Emiya pressed the haptic interface button on his omnitool, the call immediately dialing.

They had pulled back from the road, deciding to trust in the cover of jungle until the problem of the sniper was resolved and not wanting to be forced to fiddle with their suits in the middle of a call. The omnitool dial tone rang twice before the call was picked up.

"Gunnery Chief Thomas speaking."

"Serviceman Emiya calling."

"Alright, what is it? Keep it short, serviceman, we're busy here." The voice at the other end of the comms said.

Shepard kept intensely looking at Emiya, listening in to the conversation with such rapt attention while holding so quiet that she had almost stopped breathing.

"I'm having a bit of a problem with a gun. The safety software doesn't seem to be working properly, so I don't think I can use it, sir," Emiya explained.

"Hmm? The safeties are off? Are you sure the gun still works? Gun malfunctions as a result of a failed hack are still a part of the simulation," Thomas answered, seeming to grow more interested in the conversation. A faulty gun could cause personnel injuries if left unattended, after all.

"Yes, sir. It fires just fine, but the output exceeds the safeties."

"That shouldn't be possible. Outside of very specific armaments, the hard cap on velocity should not be possible to remove during this operation. What weapon are we talking about here?" The skepticism was clear in his voice now.

"It's a sniper rifle, sir," Emiya said.

The comm went silent. And after five seconds, as no response could still be heard, Shepard began to look with alarm at Emiya.

"Yeah, about that, Serviceman Emiya, you newbies don't have access to that weapon - you don't even have the clearance for the ID-lock. Your waste of my time has been noted and you will be called in for a disciplinary hearing following this—"—boom!

Emiya pulled the trigger.

The silence on the other end of the comm was almost deafening and Emiya had to hold back a smirk.

"Sorry, sir. My finger slipped."

"...Hold on, let me pull up your camera feed..." Thomas hastily said, and there was another moment of silence. "—Serviceman... newest batch, pistol and light hardsuit training, no hacking training or software..."

Emiya could barely hear the Gunnery Chief muttering on the other end, as Thomas must have been going through his records. Emiya looked down at the Frankenstein's monster of a cobbled-together sniper rifle, waiting for the other end to finish whatever they were doing.

It didn't take long.

"...Holy Mother of God, what the fuck am I looking at?"

"Ah, well. We took out a hostile sniper and took his gun. Figured we could use it since our pistols were proving a bit anemic. But as it turns out, the firmware update didn't carry over so it's a bit too—shall we say—vigorous for our purposes," Emiya said, holding back all the smugness that he could. It was barely enough, as there was a certain enjoyment to be had in all this.

Beside him, Shepard was grinning from ear to ear, though careful to keep the hell out of his camera's view.

"Don't... Don't move. Don't hang up. Don't do anything. I need to get a superior officer for this..."

The voice broke off and Emiya then had to smirk. Beside him, Shepard had less success in holding back her mirth as her shoulders were shaking with quiet laughter. A few minutes passed by and Shepard received another update on the happenings in town from Cassani, who remained wholly unaware of what they were doing.

Finally, after ten minutes had passed a new voice came through. A much darker and more somber voice, speaking of years of experience in command.

"This is Major Maeda, what's the problem?"

"Sir, we have acquired a sniper rifle and its safeties are off, rendering it too dangerous to use. I am requesting for the ID-lock to be disabled," Emiya explained.

"Denied. This was explained to you before; appropriated armaments must be hacked using the outlined guidelines; failing that you have ruined the weapon according to the simulation—

"Sir, they've physically bypassed the serialized parts and firmware lock using another gun—" Thomas' voice interjected.

"Which was also outlined in the guidelines under the section for physical tampering. Tampering with Alliance Navy equipment is grounds for a disciplinary hearing. That the safeties are off is exactly why these things were taken off the table; playing cowboy with the rules like this gets soldiers killed." Maeda was having none of it.

"Yes, I know that, sir. But—

"But what?

"Sir, they're recruits. E6, the entire team. They haven't been told any of this; they don't even have hacking utilities or the clearance to carry sniper rifles." Thomas explained. That seemed to bring the Major up short, as the comm went silent. "Moreover, the Navy techs have been working on this stuff for decades. The guns should be physically hack-proof with the stuff they have." A moment of silence, followed by a quieter: "They've found some loophole or exploit we've completely managed to miss, sir."

Another long moment of silence.

"Hmm. I see. Well then, have him called in after the exercise for a briefing. Well done, serviceman, the Alliance is always willing to reward those who help it improve its cybersecurity. Now, if there's nothing else..."

"Actually, I would still like for the ID-lock on the gun to be taken off," Emiya said before the Major could get off the line.

"Excuse me?" He actually sounded confused, as Emiya had expected.

The flipside to the strictly ordered nature of militaries was that oftentimes the officers did not come into contact with people who did not follow the exacting rules and protocols that had been set down. It was the job of the NCOs—the non-commissioned officers who handled the day-to-day business—usually to act as the immediate enforcers, keeping the 'dumb grunts' in line. This meant that they acted as a sort of filter, allowing the officers to retain much of the authority they had without fear of familiarity breeding contempt.

But it also meant that they did not always have the full range of experience necessary to handle an uppity serviceman.

"Well, given that this is a simulation, and I have successfully acquired and re-purposed a weapon used by the opposing force snipers, I believe I should be granted the use of the normal simulated firing operations of this rifle. The only reason it is unusable is that my methods were unexpected and novel, which should not be grounds for punishing me," Emiya said, carefully keeping his voice neutral.

"And how would denying you this be a punishment? I believe that in not already having you sent before a disciplinary hearing that I am being quite lenient on you."

Emiya smirked; an NCO would have simply slapped him down here for speaking out of turn, ignoring anything he had to say on the grounds of its inappropriateness. But this Major, at the same time held a respect for his men, as well as an unfamiliarity with how to deal with a case such as this.

It gave him the in he needed.

"Sir, the use of physical interference was never forbidden to us and there is explicitly a side objective listed as capturing enemy personnel or weapons available to us. I have acted exactly as instructed and have the vid feeds to prove it. Certainly, the side objective says to 'hack an enemy weapon successfully', but given that neither 'hacking' nor 'physical interference' has ever been clearly defined for us and that I have successfully managed to appropriate an enemy's weapon and made use of it, I do believe that I have done no wrong. As per the rulebook, that means it's your fault, for not fully explaining the rules of engagement properly to me and my team.

"Moreover, I have wasted over an hour on this rifle. Time, during which we could have been moving towards our RV point for extraction, or achieving other goals. We have set up an ambush alongside a road to commandeer a vehicle for the transportation of a wounded teammate. If we are denied this weapon, the ambush will not only not work, but we will also have wasted precious hours of our time. How else should this be taken if not as a punishment, when I have already demonstrated that I have made the weapon functional, exactly as the objectives have instructed me to?"

Emiya stopped speaking, holding his fingers crossed out of the camera's sight, showing it only to Shepard who was staring intently at the glowing omnitool.

A long pregnant silence followed, finally broken by a sigh at the other end.

What had gone unsaid, but both understood implicitly, was that no one had explained anything to the newbies because they were simply supposed to be running around like headless chickens for other soldiers to hunt down. But he who lives by the creed of 'RTFM' shall be put down to the creed of 'RTFM'.

"Thomas, what do you think?" Maeda asked, the sound of his voice lower as he had apparently turned away from the receiver.

"Sir... I do think it would set a poor precedent if we didn't reward their creativity and initiative. Leave a poor aftertaste, for all their hard work, and all that... Sir." Thomas answered in the background.

Emiya smirked, throwing an out-of-sight thumbs up to Shepard, who reciprocated with a grin of her own.

"Very well. For the duration of this exercise, the clearance to use the Avenger II long-distance rifle will be granted to their team. But given that they lack the training for it, they will require constant oversight. Chief Thomas, given your involvement you will be held responsible for their actions and are from this moment forward re-assigned to keeping an eye on them for the duration of this exercise. I expect you to step in and pull the plug if it is necessary. Understood?" Major Maeda spoke, the tone of finality clear in his voice.

"Yes, sir!" Thomas answered vigorously, the salute almost audible through the comms.

"Yes!" Shepard whispered, fist-pumping with a grin.

The sounds at the other end of the line scrambled, hinting at the Major leaving.

"Well, then. Serviceman Emiya, get your guns back in normal order and once I have confirmed that it is functional again, you will be granted user access to that weapon." Thomas spoke a few seconds later. "Oh, I will also be henceforth monitoring your activities; don't worry, it's normally just done afterward when your instructors review your footage, so it's nothing to worry about happening live."

