Chapter XXVII: Alraune?

CW FOR INTENSE VIOLENCE AND BODY HORROR

The reikverratr dropped me. No fanfare, no slamming me into the ground or crushing me until my insides squirted out like a stepped-on juice box, she simply opened her hand and let me fall to the ground. I even landed on my feet, mostly. I raised my sword, worried that the other shoe was about to drop, but she pulled back in a full retreat, her fists raised in a defensive guard. 

She was muttering something, but I couldn’t tell if it was a language I understood or not because her words came out oddly garbled. Almost immediately, I was struck by a massive headache, like nothing I’d ever felt before. The pale noonday light suddenly felt as bright as a desk lamp pointed at my face, and my sword-arm like it had been strapped down with lead weights. I stayed standing as best as I could, and the headache rapidly started to fade away. 

I started to understand what the reikverratr was saying, though there was still something off about her speech. It was like she was saying two different sentences at once, one comprehensible and one not. She continued to retreat out to a safe distance, far enough that neither of us could attack the other.

“I didn’t realize that Bluerose was already so advanced; I’ll have to report you to my superiors, hah. But they must really think these negotiations matter if they sent you along as insurance.”

“What—” I stopped, feeling there was something wrong with my mouth. “What are you talking about?”

“Incredible,” she said with faint admiration, “they even solved the neural problem. Flawless imitation, Alraune, but your act isn’t fooling me. I know what you are.”

I hesitated. She was the enemy, but she also seemed to know more than I did. There wouldn’t be any harm in grilling her for information. I let myself give a nervous chuckle, then in my most confident voice said, “Yeah? And what is that?”

“The perfect life form. Even I hadn’t realized what the scientists meant when they said… ‘immortal’, but I see it now. You’re fast, you’re strong, and you can just keep coming.”

There was something I heard in that voice, something that at first I didn’t believe could be coming from the eight-foot-tall monster who had just demolished an entire platoon of soldiers. “Are you… afraid? Of me?”

“Terrified,” she said. “But bravery is not found in the lack of fear, but in confronting it face to face.” It sounded more like she was reminding herself than telling me. I had the reikverratr honest-to-god scared of me.

This was getting a bit too absurd, even for me. “Scared of one girl, are you kidding me?”

“And they gave you a wit, too? I will never understand Bluerosers. You and I both know that it is not just any girl that I am afraid of. I will not have you mock me.”

I threw open my arms. “Then fucking fight me already, you murderous asshole!”

The reikverratr didn’t make a sound, but instead shed her long coat. Suddenly it all made sense. She was covered from head to toe in steel, heavy overlapping plates that slid over and under each other as she moved. Mounted on her back was a gigantic steam engine… a larger version of the backpack hauled around by Esther Nettle’s Mechanodrones. The similarities poured in, in the shape of the long reinforcing bars down each limb, the angular bucket-shape of the helmet, the flexible leather and fabric covering up some of the joints. This, the reikverratr, had been what she was trying to make out of all those kidnapped homeless. And yet it was equally clear just how pale of an imitation it had been. For all that the Mechanodrones were slow and lumbering, the reikverratr moved smoothly and naturally, and for all that they were brainless minions, she was an alert and trained soldier.

The reikverratr made a swift gesture I’d never seen before, running the knuckles of her right gauntlet across where her jaw would be, from under the ear to the chin. With passionate fervor, she bellowed, “Hail Cassandra!” And then she was on the offense.

I juked to one side, but her flash-quick charge still clipped my side, sending me spinning. My feet scraped against the dirt as I righted myself as best I could. She barely slowed down, turning and launching a jab that hammered through my stupid, hasty block like it was nothing. It was a minor miracle that my sword didn’t shatter there and then, the way that several of my bones did. Gritting my teeth through the pain, I stayed standing, lunging toward the reikverratr with a shambling, desperate thrust. I was aiming for the barely-visible gap in her armor around the hip joint, and missed by the length of my hand. Worse, I’d overextended myself, which gave her all the opportunity she needed to grab me by the arm and twist. She picked me up by that same shattered arm, then with a dismissive grunt slammed me into the ground hard enough that I bounced, the grass and dirt scratching my skin as I skidded away from her until I came to rest against the shattered remnants of the building those dead soldiers had been using for cover.

