Lying in wait under a pile of rubble, Anissa recited a simple nursery rhyme to calm her nerves, worried sick about Mother. She didn’t ask, but she could bet her soul that Impatient One shared the feeling. Shamans and wolf hags’ pce was beside their warlord in the war, but Mom was often unconventional in handling matters.

  Her pack had taken up positions in the ruined government buildings bordering the sprawling terraforming complex. Immediately after the colpse of the shield, the Horde’s missiles streaked into every corner of Houstad, and the magnificent parks across from the complex had caught fire, surrounding the pce in a fiery cage and resulting in the destruction of the collective efforts of dozens of scientists and countless boratory assistants of the old. Oaks, birches, cacti, firs, roses, and every experimental pnt of the Old World, a prototype of their scattered copies, were either reduced to ashes or withered from the damage.

  Commercial districts had been reduced to rubble, bridges had fallen, staining the waters, and corpses had sunk to the bottom of rivers. Houstad screamed in agony composed of gunfire, crackling fires, bombardment, and the thunder of falling buildings. But the main terraforming complex had its own defensive field, an ingenious invention loaned by Iterna and supplied by wireless energy transfer. Shells spshed harmlessly against the invisible field, sending shards over the Wolfkins’ hideouts and not threatening the slightest overload. Smooth, solid walls built from the toughest alloys known to the Recmation Army served as a secondary line of defense. Even now, a small host of technicians and scientists, organized by Till Ingo, worked in the bunkers, calmly adjusting the strained process of healing the continent. Short of deploying nukes in the vicinity, nothing could reach them without defeating the army.

  In theory. If, say, a rat carrying access codes granting security clearance were to sneak in, it would be capable of wreaking potentially untold devastation. While the privileges of this potential troublemaker had been revoked, who knew if he had disappeared someone and obtained a way in? Thus, Anissa, Impatient One, Chak, and the rest waited for this treacherous, worthless rat, both itching to stop him and to settle certain scores…

  She turned her head, looking at the distant airport through the narrow gap. Another volley of missiles took flight, and ser beams followed, closing in on a Horde’s aircraft and opening holes the size of barns in its hull. Spinning in the air, it plunged into the apartment building, fttening it during the ensuing cataclysmic explosion.

  At least Igni, Elzi, and Marco are safe. Anissa thought with relief. Come to think of it, so much had happened tely. How come she felt as if ages had passed since their war against Techno-Queen? Bogdan was alive, Marco was unharmed, and most of her friends weren’t torn to pieces… Why didn’t she treasure them more? The teaching of the Spirit of Loss came to mind, giving her the much-needed succor to cope with the idea that she would never hear Bogdan’s voice again.

  Death is a part of life. We enter the cycle, screaming and kicking, competing over food, and rage guides our bodies from the first days. But no matter how hard we rage, our loved ones are whisked away from us, one after another. Death is the immutable part of reality. Remember them. Grieve if you must. Everything ends. Warlords, nations, continents, even worlds die. Eventually, even the Blessed Mother will pass on to the Great Beyond and the Spirits will be forgotten. God, mortal, strong or weak, none is eternal. By accepting this fact, you understand. Death is not the end; it’s the beginning of another journey, and any separation ends. What matters is how you lived and what you fought for. Such is the truth.

  Impatient One shifted, cracking her knuckles and drawing Anissa’s attention. She ordered the bulk of her pack to reinforce the defenses inside the complex, paw-picking six soldiers for their age and expendability to join the ambush: two males, a scout, and three warriors. Technically, Anissa and Impatient One weren’t supposed to risk their hides, but what leader would let her soldiers be put at risk alone?

  “You are worried about them,” Anissa accused Yennifer. Impatient One, she corrected herself.

  “I should have been at the warlord’s side,” Impatient One answered on the private channel, unhindered by the tons of debris on top of her. “Too many of our kin have left us, unblessed and unremembered. It is my duty to be at the forefront.”

