Omega [REDUX]

Chapter 34

Kristoff vaulted the battlement-like wall and drew his rifle, scanning his sectors for contacts. The facility was silent, with only the wind whistling through the seemingly empty halls. His eyes flicked from left to right as his squadmates detached their grapples and checked their corners.

They were alone, for now.

"We got reads on their location?" he asked as he took a few tentative steps forward, looking down into the courtyard.

"Negative sir," came the reply. "Something's interfering with our systems. We can't even keep track of each other."

He was right. Kristoff's own minimap had begun to blur and fizzle, and his HUD was beginning to malfunction as well. He wanted to remove his helmet entirely so he could see better, but decided against it; if there were soldiers around, he'd be downed in seconds. He did his best to ignore the annoying flickering and steadied his rifle instead.

He glanced down at the courtyard. It was barren save for a small pedestal in the middle of it all. Its greyish surface was tarnished by reddish splatters, and he was pretty sure that it wasn't paint. Around it the concrete floor was similarly coloured, cracked and covered with a layer of dust. Elsa was right; this place was desolate as hell. He gripped the rifle a little tighter.

"I hate the looks of this place," someone said. "Gives me the creeps."

"Stick together men," Kristoff replied. His gaze swept over the courtyard again, keeping a keen eye on the darkness that lingered on the outskirts of the square. "If we can't rely on our equipment we're going to have to rely on each other."

"We should probably scout out the other courtyard first, see if we can get a better idea of where we are," suggested one soldier.

"Good thinking," Kristoff said. "Let's get moving."

Their footfalls made no sound as they made their way across the battlements, the atmosphere of the place becoming ever creepier by the minute

Her augmented vision brought up bio-sign readings of her adversary.

They were fading.

She tightened the grip on the gasping, flailing figure beneath her as she pressed her full weight down, her mind overcome with the single thought to kill. For in that moment she knew nothing else, nothing about her past or present, her primary or secondary programming, or how she came to be like this. All that mattered was that the woman beneath her died.

"Anna…"

She shut the voice out and kept squeezing.

"Shit. Take cover!"

Kristoff scrambled to duck behind a set of battlements as he spied the gleaming silver figure in the courtyard below. "What the bloody hell is that?" someone muttered.

"Quiet," someone else said. "I don't want to know what happens if that thing spots us."

Kristoff thumbed the safety of his rifle on and off and sucked in a breath. They didn't appear to have been noticed just yet. He took a peek from where he hid; the figure was crouching in the middle of the courtyard, almost as if pinning someone or something down—

"Sir?"

The voice that called to him sounded urgent. "What is it?"

"Whatever that thing is, it's got our Ascendant pinned down. Badly. Her vitals are fading fast."

Kristoff took another peek. The soldier was right; he could recognize the gleaming visor and the suit of armor pinned beneath the silvery figure. "Fuck, you're right." His HUD marked out the outline of Elsa's adversary in red and synced the data to all friendly HUDs; they needed to know exactly where their enemy was, especially because they had no idea what they were up against.

"Someone get me HQ," he said. "We don't have any intel on this new target. We need new orders."

"…Anna…"

"That's our Ascendant sir. She won't last much longer."

"…please…"

"Can't raise HQ, sir," another soldier reported. "Still have interference in this area. It's your call from here on out."

Dammit. Kristoff hated taking things on blind; bad things tended to happen. The last time he made a blind call was the op when he'd found Elsa, and he didn't particularly want to remember what happened right this moment. But right now he had no choice; there was already one more life at stake. "Engage stun rounds; HQ might want that thing alive. If not, we can always terminate it later."

The clicking of sniper rifles greeted his ears; Kristoff turned to see his soldiers already set up. "Permission to engage sir?"

"Permission granted, soldier," he said grimly as he heaved his rifle over the edge of the parapet, taking aim through the sights. "All units, take her down."

