Valiant: Tales From The Archive

[CURSEd #2: The Stars Were Blurry]

Log Date: 10/2/12763

Data Sources: Darrow Bennion

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

CURSE HQ: Observation Deck 39

6:24pm SGT

The stars were blurry.

Then again, most things viewed through a film of liquid are a little blurry.

Reaching a hand up, I press a thumb against one closed eye to wipe away the water there. In doing so, I step back from the glass wall of the overlook, where I’ve stood for the last thirty minutes or so, staring out into the galaxy’s starscape. I came up here after my talk with Roya; I was looking for some peace and quiet, and I got it. This time of the HQ’s day/night cycle, most everyone is in the mess hall and the lower levels of the HQ, getting dinner and socializing. It wouldn’t be long before people started wandering around again, and someone else looking for a place to hang out or some peace and quiet would turn up here. But until then, this was my place of quiet and reconciliation.

I take a step back from the railing and the vast, unbroken pane of glass that runs the length of the overlook, curving from the floor and making up much of the roof overhead. And I keep backing up until I feel my legs bump against one of the couches behind me; I let myself drop into it, and take a deep breath as I keep staring out at the half-blurry stars. Really, I should be doing something right now. Training, or doing research, or observing the new recruits.

But all I’m doing right now is breathing, and letting myself feel emotions.

Some would call that a waste of time. Probably a lot of people would ask why you couldn’t feel emotions and also be productive, along the same lines of being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. I probably wouldn’t have a good answer for them.

All I could say in my defense is sometimes, you needed to do nothing, and simply let your emotions flow through you. Allow yourself to feel them, without interruptions. I could say it helps you process them better, even though I have no proof of that. I could say that it’s good for your psychological health. I could say a lot of things. But in the end, it just boiled down to that simple truth.

Sometimes you just needed to take some time, and allow yourself to feel your emotions. To listen to them, without any other interference that usually drowns them out.

And so that’s what I’m doing right now, and what I’ve been doing for the last thirty minutes. For me, it comes with a certain sense of relief. I’m not pushing myself to do something, I’m not having to stuff down my emotions to look presentable to others, and I’m not compartmentalizing them so I could deal with them later. It took the pressure off of me, took away the weight on my shoulders. Allowed me to breathe.

Just me and my wild, unbridled emotions, being allowed to run their course.

It’s not until I see motion in the corner of my eye that I start to rein them in again, and I look aside to see Whisper standing next to the couch in her hex-pattern jacket and dark jeans. It’s no surprise she managed to sneak up on me without me hearing.

“I guess the talk didn’t go all that well.” she says softly.

I don’t know what to say. So I do the only thing I can, and muster up a wavery, weak smile, and a limp shrug.

Her shoulders rise with a deep breath, and fall again with a long sigh. “Oh, Dare.” The pity in her voice is unmistakable, and it says more than just those two words. I can tell, from just her tone alone, that she knew what was going to happen, but she had avoided telling that to me because she knew I probably wasn’t going to listen. It’s the kind of pity and the kind of tone you have for a friend that you feel sorry for, even when you know that they brought the trouble on themselves.

All I can manage in response is a repeat of that limp shrug, as if to say What can you do? What’s done is done.

Whisper moves around the arm of the couch without another word, taking her hands out of her jacket pockets and sitting down next to me. Angling herself to face me, she reaches up, taking my face in her hands and pulling me forward until our foreheads touch, and rest against each other. She closes her eyes, and I do too.

“In your grief, set your burdens on me.” she recites quietly. “And in time, this too will become a memory.”

I let out a breath that it feels like I’ve been holding for ages, and the emotions I’d reined in start to flow again. But this time they come with a relief I hadn’t had before. Before, I was bearing up the weight of my loss on my own.

Now I no longer have to hold up that burden all alone.

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

CURSE HQ: Whisper’s Quarters

7:38pm SGT

“If I’d known I was gonna have a pity party tonight, I would’ve tried to clean things up a bit.” Whisper says past the bag of gummipop candies that she’s holding between her teeth as she comes out of her closet. On her way over to the bed, she hooks her toes into one of the shirts sitting on the floor of her room, kicking it into her laundry hamper. She tosses me another bag of gummipops as she sits down on the edge of her bed, next to where I’m sitting. “I’m on an assignment half the time, so I don’t spend as much time in here as I should. Which sucks, because Peacekeeper quarters are nice. Better than the cramped barracks bunks that you have when you’re a recruit or rank-and-file.”

I catch the bag of chewy, fizzy candies, and set them to the side. “You didn’t have to do this for me, really…”

“ ‘Course I did. Otherwise you would’ve spent the rest of the night moping in your quarters listening to sad songs and shit.” Whisper says, wiggling and getting comfortable on her bed. She’s gotten out of her covert clothes, and is now in a ratty old tshirt and gym shorts. I’m still in my uniform, but I’ve zipped down the collar a bit to relax. “Besides, it’s been a hot minute since we’ve hung out. And it’s been a while since I binged on holos while eating junk food.”

I pick at the bag of gummipops, zipping it open. “Yeah, I guess.”

Whisper looks at me. “What, do you want to talk about Roya instead? We can do that, if you want. Seems like you need to get it off your chest.”

That prompts a deep breath on my part. “I mean, there’s not really much to talk about… nothing I say is going to change what happened.”

“We can talk about how she’s a total biiiiiiiiiiiitch.” Whisper drawls, pulling a handful of gummipops out of her bag while whistling three quick notes. The screen against the wall flickers to life at that. “Who needs friends like her anyway.”

I’m quiet for a bit, rolling around one of the gummipop balls between my fingers. “That’s the thing, though. She’s not a terrible person. It’s just…” I take a moment to try and find a way of phrasing it. “She has a lower tolerance for stress than I do, and I suppose being a Peacekeeper means that I bring a lot of stress with me. My responsibilities, the assignments I get and the projects I work on, it’s just… too much for her, I guess. A hazard to her mental health.”

Whisper lowers the gummipop ball she was about to put into her mouth. After a moment, she puts it back into her hand with the others, and resting those hands in her lap as her flippant attitude disappears. “I mean, yeah… the duties and the work of a Peacekeeper are stressful. That’s part of the job. We risk our lives to protect the innocent, and we have to look good while we’re doing it, because Peacekeepers are supposed to be a symbol to the rest of the galaxy. Roya’s not stupid. She should know that there’s a certain level of intensity that comes with being a Peacekeeper’s friend.”

“I think she knows.” I say, pinching my gummipop between thumb and forefinger. “The thing is that I wasn’t always Axiom. I wasn’t always a Peacekeeper. I used to be one of the regulars, like her. And I just… I don’t know what I was supposed to do. Stop being a Peacekeeper? Slide back to being one of the regulars again? I can’t regress. This is a high calling, a great honor and a responsibility. I can’t just turn my back on that.”

“Well, I’m sure that was hard for her too.” Whisper says. When I look at her, she explains. “You rose from being one of CURSE’s regulars to being one of its elite Peacekeepers. That changes who you are, how you act, what you do. Her watching you change, especially in a way where she may no longer feel like she’s your equal, might’ve been hard for her.” At that point, Whisper shrugs. “I barely know who Roya is, so I don’t really know what’s going on in her head, but if it was me, watching one of my friends get promoted, I know it’d be awkward on my end. I might feel resentful. I wouldn’t be sure I could talk to them about certain things any more.” She pops one of the gummipop balls in her mouth. “But the part about not being able to deal with the stress of being friends with a Peacekeeper is still a shit thing for her to tell you anyway, though. What are Peacekeepers supposed to do, bottle it all up until they crack?”

