"Well, that went better than I expected," Kriln gasped, bending over as he sucked in air after their run back to base. "Yeah, best one yet."

He gasped again as he clutched his aching lungs. "Damn I'm out of shape."

Gipsy didn't know whether to agree with him or just let the comment go by. He looked like every other Turian she'd seen, lean and sort of barrel chested. So far as she knew he wasn't out of shape, unless that armor he wore had hidden pockets in space that could hide his many rolls of fat.

She briefly focused her attention inward, wondering where that thought had come from... and did Turians get fat? The answers to those questions came in reverse: So far as she knew; no. And didn't Yancy and Raleigh have an uncle who was on the heavy side? Yeah, she remembered that he would always drop that "I'm out of shape" line on a daily basis along with "I should work out." Though according to Raleigh's memories he never did.

As Kriln finally straightened, taking in another deep breath, Gipsy was silently thankful she didn't have lungs or needed to breath like he did. It looked painful. All she felt was a slight strain on her knee joints and heat build up in her coolant systems, but nothing as crippling as what Kriln had gone through. He looked ready to drop.

Their hasty retreat from the Maw outpost went without a hitch and they quickly arrived back at the warehouse that was the GI-7's headquarters. They gathered in the briefing room where Gipsy immediately shoved her new Revenant into Crimson arms and begged him to fix it, the effects of Jrels sabotage grenade still afflicting the powerful weapon. Soon after they were joined by Phil, out of breath but not nearly as bad as Kriln followed shortly by Jrel. The Quarian still had his modified grenade launcher and Gipsy was worried he'd actually try to blow them to bits. If that was the case then he'd only get off one shot before they swarmed him. But her fears were quelled when he only stepped in to say a few terse words to Kriln before stepping out again, giving them an angry glare before the door shut behind him. With Phil it was much the same. A brief conversation about the data before he too exited.

Apparently the data was still heavily encrypted, a fact that both Kriln and Crimson found interesting, and he was taking it to another room where he could begin the decoding process.

The left only Aniya uncounted for, something that didn't surprise Kriln in the slightest. According to him she was the team infiltrator with almost four hundred years of experience under her belt and usually always the last one back from operations like this. Possibly mopping up stragglers that managed to escape or heading off reinforcements.

As the minutes ticked by, Gipsy very quickly found herself getting bored. Striker and Cherno were standing in the corner having a private conversation over their radios. From their body language it was quite civil talk... at least, that's what she thought. Striker wasn't threatening to kill anyone just yet so that was a plus. Crimson was leaning over the table, carefully examining the insides of the Revenent with a perplexed air about him. Then he paused, his eye narrowing as he saw something within.

"Hmm, Z55-75 accelerator rails... I think." He gently inserted a finger into the delicate components and poked at it. "Powerful hardware, even for a gun like this."

"A Z55? Are you kidding me," Kriln asked as he walked around the table to look over Crimson's shoulder. As he looked to where the Jaeger was pointing he let out a low whistle. How that was possible without lips, Gipsy had no idea. "That's... close to a 75, not quite though. How do you know about Z55 line anyway."

"I read a lot," Crimson shrugged. "Correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't the Z55 series reserved for heavy sniper rifles?"

"Yeah," Kriln grunted. "No other heat system can handle the build up, much less the power..."

He trailed off as he noticed something, or rather, the lack there of. "Turn it over," he commanded.

Gently, Crimson pried the component out of the gun casing before rotating it under the light of the briefing room. The smooth casing of the accelerator rail gleamed under the light. It looked to be brand new, with the wear of only a few week tarnishing the component. But there was one thing it was lacking.

"There's no serial number," Kriln noted as Crimson rotated it further. "No company ID, no registration, nothing."

"Is that bad?" Gipsy asked, hovering behind Crimson's other shoulder as he dissected her new toy.

"I'm not sure," Kriln replied. "The Z55 series is only made by a select number of companies in Citadel space. While other Terminus companies have tried they couldn't recreate the firepower and the people who bought them ended up with cheap knock-offs that burned out after the first shot. As it is, the Z55s are usually used in Black Widows and other anti-material rifles. To see one in a machine gun is... disturbing."

"Why?"

"Because the people who make them have military contracts. They don't just hand them out like candy to every weapon vender in the galaxy. How the Maws got their hands on tech like this I have no idea, and in a machine gun no less."

