The Name of the Game

by literalsin

A man from Earth wakes up to find himself stuck in the body of a fictional teenage boy with an ability that turns his life into a video game and foreknowledge of events to come. What could possibly go wrong? A take on the RWBY/Gamer crossover niche with an SI twist, a focus on world and character building, and fleshing out some of the details RT missed. Rated 'M' for a reason.

19. Coin in the Air

The Name of the Game

a RWBY/The Gamer crossover, SI.

Arc 5: Bent Penny

Chapter 19: Coin in the Air

---

I yawned, glaring balefully at the tarmac underfoot as I stood beside the Duster, topping off the tanks. I'd just spent the past two hours converting the reserve fuel tanks back into fuel tanks, as opposed to smuggling space—in the process earning myself more than one bruised and/or skinned knuckle from a slipping wrench. Healing or not, that shit still hurt. Before that, I'd paid a visit to a store selling simple fuel Dust storage cells, along with another selling what amounted to camping gear for Hunters in the field just to make sure I was covering all my bases. I now had a tent, sleeping bag, and several other potential necessities should I be forced to make camp. If I had to, I could trap and ward a small area against grimm long enough to get some food and rest.

My day had begun shortly after 4a.m., when my scroll chimed a priority alarm that had been set to alert me should it receive a message from a specific source. The source in question was the server I'd had the Red Hand set up for me, programmed to penetrate and sift through networks in search of specific terms and phrases, gather what data it could, and send me a message if it got a hit. It was probably cheap and not really fair using someone else's exploit to do my dirty work for me, but then, I didn't really care so long as the end result paid off.

Well, it had hit big. I had the location of a 'testing and research facility,' which I interpreted was Atlas code for 'black site.' I also had a date, labeled simply as the 'activation date' in the calendar it'd been pulled from, which wasn't too far off from now. Considering Ironwood and several of his staff had corresponding dates marked in their calendars under various other excuses, odds were very good that this was the day they would turn the key on Penny—officially, at least, seeing as she had to have been activated before at some point for testing. I planned to get there first and see what I could find worth taking.

The pump chimed and the auto-shutoff engaged, drawing me out of my thoughts. Dismissing the Duster, I summoned the Bullhead and set about topping off its tanks as well—just in case. Call me paranoid, but I had gone over my maps. Atlas was an entire other continent from Vale to its north, past the island of Vytal—separated from the tip of Vytal by a few hundred miles of open ocean. My map told me the entire trip, flying a straight line, was just over 1200 miles. As far as distances between landmasses went, it wasn't much compared to some, but that was still a lot of ground to cover—much of it potentially filled with grimm.

At the Duster's base top speed, I was looking at an eight hour trip there, if I flew nonstop. I wasn't planning to fly non-stop, however. I had already adjusted my flight plan to allow me to pass over Vytal and hopefully map the area, and once I did, find a place to top off the tanks before I made the trip across to Atlas. I wasn't sure how my skills were going to interact with the Duster, so I was being extra cautious about my fuel levels—I did not want to get stranded in Atlas. More to the point, I absolutely did not under any circumstances want to run out of fuel over open water. Magic and Semblance or no, I still hated water too deep to see the bottom of—even more so now that I was in a world full of giant monsters.

Once the Bullhead was full, I dismissed it and summoned up the Duster again. Climbing in, I went through pre-flight checks to make sure everything was in working order. Now that I had the time to actually sit down and examine it, I could see that Roman had crammed the little plane full of useful tech and tricks. RADAR, LIDAR, a small ECM suite, chaff, flares, smoke… The thing was basically a small AWACS, minus the oversized RADAR dish since it wasn't all that necessary with Remnant tech. Apparently, he hadn't liked the idea of someone, or something, slipping up on his plane. Half of that stuff would be great for detecting flying grimm and moving to avoid them while the rest there was no good use for, except for evading other planes or dealing with ground-based anti-air. That left me wondering just where, exactly, he'd had this thing smuggling stuff from.

Checks completed, I finally turned the engine over and taxied out into place on the tarmac before throttling up and taking off. As I gained altitude, I tilted the plane a bit and leaned over to look out my cockpit window. Below me, the city of Vale stretched out for miles, street lights, headlights, traffic lights, and holograms still visible in the coming twilight of early morning. I sighed, shaking my head before bringing the Duster back to level. I had woken Miltia briefly before I left, explaining where I was going and asking her to make sure Ruby got to the transit hub with flights out to Patch. I'd sent a text to Yang as well, after pulling her number from Ruby's scroll, explaining that I had an emergency to see to out of town and letting her know when to be at the transit hub to pick up her sister. Sure, Ruby could take care of herself, but it was polite to make sure, even if I couldn't be there myself.

As soon as I climbed high enough, my radar display told me I'd been painted by ground radar. A moment later, the radio came to life as Vale Air Traffic Control went about their job. "Unidentified aircraft on bearing zero three five, this is Vale Air Traffic Control, please reply with your designation and flight plan. I repeat, unidentified aircraft, this is Vale ATC," came the call, and I slipped on the headset.

I'd had a chance to read the documentation that had been stuffed under the seat and knew how to answer the challenge, thankfully. "Vale ATC, this is November One Six Seven Delta," I responded, reading off the tail numbers on my aircraft before giving him my flight plan—Vale to Vytal, essentially. Once I got there and landed, I'd be handed off to Vytal ATC, normally. Considering I planned to fly under the radar ceiling once I left Vytal so that Atlas Military couldn't track me coming in and on approach to one of their black sites, that wasn't going to happen. For all intents and purposes, I'd be landing in Vytal, staying a while, refueling and leaving back for Vale. Of course, if they checked back and figured out I'd refueled twice, I might be in a bit of trouble but that's why I was going as Shiro anyway, specifically do deal with people on the ground without having Jaune leave Vale.

"Affirmative, November One Six Seven Delta. Advise you climb to Angels Thirteen, current heading is clear. Forecast for the next twenty-four hours looks rough, I advise checking in with Vytal ATC for details once you land, over."

I adjusted my controls a bit, pulling up into a climb to level off at 13,000 feet. Frowning at that tidbit of information, I asked, "Give me the short version, Vale ATC. Over."

The reply was a moment in coming, and I guessed he was checking for an update himself. "N167D, there's a large storm tracking west north west from Mistal, moving at an estimated 60 knots. Upper level winds are estimated to be upwards of 70mph and increasing. The storm looks to make landfall over Vytal in the next twelve hours. Expect airborne grimm to take flight in large numbers prior to landfall, seeking shelter. This will be an extreme hazard to light aircraft, advise being on the ground before then. Over."

Well, that was a complication I could do without. I'd be in Atlas by then, hopefully already making my return trip—meaning I'd likely be flying face first into the teeth of the damn thing on the way back. And with grimm stirred up around it, no less. "Roger that, Vale ATC. Thanks for the heads up. N167D over and out."

Slipping off the headset, I pulled out my scroll and sent off a text to the twins and Neo, letting them know I may be delayed in getting back due to bad weather. That done, I turned on its audio player function and set the scroll to playing one of my playlists before putting it on the control panel in front of me where it wouldn't block any of the instruments from my sight. As soon as the plane leveled off, I engaged what passed for an auto-pilot in the Duster—essentially, a locking mechanism to lock the stick, pedals, and so forth into place.

Closing my eyes, I reached out with my Aura and focused on the aircraft around me. As I'd suspected, my Dust Manipulation skill had already kicked in and was lowering the craft's fuel usage while at the same time improving its engine output somewhat. That was great for me, since it meant I would both be saving fuel and leveling that skill for the duration of the trip. Still, I wanted to play around and do more. That in mind, I focused on two things: Gravity Manipulation, to make the Duster lighter, and on wrapping the Duster in Wind elemental Aura, in an effort to streamline it or otherwise eek out some speed and maneuverability.

I noticed the drain on my mana immediately and opened my eyes, watching as the air speed indicator began to climb, topping out at 225 when I found a comfortable place to hold both Aura Manipulation and Gravity Manipulation. Some mental math told me I'd shaved three or more hours off my flight time, and I grinned. Still, a glance at my mana bar showed that holding those two skills up at that level of use had already overrun my mana regen and would slowly eat away at my mana until I ran out. It may take a few hours at its current rate of use, but it would happen eventually.

Not wanting to run out of juice, I let my eyes go half-lidded for a moment and focused on active Meditation. I'd been practicing keeping that skill running for a while now, so I could actually take out a book and spend most of the time catching up on my reading while I let my skills do the heavy lifting for me, sparing the occasional glance at my instruments to make sure I wouldn't run into anything. And it was with that in mind that I flipped my radar and lidar over to active, to make damn sure nothing would be sneaking up on me. Shifting in my seat to get more comfortable, I cracked open Ninjas of Love and settled in to read.

---

My entire body echoed with a faint sensation of vibration, sense memory from sitting in a cockpit for several hours with an engine and aircraft vibrating around me, the same way the body tends to remember waves if a person has been in a pool or on a boat for long enough. Ignoring it, I stretched out and pulled down my mask, breathing in fresh, cool air as I took a short walk around my plane. Spending a last moment to crack my back, I strolled over to the hangar I'd been directed to park in front of.

