Omega [REDUX]

Chapter 46

Sleep had never been Elsa's friend in the past. Tonight it became her enemy. No matter how she tried, sleep continued to elude her, denying her the escape she desperately needed.

And abandoned her to her own thoughts.

For hours she tossed and turned, the pillows and sheets offering her no solace from that which seemed to torment her minute by minute, second by second. Having Anna's acceptance was a welcome excuse to free her from the agony that she truly deserved; now she no longer had that barrier for protection. Misery had returned to remind her what good friends they had once been. Minutes blended into hours, all within the river of fear and hurt that she now lay in, carrying her drifting mind down the road of sorrow and despair.

You're disgusting.

She felt a shiver travel down her arm, her heart rate quickening.

You aren't worthy of her trust. Her affection. Her love.

It was frightening to feel the one sensation she was supposed to be immune to, and be totally powerless to stop it. Elsa had only felt cold when it felt like she was dying, when she was actually dying and when she was terribly, terribly scared. She sucked in a breath through her giddy haze and forced herself to focus on the here. The now.

The pain.

You don't deserve anything, from anyone, from anywhere. Least of all from Anna.

Her heart felt like it'd been stabbed; Elsa's features contorted in agony, tears brimming behind her eyelids, breathing ragged and strained. She wouldn't notice the wet stains on her pillow until much later, because for now all she knew was pain and cold.

Pain and cold.

Let it go.

Part of her wanted to condemn herself to eternity, part of her still believed that there was a fight worth fighting, even if both parts had forgotten what the fight was about. Both surged to seize the vacuum of rational thinking and emotional reasoning to wrestle control over her thoughts, mashing against the other in a mad scramble to take over.

Pain and cold.

Let it go.

Her hands balled into fists and she turned again, fighting the sensation but refusing to drape herself in a blanket. She didn't deserve the relief. She'd done nothing to earn comfort and relief in any shape, any form, any meaningful way of running away from pain—

Pain and cold.

Let it go.

Pain and c— let it g— pain and— let it—

Her eyes flew open, her body drenched in a cold sweat, her irises trying to reacclimatize to the sensation of being open. Rays of soft golden light drifted through the window overlooking the bay, shifting with the curtains that wafted with the breeze. So she had slept after all.

She glanced at her datapad. There was another message, also from Hans. "Forgot to arrange a timeslot today. Is 1100 hours good for you?" Elsa checked the datapad's time display: 0820. She'd make it. She fired off a reply ("Okay sure, see you at your office") and pushed herself out of bed, her head and her heart equally heavy.

The previous day's events came flowing back to her. Outwardly Elsa had no reaction. Inwardly it felt she'd been hit by a truck once more.

I HATE YOU!

Elsa closed her eyes. She wasn't sure if that was Anna's voice echoing inside her head anymore, or if it was her own.

Anna had been fidgeting with the locket her parents had left her the entire night. Now and then she'd open it and glance at the portrait of their family inside, and would close it teary-eyed, fingers clenched around its smooth surface. At some point she probably drifted off to sleep. It wasn't clear.

When she came to that day she'd found herself lying in bed, locket still in hand, cheeks sticky from the tear trails across her face. She sucked in a breath and sat up, tidying her red hair from the mess it usually was. For a while there was tranquility; she didn't remember anything from yesterday, blissfully engrossed in post-sleep dissociation.

When it did hit her however, she felt like she was going to cry again. And again. And again.

Anna sniffled and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. It was all so surreal; she still couldn't quite believe that everything she'd thought she'd known had been a lie. How her parents were killed. Who Elsa was. What Elsa did.

She shook her head. She had things to do. Even if she and Elsa would forever hate each other for what had happened, there was still an Empyrean plot to be stopped. She reached over to her nightstand to stow the locket away and to retrieve her datapad, expecting a message from Charles or Kristoff with updates on the situation at the UIF, if any.

There was indeed a message on the device. Just not from them.

"startmessage:

UNITED INTERNATIONAL FRONT MEDICAL DEPARTMENT

OMEGA-2 – Anna Arendelle Faust – to be recalled for routine medical screening.

