"And so we march, march, march to the beat of the drums~" Greg sang loudly, before trailing off. "Man, I wish I remembered that song better." He sighed.

"I wish you would leave us alone!" The alien soldier who's shoulder he was currently resting on complained. The Technocracy didn't have the time to waste trying to capture him every time he showed up now that they were marching, so they had to just put up with him.

"Hey, if you guys want to turn around and decide not to attack my friends, you'll never hear from me again." Greg shrugged. "If not, I'm going to make sure my voice is the last one you hear before you die an agonizing death." He added, his tone turning dark as a chorus of evil chuckles erupted around him, all the various Gregs laughing as they eyed the soldiers, vicious glints in their eyes.

"Don't engage with it." Another soldier grumbled. "Just ignore it and keep marching."

"Hey, I'm not an it, I'm a he!" Greg protested, before pausing. "Well, most of the time at least… sometimes I'm a she… and I suppose you could technically call me an it when I'm not in a living form… that smoke is still me, but dirt doesn't have a gender. But that begs the question, is my form what defines who I am, or my consciousness? I certainly feel like a he no matter which form I take, but is that because I truly identify that way, or because I'm simply used to perceiving myself in that manner? Does it even matter? What is a he or a she? What does it mean? Is it a certain set of traits? A way of thinking? The way you prefer to interact with the world? The way you want to be perceived?" Greg paused again, feeling like he'd actually touched on something in his random raving. "Huh, that's an interesting thought. If you actually care what people think about you, then I could see it being important to you that people associate you with whatever image you feel represents you best at a glance… maybe? I guess that makes sense… It would explain why the whole misgendering thing gets people all riled up, because they want to be seen like this, they've ostensibly put in a lot of work to be seen like this, and then you don't see them like this? Yeah, I could see that pissing someone off." Greg nodded slowly.

"You are pissing me off!" The soldier cried in frustration. "How can you continue to talk about sheer, nonsensical crap so endlessly!?!"

"Practice, my friend, practice." Greg laughed. "When you spend two years with no one to talk to but yourself, you either get good, or you get bored, and I got great! I could spend weeks just talking and talking and talking, all day long, cause I don't have to sleep you know, or anything for that matter, just constant yap yap yap, following any random thought that entered my mind. That's the key you know, following those random thoughts. You just follow and follow, not caring where they take you or even if they make sense. Cause once you care about making sense, you lose. It takes nonsense to be good, which actually makes sense because the world is nonsense, at least as far as I can tell. Utterly ridiculous. Convoluted even. Like a book or an anime or something. I think all we're missing is a protag wielding a giant sword for absolutely no reason, and this goose is cooked. Officially a dumb, yet still wildly popular story that millions of people will read. Fuck I miss reading. Have you ever read? Just sat down in a comfortable chair and gotten into a book…"

The soldier let out a groan as Greg continued to ramble on and on. All of him were, hundreds of fairies spread throughout the marching army, yammering incessantly, to the soldiers constant irritation. Which, of course, was the whole point. Greg was pretty sure the Technocracy's morale was just about as low as it could go without anyone actually dying.

"Here they come." Greg muttered, standing on one of the walls next to Tessa as the Technocracy's army began to spill into the valley. Everyone suddenly went on high alert, watching as the Technocracy set up their battle lines. Floating vehicles with turrets mounted on the back lined up in front of the army, while large, slow moving cannons lined the back. These were what the Technocracy had been focused on building ever since they landed. Cavalry and artillery. What surprised Greg was that they still left most of their army as ground forces. Why do that when you can make pretty much as many vehicles and cannons as you want? It wasn't like they were running out of trees or something…

Greg was jolted out of his thoughts as the cannons roared, beams of energy shooting out of their mouths and impacting on the ship's shield! "Is that going to be a problem?" He asked, turning to Tessa.

"Yes." Tessa hissed, scowling. "Not immediately, but the shield can only hold so long against constant bombardment… we're going to need to take those cannons out."

Greg frowned. "That won't be easy. Those vehicles will gun down anyone who tries to get across the field, and then you'd need to get through all the foot soldiers… oof. Though…" Greg trailed off as he got an idea. "Hmmm… if someone could make even a tiny hole in the barriers around those things, my smoke could get in and just dissolve the entire thing. Their metal isn't mana-infused, obviously, so my smoke shouldn't have an issue."

Tessa nodded slowly. "Just a small hole?" She grinned. "I think I know someone who can help."

*

"Hey, Patrick!" Greg greeted the man as he joined Tessa and him on the way to the Generals' chamber. "Long time no see! How're things?"

"Been better." Patrick shook his head, gesturing to the energy beams still impacting the shield. "But overall, can't complain. You though… I hear you were locked in a transmutation chamber for the last two years? That must have been rough."

