Chapter 12, Home Base
"Now, I will be the first to admit that it is far from the most luxurious of options, however it did have everything that you specified to be important. Although, I must say that what you consider important in a dwelling is most backwards. No running water, no clean bedding, industrial scrap everywhere, why, it barely counts as living to be there!"
"Pierre…" Cerulean slid her hands down her face. She was grateful that the concierge was taking all aspects of her request seriously, she really was. She just desperately wished that he would be less, him, while doing it. Time was not something that the Detective had in spades. Every minute that she spent here was another minute that the Syndicate had to hunt both her and Hakke down. Another minute that Nikky was kept Brothers know where in the city.
She had far too much on her plate to deal with this right now.
Pierre had always been an over the top character, even back when she had first met him during the LaGrange case. It helped that the man was as sharp as a tack, and had long since mastered the art of pretending to be so full of himself that he didn't notice the world around him. The bugs that she had given him to plant and the testimony he had given had been instrumental in bringing down Old Man LaGrange himself, and his weapon smuggling ring in the process.
She had gone above and beyond to keep him alive during that particular case, and had done so even after the case had closed. She had gone behind both her partner and her own department's back to do it as well, which is why she was here at the King's Inn now.
That did not replace certain facts right now, however.
It was 4:30 AM. She hadn't slept in over 30 hours. She had been in two gunfights, was on the run from one of the most powerful gangs in the kingdom, and was travelling with the world's weirdest Huntsman.
She really didn't want to deal with Pierre being Pierre right now.
Her hands fell from her face, and clasped under her chin. "I don't have the luxury of giving a shit about that right now. It's just… are you positive that no one knows about it? Can you guarantee me that not a single one of the big names knows about this place?"
Pierre huffed. "Yes yes, it is such a terrible place that not even the large crime rings want their men there. There's simply nothing there worth their time, besides a colorful assortment of tiny gangs so insignificant that even the police don't bother with them. Not to mention it is on the opposite side of the city from where the Syndicate usually operates. It is my least favorite personal hiding spot, and has served me quite well in the past. I imagine it will do the same for you."
"Sounds like it will get the job done, which is perfect. I'm not exactly picky right now. Thank you."
"Oh, don't thank me. I owed you a great debt, one that you are now allowing me to lift off my shoulders. I simply cannot let it be said that Pierre Perruque does not pay back his debts. Especially to those who helped build this new identity for myself."
"I guess this makes us even, then."
"Oh no, hiding you and my silence on this matter is what makes us even, and makes my personal ledger black again. Your location will not be revealed, at least not by me in any capacity."
She nodded once more, and began to turn to leave the small office that Pierre had taken her to. "Still, I appreciate it. You keeping your word. Turns out that is a lot more rare of a trait than you'd expect these days." She paused. "And if you see my partner, Ponci, make his day miserable for me, would you? Don't tell him anything though."
"What would I have to tell him? The man he met during the LaGrange days, that informant with the impeccable sense of fashion, I do believe he died. And I am an honest man, one who does not rub shoulders with criminal types."
"Right." Cerulean smiled. "How silly of me."
She left the room, and made her way back to the ostentatious lobby of the hotel. It was bright, even at this early hour, and richly decorated with paintings, intricate woodwork, and twisting metal. It was the sort of place the middling wealthy of Vale or any other Kingdom would gather to stay. Which made finding her new 'partner' so much easier, especially as there were only a handful of people awake at this hour, and only one of them was in a dirty gray duster.
Where he had gotten a can of soda she did not know. Why he was staring at it with such intensity she didn't want to know. Just Hakke, and she was confident that his first name had to be short for something, was a worryingly injury prone Huntsman. He had been hit hard enough to be hospitalized several times over, and all in less than two hours. His lung had been popped, by his own admission no less, he had been beaten, shot, stabbed, and had his Aura definitely broken far more than once. She could see the hole in his clothes where a bullet had literally punched clean through him back at her apartment.
