23

Author's Notes:

I'm definitely feeling the reduction of quality with this chapter as I rush to write. More below.

Alloy

17 weeks and 3 days.

Well, Kali was right.

So was I, I guess. I just needed to get better work/life balance. Just because I don't sleep (and I finally got that sorted, I have so much time now) and I enjoy what I'm doing doesn't mean I don't need to take time for myself.

It's been a couple of weeks, and the steel plant is up and running. Not very well, we are still getting energy from the sun via heat. The device we are using to concentrate low temperature to high temperature isn't very efficient, it's a bunch of heat pumps in series with each tweaked to a different gradient.

Still, it's enough progress to make some simple electric generators.

"How's it looking?" I walk into the steel building and ask the manager, Silver Scales, here.

We could have ordered the parts from another Kingdom and had them shipped here, but there's a rising feeling of pride here. Menagerie had it's own metalworks, but it was Dust based and too small for what we are doing. Any other Kingdom's metalworks would also be Dust based.

This? This is Dustless. Entirely Dustless.

"Alloy! Oh, I lost track of time." They wipe their brow, the heat in here is so much higher than outside, even with 'heat recovery systems' (air conditioning) set up. "Come see!"

Excitement. Pride. Hope.

Things are looking up.

Silver and I stride through the metalworks and into the assembly yard. They wave their hands at the assembly we have been working on. "Tada!"

Three giant fiberglass fins and bolted together into a metal generator block that sits atop a reinforced steel tube.

Menagerie's first wind turbine is assembled for testing and quality assurance.

"Okay, but does it work?" I tease. "No, this is amazing."

"Amazing is what we are going to do with it." They correct. "Solar heat is nice and all, but we are losing way to much energy from the conversions. The 'tric crew showed off induction heaters that I'm eager to get my hands on."

The electric crew, or tric's, or trixies, are my first batch of students who chose to lean more into 'controlling lightning' than chemistry. I've taught them most of what I know, which isn't much, but it's enough to get started and build their own science off. Not that they don't ask me questions constantly, questions I can sometimes answer based on things that I know and didn't quite realise they didn't.

Maybe if I were a better teacher or had a firmer grasp of the subjects I wouldn't have to have a constant forum connection in my head running. Then again, being a 'master' of electricity would also be suspicious.

Doesn't matter. We are cooking now.

"Hey, Alloy!" An early worker stops and waves at me.

For a synthetic made from Dust originating from Atlas, I've got a good reputation here these days. The fact that all of this is only possible thanks to me helps, but I also cheat hard by having facial recognition to give me names and extensive note taking.

"Hey Bones." I wave back. "How's the kitten?" Her very large and very bulky tractor that has sat broken in her shed for far too long. According to my notes, it's an ongoing project to get it repaired.

She laughs. "Oh, I stripped her down. A trixie whispered to me that there's a new power battery on the horizon. Something about two halves of water."

Hydrogen fuel cell. Remnant's materials science has made it partially viable, but Hydrogen is just too tiny an atom to be contained very well, even for an expensive nanolaminate composited I got shipped in. Different universe, same problem.

I check the Bone's relationship tree and who would be most likely to spill. Very extensive notes.

"Baker been blabbing excitedly again?" Bones laughs confirming that. Baker really thinks he can solve hydrogen storage. I hope he does, but I'm not holding out much hope. "But I thought you liked you're kitten?"

"Eh, she's great, but she's been wearing down. And she runs on Dust. I reckon it's time she grew up." Dust.

"Fair enough." I clap. "So, why did you call me over?"

Silver grins. "Well, seeing as you can fly, we thought you might want to lend a hand to set it up?"

"Oh. Absolutely, if you don't mind?" I am Dust.

Sure, all the other vehicles that will be used to bring it out to the install location and help set it up will be, but I am Dust.

"Wouldn't ask if we did."

.

"Unlocking... now." Bones calls as she hits the button.

The blades begin to spin, slowly, in the wind.

"We have power!" She calls, eyes looking at the multimeter in her hands.

Cheers rise up from the crew and echo through the small valley. There are defences here to plug the hole in the mountain range, but now it's far more important of a location. Hot air heated from the desert during the day rushes through here very regularly, made faster by the fact that it's one of the few gaps in the range that protects Kuo Kuana from the sand, heat and Grimm.

I land. "How's the future looking?"

"Bright. And hot!" Silver looks down at the readings. "I think we might need a bigger steel mill. Two more of these will keep the metal liquid, and we have room for another 4 in this patch alone."

Hmm, I hope so. My understanding of fluid dynamics isn't great, but I do know that windmills interfere with eachother due to turbulence. Still, other people have worked out the placements of that, people who are more qualified than me.

"Come on, group photo!" I get dragged in by Silver. They're pretty strong, but that is what happens when you work in a steel mill.

Damm buff fish Faunus working out using molten metal.

16 weeks and 1 day.

Organic chemistry has taken off. Being able to convert 'syngas' to almost any hydrocarbon has made the chems pretty excited, at least once the uses of gasoline became known. I made sure to stress that we need carbon capture for anything that uses it, pointing out the hazards of dumping toxic chemicals into the air we breathe.

So far our solution is to use it for 'carbon fertilisation', where a vehicle captures the CO2 and pumps it into tanks, which are then pumped into the glasshouses to boost productivity and recover the oxygen. CO2 sinks, after all.

It does mean that the glasshouses are going to need to be air tight and atmospherically monitored, as well as anyone going in requiring safety equipment in case they pass out and asphyxiate to death, but it's a good solution for Remnant.

With how limited space is, making any farming even a little bit more efficient is a major boon, and nobody wants to kill the planet here.

It just irritates me how easy it is. Sure, we have a lower population a significant preference for compact things, but Remnant is a hellhole filled with monsters and an ever present threat of death. Remnant is hard mode and we are starting at a carbon neutral economy. On Earth, there's really no excuse but 'economics', aka, greed.

The capitalist model values the currency that makes a company work more than the thing the company does. It would be like a person who values their blood as the most important thing. Sure, you don't want to lose it, but a corporation is specifically engineered and optimised to collect as much blood as possible.

But they can't create it, so they take it from the 'living beings' around them. Other corporations, governments, actual people.

At least we aren't going communism here though. That leads to massive deaths and horrible inefficiencies. Ask the Soviets how many people died and why, for example, their computer science fell through the floor. Or China about their body count. Or-

Stop. It's Earth. I'm on Remnant. Learn from it, but don't stress over it. Use it as a guide to help the people here.

"So, we need to find an oil deposit?" Coin asks.

"We need a carbon source, yes, and distillation and refinement of crude oil will result in a wide mix of hydrocarbons, but oil is a limited resource. Though, we don't actually need a source. Want to guess why?"

"Charcoal." Hyro answers.

I snap my fingers and point at him. "Bingo. The very plants we go as a result. How much of, say, a cotton plant do we actually use? Sure, there's fertiliser for other plants, but if we are going to be growing a lot of cotton, constantly adding to the stored carbon, then supply will outpace demand."

