Chapter Text
Fade sighed impatiently as she tapped her fingers on the desk, nervously glancing between her monitor and the window. It had been a day since she had revealed to Valorant the knowledge she had gathered against them, a day until, barring any response, she would initiate the second step of her plan. She sighed, swiping back to the footage she had gathered only a week earlier.
She saw Him, not-so-carefully scouting out a warehouse downtown. He had always been brash; she wished that this had been out of character. She watched through the moments of uncertainty as two individuals, Valorant agents she now knew to be Sunwoo and Kirra, codenames Jett and Skye, rushed in, blinding him before closing the distance to knock him out. A moment passed before Skye noticed the camera and a shot rang out from out of view. The footage ended.
Fade gritted her teeth. She had done her diligence, looked into the agents, and uncovered the protocol. She had eluded Amir, who they called Cypher, as he tried to cover traces of their existence and suppress her network. She breathed Nightmare into their ears, spreading whispers of their worst fears. That particular exercise, at such a long range, had been extremely draining, but had given her the information she needed. Not long after, she was able to assemble enough blackmail to get them to do what she wanted.
Fade sighed again and got up from her desk. Any hope this would be an easy task had been long dispelled, and there was no use mulling around. They would look for her, and she would make sure they only found what she wanted them to.
~
The sun had not yet risen, yet already Viper was having a vastly unpleasant day. Then again, as she had once overheard Reyna say, “sooner a rooster lays eggs than Sabine Callas has a good day.” Funny. Extremely funny. What a reputation to have.
- “You deserve worse for what you are .” -
Viper gritted her teeth. “Don’t I know it,” she grumbled, trudging over to the shower.
As bad days went, this one was particularly poor. Her sleep had been interrupted by a recurring nightmare that left her cold and haggard, her consciousness only kept alive by a cup of black coffee and a bottomless supply of spite. She had awoken before even Skye was up for her morning run but, knowing what awaited her if she were to fall asleep, had resolved not to return to bed.
The common speculation among the protocol is that the nightmares they’d experienced were connected to the blackmail dossiers sent to them afterward. The dossiers tended to aggravate old wounds, point out deep insecurities, and threaten people close to their subjects. Hers did too, of course, but it referenced a piece of her history that the blackmailer seemed to only have glancing information about. Maddeningly, the event referenced had nothing in common with the content of her nightmare. The incident it referred to had changed her, she knew. Sabine the venerable scientist turned into Sabine the terrifying monster overnight.
- “The monster you always were.” -
The real monstrous secret was absent from the dossier. The secret haunting over her very livelihood was left entirely unmentioned, a silent sword of Damocles hanging over her head. Surely, they knew. Surely, they were keeping her strung up in her own web of lies, keeping her paranoid and uncertain until they had enough leverage. Viper gritted her teeth. Powerful as this blackmailer may be, nobody was an adept match for the protocol. Her answers would come soon enough.
Her shower finished, Viper donned her bathrobe and stared at her reflection in the mirror, looking at her square shoulders, her sharp jawline, her misplaced cheekbones, and the lump in her throat always covered by one of her turtlenecks. A rooster lay eggs, huh, she thought. Don’t I fucking wish.
~
A few passed before Cypher finally caught a trail. There appeared to be an impregnable network in Turkey that was functioning as the center of operations, and a team was already being put together. Viper, however, was not on it.
“Brimstone, I don’t understand what the issue is. Let me go on the mission.”
Brimstone sighed, staring at Viper with his sleep-deprived eyes, a common sight at the protocol of late. “Viper, I’ve already explained why I can’t do that. One, they are covering a whole city, and as you know, your abilities aren’t amenable to that. Secondly, for reasons unbeknownst to me, you clearly have a personal stake in this mission.”
“So let me go!”
“If I let you go, you will kill or severely injure our target, leaving us powerless to stop their allies from continuing where they left off, or at least making a proper interrogation extremely hostile.”
“They were hostile when they sent blackmail dossiers of the entire protocol.”
“Viper, you’re better than this, I know you’re better than this. Our agents will handle it.”
Viper looked at the mission dossier. The assembled team was, much to her chagrin, adequate for the encounter. Sending their new agent Neon was questionable, but KAY/O should have the capability to shut down any putative radiance, and Sova was the obvious choice for scouting such a large area. She didn’t like it, but she also had no obvious objection.
“Fine.”
~
It had almost worked. Fade’s chosen safehouse had proven the perfect battleground, and she had successfully incapacitated several agents before her luck had started to sour. The tide had been turning in her favor, until their robotic anomaly KAY/O entered the fray, unleashing a disorienting blast from his chest.
In a fraction of a second, Fade felt herself split in two as her connection to the nightmare was severed. The whispering sensation in the back of her head, the roiling fear, everything was just gone. She had no time to steep in her revelation, as the bindings of fear she had used to keep the agents at bay were quickly unraveling, and with them, her pinpoints on their locations. She stumbled, disconnected from the sense she relied on as much as her vision.
Fade desperately fought the agents off, but her efforts, already weakened by sleep deprivation and extensive use of the Nightmare, were simply too little, too late. Several agents surrounded her, and she tossed down her gun in defeat and raised her hands in the air. A set of cuffs clicked around her wrists as the various agents around her quibbled before hauling her to her feet. KAY/O walked her back to their helicopter, and they took off.
Not long after, she heard the sound of the helicopter returning to land, with the soft sounds of waves surrounding her. Kahretsin seni aptal, you’ve landed in Alcatraz. Damnit you idiot. She blindfolded before being led to something between an office and a holding cell, where she promptly passed out.
