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Kyle

De omnibus dubitandum

A form of intimacy unchanged through time, through the snow, the fire.

It was lost to him now; and he'd never regain it.

Training with these new ones was so different.

It was clear there were some not here for martial skill, but rather others.

Most- in fact, all excelled in gunplay, but the arena was where it all came down.

In your base, at your weakest, can you overcome?

Vivere militare est. But to fight alongside brothers is better, he decided.

His old family was left behind now.

After taking one of Isaac's blows, he swatted aside the other two.

The round had lasted beyond expectation, but Kyle couldn't make any estimate when he didn't know the fox.

All he knew was Isaac was showing no signs of slowing down, and it was frustrating him.

Conditioning aside the only thing keeping the timber wolf from calling the spar to break was some strange sense of honor instilled in him.

"Getting a little tired, huh?"

Isaac grinned broadly, the same devilish look on his face despite different emotions.

Kyle said nothing in response; banter would only deal blows to his stamina. And for all he knew, Isaac would go in as soon as he opened his mouth.

Dodging another series of blows, he connected several with Isaac's midsection, ending the string of counters with a hard uppercut to the jaw.

Isaac staggered back but as Kyle went in for a simple jab to keep momentum, the fox spun around to avoid and backfisted the wolf, stunning him more than a backfist would...

Kyle gave a growl of pain as he backed away, waiting for Isaac to move in, chip away at his defenses until his wall collapsed...

But the fox stood there, smiling, arms lowered.

"Well, I'm tired too. Truce?"

Breathing heavily, Kyle nodded and put his hands on his knees.

"A-aye..."

Walking over to the bench, Kyle didn't follow Isaac.

He'd never fought someone like that before.

Isaac would have killed him had fate aligned them differently.

Massaging his temple, the wolf joined Isaac at the bench, sitting down beside him.

"I have not had a fight like that in some time. Thank you."

"And thank you, Kyle. Just... remember to call it when you're done. I don't want anyone falling out on me."

Kyle nodded again, finishing his water bottle.

He'd fought in Siberia and the Gobi desert alike.

Taken bullets.

Taken blades.

But he'd never felt so...

Weak, so destitute, in fact the last time he'd been even beaten that badly was by Kiri so many years ago-

"Qui totum vult totum perdit," said the fox.

Kyle gave him a look of surprise.

"I noticed you throw around Latin sometimes. I know a bit myself, actually."

He waited for the wolf's response but received nothing.

"I'm going to grab a shower, then. Meet you back here tomorrow morning?"

"Da."

Isaac walked away, leaving a water bottle that was completely full and even unopened behind him.

Staring at it, Kyle never remembered speaking Latin between yesterday and today, especially to Isaac.

Looking back to the exit, Isaac had just walked up the stairs into commons.

Draping his towel over his broad shoulder, Kyle began to ponder.

///

Knocking on his door, nervousness was something he'd abandoned long ago but it always came back.

Maybe it was just a small feeling, but it was something.

He didn't expect a retelling of the Wolf Pack when he came to the GSS, but this was the one foremost person standing in the way of the team's balance.

Riddick opened his door, Kyle feigning that he was looking away for a moment.

"Can I help you?"

"...Da. I... I heard you have access to the GRA database, I want intel on someone."

"Everyone has access, just use the terminal downstairs"-

"I know you can hack."

Riddick's face changed from annoyance to suspicion and Kyle hoped he hadn't set him off.

"Who told you?"

"Rochelle."

"Fuck..."

Riddick leaned into the side of the doorframe, looking at Kyle's shoes.

"So will you help me?"

"Depends. Who do you want intel on?"

Hesitating, Kyle looked both ways down the corridor, listening for someone coming up the stairs but there was no one.

"Our new teammate."

Riddick leaned forward without warning and Kyle stepped back, the hyena double checking there was no one out there.

"This is serious, Kyle. I'd rather grab the dossier off Marshall than do this."

"Most likely the dossier is encoded."

"And the database isn't?"

"Can you help me, or should I look elsewhere?"

Looking him dead in the eyes, the two stared each other down for a moment.

"Fine. Come in."

Kyle couldn't say his own room was the most orderly in the house but he'd seen buildings in Warscar without roofs that were less scattered.

