"Ma'am."

Alex Wesker glanced over at the Syndicate member that just arrived at the door to her office.

"What is it?" She noticed he was holding a dossier, so he almost certainly had a report to give her.

"The Nightfall has been launched, confirmed reports from Los Angeles as well as Washington DC from our own members, as well as social media in a plotted flight path across the United States are showcasing direct video and still images of the ship in flight below the cloud layer."

"And the Family?" Alex narrowed her eyes at the manner in which Valentine Darkwood had performed his promised timeline for his ship's official launch almost down to the minutes since his agreed time of six months.

"All present aboard the ship, with a number of additional members that we are still determining the identity of. Some are completely new, others are known to have been sighted alongside various Family members."

"And the ship itself?"

"Currently en route back to Los Angeles after a planned public reveal for the Remembrance Day proceedings over the White House. Estimated arrival to the original launch location is between three and four hours."

"What's the status of our entire fleet?" Alex asked as she tapped her finger on the surface of her desk.

"Ships 2 through 13 are operational, the flagship is currently awaiting the delivery of the Ogre from Russia."

"And my brother is there overseeing it, correct?"

"To my knowledge, yes, Albert is still in Russia."

"Hmmm..." Alex glanced off to the side, thinking for a moment. "Contact Vigo and have him lay out a beacon for drawing the Family to our main Russian base, I want to test both the Nightfall and the Ogre against each other in open combat. I'll handle sending word to my brother."

"There is also one additional part of the Ogre base to be informed of." The man presented the dossier and revealed a rather thin, lanky mech that was holding a fairly large sword with a straight blade, like a large cleaver. "Apparently this is a prototype that was originally held in one of your brother's civilian residences located in Japan, until the BSAA and PSS9 raided the house for his son, Jake. The original was destroyed, but rebuilt just recently."

"How many are operational?"

"Just the one, right now. Manufacture takes about a month."

"Designation?"

"Ronin-Class CQC-140."

"Use it to draw out the Family and the ship, have Vigo leave an obvious link with it to lead them to the Ogre."

"Understood. Will that be all?"

"Yes, now go." Alex waved her hand to dismiss him.


After the landing process was complete, everyone breathed sighs of relief as they went to disembark. It had been mostly to show off the ship, but the maiden voyage had been a total success. And an idea that came up during the return flight was to have Rico act as the ship's security while it was unattended, just in case more Syndicate attacks occurred. Of course he agreed, stating that the hangar bay was staring to grow very boring when he wasn't moving around or talking with Sheva in their DNI.

When the Darkwoods arrived at home later, they were oddly suspicious to find a man in his thirties waiting on the front steps of the house, fidgeting with a pen.

"Um... Darkwood residence?" He stood up very nervously as they exited the various vehicles, all staring at him warily. "I uh... I'm part of the Syndicate, can... can I talk to you, um... Mr. Darkwood?"

"You're far too nervous to be a trick or some sort of stunt. C'mon inside, the heat's a bit much today." Tobias noticed how skittish the man was, so they all went inside and sat in the living room.

"I uh... I'm a logistics officer for the Syndicate, I handle all the intel and documents for the local area, mostly about you guys." The man began. "And I just got ahold of some documents from up the chain of command that has me reconsidering what to do about it."

"So you're defecting, right?" Valentine asked, raising an eyebrow.

"They've made plans to lure you and your new ship into a trap with some sort of big robot called a Ronin-Class CQC-140, and they wanted some sort of evidence to lead you to another base that they have in Russia..."

"Wait, hang on... you said Ronin-Class CQC-140?" Jake asked as he hastily pulled out his phone and started looking for something for a moment. "You're talking about this thing, right?" He presented the image of the mech from back when he'd gone to Japan to handle his dad's house there with the underground bunker.

"That's exactly it! They've given it a weapon now, it's a really large sword." The Syndicate man nodded hurriedly. "I don't know the Ronin's current location, all I know is that they're planning to get you specifically to a Russian base that they have, but the reason why wasn't included in the intel I received. I'm sorry if that's not enough."

