The Witch of Fairies flattened herself against the rock column, hearing bullets buzz past her. A round struck the wall in front of her, and stone splinters peppered her face.

She groaned, biting her lips. Wounds on her thigh and under her breast blood-stained her skirt and blouse.

“Habondia Xana. You cannot escape!” A man yelled. “I know you can’t heal yourself.”

The man wore his black bicorn hat on his head and checked his stained white military jacket. Blood spread from his left shoulder at a rapid pace. “Fire!” he ordered, making a loud, deep, and harsh prolonged roar as if trying to imitate a lion.

The round of bullets struck into the column she used as cover.

“Advance!” the man ordered, as his veins popped out on his red face. The Peacewalkers moved forward, surrounding her.

“Mr. Schügel. You are so synchronized that your men ran out of ammo at the same time, I’ve been counting,” she panted. After the shots ceased two minutes later, she glanced, squinting.

“What a waste!” Schügel yanked a pistol from his holster and aimed at her with a wild gleam in his eye. “A prodigy Jana like you. A one-man... woman army. An unrepeatable genius reduced to terrorist scum.”

She closed her eyes, panting as tears rolled down her dirty cheeks.

“Let’s take her home!” Schügel ordered his men. “Lord Ragnar awaits.”

“Ragnar?” She whispered to herself. “Is that so?”

The surrounding walls ejected their bricks as projectiles in random directions. The blocks hit each Peacewalker with a powerful blow. Habondia opened her eyes and snapped her left fingers, fire emerged from her fingertips as if lit by a lighter. At the same time, she fidgeted her right fingers as if writing in the air.

The Peacewalkers’ uniforms were set on fire.

She waved her hands. Vines emerged from the stone floor constricting the Peacewalkers. Schügel and his men screamed, hearing how their bones squealed, threatening to break.

The Peacewalkers crashed against a wall one after another, slumping to the floor as their rifles clattered out of reach. The vines snaked along the floor, slithering over the men’s torsos. Trapping them against the stone.

“Send Lord Ragnar my greetings,” she murmured. She snatched up one of the weapons, using the long rifle as a cane, and fled the hallway.

The Witch of Fairies climbed upstairs and hobbled along another hallway. It was a narrow, echoing, crimson-carpeted room full of sculptures and paintings. She fell twice against the wall. The blood loss blurred her vision and weakened her. She used the rifle to maintain upright both times and staggered on.

She reached a chamber with huge windows and leaned against the wall. The whole ceiling was a mirror, so she could see her haggard face. She had green eyes and scorched shoulder-length ash-brown hair, in an Edwardian hairstyle. She outfitted a gray lace blouse with puffy shoulders, stained with dirt and blood. She also wore a black, knee-length skirt and leather gloves, an ankle-length gabardine cape, and thigh-high boots.

She rested for about two minutes leaning on that wall. Then she staggered on and headed toward an elevator at the end of the room. She pulled a crank inside to lift herself to the rooftop, where two companions waited for her.

“Anaïs, Athéné… Did one of you find my glasses, right?” She approached them, panting and sweating.

“Habondia!” Athéné, a woman who used a similar outfit to Xana’s, said. “I found them, but the crystals are cracked,” She grabbed a pair of glasses from her skirt pocket. Moreover, she hesitated before handing them over.

Habondia Xana knelt and then sat, placing the rifle next to her. Athéné grabbed from her other skirt pocket a tiny bottle with a blueish solution. Habondia revealed her wounds, letting Athéné apply one drop to each injury.

“How long will it take?” Habondia panted.

“It’s hard to prepare it without the proper tools. I did the best I could, I just finished it using what I found in the labs. Your wounds might heal in about an hour. “

Habondia ripped her cape into strips as she whimpered in pain. She tied the fabric first around her wounded thigh and then across her upper body.

“Peacewalkers chased after me. I managed to distract them.”

