Man off the Moon

by FiendLurcher

A rusted hero let loose in a galaxy of myriad grays, walking the familiar steps and seeking answers beyond death at the end of that long, ever-winding road. (Currently editing ch22, took a break last month cuz of flu&brainfog)

8. Going down?

Shepard ran, jumping three steps at a time down the stairs

The way up she had been tense. But she hadn't known what to expect from the way down. She had expected some disappointment, but strangely enough, there seemed to be none. Perhaps she was still just being overwhelmed by all of this.

Emiya stopped as did Shepard, halting four steps below and ahead of him as she noticed that he wasn't following.

"What is it?"

He frowned, closing his eyes as he focused on something. "Someone is coming up the stairs. More than four people, at least."

She blinked, grinning as she hefted her rifle up. "We gonna fight them? We could set up a pretty good ambush here. You take one floor up and I'll take one floor down: get them from both sides again?"

He stared at her, for just only a fraction of a second too long. That meant he was rolling around fifteen different thoughts in his mind again. Aaaand, ping, done!

"Waste of time - there's probably more downstairs. Let's find another way," Emiya said, turning around as he walked back up the 25th floor that lay just above them. He walked in through the fire access to what had once been a regular hotel floor, looking around intently while keeping his rifle ready.

"How are we gonna do that?" Shepard asked, jogging up to him. "Wouldn't it be quicker to just fight them?"

"We need to get to the RV and firefights can drag on forever. It'd be like back on the roof, only this time we would be the ones being stuck in a choke point."

"We could just take them... But fine, you have a point." Shepard nodded to herself. "But then why can't we just let them run past us and keep going down the stairs?"

"You're assuming that they will just walk past us - that they won't sweep every floor on the way up, or use radar or drones. Or that they won't call more people to start clearing the floors from below while they work their way back down to find us after they reach the top. Or that they might have set up some traps or tripwires along the stairs or at least set up a fortified position at the bottom..." Emiya said as he kept moving.

Shepard blinked, considering that deluge of possibilities with a thoughtful hum as she followed him. She already accepted that he was mysterious like that; being unable to follow his line of thought a lot of the time, but she had resolved herself to at least keep watching over what he did until she could.

I'll figure it all out, eventually. I just need to keep up with him, she thought.

They walked around, looking through the doors as they moved through the dark hallway. Already the sun had sunk so low, that it was shining directly through the windows, lighting up the inside of the hotel in a reddish-orange hue.

The dust and loose gravel beneath their feet cracked and ground against the bare concrete floor, being the only audible sounds around them as they kept moving. She kicked some loose dust, watching it flow on the floor, almost like water.

"This place is a lot less interesting on the inside," Shepard noted, looking around with a slightly dissatisfied frown.

"They must have taken all the decorations with them when they left. It would look a lot different normally." Emiya commented dryly.

"Really? Huh, figures. So what are you looking for?"

He stopped and peeked quietly around the corner as he sliced the pie again, making sure to leave as little of himself visible as he did, while Shepard kept an eye on the way behind them. Finding nothing of note ahead he slowly began to advance again.

"The elevators. I didn't see any other stairs, so the elevators are our best shot for getting down quickly and without being noticed."

"...You think you can fix them?" She asked, sounding impressed. It's like there's no end to what he can do.

Emiya blinked, "Err... No. Well, you'll see once we get there."

"Huh, okay." She shrugged, not at all nonplussed.

She still wasn't convinced that he couldn't fix the elevators, either.

They continued walking around, as with the smaller rooms there was room for more than one hallway on the floor. Finally, at the other end, Emiya discovered familiar-looking stainless steel doors at the end of the hall.

He shouldered his rifle and got his fingers on the two doors. Neither budged and the buttons remained unresponsive. "Power is off, which means we'll have to open it manually."

"Right. Need a hand?" Shepard asked, patting at her bicep with one hand in a boasting gesture. With the two of them, she was sure they could pry it open.

"No. I was just testing whether the locking mechanism was still engaged. Opening it by force is a waste of time. We'll need an elevator key to disengage the lock first," Emiya said, backing off.

"Oh, well how will we do that? I don't think we're gonna find one around here—" Shepard began to ask, but then stopped as he turned on his omnitool and with a few strokes of his fingers had begun to design a simple-looking latch-key. Ten seconds later, he pressed the haptic interface and the omnitool began to churn out a simple metal object. "Oh. I forgot it could do that."

She looked at her wrist, at the omnitool with something approaching confused awe and apprehension. She had been mostly using it as a wristwatch. Will have to fix that. Gonna have to read, huh...

Emiya looked up, "Hmm?"

"No, it's nothing." She shook her head with a light laugh.

Inserting the key into the slot in the frame, Emiya felt around until the latch fell down and found contact with the locking mechanism.

"Here's to hoping it hasn't rusted shut..." he said and turned the lever.

Something metallic made a deep sound behind the stainless steel doors, almost like a hollow hammer hitting the floor, but not quite, as it all fell into place. Emiya made a satisfied smirk as he muttered, "Good greasing - lasted all this time." as he quietly patted the doors, as if they had done a particularly good job and then withdrew the key.

"Alright, on three..." he said, grabbing one of the doors on the elevator, motioning for Shepard to take the other. She moved up and took a hold of the door as best she could. There wasn't really anywhere to grab onto the smooth stainless steel, just the small crack where even her fingers didn't fit. "One, two, three."

The door resisted only for a moment, due to the piled-up dust and rust, but it opened surprisingly easily after the initial resistance. Making a deep creak as the grime and dust made the hollow door vibrate, the doors gave way and slid aside almost violently.

She didn't fall, blinking as she looked at what lay beyond. She gaped again as she stared down into the yawning dark abyss before them. If the stairs and upper floor had been dark, then what lay before them was truly the absence of any and all possible light.

A small loose pebble was struck loose and fell in as she took a step back.

It tumbled in, hitting a wall here and there, continuing to fall for several seconds before the faintest echo of it hitting the bottom could be heard. She swallowed, turning to look at Emiya. "That's... a long way down..."

He smirked. "Afraid of heights now?"

She blinked, realizing he was shooting her own words back at her. Scowling, she took a step forward to look down into the dark shaft, before thinking better of it again. Noticing the rusted cables hanging in the middle, she looked at them curiously.

"We're gonna climb down on that?" She knew that you could climb with a rope but she had never actually tried it. She felt a moment of hesitation, before resolving to follow Emiya regardless.

Emiya shook his head, taking a step forward and reaching into the elevator shaft. He searched the left side, reaching around into the darkness until he found something to grab onto. Then with a light heave and step, he jumped side-ways into the darkness and vanished.

"Emiya?!" Shepard rushed forward, looking around the edge, only to spot the grinning Emiya staring back at her, stuck to the wall.

"Service ladder," he said, the teasing in his tone light and playful.

"A what now?" She blinked, before realizing that there indeed was a metal ladder right next to the doors on the inside of the elevator shaft. "Oh. Is that how you climbed up the first time?"

Emiya blinked as if thrown off by the question. "Once or twice, sure."

"Cool."

She grinned at him, more to convince herself though, throwing her rifle over her back as she moved to find the ladder herself.

Emiya placed his feet on the outside of the ladder pressing in at the sides, away from the rung as he held on with merely his hands. Then he relaxed his grip, allowing himself to start sliding down along the ladder as if in freefall.

"Emiya?!" Shepard cried out, as she stared down in surprise. To her it had seemed like he had suddenly just begun to fall; her heart leaping into her throat for a second.

He tightened his grip to slow down and then placed a foot on the rung again as he stared up, his eyes barely visible down below in the abyss.

"Take it as slow as you need to. I'll catch you if you fall," he said and if she couldn't actually see his smirk, she could sure hear it.

"In your dreams!"

She threw aside her hesitation and reached into the darkness, swinging to grab onto the ladder. "Now get outta my way before I go through you!" she declared and he had to quickly resume his slide down to avoid being overrun by her.

Their ascent had taken minutes. Their descent took seconds.

As she looked down, she could see him turn on the flashlight and look down before their sudden descent turned into an equally sudden stop. Spotting the approaching bottom below, he hissed quietly through the comm: "Slow down."

Luckily, she heard him over the pounding of her heart and began to slow down by tightening her hold on the ladder. She could feel the heat through her gloves and for a moment she considered what would happen if there was a piece sticking out from the ladder. At the speed she was going, she was sure it would rip through her hand instantly.

She swallowed, realizing that was why he had gone first. She shook her head. I'm just thinking too much.

Emiya had barely enough time to slow down and move out of the way once he hit bottom before she almost fell on top of him.

"That was crazy. You wanna go again?"

Emiya huffed, turning down the flashlight's intensity now that both were down. Shepard followed his example though she probably didn't get as much out of staring at the old rusted bits of machinery and the spools of thick steel wire as he did.

