As soon as I had shot the light, I grabbed Qrow and booked it towards the armory. The shower of sparks would provide a brief distraction, hopefully enough to get us inside. If not, well, I had a good run while it lasted.

He and I sped across the ground for a solid three or four seconds before Minose and his people realized what was going on. With a shout of "What are you idiots waiting for? Shoot him!", his underlings unloaded their rifles in our direction.

"Gimme this," Qrow grunted, taking his sword-gun-scythe from my hands and turning around. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him see him flourishing his weapon with an almost casual grace deflecting the bullets.

Let me rephrase that.

The drunk man next to me was cutting bullets out of the air.

He stopped projectiles that moved at twenty five hundred feet per second with a piece of sharpened metal.

I gawked silently, stopping my forward momentum completely. Never before had I seen a feat of speed and skill so awe-inspiring before. Not even I could achieve something like that, even at peak performance and loaded up on enough chems for a Deathclaw to overdose on. Implants helped make me superhuman, but the only thing I could stop bullets with was my body.

A hand suddenly wrapped around my wrist and yanked me inside the door. I hadn't realized it, but we had made it there completely unharmed, thanks to Qrow's ludicrous reaction time. Before I knew it, he had flipped one of the metal shelves in front of it to form a makeshift barrier, even though it didn't stop the door from opening and closing.

"Six!"

I shook myself out of my thoughts and glanced towards him. "Huh?"

"I need you to lock the door shut! You messed with the mechanism and I can't get it closed!"

"Oh shit!" I swore, practically diving towards the panel he was looking at. As if sensing my intentions, he swiftly ripped it free from the wall, exposing another tangled mess of wires for me to reconnect. Thankfully, I now knew which of the colored cables were directly responsible for the doors and quickly started striking them together. A moment later, the door slid shut with a hiss, preventing any exit or entry.

"That should hold them for a while." I told Qrow with a sigh of relief before glancing back around the armory. "The wiring is different than what I'm used to, but I'm pretty confident whatever I jury-rigged will work for now." I turned back to him and raised an eyebrow. "Wanna explain how you did that?"

"Did what?"

"The thing with the sword," I said with a gesture, miming the movements he used to stop us from dying. "I've never seen someone who can do that before."

"You mean blocking bullets?" It was his turn to look confused. "It's not that difficult with an aura. All it takes is concentration and a little bit of training. Huntsman do it all the time."

"There's that term again," my brain mentioned. "Huntsman. To me, it sounds like a job or position."

'I'm way ahead of you, but I don't think we need to be focusing on that right now.'

Turning back to the conversation, I shook my head "I don't know what you mean when you say it's easy. The human brain," I could feel my own tense up at that. "can barely see objects moving at speeds like that, let alone react to them. It's impossible."

Qrow walked over to one of the walls and grabbed a security baton off of its hook. "Normally, yes, but aura compensates for it. "After a moment of silence, he pointed the stick at me accusingly. "You do know what aura is, right?"

"Yeah," I nodded, taking my own turn to look for my stuff. None of the tables I had spotted earlier held anything of mine, they were mostly just covered in the copy-and-paste weapons and armor. "I've read about it. Isn't it the belief that people, objects, and things are surrounded by some sort of invisible energy field?"

"Not exactly," he said. I turned back to him in confusion. I was certain I was correct, there was no doubt in my mind. Although my fuzzy past would beg to differ, I didn't think I would forget something that quickly.

"What you said was a very generalized definition," He eyed me suspiciously. "In fact, the actual description is very well known to everyone on Remnant. It's the primary offense and defense of Hunts-"

"Wait, wait, wait," I interrupted, holding up both hands for him to stop. Thankfully, he did, shooting me another puzzling glance. "Where's Remnant?"

"What do you mean where is it? It's our planet."

The feeling of dread that I thought I had under control resurfaced. "No, our planet is Earth."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, actual concern starting to form on his face. "Did you get hit in the head? This planet has, and always will be called Remnant."

"No," I said, putting as much conviction into my voice as I could muster. "It's Earth. The nukes may have destroyed all previous civilizations, but the planet's name is the same."

"Nukes?"

"Yeah," I insisted, not liking the nose dive this conversation had taken. One minute we were talking about dodging bullets and the next, we were speeding towards an answer that I definitely did not want to hear. "During the Great War, every country destroyed each other with nuclear bombs. That's common knowledge."

"Hold up," he said, raising his hand. "So you don't what Aura is or Remnant?"

"No."

His face suddenly fell. "Oh, this is not good." Quick as a cazador, he ripped his flask from his waistband and took a drink. The alcohol must have steeled his nerves somewhat, since his face managed to return back to normal. "Ozpin is definitely gonna need to meet you." Qrow turned back towards me. "I would love to sit you down and answer all your questions, but my acquaintance would do a much better job of providing you answers, so can you hold off 'till then?" At my nod, he sighed and began searching the room again. "Good, now let's find your gear and get the hell out of here."

Before my brain could argue with me, I hastily agreed. I could wait a few hours for answer. Although knowing where I was was important, it paled in comparison to my current goal.

"What exactly are we looking for?" he asked, returning his drink back to its rightful place by his side and dropping the baton back onto the table.

"I've got a suit of modified riot gear, really durable stuff. The helmet has glowing red eyes and a gas mask. As for weapons, I have a hunting revolver and a .45 auto pistol, two knives, a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun, a now-crumpled razor, a blue katana, various grenades, some C-4, a bottlecap mine, a set of brass knuckles, boxing tape, some throwing knives and hatchets, and I think I'm forgetting something…" I rubbed my light stubble in thought before remembering the last item with a snap of my fingers. "Ah, yes! And a ray gun."

During my list, Qrow's eyes had slowly gotten wider, to the point where they were as wide as dinner plates. "D-did you say ray gun? As in, an alien blaster?"

"Yeah."

