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Fandom Coral, Abide with Rubicon!

The red wave of coral pulsed as if sighing in relief. She was definitely smart, Arye decided. Especially as the thoughts she was having flooded into her own self. So much introspection and yet she was still so confused. The coral woman didn't know if she could tell her everything yet, so she'd have to lie and omit.

"...I am a Rubiconian who's consciousness was trapped in the coral flow." not entirely false.

"...I don't know how I got here..." a half truth. She didnt' know it would have worked when she tried it and now she was there.

"But I've been able to keep the coral contained to the augments while I'm not dormant in the back. I would like to stay with you, to see what your Handler's focus on the Coral is... As a Rubiconian, I want to see it through."

A pause. This was the truth but the thoughts of Aurelia filtered in and she agreed with them.

"Hallucinations would not admit to being hallucinations, but I am not a hallucination. Hallucinations cannot affect the coral or make it behave like I can."

How could she prove this though? How could she prove that she was real?

She had an idea but she didn't know if it would work. The coral wave mutation 'looked' around for technology around her and found Aurelia's phone.

Perfect!

"... I am... going to try something."

Ayre wasn't going to tell her not to be afraid. If their roles were reversed, she would be a bit frightened as well. Working with the technology, Ayre opened the music app and hit play on a random one, causing the phone to broadcast the song from wherever she had it on her person.

🎶Hey-oh, here comes the danger up in this club, when we get started and we ain't gon' stop, we gon' turn it out 'til it gets too hot.🎶​

~***~

Huntress was glad that Rusty was leading the way. It gave her something to focus on that wasn't just mindless walking and blocking out the screams that had plagued her all night. Hells, it still plagued her, but with Rusty talking to her, and just being there, just like Arlo was all night, helped to keep the screams at least quiet enough to hear other sounds around her.

The familiar paths blended together in her mind but she was awake enough to pilot safely, and that's all that mattered. She had to find out what happened to her family. If they were gone... She needed that proof. The closure.

The red head pulled out her phone to look at their picture again and bit back the tears as they arrived at Snail's office.

She was bracing to hear the uninterested or irritated voice of Snail, but the voice that came out instead was one she didn't recognize. She had met most of the Vespers by now, save for V.VI Maeterlinck who mostly stayed in her room, V.VII Swineburne who was apparently in and out of re-education all the time, and V.I Freud who was always away on missions.

Snail wouldn't leave his paperwork and room to someone lower in the ranks like Maeterlinck or Swineburne, so that meant this was Freud. All she knew about him was that paperwork was his mortal enemy and that he was apparently completely batshit insane.

He didn't sound insane... He sounded... frustrated... like he hated being there, but that beat the emotional constipation of Snail who only seemed to know pride and anger.

Huntress kept her mouth shut though, and adopted an at-attention stance. She didn't know how strict he was or even the way to his office, but she was ready to follow Rusty assuming he knew.
 
Ayre claimed to be trapped in the coral flow, but Aurelia felt some doubt. Unbeknownst to her, some of it was Ayre’s own feelings about lying, and the rest was the limited knowledge she had on coral. People claimed it was alive. They didn't say how, but somehow, she thought Lilith might have mentioned something about it being former humans.

Something didn't feel right, but she was too full of doubt about everything, and too tired, to really argue.

And then the music chimed.

She jolted and quickly took her device out and stopped it. “Was that you?” Of course it was, but she waited a moment for the response, before continuing, “Walter wants the coral for money.”

At least, that's what he said.

“Which makes no sense with what I just did, unless he didn't know.” Possible. Unlikely, if this was Carla. She folded her arms over her knees and leaned forward. “Personally I think we should stop using Coral. You probably agree. It can't be pleasant seeing people like me using your own as fuel for enhancements,” she spat the last word bitterly.

But she had nothing left.

“I'm sorry. I wasn't given a choice. I suppose they're dying with me, now.” And living a trapped existence until that death.

How terrible. Despite having no choice, guilt choked every other emotion into silence.

~***~

Rusty was not prepared for this, but he stepped away from Snail’s office to head just a door down, and on the opposite side of the hall. He opened the door and stepped in, leaving it open for Huntress before shutting it and turning to Freud.

He was the most human.

And in so many ways, the least.

His blond hair was streaked gray, revealing his age with the lines on his face, but his eyes were as steady as a predator. He'd lost no bulk, either – nothing like Michigan, more akin to Rusty’s own build.

And he put his elbows on the desk that was empty of clutter or anything else, entwined his fingers, and set his chin on his hands.

“So, what is so desperately important that it involves you two and bereavement leave? You don't have family here, Rusty.”

“You haven't heard of my boyfriend?” Rusty teased, but waved it off, “consider me support on the mission and guidance as IX recently went through re-education and needs to keep a mentor on her. IX’s parents live in Northern Belius, she was on a call with them when it all went to hell. We'd like to check the area out for Arquebus and get confirmation on their status. Whatever area Snail hasn't assigned out, or any area shorthanded, we're happy to assist with.”

Freud’s scrutinizing expression never changed. “The alternative is she applies for leave now?”

“Mhmm. That's a lot of paperwork.”

“Yup,” Freud agreed. “Fine. Head up. Check out the Watchpoint Delta. It was a PCA area. Snail didn't assign anyone there. May be at the center, but you shouldn't expect no resistance just because of that. See what you can find.”

He knew Snail didn't send anyone because O’Keeffe fell there, and he wanted that report to know that he needed to send, but if these two wanted to be guinea pigs, so be it, “Do this first.”
 
Ayre, being closer to the front of Aurelia's implants now, could feel the emotions of her new companion and was almost hesitant to address it at first. It wouldn't help the 'you're just a hallucination' claims.

She seemed to take it well though when the phone went off. She didn't have an absolute meltdown like Ayre thought she would.

"...Yes. That was me."

It either didn't phase Raven, or she was still assuming she was a hallucination given the way she segued into the next topic. Ayre had thought before that Raven was smart, but the fact that she already had an idea of what Ayre could actually be only bumped her up further in her books. She was a lot smarter than she was expecting.

"He... wants to sell it?" For some reason, the c-wave woman didn't believe that, and neither did Aurelia if her thoughts said anything about that. There was definitely something more sinister going on here and Ayre was going to get to the bottom of it through Raven.

"... I am happy that you feel that way. The Coral doesn't like to be contained or used as fuel, but as you say, you had no choice. You have no reason to feel guilty for augments forced upon you..."

There was a long pause as Ayre tried to figure out comfort. Humans... hugged when they were sad, right? How could she give her a hug when she was stuck in her implants? Ayre attempted it, the red wave laying flat against the inside of the augments. This was a hug right?

She didn't know if it would work, so after a few moments, she righted herself and spoke again.

"Raven... you should get some rest... your wounds won't heal if you don't... I will keep the coral contained from now on..." A pause. "... And please dismount your AC safely..."

~***~

Huntress dutifully followed Rusty into Freud's office and kept her gaze ahead and as level as she could. One look at Freud's gaze and she averted her own to the right, focusing on anything but those terrifyingly hunter-like eyes. It was akin to the tigers she had seen prowling in the nature documentaries and despite his bored-looking demeanor, seemed as if he could pounce at any second.

He was both horrifyingly scary and an creature of curiosity at the same time, giving off mixed signals of 'stranger danger' and 'weird ass uncle who tells too many war stories'. It was unnerving in many, many ways.

He seemed more friendly than Snail though, which wasn't saying much since she was convinced that Snail hated everyone...

But just like he promised, Rusty did all the talking. It looked like the trick to convincing Freud to go with a plan was to threaten having to do a lot of paperwork when Snail wasn't here because he approved their day trip and sortie rather easily.

Relief filled Huntress and she bowed her head respectfully at Freud. She didn't think talking right now would be a good idea considering how raspy she was so she just stood there like that, waiting to be dismissed.

She was glad to be sent on the mission first as she didn't think she'd be able to operate ARTEMIS if she got the worst possible news when checking on her family's home. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best... Maybe if Lils was still alive, she could fix her speech aid too? That'd save her another big expense...
 
Ayre confirmed she was coral, indirectly. This wasn't helping the hallucination allegations. Could the phone have gone off on its own? Did she imagine it? Did she make it, and forgot? The mind was a strange place. Aurelia felt both too lucid and not present enough, for all of this.

A strange sensation ran up the back of her neck and she straightened up with a shiver before reaching back to try and touch it.

It was gone by then.

Ayre promised to help with the burn in, but told her to rest.

‘Will you be gone when I wake up?’

Aurelia didn't know how this worked.

She had a feeling Ayre might not, either.

“Alright,” she stood back up but didn't move to climb down. She returned to the catwalk, “you'll have to tell me more about you…about coral…in time. All I really know is it's alive, it burns, and it ruined my life,” she chuckled the last part to lighten it, no matter how true it was.

Humans probably ruined things for coral, too.

Aurelia went back to the bunks. O'Keeffe was in the same place, so she laid back down, and when she shut her eyes, sleep took fitm hold.

Only to be disturbed by O'Keeffe, some hours later, when his tablet went off with Snail’s warning approach. She groaned against the disturbance to her sleep.

“Just heading out. Snail likes to be early,” O'Keeffe said, likely so she'd know she could stay in bed, but she moved. She had to make plans for LEMURES and talk to Walter.

So, she donned another tank without much thought, something purple about flexing and sleeves falling off, and helped guide O'Keeffe towards the hangar.

~***~

Huntress bowed, as Rusty considered the implications that missions were less paperwork compared to leave requests. That was problematic, but for now, it worked to their advantage. “We'll head out immediately. Thank you, V. I.”

“Oh, don't thank me. You'll report to Snail when you get back, so make sure you have something.” A warning.

Rusty nodded, and touched Huntress’s back to alert her to his move to leave as he turned to the door to leave the office. Not with any undo haste but also not with any delays.

He'd wait to speak until they'd rounded the corner. “So that's Freud. There's a reason Snail is the uh…face…of the Vespers. No offense to Freud,” Rusty chuckled, “but he knows he's the best and it's a bit intense. I think that's why Snail abuses him with endless missions.”

Or Snail was trying to kill him.

Freud could refuse.

As far as Rusty knew, he never did.

He would lead the way to the hangar, glad to be leaving. Glad to be getting more information on all of this. He was going into the heart of it – what better place?

Plus, he'd be glad to get closure on Huntress's family.

He wanted them alive.

Not only because two were RLF, but also because they mattered to her.
 
Despite the sleeping pills he took, Walter had the worst night of sleep in a long time. Back to back nightmares plagued him, making him toss and turn and get little to no sleep at all. How fitting, considering he almost killed his pilot yesterday.

Did she even get any sleep?

He hoped so, though he knew with those burns, sleep may not have come as easy. But now Walter was awake. Wide. fucking. awake. It was all because of Snail's impending arrival, so he got out of bed and set about his morning routine earlier than normal.

Freshly showered and dressed -- He made sure he had a shirt this time--, the pepper-haired man made his way to the kitchen, preparing himself his first cup of coffee for the day. Snail would be here soon too, but he didn't plan on sharing his coffee with him. Just O'Keefe and Aurelia.

He had no idea if Aurelia would be up early too or not, but he made her a cup just in case. At the very least, she could warm it up when she found it, assuming she found it in time.

Walter looked, in no short terms, like hell with those dark circles and slight eye bags, but he still wanted to meet him in the hangar when he got there. It was a courtesy thing, even if he would never return the courtesy.

Coffee in one hand, cane in the other, he made his way there to greet the killer of hostages.

~***~

Ah, it seemed the 'hug' wasn't really a hug. It made her new companion straighten up instead of relax. She'd figure it out in time, assuming she didn't disappear by morning like the pilot was worried about.

"I will..." If she was still around. If she didn't just disappear into the ether like the rest of her coral family did to find the large source up north.

Ayre spent the night doing her best to keep the coral contained and away from vital parts of Raven's brain so that she could sleep peacefully. It wasn't until morning when an alarm of some kind went off that Ayre realized that she was still there.

She still existed inside the space of Raven's Augments, and so she did the equivalent of a stretch before heading closer to the front of the implants. The man from the night before, O'Keefe she thought his name was, spoke to Raven talking about a man named Snail. Possibly this pilot's Handler. And then they were moving again.

"Good morning, Raven... I hope you got restful sleep..." Greeted the c-wave mutation taking a 'seat' in the front of her brain.

~***~

That warning slid right over her mind with some ease, though she nodded. That was assuming she was staying with Arquebus, that her family was still alive and that she was going to-

Rusty's touch to her back sent a shiver up the entire length of her spine as she resisted the whole body urge to jolt from the way it shook her from her thoughts. Instead, she bowed her head again respectfully and headed out of the office with her buddy, though kept Freud in her peripherals until she was out of the office. You never turn your back to a predator, the documentaries said so, and gods did he feel like one.

