22:17, February 1, 2295

  35 E Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60601, Terra Alliance territory

  Lorna Weiss ducked into the shadow, her hands moving to pull out a hair tie, pcing it between her teeth as she gathered her golden locks, sweeping them into a half-up ponytail before securing it with the tie.

  Then, from her coat pocket, she retrieved a tiny bottle of vender perfume. Three precise spritzes - one behind each ear, another at the nape of her neck. Men like Thomas never understood why she bothered with such things before a fight. But then, they'd never had to prove themselves worthy of the battlefield quite the way she had.

  "Thomas has engaged the Fenris Horde’s nest," Diego's voice came through her ear-mounted comm. "Heavy resistance, the Vanguard squad is holding. That Diabolisk's getting closer to Triumph Tower, though."

  "Roger," Lorna murmured, her hand finding Baldr's deactivated hilt in her pocket. The familiar metal was cool against her palm. “One problem at a time,” she murmured to herself.

  She emerged from cover, walking through the financial district's sterile corridors of steel and gss. The street ahead was too quiet. A faint green glow spilled from the entrance of a derelict bank, accompanied by sounds that felt nothing like human.

  The scene inside froze her blood. Three figures hunched over shattered Helionite containers, their dark brown bodies twisted, a juxtaposition of barked skin and rotten flesh. Draugs. The same monstrosities that had torn through that restaurant in Oslo eleven years ago.

  Around them y the bodies of civilians - fresh corpses that could only have died just minutes before.

  With a flick of her left wrist, she activated her Quantum Watch, the silver, sleek device humming, its blue dial glowing as it synchronized with her neural activity. The watch's interface projected a translucent dispy into the air, directly in front of her eyes. She focused on the approaching man’s oily, ragged face, and the Quantum Watch's sensors immediately captured a high-resolution image.

  "Mac Watrous. Ex-professor of the Champaign Institute of Technology. Css-1 Terrorist," she said aloud, the watch tagging the image as it synced with her mind.

  Watrous's head snapped up, eyes gleaming red in his skull-like face. A nightmarish grin on his mutated countenance. "Ah, the Terra Alliance sends its favorite dog. Or should I say...bitch?"

  The other Draugs rose, nuclear waste dripping from their mandibles. Lorna drew Baldr, but didn't activate the bde yet. Her heart thundered in her chest, but her voice was still steady. "Last chance to surrender, Watrous."

  His ugh echoed off marble walls. "Surrender? When we're so close to true evolution?" His crimson eyes fred brighter. "Rís, Beinagrind!"

  The civilian corpses began to twitch and rise, flesh sloughing away to reveal skeletons. The Draugs turned and oriented on Lorna.

  "The rich feast while the poor starve," Watrous procimed. "But the Nucleus Virus? It makes equals of us all."

  Baldr's quantum bde ignited with a hum, casting azure light across the bank's marble floor. Five opponents now - three horrors that had once been human, and two skeletal puppets driven by Void energy.

  "Let's see how equal we are," Lorna shifted her stance.

  The first Draug charged, whining. Lorna met its with Baldr's bde, blue energy searing through rotten meat. The second tried to circle behind while the third moved to cut off her retreat. The skeletons advanced more slowly, tracking her movements.

  But Lorna was already moving. Baldr's bde caught reaching cws, then swept upward through corroded flesh. The creature's torso split diagonally, bck fluid spraying.

  A skeleton's bony fingers raked her coat, but the ballistic weave held. She spun with the impact, using the momentum to drive Baldr through its skull. The second skeleton lurched forward, forcing her to dance backward.

  The remaining Draugs moved, one high, one low. Lorna vault-rolled over the lower attack, her Psytum Sword a defensive arc that kept the higher Draug at bay.

  "Impressive footwork," Watrous observed from his position. "But you're just deying the inevitable."

  The st skeleton charged. Lorna let it commit to its attack, then pivoted at the st second. The skeleton's momentum carried it into one of the Draugs, tangling them momentarily.

  Turning around, she cleaved with her psionic sword twice - once through bone, once through corrupted flesh.

  The final Draug proved the most dangerous. It was evidently a veteran soldier in life, each strike measured.

  Lorna's bde met its arm - Baldr's quantum edge against some dark limb that looked like a mantis arm attached to the creature's torso. For a moment, Lorna saw humanity in its eyes. Then she saw the Alliance insignia, a navy blue maple leaf in the center with two eagles facing it, half-hidden under rot and metal.

  One of their own, turned.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered, before ending it with a thrust through its head.

  "Járn-?nd!" Watrous's spell caught her. Dark sand erupted around them, disorienting.

  Time for the real fight to begin.

  Lorna's sword cut through the whirling sand, but Watrous's barrier absorbed the impact.

  His glowing red eyes bzed brighter, metal teeth bared in a skeletal grin. "The Alliance's favorite Psi Lynx. Sent on missions to kill those who disagrees with the government, or to bed those that cannot be sin."

  "Fulmen Argentum!" Silver lightning crackled from her fingers, dispersing part of the barrier.

  Watrous sneered, directing the dark sand in spiraling patterns. "How many of us have you hunted? How many humans seeking true equality have you sughtered just so you have enough money to pay the next month’s rent?"

