Fandom Coral, Abide with Rubicon!

[EllieMcEllie]

Michigan was shocked by the information that was being presented to him, but he wouldn't let it show. Frankly, it sucked that a fan would even consider something like that, but the fact that she had the balls to announce this to him instead of blind siding him showed something about her character.

"Those are some big balls you have there, Gun 13." He thought it over. He didn't want to underestimate her, but it was two against one here. While he was hard on his maggots, he also recognized skill. After all, instead of shaping them to be the pilots they are, he could have just killed them.

Michigan was sure they could handle the heat, and if they couldn't, they would eject before their AC exploded. Right? More than half a million Coam was a lot for just one freelancer.

"I'd like to see you try, freelancer." Came the calmer voice of Volta who was being reminded just why they didn't work with freelancers who were easily bought by the highest bidder. After all, what did he expect for someone in it only for the coam? With Iguazu, he was confident that they could take her down.

Sure, the remaining MTs would be a pain, but if they could overwhelm her AC, take turns overloading its ACS limiter and causing an overheat while the other chipped away at the metal, they would be able to handle this.

The question was if Iguazu would be able to handle his anger enough to fall in line and work in tandem like they have in the past.

"I think yer outta yer damn mind if you think I'm shelling out over half a million Coam when I have maggots to take care of the job." Came Michigan's voice, and Walter could feel himself smirk just a little bit. Looks like his hound was in for a fight, but something told him that she could take these two without a problem.

"Looks like you have your answer, 621. Take them down." Walter couldn't help but feel a little bit of excitement to see just how his hound would handle a situation like this. One part of him was worried, but he knew that as long as she paid attention, she wouldn't get absolutely shredded.

"Look alive Maggots, looks like G-13 decided to ruin our little field trip!" It was all Volta needed to boost forwards towards her location, fighting past the waves of MTs.

"They bought you out, didn't they?!" Came the black haired pilot's voice as he aimed his Zimmerman at her, firing the powerful shotgun in her direction. "Iguazu, flank her. We have this if we work together!"

~***~

With a respectful nod, Elliot grabbed her things and headed out of the gym towards her room for a shower. If the Wall had that strong of a defense, she was going to need new back kits. Her horizontal missile launchers were more suited for light combat, not for possible conflict with multiple ACs. Pulling out her communications device, she shot Lilith a text.

Hey Lil, its Elliot. Mom said that you work for RaD now and I was wondering if you have anything fun that could help with faster hacking, quicker boosting, and maybe some new back kits for a lightweight AC? I kind of need them ASAP, by late afternoon at the latest. I'll pay extra for the rush! Love you!
​

Huntress got halfway to her room when she got a message back. The red head couldn't help but grin at the excited jumble of words that she got back.

Oh my god, Elliot, its been forever! I absolutely have a hacking kit here that'll put whatever Arquebus is using to shame, and I won't even charge you extra for the rush shipping. It'll be the family discount! I think an ALULA 21E booster would do you wonders. As for back kits, what do you think of the EL-PW-01 TRUENO? It shoots mini pile bunker bolts and are great at piercing armor. I can make a custom order too if you need it and rush the order, though I do have another custom order at the moment. God, you'll love it! It's the best custom order I've gotten so far! Its from an independant merc named Raven and they wanted as many explosives as possible per side and then when they explode on contact, the explosives release this ECM fog and it basically paints anything it touches in pink! Here's the prototype!! I was able to fit 18 missiles per side and I'm so excited to show them! Tell me about your AC though! What does it look like? What's its name? What's your callsign? Love you too, little deer! ​

Well, that was quick! As always, Lilith was full of energy and was curious about her AC. Huntress took a nice hot shower, got dressed into her flight suit and checked in with Snail on a location for drills before relaying the info to her squad. Once she was in the Hangar where her AC was prepped for drills, she took a picture of it and sent it to Lilith.

Those all sound good to me, Lil! Invoice me and I'll pay you. Here is ARTEMIS! I know, I'm weird for keeping in line with dad's weird ancient Greek obsession and callsign. But GLADIATOR was my inspiration to be an AC pilot in the first place! Plus tigers are cool, can you blame me? My callsign is V. IX Huntress, leader of the 9th Vesper squad, so please send them to the Arquebus HQ with that callsign attached! I've got drills to go do, but I'll message you when I'm done.

"Wait, you're the new Vesper? The RaD guys were losing their shit over this unidentified Vesper with V.IV Rusty yesterday. That was you?! Holy shit, sis! I saw those clips, you decimated their MTs! I had to fix them!"
​

Lilith fangirled over messages as the Vesper got in her AC, paying the invoice and set off to the drills location. It was going to be a long day.

 

[Lucyfer]

Aurelia waited for the answer from Michigan, hearing what Volta and Iguazu added. All that mattered was his words, and it seemed he had faith in the two. Foolish, but admirable.

“Please forgive me when they're nothing but scrap, Michigan. I gave you fair warning. I used to be a rather infamous pilot in the Pluto colonies.” No, he'd never heard of her, and she didn't offer a name or callsign. But he could take a look while he was panicking over his maggots. Maybe he'd figure it out. Maybe he'd realize the warning wasn't fair at all with no information prior to it.

Aurelia flipped her music back on, and muted her line to the Redguns before taking the neuro-set off and switching to the levers and buttons. She wouldn't cut the line, she'd let them do that, but they wouldn't hear anything from her.

Iguazu was the closest. Volta would take time to catch up, given the distance and the MTs in his way, so Aurelia focused on Iguazu, “I was hoping for this,” Iguazu sneered, “I'm going to make sure you can't eject out of this. Whatever you did in your past, you're still in the same goddamn place as me, some other bastard’s dog,” and indeed, she could already see the plan as the machine gun chipped away at her AC, while his other rifle charged up. She wasn't familiar with it, but she knew better than to get hit.

“...patience running thinner on this melting clock
Cerebrum jailed with thoughts most would consider rot
To think you're any different from an animal
A creature sick as you should be put down
But I–”​

As soon as his AC adjusted to fire, she boosted up, and let down her missiles, forcing Iguazu to pull back. She watched his shield come up as she considered the bazooka, so instead she dropped and cut through the shield with the blade, taking it down in two strikes before launching the bazooka, catching them both in the explosive blast.

“Are you fucking insane?” Iguazu demanded, pulling a repair kit as he was forced to boost up to escape, missiles trailing him.

‘If you can't take an explosion, don't have explosive weapons.’ so no, she wasn't insane, though she didn't relay the thought to Iguazu. She built this AC around withstanding her own blowback so she could launch these at closer range when no sane person would.

Volta finally caught up, and Aurelia flitted forward as the spread of shotgun shots came. The first volley nicked her AC but the damage was still substantial for such a light blow, especially after the explosive. She dove in straight at Volta, aware his tank legs made him a bit beefy, but also aware it kept him grounded.

Another shot of a zimmerman struck her full on, her sensors going haywire, overheating, but without the neuro-set, Aurelia’s mind didn't fry with the machine and she pushed it through overheat despite the complaints of the beast, the way the parts shrieked under the strain, and used the blade to cut into Volta’s AC far sooner than he expected.

He drew back and his missiles on his back adjusted to point at her. She boosted up as they fired, letting them miss, and hammered down her own missiles and explosive fire before dropping right behind and striking with the blade again as he went into overheat.

He was frozen, and she could hear him complaining on the comms, as she drew back and sent another explosive round into him before Iguazu's machine gun fire started chipping into her again. ‘Sorry, I picked Volta to deal with first.’

She pushed for Volta, ignoring the spray of fire as missiles flew ahead of her. They were destroyed by a defensive blast of the shotgun.

Friendly fire was Volta's undoing. Iguazu's charged shot slammed into Volta as he was tracking Aurelia.

“Fuck! Volta?” Iguazu's genuine panic might have been heartbreaking, if Aurelia let it distract her. HEAD CANNON was breaking apart from the electric shock, not even able to reach for a repair kit.

Aurelia simply went right after Iguazu, ignoring her own relief when she heard Volta's voice crack over the comms about ejecting, and pushed all eight missiles into Iguazu at close range. Up went his shielding as he backed off, before boosting at her with the machine gun continuing it's nigh endless stream of shots, as she strafed to keep them off of her, and wait until he needed to reload – or got tired.

“...twist and tame my feral mind
Play with me till you've found another toy
Let me be your freak show
I can be your favorite monster…”​

Tired came first as he lowered the gun and boosted again, slamming a kick into her AC’s core.

It was unexpectedly jarring and the beast staggered back before taking a charged electro-shot to the core, going straight into an overheat she couldn't pull out of; the metal limbs locked up under the electric sizzle.

Missiles hit home and the AC fell to the ice, but it was able to move. She pulled a repair kit and abused the boost to get up and get back, a bit surprised that Iguazu pulled anything like that off.

~***~

Rusty went through his own drills that day, worried about Elliot after her confrontation with Pater. Despite feeling such frustration with her decision to join Arquebus, he still felt that terrible kinship of another Rubiconian. He always felt so alone in the Vespers.

Now that loneliness was twofold with his inability to tell her the truth, or try and convince her to leave the Vespers. She owed them nothing.

But, he couldn't.

He knew he must have seemed a bit distracted. Some in his squad asked after him, but he waved it off as fatigue from the mission last night. That was a good enough reason to struggle to keep his focus as he directed them from remembering their AC was a weapon even without weapons, to going through the motions of target practice for guns and kicks.

When his drills ended, he noticed he had a message from O'Keeffe. ‘A night mission, huh?’ so Hawkins wasn't lying. Rusty wondered what it would be, and how they were going to split the focus with the PCA. They'd likely get back to them after the Wall, but Rusty had hoped for more time. He'd hoped that the Rubiconians would keep the Wall, of course, but he knew when Snail acted, it'd be hard, if not impossible, to make Arquebus lose.

He'd just have to get as many out as he could.

He didn't do much preparing for a night raid, no changes were made, he just made sure he was in the hangar at the right time to meet O'Keeffe when the hour struck 6pm, unaware another was on the mission as he lifted a hand in greeting to O'Keeffe. “Heeey, mate, Snail letting you handle this one?” He couldn't help the languid smile. He'd already checked in with Snail to make sure.

“Mmm. He's busy with another matter that requires his personal touch.”

“Freud?”

O'Keeffe smiled but didn't dignify anything with a comment. “We're waiting on Huntress, then I can begin the briefing.”

Rusty couldn't help the way his brows lifted. “You know our ACs are similar, right? Not that I dislike working with her,” he didn't mind, but usually two ACs that went together were separate types. This felt unusual to happen twice in a row.

“I am aware, however we have many information gathering missions wherein other ACs simply would not work. We'll begin to split you up more for some of them but this one is too important to run the risk.”

Rusty hummed agreeably and nodded, willing to accept it. It didn't really concern him how Arquebus divided it's forces, but it was…strange, all the same.

 

[EllieMcEllie]

Walter didn't know if Michigan knew about 621's past, and it seemed he didn't even as he cheered on his pilots. Everyone made mistakes, even if some where bigger than others. The pepper haired man knew what she was capable of, and knew she'd likely be able to pull this stunt off, especially with the extent of her abilities hidden until now.

"We'll see about that, G-13!" Came the indignant and confident voice of Michigan, though if she could hear it, there was not confirmation.

Volta was caught off guard by her tenacity, taking him on even with Iguazu breathing down her neck with his machine guns. Despite hie shotgun shells chipping away at her metal armor, she still came at him. Even when he overloaded her AC, she still managed to rise and cut through his AC several times before overheating him.

"This merc's something else... Where did Michigan find this freak?!" He called out, trying to push past the overheat but failing, having to wait. Unfortunately, Iguazu's electro-charge did CANNON HEAD in. 'Fuck!' Volta thought as he pressed the eject button. "Rgh! I'm losing control of my machine. No choice but to withdraw." Volta booked it out of there as soon as he was free of his AC, trying to get as far away from the fight as possible so that he wasn't caught in the cross fire.

Walter couldn't help the grin that grew on his face, and tried to keep just how pleased he was from his voice, though he was sure it bled through more than he'd have liked. He didn't need to celebrate before the fight was over. "Good work, 621. One target down. One target left."

The pepper-haired man gripped his chair as he watched her take a good chunk of damage but was able to calm himself down when he saw her use her repair kit. She knew what she was doing, G-5 had just gotten in a lucky set of hits. He had to trust her ability as a pilot to get her through this.

Just a little bit longer, if the appearance of his AC was anything to go by.

"G-5! Pull your shit together, or do you want to end up like the headless cannon?" MIchigan called out, though it was tense, as if Michigan had realized that he fucked up. It was bordering on terse encouragement, and Walter shook his head. He couldn't bring himself to feel bad for Michigan. His hound gave him fair warning and he foolishly chose to ignore it.

"Finish this, 621. Show Michigan how things on Pluto are done." This time, he didn't mind letting his pride slip into his words. How could he not be proud of his hound after taking on two Redguns by herself and holding her own against them?

~***~

Huntress should have been more tired than she was after drills and the workout that she had earlier. As she sat there jamming out to her music, working on her AC and getting it fitted with the new parts from RaD, she couldn't help but feel invigorated. The ALURA 21E booster was installed, and the TRUENOs were installed. She had even swapped her beloved Chang-Chens out for her lighter weight Ludlows, and switched around her arms, and legs to something ultra lightweight.

All she had to do was repaint the beast and put her decals on, then ARTEMIS would be ready to take on this mission.

"Blades talk
Singing into the night where death walks
No wish can save you when the wolf stalks
I've got your number when your heart stops
So much bravado for a lie..."​

Huntress sang along with her music using her necklace, dancing around the painting booth to it as she set the painting arms in motion. First would be the 2 coats of white paint, then the black, grey and brown stripes to mimic the colors of the frozen landscape of Rubicon.

She'd show them that she was worth keeping, that she could do a job better than Pater could. If he was going to doubt her abilities, she was going to show him that he was replaceable. His AC was relatively easy to beat in the ALLMIND system, and his was the Arena profile that she challenged over and over to get the coam to cover the costs of her new equipment.

She even turned in some of her OS tokens to help with better hacking on top of the improved hacking gear from Lilith, upgrading her defense, her attack with her kinetic weapons and bought herself terminal armor. If she could get past "Chatty" Stick, she could upgrade her rig even more. One could hope.

After the paint had dried, Huntress set about applying the decals. She added her Vesper logo and a different decal reading 'If you can read this, you're in TRUENO range'. As the machine began to apply her decals, motion near the entrance of the Hangar caught her attention. She checked the time. 5:59. Oh! How long had she been here working on ARTEMIS?

While the machine was finishing up, she headed down the steps and jogged over to O'Keefe. She caught the tail end of his and someone else's conversation. The red head slowed down as she seemingly popped up out of no where behind O'Keefe. With a mechanic's rag, she wiped the grease from her face and hands as the necklace spoke for her. "I was waiting on you, sir. I've been here for hours working on ARTEMIS." The redhead noticed that her brown-haired friend was here as well and blinked owlishly for a moment in surprise before greeting him. "Oh! Hey Rusty! Are you here for the mission too?" It seemed that she was all better from earlier as she bumped her shoulder against his arm in a friendly manner, smiling up at him with that overly expressive smile of hers.

The bubbly pilot moved to stand in line with Rusty, standing at attention as she waited for O'Keefe to start the briefing. Huntress snuck a peak at ARTEMIS who was finally done now that the decals had been painted on, her grin growing. Yeah. She'd show them. She'd show them all that she maybe small, and defective, but she could pilot like the best of them, that choosing her wasn't a mistake.

 

[Lucyfer]

‘Freak.’ It was almost too fitting with the song blasting in Aurelia’s ears. She almost liked it, as it continued to ring in her ears as she blew a hole in the ground where Iguazu had been standing. He moved – he was a bit more mobile than Volta. It irked her, but she gave pursuit, not at all letting up even as she had to push through the machine gun fire.

It was hardly stronger than the PCA fire, and her frame was superior, now. It was still prone to overheating, and that annoyed her to no end. The missiles honed in on her and she danced around them, and around Iguazu’s fire. He did his best to keep her at bay between his missiles and machine gun fire, apparently giving up on trying to score a good hit with his rifle.

“Why don’t you just shut the fuck up and let me concentrate?” G5 snapped into the comms at Michigan.

