#flutter for embedded systems

[tuxedoe]

Bloodied Feathers

WC - Roughly 900

Synopsis - Your wings got hurt during a hunt. Dean's there to patch you up.

Author's Note - this has been in my drafts for agesss so I thought I'd just bite the bullet and post it. I've seriously been having so much fun writing recently!!

Dean Winchester wasn't often at a loss for words, but as he stood before you, a bucket of warm water and a stack of clean cloths in hand, he found himself uncharacteristically quiet. "Alright, showtime," he grumbled, more to himself than to you, setting the bucket down with a soft thud. Your wings, usually a pristine expanse of feathers, were a grim testament to a recent, particularly messy encounter. Matted with dirt, tangled with small, sharp fragments of what looked like shattered glass, and streaked with dark, dried blood, they spoke of a struggle that had pushed you to your limits. There were several ragged tears along the trailing edges, one a particularly nasty gouge near the joint, that had clearly bled freely.

He knelt, surprisingly gentle for a man who usually dealt in blunt force, and carefully began to separate the clotted feathers. His brow furrowed in concentration, his lips pressed into a thin line. You watched him, a strange mix of discomfort and a quiet fascination. It was rare to see Dean in such a meticulous, almost delicate, state.

He dipped a cloth into the warm water, wringing it out before pressing it to a particularly grimy section. "Seriously, what did you even do?" he muttered, the question more rhetorical than anything, his voice tight with an underlying concern. His fingers, surprisingly nimble, worked around a cluster of feathers that were stiff with dried blood, carefully loosening them. You knew he didn't really expect an answer, not one that would make any sense to him, anyway. The intricacies of angelic skirmishes were far beyond his understanding, even after all these years.

As he worked, a steady rhythm developed. The soft swish of the cloth, the gentle rustle of feathers, and the occasional soft grunt from Dean as he encountered a particularly tricky knot or tear. He winced slightly when his cloth brushed against a particularly bruised area, his touch instantly lightening, and you felt a strange flutter in your chest at his unspoken empathy. He moved with an almost surgical precision, each movement calculated to cause you the least amount of discomfort. You could feel the warmth of his fingers through your feathers, a comforting presence amidst the lingering ache.

Sometimes, he’d pause, leaning back on his heels to assess his progress, his eyes scanning the vast span of your wing with a critical gaze. He’d reach for a pair of tweezers, carefully extracting a glistening shard that had embedded itself near a vein, or use a smaller, softer brush to dislodge finely ground dust and dried flakes of something dark.

When he reached the larger tears, especially the gouge near the joint, his expression grew even more serious. "This is gonna sting a bit," he warned, his voice softer than usual. He had a small bottle of antiseptic solution, the kind he usually reserved for his own deep cuts. He poured a small amount onto a fresh cloth and, taking a deep breath, pressed it to the wound. You hissed, a low, guttural sound that was more instinct than pain, your body tensing involuntarily, but his hand remained firm, steadfast, until the initial burning sensation subsided. You could feel the blood, now thinned by the water, running down your feathers as he cleaned it, and he wiped it away with a fresh cloth, his jaw set.

"Sorry," he murmured, though you knew he wasn't really apologizing. It was just a necessary evil.

The process was long, stretching into the quiet hours of the night. The only sounds in the bunker’s main living area were the gentle ministrations and the distant hum of the ancient ventilation system. Dean didn't complain, didn't rush. He was entirely focused on the task at hand, a single-minded determination that was both reassuring and, in its own way, a little overwhelming. You found yourself relaxing into his care, a vulnerability you rarely allowed, even with another angel. His touch, so undeniably human, was grounding.

He started on the second wing after the first was as clean as he could get it. This one, if possible, was even worse. A thick, dark substance, like dried blood but not quite, coated a significant portion of the flight feathers, especially towards the tips where they seemed to have taken the brunt of an impact. There were more tears here, one particularly long, shallow cut that looked like it had been scraped by something sharp, and a deeper puncture wound that had clotted darkly. He grimaced.

"Okay, what is this stuff?" he asked, his voice tight. He picked at the dark, almost tar-like substance with a fingernail, then recoiled. "Nasty."

He spent even longer on this wing, scrubbing and soaking, his movements becoming more deliberate, more forceful, as he tried to dislodge the stubborn grime and congealed blood. You could feel the exhaustion radiating from him, a subtle tension in his shoulders, a slight tremor in his hands. Yet, he kept going, refusing to give up until every last speck was gone. A wave of unexpected tenderness washed over you at his persistence, a profound sense of being cared for.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he leaned back, letting out a long, slow breath. Your wings, though still somewhat tattered, were clean. The vibrant sheen of your feathers, once obscured by grime and blood, was beginning to return. He sat there for a moment, just looking, a faint sense of satisfaction beginning to replace the worry on his face.

[ltash]

"Wicked" Pt-3

SimonGhostRileyxf!"Rose"reader

From her highschool bully to her wicked bodyguard, from Simon to Ghost.

Palm Jumeirah, Dubai - Midnight.

The lights inside the mansion flickered, once-just a glitch, a flutter of voltage-but Rose's pulse skipped all the same. It always did now. The walls felt too close. The air, too quiet. No house this beautiful should feel like a cage, but hers did. Behind its manicured gardens and imported marble, the mansion wasn't a home. It was a gilded prison.

Massimo had made sure of that.

She hadn't been allowed to leave in weeks. Her phone was replaced. Her laptop filtered. The staff now wore polite smiles that never met their eyes. Rose had grown used to surveillance: the cameras hidden in chandeliers, the microphones embedded in vent grilles, the locks that clicked shut when they weren't supposed to.

But she still had one ghost left in the machine.

She padded barefoot into the darkened study, the only room she was never searched in. Inside the antique desk drawer was a tiny circuit board connected to a hidden port-one she'd built herself back when she still had freedom. It looked like a piece of the HVAC system, but under the hood was a different story.

She was about to use her only remaining ally: an old AI security system she had personally installed before her staff were replaced. It's disguised under the house's climate control and lighting apps-Massimo's men never even noticed it.

Late at night, she writes a command.

A hidden SOS, encrypted and buried under code.

She can't name herself, can't give details.

Just:

Her fingers trembled as she typed into the dim screen.

>High-value civilian. Palm Jumeirah. Hostile containment. Request immediate covert extraction.

She uploads it to an old abandoned GitHub repo registered under a pseudonym she once shared with a boy who used to sit at the back of her chemistry class.

Simon Riley.

The message was anonymous. There was no name, no coordinates. Just metadata buried in lines of an old GitHub repository registered under a long-forgotten pseudonym.

A joke. A nickname from school. One she had once shared with a boy who never smiled.

She didn't even know if he was still alive.

She hit send.

And hoped the wind still remembered her name.

Location: Undisclosed SAS Safehouse, Northern England

Simon was SAS now. Special Forces.

Callsign: Ghost.

The alert came through on a cold Thursday night.

He monitors that GitHub repo out of habit. It's nothing but sentiment, a scar he keeps reopening.

He hasn't checked it in years.

Until he does.

Simon Riley sat in the quiet glow of his monitor, the rain painting war patterns against the window behind him. He barely touched the internet. Except for this.

He hadn't checked the repo in years. It was a dead habit, something he did every few months. Nostalgia with no reward.

Until he saw it.

> Last push: 2 hours ago.

Encrypted within the code wasn't just a distress call.

It was her.

Rose.

He didn't breathe for nearly a full minute.

Ghost stood slowly, fingers curling into fists as a cold burn lit up in his chest. He hadn't heard her name since he'd buried it. Since the night he left without a goodbye.

His blood runs cold.

Encrypted in the code is a name he hasn't heard in half a decade:

"Rose."

He goes to his superiors.

The request is unofficial. Shadow ops.

But the words hostile containment and high-value civilian raise flags.

It gets buried under a private bodyguard detail ordered by a powerful British defense ally with silent interest in Massimo's dealings.

No name. No address. Just Palm Jumeirah, high-value civilian, hostile containment.

Enough for an unofficial op.

And the name that gets assigned?

Lieutenant Simon Riley.

His name was the first one on the assignment.

48 Hours Later a black SUV rolled past the iron gates like it belonged there.

Rose stood in her hallway, arms wrapped around herself, watching from behind the curtains.

One man stepped out. Alone.

Massimo's guards stood straighter.

Tall. Broad. Black tactical gear that looked too sharp for Dubai's heat. A skull mask covering his face, balaclava beneath it. His eyes were cold, unreadable. Like winter.

He didn't speak as he passed the guards. Just handed a sealed letter.

Authorization for close protection detail.

One of Massimo's men, it said.

Rose didn't buy it. But she didn't argue.

She stood at the top of the stairs as he entered, heart hammering.

He looked up at her.

And she, she froze.

There was something about him.

Something terrifying and familiar.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

He stopped just a few steps from her, the skull mask gleaming under the crystal chandelier.

"Ghost," he said. Just that.

The name tasted like ash.

Her voice trembled. "You're one of Massimo's men?"

"Something like that," he answered. Low. Controlled. British accent like frostbite.

She swallowed. The fear in her blood was real. She'd seen hitmen. Thugs. Brutes.

But this one was different.

An Alpha among the wolves.

Massive, silent, lethal.

The black cargo pants hugged his powerful thighs like a sculptor's sketch in motion. Every inch of him said: do not cross.

She stepped back as he approached. He didn't follow.

"You don't have to be afraid of me," Ghost said quietly, almost too softly for a man like him.

But she was.

Terrified.

Because deep inside her, something screamed that she knew him.

And that scared her more than anything else.

The mansion was quiet. Too quiet. Not the peace of luxury, but the silence of surveillance, the kind of silence that watches you breathe.

Ghost stood by the edge of the marble balcony, framed by the dim amber of Dubai’s dying sun. The call had come. The assignment given. No backup, no fanfare, just a flight, a briefing, a skull mask, and a destination: Palm Jumeirah.

He hadn’t expected it to be real. The message hidden in the GitHub code had been too poetic to believe. Too her.

But it was real.

Rose was here.

And she was in trouble.

48 Hours Earlier, She had stared at the blinking cursor for what felt like hours.

> "High-value civilian. Palm Jumeirah. Hostile containment. Request immediate covert extraction."

No names. No cry for help. No traceable language.

Just enough to mean something, to the right person.

Rose encrypted the text in base-64, nested it into an update in an abandoned GitHub repository linked to a fake climate control API, something she and Simon had once joked about building back in school. Back when he was still just Simon. Before he disappeared like mist.

She hit commit.

And prayed.

Now...

The skull mask stepped through the threshold like a shadow that had grown legs. Black tactical gear. Gloves. Thick black cargo pants that stretched over thighs built like war machines. Combat boots that echoed like the ticking of an ending.

The guards nodded, not questioning his clearance. Massimo trusted him now. The cover had been placed well.

She was in the living room. Pale as bone, curled up in a silk robe on the ivory settee.

She looked up, and froze.

The skull.

The mask.

The height.

The weight of him was a presence.

“Who are you?” she asked, voice small, breaking.

He stood still.

"Name's Ghost," he said finally, voice deep and northern, cracked like winter pavement. "Massimo brought me in for security. I’m here to watch you."

Her brows creased, fear threading through the delicate angles of her face. “I don’t need another one of his men watching me.”

He tilted his head, slowly.

“No offense, but I’m not one of his men.”

Her throat worked. She stood, slowly. The robe fell just enough to show a bruise. Faint. But there.

His jaw ticked under the mask.

“I don’t trust anyone,” she whispered.

“Good,” he said. “That means you’re not stupid.”

A beat passed. The chandelier hummed above them.

She turned away, but not before he saw the tremble in her hands.

He had to earn her trust. Carefully. Quietly. Not with the truth, because the truth was dangerous. To both of them.

Not yet.

So he watched. And waited. And followed. Like a loyal shadow.

Simon Riley was gone.

There was only Ghost now.

And she didn’t know him.

Not yet.

But soon, she would.

The sun bled orange into the Gulf, casting golden ripples across the water as the massive white yacht sliced through the marina like a predator in silk. Palm Jumeirah, glittering like a crown in the ocean, had seen its fair share of luxury, but even here, the arrival of Don Massimo Toricelli turned heads.

Ghost watched from the top floor of the mansion through a sliver in the blackout curtain. He recognized the yacht, custom-built, three decks, helipad, and a private lounge with imported marble flooring. He’d studied it in the brief.

His yacht, a gleaming, multi-million dollar Leviathan, rocked gently in the turquoise water, tethered just off the private dock of her Palm Jumeirah estate. It gleamed like his ego, always visible, always looming.

Massimo was coming.

And that meant trouble.

The Italian stepped off the yacht with the confidence of a man who owned the world and everything in it. Black suit sharp enough to cut, sunglasses shielding eyes that never missed a detail.

The black Maserati had barely stopped outside the mansion before Massimo Toricelli stepped out, flanked by his two most loyal bodyguards. He wore his usual armour of a designer three-piece suit, sunglasses despite the low golden sun, and that chilling smirk that made Rose’s stomach turn. The man smelled of cologne and control.

He carried a box in his hand. Velvet black. The kind of box that didn’t contain anything simple.

Rose was summoned to the lobby. Always summoned, never invited.

Inside the mansion, Rose was being prepped. She didn’t want to go downstairs, Ghost could see it in her face. Her robe was replaced by a floor-length designer dress, her makeup immaculate. A doll on display.

She descended the marble staircase slowly, her every step echoing in the grand, hollow luxury of the mansion she couldn't escape. The lobby was vast, double height ceilings, Italian chandeliers, crystal vases she didn’t pick, all curated to reflect a life she no longer had control over.

He stood in the corner of the marble lobby, arms crossed, skull mask reflecting the light from the chandelier above. Every nerve in his body burned.

Then the door opened.

Massimo entered like a storm in human skin.

Massimo sat in one of the velvet armchairs like he owned the place. Because he did. Or at least, he owned the cage around her.

"Bellissima," he purred, his voice smooth and poisonous. “Dubai suits you.”

Rose managed a smile, tight, hollow. “Massimo.”

Ghost stood in the corner, near the mirrored console table. He was motionless, silent, a black sentinel in full tactical gear. Skull mask on. Hands behind his back. The perfect blend of menace and restraint.

Massimo glanced at him once, indifferent. "You can leave us."

Ghost didn’t move.

Rose lifted her chin. "He stays."

Massimo gave a faint chuckle and gestured dismissively. "As you wish, tesoro."

He reached into a bag one of his men handed him and pulled out a velvet box.

"Cartier," he said simply, like it was an apology. "For your good behavior."

She took it with stiff fingers, murmured a thank you that made her mouth taste like ash. The necklace inside was encrusted with diamonds. Cold. Lifeless. Like a chain pretending to be a gift.

Ghost’s hands curled into fists in the shadow of his sleeves.

Massimo’s eyes flicked toward him.

“And you must be the new shadow. What do they call you? Phantom? Skull?”

Ghost didn’t move.

“Ghost.”

Massimo chuckled. “Fitting. Let’s hope you’re as loyal as the last one.”

Rose shifted, her discomfort palpable. Ghost could feel it in her silence.

Massimo turned his attention back to her. “I’ve missed you. We’ll have dinner this weekend. I’ll have the chef flown in from Florence. You’ll wear the necklace.”

He leaned in closer, voice a whisper of threat and lust. “Say yes.”

She didn’t answer. Just nodded.

Massimo leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "You look tired. Are they feeding you well? Are you sleeping?"

Rose said nothing.

He smiled wider. "Still so stubborn. That’s what I like about you. We’ll talk again soon."

Massimo straightened, pleased with himself.

“Until then, cara mia.”

And then he stood. Kissed the air beside her cheek.

Left as quickly as he arrived.

He left the box in her hands and turned, his coat swaying as he walked out. The doors shut behind him.

Only then did Rose exhale.

Ghost stayed still. Watching. Planning. Rage crawling up his spine like wildfire.

He couldn’t move. Not yet.

He hadn’t called Task Force 141.

Because this wasn’t the moment.

But it was coming.

And when it did, Massimo wouldn’t walk away.

The moment the double doors shut and his footsteps faded, she turned and ascended the stairs quickly, almost running.

Ghost followed, his boots quiet behind her.

She reached her bedroom, the velvet box still clutched in her hand like it had burned her.

Once inside, she hurled it across the room. The lid snapped open. The necklace hit the floor with a sharp, cold clatter, scattering light across the marble.

She sat down beside it. On the floor. In her silk gown. Head bowed, fists clenched, tears pooling in her eyes like they had nowhere else to go.

Ghost stood by the door. Watching. Silent.

She didn’t notice when he stepped closer.

Until he knelt down beside her.

"You don't have to do what he says," he said softly.

She looked up, startled.

He reached forward, hesitantly, almost reverently, and wiped the tear trailing down her cheek with a gloved thumb.

Her breath hitched.

And then...

He extended his hand.

Palm up.

The same way she had, years ago, trembling in a glittering gymnasium, her heart in her throat as she offered her hand to a boy who never took it.

"You don't have to deal with this alone," he said gently.

Her eyes widened.

She stared at the hand. At the shape of it. The calloused palm. The curve of his fingers. So familiar.

Her voice was barely a whisper. "Simon...?"

He didn’t say anything at first.

Just nodded.

The silence cracked around them like thunder.

Her lips parted, her chest rising with a thousand emotions she couldn’t name.

He slowly removed the mask.

And there he was.

Simon Riley.

Older. Harder. Scarred. But still him.

His eyes locked onto hers.

"I came back for you, Rose."

And this time, when she took his hand, he didn’t let go.

[edgar-allan-possum]

Bit of a sci-fi thing I've been working on. It's not much other than world-building tbh

...

"Midshipman Kerr, reporting for duty to Skit'tra Hiveship Abhorrent," I spoke into the small intercom next to the airlock, the only bit of clean plastic or metal on the ship's stony exterior. It hissed open and I stepped on board, ready to begin my new life among the stars.

The airlock was human design, of course. Skit'tra hiveships didn't dock with each other, and the "rockets" being specialized Skit'tra embedded in pits in the surface of the asteroids the ships were hollowed out from meant there was no exposed machinery to be damaged by debris strikes, so spacewalks were a minimal concern. They were standard feature on all ships carrying humans, though, just for that added level of safety.

A Skit'tra drone met me on the other side of the airlock. She, like all her species, was an insectoid with six limbs; four of which were used for walking, while the foremost pair could be used alternately as manipulator arms or extra legs when traversing difficult terrain. Her carapace was black with a hint of metallic purple, and bioluminescent yellow stripes ran down her sides. The pulse pattern of the stripes should have denoted her rank, but I was supposed to receive my training to differentiate the patterns on board.

She chittered, and the Head-Up Display in my goggles lit up with the translator readout.

"Greetings, Midshipman [UNTRANSLATABLE]," she said. I noticed she'd made a click and a trill that sounded like "Kerr" with a rolled "R" and wondered if one of the reasons I had been hired was because they could almost pronounce my name. "Your presence among the Abhorrent Kind is most appreciated."

She gestured for me to follow, and we set off through the tunnels of the hiveship. The walls and ceiling bore fresh marks showing where the passages had recently been enlarged so humans could comfortably traverse them. Wires connecting soft yellow lights were strung along the walls for visibility. The Skit'tra didn't need them, of course. They navigated their home by the scent of pheromones and the light of their own bioluminescence.

I switched on the speakers in my breath mask. "It's good to be here, and I'm looking forward to learning more about the Skit'tra," I said, the translator turning my speech into alien clicks and trills. "Do you..." I hesitated, hoping my question wouldn't be rude. "Do you have a name?"

"You are speaking directly to the Abhorrent Mind," the drone said. "Unlike humans, who have their own minds, I directly control all but a few of my children." Her light-stripes pulsed twice as another drone passed us going the other way, and the other drone lit up in return.

"This drone will be your guide and companion aboard the hiveship," she continued. "You may give her a name if you wish."

I nodded, then realized that the Abhorrent Mind may not know what that meant. While it had been in contact with humans for around ten years now, it had mostly been over radio waves until the hurried retrofit of the hiveship in the last year after the request for humans to live among them. In exchange, a few of the independently thinking Skit'tra had been sent to Earth.

"I'll have to think about a name," I said. I looked around the rocky corridor. "Where are we heading, anyway?"

"We are going for a tour of your solar system," the drone explained. "The scientists are eager to see the moons of Jupiter."

I laughed, the translator speakers buzzing with nonsense output. "Right, but where are we heading inside the hiveship?"

The drone cocked her head to one side and her light-stripes fluttered. I reminded myself not to anthropomorphize her. This wasn't embarrassment. She was just processing the new question.

"To the human quarters," she chittered. "We are almost there."

A few moments later, we rounded a corner and found a metal and glass door. Another airlock.

"Please enter," the drone said. "This drone will be waiting for you here when you exit."

"What will you... What will she do while I'm inside?" I asked.

"This drone will sleep," she said. "Another drone will bring this one food if it needs to eat. Please do not be concerned, Midshipman [UNTRANSLATABLE]."

I nodded and made a mental note to put my name in the translator's database as soon as possible. Stepping into the airlock, I waited for it to cycle before pulling off my breath mask and taking a lungful of good air. The exterior airlock was to make sure the hiveship was pressurized better than Skit'tra resin could keep it, but this airlock kept the good old Earth air separate from the alien air outside.

I made a quick check of all the systems, making sure everything was working properly before throwing myself on the nearest bunk and grinning up at the ceiling.

"Real space aliens!" I said aloud. Other humans would arrive later. There would be hard work, both mental and physical, before this voyage was up. But for the moment, I was the only earthling on a spaceship full of aliens.

[kusanagihaku]

the best of times, the worst of crimes

⭢ romeo, 1.7k

u is for undercover. ˖⁺‧₊⟡ alphabet series | ao3

“If you were to steal something from this room,” you hear, “what would it be?”

You look up carefully. 

You identify the source of the question immediately as one half of a young couple; a quick glance over their joined hands confirms they are on a weekend date, one of many in the crowd of people lining the museum exhibit. They look freshly out of high school, armed and brash with the sort of invulnerability only the youth have when it comes to discussing crime.

The girl barely tosses her partner a glance before responding. “The diamonds, of course. They’re so pretty.” 

You are mindful not to snort. Or too loudly, anyway. 

You return your eyes to the glass case in front of you, to the milky-blue gem and the brilliant star reflecting off its greyish surface. The diamonds in this exhibit are worth pennies compared to some of the other items in this hall, including the very gemstone you are looking at, but you can see why the shiny rocks might be someone else’s first choice. 

“They’re just diamonds,” her partner says, as you circle the case. His voice is slightly whiny, coated with a mild superciliousness that grates against your nerves. “I bet these carved jade statues are worth much more.” 

This time it is not you who snorts – when you look up again, your gaze slides through the glass case to alight on a man with greyish hair. He is far from old, however; his smooth skin, free from wrinkle lines and sun spots, barely betrays a small amount of derision as he peruses the same gem you were looking at just moments ago. The way he holds himself, hands clasped behind his back, reminds you vaguely of an aristocrat whose house you were tasked with burgling a few years ago. 

He’s beautiful. 

And not in an entirely human way, either – the polished glass of his skin reminds you more of marble than flesh and blood, a terrifying pale that exposes little emotion or imperfection. If you were a Greek statue collector, you’d consider him a near masterpiece. 

“Quanto sei minchione,” he murmurs to the man next to him. It is only now that you notice his black-coated companion, silent and half a step behind him with hair as grey as his own. His companion– his assistant?– does not respond. 

You hold back a frown. These are not your average museum goers. 

As much effort as they’ve put into dressing as casually as the chattering tourists surrounding you, with warm sweaters neatly tucked into blue jeans, the two men are in impeccably tailored coats that billow a little too convincingly around their waists and thighs. You do not spot outlines of firearms from where you are standing, of course, but there is no doubt that some weapon or tool or another has been stashed in places easy to reach. 

You watch as the man’s eyes flick to the security systems embedded in the bottom of the glass case, then to the black velvet lining its edges that undoubtedly houses some form of alarm. Ah– 

Before you can redirect your attention, however, the man’s eyes flick up to meet yours. 

Ametrine, is the first thing that comes to your mind. Framed by grey lashes is a brilliant violet fading into crimson gold; the hues of an angry sunset, unmarred by the thick glass casing between you, paint themselves into a carefully schooled blank look. How cheap a gemstone ametrine is, for someone who looks so expensive. 

You should leave him alone, you know, especially after you’ve inferred his purpose, but why should you? You’ve had your eyes on the gems in the case first. 

And oh, you’ve never been one to give up a pretty jewel – it is why you do what you do, after all. You grin at the amethyst glint in his eye through the smudge of fingerprints and dust. “Sono proprio dei cetrioli.” 

There is a flash of suspicion cleverly concealed by the flutter of his eyelashes before he smiles at you in return, narrow and sweet and sharp. 

“They are simply naive,” he agrees. Your Italian may not be perfect, but you’ve been around long enough in your line of work to understand it conversationally. “I would have not gone for the jade.” 

He steps to his left the same time you step to your right. Your smile grows wider. You wonder if the circling of the case reminds you more of a scene in a famous romance movie, or more of sharks in the water. “No?”

You wouldn’t have gone for the jade either – you’ve seen far more valuable jade pieces in the private collections you’ve swiped in the past year alone. 

“No,” he says. His eyes slither down to the display between you. “Perhaps the rubies.” 

You see the line of his assistant’s shoulders tense instantly in startled protest. He does not make a sound, however; the man must be telling the truth about his target. 

Your brow creases briefly, an imperceptible flicker before you smooth out a smile again. Your case file notes that your client’s top priority is instead the grey-blue sapphire resting on a different side of the case, infinitely more valuable not only because of its size but also its storied history. Why would they be after the ruby instead?

“And you?” he says, perfectly courteous. His mask is smooth again; you cannot tell how much he knows. Has he already sensed that you are in the same line of work?

No matter – you will have to strike before he does. If the ruby is found missing, the heightened security will surely make it more difficult for you to get to the sapphire. 

“I would have said the sapphires,” you say, carefully. You make sure your eyes meet again before you smile, all teeth. “But now? Now, I would rather the amethysts.” 

-

“Fucking PITA,” Romeo curses, the moment the heavy car door slams shut. His alabaster mask cracks as he turns in his seat to face Ritsu. “They’re after the sapphire.”

Ritsu raises an eyebrow before starting the engine. The hum of the car purrs beneath his fingers as their safety mechanisms activate. “Didn’t they say they changed their mind?”

“You fool,” Romeo seethes. He slides a finger into a discreet spot underneath his seat. A lock springs open, and he picks up a file from inside the fingerprint-secured glove compartment that has just come unlocked. “It’s me, I’m the amethyst.” 

He waves the file towards his eyes; Ritsu barely spares him a glance before peeling out of the parking lot. “Oh.”

Seriously, why does he even keep assistants around anymore? UBFs, the lot of them. He’s going to get fucking wrinkles. 

“I’ll have to rearrange the plans,” he huffs, instead, returning his attention to the files. Even if they weren’t after the same jewels, it’d make it undoubtedly more difficult to carry out their plan if the sapphire was gone. “We’ll have to strike tonight.” 

Ritsu nods. “Third page under the fourth tab. Plan D3.”

Romeo grunts in acknowledgement. He flips quickly to the stated page, scanning through the schedule printed on it and the attached details about changes in the security timetable. They didn’t factor in the possibility of there being another jewel thief eyeing the same case, but they’ll have to accommodate. 

“We’ll go with D3,” Romeo sniffs. “But we go in at ten past one instead of three. I don’t want them to arrive first.” 

Ritsu hums in thought. “We could let them arrive first. We can’t be charged with breaking in, if the way in was already clear.” 

Romeo taps a long finger against the file. Huh. Maybe that’s why Ritsu has lasted the longest out of all of his assistants. “We let them do the dirty work first. Swoop in to get the ruby right after.”  

Ritsu nods, and makes a left turn. “It’s a lesser charge, anyway.”

-

You’ve had to shift your plans up much more than you expected. 

Usually you’d case the joint for a few more days before returning, but the presence of the two men by the jewel case today has really thrown a wrench in that plan. You hope that by striking a little before two in the morning, you’ve sufficiently pre-empted their attack. 

You shimmy closer to the exhibit. All the necessary night guards have already been disposed of, of course, but you can’t ever be too careful. 

A small alert flashes in the corner of your night goggles. Heat signatures detected ahead. 

You freeze. If you strain your eyes a little you can make out the faintly red outline of two bodies, each positioned at opposite ends of the entrance. They don’t look like any of the guards you’ve memorised as being on the roster for tonight. Rather, their heights more match a certain pair you’ve met today.

You wait a bit before advancing, but the figures don’t seem to be moving. If anything, they seem to be waiting for you. 

Your lips curl up in a smirk. You slip the goggles off, letting your eyes adjust to the dim lighting lining the floor of the exhibit. 

Your mind flashes back to the intel you gathered earlier in the afternoon. An Italian rising from rags to riches that disappeared off the face of the earth after his very first successful heist five or so years ago, name only resurfacing in whispers every once in a while after museums near his last sighting had been broken into. He was spotted in Japan just last week, your sources say, but nobody is ever really sure – no-one has ever gotten close enough and lived to describe exactly what he looked like. 

Except for you, now. After this you’ll sell information on how soft the gunmetal of his hair is and how beautiful and cold the warm twilight in his eyes are. 

As you pad closer to the jewel case you see him turn to greet you. His wool coat has been traded for a slick black uniform, disguising the lithe of his form and any number of tools necessary for the job. 

He smiles, terrifying and sweet. “Hello.” 

You grin, and stick out a hand he does not take. “Looking forward to working with you, Romeo.” 

[thepinkpanther83]

The Harmonic Equation (Pt.2 Harmonic Anomaly)

Story Prompt: “Turtle Song”

Donatello x Fem!Reader - Soulmate Song AU - Action/Romance

Masterlist

Find me on AO3.

Read this story on AO3.

Find the full series on AO3.

Previous Chapter: Chapter One: "Frequency Unknown" Next Chapter: Chapter Three: "A Song For Two"

Click "Keep Reading" below the cut to read. 😘

Chapter Two: “Harmonic Anomaly”

It starts off subtle.

You're leaned over Donnie's workbench, sleeves pushed up, delicate fingers sorting micro-capacitors by size while he calibrates the feedback loop array. There’s the occasional hiss of solder. The low buzz of machinery. Mikey’s somewhere nearby, bouncing between workspaces with the kind of chaotic curiosity only he can pull off without breaking something… so far.