The following comments as they made their way to the hangar together made a lot of sense. Though She thought that she preferred Freud to Snail, even if he was intense. "He's... like... a.... tiger..." Referring to how intense he was. To her, despite everything, it was almost a good thing, though she didn't want to be around him more than she had to be. If she had the choice between the two?

Freud.

10000%

It wasn't until they got the the hangar and got loaded up into the transport copter that she attempted speaking again, locked into the loader. "Thanks... again... buddy..."

The trip out to Northern Bellius was going to take a good few hours, and so she spent the whole time staring at her phone's lock screen, trying to tune out the screams and desperate for the loud noises around them to stop. It was much more different to be locked into her AC next to Rusty than in person next to him. It was impersonal, two large slabs of metal standing side-by side in their loaders. Two loud large slabs of metal.

It was well after noon when they arrived at the north-werstern most part of Northern Bellius. She'd have said the PCA base, but when they dropped in, it was just... gone. Vaporized... It didn't give her much hope for her family. If this was the Epicenter, and it seemed like it was, with how loud it sounded on the phone, her family was indeed gone.

The two of them scoured the desolate area for well over an hour, overturning large and small debris until it all started to blur together in her mind.

And then she found it.

A few pieces of an AC. It was a color that wasn't familiar to her in the ones in their hangar.

No.

She knew this emblem.

"Raven..."

The Wall Climber.

Anger flared to life within her, her blood practically boiling.

If her family was dead because of her...

If her family was alive and she put them in danger...

Why did it have to be coral!?

The tiger-stripped mech took hold of the large piece of metal and carted it off to the transport copter, placing it aboard gently. Snail would like to see that, or at least she thought so.

That and a few other unidentified pieces of ACs were found, but nothing more concrete than that. There really was nothing here, so it was a miracle they found something at all.

Huntress loaded ARTEMIS back into her loader when they were done and slumped against the seat, texting Rusty the BAWS town number to tell the Helicopter pilot.

BAWS R3-291. If its still there.​
 
Well, talking to Ayre was going to be awkward with other people around. Aurelia wasn’t sure how to navigate that as she led O’Keeffe through the too-large ship. She got an idea and pulled her tablet out to type a quick message, and just hoped Ayre could read.

They spoke the same language, and Ayre navigated the tech before, right?

Either way, she typed.

Good morning Ayre. Can’t really talk to you without looking crazy in front of others. Does this work?​

It wasn’t sent to anyone, and she wasn’t sure how long to even keep it up for, but eventually she turned her tablet dark and put it back in her pocket, as they reached the hangar where another copter was landing, and Walter was arriving, cane clicking.

They weren’t that far ahead of Snail, it seemed.

She nodded to Walter and moved closer to him as O’Keeffe went to get his AC out of the transport that had brought him aboard, so he wasn’t present when Snail stepped out of the Arquebus helicopter and approached Walter, not at all looking pleased to be there.

“All that coral, Walter,” Snail hissed, “gone. You need a better grip on your mutt’s leash, if you don’t want the Fires to happen again, or if you want to make any profit here, though that is the least of our worries with Gen-4’s anger issues.”

Anger, indeed, boiled to the surface against Snail’s accusations. Apparently, he thought she messed up the job, blissfully unaware it was Walter’s orders. That meant Snail knew the coral was there. O’Keeffe was checking it out. ‘Did you know?’ Another question for Walter.

For now, she held her tongue, and clenched her fists at her side against the strong urge argue with Snail.

This was Walter’s business.

~***~

Tiger.

It had caused Rusty to scoff a laugh, but he thought back to it a few times. ‘Well, maybe, but not Shere Khan.’ Freud didn’t operate off of fear. He didn’t rule with fear. That was Snail. Freud could care less, he just wanted to keep going, keep pushing himself, keep fighting. He wasn’t sure what true equivalent was there for him.

Human.

‘Is that humanity?’ Was it something he had lost in his augmentation? Freud always made him wonder about those things. If Freud was someone who talked philosophy, perhaps he might have even talked to him about such things. As it was, he never even considered approaching Freud with such a thing as philosophy.

But he wondered, as they picked through the ruins of Watchpoint Delta.

The devastation was near complete. They found remnants of AC and PCA MTs – well, and one rather strange machine -- and Rusty did his best to try and find any logs. He managed to find one, further from where the command center had been, at the official entry to the Watchpoint, when he dug through the ruined tower. Snail would hopefully like that, though he didn’t know if it mattered much now.

The reason was obvious: coral.

And the culprit soon became obvious, as well – or at least, a possible one.

Raven.

Rusty felt his heart sink a bit. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have warned you about Snail….’ But why would Raven destroy coral – or try to? It made no sense.

With everything they could possibly find, found, they loaded back up and Rusty got a text from Huntress.

Got it.​

He sent back, before he would indeed provide those directions to the pilot. Thankfully, the pilot didn’t just take them back to Arquebus in spite of that. He took them to the town, which was, surprisingly – present.

It didn’t even seem too badly harmed! Some debris, some things knocked over, some glass shattered – but it was living! People seemed to have packed it, too, no doubt eager to get together, check on each other, and talk about what happened.

Rusty was out of the copter and standing outside with a hopeful grin on his face when he took it all in, “Things are looking good, eh, buddy?”
 
Walter took a slow sip of his coffee, savoring the warmth and caffeine that cut through his exhaustion. The sight of Snail approaching with his typical arrogance was enough to make him mentally roll his eyes in disdain, but he kept his composure. Aurelia had just done what he told her to and almost died from it. Snail’s accusations were not going to go unanswered.

“Snail,” Walter began, his voice calm but laced with a sharp edge, “Good to see you too. Always a pleasure when you come around with your… constructive criticism.”

He took another deliberate sip of his coffee, meeting Snail’s gaze with an unwavering stare. “You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about yesterday. About how we managed to save O’Keeffe from a very unpleasant fate. Quite an achievement, don’t you think?”

Walter’s cane tapped lightly against the floor as he shifted his weight. “But I suppose saving lives doesn’t mean much to you, does it? It’s all about the bottom line, the profit. Funny how that works, isn’t it? You’re so focused on the money that you forget there are people involved. Pilots who risk everything to make you that money.”

He set his coffee down on a nearby table, the sound echoing slightly in the hangar. “Aurelia did exactly what she was supposed to do. She followed orders, my orders, and if you have an issue with that, you can take it up with me. But let’s get one thing straight: insulting my pilot on my ship isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

Walter’s eyes narrowed slightly, the intensity of his gaze never faltering. “Maybe next time you should think about the risks we’re taking out here before you start throwing accusations around. And maybe, just maybe, show a little gratitude that we got O’Keeffe out alive. I know how much Freud hates paperwork. It would have been a shame if he had to start doing it.”

He leaned slightly on his cane, the movement slow and deliberate. “Now, unless you have something constructive to add, I suggest we move on. There’s work to be done, and I don’t have time to waste on this.”

Walter’s words hung in the air, a quiet but firm challenge to Snail. He glanced at Aurelia, offering her a small nod of reassurance. She had survived, shown that she was more than her augments and her past. He wasn’t going to let Snail undermine her efforts like that.

~***~

"I... understand... Yes... This works... I will keep my questions to a minimum..."

It was easy to read the message, partially reading it already from Aurelia's mind as she typed it. Ayre was learning all sorts of new things about herself and her new companion from this experience.

Like how she could hear conversations through her, and also feel some of her emotions and hear her thoughts.

She should probably tell her that... A conversation for later.

Seeing this 'Walter' get heated about Raven only added to her confusion. If he cared so much about his pilot, then why did he send her in to destroy something holding the coral??

Something just wasn't adding up, but she had been confused from the beginning, and it seemed that Raven was as well. The two needed to have a talk, she had heard that thought loud and clear, so it was possible they could get some clarity as to what happened.

Ayre didnt expect Walter to tell the truth though. Humans rarely did from her own knowledge of them, so she'd pick through what he said and give a filtered version back to Aurelia. It was only fair, seeing as they were technically sharing a brain at the moment.

~***~

The travel time to the BAWS Town was substantially shorter than the trip out here had been, but she couldn't bring herself to look out from the cockpit. If the town was gone, the Helicopter wouldn't land. If it didn't land, then she would know.

But it did land, and her head shot up. There it was.

Home.

After months of being away, slaving away at Arquebus, there it was. It was battered and bruised but there were tons of people in the streets. Some of which she vaguely recognized, others that she didn't.

Huntress didn't bother with the cat walk, using her gymnastics training to scale down the frame of Artemis and bolt out of the copter to join Rusty outside and start looking. "Yes... Good...!"

Blue eyes narrowed as she thought she caught the sight of cherry-red hair, a trait that many Rubiconian natives didn't have, but it was just the sign on a building.

And then a familiar voice carried above the crowd, starting the whirlwind of excitable Fletchers.

"Is that an Arquebus Helicopter...?" A calmer, light-toned woman's voice

"It is!! Do you think that's-" A calmer, deep toned man's voice

"Holy shit! It's Elliot!!"A louder, identical man's voice

"Els? Els!! Over here!!" A brash, yet smooth-toned woman's voice

There was a frantic, hopeful expression on her face as tears gathered in her eyes and she tried to look through the crowds. She didn't care that they gave away her real name, they were alive! She stood on her tip toes to try and see over the crowds of people, cursing to herself when she couldn't see. There were so many, and she was just too tiny to see over them.

Curse being so damn short!

She didn't need to look too long though, because through the crowds of people came rushing a group of four. The first through was a man with short red hair, cut into a military style, standing about 5 inches above Rusty as he bent down and scooped up Elliot into a tight hug.

Elliot laughed raspily through her tears and hugged him back just as tight, smiling at her full, over-expressive intensity for the first time in almost 2 weeks, since before the Wall sortie. "Xan...!" "Cub!"

"My turn. Hand me the tiger,"

An identical looking man with long red hair took her from the man she called 'Xan', giving her a gentler, yet still tight hug and she hugged him back as well, the tears falling freely as she sobbed openly, being passed around for hugs by her siblings. "Xavie...!" "Tiger."

"Blockheads, let me get a hug!"

Standing even taller than those two and 7 inches taller than Rusty, was a lanky, thin woman dressed in scene clothes, cherry-red hair styled up into a spike-y up-do, and covered in tattoos and piercings. Elliot was passed over to Lilith who spun her around as she hugged her, though the presence of Rusty wasn't lost on her. "Lils...!" "Els!"

"Now, now, let your mother show some love too,"

She released her sister just in time for a youthful-looking woman with brown hair, green eyes and a short stature to wrap her in a hug. Elliot hugged her gently,not wanting to hurt her. "Mom...!" "My little cub,"

While she was distracted with her mom's hug, Lilith gave an appreciative, knowing nod to Rusty, It seemed his work to break her re-education was working. "So this your buddy~?" She teased aloud, causing Elliot to wipe at her tears and let go of their mom, blushing hard as Lilith leaned in to whisper 'I see why you like him, he's cute'. "Shut-"

Lilith didn't let Elliot finish her words, shushing her gently and holding out her hand expectantly as if she hadn't just teased the hell out of her. " Ah, ah, ah, Lemme see it." Elliot gave her a weird look, face as red as her hair, but LIlith clarified. "The pendant, let me see it."

Oh!

Nodding, the tiny red head removed the necklace from her neck and handed it over to Lilith who immediately got to work on tinkering with it, trying to fix it. She pulled a pouch of tools out of her back pocket, seemingly always ready to open things up and see how they worked.

The brothers stepped forward in tandem, sizing up Rusty with scrutinizing looks that only protective brothers would give potential suitors or new friends. They were told about Rusty's status due to being AC Pilots but getting to meet him in person outside of an AC was definitely something. They would take his secret to their graves.

"So you're Rusty, huh? Our little tiger talks a lot about you according to Tiny and mom. Thanks for being there for her. Coral knows she needs someone in there to keep her safe," The brothers spoke in tandem, but quiet enough for only him to hear. The RLF code phrase, Coral knows, thrown in there to let him know that they were privvy of his... situation.

The other short woman approached with a big, teary smile on her face as she placed a hand on Rusty's arm in a very mom way. "Thank you for bringing her home to check on us. You know, if you two don't have to leave right away, it's a little past lunch if you two are hungry? I could make us all some food." Maura offered, looking at the two of them.

Elliot looked to Rusty, unsure. This was just a pitstop to make sure they were alive and the last thing she wanted to do was piss off Snail, but gods did she want to spend time a little more time with her family. And there was the matter of telling Lils about her favorite client causing this whole event...
 
