Adam made a noise somewhere between a splutter and a choke. The aches pulsing around his nerves vanished as his brain attempted to kick itself back into gear. Lucy’s head was bowed, her long, blonde hair now lacking those red trails. He caught her peeking back up at him.

She was waiting for his response. She had an image like one of those uptown girls, with a dainty nose and high cheekbones. Her fingers were slender like a pianist’s, and they could slice his head off in an instant with that sword on her belt. Blast his head off, break his neck with her bare hands, gouge out his arteries and paint her white-blue military uniform red…

The words came out like meat strained out of a grinder. "You’re sure about that."

"Of course, Chosen," Lucy said, not missing a beat.

A glob of water coalesced and plopped down from a crack in the ceiling. The sheets scrunched up beneath his cold fingers. His eyelid twitched.

"Maybe you’ve got the wrong guy? An imposter? Someone who doesn’t want to be a Chosen at all?"

"No, I’m certain you are Her Chosen," Lucy said. "I can understand why you might not want to be one, but it is the truth. Do you not understand why?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right. Tell me why I’m the Chosen, Lucy, instead of some unlucky bastard who got thrown into this goddamn mess without an ounce of a good explanation?"

"Those…" Lucy hesitated. "Those may not be mutually exclusive."

"Are you fucking with me?" Adam asked.

Lucy shook her head. "A Chosen is one who performs miracles to the lost and the forlorn. You purged the corruption from my soul, restoring my body in the process. You restored my connection with Her, after so many years lost in nil. Both feats befit the title of Chosen. I have no doubt you have communicated with Her before coming here, either."

She placed a hand over her heart and smiled. Adam lifted his hand and rammed it straight into his cheek. Or rather, he tried to. Lucy grabbed his wrist before he could make contact.

"Please don’t do that, Chosen!" Lucy cried, "You can’t hurt yourself further."

"Sorry, I wanted to check I was dreaming. Because it sounded like you were thanking me." Adam said.

"Yes, I am," Lucy replied.

"That sounds like a fucking stupid idea," Adam said. "I tried to kill you.

"You saved me, Chosen. That’s a fact."

"It kinda slipped my mind when I was firing the entire contents of a rifle into your chest."

"As I said before, I can’t blame you for defending yourself," Lucy said. "In fact, it was amazing how you created those traps and wielded [Psychokinesis] to finish me off. For a first-time caster, you did very well!"

Adam digested this. There was a ringing in his head, like the components of something metallic breaking and collapsing. There were no hidden cameras. The walls were real, and stifling. His damaged mystic system picked up Lucy’s signature—don’t ask him how he now knew this—and registered it as very close in front of him before his eyes did.

"You know." He said, the words coming out of his mouth a second ahead of his brain. "If this is a ploy to let down my guard before you eviscerate me, I’d appreciate it if you started now."

Lucy looked horrified. "No! Definitely not! Why in the stars would you ever think that? I’m quite grateful to you for stopping me before the corruption ran worse."

Grateful. The War Maiden who killed dozens of men in frenzied madness and almost smashed him into meat pulp was grateful to him.

"And sorry. I’m the reason you’re like this." Lucy said. She bowed her head. "I’m so, so sorry, Chosen. Forgive me if you wish."

It was too much. The hysteria from the fight re-surfaced, bubbling like rancid acid from the depths of a swamp. It escaped in the form of a giggle. More followed until his throat shook with pained, dry laughs. He almost choked and he couldn’t find it in him to care.

"Are you alright, Chosen?" Lucy said.

"Fine! Perfectly fine!" Adam laughed. "But you, Lucy? You’re out of your goddamn mind. Do you know what really happened? I got plucked from home by your goddess. I woke up out of a cryo-pod in this shitty world and ran around this wreck of a base, killing zombies—sorry, wraiths before I stumbled across you. You tried to kill me, almost succeeded, and then I tried to kill you. I ran you through a gauntlet of literal shit. I smashed your face in with a tomahawk. I shot you full of holes! I wanted to cut your head off. There was no way I wanted to save—"

By this point, Adam was inching forward, hands curled up into balls. The pain struck him like a lightning bolt. He gurgled, speech cutting off. caught him as his body slumped. She propped him back against the bedrest.

