companionwolf

When he wakes up, world spinning and self aching aching aching, he is lying on his stomach. Someone is half seated on his back, has removed his clothes, is sewing the back exit hole of the gun wound that never did get sewn.

He tries to ask where he is, but only manages a rather pitiful groaning sound. The person sewing gently pats him. "Oh, c'mon, it can't be that bad."

"Tulip?" he says between heavy breaths, despite the chest wound being closed. "Alex? Davey? Espeon? Alice? Spartan?"

In turn, they answer, and the tenseness in him eases. He lifts himself up slightly to see Alex and Davey both sitting nearby, the Spartan in the doorway, only to get squashed as Espeon launches herself at him, despite Alice's warning from her place in Alex's lap.

"Bitch I thought you fucking got got by the Elders! How dare you!" she almost shouts; he grimaces at the noise.

"Please," he says, "a little quieter..."

Espeon blinks. "Oh sorry," she says, and lowers her voice. "I thought you died, asshole! Goddamn!"

"But I didn't," he says, and winces as Tulip makes the last stitch and secures her work with a knot; he feels at his abdomen, the wound is sewn as well. It stings still, though. "What happened?"

"Only you and your Ethereal know that," says Alice. "The psigate closed after Espeon and the others returned."

She blinks; he sees she is holding her paws together, and that they tremble. "When you did not follow after them back here, I was almost certain you were lost." Her voice is very small.

"Hey," he says, "hey, I'm right here. Mission accomplished."

"Damn right baby," says Espeon, and does her best approximation of a feline dab. Davey rolls his eyes at her.

Tulip stands up and backs away from PC. "You're all set," she says, helping him to his feet and passing him a bundle of new clothes. He sets to work putting them on, wincing as his astral limbs return with their phantom wounds and stinging and blood. He rubs his arms, tries to ease it.

"So is that it?" asks Alex. "Is it over? We won?"

"We won," PC says. "After you all left, the entire fortress collapsed, and I felt the final Avatar die, alongside the destruction of the sarcophagi..." He feels his jaw drop just a little as he relays this, as it connects in his own mind, feels a smile slowly play at the corners of his mouth and widen, widen, widen. "So yeah… I guess we did win."

A cheer among the humans, broken only when Davey mumbles, "Damn, I don't want to go back to bartending" as he stands up, leaning on a makeshift crutch. Alex stands as well, passing Alice to PC. Espeon clambers up his leg all the way up onto his shoulder.

The Spartan shuffles foot to foot in the doorway. "We are departing," they say. "But I wanted to thank you again. For allowing me to escape, both times. It will be repaid."

"We'll come see you off," he says, and follows the Spartan out of the room- he hears his friends behind him.

When he steps out into the field the psigate building is in, he is not expecting a sunrise, but there it is, in glorious oranges and pinks, stacked streaks like an oil painting. On the ground a couple hundred paces ahead a small circular ship, about the size and shape of a standard round swimming pool.

The Spartan stops, turns to PC. "We will find a way to communicate with your planet," they say. "It must be searching for life? We will answer. And we will meet again."

They make their way to the ship; Alex and Tulip come to either side of PC, with Davey next to Tulip.

As the ship rises, a hot fire blast from beneath it, he sees the few members of the Psionic community still here gather and watch from the porch of the Welcome Center.

The ship rises and rises until it is a dot in the sky, and then nothing. PC stares up at where it used to be.

Tulip breaks the quiet: "What now?"

"I think," says PC, "it's time to go home."

(And so they do.)

They walk together into the last room, greeted by a large statue of a Elder that sits in front of a half wall in the center of the walkway. PC presses against it, followed by the humans; the Spartan takes up position on the other side.

PC peers around the wall— there are two sarcophagi on either side just behind it, and then four more centered around a pillar in the middle of the room; to the left and right and against the back wall are stairs leading to inert Psi Gates.

Pools of water accentuate the floor, disturbed and shaking as the Gates each hum to life. Somewhere, a Elder makes a soft tsk noise. From the left, 2 mutons, an elite, and a floater; from the right two sectoids and an outsider; and from the back, two cyberdiscs.

Reality tears, and out steps one of the proto-Avatars, all grey and black and sleek humanoid robotic form. It lacks the purple face shield and hair, but PC guesses that comes later.

Its form flickers with psionic energy, and it is suddenly no longer near the middle of the room, instead back beside the Psi Gate against the far wall.

"That's a lot of enemies," says Espeon, clinging to his shoulder.

"Aim for the Avatar," PC says, loud enough for the rest of the team to hear him. "Every time a new one comes in, that's our goal. The rest of them are just distractions. Keep covering yourselves and keep moving."

"That's kind of a paradoxical statement there, bud," says Tulip, who cringes as a plasma shot from the oncoming enemy forces goes through the glass wall over her head.

"What about the sarcophagi?" asks the Spartan.

"If you can damage them, great; if not, well, we'll find out soon enough if that's an issue," he answers.

"Affirmative," says the Spartan, and darts from the cover to the wall to behind the sarcophagus flanking the rest of the walkway, avoiding gunfire from the sectoids.

The humans scatter into the room; Tulip ducks behind the sarcophagus opposite from the Spartan, Davey runs the Cyberdiscs hail of bullets to crouch near the centerpiece of the room, Alex takes up the spot the Spartan has left besides the statue. Espeon jumps from PC's shoulder and scampers across the floor, narrowly dodging the fists of the mutons as she takes cover behind a small alien planter.

PC remains where he is, sword tight in his hands as he points it toward the Avatar and channels psionic energy down its length— it goes crackling through the air, a focused Null Lance, slamming the proto-Avatar against the back wall for a moment before the latter teleports away.

His attention shifts as the Elite comes upon him, switching to one handedly swinging the sword at the alien's legs, knocking it off balance; he spools Psionic energy about his free hand, and punches at the Elite, who punches back, sending him flying back toward the entrance door. Alex fires a Null Lance from their position by the statue, cutting through the Elite's side as it begins to rise to its feet. It bellows, spit flying from its mouth, yellow blood splattering the ground. PC scrambles for his sword with both hands and struggles up just in time to stab the Elite in the stomach.

Somewhere, PC hears plasma shots, alien cries, and then Espeon yelling in triumph, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. There is another louder plasma shot, and then the sound the proto- Avatar teleporting again. He flicks his vision in tactical— Espeon is still behind the planter, whispers of purple about her. Good, he thinks, releasing a breath he didn't know he was holding.

He checks on the others quickly: Tulip is exchanging fire with the mutons, Davey is still avoiding the Cyberdiscs as he tries to land a shot on the proto-Avatar (it's near the right hand Gates now), the Spartan has felled the sectoids and their commander (from the looks of it, their mind controlled actions were the source of the proto-Avatar's most recent move.)

The right hand Gate hums again, and out comes 2 regular Floaters, followed by a heavier one. The Cyberdiscs move forward, both flanking Davey now on either side of the middle structure. The remaining muton is shot down mid run by him, as he flees toward the left Psi Gate; he yells as one of the 'discs finally lands a shot, a sizzling sound of plasma against flesh, but manages to get across the room and press himself up against the wall, gun in hand and teeth gritted. He fires back, and the 'disc that attacked him goes off, exploding into shrapnel that peppers the human. He cries out, and there is blood on the floor.

Tulip fires at the other 'disc, accompanied by a Psionic ball of energy from Espeon, and it explodes too, taking two of the approaching Floaters with it. The Spartan is given a clean second shot at the proto-Avatar, and takes it.

The proto-Avatar collapses, a ghostly purple figure rising from its corpse. "You will be overrun. You bring yourselves to the doorstep of defeat so willingly," it says, before dissipating into the air; one of the sarcophagi, the one Tulip is crouched behind, dims slightly.

"Guess we don't have to break them," PC murmurs to himself as he jogs across the room toward the right hand Gate, barely reacting as the remaining floater fires into his chest. He slashes at it, knocks it from the air, and grinds his sword into it— it dies whining and sparking, and he twists away from the small flickers of fire emitted slightly more panicked then he'd like.

Davey has climbed on top of the middle structure, shouting to the rest as the back Gate flares to life and produces 2 elites and a second Proto-Avatar. The Avatar teleports away back behind the entry wall, and the elites break left and right, one toward Tulip (who fires at it; the Elite fires back, nails her in the shoulder, she screams) and the other at PC, who pushes it back with a Psionic wave of energy. He hears Alex shout, and looks back: the wall is engulfed in a purple vortex.

"Get out of there!" he yells at them. They hurry out of the blast zone, ducking against the middle structure as the vortex claps together, the wall shattering, glass falling onto their collective heads. The statue goes falling too, the humans leaping out of the way to the right side of the room, the Elite bearing down on Tulip crushed beneath it as it crashes hard onto the floor. The walls of the place remain steady— Alex gets up from against the floor and fires a Null Lance at the proto-Avatar, knocking it against the entry wall before it teleports away again.

PC feels hands grasp at him, turns just in time to see the proto-Avatar behind him, lifting its Psionic rifle to his lower middle and firing. He cries out, kicking furiously, but to no real avail.

Suddenly: "Hey!"

He's knocked forward as something slams into the Proto-Avatar that still has its grip on him; it releases him, turns— Espeon stands on the stairs of the right Psi Gate, lashing her tail.

"There's more where that came from, fucker!" she yells, and lets loose another ball of psionic energy at the proto-Avatar.

PC staggers away, chest heaving, barely conscious of the fact the Spartan comes and grabs him by the back of the shirt, depositing him against the right side of the middle structure. He stares into space, blinking hard, trying to regain his senses.

He hears plasma go off, hears a Gate hum, hears alien footsteps, hears the Avatar teleport again. So much noise. His head hurts. His chest hurts. He's wheezing hard; the wound he shrugged off before is blending with the shot to his abdomen now and everything aches.

His brain is flickering him back to things that never were, wondering where is the blood, how is he breathing, where is the fire and alarms and smoke —

Up, says Elyion, pushing him from his slumped and dazed position, shattering the illusion of a burning building slowly forming around him. Up, up. There's still a battle to be won.

Right, he thinks back. Right. He takes a shuddering breath, shakes his head, and checks tactical.

Espeon is fleeing the right hand Gate, where two Outsiders are emerging from. Davey remains on top of the middle structure, engaging the proto Avatar below, even with his hurt leg. Tulip and Alex run together across the room to cover besides the fallen statue, avoiding the hail of bullets from two more Cyberdiscs that have entered from the back. The Spartan is behind another alien planter on the right, firing at a second proto Avatar as it exits from the left Gate.

PC peers around the middle structure and fires a Null Lance at the second proto-Avatar; somewhere else, he hears Espeon yelp, and then the sound of a body hitting the floor.

A Elder's voice rings across the room: "What will you do if you succeed here? How will you get home? You will die here with us, foolish quest realized or not."

"You know, they've got a point," calls Tulip, from her half seated position in a crook of the statue, as Alex messily applies bandages to her shoulder wound.

"They're Elders, they don't have any points at all," Espeon yells back, dodging the plasma fire of the Outsiders, back and forth and zig and zag. "They're incorporeal!"

"You know that's not what I mean," Tulip says.

"We'll run back to our Gate, won't we?" asks Davey, voice raised over the sound of the Cyberdiscs humming.

"Probably with all these bastards on our tail, but sure, that sounds about right," says Tulip, rising slightly from her place behind the statue to fire a barrage at the oncoming Cyberdiscs, Alex supporting her with a Psionic pushback wave followed by two quick Null Lances.

Espeon reaches PC, ducking behind his legs as the Outsiders come upon him; he just barely manages to grab his sword in time, taking a shot to the head in the half beat it takes to swing at them. From below Espeon fires small balls of psionic energy, pushing the Outsiders back back back until the Spartan is able to fire at them and they collapse into their telltale shards.

From atop the middle structure Davey shoots at the last present proto-Avatar as it shoots at him; he manages to duck, the Psionic rifle fire narrowly brushing his hair, and loads three shots into its chest. It staggers, but remains up. PC steps from behind the middle structure toward it and fires a Null Lance of his own at it— it meets that with its own Null Lance, and the beams battle each other, and PC thinks he understands.

The building rumbles around them. Without looking away, PC calls, "it's time for you all to get out of here."

Espeon begins to say something, only to be silenced as Davey jumps down from atop the middle structure and scoops her up. The building is shaking now, support pillars snapping; Tulip and Alex take the Spartan's hands and rise when it comes to them, and the group of them run.

Still meeting the proto-Avatar's attack PC follows them via tactical back through the fortress. They dodge falling beams and crashing walls, water pouring in as the generator room is all but destroyed, but they make it, he sees them make it— he sees through to Alice still holding the shard up on the other side, sees Davey limp run through with Espeon in his arms, sees Tulip and Alex holding hands as they run through it together, sees the Spartan bringing up the rear.

He relaxes slightly and proto-Avatar knocks him clean through the entry wall onto the Psi bridge, the sound of his sword clattering muffled by the crash of the last room's walls as they fall to the pressure of the ocean.

He is on his side, struggling to get up on his feet, when he sees the sarcophagi crushed, splintering under the weight of the glass walls and then washed away into the oncoming tide. The Proto-Avatar is swallowed up into the dark. (But he feels its Psionic signature extinguish.)

They did it. They did it. And the humans got home safe.

Relief floods him. The water rolls over him, slams him against the floor. He lets it happen, lets himself be dragged along by the harsh current.

It's over.

The fortress stretches before him as he is pulled away from it further into the black, the water relentlessly tearing it asunder before his eyes. It all falls away into the cold and the dark.

Eylion's voice then, as the water sinks into every fiber of his being: tell me where you want to go, and I will get you there.

He curls into himself, gathers his frayed edges and pushes the stuffing that is trying desperately to spill out back in with shaking hands, and thinks of home.

He thinks of home—

He thinks of—

It has been nice, being your Ethereal.

It's been nice being your host, he manages to think back.

I am going now, the Ethereal says, to whenever beings go when they have finished their time on planet Earth.

Thank you for being my friend, Pillow Central.

The Psionic relay opens with three paths, one down the center to a control panel like computer, flanked by elerium generators. The other two paths are like walkways, and when they reach the other side of the room they lead up to two inert Psi Gates. Beyond those, a bridge riddled with side generators and ending at a large open doorway.

(He can’t see into the next room, though. He doesn’t need to. He knows what comes next.)

Reality tears once again, between the Psi Gates, and out comes not only a pair of elite mutons and a berserker, but a at least 9 foot tall robot with a large chassis and two stomping legs.

“Oh,” says PC. “Oh, that’s not good.”

“Hey, Alex?” calls Tulip as she ducks for cover against a wall, the mutons firing their weapons into the empty air. Alex has flattened themselves near where they entered, and Davey has streaked across the room to take shelter by the computer panels. The Spartan skitters to press against the other wall, eyes on the Sectopod.

“Yeah?”

“Any qualms about mind control? ‘Cause we could really use it right now!”

PC, huddled with Espeon, looks back behind him toward Alex. The human is swallowing hard, and he sees purple flicker in their dark eyes. “I’m willing to try,” they respond, and splay fingers toward the berserker, purple sparks flying from them.

