Some days, the Overmind wished he'd removed his ability to feel disappointment.

The Trio overseeing Earth were gathered in front of him, bowed. He would have wondered how things got so bad... if it had been any other trio of Ethereals handling this. He'd given this assignment to them as a last ditch effort for them to redeem themselves, before he knew how important Earth would be. The decision would have been sound if not for their behavior—and he had counted on Esvensthia balancing them out. A foolish prospect, in hindsight, but who would've guessed the waste of space could grow a backbone?

His gaze shifted towards Cronus. "So. You killed your son, have you?"

"He is obliterated," Cronus affirmed. "XCOM has lost one of those misbegotten experiments."

Pitiful. The Overmind was half-tempted to just strike Cronus down on the spot. The Trio's penchant for being utterly blind was shining through. "You are absolutely sure of this."

The muted orchestra of his signature further quieted. "I... I drove a blade into his heart myself. I would trust that he is dead."

The Overmind let a silence-filled moment hang in the air. "My Angelis. Bring up the recent security footage."

Beside him, Angelis opened up a screen from the ephemera of the Void. The Trio looked up to see, but the Overmind didn't bother turning. He knew what was on there. Esvensthia arrived, Cronus retreated without so much as stopping to fight. Then, after a few seconds, the Warlock's body was engulfed by a pillar of blue light, identical to the ones once used to revive the Chosen when they were with ADVENT. The forces of XCOM retreated, and soon the Avenger was in the air. Failure. A complete failure.

"Because your simple mind might not be able to grasp this," he began, voice thick with disgust, "no. You have not killed your son. In fact, you may have very well made things worse. There is only one species capable of handling a revival of that nature on its own. Tell me. Tell me what that species is."

Cronus had swiftly returned to his bow once he'd seen the Chosen lifted out, and his hands were shaking. "... an A-Ascended."

"An Ascended. Not only does the human that stands the best chance of jeopardizing everything we've worked for have the Ascended, it is now awake. This will no longer be a simple case of an extraction and execution. The Zudjari technology we have can only do so much to combat an awake Ascended." The Overmind clenched his fist, and the twisting energies of the Void spiked with his own anger. "All of this because none of you could do anything correctly. Your 'children' fight for XCOM. Defection rates are skyrocketing. Esvensthia has escaped. And now we must deal with the Ascended. What do you all have to say for yourselves?"

There was a pause, clearly terrified silence hanging in the air. Odin was the one who braved it. "... f-forgive us, Overmind."

The Overmind's rage simmered. So prideful, scheming, and haughty were they right up until their plans all failed. All they could ever offer was a sorry. Energy crackled in the Overmind's hands. "Allow me to ruminate on it."

He cast the energy up. Three pillars of raw power descended upon the projections of the Trio. The torrent of overwhelming psionics immediately floored them, leaving the three of them writhing underneath the sheer force of the assault. To his credit, Cronus attempted to at least brace himself—a futile effort, as he was pressed against the floor once more. The loud roar of the Overmind's power drowned out any screams or cries they may have given. He was sure the display of his power was very visible; the others could likely feel the tremors of the Void as it happened.

As the Overmind channeled his powers, he indeed thought. The Trio had proven their incompetence time and time again. Odin's plans had merit, but even for an Ethereal, he was far too spiteful to meaningfully collaborate. Helena's eye for detail and design was admirable—but perfection was her sticking point, and hardly any of her projects ever made it out of the door. Cronus's only claim to fame was power that exceeded the other Ethereals—save the Overmind, of course. Perhaps the surgery hadn't removed all of the Overmind's useless emotions. After all, it must have been some misbegotten sense of attachment that made him keep them around this long. Maybe he should finish the job.

But, there was still practicality to think of. They would need all hands to put down the Ascended, and there were already Avatars being made to their specifications. They could do their part in beating down XCOM; but they would no longer be in any position of authority here. They had made it clear that they could not be trusted with managerial positions as far as the Overmind could physically throw them.

He watched as the three Ethereals writhed underneath his powers. The Overmind had gotten ahold of one of the meetings with their children, once. It had been one where just that Hunter had been on the receiving end. There wasn't much that the second Chosen had been able to do under his "father's" assault—only buckle under it, his "sister" watching in horror and his "brother" grinning cruelly. He hoped that Odin appreciated the reversal of fortune as much as the Overmind did. It had been a while since he'd gotten to really use his powers like this. For their mistakes, for all of their missteps, for putting the Collective in the position it was in now... they could stand a few more seconds. Or they couldn't. It made no difference to him.

After those few seconds, he let his powers ease. The Void was full of the excess energies now, and the Overmind could hear the galactic hum of his own signature in his own ears. The Trio was left shaking on the ground, hardly able to collect themselves. He watched Odin practically curl up, heard Helena quietly gasping, and felt Cronus's magnified terror.

Pathetic. "Stand. All of you." Trembling, they complied, with Odin only managing a few seconds after the other two did. "The three of you are hereby dismissed from your monitoring positions for Earth. My Angelis and I will be taking charge, since this clearly has gone too far. Your Avatars will be completed, you will aid in wiping both XCOM and the Ascended off of the face of this universe, and then?" He would kill them. "We will see, based on your behavior." He looked towards Angelis. "My Angelis, you will oversee the Avatar Project. I will handle all other matters."

She nodded. "I will proceed with matters apace. Are we still requisitioning the Commander?"

"Yes. Esvensthia's talents were wasted, but there regardless. She will be the best psionic candidate for subduing the Terror. Afterwards, she will be used for all future quelling operations. As for Earth itself..." He thought for a second. "Begin accelerated processing. No limiters. We have the blueprints for our Avatars—we only need so many humans for our first batch."

