“With hand on my heart, and peace in my mind, I salute the bird of empire. Ave Accipter!”

— Imperator Ludocus Vale, ‘The Great Mediator’

Chapter One: Heroes and Victims

Several months before becoming an imperial asset, Lyzer Kaere, pride of the resistance, lounges in her cot. Chione Base is a cramped place, but the golden girl has her own private quarters and loves to use that fact when she’s flirting with girls still young enough to act starstruck in her presence. In her hand sits the voice recorder her shrink forced her to talk to “if you’re not gonna tell me shit anyway.” At first, the memos were a chore that Lyzer humoured, but after a year of talking into her hand before every outing, the act has become a sacred ritual to her. She’s stressed beyond belief, and—while she’d never admit as much, even to her recorder—scared shitless that every mission is going to be her last. It’s not dying that the cocky resistance ace is afraid of, but failure. They call her a hero now, here in the base, and with that title comes a universal truth: she cannot afford to let everybody down.

“And then there was Elena. I mean ah, Colonel Reese. She was such a hardass for the first few months that I was under her, until the night we got some liquor into her and she became a total fucking pushover, ahaha. Lady confessed she was actually a huge fan of me, and what I thought was a stick up her ass was just her over correcting her little fangirl crush on me for the sake of her career. By the end of the night, I had her eating out the palm of my hand… not sure I really had a uniform kink until then, seeing my superior blackout drunk, fancy jacket torn open as she got herself ah… comfortable in my lap. One night stand, but hey, that’s just how it goes. She was a lot older anyway.” Lyzer mostly just talks about women in her memos. It stills her nerves, reminds her what she is: not just a hero—that could mean anything, really—but a fucking winner.

“Hey, Lyz, your chariot awaits!” The young, red-headed mechanic Lyzer’s had to herself once or twice already pops her freckled face into the pilot’s quarters. Such a cute thing, if a little scrawny, Lyzer muses, casting a playful smirk towards the entrance to her room. The mechanic’s blush contrasts against the specks of motor oil on her cheeks, and—had she the time—Lyzer would almost certainly tease the girl until she’s a whimpering mess. Again.

Click. Pocketing her recorder, the most recognisable person in Chione Base jumps up from her cot and grabs her leather bomber jacket, throwing it on as she pushes past the mechanic with little concern for personal space.

“Cheer my name while I’m out there risking my ass for you, ‘kay? Might be a kiss in it if I’m in a good enough mood when I get back. In other words, if I merk enough imps to get me hard.” The young soldier turned resistance fighter runs fingers through her chestnut brown hair and shoots an almost cartoonish wink back towards the girl who just fixed up her Leon, before disappearing into the corridor on her way to the hangar bay.

The mechanic, Relle, appears a little dazed, standing outside of Lyzer’s quarters and watching the hero’s back fade from view. Such a charmer, she thinks, wondering if that promise of a kiss was more than simply hollow flirting.

And… wondering why Lyzer’s hands were shaking so damn much, too.

Present day, Chione Base. Lyzer Kaere is home, back in her cot, listening to another memo from the voice recorder the resistance salvaged from the site where the pilot’s mech had been torn apart by heavy artillery. The little device had survived, and now they’re making her listen to her old recordings—her old self—in the hopes that it will help put their broken hero back together.

Lyzer purses her lips. She doesn’t quite remember recording these messages, nor the anecdotes contained within. Even so, there’s some relatability in them; she’s also accustomed to the life of a barracks bunny, sleeping with every officer that wants a piece of her. The stranger with her voice is a lot more confident than she is, that much is obvious, but Lyzer also finds her rather irritating, too. Disrespecting your superiors isn’t very smart.

“Today, we lost Cerre. For good this time.”

The girl in the cot suddenly feels tense, perking up at that familiar name. She shrinks into herself, hunching over even more and focusing on her current activity: painting her toenails—gold, like the imperial hawk. On the side table next to her, the voice recorder is accompanied by an array of beauty products that Miss Kaere’s former CO had been reluctant to procure for the poor girl before seeing how much Lyzer needed the comfort. Rehabilitation is a slow process, and some things can never be made whole again. You just have to fill the cracks as best you can, and they hope that these recordings might help that along.

“You can heal, but there will always be scars. All you can do is wear ‘em well. That’s what the tough old bitch said to me tonight, when I had my embarrassing break down at finding out that the imp who devastated our formation until we finally put ‘em down was… uh… well, I mean… shit. It was Cerre. Her flight suit was drenched in spit, and she’d been muzzled like a fucking dog.”

The former pilot smiles weakly at her toes, wiggling them and feeling satisfied with the way they look in the low light of her private quarters. Glamorous, like a good trophy bitch should be. Except… she’s not doing that anymore. She’s back with the good guys, apparently. The handler’s enemies.

Panic floods her heart again.

“I need to calm down,” says the recording, and Lyzer nods in agreement with a quiet whine. Her heart stills, and she takes a deep breath to ground herself. After half a minute of shared silence between herself and the recording, the hero finds her voice again.

“I guess… I don’t gotta be brave here. Nobody’s ever going to listen back to these recordings but me. Hell, I’ll take ‘em to the grave if I have to. So uh, yeah. I’m not okay. Like, sure, I don’t really know what the fuck ‘okay’ is even supposed to be, but I can tell it sure as shit ain’t this. They all think I’m some perfect hero, treating me like a damn war goddess, and I uh… I don’t know if that’s right. Out there in the dirt, with those imperial fuckers… I feel like I’m just… lashing out, y’know? There’s nothing heroic about what I do, even if it’ll hopefully do some good in the end. End of the day, I’m just a killer. Doesn’t really matter that the people I kill are, in my humble opinion, evil fascist cunts I barely see as human… ‘cause like, I don’t feel human either. Not really. I’m just a machine, a weapon. It doesn’t hurt, or bring me shame. Shit like that ain’t for me. I like it, killing, even if I know that’s 360 degrees of fucked. What stings is the way they talk about me back at the base, because it makes me feel like a fake. Feels like I tricked everyone, ahaha, and sometimes I get this nagging, shameful feeling that I have to apologise to these starry-eyed greenhorns I keep inspiring to take up arms and dive head-first into early graves.” The recording pauses, and the Lyzer of today places her feet down onto the floor with a ringing of metal, leaning forwards in her cot and listening closely. The voice sounds a little bit more like her now. “If… if I’m being completely honest… I sometimes worry about what would happen to me if we actually win this thing. Without the fighting, the killing, who the fuck is Lyzer Kaere?”

Click.

The former pilot lifts her head with a startled gasp; her senses, once sharp, are now dull as a blunted dagger. Her awareness is pitiful. A finger, wreathed in white lambskin leather, has ended the recording, and a woman stands before Lyzer, glaring down at the meek creature imperiously. “What she said, Miss Kaere. Who are you?”

Lyzer turns away, only to be reprimanded immediately. “Don’t look over there, soldier. Eyes on me. Now.” The woman clicks her tongue and Lyzer feels her entire body swell with excitement, quickly obeying the command and staring up at the only person on this entire base that hasn’t made her feel horribly confused and out of place. The others were too gentle with her, and their misplaced reverence was as unbearable for her as it was for the woman on the recorder.

Lips parted, tongue hovering between them, Lyzer takes in the appearance of the stranger before her. Where most in the resistance dress as you’d expect a rag tag alliance of rebels to, this enigmatic figure is in full military dress uniform; navy blue jacket and pencil skirt with golden detailing and a buttoned up shirt beneath with a tucked burgundy tie. On her head sits a garrison cap—also navy, with gold trim—characteristic of a military that no longer exists. Her face is framed by golden blonde hair that hangs down at the sides like knives with blunt bangs descending from that foldable cap, the rest of it tied up into a high ponytail at the back. With piercing jade eyes, the woman glares down at the recovered traitor.

“Let me ask you again, First Lieutenant Lyzer Kaere,” the woman’s fierce gaze does not falter, glancing down at the girl’s chrome prosthetics, painted at the ends with splotches of gold coloured nail polish. “Who are you? The pilot with more imp casualties on her record than any ace in history, or the joke the hawks turned you into once they dug their claws into you?”

Lyzer purses her lips at the harsh words, but does not dare look away. The surgical scars below her hairline, where those brunette roots have begun to take over from the dyed blonde, show the efforts of Chione’s medical team. The neurosurgery was not conducted by a real doctor, but an engineer who usually works with neural ports at best. Nevertheless, they… made her tick better again. Sort of. If anyone asks, she’ll tell them she’s been fixed. It’s basic survival instinct.

