The artillerymen of the Reclamation Army answered with their actions. Cannons fired and missiles streaked from the wall, raining upon the advancing army. The very ground trembled, and were it not for the shield protecting the state's positions, Janine had little doubt that many of the defenders would be crushed by the shockwaves alone. Explosions rolled upon the ground, slipping off the Gilded Horde's shields and reaching the defenders' field.
Specialized missiles failed to burst the enemy's protection. The enemy leader gathered enough shield generators to form several individual domes of protection, so when one failed, more rose to stop the incoming barrage. But the Reclaimers kept at it, unleashing enough firepower to level hollow cities and collapse entire mountain ranges. Something had to give. The soldiers stepped nervously from leg to leg, watching as the flaming wall advancing on Houstad was riddled with canvas created by the long-range weapons of both sides.
Dozens of hordemen, far too few, died when the protective shield failed to quaff and not choke the incoming barrage. A similar scene played out in the Reclaimer ranks, and dust fell on Janine's temple from above as a laser cannon hit one of the platforms on the wall, destroying the parapet and killing the soldiers there. Janine caught a falling body, briefly checked the man's pulse to confirm his demise, and respectfully handed him to be carried away.
Where one enemy soldier fell, two more took his place. The Horde lived up to its name; their numbers seemed endless, advancing in waves of gold, green, crimson, and black toward the defenders. A young man near the warlord cried out as the artillery flattened a section of the trenches, and broken bodies were tossed callously into the air as the rest of the Third's vanguard retreated. Janine didn't reprimand the young man, softening her impression when she realized the boy was about twenty years old.
Dragena placed Janine's unit on the bridge leading into Houstad, and the structure was wedged between two bastions. Soldiers already manned bunkers and pillboxes, preparing to repel the invaders when they entered inside the shield. Officers had ordered trenches dug into the concrete in preparation to fight for this place with fang and claws. The shallowness of the river at this point prevented the command from blowing up the bridge right away.
It served better as an obstacle and a desirable target.
Ignoring the shells, Janine walked to the young mercenary, not even batting an eye at the approaching devastation. She checked the soldier's weapon, made him adjust his helmet, and nodded at him. The panic was understandable. The mercenaries of the Core Lands handled gangs, corporate competition, and hunted an occasional monster from the Outer Lands. They never expected to fight in a real war.
"This is your home!" Janine shouted, raising the axe above her head. "A place to raise your cubs, a den that you have worked so hard to build! A rare safe haven in the world resisting the grip of insanity and violence, a testament to human dignity and honor. The world demanded of your ancestors to surrender to their primitive instincts and be reduced to a crazed rabble, squabbling over the dregs. Instead, they spat in the face of that demand and built a place for all of you! The question is, will you fail to live up to their example?" She raised her voice, changing it into a roaring tornado. "I say no! I am a product of savagery and cruelty, and I refuse to let Houstad burn! There are things worth fighting for! What about you? Will you run and hide? Will you let your cubs be raised in slave pens, devoid of a future?"
"NO!" the volunteers screamed back, joined by the provincial and the Third's soldiers.
"If any of you were drafted by trickery or against your will, now is your chance to leave." The blazing flame behind left her a vast shape against the red. "As a soldier, it is my duty to stand and fight. A civilian's duty is to live and prosper. The state has failed; I have failed to ensure that you'll have this priceless opportunity. No one will condemn you if you leave. Nevertheless, I, Janine of the Wolf Tribe, ask you. Join me in the defense of Houstad."
"Janine." Jacome stepped forward, checking her rifle. "No need to ask. Houstad has become the home of my people. No one person can carry the weight of the world, but together we can shove it down the Horde's ravenous throat hard enough to end them. We are staying."
"I am from the west…" said an elderly man in a fitting uniform and a body armor of an outdated design. "I had hunting dogs… I had hounds." His finger moved closer to the trigger of his rifle.
"You can rebuild," said a nearby volunteer gently, armed with a spiked mace in addition to the standard machine gun.
"For most of my life, I've been murdering people for money," said another man, dressed in a mesh of loose-fitting power armor and body protection. His eye shone with a yellow light of the targeting matrix, and he spun a knife in his hand. "Might as well kill for something that matters for once. I've skinned several fatties. They die just as easily as anyone else. Don't bury us yet."
"Meh." A half-woman, half-machine clanked forward, traversing on pistons that served her for legs. An unblinking green ocular had replaced one of her eyes, and most of her hair went gray. The mercenary captain smirked, rotating the cannon protruding from her left forearm. "My crew busted our asses to get citizenship. And now the Dynast has handed it to the rest of our families and relatives on a silver platter. You can bet your pretty head that we will kill for it. Waste no more words, ma'am. Not a bad company has gathered here. Sure, some may wet themselves, but they'll shoot and, more importantly, kill." A group of Malformed and convicts laughed. "Yours to command, Warlord."
