In the interior of the Darkstar jump ship, Selanora's face was lit up by the pale green light emanating from the Mana Marines around her. The Marines were checking their armor and weapons, but Selanora was a thousand miles away, telepathically communicating with her team and system command. Rows of battlenet information scrolled across her vision that her mind picked up naturally and the news was not good.

The Yabanchi attack was unusual in that it was far more coordinated than their usual affairs. Rather than just spilling out and randomly attacking soft targets, they were concentrating the majority of their forces in three locations: the central civilian shelter, the starport, and the Apophyllion capital building. Of course, Magical Girl and marine reinforcements were sent to all three locations, but the mid-tier team that had been sent to the capital had gone silent. Now they were sending in the big guns.

A soft, polite voice spoke in Selanora’s mind. [We are approaching the planet, Sal, jump should be ready in one minute.]

[Thanks, Dan. Keep scanning the battlenet for updates, and inform me if there are any major changes.]

[Are we expecting something?] A deeper, yet nonetheless refined voice joined their mental communication.

[Every jump is something new, Leng. Last we heard from them, those mid-tier Magical Girls reported that they breached the interior capital offices. If they haven’t reported back by now, then I’m afraid we should expect the worst.]

[What about those kids at the academy? Just going to let them sit this out alone?]

[Affirmative. They’ve got shelters that would make them the safest place to be on the planet right now. Not to mention they’ve got Anatova watching over them.]

[Besides, surface scans show minimal Yabanchi involvement in that area. I agree with Central Command, they can wait for now.]

[It just does not feel right to me.]

[Your concern is noted, Paladin, but we should get back to the matter at hand. Jump is in ten seconds.]

[Heartless golem. Well, shall I lead the way, my lady?] The tall armored man next to Selanora wordlessly bowed to her with a flare of his side cape, but the tight confines of the dropship made the sword on his hip accidentally smack a Mana Marine.

[Always, my knight in shining armor.]

A thrum went through the ship and the area around the Magical Girl became less crowded as the marines around her started disappearing into thin air at the space at the end of their dropship. Leng nodded toward her one last time and followed the Marines into the jump portal, vanishing from her sight.

[It is clear, though not entirely without heat.] Leng’s voice came to her from thousands of miles away. [I’d say at least a dozen Destroyers were firing on us. We're going to go inside the building, and clear some of the smaller targets.]

Selanora paused before going through the portal herself. [Were?]

[Lady Collete got here before you…]

[Ah.] She did not know which she dreaded to face, the heartless monster wrecking damage on the planet or the Yabanchi in the capital building. Well, having her with them on this mission would certainly make things easier if less pleasant too. Selanora jogged forward and she and her golem materialized onto the planet, right outside the front entrance of the planetary capital building.

It was still the middle of the day on this part of the planet, but a cloud had blocked out the sun and was so thick and dark that it felt more like dusk. Said cloud was not a natural formation, but a blossoming mushroom of evil that was emanating from the rooftop of the capitol building. Even without their satellites telling them so, it was easy to tell where the Yabanchi were trying to rip a new hole in their reality.

They had to be stopped before the dead woke up.

The Mana Marines were making short work out of the smaller Yabanchi pouring from the windows and entrances of the capitol building, the marine ranged units used rifles that spat miniature fireballs, and the melee fighters kept shields raised that prevented the enemy's claws from raking their friends. Artillery would have normally been utilized on the Yabanchi rear units, to obliterate the Destroyers and other heavies that were firing on the marines, but that was called off in favor of another, more surgical option.

Lady Collete herself was floating above the battlefield, surrounded by a sphere of water she conjured. With condensed streams that she focused to metal tearing pressures, she was laying into the Yabanchi backline and decapitating Destroyers with what seemed like little effort. Yet one specimen seemed immune to both her aquatic attacks and the weapons of the Mana Marines. This particular Destroyer was twice as large as the smaller ones around it and had the extra firepower such size afforded it. Lady Collete had to swerve to avoid the blob of plasma that it fired from a large cannon attached to its metal chassis, while the Mana Marines were not so lucky and suffered casualties due to the almost as large autocannons attached to gargantuan arms at the wrists.

A Marine captain was screaming orders into a comm unit, requesting missile support, and Selanora tried telling him not to bother, but the scream of two Heavy Dart missiles drowned out her voice as they materialized from a jump portal overhead. They streamed toward the Heavy Destroyer and impacted, creating two simultaneous blooms of death that shredded dozens of smaller Yabanchi that had been clustered by their target, but a bright gout of plasma answered back through the dust bloom and swallowed a squad of Mana Marines. Their deaths were burned into Selanora’s eyes by a brightness so intense that she still saw their shadows when she blinked afterward. As for the Destroyer, it was still fully intact, the air around it shimmered with an invisible force.

