The Necromancer - Ch. 3

“I wonder every day what I did to earn the love of such an honest and beautiful woman like you…” He kissed her, laying her on her back. He kissed her on her neck, gently caressing her hips. “…and I would be lying if I said I have not been thinking about this moment for a long time…”

“Then let us not delay it a single moment longer…” Matryona whispered, guiding his hands up under her dress. They had to make love their first time on the bed the local priestesses blessed. It would ensure their long and happy marriage together, and that all their children would be healthy and successful their whole lives. It was the reason the vehicle also had a blinder as well, to keep their love from the driver. Matryona giggled with the joy of anticipation as she heard the lock pop open, but her joy seemed frozen in that moment forever.

A great shadow engulfed the entire vehicle, eclipsing the sun. They both gasped, seeing a giant alien monstrosity hovering hundreds if not thousands of feet in the air. They could barely comprehend what it was. A more foreign object had never entered their lives. Matryona looked up at it with stunned amazement, but every fiber of Alek’s being yelled bloody murder. Both knew it was man-made, but couldn’t understand how. Suddenly, a cluster of small object rained out of the bottom of the craft. They whistled and screamed like demons as they fell out of the sky.

Reality seemed to stop around them in a deafening din. Alek woke up in a bloody and burned pile on the ground. He felt his heart slowing and struggling to continue. His body felt roasted and seared from the blast of the bomb and the steam from the boiler. He tried to pull himself over to Matryona, who was lying on the ground in front of him, but his twisted flesh refused to cooperate. He snarled, forcing himself up off the ground. The land around him was the same burned and twisted wretch of its former self as he was. Matryona seemed to be untouched by the madness. She was absolutely pristine.

As he tried to crawl towards her, he started making out a ghostly figure standing over her. It was a tall, slender woman. She wore an elaborate but ragged coal-black wedding dress. It was dull, without a glimmer of life or reality in it. The specter had on long leather gloves that went up past her elbows. They were just as worn and old as the dress, grasping a tall scythe and a massive book with her arm around it. The book was bound in dark brown and ancient skin that Alek instinctively knew was human. It had a thick and heavy chain, shackling it to her wrist. On her waist was hung a simple but perfectly constructed hourglass, with the last few grains dribbling through its neck.

The woman herself was monstrously pale, telling Alek exactly who she was. She was death incarnate, likely just a hallucination from his injuries. He gasped for breath, trying to near her to see if she was just a figment of his imagination. She turned to him slightly to him as he squirmed towards her.

Alek shook his head, coming out of the slight trance. It was a minor annoyance he went through before every battle, made worse by his lack of dreaming the last couple of days with Lily. It didn’t help that he felt obligated to tell it all to Lily. Almost none of it was reported on in the media. The government purposefully censored it, trying to make it appear like Alek just arrived one day like as a gift from god, descending into the chaos that is the world.

Alek was in a troop transport vehicle loaded up with dead bodies collected by the government. They were all armored and armed as well as any living soldier, though they were giving old, out of date weapons and armor. No use wasting top-of-the-line tech on someone who’s already dead. It wouldn’t cost them anything if their guns broke down or if the enemy’s bullets weren’t stopped by their armor.

This group in particular was going to be Alek’s commandos. He’d expend more power on them to give him extra control and make them more skilled. Otherwise they’d likely just drop their guns in a feral and truly blind rage. On the battlefield, he’d raise any other fallen soldiers from both sides to back them up. They could be shock troops, controlled and directed like a raging river. They didn’t need weapons, being far more terrifying as they clawed, bit, tore, and ripped their way through their former comrades.

The troop transport, despite being for dead men, was one of the high-end transports the military had, a mighty vehicle that had wheels as tall as a man and weighed a hefty two tons. The military wanted to make sure Alek was rested and comfortable before he went into battle. They also wanted to guard him to make sure Alek wasn’t going to be stolen or destroyed somehow by the enemy. Alek didn’t complain, though the people who had the macabre duty of dressing, arming, and strapping the dead men into the vehicle.

Alek felt the troop transport come to a stop, hearing the faint sound of weapon’s fire through the hull of the vehicle. He unhooked his harness and stood up. He knew the exact place to stand in the transport to make the resurrections easier. He closed his eyes and stretched out his arms. He focused, feeling the energy start to flow from his fingertips. Slowly, from around his feet, his omen appeared, growing past his hands as he stretched them out. Bolts of energy flowed out of the omen and into the dead soldiers. They screamed and roared, fighting against their safety harnesses. It seemed to be instinctive. Nothing was supposed to come back from the dead, at least not like this.

