"Billy, can you take these guys out?"

"Yes Consul," said Billy the Tree, first of his name and protector of Home. "With ease."

And he could, too. The certainty of it flowed through his sap and anchored in his roots. He knew, simply by observing the stone Sentinels with his eye-stalks, that their power was far below his in scope and strength. Oh, they were powerful in their own way, and doubtless would present an obstacle for sure if the Consuls had to engage them on their own. But Billy was of the line Kel'Darshein, she who protects, and his power was that of the soil and the sun and good strong limbs.

"Do it."

Consul Matthew Albright's voice was hard as sun-fired bark and merciless as the march of seasons. It was the voice of command, and Billy responded instantly. He drew on the power stored in the taproots deep in the soil and shifted his sap in his veins, preparing to lash out with the strength of his limbs and obliterate the stone men before him–

THOU SHALT NOT.

The command reverberated through root and branch and brought him up short. It was not a thing that had been spake, it had instead come from deep within himself, from the beating core of his very existence. It shocked and shook him, and the power gathering in his limbs sputtered and dispersed without any effect whatsoever.

That… Was not right.

He tried again, gathering himself, targeting the Sentinels, gathering his power…

THOU SHALT NOT.

Again the command slammed into his consciousness. Again his power dispersed.

"Uh, Billy? Any time?" Worry tinged Consul Matthew Albright's voice as the Sentinels began to advance on him and on Consul Lucas Albright and on Harry The Thundercaller. He saw the Consul take a step back from the Sentinels, who had now proclaimed him a Usurper and an enemy of Mighty Caesar.

Panic welled up within Billy. He could not target the Sentinels with violence! He felt the command buried within himself just as his roots were buried in the nourishing soil. The Sentinels, he knew instinctively, were representatives of Mighty Caesar, and he was not to lift leaf or limb against them.

But Consul Matthew Albright is of Caesar as well! He bears the mantle! He gave me my name!

He had watched the Consul and his family. He had heard the sound of their laughter, the joy in their voices, the seriousness as they discussed war and survival. He had listened, and he had understood them. They were good. They were of the Empire, even if strangely so. And his very existence was to protect those of the empire, and those who were good.

The Sentinels must be defective. That's all there was to it. He had watched them advance, and tried a second tactic. If he could not attack them directly, could he 'accidentally' strike them? Perhaps by lashing out at the air behind, or sweeping his branches just so–

THOU SHALT NOT.

With the command this time came pain. He let out a silent gasp as it felt like, for the briefest of moments, the sap turned to molten lead in his veins. He had told the Consuls that he could not feel pain as they did, but this… This…

And then it was gone, leaving his branches trembling and his leafs rustling in remembered agony.

"Billy?"

Shame roared through Billy just as pain had done but a moment before. Shame that he could not help those who needed him. Shame that something within his very bark prevented him from acting.

Shame that he could not keep his promise.

"I… I am sorry Consul Matthew," he all but cried, "I cannot target the sentinels! Something is preventing me from attacking!"

The next several seconds were the longest of Billy's life. He was forced to watch, a spectator when he longed to be a participant, as the Sentinels advanced on those who had trusted him to protect them. The shame burned even brighter within him as he watched Consul Matthew charge the nearest one, having to once again raise his hand against an enemy when Billy had promised–he had promised–that they would be safe here.

Shame gave way to anger. What was this thing within himself that demanded he sit idly by? Was it some sort of programming, left over from the Empire, that forced obedience in situations like this? It must be. It must be something that Caesar himself had placed there, to prevent him from raising a hand against those sworn to Mighty Caesar's service. But even worse, it was something that likely had been forced upon him–and upon his brothers and sisters, if any still existed–out of fear. Fear that they might raise their limbs against Mighty Caesar. Fear that their loyalty to the empire might somehow be swayed.

Anger gave way to wrath.

How dare he. How dare he. Billy was of Kel'Darshein. His word was his bond. His loyalty was unquestionable. His honor was unshakeable. While the Empire had stood, had not his foreseeder stood against the Ragaging Hordes from the Third Island? Had not his ancestor literally unearthed the treachery of the Mole People and brought them out into the cleansing light of day? Had not they pledged, root and branch, to defend those of the empire against all threats, come flood or fire?

So loud did wrath roar through Billy's limbs that he almost missed the flicker of noise at the very edge of his senses. But he was of Kel'Darshein, and if he could not fulfill his duties in aiding the Consuls against the Sentinels, he would not be found wanting anywhere else.

