Omega [REDUX]

Chapter 8

Break ended.

Elsa's routine shifted back to normal, only now she woke up with a sense of… she still didn't know.

But whenever she got up and looked at Anna that feeling would fill her again. She wasn't sure if it was due to her completing whatever training Elsa had assigned her, and probably made some improvements. Anna's better aim or physique or stamina had nothing to do with what Elsa was feeling. Or did it? She still had no clue.

She did however, notice the shift in Anna when the team reunited. She stood up straighter, seemed more confident as she embraced her teammates. Her chest puffed out as she related their escapades over the break.

Elsa refused to let herself continue to think about Anna's chest in other ways. But she couldn't help it. It was the other reason why she'd let Anna off on the last two days, with the excuse of "You do need a break after all." When Anna settled down for an afternoon nap she'd creep to the library to investigate what she was feeling. Attraction? Emotional bond? Sexual… lust?

She'd found herself blushing a little whenever Anna smiled at her, yet somewhat bitter when the rest of the team engaged in conversation with Anna. Jealousy? This emotion was new. She'd gone back to her list of emotions at night and jotted it down, alongside anger, fear, resentment, grief, apathy, helplessness, humor, joy.

It was laughable, she decided, that she was so un-human that she had to actually write down her feelings one by one, and still be able to count them off the tips of her fingers. She'd deliberately excluded herself from the team as they went to tell each other stories and laugh around the circle outside their rooms, locking herself inside to contemplate the recent turn of events. To hide the fact that she was, ultimately, still broken. She curled up into a ball.

The night went on. Eventually the voices faded, but she could still tell each every individual voice apart; such was her conditioning to noticing things that normal people wouldn't. She could tell the exact moment where Rapunzel decided to leave by her breathing patterns, when Belle walked off silently to catch some sleep. When Anna and Merida stayed up to converse more. And how she would never fit in with them. Fit in with anyone.

Empyrean.

The bloodied faces of men, women and children resurfaced in her mind. She shuddered; it was one of those sleepless nights again, where shutting her eyes would do little to drive the image away. The nights where the guilt would consume her being and throw her back into racking sobs that she dreaded to go through, where she'd beg for the cowardly escape of death as she leaned into the corner where her bed sat, hugging her legs to herself and wrapping the blanket around her. The nights where even a supersoldier found her only physiology working against her, the sight of darkness becoming blinding, the sound of silence becoming deafening, the touch of the blanket agonizing—

There was a knock on the door.

Elsa snapped out of her reverie, though woefully unresponsive. The knock came again. "Who is it?"

"Me!" Anna. Her voice washed through half the pain that clutched at Elsa, who almost immediately found it easier to breathe. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," Elsa replied, barely loud enough as she sat unmoving in the corner, still processing what was happening. She makes everything so easy—

"You kinda have to let me in, you realise…"

Fuck. That was a massive faux pas. "Sorry!" she blurted out as she reached for the door release. The button clicked, and the door slid open.

The sight of Anna took her breath away.

She didn't know why she reacted to that sight at that moment in particular. Maybe it was because her red hair was let down, flaying out behind her. Maybe it was because of the radiant smile on her face, her freckles accentuated by her expression. Maybe it was because the combat fatigues she donned brought out the curves on her body… no, what the hell Elsa? She's your goddamn teammate. You're supposed to help her pass the tests, not burden her with your miserable existence!

"Sorry, I just couldn't sleep, and it was probably a long shot for me to ask if you were awake anyway," Anna said as she trod into Elsa's room, closing the door behind her. "Mind if I sit?" she asked, indicating to the chair in front of Elsa's desk.

"Sit anywhere you want."

"Even the bed?"

"Sure."

"Can I snuggle with you?"

Elsa raised an eyebrow. In truth, she had no idea what that was. "Err… what?"

"Like, I lie next to you in bed."

She felt her heart rate jump. Hell, she could feel her heart itself jump. "I… I er… I mean…"

"Sorry," Anna said quickly, looking away bashfully, "I probably went too far—"

"I don't mind," Elsa replied equally quickly, looking straight at Anna, one half of her screaming inwardly for agreeing, the other half trying to convince herself otherwise before she lost control entirely. Those lips—

"Great!" Anna squealed delightedly, and practically jumped into bed with Elsa, trying to maneuver as close towards her as possible. Elsa felt a knee connect with her ribs, and she recoiled, half in shock, half because it was ticklish. "Sorry!" Anna's eyes widened as she noticed the movement, "Are you okay?"

Elsa gave back a smile, a genuine smile, and said, "Yeah. I'm good."

They lay down in that position, Anna's head lying on Elsa's shoulder, her red hair mixed in with Elsa's own blonde hair. Silence hung over them like a cloud, neither daring to breathe for a while, Elsa herself a little intimidated by the intimacy of the contact. This is ridiculous, she found herself thinking. You're trained and bred to be close to fearless, and you still can't deal with this absolutely gorgeous girl taking a rest on your shoulder. She found her hands fiddling with the covers.

"This is nice," Anna remarked softly as she nuzzled her head into Elsa's neck, the contact sending jolts of electricity crackling along her skin. Elsa swallowed. She was defenseless, and she never liked feeling that way.

