Archer “Griff” Griffin, Caroline "Callie" Lidmann, and SPC "Mikey" Rangel
Flashback - 2025 4 Dec, 00:41 UTC+8, La Trinidad de Manila Academy, Administration Building, Roof
Collab with @Ducksworth and @Nimbus
The interior lights of the Administration building had long since been turned off for the day, but the halls were twilit by the glow of the city. They cast long shadows from the window that served to heighten the surreal feeling of a place made for but empty of people. Some people found the sensation unsettling--for Mikey, it was nostalgic. Some of the best nights of her teenage years had been spent climbing walls, jumping fences, and jimmying doors so she and her friends could roam halls just like this, and whether it was that same transgressive pleasure or just nostalgia, something about being in a place she wasn't supposed to still appealed to her.
Yet another part of her mind whispered to her:
isn't that what got you into this mess to begin with? If you had just behaved, you wouldn't have gotten arrested, and your parents wouldn't have been picked up.Mikey swung her head from side to side, as if trying to physically shake the thoughts loose. She turned into one of the offices; its door was unlocked, and she knew the window would already be open.
You could be at home right now, preparing for final exams. Instead, you're on the opposite side of the world, thousands of miles from anyone you know, just so your country can act like they're doing something.She slithered out the window, planting her feet on the decorative balcony below. The facing of the building, thankfully, was rough plaster, and it had plenty of large grooves.
You could have done anything--you could have been an engineer, or a therapist, or a forest ranger. Instead, because of your fuckup, you're a soldier. A weapon.She gripped the makeshift handholds, planted her feet, and then surged up the couple of feet between her and the roof with a grunt of effort.
A killer.Mikey got a forearm up on the roof and began to haul herself up, but stopped awkwardly. Someone was already up there, and the lights of the city made it clear who.
Oh, fuck. Griff.She hadn't spoken to him since what went down earlier at the refugee camp.
At first, there had just been too much to do for them to have a conversation. But even once the work suitable for Arms Masters was done, she had done her best to avoid other people in general, and Griff in particular. She felt too ashamed of her actions--hadn't even worked through them herself yet--to look him in the eye, especially after she had left him standing alone in front of the infiltrators.
The plan had been to come up here, where she thought no one else would be, and get blind drunk until the voices were quiet enough for her to think; she hadn't counted on... well, anyone. Unable to process what to do next, Mikey froze in place--four stories up, just the top half of her head peeking over the wall.
It felt quieter up here. Not silent, but distant, muted by height, wind, and the soft hum of lights below. Griff sat near the edge of the rooftop with his back resting against a low wall. His knees were drawn up, elbows balanced loosely atop them, his hands hanging forward. His shoulders ached. His ribs pulled tight with every breath. But he was still breathing, and for now, that was enough.
He heard movement. The scrape of shoes on plaster, the sharp drag of fabric against rough walls. Someone climbing. He didn’t turn to look. There was a short pause in the sound, just long enough to tell him whoever it was had stopped halfway up, hanging there undecided, it gave him enough to guess who it might be.
“I was wondering if someone would show up,” he said, voice low and steady.
“Didn’t think it’d be you.”Mikey weighed her options. Up or down? Up meant confronting one of the primary sources of her... whatever was going on in her head. She wasn't sure she could do that.
On the other hand, down meant abandoning her teammate again. Stupid thought; melodramatic, even, but there it was--and she was sure she
couldn't do that.
She pulled herself up with a grunt of effort and walked softly over Griff. Thank god he hadn't turned around; she didn't think she could have looked him in the eye. Instead of sitting next to him, Mikey posted up on the other side of that low wall, facing the opposite direction. Without speaking, she reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a pair of glass bottles--peach soju, one of the few drinks she knew from experience she could tolerate. She placed one on the wall behind her with a
clink, then opened the other and drained as much of the clear, sweet drink as she could in one pull.
Instead of setting the bottle down, she fidgeted with it, staring at the light playing through its tinted glass as her mind raced, trying to think of anything to say.
