Are You Even Human

The fourth round comes and goes without much fanfare. Neither participant is anyone I know, so I spend most of the time focusing on thinking about more optimal body plans and surreptitiously digesting the biomass I discarded earlier. It turns out that adding an extra esophagus isn't too difficult, and I can fit a mouth around or beside my abdominal muscles without too much issue. The main problem is gravity; my initial attempt at adding a second throat was trying to pull the food up into the bottom of my stomach, which was both intrinsically inefficient and immediately caused acid reflux to pour down into unprepared tissue when I tried to swallow. Very uncomfortable, but good to know for the future.

I probably should have paid attention to the fourth match. There is a chance, however slim, that the winner will beat Peter somehow and I'll have to face them in my third match, but if there's someone whose ability is more dangerous than the capacity to casually brush aside solid matter I'm not entirely sure what sort of plans I'd be able to concoct against them. One way or another, the match is over now, and I'm definitely watching the next one.

After all, Maria is participating.

"Careful," Christine says to Maria as she starts heading towards the field. "She can really mess with your head."

Maria grimaces.

"I already do enough of that by myself, but thanks for the warning."

"Good luck," I offer her, and she brightens up a bit.

"Thanks," she smiles back. "I don't really have any idea how I'm going to fight with my powers, but I'll give it a shot!"

I give her an approving nod. I think that's pretty much what this whole exercise is about, after all. How does a person instinctively use their own abilities to fight? There's a lot you can learn about the person and how they view what they're capable of by watching them in a high-stress situation.

Less distracted by encouragement, Maria's opponent makes it to the field first and immediately starts doing some quick stretches before hopping up and down a few times, shaking out her limbs. I don't quite recall her name, but I know her domain isn't very strong because she's one of the people whose template I've accidentally picked up while wandering around. Her shoulder-length blonde hair is put up in a ponytail to keep it out of her face, and what she lacks in domain strength she clearly makes up for on the physical side. She was definitely some kind of athlete before the whole superpowers thing, putting her build more on par with the soldiers guarding us than most of my fellow superhumans. Which is nice! It's always good to get more physically impressive templates; every bit of extra information helps with the optimization process.

It's a bit unlucky for Maria, though. Against most opponents she might be able to forgo using powers at all and just take advantage of her superior strength and size to catch and disable people for the victory. She might still have the advantage in strength against an athlete simply because of that sheer size, but actually catching her opponent will be much harder.

"Hey, if you start getting dizzy or something, would you let me know?" Maria's opponent asks her. "I don't want to accidentally give you heatstroke."

"Um, alright, I'll keep that in mind I guess," Maria agrees uncomfortably.

"Delaney! Galloway! Are you both ready?" Commander asks, and the contestants nod. "Begin!"

Maria immediately summons her fairy self, the small, orange copy of her appearing out of nowhere and then starting to glow so brightly that she's difficult to directly look at. That's at least fairly useful on a tactical level, though I have a suspicion that Maria figured out how to do that just because she was embarrassed about people looking at her.

Athlete girl—I guess her last name is Galloway—wastes no time closing the distance, her hands up in front of her head in some kind of MMA stance. Her face is expressionless as she rushes forward, and for some reason I can see her breath condensing after every exhale like it's the middle of winter. Maria doesn't look cold, though. If anything she's starting to look a little flushed, more blood being diverted to the surface of her skin in an attempt to cool off. Before the other girl can even get close enough to try and land the first grab, Maria is already sweating. Some kind of heat-controlling power, clearly, but surely that's not all it does?

Fairy-Maria immediately flies interference, swooping down towards the other girl's eyes and trying to blind her with light. Galloway swats at her like an insect, but between mini-Maria's speed and being half-blind, she misses. Maria pretty much has a free shot to grab her opponent and lock her down.

But for some reason, instead of doing that, she starts laughing.

It's not just the bolder version of Maria either: both her fairy body and her main body start cackling like madwomen, moving away from Galloway as she recovers and attempts to trip Maria's main body.

"Hahaha! Oh, you were not kidding, it is sweltering! Woo!" big Maria grins.

"Sucks to be you!" fairy-Maria laughs. "I feel fine! Should have been an energy construct, idiot!"

What the hell is going on? Geez, Christine wasn't kidding about the mental effects. So this power can control the temperature and also make people have a manic episode? Or something?