Report to Ashton City base's medical center for checkup at 1100h; inquire MedRoom 3, routine checkup.

:endmessage"

Anna sighed. She'd been hoping that she wouldn't have to meet or talk to Elsa for at least a day more, but it wasn't as if she could just take any of their vehicles out for a joyride. She had no choice but to talk to Elsa.

"She suffered for their deaths too." Kristoff's words came floating back to her, setting off more pangs in her chest. "You both deserve to be free from pain." It confused her so much; she wanted, needed to blame someone for her parents' deaths. If not Elsa, who else was there to blame?

And yet, now that she'd slept and regained her energy, she realized that Kristoff, and Charles, had been right. She too couldn't throw away whatever it was she had with Elsa just like that, even if she felt she'd been betrayed. Anna had once forgiven Elsa for what she'd done, recognizing that she too had been a victim. The question was if she could do it again, and if so, how soon.

Does she even deserve to be forgiven—?

"Anna?"

She looked up instinctively. Elsa was at the door, head peeking in. Her face wore a blank expression, but it didn't take much for Anna to notice the exhaustion in Elsa's eyes, the way her limbs drooped as she leaned through the doorway. She looked like a sopping mess. Anna suspected that she herself looked the same. "What is it?" she asked, her voice strangely and unnervingly neutral.

"Hans wants to see me. In Ashton City."

Fuck. "When?"

"11 am today."

Fuckity fuck. "Ashton City's med center also wants me down for a routine screening," she said, completely devoid of emotion. She pushed herself off the bed. "I'll meet you at the vehicle bay."

"Okay."

Elsa's reply was carefully worded, and equally neutral. So was hers, effectively concealing how she felt about having to sit in close proximity to Elsa. If her emotion had slipped past her facade, Elsa didn't show it, simply walking away from the door frame.

It was only then did Anna realize what a step back they'd taken in terms of their relationship. Not 24 hours ago they were close and loving and open to each other and—

—and it made her want to cry. It made her want to tear her heart out to rid herself of the pain she felt, to never have to feel again if this was what feeling was going to be like for the rest of her life. She couldn't live with this; she couldn't live with the sorrow and agony that would arise if she so much looked at Elsa again.

She wished she could go back to simpler times.

If not for the events that had transpired, and if they both were less emotionally compromised, either one of them might have noticed how strangely convenient it was for both of them to have similarly-timed appointments in a similar location, and how it seemed to be designed to separate them from each other.

They drove in silence, Anna's hand on the wheel, Elsa sitting beside her and gazing out the window, unable to look at Anna. The sensation was mutual; Anna felt herself stiffen visibly whenever she had to look across their seats to glance at the side mirror, or whenever they turned a corner in general. To say it was unpleasant to have Elsa within her peripheral vision would have been a gross understatement. Or at the very least, it was inconvenient; she didn't need to, want to, think about all that had happened between them

If anything the silence gave her time to think about their road ahead; cooperating with Elsa without strain was unthinkable for the foreseeable future, and that was something the both of them needed to be willing to work around. Anna didn't know if Elsa would forgive her for what she'd said yesterday, justified as she was in saying them or not.

Part of her wished she hadn't said the things she'd said.

That's ridiculous, she thought to herself, pulling the jeep into a turn, the border of Ashton City slowly becoming visible in the distance. This is her fault. She's the reason why all of this happened.

Was it though? As she glanced at the woman sitting next to her, looking the sadness in her eyes and the tension in her muscles, the conviction she'd had yesterday seemed to fade somewhat. Subconsciously she gripped the wheel tighter.

Something seemed to compel her to say something, to say anything, just to speak to Elsa, but she would not give in. Be it a firm sense of justice or misguided sense of pride, she refused to make the first move.

They reached the base in silence, Anna letting go of the wheel, Elsa unbuckling her seatbelt and exiting the car, leaving without a word. Anna stared up to the sky above the carpark for a brief moment, exhaling deeply. Then she too pushed herself out of her seat, locking the car door behind her.

It was going to be a long, long day.

"You're shitting me." Anna had not gone a few steps from their rover when she heard a familiar voice behind her. "You have got to be shitting me." What and who the hell—?

