Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sova groaned as he gazed down the scope of his operator. Most info collecting missions left him stationed in a makeshift nest, watching an empty site for hours until his legs were too cramped to move. This one was no different, except that he also had Cypher whining in his ear about the cold. It was mid-December, and with the windy elevation of Haven, even Sova had to admit there was a chill in the air.

Cypher’s network had picked up evidence of an incursion into their world near an old monastery in Thimphu, so three agents had been sent to monitor the situation. Sova, Jett, and Cypher had been stationed here for a few days with no activity. It wasn’t the first time intelligence had suggested a bigger threat than was real – sometimes the Omega agents spied the Alpha team first and decided against their plans. Not all their deployments led to high stakes situations, but it was important for Sova to treat every one of them with the utmost credibility. Any situation could turn dire in the blink of an eye.

At least Haven was pretty. Skye had coined the codename when she saw the lush gardens and overgrown foliage. Sova had to agree, though he wished he could see it in spring when the leaves returned, and the wildflowers bloomed. Tucked away, high in the mountains of Bhutan, the views of the surrounding range were only limited by the mist that rolled in from the lake. It was a photographer’s dream. Sova was just framing a picturesque shot with the scope of his operator, when Cypher raised an alert.

“Cypher to Sova.” The spy’s voiced crackled over the comms all the way from A site, where he had his own surveillance nest. “There’s movement on some of my cams, more than we expected. We should regroup.”

Sova stiffened, refocusing his scope on Jett to ensure she left site without issue as she dashed towards Cypher. He hurriedly stuffed his binoculars into his pack and slung it over his shoulder. C site was still clear and quiet, he couldn’t imagine what Cypher had seen on A, but even now, there weren’t any loud noises ringing out across Haven.

He snuck back to retrace his steps towards the A site, carefully letting his sheriff clear each corner and listening for updates over his comms. It was still quiet as he began to climb the steps to A heaven, where Cypher had set up his own surveillance nest.

“Quiet!” the spy hissed when he saw him, though Sova wasn’t making any noise. He peeked out the window and saw Jett poised down long, but she shrugged when she met his eye.

“What did you see?”

“A full team!” Cypher whispered, “I saw them scouting around the base of the mountain, this is a high-density storage site, they could have brought a spike. We should treat this as more than just chatter.”

“They could be here for the same reasons as us,” Jett said.

“No! We must be careful!”

“We have been careful,” Sova reassured, “Brim will want us to collect any information we can, but we shouldn’t engage. If they brought a spike, they’ll likely outnumber us.”

Jett backed away from her post, towards crates of radianite under a winter tarp dusted with frost.

“You think we should call for backup?”

Sova looked to Cypher, who nodded.

“Alright,” Sova said, “I will radio back to base. Cypher, check your equipment, make sure they can’t sneak past us. We still have the element of surprise on our side, and it takes time to set up a spike.”

Cypher nodded and shoved his own binoculars into their case as he hurried out of the nest. Sova picked up some of the heavier equipment and started down the stairs to leave it with his rifle case. He passed his sidearm to Cypher and nodded for him to place his trips on the site he had been watching. Jett met them at the link between the courtyard and the hallway leading to the rest of the monastery.

“We’ll remain here under a low-visibility protocol,” Sova said, “Don’t engage, don’t attempt to prevent them from taking space elsewhere. We’ll hold ourselves here and wait for further support. Jett, you and I will start to reclear B site. We just need to maintain enough space for a VLT/R to –”

An alert pinged on their compasses as one of Cypher’s trips was activated in the grassy space between two of the buildings. The heat signature matched that of a radiant, its glowing silhouette visible on their HUD for a millisecond before a gunshot rang out and the trip was destroyed.

“These aren’t bots, or regular soldiers! Legion sent a strike team! We can’t give them too much space…” Cypher was starting to vibrate with anticipation of a fight; his finger slipped the safety off the sheriff.

“I’ll go check it out,” Jett nodded towards B, “Back soon.”

“Jett!” Sova tried to stop her, but with Cypher already starting to flank the site from A main, he had to choose between the two. “Cypher,” he hissed, but to no avail either. Cypher could take care of himself; Jett needed the backup.

“Wait for my drone,” he warned as he caught up with the duellist, but Jett was haphazardly rounding the corner onto the site. A deep, booming gunshot rattled through Haven, echoing off the stone and rumbling beneath the shrill sound of Jett’s scream.

“Operator window!” Sova commed and leapt towards site. A second shot barely missed him as he dragged Jett behind the solid box on site. Her breathing was heavy and uneven, and her eyes struggled to focus as Sova pressed a firm hand against her bleeding torso.

“H-Help,” she sobbed, hands reaching for his arm.

“Don’t look,” he told her, “Don’t look.”

“Is- It’s bad?”

“Cypher, we have a sniper holding us back-site, can you assist?”

“Just a moment!” His voiced crackled over the comms

“Sova, please,” Jett begged. “Sova, Sova!”

“Shhhhh,” Sova pulled her closer as a gunshot clanged against the box they were hidden behind. He kept his head up, remaining alert to the danger that was closing in around them. There were heavy footsteps thudding around the front of the site, but the Omega agent was obscured by a smoke grenade that popped just outside of C link, and the combatant fled towards garage. Sova glanced around the corner, his drone at the ready to scout them out, when a blinding, white hot light overtook his vision.

He pushed himself and Jett against the box, assuming it was a flashbang, but found the metal box seared through his sleeve and burned his flesh. Everything burned as he placed himself above Jett to shield her from the falling beams. The enemy’s Hellfire felt like it liquefied his flesh until it dripped from Sova’s bones, and his eyes were unable to see through the resulting smoke as the entire site burned and collapsed around them. Legion agents never missed a chance to inflict maximal casualties.

“Cypher?” Sova coughed. He squeezed his eyes closed as they watered. “I need to get Jett to the helicopter, do you copy?”

He hoisted Jett into his arms as he struggled to his feet. She made a weak noise of protest but was limp in his arms.

“Do you copy?”

There was nothing over the earpiece. Panting, Sova began to drag Jett towards their rendezvous point with the helicopter. All around him, wooden pieces of the building were hanging in long slants that stretched upwards into a cloud of smoke obscuring the bell above them. Wood cracked and split as it dried to a brittle point and snapped under the weight above it. Soon, the fire would eat away the remaining supports of the structure and bring down a pile of rubble to bury the crates of radianite – in the haste for a kill, their Omega counterparts had denied themselves their prize.

Jett made a noise of pain as they reached the stone floor leading back towards Cypher’s tower. Some of his trips were still active at the front of the site, meaning no one could have lurked through to catch Sova as he dragged the injured duellist towards safety. The chopper itself was just a bit further, past the stairs up to the surveillance spot. It was smooth and sleek against the aging buildings of the monastery but was already beginning to be clouded by smoke from the building in front of it.

“What the hell happened?” The pilot questioned.

“Full team,” Sova rasped. He shifted his weight and allowed the man to assist him in carrying Jett.

He coughed, leaning against the metal footstep as the pilot ripped open a medical locker. It was so cold against his inflamed skin that his damaged nerves felt it like a blowtorch instead. His own body weight was putting pressure on his back, which had received the brunt of the hellfire, and forcing the blisters to split and ooze. It felt like minutes before he was able to catch his breath enough to think, and to notice that Cypher still hadn’t made it back. He could have been trapped in the rubble, unable to reach them on his own. Sova let out a pained whine as he peeled himself off the metal grate and shook the feeling back into his numb legs. The cold winds of Haven had been replaced by a drafty inferno that radiated so much heat, it felt like he was staring into a fireplace.