What followed the resurrections was an eerie silence. The soldiers were raised, but they didn’t breathe or blink, sitting there in a dead quiet, just waiting for a command. Alek didn’t have to do anything silly like pantomime a command, just thinking what he wanted them to do. Almost completely in unison, the undead soldiers reached up and undid their harnesses. Alek had them stand up, pivot on their feet, and lock and load their rifles. He opened the door at the back of the vehicle, ordering them to run out into the battle.

As they started breaking the doorway, they opened fire on the enemy, each one picking their own targets. Alek walked out after he was sure they had secured a small area for him. He looked around, getting his bearings on the battlefield.

The modern battlefields, while still host to the atrocity that is war itself, are nothing compared to the battlefields of the Great War. There was certainly no joy in the air of modern battles, but the battles of old seemed to devour light itself. Alek didn’t miss the dread the old battlefields carried at all.

“Huh…She is nowhere to be seen…” Alek said to himself. “Good sign…” He stretched his arms and legs a little. He knew Lily was safe far away from the battle, so he figured he could take his time. Even if all the local friendly troops were killed, it was just more un-killable soldiers for him.

As Alek searched the battlefield for worthy targets, he heard a cheer and English shouting. He didn’t know what they were saying, but knew it well enough to realize it was a rallying cry. It had to be the big secret weapon they had been planning to use for some time. It had to be their attempt to replicate Alek. He was certain if that was true, it would more than likely take him to kill it.


Lily hated being left behind, even if she was still technically on the front lines. She could hear the sounds of distant gunshots and small quakes from the local artillery firing at the enemy. It reminded Lily of thunderstorms when she was a child, mostly because it had her just as on edge and nervous then as she was now. She wished it was raining or it was dark out so that she’d have something to distract her from it all.

Lily had already read the book Alek had with him cover to cover, and was reading a newspaper to try to kill more time. Alek hadn’t planned on her being able to read so fast, only having the one book for her to read. So, now she was doing her best to slowly read her newspaper. It had the best news outside of Rusinova than all the other papers combined. Lily had no idea how they got away with it. It just made her all the more determined to read it before it got shut down.

“Jimmy Pierce, age ten, heir of the Pierce Enterprises…” She read out loud because she couldn’t believe what it said, “…was witness to the brutal murder of his mother by his own father…His father, Kenneth Pierce, has been infamous for abusing his wife before, but he carried it too far Sunday night, beating her with a metal baseball bat.

“Supposedly, it was all started when Jimmy Pierce told his father he didn’t want to play little league baseball. His father ripped the bat from his hands and swung, breaking Jimmy’s right arm in two places. At this point, his mother, Maria Pierce, tried to stop Kenneth’s brutal assault and was the victim of a vicious assault. He repeatedly hit her with the same bat, leaving Jimmy to call the police. The New Atlantis police force arrived in time to stop the brutal assault, but Maria died in surgery early Monday morning.

“More bad news for young Jimmy has arisen since this tragic event, as Kenneth’s parents have refused to adopt him, claiming that the rumor from over ten years ago that Maria was raped and Jimmy is the child of that rape. The rumor may very well have been true, as a DNA test showed that Jimmy wasn’t the biological son of Kenneth, though in this reporter’s honest opinion, that may very well be a good thing, as living with the parents of the man who killed your mother, whether he’s your real father or not, would have to be incredibly traumatizing for anyone.

“Rumor has it that Carl Jones, founder of Jones Industries, Pierce Enterprises’ biggest competitor in New Atlantis, is attempting to adopt Jimmy and give him a safe home. Jones, whose wife died in child birth last year, said it would be what his wife would have wanted and that ‘after all the trauma Jimmy’s gone through in the last couple of days, the last thing Jimmy needs is to be bounced from foster home to foster home’, and this reporter is inclined to agree.

“A guilty verdict is all but certain for Kenneth for the murder of his wife, but what he will be sentenced to is still up for grabs. Polls at both this newspaper and other news stations around the city have found that eighty-five percent of citizens in New Atlantis have called for the death penalty in his case. While his lawyer is calling for a change of venue for his trial and sentencing, I don’t see how that would make any difference in this case.”

