Have you ever lost track of something… and suddenly you're no longer where you were?
It's a strange feeling. Sometimes insignificant. Like in math class: you stare out the window, follow the erratic flight of a bird, wonder where it's going… and when you look back, the board is covered in incomprehensible symbols. The numbers are gone. Only letters remain. Letters that seem to mock you.
That wasn't what happened to me.
Because when I regained awareness, I wasn't in a classroom anymore.
The air was thick. Dense. It seeped into my lungs as if it carried its own weight. It smelled of ozone, of a storm trapped inside a sealed room. It burned from the inside out.
And the worst part was that absurd sensation—the certainty that I had always breathed it.
Yet I wasn't used to it.
—Quickbane, damn it, keep firing.
The shout tore through the air. Hoarse. Depraved. Familiar.
Then came the sounds: sharp detonations, metal striking metal, invisible sparks leaping through the dark.
And then I saw her.
She was beautiful.
Not delicate. Not fragile.
She was sharp beauty.
Her hair brushed the ground like a dark veil. The suit clung to her like a second skin of latex, outlining every curve with obscene precision. Firm chest, narrow waist, long legs drawn tight like bows about to loose an arrow.
My gaze lowered.
Stopped.
Stayed longer than it should have.
Beautiful.
Like the sword she carried.
It was as long as she was. Its blade bathed in thick red liquid that left nothing to imagination.
Blood.
—Down.
The voice did not come from outside.
It came from within.
Metallic.
Cold.
I didn't hesitate. I ducked.
The woman became a blur. The sword a black line slicing through the space where my neck had been a heartbeat earlier.
My body reacted without permission. A violent kick. Instinctive.
I missed.
She placed a hand on my leg and launched herself upward with insulting elegance, almost artistic. A flash of blue crossed my vision. It missed her too. Her heels struck my chest; she used me as leverage and hurled herself backward, covering ten meters as if gravity had no claim on her.
—Hahaha, Quickbane, you'll owe me for that.
I turned my head.
Two meters tall. Shoulders like walls. Black armor with violet reflections. Skin pale, corpse-like. His right eye hanging grotesquely from its socket. Half his jaw replaced with metal.
Voracious.
He took position beside me as if he had always been there.
—Quickbane and Voracious, of the Brotherhood of Depravity… we'll kill you, filthy doll of the past.
Doll.
She didn't react. Didn't take offense. Didn't smile.
She simply raised her sword, assessing. Deciding which of us she would disembowel first.
—Quickbane, left side. Use your Thunderblade. Open her up. I'll punch holes in her with the Ionflare.
I wanted to ask what was happening.
There was no time.
She appeared in front of me.
One meter away.
I drew by reflex. The clash shot through my bones. Her strength didn't match her figure. I was a two-meter monster… and I couldn't push her back even an inch.
More gunfire.
She didn't retreat. She multiplied. Echoes of her slid across the edge of my vision. The real one reappeared farther away. I advanced. Voracious kept firing; plasma carved incandescent lines through the air.
I attacked.
Nothing.
Plasma grazed her side.
—Damn valkyries…
Voracious dropped the gun. A dagger appeared in his hand as if it had always belonged there. He lunged. The blade grazed her abdomen.
She didn't bleed red.
She bled blue.
A bright, unnatural liquid.
I wasn't fighting to understand anymore.
I was fighting to survive.
She cut. I blocked. I struck. She redirected the blade with surgical precision. Voracious pressed forward like a starving beast.
—WarPulse.
His shout vibrated in the air.
His movements grew faster.
—Quickbane, use the elixir!
I didn't know what it was.
But I shouted it anyway.
—WarPulse.
A sting in my lower back.
Minimal pain.
And then—
The world slowed.
Sound thickened, dropped in pitch. Particles in the air seemed suspended.
She was no longer untouchable.
My sword crackled. White lightning crawled along the edge. I struck downward. She blocked. Voracious seized the opening and drove his blade into her abdomen.
More blue.
Her expression changed.
Annoyance.
Rage.
She spun with terrifying grace and leapt. The blade descended in a perfect arc.
My neck was there.
Voracious intercepted. His armor groaned under the force.
The fight was absurd.
Two giants against one perfect woman.
For a moment, I thought about running.
I imagined my back turning, leaving all of it behind.
—Idiot.
A kick shoved me aside just as her blade fell again.
—Did the drugs fry your brain? Look at her, she's getting desperate. Let's open her up.
Plasma at point-blank range.
I exhaled.
If I ran, the one-eyed bastard would shoot me without blinking.
So I attacked.
My sword rose. Lightning coiled along the edge like white serpents. She moved between the plasma bolts in something almost sacred—a dance.
I waited.
I saw it.
The opening.
I moved.
Concrete gave way beneath my feet.
I became a blur.
[Alert: environmental ether increasing.]
The inner voice vibrated.
The air grew sticky. Dense. Like breathing through warm water.
[Etheric attack detected.]
Her sword shone.
Not like metal.
Like a beacon.
—A witch…?
The word left Voracious soaked in venom.
The energy outshone the plasma.
Outshone my lightning.
This was no longer science.
It was something else.
A blast.
Dry.
Not the Ionflare.
Her head vanished.
The body fell.
Silence.
—Not bad, Overtrigger. Took you long enough.
From the rubble emerged the rifle. Then the man. A massive bionic eye glowing with cold light.
—Good little distraction dogs.
His voice was low. Almost intimate.
—She almost killed us —Voracious said, grabbing the body by the ankle and dragging it—. Didn't know first-generation valkyries could be witches.
—Guardian of an Ark. The old humanity knew how to leave traps.
They dragged the headless body away.
Blue stained the ground.
I remained still.
I didn't know where I was.
I didn't know what I was.
Two meters tall. A body built for war. Those monsters spoke to me like a brother.
Had I always been like this?
Did I enjoy it?
The air began to suffocate me again.
—Quickbane… what's wrong?
They asked.
And for the first time since I woke up…
I didn't know who was supposed to answer.