"…Anna…"

There was something oddly unnerving about that voice, and the way the word was enunciated. It sounded vaguely familiar. She felt like she should know the word, and perhaps the significance behind it. Again, she ignored it. All that mattered was killing her—

"…please…"

The sound was growing weaker, corresponding with the failing vital signs on her display. Her lips were curled in a snarl, but she was almost content; soon the woman would be dead. And then came something that she really couldn't ignore.

A barrage of electrified stun rounds.

Impact after impact struck her sides, sending mini shockwaves and frayed electrical currents along the length of her body. Her vision flickered and blurred, and she let out a snarl of surprise and pain, her grip loosening on the figure beneath her as an electrified sniper round knocked her body to the side. She rose and turned to face the new threat, one that she would need to eradicate first before continuing her original directive.

A series of figures, cluttered upon the battlements, now began to show up in bright red on her HUD. She staggered under the impact and recovered, allowing her hand to morph into a suitable weapon.

No matter. Her previous target was nearly dead anyways. She would deal with the squadron of armoured figures before her and then return to finish the kill—

It was a miracle that Anna had let up. Elsa hadn't seen what had collided with Anna that had distracted her, but was grateful for the respite. She doubted she'd get another one.

She had gasped for breath as the suffocating metal fingers lifted from her neck, trying to shake away the red mist that had clouded her vision. Her hand crumpled as she placed her weight on them, and she found herself back on the concrete floor.

As much as it pained her Elsa realized that she was left with no choice; Anna had to be put down.

Oh god. I don't think I can do this.

Screams. Two soldiers had fallen to shotgun blasts from Anna's weaponized hand as Kristoff and the rest rappelled off the battlements, firing wildly as they did, scrambling to get into cover as soon as they could. Anna fired blast after blast, but couldn't get accurate shots in, having been compromised by the taser rounds.

Energy surged back through her as her vision flared blue. Elsa leapt off the floor, lunging at the silvery figure and delivering a solid punch to Anna's cheek. As the metal-armoured figure reeled from the impact Elsa let fly a flurry of icy tempests at Anna. The cyan blasts connected with Anna's left shoulder and torso, knocking her back. Yet for all the force she had exerted Elsa had only managed to stagger Anna; her metal legs had morphed almost instantaneously to form complex stabilizers, which she promptly planted into the ground, halting her momentum. Elsa felt her heart sink further into despair.

No. Not like this. I don't want us to end like this—

"Focus fire!" she heard someone yell, turning back to see the soldiers unleash the fury of their stun rounds upon Anna, who merely brought up one hand and activated an energy shield, her hand morphing into a generator. Ripples marked the impacts of every round that collided with her. Anna drew back her other hand for it to weaponise. "Take her down now!"

"Wait!" she managed to yell at them. "Don't kill her! That's Anna!"

"What the fuck?"

Kristoff's incredulity was rewarded with a barrage of explosive rounds that forced him out of his cover, leaving him dangerously exposed. Elsa skirted the courtyard, trying to flank Anna and buy time for the other soldiers to take cover safely. It didn't work; Anna's other hand had morphed into a rotary cannon, which she now brought up to bear down upon her adversary. Gunfire echoed off the walls as the barrels spewed hot lead towards Elsa, stray rounds slamming into her armour with particularly painful results. Had she not conjured an icy ward a split second later she'd most certainly have been torn apart. Pain blossomed across chest as she deflected the barrage directed at her.

She felt her strength begin to sap; she couldn't keep this up for long. Panicked, Elsa ditched her armor completely, letting her physical form disintegrate and flow out of the suit spaces. The powered suit was shredded instantly, shrapnel flying across the courtyard even as she rematerialized behind cover, clad in her sleek, skintight blue combat outfit. Instinctively her hand went to her torso, and when she looked down her palm drew blood.

"Stay down!" someone yelled at her. "You're hurt!"

She ignored the shouting of the other soldiers and leapt out of cover, lunging toward Anna; icy power coursed through her, no longer hindered by the suit's physical limitations. Her bodice dissolved and reformed instantaneously with every round fired at her, her figure turning into a blue mist as she ran. She closed the distance quickly, icy wisps trailing her limbs, her hands fortifying themselves with layer upon layer of ice, and one fist connected solidly with Anna's chin.