His attention turned to the flicker of noise. He grew an eye-stalk near where it was–and there, floating towards the Home Clearing, were intruders.

His eye-stalks imparted information to him instantly. They were of the Hive, the same foul creature that had sent the mosquito scouts to test his defenses earlier. But these things were more powerful, more dangerous, and worst of all, could spawn multitudes if given the chance.

And they were advancing right towards the clearing where the Consuls were already doing battle for their lives.

Hot wrath turned icy in his sap.

If he could not aid the Consuls in their fight, he could prevent any further danger from encroaching on them.

* * *

The Colonies sought.

The Colonies found.

Sounds of battle came to them. Voices of the prey-that-was-not-prey drifted on the wind, followed by the crash of metal and stone. The colonies continued forward, faster now, their black carapaces already starting to split open to deploy the legions they carried within them. They had been bred for this purpose. They had been given their orders. Not to breed. Not to consume. Not to thrive.

Kill. Destroy. Take no chances. Take no prisoners. Destroy utterly.

The colonies opened. Scoutforms came forth first, winging into the jungle ahead of them. Then came the soldierforms, stronger and sturdier than their ill-fated cousins from the doomed colony. And as the soldiers flowed forth, they prepared their war-forms. It would only take moments before power such as had never been seen in this place stalked forth to destroy all that appeared before it–

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The tree came for them

* * *

Billy's canopy extended for a hundred feet past the clearing, and his reach extended for hundreds more beyond that. All told, his area of personal protection extended for almost a half-mile in every direction from the center of his trunks.

And the creatures the Consuls had termed 'bugs' had encroached upon that area.

A pair of orboid creatures split open, disgorging dozens of mosquitos in an instant, the air suddenly filled with an ugly harsh buzzing of unnatural wings. Behind them came the mantises, massive six-legged insects with serrated mandibles and claw-blades on the end of their arms that looked like they could rend steel if they chose. Within the hemispheres of the orb-creatures writhed a pink mass of organic slurry, which even as Billy examined them formed more of the mantis things and launched them out into the jungle.

It was an invading army, come to kill the Consuls and their family.

No.

Billy shifted himself, gathered himself, and struck.

* * *

A double-score scout-forms shrieked with one throat as the canopy above them suddenly came alive and a thousand branches speared earthward. Each scout-form was impaled a dozen times by branches no larger in diameter than a soldier-form's tooth. Then each branch grew thorns, and the impaled scout-forms simply disintegrated in mid-air as a thousand-thousand long and razor-sharp edges simple tore them apart from the inside out.

The colonies froze for a split second, analyzing what had happened. And in that second, a dozen of their soldier-forms perished as tree limbs with the girth of tree trunks descended from the canopy and simply hammered their warriors into the dirt, crushing the life from them in showers of ichor.

The colonies had sought.

The colonies had found.

The colonies had erred.

* * *

Matthew Albright breathed deep and glared daggers at the one remaining sentinel, the one that Harry had pushed back and was now standing alone staring at the gravel pit that had been its fellow sentinel just seconds before. The thing stood as still as the statue it resembled, glowing eyes locked on the stone corpse.

Matt felt a grin stretch his lips, and he hefted Toraline–who now resembled one of those absurd weapons he'd seen on one of his daughter's Anime shows, with her blade now longer than he was tall and with ripping edges every foot or so up the metal.

"I'll give you one more chance," he said to the sentinel even as Harry trumped and gathered himself for another destructive charge. The big mastodon was still glowing from the Art Matt had used just a few moments before, and it gave the big guy an otherworldly and decidedly dangerous look. "Get the hell off of my property, and don't come back."

The sentinel finally lifted its eyes from its fallen companion and locked its fiery gaze on Matt.

"Apprehension no longer possible," it intoned without inflection, like it was reciting something written by a robot and run through Stephen Hawking's voice modulator. "Final Word protocols unlocked and enacted."

Matt blinked as the sentinel's entire body started to glow. He braced himself, raising Toraline in both hands and getting ready to dodge whatever attack was coming next…

Wait.

Matt's eyes went wide. The sentinel wasn't glowing, it was burning. Flames licked over its body and cracks appeared in its skin, cracks that glowed with eye-searing inner light.

Matt took off running for his son. "Luc! Get down! It's going to explode!"

Luc's eyes were wide as dinner plates as he got it too. He started to turn, Harry started to move, and then both froze.

"Dad! The elf! We need to save her!"

"Run, damn it!" Matt screamed. The sentinel was white-hot and still the glow increased. How big an explosion would it–

CRACK-THOOM!

* * *

"Final Word Protocols unlocked and activated."