It looked less like the elevators she knew and more like just a square pit of concrete. She realized then that this was the bottom of the shaft, not the top of the moving bit where people usually went. Did that mean it was still above them? She looked up and suddenly the absolute darkness from before was dwarfed by this newfound sense of unease she felt.

If it comes crashing down, I'd never know, she realized with a sudden thought. It would be over so fast.

"Let's go," he said, breaking her out of those morbid thoughts as he reached for the ladder again. "This isn't the lobby, which is good. We're in the basement, probably in the maintenance and storage areas."

Shepard looked up at him as he climbed up and reached over to disengage the elevator doors from the inside and then began to pull at the door. She looked up for a place she could climb up to as well, noting that there was a small ledge by the lowest door's inside. Jumping up, she grabbed onto it and pulled herself up, so that she could balance herself somewhat on the ledge.

Grabbing the other side of the doors, they worked together and with a grunt managed to open the doors like before.

Absolute darkness greeted them behind the door, as the light from Emiya's omnitool only lit a few meters ahead of them. She turned her own on as well, then. Dust and rubble were everywhere, as more bare walls and floors of dull concrete surrounded them.

She could smell the vermin and the feces along with the garbage and the stale rot. This place had been abandoned for ages and had turned into something disgusting, even by the standards of the places she had been to.

"We going up?" Shepard asked, curiously staring out. She had seen the elevator doors in the entrance hall when they had first entered the building, which meant they should be somewhere right below where they had come in with the car.

"No. There should be other exits, so let's avoid the way we came. It's probably still crawling with people looking for us. Especially since the squad at the top must have gone silent after our fight," Emiya said, hauling himself through the open doors as he pulled his assault rifle over his shoulder and began to scan their surroundings.

Shepard made a grunt of understanding as she shimmied herself through as well, taking out her own assault rifle and looking around as she turned up her own omnitool's light. They alternated, moving one and the other in the lead as they cleared the way forward through the dark hallways and rooms in a practiced manner, weapons held constantly at the ready.

Emiya shifted to holding his rifle in a left-hand grip, since it didn't apparently matter to him which way he held it, allowing him to clear corners to the right more safely, while Shepard did the same with corners to the left. This way, they alternated in who cleared the corner while the other kept ready to pull them back in case they were shot suddenly.

After five minutes, they had found some service stairs, separate from the previous stairway and they made it to the ground floor in some back area with evening light flooding in, allowing them to turn off their lights. Then, quietly as could be they found an exit and sneaked out without raising any alarms or running into anyone on the way out.

After a straight dash through the open ground, they found cover inside a hollowed-out building adjacent to the old hotel.

"Easy," she declared through half-lidded eyes. The light was blinding again, but the fresh air was a definite improvement.

Shepard took point once more as they dashed through buildings and yards, though halfway through as they had acquired sufficient distance from the hotel and nothing had occurred, they threw aside some of their caution and began to pick up their pace.

Cracked streets and broken buildings raced past them, looking almost like they were bleeding in the setting sun's red hue. As they approached the RV building, their omnitool's suddenly alarmed them quietly that they had received a message, each.

"What the...?" Shepard asked, slowing down as she looked at her wrist. She shrugged and dismissed it as she moved to keep going.

"Hold up," Emiya said as he opened the message. "It's Cassani."

"Huh? Why didn't he just comm us?"

"Read it for yourself," Emiya said, glancing back down at the mail he had received.

'Picked up comm-signals and hacked in. They can detect and locate sources for ongoing comm-traffic. Six squads are looking around here for you. They don't know I'm here yet, but they know you left behind something here. They know you've left the hotel and they're looking for you. DON'T USE COMMS. -C'

"Oh," Shepard muttered, looking up from her own omnitool. She frowned, looking back down. "So what should we do?"

She considered it herself but wasn't sure what to make of it.

"If he's got an ear in their lines, we could use that. Maybe. Let me ask him..." Emiya answered as he began to formulate a reply. 'Mail safe? -E' Emiya sent before he looked up at Shepard. "Let's slow down. We don't have enough time left for screw-ups."

She nodded and began to jog again, keeping to cover and looking around twice before crossing any open spaces. He followed after, keeping one eye on the omnitool. Ping.

"Hold up," Emiya said again and kneeled down again. She leaned over his shoulder to read as he assumed a thoughtful expression, his eyes turning distant.

'Should be, they didn't seem to notice anything when either was sent, though I bounced it off of a satellite. Where are you? -C'

Emiya inhaled with a grimace and Shepard realized that there was more to this than just the mail itself.

"What's up?" she asked and he looked up, still frowning.

"Mail's too easy to fake. Can't be sure it's him. Could be someone else pretending, or he could a hostage. Could be a trap, could be real. Have to consider both and how to satisfy conditions for both at the same time."

"...Oh."

'We're still at the hotel; about to get a car and head back. Problems? -E' Emiya finally wrote and sent. He looked up to Shepard and nodded, letting her lead again as they made their way forward. Though somewhere along the line, he began to point out the way, having been here earlier on foot.

Shepard paused, kneeling behind a pile of fallen-over wall as she stared out into the street ahead. I don't like this. She couldn't point out what it was, but something was turning her stomach in knots.

It was a wide and long straight road, with a small park-like area in the median strip between the two ways. If someone had settled up into a tall building overlooking the road, they could cover it either way for a good kilometer, easily. So if they tried to cross it, they might just be gunned down after their fourth step.

Emiya slowed down, settling behind her as he kept an eye out in the other directions around them.

She waited for him to say something; to ask her what was the hold-up, to chastise her for slowing down. But he remained there as if counting on her to handle it. Finally, she decided to speak up.

"We should double back. I don't like this," Shepard whispered, leaning back towards him as she kept her eyes forward.

"You see something?"

"...No. But I don't like it," she insisted.

Something about it reminded her of the open field where Cassani had been shot and the forest road where they had jacked the car. Her gut feeling was telling her to avoid it at all costs. She was sure he'd say something, but he merely blinked and then nodded.

"...Alright. I'll check with Cassani and see if he has anything to say," Emiya said, turning on his omnitool.

'Can you tell me about the squads? Do you know where they are? What are they doing? -E' Emiya sent the mail, tapping away for twenty seconds all in all.

Then, they waited. Shepard was fidgeting as she kept shouldering and moving around the assault rifle. She still couldn't find a comfortable way to hold the butt against her shoulder, as she kept scanning the street before them.

Maybe she should just ignore her gut and go for it. She was probably imagining things...

Another ping and she leaned to look again.

'You're on the move? Some of them got gunned down at a hotel apparently. You? Two are patrolling around sectors U8 and Y1, but some haven't reported in since I hacked into their comms. I think they're in wait somewhere, but they've been real quiet. -C'

Cassani could be telling the truth, or it could also be a trap. Then again, they had to cross this road to go forward. It essentially cut the city in two and if they did not get over it, their RV-location would remain unreachable.

'Any near you? -E'

'No, I don't think so. -C'

Emiya sighed and raised his omnitool. His fingers danced as he erased most of the local files and sent backups to Shepard of the stuff he would need to keep.

"Uh...What's all this?" she asked as she glanced at all the pop-ups and notifications on her omnitool.

"I'm going to set up the omnitool as bait. It will tell us something in any case," Emiya said simply as he finished and took it off again, for the second time that day.

He set up a simple delay, which would give them two minutes before the call went through to Cassani.

Shepard backtracked and they moved further north as quickly as they dared.

Then she turned to move parallel to the road until she found what looked like a decent spot. She led them to where the distance between the two sides of the wide road was the shortest, with trees and bushes offering as much concealment from distant observers as possible.

This would be the best place for attempting a crossing, she reasoned and Emiya didn't disagree. Short of actually waiting for the cover of dark—which might not help either, given that who knew what kind of equipment their enemies had, as he pointed out—or going all the way around, it was the best chance they had.

Already, time was running short and both were tensely waiting for the timer to run out. Their best hope was to wait for the call to distract and turn away the attention of anyone who was on the lookout and then to rapidly make it for the other side and for the RV.

"Ten seconds," Shepard said, mostly for his benefit but also to psych herself up.

Emiya nodded, probably having kept a running count inside his head as he prepared.

This would be in practice nothing more than a 40-meter dash over two lanes and through some trees and low bushes. But the knowledge that a sniper might be bearing down at them right at this moment, simply waiting for them to break cover still chilled her heart. She could almost imagine it; see the scope hovering right before her, two steps ahead.

It would punch through her shields and armor with ease, splattering her insides on the cracked and crumbling pavement. Like those she had seen before; dead and dying. She wanted to just turn around and go crawl into a hole somewhere to wait until it all passed.

That had always worked before when she couldn't fight something. On the streets, you hid until the danger had passed.

She shook her head.

This was different. It was completely different from that. It's just a training exercise, she told herself. And I can't back down anymore, others are counting on me, she thought as she glanced at Emiya. He was doing the slow breathing thing again, which he seemed to do whenever he was about to dive into something.

