AJ chugged the last of his elixirs and dragged the semi-conscious body of April out of the mud and dirt. He looked back one last time and cursed under his breath. He would avenge Jose’s sacrifice; he would kill those twin demon hounds and their mutant rat army if it was the last fucking thing he did. But he would have to make it back to base camp and recover before he could think of that. Even with April and Jose’s valiant efforts, the bear-sized rodents had destroyed his right leg and paralyzed the left side of his body. The potions were doing their best to offset this, but he’d need a proper healer, and soon.

  April wasn’t doing much better. The left side of her face was a burned mess of red blisters, and that last assault had crushed her legs. It would have been a crippling wound even a few Trials ago, but if he could just reach the Saint…

  AJ cursed again when he stumbled on a rough patch of rain-soaked dirt. He was caked in mud and gore, and the first signs of hypothermia were starting to set in, but even then, he couldn’t complain. Anything was better than risking the catacombs again and fending off the hordes of mutant rats, or worse yet, the terror of the hospital itself. AJ gritted his teeth and pressed on, willing his broken limbs to work even through the pain.

  Inches felt like miles as he spent a seemingly endless amount of time simply crawling on the muddy floors. He could no longer stand, not with the weight of April dragging him back. Yet he still persisted, the only thing holding him together was the prospect of the warmth of the camp and the aid of the healers. He had to make it back.

  And for hours he continued, until at last he made it back to the perimeter of the encampment. Back into the field of broken bodies and screaming Aspirants. AJ paused. Something wasn't right... what was it? His hazy mind was still unable to process the scene before him. Right, it was the bodies... why were their bodies here, where it should be safe? Where were the camps and bonfires? Was he still under some kind of mental poisoning from his time in the hospital?

  AJ’s mind almost couldn’t believe what he was witnessing, and despite the anguish he was experiencing, he dragged himself to his feet to properly survey the land.

  He wasn’t wrong… this wasn’t the camp he had left. This wasn’t the safe space that he had envisioned. This was hell.

  “Wh…” he muttered, unable to even form a coherent thought. “How?”

  April, having regained lucidity, stared at the scene in equal disbelief, her own wounds temporarily forgotten, drowned out by the weight of so much suffering. The screams of sheer despair and pain that assaulted their ears would be a memory that they would never forget. Eventually, one of the Aspirants - someone not plagued by whatever disaster had hit this place - noticed the two and rushed over.

  “Boss? April, that you?” the woman shouted, a look of desperation clear in her eyes. “It is you? Oh thank god we need-”

  It took AJ longer than expected to realize that this was the person he had left in charge of the reserve squad. Her hair and clothing were caked in grime and blood that she was almost unrecognizable.

  She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the state of the two, and all hope disappeared in her eyes. This was not the triumphant return of their leader, here to alleviate the disaster they just faced. No, this was someone who had also experienced hell.

  “Shit!” she cursed, freezing up for only a brief moment before her professional training kicked in and she helped carry the two wounded individuals off to one of the makeshift triage tents. AJ’s status as the leader of the expedition afforded him special attention, and it wasn’t long before a pair of weary-looking medics came over to help address the worst of the wounds.

  “What happened here,” AJ asked, his voice eerily calm. The woman winced when she saw the lifeless expression of her boss.

  “An attack, sir,” she explained. “But…”

  “Just give me the facts,” AJ muttered, not even reacting when the surgeons started to realign his broken legs, it was like the pain didn’t even register with him any longer. “I don’t care nor do I blame anyone for the oversight.” He frowned as if suddenly remembering something. “No, scratch that, I do need to find someone. Where is Carlton and his fucking company?”

  “Uh… we don’t know. The camp is still in chaos, but I don’t believe anyone has seen the scouting party yet. They might still be in hiding though.”

  “Of course they are…” He stared at the other woman hard. “Tell everyone that’s still alive that I want those twelve captured and fucking brought to me the second they’re found!”

  “Y-yes, sir!”

  AJ nodded. “Good, now tell me what happened here.”

  “Right,” she gulped, “Of course. I believe that we were attacked by a mass spell of some kind. An illusion or brainwashing attack by all accounts, but our mages will need to investigate further before we can be certain. Either way, the assault affected close to 25% of our forces here, and, well…”

  She sighed and gestured at the carnage before them. “This was caused by the infected. They attacked their comrades indiscriminately, while some have just disappeared entirely, running off into danger. We’ve managed to contain about half of those under the spell but…” The woman shook her head and grimaced. “But their minds are lost. It’s like they’re stuck in some kind of nightmare; nothing we’ve tried has worked.”

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  “And how long has it been since the attack happened? Was it just the one?”

  “It was only one concentrated assault, sir,” she nodded. “And we managed to contain the worst of it about an hour ago.”

  AJ took in the information, and his expression never changed. “And our numbers? How many able fighters do we have left?”

