Chapter 12
Contingency.
Winter was now sweating. She has been operating on Reese for several hours.
"At least he knew that he to stop the bleeding in his chest area." Winter says to herself.
Yang meanwhile is anxiously waiting for the good news.
"Yang want to get a drink or something to eat?" Blake asks.
"No." Yang says without taking her eyes off the door.
"Come on Yang you've been watching that door for 7 hours now, you need to move and feed your body." Weiss says.
"How would you feel if winter is on that table fighting for her life? Huuummmmm? Answer me that Weiss?" Yang demands.
Weiss then looks away for a second to think of a answer.
Blake meanwhile is very upset that her teammate is acting this way. But she then thinks of a solution.
Blake then walks up to Yang and looks right at her.
"What?" Yang says.
Blake then smiles and with a strong hand grabbed Yang by the shirt and she starts to drag Yang away.
"Hey stop that! Blake where are you taking me? Blake are you listening to me!?" Yang protest.
As soon as they left the room Weiss was shocked.
"What just happened?" Weiss asks.
"That was strange." Ren says.
"Whoa that was cool!" Nora says in her usual energetic way.
"Ive never seen Blake like that, she is calm and cool. She is never agresive." Weiss says.
The door to the master bedroom then opens and out comes an exhausted winter.
"Whew. Well Reese is now stable but he is going to need to rest for awhile." Winter says.
"I hear a "but" coming." Weiss says.
"His armor is destroyed." Winter says.
"You mean he won't be able to do the awesome things he away trained to do." Jaune says.
"Well not exactly. His armor is version six and well to make any spare parts requires a lot of things but we don't have them on hand." Winter says.
"So what's the solution?" Weiss asks.
"Wow your really concerned about him are you?" Winter says with a smug smile.
"Yes I am, he is Ruby's best chance of rescuing her." Weiss says.
"Well I happen to own the next generation of predator armor. Gen seven it has a lot of the same features but it has new ones. The thing he needs is time to get adjusted to the armor if I give it to him, and that's time we don't have." Winter says.
"Well then put it on him." Weiss says.
"If I do that he will die." Winter says.
"What how? Putting on the armor can't be that bad." Weiss says.
"Putting on the predator armor is not like getting you getting a custom made dress fitted for you, it's a painful experience it has to conform to every inch of your body then you have to get the program injected into your body so that you can use the armor to it's full extent." Winter says.
"That is a load crap and you know it." Says Reese.
Winter then turns and sees a upright Reese not in bed dragging his medical equipment with him.
"What are you doing? Are you trying to die?" Winter asks.
"No, I wanted to lay down on the couch. It's a lot more comfortable than the bed plus I wanted to see yang. By the way where is she?" Reese asks as he takes a spot on the couch.
"Blake dragged her away from the door to somewhere else." Weiss says.
"Really?" Reese says with interest.
"Yeah it was very unusual." Jaune says.
"I wonder what they are doing right now." Reese says.
"You just said it's a load crap. What does that mean?" Weiss asks.
"Well Winter is ⅔ correct on the armor adjustment. What she is wrong about is that when I first got it we had to spend several days in it so it can get used to our movements. The painful part is when we had to get a shot that helped us use the armor to the full extent." Reese says.
"How capable are you without the enhancements?" Jaune asks.
"I'm capable of operating at 40%." Reese says.
"Well there you go he can still work." Weiss says.
"Here is the kicker. Without the enhancements or a.i it won't work as effectively,so it will be a waste." Reese says.
Meanwhile at the restaurant downstairs.
Blake was sitting across from Yang at the table and there was a pile of food in front of Yang and so far she hasn't touched it.
"You need to eat." Blake says with a deadpan stare.
"I'm not hungry." Yang says.
"I said EAT!" Blake says with an edge to her voice.
Yang flinched from that and she picked up her fork and looked at what she got from Blake.
What was on Yangs plate was some pudding, next was a potato, then some thinly sliced steaks. So yang started with the potato.
"Ok now we are getting somewhere, so i have to ask you why you are so attached to him?" Blake asks.
"Well he is my husband and I have to care for him just as he has to care for me." Yang says.
"Your taking it very seriously." Blake says.
"Well wouldn't you be the same way if you were married to sun?" Yang asks.
Blake's face then turned red.
"Well I ummm." Blake stammers.
"Come on now I've seen what was in that Ninjas of Love book you have. Admit it you would do some of those things with him." Yang says with a smile.
Yang was smiling but the plan was to talk about something else not talk about crude stuff.
"Well it not like you did any of that stuff in the book." Blake says as she gets redder by the minute plus she was also glad the restaurant had nobody in it.
Yang then looks at Blake and cocks a eyebrow.
