Chapter 7: And at the End of the Rainbow? (Part 2)

And now, as of this chapter, we have three episodes down! Not too shabby of work, if I were to say so myself. This is the point of the series where shit begins to ramp up and things start to spiral to their inevitable conclusion. I'm sure you'll see what I mean once you finish reading this chapter. So, let's cut out any more delay, and let's get it on!

XXX

INTERMISSION CARD

By now, the fully awake Bernie has joined Christina and her parents inside Christina's home, with Al along in tow. The group is sitting in the living room and having some tea and coffee, while Bernie holds a cold compress on the back of his head where he got hit.

"We're very sorry about what happened, but we're happy to see that you're alright." Chris' mom apologizes. "May I pour you some coffee?"

"Uh-huh?" Bernie groans as he nods.

Chris' mother pours coffee into a few cups and sets them on the table in from of Al and Chris. "So, you're Al's brother. I had no idea," she comments, handing a coffee mug to Bernie. "Here you go."

"Well, we have different mothers." Bernie (lies) explains. "Dad was really young when I was born, and a lot of people objected to the marriage, so they separated."

"Different mothers?" Yang observed. "I guess that makes me Bernie."

"Awww, I don't wanna be Al…" Ruby groaned, understanding the weirdly accurate comparison between Yang and her versus Bernie's lie.

"Does Michiko know about you?" Chris' mother asks.

"It's a secret!" Al replies in Bernie's stead. "That's why he was sneaking over!"

"I guess Chris must've mistook him for some kind of Peeping Tom." Chris' dad lightheartedly remarks. That makes Chris hitch while drinking her coffee briefly. "Well, I hope you can forgive her. She's always jumping to conclusions."

Bernie smiles. "Of course."

"I'm really sorry, I thought you were…" trails off Chris.

"Don't worry," assuages Bernie, "No harm done."

"She's a real hothead, you know." Chris' dad quips. "That's probably why she joined the Federal Forces."

Bernie and Al look a little shocked at this revelation, while Chris looks uncomfortable that her secret got out.

"What? You're a soldier Chris?" Al asks, surprised.

"I just do data collection. Well, it's not like I fight with a gun or anything." is Chris' explanation.

"Bernie's a real soldier!" Al exclaims, making Bernie choke into his coffee cup.

"Damn it, Al…" Weiss groans. Her dislike of him wouldn't stop growing.

"Again, he is a child." Pyrrha said in Al's defense.

"Huh?" Chris' family collectively grunts as they look to Bernie for an answer.

"Well, uh, I was discharged." Bernie comes up with. "They have me in the reserves right now."

"So, that's why you came back to the colony." Chris' mother nods. "And you also work here?"

"I work at a factory now, for all the mechanical repairs." Bernie half-lies, glancing over at Al.

"Well, I suppose that technically isn't a lie…" pondered Ren.

Finishing up his coffee, Bernie stands up from the couch and says, "Well, thanks for everything."

"You really should take it easy for now." Chris' mother warns.

"I will. I have to meet someone." Bernie replies.

Getting up, Chris concernedly asks, "Are you sure? Will your head be alright?"

"Oh yeah, thanks. I'm fine." says Bernie. Handing the cold compress to Chris, he then adds, "Well, here you go."

Bernie then faces Al and orders, "C'mon Al, let's go."

Out on Christina's front porch, Bernie and Al say their goodbyes for the night.

"Goodnight, Chris!" Al says.

"Goodnight, you two." says Chris back.

"And now those two are hitting it off? This is closer to reality than I thought!" Yang noticed.

"The resemblances and actions are flat out uncanny." Weiss agreed.

Jaune groaned loudly as he buried his face in his hands, and Pyrrha could only stare and sigh at the ceiling. It was really getting too close for comfort for the both of them at this point.

As Bernie and Al walk off of the porch and towards Al's house, Bernie steals a quick glance back at Chris. "You can't judge people on how they look, right?" Bernie whispers to Al, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't think she looks bad at all." Al honestly replies.

