Am I delusional? Genuinely, I have to this ask this question several times a day. Am I stupid? Am I just the most idiotic person imaginable? I don’t know. I hope not, I try not to be, but I feel like I am.

Today, we had another argument. It was over a triviality. I don’t even know how it started. Kavaa said something, Maisara replied with a reply, Kavaa answered back, Helenna joined in. That was usually how it went. It finished with swords drawn and the Goddess of Health saying that Maisara better find her own doctors because the time of mooching health like some child are over.

Honestly, I don’t even know what to say. I sit here and I sometimes think that it would be easier to defeat Arascus five times over than to try and bring change to the Divines who defeated him.

Still though, I must try.

– Excerpt from the Goddess Allasaria’s Private Diary. Dated to a few years after the Great War.

The Goddess of Health looked over the map of Rancais on a thin wooden table. Above her, a thin piece of cloth provided shade from today’s sunlight and around her, a dozen men worked to monitor the progress of Operation Ratsweeper. They took notes and listened to beeping radios and passed reports back to Kavaa. A generator to provide power was rumbling a few steps away, birds squawked from overhead, curious animals descended upon a camp that had just recently been filled with life and now stood almost empty.

Kavaa leaned back and craned her neck from side to side as she took a deep breath. She had rang Malam and Malam said that everything was sorted for Ratsweeper now, but Kavaa disagreed. She did not doubt that Malam’s plan would work, the Goddess of Hatred had a reputation that had been tried and tested in the Great War, yet it simply felt dirty to let something so important run without supervision.

Kassandora would know what Kavaa meant, Kavaa was sure of it.

—

Anton threw another piece of minty chewing gum as he huffed a heavy breath, readjusted his hat, and fell backwards onto a park bench. He made a show of claiming the entire seat, chewing loudly, arms spread out, legs wide, as he gazed around the park. It was still morning, although the sun was beginning to rise, and he would be sat here for another few hours, maybe the whole day even. Although he wouldn’t have to move from here, the house Oliph Hansen currently resided in. Anton watched a pair of pretty women walk past and pulled out his phone.

In his pockets, he had everything needed for this part of the city. A spare battery, several magazines loaded with ammunition, his wallet, a map of the city, a pistol, his headphones, a list of targets and a pen to check them off with. Anton put on his headphones, started to tap his foot and bounce on the bench in time to the music. His eyes danced across the throngs of people that made their daily walks through the park, students on break from the nearby school, a couple walking by, a news reporter talking about Rancais’ recovery from the war. Fresh smells from the local restaurants wafted in, bread that was being baked for today.

Anton smiled, kept on tapping his foot and humming audibly enough that the people walking by started to avoid him. He didn’t care though. Kavaa’s gift of overloaded life pulsed through his veins, the grass looked greener than green, the sky bluer than blue, the people more human than human. He sent off the text. “Red One in position.” As he like a king. Like a king of the world! Man separated from mortality! Who could stop him now!? Let them try! He hoped for it!

—

“Initial confirmations are coming in now! We have men reporting ready position!” Kavaa listened to the radio operators relay information back to her. Another soldier in a grey uniform was filling the map in with counters. Red boxes of varying size on each city, depending on how many of Anarchia’s blessed were found to be. Then more counters for each team of immortals that had been sent into Rancais. Kavaa’s grey eyes jumped from location to location, she tried to see everything at the same time. She felt herself smile.

To think she would feel young again.

—

Lieutenant Pierre Perignon of the Aris garrison looked up at the two men who had just invited themselves into his office. In black uniforms and white shirts, they looked as if they could have been heading to a ball. But their gazes obviously said that they have never had the chance to attend such high society. One man was chewing gum, the other had a smirk that said he was enjoying whatever this show was far too much. In high society, they were much more reserved, indulging wealth was one thing, indulging emotion though? No. No one wore smiles like that. And no one in high society wore sunglasses inside. One man brought out his wallet and flipped it open to reveal the badge inside. “SIS Agent Edward.”

“Lieutenant Perignon.” The lieutenant broke protocol by not saluting, but he doubted these men noticed. Agent Edward brought out a piece of paper and put it on the Lieutenant’s desk. The soldier glanced at it… His eyebrows darted downwards as he read the text. The power local power plant was to be seized and turned off. It sounded… well, it sounded insane. “This is a real order?”

