Reconciliation

The cascade of exploding rockets took out everyone within a twenty foot radius, and injured at a range double that. The blast did indescribable amounts of damage to the surrounding territory. A mechanical arm, assorted metal frames and scaffolding, tools and resources launched across the warehouse. Xerxes and Ketna, while distanced from the blast, were caught in the force of the blastwave caused by the munitions. Neither were directly injured, their choices in cover managed to guard them just enough, but they were tossed several feet back.

Xerxes seemed no worse for wear, laughing boisterously at the final result of that single toss. Ketna, while physically intact, was not in a state to celebrate. Being tossed and jostled so violently caused a far worse spell than the one she had just weathered. Eyes closed, feeling for the ground, ignoring how much it felt like she was going to fall over she attempted to at least get back to her knees.

While one half of the warehouse in front of them scrambled to recuperate from the damage, the other half behind them grew in force to compensate. Ketna could hear the movement but her reaction to anything was poor. At the very least, she managed to roll to cover that could account for fire from the new angle. Slow, deep breaths beat back the nausea giving her some hold on her state.

In the midst of her recovery, a shot nearby rang out, taking a guard out from behind Ketna's right side that she had only barely registered.

Xerxes called out from his spot, hopping over it. "Y'Survive a deathtrap by yourself and y'can't even watch your back in a firefight?"

The mere act of calling to attention the deathtrap Xerxes himself had a hand in setting up brought all that rage and anguish back into Ketna's throat.

"Do you have any idea what- Oh wait, of course you do." Ketna stopped in her tracks recalling the camera she had to destroy to get out of the jam she was in.

He probably knew exactly what happened, if he wasn't told he must have had access to whatever was recorded or was informed of what they had planned to do.

"The fuck that's supposed t'mean??" Xerxes vaulted over the lift, calling out while he closed the gap between them. All the while he took calculated shots at the surrounding guards.

Not wanting to have this conversation in the middle of a fire fight while she was already compromised, Ketna didn't respond to the question. Anger didn't make her focus any better, but it did make the nausea easier to ignore. Xerxes' efforts were undone by Ketna venturing off on her own, unsteady but determined, she didn't look behind her to see Xerxes wordlessly gesturing his annoyance at her as she left.

The dash to her next option for cover was unsuccessfully interrupted by a large guard that thought they could take her out personally, he only served as a means for Ketna to take out her anger on. Guns were practical tools for dealing with range and numbers, but they were so distant, inconsistent. Close range combat was personal, visceral, accurate, final. It was her deep natural instinct, and getting right into the fold helped her work past her symptoms. In a flash of blade they were on the ground, another and they were no longer living.

Standing up to accomplish this left her little cover, a shot hit her chest armor and she knew she had to keep moving. Blade to knee, then chest, on to the next. Right to the neck, armor was thin and easy to separate, moving in time for the body she had stabbed to take the brunt of the next blow. Another body in close was pulled in closer by hand, the blade was out of one body and sank into the next. Tossing dead weight to the side exhumed the blade once again and brought the larger soldier to a stagger, just second shaved off their reaction to permit her unfettered access to the next two victims, in seconds one was down by blade, the other by a bullet from an ally.

A glance back to Xerxes' location to check his status, and by the look of it he seemed to have stopped paying attention to her, taking care of the guards that remained on the upper levels. Fine by her, if he kept those above them occupied, she could easily clear out the ground level. A second to look, a second to move, she felt the motion near her without seeing it, innate instincts that kept her aware of what was around her even when momentarily distracted. She didn't know why they had chosen to get in close, maybe they were out of ammunition, maybe they assumed whatever mods they had would give them an advantage, but all it did was give her a very clear opening. Knee to the midsection, blade to the back of the neck, and it was all done.

There weren't many more on the ground, by the look of it, no new bodies had shown up, indicating whatever remained of the ground level forces were either remaining in that room, or had fled. One by one the remaining opposition in her sight were brought down, she could hear crossfire slowing down, the remainder of what was above them would also not be there for long.