The airport I'd landed at was small, much smaller than Vale's own airport, but still larger than my private airfield. It wasn't really all that surprising. Vytal operated as an independent minor nation state to itself and had a smaller population than the larger nations—correspondingly, it would have a smaller economy, which meant less in the way of taxes and thus less in the way of development. Still, what I'd seen of it on the landing approach looked nice. They didn't have the huge holographic displays or holographic street signs of Vale, nor were there nearly as many tall buildings. On the other hand, the entire place had a more 'small town' feel to it. The entire island, or what I had seen coming in at any rate, was absolutely covered alternately in emerald green or gold—the colors of rolling fields of grass, wheat crops, and miles of tracts of trees. Along with that, the place had been dotted with lakes and rivers of all sizes, along with a large amount of mountainous highland terrain. All in all, Vytal had all the hallmarks of a minitaure, self-sufficient nation—assuming they had any sort of armed forces to speak of.

The bell over the door went off as I entered and a man sitting at a desk looked up from a magazine—what looked like some kind of aviation publication, from where I stood. His hair and beard were red, or had been at one point, though by now there was more than a bit of gray in both. His name tag read 'Dearg,' and I had no idea if that was a first or last name—my Semblance was, for a change, completely unhelpful there as it displayed him as a level four, with the single name. Or maybe, I figured, he simply had only a given name and no family name—something which wasn't entirely uncommon once upon a time on Earth. "Can I help you?"

"Who do I need to talk to about getting my plane refueled?" I asked, gesturing back behind me towards the tarmac where the Duster sat.

"That'd be me," he nodded. "How quick do you need it?"

I refrained from rolling my eyes. I knew that was a loaded question—if I acted like I was in a hurry it would raise suspicion, along with pissing him off, whereas if I told him to take it easy, he would fuck off all day and not do it any time soon. It seemed mechanics shared that trait across reality boundaries. There was a nice middle ground, however, which I knew from experience would not be so pushy as to be annoying while still making it clear that I needed it done soon but not now. "I'm not in a big hurry. I figured I'd go grab a bite to eat in town, maybe take in the sights for a bit, and be back in an hour or two."

He hummed, opening his magazine again and burying his nose in it. "Sure thing. I'll have 'er done by then." As I turned and made for the door, he added, "There's a burger place 'bout a mile north of here, if you're interested. Best burger on Vytal."

My stomach rumbled and I felt my mouth water. The one thing I'd forgotten that morning before I left was breakfast, and the prospect of real food was too good to pass up. "Thanks. I'll check it out."

I caught a ride on one of the ground shuttles going back and forth into town, pulling up my map and giving it a look over as it began to fill out with details. Finding the listing for what I believed to be the hamburger place the guy at the hangar had told me about, I set a waypoint and moved to close my map before something caught my eye as it came into range. Three icons I had never seen on my map before had come into my detection range: a diamond in emerald green, a black winged boot, and something that looked like a bird spreading its wings in red—if that bird was drawn in a sort of bad tribal tattoo style. I'd seen the bird before, though—glowing red orange on a red background, hugging a set of amazing curves, down past a delicate seeming throat, under an amused smirk on pink lips and intense, molten-gold eyes.

'What do we have here?' I mused, thinking back to what I knew before coming up with the most likely answer of Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury. 'So, she does display properly on the map now. But I thought Cinder's personal symbol was some sort of an angular heart made from a pair of heels—glass slippers, specifically. Curious.'

They were coming down the street I was on, but were still a few blocks away. Shrugging, I slipped off the street and into an alleyway to move onto a parallel street, not particularly wanting to deal with them at the moment. I hadn't heard much from Cinder since our last exchange of messages—I'd guessed she had either been radio silent intentionally or had simply been out of signal range for the CCT network. I didn't really want her knowing I was here, nor did I want her asking questions as to where I was going. So, I suppose it was just my bad luck that my minimap showed the icons for both Mercury and Emerald break off from Cinder and move to put me in a pincer formation, Mercury taking an alley to put him on the same street I was on while Emerald circled around. Cinder's icon moved over one of the mid-level buildings, meaning she was likely on top of it and moving into a position to observe.

The question of how was more important than the why, really, and there was only one possible answer. 'Well, that's not good. Cinder can detect my Aura at range, when I'm not suppressing it. Good to know in the future.'

There were two ways I could handle this, really. Option one, go full stealth and evade them. Of course, they already knew I was here—obviously, or Cinder wouldn't have deployed Emerald and Mercury as she had—and outright evasion would look like I had something to hide. Option two, act like nothing was wrong and I hadn't even noticed their presence—and in so doing, find out what the hell was going on. What made my decision for me, though, was the higher probability of the first option blowing my cover, or at least calling it into question. Grumbling obscenities, I pulled my mask up and made sure my weapons were secure.

Taking my scroll out of my pocket, I opened it up and brought up a map of the area, tilting my head down so it looked to anyone looking on that I had my nose buried in a map of the area in search of something, while in reality I alternated my focus between my minimap and my peripheral vision. I moved into an unhurried stroll while they were still out of visual range, going over my options for dealing with them and wondering why I was being targeted. 'Unless I've pissed her off, Cinder believes I'm on her side. Considering she's posted up in a position to observe, odds are good this isn't meant as an assassination attempt unless she's planning to use them as a distraction and snipe me herself somehow. I don't think I've ever seen her wield a… No, wait. The dance infiltration mission, middle of season… two? A pair of swords and a bow and arrows. Balls.'

Knowledge of one's foe and preparation being half the battle, I could anticipate the potential for a sniper and plan accordingly. Arrows weren't bullets and releasing a bow made a distinctive sound—and so long as I kept an ear open and kept Cinder's position in mind, I could do something about it. Opening my Inventory, I quickly selected the duped copy of Shiro's sword and dragged it into an equipment slot, where it appeared over my right shoulder. After playing around with various draw positions, I'd found that it was more comfortable to draw these particular weapons this way, as opposed to having them both at my hips, which would force me to either cross my arms directly over each other to draw or draw one at a time. With one at my left hip and the other over my right shoulder, I could easily grab and draw both at the same time in a cross-swing maneuver—though, that wasn't what I had in mind for the current situation. More importantly, though, was the image it presented—another layer of disguise, distancing my two primary identities from each other.

Another quick grab and drag had a pistol, what looked like the local equivalent of a Colt 1911 longslide chambered in .45, equipped at my right hip—one I'd taken the time to load with high grade Dust rounds and a space-expanded 30-round magazine, in the event I needed to use it as Shiro. 'Good enough,' I mused, going back to pretending to being distracted.

Ahead of me, I saw Mercury stalk into the side street, hands in his pockets. Triggering Observe, I fought down a vicious grin as my Semblance told me his secrets. 'Mostly hand to hand fighting style highly dependent on fancy footwork that's some bastardized version of TKD, Capoeira, and Muay Thai. Artificial legs doubling as Dust weapons. He'll strike first, from the front in melee to distract me for Emerald, from the rear likely with a ranged weapon since she knows her Semblance does fuck-all against mine. If she misses, and she most likely will since she's a close quarters fighter and not specialized as a sniper, odds are she'll attempt to close and play tag team with Mercury in CQB. That's the smartest approach—an instant attack against an unsuspecting target from multiple fronts. Question is, are you going to join in, Cinder? Let's find out.'

The BGM changed, going from that small-town-feel type background music to a more sinister tune slowly ramping up as Mercury drew closer, confirming what I already knew—the trap was closing around me. Perception kicked in and I felt a growing itch on the back of my neck—most likely where Emerald would be trying to put her first shot. Humming aloud as he neared to within a few feet, I forced myself to relax, tension slacking away where anyone else would have been tensing to draw their weapons. Body language, I knew, could mean victory or defeat in a battle—if your opponent read your opening move and those after before you made them, then he could plan around them. So I gave away nothing, frowning down at my map as though it had lead me astray. Mercury walked right past me, shoulder brushing my own. "Excuse me," I murmured, still not looking up from my scroll. 'Not from the front? Tactically, that makes no sense. What the hell is he doing? He's stepping into Emerald's line of fire. Are they not attacking?'

"Sure," the boy answered, a smirk in his voice.

My detection skills blared a warning and I dropped to the deck, using Gravity Manipulation to yank me down fast, and rolled out from under the boy's kick. Tucking my scroll away, I rolled to my feet and locked eyes with him. "You sure you want to do this?"

"Mm… pretty sure," he snarked, and I rolled my eyes. A second later, he lead with a kick that swept up towards my balls. I backstepped and the kick went high, but he had anticipated that and used the momentum from the kick combined with a jump to close range and spin around with his other leg in a falling axe kick aimed at my left collarbone. Old reflexes kicked in and I stepped into the arc of the kick, my right hand coming up and parrying the blow to my right as I shifted left, forcing him off balance and putting his back to me. I opened up with a fast three-hit punch combo to his kidneys and spine—all I had time to get in before he rolled out and I was suddenly forced to yank my head back as a bladed scythe on a chain—some sort of kusarigama—flew through the space my neck had occupied.

"That's not polite," I grunted, grabbing the chain and giving it a firm yank, using gravity to anchor myself. A yelp preceded Emerald flying out of her hiding place. A second later, she dropped the weapon in her left hand and spun her body, the kusarigama in her right hand flowing into a widening arc intending to drive me back away from Mercury. Instead of moving away, I ducked under the weapon and moved forward, watching her hands as she yanked the weapon back. To my right, Mercury had regained his feet. I heard a weapon sounding like a shotgun go off and the boy leapt forward in a surprising burst of speed, spinning around in a roundhouse kick.

Once more, my detection skills warned me of impending danger—an attack coming in from behind me while Mercury's own attack was simply an attempt to hold my attention. I'd have appreciated it more if it wasn't being used against me. This time I jumped, leaping up and back in a flip, the chain scythe flowing under me and Mercury's kick missing. The kusarigama may have missed its owner's intended target, but it did not miss mine, as the chain wrapped around Mercury's extended leg—Emerald not having counted on my being able to dodge an attack from what should have, by all rights, been a blind spot.