Yet he seemed to be fine. He wasn't suffering from aura exhaustion as far as she could tell, and his wounds seemed to not be bothering him at all. She had watched a bullet rip a literal hole through his abdomen, and yet he acted fine.
It was painfully obvious that he wasn't telling her close to everything. So much about him, how he acted and reacted didn't fit with how Huntsmen normally were.
And then there was 'Callie'.
She had no frame of reference for that… thing.
Her first instinct was to call it Atlas tech, it was flashy and definitely sleek enough to qualify as theirs. Hell, even the paint job on its protrusions could be chalked up to something that Hakke did himself, even if it didn't match the rest of the Huntsman's rather morose color scheme. But those fins weren't connected by anything tangible to its main body, and the way that both its fins and body moved was far too smooth. It was too fast, too streamlined, too expressive to be Atlas tech. As was the drone's personality. At first she thought it was some sort of basic personality suite, similar to the ones installed in Atlas Knight robots. Then it began to hold conversations and make decisions like a person.
Neither Cerulean or the Huntsman had asked or ordered the drone to help her break into the janitor's closet back at her apartment, it, no, she had done so of her own accord. It was fully capable of acting on its own, and she was afraid to admit that it seemed to also think on its own as well. Double that with its unnerving ability to interface with and obtain information that she damn well knew not even the best computer specialists in the VPD could retrieve, such as a thoroughly wiped security image, well.
She was just glad that the thing seemed to be on their side. She didn't know why Hakke called it a Ghost, but it seemed to fit. It could vanish without a trace after all, and the Huntsman seemed to be surprisingly cheerful for a man with a death wish.
Gallows humor was a strange thing.
She shoved the thoughts aside. Despite their innumerous unknown qualities, both of them had proven friendly, if odd, and that at the very least they had a common enemy in the Syndicate. Their reasoning might not be as personal as her own, but she had learned early on that that mattered far less than expected. She probably couldn't trust them too much, but she could trust that their goals aligned enough to get the job done.
They needed her, or more exact, her knowledge about Vale and how it really operated. She needed their muscle.
She could make this work. She needed to make this work.
For Nikki.
Hakke stared intently at the soda can in his hand. Callie had hacked a vending machine as they waited in the lobby and obtained this can of carbonated sugar water for him, something about getting his blood sugars to normal levels the natural way. The can confused him though. It was bright orange, and decorated richly with more graphics than his brain could process, and it had a nightmarish looking cartoon mascot on the front that proudly declared the product's name. 'Pumpkin Pete's Gen-u-ine Pumpkin* Spice Soda!' it was called.
He knew what most of those words meant, and could put together the rest with context clues. It still didn't tell him what a pumpkin was though.
Thankfully, Cerulean was approaching him from the hallway she had darted down to meet with her mysterious contact at this overly glamorous hotel. Fancy was pretty and all, but it wasn't as great as a utilitarian design.
"I got an address for somewhere we can lay low. It's not pretty, but it should be able to keep us out of our mutual 'friend's' hair for a while."
"Awesome. Back to the van I assume." Hakke said as he began to head out towards the parking garage they had parked in.
Cerulean grabbed his arm, turning him around to face her. "Wait. Why are you in here?"
"Keeping watch. Parking garage has more cameras than cars in it, so Callie is holding the fort there, and if she does spot something, it would take me all of ten seconds to get back. With me in the lobby, she doesn't need to focus over a big area." He preemptively explained. She had asked that he keep watch over the van, but it was a far better division of labor to split them up and cast a wider net.
Not that Callie was incapable of tapping into the whole hotel security network, but Hakke had decided to give her a hand there. No point in overtaxing his Ghost if they could avoid it. Remnant had proven itself to be home to more oddities and unforeseen problems than either of them had expected, and if another came along and affected Callie, things would get extremely hard extremely fast.
"Did you seriously have a canned answer ready for me?"
