The Belkan war: alternative story

by Vergeltern

It did not take great mans to begin wars nor to end then. But to turn the tide of one they are required. This is an alternate history for the Belkan war. Follow an other sixth Unit of Ustio, a different Galm team, as their actions will turn the tide in a twisted, but maybe better way. This story is rated T, but can content some M rated chapter with some depicted violent scenes.

22. Hexenjagd (witch-hunt)

A/N: I prefer to warn that this chapter is at the limits of the T and M rating

Some old crypt, Verzweiflungsberg, Belka, 10/06/1995, 23:00, Weather: little night fog.

Vasquez was awakening, not due to some iced water this time. Maybe if she knew in which throes she was, she would have been gladly awakened by iced water, this time. This time it seemed more like she had hit her ulnar nerve, but in all her body. She hadn't opened her eyes yet. She was trying to remember why she had gotten unconscious this time.

She remembered having gone to her room after some successful negotiation with one of the engineers who had conceived the pioneering energy source that was powering Excalibur through superconductor cables. Source that needed to be dismounted and reassembled at Tauberg, where it would be out of reach of the allied forces. And as such, Excalibur fire would be a bit weaker these days, but the power of all of its secondary power plant was enough to generate Helligen Kolumne, but with greater interval of time and a bit less ionization of the air. She remembered having seen flowers on a small vase, apparently brought by the mayor of Hoffnung to thank Kupchenko and the CSB to agree at welcoming the en masse fleeing people of Hoffnung that had already taken the route of exile. Then, she had smell something, her whole body had become limp, and she lost consciousness. The reason why was explained by one of her abductors.

"Chloroform must have ceased its effect by now. Make sure she's awake." A female voice said with a thick Belkan accent. A hard slap on her cheek followed, removing the final bit of sleepiness from her body. She could feel the heat from this violent gesture, so the masked woman who had struck at her wasn't giving her a try. No, she had done that bluntly and violent. She had felt her head shifting side from the strength

Then she realized she was bounded to a metallic chair by both metallic shackles on her wrist and ankles, and pieces of some synthetic tissue for her torso. She also felt as if someone had put small needles through her skin, like if someone was giving her an acupuncture sequence. And from time to time, she could feel small discharges running in her body, that might have awoken her.

"Look at us, my dear. It's the last thing you'll see before we tore apart your mind." The same voice spoke again, and she look up at her abductor that were surrounding her in a circle. They were maybe a dozen of women watching her. All wearing dark tabard with white hoodies with black leotard below but one who had the same clothes, but with the color inverted: white tabard and black hoodies. Looking at her surrounding was simple: she was apparently in an old cave, which had small stone walls and a semi-cylindrical ceiling made of the same small stones. White stones that reverberated well the lights of the neon bulbs she was seeing above her. On these walls she could see old medieval carving, most of them looking like cross, but all inverted. These walls were no more of a sacred place, but a desecrated one.

"Quién eres? ¿dónde estoy? (¿Who are you? Where am I?)" She asked, out of fear and incomprehension of this whole situation. If she had known she would have been involved in such, she would have surely refused the order of Kupchenko. She had feared to face Iskanda. Now she would have wanted to be fighting her instead of these faceless abductors.

"I know your tongue, traitorous one. We are the Hexen. And about this place… This is where we shatter the mind of those who oppose us." She retorted in a cold voice. It hadn't the commanding tone of Kupchenko, but it was cold enough to make understand that her mind wouldn't be the only thing to be shattered during her time in this desolate place. If she survived it.

"I'm seeing worries on her face, Mutter." One of the other "Hexen" spoke, noticing the fear growing on the Sapin's face. If she was on an electric chair, her sweat would have been enough to make a short circuit. If she used the expression "sweating bullets" to describe her state of anxiety and fear right now, the bullets would have been two hundred-millimeter naval shells. She had the feeling she was sweating litters that would run down her back. This left her almost freezing. And the cold air in this place wasn't helping to get her any warmer.

"Kein Furcht, Sapin. Wir morden nur die Seele unserer Opfer, nicht ihren Körper." Was the threat of the one they called "Mutter". She doubted all of them were her daughters, but it was maybe some ranks or affiliation of some sort.

"No Belkanès." She muttered, having understood that their intend were crude ones, but not to which extent.

"That was too be expected. We can offer the translation; it will be one of the last words she'll remember." One of the "Töchtern" (daughters) conceded, letting a sinister laugh afterward. Laugh that added with the last word only make only the more intense the worries of the now deeply afraid Espada 2.

"Do not fear that much. We do not murder the bodies of our victims. Only their spirit." Another translated, which do not ease the worry of the Sapin pilot a single bit.

"She might be wondering what'll happen to her." Another one, which was behind her intervened, on a sarcastic note, like she was fainting to care about the Sapin's fate.

"We have discovered this funny thing named electric acupuncture. Usually it's used to ease pain." One began the description of what she was going to endure. What had they done to her body, the Sapin wanted to ask, even if the response would be obvious: something bad, that will make her suffer way more than a few bruises and a sprained ankle.

"But here we have inserted them next to the major nerves that are near the center of pain of your body. You see, some signals go through some nerves, and there's almost a little pain map you can draw after some experimentation." The "Mother" concluded the explanation. Vasquez didn't want to know what kind of experimentation they could have done to obtain such results.

"Du wirst quälen, Abweichler (you'll suffer, Renegade)." Were the last words she heard, before she slowly felt the electric tickling becoming stronger and stronger. The pain in her body suddenly increase multiples times, to a point where her vision became blurry and her breathing rhythm erratic. She hadn't had the translation for these last words, but the intonation that had come with them, and the subsequent sufferance were enough to translate them for her.

However, and to her demise, they had indeed no intent in killing her through electrocution, fibrillation or suffocation. They only wanted her to experience pain and utter sufferance, but without killing her in the process. As such, small periods of this unbearable torture were periodic, of small period in which she felt like she had run a marathon, gasping for air as she had been screaming from the pain at the top of her lungs. She thought she would choke from screaming so much, but these Hexen where making sure she wouldn't die. Her body wouldn't die. But how much would her mind resist the pain before she went crazy and lose her head. She had heard about soldiers getting a bit of PTSD from certain conflicts, but at least she would have a good reason to have some at the end of this horrific experience. If only she had enough consciousness to feel any of it, she realized as another sequence of these discharges began.

Some old crypt, Verzweiflungsberg, Belka, 11/06/1995, 00:00, Weather: little night fog.

How many times had passed, she asked herself. Hours? Bare minutes? Or even days? She could have been through comatose due to the pain and she wouldn't have noticed it. Such pain couldn't be counted in hours. Only in litters of tears she would cry after such painful moments.

Yet this time, the small pause took a bit more time than usual, and they ask her some question. After all, they were submitting her to the question, literally speaking. She thought she wouldn't have to bear such cruelty when she engaged in the army. She guessed she hadn't anticipated all of that back in Sapin. Nor when she agreed to go to Hoffnung on the CSB's behalf

"Talk, Sapin. What are you helping to smuggle for your new master? His lackeys are keeping that covered quite well." The mother inquired her, having grasp her chin to force her to watch the faceless cloaked figure. Pure and cold hatred were the only thing she met in the Hexen's gaze.

"No sé … . (I know nothing)." She muttered with a trembling voice, not knowing all the specification of the shipments that were already gone. Most of it was.

"I just know it has something to do with magnetism. The lead engineer insisted that we handled the magnetic components with as much care as if it was Aarlon porcelain. And they filled twelve transport craft with it." The Sapin pilot simply described all she had seen. It wasn't much, but was she committing betrayal by giving those tiny details?

These tiny details meant few things indeed. Not enough to deduce the purpose of these fragile magnetic pieces.

"That could be used for anything, from a power plant to metallic treatment, and from a conveyor to a railgun." One sister said, admitting that abducting this one was pretty useless. They had planned to abduct the lead engineer, but he was always surrounded by people in the hangars, and he left onboard the first transport craft. Still, with the supervisor missing, the shipment would be delayed and the allied might have the time to strike before it would be too late.

"Was sollen wir von sie machen?" (what should we do of her) another spoke, as they were realizing she had no more usefulness.

"You are no more useful to us. You outlived your usefulness. But your body will serve us long enough, be ensured." The "Mutter" harshly added. Her fate seemed to be sealed by these terrifying words. What was she talking about when she spoke of her body, Vasquez didn't get it.

"Bereit den Seelebrecher (Ready the Soulbroker)." She ordered, and an Hexen went for a small container. Dozens of needles were stored in it, with some having strange micro wings on them. Maybe they were meant for projectile rifles or dart guns.

The Hexen took a few of them, then waited for the condensate water to dry. She then ruled out some of the needles, saying names that were deadly "Ricin, Thallium, Arsenic, Bismuth, Cyanide… not these ones, they are too quick."

" Ah, here we are, propranolol." She brought a needle filled with some translucent fluid.

"There might be "LOL" in the name of this chemical, but only us are going to have lots of laugh from its effects." Another said, as she came to Vasquez's side to maintain her arm in place while the other would inject her this product.

She tried to wrestle out, but the questioning session had tired her body to great exhaustion. She had no more force within her muscles, and her mind was close to go to limb. The effect of this product to her point of view was to increase this dreamy state, like if she was going high. She hadn't experience drugs in her life, and she might've wanted not to ever experience one. But apparently fate was not in her favor. First, she almost lost her wingmate, and now this? This was not fostering her resolve, only destroying it slowly.

"Now, your spirit will go to a happy place. Everyone has a happy place to go." The mother claimed, emphasizing the words "happy place."

