- - -Always-Dragon- - -

'Going incommunicado. In this case, ignorance is bliss. Will contact you when I resurface. Trust me.'

Oh, Colin - what on Earth are you doing? A part of me is once again tempted to track him down, but those two little words stop me dead in my tracks - just like every other time I found myself thinking about his message.

Trust me.

And so, I do nothing - nothing but worry.

- - -Still-Defiant- - -

"Armsmaster has dropped off the grid. He passed across the border yesterday at Niagara Falls, but we've lost track of him again." Director Piggot's statement is met by a room of Heroes stunned into silence.

Prism's eyes tighten. She's spent not even three whole days in the Bay and she already has far too many questions about this entire situation. "You think he's gone rogue?"

The Director shakes her head. "No - he confided the purpose of his absence with me before he departed. I can say with reasonable confidence that he is simply exercising a great deal of caution. The reason for this meeting is something else."

Director Piggot pauses for a moment, taking note that Miss Militia is particularly engaged by her words.

"We're here to discuss the implications behind his caution. As you may already suspect, Armsmaster has disposed of his trackers - both the ones in his phone and in his Tinkertech. The retrieval team reported back to me this morning, confirming this."

Nodding along, Kid Win bites his lip before speaking his mind. "So, you're thinking that he suspects there's moles in the PRT?"

The Director turns to him. "Correct. We don't have any evidence, but Armsmaster is not known for flights of fancy. We'll be investigating this as if we received an anonymous tip for the time being. Once Armsmaster returns, I will question him on his actions. However - until then we cannot discount the notion that the PRT intelligence services have been compromised."

I park my car on the side of the road, a dense forest surrounding me. This is as close as I want to get. A few hours of snooping at an internet cafe two towns back narrowed the possibilities down to two places.

An industrial logging warehouse, abandoned years ago. Or, a fishpacking factory - privately owned and not currently in operation. Both of them are nearby the town in question, but not close enough to be considered part of it.

The fishpacking factory is positioned next to the forest such that I'll be able to approach somewhat stealthily. The logging warehouse is situated in the middle of an open field.

I've no doubt that they'll have cameras watching all angles of approach - quite the conundrum.

Do I retreat - try to Tinker up a solution with whatever resources I can scrounge up? Maybe some camera spoofing - perhaps some sort of adaptive camouflage?

...No - I'm getting ahead of myself here. I need to confirm the actual location of the target first. I leave my car, retrieving my gear. Moving quickly, I get suited up. The Dragonslayers may already know my face, but there's no point in lingering around and risking exposing myself to a civilian.

I move off, the afternoon sun lighting my way. My destination is a nearby hill overlooking the fishpacking factory. I'll observe from a distance for human occupancy - if nobody's there, I'll change location to observe the logging warehouse.

I'd chosen to surveille the fishpacking factory first because of it's private ownership - something mentioned in a local newspaper article about the purchase from late last year. I can't imagine any reason that a private citizen would own a fishpacking factory other than wanting a hideout, so it seems the most suspect of the two locations to me.

I eventually find my way to the hill - I have long since disabled my suit's access to the internet, mobile network and positioning systems, so I have to navigate by my memory of the map of the area.

I settle in under the cover of the foliage covering the area. My view of the factory isn't great, but I should at least be able to determine whether there's people living in it. I manipulate the controls to my helmet with flicks of my eyes and twitches of my fingers, pulling up the zoom function.

The tiny parfocal lenses in my helmet's cameras adjust, the stabilized image of the factory in near-perfect detail appearing in my display. I squint, trying to parse what I can see through the windows.

There's a flicker of movement in the window - a person walking across the room. The lighting inside the factory changes. Whoever's inside just turned on the lights.

A smile touches the corner of my exposed mouth.

Gotcha.

I keep a watch on the factory, waiting for the sun to set. I catch more glimpses of people, but no faces. I don't think it particularly likely that the factory is inhabited by anybody but the Dragonslayers, but I suppose it does remain a possibility.

At around ten, the lights flick off once more. Through the windows, I can see the pale blue glow of computer monitors. Someone keeping watch through the night while the others sleep, perhaps?

Something catches in my throat. Twenty-four hours a day, seven hours a week surveillance. I suppose I didn't truly expect any different, but they're making it rather difficult for me to care about bringing them in intact.

What's my next move? Do I dare risk the direct approach? I haven't spotted any cameras, but that means nothing. The forest should hide my approach for most of the way - do I want to make the gamble that I can close the rest of the distance fast enough?

A thought strikes me. What if they've got cameras wired through the forest? In that case I would definitely need a countermeasure.

Another thought - what if the cameras they do have are Tinkertech ones? Any countermeasure I devise may well be invalidated.

