Alright, got another short one here. Sorry. But the chapters will hopefully get longer later on, as the story starts to get interesting.

KisaragiKei: The politics will be discussed next chapter, this one is just wrapping up all the current events. Also, I'm hoping to include most of the AC series in here, but there will probably be a lot of time before another AC era starts getting involved.

Guest: That will be for another time in further chapters, but yeah. The Irregular will become semi-important later on as well.


'Nexus Region'
130km away from the Northern Border

"Raven, for fucks sake hit the Irregular!"

"He's moving too fast!" Vulcansaber's pilot exclaimed. Truly this Irregular was something special. The design of his AC was really aerodynamic, and seemed to put more focus on placing as many boosters on a single panel than being aesthetically pleasing. A few more shots from the laser rifle and he would be dead, but he was so fast.

The Irregular fired more rounds, and quickly ran dry. He was now down to his AC's mass. That would only be useful for one thing. Ramming. And perhaps crushing the infantry under whatever force was keeping it afloat. Which he did.

A few seconds of running over ants later, almost all of the soldiers had been crushed into a bloody mess, the rest just retreated out of the combat zone. Then the Irregular remembered something. 'Goddammit I forgot to finish off Vernhunt.' That was an immediate mission failure.

NR appeared from a large stack of rocks, and began spraying a large number of bullets at the Irregular, most of them missing their target. Then the Irregular did something really strange. He moved his AC right up to NR, and punched his AC in the core. He'd been subjected to so many moves that would seem to just work because this Irregular was overly desperate. NR's AC was then completely disabled, and the core was bent inwards. The AC could still be salvaged though.

The Irregular then ate up four shots to his AC's arm. "Warning, AP at 10%." Well, it seemed like the appropriate time to get the hell out of there. And he did, his superior mobility allowing an easy escape.

The fight was over. Well, this particular one.

"Shit... what now?" The last Raven standing asked.

"Kikka, the contract states specifically that you have to protect and if at all possible, to recover any downed allies. They don't care where they get dropped off, just make sure they get somewhere like a city."

She took a minute to look at NR's AC. It seemed only partially intact. Bits and pieces were still falling off, an entire arm was missing, the legs were horribly disfigured and the core looked like the pilot was crushed to death.

"Störche, I'm pretty sure he's dead."

"The mission won't be finished unless you check."

"Fine, I'll see if he's alive." The Vulcansaber's back then extended to allow her to exit. She slowly climbed down her AC, and climbed up NR's AC. She opened the cockpit, and lo and behold, the mute Raven was only unconscious. He was also wearing a full face helmet. In fact, his whole body was hidden. Even his visor seemed overly tinted.

Kikka carried him over her shoulder, and threw him into a corner of Vulcansaber's cockpit. (Someone's laughing at that somewhere.) It was cramped. She wasn't getting paid enough for this.


Atlas
Hospital Trauma Center

"I guess they're just lucky." A pause. "Wait, how'd you know about the survivors?" Catalyst asked, still confused about just about everything.

"A huntsmen followed, however they decided against interaction."

"Is NR alive?"

"Yes, he is."

"Alright, good. Another question, I don't believe you've introduced yourself."

"Ah, forgive me," He cleared his throat. "my name is Ozpin, and I am the headmaster of Beacon Academy, a school that trains the next generation of huntsmen and huntresses."

"I'm Nicholas Gardner, or 'Catalyst' as the alias leads everyone to believe. And before you ask, no, there's no actual stigma against using your real name. Raven Operators do that all the time. That was just a rumor a paranoid veteran spread around to civilians." Then another question came to his head. "And why exactly would you want to talk to me? Apart from the whole 'being a pilot of a giant war machine'?

"Actually, that is the exact reason why I'm here. You see, I am here to ask if you'll help us. The kingdoms are very interested in your equipment, especially Atlas. We also need your assistance in keeping the peace, we need all the help we can get."

"You must be overcompensating if you're willing to get me on board. You're either paranoid or you know something bad is about to happen."