Aurelia didn’t speak to Walter, though she heard him. The praise still had a frustrating way of making her want to like him – and even this mission choice made her want to like him. Of course, it was all about the coam for Walter. It wasn’t that the RLF was better. Still…he’d chosen to stab someone in the back.

That would have consequences.

Aurelia’s mind was in overdrive thinking that decision through and how to come back from it, as she finally got in close to Iguazu and cut into his frame to bring him into overheat, before blasting both of them to hell with the bazooka.

She used her last repair kit as she sent eight missiles at his recovering frame.

“Fuck this, I’m not going to die here!” Iguazu declared, and no doubt ejected as the missiles rammed into his frame, and brought it down into a sparking, flaming, husk. Aurelia smirked, and turned the mute off on her side. “

“I don’t have the firepower to show you how it would have been handled on Pluto, Michigan, but I hope this show has convinced you that I was worth the coam.” And that was how she knew where this went, how she didn’t show all of Rubicon-3 she didn’t handle jobs. “Now, I believe I still have a generator to destroy for you, don’t I? The RLF didn’t pay me not to destroy it. That is, if you’re still willing to pay for that to be done.”

He might be a bit salty. If he backed out of payment, well, then it was Michigan who didn’t honor deals.

The RLF was definitely going to be salty, but they needed to learn how to deal with mercenaries, too.

~***~

Rusty saw Huntress pop up behind O’Keeffe, and fought to keep the smile off of his lips so he didn’t give it away. Sadly, O’Keeffe did not jump, just turned slightly at the sound of her voice, and nodded to her in greeting. “Good to see you’re taking the mission seriously, Huntress,” he said, and as she saw Rusty and asked after him, he interjected, “Rusty will be accompanying you on the mission.”

“Glad to have you aboard, Buddy,” Rusty said, “We made short work of a mission yesterday, I think we can manage it again.” He certainly hoped they could, but he hadn’t heard what the details were yet.

O’Keeffe let Huntress get into position, before almost unconsciously adopting a far more professional stance, verging on military – at least, if a military leader could be in a boardroom. There was no way to really remove the imagery of him in suits, even when he wasn’t in one. It was bred into how he held himself.

“Rusty, Huntress, you are being sent to Gallia Dam structure for two reasons. First, to obtain combat logs from the Redgun’s mission. We know they are going to strike the Wall soon, so we need to understand what their power is. We are also aware of an independent mercenary that went with them, and we have limited information on this mercenary.”

Hawkins had some, but not nearly enough. Not enough to explain the rumor that the mercenary wiped the floor with two Redguns.

“Second, we are working out the power to the Wall and understand Gallia was a part of this. We believe Gallia also maintains information on other places that send power to the Wall, and we need those locations so we can knock them offline before our own strike. Questions?”

“If there are any generators active that the Redguns missed, do you want us to take those out?”

“Affirmative,” O’Keeffe agreed. “We need to deprive the RLF of all power sources and thin their forces out.”

 

[EllieMcEllie]

Just like Walter knew she could, his hound made quick work of the other Redgun. Maybe that would help tame his loud mouth? Probably not. Walter doubted even death would keep that pilot quiet. It seemed that he at least had the humility to eject before his AC was blown sky high by missiles.

"Send me the bills for the repairs, Michigan. That'll teach you to underestimate her."

Then she did something absolutely baffling, catching all three parties off guard. Was she... counter negotiating?

"G-13, You've made your point, but like hell am I going to pay for this job. You ruined the field trip! Walter, I'm going to charge you for tuition too!" With that, the Redgun line went dead and a transport helicopter arrived, picking the two ejected pilots up and taking them to safety.

"Well done, 621. Don't worry about the backlash. I'll handle it. Sending the Transport helicopter now." The Pepper-haired man switched off the Redgun line as he wired Michigan the money for repairs. He just needed his comms line with 621 and this encoded RLF member. He wasn't expecting her to negotiate like that, but it seemed that she was after as much Coam as possible.

Why wouldn't she? That's what he promised her, right? That once they reached their goal, he'd 'retire' and she'd get her life back. They'd just have to survive the burn.

A notification sounded on Aurelia's communications device from Lilith.

Hey, Hey, Raven! Guess who has several bruised fingers, a ridiculous amount of sticky, pink ECM fog in her hair and a prototype of the 'Fuck you 9000'? (Working title, of course!) This bitch! Here is a picture of the prototype! I was able to fit 18 missiles per side, I just need to know the exact shade of pink and we can work on testing this! I was thinking about calling it the COTTON CANDY, what do you think? Can't wait to hear back from you!​

~***~

Rusty didn't know the half of it, but she wasn't going to give away her surprise. She'd improved her AC just for this mission, and she was itching to show it off. Just a little longer. She might have friends on the ground now, but her second home was still in the belly of the giant metal beast that she piloted.

The Gallia Dam. Another location that her sheltered self hadn't heard of, but at least this one was intuitive. A power dam of some kind. Well, that was exciting! Big open spaces with a zippy little AC like hers painted like the environment? This wouldn't be too hard.

What stuck out to her was the fact that they wanted information on a merc who was with them. Why did the merc matter? Usually they only really cared about Balam, PCA, or RLF troops. She wasn't going to question it though. After all, she was just the muscle. She just needed to find out the information, and relay it back to them, not think too hard about it.

The mission objectives were simple in their own way. Get in, get the info, possibly destroy a generator, and get out. Maybe they'd even get back before midnight!

"No questions here, sir." Huntress answered him, waiting to be dismissed before the red head headed over to her AC. Just like every time she went on sorties, she stood next to her AC's foot, patting it as she asked the beast to keep them safe before clambering up the catwalk and into the cockpit. Placing the neuroset on her head, she felt her mind protest, having been overworked by the ALLMIND system earlier. What if she-? The red head disconnected the bluetooth voice aid and felt immediate relief, sighing softly. Damn. There was a drawback. She'd have to be more careful in the future.

The pilot maneuvered ARTEMIS into the transport helicopter and let the locks hold onto her once she was in place. She turned on her comms and was happy to see that it was still set to Vesper Encoded channel 3. "Buddy, you copy?" Her monotone voice droned over the communications system. "Necklace too much. Used ALLMIND too long." Huntress explained, relaxing back in the seat as the helicopter got ready to take them to their mission location. She tried to not let the disappointment get to her. After all, her AC was upgraded. What was a little bit of a break from her necklace? Rusty wasn't going to judge her like that.

 

[Lucyfer]

Aurelia didn’t know why Walter was offering to pay for the AC repairs. That was just going to cut down on their earnings, but she supposed it might go towards helping them continue to get work from Balam. After all, this was nothing personal. Though, Michigan decided not to pay her to finish the job, which she was quietly relieved for.

She didn’t want to harm the RLF further, but she hadn’t wanted a reputation for not completing jobs. Now she had a reason. Michigan wasn’t paying. That was good enough for her, and so she let the Redguns get picked up, and while waiting for her own transport, she did go back to her tablet to respond to Lilith.

Just as another message popped up with the prototype.

Rubiconian Pink should do me just fine, Lilith. Thank you. Apologies I didn’t get back to you sooner, I had a mission to head out on. I hope your fingers get to feeling better, but I’m sure you’re rocking the pink hair. Just style it up in a mohawk.

Names aren’t too important to me if you’re going to mass market it.
If you’re not, though – I’ve got a bit of a theme going, although I haven’t made it public yet. ​

No, the beast she sat in still went nameless to everyone but her. She heard the chthonic cry the first time she was nearly taken by Aidon.

LEMURES.

If you’re familiar with Old Earth Roman chthonic myths, grabbing a term from there would suit.

On that note, I do have another request. I used to pilot another AC before this one, and I’m still not used to the overheat lag. My old AC’s long gone so I can’t tear it apart and figure out what made it tick, but in its core it had a sort of coupling device that allowed it to push through overheat without damaging the AC much. Do you think you might be able to make a heavy core with that in mind? None of the units I’ve seen on the market have that going for them, and pushing through it manually is holding me back.
​

She hesitated to give the name of her old AC. Hesitated to even give that much, but if she wanted an AC suited to her styles, she had to give something. She’d already told Michigan she was from Pluto – or, well, made her name there.

The whole galaxy was going to find out eventually. She better start getting used to handing out the information.

She loaded up LEMURES into the transport and shut it down as it headed back to the ship, folding her arms in her lap as she rested, and wondering if she was yet in a position to negotiate no more jobs against the RLF. ‘Not yet. But soon.’ Walter couldn’t do this without her. He’d have to listen, once she built up that rep.

And if the RLF kept buying her out of corpo jobs…well, the corpos wouldn’t try to hire her for any, anyways. But she’d rather not go that route. Arquebus was more likely to pay the coam.

It was while she was still in the transport back, that she got on the line with Walter, “Hey, Handler,” she couldn’t get the question out of her mind, as she considered what influence she might have going forward, “why did you let me betray Michigan?” He could have denied it. He could have taken control. Instead, he gave her the option, and it bothered her to no end. An inch of freedom felt like a mile, but she knew that wasn’t true. She knew there were limits and she didn’t really want to find out the hard way where those were.

~***~

Elliot had no other questions, but Rusty interjected one more before they went of, “What are we expecting for resistance?”

“Heightened,” O’Keeffe answered, “the strike by Balam was recent, the ACs are still smoking on the ice, that’s why you have to go now to grab that combat data,” he noted, “but the RLF was not cleared out, and they have returned. There’s talk they have an AC unit on-site, piloted by Index Dunham.”

Rusty knew him.

He hoped that Index would bail when he realized who was there. Index was one of the Five Fingers of the RLF hierarchy, the Five who knew who he was – so he had to hope that Index would be willing to make the post surrender, though he knew it couldn’t be that easy. There would have to be fighting.

Death.

But hopefully, more ejections over deaths.

“Understood, sir,” Rusty said, “I’ll be on the lookout for an AC unit. Do you want its destruction made a priority?”

“No,” O’Keeffe shook his head, “it’s not important.”

Rusty nodded, grateful, though he didn’t let that show, “Destruction of RLF forces comes second to the mission. The generator is also second to the mission. If you cannot destroy it, disregard it.”

That was all Rusty needed to hear to head up to STEEL HAZE and get into the seat, put the neuro-set on, and get on the helicopter. The voice that came through next was Huntress’s – her physical voice. “No worries, Buddy! I can understand you just fine this way,” something she already knew, but he wanted to reassure her that he wasn’t bothered by the change. “You can take a break from the necklace whenever you want to.”

Soon enough, the transport brought them just outside the dam complex, which did indeed look like a battlefield. RLF MTs were scattered about, broken and destroyed. Generators were downed. “The RLF units may have some combat logs on them from their engagement with the Redguns. With your paintjob, I think you should try and find the Redgun AC wrecks, see if you can grab info on what took them out.”

That would be the most important information – how the RLF had taken down a couple of ACs.

“I’ll grab what I can from the MTs on my way towards the marker for the generator information. If I can’t get to it, I’ll pull the hostile MTs from the area so you can sneak in and get it. Does that sound like a good plan, buddy?”

 

[EllieMcEllie]

Lilith was quick to get back to Aurelia, her words oozing with excitement as always.

Great minds think alike! That was the pink I used for the prototype, so transitioning to the final product will be so easy! I hope your sortie went well, though I'm guessing it did seeing as you're talking to me! I'm already way ahead of you! I made it into a mohawk like those old Earth rock bands had theirs. The ones with the big spikes? My fingers are always bruised, it comes with the job, but I appreciate your concern!

Since this is a custom order, it is custom to your AC, and no one else's. I don't plan to mass market this! Chthonic myths are my jam! My whole family has a thing for the Old Earth Greek names for ACs. Mine is TROJAN HORSE, and my sister's is called ARTEMIS! I digress. What do you think of the WS-5013 ALECTO? Alecto was one of the three fates of Chthonic myth also called the unceasing one! I'll get this thing tested and

As for the core, that's a tough one! I'll have to consult with my boss and see if she has any ideas. You just have all the best ideas for AC upgrades! I hope I get to see your AC one day, because it is going to be badass with all these new parts! Not in a combat setting of course! I'll get back to you when the Fuck you 9000 is finished!
​

Walter had been wiring her the coam from the mission when 621 spoke up to him, drawing his attention immediately. Her question was a hard one, but he had an answer after a moment, projecting confidence.

"I trusted your judgement. Given the same choice, Michigan would have done the same." And he was sure of that. The Redguns were brutal, especially to mercs when they were in the way of a payout. Michigan had become more ruthless over the years and Walter found himself almost pitying the man who had become the very thing he had vowed to stop.

It seemed that his hound had taken a shining to Michigan before, knowing him as The Hero of Jupiter, Antares, but she had also just turned on him when he wasn't willing to pay the coam. Perhaps it was because she felt bad for the RLF, or maybe she just didn't care about Michigan as much as she seemed to earlier. He didn't know, but he knew it was possible that she wanted to talk more when she got back to the ship. He would be ready for it if she needed to talk, making a fresh pot of coffee.

​

~***~

Rusty's reply to her voice had the red head almost in tears, though she kept it together as best as she could. He was so sweet to her compared to the others, and made her not feel so defective. Her mom was right. Friends like him were hard to find, and she'd have his back just like he had hers. She would hug him if she could. Hell, she might still hug him after the mission, given it went well. "Thank you, buddy," She did her best to keep her voice from wavering from her emotions. It may have been toneless, but that didn't mean stutters and cracks would be exempt.

The scene that she and Rusty were greeted with was nothing short of a bloody, charred battlefield. Those Redguns and merc had done some serious damage here. The plan that Rusty laid out for them was perfect. It made use of both of their talents and prioritized their safety. "Good plan, buddy! See you soon," With the plan in place and their feet on the ground, Huntress urged ARTEMIS forwards, zipping across the snow at high speed through the shadows.

Using her radar, she was able to avoid the detection of the MTs patrolling and located the first AC. The AC skittered to a halt in the snow, plugging her hacking gear into the AC. She watched with amazement as the progess bar filled rapidly. Lil wasn't kidding when she said it would out perform the Arquebus equipment! As the information popped up in her data, she read through it.

This AC belonged to G4 Volta. There were voice recordings mentioning a Gun-13 and them being bought out, and the evidence from the combat log suggested that the pilot ejected at the last possible second. Damages seemed to be from close-range explosives that would have damaged the user as well, and electro weapons. Frowning, Huntress hummed to herself, but kept it out of comms. Maybe the other AC would provide her with information? The pilot unplugged her hacking gear and looked around. Coast was clear.

Huntress scanned the area again and zipped through the shadows moments after checking out the data, careful to avoid detection. If she wasn't forced to kill here, she was going to make sure to stay undetected so she didn't have to. Finding the other AC was a little harder, but she plugged back into it.

G5 Iguazu. The voice recordings were contradictory. He called this assailant Freelancer, and another voice on it called them G13. There were only 2 Redguns here according to O'Keefe, so was this merc trying out for the Redguns? Why would they attack the Redguns then? The Combat logs also showed that the pilot Ejected before the explosion and more evidence of the close range explosives.

"Buddy. This is confusing. Merc also called Gun-13. Merc took down both Redguns." She muttered into comms, her face scrunching up. "You get Generator info? You need help?"

 

[Lucyfer]

Lilith’s enthusiasm was intoxicating, yet also, tiring. Or more likely, the adrenaline was wearing off, and Aurelia was just tired. Still, she couldn’t help but quirk a smirk at the strange find of another who liked old Earth myths, even if not from the same area. Roman and Greek had some commonalities. The name of Alecto was one.

Aurelia knew it. Unceasing was indeed a good name for a barrage of missiles.

I’ll look forward to receiving ALECTO. Let me know the cost when it’s done and I’ll pay for two. Also, any updates about the Core. I’m sure I’ll have more ideas down the line for designs for all pieces. A fully custom AC is in the future, so if I find I like the work, I’ll keep coming back. RaD wasn’t in my part of the universe so we’ll see how you stack up to what I know. ​

Aurelia answered Lilith as she let Walter’s words sink in. Would Michigan truly do the same? Would he not take it personally? He sounded furious. She only knew his past, of course. She hardly knew what happened when he moved out of Furlough to Balam. Hardly knew who he was now, not that she’d ever known him.

She assumed his job was more than coam to him. Assumed, he thought he was doing the right thing. Even if she would disagree – she didn’t know for sure. She didn’t know much about Rubicon, only of her soft spot for revolutionaries.