Landing on my hands, I grabbed up the discarded kusarigama in one hand and pushed off the ground with the other, spinning the weapon twice to build momentum. At the same time, Mercury landed across from me, off balance as Emerald attempted to reclaim her weapon and he attempted to kick his leg free at the same time, their combined efforts only tightening the chain around his trapped appendage. "Hey Emerald! You dropped this!"

"Crap," the girl grunted as the second chain scythe spun through the air, the chain catching Mercury about the torso as he attempted to drop out of its path—where, if he hadn't moved it would have caught both his legs and lower torso as I'd aimed a bit low. Both ends spun around him, nearly smacking Emerald in the face as she dropped her other weapon and jumped back.

There was a distant, nearly silent twang! and I stepped back, drawing the sword from my back right handed and sweeping it through the air where I'd been only a second ago, on the off chance the projectiles were explosive tipped or tipped with something debilitating like a flash-bang, since that's what I would have done had I been using the same weapon. It worked for the Green Arrow, after all.

A trio of silver arrows clattered to the ground in front of me and I resisted the urge to sigh, turning to lock eyes with Cinder, who was now dropping down from her hiding place. Maybe there was still a chance to get out of this without having to face down against her as well, though. "Nice outfit," I smirked, eying her up and down—boots, form fitting olive pants, what looked like bandage style chest wraps, a brown vest, and brown gloves. "I like the dress better, though."

"I know, but it kind of stands out," she practically purred, nocking another arrow and aiming at my heart.

"So, is there any particular reason you've decided to sic these two on me?" I asked, my left hand moving to the hilt of my other sword in preparation to draw. It would be awkward, but I'd needed to draw the first the way I had to take out the arrows.

Cinder chuckled, easing up on the tension on her bow and allowing her stance to relax—apparently satisfied that I wasn't planning to attack unless she did. "A practical demonstration."

I shifted enough to look behind her, where Emerald chose that moment to 'help' Mercury untangle himself, causing the taller boy to fall on his ass and drag her down on top of him in the process in a tangle of limbs and cursing. "Their teamwork sucks," I deadpanned, and she nodded subtly, not enough for either of them to really pick it up given that they were otherwise occupied.

Flicking her wrists, she did something to disengage the bow, converting it into a pair of swords and stowing them at the small of her back before retrieving her arrows. "Emerald, Mercury, go wait for me at the airport. I'll be there shortly. Shiro and I have some things to discuss," Cinder ordered, tossing an unamused look over her shoulder at the pair.

"What? But—" Emerald began, before those gold eyes found her and she sighed, nodding and offering a hand to Mercury.

The silver haired man accepted the hand up, dusting himself off and sending me a thoughtful look. "You're not bad. Still, one on one, we both know I'd win."

"Any time, any place," I fired back, giving the sword a spin before sheathing it over my shoulder.

Mercury grinned, nodding. He moved as if to walk away and, as he tilted into what I immediately knew was going to be an attack launching himself at me, Cinder stepped between us. "Now, now. Let's not let this devolve into a dick measuring contest."

"I'll w—" Mercury began, only for Cinder's lips to curve up into a smirk.

"I will win," she cut his automatic retort off, earning a wince from the man as he realized the implication there—that she was the boss and he the underling, and her word was law.

As the pair of Mercury and Emerald left, Cinder turned back to me and closed her eyes momentarily, anger slipping through her self-control for the span of two heartbeats before her expression evened out. Once I was sure the other two were out of sight, I pulled down my mask and took her by the elbow, leading her out of the alley and onto the street. The woman beside me didn't complain, instead adopting an amused look. "What? You wanted to talk," I pointed out, and she nodded. "I figured, while we talk, I could grab a bite to eat. I forgot to eat breakfast."

I lead us to the burger place I'd marked on my map, the smell hitting me more than a block away and setting my mouth to watering again. "You want anything?" I asked as we were seated, and she shook her head.

"Just sweet tea."

As soon as the waitress left, I leaned back in my seat and locked eyes with her. "Trouble in paradise?"

For a long moment, she regarded me with those golden eyes before coming to some sort of decision. "Those two are going to kill me," Cinder complained, quietly. "That, or I'm going to kill them," she amended. "Mercury's ego, while well-deserved in some respects given who his father was and his experience, is beginning to grate. As you witnessed, it is not conducive to a team environment."

I frowned, realizing I was missing critical, need-to-know information. "Why? Who's his daddy, that he's got such a chip on his shoulder?"

"Marcus Black," Cinder said, in a tone that implied I should have known who that was. The lack of recognition must have shown, because she chuckled quietly and rolled golden eyes at me. "Sometimes, I forget how new to this you are," she teased. Teased. Not flirted, but teased.

Giving her an amused look, I shrugged. "And yet, I haven't heard any complaints of inexperience out of you, so I must be doing just fine. For the rest, well, fake it 'till you make it as the saying goes."

"Indeed," she hummed. "Marcus Black was a man of some renown in certain circles in the underworld. I meant to recruit him."

She was being intentionally vague, I noted. "Something you couldn't or wouldn't ask either myself or your pet a—" I cut myself off, lips twitching up into a smirk as I corrected myself, "Sorry, pet thief—to do for you?"

The woman across from me chose not to comment on Emerald's job classification, or my slip. "I had considered asking you, given that your Semblance lends itself well to the job. Combined with Emerald's own talents, you would make quite an effective pairing at any work requiring subterfuge and stealth. However, you are more useful to me as a seemingly independent third party at the moment and Marcus had experience that couldn't be made up for with natural talent."

"Makes sense," I nodded, putting two and two together—she'd wanted an actual hired blade, with experience. If I needed someone for back alley throat cutting and my choices were between a thief with a gimmick—which pretty much applies equally to both me and Emerald—or a guy who's been doing the job long enough that his kill count is probably higher than a small natural disaster, I knew who I'd pick. "And yet, no Marcus, and you're talking about him in the past tense."

The woman gave a small shrug at that, a 'what can you do' look crossing her face. "When I reached the Black household, I found the home on fire and Mercury in poor condition. Mercury and Marcus fought. Mercury survived."

Leaning forward in my seat, I began ticking off points. "Okay, so Marcus was Billy Badass and Mercury—despite hating the guy—knows his daddy was one of the best at his job. Emerald is difficult to get along with for me, and all I did was sleep with her boss—"

Cinder snorted, quietly. "'All you did,' you say."

I went on as though she hadn't interrupted. "As opposed to the new guy coming in, all swagger and swinging dick, looking to prove he's worth more than ol' pops. I can guess at the rest. Still, I'm surprised you've let it go on this long," I admitted. She was frustrated and about at the end of her patience—despite keeping much of it concealed beneath her normal mask of sexy confidence. My Semblance gave me an unfair advantage there, allowing me to pry into her mindset.

I suppose I could understand where she was coming from—dealing with idiots would make anyone want to strangle someone, and I had dealt with more than my fair share for two life times. And yet, on the other hand, she was an enemy—at least, for as long as she kept going forward with whatever her plan was for Vale. For me, Emerald and Mercury being at each other's throats was a good thing and I made a mental note to try to stir shit up between them later, once they got back to Vale. "I'd have thought you would have stepped in from day one."

She sighed, shaking her head. "I've been trying to let them settle things between themselves—for the simple fact that I need them to be able to work together without me hovering over their shoulders full time."

"Sounds like the old 'respect verses fear' argument, whether it's better to be loved, respected, or feared," I hummed, and she nodded. "Well, I'm not going to tell you how to handle your own people." She inclined her head in appreciation and I shifted tacts. "That back there, where he stepped into Emerald's line of fire—that was intentional." I stated more than asked, and received a nod in confirmation. "So he wanted the first shot at me? Or was it more that he wanted to prove he could take me down solo?"

"Both, I believe," Cinder agreed. She looked up, meeting my eyes with a speculative look. "You've improved, some. You're faster, now." I nodded, and she continued with, "Did you know that your little altercation with that Huntress made the news?"

I groaned, quietly, assuming a resting face-palm position. Internally, however, I was smirking like a madman. "Fuck. Well, I suppose it could be worse."

Cinder sent a pointed look to the torn material across my chest and the scarred armor plate under it where Crescent Rose had dug a nice little furrow, then met my eye and raised one fine eyebrow. "Worse than getting your ass handed to you by a little girl?"

My eyes narrowed in a glare and I sat up in my seat. "Firstly, I didn't get my ass kicked. I let her have a draw, at best."

"The fact that it even came to that speaks volumes," Cinder countered, sitting up herself as a smirk played its way across her lips. It seemed she'd found something to distract herself from her own woes, and arguing was one of her ways of flirting. I'd known a woman or two like that. Hell, I enjoyed a good argument myself. That it got the blood flowing and occasionally lead to angry sex after, depending on the woman, was entirely unrelated.

I rolled my eyes. "Of her skill, not mine. She's just a kid. I don't kill kids," I hissed, going quiet as the waitress came back, dropping the plate with my burger in front of me. As she walked off, I shot the witch across from me another glare before grabbing it with both hands and taking an enormous bite out of it. It was every bit as delicious as had been promised.

Unimpressed, the witch reached out and stole one of the whole-cut fries off my plate, popping it into her mouth. "No, I suppose I can't fault you that," she allowed, thankfully after swallowing. "It's one of your few redeeming qualities."

Despite being absolutely ravenous, I still had table manners, so my reply was a moment in coming. "Few? I'll have you know, I have many redeeming qualities. I just happen to be able to demonstrate many of them in the bedroom."