As she yanked her blade out from the neck of her last victim, she gave the room another visual sweep. The moment her head was facing Xerxes' direction, he spread his arms wide to emphasize what he was about to say.

"The fuck was that?" Xerxes gestured to the whole of the room while he shouted over to Ketna.

"Going to have to be more specific." Ketna didn't look up, rummaging through dead bodies for anything that was useful. She spotted a raid shield further away that could be useful later, with the benefit that it was further away from Xerxes.

"You've missed half your shots, nearly got sideswiped by some schmuck, took five fuckin mintues to get back on your feet." Xerxes took slow steps toward her as he elaborated. "I've seen Ketna fight, thinkin' maybe you're not the person you're claiming to be." Xerxes' voice held the tone of a threat, shifts in his stance gave the impression he was prepared to ready his gun at any moment.

"Oh is that what this is about?" Ketna rose from her position to emphasize her next point. "How about 'Thanks for tearing out my back the night before you attempted to kill me.' Was that even a real fugue state or was that all just an act to take advantage of me? Or were you mad I didn't pound your pussy hard enough."

The look on Xerxes face indicated he no longer was suspect of who she was, all while walking the line between relief and rage. Ketna continued before he could muster any response.

"Yeah. It's me. I'm not exactly in peak performance right now because I absorbed enough sodium fluoroacetate to kill a rhino ten times over. Thanks for that too, by the way." She rounded off her sentence to be even more scathing than she started out with, turning her attention back to the raid shield, yanking it off the ground and moving to the next one she spotted.

"What the fuck I got to do with that, s'not like I'm the one that chose the fuckin poison." Xerxes raised his voice and the hand holding his gun, in his defense.

"You are the entire fucking reason they knew to saturate a poison to that degree in the first place!" Ketna shouted back, while internally she questioned why she thought working with him would be a good idea.

"And whose fuckin fault was that?!" Xerxes' own irritation rising along with Ketna's.

"Okay you know what, fuck-it, fine, you got me. Let's just get this over with."

Objectively Ketna had to concede his retaliation, while irritating, wasn't entirely wrong. They had never made any promises to one another to keep what went on between them a secret. It was like telling a fox the location of the henhouse and expecting it not to raid the coop. She should have known better than to have so flagrantly displayed her tolerance for substances in front of a person that had no problem bragging about his conquests.

An oddly uncomfortable silence lingered in the warehouse as the two continued to rummage for ammunition and other usable goods. It was broken by Xerxes' voice.

"How close you get to dyin' anyway?" His tone had dropped from the elevated state they were both in before.

Ketna froze in her tracks, dropping the goods she had gathered to the ground. Her disbelief in the question presented to her had her laughing audibly, growing louder until she doubled over in anguished laughter. Abruptly she stopped, raising herself and staring squarely at Xerxes, arms out as she spoke.

"Are you fucking serious?!" She gestured angrily to him and then herself. "Sure, how about I give you the exact statistics of how close I was to dying. How about an itemized list of what was effective and ineffective, the time tables it takes for any substance to take effect, so you can try that again." Elevated in both voice and speed of speech translated the extent of her anger, punctuated by sharp hand motions as she gestured back and to herself. "You really think I'm tha-"

Ketna's words were cut short by a shot that rang out, catching her precariously in the throat. There was a faint cough and sputter, muffled by her helmet, and after a momentary stagger she stood in place very much alive. She was not in any danger of dying from the shot at that moment, but she was not going to be capable of speaking any time soon. Her head snapped in the direction of the shot, identifying the perpetrator immediately and set off to take care of them.

The shooter was up on a metal catwalk, they took more shots at Ketna who weaved without taking a hit. Though their face could not be seen, their body language read tense, possibly nervous. Expecting her to climb the ladder to get to their position they ran in the opposite direction, gun waiting for an opportunity that would not arrive. Leaping up and climbing the wall was not what they had expected at all, nor did they expect Ketna to take hold of one of the supports and yank the whole catwalk down as though it were made of floral wire.