Griff didn’t turn when she climbed the rest of the way up. He heard the quiet scrape of her boots, the small grunt of effort, and then the soft clink of glass placed on the wall behind him. That was all the confirmation he needed.
“I thought I came up here to be alone,” he said quietly,
“but I’m glad you’re here.” He let that sit, honest and unforced.
“I saw how you moved, back at the breach. Fast. Sharp. Exactly like someone trained to survive.” His tone held no weight, no bitterness. Just quiet admiration, maybe even a little pride. He reached for the bottle she’d left on the wall, curling his fingers around the neck, but didn’t open it. He just held it for a moment, letting the cold rest in his palm.
“I’m glad you did.”A single hiccuping sob came from the other side of the wall before Mikey could get herself under control. She yanked her sunglasses down over her eyes, swearing indistinctly as they got tangled in her hair. The mirrored shades hid her eyes, but the tears rolling down her face reflected the lights of Manila almost as well.
"Y-yeah," She managed to get the word out; took a deep, ragged-sounding breath.
"Yeah, I got all s-sorts of fuckin' training." She took another dram of her bottle; in her haste some the liquor went down the wrong pipe, and triggered a hacking cough. It took her a second to compose herself again, but once she did she looked over to the side. Not turning far enough around to look directly at Griff, but enough that, out of the corner of her eye, she could see his shape against the night sky.
"...you're ok, right?"Griff took a breath before answering, steady and slow.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’m okay.” He shifted slightly, wincing as the motion pulled at his ribs.
“Sore, though. Everything hurts more now that the adrenaline’s worn off.” He rested the bottle against his thigh for a moment, thumb tracing the edge of the label.
“The gauntlets... or whatever they are now. I didn’t know they could do that. Up until today, they were just there. Part of me, but dead weight. Nothing more.”He paused, jaw shifting slightly as he rolled the memory around in his head.
“I stopped a truck with my bare hands.” The laugh came unprompted, quiet and short, caught between disbelief and something close to nerves. It broke off into a soft hiss as he winced again, one hand pressing gently to his side.
“Not something I thought I’d ever say out loud.” He leaned back against the wall, eyes flicking once toward the skyline before softening.
“But honestly, I’ve been more worried about you.”The sound she made might have been either a laugh or a sob; it was impossible to tell which.
"Shit, stopped it? I could see the whole thing, you punched right through the engine block. You looked like a superhero out there."Mikey trailed off, turning her head away from Griff again to look over the buildings.
"I'm..." She placed the half-empty bottle of soju on the graveled roof, rolling the bottom of it in a circle. Took a deep breath, let it back out.
"...I never told anyone this, but I always thought--hoped, I guess--that if I ever did find myself in combat, I'd just freeze up. Not be able to pull the trigger. Then they'd can me, and that would be its own problem, but it wouldn't be my decision anymore." She paused.
"Or I'd get killed, and I don't know what happens after that." Another one of those sob/laughs.
"Not my problem, I guess."Griff didn’t answer right away. He let the sound of her voice, rough and laughing through tears, settle.
“I think about that too,” he said.
“Freezing up. Failing to move. Letting someone else take the choice away.” His thumb ran along the rim of the bottle, slow and idle.
“But we didn’t. Neither of us. And that’s not nothing.” He didn’t try to meet her with comfort or explain it away. Just sat with the truth of it, as it was.
“I don’t think it’s weakness, hoping it’d be out of your hands. It’s human.” His gaze stayed on the lights ahead, but his voice softened.
“You did what you had to. And I’m glad you’re still here to wrestle with that.”Sniffle.
"I guess." Cough, sniffle.
"I’m glad yer here, too. I just..." Rustling, as she stepped over and saw on the bit of rooftop they'd been using as a backrest. She sat next to Griff, but still couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. Instead she waited, collecting her words, both of them gazing out onto the night.
(It was hard to see at night, especially on her complexion, but little points of blush had appeared on her cheeks, and the edges of her words had begun to soften.)
