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"Tai. You alright? I didn't even see you touch the champagne and you're already out of it..."

I opened my eyes.

Fuck, the noise hit me before anything...

People dancing, live and loud jazz music, I hadn't touched the alcohol but I had touched the drugs...

What?

This was like earlier, I realized, like the... Vision. That's what it was. Just a vision. Nothing was real.

I didn't take an eternity to realize it. But the dead giveaway more than anything was my body moving without me moving it.

I heard a giggle and barely got a look down before the girl in my lap kissed me. My eyes darted to my left where another guy in a chair was in the exact same situation.

Except he was enjoying it.

I didn't have any control here, I found. I was a gnat in... my ears.

Best to ride it out, see where it went... Hopefully I wouldn't violently murder someone with a knife again.

My gaze wandered back to Sergei.

He was with his girlfriend, fuck if I knew who this girl with me was. I wasn't interested in anyone after the war.

Sex was sex.

Nothing more.

I was only even here because I wanted to make sure he didn't make a mess of himself, but I'd given in before he did.

I felt a tug and realized the girl's boyfriend was about to punch me, then realized who I was and that it would result in a death penalty.

If father was feeling generous.

Father

I struck myself mentally, tunneling as far as I could before I was snatched back and thrown away.

Who the hell was I, in this vision... War? Father?

I gave a nod to her boyfriend and he pulled her off of me, disappearing into the crowd.

This was a party. I'd never been to a party.

There was another vertigo and I felt my head swimming... Both of them.

I'd been to plenty of parties. I'd thrown some when I was younger.

I never was much of a partygoer, I'd just do it to get out every once in a while.

I stood up, giving another glance to Sergei still making out.

He was an Alsatian, my best friend since childhood. The same age, born in the same month.

Since last year he'd been trying desperately to catch up, I hadn't seen him for the six years it took father to conquer Jinn.

He stayed. I fought.

As I moved into the crowd I bumped into someone but they caught my arm.

As I turned around I saw a face from those six years.

For a moment we stared at each other, me at the new scar stretching from his temple to his lip and lower neck, the blatant glass eye on that side of his face.

"Kaisersohn! I thought you were dead..."

I winced a little at my title, I wasn't partial to it.

"Sable... It's been some time."

With a ruined smile the wolf clasped my hand, the other holding a drink.

"They captured me in our assault on Tartarus base, I've been back only a few days."

I gave; rather forced a smile in return.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, old friend. I'd love to stay and talk but my duties demand my attention."

"Of course. Another time, eh?"

I stared this man in the eyes with pity. This man who would die for me at a moment's notice.

And I brushed him off like dust on my shoulder, replaced him with that strange girl in the mask I, for all my years with her even before Sable, knew so little about.

More than she did, at least.

Walking through the dense crowd, I hoped no one recognized me. Everyone wanted to see the recluse, the prince of Jinn, the-

Jinn?

As another headache hit me- him, I walked a bit faster, I had to get somewhere quiet before it started again...

Everyone wanted to know how I pulled off the campaign, my tours in Russia and Korea, even people clapping me on the back and thanking me for my fucking service sent me to the edge...

"Tai?"

No, not another-

As I turned around everything else faded, and it was me and her again.

God, she was so beautiful...

I could die here.

"You look upset... Is everything alright?"

Our faces were the same but my soul was being dashed to shreds, my heart trying to beat again.

"It's been so long and that's the first thing you ask me?"

She gave a smile and it made me smile.

"I was just going to leave because I didn't think I'd see you here."

"At my own birthday party?"

"Well, you have a history."

Birthday.

I didn't care who this girl was but I drilled in again, only to be swept back with so much force I almost woke up.

"You've caught me, I was going up to my room."

Zoe gave a look around, her wonder so deep I could drown in it.

Like the jackal's...

She was a canine, ears pronounced and wolflike. Her fur was shorter though- none of those patches anywhere.

I would know.

Her fur however was a heavy contrast, pitch black. And the most amazing blue eyes.

We had a history. I wasn't sure what that really equated to after so much time, but it wasn't even allowed for a cat and a wolf to be together. Her mother was the overseer of Marseilles, we were both the same class, but...

