"Release me."

- The alien that was controlling Brent Spiner in Independence Day

"Shoot me."

- Kana Ueda, Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse


A heart monitor beeped in a healthy stable rhythm. In a long white room with a white tiled floor and a pristine white ceiling, a group of Magus researchers worked around a gurney constructed like an altar. They were dressed all in the same long white robes with regal red trim. White gloves covered their hands, white hoods were pulled over their heads, and they wore featureless white masks with large red crosses covering their faces. The only way to tell them apart was by their heights and their voices. The altar was surrounded with large computer towers modeled as twinkling marble pillars, creating an environment that was part operating room and part temple.

A female patient was lying on her back on the altar in a deep slumber. She was dressed in a black miniskirt and a red turtleneck sweater. Her long hair sprawled underneath her in shining black waves. Her darker and more scandalous choice of colors broke up the sterile monotony of the room's pure white walls and made her the center of this bright isolated universe.

The specimen was a Magus afflicted with a Crest Worm infestation. Several of the cultists had managed to trap her and subdue her during one of her latest violent rampages. They had rushed her to their holy quarters for the ceremony that was now well underway.

Thigh-length stockings tightly hugged the subject's legs, and her legs were tightly held up in metal stirrups. A small shining basin was set up at edge of the ritual table, situated just in front of her spread miniskirt. White drapes dangled over the altar-gurney across the subject's shoulders, partitioning the bed so her face was kept hidden above the sheet.

The cultists considered the specimen less as a human being and more as a container for immense magical power that happened to be human-shaped. They never acknowledged her name and referred to her only as "Subject Ishtar." Powerful sleeping spells kept her in her dreams while the cultists tried to pull thousands of tiny quivering nightmares out of her. It had taken Zouken only a few seconds to seal them inside of her. Her masked captors spent hours working with handmaid's zeal in an effort to free them from her.

The most direct way to counter-magically remove Crest Worms was through the same means they had first entered the host. No less than six masked sages were crowded between the specimen's spread and elevated feet at any given moment. Waldomort, Vermisnax, and Mola Ralph worked with tweezers and plungers blessed with sacred waters, but they were no match for whatever she had going on down there. Lopandolf waved clouds of incense under her skirt. Nancylenia somehow introduced a musical triangle into the mix. A hundred faceless warlocks and sorceresses took turns working their crafts into an attempt to solve the riddles of the subject's body, and all came back empty handed.

Magical wards proved to be just as useless as physical tools. One Magus after another would hold their hand over the specimen's narrow stomach and try a different spell. An arcane symbol would glow on her belly through her sweater, but nothing triggered a reaction and the subject continued to sleep undisturbed. CURE had no effect. PURGE had no effect. UNLOCK: EXPERT had no effect. DISPEL LVL. 5 had no effect. The worms were burrowed deep in their fertile soil and it seemed like nothing was going to weaken their bond.

A female Magus named Mintlin eventually had her turn trying to draw the worms out of the womb. She was a soft-spoken and peaceful white mage who seemed like the least likely person to be of any help against such a powerful threat. When she stood at the side of gurney-altar and held her palm an inch above the specimen's rising and falling stomach, the rune for MOTHER appeared.

For the first few seconds, there was no reaction. But then the heart monitor beeped rapidly and the subject made a sound that was somewhere between a moan and a scream. Five tiny Crest Worms fell from beneath her skirt and coiled against the ice cold surface of the silver basin. Five, out of no less than five thousand.

Mintlin weaved her magic again, this time gently resting her fingers against the subject's waist. The operating room echoed with the sweet sounds of a woman being driven out of her mind from mana overload.

The specimen's legs convulsed in their stirrups. Another three Crest Worms lightly fell on the sterling basin with their other squirming brethren. The first collection plate was sealed, moved to a cart meant for the research lab, and replaced with another plate carefully aligned under the specimen's thighs.

Mintlin glanced over to the machine monitoring the subject's metaphysical state. Nothing looked good. The subject's mana supply was unstable, her astral field was starting to collapse, and all of her magical harmonies were suffering from severe strain. All just from drawing a handful of Crest Worms from her body, and it would only get worse as they continued to force the rest out of her.

Mintlin shook her head. She told the other masked mages she would have to work like this for days before the patient was fully cleansed if the worms remained this resistant.

There was only one tool in the ceremony chamber that wasn't meant for extracting Crest Worms: A semi-automatic pistol loaded with a single silver bullet resting beside the curtain covering the specimen's head. By the time the cultists finished retrieving the worms from her body, she would be completely crippled as a Magus. She would be left even weaker than an average human, and the overwhelming toll on her mind would reduce her to a bumbling drooling shell of her self. Then it would be time to put a bullet in her head. It was meant to be a mercy killing rather than a punishment.

The next step the cultists intended to take was to track down her sister and make sure she received the same special treatment. Crest Worms transformed into different types of species that inherited the host's own magical properties once they were infested, and the cult planned to collect every type to further their arcane knowledge.

Mintlin delicately placed her hand on the specimen's waist again and concentrated her white magic. Another Magus knelt at the end of altar-gurney so the cross covering his face was a few inches away from the specimen's open miniskirt and he could help ease the Crest Worms onto the basin.

The MOTHER rune glowed through the specimen's sweater. She responded by yanking her legs out of the stirrups, wrapping her steel thighs around the doctor's mask, and snapping his neck with her twisting hips. She instantly sat up, pulling her head out from behind the white curtain and revealing her face fuming with rage.

The ceremony room exploded into a panic. Rin grabbed Mintlin's arm and twisted it like a crunching ketchup-filled pretzel before ripping it off of its socket completely, leaving the herbal-named cleric in dire need of First Aid. Rin hopped upside-down on her hands and sent several cultists flying with a helicopter kick. She came back down so she was sitting on the edge of the gurney-altar with her right arm held out. Ruby shards blasted out of her palm and tore through the nearest cultists surrounding her. She hopped down to her feet and crossed her arms over her head while making a sensual pivoting motion with her hips, summoning a legion of flame serpents out of the ground to curse the rest of her enemies to a horrific fiery demise.

The entire cult was laid to rest in a matter of seconds.

Rin tilted her neck and shook out her black twin tails. She leaned forward and pulled a wrinkle out of her left stocking before straightening her skirt. Her mana supply felt a tad lower than normal, but it wasn't anything that threatened her position as one of the powerful beings in existence, and her body could naturally replenish itself from something like this within a couple of hours.

Glancing over the smoldering chaos and savage butchery she had left spread across the white tile floor, she muttered only one word under her breath.

"Creeps."

Rin walked out of the room with her fingers gently rubbing her waist and a small limp in her step.


Author's note: Good. Now I'm gonna go play Flashback(TM) on my Nintendo Switch(R).