Maybe she would ask him about it later? There were a lot of things she wanted to ask him about but wasn't sure how to go about it. Later, she told herself.

'Later' is how she felt about all things relating to him.

She would ask him, later. She would be able to do what he did, later. She would understand his thoughts, later. But that 'later' worried her.

Because even as she kept moving forward, wasn't he doing the same?

At this pace... I'll never catch up to him, she thought dismally, looking forward with vacant eyes.

"Time," Emiya said, surprising Shepard.

I can't even keep the timer for him.

Emiya burst into motion like a loosed arrow as he shot forward. His torso almost parallel to the ground, his arms swinging from side to side, as if pulling himself through a raging river flowing against him, pushing forward with each step as his legs pumped and kicked off the ground like rockets.

Shepard was a mere instant behind him despite her lagging, her own gazelle steps not losing one bit to his powerful dash at first. But only at first. With his longer legs, slowly he began to gain distance on her. She had seen his back before like this when she had tried to catch up to him the first time. The second time she had relied on him and been supported by that back, with how much easier it just was to simply stay behind him.

After that, she had been content to simply listen to his ideas and to roll with it.

Reacting to him.

Putting up a strong front every time, grinning as if she wasn't constantly on the back foot and lost.

But that wasn't enough. If she accepted that kind of place, then he wouldn't give her those funny looks, wouldn't lose his step for that half-instant when he tried to process what she'd said. She needed to keep surprising him and matching him and challenging him.

Now...

Now, she wanted to catch up to him, so that she could run alongside him, not just coast along in his wake.

She didn't even have enough time to get winded as they crossed the road and passed by safely. Nothing had happened; no one had shot at them. There was no sudden burst of pain that had pierced through her sides, and the ground hadn't suddenly come up to greet her when her legs failed beneath her.

They had crossed the road safely, her earlier worries seeming so silly.

She didn't need to try and keep up with him anymore, she could just... But he was still moving, she realized as her steps began to slow down.

Emiya in front of her kept going. A strange thought popped into her head: I could have just touched him a second ago, but now he seems so far away again...

Her perception of time seemed to skew as she stared at his back.

It almost seemed like a premonition of some kind... that no matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to catch up to him once he disappeared from her sight. Without his slipstream to follow it was impossible. That he would always keep looking forward, always moving, never once slowing down or looking back. That everyone who tried to keep up with him would always lag behind and sooner or later lose sight of him, or worse yet eventually just give up.

Somehow, at that moment, he seemed lonely.

It wasn't enough.

"To—" she tried to shout, her voice breathless mid-step and lost to the wind as she ground her teeth to pick up her pace again. She wouldn't lose, neither the sight of his back nor to him.

Her legs redoubled their pounding; her entire body turned into a machine that existed solely for catching up with that distant figure, blazing the trail before her. They had already run past a block, piercing through the second one and about to enter a third as they kept running at full speed.

"—hell..."

As if he had sensed that she was barely keeping up, he sped up just a bit, maintaining their pace completely heedless as he scanned the buildings racing by.

The wind howled in her ears; this was the fastest she had ever run in her entire life. She knew it instinctively. She was on the edge of chaos, one false step and it would all disappear.

Not anymore!

"—with..."

Lungs burning. Legs weak. Stomach cramping. Oxygen running out, sight swimming. Not him!

Shepard reached out, her hand like a great blade cutting through that impenetrable wind that blew away all who tried to follow in his tracks. It felt like wading through steel, how every inch felt like an immense struggle. She shouted with all her remaining willpower, thrusting herself forward as she leaped, her fingers just finding purchase on his shoulder as she grabbed a hold of him.

To pull ahead. To turn around and grin at him, to make him catch up to her!

"—THAT!"

Emiya wheeled around in surprise as he stopped, grabbing her arm from his shoulder, almost snapping her wrist as he suddenly moved and had her pressed against a wall in a whirl of motion with an elbow to her trachea. He had moved through pure instinct and muscle memory at the sudden impact on his shoulder, blinking, realizing what had happened only now with confusion swimming in his eyes.

And then he looked at her almost sheepishly as he let go.

"What was that?" he asked before looking away, deliberately ignoring his own faux pas as he backed off.

Shepard breathed heavily as she turned around, grinning up at Emiya as he had her pinned against a wall in the sudden scuff. "...Caught... you..."

Emiya blinked, completely nonplussed and lost at her wide grin.

There was something different to it, now. Like she knew something he didn't.

"...What?"

In response, her grin merely grew wider as she pushed off from the wall and took the lead as she began to run again. She turned around and ran backward, looking back at him as she shouted: "The point is mine inside the city, remember?"

Emiya stared at her back for a second, still not entirely sure what had happened, before he sighed and moved to follow her. Her grin didn't leave her face for a moment as she turned around and kept running, as she felt better than ever before.

The wind hadn't gotten any lighter, but her steps felt all the surer still.

---

;

---

Emiya rose, his back straight, fingers crossed and cupped by his waist, as he hoisted up Shepard.

She leaped from his hands and grabbed onto the windowsill above and pulled herself through, one arm going for her rifle the moment she had a leg inside. Straddling the open window, she scanned the room and then leaned back, half-whispering down at him: "Clear."

He rolled his eyes at her, taking a few steps back for a running start against the wall, reaching up to her after the first step up before he could start falling. She got him and then with by falling inside brought him up along, so he got a hold of the sill himself. Following her inside with one heave up, he dusted himself off and drew his rifle as he nodded to Shepard.

"What now: Get Franco?" Shepard asked in the same half-whisper as before. They had made it to the RV building with five minutes left before their pick-up arrived. They had no idea how long—if at all—it would wait for them, so they had to hurry.

Clearing a building, especially from the bottom up, would take far more than five minutes though, even if they only tried to take the straightest path up. In practice, you could spend half an hour just clearing one floor of an apartment building of this size if you wanted to be safe about it.

"Has he tried to contact you at all, yet?" Emiya asked.

She looked up, activating her omnitool and then looking up to shake her head.

So there are a few possibilities here. Cassani was the one who contacted us, but he hasn't picked up on any comm chatter since and hasn't thought to try switching to Shepard yet... Alternatively, it was someone else who merely contacted us while pretending to be Cassani, telling us to avoid comms, because they couldn't fake him speaking. But that is assuming the comm-detection was a bluff, which we haven't managed to ascertain, either way, Emiya considered, then shook his head.

"Emiya. It's Franco," Shepard piped up, breaking him out of his thoughts. She raised her omnitool to show the message she had just received.

'Where are you?'

Emiya considered the message.

It could be Cassani getting worried about the time limit coming up... But the message was rather short, especially since Emiya had just done the one thing he wasn't supposed to do, and tried to call Cassani earlier. So if Cassani had been right about some kind of comm-jamming, had it been intercepted and blocked before it could reach him? Or was the one trying to play at being Cassani pretending not to have been called earlier.

A number of possibilities remained beyond even those two. No point trying to reason with so little information; better to beat the grass again.

"Tell him... to 'come down, we're right outside by the park'," Emiya said and Shepard blinked at him.

"What park?"

"It's just a trick question." Emiya clarified. "I stuffed him beneath the floorboards anyhow, so it's not like he needs to 'come down'."

"Oooohhh. And he can't walk, either. Clever." Shepard made a sound of understanding, before turning quizzical. "Why didn't you send that right away?"

"Well, assuming the first Mako's first owners were in contact with our pursuers, they should know about his legs, so that's not enough to catch them. But by double-layering the plot, it might. And if he was being held prisoner, they would have found him, which in turn means that they would force him to answer suitably to keep fooling us, most likely. I want answers about the comm-problem more than anything else. This late in the game, taking risk that would cost us in long-term is fine, so long as it makes the opponent over-extend themselves. By the time they recover, we'll be on the shuttle," Emiya explained absently.

Of course, if they had Cassani, they might know about the rapidly approaching RV deadline, too...

But if their opponent knew to play for time and knew where to hold up, with their relative resources it was already game over for them. At best they could abandon Cassani and try to see if their orders changed after retreating.

"Huh?" Shepard made a sound as she blinked at him, obviously losing the trail somewhere along the way.

She looked consterned about that, as if she wanted to understand.

Well, he didn't mind explaining.

"The first move in this kind of situation is usually a feint or a fake-out to see what they do. Do they spring a trap, are they trying to hold back and observe us, or what? So, I made a harmless mistake and see if anything happens now. Once you have a read on them, you can act irrationally in a suitable way to make their play go completely wide," Emiya went on at some length, when she did not let up with her quizzical stare. "That's the simple gist of it. Now, let's—"

The omnitool beeped again and Shepard pulled it up again, with Emiya standing next to her so that they could read it as one.

'What the hell are you talking about? Are you coming or not? We're running out of time and we need to go!'

Emiya blinked, before smirking as he looked up to Shepard. "Well, what to do you know. It was him after all. Let's go."

Shepard nodded, still not quite getting what he had been talking about earlier, but clearly weighing his words seriously as she took point again.