"Yes, sir. I'll get right to it," Emiya said, wiping the smirk off of his face as he got serious again. He turned to Shepard who was giving him a thumbs up with a wide smile. He nodded, the smirk returning all on its own. "Alright. Shepard, go get Franco ready while I get these things back in two pieces."

"Gotcha, I'll be back in half an hour." She said, jumping up to her feet and running off. After thirty seconds, she was completely gone, as even the sounds of her running were too muffled to be heard through the general cacophony in the distance.

He unplugged the pistol from his rifle and began to re-assemble the guns back into their original forms, while narrating what he was doing for Thomas' and the recording's benefit.

"Christ, how did a fresh recruit like you figure out all this..." Thomas's voice whispered through the comms as Emiya's hands moved rapidly through the parts. Lacking proper tools, he had to use his set of ad hoc tools, which forced him to do it in a slightly different order than the Chief was used to, eliciting more than a few comments. It was possible to put that piece back after the other one, even though it made more sense to do it the other way, for example. But doing it like that allowed him to use it first as a shimmy for another part, and so forth...

"Hmm, the comms are still on, sir," Emiya spoke, respectfully. Now that he had someone breathing down his neck in real time, he would have to be extra careful.

If the recordings had been watched afterward and Emiya had done something out of the ordinary, he would have had plenty of time to figure out an excuse before someone noticed. But now, he might be called in to explain his actions seconds after the fact, which left much less time for inventing plausible explanations.

He was lucky that he had actually been curious about all the things that were required for this little field adjustment he had performed. There was an extranet trail showing that he had researched and studied all of these things in great detail, making it only very implausible rather than outright impossible for him to have figured it all out on his own.

"Don't worry about it, serviceman. Just looking here; mind telling me how you figured it out? It would simplify explaining it up the chain of command for me later," Thomas suggested, chuckling. "I mean, normally we don't get recruits running around with Avengers."

"Well, after I was issued the pistol, I simply read the manual that they gave us access to on our omnitools, sir," Emiya said. It was the first thing he had done too, actually. As the pistol had been entirely void of previous history for his Structural Analysis, he had had to actually read the manual to get the full picture.

And while a lot slower a way to learn, the manual did its job as it was damn well supposed to.

So he had learned quite a bit about the pistol and mass accelerator technology in general, prompting not only his second and third readthroughs, but his forays into many, many other manuals and schematics made available to him. It helped that standard for manuals was quite high, and that it had been written in language simple enough for even the dumbest recruit to understand the basics.

He had gone beyond that in his analysis, of course. Weapons were something of a passion and a point of pride for him, and he made sure to understand them, not just out of personal interest but also to make certain he would never be let down by it and that he could repair it perfectly with his magecraft. Old habits died hard.

But technically the manual was enough for his explanation.

"After that, I just looked up each part on the extranet and reasoned out how all of it worked from the manufacturers' specs. It wasn't really hard to then compare it to the sniper rifle since the basics are the same." Emiya said with a shrug, even though he wasn't sure if Thomas could see it.

"Hah, well, the Infiltrators and Engineers will have a field day with this. For once, someone actually read the fucking manual and it ends up being a completely new exploit no one's ever noticed before."

Emiya winced.

He hadn't intended to leave any marks of himself in history or on other people like this, but what was done was done. To be fair, to him it had seemed a rather simple and easily noticeable exploit in the weapons' designs. Even if he had had to go through two simpler versions of it, which had been apparently found before, to get to this point.

Then again, he did have a unique way of looking at weapons. They were not just things, but records.

"Alright. It's done," Emiya said, holding up the pistol in one hand and the rifle in the other.

"Good. Now, I'll disable both, so point them at the ground away from you and pull the trigger on both. First the pistol; we're just testing to make sure. At this point if something goes wrong, we're both screwed, you know. Well, more you than me. I'll just have a mountain of paperwork. Actually, less than if you do succeed. Huh..."

"Aye, aye, sir," Emiya said, ignoring the Chief's rambling.

Emiya aimed the pistol at the ground fifteen meters away and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

"Good, everything green. Enabling pistol, safeties on and working. Another test shot, go ahead."

He repeated his earlier action, but this time there was a soft kick and sound as the gun fired.

"Good. Next the rifle."

Emiya holstered the pistol by his hip; the gun collapsing into a smaller form and attaching itself to the Van der Waals-strip. He raised the sniper rifle, took aim and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, again.

"Heh, everything green. Enabling sniper rifle, safeties on and working. No need to try it. Congrats, you've got yourself an Avenger II now. I think that's a first, too. Okay, so I'm shutting this line now and I won't be in contact unless something strange happens. If anything is about to go horribly wrong, I'll step in, so just act as you would normally."

"Understood," Emiya replied and collapsed the rifle and threw it over his shoulder onto the Van der Waals-strip there.

Now then, time to finalize the ambush and steal a ride.

;

Emiya prowled around, checking and re-checking the location they had chosen for their ambush.

The road that went through the jungle was one that offered enough of a detour and concealment from the city, that he had reasoned that some would seek to use it for fear of getting stuck inside the narrow alleyways or crumbled streets. And in that regard, he had been proven right.

Already four different vehicles had passed by since he and Shepard had originally come here.

The road was quite narrow and had plenty of craters and holes, as the heavy rains often bombarded and played havoc on the surface of the packed dirt from above at the same time as plants tried to invade and grow on the open space, their roots pushing through from beneath. From the sides, plants and undergrowth hung over the road as tall trees formed a wall that made the road almost look like an underground tunnel. Above, a dim jagged line of light ran along the road as on the sides the canopy was thick enough that no direct sunlight could break through.

Emiya inspected the road, specifically the small turn that they had chosen.

He eyed both ways and looked around, noting his surroundings as he waited for Shepard to return. He climbed up beside the tree Shepard had chosen and checked that the top was sufficiently entangled with its counterpart on the other side of the road that once one fell the other would follow. This part was rather delicate as even under controlled circumstances with a chainsaw, getting a tree to fall the way you wanted was always tricky business. This is where the two trees being bound together would help, as they were already leaning into the direction they would be falling towards and would not be able to deviate too much since they would be falling as one.

Emiya had a fair bit of experience with these kinds of traps before; mostly when he simply wanted to deny passage or to repel enemies, as he had tended to eschew lethal means. Those tended to be too indiscriminate for his liking. He checked and double-checked the trees, marking the spot she should target to ensure a controlled fall when it came time.

It seemed to him as if it would work.

Then he simply moved around, noting details here and there in preparation.

If it came to a fight, knowing where every root and every hole lay could make for the difference between a catastrophic failure and a resounding success. If he had had some more time and this was a real ambush, he would have dug pits under the cover of big leaves and built rudimentary traps to further restrain and slow down the passengers of the car at the point where it would be stopped.

But this would have to do.

He walked up and down the side of the road, fifty meters in both directions from the spot where the trees would fall down on the road, investigating everything he thought might prove useful, moving a few vines to act as possible trap hazards, but not much more.

Then he began to look for a final firing position.

With the sniper rifle, they now had considerably more options available to them, but it had certain limitations which required careful consideration.

Due to the low rate of fire, he would need to be at a sufficient distance from the ambush spot so that he could exert pressure on them without having to worry about retaliation, but not so far away that the turn in the road left him blind.

For example, lying prone with the sniper rifle propped against the ground, his accuracy would increase considerably, but it would make it more difficult for him to make large adjustments to his aim. If he was so close that his targets could run far enough to the side that he had to lift up his rifle, it would impact his force projection considerably during the ambush. Thus the further away he was, the further those targets would need to move to achieve such a thing, angles and distances being what they were.

The road also worked as a perfect funnel in that regard, giving him a clear line of fire to fire down and forcing anyone wishing to rush him to brave his continued shooting, while also slowing down anyone trying to flank him through the jungle. It would make everything much messier if that happened, but it did serve as entangling ground well enough to momentarily render harmless anyone who tried to escape to the trees.

Of course, the further away he was, the harder it would be to hit his enemies... but that was hardly an issue for him. A distance like this would never be an issue to anyone classifying for the Archer class in the Moon Cell's records of Heroic Spirits. Well, not that he could bull's eye every shot with the Chief watching every second of his helmet feed. But he would take the shots that mattered.

There was also the matter of the range calculations he had previously noticed.

A little bit of experimenting revealed that if he switched between aiming at a nearby target and something far off in the distance, the trigger would disengage for a second. But at the distances he would be planning to operate, it would not be a problem. Switching between 10 meters and 100 meters, for example, took less than 0.1 seconds for the computer to adjust, which should be fine.

The plan was fairly simple.

