Bioshifter

I step forward and into the fourth dimension, letting my clothes drop to the floor in a single motion as Spacial Rends ignite on my blades. The soldiers are still a few steps away from me, and I can see the muscles in their hands clench as they move to pull the trigger on Ida. They move in slow motion, the ground tearing up beneath my claws as I accelerate forward faster than I ever have before. I see their surprise as Ida moves, I see the decision to shoot pass over their faces, I see their fingers start to twitch… and then I'm on top of them, tearing their guns to shreds. One firing mechanism clicks uselessly, the entire weapon falling apart like a house made of popsicle sticks, but the other fires, an ear-shattering bang ringing out as the bullet flies wide through its collapsing barrel, missing Ida by a centimeter.

And just like that, Ida is armed, the soldiers in front of us are disarmed, and the entire base is on high alert.

"How's it feel to lose your monopoly on violence, jackass?" Ida sneers, aiming her gun at the chest of the soldier she stole it from.

"Ida," I snap at her, poking just enough of my face into normal space to let me breathe again. "We have better things to do than taunt them. More soldiers are heading our way. You are going to stay here while I try to de-escalate things."

"Oh, fuck that! You expect me to sit back while you—"

"Yes!" I shout at her. "I do! I've been in a lot more fights like this than you have, and I'm not in danger here! You are. You're a healer with a gun. Stay in the back and stay safe so I can retreat to you on the off chance I do get hurt."

"Don't coddle me like some sort of—"

"If you get sent to hell with a bullet, I won't be able to bring you back this time!" I shout at her.

That causes her to shut up for a bit, though she still stares me down with her jaw set. I stare back, keeping track of the other soldiers as they group up and prepare for an attack.

"...I can't trust you to go off and fight on your own," Ida says flatly. "Not after you told me you plan to kill yourself. It's not happening."

I flinch, breaking humanoid eye contact.

"I'm not going to die and leave you to deal with this on your own," I scowl. "We'll talk about that after this mess is taken care of."

"You promise?" Ida asks.

"...I promise," I tell her, and a twitch of a smirk flashes over her face before it disappears.

"Fine," she agrees. "Then go kick their asses. I'll hold down the fort here."

"I guess I have to," I sigh, watching the various groups amassing around our room. They seem to be listening to something in their helmets, which… okay, yeah, of course they are. They've got radios. That's pretty convenient. I reach my arm into realspace and cut a helmet free of one of the soldiers Ida has backed against the wall with Don.

"Hey, how do you talk into this thing?" I ask him, bringing the headset up to my face. All sorts of chatter is coming out of the earpiece, but I don't pay much attention to it.

The soldier gives me some terse instructions, seeming much more inclined to be reasonable now that he's not the one with the gun. Fancy that. I bring the microphone up to my mouth and promptly interrupt whatever's currently going on.

"Hello, everyone," I say. "Hannah Hiiragi here. It would seem that the current position of the United States government is to forcibly incarcerate all magic users for an undefined period of time. I am disappointed, but not surprised, that this decision seems to have been concluded without consulting any of the affected parties."

Judging by the reactions of the soldiers outside, I've done this correctly and actually broadcasted to them. I have no idea how military radio stuff works, so for all I know I'm about to be talking at nobody and looking like a complete idiot. But after a brief delay, I hear a crackle on the line, and someone speaks up. Not one of the soldiers in my sensory radius, though. Someone farther away.

"I'd like to ask if the three soldiers in the room with you are alright, ma'am," the voice says.

"It's funny to me that you think I'd need to hurt them in order to stop them," I answer. "They're unharmed and unarmed."

"Would you be willing to release them?" the voice asks.

"Are you all willing to release us?" I counter. "You seem to be treating this like a hostage negotiation, but you're the ones who came to us with weapons and orders to obey, not the other way around. If I let these men go, are you just going to give them new guns and tell them to shoot me again?"

"It has been our understanding that you're a proponent of government action in response to this crisis," the voice says. "This is that. It has been made clear to us that we are in a pandemic scenario, and all evidence indicates that you are patient zero. Is that understanding incorrect?"

Of course we get defined as an illness. Of course.

"Partly," I allow. "But magical ability is hardly a disease. Spreading it requires a very purposeful action."