Smiling, Bernie suddenly picks up and set him up to be carried on his shoulders. "Ow…" Bernie hisses as he settles Al into place.

"Did that hurt?" Al asks worriedly.

"…Just kidding!" Bernie jokes, right before starting to run. "Launch!"

Al laughs as Bernie gives him a ride, making machine noises as he goes along. All the while, Chris watches from her front door and smiles at them.

Pyrrha smiled. "D'awww, that's sweet!"

"Even if he isn't actually Al's brother, he's still doing a fine job acting like it." said Ren.

"Sometimes, blood relation doesn't determine family." Weiss said that with a degree of absolute certainty. Off to the side, Winter couldn't help but nod in agreement with her sister. They certainly felt closer to the people they fought alongside than their actual father or brother, for sure.

The next morning, Al runs out of his house, wanting to get over to the warehouse Cyclops Team is using as a base as quickly as possible.

"Bye, mom!" he yells over his shoulder.

The sun shines bright through the trees that line the sidewalk as Al runs down the road. He's wearing on his shirt the badge that Steiner had given to him yesterday.

"Hey, Al!" Al hears someone yell at him a distance away. Across the street, he sees Chay and Telcott dressed in army vests and goggles. The pair is also carrying toy rifles with them.

"We were heading towards your house!" Chay yells.

Hosting up his fake gun, Telcott adds, "Let's go to the park and play war!"

"If only these children knew the true cost of it…" uttered Ironwood. "The fantasy is always different than the reality."

"Yeah, and how many people have you sold on that fantasy, eh?" Roman sniped.

Ironwood didn't have a satisfactory answer for that one. As loathe as he was to admit it, the Atlas military did happen to use the perks and benefits that come with joining the army as a point to get normal citizens to enlist. It wasn't a tactic that he himself was proud of, but Atlas needed bodies to defend the kingdom. And a nation built on the corpses of those who served was better than no nation at all.

Al instead takes off running again. He yells over his shoulder, "Maybe next time, I'm busy today!" As Al leaves his friends behind him, Chay and Telcott looks slightly bewildered at Al's behavior.

A short while later, Al reaches the Cyclops Team's warehouse hideout. Inside, Al can't help but gawk in wonder at the blue mobile suit being constructed, the MS-18E Kampfer. At the moment, the entire team is working on its assembly, with Bernie and Garcia standing around the cockpit.

Both Ruby and Nora couldn't help but lean forward in their chairs to marvel at the finely-drawn internal mechanics of the Kampfer on display. Even Yang couldn't help but feel a little excited looking at it. Too bad the shot didn't last for too long, since they leaned back into their chairs once it was over, slightly disappointed.

"Keep it going, keep it going, hold it!" Bernie calls out, signaling for the crane that's moving the pilot's seat to stop.

"Secure those screens!" Steiner orders off-screen.

"Which ones do we start with?" Garcia asks in return.

"The main one!" Steiner replies.

"You got it." Garcia notes as he gets back to work.

At the foot of the mobile suit (literally), Al continues to stare at the Zeon commandoes building the fearsome weapon of war.

"Oh, so it was a mobile suit they had inside of there." Al thinks out loud to himself. He begins to pace around the side of the Kampfer, until reaching a good spot to observe the team at work.

"Okay Bernie, hurry up and lock it down!" Steiner calls from his crane console.

"Right, sir!" Bernie dutifully says.

As Bernie struggles to push the pilot's seat into place, Al walks up to the console where Steiner is standing by.

"Are you gonna fight the Feds with this thing, captain?" Al asks.

"No, no. It's just for when we get off this colony, is all." explains Steiner.

"What?!" Al exclaims. "You're not gonna fight? You're just gonna run away?"

Steiner pulls a cigarette out of its box with his teeth. "Well, if the Feds attack, then we'll have to consider it."

"I hope it doesn't come to that," said Winter. "The colony was in shambles the last time there was an attack."

"Survival is their responsibility. It doesn't matter if it's war or Grimm attacking. If there's something coming for me, you can bet I'd either fight or haul ass out of there." Roman mused to the open air.