"I jus' wish I had your conviction about it being the right thing. That I’m still a person, an’ not a murderer."“You’re asking the question. That’s a good sign in itself,” intoned a calm, quiet and not unkind voice behind them, the only prior warning of its presence a light tap of boots stepping onto concrete from a few dozen metres away and below.
Callie smiled gently down at the pair, ever-faithful spyglass clutched in hand.
“Sorry to butt in, just…” Her gaze fell on Mikey, ocean-blue eyes deep and unreadable in the darkness.
“Late bloomer, right? Got put in AM training as an adjunct to Basic?”Mikey had gone stiff, hearing the strange voice--more a juvenile reaction to getting caught than anything--but relaxed by degrees when she realized who they had been caught by. She glanced up at Callie (barely able to make out her face through the shades, but she wasn’t ready to take them off) and nodded.
"Yea, pretty much."A nod returned in answer.
“Given a soldier’s lessons. Told that there are orders to obey and hostiles to neutralise, or worse. Never that the ones we’re killing are other people. Us and it.”Callie shook her head; let herself down, kicking one leg out and resting her hands on the knee of the other.
“Good on you for fighting that. Bad enough for soldiers, but for us? With the power in our hands?” She thumbed the polished surface of her spyglass.
“We can’t ignore the weight. You stop seeing lives as costly, you stop caring how many pay that cost.”Griff had heard the footsteps before the voice, calm, composed, and unfamiliar for a heartbeat. He tilted his head slightly as Callie stepped into view and settled nearby. Her words landing with the calm weight of someone who’d seen a few things and decided to carry them anyway. He didn’t speak, for now, just listened.
But somewhere in the quiet, something shifted in his chest. That second man, the one with the pipe. The way his ribs gave under the punch, the way his body dropped… He hadn’t looked back, there hadn’t been time. But now, sitting still, his body aching and his thoughts slower, the memory hit colder. Had he killed him?
His stomach dipped, breath catching for a second before he forced it down. He couldn’t afford to spiral here. Not now, not while Mikey was still figuring out how to hold herself together. His fingers curled tighter around the bottle beside him, grounding himself in the gravel and cold glass. Then he spoke, voice steady again.
”You’re not alone in this.”Mikey glanced over at Griff's face for the first time since she had come up to the roof. The way he was gripping it, she was surprised he hadn't crushed the bottle, and his expression seemed just as tight.
He was clearly trying to keep a tight hold on things. Mikey hoped it wasn't for her sake. She had her suspicions, but just at the moment, she wasn't sure she could bear that burden. She didn't voice any of that, though; instead, she put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard. She opened her mouth to say something to him, but her voice caught; instead, she stayed silent and removed her hand.
Standing up, she turned to face Callie.
"So if I ever stop feeling this... this..." She fumbled for words, gave up.
this, it's because I'm a monster." Her words were a little too loud; the half-empty bottle of soju sitting on the low wall accounted for that.
"That fucking sucks!"Without warning, she whipped around to face the edge of the roof. As she turned, a whorl of dark color coalesced in her hand into the form of her Noble Arm, and in the same motion she pitched the little rifle over the edge. It sailed end-over-end above the courtyard, but as it began to fall towards the ground, it seemed to encounter an invisible barrier of some kind, and as it passed through, it vanished in the same manner it had appeared.
Mikey took a pair of unsteady steps backwards, then half-fell onto the ground to sit between the other two soldiers.
"Sorry," she mumbled.
"I just... it’s all a mess. I’m all a mess, right now."Callie sat up, swinging herself onto her knees. Carefully, gently, she rested a hand on Mikey’s.
“You’re well within your rights. And it does sucks, God knows it does. But Griff’s right too.” She paused, considering - focusing.
“A few months back, during the Mischief Reef op, I drowned a man. Priority target, Arms Master, so I poured water into his lungs from two hundred klicks away. Nothing he could do.” For a moment, Callie’s expression tensed as she marshalled much of her will to fight the instinct to close her eyes, knowing exactly what would lie behind them.
“Sight of it shook me so bad I got held back in reserve for the whole of the next mission. I still think about him. I still think about… Lots of things.”For just a moment, the hand shivered - then stilled, as Callie took a breath.