Fairy-Maria flashes in front of Galloway's face again (extremely literally, I suppose) while her other body reaches out to grab her opponent. The moment Maria makes contact, though, she recoils back, shaking her hand out like she just burned it. Or maybe froze it? It could be either, I suppose. Galloway herself certainly doesn't seem to need to sweat as much to fight off the heat, her breath still condensing out of every exhale before rapidly evaporating back into invisibility an inch away from her face.

Ah, I get it now. Keeping herself cool while trying to overheat her opponent, huh? If the look on her face is any indication, she's doing this both physically and metaphorically. Galloway looks unusually calm and collected as she fights, while Maria is of course still giggling even as she winces in pain. It skews the entire playing field, giving Galloway a physical and mental advantage just from being active. I have to wonder what it could accomplish at even more extreme temperatures, if that's even something she can do. Boiling her opponent alive would obviously be violating the rules of the tournament, but assuming she can do that and her opponent can survive it, what kind of effect would it have on her opponent mentally? I should ask to train with her sometime; I want to see if I can figure out some way to detect and compensate for any powers that affect my mind. I doubt her ability would affect an alien brain in the same way it affects Maria.

"Hahaha! Ow! Haha!"

Maria seems to be struggling to breathe properly with her constant laughter, and whatever Galloway is doing with the temperature directly around her body seems to make it impossible for Maria to grab her. She's definitely going to lose if she doesn't figure something out, but it doesn't look like she's in a great state of mind for making plans.

"I'll get her!" fairy-Maria declares, swooping down and latching onto the back of Galloway's head, yanking her hair tie. "Oooh, this almost feels like air conditioning!"

"Let me get her, let me!" big Maria demands, though her mania isn't quite so extreme as to forget the fact that touching Galloway means pain.

"Hahaha! Come and do it, then!"

"Fine!"

A flash of blue lights up the arena, and suddenly a second fairy appears next to big Maria, immediately rushing towards Galloway's face. Already flailing a bit trying to get the orange fairy off of her head, the newly made blue one collides right with her nose, grabbing her eyebrows and holding on tight as her opponent desperately starts trying to scrape them off. Maria's larger body blinks in confusion, looking down at her own hands and flexing them, a hint of her manic smile still remaining on her face.

The expression isn't the only thing different about her face, though. Whenever Maria has her fairy out, it seems like her eyes get brighter, just a subtle change in color that I could be imagining. With two fairies out, though, the glow is unmistakable. Moreover, the glow is green, entirely different from the usual pretty blue of her irises, and as I adjust my eyes to better see the details from a distance, I notice that her ears are pointier than before as well.

"Oh, I think I get it," big Maria says, and then there is a flash of green.

The newly made green fairy rushes off to harass Galloway with the others, big Maria's eyes now blazing with a yellow light. Her manic laughter returns in force, and almost immediately another flash creates another fairy to join the fray. With four giggling pixies blasting light in her eyes, yanking on her hair, pulling on her clothes, and trying to knock her off-balance, Galloway can't seem to do anything but flail around, leaving Maria's main body unharassed.

The physical body's ears are long and sharp now, unmistakably elfish, and the purple glow now shining in her eyes seems to be slightly discoloring her entire body, making it seem grayish and ghostly. Most notable of all, however, are the small but brilliantly purple wings of light on her back, each only around the size of her hands but still very present, fluttering experimentally at the air.

The purple-eyed Maria's mouth twitches with only a brief smile before reaching out and wrapping one of her hands solidly around the top of Galloway's bicep. Finishing what her smaller selves have started, she yanks her opponent completely off balance, gets a grip on both of her arms, and lifts her bodily into the air, ignoring the chill that had just previously made her untouchable. Galloway kicks and squirms, but she can't seem to budge Maria's grip.

"That's match!" Commander declares, seeming quite pleased. "Delaney wins!"

"WOOOOOO!" every single fairy Maria cheers together, while the main body silently drops Galloway. The strange temperature differences revert to normal, the cause of them rubbing at her sore face and blinking her abused eyes as she kneels down to paw through the grass for her hair tie.

"Haha, wow, okay wow, we won, that's cool," blue Maria says, breathing heavily as she comes down from the power-induced mania. "Alright, I guess I'm a fairy now, and you're a fairy, and you're a fairy…"

"Quintuple Maria power!" the yellow Maria whoops.