  “You are worried about them,” Anissa repeated in a softer voice. Once they won the war, she and Yennifer would undergo a ritual, torturing themselves to the point of unconsciousness to exorcise unworthy desires, but for now, she refused to lie to herself. Marco was over there. “Me too. I won’t let him wake up to the desotion. Think he’ll like candies?”

  “Act your rank, Wolf Hag,” the shaman growled the gentle rebuke, and Yennifer added, “Sure he will. But his stomach is feeble. No chocote. Give him peanut butter and bread, unless you wish him to dirty himself. You think Elzada will be a suitable soulmate for Ignacy?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “I am asking you. The girl is queer.”

  “Queer? No, I am pretty sure she is into males…”

  “I saw her reading your prayer book.”

  “She did? Cheeky girl. Guess it was a payback for me stealing her diary.”

  “You should take better care of your belongings, unless you want Chak to carry your tent,” Yennifer poked pyfully.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “How will you clothe your cubs…”

  “I get it!”

  “If Elzada wants to be a shaman, tell her to step forward and be judged.”

  Anissa smiled, watching the street. She missed her sister. Yennifer had an occasional streak of bitchiness born out of a necessity to be the best, but she often read to her sibling before naptime. More than once, she had brought home the tasty carcasses of the insectoid warriors when her brothers failed to get the milk in the pits. She had this stoic exterior, but deep in her soul, she still cared, which hindered her ascension into the shamans’ ranks.

  This was the funniest thing about duties. There were so many of them that a person was bound to break several. Not even the shamans were truly infallible; even Lacerated One had faults. The Spirits watched, judging the intent. Accepting imperfection, striving to be better, was another way of venerating the tribe’s stern deities. It was for this reason that she had decided to postpone her training and become a soulmate to her beloved. Yennifer wouldn’t understand, but Anissa wanted to have cubs to call her own before accepting the responsibility.

  Her mechanical eye whirled, catching shadows down the street, near the ruined sentry post leading into the complex, and next to the tourist facility. Though it was a heretical spawn of technology that had sheared away part of her soul, it, like the impnts, had its uses. Her biological eye failed to detect movement, and the smog in the air pyed tricks on her nose, but the crimson ocur did its task brilliantly, catching and recording an armored hand. The wolf hag’s lips parted in a broad, predatory grin, and she signaled for the pack to prepare.

  Vengeance was nigh.

  “Pack Anissa reporting. We have spotted hostiles. Repeat, we have sighted hostiles. Searching parties head our way for support; maybe we’ll leave you something to gnaw on,” she whispered into the comms, informing Command.

  The traitors clung to the shadows, as if they could protect them. Their overcoats had long since burned, but the state-mandated armor kept them alive as they darted from burning ruin to smoking ruin, closing in the distance to the complex, wary of meeting either Recimers or the hordemen. So caught in their treachery that they are prepared to backstab both sides… They carried incendiary grenade unchers and shardguns instead of the expected LMGs, and Anissa could bet that the perch above Chak had tensed at the understanding that his crew had failed to track every equipment crate.

  It wasn’t his fault. The Third had been undermanned for a tad too long, and the influx of new people had brought more chaos into the fold. Schalk hadn’t been merely cozying up to favors and gaining trust by assisting with deliveries; the bastard had also stolen from them.

  Chak clicked his mandibles over the comms, confusing Anissa. Impatient One nodded at the ground, and the wolf hag understood, noticing jumping pebbles. A heavy.

  She flexed her muscles, enjoying the reawakening power armor. No more risks. The insurrection dies today. Anissa roared, bulldozing herself to freedom with a single leap. Impatient One joined a moment ter, and together they were crossing the distance to their prey with vast bounds. Shards and grenades met them; the ocurs picked up fifty marks, and her pack added thirteen to that number, but it hardly mattered. Schalk’s ilk were Normies. The Wolfkins were not.