"Yeah. It is."

"I never got to thank you."

Elsa rested her face on the top of Anna's head as they leaned against each other, savouring the smooth feeling of her signature red hair. "For what?"

"You know, training me, during the break."

"Least I could do."

"Not really." Anna pushed herself up and looked straight at Elsa. "I know a lot of people who wouldn't do that. Or even think I could… you know, improve."

Elsa could hear the insecurity in her voice, because it got softer and smaller towards the end. "They don't matter, Anna. What matters is what you do."

"But doesn't it get to you?" Anna averted her gaze, a helpless edge in her words as she leaned against Elsa again. "Like, what they say." She exhaled deeply, and Elsa heard the pain in that gesture. "So much for words will never hurt me."

It's that feeling again. I still don't what to feel, but I need to do something, I can't let her keep feeling this way…

"Like I said, it doesn't matter," Elsa found herself saying, with a reassuring tone she hadn't realized she had, but it felt right to say. "I've talked to the people that know you, your teammates, the other recruits that talk to you personally. They know you want to learn, to improve. That you're nice to be with, that you harbor no ill-will or malice, that you want to help others."

She found herself taking a breath as she continued. "People can say anything they want even if the truth is right in front of them. But no matter what, the truth will out. What matters is that you stay true to yourself, and true to what you do. Don't ever lose sight of that. Stick to your values, and people will know who you really are." It's probably not quite appropriate for these words to come from someone who murdered innocent civilians in cold blood. I'm no saint, Anna. You on the other hand, just might be one.

They lay there just a while longer. For a moment, Elsa thought Anna might have fallen asleep in that position. Her own beating heart calmed down, though she thought she'd messed up her entire "inspiring speech", and come off as a bore.

Then she heard a small voice whisper "Thanks." She looked down to see a small smile on Anna's face, her serene features accompanied with smooth, even breathing. Well, I guess now she's asleep.

Elsa herself leaned back and tried to get comfortable. She'd given up trying to calm down; Anna's freckles would probably drive her crazy forever.

She awoke to the beeping of something familiar, but in her hazy state she couldn't quite place her finger on. Her fingers however seemed to be preoccupied, intertwined somehow, with something warm. She gazed down. Anna's hand rested in her palm, fingers laced between her own.

Her heart beat just a little faster. Elsa sighed and laid back against the pillow, hoping to drift back to sleep, fully aware that such a possibility was highly unlikely.

The beep came again.

Wait… that's the notification sound from a school-verified message… Gingerly extracting her fingers from Anna's she pushed herself off the bed and towards her table, squinting as she brought up the holographic display. She was right; it was a notification.

INTER-DIVISION MATCH 45673488

Alpha: [VALOR – HALBERD – VALKYRIE] VS Beta: [VIGILANCE – HARBINGER – SLEDGEHAMMER]

MATCHTYPE: DATA RECOVERY

ARENA: URBAN-3

MATCH STARTS 0800

What the hell? Elsa cast a glance at the top left of the projection; the time read 0730. Her eyes widened. When the hell did we get this alert?

"Wake up." She tried to shake Anna awake, albeit somewhat hastily. The redhead merely whined and tried to turn away. "Anna," Elsa began, an edge of steel in her voice now, "we're late. We have a match."

"Wha… what the fuck?" Anna sprang from her bed, red hair a mess of frizzy lines. "When and how and why and what and—"

"Calm down!" Elsa said, grabbing Anna's shoulders to keep her still. "I don't know why we got this alert this late, but we're going to have to get there. Go wake up the others; I'll plan a brief strategy."

Breathlessly Anna rushed out, slamming the door open button as Elsa sat down, all other thoughts instantly departing her mind, her mental state focusing into a single potent train of thought. She brought up the map from the academy database and scanned the small render of the map. Urban-3 wasn't an arena, it was basically a complete rendering of a city. There was no way she could plan for every single thing just by looking at the map render.

She swore under her breath as she left for the washroom, fully aware of the clock ticking towards their deadline.

She caught sight of the insignia of Valor Team even before they reached the congregation of recruits at the simulation room. That was a concern, because Elsa realized that she didn't see Halberd Team anywhere. Her own team was still a partial mess: Belle had a shirt inside out, Merida was fumbling with a datapad as she rushed to finalise her loadout per Elsa's instructions, and Rapunzel's hair was out of control. Notably though, Anna had been able to settle her own issues decently. She appeared prim and proper, no doubt due to the training she had received. But Elsa wasn't about to pat herself on the back yet if one of their teams wasn't going to show up.

"Valkyrie." Hans gave them a curt nod as they fell into position next to Valor, looking down at his datapad. Elsa noted the direction his eyes were pointed in: specifically at the top left of his screen. Evidently, Halberd just ran out of time.

"At ease, recruits," Hans said. Team Beta looked visibly relaxed. Anna, on the other hand, did not, and Elsa knew why: the smile on Ursula's face as she fought to urge to smirk at Anna. "It appears that Halberd didn't make it. As such, the exercise will proceed without them."

