Weiss gritted her teeth irritably as she sat down at the desk in her cell to sit down and devour her breakfast. Ever since the incident with the Elerium canister, she had been under what was essentially quarantine. Dr. Vahlen had run tests on her in a hastily-constructed 'Psi Lab'; she had taken her off the active personnel roster, removed her from the personnel barracks, and even placed her in isolation for a week. She had only been allowed briefly into the infirmary to be checked for the status of her previous injuries from the alien base raid, and then promptly escorted back to her cell in the Psi Lab.
Whatever had happened to her had seemingly restored her Aura, if only for a brief moment. Though restored may have been too mild a word to describe it. Her spinal injuries – and any other internal injuries that Ruby had inflicted during the alien base assault – had been completely, and totally healed. Leaving Dr. Vahlen and all other medical professionals on base utterly stumped as to how it had happened. Even she couldn't explain it herself; Aura was only meant to shield blows from ever inflicting physical damage in the first place, or repairing minor, superficial wounds such as cuts and scrapes. Not grievous injuries that were life-threatening or crippling.
Regardless, she found herself barely able to restrain her fury at the knowledge that Ruby and the others would be sent on missions without her for at least another week. It was bad enough that the Psi Lab cell was constructed with some sort of semi-silvered glazing on one side, allowing others to see into her cell, but she herself could not look out; but it was another that she was prevented from being at the side of the one person she had promised to protect.
Add that to the fact that she thought she felt an almost tangible cloud of apprehension hanging around every person that wandered too close to her cell, and her mood gradually worsened over the duration of her stay. Had she not sacrificed enough to further their aims, that she would be viewed with open suspicion and fear by other personnel? What did she do to even warrant this treatment?
The only contact that she had with other people was with Dr. Vahlen at certain hours of the day. Sometimes, it would be after she had been deprived of all sensory stimulation; the lights were completely darkened, and the entire room flooded with white noise. Occasionally, she would lose control and lash out at a nearby object. After an hour or two of the treatment, the noise would subside and the lights reactivated, and Dr. Vahlen would walk in to converse with her as though nothing had happened. Sometimes it was longer, sometimes it was shorter.
Of course, she could sense the woman's attempts to curb her fear, though her two guards did not seem to have such considerations. Nor did she miss the scanners installed in the ceiling; though what they were measuring, she would never know.
It had been a week since the start of her isolations, and the Schnee was nearly at the end of her patience. She finished up her breakfast and stood up, walking to the mirror near the toilet and sink at the back of the cell. She took a look in the mirror; ever since that accident, her eyes had shifted from their usual ice-blue colour to a vivid violet, often glowing brightly in the dark. It was a change that still unsettled her; perhaps even more than her abilities to warp reality and manipulate minds with her own mind.
At least those abilities didn't stare back at you in the mirror every day.
She felt an unusual presence approaching her cell. One that was simultaneously joyful and exhausted beyond anything else she had felt before. Two, when she considered the regretful emotions were seeping through the one following behind. Turning to face the door of her cell, she could scarcely be prepared for the red-and-black whirlwind that would tackle her about the waist.
"Oh Dust, Weissy! You're alright!" Ruby cried out, pelting the heiress' face with numerous sloppy kisses. Ordinarily, Weiss would protest; but after a week of isolation from her teammates, she couldn't find it in herself to complain about the little reaper's affectionate outburst. Dust, even Yang could have hugged her and she wouldn't have complained; a week in near total isolation was hell. "We've been so worried about you!"
Somehow, she couldn't believe that Yang or Blake would share the same level of concern as Ruby. But for now, she still greatly appreciated that at least one person still missed her. Her attention then shifted to Dr. Vahlen, who she viewed with unrestrained suspicion. It did not slip past her attention that there was a folder in her hands. Was she trying to run another test, perhaps?
"I...suppose I owe you an apology for locking you up, Corporal Schnee," Vahlen admitted slowly. If it weren't for the remorse she could sense in the doctor's mind, she might have refused the apology outright. That, and it helped to ease her mind that Ruby was gently squeezing her hand even as she pried herself away from her girlfriend. "Or I should say, Adept Schnee?"
That made her raise an eyebrow. "Adept?" Weiss asked. Vahlen only nodded in response.
"Yes, Adept. Though I disagree somewhat with the title, there are others in the base that believe your powers to be...almost magical in nature. And to an extent, even I am inclined to believe that, as it seems completely and utterly impossible that the mind should be able to directly influence reality. Tell me, Adept Schnee; after the periods of sensory deprivation, did you feel...different? More powerful, perhaps?"
"Unless you count feeling utterly furious a sense of power, I highly doubt it," Weiss grumbled, remembering the periods of complete darkness with great distaste.