"Or it could be one of a kind," Crimson interjected, setting the rail aside as he dug deeper into the weapon's entrails. "The way your talking your making it sound like they all have this tech in their weapons. Might just be a personal firearm."

"Maybe," Kriln nodded. "But look at it, it's almost brand new. Come to think about it, so is the rest of it. The cost of this weapon alone would be half a million and I doubt the Maws would spend that much on a single soldier."

"Again, maybe just a personal firearm bought with personal credits," Crimson sighed. "I think you're just paranoid. Sure they might have some good weapons but that doesn't mean they have the makers wrapped around their finger."

His eye darkened as he gently moved aside a few move components inside the casing, then brightened as he saw the problem.

"There you are," he grinned as he pulled out the thermal clip ejection module. As it came out into the light, Gipsy couldn't help but wince at the damage.

Whatever Jrel's grenade had done it had caused the heatsync to explode in the chamber. The casing of the module had managed to contain the tiny home-made grenade, shredding itself to pieces in the process and rendering the whole weapon useless.

"Can you fix it?" Gipsy asked, staring at the little box in Crimson's hand.

"Oh yes, It'll be easy," Crimson assured her. "Just need a new unit is all. Now, all I need is the module ID and..." He turned the device over in his hands, searching for the magic serial number. After a few seconds he turned it over again, but still couldn't find a thing.

"This is a fairly standard unit, right?" he asked, passing the module over his shoulder to Kriln. Raising an eyeridge, the Turian plucked it from his hands and scanned it carefully.

"Yeah," he replied after a moment. "Standard enough that just about every competent gun smith can pop one out in a few minutes at a work bench. But I can see what your getting at here. No ID or serial number. But that's all too common with this piece. Most companies that do make them don't even bother putting a serial number on, that's how common they are."

"So technically I could just tear apart any rifle and put it in?"

"Most likely, yeah," Kriln nodded, handing the module back. "You would just need to find one that fits first. Try a sniper first or a heavy shotgun, their chambers might work better for a Revenent."

"Thanks for the tip," Crimson said, giving him an appreciative look.

Before the Turian could respond, the door opened and Phil strolled in followed closely by Aniya. The Salarian was engrossed in his omni-tool, scowling deeply at what was on the screen. He was so caught up in his device he never noticed the green form of Cherno looming ahead and crashed right into him. He rebounded off, uttering a few hurried apologizes as the Russian giant turned to face him before striding around the table.

"Decoded what I could," he said, transferring something from his omni-tool to the projector.

"And?" Kriln asked.

"Interesting data. Again, wasn't able to decode it all. Encryption is... very sophisticated. Troubling, when you consider where it comes from. But, unfortunately, what I got isn't very good." He tapped one final button on his omni-tool and the projector hummed to life, revealing squares of holographic light that were covered in lines of text and numbers. "As you suspected, manifests, but they lead to more dead ends."

"Tell us what you got," Kriln said, pushing off Crimson's back and accepting the data-pad that Aniya pulled from no where and slapped into his hand.

"From what I could find, Qill was only one of seven smugglers employed by the Maws. From the records he had been running supplies, weapons and armor mostly, past the premium."

"And the other six," Kriln asked, half distracted by the data-pad.

Phil sighed. "They're dead, unfortunately. They each delivered shipments down to the outpost, each a week apart. Once the goods were delivered their contracts were terminated. Literately."

"And the evidence cleared away for the rest to come without suspicion," Kriln finished. "Did they piss off the boss or something?"

"Hardly. In the data, beside the manifests, there was message directed to the outpost itself. 'Blank-slate,' that's all it said. It's safe to say that the Maws were cleaning up the loose ends of anyone who did business with them."

A deep rumble cut him off as Cherno stepped up to the table, followed closely by Striker.

"He's asking what they were shipping," Crimson translated at Phil's puzzled expression.

"Ah. Well... here is where it gets kind of confusing." He tapped some more buttons on his omni-tool and more data popped up on the projector.

The room was quiet as they all read silently, before Cherno let out a warble of confusion, pointing at a particular column of text and numbers.

"Are you sure you got the right stuff?" Crimson asked slowly, the Revenent before him quite forgotten. "That isn't what I was expecting."

"I know," Phil shrugged. "I doubled checked and triple checked to make sure myself. But this is it."

"Restocf Manufactures," Kriln read aloud. "Thirteen thousand units of Code A443, ten of A879 and twenty of V005 delivered by Smug. 04. Shit." He shook his head. "Phil, you wouldn't have happened to search that stuff make a rough cost estimate of it all?"

