Ariel had just turned seventeen not all that long ago when she was sent on a mission to infiltrate a Russian base, deep within enemy territory. The war was in its height. Many soldiers, both human and Conduit alike had either met an unthinkable demise or had several close encounters. Ariel was mainly used for solo missions, though at times she was given a small elite troupe for those missions that required some backup. After all, who would think to use a mere child for war? Luckily enough for her, she had been in training for so long, that her childlike appearance only helped her by allowing her enemies to underestimate her. The same number of enemies had fallen by her hands.
She walked through the cold and blistering Russian night, though her ability made her unaffected by the freezing cold. It wasn’t until she arrived in front of a home that looked like any other Russian estate, though the organization she belonged to had received intelligence that it was a cover up for massive underground Conduit activity. Ariel looked up at the estate. The lights were all off, except for one in the right room on the third floor. Her target was Nikolai Volkov, the leader of this Conduit ring. Any other casualties that got in her way would just be collateral damage. With a deep breath, she waved her arms to create a stream of snow to lift her above the twelve foot wall that stood between her and the mansion. Ariel continued to use to stream of frozen water to surf to carry her to the top floor.
Taking a deep breath, Ariel burst through the window with the light on. She rolled through the floor, landing up on her feet. Turning the snow into water and using them as tentacle-like extensions of her arms, the blonde assassin started to fight with the thugs in the room. The room was empty, holding only a handful of men twice her size. She dodged their attacks. Whether they be energy beams, fists thrown at her, or lightning bolts. One by one, she made short work of them. Finally she got to the one she recognized to be Nikolai. The man tried to reach for a gun, but not before her hydro tentacle pierced through his body. She threw his body across the room. “That was quite simple.” She said to herself. Perhaps too simple. She thought just as she heard some bones cracking. The body of Nikolai began to shift its form until it was that of a woman. “A shapeshifter.” Ariel gasped, but before she could get her guard up once more, a wave of crippling pain shot over her. Ariel fell to the floor just as the room filled with psychic Conduits who were overpowering her mind, and the real Nikolai Volkov was at their helm. “At long last, we meet.” Nikolai said with quite a sadistic smile. “You and your organization have killed many of my best, but no more.”
“I’ll kill you before you even...” Before Ariel could finish her sentence, she was rendered unconscious.
It was sometime later that Ariel woke. She was tied down in metal chains to a steel chair. She was in a large room, she assumed it was in a warehouse. A Russian mafia about to kill someone for revenge in a warehouse. How cliché. The twelve psychics that had taken her down before now surrounded her in a circle ready to detain her once again. “Welcome back, Agent Braddock. We were wondering when you would join us again.” Nikolai said as he walked forward out of the shadows. The man explained how they had purposely leaked intelligence to her organization in order to draw her out and lay a trap for the agent that had been a thorn in their side for so long.
“And now,” He said with that same cruel smile in his features, “I am going to pull out every detail of your organization from your head in order to take the rest of them down. If you resist, the strain will pull your brain apart and kill you. Either way, I will win.”
Ariel was nothing if not loyal to her father and his associates. She would rather die than to betray them. She screamed in protest as the psychics all pushed into her memories. Ariel’s training had taught her to keep her thoughts away from those who could enter her thoughts, but this was too much. She could feel her mind starting to be torn apart when suddenly she felt a bright shining light.
Suddenly, Ariel was no longer alone, at least it didn’t feel that way. She felt a woman not unlike herself there with her and soon after that another and then another and so on. She could feel the energies, memories, and powers of all her Sequence’s previous hosts all taking over her. Suddenly, it felt like the snow that was outside and so far away from her may as well have been right at her feet. Her mind pulled in the snow and ice from the outside and broke through the metal walls of the warehouse. She used the water to freeze the chains and break her free from the chair. She could feel the water running through the bodily fluids of her captors. It was all too easy to take hold of the blood in their bodies, then piercing them with an icicle through the brain before tossing their corpses into the walls. The only one left was Nikolai. The snow melted into water around her and lifted her up into a water spout. She used her water tentacles to lift him up off the ground as well.
“Wh- What are you?” The fear in his eyes was apparent, and Ariel could only feel like part of her was in control. It felt like most of her powers were under the control of all of Sequence IV’s past hosts. Ariel did not answer the man’s question. Instead she used her control over his blood to rush as much of his bodily fluid into his brain before his brain burst apart. The man’s body still grew rigid, though slowly he became lifeless. The water spout slowly lowered Ariel to the ground as the white glow in her eyes began to fade.
Ariel felt the presence of her past hosts’ energies begin to fade. She looked around at the bodies all around her. The blonde had never felt power like that in her life. Somehow, she figured that it would not be the last time.