"Oh don't tell me you did." Blake says.
"Oh yes we did. We especially did the move described on page 74." Yang says with a wide grin.
"You mean the one where the female ninja is behind and….." Blake says.
"Yep that one." Yang says.
Blake then shakes her head and leans back.
"Hehehehe I broke Blake's mind." Yang says with a teasing tone.
Blake's scroll went off. It was Weiss with a message.
"Reese is awake bring Yang." The message said.
"Yang Reese is awake; he wants your presence." Blake says.
Yang then jumps up and starts,running back to the room.
Reese now had his eyes shut and is sleeping peacefully on the sofa. When yang got to the room she opened the door and walked straight at him but was stopped by Winter.
"Get. Out. Of. My. Way." Yang says.
"I'll get out of your way but you need to listen first then I'll let you have your time with Reese." Winter says.
Yang then nods.
"So real briefly he is still healing the sutures I put on him are holding so make sure he doesn't do anything extraneous or they will break and he will bleed again. That's all you may now go to him he has been waiting for you." Winter says as she closes the door leaving the pair in the room alone.
Yang then looks at Reese and observes him from a distance then she walks over to him, then yang takes a seat next to him and lays down next to him, then Yang hugs Reese and holds him close.
Yang then felt him give her a light kiss on the neck area.
"Hey sweetie." Reese says silently.
"Hey, welcome back, you've been out for awhile." Yang says silently
"Yeah I have, it was a wild fight." Reese says.
Slap!
Reese was surprised when Yang gave him a light/heavy slap on the face.
"You almost died. What's wrong with you?" Yang asks with tears building up in her eyes.
"I was trying to save Blake." Reese says.
"No wrong answer! What is wrong with you?" Yang asks again.
"I don't understand." Reese says with a questioning look.
"When I meet you, you never get hit, let alone to your armor, so why do you have a new hole and a giant gash on your chest?" Yang asks again.
"You wouldn't understand." Reese says back.
"Try me." Yang says as her eyes turn red.
"Well during the fight with Adam my helmet got damaged and so I could not rely on Patty to help me. So I had to manage the armor system by myself and plus fight Adam at the same time. So I had to make a hard decision. Take a hit to stop him or put in the calculation so that my armor can protect me, but it would give him time to kill me. So my options were limited." Reese says.
"Well you did a good job at that your armor does not work anymore." Yang says.
Reese then looks at his armor on the ground and sees that indeed it's done for.
Reese then looks down and sighs.
"Are you looking at my chest?" Yang asks.
"How can I see it when my eyes are closed." Reese says.
"Tell me what your thinking." Yangs says.
Silence.
"Hey!" Yang says as she lightly taps Reese on the face.
"Ah! Um I'm just thinking that I'm useless." Reese says.
That made yang speechless.
"Sure I have a ballistic vest but it only protects my chest area, but I have a feeling that in the battles that lie ahead I need something better." Reese says.
"There has to be a solution." Yang says.
"There is one solution, it's not a good one tho." Reese says.
"What is it?" Yang asks.
"Well winter has the gen seven armor I can use but I need to be augmented to it for it to work at full capacity." Reese says.
"So do it." Yang says.
"If I do I might die. That's why I'm hesitant." Reese says.
"Oh I see." Yang says.
"At best I have to wait two weeks before I can be fully healed up." Reese says.
"That long eh." Yang says.
"Yep and I don't know how long we have before we have run out of time to rescue Ruby." Reese says.
"There is that too." Yang says.
"We are in a tight spot and it's not in our favor." Reese says.
"Yeah it's not great, hey I want to cuddle with you in bed." Yang says.
"Really?" Reese asks.
"Yes even though it's crap right now I want to enjoy our time, and your awake and I want to be intimate with you." Yang says with a smile and an outstretched hand.
Reese then takes her hand and she leads him to the bedroom. Yang then lays down on one side and Reese on the other side.
Yang moves closer to Reese and she embraces him and softly hums to him.
"Your voice comforts me." Reese says.
"Oh it does. How about this." Yang says as she gives Reese a kiss.
"And that too makes me feel happy." Reese says.
"Sometimes you frustrate me but I'm really happy when I'm with you, and I remember our wedding, it was the best day of my life." Yang says.
"Same here I never thought I would get married in my life. My second best memory is our first date." Reese says.
"Oh yeah I remember,I was really nervous when I went out with you." Yang says.
"What I remember the most is how great you looked. What did you call your outfit again?" Reese asks.
"It was called "Hunter" I used it once before our date." Yang says.
"When was that?" Reese asks.
"When me and the team went out to do a reconnaissance mission on torchwick." Yang says.
"Did you pull it off stealthily?" Reese asks.