They restarted the electrodes to enhance the effect of the drug. And the few fibrillatory effect this system had only further increased the diffusion. It seemed like if she was drifting, like if she was bearing so much Gs that her mind would go off, but she still had consciousness of her surrounding, somehow.

"May your mind drift away in your happy place. Let it be carried away by the eddies and vanish into the void." The mother said, while plunging another syringe toward her arm.

The second injection tore apart the final pieces of her sanity. Like the Mother said, she drifted away, lost in some kind of non-lucid dream. Her whole body had become rigid due to the current going through it, but when they shut the power down, it went sloppy, as she had no more control over it.

"Go to your happy place, Marcela Vasquez." The mother kept repeating with a falsely soft voice. With each time, Vasquez drifted a bit more from reality. She was losing all her control on her body definitively, while hearing some slow music. She knew she was still breathing, but she couldn't have a grasp on its pace. She was seeing her few happy moments in repetition, with memory from the war seemingly disappearing. The music become irreal, as trembling as she was, but around one note. She seemed to be coming from nowhere but her own mind.

Then, it suddenly increased. Going crescendo was an understatement. But it increased so suddenly that her mind went blank, then dark. She was lost in the darkness. But so were the Hexen.

Some old crypt, Verzweiflungsberg, Belka, 11/06/1995, 00:00, Weather: little night fog.

Warning, M rated part (bloody one)

For Vasquez, she just went into unconsciousness. What had happened in the earthlier world in which her now lifeless body laid was far different from a change of tempo. More of a change of reality for the Hexen.

The Hexen were still gathered around her when it all happened. In a fraction of a second, all neon bulbs on the ceiling exploded, spreading tiny burning pieces of glass everywhere in the cave. The intense brightness of the flash they produced during the explosion made quite hard to see in the darkness for the seconds following it. The white walls were now like an abyss of darkness, it was pitch black, maybe a tan brighter than Vantablack. Furthermore, the powder within the neon bulbs wasn't helping to see either, as they scrambled to look around for flashlights.

"Was passiert? (What's happened)?" One Hexen shouted in astonishment, one second after having to shake her hand, as a piece of overheated glass had fallen onto it. Now the upper side of her right hand was slightly burned from that piece of glass. It would leave a mark, if she had the time to ever cicatrize it.

"Einige elektrische Überlastung, ich glaube." (Some electrical overload, I believe). Another replied, suddenly lacking in confidence.

"Und was passiert mit dem Wachen? (And what's happened with the guards)" Another added, having heard no alarm from the three man they paid to guard the entry of the old desecrated church in which they were doing their quite unholy acts.

But their search for light, as well as their small talks were interrupted by a strong deaf sound. It was the sound of the heavy doors that just slam shut in the upper level. Doors that usually required more than two people to open them, as they were ten-centimeters thick oaken doors. Silence come back again, but it only raised their level of anxiety.

Then, something more worrying broke the silence. Sound of heavy step descending the stairs leading to that cave. One could have chosen to use the darkness to enter here unnoticed. Yet, the infiltrator was doing the opposite, making sure to slam loudly her thick soles on the ground made of stone, wanting to be heard, as the sound was rezoning quite loudly in this cave, even when she was only on the first step. After all, what was most frightening for a middle-class predator than to be found in his most secret lair by a stronger predator? To know that there's no more escape to a fight he's not sure to win? To be able to hear him search for you, and shiver like a leaf in the wind? Maybe they were not down to that level, but some Hexen had surely loss their countenance right now. The fearsome ladies they were might be the most subjected to fear itself than the ones they preyed upon.

Suddenly the steps stopped. An Hexen turned a small light toward the stairs and saw nothing but darkness. And nothingness was all she would saw next. All that she would ever saw. The next second, some pneumatic sound could be heard, like if the infiltrator was firing something. It wasn't a gun, even with flash suppressor they would have seen something, and the noise of a gun would have deafened everyone in the vicinity. The sound of the projectiles was not the sound of bullets either, but more like darts or if someone used a very big blowgun. Yet, it wasn't darts, paralyzing or sleeping ones that were now embedded in the flesh of the neck of the Hexen holding the light. But old rusty metallic nails that caused her to choke, drowning in her own blood as the eight-centimeter long nail had pierced her skin and almost went through her throat, only to be stopped by the top of her spine.

She stayed upright a few seconds before falling head-on toward the ground where she laid in the throes of an horrible death. She never had the time to scream. Nor to express final regrets. Her light fell but didn't broke, and rolled a bit on the ground, only illuminating the last stair of the stone staircase as it stopped its motion only one meter before the entrance. It illuminated a leg from the infiltrator for an instant, before said infiltrator raised said leg and crush the light in one strike, filling once more the room with darkness.

Then, two red shaped eyes appeared where the infiltrator stood, almost floating in the obscurity. The Hexen that was facing her only saw two blood-injected eyes, with this feeling fostered by the strange red filter on the glasses of the infiltrator. Two eyes filled with all the hatred of the world looked at her, thirsty for blood. Before she choked on her own like the first.

Another fell to those nails too, the one that was right in front of Vasquez, and as such, this caused the unconscious Sapin to be covered in the blood of the dying Belkan, desperately gasping for air. Her arms moved erratically, almost like if she was trying to prevent herself from drowning in real water.

Another one chose to activate a fire-thrower lighter and oriented it toward the staircase from which the projectiles they had heard must have come. However, in the short period of time, the infiltrator had made a few steps forward, and as such, when she lighted her lighter forward, the thirty-centimeter long flame illuminated the dark clothes of the infiltrator. The flames actually licked her clothes, which didn't take fire for an unknown reason. She had the time to recognize the small fluorescent band of yellow and white that was on the chest level, and thus realize that this infiltrator was just wearing a firefighter suit. Which was made not to burn at first contact. Yet, the one she was almost trying to burn must have felt the heat, that was sure.

"You cannot take all of us." The Hexen holding the lighter asserted, trying to be convincing in her threat. She saw the faintly illuminated lips of her enemy grow into a smirk, who then happily replied:

"But I will take you, rest assured." She replied, affording to take a bit of heat. This way, she looked maybe more threatening than if she had acted immediately. You show more fear when you don't act than when you do, sometimes.

Still the heat wasn't enough to make her step back. She raised her unconventional weapon she was holding in her right hand, a nailgun, and strike at the wrist holding the lighter with it in an inward circular motion. Given the fact that the nailgun was made out of harden steel, the wrist was broken on impact, and the lighter fell. Which she caught in midair and light it back, but this time turning it against her former user. And used it to burn her face, causing a great scream of pain that was far louder than the small she emitted after the Hexen had her wrist broken. A strike of the nailgun to her temple silenced the screaming woman with a now distorted face, which she was holding in her hands as she tried to extinguish the nascent flames. And she silenced her definitively by firing three nails down her nape.

"Wer bist du? (Who are you)." The mother asked, not wanting to show fear by saying these three words with the rashest voice possible. At the same time, a small light was lit beside the woman, near the only other powered thing in the room, the cooled case containing the needles. But it was only a small projector, which lights reverberated a bit on the wall. Not enough to illuminate the entire cave, but surely enough to render the three motionless bodies visible to all in the room. Usually, they were the ones killing, not being killed here.

"Ein Krieger (A warrior)." The women that had already killed three of their kind spoke, smiling below her IR goggles. Smiling in a distorted way, but from mad joy instead of pain. The white walls weren't going to stay white for long. Maybe a nice crimson would be a better ornamentation than those reversed cruxes.

"Und was machst du hier, Mörderin (And what are you doing here, killer)?" The mother kept asking, while the two closest to Iskanda moved even closer, in order to attack her, or at least to distract her while the mother would enact one of her tricks against this assassin. They only murdered the soul of their victims, but maybe for this one they would make an exception

"Hexenjagd (witch-hunt)" The woman replied with more harshness in her voice than the mother had displayed. With more hatred that she had ever seen. She dispatched her IR goggles and the apparatus that was contained in a small headset, now useless, and look at the women she was about to make suffer with her very own eyes. Without the apparatus covering the upper part of her face, she was now far more recognizable for those Hexen, as she had surely been portrayed by one or two cams from journalist that recorded the ceremony a month ago in Directus. Iskanda Rayien wasn't maybe well known in this underworld of assassins hiding in the shadow, but she was going to be soon. She knew only one way to end Hexen, a very warm way.

She hung her nailgun back to her belt, using a small carabiner, before drawing her jade harpoon from a pocket. She wanted this to be up close and personal. She had already been deprived of a victory on Kupchenko when they told to use cyanide. Sure, this nailgun was maybe more reliable than the cyanide gun, but she hadn't that many nails in it left. At least not enough for all of the Hexen. She then looked at the nearest Hexen, and took a somewhat fencing stance, now sideways toward this black and white woman, which had removed their cloak to see a bit better. Both drawn small white ceramic knifes, a good weapon to infiltrate too, since it was less likely to be detect than metallic knifes. She was waiting for them to make their first move. She didn't need to say anything, her stance was saying all that mattered: "Come and get me" was the message. But "come to your death that you have owned" was her ill-minded intent toward them

One of them had to step above the body of the burned one at the left of Vasquez' torture chair, and as such she arrived with a bit of delay on the Erusean merc she hadn't recognized yet. The other one coming from the right strike alone, and thus was easily avoided by Iskanda. She then tried to strike from high, but her strike was something Iskanda saw coming from three thousand kilometers away, and as such, when she struck with her blade, she met nothing but air. This time Iskanda hadn't stepped back, but aside. With her free hand, she caught the wrist holding the weapon, and spin on herself, using the momentum of the Hexen to make her impact the other one that was forced to step back, and stumbled on the body of one of her already deceased sister.

