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Finale: Queen's Rest
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[center][h1]Glen Brittle, Isle of Skye, Scotland
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1500 Hours Local
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Raven Squad
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[img]https://www.littlediscoveries.net/site/assets/files/7009/p5041532-fairy-pools-schottland-littlediscoveries_net.1200x800.jpg[/img]

[b]Soundtrack: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-VqCLBTjQY]Maribou State- Varkala[/url]
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Driving into Glen Brittle, the tiny, thin road led to a small parking area, where the various vehicles pulled in. Some hire, but one Land Rover Defender, hired by Adam, carrying himself, Tahlia and her father, stopped and left the cars behind. It was a twenty minute walk, up the stream, where tourists were, walking past people that were alive, able to keep visiting this beautiful, stunning location. A heap of waterfalls in crystalline waters in a perfect, postcard-like Scottish glen. Tourists who had no idea how close they'd come to the end of the world. Walking past them, Adam felt strange. Normal, actual, civilian people, who had zero idea of why so many of them were coming up here.

But right where Skye said, at that rock, the tiny track was stamped out with footsteps ahead of them. And walking up it, through the squelchy, boggy ground where boots caught mud, the tiny granite-strewn stream led into the braid that she'd described, up a small valley, and inevitably, to where Adam knew Skye had intended for them to go.

[hr]

The drizzle had fizzled out in the small clearing, the stones dripping with water.

Oliver Black Astrid Norheim, Howard Davis, Andrew and Tahlia Harris, Domenico Tornatore, Xander Clarke, Antoine Forestier and Svetlana Forestier, Ross Henderson, Carl Cardinal, then Imran Malik, as Oracle himself, joining all of Raven Squad, who had come along after Sam's invite. Sophie, Javi, Raph, Vincent too. Perhaps it felt irresponsible to have them in one place, given IST might pick this up, but then again, few times it felt like something leaked through IST and nobody watched. There were many others who may have heard the name, and were stomping bad guys while the team were here, for a quiet, contemplative moment. A heavy who was in the team recently, a legendary Norwegian infiltrator, a Mohican sniper that set himself apart on his tracking ability, a sniper with his daughter that had been in Raven's service, a hacker who had been the pain in Skye's life yet a lovable rogue, an infiltrator and her giantess lover, much like a certain two, then two original operatives from a time bygone that defined the sorts of armours that mediums wore, and well, Raven's technical liaison with the forces that be. 

Quite the crowd, on top of Ebrima, Eloise, Sam, Freya, Jamie, Ban, who had their bits to say. Their parts of memory.
 
It felt like a strange remembrance. A name etched into a rock, at the base of a tiny stone circle in a Scottish glen. The snow sprinkled in gentle, thin strips of the mountaintops of the Black Cullin, rain beginning to stop. The short Nepali, dressed in a black fleece and trousers, stepped forward, hair kept short, beard shaven completely.

Purna added commentary, leaving a knife in the ground, her old forged-steel, wooden framed scout knife.
"Skye was a legend. What can I say. Led by example. And remained selfless....put her own self ahead of others. In spite of recent events, she held herself together our team together, doing what was required, and leading us where she had to. She had high standards, but for her, she knew it was because she could make us even better. I always thought I wasn't a team player. But she proved me wrong. And I am grateful for it." Purna commented, walking back, looking to Eloise, and across to Ebrima. 

Athena followed, after Eloise, setting down a plate from her exoskeleton next to the blade, setting it into rock, burying it into the soil, before stepping back, the usually excitable giantess in a black woollen overcoat, gloves and loose trousers that felt more operator than funeral attire, but, still reflected the mood.
"I suppose we didn't work personally together much. But she was.....the sort of person nobody wanted to tangle with, yet compassionate to those that mattered. There's a lot of stories about Skye Lyons. The sort of thing that operators like us think are myths. Who could believe this amount of mystery about a person. I didn't. Turns out there was even more. But she held onto her humanity even tighter even after it all. And despite that she cared, she had a funny way of doing it but....she meant well by her team. By the people she served. And in every way, until the very end, I saw her lead us through hell, and back. I was in your ear too much, Skye. But you were good. And made me realise what mattered, wasn't noise, but meaning. Thank you." Athena left the plate in ground, walking back and glancing to Eloise, wrapping her arm around her shorter partner, the Kiwi sniper coming across, a different tact.