He mumbled quietly to himself, downing another mouthful from his flask before even trying to look at me again. A sudden boom shook the room, sending dust raining down from the ceiling. Both of us glanced back at the door, and I winced at the small dent that had appeared. "We better get started then because it doesn't look like they'll wait around forever."

Scouring the entire room, we came up empty handed. The tables and tables of weaponry and armor held nothing, not even a bobby pin. It didn't help that the entire time we were doing it, they kept on trying to bust down the door. The armory door was thankfully stronger than it looked, tanking quite a few more room-shaking blasts. At least it didn't split apart like the last door we had been met with.

"Well," Qrow said from the other side of the room. "We've torn the whole place apart. Only thing left is this door." From inside his pocket, he produced a slim black strip of plastic and pulled it apart, exposing a translucent piece of what looked like plastic. It lit up, displaying a multi-layered grid of interconnected boxes that he turned with his fingers. The structure was strikingly similar to any of the maps the Pip-Boy would conjure up, only three dimensional instead of the normal two. "My map says its still part of the armory." His mouth curled into a mischievous smirk. "Care to check it out?"

Instead of answering, I snorted and made my way over to the door. In place of a box for a key card, there was a small speaker with a button. I had seen the exact same device all over the Repconn Test Site. Chris had used it to help guide me to the Bright Brotherhood, after all.

Without hesitation, I pushed the button and the speaker crackled to life. I waited a couple seconds for any sort of voice to filter through, but I was met by the sound of empty static.

"Hello?" I asked after a couple more seconds of silence. "Can we come in?"

"NO!"

I flinched back at the sudden reply. "No? What do you mean no?"

"I am under strict orders from Minose not to let anyone in, much less the one who just escaped, so you can go fuck yourself." With that, the speaker went dark, suddenly devoid of all sound.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I let out an exasperated sigh. 'Just my luck.'

"Alright, listen up," I growled back into the intercom, both fed up with the amount of shit I had been through and my Jet craving coming back with a vengeance. The latter had been increasingly bothersome, Qrow's whiskey from earlier only providing me a bit of relief. "Either you open this door, or I'll bust it down myself, slaughter you in the most brutal way I can think of, before finally tossing your butchered corpse to your boss to show him how much of a failure you are."

My intimidation must have done something, seeing as even Qrow looked a little uncomfortable. "Well," he said, clearly unsure of what to do. "That was… something."

Suddenly realizing what I had done, I laughed awkwardly and scratched my neck in embarrassment. "Yeah… I can get a little intense sometimes, sorry about that. Most of it's just tal-"

He raised an eyebrow and interrupted me swiftly. "A little? You threatened to rip a man apart."

My laughter faded out slowly as his eyes narrowed dangerously, his gaze piercing through me. I didn't waver though, instead frowning myself. "So? Is there anything wrong with that? He works for a crime lord, after all. People would be safer with him dead. And besides, I was threatening him to get through th-!"

Once again, I was cut off. "While that might very well be true, someone as young as you shouldn't be killing people!"

"Hey! Who are you to tell me what I can and can't do?"

"Someone who's been around the block, which for how young you look, I know you haven't. You may have a lot of scars, but that only shows combat experience." The steely gaze he bore only intensified. "How old are you anyway?"

Alright, now he was just pissing me off. I could take the disapproval of my actions easily enough, that was nothing new. People had done that all the time in the Mojave. Good intentions didn't mean much to some people. What I couldn't handle, were the accusations against my experience. It angered me off to no end that he thought he knew what I had been through based on age. The same mistake the NCR, House, and Caesar had made when seeking my help. They thought that they could easily manipulate a supposedly naive teenager.

Oh, how wrong they were.

"I don't know how old I am!" I spat, utilizing my aura of intimidation to its full extent. The temperature in the room seemed to drop a couple degrees, and I could see Qrow take a tentative step backwards. "Hell, I don't even know my own name! But if there is one thing I know for certain, it's that I'm damn sure of what I'm saying, so either you can drop it or we'll settle this right now."

Patiently, I waited for his response, crossing my arms over my bare chest. My words had a bigger impact than I expected, thankfully thinning the tension that had hung thickly in the air like the Cloud. I shuddered at my accidental comparison to the god-forsaken gas that constantly plagued my nightmares. My mind still wasn't healthy from the long term exposure it had endured.

"Amnesia?" he asked somberly, dropping the nightstick onto the floor.

"Yeah, I've only got one memory to my name, and it isn't pleasant. The two scars on my forehead are bullet wounds. Apparently, it isn't healthy to take two rounds to the cerebral cortex."

The tense atmosphere disappeared like Sunset Sarsaparilla on a hot day. Qrow's eyes widened and his mouth went slightly agape. "Y-you got shot in the head? Twice?" His hand dropped to his waist, and before I knew it, he was draining another shot from his seemingly never-ending flask of alcohol. While it may have helped him stomach what I said, all it did for me was cause that ache for Jet to return so viciously, that I almost missed his last sentence. "You are one lucky bastard to survive that."

"Yeah," I said with a bitter chuckle, stuffing my craving back down. "I'm pretty lucky…"

As if he could sense my lie, he frowned, stuffing his drink back where it belonged. Hoping to dissuade any following questions, perked up and moved back over to the intercom. I jammed my thumb into it, sending another crackle of static forth from the speaker. "Alright, I've given you plenty of time to think, so what's your choice? Opening the door or having me rip it off and killing you like a coward?"

No sooner had the words left my mouth then the door flew open, revealing a nervous man in a lab coat. A pair of wiry spectacles sat on the bridge of his nose, framing a hateful gaze that bore out from underneath him. He opened his mouth to say something, but I silenced him with a glare.

"Do you know where my stuff is?"

He nodded, pointing a shaky finger deeper into the room.