“Got the stamp and all.” Agent Edward replied. Once again, Pierre glanced down at the order, it did indeed have the stamp of Goddess Malam. Arguing with an SIS-man could be done, arguing with a Goddess was what? Well, it was a death sentence for Pierre’s career if not for him as a whole. “Do I need to remind you.” Agent Edward began as he reached over to tap some of the text. His accent sounded like he should be called a Johann or a Hans rather than an Edward. “That it’s an emergency Lieutenant.” Agent Edward and his partner both stared at Lieutenant Perignon as the soldier sat behind his desk.

Everyone knew this rule, it was ingrained into the military hierarchy. Divines and their organs could seize authority unless a unit was already seized by a Divine. The SIS was an organ of Malam. Pierre sighed and stood, he knew about the scheduled upcoming power outages to test the new grid, but he didn’t know that it would like this. Well whatever, it wasn’t his job to argue with the will of Divinity. “Very well gentlemen. Let me order the men.”

—

“Garrisons are dispatched! Timeframe is two hours for all plants to be seized!” Kavaa watched as more and more icons were placed on the map. The key pieces of Rancais’ electrical grid were small circles of black. A green figure would be placed on them to mark which ones were seized by garrisons. Another man of the radio operators shouted.

“Rilia North reports it has turned off the Rancais-Rilia connection! Two more to go!”

“Doschia is preparing to disconnect at once!”

“Aris teams are reporting ten out of eighteen.”

“Goddess Paida reports parliament shut for the day!”

“Helicopter team dispatched to Yrles finally!”

Kavaa listened to her men shout and communicate what was happening across the entirety of Rancais back to her. She craned down towards the map, using her arms to support herself, and stared down at it all. This was just like back then.

—

Lukas finished his cigarette and supposed he should actually finish preparations at this point. This was getting ridiculous. He threw his cigarette away off the balcony and retrieved his suitcase from the hotel room. The place was nothing magnificent but the feeling of being so overwhelmed with made the event he bad smell of mould in the walls so powerful that it was interesting, rather than dank. He could feel every individual piece of woven cloth in the handle to his case.

Lukas opened his case and pulled out a scope before going to the balcony. He put it to his eye and started to fiddle with the little circle on its side which calibrated the lenses. This room had been specifically rented out because he could see the apartments of four different of Anarchia’s blessed from here, and he would cover one of the city’s main intersections if anyone did decide to run. He started to hum to himself as he found the first window and sharpened the lenses. That was the further shot, he was saving the easiest for last.

Oh. One last thing. Lukas pulled out the phone given to him by the SIS and sent a message to central command. “Blue Six, in position.” He clicked send and returned back into the room. Assembling the gun took less than a minute.

—

Kavaa listened to the men give their reports as she imagined knocking down all these counters and how good it would feel. “Half the units confirm being in position! Reports are slowing down though!”

“The cities are ready! It’s just the rural areas left!” Kavaa listened in intently, although her mind paced as it raced through ideas and plans and… and Kavaa realised what sort of pattern her mind had gone to. A whole millennium of pretending to be a caring priestess or a supportive apothecary had not managed to drill this thinking out of her.

—

SIS Agent Talcolm and Agent Dire parked their car a mere three minutes’ drive from the target’s farmhouse. Supposedly there were three Anarchians living at the location, although Talcolm did not really care. Dire patted down his black suit and sighed as he leaned back. “They’re in the trunk.” Talcolm said as he sent off the message that Yellow Seven was ready and in position to start. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel·fiɾe·net

“Fuck.” Dire said. That wasn’t his real name, but Talcolm wasn’t Talcolm’s real name either. They were a list to choose from, Talcolm had just been the one that slid off the tongue the best. “Are you going out?” Talcolm pressed send, put his phone into the pocket hidden in the car’s seat and pulled out his own pack of cigarettes. A pair of birds started circling above.

“Here.” He passed one to Dire and took one for himself. The two ex-Clerics, men who had been chosen be in the vanguard of the First Expedition, who had been beset upon by the swarm that was Be’elzebub, who had died a hundred times each as they were cut and devoured and smashed in constant fighting, who had faced ghosts in Fazba and who had been sent off to Arika when everything was done, both sat and smoked. When life was this overbearing, then a smoke tasted it was the very first one. Yet there was a feeling that was even sweeter.

It was good to be back in action.

—

Kavaa diagnosed the map like the doctor she was. She was not some pathetic apothecary. She was not some measly healer. She was not spiritual guide or some caressing mother that would kiss a child on their forehead when they came back with a bruise.

She was a Goddess and a Doctor. She had Holy Orders under her, during the time of Pantheon Peace, the Clerics had been the single largest standing army in the whole world. Kavaa’s smile grew. Doctor. Not Healer. Not village tart. Not common wench. Doctor. The sort of doctor that put plague into the grave sentenced disease to extinction.