Lily reread the article a handful of times more to make sure she understood everything. It was almost too horrible to get her brain around. How could a father be so violent to his wife and son? Jimmy’s tragic origin was no excuse for his father’s actions. It saddened Lily beyond words, and actually made her thankful for her own parents. She couldn’t focus on that anymore, feeling like it was dragging her into a well of despair. She folded the newspaper up and dropped it on the table in front of her.

Lily got back up on her new prosthetic leg and her old leg, still getting use to standing without a crutch. It was weird, a sensation she hadn’t felt for years and years. It made what was left of her bad leg hurt, and it played games with her feeling of balance. She was use to having to lean and put all of her weight on her good leg and the crutch. Now, putting her weight across both her legs was disorientating. Still, she figured not only did she have to get use to it, it also freed up her hand for the first time in as long as she could remember. No more desperate fumbling with doorknobs to try to get them open. No need for people to close the door after her. It made her incredibly happy to finally have even that bit of self-reliance back in her life.

Lily decided to see if she could find somewhere in the base she could see the battle from. She knew they had several look-out posts around the base she could probably see for miles and miles from. She thought she might even be able to see the enemies and give Alek some back up with sniper fire.


Alek was able to follow a straight line to where the cheering was coming from. He had picked up a rifle from one of the soldiers he had risen as he followed his course and loaded it with a full clip. He didn’t have to tap his ever growing knowledge of foreign rifles for this one. It was a rifle native to Rusinova. Alek started shooting any enemy soldiers he saw, getting one-shot kills without too much trouble, at least until he saw him.

Alek had seen numerous things that seemed to be beyond the laws of man and nature, but this took the cake. The soldier the Atalanta Republics had made as a copy of him was wearing dark blue and black. He had armored gauntlets and boots, as well as an armored chest plate. His suit was all leather with a steel collar around the neck, but that wasn’t the strangest thing about him.

The man seemed able to launch himself great distances with large and easy bounds. As the Rusinova fired at him, he seemed to shrug for a minute, but keep going through the hail of bullets without even the slightest injury. He grabbed artillery pieces with his hands and threw them for yards and yards. He ripped guns out of soldiers’ hands, killing them with quick, almost un-seeable blows.

Alek decided he had to get this mysterious soldier’s attention. He aimed at the soldier’s head and fired, seeing the bullets hit with a harmless and small shower of sparks. Alek had heard a word the Atalanta Republics’ soldiers were shouting and cheering, knowing it had to be the name of the super soldier.

“AVENGER!” Alek bellowed while he continued to fire at him. The Avenger didn’t respond to the shots, so he decided to pick a better target. He fired at the soldiers around him, killing his friends to incur his wrath. “AVENGER!”

“Bastard!” The Blue Avenger yelled back at him. Alek wasn’t ready for his pure, blinding speed, taking a thunderous blow to the chin. It launched him backwards for what felt like miles, making Alek all but certain it would have easily killed any mortal on the receiving end of the punch. After skidding to a stop and hearing his uniform overcoat being torn to shreds by the crash, Alek stood off, dusting himself off. He pulled off his tattered overcoat and dropped it to the ground.

Now that Alek knew he could take the best of the Blue Avenger’s attacks, he could focus completely on his own attacks. He dropped the rifle he had, stretching out his arms and legs to get his joints reset. He could hear the vertebrae in his neck start to pop and slide back together. It hurt like hell to have them misaligned, so the short bursts of agony from it all grinding and snapping back into place were worth it and mild in comparison.


Lily managed to find a look-out post that had a step ladder instead of just poles so she could get to the top. It was a hard climb, making her break a sweat as she climbed. It made her ashamed of how out of shape she was. That was going to change now that she had her prosthetic leg. She stumbled at the last chair, almost falling on top of the sniper that was stationed there.

“Easy there, Miss Lufian.” To Lily’s surprise, the sniper was actually a woman. It was one of the few combat positions women could have in the Rusinova military, the other being pilots. Either way, while men were allowed to wear combat fatigues, women were forced to wear conservative and intricate uniforms even heavier and more complex than Alek’s. The government didn’t want sexuality to be a distraction on the battlefield. “You do not want to hit the grate flooring here with your knee.”

“How did you know my name?” Lily had to ask her. It was almost eerie that some random person would know her name without ever seeing her before.

