Omega
The Gift
In a less 'enlightened' age, as some determined it, Sierra might have been worshipped by administrators and sales staff as a model for their cosmetics. She could have been a nameless draw for girls and agemates to mimic from a single magazine page, or a scale for males to judge their potential others, given that whatever natural draw she had was borne not of Basic or the Academy's training.
But that was a path not trodden; especially in a world where even the best cosmetics came in dingy little bottles and tins, and Sierra herself was, in all likelihood, the forerunning consumer of such products.
She had left Ryan to deal with his new problem, and planned to stay away until she could safely assume it had gone. Social as she was, there were few enough people in the vicinity that she cared to mingle with. Ian was gone, and most everyone else she might have chosen lived in other cities during the summer days.
Instead of bothering, she fell into a routine as ingrained as physical training had since become.
She dyed her hair.
As she reclined, combing the light color even whilst it dried, her mother brought to her attention that which she had missed.
"Ryan called."
The simple statement, though Sierra blinked it off, was enough to get her attention, "He say what for?"
"No, but he said it wasn't important and could wait."
Sierra could have snickered in glee. To call instead of simply waltz over meant something was up. Even if it only had to do with that damn woman… dog… incident.
"Thanks mam."
---
Ryan had left her to cover for him. Not that he needed it, but he made her feel as though usefulness was growing back into her everyday life. Which, she presumed, was his intention.
While she waited on the inevitable, she resided in the doorway – in the shadows and all but forgotten. It would become a useful skill later in life, but for now she thought nothing of it. Instead, she waited, occupied with the task at hand.
Ryan's youngest sister was, again, watching a movie, though this video was different than the one nights' prior. She paid it little attention, save to wonder what she missed that gave her friend the lead to draw werewolf into their predicament.
It fit, she supposed.
Eyes conveniently fixed elsewhere in the opposing room, she saw the flash of the com. before she heard it chime. She held her breath, feigning distraction to the television as Ryan's mother obeyed the summons.
Listening surreptitiously, Jane confirmed her suspicions. Which meant she would have to talk to Sierra.
Biting down an involuntary grimace at the thought, she waited for the polite conversation to arrive at its concise end before moving operation to Ryan's now abandoned bedroom.
While she prepared the system, she estimated just what Sierra's reaction would be. She found, to her pleasant surprised, that she had underestimated by quite a distance.
"You…?" caught completely off guard, Sierra didn't quite recover appropriately, "What the hell do you want?"
The tinny – yet accurate – voice substitution made it all the less intimidating. Jane might have given to the temptation to laugh if she hadn't known how it would effect her future. Instead, she stuck to the concern at hand.
"Ryan told me to let you know the truth if you called," Jane paused, waiting for affirmation. The holo-Sierra stared back at her with less than genuine patience.
"Why? Where is he?"
"If all went well?" the girl followed up the rhetoric without pause, "On his way to Moscow."
Sierra shook her head, as though she hadn't heard clearly, but her tone failed to dissuade to such deception, "On his way where?"
---
She had taken the transformation well that evening. The moonset and following moonrise had been relatively painless compared to the last set.
The immeasurable communication was pleasant, if confusing. She was unsure of what she had done to deserve such lavish attention, but she must have done good. She was determined to figure out what, so she could do so more often.
Meanwhile, she enjoyed it as it came, until a sudden backlash set her on regression.
---
Communication through concept, rather than word, was far different from other such communication along similar lines. Likened to how one requires practice to speak fluently, spontaneously interpret the written word, or read the tics of another's sinew, telepathy required use to function.
Newly introduced to the medium, Ryan was having a hard time stringing the concepts to their proper lingual connections.
She, on the other hand, was comfortable with the medium; at the same time, she respected his clumsiness without ego. So, In response to his confusion, rather than question, the woman merely emphasized. It was a question, of sorts, with a reminiscent facsimile to clarify the concept.
Alpha.
The bulk of that particular concept was far beyond him, but a part of the base concept swept it away before he could even consider it. She was asking about Sierra, something he wasn't interested in discussing. Before he knew what he had done, he pushed her away.
The woman shuddered visibly, meekly looking down at her feet and refusing to 'speak.'
Ryan was struck by guilt. It wasn't her fault; he was the one who didn't know what he was doing.
He had no way of dancing her subconscious as she did his.
I'm sorry. I'm not used to this; I can't usually talk to people like this.
Silence. He wasn't sure if he'd even reached her. He averted his gaze, politely, to look out the window at the fast-approaching city. The thought came back, thick with significance.
…I can't talk to people at all.
---
Some time later, Sierra had arrived in Moscow. The long flight had calmed her down enough that she retained a semblance of a composed being, as opposed to when she had left. Unfortunately, this only meant that, once she finally found Ryan, her smoking of him would be done in a calm and collected manner.
