Big Sis!

  A crust of snow cracked beneath her paw as Ravager reached the mountaintop. Corpses still rolled down the slopes, torn, slashed, gutted. She didn’t indulge her hunger today, marveling at the surrounding heavenly scenery. Whiteness covered the entire mountain, burying several desolate settlements below. The Extinction had scarred this area of the world, and the biting cold covered the stones in reflective ice that shone wonderfully, reflecting morning rays after she had climbed above the clouds that denied even a glimmer of light to the surface.

  And everything was covered in this white blanket! Normies explained to her that this thing was called snow, a kind of frozen water that fell from the clouds. She didn’t believe them at first and had grabbed a heap of this snow. Her sharp eye noticed thousands of individual ice crystals, all merged together and melting so quickly in her paw. But how could ice be so gentle to touch? Ravager didn’t understand, and frankly, she didn’t care. Ignoring the mission at first, the Commander had squealed like a child and jumped into the white pale, sweeping her arms to make an angel print. Janine’s cough had reminded her of the importance of their mission, and the group resumed their travel.

  Crudely embedded houses led to the top. These weren’t abandoned; she smelled the faint scents of frozen bodies inside. Swarms of insectoid creatures composed of long-bladed limbs and smallish dark green carapaces had spewed themselves from the interior of the vast network of tunnels that penetrated the whole place, their minds distorted by the nightmares descending from above.

  They had found it. The Apocalypse class, an individual whose power affected the entire world. And they weren’t alone. Terrific, always eager to please, had opened the corpse of a large slain beast, frowning at the strange, repetitive arrangement of organs in the body. Ravager had joined her, examining the triangular heart chambers, clearly designed to survive extensive blood loss. Someone tinkered with the Old World’s knowledge.

  Ravager had ordered Terrific and Janine to head above using the tunnels while she braved the outer side of the mountain, attracting and butchering the insects, various creatures, and madmen fighting them. She had carried a screeching individual into one house, staying silently above a bullet-ridden child’s cot, saying nothing, and compared the woman in her paw with the frozen little one. Not a local. Her suspicions had been proven true, and the claws closed, squashing the pleading bitch.

  Hunters vying for the prize.

  At last, she reached the summit, stepping on top of the world and looking down at the heavy clouds passing below. Ice, both clean and covered with ichor, and blood, both red and sickly yellow, reflected multicolored flashes into her eyes, pleasing the monster. Her skin tingled, craving warmth. An adaptation followed soon, and her body temperature normalized.

  How beautiful. Ravager decided, thrusting a paw through the mandibles of a creature that was stalking her. Occasionally, shimmering peaks of smaller mountains peeked through the swirl of black clouds, as if they were islands rising from the depths of the dried-up seas. The sun bathed her in its rays. A top of the world. Back when she was locked in the laboratory, back when she grieved for the dead civilizations, she never dared to imagine seeing such a brilliant scene anywhere! The monster clutched fists to her chest, her concerns about hundreds of slaughtered beasts abandoned.

  A squeal broke Ravager from her concentration, and she raced, faster than a bullet, to its source, hearing Terrific fighting several levels below. Janine’s cub, Kostaltyn, the first of her litter to survive, thrashed in agony, bleeding flammable oil and sparks, his eyes bulging out of sockets. Ravager elbowed Janine away and was on him, using her brain to the fullest.

  The situation became known instantly; his clumsy and crude implants overloaded, igniting his nerves instead of transmitting synapses to the exo-suit. I warned him not to trust these toys! She carved them out of him, but Kostaltyn’s heart gave in, and Janine howled mournfully.

  Again. So many gifts, and I can’t even save a single soldier even when I want to. Her fangs gnashed as she handed the body to the mother.

  A group of people in thick, blue clothes formed a line, barring them a path to a makeshift pile of planks behind them. Each had an emblem of oaks on their arms, and they bore weapons. Her eyes swept the summit, taking in the information.

  A heavy step left by Kostaltyn’s exosuit. It was a lunge in response to a threat. Janine’s tattered coat and sharp objects stuck in her hide. Not bullets, tranquilizer darts. Her Wolfkins lay scattered about, asleep and with a few broken bones, but otherwise unharmed. Claws and bullets damaged the group’s clothing, wounding four, and their weapons did not resemble those used to eradicate the locals. No cause for blood vengeance yet.

