Seventeen.

Seventeen was the number burning through the gray matter of Nataliza Rayfield’s brain like a branding iron. The number on the iron would change, of course. It changed with every couple of hours.

It changed with every disgusting, fascist pig who assaulted her body like it was nothing but meat.

That was expected, of course. Nataliza knew of The Devil’s rituals thanks to the two defectors the rebels gave a new home to.

Violence.

Rape.

The usual for scumbag imperialists like the UA; beating and violating Nataliza’s body like they’d done to Ansa’s land since her birth. None of it surprised her, and none of it was going to make her break.

Five days of having the unwashed hands and pathetic appendages abuse her holes and bruise her body could turn to a hundred, and she still wouldn’t give an inch.

…

No, that was done via other methods. Methods the sore holes, vile taste of fascist cum in her mouth, and the bruises of both the physical and mental variety couldn’t hope to achieve on their own.

Were these methods intentional? Nataliza had no clue, but spending most of the last few days tied to a chair that was bolted to the ground gave a woman too much room to think.

Far too much.

Sadly, she’d long since lost track of time in this dimly lit shoebox of steel and concrete, but she had to surmise she’d been here less than a week. Surely.

Surely.

…

Time was a blur, but that was a basic symptom of sensory deprivation. Nataliza was no rookie pilot unfamiliar with the tactics of the Arcadia system’s military industrial complex. She was no Sasha and certainly no Lark. That crap wasn’t working on her.

No, the crap that was working on her was a different affliction entirely.

Over these last however many days, there were distinct gaps in Nataliza’s memory. She’d begun keeping track of it after their first few appearances, trying to fit them into a pattern that likely didn’t exist. The vile touch of UA troops was disorderly. Sleep was a luxury that lasted an unknown, but definitely insufficient amount of time before a mocking, snorting pig laid their hands on her once again.

Her uncomfortably frequent meals seemed purely random, but they were her best lead. The off taste of her gruel was a potential indicator of… added ingredients. That could have been chalked up to poor manning of this mystery building’s food printer, but Nataliza knew the taste of poorly cooked gruel well. There were many years without Sierra at the helm of theirs.

No, the off taste was a drug, it had to be. But this wasn’t one of Bailey’s party favors or a cheap stimulant given out like candy to calm the less capable upstarts.

The timeframe was too perfect. She remembered eating, then remembered waking up in the damn chair. Everything else was nonexistent. 

Not even a blur.

Simply just a bright light of nothing.

Of course, remembering her meals was inevitable. It would be frankly impossible to forget being force-fed gruel by the spoonful.

Rancid.

Not just the gruel, either. The woman doing it.

Her.

The Devil was a myth Nataliza had largely ignored in her youth, shadowy bogeywomen running wars and planets behind the scenes was fanciful nonsense. Propaganda meant to make an incompetent enemy look capable.

That whole Sasha business broke that. The Devil was real. The Devil was a pale, amber eyed warmonger calmly feeding her the drug that was undoubtedly making her spill her guts to Lucifer herself.

The Devil was real, and Nataliza was in her Hell.

…

That alone was eating her. Slowly but surely the combination of minimal sleep, violation of her every orifice, occasional beatings, and undoubted drugging was chipping away at her. Each alone wouldn’t break her. Even combined, Nataliza planned on making this the most difficult, frustrating task of The Devil’s miserable life.

Yet, as she sat naked, bruised and barely washed in her special corner of the underworld, the real horror consumed her thoughts. 

The horror of the unknown.

The horror that Nataliza knew nothing of the fates of her squad.

Loss was typical for her, but she had made one of the greatest mistakes of her life this last year.

Nataliza let herself get attached.

Moronic of her, truly. She’d spent close to fifteen years letting herself accept loss as a simple consequence of war.

Loss of life.

Loss of love…

All of it was just war. She could find love and dream about raising a family up from the ashes of Ansa’s imperial state after the war. Until then, there were no friends.

There were no family.

There was certainly no love.

…

Then that damn Sasha girl came and ruined everything. She got her back engaging in little dinner dates with Sierra. She helped Ina get close to Nataliza and kindle some kind of familial bond Nataliza didn’t even know she wanted.

…

She got her back with Bailey.

Sasha’s greatest sin was putting her in a room with her biggest mistake, and allowing the former merc to spend months convincing Nataliza that she could change.

The worst part? Nataliza truly believed it now.

That was Nataliza’s truest vice. The real crack in her armor was that she cared again.

Damn bird.

…

The constant thumping of thoughts about their fates was a worse ache than the very literal aching of her bruised, beaten body. Purple reminders of violence and assault painted her already ghostly skin, and yet all she could think about was whether they were okay.

Sierra and Sasha.

Ina.

Bailey.

She was weakened, and she knew it was a weakness The Devil was exploiting.

Creak…

As if to torment Nataliza’s fixation on fate even further, the door to her layer of Hell slowly opened, The Devil herself standing in the frame for a moment before marching into the room without a greeting.

Each clomp of her well-kept, shining leather boots echoed far longer in Nataliza’s mind than it did in her featureless box of a cell.