Aurelia returned to the ship, and walked LEMURES to its Loader, climbed down it like always, and nodded in greeting to Walter. “You know Michigan, don’t you?” not much of a question when she was sure of the answer. “Are you from Jupiter, Handler?” Technically, she was, though she wouldn’t claim it.

She was made in Pluto.

And yet that wasn’t really the question she wanted to ask, so she rephrased, “How do you know him?” Hardly aware that coffee was made, she had no problem asking a few questions in the hangar with plans to bail when she had answers. She was trying not to pry much. Trying to keep Walter at a distance.

Close quarters, and Walter being practically the only person she had to talk to, made that difficult.

~***~

STEEL HAZE was not painted to blend in, so Rusty had to make heavy use of his scans, tracking around, and grabbing details from the MTs about the combat. It seemed most of them had been destroyed by shotguns, suggesting either all combatants had them, or one was on clean-up duty. He didn’t dare go to any of the generators, although he was sure their cameras caught additional security footage of the combatants.

No, not until he found Index.

Naturally, he caught an AC on his scanner as he got near the only working generator, the lights still on around it, spotlights moving out onto the ice to catch anyone prowling. Rusty was careful not to get caught in the beams as he zipped ever-closer, only getting caught when he wanted to be – right before the building, right where spotlights fell on him, near Index.

“Vesper!”

“V. IV Vesper!

“Arquebus is here!”

His comms line picked it up as he allowed the hailing of Index to push through, as fire from the MTs started to rain down on him. “Arquebus picking up the scraps of Balam?”

“It’ll be a rainy day in hell before we do that,” they had phrases. A cold day meant they were there to kill – leave cold bodies. Rainy meant information – gathering droplets. Even so, Rusty rushed Index in the mock fight, dealing superficial damage with his laser missiles and not-quite hitting with his melee weapon. “Our business is our own.”

The line is encrypted. Arquebus is listening.

Index grunted, going wide with his machine gun, “You corporate vultures! Rubicon will never yield!” As he said it, Rusty was able to get the shot in at the generator, and a few of the MTs went with it, much to his displeasure.

Ejection might not save them at close range, but his job was important enough that their lives had to be sacrificed. It wasn’t in vain. He had to tell himself that as Index took the opening to use his bazooka – getting a bit further – and open fire on Rusty’s core. It was a little left, but still did significant damage to the light frame.

Elliot’s query came through then. He couldn't process the mercenary details right then, so he just answered the ending question as to how he was doing.

“Not doing great,” he admitted on that line with a laugh, “I got down the final generator. I think the info is here. I’ll draw them away.”

He shifted lines back to Index as STEEL HAZE danced out of the way of the wide spray of machine gun fire. “I’m not a vulture, Index. I’m a wolf – I like my prey alive,” he couldn’t help his own wolfish grin, “why don’t you show me the power of Rubicon, huh?”

He dove down the dam’s side, and Index pursued. On his own lines, Index gave the command to eject if any got too damaged, as the MTs followed, to bring the might of Rubicon down on Rusty. Rusty wasn’t worried – nor was Index – that they would be fighting to kill.

It would open up the path significantly for the last generator, and indeed, where the hub of information was that they’d paid Raven to avoid letting it slip into the hands of the Redguns. It seemed, it was a lost cause anyways.

 

[EllieMcEllie]

As always, Lilith was quick to get back to Raven.

Will do! It was great working with you! You'll be hard pressed to find quality custom work like RaD makes here on Rubicon-3, but you'll see that when the ALECTO are on the back of your AC! I'll send the invoice now. The finish product shouldn't be vastly different than the prototype, so it won't cost more to produce it, so roughly 450k Coam per piece. Normally the SOUPS run 362K, but since these are custom, the price is a bit higher. I'll get a hold of Boss as soon as I can to figure out this core! Stay safe out there!
​

After Lilith messaged Raven, she also sent a message to her boss, "Cinder" Carla.

Heya boss, I need to pick your brain on something for a custom order when you have the time! You're going to love this one! I just finished that prototype for Raven and its on the way to testing, but they also brought up another custom work that they want done and I'm not sure how to go about it. They talked about an AC they used to run that had a feature in the core that made it able to move while overheated, but I don't even know where to begin. I'll forward the messages from them to you so you can see what exactly they said. If you come to my lab, don't mind the pink. It's everywhere, and I haven't figured out how to get it off of things yet.
​

After sending Carla the message and forwarding Raven's messages as well, Lilith looked around her workshop, affectionally called her lab, and grinned wickedly. Time to find the right chemicals to clean the pink off things. She had a feeling that people were going to need it in the future.

~***~

The silver cane clicked off the floor of the ship as the grizzled man made his way to the hangar to wait for 621 to arrive back from her mission. A mission that lined their pockets and put a small sully on their names. It would be temporary, especially seeing as he already paid Michigan for the repairs to smooth things over.

If it happened again, the Corps might not ask her to assist in RLF missions, but it seemed that she wanted it that way to begin with. Her anger the other day and her willingness to betray Michigan proved that in their own way.

Walter really should have expected her questions about his origins. The question was how much did he lie about or deflect? Too much information and she could find out about Overseer. Too little and she may become suspicious of him, more untrusting than she already was. He didn't want to tempt fate and end up with a knife at his throat. Seeing how she fought and knowing her past, it was a minute possibility.

"I hail from Jupiter, but I know Michigan from a friend here." Technically the truth, but enough to cover his full past, and his true objectives here on Rubicon. "The same friend that supplied your base AC parts, if that's a comfort." Walter was silent for a moment before continuing. He didn't want to risk more questions that could pry into his past, so he deflected slightly.

"There's fresh coffee in the lunch room. Get some rest, 621. You've more than earned it." Hopefully she actually rested. Not only did she get very little sleep the night before, if any, but she had also just took on two ACs and did most of a sortie on that very little sleep. She had to be tired, right?

~***~
Worry gripped Huntress as she heard him admit that things were starting to go pear-shaped on his end. "Fuck. Ok, on my way! Help when I'm done!" Shit, shit, shit! She was grateful for the speed of her AC and how fast she could hack now thanks to her hardware. She'd just need to get the information from the generator and then she could go back him up. Not that she'd be able to do a whole lot of damage if it were a Heavy Cavalry AC.

With the way clear and the last generator down, Huntress zipped up the side of the dam and over to the largest of the 4 generators. The area was no longer awash in the light of the spotlights, making it easy for her to plug herself into the busted generator to gather all the information that she could.

Like before, the information loaded quickly and soon it was in front of her for her to look over.

It showed the now ruined HEAD BRINGER and CANNON HEAD locked in combat with the merc that they called Gun-13 from a very far point of view. It also gave the locations of other power plants that helped power the wall. Exactly what they needed.

When she didn't hear anything else in the comms, worry filled her. 'Fuck it!' she thought, re-linking the necklace to her brain and violently cringing as fire rippled across her mind from the strain it put on her. She let out a pained grunt, gritting her teeth and clenching her fists tight. Nausea had her stomach in a vice and her vision swam. A faint pounding across her mind threatened to spike to unmanageable levels and yet still a he pushed through. Rusty was in danger and needed her help!

It took a good 30 seconds before she was able to will her AC to move, and even then, her breath hitched when the first jarring step shook her to her core. It rattled her brain, increasing the pain of the pounding, but she needed her full voice for this. Or at least that’s what her worried mind told her. Damn it, she had just made this friend! She couldn’t lose him now!

"Rusty, Buddy, I'm on my way, where are you? Are you hurt?" Her worry and strain were clear in her voice as she used her scanner to try and find the speedy AC. "I'm here to back you up, I got the information! What do you need?" If she needed to, she would draw the fire of the MTs and AC so he could get to safety. She was confident that she was fast enough to avoid most of their firepower with how quick this lightweight build was.

 

[Lucyfer]

Raven.

Carla had been hearing that name battered around lately. She knew the Ravens of history, but she was very aware of who this Raven was. Walter’s newest hound, turned bird. Not the smartest move for him, then again, the woman he found was hardly the best choice. They told Walter she was functional. Based on what Carla heard, she was a bit more than functional, and apparently being given more than functional funding to commission RaD.

She looked over Lilith’s message, and chuckled to herself at all the pink, before she looked over the forwarded messages. ‘She’s got some fire, doesn’t she?’ And clearly, she was referring to DI MANES. Carla hadn’t been able to find schematics of it, but it seemed now she needed to, if she was going to learn the secret. Couplings made sense.

There’d be something on Pluto.

“Chatty!” she called out to her AI, “Look into the DI MANES model. It looks like it had a neat trick for overriding overheat and Walter’s hound wants a repeat. Not usually what we do, but I figured we could make an exception,” she got to her feet, “I’m going to check in with Tiny.”

“Affirmative. I will research the model and find what I can.”

“Thanks, Chatty. I know I can count on you.”

With that, Carla left her own office – a room surprisingly put together – and found her way to the lab which was, indeed, covered in Rubiconian pink. She couldn’t help but stop, and then laugh, at the sight. “I see the ALECTO is all but done,” she commented. She understood what the SOUP design was for, seeing it now, and reading through those messages.

Carla was an older woman, though she didn’t look her true age – she was well into her 80s, but her black skin showed few wrinkles, her hair had little gray in in. She was a Cinder, though, in most ways that counted. She’d survived the fires from space, but she’d been there, right above Rubicon when it burned, with Walter safely ferried away to Jupiter.

She’d stayed.

That boy never should have returned and gotten himself involved in this. He should have been happy, not carrying the burden of his mad father.

Carla still hoped to resolve it without sacrificing him, although she knew she may sacrifice everything instead. That was her place, though. “How’d this tourist contact you?” Anyone not from Rubicon was a tourist, and Raven definitely was not from Rubicon.

~***~

Rest. Aurelia just scoffed at the niceties. She did rest, but woke as soon as she got a delivery notification. The ALECTO’s came rapidly after payment, and Aurelia made sure they were put onto LEMURES. She didn’t yet update the paint schematics, not quite sure what she was going for with these.

The way the ALECTOs spread out, they were almost like wings.

‘Except I’m not free. I can’t fly from this.’

Not yet.

Walter still needed a significant amount of coam for that. She’d rest up again once LEMURES was updated, but she’d be up early all the same, to eat, and to work in the gym, until Walter was ready to use her again. Thankfully, the next job she had no qualms with at all, even if it involved some teamwork.

Escort duty for a transporter, rescuing prisoners from Balam.

Michigan was going to hate her. That thought didn’t make Aurelia pause, though. She was willing to take on the mission and give the ALECTOs a try, so she signed up for the night mission, and helped the transport get through the MTs, darting ahead to make sure to clear a path – well, as clear a path as one tainted with a sort of hazy pink fog could be.

Aurelia really enjoyed the ALECTOs.

And somehow – was all working out. The MTs were easy to dispatch, the plan the RLF had to get their friends out was going off without a hitch, and Aurelia was silently picking up details about Coral from the mouths of zealots over the comms.

It was too easy.

That realization set in like a warning as they got the last prisoner, and Aurelia stayed close to the transport, rather than zip ahead. “Mission accomplished,” the one who’d hired her let out a sigh of relief as he saw the mountainous terrain ahead that they could escape into, “We’ll be leaving the combat—”

Aurelia’s scanners went wild with the sudden approach of several new enemies. “Can you push through? I can draw attention.”

“Negative, there’s an enemy AC. We can’t handle that kind of firepower. Once you take that down, we should be able to manage.”

“Handler, any details on the other AC?” she wouldn’t stay back, of course. She didn’t see the AC yet amongst the MTs that she charged in to destroy, but she was sure she’d see it soon.

And indeed, a hailing signal came through, and she accepted the line.

“Escorting a prison break all alone?” the voice on the other line asked, somehow too calm and collected for a Redgun, but still too gruff for Arquebus. “You’re daring, I’ll give you that – but I’ve fried bigger fish than you.”

“Apparently you haven’t done it alone, though, judging by your MT squad,” Aurelia retorted, finally locking onto the AC.

“Hm.” Four missiles shot out towards her – but they wrapped around her at the last second, homing on the transport.

Aurelia whipped LEMURES around to see the collision, and cursed under her breath, before letting out a barrage of the pink missiles to get rid of the MT squad so she could focus on the AC – who apparently was there to do the job of getting the transport down.

~***~

MTs were downed rapidly by Rusty’s energy missiles. The burst handgun also helped, as he zigged and zagged around the slower models, and pulled Index after him. He wasn’t trying to allow damage any longer, not even from Index, so the other MTs were starting to become more willing to eject on seeing how nearly impossible it was to bring him down.

He didn’t really want to wreck Index’s AC, though. He knew how expensive they were to repair. Not to mention, it might be difficult to pick it back up. The Redguns had not retrieved their ACs yet, after all.

Still – he had no choice.

They both knew that, especially as Huntress’s voice came over the comms, no longer her physical voice, but one that had to be straining her to her limits. She was worried about him – a shame he couldn’t tell her he’d be fine.

He whipped out his plasma blade and cut through Index’s AC, careful not to truly hurt the core, but the sensors were wiped, an arm severed – and Index ejected. That was enough to get the other MTs to start scattering and Rusty let out a relieved sigh, “You got it? Good job, Buddy! I took them down to a lower level – better grounds to fight on. I just finished up the AC. I’ll be back up in a moment.”

He did have to throw some cursory shots at the fleeing backs of the MTs, before he boosted back up to where the generators were. His AC was appropriately sparking a bit from an engagement against several foes and an AC unit, but it wasn’t heavily damaged. “I’m sorry I worried you, buddy. AC’s a bit damaged but nothing we can’t fix in the hangar. We should get back that way – what’d you find?”

His mood couldn’t be disturbed now that they ‘won’.

Now that the RLF had fled.

 

[EllieMcEllie]

At the sound of Carla's voice, "Tiny" Lilith let out a laugh of her own. She was sure that the whole lab looked ridiculous, herself included with her hair spiked up, but It was on brand for the mad scientist. In one hand, she held a scrub brush, and in the other, a concoction of chemicals as she attempted to scrub the pink off her work bench.

"Hey Boss! Nearly done! Just need to test them and I'll have them shipped out to Raven!" Lilith paused to check the reaction of the solution against the pink. If anything, the chemicals made it pinker, pulling a wild laugh from the woman as she spoke into a voice recorder. "Solution #0032, failed at cleaning the substance off the workbench. It instead made it pinker." Solution#0032 was just the chemicals in bleach, but for scientific research, it was given a number.

Lilith was in her own little world as she grabbed another solution; #0033. At least until Carla spoke again, pulling the scientist from her thoughts. "Oh, Remember how you put me on message answering duty? Raven sent in a message about custom parts, so I answered it. They are super fun! I can't wait to hear the complaints of the other Corps when they can't figure out how to get the pink off their tech."

The tall woman snickered and tested #0033 on a different spot, the chemical compounds for acetone. To her dismay and excitement, it also made the bench pinker. How the hell was she going to get this out of her hair? A problem for future Lilith to deal with. "This is going to take a while," Mused the woman as she recorded her findings and reached for #0034, Boric Acid.

~***~

Walter had no idea that she had ordered anything, let alone something custom. So imagine his surprise when a RaD Shipping container labeled 'Rush delivery' and 'Raven' arrived outside the hangar, and then his hound grabbing the package like she knew about it. Had Carla sent something unprompted? She was certainly eccentric enough to do something crazy like that. However, she didn't send him a message about it after it was delivered, so it had to be something 621 ordered.

He found out soon enough when the -to him- unnamed AC was fitted with the giant missile launchers, the words ALECTO engraved into the side of them. So it was a custom order. That explained things. The man couldn't help but be curious as to what she would need 36 missiles plus a bazooka for. But his hound was happy, and if it helped her do her job better, he supposed that he shouldn't be so quick to judge.

And help her with her job they did. He watched on the screens as they were fired and filled the area with ECM fog that stained everything it touched with a vibrant pink. Oh Michigan would be pissed about that, and he wasn't paying for repairs this time. Knowing RaD, That pink stuff would be hard to get off of anything it touched.

Walter was on a similar wavelength as 621. Just a few MTs to guard their prisoners? This had to be a trap, unless Balam really was that stupid. He doubted it, knowing that Michigan was the head of their Redgun squad. He may be dense sometimes, but he wasn't dumb in the slightest. Just as he was about to warn his hound, the scanners picked up more enemy signatures.