"Damn, it's a good thing we're all color-coded or this would get really confusing," the orange Maria smirks.

"It does seem awfully convenient, but I suppose that's superpowers for you," green Maria shrugs. The big Maria just watches this entire conversation silently, the only movement on her blank face being a long, slow blink.

"Deactivate your power and get off the field, Delaney," Commander orders.

"Oh! Right, okay, um… do we have to do this in a certain order, or…?" Blue hedges.

"We all have different domains, so does just existing actually count as 'using our power?'" Orange smirks. "My power is just glowing."

"I think it's pretty obvious what the intent of the order is," Green says flatly.

"I'll go, I'll go," Yellow sighs, flying into big Maria's chest and vanishing. The wings on big Maria's back fizzle out and her eyes turn yellow. "Alright girls, let's pack into this clown car."

"I suppose we'll just reverse the order for now," Green hums. "We can experiment later."

She reenters the body, followed by Blue, followed by a reluctant Orange. When they do, the main body's eyes turn green, then blue, but when Orange rejoins the eyes remain blue, simply devoid of any glow. Now back to her normal self, rounded ears and all, Maria shudders slightly and heads back towards Anastasia, Christine, and me.

"Good match," Galloway pants, holding out a hand for Maria to shake.

"O-oh, what? Um, thank you, yeah," Maria stammers distractedly, taking Galloway's hand and shaking it politely. She barely seems to be paying attention, though, staring vacantly at nothing in particular as she resumes her walk towards us. Yeah, she's probably not doing great. She doesn't like it when her own power messes with her head, and somebody just mind-whammied her into doing it four times over. I quit idly messing around with my internal organs and prepare myself for damage control.

"Hey Maria, you did great out there," I greet her with a smile.

"Uh, yeah," she answers without looking at me. Well, that's not good. She's definitely dissociating, so I need to ground her attention on something. The question is whether or not I gently press her to talk about what just happened. If she's in a fragile state of mind it would be better to distract her with something unrelated, like how I try to get Christine to talk about giant robots whenever she's having an episode. I don't think Maria is in quite that kind of situation, though. She seems like she's actively trying to process what happened, so there's a good chance she'll welcome a bit of help with that. And if she doesn't, well, it's probably not going to be a bad enough mistake that I can't course-correct back to distraction.

"So… are you dealing with five sets of memories now?" I ask bluntly.

That gets her to look at me, and the expression on her face is still largely blank rather than on the verge of an anxiety attack or something, so I probably took the right route.

"...Yeah," Maria confirms. "It's… a lot."

"All mixing together in a confusing mush, huh?" I prompt.

"Uh… no," she says. "I mean, kind of, but no. It's actually all very… discrete? It's a lot of memories, and they're my memories, but they're also… I don't know. It's weird. It's like one set of memories is… more mine than the others. S-sorry, never mind, I probably just sound crazy."

"Not at all," I reassure her, reaching up to pat her on the shoulder. "It makes perfect sense to me. Memories are allowed to be a little weird, people are just weird."

She hums a noncommittal response and shrugs, looking glum but at least no longer dissociating as much. Another fight between two people I don't really care about starts on the field in front of us, but this is way more important so I bump my shoulder into Maria's side to catch her attention again.

"When you were out there, you said something about thinking you got it," I press gently. "When you had green eyes, I think?"

"...My eye color changed?" she asks.

"Oh, yeah, I guess all of your yous were too busy fighting to really pay much attention," I hum. "But yeah, your eye color changed from blue to green to yellow to purple, and whenever you made a fairy they glowed the same color as your eyes were immediately beforehand. Your physical body also started changing into something fairylike, but those changes reverted when you recombined."

"...I see," Maria frowns. "That's less surprising than I feel like it should be, actually."

"How so?" I ask, my tentacles twisting curiously.

"I don't know, it just feels… obvious? Natural? Something about having more mini-fairies making my main body stronger intrinsically makes sense. I have no idea why, but it does. It's almost like…"

She trails off, looking very much like she regrets ever starting that sentence. Which means I probably shouldn't push, but now I'm just too curious.

"It's almost like what?" I ask, leaning in front of her a little as she tries to glance away from me. "C'mon, discontinuity of consciousness club!"

