Mari:

  Her whole body hurt like flames eating into every vein at the same time, occasionally flaring with sudden spasms of even more intense agony.

  No, not veins. She told herself somberly. Meridians. They’re all torn to hell and back.

  Despite that, the job wasn’t done. Not entirely. Her mission had updated, though.

  [Mission: Afflicted life forms have been detected within the Garden. Please remove these troublesome weeds.

  Update: Weeds removed. Task complete.

  Notice: Hazardous biological material remains. Standby for potential new threats. Reward will be dispensed after subsequent quarantine and cleansing.

  Reward: Information on source material for Cpt. Marielle Smith/Mari Kishibe.]

  Being honest, she didn’t mind waiting. There were too many things left to do without adding more revelations to the heap that day had become.

  Mari could tell, even with her still lacking familiarity with cultivation, that it would take a lot of time and effort to patch up her burnt and abused meridians. She just hoped it wouldn’t take months.

  She had been resting for a few minutes, trying in vain to circulate the energy through her body and relieve some of the aches. Nothing seemed to be helping much, and Anise had already told her that she was still using her healing arts to mend herself. If Marielle hadn’t turned the behemoth into dust, she at least might’ve made fresh ammunition. Instead, she only had three shots left.

  When the time came for them to move, Mari had to use Vilke’s shoulder to support herself. The randomness of the flares of pain made moving smoothly frustrating beyond belief. As a person who’d suffered a variety of pains all her life, Mari had believed herself to have a high pain tolerance. Faced with the flaws in her own reasoning, she found herself cursing Marielle a bit, even if the decisions her predecessor had made turned out to be for the best.

  Anise spent their return trip in uncharacteristic silence, though there wasn’t really enough of a sample size to truly know what her usual chatter level was.

  Still, it was eerily quiet as they squeezed past the barricade and made their way to the nearby stairwell.

  “Injuries?” Karin was the first to speak as Alynne immediately opened up the medical kit.

  “Just some pain from a few strained muscles.” Mari quickly got in front of Anise or Vilke’s potentially longer explanations. “If you have a fast acting pain killer, I’ll take it. We aren’t done.”

  “Right. What happened?”

  “Another big one. More sturdy, more intelligent, more of a pain in our asses.” Vilke’s response was clear and concise, but Mari could tell from [Intuition] that he had questions for her as much as they all had for Anise.

  “And the child?” Right on cue, Karin asked something truly troublesome.

  “Don’t worry about it, lady.” Anise gave the Council Chairwoman a shit-eating grin as she leaned against a wall. “Pretend I ain’t even here.”

  Karin made a face Mari associated with only the sourest of lemons.

  “Cool it, Anise. There’s a lot to explain and no time, but at least try not to pick fights with people, please.” Mari attempted to smooth things over, and she silently thanked whatever higher power might be listening for Constance not being around to hear what was said next.

  “Nah, I’m not exactly in a position where I listen to figures of authority. They chafe at my sense of freedom, which is kinda my core personality trait.”

  “And we certainly can’t have that.” Vilke muttered despondently, though the mirth in his eyes was unmistakable.

  “At least she is self-aware.” Karin surprised the whole group with her own quiet remark, causing everyone to stare in surprise. A long sigh followed, and her exhaustion was replaced with a glare that had onlookers finding new things to stare at with emphatic interest. “It sounds like nothing went according to plan.”

  Mari popped a pill she was handed by Alynne before replying. Though, like any normal person, she hated swallowing medicine dry. “Right. The hallways were filled with the afflicted. We had little choice but to just take a noisier approach and try to cull the beasts as we went. We didn’t make it far before Anise turned up, and then we had to contend with the bigger afflicted. Only Anise and I dropped down a floor to handle the behemoth that fell. Kris and Relkur are handling things above.”

  She already began to feel a little better, but only enough to move on her own. She separated from Vilke right away, largely to avoid how his gear jabbed uncomfortably into her side.