"But burning it just oxidised the carbon." Coin frowns.

"True, though not all of it. And the CO2 released can go back into the cycle. It's not very efficient, but it's at least one way of doing things. We will need to look for a plant that can create a good source of carbon, or find a completely different way of recycling our carbon. Otherwise, we will be dependant on constantly carbon importations, from oil deposits, or say, coal mines."

Aka, Dust, all over again.

"Though, with how the trixies are going, maybe they will create a solution first." I watch as the chems class straightens up at the minor rivalry I have created.

Most of them anyway. The 6 'tweens' (inbetweeners) aren't much part of the rivalry. It's friendly, everyone here is working together to build a better tomorro-

Wait, 'build a better tomorrow'? Am I megacorp?

Nah. I'm not getting paid enough for that.

15 weeks, 6 days.

Ashley Wood's room is clean, and barely personalised. Unlike with a lot of others (I am meeting too many people to be able to keep track of them all manually), I do remember her. It hasn't been that long since the crash.

"Alloy, come in, come in. Sit down." She welcomes me into her room, gesturing from her wheelchair. "Cup of water?"

I only visited her once in hospital, though news of my 'drinking preferences' has gotten around. I meant to visit again, but between being busy, and... and the guilt I feel for leaving her paralysed, it's been hard.

"Depends, can you make it to my liking?" My joke is clearly poorly executed, something in the tone of my voice, based on how she reacts.

But she ignores it and pours me a cup anyway. "I didn't know there were any special requirements."

I take the cup and sit down, feeling awkward. "So um..."

How do I start to talk to someone who's life I ruined? Oh, she's alive, but she had plans, a career, and after having a deeper look at her file, a fairly decent set of skills that would carry her through it.

When we decided to rush me to Menagerie, James put a fairly skilled pair of pilots, Ashley Wood and Lode Stone, onto flying us, just in case something happened.

Well, something did happen. But it happened too fast, and it cost the woman in front of me her future.

Flying takes more than just the hands, and even though she could fly again, she will never be as good as she was before. Remnant's cybernetics are good, but Pietro isn't in a spider chair by choice.

"It's fine." She waves me off, clearly having developed a mind reading Semblance. "I am just happy to be alive."

She won't ever have kids either. I destroyed her dreams. "You wouldn't have been there if it weren't for me."

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you." Flickers of anger, aimed at myself, spark up in me.

"How can you say that?" I all but whisper. "How can you be okay with this?"

"I'm not okay with this, but you didn't fire the rockets." She's firm.

My head hangs. "No, I didn't, but you wouldn't have been there if it weren't for me. I was the VIP that needed a skilled pilot to make sure I got here. I was the target of the assassination. And I was the one who couldn't help you."

The room isn't secure, she knows that.

I look up at her. "I cost you your future. I heard you left the Atlas Military, I've read your file on your plans for the future, and you know you won't have kids."

I'm crashing the mood.

"You think I can't adopt?" Right, Remnant has a different social understanding of adoption. Too many orphans from the Grimm attacks.

"That's not what I mean, and you know it." But not that different. "What are you even doing these days?"

She flinches at my words. "I'm... recovering."

"Oh, I'm sorry." I've done enough damage. "I just..." Feel guilty. "I'm sorry. It's my fault. If I were better, cleverer, stronger, something... this wouldn't have happened."

I stand up. "Thank you for the drink." I put the full cup down and walk out.

Aura can't save her. Technology can't save her. She's alive... but she has nothing left. Maybe it would have been better for her to die in the crash, for me to fail to save her.

"Hey." I turn to look at- oh.

"Sorry, I can't-"

"Bullshit. You can at least stop to talk to me." I stop and turn. Lode Stone stands down the hall.

He's still working for Atlas, but he's requested to be transferred here as a pilot for 'Little Atlas'. Part of me wonders if Lode and Ashley were a thing, or wanted to be a thing.

"Then talk fast, I'm busy." I use my work to shield me.

"Yeah, I heard. Everyone in Lil'Atlas has heard, and most of Kuo Kuana too." He sighs. "Listen, I... I want you to know it wasn't your fault." I tense. "Ash, she's not my first copilot."

Oh.

"And he, well he didn't make it. Grimm attack, you know the drill." Lode dismisses his pain. "Sometimes shit happens, and there's nothing we can do to change it. Just move forward. You saved her life, stopped the worst of the... Just, don't blame yourself. I've been there."

"How?" I ask. "Nobody blames me. You don't, my friends don't, she doesn't. But none of this would have happened if I..."

"Wouldn't have happened if the Reds didn't shoot rockets at us."

"They were after me."

"Yeah, I know. Pretty obvious when you look back on what you've done here, the Reds wouldn't want their people to have a good life." He snorts at the most backwards logic that the Red Fang actually might use. Can't recruit dissidents if the people don't want to rebel.

Though the real reason is probably Cinder.

Ah.

She knows who I am.

Shit. Why am I just realising this?

I've been researching Aura, that's why. She must have honed her Aura sense to the point she can tell who is who by feel, and despite the new body, my Aura signature is the same.

"Are you staying?" I ask.

"Yeah, my transfer got approved. I'm going to keep an eye on Ash, fly solo for a bit. She doesn't really have anyone else." He snorts again. "Bit of a workaholic, in case you couldn't tell."

She isn't a skilled pilot because of natural talent. Well, a little bit, but she has worked hard to hone that. "Yeah, she hasn't put up any decorations. I thought that might be because she just moved in but..."

"Nah, she'll get around to it." Okay, so it is just because she only recently moved in.

"Does she need a job? I can't garentee anything, but I can ask around." Look at me, the person with contacts. How did I get into this position.

Lode raises an eyebrow. "Thanks for the offer, but no. She's still finding her feet... um... getting used to things, and even after that she probably won't want someone to give her the easy path." A hard worker, right. "I'll tell her you offered, but don't expect a call."

"Okay..." What else can I do?

I can't make up for the end of her life.

We stand in silence for a bit. "I... should get going."

"Yeah, yeah. Keep in touch. And Alloy?" Hm? "Don't blame yourself too much, okay?"

"I'll try." I nod and walk away.

I still feel guilty.

15 weeks and 3 days.

Metal clicks as I push it into place.

The Indie Rifle is good, but it isn't me. Not just because I didn't really invent it, or because Ruby helped me make it, but because I don't actually like the weapon. It's too...

Well. It's not for me.

So, one of my break activities has been to develop my own weapon. Not mechashift, I still have some Terran pride, but definitely something more complicated than a standard Earth weapon.

That's the excuse anyway. Really, I'm just having fun.

The doorbell rings, and I mentally glance through the cameras to see who is early. Not Ruby, thankfully. I'm not hiding it from her, not really, I just want to do this myself.

"Enter." I send to the intercom and Blake steps in. "Underlab."