"No Blake got compromised and we had to fight a gigantic mech, but we won." Yang says.
"That's my wife." Reese says as he gets closer to Yang.
Reese then kissed Yang and well she then held on and started to make out with Reese.
Some time later.
"Wow I really like making out with you sweetie." Yang says.
"Same here wow where did you learn how to kiss like that?" Reese asks.
"From a certain book that a certain faunas owns." Yang says with a wink.
"Ah I see." Reese says.
Knock. Knock.
"Who is it?" Reese says as he reaches for the nighthawk (DEW).
"It's winter." She says.
The door opens and Winter is standing there with a needle in her hand.
"K Reese we talked about this. I hope you came to a decision." Winter says.
"I have and I'll take your offer for the armor." Reese says.
"Good so we have an alternate solution and it's a little easier on you." Winter says.
"And that is?" Reese asks.
"We are going to knock you out for a few days so that your body can heal a little bit faster. And I calculated that you could be healed in 8 days." Winter says.
"How about four days I have a feeling that we don't have time to fully do this." Reese says.
"Well we could do half way but if you augment you have a 50-50 chance." Winter says.
"How about a 60-40 chance." Yang says.
"That might work the worst case is Reese loses a function of his body and that could be anything." Winter says.
"Lets do it time is short." Reese says.
"Ok you'll be out for six days so see you soon." Winter says as she jabs the needle in his arm.
Reese then looks at the fading image of yang and holds on to her as he falls asleep.
Six days later.
Reese was starting to slowly wake up but it was a struggle.
"Ugh." Reese said.
Yang then gets to his side.
"He's waking up Winter." Yang says.
Winter then looks at him.
"Well he is waking up but it's a slow process since he is fighting a sedative. So I'm expecting he will go back to sleep soon and he is gone." Winter says.
Yang then looks back and indeed Reese is asleep.
"Well how long till he is ready?" Yang asks.
"A few hours at best." Winter says.
Few hours later.
Reese's eyes then shot open and he gets up.
GROWLL!
"Did anyone feed me while I was out?" Reese says.
Just then the door flew open and there at the entrance was Yang and Winter.
Yang was the first to get to him, where she proceeded to give him a big hug.
"Where have you been?" Yang asks.
"You knew where I was." Reese says back.
"Yeah but I still missed you." Yang says.
"Same here sweetie." Reese says.
"So what happened while I was out?" Reese asks.
"Well we found out where my uncle was. He was at the bar drinking his problems away." Yang asks.
"Did you tell him about Ruby?" Reese asks.
"Yeah and well he just shut down." Yang says.
"What about ozpin?" Reese asks.
"Equally devastated." Yang says.
"Figure as much." Reese says.
"Let's take off your bandages." Winter says.
After a few minutes the wraps were removed both of the women saw Reese's new scars.
The main one that stands out is the gash across his chest. It made a ugly red line across the chest area. Then the stab wound healed up nicely all there was a red spot on the shoulder.
"Well he is as good as he is going to get let's get you inside your new armor." Winter says.
Reese then got up from the bed and walked out to the living room where everyone else was waiting for him, and right in the middle of the room was a black cloth on the ground waiting for the new owner.
"You know what to do." Winter says.
Reese then takes off his shirt but leaves his shorts on.
Reese looks at Yang and gives her a kiss.
"I'll be right back." Reese whispered in her ear.
Then Reese walked over and put both feet on the cloth and waited.
Just then it started to crawl up his body and at the same time team JNR jumped back in surprise.
But Reese kept his cool and waited, then it stopped right at his neck area.
"Yang helmet please." Reese asks.
Yang then tossed Reese the new helmet, Reese got a good look at it. It was way more sleeker than the gen six and way lighter.
Reese then puts it on and waits for the startup procedure. He didn't have to wait long; it was ready by the time he blinked.
"Ready for the test." Reese says too winter.
"Activate the active camouflage." Winter ordered.
Reese then activates it and his body disappears in a second whereas the old one took five seconds to make him vanish.
"Good now engage the armor mode." Winter says.
Reese then activated the armor mode and he saw it hardened in certain areas whereas in other areas it was not active so that full mobility is possible.
"It's working." Reese says.
After 30 minutes of running through the programs the armor was now usable to Reese and as a final touch the visor changed from blue that winter had on it to red to represent it belonged to Reese.
"That's so cool!" Nora says.
"Yeah that was freaky." Jaune says.
"Yeah it's great but it's still missing one thing and that is Patty." Reese says as he picks up his old helmet and looks at it.
Just then the old helmet then shifted and out comes a computer chip, Reese then grabbed it and the old helmet then got hot for a moment and it smoked a little.
"What was that about?" Yang asks.