Tahlia stepped in, and strangely, didn't seem to look at anyone else. She looked at the rock, holding back tears.
"You told me I'd be back in the game, didn't ya? Told me I could fight, despite the bloody legs. I argued with you so fucking much. About supplies. Organisation, coming back rough. But you kept doing it. So many times I wish I hadn't, over....well, who you were. And what you were. But....I think you made me better for it. And ended up being right in the end. When I said I couldn't be of help, you told me I could. And I guess that you left for me to do. Thanks, boss." She smiled, talking as if she was talking to the small slate rock, rather than at anyone in particular.

Adam looked on, the last to talk, once everyone else had said their peace. The relationship was different. She knew Ban had feelings for her, but her and Skye had been a piece once upon a time. It had ended, amicably, but sometimes, it felt like he saw in a different angle to her. 

"She was the best of us. Unstoppable. Stubborn to a fault. Never faltered in her pursuit of the greater good. It didn't work between us. We were different people. I guess I was too disciplinarian, too....focussed on order. She focused on the opposite. But it worked. She let the operators that worked under her be who they needed to be. Fight how they fought best, and made sure they were the best versions of themselves, more than her own self. And it made her the team leader that I couldn't dream of matching. She was willing to put everything on the line. Put everything to the wall, get her hands dirty, but remember the reasons it mattered. She would help those who needed it, punish those who deserved it, and even after it all, move forwards past something nobody could have carried. Rose posed an existential threat to everyone....and Skye, despite everything, despite everything we learned, did everything she could knowing we'd stop her, and didn't let anyone else stop her. And so we did. Rest well, Lyons. Gone, but never forgotten."

The scene felt quiet, as everyone took it in for a second, appreciating the scene. 

The question was asked by Sam, about who was back in the team, and as some of the other Raven team members left mementoes at the rudimentary marker, there was a moment of silence. Some had left, having paid their respects privately earlier, some stayed to watch on, taking it all in.

Purna put his hand up, a smile.
"Always keen for another posting, Sam. Especially if Eloise is in." He stepped forwards, Athena following. "If she's in, then so am I guess. Adam?"
"Fine." The Pole replied, almost frustrated, but well, he'd missed this from his short period of retirement.
"Band's nearly back together then." Tahlia commented, looking to Sam.
"I'll give you all as much shit as I gave Skye, don't worry. We have lots to do. Find a new base. Get back to work. And go do it all again." The sniper had perhaps not been a primary team member, not at first but she had to admit, her break at home was starting to tire.....and she had half a feeling the others might have felt that too.

On that frame, for the team as they slowly left, one by one, the rain now completely gone, and with it, the team, together at the end, back to business, felt like it played out. The outlines drawn, the colour dropping away, and the music ending. A wedding to attend in Moscow, a team to reform, more revenge beyond for some of the team, and some hatchets buried for others. In the end, Raven Squad had been there to stop the end of the world. But there was plenty of world to go back to saving now, and their bravery, courage, and sacrifice gave the world a chance at a better future.

[hr]

[b]Soundtrack: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU21E6RvNEQ]Biffy Clyro- Mountains (Acoustic)[/url]
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The two looked down, the older man, and a younger woman next to him, putting earbuds down, the mic in the undergrowth picking up all of the long chats that had happened. Out of the way, but looking on from afar, maybe a tiny spot of two hikers far above it all, they wouldn't have seemed off the beaten track that the ridgeline received from time to time.

Sitting on the edge of the ridge in the Black Cullin, they were far enough away. Far enough to see the specks down below, in the stone circle, one by one, disappearing as they walked away.

"I'm glad the the mic picked that up. What do you think, Isla?" The older man said, adjusting the recording, knowing this had been a bit cheeky of them. Intruding, surveillant, watching from afar. But there was no way they were getting in contact with the team. Too many complications. So Oracle had sent them here. 

"She sounded like the best of people. A sister I never met. I couldn't believe it when you said about it....a special forces soldier? I thought just teaching kids on a rope course in Grizedale was bloody mad enough!" Isla replied, the voice Cumbrian, not quite Scots, but not English either. Her face like Skye's, with certain difference. Brown hair, green eyes. It wasn't her, but strangely, it seemed to be close enough that it could have been. Wearing a blue raincoat, hood wrapped up, it seemed like a strange place to have such a sentimental chat, on such a ridgeline.