"Just like you ran the all the times we kicked your ass?" remarked Yang.

"You can't say that I didn't fight you. Nor Neo here, right?" Roman then said, looking to his partner.

Neo nodded and typed into her scroll. "And if I remember, I kicked your ass, blondie."

Yang's eyes flared red as she got ready to leap out of her chair. "Wanna say that to my face, midget?!"

"Once again, no fighting in the theater." the voice from nowhere warned.

Yang settled for flipping Neo the bird instead as she settled back into her seat. Neo in turn just turned up her nose at Yang and gave her the smuggest look imaginable.

"Well then, you should let Bernie be the pilot, shouldn't you?" Al asks, not know that Bernie's previous tales were all lies. "All he needs is one more kill to become an ace!"

Bernie looks up from his work to glare at Al, before getting back to installing parts on the pilot's chair.

"I'm sorry, son. I've already selected Misha to be the pilot." Steiner informs Al.

"I don't get it. What's wrong with Bernie?" Al wonders. Behind him, Misha joins Bernie and Garcia on the Kampfer, while Garcia laughs to himself.

"Misha has more combat experience." Steiner bluntly replies. Al frowns in confusion at this.

"Hey, Bernie." Misha pipes up, "So sorry. Only one kill and you're an ace, huh?"

"You only have four under your belt? I figured you'd at least have twenty by now!" mocks Garcia.

As Misha and Garcia laugh at Bernie's expense, Bernie himself grits his teeth and grimaces in anger.

"I get why he lied about it to Al earlier, but man it didn't help." noticed Jaune.

"Yeah, I bet it's familiar territory for ya too." Nora prodded.

Crossing his arms, Jaune huffed, "Look, will you stop comparing me to him already? Seriously, it's getting old!"

"Nora, come on…" Ren chided.

"Look, I call it like I see it," Nora shrugged. "And hey, at least Bernie isn't too bad of a guy, right?"

"Well yeah… but c'mon, I'm honestly nothing like him!" Jaune complained.

Pyrrha gave Jaune a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "I like you just the way you are, Jaune."

"See? Pyrrha gets me." Jaune gestured.

"She sure does…" Nora said with a wry smile.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, a pilot is running a battle simulation in a mobile suit. While a Gelgoog and a few Zaku II's get taken out by the pilot, the virtual mobile suit is soon destroyed by a Rick Dom with a bazooka out of nowhere.

"Chris, uh, let's take a break here." a terminal operator says to the pilot. "After that, we'll try a new program. That okay with you?"

"Right." Christina replies over the comm. set.

Off to the side, a different combat operator asks a nearby analyst, "How's the reaction speed data reading?"

"Well, it's only reading thirty percent above average." the analyst reports.

"I see." the combat operator remarks. "We'll have a long way before eighty percent."

Outside the control room and in the hangar, Christina steps out of the mobile suit that she was running the combat simulation in.

A mechanic standing outside the cockpit greets her with, "So, what's your impression of the Alex? How'd you like the three-hundred sixty degree monitor and the magnetic coating?"

Chris takes off her pilot suit helmet. "It's so fast, I'm not sure." she sighs.

"Can anyone really handle this in combat?" Chris then asks.

"I guess it depends on the pilot, I suppose." the mechanic says.

"Oh, so you think I'm not good enough for the Alex, huh?!" Chris snaps at the mechanic.

"Simmer down!" the mechanic says. "This thing's specially built for Newtypes. You're good, I'll give you that. But I think this thing's a little out of your class. You'd have to be a freak to control this thing."

"Well, at least you can say that Chris isn't like Pyrrha," said Jaune. "She isn't really a hothead."

"But doesn't her name mean 'fire' or something, though?" asked Ruby.

"Well… yeah, but you know what I mean…" Jaune sighed.

"In any case, we're just fine the way we are." summed up Pyrrha.

As the mechanic turns around to leave, he notes, "I hear they'll be sending it to some pilot on the White Base."

Christina slightly pouts, before looking up at the head of the mobile suit being assembled. Although it's missing the distinctive v-fin and parts of the sides, it's clear that the head belongs to a Gundam-type mobile suit.

