Writing is hard, and oftentimes goes wrong. But if I'm going to make any progress, I have to push forward. Regardless of what the outcome is, or how I feel about it.

Omega [REDUX]

Chapter 49

Struggle was an old friend of Elsa's.

But she'd forgotten how its company had felt like over the years, ever since she'd found Anna. With her, no struggle seemed impossible to overcome. They'd been through the academy, augmentation and even assassination together, and pulled through all the same.

Right now, she wasn't so sure she could replicate her past success. Not in her current state, anyhow. And not after Anna had told her how Rapunzel had lost her life.

So many lives ruined or destroyed, all because of her.

She knew it was more than her powers that were broken; so was her spirit. A vicious cycle that threatened to put her down under for good, where she couldn't trust herself to execute anything properly, which further discouraged her from training. An illogical, irrational sentiment that was having very tangible consequences, guilty as charged or not.

This rang true in her head as Anna slammed a fist into her gut and knocked her down once again. Though, if she was being honest, it wasn't the only thing ringing right now.

She planted her palms upon the grey grid of the virtual tacspace Anna was simulating with her processors; a crude replica of the Bloodbath simulated battlespaces back at the academy, but functional enough for her own training.

"Technique is off," Anna stated, even as Elsa recovered from her fall. "You need to prioritise the limbs more when you first engage, primarily because you aren't as strong as you were before." Elsa felt Anna look her over for virtual wounds and bruises, restoring them with a flick of a hand. "Go again."

Wordlessly Elsa complied, taking up her ready stance. Her virtual wounds were removed from the tacspace, and her real ones were healing well, but she was still exhausted, in more ways than one. It took way more effort than it should have to assess Anna's attack vector. Anna's first strike caught her cleanly on the cheek, too quick for her to react, and she staggered back, barely managing to shove away the follow-up swing. Elsa shoved Anna back and kicked outward, but found her foot caught between her opponent's hands, who promptly flipped Elsa over and slammed her into the floor.

"Too slow. Again." Anna strolled over and reached out a hand. Elsa took it, pulling herself up. "It isn't just an Ascendant who can take advantage of that opening," Anna continued. "The average Empyrean soldier's reaction times would be able to exploit it."

"What else is new," Elsa sighed.

This earned her a disapproving look from Anna. "Come on, Elsa. I'm trying to help you out here."

"It's not about that."

"Everything is about that right now," Anna went on. "If we don't get you trained up we'll never pull off anything properly. How are we going to retaliate against Hans if you can't keep up with his forces? His Ascendants?"

Elsa grit her teeth. She didn't offer a response.

She felt a pang of guilt when she heard Anna attempt to change tactics. "Look," Anna said, "back when I was still a total noob, you taught me the importance of all this training. You taught me that if I couldn't keep up, if I couldn't perform at my best, then I'd die. Not just in the Bloodbath, but also for real."

"That was different," Elsa retorted, momentarily forgetting Anna's good will. "You had reasonable goals to work with."

"Not to me they weren't. Hell, I was at the bottom of the student tally. You were basically asking for the impossible as well."

Something inside Elsa snapped before she could rein it in, and her anxiety morphed into anger that lashed out. "I'm dealing with the literal impossible, Anna!" she spat. "I physically can't keep up with whoever we're fighting. They are always going to be faster, stronger, more resilient in every way!"

"But you've got to try!" Anna protested. "I know you're better than them. Better than anyone! And definitely better than what you're putting up now. But ever since—"

"What do you fucking expect, Anna?" Elsa yelled. "Every time I try to do something right, it goes wrong anyway. I try to protect Edison, and he ends up Empyrean's puppet. I try to rehabilitate in the UIF, to save people, and I drop a frost nuke on New Vancia. I try to help you, to protect you, and I pull you into a past conflict that you never deserve. Every single thing I've done lead to even worse things happening. So yeah, maybe I am being a fucking defeatist, but what else is there to the contrary? I caused Rapunzel's death, I killed Edison, I even killed half the fucking UIF team sent to retrieve me from that shithole of a place. And now I've lost all my powers. I have no enhanced physiology any more. Then I have quite possibly the most insurmountable task ahead of us. And since I am almost certainly bound to fuck that up too, what, pray tell, is the point of fucking trying?!"

