Afterward both of them are laying down on the seat breathing hard. Both of them are trembling as BULL strokes Cyn's back. A few minutes later and they are both slipping on their clothes unable to look each other in the eye.
BULL reflects back on it. While it was happening it felt like it was an eternity. But when it ended it felt like it didn't last long enough. There were definitely parts that he enjoyed and what was like he imagined. But other parts were worse.
All in all he felt a stronger connection to Cyn, almost as if they would be together for all of eternity.
BULL hears Cyn starting to cry. "What's wrong," he asks as he scoots over to her. She's looks up at him, and she's smiling. She hugs him and puts her tearful face on his chest, "You're a good man BULL, y'know that?"
He breaths her scent in again. She's sweaty but he doesn't mind. He kisses the top of her head as she pulls back. Cyn lays down and puts her head in BULLs lap. A few minutes later and she's fast asleep. BULL decides he should probably get some sleep as well. With that he dozes off listening to the faint sound of the chopper blades cutting through the air outside.
They make it back to the site and land atop helipad 4. Cyn gets up from BULLs lap and yawns waking him up. None of them got much sleep during the helicopter ride so they we're both desperate to fall asleep in their own beds. When they step out of the helicopter technicians come running like usual to do maintenance on the chopper. The couple step out of the side doors along with the pilot. BULL goes over to the Alpha-1 operative acting as a pilot and shakes his hand, "Thank you for that back there. If you weren't there I don't know what we would have done." The pilot looks at him dead in the eyes and winks, "No problem. It sounded like you had a good ride." BULLs insides feel like they've turned to jelly out of embarrassment. The pilot claps him on the back and walks towards the titanium doors. Cyn goes over to BULL and stares at him, "What's wrong with you, ya look like you've seen a ghost." BULL snaps out of it and looks down at Cyn, "Nothing's wrong, I was just thanking him for his work out there." Cyn dismisses it and walks with BULL down the walkway to enter the site.
As they are walking down the hall they are getting plenty of stares from confused Foundation Personnel. They both ignore them as they make their way to Sector-X. BULL pulls a balaclava from his back pocket and slips it on his face to make sure the guard doesn't recognize him. They reach the entrance and Cyn flashes her ID to the guard, and he opens the door giving both of them a confused look. "Walk me to my room," Cyn orders BULL playfully. As they are walking BULL looks down at her and asks, "Hey uhm... when do you think we could go out again. Other than the Chaos Insurgency intervention I had an amazing time." They reach Cyn's quarters and they stop. "Soon baby soon. Give a girl a rest," Cyn says with slight seduction in
her voice. BULL chuckles and leans down giving her a kiss. She swipes her card on the door still kissing BULL and pulls him inside her room.
The next morning BULL wakes up to see Cyn laying down on his chest. He looks around still dazed from just waking up. He is careful not to wake Cyn as he slowly takes her hands off him and slips out of her bed. He finds his clothes on the ground in a pile and slips them on. Thankfully Cyn's door only requires an ID outside. He stops and walks back to Cyn. She looks angelic sleeping there. He brushes hair off her forehead and gives he a small kiss on it. Her eyes flutter open and she pulls his face in. "I have to go, Cyn," BULL whispers. She lets go of him, "Thank you, BULL, for everything." With that BULL leaves O5-2s quarters and cemented his place into her life.
BULL made his way back to Fireteam Sparrows quarters. As soon as he enters he is tackled/ bear hugged by YOUNGIN. "BULL you were gone all last night we were worried about you. What were you doi-," YOUNGINs eyes light up, "NO FUCKING WAY!" NOMAD walks over and slugs him on the arm lightly, "Good job kid. You actually did it and hoo boy am I surprised you did." BULL felt like a rockstar right now. They were asking so many questions and he didn't know how to answer them. There was only one thing on his mind right now, Cyn.
BULLs partners calmed down with the questions. There is a knock on the door. NOMAD opens it and a nameless person gives them a note. YOUNGIN asks, "What's that for?" NOMAD opens the note and reads it. "ISD High Council is rescheduling the Brazil Operation for tomorrow..." NOMAD says aloud. BULL goes over to him and reads it for himself, "Do they seriously think we are ready for this?" NOMAD shrugs, "It seems to me they're replacing Gamma-5 with a team of PHANTOM operators so that'll help us out a lot." YOUNGIN walks over as well, "Damn. Well that makes things a lot more interesting I would say."