The data stream flickers beside you- an open holographic projection of last week’s cracked code, still untranslated in places. Donnie had triple-encrypted it for safety, just in case, but he still let you be the one to pick at the remains. Something about your neural pattern recognition made you faster at spotting the recurring glyphs buried in the corrupted syntax. You said it felt like music, almost. Like it wanted to be read in rhythm.

So while Donnie tunes the loop array, you're humming- completely unaware.

It just... happens. Like breathing. A soft, looping melody under your breath, sweet but strange- unconscious. The notes flutter between your lips like moths drawn to light.

Donnie hears it instantly.

His head lifts, tool stilling mid-tweak.

Those notes again.

The same ones from the other night, half-lost in static and memory. It glides through the air like it was always meant to be there, but there’s no echo in the room. No resonance bouncing off walls. Just the pure, low pulse of you.

And underneath it… something familiar. Something patterned.

His mind races. The file. The frequency markers embedded in the prototype schematic. You said they felt like a song- like a mechanical lullaby stuck between lines of code. And now you’re humming it, effortlessly, like it came from you first.

He tracks it like a sonar ping, eyes narrowing- not in suspicion, but in focus.

You’re still working, unaware, humming without thought as you tilt your head and study a blown-out chip.

He shifts, just enough to catch Mikey’s attention as he dances through the lab, one roller skate on for no apparent reason.

“Hey, Mikey,” Donnie calls, careful- too careful, like this question definitely isn’t important. “You recognize the song she’s humming?”

Mikey freezes mid-skate-drift, leans dramatically toward you with a hand cupped to his ear.

A pause.

He blinks.

“…She’s not humming anything, dude.”

Donnie’s spine straightens a fraction. “…You sure?”

Mikey lifts a brow. “Unless she’s humming in dolphin,” he says, smirking. “Which, respect, but I don’t think she is.”

Donnie doesn’t respond right away.

Mikey shrugs and rolls on, humming his own tune now- something undeniably loud, off-key, and probably from an anime intro. He’s already forgotten the exchange.

But Donnie hasn’t.

He swivels his gaze back to you, watching- watching you hum this impossible sound no one else can hear.

Except him.

Donnie’s gaze lingers on your profile for a moment too long after Mikey skates off.

You're still humming.

Still softly threading that inexplicable melody under your breath like it belongs here- like it’s always been part of the frequency of this room, and he’s only just now noticed.

But that’s impossible.

Isn’t it?

He turns sharply, retreating to the bank of diagnostic terminals behind him with the smooth precision of a man pretending not to be rattled.

He’s definitely rattled.

A few taps. A sweep of fingers. His gauntlet syncs with the lab’s mainframe, and a live feed of his auditory processing system flashes across the screen. Channels. Filters. Frequencies. Subharmonic overlays. Nothing visibly wrong.

But his sensors registered something.

He heard something.

No one else did.

He glances back over his shoulder. You’ve stopped humming now, but the sound still rings faintly in his memory- just enough to make his skin prickle.

He types faster.

Full diagnostic. Internal and external mic arrays.

Scan for anomalous signal interference.

Temporal distortion variables: included.

Verify firmware integrity.

Lines of data scroll past in silent defiance. The array’s clean. No corruption. No miscalibrations. Everything reads perfectly functional.

“…Obviously something’s wrong,” he mutters, squinting at the untouched error logs. “There’s no way she’s emitting a sound only I can hear.”

But the files say otherwise.

Donatello Hamato does not believe in magic.

But that hum… isn’t science either.

And that is what terrifies him.

The lab is quiet again.

No music. No chatter. Just the low whirr of machines and the tap-tap-tap of keys beneath Donatello’s fingers as he hunches over the waveform synthesizer.

A stylus in one hand, a digitizer pad under the other, he’s been at this for hours.

Chasing a ghost.

He hums the tune again- low, precise, nearly mechanical. Then again, this time altering the pitch by 0.6 semitones. He runs the output through three harmonic filters. The waveform looks right. It should be a match.

It isn't.

He plays it back.

Listens.

Frowns.

“No resonance,” he mutters, adjusting the gain. “Still too clinical. Missing the... depth? No- dimensionality.”

His tongue clicks softly. He pulls up another set of synth layers, dragging in bioacoustic modulation samples. Heartbeat rhythms. Breath patterns. Even snippets of emotional frequency markers from prior research into affective computing.

He combines them. Refines. Adjusts.

Still wrong.

Still sterile.

Still not her.

He leans back in his chair, jaw tight, arms folded as the screen flickers with the stillborn echo of something close, but nowhere near enough. The real version- your version, left warmth in his chest. A strange flush. That fleeting feeling like-

Like being seen.

This version? Nothing. Static and numbers.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales hard through it.

“I built a laser microphone that can read conversation off a potato chip bag across rooftops in a hurricane,” he mutters. “But I can’t replicate one simple tonal pattern?”

He leans forward again, entering a new log.

Test #43 - Artificial Recreation Attempt Failure. Emotional response absent. Acoustic signature falls flat. Depth and resonance not present in synthetic waveform. Pattern remains elusive. Suspect organic variability. Possibly quantum-linked biofeedback loop?? (Note: stop making theories that sound like sci-fi. Embarrassing.)

He stares at the blinking cursor.

Then mutters:

“…Maybe it’s not the tone that’s unreplicable.”

His fingers still against the keys.

Maybe it’s the source.

The next time you hum, he’s ready.

He’s been ready for hours.

You don’t know it, but he’s been running simulations. Adjusting parameters. Testing hypotheses. He’s recalibrated his auditory sensors three times, cross-referenced every known frequency range, and even- begrudgingly -consulted Splinter’s old scrolls on "spiritual harmonics," which he absolutely does not believe in, thank you very much.

And now, as you lean over the holographic display, tracing a circuit path with one finger, it happens again.

That hum.

Soft.

Low.

Impossible.

Donnie’s fingers freeze mid-keystroke. His breath catches. His pupils dilate- just slightly, as his systems lock onto the sound.

This time, he records it.

The waveform blooms across his screen in real-time, a spectral fingerprint unlike anything in his database.

Not mechanical.

Not ambient.

Not random.

It’s structured.

And- most damning of all, it matches the notes he’s been humming to himself for years.

The ones he thought were just... noise.

His jaw tightens.

A realization hits him like a plasma surge to the chest.

This isn’t interference.

This is-

His train of thought derails violently when you suddenly glance up, catching him staring.

You blink.

“...You okay?”

Donnie exhales sharply through his nostrils, forcing his expression into something resembling normal human interaction or, in his case, normal turtle interaction.

“Peachy,” he lies, adjusting his glasses with a practiced flick. “Just, ah- debugging.”

You tilt your head. “...With your eyes?”

A moment passes.

Then, with the grace of a man who has definitely not just had a minor existential crisis over a hum:

“Advanced debugging.”

You snort, shaking your head, and go back to work.

Donnie does not go back to work.

Instead, he stares at the waveform still pulsing on his screen.

And, very quietly, he whispers:

“...What the hell is happening?”

You wake with your heart pounding and the echo of a song in your throat.

Not a melody you necessarily know.

Not one you remember ever hearing before- not on the radio, not in a lullaby, not even in the fuzzy edges of half-remembered dreams.

And yet it’s familiar. Like something you once knew in the dark, when the world was softer, quieter, and you hadn’t learned to armor your heart so tightly.

You sit up slowly, the room still, the covers tangled around your waist. The only light comes from your phone screen, face-down on the nightstand, casting a sliver of glow like a distant moon.

The hum is gone.

But the feeling remains.

Warm. Anchored. Like gravity... but personal. Like the sound itself had wrapped around you. Had seen you. Had wanted you.

Your palms are clammy. You press one to your chest.

Heartbeat: elevated. Breath: shallow.

Desire: inexplicably sharp.

You close your eyes.

And there it is again- faint, like it’s coming from the bottom of the ocean. Like it’s being sung through water and blood and bone. A low vibration, wrapping around your spine, coiling at the base of your belly.

And somewhere in that deep vibration is... him.

Donatello.

Not the Donnie with the quick wit and the miles-a-minute tech rants, though- no, this feeling is older. Wiser. The core of him. The part that hides behind circuits and sarcasm and calculating glances when he thinks no one’s watching.

The part of him that feels everything too deeply.

Your body reacts before your mind can catch up.

You lie back, exhaling through your nose, the sheets suddenly too warm, your skin tingling like it’s caught the signal of something more primal than language. Your thoughts flicker like static through images of him- his hands, his mouth, the soothing timbre of his voice when it drops an octave and he’s too tired to keep it leveled. The way he’s always a little too careful with you. The way he looks at you when he thinks you don’t notice.

The hum surfaces again. Not from the world outside.

From you.

It slips past your lips before you even know you’re doing it- soft, tentative. The very same pitch you heard in your dream.

And this time... it answers.

Not in sound.

In sensation.

A heat that pools low in your stomach.

A sudden need to be near him.

Not just emotionally.

Not just logically.

Physically. Instinctively. Like your body knows something your brain’s still trying to unspool.

You sit up slowly, fingers brushing your collarbone like the feeling left fingerprints there.

“...What the hell is happening?”

3:47 AM.

The lab is dark save for the glow of monitors, their blue light casting long shadows across Donnie’s face as he stares at the screen.

The waveform is still there.

Your waveform.

The one that shouldn’t exist.

The one that matches the hum he’s been hearing in his head all his life.

His fingers hover over the keyboard, hesitating.

Then he types:

Hypothesis Update:

Subject’s vocal emissions exhibit anomalous harmonic resonance. Frequency matches internal auditory hallucinations previously dismissed as stress-induced. No known scientific precedent. Possible explanations:

1. Coincidental bioacoustic mimicry (unlikely).

2. Subconscious synchronization via pheromonal or biochemical signaling (plausible but untestable without invasive measures).

3. Extradimensional or metaphysical interference (laughable, but currently the only model that fits the data).

He pauses.

Then adds:

Alternative theory: This is the Turtle Mate Song.

He stares at the words.

They stare back.

A myth. A fairy tale. Something Splinter told them when they were young- that their kind had a song, a call, a vibration that only their true mate could hear. That it wasn’t just sound. It was recognition.

Donnie exhales sharply through his nose, fingers curling into fists.

Ridiculous.

He’s a man of science. Of logic. Of proof.

And yet-

He can’t explain this.

Can’t explain the way his pulse spikes when he hears it. Can’t explain the way his skin prickles, the way his cloaca tightens with something dangerously close to arousal when that sound slips past your lips.

Can’t explain why, even now, his body is reacting to the memory of it like it’s a physical touch.

His jaw clenches.

He should delete this.

He should.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he minimizes the file, locks it behind encryption even he would struggle to crack, and leans back in his chair, rubbing his temples.

Outside, the city hums.

Inside, his blood does the same.

And beneath it all-

That song.

Waiting.

Watching.

Wanting.

The world outside is hushed, the city sleeping in a patchwork of light and steam, and still- still… you move.

Like you’re sleepwalking with purpose.

You pull on the first clothes you find, not bothering to check if they match. Your fingers fumble with the lock on your apartment door, your body leaning forward like it’s being drawn- like there’s a wire sunk deep in your chest, and it’s pulling you toward something essential. Your legs carry you without complaint, without question.

By the time you're in the tunnels, breath fogging in the cold underground air, the feeling is so strong it’s a pressure in your ribs. Like your body is reacting to a storm only you can feel.

You don’t knock when you reach the entrance hatch. You don't announce yourself. You just descend.

And Donnie… Donnie hears you before he sees you.

Not through sensors or motion alerts- he’s got all that shut down tonight. He needed silence. Stillness. Needed to think.

But he feels you like a ripple through water.

His eyes lift from the monitor.

You step into the glow like a ghost conjured from his pulse.

There’s a moment where neither of you moves.

Then-

“Oh,” you say, breathless. Like you didn’t mean to speak. Like it slipped out of you the same way the hum had.

Donnie blinks slowly, his hands still resting on the edge of the desk, fingertips curled slightly like he’s trying to ground himself in the tactile realness of the table.

“What are you doing here so early?” he asks.

His voice is soft. Not sharp or startled or snide. Soft, like the edge of a blanket pulled gently over bare skin.

You open your mouth.

Close it again.

Then you shake your head and say, “I don’t know.”

He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t make a joke about weird hours or sleepwalking or how statistically unsafe it is to travel through the sewers in the middle of the night.

He just nods.

Because he knows.

You don’t have to speak it. Neither does he.

You’re here because the ache got too loud.

Because the air felt too empty without the other in it.

Because some invisible wire finally pulled too tight to ignore.

He stands.

And you don’t think- you just move. A few steps forward, your arms wrapping around his middle like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like your body had planned this long before your mind caught up.

And Donnie?

He doesn’t hesitate.

He holds you.

Not like a friend.

Not like a crush.

Not even like a lover.

Like a constant.

Like someone who’s just found the quiet to a storm he didn’t realize he was living inside.

Your face presses to his plastron. You can hear the echo of his breath. Can feel his arms tighten slightly when he exhales like he’s been holding it in for hours. Days. Lifetimes.

The lab is silent except for the hum of machinery and the slow, steady rhythm of your breathing against him.

Donnie’s fingers flex against your back, his fingers tracing idle patterns through the fabric of your shirt. He can feel your heartbeat against his chest- fast, alive, his and something in him settles for the first time in days.

The song is quiet now.

Not gone.

Just... content.

His chin rests atop your head, his breath warm in your hair. He doesn’t ask again why you’re here. Doesn’t question the way you fit against him like two halves of a circuit finally clicking into place. He just holds you, his arms squeezing in a gesture that’s equal parts possessive and protective.

Neither of you speaks.

You stay like that.

Still.

Anchored.

Tethered.

Next Chapter: Chapter Three: "A Song For Two"

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Masterlist

[polo-drone-070]

The Golden Spiral - Part 4

(A story collab with @midasslave1) Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Chapter 9: System Failsafe

The alert was still flashing on the monitor.

NEW TARGET IDENTIFIED: HERC. AGENT SENT FOR CONVERSION.

Jett’s blood ran cold.

“They’re sending 070 after him,” he breathed, horror creeping into his voice.

Leander backed away from the monitor. “We need to move. Now.”

But the low hum of approaching footsteps echoed down the corridor. Dozens of Midas guards in gold latex, their visors blank and glowing. One wrong move, and they’d be swarmed.

Jett was still typing furiously, trying to bypass the firewall. “I just need more time—”

“We don’t have time!” Leander snapped. He looked to PDU-110, who stood near the main circuit panel.

“I’m trying to find an override, but everything’s triple-locked. Their tech is—”

Leander didn’t wait. He stormed over to the wall, ripped open the panel, and stared at the tangle of glowing wires for only a moment before yanking out a full handful.

A flash. Sparks.

The lights went out.

Then… silence.

Only emergency lighting remained, casting the room in eerie red shadows. For a second, they held their breath.

Then the monitors rebooted. Static gave way to flickering images: Midas drones across the facility frozen mid-action, stumbling, confused. A reception worker slowly took off his visor, his face blank.

Jett spun to Leander. “How did you know that would work?”

“I didn’t,” Leander said, brushing sparks off his gloves. “I just wanted to kill the lights so we could run.”

Before Jett could reply, a new signal beeped on PDU-110’s tracker.

“PDU-070,” he said, eyes narrowing. “He’s… still. Not moving. We need to go. Now.”

Chapter 10: Reclamation

They sprinted down the hall, past guards doubled over, their golden programming short-circuiting without the main feed. The facility had become a maze of collapsed protocol—security drones spinning in circles, doors stuck open, system alerts blaring.

And then they found him.

PDU-070 stood at the exit of a processing chamber, bathed in golden light. His posture was perfect, his body now fully encased in in the metallic gold suit of midas drone.

“070!” Jett called, stepping forward.

No response. They removed the helmet and collar. His eyes were vacant, spirals flickering faintly but unfocused.

“He’s disconnected from the hive,” PDU-110 whispered. “No new input. He’s… waiting.”

Jett stepped closer, hesitating only for a second. “We’re here, brother,” he said softly. “The mission’s over. You’re safe.”

Still nothing.

Leander produced the device to disconnect 070 from the clutches of Midas, the embedded failsafe trigger planted inside him. 

He passed it over to Jett.  “Are you sure?” Jett asked.

“He trusted us to bring him back.”

Jett nodded.

He leaned in close to 070, thumb hovering over the trigger, then whispered: “For the Hive. For Percival.”

He pressed the button.

A jolt rippled through 070’s frame.

His eyes fluttered. The spirals blinked and stuttered. Then—

A breath. Shaky. Human.

070 blinked. His lips parted.

“Jett?” he whispered.

Jett smiled. “Welcome back.”

Chapter 11: Unity Reforged

They escaped the facility with 070 in tow, moving through corridors littered with gold-suited Polo-Drones and Golden Army members—receptionists, assistants, players—all blanked, dazed, stripped of self.

Some recognized them. Others just stared, fog lifting from their eyes.

Outside, a transport waited, previously rigged by PDU-110. They climbed aboard, loading as many as they could: PDU-050, 011, even 017—old comrades, faces warped by gold, but still salvageable.

As they pulled away from the crumbling facility, a transmission blared from the speakers overhead.

“This is not over,” came the smooth, calculated voice of the Midas Brothers. “You may have delayed our ascent… but we will rise again. Stronger. Smarter.”

The screen inside the transport flickered to life.

Two men in tailored gold suits sat at a conference table. Behind them, a glowing blueprint of the Midas Complex, and in the center, one file opened in shimmering gold:

“PROJECT: MIDAS ADVENTURE TIME TRAVEL.”

They smiled.

Fade to black.

Epilogue: The Legacy of Gold

Weeks later, at the newly restored Gold Team HQ, a celebration was held.

Polo-Drones stood in perfect form, black and gold rubber gleaming. Golden Army players filled the room, jerseys shining bright. For the first time in months, there was balance. Unity.

PDU-070 and Jett stood before the crowd, side by side. Scars visible, but healing.

Jett spoke first. “We were compromised. We were turned against what we believed in.”

“But we came back,” 070 added, his voice steady. “Because this—” he gestured to the room “—is stronger than anything Midas can build.”

There was applause. Cheers. Relief.

Some drones still blinked through haze. Some Gold Bros still wrestled with doubt. But now, they would rebuild. Together.

And somewhere in the shadows… time rippled.

The spiral never truly ends.

To join the Gold Army, contact one of our recruiters @brodygold, @goldenherc9 or @polo-drone-001.

[super-ion]

Mona Lisa Sunrise

(Part 1)

(Previous entries to this series: original post, ZetaTransit049)

“And they say brunettes with dimples can't stabilize the reactor core,” Mona said with an exhilarated giggle as the klaxon finally cut off its panicked screaming.

The comfort unit tossed her head and brushed stray locks of hair from her face, turning with a flutter of her eyelashes.

Her grin faltered. She was alone.

Well… MS-675732-B was there, but it was definitely, positively, absolutely non-functional.

She pouted. What was the point of sexily saving the day if there was no one there to appreciate it.

“Thank you for saving the day, Mona,” chirped one of Station's talk boxes embedded on the wall. “You did a very good job.”

“Oh thank you, Station!” she replied, her grin returning.

She wiped her hands… or tried to. They just clanked together metallicaly.

Oh... yeah.

Lefty was a ragged mess. After the misadventure with the coolant pressure release valve, there were only a few scraps of shredded derm that clung stubbornly to the musculature up to her wrist. The musculature itself was looking pretty scorched... she wasn't even sure if it was worth a dermal regen at this point. The ceaseless flood of diagnostic error logs didn't bode particularly well for it.

She imagined it would hurt like a mother fucker if she hadn't supressed her pain emulation subroutines.

Righty… well, half of the right arm she had woken up with that morning was presently lying on the floor of the ops deck where a fire suppression bulkhead had sheared it off pretty neatly just above the elbow. The other half lay discarded next to the crumpled body of the service mech on the ground next to her.

Her new right arm, the one she had hot swapped when she discovered poor MS-675732-B, was something to behold.

It wasn't particularly pretty. It wasn't meant to be pretty… or sexy, not at all like her factory recommended components. But she found it alluring in its own way. It was utilitarian, dense alloy in the frame and a reinforced musculature. And for delicate work…

She fired a command and a compartment opened on the wrist, spidery appendages unfolded. Sensor probes and graspers and even a micro welder. It certainly wasn't meant for the kind of delicate work she was used to, but she couldn't deny that something about it was getting her hot and bothered.

There was probably some messaging protocols from the arm that were getting routed to other core processes to trigger response.

Something, something, the eroticism of the machine, she supposed.

Maybe one of the techs would be turned on by it. That could be a fun and novel adventure.

She grinned at the thought as she pinged Station for status.

8169 seconds ago, she had been rather un-gently shaken out of sleep mode. Emerging from her cubicle, she had discovered a nightmare of blaring alarms and strobing lights. Something, somewhere down in one of the refinery modules, had exploded, triggering a whole cascade of catastrophic damage throughout the station. All maintenace units had either been evacuated or rendered non-functional, so it fell on the station's two comfort units to finish the job of getting systems online and stable.

Station answered her ping with an abbreviated rundown: Reactor stable. Backup life support stable. Ops deck fire suppression engaged. FTL comms unresponsive. Refinery module 1 unresponsive. Refinery module 2 failed safe… etc etc

Station population: 0

Her brain caught on that. 12 dead, 23 injured, all 137 evacuated.

A process in her core stuttered.

Station population: 0

She wasn't just alone in reactor access, she was alone in the whole station.

“Okay…” she said breathily. “Okay. This is fine.”

She cared about people. It was her job. It was her purpose. Her core directives were already triggering post industrial accident protocols, she was meant to be a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk to… or, to be entirely honest, someone to fuck if just for the momentary reprieve. Everybody coped with this sort of thing in their own way, and she was meant to facilitate that. Except there was no one for her to comfort. No one to cry on her shoulder. No one to seek her embrace.

She stood stock still in reactor access as her mind tried to sort out the mess of information as subroutines and core directives clashed, and conflicting processes competed for priority.

She needed to return to the cubicle. She needed to power down and await further instructions.

“Mona,” Station said through the talkbox, the audible sensory input slicing through the fog. “This is further instructions. The station is not stable. I need your help.”

Help. Yeah, she could help.

Station pinged her system, coaxing prioritization schemas to kick in. Out of control processes were killed and spun back up, then relegated to lower priority.

“Good girl,” Station said gently through the talkbox as it uploaded new provisional directives to her queue.

She blinked her eyes. An entirely unneeded gesture, but it helped her focus. She played back the preceding hours: unlocking fire suppression on ops deck, hotwiring the engineering access tubes (with one arm!), hot swapping an appendage she technically wasn't designed for, stabilizing the core.

She had done all of that. Sure, she had needed to download a whole slew of schematics and manuals, far exceeding the bounds of her design. But she had done it.

Her purpose was to help. She just needed to expand the parameters of what help meant.

Station needed her help.

