Chapter Text
The stench of rotting matter and liquid waste was overpowering. Twilight strove to ignore it as he moved as silently as he could down the narrow, poorly lit corridors of the Shellbury sewer system. The throbbing of his arm and the unpadded shoes of his disguise were not making it easy. He’d had to lessen the padding to make himself appear shorter, about Yuri Briar’s height. Now, winded and injured from a fight he had allowed to drag on much longer than necessary, he was forced to slow his gait so that his footsteps wouldn’t give him away.
Yuri Briar was down.
Dire possibilities branched out like an invisible trail behind him. Most likely, Yuri would live. Twilight hadn’t dealt him any fatal wounds, hadn’t broken any bones or hit any organs. Most likely, he would be fine. But there was a chance he’d limp, or suffer memory loss if the blows to the head had been hard enough. There was a chance he’d be hospitalized for weeks if he were bleeding internally and wasn’t found quickly.
There was a small chance he’d die if he wasn’t found.
Instinct warred against counterinstinct. He continued forward without slowing down. But was he truly moving at the fastest speed he could manage? Was he subconsciously hesitating, as he had in that split-second of beholding Yuri Briar’s face at the end of the barrel? Could he still trust his own senses and reflexes, everything that kept a spy like him alive?
Was it mercy or pragmatism that had stayed his hand, at the sound of Yuri’s whispered apology to his sister?
Twilight gritted his teeth and tried again to empty his mind of doubt. There was a mission to attend to, the most urgent he’d received since the assassination attempt on Brantz. He had to get out of the sewers and reconvene with Nightfall and Stratus. While the team was capable, chances were Wheeler was still on the run. Twilight just hadn’t been able to buy them enough time.
Footsteps, faster than his own, sounded somewhere ahead.
He immediately stopped and pressed himself to the wall, trying to determine which exact direction the sounds were coming from. Mere seconds later, the footsteps ceased as well.
He held his breath, automatically expecting the worst. SSS or Wheeler. Game plans unfolded rapid-fire in his mind. He was Yuri Briar. He’d been attacked by Twilight. He’d–
SMASH!
—
Yor…
I’m…alive?
As he regained lucidity, harshly ingrained survival training overrode the impulse to groan and open his eyes. Yuri stayed still and kept his eyes closed. Strained his ears for any telltale sounds of the enemy in the surrounding area. Maintained the same steady flow of breath.
Seconds passed. From what he could tell, he was alone.
He opened his eyes a sliver, observed the stagnant, silent emptiness of the sewer corridors, and sat up.
Pain. His jaw, throat, stomach, even his groin shot pain signals all at once to his brain. Bracing himself against the wall, he struggled to stand and ignore his injuries as best as he could. He growled at the memory of how he’d received each throbbing bruise, especially the kick to the balls. Of course Twilight wasn’t above such dirty tactics. What did he expect from a Western spy?
…Certainly not to be left alive. Why hadn’t the scum finished him off? Did Twilight think he was already dead? No, a spy of that caliber wouldn’t have made that mistake. Did he consider him such a low-level threat that he wasn’t worth killing?
If you don’t want to die here, run back to the surface. Now.
You may not be eating any decent meals for a while, but you’ll live.
No. Twilight had told him to his face, in an eerie copy of his own voice, that he didn’t want to kill him. The disconcerting fact didn’t fit with Yuri’s understanding of how the enemy operated. The rule for spies in SSS encounters was to kill or be killed (or rather captured, tortured, and eventually executed). Twilight was the most wanted spy in the nation. Why would he risk leaving an SSS agent alive?
And how had he been able to pull off a flawless impersonation of Yuri Briar, a mere junior officer among tens of thousands of agents in the sprawling state security apparatus? How had he known what his voice sounded like in the first place? How had he even gotten the soles of his shoes right?
A list of suspects flitted through his mind, every arrest and interrogation he had conducted in the last several months. He thought hard on each criminal’s connections and motivations. Had any of them secretly been working with WISE?
Or was it someone else, someone who knew him personally?
A distant crash pulled him out of his furious speculation. His hand flew to his side before he remembered his gun had been lost to the sewage. He gritted his teeth, then winced as his jaw protested in agony. Injured or not, he still had to do something with the chance Twilight was still in the sewers. A glance at his watch told him he’d been out only a few minutes.