“Ah. Now I understand it. The Bluerose scientists made one critical mistake,” said the reikverratr. “They assumed that your superior physiology would suffice to produce an unstoppable warrior; yet they failed to give you any proper training. You’re young, aren’t you, Alraune?”

I didn’t respond. I was too busy letting my bones repair themselves. 

“So young, and yet caught up in a pointless act of rebellion by a group of inbred petty nobility who fail to understand what they’re even fighting for. I pity you, young Alraune; you are a weapon fighting a war in which you have no stake. But a weapon nonetheless.”

I don’t know how it happened. By all conventional logic, I should have been an absolute mess. I had just been traumatized to the point of hallucinating my dead sister, then traumatized again by seeing a woman I’d come to respect being broken in half. My entire body was coursing with pain, my very heartbeat brought pain in ebbs and flows. There was so much terror-induced adrenaline flowing through me that I shouldn’t have been capable of doing anything but running away screaming or recklessly throwing myself into combat again with no plan or skill. Maybe all the trauma and pain and confusion built up until the dial in my brain wrapped around to the other side and read “perfectly fine;” I still don’t know. 

Time slowed almost to a stop as the reikverratr spoke to me, and my mind transformed from a chaotic bundle of emotions and feelings into a needle-sharp point. My vision cleared, and my eyes darted around, picking up on the details of the environments that I could never have otherwise noticed. Flashbulb memories went off in my head, so intense that I could feel them, of fighting the chargerthing, of dodging machine rifle fire in Nemesis’s lab, of dueling Rook again and again and again. Strength and sword-work weren’t going to help me beat the reikverratr, not when she was in an entirely different league from me in both categories. The one thing I could beat her at was speed and maneuverability. My gaze locked first on her, and on the gap that allowed her to turn her head in that armor, then on the ruins and rubble all around us. 

The extreme focus could only last a few seconds before reality faded back in. That weird headache that had been around ever since the reikverratr had started talking pulsed back into being, but my other injuries were fading fast. She was looking away from me, collecting herself before moving on to the next fight, presumably.

“Still here, bitch,” I said. There was still something wrong about my voice, but I couldn’t catch it. “Still fighting. I can keep going as long as I need to.”

The reikverratr turned in an instant. “Me too. Always.”

“Whatever you say, steel-face,” was the only quip I could manage before she was on me again. 

She charged in with her fists in a guard, fist cocked for an uppercut that would have blasted me right through the wall. A cold certainty flowed through my bloodstream: I was faster than her. My legs moved almost of their own volition, springing me to the left an instant before her punch. The wood flexed below my feet, as did my legs, until both sprang out at once, launching me through the air on a trajectory to hit her head. 

The tip of my saber dulled itself, leaving a thin silvery mark on her helmet as it grazed past. I caught her head with my other arm, swinging myself around until I could latch on properly with my legs around her midsection. The sword went into a reverse-grip, with my other hand trickling blood down the blade as I grabbed it halfway down, for accuracy, and made to slam it down into the armor gap around her neck.

In a panic, the reikverratr launched herself forward, sending both of us right through the wreck of the house. The sudden jolt of movement threw me off of my stab, right before the planks of wood in my face threw me off of the reikverratr’s back. She dropped all eight feet of her steel-clad body into a perfect combat roll, leaving me to skid uselessly across the inside of the building. But she was still heavier, which gave me the edge in time I needed to be the first back on her feet and charging back into the fray. With her on her hands and knees, her head was in perfect position for a finishing blow. 

But I didn’t notice her hand moving, and she caught me with a grip like a bear trap around the wrist of my sword hand. “It won’t be that easy, Alraune. I will win this.”

Her grip tightened and my sword dropped to the floor with a crack of bone. “Tell me something: was it you who killed Dr. Ironseed?”

“It was Dinara’s idea,” said the reikverratr, “I signed off on it.”

I nearly screamed. “Then I’ll make sure it isn’t easy for you either, you fucking asshole!”

I threw my knee upward into her face with as much force as I could manage; my kneecap stung like hell, but her head was knocked back just long enough for me to pick up my saber with my left hand and bash the pommel into her temple for good measure. She was getting up into a kneeling posture, her other hand moving to crush my ribs, so I needed to get out of there. Instinctively I jumped up, planting both feet on her chest then yanking my whole body back. My right shoulder popped the moment before my right hand slipped limply out of her grasp and my entire body was catapulted away.

