Vitality: 35%
Plasma: 25%
Plasma capacity is approaching dangerously low levels. Please seek immediate medical attention!
The Flame Witch approached. She refused to slow down, even in her beaten-down state.
Adam didn't feel too hot either. Steering that rust-bucket around must have pulled a muscle in one of his arms. He figured his skin was so burned it wrapped around to feeling numb again. He and her were two a kind, he thought with a vicious, almost-satisfied spite.
He gripped his tomahawk in his right hand, using the last dredges of his plasma to support it. His left wiped ash from his face.
"Be careful, Chosen!" Lucy said from behind. "Her limbs have a longer reach than you might think!"
"Yeah, I know. Thanks for the heads up!" Adam said. He couldn't afford to lose his cool. Not when they were so close. Those claws weren't any less sharp from the explosion. A single wrong move and he'd bleed out on the ground.
Ready. He thought, as he dropped into a low stance, tomahawk blade pointing at the Witch's chest, set and—
The Flame Witch shrieked and charged forward. Adam levitated a chunk of scrap metal and sent it hurling in the blow's direction. It struck the Witch in the arm, drawing blood and sending the incoming blow astray. Adam leaned back as her claws missed his neck, then sprinted forward. He swung his tomahawk into the Witch's gut and shoved her back with [Psycho-Push]. The additional force tore a chunk of blackened flesh out of the Witch, from which blood and pus oozed. He withdrew the blade and hacked at the Witch's shoulders.
The Flame Witch's arms snapped forward. They wrapped themselves around Adam's back and pulled him forward. Lucy screamed. Her mystic flared, then she fell, the pain streaking through her synapses. The Flame Witch dragged Adam up to her face and roared in his face.
Adam activated [Psycho-Crush]. Invisible force pressed down upon the Witch's gemstone from multiple sides. The cracks grew deeper, more fractures spreading like spiderwebs. The Flame Witch choked as the force began squeezing down on the flesh beneath the stone. A viscous, yellow-brown fluid poured out of the center, smelling of cigarettes and gasoline. The Witch made a choking sound, and the energy fell from her arms. Adam dropped to the ground. He swung his tomahawk at the wounds on her legs.
There was a sickening crunch. The Flame Witch bowled over, its limbs flailing. Adam jumped atop her. He ended his mystic. He raised the tomahawk high up and brought it crashing down upon the center of the Witch's gemstone, over and over.
"What's the matter, Saria Alcott!" Adam half-screamed, half-laughed. "This the best you got? Where's those flames of yours, huh?"
Lucy watched from her position against the ravine wall. She heard the Witch's siren-esque shrieking, beneath which filthy squelches and cracks percussed. She witnessed Her Chosen beating the Flame Witch with his tomahawk, swinging it down like a blacksmith's hammer on a stubborn piece of metal. She was ninety percent fatigue, and the remaining ten percent was a curious sense of déjà vu.
Adam scrambled off the Flame Witch as she bloomed fire once more. The flames were weak and thin. This was a last-ditch attempt to take out her enemy, and Adam knew it. He watched her stumble forward, swiping her arms with the grace of a drunk. Calmly and surely, he withdrew the tomahawk, took out his pistol and shot the Witch in the center of the face.
The gemstone shattered into pieces. The shards fell among an outpouring of that disgusting fluid. The Flame Witch swayed, tottered and collapsed to the ground.
This time, she didn't get up.
"Target is down. I repeat, the target is down. No remaining active signs. By the stars, you did it. You did it, Adam!" Miriam said. She pumped a fist in the air, a genuine smile on her face.
"About damn time." Adam said, shoving his pistol back on his belt. God, that was close. He thought he was done for when the Flame Witch engaged her hug.
Lucy spoke up. "Chosen, will you be…"
"Yeah, I have to." Adam said. He knelt down beside the Flame Witch and took out his sister's pendant. It glowed.
The recipient target [War Maiden *#&234?@]'s defenses have sufficiently weakened for [IDENTITY_REDACTED] to occur. Seeking two-factor authentication…
"Chosen, may I make a small request?"
"Shoot."
"Please be gentle with Saria." Lucy said, "She's rambunctious and impulsive, and I know the fight speaks for itself, but she's a good girl. She didn't mean to do any of this!"
"Shit, was that it?" Adam said. "I know, Lucy. I'm not stupid. I didn't blame you, remember?"
"Thank you, Chosen. Oh, thank you…"
"It's starting. Watch my back, Lucy." He grabbed the Flame Witch's palm and wrapped his fingers around hers.