"...Don't think about discontinuity of consciousness club," Maria mutters, and I laugh.

"I'm not gonna judge you," I promise her. "Really."

She sighs, not answering at first, but I can tell she's working herself up to it so I give her the time she needs. It probably won't be more than thirty seconds, so I make sure to keep my attention visibly on her rather than getting distracted by the fight. It's important, in moments like these, to signal that the person you're talking to is the most significant thing that could be happening. Maria feels vulnerable, exposing that vulnerability to me is an act of trust, and all sorts of little unintentional things can seem like a betrayal of that trust if you're not careful.

"It's almost like… they're all still in there," Maria says softly. "Like if I start thinking about their memories too much I'll start thinking as them, rather than me. Like I've split apart too much to come back together again. Some of the memories still feel like mine, and all of them at least kind of feel like mine, but there's a difference now. Or maybe there was always a difference and now it's just obvious enough for me to see it."

Huh. Yeah, that sounds pretty stressful. What to say here…

"When you say 'always,' do you mean ever since getting your power, or even since before then?" I ask.

"I don't know, Lia," she groans, and I do my best to focus on her body language to avoid getting distracted by that name. God I hate that name. "I don't know if I want to know. Either my power is making me go crazy or I've always been crazy, and neither is particularly pleasant to think about."

"Well, maybe you should stop thinking about either of them as being 'crazy,'" I say, raising an eyebrow at her. "I mean, it's not exactly a medical term, but I feel like you don't qualify as crazy unless you are failing to comprehend reality in detrimental ways. Those cultists who think vaccines aren't real are crazy. You're just weird, and there's nothing wrong with being a little weird."

"I guess you'd know," Maria huffs. "But you don't really seem to care what other people think about you. You act like you're above all that stuff, and I mean, that confidence is pretty cool, but I don't think I can just decide to stop worrying about this. Like I just… who even am I? I feel like I'm looking at other people's memories, but I did those things, right? Like, objectively, some part of me did the things that I remember doing and I'm responsible for that. That's terrifying. I don't know what my power is going to do when I use it, but I have to live and act as if I'm in control."

I suck on the inside of my cheek a little. I think I'm probably going down the wrong track here. That's a pretty rational fear, not just an unwarranted anxiety, so maybe a practical solution would be more welcome than just encouragement. That normally isn't the case at all; when people complain about their fears and insecurities they are usually in need of understanding more than material assistance, but I think I might actually have a reasonable solution so it probably wouldn't hurt to mention it.

"When you were in a bunch of different bodies, the different yous talked amongst themselves," I remind her. "They had a conversation, and they all seemed to act like relatively normal people as levitating fairies go. The same thing happened when you first showed me your power. The orange you and the other you disagreed with each other, but neither was irrational and both believed themselves to be Maria. They probably have similar fears to you, or at the very least they can probably understand your fears. You can talk things out with them. You can share responsibility. At least, that's what I would try. I don't think there's anything bad about there being more than one Maria. Maria is pretty cool."

She blushes, but only a little, seeming to be thinking about my words beyond just the compliment.

"...When the other mes are around, though, do I… I mean, does the Maria you're talking to right now even exist?" she asks.

Hmm. Do I sugarcoat it? No, I think she needs to hear it.

"That's for you to figure out," I say. "I don't know what it's like to be you. But maybe the answer is no. Maybe you do stop existing when you use your power, at least for a little while. Maybe I do too. Maybe we stop existing every time we go to sleep. Maybe we all stopped existing the first time Cross Country teleported us. Maybe the answer to all of these questions is entirely subjective because the self is an illusion created by randomized systems that determined caring very much about who we are and the continuation of that person meant that we were more likely to have sex. Philosophers have been looking for the fundamental particle that defines the self since the dawn of intelligence, and we have yet to concoct even a single satisfying theory. So you and I aren't going to find the 'correct' answer to that. No amount of thinking will reach the truth. And that is why we have the first rule of the discontinuity of consciousness club."

Maria stares at me for a moment and then closes her eyes, taking a deep breath in through her nose and a shaky exhale out through her mouth. Then she nods, turning her attention away from me and towards the battlefield. It looks like the match just ended, meaning that Christine and Anastasia are up next.

