Bew didn’t scream. The man recoiled back, a mix of oil and sparks came from within his sliced wrist, spreading a disgusting smell across the room and setting the edge of his coat on fire. Ratcatcher allowed him this retreat, crushing a fallen gun under her foot and turning to meet the newcomer.

He was tall and overly muscular, his build could hardly be hidden by a blue jacket and pants. Unlike her, the man wore only minor protection over his clothes—just a pitch-black body armor and armored kneepads. Shoulder-long blonde hair was tied into a knot, keen blue eyes, with a hint of arrogance in them, looked around the bar. In his left hand, the man carried a long saber, three more such weapons rested in the sheaths at his legs.

“Careless, Elisa,” Augustus Rho said, pinning the bar’s owner, who tried to grab something under the counter, to the ground with a glare. “Even a child would understand that this scum had some body enchantment or a better exoskeleton underneath his coat after he wrestled with you for awhile.”

“Thanks for the rescue, Augustus.” Ratcatcher waved a hand to him and leaped to Ontrel, grabbing the man by the shoulder. He looked around, confused that he couldn’t teleport away to safety. The explorator smiled to him. She injected him with a power suppression drug the moment she first patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry, Ontrel. Can’t have you running around naked.”

Oh, come on, Elisa! How about we make a bet?" the man eagerly offered. "You give me a head start, and if you can find me in one day, I'll go back willingly. Isn't it more fun than..."

“Fun is a relative term, and no, you are going straight back to your room, Ontrel.” She lowered on one knee. “Your family and friends are all worried about you. Let’s not make us any more worried, okay?”

“Sorry.” The man’s features darkened. “It’s just…”

“I understand. We all stumble from time to time.”

“You…” Heaving a hiss, Bew slammed his foot into the floor, cracking the wood. “How dare you? Who do you think you are, coming to our turf and treating us like this?”

“Someone beyond your league.” Augustus turned his look at him. “If you have a few brain cells left, run.”

“Run?” Bew whispered. “You are the one who should run for pissing off the Cartel, pretty boy.”

The wires once again came from the torn sleeves, slithering across the ground like snakes. Bew looked at Ratcatcher and Augustus, and the steel wires came to life, jumping in the air like whips. The explorator jumped to her feet, the mancatcher in hand, to protect the citizen. She could not bother. In one smooth movement, Augustus took out another saber, meeting incoming strikes head-on. A dome of blinding cuts appeared all around him, the wires weaved and halted mid-flight, aiming to hit the explorator at random intervals to catch him off-guard and let electricity do its job. Augustus never made a mistake, with calm dignity, he sliced and sliced, leaving Bew stumbling back once more, his weapons shortened in half.

Augustus made a step forward, coming closer, and the wires’ remains came back to life, attacking him all at once. The brigand’s shocked look changed to a smug glee as he saw how two dozen wires came upon the explorator from all sides. Ratcatcher laughed, enjoying the look of astonishment on the cyborg’s face when all wires fell once more, cut by the sabers.

“What the hell is going on in here?” A high-pitched voice shouted from the entrance, and a group of Soultakers stepped in, led by the female guard whom Ratcatcher saw at the entrance. The woman held two thin swords in her hands, looking around the room through the helmet lenses. Her head stopped at the broken gun before turning to Bew and allowing the helmet to fully cover her face. “Firearm? You concealed it from us?”

“Jeki, this isn’t important right now…” Bew tried to start speaking, using a moment of distraction to try and reach Augustus with another wire. Jeki disappeared from the place, utilizing her power armor to race past Augustus and bury one of her swords into Bew’s shoulder, bringing the man to his knee with a single kick. “You dare? The Cartel will…”

“…Not care about a stinking rat like you one bit. Not with the amount of money they get from us.” Jeki twisted her sword, and this time Bew screamed from pain, falling on his other knee. Whatever changes Pearl’s scientists had made to his body, these changes had a limit, and now crimson blood poured from the dangerous wound that showed a cleaved bone within.

“This isn’t needed, really.” Ratcatcher stepped forward, gripping the shaft of her weapon. “The man is no longer a threat…”

“This man is not long for this world anyway." Jeki tore the blade free and wiped the blade off the coat of one of the unconscious thugs. “Take him away and hang him at the square. The rest of his gangs are going straight to prison. Scour this place from top to bottom, if one bastard had a gun, others might have too.” The woman commanded her troops, walking away from the criminal, who started to howl for mercy, thrashing in the guards’ hands.

Ratcatcher forced herself to ignore all the screams of the begging man. No doubt Bew had killed aplenty in his life, but seeing someone killed after capture felt wrong. It resonated against everything that Ratcatcher had learned in the police academy and later in the field as a young explorator. Seeing a creeping realization in the man’s eyes, as the guards calmly dragged him away, hearing the bar’s owner’s stuttered explanation about a hidden shotgun and that he wanted to use it to help Iternians, looking at how the Soultakers were turning the place upside down filled her with disgust.