My 'house' is three main floors. The first floor is a several lab rooms for different things. Second is the 'house' part of it, a much smaller box sitting on top of the wide first floor that is closer to a studio apartment, the deck of which is the roof of some of the first floor.

The underlab, which is just a fancy way of saying basement lab, is where my forge is. And where I do some of the stuff I don't want to get out.

Though in this case, it's making a gun from the ground up.

I run checks on 'Blake' to make sure it's Blake before opening the door remotely. My last fun project was fully converting my lab/house into a smart home and integrating it into myself. A little bit of a security risk, but there are physical isolation systems and circuit breakers in place in that can disable all the 'smart' parts of the house in place. Just in case.

Hey, it's my house, I can do what I want to it.

"Hey." I greet Blake as I pull the trigger on the snap the sabot onto the penetrator.

"Hey. Is that an arrow?" She asks looking at one of my other projects on the table.

"It's a kinetic penetrator." I correct. "But yeah, it's an arrow."

Recreating Armor Piercing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot weapons and ammo for anti Grimm/Huntsman targets was a reasonable challenge. And by reasonable, I mean much more difficult that I was expecting, made far worse by my lack of experience, internet in my head or no.

It was suppose to be a simple design, an arrow and a sabot to have it fill the barrel, and I suppose it is. It's just that engineering isn't a simple field, which is obvious when I think about it. Ruby might be an engineering prodigy, Remnant might have a very good engineering culture, but the simple people from Earth need to spend years studying to design basically anything.

The fact that I got it to actually work is less of a testament of my skill and more a statement on Remnant's design tools and culture only irritates me a little bit.

Blake sits down in one of the chairs I have set up right now.

"So, you're here early, what's up?" I pull the trigger on the fire control group I am making for my gun.

A spark jumps between the wire tips when I pull the trigger.

"Nothing. I just thought I would come over earlier." She looks over at the weapon. "Is it suppose to spark like that?"

"Yes." I recock the hammer. "It's called the piezoelectric effect. Certain crystals, when put under stress at certain angles, create electric charges."

I look up from the weapon. "From what I remember, where I am from bullpup style weapons have a little bit of a reputation for having squishy triggers. Not sure how accurate that is, having never held one, but I've come up with a solution anyway."

Blake nods. "Have the trigger in the front send an electrical pulse to control the hammer in the back."

"Well, that would work, but no. I'm thinking the charge itself heats the back of the cartridge to set off the gunpowder." I pull the trigger and watch the spark jump. "The cartridge wouldn't need a primer, making it safer, longer lived, and easier to manufacture. Only slightly though, manufacturing is probably the biggest advantage."

Right, that seems to be working. Time to see if the whole thing put together explodes on me.

"So why are you hiding it from Ruby?" Blake teases.

"It's my gun. Ruby's great, but the Indie Rifle doesn't feel like it's mine, not with the original designs and Ruby putting so much work into it. I didn't even feel like I was building it, really. More like Ruby was and I was just assembling it."

Blake laughs. "When we first began staying at Beacon, she would look over our shoulders whenever we did maintenance. Trying, but not very stealthily. At least until Yang told her off."

"I can imagine. How long did that last?"

"A day and a half." Oh, Ruby. "I ended up letting her take Gambol Shroud apart" Blake pauses for a moment "before checking everything she touched."

Ah, she didn't quite trust anyone there yet. "And Weiss?"

"Ruby still hasn't gotten to touch Weiss'. Something about her incompetence in handling Dust." Blake smirks.

I crack up. "The Crater Face Incident."

.

I thought I tested the theory that Ruby had a 'gun sense' enough to dismiss it as superstition, but here she is, excited at the door with Yang.

"Underlab." I state and turn the last locking pin.

Right. Now to the range. Fortunately, my Underlab has one, being a full (if small) weapons forge and testing facility.

I begin loading the magazine with the custom cartridges.

The door opens and Yang struts in. "So, what did you want us-"

"Is that a gun?" Ruby hijacks the conversation.

"Can't you tell?" Blake teases.

"Alloy, you made a weapon!" Ruby completely ignores her teammate's jab.

"Ignoring you, going to test fire this."

I step up to the chunk of open space that serves as a firing range, a white ceramic target with steel backing plate at the end. It's a stand in for Grimm armor, though not a very old Grimm.

It'll be fine.

The weird block shaped magazine slots in under the stock behind the rifle's trigger. The thing is actually closer to 4 magazines laid flat beside and ontop of eachother. I took the horizontally lying cartridge + magazine design of the FN P90 and overengineered it a bit, not just putting two magazines side by side, but also a second one underneath it that feeds into the far end of the top one.

I had a few design requirements when making this rifle, and a large magazine was one of them. Lightweight was another. Remnant materials science has really helped in that regard, most of the thing is made of a fibreglass polymer. Even the fire control group is a hardened polymer.

Really, a fully loaded magazine with 200 rounds actually weighs more than the rest of the rifle.

I check the optics, a hologram sight. Terran hologram sight that is, Remnant hologram sights use actual holographic projections, which use Dust.

Right.

Shoulder, aim, check the world around me in case things go wrong, make sure the hardlight projectors are running.

The weeks of practice has helped me become a lot more comfortable with firearms.

I flick to semi auto and pull the trigger.

It doesn't explode. Well, it does explode, but in the right way. A casing ejects downwards from behind the magazine before hitting a plate to bounce it forward as it exits the gun.

I pull the trigger, a tiny and crisp movement.

Hmm.

Recoil is a bit of a problem.

One of my design requirements is low recoil, and it seems to be a persistent problem with the bullpup configuration. There isn't much space back here to put a recoil spring, so the spring I have is very stiff... Even though I put the spring in front of the chamber, there simply isn't much space for the bolt to slow down, so it has to slow down faster.

Maybe magnetic breaking? That converts movement into heat... I'll look into it later.

I pull the trigger. At least I'm not having feed problems. Yet. I've only put a few dozen rounds total down this so far.

Right, that will need more work.

Time to test burst fire.

I pull the trigger.

Yeah, I really need to deal with the recoil problem. Maybe a reverse gas piston thing, where gasses are bled off and then attempted to be compressed? That's an entirely different design concept though, requiring it's own RnD project. It would also rob power from the cartridge, though all recoil operated systems do in one way or another. Recoil itself is robbing power from the round.

I pull the trigger again and again, feeling the burst fires recoil impulse. Great thing about being a robot, I can record the data and compare it using precise values to other data sets.

Burst tests done.

Right, full auto mag dump. Let's see if this thing gets hot enough to cook off or have a feed problem with my wonky 4 magazines in a trenchcoat design.

I flick the switch to full auto and pull the trigger.

The barrel begins to climb. I need to design a muzzle device it seems.

I'm still firing though. With the magazine size being enough to rival machine guns, and a firing rate no way near a full machine gun, the gun can fire for ages before reloading.