"How do you feel?" She asked.

"Like ass." Adam groaned. "Damn burnout…"

"You didn’t use mystics before the fight, right? That’s natural. It’ll take you a few days to recover, Chosen."

He snarled at that.

"Stop calling me ‘Chosen’. That’s not me." He wrenched his arm back and only succeeded in giving himself a healthy dose of shoulder pain. "I have a damn name. It’s Adam! Adam Westfield!"

Adam Westfield. Brother of Mary Westfield, Private of the US Marines. Born in Steeldale, Texas, USA. The Pitbull of West-Steel, the Eye-Gouger of St. Leslie’s Penitentiary for Troubled Youths and…

…a whole bunch of titles that represented locations and ideas neither existent nor relevant in this terrible, foreign world. His sister’s pendant was the last memento of America, of planet Earth. It somehow kickstarted the de-corruption process, bringing this blonde girl before him.

He clutched the stone in his palm. He felt its uneven-textured, ovular form—like a crow’s egg, Mary had said—and concentrated, just like the countless times in the past. His breath quickened instead. His chest tightened and constricted as if a spike was digging through his ribcage and threatening to pierce out his chest like that shitty alien movie he watched in juvie hall.

Two hands wrapped around his own. More plasma flowed into him, relaxing the chest pains.

"It’ll be alright," Lucy said. She lifted her fingers to be above his. Her touch was warm and soft, like the light illuminating her face.

"Like hell it is," Adam said.

"I know. The base is a wreck. So many of our comrades have perished, or fled. It’s just the two of us." Lucy said.

They aren’t my comrades. Adam thought.

"But it will be. You saved me, remember? You performed a miracle, even while the odds were so, so stacked against you. It’s proof She’s watching over us. That’s why I have faith that things will get better, that you will be there performing more, just as I am now here for you."

"Listen to yourself," Adam said. "You don’t know me. I told you…"

"The results speak for themselves, and I believe they are worthy of a Chosen," Lucy said. "It’s okay that you tried to destroy me. Only She knows how much I deserved that."

Why? Adam wanted to ask. Why was she like this? What was wrong with these War Maidens?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She smiled again, as if reading his mind.

"She would not have sent a scoundrel to help us. So, I will have faith in you."

There were lights in her eyes. Starry sparkles, a miniature picture of a night sky free from the city’s pollution. Mary had taken him to the forests outside on their only trip. He’d never visit her grave again. He was stuck here with this non-Earth person, this Astraean, who thought he understood her words but he didn’t, couldn’t.

He didn’t have the strength to argue further. Lucy re-arranged the pillows and guided him into a comfortable position. He buried his head into the pillow as if it could swallow him up.

"I’ll protect you Chosen, until the end," Lucy said. "May my heart rot away from Her Wings if I fail. We can talk about your mission once you recover, okay?"

Find them, save them, guide them.

He swore he heard the dream girl snickering as sleep reclaimed him.

----------------------------------------

True to Lucy’s evaluation, the plasma burn-out rendered him an invalid. His limbs felt like tungsten blocks. A variety of bandages covered his upper torso, shoulders, and arms. He was forced to lie on his side thanks to bruises on his neck and back. The Crucible had been a different hell, but at least he possessed the will to move back then.

He slipped in and out of consciousness over the next couple of days. When it held, it was only for an hour at a time. He was entirely at Lucy’s mercy yet she performed all her duties without complaint. She replaced his bandages, supplied him with medicine, and stood in silence, guarding the room.

There wasn’t much time to hold a conversation, even if he wanted. He didn't. Lucy respected that.

Most of the time.

"What the hell are you doing?" He gasped.

"Feeding you, Chosen," Lucy stated, from her seat on one of the rolling chairs. It happened to be the one he kicked into the wraith. She had wiped the stain off.

"I can feed my own damn self!" Adam swiped the piece of meat-bread from the plastic tray. A yellowish sauce coated the food, smelling like soylent. The moment he retracted, a flash of pain sunk through his wrist. The bread dropped.