“But if I hadn’t done that, the Chinese counterattack on the Reef might not have failed, and a lot more ASEAN soldiers would have died.” And despite it all, she looked up into Mikey’s face and smiled a soft, half-formed smile.
“Gotta remember those people too. Doesn’t make up for it but it does help for carrying on anyway - and from what I saw, which was just about everything, I think a lot of people in that camp are better off for you having been there.”“You don’t feel it now, I know. Just remember it. And in the meantime, like Griff says - you’ve got people you can lean on.”Mikey watched Callie as she spoke, expression pained. She knew the words were meant to be comforting. On a purely intellectual level, they sort of were.
She
did close her eyes for a second--she didn't have Callie's experience to tell her not to--and was overtaken by a flash of memory. People running, but not fast enough to avoid being cut down by staccato bursts of gunfire--a strange sense of calm--the
crack-crack-crack of her rifle as she took the gunner in center mass.
She rested her other hand on Callie's and squeezed--maybe a little too hard--and leaned bonelessly against Griff's side.
"I was jus' gonna get drunk about it," she said weakly.
"An' then you guys had to come around wit' all this supportive crap." A hiccuping laugh punctuated her protest.
Griff didn’t shift when she leaned against him. Just the light weight of her shoulder pressing against his side, but it hit deeper than that, settled into his ribs in a different way that the bruises. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t want to - Didn’t need to.
She had squeezed his shoulder earlier, and now she leaned on him. It wasn’t much but it was enough to make him sit a little straighter, not out of pride, not to impress anyone, just for her, in this moment. Somewhere in the ache behind his eyes, in the spot where all the noise of the day hadn’t quite faded, it felt like he could breathe a little easier just knowing she was still here, still fighting, even if it meant leaning on someone.
And, it was strange, maybe, how grounding she was, even like this. Even crying, even drunk, even messy. Or maybe that was why? Because she didn’t pretend, because she trusted him enough to fall apart next to him, and that made him want to be better, just so she could lean on him, just so she could believe she could.
Callie shifted again to prop herself up on one elbow, even as she left the other hand in Mikey’s grip. She looked down at it, felt the desperate strength it held… And sighed, barely perceptibly, with bitter satisfaction.
Not as it should be - nothing of this was - but she’d said her piece for a reason. Better felt now than later, and armed when later came.
Another sigh - and then she looked up at Griff with eyes used to catching details miles distant from them. Saw the tension, mastered and suppressed, in his… Well, just about everything. And when he noticed her gaze, she offered a quiet nod and smiled that half-smile again.
Griff met Callie’s eyes. There was no need for words between them. Her nod wasn’t just sympathy, but understanding. He knew she could see it, the way he held himself still, like the wrong movement might crack something open wouldn’t be right, right now. She knew what it cost to keep steady when something inside you wasn’t.
He looked back without flinching, but something in him tightened. He hadn’t thought about it at the time, and that was part of the problem. He hadn’t hesitated, he hadn’t held back. He saw a target and he hit it–hard. But he wasn’t a soldier, he was just a kid playing at being one because some ordained special ‘weapon’ chose him for whatever reason. He was just trying to help, to be useful for once.
But when he thinks back to the body dumpling beneath his fist, what rattles him most is how natural it felt, how easy it was, like it was the gauntlets themself that had made the decision for him. He hadn’t even questioned it until it was all over.
Mikey was next to him now, falling apart because she
knew she had killed someone. But for Griff? He knew that he could, and probably would again, if the situation presented itself, without hesitation, to protect. And that was the cold stone stuck behind his ribs. But now, Mikey needed him, and if it meant she could lean on him like this, trust him like this, then he’d carry that weight for both of them.
He held Callie’s gaze for a breath longer, then gave a small, solemn nod. It wasn’t gratitude, just acceptance, acknowledgement like
’Yeah. I’m still here.’
ChronicleMan,
rush99999,
Guardian Angel Haruki,
Dark Cloud,
Dragon Mahteru,
Neziul,
RickyG85,
Ducksworth,
Birdboy,
fellsing