Without remark, he waited in the doorway as Riddick grabbed his laptop.

"Sit."

Kyle moved a shirt aside as he sat down on Riddick's bed.

"What makes you think Isaac's entry is beyond our access?"

"I can't even get into mine."

Riddick promptly snorted.

"We can't get into anyone's, all I can read is DeSanta's bullshit success story and World War 4 articles..."

Logging in, the hyena went through a series of programs and then restarted it all, after that opening up different ones before closing them again, then finally maximized a window to... A second desktop?

"Emulator. Layer on as many masks as you can and when they start taking them off you can get out."

He was lost but Kyle nodded anyways.

Opening up one of the few desktop icons remaining, the GRA database, Kyle noticed things on the screen were moving but Riddick was simply watching.

"God, that's a long password."

"What are you doing?"

"No questions."

Exiting the window, Riddick opened up the database.

He hadn't before, strange...

It came to Kyle he was watching someone else's screen.

Live?

No, it couldn't be...

Staring at the hyena next to him, fingers working away at the keys, Kyle wondered just how much he didn't know.

"...Ne te quaesiveris extra..."

"A mercenary with morals. Heh."

How many of them understood Latin?

"There you go. Everything you want."

He handed Kyle the laptop and the wolf began to look.

25, male, red fox, 6'3, nothing out of the ordinary.

"I have 89% access with the account I've been using. But I only used it a few times. I think 89 is a fake number, most of the things I come across are still encrypted."

"Can't you just... Hack into them?"

"That's not how it works."

"I have some experience, but with cell service and the like."

Kyle didn't make such conversational maneuvers but he wanted to get inside the hyena's head.

Was he a braggart?

Was he dispassionate?

Was he hidden?

Something on the page caught Kyle's eye, but maybe it was him looking for any sign at all.

"Glasglow."

"What?"

"He was involved in the siege of Glasglow."

"He mentioned something like that yesterday. Just one of Jinn's tactics; take an entire city hostage. Same with Cairo, Cordoba, Warsaw"-

"But he was with one of the first squadrons sent in."

Riddick shrugged.

"Glasglow was a massacre. I recall reading there were no survivors."

"I'd think your Russian is a bit outdated, Kyle."

Exhaling a bit louder, it was the closest he would come to a sigh.

Continuing to scroll, it caught the hyena's attention when the latter half was classified.

"Oh?" The hyena leaned over.

"It says I need... Top access."

For a moment the two sat in silence, staring at the screen's message.

"Top access is like DeSanta's work account. No hope there."

"But what's so important?"

Kyle got no answer, Riddick taking back the laptop and running down the page.

"We still have about eight minutes before I should leave. Any more you want to check?"

Kyle could see the hyena was genuinely curious now. Perhaps he'd done something to bridge the two.

There were several people he wanted to take a look at.

Isaac's course was run; what information they wanted on him was blocked from view.

Reyna.

Dmitri.

Riddick himself; but that probably wouldn't go over quite well.

"Leftenant Marshall."

Hesitating for a moment, Riddick searched him up.

Marshall wasn't exactly a mystery, but Kyle wanted something that would tell him about these...

Higher ups that he kept mentioning. At one point he'd tailed Marshall through the house and saw him disappear into a secret room, opened by a panel and keypad on the wall.

Several pictures showed, and scrolling down them all only one was familiar.

Several were of what they assumed was a younger Marshall, sometimes with other people, sometimes alone.

In all the pictures where his belt was visible, his signature revolver hung on it.

Clicking on the broader profile, they began to read.

"This one's one of the bigger pages."

Many things caught Kyle's eye, but now Riddick was moving over them looking for what he wanted.

"South African Union... Child soldier?"

Stopping, the wolf leaning in, they read the paragraph.

"When Jinn was in control of the area, around 30 years ago, their General there authorized things like that... Never knew he was with them... Damn." Riddick continued scrolling, finishing the Euro Common text faster than Kyle.

Another thing caught the wolf's eye, and this time he moved Riddick's hand and scrolled back up.

"Look at that," he said, archaically pointing at the screen, "he was in the first GSS squadron."

"As in G01?"

