Omega [REDUX]

Chapter 26

She slowly became aware of how much effort she'd exerted, and the smile faded from her face. She never expected to be this tired; after all, all she had done was sit in a chair, bark out a few orders and move her fingers a little. The only notable incident she'd gotten herself into was having been thrown across the bridge due to a tactical mistake.

But she hurt. Notably. The simulation was designed to make you feel as realistically fatigued as you would after having survived a combat scenario, but without the lengthy and painful recovery process resulting from wounds taken. Through the dim blue light of the victory screen Elsa moved her limbs ever so slightly, feeling the ache overcome her nerve endings and sweat trickle down her cheeks.

Why she was this tired, she did not understand. Nor did she bother thinking about it. She just leaned back into the pod, sucking in a deep breath, trying to ease the tightness in her chest. The wave of sensations overwhelmed her, her enhancements working once again to her disadvantage, to a point where she had to place a palm upon the pod cover and scream inwardly to herself to conceal, don't feel. She didn't want to use the words again, but she was so overwhelmed and confused. She needed to get the feeling to stop.

She heard the pod cover slowly hiss, and tilt open slightly, in accordance with the pressure of her hand.

God.

Damn.

This sucks.

Elsa didn't want to think about how much she'd messed up. They'd won the scenario, that was a given, but it was costly. Too costly to properly count as a proper victory. Elsa had gotten so many of them killed, in addition to the scenario already being heavily skewed against their favour, and she didn't want to know how many scores were ruined because of her decisions.

She realized she couldn't stay in the pod forever.

She sighed. Elsa applied more pressure onto the pod cover, pushing it up and out, as light began to stream in, temporarily blinding her exhausted irises. With shaky limbs, she took a step out of the simulation chamber, and promptly fell to her knees in the most awkward of ways. Clearly she was more tired than she thought.

She exhaled, relaxed, drawing energy from her reserves. She didn't want to collapse right there and then; that would be embarrassing.

She looked up.

Was that applause?

Around her recruits began to clap and cheer, the scattered voices in the background unifying into a chant of "Elsa! Elsa! Elsa!" that soon fell in sync with the applause. Still stunned, and exhausted, Elsa managed to push herself up to her two feet, looking around her at the celebrating recruits. But why? Why are they cheering at all?

She cast a glance at all of the people, taking in every single face, every single movement, every single smile.

But she only had eyes for one of them.

Anna.

She watched the red head cast a strange glance at her, watched the smile across her face broaden and completely failed to respond when Anna pulled her into a tight hug, rocking her gently amidst a heightening chorus of cheers. Eventually she had the sense to ruffle Anna's red hair with one hand and wrap her other arm her neck gently, nuzzling her ear. It sparked off something deep within her that she recognized but still couldn't understand. Her lips felt funny, as if they needed to be pressed intently against something. Inside her heart shuddered ever so slightly as their bodies rubbed against each other.

"Thank you," Anna whispered into her ear, and she shuddered inwardly once again. She desperately needed to do something, to drag Anna into a dark room and—

"Officer on site!" someone yelled.

Elsa quickly broke the embrace, her face burning up. Anna herself was already scrambling to stand at attention, as Hans walked into the simulation room. To probably everyone's surprise, he too was clapping. "Congratulations recruits," he said, coming to a halt and putting his hands behind his back in his signature pose. "You've done well. Exceptionally well, considering your side of the scenario was rigged to be skewed against you."

This was on purpose? This was all executed on purpose? What the hell?

"My second in command is debriefing the recruits on the losing side," Hans continued with a smrik. "Boy, I'd hate to be them right now."

That drew laughter from the recruits around her, but Elsa's stoic expression remained unchanged, masking the anger that welled up within her. He let almost a hundred recruits go down with no scores to their name save the victory bonus, left others to get wiped out by hostiles with an unfair advantage, and for what?! What does he want to accomplish with this insanity?

"You're all dismissed for the day, so you're free to go back to your families, before administration commences tomorrow. The day after that is your graduation prom, so do prepare for that. Congratulations, recruits."