“I dunno.” I say, watching as fissures run over the hard candy shell of the gummipop ball between my fingers. “I get what she’s saying, and I kinda understand it. I just thought that our friendship meant more than the strain that was being placed on it.”

“If it wasn’t going to survive you getting promoted, then it probably wasn’t a friendship worth keeping anyway.” Whisper says, reaching back and grabbing some of her pillows so she can pile them behind her and recline on them. “Besides, she wasn’t the kind of friend that you could eat a bunch of candy with while watching an anime, and that’s really the only kind of friend that matters.”

“Is that what we’re doing tonight?” I ask, finally putting the cracked gummipop ball in my mouth, preoccupied with the fizzing, tangy taste that you get from the chewy part underneath the candy shell. 

“Unless you wanna scatter some rose petals and get me a box of chocolates, then yeah, that’s what we’re doing.” Whisper says, getting comfy leaning back on her pile of pillows as she gives orders to the screen against the far wall. “System: pull up Courageous: Tales From the Challenger Initiative. Pick up from the last episode I was watching.”

“You watch the Challenger anime?” I ask, surprised. “Actually no, that makes sense. You used to be a Challenger; of course you’d watch it.”

“I watch it when I’m bored and I’ve got nothing better to do.” Whisper says, folding one leg over the other as the title card flashes. “It’s good for a giggle now and then.”

“A giggle?”

“Yeah, I like watching to see how wrong they get everything.” Whisper says, tossing another gummipop in her mouth before lacing her fingers behind her head. “The show’s writers took creative license with… pretty much everything that’s portrayed in the show. That’s why it’s got the ‘based on historical events’ footnote in the opening credits. Most times this show doesn’t portray the way these things actually happened, just what they think happened, or a cooler version of what happened.”

“Wonder what Nazka would say if he knew we were watching this.” I remark, leaning back on my hands.

“Nazka wouldn’t care. We’re the ones that funded the show in the first place.”

“Wait, we— what? Do you mean ‘we’, as in…?”

“As in CURSE, yeah. We’re the ones that put up the money to have this show produced.” Whisper says, her eyes fixed on the opening credits playing out on the screen. “You’ll notice that the main characters in the show are Challengers that died, or eventually joined CURSE and became Peacekeepers. That’s for a reason.”

I have to sit and process all of that, and the implications of it, before I speak again. “So this show is basically PR for CURSE.”

“It’s image management.” Whisper says, digging a hand into her bag of gummipops. “Whoever controls the narrative gets to reshape reality. Hundreds of trillions of kids have grown up watching this show, and they’ll become adults that believe that this is how things actually happened, and that the Challengers portrayed here were actually like this in real life.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about that.” I say, rolling another gummipop ball between my fingers as the opening credits end, and the show properly begins.

“Well, if it helps…” Whisper says, giving me a sidelong look. “…a lot of the things the bad Challengers do in this show didn’t have to be made up or fluffed up. That’s where the show is accurate — it portrays those moments more or less exactly how they happened.”

I don’t say anything to that, and look back to the screen. It’s easy for the bright colors to catch my attention, but something at the back of my mind is bothering me as I watch the show. Something about what Whisper said.

Hundreds of trillions of kids have grown up watching this show, and they’ll become adults that believe that this is how things actually happened.

I used to be one of those kids.

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

CURSE HQ: Hangar

10/3/12763 8:56am SGT

“I heard you were hanging out in Whisper’s quarters until late last night.”

I already know what Kent’s getting at the moment the words are out of his mouth, and with the weather-talk tone he’s taking. I just shake my head in response.

“Nothing happened. We watched four episodes of the Challenger anime and binged on gummipops. I kicked myself out of her quarters when I realized how late it was getting.” I say over the rim of my mug, hoping to shut down the rumor mill before it gets started. Both of us are standing outside the repair lab, leaned back against the wall of the hangar as we watch the hangar staff prep for the arrival of an important ship.

Kent lets out a long, aggravated sigh. “Axe. Axe. Do you realize what other people would give to switch places with you. Whisper is,” He places his fingers to his mouth and makes a kissing sound as he flicks them away. “pièce de résistance. A snack-sized masterpiece. The cutest little spitfire Calyri this side of the galaxy. And you are letting your unique access to her go to waste.”

“Unlike you, I don’t have the urge to hump every pretty thing that looks at me sideways.” I reply, sipping from my mug.

“That’s a lie.”

“Let me rephrase that then: unlike you, I don’t let that urge control my priorities.”

“On that we can agree.” Kent says, blowing over his mug. “You completely deny it, lock it down, and repress it until it morphs into this angsty, emotionally misbalanced blob of desperately sexless sentimentality that scares off anyone that would ever be interested in you.”

“I feel like you’re mocking my emotional sensitivity.”

“And I feel like you desperately need to get laid.”

“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to yourself!” Kent snorts, peering into his almost-empty mug. “Actually do apologize to me, because you’re taking Whisper off the table for the rest of us, and that’s not cool.”

“I’m not taking Whisper off the table for anyone.” I protest. “We’re just friends. If she wants to pursue a romantic relationship with someone else, there’s nothing stopping her from doing that.”

Kent sighs. Again. “You’re clueless.” Sipping from his mug, he motions across the hangar to where Gossamer’s stalking across the hangar. “Looks like she finally got out of the infirmary. I thought you said Songbird was just some guy with a couple of swords?”

“Whisper says that Gossamer had him in a hold, so in order to stab Gossamer, he took his sword and impaled himself.” I say, tracking her progress across the hangar. “Rammed the blade clear through himself and into Gossamer.”

“Good grief. That’s brutal.” Kent mutters. “Why didn’t Whisper take him down after that?”

“Because he got back up.”

“Seriously? What is he, a Cyber?”

“Vampire, according to Whisper.”

“Oh, okay. That makes sense.” Kent says, setting his mug on the floor after draining it. “I’ve heard vampires can walk off that sort of stuff. They can regenerate or something, right?”

“Yeah, they can, but impaling yourself still has to hurt.” I point out. “And I’m pretty sure it’s not instant regeneration. He still had to grit his teeth and walk it off. It didn’t get better right away.”

“Yeah, you’ve got a point.” Kent says, poking at his chest. “I’m not sure I could get up the guff to stab myself, even if I knew I would heal from it later. Challengers, man. They’re a special sort of crazy.” After that, he points to the area where Gossamer’s joined Nazka and a group of CURSE operatives just outside the landing zone prepped for the guest ship. “What’s the deal here? Seems like they’re getting ready to welcome some bigwig.”

“The Administrator decided to ask SCORN to lend us one of their operatives after the last mission against Songbird failed.” I explain, sipping from my mug.

“SCORN? Gross.” Kent says, making a face. “Why are we accepting help from a bunch of religious xenophobes? We’re not that desperate, are we?”