“Uhm. The first one, ma’am. But… my coordination’s all wonky, so I can’t pilot right anymore…” The skittish ex-pilot can’t stop staring at the other’s uniform. It’s so… pacifying. She feels at home with this woman immediately, just because of the way she looks and talks. Sure, the uniform isn’t black like Hers, but those gold buttons are enough to make Lyzer think of home.

“But you still want to be of service to your allies, yes? By which I mean, us—the resistance. Do you want to help us kill those imperial ghouls again, or are you still too loyal to your torturers?” Every word from the mysterious figure strikes Lyzer like a closed fist; it feels so relaxing. To a freak like her, pain is sedation. Maybe now she’ll finally be able to sleep.

“I never stopped wanting to kill them, ma’am. Every night, I dreamt of it. Even while I thanked them all for using me, with genuine gratitude, I still felt that urge. It was on purpose, I think… denial, like uh…” Lyzer stares down at the cage between her legs and swallows hard, realising she’s not wearing any clothes. Her naked body is a mess of scars and discolourations.

“It’s alright, soldier. You don’t have to lie to me; I know you’re still broken. I’ll be taking over your rehabilitation, effective immediately, and I mean to try a much different approach to your old commanding officer. Those bruises… they’re fresh. You’ve been back for months, so where did you get those?” The woman in uniform stares at Lyzer’s naked, beaten body without flinching.

The girl smiles. It is a weak, yet bitter smile. Her feelings are complicated, and—in her opinion—unknowable to any mortal who walks this earth. Only She could understand; the revenant.

“I can’t tell you that.” Lyzer’s smile holds. She’s been used by so many people here in the months that she’s been back, but she wanted it. She’s just like the woman in the recording, a nymphomaniac, except where the ace liked girls to please her, this Lyzer knows only how to service her betters like a whore. She had to beg—or goad—them into hitting her, so it wouldn’t be fair to get them in trouble for it after the fact.

“Hm. Very well. You won’t be sleeping in here anymore, so I’ll let it slide.” Again, the woman seems unfazed. Lyzer is fascinated by the way this intimidating newcomer doesn’t avert her gaze from the bitch’s face like everyone else in the base does, even old friends. Especially old friends.

“Uhm… ma’am? What do you mean?” Lyzer’s knees touch, her black prosthetics leaning inwards. She doesn’t look like a fighter at all anymore.

“I want you to address me as Sir,” the woman demands, the title causing Lyzer to grit her teeth. She feels hot and cold at the same time, staring at the woman incredulously as though asking her if she’s sure. “That’s what you answered her with, right? So your report says, anyway—everything I’ve been given regarding what you told your doctors and CO about your imperial captors over the past couple months.”

“Y-Yes… uh… Sir.” Immediately after saying the word, Lyzer bites her bottom lip, tugging it back into her mouth with a guilty look up at the woman she just obeyed.

“It’s okay, Miss Kaere. You don’t have to pretend with me. Like I said, my approach is different to the program they’ve been trying to fix you with up until now. They’re attempting to restore something that isn’t there anymore, aren’t they? I want to make you useful as you are, loyal to the cause. I want to help you, Lyzer, and not the phantom yet haunting our cadets’ walls.”

“You can heal, but there will always be scars. All you can do is wear ‘em well,” Lyzer parrots with a distant smile, her eyes once again roaming the other’s uniform. Sir’s uniform. Suddenly, she feels giddy. “Yes, Sir.”

“Then from now on,” the woman extends a hand, “I’ll be your handler here in the base.”

Lyzer stares. Her head is filled with white noise, making the sensations of the room seem so distant. She’s transported back in time, sitting on the hospital bed back when she first lost her legs. Starry-eyed, beaming up at the woman offering her a hand.

Without thinking, Lyzer lurches forwards, pushing her cheek into that proffered hand and nuzzling it eagerly. The action gives her new ‘handler’ pause, the woman raising an eyebrow at the convenient misunderstanding. Lyzer’s eyes fall shut, and she feels paradise against her skin. That smooth white lambskin feels like a master’s hand should. All Sir needs to do is squeeze, and it’d be fucking perfect.

“Lyzer,” the woman calls, after half a minute of silent, deferent nuzzling, “can you stand up? Let’s go for a walk.”

The malleable traitor—twisted into living propaganda by the enemy—lets out a long sigh, and then nods into the other’s hand sluggishly. “Okay, Sir.” Another rush. Every time she addresses her superior like this, Lyzer feels a little more herself. The only self she knows that isn’t a ghost in a voice recorder, anyway.

When she stands, Lyzer notices just how short her new everything is. The imperial handler towered above her, but Lyzer finds that she has at least half a foot on her new one. This time, the woman looks up at her—gaze no less sharp—and the brain damaged girl realises that their difference in height doesn’t appear to stop her feeling smaller. She should be beneath this woman, she has to be; it’s the only thing that makes sense.

“Get dressed and pack anything you wish to take with you, okay? You won’t be coming back to this room again.”

“Yes, Sir.” The panic that had previously tormented Lyzer from the moment she was stolen back by her old comrades finally dissipates. The surgery and hypnotherapy had locked away whatever it was that made her so miserable in the first couple of weeks, but the absence still made her restless. Now, she has something to focus on. Somebody to tell her what to do—put her in her place.

The rebel handler waits by the door, silently—patiently—as Lyzer dresses. Her old clothes feel so strange to her now, but it’s all that’s in her wardrobe. As she slides her prosthetic legs into the olive drab cargo pants and throws on her white tank top and brown leather jacket, she feels like a parody of the woman she’s spent the past month listening to on her recorder. She feels so covered up, when a mascot like her is supposed to be exposed—shown off. She feels alien. Her hair is a blend of blonde and brown, draping over her shoulders in its long, messy shag. She’s lost so much weight, too, since returning to the base. Lyzer never did think much of the gruel they serve here in Chione’s mess hall.

When the time comes to collect her things, Lyzer scoops the cosmetic products from the side table into her jacket pockets, and then stares at the recorder, wondering if she needs it anymore. She’ll probably get told off if she leaves it, she tells herself, with a distant, wryly amused expression. And… at the end of the day, it’s an heirloom of sorts. Lyzer decides to bring it along with her.

“That’s everything,” she states, only slightly embarrassed at how little she has to call her own. When her eyes return to the other woman’s, she realises she was never given her superior’s name. For some reason she finds that comforting, and so decides not to ask.

The handler nods, turning to leave the quarters. “Follow.”

Without hesitation, Lyzer does as she’s told.

Out in the corridor, Lyzer drifts. She’s used to dissociating the moment she enters a public space, but where she’d stumble through the base and lose her sense of direction in the interstice between one handler and the next, now she walks straight. She has someone to follow again.

“You can walk beside me if you prefer,” the handler remarks, with a bemused look Lyzer isn’t able to view while walking at the woman’s heel. It’s a vain thought, perhaps, but she envies the fact that Lyzer gets to keep her head down and focus on the handler’s body as she walks, because the state of their stronghold is pitiful. Rust hugs every surface it can reach, and the floor is painted with myriad stains she’d rather not dwell on. While Averna, the last free city, is by no means utopian itself, Chione, the closest resistance base to the front, is a decaying shithole the handler feels ashamed to traverse the halls of. Some would find pride in their resilience as a nation—their resolve to persevere no matter how dire their living conditions become—but to the handler, who understands that their war is not nearly as one-sided as it must appear, details like this annoy her. The suffering here is a farce, at least for those who don’t participate in battle. For the pilots, their fight is out there, on the front. For the handler, her battle is behind her, matching her pace dutifully.

“Uhm…” The follower lowers her head, staring at her painted metal limbs and then trailing her eyes up to the other’s legs. She settles on the depressions behind the knee joints on either leg, following them as the woman moves. They’re so pretty, thinks Lyzer, feeling like a pervert for fixating on such a random body part. She imagines herself being made to lick them and forgets what her superior had just told her.

