Years ago…

A soft crunch echoed through an alleyway between a run-down bookstore and a closed grocery. A thug in a hoodie and brand jeans clutched his nose. The blood seeped down his fingers. Adam, his opponent, flicked it off his own gloves, and pulled his arm back.

"You broke it, you son of a whore! I spent money on fixing that! I'm gonna take that kid of yours and—"

Adam's fist sailed forward. It hit the thug in the jaw, silencing his nasal cries. Adam seized the gold chain flapping around his thug's neck, pulled him forward, and booted him in the stomach. This sent him crashing to the hard concrete. Time for the Pitbull to get to work. The thug pleaded and cried, neither of which stopped Adam from jumping atop him and raining down blows like a wave of incoming meteors.

He threw down another punch and felt a wet squelch. The thug's skin had broke, thanks to the sharp metal indents on Adam's gloves. He was done, then. Adam got up, wiped the extra blood on his tracksuit trousers, and kicked the thug in the side.

"Holy crap, you did it! Thank you, Adam! You're the best Pitbull there is!" A younger boy rushed out from behind a dumpster toward Adam. He smiled, showing off sugar-rotten gaps between his teeth. Adam stomped forward. He grabbed the kid by the scruff of his stolen basketball shirt.

"The fuck do you think you're doing?" Adam hissed.

"Hiding." The younger boy blurted out. "Sorry, Adam, but I didn't want to get in your way. You kicked his ass though. I didn't need to worry."

"Not that!" Adam said. "Why were you here in the first place?"

"Scouting! The other guys said a deal was going down, right? I'm new to the crew and I thought, y'know, this is a good way to earn my stripes. I want to help."

"Help." Adam repeated. "You wanted to help."

"Yeah!" The boy said, with a grin. Adam scowled and slapped him in the face. A hint of dry blood now clung to the boy's cheek. The grin vanished.

"Adam, I—"

"You can't scope out shit!" Adam said, giving the boy another slap. He pointed to the unconscious thug on the side of the road. "Look at this bitch. He's two heads taller than your scrawny ass. He was gonna break your neck in that dumpster over there! You were food for rats!"

"But the older guys said you had business around these parts. So I thought—"

"That I'd save you?" Adam smirked, twisting the word until it dripped with spite. " I'm not your personal attack dog, you little shit. Grow some meat before you try to pull a stunt like this again."

The sky rumbled. He dropped the boy, who landed on his bottom with a painful thump. Rain fell in a harsh blast, drenching the dumpster, the thug, and Adam. The water mixed with the blood splattered on Adam's body, spreading a murky crimson across his face and trousers. The boy backed away, his footsteps unsteady. He looked like a frightened monkey in front of a lion.

"The hell you looking at?" Adam shouted. "Scram! And stay out of our damn way next time!"

The boy ran off. He was crying. Maybe. It was hard to tell from the rain. He better not be, because crybabies didn't last long in the gang. Maybe the other boys would haze that piss-weak tendency out of him with a locker and a few good beatings.

The thug didn't contain much. The gold chain turned out to be fake. His wallet didn't pack enough cash for a box of stir-fry. Adam sighed and tossed the empty wallet on the ground. He stepped over the unconscious body and exited the alleyway. The downpour had coated the streets, overflowing the drains and forming puddles. A car rushed by. He sidestepped the incoming splash, then stood beneath the awning of the abandoned grocery store.

He rubbed his hands together. The adrenaline rush from the battle was fading. He didn't shiver, nor sneeze. A year of homelessness built up his tolerance for the common cold. The rain almost felt comforting now.

"I see you." Adam said, "Come on out."

Esther appeared behind the corner, still taking the form of that young green-haired War Maiden.

"I'm surprised you didn't shoot him in the chest." Esther said. Her impassive, introspective look clashed with the cutesy, almost-doll-like features of her stolen image.

"No guns around this time." Adam said.

"Why?"

"Some idiot shot up a school on the other side of town. Two dozen kids died. Shooter offed himself before the pigs nabbed him, but the government cracked down on this place hard. I told the guys to sell or dump their guns before the pigs sniffed them out and slapped handcuffs on them. Most of them did."

"And the ones who didn't?"

"Who cares about them?" Adam said, and shrugged. He reached into his jacket and frowned. Right, he quit cigarettes around this time. The smoke messed up his lungs during fights. They tasted like sewage from the beginning, so he quit without that much difficulty. It was the only time a teacher at school praised him.

