Lucy did not enjoy wasting time.
It was a habit Mother passed down upon her. A second, a sale, the hawk-eyed, sharp-dressed businesswoman liked to say across the dinner-table. We acquired the deal because we kept the efficiency mixer running for half a minute longer than our competitor. You can recycle plastic, or mend a broken bone, but you can't snatch back lost time, my dear daughter.
Lucy was only a primary schooler back then. The phrase stuck with Lucy regardless, following her into her War Maiden career, complementing her military teachings well. ADO personnel were trained to be efficient. An extra minute of mystic refinement created the difference between shacking a Scourge-pillar for the killing blow, or the monster breaking free and wreaking havoc on the battlefield.
Lucy took efficiency further. While other ADO soldiers laughed and chatted in the base drinkery, Lucy stared at the plans stored in her combat harness, measuring her allocated time down to exact zeroes. Like matriarch, like daughter, a couple of her older comrades had muttered.
Unfortunately, her current affliction was nothing but a waste of time. Lucy woke up, felt the headache, and sighed.
Blasted burnout.
The overuse of plasma had gouged fractures into her mystic core and plasma synapses. With no other choice, they demanded resources from her biological systems, thus conflicting the two like a pair of crossed wires. The body mistook the misshapen mystical feedback for an intruder, and reacted via fevers, unconsciousness, headaches, nausea and more. She'd gone through the complete list at this point.
It wasn't the first time she burned out; practically a rite of passage for War Maiden Trainees. It still necessitated careful treatment. One wrong move, and she'd cripple herself permanently. That had been one of Lucy's greatest fears for the Chosen. To gain mystics, then lose them the very next day…
She rolled over in her bed, her facial muscles taut against the temptation to shut her eyes. The dull beige-white ceiling of the Medbay greeted her. She knew what Father would say. Slow down. It's not your fault, Lucy. Take leave and return home for a change. And Mother would shake her head behind him, still agreeing in silence.
But, she couldn't take leave. She couldn't even entertain the thought. She was light years away from Her brilliant Astraea, stranded in a hostile landscape teeming with foreign corruption. The MOB was in ruin, its personnel either deceased or corrupted. Her backup counted on a single hand. The Chosen was here, and far from her level.
It was overwhelming. Crushing. A disaster they write case studies about, as joked by Victoria, a fellow First Class Novice during a mock battle gone awry.
But if the scribes were to write MOB Tifereth-56's legendary disappearance, they'd write about Lucy Klavdia, the girl who refused to despair in the face of overwhelming adversity. If the Chosen could not uphold Her core virtues, then she'd be by his side, and support him until he could by himself.
She reached for a nearby cup and took a drink of water. Counted to ten. Forced her muscles to move, past the sharp pains of stabbing nails, against fatigue as sticky as oil clinging to concrete. Lucy sat up in her bed. She imagined herself with sunken cheeks, messy hair and stinking of days-old sweat, yet as determined as any follower of Her should be.
Open lexicon. She thought-commanded to her combat harness. Her database of documents loaded, appearing as black text on a white-blue background. Her headache pounded. She flipped through the directories until she found the relevant document. It was a multi-page essay, copied out of a public ADO e-book. Numerous highlighter marks laid across paragraphs, some of which were hers, others from her seniors in the War Maiden Corps. The contents detailed a project, which she didn't finish before the MOB's sudden spatial displacement. Physical and mystical training were out of the question. That left the spiritual.
Perception override: engage meditation mode. Emergency warning signals set to on.
Her sight drowned in a deep blue void. Without closing her eyes, she blocked out the clammy patches on her back and the chemical taste of the suppressant medicine.
She thought of her family home. Colony Betuila, within the 16th City. A two-story building, located next to the city's main plaza, near a wishing fountain and a lovely patisserie. Mother was there, running the family business with an iron grip. Father stood by, the family's persevering right-hand man, always ready to make a call or support an appeal on Mother's behalf. The wallpaper was lilac, buttercups grew in a vase by the front door and a ornate chandelier hung in the living room with the holo-screens and the heirlooms.