Resounding applause echoed around her; everyone was too happy to notice Elsa clenching her fists and staring at the ground, teeth gritted in anger. No one would know how lucky they were, how much of a miracle it had been for them to have beaten the scenario. This wasn't a success, Elsa rationalized, it was a complete and utter failure.

"You okay?" Anna asked, walking up to her. The words melted Elsa's anger, and for a moment she could feel the celebratory mood; while her eyes expressed concern, there was still a huge grin on Anna's face.

"Yeah, I'm good," Elsa said, hiding away her anger as per usual, "just, tired. That's all."

"What do you want to do now?"

She thought she caught a difference in the tone Anna was speaking in, and raised an eyebrow. Is she flirting with me? Her heart rate quickened in response. "I… er… I need to go and see the General, just for a bit."

"What for?"

The anger returned. "For this bloody scenario. This was completely whack."

Shit. I didn't have to spoil her mood. She watched, cringing inwardly as she saw sadness flash across Anna's features, only to fade as quickly as they came. "Kay," she replied, breaking into a small smile. "I'll be at the garden roof."

"Okay."

Anna reached across to squeeze Elsa's hand, and then turned away, bounding over to her teammates. Elsa's skin tingled where Anna's fingers had caressed her, and she shuddered for the third time today. I'm going to have to deal with this. Soon.

But I have other business to deal with.

"Elsa!" Hans said to her as she pushed open the door to his office, an act of transgression she normally wouldn't even think of doing. "Congratulations—"

"What the bloody hell was that for?"

Hans was really taken aback now. "Wha—? What do you mean?"

"You know bloody well what I'm talking about," Elsa replied, slamming the door behind her but still not looking at Hans.

"I'm not quite sure—"

Elsa rounded on him, her eyes blazing now, an act that she knew could get her slapped with disrespect to hierarchy, but she knew she didn't care. "You left almost a thousand recruits to fail their last exams before they graduate! A hundred of those got shot down even before we figured out what the hell was going on! We could have been thoroughly massacred!"

"But you didn't," came the reply.

Elsa could tell he was restraining a response, so she pushed for it. "If it wasn't for the series of miracles that happened to us, or the mistakes and overconfidence of the enemy, any decent force would have completely obliterated us! No one here deserves that!"

"War is very unpredictable, Elsa," Hans said, finally rising to his feet to address her properly, though he continued to stand behind his white table. "You of all people should know that."

"Yeah, because I'm a bloody anomaly that shouldn't even exist," Elsa spat. "But even if you want to replicate the volatility of the battlefield, you don't skewer it this far! What kind of ship deploys without anti-targeting or cloaking measures? What kind of fleet deploys without any prior intel to what they're going up against? What kind of fleet doesn't ensure that their payloads are equipped more diversified weaponry, and relies almost completely and nearly impossible tactical maneuvers and a bloody lance gun?"

"Sometimes you end up like this on the battlefield. The fates care nothing for equality amongst warring sides."

"This academy," Elsa ranted on, "should probably give a shit about equality, when the warring sides are recruits with futures! Children who have invested resources, time, and energy, alongside their blood sweat and tears, into pledging their allegiance and lives for our home! To fight against Empyrean! They didn't come here to have their futures crushed! They deserve better than this!"

Her fury spent, Elsa collapsed into the chair in front of Hans' table, and promptly averted her eyes, realizing the full scale of her impunity. Hans stared at her kindly, and for a moment there was a silence between them.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out. "I didn't mean to be so, rude. Disrespectful. I just—"

"I understand that," Hans said. "I am sorry too."

Elsa didn't respond.

"I understand all these considerations, and I assure you I was able to take care of it. I gave orders for our invigilators to disregard The Bloodbath scores when tabulating the performances for our recruits, or to consider how well each and every recruit responded to the scenario, and left the decision up to them. They unanimously decided it was better to disregard it."

Elsa just stared at him, dumbfounded. "Then what in the world was all of this for?"

"You."

She cocked an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, what?"