"Sweet," I said, unable to keep a grin from making its way across my face. Another room-shaking boom shook the room again, quickly wiping it away. "Qrow, stay here and make sure he doesn't go anywhere, I'll be right back."

I didn't wait for an answer, instead sprinting through the door and into a small laboratory. Ignoring all the beakers and gizmos that lined every available surface, I quickly glanced around the workspace. At the far end, a lone table stood, and spread out on top of it, was my gear.

Making my way over to it, I vaulted the only table in between me and my stuff, sending glassware falling to the floor. As they shattered, spilling whatever was inside them all over, I could pick up a faint whimper from the scientist.

"Whatever that was," my brain said. "It must have been important."

"Yeah… I don't really give a shit," I mumbled, finally arriving at the counter. Doing a quick mental checklist, I made sure everything was there. Sure enough, it was all present, laid out before me like a banquet of fresh fruits. A small piece of paper sat at the table's edge, and even from a decent distance, I could read the large, messy handwriting scrawled on top of it.

"DO NOT TOUCH! FOR SALE ONLY!"

'As if,' I thought to myself, crumpling up the note and tossing it over my shoulder. At least I now knew why my stuff hadn't been messed with. 'Greedy bastard probably wanted to squeeze every last cap out of me.'

A sudden ache echoed throughout my body and I was reminded of what was most important. Lifting my duster off the table, I reached for one of the many pockets that lined the inside. At the feeling of a numerous amount of Jet canisters, I sighed and, for the first time in a while, actually relaxed. Pulling one free from its cloth cage, I put it to my mouth and pressed the trigger down. A wave of addictive vapors flooded my lungs and I could feel the ache slowly ebb away.

Crushing the canister in my hand, I tossed it to the ground before starting to get dressed.

"It's a good thing the Alien Blaster is still here," my brain mused as I pulled my pants and boots on. "That'll make getting out of here without the Pip-Boy arsenal easier."

"It should, at least until I run out of ammo. Without the hunk of junk, I can't reload except for the spares on my bandoliers." Finished with my pants and boots, I began pulling on the simple blue shirt I wore underneath the armor plating. "That leaves me with the Ranger Sequoia and A Light Shining in Darkness as reliable sources of firepower." With my shirt on, I clipped the chest plate into place next, quickly looping my bandoliers and other various belts over top of it before moving on to the duster. "That's all I need though."

"Who are you talking to?"

I turned, sliding the jacket on and popping the collar. Qrow made his way over, dragging the snivelling scientist with him.

'Ah, shit…'

Once they arrived, I grabbed my gloves and stuck my hands inside, wiggling my fingers as they went through the open holes. "Just to myself. It's easier to count if everything is here if I say it out loud. Makes it easier to remember."

He nodded, examining the literal army's-worth of weaponry on the table. "You weren't lying about the weaponry, huh?"

"Nope," I grabbed my helmet, flipped it over, and reached inside, pulling out a long, solid black bandana. Fastening the strip of cloth onto my forehead, I tapped my Pip-Boy. "This isn't even a quarter of it though. The rest of my babies are stored in here."

"What's the bandana for?"

"Keeps the sweat out of my eyes. You wouldn't believe how hot it gets underneath that helmet."

Leaving said helmet on the table, I began strapping my weapons into their rightful places around my body. It was something I had done so many times it was muscle memory at this point. Since I didn't need my eyes, I instead used them to examine the room around me, seeing as my first look had been a half-hearted glance at best.

The lab was smaller than the armory and reminded me of the labs in the Big Empty, but every inch of free space was utilized, covered in various different chemicals, weapons, and armors. All except for one table that held a rather bulky terminal. Now finished equipping myself, I moved over to it.

Compared to the holographic handheld devices I had seen, this was strikingly familiar to the dusty terminals back home. At the bottom, there was even a player for holotapes, something that was soothingly familiar in this place of unknowns. An idea sprung forth in my mind at the sight and I couldn't stop the mischievous grin that made its way across my face.

"Hey," I asked, turning back towards Qrow and the scientist. My companion had dragged the other man over in curiosity. "What does this terminal do?"

The bespectacled man sneered, suddenly finding a hidden reserve of courage. "Like I'd ever help yo-!"

His bravado came to an abrupt halt as Qrow clamped his free hand onto his shoulder, digging his fingers into the skin. A cry of agony left his throat and he curled into his hand in an attempt to ease the pain.

"Alright, alright!" he screeched. "I'll tell you, I'll tell you!"

The drunk let go, dropping the man to the floor in a crumpled heap.

"It's one of Minose's control computers that he has spread around," he croaked. "It lets him communicate between the different parts of our base. The reason the tech is so outdated is because it makes it harder to track and hack."

"That's good," I muttered, brushing my hand over the keyboard. "You say it's connected to the whole facility? Like an intercom?"

He was quiet for a second before speaking up. "Yes… why do you want to know?"

I didn't answer, instead pulling an orange holotape and slapping it onto the table. As I slammed it down, I noticed a syringe filled with a yellow liquid lying next to it. Picking it up, I turned back to the two. "And what's this?"

"My own creation," the man said proudly. "It's a syringe filled with purified lightning dust. Compared to ingesting raw dust, the power yield is much greater, but it is also much more dangerous. I have yet to have a subject survive a dosage of it yet."

"That's cool and all, but what's dust? I don't think you meant dirt, but I really hope that's not what you're injecting people with."

His mouth dropped open in awe at my statement, like I had uttered something sacrilegious. "Y-you're joking right?"

"Uhh… no, is that wrong?"

Qrow swiftly wrapped an arm around my shoulders and dragged me to the side. I tightened up at his contact, and, sensing my discomfort, he dropped it back down. As thanks, I sent him a silent nod of gratitude.

"Alright," he said, giving me a concerned look. "So this is starting to get worse and worse…"

"Well, my bad," I shot back, a little more bitterly than I intended. "I didn't realize that dirt was so important."

