Chapter 19: Decisions

Lieutenant General Francis Hayworth stomped through Base 15, on his way to collect the entire staff to discuss what Prudence had just informed him of. Prudence was walking behind him like a subordinate, which he still found ridiculous considering how powerful the angel was. They'd already been to the armory and hadn't found Jeanne so their next stop would be the nurse's office. Nurse Rachel wasn't much of a strategist but as the person in charge of the cadets' health, and more importantly as the step-daughter of Lucifer himself, her attendance was still incredibly important. Even if her sheer presence still drove Francis wild.

So when he reached her door he wasn't as polite as he could have been and opened the door to her office almost in the same motion that he knocked on it.

“Nurse Rachel, I need you for an all-hands meeting!”

The moment the door swung open he regretted his impatience. Nurse Rachel was clearly... involved with the woman in front of her. They were kissing, rather deeply, the kind of kiss nobody appreciated being observed during. Their hands were roaming over each other's bodies and they were both moaning into the kiss.

Even worse, the woman Rachel was kissing was none other than Jeanne.

And he'd clearly just interrupted them during an intimate moment when he hadn't even known they'd ever had any intimate encounters to interrupt.

He was shocked that the pleasantly professional and straight-laced angel would stoop so low as to take Rachel up on her utterly inappropriate proposal. Of course, he couldn't really blame Jeanne for it. Everybody had needs. But, damn it, he'd considered the same but he was holding back for the sake of his morals. He knew it wasn't fair to hold Jeanne to his own standards, especially since, unlike him, she wasn't married to a loving wife and didn't have two beautiful daughters, but he still felt disappointed that she wasn't the perfect paragon he'd thought of her as.

Prudence, Jeanne's subordinate, on the other hand, had an entirely different reaction.

“Damn, boss. Get some!”

**

Rachel was not a violent person. It wasn't as if she was some sort of pacifist, she simply didn't have much of a temper. She could fight if she had to but her first solution for conflict was always negotiation, ideally involving seduction. It was one of the reasons she was so useless against Outsiders. They couldn't be reasoned with and seducing them was right out unless she wanted to get corrupted into some twisted beast of the Black Goat. Either way, violence was never her first solution to problems.

But right now she wanted to fucking punch something.

She had only just gotten Jeanne to finally admit her desires, had finally managed to get the angel to loosen up a little (and managed to find out that the Virgin of Orleans was a bloody amazing kisser, by the way), and then the Lieutenant General had barged in and interrupted them.

If she was totally fair then it was honestly her own damn fault for not locking the door but she'd been worried about startling Jeanne if she locked them into a room and blaming Hayworth was much more cathartic than kicking herself.

She was terrified her whole work of buttering Jeanne up was about to fail spectacularly, with the gorgeous creature in front of her clamming up again, but when Hayworth slammed the door closed again with a muttered: “I apologize for the intrusion” Rachel was surprised to find Jeanne not furious or full of regret, though still desperately embarrassed.

Rachel herself had no sense of shame – her mother had been kicked out of Paradise before her father had eaten the Fruit of Knowledge – but she knew that shame was a powerful motivator for many. So the fact that Jeanne wasn't regretting and questioning her decision to give in and kiss her was a really good sign for her.

“You okay?" she asked very gently.

“Not how I hoped this would go," the angel admitted quietly.

“Sorry," Rachel said. “I should have locked the door.”

“It's fine," Jeanne said, then blushed even more furiously and asked: “Can we pick this up later?”

Rachel grinned. “Sure. Now let me go see what Francis wants.”

**

Francis Hayworth had to clutch the door frame when Rachel stepped out of the room. He wasn't angry but the sight of the succubus with her lips puffy from kissing and her face and cleavage flushed a light pink was making him think entirely inappropriate and unprofessional thoughts.

“Nurse Rachel," he said, hoping his voice didn't reflect his growing frustration.

“Lieutenant General," Rachel said, her voice a little breathy. “What can I do for you?” She looked behind him and said: “Hey, Pru.”

Francis looked back and saw Prudence waving from the hip as she blushed. Then he turned back to Rachel and said: “I need to call an all-hands meeting.”

“So you need Jeanne, too?" Rachel asked.

“Yes," he admitted. “Her and the Professor.”

Rachel nodded. “I'll ask her to go get him. It'll give her a moment to compose herself.”