“I dunno. Maybe we are.” I say, shrugging. “Personally, I think we can take Songbird down on our own. We just need to send the right Peacekeepers after him, and plan it out.”

“Puts a bad taste in my mouth.” Kent grumbles. “I’ll look the other way for a lot of things, but SCORN is just trash. Do we know who they’re lending out to us?”

“Some guy named Prophet.” I say, tapping a heel against the wall behind us. “I think he used to be a Challenger, which might be why the Administrator asked for him.”

“Well, I hope that they get what they want out of that ask.” Kent says, shaking his head as he reaches down to pick up his mug. “I think it’s a shame we’re asking the likes of them for help. They’ve done wrong by a lot of people in this galaxy, and we shouldn’t be giving them legitimacy.”

“I’m sure the Administrator has her reasons for reaching out to them.” I say, even though I’ve got my own misgivings about them. Kent’s not wrong; SCORN’s been involved in countless legislative efforts to roll back civil rights and protections for nonhuman species, and they give a platform to a lot of traditionalist politicians and regimes. But at the same time, I know we don’t always have the luxury of picking our allies. Sometimes we have to take what we can get.

“Well, I hope this Prophet guy doesn’t step into HQ and start preaching to the rest of us.” Kent says, pushing off the wall. “Hey, didn’t you have a ceremony to attend today? Something with the new recruits?”

“Yeah, they finished basic training today and this is their ‘graduation’ day.” I say, following suit and pushing off the wall. “Rite of passage where they get to meet all the current Peacekeepers and challenge them if they want to. I should get into my armor for that.”

“Bunch of hotblooded youngsters looking to earn respect for doing something stupid?”

“More or less.” I answer, starting to walk. “I’d invite you, but I’m pretty sure you have better things to do than watch the vets roughhouse with the rooks.”

“Are you kidding me? I’d love watching that.” Kent says as the door to his repair lab slides back open. “It’s free comedy. But you’re right, I do have shit I need to get done. I should at least try to earn my paycheck or something. I just wish I could get paid to knock around rookies like you do.”

“Trust me, they rarely pick a fight with the guy in power armor.” I scoff over my shoulder as I head off. “They’re stupid, but they’re not usually that stupid.”

“Never say never!” he calls before ducking back into his lab.

Rolling my eyes, I take another sip from my mug and keep walking, headed back to quarters to get geared up.

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

CURSE HQ: Proving Grounds

10:04am SGT

“…today, you officially graduate and become the newest operatives of CURSE. It is a great honor to be part of one of the most elite peacekeeping forces in the galaxy, but make no mistake, this is just the beginning…”

Beside me, Whisper is slouched in her chair, eyes half-closed and rubbing her fingers between her eyes as if the sergeant’s shouting was giving her a headache. “Would it kill them to rewrite this speech so it’s not the same every time?” she asks softly.

“Try to sit up a little, they’re going to think you’re falling asleep.” I mutter, keeping my voice as low as possible. Not that any of the rookies would hear it over the sergeant’s shouting.

“I am falling asleep.” Whisper grumbles back at me.

“Quiet, both of you.” rumbles a colossal, green-skinned orc sitting on my other side, fully suited up in his combat armor. Ironfist has always been a stickler for the inauguration of new recruits. “There will be time for idle chatter later. Show some respect for the ceremony.”

Whisper silently mimes his words back at him, making a mocking face as she does so, but doesn’t say anything more. I lean back in my chair and let my gaze wander over the grand training room that we call the Proving Grounds; it’s about the size of a spaceball stadium, with dynamic elements that can instantly be shifted into a variety of obstacle courses or mock battlegrounds. At the moment, all of those elements are at rest; the room is simply a flat floor, with rows of new recruits standing at attention in their new CURSE uniforms. Against the wall is where all the Peacekeepers are seated in tall, austere chairs spaced apart from each other at equal intervals, and the floor elevated slightly above the one the recruits are standing on. Between us and the recruits, a large hexagon is slightly sunken into the floor, marking the area where recruits can challenge one of the Peacekeepers to a sparring match. 

“…though you may be elite compared to average soldiers in other militaries, you will still meet your match up against special forces trained by governments and organizations. Rise above, hone your skills, and excel against even the best, and you may one day join the ranks of the select few you see behind me.” the sergeant continues, motioning a hand back to the line of twelve or thirteen chairs that Whisper and I are part of. “But few of you will. Out of every class of new recruits, only one or two out of hundreds ever rise to the rank of Peacekeeper. For those that wish to know why, you now have the opportunity to challenge one of your superiors, if you’d like to take a hack at besting the best we have.”

“Here we go.” Whisper mutters, sitting up a little. “How long you think it’s going to be before one of them challenges me?”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky this time.” I murmur back, my eyes wandering to the side of the room, where there’s a flicker of movement. Turning my head to get a better look, I can see that Tenji and Nazka are stepping onto a balcony protruding out of the wall, with someone in a white and gold-trimmed uniform following them. “It looks like the top brass is interested in our new class of recruits.”

Whisper turns her head to look as well. “Oh great. Now we have to put on a show for them too.” she mutters, squinting her eyes. “Who’s the guy that’s with them? I don’t recognize him.”

“Might be the guy from SCORN. They were prepping a reception for him in the hangar earlier today.” I say.

“I want to challenge Ironfist!” The shout draws our attention back to the floor, where one of the new recruits has stepped forward, a big ox Halfie standing at a towering eight feet tall, with his uniform straining against his size. Beside me, Ironfist pushes out of his chair without a word and makes his way down to the ring, rolling his shoulders as he goes.

“You think Ironfist is going to put him in the infirmary?” I say aside to Whisper.

“If he doesn’t yield, then yeah. Probably gonna see some infirmary cases today.” Whisper says, digging in her hexweave jacket and pulling out a gummipop. “I’d give it forty seconds max.”

“Generous.” I murmur. “I was thinking thirty.”

Both of us go quiet as Ironfist steps into the ring with the recruit, and the two start trading hits. It marks the beginning of the Challenges, which usually don’t last more than thirty minutes, even with all Peacekeepers participating. It’s a chance for the Peacekeepers to earn the respect of the new recruits, and a chance for recruits to see exactly how skilled the elite operatives are. The brash are usually the one to make challenges, either trying to earn credit with their superiors or in the eyes of their peers, and they’re usually beaten down quickly for it. But in a way, that’s the point: nobody, recruits included, expects any of the recruits to win the Challenges. It’s less about winning, and more about making a point. Showing that you’re willing to fight a battle even when you know you’re going to lose.

As for myself, I get as comfortable as I can, sitting in my power armor, and watch as one by one recruits step forward to challenge a Peacekeeper, and one by one, are beaten down and dispatched in summary order. To their credit, not all of the recruits try to brute-force it; some try to use their natural talents to win their match. A couple are mages that think that having a few spells or inherent powers at their disposal will give them the edge, and they’re quickly made to rethink that, as the Peacekeepers they’ve challenged show that they know how to counter such things, or have tricks of their own up their sleeve.

Whisper’s turn comes about halfway down the line, and it doesn’t last for very long. The recruit she’s up against was probably counting on his size to level the playing field, but he’s not fast enough to keep up with her, and Whisper takes the philosophy that a bigger combatant just means a larger target. It takes her less than a minute to beat him down and get on his back, one arm around his neck in a subduing hold; he only yields once he’s about to pass out. Once she lets him go, she doesn’t even give him the courtesy of a farewell as she crosses back up to her chair and slouches in it, bored once more.

