"Forward!" Meryll Klyne's voice cut through the din, amplified by the integrated mic array of her helm. As Captain of the Fourth Company of the Reclaimers Chapter, she had driven her squad into the core of the Porc nest at Mercy Falls Hospital. Only Kane and Valasques were at her side—such were the harsh dictates of this new world. Though not awakened as she was, her companions followed her command, hurling themselves into the storm of gunfire that greeted them upon crossing the threshold.

Bullets pinged off her armor, a cacophony of discordant chimes, like a symphony of a hundred ill-tuned bells. Meryll remained unflinching. Her epsilon-type power armor, while less formidable than the bravo-types worn by her companions, was more than enough to shrug off the feeble onslaught.

The Reclaimers could have answered with their own firepower. But Meryll, ever calculating, had weighed the cost of expended ammunition against the experiential gain of fallen Porcs and deemed a firefight inefficient. Instead, she commanded her squad to close the gap, to end it with the brutal certainty of close-quarters combat.

Her power blade whirled in a one-handed grip, its edge slicing through the grotesque, snorting creatures with lethal precision. Each flick of her wrist brought a new chorus of squeals and cries, a symphony of terror and pain. Meryll pressed onward, relishing the carnage, her resolve unwavering.

Meryll's power blade danced in her hand, a lethal extension of her will. With each precise flick of her wrist, the edge cleaved through the grotesque, snorting monsters. She relished the symphony of squeals and screams, a testament to her prowess as she pressed onwards, unyielding.

A particularly vile Porc ducked under a backhand swing, lunging forward with an oversized cleaver. Meryll caught its filthy tusk in her free hand, yanking the creature toward her and delivering a brutal headbutt. The beast dropped to its knees, its eyes wide with terror. Without hesitation, Meryll drove her blade between its eyes, silencing it forever.

"Captain, enemies are falling back," Valasques reported.

"I can see that," Meryll replied, her tone clipped.

Silence followed. Meryll realized her terse response had not prompted further dialogue from her unawakened companion. Her mind drifted to her conversation with Jonas outside. Like her, he was awakened, and their exchange had been natural, flowing. For the first time in her new life, she had felt a genuine connection. Now, with Jonas gone, the hollow ache within her was all the more pronounced.

Still, there was no time to dwell on her feelings. Meryll was on a mission, one that would save the wasteland from inevitable collapse. Personal sentiment had no place in her calculus. In this world, everything was a numbers game, and every wasted second drained precious resources.

"To the stairwell," she commanded. "Form up on me. Move, double time." Her companions obeyed, silent and precise, like unthinking automata.

The basement level was eerily deserted. Jonas had warned of a lone Porc down here, but there was no sign of it. The thought that a single Porc could pose much of a threat seemed almost laughable. It reminded Meryll of her privileged starting position compared to others. With that privilege came the duty to guide the world’s future shape—a purpose that defined her order.

At the corridor's end, Meryll reached an electromagnetically locked door. She withdrew the keycard Jonas had given her. If she were a code-smith or technologist, she could have breached the lock herself. But her chosen path had brought her here, to this data vault.

"I'll have to diversify myselves in the future," she mused. "But where to start?" It was a rhetorical question. The obvious answer was to begin with the sixth company Hospitaler Corps, then bolster her own fourth company Recon Corps. And then, of course, there was the lingering question of when she should install herself as the Reclaimers' Grand Commander.

"My worthiness is not in question," Meryll affirmed to herself. "My cause is righteous. But—" Was it proper? The question formed on her lips, yet she couldn't utter it, for she knew the answer. It was not proper for the Fourth Company Captain to elevate herself to lead the chapter. Traditionally, the Candidate Aspirant would be the Captain of the First Company. In that position, they received direct tutelage from the Grand Commander and his retinue of Honor Guard advisors. Upon the Commander's passing, the Candidate would assume the role of Acting Commander, pending the conclave of company commanders to vote in their favor.

That was the tradition. And it was now meaningless.

Meryll shook her head, banishing the unworthy thought. She despised the blasphemous doubt scratching at the edge of her consciousness. Doubt might be afforded by lesser Awoken, like Jonas, but not her. To save the world, she had to remain steadfast in her convictions and move with purpose guided by the Sacred Lore. Inspiration struck her suddenly.

"It was the machinations of man that caused them to create beings so unholy like them in form and function that they forgot to honor their creator. Great Beasts and Sinister Devices arose, claiming dominion over all before them. This was the calling for once-silent heroes to stand in defiance; a bulwark of humanity. Such was their might that it cowered their enemies into enacting armageddon; as destruction was certain for the enemies of humanity. Blessed be the Lore."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Meryll sighed a breath of relief. As always, she found the necessary guidance within the Sacred Lore. She knew, with full certainty, what she needed to do to overcome humanity's ancient adversaries.

Swiping the keycard through the magnetic reader, the Reclaimers pushed into the gloom beyond the door.

Entering another stairwell, Meryll glanced down to the floors below. Her helmet's eye lenses automatically switched to low-light mode, bringing the shadowed structures into sharper contrast. The stairwell descended several floors in a spiral square pattern that was almost dizzying to look at.

"Captain, the stairwell descends several levels," Kane reported unhelpfully.

"I can see that, Kane," Meryll replied, struggling to keep her impatience in check.

"There are no enemies around... for the moment," said Valasques.

Meryll wanted to scream. Her companions' banal observations had grown increasingly irritating. She knew it was a condition of their limited consciousness, but it was infuriating nevertheless.

Choosing silence, she bounded down the stairs one flight at a time. Her power armor's servos and micro-hydraulics compensated for each leap, absorbing the shock and preventing any damage. Kane and Valasques followed closely behind.