"Speaking a spell out loud, if I'm not mistaken?" the voice asks, and I scowl.

"Yes, that's correct," I confirm. "Considering how confident you are in that answer, I assume you've been illegally monitoring me?"

"We've been quite legally monitoring you, Hannah Hiiragi," the voice answers. "You are, by your own admission, a threat to national security that holds little loyalty to your country."

That is certainly one way to interpret all the ways I've tried to help the government out. Jerk.

"I don't believe I've ever phrased it that way," I protest. "But arguing with you about that won't get us anywhere, will it? If you want to keep me here under watch, that's fine. I can see the sense in it. I won't be a problem for much longer anyway. But locking up every magic user just because they happen to be a magic user is not acceptable."

"We need time to implement policies and defenses against magical threats," the voice answers. "When those defenses are in place, when we have a proper understanding of and countermeasures for magical crimes, then the incarceration will no longer be necessary."

"But you don't know when that will happen," I say. "Or if that will happen. You're imprisoning people for an undefined period of time without charging them with a crime or giving them a trial. Anybody with a history book knows not to trust you when shit like that starts happening."

"It's the best option available to us."

That's not true. It's just the best option for you. The option that gives the man making the decision the most security, liberty, and agency. You just don't care about the difference. That's the way it always goes, isn't it? There's no point in discussing it.

"It is not the best option available to you," I answer, "because it's not an option. Pick another way."

"You don't get to decide these things," the voice insists incorrectly. "And we will not change our decision simply because you threaten us and hold our soldiers hostage."

I take a deep breath. In and out. I'm too tired for this. I want to get this over with. I want it all to end. I can't even work up the energy to be angry about it all. I'm just… done with this. I'm so fucking done.

"I don't believe I have ever threatened you, sir," I say. "But I assure you that when I do, you will listen."

"We have you surrounded, ma'am," the voice answers. "We have Jared and Amelia Williams in custody, and we have a team monitoring your family. There's no need and no benefit to escalating this situation further. Just release your hostages, come with us, and nobody has to get hurt today."

Ah. I see. I guess this is the part where I balk in surprise, fearing what they might do in retaliation to my beloved family and friends? A laugh somehow finds the energy to bloom in my throat, loud and uncontrollable. They think I care, don't they? They really think I fucking care what happens to my family, or to the mother and son I don't even bother to remember the names of. These smug, evil bastards are acting like monsters in the name of protecting the world from what they see as monsters… and yet still, they're treating me like I'm just some human. Someone they can threaten and coerce and push into place with violence. Someone who can't drop the fucking apocalypse on their heads with two measly words.

Goddess, this is all so stupid. They're acting more like a mob than a governing body. It feels comically absurd, listening to all this brain-dead villainy coming from people who are supposed to be in charge of a country. But what did I really expect? Don has always seemed reasonable, but if reasonable people prevailed all or even most of the time, our history would be a lot different, wouldn't it?

It's funny. It really is funny. When are they just going to let me rest?

"Alright then," I chuckle into the mic as my laughter slowly dies down. "You know what? This is my fault. I've never really made it clear what your situation is. You're all very used to being the reigning superpower here, you don't really get that I'm the sort of person who hangs out with friends that can fly through suns. So. I'll give you… half an hour. Totally free. Attack me, shoot me, threaten me, do whatever, and I'll defend myself nonlethally. The soldiers with me are free to go; they're not hostages, and I will not hurt them. I will destroy your weapons, and I will humiliate you, but I will not seriously injure any living person. Anything you do to me in the next half hour will be forgiven. Please approach me for negotiations at any time, when you've come to your senses."

"Ms. Hiiragi—"

"Just know," I continue, cutting the voice off, "that if you take too long, or if you go after Ida, or if you hurt anyone I care about, that amnesty is void. And then, sir, I will walk through your men like an angel from heaven. I hope to hear from you soon."

I toss the radio away, motioning to Don and the three soldiers towards the nearest door, which of course has a bunch of other soldiers ready to break in just outside.

"Get out of here," I tell them. "You're free to go."

"Hannah," Don says, staring sternly at me. "This isn't the way to do it."

"You're probably right," I agree. "Now go."

He doesn't look happy about it, but he leaves with the soldiers. The other soldiers outside our room have one guy escort them to safety, but the others stay, waiting for orders to attack.

