Chapter 17, Armor and Accounting
The Golden Age saw many wondrous technologies rise and advance. Space flight, advances in terraforming tech from observing the Traveler, the Warmind systems, Exos, and many other, less flashy advances. Such as the miracles of modern metals. The Arcology had been built inside and out with the most durable, stress resistant materials mankind had to offer. The moon Titan had never been touched by the Traveler, which meant it was entirely up to humanity to make the moon habitable. They had taken no chances.
Even to this day in the City Age, it was unknown how they manufactured the alloys used inside the Arcology; for its protective shell, in its interior. The material was some of the best available for structural work.
And it was damn near impossible to work with. Not with the cobbled together junk that Hakke had at his disposal. His bolas launcher had been made of mild steel, and that hadn't held up at all. The Arcology metal was a little worse at taking impact damage than his helmet had been, being as it was designed to withstand corrosion and more subtle, twisting and shearing forces prevalent in a building. Gauntlets made of this wouldn't hold up forever against Magenta, but it would allow him to stay in the fight longer than he previously could.
Better than nothing.
If he could make anything with it.
Which he couldn't.
His mill flat out wasn't powerful enough to drill through the material, let alone plane or shape it. Which meant he only had warped and oddly shaped plates to work with, and strapping something the size and shape of a dinner plate to his arm wasn't a grand idea.
As morning's light began to barely appear over the horizon the Warlock came to a horrible conclusion. One that sank into his very being and laid there like a wad of lead.
He couldn't make this himself. He was going to have to hire someone else to make this for him.
And that stung. While Hakke was no stranger to visiting the gunsmith or an armorer, it was usually because it was convenient and he was looking for something specific that was being mass produced already, and buying it was easier than making it himself. In that same vein however, he knew how to make his own weapons and protection when he needed it. In fact, he prided himself on being able to make his own equipment. But without the proper tools to work this material, and the fact that he literally didn't have, or could make more, it made sense to go to someone who could.
He grabbed his Scroll off the bench he had left it on. "We really need to get another one of these things for Cerulean to use. Whaddya think? Head over to Junior's to pick up another burner? Freak him out a little? He has to know that we were supposed to die in that trap."
"We could, or I could just let our Detective friend know that she should just buy one from a more reputable dealer with our not-so-reputably sourced funding. We have plenty of gangster Lien for her to use for a shiny new Scroll after all."
"Heh, at least the Syndicate is good for something, they are funding our fight against them."
"Just don't tell them that."
Hakke laughed as he left the garage and walked to a better neighborhood to give Vale's public transport a try. Specifically the skyrail, a train system that criss-crossed several of the more industrious districts of the city via a rail built above the streets. The fare was cheaper than a taxi, and it led almost directly to the armorer that Callie had found from her research.
Was it a risk? Technically yes. There was a chance that some Syndicate affiliated goon would be on the rail and make a fuss, albeit a small one. A small enough risk that Hakke wasn't actually worried about it. He looked remarkably generic by Vale standards, something he was entirely unused until his infamy grew too big amongst the underworld, he would exploit that fact to its highest advantage. At least until he learned the rules of the road here.
There was still so much he needed to learn about this world.
The ride on the skyrail was buttery smooth, the train cab arranged like most public transport he had seen. Seating lined the walls and rail posts and handles hung from the ceiling for passengers to grab if and when the train became crowded. Unlike nearly every public transport he had ever seen however, the train was spotless. Truth be told, most of the city so far had been exceptionally clean, at least in comparison to the other urban centers he had visited.
Not that that was saying much, seeing as most of those were either ruins, warzones, literally cursed, or some combination thereof.
He got off the nearly empty train at the closest stop, taking in a deep breath of the crisp morning air. Dawn had officially arrived, but the sun had yet to fully emerge. The streets were caught in that magical moment between dawn and day; the streetlights were still on and shining down and the sky was beginning to turn a deep reddish gold. There had to be something in the atmosphere of this world to give it the vibrancy of colors that saturated everything.