It was surprisingly considerate of the demon but he wasn't going to question it. He couldn't spend too much time just talking to her or he might do something stupid. He was very glad Prudence was there to keep him in line.

“Thank you," he finally said. “I'll see you in the meeting room.”

**

“Atlantis!" Professor Stollos barked, causing Jeanne, Prudence and Rachel to flinch.

Francis was unaware of the sheer significance of swearing by Atlantis but he had been part of the military long enough to recognize a really, really bad swear-word when he heard it.

Of course, he didn't know the half of it. Atlantis had been the greatest cataclysm in the history of the world. One man's hubris had almost caused the entire world to be destroyed by powers from the Outside. All the gods alive at the time had pooled their powers to try and stop the ritual underway and the ritual itself had caused unfathomable destruction on its own. Between those cataclysmic forces the island had sunk beneath the waves before the ritual could conclude, which had only just saved the world.

Even the Invasion paled compared to what had been attempted in Atlantis. The Invasion had let Outsiders into the world but in Atlantis the power-hungry High Priest had tried to bring Nyarlathotep himself into the world. Not one of his Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Masks, the way other invocations did, but the entirety of the Crawling Chaos. Had the ritual succeeded it wouldn't just have resulted in Empty Night for this universe, it would have placed the entire multiverse in jeopardy.

As such, mentioning Atlantis in front of magical creatures over a certain age was tantamount to mentioning Auschwitz to Jews. It was therefore a curse that was reserved only for the direst of circumstances.

“How can there be soldiers helping the Outsiders, is what I don't understand," Prudence said. Francis, Jeanne, Rachel, Professor Stollos and Prudence were sitting in the staff conference room, the monitoring division involved via video call. “Shouldn't the Outsiders be tearing the soldiers apart?”

“It's that bastard Caulder," the Professor spat. “It has to be.”

“Your former colleague?" Jeanne asked.

Professor Stollos ground his teeth. “I would really rather you didn't call him that, but yes, him. He employs cyborgs and apparently he has some link with the Outsiders now. If he is enhancing his cyborg soldiers with Outsider parts it would stand to reason that the Outsiders wouldn't be attacking the soldiers.”

“That makes a disturbing amount of sense," Prudence said. “The soldiers were moving in a strange way.”

“Jerky and too uniform to be human?" the Professor asked.

“Pretty much," she said.

“Yes, that's his work," he said.

“But why would they march on one of our refugee camps?" Francis asked.

“Bodies," the Professor and Jeanne said at the same time. They shared a look and she shut up to let him explain: “Sacrifices, corpses, flesh. Everything about helpless civilians is useful to him and the Outsiders both.”

“You need to remember," Rachel said, “all of you – minus Pru – saw what was in Stollos' lab. He's gotten a lot nicer since then but even back then, when he committed all those atrocities, this Caulder guy thought he was too soft. That's the kind of person we're dealing with. The kind of guy who saw one of those Havocs and thought the one responsible for that was a bleeding heart.”

Francis nodded. “I think we are all agreed that this army needs to be stopped. What we need to do here is decide what to do.”

“We intercept them," Prudence said instantly. “The entire base. We set out and crush that force.”

The others in attendance winced.

“We considered attacking Buffalo a few days ago but decided to wait for a week to make sure the cadets could get ready," Jeanne said soothingly.

“About that," Rachel said. “I was all for waiting before, but this is urgent. We could afford to wait when we were considering going on the offensive but now we're playing defense. It's risky to send the cadets out but letting this army reach our refugee camp is much worse.”

Francis looked at her, both surprised and impressed with her. “You're not wrong," he finally said. “I thought you were just trying to coddle the cadets before. I apologize for misjudging you.”

Rachel shrugged.

“Something else to consider," the Professor said. “We aren't the only Project in this country. Are the others aware of the situation?”

“They are now," Themisto said through the laptop sitting on the table. “Base 11 is sending a team. Their progress is not as immense as ours but they are sending their most promising team.”

“Please remind me, which project was Base 11 again?" Francis asked.

“Project God-Machines," the Professor said instantly. “Led by one Leonardo Da Vinci. I would rather not have them show us up.”

“Well, that settles it then, doesn't it?" Jeanne said. “We need to help anyway and now we know we won't be the only ones who will help.”

