Luna Rosa - Chapter Two

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"As you can see, we've opted for a very open design." The young, orange haired and freckled realtor said as she led him through the base of the condominium. She came to a stop at the base of the stairs, just inside the door from outside, and paid him a smile. "Shall I show you around, or would you prefer to look yourself?"

"The latter, thank you, Miss." He murmured, synthesized voice cool and smooth, as designed. She opened her mouth and he sighed, "If I damage anything, I will be held responsible for its replacement or repair. I already presumed as much."

"Ah." She blinked, and he concluded he'd said something… Rude. But she moved on before he could apologize, or find out what had been rude. "Well, I will be waiting right here for you, Mister Schallwelle."

"I…" He let his curiosity for whatever convention he had broached die and nodded. "Thank you."

She nodded and leaned back against the wall beside the stairs, smoothing her short, incredibly tight, skirt and opening the property file to read it while she waited.

The bottom floor was entirely open, from the fore wall to the rear wall, where another door led into an alley that ran behind the building. The alley was wide enough for a trash truck to drive through, picking up rubbish from the bins just outside the doors, but no wider. He hypothesized the trucks wouldn't even turn around - they would instead pass all the way through, to the other road at the far end of the alley. A long counter ran along the wall beside the rear door, with a sinke, a dishwasher unit, an oven, and a refrigerator, with enough space between the last two for anyone to work with the food contained within.

None of which would be relevant to him or his drone-servitor, but purchasing food would be needed to maintain camouflage.

The floors were particle wood of decent enough quality, with typical insulation between it and the concrete below. And the walls were similar, with a simple beige paint slathered over basic drywall and, past it, insulation. Neither had any spy systems he could detect. He hadn't expected any, to be fair, but it always bore to be cautious.

Standing in the empty front room, he turned his head and grunted, "The upstairs?"

"Open floor plan." She said, "Just a bit shorter. The kitchen is the bathroom upstairs."

"I see." It did not matter to him - the space would be easily filled - but he had to wonder how they could charge quite so much for what amount to a large empty box. Musing on that, he cocked his head and assumed, "And the basement will be the same?"

"Yes, Sir." As ever, she was chipper as she spoke, pushing off the wall to gesture to the door set in under the stairs. "It's a good bit shorter in the front for regulations, sewage I believe, but the back is backed up to level. The space below the kitchen is the laundry room. But the rest is left open."

"Hmph." He flicked a look down and scanned - it was as she said, with a bare concrete foundation, but more than satisfactory for his needs. Fishing his little pouch of his pocket he grunted, "I'll take it."

"Wonderful!" She smiled, "Now, to start your payments, I'll just need a few things. Job history for the background check, bank information-"

"You misunderstand me." He cut her off, coming over to her and holding out the pouch. "I will take the property. Tow own, rather than rent to that end."

"B-But how could you possibly finance…" She took the pouch he held out and opened it, eyes widening at the stacked Lien inside. "T-That's-"

"The asking price, plus twenty percent." He acknowledged, turning away from her, "The extra is for expedience, I want the property quickly. The latter is the same, only, for you to process it all the quicker."

"A… Bribe?"

"I prefer…" He clasped his hands behind his back and turned, smiling charmingly - or at least, according to his file searches - and nodding. "A charitable donation, shall we say, to a young woman's burgeoning career."

"O-Oh…" She flushed and stuck the pouch into a pocket, which it stuck out of awkwardly. Anxiety flooding her voice, opened her folder and almost ran for the kitchen counter. "I-I just have some things for you to sign, Sir, a-and I'll get it all underway!"

Smiling, he nodded and moved to join her.

Vale needed better security on its Lien printing templates…

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"I don't like it, Sum." Tai said, voice staticy and garbled ever so slightly from the link. Bouncing a signal through Vale's network of relay towers, scattered across the city and out onto floating buoys in the sea to Patch's coastal relays and then to him was always going to cause that.

It was annoying, but at least it was a clear day, so there was a connection to use.

"I don't either, Tai." Summer frowned, reclining back in the sheltered chair of the comm center and turning to eye the door into the small room warily. She hated how paranoid being here, in Vale and working for Oz, made her, but… "It can't be helped. We need eyes on the coast. If she who shall not be named-"

"I hate that you Voldemorted the devil."