"Unfortunately, the White Fang has become a larger problem over a short amount of time, and the Grimm have been increasing in numbers very quickly. Criminal activity has been stopped for a short period of time due to the 'Nexus Region's arrival, however it will probably return back to its previous state soon, maybe even worse." He replied, adding quotation marks to the name of the region. It would only be a matter of time until it starts becoming too much to handle.

"Alright, I guess that makes sense. Still though... I'd need a place to stay. I would also need money to maintain my MT, and the other more obvious reasons like food. I'll help you out with your terrorist and Grimm problems, and you help me out with surviving out here. "

"That can be arranged." Ozpin assured the mercenary. "However, you are expected to act as a Huntsmen, or special forces agent, not a mercenary. Meaning that if you were to accept our offer, you will work with the kingdoms exclusively, and if you are hired by the Raven's Ark, we wish to be notified to the job you are doing as to avoid any confusion or assumptions of abandoning us."

He made those terms very clear, though Nicholas was rather uneasy due to Ozpin's knowledge of the Ark. He would have to ask about that later.

"And if I were to refuse?"

"You will have to either return to your region, or live your life as any other citizen in our kingdoms."

Well this was a hard choice. Choose between the kingdoms, as far as he knew it was a... mostly peaceful collection of united nations that are in need of help from time to time against criminals, extremists and soulless beings and either be the hero or the victim...

Or the region where everyone is going to end up killing each other in a power struggle, people die by the hundreds everyday, nobody trusts each other due to a large percentage of betrayals, Raven on Raven betrayals becoming a common occurrence, civilians being caught in the crossfire, Crest using people as guinea pigs for their genetic enhancements for their super-soldier Genobee, Kisaragi doing some weird ass shit with bio-weapons, Mirage manipulating the OAE to their will, and Navis hogging all their new discoveries (With the exception of Dust, Navis drained all of it on experiments to see how it worked.)

And of course, the Raven's Ark. Where nobody hires MT pilots anymore because even on a tight budget, NR, due to his status as the Rank 30, is cheap and reliable, and would always be hired instead of the MTs, and yet the Ark still cares to hire MT veterans for some inexplicable reason. Maybe it's to give them the false sense of hope that they'll get money to feed their families. Who knows.

"Alright, I'll help you out. Once I get out of the Hospital of course."

"Good to hear that. I hope you recover soon." And with that, Ozpin left, but before he could get to the door, Nicholas asked one last question.

"How come you're hiring me? I thought that only someone with more authority would be allowed to hire a merc." Ozpin turned around.

"An academy's headmaster is much more influential than you think." And then he finally exited.

'A cryptic sentence. Mysterious. Smart maybe? Definitely annoying. But I got the message.' Catalyst thought.


Some time later

"Catalyst, is it?" The mercenary nodded. "A lot of people are here to see you."

"What for?" The doors flung open, and there was an absolute swarm of news teams, reporters and the four guys who write articles on newspapers rushed in to get the details about the first person they could talk to who was from the 'Nexus Region'. 'I still can't believe that they called it that.' He thought as he was slowly drowned by questions upon questions about his life at the 'Nexus Region', what it was like, and if he was going to kill them when they least suspected it.

He answered the questions as truthfully and quickly as he could, and asked them all to bugger off before he killed them when they least suspected it (He never really had a propensity for making original threats.).He was in a hospital with an injury for fucks sake. Though he couldn't help but feel like something about that was going to bite him in the ass like a rabid dog later on in his life.

As he lay there on the hospital bed, he couldn't help but wonder about some things. What would they do with his MT? Would they borrow the tech from it, take some inspiration from it? He really didn't know. He probably should have made some terms on his own ground too. God, that was gonna bite him in the ass too.


Well, you asked how the Dust was accessible by the AC guys. So why not add some logic rather than saying, 'It's magic shit. It just happens.'

Edit: This is very shoehorned, and probably won't be used later. The only reason it's still here is because I need a reminder of my mistakes. Also I want to keep the wordcount up. Lazy, I know. I'll try to avoid it later. This segment WILL be removed once a less shoehorned explanation comes up.

EDIT: I removed it.