Esther leaned back against the brick wall, head tilted up to the storm clouds. The rain battered down on the shop awning. Grey droplets seeped through cracks in the cloth and fell on her hair, atop which a rose-shaped ornament rested. It was the type of scarily real plastic, with the fibres in the petals as thin and refined as the real plant. He snorted out a breath of cold air and walked down the street. Esther followed.

"So, even your dreams are violent." Esther said.

"Victim-blaming, eh?" Adam said.

"Merely a remark on your upbringing. It's not surprising, and you know that."

"Can't fault me when your goddess sent me down here to clean up after her messes." Adam said, folding his arms. "Sounds like Lucy and her friend had better childhoods."

They passed the street corner, where bags of garbage lay and a broken stop sign stood. Adam crossed the street with Esther, the latter's dainty little boots making splashes on the tarmac. How old was this girl, anyway? Couldn't be older than sixteen, which he was in this instance.

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"Different, yes. Most of the War Maidens had ordinary ones, even dear Lucy Klavdia. Her world was one of formal tea parties and synth-string lessons before Her blessing marked her. She took to the training remarkably well, we had to admit. Deep down, she must have been begging for some form of escape."

Adam almost burst out laughing. Lucy? Hosting a tea party in a fancy, frilly dress with her pinky sticking out as she held a cup and everything? That'd be the day.

"Shucks, guess Astraea is a better place to live. I'm jealous. She probably got running water and heating in the winter, too."

"I must say, I've witnessed quite a few primitive societies in my duty as a Herald, and your city is one of the most run-down and disastrous out there."

"Ain't that the truth. You don't fight for yourself down here, the older boys are gonna steal your food and nick your stuff. They burst into your room and rip the covers right off, then break into your trunk unless you bought a lock first. The first tip I learned was that a solid punch to the face backs off half the pissants in the dorm. The younger boys then look up to you, and you can wrangle them for favors or a loan."

"Like that child?" Esther back along the street. They were heading in the direction of the old playground, where overgrown grass hid needles and every month was a new graffiti competition. "You don't remember him."

"How can you tell?"

"His face was jumbled and murky, like the colors in a petroleum spill. He didn't even have a name."

"You're a real scary girl, you know that?" Adam said, "Yeah, he was a member of my gang, but there were over fifty of us and I can't keep track of all them shitheads. Dime a dozen—heard of it? Those kids either get broken or grow tougher and break others."

Esther didn't say anything after that. Adam smirked, a bitter taste in his mouth, and kicked a can across the road. It landed in a puddle, where an oncoming car crushed it into a ball of aluminum scrap.

"Congratulations on defeating the Flame Witch and purifying Saria Alcott." Esther said.

"Thanks." Adam said with a grunt. He sat down on a nearby seat outside the old pizza place. The bullet holes were still there, even though they were repaired in reality. "It only nearly killed me this time."

"She is pleased with your efforts, and has bestowed on you a reward." Esther cupped her palms. A cluster of twinkling silvery stardust gathered there, the edges of each individual particle as intricate and sharp as a snowflake. She blew on it. The particles sought out Adam's skin and melded with it, flowing beneath the nerves and into his synapses. A faint glow surrounded him.

"The hell is this? It's not stellari."

"A boost to your innate potential. Call it a delayed bio-information packet. In the past, She granted this gift to other burgeoning Chosen, and they would wake up to find their training proceeding smoother, their bodies developing faster and their minds sharpening like knives. It's similar in effect to ADOSCH's augmentations, except plugged between your genetic code and your brain's natural growth functions. Shortform answer: it'll help you grow faster."

"Thanks, I guess." Adam said. It was a genuinely useful gift, so he had no reason to gripe this time. There was just one catch. "How come I didn't get this earlier?"

"Because you weren't ready for it." Esther said.

"Always the same excuse…"

"Thanks to you, Her foothold beneath those red skies has widened. It is still fragile, outnumbered like a single grain of sand at the edge of a stormy beach, but its presence no longer can be ignored. Expect the War Maidens to develop faster too. The other lost children will begin to sense Her once more. Oh, and before I forget, this is partially due to the repairing of the signal beacon."

"So the more I purify, the sooner she can arrive and start fixing things."

"Correct."

