Two days after the previous chapter
12 Hours before Blacksite Raid
Jaune Arc wasn't very happy.
Then again, he'd be lying if he said he was ever truly happy here on 'Earth'. He barely found his feet as a Huntsman-in-training on Remnant, and now he was being thrust (albeit temporarily) into the role of 'soldier' with people who at best distrusted him, or at worst outright despised him, and now two of his teammates were injured, one of whom was his partner.
Maybe these XCOM guys had a point.
That had eaten him up on the inside since it had happened, but he couldn't bring himself to talk to Pyrrha about it. Pyrrha likely knew his reasons, and didn't hold it against him, but still, he'd faltered in the line of duty. His partner had gotten hurt because of it. If it wasn't for Adam, Pyrrha might have… died… that would have been on him.
Speaking of Adam, the man was grating on Jaune even more ever since that mission. While he had never been a fan of Jaune or the rest of JNPR, and often looked at them with hostility at the best of times, Adam'd never outright gone and insulted them since he corralled his evident paranoia. Recently, however, Jaune had been hearing plenty of talking, about himself in particular. While Murphy had insisted he room with Hitman team after he found out about the first Adam incident, he still spent a lot of time around Menace Team for one reason or another. Part of it was that he just liked a few of them. Declan was annoying sometimes, but seemed to be trying his best to be funny and likeable. Sophie was a genuine golden-hearted sweetie who reminded Jaune of his younger sisters, always saying something nice to anyone that wasn't Declan. Although Jaune had never bothered to talk to him in depth, Lawrence always seemed ready to listen to anyone that had any problems, and obviously had a lot of experience. In another time and place he'd have liked to have spent more time with the man. Heck, even Jack had his decent moments, despite his raging paranoia about aliens.
Adam was just generally unpleasant as a rule of thumb. When he wasn't visibly and audibly angry, he seemed to be trying his best to conceal his rage.
His best sucked.
Lately, Adam had been saying things and looking at Jaune differently. He didn't sound angry, not even upset. More along the lines of 'disgusted'.
Still, Jaune tried not to hold it against him. His mom always said "Holding a grudge is just putting poison in your own well and hoping the other person drinks from it," so he tried to forgive and forget. Still, the condescending side-eyes and barely-concealed comments about Jaune's 'exploits' were only making him more and more anxious in his dealings with the man.
He wasn't going to do anything drastic about it, though. He'd be leaving here soon enough, if everything went to plan.
Pyrrha had dragged him out of bed for another outdoor training session on the landing deck of the Avenger, and they'd gone back and forth for the better part of an hour. His partner seemed to be easing into the swing of things here, but Jaune knew that she was just as ready as him to head home and get back to training under normal circumstances. He appreciated the support back when they first started their rooftop training sessions, but time spent on Earth was definitely putting his respect for her into a new perspective.
This time they'd had a guest. Lawrence had silently observed them a while back, and Jaune had invited him to come and watch, if it pleased him. Although it was more a formality than anything, since they were guests on the ship he served on, Lawrence took the request in stride and came along. He didn't really contribute anything or say much, he just sat back with a cigarette and observed.
"Good effort, Jaune! There's still plenty of room for improvement, but I feel we've made significant progress today," Pyrrha encouraged him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He could see the ridge of the blade wound on her hand clearly now- Aura may speed up the healing process, even in limited quantities, but with the constraints on them now it wasn't as if the wound would disappear from sight and mind.
"Thanks, partner. Couldn't do it without you," Jaune replied with a smile.
"I gotta say, watchin' you two whack each other with swords and boards is certainly not what I saw myself doing today, but damn if it isn't entertaining," Lawrence interrupted, butting out his cigarette against the wall behind him. "Surprised y'all two aren't sweating like pigs after that, I'm tired just from lookin' at you."
Pyrrha laughed, an airy, subdued laugh that reminded Jaune of 'high society' types he'd seen in TV shows and the like. "You could always join in, if you want to learn something, Mr. Hamilton."
"Honey, I'm pushin' 60 and feeling it. I won't be joining you in ANYTHING," the marksman replied with a grin. "Anyways, I think I'll be taking my leave. You both take care."
With that, the veteran took off, heading down the stairs back into the bowels of the Avenger. Jaune's earpiece crackled and sputtered with feedback as Lawrence got to a respectable distance before speaking again.
"I got it set up. Let me know when Pyrrha goes back down, and I'll get Adam. I really hope y'all can suss out whatever the problem is here."
Jaune swallowed the lump in his throat, and turned back to look at his partner. "So, um… what now?"
"I'm probably going to go check on Nora, and then get some rest. We need to be in top form for the operation," Pyrrha replied. "How are you feeling about that?"