He would take position down the road from the bend, far enough away that he could use the rifle from concealment under a particularly thick bush. Shepard would hide behind one of the trees by the ambush spot, ready to use her pistol to shoot through the rest of the trunk to cause it to fall over and pull the other tree with it, which had also been weakened sufficiently to not resist overmuch.

Once the tree-trap was sprung, Shepard would stay down and wait for an opening to act once the vehicle's passengers exited to respond to the ambush.

Given her proximity to the road, she would be vulnerable to detection by their sensors, which meant some extra care had to be taken. It would necessitate her kinetic barriers being turned off, as the trees simply would not provide enough occlusion, and her hardsuit and omnitool being in low power mode, which meant she could not be anywhere near the fighting before she turned on her own gear, nor could she maintain an open line of communication with either him or Cassani.

Meaning she would be laying low entirely on her own, forced to use her own judgment for when to boot up her kinetic barriers and start her own assault on the enemies' flank. If timed right, it would allow her to inflict disproportionate amounts of damage even after the initial advantage of the ambush and sniper rifle had worn off, which would allow them to tip the scales of the confrontation.

Finally, Cassani would be placed to hide at the outside of the bend in the road, on the other side of Shepard, giving him a clear view down both ways of the road. Since he was 'wounded', he would simply be working as another pair of eyes for them, unable to do much else but call out what he could see. With him placed beyond the firefight but behind the vehicle, he would be able to call out enemy movements to them where their own lines of sight might be broken.

Cassani had suggested that he could write up a camera-sharing script that would give them a live feed through his camera onto their omnitools, but it would only make them easier to detect by sensors tuned to electromagnetic waves and communications, which would undermine the entire ambush.

Besides, Cassani couldn't exactly write up the program in his current condition.

So calling it out over the comms after the ambush was sprung it was.

Once Emiya was certain that he had the whole thing planned out, he hunkered down to wait.

A while later, Shepard returned. She looked around, not entirely certain if this was the place, as a lot of the jungle looked exactly the same even once you got to know it. But she had hardly gotten used to walking through it, so the effect was magnified to truly unnerving proportions.

"Emiya...?" she called out.

"Here," he said, standing up behind her.

"Whoa!" Shepard jumped a foot in the air, pulling her pistol and dropping Cassani as she wheeled around to look at Emiya. "Don't. do that," she said, glaring at him, practically drawing a bead on him.

"Ow. Yeah. Less of this, please," Cassani complained from the ground, spitting at a plant that was sticking into his nose.

Emiya merely smirked and shrugged.

"I tested around a little with the suit some more. I think I've figured out the optimal way of hiding. The boot-up takes just 5 seconds," Emiya explained and Shepard blinked, realizing that she hadn't spotted him on her radar despite the relatively short distance between them.

Her vicious grin all but demanded that he show her, her still drawn pistol reinforcing the notion.

;

The plan was set, he had explained all of their roles and set them up into their respective positions.

Now all that was left was to simply do it.

Emiya lay to the side of the road beneath a thick bush, almost in the ditch as he held onto the collapsed rifle.

He inhaled slowly, his ears straining to listen for any unusual sounds above the normal cacophony of wildlife around them and the fighting in the distance. There had been a noticeable peak in conflict half an hour ago but it had died down since ten minutes ago, he had noted.

There must have been a concentrated effort on the city front by one or more factions.

Still, no cars.

Wait... I hear something.

The low thrum, so soft that you had to feel it more than hear it.

He raised his head up until he could see Shepard in her hiding place past the trees and bushes. They had agreed to minimize comm use, as there would be no way to communicate once they went cold. And there was also no way for them to know whether those could be detected or worse yet, hacked. That was also the reason why he had avoided explaining anything over the comms, whenever possible.

Opsec starts with the smallest things.

He raised a hand and she nodded in the distance. That was the agreed-upon signal for someone coming down the road from his way. Since Shepard couldn't look at Cassani while looking at him, Cassani's signal was a loud whistle; the only thing their 'wounded' was capable of doing at the moment, really.

Emiya moved around, careful to avoid disturbing the plants around him as he turned to look down the road. He needed eyes on the vehicle to make a judgment call on whether or not it was a suitable target. It approached; definitely coming down this way.

He raised his hand again; the second signal, signifying to go completely cold.

Emiya waited until her presence on his radar disappeared before he turned off his own suit and rolled into the thicket to hide from sight.

The vehicle approached: another six-wheeled car, again without any external guns. But this one had less armor and as he peered he could see inside of it through the windshield. It had at least six seated people, counting the driver as well. Spotting the bend up ahead, it was starting to slow down.

A light Armored Personnel Carrier. Not perfect odds, or even good ones really, but I'll take what I can get. It's already past three and we don't have all day.

Emiya pushed with his heel against the tree behind him lightly, shaking just it enough for the topmost leaves to shake. The third agreed-upon signal; this one green-lighting the ambush. He had just enough time to see Shepard's back before he heard the first muffled report of the pistol.

Someone in the car seemed to notice the sound, but it was too late.

Five pistol shots punched through the already gouged tree's trunk and it began to creak, the sounds so muffled that Emiya barely heard them. The timing was a little off, but it was only a bit too early which was still within acceptable limits. The car came driving down the road at a sedate pace, bouncing just a little as it rolled over the numerous potholes and bumps dotting the surface.

The trees began to fall, almost agonizingly slowly and the driver apparently noticed as he began to slow down further. But the APC did not stop, Emiya noted as it went past Shepard's hiding spot. He rolled over slowly and carefully, still hiding and avoiding looking out too much as he slowly got into a firing position, not quite out on the road yet.

The sniper rifle extended into its full form and he raised the scope to take a closer look, his finger still off the trigger.

Those in the car must have already suspected something, as trees rarely fall on their own like this. Two of them at the same time, even less commonly. But he had a poor angle at the occupants, he noted as he looked through the scope.

The chassis was still fairly thick and angled to deflect rounds besides, he noted. Moreover, they must have some kinetic barrier as well, he reasoned. And a vehicle like that could just drive over the trees, he knew.

He refrained from acting just yet, riding the moment - sagacity was key right now.

It was now a coin toss as to what the passengers would do.

He exhaled, lifting the rifle and scooting half-out onto the road, and setting up his shot in the prone position again. The scope returned to his field of vision and this time his finger found the trigger gently, his breathing slowing down so much it almost stilled completely as he began to line his first shot.

Emiya's heartbeat slowed down along with his perception of time.

Observe...

He eyed the back of the car, the roof, and then the wheels and what little of the bottom he could see. He only had one definite shot: the wheels. But if he shot out too many and actually immobilized the car, repairs would slow them down later. But he needed to incapacitate the APC with the first shot. But if it had strong kinetic barriers, then they could simply drive off the moment they detected danger, while their shields still held.

The multitude of possibilities washed over him and through him, leaving him unaffected as he simply continued observing.

For a car that size, generating a kinetic barrier must be a massive drain. Of course, the eezo core and batteries could be proportionally much larger than the ones in their suits.

The question was what role did the car really fill? What was it built for?

It would not be able to take a single powerful round from anything aimed at true armored vehicles like tanks. No, this was a faster mode of transport, meant to avoid direct combat and to allow a small team to move around and behind enemy lines. He assumed it fit the role of a lighter scouting vehicle, not meant for the fronts. Just enough for small arms fire not to punch through and put the personnel inside in danger, not so much that it would be picked up by long-range scanners looking for energy signatures.

During his era, one didn't try to fit thick steel plating onto a simple pick-up truck or land rover, when it would be far better served by its mobility. The Toyota War had been a clear example of that doctrine, where sheer speed utterly defeated land mines meant to prevent vehicle assaults. It made no sense to invest in a powerful kinetic barrier on such a light and nimble-looking vehicle.

Emiya's eyes narrowed, flicking on a higher magnification of the scope, poring over the paint on the car. Nearly flawless, besides the dust. One scratch that looked like the thick tires had kicked up a rock. No pockmarks of gunfire or any real damage anywhere that he could see. This exercise had already been raging for several hours and judging by the thickness of the layered dust along the bottom of the chassis, it had been driving all day.

They have steered clear of combat.

It would only have the bare minimum when it came to defense then, he wagered.

If it had some kinetic barriers, they wouldn't extend much past the chassis either. On their hardsuits, the kinetic barriers barely projected a few centimeters off of the suit. The smaller the mass effect field, the more efficient it could be.

The car slowed down, finally coming to a halt before the trees.

Emiya strained and he could hear some kind of muffled argument from within the car. Someone probably suggested driving over the trees, but someone else was objecting, he guessed from the fragments he could hear. One person in the rear was wildly gesticulating at the jungle beside them, while the driver was growing increasingly annoyed with all the different people shouting different things at him.