They opened the door, clearing the hallway at the same time, both slicing half of the pie as they advanced. Finding nothing, they moved quickly as Emiya guided them towards a room near the front entrance he had come through the first time.

It might have been guarded or watched from afar, which was why they had snuck in through a broken window in the back alley.

"Cassani, you in here?" Emiya asked quietly, after clearing a single-room and finding the floorboards pushed aside, and all the dirt and dust that had been displaced by someone being dragged across the floor.

"Emiya...?" A voice from ahead in the hallway could be heard as if someone was lying on the floor. They walked ahead, turning the corner to spot Cassani lying on the floor. He had his omnitool out and had been in the process of dragging himself forward with just his hands. "Shit, man. You scared me. Holy fuck. You keep telling me you're still at the damn hotel and then I start hearing sounds. And then you start fucking talking about a park? I mean, what? God damn. Fuck."

Shepard made an amused noise as she walked up to him and dusted him off with her hands. Emiya followed suit and together they got him up so that he was sitting upright at least. Cassani nodded his thanks as he tried to wipe off some white-gray concrete dust from his face, without much success.

"How'd it go? With the relay?" he asked, blinking some dust out of his eyes as he tried to look up at them.

"Probably a bust, but oh well. Let's go: we've got about three minutes to get up top," Emiya replied, extending a hand and pulling up Cassani from the ground and onto his shoulders. "Shepard, lead the way. Stairs are to the right."

She nodded and took point, clearing the way again as Emiya kept up while carrying Cassani on his shoulders like a sack of potatoes again.

"So what happened, with the tower?" Cassani asked, struggling to talk as he was jostled up and down on Emiya's shoulders as they went up the stairs, three at a time with Emiya's legs struggling to keep up with Shepard as she kept afloat on gazelle bounds.

"The relay probably wasn't on the roof," Emiya said simply, shrugging.

"Well... Shit."

"You win some, you lose some. No point in getting hung up about it." Emiya said. "Point is to only do what you can, no more. Then even if you pull back, you won't have lost anything you can't replace." A lesson I still don't seem to have taken to heart, he thought, with a touch of annoyance.

"I guess..." Cassani shrugged, not really noticing his ride's inner thoughts.

The rest of the way up was mostly quiet.

Shepard kicked open the door to the roof after having blasted through the rusted lock with her rifle and cleared the rooftop with mechanical precision. Emiya, after having lain down Cassani, did the same to the other half, after which they took cover inside the stairs to wait for the shuttle to arrive.

It would only be minutes now, but still, there was no point in being out in the open on the rooftop where they could be seen. They sat on the stairs, quietly waiting as they could almost already feel the home stretch coming to a close. Emiya knew this was the most dangerous moment, straining to keep his ears open.

And it would not be, not that easily. Suddenly a crash echoed down below: someone kicking down a door on the first floor.

"Shit," Shepard said, standing up and noting that staying in the stairs would be terrible if a firefight broke out since it lacked good cover.

She moved to get out and to lay down as she had on the hotel's rooftop, but Emiya halted her.

"Someone must have spotted us on the roof if it took them this long. The shuttle is already inbound; let's wait until the last moment," Emiya explained as he grabbed her arm. "If they have snipers scoping this building, if we go back on the roof they'll see us and call it in while shooting at us."

She nodded, understanding dawning on her.

"Oh, right, they only know we went on the roof and then back inside, so the ones downstairs have to clear the whole building starting from the bottom, like at the hotel."

Emiya nodded. "The snipers will also have to look through the windows on the lower floors, trying to find us, so until the shuttle arrives we should remain in concealment to buy time."

Shepard licked her lips, then nodded at his plan. She looked down at her omnitool, calling up a clock.

"One minute."

Cassani drew his assault rifle, inhaling deeply as if he was already getting used to this and only annoyed by all of it, as he settled a bead onto the bottom of the stairs. The moment they were found, it would turn into a slaughter unless they could instantly disable everyone trying to get near the stairs.

The seconds passed, almost agonizingly slowly.

The sounds of doors being kicked down and boots echoing continued up the stairway, as shouts of 'clear!' and 'breaching!' along with numerous low booms could be heard muffled by the walls and floors between them, slowly approaching their position.

"Heh, we must be really popular," Shepard noted with some grim humor, counting already the seventeenth flashbang going off as those below them rapidly cleared rooms and hallways.

"It's fine. Hear that?" Emiya asked.

A light thrum in the air, half-familiar, and half-strange after the long day. It was the sound of a shuttle in the distance. Shepard and Cassani grinned at Emiya. Suddenly, there was a slight lull in the sounds below them, making him frown.

"Damn, the spotters in the distance must have called in the appearance of the shuttle. They'll be coming for the roof now." Emiya said, grabbing Cassani as he moved up to the threshold of the roof. He glanced left and right, staying low as he tried to figure out where someone scoping in on the building could be.

"Shepard, here!" Cassani said, half-turning around as he with an underhand throw passed along his assault rifle to her.

She blinked, then grinned up to him as she looked up and answered his thumbs up with one of her own, struggling a little with holding both assault rifles during the act.

"I'll get Cassani to the shuttle while you hold this point. Once we're in, I'll cover you long enough that you can run in," Emiya said, turning around to look at Shepard.

She nodded, a determined fire lit in her eyes as she settled down a little bit further down the stairs where she could hold the corner there at least. It wasn't as good a choke-point as the one on the hotel, but she wouldn't let that bother her.

"I can see it!" Cassani excitedly half-shouted, pointing at the shuttle coming in. Luckily it seemed that no one was trying to shoot it down. Perhaps it was a rule of the simulation, or perhaps shuttles had such strong kinetic barriers that ground doctrine advised against targeting them anyhow. Unlike a car, it needed a massive eezo core, meaning that a powerful kinetic barrier was much easier and sensible to produce.

Whatever it was, their way out was coming in.

"They're in the stairs!" someone shouted from down below, only for half of his shout be cut out by Shepard's answer.

—trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!

The sounds of a kinetic barrier failing and a man falling down could be heard, along with half a dozen shouts in response to that. Boots closing in, someone slamming past a door, bursts of rifle fire.

—trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!

Shepard gave another squeeze of the trigger, spraying the bottom of the stairs with bullets again. She was already in the zone, lining up shots and mentally managing the cooldowns of the rifles as she kept hosing them down.

Right now it wasn't about racking up hits, it was about keeping anyone from getting a footing below them to stage a breaching push.

Emiya eyed the incoming shuttle, judging the distance and speed as he looked out through the door. At least, any snipers were not directly ahead of them as the open door would have given them a direct line of fire already. The closest suitable firing location for that was over six kilometers away.

That placed it out of range for most snipers, Emiya judged with wry amusement.

But that still left the sides and back open. Assuming the shuttle landed in the middle of the opening on the rooftop, that meant a reasonable line of fire still existed on the left side and from behind at an angle. Shooting at a target moving perpendicularly was more difficult than one that was moving away or towards you, especially at range as conditions affecting calculations piled up.

But to a good marksman, it wasn't a very difficult shot to take as long as they were ready for it and led the shot ahead.

Emiya closed his eyes, picturing in his mind's eye the shot vectors available, cutting down the furthest and most limited, until finally in his head he had a clear picture of what would happen once he ran out.

He inhaled and held his breath for a moment, finalizing it all in his head as he exhaled. His heart beat a slow 40 beats per minute right now - far too little for this. He needed to rev up. His breathing became shallow and quick as he pumped himself up. In, out. In, out. Five entire breath cycles in a single second as he clenched and unclenched his muscles to trick his body; the bellows method was like a shot of pure adrenaline into the veins and he could feel his heart rate jumping up to a solid 100 beats per minute as the warmth spread through his limbs.

The arrow was drawn.

He eyed the shuttle that had just arrived, hovering two meters off the roof, only ten meters away from the rooftop access point, closing off another firing vector and cutting it down to one. Perhaps no one was there, perhaps there weren't any snipers scoping the roof. He would not make it to his mark, but that was fine. As long as he knew he could not reach his target by himself, he could plan around that.

He played it by experience. And that told him to always expect the worst.

"Shepard! Ten more seconds and then follow us!" Emiya shouted as he took off, feet pounding as he began to run upstairs. As he broke out into the open, he could scarcely hear Shepard's acknowledgment over the rushing sound of the blood in his veins.

One step.

Two steps.

Three—he jumped to the side before he even felt the intent, his kinetic barrier reporting its collapse in his HUD as the near-miss still grazed him enough to cause damage—steps.

—boom! A distant report of a sniper rifle.

Another miss. This is fine.

—boom!

He loaded up Cassani on his arm, taking the fourth step and throwing forward the man with all his speed and strength as the second bullet hit him straight in the gut. His leg locked up and failed him the moment Cassani was out of his hands - simulating blood loss, perhaps?

They landed almost at the same time, Cassani with an oomph of complaint and Emiya with a silent roll as he drew the assault rifle on the snipers, beading the building across from them.