The Mana Marine captain cursed and Selanora finally spoke, “Captain, unless you call in much heavier artillery that might kill us too, attacking that Yabanchi unit is futile.”

The captain wore more advanced mana armor than the men underneath him, affording him the luxury of the helmetless feature that usually only Magical Girl armor applied. He was not an old man, despite being a mid-grade rank, but his unblinking eyes and set jaw spoke to years of experience that helped offset the panic that usually came to men in battle.

“Will you dispatch it for us then, ma’am?”

Selanora pointed ahead and shook her head. “No, it looks like someone beat me to it.”

A tall, burly man was barreling towards the Heavy Destroyer and nothing seemed to be slowing him down. A Screamer tried to, but the man who was almost as large as the monster he drove a fist through. His hand came out the other side and literally ran through the stupid Yabanchi for its trouble. The Destroyer saw the freight train of a man coming toward it and roared while it aimed all of its weapons at him. If anyone was wondering if a plasma charge could have stopped the man’s rampage, then they would have been disappointed as it never came. Instead, two large spikes of stone burst from the ground underneath the cyborg tank and flipped it on its side, pinning it down.

The Destroyer started chipping away at the stone holding it down with close-range fire from its autocannons, but by then the paladin charging it had reached it and had a commanding view of its weak undercarriage. He started punching the tank with only his hands, but instead of breaking bone on the metal, the metal itself started bending. After only four left-right-left-right blows, the Paladin’s fourth hit broke through the Destroyer’s plating and let the man slide his arm in up to the shoulder. The heavy Yabanchi screamed and went limp, its eyes flickered like a switch had been hit, as the large man yanked his arm out and came away holding a bright mana core in his grip.

"What a show-off," a small woman next to Selanora muttered. The Sword Mistress had not noticed the other Magical Girl arrive, but despite her reputation for destruction, Candice liked to hide in the background.

“He’s your husband, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, but he promised to tone it down.”

Selanora watched Candice’s paladin continue to pound more Yabanchi into the ground and it occurred to her that he really did seem to have brought his intensity down a notch or two compared to past battles fought alongside him, but she kept this thought to herself.

“Where’s Leng and Danford?”

“Presumably inside the capitol building already and cleaning up small fries.”

“Don’t feel like stepping in with a sword slash or two of your own?”

There was no point in falling for Candice's bait, Selanora thought. She did not feel like she had to prove anything to either the pink-haired woman or even herself. If the time came for her sword's strength, then she would gladly step in, but for now, she let the glory go to others. The fact that it was also the least she could do to try and alleviate the reputation she had built up as a point hoarder crossed her mind too, but she did not need to share that with her friend.

Between Collete's waves of watery death destroying Yabanchi and the Mana Marines's combined firepower being supported by Candice and her paladin, the battle for the front entrance of the Capitol building only lasted ten minutes. The last Yabanchi standing was a Screamer and this one was not so much as running toward the line of Mana Marines as it was running from the Capitol building. Before it could be gunned down, it fell apart into several pieces and sloshed into a steaming pile. Two shadows darted out of one of the numerous holes in the building and struck a pose on top of a pile of dead Yabanchi.

The ridiculous part was that they probably did not mean to be so dramatic since Leng and Danford were usually so sober-minded, but it at least had the unintended effect of raising a cheer from the watching marines. Lady Collette landed by Candice and Selanora and rolled her eyes. She had put on more makeup than the last time Selanora had seen her, but maybe that event on Paradise had put more years on her than she would have liked to admit. Despite that, she was still a regal beauty with a model’s frame and alluring eyes framed by her platinum blonde hair. If only her inner self matched the outer.

“Sloppy work once again. This is why I prefer working with a team of my own and not a couple of upstarted amateurs.”

“Hey, I didn’t see your little streams taking care of that Destroyer like John’s fists did!”

Collette ignored Candice and spoke to Selanora. “Well, if you two are all that can be spared at the moment, then I have no choice. I will of course be team lead.”

"I'd rather shave my hair and join the Mana Marines than let you take command, Collette," Candice growled and the ground trembled slightly underneath them. "Besides, I know your reputation."

The reminder of what happened to her three years ago made Collette’s eyes widen and her glacial expression melt somewhat. Before it could get worse, Selanora spoke. “Ladies, please, we’re all high rankers here, years of experience notwithstanding. Let's just do a triumvirate agreement, an equal split of mission quest points and rewards along with free bounties on every kill."