The Salarian nodded and took a breath before replying, "fifteen million."

Kriln's mouth opened in surprise and even Aniya raised an eye ridge at the amount. It took a moment for the Turian to get his breath back before he gasped out; "fifteen million?"

"That... is a lot," Crimson said, eye glowing brightly.

"Ahhhhhh," Striker groaned over the radio. "Math. The torture."

"And that's only for Restocf itself," Phil continued grimly. "There are records of thirty million being payed to Volvan Colonial Supplies for heavy grade prefab units, all of them delivered by our third dead smuggler."

"Volvan?" Kriln asked, sounding more surprised then he already did. "Aren't they the ones that funded the Hierarchy's latest colony? You know, the one one the verge of Terminus space?"

"The very same," Phil nodded.

"But heavy grade prefabs, those are military grade standard. Why the hell do they want them here on Omega?"

Phil shrugged. "No idea. However, every shipment delivered for the past year is a grand total of almost one hundred and fifty five million credits."

There was silence for a full minute, before Cherno let out a sound that could only be described as a low whistle.

"One hundred fifty million?" Kriln asked quietly.

The Salarian nodded.

"And how much would the premium charge on all that?"

Phil's head dipped as he ran the numbers in his head. "Triple that amount."

"Oh shit," Kriln moaned, burying his head in his hands. "Aria's gonna be pissed."

"Only if she finds out," Phil cut in. "If we can reclaim some of those funds from the Maws, hand them over to Aria without mentioning the total amount we can slowly work our way up from there with what good graces of hers we already have. Giving her a report of a very, very large hole without doing anything to fill it is a good way to lose your head. Literally."

"So you're saying we lie to her?" Kriln asked, head emerging from it's refuge.

"Hardly. We just don't tell her. Well, the full amount anyway. Say we cut it into eights or tenths, get that amount back and make a report. Then we say that we found some more credits that they got away with. She'll be mad, sure, but at least we'll have something to show for getting it back."

"And just repeat the same thing over and over again," Kriln said, scratching his chin. "That could take years though."

"Not if we do it right," Phil replied, raising a finger. "You forget that you're talking to the Salarian who successfully stole from the Citadel Banking Union in less then a week and got away with thirty million in solid cash."

"Is that why you're ex-STG?" Crimson asked dryly.

Phil chuckled. "Oh no, I just quit. I friends in high places who were simply ecstatic to get a free all-expense-paid vacation to some paradise out in space."

"So you bribed them?"

"Hardly. They paid me to rob the bank. Then of course they ratted me out when they had their fun." He smiled giddily. "But by then I was already gone... along with every last credit of their savings."

"Dare I ask what you did with it all?" Crimson asked warily.

"Hmmm... I would prefer to keep that to myself."

"Fair enough."

"Can we get back to the point," Kriln interrupted. "We have millions of credits we need to get back and no idea where to get them. And if we don't, Aria will have our heads."

"Leave the where to me," Phil said wit another smile. "It should be simple to work out the ID of the buyer's account that made the transactions from the manifests. Once I have that, it'll be easy to track down the target and plant a Packet. From there we can work out the flow of credits from any accounts that it came in connect with recently."

"Okay," Kriln said, nodding. "So we get the ID of the person who paid for all the goods, track him down, you plant your little thing and it'll give us everything he did with his cash."

"Correct. However, planting the cipher requires being in close proximity of the target. Should that prove difficult it might require..." he glanced over at Cherno and his massive fists. "...manual persuasion."

"This Packet," Crimson asked, raising a finger in polite interruption, "what is it exactly?".

"It's a virus, of my own design," Phil replied proudly. "When implanted in an omni-tool it'll worm it's way through the systems and give us access to anything I wish. In this case, financial records."

"So that's the plan then?" Crimson asked again, pushing the dissected Revenent aside, much to Gipsy's dismay. "We find this guy, you put your Packet in and then we track down the leads."

"Correct," Phil chirped. "If we pull this off right we could be well on our way to reclaiming the full amount, and then some."

"Sounds fucking peachy," Striker grumbled.

"How long will it take you to get ID?" Kriln asked.

Phil shrugged. "Give me a day, tops."

