August 27th

UNBSF HQ

"Rocket?"

The raccoon woke as he felt the gentle touch of his lover against his shoulder.

He grumbled something as he turned to see the coyote fully dressed, but looking worried.

Rocket snapped out of his funk pretty quick. "What?"

Asher waited while the raccoon got dressed. "Command wants you. It's pretty urgent."

Once Rocket had gotten dressed in some casual wear, he and the coyote went straight to Command. Once they had made it inside, it was obvious something was wrong. Various workers were scattered around electrical servers, and all the screens in the Command room had the same symbol. A silhouette of a jackal's head.

Rocket stared at it. "What the hell?"

Marcus appeared from one of the side rooms. "It's been like this for a hour. No way to crack into it. Seems to be a external connect-"

Suddenly, a voice was heard, deeply monotone and modified. "I see you've gotten him. Good. Now, let's get started."

Rocket looked at the main screen, the place where the voice was coming from. "Who the hell are you?"

The voice spoke. "You may call me Anpu. And I believe we have a common enemy."

"Common enemy?"

The voice sighed. "The Grigorievich Collective. They created me. Then dumped me when I wasn't effective enough. I survived."

"You're an uplift." Rocket said. "Like the others we rescued."

"Yes. My skills with computers was one of the best. But they wanted a warrior, not someone who sat in the back lines. So they shot me and left me dead." ANPU said. "But I still have access to most of their database. Including this man."

The screen lit up with a picture of a man with a ballistic mask over his face, dark green eyes. "This is the Blacksmith. He is behind every single creation of an uplift. He supervises the entire process."

Asher looked the picture over. "How does this help us?"

"In five days, he will be at Tranquility Base, one of new hotels built in Las Vegas. He is one of the most important members of the Collective. Without him, the entire process will grind to a halt."

Rocket folded his arms. "How do I know this is not a trap?"

ANPU sighed. "While I understand this might be hard to trust with all the chaos you've suffered, just ask one of your friends about him. They will know who he is."

The symbol disappeared, leaving Rocket worried over ANPU's last words.

"Oz?" The albino raccoon looked up from his food as he saw Rocket coming toward him.

"Hey!" He let the raccoon sit down opposite from him. "What do you need?"

"There was a situation with some hacker a little while ago. He mentioned some guy named the Blacksmith?"

Oz tensed up, before sighing. "I... I remember him. He... was not nice. But I only saw him when someone screwed up. You want to know who knows the most about him?"

"Who?" Rocket said.

"Lylla never liked to talk about him when we got out. She was his personal bodyguard. Knows what makes him tick. Just don't delve to deeply, you know? She doesn't like old memories."

Rocket nodded.

Rocket looked at the door in partial dread. Honestly, he should just drop it, but part of him wanted to at least tell her about this guy. Maybe give her chance to at least know what is going to be done.

He sighed, knocking on the door. It opened to the face of a otter.

"Rocket?" Lylla looked at him.

"We got some information about this guy from the Collective. Oz said you knew him."

Lylla eyes narrowed down before looking down. "It's The Blacksmith, isn't it?"

"We're moving to take him down hopefully, but if you have any good information-"

Lylla sighed. "There's nothing I could tell you that would help. But I can tell you one thing. He's a monster. He'll try to manipulate you. Turn you. I've seen him do it before."

Rocket didn't say anything before rubbing the back of his head. "Sorry, It's jus-"

"It's fine. Just promise me when you get everything you want from him, leave him some time with me, understand?"

Rocket gulped. "Y-yeah."

The otter shut her door closed as Rocket cringed. Could have done that better...

It was four days after ANPU (Which Rocket found to be a really stupid codename) had informed them on the Blacksmith and his whereabouts. Now the team was ready to head over to Las Vegas, with one plus member.

Fenrir was advised to join. Reynard has pushed for him to help with finding the target. Apparently his sense of smell was good enough to help locate the Blacksmith.

Fenrir decided to only take a pistol, just in case. The wolf was more suited for close quarters combat, and disliked shooting from afar.

They were all equipped with some form of Non-lethal hardware. Tasers, stun grenades, the whole shebang.

They were all wearing the same uniform, a bright green jumpsuit with a kevlar like vest over their chest. They also had knee pads and arms pads for more protection.

Rocket sighed as they entered the vertibird. "You really are taking a liking to this guy, Rey."

Reynard blushed. "It's not like that..."

The pilot of the vertibird emerged from the cockpit, taking off his mask, revealing a slightly shaved brown haired man. "You're the squad."

Rocket nodded. "Yep. That's us. And you are?"

The man grinned. "Just call me Sky-lord."