There's always something out in the world that desperately tries to pry you from what you want.

Usually the things that are impossible to change.

But I didn't give an everliving fuck about rules. I was above the law.

It's changing people that's the hard part.

"Such a beautiful place... Mother's had me holed up in France, you know how she is..."

"How long will you be staying this time?"

We walked through the doors, sound cut off near instantly as they shut.

"Here, I have the summer... But mother wants me back in October."

"I'm just glad we have the time."

She turned to face me.

There was no one else in the hallway, not even the staff.

"We would play hide and seek in the ballroom when we were children..."

Zoe smiled. I didn't.

As our lips met I found myself drowning in a new place, a place I hadn't been before and would probably never be. I attributed all familiarity to this Tai.

It was almost too intimate for me.

"Are you still planning on going up to your room...?"

"I would hate to leave you here."

"And I would hate for you to be lonely up there..."

///

Tai

G201 House

December 1st, 0230 hours

For once I didn't shoot up out of bed from some strange and terrible vision, I opened my eyes softly and laid back down.

That was... interesting, to say the least.

Zoe was somehow familiar, but I couldn't find it in myself. A feeling of lingering kept with me for a few moments after waking up, a feeling of loyalty.

Towards Jinn.

I looked around my room and saw enemy territory, my hand grasping firmly the pistol I had under my pillow and thinking about the person who told me to keep one there, I was going to kill Riddick again...

Stopping myself, I found one hand was on the doorknob and the other on the grip.

With near disgust, I tossed my pistol back onto the bed, and locked eyes with the masked assassin casually closing the window behind herself.

"You're out of bed early today."

"What do you want?"

Lynx shrugged.

"You don't have to be rude about it, I'm just giving you December's uh... Shipment."

She tossed the bottle of pills beside the gun on my bed.

"Thailand was a shitshow. I'm sorry you had to see Jinn in that light, Tai."

"Well, they've come close to killing me more than a few times now."

Just as she had the few other times she'd been here, she sat down on the edge of my bed and I didn't get any closer to her, eyeing my pistol right next to her.

"No, they wouldn't kill you. Most of them anyways, the ones that know."

"Would you just tell me..."

"Tell you what?"

I stared at her dumbfounded, as if I'd forgotten the questions I wanted an answer to so desperately.

Questions for Ariya.

Questions for Marshall.

Questions for Riddick.

Questions for myself.

Questions I couldn't find an answer to. Ever.

"What's so special about me? Why won't they kill me?"

She stood back up. Moved forward.

I didn't move, I was pinned in place. Or perhaps she'd paralyzed me with that venomous air of fear that amassed around her, stalking towards me.

We were face to face, had never been this close.

I saw her eyes move under the tinted windows that covered them in the mask... One of them was still but the other was forever inspecting me.

Picking me apart, looking for something. Desperately. We were in the same position, I realized.

No, she wasn't going to give me an answer. I was used to it by now.

"I want to tear you apart right now, Tai. You're everything wrong with the world."

If my heart could beat any harder...

"You have no idea how much I hate you. More than anyone else."

"W-why?"

She gave a cackle, then drew back to my relief. I noticed a knife was in one of her hands, she'd come too close.

"You'll find out someday. If someone doesn't do the world a favor and off you."

Openmouthed, I watched her climb back out the window and into the night, feeling the thundering in my chest.

"Don't you fucking dare leave."

She'd almost closed the window behind her. Lynx reopened it and comically leaned on it.

I stared her in the mask; I'd never been this brave next to her before. She might as well have still been in my face.

My head was burning. Not even aching, it felt like it was filled with hot coals.

"You know, there was a time I was scared of you?"

"Quit being cryptic and answer my question. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of everyone... Keeping things from me. Acting like I'm a landmine. Acting like I've done something... Wrong. What did I do?"

I wasn't entirely sure where any of this was coming from.

Lynx flipped me off and closed the window.

What the hell else could I expect from a psycho assassin whose only real tie to me was giving me drugs?

Call me the scum of the earth and walk out the window because I asked a question.

No, she was doing me a favor.

And she was damn right.

///

Marshall

Albatross Island, Off the coast of Myanmar

December 1st, 0900 hours

"Fuck, don't look at the ground..."

