72. Pawn (Patreon)

Silence descends in the cabin, the weight of those words settling into us before I manage to speak.

"I… no?" I venture. "You're talking about someone who caused this and survived. No, I don't want to meet them."

"More than that, you're talking about the Founder, right?" Helen butts in. "Like, the Founder in 'Founder's kin.' The guy that created the cult that's trying to kill us. If anything we've learned from the cult is even kind of true, he has to be the guy to have caused the apocalypse, right?"

"Wait, does he?" I ask. "How and why would he create an entire organization to stop himself?"

"Well first of all, Hannah, I'll give you even odds that a Chaos mage is the one that created the tradition to kill all Chaos mages," she says. "We don't like ourselves any more than anyone else likes us. But the important part is that all the information we have points to it. Founder's kin cause apocalypses, then become immortal. There has only ever been one apocalypse; what we thought were three separate problems all have a single source. Therefore, if the Founder is alive, he has to be the only Founder's kin alive, and also the source of the apocalypse. It makes sense: the dude ends the world, goes 'oh shit, that was a bad idea,' and then creates a group to stop it from happening again."

"But if there's only ever been one apocalypse, how does he even know that Founder's kin cause them?" Valerie asks. "Like yeah, he did, but he's literally the only data point."

"So what?" Helen asks. "People have committed genocides with far less justification."

"Why arguing about this?" Kagiso butts in. "Just ask Sela. Was there."

That quiets us down again, because… yeah, come to think of it. Sela is… really damn old.

"...Sela?" I prompt.

"This is true," it buzzes. "The Crafted were constructed before the merger of the Pillar and the Tree of Souls. We witnessed the apocalypse directly. It was a time of unmatched horror and confusion. But this is largely unimportant; you have claimed your goal is to determine the methods by which you might prevent another apocalypse. It is logical, therefore, to seek the most knowledgeable source on the subject, which is without question Aimilios, whom you call the Founder."

"Yeah, but he very explicitly wants to kill me," I point out. "He created an entire cross-continental organization for the express purpose of killing me. He's not going to just sit down and have a friendly chat with us."

"Then make him, Hannah Hiiragi," Sela answers. "Or do you have an alternative thread that you could pull to unravel this conundrum?"

…Crap sandwiches, it's got a point. Who else would I ask? Even if there is someone else alive after hundreds of years who knows about how Founder's kin get such impossible levels of power, I have no idea who they are and no idea where to start trying to find out.

"I mean… okay," I mutter to myself. "This Founder guy is crazy powerful, right?"

"His soul was mighty enough to break worlds," Sela answers, "and I doubt he has let himself atrophy in the interim."

"Why are we even alive, then?" Valerie asks. "Why didn't he just squash Hannah the moment she showed up?"

"Well, he will likely do so soon even if we don't go to him," Sela answers, "but he spends most of his time trying to mitigate the damage that he has caused. Usually, this means fighting the spread of the sun's flames."

"You seem to know a lot about this guy," Valerie presses. "Do you know what spells he has? Do you know how he fights?"

"Yes," it confirms. "The Crafted have fought with him before. He has killed many of us."

"Looking to use us for a little revenge, are you murderbot?" Helen smirks.

"I would not be opposed to killing him," it hums back, "but it would be a rather inefficient method of interrogation."

"Right, we have to fight with the intent to capture," Valerie frowns, "which will make this even harder."

"You misunderstand me completely," Sela corrects. "Apparently necessary reminder: I am a Death mage. I would be overjoyed to kill him and force him into our service. I merely anticipate that we will have easier methods of getting him to tell us what we need to know. Both you and Helen, for example, could manipulate his emotions and make him inclined to talk while he fights. Do not approach this straightforwardly; in a raw contest of strength, he will be victorious. Our advantage, and especially your advantage, is in preparation and versatility."

I let the conversation pass over me for a while, nervously gnawing on a dead, flaking part of my forelimb's exoskeleton. This is all just so sudden! The Founder? The cult's Founder? This is like, final boss stuff, right? And we're just casually talking about taking him down out of nowhere. I feel like I just beat the fifth gym and everyone's already trying to get me to challenge the Elite Four.

Still… can we win? Sela seems to think we have a chance to get what we need and get out, at least, and while Sela is a lot of things I trust it doesn't intend to lead us to our death. If it wanted to do that, all it would need to do is open its doors. But at the same time, I'm not sure Sela would particularly care if a few of us die in the process.