She caught herself mid-outburst, but only because she could feel hot tears rolling down her cheeks. She felt the agony of her chest tightening, remnant emotions choking her up. Her muscles were tight, tensed, drained from the breaking of a façade she'd been trying to maintain. There was no way out of this one. Not this time.

Struggle was only purposeful if there was a chance of success.

Elsa didn't see any.

Not anymore.

She slumped to her knees, her breathing coming forth in ragged breaths, the full extent of her outburst hitting her. Anna didn't deserve to hear that. Anna had been trying to help. All Anna had ever done to Elsa was try to help.

And all Elsa had done for Anna was ruin her life. Even before they met.

Anna didn't deserve this shit from her.

And Elsa didn't deserve Anna.

Not in a million years.

"I'm sorry," she forced herself to say. "For this. For everything."

Not that there was a point in that, she thought to herself. She couldn't redeem whatever she'd done anyway.

The tacspace faded around her, revealing the carpeted hotel floor they'd been residing in for the past week since their escape. The air was cool, the light was warm. Right now, Elsa just felt like a mess.

Soft footsteps, and a soft scrunch as Anna knelt beside her, just out of Elsa's peripheral vision. Elsa didn't look. She was too ashamed to look.

"Elsa."

She kept her gaze rooted to the ground. A movement to her left. Arms, warm strong arms wrapped around her, soft breath on the back of her neck.

"I'm sorry," Anna whispered.

"For what?" Elsa croaked. Anna shouldn't be sorry. None of this was her fault to begin with. It—

"You . . ." Anna began, and Elsa could tell she was having trouble finding the words, and she regretted drawing Anna into her own emotional mess. Just another thing to beat herself up with later.

"Elsa, my parents . . . my augmentation . . ." Anna sucked in a breath, but her arms held firm around Elsa's body. "I've had a lot of time to think."

About what? Elsa wondered. It was crystal clear. Everything was Elsa's fault. One way or the other.

"I've been a hypocrite," Anna went on. "When you told me about everyone else you killed, I told you to look past it. That it wasn't you. That you couldn't, and shouldn't, hold yourself responsible. And when I found out that my parents died in a similar fashion, I went back on everything I said without hesitation."

Her own gaze fell to the floor. "Just because you think you made a mistake doesn't mean you're wrong."

"Yes, it does," Anna replied, rocking Elsa gently in her arms. "I forgave you then, and if I truly love you, I should have always forgiven you."

Why would you truly love me? Why would anyone?

"You . . ." Anna searched for the words again, even as she nuzzled against Elsa's neck. "You are more than the people you think you killed. More than the pain you think you've caused."

"Don't be ridiculous." Elsa broke Anna's embrace, albeit with more force than she had intended, and turned to face her. "Those people died by my hand, and that's a fact. The only thing that's changed is that you realised that too."

"I realised that it isn't right to blame you for it," Anna went on, clasping Elsa's hands in her own. "Empyrean made you do those things. You can't be responsible."

"I still killed them, Anna. How does that remotely diminish my responsibility?"

Anna fixated her with a gaze that Elsa had not seen in a long time.

"Because . . ." she began, "because ever since I've met you, ever since you've been free, you have only been the most caring, the most steadfast, and the most loving person I have ever known. You would never hurt anyone. Least of all me. Even if what I've said . . . and what I've done, might suggest otherwise."

Tears welled up in Elsa's eyes. Anna knew. Even before Elsa herself did.

And yet—

"You don't have to do this just to get me to train harder," Elsa began. "I—"

"I know you have only ever wanted the best for me. For everyone. And you shoulder the burden of what Empyrean made you do so as to remind you of your duty," Anna said. "You think that your guilt will guide you, to anchor yourself to duty. But this guilt, this pain; it's a cruel way to honour the fallen. And it isn't your guilt that guides what you do. It's your heart, and the goodness that resides within it.

"The point of trying, the one you make every time I see you fight, train and defend me, is the hope that you can make something better. And you have." Anna's grip tightened around her hands. "The time we spent together? Since the academy? Those were the happiest, more promising days of my life. You turned my life around. You gave me hope. Joy. Love. Things that I thought I would never find."

Elsa couldn't stop tears from spilling down her cheeks, but she did manage to control her sobbing. She couldn't assume this was genuine. That would be a mistake on two fronts; that it was wrong to think Anna could forgive her so quickly, and that it was wrong for her to forgive Elsa to begin with.