The distinct sounds of a fistfight echoed ahead as he half-ran, half-limped down the corridor, not bothering to mask his clumsy steps. His heart rate spiked at the thought of his colleagues up ahead facing off against Twilight. They must have entered the sewers somewhere else and blocked off his escape route.
They’d take him down this time. There was no way he’d let him get away again.
—
Every nerve thrummed in painful focus as Twilight struggled to stay in the fight. He was losing, a split-second too slow on every exchange of fists and feet, and Wheeler knew it, brutally pressing every advantage. The man was razor fast and ruthless, just as Twilight remembered from their joint op years ago. What had changed was that all his masks were off.
The cocky grin as he fought. The snide taunts. They went beyond the usual tactics of trying to throw an enemy off his game. Wheeler was genuinely enjoying this.
“Might wanna consider the retirement package. Pretty sure I’ve met trainees faster than you,” was the next jab, spoken evenly without a hint of broken breath. Twilight wasn’t fooled; it took tremendous effort to school one’s voice in a fight. The vanity of this man was astounding.
Twilight managed to catch him off balance with a well-timed feint and kick to the shin, but before he could get him on the ground, Wheeler threw himself backward out of reach. Twilight jumped back in turn, taking the rare chance to collect his breath and assess his options.
As predicted, Wheeler couldn’t resist the opening to needle him further. “Sherwood’s working you hard, isn’t she? Can’t catch a break with so many of your guys getting rounded up and shot. Time’s running out for you down here. You don’t let me go, you’ll be next.”
He didn’t dignify that with a response. Wheeler was right in that he couldn’t afford for the fight to drag out much longer. He had to find a way to bring him down, fast.
In the short time they’d fought hand-to-hand, Twilight had hit him in the right shoulder, the left shin, the temple and jaw. Wheeler would still be feeling the sting in those areas and would guard them instinctively. He had to get a disabling shot in. The solar plexus, the throat, the groin. He was on autopilot. Ignore his own wounds. Ignore the discomfort of his disguise. Ignore his target’s attempts at distraction and all extraneous factors. Bring Wheeler down. Then worry about the SSS, not one second earlier.
He was a hairsbreadth from reengaging when loud footsteps drew his attention to the corridor behind Wheeler. The latter tensed, never taking his eyes off Twilight, and placed his back against the wall. Best case, it was a WISE rookie running toward them with no regard for stealth. Worst case, it was the SSS announcing their presence as Wheeler’s backup.
“Twilight,” the growl came from an all-too-familiar voice. As the newcomer’s limping form came into view, he amended his assessment. It was the absolute worst case. His brother-in-law glaring back at him, intending to carry through on his promise of execution.
—
Raucous laughter pulled Yuri from the single-minded warpath he was treading toward the enemy.
“You’ve still got it, Twilight. Can’t tell the difference between his sorry ass and yours.”
Yuri turned to find the man they’d all been looking for, leaning against the wall in a deceptively casual stance. A trickle of blood ran from Wheeler’s hairline to his brow, and a purpling bruise decorated his jaw. Still, he looked to be in better shape than Yuri could have hoped. The mole assessed him in turn with a calculating eye beneath the veneer of amusement. There was no recognition in his gaze.
Of course. That hadn’t been Wheeler at the bookstand. It’d been Twilight, singling him out for impersonation. The thought only added fuel to his rage.
“Winston Wheeler,” Yuri gritted out. He jerked his head toward his doppelganger, who stared grimly back at him like an irritating mirror. “If you’re truly with us, you’ll help me take this bastard in.”
The smirk on Wheeler’s face slid into something colder. He slowly stretched his neck and popped a joint in his shoulder. “Lieutenant Yuri Briar, SSS? That arm your handiwork over there?”
Yuri glanced at the hastily bandaged bullet wound on Twilight’s arm. A small victory. But it would mean nothing if the spy escaped here. Twilight had been silent this whole time, sizing him up, no doubt trying to piece together a plan to outsmart him. He could see the decisive shift in his feet as he prepared to fight.
“Last warning,” Yuri said darkly. “Surrender now. You can’t win against both of us.”
Twilight said nothing, his eyes flickering from Yuri to Wheeler as the latter moved to flank him. Yuri still didn’t know if he could trust the mole or how capable he was at hand-to-hand. He wouldn’t wait to find out. He wouldn’t lose a second time.
