Chapter 33


The streets, having been given redundant heating units, were clear of snow and thus made for excellent running surfaces. And this one was no exception.

Bearing on its ice crusted surface the name "Main Street", the sign greeted Mr. S as he ran apace, notifying him of his present location as he passed it. He hardly noticed it, what with the thundering rain that now poured about him, drenching the land in a bath so cool that Mr. S was left shivering underneath it. And, holy shit, was "cold" a gracious understatement when talking about Atas rains. He'd almost died when he first felt the light patters that had started it, only getting over it when he remembered that he'd actually die if he didn't run. He'd been running in such a condition for several minutes at this point, perhaps ten, and he was… really out of breath. He was almost sorry that the hunters - who's intermittent combats sparked violently in the distance behind him as the two groups sparred, separated, weighed each other, and then closed in again in order to lightly fence before, once again, separating - hadn't reached him yet. Almost. The running combat was a rather slow affair, really, which never ceased to not bore Mr. S, sending hot blood spiking into his shivering body whenever he imagined that they might be closing in on him.

The hunters, in fact, were not anywhere close to Mr. S. Schwarz, having written him off as dead, hardly looked at his location tracker after she'd noted his initial location, not expecting it to move and having hardly noticing its glacial migration across the track map as Mr. S ran for his life. So, she circled around, six guards flanking her in perfect repose as they moved across the rain-battered rooftops, seeming to float across the land, so brief were their irregular encounters with solid ground. Opposite them, Raven was a dark shadow with black hair waving in the speeding wind like a jagged banner; she mirrored Schwarz in the high distance, seeming opposed - with her relatively grey team - to the colorful sextet of guards that shadowed Schwarz, who herself was a parity of black against the seven colorful figures that streamed around Raven.

On the mean, they were about a half-mile apart, sometimes further and sometimes much, much closer.

Slowly the two groups danced around one another, decidedly opposing any mutual contact as they repelled and orbited around a common point which, over the course of their combat, roughly traced a path that led to Mr. S - or at least to his last known position. Twilight sparkles burst into existence beside Schwarz, heralding the hyper-fast stream of jagged stone and masonry that followed, shooting off in a deadly stream aimed at the opposition.

Raven was notable for her calm, hardly moving her sword as she parried the twelve pieces of rubble that stood any chance of hitting her, and standing out against the unregarded scrambling of the people behind her. Schwarz wasn't watching Raven anymore, not too closely. She'd seen enough of her during their earlier encounters and she'd thoroughly cataloged the monstrous ease with which the woman had been able to deflect Sky and Ochre's attacks, and she didn't care to stand in awe of her any longer. No, Schwarz was entertained with her analysis of Torchwick, the last person to have garnered the full focus of her attention during these brief bouts of combat they'd been thrown into. At this point, running beautifully through her mind, was a model of every character in this game, and Schwarz knew all the winning moves.

Torchwick was all but discountable, and the invisible girl, as she'd termed Neo, wouldn't be able to contend with her in an open fight; Schwarz deduced rapidly, letting her eyes flit across the enemy opposition for one last run through, and watching Raven even as she knew Raven, underneath that colorless mask of hers, was watching her. The rest of them were strong, too strong... to have come together naturally and still be this uncoordinated. Someone was behind this attack, who had forced or bribed their cooperation… but Schwarz would deal with that, later. For now, she resolved to take advantage of their main weakness, the rather numerous number of I's that made up this team.

Again Schwarz and her guard, in coordination with each other, and rather like the breathing of some giant animal, stepped off from another set of buildings just as they landed on them. They managed this feat casually, despite the rather large distances that separated them, and the rather different heights of the builds they'd chosen as springpads. The other team, Schwarz could see, was rather more haphazard, not armature, but lacking that sense which put the last of them into the air a quarter of a second before the first. A quarter of a second could mean a lot in a battle, Schwarz noted with a dark tendency, though not without another grim reminder to herself of the recent death.

She didn't focus on that, because Raven was there, focusing on her, focusing on her entire team with the same starting mentality that Schwarz had directed onto hers. And Schwarz could see, even through the curtains of rain, and not without some pride, that Raven was growing hesitant... less willing to engage in the mutual belligerency they'd contended to put each other through over the past several minutes. For, often, the battle was decided before it had begun, and Schwarz knew that she would be taking a victory. And, from the looks of it, Raven was thinking exactly the same thing.

Still, one question kept Schwarz back form rushing in: why had Raven engaged at all? After all, it wouldn't have taken any great effort on her part to leave this city, a portal home was trivial. Did she have some other purpose yet unfulfilled? Did she perhaps have some secret strategy, one which she concealed behind her act of hesitancy?

That second explanation, though more correct than the first, was disregarding one option… that Mr. S had survived.

Of course, it was preposterous to believe that Mr. Schnee could have survived such an event. Trapped in an alley with eight hunters and a sensor, no creature on Remnant who wasn't a maiden would have walked out alive.

And, perhaps that was correct, for, just two miles off to the north, Mr. S was running.

In the extreme focus she placed on observing Raven, on noticing all the weaknesses of the enemy, and all the opportunities placed before her, Schwarz did not, in all of her observations, notice the darkly colored spark that was Mr. S as he ran down Main Street - visible for just a moment in between the hill of buildings that stood, prominently, on either side of the walkway.

Rather, it might be more accurate to say that Schwarz didn't notice him first. No, that honor went to Raven who, to be fair, was actually looking for the man. Upon noticing him, Raven did not go chasing immediately after him, however. No, that would just be stupid. Why let the enemy know when you've found a mutual prize? Rather, she simply turned her head aside, and gave a nod.

Immediately, Erra took a position behind Emerald, placing a hand on the darker girl's shoulders just as Emerald swooped to a stop atop one of the buildings, skidding plaintedly across the rain-drenched rooftop and raising her arms into the air with an almost religious reverence of posturing as she started to glow.

Off in the near distance, Schwarz as well as the rest of her team would see, just off to their left, Mr. Schnee, running fast due east.

Of course, Schwarz did not immediately go off to chase after the figure. That would just be stupid, of course. Why let the enemy know when you've found a mutual prize. No, instead, she gestured out her hands in a stilling order, keeping any of her teammates from making that popular mistake, and, turning her head aside to look at them, nodded.

Immediately, the switched gear, slowly making some convincing argument in their movements that forced Raven and her team away from their current location, where they might have any chance of seeing the fleeing figure.