"Da... You heard the rumors about G01, though? Most of them mysteriously died after the enlistment age limit was lowered?"

"And the others were pressed from retirement, no whistleblowers."

The two looked away from the screen, making eye contact.

"They publicized all the names, there was no one named Marshall on G01."

"It's likely classified."

Kyle ran his tongue over his teeth, avoiding the cyanide pill at the back.

"Never saw any resemblance, though." The wolf tried to piece Marshall with one of the historical photos. All he knew was James Harper was among G01, and that strange Dingo from the airport...

"Eh, all wolves look alike."

Giving him a look, Riddick playfully punched him on the shoulder.

"Kidding. But I'd not ask him about any of those subjects, he'll know we've been snooping."

Looking at the clock, 9 minutes had passed. "Best to get out. You said we had ten minutes, yes?"

"Right. They scan the network at10-minute intervals, global. If someone's logged into some official's account from New Alaska, it probably wouldn't blow over too well if they saw someone was using that account in Norway."

Nodding, Kyle watched him shut down the various programs and close the laptop.

"Thank you. I'll look more into Isaac if I can."

"What more is there to see? It's top access, we can't get into that."

"If I can get to his dossier"-

"I wouldn't try."

Their eyes met once more as Kyle stood to leave.

"And that's coming from me."

It didn't deter the Russian, he had a strange feeling about the fox.

Team Leader Isaac.

The full water bottle.

For whatever reason that bothered him more than anything.

"And Kyle? A question?"

The wolf didn't turn, just stood in the doorway.

"I just wanted to know... Why is it you were trained by Jinn for two years?"

The wolf froze up.

Standing in the doorway, he felt his heartbeat accelerate.

But he made no signs of anything at all.

"How did you come by this information?"

"That wasn't my first time in the database. Now answer the question."

It was clear Riddick had been waiting the whole time to pose the question.

Kyle grimaced.

"If you read that, then you read what happened beforehand, yes? My home was shelled, I was only 8, Jinn took me before the Wolf Pack came and"-

"Da," the hyena said mockingly. "But this gives me even lesser reason to trust you."

"When I came here, you already hated me. Why?"

"I'm asking the questions"-

"Why, Roland?"

Riddick flinched at the usage of his real name.

"...I lost my brother to your kind. Mercenaries. With no respect for locals, the customs of things, the goings on. They just want more for themselves. Money. Turf. Women."

Riddick's hand was shaking, in it... A pistol.

Kyle had only seen slight movements from under Riddick's pillow when he was reading, but attributed it to tidying.

Whatever Riddick wanted to do, he could do it.

He would regret it despite the outcome.

Kyle was willing to test his own steel to the hyena's. But he didn't want to.

In a fast movement, the hyena stood and a loud bang resounded, but as the gun hit the floor he realized Riddick had thrown it at the wall and not discharged it.

"Why the hell should you be any different?! How much blood is on your hands?"

Kyle stood emotionless, his heart rate returning with the help of his past conditioning.

"...So don't ask me to like a Jinn merc with ASPD."

"...I understand."

Kyle turned to leave-

"Kyle, wait."

About-facing once more, he waited for the next round of harsh words.

Riddick waited for a good five seconds, calming himself down before he said something else rash.

"I'm sorry. I let things get out of hand. I shouldn't have."

Riddick began to blink rapidly and Kyle looked away.

"Qui totum vult totum... perdit," Kyle said shakily.

Staring out his window, Riddick nodded.

"You get that fucking dossier. And watch your ass, Marshall won't appreciate anything we've done."

With a nod, Kyle left.

///

A few birds chriping, other than that the serenity of the wilderness.

Kyle reckoned this was the closest he'd get to home. Freezing cold, nothing around for 10 or so miles...

Crunching of snow behind him.

"A bit late, nyet?"

Tai muttered an apology and the wolf noticed the bags under his eyes.

"You slept through all of yesterday. Why so tired?"

The cat gave a shrug, rubbing his temples.

Remembering the events of yesterday, the very first thing that tipped him off was Tai and Isaac's awkward handshake.

Not that it was awkward, but just...

Ten seconds of full, intense eye contact, some measure of intense loathing passed between them, and they didn't even know each other.

