AN: Howdy! If y'all are still reading this then thank so much! Oh, also special thanks to Gilgamesh The King of Heroes for favoriting this story. Your name is so cool! I mean I am such a fan of the Fate series. Well, I'm not a real fan. My big sister is the real fan. But, any ways, thank you so much for reading my work. Its so cool that a real author is reading my work!

Sorry, any ways I should probably also mention that Skraeja and Lady of fire aren't from Sailor Moon or Mass Effect or Cthulu tech. I kind of steal a lot of ideas from my little sister and the writer TheElephantInThePrideParade. By the way if you haven't read the work of TheElephantInThePrideParade you totally should. Her writing is way better then mine. Any ways, um, happy Reading!

Gobi Desert, Earth

The sun rose in the distance. Its gentle warming rays coaxed the troops out of their wooden hootch's. It was 0530, and they were itching for a fight.

Skraeja Malivnosky crawled from her dwelling. The Wyvern Skin cloak, that all her kind wore, was draped across half her body. It greedily soaked up the rays that would otherwise have touched her skin. Her face was unprotected. Her face was scarred.

She was Skraeja. So she could not be any other way. When she went to the academy she was fresh faced. Like the rest of her kind, she left the academy changed.

For she was not a Lady of fire and there was little to protect her skin. Malivnosky was not clad in heavy metal plate. She had her cloak, a camouflaged helmet, her skin, and the sun.

The same sun that lit up her home. The same sun that lit up the earth. Its name was the name of this system, Sol. And the Sol system was home to Crystal Tokyo. Which was the bastion of hope in this galaxy.

Earth was a terrible place. It was barely hospitable. But, when the Sun came down on her skin she could pretend that she was back home. That she was on Mars. She longed for a place where the night did not scream, where evil did not whisper into the darkness, and the dead stayed dead. She longed for the red world. Her world.

The sun was still rising in the distance. There was still darkness. A cold wind howled towards the camp. It tore into the soldiers. It stung Malivnosky. She recoiled.

This wind also carried whispers. She heard whispers of something old, something powerful, something terrible, and from the volume this Skraeja knew that this something must be close.

Reluctantly, Malivnosky expanded her sight. She opened herself to message carried by the wind. And she saw a place. An old place, a terrible domain that none of her kind would to speak of.

She saw the Himilayan Lab complex, the birthplace of cruel miracles.

Skraeja Malivnosky timidly crawled back into her hooch. She edged towards her partner, a Martian Grunt, and she shook them until they stirred. Her eyes met theirs. She needn't say anything else.

Her partner crawled out of the hootch. The wind did not bother them much. They couldn't hear the whispers. Nor could they expand their sight. They had an unremarkable mind. And that let them do something remarkable. It let them run to the Leaders tent. Through them the Leader would learn that something was stirring.

Alarms would sound. The base would wake up. Some one would whisper to the Leader where this was coming from, the Himalayan Lab complex.

They'd have to send someone to the Himilayan Lab complex. They'd probably choose some one who was expendable. They'd choose some one who could be easily replaced.

A Skraeja.

#

Himalayan Lab Complex, Earth

"So, you're telling me that we have to cross a fucking desert. Along the way there will be hell beasts and . . . if we do get to Crystal Tokyo then there's an Eldritch horror waiting for us?"

"Yes"

Commander Shepard screamed internally. She loved a fight. She really did. And suicide missions, well, those happened all the time. But this, this was a little much. Back in her Galaxy she was well armed and she had a bad ass crew to back her up. Right now, she did not have sticky grenades. Couldn't light shit on fire with a handy dandy Incinerate.

And, she didn't have her tactical cloak either. So she couldn't pull after battle pranks on her allies. Which sucked.

"Are we getting close to the surface?"

"Define close Commander"

"When will we get to the surface?"

"By my estimates . . . 2 hours"

There was a hellish scream from above.

" Great "

The temperature in the room dropped several degrees, and then it appeared. The Demon.

"Reprocessing . . . . 3 hours"

The horrible eyes, the gnashing teeth, the scent of decay. Faster and faster and faster the Demon barreled towards them. Its massive form struggled against the narrow walls of the tunnel. Its translucent skin glistened under the weak lights of the tunnel. Crash- crash- crash- is head slammed into the overhead lights. Knocking them out one by one.

Crash-crash-crash- it was getting closer.

"It would appear that there are still sorcerers among the ranks of the Rapine storm. I'm rather impressed, severing my link to that beast couldn't have been easy". Closer, the beast was getting closer. " Ice attacks won't work against it. There is only one solution". One of its claws writhed out. One of its limbs writhed out. The beast was so close. Decayed flesh, gnashing teeth it was getting closer. "Mercury . . .", the blue haired entity sprinted towards the beast, " . . . Flying Kick!".

