Shellfire roared in the distance as England dragged his fellow private with him through the thick mud of Passchendaele. He was ordered to stand his ground but there was no ground to stand on. Just a stew of dead and dying alike. It wouldn't have been worth the lives of his classmates. It wouldn't have been worth Wally's. He protected Wally through school and he was gonna protect him through this. Exhaustion threatened to take hold. And for a moment, Wally slipped from his grasp. England fell face-first into the sludge, gagging on the taste of dirt and metal. Through sheer will, he pushed himself up and turned around. He got the others out. He was going to get Wally out.
Then...a whistle.
Then...an impact.
Then...a flash.
England watched himself wake up on what felt like a medical bed, beads of sweat dripping down him as he drew shallow breaths. Bakhmut. He was still in Bakhmut. He felt a sharp pain in his leg as he tried to move. Somehow, his leg was back together and yet it stung like it was still in two.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Averina said in a calm yet conversational tone.
England slowly moved his head and saw Averina sitting in the corner, reading a small red book with a title written in Cyrillic between two big Chinese characters.
"Your leg came off pretty badly," Averina explained, "The medic that treated you said it would take about a week before it fully heals."
Averina closed her book and got up from her seat, a faint whir eminating from her legs as she did so, before grabbing a bowl and placing it next to him. Inside was a thick, steaming portion of something unidentifiable.
"Please," Averina ordered, "Eat."
England stared at the bowl, the rising steam carrying a scent that was neither unpleasant nor immediately familiar, before looking up at Averina.
"Wha..." England asked weakly, "What is it?"
"Meat," Averina deadpanned.
England looked back down at the bowl. Given what he had learned from the dossiers and from Moore's own inappropriate jokes on the matter, the thought of eating anything Averina offered turned his stomach. But the alternative, going hungry in enemy territory, was worse.
"Rations?" England asked.
Averina tilted her head.
"Do you..." England asked again, "have any...rations?"
"I do," Averina replied, "But my men need them more than we do and, to be honest, there isn't enough protein in the rations to fix up your leg."
A sharp sting crawled from England's leg up to his spine as he felt Averina gently tap it to emphasize her point.
"Speaking of my men, do you know why I have not killed you yet?" Averina asked.
England didn't say a word. While he was curious, it wasn't worth the effort to ask.
"It's because you are a legend, Tom," A small hint of excitement enter Averina's voice as she answered her own question, "Before I became what I am, my father-in-arms would take me to the facility where they kept you. We would stand outside the chamber and he would tell me stories about the battles you fought and the enemies you made suffer. Is it true that you actually killed Hitler?"
Images of Berlin and the pulverized remains of Adolf Hitler flashed before England's eyes as he gave a simple nod.
"Good," Averina said as she walked back to her seat, "That means you also killed Putin. Though I don't think Putin's death was under your masters' orders, was it?"
England felt his breath hitch for a fraction of a second. His leg still burned but it was a dull ache now, overtaken by an old, familiar weight pressing against his chest. He wasn't in Bakhmut but back in the Kremlin, staring down at Putin's remains the same way he stared down at Hitler's.
England blinked.
The room came back into focus. He was back in Bakhmut, still lying on the medical bed. Averina was watching him, waiting for his answer.
"He was...a loose end," England gave a measured response.
Averina tilted her head again, "Was he? As much as I hate to admit it, he was the single most powerful man in Russia. When the Union fell, he fished the country out of economic turmoil. He was to Russia what Trump is to the United States, long before Trump even entered office."
Hunger burned at England's stomach as he tried to listen to Averina go into detail about what happened after Putin's death. He had spent months in his flat, only going out to walk Ross or to have a meal at the pub, and his actions had changed the world around him without him even noticing. An entire country has been destabalized because of him. The beast before him had gained an even greater following because of him. He clenched his jaw. If there had been anything left in his stomach, he would have been sick.
"So, while I'm thankful you saved me the trouble of killing him myself, we shall keep this our secret," Averina finished before giving a small chuckle, "I'm already low on manpower and would rather not rake more men across the coals than I have to. But that's enough about politics. Have you seen any good films recently?"
England didn't answer, still trying to come to terms with what Averina had said earlier. And then he gave a simple shake of his head.
