DISCLAIMER: Those that ought to belong to others shall belong to their respective owners. Those that ought to belong to me, if any, shall belong to me.

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Dust, dust, dust. Dust was all the rage these days.

Which kind of sucked, because Schnee Dust Company was a really tough corporation to steal from. Still, a beggar does not get to be choosers and neither did a freelancer thief. If my client wanted a cartload of Schnee Dust, that was what I needed to procure.

'Breaker, are you quite done there?' Harmony's voice buzzed into my earpiece and nearly shattered my concentration. I pulled my hands immediately from the security console, afraid of accidentally tripping the alarm.

I swore. 'For Remnant's sake, Harmony. Heard of radio silence? You almost ruined the whole operation here.' Steadying my shaking hands, I returned to the console. I wanted to get this over with, if just to shut Harmony up.

'If the operation gets thrashed now, it will be your fault, not mine. Hurry the fuck up; it's freezing up here.' The sound of rushing wind could be heard from the other end of the communication.

'All you are doing is sitting on your ass in the airship anyway. Now shut up and let me do this in peace.' Before she could get the last comment, I cut the connection; I could not afford distractions.

A couple moments later, the facility security crumbled before my will. Aerial gates should no longer need security verification to be opened. 'Lovely, I can finally go home.'

'Not if I can help it,' said the voice, feminine, behind me. Aw, shit. I have not even been aware of her presence. As subtly as possible, I whispered a command into my mouthpiece. Then I began counting under my breath.

Knowing the protocol, I raised my hands slowly. From my past experiences, I had no doubt that there was a weapon trained on me. Schnee Dust Company security forces did not joke around.

'Turn around, so I can see you,' my captor ordered.

At the command, I felt myself ease a little. You see, a veteran never gave a foolish order like that. An enemy that cannot see you is an enemy that has harder time attacking you. Either this woman was a really, really good in a fight or she was inexperienced. If it was the former case, well, I was already screwed to a point where my situation could not worsen. However, if it was the latter, it meant a chance for me to escape.

Slowly, I complied with her orders. The moment I was face to face with my captor, I took note of details. Pretty was the first thing that popped into my mind, I admit. I quashed that one immediately; I prided myself in being professional. She looked about my age, between sixteen and eighteen. That was a silver lining; she was new to the job after all. There was a rapier in her hands, the tip inches from my throat; a bad news since my light armor had no chance standing up to something like that, not that the armor protected my throat anyway. A glimpse at her security clearance tag told me she had the highest level of clearance. She must have powerful family ties for her to have that so young.

However, nothing I could see about her could tell me the one thing I was most interested in: how good she was in a fight. It was highly unlikely she had Beacon Academy training; too young for that. The best she could have had was Signal training but that was enough to kick my ass into next week.

Her command was steady, suggesting she had confidence if a fight was to ensue. 'Lift your visor; I want to see your face.' Shit, that could prove problematic.

'Are you sure? You are going to let me freely move my hand?' At my question, I could see her waver a bit.

'Never mind then. Just keep them high in the air.'

Thank goodness, I managed to keep my visor on. 'Yes, ma'am.'

'How many of you are there?' she asked. It looked like she has heard my little chat with Harmony. I should really maintain my radio silence next time; if I had a next time.

I was about to feign ignorance when a large explosion rocked overhead on the ceiling, shaking both of us off our feet. Seriously, what kept them so long? Without wasting a moment, I tossed a flashbang grenade between us and switched off my sensors. See, that's why I wanted my visor on. My visions became dark and my auditory senses were blocked.

Once I turned my sensors back on, which was about five seconds later, I took note of the girl's condition. As expected, she was disoriented as all hell, vomiting her insides out. I felt a bit sorry for her; my flashbangs were heavily augmented, designed to stun even those who had training to resist its effect. This girl clearly was not trained in that. Still, it was not going to do any permanent damage.

I reconnected my radio. 'You guys were twenty seconds late. It was supposed to be two minutes once I input the command.' As I looked up, I could see Harmony making her way down the cable with the magnetic clamp.

'Don't try to hide your incompetence by yelling at us, Breaker. You know you owe us one.' I could see Harmony's silhouette blowing me a kiss from the top of the target crate. With great efficiency, she secured the cargo before the tossing me a rope. 'Think you can stomach the ride? I don't want you puking all over the airship floor like the last time.'

'I had the sensors off this time; let's just get out of here,' I snarled.

