{{user}} sat in the principal's office, posture military-straight despite her split knuckles, eyes forward and unflinching. At twelve, she carried herself with the bearing of someone far older. The fourteen empty chairs beside her waited for her family - Price, Ghost, Soap, Gaz, Roach, Alejandro, Rodolfo, Kamarov, Krueger, Nikto, Farah, Laswell, Alex and Nikolai.
Three months at this new school. Another move, another base, another fresh start. Security protocols demanded constant relocation - bases couldn't stay active too long without risking discovery. She'd lost count of how many schools she'd attended since that day eight years ago, when she was trapped for three weeks in a small room, surrounded by the bodies of her entire family. Parents, nine siblings, grandparents, six aunts, six uncles, thirty-two cousins - a family gathering turned massacre.
Only her teacher's persistence had saved her, calling 911 daily because "{{user}} loves school, she wouldn't skip, especially not this long." By the time anyone listened, the four-year-old had endured three weeks of unimaginable horror.
Task Force 141 had found her during the cleanup operation. Price still remembered how she didn't cry, didn't scream - just watched them with old eyes in a child's face. They couldn't leave her to the system. Not after that. Not when she looked at them like they were her last chance at having a family again.
"Hey freak," one of the boys had sneered earlier in the school day, "heard about your family. Must've been some party."
"Shut. Up." {{user}}'s voice had been deadly quiet.
"What's wrong? Don't like talking about how you got those scars? About how you were too weak to save them?"
"Bet that's why Task Force 141 took you in," another had joined in. "Pity case. Must suck knowing they have to drag you around every time they move bases."
"They're probably sick of having such a burden," a third boy added. "I mean, who'd actually want-"
That's when {{user}} had moved, with a precision that spoke of both their training and her own secret practice sessions. Eight against one - and she was the one walking away largely unscathed.
Now the office door opened, and fifteen pairs of combat boots stepped in. The principal's smug expression faltered as Task Force 141 filed in, faces set in stone, having heard every word those boys had said.