“Hey!” The pilot reached out instinctively but didn’t grab him. “You can’t go back there; your burns look even worse than hers.”

Sova coughed again, barely registering the words. “Keep her safe for now, I’ll be back.”

He pulled the comm out of his ear, flicking it as if it might help, before re-inserting it and attempting to reach Cypher again. He trudged back towards where the op shot had pierced his teammate and tried to inch towards the other side of the site. The Omega agent must have been in garage, but the plumes of black smoke were more effective than any grenade. There was too much debris for him to get close enough to see more than a sliver of the stone breezeway outside.

“Cypher, do you read me?”

He briefly opened the map on his compass, hoping to see if Cypher had foolishly gone back to grab his equipment, but the trips on A site were still active, the camera still gazing down long, though no one was flicking it on and off. A large piece of wood fell from the ceiling and Sova threw out an arm to steady himself against the wall. When he brought his hand away, it left a bloody print that reminded him how much sorer he was going to be when the adrenaline wore off.

If the destruction of site B had prevented Cypher from returning, why hadn’t he come back through A site? His muscles throbbed at the thought of having to chase Cypher’s path towards enemy territory, potentially meeting combatants when he was in no state for a fight. He looked towards the flaming ruins again, as if Cypher might materialise, jumping through the smoke unharmed and apologetic, but shook the vision out of his head as he started to retrace Cypher’s path.

“Transport to Ground, we need to get out of here before this smoke makes it impossible, do you copy?”

Sova had just made it to the corner of A site, staring down the long path leading through the lobby and presumably towards where their doubles were. His breath came in huffs that clouded in the air and curled away in wisps. It was cold and silent, with only the smoky smell of burning wood betraying the destruction occurring so close by.

“Sova to Transport, I copy. Heading back.”

Sova waited just a moment, hoping to hear Cypher’s voice affirming his intent to return as well, but there was only the eerie tranquillity of the dead monastery. Something had gone wrong on the spy’s end. The path back to the rendezvous was worse this time as the numbing effect of adrenaline was wearing off. By the time he reached the pilot he was all too happy to collapse against the cool metal floor, though it made him cringe with pain.

“I need your confirmation to leave.” The pilot looked to him, but he was already sliding the door closed and securing the locker.

Sova craned his neck to look at Jett’s lifeless body. She wasn’t moving beneath an oxygen mask. A nauseating feeling overtook him, and he tipped his head back against the cool floor grates again.

“Call back to base for a search and rescue team, Cypher is still on the ground.”

“Yes, sir.” The pilot dashed towards the cockpit while Sova tried to drag himself into a seat to strap himself down. The effort proved far too difficult however, and he flopped on the floor next to Jett as his vision clouded with black.

Chapter Text

Sova awoke in the medical wing of Valorant Headquarters. It was a pristine, white environment that was kept so by Sage as she shuffled amongst the surgeons and physicians. Sova was in a private room, but the other agents had clearly been by to leave him little gifts and tokens of their affection – along with numerous cards wishing for him to “get well soon.”

He let his eyes flutter closed as he wrinkled his nose. A stream of air from an oxygen tube tickled his nostrils, reminding him of the choking smoke inhalation. His burns were still sore, and his muscles ached, but he was lucky to have received the help of a healer’s radiance to ensure they began mending, and that the damage didn’t penetrate further into his tissues.

“You are awake.” Sage must have been waiting by his bedside. She closed a file she had been reading and pulled her chair closer. “How are you feeling?”

“I am fine. Thanks to you.”

“Brimstone wants to speak with you.”

Sova grimaced and looked at his gown. “I’m not surprised.”

Sage placed her hand on his shoulder, the softness radiating deep into his skin. Every touch from her seemed to be healing.

“Sova…” she sounded worried.

“I am fine,” He promised, but her brows pinched together, and she wrapped him in a sudden hug.

“We couldn’t find Cypher,” she whispered.

“What?”

Sage pulled back with tears already clouding her eyes.

“We couldn’t find him. He’s… Sova, it’s been…”

“Why hasn’t the search team found him?”

“There was so much destruction, it took days to sift through the rubble.”

It took days?

“How long has it been…?”

Sage fully let her tears spill over as she fell back against Sova’s chest.

“Three days. E-Even if we found him…”

Sage wouldn’t be able to revive him. The longer an agent was down, the harder it was. And three days? Cypher would be braindead at that point, if his body could even be liveable. Sova felt a migraine coming on – and it wasn’t just the side-effects of Sage’s abilities. He let his hand rest on her shaking back as he stared blankly at the wall. If he had gone further… If he had looked just a little longer… He had barely tried…

“Jett.” Sova suddenly felt clammy.

“She’s okay,” Sage sniffled, “She had a much easier recovery than you.”

“Good.”

“Are you sure you are okay?”

“Yes, I’m –”

“You asked to stay one more night.”

Sova froze.

“I did?”

“You were so tired this morning, I tried to check you over and you told me you needed another night.” She placed a hand on his cheek, and he leaned into her warmth. “This is the most alert you’ve been since they brought you in, but if you aren’t ready yet, I can keep you here.”

Sova shook his head.

“And if you aren't ready to speak with Brimstone, I can –”

“No.” Sova winced as he pushed himself up. “I shouldn’t put it off. Do you have anything for – ach!”

“Go slow,” Sage instructed as she reached to support his shoulders. His pain seemed to revive her with a sense of duty. “I will give you something for the pain.”

Sova sighed, closing his eyes while Sage turned towards the medicine cabinet and handed him a little paper cup with two pills in it. He swallowed them with a gulp of water while she began to disconnect him from the machines that had been reading his vitals.

“We sent a search team with the firefighters. They are still on location, but they found evidence of the strike team from Legion,” she said as she removed a piece of medical tape from his collarbone.

That was bad. Considering that Cypher hadn’t responded to Sova’s comms, he had likely fallen victim to the enemy, meaning he was incapacitated, meaning he couldn’t have gone far. How could an entire search team not find him over the course of three days?

Sova pulled his sweatpants under the gown and reached for the shirt Sage handed him.

“No sign of Cypher?”

She shook her head.

“How?”

“Fade and Deadlock could not find him. They were there as all the rubble was cleared and never found him.”

“Not even…” Sova shivered, and it wasn’t from the cool air against his skin before he pulled his shirt on. “Not even his bones?”

Sage shook her head.

“I’ve never lost anyone,” she said. Sova wasn’t sure what she meant by this; she couldn’t possibly be blaming herself for the spy’s death. That was solely his fault.

“I shouldn’t keep the captain waiting.” Sova stood up stiffly and brushed towards the door, not keen on speaking about whose fault it might be. As soon as he stepped outside, he was struck by a rush of air and a body slamming into his torso.

“Sova!” Jett cried as she wrapped her arms around him, “I was so scared when you weren’t already up! I told Brim it wasn’t your fault, that I made a mistake and –”

“It’s alright,” Sova reassured her. Jett didn’t deserve the blame; she hadn’t been Lead on the mission.

Sage smiled as warmly as she could, the tears still evident in her eyes. “I had to force Jett back to her room every night. She refused to leave your side.”

Jett squeezed Sova tighter, and he tried to hide a grimace at the pressure on his burns.

“Are you busy?” she asked, looking to Sage.

“We are heading to Brimstone’s office,” she answered.

“Oh.” Jett looked deflated at this, like she had no desire to see their captain at the moment. “I guess I’ll walk with you, then.”