Which is the point.

If I ever need to use my Semblance to jump to someone, and organic, then I will need a weapon I can use. Something I can just grab and go rather than hassling with looting my body for ammo. Low recoil, low weight, durable, high ammo capacity, multiple fire modes, good optics. It doesn't need to be powerful, I am using a smaller cartridge, and it doesn't need to be cheap, because ultimately, this is an emergency weapon.

If I get damaged too much and am stuck with a civilian, then (with permission) I will jump over and use this to protect them and get us out of whatever hole we are in. Run from the big Grimm, shoot the fast small ones, and be out of there before I have to reload.

The weapon finally runs empty.

"Whoo! How many rounds is that?" Yang cheers.

"200." I state.

"200?" Yang trips up.

I keep the weapon aiming down range. "Well, 201, there is 1 in the chamber."

I look over it. Kinda looks like an inbred P90. Hmm, looks a bit hot too. It hasn't cooked off a round yet, but I'm expecting it to. The lack of primer makes it more resistant to cookoff, the primer is after all the most sensitive part of the explosive, but this thing is actually pretty hot.

I might have destroyed the barrel too, I'll need to check that. Remnant's materials science is good, and the fire rate is a lot slower than a full machine gun, but it isn't indestructible. Cooling jacket maybe, to increase it's lifespan? No, that would add a lot more weight. Unless I can-

The rifle fires. I didn't pull the trigger.

"Aww." Ruby whines.

"Ah well." I makes sure it's clear before turning back to the table. "Right, I've called you all today, not to show off my in development gun, but because I need your help."

"Is it serious?" Blake asks, her ears twitching a bit.

15 seconds of sustained automatic fire in a closed room will do that, but her Aura will heal it.

"I just need you all to get your hands dirty." I pause for dramatic effect. Were this a show, maybe the scene would cut for a joke or to something else. "I need you all to unlock the Aura of my gardens."

"You want us to what?" Yang blinks.

"You heard me. I have several plant cells filled with different kinds of plants. I would like each of you to unlock the Aura of a certain set of them." I put my gun down on the table.

"Is that even possible?" Ruby blinks, her eyes being dragged away from my gun.

"Sure, why not? All living things have Aura, and if Zwei can have his unlocked, so can plants. Just be gentle, they have much lower Aura readings than an animal, and far far lower than a person."

"Is that what you have been gardening for?" Yang sounds almost upset. "I thought you got a hobby to relax."

"It is relaxing." I protest. "It's also effective. I can do both." I gesture at my gun. "That's a fun project, it doesn't mean it's not going to be helpful one day."

"Oh Alloy." Blake sighs at me 'overworking' again.

"If you don't want to, I'll try find someone else to help. I can't exactly do it myself." Not with a damaged soul.

"Listen, it's a fun project and it's very non stressful for me, okay? There are no expectations pressing on it so I can relax while doing it. It's repetitive, calm, and interesting. The only reason I'm asking for help is because I don't want to risk doing more damage to myself."

They think it over.

I mean, it's possible for me to do it, if I don't mind breaking my Aura every time I stick my hands in the dirt. It shouldn't cost much of my reserves, plants are a lot simpler than animals or people, but there is a certain level of Aura required to do the process and I am under that. People need a decently sized Aura that can 'hold itself together' under the strain, or the recipient 'drains' the Aura out of them to kickstart their own. If it works.

More than that, considering that my Aura is actually damaged rather than small, it may cause more damage. Weeks of researching Aura is paying off.

Honestly, the biggest betrayal I have had is that Pyrrha's Aura chant isn't actually a thing required/result of, for unlocking someone else Aura. It helps the person focus, and has roots in one old religion or another, but it's not actually a thing.

I blame Rooster Teeth for that one.

"Okay. Which one do you want me to start with?" Ruby votes yes, and Blake sighs as she follows.

I look over the data for the unlocked plants again. As I hypothesised, the mushroom cells are showing the strongest signature. Not that mushrooms are plants, but that's a minor distinction. Ha! An entirely different kingdom of life is a 'minor distinction'.

Either way, it is giving me a new insight to how Aura works and bonds to material things.

Neural networks. The brain. The nervous system.

When I tried to jump to an Atlesian Knight, it felt 'too small'. It's computers, while neural network based, were not complicated enough to hold me. Or, maybe, they could anchor my soul but I would have a very much reduced 'connection' to the world.

The bodies that Penny and I occupy (thankfully she is out of her room these days) have very complex and very dense Dust computer neural networks, allowing our souls to be hosted in them. Things like an organic brain have even more complexity.

There is definitely a correlation between network size/density and Aura strength. Pietro thought that Penny might not ever have a strong Huntress level Aura or Semblance because she is a 'clipping' of his soul. I disagree.

It's because her (and my) network host isn't large/dense/complex enough. In fact, probably the only reason I can be in a body like this is because my Aura is so damaged. If I were at the level of a fully trained Huntress, I may not have been able to Transfer over to a body like this.

But this is all just a theory, I need more data. Data that I can't collect faster by standing here.

I need to get back to work anyway. We are almost done setting up silicon crystal growing via the... C.. czo... Oh, I can't remember the Earth name for it. It's the one where you carefully control the temperature gradient and pull a seed crystal out of molten pure silicon slowly while turning it slightly.

I throw on my coat and walk out, locking my house. The electrical students currently learning about plasma, which means we are close to ion implantation, which in turn means we are almost ready to start semiconductors and Dustless computers.

Good. 14 weeks and 5 days until the trial, though there will be representatives, diplomats and tourists here before that. I half hope that it gets pushed back, but that comes with it's own problems.

Best to just push ahead.

14 weeks and 2 days.

The first shipment of cotton is just coming in. A massive ship with dozens of shipping containers along it's spine is just finishing up docking. Cotton takes about 6 months to grow, which means that our crops won't be ready in time for the trial.

Fortunately, we can buy a load and bring it in. Cotton after all is a basic textile and raw resource that everyone needs, so there is a lot of existing infrastructure for it. And, with Menagerie's expected population growth and contacts our group has across the Kingdoms, we can get it shipped in fairly discretely.

Not that it's a critical point, but every edge we can get is nice.

It is also a lot, a lot lot, cheaper than Dust.

"Lady Khan." I nod as we stand and watch the cargo ship finish slowing down.

"Alloy." She nods back. "Will the chemical plants be ready?"

"The first large scale prototypes are ready and have been producing and hoarding Nitric for the past week. Sulfuric is fine, barely any actually get used in the process." It should be none, being a catalyst, but a fraction is lost in reclaiming it from the post reacted fluid. "Mainline designs are having the kinks worked out before we commit to building them, not my field."

Time passes as we look at the boat, and around it.

"And so begins a new era." She whispers to herself. That's pretty dramatic, but it's true. "Why."

It's a question, but also a demand. Sienna Khan demands to know why. "Why what?"

I actually don't know what she is asking.