Angelis nodded, pulling up her interfaces and making her plans. The Overmind dismissed the Trio, watching them be shunted to another part of the Void.

If he had to beat this planet into submission himself, then so be it.


For the first time in fifteen years, Mordenna truly woke up.

He blinked a few times, groggy and rubbing at his remaining organic eye. God. He didn't want to get up. He wanted to lay in bed all day and take seventeen different naps and he was loving it. Well, he was less loving it with the beeping alarm behind him, cutting through his pleasantly sleepy mind. Grumbling, the nanos on his back formed into a limb, blindly grasping for the alarm clock before hitting some button that made the beeping shut up. Quiet restored, Mordenna took stock.

Mordenna had managed to assuage Bradford's worries enough to get Liz to sleep in her own bed—and obviously, Asaru came with her. Not that Mordenna minded, he figured Eliza wouldn't be up to anything in her current state. So the adorable scamp shared the bed with them. He was currently laying on his back in front of Mordenna, body dim and with a few of his tendrils wrapped around Mordenna's hands and Eliza's waist. Eliza herself was on her side, hair splayed about as she had her arms around Asaru. The two of them were very cute together, and Mordenna found himself just... watching the two of them for a bit. He guessed this was what raising a kid with Eliza would've been like. Granted, this kid practically had the mind of an adult, was almost as tall as he was, and was of a super species, but a kid regardless.

He must've been watching a little too long, as the alarm began to blare again, revealing he'd only hit the snooze button. He quietly groaned, turning over and picking out the silence button. When he turned back, Asaru's body was starting to gently glow again. "—morning, dad..."

Mordenna smiled, reaching out and patting his chest. "Morning, sleepyhead." He went to wake Eliza—but realized that getting touched with no other sensory input to tell her who it was might be a little freaky. "Could you wake up your mom for me? We gotta get out of bed eventually." As much as he didn't want to.

Asaru nodded, and soon, Eliza's eyes fluttered open—as much good as that did her for waking up. She palmed at them, mumbling something to the effect of "time." Two of Asaru's tendrils connected with the back of her head and her eyes glowed. "... good morning, you two. Did my alarm already go off?"

"Twice, but yeah." Mordenna sat up, stretching. Man, sleeping felt good. Odin was damn lucky he couldn't do it before, because he would've spent every rebellious hour doing it. He idly scratched at his jaw. "So we gotta get dressed, get ready, what have you."

There was a moment, then Eliza sighed. Mordenna looked back at her as she began speaking. "Is it... nah, I should probably get up." When Mordenna fixed her with his "you're not saying what's on your mind" stare, she relented. "Ok. I guess... I guess I wanted to stay in bed. Take one of those nebulous 'days off,' as much as I can take a day off. I just didn't want to strand Asaru here and if Tygan wants to do anything today but laze around..."

Mordenna gave her a reassuring smile, reaching over and cupping her cheek. "Honey. I'll take Asaru with me, I can babysit. And I'll let Tygan know where you are and what you want to do." He checked to make sure her blind cane was still on her side of the bed. "If you need attendants, I'm going to get Jax's little ladies on the Network, as well as the other psions. All else fails, call for one of us, ok?"

Eliza still looked conflicted for a moment, but when Asaru looked at her, she sighed again. "Ok. I may as well sleep in. Just let Tygan know if he's not already on his way here."

He nodded, leaning over and kissing her. "I will. Your cane's where it was last night, I'll ask someone to save some breakfast for you. I love you."

She returned the kiss, and her smile could warm the coldest blizzard. "I love you too. Don't spoil Asaru too much."

He chuckled, fully getting up. "Asaru, tell your mother I won't spoil you, I need to get dressed."

Asaru himself laughed, his body fully lit up. Mordenna got his clothes together, thinking as he did. Eliza could sleep in—it was him and Bradford that had the work to do today. After being firmly told that he and Bradford should be undertaking the decision making, Bradford finally stepped up and officially labeled himself acting Commander with Mordenna taking the role of Central Officer. Neat... but he just wished there was a less grim reason why they had to promote themselves.

That all said, it meant that Mordenna had even more work to do today than usual. That mission needed to be planned, he needed to quickly set up Jax with his new legs, and... there was a Sarcophagus to be made. Mordenna wasn't going to lose Jax again. He didn't care if Eliza brought him back—Mordenna watched his brother die by Cronus's hand. He hadn't been able to do anything about it then—but he damn well could do something about it now. He found it funny; for a man who just got the ability to sleep, he was going to need to not do that for quite a while to get everything done in a reasonable amount of time.

He finished tying his boots, standing up. "Alright, c'mon Azzie. Your mom wants to sleep and I gotta go."

"Ok!" Asaru turned to Eliza, hugging her tightly. "I love you, mom."

Eliza's hug back was tight, and she buried her face into her son's shoulder. "I love you too, Asaru. Make sure Mordenna doesn't get into any trouble."

"Don't foist that kind of responsibility on him," Mordenna chided, "you know he couldn't stop me if I wanted to get up to trouble."

Asaru laughed, squeezing Eliza before parting from her. He hesitated for a second, but after that he turned, his tentacles disconnecting from Eliza as he flew towards Mordenna. Taking on Asaru was an experience—Mordenna had the Network in the back of his mind and Eliza watching him through it before when she was in the tank, but there was nothing quite like a being setting up shop in your brain. Very distinct from just sharing headspace with his siblings. His psionics felt like they were getting supercharged, too, which was impressive for how little he felt them before. Asaru floated behind him, arms curling around Mordenna's shoulders as if hanging off of him.