He charged forward and felt the breeze as Twilight dodged his first strike by a millimeter, then a hard bruising hit on his forearm as he blocked the counterattack. He barely managed to turn aside in time as the spy attempted to trip him with a kick to the back of the knee, his ribs screaming at him as he bent backward to avoid a jab to the throat. What he wouldn’t give for a weapon, even a dull knife or that metal pipe Twilight had used against him. But maybe it would be more satisfying this way, to take him down with his bare hands.
Adrenaline fueled his momentum, allowing him to shove down the searing pain from his previous injuries. After each failed attack he lunged again without a second to waste. He could hear his enemy’s ragged breathing over his own, could tell that he was wearing down faster than he was, one small step from tripping up and giving him a critical opening.
He thought he saw that opening when Twilight stumbled, and went for a full body tackle. Too late, he realized it was a trap. Twilight kicked up hard into his stomach, exactly where he’d hit him before, and instantly he couldn’t breathe. The next hit slammed into him faster than he could see and he was on the ground, clutching his sides and desperately gasping for air that wouldn’t enter his lungs. Every inch of his body anticipated that final, decisive blow that would put him out of commission for good.
It didn’t come. Blearily he picked up the sounds of rapid footfalls, an angry shout and a thud of a body against stone. The mole must have tried to flee, with Twilight in pursuit. Yuri should have known better than to trust a man willing to play double agent.
He shakily sucked in a breath and raised his head, catching the blur of action at the mouth of the sewer corridor from which he’d come. Wheeler must have figured running back there would bring him to the SSS. He forced himself to stand and shed the pain once again, to regain some modicum of objectivity. It wasn’t Wheeler’s job to catch Twilight. He only had one purpose—to hand over his intel. Let him run.
Yuri lurched forward, his muscles protesting with each movement, to throw a punch at the back of Twilight’s head as he grappled with Wheeler. Twilight ducked on instinct, then whirled and hit him with an open palm to the temple. Stars burst and his ears rang, and before he knew it he’d crashed to the ground. A hard edge dug into his side and he realized he was falling off the path into the sewage below, the stench of fetid garbage choking his senses.
Whiplash. Something jerked him back right at the surface of the toxic sludge, his collar constricting his windpipe as a hand firmly grasped his shirt. He feebly clawed at it, too disoriented to distinguish help from harm. The wind left his lungs again as he slammed into solid ground, and the nauseating scent of sewage receded.
Wheeler’s cold laugh broke through the ringing in his head. “Really? This part of the WISE code now? Saving SSS agents who wouldn’t hesitate to skin you alive?”
Footsteps sounded behind him, then to his side. His own shoes appeared at the periphery of his vision. He strained to look up at the spy wearing his own bloodied and bruised face, shoulders heaving with exhaustion. And he heard Twilight speak for the first time since their fight.
“Some of us actually have a code,” was the simple reply. Even winded, the voice was still a perfect imitation of his own. “The objective has always been peace, and sparing lives. Not war.”
“Spare me the propaganda. No one stays in this business with their ideals intact for long. Something’s turned you soft. Something personal,” Wheeler said with a mix of disdain and curiosity. Twilight tensed, sending Yuri’s instincts on alert despite the fact he could hardly muster the energy to sit up.
“Only an idealistic fool would work to reignite war and think they’d escape unscathed,” Twilight replied. “Or maybe you’ve been offered a parachute? Retirement overseas?”
Wheeler tsked, shifting his stance as if knowing a return to violence was imminent. “Don’t deflect. I’m just wondering what’s thrown the great Twilight this far off his game. Maybe the latest op’s gotten to your head. I had to read the file twice before I could take it seriously. A man of your talents playing house? And with civilians–”
He blocked Twilight’s fist with a forearm almost nonchalantly, now smiling with the knowledge he had truly rattled the spy. Yuri managed to drag himself upright on one knee. Something important was passing between the two men and he could not afford to miss it. At the same time his distrust of Wheeler grew tenfold, as the man was freely spilling his hard-earned secrets just to provoke an enemy instead of waiting until he was safe inside an SSS facility.
“Couldn’t find any photos,” Wheeler grunted as he took a glancing blow to the abdomen, “but I imagine the little girl’s smart. She’d have to be, for it all to work out. And your wife,” he coughed and spat as Twilight clocked him in the jaw, “she come with extra benefits?”
Yuri could see the rage fueling Twilight’s every movement, completely overtaking the cool, calculating demeanor that had dominated their interactions before this point. It was like viewing a video recording of himself breaking protocol on an interrogation, when the suspect dared mention anything remotely derogatory about his beloved sister.