"Not that that wasn't hot as fuck, but are you sure this is a good idea?" Ida asks.

"I don't care anymore," I sigh. "It doesn't need to be a good idea. It just needs to get what I want, one way or another. Now let's hide you somewhere safe."

"I don't need—"

"Yes, you do," I snap. "We just talked about this. You can't heal yourself if you take a bullet through the eye. Anything that kills you instantly, kills you permanently. I'll be doing everything I can to keep them away from you, but if you could not make that harder on me, it'd be appreciated."

"...Fine," she scowls. "But you'd better take me with you when you fuck up the bigwigs. I wanna be there when whatever Kissinger-ass motherfucker in charge of this place gets what's coming to him."

"You would, wouldn't you?" I sigh. "Fine. It's a date, then."

"Between friends," Ida smirks.

"With benefits," I confirm, and she laughs.

"Alright, Hannah. Go fuck 'em up, then."

I nod, though I don't really have to go anywhere. They're about to come straight to me. After a delay that I assume is about getting their radios secure or something, the assault begins. Ida flies straight up, shoving a ceiling panel out of the way and crawling inside moments before armed men bust into the room from every direction.

I, of course, am already back in the darkness of the fourth dimension, and so when guns start getting pointed around and callouts start getting shouted, I start to work. Keeping the tips of my claws in 3D space just enough to stand while the rest of me is safely removed from human reality isn't the most comfortable posture in the world, but it's manageable. I could just break all their guns and be done with it, but I feel like that might send the wrong message. After all, my ultimate goal is to get them to understand that guns won't work, and neither will tanks, bombs, grenades, or sternly worded letters. If I want them to stand down without bloodshed, I'll have to scare the ever-living shallots out of them.

It sounds exhausting. Honestly, I'm not even sure why I'm bothering.

"I know it sounds a little stupid and childish," I say, carefully letting just enough of my mouth into the world to speak, "but you guys get that I'm like, literally the chosen one, right?"

Guns twitch towards where I spoke from, but I'm already slipping back into full 4D and finding another nice little corner to speak from. I might not be the kind of spider that makes them, but they're caught in my web all the same.

"Now, I'm not the sort of person to say you should never stand up to powers above you, but come on, guys. Do they pay you enough for this? To be the bit part in the movie where a hundred dudes all swarm a named character and get absolutely bodied?"

I flash outward with my blades, carving through the gun and clothing of the closest soldier. I want to do that thing where the swordmaster cuts somebody to bits and then all of their clothes other than the underwear fall off at the same time, but I fuck it up and only a few chunks of gear here and there hit the ground. Ah, well.

"And I get that this is real life," I say. "I get that you all have your own story. Your own family. Your own dreams. But that's all the more reason you shouldn't make yourselves part of this analogy, right? You're mooks, walking into an action scene. It doesn't matter if you think I'm the hero or the villain of this story; it's not going to go well for you."

I try again with another soldier, his equipment and gear clattering to the ground in pieces. Better, that time. I'm sure I'll figure it out, with all these opportunities to practice. Other soldiers point their guns my way, but why should I care? It doesn't matter.

"I don't like talking about this, you know?" I continue. "It makes me sound conceited. Arrogant. 'Oh, look at me, look at how special I am, you can't hurt me.' It makes me cringe. But I really need you guys to understand this. I was crafted to be an unstoppable killing machine by the Goddess Herself. I was designed meticulously over countless generations to match or exceed Her prior creations. To net Her the win She wants so badly. And that's not a good thing for me. It's not a good thing at all. But for you? It is so much worse."

In the ceiling above, Ida shifts her weight a little, causing a slight noise. The closest soldier hears it, aiming up in a panic, and I move, reaching my clawed fingers out of the fourth dimension to grab him by the back of the head and hurl him into another soldier nearby. They collapse in a tangle of limbs, breaking each other's ribs and pulling more than a few muscles.

"None of that," I hiss. "I'm still playing nice. You keep your focus on me if you want me to—"

A shot rings out, the bullet scraping across my exposed lip and drawing a small drop of black blood. Ugh. Careless of me. I let myself get distracted while making sure no one was aiming at Ida.