The rancid stench of filth and sweat intensified as Meryll descended, seeping through her purification system. The air would have been scrubbed clean if it had been poisonous, so she ignored the stench. Reaching the wide doors at the bottom, Meryll burst through them into a large chamber beyond. The cavernous room loomed around her, packed high with pallets of medical supplies on reinforced shelving. A lift shaft ascended along one wall to the hospital's delivery bay.

Porcs milled about, pretending to follow their pre-set routines. These, Meryll ignored. Her attention was drawn to the three large, ogrish Porcs towering above the rest. Standing at fifteen feet high and two-thirds as broad, these giants were employed in heavy labor and were utterly unprepared.

"Fire upon the new abominations!" Meryll roared. "Teach these gene-craft monstrosities the error of their existence!"

Either Meryll's order was not specific enough, or her companions' rudimentary intelligence chose to misinterpret it. They began firing indiscriminately upon the lesser Porcs. While this thinned out the mob, the uncoordinated attack left the ogres free to rampage toward the trio of Reclaimers.

Meryll held her ground, watching the first boarish monster charge. She pumped round after round into its thick, iron-like hide with minimal effect.

Hissing with righteous rage, Meryll replaced her mag-gun with a plasma pistol. Depressing the trigger to charge the weapon, she counted the stomping footfalls against her ragged breathing. Closer the ogre came, crushing smaller Porcs underfoot as it charged. With a tumultuous roar, the monster raised a large, metal-studded club above its head just as Meryll pulled the trigger.

A gout of bright blue energy erupted from the pistol. The glob of plasma rocketed through the monster's mouth and into its brain. The searing ball of energy cooked the ogre's innards, and it crashed to the ground with a shaking thud.

Meryll counted her blessings. The plasma pistol, while powerful, had a fifteen percent chance to critically discharge and explode in her hand. This catastrophic failure would have offset the impressive eighty damage over three seconds. However, upon reaching level eight, Meryll had chosen the Plasma Handling perk, reducing the failure chance to seven percent.

The second ogre barreled over the first's fallen corpse. It wielded a crude, oversized cleaver in one meaty hand and pointed at Meryll with a pudgy finger, bellowing a deep, guttural roar that shook dust from the nearby shelves. Specks of spit flew from its mouth, spattering Meryll's armor.

The beast was too close, moving too fast. There was no time to counter the attack.

"Scatter and regroup!" Meryll commanded, diving out of the cleaver's path. Her epsilon armor enhanced her maneuverability, allowing her to roll forward smoothly. Rising to her feet, she sliced a Porc in half, hearing the dull thud of the cleaver smashing into the ground where she had been standing.

Valasques' scream pierced the comms system. Meryll spun around, dispatching another Porc, and grimaced at the scene. One of Valasques' arms had been completely severed. The ogre had dropped its cleaver and was lifting Valasques to its gaping mouth.

Kane stood nearby, dumbly slaughtering smaller Porcs. Neither of them had moved—not because they couldn't, but because they didn't comprehend her command.

Rage surged through Meryll, tearing through her like a tsunami. She tried to keep her mind clear, to stay focused on the task at hand. However, the limited capacity of her unawoken companions to properly respond to the situation sickened her.

"Kane, stop and help!" she yelled, pointing at the ogre forcefully munching on Valasques' helmet. His screams grew more panicked and terrified as his power armor's integrity quickly gave way.

Kane dropped another Porc, equipped his mag-rifle, and began firing at the Porcs swarming around Meryll instead. The captain froze. All tactical acumen and battlefield awareness fled her in that moment as she simply stopped and observed the sheer stupidity of the scene. Kane's screams bordered on hysterical now, waves of shrill shrieks piercing through the comms network.

"They sound so real," Meryll thought to herself. As she watched her companion fail to fight for his life, she realized an important truth. "That is not a person dying. That is an unthinking, unfeeling marionette simply acting in the way it is supposed to. Those noises are not real, just a facsimile of human emotion designed to trick me into believing that a living being inhabits that armor. Both Valasques and Kane are unawoken; their lives hold as little value as these Porcs around me. They are expendable."

If Meryll had any more thoughts on the matter, they were suddenly ripped away as she too was hoisted off the ground and hurled through the air. In her reverie, she had forgotten all about the third ogre, who had seemingly crept up behind her. Tumbling over and over, Meryll watched the world spin. She caught brief glimpses of carnage slowly falling further away.

Landing hard, Meryll heard a sickening crunch. Given that Valasques' screaming had suddenly stopped, Meryll deduced that the noise had been the ogre's powerful jaws finally crushing Valasques' head. Getting to her feet, she watched as the two behemoths set upon Kane. Swatting him between them, the monsters squealed in delight at trying to break their new plaything.

Meryll decided to unsheathe her anger. It wasn't that she had any particular affinity for the unawoken Kane. She was, quite frankly, pissed off that the Porcs were showing such disrespect to the order. Meryll did not know if the beasts could feel true and genuine fear, the way a real human might, but she was determined to make them learn the next closest thing.

Drawing her sword, she felt power hum through the blade as she activated the weapon. With a quick thought, she activated the offensive Fire Warrior perk. From nowhere, flames engulfed the powered edge of her sword. Through a combination of perks up to level seven, Meryll had somehow augmented her burning blade to actually burn with the white-hot, radiant heat of her rage.

The sword glowed in her hand, casting brilliant illumination into the dark recesses around her. She thought this imagery quite symbolic of a crusading champion of the order standing in a hive of their ancient enemy. In her situation, some heroes might have chosen to goad their opponents with humorous quips and insults. Not Meryll. She only wished to slaughter and ran headlong into the fray.