“They're coming again...-”

Alex craned her neck upwards, her vision mildly obscured by the strands of platinum white bangs that dangled and danced before her face. In front of her stood a shadowy form with a wide brimmed rice hat. He was a familiar face, and she was not unhappy to see him, despite the curt frown on her face. She stood, rolling her stiff shoulders back as she pulled away from the paperwork before her–Supply manifests, patrol rosters, and all the other boring settlement stuff she hated doing. In fact, she nearly smiled at the thought of combat, the adrenaline, the intensity of it. She frowned because this was the third attack this week, because it was a risk to the people–[i]Her people[/i]. She pursed her lips, her mind formulating the basis of a question considering the attackers number, but Godden knew her too well.

“-A single unit, fifty to seventy of them.” Godden reported, looking at her passively with his muddy, watercolor eyes; a mixture of browns, grays, and blacks, all swirling together like a pool of water. 

“That's a handful more than last time, where are they getting all these body's?” Alex questioned, though she didn't really expect an answer.

“They appear to be slave soldiers, probably from the pits or the mines. They're driven by a whip-master and a smaller force of what must be actual Forsaken; a few of them were wearing animal skulls rather than rags and scraps.”

“You never cease to amaze me Godden,” Alex complimented as she neatly straightened her stacks of paperwork and set them aside to be done later–maybe. He was her information officer, and held a standing of Jarl within the Seditian Society, so such was expected. Yet, the compliment was not wasted. He gave her the flicker of a smile, just a tiny fluttering glimmer of white teeth nestled between a thin mustache and a crisp beard that ran along his jawline.

“I want you, Tah'li, Camp B, and this time I'll be joining you,” Alex spoke as she looked up at him, due to her height she could easily see his face and the small tug of a frown at the corner of his lips. He opened his mouth to speak but she laid a gentle hand on his chest.

“It's time Godden, we've waited long enough and many have gathered.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her, a suggestive [i]”Hmm”[/i] escaping his throat and still sounding like a direct question. “Bored?” He teased quietly.

“They've move to the footholds of our plateau and they keep intercepting our trade wagons,” She explained, though he continued to give her the same curious look. “...And I'm out of soap.” That brought a soft, genuine laugh out of him, something Alex hardly got to see anymore. She looked up at him, her hand lingering just a little too long and the sadness just a little to evident in her eyes, her face just a little to expressionless. She jerked her hand away and walked outside, Godden silently followed her.

In other life, or another time, she would have loved that man to the fullest, and he would have loved her back. Despite Godden being the grizzled, hardened wasteland veteran only a few years shy of his forties, it was Alex who was too haunted, too broken to put herself in that position again. She could see it in his eyes, nearly everyday, the love that sparkled behind them. There only thing between them were a few nights of passion, albeit usually influenced by alcohol. He never pressed the subject, nor did he read to deeply into her actions or skew his interpretations of her mood and words. He understood her, if not fully, then enough, and somehow that made it worse. Still, the tall, toned man next to her was one of her most loyal subjects. His dedication to her and her cause only rivaled by his deadliness in combat.  She snuck a glance at him, easily reading the definition of muscle beneath his well-fit tan shirt. He wore a long black coat which, when button, hid his two kami katana well, which were belted to his opal colored jeans at the waist.

Godden tipped his hat lower as they stepped outside into the glaring sun and Alex joined him in shielding her eyes by pulling her tinted goggles down. She flicked the red hood up to her head just as her feet met the flat, worn dirt track that navigated foot traffic through the small settlement. Outside people milled about, some of whom made it a point to turn and nod at her respectfully. It was Godden who had taught her the basics of a social structure from an old tribe of people, older than Dust and the world that came before it. She wanted to be strong, and Godden taught her how. Now she ran a society where only the strong reigned, but respectfully. She wasn't so savage as the Forsaken, despite the similarities between the two structured governments. She had her honor challenged several times to the position of Konung, King, of the Seditio. She hadn't killed any of her challengers, and neither had she badly wounded them. The duels could technically be fought to the death, but she had instilled a sense of honor and respect into them as they wandered in slowly throughout the year.

To either side of her she could see the watchtowers looming up over a field of bright green tents fluttering in the arid desert breeze. She had never expected so many Immortals to show up, but the standards were doing a good job of driving them to her. Even the territory wars were doing a good job helping to build her ranks, despite the new opportunities for mercenary work. She had nearly a hundred Immortals pledged to her, spread between four camps around the town. Camp B was on the north-eastern edge of town, the direction Godden headed towards. Alex continued to stride down the track through town, the dirt had been churned and mixed with wet clay before being flattened back out. It was almost like a little road in its own right, though not as smooth or nicely textured.

