The worst part, for Amber, wasn’t even the look of hurt and pain in John’s eyes from her forced betrayal. It was the feeling of amusement she felt coming from the watching g’athu. They all stood still and silent, but even as a bear she could feel the joy emanating from them. It made her hate them more than she thought she could ever hate anything.

Instead of protecting against Amber’s dash attack, John jumped away. He spun in the air, and she bashed into his shield again, which caused them both to fall into the side of the formation. The g’athu silently spread out and backed away from the two combatants, and as she swiped her paw at John again, he rolled towards the g’athu.

John whipped his sword and shield at his enemies. His shield was blocked by all six of the protective spider-arms that shot lasers of the Silver he threw it at, but it at least destroyed all six of the arms. His sword embedded into the chest of a Bronze g’athu after cutting through two of the spider-arms that tried to deflect it. The other Bronze g’athu fell from his plasma ring before Amber even realized what was happening.

Amber’s echo attack from her failed swipe at John almost pulverized one of the helmeted Silvers trying to back away from the man she loved. As John rolled by the corpse with his sword in its chest, grabbing the sword, Amber was starting a new dash attack that ended as John yelled out, “Amber, attack!”

That was a clear command Amber should’ve had no choice but to follow, but the tendrils in her mind dug in deeper, and she froze up instead. Her head began to pound, and it felt like a train ran over her brain, but she still smiled the best a bear could. Lasers and glowing chains and blue balls of energy raced towards John as he retrieved his shield and yelled for her to attack again. She couldn’t, but his commands stopped her from attacking him.

John spun and twisted in the air as his plasma ring shot by Amber. Soon, he was behind her too, and only one g’athu remained in her field of vision. Since she couldn’t move, she spread her senses out and tried to watch the fight that way as best she could. The g’athu she could see shot his blue chest-light and then lashing out with the glowing chains.

Amber heard John grunt in pain and a loud clunking noise. And seconds and seconds of only battle before another Silver disappeared from her senses. The pain in her mind lessened some. She tried moving but still couldn’t.

Again, John yelled, “Amber, attack!” She almost could. The copy of herself from her illusion spell already dissipated. If she could cast that again, and control the copy, she thought she could help a little. But not as much as she could if she freed herself. She couldn’t leave this fight to John alone. As a bear, her mind was restricted, but it was also rageful and naturally fought against being controlled. She applied all her effort and will into freeing herself. She pushed against the tentacles digging into her brain, trying to regain her freedom and join the fight. And fight side-by-side with the man she loved.

John grunted out in pain again. Then she heard him yell and a noise that sounded like his sword and shield clanking off the ground. He yelled again. Then he screamed out so loudly and fiercely even she became frightened. Two g’athu hovered backwards into her vision. As she heard the sound of metal scraping against the ground for a split second, she also heard the heart rates of the remaining g’athu increase. All of their heart rates. She could almost smell the fear coming off the strange aliens.

Go John! Bite their heads off, thought Amber. Her heart nearly burst with joy. Her headache slackened and she could move her head a little. She tried spitting acid at the g’athu she could see, and it almost worked. She was getting a little control back. Then her headache amplified, and she couldn’t move at all again.

John cried out loudly in pain. A g’athu said, “Now you die.” John yelled again. And again, right after. Then he let out a very loud and horrific scream of rage and there was a loud thud and another Silver disappeared from her senses. John yelled out, “Who’s inevitable now, you son of a bitch! Amber, attack!” She couldn’t.

You can do it, John! You got this, buddy, thought Amber excitedly through her pounding headache. After sensing little and only hearing battle noises for a while, John bellowed out, “I will eat your hearts and bathe in your blood!” As a bear, she didn’t think that was too gross or weird. She was up for eating far more of the g’athu than hearts, and if there was a bath of warm g’athu blood in front of her, she wouldn’t mind slipping into it.

John cried out in pain. A g’athu said, “Blade energy? You fool!”

After John made a really weird noise the heart rates of the remaining g’athu decreased. All the remaining g’athu in her senses converged on John. The one she could still see shot his spider-leg laser beams. She became worried and wished she could see what was going on as John made more strange noises that she thought sounded really bad.