The metal figure sailed through the air and crashed into the ground. Almost instantly Anna recovered, pushing herself back onto her feet, glowing blue eyes scanning the area.

Elsa realized she was quite possibly outmatched, but that didn't stop her momentum in the least; she clenched her teeth, set her jaw, ignored the pain and kept running, and before Anna could stand up properly to react Elsa had laid a drop kick onto her chest, knocking her back down to the ground.

An anguished moan escaped Anna's lips as she slammed a fist into the ground, failing to recover.

Elsa had recovered quickly, her right hand instinctively morphing into her signature blade, but there was no counterattack, no stream of lead to block or dodge. Anna was curled up on the floor, trying to get up, clutching at herself as she grit her teeth in agony.

"She's down!" she heard someone yell. "Take her out!"

Reactively her hand came up to fire off another blast. She found herself standing over the crumpled metal figure, icy magic swirling in her palm, ready to fire. Every sinew of her survival instincts screamed at her to fire, to end the threat that now lay helpless before her, to end this ordeal before it could drag on any further.

But she couldn't do it.

She stopped short of letting her magic lashing out and piercing Anna's metal exoskeleton. She stopped short of shredding the woman before her into a million pieces. She stopped short of killing her lover, of erasing her from existence.

Memories of Anna flashed before her eyes as she stood over her lover, and a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. Memories of their first few moments together. Of kissing each other. Of fighting together.

The swirling vortex in her palm began to fade.

I… can't.

The hesitation cost her. Eyes glowing vengefully, Anna's hand came up abruptly, this time in the form of a new unrecognizable contraption, and fired off a searing lightning bolt.

The blast caught her completely unaware. Pain engulfed her being as Elsa was thrown back, crashing into the ground as the blast caught her straight in the chest, stray arcs of electricity lancing across her bodice, searing her skin through the icy fabric that covered it. Anna roared, the sound echoing off the inside of Elsa's head as she began to numb all over, an unfamiliar chill creeping up her body.

She tried to move. She couldn't. She only felt colder.

Panic seeped through her being. I don't feel cold. I never feel cold. Why do I feel cold now—?

For a moment, she expected to be critically wounded, to soon pass away into death. Then the chill receded; she felt sensation return to her body in spite of the raging agony. She was alive. Anna hadn't killed her. Yet.

Gunfire erupted again, but she couldn't see what was going on, her vision having blurred from the pain. She desperately, painfully, pushed herself back up, trying to block out the mind-numbing pain. Anna hadn't lunged at her, hadn't put a bullet through her head. She was still staggering where she was, returning fire at the other soldiers.

The other soldiers had fallen back into cover; the debris piles that now littered the courtyard seemed to do the job, and now they had Anna pinned down from all sides. They had tried to switch to lethal rounds in a desperate attempt to finish what Elsa could not, but the bullets had merely pinged off Anna's metal hide. Elsa staggered to a fighting stance, chest heaving with effort, trying to muster the courage and the strength to do the unthinkable: kill Anna.

"Now what the fuck do we do?" Kristoff yelled. "Intel didn't prep us for this!"

Elsa swung her arms in successive arcs, letting fly icy lances that exploded into bursts of frost, staggering Anna off balance. The augmented woman collapsed onto all fours, crying out her pain.

"Hold your fire!" she yelled to the other soldiers, waving her hands in desperation. "Don't shoot! Don't bloody shoot her!"

Anna hadn't stopped groaning. Her anguished moans became all the more audible as more and more contraptions spouted from her bodice. Weapon barrel after weapon barrel became visible, mounted on her back, her limbs, her shoulders, each and every one seeking out a target. Her retractable helmet was visible again, covering her head entirely save her mouth. Her body was alive with mechanisms and lights, shifting and morphing as the Mexican standoff between them went on.