Yet, despite her outward calm, Schwarz was nearly screaming and crying at the same time. To think he might have been alive! The thought overshadowed everything in her mind. So happy was she, that she didn't even think to look at her tracker which, contrary to their popular belief, actually showed that Mr. S was on her right, moving north, at a paltry twelve miles per hour. And, of course, despite the curses she would later call upon herself, one must forgive Schwarz for this error. With almost any other human being, her training and stoic nature would have caught the trick immediately; however, with Mr. S, with whom she'd had a long and gray relationship that we shall recount later in the story, the matter of hope became something rather more difficult to set aside.

Of course he's still alive, she chided herself, burying her more sensible doubts before they could gain any strength. It makes perfect sense! Why else would they have stuck around here if they'd succeeded?

So, she moved east, and Raven, in mirror to her, moved West.

Raven, of course, recognized the move as a sign that her trick had worked, that Emerald's illusion had deceived the enemy group, so she was free to now go now, and rush after Mr. S, and kill him… right?

And, perhaps, a lesser hunter might have done so. But, of course, Raven was not a lesser hunter. For one can not rely simply on semblances to sell an illusion, one must be wise, and one must be cunning, able to use all the wit and charm at one's disposal, even if they do not come out of having an aura.

In this case, the gift Raven decided to employ was an old one: acting. So she circled around herself, pretending not to know where Mr. Schnee really was, so that Schwarz wouldn't catch on. In doing so, she let Schwarz think the illusion she saw was the real thing. Of course, in order to sell that illusion, Raven and the rest of her posse would have to play along with Schwarz's act, until they were in such a position as to be able to kill Mr. Schnee without Schwarz's interference. Make sense? Hope so, because Schwarz was thinking on much the same terms.

Because Schwarz, even though she knew, or rather, for perfectly understandable reasons, thought she knew that Mr. S was heading east, could not, by rushing off to support and guard him, allow her enemies to know that she knew where he was. For, by doing that, she would simply reveal his location to his enemies, and thereby do him more harm than good if she did this as a time when they were in a position to catch up to him before she could.

In summary, both sides were convinced they knew where Mr. S was, and both sides were equally motivated to get there, and neither side was willing to make a move to do so… not now, anyway, for that would be stupid.

Some have said that fights were like dances: two people working together to create a harmony of motion. The truth of that is still in debate.

What was in far less debate, however, was the proposition that fighting is, sometimes, like a work meeting: in that, everyone involved wants to leave, but everyone involved has to stick around for the customary five minutes until they allow themselves to do so.

This bought Mr. S some time, around five minutes in fact; and, in that time, when he noticed the lull in combat, and when his fears of its advance began to grow increasingly paranoid, he developed a plan.

And, just when he was in position to enact it, he noticed, by the rocketing flares that Raven had set off to hide their retreat, two hunters, barely like pin-pricks, flicking their way across the city like ravenous bullets in his direction.

That was terrifying. In fact, Mr. S decided right then that there was probably nothing more terrifying than seeing two hunters coming to kill you.

No warning, no ceremony, just death.

So, with spirited breath, he picked himself up, got into a good pace, and ran; but he ran with purpose, now that he'd developed a plan.

He had no hope of beating them in a race, of course. But he wouldn't have to, for his plan accounted for that.

You see, his plan was plain and simple. Now that he knew he was on main street, having just passed the ice crusted sign saying so, he was also aware, from the impromptu tour he'd given just fifteen minutes ago, that he was near the former Schnee Dust Palace. Or, rather, he was near the crater that now stood where the former Schnee Dust Palace once formerly stood. And that crater was the center of his plans.

You see, his plan was simple. He would run over to the crater, which, as he could now see, was now only several dozen yards ahead, and he would slide down it's inner surface down to its middle. There, he knew from studying the standard schematics of a Schnee dust palace, would be the main bunker door. In essence, this was the one feature that separated the vulnerable, upper sections of a palace, from the bunkered, protected, lower levels that held the majority of the dust store. And, this was also the one level, he hazarded to guess, that would have defined the limits that the explosion, as well as the resulting crater, reached.

So, there, once having slid to the bottom of it, he knew he would find lying, at the bottom of the crater, a thick, metal door lying on the ground and acting as a hatch to the inner recesses of the dust palace. There, he would crouch low and place his hand on the dust covered, though otherwise unharmed, surface of the door and, open sesame, he'd be in in a second! For the entire surface of the door could act as a fingerprint reader, and dust Stores - as interests of national security - were all, regardless of ownership, subject to be opened by the fingerprints of a short list of a few key figures…

And guess who was on that list! Yeah! Mr. Schnee! The dust man himself.

Yes!

Like all simple plans, this was idiot proof.

It was a confusing concoction of terrified elation that ran its way through Mr. S as he made his way to the dust crater, safe in the knowledge that he'd be able to reach the safety of the dust bunker before the dallying hunters could reach him.

Mr. S was not too-long confused, however, for he soon reached the edge of the crater and saw - instead of the empty bowl he'd expected - a small lake, who's roiling, rain battered, surface now reached half way up the crater's extent.

The dry - well, drier - parts of the crater were still covered in a web of abandoned construction equipment. And, much like the entire rest of the city had decided to do in the middle of this crisis, the workers had cleared out, leaving the pumps unmanned.

Mr. S, taking one look at said pumps, doubted they would be able to dredge the crater in the time he had. He weighed his options and counted his moments. Ten seconds, he gathered, looking down at the lake filled crater, he had about that long left to live if he didn't do something.

So, Mr. S decided to slide down the crater wall anyway, for want of anything else to do and hoping to come up with a new plan on the way.

As he slid down the crater, Mr. S noticed the particular difficulty he was having of it. The crater, now slick with water and melting snow, was jagged with exposed rocks and crushed ice, and - considering the blinding rain that crashed around him - it was a wonder to Mr. S he didn't fall flat on his face once during the entire, harrying ride down. It came as an even greater surprise when, rather deftly, he fell six feet down a precipitous cliff onto an unexpected flat spot, conducting a graceful stop onto his two feet.

Taking a moment to gather himself, he took in his surroundings. He was a quarter of the way down the crater wall, on a truck-sized stair-step that had been carved into the wall of the crater for the purpose of creating a circuit of flat land that would allow for the movement of heavy vehicles.

Below him, another quarter of the crater lay unsubmerged, leaving several lengths down to the half-way point. There, at the half-way point, he saw the lake - it's muddy surface covered by an effulgent mix of oil, mud, and hazardous chemicals - and decided, after thinking about the depths he'd have to travel and his inability to breath water, that he'd have better chances against the hunters - that is, to say, no chance.

But Mr. S was not an inactive protagonist and decided to take fate into his own hands and hide.

On his level, along the stair-step truck-path he'd fallen onto, there were various bits of scaffolding, steel risers, and abandoned construction equipment lying about. Plenty of good places for a darkly dressed gentleman such as himself to hide. And the rain had washed away most of the cement powder that had caked his body as well! Small miracles and gentle blessings, as some people, somewhere, presumably may have said.