"Oh? And here we were, just discussing Mercury's ego. I didn't realize we had moved on to your own," she smirked.

"Yeah, well, at least I can back that up—as you can attest. Unless, you know, you're really good at faking it," I countered, wagging my eyebrows with an overly lecherous grin.

One of Cinder's fine eyebrows arched towards her hairline. "Perhaps I am and I was simply trying to not to damage your fragile pride while enduring your amateurish pawing. It would be a shame if crushing it resulted in lackluster performance outside of bed as well."

I rolled my eyes. "Ha. Ha ha. Haaa. Okay, I don't want to play that game any more. You fight dirty," I conceded, and her smirk returned. "Now, before I was interrupted…"

The witch across from me took on an impish look. "I'm an interruption now, am I?"

"Another point in my favor over Mercury, aside from not being prone to getting in my own way in the middle of a fight for the sake of my ego: I've got the common sense not to respond to such obvious bait," I deadpanned. "Now, as I was saying. Secondly, our skills countered each other, as I'm sure you no doubt deduced yourself if you've seen the footage." I paused for another bite, and the woman nodded. "Thirdly, I did exactly what I set out to do in starting a fight with her. I allowed Neo to collect the men, get them loaded onto the Bullhead, get the bird in the air, and prepare for my own extraction. No one really expected for a Huntress, even a little one, to be in a Dust shop in the middle of the night—and not even I expected to have to deal with the other woman. I mean, seriously, don't these people sleep?"

"Mm," Cinder hummed, stealing another fry before asking, "Why did you do the robbery like you did? I've seen enough of the footage to piece things together and it doesn't fit what I know of you and your style. In fact, it plays completely counter to your Semblance."

"Right, that. Fourthly: you heard about the robbery and the fight on the news. You did not hear about the other silent break-ins," I pointed out. "While the cops were busy dealing with the fallout of that one and that blonde chick took those two kids where ever they went after we vacated, Neo and I were busy quietly disabling alarms, slipping into more shops, having the men move the goods, and getting out again before anyone was the wiser. Clamor in the east, attack in the west, as it were. And if doing that meant giving the police and any potential Hunters a target to chase after, I'd rather it be me than Neo—out of simple practicality, if nothing else. You know what she can do—she's primarily an infiltrator and is more useful in that role than as a fighter. Me, on the other hand, I can fight, run, and disappear as needed and keep them running circles all night if need be."

"So," Cinder hummed, smirk turning teasing, "You mean to say you had a plan the entire time and weren't simply making it all up as you went along?"

I sent her another glare over my burger. "You should be nicer to me. I get results."

The eyebrow went up again, along with a smug look. "You enjoy it." She adopted a faux thoughtful look, taking on a speculative tone as she added, "In fact, I begin to suspect you're a bit of a masochist." That familiar smirk crept across her lips and she purred, "That could be… entertaining."

That was honestly not the first time I'd heard the accusation. "No. Though, if you want to find out who the real masochist between the two of us is, I'm sure we could find somewhere quiet."

For a moment, a look that seemed composed half of desire, half longing crossed her face before it passed and she shook her head, her face shifting back to its confident mask—Observe told me the truth, however, as her mood read as disappointed and chagrined, likely at herself for feeling disappointed to begin with. "No. Much as I would enjoy it, our flight leaves shortly. If we got involved right now, I would miss my flight—because we both know a quickie would only leave us both frustrated. Though, once we're both back in Vale, I'll have to take you up on the offer. In the meantime, that brings me to the reason I asked to speak with you."

"And that is?" I asked wondering where exactly she was going next, if not Vale. Maybe to take care of Roman? I hadn't heard anything on that, so I had to assume he was still cozy in a prison cell in Vacuo. Or perhaps something to do with the White Fang? I knew they were involved at some point, but I was unsure when she got them under her thumb—or whether or not they were willing accomplices or if she had some sort of leverage over them.

Not that I cared too much about the White Fang—they were, or would become, an anti-human terrorist organization bent on eradicating or subjugating humanity and could all die off to a man and I wouldn't shed a tear. The only redeemable ones out of the entire bunch that I knew of were Blake and perhaps Tukson, seeing as they'd left that organization before they really started getting violent. I'm sure there were others, but for every one that left the White Fang out of disgust at what they were becoming, ten more joined for exactly those reasons. It was a war that would quickly become dirty, drawing in friends and family of those killed to seek vengeance, and after a while those fighting against it would be left with a choice: suffer a series of perpetual terror attacks as the enemy used guerrilla warfare to blend in with the population, or make the relatives of those involved fair game and send a message that further attacks would lead only to an even larger retaliation. Either way you went, given how grimm worked here in Remnant, things could only get worse for everyone as the fighting dragged on and got worse.

Then again, for all I knew, she could have just picked up Mercury since he hadn't been around in Vale before, or she could have had him on a long-term mission and they were only just now extracting him—there was no real way to find out without asking. I wasn't going to ask, however, considering that would invite her to wonder just what it was I was doing this far outside of Vale. I could do without that sort of suspicion and I was sure she would appreciate me not prying into her own activities—which made my job harder, since it just meant I needed to pry without appearing to pry if I wanted information that would help me disrupt her operations. At the moment, the trade-off simply wasn't worth it. I had enough of an idea of what she was up to that I could get away with not prying—whereas, if she really wanted to know what I was doing, I would be hard pressed to provide a good excuse that wouldn't immediately cause her to call bullshit.

"I won't ask why you're here," she began, drawing me out of my thoughts, and I nodded in appreciation. "However, since you're here and you've clearly got transportation of your own, I have a job for you. I assume you've been enjoying your promotion to gang leader, but I'd like to employ your services as a thief again. I would simply go myself, but hiring you for this task is a convenience I have no reason to pass up."

"Well, it's a bit of a demotion…" I smirked, earning a roll of those molten gold eyes.

"What do you know of Atlas?"

I shrugged, keeping my face carefully neutral. "Not much. I can read a map, if that's what you're wondering."

Taking out her scroll, Cinder began tapping and swiping away and a moment later, my own scroll buzzed with an incoming message, which my Semblance displayed for me—though, to keep up appearances, I actually took out the device to look at it. "What is this?" I asked, comparing the coordinates and map data to what I knew of my own map. 'West about 250 miles from the black site where Penny's being kept.'

"That is a Schnee Dust Company quarry site. The quarry is heavily guarded, but you're not going there to steal Dust—in fact, please refrain from doing so. The longer it takes them to realize there's a problem, the more time we'll have, and missing Dust would put the whole site on lock-down while they go over it with a fine-toothed comb. The information I want is stored on a secure Schnee network, an intranet intentionally separate from the wider internet to prevent external penetration attempts, according to my sources." Reaching into one of the pouches on her belt, she produced a chess piece—a queen piece I was now intimately familiar with. "So, we're left with internal penetration."

A moment after the words left her mouth, my lips twitched upwards into a smirk I fought to keep down and she rolled her eyes. Needless to say, I failed that particular Will save. "Thought you weren't up for a quickie."

"Keep tempting me and I will push you down onto this table and have you here to my heart's content, and damn missing the flight," Cinder threatened, though it wasn't much of one and she knew it, so she pressed on quickly. "Sneak into the quarry's main office, place this on their interface, babysit it while it works, then when it's finished call me once you're off site and connect it to your scroll with a data cable. Also, I expect that back when you're done with this mission."

"You can't just tap it to the scroll's touch interface?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"It doesn't work like that," Cinder denied, but didn't clarify beyond that. "You'll want to be back in range of the regular CCT network when you send it, preferably back in Vale—otherwise, Atlas will detect the data transmission off their CCT towers and investigate, and potentially warn the SDC about the breach thus rendering the entire operation pointless. To date, I've been very satisfied with your work. Failing in such a manner would displease me greatly."

It was at that moment that my Semblance made it official, giving me a new quest notification, Operation Infiltration: Steal the Train Schedule, for 5000 EXP, 250,000L, and increased closeness to Cinder along with something marked as three question marks. Taking up the queen piece, I pocketed it and accepted the quest as the server came back with my bill and I dug out cash to pay her. Once she was gone again, I asked, "How quick do you need this?"

Thinking it over, she took out her scroll to check what looked like some notes before answering. "As soon as possible. Call it a three day time limit."

Humming quietly, I began to reason it through aloud. "So, go to a Dust quarry but don't steal any Dust. Let this doodad hack the weakest link in the SDC intranet and get it back to Vale ASAP." Then again, I already had a good idea where this was going given what I knew. I could confirm it though, and that would give me some idea of a time table for the theft—and subsequently, for Blake's arrival in Vale. I'd need to word it properly though—less as fishing for information and more along the lines of someone with a natural inclination towards being greedy looking for more money.

"You've been having me steal Dust all across Vale proper. The only reason you'd pass up this Dust is if the information were more valuable. Considering it's the SDC, odds are good what you're looking for is either A.) something rare, and thus valuable, or B.) a schedule for their shipments—meaning that it could return anywhere from the same amount you'd have gotten in this quarry by itself up to probably ten times that amount. I have to assume Dust from the quarry is raw or unprocessed, whereas anything on a train or airship would be processed and ready for distribution—making it more valuable and far more useful than raw Dust. So, the question then is, am I doing the train job too—I assume it's a train, anyway, since that would be more feasible than knocking off an airship—or are you handing that off to someone else?"