"Fine," I sigh. "I get it. I'll stop monologuing. But don't say I didn't try to talk you out of it."

I stop exposing myself and speed up, cutting weapons and gear with wild abandon. I slip a few times and cut some of the soldiers, too, but not deep enough to cause any lasting harm. It's just tough to aim precisely while they're all moving around, even with how fast I am.

Well, it's not a big deal as long as I don't hurt them in any major way. I don't think Ida or I could heal them if I mess up; Ida can only heal things that are hers in some way, and none of these assholes qualify. Meanwhile, I can only heal people by turning them into monstrous, metaphorical representations of how I see them, and that would… well. They'd probably be better off with whatever wounds I accidentally give them than anything Nature's Madness would turn them into.

Still, I make sure to quickly and efficiently divest the soldiers of any and all important objects on their person. Any weapons, any useful-looking items, and of course any communication devices are subjected to a quick Spacial Rend or five to leave them useless. While I occasionally need to poke my mouth into the third dimension to breathe, I have a surprisingly robust lung capacity and don't struggle with finding out-of-sight locations to quickly inhale in. I just have to make sure not to exhale while still in the vacuum of the fourth dimension. It's really uncomfortable to have all the air forcibly yanked out of me the moment I open my mouth. It doesn't hurt or anything, but it's unpleasant.

Soon enough, the soldiers in the room with me are in full retreat. The two I actually injured when I threw that guy across the room have long since been evacuated, but everyone else follows in short order. Alone again, it's time to figure out the next stage of my plan.

I'm pretty sure that if I want this to end, scaring mooks isn't the way to do it. There's always more mooks; the idiot bigwig who ordered this won't give a crap no matter how many of them I publicly humiliate. I have to find whoever's in charge and deal directly with them. But that's a problem, because if I start running around the compound looking for him, odds are he'll find a way out before I find him… or worse, he could send people to go after Ida while I'm distracted.

"Ida," I call out. "I need to find the man behind this, but I can't leave you exposed."

"This protective shit is cute, but I really don't need it," Ida grumbles. "If anybody tries to shoot me, I can just shoot them first. My whole shtick is that I'm just divinely better than everyone else."

"Okay, but what if two guys try to shoot you?" I ask. "Or six guys? Or twelve?"

"I have like three different dirty jokes about that and you aren't going to like any of them," Ida says.

"Noted, but do you have any serious answers?"

"I do," Jet says, eating a bagel next to me. "Also, I know where your guy is."

"Blagh!" I yelp, my instincts thankfully causing me to jump back because Jet was smart enough to stand just outside my stabbing range. "J-Jet!? When did you… oh. Oh! In the car, and then you said… and… aaagh!"

I hate Pneuma magic I hate Pneuma magic I hate Pneuma magic I hate Pneuma magic I hate Pneuma magic!

"Yep, it's me, sorry for spooking you," Jet says, lightly tossing the other half of her bagel into the air and letting her tail catch it in one big bite. "Here, I drew a little map. It's not pretty but it should be enough to remind you where to go when you forget about me. Also, I think I can hide Ida, too."

"I… geez, okay," I blink, my heart racing. "Thank you? You're really saving my ass today, Jet."

"Hannah, I saw you willingly walk into a car with a fed," Jet says flatly. "You obviously needed the help. And while I hate to admit it, my life has been improving a lot lately, thanks to all this magic shit. Like maybe some of the best it's ever been. So I dunno if I forgive you, but… I definitely at least owe you."

I smile a little at that. Honestly, that's wonderful news. I was worried, after everything I did to them and everything that Alma's magic was doing to make their situation worse, that magic would be nothing but a curse for them. I'm thankful the Goddess ended up giving them something good.

And I'm welcome, of course, though the thanks are appreciated. She did it for me, after all. Jet's belligerence about Her gifts was entertaining at first, but their resistance to accept magic—and more importantly, to accept me—was starting to become a problem this close to the endgame. A king can't avoid checkmate on his own; all the pieces need to work together. That is the lesson She learned, after so many failed games. And that is how, this time, She will win.

Ida drops out the ceiling, she and Jet giving me odd looks as I swallow the lump in my throat.

"What's up?" Ida asks. "You look like you just pissed yourself."

