Beyond Delta - Chrysalis

February 2068. Amy considers the next steps in her life, right as Jenn and another colleague from Delta team step by to greet her and try to gauge where her future take her.

A long breath, a short breath, a moment of calm. Then, a sudden palm strike, piercing through the air without a target. The other hand mimicking the first, a full pirouette before hitting, once again, nothing. The right hand like a blade, slashing an imaginary opponent, then piercing them as if it were a knife. Just in time for one last turn, an elegant elbow thrust to a sternum that existed only in her mind, followed by an elegant spinning kick, straight for the head. A long breath. A short breath. The hands down, her back straight up, her eyes closed. Beads of sweat slowly carving their path on her forehead, her blond hair scrambled around, unruly strands falling on her cheeks and nose. A long breath. A short breath. A moment of calm.

Amy opened her eyes again, two pearls of different colors blazing in the low lights of the gym. A familiar red ‘delta’ logo welcomed her, from the other side of the room, painted on the grey concrete wall. She stood quiet, without a word, without any unnecessary movement. Completely still, like the specks of dust suspended in the air. Always flowing, like a never-ending waterfall. A contradiction, a paradox that admitted no solution and, yet, was the focus of her existence. Sweetness and bitterness, motion and stillness, morality and excess, light and shadows. Her path had been one of extremes from the beginning, walking the plank between them while never losing her balance. Or, at least, that was her intent. In reality, her life had been much like a pendulum, shifting from one extreme to the other, before going back to the exact middle.

Her heartbeat decelerated, slowly, as her breath went back to her usual rhythm, as her limbs basked in that rest, after one and a half hour of exercise. Her gym clothes was drenched, brought to their extreme too. A simple white t-shirt, black shorts, both synthetic. Easy to wash and clean, even after such an intense training stint. Her hand and foot guards were a little bit more battered, but that wasn’t a problem, as long as they kept their structural integrity. It felt good to be able to relieve herself like that. She missed the feeling of her body exploding with energy, directing the subtle movement of her muscles like a raging river, in a dance of blows and strikes that had no end or beginning. A continuous, infinite loop. The core of her fighting style.

She inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled again. That wasn’t her best, she was still rusty after the long hiatus that followed the birth of her cubs. Nine months of pregnancy, plus almost as many where her time was consumed by their newborn antics. Now, they were around one year old and started requiring a little less maintenance – enough that she could take a two hours break for herself, while they slept in their stroller in a corner of the gym. She brushed off a rebellious strand from her nose, freeing her vision, as her eyes focused on that familiar red logo plastered on the opposite wall. Using the Delta facilities for personal matters made her feel nervous, as if she were committing a horrible sin. Yet, Tiger didn’t seem to share her concerns – if anything, he actively encouraged her to attend them more often. As a nice extra, Ms. Wolfchild was nowhere to be seen, being on an indeterminate leave to foster her art career. A long breath. An almost automatic smirk. Yes, the absence of Ms. Wolfchild was surely a boon. Were she around, Amy wouldn’t have dared set foot in enemy territory. Fortunately, even when her nemesis was still on active duty, Lejl took good care of bringing Cyphr out of the picture at the best possible time, almost like clockwork.

Yes, Lejl.

The fact that such a woman existed, with that name and appearance, still felt somehow alien to Amy. An imperfect reflection that was once part of her own being. Whenever Amy saw her, she felt like looking at a different version of herself, an Amy that could have been but never was.

Lejl. Her sister.

Her weird, energetic, shameless, deeply troubled sister. Her most prized treasure, together with Tiger and her kids. The only person that could understand and accept every single part of her, every single one, even the strangest or least wholesome. Because they were once one. A single soul split in two chambers. Now, split in two bodies, two personalities, two beings.

She let a chuckle escape her lips, her fingers still slipping through the unruly strands falling on her forehead. That past Halloween, Lejl and Amy disguised themselves as each other, with ample use of make up and fake tattoos, colored lenses and hair gel. The prank worked so well that Cyphr almost kissed Amy – almost – before realizing, at the last possible moment, that she was cuddling the wrong woman. That resulted in wild, genuine laughter from all except the tall German girl, who instead burned red with shame, as Lejl revealed her amber irises, her feline pupils to her confused girlfriend. Lejl and Amy. A recipe for unimaginable antics, when put together in the same room. The latter level-headedness going entirely down the drain as soon as that door closed, as soon as she was left alone with the physical manifestation of her split personality. Two dorks at heart, despite the appearances, incapable of fully growing up.

Despite their duties.

Despite Amy’s marriage.

Despite the children.