"Okay but what if I have an evil fairy that like, glows octarine and kills people or something," Maria asks somewhat facetiously.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that's not how it works, but if it is that would be fine," I shrug. "We're soldiers. Our job is to kill people."

"I mean, our job is to kill aliens, right?" Maria hedges.

I don't answer. I'm not really sure what I should say. Even if Angels are people, it doesn't particularly matter because they're still an existential threat to the survival of the human species. One way or another, we have to get them off our lawn, and if that means we have to use the lawnmower then so be it. Besides, I might even be wrong. Statistically speaking, my cynicism has to be wrong at least some of the time.

"Well, time to go forfeit, I guess," Christine mutters.

"Hey, wait a second, you should still try," I protest.

"Why? Even you can't believe in me for this one," Christine insists. "I don't want to fight Ana anyway. I don't want her to get hurt."

"Well, she's not going to get good practice in if you don't put in any effort," I say. "The point of the exercise isn't to hurt each other. It'll be good for both of you!"

"Yeah Christine, let's fight!" Anastasia agrees happily.

"No thanks," Christine grimaces. "You can just take the win, Ana."

"Booo!" Anastasia protests, puffing out her cheeks.

"I guess you'll just have to give her proper encouragement, Ana," I smile. "It's times like these where instead of just insisting that Christine does something, we have to make sure she's sufficiently incentivized."

"Wait, hold on, what the heck are you teaching this kid?" Christine asks, a justifiably worried look on her face.

"Oh, I get it," Anastasia grins menacingly. "Like you were talking about the candy and the carrot!"

The carrot and the stick metaphor wasn't doing the job because Anastasia doesn't like carrots, but she gets the idea now. I nod approvingly.

"Exactly," I praise her.

"Well, I know what to do in that case," Anastasia says. "I don't think I have any candy, but I know about all sorts of carrots!"

"I don't like where this is going," Christine whimpers.

Anastasia looks up at Christine and gives her the biggest, sweetest, most intimidating smile a child can manage.

"If you're a smart girl, you'll fight me so you don't have to find out," she says happily, and then heads towards the field when Commander calls their names. Christine stares at me with an expression that's equal parts accusation and horror.

"What are you doing to our sweet baby Ana?" she demands.

I shrug.

"I don't know what you mean. I'm just being a good role model," I answer proudly.

She throws her hands up into the air and stomps off to get her butt kicked. I really hope she does her best; she's been slowly getting better at using her power and it's starting to look like a really impressive one. She reluctantly lines up across from Anastasia, and then Commander starts the match.

"Begin!"

Anastasia wastes no time tearing one of her wrists open, not even flinching at the pain as blood pours from the wound and twists around her like angry snakes. When enough of it has gathered, she launches it towards Christine, whom I am pleased to see is running towards Anastasia to close the gap. That's a very dangerous thing to do, but it's also something Christine has to do if she wants to win. In an environment with a lot of large, heavy objects, Christine might be able to reconfigure them in a way that traps Anastasia, but there's nothing like that on the open turf of the glorified soccer pitch.

Still, she needs to avoid the mass of blood rushing her way if she doesn't want to be immediately caught. Anastasia is of course not launching her attack anywhere near as quickly as she's able to, since that might risk hurting Christine, but she still has incredibly fine control over the movement of the liquid and only needs to capture Christine inside a large enough glob to hold her down. Christine ducks to the side, barely dodging Anastasia's first attempt by letting it pass over her head, but as impressive as that is, there's nothing stopping Anastasia from turning that blood back around and grabbing her from behind. Sure enough, that's exactly what she does.

The red whip of blood does an immediate one-eighty, wrapping around Christine's arms and torso to hold her in place. Christine jerks to a stop, the liquid acting as solid as steel as Christine tries to struggle out of its grip. It wraps around her like a web, growing ever stronger as it is reinforced by the constant trickle from Anastasia's wrist. Soon enough, Christine can't do anything but twist her neck from side to side. Hmm. It's not over already, is it?

All the blood wrapped around Christine explodes.

Or, I suppose it would be more accurate to say, all the blood wrapped around Christine is sorted into its component parts. Instead of blood floating in the air, there are clouds of red, yellow, and white dust, pure chemical water, salt, and a dozen other things I can't identify. Exploded out from her and frozen in place, the separated materials drop to the ground without fanfare, Christine ending her power's effect almost as quickly as she used it. Anastasia, of course, cannot retake control. The separated components of her blood are not blood.