"I know that if you keep trying, if you keep fighting, just like you taught me all those years ago," Anna continued, "you will make everything better. For us. For you."

"But I can't," Elsa managed through sniffles. "I can't do any of this. Not anymore."

"You can. I know you can." Arms wrapped around her once more. "I should have forgiven you a long time ago," Anna said, "and I have now. Now you need to forgive yourself."

What a fucking coincidence, Elsa thought. Of all the struggles I've ever had, I haven't figured that one out yet.

"How are you holding up?"

"For now? As good as it can get for the time being." Anna let her gaze travel along the cityscape, half ambient skywatching and half passive surveillance. Skycars and dropships cruised the air lanes amidst the backdrop of the setting sun, golden beams illuminating the aerial highways and the skyscrapers that dominated the city. "The hotel cover is better than expected; as far as the staff know we're just a bunch of rich, eccentric tourists who are enjoying the city a little too much."

"And Merida?" Charles asked, the holo in Anna's HUD crackling with a minor burst of static.

"That's the more worrying part. She's still out cold. My scans show that she's fine but . . ." Anna's voice trailed off as she considered the implications of her most recent train of thought. "I've never known my scans to be wrong, but there's a first time for everything."

"Probably a small, unaccounted anomaly," Charles replied. Anna could see him twiddling with a pen as he leaned back into his wheelchair. "Comas are unpredictable at best, so I've learnt," he went on. "Give it time. She might wake up in the next five minutes, for all we know."

"Still—"

"I know what you're thinking," Charles cut in, "and I also know it doesn't help anything right now. Kill the thought."

"Wish I could tell Elsa that," Anna sighed. "But I'm in no place to do that."

She watched his gaze soften. "What's going on now?"

"We had . . . a discussion. About her. And what she did."

"And?"

Anna sucked in a breath. "I . . . I'm trying to convince her that it isn't her fault. That none of this is."

"I expect you've met limited success," came the reply.

"Tell me about it." The cyborg slumped herself upon the parapet, cursing inwardly as she continued to survey the skyline. "You know how she is about these things. It used to be easier to help her when she got into these moods."

"Going ballistic on Elsa might have something to do with it."

"Not helping."

"Right." A sigh on the other end. "Who's the hypocrite now, huh?"

Anna allowed a small smile to cross her features. "I suppose we all have our moments."

"What exactly did you tell Elsa, then?" he asked.

"That I forgive her," Anna said. "That . . . that I'm sorry for being an idiot. That she can't - she can't just focus on everyone she's killed, intentional or not. She needs to look at everyone she's helped. Everyone she's saved." Myself included, in more ways than one.

"You think she bought it?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"Did she believe what you said?"

"Why wouldn't she?"

"Perhaps I should rephrase the question." Hard eyes bore into her soul. "Did you mean what you said to her, Anna?"

"Wha—? What kind of question is that?" the Ascendant demanded, feeling attacked.

"The kind that determines what kind of person you are. And whether you are able survive the next few months with her."

"I—"

Through the holocall Charles fixated her with a deadly stare. "Look, as much as I've said that cooperation is critical, this is more than just getting to work with Elsa to survive. Sometimes cold rationality must give way to compassion."

"I'm doing my utmost to help her!" Anna protested, hands balling into fists.

"I'm sure you are," came the reply. "But I hope you understand yourself well enough to know your own motives. Are you doing this solely to get Elsa's cooperation? Or for something else?"

"Charles, I love her more than anything else!" Anna yelled, striding away in a fury. "I hate what I've done to her! What the world has done to her. I hate that these things happened to both of us, that I had to break her heart! Sure, it took me a long time to realise this after what happened back at Cradle Alpha, but I know for sure that I love her! I don't want her to hurt herself over anyone! Over me! How can you – how can you even accuse me of such a thing?"

How could he? Of all the people? The person with, to her knowledge, the greatest reason to help Elsa, be asking her about—?

Oh.

Silence hung over the call.

She understood then, what Charles meant. Because deep down within her, there was a part of her that knew what all this really was about. All of this, from the consoling to the apologizing, was borne not just of sentiment but also of practicality. The endpoint was the same, but the intent was glaringly different.