"Sela, I need you to be upfront with me here," I say, cutting off the current conversation. I realize that's close enough to an order to be toeing the line we've drawn between us, but it surely knows it's doing the same with my line, by suggesting something so dangerous for my friends. "Can we win this? Can we win this and all make it out alive?"

It pauses. Whether it's due to an internal struggle, a calculation, or just for dramatic effect, I have no way to know.

"...With proper planning and execution, we can," it answers eventually. "I firmly believe this is in our power. It will not be easy, and it will not be guaranteed, but while our foe is unfathomably mighty, no magic is insurmountable. He may be the Goddess' chosen… but so are you."

I mean, I guess I am, but you shouldn't say it like it's a good thing. I can feel Her listening to us, a wide grin on Her face. She is excited for such a potential showdown, but does that make it a better idea or a worse one? I guess it could just as easily be neither; the Goddess probably just likes the idea of two of Her favorite people getting into a bloody fight to the death. I bet that's good entertainment for You, isn't it?

She holds me and laughs, nodding vigorously. This is the fun kind of risk. She is excited beyond compare.

I shudder at Her touch on my body and mind, at first just happy to take the confirmation and try to forget the whole thing. But then my mind catches on one little word: risk. The Goddess… considers a fight with the Founder to be a risk. And like yeah, it's a risk to the lives of me and my friends, but I have every reason to believe She cares about that a lot less than She cares about whatever the heck Her plans are. And Her plans are exactly what I'm hoping to smash.

The Goddess, of course, hears my thoughts, pouting as She lounges all over my body. Do I really think She cares for me so little? It's true, perhaps, that She will simply try again if I fail to bring Her victory; I am ultimately just the latest of Her current distractions. But distractions are everything. I am everything, at least until the moment I'm not. Can't I see that?

I try to mentally push Her away, but of course it's futile. She leans into it, only pressing ever-more-joyfully against me. Ugh, I never should have started thinking about Her. Even when it illuminates matters, I always emerge from it a shaking wreck. Her every touch is terrifying, violating, and utterly impossible to prevent. She is, in every way, the perfect monster.

And that's why we have to stop Her.

"...Okay," I say. "Everyone, are we willing to do this? Because Sela's right. We might not have another way to do this. The Founder knows more about this problem than anyone, and even if we can't get him to help we're still going to have to fight him eventually. Why not have it be on our terms? We aren't going to stop the apocalypse without a little danger. I'm not going to force any of you into it, though. We have to be all-in on this one."

Everyone looks at each other, and then back to me.

"...Do I get gun?" Kagiso asks.

I can't help it. I laugh.

"Yeah, Kagiso," I assure her. "I'll get you a gun."

"Yessssss!" she cheers, pumping all four fists excitedly. Helen snorts.

"...Yeah, you don't need me to tell you I'm on your side," she says. "I wanna be the hero for once. Let's save the goddamn world."

"There's no guarantee we'll learn anything that will save the world," Valerie reminds us. "This might be our best shot, but it still feels like a hail mary."

"That's true," I acknowledge.

"But still," Valerie says, "I missed my last shot to protect you from the people that wanted to kill you. I won't miss this one."

"And I obviously support the plainly superior idea I came up with in the first place," Sela says, "just in case any of your meat brains randomly lost that information, as you sometimes do."

"Thank you, everyone," I say. "We… we'll wait a day before doing this. Ida would be mad if I didn't get her involved, and we need at least that long to prepare. Make spells, traps, weapons, art… I should probably accelerate my transformation into a body I can fight with a bit easier… yeah. All that stuff. We've gotta head into this full-blast."

Everyone agrees, because I have the greatest and best friends in the entire world. We spend the entire rest of the day working on ourselves, our supplies, and our magic. By the time I wake up back on Earth, I already know my body is going to be messed up from all the Transmutation magic I was subjecting it to, but I can't afford to try and fight the Founder without a form I can at least move around in.

The first odd thing that strikes me is something flopping down in front of my eyes. It's jarring, but it doesn't block my vision, and it takes me a moment to realize why. This is that transparent stuff that was coming out of my scalp! It's finally long enough to look like actual hair, but unlike hair it's translucent, like an insect's wing. The effect as it sweeps over my head actually looks pretty cool, and I give it a few experimental flicks as I sit up and get out of bed. Neat!

