"...Except fear itself."
"And that's all of it ma'am." Cinder finished reporting, nervously shifting under her gaze.
She made a show of giving a massive sigh. "My dear Cinder, there are no words in this modern language to express how deeply disappointed I am."
Salem turned around to face the video call of her minion.
"If your report is correct, not only is there new individuals participating in this little game of ours, but you knew about them for longer than a month and didn't report them to me." Salem laid out the facts. "Is that not correct?"
"It is, but-"
"But nothing." Salem interrupted coldly. "What interests me is how you claim that all of these individuals come from different worlds."
"It's true ma'am, Felix has claimed so and many of his previous claims have also proven true." Cinder said.
"Then I shall be most interested in talking with him when he arrives." Salem said, a cold and cruel smile on her lips.
Cinder nodded nervously, of course to the outsider it would have looked confident, but Salem knew the small things to look for. "Of course ma'am, he's expected to arrive within the next two days."
"In the meantime I would like you to continue with the plan and send me all data on this 'Meta' individual." Salem commanded.
"Of course, I'll do that now." Cinder made a move to end the call but Salem put up a hand.
"And one last thing, Do not disappoint me again." Salem warned.
"Of course."
The call ended and Salem was left alone in her room with the long table, moments later her computer registered incoming data from Cinder. Salem's screen was filled with images and footage of the Meta, reports and analysis also present.
Smoothly, Salem pressed an intercom button.
"Yes, how may I assist you my lord?" The voice of Arthur Watts emerged from the comm.
"I need you to send both Hazel and Tyrian to me now." Salem informed him as she gazed at images of the Meta.
"I have a new target for them to track."
After an hour of just trudging through it, Doyle was feeling just a little sick of snow.
Even the northern base wasn't nearly as frozen as this wasteland and over there he usually just used a Warthog for transport.
The long march was not helped by Doyle's new friend who had been brooding horribly after Doyle had told him all he knew about agents Washington and Carolina.
This was not going to continue.
"Pardon me, Delta was it?" Doyle asked politely as he could.
The green A.I popped into existence. "Greetings, how might I help you?"
"Yes, I was wondering; for exactly how long are we going to continue our trek through this desolate wasteland?" Doyle asked, his frustration bleeding through his tone.
"I do not know, the signal that I am tracking is rather vague, it could be days or even months before we stumble onto a settlement." Delta said.
"Or we could stumble across one right now." York interrupted.
"What?" Doyle said at the same time as Delta.
York pointed right in front of them, showing where he had spotted said town, and it was a welcome sight.
Although it was only a welcome sight because it was a sign of civilisation, as the down itself looked rather dreary and bleak. It looked as rundown and as pleasant as some of the abandoned cities on Chorus. But there was still signs of life, mostly in the form of smoke and electricity.
"Well, first civilisation we find and it looks like it went down the crapper years ago." York sighed. "Great."
"I concur." Doyle said.
The duo and Delta made their way to the small town, spirits higher now that their goal was in sight.
And once they were about the enter the town York leaned over to Doyle and whispered. "Follow my lead, I'm a people person. And don't mention Delta, we've no idea what their position on A.I is."
Doyle nodded and they entered the town, very few individuals were around, most in warm big and fluffy coats. But a few moments later they encountered a man that seemed to be an authority figure of some kind, a literal sword on his back.
"I'll be damned." The sheriff said in what could only be described as southern accent. "What brings two Atlas soldiers to my quiet little town?"
"We were separated from our squad sir, our ship crashed." York lied easily.
The sheriff chuckled. "No need to call me sir, what exactly was your mission this far north?"
"Classified I'm afraid." Doyle said in his most apologetic tone.
"Figured as much, now I'm assuming you boys would like some transport back to Atlas?"
York and Doyle looked at each other before York spoke. "Yeah, that sounds great."
"Then I'm very sorry, but we don't have any transports and you just missed our last supply transport." The sheriff said apologetically.
"Well how long before the next one arrives?" York asked.
"Nearly three months."
"That's a long wait." York said. "Is it possible for us to walk there?"
"Not if you want to live, going to Atlas on foot from here would require crossing quite a lot of land and climbing more than on mountain." The Sheriff explained.
Doyle considered this for a full moment.
"Perhaps there's an alternative option?" Doyle suggested.
"Well, your both free to stay here until the supply transport comes back, we can afford the the two extra mouths. And in return you'd help defend the town from any Grimm attacks."
"That sounds reasonable." Doyle agreed.
"Perfect, I'll show you both exactly where you'll be staying."
As the sheriff led them, Doyle leaned into York and whispered. "What exactly is a Grimm?"
"No idea." York whispered back.
The sheriff stopped in the front of a building. "This here's the inn, our innkeeper Anne will get you both set up."
"Perfect, and pardon my asking, but do you happen to have any computers here?" York asked.
"Of course, I'm assuming you'll want to use it to report to your commanding officer? Well that building there is mostly private and has a computer." The sheriff pointed at a specific building. "You can use it while I talk to Anne."
The sheriff and them parted ways, and they entered the pointed out building and closed the doors securely.
York clapped his hands together as Delta appeared, looming over the dim light of the computer.
"Alright then Dee, where are we?"