"So predictable. As weak as Weeker." Iskanda laughed at the stumbling Hexen, before spinning back while keeping the arm of the first Hexen in a tight lock, folding the Hexen's arm in such a way to make sure she would either fall or have her shoulder dislocated. She fell hard on her back, and the shock in her arm make her let go of her small ceramic blade. Which Iskanda caught and throw immediately at the Hexen that had managed to stand back up. It entered her leg with a deafened sound, and as she was slightly stalled by the pain, Iskanda plunged her weapon down the throat of the Hexen laying on the ground.

The second kept advancing but was quite hindered by the wounds on her leg, having not pulled the weapon to avoid blood loss. Then she tried to strike, but the jade blade deflected her attack, and she lacked balance due to her wounded leg. She tried to attack with her other hand, but as she throw a punch that met only air again, Iskanda stepped forward, pushing the arm holding the ceramic knife, and stabbed the other that she was pulling back after her missed strike, with some very thin weapon. Weapon that revealed to be an especially very thin screwdriver that the Hexen saw when she had to step back after this infiltrator headbutted her. She didn't know if it was from the strong head-butt or the strike of the screwdriver that tore through her biceps, but she couldn't move her right arm anymore. She tried to strike one more time, but the jade harpoon was faster than the Hexen, and cut the wrist tendon, making her wrist bled heavily. And as she lost control other her finger from the grievous wound, her weapon fell to the ground. She knew she had lost when she saw her weapon falling on the ground.

"You were smart enough not to pull out the blade." Iskanda commented, managing to pull out the blade out of the leg after striking at her wrist. She did that we the hand holding the screwdriver and didn't kept the blade in her hand for a long time, only to strike at her leg once again, but at the femoral arteria.

"I… sur…" the Hexen tried to speak, but never find the word nor the strength to say them. The strike at her leg was only a distraction from Iskanda, as her main strike was done with the screwdriver one second after piercing the femoral arteria, which she inserted between two ribs, were the heart was supposed to be. The entire length of the tool went through the flesh, only to be pulled back as she pushed the motionless Hexen with the side of her blade, and due to the momentum of her fall the screwdriver was freed, only to create a severe hemorrhage. Iskanda had no means to check if she had hit the heart, or the lungs, but from all the blood pouring out of the wound, she might have some certainty about it. She twirled her weapons and wait for the next Hexen that was rushing toward her, screaming for vengeance after witnessing these horrible murders. But what had Kellerman said? To win over the one that reveled in horror, you need to horrify them more than they do. And she was surely on the good way to achieve such sinister goal.

"Stirb, Söldnerin (Die, Merc)." She threatened the Erusean, which didn't move a single bit. Apparently, this one was out of her mind, or filled a bit too much with vengeance, as she attacked without any weapon. This Hexen tried to catch the wrist holding the blade, only to see the arm holding it being faster than hers and catching her hand with the tip of the blade, like she had done to that rude Osean officer a few months ago. This time, however, she struck with much more strength, and actually dislodge a carpal bone as she pulled the blade out of the hand.

"I don't authorize you to kill me. Only to try and die." She replied as the Hexen had stepped back, holding her severely wounded hand, only to receive a direct hit of the hilt of the blade to the chin. Thus, she stepped back once more, but she stumbled on a dead body, like the one she was trying to avenge. And in one swell motion, the screwdriver went right for the gap between the Hexen's neck and shoulder, in the same spot where she had struck that whoremonger almost a decade ago. However, unlike for that man that she did let live, she pulled the screwdriver out of the wound and plunged it in the nape of the Hexen. This Hexenjagd was going well, she thought. Maybe too well for now.

"Du wirst hier sterben, Söldnerin (you'll die here, merc)." The mother repeated the threat of her "daughter". Only to be ignored by Iskanda, but this time the threat was at least enacted, as she lifted some dart gun toward the interested. And her fire went through the thick tissue, before diffusing its product. It wasn't some sleeper agent; it was something far more gruesome, acting in more vicious ways.

"You will have to do more than that!" Iskanda retorted throwing her screwdriver toward an Hexen that kneeled to avoid the weapon, but as she stood back up, she was barely able to block the strike of the jade blade, and even less capable of blocking the dart Iskanda had pulled out of her flesh, only to use it to pierce the carotid of her enemy. She fell on the ground, holding her hands on her throat, trying to jugulate the terrible hemorrhage. Now there was only six of them and the mother.

"You will succumb, foolish one! You were foolish to believe you can beat us!" The mother claimed, yet having a hard time putting full confidence in her speech. Never had anyone went this far at killing her daughters. Never had anyone killed any of her daughters, to be exact. She fired again, and despite Iskanda trying to duck out of the way, another dart hit her.

She pulled it out, and as one was approaching with a syringe, she foot kicked her hard in the stomach, using her thick boots. She might have broken a few ribs in her strike. And as the woman was a bit startled, she struck back with the dart, below the chin of the woman. This caused her to scream, but her scream was no more understandable, as her tongue had been pierced by the long needle too.

Iskanda attacked one of the fifth sisters having survived her onslaught so far, but this time she was the one to miss her target. And the Hexen was the one that stepped forward, and punched Iskanda in the gut. It was like time had slowed for her. Her reflexes were weakening. She felt an air current near her nape, and try to duck out of the way, but she didn't duck fast enough. She felt the needle going through the skin of her shoulder. It wasn't that painful, since it was where she would receive her vaccine. But she doubted greatly that the product in those syringes was any vaccine, and for good reasons.

Yet, in her downward motion, as she realized she missed her escape, she tried and managed to catch the arm of her attacker. And as she went even lower on her knee, the Hexen was thrown over her head, like this one Osean commando had done to her in the Schayne Plains, and with the momentum the foots of the Hexen attacking her from behind struck in the chest of the one in front of her. She heard satisfying cracks, and great scream of pain. The Hexen had to stepped back, after having her air pushed out of her lungs due to the shear strength of the impact. Still, Iskanda was feeling more and more tired after these three shots. For the Hexen that had survived having a syringe in her chin, she was without mercy, pulling the needle out of her shoulder skin only to plunge it into her neck. This one would not strike back.

But the other had managed to stand back up. Iskanda tried to pierce her, but once more she was outspeeded, and the Hexen went sideways, only to let a clear window of fire to the mother that hit Iskanda in the chest. Twice. Now she was feeling her blood running cold, when at the beginning of the battle it was burning and boiling of hatred. She was feeling so weak that she almost fell, having to step forward clumsily to keep her balance, and was beginning to slowly lose consciousness.

"Can you feel that fear, as your heart is slowing? As your heart is stopping?" The mother taunted her, trying to induce some fear in the dauntless mercenary that had now killed more than half of her daughters.

"Death does not frighten me. You should be." Iskanda manage to keep her balance and her strength for a final strike, throwing her blade to the bottom of the throat of the Hexen she just struck on her chest. The blade was well embedded, and the barbs made it impossible for the Hexen to pulled it out. She fell to the ground, drowning in the blood pouring from the bloody tracheotomy.

But a few seconds after she fell, Iskanda fell too, pushed like she was nothing by a simple uppercut in her cheek, in the throes of the terrible product that was slowly spreading through her veins. If she was stressed, she should have heard her heart pounding in her hears, and not anything else, but she only heard faint heartbeat instead of crazy ones like when she pursued Kupchenko in this ravine. She hadn't thought that accepting a mission to assassinate him would lead her this far back then. Yet, she was satisfied of having survived until then, against so many opponents and so greater odds. Of course, as Kellerman said, it was easier to take down fourteen persons in the air than here on the ground. Or below the ground for all that mattered

She knew she had one final trick to do. Pushing on one hand as had fallen on her belly after trying to evade that uppercut, she managed to lift herself up a bit, and used her freed hand to search from one thing inside an inner pocket of this firefighter vest she managed to find in the abandoned barracks of the nearby base. And like she had aimed with her screwdriver at the heart of this now very decease Hexen, she aimed at hers, but with only a syringe filled with her chance of survival. With Vasquez's and her only hope of survival. With her last will to fight another day. She hadn't even the strength to push on the piston of the syringe before she fell flat on the ground again. She had lost, once more. Who would save her this time? No Ste Victoire was going to appear out of the blue. Maybe a bit of luck could, she thought, as she drifted into the limbs.

End of M rated part

"Is she dead?" One of the for surviving daughter asked, not wanting to take any risks. She had seen enough blood of her sister being shed on the white stones this night to have all the right to now fear this woman. Of course, not as much as Vasquez was afraid when they questioned hem, but anyone witnessing someone killing in rapid succession, and partially in the throes of ClK would be struck by fear.

"Dying." The mother commented, seeing the body being slightly lifted by the diminishing breath. Soon this assassin would have died, she rejoiced herself. For a moment, she thought she had her chances. But she discarded them when she chose not to use this nailgun anymore, and only resort to hand-to-hand combat.

"How did she survive Kalium chloride (potassium chloride, ClK) this long, mother?" One of the other survivors wanted to know if one of their favorite toxins had a weakness. Of course, she knew the old proverb: "alles ist Gift es kommt nur auf die Dosis an" (all is poison, it comes only from the doses). And apparently this one was pretty resilient to ClK

"She might have had a pretty big adrenaline rush. Hence five doses were needed. We will have to recruit after this night." She stated the only possible reason why she could have survived this long. Usually, two were enough to put anyone in cardiac arrest. To resist up to three was already something, and more was a great achievement. But to think that she was driven by some will strong enough to get such adrenaline rush when entering this place that should be frightening, in Verzweiflungsberg, was illogical to her. To stand up to Kalium chloride this far would have needed to have an induced overdose of adrenalin. Often this kind of reaction to fear would let people in a stammering state, paralyzed by the overflow of adrenalin. Not this one, apparently

Besides, she had had intel on where to find them. Someone had fed her with data. She knew the only alive person that had data on her. She wasn't just a lone mercenary discarded by the allied forces, if so...