  The sisters’ paws caught the ground, flinging them off the firing line. Shards flew in both directions, and several traitors lost their limbs. Just a few, the pack had barely begun their attack, but it was enough for the shaman and the wolf hag to appear in their midst, unleashing the carnage. Anissa’s first swipe tore away a woman’s lower jaw, alongside her helmet. The traitor gurgled, giving a drowned scream of pain, but Anissa wasn’t finished with the bitch. She caught her by the shoulders and used her to block an incoming incendiary grenade. The fiery bst washed over the woman, entering through the gaping wound and cooking her alive.

  Impatient One rose from behind the traitors, her cws red. She had sunk them into the joints of their armor, maiming their knees, and then she tore the hands from two people like straws from a broom. She flung the tossed limbs into the retreating fool, abandoning the crippled people to be shot or bleed to death. Anissa’s paws caught a soldier by the helmet. With a single, swift jerk, she broke his neck.

  “No mercy for the betrayers!” Anissa yelled, foaming with rage. The fmes licked her armor; the steel casing of her prayer book had remained sealed shut, but she began intoning curses from the memory, invoking the Spirit of Pride to guide her righteous paw.

  A soldier aiming a shardgun at her disappeared in a bloody heap, killed by the pack. Her snarl sent a command, and the pack advanced, skulking around the edge of the battlefield to the shaman’s displeased gaze and the irritation of her troops who wanted to partake in the sughter. Anissa didn’t give a shit; Houstad had stolen enough from her. Chak’s coiled form began to slither down the ruined building, his needle legs tossing his magnifying gsses aside. She had promised to summon him sooner and lied. No one under her command will die today.

  The sisters walked through the enemies, outpacing their aim, wrath fueling their movements. Cws gutted out the traitors, pierced through lenses, and jaws snapped through the helmets. A panicked traitor raised his arms, screaming that he was surrendering, not understanding what he had done.

  “Such is the fate of all cub-syers,” Impatient One closed her paw around the pleading man, cracking his skull like an overripe fruit.

  There could be no mercy or forgiveness for this specific act, not even if the state itself would have demanded it. Ignorance could be excused, but the btant malice had to be eradicated, as the Blessed Mother taught them. There were hopeless fools who had betrayed the Recmation Army for Iterna’s lies or the Oathtakers’ inversion, and some of them had even been recaptured ter. Aside from verbal outrage, the Wolfkins gave these individuals no further thought, for their actions targeted military personnel.

  But civilians and the nd itself? That was personal.

  A palm strike of Impatient One dented in the man’s sternum, killing him instantly. The shaman closed her paws, pummeling the opposition with pure iron-cd fists, not deeming them worthy of sullying her cws in their blood anymore. Everything in Anissa urged her to indulge her grief in the screams of the guilty, but she held back, mindful of her duties. Chak’s warning hadn’t been forgotten; she sensed tremors running underfoot, obviously distinct from the violent shaking caused by bombardment.

  When it came, it wasn’t a surprise. A metal limb, longer than her body, pierced the ruined sentry post. It nearly hit a male of her pack with its spinning cannon, but Anissa blocked the attack with a forearm. She scowled as she saw fshes and heard the roar of gunfire that knocked her and the soldier aside and crumpled her vambrace. Schalk burst through the ruins, sitting inside the massive loader. It was a bipedal walker, about five meters tall, and Schalk sat nestled in the cabin, partially shielded by the welded ptes. Crude, weaponized limbs repced the walkers’ arms.

  “Betrayer!” Anissa’s eyes met his, but the man turned his mech, heading for the shield. The walker’s arms swung, firing blindly around, scything two of his men and scaring away the pack.

  Dragena had ordered to take him alive, intending to squeeze every ounce of information about any assistants, willing or otherwise, who had been involved in this deed. But the sight of him brought a red veil to Anissa’s vision, and her fingers snatched the shardgun from her back. Zta. Bogdan. He’ll pay.

  “Out of my way, honey!” Something rammed into her side.