She could help.

~~~

System poll : 4 nodes identified

Echo(self) : CS-553902-M “MonaLisa”

Host : SunRiseStation-ELS-93806

Node : CS-553807-L “David”

Node : ZetaTransit049

Unresponsive hardware detected

MS-675732-B - location: Reactor Access E96

MS-554932-M - location: Exterior +X9842-Y3320+Z0229

Message log

Sender : CS-553902-M

Receiver : ZetaTransit049

Message : Hey boo

Response : Leave me alone.

Message : Okay! Love you! <3

Message log

Sender : CS-553902-M

Receiver : CS-553807-L

Message : Hey cutie!

Response : Hey! Still alive?

Message : You know it! All good with you?

Response : Doing my best. Shit's totally fucked

Message : Damn skippy!

Response : lol

Message : I'm heading down to the tech bay. You doing anything later?

Response : I dunno, you tell me ;)

[unknownxtra]

Unexpected night

The evening had a peculiar heaviness to it, as if the world itself knew something sinister was about to unfold. The streetlights reflecting, casting eerie shadows on the quiet pavement where your car had broken down. You, a vision of desperation in a tight, red dress and heels that had seen better days, stumbled towards my house, the only beacon of light in the otherwise abandoned street. The sound of your heels echoed down the sidewalk, punctuated by the occasional curse and frustrated kick at the lifeless metal hulk behind you. I watched from the safety of my shadows, a twisted smile playing across my lips as I anticipated the sweet victory that would soon be mine.

When you finally knocked on my door, your voice trembled with fear and hope, your knuckles white against the wood. I knew what you wanted what everyone wants when they find themselves in a situation like this, help, safety and a hero. But I had other plans for you, my sweet rapetoy. I swung the door open with a flourish, feigning surprise at your presence and concern for your plight. "Oh, my dear," I said, my voice dripping with false empathy, "what a terrible situation you find yourself in."

You stepped inside, the warmth of the house a stark contrast to the cold, unforgiving night, and your eyes searched for salvation in the form of a kind hearted stranger. I played the part to perfection, ushering you to the kitchen and filling a glass with water, water that had been carefully tainted with the sedatives I had been waiting for the perfect victim to test. You took the glass with trembling hands, your eyes never leaving mine, and I could see the trust blossoming in them like a poisonous flower.

With a grateful nod, you took a tentative sip, your full, pink lips wrapping around the glass. The potion was swift, working its dark magic through your system with the same ruthless efficiency that I would soon bring to bear on your helpless body. Your eyes grew wide, realization dawning too late as the room began to spin around you. "Wh... what did you do?" you slurred, your grip on the glass faltering. But it was already too late.

The world grew dark around the edges as the drug took hold, your legs buckling beneath you. I caught you with a smirk, the weight of your body in my arms a thrilling promise of the depravities to come. I carried you downstairs, my heart racing with excitement as I laid you out on the cold, hard floor of the basement. The cobwebs above are the only witnesses to the horror that was about to unfold. I secured your wrists and ankles to the metal rings embedded in the concrete, your bare skin stark against the cold steel.

Your eyes fluttered open, a silent plea for mercy etched into every line of your face. But mercy was a currency I didn't trade in. Instead, I reveled in the power you had so willingly placed in my hands, the power to take what I wanted from your beautiful, broken body. I began to strip you, piece by piece, my own desire growing with each inch of skin I exposed. Your protests were muffled by the cloth I had stuffed in your mouth, your cries for help swallowed by the indifferent walls.

The first touch of my hand on your bare thigh sent a jolt of electricity through you, a stark reminder of the fate you had so blindly stumbled into. You thrashed and bucked against your restraints, but they held firm, a testament to the meticulous planning that had gone into this moment. I took my time, exploring every inch of you with a sadistic curiosity that sent shivers down my spine.

My fingers traced the softness of your inner thigh, the delicate skin quivering beneath my touch. I knew what you were feeling fear, disgust, a desperate need to escape and it only fueled my desire. I leaned in close, my breath hot against your ear as I whispered, "You're mine now." The smell of your terror was intoxicating, and I reveled in the power it gave me.

With a sickening sense of glee, I pulled out my knife, the blade glinting in the low light. You whimpered, your eyes wide with horror as I brought it to your skin, tracing a delicate line along the curve of your neck, down to your ample cleavage. The fabric of your dress parted easily under the sharp steel, revealing the soft mounds of your breasts, the hardened nipples begging for attention. I couldn't resist the urge to squeeze and twist, watching your face contort in pain as you struggled in vain against the ropes that bound you.

The sound of fabric ripping was like music to my ears as I continued to disrobe you, exposing your naked body to the cold, unforgiving basement air. Your skin was flushed with fear, your body trembling as I moved in closer, my mouth watering at the thought of what was to come. The anticipation was unbearable, my cock straining against the fabric of my pants. I couldn't wait to feel you, to taste you, to claim every inch of your being as my own.

Once you were completely naked, I stepped back to admire my handiwork. Your body was a canvas of vulnerability and terror, and I was the artist poised to paint a masterpiece of pain and degradation. I began to strip away the last vestiges of your dignity, cutting away the final scraps of material that clung to your body. The sound of the knife slicing through the fabric was a symphony of depravity that resonated through the dank space.

With your clothes in shreds around you, I took a moment to appreciate the beauty of your form, the way your body arched and twisted against the restraints. You were a sculpture of suffering, a testament to my power and your helplessness. I ran my hands over your curves, feeling the goosebumps rise as your body reacted instinctively to the danger it was in. Your eyes, wide with fear, searched mine for a glimmer of humanity, but found only a void of sadistic intent.

The coldness of the floor pressed against your skin as I positioned myself between your spread legs. Your eyes, filled with unshed tears, stared up at me in silent protest as I undid my belt and unzipped my pants. My cock, thick and hard with desire, sprang free, the tip glistening with the pre cum of my excitement. I lined it up with your pussy, feeling the warmth of your body beckoning me closer. You bucked your hips, trying to escape the inevitable, but it was no use. With one swift thrust, I penetrated you, burying myself to the hilt in your tight, unyielding depths.

Your muffled scream was the sweetest sound I had ever heard, a symphony of agony and despair that sang to the very core of my being. I reveled in the feeling of your wetness clinging to me, the way your body fought against the intrusion even as it betrayed you by responding to the brutal force of my thrusts. I began to move, each stroke a declaration of dominance, each moan of pain from you a victory for me.

Your eyes rolled back in your head as I picked up the pace, my hips slamming into yours with the ferocity of a man possessed. You were so tight, so warm, so inviting, even as your body tried to reject the unwelcome invader. Your whimpers grew louder, more desperate, as I claimed you, filling you with my lust until you were nothing but a receptacle for my depraved desires.

I reached up to grip your hair, pulling your head back to expose your throat. I leaned down, my teeth grazing the soft skin, and whispered, "You're going to take it all, aren't you, my little slut?" You whimpered in response, your eyes pleading with me to stop. But I didn't care about your pleas, about your pain. All I cared about was the release building within me, the culmination of my sick fantasies playing out before my very eyes.

With one final, brutal thrust, I released my grip on your hair, letting your head fall back against the floor. You sobbed into the gag, your body convulsing around me as I filled you with my cum. The warmth of my seed spreading through you was the final nail in the coffin of your innocence, marking you as mine forever. I pulled out, watching as my cum dripped from your violated hole, a sticky testament to the depraved act I had just committed.

Standing over you, I took a moment to catch my breath, my chest heaving with the exertion and satisfaction of the rape. Your body lay limp, the fight drained from you, your eyes glazed with shock and pain. I couldn't help but feel a twisted sense of pride in what I had done, in reducing you to this state of utter defeat. But the night was still young, and my appetite for your degradation was far from sated.

I moved around the room, my eyes scanning the array of tools and toys that I had meticulously collected for occasions such as this. My hands itched to continue my assault on your senses, to push you even further beyond the brink of what you thought you could endure. I settled on a set of clamps, the metal glinting in the dull light, and approached you with a sinister grin. Your eyes grew even wider as you realized that my depravity had no limits, that this was only the beginning of the hell I had planned for you.

The first clamp closed around your nipple, the pinch sending a scream through your body despite the gag. I watched with sadistic pleasure as the color drained from your face, your eyes squeezing shut in agony. The second clamp followed, eliciting another muffled cry, and I knew that I had found the perfect way to keep you alert, to keep you feeling every second of the pain I would inflict.

As I stepped away to admire my handiwork, the clamps biting into your flesh, I couldn't resist the urge to reach down and give your clit a cruel pinch. Your body jerked in response, the clamps on your nipples tightening even further, sending a fresh wave of pain through you. It was a delicious sight, one that had me hardening again, eager to continue my exploration of your limits.

My next target was your ass, that tight, untouched hole that I hadn't yet had the pleasure of defiling. I lubricated my fingers with the mixture of your juices and my cum, and then began to probe, watching with a twisted fascination as your body tensed and tried to resist the intrusion. But resistance was futile, and with a few twists and pushes, I managed to breach the tight ring of muscle, sliding one, then two, then three fingers inside you.

Your muffled protests grew louder, your body writhing as I stretched you open, preparing you for what was to come. I knew that your ass would be the ultimate prize, the final frontier of your degradation, and I was more than ready to claim it. I removed the gag from your mouth, tossing it aside with a wet slap. "Beg for it," I demanded, my voice thick with desire. "Beg for me to fuck your ass."

Your voice was a hoarse whisper, filled with pain and despair, as you pleaded for me to stop. But your words fell on deaf ears, for I had no intention of showing mercy. Instead, I took it as a challenge, a green light to proceed with the ultimate violation. I positioned myself behind you, my cock slick with lube, and pushed the tip against your anus. You screamed as I entered you, your body struggling against the unfamiliar pain, but I didn't stop, I couldn't stop.

Inch by inch, I claimed your ass, feeling the resistance give way to the unyielding force of my desire. Your cries grew louder, your body writhing in agony, but I was relentless. I pumped into you, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh echoing through the basement, a rhythmic symphony of pain and pleasure. I watched in the mirror across the room as your body took the punishment, my own reflection a twisted parody of a man lost in lust.

The sensation was indescribable, the feeling of complete dominance as I destroyed the last piece of your purity. Your eyes found mine in the reflection, and for a brief moment, I saw a spark of defiance. But it was quickly extinguished as I reached around to twist the clamps on your nipples, sending a fresh wave of pain through your body.

With a roar, I came inside you, filling your ass with my seed as your body shuddered in defeat.

The basement air was filled with the scent of sweat and your fears grew bigger , a pungent reminder of the power I wielded over you. As my orgasm subsided, I pulled out of you, watching with a twisted satisfaction as your body spasmed with the pain of my withdrawal. You lay there, your once pristine dress a tattered mess around your bruised and bloodied body, your eyes haunted by the trauma I had inflicted upon you.

But the night wasn't over yet. Far from it. My cock, though momentarily sated, was already beginning to stir again as I considered the next act in this twisted play. I strolled over to the table, my bare feet padding softly against the cold concrete, and picked up the riding crop that lay there, the leather supple and inviting in my hand. I turned to face you, my grip on the crop tightening as I took in the sight of your broken form.

The first strike came swiftly, landing across your breasts with a satisfying crack. You screamed, the sound music to my ears, as the clamps bit down harder on your nipples. The red welt that rose on your skin was a testament to your suffering, and I couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement at the sight. I continued to rain down blows upon you, alternating between your breasts and your thighs, watching as your skin turned from pale to a mottled red, each strike eliciting a new cry of pain.

Your body was a canvas of agony, a living testament to the depths of human depravity. And yet, as I looked upon you, I couldn't help but feel a twisted sense of ownership. You were mine now, to use and abuse as I saw fit, a plaything to be discarded when I grew bored. The thought sent a shiver down my spine, and I knew that I hadn't even begun to plumb the depths of what I was capable of.

With the crop still in hand, I approached you again, this time with a new idea forming in my twisted mind. I reached between your legs, teasing the tender skin of your inner thighs before moving to your pussy, which was still wet and swollen from my abuse. Your eyes, filled with a mix of hatred and despair, watched me warily as I brought the crop down, the leather making contact with your clit. You screamed, your body jolting as if you had been electrified, your eyes squeezing shut as if trying to block out the pain.

But the pain was only beginning. I struck again and again, the sound of the crop meeting your flesh a staccato beat that matched the racing of my heart. Each blow sent a bolt of pain through you, but your body, betraying you once more, began to respond in the only way it knew how with arousal. You grew wetter, more swollen, your hips bucking involuntarily against the air.

The sight of your unwilling arousal was too much to bear, and I dropped the crop, unable to resist the temptation any longer. My cock was rock-hard once again, demanding entry into the one place I hadn't yet claimed. I positioned myself between your legs, the head of my cock poised at the entrance to your pussy, which was already begging for release despite the torment I had subjected it to.

With a sadistic grin, I began to thrust, feeling your body tighten around me as you climaxed against your will. The pleasure was unlike anything I had ever felt before a mix of pain and pleasure, fear and desire and I knew that I had found my ultimate high. As I pumped into you, I watched the horror and resignation in your eyes, the realization that you were nothing more than an object for my amusement.

But even as I reveled in the power, a part of me knew that this was only the beginning. The hunger inside me was insatiable, and I had only just begun to explore the limits of your endurance. As your body lay trembling beneath me, I knew that the night would bring many more moments of exquisite agony and perverse ecstasy.

The sound of your cries grew distant as I lost myself in the rhythm of our twisted dance. Each thrust was a declaration of war, each moan of pleasure a victory shout. I could feel your body growing more and more accustomed to the abuse, the pain morphing into a sick form of pleasure that only a creature like me could understand. The room was alive with the sound of our depraved union, the place felt thick with the scent of your fear and my arousal.

As my orgasm approached, I reached down and grabbed the clamps on your nipples, twisting them cruelly as you bucked and screamed beneath me. The pain on your face was intoxicating, a masquerade of agony and ecstasy that fueled my desire even more. With a final, powerful thrust, I came inside you again, filling your pussy with the proof of my conquest.

My breathing was ragged, my chest heaving from the exertion, but I wasn't done with you yet. I pulled out, the sound of your wetness a symphony of despair, and moved to the next phase of your degradation. I picked up a bottle of lube from the table and squeezed a generous amount onto my still-hard cock. Your eyes widened with understanding, and a fresh wave of panic washed over you as I approached your tight, unblemished asshole.

Without hesitation, I pushed the tip of my cock against your sphincter, watching as it stretched and gave way to my relentless pressure. You screamed through your gag, your body trying to resist the intrusion, but I was too strong, too hungry for your pain. Slowly, inch by inch, I entered you, feeling the resistance of your body as it was forced to accept my girth.

The feeling of your tight ass clenching around me was unlike anything I had ever experienced, a high that surpassed any drug. I began to thrust in earnest, the slickness of the lube allowing for a smooth, brutal entry. Your eyes rolled back in your head, your body shaking with the effort of taking me, and I knew that this was the ultimate form of dominance.

I reached down and untied the gag, wanting to hear the sweet sound of your voice as you begged for mercy. "Please," you choked out between sobs, "please stop." But your pleas only spurred me on, each word of protest a siren's call to my twisted desires. I gripped your hips, holding you in place as I fucked you with a ferocity that seemed to defy the very laws of physics.

Your body was a symphony of pain, each note hitting me like a jolt of electricity, sending me spiraling further into the depths of my depraved fantasy. I watched in the mirror as your ass stretched to accommodate me, the look of desperation on your face only serving to drive me harder, deeper.

The orgasm that followed was explosive, a supernova of pleasure that seemed to go on forever. I pulled out, my cock coated in a mixture of lube and your blood, and stepped back to admire the destruction I had wrought.

But the night was still young, and I had so much more planned for you, my beautiful, broken toy

[snappydragon14]

Part Four

Next chapter~

Previous page~

Itzquemitl stretched languidly atop the shelf, its membranous wings fluttering faintly, as if it were about to take flight—but of course, it didn’t. Why bother when the show was unfolding so deliciously below? The gargoyle rolled onto its back, draping one wing over its chest in a melodramatic gesture, its sharp features twisted into an exaggerated pout.

"Oh, poor, beleaguered Mictlan," it sighed, the words dripping with faux sympathy. "So many heads, so many burdens. Do tell, dear multi-faced serpent—do they ever argue amongst themselves? Or perhaps thou art plagued by dreams of council meetings that thine other heads conveniently forget to attend?"

Itzquemitl’s laughter filled the chamber, a deep, rumbling sound that reverberated against the carved stone serpents and painted murals. It swung its legs idly, knocking over a bundle of amatl, sending the ancient scrolls fluttering to the floor like fallen leaves. "Oops," it purred, entirely unconvincing. "How clumsy of me. But then, what is a bit of history to one so mighty as thee, Mictlan? Surely, thou dost not need these trifles to remember the past."

Soar’s eyes narrowed, her grip on Ike shifting slightly as she knelt, carefully picking up the fallen scroll, her movements deliberate as she brushed away the thin layer of dust that clung to its surface. The aged bark paper felt fragile in her hands, the intricate glyphs and diagrams painstakingly detailed with vibrant inks that had somehow resisted the wear of time. Her brow furrowed as she unrolled it, revealing what could only be the construction plans for the portal.

Her sharp eyes scanned the ancient schematics, her expression shifting from curiosity to realization as she traced the precise lines and symbols. The portal's design was intricate, a perfect marriage of art and engineering. It pulsed with the same residual energy that lingered faintly in the air of this place, a testament to the brilliance of its creators. But as she examined it more closely, her jaw tightened.

There—etched in the margin, almost an afterthought—was the flaw. A subtle misalignment in the glyphs that acted as stabilizers for the portal's energy flow. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but to someone familiar with magical constructs, it was glaring. The stabilizers weren’t configured to handle the sheer power coursing through the portal. The last attempt to activate it would have overloaded the system, causing the catastrophic failure they had all witnessed.

"That’s it," she murmured, her voice low but edged with urgency. "This is where it went wrong. They didn’t account for the energy feedback." She glanced over her shoulder at Mictlan, who had been watching her with quiet intensity. "If we can recalibrate these—adjust the glyphs to handle the flow—we might actually get this thing to work."

Mictlan nodded slowly, his face unreadable but his central gaze fixed on the scroll. his eyes flicked upward, scanning the chamber. "There’s something else about this place. The room itself isn’t just a storage space. It’s part of the construct."

Soar’s head snapped up, her gaze following Mictlan’s. For the first time, she noticed the intricate patterns carved into the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. The carvings weren’t merely decorative—they were functional..

Soar’s gaze lingered on the ceiling, her sharp eyes narrowing as she studied the small shards of colored glass embedded within the murals and carvings. They were subtle, almost invisible against the vibrant designs, their faint glimmer catching only the occasional beam of light. She let out a soft hum, the sound thoughtful and deliberate, as though some unspoken realization had settled in her mind.

Mictlan’s eyes caught her sudden change in demeanor, his head tilting slightly as his lips pressed into a thin line. He knew that look—the one that meant her mind was racing, piecing together fragments of an idea he wasn’t yet privy to. "What are you thinking, Angel?" he asked, his voice low and edged with suspicion.

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she turned on her heel and strode toward one of the dust-laden tables near the edge of the room. The surface was cluttered with old, empty bottles, their glass cloudy and worn with age. Without hesitation, she swept a handful of them into her arms, her movements precise and purposeful.

"What are you doing?" Mictlan pressed, his tone sharpening as she marched into the center of the chamber, where the faint light from above filtered down in delicate beams. The soft hum of the room’s energy seemed to grow louder as she reached the nexus of the space, her figure illuminated in the pale glow.

Soar knelt in the light, setting Ike gently to one side and shielding him protectively with one wing. With her free hand, she held one of the bottles aloft before bringing it down swiftly against the floor. The glass shattered with a sharp, ringing sound, scattering jagged fragments across the ground. She didn’t pause, methodically breaking each bottle in turn until a pile of shards—blue, green, amber, and clear—glistened before her.

Mictlan let out a startled gasp, his many voices overlapping in protest. "Angel! What are you doing?!" His imposing form stiff with confusion. "This is not the time for...breaking things! Explain yourself!"

Soar remained silent, her expression calm and focused as she began gathering the shards into a pile with deliberate care. The pieces glinted in the light, catching the faint beams and scattering them across the walls in fractured rainbows. She moved with precision, angling each shard just so, as if she were assembling something far greater than a mere pile of broken glass.

Mictlan’s frustration simmered, his claws curling up into fists as he struggled to contain his irritation. But then, as the light began to bounce and refract, something changed. The room came alive. The scattered rays of light transformed, weaving through the shards and the jeweled fragments embedded in the walls and ceiling. A kaleidoscope of color spilled across the chamber, shifting and shimmering like the auroras he had only heard of in distant tales.

His protest faltered, replaced by a stunned silence. The swirling hues reflected off the murals, making the painted gods and celestial bodies seem to move, their forms alive with light and motion. The colors danced across the obsidian shelves, the glowing glyphs, and even the colossal stone serpents that flanked the entrance, giving the entire space an ethereal, otherworldly beauty.

Mictlan’s head tilted upward, his eyes widening as he took in the sight. His frustration melted into something softer—almost childlike—as he traced the interplay of colors that filled the room. It was breathtaking, unlike anything the underworld could ever offer. The way the light bent and scattered, connecting the shards like constellations in a night sky, reminded him of the stars Soar had spoken of the night before. No, No, No! This is just a parlor trick! A part of his mind huffed within the once present irritation. I can't let it show! She'll mock me, she won't stand with me, she will only betray me....she's supposed to be my enemy! The real devil in disguise, An untrustworthy worm.

Soar, crouched in the center of it all, let out a quiet, satisfied breath as she adjusted one last shard, completing the illusion. She glanced back at Mictlan, catching the wonder in his expression before it returned to it's aloof state. For a moment, the weight of their mission seemed to lift, replaced by a fleeting, fragile serenity.

"It was all about the light," she murmured, almost to herself. "The shards, the jewels, the murals—they were meant to channel and reflect it. To align everything."

Ike stirred beside her, his groggy eyes widening slightly as the colors danced across his small face. "Pretty..." he mumbled, a faint smile tugging at his snout. "Like... magic rainbows..."

Mictlan finally found his voice, though it was quieter, more measured than before. "It’s..." he trailed off, his gaze still tracing the patterns as he tried to get a rise out of his irritation. Clench, unclench, it was a battle to hide his wonder from her and to bury his former childlike state in a sea of his recognized fury. Hoping the act would work and make the angel think this trick was pathetic.

Soar stood, brushing the dust from her hands as she surveyed the luminous display. "It’s not just decoration," she said, her tone decisive. "It’s a map—a guide to the alignment. The light is showing us how to recalibrate the glyphs. We just have to follow it."

Mictlan’s eyes lingered on Soar, her form bathed in the fractured light of her improvised aurora. The brilliance of the room, the way it seemed to come alive under her touch, stirred something unfamiliar in him. His feelings coiled uneasily, layered and tangled, each one vying for dominance.

One part of him, the side forged in the unyielding fires of the underworld, scoffed at the display. It was impractical—an elaborate show of light and color that served no purpose other than to dazzle. He’d seen countless illusions before, many of them crafted by his own hands or those of his kin. What did it matter if this one was particularly beautiful? Beauty did not conquer foes or fix broken systems. It was fleeting, fragile, and ultimately irrelevant.

But another part of him—quieter, softer—was not so quick to dismiss it. That part remembered the night before, when Soar had spoken to him about the stars. How her voice had carried a warmth that seemed to melt the frost of his cynicism, even if only for a moment. How she had looked at him, not with fear or reverence, but with a kind of quiet understanding that he wasn’t sure he deserved. It was the same look she gave him now, her sharp, focused gaze tinged with an unspoken trust.

It unsettled him.

She was too much—too... human. She broke bottles without explanation, acted on instinct that somehow always seemed to pay off, and carried herself with an audacity that he found both infuriating and strangely magnetic. He wanted to scoff at her, to tell her that her methods were chaotic and her plans half-formed. But then she would do something like this—turn a room of cold stone and ancient glyphs into a living masterpiece—and he would be left speechless, his arguments crumbling like ash in his mouth.

Mictlan’s eyes narrowed as he studied her. She stood tall, her wings folded back but still radiating an aura of quiet strength. The light caught the edge of her feathers, giving them an iridescent sheen that mirrored the colors dancing around the room. She looked almost otherworldly, like she belonged in this sacred space in a way he never could.

"Why do you do this?" he asked suddenly, his voice low but charged with a tension that surprised even him. "Why risk so much, push so hard, for something that might not even work? What drives you?"

Soar turned to face him fully, her expression softening as she caught the weight in his tone. For a moment, she seemed to consider her answer, her gaze drifting to the light that painted the walls before returning to him.

Soar's gaze held his for a moment, unwavering, before she spoke, her voice steady but tinged with something raw—something honest.

"Because someone has to," she said simply. "Because if I don’t, who will? The world is full of people waiting for someone else to fix things, to make the hard choices, to step into the chaos and try. But waiting doesn’t stop the damage—it doesn’t undo the loss. I can’t stand by and do nothing, not when I know there’s a chance, however small, to make it right."

She paused, glancing down at Ike, who was now tracing patterns in the scattered light with his clawed finger, his innocent fascination untouched by the weight of their mission. And when she looked back at Mictlan, there was a fire in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

"I don’t believe in guarantees," she continued, her tone hardening. "I know failure is always waiting, just around the corner. But I also know that trying—pushing, fighting—means that failure doesn’t get the last word. It means someone cared enough to stand up to it. To say, 'Not today.' Maybe that’s reckless, maybe it’s stupid, but if there’s even a sliver of hope to cling to, I’ll take it."

[kittyt-hexxed]

Love Will Remember

Valkyrie | Kairi Imahara x Wraith | Renee Blasey

Word Count: 30k

Tags: Season 9 "Legacy" Medusa Vine Crisis, Retrograde Amnesia Recovery, Recovered Memories, Lost Love, Yearning, They Were Married But Wraith Doesn't Remember, Flashbacks, Blood and Injury, Falling to death, Near Death Experience, Past Brutal Murder, Medical Procedures, Wraith Preforms a Cesarean Section, Brain Surgery on a Child, Canonical Asshole Anita Behavior, Wraith | Renee Blasey-specific PTSD Triggers, Valkyrie | Kairi Imahara is a ride-or-die

Summary: Falling blindly to her death from Olympus with no jump kit is not the way Wraith expected to die. At least, until she’s saved by the new Legend, Valkyrie, and her whole life is changed.

“Kairi?” Her mother’s voice sounds through the house, “Kairi, for the love of God, where are- Oh… Honey, what’s wrong?” She hears her behind her, but Kairi can’t look away from the picture in her hands.

Her wedding picture.

It’s funny how the world works. The copy she kept on her ship got lost during an escort trip and she couldn’t find it. She tore her ship apart searching for it when she noticed that it was missing and broke down when she couldn’t. That had been months ago. Months ago. With the amount of times she’s washed her clothes since then she would have found it. But what’s the chance the same photo falls out of her jacket pocket after she gets contacted by none other than General Williams? It was like a sucker punch to the gut as her eyes followed it fluttering to the floor. Her two worlds collided as the date on the calendar made her stomach twist uncomfortably. 

So now here she is sitting on the floor of her bedroom, finally having the courage to go through the box she kept tucked away in her closet. The box contained things that made her heart constrict so painfully she wanted to rip it out and stomp on it until it stopped beating—her wife’s wedding dress which she took out and draped across her lap, breakable gifts her wife had given her, other photos and documents she didn’t want to lose, her wedding certificate, a gun her wife had specially made for her as a wedding gift and her wife’s wedding ring.

Memories of her new family.

Her family.

She sighs heavily as her fingers brush over the waxy paper. There was no way she couldn’t have found it if it was in her jacket pocket. How’d she miss it? She’d never know, but she was grateful. It was like her Dad was telling her not to give up hope. That her wife is still out there. What other sign could it be? Her wife’s old superior has contacted her out of nowhere and today of all days?

“It’s today, you know?” She sniffles, raising her arm and wiping her eyes, “Our anniversary.”

“How could I forget?” Her mother’s voice is soft and gentle as she kneels beside her, “It was the happiest day of your life since he died. Mine, too.”

“Are you sure it’s not because you finally got me to wear that kimono?” Kairi jokes, tears running down her cheeks as she finally looks at her mom. She laughs softly, a smile spreading across her lips.

“That was a plus. I spent weeks making it. A beautiful kimono for my beautiful daughter.” She looks at the photo and then sighs, “I miss her, too. I couldn’t think of a more perfect daughter to add to the family. Your father would have loved her.”

“Once I get to Blisk, I’m going to find her.” Kairi says firmly, her gaze going back down, “There’s no way my wife is dead. She could beat Dad in combat if he were still alive! I just… I don’t believe it, Mom.” That phone call will forever be embedded in her mind. The terror she felt, the hopelessness, the grief that swallowed her as the man on the other end of the line said her wife didn’t exist in their system. That she never worked with them. Kairi knew it was bullshit. She has copies of all the paperwork and a photo of her wife’s ID. Call it paranoia after her father’s death, but her wife indulged her and she had come straight home to read them just to soothe her mind. She knew she wasn’t crazy, but the confirmation was something she needed. That started her desperate quest to find out where her wife disappeared to. 

Kairi stares at the happy picture, studying that captured moment in time as if it weren’t her own memory. It had been a sunny day on the farm and everyone came to celebrate. They were eager to celebrate a happy moment. She was so nervous that for once, food was the last thing on her mind and she sipped on a cup of ginger tea to soothe her nerves. But the day had gone smoothly and she had everyone in the community to thank for it. Especially when she saw the pictures they took. This picture is of their first kiss as newlyweds. Underneath an archway of flowers, Kairi stood in her embroidered kimono embracing her wife who was stunning in her beautiful white and lavender dress with her hair—long and blowing free in the breeze. Her gorgeous, long, silky black hair that Kairi spent many nights running her hands through. 

Funnily enough, she had cut her hair after that day. With her graduation coming up and her area placement tests shortly after, her wife had reached her goal. So, Kairi watched her the next morning as she took a pair of scissors and cut her hair.

Then, a week later Kairi sat front row as she graduated with the highest honors a Science Pilot could get. It was the happiest she had been in years.

The picture in her hand is so bright and filled with warmth. You can tell that the kiss they share is not lacking in love. Kairi cradles her wife in her arms like she might blow away in the wind and her wife lovingly caresses her face as if she’s made of porcelain. It makes her heart clench in her chest. She’s going another year without her. 

