Y’know Rej, you’ve been talking to yourself a lot more lately, more and more. Yeah? Well, you said it was a coping mechanism. Did I? Um, yes. Now you’re just funnin’ on yourself. Maybe focus on the fight putz. Oy, putz yourself, but also, yes, I should.

Snagging several arrows out of the air with telekinesis, I whirl as I leap, slingshotting them around me back towards the encroaching horde. There’s not as many as I’d have thought, that are eager to blaze a trail through the corpses of their comrades, and the crater I’ve created, to come face me. Woah, bullets. I can’t quite dodge those realistically well. Those would put a damper on my day. Good thing half of my face is covered by Adamantite, even when I’m not armored up in my magical form.

Terrorzin’s forces don’t have a lot of firearms, thankfully. Still, the fact that they have any is disconcerting. Oh right. Terrorzin was extorting the Derbrightmine dwarves through Olashax and Astridus, for quite some time. Still, you can tell that these Draconiacs, and kobolds, aren’t used to firearms aiming, loading, or wielding. I suppose there’ve been no generations-long master gunners to teach troops. The ones wielding guns might not even be the best gunners, they could be status symbols handed out as prizes for loyalty and crap like that.

Whatever, they’ve all gotta die one way or another. Oof, cold Reggie, cold. Not as cold as Terrorzin’s aura though. He took out hundreds of his own forces last night trying to catch me. Speaking of, I don’t sense that aura anywhere in my thermal range. Maybe it does cost him to have it activated, and he’s not willing to just keep it up permanently?

Regardless, I’d prefer him as far on the other side of his troops as possible from me and mine, for as long as possible. Somehow though, I’ve got a feeling I’ll be seeing him sometime soon. This time, it’ll be much more up-close and personal. We’ve decimated somewhere between two percent, and twenty-five percent of the estimated forces he’d had out here, in two outings. If only we could keep this up. It takes a day to put together enough of myself and my own resources to make a big enough boom to pull off stunts like this last couple.

As I’m about to continue rambling, I hear telepathically, “Airhead, are you hogging all the fun over there?”

Smirking and shaking my head, I can’t help myself as I laugh out loud before responding, “Sure Te, fun, yeah I’m hogging it. Wanna come get some?”

Sensing Teuila’s telepathic avatar bob its head side to side while she wears her miles-wide closed-eyed smile, I can’t help smiling and shaking my head. Still, I think we collapsed any tunnels that had been cut through our Wistenzlia barricade. Between Teuila’s Mjolnir strikes, and my own steam explosion, we’ve definitely done a fair amount of damage to the rubble ourselves. Hopefully we don’t end up doing Terrorzin’s work for him. I’m honestly surprised that—.

Dodge you fool! Throwing myself to the side, the radiant cascade of plasma that comes hurtling from the furthest ranks of Terrorzin’s forces feels like it brushes by me in slow motion. I feel my molecular bonds shifting and pulling apart at its mere passing, parts of my physiology melting away in microscopic ways. The hundred meter wide ball of plasma slams into my blockade and just keeps moving, vaporizing the mountain of stone bit by bit in its relentless push.

Worriedly, I cry into our telepathic bond, “Te, get your barrier up and get the hell out of the way!”

The functional Orichalcum forcefield went with the bot bodies and the team that teleported. I can only hope Teuila’s prepared to set it up. When I telepathically hear, “Comin’ through!” my face contorts as I turn towards the tunnel that’d been bored through by the plasma ball.

I have to blink several times trying to parse what’s happening as it seems like the plasma ball is returning this way, though it’s quite a bit smaller than when it started. Seeing Teuila’s Honoris Causa wielding Mjolnir, as she shuffles magic items and abilities, while reversing the direction of a miniature sun, is beyond baffling. But it is good timing, because another of the juggernaut projectiles is barreling this way from the far end of Terrorzin’s forces. Seeing her pull that off has got me… something. I can’t even fathom what emotions I’m feeling right now.

This is really not going to end well. Blitzing my way into the tunnel, skirting this death-globe, I join up with Teuila, igniting my own Honoris Causa, in order to push. Each fraction of a step feels like it saps years off of my life, and takes ages to complete. I see sweat running down Teuila’s face in thick rivulets at the effort she’s exerting. Glancing behind us, I see Ahliyui, some bots, and several of our allies. They’re erecting the—. Really. Really guys? Erecting is a perfectly valid word to—. Oh for heaven’s sakes. You’re all so juvenile.

I—. Sighing, it takes me a while to get over myself, but I can’t help laughing with the goon squad. Teuila foremost amongst them. This is insane. This is utterly, absolutely insane. What sort of powers, items, abilities, and creatures does Terrorzin have in store for us, where he’s able to toss multiple miniature suns in a row!? This is just unreal. Hurk, koff, koff, ow.

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Feeling the second ball of plasma slam into the one we’re reversing in direction has us beginning to skid back in our tracks. Risking atomizing myself, I engage the runic clip that halts my motion once again, locking my position in space. My eyes fly wide open as the pain that tears through my system is unbearable, on a cosmic scale. I’ve made myself the immovable object in front of two unstoppable forces.

