Reflection

 A flash of color caught her violent eyes and made her pause in the center of the bombed out hab block.

               "Hello, again," she murmured to herself, lowering her lasrifle, it was a clothiers sign, pocked with bullet holes and half burnt but she recognized it all the same. It had been an offworlders shop, some brave foolish soul trying to turn a profit in fashion on brooding Cadia. She had seen it as a White Shield, had marched right by it with her comrades, they had laughed at the gaudy sign and the even gaudier clothes in the window but deep down a secret part of her had looked at the silks and bright colors with yearning. All her life she had worn fatigues or camo schemed clothing, this was Cadia after all, but if she had not been born on Cadia, what might have she worn?

               Her boots crunched on broken glass as she drew closer, the entrance to the shop was clear though the building itself was almost completely buried by its fallen neighbor, the power had not yet failed and inside a few lights still twinkled. Looking over her shoulder, through the broken hive towers stretching like serrated daggers into the soot choked sky she watched the pulses of color, the flash of explosions as Kasr Lutania suffered through its siege in the distance, it would be dark soon and she needed shelter.

               Going inside was a shock, it made her hesitate and blink, not because it was ruined but because it was so normal. Somehow this little building from her memory had managed to survive mostly intact, all the many different outfits still hung from their hooks, the tailors pincushion and measuring tape was still on the table as though the man had just stepped out for a smoke.

               Something moved. She shouldered her lasrifle with a snarl, she nearly hosed the corner but then stopped herself with a snort, it was only a mirror, the movement had been hers.

               Look at me, she thought studying herself with morbid fascination. She had been every inch the cadian soldier but now she was something different. Pulling her mask down and her hood back she looked upon the very face of the enemy.

               Mutant! Filth! The thoughts rose unbidden and turned her stomach, her hair that had once been such a fine color of platinum blond had turned a sickly blue, her skin had turned pallid grey and her teeth...her teeth had become like a sharks. Drawing closer she brushed the scales that had begun to emerge from her skin with the razor tips of her newly grown claws.

               A wave of revulsion and self hate washed over her, tears began to well up in her eyes and she blinked them away furiously. All she had ever wanted was to serve the Emperor, to fight and die in his glorious armies was the highest honor she could imagine, and she had, she had served and fought on a dozen worlds before the war brought her back home to Cadia. She had seen millions die defending the purity of humanity, she had carried the regimental aquilla right into the teeth of combat not once but twice on two different worlds, she had been glorious, beautiful, loyal...

               Pulling her mask back up she hung her head and clenched her eyes closed tight, she could still see it, the indigo fire that had turned her regiment to ashes, the fire that had changed her, she could still hear the chaos sorcery laughing. Gripping her head with both hands she growled a low guttural sound and sank to her knees.

               "Stop it!" she snapped, covering her ears trying to block out that awful cackle, it didn't work, it never worked.

               "Stop!" she howled, lashing out knocking the mirror stand over and shattering it on the ground. The sound brought her back; she gasped and looked about herself in the silence. Blinking, sniffing she picked herself back up.

               There was a mannequin she had not seen before; hidden behind the now shattered mirror dressed in a purple and black body glove the sort she had seen wealthy offworlders wearing. Reaching out she brushed its sleeve tentatively, it was glossy and sleek, and without a doubt sexy.

               "You are a fool Adora," she hissed to herself through her sharp teeth. Taking her flak armor off she stripped out of her combat webbing and fatigues, trying not to look at her naked body and the changes that had been wrought there in the hundred different glass shards looking up at her she slipped into the body glove...