The snowball fight didn't last particularly long after that. Because Rapi was extremely good at what she did. Thankfully, the Alva particles were extremely low, so we'd have access to mission control for a while longer.

  Still, I had to bite back a chuckle. It seemed that the Commander was rather clueless when it came to women. Or Nikke anatomy. Or both, really, I highly doubt either was much of a topic of discussion when it came to that abomination of an academy. Nikke's weighed quite a bit, and with all the ice?

  Sorry my guy, but there were things you didn't ask someone, and weight was among them. Another was age, but with Nikke's, I could imagine that was less of an issue than it would be otherwise. Still, I wasn't willing to have that type of conversation. Not at the moment. I still wasn't fully to terms that this was not my old body. Or even how I should or wanted to look. Supposedly, getting the custom frame would change that.

  I was still getting it. Enikk had been very insistent with Syuen on the matter. Ingrid getting to take a stab at it would have been my first option, as she was the only one out of the three I had any trust in. But it wasn't as if things were that straightforward. There was a whole lot of stuff that went into making sure my brain would actually hook up with the new body.

  And the Goddessium nonsense. Of course, it wasn't nonsense. That was the problem. Sure, a metal that responded to one's subconscious was fantastical, but? By this point, I wasn't going to consider it too much of a stretch. But it left me with a whole lot of questions that I didn't exactly have an answer to. Nor a whole lot of people I could ask on paper.

  It did scare me a bit. I was going to be losing control over my body and appearance. Again. Sure, it was my subconscious in the driver's seat this time. But that didn't mean much, given how I had no clue what I wanted out of this. Consciously or subconsciously. My body had never been like this before. It certainly wouldn't be like my old one, one way or another. And that scared me.

  Sure, I'd done more than plenty of reading on the matter. More than enough to keep the truth about my old body in a tungsten box and throw it into the Marianas trench. Or more accurately, the planet's core.

  So yeah. Plenty of fun times there. Oh, I knew I needed to talk to someone about it. But the list was painfully short. Yuni and Mihara were for all intents cut off, good riddance. Anderson had a list of things a mile long. The Commander had shown to be willing to lend a sympathetic ear. But bless him, I doubt Johnson would have the answers I really needed.

  Which left the rest of my teammates. Who I still didn't know all that well. Neon was Ingrid's spy of questionable capacity. Not that I doubted Ingrid, or Anderson really needed as much. She was obsessed with firepower, and was not the brightest as far as I could tell. But at the same time, she did have a wisdom to her. The simple logic, the whole from the mouth of babes thing.

  Then there was Anis. I could make a dozen jokes about her name alone, but that was crass, and I had higher standards regarding my comedy. She was a whiner, who regularly complained, and was a snarkier to boot. I certainly approve of the latter. Snarking was good for the soul sometimes. I totally get it. And when she wasn't being lazy, I could get the jaded personality that she had. She was certainly a veteran, though I think she had no idea at the moment about what to do about Johnson, as the man was probably the first genuine good man she met. Even though I didn't think I knew her well enough to approach her for such a serious conversation.

  Which left the straight-laced Rapi. Rapi. Out of the three, arguably, four?

  She was the one that intimidated me. If Anis was a veteran, then I had no clue what I'd consider Rapi. Out of anyone, she was the calm one. The reserved one. The one you didn't want to take for granted, as she was easily the most skilled and experienced. Sure, I couldn't tell her exact age, and I damn well wasn't going to ask her that question.

  But the phrase about one should fear the old in professions where people die young applied to her just as much as it did Anderson. Even if she didn't look a day over twenty-five, I could also tell that she had an old soul.

  I could also tell that she didn't trust me about as far as she could throw me. Which if I had to guess, was a considerable distance. Of course, it wasn't like I had the opportunity to talk all that much with any of them. Or take the few opportunities I did have.

  Yeah, my mental space wasn't exactly great at the moment. Counters were not Wardress by any stretch of the imagination. Even if there was something about Rapi that made part of my brain try to freak out in a fight or flight response.

  Why did it try to freak the hell out? On that front, I had no idea. Rapi wasn't scary, per se. A bit intimidating, because I knew she could kick my ass, and I had no interest in her doing so. But not like the fear I had of Chatterbox by this point. Thankfully, this was another mission that shouldn't have the rat bastard's presence.

