation stabilized once the cocoon passed beyond it.

I soared upward.

&alon flew after me. "You can't leave me!"

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"Watch me!" I yelled.

In hindsight, I really shouldn't have said that, as &alon immediately turned her attention to the members of the wyrm brigade caught up in pitched combat with the Vyxit forces.

Swarms of twEfE and other flying Vyxit swept over the land, assembling into attack formation.

"You won't leave me, Daddy!" &alon yelled. "I won't let you!"

Seeing &alon barreling toward them with her wings spread wide, the wyrms scrambled, flying this way and that. Roars broke through the air—bodies twitching and twisting in anger and fear—as the wyrm's eyes began to overflow with silver.

"You won't be able to win if they all go silver-eyed!" Yuta yelled. "You'll be overwhelmed!"

But then, an audacious idea crossed my mind, and I let Yuta know as such.

Not if they don't fall under her spell, I thought-said.

Tucking my limbs against my sides, I turned around and dove toward the ground. Above me, Fort Marteneiss' wyrm brigade writhed and screamed as &alon overwrote their wills.

But not for long.

Raising the Sword up high, I brought the warding cocoon back into view around me and willed it to grow. I drew from my own powers to feed it, while using the Sword to channel the energy in. The blade warmed in my hand as it worked its magic, growing my ward outward in all directions. Compared to what I'd become used to, the Sword demanded a startling amount of power from me. I guess with my connection to &alon blocked, I had to use my own reserves instead of leeching off hers.

But a lot of difficult things were worth doing, as was this.

The wyrms plummeted for the few seconds the expanding, cottony scribbles negated their flight magic, though they regained control of both their flight and their bodies the instant they were fully inside the cocoon. Any traces of silver in their eyes had disappeared.

Brigadier General-Watterson hovered up beside me. "What's going on?" asked. "What did you do?"

"I found a way to interrupt &alon's ability to control us," I said, waving the Sword.

Outside the energy sphere, &alon shook her fists and ranted and raved.

"No! No!" she screamed. "What are you doing!?"

I raised my head and looked up at her. "Playtime is over, &alon," I said. "It's time you faced the consequences for what you've done!"

Though I spoke in anger, my conscience was clear. It was like putting a dog down; it wasn't their fault that they were broken, or hurt others. They just didn't know any better.

The other wyrms nodded in agreement. They lashed out with angry gesticulations, cursing their creator, condemning her for what she'd done.

Unfortunately, we had to deal with the advancing Vyxit forces, first.

&alon's wings flared wide and bright as she flung her limbs and screamed.

"No! NO!!!"

She cocooned herself in her wings and vanished in a puff of blue fire.

"Just like that, she just gets up and leaves?" Slick asked.

But the wyrm had spoken too soon.

Fungal megaliths rose up from the ground and lumbered toward the coastline. Whole sheets of hillsides and plague-ravaged woodlands lifted up from the ground as gigantic fungal abominations broke free from the earth's infected crust. Fungal jungles on the arms and backs came to life, pumping spores from their sporestacks. Their unholy cries were shrill and high, yet deep and dissonant.

Fungus-life scrambled out from the pits in the ground, darting between the behemoth's tentacles.

Brigadier-General Watterson came flying over the Fort's ruins, dodging laser fire from Vyxit bikers pursuing her, only to rear up and bellow.

"What the FUCK?!"

The giants were all marching toward me, as were the horde's newest waves.

Flying as fast as I could, I dashed down and grabbed a passing fungus creature for myself. I plunged my snout into its body and then veered back toward the sky. The creature's body and limbs snapped as my body folded it against the sides of my head and subsumed its biomass into myself.

I'd need the extra power.

Air bound abominations swarmed past me, bashing into my body, raking with their claws, desperate to pull the Sword from my grip.

I cut through them with the holy blade's empowered slashes. Doubling back, I drew from the Sword's power again, which glowed brightly in my wyrmsight as I sliced in broad slashes. The attacks launched arcs of psychic force that whistled as they cut through the air and then mowed down the horde.

The behemoths trundled toward us. Vyx modules sped overhead, searing the giants' backs with their death rays, igniting fungal jungles. Half-machine soldiers launched bombs of gravity and swirling shrapnel, blasting away chunks in boulder-sized pieces. Whole squadrons of mechs, infantry, and wheeled troopers got crushed beneath the behemoths' footsteps.