"Stay alert, 621. Checking that AC data now." Walter was quick to run the scans, and what he found had him cringing. If Michigan was pissed before because of the pink, he would be double pissed that his hound was going to take out his second in command. "That's G2 Nile, 621. Take him down."

In Nile's comms, Michigan was scanning as well for him, cheering him on as the AC pilot sent out the hailing signal. That was, until he realized it was Raven that he was up against. "Gun 2, keep your head about you. That's G13, the field trip ruiner. Took on Iguazu and Volta singlehandedly. Don't underestimate this one," Warned the figurative father and teacher of the Redguns. 621 had spared Iguazu and Volta, but he didn't know if she would be that merciful with Nile.

One thing was for sure, Michigan had learned his lesson to not underestimate the Plutonian pilot and her skills. Especially with those... Wait, were those... modified SOUPS for her backkits? So she had the coam to commission RaD too. If Nile underestimated her, Michigan would kick his ass himself. Oh god, why was there pink everywhere?

~***~

Silence stretched on for a long second as Huntress pushed through the fire in her mind in the search for Rusty, the world spinning around her getting worse the longer she used both her necklace and the neuroset. When his voice came through the comms, she didn't let herself get too hopeful. She had yet to see him and his AC could be pretty beat up. With him in contact though, she notified the transport copter of their location and waited for him to arrive.

To her relief, Rusty's AC was repairable, and not in nearly as bad a shape as she was expecting. The red head let out a shaky, audible sigh of relief, and rested her head against the cold metal of the inside of her cockpit to try and get her head to stop pounding. In turn, the head of her AC also tilted down with the motion. "Glad to see you're ok, buddy." she started, though the voice was a little warbly, as if her mind was struggling to stay connected to the necklace. Her thoughts were swimming, and her stomach churned. Only a little longer. She just had to make it a little longer and then she could give her mind a well deserved break.

"There was a merc with the two Redguns; G4 Volta and G5 Iguazu. The recordings were a little contradictory, calling the merc a freelancer, but also G13. This merc was bought out by the RLF and took them both down. Both wrecks show the pilots ejecting right before their ACs were destroyed, and the ACs showed damage from close-range explosives. Whoever this Merc really is was strong enough to gun down two Reguns. I also got the locations of the other generators for the Wall. " Huntress took her time explaining, having to pause between sentences as she forced the words out.

The cold metal was a temporary balm against the throbbing in her head, and she was silently glad that she hadn't eaten anything in the last 8 hours. As the transport ship arrived, Huntress forwarded the information to Rusty, O'Keefe and Snail, knowing she wouldn't be able to do it soon with the progression of her headache.

As soon as her AC was locked into the transport copter, Huntress ripped the neuro set off her head and disconnected the necklace, the AC powering down suddenly as she curled up in the pilot's seat with her knees to her chest. Her face pressed against the material there to shield her eyes from the light inside the transport vessel and groaned softly, hoping the trip back and the debrief would be smooth.

"Buddy..." she stammered, her voice soft in the comms line. "You talk for debrief? Please? Overrr dhid it. Migr-" Huntress took a deep breath as a wave of nausea from the vibration of talking and the ship around them hit her. "M-Migraine," Like the day before, her voice was getting caught as she tried to convey her message to him and keep the horrendous side effects at bay.

 

[Lucyfer]

Carla observed Lilith at her work in removing the substance that covered basically everything. She didn’t know what she had tried already, but as she reached for #0034, she interjected, “Have you tried sugar, water, and sodium hypochlorite yet?” It was one of those things Carla usually went for. The sugar was a surprisingly effective scraper, which could help scrape difficult things off, like the ECM might be.

It wouldn’t be great on the hair, but that was a problem for later.

“If it works, we can sell it for profit to those corpo bastards,” Carla grinned. It’d be such a cheap solution to make. Of course, they’d sell anything for a ridiculous profit, and not give away the secrets. That was how RaD worked, after all, and Carla was very good with her toys.

So was Lilith, but that was why Carla brought her on to begin with.

“I vaguely recall putting you on message duty,” she remembered very well. She didn’t have time to deal with it. Most of them weren’t custom orders. And when they were, most weren’t orders she’d humor. They were either from clientele she didn’t care to serve, or they didn’t have enough coam for it.

“I have Chatty digging into the request, looking for an AC that might match the description so we can get the details. Not many have been made like that, so there’s got to be some information out there on it. I’ll tell you what we dig up, but loop me in whenever Raven reaches out. I want to know what they’re up to,” she cocked a grin, “there aren’t too many Mercs out there with any creativity left.”

Practical, but with humor.
It was one of those few things she liked about Michigan, and little else. The man sold his soul long ago, and she still resented him for it. Resented him for not taking better care of Walter, too, and not setting Walter on a path that led away from Rubicon.

Some hero.

~***~

G2 Nile.

Aurelia knew nothing about him, but of course, given his rank, that meant he had to be second to Michigan – and Michigan was good. Or, he used to be. Aurelia never could best Antares in the ALLMIND Arena back when she had DI MANES.

She fully intended to take him down, of course. He was targeting the transport, it was just a matter of getting to him. Thankfully, the missile rounds cleared the path for her, and she was able to get in close, though he just pulled back and struck her sensors with the linear rifle. “God—fuck, I hate the neuro-set,” she complained, but unlike with Iguazu and Volta – she wouldn’t have the time to switch over to a manual override.

The neuro-set was easier to use, so she kept going to it.

But she felt she had significantly more freedom to override the AC’s nature with her hands on the levers. Missiles shot straight up from Nile’s backkit, and she had to move quickly to get out of their fall – and try to get the missiles to fall on him by staying close.

A tactic he realized, as he launched homing missiles off his back, and from his hand, this time at her and not the transport.

“You aren’t really comparing me to Volta and Iguazu, are you, Michigan?” Nile asked, mock-hurt that Michigan would dare bring up that comparison. He was leagues ahead of Iguazu and Volta both, and way ahead of Wu Huahai, as well. “I’m hurt.” But he wouldn’t be a fool, either. Raven had all of Iguazu’s recklessness, but significantly more follow-through. He could see the second where her AC froze up, where the sensors had to be screaming at her, and the way her mind clearly fought to disregard the sensors.

He didn’t intend to let her. Getting rid of her would make destroying the transport significantly easier, but the transport was still a problem, and gatling gun fire came from it as he prepared another shot with his linear rifle to cut down Raven.

The shot went wide, and Raven pushed forward – and a bazooka caught both of them in its explosion, before all of his sensors screamed in sheer agony as missiles collided with him, and the ground around him.

36 of them.

Pink fog covered his sensors. He couldn’t see shit. It ate into the frame of his AC as well, extending the overheat that he was suddenly frozen in.

Aurelia couldn’t follow it up, though. She absolutely needed a repair kit after Nile’s own barrage and that explosion she hit herself with, but when Nile did break free, it was obvious he wasn’t clear on what direction to go. “Lay down your arms, Nile,” Aurelia said through the comm. “I know you can’t sense anything. You’re only going to hurt yourself trying to fight.” It was a bit of a miracle she had avoided getting her own sensors jammed up with the pink fog, but she learned quickly not to fire those in close range.

His sensors were coming back online. Picking through the ECM. He leveled his linear rifle in her direction, and fired. He also made sure to launch more of the homing missiles, but he could tell they didn’t get a lock on her as he heard them collide with the ground.

“Tch. Fine.”

Aurelia’s blade cut the legs from the core, and his core slammed to the ground, crushing the back-kits. Explosions from underneath rocked the core, and much as Nile didn’t want to – he ejected. He wasn’t going to die from his own weapons exploding him. Even if the chair scraped he ground a bit, and he rolled rather painfully on the rocks as it came to a stop, scruffing up his knees and elbows. Pink stained his flight suit, and singed his flesh.

He saw his AC explode, and saw the way the arms of Raven’s AC lowered, as if saddened.

He still had his comm on him, in the pocket of his flight suit. He put up a hailing beacon as he spoke to Michigan, “Who the fuck is this, Michigan?” The slight awe was more upset than inspired. Whoever Raven was, he was going to make sure they suffered.

~***~

Rusty could tell that Huntress was running on fumes by the way her voice warbled through the comm system, “Hey, you should probably…,” he wanted to tell her to take the necklace off, but he hesitated in completing the thought. Instead, he said, “Yeah, I’m okay. There was just a lot of moving around, but STEEL HAZE is fast.” A reminder, of course, that much like her, he was unlikely to come back if he faced heavy fire.

He'd falter.

Huntress continued speaking, explaining what happened. G5 & G4 were bested by a merc that they were calling G13. That didn’t seem too strange for Rusty; the Redguns had a habit of bestowing G13 on people they didn’t expect to last long. Apparently, they severely underestimated this one. Thankfully, that wasn’t all she got; she also got the details on the other generators.

Even if Rusty didn’t like it, they needed that information.

“Good work, buddy!” he cheered, “We’ll let Snail figure out the Merc problem,” or solution, “we may end up on generator destruction missions in the near future,” though hopefully not that near, Huntress needed some additional rest with the way she wore herself out today. He took the information, though, and loaded into the transport, reviewing the generator locations.

Making a note to let the RLF know which generators were discovered, so they could re-route power. The Wall wasn’t going to be saved, but they could make sure to spare innocent lives as much as possible by ensuring power kept running.

Huntress’s voice came through the comms again as he made his mental notes, asking him to take over the debrief, “Yeah, don’t worry, I got it. O’Keeffe is a lot easier to debrief with anyways,” which was surprising since he had to debrief to Snail. One would imagine he might want more details just to be on the safe side, but he rarely asked for too much more. “You did good out there, but you can rest. I’ll ping you when we get back to base.”

It wasn’t comfortable to sleep in a core, but tuning out and shutting down might be good for her. He wasn’t sure of that, but he’d make sure to honor his word anyways and ping her once they got back to the Arquebus HQ.

 

[EllieMcEllie]

At the mention of the new solution, Tiny's eyes went wide. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" The mad scientist made a mad dash to mix together the proposed solution and labeled it #0035. She poured the solution on the pink, turning on a timer of 30 seconds as she listened back in to Carla.

"Already ahead of you on that, Boss. If they like their ALECTOs and this core, I know they'll come back for more custom work. RaD does it best, most of Rubicon knows that."

The timer went off, and to Lilith's amazement, the solution worked, stripping the pink off the workbench completely in the area that she applied it to. "Yes! That's a success! I think we've found the solution here, Boss!" The tall woman beamed down at Carla and went to work writing down the exact formula so that they could start mass producing it. "I'll forward this over to the production guys to start making batches of it. If this Raven is using these rockets as often as I think they will, the Corpos are going to be at our door in no time!"

"Speaking of Corpos! Remember the guys talking about that unknown Vesper the other day? Apparently that's my sister. V. IX Huntress. She got some parts earlier too, I took the rush fee out of my paycheck since she's sending coam back home to Ma. It's only fair since she's the reason I even had the chance to apply here in the first place." Lilith looked sentimental for a moment, and then troubled.

"I don't think she belongs there. She's too sweet, too soft to work as a Corpo hound, but there's nothing I cando. I'll just support her from afar." The tall woman took a breath, before realizing she had been going on and on about the subject. "Oh, Sorry boss, didn't mean to get all sappy and rambling on you," The red head went to run her hand through her hair, but was stopped by the pink liberty spikes that she styled into her hair with the pink and chose to busy herself with cleaning her workbench once more instead.

~***~
Michigan and Walter watched the fight from different parts of the world, both cheering on their own; one with guarded hope, and the other with a sense of pride. The Hero of Jupiter sat on the edge of his communication's seat, watching as the two duked it out.

"You'll be even more hurt if I have to come scrape you up off the ground after getting your ass beat for underestimating her, G-2." Michigan warned gruffly. He was trying to not appear tense, or worried, though he was sure it slipped a bit.

Walter on the other hand was having a grand old time. The time for worrying about the Redgun's response to this was in the future. Right now, his hound was giving the Redguns a run for their money, and showing the other Corporations just why they should hire her.

"Give him hell, 621," he cheered on smuggly, watching as she coated the Redgun's second in command with 36 missiles worth of sticky pink ECM fog. She had taken some serious damage but he trusted her. It wasn't the first time she had gotten beat the hell up and needed a repair kit or two, and he knew by now that she knew what she was doing.

Both Michigan and Walter weren't expecting her to offer mercy to the second in command, and neither were they expecting him to not accept it at first.

Michigan went wild in his comms. "G-2, Don't make me come down there and eject you myself...!" It was his way of showing his men that he cared. He wasn't one to coddle his soldiers, or at least sweet talk them, but he cared for them all the same. Nile was a good friend of his, and he didn't know if he could forgive her if Nile made her kill him.

Thankfully, he saw reason after his AC got its legs sliced clean from its body and Michigan felt himself relax in his chair, accepting the hailing beacon.

"That is Raven. Handler Walter's hound. I know she's from Pluto, but I'm planning on having a friend look into her more. Sending the fieldtrip taxi to come pick you up." A slight grin spread across Michigan's face as he followed it up.

"Pink's a good color on you, G-2."

"Good work today, 621. The Corporate hounds will think twice now trying to take you on, or at least they should. Finish up the job, and I'll send the transport helicopter to come get you." He knew she could do it, and it seemed that G2 Nile underestimated her, just like Michigan had at first. Hopefully he learned his lesson like Michigan had.

~***~

Relief filled the smaller pilot at the thought of not need to talk. She'd just need to stand there long enough for Rusty to deliver the brief, and then she could go bury her face under her covers and attempt sleep.

"Thhhan-" Huntress's voice cut off abruptly as the transport copter swayed some and she released the comms button. The woman groaned, barely able to grab the emergency emesis bag in time to catch her stomach contents, or lack there of.

When she was sure she was done, she sealed the green vessel tightly and placed it to the side. She didn't try to speak after that.

Migraines from overworking her brain weren't new to her. It was something that had happened ever since her training days due to the Coral burn. She'd need some extra rest, some fluids, and the darkest room possible, but outside of that, she knew she would be ok. Time healed most ailments. What was the most troubling to her was this fresh new hell of being a Gen 9 and the overuse migraines being just as debilitating as they used to be.

The red head turned her body to curl up tighter in the seat of her cockpit and shielded her head with the jacket of her flight suit, creating a dark atmosphere that soothed the pounding in her head. She really overdid it this time. This was what she got for caring so much about the people close to her, but she would do it again in a heartbeat. She blindly reached out and turned her comms off to create a barrier of silence as well. He said he'd ping her, and she was going to try and get some rest.

Huntress danced the fine line between being awake and asleep for the 2 and a half hours that it took to get back to base. The uncomfortable position and the pain made it impossible for true restful sleep, but gods did she try. At least the rest she did get helped to lessen some of the pain.

When Elliot finally received the ping, she donned her dark sunglasses that she used for bright, snowy missions and slipped her arm back through the hold in her jacket. The lights stabbed at her eyes once more, though not as bad with the dark lenses protecting them.

Grabbing the manual controls and flipping the switches to turn the metal beast on, Elliot walked ARTEMIS into her LOADER carefully. She wasn't going to attempt to use the neuro set again. She had already gotten sick once and didn't want to have to use another emesis bag. Once it was locked in, she powered the machine down and slowly left the cockpit. She tossed the emesis bag in the trash and made her way down the catwalk, silently thanking her AC for keeping her alive.

The descent was slow, the red head taking her time as she went to meet up with Rusty. She hadn't taken a single hit, or used any ammo, so today's paycheck would be nice at least. All she could really think about though, was how bad she wanted to crawl under the covers and block out all the light and sound.

She was sure her body was reflecting just how poorly she felt as well. Her face was paler than usual, her skin was clammy, and her movements were slowed compared to her normal energetic demeanor. Still she greeted Rusty with a friendly smile, albeit weak and tired as she tried to fall into step with him as they headed to find O'Keefe.

 

[Lucyfer]

Sugar worked plenty of miracles. Carla would make sure people didn't learn the trade secret that easily, though. Raven was likely to make her a nice profit just from clean up, after all, if she sold the solution to fixing it. “Be sure to make it a neutralizing color when we patent this to sell. Throw people off the ease of it,” Carla let a lazy grin cross her lips at the information that Tiny provided.

It changed to a frown.

