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///

Ariya

With a groan she tried to open her eyes but only saw blurry spots overlaying her vision.

Was she dying? Had she finally reached the end of her lifespan?

Well, they couldn't all make it to 20...

But as the spots cleared and she found she could move again, the gray fox saw two people she very much despised.

Tomas and Cecelia.

The extreme mental strength of the Janus body gave her a full recovery and in a matter of seconds she stood. Generally mental attacks on other afflicts didn't affect them much so they'd have to hit her with something hard.

She would hit them with something harder.

Her silver-colored flame racing around her arm-

No, nothing was happening.

Tomas and Cecelia shared a look.

"We would rather solve this without violence." Tomas' Rhine accent heavily contrasted with his species; he was an Alaskan Malamute yet he'd never even been near Canada.

Ariya tried several of her tricks, and none of them worked.

She could still kill them with her bare hands but she was just as fragile, after all.

"If you're wondering, we set up an EM field that throws off all your pulses. Nothing you do here will work." Cecelia had a western accent, Canadian, bobcat.

Both she used to call friends.

And then they sold their souls to the GRA.

"Well? Let's hear it, what's this about?"

The two shared a look, husky at least a foot taller than the bobcat.

No response was given for a moment, they were telepathically communicating.

As they'd set up the field they were probably standing just outside of the parameters. Ariya would have to get there if anything bad happened...

"Who wants me dead now? Harper? DeSanta lost use for me within a week? Trojan wants to dissect my brain?"

Tomas shook his head.

"This is about a certain afflict."

"And who might that be?"

"The one you proctored in the Scandinavian Union. The one from Gibraltar. Tai."

Ariya shrugged. "What about him? He's nothing special"-

"You sent him a message." Cecelia cut her off.

They resumed speaking telepathically and Ariya looked around.

For all she knew this was in one of their heads, maybe even hers.

She came to question reality every time she walked in a room.

Around her was some sort of concrete room- like prisoners were interrogated in.

Jinn torture chambers, GRA adopted their design.

"Tomas and I have come to the conclusion that the new afflict is not to be trusted. We read your mind, we saw everything. Even his past. As such we want to know the contents of the message sent."

It was a short message and she could hardly remember it, length to compensate for Tai's weakness. The distance hopefully didn't do anything bad to him.

Simply: Watch your back

Ariya shook her head. "It's of no importance and Opera asked me to keep it secret"-

"Opera was the one who told us to find it out." Cecelia once more cut her off, tapping her foot.

She could take them both, even without their powers. Tomas might have been difficult...

She'd killed other Janus with physical means before, it was all about who could land the first strike, no matter how hard it was.

Draw blood once and it was all over, they'd just crumple and spasm and-

"We decided not to ravage your mind for this, Ariya, just tell us."

The gray fox scowled.

"You know, we all used to be friends. Me, you, Cecelia, and Lucian... And then you sold your fucking souls to the GRA."

"Better this one than the other devil."

Caught off guard by Tomas' response, maybe there was still some good in him.

But he was still a corporate slave.

"You know, you're after the wrong secret. Opera's cooking up a whole new unit to kill and replace us."

There was dead silence.

Cecelia and Tomas shared a look.

A slow grin stretched across the bobcat's face.

"That's ridiculous, Ariya. Come on, just tell us."

"What?! Fine, if you don't believe me just wait! Tai's going to be first if Lucian isn't already dead, god only knows what Trojan wanted him for, and you'll be next! But you know who isn't going to get stabbed in the back? Me!"

Ariya knew there was no way she could convince them but she hoped they were in someone's mind because otherwise the cameras would have surely picked up that audio...

Oh, fuck it all. She didn't care anymore, she had a month or two left before her 2 decades were up. The only thing that kept her going was the GRA's guarantee to provide for her sister.

And the fact that killing Opera on the spot wouldn't have the best political outcome.

"Just close down the mindscape, Tomas. We aren't getting anywhere with this and these 3-way connections are hard to hold up."

Before Ariya could do anything, she blacked out again.

///

She found she was standing upright, as was everyone else, and barely kept her composure from collapsing upon consciousness.

Her memories before they'd effectively captured her mind began coming back slowly, she was standing in one of the hallways to the Janus Dorms.

Ariya realized it had been a month since she'd stayed there, her room empty.

She'd moved in with Amira, one of the bargains she'd made after Opera requested her for bodyguard.

Her hand absentmindedly brushed her old door.

Behind her the two whispered, looking at her.

Turning to face them, they glanced uneasily at her.

"We will look into this... New unit. Tell lies all you want. But that was a reconstruction of a Jinn torture chamber, one I've been in." Tomas said coldly.