  Then something crept into the back of my mind. I froze in place, gripping my rifle as my knuckles turned white.

  "Elen, are you okay?" It was Commander Johnson who noticed first, turning around.

  I'm pretty sure what came out of my mouth made Neon learn a dozen new swear words.

  At minimum.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  "Are you sure he's close?" Yeah, that was the appropriate response.

  "He's at the maximum extent of my range as far as I can tell," I admit. It was better news than not, but still. If I could sense him, I'd always operated under the assumption he could sense me back.

  What the hell was he even doing out here now? I knew dealing with him was the long-term goal right now, but why was he here now? There's no way he could know about this in advance, right?

  Of course, if we operated under the assumption that the Raptures had someone feeding them information on the inside, then it was possible someone had let Chatterbox know of the operation. But at the same time, who the hell could that even be? Counters, Commander Johnson, Anderson, Mustang, and Ingrid were the only people who knew anything about this! Where could the leak have even possibly been?

  Mustang may have been the one I trusted the least, but I doubt he was working for the Raptures of all things. I didn't want to consider it a coincidence, as I didn't believe in those. It was really hard to believe something happened without much damn reason these days. Chatterbox seemed to flee north often enough. Maybe he was hiding from the Pilgrim hunting him?

  "That does change things," Rapi frowned.

  "If he's far enough away," Commander Johnson muttered. "You would be able to tell if he gets any closer, or if we're getting too close?"

  I could see what he was thinking. The mission couldn't be abandoned. Of course, Chatterbox being in the area was a threat. A major, major threat. There was no way around the fact he could beat us pretty damn easily. But if we could avoid him? It wasn't exactly without risk. It was extremely risky by every measure. Chatterbox may have been far away, but he could close the distance at a much faster rate than we could open it.

  But if he was hiding. However, that relied on Chatterbox hiding, rather than doing something completely different. Which, at the end of the day, he easily could be. Chatterbox was clever. If he was nearby, it had to be for some reason or another.

  "I would. I'm concerned about him closing the distance, though," I admit with a frown. "He's faster than us and has more stamina, so over a long pursuit that would play to his favor."

  The fact he could control Raptures was something I didn't think needed to be said. With Raptures hemming us in, and Chatterbox being able to close ground quickly, the situation gone from normal to precarious. Though, knowing what I did about Counters as a squad, things going from zero to ten seemed to be their usual operating pattern. Which was not fine, but I could normally live with it.

  But not when it came to Chatterbox. If we played it safe, we should be fine. In theory. In practice?

  If he got like a mile closer, I was going to set off alarm bells. Who knows? Maybe the other squad that was supposed to be out here would be strong enough to make up the difference.

  Maybe. It was a big maybe. Chatterbox hadn't appeared again until the team-up with Counters. That type of luck? I knew where it was likely going.

  Hopefully that luck would hold.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  "I imagine humans used to love playing in this stuff!" Neon smiled, appearing to enjoy the wintry wonderland. I bite back a chuckle. Being the only one who actually experienced snow before, that did make me a bit of an expert.

  "It was pretty nice. But you couldn't stay out too long. Cold, especially cold like this, could kill someone that wasn't properly equipped for it," I said aloud before I could stop myself. Everyone seemed to look back at me as we continued to walk.

  "How exactly would you know this?" Anis gave me a look. Her very judgmental look.

  "Because we were going into the far north and it's not hard to realize that the temperature gets really cold?" I offer. I wasn't entirely wrong, even though the Raptures messed up the planet's biosphere and weather patterns something fierce. Especially given how close it was to zero. Yeah, it was close to zero degrees Fahrenheit.

  Yeah, somehow out of everything that survived the apocalypse, it was the imperial temperature that made it out the other end. And as tempting as it was to go on a screed about how metric was better in every way, I had other problems to deal with.

  "I do suppose that explains the clothes," Commander Johnson said with a nod. God, bless this innocent cinnamon roll of a man, he was too pure for this sinful earth. That explained nothing about the clothes. I'd managed to do a lot to get them, and I was more than proud of it. It would keep him warm. At least, it would certainly help.

  I didn't want to try the sharing body heat method unless it was the last resort.