It's still early in the morning as Fireteam Sparrow head to the Sector-X cafeteria. BULL and his Fireteam are all in line waiting for their food. BULL hopes to get his hands on some pancakes and bacon today. He picks up his food and was grabbing utensils. He sets down his food and when he does he feels a tug on the back of his shirt. He turns around and he sees Cyn jump onto him. He catches her by her thighs as she pulls his face in to a kiss. BULL subconsciously knows the entire room is looking at them, but he doesn't care at all. He sets her down and she hugs him hard. "C'mon I'm hungry lets sit down," BULL pleads. Cyn takes his hand and leads him over to where the rest of Fireteam Sparrow was sitting. BULL sits down opposite to where NOMAD and YOUNGIN are sitting as Cyn plops down next to him. NOMAD bites first, "So are you two like a thing now or what?" Cyn grabs BULL's arm and looks up at him expectantly. "Yeah I'm pretty sure we are," BULL says. "Adorable," a female ISD agent says bluntly bumping into BULL. He ignores it and goes back to talking with YOUNGIN and NOMAD.
"So O5-2, BULL has to leave with us tomorrow for Brazil," NOMAD says to Cyn. She chokes on her food and coughs, "Wait, WHAT? I thought that was next week!" She groans and lays her head down on the table. "That's what I thought too but ISD wants us there now," BULL sighs. "When you get back I'm not letting you out of my sight," Cyn declares. YOUNGIN laughs loudly,
"Oh so you're already like THAT?" Cyn methodically stands up and plops herself down on BULL's lap. "Well I'm trying to be like that with him YOUNGIN and I would say I'm succeeding," Cyn grumbles. The table after that erupted in conversation about BULL and O5-2s relationship, the Brazilian Operation tomorrow, and other rumors around the foundation.
Fireteam Sparrow finished their breakfast and left the cafeteria. "I have to get to a surgery in Sector-1, some noobie surgeon is taking his official test," Cyn says to the group. She makes a show of sauntering over to BULL and giving him a long kiss goodbye. NOMAD isn't sure he likes this relationship between the two of them very much. YOUNGIN on the other hand is very supportive of them and their endeavors. Cyn waves goodbye to the group as she jogs down the hallway to Sector-1. "We need to get to Sector-Alpha for the briefing for the Brazil Op. Beta-7 and Pi-1 are gonna be there so be nice. But first we have to cover up," NOMAD explains. BULL and YOUNGIN both nod and follow him down the hallway.
The Fireteam quickly changed into their body suits, boots, and balaclavas. They walk quickly down the hallway to get to Sector-Alpha. They reach the end of Sector-X and start jogging down to the briefing room. They finally reach it and see about 12 other men sitting in foldable steel chairs or standing behind them. They are all glaring at them as they enter because of what NOMAD said about them being inferior soldiers to them. Fireteam Sparrow have a dedicated section in the briefing room with three chairs in a row. They all sit down as they wait for the Operation leader to enter the room. Seconds later a shower of red light forms in the middle of the room in front of the cork planning board. It begins to form a human shape. Everyone in the room is thinking the same thing 'PHANTOM'. When he fully forms the man walks over to the board silently. "Alright people. Lets begin."
The PHANTOM Operator doesn't introduce himself by any code name or otherwise. He gets right to the point, he speaks with a deep voice changer, "Alright here's the rundown. Beta-7 you will be taking the left flank, that's where the resistance will be weakest according to IA. You of course will be entrusted with handling the asset. You will be equipped with special suits that have been tested against an agent similar to that the asset puts out. They work don't worry. Pi-1 you will be going down the center. From what I understand you are the best task force fit to fight in this urban environment. You will be equipped with extra thick carbon alloy armor. Impervious to most small arms and fire. Unless they're shooting a tank shell at you or something over .50 cal you should be fine. Did I mention it all weighs under 5 pounds? Alright SPARROW you guys will be taking the right flank. Unlike the simulations you will be breaching first into the warehouse. We are entrusting you with taking out all the infantry in the warehouse. You will also be responsible for locating and assassinating Rico Chavez. He is the leader of the Rio De Janeiro branch and other regions of the Chaos Insurgency."
"The one they call YOUNGIN will be the teams sniper. You will be equipped with our new state of the art sniper, the Hercules-1. It shoots a .60 cal bullet able to puncture through most forms of cover. It also has an extremely powerful target finder so you can have assistance in shooting through those warehouse walls," YOUNGIN is practically drooling,
"The one they call BULL will be equipped with our new hydraulic buster technology. You can essentially punch through steel and you'll be fine. This'll be useful when paired with YOUNGINs target finder for breaching through walls. As well as for your AA-12 you have the option of incendiary shells. Anyone who gets hit with one of these babies will have a very hard time staying alive," BULL pumps his fist.