She sniffled and shifted so that she could be next to Sova, still wrapped around his waist.

“How are you feeling?” Sova asked.

“Fine, we got back in time before I died, so mostly the surgeon dealt with everything. You needed Sage though.” Her voice became quiet and Sova didn’t ask anything further. Jett seemed like she needed reassurance right now, and he wasn’t sure he could provide it.

The walk to the captain’s office was mercifully clear of other agents, so there was no one to ask Sova about what happened or shame his bad leadership. Jett said her goodbyes before the final turn towards the office, and Sage stepped back after knocking on the door and announcing that Sova was awake and alive.

He swallowed nervously as the door creaked open and revealed Brimstone, looking grim. Sova hunched over – even though he was still taller than the older man – and stepped into the office. Brim closed the door behind him and sat back down at his desk, gesturing to the chair opposite him. They were alone.

“Good to see you up. I was worried about you.” Brimstone didn’t make eye contact but instead shuffled through some papers on his desk. Sova didn’t know how to reply, so he sat down quietly. The captain raised an eyebrow at his silence before cutting to the point. “You left a man behind.”

“I know.”

“I knew you weren’t friends but, God, Sova, you’re my best agent.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Jett told me what happened – as much as she knew – and Killjoy got the footage from Cypher’s equipment. I’ll still need your official report, and I recommend you take it very seriously.”

Sova snapped his head up. “Are you considering…?”

“You are suspended for the time being.” Brim’s stern expression cracked for just a moment, and he spoke in a quieter voice. “I thought you could maintain control better than this.”

Sova almost frowned, since no one could maintain control over Jett and Cypher, but he knew better than to speak ill of the –

“I tried to reach him through comms. I lost a visual as soon as –”

The captain held a hand up to stop him. “Just give me your write-up when it’s finished. I’ve revoked access to your locker and the high-clearance areas. I only wanted to tell you in-person. You’re dismissed.”

Sova nodded and slid out of the chair. He stood for a moment in disbelief, his eyes unfocused as he stared at the floor. Suspended. Brim didn’t trust him out in the field anymore. He was no longer the Protocol’s golden boy. He stepped towards the door and pushed it open again.

Sage was waiting in the hallway, her expression unassuming. He could hear the cracking sound of gunshots above them, muffled through the floor. His teammates were practising their marksmanship in a range he no longer had access to.

“I’m suspended,” he finally said.

Sage instantly reached out to comfort him, though it seemed like she had already known of his forced leave.

“Maybe it will be nice to take a break. Give yourself time to heal.”

Sova let out a disappointed breath. Time off was the last thing he needed. Without the same training schedule and gruelling nights pouring over intel, he would have nothing to distract himself. Would anyone still want to run with him in the mornings? Who would look over his scouting reports? Would the younger duellists still invite him to game nights?

“What am I supposed to do? He didn’t say when I could return to the Protocol.” He hadn’t said if Sova would return to the Protocol.

Sage bit her lip as Fade turned around the corner. She didn’t address either of them as she knocked on Brim’s door and slipped inside. She would likely be taking over Cypher’s duties. And Sova’s, unless he was allowed to perform them again.

“What if you spent some time away from headquarters?” Sage suggested as she led him away from the office. “You still have family in Russia, right? Maybe a trip home?”

A trip to see his babushka? Sova hadn’t visited her since joining the Protocol, and writing letters wasn’t the same when half of what he wrote ended up being redacted. Was it really appropriate to take a vacation right now? What was supposed to happen when an agent died for good? How were they going to handle it?

“I’ll think about it,” he promised Sage, “I’m going to shower now.”

She nodded. “I’ll bring you some ointment for your burns, you’ll need to reapply it afterwards.”

“Do you think he’ll kick me out?”

Sage pondered for a moment, her expression saddened by the thought. “He sees himself in you. He is hard on you because he takes this very seriously – he lost one of his friends, the man in the photos on his desk.”

“I didn’t know that.”

Sova trudged off towards the living quarters while Sage turned towards the medical wing. He needed to stop by his room for a clean set of clothes and a towel. The shortest path would lead past the common areas – the kitchenette, game room, some of the labs – places where other agents were likely to be congregating, but Sova was too tired to take a circuitous route.

He almost regretted not taking Sage up on her offer of another night in the hospital room. At least then he would have spent just one more day as a member of the Protocol. One more day in denial before the inevitability of his actions crushed him into nothingness. The thought slipped into his mind that she should have left him dead, but he shook it out roughly as he grew closer to the sounds of his fellow agents.

Phoenix was loudly chatting with Yoru in the kitchenette when he passed, but only Reyna seemed to notice him slinking by as she glared over her mug. Reyna always glared at him, it might not have meant anything.

Deadlock was playing pool with Skye when he passed the recreation room. She paused, about to hit the cue ball and the fellow hunter’s eyes tracked him past the doorway. There was pain in her expression, probably remembering the loss of her Ståljeger team. He couldn’t tell if she blamed him or felt empathy for his own role in the death of a teammate.

It was when Sova reached the lab – Cypher’s lab – that he truly felt he had lost his team’s respect. Killjoy was sifting through leftover gadgets, and he couldn’t help but stare. She had opened the curtains to work in the light – something Cypher had never done. There were piles of old electronics he had been using for parts and several modifications he and KJ had been workshopping. The young engineer had probably been closest with the spy and, although her own creations were far more sophisticated than his, she looked up to him as a mentor. Sova had gotten her mentor killed.

Killjoy turned around to place something on her workstation and stopped when she saw Sova. For a moment, they just looked at each other, until her frown deepened, and she hastily closed the door in Sova’s face. He blinked at the metal and immediately regretted coming this way, but the privacy of his room beckoned.

He slid the door open and flopped on his neatly made bed. Tears began to flow and Sova smushed his face into the pillow pathetically. He thought of the cards left by his bedside and sobbed harder. They must have been there for days; no one would have left them after finding out what he did. Cypher wasn’t coming back. How could anyone trust him? The captain doubted him, doubted him enough to suspend him for an undetermined amount of time, and that was only because Brimstone liked him. Once Sova submitted his report, there probably wouldn’t even be a tribunal. He would simply be removed from the Protocol. What would happen then? Would they kill him? Would they wipe his memory?

A great pain seized his chest and Sova curled into a tight ball as he gasped for breath. The sheets on his bed were wrinkled and there was a dark wet spot forming on his pillowcase. He rolled over and glanced at the mirrors on his closet door. He looked like a child curled up on his bed. He looked alone.

He felt afraid to make any noise or movement, like he was guilty of being alive when Cypher wasn’t. No matter how vague and cloudy his mind became, the dark feeling still loomed over him that he shouldn’t be doing anything happy or pleasurable such as visiting his home. He had felt such things before, though never as intensely as right then, when he had committed an action so truly heinous that the feeling might never pass. He was embarrassed that the other agents had left him well-wishes, ashamed that Jett still cared for him so deeply, and worst of all he felt as though even accepting comfort from Sage was morally wrong.

He had found camaraderie here, he called many of the agents friends, something he wasn’t sure Cypher had done. Sova was strong, Brimstone’s right-hand man, he was the kind of person that others could look to for guidance and the kind of teacher’s pet role-model that had made Cypher scoff at him in so many briefings. Well, what now? Now he had done something far worse to the spy than was ever deserved, he had trumped all of the pranks and remarks ever thrown his way. Cypher would never tease him again, something Sova had wished for many times in the past, but he had never wanted something like this.