“Behind it is, then.” The woman nods, more to herself than to Lyzer. She needs to learn how to control this girl the way they did, over in the empire. She believes this to be a more effective method of salvaging what’s left of Lyzer Kaere than fruitlessly attempting to rehabilitate her. She knows that her morals are greyer than gunmetal, but this is all in service to the mission. Lyzer needs to be ready—needs to be loyal—when the time comes to put the plan in motion. It took a lot of convincing for the resistance’s high command to let her try this new approach, and she’s ended up on a lot of the leaderships’ shit-lists as a result, but the woman is used to being the most unpopular person at the bases she’s assigned to. She thrives on challenge. Walking with a sway that captures the former womaniser’s undivided attention, the new handler resolves to stop at nothing in order to make Lyzer Kaere her devoted lapdog. If this girl can’t rightly function without being property, then her new superior intends to claim ownership.

Lyzer nods too, placated by the whiff of the handler’s fragrance. Where her old everything only smelled of leather and cigar smoke, this one wears a sweet perfume that makes her seem much more like a woman than a demon. It’s less intimidating, but just as easy to get hooked on. Maybe she really is a dog.

As the two walk through the base in their single-file hierarchy, Lyzer pays no attention to the strange looks she is given. Neither does her superior; both are used to being outcasts by this point, and so—in a way—they make a fitting pair. Each of them would already stick out like a sore thumb on their own, with the handler’s full dress uniform being a relic of a bygone era and Lyzer’s face being instantly recognisable to anybody with eyes, but together they turn enough heads and stoke enough conversations to risk disrupting the base’s usual daily activities.

After a short while of walking in silence, the two reach their destination.

“This is…”

“The mess hall.” The handler finishes her subordinate’s sentence with a dry smile that gives the impression she’s much older than she really is. While she carries herself like a dignified older servicewoman, Lyzer can tell that the woman she’s been paired up with is around the same age as her. Maybe even younger. “You need to start eating properly. I’ll tolerate no less than three meals a day for you while you’re under my care. Whine and complain all you like, I’m not a pushover like those old friends of yours who couldn’t bring themselves to take your situation seriously. So you’ll shut up, sit, and eat.” The bossy resistance handler, whose actual rank and station Lyzer isn’t even sure of, freezes the room with her icy glare then nods her head to the cook with a placative smile. Packed inside of Chione’s mess hall are various resistance pilots, mechanics, technicians and base support staff. All of them are dressed more like Lyzer is than the woman in uniform, who leads her pet project to an empty table that appears to have been reserved just for the two of them. Lyzer feels grateful for not having to sit with others; she wishes that everyone in this base could just leave her alone and let her think. Usually, anyway. Maybe Sir is an exception; so far she remains silent when she isn’t telling Lyzer something important, like what to do.

While their food is being prepared, Lyzer notices the shift in atmosphere in the mess hall since their arrival. She catches intermittent laughter from several other tables, particularly the one that most of the pilots are seated at. When she follows their eyes, she suddenly understands them to be laughing at the woman sitting across from her, who appears not to notice. Why would they be laughing at her, Lyzer wonders, mood souring as though she already has cause to be protective of the woman she’s been beneath for all of half an hour.

“Uhm, Sir? They’re—”

“Let them. You can’t expect simple cannon fodder for the imps to understand the importance of my work, and besides, their only real exposure to military garb is that of our enemies. Most of them are a decade younger than we are, Lyzer. They never had the chance to serve—never saw what our nation was before the invasion. In their eyes, I’m just as much a freak as you are. At least you have your war stories, eh? All I have to talk about is bureaucracy.” So she had noticed. Lyzer finds herself in awe of the woman’s composure, her ancient gambler’s spirit returning from beyond the grave to remark that the handler’s poker face must be legendary.

“Hardly,” Lyzer replies, giving her superior a sheepish grin as she plays with the recorder in her hand idly. “She only ever talks about sex. It’s a pain. I get really pent up and have to turn it off, and then have to either admit that to Mrs. Hill or uh, make stuff up. They made it… hard to lie, so I usually have to embarrass myself.”

“By ‘they’, you mean the hawks?”

Lyzer nods, itching the scar on her head.

“And, ah, you didn’t have any trouble admitting any of that to me?”

This time, the former ace’s expression is slightly coyer than usual. In that expression, the handler sees a glimpse of Lyzer Kaere’s former self. “Well, I guess I find it easier to confess things to my superior officer than to some shrink.”

“A trait you share with your former self, judging by that device in your hand.” The nameless woman smirks, but only briefly. Her playful demeanour is as rare and fleeting as a shooting star, and she soon returns to her usual uptight self.

A shout from over the mess hall’s counter informs the two that their food is ready. The handler cracks her fingers, and Lyzer finds herself once again mesmerised by the creaking lambskin leather she had disappeared into earlier.

“Go and fetch it for us, won’t you?” the woman says, her tone stern enough to let the brain-damaged veteran know it’s more of a command than a genuine question. Excitement brews inside of her once again, and Lyzer gives her superior a slow, deferent nod before quickly shooting up onto her black chrome feet. Upon standing, she accidentally locks eyes with some of the gossiping pilots and recoils at the dirty looks they’re giving her. When she first returned, most people here on the base appeared starstruck, and then, over the proceeding few weeks, they began to look at her with nothing but pity. Eventually, pity became disgust. She was the traitorous pig they’d all seen on the imperial broadcasts and poster campaigns after all, and it became clear to them that the ace pilot they’d looked up to never made it home.

Fortunately for Lyzer, the pain of being seen as a worthless failure—as human trash wasting this base’s resources, or just the air around her—gets her off like nothing else. She’s grateful for her cage as she feels the sudden tightness between her legs, breath hitching at the way she becomes the subject of their catty whisperings. Good. For a mascot bitch, all attention is good attention. Besides, she recognises a good half of those faces as women she’s offered her body to over the past month or so. Ingrid punches like a girl and Thela kisses like a teenage boy.

With heavy metal footsteps, Lyzer plods over to the counter, giving the woman behind it a lopsided grin as she rests her elbows beside the steaming tray of food.

“Hey, kid. You’re looking livelier today. Gave you an extra portion on me, so promise you’ll eat it or there’ll be hell to pay.” The cook pushes the tray closer, and Lyzer lifts her hanging head to face her.

“Thanks, Ma.” Lyzer can’t help but smile every time she addresses this woman by the maternal title, but it’s what everyone here calls her and it isn’t hard to see where the moniker came from. She’s the oldest woman on the base as far as Lyzer can tell, with wispy silver hair and a face aged by long years of serving a country that refuses to die. “Smells delicious.”

“Don’t bullshit me, girl. You used to give me so much grief about my cooking back in the day, you little shit. Finally got some peace and quiet in here after the imps got you, but… well, it weren’t the same without you, kid. Glad you’re doing a little better, it’s about fucking time.”

Lyzer isn’t sure how to respond to that. Is she doing better? She tilts her head to look back over at the woman in uniform waiting patiently for her return and feels that strange swell of excitement in her chest again. That’s right, she isn’t here to retrieve their food out of the goodness of her blackened heart, but because she was commanded to. By her handler…

She feels both horrified and elated that this was all it took to make her perk up.

“I’ll eat it all, Ma, just you watch.” Lyzer smirks, staring down at the unappetising gruel before her and wondering if it’s really okay for Sir to eat something so depressing. In the distant recesses of her mind, locked within a maze of marbled glass constructed by the doctors and Mrs. Hill, Lyzer vaguely recalls her last superior’s meals. Only the finest cuisine. Even more distantly, Lyzer feels the phantom sting from the scars on her lower back—recalls the searing heat—from the time She cut and ate Her steak using the bitch as Her dining table.

“You look shaken. The cook didn’t give you a hard time, did she?” The handler remains as stoic as ever, even as the gossiping from the other tables continues unabashed.

Lyzer sits, wearing a wry expression as she considers just how easily everyone around her seems to read her face. “No, it’s just. You’re… supposed to be above all this, aren’t you?”

The handler’s eyes narrow, fingers interlacing. “Tell me what you mean. Don’t hold back.” She needs to know what she’s doing wrong; she needs to become a god in Lyzer’s eyes if this is going to work at all.

Lyzer feels at home shrinking under her superior’s piercing stare. “I mean, uh. Letting those dogs make fun of you. One look from a woman like you should silence them in a heartbeat, right? And I’m surprised you’re even disgracing yourself by dining in a public space like this to begin with, n-not to mention eating the same grey shit as us.”

While Lyzer talks, exposing all the faults in the handler’s performance, the woman across from her listens intensely to what she’s being told. She learns. It does not shock her to discover just how a superior officer in the empire might behave; what interests her more is the sparkle in Lyzer Kaere’s eyes as she speaks on it. She needs to make Lyzer’s eyes shine like that for her.