Vahlen shifted uncomfortably where she stood. "Well then. Have a seat, both of you," She flipped open the folder, producing numerous photographs which she arranged into sets. Judging by what Weiss had seen before entering the psi labs, these had been taken just outside her cells. The plain white tables and workbenches looked familiar enough.
On the tables were target dummies, clad in carapace armour. Each set of photographs, she noted, had the exact same setup; three dummies, fully armoured, and even holding weapons. An experimental setup, for certain.
"These photographs were taken at the start of each sensory deprivation session," Dr. Vahlen spoke quietly. Taking the leftmost set, she flipped through the photographs. The armour and dummy looked fine for the first twenty photographs. Then on the next one, her jaw dropped.
The dummy had burst into purple flames. Flames that were hot enough to reduce the carapace armour and the dummy to ashes in moments, given the next few photographs. The last photograph in the set showed that there was nearly nothing left of both the table and the dummy.
"I did that?"
"As far as I have been able to deduce, yes. We utilised the same damping technology in this lab as is normally used for interrogations of sectoids and the like, to remove the possibility that external influences were causing that,"
The next set of photographs showed another set of armour, this time hurled into the opposite wall with such force that it shattered both the dummy and armour. Another showed the armour compressed into a singularity, before being spat out as a tiny, crumpled thing not unlike a crushed soft drink can. But the most disturbing was the last set. What looked like a gigantic purple sphere of energy manifested itself in front of the armour, before firing a broad beam of energy that vaporised the armour – and the wall behind it, before continuing on through the next two rooms.
"It is a good thing that we had informed everyone that the floor is to be vacated during these tests. I dread to think what would have happened if someone were caught in that discharge of energy," Vahlen said, shuddering. "In any event, based on the sensor scans of your brain activity during these periods, these...psychic abilities of yours manifest most strongly during periods of intense emotion. Anger, in particular, seems to result in a very destructive beam that outstrips a MEC's particle cannon by an order of magnitude,"
"I don't understand. Why...how is this even possible?" Weiss murmured, looking at her hands, "A Schnee should only be able to conjure things that we have defeated, or project barriers and solid platforms with our Semblance. This...this makes no sense!"
"My hypothesis is that trace amounts of Elerium caused your latent psionic abilities to awaken. And it also appears that as a side effect, the phenomenon that you and your squadmates refer to as 'Aura' had also reactivated. All of the most destructive manifestations of this psychic ability of yours had come about while under the influence of trace amounts of Elerium,"
"Elerium? But I didn't see the gas in the room,"
"Trace amounts, Miss Schnee. The amount that you had been exposed to during that accident should have killed you by incinerating your nervous system almost instantaneously. Instead, it had reactivated your Aura; and by doing that, I believe that your body had repaired itself at a rate faster than Elerium toxicity could destroy it,"
Reactivating their Auras, simply by exposure to Elerium! How could it possibly be that simple, she thought to herself. "So, if that's the case-"
"No. I know what you are about to suggest, Adept Schnee, and I forbid it. As XCOM's medical officer, I have the final say in whether or not certain...medications...constitute too much of a health risk to even consider using. While your Aura did protect you to a certain level, and the Elerium greatly increased your regenerative rate, Elerium is still incredibly toxic by all routes of exposure. Those without Aura would experience multiple organ failure within a minute, if their nervous systems did not melt down first. You showed greatly increased aggression and disregard for caution; and if Lieutenant Rose hadn't been present to calm you down, you would have likely turned on your fellow operatives in blind rage. The risk to other operatives is too great, even if they were capable of using it,"
"But if it's so toxic, you gassed me in that lab!" Weiss argued back, backed up by an indignant Ruby.
"A highly controlled, minute dose, Miss Schnee. Less than a millionth of what you were initially exposed to. At worst, it would give other operatives a mild headache or a sore throat after a day or two of contact. Given the dosage of your initial exposure, we deduced that if you were capable of being nearly submerged in high concentrations of gaseous Elerium with minimal negative reactions, we might be able to find a dosage that may help in manifesting these...psionics,"
"Right. And I hope that whatever you have found is worth locking me up for a week for no good reason,"
The silence in the room was so thick that all of them could only hear the faint hum of the ventilation fans. Vahlen was visibly fuming, though what Weiss did not expect was for her to glare at Ruby. The doctor even tipped her head to one side while crossing her arms, as though she were challenging Ruby to say something. The little reaper shrank away a little from Weiss, guilt written all over her face.
A look of hurt flashed across Weiss' face. No, she couldn't have. Vahlen was the only one that was cruel enough to subject someone to unusual punishments just to sate her curiosity.
"Lieutenant Rose, if you will?"
Ruby took a deep breath and cringed. "I'm...uh...I'm sorry, Weiss. Locking you up in here wasn't Dr. Vahlen's idea. It was...mine,"
Hurt changed to shock; shock to confusion, and then confusion to fury. Weiss rounded on Ruby, shrieking furiously. "You dolt! You...devious, cruel dolt! How- no, why exactly did you do this? To put me into isolation!? Turning myself into a guinea pig for a...for an experiment? Why!?"
