***Completed***
If you knew your world would soon be torched to carbon, would you fight to save it?
...Or light a match of your own?
Violina, a girl polarized by love and loathing, finds herself thrown into a post-apocalyptic world with mankind on t...
With a renewed roar of engines, The Dreadnaught resumed its course and the lights turned back on with an escalating hum.
"While I appreciate your willingness to assist me," spoke a powerful, yet tranquil voice, "I promise you, I had everything under control."
To Violina's surprise, Kza's appearance was nothing like how she had imagined it. Similar to Vexia, his ivory skin almost seemed to glow, as did the vein-like violet tubes embedded in his throat. Furthermore, he did not look the part of a bloodthirsty killer, but possessed an element of charm. Yet a killer of thousands he was, and there was no doubt in her mind that she could be his next victim. She asked a question in hopes of keeping him occupied while Lux worked out an exit strategy. "But didn't that man destroy your generator?"
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Kza gave an amused smile and lowered his gun revealing the Emblem of Kza burned into the back of his hand. "They call me a thaumaturgist with good reason. The wisdom in installing backup generators is obvious, no?" He studied Violina's face, then in an instant his amusement turned to astonishment. As if he didn't believe what he was seeing, he removed his monocle.
Lux fired her rope and bolt out of The Dreadnaught where it burrowed into the trunk of a particularly tall cottonwood tree. Wasting no time, the girls took hold of it and leapt through the gaping wall. Glancing back, Violina realized Kza had not even attempted to stop them.
As the girls slammed through snapping branches and into the trunk, the cries and shouts of the soldiers testified of their crushed hopes. Schlau's attempt to sabotage Kza had produced only his own lifeless body.
Climbing down to the forest floor, Lux suddenly belted a scream. Someone had shot an arrow into her thigh! Violina frantically bent down to help her but was forced back by a sword.
"Stand back!" barked a soldier. "And the rest of you, hold your fire!"
"But sir!" A couple soldiers approached carrying the body of Schlau, mangled and stiff. "These girls just waltzed out of The Dreadnaught unscathed moments after Schlau was killed! Clearly they're agents of Kza!"
"Waltzed?" Violina could not believe what she was hearing. "You call barely escaping with our lives by jumping into a tree from ten stories up waltzing?"
The commander eyed the girls up and down. "So after ten years of working alone, Kza's begun recruiting additional heretics to his side?" He clenched his fists. "We should extract whatever information we can from them and turn them over to the High Cleric for sentencing."
A sinking feeling invaded Violina's stomach. If history served her memory correctly, interrogation during the Dark Ages was drastically different from the more "diplomatic" approaches used by the Law Makers, and Violina was not too keen to participate in a first-hand historical experience. In fact, there was no doubt in her mind that the High Cleric would have her killed as a political scapegoat for the Day of Counterstrike. She half-debated fighting her way out, but common sense and the will to live vetoed that idea.