When Sova woke up, a glance at his digital clock told him it was around quarter to six. His eyes felt crusty and dry from crying, and he was drenched in sweat yet freezing at the same time. When he wiped the snot from his nose, he could see flecks of soot still suspended in the mucus. He squinted as he flicked the lights on and began to rifle through his closet for clean clothes, determined to put an end to his selfish pity-party. He sniffled as he slid the door closed again and stared at his bloodshot eyes in the mirror. His hair was tangled and messy, his skin patchy and red, and he could see burns along his neck dipping below the collar of his shirt.

Outside his door, Sage had left two small canisters of ointment for him which he gathered in his bundle of clothes. The showers were close enough to the dorms that he didn’t run into any of the other agents. They were probably at dinner, or a few would be at evening training. He would need to get back to his room before any of them came back. Isolation would be best for him.

The showers were empty and cold, so he had his pick of whatever stall he wanted. He walked all the way down to the end of the room furthest from the door, just in case anyone came in. The air was frigid against his burned skin as he stripped out of his clothes, and he found himself rushing to get under the hot water. He pressed his forehead against the cool tile and let the water pound against his back. The force of it was excruciating, but he deserved it. It hurt more to scrub the dead skin off his arms, but he deserved that too. By the time he turned the faucet off, his entire body was red and irritated and all the mirrors outside the stall were fogged up. Sova shivered as he wrapped the rough towel around himself and sat down to wait for the water to evaporate.

Going home to his babushka sounded better now that he had slept. The other agents would probably be happy for him to leave, and it would give him a chance to make arrangements for when he was kicked out of the Protocol. Sage always made good suggestions, that was why he was going. Not because he was selfish and wanted to escape what he had done.

Chapter Text

As soon as Cypher heard the op shot, he knew he had to work fast. A full fire team had been sent opposite them, and they weren’t prepared to engage. He knew that their mission was surveillance, and surveillance only, but Kingdom had lied about the amount of radianite stored here. That much was plain as soon as they arrived on site, and he couldn’t allow their Omega counterparts to discover whatever other secrets Kingdom had hidden here, not before he could.

“Cypher, we have a sniper holding us back-site, can you assist?”

“Just a moment!”

He carefully rounded the tight corner into the window, but there was no one there, just a couple of bullet casings he recognized from the sniper. He pushed forward and gazed down the sight of his sheriff, breathing steadily so he could aim. He was used to this, lurking through Kingdom’s storage sites alone, gathering intel and holding space for his teammates. He was used to peeking around corners and finding he had to face enemies without backup.

He caught sight of Omen’s cloak whipping around the corner as he slipped into the nearby garage across a small patch of grass. The ghoul had barely been visible, but as bullets began blindly tearing through the walls near him, Cypher knew he had been spotted. Without a second thought, he threw a cage and slipped out of the window, intent on converging with Sova and Jett again, but as soon as he stepped over the threshold of B site, he felt a jarring pain jerk through his thigh. Cypher grunted as he fell and clutched at the bullet wound in his leg. Moments later, a white-hot heat descended upon him. The force of the orbital strike brought the ceiling down above him, and he was stuck fully facing the plume of heat barrelling down on him. His mouth hung agape in shock. There was no indication of the freezing temperatures outside anymore.

He shuddered against the floor like a fish caught on a dock. All around him the wooden walls were warping and bending in the heat. His skin was melting off his body, fusing with his suit, and the wound in his leg barely registered as his nervous system was overloaded. Above him, a wooden beam was bending precariously, bowing beneath the weight above it while flames licked at its center. Cypher watched in horror as it splintered and cracked, praying the whole building wouldn’t collapse. He flinched as it fell, trying to roll out of the way only for one side to catch on the metal box and force the jagged, split end straight into Cypher’s stomach.

His entire body tensed as the wooden beam settled into equilibrium. With it lodged inside of his torso, he was afraid to move. Surely his lungs had collapsed from the splinters piercing them. His breath had been forced out of his lungs, and he couldn’t even scream in pain. Every breath forced his diaphragm to compete with the weight of the wood and the pain like barbs scraping his insides.

“Cypher?” There was a noise as Sova coughed on the opposite end of the comm. “I need to get Jett to the helicopter, do you copy?”

Cypher’s mouth was wide as he tried to breathe through the smoke and the blood now filling his lungs. His eyes watered but he lay in pure shock, unable to move, unable to beg Sova for help. He needed him. How was he going to get out of there? Part of his coat had caught fire now, and he watched from his peripherals as the flames crept closer to his body. One of his lenses was broken, he realized, and he couldn’t see from his left eye. Would he be ash by the time Sova found him, or would he drown in his own blood first?

He couldn’t tell how long he lay there, for all he knew time had stopped, but the fire raged on around him climbing higher and higher up the wooden walls. He felt the heat radiating off the metal box again, as the nerves in his stomach died. To his right he could imagine the draft of air blowing in the doorway as it fanned the flames. There was nothing but fire filling his vision as he tried to think through his options, but nothing came to him. Nothing but a desperate hope that Sova would find him here. As far as the hunter knew, it was too dangerous to traverse the front of B site, and he had last seen Cypher heading down the slope towards A lobby.

He flinched as another piece of the ceiling caved in above him and he couldn’t stop himself from crying. His mask made it harder to breathe as the filter became clogged with soot and he wished he could move his arms enough to pull it off. His vision tunneled and there was nothing but the swirling, choking smoke above him. Cypher was focused on a small spot on the entryway above him, intent on remaining awake, when finally, Sage appeared above him. He cried out with relief to feel her radiance flowing across his skin and soothing his burns.

“He’s been impaled,” she said, and Brimstone appeared next to her.

The two of them worked to pull the wood from his body, Sage’s healing quickly mending the torn skin and muscle, before he was hoisted over Brim’s back, and they started back towards the window. Cypher grunted with every step that jostled his poorly mended body. Sage would have something on the VLT/R for him, she always had pleasant pain meds for him to take, and soon he would drift off into a dreamless sleep. He furrowed his brow as they thumped him onto the floor of the VLT/R, it looked strange. Only as the ramp lifted, and his last view of Haven disappeared, did he recall that neither Sage nor Brimstone had been on their surveillance mission.

On the enemy VLT/R, Omega Sage and Brim stood over him to check his wounds, while Omen, Breach, and Phoenix sat off to the side. Cypher didn’t want them to know he was awake and aware, but he had no way to hide the pounding of his heart. He was trapped with the enemy, and he had no idea what they wanted with him. They had never taken one of the agents before, though he was sure they had opportunities, the risk must have been too great. They had not been able to detonate a spike, so Cypher knew their main mission had been thwarted. Snatching the one agent who knew every secret the Protocol had was worth losing a crate or two of radianite though.

“We clipped their Jett,” the Phoenix said firmly.

“The Scout was with them as well,” Omen growled.

“I did not see them escape – they must have been caught in your strike.” Their Sage’s voice sounded the same as the one waiting back at base. They all sounded normal; Cypher had only heard the Omega agents through crackly listening devices or garbled comms, never as clear and present beings like the ones he worked with.

“Nothing back-site. Those cowards got out. And left their rat behind.” It sounded like Omega Breach hated his double too.

Cypher gulped. Had Sova really left him behind? The thought was gut wrenching. It gnawed at him during the trip to wherever the Legion called home. There were no windows, and no one spoke to him, though he heard them whispering. He thought he could feel the moment when they passed through a rift into Omega Earth, but he could have been imagining it. There was also no way for him to know how long they had travelled before entering it, since his heartbeat was rapidly increasing while his mind was slowing down towards death.