"Why us? You could have gone to Atlas, or any other Kingdom, but you chose us."

"Technically," I start. "I could have chosen no Kingdom. I could have gone out in the middle of nowhere with some reprogrammed Knights and ran a little plantation and factory, selling off the mix for 80% of whatever Dust was going at. A few years down the line and I would be completely Dustless and still making a profit."

"You didn't say why." Fine, be like that.

"Because it's not about profit." A dockworker yells something and waves someone else down. "It's about people."

She doesn't buy it. I sigh. "Don't tell anyone this, but it was Adam."

"Really?" I have her attention now.

"Well, more the lengths he is willing to go. I couldn't just ignore it, think 'I'll get around to it' or 'the SDC can't be that bad, otherwise Atlas or someone would have stopped them.'. Truth is, as much as I don't like what he has done, or what he is doing... Adam won."

I haven't told the group this, but I think some of them have worked it out. "Adam won. He sent a message that I could not ignore. He said 'No More.'."

Sienna lets me talk, which means that there is a long period of silence as I come to confess. "I killed people, during Vytal. They might have been wearing masks, and I might have been numb, but they were people. I'm not much of a fighter, but even I can tell when someone is holding a gun for the first time. What makes someone do that? A kid with barely meat on his bones grab a knife and rush at someone, trying to kill them?"

I don't like thinking about the Attack on Vytal. Not just because of the dream, but because I killed a lot of people.

And I liked it.

"When the mask came off, and he looked at me with blood pouring out of his arm stumps, it was a look of desperation. Not just the fight, but more than that. If he died, then who would feed his family? If he didn't attack, if the world stayed the same, winter would end them."

I like killing people. But I don't like that I like it.

"I looked him up, after it was over. His mother was sick, a common disease with a cheap, over the counter, cure. A cure he couldn't afford. His little sister was working, at age 10, by sneaking in and stealing parts from machines across the city. Cars, heaters, old scrolls. Sneak in, take apart, run away and sell to a gang that actually has some semblance of care."

Far more than the Vale government. Why spend Lien on street lights, transformers or shops in that area when the people there are just going to take them apart and destroy them? Well, they don't want to, but they have to.

"10 years old, but clever and skilled enough to strip the most expensive parts of a car out in 10 minutes. What could she do if she didn't have to steal? If she could lay down in bed, warm and stomach full, content that her brother and mother were safe and healthy."

I laugh, dry, broken. "Their mother isn't even a Faunus, but she's close enough to some for the system to not care. Or maybe she was just always sick, suffering from something that takes 120 lien to cure but sits in her."

I curl my hands as I remember. "I got her that medicine. I got them a nest egg of money. I got them a decent meal. I told them I killed their brother and son. It's meaningless. In a few day time, that money would be stolen or spent, the mother might be sick again, only with some new disease. The Grimm might have kicked down the wall and run them down. It's meaningless, because it doesn't fix anything. Maybe I made a difference, but their story isn't rare."

I look out at the docks, the crane lifting the first shipping container up. "So, I admit it. Adam won. He sent a message I won't ignore. I just hope he realises he has before he screws it all up again."

We are not out here, looking at the shipment from a distance because it's fun. We are here because one of Sienna's agents in the Red Fang told us that an attack was happening. We might have sourced the cotton discretely across the rest of the world, but we can't bring it in discretely. Not something as big as this, not something as important as this.

The Red Fang has a lot of sympathisers, even after everything, that will bleed information, and a secret shipment is just the kind of thing he would attack. Especially as he doesn't know what is in it.

Can't have the people getting more dependant on Atlas, after all.

So we are here, on stakeout. Waiting for him to make a move. The secret that my eyes are cameras is out, as is my ability to wirelessly connect to things. That means any attack on a shipment of cotton will be seen and recorded to punch him. Not just because he would attack a Menagerie owned and operated place, but that he would do so for something as 'petty' as cotton.

It's a dirty play.

It's Sienna's.

"It's it bad that I hope your agents are right?" I ask after a while.

"It means you value reliable intel over a single bad incident." She states. "No. I wouldn't say that's bad. Information wins wars. A single battle doesn't."

And we are at war. A small, half hidden civil war, but a war.

I suddenly laugh.

"What?" She almost snaps.

"You said any other Kingdom." I reference her from a few topics ago.

She frowns to herself before realising what I'm talking about. "You sell a very alluring dream."

"If I were a more influential speaker, I would say I'm not selling dreams."

The first shipping container touches the dock ground with a thump. Cotton has landed in Menagerie.

"I'm selling the future."

I move to get into position.

14 weeks and 1 day.

I'm a little fishy, glug glug glug. Sitting in the water, having lots of fun. If you want to join me, jump jump jump. But if your boring, stay in the mud.

... No, that's a terrible song. Though, I am terribly bored.

I check the time. Midnight.

Ugh. I've been down here for hours, using my unique physiology. Waiting for someone to message me or Adam's scouts to pass me or something to happen.

When I pointed out that I have nightvision, thermal vision, very sensitive ears and that I didn't need to breathe, I thought I was being clever. Well, it is a clever idea, but now that I'm actually here, being a glorified sensor at the bottom of the bay, it really seems less clever.

Adam will send a scout ahead to make sure the coast is clear and that there are no overnight workers at the docks. He is still trying to win hearts and minds of the people of Menagerie, after all, and a bloodbath of dock workers won't do that. So, we have combined teams from Lil'Atlas and the White Fang ready to ambush his attack as a display of cooperation and stuff...

If he ever sends a scout. Sienna's mole could be a double agent, or have been compromised, or have been deliberately fed bad information, or be an idiot, or be unintentionally fed bad information or-

I think I've got salt building up on me. No, that's sand. Which is worse.

Please, send something. I have water in my ears and the sensitivity turned up to max. It was almost peaceful, but now it's irritating.

Sienna and Specialist Cola have their own people watching the docks from land and sky, but some idiot (me) pointed out that while fish Faunus aren't that common, they would make an excellent scout in this situation.

So someone has to be down here, keeping an eye and ear out, for anyone 'taking a midnight swim'. And with my previous statements on how good I would be for it, I was picked.

I didn't think it would be this boring. I'm suppose to be a camera bot, for goodness sake. Not to fight or actually do anything. Like a politician.

Well, at least I have my notes and stuff in my head, but I can't focus on that fully in case I get distac-

Movement. A lot of movement, based on the sound. I run the time differences of the sound hitting my ears and rotate my head to create a crude passive sonar device. It's no way near as simple as the movies make it out to be, which is funny considering I'm in a TV Show with super simplified sonar.

That doesn't mean I am designed to do it, software package or no.

Right, that's one reading. Two readings. Three readings.

I look in the direction of the triangulated readings and flicker through my vision modes.

Yeah. Looks like someone coming in from outside the bay.

Do I break radio silence though? It's not likely they have passive Dust-Radio sensors, but it's possible.

