Lifted Chapter Four
Plan Girl
Cr00cy, how do schedules work again?
Cr00cy: People use schedules? o.O
PS: I know this is late, but between moving, work, holidays, and a Muay Thai tournament I've got coming up in April...you're just going to have to bear with me.
I've had a lot of time to think over the past few hours. Real self-reflection type shit.
One of the biggest things that I've wondered about is when I started to screw up Jaune's life by drawing him into my bullshit. Maybe it was the day I met him. Maybe it was when I decided to teach him how to steal. But if I had to point to one event, this whole SDC-heist abortion would probably be it.
I've also been wondering about when I'm going to run out of air a lot.
Fun times.
Whatever my complaints with Torchwick might be, I can't argue that the guy didn't set us up with good intel. The job in question was stealing a truckload of Dust from the SDC branch in Vale. Now, the simplest way to do it would be to hit one of the trucks as they were rolling through town on one of the routes that Roman had highlighted for us. The problem was, the SDC knew that too. Ever since Roman and his boys had been knocking over Dust stores like it was going out of style, the SDC had really started stepping up its game on protecting its most vulnerable assets.
The trucks now alternated routes randomly, carried around loads of Atlesian Knights, had chase cars, and supposedly there was a quick response force of bullheads ready to go somewhere in the city. Long story short, going after a Dust truck on the go was a bad idea unless you felt like getting into a big ole gun fight in the middle of Vale, which if you've been paying attention, you'll know is the last thing on my to do list.
Lucky for us, we didn't have to chase down a truck to get to the SDC's Dust. We were going to go straight through their front door. The plan was simple, head to the SDC's import facility at the docks and find a driver that I could impersonate with my Semblance before driving one of their trucks, with all the extra goodies disabled, straight out of the front gate. The only problems were getting close enough to the facility to pick a guy, getting that guy alone, and then only encountering one person at a time till I got to the truck.
See? Simple stuff.
Which brings us to where we are now, hiding behind one of the many, many walls of shipping containers at the docks, staring at the high chain link fence surrounding the SDC facility, our thumbs firmly up our asses.
Jaune looked about like I felt, eyes constantly darting back and forth, searching for any sign of a reason to bolt. I didn't exactly feel great about dragging him into a life - ok, let's be fair - a day of crime, but I was pretty well screwed without him. Neo certainly wasn't offering up any solutions, laying on her back on top of one of the shipping containers, kicking her feet lazily and texting away on her scroll.
"You mind helping out, Lolita?" I hissed up at her, banging on the side of the container. I got a firmly raised middle finger in response.
"Don't do that." Jaune said, shooting me a disapproving look.
"Wait, you're defending her!?" I growled back. "Jaune, she dropped you like an hour ago. You two have some kind of secret bonding session while I wasn't looking?"
He sighed, "the past is the past-"
"It was an hour ago!"
He rolled his eyes in that way that he knew bothered me and continued. "Look, there's only the three of us out here, right? So we might as well try to work together."
"Cool, she look like she's in the helping mood to you?" I said, jerking a thumb back towards our partner.
"Well, we could try not antagonizing her." He snapped.
"By all means, Jaune, go ahead and ask her real nicely." I mocked, not feeling particularly proud at the moment, but happy to argue as a distraction. "Maybe she'll see the power of friendship and decided to hop on down and help us."
He shot me a look before tilting his head up towards the kicking feet and clearing his throat. "Uh, Ms. Neo?"
The kicking stopped.
Looking up towards the miniature psycho, I watched her sit up and raise an eyebrow at Jaune.
He coughed. "Uh, not miss?"
She gave him a firm thumbs down.
"Sorry, is Neo ok?" He waited for her to nod before continuing. "Could you, um...could you please come down here for a second?"
To my eternal shock, the girl shrugged and hopped down, landing right in front of Jaune and leaning waaaayyyy farther into his personal space than strictly necessary, making him lean back so far he was almost tripping over himself. I would have done something about it, but here's the thing…
You only have to put my head through a bar once for me to learn my lesson. Pavlov's dog and all that.