“You’re gonna scare them off, being that ruthless.” I say.

“It’s a lesson they need to learn. An enemy isn’t going to show them mercy.” she says, pulling out her phone and checking it. “Besides, I needed to show them that a small enemy can be just as dangerous as a big one.”

“Mission accomplished.” I mutter, turning my attention back to the floor as the most recent recruit is helped out of the ring.

As the Challenges go on, I start to tune them out, watching them without really paying attention to them. My mind wanders elsewhere, thinking back to the day when I attended this same ceremony, but was on the other side of it. I’d watched other recruits get their asses handed to them, but hadn’t made a challenge myself; it hadn’t seemed like the smart thing to do. Instead, I’d watched each match closely, observing how each Peacekeeper fought, as if I could learn something from it. The economy of their movements, the precision of their hits, the timing of their attacks — all of it pointed to something that could only be gotten through training, time, and experience. And it wasn’t just that they had experience. It was that they knew themselves, knew what they were capable of, and knew how to leverage that into a strength.

Whisper had been there on that day when I’d graduated from basic training. She hadn’t been as lazy as she was today, but I can remember that her attitude had been similar, and I’d remembered thinking to myself that if I was going to challenge someone, it’d probably be someone my size or smaller. Back then, I’d had the foolish idea that a recruit could actually win their challenge, and when someone challenged Whisper, I thought it’d be a match that would go on for a while. But just like today, it had ended in a matter of seconds; the efficiency and ruthlessness with which she dispatched her opponent on that day had made it very clear to me that challenging Whisper would’ve been a mistake, and I’d been glad I hadn’t had the nerve to try it.

“Dare!”

Whisper’s hiss brings me back to the present. I blink a couple times, realizing that everyone in the room is looking at me, the other Peacekeepers included. Glancing aside at Whisper, I see her twitch her head towards the ring, where a recruit is waiting at the edge and the sergeant is staring at me.

“Someone’s challenged you.” Whisper hisses through gritted teeth.

I stare at her. Then back to the ring. It takes a few seconds to sink in, but once it has, I get up, stare at my battleaxe leaned against the arm of my chair, and elicit to leave it. Stepping away from my chair, I make my way down to the floor, power armor thudding on each step as I get my head around this.

What kind of idiot challenges a Peacekeeper in a suit of power armor?

It doesn’t occur to me to look at that idiot until I reach the edge of the ring, and upon arriving, I find a familiar face on the other side of it. It’s the recruit that was last out of the doors when the transport first came in — the girl with white hair and tawny eyes.

There’s not a chance in hell she could win this match. Hell, she’d probably break bones just trying to hit me while I’m suited up.

“First to yield.” the sergeant says, stepping back. “You may commence.”

The girl doesn’t hesitate to step down into the ring. I want to ask her if she really wants to do this, to ask her if she realizes she’s going to come out on the other side pretty sore, but I can tell from the look in her eyes she doesn’t care. She’s got something she wants to prove to everyone else.

The sergeant looks to me expectantly. After another moment, I access the screen on the forearm of my suit, and order it to disengage. There’s the hiss of the hermetic seal opening as gears whir, the plates unlocking and drawing back so I can step out of the power armor and down into the ring in just my plugsuit. I lift and roll one shoulder, limbering up now that I’ve been freed from the confines of my armor.

If this recruit’s going to throw a curveball at me, I’ll throw one right back at her.

I can hear scattered murmuring and rustling against the back wall as the other Peacekeepers start to perk up and pay attention. If the sergeant’s surprised, he doesn’t show it; the recruit, on the other hand, doesn’t know what to make of it. Curling my suited fingers open and closed, I nod to her. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

She bounces on her heels, then on her toes, before tilting forward. Not quite a full-on charge, but she comes at me with speed, winding up for a swing, then feints to the other side and switches fists. I bring my arms up, blocking the first hit; when the second jab comes in, I use the back of my forearm to angle it away, already moving into the opening to slam my open palm into her torso, just beneath her sternum. It sends her sliding back, and she staggers for a moment, then goes down to one knee, coughing for breath.

I straighten up, letting my arms drop. When she looks up, gaze catching mine, I can tell she’s not going to back down.

And I can’t help but think back to the last few times I stood in this ring.

“I just… I just can’t do it, Dare.”

“C’mon, you got this.” I say, sitting on the edge of the hexagonal ring beside Roya. “It just looks like you got caught off guard there. Keep it loose, give it another try.”

“I just can’t do it.” Roya says, running her hands through her hair and over the back of her neck. “I know all the moves, I just can’t do it. I freeze up and I don’t know what to do when I get in the ring. I can’t remember what to use to counter when somebody comes at me with something.”

“You’re thinking about it too much.” I say, resting my arms on my knees. “The moves are just for muscle memory. You’re not supposed to see your opponent’s stance and think, ‘I need to counter that with this set of moves’. Hand-to-hand combat isn’t chess — you don’t plan your way to victory. It’s all in how you react.”

“Half the time I can’t even use the moves I’ve learned!” Roya says, throwing her hands out. “What’s the point of learning Jai Te if it’s not going to be useful in a fight?”

“So that you can use it when you can. And the other half of the time, you just react. You make something up.” I say, standing up. “That’s the dirty secret about practical martial arts. It’s all reaction and instinct. The moves you get taught are something you use if it’s convenient. If you have a chance. But the rest of the time, it’s just reacting and hitting back.” I hold out a hand to her. “I know you can do it. It just takes a little learning. A little practice.”

She exhales, looking at my hand, then reaches out and taking it as she stands back up. “It’s easy for you to say. You’re pretty good at it.”

“It’s easy for me to say. But it was hard for me to learn.” I say, patting her back as she moves back towards the middle of the ring. “I believe in you. You can do this.”

I take a step back and steady myself, as the impact of the heel kick radiates across my ribs. Grimacing, I roll my shoulders again, feeling the bruises on my upper arm and the side of my face; they’re going to be sore later. But I’m not the only one feeling the pain; across from me, the recruit is braced on her knees, catching her breath. Her uniform is disheveled, and some of the hair she had pinned back in a ponytail has come loose.

“I’d like to remind you that you can yield at any point.” the sergeant says from where he’s been presiding at the edge of the ring.

The recruit glares aside at him, reaching to rub the back of her hand across her mouth and wipe away some of the blood from the split lip there. We’ve been trading hits for the last minute or so. Though she’s managed to get hits in, I’ve won every exchange so far; yet she keeps getting back up. And I keep letting her get back up.

I let her keep getting back because I want her to get back up.

Because I’m daring her to stay down.

To give up.

And I want her to defy that, to prove she won’t give up.

When she looks back to me, she can see that I’m daring her without saying a word. Daring her to fold, to yield, to admit defeat and walk off. And I see, in that tawny gaze, that she knows it would be the smart thing to do.

But she refuses.

She pushes off her knees, straightening up. Her arms come up with her, fingers curled into fists, as she tilts her head back, puffs out a breath, and squares her shoulders.

Raising a hand, I invite her to come at me again.