He'd almost forgotten. But that water bottle was still worse-

"So, what are we doing today?"

Probably getting sent home for being caught stealing a dossier...

"I didn't have any plans, but if you can think of anything you'd like to work on, I'll oblige you."

Rubbing his eye, it looked as if Tai was about to fall over.

"How about we do... what was it called, what we did at Connecticut?"

"Freerunning?"

"Yeah... How about that?"

"Well... You are tired, bratja. It isn't wise to..."

Kyle faded off as the cat swayed on his feet.

"Are you alright?"

After Tai didn't give a response, Kyle began to move towards him with increasing speed as Tai fell towards the snow.

Catching him awkwardly, Tai's shoes dragged on the ground and Kyle supported him.

"Bratja!"

"Sub... Finem."

From his knowledge Tai didn't know any Latin, and those words were distressing alone.

///

"I'm here!"

Marshall slammed the door behind him and rushed into the medbay somewhat unceremoniously.

Kyle had lay Tai on the bed, but he couldn't deduce what the matter was.

For all he knew Tai had just fallen asleep chronically.

Explaining the situation to the wolf, Marshall began running through pill bottles.

"He was asleep all yesterday?"

"Until you called us down. Afterwards he went back to bed."

Pills in hand, Marshall went to Tai and shook him, to no avail.

Frustrated, the wolf grabbed a syringe and began filling it with an odd clear liquid.

"Sir, does Tai have health problems?"

Walking back over to Tai, he tilted the cat's head to one side and injected him in the neck.

"Something like that. He just... Gets sick a lot. Falls asleep."

"Oh. I read somewhere that the GSS requires perfect health, nyet?"

"We've recently changed that policy."

It must have been very recent, a history of nosebleeds would get you denied.

Unless you were drafted. Kyle looked at the roof, thinking of the hyena. And his new agenda.

Remembering the events of just an hour ago, Kyle wondered if he should mention anything at all to Marshall.

They were staking this on the dossier having that top access information, even though Marshall was just a Leftenant. But he was in charge of Isaac, he'd have something surely.

Or perhaps Kyle would ask something about Marshall himself.

Too many questions going around- with too little answers.

Riddick didn't seem to have any suspicion about Isaac until they'd found his page locked up tight. Remembering last night, the hyena had seemed almost infatuated with the fox.

Pent-up.

Walking over to the table as Marshall sorted through pills, Kyle brushed the tuft of hair back from the cat's head.

He'd come to see Tai as a sort of younger brother, the structures of the Wolf Pack embedding themselves here.

Perhaps he was looking for some familiarity and had simply latched onto the cat, but concern was something he didn't feel often. Or lightly.

Mostly he just saw another orphan.

One that could be coerced into the wrong side easily... And perhaps he was already on the wrong side.

"So he's been tired, despite being asleep?" The gray wolf was going to pull back Tai's eyelids but thought better of it.

"Yes. And I don't think he's eaten in a while either, he didn't come out of his room until noon from what I heard. We were going training when he fell out, but... I suppose it took all he had just to get into the woods."

"Mmh. It's a simple fix. What I just injected him with will wake him up but I got a lot of questions to ask him afterwards... In the meantime will you take my briefcase upstairs? Just set it at the top and leave it."

Opportunity.

And he hadn't even had to do anything.

Kyle nodded, grabbing the case and inspecting the latches on them. He wasn't exactly known for lockpicking but it was a talent he'd picked up without much use for.

It was much easier to just kick in a door.

Walking out, Kyle immediately pulled a small knife from his coat when he was out of view. Glancing back in through the doorway, it was on the wall to his right and Marshall couldn't possibly see him.

Marshall treated Kyle with the respect he treated with only a few others on the team, obviously pinning him as one of the more clever ones. In fact, the gray wolf knew telling him to put the briefcase in such an odd spot signified there was something behind the wall, but he didn't think Kyle was the type to be too curious.

He thought.

The locks weren't too hard- maybe Kyle wasn't giving himself enough credit- but the timber wolf hoped it had something in it that was at the very least useful. He'd been careful not to cut any marks in with his blade, but for all he knew there were cameras on the lock or something.

Putting it up to paranoia, he continued.