Back over to Cyclops Team and Al, the Kampfer is being given its initial testing. A montage plays of the testing, starting with Misha rotating the limbs and clenching the hands from the cockpit. Naturally, his booze flask is hanging inside the cockpit with him. The arms are proven to be operational, and the hands are calibrated for dexterity.

After getting the okay from Garcia, armor plating is added to previously uncovered areas, before the thruster motion test begins. On the back and on the feet, the mobility thrusters move around seamlessly and smoothly.

"Ooooh, so cool!" squeed Ruby.

Nora punched the air in excitement. "Yeah!"

Finally, the main operational camera comes online on the Kampfer's head, showing that the mobile suit has been completely and successfully assembled.

Meanwhile, some distance away, Bernie and Al are lounging on a grassy hillside, looking through a pair of binoculars. The view pans over some kind of industrial complex.

"Al, just call it a day." Bernie moans from the ground where he's lying. "You can look all you want to, but we're not ever gonna find that secret Feddie base."

"But the captain gave us a mission, so it's important, right?" Al rhetorically asks Bernie, still looking through the binoculars.

"I suppose…" tiredly sighs Bernie.

"Bernie, you know something?" Al starts. "I don't understand. Why would the Federation have to hide its base?"

"'Cause, the security treaty between Side 6 and the Federation isn't officially in effect yet." explains Bernie. "In other words, there're still limits on what they can do here. They have to keep it under wraps. Nobody can know. You understand that, right?"

"That's a rather morally grey area to operate in…" Winter mused.

"I can only wonder what agreements were made for the Federation to operate inside neutral territory. Even we have to get permission to act within territory like that." explained Ironwood.

Ren gave it a brief moment of thought. "Given how Zeon is operating in the shadows, the Federation is probably doing the same."

"It makes you wonder how truly bad this war is…" Pyrrha thought out loud.

"Yeah…" Al mutters, pulling his head away from the binoculars. "I'm surprised that there's so few cars with their license plates around."

Looking down at a map at his feet, Al takes out a marker and crosses out a city block. "If we do find the base, do you think the captain'll change his mind?"

"Change his mind about what, Al?" Bernie asks, uninterested.

"About you being a pilot! Maybe he'll let you fly the mobile suit instead of Misha." Al replies.

Bernie grimaces and turns on his side. "Don't worry who's gonna be the pilot, alright?" Bernie bitterly cautions. "I'll have my chance to be an ace soon enough."

Noticing that Al hasn't said anything back, Bernie stands up and looks over at him. "C'mon Al, let's get out of here. Let's get something to eat."

"Mmmm, just a little longer." Al says, looking through the binoculars again.

Al's view pans over the front gate of the base he was spying on. As he zooms in on a guard waving a truck through the gate, Al suddenly notices something. He sees that the guard at the front of the complex is the same as the worker that was unloading the secret cargo at the spaceport the other day.

"Whoa!" Al gasps.

"What is it?" Bernie asks the frozen Alfred. "Hey? Al?"

"We found it! We found it, Bernie!" Al cheers.

"What a coincidence!" Ruby cried out in a rare bout of sarcasm.

"Again, plot convenience." Blake pointed out.

Later in the evening, Bernie and Al are snooping around the base's fence, before climbing over it.

"Just because it was the same guy, Al, doesn't mean it's the Feddie base, alright?" Bernie skeptically notes.

"Yeah, but, why don't we get closer and check it out?" counters Al.

"How, exactly?" Bernie inquires.

"Underground!" Al says back.

"Underground?" echoes Bernie.

"Yeah! We'll use the Colony Corporation's service tunnels!" answers Alfred.

The two of them then start to climb down a slope leading into the industrial area, using a rope fastened to the chain-link fence they just climbed over.

Down at the locked door leading into the service tunnels, Bernie puts a small box over the numerical coded keypad. After a few seconds, it unscrambles the code and unlocks the door.

"Alright!" Al cheers as he pulls open the metal door.

