When the Elders' Assassin, Kon-Mai Mordenna, took her katana in her hands and cut herself open, she did not expect to awaken. Nevertheless, she opened her eyes.

She also hadn't expected to awaken with a plethora of XCOM officials around her while she stared helplessly up at them. They swarmed her like bees and she tried to put her hands up to her face to defend herself.

Someone took her hands and pressed them down again. She wrenched away from their grasp and tried to push away this unseen assailant. She was held down again, and this time a voice said "No no, stay still."

Kon-Mai would not stay still, and she certainly would not take orders from her kidnappers. She tried to roll herself over but found her muscles would not move. With a sinking feeling she suddenly realized how heavy her body felt, as though it was made of lead. When one of the figures moved away, she craned her neck up and looked down at herself.

Blood. So much blood, all over the white gurney she lay on, staining it crimson. Her breastplate was split in two, and she saw the edges of her organ tissue poking through the gash in her stomach.

Someone pushed her down again, and Kon-Mai summoned all her strength and sat up, gasping with the pain of it. She was shaking and though she had gotten this far, she could no longer move any of her limbs, not even to collapse back onto the cot. The only sounds she could mutter were light whimpers, and the words "Let me die."

Someone took her now limp arm, and she felt a pinch against the skin, looked down and saw a tube being taped against the vein, a sharp needle poking into her pale skin. They were trying to push her back down but she was frozen sitting up. Her muscles were not letting up anytime soon.

In the corner of her eye, Kon-Mai saw white. At first she figured this was the light of death coming for her until it moved, migrating into the center of her vision, and she saw it was a woman. Her ivory hair and clothes outlined her, and to Kon-Mai, she looked like the angels she'd heard stories of.

She knew this woman. She'd known her for a long time, almost five years now, since she began this chase. In her raspy, quiet voice, she growled "Commander."

The woman smiled softly, and Kon-Mai would have felt comforted if it was literally anyone else. She trembled and tried to scoot backward as the Commander approached her, but alas her body was still frozen with shock and pain.

Kon-Mai whimpered in protest as the Commander reached out toward her. She flinched as she laid a hand on her shoulder, but felt her body soon unknot itself, the stabbing pain beginning to ebb away. The Commander gently lowered Kon-Mai back onto the gurney, and the Chosen woman relaxed finally.

"Morphine is finally kicking in." Someone to her right said, and the Commander chuckled.

"Morphine, right." Kon-Mai felt the Commander reach behind her head, where they both knew her chip rested at the base of her skull. The Commander's slim fingers curled round it but Kon-Mai found it difficult to even care, so relaxed she was.

"I'm sorry if this hurts." The Commander pinched the chip and tugged. Kon-Mai shrieked at the snap of pain, but within the same second, the darkness swallowed her.

.

.

When Kon-Mai opened her eyes for the second time, the world was still and dark, and for a moment she was sure she was dead, until she blinked a few times. The low light in the room slowly forced her eyes to adjust and she looked around, barely moving her head, which felt like it was on the verge of splitting. As consciousness slowly returned to her, she took note of how incredibly sore she was. She moved her arm and heard a gasp to her left.

"Oh, you're awake!" A light came on and Kon-Mai squinted at the change. "Sorry, I wanted to keep it off so as not disturb you, but it's impossible to do this in the dark."

"What are you doing to me?" Kon-Mai intended to growl, but it came out as a hoarse whisper.

A face moved into her field of view: A dark-skinned human female with freckles on her cheeks and blinding green eyes. She smiled as she saw Kon-Mai react in shock. "Can you still see?"

"What?"

"Tygan was worried the chip removal might have caused some damage to your visual cortex. The Commander did her best to mitigate it…" The human took a metal object and attached a piece of cylindrical plastic to the end, turning on a light. "Open your eyes wide for me."

Kon-Mai in fact closed her eyes, mostly to shield them from the bright light tool the girl was pointing in her face.

"Please?"

"No. Release me. I am no science experiment for you to toy with!"

"I just want to check your pupil dilation. It'll take two seconds, maybe three. Tops."

"And what of it? You wouldn't understand what you see anyway."

"Wanna bet?"

"No, as you shall lose." But Kon-Mai felt her eyelids loosen, as though keeping them closed was too strenuous.

The girl smiled. "Thank you." She shone her tool into the pupil of Kon-Mai's eyeball and the Chosen blinked again, hissing.

"Looks normal. Thank you." She turned off the tool. "You have beautiful eyes."

"Of course I do." Kon-Mai began to push herself up into a sitting position. "I am going to leave now, if that will be all."

"Wait-no, no, no, you're in no shape…you just got out of major surgery!"

"I have had worse." Kon-Mai bit back the stabbing pain she felt in her stomach and slid her legs over the side of the cot. Her armor was gone, replaced by a short cloth gown that was an ugly, slate grey color.

"You've had worse, but you also had your…thing. The coffin." The girl grabbed at Kon-Mai's arm. "You don't have that here!"

"I will heal." She slid off the bed and stood, balancing on unsteady legs, for just a moment. Then her knees buckled and she toppled to the floor. Or she would have, had the human not caught her.

"I told you." The human sat her back on the bed. "God, you're heavy. You were in really bad shape when we got you, and you will be for a while. I'm here to help you, now get back in bed."

Kon-Mai was silent. Instead of resisting, this time she did as the little human asked, but as she did, she peeled back the grown from around her waist and looked at the site of the wound.

"…What happened?" She whimpered. The wound was swollen and red, the edges puffy and jagged. It was stapled in some areas, sewn haphazardly and double-knotted in others. A thin layer of green pus seeped from it. Kon-Mai felt ill.

The human smiled. "Oh wow, it's healing great!"

Kon-Mai growled at her.

"It is, actually. I know it looks bad but all this…" She pulled Kon-Mai's nightgown back down. "It means the wound is healing."

"I don't understand." Kon-Mai spat. "That wound was fatal. I was meant to die there."

The girl was silent, her lips pursed. "The Commander ordered we save you."

The Commander? "Why?"

"I don't know. All I know is when the Commander tells you to do something, you do it. And we did it." She smiled proudly. "When we picked you up you weren't responsive but you had a pulse, and that was enough for us. You flatlined twice on the ride to the Avenger. We brought you back."

Kon-Mai looked around the room. "The people who took me. There were many. What did they do?"

"You were awake for that? I figured you wouldn't remember." She sat on the end of Kon-Mai's bed. "We were transporting you from the garage to the med bay and we lost your heartbeat. Luckily there's a defibrillator station in every room of the ship."

"And thus…you brought me back."

"And thus we brought you back." The girl smiled. "I've been talking a lot, sorry. I should let you rest."

"No. Continue with what you were doing." Kon-Mai laid back and closed her eyes.

"I was just refilling your IV drip." The girl stood and began to fuss with something to her left.

"Why?"

"Well you lost a lot of blood, so we're giving you fluids to-"

"No." Kon-Mai opened her eyes and looked at the girl again. "Why are you doing this?"

"Tygan told me to." She looked over and stretched out her hand. "I'm going to be your assigned nurse while you recover, actually. My name's Malinalli."

"…That's an odd name." Kon-Mai took Malinalli's hand and gave it a single, weak squeeze.

"So is yours." Malinalli winked.

(Is this a good idea? I dunno.

But it's a pet project of mine. Expect much, much more very soon.)