Two-factor authentication has been completed. Proceeding with [IDENTITY_REDACTED].
Streaks of blue light radiated out of the contact point, running down his skin as glowing lines. His consciousness collapsed when they met his heart. Down he went, past the darkness and into the Flame Witch's core of corruption. His body regained form, he flipped around and tumbled to a stop on a hard floor. Weapons—gone. Mystic senses—they synchronized with his surroundings. He could perform any mystic technique here, with little regard to plasma capacity.
He stood at the entrance to a city aflame. The fires streaked across the streets, fluttered behind windows and nestled in the trees. Yet, they were static. Nothing was burning down. The heat should have collapsed him on the spot, but it didn't, thanks to the blue light.
"Alright, let's do this."
He proceeded forward. He stopped a minute later. A young girl stood in the middle of the road. She was tall, sporting a red ponytail, and dressed in a War Maiden's garb—white military jacket, trousers and sturdy belt. He raced up to her.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"Hey!" Adam called.
The girl mumbled something.
"Say what?" Adam said, "You mind repeating that again?"
"Madeline…" The girl said, "Madeline, where are you, Madeline?"
"Oh good. You're Saria Alcott, right?" Adam said, extending a hand for her shoulder. "C'mon, let's get out of here. You need to stop being a Witch."
The girl brushed him off without turning around. She strode into the distance, heading towards a cluster of flames. The air rippled and the girl vanished, now a receding shadow in the flames.
"Hey, wait!" The blue light streaked forward. It ripped apart a cluster of red corruption festering on a street sign. The nearby fires died, and a flickering image formed into existence, taking shape and color like a hologram.
"Come on, Lucy, hurry up! The troops will be here any minute!"
A small child, short-haired and laughing, raced down the same busy city street. The backside of her mauve shirt flapped in the wind! A spaceship surged out of a large metallic gate, landing on the ground with a rush of air. The child beamed and accelerated, almost tripping over a gutter. A blonde girl in a frilly dress followed behind in dainty little shoes. She was just as young, and smiled as she shook her head.
The images vanished. Another section of the street opened up, and Adam followed.
The red tried to mimic the city. It constructed the buildings, laid down the concrete roads, even hung up the signs and the lights. But the composition was off—the walls wobbled like flesh, the ground hummed like a snoozing bear and the texts on the signs were jumbles of incomprehensible shapes. More so than Astraean pictograms normally were, at any rate.
He chased after the girl's echoes. The blue attacked the red, purifying the city and conjuring more images.
"I'm gonna be the best War Maiden out there, Maddy! I'll learn the best mystics, train the hardest and kill the most Scourge. That way, we'll earn lots of bits, and the Goddess will like us!"
A chunk of candy was snapped in two, the largest part handed over to a person out of the image's view.
"Hey! I heard you did bad to Maddy! Come here! I'm gonna beat you up in the name of Her Justice!"
Fist met flesh. Blood spilled, and a cheek fractured. Adam felt himself nodding along, as adult hands grabbed the assailant and pulled her away. She could have done more. Ripped out a tooth, perhaps.
"Lucy! It's me! Surprised to see me? I passed the initiation, just like I said I promised I would. Now we're gonna be War Maidens together. Isn't that great!" The girl said, grinning ear-to-ear in the entranceway of a large dorm-like structure. She ignored the cold stares from the other trainees.
Adam jumped off a railing and landed in a square field, right as the blue light consumed the squirming corruption down below.
"It wasn't my fault, instructor! I, uh, was on my way to the bathroom and I wanted to get some fresh air afterwards. I don't know about those vid-chips! Please, believe me!" The girl begged, as she was forced to crouch with her hands above her head.
"This…won't do me in! It's nothing compared to the Scourge, Instructor Rusalka, or the written exam! I will become a Maiden, I swear by the stars!" The girl screamed, as enhanced gravity threatened to crush her bones into white pulp.
A trial, her legs barely crawling across the finish line. Graduation, followed by a hearty yet simple meal in a small apartment. Two young War Maidens hugging each other, relieved that their assignments matched up. Years later, a younger War Maiden joined them, and that red-headed girl could not stop fussing over her.
Adam ran up to her in the present. He managed to place a hand on her shoulder. The ground broke apart, and she fell while he remained on the ground. He cursed and descended a set of floating platforms.
Alarms blaring, metal shrieking. A great fall. Two sisters crawled across a barren, corruption-infested world.