Carla didn't like the corporations. She wasn't a fan of them getting her research, either. Some things were off limits, Tiny knew that, but Tiny might think exceptions could be made for family.

“Hopefully you didn't sign your sister's death certificate with those ALECTOS,” Carla noted, “I don't mind the rush. Just be careful what you sell her. I don't need Arquebus cracking open my secrets,” the lopsided grin returned, as if that was the truly important thing.

It was.

But not her research secrets.

“You should see about getting her out of there. It's no place for anyone with a soul.* Carla’s disgust with the corporations was well known. Then again, so was her disgust with the PCA, the RLF…everything organized, really.

Everyone assumed it was the anarchist in her.

She didn't correct them.

“You should keep those spikes, though,” she moved away then, “I'll let you know when I have more details about Raven’s old ride.”

~***~

Pink. Nile was fairly certain he would never enjoy pink after this, as his AC was coated in it, and he had to standby and watch this Raven head off with the Rubiconians to safety. His eyes narrowed, “Pluto? Nothing but criminals there. Nothing good ever comes out of Pluto,” Nile was aware of the goings on of the galaxy. Pluto had been an unfortunate place for anyone to live. Crime lords vied for power. It’d been organized under the Hades Syndicate for a while, then they fell.

Last he knew, it was organized under a loose government, which was more of a figurehead for the current crime regime, Circle of Dis. He didn’t know, or care, enough to really investigate it, he just saw it on his news feed. He knew he hadn’t heard of any good AC pilots for…several years.

Pluto wasn’t notable in the grand scheme of things. “I’ll dye everything you love pink, Michigan. Don’t tempt me.” Nile said icily into the comms to dissuade Michigan from any of his ‘pranks’. Nile would indeed retaliate. He wasn’t G2 for no reason, after all.

~***~

Aurelia was making far more enemies than friends, or at least it felt that way, as Walter spoke his congratulations and the Rubiconians got on their way to safety. G2 had underestimated her, but she had a feeling G1 wouldn’t; if he ever came to collect on the debts she incurred, she could only hope he’d offer a similar mercy and a chance to eject.

She was still rather certain he was a better pilot than she was, despite his constant underestimation so far.

‘Michigan grew up in the times before the repair kit.’ It was one of the few reasons she assumed he might be worth dealing with. ‘Unless they had them on Jupiter, but not Pluto….’

She was becoming a bit too dependent on them, but then, she didn’t have the frame she wanted yet, something she hoped to hear from RaD about later. For now, she loaded up into the transport helicopter to be taken back to the ship, trying to relax as she took the music out of her ear, but feeling a terrible anxiety over the last fight, and her own skills.

The neuro-set was easy to use…but… ‘It’s keeping you from destroying your AC. You’d burn the Core out in a heartbeat if you fought the way you want.’ It wasn’t Aidon’s voice, but it was dangerously close. Forcing a manual override of overheat would damage key parts of the ACs. Every time she risked it. The neuro-set kept her from doing just that, and yet she despised it for that reason.

Not to mention, every time she took it off, she saw a red flash, and felt overheated herself. Like right then. It usually faded away quickly, but this one lingered, so that when she returned to the ship and got her AC in the LOADER – slipping the neuro-set on once again to do that simple job – she didn’t come out of it well.

The coral within her own veins had woken with her, of course, but it took a while to start to manifest a life of its own – for that’s what coral was, another life. The neuro-set that an augmented pilot connected to helped in waking it, as the coral (or the synthetic coral in higher generations) was needed to connect with the neuro-set.

When Aurelia moved to climb down LEMURES as she always did, her foot slipped on the way down. Her weight pulled down, her hand lost its grip, and down she went, barely catching herself on her arms and right side to keep from cracking her head on the floor. “Ngh!” Her shoulder would catch the worst of it, as she rolled to her front and pushed up to her knees quickly, “Fuck.”

She’d blame slippery hands, slick with sweat.

She’d blame everything, but what she knew to be true: the coral was finally manifesting into the negative, something she’d never noticed under Aidon’s control, and something she never wanted to admit to. She was always better than it. Always. She never needed it, so it would never get the best of her.

Until the headache tore through her mind, the heat flashed through her body and left her in cold sweats, and her body no longer felt like her own. She curled into herself, placing the offending hand that lost its grip to her forehead as she focused on breathing.

Just a minor setback, as she tried to get up right after curling up, intending to walk it off as nothing. Just a fall. It happened, though that didn't stop the grimace of pain once she was on her feet, and the dismissive wave she gave Walter.

She’d been honest about the re-education and the way around it.

She didn’t want to be honest about this, so she intended to leave him behind without a word if he let the wave dismiss him. Somehow, re-education was better than augmentation. Easier to think about. She could un-educate herself.

She couldn’t remove this.

~***~

Rusty kept quiet on the way back, though he did exit STEEL HAZE after a bit, and sent the message he needed to send onwards, getting onto his personal device, getting onto the VPN, and encoding everything while communicating with a couple of his squadron about the mission and the fight with an RLF AC. That wasn't a common occurrence for them – not yet – so Rusty talked the skill of the AC up.

He needed to lower morale in Arquebus, after all.

It was a couple of hours before they saw base, and once they did, he went back into STEEL HAZE and pinged Huntress. He was worried a bit at the delay in a response, but it came in the movement of ARTEMIS, so he relaxed as he saw that and breathed a sigh of relief. STEEL HAZE followed out, and he was quick out of his AC, partially worried to get out and see how Huntress was holding up.

She moved much slower, but she was moving. She even managed a smile which he returned. “Hey buddy, nice shades,” he commented, fully aware by how pale she seemed that they were worn out of necessity and not fashion – but that didn’t mean he had to say something mean, or even something to make it obvious that she looked bad. Better to comment on the good thing, which was the shades.

Thankfully, O’Keeffe came to the hangar to greet them before they left, and he spoke first, “I received the information you forwarded. Thank you, Huntress,” he said, noting the way she looked. He was familiar enough with Coral burn to assume, but he still spoke, “Are you all right?”

“She’s not,” Rusty interjected, “wore herself out with the use of the necklace and the neuro-set,” he surmised, “the necklace is new,” she might get used to using it more and more, but it was a lot today.

O’Keeffe nodded, “Understandable. I see ARTEMIS is good, but STEEL HAZE needs repairs.”

“Yeah, I played decoy, engaged with the enemies to clear the way for Huntress,” he said, “she got the information, I dealt with some MTs and the AC. My logs are in STEEL HAZE.”

“I’ll check them out. Anything else to report?”

Rusty shook his head, “Got any info on that merc, though?”

“Hawkins does,” O’Keeffe said, shrugging, “he works with them occasionally. Just a mercenary, Rusty.” Nothing of note to him, it seemed. Rusty nodded, “Dismissed, then.” O’Keeffe granted them that mercy to move on, and Rusty would walk alongside Huntress out.

He offered, “Do you want me to get you to your quarters?” He could see her there, and then head to his own. It wasn’t like she was interrupting plans other than sleep, this late in the day.

 

[EllieMcEllie]

Nile's threat was heard, but Michigan had no intent to heed his warning. He was thinking maybe making him pink cupcakes or dying all the food in the pantry that he could that bright pink. Maybe he'd dye his flight suits pink or replace the shampoo Nile used with hair dye. It would certainly be worth the backlash from him.

Raven was getting better. She was able to take down Nile with those pink missiles of hers, and it made his teeth itch that he knew almost nothing about her. Looks like it was time to call in a favor. As the transport helicopter picked Nile up, Michigan got on his messaging system and started up a message to "Cinder" Carla.

Carla! How's my favorite hacker doing? I'll keep it short. I've got a job for you, and I'm paying well. I need information on a merc, goes by the callsign 'Raven'. Took down three of my Redguns, including G-2, and something just ain't feeling right. Said she was from Pluto. Got anything for me?
​

Now all he had to do was wait. He knew Carla was busy with RaD business and the Junker Coyotoe feuds, so it could take her a bit to get back to him. At least his second in command was safe and sound. Michigan wasn't shy to admit that Nile was one of his closest friends.
~***~

Walter was finishing up with the back end of the mission, which included sending 621 the coam she had made, minus his cut and her expenses, as she get loaded up into the Transport copter. It won't be too long before she got back, but the RLF often took a little longer to send their payments, so he was late getting to the hangar.

He wasn't too late, however, to watch her slip and fall off her AC. The grizzled man cringed internally. That was a hard fall, one he had been worried about from the first time she scrambled up into and out of her AC. He attributed the fall to the rough fight she had, or at least at first he did.

That was before she had curled up for a moment and he could make out the cold sweat that was forming on her brow. A frown painted his face. He had many hounds in the past. He knew the signs of Coral burn-in. If this was that, he didn't know how much longer he could work her. She gave her all during fights, and that could make it worse.

If he hadn't caught her curling up like she had, he would have just let her wave him off. It could have been fatigue. G2 Nile was no slouch and he put up a hell of a fight. But he did catch her, and so he spoke up.

"This is why we use the catwalks, 621." Walter did his best to keep his tone neutral, but he was sure it came off as accusatory so he followed up with a softer, almost worried tone. "Are you alright?" If this was indeed Coral related, he didn't know what he was going to do. He'd have to shell out more Coam to get another hound to fulfill this mission, but he was sure that they wouldn't be nearly as good as this one. Aite. The pilot from Pluto that had proved herself to him on more than one occassion, earning his trust.

The pepper-haired man wasn't sure how she had gotten under his skin like that, how she had earned his trust so easily, but she did, and that's what made the man so worried for her wellbeing. He was finding himself caring about his hound. She had yet to come back seriously injured. The previous hounds of his had way more close calls than she had. Carla would be laughing at him right now, or yelling at him, he just knew it.

~***~

Huntress didn't bother snapping to attention like she usually did when O'Keefe came into view, focusing more on staying upright and keeping herself from getting sick once more. She couldn't even bring herself to nod or shake her head at his words, knowing it would just rattle her brain around and make her migraine worse. Rusty had it handled though, debriefing just like he said he would. She'd have to thank him later.

She was barely able to pay attention to the rest of the debrief as she put all her energy into keeping the nausea and pain at bay. The lights in the hangar weren't nearly as bright as the lights would be in the halls and she was thankful for that. O'Keefe directed all the questions to Rusty after learning she wasn't doing well, which was another thing she was grateful for.

The red head heard 'Dismissed,' and sluggishly turned on her heels, following in line with Rusty as they headed towards the hangar exit. His offer only furthered her mother's words in her mind like a mantra. Slowly, she attempted speech again. "yhehss, plheahse." It was still slurred, but hopefully her 'yes please' was decipherable. It seemed that it was, as he continued to walk along with her as she made her way through the halls to her room.

When they finally got to her door, the short pilot gave him a side hug as thanks before heading inside. She was weary from the events of today and her bed was calling her. Huntress turned off all the lights, closed the blinds and stripped out of her flight suit, not bothering to throw on other clothes as she buried herself under the blankets, creating a dark cocoon.

Over the next couple days, she took her time to recover, barely leaving her room aside from getting food.The third day was when she woke up feeling significantly better. That was also when she got the message from Snail. It seemed that she was being sent on a 'fetch' mission with Rusty for some supplies that they needed.

The red head pulled on one of the Arquebus uniforms and headed out to the mess hall to get food and wait for Rusty. If they were on the mission together, it would be easier to wait for him in a common place. Grabbing a shake from the fridge, Huntress sat down at one of the tables and busied herself with her breakfast.

 

[Lucyfer]

It seemed only a day after speaking with Tiny about the Raven’s order that a message came in from Michigan. Not exactly who Carla was looking forward to hearing from, when she’d rather be fully dissecting Chatty’s discoveries.

The DI MANES turned out to be quite the difficult beast to track, but Chatty found an echo of it in an old ALLMIND program. It hadn’t been purged, as rankings usually were, within the year. No, ALLMIND had saved it in her backfiles with various other ACs, real or unreal, it was hard to say.

DI MANES was real, and Carla was starting to make some headway into figuring it out. The parts were all customized, but the base was Elcano design, so Carla had started researching those old parts to see if she could buy them and refurbish them, or determine what ‘new’ parts Elcano made that matched up.

From what she could tell, it wasn’t just the core that made it work. Every part fit the design, and so Raven was going to want a full frame.

Not cheap.

But a fun challenge.

So, Carla sighed as Michigan’s message came through, and she turned away from her newest pet project. Rather than shoot a message back, she opted to annoy him by just sending a video call request and setting her tablet up, putting her cheek in her hand and staring at the screen until he picked up, a stick chocolate-covered biscuit sticking out of the side of her mouth; she’d been gnawing on it as she worked.

He would pick up, if he knew what was good for him.

~***~

Aurelia rolled her eyes about the catwalks, but bit back an immediate retort against their use. Walter added an actual question. There was concern in his tone, but she fought off trusting that concern. He had to be concerned. She was still his only way to retirement, although with the coam she’d earned, she may just be replaceable now. He could get a better pilot. Gen-10. All she was, was a fighting dog.

Only good, as long as she served.

That AC that he promised her could be taken away in an instant.

“Yeah,” she lied, “it was going to happen one day,” the fall.

The coral symptoms.

She didn’t look at him. She looked ahead, reasonable with the walking forward part, but unusual for her. She knew the ship by now. She didn’t need to keep such a diligent gaze ahead when in conversation, and usually didn’t. “It’ll be fine. Not like I have to do much moving once I’m in a core, right? Don’t worry about it, Handler.” No, she wasn’t losing everything again. She wasn’t going to be tossed aside. It was just a fall. It was just sweaty hands. She would get over this like everything else, and she’d find her freedom.

‘And then what?’

She still didn’t have an answer.

That depended on how all of this wrapped up. “I’ll be ready for the next job you have lined up.”

~***~

Rusty walked Huntress back to her quarters, understanding the slurred speech well enough. He allowed her to set the pace, and chuckled a bit when she offered him a hug. He knew it was gratitude, “Sweet dreams, Huntress,” he bid, before he’d retire to his own quarters to rest up.

Thankfully, it seemed Snail was willing to give him and Huntress a break after the back to back missions, which gave him time to run drills with his squadron, both AC drills, and ground drills – in the incident they were forced out of their AC and actually had to engage an opponent.

No one wanted to be captured, and it was a rare situation – but it happened. Balam was known for it, given their recent capture of several RLF prisoners. RLF prisoners that he learned, through Hawkins, were freed by Raven.

“We will have to be cautious in using Raven, and make sure to outbid all opponents when we make use of her.”

Word spread after their findings, not just from the findings. The Redguns were bitter. Word spread. Raven had betrayed the Redguns to the RLF when they offered a higher deal. ‘Is that all it is to you, Raven?’ Still, Rusty was glad when he heard the news of all the RLF prisoners that had been freed, and how G2 Nile was taken down.

The next ‘mission’ they were sent on was to pick up a resupply that arrived at one of the BAWS towns. Simple enough, and Rusty was prepared to do it, and a little amused he was being sent along with Huntress. Either he was her designated guide into the Vespers now as she got her bearings, or someone just liked the two of them together.

Likely, the former.

He went to the café to grab his own meal, and lit up when he saw Huntress already there. He lifted his hand in a wave and called out, “Let me grab some food and we can head out!” it wasn’t as time sensitive, so he wasn’t too concerned about it. The transport would be ready when they were.

He joined her eventually with a bowl of oatmeal and dried fruits, as well as one of the shakes, “How are you holding up?” he asked once he took his seat, not at all sure if she’d be answering with her voice or the necklace right then.

 

[EllieMcEllie]

Michigan had just left his desk to welcome Nile back when his computer began to sound off, playing a tune that he had picked out specifically for Carla's notifications. It was Big Top Circus music from old earth. Very fitting for her, if he did say so himself! Whether she would agree or not was up for discussion.

Still, he turned right back around and plopped himself in his chair. He adjusted his earpiece, making sure he was all ready, before hitting accept. Her ageless, black face showed up on his screen and he made note of her bored expression. He hid his own emotions behind his signature grin, one that pulled at the scar on his face almost painfully.

"And here I thought you'd be happy to see this ugly mug!" The man started, laughing dryly at his own joke before continuing. "I wasn't expecting a call from Ms. 'Cinder' Carla herself! Don't you think messages would have worked?" He didn't bother hiding the mild annoyance in his voice, but tried to keep himself in check. He needed something from her after all. She didn't have to entertain his notions, even if he had access to Balam's funding.