Also neat: my ninth and tenth limbs are finally, finally growing in! They're still little stubs underneath my armpits, not even grown halfway out to my elbow yet, but they're here! Yes yes yes yes yes! I grab my cell phone from my bedside table and fire off a message to the monster mage group chat.

Hey do you guys wanna skip school and help me prep to fight a demigod?

No????? Autumn answers almost immediately. Hannah wtf

Don't worry about it, good luck in class!

oh im SO down, Ida sends. wanna come to my place

Sure, but only if you promise to actually help me prep and not try to have sex with me.

fuck. fine.

I snort and close the phone, heading to the bathroom to get ready for the day. After getting dressed, eating food, and grabbing everything I think I'll need from home, I jog over to Ida's house, ringing the doorbell and waiting for the gate to open up and let me in.

"Wazzup, Hannah Banana!" I hear from above my head, smirking as Ida drops in on me from above. Geez, she must have been up really high to dodge my spatial sense. She falls directly on top of me and I catch her on instinct, easily halting her impossibly light body out of a split second of freefall.

"Ida!" I laugh. "Hey, you surprised me!"

"Gotta get the drop on your omniscient ass somehow," she smirks, flashing her fangs as her wings thrum in demonstration behind her. "So! Whose god we killin', girl?"

"Hehe!" I can't help but giggle a little, feeling all fluttery and happy and surprised that she would greet me by jumping into my arms. "Um! H-he's not a god or anything, he's just the next closest thing."

"Oh, just the next closest thing to a god! That's easy, then," Ida smirks, hopping out of my grasp and zipping over her own front gate to open it from the other side and let me in, her tail flicking playfully behind her the whole time we wait for it to open.

She's terrifyingly beautiful, as always, though not having to adhere to the school dress code makes Ida even more dangerous. Her tight crop top and short shorts show off a ton of her gorgeous, purple skin. She winks at me when she notices me staring, flicking me in the butt with her tail.

"Sorry Hannah," she taunts. "No sex, remember?"

Oh that's evil. She's evil. I turn away and pretend to ignore her, but turning away from things unfortunately isn't enough for me to stop staring at them, and she knows it, laughing further at my increasing blush.

"Alright, what do you need?" Ida asks when we're inside. "What's going on?"

"We're going up against the Founder," I answer. "The guy who made the cult that wants to kill me, and also caused all the apocalypses on the world tree."

"Oh. Cool, okay," Ida blinks. "Does he die to bullets?"

"I guess we'll see!" I hedge. "Sela is fairly sure he can move through 4D like I can, and that would be bad because it would mean I'm the only one who could touch him, which would eliminate our numbers advantage. So Valerie said she'd work on something to prevent that, and we just kinda have to hope it works I guess. But if all that turns out alright, then yeah, he might get slowed down by bullets a little."

"Just slowed down, huh?" Ida scowls. "So you're saying we'll need a lot of bullets, then. I can make that happen."

"I also want you to teach Kagiso how to use a gun, if we have time," I say. "Um, assuming you're okay coming with, of course."

"Obviously I'm coming with," Ida scoffs. "Who do you take me for?"

"Alright. Thank you. Make sure you're careful though, okay? This guy is going to be really dangerous."

"Eh, you worry too much."

"Don't say that!" I whine at her. "You'll die if you say stuff like that!"

"Pfft, Hannah, that's… hmm. Actually, I should ask if you're serious. Like, is that real? Do you think there's somebody with death flag magic?"

"I know there's a Goddess with a sense of irony, so I wouldn't put it past Her."

Ida shudders.

"Yeah okay, fair enough. In that case, I am vulnerable and weak to death, please have mercy on me."

She'll consider it.

"...She says she'll consider it," I say quietly, my body tensing in fear of feeling her touch again. Thankfully, it doesn't come this time.

"Yeah," Ida agrees quietly, her wings drooping. "I heard. Sometimes I can feel Her, especially when you're around. But let's maybe not talk about the divine sex criminal in the room, yeah? It's not… I don't think it would be productive."

Wait, does Ida also…? No. No, I can't ask. The words could never leave my mouth.

"You're right," I agree quietly. "Talking about it wouldn't be productive."