"Do you have the GPS co-ordinates of the base itself?" Tobias' eyes were both narrowed as he considered what was being presented to him. Of course he remembered the mech from Japan, and certainly the designation it'd had.

"Yes, right here." The man shakingly held up his hand to retrieve the folded paper from the chest pocket of his shirt. "I did a map check on the location before I got here, it's located near T-Tselinoyarsk."

"For future reference, man... the T is silent in Tselinoyarsk." Tobias accepted the paper and unfolded it to confirm that the numbers were there. They were. "So, I must ask you if you're prepared for any consequences of your defection. Not from us, but from them."

"I uh... I actually have a medical condition that I've requested retirement from the Syndicate for... uh, it's um... Cancer. They approved it after I got ahold of this intel, so I got lucky with all the timing, I guess."

"Tell you what..." Tobias glanced at Rize, who nodded once in agreement. "Come upstairs with me, you deserve an actual reward for doing this. I'm gonna give you five grand in cash, use it to pay for all the medication and treatments. Alright? You deserve to live, regardless of your affiliations to any organizations."

"Are you serious?!" The man gawked, and everyone nodded at the same time.

"Just because we're bioweapons doesn't mean we're not compassionate." Rize replied sagely. "Besides, the Syndicate hasn't really struck us as an organization with good employee benefits."

"If they're attempting to use a mech for luring us to Russia... I want to prove to them that one knockoff is already too much." Rico's voice came through Sheva's DNI, and she grinned knowingly.

"Rico has a bone to pick with that Ronin." Sheva announced aloud, earning a smirk from Valentine.

"You want that sword... Don't you, Rico?" Valentine asked, knowing that Rico could hear him.

Rico laughed slightly in the DNI, which briefly surprised Sheva with how natural it sounded. "Maybe." He replied cheekily, which earned a laugh of her own from Sheva.


Several days later, Valentine used his hoverboard to rise up to where Rico was patrolling the main deck of the Nightfall, holding his Uppercut C66 in both hands as he detected Valentine's approach, but lowered it upon confirming who it was.

"Got a new toy for you to deal with the Ronin." Valentine announced as he drifted to a halt at about the height of Rico's cockpit inside of his upper chest.

"Offensive or defensive?" Rico asked, all of his sensors focused on Valentine in front of him.

"Defensive. No special functions, no fancy design, just a boring, vanilla shield." Valentine presented his tablet to the nearest sensor pod, which showed the large slab of Quinque Steel with a simple curved handle on one side for Rico to grip it with a vertical arm pose.

"And here I was expecting at least strobe lights to disorient the Ronin's optical sensors, or even some spikes." Rico joked, but approved of the rather simple, but very effective design. "I do notice that the design almost appears... disposable."

"Until Koko and Big J manage to track down the Ronin, this was the most effective design I could produce with so much urgency." Val pointed upwards to indicate that Jormungand was 'Big J'. "We have no idea what country the thing's even located in right now, but my bet is it was initially at that Russian base they're trying to lure us to."

"I have a hypothesis on that detail." Rico nodded his head slightly. "It concerns the Warhammer and the Ogre, the apparent flagship pairing of the Syndicate's fleet of knockoff ships."

"Go on..." Valentine was curious, since Rico's AI was dynamic, it also meant he could come up with results or scenario that an organic mind might miss.

"I think they're trying to lure both the ship and myself into combat against the Ogre, since the base is at least confirmed to be landlocked, and lacks any visible shipyard or hangar that might contain the Warhammer itself, due to the much larger dimensions than the Nightfall."

"I follow... Okay, so you want to take them on?" Valentine raised an eyebrow.

"Firstly, the Ronin must be dealt with before they can mass produce any sort of mech design. If my calculations are correct, they only have the one unit, and are most likely attempting to accelerate manufacture of the Ronin CQC-140 or even other presently unknown designs."

"So this one Ronin is being used as a test, regardless of the results it would achieve."

"Correct."

"Then make it a good show when you kick their ass." Valentine grinned.

"I intend to." Rico replied with a low chuckle.


