Bad Connection

At the sound of her voice, the beast twisted its massive body and swung a hulking, robust arm towards Zulema, sending her body careening back with a powerful punch.

She had guarded as swiftly as she could, blocking the large fist with the handle of her weapon, but the force of the attack had still managed to knock her off her feet. Scythe in hand, she forcibly thrust the base of her weapon into the ground in an attempt to slow her trajectory, leaving a long, trailing path in the snow before her as she flew. This maneuver required no short amount of physical effort and the subsequent force had caused her arms to feel like they were being stretched beyond their limit. While her quick thinking was enough to slow her down initially, the strength behind the knockback had proven itself to be the more powerful force in the end, causing her strength to eventually give out and her weapon’s grip on the ground to loosen—the remainder of her flight finally ending the moment her back slammed forcibly into the large trunk of a tree. The snow that had accumulated on the frozen leaves above came crashing down from the might of the impact, burying the priestess in an icy embrace.

The beast’s unearthly cry tore through the air again before rapidly charging toward the frozen mound surrounding the young priestess’s body—one enormous fist on the ground at a time. Just before it could reach her however, it dug those same fists into the ground and used that force to spring its body into the air, clasped its hands together and bringing the might of them down in a powerful double-handed hammer strike right onto the spot where Zulema had landed.

The blow sent the surrounding snow flying, leaving a monstrous crater around its fists. But where the priestess’s body should have been was nothing but cold, hard ground. The beast howled again, enraged that its finishing attack had missed its mark. It searched around wildly trying to locate its missing prey.

Zulema meanwhile had slipped from the spot where she had landed almost immediately. While the damage her body took was extensive, the armor had taken the brunt of it. Of course, were it not for her quick intervention to slow her speed, the self-same armor might have crushed her instead. Using the snow as coverage, she crawled away from where the beast had sent her flying and used the umbrage around her to quickly sneak back towards Lucia.

Beast distracted, the priestess quietly pulled her fallen comrade’s remaining arm over her shoulder and attempted to extricate her to an area less exposed.

"Luci," Zulema began whispering softly in her partner's ear, "I'm so sorry. I should've been more cautious. I knew that monster was out there and my anger and the stress of this mission caused me to become unprepared."

The priestess waited for any kind of response from Lucia, but none came. Her body was stiff and almost lifeless. Her face had become pale and her breathing partway non-existent. Zula started worrying that Lucia might not make it.

She looked back to where she had slipped the creature's gaze and struggled to tell if it was still in the same area where she had left it. Looking around, she noticed the dead bodies of the soldiers they had executed earlier. Their remains were being picked at by a living phantasm, disturbing the air around them with its presence. She narrowed her eyes at the sickening display. Despite the events that just transpired, she felt slightly grateful that even in death, Macha's enemies may not be spared.

As it continued to desecrate whatever remained of the two men, it let out a strange, gurgling, almost ethereal surge of sound that could only be described as a growl.

Zulema slunk out of view almost immediately—the sounds it was emitting had begun making her feel dizzy and she was already pushing her limits trying to remain composed against such stacked odds. She tapped the strap on her arm, hoping her only means of communicating with the outside world was still available. The silent eye opened to reveal a screen with a long, jagged crack along the middle. She cursed at her ever-worsening circumstances, running her finger along the display and attempting to finally call the dire situation in to Marie.

By some miracle, her watch wasn't quite as damaged as initial appearances made it seem and the call had ended up going through semi-successfully. While the watch had still worked, it wasn't able to connect to Marie's scarlet-strap completely. A problem with the connection caused by being in some sort of dead zone perhaps? Zulema shook her wrist furiously, trying to establish any form of contact with her superior. In the end, all she could do was leave her a voiced message and pray for a miracle.

“Sister Marie!!" Zulema whisper-shouted into her strap. "We have a Code Scarlet! We’ve made contact with some sort of Eleutheromania-class entity. It's maimed Sister Lucia! She… She's not responding!”

The priestess was grinding her teeth, trying to relay the report as best she could, not knowing exactly if the beast had overheard her voice. She was barely able to get a few sentences out before the call dropped and she had to establish the connection all over again. This process repeated itself several times during her delivery, causing her to frantically call back each time just to squeeze out as much information as she could relay to Sister Marie. She glanced over at the remains of the soldiers in-between one of the calls—gory entrails were spread out and trailing away along a path of viscera into the other side of the forest. She backed away even further than before and began dialing in a final report of the situation to Marie's strap, this time in a more composed fashion.

"It is some manner of hulking beast. I can't see it very clearly—I can just barely distinguish the outline of its form. Typical of an E-class…"

As if there's anything typical about them, she thought to herself, I never imagined I'd actually be seeing one face-to-face. How was Alma able to handle them?

Alma…

"I’m still in the area. The E-class seems to have disappeared back into the forest after the attack. I don’t know how far it’s gotten or if it’s possible that it’s still in the area somewhere, looking for us. I was able to wound it, but that only really served to incur its anger. As for our coordinates, I can only say that we retraced the steps of the 1st Squad, Wulfeite Company’s scouting party that disappeared exactly one week ago in an area northward of the camp, a few miles after Station A.

“Marie.” Zulema continued. Her composure up to that point had been nothing but calm, but now her voice was beginning to fill up with a note of tenderness. “Off the record… If you don’t hear from me or you arrive too late… Please tell Alma I love her. I’m sure you won’t be able to reveal any of the details of my death to her, considering the role of Scarlet Sister is completely confidential. But that girl has a crazy passion burning inside of her. I know she would have made a great soldier and a little part of me might have even wished to fight alongside her, but it seems Lady Macha had other plans in store for us. If she asks, tell her simply that I died fighting for our country’s honor. Tell her I hope I was able to make her—”

Bzzt

“—proud.”

The screen of her Scarlet-Strap had turned dark. This time, no amount of coaxing or shaking appeared to revive the battery inside. The watch had gone completely dead. Zulema closed her eyes and took a long, drawn-out breath.