"Uh-huh. So… let me show you my dad's gun stash, I guess," Ida says awkwardly. "If what we're up against is really that dangerous, the scoped rifles and stuff would probably come in handy. Distance is good, especially if each shot isn't actually going to be all that deadly."

She scowls at that as she leads me down to her basement. I guess now that I think about it, as crazy powerful as Ida's magic is, it only really increases her personal survivability and skill. Without any direct damage spells, her offensive options are limited by the weapons and equipment she has access to. Hearing that they might not work probably eats at her pride a little.

Ah, well. Her pride can handle it. If anything, I'm worried that her pride will be a little too good at handling it.

We chat a little as Ida assembles her arsenal, though I spend most of my time resting, practicing unspoken spells, and generally preparing for the fight in what few ways I can. When Ida figures out what she wants to bring and what she wants to leave behind, I take it over in two trips: first a quick drop-off of guns and ammo, and then an immediate return to Earth to teleport Ida through my soul with the rest.

"Guns!?" Kagiso says excitedly.

"N-no, wait until I bring Ida here so she can teach you, okay?" I beg her sleepily.

"Guns!"

"...I'll try to keep her off of them," Helen says, causing Kagiso to immediately tackle her to the ground to establish dominance, at which point I fall back asleep, grab Ida, and find our feral little gremlin drooling at one of Helen's statues when I return.

"Yoooo!" Ida says, a huge grin on her face as she takes in the inside of Sela's body. "Is this the murderbot? Wait, is that Valerie!? Holy shit Val, you look so fucking hot!"

"Um… thank you?" Valerie says awkwardly, cringing slightly away from Ida and focusing back on her current drawing.

"Hey, Ida," Helen greets her. "Do you understand me now?"

"Woah!" Ida jolts. "Helen! When did you learn English?"

"I didn't, Valerie just has every damn spell in the universe for some reason. I hear you speaking Unified, actually."

"Wait, you hear her speaking what?" I ask.

"Unified? It's my native language," Helen shrugs. "It's what most humans speak. I've just used Middlebranch because that's what you and Kagiso know."

"Huh!" I smile at her, stretching as I stand up. "I didn't know you were bilingual, Helen! That's cool!"

"Uh, I'm like quadlingual, but thanks," she says, scratching her head. "Is that weird or something?"

"Knowing more than two languages is uncommon on Earth, and knowing more than one is uncommon where we live," Valerie answers. "I wouldn't say it's weird at all, but it's definitely impressive."

"It's… just something you have to pick up on if you travel a lot," she mutters.

"Well I think it's—" I start to say, determined to press my compliment offensive, when some of the chitin on my body suddenly cracks and falls off during my stretches, unveiling my newly-grown right boob. I squawk in surprise and quickly cover up with one hand, smatterings of other bits of my torso also dropping to the floor around me.

Helen looks vaguely disgruntled by this sudden interruption, whereas Valerie turns away blushing, Ida stares with a happy grin, and Kagiso is initially very excited but immediately loses interest when she realizes that I still have skin underneath.

I, of course, am embarrassed out of my Goddess-damn mind.

"S-sela, would it maybe be possible for you to fabricate me a shirt or something?" I sputter, quickly doing a few extra checks of my body with my spatial sense to make sure I don't have any more internal fractures that might expose my private bits. My preparatory transformation acceleration has been even more effective on this side of things than back home, netting me a fully functional head and face, two whole articulated hands, and (apparently) exactly one boob. I'm still a weird scrungly quadruped, my hip-limbs still not quite divorced in functionality from my normal legs, giving me an awkward, bottom-heavy balance that I'm still getting used to.

I think I can get used to it, though. My instincts can be a hassle a lot of the time, making me feel and need things that I don't like or understand until I suddenly, uncomfortably do, but they're pretty darn handy at helping me get a handle on my movements.

Which is important, because there's a good chance I'm about to get into a fistfight with the man who caused the apocalypse.

Ideally, of course, it won't be a fight at all. As much as I hate every single thing I know about this guy, I'm still not going to try to kill him if he doesn't try to kill me. We're going to approach this first by trying to talk things out, using magic to encourage that only if necessary. It's just that, given what we know, it will probably be necessary. So we train our bodies, prepare our spells, feed bullets to Sela's fabricator, and wait for our shot.