Alex whistled sharply, catching the attention of a woman walking out of the town's bank, also known as The Vault. The place had been set up not to long ago, ran by a pointy eared rat of a man who seemed to know what he was talking about, half from knowledge and the because he wore half-moon spectacles over his crooked, pointy nose. The woman who walked out however, was like flipping a coin when compared to Alex. She was nearly the same height, but Tah'li was tan and had a well toned [i]everything[/i]. From her hands to her toes and her bust to her butt, she looked like something Alex had seen in a very old magazine once, just with more clothes on; and that was saying something. A strip of cloth wrapped around her chest, though Tah'li had said it was a tube top or something or other. Alex was pretty sure her underwear were made from more fabric. The legs of her jeans had been cut in half to form shorts, and then cut in half again. If Alex looked hard enough she swore she could make out the beginning curve of Tah'li's ass. The woman was hardly modest, and flaunted her body around usually to manipulate men–and some women too. Godden had snickered when he met her, said she was a walking stereotype, referencing something Alex hadn't understood and didn't care to remember.

Tah'li sauntered over to Alex, popping one hip to the side and resting the matching hand on it. She almost looked like she was striking a pose for a picture, if not for the two glimmering silver pistols poking from the askew gun belt at her waist and a full bandoleer she wore more for style than functionality. The other hand brushed back a flowing waterfall of chestnut brown hair aware from her eyes in a swooping, and slightly dramatic flip. “What's crackin' hun?”

Alex's eye twitched, ever so slightly as she turned to the slightly taller woman, “We're talking 'B' out.”

“Oh my, some more baddies struttin up here huh?” 

Alex nodded in reply, and towards the direction of the old road that led into town. “Ah'ite, Ya'll sure know how to treat a lady.” Tah'li said thickly. Alex had never been able to place her accent, though she knew little of the previous world. Godden had merely chuckled when Alex asked him about it.

The two of them had barely gone a few paces down the road when a small mob of people came streaming around the north-eastern end of town. That turned the heads of everyone on the street, and it took only a moment for everybody to catch on. Godden led the herd of people into formation behind the three of them, roughly twenty Immortals fell into stride, each of them grinning widely. Those milling about on the street let out hoots and hollers, before a soft rumble of a chant rose up, quickly turning into a dull roar and accompanied by a percussion of stomping boots and weapons banging loudly against wood. A wild cacophony of wolf-esque calls and howls rose up into the air. Nearly every man and woman in the settlement yearned, thirsted for battle. To die in battle was to obtain the highest glory, and to be excepted into the folds of the warrior kingdom of Valhalla after death. Where they would live on as a fighting spirit forever encompassed within the thrill of battle. 

The shrill cries echoed across the flat plateau, spreading for over a mile in every direction, sending chills up the spine of their enemies. Enemies that were not fully aware of them enemy they were to face. Each attack had failed, and there had never been any survivors to report back on the enemy. Even now as they marched the burned, broken, maimed, and partially dissolved bodies of their brethren lied strewn about the field around them. At least fifty men in all, from the previous two attacks. What bothered the whip-master the most, were the larger boulders that were cracked and split, and blasted with a permanent coat of ash. Some of the ash patterns looked like a person screaming, but perhaps that was just his nerves. The whip-master grit his teeth and cracked his tool in the air, driving his soldiers on. 

Alex stood on top of a sizable boulder, her warriors crouched behind her. She had been studying, and one of the things she learned was that a dramatic moment could off-put an enemy, giving you a slight advantage that would steadily increase as the shock and awe hit. The forsaken stopped perhaps a hundred yards from her. There was always the chance of a stray arrow hitting her, but another teaching had told her that when facing the unexpected a smart tactician would asses the situation, which is what seemed to be happening now. The forsaken army shifted around in anticipation, waiting for the call to attack, but also the nervousness of the unknown.

Suddenly Alex let out a shrill battle cry, throwing her head back and letting out her wolf call, “Ou-Ou-OOOU!” She screeched, as her small battalion of soldiers spilled out from the rocks and shadows behind her, mimicking her call not will a shrill cry, but with a stampeding roar of battlelust. 

