City-21 “Kyiv,” UNSA Protectorate, Avril Dominion
Sky Bastion “Queen Lamark,” Deck 2, Temple Training Grounds
Alba Maria Rodriguez Marquez, August 17, 2049, 7:29 AM
Alba drew in a deep breath, and the cold air of the training grounds bit her lungs. The massive, shadowy hall deep within Deck 2 of the Sky Bastion “Queen Lamark” was dimly illuminated by faint sensor lights and thin strips of indicators lining the floor’s perimeter. There were no windows — just a weak, ambient glow that etched jagged shapes in the darkness: metal structures and other objects strewn across the uneven ground and bolted to the walls.
This space itself was a trap; with its treacherous terrain, any careless misstep could easily result in a broken leg. And lurking above, invisible high in the gloom, Protectorate combat drones were hovering, silent and waiting, ready to unleash a storm of gunfire at any second.
She stood at the center of it all — a lone, slender figure, her posture deceptively relaxed, arms and head lowered.
Her attire was pared down to the essentials: a black combat suit that hugged her frame like a second skin, lightweight boots, and gloves. Dynamic shielding pads covered her knees and elbows, adjusting fluidly to her every move. Thin Geist-Lumen conduits protruded from her nostrils, tracing her cheekbones as if glued to the skin, before curling behind her ears to merge at the nape of her neck. From there, they fed into the output port of the combat module embedded on her back.
With her body locked in a state of constant regenerative stimulation — already far surpassing anything a human could achieve — Alba’s hair had grown back by four millimeters, and every scar from her countless past surgeries had faded without a trace. The result gave her a look as though she were wearing a perfectly snug, white wool cap molded to her scalp.
A tight band was covering the girl’s eyes, pressing firmly against her skin. But this wasn’t a visor. Quite the opposite — this training’s purpose was to fight blind, relying solely on instincts and skill.
Her task was to refine the synergy between two Geist-token attributes vital for every Priest-Analyst in the Temple. Last night, during a late training session, she made a breakthrough, pushing her Mind Acceleration attribute to Level 2. This advancement unlocked Neural Burst, an active ability that granted her ten seconds of heightened mental acceleration, with its potency scaling in proportion to the amount of Geist-Lumen she consumed.
Her mentor had stressed the necessity of mastering this new skill to absolute perfection. Reaching the second level was easily enough, but the climb to the third would demand relentless effort. And the fifth? That could take years.
“I reached Level 5 and unlocked Neural Surge after four months of grueling, nonstop training. The High Techno-Priest of the Protectorate did it in two and a half. No one can achieve it faster!”
It was then that Alba made a vow to herself: no matter how brutal or relentless her training became, she would manage the same in two months. She would surpass Maksim!
In truth, she still hadn’t worked up the courage to tell her mentor about a strange, almost mystical connection she felt with Maksim. She could sense fragments of his experiences — unclear but undeniably real. And she knew, beyond any doubt, that he had already surpassed her in his mastery of Mind Acceleration. That knowledge ignited a fire in her, driving her to push beyond her limits in training and endure more, even to subject herself to the excruciating pain of accelerated medical procedures.
Yesterday, she’d finally undergone implantation of the “Eye of God” into her surgically prepared right eye socket. By this morning, her synchronization level had surpassed fifty percent, thanks to the nanites she had forced her body to accept despite the searing pain. With that milestone achieved, her personal physician had authorized combat training with the Divine Foresight attribute.
In the arena’s configuration panel, Alba had pushed every setting to its absolute limit: maximum difficulty, the highest possible number of drones, and pain sensitivity cranked up to the extreme threshold of 500%.
A piercing siren shattered her semi-conscious meditation.
“Divine Foresight, Anticipating Movements, activate! Mind Acceleration, Neural Burst, activate! Combat Synergy!” she shouted. Verbal activation cues still came easier to her than other forms.
Her body moved on instinct, tensing like a coiled spring before launching the girl high into the air.
From the shadows, fifteen combat drones streaked forward at breakneck speed. “Just a dozen?” the thought flickered in her hyper-charged mind, even as the control panel had promised no fewer than thirty. But the AI system didn’t disappoint: another fifteen detached from the ceiling rails, diving in unison to join the swarm.
The first coordinated volley unleashed a storm of gunfire, forcing Alba into a gravity-defying twist mid-air. With Divine Foresight and the implanted Eye of God, the Priest-Analyst could “see” the trajectories of every bullet in her mind — not just where, but precisely when each would pass. This clarity allowed her to weave through the barrage, evading 80% of the projectiles with calculated precision. The rest she deflected with her kinetic shield, momentarily compressing its force field at the point of contact. She didn’t stop the bullets outright, just subtly redirecting their paths with near-surgical finesse and conserving her energy.