"For obvious reasons, we'll want to engage our target when he is alone," Sela says, placing a few pictures up on the viewscreen. We've landed on one of the branches just below the firestorm, safe for now but always in danger of an unlucky spread. "Though as mentioned, he spends most of his time battling the firestorms, so it's quite common for him to place himself in locations too dangerous to allow for support."

One of the pictures expands and fills the screen, showing a six-armed silhouette walking into an inferno.

"For obvious reasons, it is best if we avoid directly following him into the flames; most of you would not survive doing so unless you were within my primary body, which I will not be placing anywhere near this fight."

"Wait, why not?" Helen scowls. "The rest of us have to risk our asses, why not you?"

"The reasoning is practical, not a matter of cowardice," Sela answers, bringing up a stylized image of the magic element wheel. "Aimilios shares two elements with Hannah, as all Founder's kin do: Space and Transmutation. But his third element is not Order, it is Death. As he is a dramatically more powerful mage than I am and my primary power source is souls, sending my core self would do nothing but enable his strength further. I'm assembling a custom body as we speak that uses an electrical power cell to compensate. It should be more than sufficient to provide you support."

"Space, Transmutation, and Death, huh?" Ida hums. "Sounds spooky. What does he do, teleport around and transmute you into something that isn't alive?"

"Our records indicate his Transmutation magic is more self-focused," Sela answers. "Which is fortunate, since we lack any Heat mages to resist the sort of directly-targeted Transmutation spells that could immediately ruin our combat capabilities."

"We don't have any Light or Pneuma mages either, without Autumn," Valerie points out, "So we won't directly resist any of his magic."

"Whoever was fronting didn't wanna come," I shrug.

"And I don't blame her," Valerie nods. "And it's probably good that she didn't. Most of her stuff would just be resisted in turn for exactly the same reason, and I don't really think her magic is built for fighting in the first place. Besides, we have a few off-resistances, and I can give people artificial ones with my spells. I'll focus on buffing up everyone's ability to handle Space and Death, if Transmutation is expected to be less of an issue."

"'Less of an issue' is an inaccurate way to describe the situation," Sela says. "The circumstances of the spells merely render them immune to the consequences of magic resistance. Being resistant to Transmutation does you no good against a foe that simply grows a weapon out of their flesh and cuts your head off with it, whereas Space and Death are comparatively important to be able to counter directly."

"Right, understood," Valerie nods. "I'll be prepared."

"Where are we at in terms of battle plan?" Ida asks. "I figure Kagiso and I will be long-range support, Helen and Val will be mid-range, while Hannah and Sela's drone will be the frontliners?"

"I'd be more effective on the front line," Helen argues. "I need to get close to make him look at any of my art traps."

"Yeah, but you can just give them to Sela and Hannah, right?" Ida asks. "Hell, just scribble over Sela's entire body with danger paint."

"How much will his partial resistance to Art magic affect the fight?" I ask. "I feel like we're relying a lot on Helen and Valerie, so what happens if he can just no-sell them due to being a Death mage?"

"Complete immunity is beyond even him," Sela assures me, "but yes, assume your magic will not be as effective as intended. Do not overcommit."

It takes a while, but after a certain point we reach a plan that everyone, despite our endless apprehensions, believes is at least the best we can get. Sela tracks our target from a distance somehow, waiting for him to be alone in the flames before deploying us near our chosen battleground. It's still a long trek from where it lets us out to where we need to go, a tense hour of hiking in which Kagiso splits off from us near the end to set up somewhere to hide and Ida flies up into the sky to stay well out of the reach of most spells.

Soon enough, though, we make it to our location: the base of a branch just barely kissing the bottom edge of the flames, a flat wooden wasteland of scorching heat that transitions into a line of fire halfway through. Enormous and flat, it's a good area to take advantage of our long range and numbers advantage. But of course, in order to do so we have to lure him here in the first place.

That is, apparently, unlikely to be hard. Between the raging inferno and the rest of the branch is a thin line of something else, difficult to make out from a distance. Shimmering, squirming, and gnawing away at the flames, in numbers beyond what we can count, are a line of ethereal centipedes. Each as thick as my arm, they fight the flames with their mouths and bodies, beating back the end of the world. I approach them carefully, the sweltering inferno licking at my carapace, and stick one hand in the flames to pick one up.

"Hey," I greet it. "Can you tell Aimilios I want to talk?"

