{Source Code}
Gabriel had decided that the best way to kill time was to light the tips of twigs on fire with the extreme heat of the energy that surrounded them.
The heat was so immense, that as soon as the end of the stick exited their air bubble, it instantly burst into flames. "Well, this is fun..."
It had been 15 minutes since it appeared and boredom was beginning to settle amongst the four of them, well... mostly.
Ray, given his incredibly short attention span, had decided that now would be a great time to take a nap. Scarlet still assessing him for any injuries, though, it was unanimously agreed that he was fine, just tired.
"Do you think it's going to end soon? This wasn't exactly in the brochure..." Kyzal sounded frustrated – to put it in modest terms.
Gabriel shrugged. "Man, I don't know, I hope it does, this cowboy's gettin' hungry."
At the mention of hunger, Ray was quick to blink his eyes open and gently push Scarlet to one side as he sat up.
"Ah, you're awake, nice to see that," Gabriel commented, flashing a smile.
"I was never asleep, tried playing dead to ward off this thing, but that didn't work." Ray gestured toward the red-clad girl sat uncomfortably close to him with her hands resting in her lap and her bright eyes fixated on his. Gabriel was honestly surprised that he hardly even acknowledged her ogling, especially since it didn't look like it concerned him that much.
"I see…"
Ray turned to pick up his messenger bag, which had made use as a temporary pillow – a unexpectedly comfy one too.
He opened the bag and his hand dove inside, it was a literal guessing game as to what he'd pull out, needless to say, both Gabriel and Kyzal did not expect Ray to suddenly remove a grill and a pack of vacuum sealed, ice Dust refrigerated steaks.
"How the hell do you fit a damn grill inside your bag, Ray?" Kyzal asked incredulously, golden eyes widened in disbelief.
"Trade secret." Ray replied, simpering at the boy before expanding the legs of the grill and placing it in close proximity to the edge of the air pocket.
It did not take long for it to rapidly heat up.
A pair of tongs also made their way out of the bag alongside four plates.
"Peckish Ray?" Gabriel asked amusedly, raising an eyebrow.
Ray ignored the gesture as he placed one of the steaks on the grill, steam quickly rising out of the meat with a hissing sound.
"That smells nice," Kyzal idly commented as he noticeably inhaled through his noise.
"How do you like your steaks? If any of you say well-done, I'm renouncing any association with you." Ray questioned the group with a firm expression.
"Medium-rare, no more, no less." Gabriel responded instantly, the boy knew exactly what he wanted.
Ray nodded in obligation before redirecting his gaze towards Kyzal. The sharpshooter raised a thumb in Gabriel's direction. "I'll have the same."
Ray added two more slabs of meat on the red-hot grill.
Scarlet was next to fall victim to Ray's inquisitive gaze, though she appeared more repelled than hungry.
"I'm um… I'm a vegetarian..." Her meek reply caught the attention of all three boys and she shrunk under their sudden attentiveness.
It wasn't what she expected though, instead of being scrutinised for her specific dietary conducts, Gabriel, Kyzal, and Ray didn't seem to mind at all.
In fact, Ray actually put the raw steak he had for her back inside its packaging, before sliding it back inside his bag and in its place, replaced the meat with plastic tub full of salad.
He handed her the container and a plastic fork to match, "Knock yourself out, kiddo." Came his only remark before the boy turned back to the grill to flip the steaks.
Scarlet stared clueless at the flexible instrument, unsure of how to react to just being presented food at the drop of a hat.
In truth, she was still astounded that none of the three males around her reacted negatively to her vegetarianism, though the initial shock rubbed off once she popped the plastic lid off of the box and stabbed a cherry tomato before daintily placing it inside her mouth and chewing it slowly.
It was fresh. As in; straight off of the stalk fresh.
An appreciative hum made its way out of her nose, quickly followed by a startled yelp when Ray had lightly thrown a bottle of seasoning on her lap.