Espeon fires a ball of Psionic energy at a leg of the Sectopod; the robot shrieks, a electronic scream that makes her cringe, and the robot rears back, takes aim at them— a hail of bullet comes flying from its underbelly, and PC drops to the floor, Espeon doing the same.

The berserker, on route to Davey, stops. Its eyes flicker purple. PC can hear Alex breathing heavily, a hum of straining from their lips. The berserker turns to its subordinates, and puts a punch into the head of one before the other fires at it.

The Sectopod continues to barrage PC and Espeon, even as Davey crouches up halfway to lean over the computer panel and shoot at its side, even as the Spartan unloads a plasma round into it. PC feels the impression of gritted teeth, and suddenly he is running, flinging himself beneath the Sectopod and sliding, one hand raising his sword to its underbelly and slicing through. He emerges staggering, the robot smoking and beeping, only to yelp as one of the mutons fires through his chest.

“Bitch!” yells Espeon, firing a Null Lance at the elite muton; she severs one of its legs, sending a cascade of yellow blood across the dark floor and the muton to the ground. PC manages to fumble for his sword and stab it just behind the neck, ducking as Alex’s mind controlled berserker swings a fist above him to collide with the remaining muton’s face. PC maintains his downward push, and the muton on the floor stills.

He’s gasping, he realizes. As if he has real lungs that have been damaged. Silly, really, he thinks, as the world blues for a moment— PC pulls the sword from the corpse and lets one hand rise to the hole in himself. Phantom blood pours around his fingers. He shakes his head. Focus, focus.

The Spartan has joined Davey at the computer panel, periodically ducking back down to avoid the Sectopod’s bullets as they fire plasma into it. Espeon races across the room, clambers up the robot’s leg, and fires a Psionic ball into its servos— there is a cracking, sparks and smoke as the leg is detached and sent clattering, and then a thunderous crash as the Sectopod tips over.

PC does not see Espeon. Fear in his heart. He blinks from regular vision to the tactical—

There she is, leaping away from the generators. She ducks into the safety of the computer, and curls in on herself. The air around her, Davey, and the Spartan shimmer purple as the generators spark ominously. PC looks toward Tulip, who is coming toward him and the mutons from the other walkway.

“Wait!” he yells, backpedaling toward the access bridge as he does. “Get away from the —“

The generators go off. There is green and grey and force; he’s pushed hard against the closed door in the wall, knocked to the floor. All he can hear is ringing. There is nothing but fog of war in his tactical vision, and nothing but smoke in his eyes.

“Tulip? Alex?” he calls.

A cough from near the left psi gate, and then from near where they came in, the sound of Alex hissing through their teeth. Relief floods his senses.

“Davey? Spartan? Espeon?”

He blinks as he gets to his feet. In tactical, he sees a bubble surrounding the latter three, unpenetrated by the blast. Espeon is pawing at it, her eyes narrowed; he imagines he can hear her, that she is swearing and confused, and the idea calms him slightly.

The berserker is getting up, eyes no longer hazed with violet. It turns on him, and its partner nearby reaches for their weapon— he prods Elyion, who furiously fires off a Null Lance, cleanly taking the arm of the muton off and kicking it back. He dives for the plasma gun, grabs it, turns it in his hands and fires as the berserker barrels down on him.

A purple burst of Psionic energy suddenly rips through the berserkers chest and through his abdomen; he howls, the berserkers howls, and he gags on the bloods that spews out of the body onto him. Alex stands behind it, panting. “Sorry,” they sign to him. Their hand is splattered with blood, which still steadily oozes from their nose.

“ASL,” he manages.

A nod.

“I didn’t know you knew ASL,” he continues.

“Is now—“ A pant, a huff from behind him. “Is now really a good time for languages class?” Alex reaches down to him, and he lets them pulls him to his feet; when he turns, he sees Tulip, who has her hands pressed to a wound in her side.

“Oh, shit, where did that—“

“Shrapnel,” she wheezes. “From the explosion.”

He glances toward the Psionic bubble again. Espeon is on the Spartan’s head, throwing herself against it. It’s ok, he thinks, hands running across his own body to his medkit. It’s ok. It’s ok.

Keep it, says Elyion, as he starts to remove it. I will heal her. Before he can object, his body moves on its own accord, returning the medkit to his waist and reaching toward Tulip. Somewhat hesitantly, it instructs her to lie down, and wraps his hands around the piece of shrapnel in her side.

“Aren’t you supposed to keep it in?” she asks.

I am not a doctor, says Elyion, and pulls.

Tulip screams, PC and Alex cringe. Blood gushes from the wound, PC’s hands becoming sticky with it as Elyion presses them against her skin and hums. A green glow envelopes them, and slowly the bleeding lessens, and then stops. Tulip is breathing heavily, teeth clenched. Elyion smiles down at her with PC’s face, and stands up. PC is returned his body then, and helps Tulip to her feet; she’s shaky, nearly collapsing on him.

“Are you ok?” asks Alex.

“I’ve been better,” she says.

There’s a soft noise of Espeon’s body hitting the metal floor, and Davey’s relieved sigh. The three come hurrying over, the Spartan scanning the humans first, and then PC. It points to his chest.

“Your injury remains,” it says.

“Right,” he says, and runs his fingers across it. He begins to concentrate, only to break that when Alex’s hand lands on his.

“I’ll do it,” they say, batting his hand out of the way they pinch the wound together, igniting purple fire about their fingers. The wound seals, and Awakening responds in kind, new stitches materializing to keep the hole shut. They step back from him, eyes on the Psi Gates now.

“How many do you think there are?”

“Does it matter?” says Tulip. “I mean, when we’re going to kill them and make the Gates useless anyway?”

“What if they lead to other worlds?” they say.

“They most certainly do,” says the Spartan. “But these ones are of little concern; they are inactive.”

“Then I’m picking up on something else…?”

“The Elders,” says Davey. “They’re Psionic themselves. Isn’t there some kind of coffins in the next room that they’re inside?”

PC nods. “Sarcophagi,” he says. “I… I don’t know if we should destroy those, or kill the Proto-Avatars, or both, or neither, or—-“

“Relax, pillow boy,” says Espeon, coming to rub herself against his legs much like a cat. “Game says kill them, so we’ll do that. We’ll smash the fuckers too just for insurance. No kill like overkill, am I right?”

PC waits for the Elders to speak. To demean them. To minimize their efforts. To say anything.

But these Elders are quiet.

PC swallows. They’re standing near the door into the final room. “We could still…” He falters. “We could still turn— I mean, go, I mean—-“

The others shake their heads at him.

“We have gotten this far,” says the Spartan. “We win, or we die. There is no point of return now.”

“I think it’s ‘this is the point of no return’,” says Tulip.

The Spartan shrugs. “Human phrase,” it says. “My way still got the message across.”

PC runs his fingers across the ribbon around his neck.

For the Hoard. For the Beholden. For Earth. For the humans he has brought into this. For humanity.

“Let’s finish this.”

They all pause in the doorway of the next room, the humans gasping at the intricate dark purple terrace that runs in loops across the ceiling, purple blue tinted glass between the lines. It gives the image of being under a wave as it crests, but upside down, and PC releases a breath he doesn’t know he is holding.

It’s a straightforward room, a large frosted glass panel marking the exit across from them. On either side are a few of square purple ‘garden plots’, the furthest ones away bigger than the ones closer to the group. Within them alien foliage— most are a variety of tendril like plants, deep purple dark stalks with glowing bulbous growths on them. Some are slightly thinner and more tentacle like, a gradient of light blue emerging their tips.

“I wonder what this is for,” Davey muses aloud, the end of his sentence drowned out by the sound of reality tearing once again. Three Heavy Floaters erupt from it, scattering in different directions, and are followed by a Cyberdisc in disc form, which hums as it comes straight at them.

“Move to cover!” the Spartan barks, and the humans quickly crouch down and press against the nearest structures— Davey in an alcove in the wall, Tulip and Alex next to each other by a garden plot, Espeon jumping up onto the housing platforms and ducking behind a plant.

PC darts to half cover on the opposite side of the room to Tulip and Alex against another of the plant plots, trying to keep attention on where every enemy is, only to start slightly as plasma shots whizz precariously close overhead of him.

The Spartan takes aim at the Floater trying to pin PC, taking a couple of shots itself to the back as the two other Floaters try and distract it with engagement.

The Spartan manages to fire, the plasma burning away through one of the Floater’s arms, and knocking it slightly down, giving PC a moment in which to draw his sword and bring it hard against the Floater multiple times.

It takes one - two - three hits until he works his way through its thick shell, the biorobot’s internal organics giving off a burnt smell as the sword meets them.

As he moves to a standing position, Tulip and Alex take shots at the Cyberdisc as it switches forms. While they provide suppressing fire, the Spartan releases one hand from its gun, and reaches for one of the Floaters bothering it. It grabs the one by the arm and swings it into the other, the biorobots haphazardly spraying plasma fire, barely hitting Espeon and racketeering into their own Cyberdisc teammate.

Davey darts across the room, ducking flush against the glass matte of the far doorway, before he too fires a plasma round, back at the Floaters which are still pestering the Spartan but momentarily attempting to orientate themselves.

PC moves up around the plot Espeon continues to take cover inside, and comes behind the Cyberdisc— he gets his sword inside of it, and thrashes around, until the blade catches onto something.

“Go help the Spartan! Now!” he says to the humans, and they move, just in time and just far away enough to avoid the oncoming blast. He dives at Espeon while he yells at her to flatten herself, covering her with his body as the Cyberdisc explodes, feeling shrapnel piercing through his clothes and cut against his external self, and he hisses.

“Are you ok?” calls Alex, voice muffled under the sound of the Spartan battering the Floaters against each other again.

“He’s fine,” says Espeon as she wriggles from under him, firing a Psybeam that cuts through both Floaters and drops them dead onto the metal floor.

They convene with Davey, who gingerly helps the Spartan remove the medical kit about its waist and after a little explanation of how it works (the Spartan’s medical supplies are different the ones the humans have), applies the contents to the other’s wounds. PC notices Alex’s nose is dripping blood again.

Espeon sniffs at PC’s injuries. “You are fine, aren’t you?” she asks.

“I’m ok,” he says, although to be honest the wounds sting and are spilling the sensation of phantom blood.

Espeon nods, pleased, and then clambers up him to sit on his shoulder.

“Thanks for warning us about the exploding one,” Tulip says before he can ask Alex if they’re alright, voice dry.

“I did warn you,” he says, “and you got out of the way just fine.”

“You didn’t warn us, you just said ‘go help the Spartan’ and got all authoritative about it,” she answers.

“He is bonded, he is the authority,” murmurs the Spartan, nodding thankfully at Davey, who just grunts something in response.

“Oh, no, I am not,” PC begins, but is cut off by—

“Your leader is not even the one to be affected, and his aid is little more than a child itself. You believe just because they mistakenly aiding your cause that they should be followed.”

“I don’t think having the Elders agree with you is a good look,” says Alex quietly.

“My disagreement is based on performance anxiety, and also general anxiety, not any actual logic,” he answers, and the humans laugh.

The Elders hums. Espeon and Tulip hum aggressively back. There is no response.

The Spartan looks through the doorway. “What now?” it asks.

“There’s something really Psionic in the next room,” Alex says, wiping the blood from their face with their wrist. That explains it then.

“It must be the relay portion then, if I remember what all can spawn right,” PC says. “We’re close.”

“And you will get no closer,” says one of the Elders.

“Given how good we’ve been going so far, you’re in no position to say shit like that,” says Espeon back, lashing her tail. “Or maybe we’re just so good you’re getting scared.”

“You are very lucky,” concedes one of the Elders, only to be hushed as another corrects it. “You get this far only because we allow it, only because our underlings are weak and you, humans, prove again to be the near perfect species we have hoped you to be.”

“Aww, flattery will get you nowhere,” Tulip says.

“You could be less rebellious,” notes one of them. “If you would give up this pointless attempt to ‘stop’ us, you would find your world and lives transformed for the better.”

“Dudes, dudettes, whatever, we all know you just wanna turn humanity into Avatar slurry, no need to pretend with the utopia stuff,” says Espeon.

There is no response except, perhaps, a sigh.

“Let’s keep moving,” PC says. “They’re bound to keep trying to get into our heads. Or at least demoralize us. Whatever they can do, I don’t doubt they’ll try.”

“Let’s go kick their ass,” says Espeon, springing from his shoulder to the floor as they enter the Psionic relay room.

“Or get our asses kicked,” mumbled Davey.

Faith, hums Eylion outloud. We will win here like many have before.

That was just games, PC says internally. You’re meant to win.

We’re meant to win here too, it replies to just him. If we do not—

“I know, I know,” he says, only realizing it is outloud after he has said it.

He raises his voice to the others. “They probably are getting pretty nervous. Stay sharp— things are probably gonna get a lot harder from here.”

As they enter the resource hub, another purple gash in reality opens— it spits out 3 Floaters, two of which narrowly dodge Tulip’s quick gunfire, and 2 Chrysalids, who come skittering across the dark green floor at the group.

“Oh, god, are those bugs?” yells Davey.

“Not exactly,” says PC as raises an arm and pushes the aliens back with a wave of Psionic energy, giving time for Davey aim and fire at one of them. It stops short as the plasma connects, yellow blood spewing across the ground.

“Seriously, what is that?” he asks.

“Did you not pay attention to the alien types? That’s a Chrysalid,” says Espeon.

“No, that’s a bug!”

It clicks at them, an inhuman sound, and rushes at Espeon, who leaps away from its coming down legs onto a series of boxes.

“Yeah, but it’s also an alien! Hence alien bug!”

“Is this really what surprises you?” asks the Spartan.

One of the Floaters notices Espeon as she climbs to the top of the box stack, and PC barely has time to yell “Watch out!” before it fires. She dangerously teeters, avoiding the gunfire by a hair.

The Chrysalid after her rams into the boxes, knocking them down as the Floater fires again, the plasma whizzing over her head. She struggles, swearing loudly, tail half caught by one of the boxes.

The Spartan engages the Chrysalid on top of her, bringing a foot down, shrugging off the plasma bolt the Floater sends into its shoulder. Davey fires, knocking the robot from the air; Tulip cheers him on, firing her own pistol and getting the attention of the second Chrysalid.

The other two Floaters rush Alex, who ducks into an alcove against the wall of the resource hub, and then picks up a box, throwing it at the robots. The box knocks one of them down, and in that moment Espeon, finally freed, spits out a Psybeam at the remaining Floater.

Tulip fires as the second chrysalid hesitates in choosing who to rush, and it collapses to the floor, blood pooling around it. The Spartan stomps on the first Chrysalid once more for good measure, and runs over to Alex, where it snatches the last Floater still engaging them out of the air and crushes the arms of the robot in its hands, even as it fires, dropping it to the floor after.

The Spartan rubs its burnt hands together and hisses, words to Alex PC can’t hear, but the human is nodding and looks relieved. He hurries to Espeon’s side, content that because Davey and Tulip are excitedly repeating their kills to each other, that they are alright.

He picks her up, gently pats her head; she wiggles, kicks in his arms. “This is not therapy hour!” she shouts. “Let me go! Cake and grief counseling later!”