"Why the hell are you here?" Merida laughed as she caught up with Anna, wrapping her in a tight hug, prompting laughs from the both off them as Anna staggered under the sudden weight. "I didn't think I'd be seeing you again after the higher-ups shipped you lovebirds off to Cradle Alpha."

That got a hearty laugh out of her. "No way in hell Merida, I missed you too much. Besides, no officer in a suit would be able to keep me away from you." Anna chuckled as she disentangled herself from the hug, returning the huge grin on Merida's face as they walked towards the main bay. "What brings you here?"

"Just finished my routine checkup," Merida said. "Now I'm off duty for quite a while before my next deployment. You?"

"About to go do the same."

Her friend nodded with understanding, looking around as if trying to find something. Someone. "So… where's your snow queen?"

Anna found herself devoid of emotion even with the jab at them, but that didn't stop her facial expression from deteriorating quickly. "She's…" her voice trailed off, and she found it more difficult to complete her sentence. "We… we've had a bit of an issue." She sighed. "It's complicated."

Merida cocked an eyebrow, not quite buying it. "Need a face punched in?"

"God no," Anna quickly replied, "it's more complicated than that. It's not her fault per se, and…" She sighed again, cursing her inability to express emotions in a coherent, tangible manner. This was far too complicated for her to handle right now. "I'll tell you some other time. Besides, I doubt you really could punch her face in." She let herself crack a smile at that. "Last I recall—"

"Hey, I've gotten a lot better since then," her friend shot back in the same rebellious tone Anna remembered all too well. Merida pulled her weapon from the mag-clamps on her back. "And check this baby out!" She tossed the modified compound bow over to Anna, who caught it with one hand and tested its weight. Light, mobile and wieldy.

"I remember how you used one of these things in training," she smirked, prompting Merida to pout at her. "You couldn't hit a huge target a few feet away."

"I've had practice," Merida retorted playfully. "One day I'll show you how much better I've gotten at this."

"I'm sure you will." Anna let a small smile cross her face, reminiscing about their days in the academy. Those were the simpler times she now longed for. With or without Elsa, those were definitely better days, with less danger and lower stakes. How things had changed in such a short time.

"That your med officer?"

She diverted her gaze to a figure in a white coat strolling toward them. She looked familiar.

"Rapunzel?" Merida said, eyes widening with the smile on her face. "What a surprise, huh?" she said, turning to Anna even as she walked to greet their old friend. "We may as well have a mini reunion. Now all we need is—"

Something was off, Anna noted, as Rapunzel continued to approach. She didn't know what it was about her friend, whether it was the way she was walking, the way face's features seemed to be uneasy, or the hands behind her back that seemed a little too tense for a medical officer. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. But it was Rapunzel, her old friend; maybe something had come up in her deployment, or maybe something happened recently. Whatever was bothering her, it couldn't be much to worry about, so Anna tried to suppress the unease in her heart, and the caution in her head.

Then Anna looked at her eyes.

Elsa knocked on the door. The plaque said "General Hans" and nothing more. No titles, no descriptions, just his name and rank. Exactly as she remembered him to be; simple, straightforward and efficient

"Come in."

She pushed the door open a little hesitantly, though her heart calmed down when she caught sight of his red hair. "Hans?"

He cracked a warm smile at her as she closed the door behind her. "How have you been?"

"Good, good," Elsa said, lying through her teeth as she took her seat in front of his desk. Years of experience in lying had done nothing to fool Hans before. If he had noticed now, he made no move to indicate such. "What about you? I got your present before you left to oversee the new academy's construction."

"Did you like the pistol?"

"I've yet to use it. Been saving it for an important mission. Someday."

Hans chuckled. "I've been approving all the paperwork that's come in for the new academy. The new school's going to be even better than the old one. Even though the old one had been around for a really long time. We're porting everything back in: the simulation games, the domed sleeping quarters for each team, the—"

"The memorial?" Elsa cut in.

Hans seemed mildly confused at first, before understanding came over him. "Yes," he said softly. "The memorial. We made sure we didn't miss a single name."

"Every name?"

"Every name."

She nodded, feeling tears brimming behind her eyes. She'd have to check out the new campus at some point. "And how's construction going along?"