"I… it's nothing," I say, and then correct myself before Ida makes fun of how obvious of a lie that is. "I mean, it's not nothing, but it's nothing we have time to talk about right now. Jet, are you sure you can protect Ida?"

"Pretty sure," she nods. "But if you happen to remember Ida exists, say something to her so I know that you know. We'll stay close enough to hear you."

"Uh, that seems dangerous," I say. "I'm going to be fighting people. What if stray gunfire hits you? You can still be hit even if people don't know you're there, right?"

"Well yeah," Jet nods. "But when I mean close enough to hear you, I mean close enough for me to hear you."

She points up at her adorable poofy ears and gives them a wiggle.

"And that's pretty far away," she finishes.

"Got it," I smile. "Okay, great. Stay safe, you two."

Jet hands me a funny-looking map, nods, grabs Ida, and then… uh. Hmm. Wait, where the heck did I get this map? I'm not even sure how I could tell it was a map at first glance; it's been hastily scrawled on a piece of printer paper, looking like it's been added to in sections over time. A bunch of notes are written in handwriting that feels familiar but I can't really place. One of the notes is on top of the map and in extra big letters, so I read that first.

Don't think about it. It's Our Little Secret.

Huh. Well, that doesn't explain anything. But I was just looking for the jerk or jerks who ordered the incarceration of everyone I care about and a couple people I don't, and this is a pretty convenient map right to them. Even has their names written down, not that I'll bother to remember them. Unless… I wasn't thinking about fucking those guys up until after whatever obviously-Pneuma spell made me forget how I got this map? But if it was a Pneuma spell making me want to go get those guys, would it be letting me wonder if there was a Pneuma spell at all?

Goddess, I fucking hate Pneuma magic so much. Nothing for it, I guess. I'll assume my thoughts are my own and I'm remembering the situation mostly correctly, but I'll double-check on the way. Interrogate people a little before doing anything too bad to them. Trust but verify, and all that.

It's cool. It'll be fine. I'm already fighting the government so that I don't leave my friends up poop creek without a paddle when I kill myself tomorrow. I've hit rock bottom so hard already that this Pneuma magic stuff can't even raise my heart rate today.

It helps that I got to kill Sindri again, too. That felt pretty good, in retrospect.

There are more soldiers outside all the doors, and while I don't need to use doors normally I can't really carry the map through the fourth dimension without putting it in my mouth, and I think that would ruin it. So I put the map down, take care of the guys outside, and return for it before moving on.

According to said map, the conference room where all the bigwigs argued about how much imprisonment without crime or trial they were feeling like doling out today should be a pretty swift walk. I head through the outer wall of the building and go outside, and since I already have parts of my head in normal space to look at the map anyway, I glance at my surroundings a bit, too. I seem to be in some kind of military base in… the Smokies, maybe!? I dunno, it's some kind of thick forest and it reminds me of when my family took that vacation to Dollywood (which is like Hollywood plus Disneyland but for old people who like country music) and we went up into the mountains. Are we in the national park? I feel like it's probably not legal to have a military base in a national park. But maybe it is? I dunno. We could be somewhere else entirely. I have no idea about any of this. I'm just some girl.

Some girl that happens to be walking through and invalidating an entire military base. It's no wonder they want to lock all magic users up, really. It's just annoying that they're stupid enough to try.

I tear through the soldiers guarding the conference room, but to my irritation I can already tell it has been evacuated. Makes sense, I guess. They have an operations room, and whoever I talked to is probably there. I take a couple of deep breaths to give myself air for the journey and run that way, destroying anything I don't like on the way there. There we go. I see someone old enough and hoarding enough stars on his lapel to be the piece of shit I'm looking for.

I don't waste time introducing myself; I just hide my map under a rock so it doesn't blow away, walk through the wall, and cut everything apart. Equipment, weapons, computers, radios, wires, cords, walls, and clothes. As long as it doesn't have a heartbeat, I fuck it up. I'm done in barely thirty seconds, and only then do I let my face appear, floating in the air and surrounded by blades.

"Hey," I say.

Oh, the fear in the room smells delicious. All those hearts, beating like a nightcore symphony in terror of me. Sparks fly from slashed electronics, as the room itself slowly starts to settle from the carnage surrounding me. It feels right. It feels like what I was made for.