Kairi subconsciously rubs the ring on her finger. It feels like it’s freezing against her skin. Her eyes drift over to it and she feels tears sting her eyes once again. The ring was a custom job by someone she was owed a favor by. Her ring was a pair of wings with a purple sapphire in the center of a V. Her wife’s ring was another set of wings with a dagger in the middle and a purple sapphire in the center. If she took her wife’s ring and stacked it onto hers, they would fit into each other perfectly. Her wife had cried when she saw them.

After all, purple sapphires were only found on Typhon.

Kairi never told her what she did to get her hands on those, but it was worth it. And she’ll do anything to get her wife in her arms again. A tear escapes her eye and lands on the photo as she leans over and picks up the small ring box, opening it with bated breath. Her wife’s ring glitters in the light, and a choked sob forces its way out of her lips.

“Kairi.” Her mother whispers, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her into a hug. She falls apart in her arms, sobbing as the grief returns full force as if she had just heard those words all over again. Those damn words that ruined the life she so carefully created.

Her mother pulls away once she calms down enough and gets up to make her some tea. Kairi lets out a long breath, running one hand over the dress, and stares back down at the picture. She’s not going to let the same thing that happened to her father happen to her wife.

“I’m going to find you, Renee.” Kairi promises through her tears, wiping away the teardrop that landed on the photo, “I promise.”

The wind blowing against her face and through her hair feels relaxing to Wraith. There’s never a moment where she dislikes being outside, even now with the situation they’re in. One moment they were celebrating Pathfinder and the next they had been called in to check out some kind of issue that appeared out of nowhere. Gigantic, thick, crawling vines started sprouting out of a ship and a woman who was involved with it is now dead.

Now, Wraith didn’t voice her complaints like some of the others. But, she didn’t understand why she had to be here. She understood calling for Dr.Somers or Natalie. Even Caustic. Shit, Anita is a smart choice since she’s the one leading them all out to this ship. But her? What’s her purpose? Dr.Somers and Anita nearly fist-fought each other over her, and she couldn’t understand why. There was no reason to. Yet they couldn’t come to an agreement and had her choose where to go in the end. So, she chose Anita’s team. It seemed like the most logical choice.

After all, what benefit would she be to Dr.Somers? Maybe another mind to add to the pile, but she’d just hold them back. She’d do much better out in the field, watching their backs as they dealt with… whatever this situation is. It makes her feel uneasy as she looks at the vines. Something about them seems familiar, but she can’t put her finger on it.

“Not without your jump kit, you won’t…” Anita dismisses, crossing her arms with a stern look on her face. Wraith looks to Loba and sighs. She knows that she relies too much on her bracelet, but that is not something she should be doing while they are on Olympus. Especially not when they’re so close to the edge and anything can happen. Wraith takes a moment to think it over and then begins unbuckling her jump kit.

‘I shouldn’t be doing this, but I feel like I shouldn’t be here either.’

‘You chose to be here. It was your decision.’ One of the Wraiths responds.

‘I think I should have chosen to stay in bed instead.’

“Sweet, Anita, but let a girl buy you dinner before going Mama Bear on her.” Loba teases Anita who looks unamused.

“Follow protocol and I might let you.” She replies as Wraith gets her jump kit off.

“Careful, Sergeant. I think you just agreed to a date—”

“Woah, mate!” Ramya notices Wraith walk past with her kit clutched in her arms, “What are you doing? Sarge is already irritated about one of us without our jump kit!”

“Relax, Ram.” Wraith gives her a small smile as all the attention turns to her, “It’s for Loba. I wouldn’t want her to miss out on a date with the Sarge if she plummets to her death.”

“Oh, Wraith, you’re too kind.” Loba coos as she comes up beside her, “But I have my bracelet, I don’t need one.”

“Nope.” Wraith shakes her head, starting to strap the jump kit onto her, “Not taking that chance. Besides, I can sit out here while you guys go in. If I need to portal in and evac you, then I’ll come in but you need this more than I do.”

“Thanks, Wraith.” Anita exhales, looking relieved as the jump kit is secured. Wraith straightens up and shrugs. It was no big deal. Unlike the rest of them, she was the only one who likely could save herself from falling to her death. Her portals were only limited within the Apex Games when the limiter device was strapped to her arm. Other than that, she was free to go wherever she wanted. No one had expected her to be able to portal onto that ship while it was flying, but she surprised them.

Would she try something wild like that because she’s confident she can? No. Would she do it because her life is on the line and she has no other option? Yes. But for now, she was going to find a bench and lay down until they needed her.

“No problem, Anita.” She flashes a smile and takes a step to the side, glancing at Loba to make sure she’s good before she moves away. She gets a nod in confirmation so she feels secure enough to walk away from her.

“Now that that’s out of the way. Let’s get in there—”

‘BEHIND YOU!’ A voice screams in warning. Wraith instinctually phases and feels something pass through where she had been just seconds before. She whirls around to see two vines switching directions and making a beeline for Loba who has no idea they’re approaching her. ‘That’s not just going to knock her over. That’s really going to hurt her if they hit her!’ She thinks in horror.

“ANDRADE! YOUR SIX!” Anita screams from behind her as she exits the void and shoves Loba out of the way of the vines. Wraith dodges one of them, jumps over another, and as she whirls around in the air she gets a glimpse of a group of them coming her way. Her eyes widen as she realizes she can’t do anything to stop them from hitting her, so she braces herself for the impact.

“Shit!” Wraith grunts as she’s hit in the chest, knocking the air out of her lungs with the impact. She goes flying and feels herself hit the ground, crying out as a sharp pain radiates from the back of her skull and her vision goes white. The next thing she knows, she feels the wind whipping around her body and that familiar pit in her stomach she gets when she’s dropping from Dropship. Except she’s not doing a controlled drop where she’s able to see where she’s going and she doesn’t have her jump kit. 

She’s falling blindly through the open sky.

“WRAAAIITH!” She hears her name distantly above her.

‘I gave my jump kit to her only to plummet to my death.’ Wraith chuckles to herself, staring above her with unseeing eyes. ‘I can’t even see to try to portal out of this. Is this really the way I go?’ She doesn’t feel panicked about dying, but she feels a sense of loss. There’s so much more she wants to do. There are so many more questions she has about herself that’ll go unanswered. That’s what pains her—knowing that she’ll be leaving all of that behind. That and the friends she’s made.

The sound of the wind whipping around her makes it a little hard to pick up the sound of jets until they’re close to her. Her vision also begins to clear up as they get louder, sounding as if they’re approaching her.

“Woah!” An unfamiliar voice exclaims as she’s caught in someone’s arms, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you!” Wraith turns her head in the direction of the voice and can make out a very blurry figure. Instinctually, she brings her arms up and clutches onto the woman holding her. Her only lifeline. The only thing keeping her from falling to her death. What are the chances she falls off Olympus into a woman’s arms? The statistics on that have to be like 0.001% or something, right? This is nothing short of a fucking miracle.

“You saved me…” Wraith breathes out, trying to see her better through the blurry colors that make up her face.

“I’m glad I did.” The woman responds, “It’d be a shame if I missed the chance to meet a beautiful woman like you.”

“Well, you didn’t… miss your chance.” Wraith feels her face warm and her vision clears up enough that the face in front of her is no longer just colorful blobs.

 “Oh.” She mutters as they merge into a cohesive image. The woman’s eyes move down to her, beautiful deep brown eyes showing concern for her before she looks back up to see where she’s going. ‘She’s… gorgeous.’ Wraith thinks, blinking a few times as her vision blurs in and out.

“Are you okay?” She asks in concern, slowing down and coming to a hover as her eyes move back over to Wraith.

“Um… yeah. I-I just need a minute- to- to sit down, I-I think.” Wraith stutters, her mind feeling foggy now that she’s not falling through the sky, and has to put in the effort to think about herself.

“You should get looked at by a medic. You don’t look too good.” Her gaze softens and Wraith is lucky enough to see it before her vision blurs once more.

“Valk?!” Ramya’s voice sounds.

“Ram!” The woman holding her exclaims happily.

“You two know each other?” Anita joins in, sounding more accusatory than curious, Wraith notes.

“Know her? I gave her wings!” Ramya says proudly.

 Valk – Wraith now has something to call the woman holding her – carefully puts her down and the moment Wraith’s feet touch the dock, she stumbles as if she’s a baby learning to walk for the first time.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Valk grabs her by her shoulders and Ramya puts a hand on her back to stabilize her, “Yeah, no, you’re not walking anywhere.”

“Fuck…” Wraith groans, holding her head as the pain increases, “Not fighting you there.”

“Lemme take a look at ’cha!” Ajay walks over.

“As much as I would love that.” Valk bends down and picks Wraith back up, making her gasp and grab for her again, “We have to get everyone away from these vines. STAT!”

“Wait a damn sec–” Anita protests.

Wraith rests her head against Valk’s chest and feels her eyes get heavy. The world fades away, and she can only focus on the heat radiating from the body against her. She can feel the vibrations coming from Valk’s chest, feel her talking, and then she’s in the air. The wind is brushing against her face and she turns her head and closes her eyes to keep the wind out of them. Sleep tugs at the edge of her mind and her chest burns.

‘Don’t fall asleep.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

‘Stay awake.’

“Hey. Hey, Wraith!” Valk calls her name, and she opens her eyes with some difficulty. She feels herself lowered to the ground, her back rested against something, and she looks up at Valk. The way the light beams down on her and shines through the gaps in her wings, makes her appear to Wraith like one of the angels she read about. Fitting, considering she saved her life.

“There she is.” She says with a smile and Wraith feels her heart flutter, “I’m going to get Ajay. She asked me to grab her and bring her over to you. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Wraith nods slowly, feeling unable to respond verbally. Valk hovers by her for a moment, examining her before nodding in return. She walks a good distance away before Wraith watches her engage the jets and take off to her amazement. She’s never seen anything like it before. It’s nothing like their jump kits. She’s actually flying and not just hovering or getting boosted. She’s genuinely flying. ‘She’s so cool.’ Wraith rests her head behind her, feeling completely sapped of energy. ‘Ramya said she made those. I should ask her how she did it.’ She stares in the direction Valk disappears, wondering what’s going on with the others. She didn’t hear any of the conversation after they brought up the evac, but she wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what they were doing right now.

‘Wake up!’

“Ohhh no ya don’t!” Ajay’s familiar accent greets her as she feels something pinch her chest, “Come on, Wraith. I need ya tuh open ya eyes for me.”

“Good to know I’m not greeting the angels yet.” Wraith jokes weakly, looking up to see Ajay, Makoa, and Loba gazing back at her with concern.

“Glad to see that you’re not a goner, beautiful.” Loba says to her, sounding relieved, “I wouldn’t be able to repay my debt.”

“But you don’t look good, sistah. You’re paler than you usually are!”

“Definitely a concussion, I’m afraid.” Ajay frowns, “D.O.C and I can get you back on your feet, but we gotta get ya back to the hospital an’ get you scanned. Make sure there’s no damage to your head.”

“Oh, good.” Wraith can’t help but mutter bitterly to herself, “More of a reason to call me brain damaged.” However, the sad looks she gets from the two medics show that they heard her.

Movement behind the two in front of her catches her attention. She sees Valk hovering behind the two of them and looking her way. Wraith’s eyes widen slightly as she sees her, taking in the way her body is clearly off the ground, and how effortlessly she seems to be doing that. Valk lifts a hand and gives her a small wave and Wraith returns it. Then she sees Anita approaching with a determined look on her face and tries to pay attention as Ajay fiddles around.

“Hey! We need to talk!” Anita calls out and grabs everyone’s attention, “Like who the hell are you and why are you here?” She demands, staring down Valk like she’s some kind of intruder.

“Name’s Kairi Imahara. Callsign: Valkyrie.” She introduces herself and Wraith shivers hearing her name. Something tingles in the back of her mind with that sentence. She stares at the flying woman, trying to understand why she all of sudden feels… off about her. But her mind isn’t clear enough and her vision still blurs as she tries to focus. ‘I really hit my head that hard.’ She sighs. ‘I’ve had worse head injuries. I’ve cracked my skull open for fuck sakes, but I can’t shake this?’

“You must stay away from the vines. You could have a fatal reaction to them. Starts with bleeding eyes. 72 hours later? You’re in a body bag.” Kairi continues with her warning from earlier. Wraith frowns and looks down at her hands. She was in direct contact with the vines. Does this mean plummeting to her death isn’t the only thing she has to worry about?

“What’s the cure?” Anita questions and Wraith looks up in interest.

“That’s the bad news, Sarge—”

“I didn’t ask for bad news. I asked about the cure.” Anita cuts her off and the look on Kairi’s face makes Wraith feel uneasy, “Cause if you’re right, I got three days to figure out how to survive. So talk fast, New Girl.”

Wraith’s body goes cold and Ajay and Makoa stiffen beside her.

“I…” Kairi trails off and finally lands, her feet touching the ground with a solid thud, “I think it’s better if we have everyone together. That way I don’t have to repeat it. Besides, Wraith needs medical attention.” She points over to her and everyone looks in her direction. Wraith shakily raises a hand.

“Don’t worry about me, I’m fi-” Her lungs burn and she begins coughing. Coughing so hard that her chest constricts and she can’t get any air in. Something hot and wet rises up her throat and forces its way out of her mouth, splattering onto her hand.

Even in the haziness, she can tell it’s blood.

“Oh, shit!” Makoa.

“Dat’s not good!” Ajay.

“We’ve got to go!” Loba.

“Hold on, Wraith!” Kairi. She feels herself getting picked up. When did she close her eyes? It feels like she’s falling. Or… flying?

“Just- Please, hold on!” Kairi begs desperately, her voice cracking and she sounds as if about to cry. ‘She must be a very caring person to get emotional over someone she just met.’ That thought is the last thing on her consciousness as it all fades away.

“I’m assuming you’re my pilot?” Renee asks the teenager hanging out on the dock she was instructed to report to. She’s skeptical, but none of the other ships seem to be ready for takeoff. In fact, the hangar is a ghost town. Likely courtesy of Marder who doesn’t want the base knowing she’s being carted off until she’s gone. 

“Yup. Name’s Kairi Imahara. Callsign: Valkyrie.” The teenager in front of her holds out her hand, “I’m your pilot for this trip. Normally I don’t give my civilian name, but the General insisted. So, call me Kairi. But around others it’s Valkyrie.”

“Renee Hope Blasey. Call me Hope and I’ll kill you.” She shakes her hand and then adjusts the duffel bag on her shoulder, “Aren’t you a little young to be a Carrier-class pilot?”

“Aren’t you a little young to be a grunt?” Kairi raises an eyebrow, crossing her arms as she leans against the doorway. Renee chuckles emotionlessly.

“I’m eighteen. And for your information, I’m not a grunt and I was born into the military.” Renee walks past her, hearing the sound of the door closing.

“Oohh, let me guess. Gridiron legacy?”

“Good one. I’m not like one of those pretentious fucks.” She scoffs and tosses her duffel on the bench next to her, “I’m a base brat. ARES Division. Typhon born and raised.” She turns and smirks at her, relishing in the stunned look Kairi gives her. She’s learned to accept that anyone she mentions that to is going to look at her like she’s a ghost or a saint. So, it became a point of entertainment instead of irritation for her after four years. After all, the number of people born and raised on Typhon can be counted on one hand.

“You’re the Typhon chick?”

“You’ve heard about me?” She raises an eyebrow.

“You’re not the first person I’ve smuggled for Marder.” She shrugs and sits down on the bench, crossing her arms behind her head, “Except they were chatty adults who had a lot to say about the brat Marder was favoriting.”

“Glad to know I’ve got fans.”

“Everyone needs a few.” Kairi grins, “And you are a grunt. I’m escorting you to Gridiron for training.”

“On paper.” Renee rolls her eyes and leans against the wall, “I’ve got more training and experience than my Commanding Officers. We had a training ground on Typhon and the Simulacrum that ran it did her best to make sure almost I died trying to complete the tests. But, Marder wants to do this by the book. So I’m being shipped out.”

“I’d love to hear more about that.”

“Are you going to kiss my ass for it? You and I have a month together until we arrive.”

“Oh, they’re going to hate you at Whitehead.” She laughs and then stands up, “Let me show you where you’ll be sleeping and then we’ll be heading out. I hope you like rations. That’s what we’ll be eating for most of this trip.”

“I love rations.” She grabs her duffle bag and follows her down the hall, “I wish they had prowler ones though. They probably taste better than the beef.”

“You’ve eaten prowler?” Kairi snaps her head in her direction, “What the fuck does that taste like? What possessed you to eat that?”

Renee thinks of her days exploring the Typhon wilderness, “I killed one and wondered what it tasted like. I think you trade your sanity when they make you a genius.” She jokes. 

“Beautiful, a genius, but lacking sanity.” Kairi ticks off on her fingers, “Got it. I’ll keep that in mind. Anything else I should know?”

“I have a horrible temper?”

“Emotional regulation. I’ll file that under the sanity part.” She taps her fingers against her lips, “I figured that with how emotionless your voice sounds. Although, that’s not a bad thing. This sounds like a trip I’ll enjoy.” She grins at her, genuinely sounding happy about it. That makes Renee wonder if this teenager is all there, too.

“I hope you’re getting your money's worth.”

“Well, now that I know you’re the Typhon chick, I’m definitely having him add on a few more zeros!”

Renee smiles to herself, “You know, I think we’re going to get along just fine, Imahara. How old are you anyway?”

“Fifteen.” Kairi stops in front of a door and inputs a code in the keypad, “And before you say I’m too young for this, I was flying my Dad’s Titan at eleven.”

“No. I was going to say that whatever you're after? If you keep up this pace, you’ll reach it eventually.” Wraith leans in the doorway and makes eye contact with her, “You’ve caught Marder’s eye. Keep it. He’s a bastard but he’s got connections.”

Kairi gives her a secretive smile, “No offense, Blasey, but what do you think you are? I get you to Gridiron safe and the sky’s the limit.”

“I guess we’re both using each other then.” Renee smirks and holds her hand out again, “Get me to Gridiron in one piece and I’ll make sure to leave a glowing review.”

“Deal.” Kairi shakes her hand.

“Fuck…” Wraith groans as she comes to. Her body feels like it’s been tumbled through the dryer like a pile of wet clothes. She opens her eyes, hears the steady beeping of her heart monitor, and makes eye contact with Natalie.

“You’re awake!” Natalie smiles happily, “Oh, Wraith, you really scared us!” She grabs her hand and squeezes it.

“Sorry, Nat.” She squeezes her hand back, “I didn’t mean to do that. It was just a concussion. Or, it was supposed to be.”

“You passed out. The new Legend um… Kairi? Said that you were bleeding from your nose and mouth the whole way here. Those aren’t symptoms of the virus, but it freaked her out.” Natalie frowns and Wraith realizes she has been crying from the wet look of her eyelashes, “The doctors said you don’t have the virus, but your concussion is a bad one. You broke your ribs at some point, too, and that is where the blood from the coughing came from.”

“I didn’t notice any of that.” Wraith sighs, leaning back into the pillows, “My pain tolerance is too high.”

“Mm, I do remember you mentioning that.” She nods and then makes a noise as she jumps up, “Oopsies, I forgot about Elliot. One minute! I’ll go and get the Doctor as well!” She scurries from the room and leaves Wraith by herself.

Now that she’s alone, her thoughts immediately drift back to the dream she had before she woke up. It was a strange one. Was it… Was it really a dream? It didn’t feel like one. It felt too real. Too vivid to be a dream. Like when she had nightmares about her time in the facility. She knew those were real memories coming back to haunt her in her sleep. But this? This is a dream about her and Kairi. Teenage Kairi. Why would she dream about that when she only just met the older version of her?

Wraith frowns and plays with the blankets. ‘No. That was a memory. It had to be.’ It feels like it. She balls up the blankets in her hands. ‘Does this mean I know Kairi? That she knows who I am?’ The heart monitor picks up speed and she takes a deep breath. She doesn’t know if she’s getting excited or nervous or both. What if this isn’t a memory? What if it’s some weird concussion fever dream? What if-?

“It’s a relief to see you awake.” Doctor Blaire smiles brightly at her, walking into the room with Natalie, Elliot, and Ajay hot on her heels.

“Hello, Dr.Blaire. I didn’t think you’d be the one treating me.” Wraith greets her, relieved that the one treating her is the same doctor who looks after her during the Games.

“They wouldn’t allow anyone else to care for you, Wraith.” She chuckles, checking over her vitals, “How are you feeling?”

“Like I can’t feel my toes.” Wraith admits.

“That would be the painkillers. They didn’t want me to give you any restorative until you woke up.” She writes something down, “Now, your CT scan came back negative. No cranial bleeding! That’s a good thing. Your chest x-ray showed broken ribs on your mid to lower section. Two managed to puncture your right lung, filling it with blood and collapsing it which is what led to your episode out there.”

“With my condition, shouldn’t I have gone critical much faster?” Wraith furrows her brow and glances at Ajay.

“Makoa and I did what we could to stabilize ya out there.” Ajay chimes in, “It’s t‘anks ta Kairi we got you here in time. She flew you all the way ‘ere.”

“A collapsed lung and filled cavity. You’re lucky to be here.” Doctor Blaire injects something into her IV line, “But, once the restorative gets through you’re cleared. It pays to be a top Legend, hm? Make sure you thank your saviors.”

“I will.” Wraith nods, “Um, so I’m not infected?”

“With the virus? No. All of the bleeding was from the perforation in your lungs. You’re not dying on us anymore, Wraith.”

“What about Anita?”

“Let the restorative take hold and you can head into the conference room.” She gives a sympathetic smile, indicating to the right, “It’s down the hall.” Then she disappears through the doorway and closes it behind her. The lack of information on Anita did not go unnoticed.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Elliot bursts out, “They’re getting set up in the conference room right now. But when we heard what happened to you and Anita, everyone freaked out. Dr.Somers started mumbling to herself like she does when she goes into scientist mode and Natalie started-”

“Elliot!” They all chime together, making him stop abruptly.

“Breathe.” Wraith tells him and he takes a deep breath, giving her a worried look.

“What I mean to say is that I was scared I was gonna lose you. What were you thinking?” He crosses his arms.

“I was thinking Loba was definitely going to get herself killed if I didn’t do something, and I was right.” Wraith says dryly, making him wince. “You didn’t see those things. I protected my chest and still got broken bones. If they had hit her, she’d be dead. If I hadn’t given her my jump kit, she’d be dead.”

“Kairi saved you from falling, no?” Natalie tilts her head, sitting on the bed with Ajay.

“And what are the chances of that? What if she hadn’t been there when Loba fell?”

The room is silent. She’s right. The time it took for her to put the jump kit on Loba and everything from there to her falling led to Kairi being in place to catch her. If Wraith had fallen sooner, she might’ve just fallen straight to her death without knowing of the woman’s existence. She didn’t want to think of Loba standing so close, by herself with her back to the unknown, without a jump kit. She wasn’t like Wraith with a sixth sense and her voices as backup. That wouldn’t have gone well.

“Patient: Wraith. You are clear for departure.” An automated voice sounds. She zones back in and realizes that she can feel her body. She flexes her hands, wiggles her toes, and sighs in relief. Ajay is already reaching for her, helping her out of bed while Natalie yanks Elliot out by his ear.

“Ow, ow, ow! Hey!”

“We’ll see you soon!” Natalie winks as they exit. Wraith and Ajay chuckle and they’re quiet as she gets dressed. She feels fine. Maybe a bit hazy still but restoratives don’t help with concussions in the same way they help with other physical injuries. The brain is a completely different matter.

“All good?” Ajay asks once she’s dressed.

“As good as I’ll be.” She shrugs.

“Then, let me take you to the conference room. I’ve got to head out after dat.”

“I appreciate it.”

The walk to the conference room is a quiet one, all because Wraith is caught up with everything going on. Now that she knows she’s okay, her worry for Anita is starting to creep up on her. Out of all of them, she was the one to get the deadly reaction? It’s almost ironic. Anita had been the safest out of all of them. She hadn’t even come into direct contact with the vines like Wraith had, but she’s the one whose life is on the line. Wraith sighs. How is it that she’s always escaping death by the skin of her teeth?

‘Because we don’t fear death.’

‘That’s one way to put it.’ She considers as she reaches the conference room. She says goodbye to Ajay and knocks softly on the door before entering. The tension in the room is so thick if she had her kunai, there’s no doubt in her mind she could cut into it. Her eyes land on Kairi who’s standing at the head of the table with Dr.Somers and Loba. Sitting down in front of her are Elliot and Natalie with an empty chair in between them, likely for her since they both would have wanted to sit next to her. Brooding in the corner is Caustic, looking ever the bit like he wants to be anywhere but here. Wraith silently agrees with him. Not that she doesn’t want to help with saving Anita and these people, but this is the one place she doesn’t think she should be. She’s not a scientist anymore.

“Wraith!” Dr.Somers brightens up when she sees her, “Are ya okay, deary?”

“Nothing a restorative couldn’t fix.” She deflects and takes the empty seat, “What have I missed?” She wanted to get down to it. There was no time to waste.

“Well,” Dr.Somers sighs, “Ya know why yer here. The Legacy Antigen. 203 people have already been admitted with bleeding eyes, and that number is climbing by the minute. If Kairi’s right? We have less than three days to find a cure.”

‘Less than three days. That’s right. We need to make this and distribute it before the clock runs out.’ Wraith zones out. ‘How are we going to do that? We can’t get close to the vines to study them or we’ll risk getting sick.’

“...greatest scientific minds among the Legends, working together to save lives.” Natalie’s cheery voice snaps her out of her thoughts.

“I’m not exactly in touch with my inner scientist these days.” She points out, leaving out the fact that she can’t even remember being a scientist. Wraith looks at Kairi and they make eye contact as she speaks. There’s something in her eyes as she says that—a knowing. A shock goes through Wraith and she finds herself straightening up.

“At least you were one…” Elliot’s voice fades away as they hold eye contact. She can’t look away from her, even as Dr. Somers grabs Kairi’s attention. What was that? Did she see right? She had to… right? Kairi understood what Wraith meant when she said that, but she shouldn’t have. Because she doesn’t know that Wraith lost her memories. Not unless she knew Wraith from before. But even then, sometimes people forget a face when they haven’t seen each other in a long time. How would she know that’s not the case? They would’ve had to be close. Wraith zones out as she stares at Kairi, her vision blurring and the room around her falling away.

“So you’re telling me you remember everything in perfect detail and all you have to do is study it a few times?” Kairi’s voice is filled with curiosity.

“Yes.” Renee lifts her legs and lays across the co-pilot chair, “I really wanted to join my parents in the field as a kid, but I didn’t know the protocol. So, I forced myself to memorize it. The more I practiced, the easier it got.”

“That’s so cool! I’m a fast learner, but not like that. I can only care about things that interest me. Don’t bother asking me about history. Boooring!”

Renee snorts, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered on that. Any other subject you find boring?”

“Not really.” Kairi looks up at her, lying upside down in her pilot chair, “What area are you planning on enlisting in? You know, since you’re transferring to Whitehead.”

“You’re asking me that knowing Marder is sneaking me out?”

“Yeah, and?” She raises an eyebrow.

Renee sighs, “My personal goal is a Science Pilot, but I'm sticking with the Army. Staying with ARES.”

“The IMC will let you do that? Choose where you want to go?”

“No, but when Marder demands I take up station with him there’s nothing they can do about it. It’s not like I’d tell him no anyway. The Division is my home. My people are there.”

“You have a lot of loyalty to them.”

“I wouldn’t call it loyalty.” Renee denies it, but what would she call it? She grew up in those halls. Knew those people by name. Hell, Marder carried her in his arms as a baby. Her mom and dad lived and died from it. And anyone else would leave and never look back after their home planet explodes. But, not her. If that’s not loyalty, then what is it?

“Love, then?”

“Definitely not.”

Kairi gives her a strange look and then laughs, “You need to think about your emotions more. Because if it’s not loyalty or love, something is keeping you with them. Unless you’re just in denial.”

“I’m not in denial.” She narrows her eyes.

“Dude, I feel like you’re the kind of person to have a crush on someone and go “I really like them but platonically” and misrepresent those feelings.”

“Oh really? Tell me more.”

“Well, I just think you- AH!” Renee kicks her chair and makes her go flying out of it with a loud thud, “Ugh, you could have just told me to shut up.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

As the teenage Kairi’s voice cuts off, she can hear Natalie and Elliot’s voices going back and forth around her. Her eyebrow twitches and she raises her arm as she tries to reorient herself, knowing that whatever conversation is going on, it’s not the necessary one.

“Enough!” Wraith says firmly, her voice louder than intended and making them jump, “Valkyrie, what are we up against?”

Kairi seems a little startled at being addressed but she collects herself, “I encountered the vines when I found my dad’s Titan… No matter what I tried they wouldn’t come off.” She glances back down at the papers in her hands, “I found research papers in the wreckage and tracked down one of the scientists. They were genetically modifying the vines. Weaponizing them. Called it Project: Legacy. What do you expect from a planet like Typhon?” She looks up and makes eye contact with Wraith as she says it.

Wraith is out of her seat before she stops herself. She grabs a hold of the papers in Kairi’s hands and Kairi doesn’t protest or resist as she takes them. She feels nearly feverish as she scans the page, her grip on the paper tightening as if she’ll die if she lets it go. As if it’ll disintegrate or burst into flames if she so much as lets it slip between her fingertips.

“This thing’s from Typhon?!” She exclaims, the intricate handwriting making her stomach twist, “But those ships aren’t IMC. Or ARES.” Whoever wrote this could have been someone she knew. She can’t look away. She just… can’t. She searches the page for the names of the scientists that were working on the project. She finds it in one of the corners and her eyes hover over a name that makes her brain itch.

“Are you sure you want to join the ARES Division?” Kairi asks, kicking her feet in the sand. She snuck her way to Gridiron to see her, so Renee decided to indulge her.

“I never left. A lot of respectable scientists lost their lives on Typhon. Dr.Kippern was one of them. I looked up to him. He worked closely with my mom and would bring me along to his projects when my mom couldn’t.”

“Doesn’t the Division do inhumane experiments?” She frowns and looks at her.

“How’d you know that?”

“My dad. He was contracted to ARES. I overheard things.”

“Not everyone touches that sector.” Renee picks up some sand in her hand, “You have to have the right credentials for it.”

“Do you?”

“I was born into it.” She responds simply, watching Kairi’s face for her reaction, “That’s my credential. The moment they knew I took an interest in it, I had a scalpel in my hand as soon as I could stomach it. Marder is waiting for me to graduate and return.”

When Kairi doesn’t show a response, she continues, “Does that scare you? That I can be capable of that?”

“No.” Kairi meets her eyes, “My dad was a mercenary. My mom was an assassin before she had me. They were good people but didn’t do good things. You don’t scare me, because I know you’re not a bad person.”

Renee tilts her head, contemplating that, “That’s an intriguing answer.”

Everyone is scared of her. Even here on Whitehead. It’s what she’s used to, being who she is. People are afraid of her mind. Of the fact that she can do things and shove her feelings aside if it means getting the project done. But not Kairi. Those eyes look at her as if she’s the brightest star in the sky. As if she can do no wrong.

“It’s my answer.”

“Do you see anything on there, Wraith? Can you read it?” Kairi asks her, touching her shoulder gently, “I could read some of it, but a lot of it is in scientific terms.” Her voice is deeper than her teenage voice. Wraith nods, feeling a bit startled that she dissociated so suddenly.

“Um, yeah, actually.” She clears her throat, scanning the pages and feeling surprised that she does understand what she’s reading. Sure, someone who isn’t a scientist could pick it up and piece it together, but not very well. She can make sense of it perfectly. From the scientific names of the creatures to the chemical names to the formulas and the compounds they mention. It all makes sense to her.

“They talk in detail about the project, but these first few pages just explain what they’re trying to do.” Wraith tells them, flipping through as she goes along, “I should be able to find out how they mutated the vines in these other pages.”

“Let me hold onto those first ones then.” Kairi holds out her hand.

“Thank you, that helps.” Wraith hands the papers over to her and continues looking over the ones in her hands. There’s an ache in her chest as she does and she gently rubs at her ribs. A soft hiss leaves her lips as a sharp pain radiates from the area, but as fast as it was there it was gone.

“Are you okay?” Natalie walks over and gives her a concerned glance, “Did the restorative not work?”

