[center][b][h3]Type 0011 “Severa”[/h3][/b]
PL 910 Human Cyborg
[b]Location:[/b] VR Training World “Gehenna” / Secret Facility in Central Capital[/center]

In seconds Severa's grisly handiwork faded from both sight and mind, the whole encounter a predictable and forgettable interlude.  Lacking in subtlety, it left no impression, but nevertheless accomplished its function of adding another layer of reinforcement to the untold thousands that defined the girl's fighting ability.  When the last trace of torchlight was minutes away, Severa allowed herself to slow down.  Her face, mired though it was in the near-total darkness, bore the hollow sort of indifference that this world trained upon it; not an ounce of fear polluted her being, not necessarily due to her conditioning, but instead a product of the simple fact that nothing in this place was scary.  Boring but lethal was not so much as a hell but a grindstone, a nightmare that rendered its occupants dead even if its repetitive horrors did not kill them.  No courage could be gleaned from Severa's stride as she made her way up an incline that led out of the twisted forest—just drilled-in efficiency.  When the hill gave way to a sudden drop high above a basin, she sat upon the black grass at the edge, her legs dangling off the precipice.  Beneath the starless black sky, she held her head in her hands.

The tingling took a little longer to fade.  For as long as she could remember, every time that something died by her hand, an undeniable sensation of pleasure had blossomed in her brain.  There had been a time that she reveled in it, riding the high of slaughter for days on end, but something had changed.  Severa could not remember what, or why, for in this place all memories grew hazy save for those forged in the rush of combat, but she learned that this jolt of euphoria did not come from inside herself.  She knew it to be a manipulation, though she could say nothing else about it with certainty.  From the day of that revelation, Severa learned to keep those impulses under control.  In doing so, she found in time that she saved herself from the only truly frightening thing in her reality: the killers.

A light in the distance seized her attention, forcing her to displace all other thoughts as she hastened to process the unknown stimulus and assess the threat.  Across the empty space of the water-filled gorge, something metal reflected the stark glare of the moon.  It appeared to be attached to a dark shape, and as Severa, watched, it made a slight movement, and the sound of a bell filtered across the gap.  [i]One of us,[/i] she understood, and in reply she lifted her hand.  Around her palm, the air began to spin, forming a bright blade that revolved for a second before she let it dissipate.  Her signal given, she continued to observe as the stranger seated itself on the opposing cliff.

While the possibility of a threat remained, the person across the way shared much with her.  Whoever it was, it wasn't a killer, though defining what a killer was in the first place led to much trickiness.  Every individual like Severa, every survivor, needed to kill and kill and kill again just to make it to the next day.  As far as her scattered encounters informed her, Severa felt sure that each one received the same stimulus as she for the act of murder.  Then there were non-survivors who fit the mold of murderer with extreme precision, but they were allied, so to speak, with the monstrous things in this plane; their status as enemies could not be questioned.  The difference, then, had to be in awareness; some of the survivors, during their wanderings, knew that something was wrong, that a true mystery and a true danger dwelt beneath the surface.  Then, there were those who did not care about what might be going on beneath, those for whom the carnage was everything.  Their quest for gratification, for the rush of blood, consumed them completely.  Severa knew from experience that it wasn't intelligence or cunning they lacked; the only difference between she and they was that she could bury the drive to maim and slay, and they could not.  But why did she bother?  Why did any of the abstainers?  Really, she had no idea.  The bell-ringer, across the way, probably didn't either.  Still, here they were, a couple hundred feet apart yet altogether close in spirit.

Soon, this little rendezvous would have to end.  It wasn't her first, and with any degree of luck it wouldn't be her last.  Another constant, observable by the abstainers: if several lingered too long in any one place, whether or not they engaged one another in combat, monsters would appear from the woodwork.  This, Severa felt, happened too predictably to be mere coincidence.  It served to further her ideas about the existence of some manipulator, who contrived to keep the abstainers apart.  This did not dissuade her from trying when the opportunity arose; meetings like this, where the most eventful communication might be a distant wave from each party, kindled inside her a strange sensation like the fiery joy that ignited in her when she killed, but much, much weaker, and smoother.  It felt like a more natural good, rather than the good that struck her like lightning to incentivize further bloodshed, and Severa assigned to it value for that reason.  

Rallying her weary muscles, she forced herself to her feet.  “Live on,” she whispered, her voice a croak from lack of practice, though her words lost in the warm breeze.  Severa gave a stiff wave to the unknown stranger, and the bell rang out once again.  Then, she started to move in the direction the water flowed far below.  A horde could appear at any moment, and in an effort to establish her own self with what little power she had, she wished to avoid further combat if at all possible.