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As Walter spoke to Snail, Aurelia relaxed her fists and she began to examine the man. The urge to violate him didn’t fade, but now she was starting to place it. ‘Uncanny valley.’ His face was smooth, unnaturally clear, as if he had no pores. His eyes were unnaturally bright. There wasn’t a scar upon him, even though he was certainly augmented.

Augmented too far.

Walter backed what she had done as orders, and Snail’s too-perfect brows lifted in surprise, “You ordered that?” apparently, he assumed Walter had more sense, as he then scoffed, “You need to pick your jobs better,” he said, “your informant clearly did not let you know of the wealth of coral there. Unless your intent was to kill your own mutt and lose all profit this wretched planet has to offer.”

One fist clenched again. Oh, to break his nose!

“That is my constructive criticism, Walter,” Snail was apparently not one to back down from such things, and he saw plenty of places to improve, as O’Keeffe’s AC moved in the background to get into the transport. The thudding, sliding sound was likely what caused Snail to turn to look at the mess that remained of the AC unit.

That angry expression twitched into something almost human, in the way it was touched by the actual horror of what the AC must have gone through to end up in such a state. Snail turned back to Walter. “What happened at the Watchpoint?” He’d get a story from O’Keeffe, but he wondered if Walter would add more before he had to get the dregs of whatever O’Keeffe knew.

“Explosions, mostly.” Aurelia couldn’t help but answer. It was quiet, almost as if she hadn’t spoken, and her gaze was off to the side to add to that.

But Snail heard and his gaze narrowed. He considered engaging, but sense got the better of him, and he just looked back at Walter for the proper answer, and not the antagonistic and unimportant words of the pilot.

~***~

Rusty was caught up in the family reunion almost immediately, which really was a shame. It’d be hard to convince Arquebus they needed to stay longer if it all happened in the line of sight of the pilot, but still, Rusty smiled to see all of them, and to now put faces to Castor and Pollux.

As they now put a face to him; their words didn’t go unnoticed, though Rusty couldn’t confirm anything in the situation he was in. ‘Elliot, huh.’ Rusty had her name now, too.

“That would be me,” Rusty agreed with a chuckle, “Unless she’s started calling someone else buddy, of course,” which he knew, she didn’t, “glad to put faces to names now; she’s talked highly of all of you.” As tempting as it was to properly introduce himself with his actual name, he stayed behind ‘Rusty’. His real name did exist on Rubicon-3, and he didn’t need it discovered by anyone.

He didn’t know how far Lilith or Maura could research such things. Xander and Xavier now knew his face, and they could find his name, but he knew he could trust them with it. Not the others. Not at all.

As Maura laid a hand on him, he glanced back a moment at the helicopter. “We’re allowed lunch breaks,” he agreed, “and it’s been a long time since I’ve had a homecooked meal. I wouldn’t mind staying a bit longer to get one in,” he said, knowing it was mostly to allow Elliot to reconnect with her family in person.

She needed that.
 
Snail's arrogance was damn near palpable as he continued his tirade and even Walter started to get a little angry about it. He'd dealt with worse, of course, but Snail was always insufferable. If O'Keefe wasn't in the process of dragging his mech to the other transport vehicle, he'd have kicked him out.

Maybe that's why he had no problems fucking with him while he was there.

"Intel can be incomplete or incorrect. These things happen." Not often, but they did.

"I just won't take jobs from that informant next time" He would. He had a feeling that Carla knew about the coral, but the way it reacted... It shouldn't have surprised him. Coral was volatile.

It just did that.

It liked to combust, and explode, and just generally cause chaos when provoked. If he would have known how massive the explosion was going to be, he would have re-thought their strategy. Maybe tried to find a smaller coral vein to target to track its movements.

He was just glad that Aurelia had made it out alive. It was truly a miracle.

He glanced at Aurelia, noting her tension and the way she examined Snail. It was a look he understood all too well—disdain mingled with unease. Walter appreciated her restraint from not just popping off on him.

Walter had to stifle the snort of laughter that wanted to escape at Aurelia's words, her answer to Snail almost too quiet. She wasn't wrong.

When Snail turned to him for a proper answer, ignoring Aurelia’s quiet response, Walter didn’t hesitate to double down. “Explosions, mostly,” he repeated, his tone matching Aurelia’s but louder, a smirk quirking up the corner of his lips on his mostly stoic face.

"Before the explosions, she was taking out PCA MTs and SGs. After the explosion, your guess is as good as mine." Walter was smart enough to not give away anything about Sulla, or what they were really doing there.

If he was going to share information like that, it sure as hell wouldn't be with Snail of all people. No, if he wanted any information, he'd have to pay, handsomely. And he knew just how much of a cheapskate that Snail was.

How much longer was this going to take?

While he wasn't looking forward to the conversation with Aurelia, it was preferable to talking to the over-augmented... human... Well he didn't know if human was the right word to use, considering the amount of surgeries he had, but he was technically human.... Maybe about as inhumanly human as Freud was, just on the other end of the 'human' spectrum.

~***~

"Hell yeah!!"

Hurricane Fletcher was still in full force as the brothers cheered at them being able to stay for lunch and suddenly, Elliot was yoinked upward with a startled, dull squeak and placed upon Xander's shoulders for an impromptu shoulder ride.

"Xander Jones Fletcher, what in the name of Coral are you doing?!" Maura had to make sure he wasn't antagonizing or teasing her yet again.

"Relaxxxxx! I'm just giving her a shoulder ride so she can see what we tall fuckers can see!"

"And so she doesn't get lost in the crowds."

"Put her on my shoulders then, I'm the tallest. Maybe she can actually look at her buddy now without having to crane her neck~"

Another game of "Pass the Pilot" occurred as a red-faced Elliot was shuffled over to Lilith's shoulders and teased relentlessly in the process.

"So small! How do you even pilot an AC looking that cute and tiny!"

"I bet she can't even reach the pedals,"

"Nah, she's augmented, remember? She doesn't need pedals, she needs a whole ass ladder to get up inside the cockpit though."

The siblings snickered amongst themselves and Elliot managed a pout through her beaming smile but it disappeared as quick as it formed as Lilith turned herself to look back at Maura and Rusty.

Elliot was still wiping tears from her tomato-red face, happy ones this time, and she leveled Rusty with that bright, over-expressive smile of hers, mouthing 'Thank you' to him for allowing them to take their lunch break here with her family.

"We'll lead you to the house, just follow your little buddy. How do you not lose her in the 'grand halls of Arquebus'? She's so short! "

"L-Lils...!" Elliot tried to protest but it was in vain.

There was more snickering between the siblings as Rusty wasn't spared from some of the teasing as well, accepting him almost immediately into their little clique. A friend of Elliot's was a friend to them too.

As they began their walk through the crowds with Maura sticking by Rusty to make sure he didn't get lost, Lilith handed the pendant back up to her, already fixed.

"Here Els, It's fixed. I also upgraded its emotion sensors to handle more input. I know you have those big emotions, especially with that buddy of yours~" The last part was whispered to her, teasing her relentlessly and keeping her face matching her hair.

The tiny pilot put the necklace back on and reconnected to it, sighing in relief when it flashed blue.

"I love you, Lils, but please, shut the fuck uppp." This caused more laughter from the siblings as they continued their journey to their home.

Maura turned to look up at Rusty, still smiling and keeping her voice low. "I've heard a lot about you from my little cub. You've really been her saving grace there. She's always had trouble making friends, especially since the augments, so it's good to know that she has someone else in her corner who doesn't have some sort of ulterior motive. She doesn't have the best sense of judgement sometimes and a mother worries..."
 
Aurelia had to resist laughing as Walter parroted her words back at Snail.

Snail was not amused.

“Very well, Handler Walter,” Snail understood he wasn’t getting anything out of Walter. He’d get it out of O’Keeffe, and he’d determine the best course for examining the remains of Watchpoint Delta. “But do know if you insist on targeting coral in ways that aim to destroy it, you will make an enemy of Arquebus, rather than an ally – and likely an enemy of the PCA, Balam, and the RLF. You are one man with one pilot.”

Arquebus did not exist only on Rubicon-3. Neither did Balam. The threat was pointed. Even if Walter did do something as foolish as start the Fires by bad intel, he would be hunted to the ends of the galaxy.

Literally.

“You should remember that, and take jobs only from reliable sources,” this didn’t come from Michigan. He was an idiot, sure, but not that big of an idiot. “I am sure we will have more for you and your mutt in the future,” Snail couldn’t just forget how useful the damned dog was, after all.

She’d claimed the Wall, when he had wanted her to fail so the Vespers could step in and finish up.

She’d also taken out Pater, and for some reason, saved O’Keeffe. No, he couldn’t just ignore them like so many other mercenaries.

With everything he needed to say, said, he turned back to his transport, “Until then, Walter.” He would load up, and ship out, having no further desire to stay there and chat with Walter.

As soon as the doors to the helicopter closed, Aurelia couldn’t help but ask, “Do we have to keep working with Arquebus?” she really didn’t like them.

~***~

It was all Rusty could do not to grimace at Elliot’s family, and the way they hammered in how small she was. The way they suggested it should get in the way of simple tasks, almost infantilizing her, when she had done so damn much for them. He could see that it didn’t upset her, she took it in stride, and likely, her family meant well by it. Perhaps she enjoyed it; reduced, in a way, when she had done and been so much to her family to get them to this point.

Now she didn’t have to, and they made sure she knew it.

Still, Rusty would have thrown a punch by now if he had to deal with this intolerable teasing, and even second-hand, he wanted to shout.

But he wouldn’t.

He’d just make a point to ask her about it later, and make sure she wasn’t putting on a face for her family. He didn’t understand their inner workings, after all. At the question directed his way, Rusty couldn’t help but shrug and throw back, “Well, not everyone is grotesquely gigantesque at Arquebus,” it was said just as playfully, just as teasing, and that was all in his smile and in his eyes.

He'd gotten good at lying, after all. But he hoped it made them insecure.

He wanted to know if they’d made Elliot hate her height. Made her insecure, given how shy and closed up she was at Arquebus, even before the re-education.

Still, he followed, with Maura at his side, the only one who seemed…well, normal. Decent. So far. Minus the fact it was still ‘little’ cub. “Don’t worry about it,” he said to her, “She’s finding her place amongst the Vespers. Everyone’s augmented, except ol’ Freud, so she’s not that strange among us,” Rusty reassured, though of course, with her burn-in side effects, she was a bit strange.

But not strange enough to matter. Not in his book. “She’s told me all about you, and how much she’s worked to support you and yours. I’m glad to meet the family she cares so much about.”

A family that might be lying to her, and letting her come into the line of fire of her own brothers. He didn’t know if Maura or Lilith knew that, though.
 
Walter watched as Snail turned to leave, his words lingering in the air like a bad smell. It was clear that Snail had no intention of understanding his side of the situation.

Typical.

He unfortunately was right about making enemies, however. As much as he hated Snail, and Arquebus, he still needed them to get closer to the coral convergence.

If only Snail knew how right he was.

'I don't plan to live long enough for them to chase me down. I will die with the fires along with everyone else on this planet.'

It was a harrowing, sorrowful thought. So much death and destruction to prevent even more throughout the galaxy.

Snail didn't see Coral as anything other than some moneymaker, or maybe his higher ups seen it that way... Regardless, The coral needed stopped. It needed to burn, and with Aurelia's help, they were going to do it.

Hopefully.

If she didn't die from Coral Burn-in before then.

If someone didn't try to kill her by then...

As soon as the helicopter doors closed behind Snail, Walter let out a sigh of relief and turned to Aurelia.

“I wish I could tell you we don't,” he said, his voice softer now that the tension had left the room. “But it’s not that simple. They have resources we might need, and sometimes, dealing with them is a necessary evil. I hate Snail as much as the next handler, but he offers high paying jobs. Unless you'd rather work with Michigan and G5 every job...”

It was an almost teasing quip. He didn't know her stance on Michigan now, but he knew for a fact that she and Iguazu hated each other viscerally given the absolute, throw down fist fight that they got into.

He picked up his coffee again, taking a long sip before continuing. “I’ll find better intel next time, more 'reliable sources'. I’m not going to let them put you in a situation like that again.”

He wouldn't let Carla risk his pilot like that again. At least well before they found the convergeance.

Walter glanced at Aurelia, offering her a small smirk as he drained the rest of his coffee. He'd definitely need more.

“I'm surprised you didn't punch him. He had it coming. ”

And he would have backed her up for it too. Though talking his way out of that would have been... more than difficult.