Elsa watched the members of Valor Team fight the urge to protest. Discreetly, she laid a hand on Anna's back and whispered, "It's gonna be fine. We've trained you for this. You'll be okay." She'd briefed the team on the way about what they had to do, assuming that Valor Team had come equally unprepared as they had.

Anna gave her a small, timid nod in return.

"Proceed to your simulators, recruits," Hans continued. "Do remember this cross-division match is not a formative; your performance in this match will count towards your overall proficiency evaluation at the end of the term. Good luck."

Elsa had expected to wake up in some part of the city, lying on the ground as per usual, with her weapons next to her in a heap.

She didn't. The first thing she noticed was the tight feeling of straps around her bodice. Her mind raced. Was she restrained? Did her opponents find her before she woke up, and planned to use her as leverage? She struggled to open her eyes, trying to get the annoying whirring sound out her ears—

That doesn't sound like whirring, that sounds like we're… airborne…

She forced open her eyes. She was in a troop hold of a dropship.

Shit.

"Recruits! Wakey wakey!"

Elsa moved her hands. Her ASR2-M designated marksman rifle sat strapped to her back, and she felt the familiar weight of the T2 sidearm sitting in the holster attached to her thigh. Her HUD initialized and began a system scan. She took stock of her body armor: lightweight Pathfinder armor, thin enough for maximum mobility but thick enough for decent protection, with standard issue jet brakes and minimal energy shielding. A knife was attached to her upper body armor, and she felt the weight of magazines weighing her down. "Time to get up and prepare to burn-in."

"Fucking pilot," Belle said.

"Alright guys," a voice from Valor team cut into their comms, "We've got no time to refer to introductions, so just abide by the names you display on your soldier tag. I'm assuming Valkyrie's soldier tags are your real names?"

"Get on with it," Merida said. "If you've got no time to introduce each other, then don't waste time laughing at our fuck ups."

"Very well," the voice named Blackcomb said, but Elsa could tell he was stifling a giggle, prompting her to roll her eyes. "Here's the plan. Valkyrie will breach the area while we provide cover. Simple as that."

"Simple as that?" Elsa retorted. "That suicide! You'll kill us!"

"If you die, we'll move in to mop up."

"It doesn't matter that we get taken out?"

"Look, we're the Alpha division here. I don't want to be too blunt, princess," Blackcomb replied, "but I think we're more qualified to make the decisions here."

"So that's your grand plan? Sending a Delta Division team in as bait, so you can take them out yourself?"

Blackcomb didn't respond. "No way, man," Elsa continued, glaring at the suit-clad recruit. "We've got our own evaluation to worry about. If you don't have a better plan, you selfish fucks, we're going our own way."

"You'll get killed," a recruit named Venus interrupted. "We're your best shot of winning."

"We're already a team short," Anna said all of a sudden. "How bad could it be? Now shut up, suit up and prepare to drop."

The light on the side of the dropship hold lit up with a red glow. Making sure everything was still attached, Elsa unstrapped herself from the seat, checking that her jet brakes were online in the same movement. Their teams stood in two straight lines, facing the back of the hold as the ramp began to deploy.

Even in the suit, Elsa could still feel the air rush past her skin. The light flipped to green. "Go, go, go!" came the pilot.

Two by two the soldiers ran outward, down the ramp, then into a freefall.

Elsa felt her legs leave the ramp, and into gravity's deadly embrace. "Follow my lead!" she yelled towards her team on their comm channel. "Do exactly as I do. We're leaving these fuckers behind." She stretched her limbs out behind her, streamlining her body shape and encouraging a faster freefall; her HUD's display indicated that her teammates were keeping up just nicely.

"Valkyrie," came Blackcomb's warning, disapproving tone. "You're going in too fast!"

Elsa muted Blackcomb's comm channel.

Her energy shields flared as the heat around her began to accumulate, plunging through the cloud layer. Her HUD's altitude indicator dropped radically, numbers ticking past as the vertigo got to her. Elsa shook her head and tried to clear the feeling, and continued her decent.

"Are you sure about this?" came Merida as they zipped right past the recommended braking altitude.

"Just do it!" She could feel her heart race as the waypoint for their data came into view; they were dangerously close to the ground. They were low enough for her suit to begin to identify hostile targets, that were completely oblivious to what was happening above.

500 metres.

"Mark your targets and aim for them!" she called out.

300 metres.

Elsa maneuvered her body to directly above the recruit, eyes narrowing with focus.

100 metres.

"NOW!"

Elsa popped her jet brakes, the retro-rockets firing and struggling to stop her terminal velocity, but that was exactly what she was aiming for. As her enemy below her turned upwards to locate the source of the sound Elsa's entire weight slammed into him, the additional force accumulated during her fall crushing his armor and piercing his body as they both crashed through the first layer of concrete, then the second, then came to a standstill on the third, but not before leaving a huge crater on its surface. Her plan was successful. 5 enemy soldiers immediately disappeared off the simulation, and the odds were now even.

"Move!" she hollered as hostile enemy fire zipped past her, her own legs pushing her body towards cover, her hands reaching for her rifle. She slammed a magazine into the chamber, and prepared for their counterattack.