“I just got worried,” he says, and releases her; she drops to the floor with a huff.

“Don’t be,” she says. “We’re doing great.”

Too great, he thinks. The only injury so far is the Spartan’s burnt hands, and for them that’s hardly an injury…

As if they can hear his anxieties, the Elders speak up once again: “You’re doing very well. We find it endearing how you celebrate even the fall of tactless pawns…”

“That’s some GLaDOS shit right there,” Espeon says, shaking her head. “Don’t listen to ‘em.”

The Spartan nods. “Overconfidence kills more than just bodies,” it says. “Room by room, we go. Enemy by enemy.”

PC swallows hard. It can’t be this easy. It’s never this easy.

Memories of not real never was flicker in his head, and not for the first time, he wonders if perhaps there is a tank, and there is a commander, but he’s got it wrong and in fact the tanked one is him and all of this is—

Breathe, says Eylion.

He tries. The actions rings false false false not real not real not real—

Look, says Eylion, and brings his gaze across the ‘map’ to his friends, who linger at the far edge of the resource hub and peer into the next room. Beyond them he sees… plants?

A greenhouse, says the Ethereal.

Right, he thinks. A greenhouse… for what?

Experiments, maybe, says Eylion, but the words come with the sense of a shrug. Maybe they just wanted something of home.

I miss home, PC thinks, and it’s the first time he’s really let himself say that.

Fight for it, says the Ethereal. The battle remains as long as the Elders do.

He takes another breath, and tries to remember everything Alice has ever told him about managing anxiety. He squares his shoulders, feels the weight of the sword across his back, hears the soft hum of the complex and the quiet utterances of his friends.

He takes the last few steps between himself and them, and the Spartan gives him a gentle thump just past where the hint of his sword rests, between the shoulders.

“You ok?” asks Alex.

“Nervous,” he says.

“Yeah,” they say. “Me too.” They give him a smile. “So you’re in good company.”

“Guess so,” he answers, and he’s smiling too. “Ready?” he asks the group, even though he doesn’t feel as prepared as he sounds.

“Oh, baby, you don’t even know,” says Espeon.

“Alright then,” he says. “Forward march.”

The generators continue to run alongside the sides of the large room in parallel, with a greenlit control panel in the center where the aliens teleported in. Elerium power coils hum nearby, with a Muton taking cover behind one.

The other two Mutons continue their charge forward, right into the laser blasts of Tulip and Alex’s weapon’s; the aliens roar, and hunker on opposite sides of the room inside the small half cover provided by the generators’ presence.

The singular Sectoid hides at the control panel of the room, and fires at Espeon, who runs, ends of her tails singed as she narrowly dodges. She leads the still firing alien to shoot in the direction of one of the Elerium cores where the first Muton is taking cover, and takes cover of her own with a shout of ‘Duck!’ at the rest of the group as the laser connects with the power source.

The explosion is not as big as the one back in the woods, with the broken larger core, but heat still rolls over them all, smoke fills the air, and the humans cough. PC desperately searches the smoke, searches searches—

“Man, those things are not sturdy!”

He exhales loudly as Espeon appears, her head poking out of a small crawl space between one of the generator lines and the wall.

The Spartan fires at the Muton who’d been using the core to hide— it is still on its feet, but bloodied and seems disoriented. It fires back, and PC instinctively lowers his body as the two trade gunfire.

There is quiet for a moment, as the two reload, and in that moment PC hears Alex hum. He glances over; beneath their closed eyelid he sees the gleam of purple, and for a second a flicker of purple dances around the engaged Muton’s head. It drops its weapon and exposes its chest as it does. The Spartan takes that as a chance to come step a little closer, crouching beside a generator in a flank, and fire directly at its middle

The other Mutons roar as their comrade falls, one emerging from cover to come swinging fists at the Spartan; PC raises a hand and swings a wave of Psionic energy at it, catching it off balance and knocking it to the floor. He grabs his sword from his back and swings before the downed Muton can get up, and it stills under his blade, the smell of burnt flesh rising to mix with the smoke.

The other Muton comes barreling at him, but Davey intervenes, firing into its side, blasting it across the floor to slump against the generators. The Sectoid, still crouched behind the control panel, takes this moment to begin to flee.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” yells Espeon, and she clings a small ball of Psi energy from her mouth at the fleeing alien. It cries out as the attack connects, and then again softer, a death knee, as Tulip finishes it off with a near missed pistol shot.

The Spartan gathers them on the edges of the room, and they peer into the next: crates, stacked in spots across the room, smaller power cores humming away. While this room they’re in seems more a power generator room, the next seems almost like a resource hub of some sort.

PC glances up, at the glass ceiling, at the dark shapes of sea life that swim past. Nothing to say? he thinks at the Elders, half wondering if they can hear him, half hoping they cannot.

“Is everyone alright?” he asks, giving once overs to each body in his sight. A chorus of head nodding and ‘yes’s answer him, and he wonders how they got through that so lucky, and if it’ll hold, this luck.

Does luck exist? asks Eylion.

I’m not sure, he answers. I guess this’ll show us of it does, since I think we’re gonna need a lot of it. To get through this with everyone in one piece, or even just mildly hurt, to actually do something...

He looks to the Spartan, who is still studying the next room, but who begins to lead the way into the resource hub when it notices PC’s eyes on it.

There is little you can do here but try your best, Eylion says. Focus back on the present. Worrying now will just get you hurt, or worse.

PC supposes that’s as good advice as he’s going to get, and silently follows the Spartan and his friends into the next room.

They’ve been keeping an eye on things outside the campus, on the news and the half truths. Things are slowly ramping up. People disappearing, lights in the sky, stories passed off as eccentric but that PC recognizes as textbook from the false Enemy Within days.

When the first real public landing happens, with pictures and speculation, too much for the government to cover up and too blatantly otherworldly to be seen as anything else, PC thinks it’s time. They don’t want to wait for terror missions to start. If they wait for that, then it’s far too late. They need to move now, he says, and everyone agrees.

The humans have over the weeks gathered up makeshift armor under the direction of PC (layers of clothes, leather jackets, soccer cleats), carry small dutifully assembled medkits on their waists, hold their weapons close as Alice approaches the Psi Gate with Outsider Shard in paw. She pauses, looks to PC.

“Are you sure?” she asks. “Now?”

He glances at the humans, who nod; at the Spartan, who nods as well.

“Yeah,” he says. “Now.”

He sees her close her eyes for a moment, regular :3 mouth turning into one much sadder, and then she lifts the shard toward the empty space of the Psi Gate. The Shard sparks, the Gate awakens with a hum, and there is the strange underwater facility once again, now looking much more like it does in the game.

“Ok,” he says, “after me, I guess.”

“After you,” says Tulip, whose normally brave voice wavers slightly.

“No,” says the Spartan, stepping up behind Alice, “after me.” And before anyone can complain or argue, it has stepped around the doorstop cat and through the Gate, taking a few paces forward before pausing and looking back at them.

“Somebody wants to play leader,” says Espeon, nestled on PC’s shoulder. He does not answer, tightens his grip on his gun as he follows, hurriedly closing the distance between himself and the Spartan. The humans come after, steps slow and cautious as they gaze around the long room.

As he stands there looking, he feels Eylion pull at his self, and jump up — he can see in the same manner as one would in the game, and he’s grateful. Keep it like this unless I ask otherwise, he says to it.

Understood, says Eylion, and then is silent again.

“I don’t get it,” says Tulip. “What kind of glass is that even?” She nods at the sides of the room, where fish pass by and give the feeling they’ve entered some kind of strange aquarium.

“Unearthly,” says the Spartan. “Stronger then anything your planet has.”

“It must have been here for a while,” says Alex, sniffling around some blood. “The Psi Gate was, right?”

“In game, sure,” says PC, tailing the Spartan as it moves up into the room with the roof and generators, pressing himself against one of the walls. “It was just out in the wilderness...I don’t know if that’s the case here.”

He sees Alex freeze, feels imaginary hair on an imaginary neck stand up as a voice rings out across the room in answer: “We have been here longer then you have been Awake. Our mechanisms outdate you, outdate your ‘game’.”

“Ah,” PC says, moving to the other side of the doorway of the generator area to mirror the Spartan, “so you’re just as chatty here as you are in Leviathan.”

“And you are as stubbornly unheeding as those who’ve listened to the fictional versions of us,” says the Elder. It sounds almost amused. “They got much of our thinking right in your game. But we are ever more merciful then even that.”

“Sure you are,” says Davey, a few paces away from PC now, behind a generator. Alex and Tulip take up positions across from him, behind support beams.

“We could have taken your world at any moment,” the Elder continues. “But we have waited. And we have learned. And we are so very welcoming to compromise.”

“The only good compromise with you floaty fucks is a one where ya’ll are dead as hell,” Espeon says, jumping down from PC’s shoulder now to skitter into the next room. He calls softly after her, ‘be careful’, and the Elders laugh melodic.

“You intrigue us,” they say. “Little creature of fabric and polyfill... human creation that should not move or think or live and yet does. Something lower then even your makers and yet so arrogantly believing you can challenge what will come.”

A tsk noise. “Things can be different then the game, you know. We are kind and willing. Put down your weapons and come in peace.”

Espeon snorts from where she stalks ahead a few paces. “We’re not that stupid,” she says.

“And yet you come here,” says the Elders; it sounds as if a different member is speaking now. “Why you, who do not even wear the armor of your militaries? You have no training and will die without anyone knowing of your efforts.” A pause. “And then you, ‘Spartan’, why do you not just go home? This planet and its people you have have no alliance to. Surely you are missed elsewhere.”

“I was helped,” it says. “I wish to return the favor.”

Haughty silence for a while. Then: “Of course we find humor in the actions of the unalive beings. You fight only because you believe your owners infallible. What can you do? Our weapons will destroy you the moment they are fired. Why did you not stay home and comfort, like you are made to do?”

“Someone has to do something,” PC says, and he tries not to let his voice shake.

“Do you think that it must be you? Someone not even allowed to exist in whole?” There is another pause. “One of us remains in you. This deeply saddens us. You could do so much better. You could live so much longer. Come, Young one, there is much to be done.”

Eylion growls, but does not show itself.

“We already killed your gatekeeper,” PC says. “I think that’s more then enough of an answer.”

“I suppose it is,” answers the Elder. “We may as well get this over with, in that case. It pains us, of course, but you leave us no choice.”

There is a sudden swirl of psionic matter at the center of the next room Espeon has entered, the latter scrambling back until she’s at PC’s feet; the swirl condenses with a clap and at its center reveals a bright purple gash in reality from which three Mutons and two sectoids emerge.

“Oh, we’re really in it now,” Espeon says, firing off a Psybeam and killing one sectoid mid stride as it dashes for cover.

“Hostiles!” PC shouts as the Mutons charge at the doorway, and the relative quiet shatters.

They don’t have time.

The thought permeates his entire being, dogs his every step.

Every moment spent on this side of the Gate, as he passes the plasma sword to Davey and shows the man the proper handholds, as the Spartan teaches them the basics of firearms, as he and Alex practice Psionic attacks and defense— every moment, he thinks, every moment the Elders are not dead is a moment closer to the end we’ve tried so hard to prevent.

They will never be ready, he realizes one evening during practice a week later, gun going limp in his hands. They are not XCOM. And even if they were they’re just humans. And they’re so few...

The Spartan comes over to him, a hum noise expressing concern. “Are you alright?”

“Just worried,” he says, and it’s a statement he’s made over and over. The Spartan gently takes him by the wrist and pulls him into hefting the gun back into proper position.

“Then practice,” it says, gesturing at the targets on the far end of the clearing they train in, already scorch marked from the humans, who talk and laugh above the firing of their weapons. “The life of this planet depends on it.”

The words do not make the icy cold fear settling in his approximation of a stomach any better. He looks toward Alice and Espeon, who sit on a chair a few paces behind him; Espeon wags her tail at him, Alice smiles, and his heart hurts.

The Spartan has left his side, is critiquing the humans again. PC finds his hands are shaking, and when he manages to get them to stop and begins to engage the targets, his gunshots are unsteady, blazing off into the trees.

Elyion’s quiet voice in his head: you are right to be afraid, I think. I am afraid too.

What if we can’t do this? What if we’re leading them to death? All of them? All of earth?

Then we die, but at least we will know we have tried. I think trying is the only thing we can do.

PC’s breath catches.

Where did you learn that phrase?

In your head, it says. It’s something your Beholden says. I thought maybe since they would say it, if I said it, you might feel better.

He steadies the shake of his hands again, fires- this time, he meets his target, barely.

“I just wish things were different,” he says out loud. “That we had better chances. That it didn’t feel like the things that weren’t real and never were are gonna become real.”

A sense of a internal hug. Alice would say that you are thinking in worst case scenario, and to think instead think in most case.

“I know, I know,” he says, and smiles a little. “Most case is we get hurt, but so do they, and maybe we force them dormant if we don’t kill them then. Dormancy would be better then activity, at least.”

Exactly. Whatever happens, it is unlikely to be the extreme case you so fear.

“I want to believe you, I do, I just... worry.” He fires again, and this time, it’s a clean straight through shot.

I know you worry. I can hear it, constantly running in the back of your mind. I wish I could make it easier.

“The reminders help,” he says. “Thank you.”

We will win, says Elyion. It just might not look like what you thought.

When practice ends, a half an hour later, PC finds himself excusing from the makeshift dining table in the Welcome Center and then alone in the Psi Gate housing. He sits awkwardly in front of the Gate, stares at it, and remains like this until he is jerked from thought by footsteps.

Alex stands in the doorway, and after a moment, comes and joins him on the titles floor.

“Alice wanted me to check on you,” they say.

“I’m okay,” he says, although he doesn’t really feel the word that much.

Alex traces the curvature of the Psi Gate with their eyes. “Alice says it’s ok to be scared,” they say. “That she’s scared and she isn’t even going into the fighting.”

“I don’t want them to kill you,” he says. “I don’t want to have brought you all this way just to have them kill you.”

“But if we don’t go,” Alex says, “who will?”

The Beholden’s voice, suddenly, inside his head echoing from his core: if not now, when? if not us, who?

He takes a breath, finds it wavers. Alex raises a hand toward his shoulder, and he leans into their touch. They sit, the gentle breath of the leaves rustling outside in the wind the only noise.

“Do you blame them? Blame us?” he asks suddenly. “For your psionics manifesting? For being part of this whole save the world thing?”

Alex blinks, and then smiles. “I know if I hadn’t gone to that house with you guys things wouldn’t be like this, I’d be somewhere else- someone else entirely, but I don’t want to be that person. The Psionics are weird, but I’m happy they’re here. I’m happy I’m here. I want to do this.”

“Even though you might die?”

“Someone has to do something,” they say. “It might as well be somebody with space magic instead of somebody without, right?”

PC turns and hugs them then, tightly, deeply, finds he’s doing the body pillow approximation of crying a little. “Everyone says it’ll be alright,” he manages muffled into their shoulder. “What do you think?”

“I think they’re probably right,” they say as they return the hug, patting him on the back. “We’ll just have to go and see.”