"This test was mainly for you?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," she said, shaking her head. "How and why—?"

"It was a matter of national security, especially considering the nature of your origins. We needed to know how capable you were."

"Why?"

"To know how well, disregarding specialized 'superpowers', such supersoldiers would respond. As you told us, there are more of you all, and only one has been killed."

Elsa cringed visibly. "Sorry," Hans said. "Didn't mean to touch a bad nerve."

"It's fine," she replied. "Carry on."

"Now that we've ascertained, to a certain degree, the extent of your intelligence, combat ability and resilience, we can do a few things. We know how to deploy you once you graduate. We know what you're capable of, and how to utilize you as an asset most effectively. You are, after all, probably the most potent hyper-lethal vector we have. Knowing how to utilize you effectively is the best way to protect as many people as we can."

Hans paused for a while to let that sink in. "More importantly, we know a little bit more of what the other supersoldiers can do."

"Why's that important?"

"Because we're not about to disregard the possibility of future attacks." Hans sat back down in his chair. "If Empyrean attacked once with only one supersoldier, and with such devastating results, what's to stop them from doing it again with more supersoldiers?"

"There are only three left," Elsa said.

"Yeah, and looking at how we were able to handle just one of them, I'm not so sure the odds are in our favour," Hans admitted. "That's why we needed to know how good you were. What was the extent of your abilities."

"You could have asked to me run some other test for you."

"We'd lose the full experience. We can't simulate everything in a vacuum."

Elsa nodded, still looking down, and sighed deeply. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's also our fault collectively, having to treat you as a weapon." Hans sighed, looking away for a while. "It isn't easy, I understand. I know it wasn't just the other recruits you were worried about. You were worried about just one."

Now she looked up. Hans chuckled. "Come on. I walked into the simulation room way before you realized it, and you two were already hugging."

She felt her face burning again.

Hans leaned forward to look at her, placing his elbows upon the desk, looking curiously at her. "You haven't used the joke book yet, have you?"

Elsa shook her head. "No time. Mainly busy with curriculum."

"Well now's as good a time as ever," he went on. "You both have no more distractions. Speaking of which, have you asked her to prom yet?"

"N… no," Elsa stuttered, drawing a smirk from Hans again. "Should I have done that?"

"Of course."

"But—"

"There's no buts to this, Elsa. If I've learned anything it's that you need to take the chance to express your feelings before they disappear. When my friend died in the field I never got a chance to properly thank him for everything he'd given me. All the memories, all the shared experiences." He paused, now slightly overcome with grief. "I'll never get that chance."

"I'm sorry."

"Like I said, Elsa, there's nothing to be sorry for. Just don't make the same mistakes I did." Hans pushed himself off the table and walked past her towards the cupboard at the back. "I don't suppose you've got anything to wear?"

"I… guess not."

"Do you know what Anna's going to wear?"

"How do I know she's even going to agree to it?"

"I'm pretty sure she will, given my observations today."

She felt her face flush again. Hans didn't seem to notice. "In any case," he went on, "I'm presuming she's going to wear a dress of some sort."

"I'd suppose that to be the case as well."

"Then if you're going, you're gonna need a suit."

Hans pulled open the cupboard as Elsa pushed herself out of her seat, walking over to where he stood. For a moment they stood there, Elsa staring at the suit in the cupboard, Hans letting her have a moment for a little while.

"That's…"

"Impressive? I thought so too myself, when I first tried it on," Hans said, placing his hands around his waist. "Though I do think it'd look better on you."

"I—"

"Tell you what, I'll cut you a deal. As soon as she says yes, the suit's yours. For life. But you have to ask her, and you have to do it fast. You only have a day tomorrow for admin, and one more on prom day itself."

"And if she doesn't agree?"

"Why wouldn't she?" Hans asked, turning to Elsa. "If she likes you as much as I think she does, I think it'll work out just fine. Who knows? Your relationship might even blossom from there on out."

"And if she's scared to do it?" Elsa replied. "I don't want to jeopardise my friendship with her. I don't have many friends to begin with.'

