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"Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice."
~Samuel Johnson
Chapter Seventy-five: Mutiny
Heads turned left and right. The music ground to a halt. Across the bar, soldiers and technicians stared wide-eyed.
Edward Gallant fought the urge to swallow.
"What did you say?" Irina emerged from the throng, mechanical arm and leg whirring with every step. "Jane?"
"He killed them." Jane Kelly leveled her finger like a sword, the twin weights of Accusation and Judgment flying from it like bullets. "James and Obsidian, two of my best friends."
Gallant blinked. "Pardon?"
"Don't you dare lie to me!" Jane advanced like lightning, pausing with quivering, vicious poise just outside of Gallant's reach. It took all his willpower not to flinch. Seething rage boiled in her gaze. "You were Advent's puppet, dancing on Angelis' strings! That's what kept the Resistance from taking off until we found you! It wasn't just that we gained such a brilliant tactician–" scorn dripped from both words, matched with searing contempt in her upturned lip "–but that we took you out of Advent's network!"
"Major!" Tygan pushed through the crowd, reaching for Jane's arm. "You've clearly had a lot to drink–"
"Get away from me!" Jane spat in his direction, and Tygan halted. Shen caught his arm, tugging him back from the precipice he seemed to have nearly crossed.
"Jane..." Maybe being informal with her was a bad idea. Gallant cleared his throat. He had to be as diplomatic as possible, which meant channeling his father. "Major Kelly. I don't know what you've seen–"
"I saw Tygan's report. Your notes and Central's too!" She sucked air in through gritted teeth. "You can't bullshit me, Edward. That's why you were in that stasis tank in Paris–you know, the one that Peter and Ana died pulling you out of? Did you kill them too?"
"I..." Half-forgotten snippets of his lotus-eater dreams flittered in Gallant's memory, hazy and hard to grasp. Had Jane featured in them? He couldn't know. It had all been hunting aliens in the guise of the Original XCOM. Which sectoid or thin man had it been who confronted him now, far more vicious in person than the simulation would have had him believe?
He had to rally. This confusion wasn't accomplishing anything. "Major, if you calm down–"
"Calm down?" Jane burst out laughing, and her harsh, sick guffaws echoed off the metal ceiling. "That's all he has to say. Confronted with his crimes, he wants me to shut up and fall in line." She spat again, this time at Gallant's feet.
"That's enough." Elena appeared from the crowd, Barta at her heels. "Jane, the Commander has been–"
"Let her speak." Irina's metal arm caught the back of Elena's hood, and the Reaper flailed. "The Commander can talk for himself too."
"Is it true?" Janet Ross' eyes narrowed just a hair. "Commander?"
"Does it matter?" Lilah stepped between her and Gallant, glaring up at the Templar. "We're here now where we are. Who the fuck cares what came before?"
"If this is truth, Geist already knew it." Anne Lawrence shook her head. "It matters not."
"It matters a great fucking load." Jane had never broken eye contact. "I read the damn file."
"The file doesn't..." Gallant couldn't help hesitating again. This hadn't been part of the plan. "You don't understand."
"Is it wrong?" Jane tugged her cap down, affixing it more firmly on her head as if she expected magic interior wind to take it at any moment. "Did you kill them, Commander?"
Vague snippets resurfaced. Something about a facility in Ireland...an astronomer. Thin men infiltrating the premises...
"Can't you see what's happening?" Tygan broke free of Shen's embrace, raising his hands as if to part the grumbling and glaring crowds of soldiers like Moses and the Red Sea. "We're being set against each other. If we don't work together–"
"How did you hear about this?" Gallant had nothing else to say. His voice shook. But as soon as he asked the question, he figured out the answer. "Kipler. The Forge. You haven't been the same since."
"At least he gave me the truth before I pasted him." Jane's glare sharpened. "Your turn."
"Kipler was a traitor working for Angelis." Tygan reached for Jane's arm again. "He was trying to turn you against the Commander with his dying breath, to further Advent's aims–"
"Shut up!" Jane shoved, and Tygan stumbled back into the crowd. He tumbled, and Cameron and Elias caught an arm each. Jane pivoted back to Gallant, rage spilling out over her fair Irish features. "Give me the truth, you son of a bitch! Did–you–kill–them?"
Irina's arm and leg. She'd said she'd blown herself up to buy Jane time to escape. Hadn't...hadn't one of the thin men...
"No!" Gallant stared as the battlefield erupted, as some burning hazard Strike-one hadn't noticed vomited flame and shrapnel that ripped through his team, flinging them around like bowling pins. The ground must have shaken, and he trembled as he saw how much blood scattered, in how many directions.
In the flash and blast, he saw an echo of his own trauma in Iraq, and Gallant's heart rate spiked.
"Sensors coming back online," Bradford notified him, down at a terminal with one of the technicians. "They were scrambled by the size of the blast. We're..."
