It had been another sleepless night, but for once, it was the events of the present that troubled Wayne, rather than those of the past.

It wasn't often that you ran into another Vault dweller in the Wasteland. Not a live one, anyhow. Sure, there were the exceptions, like Vault 81 and 88, but those were just that. Exceptions. Running into another Vaultie on a whole other planet felt like a cosmic kick to the dick. Even if Wayne was bigger, even if he was obviously more experienced in surviving the Wasteland just by the look on that kid's face, it shook him to his core. If he noticed the Pip-Boy, there wasn't a way in hell that Ozpin hadn't.

Infiltrating the party wasn't an option. He'd get Cinder into the tower, and get out. This kid wasn't gonna want to hear him out, not after that exchange, but that was the nature of the beast. Not every conversation was gonna pan out Wayne's way.

He'd learned that through bitter experience.

He ate a light lunch, finally eating that mac and cheese he'd chucked off to the side the night before last and a couple of Fancy Lads as he waited for the inevitable call, redressed in his Atlesian military uniform. Save for the odd wrinkle, he looked every bit the part of a soldier now, especially with his Pip-Boy resting next to his bed, the greatest tell of his deceit now hidden. Now, all he had to do was make sure nobody got through the ruse. Considering that the Headmaster was evidently on a first-name basis with another Wastelander, and an apparent associate of his new boss now knew he'd been looking for her, that was going to be easier said than done.

There wasn't much to do in the day leading up to the dance. Mostly preparation. Wayne kept most of his basic go-to weapons sawed-off for ease of concealment, but this Atlesian uniform was far too tight to hide anything more than his 10mm Auto. Shame. If he ended up having to shoot his way out of that tower, something told him he'd need a bigger gun. Still, beggars couldn't be choosers, and if he was careful, he likely wouldn't have much shooting to do.

By the time he'd loaded up and gotten redressed, it was time for the pickup, and his ride was already late. Wayne busied himself playing about with his combat knife, twirling and tossing it around in his hand and watching the afternoon sun peek through the patched-up roof and illuminate the rusted, scored steel.

Something told him he needed to be ready for Liam. Sure, he was a Vault dweller, but Wayne was living proof that you shouldn't judge a guy by his blue-and-yellow jumpsuit. Kellogg, Maxson, Sinjin, Colter, and many, MANY others had made the same mistake, and paid the price. He wouldn't be adding his name to the list.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of staring at the blade and waiting on nothing, Wayne's Scroll rang, a cursory glance revealing an unrecognized number. Wayne answered regardless.

"You ready to go?" Roman asked, sounding far less excited than he usually did. Something told Wayne that Roman wasn't a fan of being the errand boy.

"Yeah, I'm ready. You coming?"

"Almost there, friend. Just get your dress on and we can get this show on the road. Best not to keep a lady waiting, you know. Even if she is a rampaging bi-"

Wayne didn't even bother to listen any further, hanging up as Roman began his rant and placing his knife back in his boot.

"Showtime," he grumbled, reaching into his medicine bag and digging around until he found some of the good stuff. Med-X was good to soothe the nerves, but it dulled the senses. Calmex, especially the good stuff that Maddox kept in stock, calmed him down without dulling his faculties. A couple of doses of the silky stuff, and he'd be alright for the evening.

The effect was almost immediate the moment the chem entered his veins. He felt more alert, more focused than he'd been since he landed on Remnant, more ready than he'd been since he first stepped out of the cabin in Forever Fall. He felt free.

His nerves soothed and his mind clear, Wayne stood, straightening his uniform shirt and slicking back his hair. It'd been a while since he'd had his hair this short, and it was honestly harder to keep in order that way. He'd become used to the organized chaos of his untamed mane as a member of the Railroad, and if it weren't for the fact that he was tired of getting irradiated broth in his beard he'd have let himself grow out a soup-catcher to go with it. Hell, maybe now he could get away with it, see how it fit. Nora'd always said he looked better with the beard.

That train of thought was interrupted by another ping from his Scroll, no doubt Roman realizing he'd been hung up on. A quick glance revealed that, no, it wasn't Roman. Of all the people on Remnant, Adam had attempted to contact him.