"Me too. I had a feeling it was what they were doing but.....wow. She was the second strand from your brain scan and sample. When you hurt your leg, then that trip to Porton Down....it all happened too quick for me to say anything to them. Rose was a few years before that, who....well, I was informed died in other circumstances."

Isla sighed, looking down, through the binoculars, taking each of them in. There were some characters alright. An albino, a short, South-East Asian woman, a silver-haired operative, then the gigantic redhead and her equally gigantic partner, a bald looking Slavic man, and a South-Asian, short looking fellow. How on earth did this all come together for her? What sort of an operation was this? Isla had a few comments to make, still frazzled from everything the last twelve hours had dumped on her.

"Yeah, the details are fuzzy of our trip there, but I remember it, just about. Heroes, by David Bowie was playing. Good song. But how did it work? Sounds like....well, it got messy." Isla asked, perhaps a little aware of this, but wanting to finally get details out of her father. 

"We came up with it as a project to try and give people a chance at living in other bodies, for spaceflight, terminally ill children, the possibilities were pretty extensive. The concept of a body that you could have as a platform for a mind transfer. And when mum was struggling with IVF, the miscarriage...I made the wrong deal thinking I could do good with what I knew. I was....so fucking stupid. Genetic modification, and what that came with. But I was desperate, and well, the concept of having a child mattered so much to Clara, and....it was an opportunity I couldn't say no to. A fit and healthy baby girl. You, that was how you were born, Isla. The whole thing made me forget they'd come back for something that no matter how non-intrusive....was a part of you. I was naiive. Despite however many years I had, I didn't listen." That made the older man, who looked like he was in his 60s, was the vague grey that Skye would have remembered as being Ian Lyons. Although, of course, now this seemed a little confusing. His English accent was perhaps more like Rose's even if he had lived his latter years in Scotland.

The geneticist was the last of the three supposed surrogates involved in creating Rose, and with it, as it turns out, Skye. A truth Rose had gotten half-right, it sounded like.

Isla sat silently, listening to rest of it, before chirping in.

"I don't get it still. How did it even happen? Sorry, this makes no sense...it seems really convoluted, so try me again?"  

"I suppose, the reason you're so fit, healthy, all of it, is because of the genetic markers in your blood. After the IVF, you were basically best genetic odds you could have, especially since mum didn't...well, after all the issues. That genetic marker extended into both Rose and Skye. And tied me to the project. That ends with both and Rose and Skye." Ian added, her daughter starting to get somewhere now.

"Right. So how did you get out of it?"

"I told Zhao and Simmonds, I'd want a promise they'd never come back, not after the second time. I got an assurance from the Sikh man down there. Told me that was it. And he never told her, and I'd never know anything more. She was distinct from you, through genetic editing. Different face, but I'm told, she had your spirit, and it sounds like she did. And....Rose had a node on her neck, Skye, she had something inside her brain stem, something undetectable, that meant she went from body to body. So she was....made....born a redhead, with blue eyes. Distinct, given she more or less had consciousness backed by a server. Another man handled the genetics. And another the process of transfer. Henry, and George. I guess I worked on the humanity inside, the consciousness. Tried to make sure if she was going to be intact, she would take after the best person in my life. Do the right thing and all. Then walk away." Ian started, stopping to catch his breath, thinking of what to say next.

"And she was you, Isla. I suppose I called her Skye because it reminded me of the trips we took here. A daughter that I never asked for. But one that was all you. A twin you wouldn't have seen. But one that at least remembered what being human was like. I couldn't ever let them try anything different." He started, sighing, a lifetime of regret. "I'm so sorry." Ian simply uttered, as Isla took a moment to take it in, trying to find words. He was saying far too much, feeling far too much weight. Dumping it all on her.

She just couldn't quite believe any of this, staring silently, letting this all set in.

"That is complicated...insane. Genuinely, what the fuck...." Isla sighed, not even accepting it yet. Not even fully getting this. Her entire life was being tipped upside down. It had been from the moment she was sat down by him six hours ago about it.

"You know, when...he mentioned it, I thought we make that visit. Together. I appreciate you coming. Hauling me up this mountain." The old man said, Isla looking on, still speechless, but trying to dig words out.