"As good as it possibly can, I suppose." The general leaned back in his chair and glanced outside the window toward the airstrip, watching a Lightning fighter execute a rarely-seen runway takeoff. "It's strange that I'm going back to it. We're going to be making a lot of people's lives better."

"That's what we train for," Elsa quipped.

"You're right, you're right…" He cocked his head. "You sound like you wanted to see me for something."

"I…" She didn't quite know how to answer. Any mistake, and she might reveal her assault on Facility Matrix. If he'd already caught onto her tone, who knows how far ahead Hans was already thinking. She was going to have to be careful, and yet, this sentiment only seemed to worry her more. "I'm remembering some things. From my past." That was about as carefully phrased as she could put it. Was it?

"How far back?" Hans asked.

That was odd, Elsa noted; his reply was a neutrally constructed response too, and she caught the telltale signs that he'd tried to mute while he tried to gleam information out of her. Something wasn't quite right; he seemed a little over-suspicious of her motives for someone that shouldn't know anything. For now she needed to play her cards right, even if she was unwilling to treat Hans as an adversary for the time being.

So she pursed her lips and stared downward, averting Hans' gaze. "The memories are fuzzy…" she deliberately let her voice trail off to give off a sense of insecurity, "but it feels like it's from… my rehab period. Just after I was recovered from Empyrean custody." It wasn't a complete lie, so she was sure her tone was less likely to give her away. "They seem off, recently."

"How so?"

"I remember the times I massacred everybody." It hurt to say it; the memories came flowing back to her in the same instant, forcing her to relive those horrific moments in brief but painful flashes. "But they've… changed, somewhat. And they don't add up; some of them seem to take place during my rehab instead. It's like I was… being used. And I know that doesn't make sense, but—" She let her voice cut off mid-sentence.

That too, wasn't a complete lie. After the revelation from the datamine her memories had gained clarity, and she did seem to recall deployments around the same time as her rehabilitation. She could remember her groggy, disoriented state as she'd lived through those moments, understanding why it hadn't added up before.

What was interesting was Hans' facial expressions. Were it not for her augmented vision Elsa might have missed the brief shock that overlapped his features, before quickly replaced with a face of understanding. He drew his lips together and stood up from behind his desk, strolling over to his office window. Elsa had him right where she needed him to be

"You remember right," Hans said. "The deployments, the foggy memories, hell, the reason why your memories are foggy in the first place. They were all deliberate." Then he dropped the bombshell: "I was responsible for that."

Elsa's eyes widened. "What?!"

He held a hand up. "We had to test the full extent of your capabilities. Only the highest Empyrean echelons had data regarding your combat prowess and how you'd been augmented."

"And you sent me to kill CIVILIANS?" she demanded, rising from where she'd sat, completely outraged. "You thought that was justified somehow?"

"It was a two-for-one deal, after all," Hans responded. "I mean, if you could assess a new asset's capability but also wreak havoc on valuable UIF targets, what do you think an Empyrean double agent would do?"

By the time Rapunzel had shoved an unsuspecting Merida out of the way, with an unexpected amount of strength, Anna was already prepared for the attack. She was not, however, prepared for its intensity.

Rapunzel leapt at her with a speed that could have rivaled her own, leaving Anna very little time to adopt a defensive stance. She locked her arms and stepped backward, blocking the kick meant for her head, quickly retreating as Rapunzel drew a knife from her skeleton rig, an apparel severely uncharacteristic of a medic. How did I not see this sooner again?

With no time to question why her friend had been indoctrinated, and even less time to grieve, Anna backtracked rapidly as Rapunzel swung the weapon wildly, aiming for at Anna's upper body. The blade glinted in the sunlight even as Anna stepped backward to avoid the first swing, then surged forward suddenly to seize the knife with both hands and twisting Rapunzel's arm in an awkward angle, forcing her to drop the knife.

Enraged and panicked, Rapunzel dealt two blind swings in Anna's direction; she sidestepped the first one, dodged under the second and struck a severe uppercut to Rapunzel's chin. As her adversary staggered away, Anna spun, her foot lashing out and connecting with Rapunzel's torso, sending her sprawling onto the floor.

