"Xander? Something feels...Off. Where are all the guards?" Kaedan asked quietly. Xander gripped his boyfriend's hand tighter.
"You're right. Something's wrong," Xander murmured. "If there are no guards around, that means there was either a summoned meeting or they found someone...And I've seen nothing about a meeting," He added.
"You don't think…" Kaedan said, his heart thumping in fear.
"...We should go check. Just in case," Xander said. His face looked calm but the way his fingers were tapping against the back of Kaedan's hand told him otherwise.
It didn't take them long to get back, but immediately spotting all the vehicles outside the base, Xander steered the car into an area that couldn't be seen, and they decided to walk the rest of the way, just for safety. They finally got to the base and what they saw left them almost speechless.
"Holy shit—" Kaedan covered Xander's mouth. He pointed at a guard about three feet away from them.
"How did this even happen?" Xander whispered. Kaedan only shook his head, signing that he didn't know.
"The others...We need to get them out—" Kaedan was suddenly tackled to the ground by Xander.
"What happened?" Kaedan mouthed, confused as to why his boyfriend was suddenly on top of him.
"Sorry. Someone almost saw you and I couldn't get your attention without being too loud," Xander whispered. Kaedan leaned up and pressed a kiss against Xander's jaw.
"It's okay. Now let's go find the others and get the hell out of here. It's not safe here anymore," Kaedan said, doing a full 360 of his surroundings, "How are we going to get in though, is the real question," He sighed.
There was a bit of silence, "Kaedan?" Xander finally asked, and in his tone of voice, Kaedan could tell he was concocting a plan. He hummed an affirmative sound, showing that he was listening, "If I can get the communication lines open, do you think you could get into the security system?" Xander asked him.
"Probably. I can't guarantee what I can figure out quickly, I'm probably not as good at that stuff as Leon or Risále but I can do something," Kaedan said, scanning his surroundings for any openings.
"Something is better than nothing. And honestly, 'probably' is good enough for me. Heads up, I'm going to be an idiot," Xander jumped out and grabbed a guard from behind. The guard lashed out at him and was about to yell but was stopped by something hitting him in the head, hard. The blood trickled down from the man's head, as his eyes rolled back and he fell to the ground.
Xander turned back to see that Kaedan had flung a hard rock at the man, "Thanks, babe," He mouthed, and Kaedan glared at him.
"You dumbass, you should have told me what you were going to do—" Then suddenly, cut himself off before making a motion telling Xander to turn around.
Xander turned around to be met by a dagger right near his heart. In front of him was a young girl, she seemed only sixteen or so. She looked at him.
"Who are you and why are you here?" She asked, harshly, and Xander assumed she didn't recognize who they were just from their looks.
"Woah, kid, I don't want to hurt you—Or more specifically, I don't want my boyfriend to put a hole in the side of your head," Xander said, gesturing towards Kaedan, who had his gun aimed at the girl already, "So, how about we talk this out?" Xander asked. He already knew that while Kaedan had a soft spot for kids, if it meant protecting Xander…
"Sure, we can talk," The girl replied, not moving her knife at all.
"Can you put the knife down?" Xander asked pointedly.
She hesitated. Then she said, "Only if he agrees to lower the gun," She said, pointing at Kaedan.
Xander turned to Kaedan and gave him a thumbs up. His boyfriend gave him a confused look but lowered his weapon. The girl, seeing that, lowered her dagger.
"So, who are you?" Xander asked.
The girl replied immediately, "I asked you that first."
Xander sighed, "Well, I live here, and you've held my family captive," He said.
"...Oh, fuck. You're Xander Liu, aren't you?" The girl said, recognition flickering in her eyes.
"Surprise?" Xander put his arms out as if to say "Ta-da", and the girl didn't look impressed, "Honestly, I don't know if it's that good of a look for an army member to not recognize the people that they've been trying to kill for the last few years."
The girl glared at him, "Shut up. I don't really care about that shit, I'm not in the army to kill people. I'm in here because I need free food and that's about it. Anyway, when you say family, you mean…"
"Well, there are only two blood-related people and that's me and my…Cousin, Lumina, but we're all as close as family," Xander said. He wasn't sure why but he almost called Lumina his sister. Even if that was how he felt, he'd never made that slip before…
The girl was strangely silent at that, "Do you need to get inside?" She asked quietly. Xander nodded, and she continued, "...I have no idea why I'm doing this, but I feel like I need to tell you about this. I've been having strange visions of things that could not have happened and yet I remember them like memories, and yes, I'm sure that they are not just dreams."
Xander stared at her, "You've got to be kidding. There's no way—We never even talked about that outside of the base. Has the army been spying on us this whole time?!"
"What? No, we only found you guys like three days ago," The girl said, looking confused, "What do you mean—" Realization dawned on her face, "You know what I'm talking about. It's happening to you as well, isn't it?"
He didn't answer, instead, he stared at her intensely, almost glaring, "How did you know? How could you have possibly known to tell me?"
