CHAPTER 58: CHAPTER 57 : THE PRICE OF HOLDING ON

The howl moved through the forest like something alive.

Not sound.

A push.

A pull.

A shudder that ran through bark, soil, wings, and bone.

The Glowbeetles’ lights flared all at once. The Scarabs locked claws into the ground to steady themselves. The Centipedes curled tight, as if bracing against a storm that hadn’t hit yet. And Zza—Zza felt it run straight through her chest.

The forest was not reacting out of anger.

It was reacting out of **fear.**

Buzz’s voice, already dim, flickered.

*Zza—please—move back—*

She refused.

She stepped toward him instead.

Her claws extended.

Her heart pounding hard enough to shake her ribs.

The humans reacted as a single unit. They didn’t speak. They didn’t hesitate. Their leader raised her arm, and every visor locked onto Buzz’s flickering form. Weapons shifted. Not to kill.

To capture.

Zza saw the needle-lined pods on their launchers. She had seen those before. She had seen them used on creatures marked for study.

She could not let them touch him.

"Do not fire," she growled.

The leader didn’t lower her arm. "If we don’t stabilize the entity now, it will collapse under its own cognitive load. We are preventing damage, not causing it."

"You don’t know that," Zza snapped.

"We do." The leader’s voice stayed calm. "The signals are breaking down. The host is fragmenting. It will lose identity integrity if the connection continues. We are trying to save what remains."

Zza’s claws trembled.

Fragmenting.

Losing identity.

Losing himself.

Inside the network, Buzz heard every word.

He felt it too.

Pieces slipping.

Memories blurring.

Faces dissolving around the edges.

He held onto Zza’s image with everything he had.

Her voice.

Her breath.

Her silk tied around his arm the first time she ever tried to stop him from fighting alone.

He clung to that memory like a rope.

The entity pulsed around him.

*Identity retention requires focus. Reduce emotional stress.*

Buzz let out a rough, broken laugh.

"Right. Just stop feeling. Easy."

The entity did not understand the sarcasm.

It only understood input and response.

*If you continue forcing output signals, neural degradation will accelerate.*

"I don’t care," Buzz whispered. "They are going to take me. I need to warn them. I need them to run."

The entity paused.

*You are attached to one in particular.*

Buzz didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

---

Above the soil, Zza stared at him.

Not the human projection of fear.

Not the coalition’s awe.

Just him.

Always him.

"Buzz," she said softly. Her voice was shaking and steady at the same time. "I’m right here."

He searched through the flickering haze.

Found her outline.

Held it.

*Zza... I’m slipping.*

Her throat closed. "I know."

*If they take me out now... I won’t come back the same.*

Her claws pressed over her heart.

She didn’t hide her fear.

She didn’t swallow it.

She let it show.

"Then we won’t let them take you."

The leader heard her.

She understood.

She lifted her arm higher.

"Fire."

Zza moved at the same moment.

Silk snapped from her hands like a thrown spear, hooking onto the nearest tree and slinging her forward. She slammed into the leader before the dart launchers discharged, knocking the shot upward into the branches, where it embedded with a sharp hiss.

Scarabs charged from the left.

Centipedes surged from the ground.

Glowbeetles blinded every visor in a burst of scattered light.

The clearing turned into a storm of bodies, claws, armor, silk, and light.

Zza didn’t try to overpower the leader. She tried to **break the visor**. She clawed at the helmet, fingers scraping along reinforced polymer. The leader grunted and jammed a knee into her abdomen, trying to break her grip. Pain flared through Zza’s body, but she held on, forcing the helmet’s faceplate into the dirt.

The leader swung a forearm into her jaw. Zza tasted iron and sap. The second hit knocked her sideways. She rolled, came up, and lunged again.

She did not fight clean.

She fought like someone trying to keep the world from ending.

---

Inside the network, Buzz felt every impact through the ground.

The fighting made his signal spike and twist.

His form stuttered—fading and returning in unstable intervals.

*You are destabilizing further.*

"I know."

*Identity dissolution is imminent.*

Buzz clenched his jaw.

Pain crawled through every part of him.

He didn’t care.

He focused.

Not on fighting.

Not on the humans.

Only **on her.**

Zza.

Her voice.

Her weight leaning into him the night they survived.

Her silk binding his wounds when he couldn’t hold himself together.

He pushed all of that outward.

One clear message.

*Run.*

---

Zza heard it.

She felt it in her ribs, in her legs, in the back of her skull.

Not speech.

Not thought.

Recognition.

She froze.

The battlefield didn’t.

Scarabs continued to slam against shields.

Centipedes tore at armor joints.

Glowbeetles burst light in frantic patterns.

The Elder wove silk like desperate mathematics.

But Zza stood still.

Buzz wasn’t asking her to fight.

He was asking her to **leave.**

Her body refused.

She took one step toward him.

The leader saw it and moved faster than Zza expected.

She raised a second launcher—smaller, compact—designed for close-range.

The dart fired.

Zza didn’t see it.

Buzz did.

He pushed everything he had left—every memory, every shred of identity, every last piece of himself—into the ground.

The forest reacted instantly.

Roots shot upward from the soil, twisting, spiraling, forming a barrier in front of Zza. The dart struck bark instead of her shell and sank harmlessly into the wood.

Zza’s breath left her in a rush.

Buzz flickered again.

*Zza—please—run—*

He was fading.

She could feel it.

If she stayed, he would burn himself completely.

Her claws shook.

Her voice cracked.

"I won’t leave you."

His reply was faint.

*I know. That’s why I have to make you.*

The ground split open beneath her feet.

Not violently.

Not like a trap.

Like hands lifting her away.

Roots coiled around her, gentle but firm, drawing her back.

Scarabs and Centipedes were pulled with her.

Glowbeetles dimmed and followed.

The coalition was being moved.

Removed.

Buzz was doing it.

Buzz was saving them.

Zza reached for him.

Her claws stretched too far.

Her silk snapped uselessly in the air.

"Buzz—"

His shape flickered one final time.

She saw his face.

Soft.

Tired.

Still him.

*Live.*

Then the roots carried her away.

The clearing vanished.

The forest swallowed them whole.

The humans were left in the open clearing, alone with the light still fading into the soil.

The leader lowered her weapon.

"We’re not done," she said quietly.

The forest did not answer.

Zza didn’t cry.

She didn’t collapse.

She didn’t scream.

She held the roots wrapped around her like they were his hands.

And she whispered:

"I’m coming back for you."