"And we could have done any number of things to you in there, because I reconstructed the instruments too."

/|

Reyna

The prized folder in one hand and the handle of her door in the other, she watched Kyle furiously root through Marshall's briefcase, looking for what she had.

She wasn't going to join their little hunting party; instead, she was doing things herself. In fact she'd already taken anything interesting on Isaac (and a few other things) before Marshall last left.

Isaac.

Tai. Though she'd figured him out.

Surely there wasn't any bigger secrets the cat was hiding.

But who else was hiding something?

Reyna closed her door quietly, waiting until Kyle started to speak louder in his words to do so. He couldn't suspect her but she wagered he'd find the Trojan file she'd left.

The jackal would have taken that as well but she was pressed for time.

After a moment she heard him ever so slightly make his way downstairs, only so much a timber wolf in boots could do in the way of stealth.

At least, from the Trojan ear.

Isaac's room was right beside hers at the far end of the hallway, and there were a few empty rooms besides them for when the squad eventually got even bigger.

The fox unsettled her; especially since Tai's Janus instincts began kicking in.

The recognition of prey.

Or perhaps a predator.

Everyone was unsettled when Tai and Isaac had their strange moment, but she in particular knew what it meant, having studied the Janus afflicts under Trojan jurisdiction.

More than often it was looking at autopsy.

If she was letting anyone else in on her witch hunt it was going to be Tai, but...

Apparently the cat was in love with her, making it shaky at best.

She recognized the Janus eyes, as Trojan's Janus division was what Ramses was prepping her for, but Reyna could never live such a docile life as a scientist. So here, she was a spy.

Not a double agent, but something like that.

Trojan simply wanted someone sent in to watch for G201's Janus, she'd almost been sent to Peru to watch G049's. The jackal was simply reporting back.

It wasn't anything bad at all, Ramses just wanted tabs on the cat.

At least, that's what she told herself.

Besides Kyle and Riddick none of her teammates had their suspicions about Isaac. Mealtimes were vivid- particularly dinners where Isaac would recount old war stories and the like.

At least morale improved.

"Reyna? You in there?"

Her heart stopped and started again.

Shoving the folder under her mattress, that damn brogue could only belong to one fox.

Reyna shakily opened the door, but forced herself to calm.

"Can I help you?"

It was the same thing Riddick said and she looked to the door closer to the stairs and across the hallway.

"I was thinking I'd train Tai a bit, just to get to know him better, and I was told you were the one"-

"No!"

Isaac tilted his head away and narrowed his eyes.

"I... My apologies, but we are on a strict regimen that must remain uninfringed."

"Oh, but I heard Kyle"-

"Kyle is informed of the regimen, it allows for two trainers and two trainers only."

"That's... Oddly specific."

"It is the Trojan way."

An awkward silence passed between them.

"Well... If there's anything at all I can do with him, just let me know. I'll be happy."

With a smile, Isaac walked off.

...

Maybe she was wrong.

He seemed harmless. Clueless, even, that his teammates were going behind his back.

But he wasn't a simple Jake or Alvin, whose experience held them here. He was more capable than the average soldier, his service in Glasglow attesting.

Reyna hadn't had a chance to decode the dossier, so she would wait until tonight.

Trojan code took a long time to decipher, and the paper on Isaac she'd accidentally left was an indicator as to which code it was...

Her first friend in a decade was slowly dying.

Isaac came to her door at the worst of times.

She'd abandoned vigilance; the first event leaving her an emotional wreck.

A Trojan's tragedy.

Just her luck.

|/

Lynx

"Lynx? Report in, please..."

I gave a groan, Gynezis' voice over the comms waking me up for the countless time.

No point in slowing breathing. I'd given away that I was awake with my noise.

And if I was still alive, which I was pretty sure I was, I was captured.

No point in moving either, if this was Ajax I was cuffed to a steel chair.

But opening my eyes to see the figure in the chair across from me, it wasn't Ajax...

No, this was much worse.

"You still pissed about what I said? Look, I'm sorry, maybe smiling kitty-cats do strike fear into the hearts of our enemies, but you don't have to give me the silent treatment."

My wrist bracer was detached and across the room, missing the component with the tracking mechanism.

"...You aren't dead, are you?"

Katia smiled and walked over to the bracer, now that I had woken up.

Katia.

I'd stabbed her in the throat, then blown her up, which sent her off the roof of the fucking Washington monument.

Or rather, pinnacle.

It was a very famous incident, the whole top got blown off and I had to time my jump with a secondary explosion on the lawn- one to get pedestrian attention so they wouldn't see me falling...

I won't get into it.