"Pull yourself the rest of the way!" Emiya shouted as he pulled the trigger.

—trr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rr'rrtt!

The two snipers were on the same building, some four blocks away. Emiya wasn't trying to hit them, simply put pressure on them. It didn't matter one whit at this point if they were taken out after all.

Six. Seven. Eight. He counted in his head as he noted them flinching and taking cover as a bullet struck a kinetic barrier in a burst of blue. All around him the reports of gunfire mixed together into a symphony of conflict. He couldn't move his lower body at all anymore, but that was fine. He ignored the beeping HUD telling him about some simulated injury or another as he kept shooting.

Shepard came back up the stairs as she fired both rifles from the hip. One of them overheated and as a heavily armored figure came running up the stairs, she threw it at his face which was just enough to trip him up and send him falling back down the stairs when his barriers failed, as she peppered him with the other assault rifle.

She turned around and ran forward as Emiya kept suppressing the snipers. She blinked, realizing he was still lying there, halfway to the shuttle even as Cassani had barely crawled all the way in.

Emiya had one arm up and out, like a hook.

She shot forward, grabbing his arm and dragged him with her, switching to shooting one-handed suppressing fire the building he had been aiming at, while Emiya switched to the stairway, bullets screaming through the air every which way one looked.

She made it to the shuttle, where Cassani grabbed Emiya and pulled him in with one hand as Shepard turned around to fire at the stairs again, where three armored figures were already making their way up over their fallen comrades body.

The shuttle door closed. The floor seemed to lurch beneath them. The shuttle had taken off.

They were safe.

Shepard lowered her overheated and loudly beeping rifle as she panted for air. Emiya and Cassani simply made do with lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling of the shuttle. Slowly, she began to laugh. After a moment, Cassani joined in and even Emiya had to crack a smile.

He understood, even if he did not quite share their feelings in full.

The relief of it being over was probably the sweetest sensation the two of them had ever experienced. It was not so much that getting to the shuttle by itself was such a positive experience, rather it was the contrast between a whole day of combat and contention and the sudden understanding that they had succeeded and could just rest now.

That kind of high did not come easy and for that, it was all the more pronounced.

The two laughed for a minute before they finally settled down somewhat.

Shepard looked down at Emiya, still grinning as her emotions ran high.

"What happened to you? Did you trip?"

Cassani began to laugh again at that. Such was the post-fight high one would often experience at times like these; any joke, no matter how bad or awkward or dumb, would be enough to set everyone into a burst of belly-aching laughter.

"Hmm, well... I was getting tired of lugging Cassani around all the time, and thought it only fair that I get to be carried around a little too," Emiya answered, somehow managing to sound entirely too dignified despite literally laying half-paralyzed on the floor and having to stare up at the seated Shepard.

That was enough to set her off into another gale of laughter that lasted another full minute. She gasped for breath as she finally calmed down, kicking at him lightly as she smiled down at him.

"You're such a jackass, Emiya. You can stay down there the rest of the way for that."

He shrugged, not at all perturbed. The floor was very comfortable right now.

---

;

---

The ride was not all too long.

Simply flying over a nearby mountain until they reached the base camp that was in full cover, both from any potential stray bullets flying from the city that now loomed in the distance behind them, and from view from where they had first landed and begun this exercise.

Unlike the mountaintop where they had started, here a massive camp had been erected. Both tents and small prefab houses had been erected in neat lines and columns, giving it a rather familiar appearance as they landed.

"It almost looks like a marching formation..." Cassani noted as he sat up.

Some minutes ago their suits had disabled all the wound simulations, returning to them their full mobility and functionality. Cassani had spent several minutes rubbing his feet and walking around inside of the shuttle on wobbly legs, while Emiya had simply sat up and taken to a seat and put on the seat belts.

Old habits from chopper crashes die hard.

Finally, they landed and were ushered out by the pilot who had remained quiet the whole way. There to greet them stood a stern-faced man of Japanese descent, standing with his back straight and glaring brimstone and hellfire as he spotted them exit the shuttle.

Emiya jumped out first, taking point as his two teammates settled up behind him.

They jogged up to the Major who continued to judge them quietly with his arms crossed. Emiya maintained point and reported in.

"Sir, team Charlie-4 reporting in, informs Serviceman Emiya!" Emiya said with a clear and audible voice as his eyes settled into a point in the distance, standing straight as he assumed the at-attention position, hand raised to his helmet's brow in salute at the exact angle that had been drilled into him.

Shepard and Cassani stood in a line, just behind Emiya as they assumed the at-attention position as well, with sharp salutes of their own.

The Major—the man they had been talking to earlier through the omnitool, Emiya noted as he spotted the nametag 'Maeda' on the chest—did not ease up at all, rather the annoyed frown only seemed to deepen. There were a tense ten seconds as nothing happened.

This was probably on purpose, Emiya surmised.

One of the purposes of the at-attention position was, that it not only made the one standing look rather impressive—with the back straight, arms held at the side and the stomach held in, and chest and jaw jutting out in perfect, ram-rod straight posture—it was also rather uncomfortable to stand in for long, since the heels had to be touching. It wasn't painful, but it was definitely not a natural position, and the parade rest was definitely preferable for any length of time.

Especially for him, as his calves had grown large enough now to press out against each other in the position, forcing him to push the legs together.

With terrible balance from the narrow base and strict requirements for good posture, it could be surprisingly tiring. Sometimes punishment could simply be to stand still for extended periods of time. It grew easier with time, of course. But after basic training, it still remained a sharp reminder of the hierarchy, especially when being disciplined.

Even if the physical side could be trained to become effortless, the mental side always remained. One's eyes were supposed to be locked straight ahead; no looking around; the face must remain perfectly stoic as one must stare straight ahead, and only straight ahead.

Meanwhile, one's superior officers could walk around you freely. They could inspect you and move all around you. The dissonance between being forced to remain still as someone else could freely loom over you was reminiscent of how prey animals instinctively freeze in place in the presence of predators. The 'Perhaps if I don't move, he won't kill me'-mindset, being instilled through the body into the mind and subconsciousness rather than the other way around.

It was simply another method for the military to enforce its chain of command.

"At ease," the Major finally spoke.

All three took a wider stance, their rigorous posture relaxing as they were allowed to stand at a somewhat more human position as they lowered their hands.

Emiya could almost feel the sense of relief shedding off of Cassani behind him, while Shepard seemed something between annoyed and curious. She must have thought they had done a good job so far and that there would be nothing but praises for their achievements ahead.

Well, Emiya had guessed something like this would happen. Equivalent exchange, really. You broke rules, the rules break you. It would be a learning experience for them if nothing else.

Still, he was certain their achievements would still gain the recognition they deserved in due time.

"Serviceman Emiya." Maeda began, walking up to him with slow steps.

"Sir," Emiya answered, assuming the at-attention as he was being addressed.

"How do you think this day has gone. Overall?" The major asked, his polite tone masking the annoyance behind it quite well as he seemed to be calm.

"Most excellently, sir."

The major considered that, nodding to himself as he leaned back. Then he leaned forward suddenly, to the point where Emiya could feel his breath on his face. "Do tell, what exactly makes you say that."

"We were handed a single objective, which we successfully achieved while along the way we fulfilled as many side-objectives as possible, sir," Emiya answered calmly, keeping the deferential tone to his voice.

"Yes, I see. Tell me, then Serviceman Emiya. How much do you think it costs the Systems Alliance to organize a field exercise like this, for a single day?"

"A considerable sum of money, sir," Emiya answered without hesitation.

"Hah," the Major scoffed. "That is putting it lightly, to say the least. This leads me to the question I am really dying to have answered... Serviceman Emiya, how much money do you think your flailing about and reckless behavior has cost the Systems Alliance, just today?"

"A considerable sum of money, sir," Emiya repeated, his voice unchanged.

"Do not give me lip, boy." The major was suddenly in Emiya's face again as he snarled out those words, staring right into his eyes and using his superior height for all it was worth for intimidation.

An absolute silence reigned around them, as a circle was beginning to form, as others in the camp settled down to watch. There was nothing more interesting than seeing someone else get dressed down by a superior officer after a major fuck up, after all.

Maeda took a step back, pulling out his omnitool as he pulled out a list on the screen and raised it to Emiya's face. "Do you know what this is? Do you, Serviceman?"

Emiya glanced at it, noting that it was a list of items and expenses. Presumably for all the things we broke or appropriated. It will all have to be checked and repaired, which will require time and money.

"Yes, sir," Emiya answered.

"Oh, I don't think you do, Serviceman," Maeda growled as he took away the list from Emiya's face. "This field exercise normally never accrues any material costs on the part of the Navy, beyond fuel consumption and ammunition blocks. Minor costs, really. A sum less than a rounding error for the Systems Alliance budget. It has been designed that way by the greatest minds the Systems Alliance has, after all. To be affordable and cost-effective.