“We… we need to get out of here!” Anaïs, a blond woman interrupted, stuttering. “They chased after us as well, too.”

Anäis helped Habondia to her feet. Together they staggered examining their surroundings.

“What building are we at, exactly?” Anaïs asked.

“This is the rooftop of the library,” Athéné responded. “You checked the map before coming, didn’t you?”

“I did, I just…” Anaïs apologized “My nerves are killing me”.

Athéné sighed.

Habondia scanned a medieval complex of four white buildings, with two clock towers each, and a huge garden with a greenhouse. In the middle, she squinted at a large plaza with a fifty-foot-tall obelisk in front of a fountain. A massive hoisted Prussian flag waved in the strong wind.

“The University of the Rhine,” Habondia whispered.

“We are in the Gaius Germanicus building,” Athéné commented checking a map she grabbed from her pocket. “The main building connected to the plaza through the stairs is the Gaius Iulius. On its right, there’s the museum in the Publius Cornelius. We were supposed to meet in the one on the left, the Gaius Marius, the classrooms building next to the Gnaeus Pompeius, laboratories.”

“How did we end up in the opposite direction?” Anaïs asked, frowning. “We were supposed to sneak into the meeting, interrupt it, and evacuate the people. How did things turn this way?”

“Someone knew we were coming. The Sørensens knew about us, they’d cast an illusory spell that’s able to reshape the buildings at will. I got out of the illusion after being shot, the pain brought me back to reality. Moreover, they had Peacewalkers disguised among the crowd,” Habondia interrupted the chitchat. “Let me think of something… we still have to evacuate everybody.”

In the middle of the plaza and alongside the Prussian flag, there were other flags. They represented the different delegations of the countries meeting in the main hall of the Gaius Iulius.

Habondia started naming each of the flags as if trying to find a solution to her problem. “The Republics of France and Great Colombia. The Kingdoms of Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden-Norway, and the United Kingdom. The Empire of the Russians, Austrian-Hungarians, Mexicans, Japanese, and Ottomans. The Federation of the United States of America. They all want a piece of the cake.”

“Bondy, we screwed up!” someone yelled. Habondia turned her head to face the person screaming.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

A blond woman suddenly staggered out of breath coming from one of the many doors leading to the rooftop. A jagged wound in her right shoulder oozed blood.

“Marijke!” Athéné exclaimed, recognizing her companion. “We know.”

Habondia slung the rifle on her back and sat down as Athéné applied some healing potion to Marijke’s wound. She placed both her hands on her face and closed her eyes trying to think.

“An Alban is coming! We have to go.” Marijke gasped; her voice wavered while looking at the horizon using a spyglass. She shifted her weight from one foot to another, tucking a stray wisp of hair behind her ear.

“An Alban?” Anaïs stammered, taking Marijke’s spyglass. “Merde!” Anaïs shrieked, gasping while looking through the spyglass, and then she handed it to Athéné.

“It’s an armored, rigid airship of three balloons with three gondolas, and dozens of propellers.”

“That’s a bloody armored destroyer!” Anaïs yelled.

“This is a neutral place!” Athéné said, pulling her hair.

“Can you see its flag? What country is it coming from?” Anaïs asked.

“No flag at all,” Athéné answered. “This is bad, real bad!”

There was a thunderous explosion of fire in the main building of the University, the Gaius Iulius.

“Mon Dieu!” Athéné shouted as tears started flowing down Marijke’s cheeks.

Habondia turned back to see the Gaius Iulius building. Petrified, she observed the blaze as if mesmerized. The emergency alarms started sounding with stridency.

“The Alban is still too far away. It's impossible to bomb the building from that distance,” Marijke looked through her spyglass.

“Who did this?” Habondia asked, clenching her fists. She stared at the flames terrified, her green eyes wet. Her tears started rolling down her cheeks as her body trembled. A shiver ran through her body when she heard the sound of the fire and the screams of people.