"And NOMAD what we have for you is something truly special. Our new gas propulsion maneuvering gear. It propels you forward, backwards, side to side, up, down, and everything in between. This will be useful in getting close to your opponents," NOMAD nods in approval.
"Last thing is a fair warning. If you see an enemy drop out of nowhere DON'T investigate. You can probably guess who's behind it so... y'know. Don't."
The PHANTOM Operative asks for the foundation personnel to bring in their new gear and tech. Beta-7 was just told to wait until the operation and they will see how well their gear will work. Pi-1 all put on their armor and immediately the PHANTOM operative pulls an AK-47 from out under the table and unloads on them. Nothing even got through their outer-shell.
BULL put on his hydraulic buster gloves on. They're about the size of an average paperback book. "How am I supposed to shoot with these things on?" The PHANTOM told him to flick his arms back with force. They retract up onto his forearm. A foundation personnel wheels in a 3 inch thick steel door. "Punch it." BULL reels his arms back as his fists slam into the door shattering it. "I think I just fell in love," BULL says.
The FP bring in NOMADs gear. There's two canisters attached to his waist with a neural transmitter headband.
"Think of where you want to go, NOMAD."
NOMAD thinks, Forward, immediately he is propelled 7 feet in front of him at escape velocity. "Ooh that's fun," NOMAD says. Left, right, backwards, he thinks. His suit goes just in those directions. "Practice shooting while you're moving," the PHANTOM says to NOMAD. He nods.
YOUNGIN picks up the Hercules-1 sitting on the cart. It weighs as much as a flat-screen. An FP leads him to the range in the room next to them. They've set up a Fiat 500L at the end of the range. YOUNGIN sets up the Hercules-1 in the center stall.
"Range 50 meters, no wind, direct fire," YOUNGIN feeds to no one in particular. He waits three seconds to fire. It sounded like throwing a 10 pound weight at a garage door and kicked like a donkey. But the end result was like lobbing a a piece of steel the size of a guitar at 10,000 meters a second.
The 500Ls door was crumpled to about 1/4 of it's original size and was blown into the car. All the windows we're shattered including the front. "I think I just pissed myself," YOUNGIN says euphorically.
The rest of the team assembled back into the briefing room. They all clearly love their new gear, especially YOUNGIN.
But the Beta-7 operatives look disappointed in what they we're given. They might not be especially combat oriented but they weren't completely useless in a firefight.
NOMAD sees their disappointment right away and goes up to the Task Force Sergeant. "What's wrong Beta-7? Just because you weren't given the big bad toys Pi-1 and us got doesn't give you the right to look like someone picked you last in dodgeball in the 5th grade. Suck it up."
The 6 members of the task force all got up and squared up with NOMAD. Across the room the PHANTOM sighs and goes ethereal. NOMAD was about to throw a punch when the PHANTOM popped up and pushed him back. "YOUNGIN and BULL please get your senior operative he's causing trouble," the PHANTOM calls over to them. The two put their gear back down on the carts and grab NOMAD and pull him back.
"LET ME GO GODDAMMIT! THOSE BETA-7 FUCKS NEED TO LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT THE TOTEM POLE! THEY'RE INFERIOR, NOT TO BE EVEN REGARDED BY US! I'M-" YOUNGIN and BULL drag him out of the room kicking and screaming. They pin him to the wall ignoring the random FP and scientists walking past them and staring.
"Dude, lighten up. Who's to say they wont pop you in the head during the operation," YOUNGIN scolds NOMAD. "Yeah man we need Beta-7 they're the best of the best when it comes to biohazard containment. They know better than anyone about this type of shit, not us," BULL says as well. NOMAD tries to break free but BULLs raw strength combined with YOUNGIN is too much for even him.
"I want Nu-7 or Alpha-1 there. Those are the only task forces I can trust with this kind of op." YOUNGIN shakes his head at NOMAD, "We don't make the rules about that. Besides Nu-7 is too high profile for this. We want to do asset recovery, not destroy the entire favela. And Alpha-1... well we don't have a say in what they do. Not even the MTF directorate can tell them what to do. They fall into a different category." NOMAD swears, "Damn it all. Fine. FINE, I'll trust Beta-7, but I wont like it." They both wait for a bit before letting him go until he's calmed down.
When they let him go they back away slowly. "What're you both waiting for, lets go we gotta do some planning." NOMAD says walking down the hallway. They both sigh and follow him down to Sector-X.