Things got better before they got worse. Yes, I know the saying usually goes the other way around, but, sometimes… things don't turn out the way we expect.

We returned to our fancy flophouse once EUe and V had finished sharing their story with me, and took a meal before going to bed. Apparently, twEfE had a tradition of sipping a phial of nectar before going to sleep. In ancient times, this was done as a precaution, to keep themselves from starving to death in their sleep, and while modern civilization had made that fear a thing of the past, the practice was too ingrained for the twEfE to let it go.

Also, who would say no to more nectar?

I had a hammock for a bed, like in the Treefathers' Archive, though this one was much softer and far more comfortable, especially when I wrapped myself up in my wings.

I looked up into the night, gazing through the windows at the many stars overhead.

Yes, they had stars here, too. They had them pretty much everywhere except my own world.

Angel's breath, they were beautiful.

Eventually, I dared to break the serene stillness.

"Have you ever beaten the time loop?" I said, addressing the question to EUe. It had been weighing on me for several hours, now.

"What do you mean?" EUe asked. His hammock was on the second floor of the entry egg, across from mine.

V lay in comfort in a miniature hammock of his own, strung up along the wall, slightly above and in between us.

"This is a recreation of your days in the arena, right?" I said, tightening my grip on the edge of my bedsheets. "Back then, you became the arena Champion."

"Yes, on both counts."

"Have you ever won the championship in this loop?" I asked.

My question irritated him. EUe fluttered his wings, making a mess of his sheets in the process, with the sound of someone blowing a raspberry.

"That's the one thing I haven't been able to do in all the time I've been here," he explained.

"Do you think that becoming the circuit Champion might—"

EUe completed my thought for me: "—Lead to something interesting?" He shook his head. "I… I don't know. I try not to think about it too much. Dying isn't half as painful as losing more hope."

V's light flickered on beneath the sheet draped over his body. "From what I've been able to discern," the Vyx explained, "this Archive was specifically programmed so that it would be impossible for EUe to ever become the arena champion. He's made it to the final match on several occasions, but no matter how much he prepares, or how strong he is, the final match catches him off guard every time. It beats him to a pulp and then resets the loop."

"You don't need to rub it in, V," EUe quipped.

"It upsets me as much as it upsets you," the little drone replied.

"Thanks for reminding me."

V let out a frustrated boop. "I know you've given up, EUe, but I still think there's a chance. And maybe Genneth does, too."

"Yes?" I asked.

"Suppose the Archive was programmed to prevent EUe's victory," V elaborated. "With any luck, if hUen-dE's lackeys didn't extend the Archive's programming to include what to do if EUe somehow did manage to win, it stands to reason that if he did become Champion, it would catch the software off guard. It would start logging errors, maybe even crash altogether." V bobbed up and down in a headless nod. "If there's going to be any opportunity for us to escape, that would be it."

"That's ridiculous, V," EUe said. "This Archive is a Vyx construction, and your people are living machines. They're not going to be foolish enough to omit programming redundancies."

"My kind is programmed to prioritize efficiency except where it comes into conflict with necessary quality," V said. "We might just be on a boundary case with this Archive and your confinement. We'll never know unless we try."

"Enough already," EUe said, with a groan. He turned to face the wall. "We have to get to sleep. Our next fight is tomorrow."

"EUe…" V crooned, in a forlorn warble.

The twEfE replied merely by fluffing up his feathers.

"Good night, then," I said.

Unfortunately, despite being quite cozy, there was no way I was going to get to sleep anytime soon.

My mind was the proverbial hamster run run running in the equally proverbial wheel.

The way I saw it, I had two options.

Option One: draw upon the full might of my wyrmly powers and hope it will be enough to free EUe from this hellish time loop prison.

Option Two: help EUe conquer this gauntlet without using my wyrm powers to warp this mental world in our favor.

Neither choice was a shoo-in.

As it concerned Option One, while I was pretty sure I could use my powers to get myself out of EUe's archive, I didn't know if that extended to bringing EUe with me. Yes, I'd managed to do so with Dzrtk, but the d'zd hadn't been up against security measures specifically designed to keep zym trapped in zyr Archive. There were also two other issues at play. First, what, if anything, might the anti-virus units do to me and/or EUe if I outed myself as an invading wyrm? He hadn't been imprisoned here because it was impossible to destroy him, but because doing so would take down the Vyx Network along with him. Would the AVUs attack EUe if they caught him siding with a wyrm? And, if they did, what would that do to the Vyxit?

Seeing what hUen-dE had done to the Vyxit only deepened my conviction that they were victims of this whole fudging mess. I refused to destroy them all, even if it was for my own benefit. I couldn't imagine myself doing something like that, nor could Pel have.

The second issue with Option One, of course, was that it more or less guaranteed I'd out myself to EUe as a wyrm, and… honestly, he was just too important for me to risk making an enemy out of him. I didn't know how he'd react to me being a wyrm, and I was terrified of it going south on me.