With a sharp, metallic clink, her boots landed on a beam scattered across the arena floor. Wasting no time, Alba pushed off into another leap, both hands rising to aim her officer-grade needle guns. In a split second, the rapid-fire weapons unleashed a combined salvo of twenty needles.
Four drones locked in her sights, each receiving five needles. The first four stripped away their kinetic shields, while the fifth struck each target dead-on. Two drones went down immediately, caught in direct hits. The other two attempted sharp dives, spiraling into evasive maneuvers — but it didn’t matter. Alba controlled the needles mid-flight, ensuring not a single one missed its mark.
Her second leap ended, and she landed with a feral grin. No one could rival her. Not Maksim. Not anyone else. She would surpass them all. She would grow stronger. No compromises.
But the remaining drones weren’t idle. Their afterburners roared to life as they rapidly reorganized into a combat formation, encircling her from all sides.
“They’re too well-coordinated,” the girl noted, twisting into an elegant pirouette to dodge another concentrated volley. Returning fire, she cut down several more targets in the blink of an eye.
Another sharp inhale flooded her lungs with Geist-Lumen, driving the synergy into overdrive. Reading the maneuvers of the remaining drones as if they were laid bare before her, Alba darted through the space, displaying astonishing agility. Her movements, sharpened by Protectorate combat implants and intense DeepVR training, showcased an acrobatic mastery far beyond human limits. Every calculated twist and leap was punctuated by a burst of five precise needles.
In mere seconds, the arena exploded into a frenzy of light and sound. One by one, drones plummeted to the floor, their metallic frames crashing with deafening clangs. The fiery reflections danced across the walls, briefly illuminating Alba’s sweat-soaked face, her features alight with pure exhilaration. If anyone could have seen her eyes, they would’ve caught the unmistakable spark of battle-born ecstasy.
One second remained on Neural Burst. One final drone — faster and more cunning than the rest — circling above, unleashing a relentless hail of bullets. Yet, under the lens of Divine Foresight, even its complex maneuvers were reduced to predictable patterns. Alba saw it all: its angles, its trajectories, its fatal openings.
With a slight tilt of her shaved head, she evaded the final burst of bullets, which whizzed past her cheek with just two centimeters away, but not a single one grazed her skin.
Her arms shot up, twin needle guns already firing six projectiles before the weapons even fully leveled. She adjusted their paths mid-air with razor-sharp precision, ensuring every shot found its mark.
The drone erupted in a final blinding flash, casting sharp shadows across the dark training hall as silence fell once more.
Alba dropped to one knee, gasping for breath. The Geist-Lumen in her conduits had darkened to near-black, the system on her back letting out a sharp, mechanical howl as it began purging and re-saturating the depleted gas.
The air was thick with the tang of ozone and the acrid bite of gunpowder. Slowly, the girl pushed herself to her feet, her chest heaving as the euphoria and raw fury of Combat Synergy ebbed away. Her mind, just now seething with energy, began to settle, easing into its usual working rhythm.
Deep down, the Priest felt a wave of relief wash over her. She had won again. Another step forward. Another triumph. Sliding both needle guns into the holsters strapped to her thighs, Alba allowed herself a faint smile as she peeled off her gloves. She ran a hand over her damp, sweat-slicked scalp before flicking the moisture away with a sharp motion.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
In her augmented reality display, the evaluations of four AI arbiters appeared, scoring her performance. The combined result: 9.29.
“Perfect,” she thought, her gaze drifting across the smoldering remains and mangled shards of metal scattered across the arena. “Stronger every day. Faster. Sharper. Whatever it takes. I’ll reach the top and take everything I’m owed. And I will never lose... to anyone. Especially to Max.”
The ceiling panels gradually brightened, casting a soft glow over the room as Alba removed the “pseudo-visor” from her head. The iris of her left eye, faintly pulsating, slowly contracted to its usual size, the molten gold hue fading with it. Her right eye, however, was no longer truly hers. Its enormous obsidian-black pupil dominated the socket, an unbroken void where an iris should have been.
“Phew… That’s enough for today,” she thought with a wry smile. “Shower first, then breakfast. I’ll go over the training session analysis afterward. If I don’t eat soon, my stomach’s going to start digesting itself.”
The girl made her way toward the exit, heading for the White-Class junior officers’ showers. Walking through the corridor, she turned into the designated passageway lined with individual shower stall doors. Finally, she reached the one marked with a plaque that read: Second Lieutenant Alba Maria Rodriguez Marquez.
Behind the automatic door, she stepped into the familiar “capsule” — a compact space measuring three by five meters. It wasn’t merely a personal changing room like those in fitness centers. More akin to a hybrid storage-and-recovery chamber, it was designed for both functionality and post-training relaxation.