"Do not harm Blake under any circumstances."

Huh.

Wayne quickly fired back a message of his own- well, as quickly as someone not used to this technology could, anyhow. Clair had shown him how to 'text' people, but his hands were still clumsy on the touch-screen's tiny keyboard.

"I have a job to do."

With that, Wayne sent the message and resolved himself to avoid any further conversation with Adam for the day. Cinder and Roman were enough trouble on their own. He'd need more than just the dose of the silky stuff he'd had to deal with tonight, so with that in mind, he stuffed his chem satchel into his jacket, doing his best to hide the straps in his collar and the bag under the jacket itself. Just in time, as a honking horn drew his attention back to the door. Roman, no doubt.

Wayne took a deep breath in, then a long, slow exhale. He hadn't done an infiltration mission since the Prydwen went down. He hoped he wasn't too rusty.

Stepping out of his home, he found Roman waiting for him with an annoyed look on his face, and Neo in the driver's seat, giving Wayne a sly grin.

"Hop in," Roman ordered, jerking his cane towards the back seat. "Cinder'll find you at the tower. You just need to get there without getting compromised."

Wayne nodded, patting down his jacket again and heading for the back of the car, slamming the door behind him and watching the sun slowly set over the blood-red trees.

'This is gonna be a long fucking night.'

Beacon was lit up like a Christmas tree.

It was obvious that this little shindig was one of the biggest things going for the school- there was hardly a light off in the entire joint, and students were lingering out in the school's yard: couples ducking in and out of sight to try and get moments of privacy, groups of friends chatting and carousing near the school's fountain, and a small crowd still filing into the school itself.

The dance wasn't his concern—and thank God for that, Wayne was a horrid dancer. His concern was the tower that loomed over the campus like the Academy's namesake, a bright green light shining high above. Cinder was likely already on her way to the tower now, which meant that Wayne was behind schedule. Roman'd spent so much time complaining about how she talked to him that he'd neglected to hit the fucking gas, and now Wayne was going to suffer for it.

The walk to the tower was, thankfully, unremarkable. If anyone found an issue with his disguise, he didn't hear it. The students mostly just ignored him or gave him a wide berth, and the other Atlesian servicemen he saw simply gave him nods of acknowledgement or terse, muttered greetings that went unanswered. The base of the tower only had a single guard, clad in yellow armor and leaning on the wall, obviously bored out of his mind.

Wayne adjusted his earpiece and hit the power button. "This is Whisper. I'm going in."

"The party's going strong," Emerald replied. "We'll be in touch."
With that done, Wayne looked to the soldier, and gave a loud, shrill whistle. "Hey, buddy!"

The soldier startled, practically jumping to the ready and grabbing at a pistol on his hip, visibly relaxing a bit when he noticed Wayne.

"Shit, you scared me," the soldier said, relieved. "You new on shift or something? Haven't seen you before."

"Nah, we haven't been introduced. I work days," Wayne lied. "Azur Marin."

The soldier obviously didn't buy it, reaching up to his helmet before noticing something behind Wayne. "What the-"

Wayne turned to look for the source of whatever had startled the man, seeing nothing. A loud clank from behind him drew his attention back to the soldier, who was now out cold in the arms of Cinder, who had replaced her usual dress with a coal-black catsuit and covered her face with an ornate masquerade.

"You are a horrible liar," she noted sardonically. "Do you have a weapon?"

Wayne reached into his jacket and pulled out his 10mm Auto. He'd made the discretionary choice of putting a silencer on it for this one, and he was starting to think he'd made the right choice. "How quietly are we doing this?" he asked.

"We should be fine," Cinder replied. "Emerald and Mercury are ensuring no one leaves the ball. Our job is just to reach the top of the tower. Deal with anyone that gets in the way."

"Got it."

With that, Wayne cocked his pistol, and fired a bullet into the guard's neck. 'No witnesses'. Cinder seemed momentarily startled by the gunshot, but she posed no verbal objection before dragging the body into some nearby bushes and chucking it in. When she returned from disposing of him, she gave Wayne a quizzical look, one that he answered with a shrug.