  A figure showed from the shack. He was a gray Malformed, his skin hung in sacks along his oversized limbs, bandages covered his limbs, and to move around, he relied on a person who had a white armband with a red cross on it. Ravager sniffed the air, catching frozen pus and medication from his body and a tingle of nightmare, a complete copy of the ones that had denied her sleep for over ten days, touched her brain.

  The target.

  She raised herself on two legs with a crack. Ravager didn’t like that choice, having grown accustomed to the quadrupedal style during the two years of her imprisonment. However, her liege always berated the ‘animalistic’ posture, insisting that she would walk on two legs to avoid needless intimidation during a negotiation.

  “Hand him over.” Ravager extended a paw. “Otherwise, death.”

  “Please, listen to us!” A teen jumped from the line, her long blonde hair tied up in a bun hidden inside her cowl. The hanging eyelids, reddish eyes, and dark circles around them told Ravager that this girl had not gotten her share of sleep either. “This was an accident! We… I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  “It isn’t relevant, fool!” Ravager growled. “That one’s power…” She pointed at the Malformed. “…threatens everyone’s existence. Turn it off.”

  “I can’t,” the Malformed spoke in growling and mewling, drooling saliva, but a little communicator near his ear translated the words into the Common. “I wasn’t even aware I was doing anything. If I’d known, I would’ve stepped into the sky.”

  “Then death it is.” Ravager stepped toward the Malformed. A slash of her claw propelled the air to draw a recess in the snow, slicing the weapon of a man in blue as he tried to aim at her. He blinked, struggling to comprehend her speed, and she wished to plunge her head into his chest and feast on his hot insides. His lack of aggression saved him.

  “There is no need to fight anymore. Don’t die because of me.” The Malformed broke free and hobbled toward her. “I never meant for any of it to happen; I never wanted my tribe to suffer because…”

  “It wasn’t your fault. But I can’t let you live.”

  “Yes. Yes, you are right. Stop it.”

  “No!” The teen jumped high and struck down with her tonfas. She was fast, faster than a scout, but to Ravager’s amber eyes, the girl moved in slow motion. Every cell in the monster’s body demanded an immediate sacrifice, but she refused to oblige, and the tonfas’ ends struck the snow, covering Ravager in yellow lightnings that weaved around her limbs, biting gently, and she laughed, amused at the feeble efforts. “How are you standing?”

  “Useless.” Ravager let loose the claws.

  “We can help him!” The girl pleaded, surprising the monster with her determination and willingness to fight against her. “There is a drug that can stop the abnormality from working! No one has to die…”

  Ravager raised an arm, stopping Janine from lunging, and stood, oblivious to any sounds around her. At a snap of her fingers Janine, good, sweet, loyal girl, rammed into a creature that climbed up a cliff and began tearing it apart, while the rest of the Wolfkins patiently waited. It can’t be. Even the information about a medicine capable of stopping powers wasn’t that important to Ravager. Her breath grew heavier as she examined the girl’s almost perfectly formed skull, her arms that had grown in muscle since the last time she had seen them, and a new ear…

  “Eugenia…” Ravager whimpered to the thief who had robbed her of her chance at freedom. The girl stopped talking and looked the monster over, her eyes widening.

  Why? Is there any justice in this blasted, half-dead rock? The vat-borns were dead, and this bitch who hunted them for fun still lived? How dare there be such a deep remorse in her eyes, and why did it stay her paw from correcting a mistake of the past? Why was Eugenia pure, still human, dressed in fine clothes, while she was a merciless monster suffering from constant headaches and gripped by barely suppressed violent desires and memory loss?

  I won’t return to the Room. “You can’t enslave me again,” Ravager growled, loud enough for the ice covering the cliffs to crack. Janine almost fell down, but she regained enough of herself to grab the woman by the nape and pull her to safety, assigning two Wolfkins to protect their unconscious comrades.

  “It’s… you.” Eugenia touched her ear and the visage of that teen from that fateful night when the world was still alive briefly flashed in the tormented mind. “I am sorry. I am so sorry for what I have done to you.” Her voice broke, and she dropped the tonfas. “I didn’t k… no, I have no excuses. Let me help. Cut me if it’ll help you, or I can go to prison for life. Planet is my witness; I deserve it and more. But please, come back with us. There are people ready to help you.”

