The Name of the Game
a RWBY/The Gamer crossover, SI.
Arc 4: Bad Blood
Chapter 15: Date Night
I lay in bed, in that half-aware state between waking and dream, wondering what had woken me. The room was cold enough to hang meat, exactly how I liked it, so it wasn't that I'd gotten hot. The sound of the air conditioner hummed as a low white noise, but other than that I couldn't really hear anything else. The shades were drawn so the room itself was cast in pitch black, aside from the faint amber glow of my alarm clock. Grunting in annoyance, I rolled over and gave up on figuring it out. Reaching out, I sought out one of the women I knew should have been there. Finding nothing, I frowned and opened my eyes, finding the bed empty aside from myself.
'Well, that's one mystery solved,' I mused. I had grown used to having someone in bed and it was strange to be alone for the first time in over a week. The quiet sounds of someone else sleeping—breathing, shifting, the occasional snore—were all something that sort of blended into background noise but stood out once they were gone. Of course, that begged the question of where the girls were. A glance at the clock showed it to be just after 5A.M. and something about the time tickled my memory. It came to me after a moment: Joan would be taking a Bullhead out to go on rotation about now. I didn't know whether to feel annoyed or not that she hadn't bothered to wake me up and say goodbye. That didn't really explain Jane being gone, but odds were good she had simply left when her sister had.
Sighing, I flopped back down and stretched out. Something at the field of my vision caught my eye and I turned my head to look, only to have it move with my field of view. Shifting my eyes brought it into focus, however. What I found there was a white exclamation mark glowing softly in the upper left corner of my field of view—though, despite it being completely dark aside from a faint amber glow from my clock lighting everything it fell on, having the little spot of brightness in my view didn't destroy my night vision, which told me that it was part of my Semblance's UI. Focusing on it for a second caused several things to happen all at once—more user interface elements appeared at the edges of my field of view while the exclamation mark disappeared and an alert window popped up front and center. 'This is new.'
Synchronization at 70%. The system has been updated! Would you like to view the Change Log?
New UI elements and what looked like a brand spanking new HUD layout? You bet your shiny new interface I would. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice? Not happening.
Change Log: The Gamer Semblance v. 1.5.1
Reading the version number, I frowned. I remembered a few changes, but I didn't realize it had changed that fast. Thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that it must be patching silently in the background and only letting me know of major and minor revisions. Even then, I hadn't seen several minor revisions pop up… Well, there wasn't much I could do about it.
1. Updated UI, added HUD features.
1.a. Added HP/MP/XP bars visible to player without having to open Stats window. Shields now show up as an outline over HP.
1.b. Added buff/debuff bar.
1.c. Added menu bar.
1.d. Added enemy proximity and direction tracking to HUD, runs off Perception.
1.e. Added basic compass/waypoint navigation to HUD.
2. Added feature to auto-hide HUD, enable or disable with voice command 'auto-hide enable' or 'auto-hide disable.'
2.a. Added ability to navigate HUD and menus via focus tracking.
3. Added focus tracking and focus-based commands for allies, objects, enemies, etc. See relevant section Focus Commands.
3.a. Added several new commands for parties, combat, etc. See relevant sections Party Commands, Combat Commands.
4. Updated quest trigger threshold. Requests such as 'wash the dishes' will no longer trigger quests.
5. Updated skill trigger threshold. Some actions will no longer trigger skill generation automatically and the user must manually create a skill. Example: using our example from number 4, washing dishes repeatedly will no longer generate a 'dish washing' skill, and if the user wishes to create such a skill it must be done manually through Skill Creation.
6. Updated/fixed several skills. For full details, see the Skills Menu.
6.a. Percentiles on certain skills now display properly. Example: Sneak now correctly reads as 'reduces speed by half while sneaking' as opposed to '200% speed reduction,' because as written, the player would be walking backwards. Note: this update only clarifies wording, no skill behavior has been affected.
7. Fixed entries for Load/Save menu, they now display properly.
The UI changes were the most obvious. I now had HP, MP, and XP bars in the upper left field of my view, each helpfully labeled with numerical values—meaning I'd no longer have to keep opening my stats page to see my HP. Along the top of my field of vision for a short stretch was a white bar incremented with degrees, showing me to be aligned roughly westward according to the 'W' there near the center. In the upper right corner of my vision, a small icon sat innocuously until I focused on it, a small green box with a white 'A' in the center beside an up arrow.
Aura Enhancement Ritual (Skill)
Effect: Increases skill gain by 100%, XP gain by 10%, skill effect by 50% for duration of buff.
Duration: 14 days, 20 hours, 33 minutes.
"Huh." I did some quick mental math. The level disparity between myself and the elder two Arc sisters was about five times, if their levels were combined or around 2.5 times based on average level. Figuring at two weeks worth of buff time, each had been worth about seven days… assuming it worked that way. I had no way of knowing without digging into my Semblance and looking for clues. Sanguine's notes wouldn't help me here—they all dealt with real world theory and there was no telling how my Semblance screwed with that. Either way, the ritual itself was easy enough to set up and complete. If I wanted, I could probably set it up again in the future once I got to Beacon and set up perpetual leveling buffs.
The menu bar turned out to be pretty self-explanatory—it was a bar with a menu, which worked just like every desktop OS I'd ever dealt with, from Windows, to Mac, to Linux. The only real difference was that it was controlled by eye tracking and intent. Shifting my eyes to it did nothing until I wanted it to open, so I wouldn't be accidentally opening it in combat. The first thing I checked was the section on Focus Commands. According to what I found there, I could now do things such as marking a target for both myself and anyone in a party. Likewise, some things like Observe could be triggered the same way now, so no more having to subvocalize some commands and risk being caught.
Party Commands turned out to be common sense things common to most MMORPGs or FPS games—mostly visual elements for issuing orders similarly to marking a target. Things like 'gather here,' or 'take cover here,' 'defend this area,' 'focus fire on this area,' and so on. Combat Commands were more of the same. The system itself was pretty intuitive from my end and mostly intent based, so there wouldn't be any real confusion about how to use it later once everyone using it got the hang of it—assuming I intended to use it with my team at Beacon. I made a note to test it with the girls before trying it in an actual combat situation.