~***~

Her answer, and her demeanor weren't reassuring. He had clocked some of her mannerisms already from the little time they had spent together on the ship. While she had trouble at first, he knew she knew her way around the maze of a ship at this point. The man couldn't tell if she was trying to reassure herself or him with her words, but he decided to not push it too far. She knew herself better than he did.

"Just..." Walter paused for a moment to consider his next words. "Just take something for the pain if you need it, and let me know if you need a visit to the med bay. Please." It stung a little that she would lie about something like this, but knowing some of her past from the files, he supposed it was normal behavior from a traumatized individual. It would take a while to earn her trust, and Walter was nothing if not patient. He had waited this long to get the mission of Overseer done. What was a little longer?

"Get some rest, 621." The Jovian man let the subject drop after that, not wanting to incite her wrath should this be the straw that breaks the camel's back. For the rest of the day, Walter attempted to look into ways to slow the progression of Coral burn-in and the side effects, only finding a few crackpot results to his dismay. Even if he had to retire her as his hound, how would she live any kind of life like that? He forced the thoughts out of his head so he didn't make himself sick with worry, vowing to look into it more later when he was in a better headspace. Maybe he'd ask Carla. She dealt with enough dosers to maybe know a few tricks, right? She was "Cinder" Carla of all people! She knew practically everything, and even if she didn't, her AI could find the information for her.

Not even a week later, the RLF had another mission for his hound, asking for her by name like they had before. He had gotten the message the night before, learning the gist of the mission so he would be better prepared for it. It was an escort mission like last time, but for a massive Coral mining machine turned weapon. They were paying well, outbidding Arquebus by nearly 750k coam. He had to do a double take at the amount that the Liberation Front was wiling to shell out for this mission. Of course, he would show 621 the two missions, but he had a feeling that she would choose the RLF like before. 1 million Coam was nothing to sneeze at.

Like every morning, Walter made a pot of fresh coffee and set about making himself an omelette while he waited for his hound to wake up. He didn't want to keep the RLF waiting too long. He had warned her about the mission briefing the night before, so he doubted that she would be too late, if at all. Instead of worrying about it, Walter set his food on the table and poured them both a cup of coffee. The grizzled man made hers how she liked it and set it at the seat she usually sat in as he waited in his own seat for her to emerge from the bunks.

~***~

After the couple days being practically stuck in her room healing up, Rusty was a sight for sore eyes. She had missed her banter with him and Hawkins, missed the camaraderie that she felt when hanging out with them. So when he greeted her with a wave and a friendly remark, she waved back enthusiastically, smiling with her wide, toothy grin. It was good to be out of her dark cocoon of pain and suffering.

As he settled in at the table with her, she took a sip of the shake before answering with her physical voice. "Much better. Thank you. Taking necklace break. Was migraine from hell." It was the truth, not that she'd ever lie to him.

"Used to get them as Gen 4. Overworking caused them. Not fun." She took another draught of her ration shake, banana flavored this time as she recalled Rusty's choice of shake the one morning and was curious of the taste. It wasn't bad. Definitely a top 5 flavor.

"Missed you and Hawkins." Admitted the red head with a shrug and a grin. "How you doing?" Elliot was finished with her breakfast first, seeing as she only had a shake to consume, and waited patiently for Rusty to finish his own food. When he was finally done, she fell into step with him as they headed to their transport.

Her only experience with BAWS towns was the one she was born in, but if it were like that one, she would have to check out the market stalls. She had already planned to get Rusty something as a thank you gift for how sweet he had been to her since they met. What that gift was depended on what the markets held, but it would likely either be a trinket, or food.

The red head hung her sunglasses off the front of her uniform shirt as she stepped into the transport vehicle, knowing she would need them outside. That was the problem with her blue eyes; they were sensitive to bright lights, including the lights reflecting off the snow all over Rubicon. "Excited. Haven't been outside base on foot since training camp." Enthused the short pilot as she scrolled through a meme dump on her personal device that was sent by Lilith.

A particularly funny one caught her off guard, sending Elliot into a fit of giggles. It was the kind of laughter that had her breathless with tears streaming down her face. It was a meme about G2 Nile getting his ass kicked by the merc named Raven. Turned out that the device that Lilith designed for her worked a little too well as his destroyed AC was found absolutely painted in pink ECM fog.

When she had regained her breath enough to think, the red head turned her device to show Rusty what had made her laugh so hard. "Can give you my number for more memes? Sister sends the best ones." She offered, canting her head to the side and fighting the aftershock giggles.

 

[Lucyfer]

Michigan was definitely not happy to hear from her, despite the message. Carla expected as much, and she let him finish his address before answering, plucking the dessert stick out of her mouth, “Michigan,” she let that lazy humor shine in her tone, “I thought you’d know better than to expect you were getting out of this without a conversation. You are asking about one of my most interesting clients, after all.”

The humor lit her eyes. “I’m sure whatever has you calling means you know she’s using RaD work. I imagine you’ll soon be known as the PinkGuns.” Wouldn’t that be something! Balam’s fault for picking a color to call their elite force, though.

Carla straightened up, and bit off the tip of the stick, before continuing, “Look, I need to know what you’re offering, since I imagine you want this info to destroy Raven since you don’t have a prayer of recruiting her, and I don’t want to lose money from the projects Raven’s already paying me for.”

Michigan had Balam’s purse. She knew she could gather a lot from him. “So: what’s the offer, Michigan, and what do you want the information for?” No point beating around the bush with this oaf. Especially not when he wanted to go running off.

~***~

Please. It wasn’t a strange word, but in the moment, Aurelia found that little plea to be odd from Walter. She frowned at it, tried to understand its presence, and tried to ignore the way those warm feelings wanted to forgive Walter the circumstances. Again. No doubt, a lot of his hounds eventually faltered and accepted everything.

This was better than being frozen.

This was…better than being re-educated.

Still….

Aurelia only nodded. Not that she would go to the medbay, nor even take anything for the pain. She needed the pain to remind herself of the fall for a bit. To remind herself not to overdo it again.

Ever.

She had to stop using the neuro-set, no matter its ease.

Aurelia was sore the next day from the fall, but did her best to disregard it as she went to work repairing LEMURES. It was almost a week before her next mission, which felt like an impossibly long stretch – but at least, she started hearing back from RaD about the project. No price quotes yet. No date, yet, but they were making progress.

So she was at least in better spirits thanks to that update, as she joined Walter for breakfast, her routine still in place: coffee and a nutrition bar. Except, she didn’t have to make the coffee. She paused when she saw it out of the corner of her eye, waiting at her seat. She grabbed the bar and then went to take her seat, taking the coffee up to sip it.

Aurelia hated that it was good. Right. So he was paying attention to some little things. She couldn’t help but feel a bit flustered as she sat it down, a sleepy, “Thank you” passing her lips that she was, indeed, too tired to realize she said until it was already out.

She slid right by that to business, “What do we have this time?” he’d mentioned two options, which meant she couldn’t just do them both.

In theory.

She’d know soon how impossible it was when the missions were described, one from Arquebus, and one from the RLF. She’d prefer the RLF on all options, regardless of pay, admittedly. The fact they were offering more, just made it easier to pick.

Though, she still wondered at Walter letting her pick in the first place. “Are you sure it won’t be a problem to pick the RLF three times in a row? The corporations could start to see me as a problem, rather than an ally,” though this was easy to explain as the RLF offering more.

The corporations needed to step their game up.

“Obviously, I’m picking the RLF here.” Even if that mission was theoretically longer, and more dangerous. Arquebus was likely to send a squad out if she didn’t accept, to take down the STRIDER.

Well, she hadn’t fought any Vespers yet. Could be fun.

~***~

Rusty wasn't surprised at all with the reasoning, or her familiarity with the reaction. “Hey, at least you know what caused it, so you can work on easing yourself into the use of things,” Rusty noted, ever the optimism, even if a part of him wondered if this would become a tactical advantage for the RLF against Arquebus. Wondered if O'Keeffe still had issues like that they could exploit.

Such thoughts never showed in his expression as he smiled at being missed, “We missed you, too. I filled Hawkins in on things, though.” And Hawkins was ever chill about things, even if Pater wasn't. No need to mention Pater, though.

When he finished up breakfast, they made their way to the transport, “You really need to get out more,” he chuckled, “I know you're helping your family, but I'm sure they'd still want you doing more than just existing.” Rusty usually got out on his days off, at least once a week. Of course, he needed to, in order to send messages, and even to receive some that couldn't be transmitted. Not that he'd suggest as much. “You'll definitely need to on other planets. It's the only way you get to know a world, not locked up in Arquebus HQ!”

If she lived to see another world

His thoughts apparently wanted to be morbid.

As they took their seats, Huntress brought up her phone and started scrolling through it. He didn't peak so he just leaned back and looked out the window as they flew over Rubicon, though he did glance over with an arched brow as her laughter became intense. She opted to show him, and he chuckled at the reference.

Everyone knew of the Pinkgun by now.

“I guess even the locals know all about that, huh? Nile is never living that down. Would have been kinder to kill him,” but Raven didn't. “I can give you my number,” he pulled out his work phone and quickly took it to the screen with his personal information on it. He didn't have either number memorized; he rarely gave them out, after all. When he did it was usually to new squad mates, and he just handed them an information packet. “You can definitely send me any good memes,” he encouraged, “I'll send any I get your way, but most I get are just internal things my squad comes up with.”

And that was still rare, just in case Snail checked the messages.

 

[EllieMcEllie]

"A man can hope," Was his answer back, though Carla was quick to the point, just as he knew she would be. He appreciated that, even if he wouldn't admit it. Even if they bickered like siblings, she at least knew him like the back of her hand. Her jab at the pink missiles that were used made his eye twitch and drew a response from him .

"Do you mean Barbie? Yeah, he's on his way back as we speak. Knowing yer tech, that pink aint comin off easy, either." Michigan let out a frustrated sigh and rubbed at his face with a wide palm. Why was she always so... infuriating sometimes? He supposed that if you lived as long as they had, you had to find your own joy. Her's just happened to be tormenting him.

Still, her question made him think. He had access to a large well of money thanks to Balam, and his time as Antares. Did he really want to destroy Raven? She was a threat, yes, but she had shown mercy three times now to his Redguns when most pilots would have just killed them. Maybe it would be good to have an edge up on her if she lost her merciful ways, but he also just wanted to know her past, who was she?! How much would that information go for?

"4 million Coam and a favor to cash in whenever you want it." A steep price, but one he was willing to pay for this information. "I want to know who she was before becoming Walter's hound, what makes her so good that she can take down a skilled pilot like Nile, or even my two good-for-nothings. I need an edge in the event that she comes to her senses and loses that merciful streak of hers, or if ol' Hostage Killer decides she's good enough to take down all my Redguns." It was a nice chunk of change, and he hoped it didn't make him look as desperate as he felt.

~***~

The word of thanks surprised him, though he didn't let it show, instead letting the corners of his lips quirk up slightly as he muttered back a 'You're welcome,'. Good, he had gotten it right. He wasn't going to draw too much attention to it seeing as she glossed right over it and went straight to business.

Walter spent the next few minutes explaining the two separate missions to her, along with their pay. It would be impossible to do both, but he already had a inkling to which job she would pick. It seemed she didn't need much time to make her decision, leveling a question at him about how the corps would react to her choice.

"It could be, but I'll handle it. Anything to get your name out there. It's more likely that the corps won't send you jobs against the RLF, or they'll do a better job outbidding them." He could hardly believe how low that Arquebus was offering for this job considering the counter offer from the RLF, but perhaps they didn't know about it. It didn't matter now though. Aite had made her choice and he would honor it.

"Understood. I'll let the RLF know you've picked them and get the brief set up." He did just that, getting onto his tablet and shooting the RLF a message before returning his attention to the omelet in front of him. The pepper-haired man ate in relative silence as he waited for the RLF to get back to him. He was nearly done with his breakfast before the notification on his tablet showed that they were ready. Setting the call up, Walter flipped the device so it could be visible to them both.

"Thank you for choosing the RLF, Raven. Your help is always appreciated. We want you to escort the STRIDER, a weaponized mining ship. There's no end to the corps' invasion. They've reached the Bona Dea Dunes in western Belius now... Before the invasion, the STRIDER was our mobile base for extracting and distributing Coral. We paid the Dosers a fortune to outfit it for combat—it's too precious an asset to lose. You won't be alone out there. We're deploying the Gemini brothers to help you out. You'll know them when you see them, they are hard to miss."

"Looks like you'll have teammates. I'll look into these 'Gemini brothers'. For now, finish your breakfast and get loaded up. You're in for a long haul." With that, Walter put his plate in the sterlizer and walked to the communications hub with his coffee.

Once she was loaded up and sent on her way, Walter began his search. It would seem that these 'Gemini brothers' were newer to the RLF, going by the callsigns Pollux and Castor. There were no ALLMIND entries on them just yet like some of the other RLF members, but there were snippets of information on their success in the field. A tandem team of ACs with 'immense firepower'. He wondered if that meant explosives, or energy weapons. They would soon find out.

As the transport ship reached the drop off point and 621 had disembarked, waiting there to greet her were two very colorful middleweights with inverse color schemes. What was most noteable though, were the quad gatling guns strapped to them, and the matching stickers on their chassis that read '1-800-Fuck-You'. Both ACs took a syncronized step forward. A boisterous voice sounded off through the comms followed by a softer spoken identical voice.

"You must be Raven!-"

"Good to have you on our side,"

"I'm Pollux!"

"I'm Castor."

The two voices interupted each other, but spoke the same information. They couldn't help it, being twins like they were even if they had different personalities.

"Lets get this big lug over to the new location, huh?"

"Maybe you'll turn a Vesper pink too. Rubicon could-"

"-use more Barbies and Redguns!"

Xander, or Pollux, was excited to see the famed Raven in action, even if it meant risking his own AC getting caught in the crossfire. After all, that was RaD tech, so it could have been made by Lilith! Xavier, or Castor, was of the same mind, but more so wanted to see the power it took to save Father Dolmayan and the others, to see the skill this AC pilot wielded. If they were lucky, they might be able to save up enough coam to pay Raven to help them get Elliot out of Arquebus.

~***~

Elliot's smile grew impossibly wider as he pulled up his work phone and showed her the number. The red head was quick to plug it in and shoot him a text with another meme of her own making.

Hi buddy :]
​

He was right though. She really did need to get out more. Huntress didn't know what was good to do outside of HQ and wandering the markets of BAWS towns. Maybe she could ask him what he did while he was on Rubicon? His comment about locals made her chuckle again, shaking her head.

"Kind of. Sister works for RaD. Designed the weapon that caused Pinkgun. Hope it isn't used on us." Although her tone couldn't show it, her eyes sparkled with pride for her sister. She was finally doing what she loved to do, which was designing weapons and tinkering with ACs.

Things settled back into a quiet lull as Huntress texted her own meme to Lilith, who send a laughing emoji back.

My buddy, Rusty, liked that Pinkgun meme. How's work going?

Lilith's reply back was damn near instantaneous.

Oo~? You've been talking a whole lot about Rusty lately. Is there something I need to know about? Work is slow today. Just some customs for less-than-creative clients. "Handsome" Lukas got so bored on guard duty that he started firing his EARSHOT at sparrows.
​

Huntress couldn't help the pink that tinted her cheeks as she rapidly typed back, her bottom lip pulling into a slight pout.

What? No! Rusty's just my buddy! Am I not allowed to talk about my friends? Wait, sparrows? Is he hitting them?

Yeah, 'friends'. I'm pretty sure people don't talk about their friends as often as you talk about Rusty. 'Oh Lil, he's so sweet', 'Oh Lil, he's so cool', 'Oh Lil, he's so hot,'. I have no idea if he's hitting them, but Carla did just tell him to 'knock it off and stop wasting ammo'.

Hey! I never said that last part! So what if I talk about him a lot! I'm finally have friends who don't care what I sound like and care about me!

I'm just saying, You never talk about Hawkins that often~

Huntress gave up on texting Lilith, huffing softly as her face flushed with embarassment, and just in time it seemed as their transport vehicle landed outside the BAWS town. She was more than happy to get up and head to the exit, offering no explaination for her red face as she slipped her shades on.

