Commander Finik took a moment to stop yelling and composed herself. Yelling wasn’t going to repair the countless failures allowed by her teams, and the two officers before her looked frightened enough as it was.

“Lieutenant Rijohe, you’re claiming that Tom never truly admitted anything to you about the Yuini. And not only that, but that the pulsar grenade that Captain Jintori shot to rescue you possibly disintegrated him on site anyway? Do you see how that sounds?” she tried to ask calmly this time.

The young lieutenant preened his red feathers back nervously. It seemed that his symbiote was having issues forming properly since his recovery as well. The ships medical officers had informed her that he has been recovering exceptionally slowly, especially regarding his his full memory. In even further bad luck Rijohe believes that his AI was damaged substantially in the rescue as well.

“Commander Finik I truly apologize, I didn’t mean to cause issues with all of this...catastrophic failure. But Tom’s people are no longer under the legion command and my systems show that he’s no longer active in the challenge. I can only assume that he was killed. Even if he was Yuini, like the system might have implied, he’s gone now I believe,” Rijohe said with a nervous edge in his tone.

Finik’s implanted Mind AI had checked all of this herself of course. Everything mostly correlated the absolute absurdity of the story. She had not considered humans to be so…fragile. What was worse, this whole thing about the Yuini had caused chaos among the invasion fleet captains and now it was on her to find out how deep the ‘issue’ ran.

“Captain Jintori, what can you tell me about the prisoner?” Finik said while stretching out a claw. Her symbiote flared out its displeasure.

“He still isn’t breaking. The legion command doesn’t do a thing anymore and we don’t dare install a symbiote due to the Yuini in him already. He sees through every VR simulation we put him in and knows it isn’t real. Nothing is breaking him,” the special forces commander said with a scowl.

They only one had clue in this entire puzzle and intergalactic lawyers were watching them closely due to the challenge. There were certain rules to follow even with prisoners of war. However, that changed under certain circumstances that could be manufactured.

“You’re just not asking him the right way Captain. Rijohe, make sure to put those people Tom lost back under your command. We’re all going to see Mr. Monos. Now.” Commander Finik ordered to the horrified officers.

****

“The worm. In your brain. Taught you weird alien shit,” I repeated what the sick looking guy was telling me.

Tom looked like he was about to relapse into another coma any minute. We were at the avenues mall in the nicest part of the city surrounded by a host of his old legion. The man served me some lemonade from an auntie Anne stalls machine that hadn’t gone bad yet. Well. Not too bad. Tom’s AI was acting erratically and spinning in odd circles. Lonnie was sitting next to me and George on a bench. The older scarred man had put away his guns and had some stale pretzel bites that he kept trying to share with me.

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“Yes. Sorta. She knew your dad maybe? She kept telling me that the worms had been here for years and years with the grays. You know the creepy Roswell aliens? Those are the grays,” Tom said in between pauses for breathes and lemonade sips. At this rate I would be here for days.

“I’m sorry I’m such an impatient person Tom. This is just…taking way too long. Shock,” I commanded, focusing only on disabling his mouth. Moto stirred and became a mask in my mind. I put the black mask on and he enveloped my head like he had done to others in the mind game. Together we looked into Tom’s dark eyes. A bolt of black lightning shot out of the mask and taped Tom's mouth shut.

So much darkness. Then a flash of light. A woman’s voice in our mind giving us instructions. An angry giant symbiote leaving him in a giant blast. Tom hiding in a hidden storage room while large red and black birdmen searched around the mall for him.

Skill acquired [In the Closet]: While hiding or attempting to conceal one’s presence your ability to control your emotions increases by 100 percent.

I waved away the system notification and random skill to go over the memory. The Yuini worm’s plan, even if it was cut short, had somehow worked. She had left Tom and seemingly infected Rijohe along with Tom’s symbiote. But without the symbiote or the alien worm “woman”, Tom will soon die.

“So she was using you to get strong enough to get into one of “them”. And her crazy ass plan worked. And now she wants me to help too but didn’t give clear instructions,” I summarized for everyone looking at me. Everyone was quiet besides a buzzing fly nearby. Tom’s AI was laughing to itself silently. Tom rubbed his mouth as he started to speak again.

“And now you sort of know what I’m going to ask next,” Tom said with a wheeze.

“Hey something’s going on with some of his people,” Cindybot appeared and pointed towards a group that was arguing.

“They aren’t his anymore right? What’s going on,” I muttered looking over at the disturbance.

It seemed that a large amount of Tom’s legion was fighting with the others and trying to head out of the north exit of the mall area. Then those people stopped fighting and started heading north too.

“Wait. That looks like…are they coming back under the legion command?” I asked in horror.

“Yes,” Cindybot confirmed after a scan. “They won’t let anyone be truly free. The challenge is still on after all.”

“This is ridiculous I thought the new worm was there to screw their shit up,” I said while jogging towards the group.

The outdoor mall was now swarmed by hundreds of people trying to leave and head north. Moto roared at me as I got into a good position and had a throng of people trying to rush around me.

“FREE,” I commanded. Moto split into a hundred versions of himself in my mind and lunged at the controlled minds around me with a snarl. He broke through the flimsy mind control and wrapped a rope around them and brought it back to me. About a hundred people around me suddenly stopped moving, creating chaos for the rest of the people around them and causing a small blockade.

I was trying to keep going and free more people when I felt a light, feeble hand at my back.

“Please Jon. I’m about to die. She said you had learned a skill that can keep a part of me with you. Can we…do that?” Tom asked softly. The man looked like just walking up to me took all he had. I had no idea how he had gotten through the crowd at this point. Tom’s AI was bobbing up and down in seemingly excitement instead of disappointment.

“Cindybot…will the consume command still work? Even without his symbiote?” I asked my AI.

“It should. And there shouldn’t be a Mind Game either,” Cindybot said after a moment.

The man laid down among all the chaos and pushing around us. He looked up at the sky and at the haunting pyramid ships in the background. Then he let out a big sigh and nodded his head to me.

“I'm sorry for this hand we were dealt. Devour,” I commanded. In my mind, Moto’s symbiote body consumed my own mental self image completely. I felt him struggle in my right hand physically instead of mentally for the first time. It felt like a small pressure at first, that grew until my hand was feeling both a burning and crushing pain.

The pain slowly lifted as it became a physical dark ring around my index finger. The small black ring then jumped from my hand onto Tom’s face and enveloped it, much like the Reflect command. The symbiote quickly jumped back into my hand and formed a ring again, and the rush of Tom’s life hit me like an avalanche.