A fisherman was somewhere right by the shores of a coast village in Mistral, when suddenly, a couple of strangers would come rushing into his boat. One of them shows heavy bleeding, but both of them are masked and wearing very strange cloaks
"Sir! Excuse me. Sir, can you help us?" said the woman, carrying the obviously injured person
"Umm...Yes, how so? Your...friend looks really badly injured" he replied
"We need to go somewhere. Genus. Can you take us there?"
"Are you insane? Your friend will die if we don't take him somewhere appropriate, and Genus isn't the best of places to be when you're bleeding that badly"
"Just...take us to Genus. How much can we pay you?"
"Well, a trip so long won't do with my boat, but I can get you to Vacuo. Once there you can get to Genus, but even then, I doubt your friend will make it"
"I will treat him in the boat"
"Fine. It will be...some 7000 thousand Lien. It is still one long ride"
The woman gets on, dragging her companion with her, handing the fisherman only 3500
"Hey, this isn't-" the fisherman was saying, but gets interrupted
"Half now, half on Vacuo"
"Fine"
Once in Vacuo, the mysterious pair paid off the fisherman, who returned to Mistral, while both of them resumed their trip on foot. They were walking around the shore for a while, until they found an strange sight. Atlas operatives. An Atlas Sea Vessel
"And what are those doing here? This is way too far from Solitas for the Atlesian Military to be" said the woman
"Argh. Minerva. You said it. It's Atlas. They probably are just running some deep cover operation or something, so lets just...you know...use the chance?"
"Balisong, you're in no condition to "use the chance". You can only make use of one of your arms right now"
"Not the first time I'm this bad, trust me. Now, you see that sea vessel right?"
"Balisong..."
"Minerva, no. You may be the team leader but right now, our priority is to return to the High State to inform them about what we found"
"Ah. Fine. Just...don't engage"
The duo would patiently wait until nighttime and slowly start crawling towards the Atlas Sea Vessel
"Minerva. I found it, the electric panel"
"Good. Can you hack it?"
"I can try. It will take me some time"
Balisong pulls out a small improvised touch pad from within his cape, obviously having the struggle of doing everything with only one hand
"Ah...It will take time to train ambidexterity again. Minerva..."
Minerva quickly helps Balisong all set up, after which he starts diligently doing his part, passing in command after command into the console, one key stroke after the other
"I really need to retrain my ambidexterity"
"Balisong. Don't do that. It's not healthy"
"Nothing really is. And...got it"
Balisong would succeed on hacking it, but a platoon of soldiers would immediately begin running towards them. Unlike other Atlas military operations, this one in specific didn't have any Atlesian Knights. Only human personnel
"Ah. Why? Balisong, how much time will you need for this thing to turn itself on?"
"A minute...maybe 2"
"Then get in. I will hold them off"
Minerva hands Balisong her mask, revealing her face to him. She has several wrinkles and scars, evidently product of the years and also shrapnel and several cuts. She even had a couple of metallic implants
"Apparently...It wasn't me who was going to become the new Gambit. I'm sad that it had to be you"
"Minerva...Don't do anything stupid, just put on your damn mask"
"The most stupid thing I could do is exactly what you're asking from me. Now g-"
Minerva gets shot on the back by the Atlesian Soldiers, only giving Balisong enough time to run towards the pilot's seat. However, he wouldn't make it quick enough and would also take another bullet, right in his wounded arm, which restarted the bleeding but was already pointless anyway
Balisong held the mask close to his chest as he saw Minerva for the last time, her taking the Atlesian Soldiers by surprise, and pushing them out of the ship by performing a last sacrifice.
One sudden flash of light would be the last thing Balisong would see coming from the shore, as he set sail back to Genus