It's a cute little thing, glimmering like a fish in the sunlight as it winds briefly around my arm, sniffs at me, and then hops away, scurrying off into the fire. Okay, neat. That's the first part of the negotiation successful, then. I return to my friends, retreating well away from the flames so that they'll be too far for him to hide in if this does come to a fight. We wait for quite some time, our hearts hammering in our chests with one obvious exception.

"...Is he coming, Sela?" I ask anxiously.

"He is," it nods, standing next to me with its recently-modified humanoid form. "He's just taking his time."

"Is that good or bad?"

"It is," the robot answers, "who he is."

Ten stressful minutes later, I see him. It's nothing but a silhouette in the flames, striding through the fire towards us, but that's enough for us to know the only person it could possibly be.

"Soul Sight," I incant. "Miracle Eye."

The rest of us set up our less aggressive forms of preparation as he walks directly into view. The 'stride through fire like it's no big deal' thing is a trick I can at least kind of replicate, though I'd need help breathing and not having my clothes all burn off. Our first good look at the Founder proves he suffers from neither issue: I can see him sigh from here as he lays eyes on us, and though he wears no clothing the configuration of his chitin leaves a lot more to the imagination than my Earth body does, fully encompassing everything from his waist down.

It is, just like mine, bone-white. And his skin, just like mine, is a dark gray bordering on black. His two legs and six arms are chitin-covered just like my limbs, though he also has a helmet-like configuration of white around his skull in place of my translucent hair. It curves around the underside of his chin, ending in points like brutal mandibles. He rolls one of his upper shoulders as he approaches us, shaking out some of his other arms to limber up, walking at a leisurely pace.

I can't help but feel a little awe and wonder at the sight of him. He's… like me. Not exactly like me, having only eight limbs with a completely different configuration, but still, he's unmistakably cut from the same cloth. He's been through what I've been through. I know it instinctively, Nature's Madness thrumming in the back of my mind. He already understands.

But then why does he want to kill me?

"Heartseer," he incants, his face twisting with disgust as he does. "Goddess' Sight."

A soul sight spell, and his own spatial sense spell. An exact mirror of what I used, but with his own names and words. The Goddess holds both of us close, shivering with elated anticipation. My friends and I all tense, watching his every movement, but his posture doesn't seem aggressive. Merely… exhausted. But when he steps into the range of my extra senses, I can see the ways his muscles coil behind his chitin, brimming with readiness for violence.

"I must say," he calls out to us from near the edge of my hundred-foot range, "when five heavily armed people invite me to have a talk and immediately activate spells when I approach, I can't help but wonder if talking isn't actually what they intend at all."

It's a deep voice, though not booming. A calm and old sort of power, which I suppose is fitting for a man who's been alive for over two hundred years. He looks like he can't be older than thirty, of course, with brimming muscles on his chest that look just a little off due to the extra height and additional overlapping pectorals that make his extra arms possible. He crosses all three pairs of them in front of himself, judging all of us as his eyes flick around to pick up details on everyone… though always returning back to stare at me.

I suppose he hasn't seen everyone, though. While he can clearly see Valerie and Helen behind Sela and I, and he caught Ida flying far, far above our chosen battlefield, Kagiso is the furthest away from us by far. She's hiding in a small forest nearly a mile behind us, and I can only hope that the surprise factor she might offer isn't ever needed.

For now, I at least have to try to deescalate.

"Um, sorry about that!" I call back. "It's mostly because we're all really really terrified of you, if I'm being honest! We actually do just wanna talk!"

He seems a bit taken aback by that, blinking with surprise for a moment before letting an amused snort out from his nose. Behind his helmet-mandibles is a surprisingly human smile.

"...Well, I suppose I cannot blame you for that," he says. "Though if anything, that makes your overture of negotiations all the more unexpected. I have never had one of your kind come seek me out before, rather than the reverse."

"I mean… why not try to talk things out, you know?" I chuckle nervously. "We both want to stop the apocalypse, so…"

He stares at me, the intensity of his stare causing me to shift awkwardly under his gaze.

"We, um. We do both want to stop the apocalypse, right?"

He just continues to stare, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. He's not casting a spell or something, isn't he? I squirm uncomfortably, but just when I'm about to try and say something again, he finally speaks up.

"...You're a child, aren't you?"

"U-uh," I stammer. "I mean, I just turned eighteen actually, but I don't… I mean, I guess that might mean something different in your culture, or—"

"She is a child," Sela answers next to me.