Gallant waited. He swore as he saw the few survivors of his team, pulling their friends to safety and checking the alien bodies, scrambling for medkits as they worked. He clutched the rail with white knuckles, swearing that he would exact vengeance for this the next time he crossed paths with an alien strike team.
"No alien life signs, sir," Bradford finally reported. "They're all cold."
Had that really only been four months ago? It felt like years.
"Commander?" Jane's lip somehow managed to curl even more.
Silence fell on the bar. Gallant tightened his grip on his cane, surreptitiously lifting it off the ground just a hair.
"Yes." Bitter, acrid, defeated. All three descriptors applied, and none did Gallant's tone justice. He didn't carry on. What more was there to say?
More silence. The air hung with malice and tension.
Jane lunged, swinging her bottle for Gallant's head. He parried with his cane in both hands, weaving on one good leg out of the way of a vicious uppercut that almost flung his head back like a pre-war PEZ dispenser. Jane hurled her bottle, and Gallant ducked. It whizzed by his ear, clattering down hard on the bar and bumping Cameron's unfinished drink to the floor.
Jane seized a barstool and swung. Gallant stumbled backward, cane up, avoiding wild whirling blows that would have broken ribs had they landed. Jane flipped the stool, sticking the legs out like four spears and charging headlong, screeching with wild fury and hate.
"Major!" Gallant couldn't meet force with force, not in his ruined state. He seized the bar with both hands, and his heart rate skyrocketed as he hauled himself onto the high ground.
"Fuck you!" Jane plunged the stool into the deck, taking her head out of striking range as Gallant swept for it with his cane. As soon as she was clear, she bounded up, using the stool as a stair, and lunged for him again.
Whatever thoughts Gallant might have had about a crowd coming to split them up died when he saw how raptly the soldiers and crew watched the duel. A point was being made, one way or another. Half of them might have said Jane was out of line, but the rest had grumbled that she was right to challenge him.
This has to end.
Gallant caught her in the face with the end of his cane, and Jane slipped. She fell on her back, shaking her head to clear the daze. Gallant raised his cane for another blow...but he hesitated. Jane had saved his life in Paris. Surely–
Her legs flashed, and she hooked one foot behind his knee at the same time as she drove the other one into his stomach. Gallant's wind flew out in a single hacking wheeze, and he nearly flipped head over heels, crashing onto the bar far less gracefully. He landed on his side, and before he could stop himself, he slipped down onto the main floor.
He drove his cane into the deck to keep him upright as the world spun. The gentle rocking pitch of Avenger in flight hit with a vengeance. Could he stand?
Jane screamed, flinging herself off the bar with elbow up. Gallant threw himself out of the way, and she hit nothing but metal. The bang resounded through the bar, drowning the clattering of Gallant's cane as he shoved himself upright, spinning to face his opponent. She scrambled to her feet, hands up in boxing stance.
Jab, jab, cross! Gallant timed it perfectly, weaving away from the lefts and swinging his cane to deflect her right just too late for her to avoid him. He couldn't match her strength for strength, so he had to fight like a bastard: that started with whipping the end of his cane up into her throat. Jane choked, but the only way he could have ended the fight that way would have been to break her windpipe. He couldn't kill her, could he?
She might not leave me a choice. The thought made his heartbeat accelerate even further.
Jane drove her elbow into his stomach, and Gallant staggered. Pain blossomed in a blazing rush, searing out from his cheek when she brought her other fist around and clocked him hard. Gallant staggered, crashing into a booth an instant after Father Giovanni and Meysam evacuated it. Glass shattered as pints and bottles fell.
Jane lunged, knee coming up as she sighted in her next kick. Reflexively, Gallant jammed with the end of his cane, fairly shoving her leg back down. He twisted out of the way of her next punch, but while his eyes were on that hand, Jane's other caught his cane.
"Gotcha!" Jane wrenched it away, flinging it over her shoulder into the crowd. She came back in, and Gallant covered his face left-handed, forced to use his right to lean on the tables he passed as he hurriedly backtracked, bad leg wavering under his own weight.
It's Bradford. Just like Bradford. But it wasn't, was it? Those half-forgotten memories of the First War had featured a more drunken, less personally vicious John, desperate rather than vengeful. When he'd tried to beat Gallant's lights out in the old base, he'd merely been convinced the cripple was leading them to hell and more than a little sour over losing his job.
This was different. Gallant had beaten John then with guile and luck and Moira. But John hadn't been coming with lethal intent. Was Jane?
She kicked him hard, and Gallant staggered. Shen tried to break from the crowd, but Tygan caught her arm, face a mix of panic and dread. He'd felt the same energy current. If someone came to Gallant's rescue, that would weaken his standing as the Commander.
And getting my ass kicked doesn't? Gallant cried out as Jane clobbered him again. He crashed into a chair, clutching his face. His hand came away red.
"Do you even remember them?" Jane caught him by the throat with both hands. She pressed down hard, eyes manic and livid.
"You read..." Gallant choked. "Puppet! Angelis!"
