I know i said i'd get these out once a week, but i suck at schedules, and i don't want to force myself to write something, because afterwards I know i'll look at it like 'The hell was i thinking'. So, from now on, if i give any kind of schedule, ignore me. These will come out as i make them. I need to be in the right mood to write, and i just haven't been feeling particularly into it that much recently. But, as i said, i tend to go through phases, so, no doubt, i'll get back into it, and there will be getting pumped out at some point. Anyway, enough of me rambling about why you shouldn't expect too much of a schedule, let's get to what i actually wrote. Hope you enjoy.

Aya was back. Truly back. Only a week ago she'd been half-dragged into the infirmary, with them not sure if she'd survive. Now, she was back on her feet, as good as ever, she'd even got used to the new arm within a couple days. All of these feats amazed Zacharie who said that, by all rights, Aya should have been bed ridden for at least 2 weeks, and up to a month before she learned how to use the arm. Her quick recovery was nothing short of miraculous to him, although Aya just took things in her stride.

She was testing herself against a training dummy, wanting to make sure that she was still functioning fully before sparing with the others. She had several new scars, a jagged one down her cheek from after she'd ripped the stitching back open after Maxim tackled her, and several all down her left side. She stood before the training dummy, and lifted up her left arm, it was skeletal in looks, with cables and various other things snaking around it, but there was no danger, it would take a mag-bullet to break those cables. She clenched into into a fist, it was a little slower than her right arm, she wasn't as used to it as the others thought, but it was good enough. Without warning, as she'd often do in a normal fight, her arm moved from its position in front of her chest, to extended at the dummy's head. She punched straight through it's head. She was taken aback for a moment, then realized, of course, it's fully metal, it's quite a bit heavier than her normal arm, so putting the same amount of force as a normal punch would give it significantly more power. She tried to pull her arm back out, but found it was stuck, she gave it a few more tugs, and it still didn't budge, she was about to use her right arm to free herself when she felt it suddenly pop free, and she pulled her hand back out.

"Happens to me all the time" Harold said as he stood up from behind the dummy "I think they got some kind of support in there that grabs you. Took me a while to figure out how to get my hand out without just destroying the head"

Harold rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles "You up for some sparring?"

"You may wish to avoid my left arm"

"Think fast" he called, and threw something to Aya.

Without even looking, her right arm reached over, and grabbed the object out of the air, she brought it in and had a look. For a moment she wasn't sure what it was, then it clicked. It began like a normal sword, but after a few inches of straight metal, it curved sharply, looking like a sickle blade. A Khopesh. The curved part was used for catching you opponents blade so you could twist it out of their grip. The end could be used for stabbing, and outside curve was for slashing, and the inside curve could hack as well. She spun it around a few times to gets its weight, it was slightly heavier towards the end than it should be, and she could tell at a glance that it had been dulled.

"You've used that before?" Harold asked, pulling a greatsword from behind the dummy, and whipping it around him 1-handed. His strength was immense.

"No" Aya wasn't lying. She'd never even heard of this weapon before, yet, when she looked at it, it felt like she knew everything there was to know about this weapon "Where did you get these?"

"Visited Miss Lost" Before he even finished talking, Harold was swinging.

Aya calmly stepped aside from the swing. She wasn't sure how she knew this, but she'd never argued with this instinct before, the same thing happened when she first picked up a shotgun, but Harold had put too much power into the swing, and over-balanced himself. As she stepped aside, she poked him in the side with her Khopesh as he tried to reign in from the attack.

"Nice trick" Harold replied, regaining his position, and holding the sword out again, this time 2-handed. He came at her again, this time more controlled. Apparently Harold knew his stuff, but Aya knew one thing, nobody could beat her speed or endurance, she deftly dodged or parried every attack. He had too much strength to fully block, so she'd merely allow Harold sword to slide along her blade, and let the curve do the work. She danced circles around him, knowing that every second he went without landing a hit, his anger would grow, the stimulants in him would drive him more and more until he became reckless, then it would be simple to beat him. As usual, she was right, within a minute, Harold was roaring in frustration every time he missed. His anger reached a point when he pulled something very unorthadox, but very like Harold, he held the sword to his hip, and spun. Even with it being dulled, a hit from that would have cut her in half, but she knew what to do. As he spun for her, rather than back off like he expected her to, she ran towards him, leaping up, then pushing down with her left foot, which landed squarely on the blade. There was a loud ringing sound as she kicked off of his blade, breaking the tip cleanly off of it wit the force, flipped over his head, and landed behind him, with the inner curve of her blade around his neck, if it had been sharp, a simple pull of the blade would have taken his head clean off. She held that position for a second more, making sure Harold's stims had slowed down, and he wouldn't attack her in rage, as had happened the first few times they'd sparred, then released him.

