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"Well, are you?" I asked Jasper.

"Am I what?" She returned from her place by the counter.

"Going to shut down the strikes. She made some pretty good points about the Grimm," I said. I leaned on one of the tables, my massive sword handle extending over my head.

"No… I told you we aren't even in charge of the strikes really. It's a bit of an avalanche that's carrying us along. And if we don't get on board we'll be left behind," Jasper returned. "I'm not saying that she didn't have any good points. And maybe the only way to get real change going is with the elections. And Robyn Hill is basically a shoe in over Schnee. Especially down here in Mantle. Money can only buy you so much. Might be for the best if things were to die down."

"But you're not sure," I affirmed.

"How can I be? Nobody's sure. It's the Cetra condition. The Happy Huntresses are about defending Mantle, though. They've been at it for a while and they've done some real good. Maybe they're right about this too. I certainly don't think the military will shoot on the crowd but if they do it would be bad."

"The Happy Huntresses don't seem to like me, which is a point in their favor."

"Oh pssh. None of that. You do fine."

"So, I'll just come by again later?" I asked.

"Yeah, really sorry about this, cutie." She winked. Her fox tail swished around in the air behind her in a brownish-red and white flare.

I ignored that last bit.

Neo tugged on my sleeve from her position by my side.

"What?" I asked her. "Want one of their drinks?"

She held up a finger to her lips as though deep in thought. Then shook her head.

"Then I have no idea what you want." I turned back towards Jasper. "We'll be back later. I'm going to go scope out this Adam Taurus and the protests. I might end up having to kill him after all."

"If you say so. See you later tonight."

"Yeah well no promises, especially if I end up in a fight."

Neo and I strode out and mounted my motorcycle. "You are being a needy bitch today, Neo. What's up with you?"

She shoved a finger in and out of a rounded hole made of her other fingers. "Not happening. Didn't happen. I would remember something like that."

I was like seventy-five percent sure. Maybe a hard seventy.

She shrugged at me, somehow making the gesture teasing. An 'if you say so.'

"I do say so." And I did. It did not happen.

No matter what she herself implied. I would remember. I would know. Sure the night before was little more than golden blurs. And sure I somehow ended back up at the motel with all my armor and gear.

Anything could have happened after I really started drinking and the morning when I woke up. Anything but that, that is. The warm memories I felt were probably from The Den not from you know… sex… with Neo.

I rubbed a hand over my face hard.

"Neo you're fucking killing me. You know that, right?"

She grinned and nodded.

"Yeah well even if it happened once it's never ever happening again. I'm too fucked up to be doing that level of drugs again, that was a mistake. I don't know what I was thinking. I'm also too fucked up to be having sex with you."

I looked down at her as she frowned and slapped me on the arm.

"No points against you. You're drop dead gorgeous. But, well, tough shit," I returned. "For me and for you."

I revved up my motorcycle. Neo straddled behind me and flickered into a disguise for while we were driving. She was wanted, more so than my own form. No reason to give some patrol-man a reason to pull us over and start calling for backup.

And she couldn't exactly cover every camera we came across while driving. There were too many on the main roads and we went by too fast. So this little disguise helped.

She was still gorgeous in her double, with bright green eyes and dark black hair, just as long as it was when she was in her normal form which was to say waist length. Neo had that otherworldly angel-esque appearance some hunters got after a few years with aura.

It was a cure all to wrinkles and blemishes and left the user looking out of this world. Neo was no exception with her tight stomach being exposed and her muscular, relatively long smooth legs in those heels propping up her butt. Her short stature didn't detract from her beauty.

Huntresses, man. They were just like that. Like they came from another planet. Maybe I was a bit like that too, though. If I could be so arrogant. I'd had aura most of my natural life. Tall, blonde, and huntsman, I recalled a conversation in GaiLong I had with an old man about it. He told me not to be dense. I attracted more than my fair share of looks. More than my fair share.

Ruby had been like that. Beautiful like a little angel. Her hair and eyes stood out unnaturally even amongst huntresses. Yang, of course, was staggeringly gorgeous with her blonde mane of hair and lilac eyes. Weiss had a sort of pristine crystalline look to her that had drawn me to her immediately. Like she was multifaceted. Like a cut diamond. Blake had that bookish appeal but translated over to the huntress side of things it made her stand out in any crowd.