"Good. Aniya..." he looked around, but the dark skinned Asari was gone. She had slipped out during their little planning session. The Turian gave a deep sigh. "Why couldn't she just stay for one minute. Anyway, Phil, get that ID. When you have it, Aniya will help you track the guy down. If you can't get it done, we call out the big guns."

He glanced over to Crimson. "You up to tracking down a Krogan?"

Crimson smiled, eye glowing brightly. "Sounds challenging, and yet, entertaining."

"Good. Now pass me that Revenent."

"Um," Crimson faltered, glancing down at the weapon on the table before sliding it over. "Sure, but... why?"

Kriln shook his head, looking over the carefully organized pieces of the machine gun. "Something about it is just rubbing me the wrong way, and I have no idea what."

Looking inside the casing, he frowned. "Phil, before you go come have a look at this."

As the three geniuses in the room hunched over the weapon's innards, pointing out various pieces and such, Gipsy found herself becoming bored once again. Her excitement over her new ranged death bringer had dulled slightly with the prospect of it being broken, but she hoped that Crimson would have it back up to working order soon. But now, with planing their next move against the Maws done with and nothing left for them to do other then standing around, the bane of her existence, boredom, returned.

Crimson was occupied with the Revenent and Cherno and Striker had resumed their own private conversation, about what she had no idea, and she felt no incline to join them. So what left was there to do?

She sighed, air rushing out of her vents... then she paused.

She could have sworn, just at the very utmost edge of her advanced hearing, that she heard the slight whooshing sound of the front door opening.

At first she shrugged it off. They were hardly the only ones here and it could have been either Aniya or Jrel leaving. But something inside her rebelled against that thought. For some reason, it just didn't feel right.

And just like that, the dread from before the raid returned full force, gripping her core with it's icy fingers. It was talking to her, slowly directing her gaze to door and whispering of horrors unknown that lay beyond.

Something was there, and the feeling inside wouldn't let her push it away.

She pushed herself away from the table and headed for the door. No one batted an eye as she walked out, to busy with whatever they were doing to pay any notice.

As she stepped out into the hallway, she saw that the front door at the far end was closed and locked, the red hologram cementing this fact. But the dread wouldn't let up. Silently giving in, she stalked up the hall, opening each door as she passed, leaving no stone unturned as the dread demanded. There were six doors, three on each side. In one, opposite the room she just left, was storage room filled with crates. Curses and shouts drifted out, giving away Jrel's hiding spot deeper in the warehouse. She could pick up some of the words and quickly deduced that half the curses were directed at them. The next two were a tight bunk room with a bathroom opposite. She winced at the odour that drifted out before hurrying away. The next door up opened to an advanced computer room, with screens dangling from the ceiling and attached to the wall. Most likely the place where Phil had decoded the data.

As she moved to the next door on her right she froze. There, standing in front of the front door was a hazy shape, little more than a slight blur in the air. The same blur she thought she saw at the outpost. Before she could figure out what it was, the shape solidified, pitch black armor replacing the hazy blur, but she forgot everything else as she saw the shotgun raised to her chest.

She saw it buck, saw the muzzle flash, but heard nothing as the shot struck her armor, making a new dent in the metal a half inch deep. Before he could fire again Gipsy was already moving, legs pounding as she closed the distance. Dammit, why did Crimson have to take apart her new toy and not put it back together, and when she needed it most too.

The fully armored Krogan, for it was a Krogan, saw her coming and tried to twist to the side but the hallway was too narrow. Gipsy hit him with all the force of a speeding freight train, knocking him to the ground.

He was smaller then other Krogan Gipsy had seen, a slippery little bugger too, jerking his head to the side and dodging her speeding fist as it headed for his helmet.

Growling, she raised her fist again when something slammed into her side, knocking her off the fallen brute and against the wall. She recovered quickly and looked up just in time to see another Krogan raise it's shotgun to her head. She lashed out, knocking the weapon upward where it fired silently into the ceiling before driving her fist into it's gut, knocking the wind out of him.

The hallway was to tight to use her swords and her plasma cannons were useless unless given time to charge so she was back to the basics.

The Krogan she'd just punched staggered back, wheezing through his helmet while the first was crawling to his feet, grasping for his shotgun. She stepped over and kicked out his arm, hearing the satisfying crack of bone as her foot continued onward through the mangled mess of a limb and into his skull. With a shudder, it fell to the ground, blood pooling around it's shattered cranium. As she tried to pull her foot out, one she'd punched came back, ramming into her from behind. It wouldn't have been so bad if her foot wasn't caught in the dead Krogan's brains, setting her whole stance off balance. As it was, the blow sent her toppling to the ground, landing on the fallen Krogan with grunt.