"Well....I guess I didn't trust you going alone. Not up here, dad. It explains a lot, much as....well, you did it out of love. The right reasons....but you treated people like things! Fucking hell...." She exclaimed, the morality of it all now beginning to sink. The whole picture now forming. 

"And...seeing this many people. Wow. Was any of it real to her? Did she at least live something of a life? Or was she just a play thing?!" Isla almost cracked, her mood being like this for the last few hours. Between hate, and understanding. Ian was a more timid man than most, he wasn't a soldier, he was a researcher, a geneticist, but to his daughter, he was the spawn of hell when she turned that look to him, thinking on it.

"Well, she......she had your memories. Up until about twelve. Then to about sixteen, none. It's a programme the CIA had in the 90s, adjacent to MK Ultra. Implanted memories.....which I didn't want to hear more about it because I couldn't face it. Then Skye did what she did. Got pulled into that life by subconscious. And....you heard what you heard. I wanted to see it one last time, find out the same question you just asked. If she lived. I suppose curiosity got the better of me......I guess I wanted closure when Imran called. All bodies, all servers, cleaned. And it sounds like she did a lot of good. Even if everything in me wished I'd have told them to go away." Ian commented, exhaling hard. "I did it with a hope they'd use it right. I was young and stupid. But....maybe I wasn't."

"Maybe. Are there any more like her?" Isla's words cut now, almost as if she wanted him to fess any last words out. Ian wasn't holding back either.

"Not that I know of. Not without me overseeing it. George was good, but he couldn't do anything that stuck. And Henry, well, he's just a geneticist. I barely forgive myself. Yeah. No more of it, I'm told. Skye was....I remember her now. She was like you. So much like you. But after it, I never could tell myself it was the right thing. I ran away from her. From my responsibility, because I knew what they'd put her through. Once we wrote the first paper, it was do or die." Ian added, exhaling hard, arm wrapped up against Isla. "We played God." Ian added, looking on, genuinely remorseful, just wondering how the fuck any of this made sense.

The words stayed hollow, as no matter how many times they'd talked, Isla couldn't make her mind up. Whether her dad was a monster, an evil piece of shit that created a genetically modified human being in her, to create two clones for an unknown entity that seemed to have the ability to die and be born again, versus the alternative. That he did it to give his wife a chance at children. A chance to have a healthy daughter. A Faustian bargain. But one that for a moment, Isla realised didn't matter. She was here. Alive, breathing, and living a normal life in Buttermere. And she wasn't in Skye's shoes. She wasn't dead. She was alive, and free, able to go back to it all. She had so much hate, burning deep through her, in her confusion. But another part tugged to the side. Realised that was futile. 

"I know you didn't have a choice, but...I forgive you for it. It couldn't have been easy." She could only utter, looking on, at the small crowd in the glen below. Maybe she deep down still had plenty left.

"She lived a full life. Rose sounded like a mess. But, if Skye did what she did....it sounds like she helped a lot of people. Did a lot of good. Maybe the morals were wrong. But, maybe for all of it, she did good. That is something. You hid all of it from me for years, I mean I wanted to tell you that it couldn't be more fucked. I wish I hadn't heard it but.....wow. I didn't realise what she meant. She's the sister I didn't have. And helped save everyone from whatever that was that Rose wanted to do." Isla said, almost muttering, still unable to get this through her head. 

She was no doubt as sharp as Skye was, but perhaps, without the same impacts that Skye had been imprinted upon herself, had lived a normal life. Isla couldn't have been more different. Fearless, maybe adventurous, but nothing, nothing at all on Skye. She was civilian, normal, and had a boyfriend at home she wanted to go catch up with, and....realise she could never tell him any of this. Or even go back to normality. Was there any normality left?

"She did. Their story will never be told. But, I think she might live on a bit. In us." Ian added, smiling, Isla nodding, a grin back, as the wind howled a bit more.

"Agreed. I think she might live on a bit longer." The third voice came through, chuckling in light relief, walking down the granite rock, cutting through the wind.

Both of them looked on, turning pale. The realisation hitting a little quick that she'd been sitting in hiding, hearing it all. 

"What, frightened you've seen a ghost?" The Scots voice chirped, turning into a cunning smile. The Tartan-wearing trench coat on, hair tucked into a bun, standing on the next bit of ridge up from them, walking on down in her tan-coloured boots, the redhead glad she got to sit in on this. And well, even get the jump on these two.