He waited, flicking his scope to the lowest possible magnification to give him an overview of the entire car. He was still only observing, noting the behavior of those inside to better read them. He aimed his scope to the driver's side, using the driver's side-view mirror to look inside at the faces of the, ticking up one level of magnification.

Just enough for a little more detail on their reflected faces without sacrificing the view of the rest of the car.

Those inside the car had readied their weapons and tools, scanning their surroundings for the ambush that should have already been sprung.

Emiya lay as still as a rock, half-hidden beneath the overhanging undergrowth from the side of the road. Shepard was hiding behind the trees, down low to the ground and waiting for his opening move.

But nothing happened.

Those in the car must have been anxious; their nerves strained and straining further. But no one jumped out, no one threw a grenade at them, no one rushed them with guns blazing. No more trees fell down to box them in. Nothing. It must have confused the people in the car as they seemed to relax a little after a few seconds. The possibility that they were facing a foe without the same level of armaments and munitions must not have occurred to them, too used to the uniformity of these exercises.

It was a terrible habit: growing used and complacent.

That, and they must have reliable radars, seeing as how many of them were constantly glancing at their glowing omnitools. But the jungle was one thick mess of sweltering heat and life, leaving only active kinetic shields as legible for sensors. And the only active kinetic barriers within a kilometers radius of this location were their own. No one would be so cocky or dumb as to turn off their shields, right?

Once again, Emiya considered how much trouble he might be in for playing around with his hardsuit, but seeing as how Chief Thomas hadn't said anything... Well, it wasn't a problem for right now.

He could tell they were relaxing. They looked around and checked their gear and omnitools, but there was clearly no danger here.

But that was wrong. The most dangerous moment is not when you are your most tense, but when you start relaxing just after you think all the danger has passed.

C'mon, be stupid. You're driving a two-tonne armored personnel carrier. You already made three mistakes and you're flustered and confused. But you're invincible inside that thing and you know it, be overconfident dumbasses...

And just then, the driver did something incredibly stupid, having had enough of everyone shouting at him.

He leaned out of the car to look out through the side window, just to get a better look around the car.

It would have been less than a one-second glance at the trees on the road to judge whether they could be driven over, but the sniper rifle was already aimed there, the scope was already zeroed in, the finger was already on the trigger. After all, the only shot that could swing things in their favor would be the one that completely incapacitated the APC.

Emiya smirked.

Exhale; respiratory pause; pull—boom!

The head jerked forward with the shot, and then went utterly stiff as the suit simulation pronounced him instantly dead from the perfect headshot.

Emiya inhaled, absently powering on his suit and riding the rifle's cooldown.

Got the driver. They'll hesitate between ambush doctrine stating to make an immediate break for it, or to vigorously counter-attack and take out the lone sniper on their radars who just shot their driver. So, time to taunt them.

Emiya lowered the sights diagonally, aiming at the rear tire on the right side of the car, where one of the more aggressive passengers who had been wildly advocating for responding to the ambush before was seated. Emiya angled it such that it would only pop the rearmost tire, without hitting the metal rim or the axles.

Pull—boom!

A kinetic barrier flashed but fizzled out as the sniper rifle's round loudly popped off of the tire, but didn't break it. Emiya hesitated for a moment, at how easily the kinetic barrier had broken; he had honestly expected more, even though he had reasoned the barriers to be somewhat weak.

Well, not that he was complaining. Just one more shot.

Inside the car, the passengers' jerked around to stare at the direction of the second shot; they had pulled the driver back in as they had just now realized that they were in fact under attack, and were finally scrambling to do something. I have their attention. But it wasn't enough - he needed them off balance. Angry.

Pull—boom!

The tire exploded into thick bands of black rubber, the car dropping a little as the tire that had been bearing weight at the moment deflated with a loud pop. Gravel and sand were pushed up in a small cloud as pieces of rubber landed everywhere.

The target of his taunting was trying to leave the car, but two pairs of hands were holding him back, shouting at him to calm down.

Not enough pressure yet, he needed more.

Something dramatic enough to get all the passengers' attention, he thought as he inhaled slowly again. Shepard still remained cold, waiting for her opening. The car doors—massive steel slabs that would have been decent protection against even full power mass accelerator rounds—were still firmly shut, with all but the driver's window closed. She wouldn't be able to do a thing until the people in the car came out of their own accord.

He looked at the shape of the car, considering acoustics as he had an idea.

Even a direct hit won't do much, but the sound it will make inside the car will be quite loud, won't it? Emiya thought, this time aiming at the rear window.

Pull—boom!

Those in the car reeled around again, whirling at the impact behind them. The rear window, a small thing on the large reinforced slab of a door, cracked with a spider-web of threads extending all the way to the corners.

Emiya was rather surprised at that; he had expected the car's kinetic barriers to have recovered already. Another shot and he would punch through; the full power rifle would have already done so with the first, too. Someone inside the car shouted, apparently having had enough of doing nothing even as the one in the front passenger seat was trying to get into the driver's seat to allow them to drive away.

The rear right-side passenger door opened and the angry man jumped out, pulling a rifle off of his back and jumping into the undergrowth for concealment as he went prone. A rapid surge of suppressing fire answered Emiya's earlier taunting shots, forcing him to roll off the road and into the jungle. He collapsed the rifle and quickly rolled for cover as he could hear two other doors opening and men jumping out to fire at him.

They still hadn't noticed Shepard or Cassani, which was good. And his suit power was finally on at full power, so he wouldn't be dead the moment a bullet hit him, which was always a good thing.

Emiya got up, opening the rifle again as he went to one knee and took aim once more. He was behind a large tree, taking support from it for both cover and for the sniper rifle's stability. Several bullets hit the tree, gouging out pieces of cellulose and splattering sap everywhere, but remaining ultimately harmless.

He could smell the sweet scent in the air, somehow refreshing as he took aim and lined up his next shot.

Pull—boom!

It struck the right shoulder of a man from the left side of the car, causing him to stiffen up and then fall over.

It wasn't the aggressive one from earlier either; that guy was just too good as an anchor to keep the rest from escaping, given his choleric disposition. The shot man's legs still kicked despite his falling over, pushing him back behind the cover of the car, so the shot must not have been deemed instantly lethal.

Emiya could have claimed another head, but had deliberately not corrected his aim. Just good enough of a shot to work, but not so much so as to raise eyebrows. Well, not too many eyebrows and not too much. It wasn't that he was intentionally failing, rather that he was simply half-assing it and not taking the effort to correct his aim at the last second with proper follow-through.

Besides, with the sniper rifle's rate of fire, he would be overwhelmed if all of them rushed him at once. Wounding one would distract the others, causing hesitation and one or more of them to rush to aid the wounded, rather than to concentrate on the offensive.

It would buy him more time, in other words.

One of the men leaving the car turned around to go help the wounded one, leaving now only two to shoot at Emiya; one of them the angry man lying prone in the undergrowth, shouting loudly as he fired away, and another kneeling behind the car's armored frame.

"Two guys taking cover in front of the car. One looks wounded. The other is patching him up, I think." Cassani chimed in from his location, far away from the thick of things.

He let it wash over him as he took another shot—boom, kicking up dirt in the choleric prone shooter's face as if he had missed. He took cover again, letting the rifle cool down. Okay, enough missing. They've spread out enough for now.

Emiya leaned back out of cover and immediately saw an object being thrown his way.

He pushed off the tree and ran five steps before leaping for cover behind a bigger tree, as something loud went off behind him. Presumably another grenade of some kind, but it had not affected him.

Recovering from the roll, he scoped at the car again.

The last man—no, a woman—stepped out of the car, not even bothering to take cover, and Emiya obliged by taking aim at the completely open target and pulled—boom!

But this time, the expected result did not occur.

Instead of reeling at the impact or being frozen in place, a purple field of some kind flared up around her, bending light strangely and making her seem hazy and ethereal.

She tanked it? Emiya thought with surprise, collapsing the rifle as he moved to change cover again.

Only, before he could reach the tree some kind of floating blue orb came barreling between two trees, hitting him with the force of a fastball. He raised his arms reflexively for protection as he jumped back to minimize the impact, but what happened next was completely out of his expectations.

He jumped back ten meters.

Or rather, the force had been traveling with made him float backward, as if he had become completely weightless despite gravity. He kicked out, struggling to get purchase somewhere— anywhere—as he helplessly floated through the air. At least they didn't have a clear line of sight to him thanks to all the foliage this high up, which meant he was safe for the moment.