  Anissa had never been hit by a train, but she assumed it would feel simir. Her beloved skittered past her, antennas flying, his sharp legs hooking around the walker’s legs and tripping it. Chak wrapped the entire length of his segmented body around Schalk’s mech, lodging tips of his legs into joints and ammunition belts, jamming and slicing through them. With a single, titanic shove, the quartermaster toppled the limbless machine on its back, sinking his cws in both of Schalk’s knees through the protection. The former lieutenant howled, pulling a psma gun and pointing it at the round eyes.

  “How rude,” Chak chittered.

  A single cut severed the arm holding the weapon.

  “Well hello, fancy meeting you here, fel.” The toxicognaths closed on the neck. “You seem to be a helpful sort around here, showing people every nook and cranny of this fine city. Mind giving me a hand? Ah, well, don’t bother. You must be very tired. I’ll help myself.” A long neck stabbed into the severed arm, feeding it to the clicking mouth. “There was a boy. His name was Keon; he had a fine dy. The d had a bright future ahead: kids, family, a new job, friends… Before you took it from him, you little shit!” Without uncoiling, the Malformed raised the loader and smmed it into the ground, ripping a scream of pain from Schalk’s lips. “You owe the logistics. We are a spiteful sort, so I, as a civilized representative of our humble society, am going to pump you full of paralyzing venom, rexing every muscle. Then, I’ll chew you up, starting from your legs and going up. I assure you, it is wholly personal.”

  “So what’s stopping you, roach?” Schalk spat at the calm mandibles.

  “The enjoyment of observing you squirm and my distaste for human flesh. Well, the very least you can do is wish me bon appeti and have the decency to digest swiftly.”

  “Chak,” Anissa said. He tensed. Few would’ve recognized it, but their nights spent together had taught the wolf hag how to understand his emotions based on the slightest contortion of his body, which led to the shifting of his carapace. She grinned. “The correct phrase is Bon Appétit. I heard it from Soulless One. Leave me a bite.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Stop!” Impatient One barked, abandoning the combat to the pack. “Wolf Hag, obey the given orders.”

  Anissa scowled, ready to order the shaman to stand down. There was no need to take the traitor alive. But then her instincts kicked in, and she patted Chak on his head, stopping him from stabbing the man, and picked up the psma gun, which seemed like a cub’s toy in her paw. She aimed it at the bleeding stump and fired, cauterizing the wound and reveling in Schalk’s agonizing thrashing.

  That’s for Bogdan. She pnned to see the man’s execution, record it, and send the video to her precious cousins.

  “Why?” the wolf hag asked, shooting at another traitor who was running away. “Why help the invaders?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” The former lieutenant gritted his teeth, fighting the pain.

  “No.” Anissa shook her head. “No matter how I look at it, I don’t understand you. Was it tokens?” Schalk snorted. “Yes, you would not find any way to spend them. Authority? Brood Lord is the traitorous freak who holds no loyalty to anyone. You can’t be this dumb as not to realize that he would sughter you the moment you outlived your usefulness. And no one in the Horde will protect you! Why help the invaders?”

  “It’s malice,” Impatient One said, stepping closer. “He wanted to hurt us.”

  “Not… you specifically,” the man panted, struggling to sit, but Chak’s coils tightened. “Invaders.” He looked at them with burning hatred in his eyes, and Anissa imagined that both of his pupils seemed to gravitate toward each other. “Oh, that’s rich. That’s very, very rich hearing you whine about an invasion. The Recmation Army had conquered my homend, sughtered my father, broken my mother’s spine, and dragged us off to re-education camps as if we were the evil in need of persuasion! Who invaded who first, Anissa? I am only returning the favor!”

  “And for this, my brother had to be burned alive?” She stomped on the operator’s cabin, pressing a cw to his neck and panting heavily. “He never harmed you or your family, you bastard! You swore an oath to protect the citizens, damn it; your own people live in this very city, in these nds. You know damn well how painful it is to lose a family; how dare you inflict the same on the innocents!”