Anna was upon her old friend in a flash, now-gauntleted hand seizing Rapunzel's neck as she gazed straight into the glowing white eyes. "Who did this to you?" she growled, not wanting to hurt a friend but recognizing that she needed the information. "Tell me!"

Rapunzel made a series of gurgling noises as she struggled against Anna's grip, prompting the Ascendant to loosen her stranglehold. The response came in a barely audible whisper: "R…run."

Anna watched the eyes flare in intensity, and she knew where she'd seen that before. In the time it took for her to release Rapunzel and dive over to where Merida was lying, her old friend exploded in a brilliant flash of bright heat.

Anna didn't know if she had brought up her shield generator before her vision was whited out.

It took less than a second for Hans' words to fully sink in, then Elsa had lunged straight at the general. At the last second she watched him pull out a small remote, thumbing the largest button on its surface. By the time her fist was halfway to his face the dreaded Ambrosia signal had reached her ears.

Hans countered her punch easily, raising his arm to block the attack. "I know you don't want to hear this—"

"You don't know shit!" she yelled as she threw another attack, the jab aimed at his torso also easily repelled as Hans expertly disentangled himself from their melee, planting a hand firmly on her collarbone and shoving her back. "You bastard! You FUCKING BASTARD!"

"I'm doing what I have to do," he replied as Elsa managed to recover her balance, poised to try and pounce again. "For the greater good."

"By getting me to kill innocent people?! You're a monster!"

"You need to understand that despite being an undercover agent, I betrayed many Empyrean directives to get to where we are right now," Hans went on, holding the remote securely behind him. "I was sent to infiltrate UIF command to sabotage and spy, but Empyrean command is too doggedly stubborn to realise that this isn't the way to achieve their goals. If I'd followed their directives that Class-X squad would never have known about the transport you were on."

That struck a chord in her. "Why are you doing this?" she hissed, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. "Why do you need more Ascendants? More monstrosities like me?"

"Elsa, you are far from being a monstrosity of any kind," he said, taking a step closer. "Your existence, and the things you've done; you are a gift to humanity. You are what we all need to be. Have to be. You are the next step in our evolution, not what Empyrean believes it to be. I will do what I must."

The fuck? "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Elsa said. "I'm not fucking Joan of Ark or some shit; I'm no leader. I'm just…" Her voice broke mid-sentence. "I'm just trying to live my life."

"Which is why I intervened. To give you the life you needed."

What?

"I arranged almost everything for you, Elsa," Hans said calmly. "The unfair test simulations and getting you to train Anna, train with her, were just the start. I even arranged Ursula's indoctrination, and for Anna's augmentation. Empyrean wouldn't have known about the academy if not for me. The same can be said about their operations; why do you think they kidnapped Anna, of all people?"

No. This – this can't be happening.

"The school simulations and arrangements were all a cover for the other administrators there. But they also served to condition you into recognizing your innate abilities. Your inherent superiority. That you amongst your peers was stronger, faster, and smarter in every aspect. That was equally important."

She caught his hidden meaning, and it shocked her all the same. "You want me to join you?! In this madness?"

"The only way for this to work is for us to concentrate our power. You, the Ascendants now and the Ascendants to be, are that power." Hans' eyes burned bright with sincerity and insanity, and Elsa found time to wonder how she had never detected this side of him before. "Together we can overcome this conflict and build a better future. The lives we sacrificed for that will not be in vain."

"You lied to me," she spat. "You made me think I could have a life worth living. In the end I'm just a pawn to you. You're no different from Empyrean!"

Elsa lunged again, but the Ambrosia signal was too much to bear, and so was the effort of her attack. Hans struck away the blow meant for him with a single hand, knocking Elsa off balance in the same motion and pinning her to the wall with his elbow. "I'm doing this for you! For all of us!" he yelled, voice raised and facial features tightening. "I want humanity to be free from this petty conflict that's dominated most of our recent history. I want it to progress, not to be bogged down between the UIF and Empyrean. This is bigger than the both of us, bigger than me caring for you or you caring for your friends, your allies. This is the future of the human race!"