"What's that squish--oh..."

Marshall turned back to them, closing his hand into a fist to keep them quiet.

G119 was trained and experienced, been in service for a good while. Marshall was confident with them.

Except there were only 4 of the 16 left now.

The rest had died last week with the initial attack on Thailand, 10 of them in an explosion at the barracks and 2 in the gunfight afterwards. He knew shellshock when he saw it.

He'd done the slightest bit of database research, they were all recruited from the Mediterranean and Middle East. Specializing in aquatic operations.

Which meant they had no fucking sniper, and they hadn't drafted a medic after theirs died so it was between Marshall's very limited knowledge and instinct.

"This island's completely abandoned, Leftenant. The only Jinn we saw were the ones taking potshots at us while they ran away on speedboat. They took the senator with them, why wouldn't they?"

"We have our orders, Elias. If we turn back now and the senator's still here, it'll be the talk of the GRA once they find his damned corpse. We're continuing."

"I've lost 12 friends in the past few days, Marshall. If any more of us dies it'll be on your fucking head."

"That a threat, Devil-4?"

Elias kept moving with a cervine huff. He'd been bitching all mission but Marshall couldn't blame him.

Marshall could think of two situations.

Devil-4 was right and this was a waste of time...

Or they were walking into a trap. Jinn left pretty quickly anyways.

And Jinn liked to think up the most primitive yet fucked up things they could do to you, lead you right to them...

He'd managed one night's sleep between every day in that week, he was working his ass off.

The wolf wouldn't even be on the damn island looking for Senator BIanchi if the mission commisioner hadn't caught him in the hallway outside.

"I heard that noise again, Marshall. It's closer."

"None of us can hear it. And you're not the only canine."

Zahra didn't say anything in response. Bianchi was here, close, or...

Marshall dared to look down and the floor was covered in dying heat signatures.

Whatever the hell caused all that was here.

"Hustle. G119 isn't going to go extinct on my watch." Phara Bassam was team leader, a jackal. Egyptian, but not that strange breed that tied you to Trojan by looks.

Thinking about his own jackal, she and Frost had been hospitalized, nearly killed but they shook it off.

He'd been very lucky. They had been very lucky. Frost had already been shot several times, he just didn't want to go home. Marshall was putting his foot down here.

He was extracting the rest of G201 tomorrow, had to fight the superiors to pull them out of combat just that morning.

And Rochelle had been shot in the shoulder because they put his request on pending. She came across a loner one hour before her shift was over.

All the while it had been his job to round up all the missing officials, clean up Jinn's leftovers, arrest civilians... A damned mess.

A scream made volts run up his spine and for a moment he was paralyzed.

That wasn't G119, but he almost wished it was.

"GO! FIND BIANCHI AND GET OUT!"

Marshall fired his pistol at a random point and the sparks off the Cyclops' armor illuminated the hallway for a split second.

This was why they left. This was why corpses were all over the place.

It sprinted towards him with fury.

He turned off his thermals; he wouldn't need them.

Firing on the leg it only made the thing jump towards him, and the heavy cyclops hit him dead in the chest, the two sliding a good ways...

Another shriek, his ears started ringing.

This was it, wasn't it...

The sound of metal on metal, weight taken off his chest but he could hardly move...

Marshall crawled backwards weakly but seeing his revolver across the hallway got up and darted for it.

Elias was beating the thing with the stock of his gun, knowing bullets weren't shit here...

"DEVIL-4! WHAT THE HELL DID I SAY?!"

Not responding, the cyclops scampered away and both of them unloaded into it just to slow it for a moment, and to Marshall's dismay it started to diverge towards Devil-4...

He had a single moment of eye contact before it shredded the poor bastard.

There was nothing he could do but run, and as the wolf was already used to hating himself he would remember this for years...

As the inhuman shrieks and occasional gunshot faded, Marshall realized there was blood dripping down his chest and it wasn't his.

Continuing on, he heard whispers ahead and came across the rest of G119.

Phara saw him, motioning him over.

"We can hear... whimpers in there. We think it's the senator. What happened to the cyclops, where's Elias?"

Marshall shook his head and G119 looked towards the ground for a moment.