It was only a handful of blocks to get over to the armor shop that Callie had found for him to peruse, and he was more than happy to take his time getting there. The area he was in seemed to be more of a commercial hub, with an assortment of shops lining both sides of the street, their owners going through the motions of preparing for the workday. Even at this early hour there were people doing the same as him, walking and window shopping.
A moment of calm. Something he very rarely got to enjoy. Something he hadn't properly had since he had arrived on Remnant. Ever since he first ground a trench into the world's alien soil, he had either been fighting, running, planning, or plotting, everything except observing.
It was as close to relaxing as he would allow himself to get.
All too soon, he came to the shop he had been looking for, a shop called Steel Appeal, a brick and mortar outlet built into the side of a larger building; one that he guessed housed the more industrial equipment any modern armorer would need to stay relevant. Or it had brewery equipment, seeing as the storefront right next to the armorer's was a microbrewery if he had ever seen one.
Alcohol and armor. A classic as timeless as alcohol and explosives.
That last one might be Guardian specific.
He took one last look around, confirmed that the sign was flipped to 'open', and entered the store. The door made a ding sound as he entered to announce his presence, a deep voice telling him that they would be right there coming from someplace out of sight in the back. That suited Hakke just fine, and gave him plenty of time to look around.
This was not a normal armor shop. At least, not by City standards. Instead of ablative armor or microlattice weave, there was what looked like regular shaped plate mail and leather. Significantly less advanced than he had been expecting, although the craftsmanship was impeccable. There was a not inconsiderable amount of cloth based armor as well, although it wasn't reinforced the same way his jacket was. It was lighter, not flimsy per se, but it felt less substantial than his duster when he felt it between his fingers. It seemed like there was a higher emphasis placed on the aesthetics of an item, instead of the practical.
It just didn't seem like the ideal choice against either bullets or Grimm, seeing as those were the two major things that would and could kill someone here above all else. As he looked closer at a full cuirass and pauldron set, he realized he may have been slightly too hasty in his condemnations. There was a startling degree of both thought and design work put into the armor, allowing for a high degree of after-market customization. As he looked around, he saw that most of the pieces, even the highly suspect and outright impractical items were made in such a way.
Markets were largely a mysterious concept to him, but this shop wouldn't have this crap if people didn't buy it. He shook his head.
Maybe he shouldn't learn more about the people of Remnant if they thought Traveler-Damned high heels belonged in an armor shop.
Thankfully, he heard a door open behind him, and Hakke turned to see the shopkeeper emerge from the back of the store. It was a larger, bulkier man in an oil-stained leather apron and a large mountain man beard. The Warlock was pleased by what he saw. Leather was a fantastic material, being incredibly resistant to heat and most forms of shrapnel that metalworking produced, and judging by the amount of staining on both the apron and the man's hands, he was the one who actually worked on things. Hakke hated having to deal with middle men, especially when they turned out to not know anything about the service he was trying to procure.
The Tex Machina company back in the City had been known to send sleazier salespeople from time to time, most of them barely understanding the inner workings of the admittedly good weapons they peddled. As irritating as they tended to be, they were worth some entertainment. Watching their preening facade fall when asked about barrel pressures or anything really technical never got old.
"Howdy there, sir. Sorry, you caught me a bit flat footed. Normally don't get folks wandering in until a bit late." He barked a laugh. "Like that's an excuse. Name's Damiano Tomaso. Welcome to Steel Appeal, what can I do ya for?"
Hakke approached the front desk. "Hi, yeah, you do commissions?"
"Heh, straight to the point. That we do, what are ya looking to have made?" the man said with a nod.
"I was looking to have a pair of gauntlets made. I've got some really durable metal That's I'd like for you to use, if you're up for it." Hakke fished around in his coat for a second as Callie transmatted a sample of the Arcology metal into his hand. "I normally like building my own stuff when I can, I just don't have the tooling to work it."
"Hmm. Dust-reinforced?" Damiano asked as he looked over the chunk of metal.