Instead, when Jaune looked to me for help, I shot him a thumbs up and mouthed, 'you're doing great.' Hey, it's the thought that counts. Plus, Jaune brought this shit on himself.
The dummy swallowed and cleared his throat. "Well, you see, the thing is...this is kind of our first time doing this sort of thing…"
The Lolita complex smirked and nodded in mock sympathy. How do I know it was mocking? Cause it was Neo. Listen, you're just have to believe me on this one.
Jaune continued, undeterred. "And it just seems like you're more experienced with this type of thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that!" He quickly amended.
Gods, Jaune, can you not hear it?
Neo's smirk widened into a grin as she patted his arm comfortingly. Jaune let out a sigh of relief and smiled weakly.
"It's just...we're a little bit nervous, and we wanted to see if you wanted to join us. You know, show us the ropes a little bit."
The imp made an 'O" with her mouth and turned towards me as I struggled to keep from face-palming. Unfortunately, Jaune wasn't done.
"Just give us some pointers to make sure that everything goes smooth and nobody gets hurt."
Neo snorted silently, which I assure you looks as weird as it sounds...or doesn't sound...fuck it. Anyway, she fought her giggle fit down and started tapping her finger against her chin, making a show of considering his request. Finally, she shrugged and nodded. Jaune practically jumped for joy.
"Really!?" He coughed. "I mean, that's great! Thank you so much, Neo!"
The assassin held up a hand to stop him and then held up one finger. Jaune cocked his head to the side before his eyes widened in understanding.
"Oh, you want something in return!"
The girl clapped happily in return.
"Sure! Anything! Just tell us what it is!"
Neo's smirk returned as she spun on her heel to face me, a wicked gleam in her eye. Jaune looked back and forth between us for a moment before taking a guess.
"You want something from Em?"
The tri-colored bitch made a show of wagging her finger and silently chastising someone, before bringing both her hands to her chest and gasping in mock pain, then pointing back to me. I have no idea what the fuck she was talking about, but apparently Jaune speaks crazy chick.
I can already hear you starting in on the joke by the way. 'But Em, what does that say about you then?' Har har, you're a real comedian.
Go fuck yourself.
"Em hurt your feelings?" He tried. Neo nodded pitifully and put on her best puppy dog face. I'm not going to lie, it was decent. Seven out of ten. Mine's better for the record.
She pointed to me again and then up to her ear.
"Oh!" He said excitedly, "you want her to apologize!"
Yeah, fuck that.
The imp nodded enthusiastically and went back to moping. Jaune raised an eyebrow and motioned held out a hand towards me.
"Well, Em?"
"Fuck that." I responded politically.
The girl sprung into mock tears and grasped onto Jaune's arm, hugging it tightly as she buried her face in his sleeve. Somehow, someway, Jaune had the balls to shoot me a disgusted look.
"Em! Be nice!"
"Be nice!? Jaune, I'm going to have to circle back to the whole 'she beat the shit out of you thing-'"
He scoffed. "You're exaggerating."
"Yeah? Is there or is there not a Jaune shaped imprint on the bar back at the Club?"
He frowned at that. Ha! I had him now! He looked down at the little monster with accusing eyes. She stuck out her bottom lip in what I'd call a way too obvious move and mouthed, 'sorry,' before burying her face in his arm again.
"I think she's sorry."
Goddammit Jaune.
"She's really not."
He just rolled his eyes and looked at me like I was being the unreasonable one. "Em, can we not? Just for today? You know, the day where we're about to commit a crime?"
I opened my mouth to say something smart, but he beat me to it.
"Look, it's my fault we're in this mess, and I just want to make sure that we're as safe as possible. Is saying sorry really too much to ask? For me?" Jaune then proceeded to give me his puppy dog eyes, which I have to say, are pretty damn good. Nine out of ten for sure.
I broke like the weak ass bitch I am.