Darn it!

Being able to directly share my thoughts, feelings, and memories with others was just so darn useful. It was a frustrating reminder how limited more mundane forms of communication were. It would have been an Angelsend to have access to those abilities in this Archive. But I didn't. I'd have to rely on my own powers of persuasion, and after butting heads with &alon so many times, I was not at all confident in my success rate.

So, that left Option Two: try to help EUe beat the time loop as-is.

It was definitely the dreamer's route. Still, it seemed obvious enough that I help EUe and V in their quest to beat the loop before I tried my hand at Option One. If it ended up working, all the more power to me, and if it didn't, well… at least it would give me more time to figure out what to do.

Eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

The next few days gave me more of a taste of EUe's hell loop than I could have ever asked for—and I wouldn't ask for it, never ever ever, because it was horrible.

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Our first match was against some kind of magical robots. Due to me having not gotten enough sleep, my reaction time was down, and I got impaled through the chest by a projectile metal rod the length of my arm. My death immediately reset our entire loop, sending us back to the arena training area and the punch in the face that was waiting for me.

After murdering the latest batch of false friends the simulation sent our way, we beat the first fight of the loop—another mutant—and spent the night drinking in celebration. We watched one of EUe's favorite movies, The Eight Gatherers, a period-drama set during the Race Wars, about a group of Ruby Gatherers defending a nectar outpost against Gatherers of other Colors. Most of the Ruby Gatherers died in the process, but they came out victorious in the end.

I could see why he liked it. While it was violent—and, as it turns out, most twEfE movies were violent—the violence was in the name of defending the innocent, rather than just securing someone else's nectar supply.

"If only all fighting could be that noble," he said.

That time around, I had no trouble getting to sleep, which was good, because the next afternoon had us in for a brawl with five teams of two twEfE each. We got reset again, though this time, it was only partially my fault: the reset was triggered by EUe's death, who had gotten killed while caught off guard in trying to save me.

Combat-wise, I ended up favoring a spear, simply because it was the least complicated to use. I held the spear out in front of me and flew in the desired direction with all the horsepower my wings could muster. While it was easier to dodge than attacks from a blade, it kept me constantly moving and did a really spectacular job of killing most of the targets it did hit, particularly because of the enchantments acting on the spear that enabled it to pierce through enemy spells with relative ease. The simplicity of this combat style worked very well for me because, unlike my stints in RPG-worlds like Lantor, this Archive had no built-in system that provided me with the skill and expertise needed to wield the weapon like a pro.

I had to make do with my own mettle.

If anything, it seemed I was converging toward kind of battlemage build, using my psychokinesis to attack directly, or enhance my strikes. It felt really nice to hear EUe compliment me on my spellcraft. I imagined Nina would be proud of me, as well, had she seen the ways I'd been putting her magic lessons to good use.

Unlike the D'zd's world, the twEfE world's atmosphere was the kind I was familiar with, and so very, very conducive to fire and explosions.

Between fights and the occasional celebratory feast and entertainment, EUe and I learned more about one another and the worlds that had shaped us.

I have to say, learning about the Ecumene only deepened my confusion toward its inner workings. On the one hand, it had very strong autocratic vibes, especially regarding the use of force and anything pertaining to punishment. On the other hand, voting was commonplace, to the point of being outright syndicalistic—though more on that in a moment.

It appeared the head honchos were the Ua-kEhU (it approximately translates to Nectar Accountants), who, in addition to being legislators, were tasked with managing the public nectar supply and ensuring its fair and continuous distribution to the people. Every seven years, the twEfE public elected an Accountant to serve as their Nectar-King. The Nectar-King oversaw the Accountants, looking for any signs of fraud or corruption, and was duty bound to personally torture and kill any Accountants found guilty on those charges. The Nectar-King was regarded with awe and terror, for while there was nothing more evil and terrible than corruption or nectar fraud among the Ua-kEhU, there was nothing more beautiful or just then the duly deserved punishment the Nectar-King dealt to Accountants who strayed from the Path of Righteousness⁠.

twEfE society also had no official military institutions of any kind. Rather, every individual was trained to fight almost from birth, with the importance of disciplined martial prowess being woven into nearly every aspect of their society, from the sparring matches twEfE children did in schoolyards, to popular bloodsport, to the duels they held to resolve conflicts of honor or reputation.

But, again, at the same time, there was the syndicalism. twEfE society was highly categorical. I'd say they had castes—they called them Ua—only instead of being born into them, an Ua was something you got to choose for yourself after you decided what you wanted to do for a living. EUe himself had belonged to the Ua-enla: the Ua of scholars, doctors, scientists, and researchers. The primary syndicalist organ were these things called castebunds (tlelUe-Ua-E), which acted somewhat like workers' unions. Each major metropolitan area had a tlelUe-Ua-E for every one of its Uas. The tlelUe-Ua-E controlled much of the discretionary nectar supply, which they allocated as they saw fit, investing it in whomever or whatever they felt would best serve the Ecumene and its needs. The legislators'/Accountants' Ua—the Ua-kEhU—was responsible for proposing policies, and consisted of members appointed to the positions by their respective tlelUe-Ua-Es.