  And Ravager believed her, recoiling in pure horror at the sincerity of the offer. She followed a simple ideology. Help? She was a monster; that was why she had been dragged back to the laboratory, why she had been punished, and why she had lost her family. By resisting her nature, by refusing to fight as a monster would, she spelled their doom. A road of death and slaughter waited for her. Spitefully, she cheated her fate, choosing to wield her talents for the sake of people rather than sink to the depths of depravity. But the core rule of her simple ideology remained unchanged. It wasn’t possible for those destined to be evil to turn good.

  Take away my aggression, change me? After everything she had done? After refusing to show mercy to her mother, after abandoning her family and inverting the spawn cloned out of her? Ravager’s paws trembled; a jolt of pain coursed over her brain, bursting veins, bringing her closer to the instant where she would phase out and wake to piles of corpses around. No. There is no redemption. I can’t… It isn’t right. Yes, it made sense. A lie. It had to be a lie. If there was a shred of goodness in her, a piece of hope, why didn’t she rescue anyone other than Zero or not befriend and change the people there?

  She was grateful for the wailing sound in the air. The space ten meters above the plateau took on a reddish hue, mingled with occasional darkness, and it burst, shattering and releasing the blinding white light to illuminate the gathering. Ravager’s snarl sent her pack toward the group in blue; Janine glanced at Eugenia with half-dead eyes, but did not attack, holding her dead boy.

  The caustic smell of anesthetic wafted from the round hole, then Ravager heard the noise of mechanical joints shifting, and a humanoid machine landed on the top of the mountain, sending cracks with the weight of its twenty-meter-tall frame. Its feet were wide enough to kill a Wolfkin with a step; the heat coming from under the gray plating began melting snow, and rivers of water poured from the cliffs, creating steam and freezing without reaching the ground. Green blades flashed on the long fingers, and three oculars at the head found the group.

  It was a trick. Her ears picked up the excited beating of two hearts in the center of this thing, below the neck. And there was another quiet beating far too slowly to be human. This last person was hiding in the tunnels, clearly not wanting to be found by those who controlled the humanoid machine or by Terrific. Another competitor?

  A stream of flesh poured out of the portal. Cracks of bones filled the air as bodies strained to separate from a single mass. Muscled beasts and bladed insectoids landed on the wet ground, circling the machine’s feet; membranous wings flapped as dozens of screeching creatures, little more than torsos attached to wings, took flight.

  Ravager was thinking, restraining herself from attacking. She scanned the cannons’ barrels, calculating the potential radius of their shockwaves if they would indeed be firing projectiles and had taken into account that the hunters very obviously sought to claim the Malformed for themselves. The fact that the beast hadn’t attacked them yet supported that theory; these creatures showed no mercy to anyone they’d encountered before.

  But if those bastards could teleport, why didn’t they retrieve their prize already? Were they luring other groups into a trap or was there a limitation to their teleportation method? A line-of-sight requirement, perhaps?

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  “Hand over the mutie,” a twin laughter boomed from the robot’s head, confirming Ravager’s theory. “And no one will have to die.”

  “That is a lie,” said a man in blue. “Their words contradict the mindless slaughter unleashed by their minions…”

  “Correct.” Ravager nodded and reached for Eugenia. “You can help him?”

  “Yes.”

  Eugenia didn’t scream. Not even when the claws took away her ear and tossed it into the open jaws. The girl had changed, alright, and not just mentally. Her body’s structure was different, but Ravager cared more about claiming what was hers. Eugenia had no right to that part of her body. She leaned in and rubbed a scent mark into the Malformed’s cheek, engraving herself into his very DNA, forever linking the two through a bond felt by her. No matter the distance, he won’t be able to hide if Eugenia lied to her.

  “Still able to open portals?”

  “You bet.” Eugenia grinned, holding a hand over the missing year. “On me, we are getting out…”

  “You are getting out,” Ravager corrected her, dropping to all fours, fangs jittering, eyes locked on the machine. “And monsters battle.”

  To her surprise, Eugenia opened the portal and stepped through it along with the Malformed, while the rest of her group remained, quickly changing their weapons to what she assumed would be a lethal mode. Domes of force shields spread from their wrists, and they ducked to cover themselves and the Wolfkins, while Ravager positioned herself in front of the gathering.

  “Who are you people?” she asked, the madness nearly consuming her.

  “Iternians, miss,” answered the man, suppressing his anger at her maiming his comrade. “You?”

  “Reclaimers. Why did you stay?”

  “Saw the dead children on the way here.”

