Alice woke up in a dull white room filled with medical instruments hanging from the walls all of them clean and well kept. She had a grasp of the situation from what Mania told her followers were the ones who had taken her from the UMRD. She got up and went towards the door, it was locked, but a simple kick fixed that.
Outside the two guards were startled by Alice kicking the door down but with one look at Alice, the older looking man yelled at the other “Don’t just stand there and stare, go tell Arthur that she woke up.” Snapping out of his shock the younger guard ran to fulfill the order.
The older guard turned back towards Alice and said “Uh hi there my name’s Benjamin, but you can call me Benny I was assigned to guard you during your stay here the one that just ran away is Louis if you need anything just ask. But for now, let's go back inside and wait for Arthur to get here.”
Alice didn’t respond and just went back and sat on the table and waited. She didn’t care about the guards she was more than confident in her ability to kill them if they annoy her or if she felt like it.
Benny went back outside waited next to the broken door, and Alice began to hear voices “Well looks like we got a mom and a goddess at that. My money's on she screws us in the end.”
“Don’t say that you saw the way she looked at us. Her face that said it all, I think she likes us.”
“Ya I agree we shouldn’t listen to that pessimist bitch.”
“Watch it ass hole, and I’m so sorry if I can't believe that the all-powerful Goddess of Death Mania just so happened to be chosen to be our mother. Oh and let's just ignore the fact she didn't help us during those years in hell.”
“As always you guys don’t seem to ask the right questions what do you think of this deal? We do have to destroy humanity to get our wish”
“You guys are so annoying, let's just get it done and get off this miserable planet. It’s the best chance we got of even getting something close to a happy life. Mania and Lyssa could be devils for all I care as long as they grant our wish. Besides we have visitors."
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Arthur stood outside the room not knowing if it was ok to enter. After all, the girl had killed hundreds of people with ease the day before, and now she was having a conversation with herself. And what the hell does she mean Lord Mania became her mother just what the hell was happening. All he was told was she could activate the cores and is important to both goddesses, but he never imagined she would have that kind of connection to them.
Arthur wasn't using the curse of shadow that they use to hide their appearance when they went on raids. He just looked like an average man a bit tall at 6’2” with short brown hair and dark brown eyes. The only thing that stuck out was that he had the body of a well-trained soldier. It had been over a day since they managed to get her here and he had been planning ever since Lord Mania told him of her plan.
When he heard her acknowledge his presence, he walked in and introduced himself “Hello my name is Arthur I’m the leader of the Cult of Mania. The leader of the Cult of Lyssa Maria is out causing havoc in the city to cover our escape and to help distract the UMRD from the next attack she'll be back soon she is eager to meet you. If you don’t mind asking what should we call you Lord Mania never said.”
“Alice.”
“Ok, then Alice what has our Lord told you.”
“YOU'RE LORD told me that we are going to attack an underground facility guarded by around 20,00 men. And all I need to do is get in there activate the cores and get out; the monsters will do the rest,” she said in a not so subtle annoyed tone she hated this room, too many bad memories from the surgeries.
Picking up on her tone and not wanting to piss her off Arthur quickly responded: “Ok then let's take this to our command center Maria is already on the way.”
“Fine let’s go.”
On the way, Alice couldn’t help but get curious the building looked too much like one of the UMRD research centers, and it made her skin crawl seeing it, and she finally asked: “Where are we?”
Arthur smiled and with a bit of pride explained “We're in an active UMRD research facility that they use to study monsters that are produced from the dungeons. All the people here are either a worshipper of Mania or Lyssa, and it's also small enough that the UMRD doesn’t pay us too much attention. Also transporting monsters gives us an excuse to have access to other UMRD facilities and a convenient way to get rid of troublesome employees. It also allows us to recruit from the UMRD forces actively there are quite a few factions that don't agree with the UMRD's black op's.”
Alice her curiosity peaked asked, "What black op's?"
Arthur face changed from pride to disgust "Although the UMRD is extremely popular with the masses due to there effectiveness in maintaining our safety and quality of life if they deem it necessary they will discreetly use the populace for experiments. There are a few that want to see the UMRD changed and we pretend to be like one of those factions and attract people with influential positions to our side. Afterall to everyone else the cult's goal is to destroy the UMRD not destroy all of humanity. We used this network to leak the intel about our attack and get you here."