His sister. A wife. A little girl. A little girl who had to be smart.
Yuri’s brain stuttered to a halt as he made the tenuous, completely outrageous connection. It couldn’t be. There were millions of Ostanian families with two parents and a young daughter.
Personally, he knew only one.
He drew himself to his feet and narrowed his eyes, watching every furious movement of his doppelganger with new scrutiny. Twilight was fighting with all he had to take down the double agent and shut off the flow of intel from reaching the ears of Ostanian secret police. Or was it something more than that?
Something more that had led Twilight to spare the life of a no-name, low-ranking SSS officer twice now?
He had to test his theory.
“Loid Forger,” he said, cold and clear. “Is that who you are?”
—
The name rang out like a gunshot. One he’d been bracing for and desperately trying to prevent in his futile fight against Wheeler. He controlled his reaction immaculately. There was no break in his movement, his strikes hard and unrelenting, his gaze unwavering from Wheeler’s smug face. He did not answer.
“Loid Forger,” Yuri repeated in a growl. “I’ve always wanted to punch that plastic smile off your face. I swore I’d have you executed if you ever hurt my sister. But I never imagined you’d be a fucking spy, conning her into…” he broke off, seething. His voice dropped a register. “You don’t deserve the mercy of an execution.”
A low wheezing chuckle rumbled in Wheeler’s chest, even as Twilight delivered a vicious kick to his side.
“You…you’re fucking the sister…of a state agent…” the mole choked out between bouts of uncontrollable laughter. “And you have the balls…to wear his face!”
Twilight spun the moment he sensed Yuri behind him, instinctively putting his arms up as the man threw an impossibly fast right hook. The fist smashed like a steel hammer against his forearm and he heard the bone fracture before he felt the spike of pain. He caught a glimpse of wild black hair and blood red eyes narrowed in a demon’s glare before the man lunged. No strategy, no form, just a primal assault, a rabid dog going for his throat. Clawed fingers caught on his sleeves and tore through the fabric like paper, nails flaying the skin on his arms.
Yuri wasn’t going for his throat. He was going for his face.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he realized Wheeler had stopped laughing and he’d lost sight of him. He ducked, too slow, and a split-second later there was a sharp tearing tug on the back of his scalp. Latex peeled painfully from skin. His vision was suddenly free of the strands of black hair that he had fashioned to hang low over his forehead. Too late, he forced himself to lean backward into Wheeler’s hold instead of jerking away, the mask still clinging to his face like a tattered curtain as Yuri kept swiping at his raised arms. Through the onslaught he met Yuri’s lethal gaze, and knew he’d been made.
The guttural growl was more animal than human. “You-“
BANG! BANG!
Blood sprayed across his ruined mask. Yuri jerked, mouth open in a choked-off curse, a weeping hole in his throat. Another hole in his head leaked blood onto his shoulder. He staggered, falling.
At the mouth of the corridor, Nightfall stood unflinching, still poised to shoot, expressionless eyes meeting his for a fraction of a second.
Twilight threw his head backward as hard as he could. Soft cartilage crunched against his skull. A pained shout. The pressure released on his scalp. He ripped the mask off his own face, vision unobscured. Spun and kicked low, vicious. Shin, ankle, thin air. Wheeler took the blows and lunged forward in a tackle, slamming into Twilight’s midsection.
“Nightfall!” Twilight roared, punching down at Wheeler’s neck, shoulders, whatever he could reach. Heels clacked rapidly against stone as the female agent darted around them, hunting for a safe angle. “Just shoot!”
Blood pounded deafeningly in his ears, adrenaline spiking as his body fought what his brain ordered it to do. He dropped down to his knees and wrapped his arms around Wheeler’s shoulders to trap him in, absorbing the frantic punches to the chest and stomach as the man struggled to free himself, realizing too late what Twilight was willing to do.
BANG! BANG!
Pain shot through his right thigh and abdomen. Wheeler swore, grasping for a handhold on Twilight’s clothes as he lost his balance. Twilight shoved him away and stumbled clear, each step setting his leg and side on fire where the bullets had embedded after they’d passed clean through Wheeler. Nightfall’s aim was impeccable. She’d disabled Wheeler while managing to avoid any vital spots on both of them.
BANG!
The next shot shattered Wheeler’s kneecap, and Nightfall dove in for the chokehold even before he was fully on the ground.