"No. It's some variety of high endurance alloy, really durable stuff."
"These tool marks from you?" he asked, pointing to several blemishes and scrapes on the metal's face. "Looks like you aren't kidding, metal's barely touched, it's just the paint that's been scraped off."
Hakke peered at the spots Damiano was pointing out. "Yeah, that was from me. I have an old standing mill I was trying to use, the thing just doesn't have the 'oomph' I need."
The armorer studied the metal some more, lips pursed in thought. "Hm. Giving me a challenge, I see. You don't happen to know what sort of metal it is, specifically I mean, do you?" Hakke shook his head. "Ah well. Nothing a little testing won't fix. Yeah, I should be able to whip something up, of course how pretty it is will be dictated by how hard this here metal is to work with."
"That's fine. Aesthetics come second to function in my book."
"More on the pragmatic side, I can get behind that. What's your style?"
Hakke paused. "Come again?"
"Your style of fighting. It's one of those things I like to know about on the front end so I can tailor the design to something that will fit you better."
That was not a question Hakke was used to hearing from an armorer. Although it did make sense to a degree. Everyone here seemed obsessed with melee fighting, which meant that that was where the emphasis was placed. And truth be told, Hakke wasn't positive what his style of fighting would be called, besides efficient. Or as efficient as he could manage.
Most of the training he had undertaken, whether that was at the hands of other Guardians in the Crucible or Iron Banner contests, or at the hands of his very overeager fireteam, consisted of gunplay. Positioning, moving in and out of cover, when to use Light and when to reload, when to retreat and when to push. He had once asked Duck-57, one of the Titans that was a part of Fireteam Oboe, to teach him the ropes for hand to hand combat and… now that he thought about it there really wasn't anything here that was all that bad.
Magenta hadn't literally folded his spine like an accordion after all.
"My style of fighting is… largely from range. If you could add a slot where I can attach different modules on the side, that would be nice. I've been playing around with adding different tools to my repertoire."
"Fair enough, fair enough. I can work with that. Depending on how resistant this stuff is, I'll make sure that these gauntlets are durable enough to take the worst the Grimm, or your classmates for that matter, can deliver with or without your Aura." Damiano said with a smile.
"My classmates?"
"Oh! You're not a student at Beacon? Huh. Had you pegged for a third or fourth year. Well, there I go making assumptions again."
Hakke raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. Would that tidbit of knowledge, that he looked like he was in the age bracket for this academy, ever come in useful? Probably not. But he squirreled it away for later regardless.
"Let's not be hasty now. If I was to say yes, I was a student, would there be a discount?"
Damiano barked out a laugh. "There is, if you have a Beacon ID that is. Foolin' around aside, I should be able to get this job done for ya easy enough. I'll have a slot for attachments runnin' on the side, in line with your pinky finger. That way the main bulk of the gauntlets will be available for blocking. To get started, I'll need a down payment and that metal you want to use. Standard is 500 Lien for custom work like this."
"Sure thing." Hakke said with a nod. "I've got a smaller piece you can use and ruin to figure out the best way to work with this stuff." He pulled out the materials and put them on the counter.
"Perfect, now the last details. I do have one or two commissions ahead of yours, so it will be a little time before it's ready, if that's alright." He pulled a hollow box out from under the counter, setting it down with a hefty thud. "Go ahead and put yer arms in this guy here quick. It'll scan them and let me print out a workable cast. Heck of a lot faster than running around with a tape measurer, let me tell ya!"
"Neat." The Warlock said as he complied. A grid lattice of light flashed several times, covering his arms once they were positioned correctly. He eyed the machine. A 3D scanner that fed its info directly into a printer. Now that was something that had possibilities.
"So. If you ain't a student, what is it you do? Freelance Huntsmen?"
"Something like that."
"Hmm. Don't get many freelancers here in the city proper. Usually, they hang out near the Defense Walls for bounty work. Gotta ask, how are the Grimm out there?"