As she tried to get up, she felt something get shoved into the vulnerable circuitry in her right armpit, then pain, indescribable agony as the shotgun discharged its silent, deadly round into her side, and she screamed. She screamed like the day Yancy had been torn from her and the pain... oh the pain! She barely heard the sound of the door opening and the other Jaegers rushing to her aid as the shotgun fired again, severing tubes, wires and searing hydraulics.

The pain.

She didn't notice or even cared when her attacker collapsed on her back, speared through the hearts by Striker's blades.

She just wanted the pain to stop.

-Linebreak-

"Gipsy!" Crimson hoped his cry wasn't as desperate as he thought it was.

He had started running the moment he'd heard her cry, and when he saw the Krogan standing over her writhing form he saw only red as he charged forward. His only regret was that Striker had beat him there, jabbing his sting-blades into the brute's back with expert precision, causing it drop on Gipsy's stilling form.

"Shit!" he swore as he dropped to his knees at her side, throwing off the corpse and examining her damage. Her armor was intact, but that was no good news for what was inside. Her joint was almost completely shredded, sparks jumping from severed wires as she impulsively tried to move her arm. Black oil and hissing coolant flowed from her shoulder and pooled on the corpse beneath her.

She whimpered as he gently probed the damage, her fingers twitched in response.

"Crimson," she said weakly, her vents hitching as she spoke. "It hurts."

"Just hang on, Gipsy," he said, gently flipping her onto her back and laying a comforting hand on her undamaged shoulder. "Everything will be alright, you hear me?"

She nodded weakly.

Cherno stomped up noisily behind him and let out a mournful keen.

"She'll be alright," he replied, carefully helping her to her feet. Her right arm dangled uselessly by her side.

Just then Kriln ran up behind Cherno, his rifle clutched in his hands. Behind him were Phil and Aniya, him with his SMG and her with her massive sniper rifle. The Turian took one look at the dead Krogan, swore, and whirled on Phil. "How the hell did they get in?!"

The Salarian shrugged, looking on in morbid fascination as Crimson supported Gipsy on his arm. "I don't know. Security systems were on and the door was locked with triple encryption of my own design."

"Shit," Kriln swore again before reaching down and picking up one of the shotguns the Krogans had used. After examining it for a moment he dropped it. "M-22 Eviscerator. Modded for armor penetration, three shot capacity with a silencer attachment. Used, but well cared for by the looks of it."

He cast a look at Gipsy. "Will she be alright?"

"Yes," Crimson lied through the grills on his speakers. He didn't know how bad the damage was, and the fact that she was a Jaeger made the prospect of fixing her even more difficult. Because she was a Jaeger, a machine that never existed here, they might not even be able to repair her. The difference between them and those walking tin cans called LOKI mechs was never more apparent. You couldn't just walk into a tech shop and get a spare part for a Jaeger like you could a mech.

As Gipsy gasped again, Crimson cursed his lack of foresight. The tools he'd gotten were useless. If they were back to their regular size they would be more helpful, but here? Components that took two dozen grown men and cranes to lift into place were now no bigger than a grape and twice as delicate. With that came the growing fear that he wouldn't be able to do a thing. Gipsy could lose her arm for good.

"I can't fix her here though," he continued, "we need to get her back to our apartment, I have the tools there."

"Okay," Kriln nodded. "We can carry on from here without you anyway." He appeared to struggle with himself for a moment before saying, "I hope she's alright."

Then he shook his head. "Never thought I'd say that about a mech."

"Jaeger," Gipsy gasped out, slipping her good hand around Crimson's shoulder and holding on tight. "We're Jaegers. Get it... Ah!" She cried out as her shoulder sparked, sending a fresh wave of agony through her system.

"Fascinating," Phil murmured, an intrigued look coming to his face. "How is it you can feel pain?"

Cherno turned, rumbling like a mother bear as he put himself between the Salarian and his wounded comrade. Phil held up his hands, apologizing profusely as Jrel ran up, his grenade launcher clutched in his hands.

"What did I miss?" he asked, breathing heavily.

"Everything," Kriln replied, kicking one of the dead Krogan. They both had the symbol of the Rising Maws painted in red on their shoulder plates. "How the hell did they find us?"