"To improve the taste," was his only reasoning as he plated up the three steaks and handed them out, keeping the last for himself.
Once more, cutlery was handed out and the four of them sat there in silence as they enjoyed their unexpected, yet welcomed lunch.
"Is this sirloin?" Kyzal asked between mouthfuls.
Ray nodded in response yet kept his eyes on the slab of meat on his plate, cutting it into small mouthfuls and sticking each in his mouth.
"It's good, mind telling me where you got it from?"
Ray rested the cutlery on his plate as he finishing chewing and swallowed the food in his mouth.
"A small butcher's shop just outside Mistral's city centre, a bit of a stroll, I know, but I have more than this if you want some in future."
Gabriel swallowed his mouthful before looking up at Ray interestedly.
"You've been to Mistral?" He asked.
"I've been to all four corners of the planet," Ray replied dryly, "Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo and Vale. Mistral is by far my favourite however."
"Where do you originate from?" Scarlet, eager to get to know her partner, asked with enthusiastic eyes.
"The Abyss," Ray's response was immediate and his eyes locked onto Scarlet's with a burning sincerity before relaxing up. The boy smirked once he saw her expression, her brows were furrowed and her soft bottom lip quivered slightly.
"Okay you got me, I was actually born on Vytal. You know, the shitty insignificant island we have a whole festival about biannually? I relocated to Vale when I was three months old and lived here until I turned 11," Scarlet could've sworn she saw what seemed to be a brief flash of discomfort in Ray's fluorescent violet eyes as he mentioned that last part, but it disappeared as soon as it came, almost as if there was something preventing an emotional torrent from surfacing.
It was unnatural though, not in the sense that he was keeping his emotions under lock and key, but there was something else snuffing them out entirely.
This was slightly disconcerting to the young red warrior.
"Ever since I left Vale, I've never really remained in one location for more than a couple of months, at most. Always somewhere else to go, something better to do. You get the idea."
Ray's companions nodded considerately, the fire that surrounded them acting as more of a minor nuisance than a hazard now. Each of them had decided to devote their care to Ray's storytelling. Regarding the residual, searing heat around them with very little interest.
"You ever been to Menagerie?" Kyzal asked, almost keen to hear his answer.
Ray shook his head as he inhaled. "Frankly, no. Though I've heard it's quite the vacation spot if you can avoid the hostile glares from the wary Faunus there. Sadly, those unfortunate people are completely unwelcoming to anything even remotely human, myself included. Can't really fault them though, when there's assholes in Atlas that make a complete mockery of them by imposing a racial apartheid that affects at least 90% of Solitas. Given this segregation has been going on for centuries; all because of some spooked villagers seeing a man with pointed teeth for the first time and labelling him a monstrosity, I doubt I'll be seeing the tropical haven that is Menagerie any time soon."
Kyzal clearly bit off more than he could chew with that one. The loss for words all the more delaying his hesitant reply.
"Makes sense..."
"Y'know, that was quite… what's the word…?" Gabriel paused for a moment.
"Detailed?" Scarlet suggested as she shovelled some spinach in her watering mouth, clearly the seasoning was doing wonders for the taste.
"Yeah, detailed. You've clearly done your homework."
Ray shrugged. "If there's one thing I'll remember from my father's teachings, it's that knowledge truly is power. Add that to the fact that I'm absolutely disgusted by the way Humans treat Faunus on the daily and you have yourself someone that wants nothing more than to bring those responsible for this atrocious shit to justice. Learning about how things work is key to finding a solution. So yeah, I've done my homework, but that's not all I've done."
Gabriel's eyebrow raised, "What do you mean?" Those words left his mouth coated in scepticism.
Ray sat up straight and faced Gabriel directly, "Whilst researching a problem to find a solution is great and all, you still need to take action in an effort to fix it. To effectively strike at the source or sources of the issue and eliminate them. I'm not going into detail, given we're being constantly monitored, but..." Ray paused, eyes snapping to one of the many cameras in the trees.
