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Post by Sharei on Apr 3, 2023 19:55:18 GMT -6
"Atol is many things," Koji said softly, "but he's not a liar."
His artificial hand was on Aaron's shoulder. He felt its loss keenly as he turned his gaze toward the ceiling.
"I learned..." he said haltingly. "That he always gave you a choice, but whatever he said, he meant. If you chose the hard way, well..."
After a moment he squeezed Aaron's shoulder briefly.
"Do you think, if you had continued to press him, the result would have been better?"
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Post by MP on Apr 5, 2023 0:44:27 GMT -6
Aaron couldn't argue with that. Even through the haze of grief and fear, he knew that. It was that helplessness that hurt. But the fact that it was Koji speaking - wrong as it was - helped keep the worst of it in check. Koji who, of all people, understood the impossible situation. Koji, who shouldn't have to relive those memories for his sake. Aaron tried - he tried to pull himself together. His breath shivered off as he tried to steady it. He reached up and gripped the genasi's hand, meaning to move it off his shoulder. He didn't quite make it. His hand, shakier and far frailer than it should have been, held onto Koji's wrist as the agent's eyes misted up. Unconscious movement or not, it was the only support he had.
"I did," he croaked. Aaron didn't want to follow that thought to its possible conclusion. But he couldn't stop thinking about it either. "He said 'do nothing.' I hit him."
He remembered the sight of Koji - butchered - in the hospital bed. The scene of the dragon's murder, the mud soaked red where the body had been. And now Atol had Sara after the struggle. After Aaron had disobeyed. He had to breathe. Had to stop the room spinning. The image came to him suddenly, of a destroyed apartment. Flying glass. Reflective, predatory eyes. Their shapes hunkered over Sara's bloodied body.
"Will he hurt her?"
His voice was low, small, as if Aaron were afraid to even speak it.
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Post by Sharei on Apr 14, 2023 20:39:45 GMT -6
The touch at his wrist made Koji pause. The genasi hesitated, warring with the desire to offer the comfort Aaron needed while remembering what he usually wanted. Koji had never known Aaron to seek out physical support, least of all when he was upset. And this wasn't the situation to get it wrong in.
It was the misty eyes, the small voice, that ultimately turned his decision. Koji rolled his hand over and gripped Aaron's, a solid link to something grounding. His forearm, still wrapped around Aaron's back, brought their shoulders more firmly together.
"... You can never discount the possibility," Koji mumbled. He couldn't - wouldn't - sell false assurances. Even to Aaron, who perhaps deserved them most. It felt like dishonesty.
"But... no, I don't think so," he added. "He wanted a peaceful surrender and was willing to negotiate to get it. Overlords prefer demands and don't usually extend that olive branch. Being violent seems to run counter to his plan - and probably Sara's cooperation. Which he needs, right?"
It wasn't much of a reassurance. Koji wished he had better to offer.
"I think he'll keep his word."
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Post by MP on Apr 14, 2023 22:18:08 GMT -6
Aaron nodded, clinging to that lifeline - emotional, physical - with a glazed stare. The prickling quality, like pins and needles over skin, faded from the overhead lights until the air was calm.
Maybe some of it was exhaustion. The agent was spent, his vision grey around the edges, and he didn't have the strength to keep this up. It had been an impossible situation; he knew it. Had known it while it was happening. It's what he would have told any victim, had he been handling the case. He just hadn't had the strength.
Aaron made an odd shrugging motion - an attempt to rub his eyes into his collar as fresh tears welled. Like his magical control, the rigid control he always maintained had cracked.
"Sorry," he muttered. Then again more softly, "Sorry..."
For the things he'd forced Koji to dredge up, or for the bond he knew Koji and Sara shared. For needing that comfort now. For Sara, even if she wasn't present now to hear him. Maybe it was directed at no one - just an expression of the helplessness he felt. All he could do now was wait. For the WDSA, for Atol - whoever acted first.