It’s hard to watch.

Standing here on the edge of the ring, watching Roya try to pass her hand-to-hand benchmarks. Fighting other recruits, losing in most cases. She knows all the movesets, but it doesn’t seem to help her; her instinct in most encounters is to retreat. She isn’t a confrontational person, and doesn’t hold her ground. She retreats.

I’ve tried to help her. I’ve trained with her, and tried to get her into the headspace she needs in close-quarters combat. It seems like she gets it when we’re training together, but when she goes into the ring on her own, she reverts back to her instinctive way of doing things. But that’s not the hardest part.

The hardest part is seeing her leave that ring earlier and earlier with each match, yielding quicker and quicker as time goes on. I can see her throwing in the towel, giving up in slow motion, and it’s agonizing. I don’t know why it hurts so much. Whether it’s because I’ve put so much time and effort into trying to make this work for her. Or if it’s because I really do believe she’s capable of this, if she’d just stick with it and see it through. Or if it’s because watching her give up feels like a betrayal of everything she told me she believed in, everything she wanted to do and become. 

It’s hard to watch her lose.

It’s hard to watch her get beat down.

But the hardest thing is watching her give up.

When the low kick comes in, I’m already throwing myself up into the air. A jump that takes me up so I can twist around, slamming my fist into the side of her head as I come back down while she’s overextended.

The hit lays her out flat against the floor of the ring. Hard. The thud is audible throughout the room, and as I land, I stagger, stepping over her and taking a moment to steady myself against the dizziness I’m feeling. The right side of my head hurts, and I’m pretty sure I’ve going to have a black eye tomorrow from the punch she managed to land on me.

Aside from my panting, it’s dead silent in the massive room.

We’ve probably been at this for two minutes now. This match has lasted longer than any of the other matches so far; the other matches were showcases for the Peacekeepers that were involved in them. But this match, my match, is something more. Something I didn’t even intend it to be.

Just like yesterday, I can feel the emotions flowing through me. Running wild and free, unbound by the shackles of civility; I feel the grief of a lost friendship, the disappointment of being let down by someone I thought I could trust, the betrayal of all the time and effort invested into the relationship. All of it culminating in the long-simmering anger that I’d tried to ignore and turn a blind eye to.

I hadn’t taken it out on the recruit, persay. I wasn’t being overly ruthless with her; I was only doing just enough to keep making a point. The anger wasn’t manifesting in how hard I hit her; it was manifesting in how I kept knocking her back down. Daring her to get back up, to find the strength to keep going even when the odds were stacked against her. To have the strength that Roya hadn’t had.

A test, a challenge, playing out in front of the class of new recruits and my fellow Peacekeepers.

As I’m catching my breath and steadying myself, I hear a groan behind me, the rustle of fabric over the ground. Turning around, I see the recruit pushing herself to her hands and her knees; she remains there for a moment, then pulling one leg up, sets her foot against the ground and starts to push up, using her knee as leverage.

“I don’t know how many times I need to say this, but you can yield at any point.” the sergeant says, his hand on the radio at his waist as if he’s two seconds from calling in a medical team and a stretcher.

Murmurs start up among the recruits standing in their rows, low whispers exchanged between them and directed her way. Some of them are annoyed; many concerned, all of them urging her to yield before she ends up hospitalized. Telling her this isn’t worth it, she’s already proved her point, that there’s no shame in yielding right now.

Her only response is to grit her teeth as she sways back to her feet. For a moment it looks like she’s going to topple over, but she doesn’t. And after that moment, she spits some blood off to the side, and starts rolling up the sleeves of her uniform. A fair share of her hair’s fought loose of her ponytail now, hanging limp over one side of her face as she locks me with those tawny eyes.

Refusing to give up.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Hearing those words hurts, and I don’t want to let it show. I try not to let it show. I don’t know if I succeed, but I try not to let it show. Hearing those words back when we were both rooks in training was disappointing, but it wasn’t painful. Hearing them now, when they’re being said in reference to our friendship, is something else altogether.

After a moment, I look at her. She looks away. And after a moment, I look away too.

“We’re just too different.” she says without looking at me. “As friends, we just don’t… click well. It’s not my fault, it’s not your fault, we’re just too different.”

“Because we’re different.” I echo softly.

Roya doesn’t say anything for a bit. And eventually: “We just keep finding ourselves here. Hurting ourselves, hurting each other… we’re bad at communicating with each other, even when we’re trying to be honest and understanding. We tell each other we’re going to do better and yet we just keep ending up here, both of us hurting, and… it’s just the truth. We’re just too different, and it just goes wrong every time.”

After a moment for that to sink in, I turn my head a little and give my answer. “A friendship is more than the sum of its failures and its worst moments. We get through the hard times so we can reach the good times. It’s messy, and it takes effort, and we don’t always get it right, but that’s what makes it worth it. Friendships are more than the sum of their spats and struggles — they are the sum of their good times and happy moments too.”

She shakes her head. “This is what I mean. We’re too different. You always throw yourself into the dark, chasing the few flecks of light in a bad situation, as if you could use them to light up the galaxy. You go hard at it no matter what happens, even when the odds are stacked and you know you can’t win. And I… I can’t do that, Dare.”

I can’t bring myself to look at her. I don’t think she can bring herself to look at me, either.

“I understand.” I softly say after a long silence. I can feel a decade-long friendship crumbling into ruins with those two words. A bridge burning above a river that can’t put it out. “I want you to be happy. And if that’s what it takes… that’s what the core of friendship is. If you can be happy somewhere else, I want that for you.”

She doesn’t say anything to that. After another long moment, she starts walking away; no goodbye, no farewell. Simply leaves. Once the sound of her footsteps fade, and I’m alone once more, I turn my gaze to the window, and the void of space beyond.

The stars were blurry.

I can feel blood dripping down one side of my face. Taking a floor to the head was something my circulatory system hadn’t agreed with, and a busted blood vessel was showing the damage. But I was still standing, and so was the recruit.

She wasn’t much better off than I was. Mouth all bloody from the split lip, limping a little bit, her grip shaky from fatigue, it looked and felt like she was pushing the edge of blacking out.

But she hadn’t given up, and she hadn’t yielded.

We were currently grappling with each other, the result of having run out of energy for hitting each other. At the moment we had our arms locked, feet braced against the ground, each one straining to throw or push the other out of the ring — at this point I think it’s become clear that neither of us are going to yield, and we don’t have the stamina to knock each other out, so the easiest way to end this is to force someone out of the ring. The whispering from the class of recruits has faded away again, and all the other Peacekeepers are watching with unusual attention. I’ve lost track of how long the match has been going on, but I think we’re going on four or five minutes now.

I can tell, based on how her fingers tremble and clench into the shoulders of my plugsuit, that she’s running out of steam. The fire’s still there in the tawny eyes, but the physical stamina is running out; it’s only going to be a matter of time before I can force her to the edge and throw her out of the ring, and she knows it. There doesn’t seem to be much she can do to change that outcome.

So it takes me by surprise when she digs her fingers into my shoulders, and rather than try to push me back, yanks me in. Enough so that I don’t have time to dodge when she jerks her head back and whips it forward, slamming her forehead into mine.