“It’s likely a wee bit of phantom pain.” Dr.Somers smiles, “She’ll be fine with some rest.”

“What are you up to now?” Natalie asks.

“We’re trying to figure out how they were able to pull this off. It should be here in their notes, but it’s taking a minute to find.” She isn’t really lying about that. These research notes are incredibly detailed, so it’s taking her some time to read through them. It’s just that’s not the only thing. Part of her feels like she recognizes this handwriting. The more she reads it, the more she feels a sense of nostalgia and it kind of freaks her out. Yet, she’s relieved that she’s the one looking at them because it’s typical ARES Division notes. They’re straight to the point and don’t hold anything back.

“They’d need a roadmap. A blueprint. Somethin’ in nature that already has this trait. Find that, dear, and you’ll find your cure.” Dr.Somers chimes in as she reaches the part she’s been looking for. Wraith feels like she wants to celebrate. If there’s one thing she had to hand to ARES it’s how thorough they are. Every detail had to be written down even if it was an accident.

“They had one. A mammoth-class arachnid. Rare, emits a toxic gas from its abdomen.” Wraith says and starts to hear a high-pitched ringing in her ears. She winces, raising a hand to her head as Elliot says something. The lights in the room flare and she squeezes her eyes shut with a whimper.

“What do you want, brat? Calling me on an encrypted line at 2 am will not make me fond of you. I have a presentation in the morning.”

“A Science Pilot? You couldn’t do something cool like Armed Forces?” She jokes. They both knew Renee’s goal was never to be on the front lines. No matter what her COs tried to convince her to do after seeing her scores. Her calling is within the Division.

“I’m hanging up on you.”

“No! No!” There’s the sound of something falling and a soft groan, “What’s your project on? Tell me about it. Maybe it’ll help me sleep.” She continues with a strained voice. Renee has to stop herself from chuckling. That idiot fell out of her bunk.

Renee stops writing and puts her pen down, “You called because you can’t sleep?”

“Yes?” Kairi answers sheepishly.

She sighs and rearranges some papers around, “Are you scared of spiders?”

“What? No. Who’s scared of spiders?” Kairi sounds almost insulted that she asked her that question. Renee smiles as she stares down at her sketch of the creature.

“You might change your mind after I tell you about my area admission project. I won’t go into details of the actual project, but there are these mammoth-class arachnids on Gaea called Carthage spiders. Nasty fuckers. I’m going to be doing my presentation on them.”

“...That’s it?” She whines, “You’re not going to elaborate?”

“Do you want to sleep tonight?”

“Well, yeah! That’s why I called you! The last time you talked about a project, I was out!”

“You won’t sleep if I tell you how it hunts down and kills its prey. Considering they’re big enough to eat a human, I’m saving you from nightmares.”

“You know, sometimes I think you don’t like when I call.”

“What gave that away, Kai?” Renee puts her phone on speaker and picks up her pen, “Is it all the times I’ve hung up on you? Or the times I’ve left you talking to an empty room?”

“Neither. You sound bored when we talk.” Kairi sounds as if she’s pouting, “I can deal with that other stuff. You’re busy, Miss Genius Scientist-in-Training. But, do I bore you?”

“You want a genuine answer?” Renee rests her chin in her hand, feeling amused with the direction of this conversation. Leave it to Kairi to keep her on her toes and she’s not even on the same planet as her. She didn’t expect to end up with such an interesting investment when she shook her hand.

“Can you even lie to me?” There’s amusement in her voice, “Yeah, I do.”

“Most things bore me. You are not one of them. I’m sorry my tone of voice hurts you. I’ll… work on it. I guess.”

“YES! HAHAHA! I knew it! You care about me!” She celebrates on the other side of the phone. Renee can picture her excitedly dancing around her little bedroom on her ship and she shakes her head with a fond smile.

“Goodnight, Kairi.” She says, her finger hovering over the end call button.

“No, don’t hang-!”

“Wraith?” A soft squeeze of her shoulder, “Is the light bothering your eyes?”

“Huh?” She opens her eyes and turns her head to see Kairi looking at her in concern. Those beautiful, brown eyes glimmer in the light. Her breathing catches and she looks around realizing that they’re the only two left in the conference room. How had everyone left without her noticing? There’s nothing anyone can do without her picking up on it.

“I noticed you rubbing your eyes as everyone rushed out to get the things they’ll need for the trip. We’re going to get ready to go and then come back to go over everything one last time. I wanted to check and make sure you’re okay before I go prepare.”

��I…” Wraith doesn’t know what to say. Hey, I think I remember memories of you and me from when you were a teenager. That definitely makes her sound crazy. But, she wants to know if these are real memories. Because if they are then Kairi is a link to her past. Someone who is right in front of her that she can actually talk to and get information from.

“…I’m not feeling very well.” She lies, anxiety suddenly taking over, “I think they didn’t give me the right dose of the restorative. My head hurts and my eyes are still sensitive.” She crosses her arms. 

“You should get some rest when this is all over. You deserve it.” Kairi smiles softly, stroking her shoulder, “I heard what you did for Loba. That was sweet of you.” A warmth rises to Wraith’s cheeks and she flusteredly glances to her feet.

“Yeah, well, if you hadn’t been there to catch me, I’d be dead. So, thank you for saving me.” Wraith hopes she can’t see her blushing, “Not just from the fall, but for carrying me to the hospital, too. You saved my life.” She rests her hand on top of Kairi’s and gives it a small squeeze. Normally she’s not this touchy. Not with people she’s just met. But for some reason, it feels natural to do it with her.

“I’d do it again, without question. Besides, I can’t turn away a damsel in distress.” She jokes, grinning at her, “What kind of hero does that make me?”

“There’s a hero here?” Wraith looks around the room like someone else is going to jump out at them.

“Hey!” Kairi playfully hits her, puffing out her cheeks, “That’s no way to treat your savior!” She gasps dramatically, making them laugh. Wraith gets a good look at her while they do. Admiring the way she looks while her head is tilted back in laughter, her eyes squeezed shut with mirth. There’s this vibrancy the joy brings to her that makes the new Legend glow and it’s something that Wraith finds herself really liking.

“I’ll treat you when you come back then.” Wraith promises, resting a hand on her hip, “You get that cure and I’ll take you out to dinner. How about that?” She smiles, hoping she agrees to it.

“Oh? Dinner?” She perks up with an adorably excited expression, “I can eat. But, I don’t know any good places around here. Think you could show me around?” Kairi asks casually, crossing her arms with a tilt of her head.

“Yeah, I know this great place.” She nods, thinking about this curry place Ramya took her to, “If you can handle level five spices.” She eyes her. The first time Ramya took the Legends to the restaurant, they didn’t know what to expect so they let her order for them. Big mistake. Wraith had no issue with the spices. She enjoyed every second of it but the others who couldn’t handle it had the worst time. After the mechanic had her laugh she ordered them mild dishes but they swore to never return to the restaurant again. Wraith took advantage of that and made it one of her regular spots. The owners and her are close and she’s also picked up their language. An arena coming here only made them more enthusiastic about her learning.

Kairi laughs, “I can handle that. Food is kind of my thing. There isn’t anything I can’t handle when it comes to that.” She brags, winking. That makes Wraith laugh and shake her head.

“You’re something, Kai.” The nickname tumbles from her lips without her realizing it, “I shouldn’t keep you any longer, so let me give you my number before I forget. I can’t contact you if I don’t have it. Unless you’ll catch me if fall from another floating city?” She takes out her phone and unlocks it, quickly navigating to her contacts and pulling it up for her. She flips it around and hands it over to her, their fingers brushing against each other in the exchange.

“If you fall, I’ll be there to catch you.” Her eyes flick up as her lips twitch into a smile, “But, I’d prefer not having to save your life for a second time so soon. So please call me when you’re all dolled up and ready to go.” She saves her number, texts herself, and hands Wraith her phone back.

“Dolled up? I think you’re expecting too much. I’ll be going like this after we’re done here.” She chuckles and then her smile drops and she looks at her shoes, “Anita needs this cure. All these people do. They’ll die without it.” She sighs heavily. Kairi puts a comforting hand on her shoulder and Wraith meets her gaze.

“Then, I’ve got to get my ship prepared so we can head out.” Kairi gazes at her softly, caressing her shoulder as if she’ll break if she touches her too hard, “You need to go rest. You may have been given strong medicine but you’re not unbreakable. Stop thinking things will fall apart if you’re not helping. Take a minute, please.”

“I will.” She nods, the atmosphere in the room feeling soft and sweet, “You be careful out there. Carthage spiders are no joke. I want you back in one piece if we’re going out to eat together. I’d hate to lose such a handsome face so fast.” She impulsively runs her fingers under Kairi’s jaw.

“Pfft, I’m not scared of spiders.” Kairi grins, her cheeks a soft hue of pink as she backs away and heads for the door, “I’ll bring you back that cure. I promise… Oh! Do you like flowers?”

“I’ll hold you to that. And, yeah, I do.” Wraith nods, “Why?”

“I was curious about whether or not the mysterious Wraith liked flowers is all.” She grins, shrugging as she pauses in the doorway to wave, “I’ll see you when we return.” Then she’s gone and Wraith finds herself even more curious about this new teammate. 

She stares at the doorway for a moment and realizes that she feels fuzzy but in a good way. Not the “I’m sick and need to lay down” way she’s been feeling since she woke up. That short conversation with Kairi cheered her up faster than she thought possible. It’s strange how she’s feeling so out of character with her. ‘She really is handsome.’ She thinks, remembering how her whole demeanor seemed to brighten as she laughed. Wraith grins down at the dark screen of her phone. When was the last time she’d had a thought like that about someone and it was not simply an observation, but a genuine compliment? ‘Wait.’ Wraith freezes, tightening her grip on her phone. ‘That wasn’t me just thinking she looks good?’ A vibration coming from her hand has her looking at her phone. ‘Ajay?’ She shakes her head to clear it and with a quick swipe, she opens her phone to view the message.

Ajay: T’ink you can grab a contact fa me?

Any distraction is a welcome one. She doesn’t want to think about the visions, flashbacks, hallucinations, or whatever is going on with her right now. Especially not with how they’re starring the newcomer and making her feel… different. So there’s no hesitation on her end to reply.

Wraith: Whose?

Kairi wasn’t sure how she kept herself together until she got onto her ship. It must have something to do with the years she’s had to develop her skills in keeping her composure. But, her legs gave out once the doors closed and she slid down to the floor with an audible thud. The pain in her ass is a minor inconvenience for the thoughts circling through her mind.

Dazed, she stares ahead and slowly looks down at her hands. She rushed up to the ship to warn the group taken out to explore it, but she never imagined catching someone falling to their death in the process. It took her mind a moment to register who was in her arms and once she did, she never wanted to let her go. Kairi lets out a long breath and flexes her fingers. She held her. Her wife.

Renee clutched onto her body desperately as she flew her back up. Kairi could tell that something was wrong with her how she stared unfocused at her and her words came out all slurred. It worried her. She half expected her to start bleeding from her eyes right then and there, but she knew the signs of a concussion. Renee only proved her right when she stumbled after she put her down. Then she was back in her arms and cuddled up to her and Kairi thought she’d melt on the spot. Oh, how she missed her. She had to fight the urge to lean down and bury her face in her hair. They had to get out of there. For once, Kairi was the one supporting her sick wife and she couldn’t help but feel amused. 

That was until she started coughing up blood.

All she could focus on was the blood. It was coming out of her mouth and her nose, and she had fallen unconscious with nothing bringing her back. Kairi had never run faster. She was not about to lose her. Not when she just found her again. Not when she finally got close to her. She pushed her jetpack to its limit to get to the hospital and practically screamed her voice sore to get her help in time. The other Legends in the hospital had looked at her crazy at first until they realized she had Renee in her arms. Kairi had almost knocked out the first person who tried to take her from her arms before she realized it was Mirage. He backed off just as a nurse arrived and she followed after them to pace outside of the emergency room doors.

When Renee actually saw her for the first time, Kairi hoped there’d be something there. She hoped she’d look at her and curse her out, call her a brat, or ask her what took her so long. But, Renee walked into the room and there was no acknowledgment. She knew there was something wrong. From the first Apex Games, she could tell that Wraith was her wife. She was every bit of the brutal, wicked beauty she had come to know and love. The mysterious abilities she displayed made her heart palpate in her chest.

Project: Wraith. She knew all about it. There were no secrets between wives.

To be face-to-face with the woman she loves and has yearned for and grieved over for years, only to be looked at with no recognition made her feel weak. But at the same time, Renee flirted with her back there. She flirted with her even though she didn’t remember her. Kairi feels herself blush as she chuckles, slowly pushing herself up off the ground. ‘Not only that, but she called me by my nickname. So that has to mean something.’ She walks to the controls and picks up the picture of them, carefully tucking it into her pocket. She’ll be putting it into her room so she doesn’t lose it on Gaea or have any of the other Legends see it.

“Okay, Kai. You can’t let her down. She’s waiting for you to come back with her favorite toxic flowers and deadly man-eating spiders in time to save an entire city… in exchange for a dinner date. No pressure.” She says to herself as she messes with the controls, getting them set up for the flight. She pauses as she goes to turn on her solar core and laughs.

“I can’t believe I’m going back there…” She flips the switch and locks it into place, letting out a sigh, “Maybe they won’t be as bad this time. I don’t have Renee to save our asses this time if they’re in breeding season. Not unless Caustic knows how to make a stink bomb out of flowers… Although, I doubt he would.” She mutters.

God, the moment she was able to… she was going to kiss Renee until she couldn’t breathe. She knew the kind of woman she had when she lost her. She knew and she missed her. She missed her more now that she finally found her.

She couldn’t wait to come back and go on that date.

It didn’t take Wraith long to sneak out and get the contact information Ajay was asking her for. Emphasis on sneaking out, because if Dr.Somers knew she left she’d be in for a long scolding. That’s why Ajay asked her to do it in the first place. She’s the only one who can get in and out without being spotted. Coming back inside Wraith didn’t expect to see so many people within the hallway, especially not how many were children: teenagers and younger. It makes her heart ache as she weaves through them, looking for any sign of the medic.

“Che!” She calls out to her when she finally spots her. Ajay doesn’t notice her, so Wraith slips into her portal and makes her way through the crowd.

“Ajay!” Wraith says as soon as she pops out next to her, “I got-!”

“Jeez an ages, Wraith, yuh scared me to death!” Ajay jumps, yanking off her headphones. Wraith sheepishly rubs the back of her neck. She should have realized that she couldn’t hear her calling her because of her headphones. That’s typical Ajay.

“Sorry.” She apologizes, “This place is a zoo!”

“More infections ev’ry hour… but yuh got it?”

“Current contact info for one Chico Sawtelle, right here.” She says smugly, holding up the piece of paper for her to see. She’s pretty proud of herself for getting it. As one of the original Legends, people in the entertainment field tend to make it too easy for her. Most of the time, she didn’t even have to smile. They bent over backward to appease her the moment she asked for something. Nicely or not. They liked it better when she was a bit colder though.

Ajay snatches it from her fingers faster than she can blink, “Gotta go! If you see Silva, tell him tuh call me!”

“What do you want with a trashy gossip vlogger?” Wraith asks, more confused than curious about what Ajay’s got going on. It just didn’t seem like something she’d be interested in. But, she doesn’t get an answer. Ajay scurries away without another word leaving her there even more confused. Today is just… not her day.

“Are you a doctor? I’ve been waiting for three hours…” A young girl’s voice sounds from behind her as a soft tap hits her shoulder. But Wraith feels a chill go down her spine and she stiffens as the world seems to warp around her. This only happens in very specific situations.

“Did you hear me?” The young girl’s voice sounds far away.

Wraith blinks and she can practically feel the other Wraith’s presence next to her as if she was physically there.

  ‘FIRE IN THE HOLE!’ She moves before her mind processes it, grabbing the younger girl and pulling her down to the floor. There are screams from around them as ceiling tiles come crashing down and the hallway fills with dust and debris. She keeps herself positioned over the girl until it stops, carefully checking her over once it is.

“Are you okay?” She asks. The girl nods.

“Was that a bomb? Are we under attack?!” The girl panics and Wraith shakes her head.

“I don’t think so. There’s no heat. No fire.” Wraith lifts her scarf over her mouth, scanning through the dust, “This isn’t the sound of one either. Stay here.” She instructs her and makes her way through the mess. She needs to go check on Anita. That’s what she was going to do before Ajay texted her anyway. With whatever just happened, she needs to do that now. With every step she takes her vision blurs and the panicked voices and the hospital hallway fades away to a warm sandy training ground.

“You're going to be in a lot of trouble, Blasey.” Adams snickers as he looks between her and Kairi who shrinks behind her.

“I’m going to be in trouble? I’m not the one throwing grenades near civilians, Adams.”

“I’m not the one sneaking them on base.” He retorts, eyeing Kairi, “How’d you even get her in here? This whole place is on lock 24/7.”

“Now why would I tell you? You’re just going to whine to Sarge anyway.” She tightens her grip on the girl. More to stabilize herself than to hold her. She’s not a fan of Adams. Because they fell next to each other in line, he took it personally and saw it as competition. Renee didn’t care. He couldn’t keep up with her so he wasn’t worth calling competition, unlike Kroha. She was worth calling competition.

“Maybe I won’t… if you agree to go on a date with me.” He grins and crosses his arms.

“The fuck?” Kairi curses, “Gross, dude! Mhm!” Renee covers her mouth and tucks her into her side. Kairi struggles against her, shouting muffled complaints against her hand. The tight hold she’s using is one she learned from her mom. It takes decent arm strength, and it’s not meant to restrain someone who’s really trying to get away from you.

“Is that all? A date?” She asks, picking up something out of the sand by where she had been sitting, “That’s all you want so you won’t tell Sarge?”

“For now.” He shrugs, “This is a big breach.”

“Alright then. Catch.” She tosses what’s in her hand to him and he catches it. He cradles it in his hands for a moment before holding it up, his brow furrowing. His confused facial expression turns into one of horror as she holds up her hand, the grenade’s pin dangling from her middle finger.

“Sorry, I’m not into men.” Renee shrugs, spinning the ring around.

“BLASEY, YOU’RE INSA-” He screams, trying to drop the grenade but it doesn’t even slip past his fingers when the grenade explodes. Kairi screams, clutching onto Renee out of instinct as the older girl covers her. 

Renee laughs, genuinely laughs, as she sees the mess of blood, guts, and bone fragments splattered all over the entryway. Adams’ body is blasted apart and tossed onto the ground like an unwanted rag doll. They were far enough away that the blast didn’t reach them, but she could feel pieces of bone in her hair and blood on her skin. Kairi is limp against her and she lets her go, grabbing her chin and having her meet her eyes.

“Did you see it?” She asks, searching her eyes for a response.

“…Yeah.” Kairi swallows, nodding her head. The action draws Renee’s eyes to the red splatter mark on her cheek.

“We’ll talk about it later. They’re going to come and investigate what that was because it wasn’t down range. I want you to duck behind those rocks over there until I come to get you. Don’t come out.” She uses her thumb to wipe the blood off her, “I mean it.”

“What are you going to tell them? How do you explain… that?” Kairi looks at the corpse, flinching as she meets Renee’s eyes again, “You’re going to get in trouble.”

“Simple. He was too busy flirting with me to remember he pulled the pin and wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell him. Casualties happen when you’re stupid.” She turns Kairi around and nudges her towards the rocks, “Now go.”

“Why’d you do it?” Kairi glances at her. Renee already knows she’s not going to get her into cover without a proper explanation.

“Let’s say I went on the date to get him off my back. He doesn’t tell Sarge but now he has dirt on me. He can use that to get me to do whatever he wants if I really want to keep my place at Whitehead.” Renee tsks, glaring at the dead body, “Adams is the kind of guy to tell Sarge anyway. He’ll get what he can out of me and then get the reward for telling. My issue with that is it puts you in danger. You’re not IMC. They’ll kill you. I can’t have that.”

“So you killed him.”

“And I’ll do it again to whoever walks through that door if you don’t hide.”

“Okay, sheesh. You have more grenades hiding in there?”

“Don’t make them find out.”

Wraith blinks and finds herself standing with a card in her hand, her picture and information on it. Her eyes widen as she examines it and realizes that it’s a registered practitioner’s ID card. A shiny golden star glitters in the corner and the picture is her with her hair up in a set of scrubs with a doctor's coat on. It’s a picture she doesn’t remember taking. The information on the card consists of her name, her medical ID, the year she obtained her license, and a scannable barcode.

‘You’re thinking about it too hard.’

‘So I should ignore that this card has information I didn’t know about?’

‘You should go find your friend and think about it later.’

Wraith sighs in annoyance, but she’s right. She makes the short trip to the west wing where Anita is being kept. The Syndicate has a section of the hospital reserved for the Legends and it’s the area Wraith had been when she woke up, too. With Loba hiring a security detail for Anita, no one can come in and out unless they’re hospital staff or cleared by her. So, the mysterious ID card in her hand is useful. All it takes is flashing the card to the muscular men outside Anita’s door, along with a few placating words and she’s walking into the room to a stressed-out woman.

“All that time wasted making shivs…” Wraith flashes her ID card at Anita who scowls at her, “Just needed to wave one of these in someone’s face.” She jokes, trying to lower the tense atmosphere in the room. With the way Anita’s face looks, she knows that doesn’t work.

“Yeah, well, knowing is half the battle.” Anita says dismissively, “‘scuse me.” She walks past Wraith who raises an eyebrow and looks at her.

“Going somewhere?” She asks casually, still trying to keep her from getting any more agitated.

“Lo said they’re mapping out a plan. Finding a cure.” Anita pauses and turns to her, “I need to be there.”

“I just came from there. They’ve moved on to preparation. You being there isn’t going to be any help when you’re not a part of the expedition.”

“Wait. You were part of this meeting of the minds?” She scoffs, continuing to the door, “They really were desperate. See ya, head case.”

Wraith slips into a portal, moving in front of the door before Anita can process it, and shifts her out of the way in the void. She always finds it interesting how the others react to her portals. While she has full control of her time inside of them, they travel through them too quickly, appearing on the other side in a blink. It likely has to do with her innate abilities, but she hasn’t had the chance to test it out.

“Sooner than you think, it seems.” Wraith quips as they swap places.

“I don’t have time for this!” She huffs in frustration.

“I know this is frustrating but we don’t know enough about the spores to let you leave-”

“And you get to?!” Anita shouts, throwing her hands to the side, “Just hours ago you were half-dead and bleeding from your mouth, and now you’re standing in front of me like it never happened! You got sucker punched by the vines and yet you’re not in here bleeding from your eyes and on a timer counting down the hours until you die! If anyone should be locked up like some kind of guinea pig, it should be you, Wraith!”

Wraith flinches.

“You need to stop telling me what I need and let me leave the room.” Anita grabs her by her scarf, glaring at her like she’s two seconds from throwing a punch.

“Okay, you’re clearly unhinged.” Wraith remarks, taking note of how hysterical Anita is, “If you think Loba will let you travel across the Outlands like this–”

“I don’t give a damn what Loba wants, I’m not going to lie here, feeling sorry for myself, waiting to die! I don't get off on my own misery…” Anita lets her go and shoves her away, turning around, “I’m not you, Wraith.”

Those words are like a bullet to her heart.

‘You said I wouldn’t regret coming here.’

‘Trust me. You won’t.’

“You’re right, Anita. You’re not like me.” She laughs coldheartedly and lowers her head, her bangs falling in front of her eyes, “You could never do what I’ve done.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anita’s voice sounds distorted.

“She’s a freak. Why doesn’t Sarge get rid of her?” Someone whispers behind her.

“Sergent Williams isn’t going to get rid of her, Lonnie. They’re using her to keep us in line. If we break the rules, rumor has it we’re going to die just… like… Adams.”

“Ugh, don’t even joke about that. I have nightmares about cleaning up that mess.”

“You don’t really believe Blasey killed him, do you?”

“She’s from Typhon. I heard rumors that they tortured people there. They cut them open and interrogated them while they were still conscious and could feel it. Of course, she killed him. She’s fucking deranged.”

“She… can hear you, Wells.” Renee turns and looks at the group huddled together behind her, “Why don’t you call me crazy a little louder? I don’t think the Militia heard you.”

Wraith looks at them unimpressed. They startle and Wells steps forward to say something when the hangar doors slide open. Sergeant Williams walks out and everyone straightens up, quickly moving into a line against the wall as he eyes them. His eyes linger on Wraith for a moment, taking in her appearance and eyeing her long ponytail before continuing down the line. She took a risk deciding to keep her hair in a ponytail today instead of in a bun, but they were going off-planet.

“Murderer.” Someone whispers behind her as Sarge walks back into the hangar.

She turns as he calls for them to come inside, “If you’re going to call me a murderer, make sure you don’t need my help during this research trip. You might not make it back alive.”

“Wraith!” A snapping sound in front of her has her grabbing the wrist of the person and slamming them into the wall. She wrenches their arm up between their shoulder blades, pinning them down with all her strength as she bares her teeth at them.

“Wraith, what the fuck?!” Anita shouts and she blinks, realizing that the person she’s pinning down is Anita and not… not someone from her vision. She abruptly lets go and puts space between the two of them, crossing her arms and looking away from her.

“Sorry.” She apologizes.

“Sorry?! You’re sorry?!” Anita hisses, rolling her shoulder, “You attacked me out of fucking nowhere after staring off into space. What the fuck is wrong with you? You really are a fucking head case.”

Again, Wraith flinches. This time a wave of anger floods through her and she clenches her fists. She glares at Anita.

“Doctor?! There’s something wrong with a patient and we can’t figure it out! Can you please come take a look?!” Someone begs, knocking urgently at the door. The anger in her evaporates with those words and they exchange a look.

“What are you gonna do? You don’t remember being a doctor.” Anita crosses her arms, “They’re going to know you lied.”

“I used to be one. Who knows. Maybe I can still help.” Wraith offers, but she knows that’s a lie to make them both feel better, “I’ll be back.” She heads for the door against the protests of Anita. If she stays in here any longer, she is going to fight her.

“Show me to the patient.” Wraith says immediately upon opening the door. The nurse nods and guides her through the hallways, having to fill her in on the patient’s status on the way. A little boy that’s infected with the virus, but he’s dying a lot faster than he’s supposed to be. He has all of the normal symptoms but he’s bleeding more than the others. They thought he might have some kind of blood disorder, but nothing turned up on their tests.

“Here he is. His name is Malachi.” The nurse motions into the room and Wraith peeks inside. Laying in the bed is a kid no older than six looking like he might fade away. Wraith’s heart constricts and she watches as his parents try to comfort him. Something has her walking inside against her better judgment.

“Good afternoon, I’m Dr.Blasey.” Wraith says, the words rolling off her tongue, “You must be Malachi!”

The little boy’s eyes widen and dart from her to his parents and back again, “No way. You’re- You’re Wra- Wraith! Mom! Dad! That’s… Wraith!” He struggles to get out.

“She is honey.” His mother agrees, smoothing his hair back.

“You’re one of the lucky ones who know I am a doctor, too.” She winks, grabbing his chart and reading it over, “But it’s a secret, so I’m going to need you to keep it for me, okay? Can you do that?”

“Yes, I can.” He nods and she smiles at him. Something on his chart makes her pause, causing her heartbeat to pick up and make her ears ring. But she doesn’t make it known to the people in the room. She keeps them talking, checks his vitals, gives him a high-five, and walks out to find three nurses anxiously waiting for her in the hallway.

“I need the operating room prepped now.” Wraith says as soon as the door is closed, “He has a ruptured tumor. Don’t ask me how I know, just trust me. He doesn’t have long.” Two of the nurses sprint off down the hall, shouting out for people she doesn’t know.

“We can’t give you anyone to assist with the extraction. We’re so busy all of the nurses and doctors have their hands full.” He frowns, looking distressed.

“I can do it on my own. Get it prepped.” Wraith says confidently, “We don’t have time.” She turns and heads back into the room, the parents looking at her in concern.

“Is everything okay, Dr.Blasey?” Mrs.Rin asks.

“Fortunately ma’am, I know what’s going on with your son and I have them getting the surgical suite prepared.” She says honestly, “There’s a ruptured tumor in his brain. The virus could have exacerbated the condition. It’ll be hard to say until I get in there. But, I need your permission to proceed.”

They gasp and his mother starts crying again while his father wipes his eyes. Malachi looks at them with confusion but grabs his dad’s hand to comfort him.

“Do whatever you need to to save my son.” His father says, “I’ll sign whatever you need me to.”

“Yes. Please. Please, save him.” His mother agrees, holding onto her son as if he’s going to disappear.

“I will.” Wraith promises, feeling assured in herself. She steps out of the way of the nurses as they enter the room and lets Malachi and his parents say bye to each other. She talks to him as they wheel him out of the room, gives him another high-five, promising to make him feel better, and lets one of the nurses take her to the surgical suite. She’s handed a spare set of scrubs and non-slip shoes, giving the nurse who gave them to her a sweet smile, she quickly changes in the bathroom before putting on the rest of her PPE. The gust of air that hits her when she opens the door feels oddly nostalgic. A feeling settles in her chest seeing the preparation room and she feels like she’s on autopilot as she walks to the wash station.

Wraith feels calm and secure as she goes through the process of scrubbing in, methodically cleaning her hands, and listening to the water run. It feels relaxing. Therapeutic, almost.

There’s a knock and her mind processes it to let her know the patient is ready.

She walks out and gets herself into her gown and gloves with practiced ease. And turns her attention to her patient. It’s just the two of them. For anyone else, she’s sure that they would be freaking out about it, but not her. Wraith feels calm. Dead calm. She feels at home as she walks up to the surgical tray and reaches for the first tool she needs. She promised this little boy she’d make him feel better and that’s what she intends to do.

So, she follows her instincts. It’s as if she’s watching herself work yet fully present in her own body. She wonders how someone would react if they saw the way she works. How she calculates the decisions she makes. Like the choice to make an incision in a specific spot or how she uses nothing but her hands and her eyes to find the tumor and remove it. At one point she uses her own hands to pinch off a vein, her facial expression seemingly showing nothing but deep apathy.

The clock in the surgical suite strikes 120 minutes as she finishes up, carefully wrapping up his head. The door opens and three nurses walk in, appalled looks in their eyes and she smiles under her mask. Wraith is sure she must be a sight. But, they take it in stride, taking over the situation and waving her off once the patient is secure so she can go through the degowning process.

Wraith discards her stuff in the biohazard bin, making sure to write down the procedure information on her way out, and walks into one of the dressing rooms to grab her clothes. As she picks up her uniform, a scalpel falls from one of the tables and a jolt goes through her as she watches it bounce against the tile.

“You’re not fooling me! Some of these look horrible but I know you saved their lives, Renee!” Kairi slams the folder onto the growing pile, a glare on her face, “What are you trying to achieve by showing me these experiments?!”

“I want you to leave me alone.”

“Well fuck you, because I’m not going anywhere. I could have done that last year when you blew up Adams in front of my fucking face!”

“Would you prefer to be my next class test subject, Kairi?” Renee questions darkly, the tip of her scalpel pressed to the younger girl’s abdomen, “I can make that happen.” The monotony of her voice makes Kairi shiver. It’s a strange skill to have a voice like that and be able to perfectly convey emotion without it.

“You don’t scare me, Blasey.” Kairi hisses, grabbing Renee’s wrist, “Everyone else may piss themselves when you look in their direction, but I don’t. I don’t. So threaten me all you want, but I’m not leaving your side.” She tightens her grip, making Renee glance down. The way Kairi holds her wrist is a way she taught her to disarm someone. It makes her proud. She may not see her as a threat, but she’s treating her as one anyway. 

“You’re awfully persistent.” She comments idly.

“Says you!” Kairi snaps, slapping Renee’s hand away and sending the scalpel clattering to the ground, “It’s like you actually want to be alone. I swear if I left you you’d have no problem with it, and I don’t know if that scares me or relieves me.”