"...Let's just get this done. This better be fucking worth it. Devil-3?"

Zahra stepped forward with the breaching cup, her black and red-dyed hair flecked with blood.

"Hurry up, I hear something behind us..."

Devil-3 set the charge to 5 seconds and it was only by the suddenly ambiguous ticking that Marshall snapped out of it and moved back.

The metal door was blasted off the hinges, a bit of the doorway crumbling around it.

"Taking point..."

As Devil-3 began to move around the doorway some strange and terrible feeling seized Marshall by the throat and harshly restricted him.

"Zahra"-!

A gunshot rang out and the folf doubled over, a weak groan as she staggered into the smoke and then doubled over.

A cry of loss from Phara.

Marshall flicked his thermals; there were three heat signatures in the room and one of them was extinguishing very quickly.

The Senator was shaking, holding a pistol and cowering in the corner.

"Oh, god.... I-I thought you were Jinn... I thought"-

"FUCK YOU!"

Phara leveled her pistol on his head and left Devil-3's side.

"Phara!"

Marshall ripped his revolver from the holster and pressed the cold steel to her temple, all the while eyeing Zahra's expression of shock as blood pooled from her stomach on the floor.

"No! Please! It was a mistake, I thought they'd come back for m-me!"

"Phara. Put the gun down, or I swear to god I'll paint this goddamn room with every pint of blood"-

"Khallas! Both of you, please!"

Devil-2 brought up Phara's gun first, taking it from her hand as the jackal locked eyes with Bianchi.

She didn't need a gun, if looks could kill...

Marshall slowly brought his gun down.

Devil-2's hand quivered as he brought Phara's gun down.

Something strange was in his eyes.

He fell to his knees beside Zahra and Marshall watched his intensity.

"Sadat... There's nothing we can do."

Devil-2, Sadat, leaned down and kissed her forehead. Marshall looked away, one massive wolf hand climbing up his chest to his heart.

Sadat muttered something.

"God forgive me."

Before Marshall could react Bianchi's head snapped to the side and split open before the reptilian's blood sprayed the wall.

But he was just in time to see Sadat turn the gun on himself.

"NO!"

The wolf was paralyzed, nothing like this had ever happened before.

His eyes stuck in place between the two corpses, Phara on her knees quivering between them.

He saw the last member of G119 reach for the gun to complete this horrific ritual but he mechanically snatched it away and threw it across the room, grabbing her by the shoulders.

The tears and blood mixed even on her face, and they clashed for something in the other.

As Phara suddenly crumpled he caught her, his own breathing uneven and somewhere between heavy and hyperventilating.

This should have never happened.

This was his greatest fear.

And if the devil himself drew on Marshall, he would laugh and shoot the sonuvabitch dead.

The wolf put his other arm in the crook of Phara's legs and picked her up, listening for the screams but there was none.

But what sounded like wailing was echoing out distantly, a throat blown out by agony and a body warped beyond recognition still eternally crying.

He understood what made the cyclops.

Marshall kicked open the nearest door, daylight flooding his eyes and he moved to the boat.

G119 was dissolved.

///

Tai

G201 House

December 3rd, 1200 hours

The door rapped three times, and I walked over to it.

Riddick and I had been hanging out in the front room, better wifi. He was showing me one of those 'video games' or whatever they were called.

I was shit at it but he put up with me.

Opening the door, I'd almost forgotten I actually was here on GSS buisness... And my teammates.

Reyna and Kyle stepped through somewhat quickly, perhaps having gotten used to the relative mugginess of Thailand.

"What's up?"

Neither of them responded; maybe Riddick had gotten too friendly and forgotten how everyone worked.

To my surprise though highly delayed Kyle gave a greeting and they started to make a small conversation.

Over the past week or so I'd gotten the hyena out of his shell, we were making progress. And no more murderous incidents from myself, of course.

Though he had a sudden distaste for toast of any sort. I did too.

But I thought I put forth a lot of effort into my recipe. I was very proud he liked it.

"Everyone else will be coming back tomorrow; there are a lot of exfils and they have their hands full."

Reyna's voice was different, it made my heart skip a beat.

I realized she'd never spoken with an Egyptian accent, rather one almost akin to the ones I heard in Morocco. Deep British almost, the odd Arabic singe on the end.

