Chapter Text
Years isolated in the tundra end when light ripples across the snow.
The deer he’d been tracking flees below the mountain. The arrow knocked back does not soar, rather, it falls back into his hand as his arms hang at his sides. He watches, transfixed, as light and electric static writhes and hisses. Then reality itself tears open in front of his eyes.
He’s experienced these before. Serving his country, it was his unit they called upon to deal with the aftermath of the First Light. Fight the world changing before their eyes. Combat terrorists who held the power of an atomic bomb at their fingers. Face against technology that could bend the will of the world.
Combat the growing empire Kingdom had begun to build. They had said that if Kingdom would generate three-fourths of the world’s energy, then Russia would be that one-fourth.
(What they studied, fought, and learned to understand broke them in the end. It had been a child. A radiant child, and to some that had been undeniable proof that the kid almost above double digits was a threat. Something to dispose of. To him at that time, the child was only that, a child. Terrified of the world and the soldiers armed to the teeth.
That hadn’t stopped the soldier, equally terrified of the world and the fire licking up from the kids' fingers, from pulling the trigger.
Silently divided as they were, it was easy to pick them off. A once inseparable team of eight reduced to three. Convenient too, for those hands over his shoulders to grip tighter. Pull him further into a new obligation once the other had reduced to blood and ash).
The tundra howls. A gust of wind tears by so quick he thinks it might have passed through him. From the portal, another wind stirs, smelling like burnt metal and frost. Its form shudders and expands, and then falls silent. The telltale signs of it stabilizing. It could be open for hours, or days, there was no way of telling on this end, this side of the door.
He shoves his arm through the portal.
There’s no thought behind it. He could have used a stick, or sent his drone through to scout, but instead, he wiggles his fingers through the rippling energy. When no signs of amputation occur, the rest of his body follows the arm.
From one snow-covered tundra, he steps into another, and face to face with himself.
In the Spetsnaz, they had to know of Omega. How else would they have learned about Kingdom’s deals with the other world? About the scientific leaps and bounds Kingdom, the powerhouse of Radianite, had accomplished in so little time.
It was another thing to see his face on a stranger.
His doppelgänger is the first to fire. He catches the arrow in his hands, inches from the spot between his eyes. His skin buzzes at the action. His heart and something disgusting pounding in his chest.
The first person he sees in years is himself, and he fights, because it’s the only thing he’s ever done.
A bow and arrows prove useless. He resorts to fists and the knife on his belt, and like looking in a mirror his doppelgänger resorts to the same. Blow after blow, red begins to stain the white beneath their boots. The snow threatens to swallow them when they stumble. The edge of the mountain breathes down their necks. It’s a long way down.
Finally, he pins his mirror to the snow. Fingers digging into his throat and knife pressing into his jugular. Eyes stare up at him. One blue. One brown. A pulse hammers beneath his fingers.
He falters then when it matters most. His hand brandishing the knife does not slide. His fingers wrapped around his doppelgänger’s neck press into the skin, but no deeper.
He feels the skin of his echo. The blood pounding through his mirror’s veins. His lungs gasping for breath around his grip. Hands grasping his wrists, straining under his hold as the stranger wearing his face lifts the knife a fraction from his neck.
So similar, and yet, what stares up at him is different in every way.
His skin buzzes—his doppelgänger’s pulse hammers with blood and nothing else.
He tears away. Stumbling back, sheathing his knife in one swift action, he raises his hands away from his weapons and waits. For a moment that feels like an eternity, neither of them moves. The wind bites into his skin. The buzzing subsides to the frost nipping against his skin. Then, slowly, his counterpart rises to his feet, brown and blue eyes never breaking their gaze.
His mirror rubs his neck. He watches with simmering envy and guilt at the skin and the red line of blood, wondering what had changed between them to have this exist. Where they share an eye and nothing else.
Neither of them speaks as they withdraw. He backs away, through the portal, hands raised by his head. The last thing he sees before stepping back on his terrain are those multi-colored eyes. His puzzled expression stares into him as the Omega world fades away.
The portal remains open for hours. He stands guard for that time. Bow in hand and ready to act on the slightest movement. He wonders if his double is doing the same.
When the portal begins to shudder, an engine roars across the landscape. An airship hovers above the snow, sending snow cascading down the cliff. He draws back an arrow as two figures emerge from the cockpit.
Americans branded in K and yet, unaffiliated with that grand company.
