“I can boost his power!” Vy yelled.

But Ariock was already gone.

Everyone else stared at her. Thomas, outfitted in iridescent black scales trimmed in gold. The fallen Death Architect, with dark corkscrews of hair obscuring one eye. Her visible eye was a brilliant turquoise color. The disgraced former Commander of All, dominating the room with her horned mantle and shroud, and her gleaming ultrasharp scimitar. Garrett Dovanack, sturdy in his black-and-purple spiked armor. And the Lady of Sorrow, resplendent with her metallic wings and impractical shining armor.

“Humans augment Yeresunsa power,” Vy explained to the heroes and villains of prophecy. She was unsure if her newfound knowledge would damn all of humankind for generations to come, but she had to speak up. The universe needed saving. “Bring Ariock back here! I need to go with him!”

Thomas shook his head. “You don’t have a spacesuit.”

That sounded nonsensical to Vy. With astronomically boosted power, Ariock would surely be able to encase them both in a shielded air bubble!

But then she remembered that Ariock needed to deflect payloads that weighed more than entire planets. He wouldn’t be able to spare even a sliver of extra focus for his vulnerable fiancee.

“How about if I borrow some space armor?” Vy pointed at the disgraced Commander. “Can someone resize hers so it fits me?”

The disgraced Commander looked unimpressed.

Evenjos strode to Vy and seized her. “Link with me. I can make it so you won’t need a spacesuit.”

Vy wanted to be with Ariock, not the self-centered former empress. She wanted to share her power with Ariock. She wanted to give it only to him.

“Good idea,” Thomas said. “Do it!”

His urgency was undeniable. How much longer did they have until the nearest payload hit the local temporal stream?

Vy turned to the beautiful demigoddess, uncertain. “I think I need telepathy gas to make it work.”

“Try it with your heart.” Evenjos gently intertwined her fingers with Vy’s.

Vy closed her eyes. She sought another mind.

It seemed impossible.

Then Evenjos evaporated into a cloud. The mist enfolded Vy—and she felt strangely powerful and majestic. Electricity brushed through her awareness.

And she heard an inner voice that was not hers.

I cannot simulate telepathy gas, Evenjos (Glory) thought. But I can suffuse your brain (and your body) with My essence.

Vy felt aglow with power. A dead language echoed inside her, and she nevertheless understood it. Power radiated from her shoulders, and she knew, without needing to look, that she had wings.

Garrett watched her with wide-eyed wonder and perhaps some envy. Even the Death Architect looked dumbfounded. She forgot to shoot at Thomas as she stared.

Vy (Glory) sensed their life sparks.

Was she invincible?

We must stop the payload, Glory urged. She (they) zoomed through the habitat at lightning speed. Vy felt as if her own body had been hijacked.

But she dared not decouple. She (they) had a mission.

The airlock was already opening. The former empress must have a nuanced understanding of wiring. That made sense. Glory knew environments better than anyone else, since she explored everything with her body.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Vy would have feared outer space, since she wasn’t wearing a spacesuit and she had almost died last time. But as she blasted upward like a superhero, she realized that she was safe. She didn’t need to breathe. Glory suffused her skin and blood and bones.

She (they) remained mostly comfortable. Her skin felt tight and inflexible, and she knew that Glory had encased her in skintight protection. They were one and same.

Glory directed them toward a mutant meteor that looked like doom. White-hot fissures bubbled along its surface.

Glory reached out one of Vy’s hands, and an extension of herself shot in that direction. But the danger (!!) was far greater than expected. She (they) could have flicked an ordinary meteor away. This meteor sucked her (them) in. Its power was undeniable.

It was a god of meteors.

It had strength like Ariock.

We must escape! Glory struggled to pull away.

Vy went with her, since she and Glory shared a body, and she didn’t want to separate in outer space. But she wasn’t sure if escape was the right thing to do. Shouldn’t they knock the meteor off-course? That was their job. Thomas had explained it when he’d told Ariock how to save the universe.

If We can escape, Glory thought, grunting with effort, then We will succeed in yanking it off-course.

Vy understood, then. The meteor had captured them with gravity. That was like an invisible chain. All they had to do was pull it.

All, Glory thought with dark bitterness.

Vy sensed that Glory was well aware of her own limitations. She was strong enough to yank a planet out of its orbit, she might be able to annihilate a moon, but this…

This is beyond Me, Glory thought.

The meteor was all deadly weight. It continued on its collision course toward the temporal stream, undeterred, unstoppable. And it pulled Glory Vy along with it.

And the closer they came, the stronger its pull.

We are going to die, Glory realized with anguish.

Vy sensed her certainty. They were going to be flattened like pancakes upon the meteor, and it would become a black hole within seconds. That would be the end of everyone.

It was inevitable.

NO. Vy surged away from the inescapable pull. Thomas believed it was possible. He had told Ariock to deflect twelve meteors as strong as this one.

Ariock always overcame impossible odds.

Thomas was never wrong about things like this.

Vy and Glory would triumph. She (they) had to, so she could be reunited with Ariock. She was going to marry him! She wasn’t going to let him down.

COME ON, Vy urged wordlessly to Glory.

Glory surged with her.

LET’S GO! Vy urged.

They became one person with one united purpose. Glory alone was unable to escape the meteor. Vy alone would have died for sure. But linked, they were more than a duo. Vy felt cosmic power radiating through every fiber of her being. She was a conductor.

She was a powerhouse.

WE… ESCAPE!

There was a tipping point where the immense power of the meteor seemed to slip. After that, it became easier. Glory Vy soared away. It was still a struggle, and they had to fight for every mile of distance. But the miles passed. The ultraheavy meteor swung in their wake, no longer carried solely by its own inertia. It was off-course.

Glory laughed. Vy laughed.

They were more intimate that two people caught in an embrace. They shared a body, and on some level, Vy knew that was creepy and weird. She didn’t like sharing her body in this way. In fact, she doubted that she would ever want to do this again, even with Ariock. Sex was fine, but full-on wearing her body like a garment? She wanted to feel cherished and loved, not used. This was kind of sick.

I do not think Ariock could take linkage this far, Glory admitted without words. He cannot shapeshift. He is stuck in his own body, just as you are stuck in yours.

Do you have to sink into me like this? Vy wondered.

I do not like this much intimacy either, Glory replied without words. They (she) arrowed through the open airlock in the nondescript asteroid. But this is the only way for Us to link without telepathy gas.

They (she) breezed into the dark corridor, past the corpses of battlebeasts, and all the way back to the control room. The chrome walls reflected a Vy who looked like a winged goddess. She had the face and proportions of Vy, yet she was also flawless and radiant. She was ethereal.

She wasn’t herself.

Vy landed effortlessly, guided by Glory. Garrett and the disgraced Commander were having some kind of frenetic battle. Vy feared the ionic blade and the jagged snaps of lightning, yet she wanted to be human again.

They mutually agreed to separate without any hesitation. Glory departed from her body.

Vy fell to her hands and knees. She was so weak. She had not realized how great a difference there was between herself and the goddess-empress. All of her imperfections made themselves known, from the uneven shorn ends of her hair to the cinched tightness where her prosthetic was fastened to her amputated thigh. She was a speck of dust among gods.

She breathed. She attempted to feel comfortable in her own skin.

“Hold the station together!” Thomas yelled.

Evenjos wailed as if she had suffered a great defeat.

The room quaked. A fierce wind blew. Vy grabbed for a table as her feet left the ground, tugged by a tornado that she was incapable of escaping.