Radiance Ch. 94

Fuller, as it turned out hadn't been idle during that time either he'd been working out the perfect bait to bring out the ESF's spy or even maybe the whole team, he told Wisp that the best way to do it was to circulate a few reports that could be sent from different points into HQ of an odd human with strange abilities but keep them vague so that while they would believe it was Seven wishing to meet with them it would never be explicitly said because if the reports suddenly started mentioning him by name they would be very suspicious of the motives or of a potential trap.

He'd also expressed a concern about their backup and how it would be prudent to take out their base of operations to either prevent escape or reinforcements from being dropped in, as even as small as they were power-armoured ESF agents were no fucking joke and would come in hard with absolutely no regard for life or civilian casualties, they would hit absolutely everyone and thing in order to either escape or to win the day, so they either had to destroy their base or disable it, a point she'd agreed on wholeheartedly but had expressed that this should happen preferably when the meeting was just kicking off so they wouldn't have time to correct the problem before the trap was sprung, something he agreed with completely.

Wisp was just glad that it was going to take days to set all of this up because they were really going to need the backup. After all, numbers eight and nine were most likely going to put the ESF's fighting capability over the top.

Without blowing her horn or feeling arrogant she knew that any force that had one of her kind with them had a real advantage over conventional soliders just because of what they brought to the table.

Take her and Seven for example, she couldn't be hit by conventional firearms making her immune to counterfire while also being able to not only disable enemy electronics but also their soldiers by invading their bodies and sending their senses haywire, now granted she couldn't exactly control them but she could shut their muscles down or blind them, in short, she was basically an agent of chaos in the right mindset.

Then there was Seven and if she was an agent of chaos he was literal chaos embodied, if he truly let loose he was just about unstoppable and she always thought it was kinda ironic that the man's only real limiting factors were himself in both his biology and his morality.

Biology in the fact those headaches of his could cripple him and while yes he had made truly incredible leaps in power by learning to control them or ignore them but she'd been inside his head when he'd had them and she knew how bad they were and it still amazed her that he was able to function through them at all.

The other was his morality or his own sense of how far he was willing to go to achieve his objective, if either of these factors ever broke Seven would literally become unstoppable short of nuking him from orbit, because how exactly do you stop someone who could catch said nuclear missile out of the air and throw it fucking back at you without ever touching it?

This brought her thinking back around to what exactly it was that eight and nine were capable of, it had to be something powerful if Dr Chalmers had up them up against Seven and her thought primarily Seven because when all was said and done it was pretty much going to be all on him to stop them a task she really didn't envy him.

This made her really think about how far the pair of them had come since those days when they were just two souls with no memories or real identities to call their own escaping into the night just for the chance to live free and by their own rules.

The pair of them had come so incredibly far in their journey, met so many wonderful people and touched so many lives, Seven especially had become a symbol of what real freedom and unity looked like, a human man with the power to crush a city but used it to shield the common innocent people for no other reason than he cared and wanted them to prosper and be happy, a man who had fallen in love with a female Claw and through methods unknown had managed to get her to fall head over tail in love with him and now the pair stood back to back as a symbol for all great and small of what the world could be if only they were willing to fight for it.

Wisp looked around her own group and she saw the instant signs of this influence reflected in every single face that sat with her by the fire in the living room of that old prewar house, Malakai a beautiful and truly handsome Araknakai boy that she would kill the entire world with her bare hands just to see a smile, Shepherd a survivor of the vilest slavery who now stood tall and proud at the side of Passa a beautiful Claw boy who while being three times her size loved the very air she breathed. Gregory was another escaped slave and a gay man who would face so much persecution in the world before let alone the world now but was made strong and proud by the proud and strong bisexual Claw boy that stood happily at his side loving the very atoms of his being and would tear through the hate aimed at them with a fury so hot it put the sun to shame and now their wildcard, Fuller.

A man who had had his mind opened to what was truly possible in this world if we just give it a chance and stop hating something just because it is different and scares us, a man who was once their enemy who would have happily killed them in order to return Seven to DR Chalmers so she could use him to enslave the entire country to fear of retribution, but now a man with his eyes opened by the heart of a woman who was made in a lab, a woman who was created and not born, a woman who with her synthetic heart had shown him the truth of right and wrong and more importantly that love really is blind and unjudging.