“Well, you’re wrong about one thing,” the handler explains, unbuttoning her jacket to retrieve something from the inside pocket and setting it down on the table with a resounding clack that causes Lyzer to straighten her back instinctively. The subordinate’s eyes lock onto the peculiar object now sitting on the table: a small plastic bottle in the shape of an upright bear, half filled with a thick golden substance Lyzer recognises instantly. “I won’t tolerate flavourless food.”

“That’s…”

“I know. Almost a decade since we lost the means to produce any more, but it keeps extremely well. It’s highly expensive, but I see little point in saving such luxuries for special occasions you may never live to see.” Lyzer can feel the handler’s pride, reading the woman as easily as she herself is typically read these days. An impish curl touches upon the girl’s lips as she shakes her head softly.

“Actually, I was gonna say… uhm, well. It’s just… surprisingly cute.”

The handler furrows her brow. “Would you like some?”

Lyzer salivates at the sight of the bottle, having not tasted real honey since she was a teenager, but then quickly shakes her head. “It’s only proper that your meal is superior to mine, Sir. I’m relieved…”

“Quite.” The handler nods, taking mental note of this obsession with strict hierarchy that was no doubt tortured into the poor girl and deciding that her only option is to ruthlessly adopt it. Doing so is a kindness for a broken thing like this, or so she tells herself. For the mission.

The two proceed to dine in silence, the handler mixing the honey into her serving to sweeten the oats before picking up her spoon. She watches Lyzer eat with light disgust, wondering if Miss Kaere’s poor etiquette is a result of her time being dehumanised by the empire or just bad habit from the ace’s glory days. Forgoing the spoon, Lyzer simply grips either side of the bowl and pours the thin porridge into her mouth without a second thought over how she looks in doing so. Only when she lowers the bowl back down and locks eyes with the woman judging her does Lyzer bashfully wipe off the food covering her chin and chuckle shyly.

“You called them dogs,” the handler says, still mixing the oats with her spoon. Thankful for the change of focus, though slightly uncomfortable with the new topic at hand, Lyzer turns to look at the pilots’ table again and reminds herself that they’re just regular folks. Not Her hounds. These resistance fighters hold onto their humanity, fight for their dignity, whereas the dogs she confused them for followed orders for treats and nothing else.

“Well, it’s foggy… Mrs. Hill locked away a lot of the past couple years inside of boxes she littered around the maze in my head, so we can uh… revisit them holistically?”

The handler cocks her head, not quite following the metaphor but getting the gist of it. “But, some things seep out?”

“Vaguely, yes.” Lyzer grips the edge of the table, her knuckles turning white. “The dogs I mentioned, they uh… looked just like those pilots over there. Same kinda clothes and everything, but with basket muzzles strapped to their faces. So I got confused.”

“We’re aware of… their kind, yes. Though also only vaguely. Do you recall what happened to your comrade, Cerre?”

Lyzer slips her hand into her pocket, gripping the recorder like an object of prayer. “Only from the memos. We were sexually involved, and then she got turned into a dog. Now she’s in the ground. Life goes on, right?”

“Well, I suppose that sort of detached outlook isn’t too uncommon around here. Most of us adopt that sort of stone-hearted logic in order to keep ourselves going. You might be a special case even among the rest of us, though, of course.” The handler finally takes a bite of her food, giving her dining partner an assessing look that makes Lyzer feel like she’s under a microscope.

“Why’s that, Sir?” Lyzer tilts her head like a confused puppy.

“Because your voice lilted—and you started blushing—as you explained that your friend had died.”

“Existential masochism?” the handler interjects, much to the chagrin of Mrs. Adine Hill. Lunch had to be cut short when Lyzer noticed the time, realising she was running late for her weekly session with the shrink. This time, she led, and the handler followed. The woman was not about to let her new subordinate out of her sight, and so here she is.

“Ma’am,” Hill returns, removing her gaze from her client to the conspicuous third wheel who pulled herself out a stool to sit in on this private session. “While I don’t have the authority to remove you outright, I must insist that you make your presence as… non-disruptive as possible, so that I may retain consistency with my client. You’re liable to confuse her if you’re talking over me.” The older psychiatrist sighs, removing her glasses and wiping them with a cloth as Lyzer looks between the two women quietly.

“I don’t mind… I’m not confused or anything.” The girl in the recliner tries to hide her amusement, and decides not to explicitly confess how much more comfortable she feels in this storied room with her superior at her side. Lyzer turns towards the handler and answers the woman’s inquiry herself—eagerly, as though it’ll earn her points. “She means uh, that it excites me when bad things happen to me. Pain—emotional or physical—really gets me off, Sir.”

“While such a concept can be opted into by an individual as a means of philosophical self-actualisation, taking the bad as something to embrace and derive wisdom from,” Mrs. Hill continues, taking over from her client while making reluctant eye-contact with the handler, “Lyzer’s masochism is a coping mechanism beaten into her by her captors, be it deliberate or incidental. It is a response to extreme emotional distress. You have to understand how important it is not to indulge these unhealthy responses should we ever want to see the girl heal.”

The handler nods slowly, deep in thought. “What would happen if we were to indulge them, in your professional opinion?”

“Then she’d remain broken, dysfunctional.” Mrs. Hill squints behind her glasses, letting her animosity win out over her professionalism for just a moment. “Tch. Is this why you’ve dressed yourself up in those borrowed clothes? Eager to undo months of progress I’ve made with my client to satisfy your own ego?” The shrink all but scowls at the intruder, causing Lyzer to perk up. She’s never seen Mrs. Hill lose her composure like this before. Lyzer understands the conversation taking place around her well enough, but decides not to worry about it too much. She just breathes in deep the scent of the handler’s perfume and lets her superior do the talking. Like they’re both on a team against the deluded psychiatrist and her misplaced faith in her work. You can heal, but there will always be scars. Lyzer wants to wear hers like medals.

The handler wets her lips, leaning forwards as though she’s accepting the other woman’s challenge. “Fixed doesn’t necessarily mean better for the cause, yes? Broken doesn’t necessarily mean useless, either. The Empire clearly got a lot of use out of our legend here after doing this to her. I’ll ask you to keep doing your job here, Adine, and you let me do mine. Theoretically speaking, if we were to indulge the way she is now, could that not still help her in the long run?”

Lyzer feels like she’s listening in on a conversation that she shouldn’t be privy to, but the handler doesn’t seem to care at all about her overhearing all of this. It’s comforting to have it out in the open, she supposes. Exciting, even.

“Theoretically, sure, were I to trust in the attentions of the individual administering such therapy. If it were done carefully, with the goal of eventual rehabilitation through gradual reduction of such control. You’re not concerned about that, though. Are you?” It’s obvious, even to a scatterbrain like Lyzer, that Mrs. Hill detests her new saviour figure.

Nonplussed, the handler shakes her head. “No, of course not. Given the details of my assignment—which I’m not naive enough to think you haven’t already pestered the brass for before I arrived—what’s the point?”

Mrs. Hill is stunned by her opponent’s bluntness, turning away from them both. When she returns her gaze, it has softened—not in agreement, but resignation. It’s clear she doesn’t wish to press the issue further, and so proceeds with the session as though the handler isn’t there. The woman in the corner doesn’t seem to mind this; she’s used to being a ghost.

“Miss Kaere, I want to end today’s session as we always do: entering the maze and opening the first box that you come across. We’ll talk about what you find within, and then we’ll lock it back up. Do you understand, dear?”

Lyzer nods. She’s usually more nervous at this stage in the session, but today she finds herself sufficiently distracted. “Yes, S— I mean, ahaha, y-yes Mrs. Hill.” The girl glances to her left, face bright red from embarrassment, and the handler waves dismissively.

Mrs. Hill, for her part, still isn’t used to the Lyzer Kaere—the self-aggrandising brat who’d been a persistent thorn in the woman’s side for years here at Chione—addressing her so respectfully.

“Then lay back into the chair and just relax for me, dear. You may close your eyes if it makes you more comfortable, or if they grow heavy. We’ve done this enough times by now, I suppose.”

Lyzer nods again, doing exactly as she’s told. Her eyes flutter closed and she begins constructing the maze before Mrs. Hill even opens her mouth. At this point in her life, Lyzer is extremely susceptible to hypnotherapy, and so took to these sessions without any trouble. It only gets ugly once she’s under, and fortunately she doesn’t have to remember that part.