"Not that I don't appreciate the silence," I muse, "but I believe we have some policies to renegotiate."

"We do not," the old man in the fancy outfit insists. "Even if I were capable of unilaterally overturning our country's decision, I would not do so."

"Okay but you get how that decision is stupid nonsense, right?" I ask. "Like, you obviously can't hold us. You can't imprison us. Sure, you can lock up the occasional weakling, and I hear you've been quite successful at that, but there is literally nothing you can do to force me to stay anywhere I don't want to be. And if you're forcing other people into illegal imprisonment, I don't want anyone to be there!"

"And who are you to make that decision?" he snaps. "The girl who refused to share information, refused to provide tangible assistance, and demanded that we take care of whatever vague problems she happened to think of? I will not be gaslit by a self-righteous child. You have kept us ignorant of what you can do, and now you're blaming us for not coming to a conclusion that you like with the bare scraps of information you've peppered us with between your ominous warnings. You reap what you've sown, demon, and nothing more or less."

I snort.

"Did you just call me a demon?" I ask. "Seriously? Come on, dude, I already gave this speech to my church."

Of course, maybe he's onto something. His heart is looking mighty tasty. Full of fat and cholesterol…

"I am a God-fearing man," he says. "I know where your dark powers hail from."

"You really don't," I tell him.

"And I know that, no matter what you say, you are not invincible," he continues. "Do not fool yourself into thinking we'd rather bow to you than die finding it."

"Sir, I don't want you to bow to me," I lie. That would be pretty gratifying to see, actually. "I just want you to not incarcerate an entire group of people for an indeterminate amount of time for things that aren't even their fault. It's not a big freaking ask. And besides…"

I lean forward, extending a claw and scraping it along his chin.

"...Just because I'm not invincible doesn't mean that you'll ever hurt me."

Credit where it's due, he tries to punch me. And while I guess I deserve it for the chin thing, I still dodge it without even trying. I'm being a little mean, but fuck it, right? It's not like I'll live long enough to regret it anyway.

"All you're doing," the man says, "is proving beyond a doubt that we need to do this. We need intelligence on how to face monsters like you. If you think we'll give up simply because we don't know how to win, you couldn't be more wrong. It is because we've yet to learn how to win that we must not give up. We will find a way, by any means necessary."

I frown. The worst part is, I can kind of understand his perspective, honestly. The fact that I'm happy to negotiate, happy to deal with this nonviolently, isn't important to this man. He's in the military. It's arguably his entire job to know how to handle situations where negotiations fail. And that's always a threat, isn't it? No matter how reasonable I am, my power to make anyone into a threat that the military potentially can't deal with is an untenable situation. If they don't have a way to face me, they will pour their entire budget into finding one, somehow or another. The longer I withhold the power they need to fight me, the more likely they'll escalate into forcing the issue. It was never a question of if the military was going to kidnap magic users and torture them into incanting, it was always a matter of when.

…But they're probably not at that point quite yet, are they? It'll be soon, but I bet they'll exhaust other options first, in ascending order of how fucked up they are. So about where on the war crime totem pole are we on, I wonder? Illegal research, maybe? Unethical animal experimentation? Wait. Oh no.

"Hey," I say, "not to change the subject or anything, but where's Fartbuns?"

He blinks at me, his mental gears grinding as I shift the topic without a clutch.

"Don said you guys have my friend's dog," I continue. "Big guy? Super friendly? Eight legs? Goes 'boof?'"

"...The animal?" he asks, finally catching up with the conversation. Geez, it's like he's never talked to someone with ADHD before.

"Yeah man, where's my friend's dog?" I ask. "You pressurized cheese nozzles better not be hurting him."

Several heart rates in the room quicken considerably. Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool.

"Okay, somebody in here is gonna tell me where my best friend's dog is, or I will start insisting," I say, my own panic starting to rise. Shit, how could I have forgotten about Fartbuns!?

"You don't get to make demands of—" the general guy or whatever he is starts insisting, but I cut off his fucking hand because yes I do get to make demands. I am sacrificing my Goddess-damn life for this fucked up world and if these people are hurting precious little Fartbuns I don't want them to be among those I save.