“Everyone at this base already knows about the beautiful and incomplete doll that has stolen the heart of the legendary Alek Vanyusha.” The sniper said with a smile. She had several scars on her face, a crescent shaped one around her eye, a knife scar across the other eye, and little nicks and cuts all over her face. Clearly, she was an experienced and weather soldier. “What can I do for you?”

“Can you see the battle from up here?” Lily asked the moment before she saw the sprawling battle off in the distance. “Never mind…”

“Did you come up to see Colonel Vanyusha in combat?” The sniper picked up another sniper rifle, handing it to Lily. “Or are you here for some sport shooting?”

“A little of both, actually…” The sniper handed Lily a clip and helped her load it into the rifle. “Thank you.” She put it on the small ledge around the bottom of the look-out post. The sniper stopped her before she laid down in the prone position, taking her coat off and putting it down for Lily to lay on. “I cannot…”

“Think of it as doing me a favor. It is far too hot out for this whole uniform, so by laying on it, you are giving me a convenient excuse to take it off.” Lily smiled and nodded. The sniper reminded her of a combination of Alek and the big sister she always wanted growing up. She put her eye against the hard rubber eyepiece on the scope and saw the battle. It was uncomfortable for her to keep her eye against the piece, almost like pushing her face against a plastic ring. Still, Lily wasn’t about to take her eyes off the battle.


Alek was finally healed and took out his revolver to take some pot shots at the Blue Avenger. His revolver was the only gun he had specifically made for him. It was heavy, a forty-five caliber bullet. It was silver with a black ebony handle, and every inch of it was covered in a beautiful and intricate pattern. It was perfectly balanced and one of the most accurate guns in the world. Alek had been given the gun since the Great War, and it had proven itself the most reliable weapon he had ever carried. Now, it was showing Alek that while the bullets didn’t pierce the Blue Avenger’s skin, he was definitely feeling them. That told him he was definitely vulnerable, it was just a matter of overpowering.

Alek put his revolver in its holster, stretching his arms out. The Blue Avenger stood back, not sure what Alek was doing as lightning flowed from his hands. It didn’t fully sink in until the dead around him shrieked and rived.

“Stop!” The Blue Avenger bellowed in English, not that Alek would have cared if he could understand him. The Blue Avenger rushed Alek, punching him again and again, but it was no use. Alek was ready for him this time. “STOP, DAMN IT!”


Lily was speechless and panicked as she watched the beating the Blue Avenger was giving to Alek. What if he managed to kill Alek? He could find a way, she was sure of it. He could knock Alek’s head clean off his shoulders. There was no way Alek could regenerate from that.

The Blue Avenger grabbed him by the neck, lifting him up into the air. Lily had no idea what he was yelling at Alek, just knowing his seemed intent on doing him serious harm. She aimed square at the Blue Avenger’s head. She had never killed anyone before, but she couldn’t lose Alek. She grit her teeth, doing her best to steady her shot.

“Hey!” The sniper yelled, desperately trying to break Lily’s perfect concentration. “Do not have your eye against the piece when you…” The sniper didn’t have time to finish her sentence when the shot rang through her ears. Lily took her eye away from, swearing and holding the bloody wound the rifle gave her.


As the Blue Avenger held Alek up by the neck, pulling back for the punch he planned to finish him, he heard a sharp whistle. Suddenly, he dropped Alek and was thrown to the side by a blinding pain. Alek knew it had to be Lily acting as his guardian angel. He focused, bringing all of the dead he rose to attack the Blue Avenger all at once.

Countless dead in both uniforms started swarming over the Blue Avenger before he could recover. They clawed and slashed at him as he scraped off the bullet from his face. He started swinging wildly to try to get the undead to stop their relentless assault. They snarled at him with maws that dripped with foam and blood. He yelled as they bit and dug into his flesh.

The Blue Avenger grabbed the vicious attackers, throwing them away and into other attackers to try to get them off. He tried to jump away, but they grabbed him, dragging him back down to the ground. Wherever they could get their fingers into, they clawed and tried to rip him to pieces.

Alek thought the brutality was deserved after what he was doing to the troops, but also realized that it was going to take far more to kill him. He called over a few of his commandos with a small gesture of his hand. They came over, plunging their bayonets into the Blue Avenger, slowly grinding them into his body. He yelled at the top of his lungs and struggled as hard as he could, but it was no use. Soon, his strength drained, he gave in, but that didn’t stop the undead’s relentless assault. They tore him to scraps of flesh without devouring him. Alek had no desire to see that, and was completely unnecessary since the undead didn’t have to eat.

