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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Obsequium_Minaris on 2025-09-05 03:09:09+00:00.

First / Previous / Royal Road

XXX

It took a moment for Pale to fully register what she had just witnessed. But when she finally did, a new emotion came over her – one that felt completely alien to her, even after all this time of having lived planetside among people and having had time for her mind to properly develop. It was something she’d never felt before, in almost every way.

It was nothing more than sheer, all-encompassing rage.

She tried several times to force herself back into her own body in an attempt to wake up. When one attempt failed, she simply tried again, over and over, until finally, it worked. She catapulted awake, uncaring of the fact that she’d been held in Evie’s lap and was in the middle of being healed. Evie let out a cry of surprise as Pale jumped to her feet, then checked the assault rifle slung across her front to make sure it was loaded before turning back towards her friends, who were staring at her in shock.

“Pale…?” Valerie ventured. “What’s-”

“Nasir, you’re with me,” Pale ordered. “Evie, what’s Captain Allen’s status? Is he available yet?”

Evie blinked in surprise. “Pale, you need to slow down-”

“Is he available?” Pale repeated.

Slowly, Evie nodded. “Yes, he is.”

“Have him regroup with me. Nasir, you and I are headed down to the entryway.” She surveyed the rest of her friends, all of whom were still nursing their wounds; from what she could tell, her, Evie, and Nasir were the only ones still up. “The rest of you, stay here and let Evie heal you up. Join up with us when you’re ready.”

“Wait, wait,” Kayla urged. “This is… what’s going on?”

Pale grit her teeth. “Cal and Cynthia are dead. I saw it happen. We’ve got enemies pouring into the castle’s courtyard, and we’re stuck inside. Unless we stop them, here and now, we’re going to be overrun.”

Kayla’s eyes widened. “Cal and Cynthia are-”

“Yes,” Pale interrupted. “They are. And we’ll be joining them if we don’t do something about it right away.”

Evie nodded in understanding. “I’ll get Valerie and Kayla back in action. The two of you should get going while there’s still time. Allen should be there waiting for you, assuming he isn’t bringing the fight to them already.”

Pale grimaced, but then motioned for Nasir to follow her.

“Come on,” she said. “We don’t have time to waste.”

XXX

Together with Nasir, she took off running through the castle’s halls, retracing her steps back to the entrance from memory. Captain Allen was nowhere to be found, but that didn’t concern her at the moment. Rather, she was more concerned that the doors to the castle – which had been secured earlier via locks and barricades – were currently buckling under outside pressure. The Otrudians were beating on them, desperate to get inside, no doubt out of the desire to all but skin them alive for how they’d decimated their other forces.

Currently, Pale and Nasir were on a walkway up above the castle’s entrance. She signaled for Nasir to get down, which he did, and she took two grenades from within pouches on her body armor. And the moment the doors finally caved in and the Otrudians began to make entry, she pulled the pins on the grenades and dropped them into the awaiting crowd of advancing soldiers.

They all had just enough time to wonder what had hit the floor in the center of their group before the explosives detonated. They had all been clustered together in order to flow through the doorway as a unit, and so the resulting explosions had torn scores of them to ribbons.

Pale didn’t waste any time, however – the moment the smoke and dust cleared, she popped up from behind cover and began to fire down upon anyone who was still advancing into the castle. It wasn’t many of them; most of the remaining Otrudians had seen what had just happened to their comrades, and therefore weren’t dumb enough to risk a direct assault in that manner. Instead, Pale heard many of them yelling orders to each other as they flowed around the outside of the castle, searching for alternate entrances. Pale let out a grunt as she swapped magazines, then motioned for Nasir to follow her.

“Come on,” she told him. “We’ve got to get to the ground floor.”

“The ground floor?!” he protested. “That’s where they all are!”

“I know.” Pale did a quick check using her thermal imaging, then shook her head. “They’re down to a few hundred now. I’m not planning to let any of them live. We can handle them all.”