"Ugh, tell me about it." Greg groaned. "I do not do well with boredom."

"Understatement. Of. The century." Tessa grumbled.

"You must have been going crazy in there, huh?" Patrick sighed.

"I did not go crazy." Greg immediately responded in an insistent tone. "I tried, don't get me wrong, but something about how I'm built makes me unavoidably lucid. The best I could do was deliberately ignore reality, which is really just acting crazy."

Patrick paused, before giving Tessa a weird look. She just shrugged. "He's still Greg, that much I'm sure of."

"Right… Well, enough catching up." Patrick suddenly snapped to attention, saluting Tessa. "Colonel Evans, Sergeant Evans reporting as ordered, Ma'am!"

Tessa rolled her eyes. "Come off it, Patrick, the aliens are gone. I don't need to worry about proper military order, particularly not with my own brother."

"With all due respect, Ma'am, we are currently at war. I believe this is exactly the time to worry about proper military order." Patrick retorted.

"He has a point." Greg commented, before pausing to frown at Patrick. "Wait, you're only a sergeant? Weren't you a high-tier back on Earth?"

Patrick let out a frustrated sigh. "Unfortunately, while my mana pool is larger than most other people's, my talent for spell work is… lacking. I've only barely managed to become a rank one mage."

Tessa snorted. "A rank one with the attack power of a rank five. This mage ranking system is idiotic! Half our most powerful combatants are relegated to the lower ranks simply because they have trouble with spells! What does it matter if their innate mana alone lets them do more than half the entire ship?!?"

Greg raised an eyebrow at her, surprised by how passionate she got. Patrick leaned closer to explain. "Dad isn't even a mage yet… his innate mana is too chaotic. It adjusts on its own based on the mana around him, so no spell form works reliably for him. However, he can use it to boost the mana pools of the people around him, or suppress them, though that's less helpful. It's a powerful support ability, but the aliens wouldn't even let him serve because he can't cast spells. It also hasn't helped that he's been rather staunchly against the forced conscription… He's been relegated to service staff and Tessa hasn't taken it well."

"It's stupid!" Tessa growled. "He's more useful than half the people on the damn ship, and they have him mopping hallways! It's an insult to his ability as both a mage and a leader!"

"I know, I know." Patrick sighed, shaking his head. "However, I believe we have more important matters to attend to. You did call me here for a reason, yes? You didn't call me off the front lines just to rant at me, did you?"

Tessa paused, before letting out a sigh. "No. We need your help for a plan, which I'm about to pitch to the Generals. Greg says that if he can get through the force fields, he can deal with those cannons. He only needs a small hole, which with your ability…"

Patrick nodded slowly. "I can make a small hole… if I can get close enough."

"Getting you close shouldn't be a problem." Tessa sighed. "It's keeping you safe afterwards that's the issue. You're going to need to hit every cannon, which means you're going to have to sit there for a bit. We need to be able to defend you and get you out of there safely if we want this to work."

Patrick gave her a look. "I don't need to be able to leave. I need to be able to get the job done."

Tessa frowned. "Patrick-"

"Tessa, this is war." Patrick continued, cutting her off. "If those cannons don't fall, we're all doomed. Sacrificing a single, low ranked mage to save thousands is more than worth it. If we can get me out of there, great, but if not… the task still needs to be done. You can't doom everyone just to keep me safe."

Tessa gritted her teeth. "There are other ways to get through those force fields. Your ability is the simplest, but a team of rank three mages who can actually defend themselves would get the job done as well. I am not throwing you away simply because it's the easiest way to get the job done!"

Patrick shook his head. "Tessa, how many rank three mages do we have? A hundred? Two? Yet you would send multiple of them on a mission that could cost them their lives? Just to keep one rank one mage alive? That isn't the decision of a commander, that's the decision of a little girl who's afraid to lose her brother. We can afford to lose me. We can't afford to lose our rank three mages."

"Guys, don't you think we should see if it's necessary to lose anyone before thinking about all this?" Greg interjected. "I mean, the Technocracy essentially ignores me at this point, so I can guide you past all the patrols and what not. Hiding your light show will be a problem, obviously, but I can put up walls so they at least need to work to get to you. Then it's just a matter of running away, and if I recall correctly, you can fly. I'll put up some smoke cover and you can just blast right out of there. Plus, they'll probably be more concerned with their rapidly dissolving cannons by that point."

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

They both turned to him, raising their eyebrows in an almost disturbing form of sibling synchronization. "Greg, that is the laziest plan I've ever heard! Plus, if anything goes wrong, you're screwed! What if they get through your walls? What if they can still find Patrick through your smoke? Even we could land airplanes in heavy fog! Who knows what they can do with their technology! Plus, if they all fire at him, they don't even need to aim! They hit him through sheer probability!" Tessa explained.