Her eyes narrowed and met my own, and for a moment we were locked in a contest of wills—the first time I'd actually had her ire directed at me, and something between my Semblance and my life experience told me this woman had more Charisma, cunning, and intelligence than me even with my stats. Something in her past had sharpened Cinder's mind and will into a weapon, one she had become lethally adept at employing to greatest effect. After a moment that seemed like a small eternity, her intensity softened minutely as her ire dissipated. "You know as much as you need to to complete the job. I will not insult your intelligence by lying to you, however I would appreciate it if you did not ask for more, as a matter of professionalism and courtesy. If another job suited to your particular skill-set comes up, be assured that you will be one of the first on my list of those to call—but silence is just as valuable as competence, if not more so. You have only proven one of those."

It seemed I'd overreached, a bit. I could still save this and potentially still come away from it without damaging whatever fledgling trust she had of me, however, I just had to tread carefully. "Of course. I understand. OpSec is a thing for a reason," I agreed with a nod. Still, the response told me more than she'd intended. She likely didn't have the White Fang in her pocket yet, but a train full of Dust would be a good start towards that if she offered them even part of it in payment for services rendered. On a more personal note, it told me that while we may be bed partners and the desire was clearly there for that to continue on her part, she didn't yet trust me on the same level as, say, Emerald. And this whole conversation only served to reinforce that theory—she hadn't really given me any information I couldn't find out for myself and nothing really relevant to her plans, and the one time I'd gotten close had annoyed her. I had a bad habit of letting my mouth run off ahead of my brain when I should really just shut up and I knew Gamer's Mind would do nothing to fix that particular problem.

"I'm glad you understand. It's not…" she trailed off.

"Personal?" I asked, and her eyes snapped back to mine—just as intense as before, though this time the potential for violence was much reduced. "Look, I get it. Just because we screwed once doesn't mean you should tell me every damn thing about what it is you're doing, nor do I expect you to. I'm perfectly fine keeping work matters strictly professional—in fact, I'd prefer it. Whatever we happen to do outside of work is completely separate."

Of course, that itself was a bit of a psychological gambit. After all, almost every 'no strings attached' relationship always winds up becoming exactly what it wasn't meant to be in the first place—just as almost every office romance, where those involved tried to keep their professional and private lives separate almost inevitably blurred the line after a while. In much the same way as telling someone not to do something you wanted them to do, doing so would both put the idea in their head and lead certain personality types that were naturally inclined towards disobeying those sorts of commands to be more likely to do so. Reverse psychology worked best, though, when it didn't look like reverse psychology.

Her gaze turned contemplative, before Cinder chuckled. "You do understand what I want, then." She glanced at her watch and sighed quietly, before standing. "I have to get back. Our flight leaves soon."

I stood and followed her as we made our way back into town, towards the shuttle pickup. We had the shuttle to ourselves and, when I took a seat, I raised an eyebrow when I found her sitting down directly beside me, leaning into my side. I hummed, turning red contacts down on her to catch golden eyes peeking up at me through her lashes, an amused tilt to her lips. I refrained from commenting—she'd do as she wanted at this point. As the shuttle started moving, I asked, "You know, you never told me exactly what happened with Emerald, the morning you left. How bad was it?"

"Nothing, sadly. She's too useful to immolate, regardless of much I wanted to. And oh, I wanted to. A good superior does not kill, maim, or needlessly harm her employees and underlings, however… even if it would have been immensely satisfying at the time. There's no use crying over spilled bourbon," she grumbled, and I could tell she was still pissy about the alcohol going to waste.

"You know," I drawled, drawing her eyes to me, "It wouldn't be too hard to find a bottle to replace the one she wasted. Let me know when you get back into Vale and we can split it."

"I suppose I'll have to dissuade Emerald from drinking this bottle. You have a deal," the woman chuckled softly, one hand reaching out to snag my scarred chest piece and drag me closer, the other hand going up to grasp the hair at the back of my head and pull my head down until our lips met.

"Couldn't wait until you got back to Vale?" I asked, and a moment later I hissed as she bit down on my bottom lip nearly hard enough to draw blood.

"Perhaps I simply wanted to take advantage of the situation," she suggested, and I rolled my eyes before pulling her back in.

I was vaguely aware of the shuttle stopping a few minutes later. I became much more aware of it when Detect Bloodlust leveled, and I shifted one eye in the direction I'd sensed it from, finding both Emerald and Mercury waiting outside with unamused expressions—Emerald was livid while Mercury just looked annoyed and a bit jealous. "You're making them jealous," I murmured against the witch's lips, and she breathed out a laugh.

"Good." Pulling away, she sent me another of those sexy smirks and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "I believe I have an idea for Emerald's punishment for wasting the last bottle in mind. We'll discuss it more later. Good luck on your mission."

"I almost pity her. Almost. That bottle was expensive," I deadpanned, before adding, "You too." On the other hand, I wished her nothing but bad luck in whatever she was attempting next—good luck for Cinder's plans meant bad for my own, after all.

I spent a moment watching her walk off to lead her little group towards one of the terminals before shaking my head and leaving the shuttle, turning to jog down to the private section, where I found my Duster waiting. "Tanks're all topped off," the old man said by way of greeting as I approached. "Got your bill here. Also, you should get this thing serviced soon. She's in good condition for her age, but these old birds were always kinda temperamental.

Looking over the bill, I dug into my side pouch and produced the appropriate amount before asking, "How long would it take to service?"

"'Bout a week," Dearg answered, and I nodded.

Shaking my head, I slid the cockpit hatch back and climbed in. "Maybe next time."

The old-timer shrugged and made his way back into the office as I went through pre-flight again. It wasn't long before I had the plane in the air, nose pointed towards open water off the coast. As I left the coast, I dropped down and settled in at an altitude barely fifty feet over the tops of the waves. It was my understanding, based on the notes I'd found stuffed under the pilot's seat, that Remnant hadn't quite figured out some of the problems of using radar such as clutter and radar shadow and so flying low was still a viable method of avoiding detection. Unfortunately, physics still applied for the most part in Remnant, and flying low meant using more fuel. That in mind, I settled in and focused on my skills again, trying to keep the plane light and reduce drag enough to compensate for being in denser air at this altitude. It was a lot harder this low than it was higher up, but better to be safe than sorry.

---

The flight over the ocean had passed mostly uneventfully, save for spotting a pod of what I had initially believed to be whales but were, upon closer inspection, whale-like grimm. The great beasts had ignored me as I flew almost directly overhead and I returned the favor by doing likewise—I had no desire to start a fight against an unknown enemy in its home element. Now, however, the scenery below me had changed from ocean to beach, followed by a short stretch of grass and brush, before swiftly becoming densely packed with trees, forcing me to put more attention towards my surroundings so I could skim over the treetops without hitting anything. It was getting colder, as well—as indicated by both my gauges and the land below creeping from green to evergreens and snow. According to my map, I wasn't quite into the mountainous region yet, nor would I be for my trip to the black site—situated as it was in a valley some miles down from the nearest mountains.

The biggest problem I was having so far was that Atlas had picked an excellent location for the black site in question. It was isolated, far from any towns or villages, with no roads for a good hundred miles in any direction—in fact, the only way in or out appeared to be by air. That was going to be an issue, come time to leave. I wasn't worried about landing—I planned to release the summon and glide down, then make my way in on foot. However, my Duster was not a vertical takeoff craft like a Bullhead—I needed a runway to take off. And while, yes, I did have a Bullhead there wasn't really anywhere to take off from except for the facility's own landing pad. Even with an Illusion Barrier, trying that may be a tricky proposition depending on a number of factors: potential anti-air, timing, and how likely they were to shoot first and ask questions never for starters.

'Fuck it, I may just have to hoof it out. It's not going to be fun, though, considering my map lists this as a pretty high-level area,' I mused, watching as the icon for my Duster neared what I'd labeled as the point of no return. If I was going to turn back, it would have to be before I got into what I suspected to be their radar range. 'Well, it's not like I intended to bail on this anyway.'

Opening my Inventory, I equipped my glasses, then cast Invisibility. Focusing on my active skills, I called up my barrier spells a moment before I released the summon for the Duster. Even with my magical shielding up, hitting freezing air at over 200 mph was not fun. I flipped end over end a few times before I stabilized my fall with wind and gravity, then extended the wings on my wingsuit and dumped mana into Gravity Manipulation in an effort to keep myself up as long as possible—the closer I could get to the base before having to drop below the tree tops, the better as far as I was concerned.

When I finally did drop below the tree tops, I switched to using my line launcher and timed leaps through the trees, and wound up keeping that up for a couple of miles before I got a visual on the base through a gap in the trees. I came to a stop in the top of a large pine with a view on the compound and couldn't help the low whistle that escaped my lips. The trees for half a mile around the base had been removed and the ground leveled out flat. There were three lines of barriers surrounding the facility—one just outside the tree line, composed of chain link fence that had to be at least fifty feet tall, half covered at the bottom and topped with loops of concertina wire. The second barrier was similar to the first, except just inside the second fence my glasses highlighted evenly spaced automated turrets with overlapping fields of fire on everything to the tree line if they didn't mind shooting their own fencing. The third barrier was the wall to the compound itself—what looked like a concrete and steel monstrosity, also topped with turrets in addition to artillery and anti-air emplacements. Also, as an added 'fuck you' to anything that made it past the first two fences, I saw hundreds of outlines highlighted buried just under the surface of the snow between the second and third barriers—a goddamn mine field. Atlas took grimm defense very seriously, it seemed.