The Brigadier-General and the other wyrms of the brigade dove down and grabbed individual fungus creatures, refueling their own power reserves. The monsters were already coming apart and fusing with the wyrms' bodies as they pulled back up and took to the sky.

I swung the Sword, sending arcs of power across the battlefield. My attacks sliced through strips of flesh on one of the behemoth's backs. The armored plating slammed into the ground, flinging up dust clouds.

&alon's voice echoed in my mind.

"I've got you, Daddy!"

One of the behemoths launched out a giant makeshift appendage, tossing it at me like a fishing rod. It wrapped me up tight and reeled me in. The tingling feeling was the flow of flesh and power from it into myself. Bits and pieces of dead things moved across the connection like leaves in a stream, sinking into my body's depths.

I slashed at the connection, magic blazing from the holy blade. It took blow after blow before the fungus finally split and I pulled away. But the other megalith—now upright—was waiting right behind me. I slithered up the monstrosity's sides, coiling myself on its bulk for leverage. It helped that I stuck to it like flypaper. I kept the mental sword—now, like a chain-whip that I held in hand—and sliced and pulled at the grasping fungal prominences, until I barreled over its back and onto the bomb-blasted behind it.

&alon moaned in my mind. Why Daddy…? Why do you hurt me?

"You hurt everyone, &alon, and you refuse to accept it!"

No, I don't! I save people! &alon saves!

"No, you don't!" I screamed. "You don't save us! The Angel doesn't save us! No one saves us!"

I flew away as quickly as I could, gazing back every few seconds. The diced megaliths got up from their hobbled stance, their severed pieces reconnecting. The monsters started up their pursuit, even as they were still regenerating.

I turned around and extended the warding sphere just enough to include some passing silver-eyed wyrms. Their trajectories changed as their eyes turned gold once more. They shook their heads in confusion.

I sang the basics of what had happened to the newly-freed wyrms, begging them to save their anger for the Vyxit.

We couldn't get justice if the Vyxit killed us, first.

Speaking of which, my warding sphere's size and strength meant a good deal of the Vyxit forces' magic ended up slamming into it and getting negated.

Unfortunately, the barrier did nothing to stop Vyxit forces from passing through it.

A squadron of twEfE streamed through my ward like a swarm of hornets. Drawing more power from the Sword, I swung at them, launching vacuum slashes of empowered psychokinesis. The arcs of power whistled as they sliced through the air and cut several twEfE in two. Corpses rained onto the ground, wrapped in silver power suits like baked, birdy potatoes in aluminum foil. Unfortunately, far more of them dodged the incoming attacks than I managed to cut down.

"Help!" I screamed.

I would have summoned Yuta and Ichigo and other spirits to fight with my powers, but between using the Sword, keeping up the warding sphere, and launching invisible blades of force half my size, I was already taxing myself to the max.

All of a sudden, bursts of bullets and laser fire spat at the twEfE from two different directions.

"We've got your back, Dr. Howle!"

Slick! Dueright!

"Just do what you can!" Lt. Dueright yelled.

Several more twEfE fell as the two wyrms engaged them, giving me the perfect opportunity to flee. I thickened the front of my ward as I fled, bracing to absorb the impact from a half dozen flower ships firing their death rays in near unison.

Each and every one of them was negated by the Sword's ward. The weapon glowed hot in my grip.

I could feel myself getting hungrier with each passing second.

When was this going to end? How was this going to end? Or would we just keep fighting with one another till the end of time, or the darkness devoured us?—whichever happened first.

For what it was worth, my bet was on the darkness.

Swooping down, I grabbed two bulky, armored fungal abominations. I speared one on the Sword's magic edge, and grappled the other with the claws of my free hand.

As I absorbed them, I noticed their vaguely pangolin-like shape, and wondered if this was part of some kind of sick effort on &alon's part to butter me up somehow. Biomass bulked up my arms and ran through my body as I fed off the creatures' bodies, but then a massive cone of orange-red fire shot out from out of the blue burned them to ashes, along with the outermost layers of my skin.

I dropped the charred husks and shook my body, flinging off the char, and sweeping a pataphysical weave over myself to clear away the rest. Pleasantly painful stinging sensations started up all over my body.

That would be my regeneration kicking in, I suppose.

I darted upward, and turned to my attacker, and then honked in disbelief.

Dragons.

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