The impact immediately blitzes my vision, and I lose my grip on her shoulders as I go staggering backwards. As I try to balance and blink away the scattering of sparkles painting my field of vision, I get my vision back just in time to see her drunkenly weaving towards me, fist ratcheted back for a haymaker. Still too dizzy to move out of the way, I catch the punch right to the face, and it throws me flat on my back. I lie there for a bit, waiting for the ceiling to stop spinning.

And when it does, I start laughing, even though it hurts.

She never gave up.

Though my grief over my lost friendship with Roya hasn’t disappeared, I do remember what she said. About how we were too different to be friends, about how I refused to give up even when the odds were stacked against me and I knew I couldn’t win.

I think I’ve found someone that’s similar to me.

Laying my arms on the ground, I work on pushing myself up into a sitting position, still chuckling. I’m still dizzy, but I can see the recruit and the sergeant staring at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Bending my legs so I can rest my arms on my knees, I spit some blood off to the side as I smile at the recruit. “Thank you for that. I needed that. It’s been a while since I met someone that’s like me.”

With that, I lift a hand up, a wordless ask for help getting up. Though confused and unsure, she moves over to me and grabs my hand, pulling me up; once I’m up and standing, I keep a hold on her hand, gripping it as I rest my other hand on her shoulder.

“You're going to make a great Peacekeeper one day.” I assure her. “Never give up.”

With that, I let go of her hand, and turn about, limping back to my end of the ring. Stepping out of it, I walk past my power armor, not bothering to get back into it, and hobble my way back to my chair, slumping down in it with a contented sigh and blood dripping onto my plugsuit. Beside me, Whisper just stares at me as if I’d lost my mind. On the other side, Ironfist is giving me a speculative look, as if he was reassessing his opinion of me.

But I don’t pay attention to either of them. My eyes stay on the recruit I just fought, who casts a gaze over her shoulder at me as the medic on duty leads her away from the ring.

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

CURSE HQ: Boardroom

1:19pm SGT

I’d secretly been hoping that I could just slip into the meeting without being noticed, but when the door to the boardroom opens, every eye turns to me. The rest of the Peacekeepers currently stationed at the HQ are sitting at a long table within; at the head of the table is Administrator Tenji, and at the seat caddycorner to her, Nazka. Silence falls across the room as I step in to full view: side of my head shaved to treat my head laceration, one eye swollen shut, and still limping a little.

Onslaught snorts, clamps a hand over her mouth, then bursts out laughing.

“Onslaught.” Tenji says, reaching up to adjust her glasses.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just. Oh gods that’s too funny.” Onslaught giggles. “Sorry.”

“Over here, Axiom.” Whisper says, pulling out a chair for me next to her. “I told them you might be late.”

“Apologies for that.” I say, settling into the chair Whisper’s pulled out for me. “I just got out of the infirmary.”

“We will be speaking to you about that later.” Nazka says, his voice dripping with ice. “For the time being, we return to the agenda. With the minor items out of the way, it is time to address the major development in the past month: Songbird and the rogue Challengers now have the archive in their possession.”

“Didn’t we send people to get it back?” asks a brunette sitting towards the end of the table on the opposite side. That’s Headache, a Peacekeeper that used to be part of the last generation of Challengers.

“We sent two covert Peacekeepers to intercept Songbird and the Mask Knight that had the backup archive.” Tenji says. “Songbird captured the Mask Knight and nearly killed one of our Peacekeepers, so the team was forced to retreat and seek medical attention.”

Ironfist leans forward on the table. “He’s just one Challenger. Why is this so hard? First the museum on Valcorria, now Sybione. We are elite defenders of the peace, and on every encounter he has been outnumbered. Yes, he is a Challenger, but we have hunted down, arrested, and defeated dozens of other Challengers.”

“Songbird is not your average Challenger.” Nazka says, standing up at this point, waving a hand as the lights in the room dim. At another motion from him, a holoscreen projects down the length of the table, showing a profile with recent information on Songbird. “We have had our intelligence team digging through reams of information about him ever since the Valcorria incident. Anything we can find out of the old Challenger records and logs. Many of those records are incomplete because of the Challengers’ attempt to erase as much information as possible before the program was shut down, but there are still hints, clues buried among the remains.”

“We’ve got plenty of former Challengers among our Peacekeepers.” Onslaught points out. “Why don’t we just ask them?”

“Because we don’t know.” Gossamer says tartly. “Songbird was a nobody before the Songbird Incident fifteen years ago. We only ever saw him in passing, and he was only on support roles when we were on missions with him.”

“That’s probably because the program wanted you to think he was a nobody.” Nazka says as the profile of Songbird expands. “In reality, Songbird was one of the program’s most versatile and dangerous operatives. And there are indications that he may have been a part of the Accounting department.”

“Shit, really?” Headache says. “I never knew.”

“You can’t be serious.” Gossamer scoffs. “That clown? Accounting?”

I look around. “Sorry, I’m missing something here. Accounting? Is he really good with investment portfolios and the stock market? Is he going to kill us with spreadsheets?”

“The Accounting department was the Challenger program’s cover for their covert operations branch.” Nazka explains. “The lexicon of finance lent itself very nicely to their covert operations; if the Challenger program had a problem, it was often sent to the Accounting department for ‘correction’. We know even less about Accounting than we do about regular Challengers, but what is known is that these covert Challengers — known as Accountants — undertook espionage, infiltration, sabotage, and assassination missions. Things that didn’t quite align with the Challenger program’s public-facing values; things that needed to be handled away from the light of day.”

“I am still not seeing the issue.” Ironfist says. “I understand that this adds an extra layer of danger, but it should still be well within our ability to handle.”

“Accountants are different.” Headache says. “They’re more… brutal and efficient than regular Challengers. Dangerous and trained to kill quickly.”

“An observation which brings us to the man that we believe trained Songbird during his suspected stint in the Accounting department.” Nazka agrees, making another flicking motion to the holoscreen. A second profile goes up beside Songbird’s, this one of an austere, clean-shaven man with halfmoon spectacles and a vested suit. “This is Kaiser, the man widely believed to have been the head of the Accounting department. You will notice the dark hair and the violet eyes.”

“This guy’s a Shanarae?” Onslaught says, squinting at the holoscreen.

“Possibly one of the few still alive outside of the preserves.” Nazka confirms. “While he is not the most powerful Challenger ever produced by the program, he is the most dangerous Challenger to come out of it. During his time in the Challenger program, Kaiser is thought to have eliminated dozens of targets, tortured or interrogated hundreds more, and killed upwards of a thousand people in the course of executing his various missions and duties. In the criminal underworld, he is known as the Butcher of Balmorrah.”

“I like this guy already.” Onslaught says, leaning back in her chair. “Sounds like my kind of dude.”

“No, you wouldn’t like him.” Gossamer says, fingernails clicking over the table. “Kaiser has no emotions; he’s basically a serial killer, a high-functioning psychopath. He’s cold, efficient, and he has no remorse — he won’t hesitate to kill you, and he won’t look back after he’s done it.”

“And he’s still alive.” Tenji adds at this point. “As are many of the Accountants he trained. Now that the rogue Challengers have the archive, we are turning our focus towards finding and recruiting as many of those Accountants as we can — we will need them if this renegade movement picks up steam.”