I groaned just to make a show of it and stared down into all too proud dichromatic eyes. "Neo, I'm…" The words caught in my throat. Maidens, but this was hard. Do people do this on a regular basis? I swallowed and pushed forward. "I'm...sorry."
The tip of Neo's tongue peeking out from between her lips immediately made me regret it. Jaune however, ate that shit up, smile beaming as he patted the little harpy on her head.
"See, Em? Was that so hard?"
Yes.
"Nah, not at all." I managed to hiss out without going for my pistol. "Hey, do you think that little miss Vale's Most Wanted could help us out now? You know, now that we've addressed her deep seated emotional wounds of being called mean names?"
He shot me an entirely unjustified warning look before glancing down at the mini monster.
"Neo, could you please help us?"
To her credit, the psycho just nodded happily and disappeared. No, you didn't mishear me. She didn't move really fast, she didn't throw down a smoke bomb like the hero in one of Jaune's comic books, she didn't even have the courtesy to zap out in a flash of light.
She just fucking disappeared.
I shared my concerns about the fabric of reality with Jaune.
"What the fuck was that!?"
"I don't know!" He shouted back. "You're the Semblance person, why don't you know!?"
"You ever see me disa-fucking-ppear!? Then why would I know!?"
"Then why'd you ask me!?" He shot back, which left me without a retort.
Jaune can be surprisingly quick on the draw with his arguments from time to time. Or maybe it says something more about me that he's able to catch me on the back foot. Either way, we weren't waiting for long, because just as suddenly as she disappeared, Neo popped back into existence. Only this time, she had a passenger.
She was holding a very unconscious SDC guard lazily by the collar, the poor man half dragging on the ground due to the height difference. That is, until she dropped him completely and shot her hands out to the side and grinned, clearly expecting to be praised for her contribution. I winced a little bit at the thud the guy's helmet made when it bounced off the ground. Jaune recovered a little faster than I did.
"Uh...great job, Neo." He said slowly, looking at the little demon warily, like you would a dog that has a habit of biting. Or, you know, like a sane person should look at her. Fucking finally.
Neo just smiled wider and took an over dramatic bow, making sure to make eye contact with me at the bottom and wink.
What a bitch.
"Cool, now we have our, uh...volunteer for me to impersonate." I said, walking over and flipping the man in question over, eyes pouring over him to memorize as many details as possible to fool his buddies. This is both easier and harder than it sounds. On one hand, there's so many things to take into account - height, weight, hair and eye color, scars, clothing, jewelry, and all the other things that make you you. I have to take those into account and copy them closely enough that I can sell it to people that know you. What's worse, I often have to do it on the fly, which is a bitch. On the other hand, people are really, really unobservant. Like, shockingly so. You ever wonder why police like using cameras more than taking eyewitness accounts? It's because people will fuck up every possible detail that you give them a chance to - how long something lasted, what a guy looked like, what kind of car that he was driving. However, that didn't help me out on one key detail that I figured I'd probably need.
I had no idea what this guy sounded like.
I looked up at Neo, staring back down at me like she was waiting for me to do the thing, and realized that I wouldn't be getting much help in that department from her. I let out a long sigh, it looked like we'd need a pretty big distraction if I was going to pull off my part of the deal. I swallowed my pride and tried to keep my voice as even as possible.
"Hey, Neo, you think that you might be able to help us…" I trailed off as the girl made her way back over to the shipping container that she'd been laying on top of, vaulted up on it and laid herself out again. "Or not, that's cool too." I grumbled, shooting Jaune a look somewhere between 'I told you so' and 'I hate this bitch.' His frown said that he picked up on it. He's pretty good at that, what with the seven sisters and all.
Jaune sighed and looked back up at the monster. "Um, Neo? You, uh, coming back down?"
The bitch propped herself up on one elbow and gave an exaggerated yawn, making a show of blinking at him tiredly.
"Oh, you're tired, huh?" He asked slowly.
Sure she was.
The girl nodded once and smiled happily, clearly pleased that Jaune was playing into her bullshit.