"Sometimes you gotta take a risk," Hans went on, closing the cupboard once again. "You're willing to take risks in life and death situations, if our little incident at the convention center shows anything. Again, I don't mean to touch a bad nerve," he said quickly, as he noticed Elsa cringing again, "but the point is, there's not much harm in asking her anyways. The worst that could happen is that you both go your separate ways and hope that you'll meet each other in future deployments."

Elsa stepped away quietly, contemplating his words. She sighed. "But I don't want that."

"Look," Hans said, "I could pull rank and do all sorts of things to have you frequently meet after you both graduate and obtain proper attachments. But I can't make things happen between you two unless either one of you is willing to make the effort." He watched as Elsa sighed again and sat down. "And what if it does work?"

"What does?"

"Your relationship with each other."

Elsa felt herself shudder again. "It's definitely worth a shot if you look at it that way, isn't it?" Hans asked.

Doubts lingered in her head in the few seconds of silence that followed. She realized she could be hallucinating this entire thing about Anna; she could be completely mistaken about Anna's feelings for her. But given that Anna already warmed up to her, to the extent of snuggling with her, and how Hans was confirming the notion of something between the two of them…

"Just do it," Hans said. "Don't let your dreams be dreams."

She nodded slowly, looking out the window of Hans' office that overlooked the parade square, gazing at the sun that already begun to set.

With slow steps she trod down the corridor, trailing her finger tips along the cool metal walls, only one destination in her mind. That was just the destination; her mind was preoccupied with a whole lot of other things as well, things that she still had trouble figuring out.

Then again, it probably was just one thing as well.

She didn't need to be consciously aware of where she was walking; with the rest of the school having gone back home, there was no way she was bumping into anyone anytime soon. The walkways were quiet, the air whistling past her face gently as she took her journey one step at a time, her feet guiding her to the place she needed to be. The place she wanted to be.

The same steps she climbed for the past year were different now. They carried meaning, the knowledge that she'd her place of solace with someone else, someone so amazing and wondrous and important to her. It was almost a miracle, she realized, as she ascended the stairs, that her life would have led up to this point, gone from the depths of hell to a place of promise. The promise of a future. It was something, at the very least.

She pushed open the door, letting the rays of the setting sun bathe her skin, her platinum blonde hair splaying out in the direction of the wind, blinking as her eyes readjusted to the golden glow that illuminated. It was then that the full beauty of where she stood registered in her mind. The plants and vegetation that had grown there that once held no meaning to her now seemed to flourish as new lives before her eyes. The expanse of the plains surrounding the mountain overwhelmed her with awe, the thinner air of the mountain's altitude filling her lungs.

And there she was.

"What took you so long?" Anna said, smiling, her red braid trailing in the wind as she pushed herself off the parapet. Elsa felt a stab of fear, but reassured herself; Anna wasn't about to fall off the edge anytime soon.

And when did you start feeling so protective of her?

"Just got caught up in my conversation with Hans," she replied bashfully, looking down, half to avoid the glare of the sun's rays, half to avert Anna's own eyes. She didn't know why Anna's gaze was making her feel this way. "Sorry 'bout that."

"It's cool," Anna replied, moving over to a bench near them and promptly sat down, tapping the space beside her, an invitation to Elsa. "What'd he say?"

Elsa sighed as she moved to sit at the bench, the sudden close contact with Anna sending her heart into a frenzy. "That the test was a bogus one."

"How so?"

"It wasn't meant to test any recruits at all," Elsa said, leaning forward to place her elbows on her knees, lacing her fingers together. "It was meant to test me."

"And you definitely passed it, if anything," Anna said as she leaned forward as well, turning her head to look at Elsa. "You did spectacular, Elsa."

Then why do I feel like a failure? "I don't know about that," Elsa admitted, closing her eyes. "I'm an anomaly, Anna. I'm not supposed to exist. In many ways I'm a freak, and in many ways I've proven that to a whole lot of people."