"No, no, no!" the scruffy swordsman said, waving at me frantically. "Don't get the wrong idea. None of this is your fault. It's just that dust, with a capital "D", is the most important resource here. It powers pretty much everything, even our weapons." From his belt, he produced a shotgun shell and showed me the red crystal that near the tip. "This, is Fire Dust. It lights whatever it hits on fire."

"So like an incendiary round?"

"Yeah."

"And there are different types of this "Dust?""

"Yes, like the Lightning Dust in that syringe of yours. Which, by the way," he said, swiping the needle from my hand. "I will be taking. That stuff is dangerous, especially for you." He stuck the shell and drug back into his belt before turning around and walking back towards the terminal. "We've gotta move now, so do what you were going to do and let's get out of here." Punctuating his point, another boom shook the room. "I don't think that door can hold much longer."

I didn't let him go half a step before pickpocketing the Dust syringe back off of him. The moment the word drug had been mentioned, my interest was piqued. Following after him, I examined it closely.

'So this "Dust" is like more versatile nuclear energy?'

"Seems like it," my brain mused. "Why did you grab the drug back? It's not like you don't have enough."

I snorted, tucking it inside of my duster. 'Like you can ever have too many drugs. Besides, without my Pip-Boy, I lose out on my standard supply."

"Like the PsychoBuff?"

'Yeah, but that's for emergencies only.'

"Like that emergency when you "thought" you heard a Legendary Deathclaw, but it turned out to be a Bloatfly?"

'...Shut up.'

I let him win that round, shaking my head as he chuckled quietly to himself. The irony of losing an argument to myself was not lost on me. In fact, it happened quite frequently, mostly when I would do something reckless and he would point out how dumb that was.

Arriving back at the terminal, I booted it up. The screen flickered to life and I swore as it went directly into a password lock. It was just my luck.

Behind me, I heard a wheezing chuckle. "I didn't tell you that the boss has a password on it though!"

"While that may be true," I muttered, cracking my fingers. "I've yet to meet a computer I couldn't hack."

Quickly, I commanded the terminal to open up its console, and, to my relief, it complied, changing the simple blank for a password into a screen of scrolling code. I would've really been screwed if it hadn't done anything. A few failed passcode attempts later, and I was in.

"H-how did you manage to get through?"

I turned to the scientist and shot him a suave smile. "What can I say? I'm a computer whiz."

Qrow raised an eyebrow. "I'll say. Now, hurry up and finish."

'That's probably a good idea.'

Conceding to his wishes, I slid the tape inside the player and, with the tap of a few keys, got into the intercom system. As I was typing away, another thought sprung to my mind and I reached inside my jacket.

"Minose mentioned that other contestants had battled in the maze before me," I said, wrapping my hand around the cylindrical object. "That means he must be holding prisoners. Do you know where they are?"

"Yeah," Qrow said. "I have a map of the entire place."

"Can you get me a copy of it?"

"Sure I can," he tapped the scientist's shoulder expectantly. Now wary to more pain, he quickly fished it out of his pocket and handed it to my partner. A couple seconds of tapping later, Qrow handed it to me. "If you don't mind me asking, what's your plan?"

I tossed him what I had grabbed earlier. He caught the Stealth Boy in surprise, examining it curiously. I had noticed it mixed in with my explosives as I was putting them on earlier. "It's a Stealth Boy. You strap it to your arm, flip the switch, and it emits a stealth field that renders the wearer nearly invisible. Use it to get it out of here, but wait until I get the door open."

"Not without you," he scoffed, barely thinking about it for a second. "You can't handle them all by yourself."

"Maybe not before, but now I've got my stuff, so I'm good. Besides, I only have one available and I need you to get people who can help me evacuate the so-called slaves." I explained, spitting the last word in disgust. My distaste didn't go unnoticed by Qrow, if his questioning look was anything to go by.

"Still," he said, clearly not yet convinced. "I think you're overestimating your ski-."

"Qrow," I interrupted, shooting him as confident of a grin as I could muster. "I've faced down much more dangerous threats than a fat man and his army. Just let me have this one." When he still didn't yield, I sighed. "Fine, instead of just a sip, you can have the entire bottle of my liquor."

I knew I had won him over when his eyes lit up. "Fine, but if you die, that's not my fault."

"Don't worry, I'm pretty hard to put down."

Giving me one last look, he strapped the device to his arm before disappearing instantly. I glanced over to the scientist's face with a smile on my own as his widened into a mix of shock and intrigue.

'That'll never get old.'

"Alright," I grabbed him by the arm, standing him up next to the terminal. "Hook this up to the main power grid."

"W-what?"

"You heard me," I said, ejecting my tape and walking back over to the table to pick up my helmet. "You said it was connected to the entire facility, so hook it up to the power. I need to be able to shut off the lights and the door. If not," I pulled Joshua Graham's pistol from my belt and racked the slide. "Well, I think you get the point."

He let out an audible gulp, before hurriedly moving over to the computer and inputting a series of commands. Placing the pistol back in its holster, I scooped my helmet off the table and stared deep into the red lenses.

'You think this is a good idea?'

"Absolutely not," my brain said. "I've run it through a couple times and I can safely say that it is absolutely terrible, though that's to be expected based on every single plan you have had before this."

'My plans aren't that bad!'

"No, they are all horrible. Though, I will admit you have a knack for surviving them, even when the odds are stacked against you."

I grinned, turning back to the terminal. 'Aren't they always?'

My brain was about to answer, but I silenced him as the scientist straightened back up. "There, it's done."

"Perfect." I said, quickly swapping positions with him to work on the computer.

From over my left shoulder, I could see the man staring at the screen in intrigue. "What do you hope to do with all this?"

"Oh, nothing," I murmured, sending the finishing touches and standing up. Somewhere above us, the speakers crackled to life, sending the haunting sound of trumpets floating down from the ceiling. "Just rip and tear my way out of here."