Trying to beg Teuila to get the hell out of the way, she refuses to budge, so I’m forced to endure the feeling of two suns colliding with my face. I’m sure it’s no picnic for her either, but she’s at least got Mjolnir between her and the forces, and isn’t using an item to lock herself against their friction. Agony… indescribable… Quivering and straining, my Honoris Causa continues to try to push, with Teuila’s, holding back the oncoming storm of supreme annihilation.

Worse, when two stars collide, and their mass begins to add or multiply together… Yeah Reggie, I know. At least that’s one thing that you’re prepared for. I feel it begin, the force against us slowly recedes bit by bit, but it’s not relenting. No. It’s reversing. The two miniature suns are about to go nova and black hole simultaneously. Grimacing, I glance at Teuila. I know she knows the physics. She knows atomic sciences better than I do. She can’t seriously be thinking of facetanking a nova-hole, can she?

When Teuila winks and smooches my direction, my face contorts farther. The absolute insanity of my life washes over me like water off a ducks back, and I just exist amidst this chaos. Quick, do the math. This sun—or, well, plasma-ball—is only about eighty meters across at this point. The other one is closer to a hundred fifty meters across, but they’re both shrinking as they collide. The multiplicative force escalation is, uh. Ugh. …So… hard to math… facetanking plasma. Te help me out here! What’s the scale of devastation looking like?

Smirking, Teuila rolls her eyes and chirps, “Relax Airhead. Just hold that there for a second, will ya?”

That… has to be the most insane request I have ever heard or will ever hear in my entire lives. W-what’s Te doing? Ahh you butt! I—can’t…hold this! She knows she’s got me, but this ain’t great! Teuila’s fishing around and—is that the Orichalcum barrier? Then what are Yui and the others erecting—oh for the love of everything holy and sacred you dweebs. The giggling and guffawing across my mental wavelengths, from Teuila and the team, is downright raucous.

There’s a resonant cascade occurring right next to me as Teuila begins activating the device, and I barely have enough of my wits about me to unlock the runic clip that’d frozen my position in space. I feel like I’m floating in slow motion as the Orichalcum forcefield springs into place, the tiniest fraction of faster activation would have it bisecting where my Honoris Causa and I had just been standing. As I’m falling away from the plasma projectiles, and away from the extending forcefield, I rescind my Honoris Causa.

Diving rearwards at an angle, intersecting Teuila, I jet deeper into the tunnel through this barricade. The absolute goon simply looses a Shellcracker Family Squee, and dons her miles-wide closed-eyed smile as her head bobs nearly shoulder to shoulder, her arms wrapped around me. The incredulous glare I give Teuila as she opens her eyes to smirk at me has me staring into her perfect verdant orbs. I get lost in those emerald-ringed tunnels that light the very path into the depths of Teuila’s soul. The smattering of freckles about her face is like its own mini galaxy, a cosmic utopia, a heavenly place of heavenly bodies upon a heavenly face above a heavenly body. Gulping, I blush, remembering the entire goon squad can hear my thoughts.

I mean, it’s not like I mind anyone knowing how deeply in love I am with My Wings, Teuila. Our relationship has been built across lifetimes, in several senses. Still, I chastised them for distractability due to humor, then go and get lost in Te’s eyes. Yeah, I’ve got no legs to stand on. Oh woah. Quickly doing a double-take, I check to make sure I actually still have legs, in order to stand on them. Phew, okay, they’re still there. Just a bit numb from the lightning-leaping, and then digging in against the plasma projectiles. Teuila bursts into a cackle at my scatterbrainedness that worried if I still had legs, before she smooches me, wrapping her lips about mine, taking my mind off of everything else.

Sinking into the kiss, my breathing and heart rate both slow, and I drink of this moment with—Ho-ho-holy crap! The world vibrates on levels I cannot even begin to describe as the two mini solar events collide with the Orichalcum forcefield. The reverberant synchronicity of the forcefield’s redistribution of the power of the event is on a level that sets my teeth chattering and jittering. Hopefully not shattering or shi… wait. Ahem, anyway, brain, please regain my senses. Y’think it’s easy? You try it buddy.

Unfortunately, several more hyperdense plasma balls are incoming. The simultaneous novas and black holes as they hit the Orichalcum forcefield vaporize it, and a good half of my Wistenzlia peak blockade. Fortunately, Terrorzin seems to be out of them for at least the moment. Whatever that weapon was, we’ve got to hope it’s either got an insanely long cooldown, or is completely burnt out, or that we can destroy it or get it away from him really dang quickly.

Double unfortunately, I now realize why it looked like there were so few of Terrorzin’s forces who’d survived my attack that came after me. They were all ducking into side tunnels and such, getting out of way of the nova-blasts, or whatever the hell those plasma projectiles were. Is the rest of the team behind us yet? I need a second to regroup, and Teuila’s not looking like she’s a hundred percent at the moment either, after basically doing the equivalent of holding back a mini sun nearly barehanded.

She sticks her tongue out at me, but doesn’t remove her arms from my waist as I telekinetically surf us back towards our allies. Her tongue still out, she buries her face in my neck, which sends shivers up and down my spine, as she basically licks my jugular. Friggin’ a. What the crap Te? This is no time for fooling around like that. Yeesh. But also woaaaahhh. Ahem, cough. Maybe y’know, after we finish this war babe?

I can feel Teuila smirking in my neck. She knows she’s got me, and she’s got me good.