~
Fade came to some hours later, jerking awake from a usual nightmare to find herself face-to-face with Cypher.
Fade groggily looked up. “Amir. Here to laugh at my helplessness?”
“That’s Cypher to you.” The morrocan smiled, or, at least, she thought he did. “I think we should have a little chat, but first, food.” Cypher uncovered a bag in his hand containing what appeared to be a lentil soup, setting it on the table in front of Fade. “Not my finest work, but hopefully an acceptable peace offering.”
Fade shot him a glare. “What did you put in this?”
Cypher chuckled. “If we were here to poison you, I’m sure you know we have subtler means. I’m hoping to help rectify some bad faith.”
Fade scowled, but accepted the food. She wasn’t keen on good faith, but she sensed it was her only option that actually made progress. Besides, she’d have to eat sooner or later.
“Now,” Cypher continued, after a few minutes, “I’m going to ask you some questions. I will not use force, though I will advise that being truthful will get you further than refusing to answer.”
Fade returned to her scowl.
“What do you know about the Valorant Protocol?”
Fade smirked. “More than you wish I knew.”
“Indulge me.”
“I know your operating guidelines. I know the location of your headquarters. I know your typical weapon loadout. Your R&D budget. The last 6 months of your mission archives. And the leave requests of every Agent that bothers to file them... should I go on?”
“No, no, I think that’s quite sufficient. Now, as we had already suspected, and more-or-less confirmed during the altercation that brought you here, this information was gathered in part from your radiant power, yes?”
“Yes. I have some control over fear and nightmares. But my digital network also is quite adept, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
“So it is, so it is.” Cypher leaned forward. “But I digress. The center of our altercation, the reason for your blackmail. You claim someone was taken from you.”
“Indeed.”
“Care to explain?”
“To what end? You have him, you already know.”
“Much as we are enactors of violence, much like yourself, we are not in the business of kidnapping.”
“Convenient. Inconvenient that I recorded your agents doing it.”
Cypher sat back up in his seat. “Now that is interesting. I may look into that, but that is a separate matter. The point is this: I stand by my statement, and yet I do not doubt what you saw. Do you know why?”
Fade simply looked back.
“There are other worlds than this.”
Fade tried not to let the shock show on her face.
~
They had continued talking for some time, and Cypher seemed to have made up his mind about some things before he left. Fade was still in the dark about what it all meant but was content to wait for it to sort out. She no longer seemed at risk of immediate execution, at least. Other worlds than this. Fade could scarcely comprehend the consequences. Another Earth, another Valorant, another her. It all seemed like madness. And yet, it explained some things. Why His assailants disappeared without a trace. Why none of her digging turned up any motivations for the kidnapping. She drummed her fingers, rolling the idea around in your mind.
Some time later, as time crawled into the late hours of the evening, she noticed an odd change in the lighting. Scanning the room, she realized the camera had turned off. Strange for that to happen at this time of night. Someone might be up to something.
She did not have long to wait. Not long after, a figure slipped into the room. The silhouette of Sabine Callas, decked in her turtleneck and lab coat, sauntered across the room, her angry, piercing eyes betraying a hint of nervousness.
Fade stared back into her gaze. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she commented.
“Perhaps not,” Sabine sneered in turn, sliding a syringe onto the table. “But dead women tell no tales.”
“You seriously think an injected poison isn’t traceable back to you?”
A dangerous glint shone from Viper’s eyes. “Depends. Do you think I might just do it anyway?”
Fade wracked her brain for what Viper could possibly want. Her research had turned up very little beyond what was already public knowledge, and her dream diving had gotten sidetracked from any valuable secrets worth uncovering. “Sabine, I don’t even understand what you want from me. The misunderstanding looks to be getting cleared up, my research indicated that the incident I put in your dossier is already known to Brimstone—”
Viper slammed her fist on the desk. “Don’t.”
“So, what is it? Cypher’s going to be suspicious that his camera stopped working in the middle of the night.”
“You know what ‘it’ is.”
Fade wracked her brain. She had, up until now, largely ignored the content of Viper’s nightmare. She had all-but-forgotten the woman’s paranoid desperation, the fear of losing everything. It hadn’t helped her case, so she’d discarded it. Even if it wasn’t far beneath her to out someone like that, it was hardly a menacing threat. If anything, it would just make anyone worth a damn think less of her, not Viper. “Viper, you’re delusional if you think that information is anything close to an actual threat.”
“The information that will ruin my reputation, my standing, and get me kicked out of the protocol?” Viper hissed.
Fade resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Viper, if you came out tomorrow. How many people do you think would give a shit? There are literal queer couples in the protocol flirting your non-fraternization policy, and that’s just what I found. At worst you’d get an unpleasant pity party and a couple people upset you didn’t tell them sooner. If I out you I’m an asshole, not a career-ruiner.”
“SHUT UP!” Viper slammed the table, pulling herself over it until Fade felt forced to lean back in her chair. The syringe, long forgotten, was knocked askew and rolled onto the floor, shattering. “You think this is a fucking joke? I’ve lied to everyone I know for 20 years, and you think I’m making a joke?”
Fade cocked an eyebrow, holding eye contact. “You’re at worst lying by omission, and a minor omission at that.”
Viper’s glare intensified.
Ok, Time to back off, Hazal. “But, so we’re clear. I would absolutely not do that to someone, not a stranger, not an enemy. I won’t say anything.”
Viper stared her up and down.
Fade looked pointedly at the broken syringe. “I also won’t say anything about you doing this tonight, but you might want to clean that up if you want me to be at all convincing.”