"But now, we have this great big hole in our budget. Can you tell me what that means? Can you? I doubt you can. This is not the stuff of dreams and fancies we are working with, Serviceman! This is time and money that the Systems Alliance will be wasting because of you and your little troupe of misfits! This money is the result of the blood, sweat, tears, and effort of billions of humans! Down the drain, because you can not follow simple instructions!"

The Major was shouting now, stabbing his finger into Emiya's chest with every word like a sword for punctuation.

Emiya remained calm, staring straight ahead and noting the lack of any actual questions or orders there.

"But, sir, we weren't told about the rule—" Shepard protested, only to flinch as the Major wheeled around to glare at her.

"You will only speak when spoken to, Servicewoman Shepard! Drop down and give me one hundred!" Maeda roared, glaring at Shepard who blinked and then licked her lips, before realizing that she was supposed to be doing push-ups when his glare did not ease up after a second.

She fell forward, palms touching the ground as she began to rapidly count out loud with each repetition.

"Further down! Your nose should be touching the dirt, Servicewoman!" he shouted and after a pause, she went deeper down with every push-up, not even slowing down as she continued. "I can see that this is far too easy for you. Give me a clap with each push-up!"

"Sir?" Shepard hesitated, not understanding his meaning as she stopped to look up.

"You will push up and clap in the air! One! Hundred! Repetitions! That's ten times ten for you, if the number is too high for your little skull to handle, and still not even a fraction of a fraction, of the amount of money your driving alone has cost us today! Fail that and I will ship you back into basic and have you scrubbing the privies for six years just to make sure that you understand just how angry I am with you!" the Major roared and Shepard flinched, rushing to obey.

As she pushed up, her hands came free off the ground and she clapped quickly before she had to rush to meet the ground and push up again.

Maeda walked back five steps until he could see them all again. He inhaled, glaring at Emiya and Cassani who kept studiously quiet. For a minute, everyone around them stared in complete silence, excepting Shepard who performed the assigned physical punishment, counting loudly.

Finishing off the hundredth push-up, she jumped up and assumed parade rest once more as she struggled to control her breathing. The Major stared at them quietly for several seconds, before he exhaled through his nose.

"You say you did not know the rules. Hah! What a joke." He seemed almost to be talking to himself more than he was to any of the recruits before him. "Do you know why you are dropped down there, without any instructions and with wholly under-specced gear for this kind of conflict? No, don't answer that. Of course, you don't. It's because it's tradition; both this exercise and to keep you in the dark, that is."

Maeda walked up to Emiya again, staring straight into his eyes.

"You see, it's to make cocky new bastards like you understand humanity's position in the galaxy. It's the exact same as the situation back when all of humanity first stumbled upon the rest of galactic civilization, see? Alone, completely unaware of the rules and woefully unprepared. Make no mistake, humanity is a very small fish in a very large pond right now."

He inhaled so loudly Emiya could feel the drag on his cheeks.

"You think that because you did not know the rules, you should be exempt from them? Hah! That sure as hell did not work on Shanxi with the turians, and it sure as hell will not work with me!" Maeda shouted again.

Emiya had to prevent himself from smiling.

He understood this man now. It wasn't that the Major wanted to inflict suffering on them or to discipline them for his own sake, or even for something like the Systems Alliance's budget's sake. This was purely for them. To help them understand what the world was like and to toughen them and prepare them for it.

This man truly cares about the soldiers serving under him.

After all, not a single on-looker was giving the Major critical or reproachful eyes. There was an expectant energy in the air, as those around them seemed to be smiling to themselves at the spectacle before them. Perhaps they had all been dressed down by the man, at one time or another, and had been the better for it.

A silence descended on the clearing again, though this time there was a much different energy to it; a strange charge in the air itself, as if everyone expecting something to happen. Emiya made a prediction: they had been given the stick, and now came the carrot.

For all that they had done poorly, they had ultimately succeeded in a number of ways.

"Therefore—"

"Now, now Major. Aren't you being a little too harsh?" A familiar voice broke through the crowd and Maeda paused in mid-sentence as he blinked. He turned around, staring at the newcomer with furrowed brows.

"Burnsfeldt." The Major ground his teeth as he saw the new arrival.

Emiya blinked, realizing it was the Lieutenant Commander who had first sent them out into the city.

What is he doing here? The man with a dark complexion walked through the encircling crowd and approached them with swaggering steps and an unfaltering smile. Three steps behind him followed another man who was nervously licking his lips at the stare he was receiving from Major Maeda.

"Gunnery Chief Thomas. What is the meaning of this?"

The nervous man flinched, making a strange expression before straightening up at being addressed directly by the Major. "Sir, I... I didn't mean to, but he somehow hacked into my feed and..."

Maeda furrowed his brows before ignoring the babbling Gunnery Chief and turning to glare at the smiling Burnsfeldt.

Emiya's eyes narrowed as he considered the situation. This doesn't make sense; a Major is higher up on the System Alliance's ranks, even if they serve in different branches. What's with this tension?

"Major Maeda, by order of Rear Admiral Sorensen I have come to relieve you of Team Chalie-4. Here, I have forwarded the orders to your omnitool, sir." Burnsfeldt spoke, smiling smugly as he spoke. "Or rather, you could say I will be taking all three of them off your hands now, sir."

Maeda looked down at his omnitool and then back up at the man before him, giving him a glare that could have curdled milk. Gripping his fist tightly before relaxing with a disgusted sigh, Maeda turned around and left.

Emiya stared at that back, not entirely certain what to think of this development.

"Well, now. Now that that old curmudgeon is out of the way, why don't we talk for a little bit? Oh, at ease, at ease. Come on, follow me," The strange Lieutenant Commander spoke, leading the trio away as he walked on with relaxed steps.

Off to the side, Gunnery Chief Thomas slipped off to run after Major Maeda after a worried glance at them.

"You've certainly made a mess of things around here, hahaha..." He laughed easily. "I knew you'd be interesting once I saw you off, but not quite to this extent! To tell you the truth, I've been looking through your feed the whole time," Burnsfeldt said as he led them to a tent.

Inside were a desk, a larger computer terminal along with various items and pieces of weaponry and machinery in varying degrees of disassembly. "And you've certainly managed to kick over an ant's nest or three in the past few hours while I did."

He offered them to take seats with a wave of his hand and they all sat down around the table, Burnsfeldt on one side and them on the other.

"Then again, that's just the kind of spirit humanity needs nowadays. The Navy has been repeating this exercise for well over ten years now and nothing has really changed. Rather indicative of how conservative a stance they have taken. Pity, that." Burnsfeldt kept talking, even as Emiya began to wonder what the hell any of this had to do with anything, he kept on talking. "See, it's a 'tradition' as they like to call it. Really, it's a way of keeping an old wound from healing over. To remind themselves of how poorly they handled it back then. He mentioned Shanxi, right? This entire city is just one big recreation of that battle. Did you know that?"

Emiya shook his head, as did Shepard. But Cassani seemed to be seriously considering those words before he seemed to remember something.

"The siege of Xianji hill, sir?"

Burnsfeldt turned to look at Cassani, smiling widely as he praised the recruit. "You certainly know your history, serviceman. Well done. This entire team is full of nothing but impressive surprises. Indeed. You, as fresh recruits are the helpless populace of Shanxi that faced the invading turian forces with nothing but personal small arms and some outdated environmental hardsuits." He paused, indicating their equipment and pistols with a casual wave.

"Those who have already joined their particular line of service, often in the marines or in some of the other direct combat roles, get to play the part of the invading turians in hunting down the first-timers. Not just second-timers, but sometimes all the way to their fourth time here, they get to play turian and to crush all who oppose them with superior numbers, weapons, and training. The Admiralty calls it an exercise in 'vigorous offensive tactics' despite the official doctrine of the Navy favoring the use of mobility and precision strikes. What a joke..." Burnsfeldt explained, punctuating it with a loud scoff.

The three recruits sat in silence as they listened.

"Who are they fighting? They weren't all just hunting us out there..." Shepard asked, now that she seemed certain that this officer would not bite her head off for speaking freely, like another had minutes prior.

Burnsfeldt smiled and began to tap at his omnitool, finally pulling up something that looked like a public profile of himself. He had underscored a part where a letter and a number had been noted.

'Fillion Burnsfeldt – N6 Engineer'

Cassani's eyes shot wide open and even Shepard looked suitably impressed.

But Emiya blinked as this situation began to make less and less sense to him by the second. Why is a special forces operative pulling us aside like this?

"Every year, we bring in some of the fresher faces over from the villa, and have them participate as the human military that had been stationed on Shanxi. Back then, they hadn't considered the existence of hostile alien forces, thus their equipment and weaponry were hardly any better than what the civilians had..."

He looked up at the tent's ceiling, as if wistful.