Checking my skills to see what had been changed, since I remember the last time something had been changed without my knowledge was when Dating Mode went from an active to a passive, I frowned as I went over them. Updated skills were highlighted, so it was easy to tell what was what. There were a few minor things, like changes in how Perception or Listen behaved or wording changes such as with Sneak, but something I considered a major change was a change to Marital Arts. Reading over it, I groaned. The notes said issues had been fixed where bonuses from the skill weren't being applied when it was in use—in other words, every success I'd had using it to date was off my own physical skill from life experience and raw charisma mod, as opposed to also adding the bonuses from the skill itself. It was the difference between being absolutely proficient with a firearm and having the Firearms Mastery skill—one was deadly, the other was overkill. I almost dreaded using it if it was going to get more effective. At level 57, having gone up 15 levels from when I'd first imported it, the bonuses were… ridiculous. I sighed and closed the window, deciding it wasn't worth screwing with at the moment.
Opening the Load/Save menu, I looked it over and frowned. There were multiple save slots available but three were filled already. The top was a mess of scrambled characters that hurt my brain to look at, but I got the gist of it through context—it was Jaune's save data. The original Jaune Arc, that is. The second was similarly corrupted, but more information was available, such as listing a play time of 33 years—clearly my own data. The third slot was listed as 'Jaune Arc' and highlighted in gold, telling me this was the active save slot—if the fact that the play time counter was running upwards from about a week hadn't been enough to clue me in.
'Let's see what happens if I select it,' I thought, immediately putting the thought into action and selecting the second slot containing my own data. I was given four options: Load, Import, Delete, Advanced. I didn't want to load potentially corrupt or old data over what I had now—the implications there were that I could potentially overwrite my memories with old memories, thereby truly giving myself an actual case of amnesia if it worked even remotely like other games—so I avoided the 'Load' option. 'Import' was grayed out, but both 'Delete' and 'Advanced' were available. I didn't want to delete the data, so I selected 'Advanced' and was presented with more options: Merge (grayed out), Check, Export (also grayed out), and Copy. I selected 'Check.'
Would you like to check the data for consistency? Y/N
Thinking it over, I declined the process and went back a level, selecting what I suspected was Jaune's data and finding the Check option. Selecting 'yes,' I was presented with a notification telling me that data checking was now in progress but estimated time of completion was unknown. That was fine, really, since I couldn't do anything with it anyway.
Closing my windows and letting my HUD disappear, I yawned and glanced at the clock again before deciding I wouldn't be getting back to sleep. I rolled out of bed and made my way to the shower, wondering what I should do today. Obviously, I should meet up with the twins and Neo at some point, maybe check in on the gang. There was one thing that was nagging me, though. Seeing it there in my skills menu had reminded me that I was ignoring my second highest level skill and had been since I'd first imported it—partly, I supposed, out of a desire to distance myself from my old life. Still, it was going to waste… I made a mental note to dig through my map and find a book store later. It was time to go hunting for skill books again—though, in this case, I had a good idea of what I was looking for.
I found a surprise waiting for me when I finally made it into the living room. Sitting on my couch, I found a pair of boxes—one a rectangle two feet long, by a foot wide, by six inches deep. The second was a cube-shaped box a foot to a side. Atop the cube, I found an folded piece of paper. Unfolding it, I shook my head as I read.
'I went ahead and had these delivered. You owe me one—three, actually, though the third one isn't quite finished yet. With love, Joan.'
"Damnit, woman," I grumbled halfheartedly, a bit annoyed but not really surprised that she had gone ahead and picked up the tab for my weapons. I would just have to pay her back when she returned. I dropped the note on a side table and opened the first box. Inside, I found two things—the first was a manual, though it was more of a simple printout stapled together than an actual book, which told me that whoever made the gear also had to make custom instructions for each piece. The second thing I found in the box looked a bit like a targe—a small, round, convex shield. The shield itself was white with a familiar yellow-gold double crescent in its center, glowing faintly. Flipping it over, I found it was a bit more complicated than that, both in physical hardware and the control interface. On the underside of the shield was a flat, circular slab of tech that I couldn't identify, along with a handle jutting from that to where it would sit hidden away under the shield with no apparent way for me to reach it.
Deciding not to risk playing with it and potentially breaking something, I put the shield down on the coffee table and opened the longer box. Inside, I found a second manual and under that, a rectangular slab of steel with a visible handle folded up in it, along with multiple seams, with what looked like a strap or holster to affix it to a belt. I thought I could identify a few parts under it, such as the blade and what looked like a magazine, but as with the shield I didn't want to risk breaking anything. The weapon itself was silver and black, with red highlights that held the soft glow of inactive Dust.
Putting the sword down beside the shield, I sat down and opened the first manual. I had some time to kill before I figured the girls would be up or any shops opened, so I wasn't in any particular rush. As soon as I opened the manual and began reading, I got a notification.
You have discovered a manual for a unique piece of equipment! Would you like to import this manual now?
Shrugging, I hit 'accept' and watched the manual explode into light particles. I immediately followed it by eating the second manual. Oddly enough, I had not gained any new knowledge. Frowning, I opened up my menu and looked around before finding a new tab: Journal. Normally, a game had either a quest log or a 'journal' performing the same function. Having both was a bit odd, however, so I got the impression it had a different purpose than tracking quests. Opening it, I found a tab labeled as 'Manuals,' along with several others I would be looking over later, such as 'Romance' and 'Reputation.' Opening that, I found two new entries: Blazefire Saber and Crescent Shield.
'So, I can eat manuals, but they aren't all absorbed like skill books. I suppose having a reference manual in my Semblance could come in handy, but it's kind of underwhelming. Eh, they can't all be winners,' I shrugged, opening the manual for the shield and beginning to read. The tool itself was surprisingly easy to operate, considering the number of features crammed into it with space folding tech. The shield would strap onto my forearm, attaching to whatever arm guard I was currently wearing. It was shaped in such a way that I could have it equipped over the top of the line launcher and still operate both—the only real problem came in having to switch between them when I wanted to control one after the other in quick succession. I made a mental note to ask Joan where she had it commissioned—maybe they could see about integrating the line launcher into the shield's design. Until then, I'd just have to figure something out.
The handle with the appropriate buttons and triggers to control the shield's features was recessed beneath the shield itself, but would extend to where I could grab it under a few conditions: shaking it with a certain amount of force, something striking the shield itself, or tapping a button on the underside of the shield with my free hand would all cause the control handle to deploy and, in the instance of striking the shield, for the shield to unfold. The shield itself was currently in a compact form, about a third of the size of the full shield—which I estimated to be roughly around the same size as Pyrrha's shield, once it was fully deployed. It wasn't a kite shield like Jaune's Crocea Mors, but I actually preferred the rounded shield anyway.