'That is some serious hardware,' I thought, frowning as my glasses also pointed out sensors. The auto-turrets primarily ran off of a combination of radar/lidar for motion detection, but I also spotted infrared sensors there. Invisibility would be pretty much useless here. In fact, I would be surprised if someone hadn't already spotted me, even though I'd made sure to stay mostly hidden behind a tree. I couldn't possibly avoid every infrared detector there, so there was bound to be at least one with at least a partial line of sight on me—the only question was in how long it would take them to sound any kind of alarm. Pulling back out of sight, I carefully moved away from the base and began circling around, occasionally slipping back in close enough to get a good view from a different position. Once I was sure I knew where everything was, I began planning.

'A variation of what I did with the Repository should work. Go in inside a small ID, cut my way in, then expand the ID to cover the facility so I can search and destroy any mechs that get sent my way. Find Penny, find their servers, get the data, get the girl, get the hell out.' That decided, I went to work. I created a small sphere of an Illusion Barrier around myself and climbed into the top of the tree I was in. Guesstimating the distance between me and the base, I made a Powered Leap that got me most of the way between the first and second fences. After that, I decided to try out a combo I hadn't had a chance to yet—Air Walk and Flash Step. I'd had a chance to use Air Walk by itself and with both running and Powered Leap, but not with Flash Step. Results were promising, however.

Stopping in mid-air over the roof of the building, I looked down and found the roof to be covered in pressure sensors, all highlighted by my glasses. Likewise, the door itself was alarmed—as soon as it opened, the fireworks were going to start. From what I could see on my minimap, there were also cameras and other types of sensors lining all of the halls in addition to more pressure sensors. From here on out, I wouldn't really be able to sneak around. I would be fighting a ghost facility trying to keep me out the entire time. 'Well, nothing for it.'

Expanding my Instant Dungeon to cover the whole facility, I dropped Telekinesis and Invisibility. Yanking the door off its hinges and throwing it over my shoulder, I took off at a Flash Step paced run into the building, towards the elevators. Alarms began blaring the moment I touched down and a glance at my minimap showed that the security bots had come online. Ahead of me, several doors opened to either side of the hallway and out stepped human sized and shaped robots—white armor, black face plates, carrying automatic rifles. And of course, above each head was text in red, letting me know that they were:

Prototype Atlesian Knight-200

AK-200

Level: 30

The knights reacted to my presence by opening fire and red-tinted Dust rounds began splashing off my shields. Alarmingly, my shields began draining quickly. 'What the hell grade of rounds are they using?!'

There was no real cover in the hall unless I decided to fall back into one of the side rooms, but that would allow them to pin me inside—by design, on both fronts, naturally. Instead, I decided to make my own cover. Concentrating, I focused on the ground in front of me and summoned up a four foot tall by four foot wide by a foot thick wall of steel with legs on both sides—portable cover. Ducking behind it, I recast my shields. Humming in thought, I quickly opened my Skills menu and saw that my skill level for those two spells was going up. Grinning, I whipped out my pistol and returned fire—just enough to keep the knights from moving forward and attempting to flank me. It worked, and instead of doing the smart thing and moving around my obstacle, they stood in place and continued to concentrate fire—occasionally switching out magazines as they ran dry.

As I sat there, waiting for them to run out of ammo while returning fire, my scroll began buzzing and my HUD popped up the answer/reject call dialog. The name on the caller ID was familiar and I winced, hitting the 'accept' button. "Uh, hi Candice," I greeted.

"Jaune? Are… are you in the middle of a firefight?" she asked, and I rolled my eyes.

"No, just a heated exchange of words. Hang on, I need to issue a rebuttal," whipping my pistol around, I shot one that had been moving up in the 'face,' forcing it to stumble back into formation. "Get back there, damnit!" I yelled at them before turning my attention back to my scroll call. "Sorry about that."

"Uh huh," she hummed in a tone I recognized as one I'd used many a time myself to call 'bullshit' on someone making obvious fabrications of the truth. "You never write, you never call… A girl could get the wrong idea, you know?"

"I'm sorry. Things have been—" I popped my arm out long enough to throw out a few rounds and ducked back down again. "Busy."

The older woman snorted. "'Busy' huh? I can tell." She paused a moment, probably waiting for the gunfire to taper off a bit as the AKs reloaded, before continuing. "Look, I'm not angry, really. This is a bad time, I'll call you back—"

"It's fine," I cut her off, digging into my Semblance and finding a flash-bang grenade out of Roman's former stash. "Hold the scroll away from your ear for a moment," I warned, yanking the pin out and throwing the grenade over my barrier, then covering my ears, closing my eyes, and opening my mouth for the coming overpressure wave. The grenade went off and I picked up where I'd left off. Popping my head up confirmed that the machines had been temporarily flash-blinded. "You were saying?"

The woman giggled and I could almost visualize the eye roll. "I was just calling to let you know that I.. uh… Well, I met this nice guy at the supermarket yesterday and we sort of hit it off. So uh…"

"I get it," I chuckled. "I'm happy for you. Let me know if he treats you poorly. In the meantime, do you hear that?"

She hummed. "It went quiet?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "They finally ran out of ammo. I've got to go deal with this. Have fun with your new beau."

All told, I must have in place for a full five minutes, recasting my shields as they fell and while I talked with Candice, before the prototype knights finally ran out of ammunition. Smirking, I disconnected the call, stood, and looked them over. 'Well, they've so obligingly lined themselves up in nice little rows for me,' I hummed, making sure my shields were up again before pulling up lightning elemental Aura and stepping into a Flash step. Reaching the first of them, I drew the sword on my left, electricity running along my blade as I dragged it through the space the Knight's neck occupied at speed. I never slowed as I came in range of the next, drawing my other sword and repeating the process. Flowing with the momentum of the swing, I swung again and again, Stepping from one to the next until I reached the end of the hallway. Looking back, I watched the group of ten AK-200s fall to the ground, severed heads, arms, and legs lying scattered in the hall.

I frowned as I noticed an important detail—I had gained neither EXP nor spirit from any of those kills. It wasn't simply that I out-leveled them, because I did not—in fact, each should have been worth a pretty good chunk of experience, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of one to three percent of my TNL unless I missed my guess. Hitting one with Observe, I hummed as I thought it over. 'They're not alive, nor are they creatures of grimm or spirit. They're programmed to attack intruders, but they may as well be trash bins or furniture—no Spirit, no experience, no Spirit for me to collect. Well, shit. That sucks.'

It seemed I had found one of the hard limits to my Semblance. There was a silver lining, however: both my Dual Wield skill and my shield spells had leveled, meaning I could still train skills off of them—meaning it was about the equivalent of shooting or hitting a target or practice dummy. 'Well, doesn't matter much I suppose. I'm not here for EXP. And if that's the best Atlas has to offer in the way of combat robots, I'm going to have to find a way to pay Emerald back for the whole 'death bot' thing.'

After taking a moment to collect their weapons, I moved on. I found the elevators situated in the middle of the building—both a personnel elevator and an elevator for freight, or death bots, depending on how big they were. Figuring the odds were good for what I was looking for being stored on the very bottom floor, I used Telekinesis to force open the cargo elevator doors. Lightning-enhanced normal swords couldn't penetrate the floor, so I switched to my Plasma Blade and made a hole, then stepped off into the abyss. I fell for a long moment before a swiftly brightening glow from the bottom of the shaft drew my eye. For a moment, I saw some sort of red pattern, but that was quickly washed out in favor of brightening white. Recognizing a beam cannon charging when I was staring one in the face, I went over my options.

Not particularly wanting to tank an energy weapon to the face, I waited until what I felt was the last second before yanking myself to my right, flipping around so my feet touched the wall of the elevator shaft and I could run down. I moved not a moment too soon, as a flash of white temporarily whited out my glasses and, above me, I heard something explode and a second later daylight flooded the elevator shaft. The air in the shaft superheated, going parched and dry and a good deal must have simply burnt up if the sudden blast of cold air being sucked in from the top of the shaft was anything to go by as physics kicked in and pressure equalized. Looking up, I found that the cargo elevator and the roof above it had been blasted outward and partially melted by the beam.

'Okay… looks like they just got dangerous. I suppose Emerald wasn't exaggerating about the death bots,' I mused, shifting my gaze back to the bottom of the shaft, where I could now make out the form below in the light now pouring down the shaft, along with the text hovering over its 'head' in red.

Atlesian Spider Tank-150

AST-150

Level: 30

Sheathing my sword, I sighted down my palm at it. "AP Round," I growled, firing off a salvo of magic projectiles that flew back down the shaft and punched holes in the Spider's armor. It did not go down—in fact, it began coming up, climbing up the shaft and unfolding the massive energy cannon on its back into four smaller energy weapons, which began charging back up. Pulling up more mana, I began spamming AP Round, making sure to give each volley a different elemental charge to see what would have the most effect. Wind had little effect, other than punching more holes in it. Ice had no discernible effect, while gravity nearly caused it to lose its footing. It was when I got to fire and lightning that I struck pay dirt. Lightning elemental rounds caused it to temporarily lock up, losing its grip and falling down to the bottom of the shaft, while fire rounds went in and turned everything they touched into molten slag, which spread and began to eat through the Spider from inside.

The Spider quickly regained its footing, shifting its canons up and getting off a quartet of shots that were, individually, weaker than the initial blast. My shields held against the first three before exploding as the fourth hit and I continued to pour fire elemental AP Rounds down on it, sparing only a moment to get my shields back up. It lasted a few more seconds and managed to get one more shot off, before I hit something important and it went down in a heap of half-melted slag. Giving it a moment to make sure it wasn't playing possum, I allowed myself to drop the rest of the way down to the bottom level.