It was hard enough for the enemy troops to keep fighting when Alek was on the field, making them all terrified that he would kill them and then use their bodies to kill their friends. Then, when word of the Blue Avenger’s horribly brutal death got out, and that it was at the hands of Alek’s undead legion, fighting became impossible for the Atalanta Republics forces. Soon, the whole force was in full retreat, and Alek was sure they wouldn’t stop until they were back in the safety of their home nation.

It made Alek realize the truth of the matter; the only reason the Atalanta Republics forces invaded was they had their Blue Avenger. Maybe they were trying to test him, or maybe they were trying to use him while he was at his strongest to take down Alek and their nearest competition in Rusinova, but it didn’t matter. All that did matter was that Rusinova was safe again, or at least that was all that mattered to Alek. He knew the government might send their forces to attack and invade the Atalanta Republics, but it would end like it always did, in a stalemate between the two forces with nothing gained on either side. It was a waste of lives and resources, but it was also an inescapable fact of life.


A part of Alek hoped to be greeted by Lily’s smiling face at the gate after the ordeal he had in battle, but instead he was met by a man telling him Lily was in the med ward on the base. Alek couldn’t be stopped or even slowed on his run to get back to her.

He knocked over a nurse here and a doctor there to get into Lily. He didn’t care what he had to plow through to get to her. His mind was racing with what could be wrong with her. What if his almost always perfect measurements were off for her leg, and because of it, she slipped and fell and cracked her ribs? What if an enemy sniper had gotten to the base and shot her? He didn’t know what he’d do, which is why he had to know what happened. He couldn’t take not knowing.

Finally, he managed to find her in her own private room, he burst through the door, making both Lily and the nurse treating her jump about two feet in the air. One of Alek’s worst fears was confirmed as the female nurse was wrapping Lily’s chest to help what had to be broken ribs heal. Worse, she had stitches around her right eye. Alek knew it was because he measured her leg wrong. She slipped, hit her head on something, and then cracked her ribs against the ground. It was the only possibility. Still, he had to confirm what happened.

“How did you get so hurt?”

“…Gah…” Lily turned to her nurse. She had to collect her breath, the bandages slowly cutting off her air, or at least that’s what it felt like. “Does it have to be so damn tight?”

“Yes, I’m sorry dear…” Alek growled slightly that he had been ignored, and that the nurse treating Lily talked like a slave. He wondered why his clout hadn’t been able to get the best nurse on the base, instead of this nurse who was likely forced to be a nurse by her master.

“Ah…uhn…” Lily gasped for a little more air. “It’s alright…” Lily turned to Alek, biting her lip for a second before she spoke again. “You saw the rifle that hit that blue freak in the face, did you not?”

“Yes…that actually was you?” Alek had to ask, knowing she must have been pretty high up to pull that shot off against the Blue Avenger. “How the hell…”

“I found a look-out post that had a step-ladder instead of a pole-ladder and got to the top so I could watch the battle…There was a sniper up there and she gave me a rifle…” Alek’s jaw dropped ever so slightly. “What?”

“There was a sniper in the look-out post…that not only let you up there, but gave you a rifle you FIRED and hurt yourself with?” He gestured to the new wound around her eye that would definitely be a permanent scar. When Lily nodded, Alek dragged his hand across his face.

“Coming down the ladder, I got blood in my eye, and it hurt enough that it broke my concentration and I slipped down the last few steps and cracked some ribs.” Alek grabbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “What?”

“You are a civilian, Lily. Even though you are with me, even though I have a great deal of sway in the military, you are still a civilian…”

“So…what does that mean?” Lily had to ask. As much respect as she had for the military, she knew almost nothing about its rules and regulations. Alek, on the other hand, was intimately familiar with every single line of the regulations and could recite them if need be.

“It means your friend…the sniper…will be flogged.” Lily’s jaw dropped. “I cannot stop it, either. She will have to be punished…”

“But…but it was not her fault!” Lily panicked. What if the sniper was killed just because she had to see Alek in battle? She couldn’t live herself with that. “There…there has to be something you can do! Some string you can pull!”

“There is no way to keep her from being flogged, Lily…I am truly sorry. Even if we got you declared an unofficial member of the military, she would have STILL broken the regulations and…I really am sorry, Lily.”

