Losses

She knew exactly when Valere woke. Ai sat beside the girl and had been for some time. The Chimera psi operatives, Verge and Shelter, had worked with Syndrome and Arisha to build what was needed. Ai wasn't sure if they had any other help and didn't ask. She probably did not want to know. Now, they just had to see if it was enough. She had been ready for almost anything, but not for the girl to gasp herself awake and then immediately start to apologize.

"I am sorry! I am sorry! I am sorry! I am sorry! I am sorry!" Valere begged from where she lay, her eyes shut tight and her mind locked up just as close. "I didn't mean to do that! I didn't mean to try and violate your mind!"

"Valere, it is okay." Ai wasn't sure about the psionic side of this, but she did know about emotional upheavals. Cobra was composed of clones, that did not make them robots without emotions. Well, except the Battle Android Troopers but the B.A.T.s never worked quite right for her people any more than they had in the TV shows. "I have secrets I have to keep. The Lady is very worried about you and so am I."

"Everyone says it wasn't my fault, but it was! It is!" Valere said weakly. "I was… They took me, woke me up and made me contact the Lady to get Mark and his people in there!"

"Valere, you were a student!" Ai said a bit more sharply than she intended and moderated her tone. "You did not send the troops. You did not arm them. You did not cause what happened."

"But I was mean to him and then-" Valere was starting to cry, but Ai slapped her arm gently. "Wha-?"

"Open your eyes." That was not kind. That was a command.

Valere's Sectoid like eyes opened and she gasped again as she realized the pair of them were not lying in the room where she had gone to sleep. Or, they were, but their mindswere ensconced in another place. Her face held horror as she stared around herself. At the room that she knew and Ai did not. As mall room in a larger building that Ai had seen from the outside. The school.

"No…" Valere said weakly. "No! Don't show me! I can't! Not again!"

"Valere, you have to face this." Ai said her tone firm. "Your powers are waking." Valere turned her scared face to Ai who nodded at the stunned expression there on the almost human looking features. "if they do and hit the block you have in your mind, it won't end well for you."

"Or everyone around me." Valere said weakly. "I… Stop me, Ai!" She said flatly but Ai shook her head. "You can! Stop me!"

"I can, but I won't." Ai was just as flat. Valere snarled at her, but Ai was unmoved. "Valere, I am a killer, yes. I am good at it. But you are not my enemy. You are in shock. You have been shocked many times over the last few days. This will shock you too but you need this. I am here to help you through it."

"But… No." Valere sat up and hugged her knees tight, pressing her head down to them. "I..."

"Part of you doesn't want to survive." Ai tried to keep her tone calm, but she could not relent. Now now. "You want to atone. You think your death with help." Valere was rocking herself and Ai shook her head. "Only in politician wet dreams does death fix anything, Valere."

"I was mean to him." Valere whispered.

"You were in shock, just like you are now." Ai retorted. "You know the school I defended was not the same one as where you suffered, but you can't see that, can you?" Ai asked, sorrow flaring before being squashed back under her iron control. "Fine. You will see things here that you should not, but the Lady says you can keep a secret. She loves you. She doesn't want you to die. Neither do I."

"You barely know me." Valere was crying now. "And you are going to die too!"

"Yeah, I am." Ai shrugged. "On my last mission, I killed myself to prevent my capture. I am not sure what happened after that, but I do know I saw the Matron. She was so sad. She wanted me to grow and thrive, but I am what I am, Valere."

"What?" Valere stammered, looking up at Ai. "Matron Alley?"

"Yeah, Valere. Matron Alley." Ai heaved a sigh. "The reason the Lady knocked you out when you tried to read my mind is that none of us wanted you to know here I came from. It is not pleasant knowledge. It is downright terrifying and you have been scared enough. That said? I promised the Lady I would not lie to you and I reaffirm that promise now to you. I will not lie to you. If you want to know, ask."

"How bad can it be?" Valere asked, confused. "I mean, I died and she brought me back."

"Worse." Ai said flatly. "Far worse." Valere stared at the older woman and then she slumped.

"I…." Valere was clearly fighting herself but then she looked up at Ai. "I need to know."

"Okay." Ai took a deep breath and started talking. "Living with the Lady, I have no doubt that you have learned the true history of Earth as opposed to the comfortable fictions that have been spread all over it. X-Com as an organization dated back to the 1960s. There was an invasion then that was beaten off."

"Weaver was part of that." Valere said softly. Ai frowned, but then continued.

"Ever since then, there have been various incursions and X-Com worked to defend the planet from each. Sometimes, they succeed like they did in 1963, sometimes they fail as they did in 2015." Ai ignored Valere's sudden confusion as she continued. "They never stop fighting. Sometimes, I wonder if they can." She muttered, but Valere did not move, still staring at Ai who focused. "My name is Ai. I was decanted from my clone pod in 2187 after X-Com failed to defend the last surviving mega city on Earth and humanity faced extinction."