So Mrs. Hill leads, and the hypnotised subject follows. All the while, their spectator sits and watches—quietly, with confidence in her mission becoming ever stronger. The handler checks her timepiece—a pocket watch she’s carried on her person since she inherited it at the age of ten—and yawns into her gloved hand.

“And, what do you find inside of the box?” Hill probes her subject, calmly resting her hands in her lap.

“Uhm. It’s… hazy. I think… the day I was nabbed.” Lyzer’s sleepy, monotone voice grabs the handler’s attention. She’s fascinated with hypnosis, but not for the same reasons that Adine Hill admires it. This woman covets one thing: control, and she sees this vulnerable trance state as everything else used to get into Lyzer Kaere’s head…

A means to an end.

“When we took you back?”

“No it was… they were slavers, I think. We were on a press tour, way out in the boonies… they must’ve either waited purposely for Daedaleon’s maintenance period to launch their ambush, or were just extremely lucky. We were changing out her plating to a different kind… something to do with the elements out there. Like, we were all way more covered up than usual on account of the dust storms; even me.”

“And then what happened?”

Lyzer shifts uncomfortably on the recliner, fidgeting. “Well, they… threw a bag over my head. There were so many vehicles all around us, out of nowhere. We had an entire imperial convoy of course, but it all happened so quick and these slavers were smart. Our vehicles all used electronic fuel injection and computer controls, whereas the slavers’ were old fashioned types. A single electromagnetic pulse and it was an unfair fight. If Daedaleon had its plating on, the faraday shielding would’ve prevented it from getting fried but… like I said, they were timely. Guns were fired, and I bet there were casualties on both sides, but… well they got me. Took me from Her. Took me… from Her. That part wasn’t clever. They uh… they’ll regret that when She comes for me.”

Lyzer’s new handler cocks her head, sharing a look with Mrs. Hill that silently conveys how impressed she is with both the subject’s recollection and also her technical know-how.

“Our sources tell us this person you’re referring to returned to the imperial capital and has not left it since. Nor have we caught wind of any scouting effort orchestrated by the hawks to locate these ‘slavers’ you speak of. In other words, it would appear that your former captors—whom you talk about like they’re your allies—have cut their losses and moved on.” The handler does not hold back, causing Mrs. Hill to click her tongue furiously and shoot the interloper the dirtiest look she can muster. She wishes the woman could understand just how destructive her interjection could be for Lyzer’s mental stability.

“What? No… no… She’ll come get me. I’m property. I’m the mascot…” Lyzer whines, lowering her head and cradling her face with her hands.

“Judging by their current campaign, you’ve already been replaced.” Without mercy, the handler pushes further. “She doesn’t need you any more, Miss Kaere. She doesn’t want you.”

Atop the recliner, Lyzer shrinks. Still in trance—deep within the maze inside her mind—the girl absorbs the words being fed to her and strains against her cage. She squirms, her face burning with masochistic bliss—her one and only vice.

“She doesn’t want me? Aha… ahahaha… fuck.” For Lyzer, in this regressed mental state she was supposed to be unpacking carefully with her psychiatrist, this is the ultimate pain. The ultimate pleasure. Every cigar burn kissing her torso, every scar decorating her back—each and every degrading word that punctured the pitiful whelp’s psyche and made her lesser—they were all in service of nothing. She is discarded. Replaced.

“Replaced…” Lyzer pants, drooling onto the ill-fitting white tank top she was made to dress into—like a cosplay. Her tongue lolls out, slowly, and she raises her arms to perform that humiliating imitation of a puppy she’d been trained to do for the cameras. “Ahhh!”

“Authority be damned, woman. Get out of my office, now. You can wait outside while I clean up this mess you’ve made.” Adine snaps, glowering at the woman interfering with her work until the handler finally desists.

With a curt nod, the interloper stands. She looks over at the panicking Lyzer—at her handiwork—and appears satisfied. Then, she leaves, taking care not to slam the door shut on her way out. In the corridor, she waits. Her patience is inviolate. She has finally attained the one thing she has always wanted, above all else: importance—and she will stop at nothing to etch her name in the annals of her oppressed nation’s history.

The handler only has a minute and a half of contemplative silence to herself—timed by the silver pocket watch held in her hand—before the corridor fills with the sound of footsteps. Worse, they’re not passing, but slowing.

“Hey, you. Get in line. My appointment starts in ten, so I dunno what you think you’re doing loitering outside Hill’s office like you’re up next.” A woman approaches, her low, gravely voice contrasting her otherwise youthful appearance. The rough voice gives her away as a mechanic long before the handler gets a better look at her junior, dressed in an oversized grey hoodie and baggy sweatpants, steel-capped work boots inching closer to the woman in full uniform. The lanky, blue-collar worker presents the handler her asymmetrical glare; one eye blue, the other clouded over by an untreated cataract. Her oil-specked scowl is framed by messy red hair stretching down past her shoulders.

“Don’t mind me; I’m just waiting for the current session to end, that’s all”

“Little Lyzer’s in there, yeah?” The woman snorts, leaning against the wall by the door with her hands in her pockets. “So… that makes you her new caretaker? Fuck’s with the getup?”

“Is there something wrong with what I’m wearing?” Flattening down her uniform and buttoning the jacket back up, the handler stares down the newcomer with a glare that would melt Lyzer Kaere.

Unfortunately for her, most people here on Chione are not so easy. They’ve all been through hell, but most of them have yet to reach the other side and be broken by it.

“Lady, if you wanna embarrass yourself playing dress up while the rest of us do our goddamn jobs then be my guest. Pretend I didn’t say nothin’, okay?”

The handler bristles. She remembers Lyzer’s review from earlier, in the mess hall, and reminds herself that she’s so much more than this lowly mechanic could ever hope to be.

She needs to become the revenant.

“Know your place, menial. Show some damned respect or I’ll have you thrown out of this base within 24 hours, no severance. I’m serious.” The woman puffs her chest out as the corner of her lip twitches into an uncertain curl. That should be enough to spell the rift between them, right? A uniform has to mean something. Authority has to matter. If the people of this resistance truly wish to spit upon the last vestiges of rank, then the handler has no choice but to concede that maybe their nation got what it fucking deserved.

When she sees the mechanic’s genuine smirk eclipsing her own fake one, the handler sees her attempt at asserting herself for what it truly is: a limp, pathetic effort. She feels small, worthless, wondering what it takes to make rats like these look at her the same way her new pet does.

“Pfft. Real cute, lady. Think I wanna be here that badly?”

The handler has no retort.

She spends the next few minutes of fragile silence contemplating how she can make herself into the superior being she so desperately wants to become. Her thoughts wander back to the report she had read almost ten times over before arriving at Chione, recalling the way Lyzer described the imperial handler like she really was an ascended being. And not just to Lyzer, but to the rest of the imperial core. From how she talked about it, at least, the woman wreathed in black leather—with bone white hair and deep, penetrative eyes—stood above it all. The first feeling the rebel handler experiences isn’t animosity towards the monster she ultimately seeks to best, but envy.

She’s still deep in thought when the door to Mrs. Hill’s office swings open, revealing a timid Lyzer who looks between the two women waiting outside curiously. Their silence is deafening.

“Uh… hey.” Lyzer Kaere removes one hand from her jacket’s pockets and gives the two a half-hearted wave. The front of her tank top is drenched with spit and her bottom lip is bleeding, but she doesn’t appear to be fazed by such trivial things.

“There’s our puppy pariah. You still swinging by tonight, or has your new mommy got you on a curfew now?” The mechanic throws an arm around Lyzer’s shoulder, causing the girl to stumble on her prosthetics. The newcomer glances at the handler, still amused by the woman’s sad attempt at flaunting her supposed authority. “’Bout time somebody tightened her leash. Thought we brought a hero home, but all she’s been good for so far is keeping us busy at night.”

“Relle…” Lyzer’s eyes shoot down to the floor, at that glamorous golden nail polish decorating her artificial feet. She realises that, despite them being obvious prosthetics, she looks like she’s walking around barefoot in these pants. For some reason, that makes her smile.

“Come, Lyzer,” the handler commands, more stoic than ever. She can’t stop thinking. She needs to figure it out—godhood—or she’ll be forever trapped in the shadow of the hawk. “And you. Relle, was it? I’ll call for an ophthalmologist to arrive tomorrow from Averna. If you’re lucky, they’ll be able to fix your eye by dinner time.”