"Huh… fair point." Greg nodded, frowning slightly. "Well, I got nothing going for me but smoke, so I'm out of ideas." He sighed, shrugging. "Unless you think I can cause some sort of distraction? I can be very distracting."

Tessa considered it for a moment. "Maybe… but we still need a better plan than 'Greg causes a distraction'." She muttered, frowning, before letting out a sigh. "This is why we're heading to the Generals. We need a better idea of the resources we can use."

*

The preppy dude's finger tapped on the table after listening to Tessa's explanation. "So what we need to do is get this man close enough to create a hole so that our resident enigma can take out the cannons? Seems simple enough."

"Right, we can use earth magic to tunnel underneath." The punk added. "Then… if we could collapse the tunnels underneath, we can drag the cannons down, then break the force fields-"

A weary sigh echoed through the chamber. "Do you honestly think the Demons don't have a plan for such a basic strategy, after fighting the Republic for centuries?!?" A blue woman asked incredulously, suddenly appearing at the table.

"Lapodala!" Tessa exclaimed.

"What are you doing here?!?" The preppy dude growled, glaring daggers at her.

"I volunteered to remain behind so that you children will not get yourselves killed by foolish mistakes!" Lapodala retorted, glaring back at him. "You are correct that your first priority should be the cannons. However, you cannot simply take out the cannons themselves, you must destroy the energy source. The device itself can be rebuilt, but without the energy source, the cannons are useless."

"Could they not just make a new energy source?" Bianca asked curiously.

Lapodala shook her head. "Thankfully, no. It takes an immense amount of resources to make a single one of those energy sources. They would need to strip-mine half of this region to do so."

"Enough!" The preppy dude exclaimed, standing to his feet and slamming the table. "How dare you show your face around here after what your people did to us! You murdered our friends! Our family!"

"It was necessary!" Lapodala countered. "Without the ability to use mana, they would have become monsters! Creatures consumed by madness who only seek violence! Their deaths were a mercy!"

"Yeah, except for the fact that you were the ones to expose them to mana in the first place." Greg pointed out.

Lapodala flinched. "It- it was necessary." She muttered defensively.

"To what? Get more soldiers for your little war?" Greg asked, raising an eyebrow at her. "I get wanting to defend yourselves, but dragging others into it like this…"

"We aren't fighting to save ourselves! We're fighting to save the universe!" Lapodala retorted, standing to her feet. "The Demons constant pursuit of power drains resource after resource, pushing us further and further towards destruction! They destroy planets, stars, to power their technology! Energy is finite! Entropy is inevitable! The only way to combat it is mana! It is infinite, renewable, illogical! It creates resources, instead of destroying them! The only way to ensure the survival of our universe is through magic! If a few people need to be sacrificed to ensure the survival of the infinite masses to come, so be it!"

Greg blinked at that. It… made sense? Sort of? Sacrifice a few people now so that the rest can live… Greg was definitely on board for a universe that wouldn't inevitably fall to heat death. Except… "Couldn't you just wait for everyone else to die, then do the whole mana thing?" Greg offered.

"Why should we deny those who can live the chance for the sake of those who will die anyway?" Lapodala countered. "These people now have the chance to live for eternity! Those who died would only have lived for a century at most!" Greg glanced at Tessa. Eternity with her, or death… was that even a choice?

"The benefits do seem to outweigh the cost…" The nerdy girl muttered.

"For you!" The preppy dude growled. "Ask those who died if the cost was worth it! Oh wait, you can't! Because they're dead!"

Greg cocked his head as he considered the other side of it. Would he be okay with dying so that others could live longer and better lives? His eyes narrowed. Maybe… but he'd also want to look for a third option, like having everyone who could use mana shipped off planet to be awakened, then let them return and slowly introduce the mana naturally, while providing everyone who couldn't use mana with mana free food, or just a way to remove mana from food like the Technocracy used. The mana would still affect them, but obviously it wouldn't drive them mad, like the normal humans back on Earth. Their kids would supposedly grow up under the influence of mana as well, which would adjust them towards being able to actually use it, until eventually everyone would be able to use mana, without any monsterfication. Theoretically, at least. It was at least worth a shot, right? "I think this is a false dichotomy." He muttered. "There have to be ways to slowly introduce mana which don't involve driving half the population crazy. Like, I get wanting to get everyone on the mana standard, but the way you're doing it is probably the worst possible method. Real 'ends justify the means' type shit."

"Oh? And how would you spread the mana?" Lapodala sneered at him. Greg explained his idea and she shook her head. "There is no way to test how someone will react to mana before they are actually introduced to it. We've tried. Mana is too illogical. It doesn't behave in a predictable way."

Greg frowned. "What if you slowly introduced it, but had regular psychological testing to see how people were reacting?"

