Crucible
Crucible hobbled more than anything else nowadays. Not yet confined to a wheelchair or a walker, but that was a matter of will, and outright defiance of the doctors that told them they were only doing more damage to their aching bones than anything else. They were simply Crucible. Certainly InOps had dug up their past, a name they had left behind so many decades ago, but now it had nearly faded from their memory – and for nearly everybody else, it was a name of lifetimes ago. Back in their first war they had been a simple water carrier, hauling jerry cans of the life-giving liquid on their back as they risked the fire of the Initiative to bring supplies to the front. Many of the others doing that had fallen – to shrapnel, to airstrikes, to fires from beyond the horizon. Crucible though was a lucky one. A rabbit's foot in those days, running through mountain ranges across southern Europe.
Their uniform had lost its uniformity a decade ago. Now, it was more patches than original material, much like Crucible's body. The helmet had been shattered. Never more than a symbol, its optics had broken in a shelling, and had never been replaced. The armor was dented from years of use and abuse. The right epaulet was long gone, torn off by a sniper's round late in the Third Tiberium War. The left hung on by a thread, worn from long use. Looking at their bare face, they had long sported a series of cuts on both cheeks – a mark of the band that they had fought with so many decades ago. A scorpion tail tattoo on their neck, barely visible above the collar, itself a replacement part taken from an Initiative environmental suit.Their left hand clicked – a sign of wear on an old prosthetic – and the bare metal sometimes screeched when they balled a hand into a fist.
Today was supposed to be like any other day. Walk among the new refugees, answer any questions they could, cook in the soup kitchen (chicken and rice, and knowing the Initiative, mostly vegetables and rice, with the barest hint of chicken), and then in the afternoon, work on correspondence, keeping tabs on the party. With InOps hanging just out of sight, and usually well within sight – uniformed agents keeping tabs on them, a sign of the Initiative's watchful eyes. Their ears, still sharp (even if one had been reliant on a hearing aid for decades now) were the first sign of danger. The high-pitched whine, too sharp and piercing to be the whup whup of the old familiar carryall, marked the approach of a drone. Small, bullet-shaped, with two stubby wings and a pusher prop, it was clearly a Brotherhood device – meant for them, silencing an inconvenient voice. 'No crusader like a convert', and they would know, having been one nearly all their life.
The panel van that was their ride of choice, a small luxury funded by the activities of the Open Hand, took the worst of the detonation as Crucible bailed out – they hit the ground hard, their shoulder complaining as they made contact with the concrete. Shrapnel shredded the van – killing the driver, who had been seconds too slow to get out of the way – and some punched all the way through, peppering Crucible's back with shards. Their thighs and calves screamed as they tried to scramble to their feet, trying to get out of the way of a potential second strike, or potentially an agent there to finish the job. A figure in dark gray kit emerged from a nearby alley, gun held at a low ready, to ensure that Crucible was dead. But over their head ripped a burst of ammunition, the characteristic supersonic crack of a suppressed GD2 ripping off a burst, bullets flying over their head.
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