We materialized with a curious sensation, that being no sensation whatsoever. It might have taken me entire moments to realize were were elsewhere, had my visor not thrown up a thousand warning notifications, alerting me of sudden shifts in velocity, altitude, position, and trajectory. For an instant, as it came to terms with the fact that I was stationary and not shooting through the crust of the Earth at impossible speeds, it projected my imminent death in a variety of gruesome ways.

Eventually the system reoriented itself, and once it confirmed I was not, in fact, deceased, it gave me much more helpful information, such as the fact that we were now currently and successfully in a sub-level beneath the facility's main hangar.

"Good luck, Athan," AEGIS wrapping her remaining arm around him briefly. "Remember, he was able to beat Saga. He's no pushover."

"That's why I have Karu," he said with what appeared genuine confidence.

"Good luck to you too," she said, suddenly turning on me. I was surprised to find we were apparently still on good terms and could only give her a terse nod, feeling stupid for not finding words in time as she left to explore the area.

I led us into a stairway, the heavy metal door clanging shut behind us. "I imagine we will find few who do not use the elevators," I said. "The target is near directly below us, and through here we should be able to reach proximity without creating an alert."

"I hope she's okay," Ashton said, apparently ignoring my words as he followed me in jogging down the metal spiraling stairway.

"She is chasing a facility administrator who believes herself safe. I doubt there is much more difficult between her and her goal than an unlocked wooden door."

"I hope you're right."

"If anything, we should worry for ourselves, as it were. Director Blackett will be guarded no matter the situation, and as the AI mentioned, was capable of defeating an immortal Exhuman. He has had plenty of opportunity to study and prepare countermeasures against your powers and is in charge of the source of my weapons and tech. We should tread carefully."

"Sure," he replied, but I could still sense his thoughts elsewhere.

"Focus on the moment or you will kill us both. This is why we could not date," I snapped at him. Of course, I didn't wish to die, but I also could not resist pointing out how it had been his fault in things such as this which had made being together too dangerous to begin with...and to drive an unsubtle reminder to him not to waste his time thinking about the AI.

"Sorry. Yeah. Let's focus," he said to himself.

He did seem to remain focused as we finished descending the next few flights of stairs in silence and advanced on the exit door.

"I cannot see too well with all the concrete and metal," I said, "but it appears that this area is primarily offices and briefing rooms. An administrative area of sorts, and with far fewer moving through it than the floors above."

"Blackett's in a control room, do you think that'd be with the offices or meeting rooms?"

"Meeting rooms, in my experience," I said. "Those in their offices tend not to want to be anywhere near active ops not their own.

"Then we go left here," Ashton said, and crouching, moving quickly but silently, passed through the metal door of the stairway and out into the hall.

We crept from corner to corner, advancing swiftly through the halls, sometimes having to crouch under windows where a room full of XPCA were meeting or briefing, sometimes having to find an alternate route in the large grid-like floor to bypass a group in conversation or sentry standing on alert near a doorway.

We went down one hall and Ashton stopped and backpedaled to peer through the one we'd passed.

"Found him," he said. I looked but saw only a woman XPCA officer who looked as though she were a posted guard despite her rank, and judging by the lax state of her uniform, her slouching posture, and the mobile in her hand, was doing it poorly.

Ashton led us in advancing quickly but carefully on the girl, whom I picked out to be slightly older than myself and very average looking. She did not look up until Ashton was right on top of her.

"Hey Cosette," he said, and the name and face clicked. I'd met her before in a briefing, this was Ashton's direct supervisor, Colonel Dawn, and something of a right-hand woman to Director Blackett over the pet project of the P-Force, if I understood the relationships correctly.

"Chariot?" she said, with obvious shock. She looked him up and down, taking in his street clothes no doubt, and gave me a glance as well. "What the hell are you doing here? You were on personal leave?"

"Haha, funny story really...I actually came out here to check on Jack's girlfriend. Steffie, the blue-haired girl? She's a New Edener"

"No kidding? They're an item? I thought he was just hanging onto her out of guilt. I actually had a talk with him about it at some point, trying to get him to open up a little and let him know what happened to her wasn't his fault. Looks like I read that one wrong," she laughed. "But she's not here, she's in the city...or in the mess outside it, isn't she? How'd you get authorized to get in here?"

"I'm uh, not. Kind of an...extracurricular...thing," he laughed apologetically.

She stiffened immediately. "Chariot, are you kidding me? If you tell me this whole...New Eden fiasco was your doing--"

"Hey, why would you assume that?"

She stared blankly at him, slouching yet further as though she had to descend to even greater depths to keep talking on his level. "Oh, I don't know, maybe your whole service record? Educated guess." She shook her head. "You are going to be in so much trouble, and I don't know if I can cover for this one. Seriously...if this mess had anything to do with you at all…"

"It won't be a problem," Ashton said with such confidence that even I believed him. "We just need to...to find Blackett. Do you know where he is?"