Pyrrha… well it went without saying with Pyrrha. Her emerald eyes and bright red hair flashed behind my eyelids every time I closed my own. She haunted me, Pyrrha Nikos did.

Even Jasper had started to have a bit of that. Stomach and face like a supermodel and long legs to boot.

Huntresses, man. Ain't nothing like 'em. Aura was a hell of a drug. It turned people into angelic beings.

But Neo was no exception. When I first arrived at Beacon I thought I'd have been lucky to have sex with someone as gorgeous as she was.

Now the thought only filled me with a slight sense of dread. A mix of betrayal and hurt welled up from deep inside me. Even though I had no right to feel that way. My feelings about it weren't valid. Not then when I'd first arrived at Beacon, all my feelings from then were fake. And not now when I was cruising around like a monster.

I rolled up on where the miners were picketing. It was near the open pit mine I'd been at for the bombing. They'd lined up around it, eight or ten people deep. They were armed with protest signs and little else from what I could see. They had no weapons.

Could Ironwood really open up and fire on a crowd like this? Would that really solve the negativity problem or just make it worse? I could see it now, a swarm of Atlesian Robots mercilessly breaking up the protest with sleek assault rifles.

I thought it would make things worse. For sure, for sure but my opinion hardly counted for squat, did it.

By the crowd there were police officers lined up around the perimeter. They probably had standing orders to leave the crowd be but break up any fighting. They looked nervous. As they should before a mob like this.

The people were baying for change.

From the protestors' signs they were demanding safe improvements to their work and higher wages. Nothing crazy, at least in my opinion. In my estimation they would get it. They deserved it. These people weren't hunters. They hadn't signed up for danger. They wanted their working environments to be safe so they could go home and see their families every day.

There was nothing crazy about that. Nothing insane. These people already should have had that. Mining should be one of the safest occupations. It could be done right. It didn't have to be a dangerous, well, a minefield. Save that for the hunters.

I guess the collapse of this mine, artificial or not, had been a bit of a breaking point for the people. I trolled around the crowd for a few hours. Traffic was ground to a halt in places as the protest spilled out onto the streets, blocking vital arteries of city flow beyond the capacity to reroute. It backed up traffic for miles and miles. It was unbelievable.

It was a mess. I could confess that. But it seemed like an easy enough decision at the top level. Capitulate, and nobody would have to get hurt. Of course if old man Schnee cared more about people than the profits his company could pull in, then people wouldn't be protesting, would they.

It was hard to see him winning the election to the council with open picketing happening against his company but Atlas got a vote too and they were separated from all this. One of the benefits of keeping the people of Atlas and Mantle segregated.

It was gross but effective. Keep the different stakeholders in different places and there would be no need to capitulate. I didn't hide the disgust I felt and let it roll out onto my expression. Jacque Schnee could keep his company rolling the way it had been and become a council chairman. He could have his cake and eat it too.

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I never found Adam Taurus.

It wasn't exactly a point of shame for me either. The entire Atlas military couldn't find me but then again I was driving around in broad daylight with my own illusionist. It made me wonder if Adam had his own illusionist. Like maybe someone like Emerald Sustrai. She was an illusionist too.

What I managed to do instead was drive around and observe the absurdity of the crowd for a few hours. If I needed to find Adam Taurus bad enough I would use Aurum. Not drive around lost.

Still it was good for me to see the crowd and feel their negativity for myself. It was easy to talk about it and have it all get lost on you what ten thousand angry people really felt like against your skin. Or aura. Whichever. They felt mostly the same to me. Maybe it was my short lifespan with a relatively long period of having my aura activated but I could hardly tell a difference.

I could feel Neo riding behind me with her cruel cold. I could also feel the crowd. Blazingly hot. Burning me up. Throngs of people fired up over a common reason; a common goal.

I wasn't much of an empath but even I could feel the negativity. Ren had always been better than me at that. Ruby had been too. What did it say that I was able to feel the negative emotions rolling off the crowd like a tsunami?

It meant that even a layman could probably notice it and pick up on it. The walls of Mantle had probably been under twenty-four seven assault by the Grimm. Meanwhile Atlas rested above, safe and sound. Connected to Mantle only by shallow guide wires for the gondolas and trams.

A shallow spider web that connected the two cities. Never crossing, never overlapping, but allowing the transference of people and ideas.