"What can I say, I like to be prepared. Although, I do have a question for you. What the hell is this?" He showed her the can.
She stared at it for a minute, before cocking her eyebrow at him. "Really?"
"What?"
"A pun, right now." Her eyes rolled aggressively as they continued towards the van. "Har de har. Though I have to give you props for your quick thinking. And the deadpan delivery."
"What? Oh, 'canned response.' No, not that. What is this?"
"I refuse to believe you've never seen a soda before. Besides, I'm pretty sure Pumpkin Pete is one of those interkingdom companies. They're everywhere."
"No, I mean pumpkin. What the hell is a pumpkin?"
Cerulean stopped and looked over her shoulder at him, exasperation written over her face. Then it froze. And changed to confusion.
"You're being serious. You don't know what a pumpkin is?"
"Wouldn't be asking if I did."
"It's a vegetable, I think. Some kind of squash."
Hakke gave a grunt of comprehension and popped the top of the can open, sipping the contents. He nearly gagged. It was sweet. Overwhelmingly sweet. Horrifically sweet. It was more like a syrup than an actual drink. He was fairly certain that the one sip had more sugar in it than most bakeries back home had to work with, period. It took his taste buds time to realize there were other flavors besides sweet in the liquid, and that he did not like it one bit. The flavor was novel, he gave it that, but not one he cared for.
"Are you okay?"
Hakke forced his mouthful of the bubbly syrup down with a grimace. "Well that was… different from what we got back home." He offered the open can. "You want it?"
Her eyes darted between him and the can. "Sure." She said as she took it from him.
A few minutes later and they were back on the road, heading towards a different district of the city. By now, Vale was beginning to wake up as the first rays of sunlight began to emerge over the horizon. The ride to whatever safe house Cerulean's contact had given her was once again quiet, outside of some basic small talk. Although Hakke had to admit, the city looked better in the daytime than it did at night.
Probably had to do with the whole 'not getting shot at' thing that daytime Vale had going for it.
They turned off the highway, making their way through a tangle of streets of decreasing quality, right until they turned into an alleyway and stopped in front of a dirty brick building in obvious disrepair. A window had been broken, and boarded over from the inside with hardwood, alongside rusty metal grating covering every possible window opening. The single greatest feature was a large garage door, right next to a small landing and a regular, and probably reinforced door.
He looked at the clock on the van's dashboard. It was close to 5:30 in the morning.
Cerulean pulled out a small fob from her jacket pocket and clicked a button, and the garage door began to clank open. Once they had the van inside, both of them got out and looked around the place. Hakke liked what he saw, for the most part. It was barebones in the most literal sense, he could see the raw steel i-beams that had been used to support the roof two floors up. The whole place felt like an old sparrow repair shop, with wooden work benches lined along the walls and some old, rusting manufacturing machinery covered in tarps in the corner. A working pit lined up with the underside of the van, making Hakke think that it was at one point a car repair shop.
Off to one side, the framing of a room and a hallway connected the garage to the front door. Peeking inside the room, he saw a single bare mattress with a blanket of dubious quality draped over it, and a single metal folding chair. The last feature of note was an office style room suspended over the garage with a long dirty pane of glass stretching across its face.
All in all, pretty terrible off the bat.
But it had potential.
Hakke lowered the garage door as Cerulean paced the perimeter of the building. He got busy removing the various weapons maintenance equipment from the van and transferring it over to one of the benches that didn't have miscellaneous garbage on it. Speaking of garbage, there was plenty of it all over the floor in piles. Well, garbage to most. What Hakke saw was scrap metal that could be used as base components in making a wide variety of tools that could prove useful. First though, he would need to do a proper inventory to see exactly what he was working with.
The Detective made her way back to the garage floor.
"Well, it's pretty much like my guy described, in the middle of nowhere, and one step away from being demolished. But, we should be safe from prying eyes here, at least as a beginning. I'm… I'm not sure what I'm going to do."