  “At this point, sublevel three is done. Just sublevel two is left with a few people barricaded into a single room.” Anise added her own input, drawing a frown from Karin.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I could smell them when I was closer. As for what they’re up to, they hadn’t moved when last I was paying attention.”

  “How can you tell if something moves by its smell alone?”

  “They’d have to kill the animals to go much of anywhere, and people sweat when doing things. I didn’t catch any of that, meaning they’re probably somewhere cold and have stayed in one place.”

  Karin nodded at the explanation and left it at that, surprisingly. “Thank you, Anise. You may remain with us while others handle things from here. This is no place for a child.”

  Anise cast a pointed glance at Vilke and Mari. The intent was obvious. “Right. What is the age of consent in your city?”

  “Age of consent?” Alynne sounded stumped, but had finally finished checking Mari over and was looking intently at the torn off leg of Anise’s pants, shredded at the mid-thigh.

  “The age where a teen or whatever doesn’t need their parents to tell them if they can or can’t make their own romantic mistakes, if ya know what I mean.” Anise’s words had everyone staring at her, though some people seemed distinctly uncomfortable.

  Mari just shook her head. “Anise is special. She’s older than everyone here combined.”

  “Excuse you? Are you implying I’m old? I’ll have you know, I’m eternally sixtee—” Anise’s rebuttal was awkwardly cut off by Mari placing a single finger in front of her lips.

  “How do you know that?” Karin ignored the interruption, and her tone wasn’t disbelieving, but she managed to very clearly convey cautious skepticism.

  Mari leaned in close, then whispered to her sort-of mother-in-law. “She is Marielle’s daughter. We thought she had died, but I have no doubt after everything I’ve seen.”

  There was a long pause before another defeated sigh escaped the woman. “Very well. I will take your word for it. Now, about the situation above?”

  “Right. I need to go along to clean up the bio weapon as I go, but I believe we have handled all the major threats. Thinking about it, we can probably still work off from our original plan. Rather than fighting and risking injuries, we should just cut off the coolant and let them sweat it out. While that happens, I’ll take laps to clean up whatever blood I can get near.”

  Karin considered that before nodding readily. “Let us proceed in that manner, then.”

  Kris:

  As much as she wanted to help Mari, Kris was in no condition to be fighting. Still, she carried Vilke’s rifle and remained as alert as she could while escorting Relkur to the coolant access locations while remaining well clear of any avoidable blood on the ground or walls.

  She only was willing to do that much because she knew about the counter in Mari’s mission log telling her how few of the afflicted were left.

  Still, they remained alert and silent, looping through the level slowly while they hoped for the best from Mari’s and Anise’s efforts to kill the behemoth.

  Worry gnawed at her, though. If she were being honest, it wasn’t just about their safety, either. Anise presented another complication to her relationship with Mari. She felt the knot of jealousy eating at her over whether the presence of Sylvia and Anise meant that Mari would return to her previous life and family.

  Making things more complicated was the inkling Kris had that Sylvia might’ve been a scientist working for the empire in the creation of the various races, including the immortality of the Sylphariens. There was some risk that Sylvia was an enemy, not a friend—even if Anise was friendly enough.

  She let loose a sigh, feeling the exhaustion of the day more intensely than she’d thought possible.

  The monotony was driving her insane. She shook her head to clear the prattling of her inner fears. Nothing was happening, and it was driving her to paranoia.

  “How are things going?” She finally asked Relkur for some sort of conversation to shift her focus.

  “Well enough. Only had to skip one valve because of the blood on the wall. Although, we’re about to have company.” His low voice was strangely smooth and eloquent, thanks to Anise’s healing. Yet another topic Kris had endless questions about.

  She refocused on her hearing.

  And there were voices. She brightened instantly as Mari rounded the corner, leaning a bit on the racks of servers to support herself as the blood vanished from around her and coalesced into some spare bullets in her palm.

  “Mari!” Kris forced herself to walk carefully towards her lover. It would feel beyond stupid to trip in a dizzy spell thanks to her head injury.