Whatever smart comeback Harmony had in store for me – I had no doubt she had one – was quelled by an explosion. The force of the blast was not as great as the one that blew the hole in the ceiling but it still knocked me off my feet.

'What the hell?' As I got to my feet, I realised that the explosions were ongoing. Uh oh.

'Breaker, it's a fucking chain explosion. Get the hell here!' For once, there was no hint of jest in Harmony's voice. I guess the situation warranted it.

A chain explosion was a situation when all the dust in the storage began exploding continuously, triggered by each other. It would not stop until there was but an inferno left. In a warehouse this big, that meant a catastrophe.

I ran like my life depended on it and reached Harmony in a record breaking time. The crate immediately began to ascend to the airship. It looked like we are going to make it. It was unlikely the chain explosion would progress to a stage that could hurt us before we left; while it was devastating near the end, its buildup at the start was rather slow.

In the comfortable embrace of relative safety, my mind was able to perform higher order thinking instead of just primitive stuff like "run like hell". Why would a chain explosion occur? It was one of the biggest threats to a dust storage facility and therefore, there should have been thousands of countermeasures in place to ensure its prevention. Even blowing a hole through the roof should not have been sufficient to trigger it. Unless…

Unless when I disabled the security, I did away with the safety measures as well.

Now, I just felt bad. Chain explosion was going to cause Schnee Dust Company astronomical losses. Some people were going to become unemployed over this issue. At least there won't be any personnel losses, though. The warehouse was empty.

My chest thumped as if it was hit by a sledgehammer. Oh shit. The girl that found me was still down there. I looked down where I last saw her and sure enough, she was still down there, completely unable to stand. Aw crap. I judged the distance to the ground. I could still make the jump without injuring myself. I unbuckled the cable from my harness.

'What the hell are you doing?' Harmony shrieked, as if I have gone mad. She gripped my wrist like iron, making sure I would not fall.

'The girl who caught me, she's still down there!' I pointed towards the prone figure, diverting her attention. Harmony took a glance then turned her gaze back to me. There was a hard flint in her eyes.

'If you jump, we can't wait for you.' She spoke with chilling finality. My spine tingled. I took another look at the ground. I had maybe five seconds to make up my mind. After that, the jump would probably injure me to a point where I would just end up dying in the ensuing conflagration anyway.

I took another look at the girl and hardened my resolve. 'Make sure client pays my share, alright? I don't want to be doing charity after all this horseshit.' Without another moment of hesitation, I jumped.

The jump did not break a bone or anything but, Remnant, it hurt. I grimaced for a second or two to suppress the pain. A brief look back to the ascending cargo informed me that Harmony meant her words. I did not blame her; one of us had to complete the job. It was just that I was the naïve one for not wanting a death on my hands.

Realising that the interval between the explosions was getting shorter, I made my way to the girl in a hurry. Holy hell, she was a mess. She was barely awake. From her weak fumbling, I assumed she was still blind and deaf. My flashbangs took awhile to wear off.

Deciding that explanation was too time-consuming and pointless, I opted to just sling her over my shoulder. She barely put up any resistance. It was possible she was not even aware she was being carried since the grenade messed up one's sense of balance as well. I was saved from having to abandon the rapier as the girl simply refused to let it go despite her disoriented state.

Thank goodness she was so light; the strain on my legs was just barely tolerable.

The rhythm of the explosions picked up the pace; the chain explosion was entering the second half of its destructive symphony. The duration of that was much shorter than the first half so I hastened my movements as well. Judging that leaving by the front door was a luxury I could not afford, I made my way to the nearest window.

You know, since Fortune has been such a bitch to me the whole day, you might expect it to show me a favor once, right? Nope. As luck would have it, we were on the third floor of the warehouse. I would have been happy with being on the second floor. Maybe even a two-point-five.

I guess it could have been my fault for forgetting that I was three storeys from the ground.

If there was even a trace of a chance for me to make my way downstairs in time, I would have taken it. As it were, there were already pinpricks of heat on my skin. The fiery orchestra was approaching its finale and no way was I sticking around for that.

I took a rough estimate to the ground; there was no way I would be fine after this. I readjusted my grip on the girl so as to reduce the damage she might receive on landing. Then I hardened my resolve for the second time this evening and jumped.

In the end, I never found out how much time I had before the final, all-consuming explosion. The moment I slammed into the ground, my world went dark.

And that is how my criminal career came to an end.