  “No one is innocent…” He yelled in pain as Anissa stomped again, breaking bones in his shoulder.

  “Don’t give me that crap!” Anissa hissed, feeling Impatient One’s disapproving gaze on her. The warlord had made her will known about the torture, but right now she didn’t care. That… thing. My brother! Her finger on the trigger twitched; she wiped the drool from her mouth. “Any cub trampled by the Horde is innocent.” Impatient One lowered, sniffed the loader, and circled the trapped man. “Every infant suffocated by the smoke, every hardworking soulmates are innocent, you son of a whore.”

  “Was I supposed to let it go?” Schalk smiled, sweating. His eyelids spasmed, causing him to blink too fast, and his skin paled. The corners of his lips twitched, and ripples ran down his cheeks. “To forgive and forget after the Recmation Army had carried out that brave massacre of theirs? To ignore the decimation of my nation, the disappearance of my culture and nguage, to pretend that my nightmares don’t exist? You asked why, but you already know the answer, Anissa! Bogdan was never my target; none of those who died in this war were my targets. I never wished them dead, but I gdly sacrificed them for a chance to get back at that snake! That emptiness you feel... I lived my life with it!”

  “If you had hunted the soldiers responsible for the ruin brought to your home, I’d understand.” Anissa grabbed Schalk by his pulsing, sweaty neck. “If you were feigning loyalty to get close and stab me in the back, I’d understand from the other side. Would even forgive. I am a soldier; we are expected to bear the responsibility for the deeds carried out by my comrades. But you didn’t do any of that, did you, Schalk? You had caused the exact same massacre, no! You despicable worm, you created… aided in fostering more grievous tragedy aimed at those who looked up to you for protection. You betrayed your oath; you betrayed your people… How many Schalks have seen their families die in this senseless war? You have become worse than those who destroyed your nation!”

  “Wolf hag!” Impatient One stood up and grabbed her shoulder. “Control yourself and look at the bigger picture. His troops were poorly equipped to handle the defenses inside the facility, much less us. After encountering us…”

  “He still hurried to the facility, yet there are no explosives on him…” Anissa whispered, immediately activating communications and ordering her allies to conduct an immediate security sweep.

  “What are you pying at, little snack?” Chak snapped mandibles before Schalk’s face. “No answer? Let’s see if we can loosen your tongue by unburdening you of one of your other limbs…”

  “Worse, Anissa?” asked the traitor, his every word accompanied by a snap. Ripples ran through his skin; his jaw dislocated and reset itself. “Wrong. We are greater.”

  The bridge of his nose sank deep into his face, and Anissa fired, no longer concerned with taking the man alive. Schalk lifted his head; his neck snapped and stretched, and his eyes flowed together, forming a single cyclopean dish. The psma spshed around his neck, bckening it instead of melting a canal for itself, and Chak gasped.

  That was the st she heard him say. A gasp. Not a proud cry, not any st words, but a single gasp, resembling the reaction of raiders whose lungs she had skewered with cws. Chak’s carapace exploded in its upper section, spraying fountains of white ichor and crimson blood into the shocked muzzle of the wolf hag. Twisted rags ending in hungry maws struck from the ruined body, and were it not for Impatient One pulling her back, Anissa would’ve lost her life to the fangs snapping near her nose.

  The rags shot upward, gaining the appearance of rubber hoses; their sagging skin changed color from bck to dirty brown, tightening in seconds, and the traitorous lieutenant broke free from his seat, standing easily on his already restored knees. In a span of less than a fraction of a second that she had lost sight of him, the man had changed.