  “Ah. Then we are of the same mind. Don’t get killed. We must chat later. Janine, you are in charge until Terrific finally deems it fit to get her ass here.” Ravager crashed into the machine, sending it staggering backward. The two fell into the vast emptiness while the united crew opened fire.

  What a weird day it was.

  ****

  Sister, we need you!

  Her paws touched the concrete, softly landing before the apartment. Iterna and the Reclaimers had forged a fragile peace after the Culling, and, in theory, nothing prevented Ravager from entering this country legally, but the pain brought to her sister by the treacherous country forever ruined any trust. I was right about the implants and the danger to our kind here. Eugenia lied. There is no helping me.

  The Iternians prided themselves on their force field, their scanners, drones, search parties, cameras, radars, and more means of identification and suppressing threats. And yet she snuck past everything, digging under their shield, evading patrols, and dining in the trash cans, both disappointed and delighted at the absolute lack of homeless. Those always provided the most curious gossip.

  There was no threat in Iterna. Zero. Its citizens grew metaphorically fat; their children played, unaware of the need to stay away from radiation zones, and never felt the fear of an insectoid creeping up on them or bandits raiding their homes. Smooth roads connected cities, fields of grass and forests provided fresh and clean oxygen, and there was no shortage of anything, be it food, water, or doctors.

  We’ll build a nation just like that. Ravager promised herself, genuinely curious that her anger seemed to be subsiding, and it was easy to commit to the stealth.

  The monster, hand-crafted to lead armies, topple countries, and devastate population centers, entered an apartment building, crawled under the half-asleep concierge’s window, and made her way up, contorting herself to avoid cracking the walls. Her ears picked up heartbeats, so many of them, but most were asleep at this late hour, and her nose led her to a door on the third floor. She rang the bell, waiting patiently for the resident to say, ‘Coming, coming’ and for his feeble footsteps to stomp toward the entrance.

  “It’s… you,” said Brur, squinting his eyes to better see her. Occasional strands of hair on the Malformed’s body went gray; he no longer smelled of pus, and a medical intervention ‘trimmed’ his sagging flesh, lessening the burden on the limbs.

  But it was him. The Apocalypse class she had met thirty years ago.

  “Good night.” Ravager bowed her head, still towering over him. “Mind if I come in?”

  “Call next time,” Brur laughed, his voice dribbling, but she didn’t catch any annoyance in it. “It’s challenging for me to stay awake these days.”

  He invited her in. Wooden planks covered the floor, various ceramics stood on the shelves leading into the kitchen, well secured so that guests could not accidentally knock them over. Ravager glanced into the living room and noticed a family photo of Brur, a woman, and three smaller mutants who shared little of his traits. There were several such photos, but the woman was absent in the leftmost photo, and an urn standing on a table answered Ravager’s curiosity.

  Dolls lay on the table: a soldier in need of restringing its lame leg, a broken egg-shaped princess waiting for her head to be repasted, and a weird six-legged animal smelling of fresh paint.

  They sat at the table, and Brur offered her an Iternian drink called coffee. She didn’t enjoy it, and the gracious host simply gave her the milk. Brur briefly told her how he had opened a small shop selling handmade ceramics and a repair shop focused on fixing antique or old-fashioned toys brought in from outside Iterna. Such jobs were rare, as the children here preferred to spend all day in terminals or entertaining themselves in virtual reality, but it was enough to get by for a person who once had enough power to potentially conquer the world.

  Brur’s power wasn’t just temporarily shut off; it was sealed during several surgeries; he explained to Ravager. He told her a story of how he met his wife, of his family, of the citizens who protested his family being thrown into the camps during the Culling. The local commissioner and the mayor ignored the presidential order and stalled long enough to join the nationwide revolt that toppled the president and her cabinet.

  “It’s a pity that I still had to sell the shop,” Brur said, resting his head on his fist. “But both of my sons have left for the Oathtakers, disgusted by what happened to their friends, and my daughter will follow after… this house will be sold,” he avoided clarification. “They call me daily, but I miss them. It isn’t the same without them around.”

  “But why get old?” Ravager asked, furiously scratching her chin and sniffing the blood in her nose. “You could be young forever! Join your kids; see the world!”

  “And forever be at risk of being used to harm the others. Or in danger of having my family kidnapped to influence me. I don’t wish that. Besides, I have had a happy life, thanks to you, Eugenia, and everyone else who gave me a chance.” He sighed. “Folks say you communicate with the other side. Tell me and be honest. Those people who died because of my power. Is that my fault? Will I go to hell when I die?”