  “Oh good. You’re all right.” Mari met her in the middle with a hug, and they both mutually leaned on one another.

  Vilke darted a hand in and flicked something on the side of his rifle with a grimace on his face. “Safety was off. Please don’t hurt someone or die doing something dumb.”

  They ignored him, drawing out their hug. Kris was dimly aware that Relkur was repeating his updates to Karin, but again, they just ignored the world while sharing their warmth.

  The moment drew on, and Kris didn’t want it to end. Her fears fled from the contact, and Mari gripped her like she’d never let go. Kris didn’t want her to, obviously.

  “How bad is it?” Mari whispered into her ear, the whole world meaning nothing to them as their mutual survival anchored them together.

  “Probably a concussion. I’ll have to make sure someone checks me over.”

  “You never did take risks with your health.” Mari laughed lightly, but Kris didn’t miss that her lover forced her body to remain as still as possible.

  “What about you? You’re obviously hurt, so what happened?”

  “Marielle happened. More things for me to tell you about when this is all over. For now, think of it as severe muscle strain. I’ll be alright after getting some rest.”

  Kris pulled back to look Mari in the eyes. In them, she saw a hint of the pain, but also a whirlwind of emotions that were hard to parse. Relief was present, but there was also concern and a few other emotions.

  “Do I—” she trailed off, then leaned back in to whisper instead, “do I need to worry about you returning to Sylvia after this? I won’t lie. I’m worried about it and jealous of her over Anise.”

  Mari squeezed her tight again, obviously trying to be reassuring. “There is so little we know now. I doubt I’m the person Sylvia was in love with, anyway. My feelings are for you alone. All I have for her is the lingering grief. Marielle was very worried about Anise’s safety, but I’m not sure she knows how she feels, either.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Kris leaned her forehead down until it lay on Mari’s shoulder gently. There, she took a few deep breaths as she let her turmoil run its course. Finally, she stepped back and nodded firmly.

  “I understand. Thank you for reassuring me.”

  Then there was silence.

  Kris joined Mari in blushing as she realized everyone had been staring at them. Anise was the closest of the group, and she had a judgemental eyebrow raised at them. Everyone else seemed either amused or impatient as they waited for their embrace to end.

  “Oh, excellent. Welcome back to planet—actually, which planet is this, anyway?” Anise frowned in thought almost the same moment as she had begun to reference some turn of phrase only Mari or Vilke would’ve understood.

  Kris turned as her mother spoke. “Well, thank you for breaking the awkwardness, Anise. We were just discussing our next steps. Mari is our most thorough method of cleansing the bio weapon from the halls and rooms of the sublevels. With that in mind, I would like to have you move swiftly and silently through the floors and handle cleanup.

  “Meanwhile, we will handle the task of managing any threats while we pursue the original goal of turning off the coolant valves. Mari’s estimation that the sound of your fights would’ve drawn in any other aggressive creatures is enough for me to split up our groups to work more quickly.”

  The groups were divided up fairly swiftly as weapons were returned to their original owners. Vilke would escort Relkur and another Anvien to handle valves on the first sublevel. Karin and Alynne would work with the rest of the Anvien workers to tackle sublevel two. Finally, Mari, Kris and Anise would handle blood cleanup.

  “Excellent. I wasn’t sure we’d get a chance to chat alone. Plus, you lot need some legit healing.” Anise chirped happily the moment the groups split up and they began methodically cleansing the grid-like pattern of the third sublevel in full.

  Before anyone could reply, a visible green light filled the air around Anise, channeled towards her outstretched palm, and then into Kris’ body. The warmth that arrived with the light permeated her and spread out from her chest, fading from her limbs as the smaller bruises and aches vanished.

  “That feeling is a bit familiar.” Kris took a deep breath as she relaxed, letting the lingering sensation settle in her mind. “I felt a similar thing right before my match earlier, and again after the first behemoth. Like warm sunlight on my skin.”

  Anise smiled at her. “Nature has a gentle healing effect. It isn’t forceful like some of the other arts I could come up with.”