  There was a cyclopean eye, glowing malevolently green in the center of his head; his face elongated, mimicking a Wolfkin’s snout to an extent, but rather than having rows of sharp fangs, he had eight teeth on each part of his jaw, eight round, blunt instruments more suited to biting and grinding than tearing and ripping. His body mass increased, tearing through his suit and armor, but overall the man remained slender, cking any excessive muscles, though he now stood taller than Anissa. Orange and brown devoured his natural brown color, four tendrils weaving in the air, protruding from his shoulder bdes. Schalk’s three-fingered foot stepped on a syringe rolling on the ground. He gnced at his missing arm, tensed his shoulder muscle, and a fresh hand emerged from the smooth skin.

  Anissa fired at him, shutting out her grief for Chak. She couldn’t… process it now, but she knew she wished to see the bastard dead. Schalk gleefully looked at her and leaned to the side, easily evading the psma bolt. Impatient One was already near, and the uppercut caught her in the chin. She dodged the cws, which gained the appearance of mounds of keratinized skin, but the knuckles sent her high. A single tendril spped, ming Anissa’s leg faster than she could react.

  Schalk emitted a weird mix of gurgle and whistle. He leapt aside, spttering himself against the field, and ignored the shards piercing his back. His flesh swallowed and spat them back, immediately closing the cerations as if his skin was a calm water pool, inevitably returning to its original state. Anissa crawled after him, shooting the monster in the back alongside her pack.

  It was wrong. Her own knee was destroyed, tendons severed, and she already suffered from the internal bleeding, but it won’t be enough to kill her. Schalk wasn’t a New Breed. Short of undergoing bio-sculpture in Iterna or being exposed to the Glow, no mortal could hope to ascend beyond allocated limits. And certainly not so fast or to such an extent.

  Schalk’s fist rammed into the field, bending it very slightly. It immediately rebounded, shoving his fist back, and the creature gurgled-whistled, raining an avanche of blows on the sturdy field to no avail. His tendrils stabbed at it as the turrets unfolded themselves from the walls, preparing to turn the man into a paste should the impossible happen. A beam shot from his eye, digging deep in the field, and she heard a groan from the complex’s construction as the resulting sparks bathed the man. The shield, capable of withstanding multiple volcanic eruptions concentrated in the single area, strained nearly to the limit.

  But it endured.

  “Unexpected encounter with a New Breed!” Anissa yelled into the coms. “A warlord-level threat has manifested near the complex. Pack Anissa requests immediate assistance!”

  Schalk turned as Impatient One nded heavily behind the wolf hag. She expected there to be panic or at least concern in his eyes, but his pupil narrowed, focusing on her. Shit.

  He disappeared, and she stabbed with her left arm, relying on instinct rather than reaction or perception. The cws met resistance, and Schalk screamed in his strange voice, convulsing after impaling his own groin on her cws. The impact recoiled her arm, her fingers snapping, but Anissa shoved the psma gun into his open wound, firing it immediately. An orange fme briefly traversed inside him, coloring his pate orange, and then she dropped face down, felled by a single chop that shattered her pauldron and the ground underneath.

  One of her lenses remained intact, and the vision of a foot bleeding the traitor’s face greeted her. Impatient One had already recovered and pressed on the creature, sshing at him without a single halt, outpacing his unnatural regeneration, and Schalk retreated, evading a thrust that had almost blinded him.

  A New Breed. Not a Malformed and certainly not a bioweapon. Schalk’s distorted features were even in their symmetry, and the mutation didn’t leave exposed muscles or organs. He was fully functional, but his clear inexperience in handling high-speed combat had proven that he wasn’t born with that sort of might. His tendrils should have closed in on the shaman, ripping her to shreds, but they hung over him, forgotten because of the stress.

  Not that he needed their assistance. The difference in their abilities was like that of a Wolfkin and a Normie wearing power armor. Schalk composed himself, and his hands closed on Impatient One’s wrist and elbow as she stabbed, and he broke the arm, pushing her elbow bone through the suit’s joint. Then his own fist nded in the shaman’s face, sending her flying into the pack, and hands closed around Anissa’s neck, lifting her up.

  She expected to be killed, but the monster turned, carrying her to the complex. Curse you!