A long breath. A short breath.

A sound of steps.

Amy turned around towards the entrance, towards the owner of those boots she heard. Not one, but two people. A tall, imposing man with a bull head. A woman with short, purple hair and a beauty mark on her cheek. Both wearing Delta Team uniforms. Both familiar faces, even if one just for a few months. Amy bowed to them in a perfect curtsy, before straightening up once again, raising her head to meet the gazes of the newcomers.

“It is my utmost pleasure to meet you both here. To what circumstance do I owe you your visit?”

The bull man rolled his eyes, toyed with his right shattered horn.

“Aw, dang it, Yang, how many times shadda say it?! Stop with them words, mind you? I’m an ez man, you speak too difficult.”

He snorted, crossed his arms, letting a low growl. The purple haired woman sighed, shook her head.

“That’s what you get by learning English in jail.”

“‘twas one helluva jail, Ashburnt!”

“For your standards, maybe.”

Then, the woman winked at Amy, snapped her fingers.

“Those moves you were practicing before? Very nice, Amy. I’ve tried to replicate them many times, but I always miss something – your hubby can tell I’m not the real deal without even watching, just by the sound of my steps. I’ve never managed to fool him once, not even as a joke. He can tell you apart from every other person on Earth, no matter how hard I try.”

She laughed softly, bringing her index to her lip.

“So much for the perfect undercover agent, huh?”

Amy bowed again, meeting those azure eyes with her own heterochromatic stare.

“I am most honored to hear this from you, Ms. Ash… Jenn. I find your adaptability exquisite. Striving for perfection is a noble intent, yet certain things can not be simply imitated.”

Amy almost bit her lips. Jenn didn’t want to be called ‘Ms. Ashburnt’ by the people who knew her real name, since it was yet another fabricated identity. The whole persona of ‘Jennifer Ashburnt’ was one of many shields that she built around herself for protection, a shield that cracked only around a small number of trusted confidants. Amy tried to recall how many of them she knew of, though she couldn’t even fill two hands worth of fingers. ‘Ashburnt’ was a new alias she picked right after joining Delta Team, much to Tiger and Amy’s surprise. As a result, most of her new colleagues believed ‘Jennifer Ashburnt’ to be her real name. One such colleague was Ferno Santamarta, the humongous bull mutant with a cracked horn standing close to them – a recent addition, having been a field agent for a couple months at most. His loud voice echoed in the gym, as words left his bovine mouth.

“You brought the pups with you, huuuh! Half-kittens do be strange! Didn’t kno’ mutants could knock up gals, ‘fore I met you and them commandah!”

Amy nodded, beamed at him with a most radiant smile. His English had a weird accent, one that was at times hard to parse. From what Tiger told her, Ferno was Italian and received little to no formal education, which was probably the reason why his pronunciation was all over the place. Despite that, she could more or less get the gist of what he asked. It was about mutants having kids with humans.

“Indeed they can. We are not so dissimilar, Mr. Santamarta.”

That realization almostkilled Tiger – literally. When her menstrual cycle went unquestionably late, Amy didn’t know what to think. Yet, first thing first, she grabbed a pregnancy test at the nearest pharmacy. Much to her surprise, ‘pregnancy’ was indeed what had happened. When Tiger got wind of it, he simply stood silent, his brain most likely churning bits of information in the background without rhyme or reason. Then, he headed for Jackson’s, where – according to Vince – he almost drunk himself to unconsciousness, blaming himself for what had happened. Tiger was scared. Not scared of being a father – scared that Amy and his kids, their kids, would face the same challenges and racism he faced. Half-mutant kids with a human mother. The furry-cock-sucking slut who fucked the tiger man. Rumors. Disgust. Fear of the different. Prejudices were dangerous, Tiger knew that and was ready to shoulder that fate, as long as he was the only target of that harassment. But his wife and kids? That hit different. Fortunately, that evening Vince found the right words to pull him back together. Amy couldn’t be more grateful to the faceless, faceful man behind the counter: despite being brusque and generally hard to read, he was always ready to give a little help to every lost soul needing directions. That faceful, faceless man who was going to become a father soon (well, on top of already being a father to his wife’s two children, of course) was someone Amy hoped she had met before.

If anything, now she had a good reason to go and meet him more often. With that upcoming parenthood on the line, he was the one needing emotional support, especially with a cafe to manage and a… peculiar taste in fact of collaborators. Lejl’s stories from her shifts at Jackson’s were most hilarious. Being the chaotic gremlin she was, she turned every mild inconvenience into a memorable disaster especially when Shaz entered the fray. Those two together were a ticking time bomb, a lethal cocktail that only Vince was able to shake and stir without causing it to explode. Despite everything, the three of them seemed made for each other, in terms of teamwork and mutual trust.