We dueled like that for maybe a minute, maybe two. Three, tops. I attacked from every angle, deflecting off of walls and leaping through the rubble to get on her and get in the one strike that would be enough to end the fight once and for all. Now that she’d had a chance to get wise about my strategy, my opponent was mostly able to deflect me with a forearm block or a sudden duck under my flying leaps, sending me sprawling to the floor where she could make a go at stomping me into the dust or ripping my legs off with her bare hands. But even on the ground I was faster than her, and she never got the opportunity for a good hit in. 

We fought our way out of the first building, then crashed through another. My sword was covered in nicks and dulled all over from bouncing off of steel armor and slamming through wooden beams, but as long as it hadn’t broken it would still work. Already both of us were becoming exhausted, me from the constant parkour and her from throwing punches and kicks forceful enough to smash granite. I’d tired her out more than the last sixty soldiers had, which was enough to make me feel at least a little proud.

She was blocking low, which was the perfect opportunity to go high, stepping off of a jutting fragment of wall to propel myself high enough to reach her neck. Her arms couldn’t raise fast enough to block… but her head was already right there, and she slammed it right into the center of my stomach, knocking the breath out of my body and momentarily rupturing a few organs in the process. That was enough to stun me, just for the second she needed to grab me by the shoulders. I prepared for the crushing pain, but it never came. Instead she tossed me away, to land against the wall of a so-far undestroyed servants’ quarters about twenty feet away. 

I scrabbled to my feet, and she raised her guard again, but neither one of us moved to attack. We relaxed in unison, and the reikverratr dropped to one knee. She was too far away for me to attack before she responded. 

“I… underestimated you,” she said, in between panting breaths.

“Yeah,” I said, just as winded. “No shit.”

“But I will not give up. I cannot give up, not now, not when I have come so far. My spirit will never break, Alraune! Do you hear me? My spirit will never break!”

My mouth fell open and I couldn’t stop from smiling at the absurdity of it all. “Are you giving me a shonen anime speech?”

The reikverratr suddenly looked up at me. “What in the hellish pits are you talking about?”

“You’ll get used to it,” I said. “Ma’am, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but you are eight feet tall and wearing armor. You do not get to make shonen anime speeches at me.”

“She’s right. You do get used to it; trust me.”

The reikverratr tried to turn toward the source of the voice behind her, but it was too late; Rook was already on the attack. One of her arms was totally limp, occasionally venting puffs of smoke, but the other one was working just fine. She leapt forward, latching around the reikverratr’s neck and yanking back with her full body-weight, forcing the reikverratr’s whole body to bend backward in an uncomfortable arch. Rook didn’t have the leverage to choke her out or snap her neck, but she had enough to render the reikverratr almost incapable of fighting back. And her neck was as exposed as it could be. 

“Now, Emma! While I still have the strength!”

The headache suddenly flared to life again, a white-hot agony that spread from my forehead down my neck and spinal cord. There was something weird about Rook’s words, the way they seemed to pile on layers of meaning both obvious and utterly incomprehensible, like my mind shied away from understanding her. But I did regardless, and I pushed through the pain to put one foot in front of the other. 

The reikverratr struggled and pulled against Rook, but with the leverage against her there wasn’t much she could do but look right at me with those eerie glass lenses as I approached. I kept my sword at my side, calculating the right angle to pierce her throat, preferably killing her as quick as possible. She didn’t beg, or plead, or say anything at all, even as I closed to within striking distance. 

My sword went up, angling for a single, powerful, downward thrust, one that would pierce the thin leather and her skin in an instant. A killing blow. A killer’s blow. And that thought, that moment of self-reflection, was where it all went wrong. When I looked back at the reikverratr, her chest heaving under the heavy steam-powered armor, I didn’t see her in the mask any longer. All I could see was my sister’s body on the gurney, pale with death even as they wheeled her away. Her breath sounded just like the dying gasps of Regan Leyrender. 

I jerked my sword-arm forward just to finish it, but my body gave out after only a couple of inches of movement. Intellectually, I knew that nobody could fault me for killing the reikverratr: she was a soldier, a killer all on her own, the vanguard of an Empire. She was not innocent, and she had prepared for her own death. But she was still a person just like anyone else, and no amount of rationalization could bring me over that final edge.

“Pathetic,” muttered the reikverratr. “They didn’t even train you well. A poor excuse for the perfect living creature, you are.”