Averina crossed her arms and leaned back into her chair, "I wouldn't blame you. Most films today are...well...they're uninspired. Or at least the American ones they force-feed us whether we want them or not. No passion. Just ticking off boxes on a checklist and calling it a day. Back when my father-in-arms and I were in Afghanistan, they used to make good films. RoboCop, Die Hard, and...basically any film with the Arnie in it like Total Recall and the first two Terminator films. Obviously, I never got the privilige of watching them until after the Union fell but when I did, it was at home in their original English. I don't hate Western civilization enough to listen to a shitty dub."
Averina's casual conversation about American media felt surreal to England's ears. Perhaps it was the blood loss or the lingering effects of whatever Shiv had injected him with but watching this nightmarish hag before him critique Hollywood films while he lied injured in her compound felt like some fever dream pulled straight from Dr. Harker's case studies.
"But you know what my favourite one out of them all is?" Averina continued, "The Psychedelic Soldier. It's action science-fiction about this old soldier being taken out of this uh...stasis pod, they call it, by this AI to infiltrate a war-torn colony and raid supplies from his designated enemy. And as he raided outpost to outpost, he came across one platoon that fought with a ferocity he had never seen before. A platoon that was also led an AI, codenamed Langley. Because this platoon worshipped Langley like a god, the soldier's AI overlord gave him a new directive: Terminate Langley with extreme prejudice."
Averina paused for a moment as a brief expression of amusement flickered on her face, "On the surface, it sounds like sci-fi shlock or just Heart of Darkness but in space but...there are some deep themes on the nature of war. And Langley? I can quote it for days."
Averina stood up from her chair and leaned toward England with an almost predatory gleam in her eyes, "Horror has a face and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. I don't know about you but I haven't heard such good advice since Sun Tzu."
Averina stood back up straight, "And it aged well. Really well. What was once science fiction is now becoming science fact. While we haven't colonized other planets yet, humanity has grown more reliant on machines not just to fight wars for them but for even basic tasks like writing. I kid you not, there are even smartphone apps where you can meet or even make your own AI soulmate. Who knows? Maybe they'll make an AI god just like Langley."
England reflexively grabbed at his cross, "I doubt that."
Averina's gaze flicked downward. She had caught that small gesture.
"Of course, you would," Averina stated dismissively, "Anything to justify whatever bullshit your parents or any other adults in your life fed you to keep you in line. Or to just simply explain instincts baked into every social animal so they don't have to accept the fact there is nothing special about being human. Maybe they learned it from their own parents and just passed it on so they don't have to accept they have wasted their lives."
England said nothing, merely responding with a glare of his own meeting Averina's. He may have been fooled by a demon in human skin once but he was never going to allow himself to be fooled again.
"Tell me," Averina asked, "Did your parents actually practice what they preached? Or did your father come home drunk and beat the shit out of you?"
"I can ask you the same thing," England replied with cold efficiency.
A small bearing of her teeth flickered onto Averina's face before she looked down and exhaled. When she looked up, she had a smile.
"That depends if we're talking biological relations," Averina replied.
England raised his eyebrow slightly, "Go on."
Averina sat back in the chair before leaning back and breaking eye contact with England, "I never knew my birth parents. But my father-in-arms? He was good to me."
England kept his gaze steady, "Father-in-arms?"
"Like a brother-in-arms," Averina explained, "Except he's also legally my father."
"Is he still with you?" England asked.
Averina scoffed, "Please. How many of us would live that long? Dushmany got him in '85."
Even if the beast before him had taken many a life with vicious gusto, England knew what it was like to lose somehow close to him.
"I'm...sorry to hear that," England spoke quietly.
Averina shrugged, "Don't be. He played things by the rules. And he had a romantic idea of the motherland. Sure, the Union days were better than this capitalist dystopia we're in but they weren't that better. Speaking of which, you think your God is good, right? And your life before coming here was good, more or less."
Averina's smile quickly faded to a blank expression, "But if He brought you here instead of paradise, then what good was He?"
England's stomach growled as he pondered Averina's question. But he wasn't going to give in so easily. If Jesus can go forty days in the desert without eating, how hard could it be for him to do the same?
Averina got up from her chair and walked out of the room, "You really should eat, Tom."