One more set of readings, there is a chance it's a big fish or shark or something...

Sharks don't have legs.

"Khan, this is Alloy, come in."

No sudden changes from our guest, but that doesn't mean that we are safe. Adam could have someone else out there dedicated to listening in to comms while our swimmer does a more in person look.

"Alloy, this is Khan. Report."

"We have a midnight swimmer. Sending vectors now."

"Thank you. Let us hope they take the bait. Keep us informed."

"Will do." I go silent again.

Let the scout go, and hope they send Adam and his team the all clear.

I'm a little fishy, watch me swim. Here is... Am I doing that to the tune of 'I'm a little teapot'?

I've been down here too long.

They've taken the bait. The bullheads might be painted black and flying low, but their heat signatures are perfectly clear in the cool night air.

"6 minutes, tops." I report over the radio and in person, glad to be out of the water.

Blake, Ruby and Yang nod next to me.

"You won't be fighting, right?" Yang asks.

"I'll avoid it. I'm here to take photos and look pretty, not beat up bad guys."

"That's our job." Ruby grins.

I'm a little concerned about her actually. It's never explicitly shown in the show, but Ruby has killed people. The earliest I can think of is the train during the breach. Even if she only broke their aura or knocked out the Red Fang, she still knocked them off the train. The impact would have killed most people. On top of that, the tunnel was filling up with Grimm.

When I brought it up to Yang, she frowned, but...

I just guess I never thought of Ruby Rose as a killer.

She doesn't want to kill people, preferring to strike non lethally, but it doesn't sit right. The only times I can see her wanting to kill someone in the OT is probably Cinder, after watching Pyrrha die and knowing Penny was torn apart by her plans. Neo too, after Yang fell.

She's only 16... I think the USA takes people at that age, but they don't really get to see live combat until later, right? Or if there is a war going on.

There is a war going on. This is Remnant, there is always a war going on. The Grimm. And while Red Fang are not Grimm, despite the masks they wear, they are still enemy combatants.

Ruby isn't as innocent as I thought she was. As she acts.

I push away the thoughts on Earth's studies on how war affects children, the psychology of child soldiers, and refocus on the upcoming bullheads.

Wait.

Unzoom, look down... Zoom. Who is that?

"Do we have anyone down in the docks right now?" I ask.

"Negative." Specialist Cola reports.

"No, none of mine." Sienna responds.

"I am seeing a single heat signature along the north side of the east building, moving low and fast."

"Understood." Sienna replies and I know she is looking where I pointed it out. "I see them. Might be a scout? Early warning?"

"Make the call." Specialist Cola radios irritated.

Ordered her to follow Sienna's lead for the operation. Not just because it's her idea, but also because relations between our groups isn't that good. She doesn't like it, but she understands.

"Anything else you can see?" Sienna asks me.

"Looking." I flicker through other vision modes.

Whoever they are, they're wearing a dark cloak to hide most of their features, though that doesn't hide their heat signature. Probably how they got in so close without anyone noticing.

Hmm.

"Faunus. A thick tail. Prehensile. Weapons... custom. Movement patterns make them out to be... Yeah definitely Huntsman level or very agile. I can't see any extra devices on them, and they are radio silent."

They stop.

Suddenly.

They turn.

Towards me.

They wave.

"I've been made." I report. "Probably high level of Aura training, enough to detect being watched."

"Requesting to run interception jamming."

I don't dare do wide spectrum jamming, that will let everyone know that we know they are here, but the moment he tries to send a message out, I will pinpoint what frequency it is and block it. It won't work for burst messages like texts, but anyone listening in to that particular frequency won't get anything but the first chirp of a call out.

Though, that is only a delaying tactic that stops the exact message from getting through. For something like this, the fact that I am jamming that frequency will tell the receiver that we know they are there.

Still, it might get mistaken for a communications failure or just normal noise for a while, that will buy us some time.

"Do it." She gives me the go ahead. "Specialist, Team RBY, go. We need to prevent him from giving our trap away." Sienna calls. "Keep it as quiet as you can."

"Gotcha." Yang nods to her sister and partner before leaping ahead.

"Can you hack their scroll?" Sienna asks.

"No. They're running it radio silent. I don't have a connection to hack." I wait a moment to see if Specialist Cola will make a comment, after all, I did already tell Sienna that they were radio silent.

They don't. "Understood."

"He's falling back. Pursuing." Specialist Cola reports.

"No, get back into position. If he hasn't tried to squeal yet, then he probably won't until it's too late." Sienna orders.

"Understood." A bit aggressive there, Specialist.

I understand where Sienna is coming from. Weapons fire is bright and loud, especially at night, and the muzzle flashes will give us away. On top of that, we need as much of our forces in position to ambush the attack when we can.

"I see the aircraft. Alloy, track the scout and keep us informed in case he tries to flank us." Sienna didn't get to where she was just by talking, she was one of the first to actually fight back, and Adam's character short showed that she has run operations like this before.

"Will do." I turn my head to watch him snaking through the trees before slowing down to a stop.

The other 4 signatures, Specialist Cola and Ruby's team, are heading back.

No radio yet...

Something is wrong.

Why? They are clearly skilled, and trying to be stealthy, so it seems like they are a scout. But they aren't sending a message, either through radio, flashing a light at the incoming bullheads, or running ahead to meet up in person. So, what? They aren't a scout? I didn't see any devices, either on their person (which would be hard to see) or put down across the docks (which would be easy to see for a few seconds as it would carry residual heat).

Not a scout. Not a saboteur. Too skilled to be a spectator.

Unless...

"We're back." Ruby states the obvious.

"Blake, what can you tell me about them?" I ask in person only.

Of the people here, Blake has the best vision. Specialist Cola has gone back to her team. "We didn't get close enough to see anything."

"But you saw them moving." And you have a lot of experience identifying Faunus. "Male?" Please say no.

"I... I think so."

"You think it's Tyrian." Ruby realises.

"Blake?" Yang asks.

"Around 6ft 2." Damm. "White or pale skin, I only got a glimpse."

"Get a look at his eyes?" They glow purple when he uses his Semblance, maybe his Aura.

"No."

"What do we do?" Ruby asks.

She's probably thinking about his skills and the fact that OT Tyrian was after her. This one probably is too, Salem would know what the flashes of white light during the Siege was, and there are photo's of Ruby floating around now.

"Pretend you don't know about him. We need to keep our advantage. More than that? Stay safe." I take a breathe, breathing for the first time since I got out of the water. "Blake, scorpion venom antidote?"

"We have a bit in the city, but Faunus venom is usually stronger than animal venom. They just make more of it."

Ah, so it's not a 'super venom' but more because of how energy intensive venom is to produce. For a hot blooded and highly active 'animal', Faunus can afford to spend more energy making it. On top of that, the size of the animal body parts are scaled up to fit on a human frame. There is no naturally sized scorpion stinger that sized, I think.