"I don't know!" The girl responded, looking panicked, "I really don't know, I just—I had this feeling that I could tell you. That I could trust you. And more important…" She looked back at the building, "That someone in there knows what's going on."
"...You cannot be serious," Xander gaped, "How could possibly know all of that?"
The girl's eyes widened, "Hold on, there is actually someone in there who knows what's happening? I thought that was just some stupid feeling I had, what the fuck?!"
Xander paled, "Right, yeah, you should probably come with us. If anything, we at least have to keep an eye on you, I don't know if we can trust you. Just understand that if Kaedan and I bring you with us, it's for your own sake that you better not try to backstab us," Xander warned her.
The girl nodded, "Sure. If I backstab you, you can go ahead and kill me, I won't even fight back. Besides, I have a feeling that I should be terrified to ever do something wrong near you. Everyone knows who you are and well, what you were," She replied.
"In that case, I'm guessing you know what I'm well-known for?" He asked, sighing and running his hand through his hair.
"At this point, who doesn't know?" She said, and Xander shrugged. Fair enough. He gestured at Kaedan to come over.
"She can get us into the building. Also, she's having the weird vision or memory issue that we've been having," Xander said.
Kaedan paled, "Right, okay, you're sticking with us. Seriously, what the fuck is going on? This is all just feels so…"
"Weird?" The girl asked, "Yeah, I've been thinking that for the last few months as well."
Xander sighed, "Well, let's take this one step at a time then. First, we need to get Lumina, Mina, and the others out. So, how are we getting inside, Miss…"
"Oh, right, I forgot," The girl grinned, "The name is Naenia."
It didn't take them long to get inside with Naenia's help. Within five minutes, Kaedan was working on multiple devices at once in the communications room, "Where's Xander?" He asked the other person in the room with him.
"Mr. Lawyer-Assassin guy? He's guarding from the outside. Do you want me to go help him out?" The young girl in the room asked. Kaedan nodded.
"Yeah, yeah that would be great. Also, Naenia, maybe keep out the assassin part? He doesn't have good memories of that," He responded, adding the extra detail. The girl was capable of fighting and was extremely strong. He'd rather have her as Xander's backup than sitting here in the room, doing nothing.
"Ah, sorry. Won't do it again. Also, you can just call me Nia. It's…A nickname that someone used to call me. Huh. I can't remember who."
Kaedan sighed, "Yup, welcome to the club. Feels like we're going even more crazy each day that goes by."
Nia nodded and quickly left to go help out Xander in guarding the door, and Kaedan quickly worked, importing all their collected information into a single tablet and using the remote control alarms and door locks to keep guards out of the way, clearing a path for the others. He checked the cameras and grinned.
"Xander, Nia, they're headed our way!" Kaedan yelled.
"Alright, we hear you!" Xander yelled. He saw Xander and Nia high-five. He had already suspected Naenia had come from a pretty bad life. She mentioned that she joined the army for the sake of free food but the girl couldn't have been more than seventeen years old, and from her ranking, she must have been in the army for a while. He wouldn't have been surprised if she was a child soldier. Kaedan could assume she was from Sector 2, but he couldn't be sure of that. She had no family or anyone to take care of her, from what it seemed.
"Yo, Lumina—Holy fuck, is he alright?" He heard Xander say, and grinned, realizing the others had made it there.
"Hello, idiot cousin. Took you long enough. He's alright, Leon's just carrying him so that he doesn't collapse. Again. Remind me to beat him up for forgetting his iron supplements when he wakes up," Lumina muttered.
"Is His Royal Highness actually doing something or did you do all the work," Mina asked playfully and Kaedan rolled his eyes from inside the communications room.
"You know, I can still hear you, you little brat. This is what I get for being one of the only people who dealt with you all of your life," He muttered under his breath as he pressed a couple of buttons. Kaedan quickly set the self-destruct on for fifteen minutes, it was plenty of time to get out, but not enough for the guards to realize what was going on.
He didn't notice the way that Leon and Nia were staring at each other in equal amounts of shock, which disappeared quickly.
"Long story short, we talked about it, we're going to head to Sector 2, just for now. We'll try to be out as soon as possible, we just have no other confirmed places we can stay," Lumina caught them up.
He grabbed the tablet and put it into his bag, "She's coming with us, we'll explain later," He pointed to Nia. No one seemed to be against it, but he noticed that Leon seemed a bit shaken, "You've got fifteen minutes. Get all the important stuff you want and get out before fifteen minutes is up. Then this place will self-destruct. If we're losing this base, it might as well take some of the assholes with it."
They all set timers, "Ready? Go!"
Soon enough, everyone met up outside the base. Kaedan checked the time, "Five minutes left. Let's get a safe distance away from this place. We don't want to be in the blast zone," He said.
The others nodded, "So...Who is this?" Risále asked, gesturing at the newcomer. She noticed Leon's breath catch as they were finally able to focus their attention on the white-haired girl. The younger girl seemed to be looking back at him as well, an unreadable expression on her face. Did they know each other?