Alex and Davey return as quickly as they left, the former carrying the black case containing the Outsider Shard, the latter lugging a cooler behind them. They park the cooler next to the Gate and the group watches, a few meters back from the Gate, as Alex sets the case down and takes out the Shard.

“You want to do it,” asks PC, “or should I?”

Alex looks at the Shard, at the Gate, grimaces, and hands it off to him. Espeon jumps down, Alice teetering on her back, to join the group in standing a bit away as PC steps up to the Gate. He takes a deep breath.

What if it works? Eylion’s voice.

I’m not sure, he says. I don’t think it’ll notify the Elders, but I also wouldn’t put past them to have some kind of ... alarm, or something.

I am watchful, it says, and he feels something where a stomach should be heat with Psionic potential. I will be ready.

“Here goes nothing,” PC says, and gingerly reaches a hand holding the Shard into the empty space of the Psi Gate.

For a moment nothing happens, and continues to not happen, and PC is about to withdraw his hand and sigh when the Shard sparks light inside of it, and there is a pulsing about the rim of the Psi Gate. Alex visibly cringes, blood gushing anew from their nose.

“I think you’ve got something there,” they say thickly as the pulsing of the Gate gets stronger, faster, until a bright white flash emits from the Shard, PC wrenching his head away from the flare but managing to keep the Shard in place. The Gate’s rim has stopped pulsing, the inner part of the circular shapes a bright purple now, and all at once they flicker and psionic energy crackles across the empty air between—

“Whoa, are you guys seeing that?” Tulip’s voice, half muffled by the new loud hum that comes from the Gate, steady and deep. PC blinks the light spots from his vision, and sees what she means- it’s a clear image into what he can only assume is the alien base. Half built structures and empty rooms inside glass paneling to keep out the water; PC doesn’t seem much in the way of things he recognizes, but he thinks that’ll change when they actually get in there.

“I guess it’s working,” says Alice, who’s come up to PC’s feet and peers into the Gate. “They must know the door is open, even without some tripwire or trap.”

PC waits, hands shaking slightly around the Shard that hums alongside the Gate, but there is no Elder appearing to chide them, there is no wave of Psionic energy or Dragonball Z type laser. Just the empty base and its empty metal floors, faint flickers of aquatic life passing the glass walls. He cannot see the Elder’s sarcophagi from here, which he supposes makes sense; they are in the last room in the game, that must apply here as well.

PC pulls the Shard back, the light emitting from it dims, and the image between the rims collapses on itself as the inner of the circular almost ring fades to dark. He blinks, looks to his friends.

“Guess we don’t need your ship engine after all,” says Espeon.

“Wait, like you’re serious about having a ship?” says Davey. “Are you... actually not a person?”

“I thought this was obvious; no, I am not of your planet,” the Spartan says. “That is not a matter of concern at the moment.”

Davey looks like he’s going to argue, to Espeon climbs up his body like a tree and settles onto his shoulder, where a Awakened tail gently settles itself against his mouth. “You’re doing the human thing of getting distracted,” she says to him.

Alice shakes her head at them, and looks up from her place at PC’s feet at the Outsider Shard. “Someone will have to stay behind to hold it up,” she says. “I will do this, or perhaps Sam will.”

“We’re not going now, are we?” asks Tulip, sounding incredulous.

“Oh, no, no,” says Alice, matter of fact. “You are nowhere near ready, I think. The Spartan speaks truth in that you need to practice. But I’m sure between them and PC you’ll be able to learn and prepare sufficiently.”

The Spartan’s visor flashes. “I can help those with firearms learn to weld them properly,” it says. It looks toward Pillow Central. “You seem to possess ability in melee combat. You teach that one-“ it points at Davey- “how to best make use of it.”

“We can probably go over Psionic stuff too,” PC says, nodding at Alex. “I can try to teach you the things I’ve picked up.”

“What about mind control?” asks Tulip, and PC hears Davey inhale sharply.

“I’m not sure,” he admits, “but we can workshop ideas. We have time, I think, it’s not like—“

As soon as the words leave his mouth, the Gate hums to life again; the humans scramble back, behind the Spartan, Alice running with them and ducking behind their legs. PC stands frozen as the Gate powers back up and the image of the alien base appears once more, only this time obscured by a humanoid body with a palm outstretched to them.

“AVATAR,” he mumbles. Or something similar? How can they have Avatars now? There’s been no invasion, so no blacksites, no gene processing—

He feels Eylion prod at the being in the middle of the Gate, and hears it snort. It is not a Psionic being itself, says the Ethereal. It is only a husk. A crude imitation. A robot. There is nothing human or genetic at all. They simply sit in it; killing it would not kill them— it is not like the one within the GRE, or like the Avatars of the game. They haven’t gotten there.

The being stares at them from beneath a purple visor about its face. PC stares back.

The being speaks: “What naive bravery,” it says. “We almost find it endearing.”

Eylion spits at the being’s feet. It raises its other hand from its side, and a Psionic grasp grabs PC by the collar and pulls him, he feels the ripple of the portal as he is brought through, and suddenly he is inches away from the proto-Avatar, on the other side of the Gate, feet dangling above the ground as it clenches his shirt in its Psionic fist. Panic raises in his chest, and he struggles, kicking and twisting. The Elder, because that is what this is under mechanical hood, watches.

“You are but a child,” it says, “both in host and self. We pity you. You could have been something far greater. This world, yet, has that possibility still.” It looms over them, and PC chokes because the grasp has moved to his mind mapped throat, because the looming is too much like how the GRE’s servant did, chokes because he is back in that small space, back on fire, chokes—

“You would do better to walk with us,” it says. “You have redemption possible yet.”

Eylion manages to spit on its visor, pure Psionic in form, and the tiny Psionic glob crackles and dies as it hits the glass.

The Elder shakes the head of its proto-Avatar, and tosses him roughly back through the portal onto the hard floor of the Psi Gate housing. He lands on his stomach and rolls for second, gasping and flailing because some part of him is back on fire, he’s on fire, and then there is Alex helping him to his feet and asking what happened, Alice being pressed into his hands—

“Deep breaths,” she says.

He breathes. She coaxes him through a quick grounding exercise - what do you see hear touch - and by the end, he is steady again. He explains what happened to the group, and they listen in rapt attention.

“I don’t know if they’ve got other aliens in there too,” he finishes, “but I think we’ve got a lot of training ahead of us to do. And to do fast. We’re reaching the end of the proverbial rope here with time before they finally call in the invasion, I think. I’m terrified I just sealed its happening, and when I say happening I mean soon.”

All things considered, the explanations go well. The patients are rightfully horrified and hurt at the betrayal of their trust, the doctors mortified at the treatments they’ve given under orders, the children wishing to be reunited with parents and the parents wishing to be reunited with children. They seem to take the existence of a name for their condition, the real name, decently too; he is adamant in trying to impose how important it is they don’t like the government know, that they keep it quiet and only amongst themselves.

After that, when other people took up the mantle of talk, PC isn’t entirely sure what happened; he’s tired and starting to see double when things finally wrap up and he is allowed to drag himself into one of the nicer rooms of the welcome center (with the humans in adjacent rooms) and collapse into the bed.

He sleeps heavily, and in the morning he sits still as Sam appears and again peels back his clothes to sew up the bullet wounds in his chest and back and about his head. She hums as she works, gently pulling thread along to neatly sew on patches of cloth that match the colors of his printed self well enough. When she is done, she tells him there is breakfast to be had, and talking to be done.

He comes down the stairs and is ushered in by some older women into a large room where some middle aged men are cooking in a corner kitchen. Tables have been laid out, and they’re packed— nurses, children, older people. PC scans the tables for his friends, spots Espeon sitting on Davey’s head.

He’s greeted rather cheerfully by the humans, despite the bandages on Davey’s head and Alex’s lower arms, and the fact Tulip is absent. He sits, and Alex places Alice into his lap. She presses against him, and he is surprised to feel her shaking.

“I suppose,” she says, and she sounds so sad and afraid he wishes he could deny what she is about to say, “that you will be doing that all again when you fight the Elders?”

“Probably,” he says.

She makes a keening noise and presses her face against him harder. He gently strokes the back of her head. A man with silvery hair has come to the front of the room, is holding a microphone.

“We’ve found a phone for folks to use to call relatives,” he says. “Using the records the nurses have, we’ll go alphabetically. Anybody who has to stay overnight while waiting for pick up will be in the Welcome Center suites.”

Questions: “If we have a car, can we just leave?” “What about the police?” “Did you guys find where they’re keeping everyone’s personal belongings yet?”

The silver haired man answers in turn: “It seems like most of the parking lot was cleared; if you had a car, I’m afraid the damn cult leader mighta sold it for cash. Same with your keys and personal items.”

A grumble runs through the crowd. The man goes on. “If you somehow do still have your keys, and your cars in the lot, check in with Jonsey” - a dark haired woman serving eggs waves her hands at her name “-before you go. We want statements and experiences to give to the police, and we’ll contact you again when they start their investigation.”

As people eat, they begin to file out, either back to rooms or out into the parking lot hopeful that their vehicle might have been spared. PC watches as the humans swallow eggs and bacon, is once again jealous of his half existence. He has always wondered what bacon tastes like...

“Where’s the Spartan?” he asks, instead of dwelling too much on that. “Where’s Tulip?”

“Think it went and spent the night back in its truck,” Espeon says. “People wouldn’t stop trying to take its armor off. They wanted to help, I think it just got scared.”

“Tulip is still being treated for her leg wound by folks who volunteered,” Davey says. He gingerly taps the side of his head. “I guess it takes a lot more psionic power to heal something like hers.” Alex nods at this, rubs at their bandaged wrists.

“I’ll go get the Spartan, if you’ll go get Tulip, and let’s meet back at the Psi Gate once you all finish your food,” PC says, and stands; Espeon jumps from one head to another until she’s clambering up PC’s arm to sit on his shoulder.

“Not without me,” she says, and he laughs. “Of course not.”

It’s misting slightly as he walks alongside the road toward Davey’s car and the Spartan’s truck. He tucks Alice and Espeon into the hoodie pocket, with their heads sticking out to see. As they walk, Espeon regales the battle to Alice, PC content to let her remember and retell, with only a few interjections on his part.

They reach the truck. PC raps his knuckles against the dark tinted window, and after a moment, it rolls down slightly. Then it raises back up, and the door opens. PC backs up a step as the Spartan gets out.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“I have been better,” says the Spartan; PC glances over it and notes discolored scratch marks. “But I am alive. And so are you and your humans. One of the Elders is dead. And that is enough for me.”

“We’re going to try and figure out the Psi Gate,” PC says.

“A intriguing piece,” the Spartan says as it falls in step with him. “What did you say it does, again?”

“It’s a portal to the Elder’s base on Earth,” he says. “Or, well, it was in the game. I guess we really don’t know where it leads for sure in reality.”

“Right, right, to humanity the Elders were fictional,” says the Spartan. “How in the game did you make it work?”

“Well, they moved it from its place in wild first,” says PC. “Then they turned it on... somehow. Tested going through with a robot, which ended up poorly and informed them they needed a organic key to pass through. That key ended up being the game’s Commander, which is a little heavy handed, but I’m not a game developer or a writer so I shouldn’t cast much doubt on it...”

“You know that’s as cheap as the little dragonball z fight was, don’t lie,” says Espeon.

“Again, I’m not a writer, so I can’t say much on if it’s cheap or not,” he says, but he’s smiling.

“Is there a commander in reality?” asks the Spartan.

“I mean, there wasn’t a xcom, so I don’t think so,” PC says. “But I would have said that about a non-Elder Ethereal too, if I hadn’t been lucky enough to end up its bonded. So, maybe?”

“Hmm,” says the Spartan. They’ve reached the campus and made their way back to the Psi Gate building. The door has been removed, and inside he can see already see the forms of Davey, Alex, and Tulip. When he approaches, he sees Alex has spooled up a Psionic ball and is gingerly pushing it into the inactivated space of the Psi Gate.

It fizzles out when they release it, and by the au they slump their shoulders, this isn’t the outcome they wanted; they shrug at the others. “Worth a try,” they say. “Any other ideas?”

“Stab it with the protojacks?” says Tulip, from where she leans against the wall and keeps weight off her wrapped up leg.

“That doesn’t make much sense,” says Alice, making the three turn heads.

“Oh, Halo friend is here,” says Davey. “Hey again.”

“Hello,” says the Spartan.

“What haven’t we tried?” asks PC.

“Well, just flicking psionics at it doesn’t seem to work,” says Alex, sniffling around some blood as it comes trickling out of their nose. “Maybe it needs a power source?”

“Like what? An engine?”

“If it is power you need,” says the Spartan, “give me time, and I could take my conduit from my ship and we can use it here.”

“You would be willing to do that?” PC asks.

“As long as I get it back at the end, yes,” it says.

“Well,” says Davey, “it’s something to try.”

“Very well,” says the Spartan. “If you don’t mind my saying, I recommend you practice your weapon abilities while I am gone. You will need to hit your targets more times in the next battle if you want to win.”

“So basically get good,” says Espeon, laughing. “Basically don’t be a xcom rookie.”

“Dully noted,” says Alex.

“In the meantime,” says PC, “we’ll keep trying other things. Maybe we could pass the Outsider Shard through it?”

“Good idea,” says Alice. “Wasn’t it activated by the codex brain in game? Since the Shard has served a similar purpose...”

“I don’t really think the game ever showed how it got turned on,” PC says. “And I don’t remember that detail. Sorry.”

“Still,” says Alex, “it’s something to try. I’ll go get it now.” And they’re off and running before anyone can say otherwise. The Spartan snorts amusedly.

“Let us see if this works,” it says. “If not, I go. If it does...” it hesitates. “What will you do if it works?”

“We can’t go through it even if we turn it l. way,” Davey says. “Remember what happens to ROV-R?”

PC winces. “I guess we’ll figure that part out when we get to it,” he says after a moment. “I can’t imagine what they’d make the biological key if not the commander.”

“Do we still have any of the GRE’s body left?” asks Davey.

“Yeah,” says Tulip. “In the freezer.”

“We could try to put him through the Gate,” says Alice. “At the very least we’ll know if it reacts badly to things like the one in the game does.”

“Better then asking one of us to poke our hands through it,” Davey says.

“I’ll go get him then,” says Davey, and jogs off toward the Welcome Center. PC frowns at the Psi Gate.

“Is there anyway to force your way though?” asks the Spartan.

“In the game, on the return trip, the commander forced the gate to remain open so their soldiers could escape,” PC says. “I guess... maybe the reverse could happen. Force it open long enough for others to get inside. I guess we’ll just have to see.”

PC darts across the room to kneel in the half cover of the Psi Gate; Alex follows his lead. Still half back behind the door Tulip fires her gun once twice three times, and the Spartan charges the Emissary, lasers emitting from its weapon as it rushes them; a smell of smoke and burnt flesh rises, and PC feels confidence, or maybe just bile, in his throat.

He aims, tries to quell the slight shake to his hands. The Emissary keeps moving, moving, throwing Null Lances and shielding themselves from the bullets. They make a show of rearing back, a dramatic hand flare, and swirling purple smoke rises and whirls around the humans in the back ground.