Although, they were very, very gentle blessings that visited Mr. S, of late. And their cosmic counterparts didn't seem to be pulling punches.

The rain picked up all the more, and lightning flashed dramatically above, not making Mr. S feel too great - considering the steel rafter he'd decided to hide himself under.

And, as a hiding spot, it wasn't too great, considering that, what it lacked for in walls, it made up with four, thin, wooden beams that held up the metal roof, which swayed and flexed violently in the storm winds, and set up a howling serenade as the winds flew over it's unvarnished edges.

At this point, the two hunters Raven had sent after him, Mercury and Cinder, were very much, kind of, rushing on their way.

Well, rushing in a relative sense, perhaps, but two miles a minute was hardly rushing by anyone's estimation of the word when dealing with hunters. But, come on, it was two miles. What? Were they supposed to flat out sprint the entire time?

Mercury didn't care, and Cinder was wearing heels. Not to mention that Cinder, while she normally enjoyed this part of the job, was not too happy to be playing lackey for the sake of Torchwick's glory.

She'd still kill the mark, mind, but that didn't mean she had to be happy about it.

And, when they were a quarter of the way to their destination Mr. S, star struck and, fortunately, still managing to avoid a similar fate with the lightning, came upon an idea.

He looked around himself. He saw the impromptu power generator, he could see the deactivated pumps, the forest of metal he'd hidden himself in was prominent, and he saw the abandoned bulldozer, with it's key still in the ignition - and beside it the equally abandoned crane, that was still running. He saw the surface of the lake beneath him and he saw the cake of snow, mud and ice that lined the entire surface of the crater around.

And, as he took all this information in, he thought hard about the potential avenues for escape, or at least for a negotiated surrender.

He shivered violently for about ten seconds straight, setting his body afire with violent motions as his teeth chattered.

Despite his running heart and spirited thoughts, he couldn't help noticing, in the far back of his annoyed mind, how c-cold it was! He'd never known rain to be so cold! It was a wonder how the artificial atmosphere around Atlas could make him forget that he was in this world's version of the arctic. Even now, as the heavy, water laden, rain clouds obscured all of the sky in their amassing darkness, it was impossible to forget the deep chill that stabbed into his bones.

He tried to think about an escape, or look for an alternative hiding spot, but another fresh jerk of shivers interrupted his body. His lungs seemed to protest at the cool air that numbed his jaws and set his fingers clumsy and aching.

Seriously, this water was too cold, It was probably well beyond its freezing point.

And that's when the idea came!

Mr. S took out his gun. It was... supernaturally heavy in his tired hand. Although, it's apparent weight was not all illusion, for it truly was a massive block of steel from the moment he'd first discovered it. It's strangely high weight was, in fact, one of the main reasons he'd, at first, considered it to be ornamental. Now, he knew far better, of course. He knew that the gun indeed warranted its weight, for it fired at energies that one would hardly have seen in some light artillery back on earth. This thing was, in fact, a beast.

And he looked down at its glimmering, white surface - at the slick, well maintained, sheen that covered it's exterior.

Riére, he knew its name to be. And, out of curiosity, he'd even looked up the translation of it's name. He laughed now, at that gotten knowledge, as he caressed the weapon's surface. Truly a fitting name for a weapon, one that didn't fail to present all the subtleties, and intrigue, and contradictions of its former master.

And, oh, how fitting that name now seemed, too, as he looked down at the heavy weapon in his hand, which was so central to his plans.

He wasn't planning on firing it, of course. That would be ridiculous. No, he had a far more fitting fate planned for it. And it would have to come at precisely the right time... Then a sudden skidding noise above betrayed the harsh landing of the two hunters, several dozen feet away from the edge of the crater.

And that time was now! Mr. S decided, and he threw the weapon into the lake.

With great and strenuous effort, he threw it on a shallow arc, setting it to go as far away from his location as his strength allowed. And the gun landed like a cannonball, setting off a great splash and launching a short column of water several feet into the air. In a less mechanistic fashion, Mr. S would describe it as resembling either a small child doing a belly flop, or a large adult doing a dive.

Cinder and Mercury - as they came across the edge of the crater and saw the large waves and splashes - opted for the latter explanation. Quickly, they both slid down the crater wall like pros, vaulting completely over the truck path and heading down the second quarter to come to a graceful stop at the water's edge.

"He's in the water!" one of them yelled.

Through the rain, Mr. S couldn't tell the gender of the voice. He could, however, tell the content. And he smiled.

He smiled because they thought he was in the water when he was, in fact, actually on land. The fools! How could they fall for such a simple ruse!

Of course, Mr. S was perfectly aware of how they fell for such a ruse, because he was cunning, and wise, as many people may have also attested. He knew that they thought he was in the lake because they saw the splash of his gun falling into the water. And, seeing this, they assumed that he'd, in crazed fear at having run out of aura - why else would he have been running so slow when they saw him? - jumped into the water in order to escape them.

But, of course, that was just what Mr. S wanted them to think, hence why he threw his gun into the lake. For, by doing so, he could make them think he was in the water when, actually, he was, in fact, on land.

Wise, no?

Cunning, some might even say.

Tentatively, the hunters closed in to the edge of the lake, not willing to step a foot in it's oil covered surface.

And, here, his plan came to a painful halt.

In his hand, Mr. S held the last thing left of his gun: a small, blue vial full of ice dust he'd taken out of one of the chambers before he discarded the weapon. And, in his fluttered imagination, he hoped, foolishly, that the pair of them might, upon thinking he'd jumped into the lake, go "Oh, no! He's jumped into the water! Let's go immediately diving in after him!"

After this bold proclamation, in a perfect world, they would both have jumped simultaneously into the water, at which point Mr. S would've set the vial to a grenade setting, thrown into the lake after them, and laughed as it froze them in.

He did not live in a perfect world, however, Mr. S was beginning to realize, and he resolved to instead maybe hide from them until the police arrived as he skulked just a bit deeper into his shadowy hovel, watching painfully as they stood inches away from the edge and fired into the surface of the water.

It was almost surreal, watching them. One of them was using a bow and arrow, for one, and the other had apparently mastered gun-fu high kicks.

On the bright side, neither of them seemed tempted to look back at the raised section of earth, several dozen feet above the lake's surface, where Mr. S was hiding.

Again, gentle miracles.

Still, despite his currently sedentary disposition, Mr. S's mind was whirring, the several near-death experiences and a hearty breakfast working to fuel it into magnificent peaks of genius.