“We are going to need help from many quarters.” Nazka adds. “Dealing with this Challenger resurgence is going to require coordination across several fronts. The new class of recruits that just graduated is part of that, and we are kicking CURSE’s recruitment program into overdrive across the galaxy. One of our Preserver ships will be bringing us a powerful arcane specimen we hope to be able to leverage in the fight against the resurgence. We are in constant communication with our law enforcement partners in the Vaunted, and we have reached out to SCORN, who has responded by lending us a particularly useful asset.” With that, Nazka motions to the other end of the table. “Everyone, this is Prophet. Like many of you, he is a former Challenger — but most importantly, he trained alongside, and was a childhood friend, of Songbird. As such, he has a unique window into Songbird’s psychology, methods, and behaviors.”

We all look to the man sitting at the end of the table. I’d noticed him earlier, but he’s been silent until now — a brown-haired, blue-eyed human dressed in a white uniform, with light golden trim. It was the same one that had been standing on the balcony with Tenji and Nazka earlier, and he stands now.

“It’s a pleasure to meet all of you.” he says, inclining his head to the rest of us. “I am familiar with many of your names — as was mentioned before, some of you are former Challengers, and the rest I know from your deeds and exploits that have been reported by the news. I am Prophet — I was a former Challenger like many of you, but nowadays I serve as an Ecclesiarch for the Church of Anaya.”

“Ah. So you’re a missionary.” Ironfist says, leaning back in his chair. “Are you going to capture Songbird by troubling his conscience?”

Prophet smiles. “I might be a missionary, but it doesn’t mean my combat days are behind me, Ironfist. As a disciple of the Phoenix, you should know that combat and service to the divine are not mutually exclusive.”

“You’ve done your homework.” Ironfist says, rubbing a knuckle along his chin. “Fair enough. Continue on.”

Prophet inclines his head to him, and looks to the rest of us. “I understand the situation in which you currently find yourselves. All hands are needed on deck, so I will be accompanying you all on certain assignments. It is my hope that we can simultaneously advance the causes of both CURSE and SCORN, bring an end to this resurgence, and secure peace and prosperity for our children and descendants. We want to leave the galaxy safer and better for those that follow in our footsteps, and if taking down Songbird is what is required, I will gladly place my shoulder to that wheel.”

“Thank you, Prophet.” Tenji says as Prophet sits down. “That takes care of our two major developments. You all have been brought up to speed on current events, and what our priorities are as we look forward. Nazka will have new assignments for all of you shortly; as Prophet said, we will need all hands on deck. With the archive now in the hands of the rogue Challengers, the danger has escalated to a level far beyond what it was before. It is only a matter of time before they begin marshaling the resources that were sequestered away and hidden after the program was shuttered, and if we do not stamp them out soon, there will be more events like Valcorria and Shinobe Kibe. The galaxy is counting on us to stop this resurgence — let’s make it happen.”

“You are all dismissed.” Nazka says as the lights come back to full, and people begin to push back their chairs and stand up.

“Except for you, Axiom.” Tenji says as she stands. “I would like to speak with you. Alone.”

The low chatter that had started up dies back down at that, and the atmosphere in the boardroom turns awkward. The other Peacekeepers accelerate their departure, hurrying out rather than wandering; Onslaught gives a grin as she goes. “Someone’s in trooooouble.” she says in a singsong voice.

Whisper touches a hand to my sleeve. “I’ll be at Gritter’s if you need someone to talk to afterwards.” she murmurs before slipping around me.

Nazka is the last one through the door, and it hisses shut behind him. The boardroom suddenly seems much larger when it’s just me and the Administrator in here; I turn to face her as she makes her way down the length of the table. “I suppose this is about the Challenges today?” I surmise.

Tenji smiles at me. Unlike Nazka, she’s always felt warm and approachable. “Well, yes. The others were talking about it, and I must admit, it was rather unusual. We use the Challenges to demonstrate the prowess of our Peacekeepers, and to firmly establish the chain of command. What you did today broke that tradition.”

“I’m sorry.” I apologize. “I’ve been having a difficult time recently, and… I’ve made some decisions I shouldn’t have. That was one of them. I’ll not do that next time.”

Tenji seems to size me up for a moment. “Does this have anything to do with you and Roya?”

I blink at her. “It… well. How did you know about that?”

She shrugs, reaching up to tuck a loose lock of scarlet hair behind one ear. “I pay attention. I listen. I try to stay in touch with the flow of life here at the HQ, so I have a better sense of our organization and how it’s doing. From what I’d heard, you and Roya had a falling-out.”

“Yeah.” I say, tucking my hands in my pockets and looking away. “Nothing that can be done about it. We’re just… too different, is what she said. Maybe she’s right. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

“If you don’t mind me asking…” Tenji ventures tentatively. “…is it a difference in personality, a difference in beliefs? You two seemed like you were pretty good friends.”

“Yeah, I thought we were too.” I say, still looking aside. Idly studying the holoscreen that still has Songbird and Kaiser’s profiles up. “But I guess she just… doesn’t feel the same way.”

Tenji follows my gaze to the holoscreen. “I see. Well, I know it doesn’t help, but I know how you feel. I’ve lost friends as well. Personality disputes, differences of belief. It hurts, and you wish you could get them back, but at the end of the day… you have to move on. For your own sake.”

“I know.” I say softly. “It’s just hard.”

“I know it is.” she says, reaching out and patting my arm. “In the meantime, though, I think you should go apologize to the recruit that you duked it out with. We don’t want her thinking that today’s altercation was motivated by personal animus.”

“Oh, right.” I say, reaching up to touch the bandage on the side of my head. “I hadn’t even thought about that… she probably thinks I have it out for her or something.”

“I’m sure a sincere apology will go a long ways towards righting that.” Tenji says. “If you need any help, just drop a line to HR. One of the counselors would be happy to help advise you on a resolution for the situation.”

“I think I’ll go do that right now.” I say, turning. “The apologizing thing, that is. If it doesn’t go well, I’ll reach out to HR.” I start towards the door, then pause and turn back to Tenji. “…I just realized I don’t even know her name.”

“Kwyn Resquill.” Tenji says with a smile. “I took the luxury of looking it up while you two were beating each other senseless. I admit, her persistence was… intriguing.”

“Kwyn Resquill. Got it. Thank you.” I say, giving her a thumbs up as I turn and head for the door again. “I’ll go do that right now!”

“Thank you, Axiom! And good luck!” she calls after me as I turn and limp through the door, checking the time on the sleeve of my uniform, then look at the hall around me and consider where to go first.

Infirmary, I figure, would probably be a good place to check.

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

CURSE HQ: Observation Deck 39

2:25pm SGT

Over an hour later, I’ve still had no luck finding her.

She isn’t in the infirmary; the staff there told me she was discharged after getting her stitches. I checked the rookie barracks, but the recruits said she wasn’t there, and most of them gave me looks that implied that my match with Kwyn had left something of an impression on them — negative or positive, I couldn’t tell. After that, I’d checked the mess hall, the training rooms, the rec rooms… all with no result.

Unsure of where she’d gone to, I’d thought about giving up and going to the bar. But I knew if I headed to Gritter’s, then Whisper would be there, and though I liked spending time with her, I didn’t want her to drill me with questions about today’s Challenges. I knew I would have to talk to her about it eventually, but when I did, I wanted to be able to say that I’d found the recruit and apologized to her.

