"The War Maiden retreated." Miriam’s voice floated through his ear. "I can’t believe it. How did you do it, civvie?"

"Shit, I’m still trying to figure that out," Adam said. His ribs hurt. He touched his cheeks and peeled off a trail of grit with his fingers. The sting of the orange gas persisted. "Guess I got lucky. Or maybe she can’t enter buildings, like a vampire or whatever."

"No, I’ve tracked her doing that. It’s so strange. What happened in there?"

Adam gave Miriam a smirk. "I survived."

"Yes, that’s obvious," Miriam said, sighing.

"Second time, by the way. That Mystic Imprint slotted in nice and easy. It was the most terrifying time of my life, but I survived. Like, holy shit."

"Congratulations, congratulations, we’ll all throw a party once we dig up all the cakes from the mess hall," Miriam said. "Will you just tell me?"

"Alright, but only because you asked nicely," Adam said. "Wait, is the War Maiden coming back?"

"She’s moved south. I think she’s lost interest in you."

Adam leaned back in the chair behind the receptionist’s desk. He spoke, observing the area at the same time. The place was decked out in furnished white, its former tidiness ruined by overturned furniture and dark stains on the floors and walls. Plants behind the glass display had overgrown, leaves and flower petals squashing up against the glass.

Welcome to the MOB Tiferert-56 Prayer Hall! Feel free to attune yourself to the starscape at any time. May Her Providence shine radiantly upon you! Read the nearby sign, beneath a six-star sigil on the wall. A flickering billboard fizzed from a broken hologram injector. Adam caught a snippet of text regarding a protein offering before the hologram scrambled once more.

"Psychokinesis…that’s a common mystic, albeit a flexible one. Just having that shouldn’t have been enough to escape from the War Maiden. Yes, I am aware that you are alive, civvie."

"Could be because of the combat harness. Or I’m a natural. The chemicals did most of the work anyway." Adam offered. Miriam didn’t look convinced. He reloaded his handgun and jammed another regenerative syringe into his arm. His body sank into the chair, but his mind still buzzed with adrenaline.

"Pardon?"

"Why didn’t she just blow the door up? She had no problem with those other guys." Adam said. "Same in the warehouse; she chose to try and gun me down instead of using her mystic or whatever."

"Afraid of structural collapse?"

That couldn’t be it. No way that abomination couldn’t crawl herself out of being buried alive. He squeezed his eyes shut as itchiness gave way to stinging beneath his shoulder. It beat in tune with the rumbling of his stomach. The last thing he remembered eating was the sorry excuse of beef stew served in the School of Infantry.

He shuddered. Imagine if that had been his final meal.

A vending machine stood nearby with a tear in its frame. He lodged his tomahawk’s blade in the crack and pulled until the rest of the front wrenched away. He took out a couple of protein bars, a chocolate snack, and a can of soda.

The can had an indent that opened with a lever mechanism, as opposed to a ring pop. The drink assaulted his taste buds—not even this so-called magically-enhanced society would make soda taste good—but his parched throat begged for more, even as the artificial sweeteners cloyed the lining of his mouth. He slugged the drink in a couple of goes and started on the snack bars. The first had a fruity flavor, like raspberries and apples crossed together. The second was stringy and woven with a foreign meat that had the texture of salmon.

Glucose detected. Restoring plasma…

Plasma: 90%

Nice. An excuse to eat sweets. Assuming he didn’t throw up.

The hunger pains quietened. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed. The Marines hadn’t taught him to strategize, but the streets had.

He’d bought time, not safety. The War Maiden could bust through an alternative path, or he’d run out of vending machine supplies and starve. There was no other choice. He needed to kill the War Maiden, or at least incapacitate her to the extent where he could escape.

He revisited the previous encounter in his mind. Her form was mangled, twisted, and repulsive to envision, as usual. But…

"She’s damaged," Adam said.

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah. Those other guys, whoever they were, were firing at the War Maiden. They didn’t kill her, but she got more than a few holes in her body. She bled all over the floor in the warehouse. Chemicals must’ve screwed up her blood too." He scowled. "Wish they could’ve taken her out. Who were they?"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Other intruders," Miriam said. "Looking to pick whatever valuables are left in this death trap, those rotten bastards. A whole battalion of them showed up."

So there were other people outside the MOB. Interesting. "They had a truckload of guns."

"And they failed. She won’t stop hunting you, civvie."

"Tell me something I don’t know," Adam said. Enough rest. Those wounds on the War Maiden would seal up in time. Time to explore.

Adam crept down the nearby corridor, handgun out. Lights flickered on as he approached. The hallway here was more cheery, with brighter pale-blue wallpaper and holographic depictions of Astraean sigils, personnel dressed in white-blue military garb, and cityscapes beneath a bright, starry sky.

The 451st Battalion celebrates yet another successful integration campaign against the Scourge…

Apostle Brigid arrives at MOB Tifereth-56 for a special training regime…

The Induction of the 15th Class, Generation F, of the War Maiden Corps…

The last picture was that of a group of young women, clad in white and blue, kneeling beneath the sigil of a six-pointed star. The front row contained a girl in blonde with a dutiful smile next to a girl in fiery red, who seemed like she could barely contain herself. The magnificence of a grand hall surrounded them, adorned with holographic projections that appeared all too real. Adam’s gaze lingered on the picture, then he moved on.

