Haaaa, got another chapter for you guys ^^

enjoy

I'm probably going to Keep going with the interaction between Alex and A3 for another few chapters before they meet the raiders again.

Not sure why I'm writing this though xD

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"You seem a bit sluggish Alex. It was just one beer, come on."

I was training. Why was I training? My head hurt and I have no idea how to neutralize this stuff with my power. I buffed my liver but it didn't help.

Currently I fought with Rose since she wanted to test my improvement. After messing around a bit with my new power I had figured out most of it. It surely wasn't very hard. Though I knew that I was not as proficient in its use as Liam

Due to a small annoying pain behind my brain it was getting annoying to fight Rose. It was not bad, meaning I could manage it if it was only this. But everything seemed so slow or fast at times and I couldn't cope with that.

After blocking her fist with my open palm I motion her to stop.

"Sorry that but that was the first time I even drank anything and Songe told me that that was not some simple stuff. It had a higher percentage."

Rose looks at me innocently then kicks at my legs which I dodge by simply stepping back.

"Trust me, that beer is nothing. And I'm not that much into alcohol. I just enjoy beer once in a while."

She strides forward and tries to throw me to the ground. Again I dodge by sidestepping her attempt.

"You know Alex, Karen detests beer though she seems to get talkative when it comes to whiskey."

I sigh and start a slow seeming chain of attacks pushing Rose back, though she doesn't seem to have much trouble avoiding or blocking them.

Fine let's try this then. I step on her foot succeeding in blocking her movement for a second. I grab around her waist and try myself to throw her onto the ground.

She simply asks and suddenly her entire body becomes loose.

Hmm? Still in full motion I don't notice the heel aiming for my head.

Ow.

It hits like a truck and blows me a few feet back where I lose my balance and fall onto the ground. I submit by raising my hands in admittance.

"I'm done. You win. Just let me stay down here."

With a laugh Rose hands me one of the dozen water bottles she seems to find everywhere.

"Yea, you can't handle alcohol but that's not very uncommon. You're just not used to it and if I am to be honest, if you don't like it then don't drink it. I for my part like it."

Suddenly Ignar bursts into the room. He seems agitated.

"Rose, the others... are back."

He avoids Rose's sight.

"What do you mean? Where they successful? Took them long enough to be honest."

Ignar shakes his head.

"You should come with me. Chris came back... He's telling Karen what happened right now. She told me to gather everyone."

Both of us follow him still in our training garments.

I turn my head towards Rose.

"Who's Chris? Do you mean the rest of A3 that was on a mission?"

"Yea, Christian is their sub leader. Karen told us she wasn't able to tell us what mission they were on. But from what I can gather it didn't go that well."

"It didn't. They messed him up good." was Ignars only respond while we walk up the stairs.

After walking into the research department Ignar stops us in front of a steel door. Liam and Songe are also waiting there.

"Karen already went inside. Told us to wait until she talked it out with Chris. I haven't seen him yet."

Liam shook his head.

"They said nothing about Skall and the rest." forming a fist with his hand he starts shaking a bit. Songe puts his arm around his shoulders.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure that they're fine. They too were first notch in combat."

At that moment the door opens with a loud bang and hits the wall behind it.

In the doorway an emotionless Karen looks at all of us. Then she simply walks by us and says something barely audible. With my modified hearing I can make it out.

"I'm going to kill every single one of them." was what she had said. She seemed mad.

Without waiting further the five of us walk into the room.

The first thing I notice is that the man on top of the bed has badly healed burns all across his head. It seems that his entire hair got charred off.

He looks like an old veteran with a short grey beard that somehow survived whatever fire robbed him of his haircut.

But what seems worse is that he's missing one of arms. Though it seemed as if it was only removed for repairing purposes.

He looks up and smiles at our group.

"Hey guys. I'm glad you came..."

Rose pushes Liam and Ignar away and rushes to the side of his bed.

"Chris what happened to you?!"

She grabs his remaining hand. It seems as if he was very important to her.

Ignar too seems very concerned.

"Yea... Chris what happened? I thought it was only a support mission."

Although Christian seems quite hurt he pushes himself up a bit.

"It was a liquidation mission. We were supposed to either kill or subjugate one of the Fallens higher ranking espers in Arizona. He himself wasn't much of a problem."

He sneers but quickly catches himself again.

"Although it took us a while to get his exact location it took merely minutes to capture him. But we met more resistance than the information suggested."

Shaking his head in regret he keeps talking.

"The esper, was a higher lv 3. But he had support from one of the Fallens strongest..."

Everyones faces turn hard.

"Who?" Ignar asked.

" he rendered my entire squad unable to move and then one of their others buried them in molten earth. I do not know how but that one person is able to crush parts of our armor. I do not think that it is impossible for the others to have survived. But at the very least Skall is dead. He took down our target with him.

As for the others. I do not know."

Everyone seemed shocked and I could understand. Even though I had never met them I knew how the other probably felt towards them.

"They're going to pay." Although outraged the professionalism of veterans took over.

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"You should rest Chris. You've done enough. They'll fix you up and I'm sure headquarters will give us new missions soon enough. We'll get the rest of the details from Karen. We'll take care of them. Don't you worry about that."