'I'm starting to think we made the wrong choice in Minose,' Cinder thought to herself, staring at the fat, little man in distaste. What he had promised as a display of his strength and influence had quickly spiraled out of control. All thanks to two people.

The first she knew. Qrow Branwen, Ozpin's second hand man. He had clashed with their forces enough times to be considered a sizable thorn in their side. Seeing Beacon's headmaster send him after one person was quite interesting.

Speaking of the new person, she had no idea who he was. She hadn't gotten a good look at him, instead having been too focused examining Qrow to make any assumptions. Minose had said he was young and quite skilled but that's all she got before he pulled off the clever stunt with the light fixture.

"I apologize for the inconvenience," Minose said, turning to her. "We would have had him out sooner, but it is hard to bust down a reinforced door when the tools needed to bust down said door are behind it."

Cinder sighed, watching as his men fruitlessly slammed a large steel girder they had found into the steel door. "I'm not looking for excuses, Minose, I'm looking for solutions."

"Trust me, I know," he reassured her. "That kid's a better hacker than I thought, he completely jammed the mechanism and not even my best eggheads could fix it. And now, with his stuff, I expect he'll pull something else too."

"Didn't you say his armband could summon weapons?"

"That's at least what Phyrius told me," he explained, pulling out his scroll and examining it briefly. "We shut that thing down though, but I did install a failsafe in case anyone was willing to buy it off of his dead corpse. Outside of his bracer though, he did have an impressive selection of weapons that I intended to sell." Glancing back towards the door, he tapped his foot in impatience. "Now, if they can just hurry up, I could still salvage tonight's event."

"You better hope you can, otherwise our deal is off."

The fat man gulped and opened his mouth to say something, but the sudden crackle of static stopped him. After a couple seconds of silence, a chorus of trumpets began to play over the intercom. Raising her eyebrow, Cinder looked Minose. "This isn't your doing, is it?"

"Blue moon,"

A smooth, male voice echoed out above the music, and, despite the adverse circumstances, Cinder found it hauntingly hypnotic. She could see a couple of Minose's men begin to sway to the rhythm, the ones in charge of breaking down the door even setting down their makeshift battering ram to listen.

"N-no!" he stuttered, snapping her free from her examination. "They must've gotten into the lab and hacked into my computer! That gives him control over the intercom and…" His face paled to a color similar to milk left in the sun too long. "Oh no…"

"You saw me standin' alone."

"Oh no what?" Cinder asked, slowly losing her patience. How he managed to run a crime syndicate and be this incompetent was beyond her. At least now she could report back to Salem that Roman definitely was the right choice when it came to the criminal underworld.

"Without a dream in my heart,"

"Well, all my computers are interconnected so I have control over the entire facility no matter where I am, but that means he now has that control, including," The corridor was suddenly bathed in darkness as the lights shut off abruptly. "The base's power."

With a simple flick, she produced a ball of fire, illuminating a small area around them. She couldn't see his guard's faces, but the nervousness that hung heavy in the atmosphere was extremely apparent. Minose even inched closer to her, much to her disgust.

The sound of groaning metal forced their attention back towards the armory door. A brief moment later, it creaked open slowly. The armory was just as dark as the hallway, the only thing that produced light was a pair of red lenses that pierced the darkness like the eyes of an angry Grimm.

"Without a love of my own."

"WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS WAITING FOR!" Minose screeched, jabbing a chubby finger in the pair of eye's direction. "SHOOT HIM!"

Fumbling with their weapons, his men opened fired, sending a wave stun rounds towards the eyes. Cinder watched as the eyes made no attempt to move, taking two shots before dropping to the ground.

"Blue moon,"

"HOLD YOUR FIRE!"

They stopped firing, but kept their weapons trained at the two red lights. Beside her, Cinder saw a grin form onto Minose's face and he strode over towards them.

"So, your escape didn't go as planned, eh?"

"You knew just what I was there for,"

When he didn't answer, Cinder knew something was up. The boy had proved to be more cunning than allowing himself to be shot the instant the door opened. Plus, he even managed to help take down Phyrius, who was still unconscious on the ground, so he was no slouch when it came to combat either. He had something planned...

"Something wrong? Cat got your tongue?"

And Minose was apparently too arrogant to realize it.

"You heard me sayin' a prayer for,"

"Let me guess, you actually thought you'd escape?" He let out a dry chuckle. "Oh, that is rich!"

Minose pulled out his scroll once again, flipping on the flashlight to better examine the downed boy. As the pale light illuminated the figure, Cinder saw a lanky man in a wrinkled lab coat. She couldn't resist a smirk as the criminal "mastermind's" face went white as he pulled off the helmet, revealing a bespectacled, older man rather than the young, scarred face it should have been.

"Someone I could really care for."

The last words were joined in by another voice, both melodious and sinister at the same time. A blood-curdling scream pierced the hallway and Cinder turned just in time to see one of the grunts get dragged into the shadows. Through the light her fire provided, she could see the glint of metal as it sped toward where the soldier disappeared, and, a second later, blood sprayed out, staining the floor crimson.

This time, Minose didn't need to say anything, his men opened fire on their own volition. Their barrels flashed rapidly, briefly illuminating areas of the room for half a second each. During each flash, she could barely make out a figure darting around in the darkness. For a moment, she thought about exposing him with a large blast of flame and seeing how he dealt with with it, but ultimately decided against it. After all, he was putting on a much more promising show then Minose could ever hope to.

"Let me ask you the question you asked earlier Minose."

Blue light flashed and another man screamed. Cinder barely managed to see the beam that hit him before he disintegrated into a pile of ash. Now fearing for their lives, they formed a circle around Minose and herself.

"Do you know who I am?"