“Uh… what? I…” The redhead releases Lyzer and turns her face away, pulling up her hood. “Sure. Appreciate it.” She shrugs, clearly at a loss. Seeing the mechanic struggle to find the words gives the handler some much needed catharsis, the corners of her mouth raising into a self-satisfied simper. This is how you play the game.

“You’re going to be late for your appointment.” The handler steps closer and retrieves her property, once again sedating Lyzer with her modest perfume.

“Right.” Relle disappears into the office, slamming the door shut behind her. In the silence that follows, the handler locks eyes with her subordinate. Her firm stare does all the talking.

“She’s uh… a friend.” Lyzer repositions herself behind her superior instinctively, wiping her chin.

Sighing out now that she’s in less challenging company, the handler smiles darkly. “Don’t kid yourself, Miss Kaere. If there’s one thing I’d wager me and that shade tree mechanic have in common, it’s that neither of us has a friend to our name. Follow.”

Lyzer follows, happy for the simple act of walking at the other’s heel. “Guess that makes three of us, then.”

“We’re at war, Lyzer, fighting for our right to exist with the same freedoms this nation was founded upon. A nation that no longer officially exists. Just wearing this uniform is an act of rebellion. We can all hold hands and sing songs around the fire when we have spilled enough imperial blood to kindle it.”

The follower nods, trying her best to understand. All of this mattered just as much to her as it clearly does to her handler, once upon a time. The voice in the recordings has suggested as much, in the rare instances where it isn’t just reminiscing on sexual conquest. “Um, justice always prevails in the end, right? Or ah, that’s… what the imps say, isn’t it? The hawk prevails… I-I said that on a broadcast, once, I think. Dunno, Hill’s locked those boxes back up tight, but it sounds familiar.” Lyzer chews her lip realising she just tried to follow up her rebel superior’s sentiment with the enemy’s slogan. She feels so embarrassed. “I uh… I guess both sides see themselves as the good guys, which is complicated.”

“Morals have no place in war, Lyzer. That we retaliate in self defence, staving off an army that means to oppress our very way of life, does nothing to change the fact that we soak our hands in blood each and every day. Moralising doesn’t help the cause, it just makes our deaths more tragic if we lose and our victory more bittersweet should we win.” The woman stops, and Lyzer almost walks directly into her back. “I loathe the childish concept that we as people are either good or bad, dehumanising those we’re forced—or choose—to kill, because we’re unable to carry the weight of human lives. Good and evil are idealistic standards none of us are quite able to amount to. If the people of this world are to be separated into two distinct classes, then there are heroes and there are victims.”

“Sir?”

The handler turns around, giving her project an intense look. “In the grand scale of this nation’s story, the heroes are whichever side is destined to prevail, and the victims are the ones who will inevitably perish. Years from now—not so many if our dwindling resources are any indication—once the dust has settled, the future leaders of this country will express their regret over all the lives that had to be lost to bring this conflict to an end. They will express commiserations for their former enemies, who they never once saw as people until the blood ran dry, and tell the world that it must cherish this hard won peace to honour the fallen. Everything in its right place.”

“R-Right. And uh, which side is which?” Lyzer scratches the surgical scar on her head.

“On the smaller scale, though no less important, there’s me and you. The righteous hero and her willing victim, working together to ensure that the answer to that question you just asked is a happy one.” Once again, the nameless saviour holds out her hand. “The right one.”

Lyzer chews her lip more violently, causing the busted flesh to bleed again. “Victim… right.” She pauses, staring at her handler’s proffered hand like a deer caught frozen in headlights’ glare. Tentatively—slowly—Lyzer pushes her cheek against that waiting hand, her face tinting dark red with smouldering shame and excitement. “Mrs. Hill wants to heal me, but it felt like you were um… in opposition?”

The handler smiles, almost kindly. “That’s right. I don’t need to make you better, Miss Kaere. I need to make you mine.”

The subordinate’s eyes sparkle, before closing. Lyzer nuzzles her master’s hand like a good dog, sighing out in relief. After a few long seconds of silent worship from victim to hero, Lyzer speaks.

“Okay,” she says, exhaling calmly. “Good.”

“Come on in. Don’t be shy; these will be your new quarters.” The handler leads her follower into a private room on the south end of the base, where rebel command’s quarters are located. “I hope it’s to your liking?”

Lyzer enters the room like a stray being invited into somebody’s home for the first time. She stares at the king size bed across from her, which looks so out of place in a base like this one, and then glances at the oversized dog bed on the floor beside her. When she opens her mouth to speak, her voice is raspy and quiet.

“Is… is that mine?”

The handler removes her cap and folds it under her arm, smiling joylessly. “That’s right. I was informed that they found you on the floor on the mornings you were called upon early, and so I figured it best to provide you with more suitable sleeping arrangements. I had to pull strings to get my bed constructed here, but it’s… important to the cause.”

“Yeah.” Lyzer nods, dropping herself down onto the thin mattress at the foot of her master’s huge bed. “This is, uh…”

“Did I say you could sit?” The handler’s harsh tone of voice sends a shiver down Lyzer’s spine, and the girl jumps back up onto her feet as quickly as she can. Her relaxed expression disappears into something meek and attentive. “Ah, you really are everything they said you were.” The woman approaches after setting down her cap, turning Lyzer around by her shoulders and removing the docile thing’s jacket. Lyzer does not resist; she wouldn’t know how. “I myself could hardly believe the reports at first. I mean, we had all seen the hawks’ broadcasts, but many still held onto the hope that it wasn’t real. That their hero was still fighting the good fight in some cell while a fake debased herself for a live audience of millions.”

Lyzer swallows hard, feeling those lambskin digits creeping over her bare shoulders and holding her still. The handler’s voice is close enough to feel now, blowing air against her neck and making her dizzy.

“But that was all you, wasn’t it? That’s who you are now—who they made you into—and it’s about time the resistance embraced that, too.” With a firm hold, Lyzer is guided to the wardrobe in the corner of the spacious private quarters. “Open it.”

Tentatively, the girl reaches her hands out, slowly pulling the wardrobe doors open. Several outfits hang from the rail inside, none of them even remotely matching the style of what Lyzer currently wears. These clothes are cute, feminine and revealing; they resemble the mascot uniforms she would wear in the imperial broadcasts and on their poster campaigns. The sort of outfits best suited to pin-up girls that teenagers jerk off to when their libido first awakens.

“Pick one and get dressed, then join me by the mirror.” The handler has spoken, and Lyzer can only obey. Right now, that voice is holy.

“Yes, Sir.” If she was dizzy before, now she’s spiralling. Her eyes are immediately drawn to the pearl white string bikini in the centre, like it was placed there on purpose. Like it’s calling to her. She feels the sudden, overwhelming urge to show off her puppy fat and her bruises to each and every person stationed at this base and prove to them—once and for all—that she’s not a hero, but a victim… and better for it. A giddy, perverse sense of pride grips her as she imagines losing whatever trust she has in these people’s eyes as their hope for her dies like old hounds taken out back. She knows the fantasy is wrong, but it’s a comforting one nonetheless. Lyzer walks in nightmares, and runs from dreams. She escapes the maze the doctors seek to trap her in and follows her new superior into a familiar, homely little hell.

Fingers hook under her top and peel it off without further hesitation. The handler does not avert her gaze; what right does property like Lyzer Kaere have to privacy or respect? The woman’s eyes trace the narrative of pain and pleasure depicted across Miss Kaere’s back and she finds herself grimly admiring her role model’s handiwork. Lyzer’s body is a tapestry of slow, methodical deconstruction. The girl’s personhood has been dissected by every careful act of cruelty, and kindness, performed against her.

“See something you like, Sir?” Even then, with the treatment she has undergone, glimpses of the old Lyzer occasionally shine through. The handler recognises the villainy she has committed herself to in brutalising this progress for the sake of her own agenda, but accepts this as just collateral. Heroes can be evil, and victims can be happy—for a time.

The handler doesn’t respond to Lyzer’s flirtatious question, too lost in her thoughts. Where Lyzer’s mind is a maze, hers is a tempest. She watches Lyzer remove her cargo pants and underwear, returning to the state the woman had found her in earlier in the day; except now, her cage is dripping. Then, shyly, Lyzer retrieves the skimpy bathing suit and cradles it nostalgically. It isn’t black like the one in the posters, nor is it emblazoned with the emblem of the golden hawk, but it’s enough to make her heart stir violently. Phantom sensations kick up inside of her, escaping the labyrinth. She feels the biting chill of the air strip where she posed with the imperial shadow, Daedaleon-Pteryx, and the comforting burn of Handler’s Churchill cigar. She tastes the Cerakote finish of her vat-grown replacement’s firearm and clenches her teeth. Without wasting any more time, she dresses into the pearlescent bikini and stares into the mirror beside the wardrobe.