"Do you think that you might be able to put off a nap till we're done here?" He pressed.
She hummed silently as she tapped her finger against her lips, seeming to consider the proposition. She took long enough that I actually started to think that maybe Jaune's crazy chick whisperer abilities were going to pull through for us again, before she shook her head once and flopped back down. Super.
I rolled my eyes. "Well, the psycho turned out to be unreliable. Who could have possibly seen this- fuck!" I yelped as a metal washer beaned me in the head. I followed its path up to a pissy looking Neo, who glared at me and pointed down at the unconscious guard at my feet.
"Yeah, yeah, you got one guy. Great work. Guess we'll just handle the other two dozen on our own." I mocked.
Neo flipped me the bird and laid back down. Jaune shot me an exasperated look, but I was several steps past done with the little monster at this point. This did however leave us in an awkward position. I could probably bullshit my way past one guard at a time, but there was no way I was going to be able to fool the teams of them patrolling the fence line. I looked back to Jaune.
"Well, any bright ideas, smooth talker?"
He scoffed. "I did the last thing!" He grunted as a washer bounced off his head. "Ok, Neo did the last thing. It's your turn to think of something."
I groaned. "Jaune, I'm not the plan girl. I'm the fly by the seat of your pants girl. You're the plan girl."
He rolled his eyes. "Gee, thanks."
"You're welcome."
He sighed. "Em, I don't have anything. The last plan I put together got us into a brawl with Torchwick and launched off a cliff."
"And the last one I tried got both our head planted into a bar and here." I said, spreading my arms wide. "Your move, plan girl."
Jaune then proceeded to mutter some very un-friend-like phrases at my expense, but seeing as I definitely needed his help, I decided to let them go. I'm nice like that.
He started pacing back and forth, one of his favorite thinking past times, and muttering and scowling, one of his other favorite thinking past times. I decided to let him do his thing, and put myself to use thinking about other important matters. Like, if I could use my Semblance to chuck one of those washers back at Neo and get away with it. I debated the merits of it back and forth for a while, alternating between chickening out and calling myself a bitch for chickening out. I was about halfway through reaching for the one that had pegged me in the head when Jaune snapped his fingers perked up.
"I got it!"
Eh, probably for the best.
"Yeah?"
He nodded. "It's a little weird, but I think it just might work." Well, that was a little concerning, but then again - weird was getting strangely normal.
"Well, don't keep a girl in suspense, what you got?" I pressed, more than a little excited. Jaune's plans were usually a little off, but they somehow managed to come together in the end.
"Ok, but I've got a question for you first."
"Shoot."
I'll never know how he said this next part with a straight face.
"Do you think I can pass for a faunus?"
We were so fucked.
Jaune's plan was simple, and I mean that both in that it was easy to understand and that in that it was clearly dumb.
Like, powerfully dumb.
Like, Neo had sat up and stared at the boy with an open mouth levels of dumb.
He was going to hang out on the perimeter of the compound, just out of view of the majority of the guards, then have me use my Semblance to convince one of the few guards that would be able to see him that he was wearing a White Fang mask. Then he'd take off running with most of the guards following him. I, dressed up in the unconscious guard's clothes, would go in the front gate and make my way to the Dust trucks.
There were just so many things that could go wrong. I mean, the guards might not even chase him. They might get close enough to ID him, in which case Jaune would become a wanted criminal, and this whole thing would be for nothing. Worse still, they might catch him, and while he technically hadn't done anything wrong, I hear the SDC wasn't too hot on the whole 'innocent until proven guilty' thing.
It was dumb. It was reckless. It was dangerous.
It was also the only plan that we had, so here I am, hiding behind a shipping container and waiting to help Jaune commit suicide. Sure enough though, a security guard eventually rounded the section of fence that would give him a clear line of sight on Jaune, and I focused in on him, feeling the familiar tingling sensation that came along with activating my Semblance. I watched as the man's eyes widened with shock when he locked in on Jaune, just barely peeking out from behind one of the walls of metal shipping containers surrounding the facility.