Before Mordenna turned to leave, he stopped to watch Eliza. She was still sitting in bed, seeming to watch Asaru above him. She'd explained her "psionic blindsight" to him, but it still broke his heart to leave her there, largely hanging. When he didn't move, her smile dampened a little. "Go on," she muttered, words slightly running into each other.

Mordenna sighed, nodding. Busy day. He'd stay in with Eliza if he could. He made to leave, stopping one more time at the door to check on Eliza, who was still sitting up in bed. Opening the door, he finally pried his eyes away, leaving her quarters and heading out to the Bridge.

Below the "balcony" coming from the hallway to Eliza's room, Bradford was already at the Hologlobe. He had his back turned as he was talking to some of the staff on deck, but turned to look as he heard the door open. Bradford quickly finished up the conversation as Mordenna vaulted over the railing, landing smoothly and walking up to Bradford as he turned. "Mordenna."

"Commander." The word was hollow in Mordenna's mouth, but someone had to say it. None of them would ever accept it otherwise. "It's hardly time for anyone to be awake and yet here you are, working yourself to the bone. You take on the title well."

Bradford sighed. He seemed to be living up to the title in more ways than one—there were dark shadows under his eyes, and were those a few more white hairs around his temples? "Usually I'm the one championing a good night of sleep, but... just couldn't get any rest, last night. Thank god for my usual blend of coffee."

"Maybe I should be the Commander here, since I don't need sleep to function, and all."

"And let that PR nightmare happen?" Bradford massaged his forehead. "... I don't even know what will happen when everyone outside of the Avenger learns what happened to Eliza. Learns what she's going to do to herself. Learns of..." He trailed off, looking up at Asaru. "... well, the fact that Asaru isn't a—what was it called—a Revenant."

Yeah, there was that problem too. The moment anyone caught Asaru hanging off of Mordenna's shoulders instead, that was bound to cause some questions. In the Infirmary, it was manageable—Eliza had always been in the same room. However, now there was no way that smokescreen could be managed. Mordenna crossed his arms, craning his head to look at Asaru. "Then maybe some introductions are in order. And besides, I think it's high time we really broke down the details of what all is going on now. The soldiers have had their fun with rumors, but I think you should call a meeting. Maybe in the Commons since we've got so many people—and have Wiki down in the Basement to echo the announcement."

Bradford nodded. "That's definitely the most logical option. Hopefully that'll help me straighten out how we're moving forward, too. We still need to get to the Elders and the Gate is fully integrated into the Shadow Chamber, correct?"

"Yep. The XCOM Network is fully active too, and that reminds me." He gestured vaguely. "We need to get everyone who either wants to be on there or potentially immortal to go through the Psi Lab. Only just enough to unlock their Gift."

Bradford blinked. "I'm operating off of two hours of sleep at best, refresh me on that 'immortality' thing?"

"Well, I'm obviously making a Sarcophagus. We have the pieces, I just need more raw materials for construction and a little help from Argus. I honestly think we could fit it—just would have to refurbish one of our Resistance Communications rooms. I could do some tweaking to the other to support the expanded capacity, maybe enter some talks with the Baroness in regards to getting more tech. Likely will have to anyway for the raw materials needed. Long story short, if you're psionic, you can be on the Network. If you're on the Network, you can be connected to the Sarcophagus. You get the picture, yeah?"

He eventually nodded. "I follow. Still, before we get that meeting... we need to go over the details of the mission Argus has handed us."

"Right, get a squad together." He walked towards the Hologlobe, leaning on the rails. "Asaru, ready to help us plan?"

Asaru floated down so that he was level with Mordenna's head. "Uh-huh!"

Bradford got out his datapad, and the Hologlobe shifted, pulling up coordinates near Canada. "The mission Argus has asked us to do for their materials is right around here. They say the raw materials they're going to need are all in a Blacksite, but they don't know how long it's going to be there—if it's still there at all. The mission's an urgent priority, in so many words." He looked to Asaru, a corner of his mouth turning up. "Thanks to Asaru here, we're operating with a largely full deck. About the only people we can't bring are those just mentally exhausted, or, well." He went back to his tired expression. "Jax."

"That's a situation that could be handled in a day or so," Mordenna assured. "I've had to do Specter implants on people twice now, and as luck would have it, we still have two 'cadavers' left. Just need to assign the default 'prosthetic' programming to them and get the bases and implants made. Don't even need Schro's help now that I've got my own." He'd been letting the nanos mold into an undersuit for a while now whenever a scarf wasn't appropriate. Kept them low-profile. Which struck him with an idea—maybe Fal-Mai might like having an easily-accessible second skin? Just needed to tell her. "But I get your point." He accessed the Hologlobe on the Network, bringing up the roster function. "Unknown area, potentially heavy firepower guarding it, and we are probably going to blow the place up before we leave. After getting the goods, of course. SPARK, Grenadier, a Reaper or a Ranger to scout, and hm..." He rubbed his chin. "Buildings aren't a great place for Sharpshooters or anything of the like. Better off with a Templar or a Skirmisher."

Asaru mentally requested access to Mordenna's knowledge of their available soldiers, and he granted it. After a second, he nodded. "Um, if you're looking for heavy firepower and easy breaching, do you think Vel'kiin or one of her Mutons would like to assist?"

"There's that," Bradford concurred, "or Dolly. We're not short of options for breaking and entering. Should probably have a medic on the ground, however."

Asaru perked up. "I could help! I'm good with healing."

Bradford silently looked to the side, and Mordenna supposed it fell to him to tell Asaru why that might be a bad idea. "Kid." He rubbed at his mouth. How to put this. "Do you want me to sugarcoat it, or do you want it straight?"