I shake my head. I'll never be able to truly prepare a counter for every precaution they could have taken - even trying to do so would be futile. I've got to make a judgement based off of the information I do know, or can assume to be true.

So what do I know?

Saint has a program that can kill Dragon and he's willing to use it. There's three Dragonslayers, each with one suit to their name. Saint is under the influence of Teacher. My presence is likely unknown to them. My knowledge of Dragon's true nature and their own capabilities is unknown to them. It is likely that at least one of the Dragonslayers is currently asleep.

The more I look at the situation, the more appealing a direct assault becomes. I could retreat and cludge something together to deal with security systems, but doing so gives more chances for the Dragonslayers to discover my presence - eliminating my single biggest advantage.

It's a risk.

Everything's a risk - do I dare take it? There'll be no do-overs this time.

What else can I do? Back off and make an isolated backup of Dragon? Possible, but not without giving Saint more information about my situation through Dragon than I dare.

Call in backup? Who, though? Miss Militia isn't an option. Chevalier for similar reasons - besides, neither would be much help here. Dragon is not an option for obvious reasons.

I scoff to myself. That's it - my long list of allies and friends. Pathetic.

No - I have no choice but to do this by myself.

I stand, moving through the forest. My armor's deep blue colour should provide at least a small amount of camouflage in the dark of the night. A short ways away from the factory I stop. I can just make out sounds coming from the inside of the factory - snoring. Two sets, and very loud. That means one person is likely awake.

I'm not out of the treeline yet, and nobody's rushing about to put on a suit. So good so far.

I creep forward, keeping close attention to the sounds around me. I consider the factory - specifically how I'm going to go about entering. The walls are corrugated steel - not enough to keep out the chill, but not something I can just run right through. Making my own entrance will be loud and slow enough to give them warning.

The windows are set high in the walls, with a low profile. Enough to throw a grenade through, but out of the question for a speedy entry. I've got confoam, teargas and flashbangs tucked away in the compartments of my armour. Technically, I was supposed to return them before I left, but the armourer didn't raise a fuss.

The main entrance is a pair of large steel roller doors, with a secondary hinged door off to the side. Forcing the hinged door would be quicker than cutting through the wall, but just as loud - and wouldn't put me in the same room as the computers anyway.

My plan of entry begins to form in my head. Run up fast enough that anybody watching the cameras won't have enough time to react to me. Put a flashbang through the window, begin cutting an entrance to the computer room, throw another one in and finish making my entrance. Subdue the one who's awake, then move on to the other two.

Simple. No chance of organised retaliation, minimal chance of Saint pulling something.

I move. My arm cocks back, launching the flashbang through the window. My halberd is already glowing with plasma. The grenade goes off, my blade slicing through the wall with two vertical slices. Inside, I can hear yelling.

I throw another grenade with my offhand, my main hand already guiding my halberd through the second pair of slices. My foot launches forward, sending the sputtering chunk of wall flying into the room as the grenade explodes.

I waste no time, striding into the factory. Stumbling about on the ground is a beefy man outfitted in some sort of undersuit - Dobrynja. My weapon lashes out, the flat of my blade slamming into his skull. He drops, out cold.

I move on, dropping a confoam grenade on him as I pass. I sprint into the next room. A bedroom. Two people inside, both scrambling about.

A man, bringing a PDA up to his face - Saint. A woman, revolver in hand - Mags.

Saint begins to speak. "Asc-"

My halberd leaps up, blade flying at the twitch of my fingers. Propelled with the same pneumatic launcher used to anchor my grappling hook into stone, the blade works it's magic on Saint's body. With a spray of gore, Saint could speak no more.

The blade had torn right through him, continuing on into the wall behind him. His body drops, the pda clattering onto the ground. His head flies in a different direction, falling onto the bedroll.

The woman screeches with an animal fury. With a thunderous crack, my body jerks back under a wild spray of bullets. A lance of firey pain spears my jaw, and my mouth tastes as if I'd just downed a goblet of blood.

I drop the halberd - the chain is too slow to reel in. My hand moves for my grenades, the woman moves forward, her ammunition spent. Still screeching, her fists hail down on me. One connects with my jaw, sending yet more spears of molten agony through me.

I push through it - standing under a waterfall of boiling coolant, the Master puppeting my body had been far more painful. My hands finally find a grenade. I don't even look at the type, merely pulling the pin and shoving my hand into her face.

The woman recoils as a plume of tear gas flows into her face. I drop the canister, the gas still pouring out. I capitalise on the opening, my armoured fist slamming into her stomach. She bends at the waist, tears flowing down her face.

My foot follows up, knocking her feet from under her. She falls onto the concrete with a wet clack. A second kick chases the first, my heel slamming into her temple. She stops, still.

...It's done, then.