In addition to folding down to a more compact form, the maker had incorporated a shotgun into the shield—fed from a magazine that loaded into the round, flat part on the bottom to sit flush inside the mechanism, the top of which I discovered could be unscrewed in order to reveal some of the shield/shotgun's inner workings. I wouldn't need to unscrew the cap to reload, thankfully—it was apparently an access port for performing maintenance and un-jamming stuck shells in the event the weapon failed to feed or eject. Right now, the magazine was empty but it would hold a total of ten 12ga. shotgun rounds. However, there was space under there and the magazine port was universal—meaning I could replace the ten round box magazine with a larger capacity magazine. The mag itself had to have some sort of space folding tech build in as well, seeing as it was about a quarter of the size that it should be, which told me that space folding magazines were both a thing and something common enough that I could get my hands on a few.
The armorer who had made it had even included several suggestions for alternative uses for the shotgun function, aside from the traditional usage of one for removing grimm. For instance, depending on the Dust load, it could be used to launch enemies off of the shield, or as a launch pad for teammates, or to decelerate or accelerate the user in ways that the hidden skill the Kung Pow book had given me provided all sorts of ideas for. To top it all off, the shield section was detachable from the base and the outer edges were sharpened razor fine—in other words, it pretty much screamed 'throw me!' Well, that, and it just begged to be combined with the force provided by one of those shotgun blasts to turn the whole thing into an improvised ax.
Opening my Inventory, I dug through my selection of ammunition of various caliber until I found the section for shotgun rounds, 12 gauge. There were a few different types of Dust rounds available, but the most common in my stock was Burning Crimson—a red Dust about evenly split between explosive force and fire elemental damage. In other words, rounds meant to knock something back and set it on fire. 'I need some way to make my own rounds. Fuck it, pick up a book on mixing Dust rounds and reloading equipment while we're out later. If I'm going to carry around a shit-ton of Dust, I may as well put it to use.'
That decided, I opened my character tab and equipped my shield in the appropriate slot. It disappeared for a second before reappearing on my arm. I gave it a few tests, deploying and retracting the handle before extending and collapsing the shield. Satisfied, I moved on to reading the second manual. The sword turned out to be pretty straightforward—hold this or that recessed button and move it this way to activate its assisted opening and action it open or closed, or between sword and gun mode. In gun mode, press this button to extend or retract the barrel between lengths. Threaded barrel to equip a suppressor, rails on the left and right sides, top, and under the barrel for attachments. It really was exactly as simple as I'd hoped it would be when I told Joan what I wanted.
Pushing it into the correct slot on my character tab, I felt it reappear strapped to my belt hanging over my ass. Reaching back, I grabbed the handle and pulled, in the same motion holding down the button to switch modes and flicking my wrist as it cleared what passed as a sheath. The weapon snapped twice, unfolding into a into a single-edged sword with a total length from handle to tip of about three feet—somewhere between a short longsword and a long short sword. Down the length of the blade and along the handle, the red highlights brightened and I felt the sword draw on my mana for a moment.
Your Blazefire Saber is now Soulbound. If lost or removed, the sword will return to your Inventory within a 24 hour period. You may spend mana to summon the sword to you sooner with a voice command. Would you like to set the command now?
A smirk tugged at my lips as I hit the accept button and was asked to enter a phrase to recall my weapon. "Summon Saber." Extending my shield caused it to also sip at my mana before a similar window popped up, and I set the voice command as simply, "Summon Shield."
Now, the question was, could I get the saber to work with Iaido? I didn't necessarily need to, but I'd like to have the option. Well, all else fails, I could always equip both swords and use the katana for silent quick-draw techniques if needed. Of course, that was also sort of Shiro's bread and butter weapon skill, so if it came down to it I'd need to make sure no one saw me doing it as Jaune. No one who wasn't already in on the secret, at any rate. The sword I used as Shiro wasn't exactly as distinctive as the Blazefire Saber, but there was no sense in taking needless risks. Besides, as far as Hunter weapons went, Shiro's sword actually was fairly distinctive simply for its simplicity and the fact that it wasn't eye catching. It would stand out paradoxically because it did not stand out, or rather was not meant to stand out.
Checking the time, I pulled out my scroll and composed a text message before sending it out as a group message to the twins and Neo, letting them know I would be out for a few hours to see about picking some things up. For a change, I wouldn't be going out dressed as Shiro in what felt like about a week. I think there had been only two days since I'd been in Remnant that I hadn't worn one disguise or another. Ah, well, I don't suppose it mattered much to me either way. Technically, everything was a disguise here, after all.
"Welcome to Tukson's Book Trade, where we have every book under the sun. Let me know if I can help you find anything," the large man, Tukson himself, announced from his place at his front counter before burying his nose in a book.
This was not the first shop I had come to, nor was it the second. I had hit up two book stores previously and come away with many books over a couple of subjects, and in doing so had come across a new class of book that my Semblance could absorb. If skill books granted skills, schematics or patterns granted new things to craft, and manuals simply added information for handling and care of a specific piece of equipment that I would need to go over later, then what I had found classed somewhere between the three. The books I had found did not create new skills, but they did add knowledge and ability to an existing skill—not simply the ability to craft a single pattern or schematic, however, but something a bit more general.
I had spent the morning gathering books on computers. Everything related to technology on Remnant that my Semblance recognized as something I could devour, I purchased and did so. Information on hardware, software, coding, networking, and more were eaten and assimilated. At level 65, there wasn't much my vaguely-named 'Use Computers' skill couldn't understand and put to use—as in, I had yet to run across a book on the subject that I failed to meet the requirements for. From things as simple as basic spreadsheets to as complex as Remnant's various coding languages, nothing seemed too complex for it to absorb. That was good, because I had something specific in mind for that skill.
Simply put, Remnant's most popular operating system sucked. Well, I suppose I shouldn't be quite so critical. It was a decent OS, as far as usability went. It was better than Windows, at any rate. The problem was, the thing was everywhere—running on damn near every device more complicated than an abacus—and someone had figured out an exploit that worked across all of those platforms. I had seen the tool in use once before and even had a copy in my Inventory, and I aimed to find out what made it tick. More than that though, I wanted my own equipment to be immune to this particular exploit or anything else the originally named Remnant OS was vulnerable to while still being able to communicate with other machines in Remnant. Once the idea had come up, I hadn't been able to leave it alone—which is why I was scouring every bookstore in Vale for anything that would help me to do what I needed: writing a custom OS and the tools to penetrate the networks of Remnant.
Knowing that I could do it, curiosity wouldn't let me not at least have a peek around and see what was out there. Aside from that, I had a second goal, which could only really be pulled off by having the tools to get into government servers anyway. Somewhere out there, someone had built an android with a genuine artificial intelligence, and I aimed to get my hands on it—and the code that made her tick, if at all possible. With that, I could make my own AI, and I had a few ideas in mind for what to do with one… Besides, I couldn't just leave Penny to go to waste with someone like Ironwood, of all people. Great guy, supposedly, but no sense of humor or concept of 'fun.' The fledgling AI would be psychologically stunted at best with him. ...The fact that she was a powerhouse and a walking engine of mass destruction who could be very useful to my plans had nothing to do with it. Really. I was being completely altruistic here.
