“Scarlet... Sister…!” he gasped. “No!”

The soldier felt the neurons of his brain firing rapidly. A forceful compulsion had begun to take root inside of his mind.

“Firstly, what have you been doing with our soldiers?” inquired the veiled sister.

“Your… soldiers…?” he mumbled loudly.

“Yes. Malachian soldiers. You’ve been catching them in your traps.” Lucia’s voice had taken on a hypnotic tone. ”Have you sick bastards been feeding our boys to your new toy monster?”

“Monster…? There is… no monster…”

“ANSWER ME!” she shouted, her brow furrowing in anger. The flaming color in her eye grew more intense.

“There is no monster!” The soldier’s voice grew stronger. He would have attempted to raise himself back up, were his legs not insensate. “You’re the ones… massacring our men… and leaving their remains for us to find…!”

Lucia’s gaze softened. She looked over at Zulema who shrugged in response.

“I guess that answers one question,” mumbled the onyx-haired priestess, hand outstretched towards the hypnotized soldier. Her eyes, still hidden by her visor, had also begun to glow a faint scarlet. “So, the other important question that remains is…”

“I ask again. What have you done to our soldiers?” Lucia’s forced mental inquiry continued. “Where have you taken them?”

“They… are nothing but sleeping husks now. The interrogations… proved useless. The special doses… Their dreaming minds are now… fodder for the faceless one. We dare not… speak his name.”

“What the fuck?!” Zulema growled. She gripped her scythe and angrily thrust the blade into a nearby tree, burying the tip deep into the wood. “You idolatrous pieces of shit! How could you?! That fraudulent demon you serve will someday lead to the ruinous downfall of that anathema you call a country!”

The soldier, in spite of the strong, external influences on his mind, had managed to let out a strained guffaw.

“At least… our soldiers have the decency… not to force themselves onto your women.” He smirked dizzily.

Zulema grit her teeth painfully.

Lucia clasped her hand onto the soldier’s head, bent down, and looked deep into his eyes. Her gaze had grown bloodshot and a strange, dark blackness had begun invading the whites of her eyes.

“W-What are you doing?” he stuttered. As he gazed at the hooded priestess’s scarlet iris, he began to feel a grave sense of confusion. Synapses in his brain had begun collapsing in droves. Neurons were firing much too rapidly now, causing aneurysms to burst inside his skull. The soldier’s understanding of reality had quickly begun breaking down around him, making his surroundings melt inextricably. His sclera had begun pooling with blood while his vision had blurred to the point of near-blindness. Nausea bubbled in his stomach as he struggled to speak—foam spewing from his mouth. The gruff soldier collapsed into the snow, body seizing.

“And that’s the end of my fun,” lamented Lucia. She scooped up a handful of wet snow and rubbed down the face of her weapon with it, washing the remaining blood with a look of indifference. The eye peeking through her hood had returned to its usual dour shade of pale yellow, the previously encapsulating darkness surrounding her iris was now seemingly gone.

Zulema didn’t respond, still silently seething with anger. The gloomy priestess was never a big fan of the way Lucia could so casually destroy a person’s mind without remorse, but in this instance she had felt it was much more than he deserved. Sure, he would die with a blinding pain in his head unlike anything he had ever felt before, but he would die completely unaware that it was happening. And that, to Zulema, felt like too much of a kindness after he had confessed to the revelations of his peoples’ shocking experiments.

“Still angry, huh?” asked the perilous priestess, carefully folding her medium-sized flail. “I had almost forgotten about that temper of yours. Wanna kick him? …Sorry I wasn’t much help. You know, aside from killing them. Would that I could also read minds, but at least now we know there is no monster. Right?”

“What on Sarracas do you mean?” Zulema’s voice came out in a low and gravelly tone before rising in anger, “He knew nothing about the monster. His people all assumed we were behind those mutilations and he said that we had been doing it to their men, not ours!”

“Who knows what he actually meant? He might believe he’s speaking truths, but you know the downsides of my thaumaturgics. It doesn’t account for personal biases or beliefs. What if their bosses were up to some human experimentation or sacrifices for their so-called god and were drying up on supply of enemy bodies? Their soldiers are willing to die for them in battle, so why not poke their hand into their own cookie jar and mutilate a few friendlies to appease their demon?”

“Then by that logic, there could actually be a monster even if they didn’t necessarily believe in one.”

“Why are you so dead set on this monster theory anyway?”

“So suddenly it’s a theory?”

“I’m just saying, maybe we shouldn’t jump to conclusions?” Lucia sighs and begins walking forward. “I really can’t handle wild animals. They repulse me. I don’t like thinking about them! I don’t like looking at them! I know I’ve told you this story before, but a childhood spent in a cold, lightless orphanage is no life for a little girl.”

“Luci…”

“The beds stunk. It was always freezing. The food was shitty.” There was a solemn, faraway look in Lucia’s eye. “And every night… the filthy little vermin came out to play. Ugly, hairy rattin with disgusting rotted tails on the verge of falling off, always biting at my toes—Sometimes worse places when I actually managed to sleep. I never figured out how they managed to thrive in such a shithole. When the church offered me succor, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

“Macha is always there for those in need,” remarked Zulema, sympathy pangs in her heart. “That’s right. She saved you.”

Lucia, the veiled priestess, walked quietly out into a clearing just beyond the trees. She looked up at the night sky and stretched her black-armored arms outward. She was a perfect agalma, basking in the ethereal light of the twin maiden moons that hung still in the sky. They looked down at her, like a pair of protective eyes safeguarding them and their mission. The beauty of their cosmic radiance gradually reaffirmed her faith in her Goddess and all she had done for her.

“You're right, Zules,” she called out to her partner, turning in her direction. “Beast or not, I’m going to make those bastards pay. I’m going to make them all pay.”

“I can’t imagine being able to do it without you.” Zulema smiled, watching in awe before gradually turning her gaze towards the trees. There was a movement she caught from the corner of her eyes.

A large, thundering blur came zooming out of the darkness, rushing past Lucia and knocking the scarlet priestess to the ground before disappearing once more among the trees—the impact on her armor as it charged into her made a resounding thud.

“Luci…? Luci!”

The snow around the fallen priestess was slowly running crimson with her blood. Her cries were strained as she struggled to breathe after the sudden blow had knocked the wind out of her. Until finally, she let out a scream loud enough to startle the birds from their nests.

“MY ARM!”

Her screams of pain continued.