The portal closes.
Their callsigns are Brimstone and Viper. They offer him a chance to keep the world safe. He takes it without a second thought.
(Deja vu. The Spetsnaz had offered the same, and he’d taken it desperately. Maybe then and now are not much different. He knows what he is. What organizations like Valorant want from him. They need a tireless soldier. An infallible asset. A marksman that never misses).
They try to make his callsign Hunter. He pretends it does not bother him, but somehow they see through his mask. In the end, they settle on Sova.
Like his drone. Like Filin of the Spetsnaz. Like little Sasha Novikov, who used to chase after birds and gained the nickname ‘little owl’ for how long he sat on branches to watch them nest.
But Filin died a loyal soldier of Spetsnaz. Sasha Novikov died soon after under blinding fluorescent light. He buries those names deep inside his mind and lets Sova emerge. Valorant’s sixth agent. Their tech utilizing marksman and tracker. Nothing more.
(He hides his skin under winter coats, turtlenecks, and baggy trousers. He locks the door of his room even when he’s inside: doesn’t trust technology or that mechanical lock, a bolt is an old, reliable, thing. He makes sure he’s never injured enough to end up in medbay under a medic’s scrutinizing gaze).
- -
Cypher is a man chock-full of secrets with every means to uncover everyone else's, and Sova loathes him for it.
He hides his true fears behind the value of honesty. It’s a truth, but an old one, clawed away to feeble strands thanks to time and circumstance. A boy scout, he hears whispered behind his back once.
Cypher is an odd ally. He praises Sova’s techniques, and on the field they work well, but that’s where their cooperation ends. He finds trackers and small audio recorders tucked into the folds of his clothes. He feels the man’s eyes on him in the night, in the corners of the building’s halls and rooms.
One fine afternoon, after a round of sparring, Cypher invites him to a game of chess.
“A little bird told me you used to play.” He says, twirling a black knight between his fingers.
Sova does not miss the lingering on the word bird. He snaps to attention. The chattering of the others fades away to nothing as his mind focuses on the sentinel.
The Moroccan waves a gloved hand towards the opposite seat. It appears passive enough, but Sova can see the subtleties of the action. The commanding air to the gesture as a whole.
Like a fluttering insect painted with bright hues of poison.
He sits. Cypher hands him the knight and they assemble the pieces.
Cypher moves first, and with it, his questions begin.
It’s as much an interrogation as it is a friendly game between equal adversaries.
Their pawns move forward. Cypher reaches for his bishop when he says, “That addition to your door is quite peculiar.”
Sova counters with his knight and an unwavering stare. “So is snooping in others' private quarters, and yet you persist.”
The Moroccan scoffs, lifting another pawn. “It’s the principle of things. A locked door means much in my line of work. Extra safety precautions beyond that mean so much more.”
At the mention, Sova notes the burnt markings on the Moroccan’s sleeves.
Good. Let him try and dig, and Sova will hide all the tools and force him to use his hands.
He brings another bishop forward, swiping a pawn off the board. Cypher moves a knight forward, preparing for an offensive step. Yet, Sova withdraws. He keeps his positions defensive, maintaining his material. He has never been one to rush in without a plan.
“What if it means nothing more than a simple ‘I do not want you invading my privacy more than you already have’? Were the first few traps enough of a clue for you?”
His words come out angrier than he expects. Cypher’s emotionless gaze snaps to him. Those mechanical eye-sockets flick over his face.
He moves his king out of the sight lines of a bishop, surrounded by pawns and a tower.
Cypher chuckles as he draws his queen onto the field. “A believable claim, if I were a lesser man. But I’ve looked at your past, Filin.”
Sova expects the jab, but it does not stop the shock. He falters reaching for his next move.
Cypher does not relent. “There’s something there. I admit I’m impressed at how well you’ve managed to hide it, but I see the gaps in your past. A soldier decorated in death, but no coffin to speak of. Quite bizzare, don’t you think?”
Sova blunders his next piece. His mind racing, skin buzzing, he snarls, “I am not a puzzle for you to solve.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“No.”
It’s a threat.
The information broker leans forward, mechanical eyes staring into his. His voice lowers to a hiss.
“I see that you’ve gone to great lengths to pretend your secrets are few and meaningless, and as much as you try to convince Valorant otherwise, you won’t fool me. I see that red tape and the records plastered in your name wiped clean. There is something deeper you wish to keep hidden. Your defiance is as intriguing as it is troublesome, but I will find it, Filin. I’ve uncovered the worst the world has to offer. You are no different.”