PC knows what that is. “Move!” he yells at them. “Get out of the circle, away from it! It’s going to explo—“

He’s cut off as Alex rolls into him while avoiding a beam of Psionic energy from the Emissary, ends up bowled over. They apologize, rocketing to their feet and firing quick laser bolts back at their assailant, missing all but one.

He staggers up, glances back toward the back room; the humans and Espeon have vacated the area, are running toward the opposite end of the building. The Emissary fires quick bursts of Psionic energy at them; one catches Tulip in the leg, and she screams as she falls. The Spartan jumps in front of her, one hand firing off lasers at the Emissary, none of which hit but occupy its concentration; the other hand loosens something from its belt and hands it to her as she crawls to Davey and the others.

While they’re distracted, PC pulls the plasma sword from his back and approaches the Emissary from behind. He swings, remembers not real never was as he does, and is satisfied when he catches the side of the other’s arm. There is a burning smell, and suddenly, a lot more blood on the floor.

The Emissary looks at him and screams inhuman, hands flickering purple as they charge, only to be knocked back by a blast from Alex, who follows up on their Psionic attack with quick shots from their laser pistol. Most of them miss, most of them are unsteady, go through the walls instead of their target, but he’s grateful anyway.

There is a sucking in of air noise, and the whirling Psionic clouds back near the bedroom fold into each other before exploding back with a loud clap. The humans cover their ears; the Spartan winces. Espeon, however, seems unaffected, and throws a Psionic ball at the Emissary, knocking them off balance.

PC takes the moment to come up on them again, but before he can bring the down swing of the sword, the Emissary shoots up a hand- Psionic force pushes him back, makes him stumble, gives the Emissary time to get to their feet. Davey and Espeon are busy with helping Tulip, Alex is pressed against the wall panting.

The Emissary raises a hand, and PC expects another Dimensional Rift. But then he sees threads, just for a moment, glowing and extending outward—

“Oh, shit,” he says, as Davey drops the syringe the Spartan gave him and instead glowers with gleaming purple eyes at the Spartan, as Tulip struggles to sit up and grabs Espeon by the throat.

He’s diving across the floor at Tulip before he really registers he’s moved, knocking Espeon from her grasp. Davey jumps on top of him a moment after, gets his hands about the sword’s hilt; they struggle for a moment, a whirlwind of limbs and pulling. The human rises with the weapon, moves to stab PC through the chest—

Alex brings the side of their laser pistol hard across the side of his head, and he drops the sword in shock as he reels, bleeding and bruised there now, and turns to face her. PC scrambles to grab the dropped weapon, avoids Tulip’s grasping hands as she manages to stand on her injured leg.

Espeon howls, dances past the humans and leaps at the Emissary. She lands on his clothes, Awakened claws clutching to robes as she scales their form and jumps at their face. They stumble blindly as she mauls at their eyes; the Spartan takes his time to pump a few more laser shots into the Emissary.

The floor is slick with blood now, and PC can see the humans sweating. There’s the smell of burning flesh, of smoke, of plasma in the air. He hikes up his gun again and fires at the Emissary, who is slowing now; it calls up a mass of Psionic energy and shoots it as two separate waves, at him and the Spartan. PC is blown over his own feet, and the room tumble white and white and white; his gun falls, goes off; he hears the plasma blade skree against the tile floor as he lands on his backside.

As he hefts himself to his feet he sees Alex sneak behind the Emissary, jump up, and get their arms around their neck. The Emissary claws at them with Psionic fingertips, and he sees them shred the human’s skin so easily, sheds them so easily as they let go, audibly crying as the wounds let bone meet air.

He’s running across the room to them, avoiding the laser fire of the Spartan as it shoots at the Emissary, when mind controlled Tulip lands a shot through his clothes and right through where his sense of self says his head is. He collapses, phantom sense of blood, sense of burning, and then Elyion reminding him that is not really your center of processing, get up! Get up!

He gets somewhat woozily to his feet, blinks red and black and green from his vision. For a moment the building is not, the building is the burning, firey communications deck, and he is concussed from a fire extinguisher to the head. He blinks hard, shakes himself, and is about to move when something hits him hard in the approximation of the ribs and sends him to the floor again.

He wildly flips around so that he is stomach up, one hand reaching for his sword; Davey, irises purple, is studying him, but only just. When PC raises the sword, he swings the bat at it— the plasma cuts the wood clean in two. Davey’s brow furrows, and he frowns.

PC tears his eyes from the human, tries to figure out how the others are faring. The Spartan is hand to hand combatting the Emissary, has it against the wall, is taking its frenzied Psionic clawing rather well. Alex has reached the syringe that Davey dropped early, stabs it twice at where their wrists are shredded— he sees the wounds begin to close. Espeon is engaging Tulip, narrowly dodging laser fire while yelling at her to ‘snap out of it!”

His attention is brought back to Davey; the human has PC’s gun now, and in one swift motion a series of bullets goes through his chest. PC wheezes, automatically putting hands to the wounds where there should be blood where is the blood. Davey frowns again.

He hears a loud shout of pain from the Spartan, the clattering of armor hitting the floor, and hurriedly spins up a beam of Psionic energy.

Can you do the wave thing? he asks Eylion.

I can try.

He finds he holds out his palms toward Davey, and then toward Tulip; small Psionic energy bursts crest across the time and knock the humans back, knocks them to the floor. In the few moments he has he grabs the sword from his back and rushes the Emissary, dutifully noting the prone form of the Spartan that is trying to hard to get up, gather its weapon.

“They will die for no cause,” the Emissary says, side stepping PC, who turns on his heels and dives at them again.

“Fuck you!” yells Alex, and a laser bolt lands square in the Emissary’s chest. PC swings his sword—

There is a moment of quiet as the plasma cuts through robe and skin and muscle. In the moment the blade finishes passes through, a hundred Psionic threads gleam about the Emissary’s head and then shatter.

Blood coats PC, drenches him in it, along with what he thinks must be stomach acid; the now severed body lies still on the tile floor, blood pooling about PC’s feet. He feels like he’s going to puke, shakes his head, tries to breathe normally.

“You just sushi’d them real good, didn’t you,” says Espeon. “Like a little fish snack. Slice.”

‘That’s- that’s how swords work, right?’ he says. He feels lightheaded. There is so much blood.

(He’s not squeamish, but Jesus Christ that’s a lot of blood. And there’s a couple of... organs, he thinks. He’s not a human anatomy expert, he just knows those shouldn’t be on the outside.)

The processing part of whatever constitutes his brain decides to start dry heaving at the gore. Which he supposes is a standard reaction, given that he can’t actually throw up at all.

Through his own haggard breaths he hears Tulip gasp, hears a weapon hit the floor. He looks back. Davey stands still for a moment, shaking his head, and then hesitantly goes to help the Spartan to its feet. Alex and Espeon and Alice join PC in staring at the body of the Great Revered Emissary.

He looks past them; Tulip and Davey exchange dazed looks at both the body and the Spartan that leans on them as they join the small group around the GRE.

A ripple in the space above the body; PC raises his sword, Tulip and Alex hold up their pistols, Davey fumbles with PC’s gun. The Elder that stares at them does not speak at first. PC wonders if it is shocked.

Then: “You only hasten our hand.”

It vanishes. The Spartan snorts, somewhere beneath its heavy breathing. PC motions for it to come to him, for Alex and Tulip too, and gingerly he places hands on them all.

Eylion, he asks, Eylion, can you—?

I can.

A green glow envelopes his hands, and then green emits from the wounds, from the armor, and they stand there quietly for a few moments, PC beginning to pant softly on Eylion’s behalf. “I’m sorry,” it says through him. “I am not used to this, so I cannot do much.” It removes his hands; the wounds of the humans are now lightly scabbed over. The Spartan breathes easier.

The front door of the building opens. Sam stands in the moonlight, a adult woman behind her, and behind them a small crowd which pushes through the door and begins to clamor- not in anger, but in surprise, shock, horror, fear.

“We’ll explain,” PC yells over the din. “We’ll explain everything.”

They manage to finagle Awakening into working again for the humans like it did before; PC stands with them in the hotel bathroom the next evening and watches them whisper as their reflections change— Davey shorter and with a mullet, Alex feminine and long haired, Tulip masculine and buzz cut. His reflection changes too, and he is grateful.

They look at the weapons the Spartan has brought; another small alien firearm, which is given to Alex, and a plasma sword, which is strapped to PC’s back. The Spartan itself carries a larger gun.

He holds Espeon and Alice close on his lap as they drive (the vehicle has changed too but that matters a lot less, they’re parking farther away and walking into the campus), notes how Tulip and Alex hold their guns just as tightly, how Davey has one hand on the top of his baseball bat. The Spartan tails them in its own car, and they park in the grass beside the road about a fifteen minute walk from the campus. They group up and hurry into the mass of wooded area that surrounds it; approaching the side seems better then coming head on, after all.

They emerge near the barn and Espeon dashes away, body low to the ground and looking all for the world like a real cat in the growing dark. The rest of them huddle inside, in one of the empty stables, bodies tense and weapons clenched in white knuckled hands. PC hovers near the door, opens it ever so often to check for Espeon, and they wait as the sun disappears and the glow of light leaves the sky.

Hours pass. PC feels anxiety building in his stomach, despite Alice’s reassurances. The humans amuse themselves (and the Spartan) with quietly said word games and riddles and stories, but as the night goes on, the facade of ease lessens and fear creeps into their voices; they speak less, stare with wide eyes more, and Alice does not try to reassure anymore. She is tense too.

Then, it must be just past midnight- PC’s vision pings, Eylion lighting up Espeon’s form and the form of the young human that follows her; the human is holding something in her arms, against her chest.

PC ushers both into the barn quickly, quickly into the stable, ducking down amongst the hay. The girl looks around at the other humans, wrings her hands as she passes the single gun she has brought to PC. “You are very brave,” she says.

“Or maybe really stupid,” says Davey.

“Not as brave as you,” says Alice. She stares at the doorstop cat, and then shakes her head. PC thanks her for the gun.

“They will not notice until it is too late,” she says. A pause. “This one told me what you want,” she adds, pointing at Espeon as the latter climbs into Davey’s shoulder. Her gaze lifts, seems to go through the walls. “You are going into the Great Revered Emissary’s room?”

A chorus of nodding. She grimaces. “You cannot get in through the front door,” she says.

“It’s Psionically locked, right?” PC says, remembering. She nods at him.

“Yes, but there is another way.” She gets to her feet, and the others rise too. PC awkwardly fumbles with the gun as he stands, stills for a moment and lets memories of not real never was guide his hands into the proper places.

The group follows Sam across the campus into the Welcome Center, creeping low against the walls and holding their breath every so often to listen listen listen. The girl leads them back down into the basement, where most of the people are sleeping.

PC brings the group to a stop, takes the lock of the nearest cell in his hand. “What about them?” he asks.

“I will stay behind,” says Sam. “I will free them. You must go. There is a door.”

PC returns both hands to the gun, moves forward. It looks like solid wall, but then a ping in his head, and a slight depression is highlighted— he pushes against it with his shoulder, and the wall panel slides open, revealing a tunnel.

“Secret tunnel,” mumbles Tulip as she steps in time behind him. The others file in after, and Sam slides the panel shut when they’ve gotten a few paces down the tunnel, plunging them into darkness.

“This is no time for Avatar references,” says Alice, half muffled by the pocket.

Espeon scoffs as she ignites a glow about her gem, bathing them all in soft purple light. “It’s always time for Avatar references,” she says, and jumps down to be obnoxiously about PC’s feet.

“What is Avatar?” asks the Spartan. “You cannot be talking about the Elders’ project; it is too early here for that.”

Espeon and Tulip eagerly begin to explain ATLA to the Spartan in dramatic whispers; Davey attempts to shush them, which makes them whisper more; PC shakes his head with a laugh.

The tunnel goes on, taking turns but never branching into more then one pathway. Every so often they stop, quiet, and listen listen listen. It must be about 1:30 am when they reach the end of tunnel, and PC gingerly reaches up, finds a small folding ladder attached to the top of the low ceiling-trapdoor. He pulls it down, and steps up, pushing the door open just enough for Espeon to poke her head through.

“Where do we end up?” he asks her.

“Looks like a closet,” she says back, and wiggles through the small space. She is gone for a few heartbeats, and then returns. “The bedroom connected is empty,” she says. “Looks like this Emissary ain’t asleep yet.”

“Can you sense it? It’d have a really big Psionic footprint,” PC says.

Espeon hums. “I sense something,” she says, “but not in this building. Well, there is something but it feels dormant.”

“Must be the Psi Gate,” he says, and lifts the trap door open fully, gun tucked under his arm. The others clamber out behind him, weapons tense in their hands, but as PC passes through the bedroom (simple, a bed, a dresser, a painting of a Elder in the same vein as the statues he remembers but doesn’t), there is no confrontation. They join Espeon outside the room, and the humans pause to take in the Psi Gate.

“Alright,” says Tulip, “we’re here. Now what?”

“We wait for the Emissary to come back,” says PC in a low voice. “I think we probably have to kill them. Then we deal with the rest of them. I’m hoping taking the head of them out first makes that second part a lot easier, though.”

“Where should we wait? There’s not much to hide behind out here,” Davey says, looking back and forth across the otherwise empty room.

“Back behind this door,” PC says, stepping back inside of the bed. The others hurry back in, Espeon the last, and PC shuts the door not all the way to where it’s closed, but looks the part. He looks down at the gun in his hands, somewhat reminiscent of the one from not reality never was, and hopes he can use it well.

He looks at Davey, who curls and unfurls his fingers about his baseball bat handle; at Alex, who studies their borrowed firearm intensely; at Tulip, fingers tight around her firearm’s handle; at the Spartan, stock still and weapon up at chest level; at Espeon, who’s gem glow is dimmer now, who’s ears twitch every so often. Alice goes and hides back inside the trapdoor, excusing herself from having to watch the oncoming battle. “I’ll go check on Sam,” she says, but he knows she means “I cannot bear to watch you fight. I cannot bear to see you lose.”

But they won’t lose.

(Right? They won’t lose?)

When the Emissary stalks in, the moon high in the sky behind them briefly as they open and close the front door, the humans look at each other as the footsteps grow closer.

“Now?” whispers Tulip.

“Or never,” answers PC, kicking the door open; his gunfire melds with the psionic beams and plasma bolts that volley out after. The Emissary screams as bullets connect, as their form is staggered back a few paces by the assault, and the fight is on.

The humans are gone again with Espeon, getting new clothes to hide under. PC sits on the bed with Alice, gently rubbing one of her ears between his worried fingers.

“What if were using up time we don’t have?” he asks. “What we should have gone now? Awakening would have changed their clothes, wouldn’t it?”

“It would, like it did before,” she agrees, “but they are nervous, and this will make them feel more confident.” She narrows her eyes at him. “Do not worry so much. I think we would know if we were out of time.”

PC hums in disagreement, but says nothing else.

There is a sudden knock at the door. He sits up from his half lounge, wide eyes exchanging a look with Alice. He steadies himself, steps into the mindset of psionics, reaches out with Elyion toward the door— whatever it is, it isn’t psionic, so that’s promising. He shakes back to reality, and gets up, peering through the peep hole.