Still, the elephant in the room was growing only bigger with every passing second. With a sigh, he spoke again. "I owe you answers. Your coffee is in its place if you'd rather talk there,"

~***~

"Ow! This wolf's got some bite! Damn!"

"Your buddy's gonna fit right in, sis!"

"Hell yeah he will! Welcome to the team, brother,"

The siblings kept up their game of 'Pass the Pilot', taking turns making sure that Elliot didn't have to walk a single step or exert herself while they walked. Although they were teasing her, they were treating her like a princess in the process, and her squeaking, soft snickering laughter could be heard from their direction.

"I don't doubt that. She's been... hell-bent on getting us through Varrin's passing and keeping us alive for the last decade. I'm sure she's told you all about that if you're here with her." Maura sighed softly.

"Sometimes I wish she wouldn't have gotten augmented to follow in her father's footsteps, but he's been her hero since she was a tyke. They used to work on his AC together, repair it after sorties, check the internals..."

The woman wiped sentimental tears from her eyes and shook her head.

"I think being a pilot was what she was meant to do all along, I just wish she had the choice to be independent like her brothers... I know she has debt from her corrective augments..." With a sigh, she dropped it.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to bring the conversation down like that. This is a happy time. She has at least one friend, and we survived that blast." There was a tone of frustration that she tried to cover up with optimism, her words clear that she wasn't happy that Elliot was in Arquebus, but still supported her dreams of being a pilot.

"Popcorn time!" There was a short scream followed by more of Elliot's squeaking as she was sent rocketing up into the air only to be caught and sent back up again.

Maura's head shot up as she heard the startled cry of her eldest daughter and watched as she was thrown into the air, putting on her best mom voice.

"Xander, you cut that out this instant! Your sister is not a toy!"

"But mom-"

"No buts!"

"Yes ma'am..."

Thankfully, The 5 of them made it to the house in no time and Elliot was placed on the very top step, Lilith opening the door and letting them all inside.

"Welcome home, Elliot."

There was a shift from playful teasing to seriousness and the short pilot dove forward, wrapping her arms around all 3 of them, and squeezing tight as she nearly broke down into tears again. Two large and one delicate hand took turns ruffling her hair as they hugged her back. Here, in the privacy of their home, Elliot's personality came out in full force, not hidden like she kept it in public or around the others in Arquebus. A sweetheart with a mouth.

"I'm so glad you tall ass motherfuckers are still alive. Fucking giants with your fucking long ass legs...!" Her voice was semi- muffled into the clothing of her siblings, but audible enough for everyone to hear.

"There's the Els we know and love! Took you long enough! Didn't want to show yourself in front of your buddy, huh~?"

"Fuck you, Lils," It was lighthearted, though her face still tinted red from bringing Rusty into this.

"And why would we leave our tiny littlest big sister without her guard dogs?"

"We're not so easily taken out!"

"Damn, your hair's so short like this! Talk about teddy-bear fuzz on the sides!"

"I dunno, I miss the long hair, it was so soft!"

"The fucking stupid regs make it impossible to keep it long. It would be a huge pain in the dick to put in a bun or some shit every time I needed to hop in ARTEMIS. Too fucking fluffy."

Maura had already made her way to the kitchen to prepare food for them, but called out to Rusty before she got too involved. "Make yourself comfortable. Bathroom is upstairs, first door on your right if you need it."

Inside the Fletcher house, the walls were decorated with framed photos of the siblings and parents at different stages of their life. Baby photos of Elliot, the twins, and Lilith, Kid pictures of them with their dad, even older pictures of them, like the brothers posing with their ACs, Lilith posing with a man about Rusty's height with a dad bod, blue eyes that had a red ring in them, and long brown hair, and a sibling picture of the 4 of them from a few years ago with pre-augmented Elliot and her fluffy, wavy hair, though her face looked tired, probably from working so hard.

There was a picture of a young, pre-augment Elliot sitting in the cockpit of a Maroon and black AC, covered head to toe in grease stains with the most concentrated look on her face as she seemed to be working on the internals of it. At the foot of the AC was Varrin, dressed in his flight suit with his emblem on it and smaller than his emblem was the RLF one. It was small enough that it was a detail seen in passing but you'd have to know what it was to recognize it.

There were other pictures of the family around the house, including the large framed photo of the picture on Elliot's lockscreen above the mantle of the small fireplace in the living room. There were two large couches, a 6 seater dining room table, and plently of knick-knacks that seemed to have been hap-hazardly put back up after the blast, including a few tiger statues. All in all, it looked lived in, a little run down, but full of love.
 
“I actually would rather work with them and the RLF all the time,” Aurelia stated flatly, “Snail re-educates people.” She wanted to murder him solely on those grounds. Perhaps she should have, but Snail made a point: he had a literal army that would come after them. It was just her and Walter.

They didn’t have the power to take on Arquebus. “Maybe you can convince Michigan to hire me to kill Snail.” Then the ire would go towards Balam, not them. They were just doing a job.

But Balam probably didn’t want that smoke, either.

Shame.

“Let’s talk in the kitchen. You still owe me the name of your reliable source,” she turned to walk towards the kitchen, “and I want to know if you knew the coral would be there. If you knew what happened was…a possibility. And everything about Sulla.”

She was owed that much.

No, she was owed substantially more, but this would get it started, at the very least.

She wouldn’t pressure Walter to tell her on the walk, and when she arrived in the kitchen she took her coffee. Lukewarm now, but she didn’t bother with warming it, and went to take her usual seat to get the debrief from Walter on everything that had happened.

His history was clearly in play here.

~***~

Rusty was polite in listening to Maura wax on about her daughter and the history there. She was obviously a sentimental woman, brought to tears easily at mere reflection. And perhaps as easily annoyed as he was with some of the antics. Just as soon as ‘popcorn’ began, it ended with her word. “She’ll pay the debts off one day, but I hope your family will one day see all that Arquebus is trying to do for Rubicon-3,” Rusty said with such earnestness, one could easily believe he truly bought into Arquebus, “We do need our fair share of contractual mercs, though, so I can’t say I disapprove of what your two sons have chosen to do, though. Sometimes there’s just things we Vespers aren’t able to do.”

They made it to the home, and Elliot’s personality seemed to do a 180.

She was cursing like, well, a Redgun.

And apparently was all good with size jokes herself. ‘I’m going to have an aneurysm.’ He knew he wasn’t, but dealing with the twin RLF pilots, the secret he kept with Lilith, and seeing a different person in Elliot suddenly emerge was certainly a lot to deal with and try to play all the roles he knew without letting any of them bleed through.

He might just stick by Maura.

The home was full of pictures when the doorway finally cleared of the siblings, and he glanced around. He could recognize who everyone was from the faces now, and the one he’d seen in Elliot’s phone.

He heard Maura call out to him, “Thank you! If you need any help in the kitchen, I’m happy to lend a hand!” He honestly was, if only to get out of the high energy of the reunion and let the siblings be, well, siblings in peace.

But then his attention was caught by one picture.

He was surprised to see the picture of the AC with the RLF logo on it, though, and he decided to have a bit of fun of his own by stifling a surprised laugh, “Hey, Buddy? I thought you said your dad was independent – how come he sported the RLF emblem?” he had reason to recognize it. They fought against the RLF all the time, after all. “Did you just lie in case Arquebus wouldn’t hire you with that history?” he glanced back towards her to see.

And he kept Xander and Xavier’s reactions in mind.

If there was going to be any flipping her from Arquebus, Lilith mentioned family could play a role. Here was one way to pull on her love of her father
 
Walter arched an eyebrow at Aurelia’s flat declaration, curiosity piqued. “How did you know about Snail's re-education?” he asked, falling into step beside her as they walked towards the kitchen, cane clicking off the floor rhythmically.

"If it wouldn't potentially cause a bigger corporation war and potentially paint us as enemies of both for the destruction, I'm sure Michigan would be on board."

As they walked, the remnants of the morning’s tension seemed to fade away, leaving behind a more subdued atmosphere. Walter let the silence stretch between them, giving Aurelia the space she needed after the confrontation with Snail. When they reached the kitchen, he moved to the counter, pouring himself another cup of coffee, adding sugar, before joining her at the table.

"It was Carla." She probably already guessed that. He took a moment to collect his thoughts, the steam from his fresh cup swirling in the air between them. “I knew there was a possibility of Coral being there,” he began, meeting her gaze with a serious expression.

“But neither Carla nor I had any idea there was that much. If we had known, I wouldn’t have had you destroy it. The risk would have been too great, and I wouldn’t have put you in that kind of danger knowingly.”

Walter took a sip of his coffee, letting the warmth and caffeine fortify him for the conversation ahead. “As for Sulla… he was one of my earlier pilots... C1-249. An excellent pilot, but troubled. He defected when he couldn’t reconcile his own beliefs with our jobs. Since then, he’d made it his mission to kill my pilots, claiming he was sparing them from working for me.”

He leaned back in his chair, a shadow of regret passing over his features. “Sulla thought he was doing the right thing, in his own twisted way. He believed that by killing my pilots, he was saving them from a worse fate. It’s why he was so relentless.”

Walter’s gaze softened slightly as he looked at Aurelia. "Does that answer your questions? More importantly, how are you feeling? Any new symptoms?"

~***~

The tiny pilot and her siblings had just taken their shoes off and gotten comfortable on the couch for a brief respite while their mom made lunch when Rusty's stifled laughter caught her off guard. Curiously, she looked over at him and his words shocked her.

She blinked once, twice, three times, before speaking, brows furrowing. The twins kept their eye on her reaction and gave subtle nods of approval to Rusty for figuring it out.

"What the hell are you talking about...? My dad was an independent..." The red head mumbled and got to her feet, padding over silently in her little stripped socks and looking up at the picture he was talking about. "You know I'm shit at lying, buddy..."

Her words tapered off as she stared up at the photo. Sure as shit, there it was.

The RLF logo...

Her face scrunched up in that way it did when she was thinking hard about something, really trying to call in that singular, orange cat brain cell to piece it together.

The RLF were the bad guys to Arquebus, but her dad wasn't a bad guy...

Was this another thing that Snail was lying about...?

She trusted her dad a hell of a lot more than she trusted some creepy, almost inhuman motherfucker with a perfection complex...

And yet Rusty made fun of the RLF too... He was against them, it seemed...

Huntress was unnaturally quiet as her not-so-smart brain tried to connect the dots.

"Oh shit. You broke her. You made her think too hard." Lilith and the twins snickered though a tinge of worry was on her brows.

"She's trying to hone in the brain cell! The beacons are lit!"

"Oh! And she just missed it!"

"I-I don't understand... Dad always told me he was an independent... Did you three know??"

There was an almost uncomfortable silence as the other siblings looked between each other and the playful energy between the 4 dropped to an unsettling calmness as the atmosphere sobered.

This complicated things...

Her dad had good judgement.

If he was with the RLF, it meant they were the good guys... That also meant at the Wall...

Elliot's eyes widened sightly. She killed so many RLF... Had she picked the wrong side...?

The re-education information was competing with her strong feelings for her father and all that hard thinking was making her head start to hurt.

"I-I'll be right back..." The siblings shared a look as Elliot hiked it upstairs to her old room to try and get some fresh air away from the pictures and the claustrophobic-feeling living room. Lilith followed after her, leaving Rusty alone in the living room with the brothers.

"Well... that went about as well as it could have. I was expecting her to pop off or curse us out or something..."

"It looked like it gave her something to think about. Sad that it happened at our reunion, but who's business is their own, you know?" Xavier sighed and ran a hand through his hair, dropping his voice to a level only Xander and Rusty could hear as he did. 'Who's business is their own' being a code phrase asking if his words were being recorded or watched.
 
Aurelia didn’t immediately own to how she knew about the re-education. She let Walter start confessing information first. That Carla gave the mission was, indeed, no surprise. That Walter knew there was coral – or the potential – was a bit of one. He had still sent her onto the task, knowing the risk.

Or perhaps not? Even she couldn’t say she understood coral. The coral at the STRIDER hadn’t lit up like the coral in the control center. There was still a concern though: he sent her to destroy it, rather than secure it.

And things didn’t add up about Sulla.

She didn’t believe Sulla was killing her just because she worked for Walter. He tried to kill her because of Walter’s agenda. It was very personal, but she’d never learned what it was he disagreed with.

Aurelia shook her head a bit. Her questions weren’t satisfied, but to answer his, she asked simply: “Are my eyes still red?”

She knew they weren’t.

She’d let it be rhetorical for the moment, “As for Snail and re-education, Carla’s helper, Lilith, told me. Regardless of that, I…you want to find coral to retire, don’t you?” her brows knit together, “why would you have me destroy an area that had a possibility of housing coral, when we could have secured it instead?”