"This would suck if I couldn't tell where they were," I mused aloud. Cutting a me-sized hole in the middle of the doors, I pulled myself back up and out from behind the door before pushing the two slabs of metal I'd cut outwards with Telekinesis and shielding my eyes with one hand on a hunch. An instant later, there was a bone-rattling explosion and my shields flared as molten shrapnel splashed off them. "It's a trap," I deadpanned.

Holding out my hand, I spun up a fire-elemental Rasengan and began dumping mana into it, causing it to expand from the size of a bowling ball to that of a beach ball. Dropping down, I sighted down the nearest Spider and returned fire. The Rasengan cored the first Spider, dropping it to the floor, and exploded on contact with the second, flash-melting its outer armor to orange, dripping slag. I followed it up with a second Rasengan of similar size, finishing off the second Spider before catching the third and fourth with a volley of lightning AP Rounds, followed by alternating volleys of that between fire and lightning to keep them stun locked while I let their own melting internal components do most of the work of killing them. Was it cheap? Yes. But then, I didn't care—especially since they weren't giving me EXP. They did have something I wanted, however—namely, many of the energy cannons were intact, since I had been aiming at the spiders' main bodies and not their weapons. Into the Inventory they went.

'Any more?' I wondered, glancing at my map. With the elevators permanently out of service, a swarm of red dots so dense I couldn't count them all occupied what I interpreted as the stairwells leading down. Humming, I made my way through the melted elevator doors to the stairwell exit and waited. A few moments later, I began hearing footsteps echoing down through the door. Picking up the still partly liquid remains of the five Spiders with Telekinesis, I use the skill to tear them down into smaller pieces and arranged them between me and the door.

As soon as the door opened and the first Knight caught sight of me, I impaled its head with a chunk of red hot shrapnel, sending it flying back into the Knights behind it and sending them falling down. Not one to waste an opportunity, I flung the rest of the Spiders' remains in on top of them, cramming the bottom of the stairs with scrap metal or varying temperatures between warm and liquid. They would be a while digging through all of that to get to the door, but just in case, I spun up another elemental sword—fire, this time—and spot-welded the door shut before dropping the technique.

I wondered at the lack of more resistance for a minute as I made my way down the corridor towards what was labeled as a lab, before I came to the most obvious conclusion: over a hundred brand spanking new prototype robot troops on-site, along with five heavy Spider Tanks, should have been overkill so long as they were used as support for the human troops. Without the humans to command and direct them, they fell back on their basic combat VI—since I refused to acknowledge that they were true AI—and protocols. In other words, the things were likely designed to fight grimm as opposed to Hunters. It would explain why the Atlas bots seemed so ineffective against Hunters, while still being mass produced and relied on heavily by the Atlas military. 'Really, what use would they have for anti-Hunter bots anyway? It's not like there's a civil war on between Hunters and the various governments, to my knowledge. Yeah, they could be planning for just such a thing, but if anything they're just hedging their bets.'

Putting that thought to the side, I found the door to the lab and rolled my eyes when I found it locked. Yanking it off and throwing it back down the hallway with Telekinesis, I made my way inside, stopping a few steps in at what I saw. Glass tubes lined the far wall, thirty in all, and inside each was a human-like figure. Thankfully, the tubes were not of the liquid filled variety and I could actually see inside them. I stepped closer to study one in particular—a small, female form with orange hair and pale synthetic skin, her eyes closed in repose and nude save for a few glowing green lines and tubes here and there, along with much thinner cables that all seemed to lead to her back, which I couldn't actually see from where I stood. I was surprised to find that she possessed no real outward tells as to her true nature—no doll joints, no visible access ports or hard angles, and she was… anatomically correct, as it were, down to the minutia.

'I don't think that was in the series. Bizzaro Remnant vs Sanitized Remnant?' I wondered. Of course, there were all sorts of implications there that could be made. If Bizzaro Remnant was actually canon Remnant as I remembered it, then Monty and RT had scrubbed this particular detail for reasons that I was leery of getting into. AI and human-like robots were a lofty goal with so many potential abuses it wasn't even funny—from Terminators to sex-bot assassins, or just plain sex-bots, and more. With the birth rates as low as they were and humanity as a whole facing the very real potential for extinction within our lifetimes, I kind of doubted the sex-bot angle but I'd long ago learned not to underestimate mankind's capacity for… Honestly, I didn't even know how to classify it, in this instance. Was it perversion? Depravity? Lust for power? General idiocy?

Shaking my head, I turned my gaze on the other subjects—there were simply too many moral arguments surrounding the subject to get tied up in thinking overlong on it. Penny herself was near the end on the far left, with only two other specimens to the left of her. To the right of her, other subjects looked older, less advanced, and less articulated—older models, I supposed. The two to Penny's left were just as finely detailed as she was, if not more so in some ways, considering both were clearly adult models—one male and one female. Both shared her 'skin' tone, and while the male model's hair was the same shade of orange, the female's hair was black. 'I wonder… is that coincidence, or did they intend to give her a family?'

There was no real way to answer that question just standing there, so I sought out a working terminal. Digging around a bit, I found what I was looking for—their notes, code, compiler, and everything needed to program a working AI. I was almost surprised that they'd keep all of that on one server, but then I realized it was probably a production server—meaning they were using it to actively produce more AIs, to stick in artificial bodies for testing purposes. Penny wasn't the first, after all, and no doubt she wouldn't be the last. It would make no sense not to have everything they needed in one place, given the nature of the testing going on here.

Downloading copies to my scroll, I poked around a bit more, pulling up the specs for the three most recent models. While Penny was almost fully operational—almost, because she apparently had had her personality matrix overwritten and reset to its default state so as to imprint on Ironwood when she was reactivated, according to the notes—the other two bodies were blank slates, having had no AI uploaded to them. In addition, despite what I'd initially thought, none of them had any internal weaponry. Even Penny had no clear way of accessing the blades I knew she used. Some investigation on my part showed that there was an armory, containing weapons designed specifically to be used by these AI shells, including the 'backpack' that held Penny's puppeteered swords/energy weapons.

Humming as I looked the two empty AI bodies over, I shrugged. 'Waste not, want not.'

Keying in the sequence to open the tubes, I made my way over to Penny, watching as the system automatically disconnected her from the tubes and wires attached to her. When it was finished, I lifted her up with Telekinesis, pulling her clear of the tube and spinning her around once. On her back, I found the only evidence as to her artificial nature—a series of ports that I assumed connected to points along what passed as her spine: nine in total, split evenly into three groups of three between the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar vertebrae. As I watched, her artificial flesh shifted and covered the ports, and after a moment I wouldn't have been able to tell they were there without having seen them firsthand. If there were seams, I couldn't find them visibly. Even a quick brush with the tips of my fingers where I'd seen the ports revealed nothing different than what I'd expect on any human female. Definitely more advanced than 'canon.'

'Now what?' I wondered momentarily, before rolling my eyes. There was no point trying to activate her here—a process which I had no idea how long it would take. Instead, I opened my Inventory and pushed her in. I blinked when, the instant she was fully in, my Semblance chimed and popped up an alert.

You have discovered an Epic level piece of gear! Would you like to equip it now?

I reread that twice before shaking my head, closing my eyes, and stifling the urge to burst out laughing aloud. 'Ooh, there are days I want to strangle my Semblance. And then there are days like this, that make up for it. You bet your shiny new interface I'm going to equip it.'

Focusing on the 'Accept' button, I was asked to confirm my choice, on the condition that if I equipped this piece of equipment it would become soulbound. That drew an eyeroll, followed by hitting the 'Accept' button again, physically this time. I opened my Equipment tab to find a new slot and an entire new tab with an icon that looked like a green sword. Immediately, my Semblance shifted to what looked like some sort of Equipment tab for Penny herself, where several parts were highlighted but one in particular stood out. Her power source was currently listed as a grade 4 electric blue crystal. Humming, I selected the part and found options there—apparently, I could install more than one crystal at a time—up to three—so long as at least one of them was an electric type. Replacing the grade 4 electric blue with a grade 9 of the same, I selected the other two slots and equipped a grade 9 purity white and a grade 9 radioactive green. I wasn't entirely sure what the green would do, as I had yet to test it and neither Observe nor my Use Dust skill could tell me, but it fit her color scheme so I left it. I made a note that I was running out of grade 9 crystals and I needed to get more.

I confirmed my equipment selections and was immediately 'rewarded' with another prompt asking me for a name for my new Combat Gynoid, as Penny was listed—which drew a chuckle as I realized my Semblance bothered to make the distinction between 'android' and 'gynoid.' The name field was already filled in with Penny's actual name, so I just confirmed it. A moment later, text began to scroll along the right side of my HUD, which I swiftly tuned out after reading the first couple of logs and seeing it was about what I'd expected—that being, she would take a bit of time to actually boot up and come online.

Beginning startup sequence.

Checking file system integrity…

Integrity poor, beginning file system check…

Checking hardware…

Gathering up the other two android bodies, I stored them in Inventory and was moderately surprised when I received no notifications. My only thought on that was that, since they weren't actually fully operational, I couldn't do anything with them yet and likely wouldn't be able to until I installed AIs in them. Shrugging, I made my way towards what my map and the local terminals listed as an armory. Opening the door, I stepped inside and took a look around. 'Armory' was a bit of a misnomer—the room was more like a tech workshop for Hunter-class weapons and gear, mostly full of finished products. A quick search later and I had both Penny's backpack and default outfit, which I tossed into Inventory, only to be asked if I wanted to equip them to my Combat Gynoid. 'Yeah, don't really want her running around naked and unarmed,' I mused, confirming that and going back to searching the room.