"He's on this sid-!" The grunt's shout quickly faded into a wet gurgle. Turning in that direction, Cinder saw the hilt of a knife buried deep in his throat. Another flash of metal glinted in the light of the flickering flame, and the man next to the first went down in the same brutal fashion.

A rectangular object slid across the floor from the darkness. Cinder barely had time to register what looked like a lunch box covered in duct tape and wiring and the cartoonish man giving a thumbs up before Minose finally managed to do something smart and shove one of his men on top of the homemade explosive.

Barely a second later, it detonated, eviscerating the grunt and sending what looked like bottle caps flying in every direction. She incinerated any of the bottle toppers that got close to her, but others in the blast range weren't so lucky. Their weak Auras helped very little against the speeding pieces of circular metal.

"OVER THERE YOU IDIOTS!"

Melting out of the shadows like a Grimm, a figure stepped forth. Clad in what looked like heavily modified police riot gear, he boasted an imposing visage of danger and brutality. His eyes stayed hidden by the swirling darkness, but if they were visible, Cinder was sure they would have been filled with hatred.

As soon as Minose's men raised their guns, the man's left hand quickly dropped to his side. Faster than lightning, he had drawn a revolver from its holster, fired five shots, and returned it home. Five more bodies hit the floor a half second later.

He began to advance forward slowly, drawing a blue-bladed katana from inside of his long coat. Moving it to his left, he filled his empty hand with a pistol from his right side. Anyone who tried to out gun him lost horribly to his superior speed. Two more fell that way, leaving only a handful of grunts left in addition to Minose and herself.

"WHAT ARE WAITING FOR?! GET HIM!"

The rest advanced warily, keeping careful eyes on his gun. That didn't help when four more dropped to gunplay so fast, even she had trouble seeing it. Of the large squadron of guards that had started, three more remained.

"I'm Courier Six, remember that."

With that statement, the now-named Courier Six lept towards the nearest grunt, decapitating him before he even had a chance to react. The other two tried to get their weapons up in time, but met the same, sad fate as the first. Ducking around their sporadic gunfire, he stepped into melee range of the first and impaled him hilt-deep in the chest.

Without skipping a beat, both in the song and in combat, he pulled his sword free and spun the body around to act as a meat shield against the last man's bullets. As soon as his opponent's gun clicked empty, he shoved the corpse into him, knocking him off to the floor. The man avoided getting pinned by rolling out from underneath it and onto his feet, but that was his fatal mistake. Like a malevolent phantom, Courier Six gracefully drifted behind him before wrapping both arms around his head and snapping it with a sound similar to breaking a branch in half.

As he was disposing of the last man, Cinder turned, and, as expected, Minose was gone. No doubt he was scrambling every single man on his payroll to kill the kid who was threatening his entire criminal empire. Asterion would definitely be making himself known to Courier Six sometime tonight.

Her job, however, was done. Salem wouldn't be pleased that they had lost a potential ally, but Cinder was certain once she had heard how incompetent this man had turned out to be, she would understand. With that last thought, she walked away.

There was no use in helping a man who would no doubt be dead by the end of the night.

Tossing the lifeless corpse to the floor and sheathing my katana back across my lower back, I glanced back towards where Minose and the fire lady had been. I wasn't shocked to see that the crime boss was gone, but the woman's disappearance sent my paranoia into overdrive. She hadn't even tried to attack me while I murdered all the soldiers in the room, just stared at me in intrigue the entire time. Something about it didn't sit well with me.

Shaking myself free from my thoughts, I walked over to my helmet and picked it up. It would do me no good to worry about it now, I had a job to do. Namely, evacuating all the people Minose had enslaved.

As I placed the riot helmet back onto my head, I pulled out the device Qrow had handed me and spread it out. The base's layout spread out across the holographic screen and I quickly scanned for the mark he had made.

After a couple seconds of searching, I found it. It wasn't that far away, only a couple hallways over. Collapsing the piece of tech, I tucked it away into my duster and sighed. I missed the Pip-Boy so much right now. It's compass and map would be a welcome breath of familiarity right now. Plus, I could always use an objective.

All of a sudden, a hard, metal object slammed into my back, sending me sliding across the floor. My helmet hit the floor so hard that it shut the lenses off, leaving only my above average vision to help me peer through the swirling darkness. Rolling to all fours, I smacked the helmet, grinning as the lenses flickered back to life. The night vision booted back up, enhancing my eyesight even further.

It revealed the shirtless form of Phyrius standing up again. His eyes burned with hate as he stared back towards me.

"Oh dear," my brain muttered. "Maybe you should have killed him instead of knocking him out."

Rubbing my back in discomfort, I got back to my feet slowly. 'You don't think I know that? I thought emptying an entire magazine of bullets into his temple would've killed him, but that was before I knew they were only stun rounds.'

The man leapt towards me with a roar, the chems he apparently had used earlier to boost his strength still coursing through his entire body allowing him to leap much farther than any normal man could. I dove sideways, avoiding his rage-induced tackle and reaching inside my duster for a weapon. He flew past me, shouting in frustration as I went in the opposite direction.

As he gathered himself for another attack, my hand scrambled around for something to use. The first item it wrapped around was what I pulled out, and, when I brought it out, I let out a groan of frustration. I had grabbed Love and Hate, and while I was confident in my close range abilities, I was hoping for something that put some distance between the massive man and myself.

There was no time to switch now, however. Slipping the knuckle-dusters on, I turned towards the man and raised my fists. His right leg shot out lightning fast and I barely had time to knock it to the side to avoid the spikes that would've skewered my chest. He didn't let up, already bringing his other leg around for a second strike. Instead of deflecting this one, I caught it under my arm, wincing as it still hit my side hard enough to bruise. With my other hand, I slammed Hate home into his thigh. The spikes dug into his leg, spraying blood out but instead of backing off, he leapt up and twisted his legs around my head in midair, sending me sprawling to the floor.