"Heavily outgunned and outmatched, their job is to find as many first-timers slash confused and scared 'civilians' as possible and organize them into something resembling a fighting force. Their job is to mount a resistance against impossible odds and to fight until their last breath. Those who succeed in distinguishing themselves in this exercise... Usually get to join the N-program as N1," he finished with those meaningful words, leaning forward as he steepled his fingers before his face, half-hiding his smile.

"Sir, I'm not quite sure I follow..." Emiya began politely. "What does any of this have to do with us?"

"Cassani. Mind recounting what you know of the siege of Xianji for the rest of us?" Burnsfeldt replied with a smile as he turned to look at Franco.

"Uh, yes sir. It was a battle at the end of the first half of the Shanxi conflict, where a turian destroyer had landed on a hill after suffering a malfunction. It represented the only hope of victory for the defending forces, in that it held the communications array that was used for commanding the entire turian ground force." Cassani began, recounting from memory as he spoke. "A team of volunteers set off on the mission, which had been deemed a suicide operation. In the end, none of them walked away, but somehow still managed to disable the turians' communications for an entire day, allowing the humans on the ground to mount a resistance long enough for the reinforcements from Earth to come in."

Emiya and Shepard both listened with rapt attention, as neither had had a particular chance or interest before to read up on humanity's first contact war.

"An excellent summation. That water tower that managed to catch your eye... Can any of you guess what it stood in for?" Burnsfeldt said, smirking slightly and showing off his pearly white teeth.

"No way!" Cassani asked, his eyes widening.

Burnsfeldt pulled up a display through his omnitool, using the desk as an extension which improved the size and quality of the projection. In it, they could see the insides of what must have been the water tower.

Just as Emiya predicted, it had been packed full of enemies, all heavily armed and armored. The majority were combat drones and turrets though, as only a handful of humans could be seen. And behind them lay what must have been the communications relay. So it was inside after all. Emiya noted to himself.

Shepard and Cassani must have realized this as well, as they sagged slightly after a second of looking at the video feed.

"Today, not more than two hours ago... The communications relay stopped working suddenly." The Lieutenant Commander said teasingly and in the video suddenly the machine seemed to show an error, several of the men buzzing about in clear confusion. "They tried to figure it out for well over an hour, finding nothing wrong with the machine itself or the software. In the end, one of the technicians thought to check the antenna extension on the roof... Can you guess what they found?"

"It... it hit?" Shepard suddenly asked, her eyes wide as she turned to Emiya, obviously giddy with excitement.

"Wha—You're serious?! It worked?!" Cassani asked, his mouth hanging wide open in slack-jawed amazement.

"Indeed," Burnsfeldt said as he pulled up the video of the technicians having a closer look at a completely wrecked antenna that came through the water tower's roof. It had been shot through in the center, causing the entire structure to tilt over into a pile of twisted metal and crushed electronics.

It was the sort of damage that would take days, if not weeks to repair.

"This is the kind of spirit humanity needs to make it in the galaxy," Burnsfeldt said, leaning forward as he looked at each of them in the eye. "Not that humiliating crap Maeda spouts. You are exactly the kind of people that humanity needs. Sure, back on that hill it wouldn't have been possible to shoot out the antenna quite like that. But that's not what I'm talking about.

"It's the spirit you have. The unwillingness to back down in the face of a challenge and the wits to find a way and to hell with the consequences. I sincerely believe that had people like us been on Shanxi back in the day, the galaxy would look a lot different today."

They looked at each other, all curious about what Burnsfeldt was saying. But Emiya felt something mounting. He felt like they were being guided, being railroaded towards a definite conclusion.

So this was his plan. He frowned, unnoticed by everyone else.

Burnsfeldt smiled again as he extended his hands outwards into an offer of a handshake. "Which is why... Jane Shepard, Shirou Emiya, Franco Cassani... Here and now on behalf of the villa, I am extending to all of you an invitation to the N-program. Welcome to the special forces."

---

;

---

Emiya sat outside his new tent, gazing up at the starry vault above.

Sunset had come and gone, bringing the chill and darkness of night. Even here he could hear the fighting in the distance on the other side of a mountain.

He turned on and off his omnitool once more, checking how it worked again. It had been brought in by another returning team a few hours before, after he using it as bait for the comms, and in return he had handed back all the guns they had taken. Afterward, he had been interviewed about everything he knew about the guns by Burnsfeldt. There had been others, but the Lieutenant Commander had been the only one asking questions, which went on until several people finally seemed to understand what he had done, and how he had done it with the rifles.

Now, they were sitting out the rest of the exercise and would be returning to base as soon as enough of the fresh recruits had 'taken out' or managed to get to their next evac shuttles. As it turned out, the idea had been that they weren't supposed to actually make it to the first RVs, which would force them to get in contact with the N-line-led 'resistance' somewhere down the line.

Of course, Emiya had thrown a wrench into all of that.

Apparently, theirs had been a run for the ages and all of it had been captured on multiple camera feeds from beginning to end. Already they were turning into something like minor celebrities.

If I'd known, I would have intentionally failed, Emiya thought glumly.

Already three dozen people had come to ask him about how he could shoot so well and he referred them to the shooting manuals they had been given, which also linked to shooting other weapons. Entire groups would find him, just to ask him about how he made that last shot on the hotel's roof, and he just told them it had been all Cassani's work and then excused any part of his own in the feat. It had taken a while, but finally, he had broken away and managed to find someplace out of sight.

There wasn't any meaning to mingling now that he'd reached the end of the line.

Once they were back, they would be finishing their basic course and graduating to E7, after which they would go through some ceremonies and then get shipped off to their next location, for further training or actual service. It all depended on how well they had done so far.

Shepard had been over the moon, of course.

Which was something in all this, at least.

She was off with the 'dead and dying'; those who had been already taken out by the hostile reception in the city. Having faced the brutal situation themselves, they felt a sense of wonder as they heard about how well Shepard and Cassani had performed, the feelings only growing when they got to see the videos for themselves, despite that kind of thing nominally being forbidden.

Franco took to the sudden fame with ease, while Shepard shyly opened up and allowed herself to make friends. Most of her stand-offish self was gone already, as she felt quite comfortable regaling others of her exploits in the city.

It was good to see. Still, Emiya had excused himself rather early on.

No one had batted an eye at that. He had always been a quiet and distant fellow, after all. They all knew him as the competent but unsociable recruit.

Something about this doesn't sit right. Emiya thought as he mulled over the events of the day. He shook his head, closing his eyes again and basking in the chill night air. Even so, he could sense to approaching presence before she spotted him by the tent.

"Why are you sitting here in the dark? Did you fall asleep already?" Shepard asked, walking up to him.

"Yes," Emiya answered, without bothering to open his eyes.

"Ha-ha, like I'm buying that." She kicked at his boots lightly.

She stood there for a silent moment, before sitting down next to him when he didn't react or say anything. Not quite close enough to be right next to him, but still within arm's reach.

They sat there in the quiet for a long moment, before she began to talk. "What a day, huh. Didn't know what to expect when we landed in Brazil, but this definitely wasn't it."

"You had more than your share of fun during all of it, I noted."

She put her elbows onto her crossed legs as she grinned.

"Yeah, You're right... It was pretty fun. Apparently, no one's stolen a car and had a big chase around the city before, and everyone's going crazy about the vid. They love your 'Shepard, that's a house', you know?" She nudged him with a fist and he grunted. "We've been watching how the others are doing, too. They're so relaxed about it now, that we can go through all of the camera feeds on this end. They're betting latrine cleaning duty on how well people are doing. It's pretty crazy."

Emiya made a sound of amusement at that as Shepard kept telling him about what everyone else was doing.

Even as he listened to her talk on, he thought about the car hijack. It had seemed a rather obvious thing to do, at the time. But considering the use of omnitools to lock out others from using them, to people of this time it must seem like a rather novel idea. Something which had drawn unnecessary attention to him, even though Shepard had demonstrated some apparent familiarity with activity herself.

He wondered how she had used to steal cars, then. Had she used to steal the omnitools first? Or were there older models that lacked such sophisticated defenses?

"Thanks. Again."

"Hmm?" Emiya opened his eyes, looking at her. "For what?"

"A lot of things," she said, turning to look at him as she rested her head against her knees. "But mostly for the stuff, you said while we were driving."

He blinked, not quite understanding what that had to do with anything.

"I've never really... connected, that's the word, right? ...Connected with people, before. It's... Today, I just started talking to them. About anything. Everything, really. And they just... open up. It's so mysterious how easy it actually is. I mean, I just get them now. Talking and getting along with people. But I could never do it before."

He stared at her quietly. He definitely had no idea what she was talking about now, but perhaps he should just keep quiet and let her think what she wanted of what he had said. He certainly hadn't expected something this grand out of a few words.

"I didn't do much, but you're welcome nonetheless," he said, gruffly.

"Heh, you're always like this." She smiled at him.

He hesitated, not sure what to make of that.

"...Like what?"

In response, her smile only widened as she was obviously not going to say what was so amusing about him. He huffed, deciding that he didn't need to know which only seemed to make her happier.