"It's the armor it destroyed itself but why did it give me this before doing that?" Reese asks.
Reese then took off the new helmet and found a port to put it in, then the visor glowed bright red for a moment then stopped and dropped the chip.
Reese then puts it on.
"Hello Reese." Patty says.
"Hey where have you been?" Reese asks.
"Well I was in the backup area of the armor. I put all the data that you and I used throughout our time together." Patty says.
"Good are you ready to get back to work?" Reese asks.
"Yep i am. What is the mission?" Patty asks.
"We'll find Ruby and get her back." Reese says.
"Acknowledged I have detected some new software in this armor called "AR" should I activate it?" Patty asks.
"Do it." Reese says.
Just then Reese saw what looked like a grid on the hud and then everything was labeled.
"This must be the new generation of Augmented Reality I've heard about." Reese says.
"Yeah it enables a lot of features using satellites and local maps to provide a real time intel for this generation of armor." Patty says.
"Umm I hate to interrupt but. We have company." Nora says as she backs away from the window.
"Oh goody a test." Reese says.
"It's ironwood he wants you gone." Winter says.
"Yea figured as much took him a while to figure out where I was." Reese says.
"So what are we going to do?" Weiss asks.
"Two options. One you can run. Or two fight. Take your pick. And pick fast we don't have long to think." Reese says as he arms his hand gun.
"I'm fighting." Weiss says.
"Me too." Says Blake.
"Same." Everyone else says.
"Ok. Patty kill the lights when we get to the lobby." Reese says as he armors up.
Meanwhile outside the safe house.
"In position." The commander of gold squad says.
"Breach it." Ironwood says.
BOOM! The door flew off it's hinges and the six man team entered. They activated their flashlights and started a sweep of the area.
"Clear." The commander says.
"Next floor." Ironwood says.
The team was able to stack at the base of the stairs but were suddenly pushed back by an unknown force.
"Contact!" The commander yells.
Reese then de-cloaked and engaged the team with dual stun sticks, then he switched to his short katana. At the same time the rest of the team came rushing down and started to engage everyone else that came through the door.
In the center of the fight Reese and Winter were fighting gold squad, and from Yang's perspective it looked like they were dancing, but this was no ordinary dance, it was the dance of death, one that mother and son practiced during their days of sparring.
Two of the members went down relatively easy sense Reese got the drop on them then Winter hit two of them away, then the last two got close to Winter and Reese with their knives and tried their luck but they only hit metal when the both went down at the same time when son and mother got critical hits in, next winter and Reese did a spin and they both stopped and looked at each other for a moment, then they both ran forward and engaged the next set of two who were sneaking up behind them. CLANG! CLANG! KICK! SLICE! SLICE! Three and four down now five and six remain. Reese and Winter then spun past each other and at the moment they spun the rest of gold squad then raised their weapons for a strike, but they were too slow. SLICE! SLICE! Gold team down, at that moment both mother and son backed up and they were back to back on high alert.
"Whoa." Blake says.
"Is this them unleashed?" Yang asks Weiss.
"I don't have a clue." Weiss says when she has a break.
Reese then noticed a heavy turret on top of a jeep.
"GET DOWN!" Reese shouts.
And not to soon it started to open fire on the lobby and a few people were caught in it's line of fire and they were vaporized.
Reese then grabbed crescent rose from his back and put it in sniper mode.
BOOM! KACHINK! BOOM! KACHINK! BOOM! KACHINK!
Reese fired three shots in a short amount of time yang wondered if he made it full auto.
Then it was silent. Reese got up and evaluated the situation.
"Tangos down no loss on our end." Reese says.
"How long do we have before ironwood sends more?" Blake asks.
"At best 20 minutes we don't have long. Winter is there a escape?" Reese asks.
"Yes there is but we have to leave your bikes behind for the moment." Winter says.
"Got it. Let's pack it up." Reese says.
Ten minutes later everyone was moving through the escape tunnels.
"Where does this one lead to?" Reese asks.
"If I recal it leads to a club." Winter says.
Reese then rolled his eyes at that notion.
They found the hatch. Reese then opened it to see indeed there was a club and it was in business.
"BACK INTO THIS RAP BEAT. THIS PUSHING IN MY BACK…" the singer said as Reese closed the hatch.
"Damn it, I hate it when I'm wrong." Winter says.
"We have no other option, let's go." Reese says as he throws open the hatch.
And to say there were a lot of stunned patrons was an understatement instead there was panic.
Reese then found an exit and cleared the way.
After some time running the group found a spot to stop and rest for a bit.
"Now what are we going to do?" Yang asks.
"You are going to rest and hide while I initiate Operation Checkmate." Reese says.
END