Mercenaries of the Apocalypses [System Apocalypse Progression]

Clara dove into the clearing and launched a Thunderlance at the Thuggard. Searing golden light crashed into the witch's grotesque form, sending her sprawling to the forest floor. Clara leapt around the boulder, hands cupped at side, condensing thunderous energy for another attack. But as she bore down on the witch, her eyes deceived her. What she had mistaken for its body was simply a felled and decaying tree, bulbous stubs imitating malformed, muscular limbs.

Syphoning a morsel of her Thunder energy, Clara cast a smattering of Guiding Lights about the clearing. The golden orbs spread out, illuminating her surroundings like the light of day. A dozen metres away, Andy was struggling in the mud, squirming and kicking at gnomes, ensnared by the branches of a wood-troll. Nothing he couldn't handle. The prisoners hung limply in their binds, their bruised and bloodshot eyes wide with a fierce hope as they stared at her. Clara subdued a painful empathy swelling in her core, concentrating the task at hand. She searched the treeline for the Thuggard, spinning in circles, a Thunderlance at her side, ready to explode.

The branches of the apple tree above her head shook. Clara shot around. A shadow descended upon her. Clara released her Thunderlance at the branches, illuminating the apple-blossom tree top, drowning the shadow in light. Clara's eyes adjusted automatically to the glare, and in a blink, she realised her mistake: the witch's tattered cloak fluttered harmlessly in the branches, torn by her lance.

Like a tarantula emerging from a cave, the witch crawled out of the fat cauldron beside her. Clara began to summon another Thunderlance, but it was too late. The Thuggard grasped her hand, long clawed fingernails cutting into her bicep, dragging her in. Its stupid grin was disconcertingly kind. Beady eyes shone delightfully in the glow of Clara's gathering energy. "My child," it crooned, towering above Clara. "Sweet yet bitter, delectable, come hither."

Clenching her fist, Clara uppercutted the witch in the jaw. Sparks detonated upon impact. Clara punched the monster in her plump maternal face, each Thunder Strike pummelling her like a pneumatic drill. Clara felt the witch's jaw snap, then its cheekbone caved. Her grin misaligned, the Thuggard pulled back, but Clara grabbed her wrist and swung wildly. Bracing her legs, Clara strained Teslatic energy into her musculature, bolstering her strength.

Suddenly, it felt like Clara was grasping at sand. The witch melted away in her grasp, disappearing into the cauldron, but before the glint of its eyes had completely faded, Clara dunked a Thunderbolt into its depths. The cauldron burst with light. Clara winced as the witch screamed, covering her ears. Behind her, more screams joined the fray. The prisoners flopped like fish caught on a line as the fairies swarmed them, stabbing and pinching them. Like butterflies collecting around fruit, bunching around their wrists, necks and thighs–their arteries.

"Andy," Clara yelled. "The prisoners!"

White smoke billowed from the cauldron as it cracked like a boiled egg, then suddenly imploded. Clara turned away from it, running over to the humans. She waved her hands in the air, dousing the fairies with Teslatic energy, trying to scare them off. But they'd entered a frenzy, and Clara couldn't unleash her full power without harming the fugitives. Slapping the fairies, she expelled tiny electrical shocks, squashing them like flies. Andy's shotgun thudded behind her. He yelled triumphantly and trounced through the forest to help her.

"Shoo," he said, swatting at the fairies. "Be gone with you."

One by one, they swatted the pixies to death. The final fairy clung to the swollen ankle of the female prisoner, gnawing and scratching at her tendon. The woman flicked her leg feebly, but relaxed as Clara grasped her foot, squashing the fairy in her hands. Letting go, the small fae fell to the soil, dim and lifeless. Clara stared at its corpse moment longer; her school lunchbox once had a fairy on it. One day, when she had felt glum, she'd sat with her lunchbox alone on the playground, imagining it had come alive to be her friend. Well, she didn't have to imagine anymore.

"Oh god," the woman whimpered. "Thank you."