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Post by MP on Apr 23, 2023 14:43:04 GMT -6
It was hours into the operation, the moon a falling sliver over the city skyline, when the stir reached the lower floors. A concerned murmur spreading among the staff. The sound of footprints trickling out from office doors and from behind desks, milling at first, but slowly gathering at the stairs. No one seemed to know the details. Only that something had happened up in Law Enforcement. Snatches of it drifted back to the returning teams, overheard in passing.
An ambush. An invasion. An explosion. Special agent Decker. A team of agents. Details conflicted, and staff continued to trickle toward the stairwell to check for themselves. Aaron rushed upstairs the moment the news reached them, but for non-agent personnel, there was nothing to do but wait. A hushed tension spread through the lobby, never quite erupting into an emergency state. No injured were brought down, and eventually some staff returned. Not Aaron. The activity was starting to settle, and though the distant ding of elevators suggested higher than usual activity on the floors above, the tension was fading to a simmering unease. The crisis, whatever it was, hadn't spread.
It was nearly half an hour later that the aftermath made it down. Aaron stepped out from the elevator. He was still scuffed up from the raid, collar torn in two places where the magical and mundane firefight had nearly caught him. Still weighed down by weeks of too little sleep and too much stress. But even that hadn't been enough to produce the strained expression he now wore. He rubbed his eyes as he stepped out, looking very tired.
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Post by Sharei on Apr 23, 2023 15:10:15 GMT -6
Despite being cleared to work as a temporary agent on the Atol crisis, Koji hadn't been upstairs to view the carnage yet. He'd been wounded during the operation - a minor thing, a bullet graze they'd patched in transit, nothing more - but they'd still wanted to see him in medical. So when Aaron rushed upstairs Koji had already been escorted off to be looked at. Down in the hospital wings of the WDSA, where patient safety was the priority, they'd made an effort not to let the news of the crisis filter to the patients.
It wasn't until Koji had been released that he started getting the news. He, like Aaron, rushed to the elevators and met his friend coming off them.
"What happened?" he asked, falling into step with Aaron. "I only just got out of medical."
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Post by MP on Apr 26, 2023 0:53:34 GMT -6
"Atol was here. While we were gone."
Even saying the words, he could barely believe it. No one mage should have been able to circumvent the wards and protections on the building alone. And if Atol had managed to sneak a team of spell breakers this close to headquarters without detection, that in itself was alarming.
"He attacked the stabilization team. They were all together." Aaron brushed a hand unconsciously through his hair. "No casualties - Decker was on the scene fast, and he made it out too. But Nora says there's trouble with the network. Some tethers 'dropped' or -"
He shook his head, frustrated with his own lack of understanding. Nora had tried her best to explain it, but she herself was dealing with unfamiliar rules and terminology, and she could only give him the vaguest of analogies.
"I don't know. The specialist was handling that part of the workload. He was supposed to transfer it to the team later, but it just stopped. They can't get in touch with him. Or his kid."
Aaron could draw his own conclusions from that coincidence, just as easily as Nora had. Just as easily as Koji would. His mouth slanted. This was the problem with wild cards, loose cannons, dimension hoppers. They came and went as they pleased, ignoring safety regulations and security protocols and making themselves impossible to track. They left supporting personnel in chaos, practically guaranteeing help wouldn't be on hand if it was needed. He hoped he was wrong, but -
"Nora thinks they may have been targeted. We won't know until we see the footage."
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Post by Sharei on May 22, 2023 10:13:09 GMT -6
"No doubt they were targeted."
The color had gone from Koji's face and there was a knowing in his gaze, a heavy shadow that always had Atol behind it. Koji knew, almost better than anyone, the true depths of Atol's obsession. It had been his only topic of interest while the genasi had been in the Prophet's custody.
"Sarkany wouldn't abandon us," Koji grumbled, but while there was a heat to it, the words held conviction. He said them with the same truth as the belief that the sun would rise the next day. "Not without a reason. The most likely scenario, then, is that he had a confrontation with Atol. This is increasingly likely if it was his team that was targeted. What did Decker's debrief say?"
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Post by MP on May 22, 2023 21:11:23 GMT -6
"Nothing yet."