Billy heard the Sentinel's words, and shock coursed through his sap even as he obliterated another score of bugs of various sizes and shapes. His attention flew back to the Consuls, and the Sentinel that remained. It began to glow.

Billy knew what the Final Word was. He had never seen it, but the ancestral memories passed down through his foreseeder remained. Images of sentinels, walking bombs, striding into the center of enemy ranks and detonating, consuming everything for hundreds of feet in any direction in an inferno hotter than the sun. Soil turned to glass, bones burnt to ash, life ripped from the world and converted to smoke and screams.

Billy saw death approaching. He knew, without trying, that even now he would not be allowed to strike the sentinel, and to attempt to do so would bring pain before the death arrived.

The orboid bug things were still spewing enemies into the air, but they were as chaff on the wind before Billy's might. But they were no longer worthy of his attention. Not when a living bomb was about to go off right in his clearing, not when he and those he was sworn to protect were about to be incinerated–

Billy stopped.

Billy stared at the bugs.

Billy got an idea.

* * *

The Colonies could not retreat. They had been created for destruction. They had not been created to retreat. So they pressed on. They spawned more soldier forms, they disgorged scout-forms by the dozens.

All for naught. The trees slew all their forms almost before they were finished spawning. The colonies did not know fear, for they had not been created to feel fear. They did not feel frustration. They did not feel anger.

They merely attacked, for that was all they could do.

Then something new occurred. A treelimb shot from the canopy, thick around as both colonies put together, and wrapped around them both like a massive snake. The strength of the limb was unfathomable, pressing them together, grinding carapace against carapce. The colonies struggled, their war-forms still spawning, unable to fight back.

Then they were lifted up into the air, carried rough and fast across a great distance. Confusion roiled within them. They expected to be crushed, to be destroyed, to be consumed.

Instead, they were flung.

* * *

Matt stared in shock as a pair of familiar industrial-refrigerator-sized balls of black chitin suddenly ripped through the air over his head and slammed bodily into the glowing sentinel, the sound of impact sounding like an explosion in its own right. Flames immediately burst out wherever the black carapace touched the deathly-hot stone, and the open spheres let out high-pitched wails of pain as they and the writing pink mass inside them sizzled.

"Consuls! Duck!" Billy the Tree's voice crackled with panicked authority.

Matt hit the ground, followed a heartbeat later by Lucas and Harry. Matt covered his head with one hand, pulled his son close with his other, and prayed.

* * *

Billy could not strike the Sentinel. Billy could not target the sentinel. Billy could not stop the sentinel.

But the bugs that were currently stuck to the sentinel?

Those Billy could hit.

He struck with all his strength, with his biggest limbs, as fast as he could move them. He felt the impact when his limbs struck the orboid creatures. He felt the give as their carapaces squished under the force of the impact. He felt the weight on his limbs as he followed through, lifting them and the glowing-hot sentinel right off the ground and flinging them up and away into the air. His eye-stalks tracked their flight, saw them start to fall.

And then a second sun lit up the sky, much closer than the first one, and not nearly as pleasant. He felt, even from this distance, the heat on his limbs as he brought them down and over the Consuls and Harry and even the fallen elf that Consul Lucas had been so concerned about to shelter them from the blast. He felt leafs sizzle under the energy onslaught, felt bark harden and start to peel, felt sap start to broil within his limbs.

And then it passed.

And he felt relief.

* * *

Matt scrambled back to his feet as the protective shell Billy had wove over them receded. The tree branches looked the worse for wear, charred in places and oozing sap in others. But Billy himself didn't seem too badly hurt, at least as best as he could tell. He took a second to quickly check Lucas over, big hands searching for injuries or burns or anything else on his son, before breathing a sigh of relief when he didn't find anything.

"I'm good, Dad," Luc insisted. "I'm okay." The boy clambered to his feet, shook his head as if to clear it, then looked around.

"Woah," he breathed. "That was a close one, wasn't it?"

"I don't think they come much closer," Matt agreed before looking up at the protective canopy overhead. "Thank you Billy. You just saved our butts."

"It was very much my pleasure, Consul Matthew," the tree said, sounding satisfied.

"Was that the bugs again?" Luc asked even as he started making his way over towards the elf, who was still where she had been dropped and not showing signs of consciousness. "Where the heck did they come from?"

"I don't know," Matt said, glancing over his shoulder in the direction the orbs had been thrown from. "But it might be a good idea to find out. I just hope that blast didn't screw things up for the girls. No way whatever they're hunting didn't hear it."

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