A fight between assassins takes you weird places, don't ask.

Point was, I'd killed her. She was supposed to be dead.

Just another person from my past, come to haunt me.

This time in the form of my sister.

"Gynezis. It's been a while."

"Katia?"

"I have your little friend."

"Well, she's in good hands. Pardon, I thought you were dead."

Katia cast a playful look back towards me.

She was my senior by 6 years, myself being around 17 or so.

I still had no idea how she got into Jinn but she did. At twelve. She dragged her baby sister along with her and we managed.

Between her, Gynezis, and Ajax, they taught me everything I knew.

She'd left when I was still training.

My first assignment was to kill her.

And it was all too easy.

"May I speak to Lynx, if you will?"

Katia smiled faintly, and turned off the bracer.

We never did look alike but we were both Lynxes, if my name wasn't a giveaway.

About names, since we were raised by ourselves and Jinn we had none. Katia gave herself one but I gave myself a plethora of assassin codenames, discarding each one as I attracted more attention.

I wanted something untraceable, identities I could just throw away.

As such, I was no one.

I wasn't even Lynx.

As I said we never looked much alike for sisters. Otherwise I'd never confer this.

Katia's fur was dark gray and her eyes were a vibrant green, her hair dark brown and long, something Jinn never permitted inside their military code.

We were of commensurate height but I weighed very little, maintaining strength through supplicants so I could attain extreme speed as a result.

Katia leaned in.

"Still going around wearing masks, I see. Why don't you take that thing off, we're safe here..."

"Fuck you..."

Katia was never above mockery.

"I haven't seen you in so long! It would only be fitting if our reunion was... face to face."

"Please..."

"I'll get a mirror- I know you haven't seen yourself in ages..."

I hadn't. She was right...

I'd take off the mask to brush my teeth and shower and everything but I never looked in mirrors.

As far as I was concerned the mask was my face.

Katia grabbed at the release switches on the edge, unflipping them.

Removing the mask, she broke into a rare grin as she saw me.

"Poor sister... Hiding so much beauty behind that mask..."

"P-please..."

My voice was always somewhat distorted with the inhibitors in the grin of the mask and hearing myself shocked me.

Katia slowly and smugly swiveled a large mirror over to me.

I looked down at the concrete floor.

She put a hand on my chin to lift my head but I jerked out of her grip.

"Oh, come on... No one's perfect..."

Katia got on one knee and I couldn't avoid looking her in the eyes.

No, she was perfect.

She was so fucking perfect, everything I could have been, the life I threw away.

I hated my mask.

I hated myself.

For a moment I threw away the identity I'd become most attached to, the one I'd held the longest.

I drained the insanity that came with it and allowed it to pour out of me like a waterfall, suppressing a feral scream.

I found I was breathing heavily.

My face was so sensitive that I felt a bead of sweat coalesce from the pressure I was under, much less the heat.

Heat.

I wasn't in Norway.

I had to get out of there somehow, I had to get back to-

Katia roughly jerked my chin back up, abandoning her playful demeanor and I found myself looking at...

Myself.

I began violently quivering as I stared into my own eyes, I'd forgotten what shade they were without the mask's red tint...

"This is torture for you, isn't it? Sister?"

She had nothing else to call me, after all.

As soon as I got out of this chair I was going to rip her apart with my bare hands.

And if I was sure of anything...

It was that I was going to get out of this fucking chair.

/|

Reyna

Banging her fist down on the bathroom counter, the jackal couldn't place the code.

She'd locked her door and then went into the personal bathroom, locking that door. No one could see her doing this, or...

If all the Trojan logos that seemed to trail Isaac were correct, it would be death.

In Trojan, family ties didn't mean anything except who you'd be behind and who's back you'd go behind.

The first sheet was menial information such as age, height, weight, species, and a brief description.

And then six more pages of gibberish numbers and letters not broken into paragraph.

And she could read Trojan codes better than Euro Common.

Closing her eyes and massaging her temples, out of the small window she could see the sun setting.

It came to her but she quickly dismissed it.

No, this was the only way.

Either that or give up altogether, she needed to know what was on this sheet.

Kyle had seen the code indicator.

As unlikely as it was that he'd memorized it, a few digits and she'd be on her way.

Of course, that meant letting up that she was in on it too.

Reyna, Riddick, and Kyle.

A triangle of resentment.

The only three with enough foresight.

|||

It was three days later when Marshall came back, just as distracted as before.

For a moment she saw surprise on his face when he saw Isaac, forgetting the fox was even there.

The higher-ups were overworking him, naturally.

He'd called everyone downstairs into the commons for another meeting, and she was the first down.

