Fareeha Amari's mother was dead.
That was the knowledge that pulsed through her being every minute of every day. Her mother was dead and it was their fault. The Omnics, and all those that they'd lured over to their side. All the cowards that had turned tail and run once the tides seemed they'd never turn.
Curse Reyes. Curse Lacroix. Curse Ziegler.
So she fought. It was all that was keeping her going, keeping her from collapsing into a simple shell. She'd taken the teachings of her mentor – long gone now – and used them to create weapons from the corpses of her enemies. She tore into their metal hulls, taking whatever she could to make herself stronger. Now she rocketed through the skies. Weeks ago she'd been as a child taking her first steps. Now she was as at home in the air as on the ground.
Jack turned his head towards the girl in the sky. The older man watched her soar, twisting and turning, feeling out her new armaments. His scarred face twisted into a sad smile. Ana, he thought. If only you could see her now. If only any of the others could, wherever they were now. He knew that they would have been proud. Fareeha had always been a fighter. He just wished it hadn't taken such a terrible loss to awaken her true potential.
It saddened him, too, to see how the bright child he'd once known had become a shell of herself. He knew she didn't see it that way. He knew she believed exactly the opposite. He wasn't going to tell her otherwise. But he saw very little difference between the girl and the metal suits she piloted. She saw herself as a weapon, empty and useless outside of battle.
Then again, in these days, weren't they all? It was either death in battle, or death as an almost welcome escape from a life spent stagnant and filled with fear.
They weren't people anymore. They weren't even just survivors. They were weapons.
They were all soldiers now.