"Oh, pretty normal." Hakke said, thinking back on his hike to the city. "Numerous and belligerent."
Damiano laughed again, and finished the scans. As he gathered up the Arcology metal he gave Hakke a pointed look. "Just so you know sir, I legally need an answer to the question of your occupation for my file. Few years back, local gangs had a habit of getting their heavy hitters outfitted at shops like mine. Now, I'm stuck asking some extra dumb questions 'fore I can start, alongside yer ID."
Ah. Wonderful. Something told Hakke that his actual occupation wouldn't really fly too well, nor would his apparent new one of hunting down dangerous Hive artifacts extra-judiciously. So then the question became: what did he tell the guy? While Damiano hadn't actually said anything that would lead the Warlock to believe that he would nark, if he did do any form of background check ro what have you, there was a high chance that the police could end up being involved. And for the moment, or until they confirmed who and how many cops were working with the Syndicate, that was unacceptable.
So what to tell him?
A thought crossed Hakke's mind. Back when Tank Top had first jumped him outside of Junior's club, the man had sharpened his incredible wit against the Warlock. If he remembered correctly, he had been called a gumshoe.
That could work.
"Of course." Hakke said. "I'm a private investigator. Right now, the only official ID I have is this Vale Visitor Pass, hope that works."
"Huh, a PI? Don't have many of those enter my shop. The Pass should be fine, it's all just a bunch of Council hooey anyways. Alright, all I need then is to make a copy for my records, and get some contact info for ya. I'll give you a ring when your gauntlets are ready to go."
"Perfect." Hakke gave over all the preliminary items that Damiano wanted to get everything going, and the Warlock took his leave. Outside of the slight hiccup with his career path, it had gone about as well as he could have hoped. Within a few days, he should hopefully have something that would help even the odds against Magenta when they next inevitably met.
Hakke made his way back to the skyrail and prepared to go to his next destination, the CCTS tower. To get there he needed to go to the main junction for aerial travel in the city and take something called an airbus to Beacon Academy, the location of the tower itself. Seeing as it was still early in the morning, he figured he would be able to get out and back with minimal fuss or muss.
The main junction was about what he had expected, an expansive airport style waiting area that various aircraft could dock and accept passengers from. Holographic displays declared flights inbound and outbound from different junctions around the city alongside more standard directions for the junction itself. It seemed that the place was rapidly filling up with a much larger collection of people than he had expected. Far more, actually. Outside of the standard richer business folk that one would expect to take air transport to their jobs, there seemed to be a large amount of teenagers milling around as well. Most of which were either armored or armed. Or both.
He looked over to the holographic terminal that had his airbus' timetable on it. He still had a few minutes before it took off, unfortunately.
Under his breath, he asked Callie a question. "So, what's the deal with the small horde of multicolor teenagers here?"
"It's the first day of the semester, Hakke." She answered in his earpiece. "They will all be boarding a rather large airship that will take them to the campus in less than 15 minutes. Don't worry, we won't be on board that one. It is specifically for ferrying students, which we are not, Mr Private Eye."
A thought struck him. "I should have asked beforehand, but do I need any licensing or anything to actually get away with PI stuff? I mean, it won't stop me, but having that air of legitimacy might be handy."
"Well, I sure am glad you asked before you decided that's what you are, thankfully no. I did go ahead and begin inserting the preliminary files into Vale's systems, but I wanted to wait until we got to the CCTS tower to finalize. It will be easier to hide my usage in the raw bandwidth being processed there."
"Neat. Who knows, it might actually be handy. Give us an excuse to skulk around, and a better way to earn some money besides taking Grimm bounties. Some of those read like they could take days to track down the specific ones."
Eventually, the projector announced that his airbus was beginning boarding, so Hakke got up and made his way to the terminal. All around him, he heard snippets of conversation in muted, excited tones. From what he had gathered, and been told, this Beacon place was pretty prestigious, and very competitive to get in. The conversations around him definitely lent extra credence to those rumors.