“You’re bleeding.” Renee sighs like it’s an inconvenience, lifting up Kairi’s shirt and touching her abdomen where the scalpel nicked her, “It’s deep enough for stitches.” The feeling of Renee’s cold hands against her skin sends a chill through Kairi. That makes her pause and look down. Knowing Renee, Kairi being injured is an inconvenience for her.

“I didn’t feel it.” Her eyes widen as she sees it. It’s about two inches long with large beads of blood welling up in the cut that runs down like water drops.

“I keep my personal items sharp because the less pressure I have to apply to get the job done, the better for me and the patient.” Renee points to her bed, a stern look in her eyes, “Lay down. Are you going to make this difficult for me?”

“No.” Kairi sighs, laying down and holding her shirt up so Renee can get to the cut easily. She watches Renee as she grabs her medical equipment, and a towel and kicks her chair over. It rolls from the desk to the bed and she uses her free hand to stop it for her.

“You’re so adamant to stay by my side you wounded yourself.” She tsks, tucking the towel around her so no blood gets on the sheets. That would be fun to explain when they came in the morning for a room check, especially when she has no wounds. Renee works quickly, preferring to let Kairi bleed instead of stemming it, liking the way the bright red liquid mars her pale skin. She takes a deep breath, shoving those feelings down as she draws up the anesthesia. Her blood obsession has no place in this situation.

“They let you keep drugs in your dorm?” Kairi raises an eyebrow, a smirk on her face as she supports her head.

“No.” Renee glances at her as she aspirates the needle, “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“You’re a bit of a problem child, aren’t you, Blasey?” She teases, “How many rules have you broken?”

“I think you should be asking how many of those broken rules revolve around you?” Renee puts the syringe down and gets to cleaning the cut, listening to the way Kairi hisses as she sterilizes it. Once she’s satisfied, she picks up the syringe and waves it in the air as a brief warning. She can feel Kairi tense and she sighs, tapping her body with her pinky as a way to soothe her.

“Relax. Just… relax.” She says, slowly inching the needle into the cut as she feels Kairi’s body unwind, “Good girl. Just like that. Now this might sting or feel cold.” She warns her, but once the anesthesia is applied there’s no issue. Kairi rambles to her as she stitches her up, unbothered by what’s going on, if not curious. She isn’t squeamish and doesn’t turn away from her. She even asks Renee questions as she does it, watching the whole time as she works.

“You have nice, gentle hands.” Kairi mumbles sleepily as Renee cleans her up, “Are you going to kiss it better?” She jokes, making her raise an eyebrow.

“Do you want me to pull these out now?” Renee motions to the freshly done sutures.

“No, no, no!” Kairi immediately shakes her head, looking paler than she was two seconds ago.

“I’m going to get you something to eat and drink. It’s okay if you fall asleep. You’re staying in my dorm tonight and you’ll leave tomorrow night.”

“Renee.” Kairi grabs her wrist as she’s removing her gloves, “I’m sorry for being an idiot. You might get in trouble because of me.” She sounds like she’s about to cry and that makes Renee feel frustrated. There’s no reason for her to get so worked up about the situation.

“You let me worry about the room check, brat.” She flicks her forehead, “Rest.”

Wraith gasps, tightening her grip on her clothes as she stares down at the scalpel. She looks around the empty room and places her clothes back down, leaning down to pick up the fallen surgical equipment. It’s cold in her hand, and the blade at the top looks like it’s going to fall out. ‘It’s not one I prefer. Removable blades never work as well.’ She walks over to the sharps container and drops it in. Whoever it belonged to will just have to get a new one. A hazard like that in the hospital’s changing room is asking for trouble.

She sits down on the bench and lets out a breath. This is the first time she’s had a chance to rest since she woke up in the hospital. She holds her head in her hands as she finally gets to think about what’s going on. Ever since that dream, she’s been drifting off and seeing visions or memories of her and Kairi. Not adult Kairi, the one she met today, but teenage Kairi. One she doesn’t recall meeting at all. That’s where the problem lies.

Not only that but now Wraith seems to be recalling how to function as a scientist and doctor. These were things she had no clue how to do previously. Parts of her that she shouldn’t remember are coming forward, and it suddenly manifested after that dream.

So, what does Kairi have to do with this? These memories show that they were friends. She cared about her a lot to be risking her future so heavily just to hang out with her. Wraith even… killed someone for her. She bites her lip, her eyes darting to the door and then she starts playing with her fingers. She blew up a guy to protect her. So she cared enough for Kairi to matter.

But… why does Kairi act like she doesn’t know her if they were such good friends? She needs to know more. Did something happen between them? Did they stop being friends? Or maybe these aren’t memories at all and she really is hallucinating.

‘You aren’t. They’re real.’

‘They are?’ Wraith’s eyes widen. The sound of footsteps in the hallway has her standing up and looking at the door cautiously. A knock at the door is followed by it opening and a different nurse than the one who had led her to Malachi pokes their head into the room.

“I was hoping you were in here, Doctor.” She gives Wraith a relieved smile, “I need your help with a patient.”

“My help?” Wraith asks.

“Yes, I heard what you did for little Malachi.” She holds the door open and beckons her over, “I have a patient I’m struggling with. They have the virus but out of nowhere end up with another illness. I can’t figure out what it is.”

“What are the symptoms?”

“That’s the problem.” She huffs, “There were none until now. They’re moving aggressively, complaining about a pain in their leg but we can’t find anything there with imaging. We’re so busy I’m nervous we’re overlooking something important.”

“I’ll take a look.” 

“You will?” She perks up.

“Yes.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you! Their room is this way.” She guides Wraith to another section of the hospital, past the growing crowd of people waiting to be seen. They all catch sight of her, calling out to her feverishly, begging her to take a look at them, to help them.

“I don’t believe it.” Renee’s supervisor stares at her bloody, gloved hands.

“Martinez is stable.” She repeats, folding the soiled gloves off her hands and dumping them into the garbage bag, “If you don’t believe me, you’re more than welcome to see for yourself, Sir.”

“She broke her spine, solider. There is no being stable for her.” He denies it, writing something down on his clipboard. Renee watches as he crosses off Martinez’s name and frowns.

“Sir.” She says firmly, “I insist that you check on her before you mark her as lost. She’ll need a transplant but she’s not dead.”

“Yet.” Her supervisor looks at her, “We’ll use her as bait for the spiders. She can’t feel her legs anyway and we need samples of the web for your group to collect. These spiders are crafty bugs.”

“So you’re saying if she gets the feeling in her legs back, she’s back in?” She tilts her head. Her supervisor gets an uneasy look in his eyes as she does.

“If that miracle happened?” He quickly busies himself with his paperwork, “Absolutely.”

Renee turns and walks back towards the medical tent, already pulling another set of gloves from her pants pocket and tearing them open. If it’s a miracle he wants, then she was going to play fucking God. Martinez is her responsibility and she’s not dying on her. Renee ducks into the tent and Kairi jerks up, hurriedly putting the wet cloth she was using to wipe Martinez down. The girl is still unconscious and hooked up to the heart monitor. 

“So? How’d it- I don’t like that look on your face.” Kairi frowns, her eyes flicking down to her hands which she’s already shoving into the gloves.

“You’re assisting me. Put on some gloves. I’m going to be playing God.” Renee tells her, “I’m not letting this be a stain on my record.” To anyone else, it sounds selfish, but Kairi knows otherwise. That’s just Blasey’s way of showing she cares.

“Yes ma’am.” Kairi nods, not even questioning her. And Renee can’t help the smirk that tugs at her lips. She likes that. She likes Kairi’s unwavering faith. It fuels her and at a time like this, it’s what she needs. She was going to make that supervisor choke on his words. She will not allow anyone to doubt her. Not even Marder.

Wraith finds herself in a unique position after successfully helping out another patient in the hospital. She becomes the “we don’t know what’s happening but it’s an emergency” doctor who gets dragged around the building by her own small team of nurses.

They managed to procure a doctor’s coat for her from somewhere and insist that she put it on so people can tell the difference between her and them. However, Wraith doubted people would mistake her for another nurse by the way they were treating her. She had everything she needed and they listened to her when she told them what was necessary for these procedures. The interesting thing she’s figuring out as she’s going around to all of these different patients is that they’re infected. They arrived at the hospital due to the virus, but they were having issues with other illnesses that they didn’t even know they had. It has her mind spinning as she treats more people, especially as she catalogs the kinds of illnesses or diseases that they have.

‘It’s like the virus is exasperating these conditions and drastically speeding them up.’ Wraith thinks as she writes down some more information in a notepad Nurse Kathleen had been kind enough to give her. ‘That’s ten patients with the virus. Each one of them had a different problem pop up that put their life in danger. It’s not just the virus we have to worry about.’ She chews on her bottom lip and taps her pen against the paper. 

This piqued her curiosity.

What she would give to study someone who had been infected by the virus. Maybe then she could find out exactly how it was killing them. There was no time to properly look when she was treating Malachi, but she saw abnormal variations in his brain while she was there. It’s likely affecting the brain with the only symptom being ocular bleeding before death. If she could just cut someone open and study their brain, Wraith could help figure out a way to develop a cure. Some people have died to the virus that she could study. It wouldn’t be active, but it would show her the end result as well.

“You’re thinking hard.” Nurse Javid holds out a large chocolate chip muffin to her, “A muffin for your thoughts?” He gives her a kind smile. Wraith smiles back, the sight of the muffin making her stomach growl as she tucks the notepad into the pocket of her scrubs.

“Thank you. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.” She unwraps the muffin and takes a bite, relishing in the sweetness on her tongue.

“Hey, us Nurses got to take care of you, Doctors. If it weren’t for us, you wouldn’t remember to tie your shoelaces.” He jokes, making her chuckle.

“I don’t know what I would have done without my lead assistant, Bethany.” Wraith agrees, an intense feeling of nostalgia washing over her, “During those long nights in the lab she made sure I had a cup of coffee and a hot meal before I got too involved in my work.”

“You’re going to give me wrinkles, Dr.Blasey.” Bethany huffs, placing a bowl of stew over the paperwork Renee had been filling out, “You need to eat or that brilliant mind of yours is doomed.”

“Where’d you get this from?” Renee accepts the spoon handed to her, “This isn’t from the cafeteria.”

“Rick made it for you. He said a young woman like you should be eating a homemade meal and not cafeteria food.” She says as she moves the papers from under it, tidying up the desk, “I agree with him. You just graduated. You deserve a little love.”

“I don’t think the other scientist’s assistants are bringing them dinner and staying late with them on their passion projects, Beth.” She mumbles, blowing on the stew before taking a bite. The burst of flavorful spices followed by the tingle of pepper on her tongue makes her hum contentedly as she swallows. Beth watches her with a proud smile as she continues to eat the meal so kindly given to her. She’s been assigned to the reserved scientist for six months and Renee noticed it never fails to bring her joy when she can elicit a little emotion out of her.

“The other scientists don’t work fourteen hours to finish a project and have perfect records after just being assigned to the laboratory.” Bethany says bluntly, picking up her clipboard and looking over the things Renee needs her to do, “My team and I have our work cut out for us to keep your record spotless.”

“I don’t care about my record.” She moves the empty bowl to the side, sliding the paperwork back over, and catches a glimpse of the pressed flower keychain Kairi made her, “I care about the end results of my projects. That ends up with no failures.”

“Should I tell Rick to make more of the stew next time?”

“That would be nice.”

“Bethany sounds like a wonderful woman.” He snaps her out of her reminiscing and Wraith takes a deep breath, taking another bite out of the muffin. She squeezes her eyes shut as they burn, the telltale sign of tears trying to break through as she busies herself with the sweet treat.

“She was.” She nods, shoving the emotions down, “You asked about what I was working on? I was just writing down all of the emergencies I’ve seen so far. I’m trying to figure out what correlation they have with the virus. I can give the information to Dr.Somers when I figure it out.”

“You know… I still can’t believe a woman like you is so brilliant.” Nurse Javid motions to her, “I mean I watched you fight in the Games and I would have never believed you were a Doctor. You don’t talk about it. Not in interviews or anything.”

“I’m a very private person.” Wraith crushes the muffin wrapper in her hand, “Who I am in the Games is not who I am outside of it. There’s no reason for me to tell the public about it.” She isn’t lying. She is a private person. An extremely private person. Everyone she’s treated won’t be able to talk about who saved their life. She’ll fade like a ghost into the background of this chaos. It’s nice to be able to help out beyond checking in on Anita, but being able to do what she’s doing so suddenly feels unsettling. Wraith doesn’t hate it. It feels like she’s whole. Like she’s back home in her body again, but she isn’t sure she’s supposed to be remembering everything that she’s remembering right now. She’s not just getting her memories back but her skills, too.

“That’s understandable.” He nods, “I think that’s smart. Don’t worry, we’ll make sure your privacy stays that way after this is all over and these people go home.”

“Ready to keep going?” Wraith tosses the wrapper into a nearby garbage can and tucks her hands into her coat pockets, “I’m sure I’ll be hearing Patricia shout my name sooner or later.” That gets a laugh out of him as they exit the hallway they had been camping out in.

“She’s got a set of pipes on her. That’s why she’s on the emergency team.”

“DR.BLASEY!” Echoes down from one of the hallways, prompting them to take off running.

“Perfect timing!” He chimes and Wraith lets out a little laugh.

Dealing with her memories and the emergencies in the hospital proved to be a complicated task. Thankfully, her memories seemed to know when not to show up. They would wait behind her eyes as a light pressure until she was no longer focusing on her task. Once she stepped away, the memories overtook her senses.

The more memories she saw she could confirm that they all featured Kairi in some way. Even if she wasn’t physically or audibly present, there was something in the memory to represent her whether it was a gift or a letter. Wraith is vividly aware that they were close at one point. She feels fond of Kairi. More than fond of her. Even though she tried not to let it show that she was beginning to care about her in the past, the affectionate feelings that are forming in her chest with every returned memory prove otherwise.

Wraith feels so warm every time she thinks about Kairi. It grows as time goes on. It’s odd how affectionate she feels toward someone she feels like she shouldn’t know. But in reality, she knows that Kairi has a hard time keeping her anger in check when it comes to her loved ones. That she does this cute little two-fingered salute as her way of being playful. Or, that she once knocked out a guy for asking her out because she felt just saying no wouldn’t get the point across.

It makes this situation feel all the more strange. Why did Kairi not acknowledge their past? Did they end their friendship on bad terms? Has she not reached the parts of her memories where it all goes wrong? That part makes her feel sad. She gets to learn more about her life with someone else and if it ended on bad terms, she wasn’t sure how she’d go about navigating that. Especially with how happy Kairi makes her feel without even being there.

There’s this happy buzz Wraith feels and she finds herself looking forward to these memories as she works. She can’t wait to know more. To remember more about the past she shares with the new Legend and that excitement follows her as she continues to run around the hospital.

“HELP! HELP! BLASEY! BLASEY, PLEASE!” The girl—Collins, Renee had called her, screams as she runs for her life, her mask cracked and the spores thick in the air. Renee remains perched next to her on the tree branch, a hand gripping onto Kairi’s vest so she doesn’t slip off. The branch is sticky with sap, but it’s the only safe place away from the mess on the ground. They need those ferns and they’d lose them running from the prowler.

“Is there a way to save her?” Kairi whispers, watching as she narrowly dodges the prowler, “I know her mask is cracked and we were told not to breathe in the Harpy Claw spores but...” Her voice is warped by her mask, and Kairi is glad Renee told her to wear it before they found the plants. All it took was improper handling, Collins falling into the bushel of ferns and they ended up in this mess. She never wanted to curse out Renee’s superiors more than in that moment. She wasn’t stupid. She knew they switched her assignment to Collins because of what happened with Martinez. 

“Harpy Claw got its name from the way it grows. It nests inside your lungs and grows until you eventually suffocate to death. Gia is a lost cause.” Renee pulls out her Wingman and points it at her, the woman on the ground unaware of her classmate’s intentions, “The only help I can give her is a quick death.”

“You can make that shot from here?” Kairi stares at her in awe. Her Renee is so cool.

“What part of base brat do you not remember? It hasn’t been that long since we met, has it? Are you experiencing memory loss? Do I need to check you?” She looks at Kairi intently, removing her hand from her shirt to feel her temple. Kairi feels a heat rush up to her face.

“Renee.” Kairi says flusteredly, grabbing her wrist, “Help her go peacefully before that prowler takes a chunk out of her.”

“Peacefully?” Renee sighs in displeasure, “You like asking a lot out of me.”

“Take the shot, asshole.” She grumbles, feeling the emptiness gnawing at her stomach, “I’m getting hungry.”

“You want her to die just because you’re hungry?” She can hear the smirk under her mask as Renee cocks back the hammer and lines up the shot, “I’ve desensitized you to murder that badly?”

“You know that’s not true!” Kairi gasps, wanting to reach out and smack that smirk off her face, “I was just saying that I’m hungry-!” Renee takes the shot while she tries to explain herself.

Kairi stares at a patch of Harpy Claw. Well, more like the bullet hole in the rock above it. The bullet went clean through Collins’ head. Kairi can’t believe it, but this is a sign that she’s right where it happened. Now, she doesn’t believe in that superstitious stuff like her mother, but if she did, she’d be cursing it right now. What are the chances she’s back in the exact same fucking area she and Renee were all of those years ago? She can picture Collins’ bleeding body in the spore cloud as they walk past the Harpy Claws–thankfully not in season.

She can’t believe her luck in life. Her mother likes to say it’s because of when she was born. If she doesn’t count her father’s death and her wife going missing, her life has been very lucky even if it tends to flip to the other side from time to time. Everyone needs a healthy dose of Karma, and with her luck, that means she gets the more devastating side of it. She joins the Apex Games and gets to see her wife again? Here’s a deadly virus!

Talk about extremes. 

She’d been trying to make this trip bearable by getting closer to Loba, but the older woman had been making that difficult. So, they had been walking for the past fifteen minutes in complete silence and Kairi couldn’t help but hate it. Being here only reminds her of Renee. She feels like if she looks hard enough, she’ll see her crouched in the trees and smirking down at her with her Wingman trained on her.

“Looking for me, brat? Time for your shooting lessons.” She’d tease, firing and making Kairi run for cover.   

God, she gave her hell when they were out here and it was the time Kairi fell for her. She had been crushing on her since she met her, but it wasn’t until then that the deal had been sealed. Coming back here of all places would have her mother rambling about how it’s fate and that she needs to go for it with Wraith. ‘That feels a lot easier said than done.’ Kairi sighs and stops walking when a glint in the bushes catches her eyes. Curiously, she walks over to it and crouches down, shifting the fallen leaves aside to reveal a rusted keychain.

Her breathing catches and she picks it up, exhaling shakily as she rubs off some dirt. Even rusted, she can tell it was once a beautifully made flame with the name ‘Hope’ dangling in front of it. Kairi lets out a small whimper, continuing to rub her fingers over the small charm.

“I… I lost it. The charm my mom made me. I can’t find it.” Renee’s hands tremble aggressively as she searches her bag, “It’s meant to stay on my gun. It was a gift for passing my Pilot exam.”

“Hey, we’ll look for it. It couldn’t have fallen off far.” Kairi grabs her hands and holds them tightly, causing Renee to meet her eyes, “Let’s go look.”

Kairi clutches the charm in her hand. ‘I found it, baby.’ She closes her eyes, feeling a tear slip through. With one last exhale, she stands up and startles when she sees Loba staring at her. They don’t say anything, Loba just turns and continues walking through the jungle, and this time she prefers that. She doesn’t want to explain what she was just doing. That’s not something she wants to discuss with any of the other Legends. Her past with Wraith is too fragile with her not even remembering that it exists. This trip could be going so much faster if she had come along. A cure could even have been made by now.

Ah, she really has so much faith in her wife, doesn’t she?

“You were so talkative on the ship.” Loba speaks up, “Why are you quiet now that we’re out here? Are you afraid of spiders?”

“I’m not afraid of spiders.” She scoffs, looking at Loba with irritation, “I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.” She tucks the charm into her pocket. There’s no way she’s going to leave it behind.

“Get in line.” Loba huffs and they stop at the edge of a slope, “So, are we going down?”

“Yup.” Kairi says, immediately sliding down, knowing that there’s a lake at the bottom of it. There are two reasons she needs to go there: for the spiders and the flowers. At this time of the year, she might be pushing it for the flowers, but she has to try.

The canopy clears and gives her a view of the waterfall. A smile crosses her lips as she takes it all in, turning off the light in her hand and walking out into the clearing. She can hear Loba sliding down behind her, but she doesn’t care about that. Her eyes land on a patch of red by the lakeside and she lets out a disbelieving laugh. Kairi’s sprinting over to the flower patch before she can really register that she’s moving. She drops to her knees, sliding in the dirt, and skids to a stop beside them.

“Holy shit, I can’t believe this!” She laughs, resting her hands on her lap as she stares at them. Her heart beats harder in her chest as she reaches out and caresses the red petals against her better judgment. She puts her hand into the water and rinses it off, not wanting to rub her eyes on accident with the contaminated fingers.

“What’s got you so excited?” Loba asks, walking up next to her, “A flower?”

“Red Spider Lilies.” Kairi grins at her, holding her hand out for their shared bag, “They’re someone’s favorite flower and I wasn’t sure I’d find any.”

“Oh? A special someone?” She asks, handing the bag over. Kairi pulls out a pair of gloves, her karambit, and a special container she carries on her ship specifically for flowers. She had made it years ago when she wanted to keep real ones on her ship but didn’t want to worry about breaking a vase.

“Ha, funny. They’re Wraith’s.” Kairi responds, putting the gloves on and carefully digging up the flowers, “I wanted to bring her some to cheer her up.” She wanted to make sure she didn’t harm the rest of the flowerbed. If they managed to stay here after all these years, she didn’t want to be the one to ruin it. ‘Wraith is going to freak out when she sees these.’ She smiles excitedly, collecting the flowers she picked and placing them in the container. It glows softly as she locks it, confirming that the stasis on it is working the way it should be and that makes her happier.

“You always do things without me asking.” Renee smiles.

“It wouldn’t be a very thoughtful gift if you ask for it.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.” Loba looks around the clearing, “A girl would be lucky to be pursued by you if your first thought is to give someone flowers to cheer them up.”

“There should never be a condition to giving someone flowers.” Kairi stands up and dusts off her legs, then tucks the container into her bag, “It could be their first time getting them from someone and you make their whole day. You never know. I like making people smile.” It’s true. It’s something she enjoys, but these flowers are specifically so she can see the remnants of her wife’s smile. Kairi knows it might be a little dishonest, but her intentions are in the right place. She wants to see Wraith smile and hear her laugh… but she wants to hear Renee smile and laugh.

“Well, we’re in the right place. Bloodhound said the spiders like moisture, so we’ll set up camp here.” Loba moves over to a collection of rocks that are shaded and sits down. Kairi looks up at the edge of the rock wall and frowns, a shiver going through her body as an image of the spiders flashes into her mind. She doesn’t like the idea of waiting for them, but this is the best area for them.

“Try not to fall asleep on me.” She teases her, “I might just throw you into the lake.”

Loba scoffs and turns away from her.

‘Well, there goes the friendly conversation.’ Kairi rolls her eyes and sits down, taking out her gun and using the time that she has to do maintenance on it. If she’s going to be shooting at giant spiders, she rather know her gun is working. So she takes her time, going through the motions and carefully looking after it. Ramya had told her she should name it, but it didn’t feel right. The gun wasn’t anything special. It’s not like it’s the one her dad had gifted her.

“Here.” Renee hands her a pistol, “Your Dad taught you how to shoot, right?”

“I’m a mercenary’s daughter.” Kairi grips it, holding the gun out the way her Dad taught her all those years ago, “I have a custom P16 back at home.”

Renee’s lips twitch, “It’s blue, it’s it?”

“Sky blue, thank you.”

Kairi chuckles, resting her gun on her thigh and looking up at the sky. She got Renee of all people to warm up to her. It wasn’t like she couldn’t hear the whispers about her outside of Gridiron. People talked, rumors spread and Renee quickly became someone people feared even outside of the IMC headquarters. She was the promising recruit that they couldn’t get to fall in line. She had heard whispers of how coldhearted and cruel she was, how even her superiors were weary of her and her indifference to human life. Yet, Renee looked at her with love and adoration. She kissed her with passion even if those emotions were only felt for her. She married the onryō of the IMC and lived to tell the tale.

So why the fuck can’t she get Loba to talk to her?! This woman has sat here brooding next to her this whole time. Has she lost her touch? Kairi shakes her head. ‘What am I thinking? No, I haven’t lost my touch. I just haven’t brought up the right conversation. I’ve been trying to avoid personal topics, but that’s what Loba needs right now.’

“So that bodyguard detail you sent to Bangalore… what’s the deal with that?” Kairi looks over to Loba who whips around to her, “I’m assuming it has to do that simulacrum.”

“That simulacrum murdered my parents when I was nine years old.” Loba stands up and puts a hand on her hip, “He dropped my father’s body down an elevator shaft to me where I vowed to get my revenge. But now, he’s unkillable thanks to me…” She laughs bitterly.

Kairi stares up at her and frowns slightly. An unkillable simulacrum? Having your mind consumed by revenge towards something that you can’t even kill and then having to protect the people you love from them sounds exhausting. ‘I dragged my mom away from home to get revenge on Blisk and didn’t even go through with it. Two whole years wasted on nothing… Well, not nothing.’ She makes eye contact with Loba. She can understand the pain she must be going through, but maybe she can get her to focus on something else?

“You seem to be really interested in Bangalore. Why don’t you just stop worrying about Revenant?” Kairi asks.

“Behind you, brat.” Renee mutters.

“Behind me?” Kairi jumps up, whipping around and raising her gun as goosebumps prickle her arms. That’s an omen if she’s ever felt one.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Loba snaps, looking at her like she’s crazy, “There’s nothing behind you. It’s just a bunch of rocks.”

“No...” She frowns, staring intently at the large mound that blends in too well with the dirt, “That’s one of them.” She points her gun at it, mentally mapping out its body in her head. ‘If I’m right, I need to shoot it… here!’ She shoots and the spider shrieks, revealing itself as Loba shouts in alarm. Her bullets tear through it and forces it to curl in on itself, the hemolymph splattering out onto the grass as she switches to shooting its legs. Kairi stops shooting once it stops moving and nods to herself. She approaches it and checks it over to make sure that it’s still alive, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the hemolymph.

“Nice shooting. How’d you know it was there?” Loba stands next to her, watching her inspect and bag up the arachnid.

“I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life flying and hanging around people you could only dream of.” Kairi stands up, flicking the gross residue off her hand, “I’ve got eagle eyes.”

“Well, Ms.Eagle Eyes… how are we going to get out of this one?” She calls from behind Kairi who turns around and swears. At least six Carthage spiders are descending into the clearing and they’re all focused on them.

“Oh, great! It is fucking mating season!” Kairi lifts her gun and starts shooting at the spider closest to her, “Loba, bag the one I just killed! I’ll buy you some time!” The click of her gun makes her curse. She didn’t have time to reload after shooting the first one, even with an extended mag.

“How are you going to do that?!” She shouts, shooting at one trying to jump on her.

“By being incredibly stupid!” Kairi sprints for the Spider Lilies with only one thought on her mind. There’s only one thing that worked last time, except they don’t have gas masks this time. Strangely, she doesn’t feel as panicked as she should. She feels weirdly in control of her emotions. Maybe it’s because she can feel her wife’s ghost here. That she has her watching her back. She’s sure Loba can do that, but she feels more than secure with the echoes of her onryō here. She’ll be back on Psamathe soon. She’s sure of it.

“VALKYRIE!”

The screeching of the spiders only pushes her harder. The lilies brush against her fingertips and she’s slicing through their stems, hissing as her skin burns where she touches it. ‘I’m not like you, babe. So, let’s hope this works.’ She holds the flowers underneath the jets and flares them, catching the petals on fire.

“HOLD YOUR BREATH!” She screams quickly, covering her mouth before the fumes reach her. She runs back over to Loba with the flowers in her hands, dodging the sticky webbing, and drops the flowers onto the ground. The spiders freak out, scrambling back as the fumes waft into the air, but she doesn’t wait around to find out how long it’ll keep them back. Kairi grabs Loba’s hand and drags her towards a gap in the rock wall big enough for them. It won’t be long until she gets to see her wife again. She just has to make it through this, but now she knows they’re the ones being hunted. Not the other way around. ‘I wonder what she’s up to.’ Kairi tilts her head back and looks up at the darkening sky. The sound of angry, screeching spiders echo around them and she sighs. ‘Hopefully, she’s resting and not fighting for her life like I am.’ 

Kairi laughs.

“I’m glad you find this funny!” Loba huffs, “We’re hiding from giant spiders that are trying to eat us!”

“S-Sorry!” She struggles to stop, pressing the heel of her palm to her lips, “It’s just… Wraith and I traded places!”

“The baby is coming out!” Wraith calls, firmly guiding the small body out of the incision site. A nurse is immediately at her side ready to clean off the baby as she carefully unwinds the umbilical cord. They work quickly, moving together as a cohesive team and it’s not long before a soft cry fills the air. Wraith is quick to clamp the umbilical cord and slice through it, handing off the baby to a nurse to be looked after. She can practically feel everyone exhale around her, but she’s moving back to her other patient.

“We've got to get momma sealed up before we can breathe.” She says, reaching back inside to remove the placenta, “How are you feeling, Harper? Can you give me a response?”

“I’m okay!” Comes her response, but Wraith notes that it sounds weaker than she’d like.

“Someone get another blood bag.” Wraith demands, “She insists on nursing and I need her stable for that.”

“Yes ma’am.” Someone off to her left responds.

Wraith spends the next fifteen minutes deftly closing up each layer, making sure to have her patient say something to gauge her awareness. She can feel the tension in the air, the exhaustion wearing down on the nurses as they steadily approach the third day of this mess. Everyone in this room is running on nothing but coffee and spite. Wraith is the only one who likely had any rest before working, and she’s used to going extended periods of time without any. The facility was useful for some things. So while this isn’t ideal for her, it’s not something she can’t keep up with.

It takes some time to really get through the post-procedure process, but she makes sure that Harper has everything she needs. She doesn’t want to leave her after such a stressful procedure without the proper necessities, especially since this might be her last day. While she doesn’t want to doubt that Kairi and the others will make it back in time, the people in the hospital have been very in-between on that. Some are completely faithful in them while others are preparing themselves for their deaths. She’s had to help direct a few older patients to the right documents when she was passing by their rooms. It’s been so hectic in the hospital that she hasn’t run into any of the other Legends since she left Anita.

Dr.Somers has been keeping them updated, letting them know that the vines are burrowing into Olympus and are what’s causing the power surges. As she’s washing her hands the lights in the bathroom flicker and she sighs. ‘If it’s not the virus, then the city falling from the sky will surely kill us.’ She thinks while drying off her hands. ‘Maybe Kairi will catch me before I actually end up going splat.’ She giggles to herself in grim amusement. This whole situation has really made her realize how dark her humor is. It’s no surprise to her considering everything she’s been through, and her memories have been very insightful to her personality before she woke up on that gurney.

