22:17, February 1, 2295

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

  Lorna Weiss ducked into the shadow of a crumbling fa?ade, her fingers working through familiar motions. A hair tie appeared between her teeth as she gathered her golden locks, sweeping them into a half-up ponytail with practiced efficiency. The ritual settled her nerves - a small act of control before chaos.

  From her coat pocket, she retrieved a tiny bottle of lavender perfume. Three precise spritzes - one behind each ear, another at the nape of her neck. The scent cut through Chicago's industrial miasma, grounding her. 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 whispered through her ear-mounted comm. "Heavy resistance, but the Vanguard squad is holding. That Diabolisk though... It's getting closer to Triumph Tower."

  "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, moving like a shadow through the financial district's sterile corridors of steel and glass. The street ahead was too quiet - the kind of quiet that made her skin prickle. A faint green glow spilled from the entrance of a derelict bank, accompanied by sounds no human throat should make.

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

  Around them lay the bodies of civilians - fresh corpses that spoke of the violence that had passed through here minutes before.

  With a flick of her left wrist, she activated her Quantum Watch, the silver, sleek device humming softly, its blue dial glowing as it synchronized with her neural activity. The watch's interface projected a translucent display into the air, directly in front of her eyes, responding to her thoughts as if it were an extension of her mind. She focused on the man’s oily, ragged face, and the Quantum Watch's sensors immediately captured a high-resolution image, storing it within its quantum memory.

  "Mac Watrous. Ex-professor of the Champaign Institute of Technology. Class-1 Terrorist," she said aloud, the watch tagging the image with relevant data as it synced to her neural network.

  Watrous's head snapped up, eyes gleaming red in his skull-like face. A nightmarish grin split features that were caught between man and monster. "Ah, the Terra Alliance sends its favorite dog." His voice rasped like metal on bone. "Or should I say...bitch?"

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

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

  The civilian corpses began to twitch and rise, flesh sloughing away to reveal animate skeletons. The Draugs turned from their feast as they oriented on Lorna.

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

  Baldr's quantum blade ignited with a fierce 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 rush with Baldr's blade, quantum energy shearing through augmented flesh. The second tried to circle behind while the third moved to cut off her retreat. The skeletons advanced more slowly, their hollow sockets tracking her movements.

  But Lorna was already moving. Baldr's quantum blade caught its reaching claws, then swept upward through corroded flesh and steel. The creature's torso split diagonally, black fluid spraying like arterial blood.

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

  The remaining Draugs moved with disturbing coordination, one high, one low. Lorna vault-rolled over the lower attack, Baldr flashing in a defensive arc that kept the higher Draug at bay. These weren't mindless monsters - their virus-infected brains still retained combat training.

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

  The last skeleton's charge gave Lorna her opening. She let it commit to its attack, then pivoted at the last second. The skeleton's momentum carried it into one of the Draugs, tangling them momentarily. Baldr sang twice - once through bone, once through corrupted flesh.

  The final Draug proved the most dangerous. It moved like a veteran soldier, each strike measured and precise. Their blades met - Baldr's quantum edge against some dark limb resembling a mantis arm grafted 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.

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

  "Járn-?nd!" Watrous's spell caught her as she straightened. Dark sand erupted around them, blinding and 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 blazed 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 slain."

  "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 slaughtered just so you have enough money to pay the next month’s rent?"

  "Spare me the manifesto. Your 'transformation' is just another form of oppression!" Lorna strode closer.

  "Is it?" The sand whirled faster. "Look at our precious Alliance. The wealthy in their high towers while the rest scrabble for just three meals a day. At least the Virus offers power to anyone brave enough to claim 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, beyond reach. The power she's gained-"

  Dark sand erupted from his mouth, swirling around him in a protective barrier. The particles buzzed with 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, launching another strike with her sword. "And you'll join him soon."

  Watrous laughed, a sound like grinding gears. "Defeated? He's merely waiting. Your Alliance masters are too afraid to admit no one knows how to kill him. But he speaks of you so very often, Lorna. The perfect crucible, he calls you."

  "Glacies Lunae Fulgur!" Lorna countered, sending a bolt of lunar energy toward the barrier, dispersing part of the sand shield. Watrous snarled, his eyes pulsing brighter.

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

  Lorna's voice died in her throat, her Aether suddenly suppressed. Baldr's blade sputtered and died as Watrous lunged. His augmented mass slammed 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. And when he returns — "

  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 and angular, its matte surface devoid of any unnecessary ornamentation. The gun’s barrel was slightly elongated, tapering off with a precision muzzle that hinted at its pinpoint accuracy. A soft, cyan glow emanated from the seam where the grip met the body, a sign of its advanced energy-based firing mechanism. The grip itself was ergonomic, fitting perfectly into Lorna’s hand, with subtle grooves that ensured a steady hold.

  The 10mm Magnum roared in the confined space, the muzzle flash illuminating their struggle. The round tore through his knee, black 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 clawed hand knocked her arm wide. The shot punched a hole in marble as they grappled on the floor, his superior strength slowly forcing her gun arm down. His teeth snapped inches from her throat, the smell of decay and ozone overwhelming.

  Lorna drove her knee into his damaged leg. The burst of her strength made him rear back just enough. Váli's barrel found his temple, freezing him in place.

  "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, pinning it to the floor. Black 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 laugh escaping his throat. "Ah, the youngest one — her gift to the city... the Diabolisk approaches Triumph Tower. A message to those fat cats in their glass towers!"

  Lorna's grip on Váli tightened. This was not the first time the rumor circulated: 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. Her finger tensed on the trigger, but she held back. 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.

  "Still 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 where it had fallen. “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 faintly, neon-blue like a twisted 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 pooled in her core and surged through her veins like molten silver. Her vision sharpened instantly, the marble walls and jagged remnants of shattered glass snapping into acute clarity.

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

  Corking the vial back and pocketing it, she broke into a run, leaving Watrous bleeding but alive for interrogation. His words burned in her mind, fueling her rage. But right now, there was a Diabolisk to kill. One monster at a time.