"Thank you." Janine smiled back and faced the fire. "Anyone willing to die, try to get past us!"
"Janine. Your challenge is accepted," they heard the voice. Boastful, full of arrogance and knowledge of one's might. These simple words resonated in souls, filling even Janine with icy dread.
Mad Hatter stepped out from the wall of flame. She was wearing a pristine white dress with gold trim and brown pants adorned with bracelets and necklaces. On her shoulders were the furs of great beasts, her hair touched the back of her waist, and a leather cap with a blue feather covered the woman's face up to her nose. Her lips smiled while bloodshot eyes focused on the warlord.
For all Janine's bravado, she knew better than to hope to stand against this creature. The woman, dressed more for a party than a battlefield, might as well be death itself. It wasn't a matter of possibility; she had not even a percentage of a percentage of a chance to deal a fatal blow to that.
Cristobo directed the assault on the khatun immediately. Energy cannons, artillery and turrets, missiles, and even grenade launchers loaded with every deadly gas and substance conceivable—they fired it all, and a sphere of devastation rose around the Khatun.
She breathed in the white phosphorus and nerve agents as if it were air. The khatun's scimitars drew arcs around her, sending the regular ammunition aside so that nothing would damage her clothing. Her legs carried her away from the energy beams. Swaths of land around her were torn and vaporized; the sand turned to glass. And still she advanced, unharmed, undamaged, her arms blurry from the creation of wind slashes that repeatedly swatted away everything fired at her.
A single such slash touched a line of the defense, barely grazing it, but no soldier in its path survived. They weren't crushed by the pressure, or cut; they didn't even turn into a crimson mist. Two hundred and sixty-seven soldiers of the Third simply vanished, as if they had never existed.
"Abandon equipment and retreat to the wall," Janine ordered, interrupting Cristobo's coordination of the retreat. He can reprimand her later. They had tools in abundance.
The Sky's Avatar moved further ahead from her host, concentrating on Janine, and the soldiers retreated, abandoning the second and third lines of defense.
"You should have accepted my offer," said Mad Hatter. It should've been impossible for her words to reach the Reclaimers, but Janine heard them loud and clear. "It isn't wise to resist a demigod. Fall to your knees, worship the Sky, praise me, admit that your faith is inferior, and I'll spare you and your spirits."
"Demigods don't make mistakes. But you did," Janine answered. "You should've killed me when you had the chance."
"What for?" Mad Hatter laughed. "You are powerless. Your gods are powerless! Even that progenitor of yours is not here to save you! And without might, you cannot forge a legacy, nor can you change anything!" She pointed the tip of her scimitar skyward.
The battlefield ceased going. Sounds faded, shells froze in mid-air, tongues of flame grew still, and even laser beams burned their way to their target slower than Janine could run, and, as the warlord surveyed the situation, a terrible realization struck her. Mad Hatter wasn't faster than light. She was dodging the shots before they were even fired.
It was insanity. No mind, no awareness that she knew of, was capable of such a feat. The Khatun's eyes never left Janine's; she had no HUD to share the omnidirectional vision. It could not be happening.
"My offer stands," a voice whispered to her left, and a familiar white shape took place near Janine. The warlord tried to sniff it, to touch that weird man, but her muscles refused to obey her. "My touch is reserved for the faithful. My child, you stand at a precipice. Accept me and be plunged into greatness and face your enemy as an equal. Reject me and know that Abyss of yours."
Janine didn't answer; she didn't even see fit to pay any further attention to this figment of her imagination. The Spirit of Rage often teased his victims, and she didn't know a woman who would've been glad of trading her self to become a skinwalker. The figure glowed; the infernal crimson of its eyes resembled two mouths of active volcanoes. At last it disappeared, saying nothing, and the time resumed.
Mad Hatter blinked and smiled; the corners of her lips touched the ears.
"Unfortunate. I hoped for an appetizer before the main event."
"There are worse things than being weak," Janine said bluntly. "When you die, Mad Hatter, you'll be little more than a footnote, another maniac in the long history of the Reclamation Army broken under the Dynast's heel, an accessory to the Blessed Mother's legacy. Unloved, uncared for, and even your own slaves will forget you." She sighed. "No friends, no family, no comrades or allies. By your own choice. If I am weak, then you are a pathetic squanderer of gifts."
"Bold words. But here's the thing, Janine. If I want a family, I'll have one. Friends too. And I'll be strong enough never to lose them. The question is, are you?" Veins showed on Mad Hatter's hand, and she slowed directly opposite of Janine, and a cold sweat ran down the warlord's back. "What is the matter? What is there to be afraid of? It's just a single slash, and I am so far away, and you have that bubble created by those comrades of yours. Surely, if they are so precious, you have naught to worry about..."
"Permission granted!" said a new, familiar voice on the communication and unknown images joined the shared vision. The perfect and smooth interior of a highly advanced room. A gloved hand held a slightly crumpled terminal. The hand tossed it aside; the machine drummed against a carpet and its surface straightened.