"Never used it before. I call your bullshit" Harold said, as he retrieved the 2 pieces of his blade.

"I have never used a blade beyond my knife or the sword provided to me by XCOM" Aya replied, and it was true.

"Then how are you so damn good. I've been practicing with sword my entire life"

Aya shrugged

"I gotta go get this fixed. You can keep that by the way" He said, as he walked back out, carrying the greatsword, and the broken tip.

Aya looked down a the Flachion. She'd never really questioned any of this before. The first time she'd picked up a shotgun, she'd know everything about it, the same when she'd gotten her knife, and the blade they'd given her here. She'd never seen anything strange about it. But Harold had said he'd been training in sword fighting his entire life, and Aya had only 1 other experience in sword fighting, and that was with that Lancer back when she first re-encountered XCOM. And yet, she'd beaten him with ease. Maybe, wait, hadn't Maxim said something about feeling something Abnormal in her mind when they'd done that, what did he call it, Inspiration. She began re-thinking a lot of things she'd done, even before XCOM, she'd always been a fast healer, at the Orphanage she'd once gotten pushed out of a third story window, and had been back up on her feet within a week, the kid that had pushed her out had been in hospital for over 3 months after she'd gotten back. Her ability to his targets over extreme ranges for the shotgun, destroying Turrets on top of buildings in a single shot that Harold couldn't manage with his shotgun. Back when she'd had her face burned by the plasma ball, she'd been ready to go within a few weeks, but was made to stay in the med-bay. When she'd gotten the archangel suit, she'd been able to control the flight of that almost instantly after putting it on. When Maxim used the Inspiration on her, she'd not even been surprised by her sudden increase in reactions, she'd just taken it in her stride, even when it was completely unexpected, Maxim had tried it out of combat on the others afterwards, and they were all a bit disorientated the first time. Maybe that could be explained with their close connection, she had spent 20 years in close proximity to him while he was 'Bleeding psionic energies'. She knew it had taken Smokes almost a month to be able to walk on his cybernetics, but they also weren't as advanced. She looked at the Falchion again. Maxim had mentioned something about a way to check if the weird thing he'd felt was anything important, he hadn't felt it in any of the others, but he also mentioned wanting to test it on an alien first. She looked to the Falchion again, and nodded to herself, before heading outside. First thing, she needed to sharpen this.

She stepped off of the Avenger, they were set down somewhere in the Mojave desert. She moved away a bit, and found a rock, sat down, and began sliding the rock along the blade, producing sprays of sparks, as she slowly gave an edge to the blade. As she sharpened, she looked around, and noticed, strangely enough, a pool. Not a small lake, an actual pool. She wondered why the hell there was a pool, but quickly dismissed the thought, as she concentrated on sharpening the blade.

"Excellent work Maxim, you have made great progress today" Alex said, as he ran out of objects to throw, and Maxim rubbed a quickly forming lump on his forehead. Maxim has managed to keep up the ability pretty well, and done quite good at dodging the objects, he messed up the ability only once, when a wrench had hit him, causing said lump he was rubbing. He really wished he had some kind of healing ability. He'd started to get a knack for clearing his mind, while still keeping focus enough to dodge things. Though if he could manage that during a battle where he also had to fire back, and keep in mind where over a dozen things were at once, would be a different story. "Have some rest, or go for a wander if you want" Alex turned and walked back out of the room.

Maxim sat down on his bed, and looked into the glass wall, he could see the lump forming on his forehead. That would be sore tomorrow. In fact, screw that, it was sore today. As he winced and poked at the lump an announcement came over the speakers.

"Would all operatives please report to the bridge. Repeat, all operatives please report to the bridge"

Maxim pushed himself to his feet, and began heading to the damn ladders. Why couldn't someone make an elevator here.