A movement in the stroller.

A long breath. A short breath. The calm was over.

Amy slowly walked towards her kids, sighing at the meowing noises that started to fill the air. Meal time for her cubs. She sat down on a bench, caressed Jill’s fur. Leìn was still sleeping, albeit barely, but the same couldn’t be said for his sister, rolling under her tiny cover, wagging her tail, clamping her mouth around her mother’s finger, sucking it avidly. Amy turned around, glanced at Ferno and Jenn.

“Is it of any problem or disturbance for you, if I feed my children here? I would rather not have them wait, but I understand if you would prefer me to move to another room.”

Jenn shrugged, kept herself from laughing at the innocence of that remark.

“As long as you're comfortable with it.”

Ferno nodded too, smiled in turn (as much as his bovine features allowed him to, at least).

“Yeah, whatevs! Seen many a booba! One more or less makes no diff! Just give’em kids them milk!”

That translated to no problems at all, in the Ferno-English/English-Ferno dictionary that Amy had started building in her mind. She nodded with a little thank you, then she stared at her cubs, at the still sleepy one and at his sister, already moving her little hands to command her mom’s attention. Amy wrapped her arms around her small body, brought the child to her chest, kissed her forehead. Then, she allowed Jill tiny lips to close around the source of her nourishment, which calmed her almost immediately. At the sight of that scene, Ferno poked Jenn with his elbow, his booming voice now almost reduced to a whisper.

“Awww, that kitty looks adorbs! Say, Ashburnt, don’t this make ya wanna make one or two? When imma back to me old body, I gotta go for four minimum!”

“In your dreams, maybe. Kids are a waste of oxygen and organic matter. I like them only when they aren’t mine. No maintenance, no diapers to change, not my problem.”

The bull man rubbed his broken horn, still watching Amy holding Jill in her arms.

“Huh, can see yer point. Imagine havin’ a-many o’them, like that cat guy in Italy, that one in them news. So much money down them drain on diapers alone! But Imma ready for them trouble!”

“Sure, sure… as long as you don’t knock up the queen of England too, like said cat guy.”

“Wait, that’s new! Where’d ya hear it?”

“Gossip travels fast, especially when it comes from Carthias.”

Ferno whistled – or tried to, as his mouth conformation turned the sound he wished to emit into a bellow.

“Ain’t yer queen, like, twenty?!”

“All the more reasons to fall for a gruff cat daddy. Heck, I did too – just once!”

“… that same cat daddy?”

“I will neither confirm it nor deny it, Ferno.”

Amy listened to their banter without interrupting, focusing only on feeding her cub, caressing her short fur, her wagging tail. That little girl and her brother were a most precious treasure, a treasure that broke down barriers. Vince’s words echoed in her mind, as they always did when she started thinking about that. The hatted man, who that day was wearing a cerulean outfit, still with a glass in hand, had talked all of a sudden, looking straight into her eyes. You and Sambiong getting married and having children was a greater deal than you think of, Amy - something for history books, like the Liu wedding. You two have become a symbol, whether you want it or not. You guided people by example, you showed them that coexistence is possible – so be proud of it. Now, excuse me, but I gotta go: that idiot shark has thrown up in the aquarium and I need to save half a dozen goldfish before it’s too late. Wish me good luck.

Goldfish aside, Amy found his point remarkably enlightening. It was true. Tiger and she were the first mutant-human couple to get wed, nothing short of a historical event. Mixed neko-human couples were rare but existed in broad daylight for at least twenty years, while mutant-human ones didn’t have this luxury. At least until Amy and Tiger went public with their relationship. Around one week after the wedding, they found several envelopes at their door step. Letters. Hand-written, old-fashioned letters from mutants and humans alike that thanked them for being trailblazers, for normalizing their situation in front of the world. Reading them felt strangely heartwarming, stating with words something they didn’t manage to grasp on their own. Tiger and Amy set a precedent. A dangerous one, according to far right venues – which already had to begrudgingly accept nekos as human beings not even two decades before – but still a precedent. Now, the genie was out of the bottle. People like Jorma could look forward to a normal life with their human partner. And, according to Vince, that was all thanks to Amy and Tiger.

As those thoughts formed in her mind, Leìn meowed, joining his twin sister in his waking hunger. Amy caressed his fur, until his small eyes opened.

“Your turn has almost come. Hang on a little longer, Lele.”