The force and speed at which the catwalk fell gave the shooter no time to react and they fell in a pained pile to the ground. Still pissed that she was cut off from her rant, Ketna set aside her usual courtesy of warning, going straight for the assailant's throat. They were already too winded and injured to put up much of a fight, there was little they could do when Ketna's hands grasped around their throat. In seconds, a swift execution of a put an end to their suffering. A snapped neck was practically considerate, when followed by hands and boot that crushed the chest and tore it open, splitting all she could grab hold of in different directions and tossing it to the side in an expression of her wrath. Only then did it subside enough to tend to the wound that was bleeding out.

While applying special nanites solutions from her pack to her neck to cauterize the wound, she heard shuffling then a voice from across the way.

"Anyone ever tell ya you're hot when you're pissed?" Xerxes shouted across the way, before walking toward Ketna's location.

Ketna responded the only way she could now, with her limited options: By flipping him off where she stood. It didn't matter if he could see it or not.

While waiting for the sealing to finish, Ketna removed the face of her helmet for a brief moment to spit out the blood that had pooled in her mouth from the shot and took a few seconds to wipe out what had been coughed up inside, or was almost like coughing. Eating and drinking wouldn't happen in the current state she was in, but she could breath and that was enough to make it through this. The panel was snapped back on before Xerxes got close.

"I've seen your face before, don't gotta be so quick to hide it." He spoke with a sort of smug pride at this fact, then was immediately distracted by the remnants of the body Ketna had tore into.

Ketna's head briefly faced Xerxes then turned away, incapable of informing him that there could be more eyes at any moment. But it wasn't her responsibility to explain something that should have been obvious. Without any further attempt to communicate, Ketna made her way back to where she had dropped the supplies, then off towards the industrial service elevator that would get them to the facilities below.

Xerxes was about to comment on the body Ketna had left behind when he noticed she had already put some distance between the two of them.

"Givin' me th' silent treatment, now?" He called out after her while catching up in long strides.

Bitterly, Ketna considered maybe she should be giving him some silent treatment, as all the arguing and shouting they had done since she got there had not resolved anything up until this point. Instead she pointed to her neck and hoped he would pick it up from there.

"Yeah? Y'got shot in the neck. Woulda taken care of him but seems y'got him good." Xerxes' looked back at where the body lay with an oddly prideful look.

Ketna hung her head dramatically at the response. Fed up already with her inability to communicate the obvious to him, and knowing he likely did not know Sign Language, Ketna searched for a solution. From one of her storage compartments she fished out her phone, opening a simple text field to input.

'For fucks sake, that shot severed my vocal cords, I can't talk.' She held up the phone to Xerxes behind her and continued walking.

"How am I supposed to read it like that when you're walkin'." Xerxes motioned to the phone, squinting at it.

Ketna's body emoted the sigh she couldn't vocalize. After she flipped through settings she increased the text's size and presented it to him once more, pointing to her neck at the same time.

"How's I supposed to know that?" Xerxes protested as soon as he read the message.

Ketna cleared the phone and replaced it with a new message.

'Maybe the fact that I got shot through the neck and haven't uttered a single word immediately after?!' The screen of the phone read. Ketna dramatically emphasized the feeling of 'well duh' with her body language as she showed the phone to him.

"Fine, alright, I get it." Xerxes finally conceded.

Ketna pulled back the phone with an exhale of relief that small detail was over, and put her attention back into scouting ahead. They walked ahead in casual silence when she heard Xerxes speak up, again.

"So, uh, you're good, right?"

The helmet hid the confusion that immediately crossed Ketna's face at the question. She looked back and Xerxes elaborated.

"Saw ya do somethin'-" Xerxes tapped his own neck. "Not gonna bleed out?"

Ketna brought out the phone again to answer.

'Wound has been cauterized, I'm at no risk of bleeding out or tearing the wound. So yes, I'm good, but I'm not going to be able to speak for a few weeks.'

"Good, that's good." Xerxes repeated, somewhat awkwardly with a quick follow up. "Wouldn't want ya passin' out on the job, heh." Xerxes capped off what he said in a way that was almost awkward.

