Lili leaned against the doorway, lazily holding a sceptre of pink and green. Her eyes, cold as the mountain winds, were fixed on Thyssa. “Stand down. Give me the stones.”

Thyssa tightened her grip on the mirror shard. “You miscalculated, Lili.” She charged forward. “Your little toy doesn’t work on me.”

Lili twisted the tip of her sceptre and the temple filled with shrieks.

“Stop or they die.”

Thyssa glanced back. The malforms were spasming. Some hacked up filthy blood. It was true – the packs were dying. And she was still too far from Lili. Impotent rage swelled within her as she stopped.

Lili twisted her sceptre back. The malforms were still paralyzed, but no longer dying. “Good choice. This device can kill quickly but painfully. With it, I hold your packs’ lives in your hands.”

Thyssa’s eyes darted around the room, looking for an opening, a weakness. “What if I broke it?”

Lili stared at Thyssa. She brandished the sceptre. Then she smashed it against the doorway. The doorway cracked, but not the sceptre. “Really, Thyssa. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t anticipate you breaking something?”

So her weapon was harder than solid stone. No weak point there…

“What if I broke you?”

She charged forward again.

Lili twisted the sceptre again. “They’ll die.”

“Then you’d better kill them quickly!” yelled Thyssa, her voice manic and vicious. “You’ve got about twelve seconds!”

“Fool! I’m the only thing keeping this weapon in check! I die, it goes to maximum power and nothing can stop it!”

“A convenient lie,” scoffed Thyssa, but she faltered, stopped. Lili twisted her weapon back. The two of them watched each other, each holding the other at bay.

“When have I ever lied to you, Thyssa? Lying and cheating – that’s for your kind. It is beneath us. As is needless bloodshed.”

“You made a weapon to kill my people even if you’re too dead to care.”

“The failsafe was a last resort. If your kind cannot be controlled…no. You must be controlled. The destruction…the death toll…it’s too dangerous to let you run wild. This device is my blessing, and my curse. I call it Authority.”

“I guess that’s all authority really is. Someone gets out of line, they get hurt.”

“It’s the ones who get out of line that do the hurting. Look at yourself. Look at all the blood on your clothes. How much of it’s human? How much of it’s malform? You’ve done nothing but hurt everyone around you, yourself as much as anybody.”

“Then why the fuck did you make me?!”

Thyssa’s angry cry rang out, echoing through the temple.

Lili’s face softened. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t have that in me. I had to.”

“Cut the shit! You didn’t have to! You didn’t have to do any of this! You didn’t have to make a weapon not even you can control. You didn’t have to work with the Stormwatch.”

“I wanted to work with you. But you’re too vicious. Too hungry. You weren’t working with me, you were using me. I ignored the signs, and my teacher died for it.”

“He hurt me.”

“And what happens the next time someone ‘hurts’ you? Will you let them off with a warning, or just rip out their throat then and there like you did with him?”

“He hurt me and you let him.”

“So, really, I hurt you too, didn’t I? That’s why I need to suffer. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Go on, then. Kill me, and them. Stand victorious on the corpses of everyone who’s ever cared for you.”

Thyssa stole a look at Merryway’s body – whole, breathing, but out cold. They’d nearly died.

“Or. We can be smart. We can stop the cycle of bloodshed. With the goddess stones, I can bring Scission – and hope - back to the world.” Lili followed Thyssa’s gaze. “You care about that one, don’t you? Merryway, was it? One of the outlying clans, from their clothes. They were left behind. They don’t have to be. I can fix them.”

Thyssa snapped back to Lili and snarled. “Keep your filthy hands off them! I love them the way they are.”

“But they won’t be that way forever. They’ll sicken, age, eventually die. That’s if they’re lucky. They might succumb to madness or war first. Once upon a time, these were just part of human life, but now they’re preventable conditions – senseless suffering, senseless death! Is that what you want for Merryway? Is that what they want?”

“And what of my people?”

“You can all go back to your old lives. You can go back home.”

“But…”

“You want to be human? How’s that working out for you? You’ll never really be one of us, and you hate us for it. Instead of failing at being a girl, you can thrive at being a beast. I saw the way you fought together. You’re one of them, and you belong with them. Stop trying to do what you want and start thinking about what’s best for everyone!”

Was it just the adrenaline, or…was Lili starting to make sense? Thyssa felt like she ought to fight…but that would just end in death all around. Lili wasn’t bluffing – she really would give up her own life if she thought it would bring peace, that was certain. Lili really would drench her hands in the blood of people, if in her calculations it would bring even a drop less blood on the whole. Everything that selfishly clung to life, that irresponsibly shied away from getting her hands dirty…she had purged all of that from herself, leaving only a slaying selflessness. And Thyssa, in her furious defiance, would stand up to her even knowing all this, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object and burning everything around them to ashes.