Fishing through it, Kyle tuned his sensitive ears to the infirmary ere Marshall walk out.

He began to speak to himself just loud enough for Marshall to hear down in the infirmary, and got a strange look as Rochelle walked down the hallway.

If Marshall wondered what was keeping him, he was just 'speaking to Riddick'.

Quickly going through the contents, a set of shades, another gun, a few folders, it was Marshall's backup gear and whatever was held in the manilla envelopes.

Setting the briefcase down and taking the folders out, Kyle sorted through them.

A lot of them had black lines over the words, a few were blurry pictures of strange persons, one was in French and the last was...

Labeled Isaac.

Putting the others away, Kyle didn't put it past Marshall to notice one of them was missing. Whatever he did he had to do it right then and there.

Opening it, the Trojan logo and a series of numbers were on the front.

The one other paper was simply a line of code.

Giving a low growl, he went through every code he knew but anything with Trojan on it was generally by and for Trojan, no one else knowing it.

Except...

He looked towards the jackal's door.

No, he wasn't getting her in on this.

He disliked her quite a lot. She practically abused Tai in their training sessions and though it had gotten tamer he'd picked up on their shouting match a while ago.

Anyhow, if Isaac was somehow had ties with the Trojans he knew it would go south if she found they were looking around, save the fact she showed distaste for Kyle already and hated Riddick.

And just like him, her allegiance wasn't to the GRA but the one that sent her there.

He knew her type. He was her type.

Shaking his head he replaced the folders in the briefcase, having taken note of their order beforehand and leaned it against the wall and railing at the top of the stairs.

Walking back down, he put on a fake smile as if he'd been sharing a joke with someone, then extinguished it.

Marshall knew he didn't smile.

Strolling back in, Marshall was on the phone and Kyle's footsteps went dead quiet, his breathing as well.

"...I gotta drop the briefcase off in the usual spot. In France. I get the security breach means we can't send things any more but seriously, a whole nother' country?"

He was looking at the wall and turned back around, Kyle moving to a less obvious angle quickly.

A bit of exchange, the voice was unrecognizable from here.

"It's pissing me off. Not like I have a choice in being here at all, but I should really get paid more. My kid's practically dying and I just took a magnatrain from Turkey to get here."

Dying?

Kyle's heart sank for the other wolf. To have your own child dying and have to spend your time doing such undesirable work, it sounded miserable.

Marshall had walked to the other side of the room in his pacing and Kyle moved back towards the door, feigning he hadn't heard anything and inversely just walked in.

He accentuated his footsteps to fade in like he grew close to the doorway and Marshall quickly shoved his phone back in his pocket.

"My apologies, I was speaking to Roland."

Perhaps he'd exaggerated with his usage of that name but most likely Marshall didn't go too far to check the chemistry between his team. That was Jake's- ... Isaac's job.

"Right. Well, I can't stay for long, I'm a bit busy today. Well, every day." Marshall began to launch into a monologue since his phone call was cut short.

Kyle was more than willing to listen to him. After all, wolves tended to let stoicism overtake emotion, he would know.

He would know quite a lot.

"By the way, have you seen a manila envelope lying around?" Marshall's words cut through the slow mountain of his monologue.

Kyle's ears perked up.

"The one marked 'Isaac'?"

"Ah- yeah, that one. I thought it was in my briefcase but I must have left it lying around last night."

I thought it was in your briefcase too...

Given Marshall's distracted and frustrated nature the previous day Kyle wouldn't be surprised at all.

Just as well as he never saw a folder lying around labeled Isaac, but Marshall told him there was one.

So he would just have to find it before anyone else did.

///

Tai

"You really do need to wake up."

Someone was brushing my hair out of my face, a foreign gesture but one I liked nonetheless.

I was too shy to say it, though.

Opening my eyes slowly, Ariya was over me- actually, I was lying in her lap.

I almost jerked my head up but I quite enjoyed it.

Maybe my brain was fried.

"I fell... In the snow..."

"Right on your face if it weren't for your friend."

"God, why was I so tired?"

Ariya looked up warily as if it were going to storm again.

I read her surprisingly well; after all we were in my head.

Yet everything felt so... Real.