'I am so full of shit, my eyes are turning brown,' I mused, taking up another book and adding it to my growing list of things. In addition to books on anything related to computers, I was digging around for things related to crafting—specifically, weapon and equipment modification, mixing Dust, and production of ammunition. I already knew how to reload normal ammo—I'd had a reloading kit, back on Earth—but Dust kind of threw everything off. From what I had eaten so far, Dust rounds weren't too terribly difficult to produce. Crystalline Dust actually had a safe melting point, where the heat wouldn't be enough to cause it to combust… or explode. Dust in its powdered form was far more volatile, however—which was why it was used as propellant. You couldn't safely melt down powdered Dust and cast it into Dust rounds without it either catching fire or discharging its elemental potential. That was fine, however, since I had an entire store's worth of stock of both powdered and crystalline Dust in my Inventory.
There was a problem with taking on both of these projects at the same time that I hadn't quite gotten around to working out. Specifically, both were time-consuming tasks that required one's full attention. Unlike the rest of my training, I couldn't work on coding or crafting ammunition, or tinker with my gear, and also train my combat skills—or grind levels. Oh, sure, I could leave some skills running full time as I had been, but I wouldn't be getting much else done at the same time. And I couldn't both code and craft Dust rounds at the same time, either. 'I'm going to have to delegate. Well… depending. Let's see what sort of equipment they have for crafting ammunition first, before we make a decision.'
That was my next stop, once I'd finished gathering books and taken a moment to eat them once outside and out of view. Finding a shop that sold weapon accessories and tools wasn't difficult—there was an entire market that ran off Hunting to drive its profits, after all. While I was there, I went ahead and decided to check out my options for things to throw onto my new saber/rifle. There were hundreds of options for scopes, but I eventually settled on optics that used some advanced tech to switch between red dot, ACOG, and an actual scope to cover short, middle, and long range targets. In addition, I made sure to pick up some space-expanded magazines for both my saber and shield, along with a common sense item that I really should have thought of before—a small LED flashlight/strobe to stick on my rails. Yeah, I had the nifty glasses with night vision, but no one else I worked with or would work with did, to my knowledge—and there is something to be said for being able to temporarily blind whatever you intend to shoot so that it can't see to fight back. Rounding out things to modify my weapons with for the moment was a suppressor to attach to the saber's threaded barrel.
Reloading gear turned out to range from cheap and simple to complicated and expensive. There were sets similar to what I knew back on Earth, which were no more complicated than melting down material yourself and pouring it into a mold for the type of round you wanted, then manually measuring out and adding powdered Dust as propellant and combining the bullet, propellant, primer, and casing into a finished product. On the other hand, there were complicated and expensive pieces of equipment that contained everything you needed to turn out a large number of rounds quickly, so long as you provided the proper forms of Dust and empty brass or shell casings depending on the kind of ammunition you were making—with places to socket in standardized tubes of Dust propellant and slots to feed in crystallized Dust to be melted down into bullets or shot. I considered it for a moment as I thought it over. Would something that automated the entire process run off my crafting skill, and thus get subsequent bonuses, or would it just turn out generic rounds? Well, there was only really one way to test that theory.
I bought one of the simpler kits that would allow me to get fairly hands on with the entire process and left, packing everything into the car and driving a few blocks away before parking. Throwing on Invisibility, I went back and slipped inside, finding the more expensive piece of equipment and throwing an ID around it and myself before throwing the one in the ID into my Inventory. I wasn't adverse to spending money if I had it—despite everything, I still had morals enough to feel bad about actual theft. Practicality, however, allowed me to justify simply duplicating Dust—or, in this instance, a piece of hardware that would allow me to mass produce Dust rounds.
Item duplication taken care of, I made my way to my next and final stop for the morning. Finding a shop that sold the computer hardware I was looking for was a bit more difficult than finding somewhere to buy Hunter-related items—after all, not every Hunter had need of a server rack and various other pieces of kit. I managed to find a place selling what I would need, eventually. Instead of simply buying or duplicating the items, however, a thought occurred. I had remembered we had minions now. We had an entire other gang under our control—pretty much the perfect patsies, if things went south. I didn't want to leave any sort of information trail leading back to the purchase of the kind of hardware I was after in the event I screwed up somewhere—at least, not to me. There were ways to avoid being discovered online, but good old-fashioned legwork could always turn up something unexpected—in this case, surveillance video of someone purchasing a large amount of hardware prior to any sort of hacking attempt. Even after my encounter with what passed as Vale's homicide division of the local precinct, I would still rather rule on the side of preparing for competence on the part of the police than hoping for incompetence. So, instead of buying the kit myself I used my scroll to take notes and pictures, comparing parts to see what would and would not work.
Once I had a good idea of what I would need, I compiled a list of the specific parts and drove over to the Red Hand's compound for a meeting with their boss as Shiro. Once I was within range, I felt the spells I'd put in place over both Akamaru and Howling Palm click back into place in my awareness, pretty much confirming that those effects were now permanent. Now that I was in range, I could issue orders—which brought up an inconvenience I could deal with now and not have to worry about later. Specifically, the range of those spells was fairly short—a block at most for a target I'd already cast the spells on, as opposed to my much shorter range to actually cast the spells in the first place—and I needed a way to communicate with them and receive feedback that didn't involve coming out here in person every time I needed to use them for something. That was easily handled by getting their scroll numbers, though, and once I had them I sent my list and instructions to Akamaru—parts to order, a secure room to put them in, and to have them assembled and waiting within the week and to contact me when it was finished.
That just left the matter of where to put the rest of my new equipment. The apartment wouldn't do, for a number of reasons—lack of space as it had only two bedrooms and the potential for a Dust-related accident destroying something important chief among them. Thinking it over, I decided the best place to put the reloading gear was our own gang's hideout, that way we could have someone sitting around feeding materials into the automated reloader pretty much full time—and even if it turned out that the ammunition it produced was of poorer quality than what I produced by hand, quantity has a quality all its own. Besides, you don't waste high quality ammunition on target practice—that's what range rounds are for.
The computer I would be using to research my options and do the bulk of my coding work could be set up in an out of the way corner of the apartment, so that I wouldn't have to head to the hideout just to work on that project. There was a downside to that, however—namely, with the girls around to distract me, I may not get much work done… 'I could always just not sleep and work on it while they're working at The Club. I haven't really seen any negative effects from sleep deprivation yet, so maybe my body doesn't technically require it—Gamer's Body at work? It's worth testing. And it's not like I haven't pulled all-nighters before.'