The frosty, barren landscape made way for the large industrial complex that made up BAWS towns. They were so cookie cutter in design that she could probably lead Rusty to the same location of the house she grew up in and it would look the exact same. In a way, that brought her comfort. It was almost like she was back home. She made a mental note to call her mom later.

"Where is pick up? Can go past Markets?" The red head tilted her head to the side in question, looking up at the dark skinned face of Rusty. If they passed the markets, they would likely have food stalls, and she'd get him a sweet treat or lunch as thanks for being such a great friend to her.​

 

[Lucyfer]

Carla’s grin was sharp and quick as Michigan mentioned the clean-up, “You’re right. Lucky for you, I have a remover in my shop you can start stocking up on,” though it costed quite the pretty coam, after all, Carla was going to make sure to make bank off of this travesty to hit Rubicon-3, and look forward to what was to come as Walter’s hound tore her way through, all on Walter’s bidding.

All to eventually destroy it, if their fears proved right about the coral.

It seemed Michigan was desperate for the information, though. Carla rarely made that kind of money just on information on, well, anyone. Even Snail – the former Hostage Killer who picked a strange name to change to. She and Michigan remembered, though. They took his old name seriously, no matter how they joked.

Snail was no one to treat lightly.

“That favor better be worth it, or Hostage Killer won’t need Raven to finish you off,” Carla threatened, aware of what she would call it in for. To save his own ass. Not that he’d realize it, but if she could get him off the world before it went up in flames, she would. He wouldn’t want to listen, though. He sold his soul to Balam.

And she could never tell him the truth.

“I’ll do some digging. Send over the coam. You won’t get a drop of information on Raven until I see all of it – don’t even consider playing that, half now, half later game. The half later is the favor,” of course, she had all the information, so as soon as Michigan sent the coam, she’d send the information she had on Raven.

Aite.

Aurelia.

~***~

Aurelia could only groan as she was given teammates. The last thing she wanted after dealing with Iguazu and Volta. She didn’t care if they were RLF, she didn’t do teammates, and she didn’t want to work with them, but she didn’t get a say in that. Besides, the pay was good, so she’d suck it up and deal with whoever the RLF threw at her.

Just as she’d suck up the long journey and get into LEMURES, into the transport, and the RLF base where the STRIDER was waiting, alongside two inverted ACs playing on the Greek Twins theming. ‘Likely twins in real life.’ Likely the insufferable sorts who made their entire life their twin.

She couldn’t help but think it as they greeted her in overlapping words. “Raven,” not that she needed to introduce herself, they knew, “the faster we can get this thing across, the better. I’ll do what I can about any foes that show up to try and stop us. I’ll take the lead. You have my comm if anyone catches up at the middle, or back, that you can’t handle.”

What couldn’t four quad guns handle? Well, anything at a range, usually. Aurelia wasn’t sure how fast they could move with the weight of those guns, but then again, she wasn’t one to talk; her frame was heavy, even if it was bipedal, and she only intended to make it heavier, after all.

As they all took their positions to lead the STRIDER, the RLF MTs and their ACs, Aurelia shifted on her music but didn’t put on the neuro-set. She wasn’t about to be caught dead facing another reaction like the last job if she could avoid it.

The STRIDER began to move eventually.

Slowly.

Aurelia could only sigh out her exasperation at it all. It was too easy to keep pace, and almost mind-numbing doing so over the featureless dunes. Well, almost featureless.

There were cities buried; she wanted to explore it, and pick apart the history, but she knew she couldn’t abandon the STRIDER.

She could start to learn, though, “Hey. Anyone,” she didn’t really care who answered her, “I don’t really know much about what’s going on, except some corporations are here to get coral. Why isn’t Rubicon just…selling it?”

~***~

Rusty snorted at the meme that came through, but gave a quick response, just to confirm, even if was obvious:

You got me!​

And he was quick to save her number, just as ‘Buddy’. He didn’t need anything else, though it did occur to him that she was basically the only one in his phone under a nickname. He tried not to think of that, or how easily ‘Buddy’ stuck, as just an off-hand term of endearment, no different then the other names he used with others.

Except now he’d never use ‘Buddy’ with anyone else, of course.

He let her go back to her conversation with her sister, only watching her out of the corner of his eye without glancing at her phone, watching the way her sister seemed to easily embarrass her.

Ah, siblings.

It must have been nice.

Whatever it was, she seemed happy to be done with it as they landed, and she strode right on ahead. He couldn’t help but chuckle behind her back as he followed languidly after, glancing around the helipad as he stepped out of the transport, folding his arms briefly behind his head as he took it in.

Most towns in Rubicon-3 were like this: BAWS or some other industrial company’s town. If they weren’t, they were ruins run by junkies, worm farms, or RLF fortifications. There weren’t exactly any good pickings for where to live. There was nothing…unique, anymore. None of the beauty Rusty heard stories about, before the Fires of Ibis.

Just the ruins of it.

“We’re not on a timeline, Buddy,” Rusty reminded as she asked about the market, “If you want to head there, we can,” he said, “pick-up is just at the courier’s,” which, admittedly, was just right alongside the helipad, since anything coming in usually came by helicopter. Best to just unload here, and hold it here, as well, rather than move it across the town. "Why, are you looking for something in town?" he wondered what she might be looking for, after so long on an Arquebus base.

 

[EllieMcEllie]

Michigan didn't stop his eyes from rolling knowing that Carla already had a solvent for it. "Of course you do! I wouldn't expect anything less from 'Cinder' Carla herself. Let me guess! It's also expensive because you're the only one who knows how to make it?" It was a jab, but he expecting nothing less from her. As an Anarchist, it was her MO to stick it to the corps.

Corpos like him.

Corps Like Balam and Arquebus.

She took the bait though, accepting his more than ludicrous payment and offer of a favor. He could breathe easy on that front though. What Nile said about Pluto had been bouncing around in his head. 'Walter, what have you gotten yourself into?'

"I wouldn't dream of it. I get enough of your 'pranks' as it is, Car. I don't need you actually mad at me." And that was the truth. Sure they had their little sibling rivalry and pranks but the thought of her being mad was terrifying.

"4 million coam, coming right up!" Hopefully it was worth it. His bank account could more than cover it, even if it made him a bit saddened when he watched it transfer. Now all he had to do was wait for the information on this 'Raven' that Carla seemed to care about.

~***~

"Of course! You can count on us!" One voice this time. Xavier wasn't one for speaking past pleasantries where as Xander was a chatterbox. "I'll be at the middle, and Castor will be at the back. We've got your 6!" The two inverted ACs moved reasonably fast for their weightclass, both boosting to get to their respective positions.

Despite the boisterousness of Pollux, he too settled into a lull as they escorted the STRIDER. He preferred this slow, torturous pace to having to fight Arquebus, and -gods forbid- a Vesper. If they sent Elliot, he wouldn't be able to fight her, and he was sure Xavie was on the same wave length. How do you explain that to an ally? He'd have to try. Her question came through first, however, and he was more than happy to answer it to get his mind off his current thought process.

"I'm surprised that it hasn't been explained to you yet. You saved our own without knowing what we're fighting for?" Either it was just for the coam, or she just took it cause it was an easier job, though Nile attacking them wasn't what he'd call easy.

"I digress. Coral is what sustains our people here. It is our lifeblood! Take away the Coral, and our people will die. We use it to grow the mealworms for food. The Corporations want to take it all to create weapons and machinery and won't stop until its all gone, leaving Rubiconians to die of starvation. Mealworms aren't ideal or even tasty, but until our planet heals, It's food."

Walter muted his comms for a moment as he absorbed the information. He knew that Coral was important to them, but couldn't they see that it was dangerous? That they needed to destroy it and find themselves a new planet? One that was safer and not infested with dangerous, flammable coral energy like Jupiter?

Xander let the information soak in for a moment before speaking again. "Raven..." His voice softened. "I have a favor to ask you." There is a long pause as he gathers himself. "If Arquebus shows up, and they send a Vesper with the callsign V. IX Huntress, would you be willing to take her on? We'll take care of any MTs that come with her, and provide back up any way we can. That's... That's family, our sister. We'll make sure she ejects somehow..."

Almost as soon as he finished that sentence, the radars started going off. "Incoming! Protect the STRIDER! Coral, Abide with Rubicon!" Called Xander as he looked to locate the enemy, boosting upwards. Xavier scouted around on the ground, also trying to find just where these attackers were. The machines were nothing like anything the brothers had ever seen before, but Walter knew, and unmuted his comms mic.

"621, take them down before they take the STRIDER down." He tried to remain calm, knowing just the extent of the damage IA-05 WEEVILS could cause. Institute tech in general was dangerous to take down, but WEEVILS were highly resistant to most things. He was suddenly very thankful for Aite's penchant for explosives, as that was one of the only weaknesses they had.

~***~

Right. They didn't have a timeline like AC missions! The red headed pilot nodded quickly, grinning up at him in that way that was uniquely her. "Yes please! Little extra coam. Want to look around! Know where to go! Just like home. This way, Buddy!" Huntress took his bigger hand in her much smaller one and tugged on it, leading him through the maze of buildings and crowds of people. It only took 5 minutes as she lead them straight to the Market district.

In her excitement to visit the Markets, she hadn't noticed some of the hate-filled glances thrown their way, or the distraught faces of families who had been displaced by the destruction of the generators at the dam.

Just like she remembered, the Market district was full of food stalls, trinket shops, and supply stores, all lit up in a rather colorful manner unique to this part of town. Shaded blue eyes sparkled with childlike excitement and she was having a hard time containing herself. She hadn't had the money when she was younger to fathom looking, but now with some extra scratch, she could look. Maybe they even had tiger-themed things? It wasn't too far-fetched, seeing as old earth animals were popular now that they were extinct.

It took Huntress a hot minute to realize that she was still holding onto Rusty's hand, causing her to blush and release it, the conversation with Lilith fresh in her mind. "A-ah. Sorry, Excited," she rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. She would have said more to him, had she not caught sight of a plush tiger among a small sea of other plush earth animals. Her eyes widened and a low droning whine left her, though if she had her necklace on, it would been an ecstatic squeal. "TIGER! Be back, buddy!"

The red head hurried to the stall, still oblivious the glances that they were getting. She checked the price, paid the shop keep, and took hold of the plush. In her eyes, it was perfect. Huntress sent a quick picture of it to Lilith and her mom before heading back to Rusty to show him her find. "Love tigers! Can't believe found one!" She held out the plush for him to see. It was small enough to tuck into one of the inside pockets of her uniform jacket, and so she did, not wanting to lose her little treasure.

The smell of the warm food stalls wafted over on a cold breeze, making Elliot's stomach growl loudly. Right! She was going to buy him lunch! In her tiger excitement, she had nearly forgotten. "Surprise for you, Buddy! Buying us lunch, whatever you want. My treat as thanks for being good friend. for looking out for me."

The food stalls had meal worm options for the less fortunate, and fresher ingredient foods like hamburgers, steaks, salads, pizza, shawarma, and other street foods that could be imported from outside of Rubicon-3. Huntress went with a shawarma wrap herself, paying for it and waiting for Rusty to make his decision so she could pay for his too.

 

[Lucyfer]

‘No, but being disappointed in you is just fine, isn’t it?’ Carla didn’t say that aloud as the payment came through, and not a single coam light. This would go towards funding plenty, but she knew she ought to put it on investigations to start going through Xylem again. It had been too long, and odds were, they were going to need Xylem.

It was only a matter of time before Walter asked about it, and she didn’t need the PCA stumbling on it. They had gotten lucky so far.

“All right, I’ll see what I can dig up for you. Go kiss your Barbie, Michigan,” she bid farewell with that note and cut the feed, only to pull her tablet into her lap and gather all the resources she had on Raven. She had Walter’s file, of course, and a few additional things now that she knew more about DI MANES, so she included those findings, as well as the work around in ALLMIND to DI MANES.

Just in case Michigan wanted to see it himself. It used to rank highly, back when he was with Furlong as Antares. It never surpassed his rank, but it was always in the top five – well, until Aurelia was grabbed by the Hades Syndicate.

A message accompanied the information:

Here’s everything I have, Michigan. Aurelia Lycaon, born on Jupiter, moved to Pluto, stole an AC and started going by callsign Aite. Details on her old AC are in here. She’s going for something similar again, so it might be good to know.​

The files never did paint her in a flattering light. A debt-ridden kid who fled their debtors and stole an AC. Of course, her use of the AC made some headlines – still painted poorly – as the one denying Pluto growth and change, working with Pluto’s resistance. She would have fit right in with the RLF. And when that changed? Well, then it was the dangerous ‘gang member’ of the Hades Syndicate, and it was the one who helped Pluto basically be run by criminals and forced any governing official to cut deals with Aidon if they wanted to continue their operations.

Likely, even Michigan would pick up on the re-education, though it wasn’t in any news stories, wasn’t mentioned until the cryostasis file.

Before it all ended, and there was her cryostasis file with the debt information, cleared by Walter when he bought her.

The information that she killed her two previous “masters” – Aidon and Orpheus.

Oh, Michigan would indeed see Walter had bought one hell of a hound this time. And possibly, made a very poor decision.

~***~

Aurelia had picked up tidbits alongside the transport about Coral, but it all seemed like spiritual bullshit. So, she listened as one of the twins described how coral was the lifeblood of the planet, sustaining their source of food – mealworms. Not at all ideal. ‘You could sell it and leave here, though.’ She didn’t know how similarly her thoughts ran with Walter’s.

‘Just what is coral?’ It sustained her life, too. It was a powerful fuel, but she didn’t really understand what made its use so diverse. She was going to have to figure it out, but she wasn’t able to ask anything else.

A favor was being asked of her, “I’m here to fight anyone who comes for us. If that means Huntress, it means Huntress,” she shrugged within the core, not at all bothered by it. She’d take on Freud if he came up. Michigan. Whoever. None of them meant anything to her, except Michigan, really. “I hope she’ll heed your calls to eject.”

It was never good to fight on the opposite side of a loved one.

She’d been there…and she didn’t have the mind to stop.

She didn’t want to think about Orpheus.

She didn’t have to, either – her AC suddenly sprung to life with alerts about danger, and she looked through the googles to see something off in the distance. She rolled her eyes at the RLF battle cry, if only to fight off the spell of nausea that wanted to follow if she thought about it. If she thought at all about battle cries and hopeless fights. ‘Get your head out of it.’ She boosted towards the danger of these new enemies.

They were a strange foe, rolling rapidly forward on treads not just on their tank legs, but on their back. They definitely moved fast, but it seemed hard for them to avoid strikes. They couldn't turn well and that spelled damage for many as they rolled right into a barrage of missiles.

‘It's…red?’

The pink mist was pink. Aurelia didn't realize she was seeing the coral that spilled from the damaged machines. She ignored it as grenades were launched at her and she had to dodge, while blasting at a few moving MTs to keep them at a distance from the STRIDER.

“These don't seem like Arquebus,” the message was sent to all, not just Walter, as she got in close to one and split in two with the blade, noting that it seemed…rusted.

She backed off and sent a hailing request.

It was answered.

Her comm was overwhelmed with screams, like people being burned alive. She scrambled to cut the connection, and something collided with the back of LEMURES. Metal was scraped off in seconds, the core was burning up just as quick, as the AC was knocked to the side, sparking viciously with its wounds, fuel leaking everywhere. The connection to the left arm was shot, and the screaming persisted, if only in her head, as the field seemed covered in a bloody haze as wheels rolled onto the field.

And one turned right back to make another charge at Raven when LEMURES remained standing.

~***~

Rusty had no issues following, even if he knew well how these towns were mapped out. It'd be better to play a little dumb, and he was going to follow – but his hand was grabbed. Heat rushed to his own face, grateful that Huntress had turned away to lead, before he laughed at her enthusiasm and his own reaction.

It was silly.

She was just overly excited to be doing…well, anything, really. She hadn't let herself enjoy life in a while. She had a family to fund, after all.

The reason why she sold her soul to Arquebus.

Rusty wasn't unfamiliar with the hostile looks, but he ignored them as faces in the crowd. Nothing usually came of it, after all.

When they got to the market, Huntress seemed to realize what she'd done and Rusty couldn't help but laugh all over again. “I appreciate the help finding the market,” he couldn't help the somewhat cheeky grin. “I might have gotten lost on my own.” He wouldn't.