There wasn't much else in the way of weapons there, aside from some energy rifles issued to standard AK-200s that had apparently been modified for higher power output. Those made their way into Inventory as well, and I moved on to the section of the room housing the armor. What I found there brought a grin to my face as I looked it over. Standing on several racks were suits of eerily familiar armor—power armor, specially, according to Observe. There were only five, but three of them I recognized right off the bat—a black set and a blue set of what was Halo MJOLNIR armor in all but name. 'Okay. Two empty android bodies. Empty suits of armor, clearly fitted to match each of those bodies. So they're intended for more than as backup for Hunters and Atlas troops. Still, the similarities there with those two specific sets to RvB is a bit uncanny,' I decided, throwing the armor sets into Inventory with the rest.

The third set was much smaller than the first two, in black with neon green highlights, and I thew it into Inventory as well assuming it was made specially for Penny. One more set caught my eye, the third I'd recognized right off the bat—a white set with black under armor and bronze trim, with a helmet with a much larger rounded visor in gold. 'Looks about my size,' I mused, walking around it to get a better look. 'Well, it won't hurt to keep it. If it doesn't fit, I can either try to modify it, reverse engineer it, or use it for parts.' Coming around behind it, I spotted an access panel on the back. Not wanting to screw something up, I looked around the armory until I found what looked like a manual for the armor. Eating it with my Semblance, I opened up the relevant section and speed-read until I had a grasp on what I was looking at. 'Dust powered, obviously. Access panel on the back, recessed under the armor. Takes Grade 4 and up electric-type crystals.'

Digging a couple of the required crystals out of Inventory, I pulled out the suit I assumed to be for Penny and popped in the Dust, seeing a tracery of bright blue run across the armor momentarily before going dark. Dropping the armor back into Inventory, this time I was asked if I wanted to equip it to Penny. Declining that, I powered up what I knew I'd wind up calling the Meta armor, before dropping that into Inventory as well. Asked if I wanted to equip it, I agreed, watching as my Shiro armor set was displaced my the Meta armor set. I found myself a few inches taller, and for a moment my vision was tinted the gold of the helmet before it cleared. The armor fit better than I'd expected—it had been a close match, but I figured it would be loose or pinch in places. Though, games resizing armor wasn't exactly a new phenomena, so I shrugged it off. I made sure to save the armor set in my Semblance under the name 'Meta' before switching back out to my Shiro set.

Looking around to make sure I wasn't missing anything worth taking, I made my way back out to the lab, and from there to the elevator shaft. The AK-200s were still stuck in the stairwell, attempting to dig their way through if the sounds on the other side of the door were any indication. Grinning, I walked right past them, determined to ignore them since they couldn't actually get to me and weren't worth any experience. Sure, I could crush all of them and take their guns while letting them grind my shields up for me, but it really wasn't worth the hassle of dealing with them at this point. Charging Powered Leap, I aimed for the sky at the end of the elevator shaft and Leapt, with the aid of Gravity Manipulation and Telekinesis. I shot up the shaft and out, hanging in the air for a long moment before redirecting myself towards the landing pad, where I could see several parked vehicles.

Even though I was in plain sight of the automated defenses, their programmers had apparently been thorough in their work and they wouldn't fire on the building itself—that, or maybe they wouldn't fire at a human target without authorization. I really had no way to confirm that one way or another. It didn't really matter to me, though—so long as they wouldn't open fire when I got close to the vehicles. I grinned as I looked them over. The first was a Bullhead similar to mine, but an Atlesian Navy model—a military aircraft, with military specs, a military engine, and most importantly military mounted guns. The second was an Atlesian dropship, named a Razorback according to Observe—armed with dual Gatling guns for CAS and capable of carrying slightly more in the way of troops than the Bullhead. Both got claimed and eaten by my Semblance. 'Angel's going to be happy when she sees what I brought back,' I chucked, fully realizing my gang's primary pilot was going to call dibs as soon as she saw one or the other.

With two of the vehicles eaten, I moved on to another of the armed Bullheads and climbed in, going through a quick preflight before starting the engines. It had, thankfully, been refueled and prepped to go in the real world—meaning the ID counterpart I was sitting in was as well. 'No reason to spook the locals,' I mused, reaching out to my ID and shifting the center to myself. Except, not. I blinked as the ID failed to respond. 'What the hell?' I tried again, with similar results. Attempting to resize it met with more of the same. 'Can't resize it, can't move it. What could have broken it?' I wondered, before shaking my head. I had no way of figuring that out from the inside. And since I couldn't move it now, I wouldn't be flying out under ID as I'd originally intended. 'This is going to suck. Well, here's hoping I can get out of range before they decide to open fire.'

Lifting off, I pointed her south, intending to throw off Atlas tracking once I got far enough away before swinging westward towards my next stop. I dumped mana into Gravity Manipulation and wrapped the craft in wind elemental Aura before ramming the throttle up to the stops, causing the craft to jump forward in the air as the engines tilted into horizontal flight mode almost immediately. I was doing well over 150 and climbing by the time I cleared my Illusion Barrier, allowing it to shatter behind me. As far as those on the ground knew, a Bullhead with an Atlas IFF tag had just appeared out of thin air, accelerating to well over even a military Bullhead's top speed heading southward and out of range of their AA batteries.

The radio squawked as the operators at the black site began demanding identification, and I shut it off, dropping as low as I dared and coaxing more speed out of the craft as I approached what I figured to be the minimum range to slip into their radar blind spot. As soon as I was, I reached out and flipped off the Bullhead's transponder and IFF, then turned on the ECM suite, effectively going dark to local radar—at least, I hoped. There was no real way to tell until they started firing on me. I sat back and watched my map, throttling down to ¾ throttle, wanting to make at least fifty miles before making my turn off this course but not wanting to damage the engines running them at full speed for too long. Text in my field of vision caught my eye momentarily, and I took a moment to read it before going back to my map.

All hardware checks OK.

Automatic file system repair failed: I/O error.

Attempting to load personality matrix…

Loading COMBAT_READY*rpm. ~$.FAIL.

~sudo fsck /dev/penny

~$.ERROR, exit code 4.

~sudo apt-get update

Fetching personality matrix list…

Updating…

Something brushed against my Perception and detection skills and I frowned, looking up from the map towards the clouds ahead of me. Great, black clouds covered the sky to the south, and I frowned in thought before checking the time on my HUD. 'It's a little early for the storm to be here, isn't it?'

Movement caught my eye and my glasses zoomed in, and suddenly I realized what it was that had set off my senses. There were clouds ahead, alright. Clouds of airborne grimm so thick I had mistaken them for actual cloud cover, blotting out the sun as they moved north and out of the path of the storm. Flying grimm of all size and description filled the air—some I had seen or at least heard of, others I had not. Detect Bloodlust leveled as I drew nearer, showing that those grimm in the lead had seen me and taken an interest. Narrowing my eyes, I pulled back on the stick, pushing to gain altitude. A look out the cockpit showed a significant number of grimm breaking off from the front of the mob to give chase. "Oh for fuck sake," I growled, taking the throttle in hand again, bringing the craft up to what was known as military speed: maximum recommended engine output plus ten percent, essentially ignoring any safety cutout, governor, or rev limiter put in place to prevent damage to the engine.

I put the Bullhead into a steep climb, watching my radar as the grimm followed but lost ground. There was a problem, however, which I noticed as soon as I leveled off at Angels Fifteen—while an entire cloud of the smaller airborne grimm had driven me higher, another group of much larger grimm had ascended ahead of me, and were now descending on my position.

Update complete.

Loading selected matrices… ~$.SUCCESS

Merging selected matrices with COMBAT_READY*rpm…

Merge successful! Renaming new personality matrix…

Extracting am_i_a_real_girl*rpm .

I blinked away the sudden rush of text, reaching out and arming the Bullhead's nose-mounted .50 caliber machine guns. "Okay, then. Let's clear the road."

My finger squeezed the trigger built into the stick, the Bullhead's guns tracked my first target and spoke—a discussion consisting of a single word, repeated five hundred and fifty times per minute, at volume. The first target, still a mile out, jerked as what looked like a solid line of red connected the Bullhead and it momentarily, before falling from the sky. Changing targets, I squeezed off a few more rounds—my intent not to destroy every grimm in sight, but to punch a hole big enough to fly through and warn off anything that didn't die from getting too close. I broke into a smirk, sudden exhilaration of a plan actually working running through me before reality decided to interrupt.

Warning alarms began blaring in the cockpit as the grimm closed around me and, in my inexperience with the control scheme, it took me several moments to find their source. The radar/lidar had detected a target lock and missile launch, in spite of the ECM suite being active. In my effort to climb and evade the grimm, I had put myself back on the black site's radar and I was still well within range of their anti-air missiles, and my Bullhead was a much more interesting target than the grimm around me, given that I'd come flying out of their airspace in an obvious attempt to get away. Of course they wouldn't risk drawing the ire of the entire flock by attacking everything coming towards them indiscriminately, but taking out what looked like a Bullhead piloted by someone with a Semblance that let it sneak over their site, which refused to answer hails and had already committed to evasive maneuvers would likely rank as priority number one for them at the moment. I looked like a thief making a mad dash to get away from their facility with ill-gotten goods, after all.

My eyes went a bit wide as I watched the missile track towards my position on my screen. I reached out and slapped the switches for chaff and flares, though I knew it was entirely too late for that. Missiles were much faster than this craft and we were less than a hundred miles out, so the time between launch and intercept was under half a minute—most of which I'd wasted trying to track down the alarm and respond. The dot for the missile and my Bullhead's position indicator suddenly occupied the same space.

"You cockbites."

My world disappeared in blinding light, baleful heat, and furious sound.