"Oh, right. Nia, introduce yourself, will you?" Xander asked.
"'Kay. The name's Naenia. Naenia Kimathi. Nia for short. I'm seventeen, I joined the army because I had nowhere to go and needed the free food and I've now joined you guys because apparently, I'm not the only one losing my fucking mind recently," She said, but she still seemed to have her eyes trained on Leon.
Leon could tell there were about a hundred unasked questions in them. But at that moment, Leon knew.
She knew.
At the least, she recognized him. So, that meant that things were really different from what he knew. He didn't think it would work but if these were the results of his past actions…
He could work with this. At least, maybe he could work with this.
"Oh, lovely. Another crazy to add to the gang," Lumina smiled, "I'm Lumina, twenty-four years old. That's Mina, she's twenty-three," Mina waved, "Risále, Leon, and Fenix are nineteen," The three waved respectively, "Owen's our youngest, he's eighteen. And you've met Xander and Kaedan. Oh, right, Xander's my cousin, but I'm assuming he probably mentioned that already."
"By the way, we're all flamboyant queers except for the two token heterosexuals we've managed to pick up," Fenix said, and Owen punched lightly on the arm, "What? It's true. Might as well tell her beforehand so she's prepared for all the gay yearning that happens around here."
Xander snorted, "That sounds like a you problem, Kaedan and I are already together—"
"—And you still somehow manage to do so much gay yearning, what does that say about you?" Lumina interrupted him.
"Can you not for like, two minutes, A'Li?"
"Also, excuse me, did you just say that I'm a heterosexual?" Leon looked genuinely offended, "Owen, Fenix, I have literally talked about cute guys with both of you, in what world am I heterosexual?"
Owen and Fenix looked at each other, "Honestly, we just thought you were being supportive," Fenix said, shrugging, "I didn't think too much more about it."
"No, no, no," Owen immediately jumped in, "He thought you were being supportive. I told him you were some flavor of queer and he didn't believe me."
"Supportive—Are you kidding me," Leon deadpanned, "No, you idiot, I'm bi and ace. I like boys, too. Hold on, did you think you had a crush on a straight guy when you had a crush on me?"
Fenix turned red, "I swear to God, stop bringing that up, I just thought you sounded hot when you were speaking Spanish, that wasn't like—It was a really small crush and it was when we were first getting to know each other!"
"I can speak Spanish as well," Owen offered, and Fenix looked at him, trying to decipher exactly what the younger meant by that.
Leon shook his head as he rolled his eyes, "...Right, Fenix, please feel free to interpret that however. Actually, please interpret that correctly, I'm starting to get sick of you two. And no, I'm not straight, I'm bi, dumbass," He looked at Fenix, "I just didn't have feelings for you specifically."
"Ouch."
"Don't act like that bothers you."
"Yeah, it doesn't. God, imagine us dating. We would have actually murdered each other at some point."
Owen cleared his throat, "Well, we don't really need to imagine that do we, it's not going to happen," He said, crossing his arms. Leon was about to open his mouth, a teasing look on his face when Owen shot him a glare so sharp he shut his mouth immediately.
"And uh, I think I'm pretty fucking queer honestly, I'm definitely attracted to women, that's all I'm saying. Guys are nice, too. I don't know, everyone's kinda hot," Risále added.
Xander and Kaedan looked at each other, "Amen to that, honey," Xander snorted.
"You know what, Risále, completely valid and Leon, this is new information to me at least but you know, whatever dude. I mean, the more the merrier, right?" Fenix asked.
Nia shrugged, "Fair enough. I don't do any of that romance shit. Or any of that at all. So, I guess I'd fit right in with the queer gang."
"Okay, but you mentioned that you feel like you've been going crazy recently. What did you mean by that?" Leon asked her.
"Well, you know, if you're in Sector 2 and you seem to be even slightly abnormal, as in having weird visions, remembering and forgetting things abnormal, you get shipped off to Sector 3 so they can dissect you, so I needed an out," Nia said, "And I have no idea why but I suddenly had the feeling I could trust Xander.
Lumina snorted, "Horrible decision, really," Xander just showed her, "Okay, okay, I get it, calm down, ge," She turned to face Nia, "Right, so, do you know anyone else who's been feeling the things that you have?" Lumina asked.
"No. It's been just me and basically everyone else looks at me like I'm insane. Xander was the first person to not do that, so now I'm attached," Nia said.
"You know what, the fact that you made it this long while having all of that happen to you without anyone else to talk to about it...That's amazing, especially for how young you are," Mina said, looking at Lumina knowingly, "We've all been together during all of this and we're still kind of losing our shit."
"...Thanks…" Nia looked away. There was a slight flush on her dark skin but it was barely noticeable, "And it's…It's meeting you all. I sure hope you guys have more luck figuring out what is going on because I haven't made any process," She lowered her voice as she spoke again, "Although, I think you all might have a bit of a headstart on me…" Nia looked at Leon, the mutual understanding in their eyes as the group started moving.
We need to talk but now's not the time.