On the left wall stood three robotic stations, ready to handle the replacement of the Temple Analyst-Priest’s external equipment. The first station currently held her dorsal module, the standard-issue rig for her priest attire, enhanced with two Geist-token manipulators. These devices, typically used for managing complex structural-energy constructs, could also function as an additional pair of arms when the situation demanded.
The right wall housed a generously sized locker for her personal belongings and clothing, a sink complete with a mirror and a hairdryer. The latter wasn’t of much use to Alba just yet, but she’d been reminded — perhaps with a touch of humor — that her hair would grow back faster than she might expect. A sturdy bench offered a comfortable place to sit, rounding out the room’s utilitarian design.
Pausing just at the edge of the bathmat, Alba allowed herself a moment to appreciate the quiet comfort of this place. Despite its strictly functional purpose, she had infused the space with small but meaningful personal touches, transforming it into something distinctly hers. A soft pink bathmat lay neatly on the floor, floral-patterned beige towels hung nearby, a playful sticker adorned the corner of the mirror, and a short, cozy bathrobe hung on a hook, completing the unexpectedly homey atmosphere.
A few quick commands through her augmented reality interface, and her dorsal module whirred to life, purging the toxic Geist-Lumen from her conduits. The tubes peeled away from her cheekbones and hung limply. Alba carefully removed them — first from her left nostril, then the right — and walked over to the second station on the left wall. Turning her back to it, she stepped into position.
The manipulators emerged smoothly from their recessed slots in the wall, gently grasping the dorsal module. The AR interface lit up with a diagram of her connections, each spinal port turning red one by one.
“Disconnect,” she said softly, though the automated system had already begun its task.
Once the process was complete, Alba stepped away from the wall, exhaling sharply as she glanced down at her chest. As always, just minutes after combat, right as the Geist-Lumen system powered down, the familiar surge of arousal hit her like a wave. It was so intense that her nipples, hardened by the reaction, stood out clearly through the tight combat suit.
“Damn side effects… I need to calm down before hitting the shower.”
She swiftly removed the protective pads from her elbows and knees, then ran her hand along the central seam of her combat suit. The high-tech material split apart seamlessly, responding to her touch, and Alba stepped out of it with practiced grace. The suit slid into the intake slot of the cleaning machine, while the protective gear found its place in her locker. Now completely naked, she lowered herself onto the soft bathmat, sitting cross-legged, and closed her eyes.
It took just over ten minutes to fully regain her composure. In truth, there was nothing forbidden about this — sexual relationships within the White Class were entirely permitted. Most junior priests, however, relied on chemical suppressants to keep focus undisturbed during their studies.
Alba, still attractive even after undergoing extensive implant surgeries, could have found a partner easily, if she had wanted to. But she didn’t. Nor did she wish to suppress this particular drive — a drive that mostly brought to mind a single name: “Maksim.” Her intuition as a priest warned her that taming this passion might sever the inexplicable connection she shared with him.
And she couldn’t allow that to happen. That connection — one-sided though it might be — had been a driving force behind much of her progress. It fueled her determination, her focus, her need to surpass him. Yet, despite the intensity of her feelings, she refused to release her tension through physical means. Instead, she turned to an old, reliable method: meditation.
Meditation hadn’t been a significant part of her life before the Protectorate. But as a priest, it had become an indispensable tool, one she had come to rely on. Sitting quietly on the mat, she let her heightened state gradually dissolve, her body settling into calmness as her mind steadied.
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City-21 “Kyiv,” UNSA Protectorate, Avril Dominion
Sky Bastion “Queen Lamark,” Deck 4, Officers’ Café
Alba Maria Rodriguez Marquez, August 17, 08:49 AM
Satisfied, Alba set aside the empty plate from her fourth course and, after a brief moment of thought, eagerly slid the fifth closer — a steaming dish of cheesy scrambled eggs studded with shrimp and tomatoes. Mid-bite, she noticed Jurgen von Scholz approaching her table.
He caught the girl in an exceptionally good mood. The glow of a successful training session, a soothing massage, and a stint in the sauna lingered on her face. And the good meal just now also played its part —the nanomachines in her body were loudly demanding energy replenishment, which she was only happy to provide.
“May the sun shine upon you, White Sister,” he began with the informal salutation of the Protectorate’s Warrior Brotherhood.
Although Alba had started adjusting to her elevated social standing, she still found it astonishing to be addressed as an equal by someone like Jurgen von Scholz, the head of the Fourth Division of the Internal Security and Counterintelligence Service for the Protectorate of UNSA. The very notion of such a high-ranking man as Oberst-Protector showing deference to a Second Lieutenant was enough to momentarily take her aback.
Still, as a capable Junior Priest-Analyst, she recovered instantly.