Sova stares. Cypher sits back, clearing his throat and gesturing to the board. “Now, shall we continue?”
“There’s not much to continue.”
“A draw, then?” He reaches a hand over the table.
Sova shakes it. He debates whether the momentary satisfaction of breaking the Moroccan’s hand will be worth the punishment. In the end, he doesn't act. Cypher pulls his hand away to fiddle with his burnt sleeve.
“Let’s do this again sometime.” He can hear the smile in Cypher’s voice.
No, he won't.
- -
The next time he comes face to face with his double, his mirror self is not alone.
Sova is, crouched on the rafters of the warehouse, but his double walks alongside a mirror of Jett. The wind assassin is talking, animated in her gestures. If it weren’t for the blue haze around their bodies, he would have assumed it was the Jett he knew.
“It’s just… It’s crazy,” her voice echoes through the space, bouncing off the rows and rows of crates. “Look at all of this, just lying around here. Unused for fucks sake!”
“Jett, lower your voice,” his mirror self says.
“Right, sorry. I just…” She rakes her hands through her air, looking all around with wide eyes. “It’s unfair. They get all of this, and we’re…”
She gestures again, at something in his doppelgänger’s direction, and the mirror Sova chuckles. It’s an odd sound. Uncanny: a noise he’s never made in his own voice.
Hidden in the soft glow of Radianite crates, mirror Sova tosses something to Jett. The young radiant smiles, dashing to the middle of the warehouse, right below Sova’s location. He watches her fiddle with whatever’s in her hand, twisting open a device before planting it into the metal floor with a bang. A click, followed by a whirr, causes the hundreds of crates to flicker, and then a beep echoes through the space.
It’s not a Spike. He notes the smaller size, the triangular form, and the lack of a countdown following the initial sound. The mirror duo does not seem alarmed by the device, unlike the Spike and its disastrous impact on detonation. The mirror Jett drifts up to one of the smaller stacks of crates, swinging her legs over the side. His counterpart leans against the wall, eyes scanning the room.
This time, he strikes first. His arrow aims for the device. It sends out a shockwave on impact but ricochets harmlessly against it.
His mirror raises his rifle. Jett stands atop the stack of crates, knives whipping out and hovering at her side like snakes prepared to strike.
He drops the six meters down, landing in front of the two with not even a grunt. The metal floor caves under his boots, his skin buzzing as the impact travels up his spine and disperses with a hum deep below his skin. In a moment, his bow is drawn, bolts crackling over his fingers.
An arrow may not fly true against a wind assassin, but an energy blast will.
“Oh shit! Alpha identified!” Jett shouts, flinging a knife forward.
Her aim is just like the agent he knows. He leans right, and the blade nicks his cheek, instead of burying into his left eye.
Losing one eye is enough.
He reels back his arm. The blast tears through the wind assassin. She dashes back, skin scorched.
Three shots, glass shattering on the floor, and the warehouse goes dark. Illuminated only by the soft, flickering, blue light of Radianite.
And him, bow in hand, crackling with energy and lighting his position like a beacon.
He shuts off his bow just as a round of bullets fires in the dark.
He ducks behind the rows of crates. Bullets tear through them, spattering his clothes with blue vapor.
A gust of wind whips around him. Glowing white markings appear beside him, two knives flying.
Spinning with the force of a hurricane, he slams against the floor. The first knife nicks the top of his head. The second burrows in his left shoulder.
His bow roars to life as he aims and fires. The blast tears through the warehouse, bolts of energy licking over the walls. Jett dodges the blast, dashing over the crates and flinging another knife. He catches it in the air, throwing it down and shattering the blade beneath the heel of his boot.
He sprints across the warehouse, a barrage of bullets tearing through the cover he manages to find.
The bombardment quiets long enough for him to note a recon dart. It slams into the rafters above his position.
A pulse of nanomachines crawls over his skin.
He feels his body light up in the warehouse with a ping.
He braces for the impact, feeling the blast of energy shock his body. Over the roaring in his ears and the buzzing under his skin, a gust of wind rushes over his head.
Another pulse. Another ping lights up his form, and the neon white markings reel back one last knife.
Another blast of energy hones in on him as he charges forward. The buzz under his skin becomes a torrent, burning through him like liquid magma. He catapults over the crates, the second blast of energy roaring behind him.