Clara took her weight as Andy shot the rope above her head. The woman fell into her arms and Clara hugged her, kneeling in the mud. Suddenly, the world spun. She had used up too much energy on the witch–too many uncalibrated abilities–causing fatigue. Blinking away the stars, she clung to the woman. She knew the other prisoners were waiting, in pain, in need of her, but she couldn't let the woman go. She was older and thinner than Clara, and freezing cold to the touch. Tears welled in her eyes as she wrapped her combat jacket around her shoulders and set her down. The lady curled feebly in the mud. Releasing the two others, Clara climbed into the branches, tearing the witch's tattered cloak free. She sniffed it for the smell of magic, but it had no unusual scent. Wrapping it around one of the men, Clara motioned at Andy. "Jacket."

"Aww, come on-"

"Andy," Clara said sternly. "I'm not playing."

Grumbling, he removed his leather jacket, and Clara slung it over the final prisoner, cutting each of their bounds. "Can you all walk?"

The man wearing Andy's jacket was speechless, his eyes glazed over, lids half shut. His pale naked body was painted in red streaks of blood, which trickled from his purple wrists.

"Yes," said the second man, wrapped in the witch's cloak. His skin was a shade older and rougher than the others, like washed-out leather. The woman whimpered and climbed into his lap, but he barely responded, just staring at her. His expression was lifeless. Clara had seen it before: shock.

"Good," she said. "We're going to get you to safety. Warmth. Back to Mirna Pec. Your people sent us. They're waiting for you."

Gathering them in a huddle, Clara put her arm around them, instructing Andy to do the same, leading them from the clearing. But after a few metres, the woman collapsed.

"She can't walk," Clara said.

"Tagsy not."

Clara scowled, then lifted the woman into her arms and carried her through the forest. Behind her, Andy shepherded the others. Weight training in Gabriel's bunker was paying off. Clara's muscles swelled as her Augmentation engorged her veins with steroids, her tendons twitched with electrical energy. It wasn't so much an ability she possessed, but a feeling she had been experimenting with. She'd first tried it when Andy challenged her to an arm wrestle over who would have to scrub the black mould out of the shower. Clara really hadn't wanted to lose. Skinny as he was, Andy could be weirdly strong at times such as when wielding heavy weaponry. But after pushing a surge of Teslatic energy into her musculature, she had demolished him. It had taken him three days and two bottles of soap to finish the task.

Clara stopped after half an hour, sending up a Guiding Light for Andy and the others to follow. She crouched against a tree, but did not let go of the frail woman. She shivered in Clara's arms, feebly clutching around her neck. Summoning Thunderous energy, Clara pressed her fist into the woman's solar plexus. Warmth emanated from her hand. She sighed softly, her arm around Clara's neck relaxed.

Despite the night's cold, Clara was sweating, flushed with heat. Her knuckles ached where she had pummelled the witch. Overusing her Augmentation's abilities took a toll on her body, especially the new ones which were un-calibrated. Since severing ties with the New Patricians, Clara had yet to find a faction in the wasteland who possessed a working Augmentation Master Console. However, she had found a group of survivors in the hilly farmlands of this haunted-fairytale region who possessed an advanced communications array. If they salvaged it–or traded it for their villager's lives–Gabriel had ensured they could improve his bunker's communications capacity so that they could send and receive signals for hundreds of miles around. It'd be impossible not to find a well paying job with that sort of coverage.

System stress has raised to significant, Ohm, her AI implant informed her internally. I must advise that you recalibrate as soon as possible, Clara. In the months since she had become Augmented, the AI voice had attuned its speech habits based on her responses. The identity it landed on was unusual, Clara often wondered if it was at all optimal: it reminded Clara of an old geography teacher she'd had in school–dreary and blunt. She guessed that was better than something loud and distracting, or so personable that it tried to befriend her. Hearing voices in her head was one thing, but gossipping with them like Andy did his revolver was something she'd rather avoid.

"This isn't a good time," she said.

Correction: Not only is it an optimal time, but-

"No," Clara interrupted. "It's not a great time to chat. Besides, unless you have information you're not sharing about where we can find an AMC…"

Until the Bulwark Master Network is repaired, I possess only information observed through your sensory organs and memory.

"Yeah, I'm aware," Clara said, checking to see if the others had caught up. Andy and the two villagers dragged themselves through the undergrowth over the summit. "Come on," she said. "It's not far to the jeep now."