  "Spare me the manifesto!" Lorna strode closer.

  The sand whirled faster around Watrous. "Look at our precious Alliance. The wealthy in their high towers while the rest scrabble for just three meals a day."

  "So what?" She shot back.

  "At least the Virus offers power to anyone brave enough to cim it." He gestured at the fallen Draugs. "These volunteers came willingly."

  "Volunteers?" Lorna's voice dripped. "Like the woman you forced to birth that Diabolisk?"

  Watrous's grin widened. "Ah, you know about that? She's quite content now. The power she's gained..."

  Then dark sand erupted from his mouth. The particles buzzed with mint green Void energy, distorting the air itself.

  "You still think what we’re doing is wrong?" he taunted. "The Nucleus Virus, the Fenris Horde, the Radi-Mons — are our people’s liberation. Ask Skarn - he sees what you could become!"

  "Skarn's defeated," Lorna spat, unching another strike with her sword. "And you'll join him soon."

  Watrous ughed, his sound coarse. "Defeated? He's merely waiting. No one knows how to kill him."

  "Yet." She retorted.

  "But he speaks of you so very often, Lorna. The perfect crucible, he calls you."

  "Gcies Lunae Fulgur!" Lorna countered, sending a bolt of lunar energy toward the barrier, dispersing part of the sand shield. Watrous snarled.

  "Kyrre Ginnungagaps!" His Void spell struck without warning.

  Lorna felt her throat tightened, her Aether suddenly suppressed. Baldr's bde sputtered and died as Watrous lunged. He body smmed her into the marble floor, metal fingers digging into her shoulders.

  "The perfect crucible, you hear? That's what Primarch Skarn calls you." he hissed, his skull-like face inches from hers. Decay and ozone filled her nostrils. "He’s not defeated, little lynx. Just waiting."

  As Watrous's weight pressed down on her, Lorna twisted her right hip, creating just enough space to draw Váli — a white 10mm Magnum from her left side. The pistol was sleek in its matte surface. The gun’s barrel was slightly elongated, tapering off with a precision muzzle. The grip itself was ergonomic, fitting perfectly into Lorna’s hand.

  She fired the 10mm Magnum. The round tore through his knee, bck fluid spraying over her pants as augmented bone shattered.

  Watrous's grip loosened with a guttural scream, but before Lorna could bring Váli up for a killing shot, his cwed hand knocked her arm wide. The shot punched a hole in marble as they grappled on the floor, his strength forcing her gun arm down. His teeth snapped inches from her throat.

  Lorna drove her knee into his damaged leg, her strength making him rear back just enough. Váli's barrel found his temple as they were both locked in pce.

  "The Diabolisk," she snarled, finger tight on the trigger. "How did you create it?"

  "Why, from the loving womb of a human mother! Transformed by the Nucleus Virus and kept safe. Loved. Content. Beyond your reach – " His words cut off in a scream as she shifted her aim and put a round through his foot. Bck ichor pooled beneath them, mixing with what might have once been blood.

  "Stop fucking bullshiting," Lorna pressed Váli harder against his temple. "Tell me the truth!"

  "But I speak the truth, little lynx. Mars. The Primary Hive Cluster. That’s where all the Hundkyndas — chosen broodmothers – go!" he gasped, a gurgling ugh. "Ah, the youngest one — her gift to the city... the Diabolisk approaches Triumph Tower. A message to those fat cats in their gss towers!"

  Lorna's grip on Váli tightened. This was not the first time the rumor circuted: women in developed countries across the Sol System being taken and forced to birth such monsters in some distant hive. It defied science on too many levels to be believable.

  Death would be too merciful. They needed proof, or at least information.

  "Diego!" she called out, keeping her gun trained on Watrous as she rose. "I need a containment team here at Patriot's Bank. Now."

  "Copy that," Diego replied. The ground trembled - stronger now. Close. "Thomas! Status?"

  "Got my hands full at the nest!" Thomas's voice crackled through the comm, punctuated by distant gunfire. "These things just keep coming."

  "I'll call Emmanuel," Diego cut in. "He can meet you at Triumph Tower, Lorna. You shouldn't face that thing alone."

  "Understood." Lorna put one final round through Watrous's other leg, pinning him down. The Draug’s howl echoed off marble walls as she retrieved Baldr's cylindrical silver hilt from the floor. "We’ll speak again. Count on it."

  Lorna clenched Baldr’s hilt in one hand, pulling a vial of Indra-Sprite from her coat with the other. The liquid inside glowed neon-blue, like an elixir of life.

  She unscrewed the cap and took one gulp, exhausting half its content, the liquid scorching her throat with an electric bite, radiating warmth that surged through her veins like molten silver. Her vision sharpened, the marble walls and remnants of shattered gss snapping into acute crity.

  For a split second, she caught her reflection in the glint of a broken window. Her own eyes, sapphire blue, stared back.

  "You won't make it..." Watrous hissed from behind her. "Do you even know how many men it takes to kill a Diabolisk?"

  "We have me." Corking the vial back and pocketing it, Lorna broke into a run, leaving Watrous bleeding but alive for interrogation.

  Right now, there was a Diabolisk to kill. One monster at a time.

  velwoven