She wondered if Marshall even noticed she'd swiped the dossier...

"Alright, this will come as a surprise but you'll all have to get used to this sort of thing going forth. Copy?"

The wolf's voice snapped Reyna's thoughts.

"Opera DeSanta is going to meet with the president of Thailand. As you all know, Thailand is the only GRA-controlled territory in all of Southeast Asia, aside disputed Vietnam and Malaysia. This is high stakes with Jinn so close-by and as such she needs a specialized escort."

Which was where they came in.

Of course the roster of G201 wasn't to be taken lightly, especially with the two additions, but Tai was the real reason they were going so high-stakes.

Having studied the Janus afflicts extensively, she was quite surprised in the faith GRA had in the Janus afflicts, they really didn't know how ineffective they were.

In her studies only five Janus members had actually risen to full potential across the GRA or Jinn.

All had gone insane and been put down by Black Ops.

Maybe it was best they die...

As she looked at Tai again she took it back viciously, inwardly scolding herself.

A few murmurs but no one was especially appalled at the news, after all this was their second time bodyguarding such a high official...

And hopefully not their second time in combat.

Reyna just wanted to know when they were going to be rescuing hostages, pushing assaults...

And then eventually assassinating and silencing whistleblowers...

"When will we be leaving?" Isaac's brogue once more pierced through the veil, youthful and vigorous.

"Tomorrow. Like I said, you'll have to get used to this. Hostage situations aren't exactly planned months in advance."

Marshall walked out, Kyle pursuing him.

She had to get into contact with the timber wolf over all of it, preferably before tomorrow.

As much as she didn't want to...

It wasn't the first time she'd gone after GRA's secrets.

But it was damn near the last for Trojan's.

|/

Riley

Eyes opening, she took in the surroundings.

It was her flat, no one else in the bed... Thank God she'd made it home okay.

Yawning, she stood back up.

She'd taken the week off to spend some time with her grandfather in Ottawa but she missed nightlife, coming home last night was all sorts of mistakes.

Fixing herself coffee, she put her back to her kitchen's counter and watched the door.

Not likely that any psychos in kabuki masks were going to attack her, at least now, but...

She rubbed her temples and collected her mug, sitting down at her monitor.

Before anything she checked security camera footage from the last week, and no one came in.

She didn't notice the loop or the red-gold slip of paper she'd just set her mug on. It didn't mean much, but the predator had been playing with her prey as usual the week previous.

Somewhat relieved, she checked her emails.

7 sims she hadn't been there for recently, they were on the 9th simulation now, good for them-

A new squad member?!

"What the hell?"

The bluejay exclaimed aloud, then double checked there was no one else in the apartment.

No advance notice or anything of the sort... She had a good week or two on Kyle.

And Marshall hadn't phoned in either?

They had him working his ass off after that database breach last month anyways... She couldn't blame him.

Clicking on his database link she began to read up, powering through 5:48 AM with what strength caffeine and paranoia gave her.

Red Fox. Isaac Broderick. Irish. Last name wouldn't have been more obvious if he was a MacGuffin....

In his picture his fur was a devilish red, and he had a devilish smile to go along with it.

Not bad at all...

She'd found herself a lot of guys in Coast City, she had never gotten around in Ottawa.

Maybe Isaac had some more pictures, just for 'research purposes', tactics, experience-

"What the hell?!"

Again?

As she began scrolling down over half of the database entry was encoded.

Checking his history once more he wasn't Black Ops or anything of the sort. As Squad Support she could email a few people and get access like she had with Kyle but this was something else entirely.

But after she tried to do the same with a few other people they'd just restricted her access to the entire page. She was never good with codes, anyway.

It would be a shame to lose all those pictures.

Er, statistics. She meant the statistics.

Fatigue came over her again and her head hurt from whatever happened last night.

Taking a regretful look at her coffee mug, she downed the last of it and went on with the day.

The bluejay would be getting an email about whatever it was Marshall called her about in Ottawa, the next mission or something.

As she walked over to her window, next to the small kitchen, the first rays of the sun broke over Coast City's concrete-glass jungle.

Much to do.

///

Again SORRY for the delay, I had stuff going on. Thanks for being patient

I actually wrote a journal on Writer's Block to hold everyone over but it never uploaded, I must have hit the refresh button or something idk

Sorry for the low wordcount too.

A certain wolf staked the release of an entire sequel to his 20-something-odd story on this chapter's release so pressure was kinda on

And I didn't realize but I featured pretty much all the prominent females (apart from Opera) in this chapter coincidentally.

Since this is a throwback chapter and I used to 'sign' them

Much to do

-Djynn