Sure, Arquebus was right behind them – but that didn’t seem to have been known. It couldn’t have been accounted for in Walter’s decision to destroy it. “What did Sulla disagree with, exactly?”

‘And why would he be waiting for you on Rubicon-3?’

Perhaps he did just stalk Walter, but…no, it wasn’t adding up.

~***~

Rusty watched as the whole family went silent. ‘You lying bastards.’ Even her father! The only reason Rusty would lie to family like that, was indeed, if he was in this position. He was fairly certain Elliot’s father wasn’t, given he classed himself as independent, though Rusty didn’t know the history.

Even so, the rest of the family knew.

They could have told her.

They would have saved her a lot of pain and hardship.

“Well shit. I didn’t know I was stepping into RLF sympathizer territory,” Rusty chuckled as Elliot left, “Sorry – I do understand what they’re fighting for, they just don’t understand,” he sighed, and looked back towards the picture, as the room cleared.

Xander and Xavier remained.

“Honestly, you’d all deserve it from her,” Rusty stated bluntly, “lying to her about her own father for so many years,” he clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. He didn’t need to rub it in, and when he heard the code phrase, he let out a rush of air over his teeth in further agitation.

There was no code for ‘I don’t want your blackmailing sister to overhear’.

Which meant he had to resort to more standard code. “Well, usually uncle’s are good at getting into everyone’s business,” he said, off-handedly.

Uncle was the ‘careful’. Father would have been the go-ahead. There’d be no confessions. There’d be no mentioning he was RLF here or asking anything directly about it. He would stay in his role, but he’d try to answer indirectly, if he could.
 
Walter paused, genuinely taken aback by Aurelia's rhetorical question about her eyes. They weren’t red anymore, and that surprised him. He had expected the coral burn-in to have more lasting effects. Inwardly, he felt a surge of concern. It was unusual for the symptoms to just vanish like that.

He masked his surprise quickly, nodding slightly. “No, they’re not,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. He knew it was rhetorical, but he was going to answer it anyway.

As she mentioned Lilith and her knowledge about Snail, Walter’s expression darkened slightly. That little bit of information exchange was troubling. Why would this Lilith know to talk to her about this? But before he could dwell on it, she hit him with the real question—the one he knew was coming.

Her assertion about his retirement plan stung a bit, but it wasn’t entirely off the mark. He sighed, leaning back in his chair and taking a moment to gather his thoughts before answering.

“The original plan was to destroy a small amount of coral to track a larger deposit of it. Coral flocks to itself like a school of fish, so by disturbing one area, we hoped to find a bigger collection elsewhere. Carla thought there was a larger deposit somewhere that would be more worth our while to collect.”

Walter took another sip of his coffee, his eyes meeting Aurelia’s with a mix of sincerity and . “We didn’t anticipate there to be that much coral gathered or the explosion to be that massive. The intent was never to destroy such a significant amount, just enough to track the larger deposit.”

Her next question about Sulla made him tense up ever-so-slightly. He had to be careful with his words here. “Sulla disagreed with some of the people we had to work with,” he said, his tone measured.

“We had even less choice off-world, and he held a grudge. He couldn’t handle the compromises we had to make with less work available. He saw things in black and white, and the gray areas didn’t sit well with him.”

~***~

"...I am here and listening, Raven."

The C-wave mutation flickered herself in an attempt to show that as well. She wanted to hear what Walter had to say about what he did, if he had a credible defense for just how stupid he had been.

So far, the reasoning had been solid enough, though something still felt off, and Raven thought the same. Her further questions only added to that 'off' feeling and She voiced her opinions about it.

"He's... telling half truths, I think... Coral likes to be together, that's true. And it- I mean we- like to travel to bigger gatherings of us. That's true too."

Ayre was disgusted by Walter's greed and the destruction of her people, even if a scale that big wasn't planned. He still planned to attack them to get them to lead him to a convergeance.

The reasoning for Sulla didn't feel wrong. It still felt a bit off, but she couldn't pinpoint why. Maybe it was the tone of his voice, or some information that Raven held that she didn't want to pry into, or even Raven's emotions about what happened with this 'Sulla' fellow.

Still, she voiced it.

"...I don't know how true that is... But I don't know Sulla... I would be cautious, Raven..."

~***~

Elliot's room, second room on the left, was just how she left it nearly a year ago when she left for her first augment surgery. Tiger plushes scattered across the bed, Tiger posters and family photos on the walls, Seemingly normal bedsheets on a rickety twin bed but a soft tiger blanket on top, and her Gymnastics equipment against the bed.

The tiny pilot sighed softly and flopped onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling with her arms folded across her midsection.

Was her whole life a lie?

She became a pilot because of her father...

She wanted to become an independent just like him, and now to find out that he was RLF....

She'd killed all those people at the Wall... If the RLF were the good guys, that meant that Arquebus were the aggressers there...

Fucking hells... How could she be so blind?! So... stupid!

"Gods fucking Damn it!" She practically growled out, slamming her fist into bed frame, and threw her head back into the pillows, shaking out her hand.

There was a familiar weight that settled on the end of the bed and Elliot kicked out at it, causing Lilith to grunt when her foot connected.

"Leave me the hell alone, Lils."

"And leave my sister to go through this alone? No. Let's talk." Elliot glared up at the tallest red-head and dropped her voice to a whisper shout so hopefully Rusty couldn't hear her. The walls of the house were quite thin after all and she did not need sent back to re-education.

"Let's talk?! Yeah, let's fucking talk. Let's talk about how you all knew about this. How you all let me go through the Augments, let me risk my life in pilot training only to end up with a corporation that's actively fighting the RLF. Dad's faction apparently! You didn't think to tell me that little detail?! I know that Arquebus is helping the planet, or ... I think they are...? Nggg I don't know!! The classes they put me through said they were..." Elliot clamps her hands over her face, beating back the tears of frustration...

"They definitely are not helping the planet, Els, and its disturbing that you're calling 're-education' classes. I really thought you knew about dad..."

"Well, I didn't know. Thanks for not making sure! I don't even know what to think anymore! I'm getting told so much conflicting information from so many different sources, some of which I thought I could trust! And now I'm stuck with Arquebus to pay off my debt even if I want out, I just... I don't know what to do, Lils! How am I supposed to trust anyone's information when my own fucking family doesn't tell me the truth! I've busted my ass to make sure you all were taken care of and this is how you repay me?! At least Rusty had the transparency to point it out when he saw it! He's been by my side this entire time, found me in my tiger onsie and everything when I broke down..."

There was a pause in her speaking as she groaned and grabbed onto a plush. Lilith kept her mouth shut and just listened to her talk.

"Gods, Lils, I really, really like him... He's so sweet to me, and treats me well and includes me in his Squad's trainings but he's with Arquebus and finding out all this with dad..." The pilot screamed physically into a plush in frustration. "Fuck my life... Of course I'd fall for a guy who possibly works for the bad guys..."

Lilith couldn't help but snicker, even if she felt incredibly guilty. She handled stress by making jokes but wasn't great at handling others' serious emotions. She was tech smart, not social smart. Her humor was something she and Carla seemed to share though.

"Oh? Are you finally admitting your feelings~?"

Elliot groaned and threw the tiger plush at her, hissing out a reply.

"Shut the fuck up, he's literally right the fuck under us. I swear to Artemis I'll kick your ass if you say anything."

"I don't think I need to, you're not great at being subtle. But I won't. Sister's promise"

Elliot sighed and put another plush over her face, knowing she had to get information off her chest too.

"I have something to tell you too, because at least I don't keep secrets. Raven... That's your favorite client, right? She's the one who caused that big explosion."

Lilith stopped laughing, and went eerily quiet, her face going stone-y as she stared ahead.

"I see..."

~***~

The brothers grimaced and looked away guiltily.

"We didn't find out until we were almost done with Pilot training... If that, uh, helps...? We haven't been keeping it from her long...."

Uncle... Alright. He could work with this. Xavier cleared his throat and nodded. How could he secretly say that he wanted his help getting Elliot out of there? Something that fit into the coded phrase... Ah ha!

"Yeah, but sometimes they can be really good at getting you out of sticky situations. I know ours helped Els a lot when we were younger when she'd do something dumb and get caught somewhere. What about yours? Did yours do anything cool like that?"

'We need help getting her out of there. Can you help? If not, who can?'

Xavier was obviously the more clever of the brothers as Xander just sat there, looking between the two like they were speaking gibberish. He knew they were talking in code, but couldn't read between the lines. He knew that Xavier would explain it later and just kept quiet as the guilt ate at him.

Xander heard the scream of frustration from above them, followed by the very muffled voice of Elliot. He had to strain to hear it considering he wasn't augmented. Something about falling for a guy? Probably Rusty. She wasn't good at hiding her feelings about things. It was very quickly followed up with a 'Shut the fuck up' and a non-credible threat of violence. Now that was the Elliot he knew. A fire-cracker when some poor fool set her off. Had Pilot training and Arquebus really changed her that much that she hid herself away?

"Aaaaaand there's the anger..." Xander sighed and held his head in his hands.
 
Coral flocked together – swam together. Even Ayre confirmed it, so Walter’s plan held logic to it. She noticed the way he was adding Carla into it, now. Not as someone merely helping, as someone who also wanted to find the coral deposits. Was he planning to sell to Carla? ‘Don’t mention that.’ No, she’d keep the observation of his linking Carla to this to herself.

It might be useful to pull another time, because she agreed with Ayre.

Hallucination, real, manifestation of her paranoia? It didn’t matter right then.

“Strange. There’s more corporations to work with in the wider galaxy. I can name ten besides Balam and Arquebus off the top of my head,” Aurelia said as he mentioned it was harder to find jobs off-world. It wasn’t. At all. “Unless you’re in a location even more barren of opportunity than a planet literally locked and forbidden to outsiders by the PCA, of course.”

Which didn’t seem possible.

He was lying. She knew it, and she wanted him to know it, too. She didn’t need Ayre to point it out, but at least another confirming helped. She sipped her coffee, and set it down as she folded her arms on the table to lean forward a bit. “I wonder if Sulla just got tired of your secrets, or if he figured out the truth the way I will.”

He figured out the truth. That much was clear to Aurelia. Whatever it was, it made him hellbound to stop Walter, which didn’t bode well for her own future. Even if her future remained a question.

She sighed, “I’m not Sulla, Walter. We all have our pasts. I know that. If you did something terrible, you don’t have to hide it. Not from me of all people,” well, perhaps from her – she did things under re-education, not a sane mind. Even so, she knew what it was to think what you were doing was right, and be shown otherwise. “I killed everyone I loved. I damned Pluto. I know what it is to make mistakes and have no way of fixing it.”

~***~

Rusty understood well what was being asked. Really, there was only one answer. He couldn’t do anything. Elliot was her own woman, bound by a debt. He had no way of paying that debt for her. “Only when I needed bail money,” Rusty snickered, though he hoped the answer was obvious.

Elliot’s family needed to come together and do what she had done.

They needed to pool money and pay on her debt to Arquebus so she could be released sooner than later to make her own decisions about where she wanted to be.

There was the interruption of Elliot crying out, though Rusty couldn’t make out the words. Xander’s reaction caused him to offer a sympathetic smile, even if he still felt they all deserved it.

“Maybe I should head back to the copter,” Rusty snickered, “let you all deal with this, uh, new family issue as a family.” He knew he wasn’t getting away that easily, and Elliot would feel bad if he suddenly left. “How did you two even find out what your dad was if it was recent?” He opted to ask.

That was something he figured they could talk freely, since it sounded like the two learned before they joined the RLF.
 
Walter felt a cold sweat break out as Aurelia’s words cut through his carefully constructed façade. She was smart, sharper than he’d given her credit for. She saw through his half-truths, and now he had to decide how much to reveal without jeopardizing everything. He took a deep breath, trying to calm the racing thoughts in his head.

“Aurelia,” he began, his voice steady but his mind a whirlwind of thoughts, “I haven’t always been… on the right side of things. There was a time when I was part of a group that did a lot of terrible things. Things I’m not proud of. Carla was the one who helped me get out of that life. She saw something in me worth saving.”

He paused, taking a long sip of his coffee to buy himself a moment to collect his thoughts to tell the totally real, absolutely not fake story. “But getting out came with a price. I have a sizeable debt, one I’m still working to repay. It’s not just about money or resources; it’s about making things right, about paying back for the second chance I got and helping Carla is part of it. That’s why I’m so determined to find the coral. It’s not just for me—it’s for her, too.”