“Yeah, that sounds fine to me,” Candice crossed her arms and looked straight at Collette, but it was her husband coming up to join the group that asked the question.

“What if there is a disagreement? I should hope you ladies have a plan for that rather than scratching each others eyes out.” John’s accented voice was soft for a man so big, and if his helmet was not on, his baby face would have been even softer.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Standard triumvirate party clause, one vote each, majority carries.”

“How plebian,” Collete began, but then she sighed and nodded. “Very well, the sooner we finish this, the better.”

[You’re willing to split fifty thousand points with them?] Danford asked. [We may very well be able to do this on our own.]

[Honestly, if it will get them to stop arguing, I’d give them senior partner rates.]

[So mature Sal. What happened to that fiery girl I used to know?]

[She got punched one too many times in the head.]

[This is a private conversation, Leng!]

[Well, if you two keep on conversating, then the others will notice you staring off into space.]

Selanora shook her head and it was true that Candice was giving her a wry smile, seemingly aware of the inaudible chat she had with Danford. Collete blinked, finishing a talk with her own golem, and started heading toward the main entrance to the Capitol building.

“Well, come along then. I may have agreed to work with you two, but I will not let you slow me down.”

“Wait, Collete,” Selanora stepped up beside the taller woman and risked putting a hand on her shoulder. The look Collete gave her hand could have vaporized it, but Selanora had a burning question for the older woman.

“I know that your daughter is at the Magical Girl Academy here on Apophyllion and I just wanted to ask if you’re ok.”

Collete wiped Selanora’s hand off like she was brushing dirt off her shoulder and continued walking. “I have done everything I can. If the girl cannot fend for herself in a Yabanchi invasion then what future would she have as a Magical Girl?”

Candice watched Collete’s retreating back with the others and whistled. “Heartless banchi.”

Selanora did not know if that was exactly the case, but it was Candice’s golem who corrected her. “I don’t think so. She’s uptight, but not normally this much. Her daughter being in danger is probably eating her up inside.”

“You think so?”

“I hope so, otherwise I wouldn’t want someone like that watching my back.”

They all agreed with the golem's sentiment, but Selanora had a worrisome thought pop into her mind that she had to squash before it rooted too deep. She had to trust her teammates at least somewhat, but what if the Yabanchi were not the only monsters she had to worry about on this mission?

Past the foyer of diced-up Screamers that Danford and Leng had slain and further inside the Capitol building, whatever resistance the Yabanchi threw at the party of Magical Girls and Mana Marines was quickly put down by their combined powers.

Though Selanora had ordered the captain to secure the perimeter of the Capitol building, she had also taken a squad of his men armed with missile launchers. She had thought that it would be better safe than sorry with the extra firepower.

Aside from a nest of Gardeners that Leng sliced apart and a Lurker that had unsuccessfully tried to jump Collete, nothing of note happened. That was until the party encountered something they were not expecting. A curtain of darkness hung in the hallway before them, but it was not from a natural lack of light, instead it felt like an evil presence that chilled the bones of every member of the party. Of the mixed party of humans and golems, Lady Collete seemed to be the most perturbed by the new predicament.

“This evil is familiar to me,” she stepped back and shook her head, recentering her emotions from trauma passed. “I had hoped to never see its like again.”

Danford's scythe-like body hovered closer to the crawling blackness and he asked, "My scanner is picking up nothing inside, but the source of the portal should be close to the other side of this obstacle. Strange."

“It is the void manifested in our reality, golem,” Collete replied, “Anyone who steps in it will lose themselves into unconsciousness at best….or lose their minds at worst.”

“Yes, we’re all familiar with what happened on Paradise,” Danford forged ahead and brought up the almost taboo name, “but since that event every suit of mana armor has built-in defenses against such intangible influences. We can forge ahead."

“And I know not whether those defenses would hold long against what you so ignorantly speak of! We should find another way.”

Candice shook her head and stepped closer next to Danford. “We don’t have time for that, this hallway is the quickest way toward the portal source. We don’t have time to find another path!”

Selanora looked between the two arguing parties, Candice and her golem on one side and Lady Collete on the other. The two paladins had stayed quiet, John was watching their backs, keeping an eye out for approaching Yabanchi and Leng was in a side room, staring at the wall. Giving the others their space to argue, she asked her paladin what he was staring at.