"Just a little further. Lucy, Vicky, and all the other girls are waiting for us in the next town over. They'll have smote all the monsters into dust. Vicky will have baked one of her famous choccy cakes, and Lucy will have a plan drafted out. They'll know what to do. So, hold on, Maddy. We can make it!"
The sister fell ill. She didn't pass the War Maidens' exam the regular way. They cleared her for a special privilege, and this had the effect of a weakened physique.
"It'll be okay, Maddy. I'm gonna go out there and find the best doctor for you. There's gotta be survivors from the MOB somewhere beneath these red skies. You just sit tight and rest. I'll be back soon, I promise!"
The flames blurred. A clock sped up, seized up and then broke apart. The girl returned to find nothing but an empty space where her sister should've been. The medicine bottles slipped from her hands and smashed on the ground. She screamed from the agony of betrayal, not as a victim, but as the perpetrator.
So, she searched. Across irradiated wastes, across the barren desert, across the grassy ruins. The abuse piled up, and then came the red. It seeped into her body, hooked her brain and clouded the mind until a single creed remained.
Humans came after her. They were faceless in this dream realm. The Flame Witch scorched most of them, but some managed to corner her when she burned out. They confined her in a cage and strapped it to a conveyor belt. That way, she moved. That way, the Witch's law was satisfied. One day, the lock was smashed open, and the Flame Witch crawled out, ready to iterate once more.
The blue light guided Adam into the final portion of the corruption. It was a plaza with a fountain, where oil leaked out of it instead of water. Saria Alcott dragged her feet around it, splashing muck over her clothes and floor. She muttered as she walked.
"Madeline. Madeline, Madeline, Maddy. I'm sorry I'm taking so long. Just a little more. Just a bit further. I'll find you, like I promised." Her hands groped empty air. "Where are you waiting, Maddy?"
The space in front of him fizzled. An image of a small boy, dressed in hand-me-downs, wandered on the street. It vanished as fast as it came. Adam sighed and shook his head.
"At least you have a better reason than Lucy."
He stuck out his leg and tripped Saria over. The War Maiden fell to the ground with a thump. Before she could get up, Adam gently lifted her up by the neck of her uniform. He looked her in the eye. The pupils were milky white. She didn't react.
"Here's a fun fact, Saria Alcott. Your sister is still alive." Adam said.
Saria stared back, bleary. Adam slapped her in the cheek.
"I get it, she's the most precious thing in the world to you. For once, I relate to you damn War Maidens. If you're that desperate, then stop acting like a headless chicken and wake the hell up already!"
He pushed her back. The blue light funneled forward and swarmed around Saria in a spiral, then shot up to envelop the sky.
Saria let out a real, human gasp. Bright orange returned to the iris, and black formed in the pupils. Adam turned around and walked back the way he came. He heard footsteps, the beginnings of a cry, and his surroundings turned white.
He jerked awake, once again feeling the stings of his burns.
"Saria!" Lucy screamed. Her fatigue vanished in an instant. She ran forward to the cloud of crimson smoke. Saria Alcott lay there instead of the Flame Witch, dressed in nothing but the tattered rags of her original uniform. For a fraction of a second, Lucy attempted to keep her composure. The lines of her face scrunched up, she trembled and she let out a shrill wail.
"It's really you, Saria! You're human again, thank the stars! Oh, Saria, Saria, Saria!"
The red-headed girl opened her eyes. "Lucy?" She said, and coughed, "Where? What happened?"
"The Chosen has come to save us! She did not abandon us!" Lucy hiccupped and placed her hands on Saria's cheeks. Her voice trembled. "It's going to be alright now, Saria. We're going to be fine!"
She let out another sob and resumed crying, her head buried in her friend's chest. Saria glanced around, then returned the embrace.
"Lucy? Hey, Lucy? You…oh come here, you big silly. Don't cry, sheesh…" She patted Lucy on the back. Her fingers traced Lucy's blonde locks, one of them curling around her finger.
The flames were dying out, leaving the choking scent of ash and dust in the air. The skies above were already turning gray. Adam felt his consciousness ebbing. He needed to rest. Maybe for a day, two days, even a week...
Yeah, that sounded about right.
[IDENTITY_REDACTED] was successful!
270 Stellari acquired!
Experience (Combat/Purification) acknowledged: +300%!
User Adam Westfield's Competency Level has increased from 2-4 to 2-7! Proceed past 2-12 to unlock Rank 3 augmentations!
Acquired 3 Biometric Keys!
Acquired 2 bonus Biometric Keys for surpassing Competency Level 2-6.
User Adam Westfield is now entering hibernation mode…