  "You make it sound like," Rapi cut herself off, shaking her head. I frown slightly. That had been a misstep, but I couldn't help myself. It'd felt far too long since I'd seen snow, much less a good snow. Much less got to actually enjoy it. Enjoying it may be overselling my enthusiasm, but. It was hard not too.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I knew it was better to just keep my mouth shut. I already knew that outside of Commander Johnson, everyone else was paranoid about my presence. Not that I blamed them. Counters were not orthodox by any means, but their strangeness brought results. And I've been thrown onto the squad with no warning. Even I hadn't seen that coming.

  And it wasn't helping that the wind was picking up. Rarely a good sign, given the terrain.

  "The signal is getting a bit mixed up out there. Are you guys okay?" I heard our mission control's voice, flickering near the Commander. She looked young. Younger than even Syuen.

  But I could see why the connection was starting to become fraught. A storm was coming.

  "We should try to find cover."

  The clothing I gave the Commander was rated for the cold. But against a blizzard?

  I wasn't gambling that.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  The wind screamed, spitting its fury. The entrance outside the cave was blanketed in white. Even with thermals, seeing through the mess was next to impossible, and the temperatures had plummeted accordingly. It was well below zero now. Even a protected person would catch their death in this sort of weather. Easily at that. If the cold didn't get them, the fact it was impossible to see where you were going would. Our mission was important, but risking our lives recklessly served nobody.

  Plus side, the storm seemed to have Chatterbox hunkered down too. I think. He had to have been on the maximum end of my range, as the storm coming in seemed to have disrupted the connection. I was all for having a clearer head, as the buzz got annoying. But just because we're out of the storm, doesn't mean I was out of the fire. We may have been hunkering down, but it was clear that everyone else had questions.

  Well, the Commander didn't. Johnson just seemed to trust me. My paranoid parts told me that he was stupid to do so.

  The rest of me liked it. It was nice, not having someone second guess your every action.

  "It was correct to hide out in here. Even our sensors would get confused out there," Rapi said as she looked at me. It was a bit of a shame we didn't have a fire going, but it wasn't like we had any wood on hand, and the smoke would build up. Not a problem for us, but certainly one for Johnson.

  "It was better to err on the side of caution. White-out conditions are dangerous to us as is. To Commander Johnson, they're probably fatal, even with the winter gear," I admit, keeping my legs crossed. Possibly even to us, too. Winter did not tend to play around, and while we did hold up better compared to someone who wasn't a Nikke, there was an operational range. I didn't know the limits to that range, but I also didn't want to find out.

  "And you know so much about the surface how, exactly?" Anis crossed her arms, giving me a dirty look. "How long have you even been active for?"

  "Reading old records when I can get my hands on them, mostly," wasn't exactly a lie, so I was great at that. "As for how long, I've been like this? A month and a half, roughly."

  God, it felt so much longer than that. And yet, at the same time, far less. Linear time was stupid like that, as was my brain.

  "Mihara said you remembered everything from before you became a Nikke," Neon chimed in, her voice was for once, very, flat. "So that has to help a bit."

  I paused for a moment, racking my brain. Had Mihara mentioned that? If she did, then hadn't done so in my presence. Which meant she had to have done so when.

  Rapi and I had gone off to secure the perimeter.

  The alarmed look on Rapi's face told me that was exactly the case. And that she hadn't been told the news either. I scowled. That was something that was supposed to be under wraps. Not entirely for the wrong reasons.

  "That, shouldn't even be possible," Rapi muttered.

  "And yet, here I am," well the cat had vacated this bag at this point. Lying was useless, so I wasn't even going to try. "It sucks, but what can you do when life gives you lemons?"

  I mean, besides following the Cave Johnson method, something I normally swore not to do, but this place pushed me. You never went full Cave Johnson.

  "What's a lemon?" Commander Johnson asked, rubbing his gloved hands together as the blizzard raged.

  "It's something before the Raptures came, isn't it? Like golf," Anis said before I could explain further. I blinked slightly in surprise. She wasn't exactly wrong, far from it. But I hadn't expected her to draw the connection between the two things. Golf didn't exist anymore. In hindsight, I had made that all to clear to anyone paying attention. That I knew of something that no longer existed.

  Which meant it had to exist at some point. Her logic was startlingly sound. If I knew something from before the war, something that was very unlikely to be recorded, recovered, or retained.