Biotics! He had completely forgotten, given how rare they were among humans. Those born with enough Element Zero in their bodies could sometimes wield mass effect fields themselves, requiring usually only an amplifier to boost their proto-telekinetic powers. But here and now, floating in the air and completely helpless, he realized that that had been a huge mistake. The Systems Alliance Navy would obviously want to employ them, given the sheer versatility they possessed.

His mind reasserted itself as he kicked out to get himself some bearing; the extended limb's movement causing his body to turn in the air. He had never fought in zero-G, but he had fought underwater. He reasoned it was similar to the time he had been caught and tossed around by underwater currents, completely losing his sense of direction and control.

Calm down and grab a hold of something!

Emiya pulled his pistol and aimed at a tree and fired twelve shots in the space of two seconds; giving him just enough of a push from the recoil to float close enough to a branch as he put away the overheated pistol. He grabbed the branch, swinging to position his legs on top of it so that he could remain there if the weightless state was canceled, but also allowing him to kick off if need be.

He looked down.

The biotic woman and the formerly-kneeling-behind-the-car man were jogging towards him; he couldn't stay here.

Emiya held tight onto the branch as he tensed his legs and then with all his strength, kicked off upwards. He aimed the rifle straight down and pulled the trigger—boom, giving him another slight boost to his upwards velocity with the recoil and allowing him to pass through the opening in the forest canopy above.

He blinked as the bright light of the un-blocked sun hit his eyes. Here, above the treetops, he floated completely weightless. For a moment, he froze time in his own perception just to admire the view. A sea of rolling green as far as the eye could see, shrouded in the golden light of the sun. Then he reached for the leaves and branches below him to keep from floating up too high, lest he loses control again.

But the leaves were ripped off as he grabbed them—unable to handle the force he exerted—his heart lurching for a second before he swung out the sniper rifle held backward; the crook of the grip latched onto a branch and he could just pull himself close enough to grab onto the leaves again. He struggled for a moment to cancel the spin from swinging out the rifle and then collapsed the weapon, throwing it over his shoulder onto the Van der Waals-strip.

He looked forward and grinned. Using both hands he began to half-crawl and half-pull himself forward as he floated above the treetops.

It was almost as if he was swimming above the ocean he had just beheld.

Behind him, he heard the woman shouting that he had disappeared above the treetops and a second later a rapid-fire stream of bullets whizzed upwards in that general area now behind him. Leaves and bits of branches were torn loose and tossed around, almost like something beneath the waves was kicking it up.

They tried to find him, shouting about the radar heading and correcting their streams of bullets. But the canopy of leaves and branches was enough to blot him out of view, his pulling at the leaves and treetops hardly enough to betray his movements.

He made some thirty meters above the trees like that before his weight returned and he fell through the leaves.

Emiya had just enough presence of mind to grab a thick branch and hold onto it to keep from falling down and breaking his legs. He looked around and spotted the two still looking for him with their weapons and heads raised, scanning the treetops where he had been earlier.

Emiya pulled the sniper rifle and opened it to take aim at them, but a burst of rifle fire caused him to duck for cover nearer the trunk. Leaves around him were ripped apart and torn loose, as the angry prone man was standing now by the back of the car and taking potshots at Emiya.

He almost swung around to take him out, but then he spotted the shadow rising behind the man from the brush.

Shepard will handle it, he thought and lined up his sights at the man with the biotic woman. They had turned around to look at the car at the sound of gunfire, but hadn't spotted Emiya in the tree yet.

He pulled the trigger—boom!

The man froze up instantly and keeled over, before relaxing and laying bonelessly on the ground. The biotic woman flinched, looking between her squadmate and Emiya with wide eyes before she jumped for cover.

Another burst of rifle fire went past him, but none hit him since he was half-hidden behind the trunk of the tree. And then he heard the rapid double staccato pistol fire and the shouts of surprise from the three still by the car.

Emiya spared a glance that way, noting that Shepard had already taken down the choleric man who had been shooting at him and was now trading gunfire from behind cover with the man who had dragged off the wounded man earlier. The redhead held a pistol in each hand, rapidly pulling the triggers to compensate for the low power of each individual shot, seeming to be completely at ease in the thick of a gunfight and using the two guns without any awkwardness as she ran between cover and concealment, denying her opponents even a moment of respite.

I knew it was a good idea to hand Cassani's pistol to her, Emiya thought with a grin.

A cold shiver went through his spine and Emiya leaped out of the tree without a second thought, landing on an extended branch that swayed and bent under his body. He felt more than saw the impact of something blue smashing into his previous hiding place. He didn't bother turning around as he jumped again, this time grabbing onto the top of a thinner tree nearer the road. It bent under his weight, slowing his fall down enough to bring him safely to the ground again, only letting go some three meters above the ground.

Emiya landed on his feet with a jarring impact but he rolled forward with the force into a turned-around kneeling position and took a —booming potshot with the rifle. It hit nothing but seemed to scare the biotic enough that she stopped in her tracks, bracing for impact with her powers instead of pursuing him.

He rolled and got to his feet, sprinting for cover again.

The biotic woman screamed something and Emiya grabbed a half-rotted tree branch and jumped as he threw it behind him. It hit the blue ball that had been chasing him, enveloping it in the weightlessness that had plagued him earlier.

Seems like my guess was correct; it latches onto whatever breaks the surface of the projectile, he observed calmly as he kept running.

He dropped to one knee and took aim, Pulling the trigger in the general direction of the woman and the gun let out another—boom, making her stop in her tracks again. She used her pistol to take a few potshots at him, but none came even close to hitting home.

Emiya retreated towards the car, taking shots every few steps and keeping the woman pinned down. Halfway there, he switched from the rifle to the pistol, placing the former on his back as he began to pelt the biotic's general direction with bullets.

He turned around on the road and began to sprint for the car, blinking as he spotted Shepard in the front passenger seat with her gun held to a man's head as he sat in the driver's seat. Their new driver distinctly uncomfortable with the apparent state of affairs.

"Get in! He's driving!" Shepard shouted and Emiya nodded with understanding as he jumped in.

"Cassani, any problems on your end?" Emiya asked the comms.

"Nope, good to go!" came the popping answer.

"Floor it, buddy," Shepard said, entirely too smugly as she poked the man at the wheel with her pistol.

"Our agreement?"

"As long as you hold your end," she replied, grinning and ignoring the inquisitive look Emiya threw her.

That seemed enough as he floored the pedal and the car began to move, clearing the two trees with a few bumps and some noise of crunching wood beneath their tires, but otherwise without any issues. A testament to the original driver's inexperience, really.

Then again, given how surprised their chauffeur seemed, perhaps the car wasn't officially rated for something like that. Perhaps their driver had thought they would get stuck, which was why he was willing to cooperate as long as he did not get shot.

Regardless, they hit the road and drove the thirty meters to Cassani's location up the bend in the road, and Shepard ordered him to stop.

Emiya jumped out, taking a prone position with the sniper rifle again as he kept vigil for the biotic woman. Shepard meanwhile, herded out their driver at gunpoint, jumping over the shift-stick to come out through the same door as he had, and then forcing him to grab and carry Cassani to the rear seats from his hiding place.

Pull—boom!

The biotic ducked, the shot grazing her shoulder. Emiya exhaled, searching for any sign of her as he let the gun cool down again.

"Time to go, Emiya!" Shepard shouted and Emiya obliged, getting up and collapsing the rifle in one smooth motion, jumping into the car. Their shanghaied driver put pedal to the metal as they shot off at full speed, the car jumping and shaking with the terrible road conditions and the lack of a rear tire.

They drove for five minutes until they came to a Y-shaped crossroads. Shepard ordered him to park the car next to the road and then for him to get out. The driver obliged, his hand inching to turn off the car.

"Keep it running. You think this is the first time I've stolen a car?" Shepard asked, prodding him with the muzzle of her pistol.

The driver licked his lips, nervously.

"Think, smart guy. You give us a minor inconvenience and get shot for the trouble. Or you let it go, do as we agreed and you get to run back to your squad. Which choice ends up with your entire squad dead and dying in the jungle, and which ends with you getting back in time to patch them up?" Shepard continued, smiling still.

The driver raised his hand, leaving the car running as he exited with a sullen look.

"So why did you grab him? Besides for a driver, I mean." Emiya asked, getting out of the car as he scanned their surroundings.

"He's a doc. I figured he could take a look at Franco." Shepard shrugged.

"Sentinel, not doctor. I'm not even a field medic, I just have the first aid specialization—"

"Yeah, we get it. You can use the medigel - so get to it," Shepard said, motioning at the limp Cassani.

The Sentinel frowned, before walking up to Cassani and activating his omnitool. He scanned Cassani and then brought out a yellow bag, labeled clearly 'training tool – NOT MEDIGEL – training tool' in big bold letters.