Apparently, these kids journeys had begun years earlier, with training at lesser academies. It was something he could get behind. The world, both his and theirs, was dangerous as all hell. Back home the citizens of the Last City had relied heavily on the Guardians to defend them above almost everything else, and the legions of paracausal warriors had done so effectively for centuries.
The Red War had changed that. When war tore the streets apart, and the civilians found themselves in the midst of the fighting, and then when the Guardians had had their Light torn from them, they had been forced to pick up rifles and fight for themselves.
After the Dominus' death, Militia ranks had swollen, and the Consensus, the ruling body of the Last City, had decreed that all able-bodied civilians would have the option to be trained to fight. If the worst case were to happen again, whatever army was foolish enough to assault the Last City wouldn't find swarms of defenseless people ripe for slaughter; they would find an army ready to fight tooth and nail for their home.
Vale hadn't experienced anything even close to the Red War in roughly 80 years, but they at least had the foresight to train their warriors from a young age. The more time they had to perfect their skills, the hardier they would prove to be in the case of a crisis.
Not that someone would realize that looking at the collected students gathered here. The only thing they had on their faces was varying degrees of giddiness, excitement, nervousness, and raw anxiety. One blond headed young man, one of the few with the common sense to actually have armor on, was almost turning green even here.
He was glad he wouldn't be on the student airbus. Blondie was very obviously not going to be able to keep his breakfast in.
He weaved through the crowd, once again relying on the classic technique of walking with purpose to get where he needed to go in a manageable time. It was working too, once again proving one of Ikora Rey's most valuable and unorthodox lessons valid and true.
Walk with purpose, like you have every right to be there, and no one will bother you. Especially handy to get through any Hunters or Titans crowding the Tower, or to get to research materials before the other Warlocks. It was well known amongst Warlocks that the one who walks with the most purpose got the Golden Age data first. Well, at least when a high ranking or highly respected Warlock like Ikora or Osiris was in the same room, every other time it was a desperate and sometimes violent scramble.
Good times.
And just like back home, it worked until it didn't. While crossing through a stream of students, one of them ran directly into his side. He stopped and turned to see a younger, surprisingly pale girl reeling back. Why she had a skirt of all things while on track to a combat school was truly beyond Hakke, but he had definitely seen stranger things. She shook her head, before finally finding who she had rammed into.
"You good?" Hakke asked.
The girl's metallic silver eyes widened as she began to vomit words at a staggering pace. "Oh my gosh I am-so-sorry-I-wasn't-looking-"
Hakke held up a hand, hoping it would stem the dam of words. "By the Light, slow it down. You alright?"
"Oh! Um. Yes! I'm sorry I ran into you, I wasn't paying attention, I'm just really excited."
"You're fine, no need to apologize. I didn't see you either, so equal blame. You have a good one now." Hakke began to continue on his way. There was still at least three minutes before his airbus took off, and he didn't want to be that guy that held everything up. He found the boarding terminal and presented his Scroll, which a clerk earlier had transferred a digital ticket onto. On one hand, the sheer number of functions that the device had on hand was incredibly convenient for day to day actions like this. It was also incredibly convenient for hacking into, as Callie had proven over and over.
The aircraft he boarded was larger than he had expected, although the interior seating indicated that its capacity was at least ten. He took one of the last open seats next to a businessman, simply because it had window access. A few minutes later the craft took off and lazily began making its way over the city to Beacon.
Fifteen minutes later he could make out the campus itself. Much like the rest of Vale, high points and flying buttresses were a mainstay in its architectural plan, and it seemed like the campus was legitimately huge; sprawling over a vast amount of ground. At the center of the numerous and interconnected buildings was a large tower, capped off with what looked like some sort of lighthouse fixture. Oh. It was a beacon
Clever.
The airbus itself was remarkable in how unremarkable it was. He barely felt turbulence of any kind as it flew along, and the hum from whatever kind of Dust was being used to power its thrusters was gentle, if nothing else. It was almost enough to lull him to sleep. Or it would be if sleep was something he would ever do willingly.