  "Are you implying that I know about what things were like because you think I was there?" I asked, narrowing my eyes back. The thing is, I wasn't entirely sure Anis was wrong here. Either I had been transported to some alternate reality, or into the future. Both were just about as crazy as the other. Of course, it wasn't likely in the way she was thinking of. I wasn't even sure what she was considering.

  "You aren't giving me a lot of reasons to think otherwise," Anis countered.

  "And do you have any evidence of this? Or are you basing this on a lack of evidence?" I paused for a moment. "Sometimes, people use a lack of evidence to justify their beliefs, that the lack of evidence is, in and of itself, a form of evidence."

  It was a fairly common thing among conspiracy theorists. A very annoying and painful thing, as shown by the flat earthers who, repeatedly, proved the Earth was round. But I could live with it. But I wanted to see if she had reasons beyond, using archaic language.

  "What is the last thing you remember?" Commander Johnson's voice cuts through our staredown like a knife.

  "I," there was a pause in my voice. "The last thing I remember is going to sleep. Then I."

  I moved my hands up and down my body, outlining it.

  "Woke up like this. With someone, digging around in my chest."

  It had been a jolt. Going from sleeping to someone with a hand in my chest. Waking up in a body that wasn't mine in general.

  Anis's gaze seemed to soften a bit as she looked at me.

  "That's illegal," Neon commented, her face surprisingly dark, as Johnson nodded.

  "So is bringing Raptures into the Ark," I finally said. "Just because it is, doesn't mean that people stop committing criminal acts, especially when they have the power or money to avoid the consequences of their actions."

  So should be sending near-murder hobos to force compliance, but frankly, this was the same stuff humans did, just in a different place.

  "Still, it doesn't change that you didn't get to make that choice yourself," Rapi's voice was firm, but her face had, a twinge to it, somehow the most emotional I had seen her.

  The silence hung in the air.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  The silence remained, even as the storm passed. The fresh snow blanketed the landscape, painting it white. As if it wasn't already. My feet sunk deep into the snow. It was too wet and too fresh to really support our weight, but we continued anyway. We were trying to reach a bunker, that would at least be a somewhat safe place.

  Cold weather protection was good, but the moisture was an enemy all of its own. Having a place for Commander Johnson to dry out would benefit. Because I wasn't following through with Anis's advice on the matter. Sorry, but I had standards.

  The good news was that I couldn't hear Chatterbox anymore. The storm either buried him deep, or he pissed off. Which was good news for us. Or maybe he didn't want to gamble another interaction with a Pilgrim? I didn't know, I just wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  Nor did it change that the blizzard didn't clear out the Raptures as much as I had hoped it would.

  Though, it wasn't as if a group of isolated Raptures would be difficult prey. They weren't. It didn't take long to take them down.

  There was just one problem.

  Avalanche. Because firing guns and explosives were going to lead us to a bad time. Another reason that I hated snow mixed with mountains. Individually, they're great. Together?

  Run to high ground, if you could. But we didn't have that type of luck. The bunker was close by. But I could already tell that Johnson wasn't going to make it. But with that cliff line over there. We couldn't make it to the bunker. But I could pull him out of harm's way.

  This was going to hurt. I let me powers run into overdrive, scoping up Commander Johnson into my arms, and just bolting. We were the two furthest in the back. If we went with the others, we would end up being swallowed.

  I raced across the snow, feeling the slow vibration with every step. One second.

  I reached the edge of the cliff, moving around it so I could work my way up. Two seconds.

  I began to ascend, moving my way through the rocky field as the avalanche bore down on us. Three seconds.

  My body let out a scream of protest as I managed to get us to safety, steam coming off my neck as the internal heat met the cold air. Setting Johnson down on his feet, I gazed at the destruction. The avalanche dug deeply into the snow, leaving a massive canyon of ice and snow in its wake. Just how long had the snow been left to pile up here? It should have been glacier!

  It seemed as if Rapi, Anis, and Neon made it out okay, too, near the bunker. However, we were cut off. The banks in the canyon were too steep to climb.

  "What's Rapi saying?" Commander Johnson asked as I narrowed my eyes. Technically, the answer was nothing at all. Rapi was signing.

  "She wants us to regroup further downhill," I said. Which made sense. I was not going to want to move further uphill after an avalanche, and going downhill was easier anyway.

  It would be a journey though, but at least we could see one another.