Eventually, Cypher felt the familiar pulls of inertia as the jet slowed and descended to its landing spot. When the landing gear finally tapped the runway, the jolt of deceleration forced a grunt out of him. Brimstone had been leaning against his knees, staring at the floor, but his eyes flicked to Cypher now. He fought to regain his breath as he stared helplessly back at the enemy captain. Brim’s expression was stern, and Cypher wondered what he must look like with one broken lens and his mask warped by the heat. He couldn’t feel any moving air against his skin, so he felt sure his identity was mercifully still intact.

“Sage.” Brimstone’s voice was firm and unfriendly.

“Give me a moment!” she said.

The exchange was thick with animosity, but Cypher couldn’t tell if they disliked each other, or if it was just because he was there. He felt her hands pressing against him again as she let some of her radiance seep into his body. Her powers felt far more subtle than Alpha Sage’s, who always knitted him back together expediently. He had an understanding with her that he would agree to take it easy, and she would slip a few extra pain pills into his dosage. And then neither of them had to interact more than was necessary. This Sage seemed to operate with a different efficiency as she mended him just enough to move again, but not enough to prevent the wounds from hurting.

His breathing was heavy as they pulled him from the floor, and it took a moment for the black spots to swim out of his vision. Phoenix glared at him as he walked by. Once they disembarked, the air outside felt heavy. Where Haven had clear, crisp air that caused goosebumps to prickle even beneath his coat, wherever they were now felt smoggy and polluted. Though it was hard to see what was around the Legion base, the few glimpses Cypher caught looked desolate. Brim was quick to force his head down and hold him by the neck as he pushed him into the hangar. Cypher wouldn’t have been able to identify where this place was anyways, the total climate collapse had meant that this could have been at the bottom of an old ocean, now dried and deserted.

Brim ordered Phoenix to find Fade and Reyna before he and Sage marched Cypher deep into the facility, ignorant of the lingering weakness in his half-healed thigh. He couldn’t stop himself from shaking, and he could pretend it was just from pain all he wanted, but deep down he was terrified of what would happen here. For the first time ever, he was desperate to return to the Protocol.

They toured long concrete halls with minimal lighting. It seemed like a maze without any landmarks or distinguishing areas. If he ever got an opportunity away from his captors, he would still be trapped by the facility itself. He was led to a room deep beneath the facility, with concrete flooring and a single wooden chair. Brim forced Cypher’s shoulders down before binding his wrists behind the back of the chair. The wood dug through the fabric covering his arms.

“What is your name?” Brimstone asked.

Cypher clenched his jaw.

“Where are you from?”

Cypher remained silent again. They were trying to establish a baseline – what he looked and sounded like when he was telling the truth. He wouldn’t let them, he couldn’t. Brimstone pressed his knuckles against the wound in Cypher’s torso, twisting until the skin tore open.

“Tangier!” he yelped.

“Who recruited you?”

Cypher twitched, he wasn’t sure if they would know this one already or if this was a real question now.

“Chamber.”

Brim grabbed the back of his neck and forced him to lean forward until his arms were straining against the chair. The compression on his torso made it feel like he was being impaled again.

“If you’re forthcoming, I’ll just kill you. Otherwise, we both waste a lot of time doing this.”

Cypher shrieked as the chair was knocked over, and he fell with it against the concrete floor. He hated pain. He was no stranger to it, of course, but he had long since known that he was a coward. He had proved his cowardice the last time someone interrogated him, but he couldn’t fail this time, it would be dishonouring both of their memories. His breathing hitched as the door opened, and Sage stepped closer.

“Perhaps he is like our Cypher, he might listen to reason.” She crouched in front of him and placed a gentle hand against a burn on his shoulder. It was an obvious tactic to gain his trust, but the relief from his pain was enough to make him choose compliance.

“What do you want?” He rasped.

Sage nodded to Brimstone, and the chair was righted again – though not without jostling Cypher’s dead weight. Now that he was upright, he could see Fade lurking in the open doorway.

“Our world is facing a climate collapse,” Sage began, “You spy on us enough to know this already. But your world hoards radianite, something our world has come to depend on.”

“You want locations of Kingdom stores…?”

Brimstone scoffed, but Sage shook her head patiently.

“I am merely reminding you of our struggle; of why we must take the excesses your Earth chooses to keep.”

“We’re looking for something a little more material,” Brimstone interjected, “Something pertaining more to your specialty.”

“My specialty?” Cypher allowed a nervous chuckle here, if only to make it seem like he had leverage. “Don’t you, ah, have your own version of me? We were once the same you know, I’m sure –”

 “Unfortunately, you can’t outsmart yourself. We haven’t been able to breach your security. Commendable, I suppose.”

Cypher gave a curt nod, they wanted information. He certainly had a wealth of useless things he could feed them – Skye’s favourite time of day for a run, KJ’s coffee order, Yoru’s weird cowlick – alongside bits that wouldn’t end up with a sucker punch to his gut – fake scouting routes, phased out technology, or some made up details about their dossiers. It would give him more time to figure out their other motives, the ones they weren’t sharing, and might even give the Protocol time to mount a rescue.

This was by far the least plausible thought, however. Cypher had authored half of their burn protocol himself, and enemy capture was absolutely cause for a complete agent burn – even if he made it back to his Earth, they would never keep him. Ironically, after all those years of feeling trapped inside the Protocol, it was the one place he now wished he could be.

Chapter Text

Sova took a deep breath of the cool Moscow air. It had been nearly thirty degrees back at headquarters, but it was hovering around freezing here. His breath fogged the air above him and the wind chilled his fingers as he sipped from his coffee. The morning sun was just beginning to crest the horizon, and it cast a warm red glow over the icy city.

The world seemed more familiar here, more comforting. The signs were written with Cyrillic, and it made his brain feel normal again – he could think in Russian without having to translate everything before he spoke. The words felt easy and forgiving when he ordered his iced, overly sugared coffee and settled down to wait for his train.

Moscow had always intrigued him. It was large, cosmopolitan, and the total opposite of where he grew up, but the architecture and the flow of life was interesting. There were millions of people moving around the city, moving around Russia, and yet he could be perfectly invisible. It was counterintuitive, since his biggest complaint about the Protocol was its secrecy, but the invisibility that came with the big city wasn’t a secret. Or, it didn’t make him a secret. Everyone had a name, a place. They worked different jobs and went home to different people, but they all invariably existed. Credit card bills, ticket stubs, notes and messages passed among friends, it all made them realer than any cover story could be. They had names, multitudes of them depending on who they were with.

Even Sova got to have his name and place back, and it made him smile when he looked down at his ticket and saw it: Alexander Novikov, Murmansk via St Petersburg. Well, he had most of his place back, but Severomorsk was still a closed territory. It meant the train stopped in the capital of the Oblast and he would have to use his old credentials to get back into the city. That was fine though, it would give him a chance to find a gift for his babushka.

He swirled his cup, hoping to get the last of the syrup in his next sip, as he watched his train pull into the station. He grabbed his duffel bag and made sure he had everything before he boarded. His first train was just out of Moscow, but the train from St Petersburg would be overnight, and then this time tomorrow, he would see his babushka again. Tomorrow, he wouldn’t be Sova of the VP or Alexander in Moscow, he would be Sasha in the tundra, home again.

The train moved slowly as it escaped the dense Moscow streets, eventually stopping at shoulder stations in the outer suburbs. But then it attacked the vast European plains with increasing speed and Sova watched the world blur beside him. The rolling hills undulated like a great white blanket being shook out before him, and as the train entered denser foliage, Sova caught a glimpse of himself in the shaded window.