His mind was aflame with thoughts, thinking at speeds that only MIT graduates - and maybe some people from Harvard (As well as a lot of people out of Harvard, to be fair) - could reach.

And, in his mind, despite everything, something was telling him not to give up hope. Something was telling him that he was on the precipice of victory.

Yes, yes, he could feel himself drawing closer to it.

And then, suddenly, Mr. S shivered violently once more, feeling the cold anew as a sudden blast of wind sent a wash of rain crashing into his hovel. He flinched back from the sensation, feeling the breath sucked from him, and nearly slipping on the muddy ground, which seemed to lack any solidity under the conditions.

Damn cold, rain.

Seriously, this water had to be at the trailing edge of it's freezing point. Just on the trailing edge. Seriously, a dust particle could set this entire storm freezing!

And, this set off a tangent about science. Never let an engineer rest.

You see, it was a wonderful paradox that water's freezing point was the same as it's melting point. So, for example, water would freeze if you lowered it's temperature to 0 degrees Celsius, and ice would melt if you raised its temperature to 0 degrees. Make sense?

The issue comes from the fact that, once water reaches its freezing point, you need to take away energy from it that doesn't change its temperature but rather disputes the bonds that keep in a liquid state.

So, for example, imagine you have a mass of water at five degrees above it's freezing point. This water would naturally be a liquid at appropriate pressures.

However, let's say you take five hundred units of energy away from the water and lower it to it's freezing point.

Well, this water would still be liquid. For, at this point, the water would still have only just reached its freezing point. No, in order to turn the water into a solid, you would need to take away, say, another thousand units of energy. All throughout the process of taking away this thousand units of energy, the water would remain at zero degrees Celsius, losing its energy in other forms until, at last, it turned into a wonderful solid that was, you guessed it, still at zero degrees Celsius.

And, if water was very, very close to it's freezing point, well, then it wouldn't take much effort to freeze. Sometimes you'd even find entire bodies of water that froze upon contact with some impurity they could coalesce around.

This bit of knowledge was well known to Mr. S, and he ran through its familiar implications as an aside to his other, more pertinent, thoughts over the course of several milliseconds.

The mind is an enigma, however, and he hardly acknowledged this most important of thoughts when he, still readily running through the possible implications of the bulldozer and the pumps, suddenly came upon a related idea.

Slowly, his mind turned and tumbled as he worked his way through the glimmering possibilities, glancing his way around the central truth that first called at him to embark on this mental journey.

By now, several seconds had passed since the hunters started shooting, and they didn't look to be on the verge of retreat, as they sunk themselves down into the slippery mud and set about shooting at whatever notable disturbances at the water's surface caught their attention. This was ignoring the fact that the entire surface was being disturbed by heavy rain water, and that the most notable of these disturbances were caused by their projectiles.

And, looking at them, Mr. S suddenly smiled, for a brilliant notion had snuck up on his thoughts.

He smiled because he now fully accepted the capacity of his knowledge.

As the events of the past several minutes had taught him, Mr. S was ignorant about a lot of things: Human nature, political realities, business sense, and survival skills were among their number.

For all his failings, however, there was one thing that Mr. S was confident that he knew.

Here he looked down at the dust capsule that he held in his hand. He'd taken it from the ice chamber of his chambered weapon, and this dust capsule, this small part of Riére, somehow felt heavier than the whole. It was heavy with implications.

This small, dark cylinder, which was barely large enough to keep his fist from closing, and so hard it sucked the heat from his skin, was heavy as he, strugglingly, lifted it up to eye level. The hovel was battered with rain, and filled the space with loud, metallic drums that overlapped with each other. He noticed that his cold hands were shaking in time to the senseless rhythm. The discordant music egging him on like it was a triumphant fanfare. Taking his other hand, and forcing the chilled fingers to obey his commands, he gripped tightly onto the grooved end of the capsule, taking it's rain-slicked surface in a hard hold. He twisted his wrist, forcing the tip of it to crank ominously with deep, hard clicks of warning that shook through his arm.

After he'd finished cranking the capsule, at the tip of it, a small, blue light blinked twice.

That was a short letter of warning, for such a portentous message.

For the lights, translated simply, went thus: "Touch me one more time, I dare you! I double dare you! I swear to the gods, I'll kill us all!"

And Mr. S looked down from his vantage point, observing the still shooting pair. And, struggling against all that meaningful weight the small object seemed to carry, he threw it into the air on a high trajectory, his elevated position allowing it to travel a great distance before it rapidly descended downward, heading toward the rapidly boiling, bullet-riddled surface of the lake top.

He'd missed the hunters by a good mark, overshooting them by about a hundred feet. A forensic investigation would reveal that even he, in his aura-drained state, had no right to make such a mistake.

But Mr. S hadn't made a mistake. He'd overshot on purpose, for he was wise, and he was cunning.

Because, returning to our earlier point, we'll recall that there were a great many things that Mr. S did not know, and a few things that he did. Among them, were some particular facts about the natural sciences.

And he knew - as he looked down at the hunters, who were inches away from the lake front - that water expanded when it froze.


Raven had, in the end, decided against going herself to deal with the Schnee situation. Schwarz was watching her closely despite her best efforts to keep her harried, and any glance of hers towards main street was a potential give away. So, Raven kept her attention focused on the fight.

Of course it wasn't particularly difficult for her to do this, because, as she calmly parried a bullet, following it with a, rapidly performed, "Oh-Shit" parry on a streaming piece of stone that was moving so fast it was glowing. All around her, similarly sized stones cracked past her former positions, passing a hair's breads from the limit of her figure. One of them clanged painfully against her scabbard, setting some of her dust vials spilling gently into the air.

Raven had... been put in an interesting conundrum.

To go deal with Schnee herself was a no go, as that would have tipped off Schwarz. To send the entire team would have been even worse. So, that left her in the unenviable position of picking drafts.

But, who would she send?

Emerald and Erra had to stay, for obvious reasons.

Torchwick and Neo, she wouldn't have been too sad to lose, as they were mainly dead weight in this kind of altercation. Well, maybe not Neo, she assessed, as she watched the smaller woman almost roaring in silence as she blocked another stream of stone projectiles.

Still, the fact they were dead weight also impugned on her confidence that they would be able to handle Jaques in a timely fashion. Killing was a lot harder than staying alive, after all, and this was an assasination that had to be done quickly, as dallying would no doubt tell Schwarz the obvious.

Salem's threats hung heavily over Raven: Mr. Schnee would have to die… or else… Salem would kill Raven… and everyone she knew… violently… to death… and destroy their graves… after giving them cheap funerals.

As eccentrically as the threat had been delivered, it was seriously received. And, with a heavy heart, Raven watched as her two favored chess pieces slipped away from a battle they were already on the verge of losing.