Al turns on a flashlight and shines it down the hall. Then, pointing it to the nearby wall, Bernie and Al see a sign that reads "2-27".

"If this is 2-27, then it's about two hundred meters ahead." Bernie notes, looking at a map. Turning to Al, he quips, "Looks like this'll be easy."

And so they start to walk down the service tunnels. At some point during the journey, Al yells out, "Bernie, hurry up!"

"Calm down!" Bernie yells back.

Further down the dark metal tunnel, Al asks, "Isn't it around here?"

"Should be a little further ahead." Bernie says.

As soon as he says that, he and Al stop in their tracks. A large red bulkhead has sealed off the rest of the way down the corridor.

"Aw man!" Al whines. "Look, it's blocked!"

Bernie walks up to the bulkhead to investigate it further.

"Can you open it?" asks Al.

"That's funny," Bernie says, "I can't find a switch."

"Finally the Federation has good security…" Ironwood grumbled.

Stepping back from the large metal seal, Bernie turns to Al. "I have a good idea. Let's try it from the west side."

"Alright" Al agrees.

The next sweeping cut shows Al and Bernie faced with a similar looking seal, even though they approached the area from a different tunnel.

"Okay, wrong…" Bernie mutters.

Another cut, and Bernie is trying to pull open another bulkhead, presumably down another service tunnel.

"I got it!" Bernie says, looking at Al and tapping his fist on the deal.

"What?" Al questions.

"This block is the only one with new shutters installed!" Bernie poses. "And what do they have in there that they don't want us to see?"

"It could be the cargo inside there, right?" Al says enthusiastically.

"Bingo." smirks Bernie.

"That's always the thing about increased security," noticed Blake. "It only broadcasts that you have something valuable to hide."

"Yeah, you might as well just be advertising a valuable mark." Roman added.

Blake visibly bristled at the idea of having shared experience with someone like Roman Torchwick. But, even she had to admit internally that her past business with the White Fang was as equally repulsive as Roman currently was.

Now walking back through the tunnels, Al shoves his hands dejectedly into his jacket pockets.

"Ah, cheer up, Al!" Bernie says.

"We have the base right here, and we can't get to the container!" Al complains.

"Right." Bernie agrees. "…But, we've done more than enough to find it. Even if it is just a coincidence, this is a major breakthrough! The captain's sure gonna love this! …Huh?"

During his talking, Bernie didn't notice Al slip away from the side of him.

Shining the flashlight on Al, he sees him digging around inside a small storage panel. "Al, what're you up to?" asks Bernie.

Al comes back up, chuckling inside the space helmet that he found. Suddenly, Bernie gets what Al was looking for, and understands what they can do.

Now in the dead quiet outer space, Bernie and Al are both clad in full space suits. They're both standing on a balcony that's hanging off of the outside of the colony's walls. Across the way is a similar balcony, the one that they need to reach.

"Forget about it, Al!" scolds Bernie. "It's too dangerous!"

"No!" Al pouts back.

"You lil' idiot, you can get killed!"

"I'm fine!"

Having had enough of Al's arguing, Bernie grabs Al and holds him over the edge, as if he's threatening to drop him into the void of space. Al flails around in panic.

Pulling Al back up, Bernie snidely asks, "Were you fine just now?"

"No problem!' Al bites back, his pride swelling. "You're the one who's acting scared, Bernie! I bet you're a big coward outside your mobile suit!"

"Oh, just shut up, Al," Weiss hissed, her patience with him wearing ice-thin. How appropriate, coming from her.

Bernie growls inside his helmet, before attacking a nearby rope to the belt of his space suit.

"Okay, our target is that projection over there." Bernie formulates. "Once I'm there, you'll come across the wire. You got it?"

"Uh-huh." Al nods.

Bernie takes off from the platform using the small thrusters on the back of his space suit. The cable that he's taking across dangles behind him from his waist, with Al holding onto the other end. With one last big boost, Bernie manages to make it onto the opposite platform.