Lucy was eighteen now. An adult. A War Maiden, a honored position. Yet, even when she fought in battlefields far away, staining herself with the blood of the Scourge, they still considered Lucy their little girl.
[Photokinesis] was said to be a mystic born from the stars. Lucy replayed the memory again and imagined a thread connecting the warm light of the home with the shining radiance of her primary mystic. As bright as the sun, as fierce as their flares.
Combine the physical, the mystical, and the profound spiritual. Such was the path to nova—an evolution any ambitious caster sought. Once Lucy acquired it, she would dominate the Witches, and the Chosen would never doubt her again.
Briefly, she wondered how he was doing.
She prayed he was well.
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"Jesus Christ!" Adam swore, as a volley of fireballs soared towards him.
"Quiet!" Miriam barked via transmission call. "You're giving away your position."
"Oh, blow it up your ass! I'm out in the—"
His voice cut off as the latest fireball threatened to take off his head. Adam dashed forward and tumbled to a stop behind a steel crate in the middle of the dusty field. No time to rest. He was under fire. The metal pulsed with the heat of an open grill. Adam jerked his hand back and went for his tomahawk.
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"Come on, brave hero! This all you got?" His opponent laughed as she hurled her projectiles, not missing a beat. "I'm not gonna hit myself!"
Adam's eyebrow twitched. He clenched his weapon tighter. This time for sure, he thought to himself. He'd wipe that smug grin off for good!
Adam focused, conjuring up a chunk of plasma. His awareness detected the objects surrounding him, a method divorced from the five primary senses. His opponent now advanced towards him. Direction: south, less than a dozen feet away, with a smaller object hurtling in front. He dashed to his left, re-appearing behind another patch of cover. A twitch of his finger sent the previous crate flying towards his opponent, who caught it with her bare hands and slammed it out of his [Psychokinesis]'s grip.
Now!
His mystic activated, sending up the rush of the speed to his legs. He added destination and distance. Left again. Parallel to the fencepost in front of the building, half a right angle from the fence corner. The usual. He sprinkled in another emotion: a willingness to hurt. The plasma obeyed, and he re-appeared behind his opponent, the blade of his tomahawk aiming straight for her neck.
Saria caught the blade with her left hand. Mild concern flashed over her expression as the metal dug into her skin. Her grip closed around the blade. With a mighty yank, she flung the blade aside.
The two exchanged kicks, Saria in silence, Adam wincing with exertion. [Psycho-Push] forced her body back. Adam then charged up plasma and slammed a punch straight into Saria's chest.
The knuckles pushed through her open skin. Saria took a step back, her heels digging into the dirt. Savoring his momentum, he punched again, hitting the edge of her tank top. It was a mistake. Her right hand lashed out and before he knew it, he was down on the dirt.
"Damn it." He groaned, spitting out a mouthful. An ache ran up his back. "That was close! I actually broke through your skin."
"Yeah, you did. Good work Chosen! That's a definite improvement." Saria said. She patted her belly, showing him the drop of dried blood. One down, only fourteen hundred thousand left to go. Progress.
"How's it feel?" Saria asked.
"Could be worse." Adam said, climbing to his feet.
"Aw, you're not happy about it?"
"I'll be happy once I stab you in the gut." Adam said. Saria only laughed at the remark. He shook dirt particles out of the edges of his trainee shirt. "Miriam, gimme a rundown."
"Better. Your [Physio-Dash]es are approximately 15% more efficient than before, which puts you two-thirds of what's acceptable by basic ADO standards. You managed to attack while executing the technique. Also good." A camera beeped on a nearby post. Miriam stared at one of her screens, then tapped her keyword. "However, you lost your weapon in the exchange, then resorted to a punch. Remember to use [Physio-Force] to increase the strength of your grip. Your [Physio-Sixth Sense] still needs improvement, given that you hesitated for a few seconds too long in your attempt to discern Alcott's location. Shall we plug your ears and cover your eyes?"
Adam winced. "The Herald did that enough. No thanks."
"Then, begin again. Remember, no sudden augs, Adam!"
Adam picked up his tomahawk with his mystic. He and Saria awaited the countdown. She summoned flames, he dashed off and the cycle of training began anew.