“I feel like an ugly whore,” Lyzer breathes, slipping back into that hazy, delirious headspace that always made the shame burn so good.

“Is that so?” The handler approaches from behind, seizing her property’s wrists and lifting them up—posing the girl like a doll. “I’d be hesitant to try even guessing the number of people who’ve gotten off to your image at this stage, Miss Kaere, and I mean for both sides of this bloody conflict. For free, no less. So I’d say you’re not ugly, nor a whore. Just… well, pornography. Plain and simple.”

“Simple…” Lyzer’s vision blurs as she gazes longingly into the mirror, at how malleable she becomes in her superior’s firm grip, and revels in the feeling of those tight, gloved fingers controlling her. “Yes, Sir. But ah… it’s not just looking, y’know…”

“You let them use you for relief, yes? If these bruises are your payment, I suppose it’s transactional enough to label you a whore. However, things are different now. You no longer have the freedom to decide how you use this body of yours, understand? I’m taking charge of you now, Miss Kaere, and so I decide when and how you’re taken advantage of.” Power surges through the woman’s fingertips, sapping Lyzer of what little autonomy she possessed. The exchange corrupts them both, the handler beginning to realise just how much influence she already possesses over this former legend while Lyzer herself sinks back into the heady delirium of being something less than human.

“Thank you, Sir.” The living, breathing pornography feels so weak in the other’s hold. She was a soldier once—a fighter—but her muscle was replaced with soft fat and her spirit with shame. She wants this, even if it hurts her—especially if it hurts her. And yet, a part of her resists. It isn’t pride that holds her back, but bleeding loyalty. She stares down at the gold nail paint decorating her prosthetics and a shrill caw bounces around her hollowed out skull. These legs were a gift from Her. She was so kind… She was…

“Lyzer,” the new handler snaps, “stop resisting.”

The girl blinks, returning to the room. She hadn’t noticed that she’d begun to try and free herself from her superior’s hold, though to no avail.

“I ah! I… I can’t help it. You’re just… not Her.” Lyzer gives the woman behind her an apologetic smile in the mirror, then gasps at the sudden roughness of the other’s hold. The hands gripping her wrists tighten and tighten until she’s whining and lowering her head, long hair spilling down in time to hide the pathetic glee that overtakes her.

The corner of the handler’s right eye twitches as she squeezes as hard as her grip will let her before easing off and letting go, watching the pitiful property stumble forwards and support herself against the mirror. After a brief moment of tense silence, the handler speaks.

“Thank you, Miss Kaere,” she says, calmly, as she cuts across the room to retrieve something beneath her bed.

Lyzer catches her breath against the mirror, looking over her shoulder with curiosity and… anticipation. Had she intentionally goaded the other woman? Lyzer doesn’t know herself, the inner workings of her mind are lost within a well constructed maze after all, but she does know that the handler listens when she’s compared to Her.

In the privacy of their shared personal quarters, it starts to become unclear just who is moulding who.

“For… for what, Sir?”

“For being candid with me, and helping me understand that I’ll get nowhere if I don’t commit myself fully to the role I’ve chosen.” The woman pulls out a long, sleek black box and steels herself. “As you already know, between your new bed and the garments I’ve stocked your wardrobe with, I already prepared a great deal for our new arrangement ahead of time, working off the report I was provided with.” The handler sets the thin box down onto her bed and removes the lid with a thrumming in her heart. There’s no going back from this, she warns herself, gently gliding her smooth fingertip across the object inside. “Those, I was able to get approval for… albeit begrudgingly. This, however, is our little secret.” Curling her fingers around the hand-plaited black leather handle, the woman in charge lifts the metre long implement into the air and gets a feel for its weight.

Lyzer turns around and flattens her back against the mirror behind it, staring in awe at the length of dense, high quality rattan in her owner’s hand.

“We ourselves do not have access to the palm this is made from. This is imperial-made, and certainly wasn’t easy to get my hands on.” The handler whips the cane through the air to demonstrate the flexibility of the material, the resulting sound telling Lyzer all she needs to know: this is going to fucking hurt.

“S-Sir…”

“Come over here, now, and place your hands flat on the bed.” The woman speaks with an authority Lyzer cannot hope to deny, not when she’s this excited; she’s frightened, too, but that only makes her more desperate.

“Yes, Sir.” Swallowing back the saliva that had been pooling in her mouth, Lyzer obeys. She quickly circles around the bed, bending over it at a 75 degree angle the handler’s forceful palm soon corrects to something closer to 90. Her entire body is trembling as quietly reacts to the feeling of her superior’s smooth cane—dragon rattan sanded down by hand into a uniform length—tracing up her thigh forebodingly. Subspace empties her head better than any drug could ever hope to.

“I’m not who, girl?” The handler’s voice turns harsh, violent. She knows that she needs to sell this; there’s simply no other choice.

“Wh-what?” Lyzer holds herself up by her arms, hands sinking into the bedsheets. She feels so exposed in the two piece outfit she wears; her bruises cover her up more than the bikini does.

“You said that I’m not her. Not who, Lyzer? There is no one else, you understand?”

“Yes, Sir.” Lyzer shakes so much in anticipation of the first strike, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that she deserves it.

“No, you don’t. But you will, okay? Trust in me.” Setting the cane down for just a moment, the handler unbuttons and removes her jacket and tie, then loosens the collar of her shirt. “Oh, one more thing…” Slipping out of her pumps, the woman pulls out the top drawer from the set beside her bed and removes a slip of tan leather, punctured with a series of holes and adorned with a brass buckle. “Open up,” she commands her waiting victim like they’re a domesticated animal, Lyzer doing as she’s told without thinking.

The moment the material enters the seasoned masochist’s mouth, she immediately becomes aware of three things. The first is that this is not, as she had first assumed, a belt. It’s too short, which can only mean one thing: it’s a collar. No, it’s her collar. Which brings her to the second observation: unlike her last one, this collar isn’t real leather. Being so familiar with the genuine thing, she can tell just from the feel of it—that, and the scent. The third thing Lyzer becomes aware of is the answer to the question ‘why is it in her mouth?’, which does not take much intelligence to deduce. They need to be quiet, or some limp-dicked rebel is guaranteed to burst in and interrupt their fun.

“You’ll have to forgive the poor quality, Miss Kaere,” the handler begins, as though reading her property’s mind, “had we the livestock to make genuine leather, we wouldn’t be eating that tasteless slop in the cafeteria day after day. The only instances of the real thing you’re liable to find around here are the holdovers from when our country had a real name, and the handle of this imported cane. Suppose I could have that jacket of yours repurposed for a better use now that it no longer suits you so well.” Smooth lambskin leather digits, also recycled from another era, creak around the cane’s handle and lift it with purpose.

“Yeth, thir…” Lyzer drools onto the bed as she indents the faux-leather collar with her teeth. The anticipation is killing her.

“Now,” states the handler, letting her hair down, “let’s not waste any more time. You need to be put in your place.” The woman smirks, realising how much it sounds like she’s just participating in a recreational BDSM scene. In a sense, she is, but this goes much further; she intends to leave deep scars, both physically and mentally, and so finds herself surprised that she’s able to smile like she’s actually enjoying this.

For Lyzer, today is the best and worst thing that could have possibly happened to her. Months of therapy are about to be undone in mere minutes, and she couldn’t be more eager.

Feeling the rush of power at her fingertips, the handler reels her hand back and then whips the cane through the air with force. The tip strikes Lyzer’s buttocks with a crack and the girl jolts violently atop the bed, practically screaming around the cheap collar filling her mouth.

“Funny, I thought your pain tolerance would be much higher after everything you’ve been through.” The handler stares at the line of red flesh marring Lyzer’s rear and her face tints crimson. She’s glad that nobody, not even her victim, is able to see that unwelcome heat the simple act of striking her property just gave her. She isn’t doing this because she wants to, but for the sake of her mission. If she enjoyed something like this, her integrity would fall apart completely.

Another whip, another crack. And another. And another. Lyzer whines loudly, burying her face into the bedsheets between her balling fists as she begins to tear up. She really is used to pain, and shamelessly covets it, but this is something else. It somehow hurts more than simply being beaten or burnt. How can it feel so intense, she wonders, understanding now that she has so much more to learn about pain.