"Hey you!"
Jaune didn't wait around, ducking back behind the containers and taking off. I honestly hoped for a second that the guy would just give up or shrug it off, and we could just come up with a new plan. Or just leave altogether.
"Jimmy! Taylor! We got Fang!" The guard shouted, sprinting in the direction that Jaune had gone, half a dozen others at his heels.
Well, so much for that.
I waited till the chaos was in full effect and there was only a single guard standing by the gate before starting to jog towards it. The uniform would help me blend in at a distance, but I'd only be able to fool one person face to face at a time. Luckily, the guy that was standing guard at the gate didn't look too sharp. In fact, as I drew closer, I began to think the reason he'd stayed behind had less to do with protecting the facility, and more to do with how the buttons of his uniform were straining against his massive belly. I mentally reminded myself of the guard I was supposed to be impersonating and waved the guy down, noting the name on his badge.
"Tom! I need in!" I said in my best deep voice. Which apparently wasn't very good, because he cocked his head to the side a stared.
"Bill, you ok?"
"Laryngitis." I led. "That guy is getting away!"
The portly man shook his head dumbly and pointed. "Went that way…"
I grunted a big manly grunt to show how frustrated I was. "I know, but if I can grab a vehicle, I might be able to cut him off on the street." The big man's eyes lit up with understanding.
"Yeah, that makes sense…" He said, nodding.
"Yeah, so you mind letting me through?"
"Shit, sorry!" He apologized, stepping aside and letting me scan the key card that I'd stolen off his sleepy friend on the electronic lock. Which, to my great relief, beeped and flashed green before unlocking with a click. I pushed through a starting running through the gate, only turning around long enough to ask.
"Tom, where are the trucks?"
The man pointed absentmindedly, and I tore off again before he had the chance to think too hard about why I didn't know that already. Adrenaline is a great thing by itself, but what I like most about it is that it gives you a little bit of wiggle room while people are trying to process what's going on around them. Once I rounded the corner that Tom pointed me down, things were surprisingly easy. Signs with pictures of shipping trucks and arrows started popping up, which didn't take a genius to figure out. Plus, no one really bothered to stop me as I moved swiftly and purposefully towards the loading docks thanks to the stolen uniform. The alarms that kicked off a few minutes later certainly didn't hurt either.
For all the hoaky advice that Papa Arc gives, I will say that 'all you need is confidence' is at least somewhat accurate. You walk into a place and you act like you're supposed to be there, and surprisingly few people will have the balls to stop you. Human psychology is a weird thing.
Soon enough I hit the loading docks themselves and the small fleet of eighteen wheelers backed up to the loading facility. Now I just had to figure out which ones were loaded with security bots and which ones were just plain loaded. I bit my lip and tried to figure out where to start, when a voice broke me from my thoughts.
"Bill?"
My eyes snapped over to a brown haired, bearded man in oil soaked coveralls, a wrench hanging loosely from his right hand. Well, I suppose that I could just ask.
"Hey man, I got to move the trucks that aren't loaded with droids yet!" I shouted excitedly.
He scowled in confusion. "What? Why?"
Shit, I might have gone too far on that one. Think brain, think!
"We, uh, don't want them all in one place in case the Fang raid this place. They can't take it all at once." I tried. It seemed like a bullshit answer, but one that was complex enough that you'd have to stop and think about why it might be bullshit. He nodded slowly and grunted.
"Got it."
"Which one do you want me to take." I asked. I always find that it helps to give your mark a decision to make during your con. It gives them something else to think about besides the fact that they're being conned. What's more, it makes them feel important, and if there's one thing people love, it's feeling important.
"Number seven, very end of the line." He answered quickly, pointing down the line of trucks. "Careful, her tires are running a little low."
"Appreciate it!" I clapped him on the shoulder and nodded in thanks, which made him swell up with pride, before taking off down the line.
And that ladies and gentlemen, is how you close a con. You make them feel good about the fact that they've been conned. The guy riding a temporary confidence high is going to be a lot slower to pick up on what's happened than the one you leave asking questions.