Twilight turned away from the end of the fight and dragged himself toward his brother-in-law. The man lay unmoving on his side, a puddle of blood forming a macabre halo around his wild black hair. He fumbled for a pulse, willing his own heart to regain some semblance of calm so he could make out whether Yuri was alive or dead. As the sounds of Wheeler’s struggles ceased behind him, his ears caught a treacherously soft wheeze of air through Yuri’s mangled throat. The hand he had on Yuri’s wrist began to tremble. He pulled away and clenched it into a fist.
“Twilight,” Nightfall called, her voice slightly strained as she pulled the knots tight around Wheeler’s wrists. “Bind your wounds. The SSS could be here any minute.” She pulled a syringe from her pocket and injected the sedative carefully into the unconscious man’s neck. Only then did she turn her full attention to Twilight and the body beside him. “He still alive?”
“You shot him in the head. He has minutes to live, if that,” he said, a flat statement of fact bordering on an accusation. “We need to take him with us.”
A flicker of shock broke through her stone cold expression. “He’s seen your face. We can’t afford for him to live.”
“He’s an essential part of Operation Strix. He dies, Yor will…she’ll leave. The cover will fall apart.” Even to his own ears, his rationale had broken down. He stopped talking and reached for Yuri’s shoulders, gently rolling him onto his back. The click of the safety on Nightfall’s pistol made him pause and turn toward her. Her face was a blank mask once more as she aimed the gun point-blank at Yuri Briar’s head.
He moved without thinking. He grabbed the barrel and forced it upward, his other hand gripping her wrist.
“Stand down, agent,” he gritted out. “Don’t make me say it again.”
The sound of approaching footsteps froze both of them in place for a split-second. Then they sprang into action, Twilight pulling his collar up to shield his face while Nightfall swiveled her pistol straight at the newcomer.
“Nightfall, Twilight,” Stratus hissed through the mask of his SSS captain’s disguise, eyes wide as he took in the bloody scene. “The hell happened here?”
“We got Wheeler. An SSS agent tried to interfere and I took him out. Twilight’s injured. You’ll need to carry Wheeler while I assist him,” Nightfall responded seamlessly. She thumbed the safety back on and holstered the weapon, offering her hand to help Twilight stand as if he hadn’t just tried to disarm her. He didn’t take it.
“We can’t leave him here,” he repeated. Two pairs of eyes stared at him, Nightfall in incredulity that he hadn’t taken the out she’d extended, Stratus in plain confusion.
“Wheeler? Of course we won’t leave him,” the older agent said, looking from Twilight to Nightfall in bewilderment.
His brain whirred back to life. In the span of a second, dozens of paths forked into the future, each bleak in its own way.
They brought Yuri with them. The SSS caught up to them. They were all dead.
They brought Yuri with them. He died before they could make it out of the sewers.
They managed to escape with Yuri. He died in the getaway vehicle.
They managed to escape with Yuri. He survived under WISE care only to be thrown into a maximum security prison in Westalis. To everyone who knew him, he’d be dead, the secrets he’d discovered buried under layers of steel.
Other permutations blinked into thought and vanished just as quickly.
There was no future where Yuri could live if they took him with them.
“Twilight–”
“You’re not thinking straight–”
“I know,” he said, shutting his eyes for a brief, impossible moment. He fought the stutter in his chest and the flash of premonition in his mind – a woman’s bright red eyes and a broken cry – before brutally stifling it. “I know.”
He stood to his feet and instantly faltered, the bullet in his thigh sending him back down to one knee. Stratus and Nightfall both rushed forward to hold him steady. He brushed off their hands, anger simmering low in his veins now that he’d chosen, been forced to choose, the only path with a gray glimmer of hope.
“Get Wheeler,” he said curtly. “I’ll be fine.”
A concerned glance passed between his colleagues, a wordless agreement on their escape plan. Stratus hauled the limp form of Wheeler onto his shoulders, grunting with effort. Nightfall hovered at his side, her expression giving nothing away, while Twilight bound his gunshot wounds with the tattered strips of his sleeves. When she offered her hand again, he grasped it without hesitation. He looped his arm over her shoulders and they took several uneven steps in tandem before fully coordinating their gait. Their footsteps echoed too loudly in his ears as they ran from the site of his near-defeat and the body of his most dangerous liability. He stared ahead into the darkness of the corridor where an exit ladder stood somewhere in the distance. He did not look back.