Menagerie isn't a nice place to live. It's Australia with the numbers filed off, full of 'exotic' wildlife. Thankfully that means there is a lot of antidotes on hand for all the snake bites, spider bites, poisonous toads, scorpions stings, evil plants- A lot of cures, especially with Kuo Kuana's rising wealth.

After all, all the buildings in Lil'Atlas are paying rent to Kuo Kuana. It's an easy way of siphoning funds to the government without it looking like charity.

Here come the bullheads. Probably-Tyrian still hasn't moved. "Stay safe."

"We will." Ruby, Yang and Blake promise.

I stop breathing.

Focus.

They hover over the docks and wait for a moment, to see if anyone has noticed them. Far easier to run away when you don't have boots on the ground.

"Remember, we are here to arrest them." Sienna sends.

The bullheads land, and masked Faunus start getting out. Only the Red Fang wear masks these days. I wonder if that's my doing?

Sienna waits for them to fully commit.

We wait for her command.

"Spring the trap. Now."

We move.

Adam is getting away. Of course he is. But, we have footage of him fighting and robbing a shipment of cotton. That won't just send a message to the people who lean his way, but also those within his own ranks. 'Why are we trying to rob/burn a bunch of cotton?'

I hope Sienna's agent is okay.

"Alloy, go after the runner. I want to know who they are and what they are doing." Sienna orders me to chase Tyrian. "RBY, go with her."

"Understood." I use my thrusters and lift off the ground, turning to RBY. "I'll cut him off and slow him down. Conserve your Aura. Check your scrolls for my location and his."

They nod while frowning and I boost off. Tyrian could kill me. Easily. More than just his skills, which would make a 'fight' a slaughter, his Semblance counters mine. If he destroys my body while we are alone, he will be able to use his Semblance to block me from jumping to him.

Not that I intend to die. The only reason RBY is letting me go is because I'm not actually planning on fighting him, they know that, and because out of everyone I have the most resistance to his attacks.

Nanolaminate isn't Aura, it can't be bypassed by his Semblance. It's also durable enough to resist his weapons fire, though an Aura boosted strike from his melee weapons would probably breach it, considering his skills.

At least I don't have to worry about being poisoned.

Thermal vision on, where are- there you are.

So far I haven't fired a shot, my Indie Rifle hasn't even left my back. Oh, recoil! It's not a bullpup problem, it's a design problem. I haven't given enough space for the bolt to move backwards.

I'll fix that when I get back. Or start again, I got overzealous and made up the fibreglass case around it.

Focus.

Almost certainly Tyrian, we didn't actually get to see his face though his combat style and generous use of his stinger makes it all but certain, is taking a route around the edge of the city though the 'palm forest'.

I try to get a feel of what he is planning/doing. He hasn't actually killed anyone today, though he has poisoned a heap. Working for Adam maybe? Deaths this operation have been very low, on both sides. In fact, the people from Atlas have taken the most, at 3. All that is assuming that the poisoned people can get an antidote in time, but we sent runners back to Kuo Kuana to bring them to the docks before the fighting started.

Fighting that didn't last long. Adam all but called to pull out once the trap was sprung, but we managed to hit a couple of bullheads before they could leave, trapping a good portion of the Red Fang in the trap.

Though, not killing people isn't Tyrian's style. Why?

He is trying to escalate the conflict between the Red Fang and everyone else.

I'm almost over him.

Why? There isn't a relic here, or even an acad- oh, right. The trial.

If tensions get high enough, and the Jacques dies in Faunus custody, that might be enough pressure to spark another Faunus Rights Revolution, or at the very minimum, drive a wedge between the Kingdoms.

I'm not 100% if it's taking me this long to realise things. I make a note to give myself more 'me' time and refocus on the task at hand.

What's my play?

I land and draw my Indie Rifle.

He comes out of the bushes a moment later and stops. Night vision on, photo taken, I send the image to the anti Salem crew's server.

"If it isn't my stalker! Finally found the courage to stop lurking and come meet me?" How stupid is it that Tyrian Callows, serial killer extraordinaire, is more progressive than most people. A lot of people don't see me as a person, just an advance Atlesian Knight.

"Tyrian Callows. You're looking pretty good for a dead man."

Tyrian giggles and claps. "Oh! So you know my name!"

"Just some facial recognition and a copy of Atlas' criminal record. What are you doing here, Tyrian? Freedom fighting isn't your style." He pauses to 'think', making a pose.

He knows that help is coming, right? That I am stalling?

"You don't think so? But there are so many people who need my help." His tone is mocking, and he isn't giving me any more information.

This isn't working.

He must be stalling as well. I listen to radio traffic and the environment, looking for bullheads or people coming to his aid. Not that he needs combat support, but I don't know what he's up to.

I need a new tactic.

I look over his shoulder, calculate the time it would take RBY to get here, and lower my rifle. It's not subtle.

"Waiting for your fri-"

"How do you do it?" I cut him off, and he glares.

Show time. "Do what?"

I fill my next sentence with a hint of that terrible thing I kept locked away.

"Almost kill someone." His eyes light up.

"I really do have a fan." Got you. "Do your little friends know?"

"No. I'm on team good guy." That makes him laugh.

"But! But you're not a 'good guy' are you?" Tyrian rubs his hands together. "No! You're just pretending. Hiding away who you are. Have you..?"

Tyrian licks his lips, and I hang, hesitate. Anticipation makes things sweeter.

Tyrian is a sadistic psychopath. A monster.

To trick him, I would have to show him I'm a monster too.

Thing is, I am.

"My first... was during Vytal." I shiver.

Not because it's cold. Not because I'm scared.

There's that delightful chill that runs up my spine.

There is something wrong with me. Empathic... but sadistic. Violent. A monster. I'm sure on Earth, if I ever let this out, it would seen as evidence of 'video games cause violence', but in truth, it's just another broken part of me.

"And once I did... Second... Third... Fourth..." There's a difference between killing in self defence, or to protect people, and the thing that I did.

I could have spared them. At the time I blamed the dream numbness, then I convinced myself that the only horrible thing about me was that I didn't care when I should have.

What convincing lies we tell ourselves. "By the time the festival ended, 31. Directly, anyway. I don't count throwing someone to the Grimm. It has to be-"

"Personal." Tyrian purrs. Oh fuck, is he hard?

Here comes RBY. "Keep a secret." I say before I hold up my rifle, put the monster back in it's cage, and pretend I didn't just empathise with Tyrian Callows.

He seems to at least pick up on that. "Tyrian Callows, you are under arrest for... a very long and I suspect out of date list of crimes."

He just laughs, hard and fast. "Oh, I will be keeping an eye on you."

I run our odds of winning this. Unlike OT, the team is well rested (compared to traveling all day), and has Paradigm Shifts at their disposal. Aura might not protect them, but Blake can manoeuvrer in the air, Ruby can separate around his attacks. Yang is the one who needs the most protecting, paradoxically enough.