  “I am a god,” Ravager lied. “Even if that Planet of yours considers it a sin, I absolve you of any guilt regarding your power.” She embraced the elderly man, noticing that he was dozing. “Be at peace. I should be going.”

  “Sorry.” Brur smiled weakly. “Old age. I used to stay up all night to finish orders. Now I can do two a day, if I’m lucky.”

  “You have problems with tokens?”

  “We call it credits around here.” Brur rubbed his eyes, trying not to fall asleep. “No, nothing of sorts. But I enjoy working. There’s a drill up my ass; it’s why I braved the top when…” He paused. “I don’t think I’ll have the strength to stand and close the door just yet.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Ravager promised.

  She waited in the living room, listening to his snoring for several hours, until a mutant from the family photos came in, loudly and worriedly calling her father. Ravager slipped behind her back, not producing any sound, squeezed through the door before it could close, and escaped to the roof.

  I can’t save people. Nor can I build. What I created, what I made of the little ones, is vile. She pondered, watching the rising sun. Eugenia didn’t lie, however incredible it was. Brur, a person capable of potentially granting Iterna’s world domination, had been provided succor and a home. I murder and corrupt. Between me and Eugenia, one was destined to be bad and another to be good, and fate corrected our paths as we tried to escape our destinies. There is no happy ending in the end for me, but my arms are strong enough to throttle those who threaten others, and I can lie and pretend to bring calm. Zero, The Dynast, Eugenia, Devourer, Outsider, Alpha, everyone. It is up to you to build a future.

  She paid Brur three more visits, both to test Iterna’s vulnerabilities and to learn more about the man. In two years, the link they shared had disappeared.

  ****

  Wake up already, Commander!

  “You held back.” Ravager accused Geni, stalking around her. They were in the tunnel a kilometer and a half deep, forcibly dug by the Elite’s body after she missed an attack.

  “The pot calls the kettle black.” Geni coughed out a tooth, grinning. Her cloak was tattered, half of the hair was missing, and ripples coursed across her suit as nanomachines were fixing the gaps. “Where were your claws today?”

  “Don’t need them,” she barked, crushing the rocks with her fingers. “You will never beat me like this, weakling. Your every blow must carry an intention to kill. Stop worrying over imaginary rules; use your portals to cut my body, and I…”

  “No. I’ll bring about the resolution in which we’ll both live.”

  “Won’t happen.” Ravager shook her head. “You’ll fail.”

  “Am I?” Geni’s grin grew wider. “Listen to the sounds above. The battle has stopped. I bet you can hear your captain calling for you to come back.” She spread her arms. “None of us or our troops had to die, and the Reclaimers never got the data core. Your side lost.”

  “We weren’t here for it.” Ravager bared his fangs at the mocking look that accused her of lying. “Fat chance of getting the data when you were already in the control room. I never planned on getting it, and I knew your wimps would call a truce the second we showed up.”

  “But… what then? Why fight…”

  “Geni, you are too immature,” Ravager sighed. “Iterna’s shortsightedness comes from the abundance of everything. It makes you oblivious to what is right under your noses, dangers, opportunities, or treasures. Alloys, resource crates, even dismantled Old World technology can aid our progress, and that is why I have removed you from the bunker. Have what you came for; with your surrender, we have secured what we sought.”

  The Elite paused. Then she slapped the ground near herself. “Let us sit and parley. Surely even you are bored after fifty years of us mauling each other. I can get us something to eat. What’s your favorite dish?”

  The world collapsed. Geni denied the course of fate set for her. How dare she? Rage boiled within Ravager; her body spasmed at this cruel treachery. If an angel won’t smite a monster, how could a monster pay for her sins and be reborn into a happier existence as a human? Did this fool think she enjoyed waking up to corpses or harming those calling her a friend and family?

  “I liked the old you better.” Ravager ripped the helmet off Geni’s head and grabbed her ear, planting a foot into the woman’s chest. In a single thrust, she tore away the ear and then ate it, tasting the changes in the body of her rival. Nowhere close yet. They had time. “She was more honest.”

  “That Eugenia was a self-deluded brat, oblivious to what she was doing,” Geni groaned and pushed the foot off herself. “Stop doing that! Use the claws next time; I am sick of you stepping on me.”

  “Then fight, pretty doll! Resist, go all out!” Ravager cheered her. “Hold nothing back; show me the full potential of Iterna’s bioengineering before I show you the futility of your attempt and drown you in despair. Think back to the painful humiliations of the past years, recall every bone I broke, and pay me back tenfold!”