"I'm not really… feeling that good about it," Jaune said. "Apparently this is really significant to them, like, game-changing significant. I don't want to screw that up."
"You won't. Murphy and his team have made it clear how much good you did during the fighting on the tower," she assured him, "and I know that you can do just as well this time around, as well. If we work as a team, and work with them, we'll all be fine."
"Do we even know who's going out with us? Nora's in no shape to go out and fight-" Jaune started, only to be cut off by his teammate.
"Ren and I are going to talk to the Commander about that, actually. We agree with you, Jaune. She's doing better, but putting her in a fight is a risk we can't afford to take right now. On the subject of our accompaniment, I can't tell you. Murphy is supposed to be leading, but… he seems off. I don't know what's going on, the whole crew seems on edge."
"Yeah. Like something really bad's about to happen, but you don't know when it's happening or what it is." Jaune sighed. "I noticed it too."
Pyrrha frowned, and idly flexed her marred hand, clenching and unclenching it languidly as she gave Jaune a look-over. She opened her mouth to say something, but whatever it was died in her lungs, and the only sound was a slight intake of breath.
Jaune didn't really have anything to say either, so they just stood there for a minute.
"We're going to be alright, Jaune," she finally said, quiet as a mouse. "All of us. We'll make it home."
"I hope so," he agreed.
"I knowso," she insisted, with a conviction that almost won Jaune over to that line of thinking on force alone. "I have to go. I'll see you later, Jaune."
With that, and one last, wan smile, the champion left him alone with his thoughts and his earpiece.
Once she was far enough away, he took a deep breath, and made the call.
"Okay. Let's get this over with."
"I sincerely hope y'all sort this shit out." Lawrence stated.
"If this doesn't work, I'm going to shoot him," Sophie added, far too cheerily to match what she'd actually said.
"I might let you. Declan, you got him?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Declan muttered into his comms. "I'm on my damn way. Don't rush."
" 's'all that about?" Adam asked, his voice still as groggy and half-awake as it was when Declan got a hold of him. He was normally quite the early bird- hell, he prided himself on being up before the sun most days- but something about today in particular felt… off.
"Somethin' we wanted to talk to you about as a team," Declan replied.
"Horse shite. We never talk as a team."
"Alright, damn, you got me. Boy wants to talk to you."
"What 'boy'?"
"Take a wild motherfuckin' guess, Adam. The boy you've been calling yellow and treating like shit for the past almost week. I personally agree with you, but, um… apparently he wants to talk shit out."
Adam didn't have any words. He doubted he'd have any when they got to wherever Jaune was, and he highly doubted that Jaune would have anything that Adam actually wanted to hear. Nevertheless, he'd humor them. He was getting tired of having to explain the situation to the men. I have a damn good reason to be pissed. This fucking idiot sat there and practically threw his teammate and myself to the wolves. Why? He's seen scarier things than the fucking Chosen if they're telling the truth.
"Can't imagine what he wants to talk about," Adam said, knowing full and damn well what the boy wanted to talk about, but he'd try to play coy anyway. Declan didn't buy it.
"You must think I'm stupid. I may be crazy, boss man, but I ain't stupid. If it were me, I'd want a fight."
"Well, he's certainly not going to win a fight with me, Declan."
"You say that, buuuuuuuut~" Declan trailed off, tapping his temple. "He's a bit tougher than he looks."
"I'd be more worried if his beta orbiter was hanging around him."
"Nah, she left, I think. If she didn't, then you're totally fucked. She hates, you, man."
"Good, I don't particularly like her, either."
"You don't really like anybody."
"That's not true, but even if it was, I'd like them the least."
"You are such a bitter, angry man, Adam, my god!" Declan exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. "It's like you hate everything so much that it loops around to self-hatred, and then it does another loop around to hating everything that makes you hate yourself!"
"That makes absolutely zero sense," Adam said, "and I think you might have killed a few of my brain cells."
"Good, now I move on to the rest of you."
Adam smirked, and shook his head. "You can't tell me you're their new best friend now."
"Meh. I'm probably the only person on this boat who doesn't care if they're here or not. Things changed when they came on board, certainly, but now they're not getting any special accommodations or anything. They're just roughin' it with us. Shit, give 'em a few months and we'll feel like they've been here forever."
"Maybe. I still don't like it. Sure, they're not exactly betraying us," the Welshman admitted, " but Jaune's a liability. The man can barely stand up without pissing himself, it seems, and has to have his bloody girlfriend prop him up. Ren's competent, I'll give him that, and when Nora isn't getting the juice from an ADVENT DNA-lock she's pretty damn good at her job..."