The knife shoots forward. He raises his left hand, and the blade burrows into his palm instead of his head. His right hand grips the fabric of Jett’s hood, yanking her down with him as he slams against the floor.
Sova yanks the knife out of his hand, shattering it with his boot.
Radiants are powerful, and Jett is no exception. She fights against his hold, clawing against his arms with superhuman strength. What’s running under his skin is the only way he’s able to hold her, one arm wrapped around her neck, his other reaching back to tear the knife out of his shoulder.
The third pulse flashes over his body. The blast of energy honing in immediately dissipates. He steps into the open, pinning Jett’s signature knife against her throat.
“Lower your weapons!” He shouts. His voice is coated in static.
“Don’t! Just kill him!” Jett shouts over his voice. He feels her wind whip around his fingers. Digging through the hole in his hand and yanking at the knife in his grip.
He presses the blade into Jett’s neck. Beads of blood bubble up over the blade. Jett chokes and freezes. The wind dissipates all at once.
Metal clatters against metal. In the faint, flickering, lights, he watches his double raise his hands.
A blue fog settles along the floor, spewing out from the bullet holes torn into the casings.
Death was not a permanent threat, but Sage was one person, with limits and a sharp tongue. It was always best to avoid death if they could help it.
It seemed that the mirror world held that same principle.
Sova jerks his head towards the device on the floor, still wiring and flickering in time with the crates. He speaks in Russian, full of static and inhuman cadence. “Explain what it is. What it does.”
“It’s a prototype,” The mirror answered in Russian, not a grain of static in his voice. “Meant to synchronize with and then destabilize Radianite in a short radius.”
“Is there a kill switch?”
His double shakes his head. “There was never meant to be one.”
The crates flicker again.
He throws Jett toward his double. The radiant stumbles, grasping her neck and heaving for air.
Sova grips the knife in both his hands and rams the blade into the device.
The fog swimming around his feet flickers with the lights on the machine: with the crates stacked around the room.
The blade shatters. He tears the broken edges into the soldered sides. A beep shrieks out of the machine as he pries the top loose, exposing an innard of wires and glowing blue tubes.
He rips apart the wires with his hands, shattering the tubes, and a wave of energy explodes over his body. The buzz under his skin collides with the searing pain above, latching onto his clothes and seeping into his eye.
The machine sputters. The fog flickers. The crates flash orange. Then the light settles to a calm, consistent, blue.
The machine dies.
When he turns to face the Omega agents, they’re staring at him. Jett’s hands are covering her mouth. His double’s eyes are wide.
“Sova.”
His voice is all static. Monotone. His double locks eyes with his own.
“What the fuck?” Jett’s voice whispers across the warehouse. She sounds horrified.
“I spared you when we first met.”
He takes a step forward. His blood, dripping down his arms, is red and blue. The fabric burned away by the blast can no longer hide the glowing lines and spirals blazing underneath his skin. The stab wound in his hand, skin torn aside, revealing glistening metal where bone should be.
“I spare you now. Return to your world, but the next time me meet, I can't let you go again."
In the distance, sirens swell over the muted bustle of the city.
The Omega agents retreat. Sova watches them until the door slams shut, the finality of the noise echoing through the space.
He looks down at his arms. The blue pulsing under his skin burns and shines bright.
It’s been a while since he’s seen himself like this: a body he controls yet doesn’t recognize. All blood and blue and wires coursing beneath layers of skin.
The sirens draw closer.
Lifting the massacred pile of metal from the floor, he turns towards the opposite end of the warehouse.
In the reflection of the walls, he sees two eyes. One scorched blue, washing out the scar crossed over his eyelids. The other, shining blue where a brown iris should be. His boots scuff against the burnt metal floor, dragging soot behind him as he walks out into the crisp night air.
The buzzing subsides, and the glow dissipates. His blood drips dark and red. As he waves a hand over his face no blue light reflects on his skin.
Relief heaves out of his chest.
Followed by a gag, spattering blue against the ground.
He picks his way back to Point Echo, ducking away from the lights of the police cars that zip past. Eventually, he stares up at the portal built into the wall of a dilapidated property.
Two steps through the light, and he’s back in the stark gray walls of Valorant HQ.
He takes a moment to reset the portal. Restoring its sound system and travelers log: wiping his blood off the keys.