She had taken his hand and guided him into a world that he might have feared but was willing to look at for her and now he had truly seen it, he had seen not only the truth but he had seen the future and what it would be if he had continued down the path he was on and that's when his pride and his integrity had refused him to be a part of creating that and he had rebelled and joined them all for a chance of redemption for what he had done and Wisp actually found herself hoping that when this was all said and done that he could either return to the arms of his synthetic love or maybe if that bridge was well and truly burned to ash that maybe just maybe there was another non-human girl who would welcome him into hers who with her feathery, or spindly or maybe even scaly hands would pick up the parts of his shattered heart and would put them together again and make him whole again, better even because he would be a truly free man.

As she sat back she felt Malakai's arms encircle her and she glanced behind her to see her big handsome spider boy folding his legs in under himself transforming him into full spider loaf mode so he could cuddle her from behind, she smiled up at him reaching up to stroke his kind and handsome face.

It made her happy to know that out of all of them her man was probably the most accepting of them all, he was a part man part spider who loved to knit and sew who loved himself a little sparkly cloud girl who lived inside of a synthetic body that wasn't her own but he still loved simply because it contained the soul of the one he adored and loved.

She looked around the room again as she similar scenes playing out among the others, Gregory had slipped into Vens lap so he could feed him some of the meat stew he'd been cooking, while Passa had done the same to Shepherd with the added benefit of wrapping his wings around her so only her head poked out of the top of those snow-white wings while he fed her happily infact it was only Fuller that sat alone now in the golden glow of the firelight staring into those golden dancing flames with a morose look on his features that told Wisp that he was remembering Glory.

"Think you'll see her again when this is all over?" she asked making him jump and look a little surprised that she'd read his mind so easily.

He shrugged and sat back to look up at the swirling and flickering shadows painted on the ceiling by the golden flames, "No idea a part of me wants to say yes, hell a big part of me does but a voice of reason keeps telling me that I'd have absolutely zero right to see her again after what I did to her, I mean how am I supposed to look her in the eyes after I basically destroyed her heart, she took a chance on me and fell in love with me and god I love her too but how can you do that to someone and ever expect them to trust you again? No, I don't think I could bare seeing the doubt in her eyes even if she did forgive me for what I did, just waiting for me to vanish like a puff of smoke again at the first sign of trouble, I think it would probably best if I just let her be and let her live her life if I gave her anything it's at least hope that a human man can indeed lover her for who and what she is and just accept her and love her regardless, I think I'd rather let her have those happy memories than piss all over them by showing her what betrayal really looks like," he said softly with a lot of hurts in his voice.

Wisp felt her own synthetic heartache for him but she still nodded in understanding, "If it's any consolation Fuller I think you did the right thing, you wanted to protect her from the ESF's wrath and you did just that, while you were with her you loved her honestly and that's all anyone could have ever asked for, even if it was short you gave that girl your entire self and showed her what an honest heart is, that will mean the world to her and don't worry I'm sure that someone somewhere will love her and mend her heart who will bring her happy back and now she knows it's possible it will give her hope," she said and he smiled and nodded.

"I hope so Wisp I really do because that girl deserves to be happy, she's been through hells that most of us can't even begin to imagine and I'm just glad that for the time I was with her I made her happy and made her smile, I hope the next man who takes a chance on her will do the same if not more for her because if there is one thing you can say about her she loves honestly," he said with a sad smile.

Wisp leaned forwards and patted his shoulder, "Don't worry Fuller I'm sure that there's another girl out there for you and now you've seen what the non-human community can offer those wide-open eyes of yours might even see her in the most unlikely of places," she said.

"Yeah who knows the next one might even have scales and a tail," Ven said with an honest grin on his face that said he wasn't joking for once but still made Fuller laugh.

"God that's be a thing wouldn't it? I can barely handle a human or a synthetic human doesn't know how in the hell I'd be supposed to handle a fucking Claw girl," he said chuckling.

"Hey who says you'd get to? Pretty sure it's us Claws who handle you humans you know?" Ven said ruffling Gregory's hair playfully making him swat at his large hand with his spoon.

"Speak for yourself Ven I'll have you know that I handle my Claw boy very nicely thank you very much," Shepherd said leaning up to kiss Passa's chin.

"I'll also remind you you said that the next time you got your tail in the air," Gregory said with a wicked smile on his face as he made Ven flush.

Fuller roared with laughter and leaned back against the chair he was sitting in front of as he smiled into the fire, "Well whatever the future brings we'd better make sure we win this fight first or don't think there's going to be a whole lot of happy in any of our futures," he said and they all nodded at that.

"Amen to that brother, amen to that," Ven said and with that, the group all retreated into their own thoughts there was a lot to plan for here, they could not afford to fuck this up as know it or not the entire commonwealth was relying on them.