He was silent for a second. "... be honest, but... not too scary."

That, Mordenna could try for. "I think it's wonderful you wanna help down there, Asaru, but... unless people surrender, we kill them. And if you're down there, you're going to have to see it firsthand. If things get bad enough, you might have to kill someone. Plus, I think your mom would have a metaphorical heart attack at the idea of you being within firing range. Can you understand why we don't want you down there?"

Asaru looked like his enthusiasm was thoroughly dampened, and he curled around Mordenna's shoulders again. "I'm sorry..."

"Hey, hey, kid." Mordenna pulled Asaru in for a hug. The boy was strangely cool and... kinda soft, for how built he looked. "Don't apologize. You wanted to help, and you didn't have the context before for what we were doing down there. We are at war, and it's something you need to know. It's a fact of life right now. You can heal anyone who comes back injured, ok?" When he nodded, Mordenna let go, letting Asaru remain around his shoulders. "Ok. In regards to the roster?"

Bradford cleared his throat, looking back to the globe. "Right. I'll ask Vel'kiin if she would want to be down there. Samhien is probably our best option for a medic down there in that situation, considering he knows how to patch up aliens of all types." He looked to Mordenna. "Is Julian doing alright?"

Mordenna internally scowled at himself. Underneath all the chaos, he hadn't made the time to check in on him. "Don't know. But sign him up. I'll see him before we embark on the mission and make sure the man's ok. Chuck on Dolly as our heavy gunner. Have Elena be our scout, and do we have a good Specialist for midrange support?"

"Mary hasn't been down there since the mission to rescue Jane. I think she could make a good—"

Before he could finish that statement, Mordenna spotted Vix entering the room a dimension over, and soon enough she was in their plane of reality, quickly coming over and hugging her father. He spared a hug back. "Good morning, Vix. Everything alright?"

"Yeah. Mostly..." She parted from him long enough to look up at Asaru. After a second, she teleported up to hug him, too. "Hey, Asaru."

Asaru readily returned the hug. "Hello, sister!"

Mordenna chuckled. The two technically were adoptive siblings. He was happy to see them grow on each other so fast. Vix eventually dropped from the hug with Asaru, looking up at Mordenna. "Dad? Could I go on this mission?"

In response, Mordenna looked to Bradford. A little bit of his protective instinct kicked in, and he almost told her no... but he figured out fast why she was asking. She wanted to get better in combat to protect him. She'd already been so devastated at what happened to him the last time they'd fought together. Practice made perfect—it just was up to Bradford if he was fine with the substitution.

Seemed so, as Bradford shrugged. "If you're fine sending your own daughter out there, be my guest. I'd assume she qualifies as midrange support?"

"Absolutely." With a quick command to the Network, Mordenna populated their list for the mission. Vel'kiin—tentatively—Julian, Dolly, Samhien, Elena, Vix. Something then occurred to Mordenna. "... unless we have Argus on deck up here, guiding the squad in exactly what to get and not shoot, with the margin for error..."

Bradford gave a deep sigh. "We need them down there, don't we." More of a statement than a question. "I don't think Vel'kiin would be fond of working with an Ethereal. I don't think anyone else would be, for that matter, but..."

Mordenna scratched his chin. Well, he did have his over 20/20 vision back. "If we put them down there, we need someone who will wrangle them. And going down there myself gives me a great opportunity to watch over my kid. I can just borrow Jax's rifle for midrange. Who else would we sub out..." After a second of thinking, the choice wasn't particularly hard. "Elena. For good reason."

"Well... that's as good as it's gonna get. But god, nobody's gonna like that."

"Nobody will, least of all me." Mordenna still didn't fully trust Argus. They'd exchanged their words, and Mordenna knew Samhien had cleared them, but he still wanted to believe that they were up to something. But he couldn't operate on mistrust forever. There had to be some give eventually. At least he could keep an eye on them if he went down there, himself. "But we can soften the blow as much as possible. Maybe have 'em testify that they're going to help and be honest in front of everyone with Samhien checking their truthfulness?"

"Seems like a good idea." Bradford manually swapped out Vel'kiin and Elena for Argus and Mordenna. "... you gonna be ok down there? I know you have your eye back and all, but still."

"I appreciate the concern, but I'll be fine, Brads." Mordenna tapped his left eye—certainly a strange sensation, but there was no pain to the action. "I'm seeing about as well as I used to, and I did a few accuracy tests before I went to bed with Liz and Asaru. I'm all souped up and ready to go."

Bradford nodded, crossing his arms. "Alright. So I think this is our final roster, for now. Subject to change as people object to working with Argus." He rubbed at his forehead again. "And Liz just said their freedom only went towards the Siren Project..."

"After this mission, that'll be true." Mordenna restored the Hologlobe. "Still, we need to bring that by the other soldiers. Wanna call them down?"

"Yeah. I'll handle that. Go ahead and get down to the Commons—and stow Asaru if you can do that, for the time being."

That he could do. He looked to Asaru. "Hey, Azzie? Could you chill in my head for a minute? Until we ask you to be out again."

He nodded, squeezing Mordenna's shoulders again. "Ok. Tell me when I can come out again."

With that, Mordenna felt Asaru sink into his consciousness and into somewhere deeper in his mind. He regarded Vix next. "May as well come with me, other child of mine."

As he walked off, Vix bounded up to match his stride as they left the Bridge, heading towards the Commons. This... was going to be interesting, breaking all of the news that had happened thus far. He wasn't wanting to face it all again, but it was something that had to be done for clarity. Best not to keep everyone in the dark, even if they knew some of the details. A thought occurred to him, and he sent off a message on the Network. Hey, Wiki. Could you split into two proxies and have one in the Commons, one in the Basement? We're about to make an announcement and I want the whole ship to know what's going on.

