Mary smiled for a moment before commenting, “Weapons are normal for us you know.”
Peter blinked a few times before chuckling a little himself. “Ah, I almost took you seriously there for a moment. And here I thought you girls didn’t have a sense of humor.”
To which no one moved. Peter blinked a few times, before jumping a little as he shouted, “That’s right, trained killers! Um, well, you know, normal for the average person. Weapons and guns are a little beyond that. Besides, you, um, you know… Shouldn’t kill people?”
Ovelia opened her mouth for a moment, before glancing at Wren and making a couple subtle hand gestures. It was as if she were just stretching them out, but Wren got the point, especially since she knew the spy’s normal tactics. As such, Wren shifted her weight a little and asked, “Say, if we had to kill someone, are we allowed to bring them back here to do it? It’s a lot easier to hide it that way.”
Peter opened his mouth again, not making the same mistake twice as he yelled, “You are not allowed to kill people here!”
“But we are allowed to kill people?”
“No! I mean, yes, because supposedly- No! If you want to, do it in a video game, please!”
Wren rolled her eyes, not even knowing what he was talking about, but doubting that it would be anything like the real thing. Of course, none of them had actually expected to be told yes to being allowed to kill, and they all shared a glance with each other at Peter’s little slip up, but they had to ask. After all, maybe Peter was more psychotic then they assumed.
He didn’t seem to be so far, to say the least.
X chimed in one more time though as she lifted her paper back up towards Peter. He once again took it and looked at what she had written this time in her chicken scratch. “Can I go for a walk with you each day? Oh, uh, yeah, I can do that, just…” he said with one more yawn, “I really need more sleep before I try to function anymore. Anyone have anymore rules? And don’t worry, you can make more in the future and yada yada.”
That part was very important to the girls, and Ovelia made sure to nod to their questioning looks. She would learn what yada yada meant in case that somehow would make them lose control. For now though, they had all pushed their luck, and all shook their heads.
Peter nodded back, gave X a smile, which was responded to by her continuous, blank stare, before he finally turned around. He blinked a few more times, tapped on the handle that was sticking out of the wall, and decided to leave the question of why there was a knife in the wall for later. He needed sleep now .
Out and About
“And this here is a nice little park for you all! It used to be made out of wood and was awesome, but apparently some parents got annoyed at kids getting splinters and falling through holes in it. I say they just don’t know how to have fun.”
Wren rolled her eyes at the complaints, before letting her eyes land on the equipment. It reminded her of a very rudimentary version of her beginning equipment. There were bars to swing across, a slide, a net to climb up, but all designed for a child. By the time she was three she was beyond such small obstacles, and unless this wooden obstacle course was some sort of castle, she doubted it would have been ‘awesome’.
Not that she had been enjoying the walk in general. She was on edge now that she was actually out of the house. Out of where she called home, in any sense. It was… New. A literal first for her except for captivity with those government goons. If she started running away, no one could stop her. No wall would meet her that she couldn’t tear through. It was… Something, but she didn’t know what it was.
Or didn’t want to acknowledge what it was.
Luckily for any person who might have suffered from this feeling, Peter had taken them through a small grass path near his house. It weaved behind a few of the houses, and overall it took them maybe five minutes to get to the park. He said it was to show them some of the nicer ways around, since he hated keeping to roads. She bet it was that he was afraid of them killing someone, and was just hiding it really well.
That did raise the question of why he brought them to a park though. After all, it was designed for kids, and indeed, there were some there. Small heartbeats that could be snuffed out instantly. Mostly seen as inconsequential though, and her training dictated that they should only be dealt with to remove witnesses, or if they were too intelligent and could grow up to be threats to the organization and its backers. These ones were safe, as were the mother and father that were nearby and staring at them. She had no reason to kill them after all, except for the stupid looks they were giving the four girls.
Peter noticed none of this, despite pretty much all four girls performing their own version of this evaluation, but instead spread his arms open to the whole thing. “So, I do plan to have us keep going, but I thought we’d pause our current game of tour guide, and switch to extreme play simulation! After all, I bet you all could have a lot of fun bouncing around this thing and putting on a show for the kids here while I teach one of you how to use the swings!”
Peter stared at them for a few moments, before jumping a little at their silence and shouting. “I mean, unless you already know how to use a swing set! I didn’t mean to assume.”
Wren slapped herself, dragging her fingers down her face as her eyes spit hot fury at Peter. Why did he keep acting like this? Why was he this stupid!? She didn’t shout though. Not now at least. “You do realize there are people here, right?”
Peter tilted his head for a second, before looking back at the people. “Well… I mean, yeah, you girls aren’t really dressed for being out, but I don’t want to keep you in the house, and I’m waiting until Tuesday to take you all to the mall. That way, even though it’s Summer, there’ll be less people, and that’s how I prefer it.”
“Because they can’t cause more problems?”
“Exactly,” Peter said excitedly with fingers guns at her, before turning one on himself and acting like he just shot himself. “I cannot tell you how many times I have just wanted to yell at a group of screaming girls, or when boys would almost knock me over the railing because they were running around. It’s awful.”