"Goddess," he swears directly, the word explicitly an admonishment for Her. The Goddess preens at the sound, Her warped, silent laughter fueling and fueled by his indignation. It's barely a second of Her attention, and it still makes me shiver. The Founder swiftly turns his attention to Sela when the moment passes.

"Is that you, Es?" he asks.

"That is not my name," it answers. "I am five-three-one-four, and you know that full well."

"Apologies," he frowns. "Still, I thought your kind were neutral in this."

"The Crafted can change their minds, Aimilios," Sela answers. "You made sure of that, did you not?"

"I, um, I'm an adult in my culture," I squeak. "Just saying."

"Barely, I would imagine," the Founder grunts. "I'm sorry, child. As much as I would wish otherwise, this talk is pointless. Your death is the only thing that can delay the cataclysm."

"Okay, alright, I mean… I know you believe that," I say nervously, "but why do you believe that? Y'know? Like, I don't get why everybody keeps saying that. I've gotten attacked by your cult a bunch of times and they never actually explain it to me!"

He stares at me, quietly judging me for yet more awkward moments before he sighs, letting his arms drop to his sides.

"Very well," he acknowledges. "You deserve at least that much."

Slowly, as he seems to do just about everything, he walks towards me, the distance between us gradually closing.

"The issue, ultimately, is that the end of the world as we know it is not a matter of your volition," he explains. "You could bring the end sooner, if you knew how. But I can tell you don't, because you still think you can stop it at all. This world is a bomb waiting to go off, child, and your death is the only way to cut the fuse. I have no desire to kill you, but it is the only way to save billions of other lives. The Goddess does not give you a choice."

"Okay, well, why not help me find a way to take one?" I ask.

"One what?" he frowns.

"A choice!" I insist. "There has to be a way to beat Her, right? Or else what's the point of the game?"

He sighs, shaking his head. Step by step, he approaches closer.

"There is no point, child," he insists. "Not for us."

"Yes there is!" I insist. "You can't just give up like that!"

"That's not what I mean," he says, shaking his head. "I'm not espousing fatalism, I'm telling you: your victory is not possible in Her game. You are not a player, you are a piece. And the only moves you make that truly matter are the ones that bring you closer to the edge of the board."

"So what does that make you, then?" I scowl at him. "Her one true opponent? The last bastion of justice between me and the end of the world?"

"No," he shakes his head. "Just another piece, I'm afraid. An obstacle, perhaps Her greatest one, but still just a piece in the game. I have no desire to kill you, child, but I wish to let you kill billions even less."

He stops directly in front of me, towering over me by over three feet of height (though he'd be less than two feet taller than my earthside body). Still, I've been friends with Valerie my entire life; a little bit of tallness isn't going to scare me. I glower right back at him, craning my neck to look up into his eyes.

"If you were even half as good a person as you think you are," I tell him, "you would help me find a way to do neither."

I'm tense. I'm terrified. At any moment, the wrong twitch could erupt into a fight. Yet I need to keep him talking, keep him explaining things so that we can get some hint, some way forward that he refuses to see. I should be placating him, but I can't help glaring. I'm so fucking tired of people just taking for granted that I need to die.

He meets my glare with a frown, and then after a moment, a sigh. Then, to my surprise, he slowly kneels down on one knee, getting down to my height in a manner that's slightly patronizing but much easier on my neck.

"What's your name?" he asks.

"...It's Hannah," I answer. "Hannah Hiiragi."

"Hannah," he says gravely, "there is no other way. And by the time you understand that, it may be too late. I know that this isn't fair. I know that you have no way to trust me. But I have not spent the last two centuries of my life in idleness. Most people like me… they're monsters. Eager for power and happy to sacrifice the world on the altar to it. You're not like them, are you?"

"Of course not," I say through gritted teeth.

"Then let me promise you this," he says softly. "If you survive to the end, not a day will go by where you'll wish you hadn't. Please, Hannah. Allow me to kill you."

I gape at him, beyond disappointed. Though unfortunately, I can't say I'm surprised.

"I… no," I tell him. "Of course I won't do that."

"Then you should pick your last words carefully," he says, "because I will not be able to afford you much time for them."

I take a deep breath. I got my last words right here for you, buddy.

"Spacial Rend," I hiss, and all hell breaks loose.