Tests with the automated reloader verses the manual reloading equipment, once I'd gotten them set up at the gang's hideout, turned out to be about what I expected. Observe confirmed that the rounds I created by hand were of slightly higher quality and damage than those produced by the auto-reloader using the exact same materials—and that quality improved when I spent enough time making enough rounds to level my crafting and Dust-related skills, so I would want to sink some serious time into it at some point. 'All else fails, I can spend an hour or so a day turning out rounds. The gains will add up over time. ...And if I'm going to be doing that, then there's no point in not simply leaving the reloading equipment in Inventory and using the kitchen table for an hour or so a day. It'll mean I won't have to come back here every time I want to craft rounds, and the likelihood of accidents happening while I'm working is slim enough not to worry about since I was mostly worried about leaving it sitting out unattended…'
I unloaded a bit of the Dust I'd stolen/duplicated from my Inventory and put it next to the auto-reloader, then took a minute to flag down one of the gang members and show him how to operate the machine and asked that they babysit the machine for a few hours a day to turn out ammunition for us. I hadn't eaten the manual for it, so I could leave it with them for reference if they had problems. I left instructions to buy containers to store the ammunition in and to replace materials used as needed before heading back to the apartment. I had research to do and the sooner I got it over with, the sooner I could get to work.
An annoying beeping from my scroll drew an irritated noise from my lips as I looked away from my work, pulling out the device and opening it to find an alarm I'd set going off. 'Oh, right. Shit. I almost forgot, I'd promised the girls dates.'
Sighing, I saved my work and locked the computer screen before heading for the shower. The girls had been out all day, and now I had an idea of why—odds were good they had been doing 'girl things' in preparation for Melanie's date and hanging out. I suppose I should be glad that the twins and Neo got along as well as they did—I was not really up to dealing with petty jealousy and in-fighting. So far, things worked for us, and hopefully it would stay that way once I left for Beacon. Well, there was no real way to know for sure until then.
Once I'd finished my shower, I equipped one of my nice sets of clothes and sent a text to Melanie, asking where she'd like to meet up. The answer turned out to be a couple of floors down, at the apartment the twins shared with their mother—where the girls had apparently decided to stay over the weekend. I checked the time on my HUD before taking the elevator down to their floor and finding their door. The door in question swung open almost as soon as I knocked and, seeing the person on the other side of the door, I could have mistaken her for the twins' older sister had Observe not put lie to that.
Melody Malachite was nearly a full head shorter than me, with the same long, dark hair, green eyes, and slender build as her daughters. Her face was a bit sharper, but it was clear where the twins had gotten their looks. If they took after their mother later in life, they would never be what one would call 'full figured,' but that didn't really bother me—they were fine the way they were, and the woman herself was an attractive specimen of adult womanhood. She wore a jade green blouse and a short, black skirt that left much of her well-toned legs exposed and took a little effort on my part not to at least take a good look. Then again, that was what peripheral vision was for.
"So," she drawled, looking me up and down in a way which left me feeling strangely exposed. "You're the one who has caught my daughters' attention. I can see why."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Malachite. I'm Jaune," I smiled, calling up charisma by reflex.
The woman stepped back, gesturing me inside. "Won't you come in, Jaune? The girls are in their room finishing up, so you can wait here. And please, call me Melody. 'Mrs. Malachite' makes me feel old."
"To be fair," I grinned, taking a seat on the couch she'd pointed me towards, "I'd initially wondered if I hadn't misheard the twins telling me they didn't have any other siblings."
"Oh my," Melody hummed, one hand coming up to hide a smile. "Are you flirting with me?"
I shook my head, chuckling quietly. "No, ma'am. Just stating the truth."
A small smile stole across her lips—one I recognized by now, having seen the twins wearing it often enough. She was plotting something. "Would you like something to drink?" I shook my head and she sat down on the couch opposite mine, crossing her legs and exposing much of her thighs. Instead of allowing my gaze to be drawn to the marvelously pale and smooth flesh on display, I locked eyes with her. I had played this game before—or had it played on me, rather—more than once, so I knew better than to allow myself to be distracted. No, if anything, the only way to 'win' that particular game was to meet the woman's gaze and force her to look away—another one of those subtle psychological tricks of overt body language that not everyone really does or recognizes on a conscious level. Most people couldn't stand maintaining eye contact for a prolonged period, women especially, as it tended to be unnerving depending on context and other body language. In point of fact, Cinder was the only one I'd met in Remnant who would. "Well, then. Pleasantries out of the way, I'll be blunt. What are your intentions towards my daughters?"
"To put it simply: wait and see," I answered, sitting back and crossing my arms as I Observed the woman before me, digging into the details of her bio. Former Hunter, husband deceased, intensely loyal to her daughters and remaining friends—my Semblance couldn't make up its mind on that detail, as the word oscillated slowly between half a dozen or more choices including 'friends,' 'sisters,' 'wives,' 'mates,' and so forth. I would have said 'sister-wives,' but that sounded distinctly… Mormon, and a bit creepy. Still, it seemed I'd met my first example of that system in the older generation, so whatever information I could glean from her would be useful—perhaps in providing some idea of how this thing was supposed to work, or in the sort of mentality of those involved. "Realistically? I intend to be their friend and see where things go from there."
Melody shot me an amused look. "A bit more than just 'friends,' aren't you?"
"Perhaps," I allowed. "I'd like to think so."
"I see," she hummed. She uncrossed her legs, shifting them to re-cross on the other side, and a flash of skin drew my attention to the fact that she wasn't wearing panties.
I blinked as a memory of something old came to mind—a movie I had seen years ago with one particularly memorable scene. I resisted the urge to laugh, forcing my face into a flat, patiently amused expression. 'Did she just try that Basic Instinct bullshit on me? As if a flash of her cooch would throw me off.' Something changed in her details under Observe, and it took a second to find it—her mood. Specifically, it had shifted from 'suspicious' and 'protective' to 'cautiously intrigued.' I thought that over for a second before I realized why that was—namely, because her ploy hadn't worked. I had reacted as the man I was—not the teenager that I appeared to be. 'Fuck.'
Before I could say anything, or she could continue her interrogation, a door opened further into the apartment and three sets of footsteps approached. Standing, I turned to greet the girls, catching sight of Melanie. She wore a simple, white dress that clung to her form like gossamer, Her hair was pulled up into what I supposed was a partial French braid or something similar, braided at the back of her head and trailing over her shoulder, where it spilled loose near the bottom third. "Well, don't just stand there. How do I look?" she asked, a smirk tugging at her lips, while her sister and Neo stood to either side of her and grinned, apparently finding my temporary stunned silence amusing.