The ship landed at the air dock, and Hakke disembarked with the rest of the passengers. He had to give it to whoever designed this place, it was gorgeous. The path leading towards the campus was lined with ornate iron lanterns, and the cobble work on the path displayed grandiose designs. One had the twin axes of Vale's sigil surrounded by long geometric spines, in a rather overly designed manner.
Well, everything here was overly designed in Hakke's opinion, but that stemmed more so from his upbringing, where the utilitarian design of City architecture was softened not by stonework, but by colorful banners and tapestries. This definitely had its appeal, even if it wouldn't be the Warlock's first choice. He could still take a moment to appreciate it. On a separate but far more welcome note, it looked like he could open carry Midnight Coup here without anyone making a fuss, judging by the fact nearly everyone he could see was openly carrying their weapons.
Bizarre weapons, but weapons none the less. As he had only run into three Huntsmen level enemies so far, that being Murex, Tank Top, and Magenta, he hadn't really been exposed to the sort of insanity that was classified as a weapon to the people of Remnant.
By the Traveler's Light, one man was carrying an unlit sconce. Another had red boxing gloves with some sort of barreled mechanism at the business end.
He would never get used to this.
He began the trek to the tower, absorbing what he could of his surroundings. Especially the birds, of which there were many, to Hakke's delight. It had been one thing to walk through the woods and see wildlife, it was another to see this much diversity in a near urban environment. Especially when said wildlife was more than just pigeons, as fantastic as those birds were.
He had nearly reached the first set of buttresses holding up what he thought was a decorative stone ring around the campus when he heard the muffled boom of a Dust explosion behind him. He, alongside several others, looked back towards the airship dock to see what had just detonated. In the distance he could make out two singed figures and what looked like a pile of burnt luggage, one figure very obviously upset. Hakke cracked a smile as he continued on his way. Things exploding without warning was about as nostalgic as it could get for the Guardian, although it looked like no one had been killed.
Of course, when it was Guardians behind the explosions, they tended to be incredibly lethal, which usually only made it funnier. He would never forget the Guardian who decommissioned an old jumpship by blaring an old Mexican salsa tune from exterior speakers before crashing it into a Hive Ogre. A true hero, that one.
Finally, he found himself standing in the shadow of the CCTS Tower at the heart of the campus, and it did not disappoint. The buttresses surrounding the tower in a hexagonal pattern were not decorative it seemed, as he could actually understand that a structure this big could feasibly need the extra support. The entire thing rested on several small levels of reinforced concrete disguised as stair like landings.
Hakke entered, and once he explained the basics of what he was here for, he was granted entrance to the elevators to reach the terminals up above. A quick and smooth ride later, and he found himself in a spacious room filled with individual terminals, most of which were already occupied by various individuals. The CCTS Tower was one of the best ways to communicate outside of the Kingdom or to send or receive large amounts of files, so it wasn't a surprise to find mostly suits or what he assumed were veteran Huntsmen taking up most of the space.
Once again, he found a terminal at the periphery near the windows, and set up shop. There was a small pedestal for his Scroll to connect to, which he placed down. Callie had already established a link with his Scroll, which would allow her to remotely access the terminal and network without having to emerge from his backpack. Handy for overly public situations such as this, especially since in their downtime they had confirmed that no one on this planet had devised anything remotely similar to a Ghost.
He was extremely glad that the only person that knew about Callie was more focused on finding her wife and destroying the Syndicate than pondering the mysteries of Hakke and his Ghost.
Connection established, Callie began to make her download, trawling through whichever shell companies and banking systems were unfortunate enough to be remotely involved with paying the mercs.
"How long?" he asked quietly.
"There is a lot of information to gather, I'm grabbing more than we probably need in order to make sure I don't miss anything. It's going to take a while, since I have to store it into the Scroll instead of taking it myself."
"Why's that?"