I realized my clothes were bloodstained; the ones in there anyways.

They were the same thing I'd been wearing yesterday; that hoodie I was pretty sure belonged to Riddick and jeans.

"Like I said, your brain was fried. And you only made it worse by staying here. It took a while to reform myself in your consciousness, longer than it usually would."

"But I was tired before I came here. Slept until 7 the night Isaac got here."

"Your brain was probably trying to get in here the night before but failed. Exhausted itself."

I pretended to understand.

She continued stroking my hair, probably reading me.

If I could have left last night I would have in a heartbeat. After that strange episode though, I just seemed to fall asleep.

Or rather, awake.

Not that I knew how to leave, I'd felt my strength drain when that strange thunderstorm started.

I couldn't get it past myself that Ariya was just an illusion here.

"Why are you so different from Ariya?"

Without context, it was confusing.

"The real one? I am simply a reconstruction of what she copied down into your head. And your impression of her. From past experiences she appeared as one of the nicest people you knew."

"She ordered me around."

"Better than Gibraltar, no?"

Closing my eyes, I gave a sigh.

It was as if I was finally resting but the need to rest was slowly melting away, a block of wax that I watched decrease in size.

"How would someone like Marshall appear?"

"Can I offer you more pills, Tai?"

I jumped, or rather convulsed laying down and looked up to see the steely eyed wolf.

Coming back, Ariya was laughing at me.

"Screw you."

"Priceless..."

"How would Reyna appear?"

Looking up at the sky as if to consult my consciousness for a moment, Ariya blushed.

"You're kidding, right?" She gave no response, but her eyes widened.

Now I was blushing.

"Before my brain fries again, how do I leave?" I said quickly.

"You'll leave when you want to. The real me tried to send you a message last night and it crashed your brain, essentially. Or rather, kicked it into overdrive. Otherwise you would have woken up."

"That's why I was seeing all those weird things?"

Her face went serious. "Weird things?"

"The person that tried to kill me at the port, me but scarred"-

"Tai, you need to try and forget those things."

Her face went to urgency, and her voice did as well.

"Are they... Glimpses of the future?" I blinked.

"What could be, what could have been, what will never be. Different realities. Those can really fry your brain, beyond repair this time. Just keep away from them."

I stared off into the sky, or rather, the white void.

It was oddly welcoming now.

"I think I'll be leaving now."

"See you tonight, I guess."

"We aren't going to look at more people getting blown up, are we?"

She shrugged.

///

As she stepped to the edge of the rooftop it began to rain.

Katia's long and dark brown hair streamed out from under her hood and mask, Jinn's military code having no more sway on her.

Like it ever did.

Looking down she saw her baby sister, in all her disappointment, lying in the rain, blood pooling under her.

She went by Lynx now, so they said. A large blow to her anonymity as an assassin.

Still holding on to the promises of Gynezis and Jinn, too childish to realize the world was too cold to keep promises.

Ajax hadn't killed her but he could have easily. She could tell by just looking at her.

Hard to kill anyways. The Red Phantom's pupils were neigh on impossible unless she deemed fit to kill them herself.

As hefty as a price was on Lynx's head, Katia wasn't going to lay a hand on her baby sister.

And Ajax sure as hell wasn't either. She'd made sure he knew she was after her as well.

The GRA had made the bounty public, so she was on it.

Most of the international assassin community shied away from the higher profile contracts; after all they knew she would jump on them. And kill everyone else after it for the fun of it.

The newer ones would look to score big, they were always easy prey.

How she met Ajax the first time, incidentally. She'd let him go after he'd done a bit of convincing.

Aiming one of her signature knives, a rose inscribed into the blade, she threw it into the sleeve of Lynx's coat, just an inch from her arm.

Thinking better of it, the Red Phantom began to descend the building, simultaneously deleting the memory of a camera the earlier two had missed.

Katia could think of better things to do with the bloody lynx.

Chiefly, find out why she was so infatuated with the cat.

Unfortunately, Tai was another pending contract on her long list.

///

The quickest chapter I've ever written

Now for your end of the deal wolfie :P

Btw the thumbnail is the slums where the last portion took place. Figured I should mention since it didn't play too much of a role in this chapter