Nanomachines. And that blue glove that covered the hand…
"Elite Eugenia, joining the battle!"
A pillar of blue rose from the airport, streaking into the smoke-filled sky. The top of the beam hit the force field and bounced off, quickly changing direction, and Mad Hatter looked up. The blue line, the Elite, passed above the walls by jumping all the way from Houstad's airport. Still spinning, the round ball nearly touched the ground and then spread herself into a feminine form.
Blue boots touched the desolated ground, soon followed by the hem of a blue cape. A growing, sprawling oak, painted white, flashed briefly on the cape before a living cloak formed by blonde hair, so long it almost touched the ground, covered it. Similar national emblems were on her gloves, boots, and chest. She was a head shorter than Ravager; her helmet covered the face similar to Mad Hatter's mask, and from the deep blue of her visor, two eyes flashed fiercely, meeting the khatun's gaze.
Her attire seemed to be paper-thin, yet it could withstand more damage than even Alpha's suit. None of that body was made of leather or spandex; every part of that foreign thing was formed by the nanomachines. Janine had seen it before, clouds forming technological 'cinderblocks" over soldiers' bodies, assembling themselves into armor like pieces of a puzzle.
These smart machines unnerved Janine. They weren't mindless; they thought and acted. Several soldiers who had no right to remain whole after swings of her own axe had survived that way, and then their own suits turned into complicated medical instruments that helped the unconscious injured survive even mortal wounds. As per the accepted rules, the Reclaimers didn't try to retrieve them from the wounded as the nanomachines terminated themselves to avoid revealing their secrets.
A section of the shield parted briefly, and the figure walked bravely toward the khatun.
"Hey!" Eugenia Mylli, the pinnacle of the achievements of the Iternian bioengineering, pointed a finger at Mad Hatter. "Why don't you pick on someone equal for a change?"
"Murderer! Butcher! Traitors' spawn!" Janine roared, spitting saliva. Her son dying, his desperate squeals, the females and males lost during the Culling… "How dare you set foot on our land? Has Iterna lost all shame? I will slaughter you here and now!"
"Janine," Eugenia softened her voice. "I am sorry."
"His Excellency himself has authorized the involvement of Elite Redeemer, Warlord," Cristobo warned.
"Hey, Janine." Jacomie took her by the arm. "I don't know what cat came between you and her, but let's not. Not right now, anyway."
"That would be a first, because no one is my equal," Mad Hatter responded, straightening up. No weapon was fired at her anymore, and the khatun tilted her head. "An Iternian. Hm. Hm. Why are you here? I haven't had any beef with your country. What is there to gain in helping your prime rival? Let us fight, witness the destruction of the Reclamation Army, or…" She smiled. "Could it be that you wish to join me? I have heard of you, manufactured sparrow. The rabble has elevated you above itself, but isn't it tiresome to forever be chained by responsibilities and rules? Take flight; become yourself for once! Stand at my side and let us feast upon the world together!"
Mad Hatter's words resonated with Janine's soul. She recalled her anger aimed at Terrific, the disappointment after meeting her mother, Bertruda's betrayal, and more. Alpha had always underestimated her, called her a coward. The shamans were stubborn idiots. She knew better; she was born better, so why was she fighting for the side that… Her fangs bit her tongue to the blood, and the feeling disappeared. Janine slapped the glassy-eyed Jacomie, snapping the woman out of her trance, and together they went to wake their soldiers.
"Megalomaniacal speeches put me to sleep," Eugenia laughed, her voice clear as a river. "The Intelligence was right, not just emotional manipulation, but a passive invasive mind control to boot." She tapped the side of her helmet. "Don't waste the efforts, punk. Been there, toughed it out, became immune. Wanted to know, why am I here? To stop you. Why? Because lives are at stake, and I am here. Because you have destroyed cities, engaged in slavery, killed minors, and endangered our citizens." A white mist gathered around the Elite's hands. She clenched her fist, gripping the handles of silver tonfas formed by the nanomachines. "Because I owe debts. Iterna will no longer tolerate your wanton terrorism. Your war ends today. And your crimes will be punished."
"By whom, little imitation?" the khatun asked.
A soft, blue glow covered most of the battlefield. A portal that made Phaser's tears look positively tiny had opened in the south, widening and expanding to reveal another portal within, one that led into the depths of the cosmos. The pleasant hue soon turned orange and then bright red as a chunk of stone, large enough to serve as a wall's bastion, pushed through the portal. Jacomie quailed, grabbing Janine to stand, and the warlord gulped.
Eugenia was dropping a meteor. The wind roared, blowing in every direction, displaced by the sheer mass of the meteor, superheated by the friction. The helmet closed around the Elite's head.
She is going to murder us all. Janine thought.
"And they call me mad," Mad Hatter remarked.