"You said deal with anyone that gets in the way. Consider him dealt with," he said, nonplussed. It was simple. Anyone they left alive would be able to identify them when they woke up from their forcibly-induced nap. A trail of bodies was nasty, but it was expedient, and even if this was a world on-par with the Pre-War one he hailed from—superior, even—in terms of technology, you couldn't fingerprint a man from another planet, and his shell casings wouldn't turn up a damn thing. Being in another world certainly helped make the more straightforward means of problem-solving more expedient. Just as well, because Wayne was a very straightforward man.

"If that's how you want to do this," Cinder replied, unfazed, "then that's how we'll do this."

"Damn right it is," Wayne stated. "On me."

With that, he pushed open the doors and headed into the CCT Tower's entrance, a long hallway that led to what looked like some sort of elevator in the center. Good. He wasn't much for stairs. He could see four guards in the room- two flanking the elevator, two on the floor. A lot of security just for one room, but from what it sounded like, this thing was important enough to warrant the security.

One of the men on the floor turned to look down the hall, and met Wayne's eye. "Excuse me," he began, starting to walk towards them, "No one's allowed in this area."

Wayne slowly brought his pistol from behind his back, catching the man's eye and causing him to go for his own sidearm.

"Stop!" he ordered, far too late. Cinder took off like a shot from a gun, and Wayne was quick to follow, firing a couple of bursts into the man aiming at him and sending him stumbling backwards into the stairs leading up to the elevator, yellow aura fizzling out as he collapsed. Cinder, meanwhile, had started burning, for lack of a better word, a pair of black, glass-like blades appearing in her hands as she intercepted a guard that had attempted to flank Wayne with his baton, catching him beneath the chin with a well-placed kick and following up with a quick takeover to place herself behind the man and disarm him, before cranking his neck and sending him limp. The other two guards rather foolishly took their own batons rather than their firearms, and charged the duo, leaping down the stairs as if it was going to be that easy. Wayne couldn't help but laugh, effortlessly dodging between them and training his pistol on one guard, while Cinder launched herself into a cartwheeling kick on the other. As Cinder's blow landed, Wayne fired, his bullets punching into the back of the soldier's helmet and sending him face-first down the stairs, where he tumbled into the body of the soldier Wayne had dispatched first. Then, Wayne trained his pistol on the one Cinder had kicked, and emptied the rest of the magazine there. Their helmets were metal. Took quite a few rounds to pierce.

The one at the bottom of the stairs had started to stir, but before Wayne could reload his weapon and do something about it, Cinder's blades had reformed into some sort of bow, and she fired an arrow that went clean through his helmet.

"The elevator," she stated coolly, her weapons reforming as blades once again and striding towards the elevator while Wayne dug into his belt and grabbed another 10mm mag and reloaded. With that done, he followed Cinder, just as the doors opened to reveal two very unprepared Atlesian soldiers.

Cinder stepped into the elevator as if she belonged there, so Wayne followed, just as the men were starting to go for their handguns. It was a tight squeeze. Neither of the soldiers were small men, and Wayne was bigger than both of them by a good head and forty-odd pounds, by his estimation. Cinder didn't seem worried. As soon as the doors shut, she was throwing a savage piston kick that managed to land clean in spite of the cramped confines of the elevator, sending her man's head bouncing against the side of the elevator as he collapsed, while Wayne used his size to pin his target against the elevator and throw a heavy knee strike into his side that allowed Wayne to draw his boot knife and plunge it into the man's abdomen once, twice, then three more times. Wayne felt the man's gun press against his side, so he pressed in closer, dragging the knife up in an icepick hold to jam it into the soldier's throat, breaking his Aura and ending the fight then and there.

Wayne pulled his knife from the man's neck and cleaned it against one of the gloves he'd found with his uniform, then threw said gloves to the ground and returned the knife to its holster. Turning to look at Cinder, he found her own gloved hand outstretched to him expectantly.

"Scroll, please."

Wayne fished the device out of his pocket and handed it to Cinder, who gave it a quick flip in her hands as the elevator continued its upward trajectory.

