Snippet #1192624

Once upon a time, Alex would have never given orders to anyone. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the ability to lead or lacked the confidence to assert herself in the midst of other fighters. No, it was simply because Alex had always been a collaborator, better suited and more comfortable serving as the support for anyone brave enough to take the lead. Now, she was swinging orders around like her daggers – and to Elia of all people. Just more confirmation in Elia’s eyes of how much her best friend had changed since the fall of SeeD.

The sniper fought the urge to bark back, never one to take orders well especially from someone that had spent a fair amount of time taking orders from Elia instead. Still, the factors were pretty clearly in favor of Alex at the moment. For one thing, Elia’s lack of ammunition and the aching in her body was going to make her as poor support for anyone at the moment. More importantly, though, was Kai. The last thing that he or any of the other younger trainees needed to see was Elia and Alex fighting more.

“Roger,” she finally said with a short burst of breath. Reaching up with her gloved hand, Elia made a quick set of hand signals that made the message very clear to Kai – the pair was on the move to meet back up with Eva and prepare the rest of the team for evacuation. They were getting out of Timber. The team would lick their wounds and count their gains and losses once they were clear of the city and the watchful eyes of the Corporation.

Doing their best impression of the thief they’d just left behind, Elia and Kai snuck through the city to avoid any patrols – or anyone at all – until they finally met up at the designated point with Eva. As soon as they reached the site, Elia began to rip off the gloves and unzip her combat jacket in favor of what little there was underneath.

“Good…good work,” she said with an exhausted sigh, rubbing her sore ribcage. “Let’s swing by and pick up the kids.”