They probably felt none of this rage. Atlas was an island in a sea of negativity and Grimm. Albeit a floating island but an island nonetheless.

How could two places so close together feel so disparate? Was this how the segregation had remained mostly in place for so long? How long has things been like this with Mantle's red hot rage and Atlas's gray cold apathy?

It unsettled me, the stark difference between the two.

I shifted on the bike and Neo scooted down closer to me. She kept a single arm around me and under my plate.

"Well Neo, what do you think? Think we should cut this off and kill Adam Taurus?"

Was I just hunting for a reason for me to kill someone? Maybe. Salem was driving me mad. I at least had that as an excuse.

"Of course killing Adam Taurus won't end this. We'd need to get that Dyne guy. We started this, though. We're responsible for it, to one degree or another."

"I feel bad. Last night I was getting wasted in The Den and this shit was happening down here. You couldn't even tell how bad things are from up in Atlas. All the people down here, if you even care to look and see them, just look like ants."

I rolled back up on Seventh Heaven in the evening. There were more cars parked outside than normal. I marched up to the place and walked inside with a jingle of the bells.

It was relatively crowded. It had all the members of Avalanche inside, looking as they did before with their red bandannas. Then it had another man in a white mask, red hair and a long katana. He had the horns of a bull on him.

There were two more guys inside. A taller white skinned gentleman with a white shirt, green trousers and a green vest with red trimmings. He had only one arm. The other was cut off at the elbow with red bandages around the end. He had a wiry tail like that of some kind of big cat.

Another man was in there but his opposite arm, his right, was cut off at the elbow. He was taller, taller than me, with black skin and black hair. He had thick brown boots and a brown vest with green trousers and a darker brown under shirt. He had a thick bushy bear tail.

Everyone turned to look at Neo and I as we walked in. We were the only humans in the room.

"Cloud…" Bisque said in greeting.

"What're these humans doing here?" The man in the white mask gestured his blade forward at his hip towards me.

"We invited them, before we knew this meeting was going to happen," Jasper said.

The man with the katana growled at me. I stared him right down back. It would be inaccurate to say nothing scared me, but not this asshole.

"He worked with us. He's a mercenary who helped us blow up the mine. He fought the Turks. He's cool," Wenge said.

"You did that?" The taller dark skinned man asked.

"I did." I nodded.

"Why would a human do that?" The masked man asked.

"Money. Information. Take your pick," I shot back.

"I don't like your attitude. And I do recognize her. She's Neapolitan. She used to work for Roman Torchwick."

"She works for me now. You got a problem with that then we can take it outside."

He growled and stepped forward towards me. A hand held him back and his chest from the man without his left arm.

"I'm Dyne. This is Barret," Dyne introduced. "We could use the help of a skilled merc. The picketing is losing steam already. We need to set a fire under Schnee's ass."

"Avalanche was telling us about another operation, one to sink an SDC freighter," the man without his right arm continued, Barrett was his name. "Make them beg for the miners back."

"They told me about it. I recommended that they wait," I said. "I take it you gentlemen want the operation to go ahead?"

"That's right." The man with the sword said. "If you think you're up for it. If they think a human like you can be trusted."

"Avalanche has one of my retainers." I pulled my pipe out and lit it. I made myself look comfortable.

"Oh Cloud, can I get you anything to drink?" Jasper asked.

I looked down at Neo. She nodded. "Just one of those house specials for Neo. I'm good." I'd had enough to drink the night prior. "And who's this?" I nodded at the man with the Katana. "The rest of you were polite enough to introduce yourselves."

"I'm Adam Taurus."

"Ah," I said. "The man on everybody's mind. I might get paid to kill you tomorrow."

He grabbed his sword but he didn't draw it.

"Is that a threat?"

"A little." I exhaled smoke in his direction. "It's the truth. Think you can take me, Taurus? Wanna dance?"

He growled at me.

"I, for one, like you, Cloud. What was your last name?" Dyne asked.

"Strife. It's Cloud Strife."

"Well I think we just may be able to work together. Avalanche has your fee? You'll do this op for us?"

I smoked and nodded. I looked over Dyne's head at Avalanche. They were giving me pleading and grateful looks.

"Should be a cinch," I said. "We can discuss my payment later."

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-WG