The pepper-haired man’s gaze softened slightly as he looked at Aurelia, trying to convey the sincerity of his words, even if it wasn't at all sincere. “I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark about this. I didn’t want another Sulla situation, but I can see now that you deserve to know the truth. I made mistakes—terrible ones—but I’m trying to make up for them, and that means sometimes making hard decisions, even if they don’t always make sense.”

Internally, he was trying not to freak out. Aurelia’s ability to see through his lies was unsettling. He had to tread carefully, ensuring he didn’t reveal too much while still maintaining her trust. “You’re right to question me, and I'll do my best to be more honest with you from now on.” He would just spin more believable lies, in truth. Or he'd break. If she was smart enough to see through the lies, maybe she'd be on board with the whole mission. That was yet to be seen. He didn't want to risk it just yet.

Walter leaned forward onto his hand, hoping that the story he spun was enough to sate her. “I don’t expect forgiveness for my past, but I do hope you’ll understand why I’ve made the choices I have, now.”

~***~

"Oh Raven... I'm... so sorry..."

Ayre had no idea that she had a past so dark.

Whatever it was about Aurelia seemed to spur forth information from the older-looking man, spilling a believable enough story that Ayre bought it. It explained a lot of things about what she had learned in the last few minutes, and things she had gleaned from Raven's brain.

"I... think he's telling the truth"

At least it felt like it.

Raven knew him longer than she had, so maybe she wasn't the best judge here. Raven seemed to value her input though, so she'd keep giving it until it wasn't needed. If they were sticking together, then she was going to do her best to help Raven out as much as possible, considering they shared a body at the moment.

Well, it was more like sharing a brain, but this close to the front, Ayre could hear and 'see', so it was like sharing a body in a way.

~***~

It took a hot moment before Lilith said anything or even moved from her spot on the end of Elliot's bed.

"Lils?"

"I'll be back. I have a message to send."

"Sorry you had to find out this way..."

"it's not even your fault. you did the right thing by telling me. I warned her. I warned her about the Coral, about how dangerous it is. I hope this was an accident because I'm going to kick her ass if not."

"... Lils, i don't think you can kick Raven's ass, she's like one of the top AC pilots out there right now... I thought the same thing when I found the proof but I choose life..."

"I'll take her on in Trojan Horse if I have to. I made that frame of hers, those back kits. I know the weak points. "

"Please think rationally..."

"I'll think about it."

The tall red head left the room for her own, sending a text to Aurelia while Elliot sat up from the bed, feeling her earlier exhaustion starting to rise back up to the surface.

Raven, I need answers. Why is it that I'm learning that you were responsible for that coral explosion? Didn't I tell you how dangerous it was? How explosive and volatile it was? You put my family and home in danger, scared the hell out of my poor sister who flew all the way out here from Arquebus HQ to make sure we were alive. I haven't seen her that distraught since our father died. No one messes with her without a good reason if I can help it, so there better be a damn good reason. This is assuming you're still alive and i'm not just texting the phone of someone who died. Actually, you might be dead after that explosion...
​
~***~
​
Elliot looked around her room and sighed. Things were so much simpler back then... before the surgery, before he passed...

Well, she knew what she had to do now.

She had to pay off her debt, and fast.

Time to go back to ration shakes and protein bars, taking all the missions she could, and work that debt off like she did to help keep her family afloat. She was already learning how to keep her emotions contained in front of Snail and faking the re-education, now she just needed to keep her head down, smile and wave, and don't say shit to anyone. Even if Pater starts shit, don't engage... Arggg!

And Rusty...

Fuck...

She didn't know what she was going to do there... Lilith was right. She was really bad at hiding how she felt... This was going to be hard... Then there was the selfish thought of seeing where things went, and acting like nothing was wrong. He was a reasonable man, at least she thought so, so if he found she had left for the RLF, maybe he would follow? That was a strong maybe...

She was too tired to even entertain anymore of hard thoughts and got up off her bed.

If she stayed still any longer, she'd fall asleep and she didn't feel ready to go downstairs just yet, so she did the next best thing; gymnastics. She was wearing the entirely wrong set of clothes for this, but she didn't have a treadmill here, so this would have to work. The short pilot bent over backwards and brought herself into a handstand to start herself off, testing her balance.

~***~

"That is pretty cool."

'I hear you.'

Xavier rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Please, don't go on our behalf. Time heals all wounds, this one will heal too. Mom should almost be done with lunch, so you'll be able to leave soon. Sorry for all the chaos..."

Both brothers saw him as a superior, doing far more important work than simply piloting a mech for the liberation front like they did. He was hidden in the folds of the Arquebus, infiltrating and bringing back intel, helping them prevent larger catastrophes from happening to the RLF when he could. They respected him deeply.

"Oh that's easy. We were packing up for pilot training and found one of his old flight suits in the back of our closet. It had the RLF logo on it pretty big and then we looked around the house at the pictures and there it was. It was easy to find once we knew what we were looking for. Elliot had already taken the offer from Arquebus, so we didn't say anything so it wouldn't compromise that offer. She's always been a bad liar. She was so excited to be a pilot and 'be like dad' that we couldn't bring ourselves to ruin that moment for her... Its always been for her. To keep her happy, to make her feel safe, to pay her back for all she's done..."

Xander sighed and removed his head from hands, looking up at Rusty and still keeping his voice low.

"She really looks up to you, you know. Not just because of her height. I'm sure you've seen it too. She talks about you all the time to Lils. It's always 'my buddy' this, and 'my buddy' that. Just... Just don't hurt her... please. If you're in the same boat as her, cool, if not, that's fine too. She just deserves the world after all she's sacrificed for us... The last thing we want to do is see her hurt again, especially after what the last guy put her through... We'll do anything to keep that from happening twice..." Both brothers shuddered at the thought.

A vague threat.

'Don't hurt her, or we'll do something about it.'
 
Walter was being too vague. He did terrible things, but he didn’t express what. There was a major difference between selling children into slavery, and robbing a bank. Between cold blooded murder, and pirating media. Either he was too ashamed to talk about it, or something more was going on.

Aurelia sighed, hearing Ayre’s words. She wanted to respond to her. She did – but she couldn’t. The temptation to pull out her tablet to send a message to Ayre was there, even as she heard it go off, but she wasn’t going to let that get in the way of the conversation with Walter.

“I can’t forgive if I don’t know what I’m forgiving, but obviously, you’re not willing to talk about the mistakes you made just yet,” another time, then. And hopefully he would, before she had to learn it second-hand. That never turned out well.

Which led to the truth she had to offer.

“As for my coral burn-in situation. It’s…changed. Significantly. I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve never heard of anything like this,” he already knew her eyes were not red anymore, “I’m having constant audible hallucinations, with mild visual hallucinations. Only…,” well, she was already crazy, so why not go through with it? “It calls itself Ayre. It sounds feminine, but it’s coral, so I’m not sure if they…have the same ideas as we do on sex and gender.”

That really didn’t matter, but she was actually curious, if Ayre wanted to chime in.

“Ayre began speaking to me after the Watchpoint blew up. It claims to have taken over control of the coral flow within me, so it’s…stabilized me. I suppose that means at any moment if I piss Ayre off, it could kill me,” she chuckled a bit and shook her head, “it doesn’t feel like a hallucination. Which I know, hallucinations wouldn’t be good if they felt fake, but I’ve never read on a period where a hallucination acts in this manner, or when coral burn-in reverses as it is right now. I haven’t heard of second winds like this.”

‘I’m sorry, Ayre.’

But she, at least, was trying to keep up with honesty.

“You’ve interacted with more augmented people than I have. I thought you might know something about this.”

~***~

Rusty chuckled and shook his head as the brother’s apologized, “It’s good. I know people act different around family. You’re all allowed your chaos, just uh, wish I had more warning about what you all were like,” he joked a bit, though not without some sincerity in how much all of this for him.

But he kept his head on his shoulders, and he still was. That was why he was in this position, after all.

When the brothers began to talk about their sister’s feelings, Rusty held his hands up, “Look, I know she has a crush on me. I’m not going to lead her on or do anything with that,” not while he was a Vesper. That would be needlessly cruel. If things turned and she made it out to the RLF, then when he was able to return home, that would be another story. “She might get hurt, but hey, who doesn’t when a crush doesn’t go beyond that, right?”

Everyone knew that feeling.

“I plan to support her and be a friend to her, through all her decisions.”

As in, if she wanted to leave Arquebus, he’d support it even as a Vesper – even if he’d have to act as if he wanted to steer her away from the RLF. “I can’t do anything else right now,” the only hint that his own feelings might go further, but he knew better.

To try and do anything with her as a Vesper would only attach her more to the Vespers and Arquebus. Better to keep it light. Then it’d be easier for her to break the tie and escape to the RLF, if she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps.
 
Walter could feel the tension in the room shift as Aurelia spoke. Her insistence on knowing the specifics of his past wrongdoings made him want to squirm under her scrutiny, but he managed to keep his composure. He knew he had to be careful, but he couldn't help but admire her intelligence and straightforwardness, even if it made his position more precarious.

Damn her for being so smart. The last pilots to question him was satisfied by the lies he provided, but she was a sponge and way too observant. What had he gotten himself into? He only had himself to blame, as Carla had advised against purchasing her.

He didn't regret it for a second though. She was a damn good pilot and her smartness got her out of plenty of sticky situations too. Her strength and intelligence were almost attractive to him if they weren't also so vexing.

It made his deceit all the more painful, but he pushed that feeling aside, knowing it wasn't the time to dwell on it. He had a mission to complete, after all.

"I understand," he said, his tone measured and sincere. "When I'm ready to get it off my chest, you'll be the first to know." Internally, he lamented having to lie to her. He wished he could tell her the truth, but the risk was too great.

After what happened with Sulla when he found out, he couldn't risk Overseer's mission like that without knowing how she felt about the coral, or if she even cared about the lives of others in the universe.

The revelation about her coral burn-in situation was unexpected.

Coral burn-in typically worsened over time, not stabilized or reversed. The fact that she was hearing a voice, "Ayre," was even more unusual. He carefully masked his surprise with curiosity and concern.

"This is very unusual," he admitted, leaning back slightly in his chair. "It gets worse, not better. I've never heard of a case where it reversed itself or stabilized. There have been hallucinations like this, however. I'll talk to Carla about it. She might have more insight. "

Carla knew more about the Coral than he did since she worked for the institute.

"You're handling this remarkably well, considering the circumstances. Hallucinations, or whatever 'Ayre' is, are dangerous to give power to. Do your best to ignore them, but let me know if anything changes."

~***~

Raven either didn't believe what Walter was telling her or felt that there was more to it than what he was saying, and that had Ayre suspicious all over again. If Walter was still lying to them, it didn't know how they felt about her new companion working for him. Especially if he was after her own family.

Something told Ayrethat there wasn't really a choice involved here and wondered if Walter was the one to force the augments on her.

No, Aurelia didn't seem like the kind of person who would be this okay with someone if they did that to her and her emotions weren't murderous or super negative towards him that she could feel.

Surprise fluttered through the C-wave as it was mentioned to Walter.

"... Raven? What are you doing?"

Ah, She probably thought that they were still a hallucination. That was unfortunate, but she could prove her existence more later.

Except Raven stated that she didn't think they were a hallucination, and was even courteous about pronouns.

"She/her, they/them, or it/its work for me..."

Ayre wasn't too sure about proving her existance to Walter just yet. They wanted to know what his real objective was. Why he and this 'Carla' needed its family so badly. Why the two were looking so hard for it.

Raven's thoughts were received and answered.

"...Don't apologize. It is admirable to want to be honest..."

~***~

Rusty's words soothed the brothers worries for the most part and their forms relaxed into the couch. Xander caught the braincell, picking up on the hint as well and couldn't help the small cheeky, knowing grin that formed on his face.

A chance, albeit slight, of happiness for her.

He'd drink to that.

He'd save up all the money he could for that.

He'd bust his ass to beat the corpos to secure that chance of happiness for her.

Xavier was the first to speak again, relief panting his expression as he sighed softly. "Thank you. If I know her, she won't act on it if you don't. She's far too shy for something like that. Also easy to fluster, which makes her so much fun to tease," He snickered and shook his head.

They had their goal of helping her escape figured out, their sister's crush was warned of violence, and lunch was almost done. A productive non-work day for the 'Fuck you' brothers all in all!

After only a few moments, Maura popped her head in from the kitchen, and looked relieved for a moment to see the energy lowered in the room only to notice two were missing. Without missing a beat, the Mom of 4 cupped her hands around her mouth, shouting very loudly.

"LUNCH IS READY!"

There was the sound of something smacking off another object directly above them followed by a not so muffled shout of curses from Elliot. The brothers grimaced for a moment, knowing exactly what happened before breaking out into snickers. It wasn't the first time this happened nor would it be the last time either.