"So what you're telling me is you just don't like Jaune and Pyrrha," Declan surmised. "Yeah, I'm not any of them's biggest fan either. But, y'know, they didn't HAVE to fight for their room and board. Yet here they are."
"It's not that. Think about it. They all came through a portal, and so did that Grimm thing. What the hell else are they gonna bring with them? Are we going to turn into a fucking boarding house, Declan? " Adam asked. "We can't keep doing this. We can't get them home and focus on protecting them and their people, AND focus on taking down ADVENT at the same time."
Truth be told, he couldn't find much against Pyrrha and Jaune outside of this issue, but this issue was quite a fucking stickler. The only thing that made him more sick to his stomach than a weak link getting carried far beyond the point of reason, was someone willingly carrying him that far. Still… he was almost envious of it. He wished XCOM still had that kind of camaraderie, instead of the odd clique here and there the teams had formed.
Then again, XCOM didn't tolerate weak links. You pulled your weight or you went home.
"I dunno. But it ain't their fault if something else shows up when they're away, really," Declan retorted. "Anyhow, it's about time. I'll leave you two to kiss and make up on your own."
The walk up the stairs was a short one, and Adam found himself throwing himself at the door if only to get this garbage over with quicker. He wasn't in any mood to play nice.
The doors opened to a crisp Great Lakes evening. The sun was approaching its afternoon crescendo, tongues of yellow and orange bleeding through the clouds as Adam searched for his target- target is a horrible way of looking at this, I'm not trying to kill him. Just wake him up.
What was it his old man had called these things? "Come to Jesus moments." This was just an attempt at giving Jaune one of those.
Said blonde outsider was kneeling near the edge of the Avenger's deck, looking out over Humanity Falls as the small settlement bathed in orange and gold light.
"Pretty view, eh?" Adam asked, attempting to keep the edge out of his voice. "Say what you want about America, but it's got lovely country."
Jaune looked back over his shoulder apprehensively, his nervousness etched into his features clearly even from this distance. "Oh. Really?"
"Aye. Would be better if we weren't constantly running away from it." The Welshman strode over to Jaune's side, but didn't sit down, instead opting to look down at the boy from above.
"What's your problem with me?" Jaune suddenly blurted. Adam was taken aback- the boy wasn't at all forward, in his experience. Was he actually that scared of him? Impressive.
"I could be here all day if I started running down everything I saw wrong with you, lad. But, that's not what we're here to do, I reckon. What do you think my problem is?" Adam folded his arms and scowled at the sun, as if he could will it past the horizon just by glaring at it.
"It's about the whole Chosen thing, isn't it?"
"Aye. That's it." Adam sighed, and dropped to one knee next to Jaune. Standing up next to him was an intimidating gesture, certainly, but it was hell on his legs and he was damntired of looking down. "What were you thinking, lad?"
"What was I supposed to do, get up and fight that thing without a weapon?"
"Your girlfriend did, and she's fine. Probably wouldn't have gotten hurt if you'd jumped in with us."
Jaune blanched, and his left hand curled into a fist over his knee. "First of all, partner, not girlfriend. Second of all? Not true. I'm dead weight in a fight anyway-"
"Oh, put a fucking sock in it, boy," Adam ordered, biting down in an attempt to stem the flow of vitriol that was threatening to boil over. "You're bigger than she is, you're broader, and if you actually put some meat on your bones you'd have a good five or six stone on her. You'd have probably kept us both out of a sight more trouble, but you didn't want to risk your own neck."
"That's not what-" Jaune started, his pitch rising and voice quivering just enough to give Adam an opening.
"Don't give me that shite. You couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag, so it falls to your friends to do the hard work for you, is that it? Or do you actually have an excuse?"
"Alright, fine! I was… you know, freaked out. That's it. If you were stuck somewhere you've never been before in your life, fighting things you've never seen before, you'd be scared too."
"I certainly wouldn't just sit there and wait for it. But that's exactly what I saw you do. You know what my problem with you is, boy? It's not that you're an alien, fuck no, I'm convinced I'm more alien DNA than human at this point. It's not that you're not like me, and it's certainly not because of your bloody personality. It's because you're yellow." Adam leaned over, and gave the young man's shoulder a shove. "You're telling me that the four of you are supposed to be defending people, and you don't even have the bollocks to defend yourself?"
"I-" Jaune started.
"I am not finished yet," Adam interrupted, his anger now all-encompassing. He'd been keeping a bit on it the best he could, but this was genuinely upsetting to him. "How are you going to defend your people, defend your world, when you can't even stand up and fight alongside your bloody partner? It's fucking pathetic. You…"
The Welshman stopped himself, taking a deep breath. He didn't need a fight. Not today. He said he'd do better by them, and he would.