He applied it, and suddenly Cassani took a deep inhale and raised a hand.

"Oh, fuck yeah. I can move again. Wait, my legs..."

"He has a spinal injury, the medigel couldn't possibly fix that," the Sentinel said with a shrug. "Can I go now? I need to—"

"Not so fast," Shepard replied, raising her gun again. "Heal him, too, while we're at it."

She nodded at Emiya, who blinked before realizing she was referring to his simulated hip injury. He had long since adapted to compensate for it, so it had essentially already slipped his mind. It didn't affect his performance that much and there wasn't any pain to blot out, so it was a minor inconvenience at worst.

"That wasn't a part of the deal, I need the medigel for my squad—"

— Pffftzzz!

The Sentinel fell, his leg failing beneath him as Shepard shot his leg mid-sentence.

"Yeah, that was the deal before I remembered we had more injuries. Now, you're already down two medigel. Want me to keep shooting you until you're down to zero?" Shepard said, smiling sweetly as if there was nothing wrong in all the world.

The Sentinel gaped up at her, eyes wide open. He licked his lips, his eyes darting between the three who were around him in an effort to find some support against Shepard's demands. But he found nothing, as Emiya merely watched with cool indifference and Cassani was studiously pretending he wasn't a part of this conversation.

The medic swallowed nervously, before nodding.

Emiya merely stood by the side, watching the whole event with a sharp gaze. He hadn't expected Shepard to be quite this proactive, but it wasn't like he had anything against it, specifically. Sure, she was kind of skirting morally reprehensible territory here, but this was all just a simulation. No one had actually been hurt; it was just the man with them who had gotten lost in the realism of the situation.

Well, hopefully, the only one. Emiya thought as he glanced at Shepard. This is exactly why she would be right at home in wetworks.

He had thought that of her for the longest while; that she was a natural fit for soldiery. And perhaps even for special ops, given how she had been conditioned by her life to accept violence as a matter of course in life. But at the same time he had to wonder, was that what she really wanted.

Because it seemed to him as if there was something more that she wanted out of life.

There was no reason for him to intervene. None at all. Except...

With a quick application of the fake-medigel, the servos locking up at his hip loosened up and he could move again freely. He tested his range of motion with a few bouncing jumps and found it satisfactory.

Emiya nodded to Shepard and she half-smirked back at him, satisfied at the result.

"Now, run along before I change my mind," Shepard told the Sentinel, shooing him away with her gun.

He hesitated and then began to limp away. — Pffftzzz!

Shepard shot at the ground at his feet, almost making him stumble and fall again as the dirt exploded into the air in a small crater.

"Did I stutter? Run!" She raised her arms into the air as she shouted, making the man blink. Then she drew her other pistol from the Van der Waals-strip at the small of her back and took aim. At that, he definitely reacted and began to limp away as quickly as he could.

"Heh, he won't be bothering us again. Not while he's running in the wrong direction," Shepard said turning back around with a wicked grin. "Alright, let's go."

She chuckled at that, holstering her pistol again.

Cassani stared at her with wide eyes, muttering 'perra loco' beneath his breath while Emiya nodded at her, ignoring their third teammate, though he could understand the sentiment. Still, she didn't seem to notice.

"Oh, yeah. I got us some more toys to play with. Wanna do your thing again?" She thumbed at the back of the car, where he could see three assault rifles.

Emiya huffed in amusement, shrugging at her with a half-grin. "I endeavor ever to impress. Or at least, to meet your expectations."

She, not entirely sure about some of the words he had used, half-frowned at him before shrugging with a grin. "Yeah, you do that and I won't have to shoot you, too. I'm only keeping you around for your magic touch, Emiya."

Again, Cassani seemed to be taking her seriously and seemed to pale a little, but Emiya understood that this was how she was showing affection.

This was just how she was, the grim humor probably being the only one she really understood.

Having grown up on the streets her socialization was woefully lacking, thus she was simply emulating what she saw around her right now. The bravado and bluster among the other recruits, the gallows humor of everyone trying to act tough, the 'hoorah' speechifying of the instructors that cheerfully talked about greasing our guns with the guts of our enemies... And through her warped lens of understanding, it translated into behavior that seemed like near-sociopathic disregard for social conventions and the safety of others.

In that sense, she was like a child, almost.

Emiya hesitated, before sighing, wondering whether he could just let this go on. It wasn't something for him to do anything about - that time with the foot had been a mistake on his part. Even so, he could see how she would struggle in the future if this error in her mindset was not pointed out. Certainly, she had the guts and talents to go far... But would she go further?

Like a sword formed out of balance before it was heated red hot, she would take on a twist when quenched, requiring twice as much work to correct afterward when set. Almost like another young, hot-headed fool of a redhead once upon a time...

He ignored that line of thought as he decided to focus on the moment.

He grabbed a rifle and aimed at the roadside, pulling the trigger... and nothing happened. Not entirely unexpected. "Chief Thomas, sir. I know you're watching and I know you know that I know how to make this thing work."

He waited five seconds and pulled the trigger... and nothing happened.

"Fine. We'll do it the hard way." Emiya said with a shrug. He turned to look at Shepard and Cassani. "Let's get him in the front seat. I'll sit in the back and get this rifle working so I can talk to the Chief about it. I assume you can drive this thing, Shepard?"

"Nah, but I watched while the other guy did, so how hard can it be?" She grinned widely. Excited, like a street urchin who had just gotten away with a big snatch and grab. Didn't she mention stealing cars before?

Emiya sighed again but rolled with it.

"The Chief?" Cassani blinked, asking. But neither bothered to explain as they each grabbed an arm and hauled him up and into the car.

;

They had driven for fifteen minutes now. With Cassani's upper body working again, Shepard had returned his pistol to him and he had then been delegated to map reading.

The amount of roads, old roads, old roads that did not exist on the map, and old roads that did not exist on the map nor in reality unless you squinted just right, exceeded all of their expectations. Emiya reasoned that the car would be hunted down sooner or later by one party or another, so, for now, they would avoid the bigger roads to remain out of sight as long as possible.

The rifle was much the same as the sniper rifle, with the barrel length, scope settings, shaver, and mass accelerator's rate of operation being the chief differences. Thus it only took him fifteen minutes to get his pistol cannibalized for his little exploit.

He had gotten so used to the process that he could have done it in ten, were it not for the constant bouncing and jostling due to the terrible road conditions. He opened the window enough to stick the barrel out.

"Firing in 3, 2, 1—"—trr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt

The assault rifle spewed supersonic shavings at a considerable rate of fire, even with the short burst he had pulled. It worked just fine.

"Alright, now to call for some tech support again..." Emiya said, setting down the Lancer rifle and pulling up his omnitool again. He dialed the support and got ready to wait, only for Thomas to pick up immediately.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" he accused immediately.

Emiya stifled the smirk and controlled his face and voice as he waited for a second.

"Well... I won't deny that this is the most fun I've had in the service so far, sir."

Thomas gave an explosive sigh, obviously not at all pleased with them right now.

"Who's he calling? Who are you calling?" Cassani blinked, trying to turn around as he heard the conversation.

"Mm, right. You weren't in the loop. Franco Cassani, this is Gunnery Chief Thomas, assigned to keep an eye on us because we keep breaking rules we don't know about," Emiya explained, carefully keeping any and all mirth from his voice despite the obviously mirthful choice of words.

Cassani merely blinked blankly at that, having no idea what to say.

"So you knew that turning off your shields was bad, didn't you? Even though it was not explicitly mentioned anywhere and you had not been told that, you could infer it, couldn't you?"

"Ah, well. If it works and no one thought to tell me not to... Well, who am I not to abuse the hell out of it?" Emiya replied and he could hear Shepard chortling in the front by the wheel as she drove.

"Riiight, and the fact that no one told you how to turn off the shields or how to manually reboot the hardsuit didn't tell you that? That perhaps you weren't supposed to be doing it? You could have gotten killed, for fuck's sake, you crazy bastard. You could have gotten your teammate killed!"

"Actually, the hardsuit manual explicitly mentions the feature on page 401 and refers to the advanced settings in the omnitool, for which instructions are on page 234 of the omnitool guide. And Shepard made the choice herself, fully aware of the risks," Emiya countered, dialing back the ribbing tone and opting for a more neutral and conciliatory one.

"Sure did, sir. Oh, can I get the tapes of myself later? I want to see their faces again when I got them from behind, hehehe..." Shepard laughed.

"...For fuck's sake... It actually is in the manual. No one reads the fucking manual! Well, apparently except for you! Jesus, I'm gonna have to throw this ball up the food chain because I have no idea who I'm supposed to chew up about this entire fucking fiasco."