"He's in here," she leaned against the wall and gestured towards the door next to her with her head. "Just out of a meeting and heading back to the command center in a few. So good timing, I guess. Want me to see if he's willing to talk?"

"No, I'll just go in," Ashton said, but she held the door as he tried to open it.

"Hah. Funny guy. I know I let you get away with a lot, and that's absolutely going to bite me in the ass when the hearing goes down if it is true that this mess has your fingerprints on it. So you can forgive me for not letting you just waltz past me now."

"Cosette, seriously," he said. "I need to settle things with him, and then it'll all be okay."

"Anyone ever told you you're a shit liar, Ashton? What the hell are you seriously planning to say to him that would make him forgive you for all this shit?"

Ashton hesitated, silent, and I was worried for a moment that he was about to tell her the absolute truth. As the seconds passed, I realized, I needn't have worried. I should have already known. The idiot boy was about to divulge everything, possibly even within earshot of our target himself.

I stepped in and fired an impact concussive blast on the wall behind her, throwing the girl over Ashton's head, where she landed with a roll, both surprisingly agile and surprisingly prepared for the blast. Ashton shot me one fleeting glance and then flung himself through the door where Director Blackett resided.

Stolen novel; please report.

It was well known that many debilitating attacks grew less effective the more one is exposed to them. Stun grenades, sonic emitters, concussive blasts, even neural scramblers became less and less useful as a veteran grew in experience, became accustomed to disorientation, and even able to fight through it. It was why I had so little problem with gunfire and explosions, even in a confined space.

This woman, Major Cosette showed exactly that aptitude as the blast did nothing to phase her.

"So what the hell is this, then? Just treason?" she spat at me. "After everything I've done for that kid?"

"Do not take it personally," I shrugged. "I know that he appreciates your efforts."

"But not enough to not come in here and have his girlfriend try to blow me up? What the fuck is wrong with you people?"

"Regrettably," I said, taking careful aim, "I am not his girlfriend."

"What, he changed again?" Her sidearm was in her hands, pointing steady at me.

The conversation abruptly ended with the explosion of gunfire as she went prone, firing as she dropped with enough accuracy to bruise me through my armor. I got what use I could from my jetpack, having it fire me laterally and used it and my mind to evade while my body aimed and fired.

I deployed a shock net, but she simply rolled to the side and the net went sliding down the hallway, crackling and clicking. She rose to one knee, firing and hitting me again, making me cover my face instead of firing back as a bullet ricocheted painfully off my visor.

I didn't have the space to maneuver properly down here, and she was a disgustingly good shot. Perhaps not fast or acrobatic, but I'd already been hit twice and was bruised and breathing heavily enough to lose optimal capability.

I went to return fire, but she was gone. She didn't have time to go down the hall which meant she had disappeared into one of the doors next to her. I advanced on the first of the two closed doors, across the hall from the room where Ashton now stood, and pulled a grenade from my bandolier, priming it with my thumb.

With a fluid, practiced movement, I kicked the door open and lobbed the grenade inside, retreating back around the corner in the moment before it went off. As I did, the second door burst open, and Cosette dropped out of it on one knee, firing into where I was pressed immobile against the wall, my own escape options cut off by the breaching maneuver.

I felt a bullet tear into my thigh behind my plate before my jetpack could carry me backwards and around the corner. In a moment of desperation, I flung another grenade at a door as I passed.

A proximity fuse, near the door where Ashton and Director Blackett were. She would not be able to pursue me down this hallway, and more importantly, she would not be able to interrupt their meeting. An important victory, which bought me control over the flow of the battle for the moment. No longer was I fighting a defensive fight, having to keep her off the objective, now I could move freely and attack her from any angle.

Or, I thought, noticing a larger briefing room nearby, I could choose the battlefield.

I heard her shoot the grenade I'd placed several times to no avail. Perhaps if she had more than a standard sidearm. I flew down a hallway, making no secret of my passing, and kicking an armed but not exosuit-clad XPCA as I passed, dropping him against the wall and into unconsciousness from the added force of my jetpack.

I reached the large auditorium and rose into the air. It wasn't spacious, by any stretch, but it was large enough to maneuver. It was as close to an optimal battlefield as I would find down here. My visor had automatically marked the Major as a priority target, and I watched as she barreled down hallways after me, stopping at every corner to check for an ambush before following the path I'd taken exactly.

She must have expected me to go for this room, knowing the layout and my capabilities, or she had an exceptionally good nose. The plasma of my jetpack did not leave an odor when it flew, but rather actually left air which was purified and ion-free. It was difficult to notice, but if one were looking for it, it was as easy to follow a trail of odorlessness as easily as any smell.

But as good as she was, it was stupid of her to come after me alone. She had the opportunity to grab reinforcements, but chose not to, and for that, she would pay.

As soon as she reached the door, I opened fire, flying erratically on the assumption she would do the same, but instead she waited out my opening volley, and took advantage of my new poorer positioning to establish cover behind a row of metal benches by the door.