There was a thunderous crash. The tunnel shook. The beast flinched; the Blue haired worrier was sent flying back.

"Plan B, run!"

The blue haired entity spun around. She grabbed Shepard and they raced down the tunnel. Away from the beast and its gnashing teeth.

"You know, since you brought me back form the dead and all I sort of picked you out as the smart one"

"Some times brute force is the intelligent response"

There was a sharp turn. The Blue haired young woman failed to notice it. She crashed into the wall. Shepard learned from her mistake. She made the turn, then reached back to grab her and tugged " Come on!"

Faster, faster, faster . . . the beast was not slowing.

"It'll catch us in 45 seconds", unhelpfully added the somewhat disoriented blue haired entity.

"Like hell it will", roared Shepard as she kicked her ass into high gear.

Suddenly they found themselves back in the so-called armory. The beast was closing in.

"We could shut off the lights", suggested the Blue haired young woman.

"Would that help?"

"Define Help"

"Help us- wait, I have an idea. How long can you hold that thing of?"

" 24 seconds"

"DO it!", roared Shepard.

And the commander sprinted towards the light switch. Only to suddenly change her course, and leap towards the tank that she'd spotted earlier. If it handled like a Mako, then they were in business.

"Mercury . . .", the Blue haired entity squared her shoulders. She took a deep breath. If this form was destroyed then maybe she'd reform. Maybe she wouldn't. Either way dying would hurt. " . . . Shabon Spray!"

Dense fog filled the chamber. It did not reduce the visibility of Mercury or her ally, but it did reduce the visibility of the beast. Such was the nature of magic.

"Its rude to interrupt heroes while they are trying to save the world!", declared the blue haired sailor as she leapt high up into the air, "In the name of Mercury I will punish you!"

She came down with an axe kick. Her heel struck the head of the beast. Cracks formed in the floor. The beast's head was forced down. And then there was a thunderous roar. The roar of a cannon propelling a 90 mm bunker busting round at 5 kilometers a second, which was accompanied by a flash of blue, from the air in front of the projectile ionizing. It struck home. Half of the beast's body crumbled into nothingness. The rest of the beast fell to the floor in a mangled heap.

A certain victorious commander emerged from the tank, and let lose a rebel yell. A certain blue haired young woman leapt off of the slain hell beast, drained. They gave each other a telling look and both of them smiled.

They'd won. This time, they won.

#

Himalayan Mountains, Earth

The Martian Ember was a good craft. Operated well above 9, 444 meters. That made it good for tactical insertion. It made it perfect for this mission. Malivnosky liked the Ember. Its incendiary rockets were effective. They cleared the way for Grunts and Skraeja. Made landings easy.

Although Skraeja Malivnosky was the one that was picked, she wasn't alone. Three of her sisters had volunteered too. They were close to her, scrunched up in the large cabin. Huddled by her for warmth.

Two others were in the cabin as well. One of them was a Terran. They were Ora's partner; his eyes were a dull green. They weren't purple. And their skin was a soothing dark brown. Different from the sickly ashen gray found amongst her kind. She liked that about Terrans. Easier to spot whether they were alive or undead, and their armor wasn't half bad either. It looked a little bit cumbersome. But it could keep them alive. She liked that.

The final volunteer was a Lady of fire. She sat far away from the group. Her armored body took up a lot of the cabin. She wasn't wearing a helmet. There were long vertical scars running down her left cheek. Malivnosky remembered that those of Old blood would make a cut for every partner they lost. The Lady of fire had half a dozen running down her cheek.

Back in academy, there had been one Girl. A girl that was to chosen to take up the Mantle of Lady of Fire, this girl had one of those scars. She kept on running her finger up and down it.

The Lady of fire in this Cabin, she was doing something similar to that massive blade her kind carried. She was running her armored finger up and down the blade. The blade was made out of Tungsten. The blade was used to kill Wyvern. Wyverns are dangerous, they breathe fire, and to become a Lady of fire one must kill a Wyvern.

Every Lady of fire was dangerous. They were also brave. The Lady of fire in this Cabin was looking at Malivnosky with this strange look in her eye. The way that a Terran would look at a ghost, and her finger kept on running up and down the edge of her blade.

Skraeja Malivnosky smiled grimly. When the Lady of fire saw this, she froze. Then, she returned the smile.

The Martian Ember was losing altitude in a semi- controlled fashion. Its rockets screamed. They must be right on top of the Landing Zone. Because Embers always fired their 910 mm Napalm rockets right on top of the LZ. So that its expendable cargo could leap into a space that had been purged by fire.

Malivnosky's sister, Skraeja Ora, started to giggle. They loved fire. This kind of landing was perfect for their kind.

And it sure as hell beat being cold.