A few minutes later, Clara waded into the road carrying the injured woman and lowered to the ground. Checking her wrist terminal, she detected the tracking signal and headed left. Their vehicle was parked lopsided on the verge, seemingly abandoned. But there wasn't much need for discretion in these parts. The hilly region was mostly abandoned; it had been scarcely populated even before the cataclysm, a pleasant break from the usual marauders, cultists and militia which Clara and Andy had the misfortune of bumping into on most of their adventures.

Lifting the survivors into the back seat, Clara covered them in blankets and climbed inside while Andy took the wheel. The jeep was as comfortable and sturdy as their last had been, its boot just a fraction smaller, but it never smelt right to Clara, and its CD player was broken. It just wasn't the same as their old vehicle.

"Clara," Andy said. "Can you do the thing."

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"Oh." She had forgotten again that they didn't have a set of keys for this jeep. Clara leaned over the driver's seat and cupped the ignition. A matrix of circuitry tingled at her touch–nodes like dim starlight, with connected paths forming basic images in her mind. She released a trickle of Teslatic energy into the ignition, flexing her Current Control. The engine purred to life. Andy revved the gas and gave the thumbs up.

"Crack a window," she said. "You stink of sludge."

Clara attended to the survivors' wounds, crouched in the footwell as Andy drove through the night. She'd seen worse bruises, and suffered worse lacerations herself, but their mental absence was startling. Whether that was a result of horror, or some traumatic spell cast by the witch, Clara didn't know. All that mattered was that they were safe now. Clara warped a bandage around the man's wrists which trickled with blood, then patted his hand. "It's going to be alright."

He didn't respond. None of them did. Clara felt awkward, a little useless. Had she spent too much time on the road with Andy that she'd forgotten how to be soothing? How to be gentle? Had she ever been as much? Her life before the cataclysm had long since receded into the marrow of her bones. Clara's tight muscles were those of a mercenary, but that didn't mean she was a killer. Not entirely. She could still do good, still heal people, still fight the good fight, assuming she picked the right side.

As day broke, they escaped the forest into hilly farmland, at the centre of which nestled an old settlement. A church's steeple rose above the hills, a green, yellow and blue flag at its zenith. As they drew close to the village, Clara spotted a signpost adorned with stick effigies, reading: 'Mirna Perc'. No one greeted them on the road. Faces appeared in cracked glass windows, doors shifted ajar on chain latches as residents peaked outside. Scarecrows lined the road like scrawny statues, insignias painted onto their canvas wrapped bodies. Reefs hung from the doors, symbols of runes fixed together by sticks were tied in their centres.

Pulling up beside the church, Clara jumped out the jeep and strolled down the road. "We're here. We're back," she shouted. "Your people are injured, but they're alive. They need help."

Sheep grazed in the spring weeds of a grassy verge. The villages' buildings were spaced apart, seemingly empty of life, but Clara knew that wasn't true. Beyond the church, long, flat fields rose steadily into a hillside forest. A man watched them from a distance, a pack of dogs roaming at his side.

The church doors opened, and an old man poked his head out. "Come, quick."

"It's safe to come out," Clara said.

The old man scoffed. "Bring them inside," he blurted. "It is not safe. The sun is not šviesus."

Clara strode over to him and wrenched the door open. The man yelped and shrank away from the daylight. Clara scanned the interior. Other villagers were gathered in the church, hidden behind the pews. Clara snapped her fingers. "Help me carry them. They're badly injured. Is the doctor here?"

The villagers murmured amongst themselves in a language Clara couldn't decipher as one translated, "She is in her home."

"Then fetch her," Clara said, turning back to her jeep. Anger simmered inside her, but she took a deep breath, reminding herself that these people were scared. They'd survived years of torment. They weren't all fighters. Many, even, were cowards. But the least they could do was scurry out to give her a helping hand. Lifting the woman into her arms, Clara carried her back inside the church and set her down on two pews, pushed together to create a cot. The villagers gasped and crowded around her, as a couple brave boys helped Andy with the remaining two survivors.

"Where's Friedrich?" she said. "Someone get him."

The old man tugged on her sleeve. "It is not safe until šviesus."

"It's safe," Clara said. "Thuggard's dead."

Like a gust of wind, the villagers gasped and grew silent.

"Please," the old man said. "Not in here."