Emerald and Erra she couldn't send. Torchwick and Neo she would've like to send, but couldn't. And Tyrian… well… no.

Still, she couldn't help second guessing herself as Cinder and Mercury departed, carrying with them fully half the power of the fall maiden, and of one of their strongest fighters.

Raven looked over at Emerald, guarded behind her and suffering headaches from her earlier exertion. And she looked ahead and saw the coming group. And Raven really started hating her odds.

Still, those odds couldn't be bad enough to risk not sending someone competent after the main mission.


Truly Raven had underestimated them; which was a feat, considering her first estimation had been that they were some of the strongest hunters she'd ever seen. Really, the way things were going, Raven was sure she should have known them by name if they were individually this dangerous, and she considered herself a knowledgeable person when it came to hunters.

Taking a moment, she ran eye eyes across the assorted opposition. They were all conspicuous, wearing very colorful outfits. Neon pinks and bright yellows marched in step alongside brilliant violets and… even a rainbow outfit.

Yeah, even before looking at their faces, Raven knew they were of the younger generation. And that went some way to explaining their mystery to her. Seriously, recuse yourself from society for just twenty years…

Well, Raven was cursing herself for her ignorance, now, because Tyrian was dead, and everyone on her side was rapidly trying to avoid his fate.

Coming back to the present, after another series of desperate parries, Raven cursed as Neo bumped into her side.

"Keep in line!" she yelled at the smaller woman, shoving her away.

Although Raven had trouble truly blaming her, considering the sudden and conspicuous lack of habitable space as Schwarz closed in with two wings of guards, and filled the city skies with hazardous projectiles.

The group was still about a sixteenth of a mile away, never having drawn closer since Cinder and Mercury had left off. Always, it seemed their true intentions lay elsewhere, though Raven wasn't above helping that process.

Stealthily, Raven sent another nod off to Emerald, who, taking Erra's hand, set off another light display. And the pressure eased as Schwarz, presumably, saw something that caused her to be slightly less interested in them, and slightly more interested in whatever rabbit Emerald had them chasing. Emerald soon shut off the illusion, seeming sick.

Tiredly, Raven slumped, drifting back and forming a bit of buffer distance between their two groups, just waiting now for this, next, interspersed moment of calm to pass before they were, once again, forced to hunker down against impossible odds.

But, Raven relied still on her always obvious optimism to see her through. This arrangement with Emerald was obviously only a temporary solution. Cinder and Mercury would be back soon and, with them, Raven could even up the odds enough to create a portal.

That was the plan. Simple and idiot proof. And, man, was she working with a bunch of idiots.

Raven, as that last sentiment would reveal, did not exactly have the highest respect for her coworkers.

And she was about to lose what little respect she did have, as the next kink in her plan revealed itself.

PWFOOOOOO!

A cool wind washed over the land, rippling visibly through the torrents of rain it exacerbated.

Raven turned immediately to its source, hackles raised against the news.

Somewhere behind her and to the left, the crater went off like a volcano, and a column of snow and ice exploded into the air, flooding the city with wind as a tree of snow diffused against the boundaries of the artificial atmosphere.

It was a popular fact that Jaques Schnee's semblance was temperature projection. More popularly: he made ice - often even showing off his ice sculptures on public occasions. This led to many punny newspaper titles involving his moniker. It also set up innumerable, hilarious misunderstandings whenever his name was mentioned in a sit-com.

To Raven, however, it only led to the understanding of one thing: Cinder and Mercury wouldn't be coming back for them.

Clack, clack... crack.. crack crack.

The metal roof above him was dented and ringing from the intermittent impacts. The noise seemed louder against the thick-set fog that now filled the world around him, revealing nothing but the wooden supports that held the roof up.

And Mr. S's skin was burning! Like he'd held his hand in a candle, and wasn't allowed to take it away.

Mr. S forced himself to stay underneath the protective, metal roof of his little hovel until all the dangerous debris came raining down, and no longer. For, as soon as he thought it remotely safe, he scrambled deliriously up the stair-step wall, and ran along gently sloping sides of the crater, clawing his way up the ice and ice covered sides in the extreme fog that now blanketed the space, skin chittering from the supreme coldness that permeated the space.

And to think, these were only the ancillary effects of the actual explosion! The real show, Mr. S knew, lay below, where the surface of the freezing water had suddenly risen ten or so feet before transforming into an iceberg.

He could see very little in the sudden fog, and he could feel even less of the icy ground which, thankfully, had frozen into irregular and jagged patterns that easily allowed Mr. S to drive himself up the crater with running kicks. He even wondered at one point if he still had a body. The pain of cold - so cold that it burned - had so deeply entrenched itself, that it seemed now to lack contrast with anything else, and almost disappeared from his awareness.

Wait!

Up there!

He could see the fog lightening! All the while, as his eyes looked up, his body scrambled forward relentlessly, driving him incessantly upward until...

Ah!

The shitty Atlas rain was like a hot bath against his skin when he finally, fortuitously made out onto the surface.

Oh! What a wonder to be alive!

Schwarz and Raven, seeing the explosion, and looking into each other's eyes, both immediately understood that Schwarz knew about the trickery afoot, and that Raven knew that Schwarz knew about the trickery afoot.

Therefore, the trickery, upon being discovered, was no longer afoot, thereby freeing them from the act they'd been playing.

And, looking into each other's eyes, mid leap, they both seemed to hang in the heavy moment, rain drops hovering around them until, for both of them, normal time came back into play, and they both scrambled straight for crater.

As hunters, they both naturally had a preference for keeping their quick reaction times and, in service of this, never lifted off higher than several inches above the nearest sold surface during the course of all their various jockeying.

This their patterned combat set them on shallow ballistic arcs as they weaved and drifted past each other and the city. And this habit they maintained, as they, all of them, rushed over the Atlas roof tops like a great tidal wave, falling across the descending roofs of the industrial district towards the common center of their gravity: Mr. S.

And despite the startling lack of verticality in the movements, Mr. S had little trouble noticing them as they shot their way over to him.

And, immediately, he recanted his earlier conviction. There, indeed, was in fact something more terrifying than seeing two hunters headed for your location. It was exactly six times more terrifying, in fact.

The crater seemed to beckon to Mr. S as an adequate hiding place, waving at him with soft, frosty arms of ethereal cloud matter.

Yeah no.

Mr. S looked around himself for another suitable hiding place and saw… several hundred yards of very flat land. Yeah, craters were often surrounded by those.

So, Mr. S ran, aiming his trajectory towards the edge of the main carnage, where several large buildings remained standing.

Schwarz and Raven, while further away, initially, than Cinder and Mercury had been when they went after Mr. S, more than made up for it with their maniac pace.