Alice was a little impressed at what they accomplished here and also wanted to know why they are helping her in the first place. “It's not an entirely horrible idea but why do you worship Mania if you know she is going to destroy this world and that includes you all?”
Arthur smile grew as he explained “Lord Maina made us a promise that if we fight for her, we will be brought to new worlds and promised happy lives, instead of living in this dying world. I was born into the fight my father used to lead us but died fighting a few years back, so it's half the promise half finishing what my dad started. As for the Lyssa worshippers, all I know is that they want to see the UMRD destroyed and that's it. And their Lord was more than happy to help.”
“I see so you're all idiots that blindly follow a goddess that said she would give you a happy life in another world, but only if destroy this one. Well, I took the same deal so guess I can’t say anything.” As far as she could tell she could tell Arthur was telling the truth but was put off by the fact they believed in it so blindly. The mental influence of the blessing was something else. They all fought and died to destroy their own planet so stupid.
Arthur was shocked and angry at her outburst but didn’t say anything. He heard her earlier, and if it was true she was Manias, daughter, and he could end up screwing himself over in the end. But he realized one thing Lyssa probably wanted this just because she was as or crazier than the rest of her worshippers.
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After a few more minutes they ended up in their command center hidden behind an old beast cell, where Maria was waiting for them still covered in blood from her previous outing as well as the rest of the commanders. Maria was 5’5” blonde hair and cold blue eyes with her slim build it was easy to tell she relied heavily on magic and speed to fight.
Arthur was the first to speak “Everyone this is Alice she will be to key to our final mission the goal is to bring Caelum crashing down from the sky. It’s why Maria and her people have been attacking UMRD forces all over the city I already got a report they redeployed 5,000 troops away from the Core facility in an effort to find Alice and stop our attacks.”
Everyone in the room became excited upon hearing this especially Maria who almost jumped out of seat she didn’t think the end would come so soon. When things calmed down Arthur continued “We already have most of our Chaos cells active and have had our Death cells coming to the area around the facility under the guise of there being a rumor that since there is no "official" UMRD facility’s in that area, it's safe from the attacks. It’s worked so far, and UMRD is sending non-combat units to help with the influx people in the area. But we also have had reports that Walker himself has gone there it seems that the facility also doubles as their main surveillance base.” When everyone heard Walker was there the tension tripled some were scared, some furious, but everyone on some level was excited and ready to kill Walker.
Alice felt the bloodlust in the room and thought “Poor Walker looks like you managed to piss a whole lot of people off. I better be quick about ripping your heart out, or I might have to share you with these guys.”
Seeing everyone's hatred and bloodlust explode only made Arthur grin as he continued “Of the 20,000 stationed there 5,000 were redeployed response to our attacks leaving 15,000 to defend the base the outer defenses should be easy to breach but from there were clueless. The initial assault will be carried out by 1,000 to breach the door and spread out and kill as many as you can while 100 elites go down and get the plans for the facility and transmit them back to us. From there the main assault of 8,500 will attack in groups of 500 most will be going straight for the core room, but some will spread through the facility and take out as many defenders as they can.
By that time the bases around the area will respond, but we already have about 9,000 people hidden in the immediate area ready to hold them off. Me, Alice, Maria and the remaining elites will head straight to core room after the main assault has entered. We will not fail our Lords and finally, put an end to this dying world! Be ready our people are already getting into position transmit their orders we leave in an hour.”
With his speech over everyone burst into action orders were given and people ran out of the room Alice only thought “Mindless ant’s running off to die for their queen how stupid.”
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Alice walked off to wait for the fight and Arthur came by to give her an XG-58 Enchantment Rifle able to enchant and infuse specialized rounds with magic, a magic-infused Adamantium sword, and advanced A-753 Liquid Orichalcum Armor cable of hardening to stop incoming projectiles and spells. All of these were experimental and nearly impossible to produce because the metals were only found deep in dungeons.
The hour was passing painfully slow, so Alice began to talk the “others.” “Do you think this is gonna work the plan is almost completely to play it by ear.”
“I know right he might as well just go in there kill a bunch of people then politely ask for directions can you believe this guy Alice.”