There was a look in the agent's eyes, distant and fixed all at once - a look that had never really left since Sara was taken. It came to the fore in the quiet moments, or moments of crisis. The helpless need to act was written in his frame. But there was no word from his branch chief yet, or from Decker himself, and so no clear action he could take. Decker was probably still being debriefed. Until then, all they could do was join the mill of agents securing the building. It turned out to be a common frustration.
"We should have stayed and smoked him," Nora snarled. "A full team, right there with a mage hunter. He'd be grease on the carpet right now."
The runes of her spell sensor flickered white in her palm, indicating a space where WDSA wards had been undone. She scrawled out a post-it detailing the recasts needed and slapped it aggressively down on the spot. Across from Aaron, Lin fluttered his clawed fingers.
"Screw orders," she spat back. "I'd take a spell if it means we put him down. You got to take risks to get things done."
Aaron winced, as much from the crash of Lin's tail as the rapid signs he fired back. He kept his opinions to himself and focused on their sweep of the halls. Nora would be Nora. But even she, stubborn as she was, had paused at that. It wasn't regret, but it did look a little like shame.
"Come on, that's not what I meant," she started to say.
Before the argument could continue, Todd poked his head around the corner, phone upheld in one hand.
"Guys, check your emails. Memo's out."
Aaron reached for his own phone, stepping over to Koji so the genasi could read over his shoulder. But there was no need. Todd read the director's statement aloud, as much for Lin as for Koji. The hallway went still as the team paused to listen.
They had better details of the attack than Aaron had expected. That particular room had recently been decorated with bio-empathic plants, and the specialist had made sure to have a Surras on hand in advance of the attack. Where WDSA's best mages and security measures had failed, a plant, of all things, gave them the full situation: the stabilization team unharmed. The acting director alive and fit for duty. The specialist captured, to die of his injuries or else die in Atol's cells. How? How had the magus done it?
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Post by Sharei on Jul 16, 2023 9:49:36 GMT -6
"I told you," Koji growled to no one in particular. "He wouldn't leave."
But he knew, perhaps better than any of them, what lay in store for Sarkany in Atol's clutches. One hand curled into a fist at his side, fingernails biting into his palm. He knew, also better than anyone, what kind of obsession the magus had for the old icarim. It would be worse than it had been with him, he was sure. No one could hate that much and not take it out on the subject of their aggression.
Why didn't you ask? I could have helped.
But he knew why. No one could have predicted the attack, and Koji himself had been on mission. Everyone had been on mission. Even Charlene had been wrapped up in coordination efforts. It was a helpless anger; the same rusted over pains of his childhood, just bigger and more intense now that he was an adult.
"So what's the plan now?"
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Post by MP on Aug 8, 2023 1:58:48 GMT -6
"We secure the building. Get a backtrace on his spells. Rework our wards."
For all her frustration, Nora was prompt. Decisive. The witch was at her best when there was a clear crisis to tackle. Even as she spoke, she was rummaging in magically capacious pockets, releasing a handful of poppets.
"Since I already know they're going to ask-"
She tossed one to Lin, who caught with surprisingly delicate claws. Another ran up to Todd with crude arms raised. The empath leaned down and extended a forefinger to slap it a low-five before he picked it up. Several more took off down the halls, running to Occult agents already written into their magical directives.
"I've only got enough for the no-mag guys," she explained, glancing at Koji.
Aaron was nodding. It hadn't happened in years - and never to this scale - but he understood the next steps just as well as she.
"We'll have to run manual diagnostics," he said. "If they're still intact, running an elemental charge through the wards should tell us what we need to know."
Normally, given the scope of the security breach, he might have suggested splitting up to cover more ground. Given who had managed the breach, Aaron said nothing. Seeing Lin and Todd pair off towards the nearest ward nexus, he turned in the opposite direction, leaving room for Nora and Koji to follow.
"Can't," she said, reading the set of his shoulders. "Boss wants the anchors up with Charlene."
She muttered something vicious under her breath. More threats, Aaron imagined. But she would follow orders. Nora was many things, but she wasn't a loose cannon. He looked to Koji instead.
"Can you help me with the element? Mine doesn't register with the major wards."