Unknown place, Unknown country, Unknown realm, Unknown time, Weather: Unknown

Sometimes, people say that when you die you see all of your life unfold in a flash. That's pretty much what happened to Iskanda, as she was feeling the energy of life leaving her body. She remembered the warning of Kellerman about this ClK. He had warned her right before she left.

"There's one last thing you need to know before going against the Hexen. They might try it to neutralize you." Kellerman said with a pretty worried voice. He knew what he was talking about was deadly. It wasn't Scharlach Tote but could be as deadly if well used.

"Und?" Iskanda wanted to know this last piece of intel, as she was already set up for the travel.

"They will try to poison you with Kalium chloride." He unveiled one the deadliest chemicals these Hexen had in their arsenal. It wasn't as fast as Cyanide, but its effects were better designed to be used on the battlefield. Both Scharlach Tote and Cyanide had too much of an area of effect when used as gas.

"You mean potassium chloride?" She translated the element. So, this is where the K for potassium was coming from. She always wondered why they used a K for an element with such name

"Indeed. In high doses, it can cause cardiac arrest." He told her of its effects on human bodies. Effect that he once experienced himself, and he didn't want anybody to experience it.

"Good. And what's the counter-poison?" She inquired, now deeply worried that this Hexenjagd could end very badly. She had maybe better chances to survive another battle with the Erben von Kupchenko.

"There's no direct counter…" He began to explain, only to be interrupted by a deeply worried Iskanda.

"Are you just sending me to my death, then?" She shouted, desperate not to be able to act.

"No. Before you interrupted me, I was about to say than you can counter the effect of this chemical through adrenaline." He explained the weakness such very specific toxin had. The toxin was not very strong by itself. It needed to be used in massive quantity to do enough damage.

"So, I just need to have a big adrenaline rush?" She thought she could handle this threat on her own. She would discover a few hours later than this what not enough, indeed.

"Es werde nie genug (it'll never be enough). You'll have to shoot yourself with adrenaline." He confirmed what she was experiencing right now, as she was drifting in the limbs and watching her short-term memory. She had just tried to, but hadn't been fast enough, one more time.

"Just one thing, how do you know so much about the Hexen?" She asked, now sitting on the side of the ULM

"I once was a young man and find myself attracted by the "Mutter" of the Hexen, their leader. She was quite a nice woman in the early eighties. However, she hadn't the same idea of funny nights than I did back then. Be put in cardiac arrest and then almost revived by an adrenaline injection is not how I pictured a first night." He recalled what had happened this night of 1989. He still remembered how he almost died that night, only to be brought back by this damn witch. And she, she was laughing, like she was finding that to be fun. Who could find fun in torturing in such devious ways a man she was pretending to have feeling for? Maybe the very person he was talking to right now. Of course, Iskanda was someone ready to go way further than he was if she encountered these witches. This is why he wanted her to know everything about them. So, he could hope that the next time he would see her, she wouldn't be in a coffin.

"That's kinda gross. Not necrophilia, but almost close." Iskanda judged such use of chemicals. She wouldn't be this devious in her questioning of these Hexen. More of a direct approach, through raw pain. They hadn't let her act as much on Günthar, but for these Hexen no one would set any limits to her mad spirit.

"Ich hoffe du wirst Erfolg haben (I hope you'll succeed)." Were the fostering speech of Kellerman. In the end, it was better if they all died. The world would be rid of them, and they would be forced to rest. He doubted such people could find peace in death, but he could hope too.

"Ich auch (I do too)." She said as she was finishing packing her stuff for this little Hexenjagd -which she knew as she was recalling these last advices, hadn't be crown with success to say the least-. She was sure all would end fine, especially given how she had first succeeded in entering in the area.

Verzweiflungsberg, Belka, 10/06/1995, 23:55, Weather: little night fog

She had landed silently on the abandoned runway of this deserted base. She didn't know why the Erben of Kupchenko had to escape from here, but they didn't put silk gloves when they covered their escape: there was many craters nearby, with some puncturing the runway itself. Luckily for her, the ultralight needed only two hundred meters to land. She could have landed even in the Valaisian Alps with it just fine -taken apart the powerful mountain wind that would have crushed such kind of craft like a bit of dead wood-.

Still, it had already been quite an adventure to get here. To evade Belkan patrol with such an aircraft wasn't easy. Many times, she had to land in tunnels or in nearby forest, plains or anything that wasn't making her airplane stand out too much in the night. Besides, following a flight path with just a simple plan, a red light and the star as compass wasn't as simple as she anticipated. She was maybe blessed with luck one or two times, as when she landed on some Belkan route were no vehicle was to be seen -maybe due to curfew or some other confinement measure-, she stumbled on some direction panels.

Another hard task had been to go around Sudentor. Right after going above the Waldreich mountains, who weren't as high as the Valaisian Alps. She managed to go through the latter using some mountain pass that wasn't watched that much, gliding above the waypoint with idle engine to maximize her stealth. The city itself had still quite a lot of light, so she saw it coming. But going around all of the patrolling fighters in the area was a bit more problematic. Still, flying very close to the ground, above the empty roads or just above the treetops revealed to be a good idea. She saw some F-15Cs and F-15Es from afar, wishing that they wouldn't see her. She had no wills to pick a fight with such plane right now. She would have her revenge later.

To be fair, there was maybe one thing that could have been tracking or could be tracking her right now: The Merlin satellite network. If they could track F-35s with ease, there was no reason why they could not track some ultralight. But maybe she was just blending very well with the dark ground in this night. Or the Merlin satellites were used for some other purpose right now. Or, there was a last reason: they had already seen her, and they had chosen not to act. And it was this last explanation that was the more relevant, but why would they let an adversary of their leader act?

She hadn't the time to ponder these question as she picked the lock of the old security station. She knew the arsenal would be empty, that was a certainty. But since the security station seemed to had almost burned, and had almost collapsed due to a bomb crushing some of its load-bearing walls, maybe they hadn't evacuated all that was inside, she hoped as she began her search for a bit of equipment to even the odds against the Hexen.

As she had expected, she didn't find any weapons in the forms of knifes or firearms. But she knew that many tools could be used as weaponry. At least, it was what decided her to pick one of the screwdrivers that was laying in the dust of an old workbench. Amongst other thing she found were some fire-resistant suit made for the local fire security teams. Given the fact that kerosene and other chemicals related to aeronautics burned to pretty high temperatures, she took it, knowing it could be useful if anyone threaten her with a lighter or a taser -that kind of stuff was isolated, at least she hoped it would be enough against such light currents-.

Her gear was completed by a pair of security shoes she found nearby too. These things had an iron sole, and even an iron plate on the upper side of the shoes. Of course, such plating could not stop bullets, but they could surely prevent anyone to pierce her foot with a knife, and even to damage her ankle, given the fact that there was plating in the ankle support. Obviously, it would decrease her mobility a bit, but she was pretty sure that such hard soles would allow a roundhouse kick to the abdomen to not only bruise but break ribs or the sternum.

And it was with this newly found equipment that she was now approaching the old church that Kellerman had described. Most of the exterior had lost any form of ornamentation through the years. Statues had lost their heads or had their faces burned by the acid rains produced by the nearby factories of Hoffnung. No stained glasses were to be seen either. But three guard could be seen just in front of the entrance. Guard with machineguns. Her nailgun was lethal, she was certain of this fact. As lethal as conformal guns, but she didn't want them to fire their weapons right away. She wanted to be heard at the right moment. At the moment that would put fear in the heart of whose who worshipped it.

She spotted a last thing: a small thermic generator that was running outside of the church. Its noise might be enough to mask her approach. Karma was definitely not on the side of these unfortunate guards that had nothing to do with the heretic deeds of the Hexen in this desecrated place. But they were an obstacle between her and a sweet victory. Obstacle that she would withdraw without any mercy.

Creeping slowly into the night, she was unnoticed to the guard until she was quite close, coming from behind a tree planted in front of the church. The said tree had not been cut in ages and had grown without any control, like almost everything around this place. But now that she was coming, her presence startled the guards. She was wearing black clothes but had not the hoodies of the Hexen. They thought only Hexens knew about this place. Tourist never came here after they found one or two disemboweled bodies.

Warning, M rated part (bloody one)

"Wer bist du? (who are you)" one asked, pointing at her with his machine gun. Still, he was not that threatening, as he hadn't the finger on the trigger. He wasn't sure to shoot or not, Iskanda observed.

"Der dreizehnten Hexen (the thirteenth witch)." She replied, knowing that there was once thirteen of them, the thirteenth member being Frau Toxis, the own daughter of the "Mutter". Iskanda had wondered what the Mutter had felt when her own flesh had betrayed her for Kupchenko. Surely hatred and anger. These were the only feeling she had toward her own relatives, she had come to realize that fact too during her long ultralight flight.

"Es gibt ein dreizehnten? Oder sind sie nicht dreizehn mit der Mutter und die zwölf Hexen? (there's a thirteen one? Aren't they thirteen with the mother and the twelve witches?)" The same man that was staring at her with uneasiness asked to his colleague, turning his glare away from her.