“What is happening?” Habondia asked, sobbing. “I... I need to go! We came here to protect, not kill these people. I have to rescue them!”

“Bondy… No!” Anaïs yelled, gripping Habondia’s right arm. Habondia shook her off, tearing past Anaïs. She launched herself running off of the wall to land on the neighboring rooftop.

An impulse of adrenaline and desperation allowed her to run across the rooftops despite her wounds. She centered her attention on the burning building.

“No… Why?” She sobbed, desperate. “It can't be!”

Another thunderous and scorching explosion in the same building released a strong wave, as the buildings trembled. She lost balance mid-jump and plunged fifty feet to the ground. She reacted the best way she could, her bones cracked as she landed on the side of her right foot.

“Ah!” She felt like fainting. Her whole body except for her broken foot felt numb.

Another explosion occurred. She was some feet away from the entrance stairs. She felt the intense heat trying to scorch her skin, and the harsh sound deafened her for some seconds.

Her face twisted into a pained scowl and she struggled to get to her feet. Relying on the rifle she still carried to support herself once more, and gasping with each torturous step, she limped towards the burning building.

She entered. The entrance had strong, marble pillars, but part of the ceiling fell, as all the walls were cracking. She thought two more explosions might obliterate the building.

She covered her nose with her forehand. She didn’t know what was worse, the pain in her thigh, her wounded flank, her right foot, the intense heat, or the pain she felt in her lungs every time she breathed. “I can’t... I can’t create water here. It’s too hot!” She lamented to herself, trying to figure out a way to extinguish the flames.

“Where are you?” she cried out, coughing. “Where are you?”

She passed along the bodies of many people crushed by the debris. She reached the center of the main hall and arrived at a four-foot-high stage. Habondia sobbed after she found the man she had been searching for. He was already dead.

“Why you?” she wailed.

She tried to beat out the fire on his vest; she resorted to ripping it off. She felt dizzy and black spots edged into her vision. The heat was excruciating. Nonetheless, she grabbed the dead man from under his arms, and, gasping for breath, she dragged his body an inch at a time through the debris.

Another explosion occurred. The ground beneath her shuddered. Part of the ceiling caved in.

She slipped and fiery pain radiated from her broken ankle. She glanced down through the smoke and sucked in her breath. Jagged bone jutted from her flesh, spewing precious crimson blood. She choked on a scream, smoke clogging her lungs.

“Bondy!” Habondia heard her companions calling her name. “Where are you?”

Anaïs, Athéné, and Marijke had come to her rescue, emerging from the smoke and fire. Athéné took hold of Habondia, pulling her away from the man’s dead body and heaving her on broad, strong shoulders.

“Don’t leave him here!” She sobbed. Anaïs and Marijke, exchanging a pained glance, lifted the man's body between them. They hurried to cross the stairs leading to the plaza before placing him on the ground.

“Let me go, Athéné!” She wailed. Athéné placed her on the ground.

“We need to heal you properly, Bondy!” Anaïs expressed, horrified because of her compound fracture.

“No... Please. No!” She approached and kissed the man on the forehead. “Why?”

She kissed his lips without paying attention to Anaïs’ words. “I’m so sorry… I couldn’t save you!”

Marijke drew near her. Although not an expert, Marijke knew how to cast basic healing Thaumaturgy. Marijke touched her foot, and an aura of white light surrounded the wound. Marijke couldn’t heal everything, but at least, she was able to stop the bleeding, then Athéné dispensed the liquid she used before on the wound.

Athéné wanted to say something. She opened her mouth but the words didn’t come out.

“This was an ambush!” Marijke commented, on the verge of crying.

Habondia wiped the ashes from the man’s face. With her Thaumaturgy, she reconstructed his burned suit and tried to heal his bruises. However, she had never been good at healing Thaumaturgy. She wasn't even able to heal his scratches, nor hers.

“Stay still, someone’s coming,” Athéné warned as she heard footsteps approaching.