Mr. S was running with renewed energy towards the shelter of the remnants of the industrial district, and Schwarz and Raven, leading their vanguards, were gaining on him.

The first buildings he passed without incident, the abandoned streets doing little to hinder his view of the surrounding hiding spots.

He'd just reached the open mouth of an alley when they closed in on him, and Mr. S suddenly became the center point for a whirling, half sphere of violence that teetered above the ground.

To Mr. S, the noise was horrible and indiscernible, crashing through the raindrops and crashing into his body. Instinctively, his mind screamed at him to collapse down onto the floor, away from the shadowy movements that flitted across the edges of his vision, to shut his eyes so that he didn't have to look at it! His body was not a faithful servant of his mind, however, and would not move. Merely, he looked up in awe, unable to turn away from the sight. Above, on a building, a large corner of steel, in seconds, ground itself down from the thousand cuts and hundred blades that had run their way into it's body.

Mr. S walked back further into the alley, the half-sphere following him in as the wind picked up and he looked around himself with paranoid suspicion, feeling for all the world a if he were walking on a tightrope.

SCHIING!

A sudden, horrible noise like a, giant blade being drawn assaulted his senses. Mr. S had been standing next to a large section of exposed truss and, looking to the side at it, he could see now that it was wobbling like a guitar string. There in the lower quarter, six inches away from his neck, a bent, jagged path had been cut straight through the steel. The wound was steaming in the rain and sending a blood warm spittle of water raining onto him.

Suddenly Schwarz appeared next to him, blocking… something with a sharp swing of her blade. Whatever it was, it certainly sounded dangerous from the sharp ring it elicited from the black steel of her short blades.

Raising an arm straight and holding her sword out, Schwarz shot out a cone of ice at the opposition.

Suddenly, speaking too quickly for him to register, she barked out some command, and they were suddenly engulfed in a bubble of wrathful noise. Mr. S at first, shrank from it, but then noticed the flickering wall of bodies that circled around him were in fact protecting him against the outside forces. The battle still raged outside where, with a maniac laugh, Pinkamena - never seeming to be in fewer than two places at once - set up a solo combat display as, beside her, violet beams and blurring, blue figures combated their enemies.

And, measuring its pace of the battle with all the disinterest of a professional doctor, Schwarz stood steadily next to Mr. S, looking about with fierce eyes while, above her, a sharp hexagon of light slowly circled. And the space surrounding seemed sufficed with it's dark light, tinting the air black as the combatants circled and twirled within it.

At every second beat or so, the slowly rotating hexagon would accelerate and, in their measure, the hunters in the dark space would accelerate as well. The people, both enemy and friendly, would speed up, noticeable to Mr. S by a slight increase in the pitching whirr of battle that went on outside.

And, at random intervals following, the hexagon would slow to a crawl, and the people inside would slow as well, becoming almost visible to Mr. S, their jumps never seeming to take them to such fantastic heights as before.

The enemy, he noticed, never seemed to adapt as well to the changes.

And he also noticed, in the brief intervals when they slowed down enough to be perceptible, that his side was winning!

Or rather, it was winning, until it wasn't.

Suddenly, the front collapsed, and Mr. S jumped back the several length's he'd left between himself and the far alley wall, pressing back against it.

Trapping him and Schwarz between three walls, a group of advancing enemy figures. His guard was disciplined, however, though not suicidal, as they screeched back to the end of the alley, creating a small bubble of safety as he and Schwarz pressed further back against the wall.

Near the other end of the alley, standing atop the roof of a building, Mr. S noticed a hunter that was standing still.

Granted, that was the only kind of hunter he'd be able to notice, but still.

And, seeing her, he recalled something of the enemy's earlier plans. "Emerald", the girl was called, was supposed to create an illusion that would demoralize his team, and allow the bad guys to kill them.

Now, he wasn't sure which one of the people on the other side was "Emerald," but he felt he had a pretty safe bet that it was the girl with emerald hair, with an emerald aura shining around her, and holding up two emerald scythes like she was posing for the third frame of the Arch-Vile's attack animation.

Yeah, that was probably Emerald, he decided. And she was probably the girl who'd caused such a ruckus among his security team.

"Mr. Schnee!" Schwarz gripped tightly onto his sleeve, shouting at him through the rain. "We have to jump out of here!" Schwarz shouted through the thunder of rain that fell around them, delirious with contained panic. "The fire-!"

"There is no fire!" Mr. S interrupted her, yelling to be heard through the confusion and gripping her tightly by the shoulders as he mentally begged her not to rip his arms off.

"Wh- wha-"

"There!" He pointed distinctly at the far building where Emerald stood. "Extend your semblance until it encompasses that building!"

Schwarz, with all the trained experience of a soldier, immediately obeyed, filling the space in between them in a flash.

And, despite the sudden darkening of the space, Schwarz's expression was all enlightenment as she paused, and smirked, and looked very dangerously at the distant Emerald, who looked suddenly weakened.

The switching accelerations trick was lost to them for the next bout of combat, for Schwarz worked to constantly depress Emerald's capabilities. The fight however, was no less unbalanced for it, and soon Raven, Torchwick, Emerald, Neo and Erra were crowded into the center of the alley, skipping back from the sudden whirl of violence that corralled them into their invisible confines.

Schwarz and her security team were in a familiar state now, merely handing off responsibility between themselves as they positioned their enemies, positioned themselves, and, at an invisible moment, all together, worked to charge their final attacks.

Schwarz remained in front of Mr. S, strictly defensive.

Pinkamena, standing on a roof and guarding the alley entrance, hooked back the firing mechanism of her hand Cannon, feeling the weapon warm in her hands as several loads of dust reveled in its breech.

Twilight charged a violet beam, its width spanning two human chests as it floated weightlessly in front of her outstretched arm, her other hand holding stiffly a lacquered narwhal horn.

Sky held out her two fan-wings folded in front of her, glowing cyan with tornadic flurries, as thick lightning cracked between them.

Haetzen held out a bright yellow ball of her namesake.

Ochre readied a grenade.

And Beryl held, floating just above her head, a gleaming crystal that diffracted with radiant energies, patterning her white coat with its rainbow orchestra.

Raven, as she felt the rest of her group huddle against her for instinctive safety, felt a small laugh coming on.

She looked at the "oh so triumphant" group, and smirked cooly with that dark sense of humor that had seen her through her better days.

She wasn't laughing at them, no.

She laughed at herself, because she remembered all the heartache she'd experienced several days ago, when she feared that, somehow, impossibly, Mr. Schnee had figured out her identity as the Spring Maiden. That was a secret Raven had worked hard to keep, and she was proud to have passed by Salem's eyes while still having kept it. So, it was funny to her, all those nights of sleep she'd lost at the thought that this… surprisingly dangerous, man had managed to figure out her secret.