She looked like a miniature version of her mother, to be honest—which was not at all a bad thing. A little makeup, some different clothes, and a different hairstyle gave the illusion of being a bit older than she was—or at least a bit more mature. "You look great," I finally answered. "I feel under dressed."
"You're fine," the girl denied. "Are we ready?"
I nodded and Miltia took a moment to cross the space between us, planting a quick kiss on my lips before leaning in to whisper in my ear. "Go have fun. We'll be here tonight, so you'll have your apartment to yourselves." She paused, before I felt her smirk where her lips brushed my ear. "Oh, and she's not wearing panties, so feel free to take full advantage."
"Oh really?" I murmured, getting a nod from the girl as she pulled away, to be replaced by Neo slipping into my arms and standing on her tip-toes to give me her own kiss.
"Are you two done?" Melanie asked, looking amused as opposed to jealous or irritated. "Would you like more time?"
Neo nodded, turning around in my arms to lean against my chest and shoot the better dressed twin a grin. "Yes, please."
Melanie rolled her eyes, stalking forward and taking my hand to pull me towards the door, incidentally dislodging Neo. "Well, too bad. You've got your own date night coming up, this one is mine."
"Yeah, yeah," the ice cream themed girl sighed, dropping into a seat on the couch. "Have fun, you two."
"Melanie, don't do anything I wouldn't do," Miltia teased, dropping into a seat beside Neo.
"And what exactly is that, daughter?" Melody asked archly, shooting the unoccupied twin a look that seemed to demand answers.
I didn't catch the rest as Melanie successfully extricated us from the apartment, sighing as the door closed behind us. "Sorry about our mom. She's a little… overprotective, at times and likes to play head games. We're pretty sure she threatened to make a coin purse out of Junior's scrotum if he laid his hands on us."
"Melanie," I deadpanned, turning an unamused expression on the twin. "Please refrain from talking about Hei's junk. Or about turning a man's bits into a coin purse."
The girl blinked, then chuckled sheepishly. "Oops. Sorry, Jaune."
For dinner, I decided a repeat visit to the Italian place I'd taken Jun wouldn't hurt. It was quiet and cozy, and Melanie loved it. We talked and I dragged out a few more details about her family and home life from her, testing the boundaries of how far she was willing to let me go at the moment while she did the same. Of course, half the things she asked me I couldn't answer for 'amnesia,' which had to be frustrating for her—but she handled it better than I'd expected, honestly. After all, I had yet to meet the Arc parents, and if I started accidentally giving out what few details of my own parents I could remember I was bound to cause problems later.
Melody, as it turned out, was in a 'group' with three other Huntresses and had been since their graduation. The twins saw the other women and their children occasionally, but for the most part they had all agreed to keep their lives mostly separate in spite of their shared husband. I could see the logic in that—it would prevent some issues and allow each family to raise their kids as they saw fit, and trying to squeeze four women and their children into the same home was a bad idea. Two, maybe three at most depending on the women in question—conflicting personalities obviously couldn't be kept under the same roof. And then, of course, came the issue of time and attention. It was something I hadn't quite figured out yet, for a group larger than what I had now. Joan mostly did her own thing while occasionally wanting a day or two to herself—though I could tell she wanted far, far more—and the twins and Neo were all comfortable sharing time for the most part, though the whole 'date night' thing was telling me they all would like individual attention occasionally. Cinder… wasn't worth worrying about as a repeat occurrence, yet—mostly because she was out of town and stirring up trouble elsewhere.
Suppose I eliminated the outliers and focused on those four exclusively—the twins, Neo, and Joan—then that was four nights a week or so where I would be expected to make time. Every other week, if I could convince them to go along with it for the individual date nights. It was still a lot of time. Many more girls and I would run out of nights in the week for each—and the twins has suggested nine women. Unfortunately, I couldn't be in two places… 'Oh for fuck—'
I made a mental note to look into creating a clone technique. I knew for a fact that clone-based semblances were a thing in Remnant, Blake and the blond monkey kid being prime examples. The problem was, those weren't particularly useful. They were like shadow clones of Naruto fame—1 HP soap bubbles, waiting for someone to pop them. Sure, they could potentially be useful for taking the girls out, but the least little thing could disperse them, so you could forget about trying to use one for sex—or at least for anything involving a female that didn't simply starfish. All of the girls tended to use teeth and claws on occasion, and that would certainly destroy a clone—not to mention the sheer physical force involved in sex with someone like Joan when she really got into it. I had taken damage more than once. No, if I was going to create a clone spell, it would have to be solid and have a good HP pool backing it.
It was something to experiment with later, at any rate. And even with a working clone technique, it wouldn't be a magic bullet to solve all the potential complications that were sure to come up later on down the line. 'Well, at least it'll give me some leeway, assuming I can figure it out.'
I found a dance hall downtown, on the river front. Unlike Junior's, it was a place where people actually danced as opposed to flailing wildly and grinding against each other. I kept Melanie out on the dance floor for a few hours and, as her sister had suggested, surreptitiously took advantage of the fact that she wasn't wearing panties when I could get away with it—leaving her a sopping, needy mess of girl flesh by the time she finally had enough and decided to demand I take her back to my apartment.
I allowed Melanie to pull me outside and into the alley between the buildings, towards the parking lot behind the building where we'd parked. She was in the process of shoving me against the wall of the alley and demanding a make-out session right there when my Perception and Sense Danger skills tripped and I caught a flash of motion from the corner of my eye. Grabbing her about the waist, I Leapt, sticking to the wall several feet up as a black and gray blur, almost invisible in the dark alley darted under us and right past where we'd been standing. It paused at the mouth of the alley, turning its head up to regard us momentarily and standing in profile against the stark sodium illumination provided by a street light nearby. It was a familiar profile, but now I was able to get a better look at it, confirming my suspicion that it was based on some sort of great cat. In the dark, its eyes glowed faintly with an inner illumination as its head turned up and its gaze locked with mine.
"What the fuck is that?" Melanie whispered as it turned and disappeared, heading towards the river. I didn't really hear her, as the sight of its eyes glowing in the dark burned itself into my mind…
I only had a moment to decide what to do. Pulling up mana, I jumped the rest of the way up to the roof and set Melanie down. "Stay here."