“Oh,” he says, blinking.

“Who is it?” asks Alice.

“It’s the Spartan,” he says.

“Ah, yes,” she says, “the non-XCOM one.”

PC opens the door. The Spartan hesitates at the doorway, the large pack on their back shifting as they do. “Greetings,” they say. “I am glad to have finally caught up with you.”

PC cocks his head as he gestures for the Spartan to come inside. “Finally caught up with you?”

“After you were able to escape the laboratory, and I was able to reclaim my ship from the same place, I decided to come back and look for you,” the Spartan says. “I thought perhaps you might still need help.”

“You have a ship now?” PC asks.

The Spartan makes a noise that Eylion says is the species equivalent to laughter. “Why else would I have stayed behind at that facility?” A little more laughter. “Yes, I do. It is not in excellent shape, but it is functional. I have hidden it, though, and am now using one of your dominant species’ ...’cars’ in its stead. I do not wish to have it taken from me again.”

“Very understandable,” says Alice. The Spartan looks at her.

“You are not a human,” it says.

“No, I am a doorstop cat,” she says.

“But you are... is there a word, Pillow Central, for your condition as living when inorganic?”

“Awakened,” he says.

“Awakened,” repeats the Spartan. “Fascinating. What is the general purpose of a doorstop cat? I understand pillows are used by humans to rest their heads.”

“I was made to hold doors open,” Alice says. “My Beholden prefers to let me live on a window still as a decoration.”

The Spartan hums at her. “What strange creatures,” it says. It glances around the room, runs its pronged fingers against the bed sheets. “You are with humans now? The same ones as before? The ones I met?”

PC nods. “Davey is tall one, Alex is the one with the white streak, and Tulip is one with her hair up.”

The Spartan nods. “I will remember this,” it says. A pause. “What are you doing here, in this ‘hotel’? I thought you were attempting to stop the Elders.”

“We found the Psi Gate— er, the doorway into their base,” PC explains, “but it’s in the middle of a Psionic cult. They took the humans hostage, tried to pry Eylion from me...we’re trying to figure out how to get back in there to the Gate.” He hesitates. “There’s probably gonna be some blood.”

“I see. Would you like help?”

“Are you offering?”

“I have a few weapons your humans might find useful,” it says.

“It’ll have to be a group decision on if you come with us, but my vote is sure and please.”

“Excellent. We will wait for them to return, then.”

As so they do. PC explains various things to the Spartan about humanity, about stuffed society, Awakening and XCOM, anything it has questions about to pass the time. Alice helps, interjecting here and there. They’re in the middle of attempting to make the concept of the Internet coherent when the door opens again.

Tulip enters, and yells, “Halo cosplayer alert!” Espeon jumps off her shoulder at the Spartan, yowling, only to get batted onto the bed by PC.

“Be nice,” he says. “They’re a friend.”

“Master Chief is our friend?” she asks.

“What’s a master chief?” asks the Spartan.

“What the hell are you guys talking abut?” says Davey as he comes in behind her, and then stands there blinking. “Oh. Okay. I guess this can’t get any weirder.”

Alex slides through the closing door, pulling it shut after them. They look between PC and the Spartan, the Spartan and PC. “You made a friend?” they ask.

“Everyone, if you remember, this is the Spartan who helped you rescue me earlier,” PC says. The Spartan gives a little hesitant wave at the humans. “It’s offering to help us get back into the campus. It has weapons to let you guys borrow if you want.”

“Well,” says Tulip, “I already have a alien weapon, but I’m not opposed to more.”

“Sounds better then a baseball bat,” says Davey. “I’d like to see the stuff at least.” Alex nods in agreement as they sit on the edge of the bed.

“That seems like a consensus of yes to me,” says Alice.

“Just about weapons, not about them going with us,” says PC.

“They want to go with us?” Davey asks.

“I offered,” says the Spartan.

“You’re one weird dude,” says Tulip. “I respect that immensely. Go forth and prosper, or whatever Halo people say.”

“That’s Star Trek,” says Espeon.

“I think if they want to come, that they should,” says Alex. “I’d feel better with more people.”

“It’ll be harder to be sneaky with more people,” says Tulip.

“We’ll just XCOM conga line somewhere safe and then you’ll all wait for me to come back with the girl, and we’ll work from there,” says Espeon. “Very simple sneak tactics.”

“So I am allowed?” says the Spartan.

“I mean, we probably can’t stop you,” says Davey. “So welcome to the team.”

When the humans return, PC stands, sets Alice aside, and hugs Alex. It is deep, and pressing, and he thinks they must understand the need behind it because they return the intensity even with a napkin stuffed up their once more bleeding nose.

He hugs the others too, just as deeply and almost hungrily. Davey does not entirely reciprocate, and that is fine, and Tulip squeezes back too hard, but that is fine too.

Espeon, when he plucks her from atop Tulip’s head after breaking the hug with the latter, kneads her paws against his shirt and curses him out for scaring her so bad.

“I’m sorry,” he says, one of many times, to her. “I can’t promise it won’t happen again.”

“Real xcom hours are CANCELLED,” she says, and the humans and Alice murmur weary agreement.

“Not yet,” he says. “Not yet.”

“Well, we know where the Psi Gate is,” says Tulip, flopping onto the bed, one hand patting the bandage on her forehead. “It’s just in the middle of a Psionic hornets nest.”

“You could have left me,” Alex says. “They had me in the girl’s dormitory, I could have stayed and snuck around and—“

“Absolutely not,” says Davey. “We were absolutely not leaving you in that hell hole.”

“We’ll figure something out,” says Espeon. “We always figure something out.”

“Did you see any of them? From the campus? Were you followed?” asks PC, and there is paranoia in his throat, memories of backstabs and betrayal that never actually occurred.

The humans shake their heads. Espeon shakes her head too. “We woulda shot the shit outta one if there was somebody,” she says.

“Okay,” he says, but it does not ease his fears. “I’m glad you took her with you,” he says, but he isn’t certain Espeon could have done much on her own. “We’ll be alright, I think,” he says, but he doesn’t believe himself, not at all.

“You met a girl while we were there,” says Alice. “Perhaps she can help us.”

“I don’t know,” he says.

“She helped you when she probably was gonna be punished when it got out she did that,” Espeon said. “That’s some XCOM material right there, I’d think.”

“Hair dye is cheap,” says Tulip as a possibility, only for Alex to murmur, “Awakening is cheaper.”

“Well, we’re not going back now,” Davey says. “I’d rather have some kind of arms before I did.”

“We have Tulip’s gun,” says Espeon.

“Yeah, but that’s Tulip’s,” says Davey.

“You didn’t shoot anyone did you?” asks Alice.

“I wasn’t aware that any of my firing at the sky and trees hit anyone, no,” she says. “If I did, oops, guess that’s a ‘don’t try to mob us’ lesson they got to learn.”

“I have a gun, Alex and Espeon and PC have Psionic powers... I guess we just need two more weapons?” Tulip says.

“I have a baseball bat in my truck,” says Davey.

“Sick,” says Espeon.

If it was possible for Alice to pale, she would, but in approximation just shakes her head very vigorously. “I don’t think we should be going lethal,” she says. “These people might not even be aware of what they’re doing.”

“Shit, it’s easier to pretend they’re just mindless hellions,” Tulip says, turning over onto her stomach.

“PC met a child there,” Alice insists. “We cannot harm children.”

“Alright, alright, we only shoot to injure and only adults,” Tulip says. Espeon lolls her head in the mimic of a eyeroll.

“We’ll go back,” says Alex. “Espeon can find the girl, and she can come talk to us, and we’ll figure something out.”

PC feels himself swallow, feels Eylion’s hope and determination rise in his gut to match Alex’s optimistic tone.

We will succeed, hums the Ethereal out loud.

But what if we don’t? he thinks at it. What if we—

That option is not possible. We win, or we die. We win, or Earth dies. Which will not happen.

And that is the end of that.

///

When PC wakes, he is whole. That is the first thing he is aware of. He feels the rough line of stitches down his front and back, can feel them aching and burning as awakening flows through them.

That is... good, he thinks. The thoughts are slow, disjointed.

He remembers Eylion’s words: “hunting”. Urgency runs through him. He sits up, blinks in the low light and presses his hands against the soft thing beneath him— he is in a bed. In a room.

That’s not right. He should be outside. In the woods? No that isn’t right either. The base never fell, there never was a base, that wasn’t real. Was this real? PC’s head hurts. He blinks, tries to clear his blurry vision. It does not go away.

“Alice?” he calls, and he is just barely Awoken again, a terrified half child in a world he does not understand again.

A reply, somewhere tucked against him: “I’m here. I’m here.”

His hands roam against the space between his self and the bed, find Alice, brings her up into his vision. Her usually upturned mouth is downcast; her ears droop. Wordlessly he brings him close to him in a hug, and he feels her little paws press deep against his jacket.

“Do you feel that?” she asks. “Has the sensation of feeling returned?”

“Yeah,” he says thickly, “yeah, I felt that. The stitched areas are kind of numb besides the matchstick burn feelings.”

She lets out a long, relived sounding sigh. He looks around; it’s a cramped hotel room, messily made bed he’s sitting on, curtain drawn on the window. He doesn’t see the humans. Doesn’t see Espeon.

“Where—“

“Went out for food,” Alice answers. “Brought Espeon in case they ran into the Emissary or its people.”

He sinks back into the bed. “I’m supposed to protect them,” he says, half a mumble. “I’m supposed to.”

“You are not supposed to protect anyone except our Beholden,” Alice says, and he expects it to be chiding, but it is just tired.

“We have to get back in there,” he says.

“I know,” she says.

“How are we going to do that? How are we—“

A paw on his chest, pressing through fabric to where his printed mouth is. “Worry not,” she says. “When the humans return, we will figure it out.”

He doesn’t really believe her, doesn’t really believe much of anything at the moment, but darkness tunnels his vision, and he lets his head loll onto the other pillows.

“Were you afraid?” he asks.

“Of course I was afraid,” she says. He think he hears her voice catch. “I very narrowly avoided destruction, and you yourself did not escape unscathed.”

“But I’m here,” he says. “I always end up being there. Here. Whenever we are. No matter what happens.” Base falls, I’m there. Earth falls, I’m there. End of everything, I’m there.

“You are a incredibly lucky man,” she says. “I fear that your luck will run out.”

“Me too,” he says. When he goes to gently wrap his fingers around her, he finds his hands are shaking. Why are his hands shaking?

“Are we sure we are alive?” he asks. “Are we this is not some...some punishment for human sin, that this is not...” He trails off.

She shakes her head at him. “I think that is very unlikely,” she says.

“But it’s a possibility.”

“Bradford, please.”

“Sorry, I—“ For a moment he cannot breath, cannot phantom how is possible that he exist and not breathe. “I don’t... feel well.”

“You have had some very traumatic experiences in the past couple of days,” she says. “I would be surprised if you felt good.”

So have you, he wants to say, but he knows Alice does not speak of such things, that she will retreat into some quiet place and figure it out on her own, that she only asks for his company. Instead, he asks, “Do you think they’re safe? Are we safe?”

Alice hums. “The Ethereal spoke with us while you were out,” she says. “It is trying to mask its, ah, Psionic footprint, but...” She makes the approximation of a shrug. “It is doing its best. You should focus on doing your best, too.”

PC takes a deep breath. In, out, ignore everything in you screaming you don’t have lungs you aren’t alive so you can’t possibly be real, in, out.

“I don’t feel safe,” he says. “I don’t feel real.”

“Then what would make you feel that way?” asks Alice.

Faintly his memories overtake him— of self injury after flashbacks because he has nothing else to prove it, of alcohol to make it quieter, of personal encounters to distract.

But none of that was real.

He gently removes Alice from her spot on his chest, stumbles to the bathroom. Alice calls after him, and faintly he hears the concern. He rolls up his sleeves, grasps the edge of the sink like he’s falling, stares into the mirror.

What would make you feel safe? What would make you feel real?

The aching in his heart kicks and childishly cries for his Beholden, for the Hoard, for the safety and known of the dorm, of pre-Awakening.

It was so much easier then, he thinks.

“John?”

Again, the name so rarely used. He leaves the bathroom, sits on the bed, gathers her up into his arms.

“Don’t leave,” he says, as if she can go anywhere anyway.

“I won’t,” she answers. “I’m right here. I’m here.”

The hooded figure tucks him under a arm, and after a quick sweep of the cells, makes their way back to the steps and then outside. PC twists in their grasp, prompting them to hold tighter and tighter; he feels Alice squirming in his hoodie pocket, trying to avoid the arm that clamps down.

They cross the campus to the square building in the center, and PC can see from beneath as the figure conjures a Psionic shape which they fit into the lock. Something hums, and the door opens. The figure moves quickly inside, and PC wriggles again, manages to wrench his view from being obscured by the arm.

It’s not a large room, bare white walls and tile floor. At the center is a circular structure, dark purple and inert; it has been cleaned of vines and debris, buffed and shined. PC feels his breath catch— here is the Psi Gate, just as the Outsider Shard said it would be.

There is a smaller room connected to this one, and its door opens, and out comes another hooded figure, whom the first kneels to. The standing figure -the Great Revered Emissary, PC guesses- barely looks at the other, attention instead on PC; gloved hands make a ‘give it here’ motion, and PC is almost reverently placed into the waiting palms. The rest of standing figure’s face is shrouded in the dark of their hood, but their eyes gleam bright purple, and in the glow PC sees them wrinkle their nose at him.

They wordlessly dismiss the other human, and set PC down in a sitting position, head tipped ever so slightly to the side. “Why,” the Emissary says at last, “do you bond to something that does not even live? Something even lesser then the human populace? Do you have no pride?”

Eylion growls; PC feels imaginary hairs on an imaginary neck stand up. The Emissary tsks at them. “You are so young,” they say. “You could yet be redeemed.”

“Show yourself,” Eylion says, appearing and flashing green red red green. “Or are you afraid? Is that why you jump into the heads of humans?”

The gleaming glimmering purple tendrils rise, and a ghostly body follows, and the Elder looks disdainful. “Of a whelp? A whelp and a human invention that not-breathes? No, I do not fear you.”

“Then why do you hide in this host of a human?”

“I do not hide,” hisses the Elder. “I am our gatekeeper, our surveyor. No one will get through that should not. The humans are little more then vehicles to me. We will move beyond them.”

Well, I guess we knew it wouldn’t be easy, PC thinks at Eylion. The Ethereal does not answer, just trembles in anger.

“You have such potential,” the Elder goes on. “And yet you waste it. On humanity. On their toys. You could be one of us, if you wanted. You are still able to be saved.”

“I don’t need saving—“ Eylion begins.

“You are dying,” says the Elder.

“So are you!”

“And yet we will outlast you,” they say. “Don’t you wonder what it would be like to live out your lifespan? We are merciful creatures. We can make an exception.”

“I don’t need your mercy or your exceptions,” Eylion says, and its form flickers out of existence, only to return in PC’s body as a pushing and a urge and he’s suddenly flipping out of the human’s hold, striking out with a Null Lance of his own—

A shimmering wall of purple meets the green, and it explodes on impact, sending PC staggering back a few steps. The Elder has retreated to its host, is shaking the head at them.