I didn't even get a chance to get to my feet before his leg started descending down onto my body. Spreading my legs apart, my eyes widened as the spiked foot punched through the ground mere inches from my crotch. It buried deep into the ground, and, when he tried to remove it, found that he couldn't pull it free. I glanced up at him in surprise and he stared back at the ground with the same expression on his face. Taking advantage of the standstill, I punched him in the crotch.

Hard.

He reeled over, grasping where I had driven Love home. As he wretched in pain, I stood up, and, grabbing his head in my hands, slammed my knee into it. The armor plating drilled into his nose, snapping it with the same ferocity he had given to mine earlier. At least the Phoenix implant had healed it up quickly. I couldn't be sure the same would happen for him.

I continued my attack, launching into a constant series of straights, hooks, uppercuts, and crosses. Letting up would be the equivalent of giving him a chance to retaliate, and I wasn't too keen on that idea. Especially not when he had muscles like a Nightkin. Even though Love and Hate made dishing out the pain across his body decently easy, I would've preferred my Saturnite fist or maybe Two-Step Goodbye. Their increased strength and speed would've made this fight a lot more one-sided.

Eventually, he managed to break free, planting a foot into the chestpiece I wore and knocking me back. I quickly scrambled to my feet, using the distance he provided to return my knuckle-dusters back into my coat and swapping them for a different weapon. As I did so, I kept my gaze on my opponent. His face was bloody and bruised, a fact that gave me no small amount of satisfaction. The protective shroud he had around him when I first knocked him out was gone and his movements were slowing down. If I held out a little bit longer, I could finish him off, I just needed a gun...

Instead, I pulled a C-4 charge from my duster.

"Change of plans I presume?" my brain asked as I stared at the explosive in resigned disappointment. "The detonator is on the left side above Big Boomer."

Following his instructions, I grabbed the detonator from its place and yanked it out with my free hand. I kept it hidden up my sleeve and readied myself for another round with Phyrius. Oddly, the man had calmed down, but was still staring at me in hatred.

"You fight with no honor."

The sentence was so laughable, both because of the absurdity of the statement and his voice being a couple octaves higher, that I almost walked away right there. Since when combat been for honor and glory? Personally, I couldn't speak for anyone else, I had always fought for either my own or someone else's survival. Money and knowledge were a good motivator, but survival was always a baseline goal. A constant, if you will. Hearing someone spout out bullshit about honorable combat unfortunately reminded me of Lanius, a thought that made my blood boil more than a little bit.

"Honor doesn't matter if you're dead," I snorted, priming the C-4 and keeping it out of sight. "Just whoever wins. Besides, anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for."

His face twisted into a scowl. "Your attitude to combat disgusts me."

"It's a good thing I don't care then."

"Fine," he said, tensing his legs and leaning towards me. "It will be a pleasure to murder you like the cowardly dog you are."

He launched himself towards me with a yell and I widended my stance. His left leg whipped around and I took the hit, grimacing as his metal boot slammed into my side. I rolled with the impact, trying to move out of the man's longer reach. My efforts proved fruitless when yet another kick struck me in the ribs and sent me across the floor onto my back. The armor plating protected against the spikes, but I could still feel the sheer strength that coursed through his limbs. It was like getting hit by a Psycho-addled Super Mutant. Unfortunately for him, I was used to taking hits like that.

"Your plan seems to be going well."

'I swear,' I thought, dodging a leg that would've knocked me unconscious. 'If you don't say anything useful and just keep heckling me, I'll get hooked on more than just Jet and cigarettes."

That shut him up.

Back to the fight at hand, I planted my right foot on the floor to drive an uppercut into his jaw, but it slipped across the slick surface, throwing me off balance. For my trouble, I took metal-covered heel to the head so hard I saw stars. While both my helmet and metal skull took most of the blow, the force still knocked me head-first into a wall.

Ripping myself free from the dent I had made, I blinked the spots free from my eyes. There was a new growing wet stain on the spot where I had hit it, if the blood trickling down into my bandanna was anything to go off of. At least I was certain I didn't have a concussion. Thank God for cybernetic enhancements.

Phyrius pressed forward in another assault, but I retreated at the same pace. His fighting style was unusually dominated by his legs, lashing out lightning fast kicks that I only managed to block or dodge through prediction. I wouldn't be able to keep up this deadly game for long against his swift and powerful strikes though. Eventually, I would slip up or get unlucky, and I knew which one was more likely.

As I continued to dance away from his attacks, I held the C-4 tightly in my hand. I would only need one opportunity to plant the charge and then it would be all over. The only problem was finding the opening I needed. In a fair fight, there was nary a flaw to exploit.

It was a good thing I didn't fight fair.

Next time he swung a leg in my direction, I ducked to the ground and swept into the trademark takedown of the Rangers. As expected, he hopped over it, but that was the opportunity I was looking for.

Before he could react, I shot to my feet and moved like I was going to try and take out his legs when he landed. As his feet hit the ground, I reached the arm with the detonator up its sleeve into one of the pockets and scooped up a handful of sand. I had begun keeping pockets of the stuff ever since I had tried to use the Kahn's dirtiest trick on metal floors. The scars from that encounter still marked my abdomen.

Palming the dirt, I flung it into his waiting eyes. He swore, reaching his hands up to his face in a fruitless attempt to free himself from the burning pain. It only caused the sand to dig deeper in.

I stood up and crossed the short distance to him, vaulting over his back with my empty hand. The other slapped the C-4 charge right into the small of his back, the adhesive on it sticking to his bare skin. As soon as both of my feet touched the ground, I shook the detonator out of my sleeve and dove to the floor, pulling the trigger as I went.

With one final beep, the charge exploded, sending blood and viscera flying in every direction. The shockwave rocked my body to the core, but I was safe from the fireball. Once my ears stopped ringing, I stood up to check on my dead opponent. Or, what was left of him.