"Excellent work. You're every bit as efficient as I'd hoped you'd be," Cinder said, "if a bit… messy."

"You're not complaining, are you?" Wayne asked.

"Not at all, not at all," she assured him. "Merely an observation."

Wayne scoffed, pulling his pistol up to aim at the door in a close-quarters position. "Any guards up top?"

"Not likely," Cinder replied, motioning to the bodies. "These gentlemen likely came down from the top floor. From what I gathered from the Specialist's computer, there are only seven guards assigned to tower duty, and we've accounted for all of them."

"Nice." Wayne looked at the soldier Cinder had head-kicked into unconsciousness and gave a low whistle. "Gotta be a way around this Aura stuff."

"Some people don't necessarily activate their Aura," Cinder explained. "Others' Aura is weaker and more susceptible to damage, and even then, you have to be actively concentrating to use your Aura. In a panic situation, not everyone is able to activate theirs fast enough. Now, Wayne, be a dear and watch my back while I upload the files to the CCT database."

"Got it."

The elevator stopped shortly after, and the doors opened to reveal a room full of sleek computers and various terminals, with a prominent bank of them right in the front of the room. Cinder made her way towards them, leaving Wayne to exit the elevator and just… stand around like an idiot.

"Fuck me," he muttered under his breath, checking the chamber on his pistol to try and occupy his mind. That wouldn't last long.

This whole operation reminded him a lot of the Prydwen op, and it had ended the same way. A 'stealth' mission turned into a bloodbath. The Prydwen crew had to die to sate Wayne's thirst for vengeance, but in truth, he had no idea why he was so open to the idea of killing the Atlesian soldiers outright. All this talk of 'elites' and 'power structures' was more Nora's speed. Wayne had always been a soldier. Give him a gun, point him at the enemy, give him a dose of Psycho, and let the sparks and bullets fly. Yet, he couldn't help but wonder just why he'd been so casual about the whole thing, as if it were just a walk through the Fens.

Come to think of it, a lot of his walks through the Fens ended with him shooting something or someone. That wasn't a very good barometer.

"So…" he started, hesitant.

"So?" Cinder repeated.

"What's your story?"

Cinder didn't even look up from the terminal she sat behind. "Why do you need to know?"

"Idle fucking conversation, I don't know how long you're going to take here."

"Not enough time to bother the both of us with the minutiae of my life, I'd say," Cinder replied tersely. "It'll be done when it's done."

"Yeesh. Noted."

Wayne turned away from Cinder just in time to notice that the call button for the elevator had lit up. "Cinder, did one of us hit the 'down' button?"

"No."

"Then we're about to have a visitor."

"The upload is a quarter of the way done," Cinder stated.

"A guest is leaving," Emerald chimed in.

Cinder tensed, hitting a last few keystrokes before replying. "Which one?"

"Ironwood."

"Should we intervene?"

Mercury asked.

That was bad on two fronts. The first was that this 'General Ironwood' guy was looking for him pretty hard, and he wasn't gonna be in a talking mood once he saw the trail of bodies Wayne and Cinder left on the way to the elevator. Secondly, he wasn't at the elevator, he couldn't even be close. That meant someone had seen them doing their work.

Wayne was really not looking forward to shooting a kid today.

Wayne uttered a subdued "fuck" before looking around the room. There were plenty of terminals and computer desks to hide behind, but outside of Cinder's, most of them left plenty of blind spots and had his back to the outside window, which he wasn't a fan of. Eventually, he just settled for following Cinder's lead. Just in time, a loud series of beeps cascaded across the room, and Cinder's Smirk returned for a late encore.

"No," Cinder said, a confident lilt to her voice. "We're done here."

Cinder stood from behind the terminal and gave Wayne a nod, just as the elevator arrived, the doors starting to open behind him. Cinder ducked back behind the terminal with ease, but Wayne was out in the open with no cover, and not a lot of time. He settled for sprinting across to the terminal Cinder was behind and pretty much launching himself over it, barely avoiding kicking over one of the monitors as he landed with a dull thud just as the noise from the elevator ceased. Cinder motioned for him to stay down, and Wayne wasn't planning on making an argument out of it.

