Master Keitou and Malia climb down the cliffs overlooking Central Spire’s main valley.

It’s clear why the U.S. chose this as their main base of operations. It’s isolated enough from major cities that uprisings could not easily spread. It’s extremely well-defended with its natural barriers. It’s even flat enough to support plenty of Air Force landing strips.

There’s thousands of systemed-up super soldiers guarding this base. Keitou would feel somewhat guilty about attacking all of them in the big surprise she was about to pull, considering so many of them are young boys and girls and nonbinaries who haven’t yet had a full life. But they knew what they were signing up for when they accepted the Destiny Deck System. The Sorting Scepters are very clear on the risks. And the military is, as well.

This is war, and Keitou will do anything to defend her homeland. She may not have been born here, but Mystix is her native land.

Malia follows Keitou closely behind. Family reunited, but not for long. Today will. be the last day of Keitou’s life.

She is old, though. It’s fine to go out this way. No candles fading into the night for this reincarnated elf.

“There’s so many boots on the ground,” Malia says. “How will we avoid them all?”

“My systemless magic has tricks you may not have even conceived of,” says Master Keitou. “Watch and learn about the power of invisibility shields.”

Keitou casts the spell and a sphere circles around the two of them.

They are no longer visible to the outside world, except to those looking extremely closely at the contours of the air around them.

“Let’s advance.”

They enter the base. Sneak past hundreds of soldiers guarding different parts of the base. The United States Multiversal Military is a special branch of the normal military divisions. But it has dominion over the affairs of all other branches on the simple basis that it has all the system users, and is therefore much more powerful.

These soldiers conquered most of Mystix very easily, though. Even the strongest fantasy creatures cannot deal well with cruise missiles and modern infantry logistics. So here in their home turf, they feel at their very safest. The natives cannot possibly enter here, so the guards are clearly just a little more lax than they otherwise would be.

That is where these two women will prove them all very wrong.

Keitou realizes the similarities between her current actions and the 2009 movie Avatar, and decides not to think about that ever again lest it become too powerful a sensation.

They enter into the power generator room.

This is the place powering the giant shield around the Central Spire base. It’s the reason no rogue necromancer could fling hundreds of skeletons onto the base with a trebuchet and let them attack. All fast-moving projectiles are blocked by the shield.

Malia sees the generator and gasps at its design. “It’s using electric fuel... And a Sorting Scepter?”

“It appears so.” Right in the center of the generator’s power structure, a Sorting Scepter floats in mid-air. The energy is being sucked out of it and pulled into a vent on the ceiling.

The generator is using a combination of science and magic to produce otherworldly levels of protection.

“This can’t possibly be good for Mystix, right? They are using the magic of Destiny itself to power the shield generator!” Malia seems utterly frightened by this. Keitou does not really understand the implications, but she understands her daughter’s feelings.

She knows what she must do.

Together, the two of them plant C4 all over the generator and throughout the room. Then they leave as quickly as they can.

“We’ll blow it all as soon as we get to the landing strips,” Keitou says. “We have to destroy their air support, or the Systemless Squad armies are doomed.”

“Then let’s split up.”

They do.

Fully cloaked, as carefully as possible, they each plant as many explosives as possible. Keitou knows exactly how to annihilate all their aircraft. She learned this one after the Writer’s Guild Strike of 07-08.

But, as expected, it is only a very short time before the alarms blare. They’re caught, and it is only a matter of time before troops surround their position.

Malia and Keitou meet back up, still cloaked but with troops running around all over the place and screaming about the bombs they found in the Air Force zone.

“Now what?” Malia asks. “Is this our last stand?”

Keitou looks at her closely. As if deciding how to act. But she has no hesitation, really; it is simply an act of politeness to her daughter.

“Go,” Keitou says. “Rejoin the others. Fight for freedom.”

“Wait, what? This was supposed to be our noble sacrifice. We can’t just abandon the mission and let them remove all the explosives.”

“Not our noble sacrifice,” Keitou says. “Just mine.”

“Mother...”

“You’re a good leader. You need to live to fight another day. You need to rebuild Mysix after this is all over.”

“Mother, I can’t... I finally found you again and you can’t leave me yet.”

“You can always find me in the drift, Malia. The drift of souls through our endless looping reincarnations.”

“But, Mother, nobody is being reincarnated right now due to the U.S. controlling The Goddess’s Domain.”

“Well, I mean eventually.”

“Oh.” Malia starts to cry. Sobs that are just quiet enough for the nearby soldiers not to hear.

“There’s two of us here for a reason, Malia.” She wipes Malia’s face with one finger. “That was the plan. To give you some tears. And you got them.”

“Cruel and effective.” Malia straightens herself out and nods. “I’ll find you someday. You may not remember me, but I’ll remember you.”

“Goodbye, old lady.”

“Farewell.”

Malia leaves.

Keitou stands tall and, when the time is right, deactivates her cloaking spell.

The soldiers see her and surround her immediately. Shout at her to surrender. They’re confused how some lone woman got onto the base in the first place. But they’re taking no chances.

Unfortunately, it seems that someone uncovered the explosives planted at the generator, for she sees technicians wheeling them all out, already removed.

The plan didn’t move quite fast enough. That was the price she paid for letting Malia escape on her own.

And yet, it isn’t failure.

Keitou takes the wheelbarrow filled with explosives into her grasp with ESP powers. It’s enough to destroy a city block, and then some. A few kilotons. It’d only get part of the base, but the most important part.

But actually.

There’s a much better target than the shield generator, Keitou realizes.

She levitates all the C4 into the air. Then throws it as hard as she can towards Central Spire itself. The giant rocky structure the base surrounds.

The soldiers start firing. Keitou’s body is riddled with bullets and a few magical blasts.

But as she falls, as she loses consciousness, she activates the spell she’s memorized by heart—the detonation spell.

Her last image of this life is a massive red wave of fiery energy that knocks the whole damn spire to the ground.

Don’t have to worry about blowing up the shield generator or airfield anymore. The spire will do the job for her.

Master Keitou goes out like a damn hero.