I pulled up next to truck number seven and flung open its driver's side door, jumping into the seat. I began frantically searching the cab for the keys, not too interested in seeing how long it'd take for someone to start asking why I was fumbling around in one of the trucks. Frustingly enough, I found them in the last place I looked, which was also the most obvious. Tucked under the sun visor. I sighed as I jammed them into the ignition and turned, listening to the engine rumble to life.
Here was the hard part, I had to drive the truck through the gate, a suspicious action in and of itself, while doing so slowly enough not to draw even more suspicion by seeming like I was racing somewhere. I pulled out of the docks as smoothly as I could, briefly waving to the mechanic that had pointed me to the truck to keep up the ruse as long as possible, before turning onto the main road of the facility and angling towards the gate. I pulled the cap of the uniform as low as I could to obscure my face and pressed on, receiving more than a few confused looks from the other guards running around the base. Nobody tried to stop me though, seemingly either too busy with their own task or willing to shrug me off once they saw the uniform. For my part, I just thanked whatever gods there may be and pushed just a little harder on the gas as the gate came into view, Tim still standing dutifully by. I shot him a thumbs up as the gates opened up, apparently sensing the truck somehow, and I began to pull through. He held up a plump thumb in return and shouted,
"Go get him, Bill!"
I had to fight pretty hard not to burst out laughing at that one as I barreled by, petal now steadily descending towards the metal as I cleared the gates of the SDC compound. I shot down the road leading through the rows of shipping containers, frantically looking for some sign of Jaune as I drove towards the main road, our meeting spot if he made it that far.
'But Em, what about Neo?' You ask.
What about her?
I'd almost reached the main road with no sign of Jaune, my heart beating faster and faster as the panicked thoughts of something having happened to him started to build, when a very feminine scream pierced the air in the cab from the passenger's seat as Jaune popped into existence next to me.
I nearly had a fucking heart attack.
The sense of relief and warmth that washed over me at seeing him safe was only slightly dampened by seeing the little multi-colored demon sitting in his lap, looking up at the screaming blond with annoyance.
"Jaune, you're ok!" I shouted, trying to calm the boy down. He stopped yelling, but his breathing still came fast and swallow as his eyes darted around the cab.
"Did we-" he swallowed, "did we make it?" He asked as we reached the edge of the highway and I started to pull on, gradually accelerating as we joined the flow of traffic.
I slapped his arm in excitement. "You bet your ass we did! All thanks to your plan! We'll make a real criminal out of you yet!"
Jaune seemed significantly less pumped about it than I did, slowly sinking down into his seat and burying his face in his hands as he groaned, Neo gently patting his head. I knew that I should probably feel the same way, relieved that we'd made it, afraid that we'd still get caught, promising myself that I'd never do anything like that again, but as we gradually started to disappear into the flow of traffic and put more and more distance between us and the SDC, all I could think about was…
How much goddamn fun I was having.
Memory Lane
After our little run in with Johnny Law, and Mamma Arc more importantly, we decided that we probably needed to lay low for awhile.
To fill our time until the next scam, Jaune decided that I should meet some of the mark- friends, Jaune decided that I should make some friends.
It went about as well as you'd expect.
"Em, this is my friend, Cyan." Jaune announced proudly, gesturing to the scraggly looking brown haired boy he'd dragged over to me. Jaune had proven that he wasn't a snitch, so I figured I should be supportive and give this kid a chance, really try to relate to him.
"You any good at cards? Dice?"
Nailed it.
"Uhhh," Cyan articulated. I decided that we probably wouldn't have Cyan doing any of the talking for us. Jaune coughed and jabbed me with an elbow, which I thought was pretty rude. Also ill advised, I had stolen one of the Arc's steak knives earlier that morning...just in case. Still, I decided to try again for his sake.
"I'm Em, it's, uh, nice to meet you and stuff, I guess." I said, then held out a hand after Jaune poked me again. He should really stop doing that, mine was sharper.