"Und vielleicht es wird ein zweites, drittes und viertes Opfer heute. (and maybe there'll be a second, third and fourth victim today) Iskanda whispered, with a voice that seemed to be innocent and naive enough. But the intent she put in these words were all but innocent and naive. Only intents of death that would be enacted in a very short-term future.

"Es ist keinen Grund, so weit gehen. Gib deine Waffe und du kann ihnen anzuschließen (there's no need to go this far. Give me your weapon and you can join them)." The confused and afraid guard awkwardly responded, lowering his machine gun. He had all the reasons to be afraid, as he knew what the Hexen were capable of. He didn't want to suffer their ire, from one or all of them. But as he did so, the two others lowered their weapons, and thus their defenses.

"Gut. Deine Sorgen sind fertig. (Good. Your worries are over)" Iskanda claimed, as she drew her weapon, making them believe she was going to hand over it. The soldier was a bit doubtful, as he saw the kind of weapon. In the darkness, he first thought that it was a high caliber submachine gun, or something like that. Before he saw the tip of the nail waiting in the chamber, reflecting the pale light of the nearby neon bulbs inside of the church.

She was right when she said their worries were over. She had the three in arm's reach, as well as in harm's reach. Using her left free hand, she retrieved a small cylinder from one pocket. She was about to let her weapon in the outstretched hand of the guard when she moved her forefinger from the handle to the trigger. And fired.

The one guard in front of her stumbled to do the strength of the shot fired with such a small proximity. Like all the future victims of this weapon, he was hit in the throat, making sure he wouldn't stand up once more. The one at her right met the same fate when she stretched her arm in his direction. The left one, he had a different end that the two others, but he hadn't much chances of survival to her attack.

His death had come from the small cylinder bearing two small electrodes she had quickly pressed on his throat. This had activated the small ultracapacitor inside. This was the las thing they had done with Kellerman before she left : he explained her that the Belkan hand grenade were all equipped with such devices, activated once thrown, as such it was nearly impossible to throw them back at your enemy. Because these ultracapacitors they took from the old F-4E Phantom 2 laying in the mausoleum had an electrical capacity of ten thousand amperes. Enough to restart the engine of an airplane if hit by an EMP. Or to burn the nerves of a man more efficiently than the electric chair used in some Osean states.

For this reason, she didn't touch his body, not wanting to get hit by a bit of static electricity stored inside of it. The two electrodes had turned the skin black around the impact point, and the body was now smelling like some grilled meat.

"Tot ist das Ende alles Sorgen (Death is the end of all worries)." Iskanda asserted, as she walked away from her first three victims. And it was a certainty: she was sure that with the death of all those Hexen her worries would meet their end too. She had hoped that she wouldn't be the one to meet her end too.

The next moment, she hit the thermic generator with her second and last ultracapacitor she had. Under the electric shock, the generator overheated, as all its fuses burned at the same time. However, they didn't burn fast enough to prevent what she had expected to happen: all neon bulbs exploded, plunging the area into the darkness. Darkness that she had had to live in to keep her bloody secrets. Because she was certain, if the Hexen past contained a lot of blood, her past, even before she was in this war, contained as much, or maybe even more blood than theirs. Now she was just going to fill her present with a bit of blood, to equalize things temporally speaking.

And then she entered into the church, making sure to slam her sole on the ground in her way into the crypt. There was nothing in this church but old stones. The altar had been removed to allow access to the crypt that had been sealed by the heavy piece of stone. And removed was a polite way to say it: someone had pushed it with extreme violence on the ground, resulting in the destruction of the bid parallelepiped of karst and of the sculpture that had been carved in it. There were only remains of ornamentation on the ground, the last remains of a time in which the Verzweiflungsberg was not a lair for evil sorceress. She descended the stair with confidence, ready to battle with these horrifying persons with an equal amount of horror.

End of M rated part

Unknown place, Unknown country, Unknown realm, Unknown time, Weather: Unknown

And there she was again. In this dark plain that the limbs were in her mind. To be honest, they weren't as dark as the first time. These empty plains were more of a plain gray than of pitch black. After all, nothing was either black or white, and her spirit was no exception. She had thought there was a good and bad side in this war at first. No, she was realizing that there was her side and the other's, each good and bad.

"We meet again, Iskanda." A voice disrupted her chain of thoughts.

She turned away and was expecting to see Ste Victoire ready to provide her some wise thoughts or reassuring news. But she only saw the figure cloaked in black with an exterior outline of red at the bottom of her cloak and at the limit of her cuffs, from which skeleton hands were protruding.

"Death. I thought you were gone from here." She instantly recognized the obscure being, before looking at her scythe, which was not raised but only hold vertically.

"Are you here to claim my soul once more? It worked so well last time." She showed this unnatural being that death wasn't frightening her a single bit, like she had already displayed last time.

"You're a controversy, Iskanda Rayien. You bring people together and destroy alliances. You feel only hatred for your relatives but not for this Sapin that had betray your former allies." The dark figured spoke, with her scythe still idle at her side.

"I do not need to harbor hatred for her. I harbor enough for my relatives and Weeker than I hardly have enough room for anyone else." She retorted, not feeling such anger toward the Sapin. It was a bit harder to feel hatred for someone she had fought side by side over Futuro, and that had shown a bit of solidarity that day when Weeker shouted at her. Even if it was just mere compassion, it was great. She knew from the first moment on the ground that she wasn't with the allied forces anymore. That wasn't some breaking news at all.

"And no, I'm not here to claim your soul. Last time I consider you to be a traitor. I was wrong. Your motives are still aligned with the ideals of honor someone instilled in you years ago." Death specified, admitting that even her could do small errors of judgments. She had only betrayed the allied forces due to circumstances then. But now, she hadn't done the same.

"Do you consider I'm fighting for the ones who cannot today? That's a first." Iskanda recalled what constituted the honor of warriors for the bishop that believed in her and steered a bit her life back then. She hadn't followed this modus operandi since but might have this very night.

"You're the lesser of the two evils, even if you choose to act like if you were the greater." She commented her merciless behavior toward the three guards and the eight Hexen she dispatched with the downmost care in the world. She had acted like if she wasn't killing sentient beings, but just unnamed evil figures.

"You said you was fear incarnated. But not for these Hexen. I am." Iskanda pointed out, using the own words of Death against her. Even, if she might have died tonight, the last Hexen would never forget them. In a matter, she would live in their memory, haunting them for their fallen sister they couldn't save.

"Maybe you do. But we are digressing here. Why I was here was to say you it's not your time. Hell is your journey, not your destination of today." Death claimed, not wanting to take this one that would surely bring much more tormented souls to her kingdom in this war and the ones to come. Because she hadn't been blessed by the goddess of peace, but the ones of war. Peace, would she know it, the figure wondered. "It depends of your definition of peace." would've been her response if this warrior asked her about her future after this war.

"You mean…" Iskanda stammered, wishing that what she was living was not the product of the death pulse of her dying brain. If it was, then Death had truly nothing to be frightened of.

"LEAVE. and LIVE." The figure outstretched a skeleton arm toward her forehead, and as the nail protruding of the dead hand touched it, Iskanda felt like she was falling backward, going through her memories at full speed. Was hell just her journey, or her final destination, this time? Iskanda had no answer.

Some old crypt, Verzweiflungsberg, Belka, 11/06/1995, 00:00, Weather: little night fog.

Warning, M rated part (bloody one)

They had seen the girl that had slaughtered more than half of their kind dying. And now she was surely dead, they all thought. They had even taken the harpoon out of the throat of her last victim. They could have chosen to finish her with her own weapon, it would have been such a sweet irony. But one that was a bit more doubtful than the others about this girl that had shown quite a strong resilience to Kalium chloride when most people died with one shot. Besides, they had thought that, when she was on the ground and was trying to lift herself, she would try to reach for her nailgun still attach on her side in the carabiner.

With a disdainful movement of her foot, she made the Erusean merc roll on her side. Thus, she could see that she had a hand inside of her vest, near heart-level. The thick suit was pressuring the motionless body a bit, so she couldn't see any breathing sign. Still, doubting of the death of this horrifying foe that nearly killed her when she fired her nailgun in the dark - she had felt something passing right to her neck in the dark -, she checked her pulse. She was expecting to have a very low one, or in the case of their success, nothing. But what she felt frighten her for a moment.

"Her pulse. It's not like bradycardia… but tachycardia?" She said, not understanding what she was witnessing: she was no seeing some very small breathing motions. With haste, she opened the vest of the merc, only to pull out an empty syringe.

"What was in that syringe? The Mutter asked, worried of the likelihood of survival of this damned merc. Until there no one had survived ClK when they branded him as their victim. But wasn't this merc that branded them as her future victims? The now dead bodies of her Töchtern were enough proof of that fact.

"It doesn't matter. Just kill her with her weapon. Offer her a death she had owned." The Hexen that had picked up the blood-covered jade harpoon handed it to the one closest of Iskanda. Now, they could see her body shivering slightly. They needed to act soon. Or their half-victory would be short lived. As short as the life expectancy of an Osean over B7R was.

"Es stimmt. Stirb, Söldnerin. (you're right. Die, Mercenary)" She raised the harpoon, readying herself to strike at the neck of the Erusean girl. She couldn't wait to see her half-tanned throat wide open, and the merc drowning in her own blood. Maybe her hopes were set up a bit too high. And they weren't in Hoffnung, but in the Verzweiflungsberg. Where all hopes were crushed.