  In just a few brief seconds, Kris felt the ache in her skull recede and the earlier injury to her thumb vanished entirely. It was a marvel, but when she checked over her mana cores for her gun, they’d all faded to become inert. When she asked, Anise explained that her ability likely bleached the mana from everything nearby to accelerate their healing.

  “So, could you tell me about my mom now?” Anise aimed her query at Mari as they continued walking, the short girl then channeling a faint white energy towards her.

  There was a pause, and Kris felt her own curiosity rising.

  “She’s still faint. You’ll be getting my impressions of her, since she can’t speak for herself.” Mari’s shoulders squared as she straightened. “What would you like me to start with?”

  “I can form my own opinions, and I’ve already seen that she cares about me. So stick to the facts. Why don’t ya start with her being a real life cultivator?”

  Kris frowned. “If I may, could you tell me what a cultivator is?”

  Mari’s sigh spoke volumes. “I’d planned to tell you all about it later, but since it has come up, now works well enough. Just be aware this might take a while.”

  She waited for nods from her audience, then continued. “A cultivator is a person who draws in energy from the world to enhance their mind, body or soul. Marielle said that while she and her fellows often pursued all three paths to some extent, they usually specialized in a singular path, which they called a dao.

  “Each path is measured in stages of progress called realms. Each realm has ten tiers before a bottleneck is hit, and then it often takes harsh struggles to break through those bottlenecks. That, or years to decades of focus. Focus is a major aspect of any of the paths. Martial arts are popular ways to focus and hone the body and mind. Some pursue music or art to draw out emotion that refines the focus on the soul.

  “Regardless of the path chosen, it takes time and dedication on the road to immortality.”

  Anise nodded her approval. “That is, for the most part, true. Where I can correct you is on the energy you’re gathering and how it restricted you from following all three paths. You’ve been harnessing mana. A world like this one, without an artificial mana density like Eternity Labs, has so little mana that you have to choose the narrowed focus of the three major dao.

  “My own upbringing, with a much higher atmospheric mana level, meant that I could ascend all three paths at a slightly slower rate. I had to define myself firmly to prevent mana from turning me into a monster. The System Core prevented my failure by attaching rules and restrictions that prevented the chaotic nature of mana.”

  Kris’ mouth closed as Mari used one finger to close it, chuckling at her surprise. “I’ve been studying mana, though. It has geometric parameters and specific outcomes via catalysts!”

  “That’s like… I need a good analogy here. Maybe… Okay, here goes. No clue where mana came from, so don’t ask. But think of the states of matter. Terrible analogy, I know. The properties of water, yeah? When solid, water turns to ice and operates differently from most other things. Ice becomes less dense, which is why it floats. Different from every other substance, which usually becomes more dense as a solid than as a liquid.

  “In essence, Mana is the same. It has different properties from anything else in existence based on the state it happens to be in. Solid objects with mana in them tend to warp and change, but if you can attach parameters to them via geometry, it becomes simple to turn chaos into order, and mana becomes magic.

  “But what if mana permeates a liquid, yeah? Totally different. Liquid mana is slightly different. Engrave symbols into solid mana objects, and you get what your gun uses. Liquids are most easily applied into a cast, molding it into something else. Ink dripped into paper is an easy example, but you could melt down the metal you keep using, pour it into a mold, and get something completely different.”

  Anise pulled out a slip of coarse paper, then handed it over to Kris.

  She studied it, frowning. The delicate calligraphy wasn’t geometric at all. The brush strokes were more artistic in their flair. What was most fascinating was that the ink hadn’t dried yet. And just holding it shifted the chilly temperature she felt to make her feel more comfortable.

  “Neat, huh? This is my air conditioning talisman. The ink won’t bleed away or dry, either. It’s super weird. Anyway, that’s liquid mana. You could force similar things onto a sword or something, and make the material of the sword harder to break.