"You're wrong," she managed against the pressure on her neck. "Humanity doesn't need a killer to lead them toward a better future. It needs—"

She heard the explosion in the background, the rumbling permeating the walls of Hans' office. Fear seized her heart like it hadn't in a long time as she finally pieced everything together in her head. The suspicious attacks. The Empyrean datadumps. The coordinated meetups today.

Anna.

NO.

Hans sighed. It was the last thing Elsa heard before his hand whipped out sharply and knocked her out cold.

When Merida's vision cleared of the blurry white and her ears stopped ringing, she found herself in Anna's arms, the latter desperately trying to revive her. "Come on, come on—!"

"Whoa, whoa, easy there," she managed to say, shaking her head experimentally. "I'm good now. No need to make me any dizzier by shaking me."

Instinctively she reached for her bow as she stared at the smoking, burning pile a few feet away. "What the hell happened again?"

"Rapunzel exploded. Just like Ursula did."

"Oh god, what—"

She noticed Anna hadn't powered down her gauntleted arm; something was wrong. "There's an Empyrean mole in the UIF," Anna muttered as she appeared to scan the perimeter, "and it looks like they got Rapunzel indoctrinated the same way. Same explosion." She gestured to the scarred ground around them. "Goddamn bastards. Rapunzel didn't deserve this."

Merida couldn't believe her eyes, or her ears. "Why?"

"Because they're onto me…"

Her voice trailed off, seemingly in revelation. Merida sighted figures closing in on them even as Anna began berating herself for being so stupid for some reason. "Anna…"

The figures were armed soldiers. Merida noted the lack of any recognizable insignia on their armor, the apparel of full jet black mildly unnerving her, though not enough to dissuade her from notching an arrow to her bowstring and firing it just as the closest soldier raised her own weapon. The arrowhead pierced the visor with a sickening crack and the woman collapsed.

"Oops." Merida groaned inwardly as the other soldiers raised their weapons, bracing for what might have been her last mistake.

A dome of energy suddenly surrounded her just as the soldiers fired, startling her more than the bullets that connected with it. Non-combat personnel yelled in panic, diving out of the way as the kill team enclosed a perimeter around them. "Maybe try a more subtle approach next time?" she heard Anna say as her friend strengthened her shield generator as she opened fire on their new enemy contacts. "I'd prefer not being ambushed after just being killed, you know?"

Merida grunted in response, rolling her eyes as she notched a splinter arrow and fired; the bow split mid-air as each individual arrow sought out a separate target, knocking down three soldiers with a single shot. She settled into a deadly routine of notch, fire, notch, fire, arrows lashing out at her targets with deadly efficiency. "What's our next move, smart ass?"

A thunk and a hiss and she felt herself being rapidly dragged through a cloud of smoke that had suddenly materialised. "We need to find Elsa," came the reply.

They broke through the smoke. "She came here with you?" Merida yelled as she quickly took down a soldier in their way as they sought better cover in the hallways. "What the hell is going on?"

"I made a mistake." Merida watched as Anna popped up a frontal energy shield as she ducked behind a closet, bringing Merida with her. "I walked straight into their trap by bringing both me and Elsa to this fucking base. This is all the mole's work."

"Isn't that a tad obvious?" Merida yelled as she fired an arrow from behind cover. The bolt curved midair and slammed into the first soldier in the hallway, giving Anna enough room to peek and return fire. "You'd think the two of you would have thought about that before coming."

"With all due respect," Anna replied, "the sentiment is severely unappreciated."

Merida turned back to their original entrance and fired off another scatter arrow back down the hallway, sending the encroaching soldiers scrambling for cover. "What's our play?" she called back. "We're stuck in a firefight and we can't stay here forever! We need an exit plan."

"We still need to find Elsa. We're not leaving without her."

"Find her now? Shouldn't we at least wait until we're not being shot at?"

"Give me cover." Anna ducked behind a narrow pillar on the other side of the corridor they were now trapped in. "I'm going to hack in to the base systems, see if I can find a more direct route and find out where she went."

"You don't even know where she went?"

"…no."

Merida found a lull in the firefight to express her exasperation. "Seriously?"