A few ginger footsteps echoed throughout the room, followed by a timid question from a small, shrill voice. "Hello?"

'My god, it's actually a fucking kid.'

Wayne was not a good man. He never claimed to be, couldn't. That being said, there were a few lines he would not cross. He would never have his way with an unwilling woman or man, no matter how easy or drunk they seemed, he would never leave a good deed unrepaid, and he would never, ever do anything to hurt a kid. That Synth didn't count, and even if he did, Wayne had let him live, so had he really hurt it that much just by rejecting it?

Call it a hopeless grasp for a sense of normality after Shaun-Father revealed himself to him, but Wayne had always held a soft spot for the children of the Wasteland, even if some of them could be little shits, like Kowalski. Kids were mostly alright, almost always harmless. Shit, quite a few of them just thought Wayne was the greatest because he carried a big gun around and looked tough. Dumb, but innocent.

Wait. Dumb. Innocent.

He could give it a shot.

Wayne stood, no doubt to Cinder's consternation, revealing himself to the interloper—a girl, one that couldn't possibly be out of her teens, with pale skin, black-and-red hair, and a massive, mechanical scythe that put anything Wayne had seen to the Commonwealth to shame with its prodigious size and complexity. It dwarfed its wielder to such an extent that Wayne couldn't help but wonder how she was able to hold it upright. She stood bow-legged like a Radstag fawn, unsure of her footing in her high heels and obviously uncomfortable in her dress.

"Hi," he greeted her, gently.

"H-hi!" The girl replied, obviously still suspicious. "What happened here?"

"Someone broke in and started shooting," Wayne replied, maintaining his tone. "I'm the only one left… I think. Did you see anyone else?"

"I… I'm sorry, I didn't," the girl replied, her expression softening. "Are you hurt?"

"No… no, I'm okay," Wayne replied, stepping out from behind the terminal. "We need to get out of here. It isn't safe. What's your name?"

"Ruby," she answered. Suddenly, her expression shifted, and her eyes, an unnatural silver, focused in on Wayne. "Wait. If you're up here-"

"Ruby," he started, already realizing that somehow, a fucking child had figured out his lie. Add another one to the streak.

"How did the bodies get- hey!"

Both 'Ruby' and Wayne's eyes were drawn to Cinder as she rose from her place beside Wayne, obviously annoyed.

"Don't say it," Wayne said, exasperated.

Cinder didn't say it, instead pulling a cartridge off of her suit's leg and emptying it into the air, a cloud of yellow dust forming into crystals in front of her that she launched at Ruby. The girl managed to pull her scythe up and spin it about, catching the crystals as they exploded and pushed her back just enough to give Wayne and Cinder some breathing room. Ruby seemed unfazed, planting her weapon on the floor and… firing it at them, bullets whizzing just past Wayne's head as he dove for cover.

"It's a fucking gun too!?" he protested, wondering how in the hell you could fit a fully functioning firearm into a scythe. "Are you kidding me!?"

Nobody replied, not that Wayne was surprised, but he was surprised by the scythe's blade landing inches from his head and burying itself next to him as its wielder hung on the end, dragging her blade up before firing another round to launch herself across the room at Cinder, leaving him continually dumbfounded.

'This is some next-level shit,' he thought to himself. 'We need to go. NOW.'

Wayne scrambled to his feet, looking to the elevator just in time to notice that it had already gone back down.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck-"

Ruby's gun-scythe fired again, and this time, he could hear her flying right at him again. By the time he'd managed to dodge, he'd gotten cut across the back, shallow, but long.

"FUCK!"

Wayne did a quick 180, throwing a spin kick that Ruby blocked with her scythe, but he couldn't help but notice that she seemed… frightened. Her follow-up attack whiffed by a country mile, giving Wayne more than enough room to pull his pistol and fire a burst. Not that he was able to confidently bring his gun to bear against a child, even one that had almost cleaved him in half. He'd missed every shot, the bullets sailing through a broken window-

Broken window?

Cinder wasn't in the room anymore.