When I can’t find the recruit anywhere — not in the park, in the hangar, in the labs — I decide to give it up for today and try again tomorrow. Worse comes to worse, I can always ask one of the sergeants that’s over the rookies to send her to me at some point, instead of trying to track her down on my own. After grabbing a bag of gummipops from one of the vending machines, I decide to head to my usual observation deck to spend some time staring at the stars and processing today’s events.

But when the elevator doors open and I go to step out onto the observation deck, I run into what I was looking for.

Waiting to get into the elevator is the recruit. A gash across her face has been stitched shut; her moonwhite hair’s been pulled back into a loose ponytail once more, and her lip is swollen from the hit she took earlier. For a moment she just stands there, waiting for me to step out of the elevator; she doesn’t seem to recognize me, probably because I’m in my uniform instead of in my plugsuit. But then it clicks, and her tawny eyes widen; she quickly looks away, taking a step back. “Sorry, I’ll find another elevator…”

“Wait, no!” I say, the words lunging out of my mouth, desperate to be heard. “I was looking for you. I wanted to apologize.”

She stops retreating, staring at me. I take a breath, trying to remember what I’d planned on saying once I found her. “What happened at the Challenges — that wasn’t your fault, that was on me. I shouldn’t have taken it that f—”

I’m cut off by the elevator doors closing on me. Apparently I stood there too long without getting out of the elevator. “Hey, wait!” I protest, trying to catch the door before they close, but automated doors are a cruel master. They won’t stop closing, so in a fit of desperation, I shove the arm with the bag of gummipops through the gap, and let out a pained groan as the doors close on it, but don’t shut all the way.

“These are for you.” I grunt from behind the mostly-closed elevator doors. “Sorry about what happened today. I shouldn’t have taken it that far.”

There’s a moment of silence from the other side. Then I feel the bag being gently tugged out of my tensed fingers, and a click as the elevator button is pressed again. The pressure from the doors immediately lets off as they open up once more, and I quickly step out of the elevator, massaging my forearm. “Thanks.”

“You really shouldn’t stick your arms in elevator doors like that.” she says. “I’m surprised they don’t have safety protocols in place to automatically open the doors once they detect an obstruction.”

“It’s probably just malfunctioning.” I say, casting a look over my shoulder. “Anyway, like I was saying… I’m sorry about today. I shouldn’t have taken it that far.”

“What are you apologizing for?” she asks. “That’s how the Challenges work. I knew when I chose to challenge you that I wasn’t going to win.”

“Except you did win.” I point out.

She stares at me. “Why did you step out of your power armor? You would’ve won if you had kept it on.”

The question leaves me at a loss for words. This wasn’t how I thought the apology would go, and these questions weren’t ones I’d been planning for. “I mean, it’s… it would’ve been unfair to you. And it wouldn’t have meant anything to win with an advantage like that. I wanted the fight to be on fair grounds.”

“You still could’ve beat me, though.” she says. “Every time I went down, you let me get back up when you could’ve finished the fight instead. I saw the way you looked at me; you wanted me to get back up and keep fighting.”

Oh man. She noticed that. “Yeah…” is all I can say to that, although I find a way to take the pressure off myself by asking a question in turn. “Why did you keep getting back up? Why didn’t you yield?”

“Because I don’t give up.” she says. “Because you kept letting me get back up. So I didn’t see a reason not to. You let me keep trying, so I kept trying.”

Something about that answer touches something inside me. It’s hard to say what it is; I don’t really have the words for it. It feels like a light flicked on inside my chest, the excitement you get from meeting someone that likes and believes the same things you do. It’s a simple, uncomplicated excitement, one that I haven’t felt in a while.

“Your name’s Kwyn, right? Kwyn Resquill?” I ask.

“Yeah. That’s me.” Kwyn answers, the gummipop bag crinkling as her fingers curl into it slightly. A sign of nervousness, perhaps wondering if she’s about to get in trouble.

I offer a hand out to her. “Darrow Bennion. You already know that I’m Axiom to the public, but my friends call me Dare. It’s nice to meet you, Kwyn.”

She reaches out, taking my hand and shaking it. “It was an honor getting to Challenge you, Axiom. Thanks for the gummipops.”

“No need to thank me. You earned them.” I say, letting go of her hand to keep the shake from running too long. “What kind of operative did you want to be when you signed up with CURSE? I know the place pretty well, and I could probably talk to a few people and see about getting you into the specialization classes you’re looking for.”

That seems to alarm her. “No, it’s fine — you don’t need to do something like that for me—”

“No, I do.” I say, tucking my hands in my pockets. “Because you didn’t give up. You kept trying when you were given the chance; even when you thought you were going to lose, you kept trying. People like you are rare, and they’re the type of people that eventually become Peacekeepers or CURSE leaders. I can’t just ignore something like that, not after you tried so hard today. What’s the path you wanted to take with CURSE? Field ops, intelligence, covert ops, civilian engagement?”

She’s silent for a long moment. When she answers, she looks down and opens the bag of gummipops. “I want to be a Peacekeeper.”

I can’t help but smile. “You and every other recruit.”

“That’s why I signed up.” she says, pulling out a gummipop and eating it. “I want to be a Peacekeeper. What do I need to do to get there?”

“Sign up for the support staff rotation. Get as many certs as you can.” I answer. “The more versatile you are, the more assignments you’ll be eligible for. Make connections with the instructors and the HQ staff; they’ve often got connections and a foot in the door for certain programs and training courses. If you can, lock in a working relationship with a Peacekeeper you like and trust — some Peacekeepers like training operatives when they’ve got no assignments pending, and may put them down as their preferred picks for support staff on assignments where they’re allowed to have support staff.”

Kwyn holds out the bag of gummipops to me, an offer for me to take one. “Okay. I pick you, then.”

I stare at her. “You pick… me?”

“I like and trust you.” she says, picking another gummipop out of the bag. “You didn’t treat me the way the other Peacekeepers treated the recruits that challenged them. But you didn’t go easy on me, either. Will you train me?”

I don’t have any words, and my mouth hangs open a little. I was just trying to be helpful, trying to encourage her. Perhaps hoping that in doing so, I’d make a new friend. I didn’t think she’d turn right back around and ask me to be the one to train her. “I’ve… never trained anyone before.”

“You can learn how to train, and I’ll learn how to become a Peacekeeper.” she says, offering the bag of gummipops again and giving it a shake. “Please?”

I look at the gummipops, then at her. How beat up she is, probably as beat up as I am, and yet she’s still asking me to train her. I feel humbled that she’s asking to learn from me, even though I don’t know if I’ll be able to teach her.

I reach into the bag and pull out a gummipop. “I’ll try. I’ve never trained anyone before, though. I can’t promise I’ll be any good at it.”

“Just keep trying.” she says, taking one for herself. “Even when you think you’re going to fail, keep trying. Just like you let me do today.”

I recognize my own words. Popping the gummipop in my mouth, I hold out a fist, and after a moment, she brings her own up to bump it, smiling a little.

“Alright, Kwyn. I’ll train you. Just don’t give up on me.”