"Adept Schnee! Calm yourself," barked Vahlen, separating the two. Weiss was seething, and Ruby appeared deeply regretful of what she had done. "Focus. The two of you were closer than most. You know that for all the childish antics that Lieutenant Rose may engage in during her spare time, she would not suggest something like isolation for frivolous reasons. Especially not to someone like yourself,"
Her breathing was still ragged, and she would have loved nothing more than to throttle Ruby at that point for her betrayal. But a rational part of her screamed at her to listen to Dr. Vahlen; Ruby would not have done this to her, not without a damned good reason. And then there was that quiet presence in the back of her mind, the one that had always been there since she manifested these strange 'psionic' powers of hers. It was also telling her to remain calm. And so she forced herself to take a deep breath, closing her eyes and counting to ten.
"I didn't have a choice, Weiss. The others...they were scared. They thought you were under alien control! Sure, they might be nice to you when they meet you in the barracks common room. But when you hear about what they talk about...they...they wanted to slip a grenade in your- in our room- when we slept. Something about removing a potential alien threat. It was the only way I thought I could protect you,"
"So why didn't we just do something about them instead of forcing this on us?" demanded Weiss.
"Weiss...you know as well as we all do that XCOM doesn't have all that many troops left. We lost most of our officers in that attack. We even lost a lot of the recruits. If we dismissed the ones that were plotting against you, we'd have nearly nobody left,"
"If I recall correctly, that would bring us down to ten operatives with any combat experience and two raw recruits," Vahlen added quietly.
Ruby nodded in confirmation. "Yeah. With that few people, the aliens would win. We just can't fight back at so many places with only ten people. We'd get hardly any sleep at all!"
"If you would even get any sleep,"
"And what would happen if any of us got injured? There wouldn't be anyone else to cover for us,"
Weiss sighed and cradled her face with her hands. That was not what she wanted to hear, not at all. But her team leader had a valid point. Dissent in the ranks wasn't an option at this point. They had lost far too many soldiers as it was, and losing more was certain to doom the entire force to failure. "Fine! If locking me up for the time being will keep them happy, then do it. Just tell me that you've at least gotten something out of it,"
"We do not have to keep you locked up any more, Adept Schnee. The data we've acquired from observing your interactions with Elerium was sufficient. The power you have, with or without Elerium exposure, grows more powerful with increasing emotions, particularly those of a destructive nature. Locking you up in isolation would do more harm than good,"
She nodded to that, seeing as the photographs only showed what happened as she was exposed to longer periods of sensory deprivation. If she completely lost control and lashed out at the entire base...Dust, she did not want to think about what would have happened.
"Lieutenant Rose has been up for the last thirty-six hours on three consecutive missions. The aliens are attacking in force, and we're desperately short on able leaders. Colonel Delacroix is hardly suitable for leadership, as her genetic modifications have proven to be a detriment to leading a squad. She is very likely to pursue an enemy blindly, without regard for the safety of her unaugmented peers. Which leaves you and Lieutenant Rose as the only two capable leaders available to us at this point in time,"
Ruby's hand wrapped around her own. It killed Weiss internally to see the bags under Ruby's bloodshot eyes. Even on usual hunts in Remnant, you could get a proper night's sleep with some night watches. "Alright. So what do you propose?"
"We know that you're not under control of the aliens, Weissy," Ruby said, "You've always been the strongest-willed of all of us. But I think showing the other guys that you're on their side will make them also think the same way. And what's better at doing that than raiding the biggest supply ship that we've ever found?"
Weiss looked questioningly at Dr. Vahlen, who nodded. "Yes, that would be an accurate statement. If our readings are correct, there is also a very large amount of Elerium present on the ship. More than enough to reconstruct every piece of equipment that we have lost, and then quite a significant amount to spare. It would give us room to breathe, given our terrible losses over the past two weeks,"
Between being locked up in darkness and being sent to what was almost a suicide mission, Weiss was almost tempted to choose the former. However, the thought of allowing her partner to go on this mission alone – on so little sleep, no less – did not sit well with her. Especially since said girl was now radiating so much positivity that it was blinding to her mind's eye.
Dust, Ruby knew how to brighten even the darkest days at times.
"Alright. It seems like...a fair idea,"
A/N
So, I've decided on how to go about this story, and thus it may continue! :D
GryffenOfSannGal: Thanks for the long review. It's very much appreciated! Yep, will definitely need to flesh out more on the state of the world - but that will be coming as the armageddon timer ticks down. And rookies? What rookies? *points to memorial wall, which spans 3 whole walls* Oh, those rookies. Right.
Quintain: Not quite psionics vs aura. There will be explanations in later chapters about the relationship between Aura, psionics, Dust and Elerium.