Her reply was swift. That I can do.

Thank you. That would make things easier. She could act like a walkie-talkie for the Basement. Speaking of communication, he needed to also bring up if the current psions wanted to connect with the Network, now that they definitely knew it worked—in more ways than one. He hadn't been expecting Eliza to be able to revert back to her old monitoring position, and that made him worry. He'd left the functions in there, expecting she couldn't just access them as a user. Maybe her permissions were deeper than that, maybe the same way people were given IDs based on their psionic signature. Whatever the case, he'd resolve that when he got a moment. Way too much to do, now.

He and Vix eventually made it to the Commons, stepping on in. This early in the morning, hardly anyone was milling about—Arachne and Dolly were playing some card-based game, Pattie and Benald were spectating, and Mary was moving around with a duster, cleaning off the tops of shelves. As Mordenna and Vix entered, the Twins perked up, but not by much. "Morning, Vix, Mords," Benald began. "What brings you two here?"

"Business," Mordenna replied. "And it's about to get a whole lot busier in here pretty soon, so I apologize about that in advance."

"Usually gets busy here after breakfast," Pattie said. "Unless you mean something else is gonna happen?"

"Precisely that. Arachne, Dolly, might wanna either wrap up your game or save your place with it."

Dolly set his cards down. "Might as well stop. I was going to win, anyway."

"What, with a pair of twos?" Arachne set down her cards, causing Dolly to groan. "—I only checked after Mordenna told us to stop, mind you."

"Betcha you were in my head before then. Mindreaders..." Still, despite his grumbling, he assisted in packing up the game with Arachne, quite delicately at that.

Mary, apparently having heard them, put away the duster, coming over. "What's about to happen?"

"An announcement." Mordenna began to move towards the back of the room. "I'm sure a lot of you know most of the details as to what's been going on recently, but it's high time we made an official statement regarding everything. Could you guys move everything out of the way or to the walls?"

Nodding, the group complied, with Vix chipping in. Soon, Wiki's proxy blipped in beside him. Any second now...

"Avenger, this is... Commanding Officer Bradford. All XCOM soldiers report to the Commons. All royalty-aligned allies report to the basement. This is a critical announcement. I repeat..."

Bradford went on once more, and Mordenna formed his nanos into a comb, giving his hair a touchup as he made a mirror with them as well. Might as well not look horrifically unkempt. As he combed his hair, some of his focus went to his left eye as it mechanically stared back at him. So many things had changed since the start of the year. Looked like they would still be changing.

After a minute of upkeep, and with the door opening, Mordenna put his tools away, watching as bleary-eyed soldiers stumbled into the Commons. Mostly human, but people like Schro, Jax's congregation, and even SYN made their way here. A blip on the Network told him Julian was now requesting spectator access through Mordenna's eyes. He took his chance. Hey Julian. Is everything alright? I'm sorry I haven't had the time to get to you.

It's fine. Mordenna was ready to counter with "no, it isn't" until Julian spoke again. Lily came to check on me, and, well. It's been a terribly busy time for everyone, you included. Especially you. So I'm only holding minor annoyance at worst.

Well, Mordenna was glad for that, and glad that Lily took the initiative to make sure he was alright. Good to hear it. I'll probably still drop in on you after. With that, he granted Julian spectator access, allowing him to see as well as Mordenna as the Commons filled up. His siblings made it in, with Fal-Mai keeping to the back and Jax arriving on psionic legs, flanked by members of his little group.

Eventually, Bradford appeared at the door, and the crowd parted to let him through as he made his presence known. He joined Mordenna, giving Wiki a glance. "Is she our microphone?"

"To the Basement, yes, and them back to us. Like a walkie-talkie."

He nodded, turning around to face everyone. After a few more murmuring-filled minutes as the remaining soldiers filed into the room, he began. "Soldiers, can everyone hear me?" When there were no objections and a confirmation from Celosia coming from Wiki, he went on. "Sorry to call you this early in the morning, but we've got a few issues to go over, and the sooner, the better."

"Many of you probably know a lot of what we're about to cover," Mordenna went on, "but in the interest of transparency, we're laying it all out. We'll start with what's obvious." He gestured to Bradford. "As you may have heard from the announcement, and gleaned from the fact that Eliza isn't here... Bradford is currently your acting Commander. At Eliza's appointment, I'm his XO. Eliza is currently in a state that renders her unable to command." He looked to Bradford. "If Bradford wishes to elaborate, he can."

Bradford deflated a bit, but he was back to his stern appearance shortly. "The long and short of it is that Eliza brought Jax back to life after he was killed in the field, and her body wasn't meant to handle that. So she is functionally blind and deaf. She has requested for Mordenna and I to command in her stead until she's fit to command again. Which... we'll get to in a second. Any questions so far?"

A few hands went up. Mordenna pointed to Roland, who spoke. "How long will this last?"

"Hard to say," Mordenna replied. "Eliza's recovery process is going to be a strange one. Which, again, we'll get to, so hold your horses." A few hands went down, and he gestured at one of the remaining ones. "Clint."

His hand lowered slowly. "Is Eliza in the Infirmary still? I guess my real question is... can we show our support? Cards, little well-wishing gifts, you get it."

"That's encouraged," Mordenna returned, happy the soldiers were looking to do so. "Liz still is trying to move around on her own, but once she starts undergoing her... surgery, she'll be confined to one location—and arguably, that's when she's gonna need it the most. So at that time, absolutely, and protocols and the like will be further established then. Any others?"