“We knew you would come,” it says through its mouthpiece. “We have eagerly awaited a apprentice. But humanity has soiled you, turned your heart from our cause.” Eyes flick to PC’s form. “I suppose it should not be such a surprise.” A sigh. “I will not enjoy the task of killing you, child.”

The human pulls its hood taunt; the purple glowing eyes narrow. “But it is a task I must do.”

And then they lunge; PC dives out the way, takes only a moment’s satisfaction to hear the clash of body against tile, whirls about on his feet to meet the human so rapidly rising and coming right at him.

Eylion ignites Psionic energy about his fingers and they claw at the human, the sizzle of flesh and rush of blood only a second of surprise, PC wincing and then howling as a second Null Lance from the Emissary cuts clean through, this time around his printed hip, just barely grazing Alice, who screams again, a hoarse sound. He jumps away, flings a ball of energy; it meets a Null Lance, which he narrowly avoids.

“How long can your host last?” asks the Emissary, one moment wiping the blood from the brow of the body it carries, the next calling small bursts of purple lightning about its fingers and firing them at PC.

“How long can yours?” snarls Eylion back, bringing PC to the floor, another Psionic energy ball fired in the half space before he hits the floor and the Psionic lightning goes flickering overhead.

He sees purple glisten amongst the blood on the human face, and a pang of fear runs through him. Eylion, he thinks, Eylion, they can heal.

So can we.

There is a painful pulling at the edges of where the Null Lances cleaved through him, a mingle of Psionic and Awakening that burns more then should, and as he struggles to dash half stood across, he feels the fabric stretch, feels new sutures weave their way across the gaps, feels the holes closing.

The Emissary comes running at him again, pins him against the wall, and with one deft hand sparking purple, rips PC in half.

Eylion howls, because PC can not.

Eylion howls, because the healing is taking too long.

Eylion howls, and something -someone- answers.

There’s a explosion at the door, the door comes off its hinges, and there is Espeon on the shoulder of Alex, there is Davey, and there is Tulip, clutching the gun they got back at the UFO.

“Shoot that motherfucker!” yells Espeon as she fires off miniature Null Lance after miniature Null Lance at the Emissary; the gun warms, fires, and the smell of blood and burnt flesh rise in the air as the Emissary is caught in shoulder by the plasma bolt. It raises its hand and at least a hundred different ‘strings’ of energy glow about it just for a moment, but PC isn’t certain he sees this, isn’t sure of anything.

Faintly, PC hears voices, hears doors opening. His attention returns to nearby, to his split self, barely held together by the ribbon and his clothes. Davey is here, mushing everything as he picks PC up, firefighter style, narrowly avoiding being caught in the middle as the Emissary returns fire at Espeon.

But it’s getting hard to tell exactly what is going on. Memories that aren’t real never were bubble over, he smells smoke and fire, hears the plasma guns (so much quieter then conventional weapons), hears the screaming and the cracking of wood, and his vision flickers here, not here, here, not—

Alex shrieks, and the shriek momentarily brings him to the present, to what’s real, and a wild bolt of Psionics erupts from their hands— it catches the Emissary hard in the chest, knocks them back, gives Davey the chance to gather up the stuffing pieces that have fallen and scamper away. One hand pulls Alice from PC’s pocket, and then puts her back; the other wrapped around PC presses harder.

PC sees a squabble of people emerging from the dorms, but it feels far away. He feels far away, like he’s somewhere above this all, watching it unfold. He watches as the humans rush out of the square building, as they scramble through the growing crowd and grabbing hands to the car, as Alex and Espeon throws bolts and Tulip fires the gun at anyone who tries to stop them.

He’s aware that Davey reaches the car first, that he’s uncermonioisly dumped into a seat. He’s aware that the other two aren’t far behind, that the car starts, wheels screaming as the truck almost spins out of the parking lot. He’s aware that there is screaming. He’s aware that there is blood, somewhere, from the person holding him together with shaking hands as they peel back his clothes and try to stitch him back into one.

Someone speaks. PC cannot hear it. He feels the rough fabric of Alice’s paw somewhere on his form. He cannot see.

Eylion?

I am here. I am here.

The humans...Alice, Espeon...?

Here. Safe.

And the Emissary? Their followers?

Hunting, comes the dark reply.

I guess it really isn’t gonna be that easy, he answers, and he isn’t sure if he says it, or he thinks it—

And then there is darkness, and he thinks, in a last second of consciousness, that he is grateful

With Alice in his pocket and Espeon on his shoulder, he creeps back across the campus to press flat against the side of one of the long buildings, heeding the senses of the Pokémon as she explains that she can perceive a collection of Psionic beings nearby.

This leads him into a small almost lobby, bare concrete with large windows and a bench running beneath them, a water fountain on the opposite wall, before the room splits at the sides into the long buildings— he thinks perhaps they’re dormitories, but doesn’t get a chance to confirm as he ducks into a closet when he hears voices coming toward him. He barely slides into the small space and pulls the door shut before they enter. Through the crack of the door he can see they’re young, female, wearing long skirts of purple. Their hair is all white.

They’re talking low to each other, one of them laughs. PC strains to hear, but doesn’t pick up much more then the name ‘Sam’, which he recognizes as belonging to the girl who rescued him, and ‘punishment’. The girls walk past into their dorm, and after a few heartbeats of quiet explanation to Alice and Espeon of what he’s seen, what he knows, he slips back out of the closest, and darts across the lobby to the opposite dorm as the one the girls went into.

It’s empty when he enters; there are bunk beds set along each long wall, the floor and ceilings bare, the sheets and pillows standard grey and tucked into hospital corners. There is no toys, no closets, no bags, no posters, no string lights.

“What a shitty place to be a girl,” says Espeon.

“Sssh,” says Alice.

Nothing to be found here. PC exits out of the door at the end of the dormitory wing, put into the cold grey air. Espeon shifts on his shoulder. “If you were a little Psionic girl who did something bad,” she says, “where might they take you?”

“Back to the welcome center? There’s a lot there,” he says, hesitant.

“Maybe Alex did get put into a treatment room,” offers Alice as he begins to make his way toward the back porch, slinking against the white brick walls of the dormitories’s outside.

“Maybe,” he says, ascending the stairs, fiddling with the handle. Locked. He takes a few steps back.

“Espeon, can you throw a Psybeam on my mark at the door?” he asks.

“Sure can,” says the Pokémon.

He spools up a ball of Psionic energy between his palms, making grow bigger bigger bigger, and then as he releases it, says “mark!” The purple of Espeon’s psionics mingles with the green of his as they both fly at the door, and there is a crashing, a splintering, as the door comes falling off its hinges.

“Ok,” PC says, “now jump off my shoulder and start running while yelling.”

“Distraction duty, got it,” she says, and does as she’s told. He ducks just in time against the side of the welcome center as three men come running out, one catching sight of a fleeing Espeon and giving chase. PC breathes, begs Awakening to protect her, and heads inside.

As he steps through the threshold, he feels Eylion gently take grasp of his conscious mind and pull it up, and he can see a sort of layout now— rooms shrouded in darkness, for they don’t know what is inside, but it can perceive them none the less. He’s in a hall of white tiles and colored lines along the wall with painted words marking ‘intensive care’ and ‘holding’ and other phrases he doesn’t quite understand. Alice hums.

“This doesn’t seem right,” she says.

“I think it’s an act,” he says, vision flickering between the battle focus map and normal. As he walks, narrowly avoiding being spotted by some nurses (well, they’re dressed as ones) by ducking into a alcove, he explains what happened to him in better detail. Alice listens silently, and he feels her nod when he is done.

The hall is empty again, the nurses rounding the corner, and PC takes a chance to push open a door at random. A empty bed, hospital style, but lacking IVs. He shakes his head, moves to another room.

A ping inside his head. Eylion has updated the ‘map’. There’s a basement, he realizes, and thanks the Ethereal for notifying him. In response the being light up the door marked stairs, and PC slips through it, trying to make his footsteps quiet as he goes down.

The door to what he assumes is the basement is locked, which he finds off. Instead of the big display back at the porch, he experimentally creates and then fires a tiny Psionic ball into the lock— there’s a terrible sound of expansion, a cracking sound, and with the lock somewhat disabled he’s able to push the now semi unlocked door open just far enough to squeeze through.

He’s hit with the feeling of heat and humidity. The basement is dark, damp, and sweltering. He blinks a few times, and hears Alice gasp. As his vision adjusts, he sees why.

Cages. Large, dog-like kennels really, but cages none the less. He approaches one, and a man he does not know, dressed in a hospital gown, stares up at him with frightened eyes. The man’s nose is sideways slightly, like it’s broken, and there’s a black bruise about his eye.

“Oh, shit,” says PC. The man makes a motion for him to shut up, but not before a answer of ‘Bradford? Bradford!” rings across the lowlight room. A cage is lit up in his vision, and he hurries over, and there is Tulip, fingers pressed against the cage links, eyes wide.

“Dude,” she says, “dude, you have to get us out of here.”

The man in the other cage hisses at them to be quiet. Tulip ignores him. “They handcuffed us, and blindfolded me, and dragged me kicking and screaming down here; they took Alex And Davey somewhere else, I don’t know—“

“You’re gonna get us fucking beat,” snaps the man in the other cage. Murmurs arise from the other cages.

“They beat you?” asks PC.

“That is not proper care,” Alice whispers before Tulip can speak, “that is against the Hippocratic Oath.”

“I don’t think any of this is within code,” he says to her. He looks to Tulip; the girl has been stripped of her clothes, given a hospital gown. “What are they doing to you? Why are they—“

“I should be asking you,” says Tulip, eyes narrowing. “I thought we were good, that we had this under control! What the hell is going on?” She pauses, and a wild look comes into her eyes. “Bradford, I think this might be a organ harvesting place. I think the treatment thing is just a front. I think- I think they’re gonna kill us.”

“They will,” the man in the other whispers at them, furious. “They will. Now be quiet!”

“Doesn’t take talking to break someone out,” PC mumbles as he takes the thick lock on Tulip’s cage into his hands. He shifts the weight from palm to palm for a few moments, considering.

Suddenly he feels Alice perk in the pocket. “Someone is coming,” she says. “I can hear them on the stairs.”

“Shit,” he says, letting the lock fall from his hands. “I’ll get you out,” he promises. “We’ll find the others.”

“You better make sure they don’t catch you if you wanna make good on that,” Tulip says, backing away from the cage door.

“I know, I know,” he says, scanning the room for somewhere, anywhere to hide. A ping again, and a small space behind a heater is light up in his vision. PC scrambles over and drops to his knees, squirms into the space, ignores Awakening howling this is a fire hazard, ignores Alice’s twisting against his stomach, focuses on the door.

It opens slowly. The hooded figure in the doorway studies the room. A soft drawl emits from the hood: “You are among us, Ethereal. Such a power cannot hide. Come out. Come out. We have much to do. We needs you.”

PC remains stock still. The hooded figure idly raises their hands, inspects their nails, and then, all at once, fires a Null Lance at the heater.

The Psionic energy rips clean through his jacket, through his chest area; he hears Alice scream, hears Tulip scream, hears himself scream. He’s pressed against wood and there’s pressure pressure pressure against him, as the heater explodes, as flames blossom around him. He feels fire catch on the ends of his self, and he panics, slaps at it with his hands, writhes against the ground. His hat falls off. He does not notice. Everything is about the fire, is about the fire, he has to put out the—

There is a whoosh. The flames die under the Psionic wind. The hooded figure walks up to him, looms over him. In the darkness of the hood, the entire eyes of the figure shine purple. He stares back numbly. Slender fingers pick him up, absently takes in his true form where it burns at the hole through his upper mid. PC thinks, for a moment, he sees tendrils falling away from the figure, but that can’t be right.

“What a noble attempt,” says the hooded figure, “but unneeded. Come now, the Great Revered Emissary awaits.”

The night passes, and the the next day. PC does little more then sleep, stirring occasionally to check that the girl’s sewing remains in place as Awakening seeps into it.

When he wakes fully, the sun is low in the sky, and he walks the small stables with legs slightly jelly, pausing a few times to lean on one of the support rails between the stalls. Dust kicks up at his footsteps, silvery golden notes in the fading light. He pushes his way out of the front doors, and stands blinking in their arch way, trying to orient himself.

He can see all the way across the ‘campus’ is the back of the ‘Welcome Center’, which extends from there to halfway to the stables, ending in a porch that leads down to a gravel circle patch; along the circular form are two long buildings the stable rests just beyond of.

A house is situated on the other side of the ‘campus’, with a large greenhouse off to the side of it and a chicken coop, and further off, on the right of the stables, a padlock with a pond. In the middle of this x configuration is a large square building, no windows, and only one, well locked exit from what PC can tell as he warily darts from shadow to shadow around the buildings.

He narrowly ducks behind a truck parked nearby the gravel circle as someone comes out of the one exit square building, and though he cannot hear what they say, he can see the way one of them is frowning and how the other is shaking their head.

PC keeps moving, knocking over some laundry left out on clothings lines across the gravel circle as he moves under and across. He slides to hide behind the form of the left building, and finds he is breathing heavily.

He takes a moment to inhale. Alice would tell him he’s getting all caught up in probability, would ask him to tell her what’s the most likely outcome, rather then the worst, would assure him of that.

But Alice isn’t here. Alice is in the car with Espeon.

PC, sprinting across the gravel to crouch behind the right building, pauses, looks at the ‘Welcome Center’’s back again. He could use a little help, now that he’s thinking about it.

PC rushes across the lawn for the side of the Welcome Center, drops into a army crawl and makes his way across the grass along the side of the building until his elbows hit gravel, and hauls himself to his feet once he’s cleared a few feet from the building.

PC jogs across the lot, weaving between vehicles half crouched, ducking down even more slightly one he reaches the van and hoping no one noted. He presses half frantic fingers against the door handle, knows that it’s locked, pulls it anyway.

He sees Espeon’s dark form jump up on the seats. He waves at her, and then is sent crashing to the asphalt to try to avoid the glass as she flings a Psybeam at the window, the pieces shattering around him.

Espeon’s head appears in the broken frame of the window, wobbling; as PC stands back up, he can see she is balancing on the arm rest. Alice, still seated in the chair, looks toward him.

“Something is wrong,” she says.

“No shit,” says Espeon and jumps out the window, swearing inaudibly as she dances around the shards of glass and clambers up PC’s leg to end up on one of his shoulders. “There, much better. What’s going on? Where’s the humans?”

PC reaches through the window and picks up Alice; the latter stares back at the broken glass. “Davey will be upset,” she says.

“If he’s still around to feel things,” Espeon answers. She gives PC a little ear wiggle and a grin. “That’s what we’re facing, right? Some life or death shit? Full XCOM?”

“I’m not sure,” he says. “When we went in, I got swarmed—“

“Swarmed?”

“By operators; they grabbed me, pulled me into a room, started tearing me apart—“

Alice cuts him off, gently pushing her paws against his thumb. “Are you... functional?” she asks.

“Well it’s certainty not a good addition to all his fires,” says Espeon, “and boys got a lot of fires!”

