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"I'm glad you showed up, Gowaneu. It's been a while"
Mallory's mirrored face evaporated and another familiar visage greeted her.
"You might remember me as first lieutenant Destiny Rose, from the DF"

The name sent a flood of hazy memories to her. Lt. Rose was a fellow DF member with particularly noteworthy skills, but the two bore no bad blood, nor any particular allyship. In fact, in all of Mallory's time there, they had only ever even worked together in the same unit on one assignment.

Given that Destiny Rose was clearly a pseudonym*, Mallory would never have recognized her name around the apartment complex if they were indeed neighbors, which felt like a humorouslu irrelevant thought to be indulging in the moment.

"I'd love to trade stories and get to finally know a fellow A ranker, in theory, but right now I'm much more interested in learning about something else" The dark creature beside her leaned toward Mallory, its wretched mouth twisted into something resembling a grin, though it was probably not smiling. Mallory prepared herself to need to react quickly, but to act preemptively might jeopardize her situation if Destiny had any long distance backup.

"I work for a weapons development firm and we've been hard at work lately, conducting trials for our new projects. Our latest endeavors have been at the rather unorthodox intersection of magic and biological warfare. What I have here with me is one of our most promising ventures, project code name "Cipher". Nearly undetectable, possessing the ability to create immersive illusions, and generally disrupt the mind and senses. It has some other tricks as well and it is quite armed. The testing has gone well, except for one rather large stumbling block. We've had hard time being able to find combat scenarios to try it in. We did have a bit of a mishap where it received interference and interpreted it as a command to attack, but that was before we'd made some necessary final upgrades to this version of the combat OS. You were able to defend yourself quite easily, but I promise that won't be an issue tonight."

With that, whatever this thing was that stood before her lunged, and Mallory's surroundings melted like dripping, wet paint. The playground on the hill was now lightyears away, and the ghastly figure of the shadow towered above her. The sky seemed to be on fire, the ground an oily looking purple and black swamp. The left hand of the beast elongated into the shape of a sickle, and two winged gatlin guns emerged from behind its body, barrels beginning to spin.

Mallory still had some of the clairvoyance poultice in her coat, which would make the scenario considerably more manageable, but the first priority in this situation is to not get hit by whatever this thing throws at her.
Step two: see if there's anything that can even slow it down.

* While DF members are required to undergo lengthy background checks, they are permitted to be officially identified only by assumed names, in order to maintain privacy when returning to proper civilian life. Unlike a military, having joined the Defense Forces does not permanently alter your citizenship and you are free to relinquish the distinction at any time.

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BARELY MADE IT, I maybe started something a little too ambitious for a last day project but I'm happy with it!
First time using the Steven Slate drums, first time using Zebralette for something other than improv, first time using any of the Slate plugins, first time recording with my Scarlett 18i20, and ALSO my first time writing from my new computer while using external MIDI. I am the type to not ingratiate new plugins or hardware into my work for years after I get it, so this was a self-imposed trial by fire. I've been paying for these damn plugins for months...

Also, if you are ENTHUSIASTICALLY all about my music, you might see some self-reference going on

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Instrumentation:
JP8080 (lead), Korg X5DR (bells), Yamaha MU50 (choir, tuba, pizz.), Extreme Lead-1 (quiet synth texture with slow portamento), u-He Zebralette (various synths and textures), Logic EXS24 (tubular bells), Steven Slate SSD4 (drums), Roland XV5080 (strings, D50 bells), Logic EFM1 (bass and "8 string guitar"), Logic ESM ("8 string guitar")
Recorded directly from board, due to time constraints.