—

Jean looked up from the game of cards as he and his coworkers lazily pretended they were doing anything in the Saint-Paida nuclear power plant. The faint humming of water running through pipes in the wall was drowned out by a quiet song one of the men was playing through a speaker he brought in from home. He had worked on other reactors before, on the Rancais Nationale, on the Aris West-North and the Aris West-South and now, he finally managed to work his way up to the Saint-Paida. Here, everything was automated, all the systems were computerized, someone needed to be in the control room, but that was all they needed to do as long as there were no errors. And even then, the computer would give warnings itself, all Jean needed to do was just follow along.

After surviving through the late Epan economic downturns, after seeing the Epan Community give way to the Epan Coalition, after surviving the Epan War and after seeing the country be taken over by Anarchia’s blessed and then retaken by the Empire, Jean had declared he had enough excitement in his life. The Saint-Paida, he could stay on and gamble small amounts of money in until he retired. All the men looked up at the speaker when it buzzed and turned on.

It was Elyna, the secretary in the main command room. “We have…” Elyna trailed off. “I’ll hand it off.”

The microphone clattered about for a moment. Jean and his friends all looked up at the speaker. One man sighed and leaned back. And then suddenly everyone sat up at attention when they heard a male voice come through. “This Captain Alain Dubois speaking. Prepare to shut off the Saint-Paida reactor. I repeat, prepare to shut off the reactor.”

—

Kavaa stared down at the map like a hawk. It was almost filled in with markers now and still more reports were coming through. “Saint-Paida is ready for shut off!” One man shouted.

“The Aris-West-North is shutting down already, it needs an hour to cool down.”

“Remind them they can just cut themselves off the grid!”

“I will!”

“The entire Arlandie Region reports it is ready to commence Ratsweeper!” Some people said waiting was the worst part, in times like this though, the wait tantalizing unlike anything else.

—

Special Intelligence Service agent Wolf looked at himself in the mirror. He put on his sunglasses, pulled a face that revealed his jawline and posed with the rifle in his hand. Arika had taken his mind off things, but patrolling the Ashlands had made him wish for the taste of immortality all over again. Every mosquito bite felt like his skin was getting torn apart and stabbed, every effort made his body tingle with the sensation of originality, even though he was doing things he had done a thousand times before.

Even now, as he looked at himself, the colours looked deeper than ever. When he flexed, his arms pumped and veins popped out, when he smiled, his teeth revealed themselves to be a perfect, natural white, as if he never had anything in his mouth. Wolf finished and checked his phone just in case. No message yet, he hadn’t missed the start.

Well, it didn’t matter if he was just a little bit late. His first target was in the room next to his.

—

In some ways, Kavaa didn’t know if she felt relief or if it was just depressing resignation. There was a saying that Divinity could do everything and anything in this world. Well, Kavaa had tried. She had honestly tried. She had gone to the sites of natural disasters and she had gone to children’s hospitals. She had helped deliver the most dangerous births and she had cured malady that should have killed. She had helped discover cures to diseases and she had championed advances in medicine that would have been magic. Kavaa had done it all. And Kavaa had failed.

A century of the bloodiest war in the history of Arda followed by a thousand years of the most stable age of peace, and all that time had not managed to wipe the bitterness in Kavaa away.

—

SIS agent Wood looked up at the sun as it crawled downwards. Most likely he was late, but he had needed to request a transport helicopter to this remote location. One of Anarchia’s blessed had decided to hide out in a forest cabin, far from civilization but not particularly hidden from it. He had been found because the locals reported news of some stranger who could knock down trees with a single swing of his fist. Local reconnaissance by helicopter armed with infrared cameras had spotted the man, his hideout, and then recorded him moving obviously far too fast to be human.

Agent Wood watched Agent Lake jump naked out of the helicopter, smash into the ground, break all his bones and die, and then immediately stand back up as his body reformed. A moment later, a heavy rucksack with clothes and a disassembled gun landed next to him and Agent Lake began to dress himself as he nothing had happened. Wood smiled and turned away, he had heard Kavaa’s speech and he couldn’t stop smiling ever since. These fools blessed by Anarchia thought themselves powerful because they could jump high and punch hard? They needed to be shown the raw strength of what real power looked like.

Agent Wood flicked the safety on his rifle. It was time to go hunting.

—

The last report came in, the Goddess of Health could not take her eyes away from the map of Rancais, so filled with markers and signs that it was like watching a body being devoured by cancer. And just like with cancer, there was only one method that would guarantee its removal.

What was a doctor without a scalpel?

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