Here, you could tell where she was from.

"What is it, cat?"

I found I was staring and looked away.

Nostalgia.

"Your... Your voice..."

"What about it? It sounds fine to me."

Now that I noticed, her hair was still in braids but less thin and exotic yet practical and more intricate, some of it more naturally falling and the rest tied in patterns.

"Fuck, does that mean Isaac's coming back early too?"

"Unfortunately. I'm already tired of his bullshit just thinking about it."

"I was hoping he'd get tied up in Thailand with leader shit or something..."

I was taken aback by Kyle's answer as the wolf walked over to Riddick and looked over his shoulder at the game.

"Behind that tree. See him?"

"...Fuck, man, I needed a pocket Kyle the last week. How'd you spot?"

"I could hear the gunfire. Suppressed, but there."

It left me standing with the jackal and she gave me a light punch on the shoulder. A playful punch.

A...

Fuck, what was happening?

"What you been up to, then? Help me get this upstairs, you can tell me."

Absently taking one of her bags, we walked.

Fuck happened in Thailand? Why wasn't Riddick reacting to it?

A pocket Kyle? Did they ever play that game together? I was pretty sure I heard Kyle saying video games bored him once...

"Did you hear me habibi? I thought you hated Riddick, you two are friends now?"

"W-we were always friends..."

"In the first few weeks you would always fight over the most menial things."

"No, that was you and Jake..."

"...Who's Jake?"

My blood ran cold.

"R-Reyna..."

"What? Why are you acting so strange, Gibraltar?"

I almost fell over as when we got up the stairs the very first door to the right was the one she entered.

We didn't use the first two rooms on the right, the doors were even mechanically locked...

But as we entered, I found the same room, the same windows with blinds, the same smell of lavender and incense... And the damn Egyptian soccer team posters.

A lot more of them.

"Set them over there."

I put them with her other bags and she sat down on her bed.

"Nice to have an actual place to sleep again and not just have to steal what you could in the barracks... You said something about Jake?"

"He's the team leader... The hell, Reyna? What's up with you, is this a... Is this a joke?"

She gave me a strange look, taken aback perhaps as much as I was.

"Isaac is the team leader. He always has been."

She was right on one front.

"Jake was the team leader for the first two months. Isaac for about half of November."

"J- What the fuck are you talking about? It's getting annoying. Now who the fuck is Jake?"

I was fucking scared.

Reyna comes in completely ignoring everything that happened between us in Thailand, a whole different voice, she never changed her hair, she...

Was wearing a somewhat gratuitous tank top and jeans.

...

And she would sure as hell not wear any of that either.

"He's a wolf. Gray around the edges, white around the eyes and muzzle and everything. American."

"...Do you mean Jacques?"

"Martin. We're talking about Martin."

"Yeah, Jacques Martin. Alcatraz-2. French-American."

Jake was... Jacques.

I knew he had French roots but he hated to talk about them. We all thought the flag on the wall was an error or maybe Marshall was French somehow but the first time he called his mom back home, he started spouting fluent fucking French.

It was the same day that Riddick came out to us, I remember it.

"Kyle and Riddick. Tell me about them. What's.... What's changed?"

She gave me another strange look.

"...They're friends. Just like always. Kyle keeps you two from being at odds all the time."

"...Janus disease."

Her eyes widened and narrowed, mouth opened and closed.

"Quit being fucking random and tell me where you heard that."

"I'm an afflict, for god's sake! When you found out you went out of your way to avoid me because you didn't want to be friends with someone who was going to die!"

We locked eyes, her somewhat amused smile faded.

The room darkened as a cloud blocked the sun.

"I don't know what the hell this... Game is. I don't know why you're acting so strange about Jacques. I don't know how on earth you found out... This has gone too far, Tai. Khallas. Please."

I was at a loss for words, like I always was around her.

"I'll prove it. Come outside, I have this... This thing I can do with my arm"-

"JUST GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM!"

My soul twisted and screamed as I realized tears were running down her face and I did as she told me, the door slamming shut behind me.

One hand crept up to my heart. I was confused there more than anywhere.

"...Tai? What did you do?"