"21… 87…" Valere said weakly and Ai nodded.

"Yes, Valere. I am from a possible future. A very bad one." Ai reached out to take Valere's limp hand form where it feel from her knees. "The Matron was still around at that point and she took steps. She did not always like humanity. No one with a brain does." The Nightstalker quipped but Valere was just staring at her. "She made me and my kin to defend Mega Primus after X-Com fought an interdimensional invasion and failed. We won." Ai looked at the floor. "The cost was dear and humanity barely scraped by, but we did win. We were planning on trying to fix our Earth that had been ravaged by various catastrophes when the Cult struck again. They made their killing machines as a counter to us and attacked, trying to reach their masters again." At that, Valere's eyes went huge and Ai nodded. "They serve extra dimensional aliens who gave them power and took their free will. They are slaves, but very dangerous ones. Hundreds of my kin fell in battle against them but we refused to let them access any portal devices that would allow them to summon their masters again. That would start the mess all over again. So, they plotted revenge and then they got it."

"And that led you here." Valere said softly.

"They were trying to take a group of children out of a daycare." Ai said with a nod. "The boys they would turn into their killing machines. The one you saw in your dream, vision, whatever it was." Valere shuddered hard but Ai gave her hand a squeeze. "I am glad you didn't see the rest of it."

"'Rest of it'." Valere repeated weakly.

"Yeah." Ai agreed. "What they want you for and would give anything to get me for, is worse. Far worse." Now, she shuddered and Valere stared at her before squeezing her hand. "They would not kill either of us. They are not that nice."

"I…" Valere swallowed hard. "Why? I mean… You and I are not boys, but what does that…?" She gasped and then she started to cry. "No. No!"

"They won't touch you, girl." Ai snapped, pulling Valere up into a hug. "I won't let them!"

"WHY?" Valere begged as she sobbed into Ai's shoulder.

"Because they are desperate and desperate people have done stupid things ever since the dawn of recorded human history." Ai replied, just holding Valere as she sobbed. "They lost and cannot accept that their masters are not coming back. They cannot win. Even if they manage, by some dark miracle, to take and hold a portal long enough to travel to their masters' dimension, we blew them to hell. Maybe their masters had a contingency plan for such, maybe they didn't. That is beside the point. Possible futures are not my concern right now. Cult wackos are not my concern. You are."

"I can't do this!" Valere said weakly. "I have tried! So many times."

"Not like this." Ai replied, rising to her feet and hefting Valere easily. "In my time, there was an organization called the Mutant Alliance. They looked like you. Sectoid head, black eyes, all that. They came into being after aliens experimented on humans and gave many psi powers. Every one of the MU that I knew were psionic." Valere hiccuped and Ai continued. "We fought beside them. They were staunch allies. Tough and disciplined. They did not want to be slaves to extra dimensional aliens and neither did we. I see them in you. You are the future, Valere. Hence why the Cult wants you. To make sure the Mutant Alliance never happens. They want to kill or turn Alley to make sure she never makes me and my kin. They are idiots. Time is not so easily changed."

"Wouldn't that make a new timeline?" Valere asked, curious despite her fear. "Would we know?"

"Probably not. I don't know." Ai sighed again. "I am a soldier, Valere. The math for such is a bit beyond me and this is no sci-fi video game or novel." Valere looked at her again and opened her mouth, but Ai gave her a shake. "No! Do not go there! No existential questions until we are done here. We are here, now, because you need help and I am going to give it. What happened was not your fault."

"I am the reason Mark is dead!" Valere said with a growl.

"No, you are not." Ai snapped right back.

Valere gasped as a door opened ahead and a Muton stepped into the room, holding a limp form in strangely gentle hands. Both of them shimmered with purple psionic energy. Not real. Memories. The Valere in Ai's hands gasped as the one in the Muton's hands whimpered.

"It is all right, girl." The Muton said quietly as she set the transparent Valere on the floor and removed a blindfold. "I won't let them harm you."

"You are with them!" The transparent Valere all but shrieked that.

"Yes, I am." The Muton replied, checking the girl professionally. "They hired me and promised me a great deal, but I can see that it was all lies now. I did not know why they wanted me until I got here and realized who they were trying to trap. Now, I am stuck. If I try to escape, they will kill me." The Muton shook her head. "That might be a better choice, actually. Vahlen has no idea that she is playing with a live explosive device whose timer is ticking. Patriarch Oshina is not one to anger! It is not your fault." The energy Muton reassured energy Valere as the girl started to cry. The Valere in Ai's hands was crying as well.

"They used me as bait!" The past Valere begged. "I led the nest into a trap!"

"Yes, you did, but you did not set this trap. Vahlen did." The Muton was being honest, brutally so. "None of the nest are dead. Vahlen does not want them dead. Not yet anyway. I do not know why she wants them, but you? You, I must protect."

