This is going to be interesting when we wakes up.
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POV, CHAIN.
Ah, fuck. Did I not die?
Wait, where am I?
...
On a medical bed, looks to be a hospital, I'm- I'm restrained?
Did the Radiants find me? Please no, why couldn't I have just died?
*Click*
The door opens.
s-SAGE?
Walking directly in front of me?
I pull on my handcuffs as hard as I can, I need to kill her!
"Hey, you just woke up, calm down."
I need to fucking murder her!
"Did you hear me, calm down! Those chains are imbued with radinaite, you're not going to break them."
...
Fuck. FUCK. She's right here!
Why can't I just kill her?
"Are you mocking me?" I spit out.
"What?" This lying little...
"I said, are you mocking me? Restraining me on this bench and acting like you're innocent."
She looks confused for a second, but picks her disgusting face back up.
"I forgot, you're from Omega Earth." What? Is she fucking crazy?
"Omega Earth is a parallel dimension to ours, Alpha Earth. I and many others have mirror versions of ourselves in this other world. This mirror me appears to be unsavory-
"Shut the fuck up you lying bitch." I tell her straight, "You're really making up this whole story just to play with me some more? Shouldn't you be out and reviving some radiant fuckers so they can kill another thousand humans?!"
...
She looks actually shocked I just said that. Is- Is she actually telling the truth?
No, she can't be, wait if I say...
"Never Break the Chain." I say to her as clearly as I can.
"What?" She looks at me confused, is-is she telling the truth?
"Never Break the Chain." Every radiant fucker who hears this gets unreasonably pissed, but she's just confused. Is this really a different Sage?
Deep Breath.
...
"Alright, I'll calm down for now. Explain your story."
I just want to curse her out, everything she's done... God! Fuck!
"O-Okay." She says, "Well there is a world parallel to ours, with copies of ourselves and most people there. You came from that world, and it seems that the version of me and other radiniates there are beyond evil, and you have a bad history with them."
"They murdered for sport, and you facilitated everything."
"W-Well we're not like that, on Alpha Earth. Please believe us."
I breathe out like I have a cigarette in my mouth.
What other choice do I have? I should be dead anyway. These fucking radiants.
"I'll believe you but I won't trust you." I scowl at her, "What do you want from me."
She looks confused, "What do you mean?"
"I mean, what am I supposed to do? You didn't save me for nothing, radiants don't do things because it's right."
She looks into my eyes, seemingly worried.
But she still just looks evil. The urge to break from the cuffs and slice her throat open is still very much present.
Her eyes look more somber, but for all I'm concerned, she just took acting classes.
...
"I, I'm very truly sorry for you. I do not know what you have gone through, but I know that my counterpart has caused it. I am truly sorry." She opens her mouth.
...
I forgot, this is supposed to be a different Sage.
I... I want to believe it, but I can't.
I can trust her enough to not lash out at her with every word in my mind. She didn't flip when I told her the phrase, and she's actually apologizing.
The apology isn't helping anything, but no radiant I know would ever apologize.
...
Fuck
...
"It wasn't you who did it. Don't apologize for something you haven't done." I say, clenching my fist so hard it's probably white.
I just need to calm down.
Figure out what's going on.
Wait. Is Jet here? She was thrown through the same-
"You came through a portal that we've just shut down. If you remember you were restrained and knocked out as a precaution." Sage interrupts my thought, fits.
Wait no, be nice.
"I'll call in Brimstone to help you decide what to do with your life now. But I can tell that you're not a bad person, you've just gone through bad things."
"Bad things?"
Sage tilts her head, confused.
"That's an understatement, just calling them bad things is just!"
Deep breath. Calm down. Sage being in front of me is making my thoughts race too much.
...
"Just know it's an understatement just calling it 'bad things'." I finally say, while relaxing my body.
Actually, I'll just lay back down. Be more comfortable.
"I'm sorry for my misuse of words." She says.
I don't respond, I can't respond without boiling over right now.
We're both very lucky they put restraints on me.
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"Okay kid, can you explain to me what you and your world is like? Give me your life story and explain the world while doing it." This monolith of a man says to me.
"Brimstone I assume?"
He nods his head, "Can you?"
...
Do I want to? I mean, I don't have anything to lose besides my life, which should already be gone.
"Will you remove these restraints if I tell you?" I ask.
He looks at me, and then at Sage.
Sage mouths something, I can't read lips at all.
"Yes, but I will be right next to you in case you try something." He answers me.