Riddick looked up at me from commons.

I turned around and ran back to my room, trying the door to find it locked.

The plate outside it displayed it as Rochelle's.

Holding back tears, I punched it and found I actually managed to chip it, but my hand hurt like a bitch.

Looking distraught across the hallway, I found my room was...

Not there, not there, that was this stranger Jacques'...

One of the rooms we didn't use, the one that was between Alvin and Riddick had a nameplate.

I counted them until I found the one with only 3 digits.

I would find out who the hell this new room belonged to later.

Everything was the same as this morning, down to the new bottle of pills on my nightstand.

I fell down on my bed and watched the fan's slow spin.

This wasn't a joke.

Reyna and Kyle didn't do jokes.

And that?

That wasn't Reyna.

///

2000 hours

I'd spent the entire day in my room, not even come out for lunch.

Riddick tried to talk to me at one point but I didn't respond to his knocks on the door.

I felt horrible. And I couldn't sleep it off either.

Knowing Reyna, however changed she was that was about the most fucked up thing I could have said to her and I didn't even mean to.

She pretended like I didn't exist because she was afraid of an afflict.

Not because they were to be feared.

Because all the heart she'd given away was in the grave with the recipient.

As I entered the kitchen I found Kyle making some sort of dish and the hyena and jackal sitting in the wrong places.

Reyna didn't acknowledge me, but Riddick was clearly concerned.

But we were supposed to hate each other...? It didn't add up.

...

What the fuck was new?

"I was just finishing up dinner, I followed that Mediterranean tilapia recipe you kept asking about."

It took a moment to realize he was talking about me.

I'd never eaten anything better than-

...

Fuck, where was I from?

No, Reyna called me Gibraltar earlier so that affirmed that... But then again everyone had some strange dissonance from what she said and-

"You cook? I thought you were heating that shit up or something."

Kyle looked over his shoulder at Riddick.

Was I... Was I not the only one who could see things out of place.

"I always cook dinner. I like to cook."

"Riddick..."

It was a displaced exclamation but something tacit passed between us.

"Excuse me for a moment." He got up and we walked outside the doorway.

"Tai, weird shit's been happening all today. Kyle can cook and apparently he was with Jinn for another two years."

"Wait, what was that last?"

"He was with Jinn for 4 years instead of 2. And he uses a kukri as well as his staff. We were sparring earlier with weapons."

Kyle was... What?

"No, go back to the Jinn part, explain..."

"He was with Jinn 4 years instead of 2. I didn't pry, I can't even remember how it came up."

"I didn't know that at all, though... I don't remember anything but his mercenary years."

"You were the first one he told."

Our eyes searched the other.

"Don't tell me it fucked you up too, Tai..."

I put my head in my hands.

"Kyle never opened up. About anything. I didn't know that, no one knew that"-

"Let's just drop it. I watched him cook that shit, unless he somehow planned a grandiose joke and picked up cooking in the fuckin' barracks back in Thailand..."

"How about Reyna? She's acting... Lighter."

"I didn't see any changes."

My heart sank.

"Riddick..."

The hyena took a breath. "Let's just get back to dinner. We'll figure this out later."

We walked back in just as Kyle was setting the plates, and I sat... Across from Reyna.

It wasn't incredibly far from my old seat, but it wedged me between them with Riddick directly to my left.

Kyle set his plate down and then reached out his hands when he sat down.

Reyna and Riddick took them, and the jackal begrudgingly offered hers to me.

Riddick just grabbed mine.

What were we...

I was getting tired of this shit...

I took Reyna's hand cautiously and they closed their eyes, so I followed suit.

Kyle began to speak in Russian. He was praying, I think...?

We didn't do this before. The majority of us weren't religious.

I'd never actually sat down and-

Holy shit, was Riddick still gay?

I opened my eyes and looked at him, not acting strangely or anything.

I resolved I wouldn't ask any more questions over dinner, perhaps keep my mouth shut as long as I could.

Learn this new game and play to it until I figured it out. And then I'd break it and see how it ticked.

It was a thought put into my head, one that I didn't myself conjure.

When it was through I went to my food... I don't think I'd ever had real fish as a domestic cat and naturally I very much enjoyed it.