"I'll explain later, you idiot! Keep firing!"

As Anna hunkered down to do… whatever she was doing, Merida drew two arrows from her quiver, firing one to each end of the hallway in quick succession. The resulting explosions let her know her prototype arrows had worked. Compressing explosives into a viable, detonatable arrow tip that was safe for use had been difficult, and she hadn't been able to find a prior opportunity to test it. She had not expected her testing grounds to come to her instead.

"Got it," her friend called out, arm augmenting into a larger, hydraulic gauntlet that Anna promptly slammed into the wall she was next to, opening up a way through the next room. "This way!"

"You couldn't have done that earlier?" Merida fired off another scatter arrow to cover her escape as she dodged under the hail of bullets sweeping down the corridor and through their new escape route. "Newflash: we could have died back there!"

Anna's scans had showed her exactly what happened; it was no hard feat to plug herself into the exposed datapoint and search. In a short span of 2 seconds she had scanned through the CCTV footage she needed to find.

She watched Elsa get knocked out by Hans.

No no no no no—!

Two soldiers had promptly entered the office Elsa was in; through semi-grainy footage she watched Hans motion for them to place Elsa on a stretcher-pod and wheel her away. She triangulated their route through the other cameras on site. They were transporting her; down past Hans' office, onward toward the maintenance bay underground.

All her anger, all her sorrow miraculously and unquestionably dissipated as she realized the gravity of their situation. The rage she'd felt toward Elsa was replaced by a sense profound understanding, and an undeniable urge to intervene. To save her. To do something. Her anger could wait. Everything else could wait.

Hans, too, could wait; if Anna didn't move quickly she might lose Elsa forever.

There was no time to panic, only enough time to plot out a more direct route to the maintenance bay and get out of this hairy situation. "Got it," she called out to Merida as she let her hand augment, punching straight through the wall and stepping through. "This way!"

Anna ignored the jab Merida directed her way, wondering how she was still in such a mood despite the dire circumstances they were in. Alarms had begun blaring as structural systems detected the damage she'd done; she'd taken a gamble to get to Elsa faster, assuming base personnel didn't pin her down first. She sprinted through the rooms, ignoring the shocked personnel she passed by, only changing direction as security forces appeared directly in front of her. "Follow me! We're gonna have to break down a few more doors!"

Zipping and twanging reached her ears as Merida exchanged fire with their pursuers. Anna punched through another wall as they descended down into the maintenance corridors, blasting a pair of kill team soldiers that stood in their way. She rounded the corner into the maintenance bay just as Elsa's pod was being loaded into a military transport truck.

"There she is!" she called back to Merida. "We need—"

Shotgun pellets slammed into her, her skin quickly augmenting to prevent further damage but it still did enough to knock her off her feet. A helmet quickly formed around her head as she pushed herself back up, projecting another energy shield with her hand to absorb the next blast, and quickly lunging at her assailant. In a singular swing Anna swept the gun out of his hands, dealt a sharp backhand to his helmet and spun her body in the same motion, right leg lashing out and kicking the soldier straight into his accomplice, sending both sprawling.

"They're getting away!"

She turned just in time to see the truck rounding the corner, quickly fading out of view. She turned back to her incoming assailants; 4 soldiers had managed to flank Merida, who was still blissfully unaware and holding off the corridor. Anna morphed her arm into a plasma cannon, firing off quick, successive blasts at their hostile contacts, neutralizing them in a matter of seconds.

"It's getting dicey over here!" Merida yelled, firing off more explosive arrows to deadly effect within the enclosed corridors. "You got an exit plan?"

Anna racked her brains for a solution. She spied a couple of ringcycles in the bay, wirelessly accessing them as she ran. "I do." With inhuman coordination she initiated one of their engines, commanding the military motorbike to pull up to her even as she turned to assist Merida in holding off the soldiers.

Her friend found time to back away and mouth off: "If I recall correctly, I'm not sure I should trust your biking skills—"

A hail of bullets silenced Merida's complaint, prompting her to jump on the bike as a pillion behind Anna, who gunned the engines and sent them screeching down the tarmac, in hot pursuit of the transport.