"-is up to something, then Oz needs to know." She rolled her eyes, turning to give her partner a smirk. "And you can't just turn a name into a verb, Tai."

"Mhm." The man smirked, sitting in a room just like her - aside from the walls, which were wood instead of the drywall panels of Vale's comm center - and grinning toothily. "Or did my daughter not 'Yang' the living room before you left?"

"You're not allowed to use my words and actions against me, Tai."

"It's called 'consequences'."

"Yeah, and we're married, so you can't put any on me." He snorted and she shook her head, laughing with him. Shaking her head, she sighed, "No one called me back."

"No one?" Tai grunted and grimaced, "Not even-"

"Raphael did." She sighed, "To say she was busy, guarding a village on contract. Grimm and bandits in the area. If she left…"

"It'd be bad." He sighed, "Yeah, I get it. I can call Miss Potts, have her watch the girls and-"

"Pepper can't watch our girls for a month, Tai." She cut him off with an appreciative smile. She saw him frown, and could tell his knee was bouncing the way it did whenever he got anxious. So she waved it off and chuckled. "Ah, I'll be fine. You know me. I'm quiet, and all Qrow's good luck rubbed off on me."

"His Semblance is literally not good luck…"

"I'll be fine, Tai." She sighed, "If I have to, I'll just… Hire a partner on the boards. I'll be okay, I promise."

"Promise?"

"I promise." She smiled, just as aware as he was how much that promise wasn't really up to her. Moving onto something, anything, better, she asked, "How are the girls doing?"

"Great." Tai smiled, "Yang was teaching Ruby your cookie recipe this morning."

"Oh, Gods…" She laughed, "Do we have a kitchen left?"

"..."

"Oh no." She chuckled, anxiety creeping up her neck, "W-What happened, Tai?"

The man smiled sheepishly and said, "Before you freak out…"

"Oh, Gods…"

"Insurance covered it all!"

"By the Gods above!" She laughed, "That doesn't help, Tai!"

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By the next day, his 'agent' had gotten everything processed, filed, and generally finished aside from the sale approval of the local government. Which she said would take a week, but come through without issue. Apparently, the Council didn't deny such filings. The process was just there as part of an older system, meant to keep rogue elements and large corporations from buying up too much land and using it to usurp local government autonomy. With the war it had been issued in over, and apathy toward the corporate applications of the law, it only seemed to serve to slow matters down now.

An… Illogical, inefficient, policy.

But one that would not hinder him, and so, not one which concerned him.

Regardless of the problematic paperwork, his agent had green-lit him to move his things in. And so he did. But doing so required that he leave the city, and head out, into the hills that rolled away from the mountains to Vale's East. The land was rough, full of rolling hills, sharp inclines, and sudden drop aways and clefts often dipping down dozens of feet to shallow, fast flowing waterways. And the mountains, covered by hardy trees, shrubs that hung off of sheer cliffs more often than not, and scraggly mosses and grasses, would no doubt hamper almost anyone who attempted to explore the sharp inclines.

"These inclines must be part of Vale's success." He mused as he made his way along a fifty degree slope covered in dry, loose rock and dirt. "Without my enhanced optics, even I would likely fall."

Such a fall would break arms, legs and necks of man or, more importantly, Grimm who dared the terrain.

Soon enough, he reached what he was after - a flat area about two thirds of the way up the mountain, with a copse of moderately large trees growing on it. Their roots gnarled through the soil and tangled with each other, keepin the flat outcropping together and themselves anchored. They were evergreens of a variety not dissimilar to earth pines, but with thicker, spinier prods for leaves, each tipped in a dull red, yellow, or rarely, even blue.

The wide, multicolored canopies obscured a wide rift in the side of the mountain. Inside which was a cache of materials, placed there by his own - larger - hands months prior. The crate was roughly the size of his drone-body's torso, and weighed nearly two tons in matter-compressed, highly advanced, components. But his drone was sturdy and had been built with this task in mind, and so had no troubles hefting the metal box onto its back, held by a sturdy synth-thread harness across its chest and shoulders.

Nonetheless, climbing back down was a tricky, dangerous affair which he spent the next six hours on.