I definitely didn't have a problem with Kyle's changes but I was sure something would come up to screw it all over.

Now that I thought about it maybe I did hear something about Kyle being with Jinn, just in his early childhood.

But Jinn could get to you no matter what age you were. No matter how long you were there.

"You hear anything from Isaac?"

Reyna spoke for the first time at dinner.

It felt almost wrong but I found that I liked her voice. I kind of missed all her wisdom and somewhat archaic way of thinking but it seemed natural.

But it wasn't Reyna. This was maybe her cousin or something.

In Thailand I'd seen her speaking to someone from Trojan, she'd used the same voice. Maybe this was her real voice all along. But why the fake one?

"Just that he'll be here tomorrow. And Rochelle got shot in the shoulder. Other than that everyone's just a little shaken up."

A look passed between Reyna and Kyle and it held for a good moment.

Afterwards both of them gave some indication of sudden pain and winced before continuing with dinner.

Riddick had seen it too, he was gazing curiously between them.

"Earlier you said you were... Uh, done with Isaac's bullshit or something along those lines?"

I directed my question to Riddick.

They all looked at me strangely.

It seemed like there were 3 levels of dissonance here, me on the top realizing everything was out of place, Riddick catching onto some of it, and then Reyna and Kyle unless one of them was in deeper.

"Kyle said that but, yeah. I hate Isaac. He's a dick."

"He was always friendly to me..."

Reyna snorted unbecomingly. "After the gun training sessions I would have thought you hated him?"

"What do you mean?"

The jackal's eyes didn't narrow but rather looked bored. She was getting tired of my game but I wasn't up to anything at all.

"Your left ear. Run a hand along the side."

I did so and found a crease where there was none before.

"Bullet grazed you. You didn't reload an MG in time and so he made you stand against a tree outside and fired around you until you stopped flinching. Well, you didn't flinch at all. So he kept firing and got closer and more reckless until..."

My hand quivered coming back down.

"In case you forgot that too," she snapped as an afterthought.

Isaac was always nice to me, even though we hadn't been able to have much interaction what with Thailand coming up right after he hopped on board.

I wouldn't expect that from anyone on my team, it was cruel.

"And he always makes me drop and do 50. I swear I've managed, like, 300 a day at one point. To save time I just do it when I see him coming." I had to find out what this was all about, Riddick wasn't with me either.

But suddenly I found myself remembering.

Isaac's face when he realized he'd gone too far.

Turning away and walking back towards the house with Jake- Jacques, and Riddick both shouting at him on the verge of straight fighting him.

Alvin running inside to get bandages, Reyna telling me to put pressure on it, Rochelle trying to pull the bullet out of the tree...

Two other people but they were blurry.

All the while just staring at Isaac's indifferent back, holding my ear.

Telling them I couldn't hear out of it.

I stared down at my food callously.

Getting up and scraping the leftovers into the trash, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do now. So I went upstairs.

On the way to my room I stopped by that new- no, there were two new names on two of the unused doors in the hall...

Looking at the flag wall there were all the same flags except for two new ones.

Brazilian, and Colombian.

One of the new tags was on the door across from mine, what had once been unoccupied.

Lio... De la Rocha.

Lio.

That name sounded familiar but I couldn't place it. After all, it had been a good month or so since I last heard it.

Going over to the one beside Alvin's, the name Mari Silva was etched on the plate.

I couldn't place that one either, but it wasn't familiar. No point in trying to get in as there were no doorknobs now- some sort of retinal scanning thing terribly out of place with the wooden frame.

Everyone else would be coming back tomorrow.

Jacques. Lio. Mari.

I would have to figure them out when they got here.

Isaac...

One hand grazing my ear, I would have to figure him out too. And quickly.

///

Ariya

GRA Headquarters, Coast City, West States

December 4th, 0100 hours

"Good to be back..." She watched the lizard plop down in her chair with a huff. Ariya sulked back to her usual corner of the room, folding her arms.

"Put those bags over there, would you?" Opera gave directions to a few grunts carrying her luggage.

When they left Opera swiveled around in her chair to Ariya, a smile painted on her face.

"We took a huge loss, DeSanta. Thailand isn't ours anymore."