"Not what?" Clara said, growing impatient. "She's dead, I killed her, okay. Now grab Friedrich, we have terms to discuss."

When the plump village leader arrived, he was out of breath. His hand was sweaty as Clara shook it, then he extended it to Andy. A grey-brown patch smeared the wall where Andy leaned against it, dripping onto the tile floors. He glared at the religious symbolism decorating the walls, expression obscured by the long black fringe of his dirt-matted hair. Golden crosses were accompanied by a plethora of new-age effigies. Where the old religion had failed them, the villagers revamped it with modern superstitions–wards against the maleficent magic of the forests. Whether or not the twig-figurines and scrawled runes worked to deter evil magic, Clara genuinely didn't know. The fairytale apocalypse had its fair share of surprises.

His handshake ignored, Friedrich patted Andy familiarly on the shoulder and turned to Clara. "You killed her? Somebody said you killed her?"

Clara nodded. "She's dead. Her cauldron cracked. She was a tough on."

"Bless you," Friedrich said, striding over to the survivors. People gathered around them, stroking their brows, speaking softly in their ears. A steady stream of newcomers had started coming into the church, their eyes wide in disbelief. Chatter filled the room, though Clara recognised none of the words.

"Can we step outside?" Clara said. Walking into the morning sunlight, Clara breathed in the fresh air. "I'm glad you're satisfied, but you owe us now. Remember what we agreed?"

"Of course, of course." Friedrick took out a pack of smokes and offered one to Clara. She refused, pointing instead at their jeep.

"Fuel. Ammo, I know you don't have much, but whatever you can spare. And that comms relay, let's go there now."

"Of course, we will pay you whatever you want."

Behind Clara, somebody cried out. She turned to see that Andy had grabbed the arm of a younger man in the archway of the church. "Potatoes," he announced.

"What?" the boy responded.

"You're my guy, right?" Andy prodded his chest. "Remember our deal."

"What are you doing?" Clara said.

"I've got a side-deal with this kid," Andy said.

"You didn't tell me about that."

"And?"

"Dominykas," Friedrick addressed him, before speaking sharply in his foreign tongue. Dominykas responded meekly, eyes wide and afraid, but Friedrick raised his voice in command. The younger man relaxed.

"He will lead your brother," Friedrick said, as the young villager jogged down the road, Andy sauntering in tow. "We go this way." He pointed in the opposite direction.

"We'll drive."

Clara hopped into the driver's side, cringing at how muddy and wet Andy had left the seat. A few minutes later, Clara pulled up at the hilltop array, overlooking the shallow valley. A familiar sigil crested the steel doorway: an octagon with a DNA strand through its centre, diving a sea of black below from a sky of white. Clara retrieved Gabriel's schematics from the glovebox and ventured inside the old abandoned Bulwark Project outpost, up a flight of stairs towards the satellite array room. The technology here was intact–useless to the villagers who had long since depleted their supply of electricity–except for a bare patch against the wall of an adjoining room. Clara recognised the consoles in there: ancillary systems for the Augmentation Master Console. It's what had originally drawn Clara to this location, however, the console had been robbed, and the villagers couldn't explain when. Clara eyed the ring of dust and dirt where the cylindrical console had once stood. Perhaps it had been taken recently.

Returning her attention to the satellite room, Clara compared her hand-drawn schematics to the machinery. Squinting, she struggled to make sense of Gabriel's handwriting. Was that fuse-box looking console hanging on the wall the array, or was it the switchboard on the desk? Clara brushed her hand over the system, feeling the tingle of her Current Control ability prove the circuitry. Though she could sense the system's complex network, its capacity and direction of flow, she couldn't decipher much meaning from it. "Shit."

"What is it?" Friedrick asked.

"I'm gonna have to take the lot."

Five hours later, Clara had dismantled the array and loaded it into the boot and backseats of their jeep. She couldn't risk leaving the right component behind, it was an eight hour drive back to the bunker on old mountainous roads. The cost in fuel was dire. Massaging her forearms, Clara sat in the driver's seat and radioed Andy. "Where you at?"

"Farmhouse," he replied. "You ready yet?"

"I'm coming." Following Friedrick's directions, Clara found Andy sitting on a sack of potatoes on the outskirts of town.