He didn’t wear the standard Protocol-issued sweats, nor did he wear his field uniform, but something more personal. He had on a loose grey shirt, the sleeves rolled up now in the heat of the train, with his father’s old brown jacket on the seat next to him. Only the glint of his artificial eye looked out of place compared to the people around him.

He hadn’t seen his babushka since losing his eye, and he wasn’t looking forward to explaining it to her. It wasn’t a pleasant story, and he didn’t want to ruin their time together, but he knew she would be concerned. People in Moscow hadn’t stared too much, but he was sure they had seen much stranger things than a man with a false eye.

He felt bad for taking so long to visit her, but every year that passed made it harder and harder for him to come up with reasonable explanations for his absence. Worse though, he had developed a reputation with Brimstone that he could always be counted on when there was slack to pick up. Being suspended meant this was actually the first winter he wouldn’t be working in nearly a decade.

The lights on the train flickered as it changed tracks. Much of the infrastructure in Russia was still adapting to the use of radianite. At first, the Russian economy had collapsed when the world had switched off oil and gas. Since the Americans had a monopoly on the full process of mining to power production, they had been cut off from using radianite. All wealth had completely left the borders or been consolidated by oligarchs, and soon enough the worst reactionary tendencies had taken hold of whatever progress had been made in the years leading up to First Light.

 Slowly though, the sanctions were circumvented and eventually lifted, and the country was beginning to stabilise again. Many of the tracks out of Moscow had been retrofitted already to benefit from radianite usage, but some of the older ones further north and probably out east were electrified on the old grid, and further north still on the cargo lines, many weren’t electrified at all.

In Severomorsk, where his babushka lived, they hadn’t suffered too much. Being a closed city, many of the goods and services tended to be better than average to make up for citizens essentially being stuck there. Of course, it was still nothing like Moscow, but he trusted that with her pension and his remittance from the Protocol, she was safe and comfortable.

Having grown up in a rural village, Sova didn’t have a lot of memories of the city itself – mostly just visiting for his yearly shots as a kid or occasionally taking day trips to the monuments. His parents had a picture with him when they visited one of the Soviet-era submarines on display, but he had no real memory of this experience. Most of his memories – and surely all the happy ones – were in the meadows and forests surrounding the village. That was where he had learned to hunt, gone camping, and played as a child. It hadn’t been easy for his babushka to leave their village home, and even harder for Sova to convince her, but after the appearance of the rift everyone in the village was forced to move.

His head knocked against the glass, and he forced himself awake. The time difference was starting to catch up to him, but he needed to save his sleep for the overnight portion of the train so he could be awake when he met his babushka. He groaned as he stretched and willed himself to stand up and walk the corridors, perhaps even to find another source of caffeine, though he could already picture the look on the attendant’s face when he asked for a cup of ice with it.

The train station in Murmansk wasn’t large, but of course it had three flower shops as soon as he left the platform. He snooped around them until he decided on a bouquet of chamomile blooms and then picked up a small ornament as well. His babushka was good at spoiling him, as all babushkas are known to be, but she was never comfortable accepting money from him, so he had to find other ways to spoil her back. She always seemed better at it than he was, though, and it was disappointing that the best he could come up with was a standard bouquet and an ornament. He struggled to peel the price sticker off the ceramic, knowing she would never accept it if she saw how expensive it was, before slipping it into one of the pockets in his bag. Despite his lackluster gift giving, he felt giddy as he walked towards the main entrance, where she had promised to meet him.

“Sashenka!” His grandmother cried, arms wide as he approached. He blushed a little at the childish nickname, but he was more thankful to be around someone who loved him unconditionally. She wrapped him in a hug, careful not to crush the bouquet between them.

“Ah, so beautiful. Not your usual flowers though, hmm?”

Sova smiled, thinking of the wildflowers he used to pick in the meadow for her.

“I think it would be hard to find those, this time of year.”

“How was the train? Long?”

“It was fine. The snow is pretty, at least. Do you want me to drive?”

“No, no, you relax.”

She took the flowers in her arms, letting Sova carry his duffel bag as he followed her out into the chilly twilight of the day in Murmansk. Being so close to the equator, the Protocol had plenty of sunlight during the winter days, which was nice, but without the cold snow and the twinkling lights, it never really felt like New Year’s to him. Even Moscow had been too warm and a bit too bright, not like the polar nights in the tundra.

It was about a forty-minute drive to her flat in Severomorsk, a little longer with some extra holiday traffic. He noticed a few new buildings that had sprung up since he last visited, but overall, the city seemed as dull and dreary as he remembered. At least this time of year there were decorations to help make the city livable in the long, cold nights. Unsurprisingly, Sova had never been one for the city, despite the enjoyment he might find from visiting Moscow.

His babushka’s flat was nice enough though, from what he remembered. He had helped her move in but had returned to his post in Vladivostok soon after. She liked her neighbours and enjoyed the convenience of being near a market everyday, but she didn’t trust most of the imported products and still complained about missing the trustworthiness of the old market in the village. She also claimed the prices were better there, but Sova knew she was just bitter she couldn’t haggle with the cashiers. All standard complaints, for his babushka.

The drive passed in silence, and Sova leaned his head against the window as he stared out into the darkness. Eventually the commie blocks eased away into the snowy expanse of bare bushes and trees, with the occasional petrol station. He felt a mote of anxiety lifting from him as the familiarity of his childhood returned to him. Things were different, though, and it hurt to be reminded of that. He’d noticed the stiffness in his babushka’s joints, the arthritis in her knuckles as she struggled with the keys. He couldn’t help but feel like his time was running out with her, and he had wasted the past decade.

He opened his mouth to apologise for it but found that he couldn’t form the words. Instead, it made his face heat up and it felt like he was on the verge of tears, so he pressed his forehead back against the cold window.

Stepping back into his grandmother’s flat drained all the residual energy out of him. He had no strength left to be a good soldier or worry about his duties; he just wanted to be himself again. He bent down to take his boots off while his babushka locked the door behind them. The flat didn’t seem to have changed much, but he had never actually seen it furnished. It had a well-equipped kitchen and a balcony that she used as cold storage in the winter, as well as two bedrooms and plenty of space in the living room. He flopped face-down on the couch and let out a heavy breath.

“My little boy! If you want to eat, there is meatball soup,” his babushka said as she clicked on the stove to reheat a pot. He heard her rifling through the cabinets and the clink of cutlery as she presumably pulled out a table setting.

Sova squished his cheek against the couch and squinted at the television across the room. It was turned on to a New Year’s drama, but the volume was so low he had to rely on subtitles. His normal eye was closed, pressed against the couch, but his cybernetic eye was better at distinguishing details anyways, like the small script flashing across the screen as the characters spoke. He didn’t exactly need to follow the dialogue though, Sova had seen this movie every single year growing up. He tilted his head anyways and watched with both eyes.

“Oh!” His grandmother pressed her hands against his shoulders and leaned down to kiss him. “What happened? You collapsed?”

“I am tired.”

“Tired? Have you been walking every day?”

“Yes, but not in thick snow. It is tiring.”

“Ahh, the snow no longer suits you? You may rest then.”

“It suits me,” Sova raised his head at the offense, “I have been travelling, it’s just the time difference.”

“You must be well enough to watch some movies.”

“Yes,” he grinned. He hadn’t spent New Year’s with his babushka in so long. After he had been stationed in Vladivostok, much like within the Protocol, he hadn’t had many opportunities to visit her during the holidays – someone had to remain on duty. It had been nice though, in the Navy, since it was the closest he came to privacy. He had spent all his recent New Year’s Eves with Sage, as she usually remained at the Protocol as well.