The lizard swiveled back around. "But you're failing to see the bigger picture. Thailand was dead weight. All we did was build a base there and send people into the jungle to never return. We didn't even really police any of the cities, just Settlement 14."

"And now it's gone."

"It's lost us nothing. It was a distraction, a mistake, I see it now... But this gives me time to work on my pet project..."

Opera signed into her terminal, Ariya watched over her shoulder.

"Marshall's still in Thailand, I wouldn't get too excited."

"Marshall? What does this have to do with him?"

"We're talking about the berserker initiative, right?"

Opera nodded, still going at her keyboard furiously.

"It's optimal we have Marshall in Thailand the whole time, then he can't be there to protect Tai."

"...What the hell are you talking about? Marshall is a berzerker. The one who's killing Tai when we trigger him."

Opera looked over her shoulder. "You must have been hit on the head in Thailand."

Ariya wasn't sure what to make of this. Was it some sort of joke?

Opera didn't joke around about this type of thing. Sure, she bragged and went on and on about...

"Who's the berzerker, then?"

"...What are you trying to do here, Ariya?"

"I want to know, if it's not Marshall, then who's the berzerker that's going to attack Tai?"

As Opera told Ariya there wasn't any more or less shock, but a lot more urgency.

The message. If it didn't come through then it could happen at any point. Opera had been waiting all of November practically, she would jump at her first opportunity.

At this point Ariya wasn't sure if she even wanted Tai alive at this point, he'd become an item of question after his interrogation.

But maybe it would just be to spite Opera.

///

Tai

Void

"A-Ariya, there's a bunch of weird things happening and"-

"I know. We share a fucking consciousness, you idiot. And I can tell you why. Or at least, my theory."

We weren't around any sort of structure, just the void again.

"When you killed Riddick and you messed around with the timeline you affected a helluva lot more than even makes sense."

"The past was affected?"

"I don't know how, but don't screw with it anymore. I'm almost done with Ariya's message from the... Well, the first timeline. I don't know if it pertains to this one but give me until tomorrow morning."

I opened my mouth to speak but suddenly a wave of vertigo hit me and I snapped out of it.

The void dissolved around me and I was standing in my room.

I'd almost forgotten about these sudden pangs of almost narcolepsy, but according to Ariya they wouldn't last much longer.

I was going to be pissed if the message was 'test' or something dumb like that.

Giving it no more thought, I went to sleep with my clothes still on and not even fully on the bed.

///

"I wish you could come with me to Marseilles..."

"You know your mother doesn't like me."

Zoe smiled; what I lived for, and her hand ran down my chest. With the other she pulled the sheets a little further up.

"Ever since father died... I'm sorry about what happened the last time she saw you."

I pulled her closer. "You've apologized for that so many times already, it's fine..."

Managing to tear my eyes away from her a second, the window of my bedroom had been repositioned entirely to give a view of the moon as it set.

The sunrise is ugly.

The sunrise is the beginning of something. The beginning of hardships. Life.

Life is not a good thing.

The moon shows the wane of life, the wane of the day.

The wane of hardships.

Death.

Love is the only thing worth sticking around for.

"You always told me, Tai, that one day when this is all over... We'll be together. The war's been over for some time."

I sighed. That wasn't the war I was talking about.

"You know I try... They can't know about us."

"You know I can't wait forever..."

"Please don't say that, Zoe... It destroys me."

I stared at the moon, waiting for death.

I was lying to her with every word I said. Everyone.

Father was already sending me to surgery nearly every week, trying desperately to fix it all.

I was 25. I was supposed to die years ago.

I had to live for her.

I cradled her head, my muzzle brushing her ear.

So many things I wanted to tell her...

I couldn't move my mouth.

"...I'm sorry."

I wasn't sure who said it, but it was perhaps the only truth I had heard in years.

///

Woop woop, chapter 24 done

So if I release it in January it means I broke schedule and the side project will be released afterwards.

I had a bit of difficulty as Onedrive was being fucked for around a day and I wasn't able to open anything in my Alcatraz folder.

ALSO I did NOT forget about the whole Ajax/Lynx pseudo fight scene. Will be explained next chapter

Anyways ty for reading not much to say this time around.