Amy kept Jill close to her chest, waiting for her to sate her cravings, to slowly detach her minuscule lips from her mother’s body. She gently put Jill back into the double stroller, lifted Leìn up instead, watching him as he clumsily grasped for his mother’s fingers. He clamped at her breast, avidly sucking like Jill before him, meowing a little too, wagging his short tail. Amy let herself smile at her children, lulling Leìn in her arms, patting his head and ears. Watching them in Tiger’s arms, watching her husband melting like snow whenever their tiny hands made contact with his, was something she treasured. A happy family, for once. Something she didn’t have, while growing up. She turned around to meet Jenn’s gaze, beamed at her too.

“I guess there is no news about my job application, is it not?”

Jenn shrugged, shook her head.

“Radio silence. Honestly, I wouldn’t count on the ministry to make a bloody decision ‘fore next year. ‘Sides, are you sure sure you want that position? You’ve got two kids to grow.”

“Which is precisely why I applied.”

Jenn whistled, crossed her arms, before hitting Ferno’s ribs with her elbow.

“See, bull head? This is what having balls of steel means!”

“That tickled, Ashburnt! Hands ‘way from me, yes?”

A long breath. A short breath. A moment of calm. That wasn’t a decision she had taken lightly, yet it was something she felt she could do. When a position as a permanent consultant at the ministry of demihuman affairs opened, she knew what the right decision was. To avoid hate. To quench the fires. Someone like her, who married a mutant and had children with him, was what the country sorely needed. She met Jenn’s gaze, her heterochromatic eyes reflected in the other’s azure irises.

“Jenn, I can not let this opportunity pass by without making my move, I appreciate you will understand: if I do not take my chance at this, someone else will. Someone that might spread that same hate I have witnessed all around me, since the moment I swore my vow to Tiger. I do not want my kids to live in a world that sees them as monsters. Thus, I made my choice and I can not be swayed.”

Jenn chuckled, patted Amy’s blond head without advance warning.

“Good girl! You’ve become bloody brave, you know? If only everyone had half your spine!”

Amy let out a rare smile, patted Jenn’s hair back, carefully wrapping Leìn in her other arm.

“It is time I do something for Tiger, is it not?”

“You already did a lot for him.”

“But I want to do more… for myself too.”

“Fair, fair.”

Jenn stepped back, reached for Ferno, grabbed his arm.

“Now, excuse me, but I need to bring bull head here to the command center. He wants to ask your hubby for a permit to see his little brother in Esperia, but he’s too shy to do that alone.”

“Ashburnt, go f…”

“Been there, done that. Now, let’s go, shall we?”

Jenn waved her hand, started dragging the massive bull mutant away, leaving Amy with her hungry cubs. Jenn gave her one more amused look, before closing the door behind her and leave with Ferno at her side. The bull mutant kept staring back, as he stepped through the corridor, slowly crawling in the direction of Commander Sambiong’s office. His attention was caught by a peculiar sight: a sticker portraying a cartoonish tiger with an arrow. They were spread everywhere around Delta base, all of them showing the way to their leader’s quarters. Rumor had it that they had all been masterfully crafted by the capable fingers (toes?) of Lone Cub herself.

Jenn turned towards Ferno, her voice almost down to a whisper.

“You know, bull head, Amy… is surprising.”

“How so, Ashburnt?”

“Caterpillars turn into butterflies just once. Caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly, end, yes? The perfect linear evolution.”

“Yo, and?”

“Amy is an eternal chrysalis. Every time I think I’ve seen her butterfly, turns out it’s just a step towards something greater. It’s… inspiring, in its own way.”

Ferno rubbed his broken horn, looked at the ceiling almost instinctively.

“Huh. I don’t follow.”

“I know you don’t. You need more than two brain cells to get this – and yours are all about football.”

“Hey, stop hatin’ on me soccer! This year ye Brits get the World Cup here too!”

Ferno pumped his fist, bellowed as his nose ring oscillated.

“I’m sure Italy wins hands down! We gotta end them sixty-years-curse!”

Jenn sighed, shook her head, patted the massive bull mutant’s arm.

“Of course. Of course you will. Now, gotta get that permit first, yes?”

She started turning right, following the sticker on the wall, dragging Ferno behind her. But first, she stared back at the door they left behind, imagining Amy feeding her two kids on that bench, singing them a lullaby too, maybe. Jenn shook her head, chuckled, a smile painted on her face.

“My, my… I could never do that. You got a good one, Sambiong.”

Then, she pushed Ferno forward, till they both disappeared in the maze of corridors that punctuated Delta base.