“What are you saying?! Listen to yourself!”

Pale suddenly surged forwards and grabbed Nasir by the collar, pulling him close enough so their faces were almost touching. The two of them stared each other down, neither one willing to back down.

“Cal and Cynthia are dead,” Pale reminded him. “I plan to collect my payment in full for it, and also to prevent anyone else from getting killed by them. You are no good to me if you aren’t going to kill Otrudians right now. You can either stay here, or you can be helpful and assist me however you can. The choice is yours.”

Nasir glowered at her. “They were my friends, too,” he growled. “You’re acting reckless and stupid. I understand you’re upset at what happened to them, but you’re putting yourself and the rest of us in danger needlessly. I am not going to follow you into combat if you’re making dumb decisions like this. You’ve always been smart about how you fought, but if that’s going to change, then I’m staying behind, because I’m not about to get myself killed because you value your revenge more than your own life. Now, can you promise me that you’re going to be rational about this, or are you going to force me to let you go off on your own like you seem insistent on doing?”

Pale grit her teeth in annoyance. “Now is not the time-”

“Now is the only time for this. I mean what I said, Pale – either start acting rationally or you’re on your own, because I’m not getting myself killed so you can satisfy your vengeance.”

Pale hesitated. A million thoughts were running through her head all at once – some of them reasonable, and some of them not. The rational, machine side of her brain was telling her that Nasir was absolutely right – that there was no sense in her risking herself or anyone else she cared about getting killed over what ultimately amounted to petty revenge.

But whenever that thought seemed like it was going to win out, she’d remember Cal and Cynthia – all the times they’d shared together at the Luminarium, and even beyond it. She remembered the two of them bickering, and Cal’s jokes, and how Cynthia was always quick to reprimand him for saying something off-color. She remembered the ways the two of them looked at each other, and how their burgeoning relationship had been tragically cut short by war.

And she remembered that those memories were all she would ever have of them now. It was a blessing and a curse – the machine part of her brain, the part that gave her an eidetic memory, meant that she’d never be able to forget the times she’d shared with the two of them, but by that same token, it just made the pain of realizing there’d never be any more additional memories of them even more painful.

Finally, though, one side of her mind successfully defeated the other.

Pale grit her teeth in frustration before finally shoving Nasir back, and watching him fall to the ground.

“…Stay here,” she urged him before turning and beginning to walk away.

Nasir stared at her in dismay. “So that’s it?” he demanded. “You’re just going to go get yourself killed?”

“I’ll be fine,” Pale said without looking back. “But you’re right – I can’t risk anyone else here. I refuse to do so. Instead, I’ll do it myself, and damn the consequences.”

“That’s not what I meant! Hey, wait!”

She didn’t let him finish his sentence. Instead, she took off running, leaving him behind as she sped through the castle, eager to make her way to the ground floor.

XXX

By the time Pale made it down to the base of the castle, she could already hear Otrudians swarming around inside the darkened halls. She sidled up to one of the walls, pressing her back against it as she listened in to what some of their soldiers had to say.

“-something out in the town itself! It’s tearing us to ribbons!”

“Shit… how many men do we have left?”

“Fuck if I know! Damn it… this was supposed to be a simple assignment, they assured us this place was a ghost town! And those weapons… what are they, exactly?”

“I have no idea, but we need to rally the men we have left and finish this fight while we still can. Otherwise-”

That was enough for her. Pale pulled one of her few remaining grenades out from her vest, pulled the pin, and then rolled it around the corner. The Otrudian soldiers paused their conversation, and then a split-second later, the explosive went off. Men cried out in a panic, and Pale spun out from around the corner, her rifle at the ready, and laid on its trigger, riddling anyone left standing after the explosion with a storm of lead.

By the time it was over, another two-dozen Otrudians lay dead in the hallway, and the only sounds she could hear were those of spent brass rolling across the floor. Pale swapped magazines, and was just in time for more soldiers to step …

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