They represented a growing fear that made Nataliza feel pathetic.

They represented a growing comfort that made Nataliza feel disgusting.

The Devil was a violent monster. A ghoul who’d already choked her out once for nearly biting one of her fascist pig’s noses clean off mid-rape.

Yet, there was strange comfort in the fact that her presence typically just meant a conversation.

The one final crack The Devil had made in Nataliza’s steel-plated resistance. An inevitable need for relief from trauma.

Nataliza was disgusted, and the look on her face as she stared daggers into her captor’s eyes made that as plain as day. But, at least the shameful terror and horrible comfort could get her mind off everything else…

…right?

“Nataliza. I see you’re awake early today. Good.” The Devil’s greeting lived in a strange gray zone between warm and cold. The lack of a hello met with an almost doting smile radiated an aura of tepidity. It was a far cry from the heat Bailey, the only other person she truly spoke to personally and basically, always greeted her with. Sometimes bad. Mostly good nowadays.

Thinking about her comrades right now would get her nowhere, though. That’s what The Devil wanted, and Nataliza would make getting anything of her desire as difficult as she possibly could.

“I see you took the camera away. No surprise guests today, eh? Finally get your rocks off with that last pig you let into my bunk?” Yet, despite knowing that the slightest word merely gave The Devil fuel, Nataliza spoke. Her voice was filled with venom, and her words were purely mocking, but in truth, she needed someone to speak to.

A woman could only handle being called nothing but insults like “tranny chaser” and “filthy bitch” for so long. Any kind of two-way conversation with a human being not forcing a fist inside her cunt to see if it could fit was a form of nourishment.

Assuming the being in front of her was human at all…

“No, today’s a very different surprise, Nataliza. The camera has better places to be.” The Devil was seemingly pleased to give Nataliza the conversation she craved, annoyingly vague was it was. More irritating yet was her slow, methodical approach towards Nataliza. Measured and calm steps were made towards her, likely aiming to intimidate and infatuate in equal measure. “Still, that is a problem to tackle later. Believe me or not, I actually came to be the bearer of news.” The Devil’s voice gave no indication whether the news was good or bad, but the slight, creeped up smile gave Nataliza a hint at its intent.

“Spit it out if you plan to. I’m not going to beg.” Nataliza, her voice slightly hoarse from the cocktail of screams and punches to her chest performed yesterday, continued spewing venom with a gaze of utter hatred.

A gaze that The Devil gladly met with a completely unreadable mixture of emotions. Yet again, Nataliza got a hint at its intent when she got close enough to the imprisoned rebel, a leather-clad hand caressing her cheek in a fashion that filled her with greater disgust than ever.

The caress was soft, yet somehow deeply impersonal, and Nataliza liked it not one bit. The Devil may not have done anything to her at the magnitude her putrid imperial dogs had yet, but she was still their orchestrator.

Perhaps Nataliza should have turned her head and bitten that hand clean off, but she didn’t. She was better fed than a typical prisoner, but she was in no state to handle a fight with Lucifer herself right now. Poor diet, wounds, and the inability to train left her weak already. She didn’t fight back.

Uncharacteristic.

Cowardly.

All Nataliza could do was sit there and snarl under her breath like a vile animal…

Pathetic.

“There will be better uses and times for your pleading, yes. As for the news…” The Devil’s hand continued brushing its cold, leathery surface against Nataliza’s cheek, slowly making a trail down to her chin before resting by the growling rebel’s neck. “Thus far it seems that Bailey Cluanaire and your rebels have two different agendas. Just yesterday my dear Valkyrie led the charge on a small weapons factory north of Ferrum. Quite inconvenient in the short term, but this does little to track you down.” The Devil exposited away to Nataliza about her rebel comrade, all one of them, with purpose the rebel could easily grasp.

Was Sasha the only one of her closer comrades left at Corvis Base? Surely not. The death or capture of Ina Ymari would have been lorded over Nataliza by every dipshit in this building. Ina’s safety was assured by the taunts of The Devil, but as far as she knew, the rest might not’ve been so lucky.

Until now, at least…

…

Sasha’s whereabouts were a good sign, but Nataliza’s paranoia wasn’t satiated. That likely wasn’t The Devil’s true weapon of attack, though.

Bailey.

The Devil implied that she’d gone off on her own, a great concern to Nataliza, and that was if she even planned to help in the first place. Had Bailey cut and run?

…

No. Ridiculous. Not this time. Nataliza refused to believe it, and she refused to give the monster in front of her a word in response, either. The stare was enough.

The Devil didn’t scare Nataliza Rayfield.

“As for Bailey Cluanaire…” However, those four words coming from The Devil’s mouth came much closer to doing so. Nataliza’s glare was met with the same self-satisfied smile as ever. The smug overconfidence of Bailey with the charismatic void of an empty, passionless fascist. Vile. “I have reason to believe she’s gone off on her own. Perhaps she’ll perform some daring escape mission, or perhaps she’ll simply run off until we hunt her down like the wounded animal you’ve turned her into.” The Devil’s words brought Nataliza little comfort and much stewing rage.