She could not see his face under the mirror surface of his domed helmet, but for some reason, she could tell that he was up to something. Without a word, he drew his sword and activated his mighty slash strike. In four cuts he obliterated the wall he was staring at and a hole was made into the adjoining room beyond that was free of the black miasma. The noise of the destruction got the attention of the others and Leng merely slid his sword back into its sheath without even a nod.

“Well,” John laughed, “I guess that settles that!”

The party stepped through the hole and into the other room. It had an exit back into the hall they were in, but conveniently it was at a point past where the veil of darkness ended. Candice poked Collete, which earned her a sharp glare, but the pink-haired Magical Girl did not relent. "See, it lasts only a few feet."

"I do not begrudge Lady Collete her caution," Leng spoke, "It often is better armor than the one we wear."

“Says the man who just blew a hole in the wall!” John jostled Leng and the two paladins scouted ahead of their Magical Girls, one who stalked like a tiger looking for prey and the other a lumbering bear in the woods.

Between there and the final doorway, no Yabanchi hassled the party. Despite the myriad of bloody drag marks on the marble floors, there was no sign of the beasts who surely should have been prowling the halls. The silence was almost as unnerving as the dark had been and when they reached the pair of solid wood doors that led to the Capitol’s main chambers, every man and woman hesitated.

“It’s beyond here,” Candice’s golem spoke. “But it’s strange. There are no life signs on the other side.”

“What, no Controller? How else would the nasty things make a portal?” Candice asked, but neither her golem nor the others had an answer. The implication was either that whatever had been making the portal had fled or was dead or worse, something no one had encountered before.

Selanora had a headache when she used one of her abilities, the pain indicated a strong presence. “My ‘detect threat’ ability is going off the charts though. Something is there. What’s the plan then ladies?” Selanora asked.

“Go in and mess up whatever is on the other side of the door, what else?” Candice pounded her fists together and Collete grimaced.

"A simple plan for a simple mind, but I do not have better options in the absence of information. Let me go first and provide a shield though."

“Hey, if you want to go in first Coco, by all means.” Candice stepped back.

“Coco?”

“It’s my new nickname for you.”

Selanora shook her head at the different kinds of foolishness from her party members and looked back at the squad of Mana Marines. “We will follow Lady Collete, but be prepared with those launchers.” The marine squad leader saluted and started forming his men behind the women, with Lady Collete at the very front. When everyone was assembled, Selanora pulled a consumable out of her armor, a battle stimulant, and took it. She saw Candice and the two paladins do similar, but Lady Collete apparently turned her nose at such things since she watched them with hands on her hips.

“Ready?”

Every member of the party finished their preparations and answered yes and with that, Collete faced the door and blasted the heavy doors off their frame with a wave of force. They quickly filed inside, weapons at the ready and looking everywhere for an ambush beyond the shimmering barrier Collete was making, but none came.

No Gunners, Destroyers, or any manner of Yabanchi fired at them, for instead, a single man stood in the center of the Capitol chamber. He was surrounded by hundreds of dead bodies, gathered and placed together in strange positions that had to have been ritualistic, for above the gathered remains, a distortion of light, shadow, and space itself was rippling and giving birth to a nascent portal to another dimension, the home of the Yabanchi themselves.

The man was as pale as the corpses around him, hands lifted in the air, unmoving. The more they looked at him the more it seemed like the fellow was another corpse too, but his strange chant was echoing in the room, in a tongue none of the women had heard before, but one whose intent was as clear as the exultation laced in it. A prayer to things unseen, supplicating the formless hosts of the void.

“Danford, talk to me.” Selanora felt uneasy and wanted to lash out at the lone man. There should have been a Yabanchi or some disgusting alien, not just a guy.

“Updating, the system is categorizing the target and mission parameters.” Danford and the other two golems stared at the chanting figure, but his neutral tone suddenly took a note of panic. “Strike him down now! System has ID’d target as a Lich!”

The next minute was pure chaos and altered the paths of all three women forever.

Candice shouted, “Down you go!” and launched a boulder she materialized from her palm. The Mana Marine squad leader reacted quickly too upon hearing Danford and ordered his men to open fire with their launchers. Selanora and Collete added their own ranged attacks to the mix and the area around the Lich exploded in flame, rock fragmentation, and the other attacks. It was a bloody affair, as the piles of bodies were not spared from the assault. Robed figures of once-powerful men and women of influence flew through the air, mostly in pieces, but one still stood whole in the center of the room, seemingly untouched.

The Lich was still chanting, still in the same position with hands in the air, as if nothing had even happened, but his response was devastating.