"I saw a bed in that room over there, might as well get some rest, might help sharpen out some stuff in your head." Hakke said as he worked a vice, testing it to see how rusty the main screw was.
"What do you mean by that?"
Hakke stopped what he was doing, and turned to face Cerulean. "What I mean is, I don't really have a clue as to what to do next. I've got some half baked ideas, but they're all either incredibly dangerous, incredibly stupid, or a mix of the two. And even then, half of those plans are just to find a Syndicate base and attack it head on, which is dumb. But you know this city, you know how it works and who's who. That means our best plan forward is gonna come out of your head. And seeing as how we've had back to back crazy revelations as to the who, the how, and the what we've got to deal with, you being sleep deprived is not going to help either of us.."
"Give me some coffee and I can and have gone for longer than this. But you, I watched your Aura break more than once tonight alone, how you're still standing is beyond me. You need it more than me."
"Oh no, we are not doing this sort of back and forth. I am fine. And I know how to set up a security system over all the available entrances to this place." He thought for a second. "Non-lethal, of course. After that I plan to crash in the van. You're welcome to help me, but I'm looking at five minutes of work. Tops."
"You really expect me to just take a nap? My wife is missing, in the hands of these assholes. I can't just sit around and do nothing!"
"Okay then, what's your plan, right now. What needs to happen right now that can't wait five hours?"
"Easy. We need to find her. Now, I've got a whole laundry list of people I can get in touch with, people who should be able to point us in the right direction-"
"And how may will immediately sell us out to the Syndicate? Look, think about it. Nicole Nightingale just became very valuable to them, overnight. Some of the biggest names in the Syndicate want both of us dead, that makes her a piece of leverage against you. And she's with the cops, not the Syndicate. Even if they have sway over the police, they can't just yank her out, they're going to have to take their time doing it, go through all sort of back channels.
"Now, I know what you're feeling. That helplessness. I watched my hometown burn down in front of me, and I knew there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop it. Now you don't have to be happy about this, but I know for a fact you'll be a hell of a lot more dangerous to the Syndicate if you get a few hours rest under your belt."
"Fine. You're right, I don't like it. And I do need some sleep. I don't think I've slept any since the Syndicate got their hands on me. Now, everything you just told me goes doubly for you. I'll crash first, but you need it too." She paced off into the backroom, and shut the door.
"She is right, you know."
Hakke rolled his eyes as his Ghost appeared. "Me and sleep don't get along, you know that."
"Still. I demand at least five hours rest from you. Today, mister."
He waved her off. "Fine. Fine. First I'm setting up that security, then I'm getting all the guns sorted out. Any progress on getting Dust rounds for Midnight Coup?"
"I have a few prototypes ready for building and testing, but we can wait until Detective Cerulean is no longer sleeping to try those. Speaking of Dust, what happened back there at the apartment complex?"
Hakke shook his head. "I don't know. I was using Light to counteract the voltage, just enough to give me control of my limbs, and that shock bolas exploded when I touched it." He stopped thinking about it. "Right when I touched it actually. Give me some Dust, right in my palm, fourth a gram or so."
He held his hand out as Callie transmatted in a few grains of Dust, Fire Dust he guessed based on its color. Then he reached out and let his Light flow down his arm and into his hand. If an item was physically connected to him, he was usually able to extend his Light into said object, it was what allowed the solid ballistic weapons of mankind to deal with the overpowered enemies they faced on a day to day basis. The Barrier seemed to make that a conscious effort instead of an automatic one, but with focus, he could do it.
His Light coalesced and made contact, and the Dust set his hand on fire. He hissed as he vigorously shook his hand to put it out. That done, he looked back to his Ghost.
"Same amount, on the table."
He grabbed a piece of dirty paper off of a nearby bench and used his Light to set it on fire. Once he confirmed that the Solar Light had given way to regular combustion, he ignited the Fire Dust on the table. Once again, there was a burst of flame, but one significantly smaller than the amount he had triggered with pure Light.