Nothing from the crowd—but Wiki raised her hand. When she was gestured to, Rodin's voice came out. "What is our next move, then? We have the Chosen, an Ethereal has been taken, and an Avatar of one of the others has appeared on the field. Are we to now take the fight to them?"

"With luck," Bradford replied, "that's the plan. Now that we have the Network up, Mordenna and the rest of the tech team are going to be working on getting the Gate to access their own base with coordinates we got from one of the Codices we hacked. We'd just... prefer Eliza in better condition before that's the case. We'll be keeping busy in the meantime, don't worry."

With that, there were no more questions. Mordenna sighed. This next part was going to be... difficult. "Ok. With the questions of command out of the way, we'll move on." He eased a hand onto his hip. "You've heard me and Bradford refer to Eliza being able to 'command again' and some surgery I've vaguely alluded to. For this point—and you guys have been good about this, but I want to make sure—I ask for no interruptions until I ask for questions." The crowd nodded. Mordenna went on. "—likely all of you know we picked up the Ethereal known as Argus very recently, and Eliza said they would not be treated as an ally, rather as a source of information, perhaps a research assistant at most. With recent circumstances, that's going to have to be altered slightly. Argus will be receiving two concessions: the ability to go on an upcoming mission to secure specific resources, and... head surgeon in turning Eliza into a Chosen in order to restore her senses and allow her to handle her now-expanded psionics."

The crowd, reasonably, looked like they had some objections. Thankfully, they heeded Mordenna's request, and nobody spoke out. "Rightfully," Mordenna continued, "they will be monitored. Heavily. We'll have eyes on them at all times, and any proposed changes involved in the surgery will be run by Dr. Tygan, and said changes will only go ahead with his approval. Samhien, with his consent, will be used as a lie detector, just to make sure—and he'll also be on staff in regards to Eliza's surgery. Finally, Eliza herself requested the surgery, so this isn't anything that's being forced on her. She's made the decision of her own free will." That should have mostly covered everything. He threw his other hand out. "Alright. Questions?"

Immediately, quite a few hands shot up. Mordenna set his jaw, mulling over the crowd. In the end, he called on Sherry. "Sherry?"

"Thank you." She put her hand down. "Have we investigated alternatives? It's been demonstrably shown that we're able to replace someone's eyes—I'm very sure we have the means to allow the Com—Eliza to hear again without putting her through this."

"Trust me," Bradford replied, "I... went over that with her. She said it was 'treating the symptom, not the disease.' The fact of the matter is that her body just can't keep up with her psionics now, and turning her into a Chosen is one of the few ways it can be helped. I don't like it as much as any of you do."

When the hands went up again, there weren't as many, thankfully. "—Arachne?"

The Sectoid's voice carried in the room well. "Hunter, I think it goes without saying that the power of Ethereals is not to be underestimated, doubly so for one that has accessed this 'Avatar' body. I will go ahead and reasonably assume that psionic suppressors will be applied to them while they are conducting Eliza's surgery, but what about this mission you've mentioned? Will suppressors be applied then, or will they be allowed to go free with their powers?"

Good question. Mordenna looked to Bradford, and they exchanged a glance. He really hadn't seen a demonstration of what Argus's powers were in the Avatar, but just by looking at their signature, he could easily tell it was stronger than Jax's. That was a lot of power to be playing with. On one hand, Mordenna had to admit that Argus was completely docile and compliant. When he'd initially walked into their cell, he was expecting some form of indignance, for them to put up a fight at some stage of the process. But... no. Not at all. Argus was cooperative from day one. On the other hand—well, this was an Ethereal. Not everyone had Mordenna's experience. Not everyone would just take Mordenna's word for it that they were relatively harmless. Rightfully so, too—Argus was an anomaly among the cases they had been typically working with. There was going to be suspicion that any Elder would cooperate... and Argus was still complicit in the crimes they had committed before, against their will or not. Just as Mordenna was... but Mordenna didn't have a galactic scale to work with. Maybe that many living beings just became an impersonal number at some point, but Mordenna was good with numbers; the simple fact of the matter is that Argus's kill count was higher than everyone on this ship combined.

Man. How did Eliza work with this "redemption" business?

Eventually, Mordenna sighed, turning back to the crowd. "You're right, suppressors will be in use during their work on Eliza. But as for the mission..." It would be strange to make them go entirely without, but he knew the crowd wasn't looking for them to have total freedom. "The suppressors will be adjusted to allow them some use of their powers. But certainly not all." There was already an in-progress project for them, so the addition of a scaling limiter shouldn't be too much. "For what it's worth, Argus has both been extremely cooperative and had all of their statements and willingness to work with us cleared by Samhien before. Of course, it won't mean complete freedom for them—and normally they wouldn't be going on a mission at all. But, to be clear, this is a desperate time."

Arachne nodded, having no followup. The next hand Mordenna gravitated to was... Vlad. He was already halfway through opening his mouth before it even occurred to him that asking Vlad his opinion might be a bad idea. "Vlad?"

Vlad paused for a moment as he was called on, and several looks were shot at him. Eventually, he spoke. "With all due respect—" there were hurried whispers of "don't!, "—I'd... I'd like to hear it from Argus him—themself. I want to hear what they're going to do and if they really are going to help us. I don't think any of us have really talked to them, so... do we know what's on their mind?"

Oh. Well. That was... strangely accommodating, considering who it was from. Mordenna raised his eyebrows, then scanned for Argus in the crowd. They were at the front and to the side, with a gap around them. Samhien seemed to have already gravitated towards standing next to them. "—honestly, Vlad, that's a good query. Argus? Could you come up here and answer his question?"