Collete and the party behind her survived the first part of his attack, largely in thanks to the barrier she had kept up as they went into the room, but the Mana Marines who had spread out and fired their launchers were not so lucky. Invisible balls of force blasted most of them apart and broke the ground underneath where they stood into dust and shards of deadly stone. The ones aimed at the Magical Girls broke apart Collete's barrier and overwhelmed it with their number and intensity. Each Magical Girl and Paladin were hit at least once and knocked off their feet. Selanora felt almost half her massive mana pool get drained with one hit and would have been hit by a second one had Danford not put himself in front of her and taken it full on. His body did not even make the usual spray of mana shards, such was the power of one of the orbs as it destroyed his corporeal form.

Selanora had fought Titans and Destroyer legions, but she had never felt such overwhelming force like this; and the worst part was that the Lich was seemingly ignoring them, the attack it cast seeming only a trifling matter that hardly required its attention away from prayer.

[Leng!]

[I’m fine.] Leng ran over to Selanora and helped her up. He had suffered a hit too, based on the tattered remnants of his cape, but otherwise seemed intact. Collete was likewise still standing, but Candice was on the ground while John loomed over her.

Selanora saw John put a hand to his wife’s face and check for breath. She was still breathing, from the soft motion of her abdomen, but she was knocked unconscious. The big man stood up and glared at the Lich, shouting, “Let’s see if you can catch these hands, you filthy Lich!”

There was no point in yelling out or trying to stop the paladin as he ran by, straight at their adversary. For one, Selanora did not know if she could and for the other, she agreed with his plan of attack. If their enemy was capable of creating such a powerful shield against ranged attacks, then they had to switch up their tactics. A fist to the face or sword to the neck ought to silence the spell caster.

[Leng, I’m going in!] She brushed past her paladin and he followed as a shadow, no argument came in either her head or ears. The battle stimulant and her already impressive stats had her easily catch up to John’s head start and both of them reached the Lich in the center of the large room in seconds. No more balls of invisible force were hurled their way and the creature seemed intent on ignoring them despite their incoming attacks, but just as John’s fist was about to meet its face, the Lich’s hand flew upward and caught his right hand without any strain of effort. Likewise, Selanora’s sword strike to the Lich’s neck was stuck between the thumb and index finger of its left hand. Finally, the creature’s eyes opened and it deigned to look upon them with hollow pits of hungering darkness.

Selanora realized their mistake too late and tried to pull back, but she was paralyzed. John likewise was frozen and both the paladin and Magical Girl began to feel every nerve in their bodies light up. Selanora had never felt such pain, even when she had caught her leg in a Yabanchi’s acid trap years before and spent weeks slowly regrowing muscle and bone. It was an inescapable feeling compounded all the more by her helpless inability to move. Everything happened in a moment, but Selanora watched with horror as green veins of energy worked their way down the hand that John had tried hitting the Lich with and up toward his face and body. His whole body seemed to be glowing with the unnatural energy and Selanora’s sword was no exception. The same energy traveled down the mana blade and up her arm and when it reached flesh, the pain she had felt before vanished with the death of the nerves, replaced by burning numbness.

Stuck, Selanora could only move her eyes and look into the Lich’s face, where she saw the sagging dead flesh of a body carried only by the skeletal form underneath it. The unliving flesh was being forced apart into a grin by the skull underneath and it was the most horrific visage of death she had ever seen. Suddenly, Selanora saw her own fate in its grin and the future of every man personified in a single glance of pure hate.

The face fell away and was replaced with the ceiling as Selanora fell backward, sans her right arm up to the elbow. Leng had come from behind her and cut off the corruption before it could go further. The Lich raised a hand, to cast a spell or something worse, but Leng was faster and struck where Selanora first failed to hit. The Lich stumbled back a step and dropped its hand, while its head followed soon after in an unceremonious crash to the ground.

She had no strength to get back up, otherwise she would have checked on John, but then she would have only been confirming what she already knew. He was dead. The darkness in the corner of her vision threatened to take her too, but she tried to hold on and stay steady.

[Leng!]

"I'm here, Sal, I'm here." Leng was by her side again and lifted her head. From her vantage, Selanora could see the body of the Lich crumbling to dust as if it aged a thousand years in a moment, but even with that, it may still have been a threat. With the last ounce of her strength, Selanora used her “Detect threats” ability again and the impact almost killed her. Standing in a corner of the room, almost totally hidden in the shadows, Selanora’s ability highlighted the hostile presence. It was like staring into the face of the Lich again, but a thousand times worse. She needed to tell Leng and warn him, but even her thoughts could not gather for a simple mental warning. The darkness came and overwhelmed her and the last thing she saw was the green-robed man's smile.