"Fascinating!" Callie said, twirling closer. "It reacts with a significantly more aggressive reaction when Light kicks it off. So the bolas that was on you simply went catastrophic when you touched it."
"It was enough Dust to put me down for an extended period, there had to be a whole bunch in there. And I turbo charged the thing by accident. Good to know, we should be able to find a use for that."
"Agreed. Actually, do you think you could supercharge Dust rounds? At the very least it would be worth testing later."
"Oh yeah, we're doing that. I'm going to grab all the guns we got from the Van, can you put every City gun we have on this bench? I want to do an overview."
It took a short moment to collect and transmat the entire arsenal onto the bench, but Hakke was glad that they did. There was a rather impressive array of weaponry at their fingertips, especially if they were successful in converting the City-made guns to Dust rounds.
On the Remnant side there were three Theon Bullpups, one of which was the damaged one he had picked up from Slick what felt like an eternity ago. Two Theon pistols, six Grendel pistols that he guessed Callie had been collecting as they went along, and the machine gun with the bolas attachment. Then there was his Midnight Coup, his Valakadyn auto rifle, and his 21% Delirium machine gun, all out of ammo. He had had more guns, but they were all tied to the digital storage of his jumpship back on Titan, which was a roundabout way to say they were unavailable.
He looked at the Remnant machine gun. It hadn't been a very good gun overall, more of a suppressive weapon than a proper battlefield gun for a Guardian, but the bolas attachment had promise. The biggest issue he had with elite fighters on this planet was their extreme mobility. Most of his fights had been enemies setting the pace of the fight, as Hakke had no means of slowing them down. But with the bolas launcher, he might be able to do that.
He detached it from the machine gun and took a look at its mounting brackets. It wouldn't be hard to assemble a mounting and firing system for the bolas that could be worked one handed. Especially if the thing was bolted to his arm.
He looked over at the piles of scrap metal and various abandoned mills lathes, and welding equipment that had been left in this garage. He may not be able to match the speed of an Aura user outright, but he bet he could build something that could even out the playing field. The gears in his mind began to whirr. The bolas launcher was far from ideal, the thing was nearly the length of his forearm as is. But it could be miniaturized. And he could always build some sort of mobility enhancing tools to go with it, like a jet pack, or a grappling hook, or something.
First, he would set up a security system.
Then he would have some fun.
This is the part where I respond and whatnot.
Master-ofmanga - Unfortunately not, Hakke's not that cool yet. Still, I dig the name Shock Sphere, it's giving me some ideas. Not quite sure how yet, but I'll find a good use for it.
CheesusChrist15 - That's a relief to hear.
Al the Obsessive - Gracias. We have the first canon break in Glynda not being present at Beacon for the first few days of the semester at least. Things are only going downhill from here.
ThePolishSausageRoaster - I think it'd depend on who Ozpin meets and gets introduced to the idea of Guardians from. Zavala or Ikora? No anxiety, all good. The average Guardian? He'd need to switch from drinking cocoa to whiskey.
Seyd - I am very glad to hear that. Glad you're enjoying it so far!
The Baz - Excellent. Headcanon is that unless you kill a Guardian outright, they'll eventually just get up and keep fighting like nothing happened. As far as Hakke's fireteam goes, their inclusion is probably going to be relegated to flashbacks and mentions for a very long while. However, I'm A-OK with building up a fireteam for him from suggestions like yours. I'll need a little more info about ol' Duck-57 though.
DarkMegatronXX47 - Goodwitch has always struck me as too professional to reveal anger easily. Still, that will probably (absolutely) change once she actually finds her car thief. As for finishers and dance moves, yes and yes. Finishers are going to be a bit more frequent, just because finding the right spot for Hakke to bust some dance moves out will need a bit more setup than finding a reason for the MC to demolish someone.
