Heroes never die

Ch. 5 Secrets

    Brielle was learning about all the secrets in the house. She was walking around the house alone and she went to grab something to check it out and it turned out to be a secret switch. It made the wall rotate around . A huge touch screen computer appeared on the wall.
It said, "Please enter your password." She typed, "Brielle Wynn"
The computer said, "Access granted." All of Nic's personal files, secret mission files, and emails popped up. Brielle had access to all of them. Brielle read his emails and found that he had tried to secretly tried contacting her through her old email. She also found out the military made him start going to a counselor for depression and found that he said the same thing every time. That he missed his girlfriend that he had been wrongfully taken away from and that was all he would say. It turns out the last time the counselor saw him . The counselor told him to go find her then. Then she found that he had pulled a lot of strings and called in almost all his favors to get the mission to Creve Coeur. Once he found that that the zombies were moving towards Creve Coeur, he went straight to the President and requested that he and his two best squads go to Creve Coeur. He mentioned that he knew a lot of dark secrets about the President that she wouldn't want people to know. She granted his request and told him she would have granted his request even without the blackmail. He had hidden passages all throughout the house. Some of them lead to sleeping quarters for his squad in case the zombies made it this far and they needed to hole up here. There was rooms for Jake, Steve, Cody, Zach, Gage, Eben, and Trevor. Then at the end of the passage was one last door that said Brielle with one large bed and a closet. Inside the closet was a set of armor with a note on it.
It said, "Brielle since your reading this you must of found your quarters. This armor belongs to you. I wanted you to be protected if we were attacked. If  you found this then I guess I didn't make it or else I would have shown you this . You can ask any other original Guardian to train you. This letter is an order to them that they are to train you and allow you in their squad. I only did this because I know your a fighter. I love you."
She would ask Steve to train her later. She left the passage and went to find the other hidden passages the computer had mentioned. She went to the kid's room, opened the vent and pushed the button inside. A set of stairs opened up in the floor. Brielle went down the stairs. She found what looked like his command center. There was also armor everywhere. It was Nic's personal collection. There was a section with all the damaged armor he had worn on missions. There was a section that held the armor of his fellow guardians who had been lost in battle. Every new and outdated type of armor was there. There was four different sizes of every one. One the size of a woman, one the size of him, one the size of a girl, and one the size of a boy. One for each member of their future family. A tear slid down her cheek as she went back to her quarters to put on the newest set of her armor.

    Steve was on his way to the training ground. His squad was already there. There is usually five figures standing there like statues in their armor but this time there were six. He checked their I.D. tags that appeared when he looked at each one and ran them through the database. There was B-005 Tyler, A-067 Mitchel, K-009 Kelsie, A-067 Alex, and H-003 Hunter. The last one was B-015 unregistered. All of a sudden the mysterious Guardian spoke.
"Brielle Wynn, Guardian 15, reporting for duty, sir."
"Cut the sir shit I work for a living. It's squad leader, Guardian 2, or Steve." He smiled slightly inside his helmet and said, " Now who gave you permission to join my squad."
"The True Guardian himself, Guardian 7, gave me the order of being on Punisher squad , squad leader."
Steve felt bad for this but he wasn't about to let some civilian who wasn't ready join his squad without permission. He replied, "oh, did he now? And how did he do that when 7 is KIA."
Brielle handed him the note. Steve read it, "So you chose me? Well I am honored to train someone as important to the True Guardian as you." Then he grabbed her by her armor and pulled her close and in a quiet voice said, "Why are you doing this? What makes you think you have what it takes? I'm not gonna be the one who gets you killed."
She simply said with so much conviction, "Teach me how to kill, think, and fight like he did. I wanna make those fuckers pay. Nothing will stand in my way."
"Well I can't teach you all his tricks. Only he could but I will teach you to think, fight, and kill like him as best I can. As long as you give me your all and push yourself as hard as you possibly could. Nic would never back down. I expect the same from you."
    Then they trained. She was a tough fighter and a quick learner. It came natural to her just like it did for Nic. He didn't know where her determination came from or what caused it. Maybe it was the anger over the loss of her future husband, the anger over the end of her dreams of having children and starting a family with Nic, or determination to avenge him and fight her way back to Creve Coeur to kill every one of those god damn zombies. Either way she was one of the strongest Guardians Steve had ever known. She was like Nic, she wouldn't give up. She fought almost exactly like the True Guardian. Maybe it was because she had spent so much time with him when they were younger so she knows how he would think. She knew him better then anyone but Cody and they had been with him for years. Maybe it's because Nic had never really opened up about how much he was hurting. We just knew not to ask. Sometimes it would get really bad and he would go berserk throwing things around the house. His own team couldn't control him. It would take about three teams of Guardians to finally hold him down and just barely at that. After that we would ask what's wrong and he would sometimes open up, usually just to Cody though. Nic had a rage inside him the world had never known. We were terrified at the thought of him unleashing all of it with no control of himself. She was like an exact copy of him in battle. In Steve's armor when he compares video clips of him in battle with video clips of her in battle it's like watching the same person. It's like they complete each other. One day Steve went up to her and told her she might become Nic's replacement. That she might become the new True Guardian. She told him nobody ever would.