“There’s one thing you can do, Mistress…” The slave nurse spoke up. She spoke timidly in front of Alek, but didn’t want to stay silent and see Lily so upset. “…If you interrupt the flogging, you can take her flogging as your own…”

“Damn it!” Alek snapped, knowing it was right but wanting to keep Lily from danger and harm. “You are a NURSE! Do you not have to follow the Hippocratic Oath!?”

“It goes either way in this case, since one or the other has to be flogged…It’s BARBARIC either way.” Alek snarled, but Lily put her hand on his.

“I do not want her to suffer because of me…” Lily reassured him, but Alek still wasn’t considering it as an option. He didn’t want to have the haunting memories of Lily getting flogged and then all the horrible aftermath of trying to clean them and get them to heal properly. He would literally remember them forever, and he knew Lily would too. “Alek…The most painful thing in my life was losing my arm and leg…No matter what they do, it cannot hurt as much as that.”

“But I cannot be there to hold your hand. You will have to bear this alone…” Lily nodded, telling Alek there was no way he could talk her out of this. Still, he had to think of something. He was searching his nigh-infinite knowledge of the regulations for any way to get around it.


The sniper Lily met earlier was stripped down to just her dress shirt and pants. They were marching her out in front of everyone, a menacing drum beat making her more and more tense. She couldn’t take the waiting. The actual pain would only be a temporary feeling that died over time, the waiting could very well stretch into infinity.

They slammed her into a massive wooden support pole the was topped with the base’s ancient and archaic weather equipment. They lashed her wrists together with an extremely coarse and painful rope, pulling them so tight that it felt like it was going to cut her hands off. Her arms were barely long enough to get around the pole, making them feel like they were going to be pulled out of their sockets just from her heart beat. She had no choice but to have her chest and face against the ancient splintering wood. She figured she’d probably end up jamming them into her cheek or other unfortunate areas of her body.

The heaviest, most muscular sergeant on the base walked up behind her, ripping the back of her shirt off. She yelped slightly, knowing it showed she had been flogged before. She had a fine webbing of scars across her back from her vicious training and a case or two of insubordination. Now, she was going to make it far more intricate. They were going to give her thirty lashes for everything that happened. She took a deep breath, waiting for the first crack of the whip and searing pain to come. She heard the drawback of the whip, but before it came forward, she heard a scream.

“STOP!” Lily screamed at the top of her lungs, rushing out as fast as she could with both her arms outstretched. Alek was standing off to the side, still desperately trying to think of some way out of this for everyone. He was coming up with nothing upon eternity. “I was the one who took the rifle from her, I was the one who snuck up the ladder, and I was the one who fell down it! I should receive the punishment you are going to give her…”

“Little sister, no…” The sniper spoke through grit teeth. Lily turned to her, giving her a look that told her she had suffered enough.

“I am Colonel Vanyusha’s lover. She assumed I had the right to be there, and I did not correct her…I should have NEVER have put her in that situation to begin with, and I cannot just let her take the penalty for my own ignorance…”

The sergeant holding the whip looked over to Alek first, but then looked at the base’s general and commander. He nodded, and the sniper was cut free. Lily was pulled over to the post. They didn’t know what to do since they couldn’t tie her wrists together. They came up with the clever solution of tying Lily to the pole around her waist, making it so tight she could barely breathe. The sergeant didn’t want to rip the back of Lily’s dress off, leaving it to the medic that would have treated the sniper. She was barely strong enough to do the task, struggling with it briefly.

“The penalty for you digressions and trespassing is thirty lashes.” The ancient base commander spoke. His accent was almost as ancient as him, from a part of the country that had since seen indescribable growth and change since he was a child. It gave away that he could likely say he remembered when the entire area was all farm land and not just be using it as a cliché. “Sergeant, when you are ready…”

Lily heard the first crack then, moments later the incredible blinding pain. It was unbearable, ripping the breath out of her body and making it impossible to scream. It ripped the bandages off her back and made her broken rips grind together. She gasped for breath as the whip slice across her back again. She started feeling numb to the world, but the world made itself known to her with the third strike. Finally, at the fourth, she couldn’t contain it anymore. She screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping it would frighten off the pain.

Alek couldn’t think any more. Every strike across Lily’s back hit him with the same intensity for him as it did for her. How much more would Alek’s mere presence cost Lily? It had already caused the tragedy with Aleksandra’s master, now this. She was going to literally be scarred for however much longer she’d survive with him.

