Omega [REDUX]

Chapter 7

"Do you mind if I ask what happened?"

Elsa hesitated to turn around.

"I mean," she heard Anna hastily continue, "I'll totally understand and if you're not comfortable with that, and you think I'm being an insensitive prick and whatnot…"

"No, no, it's fine. I understand that you're curious."

They were sitting in Anna's room; the sun had nearly gone down but they'd left her door open, where they'd been admiring the sunset whilst going through a set a materials Elsa had brought in. Elsa's mind was originally set on going into the tactical element of combat, but this question caught her completely off guard.

And she realized she had no idea what to say.

"Well," she began, frantically trying to think up her next course of action, "it's a long story, and it's really complicated."

Would she really want Anna to know about her past? How she had been bred as a superweapon, and had to be stolen from a transport container? The long and torturous rehabilitation and reconditioning process?

The people she had killed?

"I'll… tell you some other time," Elsa said, absolutely certain that the quivering in her voice gave her away completely. She felt obliged to tell Anna, and as much as she knew it was right to reject Anna's request for now, she didn't want to appear straight up defensive. "Sorry," she said quietly, as an afterthought.

"It's okay," came the reply. Elsa breathed a sigh of relief, glad to change to subject, but not wanting to see what kind of look lingered on Anna's face.

Empyrean.

The voice was back again; she shut it out with a silent whisper of "Conceal, don't feel". Her resolve to quit that voice had only strengthened after the incident in the lecture room, even as the nightmarish memories came drifting back.

The sickening crack of bones, the searing heat of the irons, the inhuman screams of her victims.

Elsa shuddered.

"You okay?" Anna asked, her voice tinged with concern.

Elsa managed a nod reply, wordlessly scrolling through her datapad as she folded her legs on the floor. Damn, is it that obvious? She thought that Anna would have been a tad more reluctant or afraid to interact with her, but so far nothing that would support that reached her enhanced hearing. Thank god for that, I guess.

She brought up the file she was looking for and turned back to Anna, who was sitting above her on the bed. "Now that we've made progress with your physical conditioning, we'll focus on the tactical element. I still have to get you working on you aim tomorrow nonetheless." Elsa gave a half-stare, half-glare at Anna as she pouted. "It's necessary."

"I'm tired," Anna whined as she drew up the blankets to her neck, wrapping her arms around her legs. Elsa felt her cheeks tinge with heat as she looked at the freckles upon Anna's pouting expression, leaving a trace of confusion in her mind, even as she went back to the datapad.

"This is Eleanor Helenski, the best sniper from the United International Front," she said, passing the datapad to Anna. "Even more interestingly, she's also from Omega-Valkyrie from that time."

Anna cocked an eyebrow. "There was a Valkyrie squad then?"

"The UIF has been around for a very long time, just like this academy," Elsa remarked. "Valkyrie was one of the first squads to be formed for the testing of the simulator technology, and they decided to preserve the tradition. Apparently it was one of the best squads."

"Heh," Anna gave a bitter laugh as she leaned back into her pillow, "look where it is now."

Something stabbed at Elsa deep down in her chest, a strange mix pain and connection that she'd never felt before. She searched for the word to describe it just as she searched for an appropriate response. "Not your fault."

"Don't lie to me," Anna replied. "You know I'm pretty much the reason we're in this spot."

Elsa sighed. "I would contend that, but we'll never get to training if we did this."

She retrieved her holographic projector and hooked up her datapad to it, bringing up Eleanor Helenski's combat simulation records. "These are very old records of matches, but even then she was pretty good when she entered the academy. Not much has changed so you should find her tactics decently effective." She selected a particular recording from the archive and opened the file; the display came to life, reanimating the environment of the match alongside the players in their respecting spawns. Elsa widened the display so they could see the match well.

"What's her military service record?" Anna asked as they watched the recruits navigate the simulation.