Walking across, sitting by her sister, well, sort of herself, and her surrogate father, looking down at the circle, then back across.

"It's probably best this way. They said I was impaled by a grappling hook in space! Seriously? I mean, come on. If I keep fucking dying like that, I am going to go as batshit insane as Rose did." Skye added, adjusting her cuffs a little, Ian and Isla not having any words to give. It was like seeing everything they just described, manifest itself. Skye was enjoying this whole thing a little too much, but still, reminiscing on the whole journey. 

"I will really fucking miss them. But it's probably best this way. No loose ends. Clean break. Keeps things simple, and well, breaks the cycle. And Sam, she'll do a good job, aye, I think so. We have a bit of catching up to do in the meantime. I mean....as horrid as what Ian did, you're still dad. And Isla, you're definitely a sibling." Skye thought about it all. The journey to now. 

The drinking in Kaitiaki, the walks with Sam and mentoring her, the funny banter with Freya, smoking enemies with Ban, the endless bullshit from Xander, the manic energy of Athena, Jamie's quiet tribal zen, Ebrima's almost telepathic link to her in fighting and helping him find a path forwards, and then Eloise, who brought silence and violence into perfect harmony, and from what she had deduced, killed her sister. Which, in these circumstances, Skye was rather pleased about. 

From the mission in Kazakhstan with a dawn raid, to leaping off a building in Singapore at a high-formal night party. The raid on the Chilean observatory riding on a helium suit's rear, evacuating the New Zealand base, through to Nagoya, and linking up with Ban, finding out the truth about Rose. The mission to save the world, raiding an airship, an oil rig, and a Greenlandic mine, in a massive joint assault. And then Reunion. What a bang that was. She didn't know anything after that, but she read the file on her past self. And waking up in a bag in an abandoned storage unit in Swindon, well, it truly had turned out to be the strangest, weirdest of things. An opposite, a switch to reality. All memories. Well, bar the last bit.

The realisation was hitting she'd never see them again. By design, she knew that it was the worst part of being a squad lead. She had to accept any of them but her could have died, but she had to watch her own death. For a greater good, because reappearing would open all cans of worms. Her curse was living. But it was living, knowing perhaps in death, there was something new. And if anyone could figure that out now, Skye knew she had as good a third chance at life as anyone. No tracking, no contact, no servers. Just this.

Maybe someone at the bottom of the mountain, if they really squinted, might pick her out. They'd have to look hard. Because otherwise, Skye knew she'd watched her own death, her own funeral, and come to the end of her line, metaphorically speaking.

Ian finally let the words out as Skye kept quiet on those thoughts, quietly contemplative. 

"How?"

She gave a final look that came with years of this, almost a cheek to her, as if this was her staring into the curtain call. Of what next? She wasn't sure. She had a ticket out of the life she had lived. All authorities more or less thought the scheme she had been in, died with her and Rose. Eventually, the rock would weather, and the team would move on, and she'd stop being looked for. And she'd live a normal a life as she could. Like her sister. 

But maybe she did have a simpler answer for Ian, who she took in for a second, and her sister, one that well, even she couldn't have seen coming. It made her feel less human, less valuable. But Isla's eyes somehow reaffirmed that for a moment, perhaps, all of this had been worth it. From a place of bad, could come some good. 

Looking almost into the void, at the reader, Skye smirked, one last final look, thinking about nearly how long it had been. And yet, how perhaps, simple it all boiled down to why she was here. 

Staring into the late afternoon sun, on the snowy granite, the sun beginning to set into the sea past the brown-burnt hills, the wind on her cheeks, the feeling of freedom back.

It was as if she looked through it all, all the memories, all the history, all of the time spent, the hours, the days, weeks, months, years in these chases, with one last Scots tone, no less than anyone would expect. 

[b]"Well, I'm a bit too stubborn to die, aren't I?"[/b] 

[h1]The End[/h1]

[b]Soundtrack: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZmCiIy84RQ]George FitzGerald - Setting Sun[/url]
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Credits[/b][/u]

[i]To the excellent, wonderful, players of Raven Squad, thank you so much! 

Without you, none of this would be possible, and your time, commitment and engagement with this strange, oddball, but madcap idea has been a joy to write with yourselves. I cannot fault you in how fun you've made this, and well, I can only hope we'll write more in the future![/i]

-FourtyTwo (KSW)

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[@Rhona W]

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