They spread out around and behind him, weapons up and ready.

"Surrender! We have you outnumbered!" Ruby calls, playing dumb.

Tyrian and I roll our eyes. 3 Huntresses in training and a robot with almost no combat experience isn't going to beat him, and Tyrian is someone who lives for fighting. You'd have better odds telling a toddler to not eat a candy bar and them to actually listen.

"Tyrian Callows. Semblance: Aura Disruption. Over 130 people dead." I spill his 'secrets' to allow RBY to 'adapt' to his fighting.

"OH! Alloy! I thought we had something special." He complains.

"Maybe I just want to see you dead?" I tease back causing Tyrian to smile and laugh.

Yang shivers. "That's creepy."

"Kill on sight." I finish before giving a meaningful glance to Yang.

"So you do love me." Tyrian throws off his hood and coat before taking a bow in my direction. "Well then, who am I to deny the lady a dance?"

His weapons click into attack mode and we begin.

I move towards Yang, the most vunrable, rifle firing in semi at the lower part of his body. Blake's automatic weapons fire streams overtop as Tyrian bends in a way I have only seen contortionists do, his own weapons firing at Ruby.

Her scythe blocks Callows' bullets as a few of mine impact his legs thanks to my pre-emptive aiming. It will probably be the only hit I will get on him.

Yang jumps up, seeing me coming and I bend my arms into a platform for her. Feet impact and I hit full power on both my thrusters and body to shove her up. Yang's own body begins to uncurl as Dust shotgun shells fire below her.

Yang is going high.

Tyrian has moved at that point, towards Ruby. He's going for the seemingly weakest member of the team, pressing the attack to stop her from moving off the defensive.

But Blake is behind him, impossibly fast, shadows coating her body.

For a brief moment, I think we might actually have this.

Then Callows pivots on the ground, suddenly changing his attack on Ruby to an attack on Blake.

Too sudden. Blake takes hits, her Aura flickering. He wasn't using his Semblance, but she is still thrown backwards.

I fire, again at his lower half, but a single handstand isn't much of a target. His other limbs, all 4 of them, impact Ruby.

Or they would.

Streaks of red like a brush on canvas appear for 3 of them before the last of his limbs gets hooked by a suddenly solid Crescent Rose.

Ruby moves in a way I have never seen, her body entering petal burst while her weapon remains solid, and she flows under him, pulling.

Tyrian Callows lands face down in the sand as Crescent Rose dissolves and Ruby rushes to Blake.

Which is when Yang descends, fully ablaze, her Evolved Paradigm Shift rocketing her downwards, aided by blasts from Ember Celica.

Tyrian is already reacting though, and I dial my overclocking as far as I am willing to go, flicking my Indie Rifle into full auto.

Yang takes fire, pushing her to the side and correcting her course towards Callows as he tries to roll out of the way.

Time resumes.

A thundering crack is heard as sand is thrown up everywhere.

"HAHAHAHA!" That... isn't good.

The sand falls, revealing Yang hanging vertical in the air, supported by her right fist. A fist that is locked against his weapons in a block.

Right. Tyrian can't just dodge, he can block.

The moment passes, and they move.

Too fast for me, it takes me a moment too long to tell what happens.

This is a fight between Huntsmen and Huntresses now. Not silly girls playing hero.

My brain catches up with my eyes.

Tyrians stinger flickers up to stab Yang. Ruby aims at Tyrian's head, as he is pinning on the ground. Blake's shadow coated self is suddenly behind him, blade out to hit his scorpion tail and stop it from hitting Yang.

It pivots mid strike, coated in a purple glow, and stabs her.

Yang's other fist comes down, but he rolls using his legs, kicking Blake's out from under her. Ruby's bullet hits Yang's arm, her elbow now dug into the sand where his head was.

He rolls over Yang weapons slashing her back while Blake hesitates from the pain and Ruby hesitates from shooting her sister. Then he comes down and stabs Blake again, even more poison flowing into her.

I fire and charge, uncaring of the sudden heat spike as I overclock.

My bullets spark against his weapons as he cocks his head to the side, both to mock me and to dodge another round from Ruby.

My thrusters fire and I focus, dropping the empty weapon from my hands.

I don't punch him. I correct my course in real time as he tries to dodge. I reach to grab his arm.

He yanks it away and I think for a half a second of accelerated time.

An arm is jabbed into the sand and my feet rotate, turning my flight assisted charge into a kick. I can feel the centrifugal forces pulling at me, so I rotate my feet just a little more.

A fast wide arc swinging pair of legs suddenly has their momentum concentrated into a much smaller and faster arc.

He blocks.

It's not enough. I am heavy. I am fast. I am still accelerating until the moment I impact his weapons.

Physics demands that energy be conserved.

Tyrian Callows is launched back, his back shattering a palm tree as he passes through it.

In overclocked time, I see his Aura flash, but it doesn't break. I don't think he's even in the red.

But that buys enough time for Yang to stand up, for Ruby to piviot towards him and cycle another round, and for Blake to cough up...

Shit.

The stab wounds. The poison. He only used his Semblance on Blake.

Adam's obsession with her. The fact that she is the daughter of the increasingly well loved Ghira and Kali Belladonna.

If the 'Red Fang' were to assassinate her, there would be a massive response.

Tyrian was waiting here, out where there would be no witnesses, knowing that Blake was coming. He was stalling for the same reason I was, for Blake to arrive.

Blake was the target, and I am too stupid and tired to realise it in time.

Time resumes.

"Ruby, Yang, grab Blake. Paradigm Shift to the nearest hospital. Now!" Every second counts.

They hesitate but it doesn't last. We grab hold of Blake and Ruby spends Aura to coat all of us. Yang and I rocket out the back while she pushes us forward and guides us.

It's my first time being part of Ruby's Petal Burst.

I would like to think of it as pretty, or strange, or anything at all.

Too bad there are far more important things to worry about.

Author's note:

Tyrian is hard for me to write. Not because he's a deranged sadistic murderer, but because he's just so damm charming. His basically dominates whatever scene he is in, and that is both hard for me to convey and hard for me to write. My 'charisma' isn't nearly as high as his, after all. It's the same problem where an average intelligence author tries to write a genius character. They can get only so far before the illusion breaks apart.

IRL: I'm heading to my mothers for the next week where I'll tell her about my Deadline. My father has basically thrown a hissyfit over it, now that he believes me. I'll keep writing while I'm at my mothers, but I don't know if I'll be able to post until I get back.

Either way, I should have at least a couple more chapters before the deadline hits. It doesn't look like I am going to get to any of my endings before then. Sorry.

If I don't get there, I'll make the last 'chapter' an overview of what I was thinking would happen. If someone wants to adopt the fic, go ahead.

Again, please don't post 'reviews' about my personal life or choices. That section is for stuff about the story.

I still check TV Tropes. Oh, and FFNet still doesn't want to tell me how many views I have.

Not that it Matters