Wren’s eye twitched, and she turned to Ovelia to remind her spy of her job. However, before Ovelia could speak, X moved, walking towards the swings herself, which caused Peter to jump in surprise. “Um, well, you three enjoy yourselves for a while, and tell me when you’re ready to go, okay?”
Mary was the only one of the three of them to be ready to respond with a brief, shy, “Of course,” while she slipped an arm over her chest. After all, she had taken note of the kids looking at them and fidgeted at their gazes. Ovelia allowed a crossed look to slip past her defenses for a brief moment, before turning her eyes back to the parents in the area. They in response turned away, not wanting to upset the weird girls, especially when one was already balling her fists.
That did raise the question of what exactly they would do, and Mary was the first to move towards a solution. “Well, we saw Aladdin yesterday move around like one of us. I wonder if these kids have seen that movie? If they have, we could start making a positive impression on the nearby youth by showing off our own acrobatics.”
Ovelia spoke next, her colder, closer to monotone voice coming out as she said, “Or you and Wren could just piss off the parents more by having your breasts flying everywhere. Besides, we all still have an itch to fix and, from what I have been able to tell, no soldiers immediately followed us, so I would bet we have at least five minutes before anyone showed up who could make us pay for taking out at least one of the parents.”
Wren grabbed Ovelia by the shoulder, turning her around before she growled out, “Are you suggesting we kill for no reason?”
“Isn’t that what you advocated for when we first got here?” She then tucked a hair behind her ear while glancing at Peter and making sure he wasn’t noticing them. “Besides, it isn’t for no reason. It’s my job as the team’s psychiatrist to make sure your mental healths are
at a state where you can be effective. With how you have been since we left the house, I cannot approve of your current mental state. So, this is my solution. We only need to kill one after all for you, since Mary and I are within acceptable limits.”
Wren stepped back as if she had been physically assaulted, before the sound of metal unsheathing itself came through the air, just like during their meeting, and Wren opened her hands, keeping them ready to strike but not in fists. “I am your leader. What you are suggesting would result in electroshock therapy for two days normally.”
Ovelia shook her head. “You are our leader due to chain of command. You were never chosen by the our superiors, were you, failure ?”
Wren’s eyes opened up, beginning to become bloodshot as her body shook. The only things that stopped her from striking was decades of training and Mary’s hand on her chest. “Wren, calm down. We’ve all been high strung recently, and maybe a little playing around here could help with that? I can see a few posts that would make for great jump strike training and balancing on the bars would allow for focus training.”
“We were being evaluated to start missions soon already. She shouldn’t need more training, just like none of us should. You are our main brute. The one that kills swathes of enemies without needing a reason. Are you saying you cannot perform your job?”
Wren snarled at Ovelia, but her body backed off. Attacking a teammate wouldn’t help her and Mary was helping, at least a little. “Oh, yeah, and how does that go for you? You should have already had Peter under you, and yet he appears to dismiss you most of the time. I would have thought you’d be able to have fixed that already.”
It was Ovelia’s turn to scowl and Mary stepped inbetween of them, holding her hands up between them. “O, N, stop. We are not here to attack each other. We are here to create a foothold for ourselves so that we may figure out where we go now with the facility gone. However, we are not in a rush to do so, and I am willing to talk to Peter about you, okay O?”
Both of the girls glanced away at Mary’s use of their short names. O, N, M, and Q had been their squad, with Wren being N instead of W because the latter wasn’t shorter than her actual name. It was meant for quick communication between them during missions, but was also what the scientists used in order to let them know when they truly failed. For Mary to use it here… Wren shut her eyes and took a long, deep breath in. “You are right. We are losing sight of our mission by wanting to test our abilities.”
Ovelia was silent for a long moment, before turning to Wren and whispering, “But Mary and I have gotten to practice now that we are out. We have been able to put our skills to the test, regardless of success. It… It has helped me feel better about being out at leat. You though...” She grew quiet, before her eyes darted towards the man standing near the park. He was away from everyone else now, his eyes darting towards the girls every few seconds, but his wife was with the kids in the actual park. They were likely to leave soon, but if any of them would have a chance to get away with their crime, now would be it.
And Wren knew that. Wren could see a dozen different maneuvers and strikes that she could use to instantly kill the man. To put him out of his misery in a flash, before hopping back to the others to look like she hadn’t done anything. He wouldn’t even get out a noise. Just one strike, and it would be over, just like she had been trained.
What if she was off by even a centimeter though? What if he survived the first strike, and she had to finish him off with a second? Then she may need to kill the others. And what if someone was across the street and watching them that they weren’t aware of? All these variables that kept making her head buzz. It was growing louder and louder in her mind with each thought and made her body shake as she forced her eyes shut.
When she opened her eyes, she moved like lightning. Her hand moved smoothly, slicing through the air fast enough to cause a whistling. Her target saw nothing of her, only a shadow with wild, red hair, and fire in her eyes. She would have what she desired, and there would be no one who could deny her that triumph.