‘’*Sobbing* Don't be mean guys were benefiting from this the most out of all of this mom promised us that-”
“What the hell you're already calling her mom for Christ sake what's wrong with you!”
‘’*Sobbing harder* but she was nice, and Arthur is nice to he gave cool weapons and armor.”
“Bull shit he did that cause if we die he's completely and utterly fucked! Were the only ones can activate the dungeon cores so-”
“Stop it, why is that I always have to stop you two from fighting? While I don’t trust Mania yet, I will still consider her our mother. It does hold some benefits being the child of a goddess. Now calm down you two.”
“But that moron star-”
The door opened, and Maria walked in “Sorry to interrupt you Ms.Schizo but we gotta to go.”
Alice didn’t say a word and just walked past her glaring.
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They both met up with Arthur and finished getting ready to head out when Arthur spoke up “Alice we're going to hide you in the back of a box truck since you're so uh recognizable with your rainbow eyes and white well everything else. We're going to pretend to be bringing food to the people taking refuge there.”
Maria laughed and spoke, “Why not just prance her down the street it would be much more fun that way what do you say? And by the way, the word you're looking for is Albino dumb ass.”
Arthur just smiled and replied “Well smart ass you're riding in back with her have fun.”
Maria angrily screamed, “Wait what you bastard I'm not going in the back of a truck, I’d rather walk there you son of-”
Ignoring her, Arthur turned to Alice “All you need to do is stay quiet alright the truck is rigged to give false data to any scans. As soon as we get there, the attack starts but no matter what don't run in till I give the signal.”
“Ok let's just get this over with,” Alice said dismissively and walked toward the truck.
After some strong-arming by Arthur, Maria joined Alice in the truck, and they headed off.
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The ride had gone on for a while when Alice decided to break the silence between her and Maria. “What do you Lyssa worshipers get out of this Arthur told me Mania’s promise not Lyssa’s.”
Maria looked at Alice for a moment then started to speak ”We're not getting anything out of this most of us just want to see UMRD destroyed, and humanity can go down the drain for all we care. But for me, in particular, it's for plain old revenge.”
Alice was surprised she got a response out of her asked: ”What they do to you?”
Maria's smile became twisted with hate when she began to speak “I used to have a pretty good thing going for myself as a smuggler I think around nine years ago. I got the job from my boyfriend at the time, but he died when a deal went bad. I was lucky though he managed to teach me a few things before he decided to eat a bullet. I was only 21 at the time, but two years later I could get anything from food to weapons you name it I had it. But then one of my guys got greedy and bought some Enchanted Swords from a dealer I hadn’t known about as it turned out those swords had tracker hidden in them a few hours later me and my guys were rounded up shipped off to prison. Well at least officially.”
At this point, Maria managed to catch Alice’s interest, and she asked: “What do you mean officially.”
Maria laughed and said ”We never made it there instead they sent us to a lab on the east side of the city and used us as test subjects for four fuckin years. They used some type implant to implant fake images and memories in our heads apparently they were using us to see how much someone could before they snapped. Everyone who came in with me died one way or another by the second year. I was apparently more resilient, so they brought me to this bastard named Tompson some big shot researcher. They used me as a test subject for the simulations they came up with really twisted shit but during my 4th year there the Cult of Lyssa attacked the facility, and I’ve been with them ever since.”
Alice thought “So she went through it too huh” and spoke “The Thompson you're talking about is probably the same one that was in charge of me. What they did to you was called Physiological Conditioning my guess is they tested sims on you to see if they worked before they used them on me.”
Now it was Maria’s turn to be surprised she knew they experimented on her but to do that to kid a was just twisted “Damn how long did they do it to you.”
Alice didn’t even look at her and answered “33 years.”
Maria stunned for a second couldn’t but say “Bull shit you look no older than 8 or 9.”
“I was conscious ever since they created me from the cores this body is only a recent addition.”
“Well, shit no wonder you talk to yourself.” With that statement, neither spoke till they reached their destination.
Arthur called out from the cab of the truck a few hours later told them “Remember no matter what you hear stay put. We need to get the plans and get the main force in before we make our move.”
Alice nodded, and Arthur ordered the assault. Soon after all hell broke loose.