Another member of the Protocol that always remained over the winter was Cypher, but he had never accepted the invitation to join any of the winter holidays, even the year when some of the younger agents had been stuck there over Christmas and had woken everyone up at 4 am to open presents. He hadn’t even gotten the opportunity to celebrate Christmas with them this year.

“What’s wrong?” His babushka asked.

“Nothing.” He tried to shake the thoughts of Cypher out of his mind. “I missed you, is all. I’m sorry.”

“Ahh.” She pushed his feet out of the way and sat on the couch with him. “I know you are busy with work, and I know better than to ask, so we will forget all of this.”

Sova pulled his legs towards him and sat up. She was more than understanding of his secrecy and hadn’t bothered questioning his cover story since she was used to it. His parents had worked at the military base, the reason Severomorsk was a closed city, and hadn’t been able to divulge many of the details, not even after they died. Sova didn’t want it to be the same for him. There was nothing as important as family, and it pained him deeply to have so many secrets between them. He had never known what really happened to his parents, and at their funeral, his father’s casket had been empty. He was terrified his babushka might one day put his own empty casket in the frozen ground as well, never knowing what happened.

“Some of it is hard to forget.”

She reached out to hug him, and he leaned against her comfort.

“Did something happen?”

“Yes.”

“Did someone hurt you?”

“No.”

“Did you hurt someone?”

Sova squeezed her and pressed his face into her shoulder.

“More than one.”

“Were they bad people?”

“No,” he whispered, “They weren’t. They didn’t deserve it.”

“It sounds like it was an accident, then.”

“It was, but I could have prevented it. I made a mistake.”

“A mistake? This is not like you.”

Sova nodded.

“Maybe it is good you take some time off then; you can’t think well when you are tired. Or hungry! Have you eaten?”

“I will eat,” he said softly, letting her stand up again and head to the kitchen. He swallowed the lump still in his throat and insisted to himself that he would enjoy his time with family, or at least not ruin her New Year. He had honestly missed her cooking. Nothing at headquarters was ever pickled properly, and he was sick of salads that were just lettuce and tomato. As much as the Protocol tried to accommodate the multicultural team, it was impossible. He hadn’t realised just how homesick he really was until he had a moment to rest in the flat. He slinked into the kitchen, already eyeing a loaf of rye bread before she ushered him to the table.

“Buns are not food, Sasha, sit.”

He did as he was told and waited for her to bring two bowls of soup to the table, alongside the bread. He swirled his spoon in the broth, picking through the assortment of carrots and potatoes she must have scooped from the bottom for him, before taking a careful taste. It was hot and rich on his tongue, filled with familiar spices and aromas that helped push the Protocol out of his mind. He smiled thankfully at her.

“Sasha, there are many things I would like from the dacha.”

He looked up. Normally they ate quietly and saved conversation to share over biscuits or a cup of tea.

“I don’t know if I could get you into the exclusion zone.”

“No, I thought you would take a trip there. If you need some time alone, it might be nice, but I understand if you do not want to.”

“Oh.” Sova wasn’t sure he trusted himself alone right now, it would be too easy to let his thoughts and guilt spiral into oblivion and then he wouldn’t know what to do. He felt bad, too, about waiting so long to visit his babushka only to leave her alone again. “Can’t I go in January?”

“There is a storm coming over New Year’s Eve, it will be hard to make it out after all the snow. I was thinking you could go tomorrow, spend a night or two, and bring back my albums. I know you will like to go hunting while you are there as well.”

“Maybe,” Sova conceded, already knowing that he would agree. If he was going to leave her alone in her flat all year, the least he could do was bring home her photo albums to keep her company. “I won’t stay long, though, I do not want to miss New Year’s with you.”

His babushka smiled. “Thank you, Sasha.”

Chapter Text

There was a heavy weight on Cypher’s chest when he finally became conscious of himself. He couldn’t determine exactly where he was or what had happened, but he was laying in a puddle of something sticky and cold and every pain receptor in his body was shrieking in agony.

“You’d better take it easy,” Skye said as she helped Sage stand, “Not worth overdoing it on scum like that.”

Cypher rolled against the floor, wishing indeed that they would let the “scum” in question die. His head throbbed as his heart started to pump blood to his brain again. He wondered how long it had been this time. Which organs would be failing? How many blood clots would it take for his leg to go numb? How long before he stroked out? Unfortunately, his brain was still functional, but he supposed that was the one part of him Legion still needed.

“I’m fine,” Sage answered, “Get him up before Brimstone arrives.”

Brimstone. Cypher and Brim had known each other for a long time – they had met before the Protocol even existed. Their relationship had never been that of close friends, but it was certainly positive. Maybe he had become complacent. Had the relative safety and warm atmosphere of the Protocol led him to drop his defenses? The captain was more than accepting of his need for privacy – he fielded the other agent’s questions on Cypher’s behalf and had never revealed more than they needed to know. It was like night and day seeing Brimstone so full of hate towards him and his mind was struggling to reconcile the differences.

He was struggling to reconcile the differences between all of the agents. Since when was Skye so hateful? What had he ever done to Raze? Worst of all, how different were they from the agents he worked with on Alpha Earth? He couldn’t recall his own record on his double, not off the top of his head, but he was vaguely interested now in knowing his teammate’s. Did they hunt him with a ferocity that might reveal an underlying hatred? Were they saving all the rage he induced for a violent end when they met his double? If something went wrong, would they turn on him as quickly as it seemed this Brimstone had turned evil?

It wasn’t Brimstone who entered behind Skye though, but Chamber and Reyna. Cypher curled into himself a little, but the lingering wound in his torso protested fiercely.

“Ready to continue?” Chamber asked.

Cypher wasn’t sure what they were continuing – short term memories were always a little hazy after revivals – but he was probably better off without it clouding his mind just yet. Reyna yanked him from the ground and all but threw him against the wooden chair. Cypher coughed at the force, which only made his body scream in pain. Chamber seemed to be fiddling with a weapon, not reacting to the obvious struggle Cypher was engaged in to remain conscious.

“One of my, eh, prototypes. It jams more often than not, but without the nano-tech, it’s still a passable weapon.” Chamber weighed the gun in his hand, holding it in Cypher’s sightline. “You know I find your double exhausting. This really is so good for morale.”

Cypher flinched as the gun clicked. Not the bullet, this time. He was disappointed – at least if it had killed him, he wouldn’t have to see what Reyna had planned. He turned his head to eye her with the working lens.

“I was worried you would be so scared you would just cooperate. I am glad you didn’t.” Reyna’s eyes glowed with a dangerous malice. Her Alpha counterpart often gave him similar looks, but she never had permission to act on her thoughts. Now, as she stalked closer to him, her clawed fingers flexing at her side, he would learn something new about the vampire.

With one broken lens, his depth perception was completely thrown off. It made it hard to judge when the next punch would land, and he flinched with every flick of Reyna’s wrist. Chamber smiled as he spun the gun in his hands, miming that he would pistol-whip Cypher just to watch him jump. He shook as he cowered away, leaving his other side open to a brutal backhand from Reyna.

“Ah!” Chamber held the gun up victoriously and pointed it between Cypher’s eyes. “Let’s see if your luck holds up again.”

Click!

Cypher cried out. He could feel Reyna draining his lifeforce and above the sound of his sobs came Chamber’s cruel laugh. It seemed every agent found enjoyment in his torture. He wondered what it must be like for his double to see it, day in and day out. What must it be like to know that every single one of his teammates would torture him if given the chance? At least back home, Cypher knew some of the other agents liked him.