  “Where things get really weird is when you get to mana in the air. Usually that’s what gets measured when checking for mana density. The bizarre part is how common gaseous mana is. It just drifts through space in weird clouds, too. When it reaches a thinking creature, though…”

  Anise drifted into silence for a long while. They’d nearly finished patrolling the entire floor by the time they finished. When next she spoke, they had descended to clean up the rest of the fourth sublevel.

  “A lot of people died before they found a solution to me. Mom—the doctor—studied a lot of different methods and a lot of people didn’t survive the mana tests in particular. When gaseous mana hits animals, they usually don’t have the thought process to contain and force mana to lose how chaotic it is. So they just warp under the chaos as the mana latches onto the brain and twists the body into a monster based purely on their instincts.

  “But thinking beings? If they know it’s coming and prepare, they can use the mana to make themselves stronger. If they fail, they usually end up worse than the animals. Maybe if you had a strong unconscious thought, it could be directed differently, but if someone just fills the room you’re in with it, most people think they’re being poisoned, and the gaseous form of mana brings out that fear.”

  Kris paled at the explanation. She couldn’t imagine doing such experiments while not knowing what the outcomes could be. She had thought the inventors of mana had been fairly smart when she discovered how to manipulate mana in solid objects. After what Anise had described, she could only think of those originators as monsters far worse than any their invention had created.

  Mari just frowned. “That isn’t how Marielle described it at all.”

  “Hah! I bet. Maybe mom discovered how to gather gaseous mana for slow progress, but she was probably never exposed to enough of the stuff to actually lose her humanity. On a world like this one, there isn’t enough to actually do anything good or bad. Eternity Labs gathers and burns enough mana to operate that the entire southern hemisphere doesn’t have to worry about the spread.” Anise shook her head sadly.

  “So she probably never knew.” Kris filled in the implication.

  “You said she had fellows? I bet there were enough individual people on Earth that they could each spread out and consume the bulk of the mana to empower themselves. But if some of them left, who knows. Earth might not have enough cultivators working on it, meaning monsters are popping up. Could be fun to go save their butts.”

  “No, Anise. Don’t ever return to Earth. The fact you even said that probably means Sylvia never let you know what happened there. Best you never find out.” Mari’s cold tone shut the entire discussion down.

  They’d gotten way off their original topic, but nobody seemed willing to speak again.

  Karin:

  “Well played.” Alynne’s huffed remark cut through as the groups each split up.

  “It had to be done. The kids can fight monsters if they want, and Mari was perfect in many respects, but people? I would rather not burden them more than we already have.” Karin felt much departed from the earlier calm and lighthearted emotions she’d felt while walking with Mari just earlier that afternoon.

  She hadn’t felt so troubled since the war. That some fools had broken into the capital city and plunged straight into the Citadel itself on some vain quest to extract their emperor. It hadn’t been the first attempt, but it turned out to be the first that used the afflicted to bolster their numbers.

  The turn of events implied a broader problem beyond their shores.

  “Alynne.”

  “Hm?” The snake-eyed woman didn’t even glance her way as they strode onto the second sublevel and began their operation.

  “The recorded message for Mari. They did not mention the bio weapon risks as a coincidence, did they?”

  “Not. A. Chance.” The response was unnecessary, but it drew a sigh from her all the same.

  “The only way all these creatures ended up here is if various specimen were captured and forcibly brought here through the quarantine zones. I fear that message was no recording. The timing is too ridiculous.” Karin was annoyed. She hated feeling like she was a puppet dancing on another person’s strings. Unfortunately, she was a woman of action. Devious plots weren’t her strong suit.

  However, she had been reactionary for far too long.

  “What will you do about it?”

  “I may need to step down from my position. Stacy will not like it, but I am more dangerous if I’m the hunter in the wilderness than if I remain here playing politics.”

  “You’re right. Constance does like seeing you all dressed up and coming home every night.” Alynne teased her quietly as they moved in sync, covering each other and checking corners as their token Anvien group member watched their rear.