Out of the ground behind the only g’athu in her field of vision burst the puppet-thing they called Stretch. Its armor was burned, notched, and battered all over. Her NCS told her something about Stretch after the World Quest ended, but she couldn’t remember what while in her current form. She did remember she didn’t go to help John save the puppet. That made her feel guilty it was helping them out. She could sense the puppet was a peak Silver now.

Stretch landed on the back of the g’athu and brought it to the ground. One of its arms started to jackhammer-punch the g’athu while completely ignoring the laser beams of the spider-legs boring into it.

Stretch's other hand shot out like a bullet and the goop connecting the shoulder to the hand went from being a thick arm to a stretched out thin line that looked like it was ready to snap. As a new Silver was pulled into Amber's vision, its glowing chains cut completely through Stretch’s retracting arm.

The g'athu Stretch was jackhammering had been literally pounded into the ground and was as dead as anything could be. Stretch shot the jackhammering arm at the new Silver and hit the g’athu’s face with a crack and then grabbed hold of it to pull himself to his enemy. As he pulled himself to the g'athu, his lost arm snaked back to rejoin the rest of him, and he had two arms again.

I love this guy! Go Stretch, thought Amber. Stretch broke off some of the g’athu’s spider-legs as a blue ball hit him, froze him up, and he fell over like a tree. Glowing chains raked over his battered, wooden armor. A bunch of attacks from outside her vision bombarded the frozen and prone Stretch.

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Then Stretch's arm snaked up and grabbed the g'athu again. He pulled himself towards the g'athu in a flash and started to jackhammer his foe into oblivion. John yelled out, “Amber, attack!” She tried moving. No dice! Dang it! Almost.

Stretch’s arms both stretched out and he left her field of view a moment later. She fought to get control back. She couldn’t. She extended her senses. There were only six Silvers and the Gold left, and she could smell a lot of John’s blood. She needed to get into the fight. She started her struggle for control again as she heard John yell something out angrily she didn’t understand.

Stretch, copying John, yelled out, “I am yelling words loudly!”

John flew into her field of vision minus his sword and shield. She thought he would slam down onto his back, but he somehow managed to twist in the air and land in a crouch. His face was covered in lash wounds. Part of his nose was missing, and she could see his teeth through the missing flesh of his cheek. His armor was in tatters, as was the robe under it. He had more lash wounds than she could count, and his body was peppered with holes and covered in blood. Both his own and the blue g’athu blood.

John looked at her and said, “Amber, attack,” as he leapt by her. She struggled. She pushed against what gripped her mind. She was almost there. She ignored everything else and pushed against it. And pushed. She could move her head again. Just a little, but it was progress.

Amber heard a loud thud. As she extended her senses another Silver disappeared. John’s shield rolled by her and spun in a circle until it fell flat.

“Amber, attack,” yelled John, and then he grunted. Amber tried to force her mind free. She was almost there. She pushed and pushed and focused on that for a time. Since she couldn’t force the tendrils out of her mind, she checked her senses. There were only the Gold and one Silver left. We’re winning! Come on, I gotta force myself free.

While struggling to get control back, Amber’s ears popped and the pressure around her increased dramatically.

As a new, extremely strange presence entered her senses, Amber became completely free. She whipped herself around and saw a monster even more frightening than the g’athu.

The new monster was of indeterminable tier, but Amber could tell it was powerful. It radiated a malevolence that frightened her and nearly caused her to run away as fast as she could. The monster was very large, and the g’athu only came up to its chest. It had the torso of a man but had four arms attached to it. Its lower body was like an insect but had four legs and a long and thick tail. Up and down its back were a bunch of small tail-looking things that waived around.

The skin of the monster was a light-purple color. It had darker-purple blotches of fur in some places. It had a really thick neck that got smaller and turned into a crazy-looking mouth-head with no eyes and a circle mouth filled all around with rows and rows of long pin-like fangs.

The monster’s back-tails waved as the NCS put a voice in Amber’s head. “Why not?” The monster skittered up to the g’athu Gold with lightning-like quickness. The head of the g’athu was covered completely within the mouth-head of the new monster.