  “Wolf Hag Anissa here! Remove my clearances now! The enemy has taken me captive, I repeat…”

  He approached the field, and she noticed the section of it preparing to open. Schalk’s grin widened.

  The ground trembled, and the traitor stepped back cautiously as the figure in the pitch-bck cloak rose. Zero tossed her cowl back; the brightest yellow light shone through a crack in her helmet over her eye, her paws on the rifle. A cw pressed against Anissa’s neck in silent threat, and the warlord tossed her weapon aside, spreading her clenched paws wide.

  “Hate us? Take it on me!” Her fist pounded over the smooth curves of her armor, and Zero sauntered toward the creature. “C’om, big man. What’s worth more, a wolf hag or a warlord?” Schalk mewled and grunted, baring his fangs and raising his hand. “Yes, that’s right…”

  A bck beam sliced through the traitor’s wrist, freeing Anissa. Before she could so much as try and attack him, Zero had already tossed the grenades into the open mouth, and the ensuing explosion flung Anissa away. The wolf hag nded with a twinge of pain in her shoulder. Zero pulled two expanding rods from the opened pockets on her legs and ducked, dodging the beam fired by the enraged traitor.

  The banging. Anissa had understood what had happened. Zero’s rifle had protruded two support ptforms and ‘stood’ up, automatically leveling its aim based on the feed coming from the warlord’s helmet while the woman was busy drawing the enemy’s attention to herself.

  Schalk broke through the clouds of smoke, his cyclopean eye still emitting the beam, his lips barely scorched. The tips of the stun rods stabbed into his foaming maw, unleashing enough electricity to stun even a skinwalker, and Zero drew herself high, forcing the man’s gaze upward. She began pushing him away from the complex, her rifle dragging after her on a barely visible string. The tendrils tried to bite her, acting in unison.

  That was a mistake. If the man had been a little more accustomed to his new body, he would’ve tried to attack legs, elbows, and ribs at different intervals. But by snapping their jaws at the same target, the torso, the tendril’s heads butted into each other as Zero stepped back and kicked, throwing them and Schalk off bance. Using the man as a foothold, she delivered a bone-crushing blow to his jaw with her second leg, never letting him recover from the violent vibrations his brain suffered.

  “Stand down!” Anissa ordered her pack. “The ultimate warlord hunts alone. Secure the area and eradicate any remaining pests.”

  She crawled toward Chak, still hardly believing that he wasn’t any more. Her dearest wasn’t breathing; none of his legs twitched; several sections of his body below the head were shaved clean of any meat and carapace, and just a single, elongated spinal column connected the two. She cradled his head, desperately trying to come up with something, and cursed herself for her arrogance. Civilians had no pce on the battlefield! She knew it; why didn’t she break his legs to make him stay in safety? Why didn’t…

  “I am so sorry,” Impatient One said, coming closer. She raised her paw but didn’t touch Anissa.

  “For what?” Anissa looked at her with dead eyes. “It… it is all my fault. My… mistake.”

  *****

  “And that is the outcome of using untrained personnel for the experiment,” Purple Valkyrie said smugly.

  “Shhh…” Academician said, raising a finger. “Esticity, 95 percent of the expected parameters, regeneration failing. Could it be a result of antimatter poisoning? Unlikely. Need further testing. Speech distorted, minor personality degradation. Physical aptitude exceeds predicted limits, but the strain on bones is offset by the natural healing. Precision, perception… impossible to determine. Mass gain is satisfactory.”

  He sat on the edge of a boratory chair, cd in dark armor and bareheaded, rifles strapped to his back. His pupils, framed by green, watched the footage reyed by a satellite. On the screen, their test subject was being driven toward the burning trees. A single sweep of his tendrils had cleared the area and missed Zero, who fired four beams into his abdomen. Purple admired the woman’s efficiency.