“Hush, Espeon,” says Alice.

“I’m... it’s...” He struggles for a moment, cannot breathe for a moment. “It’s fine, a girl found me and helped me, it’s fine.”

Espeon perks her ears. “Ooooh, a girl?” Her tail lashes. “You can’t replace me or Alice, you know that! Not with some human girl!”

“Not like that, Espeon, please,” he says, and she laughs.

Alice looks toward the Welcome Center, narrows her eyes. “What do you want us to do?” she asks.

“Well, I want Espeon to be ready to help me make a distraction,” he says. “You- I just want someone around. I don’t want to go in there alone.”

“Why don’t you ask the girl?” says Espeon with a sneer.

“It’s not a bad suggestion,” Alice says. “She knows more about this place then you.”

“Maybe,” PC says. “She did say I didn’t want to get caught—“

“That’s XCOM protocol though; don’t get caught,” says Espeon. “Don’t get caught, kill the alien, celebrate prematurely, get your base fucked up, lose the earth, get your ass tanked, cue xcom 2.”

“That’s what we’re trying to avoid,” Alice says, as PC says, rather quietly, “I really don’t want to get cut up again, anyway.”

Alice hums. “Let’s find the girl,” she says. “Maybe she can help us. If not, she can at least point us toward someone or something that is.”

“And if we get found first?”

“Well, you did say you wanted Espeon to possibly be a distraction; if we are found, she will be one.”

It’s dusk as Davey drives the van along the bumpy dirt roads that leads to the main building in the ‘rehabilitation campus’. They park and unload Alex and their luggage (a single bag; the rules for stay are pretty tight), Espeon and Alice making PC promise to come back and check in to assure them things are going ok.

PC blinks. Here is a two story building, dark wooden roof tiles and white outside paneling. A sign on the front reads ‘Welcome Center’, with a porch out front and a map on a sign on one end.

He walks with Alex up the wooden steps of the porch into a white tiled lobby. Davey and Tulip tail them, taking seats on the couches in near the reception desk, the latter putting her feet up on the coffee table and knocking off the magazines.

The receptionist looks up from her computer, and blinks at PC and Alex. She glances at her screen, and then a look of understanding comes over her.

“You must be the one we got a email about,” she says as she stands up and comes out. She shakes Alex’s hand, and the kid looks down at their shoes, mumbling a hello back.

“Yeah,” says PC, “they’re here for the, uh, treatment stay.”

The woman looks over Alex’s shoulder at him, and squints. “Are you sure they’re the one in need of it?”

“I’m sorry?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says. “Give me a moment and we’ll get you all set up.”

The receptionist disappears back behind her desk through a door. PC looks at Alex, and gives them a encouraging look. “It’ll be alright,” he says. “Probably normal rehabilitative things.”

Alex shuffles awkwardly, mumbling something he can’t hear. He goes to ask them to repeat themselves, but the doors behind the receptionist desk fly open, and a bustle of people in blue scrubs, headed by the receptionist, come rushing out and around PC and Alex. There’s shouting, something about ‘severe case’ and ‘immediate procedures’, and in the rush someone grabs him by the arm and drags him off away from the others.

He struggles; the grip tightens.

“Hey! You’ve got the wrong—“

“We know exactly what we’re doing,” says the person who’s got his arm. PC is pulled down the hall, and then pushed into a dark room. The person flips on the overhead light to reveal a operating table, and pauses.

“You’re not going to cooperate, are you?” they say, and sigh behind their surgical mask.

“Uh, no?”

“Mm,” they say as the door opens again, and their hand goes into their pocket for a moment. A few seconds later, a gaggle of more operators come in and PC is overwhelmed by a force of hands and arms who strip him of his clothes - there is no hesitation when his true form is revealed, only rough hands grabbing at him to bring up him onto the table, where he’s strapped down.

Once he’s secure, a few of the people shed their scrubs to reveal long sleeved luxurious purple and silver clothes, masks still on and then accompanied by hoods drawn over their heads, and hurry out of the room. He shouts after them, and then at the people checking the bed straps, but no one responds to him.

PC shifts against the bonds, squinting as the main operator, the one with the crooked mask who brought him here, brings the surgical light to hang over him.

A rolling cart is brought in; on it, a number of precision devices, all for cutting flesh. Awakening instinct kicks in his mid— occasional repair by scissors is generally accepted, but not like this.

“What are you doing?” PC asks, and then yelps in horror as a tool is dragged across his middle, splitting the fabric and spilling out stuffing. Astral limbs jump back to life, only to disappear again at the pressure of the bonds. He stares, mute in pain, as the main operator prods his stuffing and peels back the fabric hole to look inside.

The main operator grunts and begins to pull out handfuls of PC’s stuffing; the others around them are whispering, things like ‘burn it out’ and ‘show it your gift’ and other things that PC can’t really parse through the haze of ache.

He feels the Ethereal shift against his being, asking what’s going on. He can barely answer.

They’re looking for something, I think.

The Ethereal hums. They are all psionic, it says.

Oh. That’s... worrisome.

The last word is half indistinguishable and turns into muddled feeling of terror and pain at the end as another cut is made, along a seam this time (just under the ribbon), causing more stuffing to fall to the floor. PC can feel his consciousness splitting, gets flickers of viewpoints from the floor up at the bodies of the humans surrounding him, of fingers grasping and releasing into a pile.

Can I help? asks the Ethereal.

I don’t know, he thinks and the words are scarcely formed. I don’t know. I think they’re going to kill me.

PC feels a shudder through his self, and then the Ethereal is hanging above him, above the table and the humans, glimmering green red and absolutely howling. The humans scatter to sides of the room at the appearance, the main operator jumping and dropping his tool to point up at the ghostly figure.

“Is that what the Great Revered Emissary prophesied...?” the main operator says, their voice barely a whisper behind their mask.

The other doctors, crouched against the walls, murmur quiet hymn like noises, or perhaps they speak amongst themselves; PC isn’t sure, isn’t sure of anything besides the pain that muted him and dulls everything except the former to a sharp constant. PC screws his eyes shut.

Time must pass, or he must pass out, more the latter, for when he opens his eyes again, he is somewhere else. PC blinks wearily in the lowlight, at the rough wooden walls and tin roof, and is not sure.

He feels the swift movement of a sewing needle, and glances down; it is a girl in a light purple dress, with long white hair and eyes glimmering red-purple. She is sewing up the cut along his side, one hand clutching stuffing and tucking it back inside of him as she goes.

It hurts still, it burns, even her work does, but as she sews first the side seam closed and then the cut across his ‘stomach’, the pain lessens, and then dulls to throbbing.

PC sits up best he can. The girl puts down her tools and, somewhat shyly, offers him the clothes that had been thrown to the floor. He wills his limbs to existence, dresses, gently touches the now stitched ‘wounds’ with trembling fingers.

“Thank you,” he says finally.

The girl is quiet. Awakening blazes as she gazes at him, and him back: she is young, and she has helped him, and so it is known he must do the same for her. It aches like the wounds do now, aches like the missing of his beholden does.

“Not sure what they were doing,” he continues, somewhat thickly through the shake that still grasps his voice in its fear coated hands. “Just glad they didn’t get any further...”

PC rubs his side with one hand, plays his fingers about his stomach with the other. The girl blinks hair out of her eyes.

“My name’s Pillow Central,” he says to her, because she has seen his natural self, and she is a child, and they can be trusted with true names.

“My name’s Sam,” says the girl. “Page Sam.”

“Wish I could say it’s nice to meet you, but...” He shrugs, inhales and exhales slowly, tries to get the spots out of his eyes, tries to breathe. “You, uh, you do good needle work.”

“Dame Maria teaches us the work,” she says.

“Dame?” PC asks. “Your family uses titles?”

She nods. “Everyone has a place,” she says. Her eyes get squinty. “Even outsiders. Even Ethereals.”

He blinks. “You know what a Ethereal is?”

“Everyone calls you that,” she says. “They’re trying to keep it down, but Knight Keith told the Matriarchs, and my sister who’s in training overhead, and—“

“How long has it been?” he asks, mostly to himself. He needs to get out of this room. Needs to find his friends. He begins to get up, but Sam shoves him back into the corner, furiously shaking her head.

“They’re looking for you,” she says, “and you do not want to be found.”

“My friends...”

PC tries to explain, wills himself to, but the words trail off into a exhausted half sputtering. She frowns at him.

“You must also rest,” she says.

He mumbles something about that being a human thing, and she rolls her eyes. “Psionics are a human thing,” she says, “a blessed gift from those coming, but you have it too.”

He could explain, but the world is spinning again, and he slumps deeper into the corner. He could explain, but there are pulses of darkness at the edges of his vision, that threaten to swallow him up.

So he, somewhat incoherently, concedes her that point. She stands and disappears out of the swinging gate, and for a moment he is able to glance across the dirt hall, is able to connect this with things he’s seen and understand this is some kind of stable, before she returns carrying a large blanket which she drapes over him.

“I’ll be back later,” she says. “I have go now. To classes. They’ll wonder where I’ve been.”

PC weakly waves her on, letting himself fully slide along the stable wall and lay there as she leaves, listening to the buzz of the flies and the soft breaths of the animals housed with him.

The quiet does not ease his nerves, only exacerbates it, and he finds that he is asking Awakening once again ‘protect them, protect them, protect them.’ Less a prayer, and more a begging.

He sinks into sleep finally, the hymns of desperation still echoing in his mind.

(Protect them. Protect them. Protect them.)

When they get back to the house, the Outsider Shard is taken out of the black case and poke and prodded. PC turns it over and over in his hands, thinking of the shadow chamber, thinking of the gap in technology, thinking thinking—

“Try poking it with the activated protojack?” says Tulip, and the engineers nod. PC shrugs, fits one of the jacks to his arm, sparks it to life, and lightly clamps the progs around the crystal. Green light crackles about it, but nothing else happens.

Tell us something, PC thinks at it, tell us anything. Tell us where to go. Tell us.

The protojack crackles; the crystal sits glimmering yellow orange, still and silent.

PC sighs, turns off the protojack and puts it away. Tulip makes grabby hands for the Shard, and he lets her take it, watches her handle it in much the same way he did.

“Maybe we should turn it over to the government,” says Davey.

A chorus of ‘no!’ answers him, and he relents, mumbling something about ‘it was just an idea’. Bigly talks of taking a sample, running it through tests, but PC isn’t sure breaking it is a good idea.

The Shard makes its way to Alex, whose hands barely wrap around it. They stare at it, and their shoulders slump slightly. A sort of dazed looks comes over their eyes, and for a moment, PC thinks he sees something flicker in them, but he isn’t sure.

“You okay?” he asks.

Alex does not respond. Tulip gently punches them in the shoulder; the motion makes their body sway slightly, but still they do not make any move to show they have registered the hit. Davey frowns.

“Alex—“

The freshman’s eyes, which have slid shut, snap open again. Their hands drop from the crystal, letting it clatter against the table. Lizard chides them, but there’s still a faraway look in their eyes that PC thinks means they don’t hear the other at all.

“Alex?” he asks.

“Latitude: -37.60903, Longitude: -161.80187, Distortion: 1.59,” they mumble. “Latitude: 40° 38' 5.39" North,

Longitude: -80° 04' 33.00" West.” A blink. “I don’t know what that means. But it’s important.

Almost as soon as the coordinates have left Alex’s mouth, multiple people are whipping out their phones, typing furiously. It’s Tulip who gets the news out first: “It’s at some kind of facility, the second one.”

PC’s heart sinks. “What kind?” he asks.

Tulip squints, scrolls. “Some kind of retreat? A ... camp? Something for helping people with CPS...”

“What’s that?” asks Davey, as he puts the Outsider Shard away into the prototype case, struggling to find a configuration in which it will close.

“Some kind of headache disorder? Seems more than that. Bloody noses, headaches, insomnia, faint feeling, pain behind the eyes, exhaustion, fatigue, heightened anxiety...”

Alex, still half in a stupor, sits up slightly. “What’s it called, again?” they ask, voice thick.

“CPS,” says Tulip. “Not to be confused with Child Protective Services.”

“Shit,” says Alex.

“What’s wrong?” asks PC, even though something in him is screaming, has been since Tulip read the symptoms list. He just can’t figure out what it’s trying to tell him.

“I think I have that,” says Alex.

Tulip and Davey exchange looks as the latter finally snaps the case closed. “I guess we have a way in,” he says as he slides the case under the bed and stands up. “Can you call? Email?”

“Doing the second one so now,” says Tulip, Alex moving to sit next to her and PC on the floor, murmuring their symptoms so that the other can include them in the report.

“What was the other coorindate set?” asks PC.

Bigly frowns as he types. “Just the middle of the ocean,” he says.

“Ah,” says PC. “I... I think I know what that is.” He glances at the others, who shake their heads.

“Nothing we can do about that,” says Tulip. “Let’s focus on this facility.”

“So what about the Psi Gate?” asks Davey. Lizard starts to ask what he means, but Tulip answers faster. “We’ll have Alex go in, and snoop around ourselves. It could still be on public property, like some woods nearby or something.”

“And if it’s not we’ll go full XCOM?”

“Yeah, exactly!”

“Your encouraging her just makes it worse,” says PC, laughing tiredly.

“I mean, she’s got a point,” Davey says after a moment. “We might have no other choice.” He pauses. “This has been one long road trip,” he adds, mostly to himself.

“Isn’t it better then bar tending?” asks Tulip.

“Oh, god, yeah,” Davey says. Tulip laughs.

“And sent,” says she, putting her phone away. “We can head out toward there tomorrow morning, acceptance or not.”

The humans drift out of the room then, into the other spare bedroom, leaving PC to ascend back up the stairs to lie on his sleeping bag and Alex lying back down in the bed. They roll over so that they’re looking down at PC, and Alice and Espeon as they emerge from his coat pocket.

“Do you think they can help me?” she asks.

“I’m sure they’ll be able to at least give you a direction,” Alice says. Alex gums and turns back over, shuffling a little and then falling still.

PC watches them sleep for a while, nothing the rise and fall of their body as they breath, and the distinct lack of that in his own body. He consciously breathes for a few moments, but it only serves to make him well aware of his lack of actual nose, actual lungs. Alice looks up at him from her place near his head.

“You’re worried?”

“Typical Awakening anxiety,” he says, as Espeon curls into the crook of his leg. “I guess I’m just nervous something’ll go wrong.”

“More often then not, it all ends up okay,” says Alice, and he wants to believe her. He does.

But he cannot.

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companionwolf

April 2020

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Fabricated Chapter Forty

Fabricated Chapter Thirty Nine

Fabricated Ch 38

Fabricated Chapter 37

Fabricated Chapter 36

Fabricated Chapter thirty five

Fabricated Chapter Thirty Four

Fabricated Chapter 33

Fabricated Chapter 32

Fabricated Chapter 31

Fabricated Chapter 30

Fabricated Chapter 29

Fabricated Chapter 28

Fabricated Chapter 27

Fabricated Chapter 26

Fabricated Chapter 25

Fabricated Chapter 24

Fabricated Chapter 23

Fabricated Chapter 22

Fabricated Chapter 21