🐺 ~PROJECT SAC-1~ ⚔️

Chapter 35 - Not so Black and White 🖤|🤍

Suu didn't hesitate to jump down the steps and shield her husband, snapping that rifle back into a defensive position, aimed right at Talla's own heart. And she was more than eager to pull the trigger. The protective wife + mother and Special Agent Clone eyed each other down, daring the other to make the first move.

Wrecker decided to distract the wide-eyed kid in his arms by pointing to a random beetle on the nearest plant, "Hey, look at this cool little bug!"

Despite loathing children, Crosshair ghosted a hand over the Shaeeah's shoulder and shuffled to the side the best he could, so if things escalated the frightened little girl clutching his knees would be protected from any blaster fire.

Tech... whipped out his trusty datapad to tap away on, quickly calculating the odds that Hunter could talk Talla down from the seething cauldron of rage developing within her. He found they were in the Sergeants favor due to the peculiar nature of his unusually close friendship with the Agent, and just patiently stood off to the side until things were sunny within the friend group again.

Hunter cautiously took a step up to the Clone Agent with his hands up, to show he didn't want to fight her. "Talla." She didn't acknowledge him, rage a powerful thing to counteract once you got her going. "Talla, don't."

"What's your number, traitor?" She spat to the deserter, whose face continued to be visible over Suu's shoulder.

To her surprise, Cut chuckled. He CHUCKLED?! "Guess I'm going to have to explain myself again, like with all the others." He lamented with zero indication that he was actually upset about this, about ANY of this.

'Wait, did he just he say-'

"'Others?'" Talla repeated, pointer finger a hairs length away from the trigger, "Who else knows about you?!"

To her bafflement, Cut put a hand on his wife's shoulder and stepped around her, but Suu didn't take her eyes off the potential threat nor lowered her rifle. Unlike her husband, who in a way turned his back from the enemy to give Suu a reassuring smile. If Talla was a less morally driven person, she would've taken the easy shot. But Talla didn't and wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, giving Cut the opportunity to face her man to woman. All the time he wore a friendly smile, as if she wasn't ready to shoot him up full of plasma. "Why don't we go inside?" He invited, casually gesturing a thumb towards the house, "Haven't eaten breakfast yet, and I'm starving."

A sneer was given. He was acting so casual, so pretentious. "The only place you're going is prison for your cowardice." The urge to squeeze the trigger right here and now though was very much in danger of becoming, in her eyes, a true act of justice instead of evil.

Hunter secured Talla's wrist with both his hands and said lowly into her ear. "Talla, just hear him out."

Angry, disappointed, she became incredulous. "You expect me to hear out a traitor?!"

Slight pressure was applied to Talla's unmovable arm, Hunter silently ordering her to lower the blaster but it did nothing to ease her rage. Only caused her arm to tremble, which could accidentally cause the blaster to fire. "Just trust me." He cursed the fact he had no real physical power to stop her from squeezing that trigger, and hoping the mutual trust they had built would be enough for her to not kill his deserter for a friend.

The tension reached its peak. Talla let out a sharp breath through her nose, face twisted in rage unmoved as it was directed back at the deserter, her battle-ready pose not flinching. Suu's didn't either.

Shaeeah whimpered in fear despite Crosshair's version of reassurances.

Jek clutched onto Wrecker's shoulders in fear when the other uncle's distractions also failed.