  The General Secretary had informed the organization of his displeasure over the current situation, and Purple Valkyrie eagerly volunteered to prevent contamination of the region, dragging Elder Academician by the ear to join their elite agents in anticipation. The man was worse than a child and had been whining about not needing a suit and how he could solve the situation, but she mounted one on him regardless and positioned her team to stand at the ready should the Recimers fail to protect the complex.

  Its destruction would hurt more than non-humans, and thus it will be standing.

  The group had gathered in the teleportation chamber, fully geared, armed with viral rifles and energy cannons. The random, sporadic evolution that followed no clear pattern of their virus rounds should be able to hinder even the immune system of that monster concocted by her superior, and the rays of star fire will obliterate it completely. Spaniad had gone rogue and was hiding in the city, refusing to answer communications. She hazarded a guess that the elder pnned to handle Mad Hatter when the woman won.

  Too bad my moronic superior doesn’t share my prediction. She thought, uncaring if Academician was reading her mind. Iterna’s toy folded as expected, but that factor was irrelevant in determining the outcome. It was pin to anyone with eyes that a brain-damaged byproduct of an ancient experiment stood no chance against the current pinnacle of natural evolution influenced by the Glow. Mad Hatter and Ravager’s initial csh had proven enough.

  Ravager had employed a tactic to divert the brunt of their combined aggression from Houstad. Laudable though that was, Mad Hatter had incorporated this factor. It didn’t matter what her opponent’s pn was, as either way it pyed into her hands, while Ravager had been forced to improvise, exposing herself.

  “Wait.” Academician stopped her from activating the emergency and summoning the mechanized brigade. “Look at the dispy, please.”

  She obeyed, unsure what he wanted now. The primary targets broke through the continental crust, reached the mantle, and engaged in a slugfest in the outer yers of the outer core, slowly sinking deeper. The angle and the intense heat prevented the accurate footage, and most of what the satellite picked up were mere shadows in the swirling ocean of death; their every action intensified the seismic activity running through that part of the continent, alerting other S-Csses to the conflict.

  Suddenly, a roaring pilr erupted through the crack in the ground, carrying the two monsters to the surface. They broke out of the magma, sshing and cutting, kicking and elbowing, barely visible amidst the constant sonic booms plowing through the mountain range. Purple clicked her tongue.

  Human perception couldn’t process the situation, but they had forces of the Old World standing at the ready. What bothered her was the inevitable fallout of the khatun’s victory. Based on previous observations of the woman’s biology, defeating the Ravager will improve her from forty to sixty percent. Physical matters aside, neurologists have sounded the arm, pointing out how difficult it is to calcute the change in a psyche that will occur following such a drastic change. What if Mad Hatter decided to scour the pnet clean? Even if Zero would choose to unseal, even if Spaniad teamed up with her, the probability of their defeat still existed as they had no hard data on the upper limits of the mutant’s intelligence to run accurate prediction models.

  “Memorize this, Purple. Valkyries. Team.” Academician stood up. “For every Eugenia, Spaniad and Dominator, we have Ravager, Mad Hatter, Thunder Emperor, Blood Graf, Outsider, Hive, Hunter, Devourer... Humanity, even with the addition of the Glow to the equation, simply cannot compete. We have seen it in smaller scenarios pying out around the globe, but now you have the practical result before you, a clear need for us to restore the natural order of things, or our kind will head toward extinction of our species, smidge by smidge. That is one of the two immediate reasons why the Organization must prevail and break the shackles of oppression that hinder the potential of our race. You are free to extend mercy and care to the lesser creatures. I won’t begrudge nor understand that. Just don’t forget what is at stake.” He put a hand on Purple’s shoulder. “Don’t rouse the reserve. Everything is calcuted. My daughter will win. She is mine to break and tame. Besides, there are other precautions…” He looked sideways at the rger dispy showing the map of the Recmation Army.

  Light was traveling toward the borders of the Core Lands. Purple rexed but still seated Academician back in the chair, excusing the necessity with the need to follow the protocols. Then she mounted a helmet on his head, feeling vindictive for the stress that man-child had caused her.