~Days later~

Brielle was training hard, she wanted to be better then Nic and end this war for good. There was hand-to-hand combat sparring session. She beat everyone on the team at ease. She was strong, fast, stealthy, strategic, and had powerful blows. She even beat Steve and he only lost to a handful of Guardians only one of them still alive, his brother Jake. She wanted to be the best Guardian. She didn't want to take Nic's title, she wanted to be known as the Champion. She hated to admit it to herself but something felt weird, when Nic disappeared 6 years ago everyone said he was dead. However, she always had this feeling like she could hear his heartbeat. Like as if she had her head on his chest. She could hear it now stronger then ever. But, that's impossible she saw him die. There was nobody to rescue him, everyone else died in battle. She had access to all the transmissions incoming and outgoing on all secret Guardian comm channels. She had gone over all of them from the day before Nic arrived in Creve Coeur to the end and everything went silent the moment Nic died. She had to know for sure so she went to find Josh.
She said, "if anyone would know, it would be you. So tell me, is Nic still alive?"
He answered, "I don't know. I lost contact with him shortly after we blasted out of the area."
"Wait, you had contact with him? How come there is no record of it?"
He replied' "All of the True Guardian's audio files are erased in a time of emergency so nobody will recognize him."
She had no idea. "What did he say?"
"I had him listen to everything you said about still being his girlfriend then he said thanks Josh I needed that. Brielle I'm coming. Then he went to say something else but he cut out and the transmission ended. I fear he didn't make it. It was just too little too late."
"Do you think he could have made it?
He thought about it. "Well I guess if anyone could make it then it would be Nic. But its been a year Brielle. I honestly don't think he made it. He had no back up, no ammo, no intel, no energy, and no communications. Literally, all he had was determination and I'm afraid this time there was just too much for him to handle. I'm sorry Brielle but he couldn't have made it out on his own. I'd be surprised if he could even stand up after that fight and that's if he even won."
She smiled, "that's exactly what I wanted to hear."
"What do you mean?"
"On his own. But what if he had help. Finisher squad's last transmission was from less then three miles from his location. Nobody officially found Destroyer and Finisher squad's bodies so technically they are MIA."
He looked at her like she was crazy. "Trust me Brielle the zombies don't take prisoners and Destroyer squad's last transmission was them reporting that they were surrendering. Finisher squad's bodies haven't been found because nobody can go up there to try and find them."
"There is still a tiny chance and you know better then anyone that if you add Nic to the picture and that greatly increases the chances."
Josh sighed and looked at her with pity as he said, "Brielle he was dying when we left. It's been a year. He's gone you need to let him go. He was family to me to but we need to accept that he's not coming back."
"What do you mean he was dying when he left."
"He was sick. Nobody knew he had me and Trevor erase it from his file. Some rare disease or something. All I know is the more stressed and mad he was the worse it got. Not being able to contact you or see you made him more stressed and mad everyday. Even if he survived that fight the odds of his survival are nearly impossible."