She had informed the Moscow Military of her urgency in the matter, but they had better to do than scour the city for a missing recruit. Still, they were nice enough to 'keep a lookout,' as well as to provide her a lingual expert to further the search; she promptly scared the poor individual by using her personal brand of the English language.
It proved relatively unnecessary – Sierra saw what she wanted four steps out of the station.
"Ryan!"
On the platform below, a flash of silver in the crowd betrayed the presence of the woman. With her, and only slightly less conspicuous was Ryan. Confused and foreign – they stood out separately, let alone side-by-side.
However, as circumstance favored, they disappeared under her level, leaving her quite miffed.
"Hey!"
---
Unlike most everyone the transport, the people going about their business on the promenade were thinking out loud, as Ryan had begun terming it. It was very distracting.
You live somewhere near here?
No answer. The girl had been withdrawn. Not beset by the fearfulness of before, now she seemed to be concentrating on something he couldn't see; all he felt was hope.
She ran.
He hadn't expected that… but he hadn't expected to be in Moscow tonight, either. Instead of considering the little details, he took off after her.
Before the end, he lost tract of how far they had gone. She pushed past people – civilians, soldiers, children; he followed in her wake. She reached the edge of the city, past the barrier – and beyond – picking her way down the scaffolding that held them so far above the world.
Ryan knew better, but he wasn't about to simply leave her out there. He was perfectly willing to drag her, with she kicking and screaming, back to the safe confines of the city. His obstacle being that he had to catch her first, but she was fleet.
How far he chased – a mile, or farther. The only lapse came at moonset, when she stumbled, and he paused in shock to watch.
In all the times prior, he had not seen the change. White fur sprouted from her skin, and he was close enough to see how her borrowed clothes tore as body distended and shrank, all the while settling into a form that, on retrospect, seemed more fitting.
Yet, the metamorphosis was no less than half finished when she staggered to her feet and continued on at a slighter pace.
The air seemed to carry urgency – fear and apprehension. Ryan knew it was more than just he. He kept on, winded but determined. She had stopped, fallen more like, only so far ahead of him… before a mound of earth, something that held little meaning to him.
Something was wrong.
His skin crawled, something he barely noticed at the mental outburst that sent him down – a cry of pure anguish to match the glottal, half-wolf wail that so assaulted his ears from beyond the darkness.
---
"Hey there… That was a close one, wouldn't you say?"
Fear, pain, hurt!
"Of course not," the voice purred, strangely disjoined from the throat that produced it, "That's all a thing of the past. Trust me."
Trust…
"That's a good pup… How about I do you a favor?"
---
Ryan felt sick.
It wasn't enough to be, essentially, deported out of Moscow, but he had to suffer two weeks confinement in New York's lovely quarantine center. Which meant he had a lot of time to think.
A punishment that Sierra lent her hand to, he was sure. Or, at the very least, she wasn't doing anything to help him, which could have been taken in one of two ways….
When she finally found the time to visit, he couldn't bring himself to ask what had happened after his black out. Despite this, she said enough for him to figure out.
"Well, that was a brilliant idea," she appraised from the other side of the glass wall, "Have a nice little trip to Russia; take a little stroll outside the city – check out the scenery, maybe – and die with a pack of dogs."
"Oh, and by the way; you're welcome for my saving your ass," she spat at his continued silence.
"Appreciated," he smiled grimly, "But maybe you should being a bit earlier, next time."
"Maybe next time I shouldn't come at all."
Either she was angry because he inconvenienced her or she was angry because he worried her. He guessed it was a little of both.
I'm sorry.
---
It was a dream. Whose dream, he couldn't be sure, but it was a dream….
Present was a certain creature – not human, but neither a wolf. Or maybe that wasn't quite true; maybe it was both wolf and human, with the exceptional quality to change, ever so briefly, to sample the other world.
This being a dream, it seemed not that far fetched.
He broke the reticence, as it seemed perfectly natural to do so.
"You know, I never got your name."
It seemed silly, so she laughed, for once free of caste – and glad of it.
Still, the only answer she had, ingrained from one short lifetime's struggle, rang with the silver of her voice.
"Omega."
The End
Working Title: OmegaInspiration: An American Werewolf in London. In particular, the scene with the nude fellow hunting deer all canid-like.
Noteworthy: First appearance: Ryan's latent receptive telepathy. Except here it works both ways.
Disambiguation: This works on Penumbra physics, and even Penumbra history. But I took it out of the backstory because it didn't fit perfectly to my liking. (You can consider it as such if you like, I'm not gonna stop you.)
Derivative work of material © Square Pictures, Squaresoft. Reformatted to abide by 'site standards. None of the original text has been modified, 'cept in case of typo.