Godden charged ahead with the pack, his arm making a grandeur over head sweep as he lifted Alex's boulder into the air with a violent jerk. Alex crouched, keeping her purchase on the rough surface of the rock as it lurched forward into the air, her twin daggers connected into a bladed staff and held out to one side for balance. A moment later the boulder smashed into the front lines of the Forsaken soldiers, their snapping of their bones barely audible over the road of her warriors–A roar so loud and terrible that she could visibly see the Forsaken slave soldiers shaking, driven only by the fear of the way the Forsaken punished cowardice. Each of those elements worked into Alex's favor, a shattered morale and a fear to turn back meant no survivors, no reports of who or what she was, nothing connecting Isolone to the white-eyed demon.
Alex launched herself from the boulder, over the broken bodies of the Forsaken beneath the rock in a graceful spin which landed he behind a pair of soldiers gaping open-mouthed at her as she soared overhead. They were too slow to turn around and Alex's staffed whipped around her, slicing through the air in a blur as she cut deep into the back of their knees, dropping them to the ground with high pitched screams of pain. She used the force of the swing to spin around, her eyes quickly assigning a target. The Forsaken woman feel back as Alex whipped the tail end of her staff across the slave soldier's throat, leaving it in a ruined mess and causing a spray of blood to fan out into the air, blinding an adjacent soldier dressed in rags. The staff reversed direction again, a flash of metal burying itself into the man's chest. A loud cry issued from directly behind her and she turned just in time to see a fist sized rock smash into the Forsaken warrior's skull, a chunky pulp of blood and bone bursting from their skull.

Godden rushed up next to her, a blur of black cloth and tempered steel as his katanas flashed in and out of bodies in a fluid dance of death. The earth split and churned beneath Godden's enemies, and she could see his hands working, Godden had the ability to move earth, but she could already see a fatigue of sweat dotting his brow as he excessively used his power. He was more practice in the blade, but less in his power than Alex. Father down the line of battle a woman of Indian heritage and tanned skin was dodging and weaving through the battle firing chrome plated pistols with more than average skill. Tah'li moved like the unnatural thing she was, one moment she was there and the next she was a loose gust made of smoke snaking between bodies, positioning, and firing. She didn't have exceptional powers, but she could turn herself into a thick black smoke and move rapidly. She wasn't immune to damage in that state, but she was difficult and confusing to attack, with the addition of not exactly being slow either.

A man charged at her with a savage cry of desperation, two crudely made axes raised in the air. The benefit of fighting slave soldiers was that they were poorly trained and didn't have a warrior's spirit. They were broken, and merely fodder for the more able bodied Forsaken warriors to cleave through their enemies. Alex struck out low with her staff and slice up in a control arc, opening the slave's flesh from groin to neck. He stumbled forward before collapsing to the ground with a wail of pain and terror.  Alex moved through the fray with vicious intent, there was no honor among the Forsaken, and she did not treat them as such. She struck down every enemy in her path without pause, and even those engaged with somebody else fell to her, stabbed in the back or severed at the knee tendons.

A layer of sweat clung to her body as she drew deep ragged breaths. Her eyes were pure maliciousness beneath her goggles as she spotted the whip-master. He stunned those charging at him with expert use of his whip, the steel tip of his weapon slicing deep gouges in her warriors. She saw one fall and was there before the whip-master could plunge his sword down into the chest of her ally. Her weapon sliced through his whip easily, and she whirled it around her hand in a blow aiming for his neck. He parried and stumbled back with surprise. He quickly regained his wit as Alex came at him again, they dodged and parried but neither of them were able to land a blow. Alex leaped backwards, hefting her staff up over her shoulder and flinging it like a spear. The Forsaken's mouth split in a grin as he saw the fatal, desperate attempt at his life, which he batted away effortlessly. That smile was still on his face as the acrid smoke rose up to meet his nostrils, his body knocked off its feet and rapidly falling towards the earth. The electricity still buzzed beneath Alex's skin as she fired off a second round, the powerful arc smashing into the side of the man and sending him rolling across the ground in a smoking heap. 

The echoing crack of her power was loud enough to stun the slave soldier's closest to her, as they gazed at her in confusion and fear they were met only with her wide, toothy grin. Lightning burst from her hands, smashing into the Forsaken and knocking them backwards. None of them were able, or willing, to get close to her as her hands flashed with blast after blast. A woman scream and charged at Alex, a rusty, pitted sword raised high in the air. Alex hit her directly in the mouth with an arc powerful enough to blow out the back of the woman's skull. And just like that, the battle was over.

Alex looked around her, triumphant. Battle always ended so suddenly, so anti-climatically. Godden strode across the field towards her, with Tah'li in tow. The rest of the warriors gathered towards her as well, forming a circle around her. Godden had scooped up her weapon somewhere in between, and handed it to her without pause. She took it, holding still as she looked at the faces around her. Haughty, dignified, mirthful faces. She raised her spear in the air in a triumphant and let out a triumphant scream–Her soldiers howled in unison.

This was only the beginning. They would not stop here.