"Don't say that—"

"Anna," Elsa said suddenly, looking her straight in the eye for once. "To be very honest with you, I don't know how you can still trust me. Even after knowing what I've done. Even after knowing what I am."

"Why not?"

"Because…" Elsa's voice trailed off into silence as she turned away, afraid, suddenly feeling tears welling up in her eyes. This was all going wrong. What if she rejects me on that basis alone? For who I am? I don't want to lose her, I don't have anything left—

"Come on, Elsa," a faraway voice said. "you're not all that bad."

"How can you say that?" she whispered.

Anna reached over and took her hand, the feeling of her skin on Elsa's own soothed Elsa to no end. "In many ways you're like the mountain we're sitting on right now."

Elsa didn't know what to say. Anna waited a while, and then went on.

"If you think about it, this mountain is the strangest geographical feature for miles. It's a single peak, in a wide, open grassland. How often do you see that? Every other geographical feature we study have ranges of mountains or much wider plains, but never a single mountain in a grass plain."

"That's me alright."

"Yeah but, look at the mountain itself," Anna said, gesticulating to the rocky slopes. "There's life all over it."

Elsa looked up again. Anna was right. The mountain, as she'd previously noticed form the countless times she'd come up to the roof, was overgrown with vegetation. Wildflowers and shrubbery adorned the rocks, the golden gleam of the sun casting the scenery in a magnificent light. A palette of colour for their eyes to feast upon.

"You see?" Anna said again, turning to look straight at Elsa. "Just because you shouldn't exist, doesn't mean you aren't beautiful."

Her heart fluttered, and her lips trembled ever so slightly. Beautiful? I… but I…

Do it, something at the back of her head urged her. Ask her. Now.

Elsa closed her eyes, swallowed, and opened her eyes again. Anna's radiant face gazed back at her with a small smile.

"Anna?" Her voice came out as a whisper.

"Yeah?"

She took another deep breath, and then forced herself to say it.

"Will you go to prom with me?"

She watched Anna's facial features go from surprise, to shock, to delight and sheer joy. "YES!" Anna practically scream, suddenly grabbing Elsa and pulling her into an embrace, bringing her up into a spin in the same motion, leaving Elsa giggling as she was pulled along.

"Oh my god yes yes yes yes!" Anna went on screaming, and for a while Elsa couldn't keep wide grin off her face. It was a while before Anna suddenly realized what she was doing, and abruptly put her down, sending Elsa off balance and stumbling, accidentally pulling Anna along. "I'm sorry!" she squealed in panic, as Elsa planted her feet into the ground to stabilize them.

Out of breath, she stared into Anna's intense green eyes, arms still wrapped around her bodice, a smile still adorning her face. Something shifted in the air between them, their bodies pressing together, their faces merely inches apart. She watched Anna's pupils shimmer in the sunlight, and then dilate.

Then before their gazes became uncomfortable, Elsa pulled Anna in for a kiss.

Right there and then everything seemed to fall into place. All of her fears. Her doubts. Her insecurities. Her unyielding and uncertain love. It all clicked with one touch of Anna's perfect lips. The kiss was sweet and warm, and tender, and more than anything Elsa could have possibly dreamed of. She felt the hand at the back of her neck tighten as Anna pulled her closer, moaning weakly. She ran her own hand through Anna's soft hair, massaging her scalp as her lips worked themselves into Anna's.

Eventually they ran out of air, and broke the kiss, gasping for breath, Elsa's cheeks basically on fire at that point. They both looked away, embarrassed, but Elsa felt the same small shuddering within her.

"Elsa?"

"Yes, Anna?"

She smiled sheepishly. "I don't quite know how to dance."

Of course. I completely forgot there was a dance. Elsa pulled Anna in closer, kissed the tip of her nose, and replied, "Neither do I."

Authors note: I live in a country where we don't call it 'prom', and I haven't even been to an equivalent yet, nor even have anyone to go to such an event with. I don't actually know the best way to carry on from here, but I'm sure I'll figure something out with the power of Google, Wikipedia and whatnot xD