Lucy drowned in flesh. The wraiths piled atop her, pinning her to the concrete. Their flailing limbs pounded against her body from all directions. They vomited their inner fluids, staining her War Maiden's uniform a foul brown. The fleshy strips atop her head danced, squirmed and crawled against her open skin like a nest of tiny rattlesnakes.
An average human in the valley would have been killed a hundred times over. Lucy did not die. The ADO had made sure she wouldn't from an assault like this.
Twelve years old, her inner organs were exchanged for standard-issue ADO ones grown in a lab. Fourteen years old, she received the [Regeneration 3] and [reinforced Skeleton] augmentations, along with a suite of others. Sixteen years old, she ran, hid and fought for seventy-two hours inside a gravity-enhanced environment at the behest of her graduation exam.
Had Lucy pulled herself out at that moment, she would've seen Rick gawping at her, astonished at how she wasn't a bloody smear on the ground. He didn't know her bones were as solid as steel, or that a suite of self-replicating nanobots stitched up every wound she received. Lucy ignored him, because all she saw was red.
Red.
All over her, seeping from the box, falling like rain upon this rotten shell of a world divorced from Her Providence. Red, seeping beneath her skin and twisting her innards inside out. Red, different from the color of her blood, deeper, thicker, the hue of that corruption, from which the Chosen had saved her.
The Chosen. Adam.
Her plasma burned. A blast of yellow from one [Photon-Shockwave], sent the wraiths tumbling back. In that precious window of opportunity, Lucy drew her sword, charged it up with as much plasma as she could and swung it in a wide arc. She didn't wait for the bodies to fall. She kicked off the ground, vanished and re-appeared onto the grass, away from the horde.
Where was the Chosen? There was the brown of the shambling horde of wraiths amongst the grey of the ruins and the red of the contents of the box, clinging to the air like fog. She couldn't see that familiar grimace atop his square jaw, nor the fresh patches of hair growing from his buzzcut.
A foreign, yet familiar power flowed through her plasma synapses from that very link. It relived her fatigue and dulled the pain. But she couldn't tell whether he was safe, in danger, or worse and that wasn't good enough!
"Look at you, Klavdia." The memory of Veteran War Maiden Frede Ballisica spoke. Lucy envisioned her standing to the side, that familiar sneer on her battle-hardened features,"What are you doing? You've let the Chosen out of your sight. You've already failed."
"Not again." She muttered. Her hands drew sigils in the air, an inscription given power by the faith in Her Providence. Beads of light slipped out of her fingers and formed blades of light that suspended themselves above her. She felt the plasma swell inside of her like a volcano ready to blow, "Not again, not again, never again!"
A wraith charged. Blades of light flew toward and cleaved its head in two. Lucy vaulted over the corpse and dove straight back into the fray. The ruins rang with a chorus of squelching flesh, the sizzling of burning meat and a War Maiden's desperate, continuous screaming.
"Witch. She's a witch…" Rick trembled in his boots from behind the back of the gas station. He peeked out once more, then ducked as a spray of wraith gunk flew in his direction. He covered his ears with his hands and cowered. It was just like the old stories, ones that he'd dismissed over rounds of booze at camp. He shrieked as the next volley of mystic blades exploded with piercing, flashbang-worthy light. This wasn't a dream. It was a little slice of hell, which his boss had promised he wouldn't envision as a member of the Gasheads!
He felt a hard object dig into his sides as he scrambled across the concrete. It was his radio. He yanked it from his belt, almost tearing the leather.
"This is Rick!" he screamed. The other guys hated him, but the situation here had escalated way beyond petty squabbles. "We need backup! We're at the old ruins near Glenn's, and there—"
He froze. A knife rested at his throat.
"Don't move." Penny breathed, and Rick saw the reflection of his own terror in her own desperate eyes.
----------------------------------------
Laboz tightened his grip on Adam's throat. Adam felt like his head was about to explode. His legs thrashed and his free hands punched, but it was all for naught. The bandit's exterior might as well been contructed from industrial grade steel in that moment. Laboz grabbed his shoulder with his free hand and forced him down further.
[Perception Acceleration]!
The world slowed down. His dying gasps extended into a series of agonised groans. Laboz's maniacal grin froze on his pudgy, moustached face. The man's eyes were bloodshot, but not with the crimson of actual blood. They were cherry red, more appropriate for a monster than a human. The veins in his neck bulged.
Think! Adam screamed at himself. He did not crawl through this hellish world, fighting off zombies and a corrupted girl, just to die to this pig in human skin! What was around him? His rifle? It had been thrown aside. His other gun? Out of reach, thanks to the bastard's grip on his shoulder. If only he could get rid of that metal arm somehow. [Psychokinesis]? Did he possess enough MIGHT to undo the locks in the finger joints? He couldn't focus well enough to use it, regardless. A patch of writing was inscribed on Laboz's upper arm. ADO-B451-E6386f0d4…this was written in Astraean!
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A single thought came to mind and he seized it as fast as he could. Hack the arm!
Hacking into [Augmented Limb ADO-B451-E6386f0d4]…
The world collapsed into blue and white. His consciousness raced down the tunnel and landed on the virtual platform. Adam struggled forward, feeling like a ball and chain was strapped around his legs. He tore at the target thread like a starving wolf on meat, punching holes through any constructs that got in his way. By the time he finished, he held the remnants of the thread amidst a field of crackling little hexagons.
Hacking of [Augmented Limb ADO-B451-E6386f0d4] was a success!
Experienced (Hacking) acknowledged: +10%.
Reality smacked him in the face. He wrenched his body back, head swimming, drool rolling down the side of his mouth and his neck free from Laboz's grip!