Ketna didn't bother with any response, didn't feel a need to, she had already turned her attention to her surroundings. No new guards had arrived since that last one that appeared, but they may have been around since the start. If there were no new reinforcements by now, they likely had all bunkered down below, waiting for them. The longer they waited, the worst any blockade below was going to get, and all their bickering had wasted enough time.

Xerxes followed her lead as Ketna wordlessly headed for the elevator, on the way the issues she had been dealing with flared up again, a wave of nausea making her stomach ache and head spin. She held out her hand, a single pointer finger up, hoping it was clear enough to indicate 'one minute' and steadied herself leaning down against her own knees to wait for it to pass.

"Somethin' wrong?"

This was the second time Xerxes had asked about her well being, after everything that had happened the concern seemed uncharacteristic and she wanted to confront that in the next message she typed out.

'What does it matter to you?' Displayed on the screen that she showed to Xerxes behind her.

"If we're doin' this together I need t'know what I'm working with, here." Xerxes stated after taking the time to read the screen, motioning to Ketna as he did. "Y'said something about poison makin' you sluggish?"

Ketna breathed out and pulled her phone back in. He was right that it was practical to know what her handicap was if they were working together. Maybe this was all just pragmatic questioning, not concern. This time when she held the phone out to him again, it read.

'Yes, the poison from the attempt is still in my system. I get waves of nausea at times, sometimes muscle tremors. When the explosion knocked me back, my symptoms flared up. That's why I couldn't get on my feet right away. I just need a few seconds and I'll get over it, I'm not going to be out any time soon.'

Xerxes cocked his head when he finished reading.

"That's the thing I don't get. Thought you processed that stuff fast but that was months ago, how's it you're still dealing with it, now, anyway?" There was a hint of disbelief in his voice.

Ketna was already composing a response before Xerxes even finished.

'The mere fact that I'm alive at all after that is because I process substances quickly. But this stuff attacks my metabolism and there's no antidote to help it along so I'm stuck waiting it out till it's run its course.' She didn't want to elaborate too much on the mechanics of why it was lingering, not that he needed to know.

The look that crossed Xerxes face as he read the words was one of somber reflection, a look Ketna had rarely seen on him. She withdrew the phone and typed out a follow up which she presented to Xerxes.

'Congratulations, you managed to pick one of the worst possible poisons for me to deal with.'

Xerxes' posture became immediately alert and defensive as he read the text. Ketna pulled back the phone then turned her attention to walking in the direction of the elevator.

"Hey, I said I wasn't the one that arranged that." Xerxes blurted out first, sharp and defensive.

Ketna glanced over her shoulder enough to be noticed, returning her attention to the phone to compose her next reply.

"If I really wanted t'give ya up I woulda just told them then who ya were." Xerxes continued to explain himself. "Been braggin' about fuckin ya for weeks, woulda been suspicious if I said I knew nothin'."

Ketna paused in the middle of what she was composing, erasing what was there since the new information changed what she had intended to retort about. Rather than attempt a new response, she waited in silence for Xerxes to elaborate on his own.

"Thought they were gonna send someone or a team of someone's to take you out, hire an assassin, something like that. I thought hey, that's fuckin' nothing, you can take care'a that. And then the plans came in and they started construction over this. S'not like I coulda stopped it."

Ketna's response was composed quickly before Xerxes finished, a matter that gnawed at her since it happened.

'And you chose a pity fuck over giving me any hint about what was going' on.' Her anger had diffused slightly but not enough to prevent her from biting back.

"That-" Xerxes huffed. "Thought you woulda' found out on your own. You do it all the fuckin' time." His tone suddenly switched from indignant to thoughtful. "But they'd been playing it smart the whole time, keepin' contact off-net, if I were t'spill anything about it, they woulda known someone leaked the day it happened if y'seemed too prepared."

Again, what Xerxes said gave her pause. As much as she hated to admit it, Ketna had to concede how much sense that made given the circumstances. If any of them suspected Xerxes of feeding her intel, it would have panned out poorly for both of them. But her threshold for generosity waned when Xerxes had to open his mouth again.

"But why'r y'gettin pissed at me about it. You put yourself in this position, y'knew th'risks."