Adam relayed the state of the battle to Miriam, who cursed, muttered something about 'rotten-brained reckless War Maidens' and began swiping through panels on her holo-screen. It felt surreal to hear a techie furiously pound on their keyboard and not hear a jumble of plastic click-clacks.
"Saria Alcott!" Miriam said to herself, as she delved deep into her archives, "Damn it, I knew I should have hacked into the mainframe and taken everybody's records when I had the chance…"
"You sure you wanna say that out loud?"
"Shut it. We've broken at least half a dozen protocols by having you fight the Flame Witch in the first place." Miriam dragged her index finger down, then gave a 'hmph' of satisfaction. " There's a news' article here. Saria Alcott is a Novice War Maiden, graduated from the Academy two years ago. She's embarked on five campaigns and she majored in [Pyrokinesis]—a standard offensive mystic. She rated highly on the physical exam, but almost flunked out on the written part."
"What's her personality like?" Adam said.
"According to this article, a disaster to manage. She assaulted a charity worker in front of a crowd!" Miriam exclaimed, "It later turned out the charity worker was feeling up the homeless, but Alcott gave that woman fourth-degree burns all across her core!"
"That's…" The hell is a fourth-degree burn? On second thoughts, he didn't want to know, especially not now. "Anything about how she fights, moves, whatever?"
"Not all War Maidens get into the news! Alcott's a Novice. Her blasting the molester was already a setback in her career." Miriam said. "Are you trying to find the identity of the Flame Witch? Is that it?"
"Fuck, I hoped there'd be something about her attack patterns! The Blast Witch was sorta like Lucy." Lucy was dutiful to her cause. The Blast Witch rooted herself in the MOB and refused to enter any of the buildings out of fear of damaging them. Saria Alcott shot first and asked questions later, so the Flame Witch…no, this intel wasn't enough. He needed more.
He returned to slinging mud around and fighting the candleheads until Penny called back.
"Boss!"
"Penny!" Adam said, "Everything alright there?"
"Yes. Glenn's Rest is packing their gear up and heading out on the river!" Penny said. She panted and puffed for air as she spoke. "They're taking boats downstream to hide out in the next town. I asked around, but no-one except Cole knew about the Flame Witch."
"Fantastic." Adam grumbled, "What did he say?"
"She isn't from the valley, for starters! A merchant came from beyond the sea, talking about how the Flame Witch crashed from the sky and burned his island home to the ground. How she got to Grassruin is anyone's guess."
"The Flame Witch can fucking swim?"
Penny gulped. "He didn't say she couldn't?"
"I need confirmation, Penny! I can't do shit in halves right now. Give it to me straight or not at all!"
"Yes, boss!"
What Penny told him was less of a story and more of a disaster report. The world beneath the red skies was vast. No-one had charted its full extent. Its denizens, scattered and lost, flocked to wherever natural resources—water, fertile farmland, valuable minerals—gathered in large quantities. They built villages and laid down roads. Yet, they weren't safe, because the natural disasters of this world roamed about.
The Flame Witch was one such natural disaster. Fire spread wherever she tread, and when she did, it was with blazing fast ferocity. She tore through grassland, building and stone alike. A grand village, almost a city, once stood in a far-away desert. The Flame Witch arrived and single-handedly turned that place into a smouldering ruin.
Unlike the Blast Witch, the Rose Witch, or the Glass Witch, there were no signs marking her territory. She appeared as fast as a wildfire, burned hot and atrocious, then vanished like the ash on the wind. She was inconsistent, and that was her true terror.
"Wait, the Flame Witch ups and goes? Any reason why?"
"Cole didn't know. He said some merchants used to pray to the rain spirits to not meet her on the road. I don't think it worked."
Adam kept thinking. The Flame Witch either had an off-switch to her fire-generating powers, or fell into situations where she physically could not. The Blast Witch stopped firing those beams of light when there were no enemies present, yet that corruption of hers never ceased. What stopped her?
"Anyone try to fight the Witch?"
"A couple of guys, but the Witch outran them all. She'd leave and then they'd have to deal with the surrounding inferno. No-one's gotten close enough to study her."
"Thanks, Penny." Adam said, "You look out for yourself."
"Did it help, boss?" Penny asked.
He didn't know how to answer. Pieces were falling into place, yet the full picture remained murky. There was one more thing he needed to try. He terminated the call, flipped through ADOSCH and accessed the [Data Broadcaster] augmentation.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
It opened its own simplistic menu, containing two options: BROADCAST and RECEIVE. Adam selected RECEIVE and expected nothing. Instead, a single signal, cast at '209 C/s', was present. It wasn't from Lucy. She didn't communicate this way.
He had asked Miriam the purpose of [Data Broadcaster] during their rest near the signal beacon. It was a very basic augmentation, used by Communications Operators in case their primary means of communication failed. On the flipside, its low-tech nature made it resilient and easy to be overlooked. They still trained operators on its use, though resources allocated were shrinking every year. It still meant that every single ADO member could receive the signals from [Data Broadcaster].
"The medium used for harness communication and [Data Broadcaster] are different, because the former needs to transmit text, video and files along with audio. [Data Broadcaster] only transmits audio. They can't interface with each other." Miriam had explained, "It's basically the primitive radio you picked up from that bandit boy. You could hack into that radio, you know. Link it up to ADOSCH via this aug."
The Blast Witch had been hackable. Her technology worked, despite the corruption. Could the Flame Witch be the same?