Lucy’s hand lashed out in a blur. She caught the bread and speared a piece on a stick, raising it in his general direction.

"Here. Please open your mouth."

Adam groaned. Hadn’t there been a couple of guys in his platoon who fantasized about being fed by a pretty girl? Maybe they’d reconsider once rendered incapable of performing the most basic of tasks! It made him want to spit blood. The food was good, he had to admit. If this was an MRE, he wanted to see what Astraea considered regular meals.

Finally, the time came when he could focus for more than a few hours. He glanced over at Lucy, who was sitting at a table reading a text on a holographic display. He rolled over so that his back faced her, then opened ADOSCH.

Sufficient combat data has been gathered to display Attributes.

A new feature of the Mystic Core has been unlocked.

New Augmentations are available via Biometric Keys!

Choices, choices. Well, he had all the time in the world.

Status. He commanded.

The window unfolded before him, displaying a page split into several sections. He started from the top, where a mugshot of his dazed expression, post-cryogenesis, lay.

Can I retake that?

Retaking photograph identification…

There was a sharp click and the photo was replaced by his beat-up face, bandages, bruises, bloodshot eyes, and all. On second thoughts, he’d keep the version of himself with the slack jaw and almost-coked out eyes, thanks.

Username: Adam Westfield

Ethnicity: Unknown

Title: Her Chosen

Competence Level: 1-5

Experience: 70.00%

Vitality: 40%

Plasma: 30%

Guess ‘Caucasian’ doesn’t exist in Astraea. It’d need something as ridiculous as chanting a sixfold incantation during the blood test, judging from what he’d seen of Astraea. Not that he cared much about his ethnicity. The gangs hadn’t.

Hold on. His mind floated back to the game console back in juvie. The device had been a real Helen of Troy between the detention center’s various groups, despite only containing four working games. One of them was an outdated RPG about slaying dragons. Adam never cared for it, but he had watched Luke waste countless hours on it. I thought levels were meant to go one by one. What’s with the hyphen?

Competency Levels are split into Main Levels (prefix) and Sub Levels (suffix) for greater accuracy during processing and analysis. Each Main Level has a variable amount of Sub-Levels that must be all acquired before the Main Level increases.

He shrugged. It was a data thing. Militaries were like that. He moved onto the next section.

Enough of User Adam’s Westfield’s combat data has been collected Physical Attributes are now available.

The following feats were considered notable:

Endured continued assault from War Maiden’s mystic: +1 to RESILIENCE.

Continuously survived and fought without fully succumbing to physical exhaustion or mental burnout: +1 to STAMINA.

Perceived War Maiden’s weaknesses and formulated a strategy to eliminate her: +1 to PERCEPTION.

Attributes

Description

Rank

STRENGTH

Raw physical prowess.

1

RESILIENCE

Ability to withstand direct damage and other trauma.

2

STAMINA

Ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort.

2

FINESSE

Ability at performing refined or minute action(s).

1

MOBILITY

Ability to move freely or easily to target(s).

1

PERCEPTION

Ability to observe, detect and perceive.

2

The hell? My strength is not a 1! I beat the other guys in hand-to-hand and I could march for longer than them. What gives?

Physical Attributes are ranked on a scale of 1 to 8. 1 is the lowest baseline for a member of the ADO. 2 is average, 4 is considered experienced, 6 is elite and 8 is only achieved by the truly exemplary (estimated to be within one in a few hundred thousand).

Oh, that explained it. It was accurate enough. When you got into constant fights on the streets, eating soup kitchen slop as a luxury, you grew up hardy and attentive. The ADO was big on augmentations, which were way more advanced than Earth prosthetics, so he supposed it raised their physical averages.

Still, I busted my ass running from Lucy and I only got a 1 in that? Whatever, tell me how I can raise these attributes.

Physical Attributes cannot be raised through active means. They are a reflection of the User’s current physical state. As the User grows physically, this section will update itself to match.

He was wrong. This was not like a video game at all. But even so…

"Chosen." Adam closed ADOSCH and rolled over. It was Lucy.

"What?" He said.

She flicked her gaze towards the walls, her mouth tight. "I have detected intruders outside."