Also, oddly enough, despite what you'd think, instead of being the lowest rung of the pecking order, the manual laborers who grew the crops and harvested their nectar—the Ua-hU; the nectar harvesters—were actually the most wealthy, powerful, revered, and beloved group in all twEfE society, and anyone could become one for any reason at any time. They worked like peasants, yet lived like kings.

"I learned a long time ago that not every civilization has the twEfE attitude toward food," he said to me one evening, over some pints of sweet, sweet nectar. "For us, our government had to provide free food to everyone, or else."

A few days' worth of interruptions in nectar feeding was enough to make most twEfE drop dead of starvation. "Revolution is only two meals away," as EUe had put it, so the Ecumene simply couldn't afford to let its people go hungry. Under the Ecumene's morally gray reign, fresh, sweet nectar was piped directly into every domicile, perfectly apportioned by the kEhU to every citizen's need.

"Yeah I can see how not doing that would cause… problems," I said.

But when I told EUe about my world, I actually found myself getting embarrassed at times, especially whenever I regaled him with tales of the Trenton healthcare system. He was honestly flabbergasted by it.

"You're telling me your society doesn't provide free healthcare to its people?" he asked.

"I mean, it's actually a lot worse than that, but yes," I nodded, spreading my wings, "that is true. We do not provide free healthcare."

EUe shook his head in disbelief. "Now that's kwekek—and not the good kind of kwekek, either."

I honestly couldn't agree more.

Likewise, the concept of health insurance simply mystified him. It took me a while to convince EUe that I wasn't just pulling his wing.

twEfE also had very strange takes on civil liberties: instead of being universal, freedom of expression was only granted to individuals with a proven and tlelUe-Ua-E-approved track record of high quality expression, though you could also express yourself freely if you saved up enough nectar to purchase it for whatever it was that you wanted to say. Also, littering was punishable by death.

Really, it seemed most things were punished by death, or by forced labor as nectar harvesters. Murder outside of a free and fair duel. Failure to register an eggnancy⁠. And, despite the immense fuss that twEfE made over courtship and winning a mate, sex itself was almost a non-issue to them. Apparently, the act itself lasted only a couple seconds.

Unsurprisingly, EUe thought my world was chaotic and disorderly.

"How do you cope with all that uncertainty?" he asked me.

"Not that well, honestly," I replied, answering him as best as I could.

One evening, after fetching a fresh set of nectar bottles from the refrigerated auto-refill machine, EUe slumped back against the cushioned steps of our dining area and told me stories of his encounters with the Blight.

He used custom-grown Vyxit modules as a makeshift body for his digitized consciousness. A silicon avatar, you might say.

"At first," he said, "when we made landfall on a world the Blight had or was in the middle of conquering, it attacked us, just like it attacked anyone and anything in its attempt to assimilate them into itself. But, over time, it changed."

I licked up some fruit-flavored nectar. "How so?"

"It was like it understood we were interfering with it," EUe said. "It would send its serpents and other abominations to attack us while we were still in orbit. Sometimes, it even attacked us in the depths of space. We were definitely on the defensive before hUen-dE introduced the aegises."

He told me about some of their most harrowing encounters, from the Rescue of the G'shem (the tentacle-headed lizards), when an entire mothership fell to the Blight, to the time when &alon had lured the Vyxit fleet into dropping out of warp within a stone's throw of something called a black hole.

V had quite a fun time explaining "warp" and "black holes" to me.

"Though I'm tired of the fighting," EUe said, "I don't hold any grudges against Vyxit who want to keep on going. I understand their anger, I really do. These monsters have taken everything from us. It's just… I want them to be able to make the choice for themselves, not because it's what everyone else pressures them to do." He closed his eyes for a tad. "How bad is it… on your world, Genneth? Do you mind if I ask?"

"Not at all," I said. I nodded. "And… it's bad. She's even changing the very rock beneath our feet."

V hovered toward the table in curiosity. "She?"

I moved to fiddle with my bowtie, only to remember I didn't have one here.

This time, I fibbed to cover up my slip of the tongue. "In my language, we use female pronouns for the Blight. It's… uh… it's hard not to think of her as a kind of person. Like you were saying, it really is like she has a mind of her own."

EUe nodded. "I couldn't have said it better myself." He looked up at the ceiling. "I don't want to keep waiting for my chance to build a better future. I want to start now—right now—and I know that many other Vyxit feel the same… or, at least, that they did, once upon a time."

He ruffled his feathers up.

"Still… if the day ever comes when this evil is finally destroyed for good, I'll party like the best of them."

He raised his phial of nectar in a toast. I leaned forward and clinked my phial against his. "Here, here!" I said.

"Here, here!"

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