"Alright then, fair." I get more comfortable in the medical bed.
"For starters, that thing that happened which gave all the radiants their powers. Forgot what name it was given, but it happened. After that, all the adults rounded up all the radiant kids and threw them in a facility to experiment and study them. I was one of those kids, though I didn't have powers. They thought I did because I naturally have high strength, reaction time, all that stuff."
Brimstone nods, he and Sage are both looking extremely hard.
"I escaped the place once I realized what they were doing. None of the radiants I met there were nice, besid... Yeah, none of them were nice."
I can't talk to them about Jet. I can only talk about her to the people I trust with my life.
I wouldn't get my finger pricked for these radiants.
"After I escaped I just ran around trying to not die. I was 13 and I couldn't do anything besides fire a gun. I began living self-sufficiently around in the woods. I think it was Northern California. I made the decision to head back into civilization. When I did, I saw that it was completely controlled by radiants... Everywhere. They treated humans like a resource. Either you would be turned into a slave, turned into a radiant, or killed."
Deep breaths, all that's over now.
"I started fighting back against the radiants. They were all so fucking confident nothing could stop them, it was easy to take advantage and kill them. Didn't matter because Sage would always bring them back, always... But that's not the point."
I see Sage lower her head.
"It wasn't you remember, blame that mirror Sage or whatever, don't make me feel guilty for telling the truth." I tell her, "Anyways, I continued fighting against the radiants as much as I could, other people started to join around the world, but it was always a losing battle. We just hoped that maybe if we could get Sage we would have a chance, but we never did. Never had a chance to."
"Did you group up, like create a task force?" Brimstone asks me.
"I wish, we were all solo but had some communication networks that the Radiants could never figure out." I say.
"Like 'Never break the Chain'? Was that one of those communication networks?" Sage asks.
"No that was just a dumb phrase that we used to remind ourselves to keep going and that humanity was still united. Later on, radiants would get pissed whenever they heard it, so we used it to taunt them." I explain.
Sage's face shows understanding, "That's why you told me that phrase, to see if I was one of your world radiants."
"Yeah." Fuckin' genius she is.
"Could you continue?" Brimstone asks me.
"Yeah, so we were destroyed. We always killed about 8 of them until they got one of us. But they had someone to revive them, and we didn't. It was a slow massacre. I saw that we could never kill Sage, so it'd never matter. So I gave up and walked back to the facility where all the radiant children were taken and experimented on. I walked through the portal, and came out here."
...
Deafening silence, huh?
"Thank you for that." Brimstone speaks up, "But before I let you go... Do you want to join our protocol?"
What.
"What?"
He chuckles a bit, "Sage and I are part of a group of people who protect Earth, well, Alpha Earth from threats and now, the Omega radiants. I'd obviously want to run some tests by you to know your skills, but you sound like you'd be extremely helpful. Not to mention a good head, you didn't let your emotions get the better of you at all in this conversation, and I saw how you collected yourself after the initial outburst at Sage."
...
"Can I protect this world from those radiant fuckers if I join you?"
"Yes. And you might meet some good radiants as well." He smiles.
Good radiants? I'd really like to see that, I really would.
...
"I'll join you. Not like I have anywhere else to go." I say.
Brimstone smiles, Sage barely forms a smile.
*Click*
Brimstone unlocks my restraints and holds out a hand.
I shake it.
"I'd love to tell you welcome, but we need to do some tests before you can become a full member." He says, giving me a firm handshake, "Sage, can you move everyone out of the training facility and the hallways. I don't want anybody to see him until it's official."
"Of course." She says and starts leaving the office.
...
"Alright kid, it's just me and you." Brimstone says, "I have one more thing to ask while we get the training room ready."
I don't like where this is going, but I'll nod my head.
"How did your radiants operate? How did they kill? Why did they kill?" He says, as expected it was something along those lines.
Deep breath...
"They usually killed for sport, and rarely for insubordination." I say, "They were as ruthless as possible. I remember this one guy who called himself Phoenix, he burned down an entire city in an hour, and then paraded the bodies around the next day."
Brimstone's face goes dark.
"That might have been the Omega version of a member on our team." He explains, "Please just know that-
"That they're not the same person. I know." I just have to keep my emotions and check, "Once I see their physical double, it'll be easier to... interact with them."
Brimstone nods.
...
Why am I trusting him with this knowledge? Is it because he's a human? Or maybe he seems trustworthy?