That’s when he thought of it. Lily relied on him for almost everything. Money, food, shelter, and more. It could get him a technicality to save Lily from the full brunt of the flogging. He thought about it for a second, realizing that it could make Lily furious with him. Still, if it meant saving her from this torture, he didn’t care how mad she got.

Before the sergeant could whip her for the eleventh time, Alek stepped in front of him, blocking the whip with his arm. The whip coiled tight around his arm and with a smooth pull, he ripped it out of the hands of the sergeant. He pulled it off his arm, tossing it to him.

“That is enough!” Alek yelled at him. It was an open act of defiance that would likely get a regular soldier shot. “Cut her loose…”

“You do not have the authority to order that.” The base commander spoke firmly but not angrily at Alek. Alek was almost certain he was older than the general, though they had kept Alek’s rank low to keep him as a field unit. Still, that meant he didn’t necessarily have direct command over generals. “She has twenty lashes left…”

“She is UNCONSCIOUS. Even if you whipped her, she would not feel them.” Alek slipped off his coat and put it around Lily. He took a knife off his belt, cutting the rope with a small flick of his wrist. He caught her, seeing she had a couple of large splinters in her face and neck. Her fine, smooth skin didn’t offer even the slightest resistance to them. It was more small scars that he wouldn’t forgive himself for. “I am taking full responsibility for everything that transpired. Lily’s essentially my slave, I should have informed her of the regulations and laws on the base.”

“Are you saying…”

“I am saying you have punished her enough. I will take the remaining lashes for myself.” He walked over to the General, staying a healthy distance away but getting close enough that he could still whisper something and only the general would hear. “Think about it, sir. Actually flogging ME? You would be legendary…I will make sure you suffer no ill effects from this. Consider it doing me a personal favor.”

“Alright…” The General growled back. “Sergeant, have Colonel Vanyusha prepared to be flogged.”

Everyone around the base was silent with disbelief. Alek was prepared the same way as the sniper, his hands tied tightly around the pole to give him no hope of dodging or diverting the force of the blow. Alek was able to take the force the blows with only grunts and groans. It was far from the most painful thing he had suffered in his life, and he had learned how to tune out severe pain like this. Taking the blows for Lily made it that much easier to bear.


Lily woke up with sharp blades of agony stabbing into her chest from laying in a bed on her stomach. She could feel the wounds on her back still weeping scarlet tears, wondering how long it would take for them to finally heal. Worse were all the little wounds across her face, shoulders, and neck. Their scars would be harder to hide.

Lily was afraid to move, scared that any movement would cause all the scars on her back rip open like splitting seams. She realized she passed out after the seventh or eighth strike, but she didn’t expect that to stop her flogging. Did they have mercy on her? She knew she was famous now for being Alek’s lover, but would that really save her? She didn’t think so.

“Do not move too much…” A voice said from the blind spot behind her. She couldn’t turn enough to see who it was, but knew who it was. It could have only been the sniper. “You are too kind for your own good, Miss Lufian…”

“Yes…” Lily grit her teeth, her words seemingly making her wounds dance and part slightly. “I know…but I could not let you suffer for my mistake…I did not know it was going to be so damned painful, though…”

“I brought something that might help with that.” The sniper removed a tall bottle from a velvet bag, setting it down on an end table next to Lily’s bed so she could see it. Lily smirked. It was a topflight bottle of vodka. It was instantly recognizable that it was from Smirnoff. “It is the best vodka in the world. It is so good, even their super spy novel hero James Bond drinks it.”

“I should warn you…” Lily was distracted for a second as the sniper put down glasses, “I am a light weight because of my missing limbs…”

The glasses were cheap, smooth, water glasses, made of a cheap and slightly opaque glass. They clearly weren’t crystal, but Lily wouldn’t complain out of respect. She also wouldn’t mention that she was a couple years younger than the drinking age, out of respect as well.

“Ah, then it will be all the more effective…” She poured a glass for Lily and a glass for herself. “This cost a lot of money…but you should enjoy it. It is worth every penny if it eases your pain.”