"Which trick do you think it was this time?"

"Probably that the one-legged tree yoga thing."

~***~

Elliot had been in the zone, balancing on one hand and doing a complex move to help keep her awake when the shout of her mother startled her, sending her careening into the bed frame with a loud 'THWACK'.

"Ow! Motherfucker! ...Coming mom!"

The red head rubbed her shoulder and head with one hand, gritting her teeth for a moment as she waited for the blossoming pain to subside. What was more of a wake-up call than getting smacked upside the head?

Getting up from where she was sent tumbling, she took one last long look at her room before heading back down the stairs.

She was immediately greeted by the calls of the brothers who were laughing and jeering playfully at her.

"So which trick were you doing that she spooked you out of?"

"Please tell me it was something cool and not just stretches!"

"Oh I bet it was that cool upside-down one."

"Dude, you have to see this, I don't know how she does it! She folds herself like pretzel!" Xander gestured vaguely in the direction of the steps. "Come on, cub, show us! PLease?"

"Please Tiger?"

"Pleaseeeeeee?"

Elliot rolled her eyes, sighing as a small smile formed on her lips, holding her hands up in surrender. She'd play trick pony for them if it stopped their incessant teasing about her 'buddy'. She cast Rusty a glance and mouthed a quick 'I'm sorry' before answering her brothers.

"Fine, fine, just this once, ok?"

Cheering erupted from the brothers as Elliot walked into the living room and checked to make sure her polo was tucked in before bending over backwards and kicking herself up into a handstand. When she had her balance, she lifted one hand out to the side and began to contort backwards, her one leg sticking straight out over her head and the other bent with the foot pointed towards the other leg. She held the position for a few moments before straightening up and coming back down from the handstand.

"That's a new one."

"Oh hell yeah!"

"So how many times have you crashed from that new pose?"

"Fuck off, I'm not answering that." The answer was at least a dozen times. Her tone was less than lighthearted as exhaustion creeped into her voice and she stifled a yawn into the back of her hand. Her family was alive, and maybe, just maybe, she was going to sleep good after their debreif with Snail.

Or she'd have nightmares...

Lilith came down shortly after the theatrics and Maura ushered them all to the table. The energy from earlier was all but gone, changing from raucous laughter and shenanigans to light banter. Even that died down when Maura brought out a plate of fresh cooked hamburgers and assorted fixings, smiling wide at her children and her daughter's friend.

"Eat up you 5, You all need your energy. Can I get anyone anything to drink? We have coffee, water, juice concentrate?"

"I'll get it mom, you sit down and eat too."

"Yeah, I can get my own drink."

"Sit down."

"Don't you even think about it."

Maura had no choice but to listen to her kids as they all but forced her hand, a fond smile touching her lips. Well, she tried.

"Alright, fine, I yield."

Elliot turned to Rusty as she got up from her chair, stifling another yawn. Yeah, she was going to get more coffee. enough to keep her awake for the debrief at least.

"Want me to get you something to drink while I'm up, buddy?"
 
Walter knew nothing about a situation like this. 620 augmented pilots, and not one had fallen victim to this. Which meant it could be real. It could be coral talking to her. Walter probably wasn’t working on Rubicon-3 until…well, her. There hadn’t been an opening.

“I’m very aware of how the mind turns against you. You don’t have to worry about that,” Aurelia said, though she knew so long as the hallucination – coral – Ayre – helped mitigate the burn-in, she would give it some power.

She wouldn’t sacrifice what she stood for to Ayre, but if it helped for a while longer, it was worth indulging. “It’s going to take a while to fix LEMURES. I hope Carla paid well for an extended break. I’m going to have to order a lot of pieces for the frame.” Aurelia half-smirked at that.

She really hoped the job had been worth it given the necessity of downtime to repair and heal.

‘So, you can read my mind, Ayre?’

Ayre had heard the apology. That could make things easier than typing it up on the tablet for her to read. Though it really didn’t help with the hallucination accusations, at all.

“I can use the old frame in a pinch, I didn’t sell it,” as he well knew, it was cluttering up the area, “but try not to need a job that soon.”

~***~

Lunch was announced and a crash followed, with more cursing from Elliot. Rusty wasn’t sure if he should be amused or worried as he tilted his head up to look at the ceiling, wishing to see through it and make sure Elliot was okay. He didn’t go up, though, as he heard the steps come downstairs to enjoy the food.

Not that it could be enjoyed immediately.

Elliot was made to show off what caused the accident.

It was actually quite impressive. Rusty tilted his head as she went into a handstand. He could do that, and he could do a few moves from that point – acrobatics and agility were important – but he hadn’t tried out this move. “Huh – you know, you could probably start a yoga club at Arquebus,” like his fight club.

Hell, he’d join. He needed to get better; he had a bad habit of forgetting to do his stretches before and after working out, so then he ended up just making an entire day of it every couple of weeks. This might help him get more of that in.

He really wouldn’t have guessed Elliot was that flexible, though.

And he pushed his mind away from those thoughts as the food was brought out. Simple hamburgers, but he wouldn’t turn it away as he found his seat, “Thank you,” he said as he started to load up his burger with all the fixings he wanted, “really, I appreciate the hospitality.”

As for drinks, well, “Juice would be good,” he said as Elliot offered to go get drinks and let their mom rest. “Thanks!”

He’d owe her a meal at Arquebus.

He had a feeling she was going to start returning to the bare minimum.
 
The fact that she was taking his words into account and stopped asking complicated questions was a damn miracle. He was running out of story to tell without giving away real details that could reveal too much.

As much of a hassle as it was for him, it was almost endearing how easily she could make him sweat like that, make him flounder to put together a credible enough story or lie, keep him on his toes and keep him present instead of stuck on the past all the time.

The last person to do that was his ex-wife, Vivian.

The coffee in his cup was suddenly sour on his lips and his mood tanked at the thought of her.

The divorce was messy, and it blindsided him. They had been married for 3 years before he was hit with the bombshell.

3 years of bliss and love, or so he thought. His work had gotten in the way. His dedication to his mission to set things right and save the universe from the blight that was Coral, his long hours and the lies he had to spin to keep her happy were ultimately what made her leave him.

The love was there, but in the end, even love couldn't save him from his own negligence.

He wasn't mad at her. Walter wished her well, he always would. He never could be upset at her for following what she really needed, but that didn't mean his heart didn't break or that he didn't grieve for the love and life that they had together.

The man had been depressed for a long time. So much so that Med Max would auto-activate just to offer him a lolipop. He suspected it was Carla's doing though she would never admit that.

Speaking of Carla...

"She didn't, but I'm sure she'll pay the extra needed given the unexpected nature of what happened." If she wouldn't, he would, but Aurelia didn't need to know that. "I'll be busy looking into where exactly in the north that the coral went, and securing us a passage up there. Finding us a backer. Your job right now is to rest and heal up."

The man got up from the table, but not in a way that suggested that he was ending the conversation abruptly. No, he was leaving things open for them to still talk as he moved to the fridge and started getting things out. Walter turned to look at her over his broad shoulder. "I'm making breakfast, do you want me to make you something too?"

That's what friends did, right? They helped each other out, made food for each other sometimes? It probably didn't help that he felt incredibly guilty about the whole explosion situation, or that he hadn't had a new friend in a very long time. His current ones being more like mentors to him.

~***~

"... I can, though I try not to pry. I can also feel some of your emotions as well," They tried not to. Raven deserved privacy in her own mind, just like Arye liked its own privacy, and Walter liked his too, it seemed. "I do understand that it makes it harder to believe I am not a hallucination when I say that..."

Her handler seemed to be in agreement with her new companion's words, saying how Carla would pay her for the time off after what had happened on the sortie.

This was surprising to Ayre but it supposed there was nothing to be done but that if he wanted Raven to be able to work later.

She still needed to heal from her burns and the cut on her leg too, so jobs would be harder to do like this, or at least that's what they assumed. It was still unsure on how things worked with human bodies.

Raven wouldn't be able to pilot, right?

Or if she would, it would be harder with the stitches and the suit sticking to her burns?

The coral wave refocused when breakfast was offered to Aurelia.

"It seems there are no hard feelings on his end... Is this... normal for him...?" She couldn't help but ask. It didn't feel normal, but it seemed that air between the two was cleared now. At least for Walter, who seemed to leave the floor open to keep talking if she wanted as he made his own breakfast.

~***~

Yoga club?

Well, it would give her an excuse to practice more of her acrobatics and gymnastics tricks and Snail would likely be on board with it given it would benefit the others fitness and morale given the nature of yoga.

It would be a bonus if Rusty showed up to it too, which seemed like a possibility given he suggested it.

"Of course, Rusty. As someone who's helped our little cub so much, it's the least we can do," Maura gave him a smile and waited for her kids to come back from the kitchen.

"Juice, you got it."

The earlier interaction played in her head on loop as she wandered to the kitchen, grabbing two cups of their chosen drinks, A mug of black coffee and a glass of apple juice concentrate, before heading back to the table.

Yeah, she was definitely starting Yoga club. It would be something fun to do while she waited to pay down her debt and get the hell outta dodge.

The other siblings had went to get theirs and their mom's too but came back quicker, taking up the seats in a way that Huntress would have to sit next to Rusty. The short pilot sighed tiredly, the energy to keep up with the sibling shenanigans dwindling with the revelations of her father's allegiances, her siblings lying to her, and her lack of sleep heavy on her mind.

It seemed being a trick pony wasn't enough to keep them from conspiring against her and teasing her more on her apparently obvious crush on Rusty. Her face flushed pink as she sat down next to him, handing his Juice over and sipping despairingly at the black coffee in her mug.

The siblings and their mom all chuckled at the scrunched up, 'stinky face' she made when it touched her tongue.

"You got coffee, didn't you?" Snickered Lilith, shaking her head.

"Yeah... I have to stay awake enough to give a debrief. Then I can hopefully get some sleep... I fucking hate this shit so much. It's so, so gross but its stronger if I don't add cream and sugar... Gonna have to ask Hawkins which energy drinks he likes..." Elliot murmured tiredly as she got herself a hamburger as well, ignoring the fixings aside from a bun and a condiment to leave more for the others at the table out of habit. She had free food back at Arquebus but they had to pay for theirs here and things like this weren't cheap.

She would do this back when she worked at the BAWS factory and even as a younger kid, limiting how much she ate so that her mom and younger siblings could eat more and thrive. It was part of the reason she turned out so short compared to her siblings and even her mom.

This didn't go unnoticed by the other Fletchers who shared knowing looks like they wanted to say something. The Fletchers knew she was stubborn though and weren't going to fight her on it. Old habits died hard, something they knew all too well.
 
Walter had faith that Carla would pay things off, as Ayre confessed to being able to read her mind. It was useful, in moments like these, but Aurelia wouldn’t deny that meant she was completely without some irritation for it. She wasn’t getting any privacy. Everyone and their mother knew all her secrets lately.

Aurelia did arch a brow at that. ‘Why do we need a backer? We have a ship.’ Couldn’t they just fly over there? As she thought it, she recalled what she had just faced – the PCA. They weren’t gone. It was possible this was one of the few areas right now to hover over. Arquebus and Balam were all in this area, too.

If they could have spread out, they may have. Neither were having much luck finding coral here. Someone would have gotten the idea to go elsewhere.

‘It’s normal from what I’ve seen.’ Aurelia tried to think audibly enough for Ayre, ‘He’s never really lost his temper with me.’ Not yet. She wondered if there would come a time when he did, when she asked too many questions, or got too close to the truth.

He offered breakfast. She knew they didn’t have much, so she still joked, “French toast with strawberries?” he’d already told her there was no fruit. There would not be fruit. She waved it aside, “I’m sure I can eat whatever you make,” or just grab a protein bar. That was her norm, but she’d been up for a bit now.

She may as well actually have something that was, well, food.

She took out her tablet to check the message, and saw it was from Lilith. Apparently, she’d heard about the mission and knew who was on it. ‘How would she…ah, Carla.’ Except if she knew it from Carla, shouldn’t she be angry at Carla?

Either way, Aurelia began to type a response.

If you want to come after me for what happened to your sister, you can try.​

Aurelia knew how to read a threat. She wasn’t going to be intimidated, and she wanted Lilith to know that.

My only reason is that it was my job. You seem to have forgotten I am not an independent mercenary. I work under others, who find jobs from other people, and tell me to go do them – rather like your sister and Arquebus. However, the intent of the mission was not what happened. My handler was misinformed. He didn’t intend to cause so much damage, or nearly get me killed. ​

~***~

Rusty noticed the pink tinge and arched an eyebrow, but didn’t question it, other than to say, “Thanks, buddy!” as he took his juice. He had anticipated she would sit next to him. After all, she was the only one he knew. It was usually in poor tastes to leave a friend to fend for themselves amidst family.