"Enlisted in the academy in 2089 when she was 16, graduated with first class honours at 21, the fastest progression of grades the academy has ever seen." Elsa widened the display projection so they could focus on Helenski's perspective, watching as the recruit thumbed the safety on her ASR1 off. "Entered military service upon graduation, bestowed multiple awards and medals, including Medal of Valor for her actions in the Battle of the Brink."

"You're gonna have to slow down," came the reply. "I have no idea what's going on."

Elsa paused the display and turned to Anna. "The Battle of the Brink was a major Empyrean offensive onto the 7th Sector of UIF territory. Partly due to a strategic oversight on UIF command, they were distracted by a minor attack on the 6th Sector, and had redeployed additional forces there, leaving the particular city of New Harvard exposed, which was on the edge of UIF border walls, hence the name for the battle that took place. UIF forces defending its major military repair yards and manufacturing facilities ended up being woefully unprepared; Empyrean launched a massive attack on the city, even sending one of their three existing Command Carriers to facilitate the attack."

"How bad?"

"The first day saw half of the city taken, and combat was down to bitter street fighting after they neutralized all city defenses. You know how big our cities are."

Anna shuddered. "Ouch."

"Yeah," Elsa said, as she fiddled with the projection without looking directly at Anna; something about the freckles on Anna's cheeks was making her feel… weird. "If you go ask the lecturer that made me freak out that day he'll tell you more about it and more context." Shit, now Anna's going to feel uncomfortable.

A brief pause passed between them, and Elsa averted her eyes.

"So…" she heard Anna speak, uncertainty dripping, "what did Helenski do?"

"Oh. Right. Almost forgot." Elsa forced herself to turn back and look straight at Anna. Maybe if I confront those freckles directly, this… feeling should go away. "Helenski and her squad were actually one of the soldiers garrisoned there, and remained in the captured half of the city isolated from the rest of the forces amassing in the UIF controlled portion. The footage from her suit that was uploaded to the UIF database showed them eliminating enemy squads and scavenging their ammunition and supplies as they came along."

"Kill count?"

"For her alone? 264. The five-man squad racked up a total of 1300."

Anna looked incredulous. "They bothered to count?"

"Analysts did it when they retrieved the footage."

"That's one hell of a kill-to-death ratio; even the Alpha divisions here can't beat that."

Elsa gave a small smile as she continued. "Unfortunately they started taking losses. The Battle of the Brink lasted a full 2 months; in one month Helenski was alone. For the next duration she continued the routine, though analysts later determined she suffered psychological trauma from the events. It was deliberated that it was this trauma that compelled her to undertake that specific course of action."

"I don't follow."

"She sniped the driver out of an attack hovercraft, then hijacked it and flew to its assigned vehicle carrier. Having infiltrated the carrier, she accessed its onboard systems, remotely programming itself and its entire vehicle payload on a crash course with the Command Carrier."

"Shit." Anna looked genuinely taken aback. "What happened to her?"

"Her body was never found, since the resulting explosion from the destroyed Command Cruiser took out the captured half of New Harvard and forced the UIF forces to evacuate for fear of radiation poisoning. The area is now cordoned off; neither the UIF nor Empyrean are using it now, except to fight for the border. The medal was awarded to Helenski posthumously."

"Oh." Anna looked crestfallen. "I'd hoped she'd make it."

"Yeah, but the odds were kind of stacked against her survival."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you asked," Elsa said nonchalantly, turning back towards the display, almost completely forgetting she was supposed to teach her combat tactics. "And just to assure you everything will turn out fine."

"You… do realise she died, right?" Anna pointed out.

"We all die. I was trying to emphasise that she graduated, despite the odds stacked against her."

Elsa didn't get a response from Anna, so she played the match recording again.

The night sky above them filled with stars as Elsa continued explaining the various tactics of sniping and counter-sniping, with reference to Helenski's various performances as reference. Eventually Elsa had to sit next to Anna, both lying back onto a pillow, because her back was starting to ache. Amidst the strange glow of the projection in their room Elsa kept Anna going at the topic until late into the night.