  “We’re still not sure of the specifics,” she answered, “But rough guesses put us at around 1000 survivors; we have maybe half that number of capable Aspirants, maybe more if we’re permitted to rest and recover.”

  “How long do you need?”

  The woman hesitated for a second before responding. “About a day and a half sir, minimum. We still need to scan the survivors for infection, and with only a fraction of our medical team available, we’re pressed on what we can do. The others can make due to consumables, but those take time to work as well. I can give you a more accurate assessment of our situation once the worst of the fires are put out.”

  “I see… take that time-” he paused, thinking, “No, take the next three days reorganizing the remaining forces. This siege mission requires all of our abilities, but I believe I might have cracked the code; we’ve been approaching this the wrong way.”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “This isn’t meant to be fought head to head, straight on,” AJ explained, “The enemy inside the hospital’s way outside our capabilities. No, the way we do this is to take our elites and create a strike force to destroy that damned vice director.”

  “So the scouting reports…”

  AJ scowled. “Are fucking worthless! Carlton’s incompetence has cost us close to 2/3rds of our numbers. I swear…” He shook his head and forced himself to calm down. Now was not the time to lose his cool. “Never mind, go; regroup and recover. We have plenty of time left, and I will not be unprepared again.”

  * * *

  It took longer than AJ had anticipated to recoup. The mysterious attacks stopped for the first day but resumed again with increasing regularity, albeit at a smaller scale. The unseen threat would come in unnoticed and take out a few dozen men and women, small batches of the most prone and weak, but with AJ’s numbers already so low, even these small wounds were crippling. Whatever was launching these assaults remained undetected, despite the remainder of the Aspirant’s best efforts to locate the foe, and it was draining their morale.

  After the fifth attack, AJ knew that it wasn’t just targeting the weakest of them. No, this thing was smart. Every time AJ and his makeshift command staff start to formulate a plan of attack, several key figures necessary for that assault disappear before long. No one absolutely crucial, of course, but important enough that it’d delay their plans ever so slightly. The thing was buying time; they had to know the deadline.

  “We only have two and a half days left, there is no more time to wait. We leave for our assault tonight, no matter what.” AJ said bluntly to his assembled staff. They were a far cry from his normal coterie, a group of ragtag no-names that had nothing special between the lot of them; the leftovers of the leftovers, but they’d have to do.

  “Sir,” Mariah, the only one AJ had any confidence in besides April, spoke up, “With all due respect, most of our forces are not ready for the assault. The logistics are still a mess and our supplies of-”

  AJ raised a hand. “I know full well just how unprepared and ill-equipped we are right now. And so do our enemies.” He paused and scowled. “Do you think that all of these setbacks are just coincidences? That every time we get ready to set off something else goes wrong and we’re delayed again? No, our foe knows that we’re trapped here, and we cannot allow it to dictate what we do any further. We’re down to 400-odd able-bodied fighters left, we can’t sit around and let that number fall even further!”

  “I agree with AJ,” April chimed in, “We’ve been doing nothing but bleed numbers for the past few days. We’ve recovered enough, and further waiting is just a waste of time.”

  Mariah hesitated for a moment but nodded. She understood the logic well enough, although the same couldn’t be said about the others in the room.

  A lean man raised a hand and spoke. “Well, I think we’re going at this the wrong way!”

  AJ forced down a sigh and addressed him. “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you so focused on launching another assault on that hellish hospital? Clearly, we have been given the wrong information, and this siege mission is a lost cause! I say we give up on completing it and just take the penalty! If we try and fail again, then Atlus would lose a major chunk of its fighting force!”

  “As if Atlus hasn’t already lost enough already!” AJ spat, “We took the core of our fighters here, and how many do we have left? Maybe one-fifth that?” AJ shook his head. “No, if we back down and take the penalty, then Atlus as a whole will not survive the next clan war, any idiot can see that. I am doing this precisely because we have no other option! We can salvage things still if we get the contribution points from this victory.”

  “But-”

  April scolded. “But what? We allow ourselves to hide here for the next two days while we lose even more of our fighters to the ambushes? Do you think that monster’s going to just going to play by the rules and only pick off a few dozen of us when our forces fall to a few hundred?” She shook her head. “I, for one, will not hide like cowards. I’m with AJ. If I die, I’m taking down that fucking vice director bastard with me.”

  Some of the Aspraints in the room agreed with April’s sentiments, but the vast majority of them didn’t say anything.

  AJ ignored them. “We march tonight at 12 exactly. I don’t care if we’re attacked again before then, but I want every available fighter ready to move. The only ones who’s staying behind are the wounded, and a skeleton communication crew.”

  The man who spoke up raised his hands again. “I volunteer to command that crew!”

  AJ rolled his eyes. “Of course you do, it’s yours. Find five others to join you.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “But for everyone else,” the ones with worth, he wanted to add, “Start getting ready.”

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