There was little more than a bloody smear left where he had once stood. The rest of him was painted across the hallway like a grisly canvas. The largest chunk of him left, one of his massive legs, twitched every so often on the ground.

"That… is disgusting."

'I agree,' I thought, turning away and checking my injuries. Nothing demanded my immediate attention and anything that was bleeding now wouldn't be in a minute thanks to the Monocyte breeder. 'But necessary. I don't like fights dragging on longer than they should.''

"I'm with you there."

Stepping away from Phyrius's "corpse," I checked the map again. Like before, the blip he had marked stayed in the same spot, not far from my position. Tucking it back into my coat, I reloaded my handguns and went on my way.

Fifteen minutes and four hallways of more grunts later, I reached the prison. It was as indistinguishable from the other rooms as anything different, but I had a gut feeling that Qrow didn't lie to me.

Pulling a keycard I had stolen off one of the guard's bodies earlier, I swiped it across the door panel. With a hiss, it slid open revealing a dimly lit room. After a second, the room was flooded with light and I got to see what it contained.

And I was absolutely disgusted.

The room, about half the size of the Tops' casino floor, was packed full of people. Men. Women. Children. All dressed in dirty rags with brands similar to my own. The smell hit me a second later, a foul, horrible thing that my respirator managed to subdue slightly. As soon as I had opened the door, the crowd of hopeless faces turned to me. Doing a quick calculation, I estimated there were about five hundred people packed tightly together.

Every single one of them had a various animal part on their body.

"What the hell?" I muttered, frozen at the sight. The scene wasn't what surprised me, plenty of Legion camps had the same exact thing in them, if on a smaller scale. The animal ears and tails I saw were what took my breath away. A very specific amount of radiation had to have mutated them, because too little and all you gained were complications to your health and being exposed with too much turned you into a Ghoul, if you were lucky. If not, well… you died a slow, painful death.

"Who are you?"

One of the prisoners stepped forward, a ragged, dark-skinned man with spotted, feline ears on the top of his head. His brown eyes, like the hundreds behind him, were filled with restrained hope and distrust, like they wanted to believe what they were seeing, but didn't want to be disappointed.

I stepped down into the room and they backed up as far as they could packed together as they were. Most eyed the weapons hanging from my belt or strapped inside my duster warily. The ones in the front shielded the younger ones behind them, like they thought I was going to start unloading my guns at any minute.

"Woah, woah!" I held my hands up in a soothing gesture. "I'm getting you out of here! I ain't gonna hurt you."

When none of them dropped their guard, I frowned. 'Wow, tough crowd.'

My brain snorted. "Well, it might be because your helmet doesn't instill the most confidence."

'Oooooh, right.'

Heeding his advice, I took my helmet off and tucked it under one arm, giving the room a wave. "See? Nothing to worry about."

"You're a human child?"

I glanced back towards the cat-eared man. "Yeah, is there a problem with that?"

"Why would a human want to help?" he said. "After all, your kind cares little for us."

"I know my race is full of terrible people, but I assure you I'm not a racist. And don't worry about my age, I know what I'm doing." My eyes fell onto the brand on his shoulder and an idea sprung to my mind. Quickly, I unbuckled my chestpiece and pulled it down along with my shirt, exposing my own mark. "I got burned by that asshole Minose too, so I also have a reason to hate him."

The man stepped forward cautiously, but stopped short of me. I held out my arms in a gesture of peace, showing I had no weapons on me at the moment. After a second, his eyes welled up with tears and he clasped me in a tight hug. "Thank you."

"Uhhh…" I stuttered, tensing up at the contact. "D-don't thank me yet, we're not safe."

"A kid who can talk down the general of a nation but can't accept praise? Somebody stop the presses!"

'Do you enjoy tormenting me?'

I could practically see his smirk. "You have no idea."

He let go and held me at arms length. "Sorry about that, but we've been trapped in here for so long that we gave up hope of a rescue. My name's Bruno Springfield and behind me," He gestured to a woman and two girls, one an adolescent and the other younger, all who had the same set of ears as him. "Is my family."

Giving them another wave, I replaced my helmet back onto my head. "Well, as nice as this place is, I think it's about time to get you guys out of here. What do you think?"

I was met by a roar of assent so loud it caused the very room to shake. Even if I had wanted to, there was no way I could have stopped the smile that spread across my face. This was by far my favorite part of the job. Well, aside from solving problems, but both those categories overlapped, essentially encapsulating the same thing.

"Alright, everyone follow me." Pulling the map back out, I glanced at it once again. Briefly, I scanned the tangled mess of lines until my eyes fell on a rather large opening in one of the walls. I couldn't prove it was a way out of here, but I would've bet most of my money that it was our best bet at escaping. "I'm ninety-five percent sure I know where the exit is."

No sooner had I said that, then someone already voiced a question. "Ninety-five? Why not one hundred?"

"Because I don't deal in absolutes." I said, turning and heading into the hall. As I did so, I took another hit of Jet. "Any of you that can use a firearm, pick up the dropped ones from the guards. We're breaking out of here."

So, how about E3?

I'm pumped for Fallout 76, even if it isn't going to be a traditional Fallout. It'll be fun and that's all I can really ask from it. Maybe they'll even add in a single player story as DLC, who knows?

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate looks amazing. They're even revamping my main man Ganondorf and giving him some originality, which is awesome. The game also just looks fun as shit, which is great.

Back to the story, over seven thousand views, two hundred follows and one hundred and forty favorites. I can't even believe so many of you enjoy this story so much. As someone who writes for fun, this means so much to me and I can't thank you enough. Really, your constant support is what keeps me going.

Sorry that this introduction sequence is taking so long. I meant to get past it quickly to get to Beacon, but I have at least one or two more chapters planned out before that. I hope you don't mind.

Stay beautiful.

SVVessel