"My arm!" Laboz clutched his mechanical arm, shrieking. Sparks flew out of the frame and the part where metal connected flesh was now inflamed. He tried to grab Adam's leg, only for the fingers to twist in random directions and loosen his grip.
"What did you do to my arm, you little shit?" Laboz screamed. "I'll kill you!"
He swung a punch with his free arm. Adam grabbed it in mid-air with his mystic. Invisible arrows stabbed down on Laboz's fingers from all sides. He followed them. The new [Psycho-Crush] pulped the fingers like snapped toothpicks.
Adam grabbed his handgun and fired straight into Laboz's chest. He fired again as the man flew back from the impact of the first shot. He grabbed his discarded rifle back with [Psycho-Pull], aimed down the sights, and fired once more into the smoking wounds. The trigger squeezed once more, twice more, he lost count and suddenly he found himself crossed the distance between him and Laboz and the barrel of his rifle was inches from the man's nose.
"What the…" He gasped.
"Wait, wait…" Laboz gurgled. His singlet was scorched. Blood dripped out of holes. Those two sights were all that he could comprehend; the rest of his body was numb. He raised his other hand. "I surrender. I surrender!"
Adam halted, breath in his throat. Laboz lunged forward, the backside of his malfunctioning arm aimed straight at Adam's gut. The expression of desperate rage—and then came the bang. The man fell over, a searing hole in the center of his head. His eyes rolled back in his head as brain and bone fragments splashed out like gunk pouring out of a dirty faucet back in the MOB.
"Huh?" Adam heard himself saying. "Did I just…"
Experience (Combat + 1st Elimination) acknowledged: +50%.
His leg kicked the man's side. His nose smelled the burning flesh. This wasn't a joke, his brain said. He was dead. Deceased, food for the rats. Like that robber whose neck got broken by a pig, the bullied schoolboy who jumped in front of the train, his old boss Kenny Wo who was gunned down in the pizza place and most of all the time in the apartment—
Red mist steamed out of the entry hole. The corpse's skin peeled off, fragmented into dust and a wraith stood up, lurching towards him with that same fat body. Adam shoved it away with [Psycho-Push] and grabbed its head with [Psycho-Crush].
A light blast took out the wraith before he could act. The wraith fell down, revealing Lucy covered head to toe in wraith muck. Behind her was an entire field of wraith corpses.
"Chosen." She said. Her eyes glistened. She approached him, victorious, unflappable and selfless. She smelled awful, just like last time, and he found he couldn't care. "You're alive. Thank goodness. I was so worried when…are you hurt anywhere?"
Adam opened his mouth, and a cough rang out. Several more followed. His Vitality was at 80%, but his neck hurt badly. Laboz must have damaged the muscles there. Lucy grabbed a regenerative syringe from his belt and injected the contents into his shoulder.
"It's okay. It'll be okay. You did an excellent job, Chosen! I'll take care of the last bandit. Don't you worry." She said, and led him towards the main building. She then vanished in the direction of the gas station's outer rim. A few moments later, she returned, dragging Kadence by the collar."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Kadence cried. "Don't! We can talk about this! I surrender, I surrender!"
A new round of pillars, thicker than earlier, slammed down on her prone body. They inserted into her from the head, torso, arms and legs, all without drawing blood. Adam saw Lucy look over the squirming bandit once more, before pursing her lips.
"Chosen," Lucy said.
"What?" Adam heard himself say.
"It's time for Her cleansing. This is a necessary process due to the corruption, but given the circumstances, you don't have to watch if you don't want to."
He felt like he should turn away. His mind played out the movements. He stood there, fists bunched, and watched Lucy. She walked half a circle around the bandit so that her shadow overlooked Kadence's own body.
"I, War Maiden of Her Astraea, witness you, bearing the sins of theft, murder and extortion. Not only that, you seeped yourself in corruption; a heresy befitting of the Scourge, evildoer." Lucy intoned. She drew her blade and lifted the handle with both hands, the sword tip pointed straight at Kadence's heart. Her expression was a mask cast from steel. Her hands betrayed zero hesitation. "And yet, She accepts all Her Children, as lost and foolish as they may be."
"Stop her!" Kadence turned to Adam, all smugness replaced with pure fear. She couldn't even thrash in her bindings, "We can talk. You want money? I can give it to you. All of it!"
Adam didn't move an inch.
"May your spirit pass from this shell and seek sanctuary beneath Her wings. May your sin be scattered and cleansed and virtue fill the nil space. May you be reborn with Justice and Compassion, Prudence and Humility, Faith and a place in Her Providence!" Lucy brought the blade down with a roar and pierced it straight into the ground. Lines streaked from the sigils on the blade towards the six pillars, forming a hexagram with Kadence imprisoned in the center. The bandit woman let out a single, loud second of a scream, and then bluish-white light erupted from the hexagram and seared her body into ash. The light carried the ash up to the sky and vanished, leaving nothing but an indent in the ground, a faint trail of smoke wafting off it.
Lucy knelt before it, clasped her hands together and whispered, "And may your trip be safe and swift."
New mystic registered: [Photon-Smite].
Rick hiccuped. He broke out into sobs, falling on all fours. Penny took the knife away from his neck. She crawled back as Lucy approached. She bound Rick with handcuffs and propped him up.
"It is done, Chosen." Lucy said. "Shall we return?"
A cool breeze swept across the breadth of the ruins. The orb in the sky dimmed, casting longer shadows for the gas pumps and the gravel at his feet. The last bit of smoke ebbed and faded.
"Yeah," Adam said, "Let's go back."