"We've got enough food," Clara said, winding down the driver's side window.

"They're not for eating," Andy said, hauling a sack over his shoulder.

"Well what are they for?"

"Distilling," Andy said.

"There's no space."

Opening a side door, Andy shoved a sack inside, toppling the dismantled array precariously perched there.

"Hey, don't break it."

"Just one more bag."

Clara grumbled to herself. Weeks ago, while training her Augmentation in the woods outside Gabriel's bunker, she had teased Andy, saying that he "needed more hobbies." It was only a passing comment, but since then, he'd upcycled some of Gabriel's junk and taken to distilling. Now the bunker stank of festering vegetables every hour of the day as its extractor fan struggled to suck up the fumes of Andy's potions. He hadn't finished a batch yet, but assured her that when he did, it'd be worthwhile.

A group of villagers had followed Andy, keen to get their eyes on the mercs who had killed Thuggag. Gaining confidence, they crowded around their jeep as Clara started the engine again and checked her terminal's maps.

"Here you are," Friedrick said, handing a rucksack through the window. Clara opened it up. It was full of miscellaneous supplies and a box of shotgun shells. Hardly much considering the job, but it was all the simple villagers could afford.

"Where will you go?" The tall man rested a large hand on her jeep's bonnet, as though staying a wandering cow. "Remain here, for a few days. We will feed you, and house you. You can live here. We have all the food that you want."

Refusing to look away from her terminal, Clara chewed the inside of her lip. "No thanks. We need to head back."

"Please," he said, as other villagers took up his tone. "We need you. We won't be safe."

"You'll be safe," Clara said, raising her head to meet his eyes. "We killed the witch, and a whole bunch of her minions. She's dead. It's not the job you paid us for, but…" Clara shrugged. "Call it a freebie."

"But there are more," somebody shouted outside the jeep. "Many witches."

"Please, won't you help us?" A woman clutched the window frame, eyes wide, bordering on hysteria. "Don't leave. You can't leave us." She blabbered, and Clara lost the meaning of her words as her peculiar accent took over. More villagers crowded behind her, grasping her jeep, or just touching the frame. Clara's heart sank, but she understood their fear.

"The Thuggag was not immortal," she said. Upon uttering the witch's name, the villagers went silent. "We killed her with an explosion, and her minions with guns. That's it. You have to learn to fight. You have to stick together. You can't be afraid of the night. You can't abandon your own people…" Clara leaned out of the window to signal towards the church. "If you let them take a little bit, they'll take it all. Monsters, or other people. Marauders or cultists or…" Clara paused, catching the urgency in her voice. She hadn't meant to get so carried away, but the stench of fear was beginning to make her feel sick. "You're afraid, I get it, but that's how they feed, these monsters. If you're too afraid to fight back, then you're already dead."

Friedrick gently pried his folks' hands from her jeep, then turned to Clara with a resigned grimace.

"Does that make sense?" she asked.

"It does," he said gravely. "We weren't always this afraid. We did fight once. We lost."

"Then fight again," Clara said, putting the jeep into gear. "We won't always be around, but we'll be back. Send a distress signal if you need us."

Friedrick nodded, then turned to the crowd, arms outstretched, ushering them away like a shepherd does sheep. But Clara faltered. She shouted Friedrick's name. "Are they okay?"

"They… won't die," he announced.

Clara bit her lip. "The woman, is she warm?"

Friedrick nodded, and his expression softened. His eyes welled as something unspoken passed between them, undiminished by the clamouring villagers.

"Good." Clara eased their jeep out of the crowd, then once they were on the open road, she gunned it down the road. The engine's rumble and rush of acceleration prickled her adrenaline, washing away anxiety. Clara steadied the gas pedal and took them into the hills. Their cargo creaked and clanked in the back seats.

"You get what you need?" Andy said, raising an eyebrow at the dismantled array.

"Best have done," Clara said.

"We could have just taken it," Andy said. "I know, morality and that. But they weren't even using it."

"We're mercenaries, not thieves."

"Is it thieving if they're not using it?"

Clara rocked her head towards him, scowling.

"Alright," he said.

"They're our neighbours," Clara said. "We share a zone. May as well help out."

"Neighbours, huh?" Andy gazed out the wing mirror at the diminishing village. "How quaint."