"Why?" Valere demanded. "Why am I so special?"

"You are the Lady's." The Muton said quietly. "I wish her angry with me as little as I wish Oshina angry with me. I wanted children Valere, and it is not to be." The energy Valere stared at the energy Muton. "That said? Even if the threats to my life from the Lady and Oshina did not exist? I do know right from wrong still. Harming you is wrong. These humans are nothing more than bullies. Kicking you while you are bound and blindfolded is nothing more than petty evil. I will not see you harmed again, child." That was an oath.

"I…" Valere muttered the same thing as the memory version of her did, then both energy forms faded in a flash of purple light.

"Vahlen set the trap for the nest." Ai said flatly as Valere struggled with her emotions. "I have been bait for traps myself. It is not a fun feeling, knowing that the jaws are closing in on you. Indeed, my last mission, I was bait and trap combined. It succeeded, but I am still torn. I died, Valere. You did not."

"Mark did." Valere whimpered and purple energy flared again. She stared at several being coalesced around a still form on the floor. X-Com soldiers mixed with several forms who wore nondescript fatigues. The body on the floor was male and wore similar fatigues. "No! No! No!"

Valere struggled, but just like before when Ai had held her, the girl was going nowhere. None of the still forms around the body on the floor spoke. None of them had to. The sorrow and loss were pervasive.

"You need to say goodbye, Valere." Ai set the girl on the floor but held her hand as Valere stared at the body. It looked wrong even in the purple energy. "You need closure."

"I wanted to fix things." Valere said weakly. "I wanted to help! To make it better."

"Some things cannot be fixed, Valere." Ai said flatly. "I can't be fixed. He can't be fixed. You can." The Nightstalker shook her head. "But you have to want it and you don't."

"I can fix this!" Valere said weakly. "I just need… I need to know how!"

"Valere, it cannot be fixed." Ai was being blunt now. "Meddling with time never solves anything. Ever. All it does is make more messes."

"No." Valere said firmly. "I can fix this! I will fix this! Show me how!" Ai backpedaled as raw power sang off the girl's form. That wasn't Valere's power!

"Valere! No!" Ai screamed as power beyond comprehension scoured into her, but it felt oddly familiar. Not in a good way! "You…LET HER GO, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" The power that was slamming into Ai shifted a little, pinning her in place as Valere's face shifted a little.

"Took you long enough." That wasn't Valere's voice that came out of the girl's mouth. "Silly Cobra brat! You never had any idea, did you?"

"Whether I did or not is irrelevant." Ai snarled as something reached out through her mind and threw the energy that held her away. She landed on her feet and drew her pistol. She wasn't a psi, but here, now? It didn't matter. She had backup. "Your kind lie. It is what you do. You are nothing but another lousy cultist. You have nothing else left. Your masters are cold, particulate vapor in another dimension. Your allies have all been exposed. Your monsters have been destroyed. You are nothing."

"So shortsighted." The other chuckled as Valere's empty eyes swept over Ai. "You Cobra fools just break things. I will build a new world and greet my masters when they come anew."

"That will be very hard for them to do." Ai retorted. 'Seeing as how they are dead."

"Oh, I wasn't talking about in your time." The other mind said with glee. "You have given me everything I need to build a portal here and now. A team, a base and now, access to your precious Matron."

"So, subversion." Ai scoffed. "It has been tried, moron. You are not the Elders and you are definitely not your masters. You don't own me and you cannot stop me."

"Wanna bet?" The other laughed delightedly as Ai took aim at Valere. "Go ahead, Nightstalker! Gun this one down. Earn her Lady's wrath and I will find another host. Maybe you."

"Oh." Ai said in in sudden revelation and the other's laugh cut off suddenly as Ai smiled wide. Then she laughed and it was more than a bit maniacal. "That is why she thought this city's school was the one she was nearly killed at. The one where Mark died. No one could figure out why she thought that. It isn't the same place. You don't want her because the Lady can sense you and probably destroy you. You want me." Ai threw her pistol away and held her arms out wide as if inviting an embrace. "Come and get me, shithead."

"And then, whatever trap you have laid activates." The other sneered through Valere. "You are pathetically obvious."

"And you are not?" Ai asked, still waiting. "Oh, wait. Just like most fanatics and all bullies, you are pathetically shortsighted and a coward at heart. And, by the way? You are also a fool. Valere? You have suffered enough. You know in your heart that it wasn't your fault. It won't fool this scum anymore. Get rid of him, please?"

Raw power sang from Valere again, but this was cleaner! Brighter! A short, sharp scream came form the other as Valere pulsed and then sank to her knees in the middle of the scene that faded.

"What have I done?" Valere begged as Ai lowered her arms. "What have I done?" She screamed.

"You woke up." Ai said sadly. "And now? We have a new nightmare."