“Chamber,” Skye’s stern voice stayed his trigger finger, “Stop killing him, Sage is busy enough as it is.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t want to overburden our healers.” He looked down at Cypher and lowered the gun towards his waist. “Let’s try somewhere less lethal then.”

Click!

Cypher shuddered again, drawing hasty breaths through the broken respirator in his mask. His throat tightened with every gasp and the wounds in his torso shot pain through his nerves. It was pathetic, and it was exactly the reaction they were looking for – Reyna especially seemed to care more about his suffering than any information he might share. He was pretty sure he could tell her the coordinates for the Protocol’s HQ and every password he knew, and she would still dig her claws into his flesh.

Chamber might have something else on his mind. Cypher knew many secrets the man would prefer stayed buried, but he wasn’t sure if trading them would earn him a reprieve.  If he could just catch his breath, he might be able to negotiate, but with Reyna’s attacks his brain was growing foggier by the second. Every gash she made allowed her to absorb more of his consciousness, leaving him feeling empty and emotionally numb, with only the painful sensations she inflicted still entering his mind.

“Wait,” Cypher said weakly.

Reyna’s nails pressed against the back of his neck, like she might claw his mask off just to tear out his throat.

“Don’t you want something?” He asked.

Chamber looked up curiously, the gun hanging by his side. He raised a hand to Reyna, as if asking her to pause a moment.

“Your, ah, your business dealings?”

“Cypher,” he chided, “You grew up poor, I’m sure you’ve realised laws don’t trouble people like me.”

He cocked the gun and raised it again. Cypher flinched, trying to keep his voice even and his mind clear enough to think.

“Something about Everett-Linde perhaps?”

The bullet tore through Cypher’s hip with a loud bang that even made Reyna flinch in surprise. Cypher cried out and with blood oozing out of him, she fed in a frenzy. He bent over and sobbed as he tried to curl away from the two of them. A cramp worked its way through his sore leg as he clenched every muscle in an attempt to escape. Soon the pain turned to seizure shakes and his body contracted without his direction.

“I don’t know what you are talking about, please, stop telling lies,” Chamber crowed, but the door slammed open and interrupted him.

“The two of you,” Brim cut in, “Out.”

Cypher swallowed as he pushed through the cramps in his muscles, he saw that Brim was accompanied by his double, as well as Sage and Fade. The other agents preferred to take out their anger on him, it was a way to vent their frustrations, but the only person that knew how to really hurt Cypher was himself. His double’s torture had been the worst so far, not the most painful, but certainly the hardest to disassociate from. It was at his insistence that Cypher not be fed or watered, since of course he could be kept alive through radiant means, and his torture had often consisted of psychological weapons. He alone knew exactly how long to leave Cypher drifting in the void of death before having Sage resurrect him. It was worse every time he came back.

He had been experimenting with sensory deprivation and overload, plunging Cypher into complete deafness, though never letting him sleep. The lights in the room remained on, at full brightness, meaning he had no real indication of how long he had been there – especially since he could have spent any number of days dead. Even when his double’s torture entered the physical realm, it still carried a heavy emotional toll since the tactics were always the ones Cypher used in his work before the Protocol – the tactics he most regretted using on innocent people.

He was worried about the nastiness his double might come up with in partnership with Fade. So far, the bounty hunter had refrained from partaking in the torture herself, though Cypher assumed she was being consulted. She was the only person in the Protocol he truly feared since she had been the only one to ever find anything meaningful about his past – not to mention compromising his safe- houses. If the other Legion agents were anything to go by, he knew he should be twice as scared of this version.

“You seem more compliant today,” Brimstone said.

Cypher couldn’t reply, he was still too distracted by the pain in his hip. Although Sage slowly moved into his vision, she didn’t appear to be there for any healing or pain management. This would be another interrogation without the clarity of a pain-free body. He lazily dragged his head to see Brimstone, standing just in his peripherals opposite the door.

“Aren’t you ready to see your family again?”

Cypher felt his vision stray out of focus. It wasn’t fair to bring them up, though his mind had been fighting to keep their memories supressed. A part of him felt that the longer this torture went on, the closer he came to paying penance, something he was sure his double knew just as well. For all his taunts, his mirror self never asked if he wanted this to end, because he knew how horribly deserved it really was.

“Give us something,” Brimstone pleaded, “Just one location.”

“You sound desperate,” Cypher finally croaked.

“Perhaps you aren’t desperate enough,” Brim replied. He looked to Fade, where she still stood in the doorway.

“I know his greatest fears,” she said, every syllable distinct and precise, “There is still one we haven’t tried.” Cypher saw his double tense up, knowing what came next.

“Unmask him.”

The Omega agents turned to his double, waiting for his assent. Cypher wondered if his own team would have spared him this pain given the roles were reversed. His double’s discomfort with the situation gave Cypher a false hope that his face would remain covered. He certainly preferred that option, no matter how suffocating the blood-soaked fabric had become.

“Only Sage and Brimstone.”

Brimstone nodded, and Fade unceremoniously left the room. Sage stepped over the puddle of blood on the floor and reached towards Cypher, pulling at the neck on his shirt until she could slip her fingers beneath the mask and slowly, excruciatingly, peel it off. Cypher’s breath caught in his throat as he twisted back and forth, trying to resist her inviolate hands. The blurry glances he caught of his double showed a similar, though quieter, anxiety about the removal of the mask. He had asked for the other agents to be removed, but he had allowed Sage and Brimstone, perhaps they had already seen his face.

The corner of his mouth quirked as the mask was pulled over it, and finally a cool rush of air flushed against Cypher’s face. He took rapid breaths as fresh air filled his lungs.

“You have let Sage see you, hmm?” Cypher tried to sound calm, slightly amused, not like his entire nervous system was on fire. “Too many shots to the head no doubt.” He forced a small chuckle, but it came out as a pathetic display of coughing that made his diaphragm ache.

He felt Sage and Brimstone stalking around him, but his double stood directly in front of him, studying his face. Cypher tried to calm himself down, assure himself that everyone in this room already knew what he looked like, that no real secret had been revealed. He had never really considered that since his double possessed the same face as him, he might share it with someone. But really, he had the power to flood the world with knowledge of the only secrets that truly belonged to Cypher. This was a painful reminder that nothing was exclusively his – everything was shared with this doppelganger. But that meant Cypher held the same power too, if he outed his secrets to the rest of the Protocol – or the Legion – then his double would suffer the same way. Now that he was unmasked, now that he knew his double was as scared of him as he was, he felt some small modicum of power.

“Tell me, Amir, because I know you have always wondered: Are we really the same beneath the mask?”

His double laughed, and Cypher understood why it annoyed the other agents so much.

“Now that is something I know, but you never will. Are you afraid of what else I might know?”

“Perhaps you are afraid of what I might say about you – about us – to the others, hmm?”

His double shifted uncomfortably, though it was barely perceptible. It was something Cypher only recognized because he had done it in front of the mirror so many times, watching for tells.

“Mutually assured destruction, Amir.”

Cypher almost laughed again, if only his collapsed, blood-filled lungs would let him. His double would know all the pain points in his past, all his greatest failures, but would he still know his greatest secrets within the Protocol? Would the same embarrassments and discomfitures have developed in his mirror self under the Legion’s conditions? Would he really be destroying his double, or would he just be putting the Protocol at risk? It was a gamble he might be willing to make.

“I think my destruction is assured, why not make it mutual?” He decided.