"Them obviously," Jrel growled motioning to the Jaegers. "They're hard to fucking miss."

Gipsy gave another groan as a fresh torrent of sparks jumped from her damaged joint.

"We need to go," Crimson said urgently, looking at Kriln and motioning to the locked door where Striker was trying, and failing to open it. "Open the door."

At the Turian's orders, Phil stepped forward, just managing to sneak by Cherno's bulk and shooing Striker away as he unlocked the door.

"Thank you," Crimson nodded, supporting Gipsy as they headed out to the nearest skycar station.

They made a strange group as they trudged through Omega, earning many strange looks, more so than the, now regular, looks of fear. Striker was in front, sting-blades drawn and daring anyone to come near. Next was Crimson, still supporting Gipsy who kept on gasping silently as her damaged arm jerked with every movement she made. Last was Cherno, the near unstoppable rear guard. He kept on rumbling questions at Crimson, asking if she was going to be alright. He ignored him for the most part, still worrying about it himself.

At last they reached a station in the markets. They could have walked home, but they wanted to spare Gipsy as much pain as they could. That said, they decided to take separate skycars. They could barely fit all four of them into one and since they laid Gipsy out on the back seat they decided only Crimson would accompany her for the ride.

As the skycar lifted off into the air, Crimson looked out on the market and he felt his core burn as he saw someone standing on the outskirts. It was another Krogan, black armor with the Rising Maw symbol painted proudly on his chest. His head was bare and Crimson just managed to see a grey headplate and a long deep scar running across his left eye before the skycar flew away.

The Krogan's eyes never left the fleeing vehicle. His best had failed, but that was nothing to him. There were still plenty more where that came from.

-Linebreak-

"Easy, easy," Crimson grunted as he gently lowered Gipsy onto the single bed that wasn't burnt to a crisp.

They'd made it back to the apartment with little trouble, besides Gipsy near paralyzed with pain as her damaged mechanisms grated against each other. According to her it only seemed to grow worse with each passing minute.

Near frantic, Crimson ran to grab the tools he'd gotten and rushed back to her bedside, sorting through them desperately. His fears from before proved themselves to be true. There was nothing here that could fix the damage she'd suffered.

"Gipsy," he said quietly, picking up he welder he gotten.

Her head turned to look at him, visor glowing in a painful grimace.

"I know this is going to be hard," he continued softly, "but I need you to shut down. To sleep."

"But it hurts," she whimpered, vents hitching.

"I know it hurts," he replied, resting a hand on her chest plate. "But if I tr... If I'm going to fix you I'm going to need to do some things that hurt even more. Do you understand?"

She nodded weakly.

"Good," Crimson smiled, taking her good hand and grasping it in a firm but comforting grip. "I'm here for you, you understand? When you wake up, you'll be all better."

Her turbine was winding down, her body settling into it's sleep cycle as her visor began to darken. Before it went dark she manged to get out one last question: "Promise?"

Crimson couldn't bring himself to answer as her body relaxed completely. Her turbine was still turning, but powering only the most vital systems.

With a deep sigh, Crimson set to work, probing inside the ruined joint with a screwdriver. He found at least five ruptured oil and coolant lines that he began to seal with a glob of molten metal from the welder to each

As he gently prodded the hissing end of one of her coolant lines he noticed something... odd. Mixed in the white mist that gushed from the end was a heavy bluish tint. He blinked and leaned in closer. Yes, there was something there, a bluish gas that dissipated almost instantly in the open air. His mind buzzed with questions, but he pushed them aside and resumed his painstakingly careful work.

He had just finished severing and sealing one of her shredded main power cables when he heard the front door to the apartment open. There was a pause before heavy foot steps approached the bedroom door. Sighing heavily, Crimson carefully removed his tools from the wound just the door opened and Cherno entered, followed closely by Striker. They stood at the foot of the bed looking down on Gipsy's limp form.

After a minute of silence Cherno let out a questioning warble.

It took even longer before Crimson could bring himself to answer. "Not good."

"Will she make it?" Striker asked, voice weak.

Crimson sighed again, sorting his tools on the floor by the bedside. "Yes, she'll make it, but..."

"But?" Striker pressed, voice going hard.

"...but she may never be able to use her arm again," Crimson finished sadly, rising to his feet.

Cherno wailed in alarm as Crimson shushed him.

"Not in here," he growled, motioning to Gipsy. "I'll... I'll explain it all outside."