“I have to ask how much it was…” Lily took a drink. She had sneaked small of her father’s low-quality vodka, but it was bitter and stung her throat all the way down. This vodka was entirely different. She could still slightly taste the alcohol, but it was practically a faint imagination. It was as smooth as water otherwise. “…and your name…”

“My name is Dominika, or Dom for short. As for the vodka…I do not want to say, for fear I might go ‘HOLY GOD, I spent that much money on ANYTHING!?’ and ruin this for both of us…”

“Alright, Dom…” Lily took another drink and felt warmer and number. She knew by the time she finished the whole glass, she’d be well past tipsy and probably be officially drunk for the first time in her life. “Why did they not finish with my punishment?”

“I told them you were my slave.” Alek answered as he came into the room. He decided to come completely clean with Lily. “I took your last twenty lashes myself. I hope you are not angry with me, but I could not let them destroy you any further.”

“Why would I be angry?” Lily felt her entire face blushing, not knowing it covered almost her entire body. “You lied to save my life…As long as you do not actually make me your slave, it is fine with me…” Lily finished her glass of vodka. “Though I would have to thank my master with whatever he desired tonight…”

“I could not ask for anything too wild from you…” Alek carefully eased himself into a chair and back onto his wounds. It gave him a sharp pain in the back, but he was able to get pass it and ignore.

“Then I will have to surprise you…” Lily smirked at him slightly. Alek didn’t feel comfortable talking about his desires in front of Dominika. Dominika was already laughing at it like it was a dirty limerick. Lily fixed her hair before she spoke again. “Can we leave here as soon as possible, though? This whole place has me on edge…”

“We can leave first thing in the morning.” Alek sat down on the foot of Lily’s bed. His bones and joints were still repairing and realigning themselves, making it uncomfortable to even exist, but Alek was use to it. What he wasn’t ready for was how to treat Lily with her injuries. He was repeating how fragile she was in the back of his mind so he wouldn’t be too rough on her in any way. “I was wondering, after I take care of my assignment, would you be interested in meeting my friend Illyana?”

“THE RADIATION ELEMENTAL!?” Dominika blurted out without thinking. Illyana use to be a common name, but not since Illyana became famous as a ‘radiation elemental’. It went from being a proud, strong name to meaning ‘poisoner of the earth’. “How could you even get Lily near her without literally COOKING her!?”

“I would not have her there for too long…” Alek hated when people pointed out the obvious like that, especially interrupting him to do it. He hated it even before he had any authority or power. “Besides, I can get Lily a radiation suit, so she can stay as long as her air lasts. It would just be briefly and it would mean the world to Illyana. She has only been able to talk to me for years and years…”

“I guess it would not be a problem, though I would probably need help getting around in the suit. I imagine I would not be able to fix my new prosthetic leg if it got messed up inside the suit…” Lily realized her prosthetic leg was actually in the corner of the room and not still on her. She knew it had to be an attempt to keep her in her bed. Lily was mad because they should have known she had common sense and wouldn’t get out of it unless it was absolutely necessary even if they left it with her.

“Would having a pen pal help her?” Dominika poured Alek a glass of vodka as she spoke, then topped off hers and Lily’s. Lily didn’t think she’d be able to finish another glass without getting completely drunk, but she didn’t mind. “I might not be able to see her, but I could at least give her some contact to the outside world.”

“Alright, but I must warn you, she is very…eccentric from her years of forced solitary confinement.” Alek didn’t want to tell Dominika that Illyana had decided she was a lesbian, worried it would blow Illyana’s chance of getting another friend. His admittance of her being ‘eccentric’ was the best warning he could do.

“I do not mind…though I imagine her outgoing letters might be…what is the word…”

“…Irradiated.” Alek had experience with it, getting a crash course in radiation safety after accidentally giving people radiation poisoning from not going through a thorough enough decontamination procedure. He hadn’t made that mistake since. “Do not worry. They would put the letter through decontamination procedures, so it would add a week or two to the time it would take to get the letter, but it would be fine after that.”

“Good, because I hope to have children one day…” Dominika took a deep drink of vodka. Alek was already planning on giving her four times what the bottle cost before he and Lily left the next day. He was extremely generous, and since he had near-infinite resources from the government, he hated getting gifts. He didn’t need gifts, after all. Still, for now, he would just drink with Lily and Dominika, trying to distract himself from his own pain and how much his mere presence seemed to be costing Lily. He could only hope that it didn’t cause her any more harm. He didn’t know how much more he would let her get hurt before he’d forcibly remove himself from her presence, but he worried that he’d find out soon.