"Liar!" Jane drew her hand back. Gallant's eyes fixed on her fist, and he twisted sharply in the nick of time. Her blow drove into the metal backing of the chair, and Jane howled, red spraying from her knuckles.
Gallant lunged, sinking his teeth into Jane's forearm. She cried out again, and her grip instantly weakened. Gallant rolled away over the chair, coming down on his face on the deck.
"Commander!" Shen's arm flashed. Gallant reached out, catching his cane before it could soar past him. He braced on it, pushing up to his feet as fast as his mangled body could.
Glass clinked. Jane lifted her bottle from the floor, blood running down her fingers and over her lips. She raised the bottle as if to throw it.
Instead, she drove it hard onto the edge of the nearest table, and glass shattered with a cold crash. Jane raised the neck and broken end, baring her teeth savagely.
Gallant swallowed.
Jane lunged, slashing in a mad frenzy. Glass glinted in the light, cutting webbed patterns in the air, and Gallant's eyes tracked the display as best he could. He ducked sideways and back, using both legs, his cane, and anything he could brace a hand on to move faster than Jane and her economical, vicious strikes.
Wait for it, wait for it...
Jane screamed, slashing wide for Gallant's neck. Anguish tore up her tone, and rage boiled in every movement. Her elbow locked as she came around for the backswing–
Now!
Gallant caught that locked elbow with one hand, using his cane as a brace. He twisted, hooking the cane around her arm and yanking her elbow the wrong way.
"Fuck!" Jane caught her fall left-handed, her other being held behind her back by Gallant's improvised hold. She pivoted to try and stab his arm, and he twisted sharply. The bottle fell from her grip as she scrabbled for purchase, trying to turn and relieve the pressure. It landed beside her, and she grabbed for it left-handed.
Gallant dropped his full weight on the back of her head, and the harsh bong of face meeting metal filled the air.
Jane lay still, save the rise and fall of her chest.
"Commander!" Shen broke free of Tygan's grip, racing across the floor. She took Gallant's arm.
"Lily." He let her pull him to his feet, and he unsteadily leaned on her. Sweat soaked his hair and back, and his hands shook. His knees threatened to give out.
No one else said a word. Soldiers and crew alike studied him and Jane, and their dark eyes betrayed misgivings. Were they disappointed in Jane for her assault, or him for his past?
"Infirmary. Now!" Lily pulled Gallant toward the door, and Tygan broke from the pack to open it for them. "As for Kelly–"
"Take her to bed." Gallant glared when Shen gaped. He dropped his voice. "What are we going to do, throw her in the brig?"
"She attempted to kill you–"
"Half the crew seemed to think she was right to. If we had their faith, they'd have mobbed her before she had a chance." Gallant couldn't help cutting his eyes at the assembly. "We have her locked up, we give them more ammunition."
"But..." Shen didn't look happy. Fortunately, since Gallant was in charge, that didn't matter.
"Someone clean her up and take her to bed. Make sure she's alright." Gallant winced as his next attempt to take a step ran afoul of his battered body's weaknesses. "Aileen, could you and Outrider take care of that?"
"Sir." Aileen knelt at Jane's side. "Consider it done. I'll call Nessie with med-spray."
"Good." Gallant did his damndest to stand straight and tall with his body in twice the mutiny as his crew. "Clean up the bar. Sorry about the mess. I'd help but I've been press-ganged."
"Alright, you've got your orders." Shen tugged forcefully. "Now, infirmary, Commander. I won't ask again."
And she didn't. Neither did Gallant protest. He let Shen lead him away, and he ostentatiously did not look back at Jane's unconscious form.
He avoided collapsing until the elevator.
"Fuck." He covered his face, while Shen fussed like he was having another heart attack. "Now what?"
Author's Note 75: Whose Side Are You On?
I feel like the Commander having directed Advent's military operations would have been a big deal. I don't know if the entire organization is supposed to know about it in the game, but that certainly didn't make sense from the lore perspective for this fic. Gallant considers it his greatest failure, and Jane is ample evidence that there are plenty of people who wouldn't trust him if they knew the truth.
I considered having other characters in the bar interrupt the duel between Jane and Gallant trying to broker peace or even take sides, but it ran into several problems. Not least of which is that if one character intervenes, why not another? Follow that logic long enough and you have XCOM 2: Civil War, and that's not quite what I have in mind for Season Three even if it might seem that way right now. What is my plan? Well, you'll just have to keep reading to find out.
-The above author's note was written with the chapter upon its initial completion. This lower note is dated 6/27/22 - I didn't clarify details in the last note, but I want to make it clear that I have one chapter after this one on file at the moment. I will likely post it within the next week or two, since I don't want to leave you on too awful of a cliffhanger, and beyond that, we'll see what happens in regards to scheduling.
I also wanted to say I was blown away by the surge in views from the last chapter I posted. Thank you so much for your continued interest in this story, and please please leave reviews telling me what you've thought of these two chapters and anything else you want to share. It may take a few weeks or months even, but I'm beginning to feel more confident that I can put myself back on track.
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.