General POV:
Her bullet bounces off of S3bastians chest.
"Did you just... shoot me?" He asked in confusion.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! She continues, emptying out the clip on him.
"Alright, now you're just being rude." He says folding his arms in front of him. Running up to S3bastian, she begins to use the pistol to hit him. After the third hit, he grabs her hand. Marco moves to him, raising his hand to punch him.
"If I was crazy, which I think I'm not, I'd think that you guys are trying to kill me. I legit have done nothing to warrant this treatment from you guys."
Marco pauses, but Leslie continues, not wanting to listen to his words. "You almost killed her." He shouts at him.
"Yo. That was not me. This is my first time meeting either of you guys today."
That makes Leslie pause for a second. "No." She says quietly.
"Yeah, makes sense you wouldn't believe me. I'd bet that you guys even believe that all of us omnics look alike." He dismisses waving his hand.
"No. I know that was you who shot me. Your same dumbass voice. It was you who tried to kill me." She says in a quiet rage.
"If I tried to kill you, it would be in your sleep, with a pillowcase of bananas. Then taken a picture of it."
They both take a second to process what he just said, then realize that they believe him. In their confusion, Shawn comes from the nearby shadows.
"Listen both of you, me and S3bastian here want to apologize for what we did."
Leslie levels the empty gun back at S3bastian, "So he did just shoot me and leave me for dead."
"He did, but in all fairness, it was for your own good."
Leslie drops the gun, looking at Shawn in disbelief. "How was it for my own good? I was seconds away from death. How could what you did be good for anyone?"
"Really good questions. To answer that, do you feel something different about yourself?"
For the first time, Leslie looks down and realizes that her fatal wound healed. Not only that, but she was covered in a radiant light. She looks at Marco, who is also the same.
"Truthfully, I should have never done such a thing to any of you. But I was here the entire time and I would never let any of you die. However, I felt like if anyone could survive, it would have been you, Leslie. And good job to you too Marco." Shawn explains.
Leslie takes a deep breath, evaluating her gains from what happened. "I won't...." She sighs, "I won't be mad, only if you promise not to do this again with anyone else from the team. Doesn't matter if you can guarantee their safety or not."
"Don't worry. I wasn't planning on it." Shawn promises.
"Now that bygones are bygones, let's all go get some sleep. I think we only have a couple of hours left before everyone starts to wake up."
Shawn POV:
That little experiment, while successful, almost got out of hand. Leslie did in fact almost die, and I felt guilty in doing so. I could lie to myself and say it was for the greater good, but in the end, I almost assisted in the murder of someone innocent. Someone who was trusted in my care.
I guess S3bastian noticed my sour mood and walked closer to me. In a hushed tone he tells me, "Hey. Sure, it was scummy, but it worked. Get over it."
Rolling my eyes, I continue walking. Thank Arceus, S3bastian was the devil on my shoulder. But he might be right. I would have to learn from this experience and move on. There were other members, a lot of which I knew couldn't do what Leslie did, to go through.
We returned to the camp, and they had no problems immediately falling asleep after a thing like that. Having no need to sleep, I stayed up and worked on the design for a replacement arm. I planned on using a lot parts from the Omnica factory once we made it back to California.
That morning, an unanimous decision was made to continue forward to the next state, North Dakota. From there, we secure the Southern Dakota as well and keep pushing. As it was a surprise that our campaign hadn't ended in failure, more support for our liberating was underway. Defeating the reinforcements meant for New York really helped them fully retake the state. Now, they could continue their own path back down towards the whole east coast.
So that's what our unit did. We continued marching on towards California. Although it was estimated that we would encounter heavy resistance in each city, the analytics were surprised to find a majority of them abandoned but stripped of metal. However, it became apparent that the capitals of each state were largely occupied.
After five days of travelling, our scouts came back and reported omnic activity in the city of Bismarck. A plan was drafted to siege the city in two groups, therefore stepping the difficulty for my own team. As we had the element of surprise on our side, the plan was to sleep through the night and attack at dawn, which would give me enough time to coach my team.
As we sat together, I addressed my team. "Alright guys, we're up for a tough one this time. Since the capital is huge, they plan on having two teams assaulting the city. As there are ten of us, we will divide it evenly. Team one will be me, Sonya, Spencer, Felix, and Dwayne. Dwayne and Felix will be the medics and the rest runners. On team two, there will be Virginia, Marco, Leslie, Steve and S3bastian. Virginia and Steve will be the medics.
I know I keep saying this but remember your training. Don't go where you're not sure, stay low and survive. Although we've been doing good, remember, we can't save everyone. When this is all over, I want to see each and every one of you and congratulate you guys on a job well done. Rest well, I'll keep watch of you guys."
Finished briefing them, I look towards the massive city before us. It's been a year and some months since the war started. Omnics occupied a lot of cities and patrolled those held cities regularly. The higher ups predicted that we would encounter survivors, but I had my doubts. How could it be possible to find someone who stayed hidden from them for so long?