"Hi, I'm Cyan." The kid replied, shaking my hand and squeezing too tight in that way that little boys do when they're trying to figure out how to be normal people. Some never figure it out, like Jaune. A lot of people looking to get stabbed today. "I'm not great at any dice games, but I like Go Fish." He chirped happily.
"What's Go Fish?"
He cocked his head to the side. "Everybody knows about Go Fish."
"Yeah? I don't"
"It's a card game." He explained.
"How do you play?"
"You guess what cards the other person has."
"Oh, you mean like Poker?"
"Like what?" He asked, perplexed.
"Like Blackjack?"
"What's a Blackjack? Is it like jacks?"
I sighed. "Whatever, when do you bet?"
He stared at me dumbly. "Bet what?"
"Money. When do we bet while we're playing to game?" I said slowly, trying to stop my hand from trailing down towards the knife.
He shook his head and looked at me like I was the dumb one. "There's no money."
I let out a groan of frustration. "Then why are we playing?!"
"Because it's fun!" He snapped.
"It's not fun, it's dumb!" I shot back.
"You're dumb!" He shouted, which was not a particularly bright comeback, but not nearly as dumb as what came next.
I shrugged and turned to Jaune. "You have any friends that aren't idiots?"
That's when Cyan decided to shove me, and we all learned a few things about each other. Cyan learned that I wasn't about that life when the knife popped out. I learned that Jaune was a lot quicker than I thought he was with the way he snatched up my wrist and started wrestling me for said knife. Jaune presumably learned that he should start watching me a little more closely in the mornings.
Good times all around.
And to be fair to Cyan, I learned that he was pretty cool, because he ended up forgiving me...eventually.
Meeting the Unit
The two grey men that had come and seized Crooc and myself guided us through the bleak and broken landscape of the warzone, the reverberations of the explosions rattling our teeth and shaking us to our core. I'm not ashamed to say that I continued to shake, even in the moments where there were no explosions to rock us. They led us down rickety wooden steps and into the trenches, where the last hints of sunlight seemed to become a distant memory. The mud and muck of the trench floor grabbed at our boots, threatening to tear them from our feet. We twisted and turned in the seemingly endless corridors until I had lost all sense of where we were and from whence we'd come.
Eventually, our terrible march came to an end and the men in grey shoved us forward into a small open space cut into the trench. We stood before a group of ragged and battered men, their eyes downcast and their shoulders bearing the weight of pain beyond their years. There was not a shred of hope left among them, but some did spark in my heart when my eyes fell on a few familiar faces.
"Demy! Burk! You're alive! Thank the gods!" I cried, running forth and embracing the tired men along with Crooc.
"You made it!" Demy said, new life in his voice. "We'd thought you both lost!"
"And us you." I replied, clasping him on the shoulder and looking around. "What is this place?"
He and Burk just shrugged. "We're in a unit called Topaz company, but besides that we're not really sure. Everyone here seems miserable though. Everyday is a battle that seems pointless! There are no winners or losers, just…" He looked to Burk, who shook his head and supplied- "madness."
"Is there no one here that is sane?" I asked, exasperated.
Burk pointed to a man sat against the wall, cleaning his rifle. "Sgt Light over there has been here the longest. He's a good man, but a tired one." Light raised his hand in greeting and started to rise to his feet before an explosion, closer than any before, knocked us all from our feet. I stumbled back up with the help of Crooc, only to be met with the most terrible sight yet, A tall dark man with a crazed look in his eyes and a wide, fierce grin on his face.
"Welcome to the war, maggots! My name is Atic, but you'll be calling me Captain Fan!" He gestured to one of the broken men lining the wall. "Get them weapons!"
I shook my head. "We don't war, good sir, we're ship builders."
He laughed. "You do now, maggot! The enemy is preparing to charge!"
"But who's the enemy?" I questioned.
He scoffed. "Everyone that doesn't agree with us, of course." And then there was no more time for questions, for rifles were being pressed into our hands and we were being pressed towards the wall.