To be honest, her hopes were not the first thing to be crushed here. Her jawbone was. As she was lunging downward to strike at her foe, she saw her pushed on her forearms backward, putting her neck out of range of her own weapon. Then, still supporting herself on her forearms, she outstretched a leg upward, as the body of the Hexen was bent downward in the anticipation of her strike. As such, instead of her weapon connecting with her neck, one of her iron-sole shoes connected with the chin of the Hexen, effectively dislodging her jawbone, causing her to drop the weapon as she wailed in pain. Her face was distorted by the pain, while Iskanda was grinning from the state of this opponent.

Quickly, she jumped on her feet, and with her strength fostered by the almost overdose of adrenaline she had right now, and that had allowed her to survive the ClK, she threw a powerful uppercut at the jawbone of the Hexen. It was strong enough to put it back in place, and also strong enough to knock the Hexen out, from the sheer pain she had just been submitted to.

"Wie haben Sie überleben (how did she survive)?" The Mutter questioned her, with panic gaining her voice too. Now, she wasn't sure to win this fight. Already so many of her Töchtern had failed to follow the ultimate rule of fight. Failure was not a teacher but a murder for her and her followers.

"Ich weiß nicht. Aber ich haben Tod gesehen. Und sie will deine Seele. (I don't know. But I've seen death. And she want your souls)." Iskanda exclaimed, having just picked back her weapon, its presence in her hand reassuring her a bit, thus revealing a bit of her strange dream. Sure, death hadn't told her she wanted them dead, but she wasn't going to spare them. And in all honesty, her survival was more due to dumb luck than anything: when she collapsed on the ground after trying to inject the adrenaline, her falling body had enough potential energy to push the piston of the syringe. Gravity had saved her, for once.

"And I'm not going to fall for the same trick." She grunted, before launching herself on the Mutter as she was reaching for the dart gun, that she had set up on the cooler containing the other poisons. But she never had the time to. An iron-soled boot struck her hand hard, before the closed hand of Iskanda throw her backward with a strong punch, having made sure not to fold her hand on her thumb. Or her adrenaline-boosted strength would have broken it for sure. But for now, both of these dangerous ladies had nothing broken.

"I don't like your white clothes. How about ein bisschen Scharlach (a bit of crimson)?" She proposed with a vicious smile, slashing through the thin fabric at chest level, creating three lines of crimson. She wouldn't die from hemorrhage right now, but it was surely painful. She had already experienced some wound at this point, and knew it hurt, even if she didn't show any pain on that day. Because her wounds were far less deep than she one she just inflicted.

A punch below the chin of the Mutter was enough to send her to some short-term rest. She had heard some teeth cracking under her wrath and was pretty happy to hear this. Now, only three Hexen were still left.

"Kein Flucht. Flucht ist Tod (No retreat. Retreat is Death)." She quoted Schwarze squadron on this. This being one of the Hexen that tried to reach the stairs. She drew her nailgun and fired on her back. Maybe some were imbedded into her spine or vital organs, because she stopped running right away.

"Dafür wirst du Sterben (For that you'll die)." One of the now two survivors threatened her. She walked hastily toward Iskanda. Who wanted to spare her last nails in her weapon, and as such, decided to use it for the blunt force the harden steel possessed. She tried to pierce the Hexen with her blade, expecting her to duck to evade. And as she ducked, she struck with the barrel of the nailgun right into her stomach. And as she was holding her stomach after having backed away due to the hit having surely hurt some organs, Iskanda foot-kicked her hard in the ribs. And to mean hard, she did strike hard: she heard something broke, but it wasn't just a rib. It was a louder noise than a rib would have done. Maybe she had hit the sternum this time. But the effect were imminent : The Hexen fall backward, but as she stumbled on the body of her Sister, she almost tried for an instant to conserve a bit of balance, but due to the momentum given by the strike of Iskanda, she still hit the ground, but head-first instead of on her back. She was not completely knocked out, at least not enough, as she was still conscious enough to see the demise of the last survivor.

"Nein. Du wirst sterben. Allen (No. You'll die. All of you)." Iskanda retorted after this very violent exchange of blunt force and stepped toward the last survivor. Survivor that preferred to wait for the strike, apparently.

So, she didn't wait for any counterstrike. She struck hard, holding her weapon with both hands. It took the two hands of the Hexen to block her fierce strike. But this was just a mere distraction. Which worked perfectly. Who wouldn't be afraid of a blood and flesh covered weapon, which blade had already ended the life of all her sisters, and the few still alive wouldn't last longer than a B-1 against an ERAAM. The one that tried to run met the same results, after all.

"Haben Sie nie gelernt, auf Ihre Umgebung zu achten (You never learnt to mean your surroundings)." She quoted to the Hexen, as both were engaged in this battle of strength. But raw strength wasn't enough, she knew it. Or Osea would have won this conflict long ago. Tricks, deception and technology was all that had allowed Belkans to thrive in this conflict. Sure, she might have lacked technology a bit when coming here, but she had tricks and deception on her side. And fear. The fear of dying was still there in her body, but it was surely stronger in the body of her opponent, right now.

She demonstrated her the lack of attention to her surroundings, as she let a small "Wie?" of incomprehension. Followed by a powerful scream of pain when the right leg of Iskanda kicked her between her leg. They had told her in self-defense that it wasn't because you could turn someone sterile that such strike was that dangerous. Now, it was because it could break the perineal. And thus, the spine, in some kind of chain reaction. Such a hard strike in the right place could be lethal.

The Hexen hold for a few seconds the weapon but couldn't keep it as her body was crushed from below. She fell backward, vanquished. There she laid, her eyes rolling. She was surely dead or dying. But it didn't matter a single bit. All would meet their end here. Even the ones that were maybe only knocked out. She would let much survivors than Excalibur. Sure, she survived it, but she was an exception to rules, sometimes.

Then Iskanda spotted the penultimate survivor, that tried to creep toward a ceramic knife. Her breathing had become harsh due to the crushed ribs and her damaged lungs. Harsh as a wheeze. She wouldn't last long without medical support. Which was non-existent in the area. Maybe she would try to throw the knife afterwards, if she took it. But she removed that if by walking over the hand of the already severely wounded sister, crushing its carpal bones under her iron-soled shoes.

"Ach, es tut weh, recht (ach, it hurts, doesn't it)?" She laughed at the severely injured. And to say they thought they had almost succeeded at killing her. But almost was too much for her. She kicked her head with her foot, dispatching without giving her any importance to her eyes. She wasn't killing sentient being this night. Only ridding the earth of horrors that she needed to annihilate, as a warrior. She would've never tried to negotiate anything if they ever propose to. Such horror needed to be killed.

Another one of the few still alive manifested herself too. The one she had dislodged and relodged the jawbone with blunt force. She tried to get to her feet but was still suffering from having her jaws having done a back and forth journey outside of their joints. As such, she was incapable to even say a word, due to the pain. A simple kick with her right knee was enough to put her back in a motionless horizontal stance. Then she fired two nails right at her chin. From the trickle of blood running out of her mouth, Iskanda could guess she might have hit her gums.

"Je lui ai cloué le bec, à celle-là. (I nailed her, in her face)" She laughed even more from this little Erusean joke. It was dark humor for sure, but a good joke to her, that kept her laughing for some seconds. Not as much as when she would recall her mother's demise, but still enough to enjoy it.

The only one she needed alive for now was alive. But she needed her to stay still. The last nails in her gun were enough to accomplish that task. She wouldn't move. Besides her final travel to hell, of course.

As she made her way to the stairs, as she needed to pick something, she had let there before her fight, she freed Vasquez and removed with care the small electrodes that had been embedded in her skin. Luckily for her, these weren't meant to harm by themselves, and as such, they weren't bearing barbs and only left marks not that big that insect bites.

"You haven't lost any weight since the last time I had to drag you." Iskanda commented as she set the Sapin on her back, putting her arms above her shoulder line and getting upstairs with the motionless pilot. On her way she had to step over some dead bodies, or even step on when she walked in the one laying motionless in the staircase.

She would come back a few minutes later, having set the Sapin pilot on the only remaining pristine bench in the church above. Now, the rescue part was over. She allowed herself a bit of rest. After all, the funniest part was about to begin, she realized as she descended the stairs a second time, without worrying about anyone this time. It was the other people, and the few with a bit of life still within them that should be worrying right now. But like for the guards, their worries would be terminated in the more efficient way very soon.

One showed her worries very bluntly as Iskanda passed right next to her, carrying some chemicals that would get in handy to make talk the Mutter. The one that dared to talk was the paralyzed one, laying motionless in the staircase.

"Kannst du mir nochmal verzeihen, was wir getan haben, und mein Leiden beenden? (Can you even forgive what we did to you and end my misery?)" She pleaded with a desperate voice. She had tried to run, so she was already desperate when she saw this inhuman adversary coming back from the dead, only to bring dread.

Iskanda left her stuff on the ground of the crypt, and reached for the head of the paralyzed Hexen, taking her chin in her hand so the Hexen would meet her gaze. Of course, she was only throwing her death glare, that needed no words to sum them: her response was going to be a negative one. But maybe she would still end her life.

"Durch meine Leben musste ich lernen, dass es Menschen ohne Anstand gibt, die ohne Zögern und ohne Mitleid bekämpft werden müssen." (In my life, I was forced to learn there are those without decency, who must be fought without hesitation, without pity.) Iskanda gauged the claim of the Hexen. Did she owe this sufferance? Yes, it was a certainty. They have hurt people so many times than they deserve to feel all the sufferance they had put their victims through. As such, the second part of her response nailed a bit more the coffin of the Hexen. "So werde ich keines zeigen (So I won't show any)."