Al attaches his own suit to the line and begins to thrust across it. However, he keeps on the thrusters a little too long, due to marveling at the starscape in front of him. Bernie flags him to slow down, but Al is going too fast to stop. He bumps into Bernie, nearly sending them off the platform and into the vast emptiness of space. Only Bernie grabbing onto the platform at the last second saves them.

"Geez, that would be scary to anybody…" shivered Ruby.

"At least we're not in space." Yang said.

"Well, technically we are. Remnant is in space, so we are too, if you think about it." explained Jaune. "Right, Weiss?"

Weiss was too busy rubbing her temples at Al's stupidity to respond in any capacity.

Once back inside, Bernie has Al stand on his shoulders, and look through an open hatch.

"The coast is clear." Al reports before climbing through the hatch.

"Take off your space suit and hand it down." Bernie whispers.

"Right," Al whispers back, quickly stripping off his suit and handing it to Bernie.

Al starts to walk down the hallway, his camera out and ready to take photo evidence of the cargo they're looking for. Stopping at a vent, Al hears something.

"It sounds like machinery!" he notes, before climbing into the vent.

"Al, no!" Bernie yells at him, to no avail. Climbing out of the hatch, Bernie runs over to the vent. However, he's too large to squeeze into the vent. "Al, come back! You'll get caught!"

Al exits the vent in a power closet. As he approaches the door, he hears two members of the Federal Forces chat as they walk by the room. Once they pass, Al cracks open the door a bit and peeks through.

"Those were Federation soldiers!" he thinks to himself.

"You know what?" Ironwood sighed. "Rescind what I said about security earlier."

Sneaking silently down the base's hallways, Al notices light shining through a vent above a vending machine. Hosting himself up to get a better look, Al looks through the vent. There, he sees the cargo that the Cyclops Team was sent to capture or destroy all along: the fully assembled RX-78NT-1 "Alex".

Poking his camera through the opening, Al begins to take as many pictures of the mobile suit as he can. However, he doesn't pay enough attention to hear two Federal Forces guards walk down the hallway, idly chatting about something.

The episode ends as Al keeps on taking pictures, unaware of the approaching threat.

Once more, the lights along the theater's ceiling brightened, allowing the brief discussion between episodes to begin again.

"I can't that I approve of either army's actions here." started Winter.

"It must be due to how bad the war must be getting." Ironwood replied. "Still, it does leave a bad taste in my mouth…"

"And you're one to talk, General." Roman sneered. "I know you've got enough dirt to make a mountain."

"And how would you know that?" challenged Ironwood.

Roman huffed, "I have my sources."

"Right. Of course you do." Ironwood sarcastically replied. "You're as disgusting as your cheap cigars."

Neo's Scroll sounded out of nowhere, "He's right, they are cheap."

Ironwood had a satisfied smirk on his face as everyone else snickered. Roman frustratedly put out the smoldering butt of his cigar on the chair's arm and looked Neo directly in her mismatched eyes.

"Hey, don't say that in front of them!" he hissed at her. "I have a reputation to keep!"

Neo merely gave a small chuckle in response, brushing off Roman's concerns. The look in her eyes was as icy cold as her namesake. As long as she had an opportunity, Neo didn't mind making fun of anyone at their expense. That was the way of the ice cream girl.

"Hah! Suck it, Roman!" Yang jeered.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Roman grumbled. "Hey voice guy, just start the episode already."

"But we haven't even talked about it yet!" Jaune protested.

"You think I give a shit? Roll it." spat Roman. He gestured right at the screen, as if he had control over it.

Before anyone else could protest, the lights began to dim, just at the moment they went back to their brightest light setting. Everyone else couldn't help but be a little surprised that Roman's wish was seemingly obeyed. Even Roman looked a little surprised that it worked. But, considering the situation everyone was in, nobody could really argue against it. Instead, everyone just grumbled and turned back to face the screen as the next episode started.

XXX

And there you have it, another episode down! Also, sorry about skipping over post-episode reactions, but to be honest there's no way everyone else other than Neo would be outright hostile to Roman. Of course this would happen. I hope the commentary during the episodes makes up for it, at least.

And so, with this chapter done, this has been The Draigg, and I'm signing off for now!