Nataliza also didn’t buy a single syllable the ghoul said. She wanted to stay silent. Any words would give The Devil satisfaction and attack avenues both…

“I’m sure you have opinions on such matters, hm, Nataliza? They are your filthy rebels, after all.” The Devil’s goading wouldn’t have worked on Nataliza at her best. It was beneath her. It was childish.

…

Alas, Nataliza wasn’t at her best.

“I think you’re completely full of crap. You’re an idiot, just like the rest of your upper echelon. Gods willing… it’ll kill you.” Nataliza didn’t have the energy to truly, passionately berate the imperial cog in front of her. That energy was better used surviving the next batch of rapist goons sent in to brutalize their enemy.

“Denial is a rather vital and frustrating step in the process of grieving, Nataliza. Perhaps it’s wise of you to get it out of the way now.” The Devil’s smile hadn’t faltered slightly, and Nataliza had long stopped assuming it ever would. That would only happen with a bullet in her brain. “Bailey Cluanaire may very well have been softened by you. I know plenty about her predicament with you now, after all. At the end of the day, though, she was a depraved scumbag searching for superiority. Little more.” Her smile only seemed to grow as she berated her enemy, her words cutting through Nataliza smoothly enough that she almost didn’t notice the hand of Lucifer beginning to wrap around her neck.

Nataliza didn’t even flinch. Sticks and stone couldn’t break more than her bones.

Words were the real weapon today.

“Maybe she is all that, but you’re still full of crap. People can change, and she will. You’re still full of shit!” Nataliza grew the slightest bit heated, a victory The Devil had only previously gotten from her by detailing a torture plan for Ina Ymari upon her potential capture. That was a win for Nataliza too, at least. It confirmed they hadn’t found her, at least at that point.

This was vague. Calculated. Just enough info to transform Nataliza’s prior worries into something more concrete than the fates of her allies.

“Running off on her own to partake in debauchery in the face of strife is her nature, Nataliza. It is unchangeable. Nature is unchangeable. It is as bedrock to us all as the very passage of time.” The Devil’s hand had wrapped fully around Nataliza’s neck, but made no efforts to choke her out yet. It was unnerving, but so were her words. “Your rebel allies are taking a slow, pointless path to resistance. They will arrive too late. If Bailey Cluanaire bothers to show her face here, rather than run off to play with the weakest animals she can find, rest assured, I’ll make you both wish she simply ran.” The Devil’s smile remained, arguably even turning to a sick grin as she toyed with the deepest insecurities of Nataliza Rayfield.

The very few of them she still allowed to exist.

“Fuck you. They’ll come here together and put a bullet through that thick, fascist skull!” Nataliza was livid, but she was also conflicted. Her allies taking it slow made too much sense. The operation to recapture Sasha already took weeks of convincing and a tight-knit crew of just her and Aoi.

Bailey leaving on her own made sense, but…

No.

Nataliza was better than despair, and she was better than not trusting someone who put their trust in her. Bailey was a sleazebag, but she’d be here with her damn allies. Soon.

She had to be.

She had to be.

Nataliza simply had to pray that she would be.

“Such beliefs are only natural, Nataliza. Nature cannot be changed, but like everything, it is an exploitable tool.” The Devil hummed her words with absolute confidence that she was right, before her hand began clamping down against Nataliza’s throat.

Either it was a strong hand more than capable of crushing Nataliza’s windpipe, or the last however many days had made her weaker than she’d thought. The reasoning behind her struggle and inability to resist was irrelevant. All that mattered was the cold, black-gloved hand making her see embers around the growingly blurry visage of Lucifer standing in front of her.

A good choke could knock a woman out in seconds. Nataliza knew that from her training, amongst other, less clean parts of her younger days. This bitch had a good choke, but there was intentional restraint put into the cold welcoming of pure darkness The Devil was toying with her.

“Now…” Nataliza’s sight was fading, but she did see a syringe manifest from The Devil’s pocket and into her other hand, her voice slicing through the looming, unconscious bliss like the hymns of a demonic singer. Not quite a siren, but powerful in its own way. “The next step in your rehabilitation requires application of this. I assume you won’t simply allow the injection while conscious, no?” The Devil asked with a tone that implied she already knew the answer. Nataliza wanted to remain silent to screw with her, but this was the one time meeting her expectations was a good thing.

“Go… to hell, fascist.” Nataliza struggled to speak under the weight of The Devil’s hand, but her words were coursed with venom and confidence that she’d be free soon.

Nataliza’s eyes remained locked on The Devil’s until the end. There was nothing this bitch could do to her that could ever make her break. These pigs were weak. She was strong.

“Oh, Nataliza…” The Devil spoke coyly, tightening her grip around the rebel’s throat with such force Nataliza thought she could kill her.

She was not so fortunate.

”You’re going to join me in its deepest pit when you wake up…”

Those were the last words Nataliza heard before she was choked to a state of unconsciousness. The final thought on her mind before entering darkness being the assured knowledge that her allies were coming from her…

…and that nothing The Devil could do would make her break.

…

She was sure of it…