Did that matter?

Did that make her a hypocrite?

How much of what she had said to Elsa was true? Did she mean to lie? Did she mean simply to reduce the tension between them? And for what? Personal comfort? Mission success? Or because she genuinely forgave Elsa?

Was that even possible?

"You know, after she paralyzed me from the waist down it was difficult to accept her for who she was," she heard Charles begin. When she looked up his expression was markedly different. More forlorn. Regretful. "Didn't ever expect to become one of her closest allies. One of her friends."

"You've done a lot for us," Anna said, not quite knowing where this was going. "For her."

"Maybe," he continued, "but part of me still feels guilty. I know I'm helping the person that killed my teammates. People I was responsible for. People I had to personally bury. People whose families looked to me for answers that no one could possibly have.

"At the time, knowing that a life, your life if I recall, was at risk – it made it easy to focus on the job. But past that? I knew making amends was inevitable. But I didn't know it would be right; I needed more time to know her. You, after everything you've both gone through, have the luxury of knowing her for who she really is."

"I don't understand," Anna asked. "She still did all those things." Just like what she told me today?

"And she did so many things with you," Charles replied. "She showed you who she was outside of the pain and trauma. Someone who cared. Loved. And would die for those people in an instant.

"You will feel like you're betraying your feelings at times. But you need to know that at the end of the day, she is more than what she was forced to do. When she was free from her past, that was her true self. Someone who couldn't bear to make everyone else sufffer."

"I can tell myself that all the time," Anna said, "and I can tell Elsa that all the time. But sometimes, I don't even know if I believe what I'm trying to tell her." Her gaze fell to the floor. "Does that make me manipulative? Because that's the last thing I want." And the last thing either of us deserves.

"Deep down, I think some part of you does forgive her," Charles said. "And while it's not my place to force you to reconcile, I think your heart is in the right place."

"And where's that?"

"A grounded, genuine place."

Anna sucked in a breath. "You know, not everything we've just talked about makes sense, right?"

"Words are vessels for meaning and emotion," Charles chuckled. "They don't always need to make sense, as long as they help you understand what needs to be done. And right now, you might not believe it yourself, but I think you do know what you need to do."

Anna would find Elsa training again when she returned, using the training space they had created together. A day after they had arrived, Anna had cleared out a portion of the hotel penthouse suite, disassembled some of the furniture and created a mat using the salvaged cushions. Then she had reconfigured some hotel devices into AR projections to facilitate simple simulations. In the absence of Anna's own tacspace, usually when she was asleep or conducting recon of the surrounding area, Elsa would train there. She just didn't think that Elsa would still be training after today's episode.

Anna didn't say anything when she entered; she just sat by the side, watching Elsa finish up the combat course, striking and dodging the targets that whirled in circular motions. So reminiscent of their times in the academy. Anna remembered watching Elsa execute similar moves, trying her hardest to understand how this monster of a woman could pull off so many things, let alone remember all of them at the same time.

It was . . . interesting, to say the least, to know that their roles had changed; now Anna was the one observing Elsa with the hope of correcting her, and now Anna was the one with the superhuman strength and agility. Everything had flipped on its head: the stakes, the training dynamic, the relationship they shared.

The last one hit her a bit harder than she had expected.

She looked on at Elsa's training. There was a definite benefit that came with the external perspective, watching the former ascendant quite literally fight her way back into familiarity. So many moves that Anna herself were familiar with, and so many that she wasn't; sometimes she forgot the time Elsa had spent studying and honing herself into a sheer force to be reckoned with. Even without the speed Anna knew her for, Elsa could hold her own against more than enough.

If only Elsa herself could see that.

For now, Anna decided that leaving Elsa to her own devices was the best course of action, for the both of them. So instead of disrupting the training ritual downstairs Anna moved herself into the main bedroom where Merida lay to check on her

Or at least, where she thought Merida lay. Anna found the archer slouching in one of the chairs by the window, fingers pressed against her face and gazing out at the view. "Didn't think you'd be up by now," Anna remarked. "Feeling any better?"

The other redhead turned to her, the bruise on her face coming into view. "Throbbing," Merida replied, running a hand over the bluish-blackness in an experimental fashion, wincing as her fingers brushed over the skin. "A lot of it. Maybe hangovers aren't the worse headaches you can get after all."

