They were fast, but that didn’t matter, because all I had to do was touch them, get a little bit of purchase, fingers curled into gentle claws, so the fingernails scraped, each one getting a chance to find a bit of purchase, a gap or a bump that a fingernail could catch on. I found those gaps and bumps on two more wasp-worms and—

Aha.

—I was capable of grabbing them with other hands.

The hands on this form were closer together, instead of being spaced out across a larger body. I had two less, but it was far easier to pass something from one hand to the other, especially with all the hands being in areas around the torso.

My last ‘Fragile One’ hadn’t had a torso, so much.

The fifth one was slow in coming at me. I didn’t flinch as it lunged for my head, then stopped where it was at.

At my bidding, fingernails ran down the length of its body, head to the stinger it thrust out blindly, and two hands pulled the cut open, practically bisecting it. Crushed and twisted apart, one by one, the other wasps fell to either side of me.

Okay, I thought.

This is a good lesson.

Soft, not hard.

I flew through another swarm, mindful of where each limb and section of this new, fragile, invisible other half was. My arms were longer than many of the smaller stingers. If I flew to position myself away from the larger stingers, I could reach the meat of their bodies.

I didn’t hesitate as I flew, and I didn’t make more than a second or two of contact with each wasp I flew past.

They ended up in pieces and by the time those pieces hit the ground, I was already on my way.

Fighting you every step of the way for as long as I did conditioned me to be brutish. Trying to intimidate Nazis and criminals made me brutish.

I kept two of the longer stingers, with the ragged guts and organs still clinging to the base ends.

Skewered two more, used the skewering to reposition them, and removed their skewers, so I had four. Each was as long as my normal, non-forcefield arm, and dripped a constant quantity of clear fluid. I could smell it, astringent.

It made me think of Crawler’s acid, which made me think of the acid burn at my hairline. Made me think of Amy, and that damned scene Engel had inflicted on me.

I put the feelings to rest, and tore through the rest of the wasp-worms between myself and Ophion. More wasp-worms were flying up around him, a barrier or shield. He was the hive they protected.