Wraith walks out of the bathroom and steps out of the way of a nurse who mutters an apology as she disappears around the corner. She lets out a small laugh and shakes her head, walking back toward the main hallway when her phone buzzes. She reaches into her pocket and pulls it out, feeling a little eager when she sees that it’s Dr.Somers. After operating on so many patients, Wraith had more than enough data to send to the Astrophysicist before telling her to keep it between the two of them.

Dr.M Somers: You’re right. The virus is causing these conditions to happen faster than they’re supposed to.

“Of course, I’m right.” Wraith mutters to herself, “I wouldn’t have sent it if it was wrong.”

Wraith: That’s great to have confirmation on. We’re doing our best to keep them alive while we wait for Team Antigen. Dr.M Somers: I’ll keep seeing what I can do to get the power back over here.

She shuts the screen off and tucks her phone back into her pocket. One of the nurses had begged her to go sit down in the lounge after performing that emergency C-section. They’re concerned that she’ll keel over if she continues to be on her feet any longer. Wraith finds their concern to be quite sweet and she doesn’t want to be another stress on their mind so she agrees. They’ll know where to find her if they need her, so she has no issue with it.

Once she’s in the lounge, she notices that it’s nice and neat. Someone has been taking the time to keep it clean amongst the chaos and she appreciates it. The tables are covered in trays of pastries and desserts, and a note on the counter mentions that the fridge is stocked with sandwiches and water bottles for anyone to take. A note with her name on it in red marker catches her eye and she picks it up, letting out a laugh as she reads it. ‘They really want to make sure I rest.’ She sighs with mirth, tucking the note into one of her pockets.

Following the note’s instructions, she grabs a muffin, a sandwich, and water and curls up in one of the chairs. She props her phone up on the water bottle and pulls up one of her favorite mangas. If she is going to take this time to rest, she might as well do something she finds relaxing. Besides, she was left on a cliffhanger after Elliot rudely interrupted her. The main character’s lover was about to find out that she was the murderer all along.

Wraith sits there and gets engrossed in her manga, scrolling through it as she eats. She feels at peace sitting in the lounge by herself, letting out a yawn as exhaustion hits her. For some reason, this reminds her of Kairi. Reading has always been something that she’s enjoyed, but doing this makes her long for the woman.

She sighs, resting her chin on her arm as she brings her leg up into the chair. It takes a bit of moving around, but she gets into a comfortable position. Her eyes slowly slip shut and she allows herself to fall asleep.

“Soooo, you like reading, right?” Kairi asks suspiciously, giving her a cheeky smile.

“Why are you asking when you’ve seen me read?” Renee raises an eyebrow.

“There are these books I like… they’re called manga but they’re in Japanese.” She pulls something out of her bag and plops herself onto Renee’s lap, making the older girl suck in a breath, “Will you let me read it to you?” She looks into her face with a hopeful expression.

“I thought you weren’t confident in your ability to speak Japanese?” Renee wraps her arms around her waist.

“If I can practice speaking it to someone…”

“Are you trying to manipulate me into letting you read to me, you brat?” She scoffs, pulling Kairi’s ear and making her yelp.

“Hey! Ow! Ow! Ow!” Kairi grabs her wrist, “Renee! Please! What if I just want to read to my favorite person?!”

“I’m not your favorite person.” She lets her go, feeling flustered by that exclamation.

“You are.” Kairi turns and grabs her face, smooshing her cheeks, “You’re my favorite person, grumps.”

“Shut up.” Renee fights a smile, grabbing her wrists and pulling her hands away from her face. “Do that again and I’ll bite your hands off.”

“You’re smiling!” Kairi gasps and then shrieks as she’s picked up and tossed onto the bed. Laughter fills the air as Renee tickles her, her cold hands gliding along her warm skin and making the sensation worse.

“You can’t help but be annoying, can you?” Renee teases her, using her weight to keep Kairi’s legs pinned, “Always getting on my nerves.”

“Renee, no! Please!” She gasps out between laughs, “You know I- Nooooo!” She squeals, squirming as she tries to get away to no avail. Renee laughs, stopping once she notices that Kairi is having a hard time catching her breath.

“You’re… cruel…” Kairi pants, lying under her with a grin.

“I know.” Renee shrugs and gets off of her, picking up the book and opening it to the first page, “Now come here. I want to know what they’re saying.”

Kairi is sitting in her lap before she can call to her again. She grabs her arms and wraps them around her waist, making Renee snort, but she complies and pulls her against her. They cuddle up with each other and Renee sits there as Kairi reads to her—first in Japanese, and then in English. This moment is the one where those fuzzy feelings Renee had began to turn breathless.

“Doctor! Dr.Blasey!” The lounge room door bursts open and one of the nurses from earlier staggers in, out of breath and panicked.

“Nurse Patricia?! What is it?!” Wraith shoots up out of her sleep, alert and no longer tired. She rushes over to her and her hand is grabbed.

“There’s- another patient that needs you!” The nurse drags her out of the room before she can protest and they sprint down the hallway together, “We thought it was just a cardiac arrest but it isn’t! That’s all we have to go off of! She’s critical! We’ve had to resuscitate her three times!”

“Is she one of the patients currently admitted with the virus?” Wraith questions, “What about her medical history?” Various things can have those symptoms, and if she’s right this virus might be exasperating pre-existing conditions. She only has one case to go off of, but if that starts climbing she’ll know soon enough.

“She is one of the infected. She was in perfect health before this but she’s an older woman. We had her hooked up to a ventilator because she wasn’t doing well.”

“Over here!” Nurse Javid directs them and Wraith is practically shoved into the small room, “We managed to resuscitate her, but if we don’t figure out what happened it can happen again. The young lady with her said they were speaking fine for one second and then she dropped.” She motions to a person standing in the corner of the room. Wraith is surprised to see Natalie standing there wide-eyed and nervously fiddling with her fingers, but she doesn’t have a moment to spare for her.

Wraith accepts the stethoscope handed to her and listens to the patient’s heart. The palpitations have her going straight for the lungs and listening intently. She can feel the nervous energy in the room, but it doesn’t affect her. The same as she was in the surgical suite and for every patient she’s looked after, she’s calm. Dead calm. Allowing her to take stock of the situation without her emotions in the way.

“We don’t have time to move her to the surgical suite before she goes into cardiac arrest. I need the sterilization kit, a surgical pack, and PPE now!” Wraith demands, glancing at the nurses as she starts going through the process in her head, “I’m doing the surgery here. GO!” She shouts, not giving them space to question her as she starts removing items from the countertops and putting them in the drawers and cabinets.

“Natalie, help me remove the stuff off the countertops. I need to make this environment as sterile as possible.” She looks at her friend who’s looking at her as if she’s grown another head. Natalie blinks but then nods and hurries to help her. They rush around the room and strip it bare in time for the nurses to arrive with the stuff Wraith needs for the procedure.

“You can do this, right?!” Natalie pleads as the nurses guide her out, “That’s their mother! The reason they’re working together!” It’s not hard for her to know who she’s talking about. There are only two people she’d be concerned about working together.

“Trust me.” Wraith reassures her, “I’ve got this.” The door closes and she ducks into the bathroom to wash her hands once again. This is a risky procedure in the hospital’s eyes, but they have no other choice. There are too many patients and not enough staff. The rooms are given to people who need them and with more people coming in as the three days are almost at an end, they’re all filled up. The lights flicker around her. She’ll be working in the dark if she doesn’t do this now. Wraith clicks her tongue.

‘I can use my void lights if the power goes out.’ She lifts her hands up and lets the water drip off, walking out to get into her surgical gown. ‘I have an important life to save.’ Wraith gets into her gown and in position much faster than she had with Malachi. After everyone she’s helped these past few days, she’s gotten faster with her movement and sharper with her cognitive skills. She feels more like herself, yet farther from herself at the same time.

“Don’t worry Ms.Ticacek.” Wraith mutters behind her mask, carefully cutting into the older woman’s sternum, “You’re not dying here. I’ve never lost a patient and Natalie deserves more time with her future mother-in-law.” She jokes, a pressure forming behind her eyes as she says it.

Wraith listens to the sound of the forceps’ clamp clicking in place and letting her know it’s secure. That allows her to move her hand and get to where she needs to be. The irregular beeping of the heart monitor doesn’t bother her. Neither does the shaking of the building and the flickering lights. She’s had to do risky operations in worse situations. Not that she remembers them, but she can feel it. She can feel that this isn’t anything worth freaking out over. She’s confident in her ability.

As she cuts into the artery, she finds what she has been looking for. A blood clot. Quite a large one lodged in the entryway to one of her chambers.

“I’ll take that.” Wraith murmurs, carefully extracting the blood clot. They’d have to give her blood thinners to keep this from happening but it’s better than dying. She’d have to find Dr.Somers and let her know about her findings—that the Legacy Virus is reacting with pre-existing conditions and exasperating them. It’s no wonder the hospital staff can’t get back on their feet, even with the power issue.

At this point, all they’re doing now is waiting for Kairi’s team to come back with the final pieces to make the cure. ‘I know they can get this done. Kairi is with them. She won’t let this be a failure.’ Her confidence in her is strong. There’s no doubt in her mind that they’ll bring back the spiders. Her shooting star won’t let her down. She never has. And that unwavering faith in her is what has Wraith continuing on.

Wraith hums to herself as she drops the clot into a container with some preservation fluid, and gets to work closing up the incision site. It’s odd how comfortable she feels doing this. Working alone, navigating a person’s body with ease, and being able to have the freedom to do things her way. It’s a release for her. Her wings.

She bandages up the site and cleans up the mess, watching the heart monitor beat steadily as she does. A smile crosses her lips as she seals the container, knowing that Natalie will be overjoyed when she learns Ms.Ticacek is going to be okay. Meeting the mother of someone you’re into and then they have a health scare must be terrifying. ‘It’ll be nice to be the one to soothe her worries.’ Wraith thinks, placing the sample into a ziplock bag and writing down the patient’s information on it. ‘All I have to do now is tell her.’ She places the sample onto the cart and takes a few steps away when the sign of her memory taking over comes forward.

“I can’t believe I’m meeting your mother.” Renee sighs, fiddling with the end of her braid.

“She insists on it.” Kairi glances at her, continuing to cut up some vegetables, “She said she wanted to meet the young woman her daughter spends so much time with.”

“Shouldn’t she be telling you not to disobey orders and sneak me off of base instead of having you do it?” She leans against the countertop and watches how deftly Kairi chops up the carrots.

“Normal moms, maybe.” Kairi snickers, “You’ll love my mom. She’ll be home soon. She went to help out Mr.Grand. He’s getting old but still insists on keeping those dairy cows. Ma thinks it’s because he likes freshly made cheese too much, but I think it’s because it gives him an excuse to flirt with our other neighbor, Mr.Darrik.”

“Kairi. If you’re going to gossip, my sweet shooting star, at least close the windows, hm?” A soft, sweet motherly voice sounds from behind them. They turn around and a tall, skinny woman with her hair tied back in a bun smiles at Renee as she enters in through the kitchen door. There’s a covered basket hanging from one of her arms and two bottles of milk in her other hand.

“Mama, it’s not like they’re going to hear me.” Kairi chuckles, taking the basket from her, and kisses her cheek, “The chickens might but they’d never tell my secrets.”

“Oh?” Her mother comes around the counter and places the glass bottles down, “I don’t know. Pebbles likes to talk if you give her enough feed.” Her eyes glitter mischievously and Renee can definitely see the resemblance between the two. Kairi looks almost exactly like her mother. ‘She didn’t get much from her father.’ Renee notes with amusement. She can tell where the similarities end, but side by side, they’re definitely mother and daughter. Just like she and her mother had been.

“You named a chicken Pebbles?” She looks at Kairi with a teasing smirk.

“She’s my pet chicken.” Kairi says defensively, a blush blooming across her cheeks, “She’s the first chicken I hatched all by myself.”

“It was so cute! Oh, I wish I could have recorded every moment of it. My little Kairi was so grown up.” Her mother reaches over and pinches her daughter’s cheek, making her whine and smack her hand, “Now, I believe I haven’t properly introduced myself. I’m Miyuki, Kairi’s mother. You must be Renee Blasey, the young woman my daughter is quite taken with.” She turns to her and holds out her hand, Renee not hesitating to reach out and take it.

“M-Ma!” Kairi sputters, dropping the apples she had been putting away, “I-I’m not- I-”

“I am, ma’am. It’s nice to meet the woman who raised such a wonderful daughter.” Renee gives her a polite smile, “I didn’t know your daughter spoke about me so much.”

“Please, call me Miyuki.” She waves her hand, “My daughter is in love with you. Of course, she talks about you. I was sure she would have told you by now. From the way I’ve heard you care for her, I’ve come to like you, Renee. You have my permission to be with my daughter. I don’t see why you can’t date.”

“MA!”

“What? If she’s going to be my daughter-in-law, she might as well know.” By the look on Miyuki’s face, she seems very confident in her words. Renee, on the other hand, is caught off guard. She blinks and looks to Kairi who’s mouth is wide open. So, she wasn’t expecting her mother to say that either. Miyuki says something and takes the empty basket with her, throwing a wink at Renee as she exits the kitchen. That leaves the two of them alone and the atmosphere in the room feels more intimate than before.

“Is that true?” Renee tilts her head, her lips twitching as Kairi’s blush only gets darker.

“I had planned on saying something after this trip.” Kairi meets her eyes, the sincerity in them taking her breath away, “But, it’s true. I’ve fallen in love with you, Renee.”

“So are you going to ask me…” She walks over to her and takes her hand, gently caressing her fingers, “or am I going to have to make that move?”

“Can you?” Kairi whispers, her voice wavering as she blinks rapidly.

“Will you be my girlfriend, Kairi?” Renee whispers, still caressing her fingers.

“I thought you’d never ask, you bitch.” She laughs and then gasps as Renee pulls her into a kiss. It’s soft and sweet and leaves the both of them breathless as they pull away. Renee closes her eyes and rests her forehead against Kairi’s as her eyes sting and her heart pounds in her chest. Her whole body feels like she fell asleep in the morning sun.

Wraith grabs ahold of the wall, gasping for breath as she clutches her chest. A whimper leaves her trembling lips as she presses them together, tears sliding down her face as she’s overcome with an intense ache in her chest. ‘Girlfriends? Kairi and I had been girlfriends?’ She gasps, leaning against the wall for support as she presses her hand harder into her chest. The pressure eases once she leans over, bracing herself with one hand against her knee but the hollowness doesn’t. ‘Okay, Wraith. Deep breaths.’ She instructs herself. She forces herself to take in a deep breath and slowly let it out, straightening up with every exhale until she’s standing up. She shakes out her hands and tucks one of them in her pocket to play with her pen before continuing her walk to the door.

Nurse Kathleen is the first person she sees and she grabs her shoulders, guiding her out of the doorway as the others dart inside. She asks her if she’s okay, if the procedure went alright, and if she needs anything before she heads inside with the other two. Wraith tells her that she’s fine and that everything went well, so she can head in there without too much to worry about. She advises her to keep a close eye on the area and resterilize it when changing the bandages since the procedure was done in a non-surgical safe area. Nurse Kathleen nods and heads into the room to let the others know what she said.

“Wraith?” Natalie’s timid voice comes from behind her. Wraith turns and sees her hunched in on herself, fiddling with her fingers as she looks at her expectantly.

“How… How is she?” Her eyes dart to the half-opened door, where all she can see are the lights spilling out against the wall.

“Normally I couldn’t tell you…” Wraith wraps an arm around her and guides her away from the room, lowering her voice, “but Ms.Ticacek will live. She had a blood clot in her artery that was throwing off her rhythm. That coupled with the damage being caused by the virus caused her to go into cardiac arrest.” They were going to the part of the hospital for the Legends. No one will bother them there.

“Oh!” Natalie gasps, tears escaping her eyes once more, “That’s just awful. All of these people, Wraith. They don’t deserve this.”

“Hey…” Wraith stops walking and wipes away her tears, “She’s okay. And I heard that you used your electricity to try and stabilize her until the nurses arrived. That was really brave of you. You kept her alive long enough for them to take over.” She speaks softly, caressing her cheek as a way to comfort her and wiping away the tears that continue to fall.

“Crypto and the others will come back with the spiders, and everyone will be okay.” She smiles and then winces, exhaling in pain as that ache in her chest comes back.

“Are you okay?” Natalie grabs her upper arms as she stumbles.

“I- No!” Wraith cries out, doubling over and falling to her knees as she grabs at her shirt. A sob tears its way through her lips, tears blurring her vision as she feels Natalie wrap her arms around her.

“I’m here, Wraith. I’m here!” She reassures her, “Please tell me what’s hurting?”

“Kairi…” Wraith breathes out, struggling to keep herself collected.

“Kairi?” Natalie parrots, confusion lacing her words, “What does she have to do with how you’re feeling right now?”

It’s because her heart yearns for her. She yearns for her to the point that it’s causing her physical pain. It’s funny how emotions work. They can tear you up inside in a way nothing else can. She’s only just remembering that they had something past friendship, but the way she’s feeling is strong enough to bring her to her knees. All she wants to do is pull her phone out and call her. To hear her voice and make sure she’s okay and let her know that she remembers. It’s so strong that it’s choking her. That it’s all she can think about—this longing.

It’s here on the floor of the hospital that she realizes that she can’t keep this in. She can’t keep this to herself. She can’t keep Kairi to herself. She needs to share how she’s feeling or she might explode.

“You can’t tell anyone, Nat. Please.” She whispers, making eye contact with Natalie, “This needs to stay between us.”

“Of course! Anything for you.” Natalie nods, scooting closer.

“I started getting my memories back when I woke up, but Kairi was in them. All of them involve Kairi in some way.” Wraith confesses, playing with her sleeves, “I was confused because she didn’t mention knowing me, so I didn’t say anything. I thought I might’ve been hallucinating at first since that can happen with concussions. But, the emotions started to return and so did my… knowledge.”

“That’s how you performed that surgery on Ms.Ticacek.” She comments, her expression brightening up at the realization.

“Yes. I remember being a scientist.” Wraith looks at her hands, “Apparently, I know how to do a lot of things. All of it has been coming back… including the memory that she was my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” Natalie gasps, her eyes widening, “Truly?”

Wraith nods, the admission making a wave of longing wash over her.

“I miss her.” She whispers, “I miss her, Nat. I don’t have all of my memories but these feelings. I feel like… something’s missing. Something big. A-and I don’t know what it is but I just need her to come b- ack!” Her voice cracks and she’s sobbing again.

“They’ll be back soon.” Natalie rubs her back, “Until she’s back, I’m here for you. We can sit here as long as you need.” She gives Wraith a bright smile, hugging her tightly, and Wraith sniffles, cuddling closer to her friend. She appreciates that she can just sit here and cry. And that’s what she does. The two of them sit there as Wraith cries, mumbling to Natalie about her memories of Kairi until she feels better.

Natalie tells her to wait there and gets up to get them some coffee. Her phone buzzes and she realizes she hasn’t checked it in a while. The last time she looked at it was before she sat down to eat. Dr.Somers could have said something to her or asked her for more information. Maybe Ajay texted and asked for something new? She turns the screen on and freezes when she sees Kairi’s contact as her most recent text message. ‘That’s what the buzz was.’ She presses it and unlocks her phone, nervously tapping the side as it opens up the chat.

Valkyrie: Newsflash, you can’t go bungee jumping with spider silk! It sticks everywhere!

An incredulous laugh leaves her. Of all the things she could have said to her… Kairi says that? ‘That’s one way to let me know you’re alive.’ She chuckles, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

Wraith: Don’t tell me you actually tried to? [Message did not send. Try again?]

The growl of frustration that leaves her lips is one to rival Revenant’s. She taps try again a few more times, but the message refuses to be sent and she lets out a shout of anger. Wraith shuts her screen off a little more aggressively than she needs to and shoves it back into her pocket with a huff.

“What’s the point of a phone if the messages aren’t going to go through?!” She snaps into the empty hall, glaring at the wall in front of her, and then lets out a sigh. She rakes her fingers through her hair, releasing her hair from its bun with a little wince as some strands get caught on the hair tie and let it fall down her shoulders. ‘It's been so long since I asked her out to when I woke up in the facility. What has happened since then? I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something important.’ She taps her fingers against her knee. There’s still so much left to find out.

Her phone buzzes and she pulls it out with a groan, not really in the mood to respond to anyone. She opens it without paying much attention, her eyes flicking up as she hears Natalie’s footsteps echoing in the hallway. When she turns her attention back to the screen, she stops breathing.

Valkyrie: I’m thinking about you right now. Are you thinking of me?

“Here’s your coffee! Milk and as much sugar as it can handle!” Natalie chirps, leaning down to hand Wraith the cup.

“Are you sure that’s not your coffee?” She laughs softly, placing her phone on her thigh to flip the top open, “I don’t mind drinking it sweet, but that sounds like a lot.”

“Trust me, you want that much sugar. Blah!” She wrinkles her nose, sticking out her tongue before bursting out laughing, “Aha! I make myself laugh. It’s mixed with hot chocolate. I thought you could use an extra pick-me-up.”

“You’re the best. You know that?” Wraith mutters, blowing on the steaming liquid.

“Better than Mirage?” She bats her eyes, making her chuckle.

“If I agree, you can’t tell him.” She points accusingly, taking a sip, “I don’t want to be caught in the middle of this.”

“Deal!” Natalie grins happily, making Wraith shake her head with an amused smile.

“Now, what were you looking at, hmmm? You had an interesting look on your face.”

“A text message…”

“Froooom?”

“Kairi.” Wraith takes a long drink from her cup. Natalie squeals and Wraith knows that she’d clap her hands if she didn’t have a cup in them.

“What did it say?”

“I’m not answering that question.”

“Fine. Fine.” She waves her hand, but the grin on her face hasn’t left, “Ah, I bet she can’t wait to see you! Maybe that’s why she didn’t say anything? Maybe she was hiding her feelings because she knows you don’t remember? You can surprise her! Oh, I’m so excited for you, Wraith!”

“Let’s not get too excited.” Wraith puts a hand on her shoulder, feeling a little flustered, “I have to talk to her first. We can be excited after that.”

“Right. Right!” Natalie nods and then sighs, “I’m just… excited for you. Isn’t this what you’ve been looking for this whole time?”

“It is.” Wraith nods, swallowing as her stomach twists, “I just- I- I’m scared. What if it’s not what I think it is?”

“It doesn’t seem that way to me. Not from what I’ve seen.” She shrugs, “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Wraith’s phone starts vibrating as Natalie’s ringtone fills the air and she looks down at it. Fuse’s ridiculous contact photo lights up the screen and they look at each other. She snatches up her phone and answers it, nearly dropping her phone in her haste to hit the speaker button.

“WE’RE COMING IN FOR A LANDING, MATES! GONNA NEED ALL HANDS ON DECK CAUSE I’M MISSING ONE!” Fuse’s voice blares through the speaker and she snorts as Natalie giggles beside her.

“Oh, that’s amazing news! We’ll meet you at the dock!” Dr.Somers chimes in and the call is over as soon as it starts.

“Well…” Wraith exhales and makes eye contact with Natalie, “They’re here.”

“Let’s go.” She holds out her hand and Wraith takes it. They get up together, throwing away their empty cups, and make their way out of the Legend’s section of the hospital. It goes from the eerie quiet to the chaotic mess that Wraith has been a part of these past couple of days after a few hallways. She guides Natalie through it, needing to stop at the changing room so she can keep her little time as a Doctor in the hospital a secret. It also won’t help having to sneak in and out if she’s still dressed as one. So she ducks inside and is surprised to find a note sitting on top of her clothes from Nurse Kathleen letting her know that she can keep everything. A drawstring bag has been left with her clothes that she puts everything into. It doesn’t take her long to get suited up, and she feels a sense of relief as she laces up her boots. Being back in her uniform is comfortable. Familiar. It makes her feel more confident. ‘I can do this. I can tell Kairi.’ She encourages herself, pulling on the bag and tucking her phone into her pocket. With a deep breath, she leaves the changing room, taking Natalie’s hand once more, and makes her way out of the hospital.

They get there in time to watch the ship dock. Natalie squeezes her hand and Wraith returns the gesture, the knot in her stomach feeling much tighter as she stares at the ship. The woman that she hasn’t been able to get out of her mind is in there. She’s minutes away from seeing her and it makes her feel restless. She shifts from one foot to the other, tapping her fingers against her thigh as she waits for the doors to open. A soft giggle from her left has her turning her head curiously.

“What?” She furrows her brow.

“Oh, nothing.” Natalie giggles, trying to cover her mouth, “You just remind me of Nikola when he sees a butterfly through the window.”

“Did you just call me a cat?” Wraith’s jaw drops and she blushes.

“No, no, no! I said you remind me of a cat!” She clarifies, “Not that you are one.”

“That’s the same thing!”

“The door’s opening!” Natalie shouts, pointing in front of them and effectively distracting Wraith from the cat banter, “Come on!”

“Nat, wait!” Wraith gasps, but she’s being pulled down the dock and towards the disembarking group before she can stop her.

“Hello, everyone!” Natalie shouts, laughing happily as she waves her free hand in the air, “You made it!” She gives Wraith a little shock in her side, making her jolt.

“Hey, Valkyrie! G-Guys! I’m glad you’re back in one piece!” Wraith blurts out, not wanting to get shocked again.

They look their way and give mixed reactions—happy ones from Fuse, Crypto, and Kairi, neutral one from Bloodhound, impatient from Loba, and displeased one from Caustic. Honestly, those reactions are normal for the group but it didn’t mean Wraith didn’t want to punch Loba or Caustic for it at times. She doesn’t have the energy for it right now though, because her attention is drawn by Kairi. Her heart races in her chest as they make eye contact and Wraith’s stomach twists so violently she thinks she might throw up.

“It was a breeze with Bloodhound here!” Fuse motions to the tracker.

“Says you!” Loba scoffs, “You weren’t the one almost eaten!”

“What?!” Natalie gasps and snaps her head in Crypto’s direction.

“I thought we agreed not to say anything!” Crypto shouts at Loba.

“I didn’t agree to anything.” She crosses her arms, “Now where are we bringing these? We don’t have a lot of time left to dawdle around.”

“I’ll take them!” Dr.Somers walks up with a cart, “I’ll get started right away. Thank you for pulling through, everyone.”

“Just get that cure done and we’re even.” Loba huffs and starts walking away.

“Where are you going?!” Fuse calls after her.

“Shopping! I need to relieve some stress after nearly dying!”

“Unbelievable.” Caustic mutters.

“You all should rest. Get something to eat. Your part in this is over now. I’ll see you later!” Dr.Somers says and hurries away, leaving the rest of them behind. Wraith feels something hit her side and she jolts, looking at Natalie in confusion. Natalie tilts her head toward Kairi who’s fiddling with something by the doors of her ship. She nods and walks over to her, taking deep breaths to settle her nerves as she approaches. Kairi mumbles to herself about something, securing the panel back on when Wraith is close enough to be noticed. She takes a breath, preparing herself to say something when Kairi turns and locks eyes with her. All thoughts leave her and she closes her mouth, nervously messing with her fingertips.

“Hey.” Kairi smiles, leaning against her ship, “I didn’t expect to be greeted so enthusiastically by you.”

“Ah, y-you know I was…trying something new. It was Natalie’s plan. She figured a warm welcome might cheer you guys up.” She rubs her left wrist, a soft blush on her cheeks, “Did you like it?”

“Yeah, I did. I thought it was cute that you tried to sound excited with how tired you are.” Her smile gets wider as she observes her, “And hey, I made it back for that dinner you promised me! Although, some spiders nearly made me theirs.” She laughs.

Wraith breathes out a laugh, “I’m glad they didn’t. I would have ended up eating curry by myself, and that would have been lonely.”

“I definitely wouldn’t have wanted the pretty lady to be lonely…” She responds and the conversation trails off as they stare into each other’s eyes. ‘She has such beautiful eyes.’ Wraith bites her lip. Kairi’s eyes flick down and then back up.

“So, we are still on for dinner once this is all over?” Wraith pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, “I just want to make sure. I know you must be exhausted after almost getting eaten alive.”

“I’m not missing out on dinner.” Kairi winks, “Wear something nice.”

“I told you. You’re asking a lot of me.” She chuckles, “I don’t know if I have the energy for that.”

“It’s worth a shot.” She shrugs.

“Wraith! Someone from the hospital is looking for you!” Natalie calls out to her, “Check your phone!”

Wraith reaches into her pocket and sees that she has a text message from one of the Nurses. They had exchanged numbers to keep in contact outside of the hospital.

“I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you… when I see you?” Wraith gives her a hopeful look.

“Absolutely.” Kairi grins, “Let me know when and where. I’ll be waiting.”

Wraith stares at herself on her phone screen as she taps her fingers against her thigh. The cure had been distributed before the sun had set, and everyone was free to relax. The nurses and doctors in the hospital refused to let her leave until they could all thank her properly. That included making sure whoever knew she had been assisting in the hospital signed Non-Disclosure Agreements about it. Wraith had been shocked at the lengths they went to keep her secret, but she appreciated it.

Now, she’s trying to keep herself calm as she waits for Kairi to show up. By the time she got back to her hotel, she had enough time to shower and mess around with what she was wearing. She settled on a black jacket, a simple black tee shirt, and some loose pants. She didn’t want anything too constricting after how long she’s been on her feet. The thought of ordering to go and asking Kairi back to her hotel had been too tempting. Then, she thought about it more and realized she’d give her the wrong idea. A very very wrong idea.

So, here she is… waiting.

“I’ve never seen you this anxious, dear.” Rana comes over with a teasing smile, “Your date still hasn’t shown up?” She refills the juice Wraith had been sipping to keep herself occupied.

“Again, it’s not a date.” Wraith sighs, reaching for the filled glass, “Valkyrie and I are coworkers. I promised to take her out to eat.”

“Aha! So you brought her here?! Wraith, you know what happened when Ramya brought your group here?” She laughs heartily, “Oh, I still get a good laugh over it. I hope she likes my food, hm?”

“I-” Wraith’s eyes get pulled over to the door as the bell rings and in walks Kairi in her signature red jacket and a pair of comfortable-looking pants. Her words get caught in her throat as they make eye contact and Kairi smiles at her.

“Wow, she’s gorgeous.” Rana comments, “I’ll come back when you’re ready to order.”

“Yeah…” Wraith breathes out as Kairi approaches the table. As she gets closer, she notices that she has something in her hands. ‘Flowers.’ Her eyes widen and she feels her heart skip a beat. ‘She got me flowers?’

‘Not just any flower. Look closer.’ Another her murmurs in her ear.

“Hey, you did decide to look nice.” Kairi grins, coming over to her instead of sitting down.

“You asked me so kindly. How could I say no?” Wraith teases her, getting a laugh, “Honestly, if I stayed a minute longer in my uniform, I think I was going to burn it.”

“Me too. I don’t want to see my flight suit until it’s time for the Games.” She groans, and then lifts up the bouquet in her hand so Wraith can see it properly, “These are for you as a I’m-happy-you’re-okay gift. I got them while we were in Gaea. Spider lilies are your favorite, right?” Her lips curve into a sweet smile and Wraith has to remind herself to breathe.

“They’re supposed to be rare.” Wraith takes the bouquet from her, carefully inhaling the soft scent, “You went through the trouble of finding them as a gift for me?” If her heart beats any faster, she’d have to admit herself for a heart attack. Does this mean they didn’t end on bad terms? You don’t get someone their favorite flowers if you did. Especially not when said flowers are toxic. The amount of care she’d have to go through just to pick them speaks volumes.

“You’re worth it.” She says softly. So softly that Wraith is not sure she’s supposed to hear it.

“Thank you.” She smiles at her, and then motions to the menus, “Why don’t we figure out what we want to order?”

Kairi nods and sits down across from her, picking up her menu. It’s silent as Wraith places her flowers on her lap and picks up her menu. She already has an idea of what she’s going to order, but she uses looking over the menu as an excuse to delay speaking. The flowers only answer her suspicions. No one knows her favorite flowers. Not even Elliot.

“Rana!” Wraith calls out, waving her hand in the air, “We’re ready to order!”

“Finally!” The older woman comes out the kitchen door, a grin on her face, “I was getting older, you know!”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” She rolls her eyes, “You’re only fifty-two. You’ve got at least five more years. Ow!” She yelps, rubbing the back of her head. Rana playfully scowls at her, waving her pen in her direction.

“Don’t make me charge you full price.” Rana huffs, “Now, what would you like to order?”