Even though the new monster wore jewelry and some items of clothing, Amber was certain it was a mindless beast until it spoke. To her bear mind, especially, nothing that big and monstrous could be sapient.

Amber noticed John, Stretch, and the last Silver g’athu were frozen in action. John was getting up or rolling and the glowing chains from the g’athu’s tentacle-hands were lashing towards him. It made her worried to see what bad shape he was in. A lot of blood dripped off of him that looked beautiful as the droplets sparkled in the air, frozen too. She was about to go lick the blood off his face when the new, giant monster pointed at her, and she sat down. She wasn’t going to disobey that thing.

Stretch’s frozen arms both extended towards the Gold g’athu whose head was in the monster’s mouth-head. His armor was a little more battered, with more scorches from lasers and scratches from the glowing chains. She wished she could thank the puppet. Or whatever controlled it.

After some time, the monster removed its mouth-head from the Gold. It said, “Wow. That was extremely terrifying. But very interesting.” It raised one of its four arms and the living Gold and Silver as well as all the corpses littering the clearing broke apart. A visible and colorful wind started to fly towards the monster as the g'athu's gear dropped and clanked off the ground. All the crystals were scooped up by the colorful corpse-wind and entered the monster’s outstretched arm too.

John and Stretch, in the same frozen poses, along with Amber, appeared on top of a building looking down on the open area and portal. The gear of the g’athu started to explode, and more explosions sounded from all around the base.

To think better, and since she didn’t believe the monster posed a threat to her, Amber changed to demon and then again into her human form. As soon as she did, she realized she was probably looking at Sublime Sunshine.

Amber immediately turned to John and her heart became heavy with worry. She gave him some of her old healing and took out a cloth and started to clean blood from his many serious injuries. While as a human or demon she could use the regeneration manifestation of her lizard with any of her aspects. She used ‘wild’ since it was better at healing than ‘trick,’ and ‘acid’ was a horrible essence to try and heal with.

Then Amber, John, and Stretch were moved back to the open area near the portal. The monster she thought was Sublime Sunshine said, “I can stop the possessions of the other types of g’athu from self-destructing. I only managed to save two pieces from these. I never thought I would meet the Butcher. His connection to his others is limited to a very small vicinity at the tiers brought to Terra. I would hate for the Butcher to hold a grudge against me. He is contained to specific universes, so I should be safe regardless.

“You have very rude thoughts, you know? Not sapient! My race ascended off our planet while yours was in trees throwing feces at one another for fun. And, yes, I am Sublime Sunshine.”

Amber knew how to address beings of much higher tiers and kowtowed. “Sorry, Mr. Sublime. I…sorry.” She couldn’t think of a good excuse to give. Sunshine looked very frightening, and she wasn’t used to having her thoughts read.

“If you are wondering why I am still holding my hand up in the air like this, it is because it will take a few more moments for the rest of what is mine to arrive. Where are the portal anchors? Why am I asking you? And I have a head. Not a mouth-head. A normal head. For primates, you terrans are very judgmental of how others look.”

Amber wondered if it was okay for her to get up and continue tending to John. Sunshine said, “Yes, yes. Recover. No need to see to or worry about John. He will be fine. I will give him some healing. I dislike talking to people I do not know. As soon as I finish collecting what is mine, I will learn of you.”

Amber got up filled with worry. John told her how Sunshine would suck memories out of heads. She hoped she wouldn’t have to put everyone’s head in her mouth when she reached Sublime. “Relax. It will not hurt all that much. And unless you merge similar concepts you will not be taking memories. I do not need to place the head in my mouth. Physical contact is not necessary but makes it less costly. And I enjoy doing so.”

As the last of the colored wind entered the Sublime, he lowered his arm and said, “That should be all of it. Now, as is customary when one so low as you are graced by the mere presence of one so high as a Divine, we will now copulate. Remove all your armor and clothing and prepare to pleasure me.”

Amber froze and her heart nearly burst out of her chest. “Ha! That was a joke. I find the look of you terrans to be repulsive. Plus, I am married. Sort of.” Sublime Sunshine skittered over to her so quickly it looked like he appeared out of thin air. His mouth-head started to descend towards her own, and her heart nearly burst out of her chest again.