"I'll bet."

"What the hell happened to us?" The archer took another look at her surroundings, confusion written upon her features. "How long have I been out?"

"You took a direct hit on our way into the transport." Anna sat down on the floor beside her and leaned against the glass panes, feeling the warmth of the sun roll over her. "Since then, we busted Elsa out and have been on the run ever since. I hacked into a hotel suite so we could lay low."

"Lay low?" Merida's amused eyes roamed the room. "Girl, if this is laying low, I wonder what the hell you two have gotten accustomed to. Cradle Alpha must have been one hell of a love nest."

Despite the circumstances Anna found herself breaking into a smile. "It was . . . something. Something special indeed."

"I seem to recall," She watched Merida shake her head, trying to remember. "You said Elsa — you and her, something happened. And then all of this crap hit us. What the hell is going on?"

"She—" Anna stopped herself short. Telling Merida the true nature of their conflict would be thorny at best; she couldn't afford any more disagreements. Especially not after she herself was barely managing to keep it together.

Then again, secrets were what got them into this situation in the first place. Might not be the wisest decision to sweep the issue under the carpet and let it blow up later. If Elsa had to deal with Merida's wrath now, better now than later.

"You remember the catastrophic climate incident in New Vancia?" she continued. "That wasn't an accident. That was her."

Merida blinked, the revelation sinking in. "So you mean . . ." Her eyebrows furrowed. "You mean . . . your . . . parents—"

Anna's response was a single nod.

Merida swore and looked away.

The Ascendant sat there, unmoving, watching her friend for a reaction. Merida's expression remained inscrutable for a good ten seconds before she turned back and regarded Anna with an intense gaze. "How did—" she began, then cut herself off to say, "I take it that this wasn't exactly pleasant?"

"You really know exactly what to say at exactly the right time." Anna's words dripped with sarcasm, but her smile was warm. Amused.

"My bad." Merida hammered her fists upon her thighs, awkward and flustered, at a loss for what to say further. Anna didn't blame her. By all accounts she was taking this better than Anna had anticipated. "You . . . you okay?"

Anna's smile took on a sad turn. "I guess." A sigh. "I just don't know what to do with this. I mean, I know she was forced to. I know it isn't her fault. I know that she's free from Empyrean and she's the most wonderful person I've ever known. And yet . . ."

She didn't realise she'd trailed off into silence until Merida cut in. "Part of you still blames her."

"Yeah."

"I say fuck it." Merida stood from her chair with an energy unbecoming of her injury. "Your anger shouldn't be directed at her, it should be thrown at the bastards that made her do this. That made her hurt so many people. No one deserves to be put through that. You need to make them pay."

"I know that much for sure," Anna said, "but I still can't feel the same way I did with her before."

"No one could have known," Merida replied. "Least of all you. And no one can expect you to forgive her just like that."

"And how do we decide who gets to be forgiven?"

"That depends if that side of the person is still there." Merida placed her hands upon Anna's shoulders as she sat down in front of her. "People do terrible things, but some of them dedicate their life to atonement. You can't judge someone by their mistakes alone."

"And if the mistake is grievous?"

"Even malicious intent can be forgiven under the right circumstances. And I'm the cynical one." Anna watched her run another hand over her bruise, wincing once again, as if making sure it was still there. "Yep. I'm not dreaming either. Apparently, I still got some heart left in me."

Anna let her head fall back against the glass with a thump. "You know, I thought this would be easier. With everything at stake. That I wouldn't find it so hard to help myself. To help her."

"The fact that you want to help her is an answer in itself." A squeeze on Anna's shoulders. "You still care. There's nothing wrong with that."

"I remember a time where you would go ballistic on anyone trying to hurt me without hesitation."

The statement was in jest, and Merida smiled in kind. "In fairness, she isn't trying to do that. I've seen how worried she is for you. I never thought we'd see you again, and she was the one risking her life to bring you back, even when I was blaming her for everything."

"How do I know I'm doing the right thing by forgiving her?"

"Faith."

Anna snorted. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Hey, I'm not the one that decided to curl up to some random who was dropped into our academy team out of the blue," Merida laughed, "and I'm certainly not the one that was dying to get laid by her."

Anna's rolled eyes were met with more guffaws. "Jokes aside though," Merida went on, "I definitely wasn't the one that placed their faith in a total stranger. You were. And you used to find that easy."