With that, he started to shoo them out. Striker left with little difficulty, but Crimson had to pry Cherno's hand off the door frame before the Russian would leave. Before the door closed behind him, Crimson cast one more sad look at Gipsy, wondering how on earth he would explain this to her. Then the door closed and the lights shut down, casting the bedroom into darkness, save for the hellish glow cast by Gipsy's turbine.

If someone had stayed and watched, they would have seen the same bluish gas gently float up from out of her turbine, collecting over her like a cloud of before drifting down and covering her frame in a veiled mist of blue.

-Linebreak-

Awareness started to return with all the speed of a snail, leaving Gipsy as tired as tired could be. Her visor felt like it would never online and her body felt heavy and stiff and her joints clogged with syrup. But she was no longer in pain. All that was left in her right shoulder was a dull tingle. Crimson must have done a good job then.

She sighed in relief... then paused.

Something wasn't right.

She searched her sluggish mind to find what it was and came up with an odd sensation. She felt like she was... floating. She'd never floated before, but she had vague memories from her pilots of swimming in pools and it felt rather much like that. But how could she be floating? She was on a bed.

Wasn't she?

More determined than ever, she forced her visor online, but it just wouldn't work, like her tiredness was a physical being keeping her nonexistent eyes shut. She fought with it, and felt it give with every passing second. When it did come online it was hazy and blurred, but what she saw was... strange.

Blue clouds. Blue clouds all around, drifted in front of her and covering the world in a thick blanket of mist.

Then she realized something else: She was floating. Floating in the air like a balloon. She also realized that while her vents tried, there was no air to suck in. She was in nothing... nothing but blue clouds.

Suddenly she saw a black shape drifting towards her through the shifting mist. Through her hazy vision, she could barely made it out as something... familiar... horribly familiar. It's limbs swam before her visor, a tangled mess of shadows that writhed like tentacles and lights along it's body that shone like sickly yellow yellow eyes... and it was coming towards her.

Her core spiked in terror as it sparked a familiar fear inside of her. Of the creatures that they had fought with and the same ones that had claimed their first lives in the war. But for some reason her mind didn't label it as Kaiju... no. Deep, deep down she could feel that it were something else, something... different.

As it drew closer she saw other shapes detach from the murky backdrop of blue, joining the first in a strange dance of twisting limbs and lights. And all of them were coming closer. The fear inside blazed into an inferno. She wanted to run. To run away from these things and never look back but she couldn't move, dammit!

Her fingers twitched and her vents heaved as she tried to force her body to move, but to no avail.

Then the first one reached her and she froze as a shadowy limb danced over her wounded shoulder, sending tingles down her sensor net. A sound drifted into her audio sensors, a whisper, like a quiet breeze flowing over an empty field. It was answered by a dozen more, growing into an incomprehensible buzz before it stopped.

Then the first form backed off as the others closed in around her. From their midst, another one drifted forward to hover before her. It was a tad smaller then the rest, but no less terrifying.

It seemed to regard her for a moment before waving a tentacle/limb/thing in front of her visor. She shut it off, not wanting to look at it anymore and tried to twist her head away but only managing a slight jerk to the right.

Apparently it was what they were waiting for. The whispers returned, fighting to be heard over each other before one overpowering growl silenced them all.

Then Gipsy felt a cold limb grab her shoulder and pull her forward. She whimpered, the first sound she'd made since this all began. It seemed loud in her audios as she waited for something to happen.

Then a voice, heavily distorted as though through water whispered in her audios: "Welcome back, Gipsy Danger."

Well, chapter 8 is here. Took me long enough. A lot going here, continuing the Rising Maw story line as well as starting part of the over arching story of how they got there. More on that coming soon.

To Slyr3x... I guess it might be okay, but thanks for bringing the fact that I never touched up on what the Jaeger's voices sounded like to my attention. So here is a quick guide to their voices so I don't have to go back and rewrite a previous chapter.

Gipsy Danger: Teenaged girl.

Striker Eureka: Kind of like Chuck.

Crimson Typhoon: Like his pilots, young yet kind of mature.

Cherno Alpha: A beached whale that sings in very low bass.

Now to Ibilliss. I am aware that Crimson has plasma cannon, but thanks anyway for the reminder.

Still no regular updates so far as I can see with college coming up, but I will do the best I can.

DJ out!

(Just like last time, I don't own Pacific Rim or Mass Effect. Happy?)