The handler swallows, breathing heavily. She knows she chose her implement well; she needs to prove a point. She needs to break the girl herself, not just piggyback off the efforts of her imperial counterpart. This time she aims lower and strikes the back of Lyzer’s thighs, the welt surfacing almost immediately as she refines her technique.

“I’m not who, Miss Kaere?” she snaps, her arm almost seeming to move by itself as she administers another dose of sharp pain. “I’m your only superior now, and I’ll remove any others from your mind one strike at a time, understand?”

Lyzer nods emphatically against the bed, muscles spasming from a pinched nerve caused by the rough caning.

“I’m your handler now, and I know that word holds a great deal of weight for you.” The rattan swings through the air with a sound that makes the spasming girl brace, whimpering louder. Whip. Crack. Again and again and again. When the woman stops to assess her work, Lyzer lets out a series of heavy sobs that gives her pause—but only for a second. “Spit that out and say it. I’m your handler. I need to know you’ve learnt your lesson or we’ll go again until you have.”

The girl unclenches her jaw, releasing the spit-soaked collar, and tries to find her voice. She feels so weak, so small, that raising it above a whisper seems like an insurmountable task. Thick drool hangs between her lip and the object on the bed, and her mouth moves sluggishly. “Y-Y-You’re my handler, Sir…”

“Then put that on while I get some ice for you.” The handler gestures to the collar, which is slick with spit and sporting a deep impression made by Lyzer’s teeth. The girl nods quickly, like a scared animal, while the woman looking down on her appears 100 feet tall.

“Y-Yes, S-S-Sir.” Despite the tears, the fear and the pain… Lyzer feels euphoric. Finally, somebody sees her for what she truly is. This is what a disgusting traitor like her deserves. She can’t stop smiling, caged sex straining against its confines.

Without waiting for Lyzer to do as she’s told, the handler quickly leaves the room. Her heart is pounding and she’s out of breath for reasons she’d rather not delve into. It’s only when a passer-by in the tight corridor of Chione base gives her a strange look that the woman remembers her current state of dress. She looks down at her bare feet and curses under her breath, flipping her hair and trudging through the hallway to the medical facilities. The entire base only has one functioning freezer, used to store ice sheets, sponges and frozen gel packs. The handler takes one of the latter, finding that her thin gloves do little to retain the heat in her hand. The biting chill of the ice pack is a welcome sting, she realises. It’s sobering. She holds it to her face, cooling herself off before daring to face the consequences of her actions awaiting her back in her quarters.

Lyzer’s quivering voice echoes around in the woman’s head destructively. The girl really is so fragile now, and for just five minutes of… necessary disciplinary action… the handler had found herself utterly intoxicated by the overwhelming sense of power she had held over another living, breathing human being. If Lyzer still qualifies as such a thing, anyway.

She’s shaken from her thoughts by the sound of the door to the freezer room creaking open. Casting her gaze over to the light spilling into the dim, frosty closet, the handler’s eyes narrow when she recognises the face opposite her. Disrupting her reverie.

“Oh! Fancy running into you here, koukla mou,” exclaims the older woman, entering the cramped space with a smile aged by years of tough decisions.

While the resistance does not use standard ranks like the old military, most of its members are former soldiers and old habits die hard. Not only that, but it still remains important for there to be some manner of distinction between rebel leadership and its rank and file. As such, most at Chione Base still refer to this woman as Colonel Reese. The handler, however, does not.

“Elena,” she replies coldly, her fingers clenching the ice pack. “Would you please stop calling me that?”

Elena Reese, a member of Chione’s top brass only rivalled in her authority by two other figures at the base, reaches out to cup the other’s cheek gently, dark olive skin eclipsing the paler woman’s. She appears—as she always has since being stripped of her rank and labelled a terrorist—dreadfully tired, but her cheery disposition has long been a sight for sore eyes amidst the chaos and angst of the resistance’s rag-tag cluster. Her hair is half blonde like the handler’s, and half grey, while her outfit is comprised of simple khaki fatigues. “Don’t be like that, girl. I’m staying out of your way, like I promised, so don’t turn around and give me a hard time.” The fifty-something former soldier, softened—rather than hardened—by the depths of her loss, smiles down at the other’s half-dressed state. “Are you wearing my old clothes? Where’d you even find those?”

“I need to get going.” Ignoring the questions she’d rather not answer, the handler raises the thawing pack in her hand, hoping that her mother will continue to stay out of her way as promised and refrain from giving her the third degree. Elena simply raises her brows, clearly wanting to know what’s going on but able to see that she’d have better luck drawing blood from stone.

Removing her hand, the woman affectionately addressed by the base’s occupants as ‘Colonel’ brushes past her daughter and opens up the freezer. “Fine, fine. You better be off, then. I’m sure it’s important, right? Our hero hasn’t injured herself again already, has she? That girl needs to watch where she’s going.”

The handler isn’t sure whether her mother is legitimately naive enough to think that Lyzer’s bruises are of her own doing, or if she’s simply trained herself a little too well to look the other way. Either way suits her just fine, so she lets the comment slide.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m taking care of it.” She takes a deep breath, steels herself once more, and exits back out into the hallway.

When the handler returns to her quarters, she finds her property waiting for her on the bed, right where she left it. It becomes immediately apparent to her that the Lyzer she walked away from and the one she’s come back to are two similar, yet distinct beings. Whatever light dwelled behind the girl’s eyes after months of slow progress has been snuffed into a dull gaze that meets the woman unflinchingly.

“Welcome back, Sir!” she exclaims, splayed out over the bed in her obscene string bikini while keeping her rear lifted up due to the heavy bruising and lacerations left behind by the dragon cane. Lyzer’s tears have dried, and where she was trembling fiercely before, she is now eerily still. Despite the hollowness of her gaze, Lyzer’s stare is paradoxically shining with awe at the sight of her new handler’s return. She wields dead, starry eyes, and that black hole look pulls the handler in so strongly she has to tear herself away from it with force when her stomach suddenly turns. It seems to happen out of nowhere, but in reality, she has been holding it in from the moment she laid eyes on Lyzer Kaere. It only got worse, and worse, and now it’s just too much. To tame the weapon, she needs to become a monster—no, a hero—but the potent concoction of insecurity, guilt and, of course, excitement, that follows you down such a path can be enough to make the most stalwart of soldiers hurl.

With haste, the handler hurries into the attached bathroom and lifts up the toilet lid with her soft leather touch, then regurgitates the contents of her meal from earlier—oats and honey—into the bowl. “Fuck…” the woman curses, knowing she can’t afford to appear weak in front of Lyzer if she wants to continue reinforcing her loyalty. Lyzer needs to imprint onto her hard if there’s ever going to be a chance of this mission’s final stage succeeding. Taking a breath, and wiping her mouth, the woman’s lips curl sardonically. It wasn’t the sight of those awful red welts that finally pushed her to her limit, but simply her subordinate’s happy, dead eyes. Despite fancying herself a soldier, like her mother once was, the handler had never before seen a corpse in the flesh.

After a minute or so of listening to her superior’s heaving, Lyzer climbs out of bed and calmly enters the bathroom. She approaches the woman quietly, with tact and grace, and reaches out to comfortingly rub the other’s back.

“There, there, Sir,” she says, lost in a reverie that threatens to unlock each and every locked box inside of her relapsing mind. “Everything’s going to be alright now. You’re doing so well.” Her voice is as dead as her eyes, and the handler knows that she’s responsible for that. Still, she allows the girl to comfort her, just this once.

Just this once, dammit. Just this one damn time, she’ll allow her victim to lay hands on her like this. She’ll permit Lyzer’s gentle fingers to sweep back her hair and hold it out of the way while she pukes until the chamber’s well and truly empty. Only once, and never again. She knows this isn’t good enough. She knows she’ll get better. The fear overwhelms her as much as the excitement, just as it had for her charge. Just this once, she demands, cursing her own weakness from the bottom of her soul as she lets the other’s hand placate her so well, and allows herself to enjoy the simple pleasure of being pampered like she matters. Just this once. She repeats it in her head like a fucking mantra.

“Next time,” the bikini-clad girl begins, maintaining her innocent, unassuming smile. “Next time, I’m sure you’ll hold it in.”

Just this once will she let Lyzer Kaere get into her head.

Chapter One: Heroes and Victims — End