Lapodala shook her head again. "It doesn't help. Some people deteriorate before they get better. You cannot know whether they're one or the other until it's too late."

Greg's frown deepened. "Then-"

"We have tried!" Lapodala stopped him before he could continue. "We have attempted every single method we could conceive to save as many people as we could! Nothing works! The best method we have available to us is to bombard the planet with pure mana, wait a few cycles, then deal with the consequences. So that is what we do. Judge us if you must, but we are doing what is necessary!"

Greg let out a sigh. "Figures." He kept looking at this situation like he had the situation between the ferals and the safe zone, where the problem was that neither side understood the other. But that wasn't the case here. The Technocracy and the Republic understood each other perfectly, and the war was the result of a fundamental disagreement. Both saw the other as a danger to their very being, and neither side was exactly wrong. For the Technocracy, mana would fuck up their technology and drive half of them insane. For the Republic, technology would consume the universe in its pursuit of more and more resources. Even if they divided the universe in half, eventually the Technocracy would come after the Republic again, after they'd consumed all their resources and needed more, which would only exist in the Republic. This war was inevitable. Unavoidable.

The punk let out a slight cough. "Shall we return to the matter at hand? All this is well and good, but for now, we need to focus on taking out those cannons, or this discussion is pointless. We'll all be dead."

Lapodala sighed, nodding. "Yes, you're right. Now, again, you need to take out the energy sources. That is your goal. If you do, this battle is won. The problem is getting to the energy sources. The Demon Empire has the ability to detect when mana is being used, so any spell will put them on full alert. Attempt to tunnel, and they'll surround you when you reach the surface. Fly or teleport, and they'll be right there to greet you. The only way is to reach them without using magic." She glanced at Greg. "Which is where you come in."

Greg blinked. "Pardon?"

Lapodala pointed at him. "You don't use mana. This smoke of yours… whatever it is, it's not magic. You can use it and the Demons will be none the wiser. You can tunnel under the cannons without being noticed."

"What do you mean his smoke isn't magic?" Bianca asked curiously. "It has to be, doesn't it? Nothing like him would be possible through mundane means."

Lapodala shook her head. "All I can say is that it isn't magic. As to what it actually is, I couldn't tell you."

Greg frowned. His smoke wasn't magic? He thought about it for a moment, before shrugging. Yeah, that made sense. No matter how you cut it, his smoke didn't act like mana. Didn't even like to interact with the stuff, really. But if it wasn't magic… What was it? It couldn't be some kind of physical mutation, could it? What kind of physical mutation would let him exist solely as smoke, allow him to be smoke to the point that anything made of his smoke was him? That- didn't make sense. He couldn't exactly dismiss it, but it felt off.

"So we have Greg tunnel underneath the cannons." The punk began, getting them back on track. "Then what? Collapse the ground beneath them?"

"Why?" The nerdy girl asked. "Why draw so much attention to ourselves? Greg can sneak Patrick and a cloaking mage right up underneath the cannons, create a small hole for Greg's smoke, then move on to the next one." She turned to Lapodala. "I assume cloaking magic still hides mana from whatever method of detection the Technocracy has?"

"Within limits." Lapodala nodded. "If you're simply making a small hole in the force field… it should work." She turned to Greg. "Be careful not to leave a tunnel. They can detect those. And don't tunnel directly under their camp as much as possible. The further away, the more effective the cloaking mage will be."

"Unless we use Victor." Tessa interjected.

"Ah yes, the reverse mage…" Lapodala frowned. "He wouldn't be able to help with the approach, but once you're there… it would be best if you brought him and a classic cloaking mage."

Greg raised an eyebrow. "Reverse mage?"

"Victor's mana is weird. It always does the opposite of what the spell is supposed to do. Fire becomes ice, light becomes dark, push becomes pull, notice becomes ignore… you get the picture. The area of effect is the same however. That's why he can stand right next to someone and be completely ignored. His innate mana would normally draw the attention of everyone nearby, but instead it makes them ignore him." Tessa explained.

Greg blinked. "That can happen?"

Lapodala nodded. "It's rare, but yes. There are a few dozen or so on every planet."

"Huh…" Greg muttered. "Okay, then we take Victor, Patrick, and a normal cloaking mage, sneak up under the cannons, get my smoke through the force fields, then… Well, I guess I just dissolve the cannons, right?"

"I would suggest retreating before you dissolve the cannons." Lapodala commented. "Once you do, the Demons will know something has happened and you don't want to be caught out there."

Greg nodded. "Good point." He paused. "Is that it? Can we go destroy some cannons now?"

"We need to be prepared for the Technocracy's counter attack." Bianca commented. "They won't take the destruction of their cannons lying down."

"That's what we've been preparing for this entire time." The preppy dude growled. "We're as prepared as we'll ever be. We just need those cannons taken down. Then- then we'll face what comes."