He returned to his new habitation just past midnight, ignoring the curious gazes of those still out on the street as he slipped into the building. And then, into the basement.

He set the crate down beside the stairs and flipped the rough tarp he'd laid over it off to reveal a keypad. The number was a mere one hundred digit sequence but, as he was opting for the clandestine side of things, discovery itself was more of a concern than someone knowing his codes. If his crate had been found he would have simply ordered the explosives attached to detonate, destroying what was inside, and then moved on to another plan.

The crate opened with a pneumatic hiss and he pushed the lid off to the side and reached inside to extract the matter-compression unit inside. It was a vaguely siderm-esque design, with a sturdy pistol grip and a wide nose at the end of a snub-barrel. A heavy, powerful battery had been bolted horizontally to the side, and it hummed as he depressed the button on its bottom.

Over the next few hours, he worked - decompressing the materials and laying them out.

First came a series of thick panels he laid out to form a raised, circular platform in the center of the room. Then came the systems needed to construct an advanced control and relay computer which connected to Luna for guidance systems. Finally, he erected a series of five noduled pylons around the platform, connected by wires that ran along the roof. Lastly was power generation, which came in the form of a series of generator components that combined to form a unit twice his drone's size, which he set beside the dryer whose heat exhaust system he spliced into to vent the surplus heat safely.

"And now, the test." He murmured, moving to the command console and accessing Luna's own more advanced triangulation and spatial targeting systems. Once locked, he punched in the execution code and waited.

After a handful of microseconds, lances of vibrant green Energon arced out from each of the rounded energy capacitor sections at the top of each pylon. A few moments later, the energy arced out across the empty space over the platform. And then poured downward, coalescing in a pillar of light that lasted for only a moment before the entire display faded away to reveal a stack of crates precisely the same as the one he had carried into Vale.

"Miniature space-bridge test…" He rumbled, analyzing for damage to the components delivered or the components attached to the machine. When he found none, he finished, "Successful."

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Sienna watched the rough, rocky, rolling terrain of the northern badlands pass through the thick, armor-framed glass of the door beside her with a bemused smile. In any other kind of truck, car, or pilfered and repaired APC, she knew the ride was a rough one. The ragged, rough terrain played hell with just about anything's suspension, and even with the best sorts of resistors and suspenders installed, you still couldn't escape the jostling and shaking that came with that kind of terrain.

It was just natural.

Or, well, as 'natural' as anything could be while riding in a metal and plastic machine, anyway.

"How's the ride, Boss?"

"Smooth as butter, Highroad." She answered, turning her seat around and standing, stooped over, in the rear of the APC.

It was Atlas styled, for the most part, dull gray and silver all over, but lacked the typical back-to-back central row of seats they always crammed into the rear. Instead, in its place, there was only a low, lightly padded mat and the wide, comfortable seats built to one side. To the other was a wall of monitors ranging from Aura, to brainwave, to Energon levels, to blood pressure, and a whole slew of other medical matters he'd had installed alongside the better seating when he'd modified himself a few years ago.

Climbing to the back, she peered out the windows on the armored door and watched the three trucks bouncing along behind them.

"Poor saps." She chuckled, "Why take a normal car-"

"When a perfectly good Vehicon is available?" Highroad asked, laughing as he did. "No clue. Don't think they trust the after-Shock mods."

"To be fair…"

"Ah, suck a lugnut." He snorted, voice deep and bassy, with an odd… Rural hint to it. It wasn't natural, she knew - he'd been an Insecticon like every other - so he had to have chosen it for some reason.

Moving on, she asked, "How long, do you think?"

"Ten minutes out from the Foundry, boss."

"You know, I'm not-"

"You paid me to get here." He cut her off, "So you're the Boss, Boss. 'Least 'til we get there."

She only rolled her eyes - the 'Bots had some strange rules, nowadays - and turned to make her way back to the front. Settling in, she asked, "How are things going, anyhow?"

"Gonna need you to be a touch more specific…"

"I just mean generally." She shrugged, staring out the window and watching the terrain creep by. "I know a lot of your kind… You know."

"Deserted?"

"Yeah…"

"Was always bound to happen, after his Lordliness left us behind." Highroad sighed, "We're… Most of us were just savage, you know? That's how he made us to be. Some of us changed, one reason or 'nother. But plenty out there just couldn't shake our programming. Dominate, destroy, rend - the whole nine. We were always bound to lose some to our nature like that."