"You need to get your shit together. You're supposed to be a leader, and the other day you threw your teammates under the bus."
"I didn't mean-" Jaune started again. Adam was getting tired of this whole thing, despite being the one who started it. Besides, if he kept at this, there was no telling where the barely-concealed anger would take him next.
"WHETHER YOU MEANT IT OR NOT," Adam growled, grabbing the boy by the scruff on the back of his neck and holding him still, "you did! You have a responsibility as a leader, the same as I do, and when the chips were down, you threw your responsibility away. I may not be you and Pyrrha's commanding officer, but the moment I had my head right, I was jumping back into the fight, while you sat there and watched. If that isn't a fucking contrast I don't have the foggiest what is. You're supposed to be defending your home from far scarier things than that Chosen. Buck up, or fuck off."
Jaune had no response, simply staring wide-eyed at Adam while the latter glowered back at him. If looks could kill, then Jaune would have two holes in his head right about now. His point made, the veteran let go and gave Jaune some breathing room, standing up and walking towards the door back into the Avenger.
"Good talk," he stated sarcastically, "glad we understand each other."
Grace idly scrolled past image after image on the duty roster. The screen on her left contained said roster, while the one on the right held a blank field, with six empty spaces.
"Alright, voice in my head…" the Commander muttered, "gimme something good."
'And tell me, Commander, what exactly I'm supposed to give you,' the voice asked. Grace was starting to hate this thing more and more the longer it stuck around in her head. She wasn't crazy, she really wasn't. There was more to this than just some PTSD episode or a hallucination. Things like this didn't just… happen. Plus this voice knew things about XCOM that she'd never even been made privy of.
Apparently, she had a damn Ethereal in her head. One that had been camping out on two planets recently.
"Oh, I dunno, you're the one who told me to completely restructure the team behind this operation, so I figured you'd have a good idea of something to replace it," she hissed, smacking the table in frustration. "Just give me something to work with."
'You already have something. The children.'
"Alright, alright. That's' four. Who else?"
As Grace shuffled through the duty roster (the kids weren't on it, so there was no point in putting them there), the voice in her head was silent.
"I said, who else?"
'I cannot give you EVERYTHING, Grace Cheng.'
"Ugh… okay… Roderick and Wesley know about the Black Site. They're on." The Commander dragged the image of the dark-haired actor and the bright-eyed photographer to the last two slots. "We probably need to test the Kinetic Barrier, too…" With that, Phil was added in front of them.
'You will need someone the children trust. Someone that they will fight for, and that will fight for them.'
That one answered itself pretty quickly. Jerry's photo smiled at Grace from the screen as she dragged it next to the CO slot.
"If this Blacksite is as well-defended as I think it will be, we're gonna need explosives. Lots of explosives," Grace muttered. With that, she began to drag Joseph Walker's image next to Jerry's.
'NO.` the voice demanded. 'Not this one.'
"Why not Joseph, he's a good pick for the job. Explosives, knowledge of ADVENT tech and systems, and he has a good relationship with pretty much everyone on the ship, so no operational friction."
'If I tell you why he cannot be chosen, you will not choose at all. Choose another.'
"What the hell kind of cryptic bullshit is that?" Grace asked, turning to look at... well, I feel fucking stupid, there's nothing to look at.
'Do not mock yourself. It is stressful to grow accustomed to a 'voice in your head'. Regardless, I must insist, choose another.'
The only other Grenadier there was to choose from was Jack Sagole-Shaw, so Grace chose him. She then moved on to the CO block, which was empty. "Alright, so, if you're telling me the truth and this is the op that the kids make it home on, then I should probably send Remi. He's one of our infiltrators-"
'No one shall cross the threshold after the children. If you do, you will be followed, and it will be death for both of your worlds.'
"... okay, okay, sheesh. If Remi's not going through, then who should I send?"
'You know who must lead. It is the only man they will all follow. The children included.'
That meant no Adam. Phil couldn't stand the Welshman, and Hitman team's members would probably buck under him plenty. Remi probably couldn't be trusted not to just bull through the portal immediately, and the kids didn't know Wolf Mother from Adam (the biblical Adam, of course). That only left one.
She slowly dragged Murphy's image into the CO block, and the screen flashed green. Seemed like the system didn't find any glaring concerns.
Suddenly, the screen minimized, and a video feed to the Med-Bay came up. Jerry adjusted the screen momentarily, the grainy quality and loud ambient noise making it clear this was M3R-C's camera. "Hey, Commander! Commander, you read?"
"I read you, Jerry, what's going on?" she replied, sitting back up straight.
"It's the kids. You're gonna wanna come to the Medbay ASAP. Their Auras are working again."