"...I'm not afraid of getting my hands a little dirty to put an end to insanity."
Gabriel slowly nodded, partially understanding what the boy alluded.
He was an agent of order, someone that worked behind the scenes to pull a few strings and set things right by doing so. Even if said strings had the potential to lead to less than desirable circumstances.
"If you're interested, I'll maybe tell you when Big Brother isn't watching. Maybe over a couple of drinks, but for now, let's just enjoy this quiet moment of rest before we get back to the school. Not like we have a choice anyway."
Gabriel nodded before placing his empty plate on the ground beside him and leaning back.
Pulling his messenger bag behind him, Ray decided to lay back down and resume his idling after a rewarding meal.
Scarlet was quick to join him too. With quick use of his sleight of hand, he pulled out two lollipops, stuffing one inside his mouth and forcing the other into Scarlet's.
She didn't refuse it, not like she would have anyway, and with a pleased hum, she positioned herself so that she was lying beside him less than an arm's distance between them, and with no objection from the boy, that was where she stayed.
Ray still didn't quite know what to make of the state of affairs Ly had pressured him into. In the past 24 hours; he has returned to Vale after 6 years of continuous travelling, attended the one place he's avidly tried to avoid, and met people that he both liked and despised.
But most of all, what proved to be the most prominent issue before him, the one thing that has him the most aggravated and disturbed, was the presence of an affinity user.
A powerful one at that.
It'd been several years since he'd seen one, or rather, been assaulted by one.
Strong, deeply embedded recollections of a past experience he'd much sooner forget had forever tainted his image of their kind like paint on a canvas.
He wasn't sure how Lylac and himself made it out of that situation alive, but ever since that day, he had done nothing but loath their entire existence.
Nothing that powerful should ever exist, even if it has since the dawn of humanity.
They were practically self-proclaimed gods, pillaging and terrorizing the people to their heart's content…
His father was one of them…
Suffice to say, when Ray discovered this information, he struggled to understand how this was true, how the one parent that loved and raised him was a being of such immense power and the weapon that the man once wielded made that power exponentially more potent.
Ray's father was a man that could have achieved anything.
Except cheat death.
It was hard, the death of Orion marked the point in Ray's life where he discovered that the world he lived in was as dark as the stories he once fell asleep to.
A slow, gradual decline into cynicism and misanthropy followed after that day. Ray's once perfectly balanced state of mind became quickly corrupted, twisted beyond its original condition into a mechanical, machine-like soul that cared very little for itself or its environment.
With Lylac's presence being his one remaining link to humanity, Ray became colder than even the Schnee patriarch himself. If it were not for her existence, the sheer resent Ray felt would have been unleashed upon the world a long time ago.
It was only because of her, that Remnant could sleep soundly at night.
That said, Ray had planned and built many things over the past 6 years that have labelled him as both a hero and a villain, depending on who you asked.
For six years, nothing had been seen or heard from Ray and Lylac Chroma. Only whispers in the dark, rumours merely glimpsed at by Remnant's information networks.
This led to speculation, especially since the boy was the son of one of the most powerful affinity users and intelligent men in the last century.
Though the world was indeed curious, some people going so far as to show concern and search for them, Remnant had far larger problems to pay attention to, especially with the rise of the notorious hacker group going by the name of Sentinel.
So feared was this mysterious organisation, that the entire kingdom of Atlas had cried out desperately for cybersecurity experts and top freelance hackers to defend its deepest, darkest secrets.
Sentinel holds the digital world by a strangling mesh of code and shackles.
No secret too big, no message too small, Sentinel's reach was inescapable.
No one was safe from its all-seeing eye.
It dominated the digital domain, leaving nothing but shattered firewalls and fried computer components in its wake as it continued its destructive global campaign.
Even so, little does the world know that Sentinel was but an intricate creation, a pet project, even.