"Couldn't you have just shut it all down?" Emiya asked.

He had slightly been worried that that would happen.

"I would have, if not for— What? Yeah, okay, I won't mention it." Thomas began but then cut off to speak to someone else. "It doesn't matter. I see you've gotten the assault rifles working, too. Wonderful. I'll unlock them, so long as you promise not to give me any more crazy surprises. I mean aside from stealing a car and putting someone without the training to operate it—or even with a damn basic license to her name, for that matter—behind the wheel. You scrap that thing and we'll all be paying it off, you hear? Makos don't come cheap, alright? I have enough people breathing down my neck as it is."

"Sure, you got it, chief." Emiya cheerfully promised and the sigh from the other end before the com-line was cut was his only answer. Someone was there next to him? Someone higher ranked than the Chief himself, from the sound of things.

"Just what I wanted. I was starting to feel a little jealous of yours," Shepard quipped as Emiya handed her a collapsed rifle, attaching it to her Van der Waals-strips on her back absent-mindedly.

He handed another to Cassani who took it a little bit more gingerly, holding it in his lap as he continued to scan the jungle that rolled by.

They continued on for a little while as Cassani and Emiya compared the maps, trying to figure out the best route ahead. They drove for an hour, taking a long detour around the city and using the smaller roads, often driving through patches of forest to switch between roads to get where they wanted to.

Somewhere along the way, Emiya discovered a manual for the Mako in the glove box. An actual, 'dumb' hardcopy of a manual. Printed on paper and everything. Though it lacked a search function that would have been immensely helpful, he still leafed through it, starting with the table of contents.

He found that there was a transceiver-receiver antenna that allowed the people to control and access the 'Mako' from a distance with their omnitools, so he had them stop for five minutes. Of course, lacking any and all tools for a delicate disassembly, he simply let Shepard grab a rock and smack it loose from the frame.

Emiya could almost feel the Chief judging them from a distance as they did that. But it would be a quick repair job since he tossed the antenna in the back, so he ignored it. Hell, he could do it in five minutes himself, tops.

As they began to approach the city again, Emiya decided it was time.

He had decided to stage an... intervention, of sorts. This much wasn't a problem, surely.

"Shepard, we should talk."

"Huh? What is it?" She asked, glancing over her shoulder at him.

"It's got to do with how you act."

She blinked, slowing down and looking at him with furrowed brows. It was the expression he had seen on her face when he'd confronted her about her leg. Though not quite as guarded anymore - she trusted him somewhat now.

"Yeah, what about it?" she asked, the growing heat apparent to him despite her attempts to sound and be calm.

"Just that you might want to consider how it appears to others," he offered obliquely, causing her to blink and frown at him as she brought the car to a stop. He had completely managed to sidestep her defensiveness.

She turned around fully to stare at him, pursing her lips in dissatisfaction.

"Want to consider how it what?"

"That guy you shot. He'll probably remember you for the rest of his life," he said with a slight smile, knowing it would release the tension a little.

"Heh, sure will," she replied with an easy chuckle, before looking at him seriously, deciding that she would listen to what he had to say and really try to understand.

"The same way Cassani will remember you," he continued, the man in question flinching a little as he was dragged into the conversation, as he had been trying to pretend he wasn't there again.

"Huh?"

"Do you realize that Cassani thinks you're completely crazy?" Emiya asked.

She frowned at him, glancing at Cassani with a side-ways look.

"...Yeah, and?"

"Just something I thought you might want to consider. Nothing more," Emiya said with a disarming smile.

Shepard stared at him through the mirror, her green eyes boring into him as she frowned deep in thought. She turned to look at Cassani, who was studiously avoiding looking at her. Her frown deepened.

"And then there's the fact that treating a prisoner like that is technically a war crime."

"Huh? War crime?" She blinked at him in complete confusion, her brows furrowed.

Emiya shrugged, "Yeah. They might dock us some points for that."

"But... But? I mean, it worked, didn't it?" She didn't sound just as much angry as simply confused. It had always worked for her, even before the Navy. It was how she handled herself and had always known to make things work. If you wanted something, you had to apply some pressure.

"Yeah, it did. But it still might affect our rating." Emiya said, then turned to look at Cassani. "Among other things."

Shepard frowned, though said nothing.

"How about we eat now? We haven't had a break in a while." Emiya suggested and Cassani agreed immediately. They broke out the field rations and water bottles, with Shepard eating quietly.

They continued in silence for five minutes, until Shepard looked up at Emiya again.

"Emiya, are we... okay?" she asked, sounding hesitant to hear what he would say.

He looked at her and considered those words.

Perhaps he had been too direct? Grinding too much at the spine, trying to correct the twist.

Emiya hadn't meant to push her buttons too much, but it would be better if she realized this sooner rather than later. This would help her realize that she had been pushing people away, along with what he had actually said. The way she looked at groups of people; the way she had been emulating that group dynamic with him since he had first managed to break past her prickly exterior; the truly satisfied grin she had been wearing all day even through the exhaustion and excitement.

Well, perhaps specifically because of the excitement.

Still, she obviously enjoyed working with him more than she had any other relationship in her life. But that wouldn't do. He wasn't going to stay with her, after this, and he was just— No, that was wrong. It wasn't that he was worried about her, he simply—

Emiya sighed, ending that train of thought.

Perhaps he had sabotaged their working relationship now.

But given how much serious thought she seemed to be giving his words, he thought it would be for the better even if it did. She wouldn't be happy if she stayed alone and continued scaring away everyone with her behavior. Not in the long run. Because he was going to leave sooner rather than later, and she would also have to come to terms with this at some point. Perhaps this was his fault; having approached her in the first place and butting his head into her business without asking for her permission or opinion at all.

Completely thoughtlessly ingratiating himself to her, despite knowing that he was a dead man living a false dream among the living again. A dream from which he would inevitably wake up and leave behind.

But having gotten involved, he would see it through. One way or another.

Seeing her at first, he had felt strange. Nostalgic, in an almost painful manner.

He saw someone pushing themselves forward at a desperate pace, with a single-minded zeal, disregarding everything around them as they simply could not understand the worth of what they pushed away. And he thought that she would regret that kind of life, in the end.

He knew what that kind of life was like firsthand and where it led.

"Yeah, we are." He nodded as he took a bite out of the dry ration bar and chewed. He looked up, meeting her eyes. "Aren't we?"

She blinked.

She really looked at him, then.

It was a strange realization for her.

Coming to terms that he might not understand her thoughts as intimately as she knew them herself. That he might not know what she wanted through simple inference. She looked at Cassani, who was also eating and for the first time realized that she did not understand him at all. Nothing he said really made any sense to here, about omnitools or hacking or the vids he talked about. About what he wanted to do and why he didn't do things the way she did.

Therefore... didn't it make sense to assume that he did not understand her at all, either?

And suddenly things that had been out of place all along simply seemed to click into place.

Coming from a world where one lived day to day, always struggling to just survive the day, and acting out relationships in the most superficial of manners, she had never considered that. Never considered that there could be additional layers to interacting with people. That where they had come from, even if they were all in the same place in the present, might so greatly affect how they behaved and thought of others.

She knew intoxicated rage. She knew naked fear. She knew hunger and privation. She could recognize veiled and hidden hatred, the resolve to lash out and risk it all because there was nothing more left to give. She could see the fleeting cooperations others would make, only to break them the moment their common enemy was gone.

But this form of deep resentment and unease, which did not manifest outwardly in immediate violence. This, almost shallow anger that existed in the hearts of others. It was strange. Pointless. One they would not act on, but still refuse to cast aside.

Those words he had thrown at her before; about always being too wary about everyone around her. She finally really understood them.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess we are," she said, sounding somehow surprised. She looked up at him, then turned to Cassani. "How about you, are we okay?"

"Er... Sure? Yeah?" Cassani hesitated for a second.

Shepard blinked, looking thoughtful. She continued eating, nibbling at a ration bar in deep thought as she muttered, "I guess we aren't, huh..."

Emiya shrugged and ate the rest of his rations. For all the resolution and peace she seemed to have gained from that conversation, all of his doubts only seemed to have re-doubled and returned with a vengeance.

Suddenly, he remembered a smile.

Emiya scowled and emptied his water bottle, washing down everything in his mouth along with the grimace that sprung up at the memory.

;

"Alright, show me the building that collapsed," Emiya said after they had finished eating.

Overall their rations were simply terrible. Well, as far as taste went. Nutrition- and energy-wise they were top-notch. So much so that it required an enhanced metabolic system to make full use of all the stuff compressed into those little bars. Still tasted like ash and sand, making them all grimace with every bite.