“Indeed," Francis said. “If there aren't any objections I suggest we inform the cadets during dinner.”

**

Elaine and her team were once again having dinner together. This time, however, things felt much more relaxed than they ever had since Abigail had joined them. The pretty singer was no longer deliberately sitting several paces away, for one thing. For another Cassie was behaving much differently. Before he'd been babbling a little but Elaine was beginning to think Cassie only babbled when he wasn't sure if the people around him enjoyed his company because ever since their date he was much more content to just sit in companionable silence. He was still charming and extroverted but now he no longer seemed terrified of silence.

In this newly comfortable environment she wondered what they should do next. The five teams had pretty much cleared out all the nearby Outsiders and they would need to go further and further afield to find enemies, which meant they couldn't just head out for a couple of hours to gather EXP. That meant anything they did from now on would need to be planned out beforehand.

They had a nifty map that showed where there was still Outsider activity but still. Of course Elaine also suspected that something big was going to happen soon. The mermaids had told her and Ophelia that they suspected the Lieutenant General was merely biding his time before he sent them to liberate Buffalo and Rochester, the two closest cities, and this suspicion had further been reinforced when Evelyn had shared her findings about the head cultist from Albion finding the book that had granted him his vile powers in Buffalo's college library.

She now strongly suspected that it was only a matter of time before they would be sent out to Buffalo, which would give them an enormous chunk of EXP if they made it back safely. Of course, beyond that both Abigail and Cassie had increased their Bond Levels with her so their next priority should be to get the two of them leveled up, which would give her yet more power. Maybe gaining that extra chunk of power would finally quell the nagging thought in the back of her head, the one that kept telling her that if she needed to be stronger she had a way available.

She was dragged out of her thoughts when she noticed Lieutenant General Hayworth entering the cafeteria, flanked by the Professor on one side and Jeanne on the other.

Here we go I guess.

“Cadets!" the Lieutenant General's voice rang out. “We have an important message for all of you.” He paused long enough for all eyes to land on him. “An army of Outsiders and their supporters are en route to attack the Ohio refugee camp.”

Elaine sucked in a breath at that and around her most of the others were doing the same.

The Ohio refugee camp was where her parents and her little brother were. From what she'd gathered most of her teammates had their families staying at that camp as well. If the Outsiders were going to attack that, then...

“Calm down!" the Lieutenant General boomed when he heard the muttering. “We are more than aware that most of you have family in that camp. We have no intention of letting them fend for themselves. We will of course be sending all of you to intercept this army. As of right now you have thirty-six hours to prepare. Make the most of them. Rest, spend your points, train. We have already requested several more Gospels so that all of you will be able to set out at once.”

And then he walked off, the Professor and Jeanne following him, though as they turned around the Professor gave Elaine a look. She sucked in another breath. She knew exactly what that look was about. It was as if he'd read her mind.

“Elaine, you okay?" Alexis asked.

“Y-yeah..." Elaine started, then shook her head. “No, not really.”

“You're worried about your family, aren't you?" Alexis said.

Elaine nodded.

“Me too," Alexis said.

“Same," Evelyn said.

“All of your families are in that camp?" Abigail asked.

Cassie nodded.

“Yeah," Ophelia said. “Yours?”

Abigail shook her head. “My mom's in the Florida camp. But still, we'll get through this. We'll protect them.”

Elaine barely heard them, too focused on her thoughts. Her and her team were pretty strong, but an army? How could they stop an entire army? She had taken Lieutenant General Hayworth's measure before and the man wasn't one for exaggerations. If he called the force an army then it wasn't just a small raiding force.

There was a path that might give her the power necessary to make a difference, but she knew it came with a price. If she was too weak the power would consume her and turn her into a mindless monster. If she was strong enough to withstand it she would become ageless.

She didn't want to watch her little brother grow old and die.

But if she didn't grab all the power she could take, would any of them have the luxury of growing old? Burying all of her family because she had been too weak would be even worse.

She clenched her fists. Could she do this? Could she afford not to do this?

In all those novels she'd read this was a pivotal point in the story, when an enigmatic and morally ambiguous character offered the protagonist power. Except... the Professor didn't have an agenda. The risk with this power was very clear and obvious. It didn't seek to corrupt her by inches. It would either ruin her or it wouldn't. She wouldn't become anyone's puppet. The worst she might become was a mindless monster.