But this place was not Iterna, Ratcatcher reminded herself of the moment she saw how a Soultaker returned from a basement, leading a tied up, malnourished young man after himself. Then another one came out. And another. The explorator had no need for explanation. It seems that Bew profited from something other than the simple weapon trade between two nations.

“You find your missing lamb, right mutie?” Jeki asked, looking down at Ontrel Graves.

“Hi Jeki!” Ontrel smiled to her. “I… um, a bit short on tokens and can’t pay back right now…”

“You will address agent Vong either by her name or her rank,” Augustus said, coming face to face with Jeki. The taller man had to lean forward to look directly into her lenses. “Is this understood, Young Guard Jeki?”

“Or what, intruder?” Jeki’s eyes narrowed, her hand moved onto the sword’s handle. “Don’t think for a second that I am not aware that you sneaked into my city unannounced, explorator!”

“Iterna goes where she pleases and so do her servants.” Augustus made no effort to reach for his own weapons. Yet Ratcatcher knew just how fast the man could be. And Jeki didn’t. “Try to obstruct us, and your nation will soon find itself stripped of all medical supplies coming from us. How long will it be until it’s your neck in the noose?”

“Please, there is no need for violence, Augustus.” Ratcatcher stepped forward, forcibly moving the man off the fuming with anger Soultaker. “This is my mission, and I will handle it in my own way, thank you very much for your cooperation. Now then, miss Jeki, sorry for getting on your bad side and for any infringement on the Soultakers’ authority that we might have committed. I understand the frustrations this could have caused and bear you no ill will. How much did Ontrel manage to own you?”

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She turned her back on Augustus, completely ignoring him, and cursed in her head at his presence. He was an A-class explorator, they had permission to spill any amount of blood for Iterna and had very loose rules. Rare in numbers, these men and women were unleashed when Iterna needed something badly or when there was a potential threat to the country. A long-lost relic, ready to cause an apocalypse, a deadly virus… These kinds of missions. Certainly not rescuing an Iternian citizen.

Ratcatcher was a B-class explorator, and they had strict rules of engagement. No killing, unless allowed. No ruining relationships with locals. And by God, she will see this mission through without attacking Soultakers. During her hunt, she stopped in several of their villages and hamlets, and people were always nice to her despite the war against the Reclamation Army.

Please don’t tell me that Augustus came all this way just to congratulate me on my birthday! Ratcatcher silently begged in her mind. The man was beyond reliable, despite all his arrogance, he was a good mentor and a loyal friend to those few he allowed into his life, but he had quirks of behavior.

“Nothing that I can’t live without.” Jeki looked at the people coming from the basement. “Listen, I’ve got a bit of the situation on my hands. Indentured servitude is kind of illegal here. Take this son of a whore and piss off from our lands, okay, mutie?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Ratcatcher saluted the woman and took out the terminal. Before she could’ve called the headquarters for a plane, Augustus put a hand on her shoulder.

“No need.” A space near him trembled, a thin, bright dot appeared at a height of one meter. Bright cracks ran in all directions from the dot, spreading to become a round hole two meters in diameter, leading straight into the inner halls of Guardian Mental Ward. “The Redeemer was off duty today.”

Smiling, Ratcatcher helped Graves stand up and led him inside the portal, following after him with Augustus. The Redeemer, real name Eugenia Mylli, was a member of the Elites, the team of the three strongest abnormals in the country. Even among them, Eugenia was hailed as the singular strongest abnormal.

Abnormals were people who got changed, visibly or physically, in the wake of the Extinction, the event that doomed the Old World, scouring the planet almost bare of all life. Some abnormals, like Ratcatcher, had mutated limbs and additional body parts, some, like Augustus, were simply stronger than normal humans. And some, like Eugenia, won in fate’s lottery. In addition to her near-unrivaled speed and might, Eugenia also had a power—an unnatural ability that some people gained after being exposed to the glow, a deadly substance used during the Extinction. Eugenia has the power to open and close portals at will, when the Elite wasn’t involved in performing the country’s missions or doing community service, the Elite would often help Iterna’s operatives around the world… And sometimes with the space mining. For three hundred years, Eugenia had served Iterna with excellency and loyalty unrivalled, her lifespan was extended through the rejuvenation procedures.

The group came through the portal and appeared in a brightly lit hall. Its walls were of a gentle white color, flowers and green lushes grew all across the walls, filling the room with pleasant and relaxing smells. Here and there were people in white robes, escorting and overseeing patients during their recreation time. Some of the patients were even allowed to work with garden tools, planting new life to be grown as part of their recovery process from various mental ailments.

This was Guardian Mental Ward, one of the two most defensive mental facilities in all of Iterna, a place of healing for the abnormals and normals alike. Its impressive facilities were always welcome to accept those who struggled with their current lives, unlike other countries in the world, Iterna came unscathed from the Extinction, and the country’s entire foundation and idea were built upon helping others in these troubling times. Iterna had free universal healthcare that covered all expenses for its citizens and guests, and trips to mental hospitals were not something that the majority of people frowned upon.