"Ow!"

His foot caught against a hard object.

Someone had constructed a barricade in the middle of the hallway. They piled sandbags and tied boxes together with hard tape, then covered the front with a thin blue wire. Sparks popped off from it, landing at Adam’s feet. Adam pushed apart the wire with his mystic and climbed over.

A metal box lay on the ground. Adam picked it up, gave a little push, and watched as mechanical limbs extended out and planted themselves firm. He whipped his handgun out, but the machine did not react.

Wait, this is…

"Miriam, I think we’ve got something." He swiped open the Augmentation Foci. It was too early to jump to conclusions, but if he played this right…

----------------------------------------

Elsewhere in the base, a surveillance camera fizzled to life. It swung left, right, then centered. From far, far away, Miriam observed.

A serrated blade swung through the air and cleaved down the forehead of the wraith. Crimson gunk stained the metal. The wraith fell over, its sinewy corpse merging with the earth.

The War Maiden’s right eye swiveled around in its socket, the pupils shrinking like a camera lens. A jumble of words and numbers sifted through her pre-frontal cortex, all boiling down to a simple fact—the threats had been eliminated. The War Maiden sheathed the blade on her belt. It did not matter that the case was long gone, or that her wounds still had not yet received proper care. It mattered that there were no intruders in the vicinity.

The orb in the sky burned hot, immobile, and permanent upon this mudball. Wraith corpses and the weapons of their former littered the space, a trail of violence from the gates they breached to the west side.

The War Maiden craned her head up, metallic veins in her neck creaking. Her back was straight, as always, as if it were still her duty.

What a sick joke.

The camera focused. It detected tiny movements across her skin. Little machines whirred and traveled beneath the War Maiden whirred and traveled through her systems, sealing up what tiny cuts and leaks they could, yet again. Her gangly torso gave a crackling sound as spine fragments pushed back into place. A crimson aura coated her form, wisps flocking like flies to carrion.

Miriam sucked in a breath. She downed more of her drink and wiped away the residue. For the briefest of instances, the image of the MOB was back in the past, and the War Maiden was healthy, whole, and talking and smiling like any eighteen-year-old girl should be.

Miriam squeezed her cyber eyes shut until the images popped. She threw the cup into the bin, above which thousands of slash marks were etched. She opened the connection once more. "Ready civvie?" she said into the microphone.

"More or less." Came the reply. He was a dot among her map, the signal still vibrant. "Camera still working on your end?"

"Affirmative." She repeated. The word clung to her tongue. She forced the next ones out in haste. "Focus on yourself. You’re the one about to die."

"Yeah, like the last two times. Y’know what they say about the third? Thanks for helping me set everything up, by the way!"

"You’re welcome," Miriam said. She then clutched her head in her hands, face covered with her palms. "I take it back."

"You what?"

"Your head isn’t rotten. It’s full of madness, from stem to skull. There are Berserkers in the ADO with more sanity than you.

"Really?" The civilian said. "Shit, this whole day’s been one trip from start to finish. I didn’t expect to be frozen, to use my military training this damn soon, to actually wield magic…"

"It’s mystic. Get that wrong and She won’t embrace you."

The civilian snorted. "Right, Her. She’s a thing. Hey, Miriam, what if I told you I’m Her Chosen and this is all part of her plan?"

Miriam burst into laughter. "Civvie, this is no time for heresy."

The civilian laughed along with her. "At least I’m still moving forward."

"Civvie."

"What?"

"I’m tired of calling you that. Tell me your name."

"It’s Adam." He said. "And about damn time!"

The shutters opened. The boy named Adam stepped out and shot the War Maiden in the chest.

----------------------------------------

The War Maiden reeled back, a hole in her chest. More blood flowed. She moaned.

"Yeah, that’s right!" Adam yelled. The words tumbled out of his mouth, blustering like the bottom of a waterfall. He waved his firearm about and pounded his chest with his free hand. "I ruined your uniform. I spat on the logo of the ADO. Ring a bell, you fucking slag? Come and get me!"

The War Maiden pressed her index and middle fingers together. A beam of light gathered, clustered, and fired. The front of the building exploded. Too late. The assailant had fled into the doors.

Her body hung there, slack, for an instant, then powered forward across the dust. No metal shutters this time. The little machines dumped information into her at a rapid rate. She sensed the intruder down the halls of chrome and smoke. Her left arm shivered and squelched and new bullets fell into the chamber.

Obstacles blocked the way. The barricades were first, constructed from sand-filled, wires and plant pots. She pumped them full of holes until they collapsed.

Her feet slipped a few stretches ahead. Her diagnostics buzzed as sticky goo clung to her lower backside and legs. She tried to climb up, then slipped and caught a noseful of sugar. An empty oil canister and loose sweet wrappers lay nearby.

The War Maiden kept forward anyway, willingly coating herself in the muck, crawling forward. She ignored the sticky strands tearing cloth and skin. She couldn’t ignore the grenade trap.

It didn’t matter that War Maidens had their entire skeleton augmented and reworked, an explosion was still an explosion.

"Right here, bitch!"

And then, the two were face to face in the hall, Adam holding the weapons, the mystics, and standing beneath the six-star sigil of a homeland so far away.

The War Maiden’s skull burned hot. She raised her rifle and opened fire.