"Still…" She sighed, "It can't be easy."

"Kinda like losin' family, yeah." He sighed in turn, "Except o'course that ours are still out there. Bandits, thugs 'n claws for hire, now. Who knows when we'll have to scrap with 'em?"

"I'm sorry I brought it up." She frowned, "I don't even know why I did, really."

"I know why you did."

"Oh?"

"You miss 'im, same as all of us do, Boss." He said, "Plenty o' folk do. Faunus, 'Bot, it don't matter. Lord Shockwave made us, and protected y'all. Only natural the hole ain't been filled. Especially seein' as, well, ain't no one really stepped up into his palace."

"What about Severus?"

"Severus does his best, but, well…" Highroad sighed, thinking for a moment before he said. "I might be a pacifist after what happened, but my kin? They're still savage at heart. Severus isn't strong enough to crush all comers, and he ain't got the heart to kill 'em to make a point. S'why the Mercenaricons went on their merry way, and why the Wild Ones went off to the wilds to scrap 'n lurk."

"Mhm." She sighed, then opted for a change in topic before her head started to ache. "You never did tell me why you swore off violence…"

"I didn't swear it off all the way." He pointed out, "I'll still defend myself an' my cargo, an' any patients I get in, too. But… Scrap, I guess I can give ya the short end."

"Only if you want to."

"Someone I talk to said talkin' about this scrap oughta help, so…" He trailed off, and then after a second, went on. "Was out in Mistral, fightin' in the battle. Ran up on one of them Paladins. Took a shot at me, missed, hit a building. School."

"Oh, Tides…"

"I heard 'em." He explained, "Little screams, little splats. Like… Bugs on my windshield. I froze up, an' turned, wanted to dig out the little mewlers I could hear. Haywired Atlesian slammed into me from behind, threw me onto the rubble. I could hear 'em all, screamin' just before… Well, you can imagine."

"I can." She'd seen enough mine collapses, back in the day, and helped with clean-up after the final battle, too. Plenty of bodies, crushed under rock and rubble, offered a perfect image for her mind's eye. "Gods, Highroad…"

"Lost m'arm and half my face, but ripped that Paladin apart." He said, voice quiet, "Pulled the pilot out and 'n tore her in half. Nice 'n slow. Heard 'n felt every pop and tear. It was primal, pure rage and pain. But after that… I just can't do it no more."

"I understand." She murmured, absolutely full of regret for ever asking. Even so, she grit her teeth and asked, "Did… Any of the kids…?"

"Not one." He answered, "Not a single Grimm damned one."

After that, they rode in silence. There just wasn't much to talk about, and the dry, dead land around them wasn't quick to offer options either. There was only so much one could say about the thousandth' dull brown rock or ruddy shrug they'd seen. And after so many years, Sienna had said and heard it all.

Finally, though, the ground began to darken in that odd, eerie way she recognized.

"We're here, Boss." Highroad finally said as he turned onto a smoothed out plain of concrete laid out just for the comers and goers from across Menagerie to park on, whenever they needed to come out here. Her door opened halfway and paused for a second before he added quietly, "An'... Thanks for listenin'."

"Of course." She nodded, smiling sadly, "I'd say anytime, but… Well, I like sleeping. You know?"

"Hah." He laughed, opening his door the rest of the way, "No stress, Boss. Only got he one story anyway."

She nodded and stepped out, looking up at the Foundry that Shockwave had erected just over a decade ago, enclosing so much of the infamous Dark Mountains. Even now, chimneys pumped smoke into the air from blast furnaces and manufactory processors rendering out components for the various 'Bots and their needs and wants. Above it, an array of spinning, fan-like machines moved about the smoke, capturing and filtering it to protect the atmosphere. Out, away from the mountains where she was, dozens of bricklike buildings large enough for several Cybertronians had been built, lined by a handful of housing units for Faunus working out here with them, and Sienna couldn't help but be a bit awed by it all.

And a bit sad, too…

Shaking it off, she straightened her uniform and began to make her way toward the Foundry proper as Highroad turned around and rolled out. Off to another job.

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