...I probably just want to get this stuff out of my head, I've been holding it in for so long. And he's the first person who's been someone trustworthy I've seen for the past however many years.
...
"So kid, you ready to take your test?" He says.
"Let me stretch first, 10 minutes."
He nods his head and heads for the door, "No more, no less. I'm a busy man."
...Yeah, he's definitely the type you'd feel fine opening up too.
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Actual stretching done...
Mental stretching... Kinda there.
I just have to keep moving forward at this point. If there is a possibility of protecting people from the wrath of those radiant fuckers, then I need to take that opportunity.
That's what I've been trying to do my entire life.
...Just ignore the fact I'm working with radiants. Maybe they're nice? Hopefully they're nice.
Once I see their Omega counterpart my brain can accept that they're actually different people.
From now until then, it'll be hard.
But what do I know that isn't hardship?
...
10 minutes is almost up, this is the training room right?
...
*Step*
There he is, Brimstone.
"Good to know you keep to your word." He tells me, "Grab a gun and head to the training room door. I'll explain more after that."
I nod my head and walk over, quite a selection.
Pretty sure I've seen those radiant fuckers use these guns before.
...Maybe I should stop calling them radiant fuckers.
...
Wait, is that the gun I always used?
I always picked it up from those radiant fuckers bodies after killing them, and if I see other guns they used here then I guess it is.
Well, I know what I'm picking.
...
"The Phantom, good choice. Most people prefer the Vandal as its bullets do a bit more damage, but they all do the job." Brimstone says.
"A bullet to the head from any gun will kill someone, doesn't matter the size of it." I say, checking out the gun. It really the exact one I always took from those radiant fuckers.
"That's what I always tell them." Brimstone says, walking over to the door, "I won't tell you anything past this door. You'll head in and act like you normally would in a situation like this. These bots can kill you, so take it seriously."
Why would I not take it seriously?
"Alright." I say, taking the safety off the gun, Phantom he called it? Whatever, the gun.
He nods and steps aside, I follow his lead and open the door.
It shuts the moment I walk in.
...
Pitch black.
But there are footsteps.
Keep silent, until pinpointing the footsteps-
*Bang!*
Bots down, a flash revealed cover to the right.
Slide over there.
*Bang! Bang!*
Take out the bot already occupying the cover by being faster than them.
Now comes the strategy.
It's pitch blac-
*Bzzzzz*
Ow, hate when lights turn suddenly like that. Rethink strategy, can't use darkness to my advantage now.
Let's do it how I always do.
Listen. For breathing, movement, the sound of clothes ruffling. Anything.
There's three, maybe four bots left from the sounds I'm hearing.
Two on the right side, one or two in far back in the left.
...
Wait for them to breathe out...
*Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!*
I spray through the right wooden crates. I can't hear anything over there more.
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
Bots are finally firing back. There's definitely two, definitely in the far back left area. Metal crates, so I can't shoot through them.
They're cycling fire as well, can't rush them while reloading.
...
Use the sound of the gun as cover for my footsteps, and use cover to head to where the previous bots were, the right side.
And... found it.
Communication device.
I'll take their gun,
*Bang! Bang!*
Say I hit the target, and that we should push.
...
And while the bots are making a decision
*Boom!*
Use the grenade found on the deceased bots bodies, and rush in!
*Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!*
...
All bots dead.
Would've been a lot easier with my usual gear, but this is nothing I can't handle.
The bots had the same intelligence as the radiant fuckers after all, they can't think too much.
...
...
...
I walk out the now open door.
"Perfect, I knew you weren't telling me bullshit." Brimstone meets me, "Stay here for a second, and keep the gun. It's a symbol of your acceptance into Valorant."
Valorant? Is that what the protocol is called? Interesting.
"I'll send out a message, tell everybody a new member of the team is joining. I'll select someone to lead you on a tour throughout the base ending at your room. Once there, you're free to do whatever you want. In reason of course. We'll have a formal introduction next meeting, which luckily is tomorrow morning." Brimstone explains.
"So, I just stay here for now?"
"Yep."
"Alright." I say, "One more thing though."
Brimstone turns to me.
"Can I just call you Brim? I've always liked nicknames."
He smiles, "Everyone else calls me that anyways, you're the first to come up with it yourself though. Feel free, just don't wear it out."
I nod my head and reach for my pocket trying to pull out a cigarette.
There is no cigarette.
...
First thing I'm doing once done with initiation, is buying some cigs.