“Aaaaaaa-oomph!”
X blinked as she continued to swing back and forth on her seat, having enjoyed the air rushing past her ears as she finally got used to the rhythm she needed to use. She had also just watched as Peter was launched a solid twenty feet by a punch from Wren, who now cracked her knuckles as she looked back at the girls. “We’re going, now!”
X’s eyes lowered a touch as she slowed herself, wondering if Wren could do anything other than yell and hurt things, before disregarding it herself. After all, that was one more thing than she could do, and the other girls seemed inclined to follow her words. Since she had nothing to do herself, she saw no reason to disagree and followed Wren, who stomped on Peter to snap his spine back into place so they could continue on their walk, much to his own misery as he desperately asked for Wren to not turn into something called a tsundere.
At least he chuckled at it, a noise that confused all of the girls as he limped in pain.
Calm
Mary bit her lip as she came in through the backdoor of the house. Wren and Ovelia were sparring in the back to give her some time alone with Peter so that she could do as she had promised yesterday, but now she had to come up with how exactly she would do that. After all, she wasn’t like Ovelia and trained in getting answers out of people discreetly. She was supposed to stalk in the shadows, eavesdrop, and stay out of sight. Maybe with a couple more years she would have been trained like Ovelia, but she had come into the program too late for that.
Fortunately, she had a chance to think in the garage. It was maybe two steps from the backdoor to the door to the kitchen, but that didn’t mean the space between was only for that. No, Mary could easily see fitting a car in the garage along with the amenities that currently lined the walls. On the left wall were rather sparse, rows upon rows of empty shelves. On her right, there was a cupboard sunk into the wall next to the door leading inside, before then a long workbench that likely was used by Peter’s father, rather than Peter himself. With its space and length though, it would make a good place for Wren to make bombs on, or for any of them to make modifcations to their weapons with. In fact, the whole place would make for a good bomb shelter of sorts…
For a moment Mary stood still as her mind drifted off, her own thoughts silencing. It was one of the remnants of her past that the facility hadn’t wiped out entirely. In this state, she would start imagining her thoughts, rather than keeping them as words, and so would begin to space out. It was considered acceptable due to her abilities, but it was something that happened now as she saw her team working on their arsenal. It began to shift though, with them jumping around the garage, springing off of the shelves, the ceiling, the single bicycle in the room, and Aladdin even joined for a moment as her eyes gained a green glow.
And then the green overwhelmed her as she grabbed her head and shut her eyes, clearing the thoughts before it became more powerful than the pickaxe that slammed into her skull. She wasn’t actually using it, so… So why now? Why with these thoughts? What made them special?
“Aladdin…”
She blinked a few times, finally realizing what she could use to help get her and Peter talking casually and dashed into the house. She still didn’t know how she would bring up Ovelia without raising suspicions, but… But maybe Peter was truly that good? Would let her bring it up and not get upset or become more suspicious of Ovelia?
The green liked those thoughts.
And so she hopped over the stair railing and fell beside Peter, bouncing on the couch as he screamed, chucking his controller into the wall behind them, before it ricocheted into the coffee table and fell to the floor. X only jumped a little at all of the noise, her eyes wide as she stared at Mary, who was frozen herself as Peter began to pick himself up off of the floor. He glanced around himself, before looking up at the Mary and letting out a long breath. “Oh, good. I thought you were a muton or something.”
Mary tipped her head a
little, a slight smile on her face at the word she didn’t understand. In fact, Peter did that a lot, and it showed that while she was trained to know more about modern areas than the other girls, she still lacked a lot of knowledge that would make her comfortable with people like him. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to mind the questions too much. “Muton? Are those normal for you?”
Peter shook his head before lifting himself back up and heading for his controller. “Okay, that one isn’t even surprising. Most of my friends don’t even get XCOM references. Um… I guess the best way I can put it is that they’re big, tanky troops that can mess you up early in the game. Think of Wren, but even meaner.”
For a brief second, X’s mouth twitched, while Mary let out a momentary giggle as she tried to settle on the soft couch. All of them were still getting used to the padded furniture, having been taught how to sleep on… Well, really anything. Even while standing. Cushions and the like were kept exclusively to their handlers back at the facility. “Is that even possible?”
Peter let out a laugh himself, but it was free and deep. Natural, unlike what even Ovelia could do when she was trying her best. It lifted Mary’s spirit, and brought memories that made her normally brown eyes gain green flecks. She couldn’t actually remember them, only vague whispers and feelings from them. Even only twelve years had managed that, but maybe with his help… Mary shook her head and slipped a strand of her braided, pink hair backd that had come out of place behind her ear.
“I like to think so. If anime has taught me anything, it’s usually the ones who are the meanest who you can trust the most, and with how you girls act with her, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was dead on.” He then sighed as he scratched his head and slumped back onto the couch. “Now, to take care of these stupid sectoids. They’re behind some heavy cover, so almost none of my guys can get a clean hit on them, not even the sniper. Have any thoughts?”
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