It was an elaborate scheme designed to keep the world on its toes, to force it to adapt to the new rules of engagement.
Humanity and Faunus-kind fought a war on two fronts, with both the Grimm and Sentinel attacking on a consistent basis; new technologies had surfaced, new ways of thinking, programming, and manufacturing had all played their parts in the survival of Man and Faunus.
What nobody understood, save the rare exception, was the ingenious deception behind Sentinel's existence.
There was no 'group of hackers', that was all just assumed. A fabrication by the media with the intention of suppressing the public's fears.
There was only one functioning member of this dishonourable organisation: Ray.
The whole world believed that Sentinel, a huge thorn in the side of many a dishonest company, was a group of individuals sat behind computers and every attack made to these less that reputable corporations was a collaborative effort.
Instead, it was just a boy and his incredibly augmented mind.
They were all played like a cheap fucking fiddle.
He couldn't care enough to pity the world if it ever discovered the truth behind Sentinel. Whatever fear that would take over, whatever irrationality he'd see engulf the seas of the common people, it would all collapse together and govern every action they took into stopping Ray.
The world need not nor even deserve to know that someone as smart as he could exist, to know that a single mind can oh-so effortlessly control the circulation of all information inside the digital domain.
Secrets were a weapon; a weapon Ray was not afraid to use in order to establish dominance. For the public's undoing would not be the Grimm, nor the tensions revolving around the war over the horizon, but in the deepest, darkest, and most profound confidences kept hidden away in the systems of the world.
He knew that information, and by extension power, was held tightly in the palm of his hand, waiting to be used against those that would seek to disturb the delicate balance of society.
So, he let them conjure up their conspiracies, their theories around Sentinel's existence. For it mattered very little to him what the people of this world thought about the 'organisation' that he had constructed.
His bitterness for the world around him grew every day, thus did his ability to hack and control technology.
Ray's mind was altered to become the perfect fusion of man and machine, and thus the 17-year-old lived in two separate realms.
One was digital, the other was reality.
This made the manipulation of digital assets a second nature to him.
He was smart, very smart, he could reconstruct the meticulous machinery of bullhead airship using muscle memory alone, whilst simultaneously programming a virus so complex, it could shatter the defences of a thousand companies that needed to change.
The likelihood of him performing such a delicate task was very small though, he'd have to find both the time and energy to do so.
Such resources were rare, after all.
The fact remained that Ray was the most powerful hacker on the planet, sitting on a literal goldmine of top-secret information any info-broker would empty their wallets for and an almost infinite supply of money.
And yet, here he was; laying down with his head resting on his messenger bag, arms folded behind him and sucking on a strawberry flavoured lollipop as he watched the clouds above him distort into vaguely recognisable shapes.
This quiet, peaceful position served as a means to kill time while him and his companions waited for the blistering, outrageous display of incendiary power to dwindle and eventually die.
Boredom had long since made itself at home amongst them, Gabriel and Kyzal even going so far as to play a small game of cards, despite Gabriel missing some due to their previous hostile encounter.
How the duo got through that small detail was ignored by Ray, and to an extent, Scarlet. The pair content with just cloud watching in silence.
Occasionally, what remained of a creature of Grimm would pass by them, slowly stumbling over to them in a futile effort to take all four teenagers on, regardless of its dangerously crippled condition.
None ever got within three feet of their safe air pocket without collapsing and disintegrating before the group's eyes.
It was but a mild distraction in a sea of monotony.
Then again, isn't that the core foundation of life itself?
Author's note:
I liked writing this chapter, exposition stuff is always great and allows me to stretch my legs a little.
Ray's a complicated character, built up over several months worth of concepts and spur of the moment ideas, so stuff like this won't be rare in the slightest.
Next chapter won't be like that though... ;)
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, leave a Favourite and Follow if you did.
A Review would be nice too...
Have a good one.
- Hydra