And then at last and at once the sky turned from black to yellow-white. To all sides the world changed as though its color fell away and beyond away to the inverse of what it had been. The gray mountains became… still gray but brighter… the grass turned magenta, the trees a similar shade, and the glorious massive pile of flesh called Colossus turned not black with char but cyan with glee. But to all sides the necrites remained, swarming like ants and yet with the intelligence to at last retreat from the dangerous edge at which Colossus fed on them as the infinite fodder they were.
And yet though Anya feared for a brief moment they would starve, such worries were unfounded because from above a choir of thirteen angels rose to the sky. It was difficult to make out their features with Colossus’ weak eyesight even with a thousand eyes dotting its endless writhing flesh formed in response to the will of its commander. They were tiny in the distance, having risen from the city far above the clouds and the uppermost reaches of Colossus itself, but one thing was clear: they were powerful. The air crackled with the white figures’ authority as it fought amongst itself and Anya projected by Colossus through the space to wrest control of everything around. Anya barely even recognized what was happening until it was over and the air suddenly turned hostile: burning and sparking as though it would strike her down any second.
And it would. From the distance the white angels whose wings sparkled with the authority to fly without action raised their arms and thirteen rays of white light flew across the landscape. Colossus split apart as though hamburger pressed through a wire mesh. The sensation didn’t hurt, but the others screamed in panic into Anya’s ears as their connection was severed. She was left alone in darkness as Colossus found itself broken apart, and the silence was deafening. In the long seconds stretching out Anya could feel the faint rumbling of a collapsing mountain shredded by continual laser fire. Strangely, she could still feel the connections Colossus had attached to her. If she willed them to it was likely they could reactivate and restore function to her small slice of the creature, but even if it was able to consume the others would it even be worth the effort to struggle against such powerful creatures when she hadn’t even been able to recognize their attack until it had already destroyed the mountain Colossus had once been? Was it even worth struggling against such an inevitable defeat when it meant nothing and wouldn’t even be seen by anyone? It was unlikely the others could reactivate their slices of the beast, but Anya could. Was it worth it?
Yes. It was always worth the struggle. It was always worth fighting until the last breath when there was something left worth fighting for. She had killed herself in the last cycle because it had seemed all was lost, but now? Now there was something worth fighting for. Even if it was the faintest glimmer of knowledge about their situation, she could lose and go back. She could learn something and use it to save everyone in another loop. Did that mean it wasn’t worth dying at the end of an unwinnable scenario? No. She wouldn’t continue on only to starve. But here? But now? There was something here to learn.
Anya sent a flash of will through the nerves still bound to her flesh and felt an electric jolt fly through her as every cell of her body screamed in pain. But it wasn’t her body, and it wasn’t pain. It was the sensation of overwhelming sensation; of every nerve being activated at once as the beast once again powered itself on. But this time she could see every detail around as eyes formed on every surface of every writhing tendril now controlled by the one mind inside it. And every tendril had begun to fade, moving closer to Anya and the winged beasts’ shade.
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And now she could see them. They weren’t special. The form was simply that of an evolved greater necrite. They were white and smooth and somewhat shiny, contrasting heavily against the backdrop of the black star behind them, forming a ring against its surface. They had no features save for a series of small slits that she supposed must have been where sharp teeth had formed without lips against the face, and six feathered wings on either side of their bodies. Besides these wings and teeth no other features were visible. Would they continue to evolve over time? Anya also didn’t understand how they could have risen to the sky so quickly when last time they had followed her around. Perhaps she just hadn’t noticed… It wasn’t clear.
But now her mission was. Anya’s writhing tendrils spanned outward to consume the other thirteen slices of the once larger beast. It took very little time for the two adjacent slices to become one with her, eaten by the many tens of thousands of tendrils that flew out to consume the already mostly processed meat. While it would take time to chew through the rest, Anya had been positioned almost directly below the thirteen angels which had risen above the eastern city, and her slice was therefore centered against them. This meant she wouldn’t have to worry about one side running out of meat, at least.
On the other hand, it wouldn’t mean anything if they noticed her and attacked again, so as the fourth and fifth slices of the once and still mountainous Colossus found themselves rejoined, Anya crouched, preparing to jump to the sky. Her tub of meat sloshed within the walls of other slices as it prepared to splash up. It didn’t take long. Anya pressed into the base her tendrils still occupied with everything she had and her body responded exactly as it should have. No, no. It did not respond as it should have. It flew far into the heavens so quickly Anya couldn’t believe it. The mountain… jumped. It was unreal, but the bottom edges had detached themselves from her and allowed the main body to fly up in a single spike toward the angels, and in fact rose so high the angels fell beneath her now.
They raised their arms again to blow Anya’s new form away, but she was faster than they were. Spikes of tendrils flew forward at the backdrop of white city and magenta earth far below, and speared through no less than six of the angels in the single moment before their lasers could destroy her.
But it wasn’t enough. Seven others remained, and the six she had speared were not pierced so much as grabbed and prevented from moving their arms any further in the direction of action. Apparently the motion was required for them to cast their spell or whatever it was. In any case, the remaining seven angels split Anya’s form into eight pieces. She began rapidly reattaching to the severed forms which still clutched six of the angels tightly, preventing them from participating further, but the act was futile. Her mountain was already falling and there was no way she could reach the remaining angels left floating in the sky by the time her new body fell. But she tried anyway, grasping at the air in vain with a thousand outstretched arms, missing the seven remaining angelic demons by what felt like inches. The six she had grabbed fell with her, the severed meat holding them tightly as though autonomous even without a brain, or at least autonomous enough to preserve a muscle reflex. Besides, Anya reconnected to them very quickly.
But as she fell the sky darkened all around, its white-gray hue falling again to black as a corona formed around the sun. It flickered with the beauty and power of a total solar eclipse, but this time the corona was not the sun itself but rather the angels passing in front of it. They shone with the radiance of a thousand stars and drowned the landscape out as though absorbing all the light inside it. In the moments before Anya struck the ground a ray of light descended from heaven as if to say “God is real. God is here. And. This. Is. Hell.”
She was incinerated instantly.