Nodding, Argus came up, with Samhien automatically trailing behind them. Bradford and Mordenna moved to the sides to allow room for the two of them. Argus clasped their hands in front of and behind their back, taking in a deep breath. "—good morning, soldiers of the Avenger. As you have heard, my name is Argus, Avatar-Ethereal formerly associated with the Collective. Two truths, one lie; I am 6'1", I have two siblings, and I possess a Revenant as all of my former colleagues do.

Samhien blinked. "... The second is... a half-truth."

"Good. I have a sibling. I wanted to demonstrate that Samhien can tell when even an Ethereal is lying—and that he can tell when I am blurring the line between truth and fiction." They paused for a moment, as if gathering their words. "You have heard from Eliza, Bradford, and Mordenna that I intend to cooperate with XCOM. That is very much the truth; I despise the Collective for all that they have forced me to do underneath them, and I disavow their planet-conquering ways. I am fully willing to give any and all intel I possess, as well as lend my talents, combat or otherwise. I was the Collective's lead geneticist, dealing with all matters biological—human or otherwise. As stated, I will be performing the series of operations to convert Eliza into a Chosen—called 'The Siren Project,' as that was to be her Chosen title."

They paused, and the crowd waited for them to go on, expecting more. Argus continued. "I won't go into the technical details—but they will be fully shared with Tygan and Samhien, and already have been in the former's case. Eliza will be undergoing a process similar to what the other Chosen went under; granted, with much less intentional trauma, and no memory-wiping as was called for with Mordenna and Jax. First, her DNA will be modified to provide the framework for her new body. Then, growth will be induced in her body to match that new DNA—and she will be given the appropriate nutrients to help the process along, I assure you. Lastly will be additional modifications as demanded and called for by her—such as modifying her throat to better serve her singing voice for her psionics. There will be multiple wellness checks during the process to ensure Eliza is faring... well, as best as can be managed, regarding the circumstances." Argus looked over the crowd. Samhien simply nodded, silently verifying what Argus said to be true. "Any questions?"

Hands went up, naturally. Argus pointed to Roland. "Sorry to be rude, but... what are you getting out of doing this? You should be hating us like the rest of the Elders, right?"

"Perhaps in another life, I would. But I've been forced to do the Collective's dirty work for far too long." They looked to the side. "Part of my reason for doing this is to assist Earth and save it from being just another hollowed-out planet, used as a tap for genetic resources. But... I will not lie. A good amount of my reasoning is getting back at the Collective for everything that they have put me through. But revenge is not my only reason, and I intend to continue repenting for my crimes long after they have been beaten back."

Roland looked to Samhien, who nodded. The former looked placated, crossing his arms. The next question came from Wiki. "I have a question for you," Celosia asked on the other line. "How are we supposed to know you are not cloaking your signature in some form to bypass Samhien's abilities?"

"Truth be told," Argus replied, "I'm taking on faith that Samhien is using his ability. I've never felt any sort of psionic prodding from him at any point of me speaking, even when I had spoken my lie. Without feeling that, I wouldn't know what to defend against."

That was interesting. Come to think of it, Mordenna hadn't felt Samhien doing that when he was testing his abilities back then, too. "I can confirm that," Mordenna said, figuring he might as well verify Argus's claim. "I've tested Samhien's abilities on a whim before and can say I never felt any sort of psionic presence as he did."

"I feel it is not so much as a probing as it is a reading," Samhien himself spoke up. "If there is a tangible enough difference between the two."

Argus nodded. "My point stands. Everything you are hearing from me is the truth—outside of that one telegraphed lie."

There didn't seem to be any more questions after that. Hard to doubt the person who constantly had all of their statements passed by the living lie detector, after all. Argus hadn't gone through any lies by omission that Mordenna could tell, at least. With no questions, Mordenna figured they could move on.

"With all of that out of the way..." Mordenna crossed his arms. "Next item on the agenda is something that really needs to be brought up before we can move forward—and hopefully Argus can help fill in on this info." This... was going to be interesting. He hoped everyone would react civilly—Asaru didn't need a bad reaction. "So, as those of you in the Infirmary at the time are aware, when Eliza woke up, something that we initially called a Revenant manifested. His name is Asaru, he healed your wounds, and out you went. Maybe you saw him hanging off of Jax—but Eliza was in the same room, so that was probably just his extended range, right?" Mordenna sighed. "Well... Wiki, start streaming video." He mentally turned to Asaru. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Exit slowly.

Asaru rose to the front of Mordenna's mind, then beyond. Mordenna could see his tentacles unfurl out of the corners of his eyes, and watched as the crowd reacted. Some with awe, some with confusion, with plenty of speculative muttering going down. Asaru seemed to grow shy quickly, as Mordenna could feel him duck behind him, hugging his shoulders. "Um... hi. My name is Asaru. I'm..." He mentally nudged Mordenna, asking if it was ok to say what he was going to next. Mordenna gave him the go ahead, and Asaru resumed. "I'm an Ascended Ethereal."

Before that could garner an even more pronounced reaction from the audience, Mordenna spoke up. "Before you prejudge," he was quick to say, "Ascended Ethereals are, in a word, different from normal Ethereals." He looked to Argus. "Argus? You know more on this matter than I do."

Argus nodded, then recapped the info—one to a planet, almost an entirely different species to normal Ethereals, and how the host binding worked, among other things. The crowd seemed to generally follow along, even if he could see people like Pattie getting lost, bless her heart. Samhien remained quiet, but calm the entire time, not objecting to anything said.

Eventually, Argus wrapped it up, gesturing for Mordenna to speak again. "That's basically what there is to know about Ascended Ethereals like Asaru, here. He's just a kid, so be nice to him, and watch your language, same as you would any kid. Questions?"