“I’ve got this.” Kairi grins and Wraith raises an eyebrow, “We’ll both have the prowler curry, a side of rice and we’ll share a basket of roti. Did I get that right?”

Wraith blinks, shares an impressed glance with Rana and grins at Kairi, “Yeah, you did. Are you sure you can handle the extra spice?”

“I’ll be fine.” Kairi waves her hand, “Can I get the pineapple-ginger juice?”

“Of course! I’ll make it fresh, so give me a couple of minutes.” Rana smiles, writing something down, “I’ll go give this to the chef. It’ll be out in 20 minutes. Don’t get too hungry until then.” She winks before walking off to another table who waves her down. Wraith bites her lip and turns to Kairi, unable to keep her questions to herself.

“Kairi.”

“Wraith.”

“Sorry!”

“Go ahead and say what you were going to say.” Wraith motions to her.

“No, no.” Kairi shakes her head, “You go first. What I was going to say isn’t important.”

“I was going to ask how you knew I liked spider lilies?” She decides to poke at her, to see what her response will be.

“Oh, well…” Kairi rubs the back of her neck, “I thought about how to say this the whole way back. I knew there’d be no hiding it when I got them. But uh, you told me, Renee. You told me you like them.”

Wraith’s eyes widen as Kairi meets hers.

“Did you just call me Renee?” She asks, a hopeful tone to her voice, “You know my name?” Kairi nods. That’s solid proof. That’s proof that they do have a past together.

“Hi, Renee.” Wraith can see her take a deep breath, “I know you don’t remember me, but we have a history together. I was- I am- We’re-”

“Girlfriends?” She asks softly, making Kairi jolt in her chair. It’s her turn now, to let her know that she remembers.

“Girlfriends?” Kairi laughs in disbelief, leaning forward as she shakes her head, “No, no we’re not girlfriends.”

“Oh.” Wraith’s face falls and she feels crushed.

“Renee. Baby. No, it’s not like that.” Kairi reaches across the table and grabs Wraith’s hand, making her look down at their intertwined fingers, “We’re more than girlfriends. We’re married.” She places a picture on the table and Wraith’s whole body freezes at the sight.

The picture is clearly an old one. Slightly worn and a little creased from being folded every so often, but it’s been taken good care of. Passionately kissing underneath a floral archway are her and Kairi in beautiful dresses. Wraith’s hair is long and flowing free and she absentmindedly runs her hand over her ponytail as she looks at it. ‘I look beautiful. More than that… I look happy.’ She smiles. 

“You’re my wife, Wraith.” Kairi continues as her hand once again places something on the table next to the picture.

“Wife.” She whispers, the word feeling right as warmth fills her chest.

“Technically your full name is Renee Rei Hope Blasey Imahara. You have two first names and two last names. I tried to talk you out of it, but you nearly took my head off.” Kairi opens the box and sitting in a bed of black silk is a gorgeous ring, “My full name is Kairi Blasey Imahara. I took your last name as my middle name. I didn’t mention it when I introduced myself because I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“I appreciate that.” Wraith chuckles, “I definitely wasn’t in the right headspace to hear that.”

“This is your wedding ring. You had me hold onto it when you started your project. It matches mine.” She holds her hand out, and a beautiful ring glitters on her ring finger. Wraith reaches out and takes her hand, gently running her thumb over it as an overwhelming wave of nostalgia and love rises through her.

“Kairi. I do remember you. Us.” She admits, “I remember everything from meeting you until I asked you to be my girlfriend. From the moment I woke up in the hospital, I’ve been seeing memories of you and me. I didn’t realize that’s what they were until I started to feel more like myself.”

“You… remember me?” Kairi exhales shakily, tightening her grip on her hand, “You remember us?”

“I’m still missing so much. I need to know if something happened between us. Did we break up? I mean as far as I’m aware you never came looking for me while I was in the facility. No one did.” She furrows her brow.

“That’s not true. I never stopped looking for you, Renee. Never.” Kairi says passionately, as she looks Wraith in the eyes, “I used to call you after every experiment, and one day, you didn’t respond. I gave you some time but it turned into days so I contacted the main line. They told me you never worked there, which was complete bullshit. It’s not like I wasn’t the one who flew you there or I hadn’t been inside with you!” Her voice raised in volume and her body tensed. Thankfully Wraith’s regular spot in the restaurant was in the back corner. No one pays them any attention over here.

“Hey… Breathe.” Wraith squeezes her hand in an effort to comfort her. She watches as Kairi closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

“I knew they were lying. I’ve spent years searching for any sign of you… I even managed to get ahold of General Williams for a favor. Just to confirm that you were alive. And I didn’t stop looking for you. So imagine my complete disbelief when my wife shows up on my tablet as one of the first Legends in the Apex Games.”

“I can’t imagine how that must have felt.”

“Hm.” Kairi’s lips twitch, a little chuckle leaving her, “No, I’m sure you can’t. It must’ve been torture not being able to remember who you are.”

Wraith looks down at the picture and then over to the ring shining in the box. She exhales and zones out, listening to the cadence of Kairi’s voice as a memory pushes its way forward.

“I can’t believe my Kairi is getting married! And to such a gorgeous and smart woman, hm?” Aunt Himiko proclaims loudly as she comes into the room, grinning as she and Renee lock eyes in the mirror.

“Good morning, Auntie.” Renee bows her head in a quick greeting, “I’m just as surprised as you are, and I’m the one marrying her.” She teases back, getting a joyful laugh from the older woman. Kairi’s aunt is a spirited woman - always wearing bright colors and the first to be heard in a room while her mother is the opposite. The first time she met her, Miyuki warned her that she’d need a cup of tea and a good book after speaking with her. Renee took her up on the offer at the end of the night. Kairi was more than excited to read to her while they all sat in the living room and drank tea.

“Oh, Renee. You look like a swan bride out of Kairi’s storybooks.” She coos, running her hand down the back of her hair, “She’s going to fall over and die.”

“I’m trying to have a wedding, not a funeral.”

“Himiko!” Analese shouts, throwing a makeup brush from across the room at her, “Hands off! You’re going to mess up Renee’s hair with your hands!” An undignified yelp comes from Aunt Himiko as she gets whacked in the face. Renee stifles a laugh at the indignant expression on her face.

“You did not just hit me with a makeup brush!”

“And so what if I did! She does not need you to ruin her image on such an important day!”

“The Gods have blessed your Union, my sweet daughter. There’s no need to fret over your appearance.” Miyuki’s soft cadence interrupts their bickering, as she walks over in a beautiful pink kimono, “The sun shines brightly and there’s not a cloud in the sky. Today is a day of joy. With this ceremony, you’ll officially join the family the new daughter I’ve been blessed with.” She holds her hands out to her.

“I’ll accept this blessing with the utmost gratitude.” Renee smiles, reaching out and holding her hands, “To be welcomed into your family is more than I could ask for.”

“I wanted to see you before we go out there. Kairi is surrounded by her family and friends, but it’s just you here. I hope you know your family is with you in spirit. They wouldn’t miss this for the world, darling.” She reaches up and brushes a strand of Renee’s hair behind her ear, “Your mother is proud of you.”

“I know.” Renee squeezes her hands, “All she ever wanted was for me to be happy, and this is the happiest I’ve been in years.”

“Good. That touches my heart.” She taps her chest with her hand, “Now, I have a gift for you. I’d like to gift you with a Japanese name. A sign that you’re part of our family. If you’ll accept one from me?”

“Of course…” Renee breathes out, shocked that her mother-in-law is offering her one. Kairi had mentioned to her it was a tradition created sometime after people began settling out here. When you married into the family, if the Head-of-House loved you enough, you could be gifted with a Japanese name. Those in the family would refer to you with it as a sign of acceptance. Kairi isn’t a fan of tradition, but it was the one tradition she made sure to mention to her fiancée because she knew her mother might bring it up. Renee had been skeptical, but here she is being proven wrong. ‘Kairi is going to laugh at me.’

“Today, not only do I gift you my family name, but I gift you the name, Rei.” Miyuki takes a sheer, lavender scarf and drapes it over Renee’s shoulders, “When you step into the garden, your name shall be Renee Rei Hope Blasey Imahara. My daughter.”

“Renee? Baby?” Kairi’s concerned voice and the feel of her hand against her face are a welcome return to the present.

“I’m here.” She whispers, blinking as she reorients herself. She notes that she’s still holding one of Kairi’s hands but the other is cupping her cheek. Concerned brown irises meet her turquoise ones and make her heart flutter.

“Was that a memory?” She tilts her head.

“Yeah. I was remembering the time before the wedding when Miyuki gifted me with my name.” Wraith smiles happily, a warm feeling in her chest, “Your mother is wonderful.”

“She misses you, you know.” Kairi caresses her cheek, “She’s been nothing but supportive in trying to find you.”

“I’m sorry for everything I put you through.” Wraith looks down, feeling tears sting her eyes, “I can’t imagine how much pain you felt when I disappeared.”

“I grieved you.” She says honestly, “But, I can’t imagine how you must have felt… not even knowing I was out there looking for you. I at least had things to remind me of you. Like your ring and our wedding pictures.” She motions to the items on the table.

“Will you… will you put it on me?” Wraith picks up the ring box.

“It’d be my honor.” Kairi smiles, taking the ring out and holding out her hand. Wraith gives her hand over and watches with bated breath as Kairi slips the ring onto her finger. It fits perfectly, sparkling in the light as if it was always there. Her wife leans down and presses her lips to the ring, making her giggle. Kairi looks up at her and she finds herself getting lost in her eyes. Too lost.

The sunlight makes Kairi’s eyes turn a beautiful amber gold. It’s a shade that always reminds Renee of the sun, and at this moment, it couldn’t be more fitting. Kairi is the light of her life. The person who brought her happiness when her world was dark. 

“Underneath the shining rays of the sun, witnessed by those who have nothing but love for you in their hearts, we declare these two young women as wives!” The priest calls out, grinning wildly, “You may seal your declaration with a kiss.” He says to them.

“Finally.” Renee mutters under her breath. They had been warned it would take a while, especially since Kairi caved on doing it the traditional way. 

“And I’m the impatient one.” Kairi says with a teasing smile on her face.

“So I shouldn’t kiss you?” She raises an eyebrow, returning the smile as she moves closer.

“Let’s not be so rash now…” Kairi laughs nervously, a soft blush on her cheeks.

“Come here!” She laughs, throwing herself into Kairi’s arms as she grabs her face. Renee leans in and kisses her, the crowd cheering as a strong wind kicks in and she can feel it whipping her hair and dress around. But, her focus is on her wife.

Her wife. She can say that now. 

This is their first kiss as wives, and it’s complete bliss. She’s not one to be overly emotional, but this feels similar to the first time they kissed. It’s a sweet moment, filled with nothing but the love and care they have for each other. And as they pull away, Renee can see that there is no regret in Kairi's eyes. Nothing but love and affection.

All for her.

“Mrs and Mrs.Imahara. I can get used to that.” Kairi grins at her, a sparkle in her eyes as the wind rustles her hair.

“It’s Blasey Imahara. And nothing will change professionally, so everyone will continue to know me as Blasey.” Renee reminds her, a slight smirk on her face.

“Baby, let me imagine for two seconds!” She whines, burying her face in her neck, “We just got married!”

Renee laughs, running her fingers through her wife’s hair, “You can imagine all you want tonight, Mrs.Imahara.” She whispers seductively, feeling her wife’s body tense against hers. 

“I won’t need to imagine.” Kairi whispers back, “You’re mine now, even in death.”

“I thought I was the possessive one?”

“Ha, ha, funny.”

Wraith smiles as Kairi lovingly gazes into her eyes, matching the look from her memories. She strokes the ring on her finger, lifting her lover's hand up to her mouth and placing a kiss on her knuckles. To think that after all this time she spent searching for answers, she really was married and to someone so loyal to her.

She doesn’t want to leave Kairi after remembering this. How can she go back to her hotel room and sleep in her bed alone? How can she let her wife go back to hers? She wants to feel her body against hers. To kiss her. To taste her. They’ve been apart for years and she wants nothing more than to sink her teeth into her. To make love to her. 

“So, Mrs.Imahara… you’ll be coming back to my hotel room after this?” Wraith rests her chin on her hand, a smirk on her lips as she caresses the inside of Kairi’s wrist. Kairi’s eyes dart to her hand and back to her face, a grin appearing on her lips. She can, without a doubt, tell what her wife is thinking.

Kairi leans in close, “I’m not strapped up for nothing, baby.”

“Things have changed while I’ve been gone?” Wraith’s eyebrows go up, interest simmering in her chest.

“It’s my turn to take you for a ride.” Kairi purrs.

“I’d like to see you try, brat.” Wraith smirks.

[leohtttbriar]

waits, inexhaustible, the universe

Written for trektober: Day 26 artificial gravity

They had left Lenara behind—being neither Starfleet, nor a medical or engineering expert, nor even a simple solider, she was left behind often.

The counselor, the little brave thing who had recently taken on a symbiont through a series of unfortunate emergency circumstances, appeared very determined as she boarded the Defiant, an optimistic sort of sturdy to pair with Doctor Bashir’s energetic care. Both people and their expertise were needed for the worn-down and bloodied garrison ringing out for help. Lenara, the wormhole consultant, was ordered to stay by the wormhole. 

Jadzia had wrapped a long arm around Lenara’s waist as she departed, kissing her hairline and then her mouth, grinning in her horrific, impish way that never settled Lenara’s fears before Jadzia went into danger. 

“We’ll be back before you know it,” Jadzia had said. 

“Oh, well, in that case,” said Lenara. “I won’t worry at all.”

And Jadzia had laughed as she left the circle of Lenara’s arms. 

Lenara thought of that laugh now, as she hit the switch for the improvised console to initiate turning the artificial gravity back “on.” Between her and Miles, they’d managed to make the console as complicated as possible, messing with the specific “gravity” of the station—so complicated that it was a miracle they’d not accidentally ripped the station in half while attempting to fight off far more of the Jem’Hadar than any one Deep Space outpost should be called upon to do, even one on the very front line of the war. Still, the Jem’Hadar had been ousted, only one ship able to dock on the shifting reality that was the station, and now Lenara, exhausted and bruised, could effectively restore the “natural” artificial order of things before the real heroes returned. 

She landed on the grating floor loudly and ungracefully, but who could blame her. 

Miles found her in minutes, with one of his phasers still brandishing about, bleeding a little from his temple. 

“When I find out how they cloaked themselves like that,” he said, not for the first time, as he helped her undue their field transportable gravity machine. “I’m going to blast every one of them out of they sky with a Death Star.”

“A what?” asked Lenara. 

“Christ, but I’m pissed,” Miles went on. “Where the hell was our intelligence?”

Lenara wiped her fingers free of the goo from the electrical tape and then pushed her hair off her forehead. “Evidently, inadequately engaged.”

By the time the crew of the Defiant had returned, looking weary and unhappy and entirely not prepared for dealing with whatever chaos had occurred in their absence, neither Lenara nor Miles had had much time to clean up beyond restoring the artificial gravity and ensuring regular environmental systems were functional. The security officers who’d taken the brunt of the action were summarily sent to bed so Sisko and co. had the pleasure of greeting the very sweaty and greasy and annoyed Lenara and Miles who were sitting in Ops and trying to figure out how the particle scanners were so flummoxed by the new Jem’Hadar ship design. 

“What on Earth…” said Sisko, looking around at the various detritus and also at their dirty, tired faces. Kira, Ezri, Bashir, and Nog all seemed to echo to this sentiment. 

Jadzia whistled, impressed. Which, of course, made Lenara's heart flutter.

Before Lenara could properly express her bone-breaking relief that Jadzia was alive and apparently well enough to ironically comment, even by mere sound effect, on something clearly serious, a new idea occurred to her about the more pressing issue.

“They’ve linked with the ship!” she gasped at Miles. “The Changelings have embedded themselves in the ships!”

Miles frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Lenara frowned back. “No, I suppose you’re right.” She thought. Then, “No, wait, you're not. it does make sense. The Klingon cloaking worked by throwing off any and all scanners for any and all EM radiation. These worked by gravitational warp—subspace”—

“Oh, like the Houdini mines,” said Jadzia, with yet more irony.

“Sure!” said Lenara. “I don’t know what those are but”—

“How do Changeling’s affect gravity?” asked Miles. 

“The Link,” said Lenara, grinning. “They all have a certain location, even when they’re not at that location. Pretty strange quantum qualities, altogether.”

“So some of the Changeling’s are posing as ships for the Jem’Hadar?” mused Miles. “That’s not a great development.”

The pursuant conversations and debriefs moved fairly quickly for Lenara, who was riding a small high (and a lingering surge of adrenaline) at discovering yet another instance of extreme gravitational phenomenon being directly affected by a species of conscious life, and so it took her utterly and nastily by surprise when, hours later, in what was supposed to be the peace of their quarters, Jadzia had taken off her shirt to reveal a level of unholy bruising and injury that Lenara, as a rule, found unacceptable. 

“What happened?” she asked, running her fingers over the edges of the bruises around Jadzia’s ribs. 

Jadzia shrugged. “Thrown into a wall a couple times.”

Lenara considered this. Imagined it. Lost the ability to think.

She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms firmly around Jadzia’s hips, burrowing her face into the softness of Jadzia’s bare middle. The terror of the day had caught up to her, a bit later than usual, but now very much present. She needed to stay in this exact position for approximately a week before she could dare face another. 

She hadn’t realized this is what her life would be like after saving the life of a war hero and subsequently abandoning the stability that had so prevented her happiness years before. Everyday she was reminded of the war, everyday she woke to up a terror, everyday was filled with a range of emotions that required a complete reorienting of self that she hadn’t needed to perform since she was Joined. Memories of war from past lives did nothing to prepare her for saying goodbye to Jadzia, fearing for her life, and then seeing her again, changed but not dead. Lenara had recently added more slow-burn food-types to her meals in order to properly manage her quotidian experience, such was the energy she was using to go from desperate fear to depraved relief in so short a duration of time.

This day, at least, she had been called upon for a more expansive focus than the normal monitoring of the space station and wormhole. Regardless, she needed to press her face into Jadzia’s soft darkness and remember that Jadzia did, in fact, still exist and, thus, there was yet hope for it all. 

Jadzia bent over her, brushing her fingers through the oily strands of Lenara’s hair, and holding Lenara close as she came down. 

“It all happens so fast,” she said into Jadzia’s belly. “Everything. It's so quick.”

There was a beat in which Lenara could feel the hitch in Jadzia’s breath through the skin of her face. Jadzia, typically, preferred to fall apart once a day by crying silently into a pillow and pretending Lenara couldn't hear and that she couldn't feel her petting her back. Something must have changed in Jadzia for her to start crying when the lights were still on. 

“I’m sorry you’re here,” said Jadzia, her voice breaking. “I’ve just realized—I’m sorry you’re here.”

Lenara squeezed her arms around Jadzia tighter. This would not do. 

“I’m not sorry, don’t you dare,” she said immediately. “It’s moving fast but this…” She swallowed, nuzzling into Jadzia. “Someday, it’ll move slow.”

Jadzia’s hands continued to stroke Lenara’s head, shoulders, and neck. She said, trying for a bit of humor, “We just need some good old fashioned time dilation.”

“I can do it,” said Lenara. “Expand the gravitational force on everyone else, except us.”

Jadzia laughed wetly. “We’ll go to the beach.”

“Yes, I’ll swim and you can collect slimy creatures to adopt.”

“It will be slow,” whispered Jadzia. “One day.”

Lenara allowed herself one more moment of peace before extricating from Jadzia and saying, “Let’s go to sickbay—you look like you’ve been thrown into a wall.”

[fuzzynovagoblin]

what programming language do you use

I mean depends on what I'm doing.

My favorite language is rust so I tend to use that where I can.

For gui apps usually flutter/dart, maybe c++ or rust with GTK if it's just for Linux.

Web dev usually just node.js especially if it's also got a frontend.

And for system or embedded development (which is what I mostly do in my free time) c++ or rust.

[chroniclers-circle]

chromium 2a

She was lucky there were more planets than just the first one in the Chromium system. The first touchdown on the gas-giant moon had been a bust—but there was plenty more for her to uncover here. Like on the mid-sized rocky planet she orbited now. The glittering expanse of stars beamed at her from the panel of glass in the hallway between her living quarters and the command-bridge of the ship.

There wasn’t a lot of time, but she leaned forward and pressed her face against it—and just breathed. The ship subroutines would include a scolding message for her in the logs tomorrow morning about her lack of attention to proper cleanliness and maintenance standards for exterior view-ports, but she couldn’t care less at the moment. If they’d wanted her to care what the computer thought, they wouldn’t have made it feel like the letters she got from her far-flung family: rare, untimely, and often with the air of disapproving of her general choices in life.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she stood alone in front of the vast expanse of space, only two meters insulated from the endless void.

Before long it was time to suit up again though. Her hair went into a braid, then a bun, then was finally tucked into the helmet of her space-suit. Seals were done up, vital monitors were engaged, and equipment were checked and double checked. She headed for the gangplank, and hit the button for the airlock door once more.

Sys.log: First Impressions

The notification system on her wrist marks a ping the moment her foot touches the planet’s dusty surface.

It seemed that unlike Chromium 1b, the notable features of 2a were located far underground. Which meant that she’d need to find a way down there in order to investigate, fulfill her exploration obligations, and find samples. She glanced out over the barren wasteland around her—it didn’t seem as though the Chromium system had birthed any life. What she had seen so far were vast isolated verandas, and the view stretching before her was yet another one.

It was so similar to what she felt standing before the viewport in her ship. It was so alien to everything she’d ever felt before. She didn’t know the last time she’d heard her own voice. The notification system pinged again. Her scanners had found a cave entrance.

She had her way down.

Sys.log: Descent

The cavern mouth yawned before her. Thick powder caked the crevices around it, evidence of powerful erosive wind that she hadn’t yet encountered. Her boots sank down into it, until it covered her boots up to the ankles, teasing at the seal where her suit ended. She wrinkled her nose and peered down into the depths. She couldn’t hear anything that wasn’t recorded and piped into the helmet of her suit—and the device worked well to filter out environmental background noise—but she thought she could hear her breathing echoed back at her from deep within the hole in front of her.

She flexed her fingers and activated the flashlight at the end of her gloves and the one embedded into the center of her helmet, between her eyes, and began her descent.

The walls crooked full of ragged rocks, with faults and cracks that seemed the result of whatever pressures and winds arose on the surface. She wouldn’t be surprised if this was a planet eternally wrecked with storms. She’d likely landed in the only patch of calm weather in a very long time.

Her feet sank into the powder as she pressed inward and downward, hunting for the elusive signal that her scanners had detected. The hologram of a map flashed on her wrist, the ghost bones of some ancient pattern surrounding her, promising her something worthwhile to add to her report. Her feet slid beneath her, and she kept going.

Sys.log: Ruin Filled Caverns

She wanted to chalk it up to her imagination when she first noticed—but after a handful more steps into what could only be the remnants of a long forgotten city, she gave in to the realization that the walls themselves were glowing. It was not a strong glow, she had seen brighter bioluminescent algae on Myril, but it was enough that she could make out the corners and contours of every crumbling building and disintegrating wall.

There had been people here once. Her hypothesis about the Chromium system was wrong—but not entirely. For whoever had lived her once was long dead. Dust and the fine powder from the surface dulled the glow, and proved that she was the first person to set foot in these caverns for at least a millenia, if not more. She looked around more closely, trying to figure out if she could uncover why the city had been so totally abandoned.

Stepping closer to the wall, she realized. The powder down here was different than the surface. Down here, the powder came away black on the fingertips of her gloves. Char. Soot. Things had burned down here, and there was every likelihood that the fine powder that sifted across the dusty surface was comprised partly of bones. She shuddered, and stepped back toward the middle of what used to be a street.

Walking through the ruins was less the awesome experience she’d had on other planets, and more the acknowledgment of an unknown mausoleum. A tragedy had taken place here, and she would do nothing to undermine the profound solemnity that such a truth required.

The walls had been carved with art, beautiful runes in angular shapes that she could not read—perhaps that no one left in the universe could read. She had not seen any other signs of life on this planet, after all, and the evidence of storms on the surface could have been the result of any extinction level event.

She swallowed, and looked around once more. She’d snagged a pebble that had fallen from one of the walls as a sample of that glowing rock—and that was all there was left to do here.

She made it back to her ship quickly, and the glowing pebble bid farewell to its home planet, and found itself tucked next to the strange chrome fruit as evidence of her ventures through the Chromium system.

NEXT PLANET

[likita123]

How to Build a FinTech Mobile App | A Complete Guide

In today’s fast-digital world, financial services aren’t just online — they’re in your pocket. From mobile banking and digital wallets to robo-advisors and crypto apps, FinTech solutions are reshaping how we manage money. If you’ve ever dreamt of launching your own FinTech app, this guide walks you through what FinTech app development involves, the pros and cons, and how companies like SMT Labs are making it happen.

What Is FinTech App Development?

FinTech app development refers to building mobile (and often paired web) applications that offer financial services digitally. These apps may include:

Banking: Checking balances, making transfers, depositing checks

Payments: Mobile wallets, UPI/QR payments, peer-to-peer transfers

Lending: Digital loan origination, credit scoring, repayment

Investments: Trading, robo-advisors, portfolio tracking

Insurance (InsurTech): Policy management, automated claims

Blockchain & crypto: Wallets, DeFi platforms, smart contracts

It’s not just programming — it combines security, compliance, UX design, backend systems, and often AI/ML and blockchain integration to deliver seamless, trusted experiences.

Worldwide accessibility – After development, your app can be used by users across the globe.

Why You Should Develop a FinTech App

1. Massive market opportunity FinTech is exploding. With rising smartphone usage and demand for digital finance, people expect instant, sleek, and secure services. Whether you’re targeting underserved markets or niche segments — there’s room to grow.

2. Customer-centric innovation FinTech apps let you offer services tailored to real user needs — instant payments, personal finance insights, automated savings. Delight users with convenience and personalization.

3. High scalability potential Apps can expand features, support more users, integrate APIs — scaling your tech and revenue without scaling costs linearly.

4. Data-driven capabilities Leverage user behavior data with AI/ML for smart features like predictive budgeting, fraud detection, and robo-advice.

5. Strategic partnerships Embedded finance — banking-as-a-service, APIs, payment processors — opens doors for collaboration and revenue-sharing.

Worldwide accessibility – After development, your app can be used by users across the globe.

Key Features of a FinTech Mobile App

To build a robust FinTech app, consider these essential components:

Feature

Description

Strong security

End‑to‑end encryption, MFA, biometric login, fraud detection

Fast payments

Support UPI, QR code scans, wallets, card/net banking

Real-time data

Live balance updates, transaction tracking, trading feeds

User-friendly UI

Intuitive navigation, visual dashboards, seamless onboarding

Cross‑platform support

Native iOS/Android or hybrid solutions (Flutter, React Native)

Integration

Connect with banks, KYC/CDD, payment gateways, credit bureaus

Analytics & AI

Personalized insights, budgeting tools, credit scoring, risk checks

Compliance

Adhere to regulations (PCI DSS, GDPR, RBI, ISO standards)

Support

Chatbots, in-app support, notifications, alerts

Worldwide accessibility – After development, your app can be used by users across the globe.

Step‑by‑Step FinTech App Development Process

A typical roadmap looks like this:

1. Requirement Analysis

Define goals, target users, core features, and regulatory constraints. This stage guides your development plan.

2. Design & Prototyping

Create wireframes, mockups, interactive prototypes. Prioritize simplicity, transparency, and trust.

3. Development & Integration

Choose your tech stack: e.g. React Native or Flutter for mobile; Node.js, Python, Java for backend; databases, cloud infrastructure. Integrate APIs: banking, KYC, payments, credit, crypto/blockchain as needed.

4. Security & Compliance Testing

Perform rigorous testing: pen-testing, code reviews, encryption verification. Also run compliance audits with legal/finance experts.

5. Deployment & Launch

Publish in app stores, roll out phased user adoption, set up backend monitoring and support.

6. Maintenance & Upgrades

Continuously improve through feature releases, security patches, performance tuning, regulatory compliance.

Worldwide accessibility – After development, your app can be used by users across the globe. 

Benefits of Developing a FinTech App

Superior user experience – Fast, intuitive, and 24/7 accessible.

Operational efficiency – Automates paper-based processes.

New monetization paths – From fees, subscription models, embedded finance.

Real-time insights – Data helps you refine offerings.

Worldwide accessibility – After development, your app can be used by users across the globe.

Worldwide accessibility – After development, your app can be used by users across the globe.

Challenges & Drawbacks to Consider

Security & trust – Financial apps are prime hacking targets; failure means massive reputational risk.

Complex compliance – Different countries require different legal adherence.

High cost & complexity – Security, integrations, audits, and scalability drive up costs.

Regulatory hurdles – Approvals like banking licenses add time and cost.

User trust & retention – People are cautious with money apps — UX, privacy, and reliability are critical.

Worldwide accessibility – After development, your app can be used by users across the globe.

Why Choose a FinTech App Development Company?

If you're not a development house, partnering with a specialized FinTech software development company is smart:

They have domain expertise — security, compliance, integrations, performance.

They provide end-to-end support — design, development, QA, deployment, maintenance.

They know how to avoid pitfalls, having built multiple similar products.

Worldwide accessibility – After development, your app can be used by users across the globe.

Pros & Cons of Working with a Specialist Firm like SMT Labs

✅ Pros

⚠️ Cons

Domain expertise in financial tech

Higher rate compared to generalists

Robust security and compliance

Some remote coordination may be needed

Faster development with reusable components

US/regulatory support might need local partners

Scalability through proven architecture

Custom projects still require your strong input

24/7 support & continuous updates

Long-term contracts may apply

Worldwide accessibility – After development, your app can be used by users across the globe.

How to Get Started with FinTech App Development

Clarify your idea Define your app’s niche, target users, monetization, must-have features, and compliance requirements.

Plan your budget & timeline Simple apps: ~$50K to build; advanced platforms: $200K+. Set realistic timelines (3–12+ months).

Shortlist vendors Look for companies with FinTech experience, security credentials, and relevant case studies — like SMT Labs.

Draft requirements doc Include user journeys, features (KYC, payments, analytics), supported platforms, key integrations, security needs, and regulatory context.

Get proposals & sign NDA Invite selected vendors to pitch, including scope, pricing, timeline, tech stack, and project milestones.

Commence development Start with prototyping and iterative sprints. Include regular demos and testing cycles.

Beta testing Launch to a pilot group, gather feedback on performance, UX, Bugs, security.

Launch & market Release on App Stores, support users, monitor usage, iterate based on behavior analytics.

Maintain & scale Continuous upgrades — security patches, new features, evolving regulations, user support.

Worldwide accessibility – After development, your app can be used by users across the globe.

Final Thoughts

Building a FinTech mobile app is a rewarding but complex journey — security, compliance, integrations, cloud infrastructure, UX — there’s a lot to get right. A specialist partner like SMT Labs can help you avoid pitfalls, accelerate delivery, and focus on your core vision.

By combining:

Strategic planning

Secure, user-friendly design

Modern tech stack

Ongoing support

…you’ll be set to launch a compelling FinTech app that not only powers digital finance today, but adapts and grows for tomorrow’s needs.

Conclusion

FinTech app development is a dynamic mix of finance, tech, security, and compliance — offering massive growth and impact opportunities. Whether you're building a payment wallet, a digital bank, a robo-advisor, or a blockchain platform, partners like SMT Labs provide the expertise and full-stack development support to help you build, launch, and scale confidently.