It was from there that Elsa found her solution. She recognized those symptoms, the pain that currently overwhelmed her lover. Anna's bodily reactions were instinctive and uncontrolled, with no restraint and semblance of understanding of who she was and what she was. She wasn't fully indoctrinated like the rest of the Ascendants. She was just like Elsa, when Kristoff had rescued her from that transport. Confused, pained and terrified.

If she could get a well-placed taser shot off on Anna, just as Kristoff had done so for her, then Anna could be saved.

She could be redeemed.

She didn't have to be killed.

"I'll handle this," Elsa said, taking a few tentative steps toward the agonized figure. Anna, despite having a weapon pointed at every single person present, was strangely not firing at them, almost as if in she was in too much pain to do so. Kristoff gave Elsa an unknowing, confused look as she let her blade arm dissolve, her normal hand reappearing.

"On my signal," Elsa mouthed to Kristoff. "Stun rounds."

His helmet nodded in response and she watched him raise his rifle again, switching his ammunition and motioning for the soldiers to do the same.

Her heart hammered in her chest with a mixture of fear and sorrow as she drew one hand behind her back, letting her powers flow through her, slowly approaching Anna with every passing step. She tried to justify the action as an insurance policy, a surprise attack. She'd have one chance to get this right; she couldn't count on pain overwhelming Anna again. Elsa herself had adapted to the initial pain of augmentation relatively fast, and she wasn't sure how long Anna would take.

But she was going to have to trick Anna. And with any luck it was going to be as difficult as it was heart-wrenching to do so.

"Anna?"

Every single barrel snapped towards her, their intimidating black voids pointing straight at her head. Anna didn't look up. Warily, Elsa watched Anna's hands clench into fists.

"Anna, are you there?"

The weapons continued to aim at her.

Her heart rate sped up, and she resisted the urge to ward herself with shields of ice. She needed to trust Anna completely. "Anna, it's me. Elsa."

"…elsa…"

Did she just… say my name?

She decided to push it further. "Empyrean is gone. You're safe now."

"…safe…" She definitely heard Anna speak that time. "…elsa…"

"Shh…" Elsa cooed, taking a few more steps toward her. "I'm here. You don't have to worry." She cautiously eyed the mounted weapons that continued to track her every movement, her eyes darting left and right. No amount of enhanced reflexes or icy powers would save her at this range.

"Come home with me, Anna."

The helmet retracted into the recesses of armour that adorned Anna's neck. Her familiar red hair was visible again. Elsa's plan was… working, to some extent. The barrels mounted across Anna's body began to retract. Elsa marveled, bitterly and almost ironically, at how well a job Empyrean had done.

Her head came up. The augmented blue eyes brimmed with tears, no longer glowing. "E… Elsa?"

The single word almost broke Elsa's resolve and guard. It took all her discipline to restrain herself from embracing Anna right there and then, and pressing their lips together, to comfort her and reassure her, to try and take all the pain away. But she couldn't. Anna was still too unstable.

"It's over now," she went on. "We're together again."

Anna slowly pushed herself into a standing position, the metal plates layered upon her body beginning to dissipate. "What's… what's going on—?"

There was a click. A soldier had reloaded his weapon. Through the silence that had descended upon them Elsa heard it loud and clear.

And Anna heard it too.

Almost instantly her eyes flared a dreaded bright blue again; her hand shot out and seized Elsa by the neck. She felt her air supply cut off immediately as Anna's face morphed into a snarl, her glare boring into her, Elsa's own eyes widening as Anna re-weaponised herself, the grip around her neck tightening by the second. "Kristo…ff…" she managed, as Anna's combat form began to take shape again, "n…now—!"

The soldier didn't need to be told twice. Kristoff took a step forward, took aim and fired.

The burst of taser rounds caught Anna in the neck. She tried to scream and gasp for breath at the same time, producing an agonized, choked sound as she abruptly released Elsa from her vice grip. Her one opportunity now upon her, Elsa spun, slamming one fist into Anna's stomach, then redirecting her momentum into her other fist as Anna doubled over in agony, slamming her fist into Anna in the same fashion Kristoff had done those years ago.

