Chapter Text
Clarissa was contacted by her superiors before she even had a chance to leave the town. It was annoying enough that she had only just been given orders to head to Ohio the day before. Having her orders changed on a dime was nothing new--"Cloud Eagle, go to Florida," "Cloud Eagle, come back from Florida," "Cloud Eagle, get your ass out of the Mississippi and get back to Florida"--but that did not mean she had to enjoy the chaos it caused to her plans.
No, what was truly annoying was that they wanted her in Pittsburgh, of all places. Only one of the most populated and most actively occupied cities in the eastern half of the country. She did not like the cities, they knew that. Not even the ones supposedly under human control (they never were, any large concentration of human population would be under some xeno's control, if you looked hard enough; they never let so many humans stay in one place unless they had a way to control them). She worked best away from civilization, away from the aliens and their influence, away from anything that could impede her efficiency. She only slipped into the cities if she absolutely had to, to finish a job.
She had nonetheless obediently changed her planned route to Ohio and headed back into the Appalachians. To get back to Pittsburgh would be three days on the irritatingly poorly-kept mountain roads by irritatingly poorly-kept automobile, not to mention the check points into and out of the cities the roads inevitably passed through. By foot, the trip would have been twice that for someone like her, who was used to traveling through the mountains. A rough trip, for sure, but she was not likely to be detected if she went by foot through the forests. The xenos never had gotten over their dislike of mountains and forests and rarely strayed far from the roads.
By air, she could have finished the trip in no time at all. She could easily cruise low in the valleys, keeping out of sight, staying close enough to the trees that she could duck below the canopy should she need cover from a stray Seeker patrol. And she liked flying; even with her two feet on the ground, her other self's wings called her to the skies.
But Rissa was irritated at her superiors for changing her plans like they had and ordering her into the city. So she decided she'd walk. They hadn't given her any sort of time table they needed her in Pittsburgh by, after all. That was their own fault.
On the second day of her travels, her path took her to one of those mostly-ruined mountain roads. The roads couldn't be completely avoided, but she aimed to cross it at a point where the blacktop was so broken and eroded that it was clear nobody had actually used this section of it in years. Her chance of running into anyone, human or xeno, was negligible.
And she was still fuming about going to Pittsburgh.
Her anger and her complacency merged in that moment, into a single instance of laziness, or overconfidence, or clouded judgment, whatever you wish to call the thing that ended the lucky streak that had kept her safe for so long.
She jumped down from the rocky ledge onto the broken blacktop. She walked down the road a ways, looking for point on the other side of the road that wasn't such a sheer hundred-foot drop-off, rounding a blind curve that closely hugged the contour of the mountain.
There was someone walking on the road towards her, and she could sense immediately that he was not human.
Where the xeno had come from that he would be out on this destroyed road in the middle of the Appalachians, she had no idea. He was obviously just as surprised to see her as she was to see him. They both stopped, mere steps apart, staring uncomprehendingly at one another for several moments.
Something clicked in his mind. The blank stare turned into a snarl of rage.
He recognized her.
Did she recognize him? Even if she did, that would not have changed her reaction. She crossed her arms, reaching for the blades she carried hidden under her sleeves, strapped to her upper arms.
But her moment of hesitation cost her. Even in his human guise, he was bigger than she was, much more powerfully built, and he pummeled her to the ground, into submission, into unconsciousness.