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Post by Sharei on Jan 3, 2024 20:35:31 GMT -6
"Sure," Koji nodded, welcoming the chance to do something constructive with the restless energy bubbling inside him. It wasn't what he wanted to be doing - what the asset in him wanted to be doing - but it was something to take his mind off the worry worming its way through his gut. The memory of the grey edge to Sarkany's face came unbidden, a silent observation from an earlier meeting. He'd politely averted his eyes from the signs of the strain, but it had been there, and Atol would see it as easily as he had.
Koji angled along behind Aaron, his hands stuffed into his pockets, and stared moodily down the hall.
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Post by MP on Jan 4, 2024 2:37:51 GMT -6
Aaron led them to the nearest nexus - a spot tactically placed by the elevator. Moving parts were harder to secure with spellwork, which often made these a target for translocation, displacement, or other magical sabotage. If Aaron had to bet, his money would have been on Atol finding some kind of weakness there to exploit.
The nexus blinked to a waiting diagnostic state in response to his etheric authorization. The agent stood aside for Koji to work. The heavy silence hung over them both. Aaron glanced at Koji. Looked away. Clasped his hands behind his back, struggling for something to say. It was the same with Sara, with the specialist, with every step of this crisis. Atol walked through all their defenses, all their best. It had taken him no more effort than it would to swat a fly.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "About your friend."
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Post by Sharei on Jan 11, 2024 21:04:22 GMT -6
Koji hesitated, the fingers of his good hand curling toward his palm. Thousands of words went unsaid in the silence of that gesture, in the held breath behind it, until finally he dropped his hand and tipped his head back on an exhausted sigh.
"Aaron."
Rough, raw, the name carried the weight of the last few weeks in the softness of it's syllables.
"If an asset went missing while on mission, their handlers would talk in the past tense without missing a beat," he said. "Our lives were of so little consequence that sometimes they'd even fly back to the complex without their assets if it seemed like they were killed in action. Never checked for a body."
Koji turned, the light of the nexus reflecting in his one good eye.
"Assets aren't programmed to forage. The idea wouldn't even occur. So while most of them were alive, they starved to death waiting for someone to come back for them."
The light of the nexus flashed orange; a warning indicator that said it had been tampered with. Koji stepped aside so that Aaron could work.
"So don't say it. I'm not accepting it."
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Post by MP on Jan 11, 2024 22:26:27 GMT -6
Aaron opened his mouth. Closed it again as he turned back to the ward. The specialist wasn't an asset, he thought. Was hated by Atol with an obsessive, centuries old anger. Was an obstacle in the way of the magus' goal. The heavy thoughts dragged at the agent's shoulders, hung always in his hollow expression. Sara's loss seemed to have broken something in him. The flat, dogged persistence that had always been there had subtly changed into something that was almost resignation.
But he still had the presence of mind not to speak those thoughts, or to let the doubt show in his expression. Aaron simply nodded agreement. Letting the topic drop, he jotted down the nexus' signature and diagnostic readings into a pocket note book, then snapped it shut.
"Alright," he said, nodding at the stairwell. "We should check the next one down.
Since they'd identified a weak point, the most obvious thing was to check the wards immediately around it. A blanket spell or an infectious nature could have compromised the whole line along the elevators. Once Aaron had verified the scope of the damage, he could determine how far along the hall it was necessary to search. But they hadn't yet reached the next floor before they almost collided with someone hurrying up.
"Oh-"
Sohl ducked out of the way. His clothes were dirt stained, sweat and what looked like flecks of blood down his temple. But where the two men were quiet and grim, his face was softly exhilarated. Triumphant. It was an expression that didn't belong among the grim faces in the building. As he recognized the genasi, Sohl's features brightened in a grin, the unguarded expression very much like his father's.
"Koji! It's good to see you back. We just got back too - I saw an alert, so I need to hurry and check in with Medical. But Koji, we found him! We have Marchelute. He's in the holding cells with the pack right now."
He muted the joyous expression, doing his best to match the more somber energy of the building. Whatever had happened, it must have been serious, and he wouldn't want to cause upset.
"He's alright, but I haven't been able to work out the warp yet. I need to call Father down to look at him. Have you seen him?"
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