"Where's the dog!?" I shout, and after a few moments of yelling someone wises up and starts babbling directions. These Goddess-damn federal fuckbutts! 'By any means necessary' my naked fourth dimensional ass. I grab my map and start sprinting, doing my best to interpret both the directions I was given and the vaguely-scrawled paper that might make sense of them.

I spot the right route with my spatial sense before I figure out which building I'm supposed to enter via the directions. I'm supposed to go down, so the place I'm looking for has a multi-level basement. Because of course they took an innocent mutant dog into the sketchy sub-basement. Of course that's what's happening right now. Goddess fucking damnit.

I drop through the floor, occasionally catching myself to slow my fall until I'm finally deep enough to see it: a medical room, in which Fartbuns lies on the table immobile, his body cut open by a woman and three men who have all just signed their goddamn death warrants. I can't believe they… no. No, wait. He's alive. I see a heartbeat. My eight-legged good boy is alive.

He's merely unconscious. They're vivisecting him, and at least had the decency to sedate him first. So maybe killing them is a bit too hasty of an idea. Maybe. I drop through the ceiling and bring myself fully into 3D, not giving a single fuck about showing up naked in the middle of them. I'm past that. Past caring about whatever stupid vestiges of humanity are still trying to cling to me. Nobody here is going to treat me like a person, let alone a human. May as well throw it all away.

"That's not your dog," I hiss at the monsters dressed like scientists. "Get away from him."

Soldiers outside the room rush in, but the scientists are between me and the door so all I have to do is put a blade to someone's neck.

"Weapons down," I order. "I dunno if you've been listening to the radio, but they won't do you any good anyway."

To my mild surprise, they actually drop the guns and comply. Huh. That's always nice. Is it bad that, at this point, I was kind of expecting them to shoot through the scientists to get to me?

"Y-your dog is fine!" one of the scientists stammers, his hands in the air, palms towards me. "As far as we can tell, he's perfectly healthy."

"Then why did you cut him open?" I snarl.

"B-because we didn't know until then!" he insists. "He's impermeable to X-rays and radio waves. No MRIs, no CT scans… we wanted to make sure the transformation wasn't hurting him, and we had no other way to see inside his body!"

Aww, what? Fartbuns is a Space mage like me? That's so cute! Okay, alright. Maybe things aren't as bad as I was anticipating. Maybe.

"Well, that's… good, I suppose," I acknowledge, lowering my blades a bit. "Apologies for overreacting. I'm having a bit of a day. So, uh, you gonna sew him back up now, then?"

"Um…" one of the other scientists says. Ah. There it is. I knew it was too good to be true.

"Y-yes!" the first scientist quickly insists, cutting off his colleague. "Yes, we were just about to do that, actually!"

Alright, I see. Yeah. He's smart, I'll give him that. He almost had me. Shame his buddy slipped.

"What were you about to say?" I ask the guy who hesitated.

"I…"

"Talk," I demand, punctuating the words with an eldritch hiss that makes the whole room shudder. Ahhh, that feels good. It feels so good. But now isn't the time for indulging myself.

"W-we were under orders to determine what's causing the metamorphosis," he admits. "Anyone who's worked with animals would guess that he's healthy just from how he acted. You have a, uh, very happy dog, ma'am."

I smile, my teeth on full display.

"I appreciate that honesty," I tell him. "Really. So what were you four actually doing here, then?"

"Don't you tell her anything—" the first one tries, but I grab him by the throat and shut him up.

"Well, um, since less invasive methods weren't deemed feasible, we… were committed to a pretty long-term surgery, so we could witness and record the internal changes in real time. I'm not proud of it, ma'am, but—"

"Oh, you're not proud of it," I say, my own heartbeat thumping in my ears just as fast as theirs. "Well, that's fine. You stole someone else's dog, ripped his chest open on a table, and planned to keep him that way, but hey! As long as you aren't proud of it, then that's okay."

I check Fartbuns over with my spatial sense, locating everything foreign inside of him and removing it with my claws or Refresh, getting everything as close to back into place as I can.

"I'm going to be ending this surgery, I think," I tell them, twitching with some combination of emotions I can't even identify. Anger, maybe? It's got to be anger, right? That would make the most sense, here. But whatever. It doesn't matter. I'm not going to live long enough to care either way. "If you're all so curious about the transformative process, then by all means pay close attention. Everything you're about to experience should be very educational."