"What? Jaune, wait!" she began, but I'd already taken off towards the river, equipping my stealth armor set and glasses along the way. My vision washed green and I began casting about with my other, skill-based senses—Detect Aura, in particular. I spent several minutes looking before finally giving up the ghost—it had disappeared again. With an annoyed sigh, I backtracked to the mouth of the alley and then through it. Beginning around the middle of the alley, my glasses began highlighting rapidly darkening footsteps—paw prints, really—in blood heading out of the alley and across the street. The fact that they got darker as I backtracked along their path meant that whatever or whoever it had killed was close.
A blur of motion in my peripheral vision had my hand on my sword and the weapon half-drawn before I realized it was simply Melanie, dropping down beside me. "What was that? A grimm?"
"Maybe," I shrugged. 'Absolutely not. Grimm have certain, universal traits this thing didn't have.'
Melanie hummed, leaning down to get a look at the paw prints. "So, it came from over there somewhere? I take it you didn't find where it went."
I shook my head, following the trail. "No, it's long gone."
The prints lead to a building—a small bar, the door standing open and only the sound of a radio coming from inside. There was already enough evidence of my magic associated with my Shiro persona at this point, I figured it might be better to just go ahead and start using an actual ranged weapon instead of relying on the same skills I used as Jaune. Opening my inventory, I dug out one of the pistols I'd confiscated from Roman's stash and a holster for it, equipping it in the proper slot on my right hip and drawing the weapon before I shot Melanie a look beside me. "I suppose it's pointless to ask you to wait here?"
"Naturally," the girl grinned, and I rolled my eyes—she seemed just as enthusiastic over this as she had at the prospect of dancing. Opening my inventory again, I dug out another pistol and handed it over.
"Okay then. Do me a favor and watch our backs in case it decides to come back," I grinned, before slipping inside.
Stepping into the bar was like walking into a slaughterhouse. The air hung hot and heavy with the stink of blood, piss, and shit over old alcohol and tobacco. I had hunted for sport a lifetime ago, before I wound up in Remnant, and the closest thing I could compare the smell to was that of a gut-shot deer. Suddenly, I was thankful for my mask at least partially helping with the smell and made a mental note to buy a real filter at some point. Melanie, behind me, was not quit so fortunate. "Oh god, what is that smell?"
Rounding a blind corner that lead into the bar proper past a small coat room, the main room came into full view and I had my answer. Snapping out my left hand, I stopped Melanie before she could round the corner. "Have you ever seen a dead body before?"
"Yes," she answered hesitantly.
Nodding slowly, I asked, "And what about one that's been dismembered or disemboweled?"
The twin shook her head, looking green around the gills. "No."
"Go wait at the door. You don't need to see this," I ordered softly, unable to tear my eyes off the scene and wishing I hadn't seen it.
I felt her stiffen against my arm. "Jaune," she began to argue and I turned back to shoot her a glare.
"Would you rather see something I might not be able to make you forget? Please, don't be stubborn on this. Just trust me."
She sighed quietly, giving a nod and turning to lean against the wall and watch the door. "Fine. I'll start shooting if it comes back."
"Thank you," I murmured, turning back to the scene and wondering where to start. Taking out my scroll, I decided the best bet was to probably start by calling someone who would know.
It was only two rings before the scroll connected. "Jaune?" Jane asked, and I glanced at my HUD clock to find it was after midnight, which would explain why she sounded like I'd woken her. "Is something wrong?"
"Sorry about calling so late. Look, uh… I need your help. Remember that guy, the one who was killed in front of the apartment?"
I heard some rustling and she sounded wide awake when she asked, "There's been another killing?"
"You could say that," I agreed. "More like several. It nearly ran over us in an alley leaving this place. There are at least eight people dead here, maybe more. It's hard to tell. What the hell am I supposed to do here?"
She groaned quietly. "Call the cops, preferably from a public phone or something. There isn't much they're going to do about it though. Don't be there when they show up."
I waited for more and when nothing was forthcoming, I asked, "Is that it? What about tracking this thing down?"
"It's not our responsibility, Jaune," she denied. "Leave it to the Hunters. Just call the cops and leave. At this point, they're going to start getting suspicious if you or I keep turning up where this thing has killed. Cops don't like coincidences like that. Do it now, Jaune."
I sighed before nodding, though she couldn't see it. "Fine. Thanks. I'll talk to you later."
Closing the scroll, I shook my head. I couldn't just leave it any more—all of this was my fault. I'd let whatever this particular grudge was into the world by mistake, it was my responsibility to deal with. As soon as I'd decided that, my Semblance popped up a new quest: Investigate the Grudge, and offered a few helpful suggestions. Switching my scroll to camera mode, I began photographing, careful to avoid stepping in any of the blood or parts—which turned out to be pretty easy when I could just stick to the walls, ceiling, or alter my weight and stand on tables, chairs, or bar stools without tipping them over. I got pictures of all the victims' faces on the bar floor before moving to the bar itself to look for a phone. A small sound caught my ear and my hand went to the pistol at my side before I found the source of the noise—a man and a woman, tucked behind the bar, hiding.
"It's gone, you can come out," I told them, then asked, "What happened here?"
The pair stood, looked over the scene before them, and the woman promptly fainted while the man grabbed a nearby trashcan and emptied his stomach. I gave him a few moments before prodding his shoulder. He coughed and spat, straightening up and focusing on the floor to keep from looking at the scene around him. "Someone just started screaming and when I looked up, there was a grimm there tearing into one of the men. The others all drew their weapons and started shooting, but it was across the room and attacking someone else before they could get a bead on it. Any time they even got close, it moved—passing through tables, chairs, people… they just couldn't hit it. I grabbed my wife and thought for sure it would take us next, but I guess it left us alone."
"Who were these guys?"
He shrugged. "Not regulars. They came in and made the rest of my regulars clear out."
"Shit," I grunted. There went just being given the names of anyone there. I had a couple of options from here—I could take their photos to Hei and see if could find anything, or I could pull their wallets and check IDs, or I could get the information from the cops somehow. I was wanting to avoid raising unnecessary questions, so taking their wallets out was ruled out, because there was no way I could step into that mess and come out without disturbing it. Likewise, as Jane had said, I couldn't be here when the cops showed up. Turning to the bartender, I slapped him with Confuse, followed by Forget and Dominate as I threw on Invisibility. Absently, I threw a Forget at the woman on the floor. "Call the police, tell them what's happened."
I moved across the room to Melanie as he picked up a land-line phone and dialed. "Time to go, dear," I announced, taking hold of her and pulling her towards the door. "Cops will be here shortly."
"Was there someone alive back there? I thought I heard voices," she asked, and I nodded as I cast Invisibility on her as well, before we stepped outside.
I dismissed the car and took hold of the twin before getting us airborne with my line launcher, making my way towards the apartment. "Bartender and his wife were left alive. No idea why."