"That was different," Anna retorted. "I didn't know what I know now."

"And yet right now, whether you want to admit it or not, you still care," Merida said. "I've known you long enough to know that much."

Merida was right, Anna realised. Not ten minutes ago she was hoping Elsa could see herself in a more positive light. Not whatever dark hole she now found herself in.

"You know what she's done to you," Merida continued, "but you also know what she's done for you. And whatever you choose to do, you just need to have faith that it's the right choice. That's about all we can do."

Way easier said than done, Merida. Way easier said than done.

Anna woke early the next day to no incident. The sun's rays streamed through the windows of her room, and it took her a while to remember that she was not back in Cradle Alpha, and was, in fact, on the run.

So much had changed in the last few days.

Her first stop was to check on Merida, but she was not in room Anna had left her in the previous night. She could, however, hear Merida's voice from the room's bathroom; the archer was speaking rapidly to an unknown party. Probably through a call.

Feeling mildly guilty at herself, Anna patched herself into the call. It was Merida's parents. Unwilling to prolong her intrusion of Merida's privacy Anna simply further encrypted the call and shut herself off. She came away feeling less than pleasant, forcing herself to remember that this was merely a necessary precaution. It'd been a while since she and Merida had caught up, and she was not quite aware of the full extent of Merida's training. Better safe than sorry, at the end of the day.

Her next stop was to check on Elsa. Last she could recall, she parted with Elsa at their training setup, with the latter giving a vague promise to sleep 'soon'. Knowing Elsa, Anna knew that probably did not happen.

"Please tell me you have not been up all night, training by yourself," she said, as she walked into the main area, Elsa already engaged in a training routine.

"I – haven't," came the reply. She watched Elsa hurl another virtual knife at a simulated assailant, the tip slamming into the pixel helmet. "I simply got up early. To train."

Anna was tempted to run a bioscan on Elsa, but one look gave her all she needed to know. Elsa's eyebags were more pronounced than yesterday's, and a definite look of exhaustion hung from her features. All-nighter or not, she was definitely exhausted.

"Throwing yourself at training without the right mindset isn't going to help you," Anna said, moving towards Elsa. "And neither is doing so without proper rest."

Elsa swung her arms in an outward sweep, dissipating the simulation. "I have to do it."

"You might have to do it, but it won't work unless you want to do it."

"We can't afford to wait that long."

"We have to." Anna rested a hand upon Elsa's shoulder. "Otherwise you won't learn from your mistakes. And that could be lethal in the field. Like you told me."

It was still strange for her to have physical contact with Elsa, after the incident. The instinct for her to do so was still there. But it didn't feel the same. And that was probably what hurt the most.

Elsa didn't outwardly appear to share similar concerns. "Guess I'm not really good at taking my own advice, huh?"

Anna returned the small smile on Elsa's face. "I doubt any of us are."

"How's Merida?"

"You know she woke up?"

"Heard you two talking yesterday."

She felt a sense of discomfort fill her. She could hear us? Anna didn't know how much Elsa had heard of that particular conversation, and was unsure how much of that conversation she was willing to let Elsa hear. Probably best to dodge that one. "Was really surprised she woke up, in fairness. Given how long she'd been out, I thought it would take her a while more."

If Elsa knew she was deliberately changing the subject, then she was rolling with it. "About time," Elsa said. "Was beginning to genuinely worry."

Anna arched an eyebrow. "You weren't genuinely worried before?"

A small chuckle. "Not really. She's one tough cookie. If nothing else, she can take a hit."

Footsteps from behind them. "Speak of the devil."

"Just got off the phone with my parents," Merida said, running up to them. "Suffice to say, they're not exactly thrilled to know that their supposedly kidnapped daughter is actually deliberately joining the two most wanted people in the entire Sector right now, but I've managed to convince them to not immediately sound off to the authorities."

Anna had never seen Merida shaken up before, but this was the closest yet. She didn't need a bioscan to figure out that much.

"And how the hell did you manage that?" Elsa asked.

"Safety concerns, and all. I got them to worry about me being caught in a crossfire if they called local forces on you guys." Merida rolled her eyes. "As if we've never done that before."