"Classic example of subterfuge. By going along the pre-established routes already built in for Scrolls, I can focus on hiding the download from the banks. I could tear it out into my own memory far faster, but that is a brute force approach above all else. They would notice it almost immediately." She said into his earpiece.
"Guess we're here for the long haul." He said with a sigh, leaning back into the surprisingly comfortable chair that accompanied the terminal. Callie was eventually able to provide an actual estimate of three hours, as she was not only attempting to find the payment transactions, but any other illegal activity done by the parties involved. There was a chance that, if there was wrongdoing and if the information was given to the right people, it could provide another avenue to strike at the Syndicate.
Open a war on multiple fronts, both legitimate and vigilante.
As time continued to slog on by, Hakke began to grow impatient. If he had something to do, he could do so for an almost indefinite amount of time. But all he could do was watch as files transferred into his Scroll one by one. Looking around, he took his coat off and threw it over the chair as a placeholder and walked over to the window. It didn't take him long to find a small flock of finches as they descended into a nearby tree. Or at least he thought they were finches. He would need to get himself an ornithology book at some point. Do some bird watching. Actually enjoy the fact that Remnant wasn't a half-dead world.
"Hakke, we have a problem."
The Warlock's head turned slightly, and he sent a mental ping as confirmation to continue.
"Do you remember that car we stole? How it belonged to one Glynda Goodwitch? Well, as it turns out, she is the combat instructor for this combat school."
Huh. That was surprisingly not good. That would make this Goodwitch character Beacon's equivalent of Shaxx, although he could almost guarantee Shaxx was the scarier of the two without even meeting Goodwitch.
"She's also here. As in right now."
Hakke turned fully, looking back at the terminal he had taken up residence at. Standing next to it was a blonde woman in a stylized black and purple cape, her eyes behind her glasses were about as sharp as he had seen, staring directly into him. Truth be told, she looked like a librarian. The sort of librarian that would be in charge of the Tower archives. As in not someone to mess with.
Her arms were crossed as she gestured to the seat his coat was draped over.
"Is this yours?"
Boy howdy, there it is! The incredibly anticlimactic meeting between one Ruby Rose and Hakke the Warlock! All it took for the main characters to cross paths is 17 chapters and over 80,000 words. I refuse to apologize. Other than that, the path to the mercs and what they know is shortening bit by bit, soon we'll actually get dividends there. Not to mention Hakke is finally calling himself a PI, which is something I have been plotting in the background for a long time, it just took until now for me to find a spot where him deciding that actually made any form of sense.
- RangoTango
Yee (and I cannot emphasize this enough) Haw, Review time
Toaster - I'm saving that scenario for later. It's too good to not use.
ThePolishSausageRoaster - Oh 100%. Savathun's Song is actually one of the main Strikes I've been using as a competency marker for standard, non-player Guardians. It's great for my purposes that Sav's Song is the benchmark, simply because it means that it's way easier to craft actually challenging, interesting encounters.
The Baz - A Whisper of Warlocks (I've got nothing). Give ol' Ozpin and Co. some credit, they and the resources they control are really good, but it's barely been two full days since they came to the conclusion that they need to hunt Hakke down. I mean, man's made the most of that time, but still. The only real encounters inside the city of Vale they know about are the Grand Theft Glynda Incident and the Apartment Assault.
DarkMegatronXX47 - Oh, yea yea. Hakke's going to start going at this problem the only way he knows how: total, nonstop war. I agree with your opinion on the Fallen, they're less terrorists and more incredibly desperate refugees and survivalists. Unfortunately, Hakke has a very different opinion based on some of the missions he's run against them. You gotta remember, he spent his most formative years as a Guardian before the events of D1.
Master-ofmanga - Not really. I'm going off the idea that Exotic gear is truly one-of-a-kind, and even in those cases where an exotic is mass produced (IE Malfeasance) there aren't actually too many of them in the world at large. That said, Hakke did have a D1 Starfire Protocol, which was unfortunately lost alongside everything else he had in his vault during the Red War. He's still a bit salty about that.