He switched to the lone signal. His face scrunched up in agony. He wasn't sure what he heard, but it definitely wasn't a human voice. He endured it for five seconds before switching it off, his ears ringing from the sirens. The source, he thought, until the pain numbed. All signals had a source. There was no technology around here except what he carried, unless…
He approached the makeshift arena. The signal rose in strength. It spiked as Adam stood face-to-face with the flames, so close that embers threatened to leap off and set his uniform ablaze.
"Miriam, did Saria Alcott have any family?"
"Yes! A little sister called Madeline Alcott. Why? Wait, did you figure something out?"
Adam didn't answer. He switched to BROADCAST and typed a single name in the entry slot. One that could very well spell his doom. He ran to the jeep, climbed back in, and hit the submit button.
MADELINE ALCOTT. Said the signal.
MADELINE ALCOTT.
MADELINE ALCOTT IS HERE.
He smashed his foot down on the pedal and drove off.
----------------------------------------
"How persistent!" Lucy exclaimed, as she blocked the Flame Witch's claws with her blade. They curled around the metal and pulled it back. Lucy engaged the blade's folding mechanism. The Flame Witch's claws tore through hot air, to which Lucy responded with a [Physiokinesis]-enhanced kick.
She winced at the pain shooting up her foot. It wasn't damaged, but it wasn't a good sign either. War Maidens trained to be efficient. Attrition led to disaster. Strike first, strike quick and move onto the next. The sooner you destroy the enemy, the sooner we can assist the survivors.
Her left side felt numb. Burns flecked across both sides of her face, leaking blood and other fluids that dried in the heat. The rotten ache of plasma loss stung throughout her mystic core. There was no time to contemplate, as the Flame Witch charged up another laser beam and fired. Lucy dashed around the beam, the landing point sending up gouts of smoke as it tore through the dirt. She ducked close, formed up a [Photon-Blast] in both her palms and shoved with all her might.
The Flame Witch flew back for the dozenth time. A memory of two young girls laughing and shoving each other overlaid across the inferno for a moment. The Flame Witch twitched on the ground. She climbed back up. She ran circles around Lucy, trailing her internal fluids behind her.
At least the damage was showing, Lucy thought as she sent more [Photon-Pin] spears after the Witch. The memory of her mentor chimed in once more. Damaged wasn't defeated. It was fine, though. She believed she would defeat the Flame Witch. She had to.
But what state would she be in afterwards?
She shook the traitorous thought away. No respecting lady leaves home without a trump card up a sleeve. She still had options. Such as the nova. She had never utilised that technique in the field, but she learned a majority of the theory. Four out of five odds she could pull it off. The Chosen might have to spend a week or two searching for replacement limbs.
The Flame Witch shrieked. Her head swivelled back and forth. Lucy tensed up, her knees crouched, ready to dash forward at the Witch's charge. Instead, the Flame Witch leaped over her. She vanished through the flame walls and disappeared from sight.
Lucy stood there, mouth agape.
"Wait!" She heard herself cry, then coughed, "Come back!"
She cut a hole in the wall with [Photon-Sword] and chased after the Flame Witch. The harsh, stuttering of a primitive oil-based engine reverberated through the smoke and dust. She listened, bewildered, and the understanding smashed her like the tentacle of a Scourge-Beast.
No.
No, no, no. she thought, as panic gripped her heart. He wouldn't.
She dashed forward, towards their transport—or rather the spot where it once lay. She looked into the distance, where the Flame Witch chased something bulky and on four wheels, and screamed.
"Chosen! What in the stars do you think you're doing?"
"Saving your ass!" Adam yelled back via her combat's harness communication system. His eyes widened. "Oh fuck, she's after me!"
"I can see that! I told you to leave this to me! Are you trying to murder me with fright?" Lucy roared.
"I do have a good reason! No time to explain! I'm looping around, so hop on!"
"We're having words after this you…you absolute man!"
The vehicle swerved around with a loud screech. The Flame Witch swung in turn, following the Chosen's path. Lucy curved too, her cybernetic-eyes tracking the vehicle until the displacement between the two was just right…
She forced all the plasma she could into her legs and exploded forward. Her vision blurred down to a single point, then expanded out. She tore through a burning bush. She vaulted over a mound on the ground. She shunted across the dirt road, the strain of the third eating at her thigh muscles, and leaped.
"Got you!"
Lucy landed on the back of the pickup truck with a loud thud. The momentum rolled her to the back. She picked herself up, dashed forward to the edge and shot the Flame Witch.
The monster barely slowed down. She ran on all four limbs now, her footsteps pounding like a war drum. Lucy fired again as the car swerved towards the river. The Flame Witch then rushed forward and slammed her claws into the jeep. The floor wobbled. There was a loud clang.
A ball of hot, red energy gathered above the center of the Witch's face. Lucy aimed her rifle dead-on at the gemstone's center and pulled the trigger. Full auto fire crashed into the Witch's gemstone like the bouts of artillery from the ADO's mighty warships. Seconds stretched out into minutes. Her rifle vibrated so fast Lucy feared her wrists might break from the recoil.
At long last, she heard a most beautiful sound.
It was the harsh crack of shattering glass.
The Flame Witch staggered back, clutching her claws over the hole in her gemstone. Lucy switched modes and charged up a shot that blasted forth like a cannonball, sending the Flame Witch tumbling into the dirt and receding into the distance.
Lucy slumped back down, her head dizzy. She took her last regenerative syringe and stabbed it into her left arm.
"Nice one, Lucy!" Adam called out.
"Save it, Chosen!" Lucy said back. "Explain yourself, right this instant!"