"You sure you're okay with this?" Anna asked. "This isn't your fight. You don't need to—"

Merida sucked in a breath, cutting her off. "Those bastards killed Rapunzel. If it wasn't my fight before, that sure as hell made it mine."

"Right as you are though," Elsa said, "that does call into question the long-term viability of our position. We're out of resources that we would normally have, and we have to constantly be on alert. Concealed. Not quite the position we wanted to be in to deal with the mo—"

Anna looked at Elsa in concern, watching her struggle to finish the sentence. "To deal with Hans."

Elsa nodded.

Anna beckoned them to sit on the only remaining couch, and they did. For a while only silence passed between them, before Elsa spoke again. "We need to manage whatever we have left. For starters, weaponry. That part is simple, but critical."

"We still have some gear, thanks to the drone," Anna pointed out. "And I can easily repurpose or reconfigure any spare weaponry into whatever we need, or any prototypes that we come up with."

"Ammunition is the tough part," Merida said. "Even without counting my custom-crafted arrows, bullets alone might be hard to come by."

"I still remember how to fabricate energy weapons." Anna pulled up a set of blueprints and threw them onto the holo-display of the training area. "These should get us by. But anything else and we'll have to get more scrap metal."

"Can't be too hard," Elsa chimed in, as she interfaced with the display and brought up a map of the Sector, highlighting some areas in red. "There are enough metal dumping grounds within range for us to salvage. Anna can make good enough use of those."

"I doubt food will be an issue, since we're basically living off room service. Not that I'm complaining," Merida said. "Hardly got to eat hotel food when I was younger, so this should be pretty interesting."

"Data trails, electronic footprints, encryption shouldn't be an issue," Anna added, making a mental note to do another check on all their networked devices later, "since I pretty much have that part nailed down."

"We'll need contingencies," Elsa said, "which I'll get to later today. In the meantime, we need to think about what we're going to do about Hans. He's got us at a disadvantage. We need to change that."

"How do we go about doing that?" Anna asked, resting her head on her hands. "They're bound to be hunting for us. Even if they don't think of immediately searching this Sector, they're bound to check the area eventually."

"He's got an endgame in mind. One that needs us to be out of the way, so we need to find out how exactly he intends to do it." Elsa paused and frowned. "He doesn't have the files that he needs from Anna, but he's still moving forward with his plan. Either his goal has changed, or we've missed something. It's worth digging deeper either way."

"We don't have any way to get that kind of access." Merida stood from the couch and started scrolling through the data they had brought along on the holoprojection. "Not with being fugitives and all that. In any case, I should probably catch up on whatever y'all have been doing—"

"We do have access." Anna watched as Elsa turned to her. "Charles. Kristoff."

Her own eyes narrowed. "They're both operating inside the UIF in different capacities. How are they going to be able to help?"

"Hans made a mistake when he failed to kill us." Elsa moved over to the projection and cleared the data present, much to Merida's chagrin. A news broadcast materialized. Official broadcast, formal UIF channel, emergency status. With Hans' face on it.

"As of 1500 hours yesterday, two highly skilled UIF operatives carried out a terrorist attack on the Ashton City Medical Centre, and thereafter escaped by hijacking a military transport and ringcycle interceptor." Anna watched his features shift as he transitioned: "Due to the ensuing chaos they were able to slip away and remain at large. The UIF is currently investigating this incident with all available resources."

"I don't see how this is relevant." Anna frowned as facial captures of herself, Merida and Elsa emerged on-screen. If it had not sunk in before it did now: they were being hunted, and now the whole UIF was in on it. "Doesn't this worsen our situation? There is no benefit to be gleaned here."

"Hans is handling this poorly," Elsa said. "He's been forced to come up with an explanation for the chaos we caused, but immediately declared us fugitives with little explanation because there is no legitimate one. There's room to question the move."

"You want them to go up against one of the most powerful figures in the UIF?" Merida asked. "What chance do they have? Especially in public view?"

"They know us, for one. From an outsider's perspective they would disagree, at least publicly, that we've gone rogue. And Charles has the unique position of being our handler. Of all the people who needs an explanation for these events, he's the one that deserves it. That's how they start investigating."

"Into why we defect?" Merida shook her head, confused. "But then—?"

"Not into us," Anna began, sharing a glance with Elsa. "Into everything Hans is doing. They have room to adjust their angle."