And the third part of her response, which was followed by Iskanda knocking out the Hexen by throwing her chin she had still in her grasp to her right knee, nailed definitively their collective coffin. Without the need to use her nailgun.

"Und Außerdem, ist Vergebung zwischen Gott und Sie. Nur mein Job ist es, das Treffen zu arrangieren, mehr nicht (Besides, forgiveness is between you and God. my job is only to arrange the meeting, nothing more.)." Iskanda washed her hands of any last bit of guilt she could have had while taking them down. Their destinies weren't theirs anymore. They were hers now. Her to be destroyed and terminated, like she terminated that Terminator pilot above Directus. Last time she remembered feeling true guilt was when she stole from Myriel. And never since.

Some old crypt, Verzweiflungsberg, Belka, 11/06/1995, 00:15, Weather: little night fog.

She thought this miracle woman that had survived Kalium chloride would have killed her on the spot. But she only injured her at the chest. These three slashes across her body were like three big burns where her flesh was assaulting her with a thousand little pains. And more little pains were coming from her heated cheeks, like if someone had given her a few hundred hand-slaps across her face, at least.

She only had to open her eyes to meet the death glare the merc was throwing at her. She was going to kill her, she was sure. How, she had no certainty. But the fact that she had attached her by nailing her fabric to the ground was not something that was a quick death guarantee. More of a long, painful one. One thing that disturbed her was that she had torn the clothes were the three slashes were, partially revealing the naked chest of the fifty-four-year old lady. Was that merc some kind of pervert?

"oh, you're awake. Only after thirty-seven slaps." Iskanda said with a falsely innocent voice, as she was reaching for some white plastic cylinder. For an unknown reason, she was wearing gloves. And that bottle wasn't some salt, but some very dangerous detergent.

"What are you going to do to me, pervert?" The Mutter tried to express some anger, only to be turned a bit calmer by the tip of a harpoon near her throat.

"Soon, you will wish I was that kind of pervert." Iskanda negated her claim, before laughing like a mad man. After all, she had never been attracted by no one specific, will it be a man or a woman. And the idea of torture she had for this night didn't involve anything funny in that sense. Well, it was funny to her senses, but not for the senses of any normally constituted human being.

"So?" The mutter kept asking, waiting for her demise. She could bear a bit of pain. But what would this merc encumber herself with some oven detergent.

"It's said that some people like to put some Sodium chloride on the wounds. I guess you might prefer some Kalium chloride. But I do prefer Sodium hydroxide." Iskanda explained what was in this box, and that she intended to put on the three still bloody wounds.

"Was? Sind sie Verrückt?" The Hexen shouted, as the merc sat beside her and began opening the small cylindrical box. The thick chemical smell began filling the air, mixing a bit with the smell of blood.

"Schöne Kompliment." She took the insult of the Hexen pretty well. She knew she was crazy. But it was so fun, doing the wrong things for some time.

"Let's clean these wounds with a bit of caustic, shall we." She finally opened the box, and using her hands covered by the plastic gloves she had find with this few chemicals a bit sooner, during her looting party of the base, picked a bit of caustic, and dispersed it over the wounds like if she was seasoning some meal. Of course, not even the hungriest cannibal would try to taste this one.

And in the nearby flowing blood and sweat that was covering the now very afraid Hexen, the caustic began to dissolve, with some nice little bubbles. Yet, as it was dissolving, the nearby skin began to dissolve too, only increasing the size of the nearby wounds. If it only increased the wounds, the Mutter wouldn't have begun to let some scream of pain after a few seconds of silence. Because the corrosive effect of the caustic was pretty hard to bear, even for a person so accustomed to see pain and provoke it.

However, there was a world between causing pain and understanding it. And now, under the cruel hands of this merc that she thought she had killed her only a few minutes ago, she was rediscovering sufferance. Her skin was burning like if someone was playing with a Bunsen over it. And the Bunsen would have been set to the max temperature, and was still increasing, as she was adding even more caustic to her wounds. Furthermore, where her wounds were situated, the chest, was quite a sensitive area of the skin for womens. It only further increased the pain she was suffering right now.

In her research, she had sometimes stumbled upon the horror of the Skin Hers. To skin people still alive was above her understanding. This lady could have made the Skin Hers almost proud in hell, as the caustic was slowly dissolving the skin, making like she was ripping the skin layer by layer, like if she used a white-hot peeler. A white-hot peeler that never stopped, and that was slowly, very slowly burning each layer of her skin, in one of the most vicious way possible. She thought she had plunged people through horror? No, horror had just begun for her.

Such blunt questioning indeed belonged to such uncivilized era. She had always tried to break the spirit with a bit more of subtlety. But this cruel lady didn't care about subtlety. Did she care when she slaughtered all her Töchtern in this horrible night? At least for them it was over, when for her it had only begun for a few minutes, and the pain was already unbearable.

"Soon, you'll scream for only one thing. Your death." Iskanda asserted, knowing that any sane person, and even insane ones, would crack under such pain. Even people enjoying a bit of pain wouldn't resist such treatment.

"What… do you … want to know." The Hexen managed to articulate at a great price of sufferance, between two wheezing, as she was trying to restrain herself from expressing her pain, but it was in vain, as her face was already a great wincing that would deserve to be featured into the next horror movies. But from her fear and pain, only more sweat was coming through her pores, only further dissolving the caustic in her raw flesh even more

"Simple. Tell me who set this whole thing and I will neutralize this caustic. But the further you'll wait and the further you'll suffer." She specified what she wanted to know. She doubted the allies were involved. Such display of cruelty, yet a very subtle one, was not something the Osean would do. But with North Belka and the allies having a common enemy, what could emerge from such hatred? Only some kind of false alliance based on hatred that would be the downfall for the few idealist allies, if there was still a bit of them amongst the allied forces. Was she an idealist?

"I… won't…" She tried to block the pain but could restrain a high pitch scream of sufferance the next second.

"I didn't hear with the scream. Maybe a bit more caustic to clean this impurity out of your body will untie your tongue." Iskanda knew the Mutter was approaching the breaking point. All clues were here: the hesitant speech, the shattering members and hands, the thick cold sweat that was running on her foreskin, the arrhythmic breathing, all things were here. Soon, the mind would break. She didn't need to use fancy chemicals and theatrics like these Hexen. Raw pain was enough to rule them all. No one could survive such treatment and kept her sanity. She doubted than even her would survive such question.

Few minutes passed. Few minutes of pure pleasure for the Erusean merc, that wasn't doing her job of arranging the meeting between the Hexen and God for their forgiveness very fast. But well, Gods could wait a few minutes, she guessed. And each minute passing was pure bliss, as it was only so good to see your executioner receive the whip from your own hands.

But for the Hexen, it was pure horror. Sure, she had read the report that their spy within the Osean Intelligence Agency had sent about this strange Erusean merc. Obviously, she hadn't expected to see her banging at her door tonight, slaughtering her Töchtern after having surely and mercilessly slaughtered the guards. She had read the reports about her "questioning" of this Belkan ace. Back then, she thought she was using more theatrics and deception than true questioning that belonged to uncivilized age before the age of human rights. But who was she to talk about the respect of human rights, her who reveled into breaking the very human spirit of her victims?

After more time than when she had threatened the Belkan ace with the false nitrogen, she finally had the satisfaction to see the Hexen broke, physically and mentally. Her tears of pain, as she cried from the horrific sufferance that she just bore for maybe a quarter of hour, had come to an end, having cried so much that her eyes were dry by now. Her hairs were wet from the sweat coming at her forehead, and her chest was a very bloody paint of white and red, the white being the spot where the caustic had gone until the subcutaneous fat. Following some screams of pain as the merciless mercenary added even more caustic on her open wounds, she was completely out of breath, which caused a bit of false compassion from the Erusean-originated mercenary:

"Oh, please, do not choke while screaming. I would lose my source of Intel."

"I'm done screaming. I… will … talk." She articulated with even more pain than last time. Her face was now as distorted by pain. She might have been a good model for a female faceless version of Darth Vader by now. And a very realistic one, for sure.

"Gut. Wer? (Good, Who?)"

"Herr… Doktor... Schröder… Künstliche Intelligenz (AI) Projekt…" She tried to explain, but her words were interrupted so much by her arrhythmic breathing that was only a deaf wheezing by now, and her small scream of pain she was expressing from time to times, that her speech was only partially comprehensible.

"Eine Nahmen war genug (A name was enough). Now, as Herr Brønsted would do, lets neutralize this caustic with..." She let her the very uneasy surprise to be riddled, but apparently her victim's mind was now in such a state that she couldn't understand what Iskanda was implying.

"Was?" She asked, thinking that her sufferance was finally over. When obviously they weren't a single bit.

"An acid obviously. I could have chosen to go with nitric acid, but I don't want to poison myself with dinitrogen, and so it's better to use simple Oleum." Iskanda let the surprise unfolded, knowing very well that neutralizing a hard alkaline with a hard acid wouldn't do well on raw charred flesh.

"Oleum?" The Mutter repeated, not knowing this word precisely. That was no counter-poison she knew of.

"Concentrated sulfuric acid. It's astonishing the numbers of chemicals they were keeping in that old security station. Quite convenient I would say so." She revealed the second chemicals she was ready to unleash on the defenseless body of the Mutter.

Obviously, she didn't have to wait that much to see the results: a bit of vapor was unleashed as the two opposite pH were neutralized. She knew very well that reaction to be exothermic. She hadn't remembered that much things about chemistry from her years of lycée at Farbanti. But what she remembered had great and painful practical applications. Great only from her point of view. Of course, this point of view wasn't shared by the Mutter a single bit, as she screamed to the top of her lung as her skin was burning her like if someone abandoned her in a UV tube to burn.