"You bitch!" Wayne protested, just in time to catch a heel to the jaw from Ruby, who had gone on the offensive while he had distracted Ruby. Unprepared as he was, his pistol fell from his hand, and Wayne was forced to think fast, throwing out a heavy kick that landed flat on Ruby's stomach and pushed her back far enough for him to reach for his gun, only for her to shoot it away, knocking it all the way across the room.

"Stop fighting!" Ruby demanded, in the same way that a kid would demand a bully to leave him alone. This wasn't a fight he could win, not without help. Still, he couldn't go down. Not here. Not when he had to find a way home. He could drop dead in the Commonwealth, once he'd settled his affairs. Remnant could get fucked. Ironwood could get fucked. This kid could get fucked.

If he was gonna get out of this, he needed an equalizer.

Wayne dug into his satchel, and pulled out a dose of Psychojet.

"Stop!" Ruby repeated, lowering her weapon's barrel to take aim. "I don't want to hurt you!"

"Little bit late for that," Wayne replied, and then, he slammed the syringe down into his arm, muscle memory guiding him to a vein without even having to look. As the plunger depressed, the steady nerves provided by the Calmex gave way to rage. Blistering, all consuming rage. He hated this planet, hated Cinder, hated this school, hated the dumb fucking luck that got him into this situation, but most of all, he hated this little girl, and found himself caring a lot less about the fact that she was a little girl than he had about a minute ago.

The -Jet in the Psychojet hit differently. Time seemed to move slower, his rage seemed to be dragged out, like nails on a chalkboard or like he was being drawn and quartered. He could see Ruby's finger on the trigger, reminding him just what he had to do, and if rational, sober Wayne had any problem with it, drugged-up and pissed Wayne wasn't having any of his objections.

In slow motion, Wayne watched as he launched himself forward, effortlessly sidestepping Ruby's shot before delivering a heavy right haymaker that snapped her head to the side and caused her Aura to flicker. A dull, distant roar sounded as he followed up with a left uppercut that lifted her a bit off her feet, which he followed by grabbing her neck in midair and slamming her to the floor, just as she fired her weapon again. The scythe had evidently been behind him, as Wayne felt a sharp, yet faint pain deep in his shoulder that he couldn't quite shake. Hell, he could barely move the arm attached to it now without the pain becoming much more focused.

Just as whatever hit his shoulder withdrew, the Jet wore off, and time went back to normal. Wayne pulled himself away from the source of the pain, primal instinct driving him back towards the terminal as Ruby pulled herself up, a trail of blood following her scythe's blade as she planted it back on the floor.

"Please!" she practically begged. "Stop!"

Wayne, if temporarily, obliged as he checked his wound. He could feel the heat of blood streaming down his back from around his right shoulder, and the cut there was deep, to the point where he could feel bone.

"Shit!" he growled. "Fucking FUCK! That two-faced little SKANK-"

Ruby fired a warning shot. Her first, and last mistake. Shoulda went for the head.

Wayne, his rage now refocused, charged as Ruby pulled what appeared to be her weapon's charging handle, throwing himself good-shoulder first into the girl and knocking her onto the floor just as another gunshot rang out, hitting him right in the left knee and sending him stumbling to the floor with a wounded howl.

"I won't need a third," an authoritative male voice commanded through the ringing in Wayne's ears. "Stand down, or I will put you down."

Wayne's gaze fell on General Ironwood, much larger in person than he'd been on a screen. Cinder really had thrown him to the wolves, hadn't she? Now, he was fucked.

Wayne let out a long, shaky exhale, the Psycho high slowly starting to fade as he looked at Ruby, who had pulled herself to her feet using her weapon as a crutch, looking at him like he was a mangy dog on the street. Like he was pitiful.

"Nobody else has to die here," she said, plaintively. "Just surrender."

Wayne blinked, slowly, letting out a pained grunt as he attempted to move his left leg. No luck. Something was fucked, now. He couldn't win this fight healthy, much less with a bum leg and a hurt shoulder. There wasn't really any other option left, now. Cinder had left him to die, and now, he was going to.

Wayne allowed his head to hit the floor as he let out a tired, frustrated breath through gritted teeth.

"Alright," he agreed. "I'm done."