Then the reikverratr turned into a blur. Grunting with exertion, her boiler shrieking from the pressure, then heaved her entire body forward, whipping Rook up and forward with sheer weight, until the still-smaller woman was hurled off. Like a catapult, Rook shot forward, slamming into me and sending us both sprawling. Getting hit by Rook’s full weight was something a lot like getting hit by a car, or a train, or otherwise getting in a battle of momentum with something unstoppable.

The reikverratr stood, rolling her shoulders and massaging the back of her neck. “That’s the last time I underestimate you, you damned faulty prototype.”

She marched forward three steps, picking up Rook before I could do much to react, then planting one foot on my stomach to make sure I stayed down. For what it was worth, it worked: my legs went numb with a snap, and hot blood welled up my throat in a wave. 

She dispatched Rook with mechanical efficiency: one hand on the head, one hand holding the torso, and a quick twist. It sounded like metal being bent more than it did a bone being broken, but either way she went limp. The reikverratr tossed her aside once more, this time pausing to watch her impact. Then she looked down at me, twitching and writhing in agony under her foot. There was a soft chuckle that echoed under her mask, before she took her weight off of me and walked off. 

My organs repaired themselves more slowly, and my spine too an unnerving handful of seconds to knit back together. I couldn’t think of a plan, my mind a maelstrom of grief at Rook’s death, of unspeakable agony, of rolling flashbacks to every death I’d ever witnessed.

“Abby… Abby, please…” was all I could bring myself to say as I crawled backwards on my hands, my legs scrabbling ineffectually at the grass. I hit the building wall not long after and stopped, crying. I’d failed. Rook was dead, and soon everyone else would be, because of me. Like a child, all I wanted was to go home, to feel the warmth of someone holding me tight, to hear gentle whispers in my ears.

The first bullet hit just above my right breast, in the lung. The next five came in quick succession, blood spraying across my chest, my legs. She was back, with the guns of the dead slung over her shoulder, unloading a revolver into my chest. 

“As long as I still breathe, I will not stop fighting,” she said. With a single flick, the revolver opened, and she reloaded one shell at a time. “I will never stop, not even against you, the immortal girl born to fight.”

I was a bit past the point where I could feel much pain, or feel anything but pain either. The next six shots came even more quickly, and all I could do to respond to each one was twitch. They were still healing; but with the sheer number of them, my body’s resources were divided, meaning that the reikverratr was making new holes in me faster than the old ones could close up.

“I will find a way, no matter how long it takes! Do you hear me, Alraune! If I have to fight until my heart gives out, I will find a way to kill you and make it stick.” She threw the revolver aside, drawing a standard issue bolt-action rifle. The first shot went right through my arm at the wrist. BANG chick-click click-chick BANG chick-click click-chick BANG.

“So your healing does have a limit,” she said. “Unlike my will. I am a reikverratr of the Cassandran Empire, and my will is an iron pillar! You cannot win so long as my will is stronger, and so long as I still live!”

I was numb, I was broken. The pain was beginning to fade away, which was almost worse than still being able to feel it. I wouldn’t let myself look down at what had happened to my body, instead keeping my eyes locked on the reikverratr as she approached. But there wasn’t an ounce of defiance in that look. Never in my entire life had I been so purely, utterly terrified. Not when I’d been shot the first time, not in Nemesis’s lair, never. 

With the fifth and final bullet in the rifle expended, the reikverratr dropped it. She was standing directly over me now, like a disappointed mother standing over a baby. “Machine beats flesh, as it ever does,” she said, bending over to pick up my saber from the grass at my side. It was covered in blood. The blood was mine, but to my eyes it looked the same as Regan Leyrender’s. 

“I wonder if they thought, when you were being spawned, that you would be the key to winning them this next war. Whatever, it doesn’t matter now. Hail Cassandra.”

The last thing I remembered was the sound of the sword cutting through air, then the sickening pain of the blade cutting through my neck. There was a moment of paralysis, a blurred sensation of free-falling, and then darkness.

SaffronDragon

Oops. Sorry about the late chapter there. And for those who have a low tolerance for the rather intense violence we've been seeing over the last few chapters, don't worry: this is basically the end of it. As always, if you want to cool down after this high point, you can click the link below to subscribe to my Patreon, where the next few chapters are available for only $3 a month. Higher tiers also include a pair of Selene prequel short stories featuring some of my favorite characters from the book. Otherwise, I'll see you in two weeks for Chapter XXVIII: Understanding