Rose pressed Chris' hand a last time then backed off and pulled everyone out of the room.

Since I had held myself in the back I wasn't sure if he had even noticed me.

After closing the door behind her Rose turns towards all of us.

"We should go talk with Karen."

Somehow I feel uninvolved with the entire thing. and it hurt. I did not want to feel nothing towards the death of four of my comrades. It felt wrong but I had never met them, so how could I.

"SHIT!"

Surprised at the loud noise I look towards my left. There I can see Liam who punched against the wall leaving a dent behind. Then his entire behavior changes again and he seems to calm down.

"Let's go to Karen." was the only thing he said afterwards and all of us follow Rose through the buildings.

Nobody says a single world while we head towards Karens main office.

Without knocking on the door Rose simply rushes in. Inside Karen seems to be on the phone with someone.

"What do you mean you didn't know!? You should have known this!"

Shouting at the unknown person she too seemed infuriated.

"Where are they now?"

"..."

"I don't care if those are not my orders. You can't stop us anyways."

With that she puts down the phone and looks at us.

"You talked with him? Of course you did. We're going after and any objections?"

Those were probably the ones that fought the other squad.

"Can we recover the bodies?" asked Liam "I want to bury them accordingly."

Karen shook her head.

"They will be recovered by another team. Headquarters told us that we should act responsible. We know where they are. I suggest finishing them to fulfill the job."

"We're in." calm on the outside Rose answered for the team. Then more towards me. "Alex, I know you don't know much about the rest of the squad but-"

I don't let her finish. I want to help I know how it feels to lose close to oneself.

"I'm in as well. I'll help you with all I can."

Karen lowers her head.

"Thank you. We know where they are right now. Apparently they've got a small base somewhere along the grand canyon. We're going right now or else they might be gone when we get there."

She looks at everyone.

"Get whatever you need and show Alex her equipment. And one last thing. I don't want anyone to get immobilized. We're not going there for capturing anyone. They are a threat. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes Captain." Was our mutual answer.

"Dissmissed."

After walking out of Karens office everyone heads straight for the armory. For the first time do I not simply see a friendly atmosphere in between the four of them.

On the way there the air around them changed to something very chilling. This was the professional team everyone respected.

In the armory everyone takes off their main clothes and attaches the rest of their personal armor to their bodies.

I had worn it only once before in a small training session with Songe. It basically consisted of multiple metal plates that were attached to the legs and arms so it covered the entire torso of the soldier.

The helmet itself was a separate thing. Everything was made from the same material as the limbs and housed next to a com unit and separate mechanisms nothing electronic.

It was quite an awkward feeling having the cold metal touch the naked skin but I knew that it would heat up soon enough.

After getting into the armor everyone almost looked the same. Fully black clad soldiers.

Rose hands everyone what seems to be a slightly modified version of an old assault rifle and two extra mags.

"I doubt we'll need more, they are more for suppression purposes as anything else."

Luckily the armor can hold a few kinds of gear on different parts this included a small caliber hand gun that was strapped to thigh.

"The rest we need is in here and at the outpost." Rose points at her own limbs and rushes outside. After taking small varying things the others soon follow her.

I look down at myself while my visor is still opened. I laugh since I look like a fully fledged robot from some Science-fiction flick. Then I too run after my other comrades.

Then I realized how little I still knew. Ignar takes the lead and guides us outside. Karen already seems to be waiting outside in full gear.

In contrast to our armor her has small insignias on the left side of her breast signaling her rank to the ones that know about it.

"Chopper is should be coming any second now. I hope everyone is ready. We're only coming back with their heads."

Hadn't thought that she would be this bloodthirsty.

"Headquarter finally told us that we're allowed to... Not that I'd care anyways. So we even got green light from them. We-"

She gets interrupted by an approaching sound of rotor blades.

Quickly advancing a transport helicopter makes it way over to us. The sound and the wind get reduced by our equipment so we barely feel the pressure that forces the grass onto the ground.

"Get in now!" Without even waiting for the chopper to land Karen jumps inside and everyone follows her lead.

"What the heck ARE YOU DOING?!" shouts from the cockpit quickly get shut off by Karen. Though I have to admit the whole aircraft had fluctuated too much for comfort when we had jumped on.

"Just fly, that's an order soldier!" she seemed to lose her calm more and more so the pilot quickly followed her order and lifted off before even touching down.

After everyone sat down we all closed our visors and the coms started coming up.

Inside our helmets Karen started taking.

"There is another reason why this will be a pure liquidation mission. We don't know power. can simply increase the heat an objects base temperature and we can deal with that. But we should not allow to utilize his power."

She hands Liam a sheet of paper and suddenly a picture appears inside of my mind. Liam showed it to everyone. On it I can make out two people. One of them being a teenage boy wearing a suit, with curled brown hair and an middle aged woman wearing shorts and with long hair of the same color.

"Those two are out targets. We'll be able to get a bit more equipment in the outpost in Arizona but should you ever see any of the two do not ask questions. Simply neutralize them, understood?"

"Yes Captain." everyone answered in union. Even I. Somehow I did not feel troubled about killing these two. I was doing this for my new found family.

My face turns hard like the others. I- no, we would make them pay.