Only a few hands went up. Naturally one of them was Pattie, whom Benald was trying to put down gently. Feeling like they could use a spot of levity, he pointed to her. "Pattie, who's being silenced, and I won't have that."

That garnered a chuckle from the crowd, defusing the situation somewhat. Pattie grinned at Benald, who sighed. "Ok! You keep calling him like a kid, or saying he's young—if he's a kid, and he came from Eliza... is he Eliza's kid?"

Mordenna shrugged. "That's how we've been treating him. So if I catch wind of you being mean to my kid, there will be blood, capiche?"

Nods from those gathered, but clearly the mood had lightened. Pattie may have always had silly questions, but they did well in lightening the mood and maybe even going into interesting topics. Mordenna felt a tap on his shoulder—looking over, that was Asaru. He nodded, and Asaru addressed the soldiers. "Um, I'd like to ask a question. I can go to anyone on this ship, and sometimes Mom can't look after me and maybe one of my other dads or moms is busy... would anyone be alright with letting me... hang out with them, I guess?"

"Correct term would be babysitting," Mordenna clarified. "Good question, too. Show of hands!"

Almost every hand in the crowd went up—and looking over, Wiki was providing a video feed of the Basement too, where it seemed everyone there had a hand up. About the only people that had their hands down were a few understandable exceptions and then the non-organics, like SYN. But Rosa had her hand up, so that was basically a yes. Mordenna chuckled. "Alright! Good to know we'll never be short of babysitters and Azzie here won't be short of people who are happy to look after him. You can put your hands down now." They did, and Mordenna searched his mind for if there was anything else that needed to be brought up. The current state of affairs, Argus, Asaru... the mission could be gone over with those involved, as he'd at least cleared that Argus was going out on one with the crowd. Anything else could probably be barked over the intercom, and it was high time he let these people get to breakfast. "If there's no other questions, we'll let you all go about your days. Kept you from breakfast long enough!"

There were some cheers and jeers at Mordenna from the crowd, and soon enough, everyone began to file out. The Basement population was doing the same, and Wiki closed the video feed, saluting before blipping out of this dimension. As everyone left, he could see his siblings making their way to the front of the crowd. Fal-Mai was quick to beckon to Asaru, and he floated over, with Fal-Mai cradling him the best she could. Rosetta popped out, settling on Asaru's lap. A few of Jax's congregation were around him, escorting him, and Lucifer was hovering behind him. Mordenna looked up at him. "Hey, Jax. We can get started on your new legs as soon as you're ready, by the way."

Jax nodded. "I was hoping to see to that, yes. I can manage with my psionics, but I will be grateful to not have to consistently use them to get around." He paused. "... even if it is a good source of endurance training, come to think of it."

"Well, you can still do it after we kit you out—you'll just have actual legs to stand on when you're done." He patted Jax on the shoulder. "I've got a lot on my plate, but that's top of the docket. I'm a pretty busy man—Vix, what's my itinerary?"

"Setting up Jax's prosthetics, planning and attending the Blacksite mission, organizing everyone to go psionic so they can connect to the Network—"

"Godda—" Mordenna bit his lip, checking his language around his two kids. "Darn it. Knew I'd forgotten something. Well, I kept them all from breakfast long enough. We can go over that later. But yeah, that, the Sarcophagus, and generally what used to be parts of Eliza and Bradford's duties."

Fal-Mai gave him a look of concern. "Brother, if you need any help, we are here."

"I don't mean this in a bad way, but I don't know how you guys can help with most of the stuff I'm working with." He blew out a breath. "Destressing, though? Just hanging out with my sibs and taking breaks? Absolutely. I'll call on you guys for that."

Lucifer nodded. "And if you need us to look after Asaru, well... a lot of other people can, too, but know we're the first on the list."

Mordenna chuckled. "I wouldn't keep Azzie here from his other parents, don't worry." Speaking of other parents, he had a summary of that meeting to issue to the Faction Leaders, and maybe bits and pieces of it to be sent to the Baroness. She would be somewhat disappointed that her favorite Commander wasn't visiting, after all. Might as well give her the reason. Wiki probably recorded the whole thing, he could get the minutes and recap it.

Bradford came over. "You really took over for me there, huh."

"Ah, sorry about that." Mordenna figured he really did just talk constantly without giving Bradford any room to reply.

Still, Bradford shook his head. "Don't worry. You knew more than me on basically all of those topics. I think you'd make the better Commander out of the two of us, but, well. We've already been over that."

"That we have. If you've got duties to see to, by the way, we can head off to them. I just need to dip into the Workshop sometime today to both visit Lily and get started on Jax's legs."

"Plenty to do, considering it seems word got out that we got downed and now we got a dozen concerned havens trying to see if we're dead for various reasons."

"That's gonna be fun! What's our cover story for not having Liz?"

"I... was hoping you had one."

Mordenna chuckled, looking to his siblings. "Well, you heard the man. He and I are due for a brainstorming before we pacify all the havens in a three country radius. Azzie?"

Azzie looked like he was ready to get up, but Fal-Mai fixed Mordenna with what he could only describe as puppy dog eyes. He chuckled, gesturing for Asaru to stay. He could feel his presence leaving his mind as the tentacles on his shoulder blades disconnected, connecting to his sister. His psionics quieted down—and it made him wonder if he should see about training them. Eh, that could be thought of later. Satisfied, Fal-Mai smiled at him. "The best of luck, brother. We are behind you."

Mordenna smiled. "Glad to have the support. The both of you, take it easy."

With that, he trailed after Bradford as they left the room. Time to go to work.