But that was not a wise choice. Unless it was fully surrounding cover, all I had to do to circumvent it was fly to a new angle of attack. I shifted in the air, using an optical trick to lose her tracking and repositioned such that I would have a shot at her exposed back.

So my confusion was complete when, before I could take a shot, I felt a bullet slamming me backwards in the chest, and another tearing through my flightsuit at the armpit, just under my shoulder plate. I swore and served in the air, attempting to control my thoughts to keep my neural uplink from going red while also assessing how she'd managed to track me when I felt another white-hot punch in the abdomen.

I gasped and began to fall. Desperately, I forced myself sideways, but with three bullets lodged firmly in me now, and my confusion stupidly eroding away at the pain-dulling benefits of adrenaline, the maneuver hurt me as much as it might have helped.

So I dove instead. Crashing as gently as possible, I put myself on the opposite side of the auditorium from her, with metal benches between us as she'd originally aimed to do. I swore and gave myself a moment to spray medical gel on my wounds while she advanced cautiously. The moment the distinct sound of medical gel spraying carried to her, I heard a magazine clatter as she took the opportunity to reload.

She was an experienced soldier, of that there was no doubt, a veteran with experience possibly exceeding my own. What Director Blackett had her doing babysitting his test task force, I had no idea, but it had been sheer idiocy of me to assume her just another officer.

I had the advantage of firepower, however, and flung a handful of explosives in her general direction, prompting her to run before they detonated. As I rose to take the shot on her exposed form, she lowered, running in a crouch to stay behind cover as best as possible, and slowing not at all as my shots hit all around her.

An instant later, she popped up from somewhere slightly else and returned fire, forcing me back into cover. I hadn't even seen her move, even with my visor.

I relocated as well, hoping to catch her in one of the long rows of the benches. They offered decent enough protection from the front or back, but from the sides were useless. And even if I was not flying, I had the advantage in speed still by using my pack, though the wounds were slowing me down greatly.

For the second time, when I arrived at where I thought she was and opened fire, I found her somewhere else entirely. She'd retreated instead of advanced, perhaps knowing that I would come as I had, and my moment of exposing myself to fire down an empty row of seats had exposed me for yet another shot to the visor which made my vision spin and blood seep over the optics.

This damn woman. I wasn't arrogant enough to assume I was the very best by any stretch, but with nothing but a service pistol she was manhandling me like a fresh recruit. I had to retake the air, fighting her on equal footing without bringing my superior mobility and arsenal to bear was just playing straight into her hands.

So up I went, and down went what micro-rockets I had remaining. There would be no cover for her to hide behind, no place to run or hide.

I didn't have enough left to fully saturate the room, but the damage was done. The metal benches were a twisted, glowing, charred wreck, no longer suitable for either cover or for seating. Before the smoke cleared, I practiced my evasive maneuvers, finding movement much more painless, much more possible with medical gel on my wounds.

I built up some speed and flitted around her while she stood motionless, her eyes darting as though she could keep up with me. Still, I would not underestimate her again, I wouldn't stop and shoot until I was confident she would not shoot me out of the sky a third time.

I flew up, down, left, right, using every trick I knew, every blind spot and psychological deception to blind her to my presence, to buy the instant to strike, but it seemed no matter where I moved, I found her eyes there on me, her gun only moments behind.

Was it possible that she, too, was an Exhuman?

I reversed direction and surged to my left again when I felt a white-hot pain and heard the crack of her gun for the first time in many moments. My vision went black and I thought...was that it? Had I died?

But then I realized I was slowing and my jetpack was letting me down. As I descended, slowly, automatically, despite my every command, she took the opportunity to riddle me with four new holes, each one punching through my body, missing my armor plates by inches.

I fumbled and realized what had happened. Her first shot, the impossible shot, taken while I was at full speed, she'd hit me directly in the visor, destroying it, blinding me, and disabling my mental control over my jetpack. After that, I was a sitting duck. I pulled it off with arms which barely moved and threw it aside as my Jetpack brought me to ground level.

I pointed a gun in her direction, and she slid away with a fluid, practiced motion, seeming to disappear, but I knew this trick. She'd moved but dipped in the single instant my own gun concealed her from my sight. I fired anyway, my shot going wide, and she popped out the moment I had, using the recoil from my weapon to cover her own motion, to give her an instant to acquire and fire back.

I thudded backwards against my jetpack, limp and motionless. She'd moved just as I moved, used psychological tricks that I'd made my own, advanced and retreated and flowed with the combat just as I would have. She'd eschewed seeking help to fight me because she was a solo operative. She'd pursued me knowing I would head for this room because she knew me, she was me.

As I bled into unconsciousness, only barely able to see her making her final advance, the truth of who and what she was occurred to me too late.

Like me, Colonel Cosette Dawn was a Peregrine, one of the US Airborne. I was stupid for not seeing it before, it was in her every breath, her every motion.

Her every kill.

Habere Caelum, sister.