It seemed Huntress was more interested in a tiger, anyways. Rusty…didn’t really know what they were. He knew what a Liger was, thanks to Michigan, but he didn’t know how closely related they were. He knew some earth animals, of course. Rubicon loved plenty, like the wolf he had on his emblem, and so he watched Huntress from where she left him as she went to grab a tiger plush.

Apparently, it was a striped feline. ‘Maybe that’s where ARTEMIS gets it from.’

He grinned as she came back with it, “So that’s why ARTEMIS is striped, isn’t it?” he asked, touching the tiger on its head as Huntress put it into her pocket, “It’ll need a good name,” he said, before being surprised by her offer, “Ah—well—if you insist,” he chuckled, shaking his head a bit, “You really don’t have to,” he didn’t want her to feel obligated towards him, but he looked around at the stalls and their offerings of various street foods.

Remembered Father Dolmayan’s stories of stalls that used to have sugared fruits Rusty couldn’t even imagine, and candies made from flowers native to Rubicon-3 in the spring time. There were no more of those, and he shook the thought of it off, not sure why his mind wanted to dwell on such things.

Something about Huntress’s excitement made him wish for childish thrills he’d never known.

“I’ll just take a couple of Takoyaki balls,” Rusty decided, since they rarely got those on the Arquebus base. It was more of a snack than a meal to him, but that’s all he really wanted right then, anyways. “If that’s okay,” he was quick to make sure they were within her budget. He could get something else if it wasn’t.

 

[EllieMcEllie]

Michigan didn't get the chance to bite back a retort when the line cut. It was all terribly on brand for Carla and he couldn't help but shake his head. He'd have a 'prank' waiting for her later, but right now, he had to go greet Nile, welcome him back. At least, that was his plan, but the clown horn sound moments later changed that. That was fast. That could only mean that she already had the information. He should have expected that from her. She practically knew everything, or had the ability to learn about it if she didn't.

The tan-skinned man began his delve into the information. It started out similar to his own story; helping to liberate a planet, becoming a freedom fighter, rising through the ranks. The further he read, however, the more he began to realize just how formidable a foe this Aite was.

DI MANES, an AC he had seen a few times in the upper levels of the ALLMIND rankings several years ago, was her old AC, and one she planned to recreate. That was back when he was Antares, before he was bought out by Balam. He had no reason to check the rankings now, knowing that he was second only to Freud, who was a whole different kind of beast.
Truly though, until now, he had no reason to care about anywhere like Pluto. Now it seemed that he did, as this hellion from the Hades Syndicate had come to Rubicon-3 as the new hound of Walter, and by her own accord, nearly took the lives of three of his men.

Re-education wasn't something he was expecting to find there, neither was the fact that she had killed her two previous 'Masters'. She had broken from her re-education, and killed them in cold blood. What had Walter gotten himself into? This woman, Aite, Aurelia, was going to kill him in his sleep! If she killed like that once, she would absolutely do it again. She was a threat here to all who opposed her. One he hoped that he didn't have to put down like a mad dog. He should probably call Walter and give him a piece of his mind.

He did just that, pressing the button on his phone to call him. It rang once before the call was denied. Ah, Walter must be busy with a mission. He'd leave him a message.

"Walter! How's Aite doing? I was going to just call to tell you that you're insane, but this message will have to do. What the hell were you thinking?! She killed two of her masters and you still bought her? Are you stupid, or do you just have a death wish? It seems like both since you let her sleep on the same ship as you! Keep one eye open. Can't have you getting killed because you chose the wrong dog."

~***~

"621! You have to move. Those are C-Weapons. Relics from before the Fires of Ibis. Be careful, they are dangerous." Called Walter who watched as her AC took a good chunk of damage. This was different than other times where she fought. They were institute machines. They were tougher and more volitile when destroyed. He trusted her skills , but he also knew the dangers of C-weapons. As the wheel-shaped C-weapons rolled in, Walter gritted his teeth. "HELIANTHUS?" His voice held a note of confusion and concern, too worried to hide it from his tone. It was around then that his phone went off. It was Michigan calling. Walter was quick to silence it, sending the man to voicemail.

Xander watched in horror as Raven took a hard hit from one of the MTs powered by what looked like Coral. "Raven! I'm on my way! APOLLO and I have you covered! Castor, get DIANA up there and shoot those things away from the generators!" The mostly teal AC zipped forward as fast as it could, narrowly avoiding being hit by one of the giant Wheels.

The sound of intense gunfire filled the air as Pollux unloaded all 4 gatling guns into the strange machine that came back at Raven in an alternating pattern. The pilot switched between the bottom and top sets to give the other set time to rest from overheating.

The WEEVIL's ACS limiter overheating caused the metal to screech to a halt and freeze up, the steel complaining as the teal AC assault boosted and landed the killing blow to the first one.

"Wait, what is that thing?" Castor's voice shouted in comms as the other WEEVIL finished off the last generator.

"Hold the line, Coral Warriors!" called the captain, clearly distressed as the ship began to falter and crumple in on itself.

"It's going to blow! Castor, get out of there! Raven, we got to go!" Pollux pushed at Raven's AC, ready to drag the pilot away if need be.

Walter was the most worried, gripping the arm rests of his brand new chair tightly as he tried to keep his emotions in check. With the HELIANTHUS and WEEVILS on the field on top of the mining ship getting ready to implode, he couldn't help but call out to his hound. No, not hound. His pilot. Aite, not 621. "Aite! Get out of there! Don't get caught in the blast!" came the near panicked voice of Walter as he urged his pilot to get to relative safety. She'd still have to deal with the C-Weapons but she'd have help from the Gemini brothers.

~***~

Huntress was already thinking on a name for the striped beast in her pocket, thinking back on stories that her mother had told her were from old earth that had tigers. Most were lost when Earth fell or to time itself, but two stood out to her; Rajah from the story of Aladdin, and Shere Khan from The Jungle Book. Both were fine names. A thought occured to her that had her grinning wide all over again.

She could get the wolf one and the panther one next time and name them after Akela and Bagheera. It would be like her, Rusty and Hawkins! Sure, they weren't friends in the story, but that didn't matter. Rusty's emblem was a wolf, so he must like them, right? and Hawkins was like Bagheera from the story. Scary looking and intimidating, but a softie under all that. Yes, that would be the plush's name. Shere Khan. She'd come back after her next mission to get the other two.

"Am sure. Get what you want!" Beemed the red head as she waited for his decision so she could pay for it. Takoyaki. Something she hadn't tried before, but they looked good. "Takoyaki it is!" answered Huntress as she practically skipped to the booth with the Takoyaki, getting him a french fry boat of 6, the smallest size they had. The fried octopus treats smelled divine and were drizzled in rich, white and caramel-colored sauces. Maybe she would try them next time?

Huntress handed over his food before taking a bite of her Shawarma, humming tonelessly in contentment as she closed her eyes. It was one of the few foods that her parents would splurge on sometimes, and it brought back good memories for her; memories from a simpler time. Memories from when she could just focus on being a kid, or being herself without obligations, from before her father's accident, from before her surgery complications. It was like a warm hug from a ghost of the past.

"Missed this." she murmured, blinking the happy tears from her eyes as she looked around for a table. There were a few empty ones near the food stalls and it would be good to take a seat, if only to eat together and relax. The red head found them a small empty table with two chairs, sitting down and patting the other side of it as she looked up at him behind her shades. "Sit with me?" she questioned, tilting her head to the side in question.

 

[Lucyfer]

‘Helianthus?’

Walter knew the models of these MTs. Aurelia had limited time to think of it, and certainly no time to ask about it, as Pollux zipped into the area and helped eliminate the Helianthus that was going to rush back at her. “Thanks,” she said, pulling out a repair kit that at least restored functionality to her arm, before she went back into the fray, staggering missile shots, sending out the bazooka, and trying to get amongst the MTs to try and protect their weaker armor from the rolling beasts.

It wasn’t the best of ideas, considering her instincts were still tied to DI MANES, and this frame was not nearly so good. Even so, she used the body of LEMURES and put it between more than one RLF MT and the hellish, rusted beasts that came from the sands at the STRIDER, only for her comms to go off with the destruction of it.

‘No!’

The beam from the STRIDER was already going haywire, zipping a few times through the sand, glassifying the area, before it began to rumble within the beast, preparing for the explosion as it started to collapse.

Not that the MTs that had come to strike them seemed to care, and Aurelia supposed they wouldn’t; their armor was hard, this explosion might not worry them at all.

Pollux had followed her into the fray, and she used another repair kit to help with her frame to speed out of there, only for the thought to stumble as Walter called her by a name. Not her name anymore, one she left behind on Pluto, but….

“Go on, Pollux, I’ll cover the MT retreat.” She wouldn’t let him try to grab her AC, as she went hellbound into the fray of MTs too close to the STRIDER, too close to the damned machines that weren’t giving them a chance to flee, and she lashed out, intentionally reckless, intentionally letting the machines see openings, even as bits of the STRIDER fell around her, some hitting the machines that had taken it down, some hitting those poor RLF MTs.

But she was determined to get some of them out of there.

And then the STRIDER exploded.

LEMURES felt the hit as that blue energy exploded outward and tore at the frame. So did some unlucky MTs, and plenty of the hellish machines. Some of them were destroyed outright, but LEMURES held on.

Overheated.

All power went out of it.

“Fuck.” Aurelia spoke into the dark core, although to her, it wasn’t dark.

Red floated in the core, just as it did outside. It seemed to move with the music, as if it heard it, too. It formed images, like clouds did. No, it didn’t form images. She imagined images, and outside of the music, she could still hear movement. Crashings. Collidings. MTs were still moving out there, which meant she was fucked.

“Rayv…en?”

“Raven…..”

“I really am losing it now,” she sighed and leaned back into her chair, let her head settle on the headrest. She was hearing things. Hallucinations. That was a part of Gen-4 side effects. “Fuck.”

“Save us—”


“Hear—”

Screams. Raven heard screams and she shut her eyes against the world as a HELIANTHUS struck LEMURES, and her body rocked with it. Without the power, she couldn’t eject.

“Raven…you’re not losing it.”

Power touched LEMURES.

Red. The light glowed in the goggles that Aurelia wore and she opened her eyes to see the sensors up, power restored, and she immediately used that last repair kit before rounding on the HELIANTHUS and tipping it with a bazooka blast, before destroying it with the pulse blade, and taking a look at her surroundings for any continued fighting.

She’d help clean up, as she called back to Walter, “Aite died on Pluto with the most noble of men. I am not Aite.” She wondered if he’d know the reference, old Shakespeare, old Earth. He might know Aite – it seemed plenty knew Greek and Roman mythos out here – but he might not know the rest.

No matter. Aite was dead.

She didn’t know who she was as she moved from the debris to engage with another MT, but it wasn’t Aite. The hallucinations called her Raven.

Maybe it was Raven.

~***~

Rusty was happy with his bowl of six Takoyaki, which he took to one of the outdoor seating spots with Huntress. He popped one into his mouth before sitting, though he had noticed the way Huntress looked at them. He intended to offer one to her, as she seemed to drift off into the happiness of the moment, and commented on how she had missed this.

“See? You do need to get out more,” he teased her, taking the seat. As if that was even a question. They were there together, he wasn’t going to go sit by his lonesome. “You can have one, if you want,” he pushed the tray towards her, as he licked his fingers of the sauce, and then folded his arm on the table.

“Did you live in a town like this, growing up? I’ve heard most Rubiconians did, since BAWS is kind of…well, the main support you all get here,” it wasn’t like anyone else could really access the outside world. BAWS was able to import and export goods through the PCA barrier. Well, import.

Rubicon had basically nothing to export, except coral, but the PCA didn’t let that be known. They did, of course, export BAWS inventions, and some RaD, though the RaD was fairly limited. RaD didn’t sell shit outside of Rubicon, really.

He was never sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing.

RaD was…interesting.

Knowing that Huntress had a sister in their ranks made it more interesting, too. He’d have to find out more about this meme-sister, and the rest of her family. He wondered if they were all supportive of her decision to join Arquebus. He rather hoped not.

 

[EllieMcEllie]

Walter watched as Aite charged headlong into the explosion area, and felt his heart drop to the floor. What was she doing? Was she trying to get herself killed? He didn't have time to call out to get again as the STRIDER finally imploded, wiping out C-weapons and MTs alike.

The bubblings of anxiety rolled through Walter as the comms went down first. Then came the 'vitals lost' notification that had his mind reeling. "No. No!" All his work, all his coam, all that potential, his pilot, Aite,gone. A heaviness settled over him as he slammed his fist down on metal desk, gritting his teeth and curling his hands in and out of fists.

He couldn't do this again. He couldn't lose another person in his life. She wasn't a hound. She wasn't a dog. She was a pilot, and the best damn one he had the privelege of working with out of 621 AC pilots. She got the job done, she had personality, and he found himself enjoying her company even if just a little bit.

Aite wasn't cocky without the skill the back it up like 589 was, nor was she too shy to do her work like 234 was. She certainly wasn't as reserved and cautious as 619 was, but for her, it worked. She did her best work that way. And now she was gone.

Now he would have to find a new pilot. No, a new hound. 622. First though, he would grieve. He rarely grieved his hounds, but he remembered them all. It was part of the job. This time, he had let himself get close to one of them, close enough to call her Aite, and pilot instead of a number and hound. Who would he call first? Carla? Michigan?

Pollux and Castor had made it to safety with the handful of MTs that Raven had died to save, though they were still fighting for their lives against the HELIANTHUS and WEEVILS. Both AC Pilots formed a barrier between them and the MTs, using their combined firepower to take out the machines that came their way. There were only a handful left, and while their ammo was running low, they would do everything to keep their own safe.

"Raven is gone, along with the STRIDER." Pollux spoke into the comms between gunfire, updating Walter and the RLF. Not a moment later, however, did her AC rise from the wreckage of the STRIDER. Xander couldn't help but wonder what the hell she was made of to have survived an explosion like that, but she was up and kicking. "Revising last broadcast, Raven is still alive!"

Walter's head shot up at the sound of her voice as her vitals and AC came back online. She was alive. She was alive! Pins and needles in his extremities receded, and that heaviness that weighed on him slowly lifted from his shoulders. It was ok. She was alive. His pilot was alive.

Her words were familiar to him. So that's what her callsign was based off of. Shakespere. It shouldn't have surprised him based on the name of her former AC, and the name of the custom backkits that she had a thing for old earth myths and literature. "Raven then, unless you prefer something else." his shaking voice answered. "Only a few left. You know what to do." Castor, who had taken the least amount of damage, zipped over to Raven while Pollux covered for him. The purple AC tapped the arm of her AC with a repair kit, letting the Nanobots do their thing to repair the battered AC.

"We can do this together, Pollux and I have your back. The STRIDER may be gone, but you saved the lives of those MTs. Thank you, Raven." Castor was quick to head back to the line that Pollux was struggling to hold now that his backkits were out of ammo. The purple AC fell back into his position and unloaded unholy hell on the closest Helianthus, preventing the deaths of 3 MTs as it charged towards them.

~***~

The teasing sent Elliot's way had her peachy cheeks flushing pink and her lips pulling into a pout. It didn't last long as she was offered one of the coveted 'Takoyaki'. Conflict flashed in her eyes, hidden behind her shades. She didn't want to take his food, but he was offering. It just meant she'd offer him a bit of the Shawarma wrap. She'd only taken a bite out of one corner after all.

After a moment she reached forward and gingerly took the smallest one, popping it into her mouth. The flavors exploded as soon as her lips closed around it, drawing another contented hum from her. It was savory, with a hint of bitterness, but the sauce on top was fruity, salty, and creamy. It was nothing like she had ever tasted. Yes, this was a new favorite. Dainty fingers raised to her lips once more to lick the sauce off them before handing her wrap out to him, un-bitten side closest.

"Can take a bite too! Only fair." She offered as she listened to his question.

"Yes! Until year ago, lived with mom, Lil, Xan and Xavie. My Siblings. Lost dad when was 17. Supported them since then. Am 27 now. Miss home, but they safe, happy. Lil works RaD, Xan and Xavie in training to be AC pilots. My support helped them." Huntress took a deep breath and scrunched up her face, feeling the familiar buzzing in her brain that told her she was nearing her limit. Funny enough, it was like the ACS overheat on an AC.

"What about Mars? Your family?" Asking him a question and letting him talk for a bit would give her the short break she'd need to speak well again.