But it didn’t have to end like that. The world that Lili was trying to build…it wouldn’t be great, but it would be better than before. Certainly better than how things had gotten. Merryway would leave them…but Scission could save their mother – that’s what they really cared about, wasn’t it? Was there anyone who didn’t want this? Anyone but her?

Thyssa put down her blade. She removed the stones from her necklace.

“You’re making the right choice,” cooed Lili.

As Thyssa held the stones in her hand, she felt her hands instinctively tighten around them, her body stopping itself from letting go. After all the horrible things she’d done for her new life, was she just going to give it up? It felt almost like a betrayal to all the people she’d hurt.

Lili saw her hesitation. “I know it’s hard, but you must! For the greater good. Isn’t this what the Ogre Queen wanted?”

Thyssa stared into the glow of the goddess stones that so many had died over. “…no. It wasn’t. She wanted us to be free.”

“And you’ll be free.”

Thyssa looked up at Lili. “No. Not as long as you have that thing to hold over us. That’s not freedom. If I give you what you want, what’s to stop you from using it the next time you want something from us?”

“What else would I want from you?”

“Control. Right now, there’s exactly one malform you can’t control. And that…it really bugs you, doesn’t it? So you want to force me into a body you can control. You literally can’t control us unless I let you!”

Lili brandished Authority, hand poised to twist the tip. “You’d kill your kind?”

“No. You’re the one with the weapon. If you use it, that’s on you. The ‘greater good’ doesn’t change that. And neither does using the names of my loved ones. You don’t know them, and you don’t get to talk for them. Keep their names out of your fuckhole mouth.”

“Calm yourself,” said Lili. “I know you’re upset, but –”

“Hell, you’re the one who silenced mom in the first place! If you want dialogue, why don’t you let her talk? Or are you afraid of what she’ll say if you’re not pinning her to the ground? Something you can’t control?”

“Perhaps I have failed to make myself clear,” said Lili, her voice suddenly colder. “I’m not asking for dialogue. I’m asking for compliance. You’re not in a position to demand anything. Give me the stones, or this will end in preventable tragedy.”

Thyssa bared her teeth. “Here’s my counteroffer. You leave us the fuck alone, and you get to live after daring to threaten Grendel Pack. Few could say the same. There’s your prize.”

Lili took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I tried to reason with you, Thyssa. I really did.” And, with that, she twisted Authority as far as it would go. The restraints on the weapon removed completely. The shrieks filling the temple were deafening.

There was no more deliberation or debate, just a final, terrible ultimatum: either the malforms live under Lili’s control, or they die. As Thyssa froze, trapped for an infinite moment in an agonizing choice, she felt her hands start to burn. The goddess stones were running hot, glowing and thrumming with energy. The device Thyssa had lived by – that was where Lili was getting her power. And that meant there was exactly one way to save her people.

Thyssa ran back to the Muckpool, as fast as her aching legs could take her. A heavy impact pushed her to the ground – Lili had pounced on top of her!

“What do you think you’re doing?” cried Lili.

“Shut your machine down or I shut it down for you!”

Lili snatched for the stones, but Thyssa tightened her grip. She tried to wriggle out of Lili’s grasp, but Lili was strong, and for once, she was as desperate as Thyssa was.

“Have you any idea what you’d be throwing away?”

“Your weapon’s power source! That’s good enough for me!”

“Stupid, snarling beast!” spat Lili, rising above her forsaken child as she struck her again and again. “You would stand in the way of the whole world!”

“Just you,” said Thyssa, rolling out of the way and delivering a kick right to Lili’s ribs. She dashed toward the Muckpool, but Lili tripped her with a kick of her own.

“Not just me, everyone! I would make a world where peace reigns!” She slashed long fingernails across Thyssa’s neck, drawing blood. “A world where everyone is perfect!”

“Because everyone who isn’t perfect won’t be people.”

Thyssa gave her reluctant mother a sharp headbutt and threw her off. Thyssa put the goddess stones into one hand and drew her arm back to throw them both into the Muckpool, but Lili grabbed her forearm.

“Just a little too slow,” said Lili, swinging down Authority. A sickening crack and a burst of pain – her leg was broken. She fell to the floor. Lili struck her again and again, trying to force Thyssa to drop the stones. Thyssa held tight. “Your heart’s not in this, Thyssa. Can’t do it, can you? Can’t go back to being that. You were always the weakest part of me.”

“Not quite,” said Thyssa, and she lunged forward, biting down as hard as she could on Lili’s exposed wrist, tasting blood. A cry of beautiful anguish rang out throughout the temple as Lili lost her grip. Thyssa didn’t waste her chance. With all her might, she threw the stones into the Muckpool.

“Grendel Pack is strong!”