"Whatever access they're granted is a lead we can pursue," Elsa finished. "That's where we come in. As fugitives everything we do is illegal anyways. We have less boundaries than they will."

"Every time we act, we will show up on their radar," Anna said. "We need to be prepared to throw down everything in an instant. Bug out and fuck off."

"We've prepared for this for a while now. Ever since we figured out We can do this."

Anna believed her. She found herself actually believing Elsa, like all those times in what seemed like forever. She could feel the atmosphere shift, one of uncertainty and despair to hope, to the potential for actual change. But most heartening of all, it looked like Elsa herself believed it too.

"Can I ask a favour?"

Anna turned. Elsa stood at the doorway to her own room, the one right next to the main area of the suite. The statement was alarmingly sudden, but nothing about Elsa's current appearance gave Anna any particular reason to worry just yet. "Sure," Anna replied. "Anything."

She caught herself bring dangerously willing to agree to Elsa's request, but it was too late. Not that she knew if it was the correct thing to do anyway. To be willing to reconcile. To work together.

To love her again.

"Any chance you can port the Ascendant files we found in your own database to my datapad?" came the request. "The Ascendant Candidacy Program. With all our info on it."

"Oh." Anna had forgotten about that. Almost forgot what they were fighting for. For a while all she had remembered was that they were fighting. "Sure." Her eyebrows furrowed. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah." A pause. Blue eyes met her own. "I'm just—" Elsa cut herself off with a sigh. "I don't know anymore."

"I get how that feels," Anna said. "I'm getting that a lot recently."

Elsa walked over from the doorway and sat down next to her. It was evening; Anna had not noticed how fast time had passed. She had been sitting through sample simulations for Elsa to practice the next day. She didn't expect Elsa to come this close. Not since everything that had happened.

In silence, Anna accessed the files in her head and ported them over to the device. She hadn't read it since that day, when they'd been hit with the Ambrosia signal. And two black ops squads.

"Thanks." Elsa pulled the files up on her screen, but she didn't leave like Anna was expecting her to. Instead she just sat there, close to Anna, looking at the selection screen. Her finger hovering over her own codename.

"You sure you okay?" Anna offered.

Her hand fell from the screen. "For the longest time all I ever wanted to be was normal. Like everyone else. And right when I get what I want, I need my powers back." Another sigh. "Whatever that chip was, stuck at the back of my neck, its effects seem permanent."

Anna remained silent, not quite knowing where this was going.

"I just thought that . . . " Elsa inhaled deeply. "I thought that becoming 'normal' would change things. Give new perspective. Clarity. Relief. But the moment I need them the most is when I lose them. It's almost as if life is just fucking with me."

She drifted off into silence again. Anna shifted closer to her, trying to glean her expression. Elsa's face was a mask of torment. Consternation. Regret. "This is all just a mess," she continued. "Every time I think things are going to get better, they don't. They get worse. New problems emerge. It's one long streak of suffering with no end in sight."

"You know that's a deliberately negative perspective." Anna gazed out at the city, watching life pass them by, a feeling of melancholy. "That logic is easily flipped on its side."

"Doesn't mean it's wrong."

"It isn't the only perspective to see life."

"How am I supposed to see it then?"

Anna blinked, unsure. "If the only constant in life is suffering that emerges eventually, regardless of what you do, then . . ." She thought for a second. "Then I guess it's all about what you're willing to suffer for."

Elsa glanced at her, then back at the datapad. "And is all of . . . this . . . worth suffering for?"

"You want to run away?"

"I just want to not have to be so goddamn tired all the time," came the reply. "To not be paranoid that someone is going to kill us at any second. To know that what I'm doing isn't just to usher along the next instance of anguish. That this is worth it. Somehow."

"Only you can answer that question," Anna said, "but it's not wrong to want a break. No one can shoulder their burdens forever."

"My burdens seem to find a way back to me." A bitter smile emerged upon her features, before she sighed again. "I'm sorry. I didn't come here to bother you."

"I understand. And it's really okay."

Anna wanted to say something more. Because she was sure she felt something more. But she wasn't sure what that more was. And so all she could do was let Elsa leave.

It wasn't exactly a bad conversation. If anything, it was progress since a few days ago.

But it still hurt to watch her go.

And that was the worst part.