“And upon you, Warrior Brother,” she replied calmly with respect and confidence. After all, both the Red and White classes were integral parts of the Warrior Brotherhood, and there were no non-combatant priests in the Protectorate. Thus, situations like these allowed protocol to gracefully ignore the massive gulf between their ranks.
“May I sit? I won’t take up much of your time,” Jurgen asked, his tone courteous yet authoritative.
“Of course. Please, join me for breakfast.”
“I’d be honored,” von Scholz said, completing the formalities by breaking off a small piece of bread and sipping the berry juice that had been delivered by the café’s automated system the moment he settled at her table.
The concentration of Geist-lumen in Alba’s conduits surged, the sudden spike mirroring her decision to engage the priestly analytics before Oberst-Protector even had a chance to speak. Her intuition had already indicated that it was no ordinary conversation.
Her guess was confirmed when he placed a black security card on the table. The device, marked with second-level clearance, activated a semi-transparent force field. From this moment on, their discussion was entirely private, shielded under the full authority of Internal Security. Nothing beyond the barrier could be seen or heard.
“I trust that the contents of this conversation will remain strictly confidential,” von Scholz began. “The Grand Techno-Priest of the Temple is aware, and your mentor is apprised that I have plans for you. Beyond them, no one below the highest officers of my service is permitted to know. Do you accept these terms?”
“Of course,” Alba replied briefly, her mind already mapping out potential scenarios with all the efficiency of her analytical training.
“Excellent. Then let’s proceed. I’ve secured approval from the High Council to formally transfer you to my division. Naturally, this is purely a bureaucratic measure to grant you the required clearance level. You will continue your path as a Priest-Analyst, but in parallel, you will work for my service. Your expertise will provide invaluable support to the Protectorate.”
By this point, Alba had already constructed several hypotheses and discarded all but one. The Security Service was after someone connected to the Chernykh team — the group that had successfully evaded the Protectorate and disappeared from Kyiv. But it wasn’t Maksim himself. That much was clear. Intriguing. Tilting her head slightly, she gestured for Jurgen to continue.
“Yes, we need your help specifically,” he confirmed, leaning slightly forward. “And in return, I’m prepared to offer you something valuable. I know about your… problem with dependence-and-hatred. And I can help you resolve it.”
“How do you—?!” Alba blurted, unable to mask her shock. The only person who knew about that was her mentor.
Before responding, von Scholz reached into his inner pocket and placed a small device on the table. It was no larger than a vape, with a reservoir filled with a toxic yellow liquid. Her breath caught as she felt the unmistakable pulse of familiar energy radiating from it, even through the table. Concentrated Geist-Lumen, no doubts!
“You see, I also use the priestly Geist-Lumen,” von Scholz began with a faint smile. “Many, many years ago I started my path as an Acolyte. I rose through the ranks to become a Senior Priest-Analyst of the Temple, but eventually, realized that my true calling was serving the Protectorate… elsewhere.”
“No… that’s not possible…” Alba stammered, her voice barely above a whisper. “Since… the Eye of God… it can’t be removed.”
Chuckling, von Scholz raised his hand to his right eye socket. A subtle press of his fingers, and he detached what appeared to be his organic face. Beneath it lay an identical socket to hers, complete with the same obsidian-black pupil, devoid of an iris.
“Actually, it was never removed,” he said, reattaching the intricately crafted mask with practiced ease. “You know, I figured out your issues on my own. We’re kind of alike, you and me. Or rather, I was like you once, many years ago. And yes, Alba, the Protectorate and I need Alisa. Not Maksim.”
“So… she’s really the reason behind Directive 9/00? The one I initiated? Just one question, Oberst-Protector,” said Alba, who had already studied the part of the Protectorate’s history that was not meant for ordinary people’s ears. “Is Alisa truly the same as Iris?”
“Not yet. But eventually… perhaps. If we don’t act in time. As for Maksim, you’ll have complete freedom to deal with him as you see fit — destroy him, enslave him, whatever you choose. That, I promise you.”
“But it won’t be easy,” he continued, his voice growing more serious. “This is a tangled web of contradictions and mysteries. That man slipped through our grasp once already. The evidence is circumstantial at best — fragments, guesses. But it’s all we have.”
“That’s why we need you,” von Scholz said, his piercing gaze locking onto hers. “On one hand, you’re a Temple priest, destined to wield powers few can comprehend. On the other hand, you’re just a mortal woman, emotionally and energetically tied to Maksim.”
“Alisa will always stay close to him. Hence, to catch him is to catch her,” Oberst-Protector finished, leaning forward slightly, his intensity palpable. “I won’t give you orders — I have no right. And I won’t pressure you. I’ll ask only once.”
“Well, Alba Maria Rodriguez Marquez… are you in?”