And this was Ratcatcher’s current place of work. In the past, the explorators were formed to make a map of the new world, to venture into regions yet unknown, to help downtrodden societies when no one else would. They were meant to herald Iterna’s coming and secure dangerous bio-laboratories and weapons of the pre-Extinction world. And this noble mission had lasted but for fifty years.

The world didn’t die. The human race saw the apocalypse and refused to keel over. New powers had risen in the world, almost always self-sufficient. The Reclamation Army, the state that waged the imperialistic war of subjugation against the soultakers, was one of such new countries. Another massive country were the Oathtakers, a country in which abnormals ruled supreme and were viewed as divine beings. And more, so many more countries had appeared that diplomats were in much greater demand than explorators. Rather than being adventurers or helpers, most explorators today were just government workers. Sure, Ratcatcher loved her job and had a few missions in the abandoned ruins… But deep down, the woman wished for a bit more excitement in her everyday life.

Ratcatcher felt a bit of ease, seeing that the scars of the recent attack were long since removed. To think that someone dared to attack this place was… almost unthinkable. And the fact that they nearly succeeded in releasing him…

“Ratcatcher, explorator B-Class, reporting the mission’s success!” She snapped out of brooding, seeing a young-looking man with brown hair coming closer, accompanied by two tough-looking medics, looking just as young as the doctor. Appearances were deceiving in Iterna, almost all its citizens used rejuvenation procedures on a yearly basis. The doctor allowed the medics to respectfully sit Ontrel in a comfortable wheelchair and kept on looking at the explorator, saying nothing. Sighing, Ratcatcher said: “Elisa Vong, explorator B-Class, came back from the mission. Hi, Harvey.”

“Welcome back, Elisa.” The doctor shook her hand, unbothered in the slightest by the look on Ratcatcher’s head when she allowed the helmet to disappear. “And congratulations on your birthday.”

“Don’t remind me that I got older by a year!” She laughed.

“Why, you are as handsome as ever, Elisa,” Harvey replied with a smile.

She had nothing against Harvey Ostell. He and the other doctors and nurses here always tried their very best to help patients, often staying overnight. The one thing that always bothered Ratcatcher was the fact that everyone here insisted on her using the name she had chosen for herself when her parents joined the country. Everyone always went with, ‘Oh, you mustn’t use a pet’s name to address yourself, Elisa!’ Ratcatcher was the name her parents gave her upon her birth, dammit!

“Wait!” Ontrel turned in his wheelchair, and the nurses let him. “Elisa, how did you find me? I was sure that no one ever knew that I visited the Ravaged Lands.”

“Oh, it’s a big mystery, Ontrel. Let’s make this a game.” She gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “You try to come out with an answer the next time we meet, and if you win, I owe you a cake? And no running off until you found an answer.”

“Please don’t encourage the gambling addiction of our patient, Elisa,” the doctor said sternly, sending the nurses away with the lost in thought man.

Ratcatcher simply smiled into the man’s back, whistling a tune, while Harvey quickly tapped on his personal terminal, acknowledging the fact that she indeed had finished her task. In her opinion, it was better to keep Ontrel’s mind on some harmless games rather than allow him to come up with his own entertainment. Although she didn’t fault him one bit for escaping during the recent attack. The man got scared, and so did she.

Harvey finished his task and coughed, looking at Augustus. Ratcatcher frowned, wanting to stand up for the man’s defense, but the explorator simply shrugged.

“It’s ok, Elisa.” He nodded at the people. Many, staff included, looked at him with fear, a few nurses even led some patients away. “I wasn’t planning to linger in this shithole. We have a job to do, so pack up your things. Artificer waits for us tomorrow at twelve o’clock at his base.”

“Us?!” She slammed the edge of the mancatcher onto the floor, feeling her heart race.

“Yes, everyone else is busy and the thing is urgent, hence I came to pick you up.” He leaned forward, whispering words just for her. “We are going into the Desolation, so renew everything you know about it. And…” Augustus reached out into a pocket, taking out a geode. The stone was perfectly shaped like a potato and bore signs of carving. One side was sliced off, revealing a gleaming mix of purple and crimson within. In a single motion, Augustus threw this to the squeaking with delight Ratcatcher. “… congratulation on your birthday, Elisa. Your collection seemed to miss a purple and crimson one, if I recall correctly.”

“Awww, you do care, Augustus! It’s so sweet,” she teased him, and Rho turned around, storming away. “I am really appreciating the gift! Thank you so much, Augustus!”

The explorator only waved his hand, ignoring looks of fear and sometimes anger thrown at him.

Truth be told, he could afford to be less of an ass to others. Ratcatcher declined Harvey’s offer to throw a party and walked to her room. Augustus’ life wasn’t easy after what his father did. The man showed nothing but loyalty to Iterna, weathering all insults and never, not once, allowing his stoic and cold façade to crack, never trying to explain how he felt about a tragedy that happened a hundred years ago. He never asked to be defended, but Ratcatcher and other explorators always jumped to his defense, much to the man’s greatest annoyance.