Besides, the two chemicals weren't perfectly neutralized, and even if they were on the opposite spectrum of a pH-meter, they had similar effect on skin. They would both burn it and cause unbearable sufferance for the Hexen. Hexen that had now realized that this girl was just not a warrior, but an executioner and an inquisitor doing Hexenjagd as well. And all three aspect of this woman were as merciless and without hesitation as the others

"You… were … right… Kill me… I can't stand the pain…" The Hexen admitted that what Iskanda had said to be true: know she wanted one thing, her death to come, and to be as swift and painless as possible. Sadly for her, she wasn't expecting that from such a woman that had gone to such extent to torture her next one.

"Any last words for me?"

"I… was the one … who killed Krysta… she didn't break…" She confessed her other crime, the horrific murder of Krysta Kupchenko, that wasn't maybe that horrifying compared to her own murder she was seeing coming at Mach 1 at least.

"Hoch Interessant. It might be useful." She was now understanding who the real master of this dangerous woman she just annihilated was. She wasn't especially loyal to the Rald Partei. Only to this Schröder that had created these drones she had dispatched with ease every time she engaged them, over Valais, over B7R and over the Schayne Plains. Even in the Griffon she could beat them. Kupchenko's Projekt on the other hand had beaten her quite a few times lately, even if she had fought back too. So, Osea wasn't behind the tragedy of Kupchenko's relative, after all. Only the jealousy of one man who couldn't agree that someone had beaten him and was now having all the praises.

Even if Kupchenko wasn't that much praised lately with the secession of the CSB. Still, he had created the Wunderwaffe, not this Schröder that only had his drone shredded. That could be an interesting thing to talk about the next time he and her would try not to kill each other at Mach 1 or 2.

But right now, Iskanda had lifted the last chemical she was going to use, the one with which all the worries of the Hexen would disappear. As they would disappear forever too. She only had a few more lines to toss to make the Hexen look even weaker than Weeker, and she would be done here.

"Wie... haben wir … gescheitert? (how did we fail)" The Mutter inquired, this being her final request before her death. Death that she wanted to come fast, but it wasn't coming that fast. And both chemicals were still burning her charred skin.

"Wir schauten beide in den Abgrund. Aber als es auf uns zurück schaute… Du hast gezögert. Ich nicht." (We both looked into the abyss. But when it looked back at us… You blinked… I did not.) Iskanda drew the line between her and the witch. She had been afraid to end her when she was defeated once. She was arrogant and reluctant. Such arrogance had caused the loss of two ADFX-01 Morgans to Kupchenko. In the end, it could make all people crumble, feel weak and force them to their knees where they would wait for the executioner to kill them.

"Es … stimmt. Wir kosteten … das Vergessen … und ... es ertränkte uns (That make sense. We tasted oblivion and it drowned us)." The Hexen accepted that she had failed. Deep down, she had already concluded that there was no hope of redemption for her nor any of her Töchtern. She wasn't like Zubov who could always hope to have a chance to set things right. He was lucky to have such a Chance, infinitesimally more than she was right now.

Her only hopes for a quick and painful death, the only hopes she had still left in this place of despair that the Verzweiflungsberg was, were utterly shattered when she saw Iskanda opening two five-liter bottles of some other chemicals. But this time, the bottles were made of metal. They didn't seem pressurized, though. However, the fire danger icon, pictured as a black flame in a slightly turned red square, didn't let many doubts on her short-term future.

"Acetone. Very flammable. And with a very nice fruit smell." She introduced the product what would cause their death. Eternal hell was their destination, and they would go by burning in a very realistic hell.

She then switched off the lights and began spreading acetone everywhere. Its strong smell was partially replacing the one of blood, flesh and sweat that had filled the cave after her fight. As she was soaking the clothes of the Hexen with this chemical, the Mutter understood what she was up to. Still, she did wonder to verify this terrible hypothesis:

"Was… machst du (What are you doing)?"

"You see, in the past eras, Eruseans had a funny process to deal with witches. First, they would drown them, and if they didn't sink it would mean that the devil was helping them. Since the Löre is a bit far from here, and I have already drowned most of your followers in their own blood, I won't resort to this method. So, I will just go to the second step of this process: purification through fire." Iskanda explained, as she was emptying the second bottle of acetone. She finished the last deciliters on the Mutter, who was still unable to move. She wouldn't have to put it on the stairs. The vapors of the dissolved acetylene contained in the acetone would be enough to conduct the flame from the outside to the crypt.

"Was?" The Hexen shouted, having a bit of her spirit back since the end of the questioning. She shouted in horror, as she imagined herself surrounded by fire, and burning in an inferno. She had already been burned through acids and alkalis, but now she would be burned alive, and to her death. It was something she couldn't escape.

"Jedenfalls haben Sie einen schönen Scheiterhaufen (At least you have a nice stake)." Iskanda commented, as she was now leaving this place, and leaving these Hexen to their doom. At least three of them were still alive right now. These three unconscious ladies might get awoken by the burning heat, only to be killed by it. The ones that she had already killed could consider themselves lucky in comparison. Her, she had been lucky to find these few chemicals in an abandoned hangar, after she looted the security station. Sure, their presence was a bit too much of convenience, but she wouldn't go so far to split her hairs about their presence.

End of M rated part

Then, she ascended the stairs for the last time. Even here, the vapor of acetylene had already filled the place. So, she had to remove Vasquez's motionless body from the bench. However, she put the three bodies of the guard inside. Of course, they weren't as guilty as the Hexen in the act of horrors they committed, but they had been obstacles on her path. And anything on her path to Victory needed to be removed and pushed aside, even if it was for these men to fall in hell.

She put Vasquez on the parvis, her back leaning against some tree. Maybe she had heard the scream of horror of the Hexen as she questioned her, even from up there. Or she would hear their screams of ultimate sufferance as they would join hell together. What she would think of her didn't matter to the now Ustian mercenary. What had mattered today was her survival, and above all her victory. If she could have some cam on her, she would have tried to immortalize this fight. This was something she would gladly live once more time, will it be in her dreams, or through another slaughter of her adversaries. It really felt so good doing the wrong thing. Was it the wrong thing anyway? Morally yes. On a pure tactical standpoint, freed of the shackles of morality, this seemed to be allowed. Sure, she hadn't act in self-defense, but proactive self-defense that would spare the life of many to come, that those Hexen would not take in the future.

A few second after she ended up her inner dithering, she threw the ignited lighter of the Hexen, inside the church, while shouting to the top of her lungs:

"Burn, witches!" Were the best words she could come up with. Sure, there was another word beginning by b and finishing by itches, but for once she would stay polite

The flame quickly grew to an inferno of bright red, orange and bluish colors in a very nice ochre palette, depending of the heat of the flames. At some time, she would just see a bright white, when the temperature was becoming too high, and was almost hurting her eyes that had gotten used to night vision. The dark place was illuminated for some minutes, as the terrible mixture of acetone and acetylene burned everything inside. From the empty windows, the light could be seen, flashing outwards. From the parvis, she only saw the bodies of the guards being turned to ashes, but she was sure that the Hexen had met the same fate, since she had sprayed much more of her flammable mixture down there. There, the white rocks wouldn't be red, but black and grey from the ashes of their incinerated bodies. The fire of revenge was destroying and would destroy everything inside. Through fire and iron, this place had been cleansed, she commented.

She heard some screams of pain, horrifying and frightening screams. Some normally constituted human would have felt some sweat running through her backs or would have felt a chill in their spine as they would have heard these. But not her. To her, they were only a choral of damned celebrating her victory of today. Like them, she just tasted oblivion. But it didn't drown her. She had survived a very near-death situation today. And was pretty about it. After all, she threw that lighter laughing to the top of her lungs and didn't stop until the final flame was extinguished.

Then she left for the ULM, still carrying the motionless Sapin on her back. A few minutes later, and she was gone, having found a way to put her in the small cockpit, but having to sit on Vasquez's lap. Now, she had triumphed over despair in Verzweiflungsberg, and was hoping to get in Hoffnung before the allied lay waste there. Maybe she could change things there. Maybe she could offer this oncoming battle another end, a better end, like Kellerman had suggested.

End of chapter.
I'm quite surprise with the length I managed to pull out with this one, given the fact that there's not that much of flight time here. I have put some M rating warning since this chapter compensate the lack of bloody close-quarter dogfight by a bloody close-quarter hand fight, not at Mach 2 but in some crypt. I hope I won't hurt the sensibility of anyone here. I tried to stay crude but not gore, not going into gore but in the depiction of the feelings of the ones involved in this chapter. If too much people think I should get into M rated, I might consider doing it. Otherwise I won't.
Even if our Herr Denker wasn't here, I did insert a bit of philosophical thoughts here. Maybe you can figure out from which movie I took inspiration for them.
Of course, her fights are not over for the day. One could find she find a bit too much of equipment in this abandoned base, but who I am to question the logistics of the Belkan army? Or is it just luck? Does she believe in luck, anyway? That's a good question, for another time I believe.
On a side note, next chapter will finally have some dogfight in it, after these three chapters without much flight time (beside with the ultralight).
It is said that the Belkan war was a dark shrouded period of history, if we follow the speech of Brett Thompson. And it only will become darker and darker until light cast out the shadow.
I Hope everyone is fine (about the whole covid-19 thing). Me I have to do online lessons, and sometimes the software aren't the best choices from my teachers.
Feel free to review, comment, favor… Und bis nächst Mal, Lesern und Leserinnen.