Of course, she felt no need to worry now, because it was obvious that he didn't know her status. For, if he did know that she was the spring maiden, if he had even the slightest inkling of her power, she sincerely doubted he would have allowed his security team to push her into this corner.

And, what a conundrum it was, they'd pushed her into. She didn't want to die, and she also didn't want to reveal herself as the Spring maiden.

The solution was obvious: reveal herself as the Spring Maiden, and kill all the witnesses. She'd start with Mr. Schnee himself; that would get Salem off her back, at least. From there, she'd kill the entire security team in one fell swoop, and then she'd turn on Torchwick and the rest of Salem's lackeys. Salem would have to believe that they died in the fighting.

After the carnage, Raven planned to leave with Erra in tow, content to leave this alley as a mystery of red splatters to any investigators.

Still, primarily, her feelings were mirthful. To think she'd honestly suspected Mr. Schnee, of all people, of having figured her out!

Hilarious!

It was obvious, now, that he didn't know of course.

The respective elements charged up their attacks and Raven put a hand on her phantom sword.

It was obvious that he didn't know because, if he did... if he knew what he was up against, it would at around this time that he would-

"Stop!" Mr. S yelled suddenly, voice growing hoarse as he forced the order. And, it was a great testament to the discipline of Mr. Schnee's security team that they managed to follow it.

Pinkamena stopped, hand half cranked across the firing mechanism as she looked at him, confused. Twilight, below her in the alley, sent a small, sideways glance over at the man, keeping the brunt of her attention focused on the floating ball of violet she held out in front of her with gestures of her delicate fingers.

The rest of the alley was filled with similar gestures of surprise and confusion, even from those of his enemies.

Raven's eyes, however, were filled with horrible understanding. He knew. The proclamation weighed on her gut like a weighty iron. And, looking into his eyes, and the bargaining note that seemed to be growing in them, Raven knew that it was likely that others knew as well, already, and that her worst nightmares had come true.

For Mr. S the entire situation was far less complicated.

You see, he merely saw and understood, in the brief moment the elements had taken to charge up their respective attacks, that this alley he was in was about to become the future sight of an impending explosion.

Mr. S, being an MIT grad rocket scientist, understood that explosions, unlike in the movies, were actually quite dangerous.

And here he was, with all the relative consistency of wet tissue paper, as several hunters prepared to turn this alley into an over sized pop gun.

So, he decided to put a stop to it, putting on a strong face and his best bargaining tone.

"Uh hum," he coughed, readying his voice to be heard over the rain. "We will allow you to leave here alive!" Mr. S said. "That is, if you leave now!"

Now, of course, the first thing they taught you in combat school for personnel specialists was, of course, to never question your commander in the face of your enemy. It would be bad form to show disunity at such a critical moment, after all. And this lesson was treated and retreaded all throughout the curriculum of the school. So, it was a monumental achievement on Mr. S's part, that he actually managed to get such a dedicated security team to question breaking it on his first day.

Still, they didn't, in the end, lose discipline.

Raven did not waste any time in creating her portal and walking through. The rest of her team swiftly followed suit. The Portal, as soon as the last of them had passed through, unceremoniously closed on the whole affair.

And that was that.

And left in the alley, was Mr. S and his security team. Naturally, in all of their eyes was a deep questioning as they turned to lock gazes with Mr. S. Even Schwarz's excitement to see him alive seemed marred by it. Mr. S looked at his security team, with a fretful expression. Unfortunately, he knew too much about aura to say he was out of it. An experienced hunter, he'd calculated, would laugh off an explosion that was ten feet away, even if he was running on dregs.

Though, for once, the excuse seemed to deliver itself as, with a light cough, a whole busload of Orphans, as well as their accompanying nun, walked out of the nearby, "abandoned" building that formed the left wall of the alley.

Schwarz's questioning look was instantly replaced by one of surprise.

"You…" she stared back at the orphans and then back at Mr. S, "You knew they were there!" she said.

"How?" a soft voice came from the side. It was Haetzen, as he recognized her from the employee files. She was dressed, as always, in her yellow turtleneck, and hiding behind the long main of pink hair that dangled down her front. "Even I didn't notice them… in the battle. And… well, I like to think I have a good sense for that kind of thing."

And, despite her subdued tone, Mr. S could easily sense that she was filled with awe.

Looking at them, he noticed that they all were!

"Well," he began, laughing lightly, "It's always important to keep up your awareness in the middle of combat," trying to side step any inevitable questions like:

"But, how did you notice them when they were hidden inside of a building?" That was Hatzen again, growing bolder in her questions as she lifted up two, sleeved hands up to her chest.

"Oh, it was a simple matter of deduction," Mr. S answered simply, his mind blazing through all the lies. "For one, the entire city was in shelter, and this very street was brimming with people just twenty minutes ago, so it was natural to assume that they may, some of them, have been hiding here for lack of proximity to proper shelter."

"Yes," Hatzen nodded, smiling with entranced respect up at the man. "But, you knew there were people in exactly that building, right? You wouldn't have let the world's most dangerous terrorists go otherwise!" All of this, Hatzen asked with the most innocent and innocuous expression and feeling. Often, innocence was the only thing willing to push such matters, because it honestly believe it wouldn't be finding anything bad by doing so.

And Mr. S went full tilt. "Well, of course not!" he said, sweating in the rain. "I knew they were here all along! Because… for one," he said, looking carefully around in the sudden calm, "you'll notice that this entire street has been covered by soot from last light's explosion, the lighter areas indicate high foot traffic."

The team, all at once, looked over to the street to see a startling lack of soot anywhere. Curious, they walked out of the alley, with Schwarz and Mr. S following, and got a better look at the street. Again, there was no soot on the path leading to the building, but there was no soot anywhere else either.

"There's no soot," Pinkamena said, face dejected like a saddened dog.

"Yes," Mr. S nodded, agreeing. "But, there was soot here before the rain washed it away. And this building was the first building from the explosion site to have evidence of significant foot traffic. Therefore, not only was it likely that people would use it for shelter, it was probably - as the first functional building in this area -very likely to be used as a shelter."

This part, to Mr. S's credit, actually was true. He'd taken idle note of it during his earlier vacation through the city.

And it seemed, for a second, that his team had accepted that, until Hatzen, once again, broke the silence with her brash innocence. "But… surely every buiding at a similar radius has the same status?" Hatzen said.

And, her continued questioning seemed to embolden the rest of them. And Twilight spoke. "Not to mention, we did just let the people who led the attack on Vale escape."