He makes sure none of his blood drips on the floor as he picks his way through the halls, noting Cypher’s cameras and taking routes where he’d never be spotted. Finally, he weaves his way to one of the many abandoned rooms, yanking a medkit out from its spot buried beneath deserted construction equipment.
He disinfects his wounds and staples the worst of them shut, wrapping them tightly in gauze and bandages.
To every agent in Valorant, Sova never left the premises, and he will keep it that way.
- -
Global news reports a Radianite explosion in a warehouse. The cause is unknown. Blood samples discovered on the scene were too corrupted by radianite to scan for any DNA without damaging the equipment.
Sova wanders into the workshop to request some modifications on his drone and one of Raze’s BoomBots malfunctions and explodes in his face. The only injuries he sustains are some minor burns, paint stains, and a cut on his cheek. Sage offers to heal the injuries, but the infiltrator declines with a soft smile.
Two weeks after the warehouse explosion report, Killjoy finds a mysterious pile of scrap on her workshop table. Gutted to kingdom come, but salvageable with some hard work and elbow grease. She gives Cypher a friendly wave in the halls. A silent thanks.
None of the Alpha agents report seeing the Omega counterparts of Jett or Sova in their recent encounters with the other world’s agents.
It’s all a coincidence.
- -
Radianite poisoning is an old and bitter friend.
He feels the beginnings of symptoms seven days after the explosion. It’s unpleasant, but not a surprise. The blue fog had been pure Radianite gas, the machine filled to the brim with a purified version of the element. His threshold may have increased, but being at the epicenter of an overburdened Radianite core would not spare him from the ruthlessness of Earth’s most volatile element.
He manages to stave off infection, scraping together supplies that won’t be missed or arouse suspicion, and his injuries do not limit his movements. That’s the only positive he can glean from the days that follow.
Fever burns over his skin. Nausea claws at his stomach, a dull ache prodding behind his eyes. His hands won’t stop shaking, and the world blurs and spins at random. The air smells too sweet, or his mouth tastes like burning metal. A reoccurring sting behind his eyes results in a nosebleed that drips and drips without relent. They’re all manageable symptoms, but impossible to hide. If any of them catch on to the signs, he cannot answer. The best he can do is disguise. Sharing a few drinks with Brimstone and Viper, or knocking back a flask in the halls, turns an eye to his flushed skin. He can chalk up a stumble in his step or an object slipping in his grip as exhaustion, as the days of work pile up before him and his neverending dedication to tasks ahead. If blood falls on his paperwork, he dutifully rewrites it on a clean, pristine, sheet. Questions about his lack of appearances in the common room are appeased with portion-sized containers of his best attempts at babushka’s recipes stacked in the fridge. When he feels the sting behind his eyes during a training exercise, he makes sure to aggravate the rift walker enough to warrant a punch in the face.
It could always be worse. He’s lucky, he reminds himself, head pressed against the cool porcelain sink in the dead of night. Forcing down bile and choking down every noise. This is nothing.
(White walls. White coats. White fluorescent lights shining overhead. A dozen faces hidden behind white masks, watching impassively behind glass).
Days pass. Slowly and viscously, poison leaks out of his system. His sink is tainted blue and red from the bile dripping from his lips and the blood running down his nose and chin.
Time is the only healer for this, but it’s not enough.
Brimstone holds a meeting, urgency in his voice. The select few he contacts send alarms ringing through Sova’s head: Sage, Viper, Cypher, and Omen.
He stands to the side as Cypher clears his voice, scrolling through the digital words at his fingertips.
“I have already informed Brimstone, but it is best I alert you all to this. It seems our operations have grabbed the attention of an unknown threat. They appear to be attempting to identify and track us.”
(Not good enough, my dear Hunter).
- -
As the Vulture soars over his homeland seas of pine bleed away to inhospitable white. Peaks and valleys of the tundra transform into icy shores.
Towards a port, a shadow dug into the ice and snow.
He braces.
The Vulture passes that invisible line in the earth. He remembers it; knows where exactly the airship crosses that divide.
On cue, a beam of light spews out from the snow. Cypher shouts. Omen hums and flickers.
In seconds, the Vulture is torn apart in an explosion of white light and fire. Sova grabs the two other agents and shields them as the airship explodes and they plummet toward ice and snow.
A mission gone wrong to Valorant. But, as Sova stares at the approaching white, as the anti-gravity technology stirs to life, he feels familiarity.
He’s home, he thinks.
And then the ground rushes up to meet him.