  “I am fighting you, dumbass!” Geni laughed; her bleeding had already stopped. “Pay you back? No problem, but I’ll choose the currency, and it’ll be the very mercy you showed me. I’ll beat you in my own way, and then I’ll help you, Ravy.”

  “Help me?” Ravager whispered, retreating back, and soon her eyes glowed in the dark, watching the limply lying woman at the end of the tunnel. “Impossible. Improbable. Get this into your thick skull, Geni. I am better than you, always was and always will be. Our cat-and-mouse game has amused me so far, but stay wary of me growing tired of it. Because when that day comes, I’ll hunt you down for real.”

  ****

  4,403 kilometers from Houstad.

  “The people are in danger! Our Tribe is in danger! Ravy, your children are in…”

  The amber eyes opened, filling the cave with a yellow light. Ravager woke up, facing her little sister, Zero. Her sole success in anything other than war.

  What exactly did I do right in raising you? The question pounded in her temples whenever Ravager looked at Zero. Out of her spawn, her reflection risked being set to grow as the worst. The seeds were there; she drank the shamans’ bullshit, believed in the ridiculous superstitions, and maimed Dragena. Then… Ravager corrected her. How did I do that? She desired to know, believing that in it lay the key to reforming the Tribe to be better than she. But her memory refused to answer.

  The little sis took care of her appearance, combing her fur and hair after washing herself clean and preferring practical clothes, although after the incident in Iterna she stuck more to things that covered her whole body, like her current black uniform with silver buttons that complemented her natural dark fur.

  “Situation?” the commander demanded, picking up a frozen bone and gnawing at a little remaining meat that had belonged to a slave trader trying to smuggle children out of the Inner Lands. The bone dropped as Zero hastily explained the situation.

  An invasion. A howl escaped Ravager’s lips, tearing away the roof of her remote rest and sending an avalanche of stones crashing down. She put her everything into it, wordlessly sending love and care to her distant kin. Zero raised her paws, shielding her face; the force of the air drew lines with the released claws of the woman’s feet. Her uniform got torn, and she was left standing covered by many leather straps that held her guns, utility gear, and a helmet at her waist. The howling continued, carrying Ravager’s message to every corner of the Inner and Core Lands.

  Ravager stopped howling and plucked a terminal from Zero, activating it. She never bothered to learn how to read, but the gifts of her creators kicked in, solving that obstacle. The images made sense to her, giving her the current lay of the land and rough estimates of the prey’s positions. The Gilded Horde will strike Houstad, but there were many settlements in dire need of more immediate rescue. Dragena was a smart girl, and Ravager trusted in her ability to endure.

  Zero scowled, checking her guns and finding the ones that got crumpled by the air pressure. She sighed, shivered at the cold, and put on her helmet, checking the rest of her gear.

  “Mind giving me a ride to Houstad…” Zero squeaked as Ravager tucked the terminal under her armpit and closed the paw around her sister. “Major danger! Not that! Bad idea! Ravy, don’t you dare. The last time you pulled it off, I had to wait a month before my fangs…” The ropes of muscle pressing against the skin and the thoughtful, calculating look made the warlord grab her sister’s big thumb and try to pry it away. “Let go of me, or I’ll post photos of you in the morning on the Net! I swear, I’ll do it. Ravy, for the love of Spirits, you are heading the same way…”

  Her words were cut off as Ravager threw her sister, sending her flying across the sky, and a dark comet aimed at Houstad streaked through the clouds, shouting, “Fuck yoooo….” that grew more distant and quieter every second.

  Ravager’s fingers splintered the rock as she stood on all fours, her body swaying slightly as her muscles tensed. She craned her neck, fixing the position of her vertebrae. Blood dripped from her nose, her poor brain argued, demanding a return to sleep, but she ignored it, welcoming a surge of adrenaline. Her body had had enough rest; she’ll hold out long enough; she won’t collapse or falter.

  The leap propelled her forward faster than any missile, and the mountain trembled, slowly coming apart as a wide, uneven chasm, the result of the paws that sent Ravager flying, split it in two. The commander did not howl; her mind was clear, helping her formulate the most acceptable approach to tackling the task.

  There will be murders, but they had to be the right murders. She won’t allow a repeat of the Mincemeat campaign, not here. Today, Ravager will control herself, even if that’ll kill her afterwards.