  “If I delay, the kids may take initiative before I can, and then they will be running off into worse danger. It worries me, but would you come with me?”

  Alynne didn’t respond. She held up a single finger to her lips as she knelt at the next corner. She gestured around the bend, then signalled that she had spotted a barricaded doorway.

  Karin nodded tersely, then leaned out just enough to look in the indicated direction.

  The hallway was narrow and filled with stacked metal crates that had been steered in on specialized carts that could handle the stairs. There were several such stacks, but none of them were sized for the larger creatures they’d seen. Beyond the stacks of crates was a single door that had been sealed shut. Outside the doorway was a pair of devices that had been attached to the walls on either side, flanking the door.

  “Frequency barrier, I’d wager. Looks like the cages were opened with a remote. So they got in, dumped cages along the way, got to the room, sealed up inside, then remotely released their pets?” The whispered interpretation seemed likely, so Karin agreed with Alynne’s analysis.

  “Better question: what do we do about this?”

  “You’re the one who came up with the grand lie about coolant lines.” Alynne sounded a bit tart about their plan having involved lying to the youths in the group.

  “I’m honestly a bit disappointed in them. They should have known that disabling the coolant for the servers would just force a shutdown. As if so much expensive equipment could be sabotaged so easily.” Karin chuckled at the naivete of the younger generation. The alternative was that they’d known and just gone along with it anyway.

  “So, what’s your endgame, Kar? You may act like you aren’t a schemer, but I’m not buying it.” The tone of her whispered response had Karin glaring at her, and Alynne just held her gaze with an impassive expression.

  Karin caved first. “Fine. By my estimate, they servers should shut themselves down any second now.”

  She barely got the words out before swearing reached them from inside the sealed room ahead of them. Someone threw something, based on the crashing noises within, and Alynne shook her head in exasperation as she took up position for their ambush.

  “Great. What the hell do we do now?” A female voice reached them from inside.

  “Mission failed. We retreat if we can, but if we die, we’d all planned for that anyway. If the afflicted get to us first, then all the better. We’ll just be a bigger handful for the upstarts.” A male voice replied, calm and composed.

  “I don’t wanna die for nothing, dammit. I wanted to die at least accomplishing something!” A third voice, clearly the angry one, threw something else that broke against the wall.

  “The other team below hopefully succeeded at breaking into that secret facility. We won’t have died for nothing.” The calm male voice replied with infinite patience.

  “What are they saying?” Alynne didn’t take her eyes off the door, her weapon aimed straight for the heavy metal door to the anechoic chamber.

  Karin smiled wryly. Alynne had excellent hearing despite her time in the war, but it was still no match for Karin’s unparalleled ability.

  “Three of them. They are panicking, and planning on giving their lives for their cause.” A grim smile appeared on her face. If she handled things herself, her children could sleep without nightmares just a bit longer.

  “Their wish is our command.” Karin almost laughed at how true those words would’ve been some twenty years prior, when they were still under imperial thumbs.

  The sound of additional barricades being moved came next, and then the sound of the large door being cracked open just a crack.

  Karin let the sphere gripped in her hand start revolving around her hand, spinning up with a soft whir. Just a bit longer now.

  The door was opened a bit wider, and then the sound of a person stepping out quietly reached her ears.

  A few more seconds.

  She heard as the second person left the chamber, and the first started trying to quietly move the cages to the sides.

  Now.

  Karin released the sphere at breakneck speeds around the corner, aimed at the first of the three.

  She heard a cry of pain cover up the breaking of bones, and knew just from the impact and wheeze of a punctured lung that she’d hit the angry man in the heart.

  Alynne’s rifle hummed out a three-burst that took the woman in the head, shattering her skull before painting the third in gore that made him freeze just long enough that Alynne could find a line through the bars to remove the last of their three targets.

  “Mission Complete.” Alynne didn’t relax for a second, and Karin remained taut as a bowstring, listening for anyone that hadn’t spoken before they’d engaged. “You are scary, you know that?”

  Karin nodded. “I have heard the rumors.”

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