"Gotcha. Guess I better hurry up so I get the hell back home." He forced a neutral expression. Inside, the gears in his head were whirring. Purifying Saria Alcott had the side effect of sabotaging his escape plans further. One War Maiden was bad enough, but two that held a deep bond with each other? He might as well cover himself in cow blood and jump into the ocean.

At least he was still safe with them, for now. There had to be a way to escape out there, hidden in the regions where not even Astraea's eyes reached.

Esther sat down next to him. She put her hands on her lap, her arms straight and her shoulders leaning in. It was innocent, in a way, like a sophomore sitting on the train before the big prom. This was how the actual War Maiden acted in real life, he supposed, given how energetic Esther acted in her previous form.

"You don't sound very happy, Adam."

"Because I'm not. Want to guess why?" Adam said, sneering.

"I understand your reasons, and She expresses her sincere condolences, but you saved lives, Adam! The way you defeated her was legitimately impressive." Esther said. "Had you not intervened, the Flame Witch would have destroyed that town. Lucy would have fallen. You could have died, too."

"Shit, maybe I should have."

He cringed under Esther's glare. "Do not say that in my presence." She said.

"It was a joke, chill out." He wasn't gonna die until he reached adulthood, anyway. It's what Mary wanted. He'd never forget anything she said.

"Do you truly not feel proud of yourself?"

"Fuck, Esther, you're like that hick. Thinking that I'm their damn savior or something because I carried the biggest gun." Adam shook his head, snarling. Why did these suckups keep flocking to him? It happened even in the gang. Flies to carrion, the lot of them. It was worse when it was girls. Some of them never listened until he gave them a slap. "Listen here, Esther, I don't give a crap about those hicks. They don't know me and I don't know them. I got no reason to care if my hard work saved them, and it's not like I can even tell them about what I did. It'll blow my cover."

"And Lucy?"

"She's part of the team. She counts. Look, I'm just glad it's over. If you got more questions, I'd appreciate it if you dropped 'em."

"Only Lucy, I see." Esther mumbled. She sighed. "I suppose that's better than nothing. But if you didn't care about lives, why did you join this nation's military?"

"It was a job."

"That's it?"

"Yep. Wasn't good for anything else." He came close to believing in the patriotic bullcrap spouted in basic. It was a shame the DIs never accounted for his upbringing. The ability to bleat whatever back in an authority figure's face was an underrated one. If he kept his resentment simmering, it wouldn't fade. Esther stood up, smoothing her dress uniform and shaking off beads of water. The downpour had slowed out into a drizzle. A faint ray of sunshine shone beneath a gap in the dark clouds, reflecting off the wet road.

"Very well, Adam. I'll say one last thing." Esther said. With her youthful face, she looked like a kicked puppy. "Though you may not believe it now, and you may not care for it, you accomplished a good thing yesterday. Keep it as a selfish act or a bargaining tool if you want. Nothing can take it away from you."

"Whatever." Adam said. "Hey, I've got a question. That's Madeline Alcott, yeah?"

"That is her, yes." Esther gestured to her body.

"Where the hell is she?"

"I don't know. The [Clairvoyance] of us Heralds is weakened here, thanks to the high concentration of corruption, along with the world's relative distance from Her. I see a myriad of paths fragmenting in front of my eyes, yet blur and shift as you walk. Some of them are so varied, it would take us far too long to sort through it all."

"That's fucking bullshit. You spent weeks with me inside that time dilation."

"That's called a one-on-one coaching session, Adam. It's different. If I knew where Miss Alcott was, I would've told you already. I can give you a hint, though." The surrounding area shifted. The chair transformed into a stone chunk covered in moss and ivy. A stone ceiling rested above, from which a large, rusted chandelier with no candles hung. A discarded wooden chair lay upturned beneath a stained glass window, its top half broken to reveal a cliff's edge before a sea.

The vision then faded.

"That it?"

Esther nodded. "I'm sorry I cannot do more."

"It's a start." Adam said, "At least I know there's an end goal waiting for me."

The world was trembling, its colors disappearing as consciousness returned.

"I still don't get why your goddess doesn't just send a bunch of highly trained soldiers to take care of her messes."

"Because there is not enough room to—"

"No, I understand that. I don't know get why there has to be a Chosen in the first place. You have spaceships that fire gigantic laser beams from deep orbit. Why bother with a single guy who doesn't know shit?"

"But if She did that, there would not be insurmountable obstacles to overcome." Esther said.

"The hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means She wishes to create, modify and draw the full potential from Her own myths, Adam." Esther said. "See you later."