“Hawkins likes several,” Rusty chuckled, “and they’re a lot stronger than coffee,” there was also espresso drinks, though those weren’t as easily accessible since they took a bit more time to make. Espresso alone was easy enough sometimes, and people lived on straight shots of that.

Although, there might not be energy drinks here.

He didn’t hear it offered, anyways.

Rusty wasn’t in the know to recognize Huntress’s habits, so he only found it a bit odd she added nothing to her burger. He was sure she’d taken a burger with plenty of fixing at Arquebus – but maybe she just wasn’t in the mood for it. Sometimes nothing beat a plain cheeseburger with just onions, after all.

He ate quietly, keeping his mouth occupied to prevent unnecessary dialogue. He heard someone’s phone ding, but he wouldn’t acknowledge that or ask about it, of course. It wasn’t his business and he didn’t need to accidentally draw attention to a message that might come from the RLF for the brothers.

He did opt to ask one thing that felt safe, “Have you all always lived in this town, or did you move around?” It wouldn’t have been unusual for an RLF pilot to have to move his family around – for their protection.

But some were able to stay in place. He’d just heard stories of the PCA’s brutality when they found people.
 
Walter cracked a smile at her joke, even managing a small chuckle.

"You and me both."

He wished he could get fruit. Hell, itsounded fantastic right now. But it just wasn't doable.

Not with the planet shut down like this.

Not with the PCA restricting the planet as much as it was. It was a miracle that the BAWS towns had meat and other food essentials with how strict the PCA was about letting good in.

"Eggs and bacon it is. Toast?" A cheap but filling and hearty meal. One that was easy to make too without messing it up.

It was oddly domestic, almost like...

Instead of dwelling on the whole-y depressing thoughts that threatened to pop up, Walter made himself focus on what he was cooking instead. Scrambled eggs and bacon with toast would be a good breakfast.

At least he thought so.

It was one of his breakfasts of choice next to pancakes, and hashbrowns, though pancake mix was considerably easier to find compared to hashbrowns. Probably because it was powdered and just required water and maple syrup, another easy-ish ingredient to come by.

"How are your burns feeling? Do you need more pain medication?"
~***~

The feeling of irritation could be felt even though she wasn't trying to feel it and Ayre would have grimaced if they could have.

"I have not looked or pried into information that wasn't presented in a conversation since I have joined you... if that is of any relief...?"

It was a good thing that Walter didn't seem to have a temper at least, though Ayre had a deep-seated feeling that Raven could take him in a fight if he did. It was just a hunch, of course, but it was a prominent one.

Maybe it was because he had a cane.

Ayre felt a rush of emotion and backed up, giving Raven privacy.

Whatever was going on had her typing on her tablet and it didnt' want to intrude. They had to share a brain and the coral wave mutation wasn't about to overstay its welcome.

If they wanted any shot at protecting the coral and convincing their new companion, she was going to need to be respectful.

~***~

"Thank the fucking gods. I don't know how much longer I can stand it," That applied to maybe too many things right now for her, and as such, her tone held a bit more ire than it should have for just a cup of coffee. Then again, maybe she just really hated coffee?

In reality, Elliot didn't want to talk to Hawkins, she didn't want to talk to any of the Vespers save for her buddy, and even then, her trust was weakened by the new revelations. But she had to do her best to pretend that everything was alright so she didn't alarm her family or Rusty.

She wasn't exactly sure she could trust her buddy fully anymore either considering her worked for Arquebus and spoke so highly of it.

Did he even have debt to work off?

Actually, she wasn't too sure...

It was silent for a while with everyone eating their food, save for the phone notification that was ignored, but Rusty's comment roused a response from Maura.

"We have been fortunate to have lived here for over a decade, but when the kids were little, we moved at least once every 2 years or so. Usually when their father took a job that had him on the other side of Rubicon for... well, who knows what. He never did talk about the jobs he took. He was providing for us, and that's all that mattered."

The twins shared a glance at each other but said nothing. They had knew why. And so did Maura, but she wasn't about to admit that her husband was RLF in front of a Vesper. Elliot trusted him, but she also had poor judgement sometimes and was too trusting, so she didn't know if she could trust him just yet.

Elliot's leg bounced under the table idly as she attempted to keep her face from scrunching up in its usual tell of 'I'm deep in thought and cannot find the brain cell.'

Huntress was too into her thoughts to pay attention to the conversation, her face still scrunching some between bites of food as she worked through her thoughts and feelings in her head.

The longer she sat with her emotions and tried to steel herself for the long road ahead of her, the more she retreated into herself.

Maybe she'd do some yoga before she went to bed to try and help smooth her 'emotional wrinkles' out, or something.
 
With the message sent, Aurelia put her tablet away, unsure if Lilith would be in touch soon, or not. It sounded like she was interacting with her sister, so it was possible she wouldn’t be in touch. After all, she had to work against re-education; that might require more attention. In either case, Aurelia got up and went to add more coffee to her cup.

“Toast is good,” she confirmed.

It’d be better with jelly.

If she lived, she was going to a planet abundant in fruit.

The winter strawberries of Pluto would have been decadent. To think, they were once almost a nuisance! Not that it ever stopped Orpheus from picking them, and having them around the hangar. “The burns are more like sunburns. Constant, irritating, but nothing that requires medication.” The leg hurt, but that was expected, and also not the kind of pain she’d subject herself to medication for.

She’d get over it.

‘I’ll…check in later, Ayre. But you can stay and listen, or perhaps, you can explore the ship?' If that was possible for Ayre.

She knew Ayre was lingering, and though she could engage Ayre with her thoughts, she opted to focus instead on Walter. On this odd skill that was coming into focus from the coffee, the soup, and breakfast. “I never learned how to cook,” a fact. It was never needed. She had been very willing to eat whatever was put in front of her, from whoever cared enough to make food, or from whatever convenience station was near. “It seems like a strange job for a Handler. What made you take it up?”

It couldn’t just be ‘taking care of the hounds’, could it? She supposed it wasn’t improbable. Orpheus had been eternally exasperated with all his pilots lack of care for themselves.

The name, of course, even in her thoughts, was loud, flecked with regret and love. A bottomless pit of longing and strangled apologies.

~***~

Rusty understood the truth, but he wouldn’t say it. He’d already pointed out the RLF symbol, though Maura, it seemed, hadn’t heard. He wouldn’t press on it; he wasn’t here to interrogate confessions out of the family. “Ah, yeah, I guess work could be pretty hard to find. I’m glad you’ve been able to stay in one place for so long. It’s nice to put down roots. Not that I expect to anytime soon,” he chuckled, “Arquebus won’t keep me here forever.”

He didn’t know how long the Vespers themselves would be stationed here. Until the coral was all taken? Or until the process had begun? Hard to say – he didn’t want to find out. He just wanted to get rid of Arqueus entirely.

Conversation swirled around. Rusty made sure to keep it light, even as it seemed Elliot wasn’t paying too much attention, her expressions contorting, though it didn’t seem in line with the conversation.

She was going through her own thoughts.

Eventually, of course, the meal was finished, and Rusty rose, “I can take up the plates and put them, um…wherever they need to go,” he said, a bit sheepish, “Not really used to not helping out, so at least let me do this much,” carrying plates and such was the least he could do for the family!

Quite literally the least, if they’d even let him do that.

“Then I think me and Elliot have to go. Hopefully the pilot’s waited for us,” that remained to be seen.
 
Walter balanced the task of scrambling the eggs, frying bacon, and putting slices of bread in the toaster with the deftness of a father cooking breakfast for his kids, or a husband for his wife.

He and Vivian hadn't had any children, not that he had wanted them at the time that they were married.

She wanted them, though.

Badly.

He couldn't bring himself to oblige her when there was so much work to do, so many hounds to manage, so much Coam to make, so many wrongs to right, so much Coral to find and destroy. He really screwed that up.

His thoughts drifted back to Vivian, to their apartment on Jupiter filled with her laughter and the scent of her favorite lavender candles. She was so, so smart, vibrant, full of sass and energy, always pushing him to be better, to find a balance between work and their personal life.

Walter could still picture her standing in their kitchen, her blonde hair tied back, a playful smile on her full lips as she taught him how to cook.

He'd been hopeless at first, burning toast and overcooking pasta, but Vivian had been patient. She guided him through recipes, encouraging him, laughing with him, sharing those small victories.

He'd grown to love those moments, the simple joy of creating something together, the satisfaction of making a meal that brought a smile to her face.

He shook himself from his reverie, realizing he'd been silent for too long. Turning to look back at Aurelia over his shoulder, he offered her a small, wistful smile.

"I learned to cook for my ex-wife, Vivian. She was the one who showed me how. At first, it was just a way to spend more time together, something we could share. But I found that I enjoyed it, the process of making something from scratch, the act of caring for someone through food. It became a way to make sure the people I care about were taken care of, a way to connect with others."

Walter flipped the bacon, the sizzle and aroma filling the small space. "I suppose it's one of the few things I still do that reminds me of her. It gives me a sense of normalcy even here on Rubicon-3." Especially here on Rubicon-3.

~***~

Maura Fletcher tensed up visibly at the idea of the Vespers moving on. She knew that it was inevitable that her daughter could be whisked off world at a moment's notice, likely when Arquebus was done terrorizing their planet for the Coral, but hearing it? It wasn't something she wanted to talk about, but thankfully the subjects changed quickly as they ate.

Rusty's offer brought a fond smile to the mother's lips as she shook her head.

"Such a gentleman. Don't you worry about it, one of us will get it. You're a guest and I don't want you two to miss your ride back,"

Elliot nearly choked on her last sip of coffee when she was roused from her thoughts by Rusty calling her by her real name, heart skipping a few beats as butterflies rose up in her stomach. She froze, her thoughts slamming to a halt, and her cheeks flushing a deep crimson, spreading up her ears and down her neck.

He called her Elliot.

Not Huntress.

Not Buddy.

Elliot.

The familiarity and almost intimacy of it caught her completely off guard, her mind blank aside from the looping of him saying her name so... casually.

She attempted to speak, but her vocal necklace shot off pure static and cut to blinking red. She then tried her physical voice but could only let out a high-pitched squeak, serving to make her freckled face impossibly redder, and setting her siblings off into fits of giggles. Even Maura had to stifle a chuckle into her sleeve, trying to appear the mature one of the situation.

"Oh you for sure broke her this time, holyyyyy shit,"

"Welcome to the 'no thoughts, head empty' club, Els,"

"I don't think I've ever seen her that red before. I can't tell where your hair ends and your face begins!"

"Kids, you know better than to tease her, you know she flusters easily,"

Maura's tone was lightly teasing as she got up and pulled Elliot into a big hug, kissing the crown of her head. They held each other for a good few moments before the mother of 4 let go, turning to Rusty, placing a hand on his arm.

"It was nice putting a face to a name I've heard so much about and having you over. If you two are by again and want some lunch, don't hesitate to stop in. Any friend of Elliot's is a friend of ours."

The siblings nodded quickly, sharing shit-eating grins as Elliot had resorted to hiding her face in the collar of her polo, her face, hair and shirt all varying shades of red. Maybe it wasn't the best place to hide her face...

"If having you around gets this big of a reaction out of her? You're welcome anytime."

"What he said. Good to have a face for the infamous 'buddy'."

"You two have a safe trip back, try not to fluster her too much."

The siblings played a less energetic version of 'Pass the Pilot', taking turns exchanging strong hugs and wellwishes with the tiny, flustered Vesper before the siblings and the mom walked them to the door.

Elliot took one last look inside the house, a wistful smile stretching across her face as she gathered her whole family into her arms as best as she could, hugging them all once more as tight as she could without hurting them.

"I love you all so, so much. I promise to visit again soon. Please stay safe? That goes extra for you two fuckers, got it? I don't wanna hear about the great Castor and Pollux falling in battle, I wanna hear about all the ass you've kicked! Lils, keep making badass weapons and parts like you always do! Can't wait to hear about them! Mom? Thanks for having us over for lunch. I'm so glad you guys are alive and well. I'll keep in touch, ok? I love you!"

Elliot brought each of her siblings' heads down and kissed their foreheads, tears gathering in everyones' eyes as they said their goodbyes and Elliot took the step out of the house. She took a single step down the stairs, wiping at her teary eyes before looking back at Rusty, her face flushing all over again as the memory replayed and she waited for him.

"Ready, buddy?"

Things were about to be a whole lot harder for her, but she was ready if it meant getting out of there and truly following in her father's footsteps.
 
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