It was a simple idea, really. He wanted to beat the War Maidens. There was a healthy War maiden accompanying him. Two plus two equalled four. It wasn't as if there was much else in the MOB.
He spent his Stellari hoard on upgrading his CAPACITY Mystical Attribute to 2 and learning more of the ADO-core [Physiokinesis] techniques. The Sairai Six, Esther had said, named after a long-deceased martial arts practitioner. It hadn't been a simple decision. [Psycho-Detonate] existed, along with a variety of other flashy techniques in the Mystic Core upgrades screen, but Adam understood they taught the basics for a reason.
It took him twelve hours in the real world to bust through Esther's accelerated teachings. Afterwards, Miriam drafted up a quick regime for him. Three square meals, each one punctuated with a round of training. He crashed on his bed each night and slept without dreams. He was grateful, because putting up with Esther's bullshit on top would've drove him insane.
He collapsed on the ground for the seventh or eighth time that morning. Saria handed him a water bottle. He drank gratefully, savoring the mild lemony flavor.
"Break time, Chosen." Saria said. She smiled, as if she hadn't spent the previous hour dodging his attempts on her life. "You've about spent with your plasma, I think."
"Yeah."
Plasma: 10%
Adam chewed on a plasma tablet as he sat on the stands, a towel over his shoulder. The day was warm, a mild humidity in the air. Dark clouds blanketed the sky, blotting out the faux-sun. If it wasn't for the blood-red skies, he would've called it pleasant.
"Chosen, you've fought before, haven't you?" Saria said.
"You can tell?"
"It's obvious from your movements." Saria said. "Most civvies start off looking like they got caught in the nude. Always looking side by side, thinking too much, and they get whacked in the face. You've got the basic instinct down."
There was no use denying it. "I grew up street fighting."
"Oh?" Saria said, a twinkle of interest gleaming in her eye. "Where?"
"Warehouses, parking lots, that of stuff." Adam said.
"I mean, what colony and what arena? If you fought in the little league, there's a chance you came across me."
"It was nothing official. Better it wasn't. Before you ask, I grew up in a real crappy place, and I don't want to talk about it."
"No family?"
"Not anymore."
Saria dropped the topic after that, for which he quietly thanked her for. He took the opportunity to review his new [Physiokinesis] techniques.
[Physio-Force] was a technique that converted plasma into raw strength. It could be applied to any limb, including the legs and neck. Saria had demonstrated its flexibility on him, punching him with an enhanced blow and then doing the same with a headbutt. Easy to learn, hard to master.
[Physio-Endure] hardened the skin, nullifying part of an incoming blow and distributing the rest to minimize damage. Learning it had been an exercise in masochism. Esther pelted him with a hail of random objects, including children's toys, until his skin adapted out of a loss of patience than anything else.
The last technique he acquired, [Physio-Sixth Sense] was what Lucy wielded to detect the group of wraiths from behind walls. It acted as a personal radar, seeking threatening presences instead of electromagnetic reflections. When he asked how the mystic parsed hostility levels, Saria and Miriam both shrugged and told him to ask the Department of Mystical Research instead.
Two of the Sairai Six remained. They were both the hardest to learn and master, and developed more for destroying Scourge-beasts, so he didn't bother. The constant training also progressed his Competency Level to 2-10. All in all, he'd spent his three days meaningfully.
There was just one problem.
He still hadn't increased Saria's [War Maiden's Bond], despite spending so much time with her. Why wasn't it enough? How did ADOSCH measure something as intangible as interpersonal relationships, anyway?
He regretted not talking to girls more…back on Earth, that is. His recent companions comprised of nothing but girls. Two War Maidens, a grouchy Communications Operator, and a creepy-ass shapeshifter prophet in his dreams. Adam was glad none of his old gang members were here, because they would've called his predicament a desirable fantasy, and he'd end up clocking them in the jaw.
God, please increase, you damn mystic. Don't let me turn to Esther, of all people, for girls' advice…
"Hey, Chosen…" Saria said.
"Yeah?"
"You mind if we do something else this afternoon?" Saria asked.
He blinked. That was a surprise. "Like what?"
She pointed to the trees beyond the MOB walls. "Let's go hunting!"