The Navy also discouraged eating nutrition bars for more than four days in a row, as much like MREs of centuries ago, they played havoc on your gastrointestinal tract. Due to the heavily concentrated nutrients and lack of fiber, it would result in an eventual experience best described as, 'shitting bricks'. An increase in frequency and amplitude of flatulence was also a well-noted side-effect. It even stated so in bold letters on the packaging. The more things change...

After Emiya was finished, he began to plan ahead again.

He had pulled up a holographic projection of the map they had received before landing in the city. Cassani hesitated, then looked down at the map.

"Uh..."

Since the map was a picture from orbit, rather than an artificial representation with a legend and a scale, it required a different kind of eye for reading than he was used to. So it was a good thing they had been practicing this the past month. Still, both he and Shepard were much better at navigation with their feet on the ground, as it were. Most of the stuff he had noticed while inside the city he had merely mentally noted in his general mental map.

But at this point, because of all the eyes on them, it was better to keep everything above board.

Which meant doing it the proper way: the way they had been taught.

"It might have been this one." Cassani hesitated, pointing at a rectangular building at the North end of the city.

Emiya nodded, considering that.

It was obvious that Cassani was not entirely certain, but as long as the general location was correct it would tell him something about what was going on in the city. Where the heaviest engagements were happening; where hypothetical artillery might have been firing from by comparing to the positions he had seen before; what they might have been aiming at and more.

It wasn't much, but on the battlefield when one was completely isolated and without support, considering even the smallest details was vital. But at the same time, avoiding over-extrapolation was important as well. Going off half-cocked because of faulty intel was paramount to assisted suicide.

The fine line between threading the bigger dangers and verifying your hypotheses was what made an effective red team operative.

"We should stick to the outskirts. We can continue using the jungle roads, even if we have to take a long route around here," Shepard butted in, pointing at the map as she traced something that might have once been a road. "We would still have time to get to the RV. We've got, what..."

"Three and a half hours left," Emiya answered as she moved to check the time.

"Huh, well..." She hesitated, licking her lips as she shot a glance at Emiya.

There's something she wants, but is hesitating to ask. Emiya thought, before recalling an earlier conversation. Right, the side objectives. N-line.

"I'll check the list and see if something pops up, though we've already done some pretty big stuff..." Emiya said to a blinking Shepard. "For now, start driving that way. Cassani, strap yourself to the passenger seat and keep an eye open on the right side with the rifle ready. See anything suspicious, just hose it down." He sent the annotated map to Shepard's omnitool so that she could read it while driving.

"Drive by-style, eh? Can do, boss. Wish this thing had a radio, though." Cassani said, nodding with some bravado as he patted the dashboard in front of him.

"...Well, I know you have some music on your omnitool, so I won't mind if you listen to it. Just don't bother us with it." Emiya said after a moment of thought, making the third member of their team blink and grin his thanks in return.

It was dumb to listen to music during all of this, but managing Cassani's nerves was important too.

Emiya knew that their third member hadn't enlisted with direct combat roles in mind, so the man wasn't quite as used to all this. He had a simple enough role that it didn't quite matter so much, anyhow. As Shepard shot him an inquisitive glance from the driver's seat, he waved her away mouthing the words 'just let him' as he did.

She frowned but nodded and began to set up her omnitool with the map in her HUD.

Emiya turned around and crawled through the inside of the car until he reached the back, trying to window. It was stuck, of course. He got on his back and began to kick at the fractured rear window. The two at the front jumped in surprise at the first kick and looked at what he was doing, but then turned around to keep doing what they had been before with just a shared shrug.

Emiya's weird ideas seemed to work most of the time, so there wasn't really a point in questioning everything he did anymore.

Finally, after the fourth kick, the pane came loose enough for the mechanism for opening it to function again. It was a rather simple latch that let the window fall backward and down, but when locked it would hermetically seal it. In theory, it allowed for an airtight vehicle, and it was definitely not something he could have kicked through since it had stopped a rifle bullet.

He opened the rear window and began to set up his sniper rifle. It wasn't the best position for shooting, but assuming they would get pursuers sooner or later, then getting it ready now would save them some time. He tried several positions and anchor points for stability, getting used to how it felt and how he could fire there if he needed to later.

Besides, if someone could shut down the car from a distance like they could start it up with their omnitool, then they needed to have a way of getting out of the car, even with the electronic doors locking.

Always keep your options open.

Finally, he retracted the sniper rifle and collapsed it again.

"Alright, let's go."

The engine hummed loudly once more as the car began to move forward, having been idling during their break. A quick examination by Emiya had confirmed Shepard's earlier caution as prudent, in that it required an omnitool command to start up the car, along with several other features that they did not at the moment possess.

He would have liked to read through the manual more thoroughly, but for now, it would have to wait.

Shepard continued to drive, using the smallest roads and gaps possible, often ignoring the holographic map altogether as she navigated on sheer instinct and gut feeling. She simply chose a heading and then checked that she did not stray too much as they drove on.

At one point, Cassani had objected when Shepard had wanted to drive down a cliff. She argued that if they kept going fast enough, they wouldn't fall down or roll over. He argued that she was insane. Emiya reminded her that if they broke the car, they would have to pay for it, which seemed to change her opinion on the matter.

Only a little, it seemed.

She followed the cliff until she found a sheer drop that was much shorter, which she deemed safe enough to drive down from. She didn't bother listening to Cassani this time and Emiya actually felt his stomach drop for a moment there and for a second he had considered Reinforcing the suspensions just to keep it safe.

But luckily, the Mako seemed inordinately sturdy and took the drop without any problems.

Soon they broke out of the jungle and reached the half-plains of old suburban areas, driving through and over old houses and collapsed mansions. This seemed to be especially to Shepard's liking as she whooped and hooted every time something crunched and cracked beneath their massive tires.

Even Cassani seemed to be having some fun, though he would have denied it vehemently.

As the looming skeleton of the decrepit city loomed ahead, Shepard finally pulled to a stop as she turned to look at Emiya. She still hoped he would find something. Especially since they had made it in less than an hour through the jungle and suburb.

With over two and a half hours' worth left over, there was plenty of time in her mind for some frolicking around in the city. Emiya shrugged, presenting a mission objective he had chosen among the multitude available to them.

"'Disable communications relay in the water tower'... It's not that far, either?" She read, licking her lips and looking up at him. It was still his choice. He nodded at her, pulling out his omnitool map again.

"We could do it, but it would require some scouting and planning, first," he said, with a serious look.

She inhaled and nodded after a second. "Which would need time that we don't have."

Cassani looked at the two of them, confused.

"What are you two talking about...?"

Emiya looked at him, then turned to Shepard. She grimaced, looking away.

Cassani frowned, gathering that there was something more going on that he hadn't been privy to. And perhaps because of his current self being at their mercies, or perhaps noticing some change in Shepard, he simply sighed and shook his head giving up trying to change their minds as a lost cause.

"We have like two hours, that should be plenty, right?" he asked.

"It would be," Emiya agreed, turning to look at him. "Except we're probably being tracked. This Mako is most likely something that its owners can't afford to lose in the long run. They'll be looking for us."

"And we can't leave it - without it, we're back to square one. Especially with you around, you know?" Shepard continued.

Cassani made a noise of understanding and then grimaced.

"So we're gonna have to split up? One checks it out while the other two keep moving in the car?" For all that he was dragging them down, he wasn't stupid.

Emiya nodded.

"Shepard, keep driving around. Get back in the jungle over there and try to make it seem like you're not just wasting time if anyone is watching. I'd rather not someone come to investigate my trail," Emiya spoke, checking his gear. Hardsuit, omnitool, pistol, assault rifle, and sniper rifle. Compared to the beginning, his loadout was much improved. "Come pick me up here in half an hour; I'll go and take a look around and see if there's anything we can do."

"We can still leave the car in the city and walk the rest of the way to the RV. I... I mean, getting there would be already pretty good. I don't think many would manage in the city if they were dropped off where we were." Shepard said, not looking at him, gripping the steering wheel.

"Sure. But no harm in just taking a look. We've still got momentum on our side. Might as well make use of it," he said, shrugging as he got out of the armored car. Slamming the door shut, he nodded at Cassani and began to jog away. He turned on the comms as he kept going. "And if I don't come back, just head for the RV without me, alright?"

Silence answered him for a good ten seconds until Shepard nodded, "...Right." and then drove away.

;

Thanks to shadyxlr for consulting and assisting with military stuff, and to PseudoSteak, FourScore, Tisaku, Rakkis157 for proofreading.