"'Shirou', huh. That's a weird name. Why'd you never tell me about it?" She asked, then.

"I could ask you the same thing, 'Jane'." He deflected.

She blinked at that. "Oh, that... It's my birth name, on some record apparently. But no one ever called me that. I was always just Shepard. Fifth Street Shepard," she said quietly, hugging her knees. "Jane just sounds weird. I don't think I like it very much."

"Hmm. Well, no one's called me Shirou in a long time, either. I wouldn't know who you were talking to, so stick with Emiya, alright?" he asked.

She looked at him, before smiling coyly.

"Well, you can call me Jane if you want, as long as I get to call you Shirou," she said to that, and he merely grunted in response, which made her laugh lightly.

They sat there, for another extended period of silence simply staring up at the night sky.

"Don't trust Burnsfeldt," Emiya finally said.

"Hmm?"

"I don't know what his deal is, but he's up to something. Just be careful about him."

Shepard frowned at him, then. "But he gave us a pass into the N-school? I mean... he got us out of that jam with that jackass from before..."

"Major Maeda wasn't wrong per se, don't be mistaken about that, either." Emiya cut in.

"But—but, he was such an asshole! He's just like all those guys I saw back on the streets! Pushing others around and shouting at them all the time, thinking that as long as no one talked back that meant they were right!" She got up on her feet, now shouting at him. "Why should—Why are you defending him?!"

Emiya stared at her for a moment, considering how to put it into the terms she would understand best.

"Yes. He is pretty much the same as those guys in a lot of respects. But how did those guys treat their underlings? The guys who were in their gangs? Their innermost circle?" he asked and she blinked, nonplussed by what seemed a completely random switch in the conversation. She hesitated, opening her mouth and closing it. But Emiya continued. "Maeda is like that, only he considers most everyone in the Navy to be a part of his 'gang' like that. And like I said, he wasn't wrong, about what he said before."

"But, that's...You're always like this."

She glared at him, then.

"That's not to say we were in the wrong, either. But you should still consider what he said. There are going to be a lot of guys like him in the Navy, I think. Unlikable, but not wrong. At the very least, I would say he's more trustworthy than guys like Burnsfeldt," Emiya said, looking away again.

She remained silent after that, sitting back down after a few moments to mull things over with a frown.

It was more of a pout, but she would have hit him if he said that out loud. Finally, she seemed to mentally shrug off the topic as she looked at him again.

"Well, I won't have to worry about that, will I? I mean, you can handle all the worrying for me in the future, right?" She grinned at him, obviously looking to fix the mood.

Emiya blinked and looked away, inhaling slowly.

As he did, Shepard seemed to realize that something about what she had said wasn't ringing true.

"...Right? I mean... We are both going to N-school... Right?" Her eyes seemed to be pleading for him to say yes. To dispel all her doubts and fears.

She had finally found someone she could truly call a friend and now he was telling her he wouldn't be staying with her.

He hesitated for a moment.

I didn't tell her before. Was it because I was afraid of her reaction? How pathetic am I? He cursed his own weakness. It had been an obvious conclusion to him, all along and while he had never exactly hidden the fact that he was going to Mars, had he ever told her?

He had admitted it to himself already. That he had been enjoying his time here immensely. But with that realization had also come the fact that he could not stay. Had he been avoiding the topic, all along, trying not to think about himself?

Emiya frowned, deciding to finally tackle the subject head-on.

"I'm going to Mars," he said, and the crack that appeared in Shepard's hope was almost physically visible as she flinched.

She swallowed, not knowing what to say as she leaned back, away from him.

"That's... I mean..." Shepard hesitated, her words dying in her throat as she stared at the ground. "...Why? I mean, I thought you would..."

"Since the first time I opened my eyes and stared at the stars, I knew I needed to get to Mars. It's why I enlisted, to be honest. It was the simplest way to get there," Emiya explained, getting up and looking at the night sky.

Out here, far away from civilization the light pollution was minimal. In fact, he could just see Mars as a small red dot in the night sky over there, if he focused.

"But, we only just..." she began, but cut herself off as she looked down at her feet.

Her mind was in chaos; what could she say? What should she say?

It had felt like she had just opened up some new magical power, which allowed her to understand and to convince people not to be her enemies anymore. Before she had known how to intimidate most people into doing what she wanted, but this was different. It was like she helped them realize that it was fine to talk to her.

Yet here, she fell short again. She felt as lost and helpless as she had on the first day when faced with a sea of strangers in boot camp. What could she say to make him—What did she even want from him?

Emiya sighed, feeling like he had to say something.

Finally, he decided on the truth.

"For the longest time, I've felt like I've been stuck. I look back at my life, and I wonder where it all went wrong. What was the nature of my mistake? Was my life from the very beginning simply a sham?" Emiya continued, looking up and exhaling. He turned around, looking down at the sitting Shepard; their positions from earlier overturned. "But that's changed since I met you. Strangely enough."

"...What, what do you mean?" she asked. To her, he had always seemed like an implacable, unmovable rock. A constant that could take on anything and remain unfazed by all the world itself.

What had she done?

"I know I've been... A little overbearing at times. But to be honest, it's been reaffirming spending time with you. It's been good. I've gotten clarity on who I thought I actually was. Perspective. Perhaps I don't need to dwell so much on the past anymore." Emiya smiled for the first time in many years without even a touch of the usual bitterness or weariness, almost feeling a strange sensation of something falling off of his shoulders.

He looked at her.

"Thank you."

Shepard blinked up at him.

She stared at him for several seconds with large eyes. He could almost see the countless stars reflecting back from them as she looked up at him. She swallowed, before adopting a troubled smile of her own. "Yeah. It's kinda been like that for me, too." She admitted with a light laugh, before adding in a small melancholic voice; "I guess we won't be staying together after this, then."

"Well, at least we managed to get you on the N-line." Emiya offered with a chuckle.

Shepard actually laughed properly at that. "Half of that was me just refusing to lose to you. But now I find out you're heading to Mars? What the hell is even on Mars? I don't remember any of the training lines being there."

"General engineering, or the G-line. But really, I'm just interested in the Prothean ruins there," Emiya admitted with a shrug as he sat down again.

"Geez, what the hell? Why would you even—Nevermind. I knew you were weird, but this really takes it." Shepard shook her head, making an exasperated sigh of disgust.

He chuckled at that and she laughed along.

They settled into a comfortable silence, staring at the night sky together.

"I guess dreams just are like that. I always just wanted to leave behind the place I'd been in, but now that I'm here... I'm still not sure what I should do." She was whispering now, keeping her voice so low only the two of them in all the world could hear. "But I'm going to start with going to N-school and seeing what happens from there," Shepard said, then extended a fist towards Emiya. He looked at her, raising an eyebrow curiously at the gesture. "So you go to your dusty ruins. The next time we meet, I'm gonna be the one blowing right past you and you'll have to work on keeping up. Got it?"

Emiya smirked, tilting his head back as he playfully mocked her with his eyes. He extended his own fist at her to meet the fist bump. "Oh, certainly. I can't wait."

She punched his shoulder instead, huffing at the smug superiority in his voice before they settled back into a companionable silence, looking at the starry vault above.

---

;

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"How interesting. The report you sent me hints at great promise," the voice on the other end of the comm-line noted.

The voice was rich and dark; a tone only possible to acquire after years of whiskey and cigars. The kind that gave its owner a unique charisma, and one that the voice used well.

"Do keep an eye out for them. Approach them, if you can. But do not push the matter. Let them bloom in peace, so that we may reap the harvest at its richest."

"Yes, sir." Burnsfeldt acquiesced as he listened to voice with rapt attention.

He had secured the perimeter twice and then run a priority-security line for this conversation. It was thrice encrypted and being re-routed through several hubs, along with being masked under a pre-recorded conversation.

Anyone who actually managed to crack in and listen would most likely be satisfied with the rather incriminating conversation of Fillion Burnsfeldt buying red sand in bulk from an off-world contact. It was a piece juicy enough to ensure that no one looked deeper, into the actual conversation that might implicate and endanger others.

For the sake of all humanity, he was willing to take any punishment as long as it would extend no further. He would martyr himself for his cause, without hesitation.

Such was his loyalty to this man, to whom he was reporting right now, and their shared ideals.

"You have done well. I expect nothing less of our most valuable asset in the Systems Alliance Navy, Operative Burnsfeldt. Remember, that each of your actions serves a brighter future, and walk with pride."

"Thank you, sir," The Lieutenant Commander spoke and the line cut after that.

He stood up, feeling satisfied and proud of himself. His head felt light at that moment, his whole body abuzz with the feeling of his discovery. He knew what he needed to do and how to do it, but he would have to take great care henceforth.

After all, it would not do for anyone in the Systems Alliance to realize where his true loyalties lay just yet.

"This is all for the good of humanity."

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Thanks to Gray Walker, M23M42, PseudoSteak, Tisaku, and Tactical Tunic for proofreading.