Meanwhile, in the vast skies of Remnant, Locus intercepted a transmission.
"all of these individuals come from different worlds... Felix has claimed so... send me all data on this 'Meta' individual..."
Those were the phrases that he had intercepted, it had been done by pure accident but Locus appreciated the results as even this snippet of a full conversation gave him clarity.
Felix was here, as was the Meta. Both very dangerous individuals in their own ways, Locus would need to deal with them both as soon as possible.
But of course then there were the other signals he was tracking, the two in Mantle were too far north to be a proper danger but they could prove allies.
There were too many in and around Vale to even consider starting there, but the one from Vacuo...
Locus's thought process was interrupted when the plane he was flying let off another alarm, indicating another transmission had been intercepted by Locus's program that he had put into the mainframe of the ship.
Locus pressed a button and listened.
"Cinder."
"Watts."
"I need you to send us a copy of your data on- Bzzz."
"Bzzz, ask why?"
"Well, Tyrian and Hazel are on- Bzzz."
Then the transmission cut out abruptly, presumably he'd lost it. But it had still told him enough. Others of unknown intentions were on the same trail that he was.
Interesting.
Seeing nothing else for it, Locus decided that Vacuo would be first on the list and so he put in the coordinates and settled in for a long flight.
Roughly around this time, miles outside the actual kingdom of Vacuo, in the boiling hot afternoon a lone woman's motorbike was being dragged into a repair shop by it's owner who was cursing her own misfortune.
"Stupid blood thing..." She muttered as she pulled into the repair shop. "Hello! Anyone here?"
She was met with silence, causing the woman to mutter to herself. "Great. Just great Claire, you managed to break your bike and end up in an abandoned repair shop. Just great."
As she turned to leave, resigned about how she'd have to drag the motorbike all the way to Vacuo, a voice called out.
"Wait! Wait!"
Claire turned back around in time to see a skinny mechanic come running into the building. "Sorry about that, I was in the can... What can I do for you pretty lady?"
"First off, it's Claire not 'pretty lady' and secondly, it's my motorbike, the engine died a while back and I couldn't fix it." Claire explained.
"Right, right." The mechanic nodded absently. "Well, the names Scooter. I can fix almost anything, but unfortunately I was never any good at fixing two wheelers."
Claire groaned. "Great."
"Hey, do not despair Claire." Scooter said, dragging out the pronunciation of her name. "I recently picked up some help that's like a wizard or something, he knows the machines man. Rescued him from the middle of the desert like a month ago, he's stayed around ever sense."
"Right, I'll see him then."
"Cool, cool." Scooter said, before yelling. "YO DUDE, WE GOTTA CUSTOMER! FRONT AND CENTER MAN!"
Moments later a door in the repair shop opened into the garage area they were in, and a man stepped out.
He looked out of place in the desert area, sporting a very dusty black and grey suit and short black hair that was greying in most places. He also had square glasses that seemed to reflect the sunlight.
"Yes scooter?" The 'dude' as Scooter christened him said in what was a strange accent.
"We gotta customer, she needs her motorbike repaired like now." Scooter said.
"Yeah, I'm headed to Vacuo so that I can meet my brother, he's named Chris." Claire explained.
"I'll have a look." Was all the 'dude' said.
He went over and knelt down to inspect it, after a few minutes he stood up and gave his diagnosis.
"It looks like sand has clogged up important parts of the engine, after a through cleaning it should be fine."
"Great." Claire said, her arms crossed over her red jacket. "How much do I owe you?"
"Not much, just a few lien." Scooter said casually.
Claire frowned. "That seems a little low, I wouldn't want to be short changing you or anything."
"It's no bother, we've got plenty of business from huntsmen and huntresses in the area." Scooter explained. "My friends is what I call 'em. Why I remember this one time Roland-"
"Scooter, before your latest diatribe I'd recommend getting the equipment we'd need." The 'dude' interrupted.
"Good call dude." Scooter said before he left, presumably to get the equipment.
Claire leaned casually against a wall. "Thanks for your help."
"Don't mention it."
"I don't think I caught your name." Claire stated curiously.
At this the man gave a sad chuckle.
"You can call me Church." He said, a trace of sadness omnipresent in his voice.
"My name is doctor Leonard Church."
Notes:
And that's the end of the story.
Now, while it's mostly short scenes, the purpose of this epilogue is to provide a little closer and set up volume 3, which I can confirm is coming.
However it will be quite a while before you guys will read it as I'm taking a minor break from this particular series in order to pursue some other fanfic ideas that I've had. But rest assured there will be a volume 3.
My new ideas will be one Rwby/Mortal Kombat fusion fic that no one asked for. A She Ra fanfiction about Adora's early days in the rebellion. And finally a Dragon Prince cannon divergence AU.
The first chapter of the MK one is already posted so feel free to check that out. The first chapters of the other two will be posted on Sunday, so please feel free to check those out as well.
I'd like to thank everyone for sticking around with this story, your support has made this story one of the best projects I've ever worked on.
In particular I'd like to thank: ReaderWarrior, Annonamous Elephant, Brain.H.H and Wildcard1412 for their constant support.
Thank you everyone for reading and until next time, I'll catch ya'll on the flip flop.