But that was only if her will was too weak. And right now she had willpower in spades. If there was ever a time to do it, it would be now.

“You're considering that ritual, aren't you?" Alexis asked.

Elaine startled and looked up. “Yeah," she admitted. “If... If you'll let me.”

“Let you?" Alexis asked.

“It's not just my decision, is it?" Elaine asked. “I care about all of you so I need you to be okay with it. Both the idea of me becoming ageless and the idea of...” She trailed off, blushing as she thought of the way the ritual worked.

“It's okay," Alexis said. “I can't say I'm thrilled about it but the risk bothers me more than what the ritual entails.”

“Yeah, same," Evelyn said. “I don't care what you do with those two to get stronger. I just want you to come out of it alive.”

“What she said," Cassie said.

“I admit I like the idea of you becoming ageless," Ophelia said. “But I recognize that I might be alone in that.”

Elaine winced at that. Technically the others could perform the ritual as well but she wasn't sure if they would be willing. It wasn't as if Alexis and Evelyn were her wives. They had grown close but nothing guaranteed that they would want to grow old with her anyway. But she shook it off and looked at Abigail, who was blushing a little.

“Be safe," the singer said simply.

Elaine nodded and smiled at her.

“But something else," Evelyn said. “Would this even work? How long would it take? We can't afford to wait for two days for these changes to solidify.”

“I... I'll talk to the Professor and ask him if it's feasible," Elaine said.

“No, you won't," Alexis said with conviction.

Elaine stared at her.

“We'll go with you," Alexis said. “We're with you.”

Elaine reached out to stroke her cheek and gave her a smile. “Thank you.”

**

“Professor, I need to talk to you," Elaine said as she caught up to the man. He was still with Jeanne and the Lieutenant General.

He nodded. “I had assumed as much.”

“What do you mean?" she asked, her voice a little suspicious.

“You want to talk to me about the Oath," he said, not even bothering to pretend he didn't know what she wanted to talk about. “You said you wanted time to consider, but under ordinary circumstances you wouldn't have accepted it. It would have taken a certain push for you to overcome your hesitation. That push was your family being in danger, wasn't it?”

“Yes," she admitted. “So at least I won't have to explain anything. If I were to perform the Oath right now, how long would I be out? Would I miss the entire operation?”

“You would be cutting it close," he said. “If you succeed your body will need time to absorb the power and integrate it. I would give it a conservative estimate of thirty hours before you would wake up.”

“And how long until I could actually fight?”

“The moment you wake up," he said. “The transformation into a Lacrima takes a while but the moment it finishes you would unlock a depth of power no mortal could achieve. It would take a while for all your powers to manifest but you would immediately be significantly stronger.”

“Thirty hours..." Elaine muttered.

“At a conservative estimate," he repeated. “It might take a little longer. As I said, you would be cutting it close.”

“You said it would be clear right away if it succeeded or not," she said. “So if it works, would it be possible for the others to load me onto a Gospel so that I could rest on the way there? If I can fight the moment I wake back up then that would work, right?”

“That would indeed work," he said. “But are you certain? This is a choice you can never take back, whether you succeed or fail.”

“You said it takes determination to succeed with this," she said. “My family is in danger. I will never be as determined as I am right now.”

He stared into her eyes, giving her the most intense gaze he'd ever subjected her to, as if he was looking into her very core. “Very well. I will set up the ritual. If you could get Nurse Rachel that would be very helpful.”

“I will get her," Jeanne said, causing everyone to look at her. Especially Lieutenant General Hayworth was giving her a look of intense scrutiny.

The Professor didn't seem to care about the exchange and simply looked over to Elaine and her group. “Then I suppose I will need your help in setting up the ritual.”

“Of course, Professor," Elaine said.

“You should get ready, Sergeant," the Professor told her. “Your team will be more than enough help.”

“Get ready?" she asked.

“I'm sure you want to freshen up a little," he said, giving her a wry smile. “Maybe get some clothes ready for after the ritual. Just a suggestion, you don't have to take it.”

She considered for a moment. She was about to have sex with Rachel and Jeanne. Getting dressed up for the occasion probably wasn't the worst idea.

“Y-yeah," she finally said and rushed off before she could think too hard about the fact that the Professor had just told her to doll herself up for a threesome.