"Woah!" Anastasia yelps.

"You asked for this, squirt!" Christine reminds her. "Get over here and accept your noogie!"

"Waaah!"

Anastasia turns and starts running away, and I don't entirely blame her. I've never seen Christine threaten anyone before and it's a little terrifying from shock value alone. Sure, there's nothing particularly intimidating about a noogie, but Christine just all but confirmed that her power works on people, and that is a mental image you could put in a horror movie.

She might be able to put them back together again, too, but that just makes the point about the horror movie count for double. Christine's power gives her some amount of information on the internal structure of things in her domain, right? She mentioned that we had recording devices in our walls without actually taking the walls apart. So is she constantly aware of the general status of everyone's internal organs like I am? I can't believe I've never tried to bond with her over that. It feels like such a missed opportunity now.

Wait, can Christine cure cancer? Like, logically, she could take somebody apart, and then put them back together without any cancer cells, right? I have got to get a rat or something to help her test this with. This might be a big enough deal to get her out of frontline duty, which I know would be a huge relief for her.

"Got you!" Christine declares, scooping Anastasia up in both arms. "Are you prepared for the consequences of your actions?"

"No!" Anastasia shrieks, flailing around. "I don't have any con-sick-quencys!"

"Sorry kiddo, that one's definitely not adult prerogative. Everybody's got the consequencys."

"Including you!"

Blood pours out from the inside of Anastasia's clothes, covering Christine in an instant and forcing her arms apart. Anastasia drops to the ground, putting her little fists on her hips and staring triumphantly up at the bound Christine.

"We're too close together for you to overpower me this time, Christine! Ahahahaha!"

Anastasia belts out an absolutely spot-on witch cackle as Christine struggles against her bonds again, and sure enough she doesn't seem able to explode the blood this time. When Anastasia and Christine were far apart, Anastasia had to stretch her domain thin in order to reach with her power, but Christine could keep her domain close to remove the blood near her body, giving her a disproportionate advantage. But now that Anastasia can also shrink her domain and still encompass Christine with it, that advantage is negated. Christine had no choice but to get close in order to try and grapple Anastasia, but getting close meant that Anastasia could leverage the full weight of her much more powerful domain. Christine really was doomed from the start.

Still, that was a pretty fun fight to watch. I know I'm not her mom or anything, but I'm weirdly proud of Christine going out and doing her best. It definitely looks like Anastasia had fun, and I think at the very least, Christine can be proud of that too.

"Good match, you two," I greet them as they return.

"Yeah, yeah," Christine dismisses, but she doesn't seem to be in a bad mood.

"You did way better than I thought you would, Christine!" Anastasia says.

"Wow, don't praise me too much," Christine answers flatly.

"Okay!"

I chuckle along with the banter as the next match is prepared. It's some guy whose power involves making big shadowy hands appear out of the air or something against another guy whom I don't know at all. Not terribly interesting, though I should probably encourage Anastasia to watch since she'll be facing whoever wins. I glance down to let her know but she's already focused. I smile, a little bitterly. She's going to be a great soldier.

"You don't seem very happy," Christine comments. "You'd better not fucking tell me I didn't try hard enough."

"No, I said you did good and I meant it," I assure her. "Thank you for doing that. You really surprised me with the blood trick, but I guess in retrospect I should have seen it coming. I think I have a better idea why you're so reluctant to use your powers, though I'm a bit curious as to why you never tried to go on the offensive back then."

In the incursion zone, I mean. I know Christine was having a lot of trouble using her abilities, but when she successfully pulled it off it was never to rip apart the aliens who were trying to kill us. It was always to manipulate buildings or other parts of the environment.

"Well, for starters I'm pretty sure I was under a dissonance effect the entire time," Christine says. "I didn't really know what it was back then, but… whenever I tried to use my power, my power felt like it was getting weaker. That was doubly true when we were fighting one of the Angels. I wasn't just experiencing dissonance against them, I was also experiencing it against the Queen."

Oh. Oh, that's interesting. She didn't just have that reaction with the one Angel that attacked us, she had it with both Angels and the Queen, which implies all three of them are part of the same… category of power, I guess? Whatever attribute determines resonance and dissonance, all three of the powered aliens from that incursion had it matched, and so did Christine. And the aliens tried to kidnap Christine. That's big. I don't know what that means, but it definitely means something.