“You are surrounded. Yield!” A man’s voice claimed. It was Schügel.

“We need to go!” Athéné interrupted.

“No, you are not going anywhere!” Schügel shouted, aiming at them with his pistol.

“Go without me!” Habondia sobbed.

“Bondy... please, we have to get out of here. You will die if we don’t heal you properly!” Marijke begged.

“Get away from me... Flee!” She shouted in despair, glaring at her hesitant comrades.

Fifty Peacewalkers followed Schügel. The soldiers left their cover and formed a circle around the women pointing their rifles at them.

“Fire!” Schügel ordered.

Habondia screamed. Her roar was harsh and strident. Hundreds of ash-colored creatures, resembling little girls, sprouted from her body like a swarm of insects; they blocked every single bullet.

An immense force of wind surrounded her three companions and launched them into the air, like a rocket. At the same time, these fairy-like creatures bounced back the gunfire in random directions. The bullets injured several soldiers, yet they didn’t kill anyone.

She remained there. Crying, embracing the body of the dead man she tried to rescue, feeling numb, on the verge of fainting.

“Schlampe!” Schügel fired his pistol.

In less than a second, all the pixies blocked the bullet by combining themselves into a formless gray mass. Resembling clay, they turned into a javelin that pierced Schügel’s arm. He dropped the pistol.

“Why have you died?” Habondia asked, looking at the dead man. “I didn’t want this. Why did this happen to you?”

As she heard ambulances and fire trucks sirens approaching, a sniper shot her with a dart; she couldn’t react in time. The fairy-like little girls she created disappeared, while she vomited her stomach content mixed with blood.

“I win,” Schügel sneered, with an arrogant voice. He targeted Habondia with the pistol he picked up from the ground.

Another Peacewalker approached running toward Schügel’s position. Habondia realized it was a red-haired woman wearing a black cloth mask and carrying a sniper rifle.

“Commander Schügel, you are not authorized to kill her,” the sniper interrupted.

“I know!” Schügel scowled. “Soldiers, don’t kill her.”

Schügel rushed away, advancing toward the sniper. Almost at the same time, a group of firefighters came running to the burning building with fire hoses.

Habondia screamed in despair when the soldiers tried to separate her from the dead body.

“Shut the hell up!” Schügel yelled at her.

One soldier kicked her in the head.

“Get her away from here, her screams will distract the firemen,” Schügel ordered. Two Peacewalkers dragged her away near the greenhouse in the backyard.

“No, let me go!” She yelled.

All the soldiers except Schügel and the sniper, who were ten feet away, started beating Xana up: in the head, in her belly, in her chest. They ripped her shirt, trying to humiliate her, but she kept struggling. Two men handcuffed her and grabbed her by the arms to drag her to the greenhouse entrance.

“What do we do, Sir?” One soldier asked.

“We need to know her minions’ whereabouts. I need intel, do what you must to get it from her!” Schügel fumed. “Make her suffer. Make her pay for killing all these people and destroying the University. Make her spit out the info we need.”

“We need her alive, Sir!” the sniper interrupted, with no emotion in her intonation. “We need to take her to headquarters. Alive and unharmed!”

Habondia kept struggling, and one of the soldiers kicked her foot’s broken bone. She shrieked.

“You bitch, you slaughtered the delegations!” The soldiers cried at her. “You burned innocent students alive!”

“I didn’t… Please, no!” She begged.

“This thing might start a world war!” A soldier shouted and hit her in the cleavage, she vomited blood.

The men ripped her remaining clothing, leaving her almost naked. But she kept resisting.

“Alive, I said.” The sniper interrupted, firing her gun into the air.

“We have to secure her! Get her out of my way,” Schügel ordered, pushing away the soldiers and grabbing a rifle. “An Alban is coming to pick you up. At least, you’ll travel in first class,” he hit her in the head. Silencing her.