"So Batou just sent me the schematic we took of the original Ronin during our joint raid on the bunker house." Motoko announced as they prepared to fly the Nightfall to the current location of the swordsman mech, which was in Nevada. "Bringing up on on the main projector now."

With that, a hologram of the mech standing in a T-pose with both arms at full length appeared in the center of the command deck for everyone to see, including Rico who was watching from outside the main windows in front of them. Of course he was listening in through the DNI since Sheva was going to test her combat skills in the duel against the other mech and the Syndicate pilot controlling it.

"Scrawny little fucker, ain't it?" Lehm joked about the design compared to Rico's much larger, and more stocky design. "So what're we looking at here?"

"Our technicians recreated it digitally and ran numerous test simulations, and noted several design flaws that I highly doubt were left unfixed. Here are those particular points." Motoko made the flawed areas highlight in red, which were the hips, upper back, shoulder joints, and one small part directly on top of the head, which drew Valentine's gaze for a moment. "Structural weak spots, except for this one here, on the top of the head. It's the emergency access hatch for the pilot. It's noted to be much weaker than the surrounding hull, as if it wasn't expected to be accessible due to the height of the Ronin itself."

"Rico's easily fifteen feet taller than the Ronin's original model." Tojo pointed out. "And given the weak spots, I think the current one might be at least a little bit taller and obviously more solidly designed."

"Rico agrees with you on that one." Sheva nodded, since Rico was just shy of forty feet tall, he could easily reach the access hatch with minimal fuss. "And what about the sword it's gonna be swinging at us? What's the estimated size?"

"Based on the schematic, I'd say twenty feet. Original Ronin design was exactly 24 feet tall, so expect it to be no more than twenty five feet long." Valentine shrugged slightly. "Unless the Ronin's the same size as Rico, in which case it can be thirty without any real problems with weight and balancing."

"So what's the attack plan for the duel?" Tobias asked, since the Nightfall's main guns were railguns, they could easily decimate the Ronin with one broadside attack, but the fact it was a mech meant it was Rico's fight, not the ship.

"Rico's saying 'what do you expect?'" Sheva smirked slightly before relaying the second half of the statement. "'Take the sword and shove it up the bastard's ass.'"

"I meant how to get you two into position in the first place. I would assume you're going to use Rico's Boosters to do a Titanfall style drop right in the Ronin's face... I mean, that's what I would do if I was Rico's pilot." Tobias knew that the game was the inspiration for Rico in the first place, but at that thought he had a sudden idea. "Hang on... Motoko, zoom the view up to the torso."

"Okay? Did you find something?" Motoko did just that, and now the hologram was focused onto the overall torso without the arms, slowly rotating as Tobias moved to look at something near the access hatch.

"Power core, pretty similar to the one I designed for the T60f when I was still a weapon techy for Umbrella. Right here, it's about the same size as Rico's central core, maybe a bit bigger... And if I'm right... they designed it to be removeable..."

"Just like pulling out a Titan's battery during a Rodeo!" Yuuki and Rachael caught on to what their father had noticed. "You think they're still gonna use that power core design?"

"We won't know until we see the updated Ronin. How long until we're at the bunker they're keeping it in?" Tobias turned to Rize at the navigation consoles, and she checked for a moment to make sure.

"Half hour, at the most. Ship's set to hover within visual range when we arrive."

"At what altitude?" Sheva asked, relaying for Rico.

"Four thousand feet, unless you want us to be lower than that for that freefall."

"Rico says make it one thousand, just in case you need to deploy the chopper to get me the hell outta Dodge." Sheva explained for Rico. "Besides, much easier to see the show at just one thousand feet than it is at four thousand, right?" She smirked slightly as she made the joke.

"Alright, you head to the hangar with Rico, make sure to grab that shield Val made for you. We'll let you two know when to do the drop." Tobias nodded over at Rico, who returned it with a nod of his own.

"You just want to make the Titanfall joke, don't you?" Yuuki grinned at her dad.

"BT and Rico would make the best of bro-bots." Tobias grinned cheekily, avoiding the question entirely.