When the Angel I killed was… talking to me, or sending information to me, or whatever we were doing to communicate, I'm pretty sure that at one point it said something about a god. Religion is not something I can imagine a non-sapient species having a concept of, so that stood out to me as clear evidence of imagination, wonder, culture, and other important things. But what if it's more meaningful than that? What if the aliens understand the categories that match resonance and dissonance patterns and built their culture around those differences? What if they consider each power to come from a specific god?

…What if they're right? At the very least, the source of superpowers must be so far above our understanding of the world that it may as well be a god. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and all that. Not to mention the dreams. It seems absurd to not at least investigate how all of these things might be related.

"That's match! Wiggins wins."

Woah, is it over already? It looks like psychic projection hands guy just grabbed his opponent almost immediately and won outright. I suppose it is a pretty good power for capturing and restraining someone. Anastasia is going to have to be careful, though I still bet she'll win.

"Small! Morgan! You're up!" Commander barks. Already onto the second round, huh? Well, it's an advantage for me, since my body doesn't really get tired. I wonder what my strategy should be this time around? I have a few ideas on how to catch Cameron without risking a dangerous power interaction, but I'm not entirely sure how appropriate they would be in a casual tournament. I guess I can just ask.

"Good luck, L… um, good luck!" Anastasia calls out to me as I walk toward the field.

"My luck has always been terrible," I smile back at her. "Wish me skill."

"You already have that!"

I laugh and give her a thankful smile as I make my way into position.

"Are both of you ready?" Commander asks.

"I have a quick question, if that's alright, ma'am," I interject.

"Go ahead."

"Is the purpose of this exercise exclusively to help us get used to our abilities, or is it also to help prepare the necessary mentality for a live combat scenario?"

Commander gives me a look like she expects to regret answering this question.

"You know what, Morgan?" she says. "Let's see your idea of helping someone prepare the necessary mentality for a live combat scenario."

I smile. Well, that makes this easy.

"Yes ma'am," I acknowledge. "No further questions."

"If you're trying to make me surrender by acting freaky, I'll promise you now that it's not going to work," Cameron grins confidently at me. "I'll never be able to make fun of Felix like he deserves if I back out now."

"That was never my plan the first time around, and it isn't my plan now," I answer. "Surrender isn't really an option against our ultimate enemies."

"Begin!" Commander shouts, and Cameron immediately breaks off from our conversation and starts running to the west side of the field. It's the same strategy he used in his last fight, and I can hardly blame him for that since it's clearly a very effective way to use his powers. I'm not so limited, though.

I pull my shirt off over my head and toss it to the side, removing my breasts from my body before doing the same with my bra. I let my modified octopus skin keep its best imitation of an outfit underneath before removing everything on the lower half of my body as well. There are a number of different ways I think I can beat Cameron, but they all involve me shifting to match his size and strength, at least to some extent. One method in particular, though, lets me do something I'm tired of pretending I can't do. It lets me show something to everyone here that they need to see, need to understand. This is a place where we learn to fight aliens, and what better way to do that then to make them try?

I lean forward onto all fours, my head sucking itself inside my body to distribute sensory organs around my core as everything shifts: brain, body, musculature, eyes, ears, organs, all of it shifts from mammalian to alien. It's honestly not as satisfying as I expected it to be. Compared to the enormous glut of information I now have on earthly life, my understanding of alien biology is comparatively sparse and therefore low in capacity for experimentation. But experimentation isn't my goal here anyway. Mock battles aren't a terrible idea, but I had to be thrown into the deep end from day one and I can't deny that the thought of being able to show that is appealing.

My opponent uses its power, stepping out of its own shadow substantially larger than it was before. But I still tower over the human, my long crystalline legs backed by high-pressure hydraulic musculature. It looks up at me, and I stare down at its slightly blurry face, taking a moment to interpret the expression of horror that would have been intuitive to me just moments ago. Cameron. A male human, dark skin, black hair, with a power that combines limited teleportation and enhanced size. My task is to defeat it without allowing it to be injured.

Behemoths cannot speak, so I do not bellow a war cry, but I feel as though if any of my kind were here, they would still hear me declare my victory in advance.

You can't do what I had to do. Come on, let me show you.