"Yeah," Sky pushed in. "I mean, this does seem pretty unbelievable, that you'd let them go over something with so little evidence."

"That's because you haven't let me finish!" Mr. S threw out his hands in frustration, splattering rain drops in every direction. "You must understand, at the pace of the battle, I had to first build my deductions upon a probable basis! The true evidence for my final conclusion came later! Obviously, I wouldn't have let them go unless I was absolutely sure that there was someone in this building that could be harmed by our explosion!"

And, rather than talk about it, Mr. S suddenly trailed off into a quiet silence.

"Well?" Hatzen asked quietly.

"Well what?" Mr. S said.

"Where's the evidence that showed you there were people in that building?" Sky asked, pointing at the building.

"Isn't it obvious?" Mr. S asked, increduled past necessity. "I mean, I thought you'd notice once we came out onto the street."

They all looked at each other and then looked back at him, apparently deciding together that they didn't.

"I'm afraid I'm rather lost in the matter," Beryl said, whipping a strand of wet hair behind her head, and looking quickly at the rainwater that drenched her coat. "I've never been one to foray in detective work."

"I'd tend to agree, sir," Schwarz said.

"Um… me neither." Hatzen raised her hand.

And, in all of this, there was no suspicion in any of their words, merely curiosity. Still, even now, it seemed, they were waiting for him to furnish them with a completely satisfying explanation for why he'd known that there were orphans in that building.

Here, Mr. S was at a crossroads. He could either simply reveal his true nature as an imposter, as explanation for why he'd called off the explosive finale to their fight, or, alternatively, panic and lie.

Mr. S defaulted to the obvious, and, flitting his attention at his surroundings, smiled triumphantly as he saw something that he was looking for.

"Ah ha!" he said, pointing, by way of explanation, at the door that the nun and her orphans had walked out of. "That door has a rain guard!"

They all looked at the door, even the nun and her orphans turning back to look at it, and all of them acknowledged that it indeed had a rain guard.

"Ok, so?" Sky asked, raising an eyebrow.

"And there's also water inside the building," Mr. S nodded impatiently.

Again, they all looked and confirmed the water that pooled just inside the doorway, before turning to look back at him with questioning looks.

"Water, that could only have been tracked in by people seeking shelter! The rain only started after the attack, and no one was likely to be doing any travel while the city was on lockdown!"

"OH!" A look of understanding and wonderment seemed to go over his team before it was cut short by the nun, who spoke in her stiff, parochial tones.

"But, if you'll allow me to say," the nun started, letting out a small cough, "the door was closed when you were still having your combat. We only just opened it to come out here once we knew you were victorious. There's no way you could have seen the water that was inside."

The looks of understanding were quickly replaced by ones of confoundment, as the team turned to look back at Mr. S.

Yeah, how did you know? They seemed to ask.

But Mr. S was one step ahead of them.

"If you'd be patient and stop interrupting me, I'd show you," he said, walking his way over to the door.

His team followed and the nun and her orphanage steeped to the side to observe him.

Here, Mr. S crouched low and pointed to the bottom of the door, where a line of rubber weatherstripping hung down from the door to make contact with the ground. Mr. S pointed at the sweeper, and at the sheen of liquid that was painted over it.

"Here," he said. "The weatherstripping. It obviously passed through some water as the nun and the orphans closed it. From there, I was able to deduce that someone had obviously treaded rainwater into this building, and from there the natural."

Again, an even more astounded look of amazement and respect passed over everyone, even the nun, as they all looked at him with reverential spirits. "Patron of orphans," even seemed on the verge of possibly slipping from their lips as an appropriate moniker.

The children, however, were far less impressed. One of them even spoke up, dashing all hopes.

"Yeah, but every house has those," a short girl with a bored look pointed out, her blonde locks handing heavily around her youthful face.

"What?"

"Every house has some water on its door." the girl answered. "People are always trudging snow melt into their houses. Not to mention, there was a snow storm last night. I mean, look," she pointed behind her at one of the houses across the street. And, as she said it, a bright gleam of liquid painted the bottom of its door.

Immediately, everyone seemed to come to their senses, and started to look at Mr. S.

Again, there was no suspicion, only curiosity. And, Mr. S knew he was far past being able to play this off as a mistake. As far as they were concerned, he was an expert hunter, able to pay such meticulous attention to every detail, even when he was running on the dregs of his aura.

"Well, obviously," Mr. S said, looking at the orphan girl with poison. "But…" and here he was glad for the liquid cooling the rain provided, because his brain was overclocking, "... you'll remember," he began, "that I said this," he pointed at the near door's weather stripping, "was evidence of rain water and…"

And Mr. S noticed something. Something that could-

...no, something that would save him! He was saved! Yeah!

"...and you'll notice that the water on the other door is gleaming!" he said, pointing triumphantly at the same door, across the street, that the girl had pointed to.

They looked at the door, and then looked back at Mr. S, where he then regarded their attention to the near door.

"This door, on the other hand, has muddy, soot laden water. Likely, they ran in here soon after the rain started, meaning that they were tracking in water that was heavily mixed with the previous soot. And this kind of water is discernible from snow melt by its characteristic lack of a sheen!"

And, looking at the door, they all had to agree that it was discernible.

Mr. S barely held himself back from clapping and going, "YES!" with a triumphal fist pump. Instead, he stood calmly up in the rain, brushing some water off of himself as he walked back to his team.

He was confident now, and they all looked at him with an awe that superseded completely everything they might have imagined about the man before.

Hatzen, again, was the first one to break her silence.

"You.. you really figured that all out by noticing the door water?" Hatzen asked, breathless with anticipation.

"Naturally," Mr. S said with sublime confidence, folding his arm behind his back and pacing. "Upon seeing the slight darkening of the water at the foot of the door, it was natural to assume that it had been tracked through some muddy, or otherwise impure substance. And soot laden water came to mind. So, running through the possibilities, I immediately sensed that the rains, upon first starting, must have driven up the explosive soot that formerly covered these here streets. And, for a brief few minutes, before further rains diluted the concoction, these streets must have been filled with a water of a not dissimilar consistency!"

"And, remember, the rains only started after the attack," Hatzen breathlessly put herself in, looking gleefully up at Mr. S while directing the statement to her companions in explanation.

"Yes," Mr. S agreed, smiling blissfully as he paced back and forth before the assorted horde of orphan children. "And from there, it was a simple matter to deduce that this building must indeed be inhabited by sheltering civilians." He gestured casually at the building. "Really," Mr. S said, looking at the yellow covered girl, "the facts assembled beautifully to relay this story. And, for anyone experienced in reading those facts, uncovering the hidden truth was... elementary, my dear Hatzen!"