Elsa was in the midst of scrolling through more of Helenski's performance when she felt a weight suddenly striker her shoulder. She almost jumped; then she realized Anna had dozed off when she caught side of her signature red hair trailing down her shoulder. With a sigh, Elsa turned off the projector, finding a smile forming involuntarily on her face.

After that came a very essential question: what to do next? She couldn't move out of the room simply because Anna looked too serenely asleep to be awoken. Elsa laid back and let Anna rest on her shoulder as she contemplated the events of the day.

She looked at the freckles that covered Anna's rosy cheeks. It didn't work; she still felt the same way as she did hours ago: tingly, warm and fuzzy inside. It made her heart pound and her skin sweat, and Elsa didn't exactly like dealing with something she didn't understand. One particular image of her laying kisses all over those rosy cheeks suddenly embedded itself in her mind.

Is it just me, or is it hot in here? Elsa still had no idea what to make of all this.

Eventually she laid back, having decided to close her eyes for a while. Before she knew it sleep overcame her.

Anna's eyes opened only after she had this hazy vision of someone cradling her head and putting it back down on her pillow. Her room was dark again, but she could still hear footsteps trailing away. Elsa? She couldn't really remember how she ended up asleep, other than the fact that they'd stayed up late at night to study Helenski's performance in the simulations.

Elsa.

Her name floated through Anna's head dreamily, just like the sleep that was about to overtake her. Eyes half-closed, she saw Elsa's intense blue irises, the combat fatigues that clung to her body to enunciate her curves, involuntarily prompting an image of them sliding off to reveal the pristine skin below, amongst other things for Anna to see…

Anna forced herself out of it, suddenly aware of her labored breathing, and how hot she'd become under the covers, which she promptly threw off. She found a layer of sweat covering her skin as she placed a shaking hand onto her chest, feeling the wild beating of her heart.

She felt her cheeks colour as she realized her nipples were hard.

Almost as an instinct she attempted to cover herself as shame washed over her, reaching for the blankets she had thrown away prior. This feeling was… unexpectedly pleasurable, but strangest of all was the source of the sensation. Elsa. She was familiar with crushes, although they'd been about boys and nothing had ever materialized out of the short term feelings she had harboured, but this was certainly different. Very, very different.

To begin with, Elsa was a girl.

Even as she processed these strange thoughts her hand slipped under her pyjama bottoms involuntarily. Her mind blanked out at the first contact her fingertip made with herself, her eyes closed in bliss. Her heart thudded as she panicked over how wrong it might be to fantasize over a girl, let alone her teammate that was committed to training her, but then she ran her middle finger along the full length of her slit and her breath hitched.

She almost failed to contain her reactionary moan. God, why the hell am I doing this—?

Another image of Elsa floated through her mind as she kept up her ministrations. Elsa's gorgeous lips on hers, their bodies pressed tightly together under the covers as she gazed back into the intense blue irises. In her mind her own fingers became Elsa's fingers that grazed past her slick folds into her inner channel, eliciting waves of pleasure that rippled through her bodice, wiping out all resistance she previously had. She clamped her mouth shut as she came, curling up involuntarily as she fought the urge to cry out in ecstasy, her other hand fondling her breasts greedily to experience ever more pleasure.

Satisfied as she was, she could barely control the torrent of emotions that welled up after that. Her heart rate gradually slowed down, but every beat pounded with feelings for her teammate. There'd been talk of homosexuality in the campus, but in general all relationships between recruits had been severely discouraged by the campus authorities.

Anna realized she was alone on this one; she couldn't tell anyone, not even her other teammates, not even the General who'd taken her in. But as she fought to catch her breath and sweat rolled down her cheeks one more image of her kissing Elsa, their hands roaming across each other's bodies floated through her mind, and she almost forgot all her worries.

Why do I feel like this?

The most terrifying part, she realized, was that she wasn't even sure Elsa reciprocated her feelings. What if it was all a one-sided attraction? What if Elsa found her weird, unnecessarily nosey and too clumsy to behold? Anna laid back into her pillow, shut her eyes, and tried to close off the stream of self doubt that she'd opened.

Sobering thoughts to counter the high she'd just been on.