The uppercut caught Anna perfectly in the face, sending her flying a few feet away and crashing into the ground.

There was silence again.

Elsa dropped to her knees, the full extent of what had just happened hitting her like a truck. She began to cry. She'd saved Anna, but it was a pyrrhic victory.

The weapons on Anna's body began to retract. The mechanisms began to shut down as every piece of metal and machinery morphed back into Anna's bodice, leaving behind a bare, gleaming metal form lying spread-eagled on the ground. Through tears and sobs Elsa saw the full extent of Empyrean's modifications to her lover: only Anna's face was left in its pristine condition; the rest had been augmented into weapon-ready mechanisms.

Heart-achingly, Elsa realized that in a lot of ways, she had been too late.

Kristoff took stock of what had happened. Two soldiers had gone down while dismounting, one more to a barrage of lead once they had landed, and they had lost one soldier during the descent alongside one executed by another Ascendant, according to Elsa. 5 good men lost.

And he wasn't even sure he could call the operation a success.

Now they stood outside the facility. Apparently, Anna's augmented form had been the source of the interference, and now that she was unconscious they could finally transmit a signal properly. A Hummingbird dropship was on its way, so Kristoff had the soldiers form a defensive perimeter in between a debris field just a while away from the facility. They didn't want any other surprises sneaking up on them.

He watched Elsa lean against a metal plate that was lodged in the ground, cradling the prone form of Anna in her arms. Every now and then she would whisper something to the unconscious woman, laying a kiss upon a forehead whenever she did.

"I hate to ask this," he said, and Elsa turned towards him abruptly, "but do you know if she's going to be okay?"

Elsa sniffled. She was still crying. "I hope so."

"No way to tell?"

"I mean, the last time you did it, it turned out fine, didn't it?"

Kristoff gave a small smile. "I guess it did." The smile faded, and he looked down at Anna. "I'm sure she'll be alright."

Elsa reached up to brush away a stray curl of Anna's red hair, her hand caressing Anna's cheek gently. Kristoff noticed that it didn't stop her hand from trembling, or her chest from being racked with sobs. The other soldiers scanned the perimeter in stoic silence, equally uncomfortable as Kristoff.

He'd never been particularly superstitious, choosing to believe that it was his own skill and some degree of luck that would get him through whatever that had been thrown his way. But as he looked down at Elsa, cradling Anna in her arms, he couldn't help but utter a prayer to whatever gods resided above, in the hopes that they would get through their problems safely. They were going to need help. A lot of it.

There was a small whine in the air, the signature sound of the Hummingbird's engines now audible. Kristoff scanned the area again, then shouldered his rifle and signaled the dropship. In moments the black shape of the aircraft came into view, charred on all sides by anti-aircraft fire.

"Blue Rose to Zephyr-1, how copy?"

"We copy, Blue Rose," the pilot responded as the dropship began to land, the ramp deploying behind it, "though we're going to have a tough time bugging out of here. AA guns had us locked down on approach; we barely made it through."

The soldiers around rose, still scanning the area for targets as they formed up, closing around Elsa, who carried Anna in her arms. "Tell the pilots I can secure our passage out of here."

"You sure?"

"I rigged the Empyrean ship that captured Anna," Elsa replied as the ramp fully deployed and she moved to strap Anna in. "I can rig this ship as well."

He nodded. "Zephyr-1, your exit vector is secure. Our Ascendant will provide cover."

"Cover?" The pilot was confused. "What cover?"

The hull of the ship creaked gently as Elsa placed her hand upon the metal; an invisible layer of ice materialized upon the surface of the hull, shimmering as it did. Kristoff tried to calm his uneasiness as he watched Elsa's irises glow throughout the whole process. Redeemed or not, that sight was still traumatic for him to behold.

Elsa exhaled and took a step back. "We're good!" she yelled to the pilots inside, and began to strap herself in. The soldiers backed into the troop hold, taking one last look for good measure, before shouldering their weapons as the Hummingbird took off, hull retracting as it did.

The ride back to base was silent and melancholy.