"Grimm don't do that," Melanie pointed out, and I hummed in agreement.
"Sorry our date got ruined," I apologized, and she laughed.
Tucking in closer to me and getting comfortable, she shook her head. "It's fine. It's just bad luck, really."
I blinked, looking down at the girl in my arms for a moment as I turned those words over. Was it really just bad luck, or was it a bad Luck score? Half the shit I'd done since getting into Remnant was my own fault, seeking out trouble. The other half… could theoretically be attributed to bad luck or coincidence. The problem was, luck as a score in games tended to only affect drop rates and rarity, and sometimes mob spawn rates. On the off chance it didn't, and that it could somehow affect the world around me, I had been unwilling to tamper with it—screw with fate and eventually fate screws back, as the saying goes. And if my luck score was low and bad things were happening around me because of that, that would imply my Semblance was screwing with reality wholesale to manipulate probability and events outside of my favor.
Because that's all luck really was—probability. Which made no goddamn sense, at all. Something like that would take some serious power backing it up, and if my Semblance had that sort of power, why didn't it just bump me up to max level, whatever that was? No, that couldn't be how it worked—there was simply too much evidence to the contrary. The more likely option was simple coincidence, and that Luck as a score only changed things positively when you added points to it. That is, with a Luck score of 10, I should be about as lucky or unlucky as Joe Average on the street, and adding points would only make me more lucky. The other option meant my Semblance would have to go to a whole lot of work to turn things outside of my favor, and what would be the point in that?
Landing on top of the apartment complex, I lead Melanie inside and headed for my kitchen, where I knew Neo had stashed a bottle of the local equivalent of Crown in my freezer. "Would you make me one?" Melanie asked, closing the door behind us and I nodded, getting down a pair of glasses and filling them partway, adding ice and cola to Melanie's. Passing her the glass, I dropped down into my preferred chair, opening my inventory and changing into street clothes. The twin slid into my lap a moment later, sipping at her glass. "That bad?"
"Mm," I agreed quietly, pulling her tighter against me as I turned over my options and tried to decide what to do next.
"I… don't suppose you're still in the mood?" she suggested, shooting me a glance over her shoulder.
I barked a quiet laugh, shaking my head. "Not particularly. I could be convinced, though."
"Well then, let me take your mind off of it," she breathed quietly, sitting her drink aside and shifting around so she could plant a kiss on my neck, which moved to my ear, and then my lips.
I smirked against her lips, pulling back enough to drain my glass and put it away. "Well, if you insist…"
"I do."
Getting into and out of the police station under Invisibility had been ridiculously easy. Finding the detectives assigned to the case was slightly more difficult, but nothing a few uses of Confuse, Charm, and Dominate couldn't fix. Now that I had copies of the files, I could peruse them at my leisure. However, I had other plans in mind, upon skimming the files and finding some common connections—specifically, all of them were either confirmed or suspected members of a now defunct gang: the Jackals. It sounded more like a sports team to me, but then I didn't even know the name of the gang I now theoretically operated. Of particular interest, the Faunus killed near my apartment was also part of this gang—in other words, the gang I now knew Joan, Hei, and their other teammate had cleared out after they had killed their teammate, Sanguine. 'Sorry Joan, I can't just let it lie.'
It was early in the morning, so odds were good I wouldn't be able to get ahold of Hei yet. While the twins could likely dig up much of the same information, they wouldn't have a vested personal interest in it. From what I knew of him, based on how he'd interacted with my sister, he seemed like the loyal type—which meant he was likely still pissed that his teammate had died and would be more pissed that there were leftovers floating around of the gang that had done it. All of which would likely see him doing everything in his power to see the rest of these cockroaches come under the boot.
I hadn't slept much the night before, and what I'd had had been restless and filled alternately with bodies or a pair of glowing eyes… Shaking it off, I made my way back to the apartment, dropping into a seat at the kitchen table, breaking out my reloading kit and setting about crafting rounds. It was mindless, repetitive work, but it was exactly what I needed to give my hands something to do while I thought things over. My first step needed to be tracking down the remaining members of this gang, for which I needed Hei's experience—moreso than his network of contacts, which the twins had access to. After that, I had to figure out what to do about this thing.
It was plainly obvious what it was after, at this point. Likewise, there was no denying what—who—it was. She was. Once more, the image of a pair of glowing mismatched blue and green eyes came to mind—not red. Sanguine was back, and she was working her way through the remnants of the gang that had killed her, but what happened after that? She was clearly not a grimm—like a grimm, but not a grimm. Not mindless and entirely too discriminatingly violent for a grimm. She had left survivors, after all—people unrelated to her targets had been ignored.
'I can't tell anyone about this,' I mused, idly filling an empty magazine with fresh ammunition as I finished turning out enough rounds to do so. 'They wouldn't believe me, and if they did… they'd want to kill her. I'm not convinced I should though, at this point.'
Well, I had to find her first, either way. Hunting her had been fruitless so far, however—she was very good at disappearing when she didn't want to be found. 'What was it Jane called her? A 'stalk and ambush predator?' That's what she's doing here, isn't it? Stalking her prey and ambushing them when and where they least expect it. That bar wasn't exactly the best place for an ambush, but then again there were a lot of them gathered together, and they certainly hadn't expected it…So, if I can't find her, then my only other option is to make her come to me. And for that, I'm going to need bait. And not just any bait. You don't use trash bait to catch the big one, after all…'
So, I would contact Hei later today, figure out where these punks were hiding out, grab a few of them or the one most likely to attract big game, and set a trap. And then what? 'Suppose I'll find out.'
Until then, there was no point dwelling on it when I had work to do. I had an OS and tools to work on, and it wasn't going to write itself. Once it was done, I could start to work figuring out how the copy of the key/exploit tool I'd gotten my hands on ticked and maybe put it to work for my own uses—after all, there was no point to not using it if it was as effective as it seemed, and would significantly cut down on the time it would take to break into whatever servers were holding information on Penny.
There was so much to do before I went to Beacon and so little time in which to get it done. At this point, I was sure I was forgetting something, as well—likely something important. Well, hopefully I was right about Luck and my score wasn't screwing me. Because, with any real luck, I would be able to catch any screw ups before things went so far off the rails that I couldn't predict which way things were going to go. That was the problem with screwing with time or foreknowledge—using it to change things invalidated it. I figured I didn't have much time before many of the little seemingly-minor things that had added up to great effect in what I knew to be 'canon' were pushed off course from what I knew, to unknown effect.
'And this is why time travel and foreknowledge are bullshit. Either you use what you know to change things and things change, or you don't and you've wasted the opportunity.'