"I… w-wait," someone says. I don't care who. "Please."

"Nah, it's fine," I say. "I'm not proud of this."

But I do it anyway, just like I always do. Transmutation energy pours out of me like a waterfall, and Fartbuns' body already knows what to do with it. The big, fluffy dog's extra legs finish growing in, a bit of the fur around his head vanishing as he starts growing extra eyes to match. Fartbuns isn't just my best friend's dog. He's my friend, and playing with him was the first time I started to actually enjoy my freakish transformations here on Earth. It was with Fartbuns that I figured out how to embrace the euphoric parts of what I am, just playing around with a big, happy dog. On the world tree, I called the body I started with a 'hyperspider.' For Fartbuns, that big bundle of infinite energy, it's hard to not see him as a hyperpupper.

That wonderful dog starts to fill out a little in the fourth dimension, and I smile. Someone to follow me, huh? That would be such a wonderful thing to have, if I wasn't about to die. But unfortunately, like everything else, it's kind of irrelevant in the end.

Now. What about all this other shit, then?

The scientists and the soldiers are, by and large, curled up on the floor and screaming like little pissy babies because their organs are all reconfiguring themselves while their skin falls off. Kinda weak if you ask me, but at the end of the day that's exactly what they are, isn't it? Weak. They're nothing but stupid little drones, hiding behind the curtain of 'following orders' and pretending that means it's not their fault when they do something bad. So they can be drones, then! Termites, I think, with their bloated, squishy, pale abdomens and translucent epidermis. That seems appropriate.

They start to vomit acid, their clothes melting away along with their humanity as their faces fall off, every one of them but the woman shifting to look completely identical to each other. That's just my bias at play, I suppose, and just to lean into it even harder let's go ahead and give her wings. If she ever gets pregnant—and that's a big if, looking like that—she'll end up with quite the urge to fly off somewhere remote and start her own colony. I'm sure that'll be fun.

I think that's something people often forget, when they think of insect queens. Eusocialism isn't feudalism. Queens aren't any better or stronger than workers. They're just a different kind of mindless slave, chained to their instincts without a shred of authority over them. It's hard not to relate to that, some days.

"Sto… stoh… agh!" one of the soldiers tries to beg, but the emergence of his oversized mandibles cuts off his words. It really wasn't fair to only have dimorphism between the sexes; that's not even how termites work! Soldiers and workers can be male or female, they're just sterile all the same.

"Aww, I'm sorry," I coo at my new little monsters. "Is your life being horrifically and irreparably ruined by physical transformations that you can't control? That must be so difficult for you. But don't worry. You get used to it."

They don't answer. They can't. Drones who just follow orders don't need to talk back.

I feel lightheaded. Inebriated, almost, by the drug-like cocktail of emotions surging through me. This really is it, isn't it? There's no going back. I feel like I should regret this more, but for the life of me I can't remember the reason why.

"Would you all like to know a secret?" I ask them. "The apocalypse I warned you all about. It's me. I cause it. I, Hannah Hiiragi, am the end of the world."

I laugh a little. It feels good to say it, somehow.

"But it's okay!" I assure them. "It's okay. Because I'm not going to let that happen. That wouldn't be good. It wouldn't be right. So I'm going to kill myself. Right when I was starting to figure things out, right when I was starting to think I could be happy, I'm going to up and fucking die to save all of your worthless, pathetic, ungrateful little lives! I hate you! Do you understand that!? I fucking hate you, and I could end the world with two Goddess-damn words, but I won't!"

I take a deep breath, in and out. Woah there, Hannah. No need to scream, right?

"I can't," I continue at a more reasonable volume. "Because surely, everyone knows that's the right thing to do, don't they? Even if I've never met them, I'll regret every single person I kill, won't I? Everything's just… better if I'm dead. For me and the rest of the world."

I head towards the door, slicing up the guns on the ground for good measure.

"Maybe all of you will be better off dead too, after what I've done to you," I say. "But that's the nice thing, right? I won't ever have to find out."

I exit the room, and head up the stairs, shifting back into the fourth dimension. The tears can't stick to my face in a vacuum; they just evaporate.

I realize, belatedly, that I don't really have a way to tell time. But that's okay. It may as well have been half an hour.